Part 22 (1/2)

When at last they began again to dip toward earth, the question surged through her: ”Shall I ever be so happy again?”

And now Miss Upton's figure loomed large and gracious in the foreground of her thoughts. She longed for the refuge of her kindly arms until she could gather herself together in the new era of safety and peace.

The plane touched the earth, ran a little way toward an arched building, and stopped.

Ben jumped out, and Geraldine exclaimed over the beauty of a rose-tinted cloud of blossoms.

”Yes. Pretty orchard, isn't it?” he said. He unstrapped her safety belt and lifted her out of the c.o.c.kpit. Her eager eyes noted that they were at the back of a large brick dwelling.

”Is Miss Upton here?” she asked while her escort took off her leather coat and her helmet. The latter had been pushed on and off once too often. The wonder of her golden hair fell over the poor little white cotton gown and Ben repressed his gasp of admiration.

”Oh, this is dreadful,” she said, putting her hands up helplessly.

”Don't touch it,” exclaimed her companion quickly. ”You can't do anything with it anyway. There isn't a hairpin in the hangar. Miss Upton will love to see it. She will take care of it.”

”Oh, I can't. How can I!” exclaimed Geraldine.

”Certainly, that's all right,” said Ben hastily. ”Miss Upton is right here. She will take you into the house and make you comfy. Let me put this around you.”

He took the crepe shawl and put it about her shoulders, lifting out the s.h.i.+ning gold that fell over the fringes.

”I know it is very old-fas.h.i.+oned and queer,” said Geraldine, pulling the wrap over the gra.s.s stains and looking up into his eyes with a childlike appeal that made him set his teeth. ”It was my mother's and you said 'white.' It was all I had.”

Miss Upton had come to Mrs. Barry's to receive her protegee provided Ben could bring her. The two ladies were sitting out under the trees waiting. Miss Mehitable had obeyed Ben, and some days since had given Mrs. Barry the young girl's story, and that lady had received it courteously and with the tempered sympathy which one bestows on the absolutely unknown.

Miss Upton's excitement when she heard the humming of the aeroplane and saw it approaching in the distance baffles description. She had been forcing herself to talk on other subjects, perceiving clearly that her hostess was what our English friends would term fed up on the subject of the girl with the fanciful name; but now she clasped her plump hands and caught her breath.

”Well, she ain't killed, anyway,” she said. She longed to rush back to the landing-place, but instinctively felt that such action on the part of a guest would be indecorous. She hoped Mrs. Barry would suggest it, but such a move was evidently far from that lady's thought. She sat in her white silken gown, with sewing in her lap, the picture of unruffled calm.

Miss Upton swallowed and kept her eyes on the approaching plane. ”She ain't killed, anyway,” she repeated.

”Nor Ben either,” remarked Mrs. Barry, drawing the fine needle in and out of her work. ”He is of some importance, isn't he?”

”Oh, do you suppose he got her, Mrs. Barry?” gasped Miss Mehitable.

”Ben would be likely to,” returned that lady, who had been somewhat tried by her son's preoccupation in the last few days and considered the adventure a rather annoying interlude in their ordered life.

”Why don't she say let's go and see! How can she just set there as cool as a cuc.u.mber!” thought Miss Mehitable, squeezing the blood out of her hands.

The plane descended, the humming ceased. Miss Upton sat on the edge of her chair looking excitedly at the figure in white who embroidered serenely. Moments pa.s.sed with the tableau undisturbed; then:

”Oh! Oh!” exclaimed Miss Mehitable, still holding a rein over herself, mindful that she was not the hostess.

Mrs. Barry looked up. She was a New Englander of the New Englanders, conservative to her finger tips. Ben was her only son, the light of her eyes. If what she saw was startling, it can hardly be wondered at.

There came through the pink cloud of the apple blossoms her aviator son looking handsomer than she had ever beheld him, leading a girl in white-fringed crepe that clung in soft folds to her slenderness. All about her shoulders fell a veil of golden hair, and her appealing eyes glowed in a face at once radiant and timid.

Mrs. Barry started up from her chair.

”Mother!” cried Ben as they approached, ”I told you I should bring her from the stars.”