CHAPTER XIV
“Did you notice, Oliver, that he spoke of my mother a little while ago?”
“Did he?”
“Certainly. You must have heard him.”
Oliver was silent. He was wondering how long that strange, unaccountable blur had lasted.
“It was the first time he has spoken of her in years,” she went on, her brow puckering. “It seemed to slip out when he wasn’t thinking, when he wasn’t on guard.”
“It slipped out because he was thinking, Jane,” said Oliver. “That’s just it. He is always thinking of her. What was it he said?”
She told him.
“I wonder if I remind him of her in lots of ways,” she mused.
Oliver’s thoughts leaped backward a score of years and more. “I used to think she was the most wonderful person in all the world,” he said. “I was very desperately in love with your mother when I was six or seven, Jane.” He hesitated and then went on clumsily, almost fatuously: “I am beginning to think that you are like her in a lot of ways.”
She gave him a quick, startled look. His face was turned away, and so he did not see the tender, wistful little smile that flickered on her lips, nor was he aware of the long, deep breath she took. From that moment a queer, uneasy restraint fell upon them. There were long silences, dreamy on her part, moody on his. He left shortly after ten; his “good night” was strangely gruff and unnatural.
He was jealous. He knew it for a fact, he confessed it to himself for the first time openly and unreservedly. He was jealous of young Lansing. There was no use trying to deny it. He did not go so far as to think of himself as being in love with Jane—that would be ridiculous, after all the years they had known each other—but he bitterly resented the thought that she might be in love with some one else. Especially with the superior, supercilious, cocksure Lansing!
Why, if she were in love with Lansing—and married him!—good Lord, what a fool he had been to think it would make no difference to him! It would make a difference—an appalling difference. All nonsense to think she wouldn’t go out of his life if she married Lansing or any one else. Of course she would. He felt a cold, clammy moisture break out all over him; a sickening sensation assailed the pit of his stomach. She would have a home in which he could be nothing more than an old friend; he would have to submit to being governed by certain conventions and by an entirely new set of conditions; her husband would have a lot to say about all that; it would mean that he couldn’t drop in every night or so for an intimate chat, that he couldn’t go strolling freely and contentedly into familiar haunts with Jane, that he couldn’t take her off for rides in his car, or up to the city to see the plays. Lansing wouldn’t stand for that! Nor would any one else! It would be the end of everything, his life would have to be reordered, his very thoughts subjected to a drastic course of inhibitions, he would have to stand afar off and wait for some other man to beckon for him to approach! Unbearable!
What was it that Sammy said—in jest, of course, but now heavy with portent? “This isn’t your night to call on Jane,” or something like that. It was Lansing’s night! The whole town knew it was Lansing’s night—and he was calling on Jane because Lansing happened to be off in the country seeing a patient.
This was what all his good offices had come to, this was what had come of his idiotic, vainglorious desire to do the right thing by Jane! He had simply let himself in for a lot of unhappiness. Strange, though, that he should be so consumed with jealousy when he wasn’t the least bit in love with Jane himself. It was absurd! Why, he had known her since the day she was born—how could he possibly be in love with her when he had known her all her life? He knew what love was—yes, indeed, he knew. He had been in love half a dozen times. He ought to know what love was—and certainly his feelings toward Jane were nothing like those he had experienced in bygone affairs of the heart. Gee whiz! What had suddenly got into him?
Suddenly it came to him that he was selfish. That’s what it was—selfishness. He did not want her himself and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of letting some one else have her. Utter selfishness! Having arrived at this conclusion he smote his conscience heroically and proclaimed to the night that he would no more be jealous. Not even of Lansing. He would go on being Jane’s friend, and Lansing’s friend, and the friend of their children, and—This brought him up with a blinding jolt. Jane’s children! And Lansing’s! Something red and strangely sustained blurred his vision.
He was oppressed by a feeling of almost intolerable loneliness as he strode down the dimly lighted street; a soft breeze blowing through the leaves of the young maples overhead suggested subdued, malicious laughter; automobile horns sounded like raucous guffaws; some blithering idiot was sounding taps on a mournful cornet far off in the night. He was going to lose Jane—he was going to lose Jane—he was going to lose Jane. Over and over again: he was going to lose Jane. Taps!
Clay Street was almost deserted. The stores were closed for the night. A few pedestrians strolled leisurely along the sidewalks; a small group of loafers in front of Jackson’s cigar store, a detached policeman, three young girls waiting on a corner, widely separated automobiles drawn up to the curb, a man studying the billboards outside the closed door of the Star Moving Picture Palace. The town clock began to strike eleven.
