Part 20 (2/2)
”What a queer thing it is--love, or whatever they call it,” she thought.
”The things it has done to people--right in this house! I guess it's like fire--a good servant but a bad master--”
She thought of what it had done to Josiah--and to Josiah's son. She thought of what it had done to Ma'm Maynard, what it was doing to Helen, how it had left Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Patty untouched.
”It's like some sort of a fever,” she told herself. ”You never know whether you're going to catch it or not--or when you're going to catch, it--or what it's going to do to you--”
She walked to the window and rather unsteadily her hand arose to her breast.
”I wonder if I shall ever catch it....” she thought. ”I wonder what it will do to me...!”
CHAPTER XXI
Archey Forbes came back in the beginning of May and the first call he made was to the house on the hill. He had brought with him a collection of souvenirs--a trench-made ring, shrapnel fragments of curious shapes, the inevitable helmet and a sword handle with a piece of wire attached.
”It was part of our work once,” he said, ”to find b.o.o.by traps and make them harmless. This was in a barn, looking as though some one had tried to hide his sword in the hay. It looked funny to me, so I went at it easy and found the wire connected to a fuse. There was enough explosive to blow up the barn and everybody around there, but it wouldn't blow up a hill of bears when we got through with it.”
He coloured a little through his bronze. ”I thought you might like these things,” he awkwardly continued.
”Like them? I'd love them!” said Mary, her eyes sparkling.
”I brought them for you.”
They were both silent for a time, looking at the souvenirs, but presently their glances met and they smiled at each other.
”Of course you're going back to the factory,” she said; and when he hesitated she continued, ”I shall rely on you to let me know how things are going on.”
Again he coloured a little beneath his bronze and Mary found herself watching it with an indefinable feeling of satisfaction. And after he was gone and she was carrying the souvenirs to the den, she also found herself singing a few broken bars from the Blue Danube.
”Is that you singing!” shouted Helen from the library.
”Trying to.”
Helen came hurrying as though to see a miracle, for Mary couldn't sing.
”Oh--oh!” she said, her eyes falling on the helmet. ”Who sent it? Wally Cabot?”
”No; Archey Forbes brought it.”
”Oh-ho!” said Helen again. ”Now I see-ee-ee!”
But if she did, she saw more than Mary.
”Perhaps she thinks I'm in love with him,” she thought, and though the reflection brought a pleasant sense of disturbance with it, it wasn't long before she was shaking her head.
”I don't know what it is,” she decided at last, ”but I'm sure I'm not in love with him.”
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