Part 9 (2/2)

”Mr. Carder, this is the last time this must happen. I refuse to sit down and make a waitress of your old mother. If you insist on showing her no consideration, I shall go away from here at once.”

Her companion laughed, quietly, but with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt and admiration.

”By ginger,” he said, ”when you're mad, you're the handsomest thing above ground. Go away! That's a good one. Don't I tell you, you can do anything with me?” The speaker paused to drink his coffee noisily, keeping his eyes on the exquisite, stiff little mouth opposite him. ”I know I ain't any dandy to look at. I've been too busy rollin' up the money that's goin' to make you go on velvet the rest o' your days: you're welcome to change all that, too. Yes, indeed. Never fear. When we do over the house we're goin' to do over yours truly, too. I'll do exactly as you say and you can turn me out a fas.h.i.+on plate that'll be hard to beat.”

”I'm not interested in turning you out a fas.h.i.+on plate,” returned Geraldine coldly. ”I'm interested in making the lot of your mother easier, that is all.”

Rufus regarded her thoughtfully and nodded. It penetrated his brain that he had been going too fast with this disdainful beauty. He rather admired her for her disdain; it added zest to the certainty of her capitulation.

”Have it your own way, little girl,” he said leniently. ”I know you're tired, still. You're not eatin'. Eat a good supper and to-night take another long sleep and to-morrow everything will look different.”

Geraldine still regarded him with an unfaltering gaze. ”We are strangers,” she said. ”I wish you not to call me 'little girl!'”

Rufus smiled at her admiringly. ”It's hard for me to be formal with d.i.c.k Melody's girl,” he said. ”What shall I call you? My lady? That's all right, that's what you are. My lady. Another cup o' coffee please, my lady. It tastes extra good from your fair hands. We'll do away with this rocky tea-set, too. You're goin' to have eggsh.e.l.l China if you want it; and of course you do want it, you little princess.”

His extreme air of proprietors.h.i.+p had several times during this interview convinced Geraldine that her host had been drinking. In spite of his odious frank admiration and the glimpses that he gave of some disquieting power, Geraldine scorned him too much to be afraid of him, and while she doubted increasingly that it would be possible for her to remain here, she determined to see what the morning would bring forth.

The man's pa.s.sion for acquisition, evidenced by his showmans.h.i.+p of his acc.u.mulations, might again absorb him after the first flush of her novelty wore off. She would enter into the work of the house, she would never again sit _tete-a-tete_ with him, and he should find it impossible to see her alone. His mother had warned her that he was terrible when he was angry, and Geraldine suspected that the mother always felt the brunt of his wrath. She must be careful, therefore, not to make the lot of that mother harder while endeavoring to ease it.

As soon as she could, Geraldine escaped to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Carder at her wet sink.

”I asked you to wait for me, Mrs. Carder,” she said.

The old woman looked up from her steaming pan, her countenance full of trouble.

”Now, Rufus don't want you to do anything like this, Miss Melody, and Pete's helpin' me, you see.”

Geraldine turned and saw a boy who was carrying a heavy, steaming kettle from the stove to the sink, and she met his eyes fixed upon her. She recognized him at once as the driver of the motor in which she and her host had come from the station. As the chauffeur he had appeared like a boy of ordinary size, but now she saw that his arms were long and his legs short and bowed, and in height he would barely reach her shoulder.

The dwarf had a long, solemn, tanned face and a furtive, sullen eye.

Geraldine remembered Rufus Carder's rough tone as he had summoned him at the station. He was perhaps a wretched, lonely creature like herself.

She met his look with a smile that, directed toward his master, would have sent Rufus into the seventh heaven of complacence.

”I have met Pete already,” she said, kindly. ”He drove us up from the station. I'm glad you are helping Mrs. Carder, Pete. She seems to have too much to do.”

The boy did not reply, but he appeared unable to remove his eyes from Geraldine's kind look, and careless of where he was going he stumbled against the sink.

”Look out, Pete!” exclaimed his mistress. ”What makes you so clumsy? You nearly scalded me. I guess he's tired, too.” The old woman sighed.

”Everybody picks on Pete. They all find something for him to do.”

”Then run away now,” said Geraldine, still warming the boy's dull eyes with her entrancing smile, ”and let me take your place. I can dry dishes as fast as anybody can wash them.”

The dwarf slowly backed away, and disappeared into the woodshed, keeping his gaze to the last on the sunny-haired loveliness which had invaded the ugliness of that low-ceiled kitchen.

Geraldine seized a dish-towel, and Mrs. Carder, her hands in the suds, cast a troubled glance around at her.

”Rufus won't like it,” she declared timorously.

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