Part 19 (1/2)

As they pa.s.sed through Main Street it was deserted, save in the billiard halls, and as no one seemed inclined to talk, the colonel took up the subject of Barclay: ”Say we call it five million--five million in round numbers; that's a good deal of money for a man to have and haggle a month over seventy-five dollars the way he did with me when he sold me his share of College Heights. But,” added the colonel, ”I suppose if I had that much I'd value it more.” The women were thinking of other things, and the colonel addressed the night: ”Man gets an appet.i.te for money just as he does for liquor--just like the love for whiskey, I may say.” He shook his sides as he meditated aloud: ”But as for me--I guess I've got so I can take it or let it alone. Eh, ma?”

”I didn't catch what you were saying, pa,” answered his wife. ”I was just thinking whether we had potatoes enough to make hash for breakfast; have we, Molly?”

As the women were discussing the breakfast, two men came out of a cross street, and the colonel, who was slightly in advance of his women, hailed the men with, ”h.e.l.lo there, Bob--you and Jake out here carrying on your illicit friends.h.i.+p in the dark?”

The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at the corner. Molly Brownwell's heart throbbed as they met, and she thought of the rising moon, and in an instant her brain was afire with a hope that shamed her. Three could not walk abreast on the narrow sidewalk up the hill, and when she heard Hendricks say after the group had parleyed a moment, ”Well, Jake, good night; I'll go on home with the colonel,”

she managed the pairing off so that the young man fell to her, and the colonel and Mrs. Culpepper walked before the younger people, and they all talked together. But at Lincoln Avenue, the younger people disconnected themselves from the talk of the elders, and finally lagged a few feet behind. When they reached the gate the colonel called back, ”Better come in and visit a minute, Bob,” and Molly added, ”Yes, Bob, it's early yet.”

But what she said with her voice did not decide the matter for him. It was her eyes. And what he said with his voice is immaterial--it was what his eyes replied that the woman caught. What he said was, ”Well, just for a minute, Colonel,” and the party walked up the steps of the veranda, and Bob and Molly and the colonel sat down.

Mrs. Culpepper stood for a moment and then said, ”Well, Bob, you must excuse me--I forgot to set my sponge, and there isn't a bit of bread in the house for Sunday.” Whereupon she left them, and when the colonel had talked himself out he left them, and when the two were alone there came an awkward silence. In the years they had been apart a thousand things had stirred in their hearts to say at this time, yet all their voices spoke was, ”Well, Molly?” and ”Well, Bob?” The moon was in their faces as it shone through the elm at the gate. The man turned his chair so that he could look at her, and after satisfying his eyes he broke the silence with, ”Seven years.”

And she returned, ”Seven years the thirteenth of April.”

The man played a tune with his fingers and a foot and said nothing more. The woman finally spoke. ”Did you know it was the thirteenth?”

”Yes,” he replied, ”father died the ninth. I have often counted it up.” He added shortly after: ”It's a long time--seven years! My! but it has been a long time!”

”I have wondered if you have thought so,” a pause, ”too!”

Their hearts were beating too fast for thoughts to come coherently.

The fever of madness was upon them, and numbed their wills so that they could not reach beneath the surface of their consciousnesses to find words for their emotions. Then also there was in each a deadening, flaming sense of guilt. Shame is a dumb pa.s.sion, and these two, who in the fastnesses of a thousand nights had told themselves that what they sought was good and holy, now found in each other's actual presence a gripping at the tongue's root that held them dumb.

”Yes, I--” the man mumbled, ”yes, I--I fancied you understood that well enough.”

”But you have been busy?” she asked; ”very busy, Bob, and oh, I've been so proud of all that you've done.” It was the woman's tongue that first found a sincere word.

The man replied, ”Well--I--I am glad you have.”

It seemed to the woman a long time since her father had gone. Her conscience was making minutes out of seconds. She said, ”Don't you think it's getting late?” but did not rise.

The man looked at his watch and answered, ”Only 10.34.” He started to rise, but she checked him breathlessly.

”Oh, Bob, Bob, sit down. This isn't enough for these long years. I had so many things to say to you.” She hesitated and cried, ”Why are we so stupid now--now when every second counts?”

He bent slightly toward her and said in a low voice, ”So that's why your lilacs have never bloomed again.”

She looked at her chair arm and asked, ”Did you know they hadn't bloomed?”

”Oh, Molly, of course I knew,” he answered, and then went on: ”Every thirteenth of April I have slipped through the fence and come over here, rain or s.h.i.+ne, at night, to see if they were blooming. But I didn't know why they never bloomed!”

The woman rose and walked a step toward the door, and turned her head away. When she spoke it was after a sob, ”Bob, I couldn't bear it--I just couldn't bear it, Bob!”

He groaned and put his hands to his forehead and rested his elbow on the chair arm. ”Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly,” he sighed, ”poor, poor little Molly.” After a pause he said: ”I won't ever bother you again.

It doesn't do any good.” A silence followed in which the woman turned her face to him, tear-stained and wretched, with the seams of her heart all torn open and showing through it. ”It only hurts,” the man continued, and then he groaned aloud, ”Oh, G.o.d, how it hurts!”

She sank back into her chair and buried her face in the arm farthest from him and her body shook, but she did not speak. He stared at her dry-eyed for a minute, that tolled by so slowly that he rose at the end of it, fearful that his stay was indecorously long.

”I think I should go now,” he said, as he pa.s.sed her.