Part 49 (1/2)

”You are going to the Willings to come home with her?” asked Sylvia, surprised by his gruffness.

He spoke in a lower tone.

”You didn't see to-day's papers? She's been to Chicago with those Willings and their machine was smashed and the chauffeur hurt. I'm going to bring her back. She had no business to be visiting the Willings in the first place, and their taking her to Chicago without our consent was downright impudence. I don't want Mrs. Ba.s.sett to know of the accident.

I'm going up on the night train.”

It satisfied his turbulent spirit to tell her this; he had blurted it out without attempting to conceal the anger that the thought of Marian roused in him.

”She wasn't hurt? We should be glad of that!”

Sylvia lingered, her hand on the veranda rail. She seemed very tall in the mellow starlight. His tone had struck her unpleasantly. There was no doubt of his anger, or that Marian would feel the force of it when he found her.

”Oh, she wasn't hurt,” he answered dully.

”It's very unfortunate that she was mixed up in it. I suppose she ought to come home now anyhow.”

”The point is that she should never have gone! The Willings are not the kind of people I want her to know. It was a great mistake, her ever going.”

”Yes, that may be true,” said Sylvia quietly. ”I don't believe--”

”Well--” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed impatiently, as though anxious for her to speak that he might shatter any suggestion she made. Before she came he had sharply vizualized his meeting with Marian and the Willings. He was impatient for the encounter, and if Sylvia projected herself in the path of his righteous anger, she must suffer the consequences.

”If I were you I shouldn't go to Chicago,” said Sylvia calmly. ”I think your going for Marian would only make a disagreeable situation worse.

The Willings may not be desirable companions for her, but she has been their guest, and the motor run to Chicago was only an incident of the visit. We ought to be grateful that Marian wasn't hurt.”

”Oh, you think so! You don't know that her mother had written for her to come home, and that I had telegraphed her.”

”When did you telegraph her?” asked Sylvia, standing her ground.

”Yesterday; yesterday morning, in care of Willing at his farm address.”

”Then of course she didn't get your message; she couldn't have had it if the accident happened in time for this morning's Chicago papers. It must have taken them all day to get from their place to Chicago.” ”If she had been at the Willings' where we supposed she was she would have, got the message. And her mother had written--twice!”

”I still think it would be a serious mistake in all the circ.u.mstances for you to go up there in a spirit of resentment to bring Marian home.

It's not exactly my business, Mr. Ba.s.sett. But I'm thinking of Marian; and you could hardly keep from Mrs. Ba.s.sett the fact that you went for Marian. It would be sure to distress her.”

”Marian needs curbing; she's got to understand that she can't go gallivanting over the country with strangers, getting her name in the newspapers. I'm not going to have it; I'm going to stop her nonsense!”

His voice had risen with his anger. Sylvia saw that nothing was to be gained by argument.

”The main thing is to bring Marian home, isn't it, Mr. Ba.s.sett?”

”Most certainly. And when I get her here she shall stay; you may be sure of that!”

”I understand of course that you want her back, but I hope you will abandon the idea of going for her yourself. Please give that up! I promise that she shall come home. I can easily take the night train and come back with her. What you do afterward is not my affair, but somehow I think this is. Please agree to my way of doing it! I can manage it very easily. Mrs. Owen's man can take me across to the train in the launch. I shan't even have to explain about it to her, if you'd rather I didn't. It will be enough if I tell her I'm going on business. You will agree, won't you--please?”

It was not in his heart to consent, and yet he consented, wondering that he yielded. The rescue of Marian from the Willings was taken out of his hands without friction, and there remained only himself against whom to vent his anger. He was curiously agitated by the encounter. The ironic phrases he had already coined for Marian's discomfiture clinked into the melting-pot. Sylvia was turning away and he must say something, though he could not express a grat.i.tude he did not feel. His practical sense grasped one idea feebly. He felt its imbecility the moment he had spoken.

”You'll allow me, of course, to pay your expenses. That must be understood.”