Part 22 (1/2)
”h.e.l.lo, Benis!” said Rogers, coming up late and reluctant. ”Sorry to have dropped in on you like this. But your Aunt thought--”
”Don't say a word, my dear fellow! No apology is necessary. I am quite sure she did. But it might be a good idea for you to do a little thinking yourself occasionally. Aunt is so rash. How were you to know that you would find us at home? Rather a risk, what? Luckily, Aunt,”
turning to that speechless relative with rea.s.surance, ”it is quite all right. My wife will be delighted--Desire, my dear, permit me--Aunt, you will be glad, I'm sure--this is Desire. Desire, this is your new Aunt.”
”How do you do?” said Desire. ”I have never had an Aunt before.”
It was the one thing which she should have said. Had she known Aunt Caroline for years she could not have done better. But, unfortunately, that admirable lady did not hear it. She had heard nothing since the shattering blow of the word ”wife.”
”John,” she said hoa.r.s.ely. ”Take me away. Take me away at once!”
”Certainly,” said John, ”Only it's frightfully damp in the woods. And there may be bears.”
”Bears or not. I can't stay here.”
”Oh, but you must,” Desire came forward with innocent hospitality. ”You can sleep on my cot and I'll curl up in a blanket. I am quite used to sleeping out.”
Aunt Caroline closed her eyes. It was true then. Benis Spence had married a squaw! Blindly she groped for the supporting hand of the doctor. ”John,” she moaned, ”did you hear that? Sleeping out--oh how could he?”
”Very easily, I should think.” Under the slight handicap of a.s.sisting the drooping lady to her chair, John Rogers looked back at Desire, standing now within the radius of the camp fire's light--and once again he felt the strangeness as of some half-glimpsed prophecy. ”She is wonderful,” he added. ”Look!”
Aunt Caroline looked, shuddered, and collapsed again upon a whispered ”Indian!”
”Nonsense!” Rogers almost shook her. And yet, considering the suggestive force of the poor lady's preconceived ideas, the mistake was not unpardonable. In those surroundings, against that flickering light, standing, straight and silent in her short skirt and moccasins, her leaf-brown hair tied with bracken and turned to midnight black by the shadows, her grey eyes mysterious under their dark lashes, and her lips unsmiling, Desire might well have been some beauty of that vanis.h.i.+ng race. A princess, perhaps, waiting with grave courtesy for the welcome due her from her husband's people.
”And not a bit ashamed of it,” murmured Aunt Caroline in what she fondly hoped was a whisper. ”Utterly callous! Benis,” in a wavering voice, ”I had a feeling--”
”Wait!” interrupted Benis, producing a notebook and pencil. ”Let us be exact, Aunt. Just when did you notice the feeling first?”
”What difference does that make?” Aunt Caroline's voice was perceptibly stronger.
”Why,” eagerly, ”don't you see? If you had the feeling at the time (allowing for difference by the sun) it is a case of actual clairvoyance. If the feeling was experienced previous to the fact then it is a case of premonition only, and, if after, the whole thing can be explained as mere telepathy.”
”Oh,” said Aunt Caroline. But she said it thoughtfully. Her voice was normal.
”Wonderful thing--this psychic sense,” went on her nephew. ”Fancy you're knowing all about it even before you got my letter!”
”Did you send a letter?” asked Aunt Caroline after a pause. ”Why Aunt!
Of course. Two of them. Before and after. But I might have known you would hardly need them. If you had only arrived a few days sooner, you might have been present at the ceremony.”
”Ceremony? There was a ceremony?”
”My dear Aunt!”
”The Church service?”
”My dear Aunt!”
”In a church?”
”Not exactly a church. You see it was rather late in the evening. The care-taker had gone to bed. In fact we had to get the Rector out of his.”