Part 31 (1/2)
Jack leaned back in his seat, his face a tangle of hopes and fears. What was Uncle Peter driving at, anyhow?
”I have tried other things, and she would not listen,” he said in a more positive tone. Again the two interviews he had had with Ruth came into his mind; the last one as if it had been yesterday.
”Try until she DOES listen,” continued Peter. ”Tell her you will be very lonely if she doesn't go, and that she is the one and only thing in Corklesville that interests you outside of your work--and be sure you mention the dear girl first and the work last--and that you won't have another happy hour if she leaves you in the--”
”Oh!--Uncle Peter!”
”And why not? It's a fact, isn't it? You were honest about Isaac; why not be honest with Ruth?”
”I am.”
”No, you're not,--you only tell her half what's in your heart. Tell her all of it! The poor child has been very much depressed of late, so Felicia tells me, over something that troubles her, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were at the bottom of it. Give yourself an overhauling and find out what you have said or done to hurt her. She will never forget you for pulling her father out of that hole, nor will he.”
Jack bristled up: ”I don't want her to think of me in that way!”
”Oh, you don't! don't you? Oh, of course not! You want her to think of you as a great and glorious young knight who goes prancing about the world doing good from habit, and yet you are so high and mighty that--Jack, you rascal, do you know you are the stupidest thing that breathes? You're like a turkey, my boy, trying to get over the top rail of a pen with its head in the air, when all it has to do is to stoop a little and march out on its toes.”
Jack rose from his seat and walked toward the fire, where he stood with one hand on the mantel. He knew Peter had a purpose in all his raillery and yet he dared not voice the words that trembled on his lips; he could tell the old fellow everything in his life except his love for Ruth and her refusal to listen to him. This was the bitterest of all his failures, and this he would not and could not pour into Peter's ears.
Neither did he want Ruth to have Peter's help, nor Miss Felicia's; nor MacFarlane's; not anybody's help where her heart was concerned. If Ruth loved him that was enough, but he wouldn't have anybody persuade her to love him, or advise with her about loving him. How much Peter knew he could not say. Perhaps!--perhaps Ruth told him something!--something he was keeping to himself!
As this last thought forced itself into his brain a great surge of joy swept over him. For a brief moment he stood irresolute. One of Peter's phrases now rang clear: ”Stoop a little!” Stoop?--hadn't he done everything a man could do to win a woman, and had he not found the bars always facing him?
With this his heart sank again. No, there was no use of thinking anything more about it, nor would he tell him. There were some things that even Peter couldn't understand,--and no wonder, when you think how many years had gone by since he loved any woman.
The chime of the little clock rang out.
Jack turned quickly: ”Eleven o'clock, Uncle Peter, and I must go; time's up. I hate to leave you.”
”And what about the shanty and the cook?” said Peter, his eyes searching Jack's.
”I'll go,--I intended to go all the time if you approved.”
”And what about Ruth?”
”Don't ask me, Uncle Peter, not now.” And he hurried off to pack his bag.
CHAPTER XX
If Jack, after leaving Peter and racing for the ferry, had, under Peter's advice, formulated in his mind any plan by which he could break down Ruth's resolve to leave both her father and himself in the lurch and go out in the gay world alone, there was one factor which he must have left out of his calculations--and that was the unexpected.
One expression of Peter's, however, haunted him all the way home:--that Ruth was suffering and that he had been the cause of it. Had he hurt her?--and if so, how and when? With this, the dear girl's face, with the look of pain on it which Miss Felicia had noticed, rose before him.
Perhaps Peter was right. He had never thought of Ruth's side of the matter--had never realized that she, too, might have suffered. To-morrow he would go to her. If he could not win her for himself he could, at least, find out the cause and help relieve her pain.
This idea so possessed him that it was nearly dawn before he dropped to sleep.
With the morning everything changed.
Such a rain had never been known to fall--not in the memory of the oldest moss-back in the village--if any such ancient inhabitant existed.