“Gee whiz!” sighed Oliver October, for all the world seemed as bleak to him as Clay Street was at midnight.
Not since that night in June, over a year ago, had he taken the “short cut” swamp road on his way home from Jane’s. He avoided it after dark as if it were a graveyard—and he always hurried a little in passing a graveyard at night. He had never gotten over childhood’s fear of the ghosts that were supposed to come out and wander among the cold, white tombstones. There were no tombstones along the lonely swamp road, but he had a dread of it just the same.
He sat on his porch until long past one o’clock, lonelier than he ever had been in his life. The night was warm, somber; a light wind crossing the expanse of swamp land brought a whiff of comfort and with it the incessant chatter of frogs, the doleful hoot of owls and the squawk of nightbirds prowling in the air. The house was dark, still. He felt very sorry for himself, sitting there all alone. How different it was over at Mr. Sage’s house—the friendly lights, the cozy comfort of everything, the companionship—some one to talk to and laugh with, and some one to feel sorry for him, instead of the other way about. To-morrow night would be Lansing’s night—and soon, perhapseverynight.
“I ought to get married,” he mused in his dejection. “It’s the only thing. Have a wife and a home and children. But, good Lord, where am I to find a girl I’d want to be tied to all my life? I’ve had it pretty bad two or three times, but, here I am, not caring a darn about any one of ’em. I might just as well never have known them. It wasn’t the real article—not by a long shot. There are mighty few girls like Jane in this world—mighty few. The man who gets her will get one in a million. And where would a chap find a father-in-law like Uncle Herbert? It makes me sick the way Lansing twists that beastly little mustache of his and looks bored every time Uncle Herbert speaks. Funny Jane doesn’t see it and call him down for it. And why the devil doesn’t Uncle Herbert see it and tell Jane she’ll never be happy with a fellow like Lansing? Good Lord, is everybody blind but me?”
The next morning he was down at the swamp bright and early, inspecting the work of the ditchers and tile layers. The task of reclaiming the land had been under way for several months and was slowly nearing completion.
“I wish you’d change your mind about not going out any farther, Oliver,” said old John Phillips, who was superintending the work. “We could go out a quarter of a mile farther without a bit of risk, and you’d add about twenty acres of good land to—”
“We’ll have enough, John,” interrupted the young man. “We’ll stick to the original survey. Don’t go a rod beyond the stakes I set up out yonder. It may be safe but it isn’t worth while.”
“Well, you’re the boss,” grumbled old John, and added somewhat peevishly: “I’ll bet your father wouldn’t throw away twenty acres or more just because—but, as I was saying, Oliver, you’re the boss. If you say I’m not to go beyond them stakes, that settles it. But I can’t help saying I think you’re making a mistake. There’s some mighty good land there, ’spite of them mudholes a little further out.”
“I’m not denying that,” said Oliver patiently. “But we’ll stop where the stakes are, just the same.”
A few minutes later old John confided to one of the ditchers that young Baxter was considerable of a darned fool. Either that, or else he had some thundering good reason of his own for not wanting to go out beyond the stakes.
“This here job has cost up’ards of three thousand dollars already, and for a couple of hundred more he could clean up clear to the edge of the mire, and when his pa comes back—if he ever does come back—he wouldn’t have to take a tongue-lashin’ for doin’ the job half way. I used to look upon that boy as a smart young feller. And him a civil engineer besides.”
“Maybe he’s a whole lot smarter than you think,” said the ditcher significantly.
“Oh, I don’t for a minute think it’s that,” said old John hastily. “Not for a minute.”
“I can’t help thinkin’ we’ll turn up that old man’s body some day. It sort of gives me the creeps. Bringin’ up them horse’s bones last week sort of upset me. God knows what else may be out there in the mire.”
The two big ditches, fed by lateral lines of tile, held a straight course across the upper end of the swamp and drained into Blacksnake Creek, a sluggish little stream half a mile west of Rumley. Roughly estimated, three hundred acres were being transformed into what in time was bound to become valuable land. The time would come when it could be successfully and profitably tilled. Farmers who had scoffed at the outset now grudgingly admitted that “something might come of it.” A far-seeing man from the adjoining county made an offer of ten dollars an acre for the land before the work had been under way a month. He said he was taking a gambler’s chance.
Oliver was walking slowly back to the house, his head bent, his hands in his pockets, when he observed an automobile approaching over the deeply rutted, seldom traveled road. He recognized the car at once. Lansing’s yellow roadster.
