Part 2 (2/2)

She looked at him but they were pa.s.sing a bend in the road, and the sun, having dipped behind a jutting hill, no longer lighted up the dusky avenue, and Joe's face was in semi-shadow. ”I'd rather hold on to what I've got than lose the tiniest portion of it,” was all she said.

Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed. ”If they could only see me now!”

”They? Who, they?”

His face sobered, but there was a momentary twinkle about the eyes.

”Who? Oh, at the office.” And then, as dismissing the thought, ”Uncle Buzz know you're openin' the tea room?”

”No.”

”Then you ought to tell him. Give you a lot of invaluable suggestions as to how to mix up little 'what-for-you's.' Get 'em comin' and goin'.

Also, Uncle Buzz's got a mint bed that has parts.”

”There's some patronage we will be forced to do without,” Mary Louise replied primly. They were nearing the house and as they approached, someone in one of the front rooms struck a light and it could be seen moving, the shadows dancing on the walls.

”Don't overlook Uncle Buzz,” said Joe with a chuckle. ”Don't overlook any discriminatin' taste. You can't beat those horses of his.”

”No,” agreed Mary Louise, ”nor----” and then checked herself.

The roadway turned sharply to the left and finished off in a circle, one arc of which touched the steps of an open porch. These steps were sagging and decayed, and the porch was swept by the gentle eddyings of leaves of past summers that had sought refuge there and had been undisturbed by the ruthless sweepings of winds or brooms. There was a haunting odour of pine and something else that was damp and old and weary and forgotten, and a shrivelled wisteria vine that clung with withered fingers to a trellis at the house corner began to whisper at their approach. A yellow bar of light shot for a moment across the porch floor to their feet, then disappeared. It was the lamp Mary Louise had seen farther down the driveway, and directly the side door opened and the mellow glow of it sent shadowy rings of light out toward them.

”Joe! Joe!” called out an anxious voice. ”Don't make noise. Keep 'way from the back.” There was a moment's silence and as Joe made no reply: ”Come in this way, why don't you? Better way come in.”

And then Mary Louise saw a hand shade the uppermost part of the lamp.

Then there was a pause, and then a figure came across the porch, a short figure casting grotesque shadows, a bit stiff, a bit unsteady, like the rings of light that went out in circling waves behind it. It was Uncle Buzz. He came and stood on the topmost rotting step. He bowed. With one hand holding the wavering lamp, the other bravely cupped before his chest, he bowed.

”Pardon,” he said. ”'N't know there were ladies.”

”Miss McCallum, Uncle Buzz,” interposed Joe.

”Honoured, 'm sure,” Uncle Buzz responded with another bow, lower if anything than the first, so that the tip of his little goatee came within singeing distance of the lamp chimney, and he straightened back with a start, only to stare about him again, vaguely hurt. Collecting himself again, ”Knew there was reason shouldn't go 'roun' th' back.

Le' Zeke take horses. Zeke! Zeke!” he called in a falsetto quaver.

”Come in this way, madam,” he added with grave dignity, but curtailing the bow.

For a moment Mary Louise was fascinated. Old Mr. Bushrod Mosby she had known for years--a veritable rustic macaroni, a piece of tinselled flotsam floating on backwater. He had always called her M'Lou; later occasionally Miss M'Lou. Now the rhythm of some ancient rout was stirring old memories, and the obligations of host sat pleasantly heavy upon his befogged consciousness. He bowed again.

”No, thank you,” she summoned her resources. ”We'll be getting home.

But we'll just leave the horses here,” she added a bit hurriedly, anxious to be off. Echoes were sounding along a length of hallway and she was not desirous of the prospect of seeing Mrs. Mosby--Aunt Loraine--who was apt to prove a most discordant fly in the ointment of harmonious hospitality. So she turned to go, but turned too late. The door opened again and another figure appeared, a brisk figure, at which the dead leaves of the porch bestirred themselves in vague, uneasy rustlings. Uncle Buzz stepped meekly aside and Mrs. Mosby--Aunt Loraine--joined the group, giving him a momentary withering glance.

She was an inexorable woman, an inch taller than Uncle Buzz, who stood five feet three, but she matched him whim for whim in her attire. Her hair looked black in the graying light; in reality it was splotched and streaked with a chestnut red, colour not so ill as misapplied. Her dress rustled as she swept forward and there were numberless faint clickings and clackings of chains and bangles about her. A high boned collar with white ruching helped her hold her head even more proudly straight, and the smile she shot Mary Louise was heavily fraught with a sickly sweet though rigorous propriety.

”You must come in, my dear,” she lisped. ”Such exhausting exercise!

You wouldn't think of going one step further without resting.

Here”--she reached out one hand toward Mary Louise, testing the meanwhile the security of the upper step with the tip of a s.h.i.+ny shoe--”the man will attend to the horses.”

”Man! Yes,” Uncle Buzz recollected with a start. ”Zeke! Zeke!” he began to shout again. ”Come here, suh!”

”Bushrod! Be still!” hissed Mrs. Mosby.

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