Part 31 (1/2)

”I don't wish to be thanked in words.”

”You're too generous.”

”Not in the least,” returned Ben quietly. ”I want to be thanked. I want each of us to thank the other all our lives. I to be grateful to you for existing, and you to thank me for spending my days with the paramount thought of your happiness.”

They looked at each other for a long silent minute.

”Mrs. Whipp says your mother came to call on me to-day,” said Geraldine at last. ”She described her manner so well that it is evident she came at the point of your bayonet. I understand the situation entirely. I've already heard that she is the great lady of the town. You are her only son. Do you suppose I blame her when out of a clear sky you produced me and made your feeling plain to her? Is it any wonder that she made hers plain to me? I should think”--Geraldine gave an appealing pressure to the hands holding hers--”I should think you could be generous enough to--to let me alone.”

Her eyes pleaded with him seriously.

”What am I doing?” asked Ben. ”What do you suppose is the reason that I'm wasting all these minutes when I might be holding you in my arms!”

He had to stop here himself and swallow manfully. ”If you knew how you look at this moment--and I don't kiss you--just because I'm giving Mother a little time, so that you will be satisfied--”

”Then you'll promise--will you promise--you kept your promise about the farm?”

”Yes; I found Pete in the village.”

”Then you do keep promises! Tell me solemnly that you will leave your mother in freedom. If you don't, Ben--Sir Galahad--I'll run away. I really will--”

In her earnestness she lifted her face toward his, her eyes were irresistible, and in an instant he had swept her into his arms and was kissing her tenderly, fervently, to the utter undoing of the droopy hat which fell unnoticed to the floor.

Voices approaching made him release her.

Very flushed, very grave, both of them, they looked into each other's eyes, and Geraldine, being a woman, put both hands up to her ruffled hair.

”I do promise you, Geraldine,” he said, low and earnestly. ”Whatever my mother does after this you may know is of her own volition.”

Pete burst into the room wild-eyed, followed by Miss Mehitable, who was talking and laughing.

”He was afraid you'd go away without him,” she said--”Mercy's sakes, Geraldine Melody, look at your hat!” She darted upon it and snapped some dust off its chiffon. ”You'd better be careful how you throw this around. We can't buy a hat like this every day.”

”Oh, do forgive me, Miss Upton!” murmured the girl, her eyes very bright. ”It was her present to me,” she added to Ben. ”I'm so sorry!”

She went to Miss Mehitable and laid her cheek against hers, and Miss Upton bestowed another prodigious wink upon the purchaser of the hat.

It did not break his gravity; a gravity which Miss Upton but just now noticed.

”Come, Pete, we'll be going,” said Ben, and his flushed, serious face worried Miss Mehitable's kind heart, especially as no sign of his merry carelessness returned in his brief leave-taking.

When they were gone and the door had closed after them, she looked at the girl accusingly.

”Something has happened,” she said, in a low tone not to attract Charlotte.

”Don't be cross with me about the hat,” said the girl, nestling up close to her again. ”I just love it--much better even than I did in the store.”

Miss Mehitable put an arm around her, not because at the moment she loved her, but because she was there.

”I wonder,” she said, ”if there's anything in this world that can make anything but a fool out of a girl before it's too late. I know you're just as crazy about him as he is about you! If you wasn't, would you have been snivellin' around because he might get hurt to the farm? And yet jest 'cause o' your silly, foolish pride you've gone and refused him. It's as plain as the nose on his splendid face. As if in the long run it mattered if Mrs. Barry was a little cantankerous. She's run everything around here so long that she forgets her boy's a man with a mind of his own. It's awful narrow of you, Geraldine, awful narrow!”