He frowned. Lansing was the one person he did not want to see that morning. He had lain awake for hours, seeking for some real, definite reason for hating the man—and to save his life he couldn’t think of one! And he knew that when he looked into the young doctor’s frank, honest eyes this morning, and saw the genial, whole-hearted smile in them, and heard his cheery greeting, the elusive reason would be farther from his mental grasp than ever. He simply couldn’t help liking Lansing.
The car came into plain view around a bend in the road, and he saw that a woman sat beside the man at the wheel. His heart contracted—and as suddenly expanded. It wasn’t Jane.
“Hello, there!” called out Lansing, while still some distance away.
Oliver, peering intently through the flickering shadows of the woodland road, saw that the doctor’s companion was a stranger. A young woman—and an uncommonly pretty one he was soon to discover. He stepped off into the rank grass at the roadside and the car came to a stop. He took off his “haymaker’s” straw hat, and revealed his white teeth in the smile that no one could resist. The young woman smiled in return, and then flushed slightly.
“You’ve heard me speak of my sister, Oliver,” said Lansing, resting his elbows on the wheel. “Well, here she is. Meet Mr. Baxter, Sylvia, as we say out here. Mrs. Flame, Oliver. You needn’t be afraid of her, old man. She’s quite flameless. Got rid of him last month in Paris. Come a little closer.”
“Don’t be silly, Paul,” scolded Mrs. Flame. “Mr. Baxter may have a perfect horror of divorced women.”
“I have,” said Oliver gallantly. “I shudder every time I see one. If I hear about ’em in time, I shut my eyes so that I can’t see them. But when I’m taken by surprise like this, I stare rudely, my knees quake and I begin to pray for help. It’s queer I never feel that way about divorced men. I don’t have the slightest fear of them, no matter how big and strong and ferocious they may be. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Very,” said she, still smiling down into his eyes. “I must say, however, I don’t think you are staring rudely.”
“It’s generally conceded that he stares very handsomely,” said Lansing. “But, hop in, Oliver. I’ve been sent to fetch you over to Mr. Sage’s. He had a cablegram early this morning and sort of went to pieces. Jane sent for me. He’s all right now, but Jane says he wants to see you. She telephoned while I was there, but you were not at home.”
“A cablegram? His wife—is she dead?”
“I should say not. She’s sailing for the United States to-morrow and is coming here to live!”
“Good God!” burst involuntarily from Oliver’s lips.
“It’s knocked the old boy silly,” was Lansing’s brief and professional explanation. “Climb in here beside Sylvia—plenty of room if we squeeze. Get your leg over a little, Sylvia. That’s all right. Shall we stick to this road, Oliver, or go back to the—”
“It gets better a little farther on,” said Oliver, dazed. “All the hauling has been at this end. My Lord! No wonder he’s knocked out. Coming here to live? Why—why, he hasn’t seen her since Jane was a baby. What’s the matter with her? Sick?”
“I don’t think so. Unless you can see something ominous in the last line of her cablegram. She winds it up with ‘dying to see you.’ Strikes me she’s been a long time dying. They say she turned this burg upside down when she first came here. Do you remember her, Oliver?”
“I should say I do,” cried Oliver. “I adored her. I say, this must mean that she’s going to leave the stage, give up acting. She was famous over there. Why, only a couple of years ago, she made a great hit in a new play over in London. I tried to get across from France to see her in it, but it couldn’t be managed. Just after the Armistice, you see. I asked a good many British officers about her. They said she was tophole, all of ’em crazy about her. I can’t understand it, Doc. Coming here to Rumley to live? Gee whiz!”
“I saw her in a play called ‘Rosalind,’ ” said Mrs. Flame. “Several years ago. It’s by Shakespeare. My husband said she certainly was worth seeing. Heavens, Paul, take these ruts slowly. You’re jolting my head off.”
After a long silence: “When did you get here, Mrs. Flame?” inquired Oliver briskly.
“Last night. Paul met me in Hopkinsville. I came direct from New York. My home is in New York City, you know. I’ve never been in Rumley before. We were living in Indianapolis when I was married. That was seven years ago. Seems seven hundred. Now you know almost all there is to know about me.”
Oliver was staring straight ahead. He was wondering if “Aunt Josephine” could still turn “cart wheels,” and make up funny songs, and dance on the tips of her toes. Hardly. She must be over fifty. Then he came out of his momentary abstraction and politely asked Mrs. Flame when she had arrived in Rumley.
“I mean,” he stammered, “how long do you expect to be here?”
“Ten days, or two weeks at the longest,” she replied. “I am joining a house party at Harbor Point.”
