Part 26 (1/2)

Patsy, who had found her tongue at last, laid a coaxing hand on Travis's arm. ”No, it isn't. I wired Miriam yesterday--to see if she was really as sick as you thought. She was sick; but she's ever so much better and her nerves are not going to be nearly as troublesome as she feared. She's quite willing to come back and take her old place, and she'll be well enough next week.” Patsy's voice had become vibrant with feeling. ”Now don't ye be hard-hearted and think I'm ungrateful. We've all been playing in a bigger comedy than Willie Shakespeare ever wrote; and, sure, we've got to be playing it out to the end as it was meant to be.”

”And you mean to give up your career, your big chance of success?”

Travis still looked incredulous. ”Don't you realize you'll be famous--famous and rich!” he emphasized the last word unduly.

It set Patsy's eyes to blazing. ”Aye, I'd no longer be like Granny Donoghue's lean pig, hungry for sc.r.a.pings. Well, I'd rather be hungry for sc.r.a.pings than starving for love. I knew one woman who threw away love to be famous and rich, and I watched her die. Thank G.o.d she's kept my feet from that road! Sure, I wouldn't be rich--” She choked suddenly and looked helplessly at the tinker.

”Neither would I.” And he spoke with a solemn conviction.

In the end Travis gave in. He took his disappointment and his loss like the true gentleman he was, and sent them away with his blessing, mixed with an honest twinge of self-pity. It was not, however, until Patsy turned to wave him a last farewell and smile a last grateful smile from under the white chiffon, corn-flower sunbonnet that he remembered that convention had been slighted.

”Wait a minute,” he said, running after them. ”If I am not mistaken I have not had the pleasure of meeting your--future husband; perhaps you'll introduce us--”

For once in her life Patsy looked fairly aghast, and Travis repeated, patiently, ”His name, Irish Patsy--I want to know his name.”

The tinker might have helped her out, but he chose otherwise. He kept silent, his eyes on Patsy's as if he would read her answer there before she spoke it to Travis.

”Well,” she said at last, slowly, ”maybe I'm not sure of it myself--except--I'm knowing it must be a good tinker name.” And then laughter danced all over her face. ”I'll tell ye; ye can be reading it to-morrow--in the papers.” Whereupon she slipped her arm through the tinker's, and he led her away.

And so it came to pa.s.s that once more Patsy and the tinker found themselves tramping the road to Arden; only this time it was down the straight road marked, ”Seven Miles,” and it was early evening instead of morning.

”Do ye think we'll reach it now?” inquired Patsy.

”We have reached it already; we're just going back.”

”And what happened to the brown dress?”

”I burned it that night in the cottage--to fool the sheriff.”

”And I thought that night it was me ye had tricked--just for the whim of it. Did ye know who I was--by chance?”

”Of course I knew. I had seen you with the Irish Players many, many times, and I knew you the very moment your voice came over the road to me--wis.h.i.+ng me 'a brave day.'” The tinker's eyes deepened with tenderness. ”Do you think for a moment if I hadn't known something about you--and wasn't hungering to know more--that I would have schemed and cheated to keep your comrades.h.i.+p?”

”Ye might tell me, then, how ye came to know about the cottage--and how your picture ever climbed to the mantel-shelf?”

”You know--I meant to burn that along with the dress--and I forgot.

What did you think when you discovered it?”

”Faith! I thought it was the picture of the truest gentleman G.o.d had ever made--and I fetched it along with me--for company.”

The tinker threw back his head and laughed as of old. ”What will poor old Greg say when he finds it gone? Oh, I know how you almost stole his faithful old heart by being so pitying of his friend--and how you made the sign for him to follow--”

”Aye,” agreed Patsy, ”but what of the cottage?”

”That belongs to Greg's father; he and the girls are West this summer, so the cottage was closed.”

”And the breakfast with the throstles and the lady's-slippers?”

The tinker laid his finger over her lips. ”Please, sweetheart--don't try to steal away all the magic and the poetry from our road. You will leave it very barren if you do--'I'm thinking.'”