Part 47 (1/2)

”Oh, d.a.m.n!” and he turned to move away.

His utter ignorance coupled with his rudeness, made his companion, despite her well-laid plan, cry out, ”I've something for you to see; it was in one of my newspapers. It concerns you and you ought to know. It's about----”

”Put the old thing in my room,” he called back as he walked down the street.

Watching his fast disappearing figure, Mrs. Pickens decided that was just what she would do. He should read the tale for himself, and she would then have the privilege of giving him advice and comforting sympathy. She would put the paper where it would greet him when he returned. She went within, very much excited, and upon his cluttered bureau, with his traveling case tumbling its contents over the fresh linen cover, she laid the important sheet. That it might at once convey the desired news she marked the paragraph with a pencil lying at hand.

”Will he mind so very much?” she asked herself. ”It's all in the past.”

And then, expectant, hoping that in the end all would come out right with the young people, she left the room.

d.i.c.k, for his part, as he walked off forgot his landlady in his dismay at the thought that Hertha might go away. He had made so many plans for those vacation days! He was hot with disappointment when a stumbling step made him glance down to be soothed by the sight of his white flannels. The remembrance of Hertha's half promise to play tennis made him believe that no governess' place was yet secured, and he resolved to buy a net the next morning that they might that afternoon start in to play. They would play Sunday, too, if she desired. The devil might get him for a Sabbath breaker for all he cared! The grim imagery of his religious teaching came to him and he pictured Hertha and himself, tennis rackets in hand, dragged down to the fiery pit. Then he smiled whimsically. His Georgia home with all its crudities, its rough, unpainted houses, its poorly tilled fields, its ignorant, frenzied religion was immeasurably far away. Turning to the present and its s.h.i.+ning hope he followed his lode-star down the street.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

It was the first hot evening of summer. Families were sitting on door-steps and verandas breathing in the night air as it came up from the city's baking streets, hoping for a refres.h.i.+ng ocean breeze. But no breeze came, the leaves on the trees hung motionless, and the smoke from the chimneys moved in a straight line upward. d.i.c.k found Hertha alone on the stoop with Bob, and man and boy exchanged pleasantries, the latter exhibiting much pride at his ability to make jokes. To d.i.c.k's surprise Hertha was the first to make a movement to go. Kissing the child good-night, and laying her hand for a second on d.i.c.k's arm, she walked with him along the street. Bob, though disconsolate, made no attempt to follow them, knowing that with growing darkness it was wisest for him to be inconspicuous, a small figure in the shadow whom parents might forget and fail to send early to bed.

The two figures whom his eyes followed did not go back toward their home but crossed the avenue at the entrance to the park. They walked very slowly, stopping as they reached the first group of trees. He wondered what they were saying. Perhaps Miss Ogilvie was telling d.i.c.k one of her stories.

What she was saying was this: ”I've something to tell you about myself but I don't know how to begin.”

d.i.c.k's heart leaped at this sign of confidence. ”Begin anywhere it's easiest,” he said, ”and don't begin at all unless you want to.”

”I do want to. At least I think you ought to know. It isn't fair to you not to tell.”

”Fire away then,” d.i.c.k cried cheerfully. ”I hope it means that there's something for me to do. Isn't there a cruel father who needs to be hunted in his lair, or an unforgiving sister who is as ugly as you are beautiful whom I can melt with my pleadings? Don't have a fortune anywhere for I want to do everything for you myself.”

”No,” Hertha said, making a vain attempt to laugh, ”there isn't anything like that.”

”Whatever there is,” d.i.c.k's voice trembled in his earnestness, ”it can't make any difference to me. I couldn't love you any more, and there isn't any possible thing that could make me love you less.”

His shaking voice and the intensity of his speech made Hertha unconsciously draw away. Always hurt by his pa.s.sion, she stopped for a moment wondering if she were not making a mistake, if she should not leave before it was too late with everything unsaid. But as she looked down the long street the loneliness of a life by herself made her keep her resolve. Holding herself tense she walked quietly by the man's side.

They were under the arc-light that flooded the entrance to the park.

Large trees rose about them, their branches meeting overhead. To the right and left small paths wound among the shrubbery to disappear in the darkness. The air was sweet with the fragrance of syringa and honeysuckle and of the fresh, warm earth.

”Shall we walk a little way?” d.i.c.k said. ”It's jolly hot, isn't it?”

fumbling at his stiff collar. ”Girls have the bulge on a man this weather when it comes to clothes.”

Hertha had intended going to the lake, but the way looked so lonely, so apart from the city lights and sounds, that she shrank from taking one of the paths. ”Don't you want to smoke?” she asked. ”I'd like to talk with you when you're enjoying your cigar.”

The young man laughed and started to comply with her request, but for the first time that evening a breeze sprang up and extinguished his match. With an exclamation of annoyance he moved out of the light into the shrubbery searching in his pocket for a second match. Hertha still stood in the broad light of the road.

Meanwhile, from his vantage ground at home, trying to guess at their possible talk, Bob kept watch, deciding in his mind that what they said was probably not worth much as Miss Ogilvie kept her best stories for him. He had learned from d.i.c.k that she had never once told that young man of Tom-of-the-Woods. As he sat meditating he noticed a boy hurry up the street from the car-line below, who, as he came under the near light, proved to be none other than Tom-of-the-Woods himself. With a jump of pleasure, forgetting that he was in hiding, Bob left his perch and ran out with a greeting.

”h.e.l.lo, Tom!” he called.

Tom looked at the little boy for a moment in perplexity, and then without answering started to walk past.