“Good!” he exclaimed, and then as she looked at him quickly: “I mean, I’m glad you’re going to be here that long. By George, this will make a thundering difference in the lives of Mr. Sage and Jane. Is—is Jane excited, Doc?”
“Nothing like the old man. He keeps saying over and over again, with a smile that won’t come off, that if you pray long enough and hard enough, you’ll get your wish, or something like that.”
“What does he want to see me about?”
“Search me. Ouch! Excuse me, Sylvia. I didn’t see it.”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m used to hard knocks,” gasped the young woman.
Oliver turned his head to look at her. She was very pretty and very smart looking in the little brown hat that sat jauntily upon her yellow, beautifully coifed hair. Very trig, too. About thirty-two or-three, he hazarded. Fine eyes—a trifle pained at present, but fine, just the same. He found himself wondering if Jane was as pretty as Lansing’s sister—and suddenly it occurred to him that Jane had her “lashed to the mast”—absolutely!
The road got better. “Your ears must have burned last night, Mr. Baxter,” she said.
He started guiltily. “How—what for?” he stammered.
“Old Paul here did nothing but talk about you all the way down from Hopkinsville. I don’t see how you’ve done it. He’s usually quite a snob, you know. I’ve never known him to like anybody but himself before. You must be either superlatively good or superlatively bad. Which is it?”
“Depends entirely on which you prefer, Mrs. Flame,” said Oliver coolly.
“I guess that’ll hold you, Syl,” cried Lansing.
Oliver groaned inwardly. It was getting more difficult every minute to hate the fellow.
CHAPTER XV
Two old men were crossing Maple Street as Lansing swung into it from the dirt road. They quickened their steps and from the safety of the sidewalk glanced at the occupants of the car.
“Wasn’t that Oliver October?” demanded Mr. Sikes, pursuing the car with an outraged gaze.
“It was,” replied Mr. Link, putting his hand to his side. “He yelled at us. Lordy, I’m too fat to hurry like that.” He strode on a few paces before discovering that he walked alone. Mr. Sikes had stopped stock-still and was gazing blankly after the receding roadster. “Come on! What’s the matter with you?”
“Say, did you notice? Did you notice that woman sitting on his lap?”
“She wasn’t doing anything of the kind. She was sitting between ’em.”
“Well, anyhow, this settles everything,” said Mr. Sikes weakly. “He’s as good as hung right now. Absolutely.”
“What the—”
“Say, are you blind? Can’t you seeanythingat all?”
“I can see a darned sight better than you can, and you know it,” retorted Mr. Link hotly. “You can’t see ten feet in front of you. How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Oh, go to thunder! What I’m asking you is, did you notice her?”
“Certainly—that is, I noticed the back of her head.”
“Well, what color was it?” demanded Mr. Sikes.
“I didn’t notice,” said Mr. Link.
“You didn’t, eh? Of course, you didn’t. The only way you ever notice anything is when I tell you to notice it. It was yaller.”
“Yaller? Well, what of it?”
“Oh, nothing—nothing at all,” exclaimed Mr. Sikes, throwing up his hands in a gesture of supreme disgust. “Nothing at all, except she’s the third yaller-haired one to come into his life. The one that was here last fall that he took such a shine to, and the one he confesses to being gone on out in Idaho or somewheres. Two dark and three fair women, is what she said. Didn’t she? Wait a minute! Answer me. Didn’t she?”
“She did,” said Mr. Link, his brow clouding. “But he’s only had one dark one, far as we know,” he added hopefully. “That girl he says he was engaged to over in China.”
“What do you call Jane Sage? You wouldn’t call her a blonde, would you?”
“Certainly not. But what’s Jane got to do with it?”
“She’s got a lot to do with it. She’s a dark woman, ain’t she?”
“Not especially. Brown or chestnut, I’d say.”
“Well, saybay, if you want to,” roared Mr. Sikes. “And I’ll tell you something you don’t know about Jane. She’s in love with Oliver, and always has been.”
“Go on!”
“That makes her one of the dark women, don’t it? And she makes two, don’t she? And this here new one—the one that was setting in his lap—she makes the third fair one, don’t she? Well, what you got to say to that? This is the last straw. I been prayin’ to God that we could get through the year without another light woman turning up. And here she comes, right when everything was looking safe. I—”
“He won’t take any notice of this yaller-haired girl,” said Mr. Link, with an air of finality. “I can tell you something about Oliver that you don’t know. He’s in love with Jane, as the saying is, and always has been.”
Mr. Sikes stopped again in his tracks and glowered at Mr. Link. “Who told you that?” he demanded.
