Part 23 (2/2)

She showed her temerity by soon dismissing the servant. Her son met her twinkling eyes coldly. She leaned across the table toward him and revealed the handsome teeth he had inherited.

”Now, Benny, don't be ridiculous,” she said.

This beginning destroyed his completely. He arrived at his climax at once.

”How could you be so heartless!” he exclaimed. ”She had told me she wanted you to love her. Your coldness shocked her.”

This appeal, so pathetic to the speaker, caused Mrs. Barry again to raise her napkin to her rebellious lips.

”I tell you,” went on Ben heatedly, ”she has been through so much that the surprise and humiliation of your manner made her faint.”

”Now, dear, be calm. Didn't I bring her to again? Didn't I do up her hair--it's beautiful, but I like it better wound up, in company--didn't I want to give her--”

”Do you suppose,” interrupted Ben more hotly, ”do you suppose she wasn't conscious, and hurt, too, by her unconventional appearance?”

He was arraigning his parent now with open severity.

”How about my shock, Ben? I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned, you know. You come, leading that odd little waif and displaying so much--well, enthusiasm, wasn't it--wasn't the whole thing a little extreme?”

”Yes, the situation was certainly very extreme. An old rascal had managed to capture that flower of a girl, and made her believe that to save her dead father's good name she must marry him. I come along with the Scout and pick her up out of a field where she was walking, he running, and yelling, and firing his gun at us. There was scarcely time for her to put on a traveling costume to accord with your ideas of decorum, was there?”

Mrs. Barry's eyes widened as they gazed into his accusing ones.

”How dreadful,” she said.

”Yes; and even in all her relief at escaping, Miss Melody was in doubt as to whether she was not deserting her father's cause--torn, as the books say, with conflicting emotions. You may think it was all very pleasant.”

”Benny, I think it was dreadful! Awfully hard for you, dear; and, oh, that wretch might have disabled the plane and hurt you! Why did I ever let you have it?”

”To save her! That's why you let me have it.”

His mother regarded his glowing face. ”What a wretched mess!” she was thinking. ”What a bother that the girl is so pretty!”

”You remember the other evening when I came home from that motor-cycle trip, and the next day Miss Upton came and told you Miss Melody's story?”

”Yes, dear.” Mrs. Barry added apologetically, ”I'm afraid I didn't pay strict attention.”

”Well, it is a pity that you did not, for I've known ever since that day that Geraldine Melody is the only girl I shall ever marry.”

His mother's heart beat faster as she marked the expression in those steady, young eyes.

There was silence for a s.p.a.ce between them. She was the first to speak, and she did so with a cool, unsmiling demeanor which reminded him of childhood days when he was in disgrace.

”Then you care nothing for what sort of mind and character are possessed by your future wife. The skin-deep part is all that interests you.”

”That's what she said,” he responded quickly. ”I suggested that she put affairs in a shape where it would be of no use for an irritating conscience to try to make trouble. I urged her to marry me this afternoon before we came home.”

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