Part 12 (1/2)

”Don't say that,” Warren objected, with a rueful shake of his head.

”Some things are too serious to be joked over. It is all right to make light of love, for that is a light thing, but an express company is heavy. You are restless.”

Lyman had got up and begun to walk about the room. ”Yes, the bright day calls on me to come out.”

”Isn't it the memory of a bright face that calls on you?”

”No. Well, I'll leave you.”

”Won't you sit down to a sardine?”

”No. I'll stroll over to see old Jasper, and take cold pot-luck with him.”

Old Jasper, his wife and daughter were seated at the table when Lyman entered the dining room. ”Just in time,” the old fellow cried. ”We are waiting for you, although we didn't expect you. We didn't know but you'd gone up to McElwin's to dinner. Sit down.”

Annie laughed, but the old woman looked distressed. ”Jasper, you know you didn't think any such a thing. And if you did, how could you? Mr.

Lyman doesn't intrude himself where he's not invited. And you know that McElwin is so particular.”

Lyman frowned. It was clear that Mrs. Staggs, in her ignorance and in her awe of the man at the bank, could not feel a respect for intelligence and the refinement of a book-loving nature. ”You may think me rude,” said Lyman, ”but I should not regard dining at his house a great privilege. Leaving out the respect I have for the young woman, it would not be as inspiring a meal as a canned minnow on a baize table.”

”Why, Mr. Lyman, how can you say that?” the old woman cried.

”Madam, the fishes were divided among the thousands when the Son of Man fed the mult.i.tude, and that was a more inspiring meal than could have been provided by Solomon in all his glory.”

The old man let his knife fall with a clatter. ”Oh, he got you then!”

he cried. ”He set a trap for you and you walked right into it. All you've got to do is to set a trap for a woman, and she'll walk into it sooner or later.”

”For goodness sake, hush, Jasper. A body would think you were the worst enemy I have on the face of the earth.”

”Enemy! Who said anything about enemy? I was talking about a trap. But it's all right. We saw you, Lyman.”

”Yes, and we didn't know it was going to happen,” said Annie.

”Everybody was watching you. And I heard a woman say that she admired your courage. I did, I'm sure.”

”I didn't feel that I was exhibiting any degree of courage,” Lyman replied. ”All I had to fear was the young woman.”

”But the man is--”

”A coward,” Lyman broke in.

Old Staggs struck the table with his fist. ”I always said it!” he shouted. ”And he's another one that made light of my arrest of the man that choked the sheriff. Coward! of course he is.”

Mrs. Staggs objected. No one whom McElwin had chosen for a son-in-law could be a coward. She admitted that he was not as gentle as one could wish. His life had been led out of doors. But he was a shrewd business man and would make a good husband. It was all well enough in some instances to permit girls to choose for themselves, but a girl was often likely to make a sad mistake, particularly a girl whose home life had been surrounded by every luxury. Love was a very pretty thing, but it couldn't live so long as poverty, the most real thing in the world. The old man winked at Lyman. He said that age might soften a man, but that it nearly always hardened a woman. It was rare to see a woman's temper improve with age, while many a sober minded man became a joker in his later years. Mrs. Staggs retorted that women had enough to make them cross. ”They have an excuse for scoldin',” she said.

”n.o.body has so good an argument as the scold,” the old man replied.

”They have men, and that's argument enough,” said his wife.