Part 9 (1/2)

”A fine girl,” said Adam Forbes. ”The only girl! To-morrow--”

He fell silent; again in his heart that parting cadence knelled with keen and intolerable sorrow. The roots of his hair p.r.i.c.kled, ants crawled on his spine. So tingles the pulsing blood, perhaps, when a man is fey, when the kisses of his mouth are numbered.

Edith went home to the big lonely house, but Lyn Dyer and Hobby Lull lingered by the low fire. Mr. Lull a.s.sumed a dignified pose before the fireplace, feet well apart and his hands clasped behind his back. He regarded Miss Dyer with a twinkling eye.

”Have you anything to say to the court before sentence is p.r.o.nounced?”

he inquired with lofty judicial calm.

Miss Dyer avoided his glance. She stood drooping before him; she looked to one side at the floor; she looked to the other side at the floor. The toe of her little shoe poked and twisted at a knot in the floor.

”Extenuating circ.u.mstances?” she suggested hopefully.

”Name them to the court.”

”The--the moon, I guess.” The inquisitive shoe traced crosses and circles upon the knot in the flooring. ”And Charlie See,” she added desperately. ”Charlie has such eloquent eyes, Hobby--don't you think?”

She raised her little curly head for a tentative peep at the court; her own eyes were s.h.i.+ning with mischief. The court unclasped its hands.

”I ought to shake you,” declared Hobby. But he did not shake her at all.

”You're the only young man in Garfield who wears his face clean-shaven,” remarked Lyn reflectively, a little later. ”Charlie would look much better without a mustache, I think.”

He pushed her away and tipped up her chin with a gentle hand so that he could look into her eyes. ”Little brown lady with curly eyes and laughing hair--are you quite fair to Charlie See?”

”No,” said Lyn contritely, ”I'm not. I suppose we ought to tell him.”

”We ought to tell everybody. So far as I am concerned, I would enjoy being a sandwich man placarded in big letters: 'Property of Miss Lyn Dyer.'”

”Why, Hobbiest--I thought it was rather nice that we had such a great big secret all our own. But you're right--I see that now. I should have met him at the door, I suppose, and said, 'You are merely wasting your time, Mr. See. I will never desert my Wilkins!' Only that might have been a little awkward, in a way, because, you see, 'n.o.body asked you to,' he said--or might have said.”

”He never told you, then?”

”Not a word.”

”But you knew?”

”Yes,” said Lyn. ”I knew.” She twisted a b.u.t.ton on his coat and spoke with a little wistful catch in her voice. ”I do like him, Hobby--I can't help it. Only so much.” She indicated how much on the nail of a small finger. ”Just a little teeny bit. But that little bit is--”

”Strictly plutonic?”

”Yes,” she said in a small meek voice. ”How did you know? He makes me like him, Hobbiest. It--it scares me sometimes.”

”Pretty cool, I'll say, for a girl that has only been engaged a week, if you should happen to ask me.”

”Oh, but that's not the same thing--not the same thing at all! You couldn't keep me from liking you, not if you tried ever so hard. That is all settled. But Charlie makes me like him. You see, he is such a real people; I feel like the Griffin did about the Minor Canon: 'He was brave and good and honest, and I think I should have relished him.'”

Hobby held her at arm's length and regarded her quizzically. ”So young, and yet so tender?”

”'So young, my lord, and true.'”

”Well,” said Hobby resignedly, ”I suppose we'll have to quarrel, of course. They all do. But I don't know how to go about it. What do I say next?”