Mr. Link took time to search several tree tops before answering. Then he solemnly said: “I’m not sure it was the one I see perched over yonder at the top of that second tree, but if it wasn’t that one it was one just like it. A little bird told me.”
“Talk sense! Who told you Oliver was in love with Jane?”
“Doc Lansing. Not more than a week ago he told me Oliver was head over heels in love with her. I guess he ought to know. He sees a good deal of both of ’em.”
“Well, I’ll be—Why, dod-gast it, he’s the one that told me Jane was in love with Oliver.”
“Well,” began Mr. Link after they had proceeded up Maple Street some fifteen or twenty paces, “if he’s telling the truth, I guess you don’t need to worry about this yaller-haired one any longer, Joe.”
Mr. Sikes shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that. He’s partial to blondes, seems to me. I’ll have to talk to that boy, Silas. I’ve told him a hundred times to beware of light women, and here he goes—”
“Come on! Oliver got out of the car up in front of the Reverend Sage’s and it’s going on without him. That proves we’re right, Joe. That telegram to Reverend Sage was—”
“It wasn’t a telegram. It was a cable. Marmaduke Smith told me; not five minutes after he delivered it.”
“No matter. It’s from Ollie. He’s telegraphing Sage to break some kind of news to Oliver. Dying somewheres maybe. That’s why they sent Doc Lansing for Oliver October. Come on—step along a little, Joe. I think I’ve sized the thing up. The minute I heard Sage had got a telegram I says to myself, it’s from Ollie. I—”
“If you save your breath you can walk faster,” interrupted Mr. Sikes, stepping forth with renewed vigor. Mr. Link was half a block in the rear when his companion turned in at the parsonage.
It was true that Josephine Sage was coming home. The beatific minister thrust the cablegram into Oliver’s hand as that young man came bounding up the veranda steps.
“She’s coming on theBaltic. I have decided to go to New York to meet her. Jane will accompany me. I wish you would find out for me, Oliver, when theBalticis due to arrive at New York. I am so upset, so distracted I do not seem to know just which way to turn. Please help me out, lad. Perhaps I should have telegraphed myself—or had Jane do it—but we—I meanI—er—”
“Don’t you give it another thought, Uncle Herbert,” cried Oliver, returning the bit of paper which Mr. Sage carefully folded and placed in his notebook. “I will arrange everything for you. You must be beside yourself with joy, sir. It’s great, isn’t it? Where is Jane?”
Mr. Sage looked a trifle dazed. “Why—er—oh, yes, she is upstairs putting a few of my things into a suitcase. I—”
Oliver laughed. “For the love of—Why, Uncle Herbert, you’ve got five or six days to spare. TheBalticwon’t reach New York for a week anyhow.”
“A week?” in dismay. “Of course! I must be losing my mind. Of course! I seem to remember Jane saying something of the kind a little while ago. Yes, yes! But I do wish you would run along and send the telegram. Do you happen to know of a nice quiet hotel there? Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telegraphing for accommodations for Jane and me. And will you see about reserving something on the train for us? I have done so little traveling of late years, I—”
“Say, you ought to come out in the back yard and put the gloves on with me, Uncle Herbert,” cried Oliver, with sparkling eyes. “I’ll bet you’re twenty years younger than you were yesterday, and I’ve an idea you could plaster it all over me.”
“I—I believe I could,” said Mr. Sage, squaring his thin shoulders and drawing a deep breath. “I—I feel like a—a fighting-cock!”
CHAPTER XVI
Now, while Mr. Joseph Sikes was one of the first citizens of Rumley, a good Republican, and a man whose opinions were considered if not always respected, he had no social position, using the term in its present accepted sense. In simple, he was not by way of knowing the “best” people. There had been a time when Joe Sikes was a figure in the social life of Rumley, but that was in the days when “society” functioned, so to speak, in the corner grocery, or on the porch of the toll-gate, or at K. of P. Hall. Conditions in Rumley had changed, but old Joe hadn’t. He was still a “feed store” man, fairly prosperous, blatantly independent, and on speaking terms with “fashion” only in connection with business or politics.
The day was past in Rumley when Joe Sikes could stroll up to anybody’s house, night or day, walk in without knocking, and feel at home with his friends. There were eight or ten thousand people in Rumley now and there was a distinct though somewhat heterogeneous element known to some as the “smart set” and to others as the “stuck-ups.” They were the people whose names and activities filled the society columns of the RumleyDaily Despatch.
