Part 39 (1/2)

”Why to-night, may I ask?” I was all at once uncomfortably curious.

”Why, the boys are coming for me. They're going to take No-no home, then we're all going to the movies. They've got a new bill at the Bijou, and Buck Edwards especially wants me to see it. One of the cowboys in it that does some star riding looks just like Buck--wavy chestnut hair. Buck himself is one of the best riders in the whole Kulanche.”

The woman seemed to have some fiendish power to enrage me. As she prattled thus, her eyes demurely on the gla.s.s she dried, I felt a deep flush mantle my brow. She could never have dreamed that she had this malign power, but she was now at least to suspect it.

”Your Mr. Edwards,” I began calmly enough, ”may be like the cinema actor: the two may be as like each other as makes no difference--but you are not going.” I was aware that the latter phrase was heated where I had merely meant it to be impressive. Dignified firmness had been the line I intended, but my rage was mounting. She stared at me.

Astonished beyond words she was, if I can read human expressions.

”I am!” she snapped at last.

”You are not!” I repeated, stepping a bit toward her. I was conscious of a bit of the rowdy in my manner, but I seemed powerless to prevent it. All my culture was again but the flimsiest veneer.

”I am, too!” she again said, though plainly dismayed.

”No!” I quite thundered it, I dare say. ”No, no! No, no!”

The nipper cried out from his box. Not until later did it occur to me that he had considered himself to be addressed in angry tones.

”No, no!” I thundered again. I couldn't help myself, though silly rot I call it now. And then to my horror the mother herself began to weep.

”I will!” she sobbed. ”I will! I will! I will!”

”No, no!” I insisted, and I found myself seizing her shoulders, not knowing if I mightn't shake her smartly, so drawn-out had the woman got me; and still I kept shouting my senseless ”No, no!” at which the nipper was now yelling.

She struggled her best as I clutched her, but I seemed to have the strength of a dozen men; the woman was nothing in my grasp, and my arms were taking their blind rage out on her.

Secure I held her, and presently she no longer struggled, and I was curiously no longer angry, but found myself soothing her in many strange ways. I mean to say, the pa.s.sage between us had fallen to be of the very shockingly most sentimental character.

”You are so masterful!” she panted.

”I'll have my own way,” I threatened; ”I've told you often enough.”

”Oh, you're so domineering!” she murmured. I dare say I am a bit that way.

”I'll show you who's to be master!”

”But I never dreamed you meant this,” she answered. True, I had most brutally taken her by surprise. I could easily see how, expecting nothing of the faintest sort, she had been rudely shocked.

”I meant it all along,” I said firmly, ”from the very first moment.”

And now again she spoke in almost awed tones of my ”deepness.” I have never believed in that excessive intuition which is so widely boasted for woman.

”I never dreamed of it,” she said again, and added: ”Mrs. Kenner and I were talking about this dress only last night and I said--I never, never dreamed of such a thing!” She broke off with sudden inconsequence, as women will.

We had now to quiet the nipper in his box. I saw even then that, domineering though I may be, I should probably never care to bring the child's condition to her notice again. There was something about her--something volcanic in her femininity. I knew it would never do.

Better let the thing continue to be a monstrosity! I might, unnoticed, of course, s.n.a.t.c.h a bun from its grasp now and then.

Our evening rush came and went quite as if nothing had happened. I may have been rather absent, reflecting pensively. I mean to say, I had at times considered this alliance as a dawning possibility, but never had I meant to be sudden. Only for the woman's remarkably stubborn obtuseness I dare say the understanding might have been deferred to a more suitable moment and arranged in a calm and orderly manner. But the die was cast. Like his lords.h.i.+p, I had chosen an American bride--taken her by storm and carried her off her feet before she knew it. We English are often that way.

At ten o'clock we closed the Grill upon a day that had been historic in the truest sense of the word. I shouldered the sleeping nipper. He still pa.s.sionately clutched the beef-rib and for some reason I felt averse to depriving him of it, even though it would mean a spotty top-coat.