Part 21 (2/2)

”Sure thing, if you want him. Send him to the barber and have his hair mowed. Have some trousers cut out for him with a circular saw and fix him up to the queen's taste.”

”Oh, Mr. Barry--Ben! You don't know what you're saying. It would give me more relief than I can express, for the boy's lot is so miserable and starved.”

”Well, then, that is settled, my princess.”

”But you can't get him. I can't help feeling that anyone who has lived there so long, and been so unconsidered and unnoticed, must know more than Mr. Carder wishes to have go to the outside world. His mother hinted some things.” Geraldine gasped with reminiscent horror of that low-ceiled kitchen.

Her companion suddenly looked very alert. ”Highly probable,” he returned. ”Why didn't you say that before? We certainly will take Pete in. What are his habits? You say he drives the car.”

”Yes, he did until he was set to dog my movements. I often heard it referred to. Do you mean--you could never get him in this blessed chariot. He will probably never see the meadow again unless they send him to get the cows.”

Ben shook his head. ”No; I think he will have to be bagged some other way. What's the matter with my going back to the farm on my motor-cycle and engaging him, overbidding the ogre?”

Geraldine actually clasped her hands on the leathern arm beside her.

”Promise me,” she said fervently, looking into her companion's eyes--”promise me that you will never go back to that farm alone.”

”You want to go with me?”

”Don't joke. Promise me solemnly.”

Ben's lips took a grave line and he put one hand over the beseeching ones.

”Then what will you promise me?” he returned.

The blood mantled high over the girl's face. ”You're taking me to Miss Upton, aren't you?” she returned irrelevantly.

”Yes, if you positively refuse still to go to the parson.”

The expression of her anxious eyes grew inscrutable.

”I want your mother to love me,” she said navely.

Ben lifted her hands and held them to his lips.

”You haven't promised,” she said softly. ”I know he suspects you now. I think he is a madman when he is angry.”

”Very well, I promise.” Ben released her hands and smiled down with adoring eyes. ”Now, we will go home,” he said.

Again the great bird rose and winged its way between heaven and earth.

Now it was not as before when Geraldine's whole being had seemed absorbed in flight and freedom. The earth was before her and a new life.

She had a lover. Wonderful, sweet, incredible fact. A good man, Miss Upton said. Could it be that never again desolation and fear should sicken her heart; that like the princess of the tales her great third day had come and brought her love as well as liberty? Happiness deluged her, flushed her cheeks, and shone in her eyes. She longed and dreaded to alight again upon that earth which had never shown her kindness.

Could it be possible that she should reign queen in a good man's heart?

For so many years she had been habitually in the background, kept there either by her stepmother's will or her own desire to hide her shabbiness, and when need had at last forced her to initiative, she had received such humiliating stabs from the greed of men--could it be that she was to walk surrounded by protection, and love, and _respect_?

She closed her eyes. Spring, sunlight, joy coursed through every vein.

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