To them, old Joe Sikes was a “character.” He knew Banker Lansing, and Banker Koontzwiler, and the President of the Excelsior Woodenware Works, and others of their ilk, but he did not know their wives or their daughters. Mr. Link, on the other hand, had a very wide acquaintance with the “newer rich,” as he learnedly called them in placating Mr. Sikes on occasion. He had buried a lot of them, for one thing.
Mr. Sikes was troubled. Not once but half a score of times in the week following his first glimpse of “yaller-headed” Mrs. Flame, he had seen her with Oliver October. She wasn’t, of course, sitting in Oliver’s lap on any of these occasions, but—well, it is enough to say that Mr. Sikes was sorely troubled. He saw Oliver going straight to his doom.
With Jane’s departure for New York he lost all hope.
He had lectured Oliver severely, and, to his grief and astonishment, was laughed at for his pains. So he went to Serepta Grimes.
He rang the Baxter doorbell—and instantly wondered why he had done so. It seemed like a confession of weakness on his part. He sat down on the veranda and waited. It was late in the afternoon of a hot July day, well along toward the end of the month. He sniffed the sultry air, gazed frowningly at the western sky where clouds were gathering in the black pregnancy of storm, and chewed hard on the macerated stub of an unlighted cigar.
Mrs. Grimes came to the door.
“Oh, it’s you, is it? I thought maybe it was Marmaduke Smith back with another telegram.”
“Another what?” demanded Mr. Sikes, with interest.
“He’s brought two up on his bicycle since four o’clock, and he said maybe there’d be more. Two telegrams for Oliver.”
“Why didn’t he take ’em to the store, the little fool? Oliver may have to ketch the six o’clock train. What’s in ’em?”
“How should I know? I don’t open his letters or telegrams.”
“Well, you’d ought to. Ten chances to one they’re from Ollie, asking for help or money or—Where is Oliver, if he ain’t at the store?”
“He’s out automobile riding with Mr. Lansing’s daughter.”
“Oh; he is, is he?” snapped Mr. Sikes, getting up. “I might have knowed it. Darn his eyes, he’s getting worse and worse every day. If I’ve warned that boy once about light women, I’ve done it a hundred times. He’s got to—”
“She’s letting it come in dark again,” said Mrs. Grimes calmly.
“Letting it what?”
“Come in dark. Her hair, I mean. She wouldn’t be any more of a blonde than you are, Joe Sikes, if she’d quit bleaching her hair, or hennering it, or whatever it is they do. Like Saul Higbee’s daughter Kate—you remember her, don’t you? Turned blonde over night, and said God had performed a miracle.”
“You mean to say this here Lansing woman ain’t a real blonde?” exclaimed Mr. Sikes, sitting down again.
“You heard what I said, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know whether to believe you or my own eyes.”
“Looks as if we’d get the storm before dark, doesn’t it?” said Mrs. Grimes, sweeping the cloud banks with a casual eye.
Mr. Sikes appeared to be thinking. After a long pause he said: “I guess maybe you’re insinuatin’ that I better be moving along towards home if I don’t want to get caught in it.”
“You can sit here as long as you like, Joe,” said she. “And you can stay to dinner, too, if you feel like it,” she added, her conscience smiting her suddenly.
“Have you swept the porch to-day, Serepty?” he inquired, after another pause.
“Certainly. Why?”
“Because I never seem to come up here and sit down on it but what either you or Lizzie Meggs rush out and begin sweeping all around me. No matter what time of day I come, I always have to get out of the way of one of you women sweepin’.”
“Well, you won’t have to to-day,” said she good-naturedly. “So set still.”
“I guess I’ll wait for Oliver to come home,” said he guiltily. “I want to see what’s in them telegrams. You—you’re sure about that woman having dark hair?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, that’s a comfort. I—Hello! Here comes Oliver now—but, by thunder, he’s got that yaller-haired woman with him,” he concluded in dismay. “No, thank you, Serepty—I can’t stay for supper. I—I—” He got up quickly, pulled his straw hat down low over his eyes, and started hurriedly down the walk.
“Hello, Uncle Joe,” called out Oliver, swinging the car into the drive. “Wait a minute and I’ll give you a lift home. I’m going back just as soon as I’ve changed my collar and—”
“There’s a lot of telegrams here from your father,” said Joseph gruffly. He halted half way down the walk and stared intently at Mrs. Flame.
Oliver brought the car to a stop in front of the porch. “I’ll be out in a couple of minutes, Sylvia,” he said as he slid out from behind the wheel. “Hey, Uncle Joe! Come here, please. I want to introduce you to the lady you’ve been raising such a rumpus about. She swears she won’t scratch your eyes out or pull your hair. You needn’t look so scared. She’s perfectly harmless. Take my word for it. I’ve had experience with fair women, as you well know, and I don’t find ’em any more devilish than dark women.”
