Part 23 (1/2)

”Well,” said he, dropping his unappreciated bits of cane, piece by piece into the water, ”that's a woman's way of looking at it.”

”What's a man's?” asked the girl, at that, ”how does a man do hard things?”

”He just does 'em, I should say, and doesn't a.n.a.lyze. He's got to be at something, you know; it's part of the creed.”

”What creed?” demanded Alexina.

”Mr. Jonas's.”

”Oh,” said Alexina, ”yes, I see.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Molly, Alexina and Celeste stayed a week at Nancy with the Leroys. It was a household wherein there was no strain, no tension, though, to be sure, there was small management. One had a comical comprehension that Mandy the cook and Tina the wash-woman kept their families off the gullibility and good faith of their mistress.

Alexina was sent into the suns.h.i.+ne.

”Keep her outdoors,” Charlotte commanded w.i.l.l.y; ”the child's morbid.”

Mr. Jonas drove out with trophies of game as offerings to Mrs.

Garnier. One morning Mr. Henderson came with him in the buckboard, and Molly and the two men sat in the suns.h.i.+ne on the porch and talked.

”Did he die?” she asked the minister presently.

”Who?”

”The man at the house where you stopped that day?” She asked it as one driven to know, even while apprehensive of the answer.

Exultation leaped for an instant to the young man's face, a stern joy.

”He died,” he told her, ”but in the faith at the end.”

”In what faith?” Molly asked curiously. She was a child in so many things.

”The Church,” he told her, with reproof in his tone.

The click of Mr. Jonas's incisors upon incisors chopped the air.

But Molly moved a little nearer the minister.

”Yes,” she agreed slowly, unwillingly almost; ”they all do. Father Bonot used to say it over and over. They all come back to the Church to--to die.”

She was s.h.i.+vering.

There was a quick, snapped off h'ah from Mr. Jonas.

Mr. Henderson looked bewildered. ”I did not know; then, Mrs. Garnier, you are--”

”I'm a Catholic,” said Molly, a little in wonder.