Part 25 (1/2)
A smile overspread Miss Felicia's face. ”Uncle Peter, is it? And I suppose you will be calling me Aunt Felicia next?”
Jack turned his eyes: ”That was just what I was trying to screw up my courage to do. Please let me, won't you?” Again Miss Felicia lifted her eyebrows, but she did not say she would.
”And Ruth--what do you intend to call that young lady? Of course, without her permission, as that seems to be the fas.h.i.+on.” And the old lady's eyes danced in restrained merriment.
The sufferer's face became suddenly grave; for an instant he did not answer, then he said slowly:
”But what can I call her except Miss Ruth?”
Miss Felicia laughed. Nothing was so delicious as a love affair which she could see into. This boy's heart was an open book. Besides, this kind of talk would take his mind from his miseries.
”Oh, but I am not so sure of that,” she rejoined, in an encouraging tone.
A light broke out in Jack's eyes: ”You mean that she WOULD let me call her--call her Ruth?”
”I don't mean anything of the kind, you foolish fellow. You have got to ask her yourself; but there's no telling what she would not do for you now, she's so grateful to you for saving her father's life.”
”But I did not,” he exclaimed, an expression as of acute pain crossing his brows. ”I only helped him along. But she must not be grateful. I don't like the word. Grat.i.tude hasn't got anything to do with--” he did not finish the sentence.
”But you DID save his life, and you know it, and I just love you for it,” she insisted, ignoring his criticism as she again smoothed his hand. ”You did a fine, n.o.ble act, and I am proud of you and I came to tell you so.” Then she added suddenly: ”You received my message last night, didn't you? Now, don't tell me that that good-for-nothing Peter forgot it.”
”No, he gave it to me, and it was so kind of you.”
”Well, then I forgive him. And now,” here she made a little salaam with both her hands--”now you have Ruth's message.”
”I have what?” he asked in astonishment.
”Ruth's message.” She still kept her face straight although her lips quivered with merriment.
Jack tried to lift his head: ”What is her message?” he asked with expectant eyes--perhaps she had sent him a letter!
Miss Felicia tapped her bosom with her forefinger.
”ME!” she cried, ”I am her message. She was so worried last night when she found out how ill you were that I promised her to come and comfort you; that is why it is ME. And now, don't you think you ought to get down on your knees and thank her? Why, you don't seem a bit pleased!”
”And she sent you to me--because--because--she was GRATEFUL that I saved her father's life?” he asked in a bewildered tone.
”Of course--why shouldn't she be; is there anything else you can give her she would value as much as her father's life, you conceited young Jackanapes?”
She had the pin through the b.u.t.terfly now and was watching it squirm; not maliciously--she was never malicious. He would get over the p.r.i.c.k, she knew. It might help him in the end, really.
”No, I suppose not,” he replied simply, as he sank back on his pillow and turned his bruised face toward the wall.
For some moments he lay in deep thought. The last half-hour in the arbor under the palms came back to him; the tones of Ruth's voice; the casual way in which she returned his devouring glance. She didn't love him; never had loved him; wouldn't ever love him. Anybody could carry another fellow out on his back; was done every day by firemen and life-savers,--everybody, in fact, who happened to be around when their services were most needed. Grateful! Of course the rescued people and their friends were grateful until they forgot all about it, as they were sure to do the next day, or week, or month. Grat.i.tude was not what he wanted. It was love. That was the way he felt; that was the way he would always feel. He who loved every hair on Ruth's beautiful head, loved her wonderful hands, loved her darling feet, loved the very ground on which she walked ”Grat.i.tude!” eh! That was the word his uncle had used the day he slammed the door of his private office in his face. ”Common grat.i.tude, d.a.m.n you, Jack, ought to put more sense in your head,” as though one ought to have been ”grateful” for a seat at a gambling table and two rooms in a house supported by its profits. Garry had said ”grat.i.tude,” too, and so had Corinne, and all the rest of them. Peter had never talked grat.i.tude; dear Peter, who had done more for him than anybody in the world except his own father. Peter wanted his love if he wanted anything, and that was what he was going to give him--big, broad, all-absorbing LOVE. And he did love him. Even his wrinkled hands, so soft and white, and his glistening head, and his dabs of gray whiskers, and his sweet, firm, human mouth were precious to him. Peter--his friend, his father, his comrade! Could he ever insult him by such a mean, cowardly feeling as grat.i.tude? And was the woman he loved as he loved nothing else in life--was she--was Ruth going to belittle their relations with the same subst.i.tute? It was a big pin, that which Miss Felicia had impaled him on, and it is no wonder the poor fluttering wings were nigh exhausted in the struggle!
Relief came at last.
”And now what shall I tell her?” asked Miss Felicia. ”She worries more over you than she does over her father; she can get hold of him any minute, but you won't be presentable for a week. Come, what shall I tell her?”
Jack s.h.i.+fted his shoulders so that he could move the easier and with less pain, and raised himself on his well elbow. There was no use of his hoping any more; she had evidently sent Miss Felicia to end the matter with one of her polite phrases,--a weapon which she, of all women, knew so well how to use.