Mr. Sikes was scandalized. He turned purple in the face—not with anger but with mortification. He told Mr. Link afterwards that he felt like a fool, and Mr. Link brought a lot of wrath down upon himself by remarking that it must have been wonderful for him to feel natural for once in his life.
He approached the dazzling, radiant Mrs. Flame reluctantly, stammering something about “horse play” and “poppycock.”
“Do you think there is going to be a storm, Mr. Sikes?” she inquired, as Oliver, grinning maliciously, dashed up the steps and followed Mrs. Grimes into the house.
Mr. Sikes did not answer at once. He was squinting narrowly at Mrs. Flame’s back hair—or more particularly at a spot just below the left ear.
“By jiminy,” he muttered softly, “she’s right.” Then recovering himself, he said: “Eh?”
“Mr. Baxter is a great tease, isn’t he?” she substituted.
“He’s a darned nuisance,” said Mr. Sikes sharply. “Makes me tired.” Suddenly it occurred to him that here was a chance not to be overlooked, so he added very firmly: “I pity the woman that gets him for a husband.”
“You do? Why, I should say that the woman who gets him is about the luckiest person in the world.”
He looked at her piercingly. “How long did you say you’ve knowed him?” he inquired.
“I didn’t say—but there’s no harm in telling you, I suppose.” She began counting on her fingers. “Nine days, Mr. Sikes.”
“It takes him just about that long,” was his cryptic rejoinder.
She laughed merrily. “Do they fall for him as easily as all that?”
“The married ones do,” said he darkly and daringly.
“Oh, that lets me out,” she said. “You see, I’m not married, Mr. Sikes.”
“Excuse me, I thought he said Missus,” floundered Mr. Sikes, a trifle dashed.
“He did. I am Mrs. Flame.”
“Er—ahem! Oh, I see. Widow.”
“In a detached sort of way.”
This was beyond Mr. Sikes. “In the war, I suppose.”
“Do I look like a woman who lost a husband in the war, Mr. Sikes?”
“You don’t look like you’d lost one anywhere,” said he, beginning to feel a trifle nettled. “You certainly don’t look like a widow to me.”
“What do I look like to you?” she inquired amiably.
“You look as if it wouldn’t distress you very much if I was to ask how long he’s been dead,” was his unexpected reply.
She flushed. “A very good answer to a very stupid question,” said she. “He isn’t dead. He is very much alive. He didn’t go to the war. I am one of those horrible, unspeakable things known as a grass widow, Mr. Sikes.”
“As I was saying,” he began after he had taken as much as thirty seconds to recover from the shock of this disclosure, “it wouldn’t surprise me if we got the storm inside of ten or fifteen minutes. I guess I’ll be moving along. Glad to have met you, Mrs.—”
“Do wait,” she cried. “Oliver won’t be a minute. We’ll take you wherever you wish to go, Mr. Sikes.”
“No, I won’t wait,” said he firmly. “But before I go, I want to—er—as I was saying, it ain’t any of my business—you understand that, don’t you?—er—I was just thinking it’s only fair to tell you that Oliver is—er—what you might call engaged, Mrs. Flame. Generally speaking, I mean.”
“I see,” said she brightly. “And you want to warn me not to make a fool of myself, is that it? It’s awfully kind of you.”
Mr. Sikes was a poor dissembler. “Well, I was thinking more about Oliver making a fool of himself,” said he bluntly.
“But why, Mr. Sikes, do you keep all this a secret from him?” she cried, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “I think you ought to tell him he is engaged and not keep the poor boy in suspense. He hasn’t the remotest inkling of it.”
“Don’t you fool yourself,” said he stoutly.
“And who is the fortunate young lady?”
“We ain’t quite ready to make it public yet,” said Mr. Sikes, casting a sharp look toward the house and cocking his ear for sounds of Oliver’s footsteps on the stairs. “Which reminds me,” he went on hurriedly, lowering his voice, “I guess you’d better not mention it to him.”
“I sha’n’t, Mr. Sikes, if it will make you feel any more comfortable. But at least you can tell me this. Does the young lady know she is engaged?”
He had got in deeper than he intended.
“Did I say she was young?” he demanded craftily, trying to recall just how far he had already committed himself. “No, siree! You bet I didn’t. I’m too smart for that.”
“But does she know she is engaged?” persisted this disconcerting young woman.
“Not what you would call exactly,” he confessed, lamely.
“I see. You are keeping it a secret from both of them.”
