Part 25 (1/2)

The young man remembered Barbara's mother and was silent.

”Well, Barb, Mr. Fair will go home with us for a day or two, anyhow,”

Garnet was presently authorized to say. ”I must go into the next car a moment----”

John March, meditating on this very speaker with growing anger, saw him approach. Garnet entered, beaming.

”Howdy, John, my son; I couldn't let you and Sister March----”

March had stepped before his mother: He spoke in a deep murmur.

”I'm not your son, sir. My mother's not your sister.”

”Why, what in thun--why, John, I don't know whether to be angry or to laugh.”

”Don't you dare to do either. Go back to that other man's----”

”Speak more softly for heaven's sake, Mr. March, and don't look so, or you'll do me a wrong that may cost us both our lives!”

”Cheap enough,” said the youth, with a smile.

”You've made a ridiculous mistake, John. Before G.o.d I'm as innocent of any----”

”Before G.o.d, Major Garnet, you lie. If you deny it again I'll accuse you publicly. Go back and fondle the hand of that other man's wife; but don't ever speak to my mother again. If you do, I--I'll shoot you on sight.”

”I'll call you to account for this, sir,” said Garnet, moving to go.

”You're lying again,” was John's bland reply, and he turned to his seat.

”Why, John,” came the mother's sweet complaint, ”I wanted to see Brother Garnet.”

”Oh, I'm sorry,” said the complaisant son.

Garnet paused on the coach's platform to get rid of his tremors. ”He'll not tell,” he said aloud, the uproar of wheels drowning his voice. ”He's too good a Rosemonter to tattle. At first I thought he'd got on the same scent as Cornelius.

”Thank G.o.d, that's one thing there's no woman in, anyhow. O me, O me! If that tipsy n.i.g.g.e.r would only fall off this train and break his neck!

”And now here's _this_ calf to live in daily dread of. O dear, O _dear_, I ought to a-had more sense. It's all her fault; she's pure bra.s.s. They call youth the time of temptation--Good Lord! Why youth's armored from head to heel in its invincible ignorance. O me! Well--I'll pay him for it if it takes me ten years.”

John's complacency had faded with the white heat of his anger, and he sat chafing in spirit while his elbow neighbor slept in the shape of an N. Across the car he heard Parson Tombs explaining to the Graves brethren and Sister March that Satan--though sometimes corporeal--and in that case he might be either unicorporeal or multicorporeal--and at other times unicorporeal--as he might choose and providence permit--and, mark you, he might be both at once on occasion--was by no means omnipresent, but only ubiquitous.

Lazarus supposed a case: ”He might be in both these cahs at once an' yet not on the platfawm between 'em.”

”It's mo' than likely!” said the aged pastor, no one meaning anything sly. Yet to some people a parson's smiling mention of the devil is always a good joke, and the Graves laughed, as we may say. Not so, Sister March; she never laughed at the prince of darkness, nor took his name in vain. She spoke, now, of his ”darts.”

”No, Sister March, I reckon his darts, fifty times to one, ah turned aside fum us by the provi_dence_ that's round us, not by the po' little patchin' o' grace that's in us.”

John's heart jumped. Garnet looked in and beckoned him out. He went.

”John ”--the voice was tearful--”I offer my hand in penitent grat.i.tude.”