Part 21 (1/2)
”We can ask Norah, too,” Granny told him quickly. ”She don't often stay for dinner. She's a great help to Tessie, Joe, but Tessie pays her good wages so I suppose Tessie is a help to her, too.”
”That's the way it works out. When a fellow helps you you help him, too.
And Norah would be a peach if she wasn't all for business.”
”That's just--what was the word we heard so much about during the war?
Camouflage? That's just camouflage, Joe. No girl is all for business on the inside even if she is on the outside. You take my word for it that inside a girl is all for romance. That's the way the good Lord made girls.” And she nodded her pepper-and-salt head knowingly.
”I wonder!” Joe said eagerly, and he looked at Granny as if he would like to believe her.
”I know!” declared Granny. ”And now I'll go and ask Norah Lee if she wants to eat with us, and then we can talk about these islands of Tessie's some more. I didn't know until to-day that a man could have more than one wife in the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands. The old king, Pete's friend, had three. It makes me wonder about Pete. But there's one thing sure, Joe Cary, Tessie shan't have but one husband. I don't care anything about their old customs!”
XVI
It had never occurred to Ka-kee-ta's frizzled head that Tessie could leave the royal suite without his knowledge, not while he stood beside the door. He did not understand that the suite was a corner one with exits on two corridors, and no one had thought it necessary to tell him.
So when he saw Tessie come in with Mr. Bill, when he thought that she was with Granny in the room, he gave a howl of surprise and stared at her as if she were a ghost instead of a flesh-and-blood girl in a white dinner frock and a rose wrap. Tessie frowned.
”Do be quiet, Ka-kee-ta!” she ordered impatiently. ”He always makes me think of a dog,” she said to Mr. Bill. ”At night, you know, he just curls up here beside the door and goes to sleep. He is always here! It's so tiresome. I do think that queens have to put up with an awful lot of disagreeable things!” And she sighed.
”They get an awful lot, too,” reminded Mr. Bill with a grin. ”And as our wise young friend, Joseph Cary, so truthfully remarks, you have to pay for everything you get. Having Ka-kee-ta as a doormat isn't much of a price to pay for all the romance and the luxury and the----”
”Oh, isn't it!” interrupted Tessie, her nose in the air. ”I'll lend him to you, and you can see what fun it is to have him at your heels all the time.”
”He wouldn't be lent!” declared Mr. Bill hastily, for in spite of his words, he did not want Ka-kee-ta at his heels for a minute. It was all right for Tessie to have a bodyguard, but it would be far from all right for the bas.e.m.e.nt floorwalker of the Evergreen to be so attended. ”What was your uncle afraid of in his islands that he trained a man to stand beside him with an ax in his hand?” he asked curiously.
”The people!” Tessie told him in a whisper. ”That's another reason why I'm not so crazy over this queen business as I was. I never used to be afraid of anything, and now I'm afraid of almost everything!”
Mr. Bill laughed indulgently because he was not afraid of anything, and admiringly because Tessie was so adorable when she was afraid of almost everything. He took her hand and pressed it. Immediately Ka-kee-ta, who stood in the open door watching them with the wide questioning eyes of a child, gave another howl. Mr. Bill hastily jumped away from Tessie.
”The d.i.c.kens!” he exclaimed.
”You see how it is!” Tessie shrugged her shoulders as she clasped the hand Mr. Bill had squeezed. ”He is just impossible! Sometimes,” she lowered her voice as if she would not for the world let Ka-kee-ta hear what she was going to say, ”I have a mind to give the whole thing up!”
Mr. Bill stared at her in horrified astonishment. ”Your kingdom?” he gasped.
She nodded.
”You couldn't do it!”
”Why couldn't I?”
Mr. Bill's reason was not a very good one. ”Because,” he said vaguely.
But when Tessie showed an impatient dissatisfaction with it he found another reason. ”It isn't done, you know! Kings and queens have to stay on their thrones as long as the people want them there.”
”That's exactly the idea,” mourned Tessie. ”As long as the people want them on thrones! But suppose the people don't want them?” She s.h.i.+vered as she remembered what Mr. Pracht had said happened when the Suns.h.i.+ne Islanders did not want the king who was on their throne.
Mr. Bill was puzzled. ”What is it?” he demanded sharply. ”What's happened? I could see all evening that something was the matter. When we played hearts you acted as if your mind was miles away. You let dad give you every heart in the pack. What is it? Has the special representative come? What makes you talk as if your people didn't want you for their queen?” He started to go closer and then remembered the watch-dog and walked to the door and shut it almost on Ka-kee-ta's tattooed nose.
”What is it?” he asked again, and now he was very close to Tessie. He looked anxiously into her troubled face. He wanted to help her. He had never wanted to help a girl as he wanted to help Tessie.
Tessie's voice shook as she answered him. ”The special representative is a prisoner in the islands. The Sons of Suns.h.i.+ne--I told you about them?--have captured him and locked him up. They don't want a white ruler--a white queen! And I heard to-day that when the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands people don't like their king, they boil him in oil!” Her lip quivered.