He heard Oliver in the hall, speaking to Mrs. Grimes. It was no time to choose words, so he blurted out:
“Yes, and you’ll do me an everlastin’ favor, ma’am, if you’ll keep it secret from him for a week or two. He’s awfully touchy. It might spoil everything if he got wind of it.”
“Is she a blonde or a brunette?”
This was his chance. “It’s purty hard to tell these days,” he said, fastening his gaze on her hair in a most disconcerting manner.
She laughed outright, joyously, frankly. Oliver, coming out of the house at this juncture, paused in amazement at the top of the steps.
“See here, Uncle Joe, you quit your flirting,” he cried. “Next thing you know you’ll have a breach of promise suit on your hands.”
“Don’t get fresh!” exclaimed Mr. Sikes in some exasperation. Then, to cover his confusion: “What’s the news from your pa, Oliver? What’s he say in them telegrams?”
“They’re not from father, Uncle Joe,” said the young man, softening. “Jump in behind there. I’ll run you uptown before the storm.”
“I’m not going uptown,” said Mr. Sikes obstinately. “I’m stayin’ here for supper with Serepta. I just remembered it,” he went on, with a guilty, apologetic look at Mrs. Flame. “Oh, before I forget it, Oliver, is there anything serious in them telegrams?”
“Yes, sir! It certainly begins to look serious. I had six at the store this morning, and a dozen telephone calls besides. That’s one reason why I took the afternoon off. Nearly every man on the County Central Committee has telephoned or telegraphed me to-day. The pressure is getting pretty strong, Uncle Joe, and I’m beginning to weaken.”
“Pressure? Weaken? What the devil are you talking about now?” demanded Mr. Sikes, placing one foot on the running-board and grasping the door-handle.
“They want me to make the race for State Senator against Uncle Horace,” said Oliver. “Hop in! I’m going to start.” Then, as the old man scrambled hurriedly into the car, he added: “And I’ve about reached the conclusion to go out and skin Uncle Horace alive.”
“My God!” gasped Mr. Sikes, leaning forward and gripping the back of the front seat with both hands. “You—you don’t mean to tell me you’re going to run for office, Oliver October Baxter!”
“Hang onto your hat, Uncle Joe! I’m going to let her out a little,” sang out Oliver, and “let her out” he did as the car swept out of the driveway into the street.
Mr. Sikes was standing up in the tonneau, grasping the forward seat with one hand, and his hat with the other. He leaned over and shouted in Oliver’s ear.
“You can’t do it! You mustn’t do it! It’s against my wishes, and your pa’s, and—why, how many times have I told you what the gypsy said about—Say! Slow down a little, confound you! Have you told Serepty Grimes about this fool notion of yours?”
“I have. And she’s tickled to death. She says to go ahead and skin him alive. That’s the kind of a hairpin she is!”
Mr. Sikes clung rigidly to the back of the seat for a couple of hundred yards, speechless with a combination of concern and exasperation. Then he sank down into the side chair and bellowed:
“I’m through! I’m done! There’s no use trying to save you—not a damn bit of use. Go ahead and run! I’m through! Stick your neck right into it if you want to. I’ve done my best—I’ve done all a man could do. I no sooner see you safely out of a scrape with a light woman than you start hell-bent for the halls of state. You—”
“Don’t you worry, Uncle Joe,” called out Oliver cheerily. “Uncle Horace will probably snow me under a mile deep.”
Mr. Sikes was silent for a few moments, contemplating this calamity. Suddenly he banged the back of the seat with his clenched fist.
“Not on your life!” he roared. “We’ll skin him alive. You’ll carry every darned precinct in the county. He won’t—”
“Hang onto your hat, Uncle Joe!”
“My what? Good Lord! I forgot—but never mind! Don’t go back after it! It’s an old one anyhow. Yes, sir; we’ll peel the hide off of old Gooch next November—every inch of it. Let me out at the Hubbard House, Oliver. Silas Link drops in there about this time every evening to cool off under the electric fans. Does he know about this?”
“I don’t think he does,” said Oliver, drawing up to the curb in front of the hotel.
“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Sikes, with satisfaction. He clambered out of the car. “Good day, ma’am. I hope you don’t get wet.” He eyed her hair narrowly, even apprehensively. “Hurry along, Oliver. You mustn’t keep her out in the rain.”
“Good-by, Mr. Sikes. Thank you for warning me,” said Mrs. Flame, favoring him with a smile so enchanting that instead of blurting out the latest news to Mr. Link when he encountered him in the lobby of the hotel a few moments later, he gloomily announced that a fellow as young as Oliver didn’t have a ghost of a chance.