Part 9 (1/2)
A pulse of joy shot through Andrew as her excited eyes gleamed into his.
Of them all she and the major only had read his play and could congratulate him really. He had turned to her instantly when David had made his announcement, and she had answered him as instantly with her delight.
”And Cousin Andy,” asked Polly who sat next to him, ”will I have to cry at the third act? Please don't make me, it's so unbecoming. Why can't people do all the wonderful things they do in plays without being so mussy?”
”Child,” jeered David Kildare as they all laughed, ”don't you know a heart-throb when you're up against it--er--beg pardon--I mean to say that plays are sold at so much a sob. Seems to me you get wise very slowly.”
Polly pouted and young Boston who sat next her went red up to his hair.
”Better let me look over the contracts for you, Andrew,” said Tom Cantrell with friendly interest in his shrewd eyes. If the material was all Tom had to offer his friends he did that with generosity and sincerity.
So until the roses fell into softly wilting heaps and the champagne broke in the gla.s.ses they sat and talked and laughed. Pitched battles raged up and down the table and there were perfect whirlpools of argument and protestation. Phoebe was her most brilliant self and her laughter rang out rich and joyous at the slightest provocation. The major delighted in a give and take encounter with her and their wit drew sparks from every direction.
”No, Major,” she said as the girls rose with Mrs. Buchanan after the last toast had been drunk, ”toast my wit, toast my courage, toast my loyalty, but my beauty--ah, aren't women learning not to use it as an a.s.set?”
As she spoke she stretched out one white hand and bare rounded arm to him in entreaty. Phoebe was more lovely than she knew as she flung her challenge into the camp of her friends and they all felt the call in her dauntless dawn-gray eyes. Her unconsciousness amounted to a positive audacity.
”Phoebe,” answered the major as he rose and stood beside her chair, ”all those things stir at times our cosmic consciousness, but beauty is the bouquet to the woman-wine--and _you_ can't help it!”
”How do you old fellows down at the bivouac really feel about this conduit business, Major,” said Tom Cantrell as he moved his chair close around by the major's after the last swish and rustle had left the men alone in the dining-room for a few moments. ”Just a question starts father fire-eating, so I thought I would ask you to put me next. It's up in the city council.”
”Tom,” answered the major as he blew a ring of smoke between himself and the shrewd eyes, ”what on earth have a lot of broken-down old Confederate soldiers got to do with the management of the affairs of the city? You young men are to attend to that--give us a seat in the sun and our pipes--of peace.”
”Oh, hang, Major! Look at the way you old fellows swung that gas contract in the council. You 'sit in the sun' all right but they all know that the bivouac pulls the plurality vote in this city when it chooses--and they jump when you speak. What are you going to do about this conduit?”
”Is it pressing? Not much being said about it.”
”That's it--they want to make it a sneak in. Mayor Potts is pus.h.i.+ng hard and we know he's just the judge's catspaw. Judge Taylor owns the city council since that last election and I believe he has bought the board of public works outright. The conduit is just a whisky ring scheme to hand out jobs before the judge's election. They have got to keep the criminal court fixed, Major, for this town is running wide open day and night--with prohibition voted six months ago. They've got to keep Taylor on the bench. What do you say?”
”Well,” answered the major, beetling his brows over his keen eyes, ”I suppose there is no doubt that Taylor is machine-made. He's the real blind tiger, and Potts is his striped kitten. I understand he 'lost'
four-fifths of the 'open' indictments that the grand jury 'found' on their last sitting. The whisky men are going to sell as long as the criminal court protects them, of course. Let's let them cut that conduit deeper into the public mind before they begin on the streets.”
”I'm looking for a nasty show-down for this town before long, Major, if there are men enough in it to call the machine.”
”Tom,” answered the major as he blew a last ring from his cigar, ”a town is in a rotten fix when the criminal court is a mockery. Let's go interrupt the women's dimity talk.”
And it was quite an hour later that Milly decided in an alarmed hurry that she and the babies must take their immediate departure. David maneuvered manfully to send them home in his car and to have Phoebe wait and let him take her home later--alone. But Phoebe insisted upon going with Milly and Billy Bob and the youngsters, and the reflection that the distance from the unfas.h.i.+onable quarter inhabited by the little family, back to Phoebe's down-town apartment was very short, depressed him to the point of defiance--almost.
However, he packed them all in and then as skilfully unpacked them at the door of their little home. He carried up the twins and even remained a moment to help in their unswathing before he descended to the waiting car and Phoebe. As he gave the word and swung in beside her, David Kildare heaved a deep and rapturous sigh. It was so much to the good to have her to himself for the short whirl through the desolated winter streets. It was a situation to be made the most of for it came very seldom.
He turned to speak to her in the half light and found her curled up in the corner with her soft cheek resting against the cus.h.i.+ons. Her att.i.tude was one of utter weariness, but she smiled without opening her eyes as she nestled closer against the rough leather.
”Tired, peach-bud?” he asked softly. One of the gifts of the high G.o.ds to David Kildare was a voice with a timbre suitable to the utmost tenderness, when the occasion required.
”Yes,” answered Phoebe drowsily, ”but so happy! It was all lovely, David.” Her pink-palmed hand lay relaxed on her knee. David lifted it cautiously in both his strong warm ones and bent over it, his heart ahammer with trepidation. For as a general thing neither the environment nor his mood had much influence in the softening way on Phoebe's cool aloofness, but this once some sympathetic chord must have vibrated in her heart for she clasped her fingers around his and received the caress on their pink tips with opening eyes that smiled with a hint of tenderness.
”David,” she said with a low laugh, ”I'm too tired to be stern with you tonight, but I'll hold you responsible to-morrow--for everything. Here we are; do see if that red-headed devil is sitting on the door-step and tell him that there is--no--more copy--if I _am_ a half-column short. And, David,” she drew their clasped hands nearer and laid her free one over both his as the car drew up to the curb, ”you--are--a--dear! Here's my key in my m.u.f.f. To-morrow at five? I don't know--you will have to phone me. Good night, and thank you--dear. Yes--good night again!”
CHAPTER VI