Part 19 (1/2)
”You can say anything you like to me, Miss Penny Ante,” he replied encouragingly.
”Come away where no one can overhear our voices.”
They strolled away out of the moonlight to the shelter of some shrubbery where they talked long and earnestly. On the way back to the house, Pen, lifting her eyes to his, was struck by the look in his boyish face.
”Jo,” she said, a slight wistfulness in her tone, ”you really love--the way a woman loves.”
”What's the use,” he said defiantly, ”if the one I love won't have me--she--”
He stopped short and looked at her keenly.
”You know, Jo, you must learn to be patient and await--developments.”
A light leaped to his eyes.
”I'll wait! But the limit mustn't be too far. Do you know what Gene confided to me to-night? He thinks that Kurt is in love with you!”
She laughed mirthlessly.
”Kurt! He wouldn't know how to love. If he did, he wouldn't let himself.
He would hang on to his love like a Jew to a bargain. Who would want a grudging love?”
”Kurt is my pal--he--”
”He won't be if he finds us lingering here. You reconnoitre and see if he is still in the window. I don't intend to s.h.i.+nny up this tree. It's so much easier going down than up.”
”You can go in the kitchen way. It's cook's affinity night, and she's somewhere with Gus.”
”The kitchen is where I go in then. Jo, are you very sure that you are in love--enough to marry a thief? You're only a boy. Better keep your love until you are older.”
”I am not a boy. I am two and twenty.”
”Quite an old man! I'll see you very soon again, and maybe I can give you--your answer. Kurt goes to town early in the morning. Meet me in the pergola near the garage. Good night!”
By way of the kitchen and back stairs she reached her room undetected.
”Dear old Jo! Poor Kurt!” she thought sleepily, as she stretched herself luxuriously to rest. ”It's a very small, very funny old world, and the thief is certainly getting in deep waters.”
On the trail to Westcott's, Jo was chuckling to himself.
”The little thief! If she isn't the slickest little la.s.s I ever saw!”
In the library, oblivious to time and place, Kurt still lingered, his dream-like memories trying to learn the tune that Pan was piping on his reeds.
CHAPTER VIII
At the breakfast-table Pen found at her plate a little bunch of flowers, clumsily arranged and tied.