Part 47 (2/2)
March flung himself away, but Shotwell turned him again by a supplicating call and manly, repentant air. ”Law, John, don't mind my plaay, old man; I'm just about as sick as you ah. Here! I'll tell you where she is, an' then I'll tell you what let's do! You go hunt Jeff-Jack an' I'll staay with heh till you fetch him!”
”That would be nice,” cheerfully laughed John.
In the next room he came upon Fannie standing in a group of Rosemont and Montrose youths and damsels. They promptly drew away.
”John,” she said, ”I want to ask a favor of you, may I?”
”You can ask any favor in the world of me, Miss Fannie, except one.”
”Why, what's that?” risked Fannie.
”The one you've just sent Shotwell to do.” He smiled with playful gallantry, yet felt at once that he had said too much.
Fannie put on a gayety intended for their furtive observers, as she murmured, ”Don't look so! A dozen people are watching you with their ears in their eyes.” Then, in a fuller voice--”I want you to get Parson Tombs away from that crowd in yonder. He's excited and overtaxing his strength.”
”Then may I come back and spend a few minutes--no more--with you--alone?
This is the last chance I'll ever have, Miss Fannie--I--I simply must!”
”John, if you simply must, why, then, you simply--mustn't. You'll have the whole room trying to guess what you're saying.”
”They've no right to guess!”
”We've no right to set them guessing, John.” She saw the truth strike and felt that unlucky impulse of compa.s.sion which so often makes a woman's mercy so unmercifully ill-timed. ”Oh!” she called as he was leaving.
He came back with a foolish hope in his face. She spoke softly.
”Everybody says there's a new John March. Tell me it's so; won't you?”
”I”--his countenance fell--”I thought there was, but--I--I don't know.”
He went on his errand. Champion met him and fixed him with a broad grin.
”I know what's the matter with you, March.”
”O pooh! you think so, eh? Well, you never made a greater mistake! I'm simply tired. I'm fairly aching with fatigue, and I suppose my face shows it.”
”Yes. Well, that's all I meant. Anybody can see by your face you're in a perfect agony of fatigue. You don't conceal it as well as Shotwell does.”
”Shotwell!” laughed John. ”He's got about as much agony to conceal as a wash-bench with a broken leg. O, I'll conceal mine if anybody'll tell me how.”
Champion closed his lips but laughed audibly, in his stomach. ”Well, then, get that face off of you. You look like a boy that'd lost all his money at a bogus snake-show.”
When Fair came up to Barbara, she was almost as glad to see him as John supposed, and brought her every wit and grace to bear for his retention, with a promptness that satisfied even her father, viewing them from a distance.
”Miss Garnet, I heard a man, just now, call this very pleasant affair a jamboree. What const.i.tutes a jamboree?”
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