192CHAPTER XXVIMOLLY ASKS TO BE FORGIVEN
All the evening Molly waited in despair. She dared not appear at dinner and arose the next morning after a sleepless night. For two or three hours she hovered about the telephone, hoping for word from Theodore. He would certainly ’phone her. He would tell her he was sorry for the way he had left her, for the way he had spoken to her. Even his mother noticed her pale face and extreme nervousness.
“What is it, dear?” asked Mrs. King, solicitously.
“Nothing, nothing—much,” answered Molly evasively.
Mrs. King hesitated before she ventured, “I thought I heard you and Theo talking excitedly last night. Molly, you musn’t quarrel with him.... You know the wish of my heart.... I need you, child, and so does he.”
Miss Merriweather knelt beside the gentle woman.
“He doesn’t care for me, dear!” she whispered.
For an instant she was impelled to speak of Jinnie, but realizing what a tremendous influence Theodore had over his mother, she dared not. Like her handsome son, Mrs. King worshipped genius, and Molly reluctantly admitted to herself that the girl possessed it.
“He’s young yet,” sighed the mother, “and he’s always so sweet to you, Molly. Some day he’ll wake up.... There, there, dearie, don’t cry!”
“I’m so unhappy,” sobbed Molly.
Mrs. King smoothed the golden head tenderly.193
“Why, child, he can’t help but love you,” she insisted. “He knows how much I depend on you.... I’d have had you with me long before if your father hadn’t needed you.... Shall I speak to Theodore?”
“No, no––” gasped Molly, and she ran from the room.
Under the tall trees she paced for many minutes. How could she wait until dinner—until he came home? She felt her pride ebbing away as she watched the sun cross the sky. The minutes seemed hours long. Molly went swiftly into the house. First assuring herself no one was within hearing distance, she paused before the telephone, longing, yet scarcely daring to use it. Then she took off the receiver and called Theodore’s number. His voice, deep, low and thrilling, answered her.
“It’s I, Theo,” she said faintly.... “Molly.”
“Yes,” he answered, but that was all.
He gave her no encouragement, no opening, but in desperation she uttered,
“Theodore, I’m sorry!... Oh, I’m so sorry!... Won’t you forgive me?”
There was silence on the wire for an appreciable length of time.
“Theodore?” murmured Molly once more.
“Yes.”
“I want you to forgive me.... I couldn’t wait until you came home.”
She heard a slight cough, then came the reply.
“I can’t control your thoughts, Molly, but I dislike to have my friends illy spoken of.”
“I know! I know it, Theodore! But please forgive me, won’t you?”
“Very well,” answered Theodore, and he clicked off the ’phone.
Molly dropped her face into her hands.194
“He hung the receiver up in my ear,” she muttered. “How cruel, how terrible of him!”
It was a wan, beautiful face that turned up to Theodore King when he came home to dinner. Too kindly by nature to hurt any one, he smiled at Molly. Then he stopped and held out his hand. The woman took it, saying earnestly:
“I’m sorry, Theo.... I’m very sorry. I think I’m a little cat, don’t you?” and she laughed, the tension lifted from her by his cordiality.
There was a wholesomeness in her manner that made Theodore’s heart glad.
“Of course not, Molly!... You couldn’t be that!... And next week we will have a lovely day in the country.”
Molly turned away sadly. She had hoped he would do as she wanted him to in spite of his appointment with Jinnie Grandoken.
That evening Jinnie wore a beautiful new dress when she started for the Kings. Of course she didn’t know that Theodore had arranged with Peggy to purchase it, and when Mrs. Grandoken had told her to come along and buy the gown, Jinnie’s eyes sparkled, but she shook her head.
“I’d rather you’d spend the money on Lafe and Bobbie,” she said.
But Peggy replied, “No,” and that’s how it came that Jinnie stepped quite proudly from the motor car at the stone steps.
Molly Merriweather met her with a forced smile, and Jinnie felt strained until Theodore King’s genial greeting dissipated the affront. After the dinner, through which she sat very much embarrassed, she played until, to the man watching her, it seemed as if the very roof would lift from the house and sail off into the Heavens.195
When Jinnie was ready to go home, standing blushing under the bright light, she had never looked more lovely. Molly hoped Theo would send the girl alone in the car with Bennett, but as she saw him put on his hat, she said, with hesitancy:
“Mayn’t I go along?”
She asked the question of Theodore, and realized instantly that he did not want her.
Jinnie came forward impetuously.
“Oh, do come, Miss Merriweather! It’ll be so nice.”
And Molly hated the girl more cordially than ever.
On arriving home Jinnie beamed out her happiness to the cobbler and his wife.
“And the fiddle, Peggy, they loved the fiddle,” she told the woman.
“Did you make it, Jinnie?” asked Peggy gruffly.
“What, the fiddle?” demanded Jinnie.
Peggy nodded.
“No,” faltered Jinnie in surprise.
“Then don’t brag about it,” warned Peggy. “If you’d a glued them boards together, it’d a been something, but as long as you didn’t, it ain’t no credit to you.”
Lafe laughed, and Jinnie, too, uttered a low, rueful sound. How funny Peg was! And when Mrs. Grandoken had gone to prepare for the night, Lafe insisted that Jinnie tell him over and over all the happenings of the evening. For a long time afterwards she sat dreaming, reminiscing in sweet fancy every word and smile Theodore had given her.
196CHAPTER XXVII“HAVEN’T YOU ANY SOUL?”
Whenever Molly Merriweather was mentioned to Theodore King, that young man felt a twinge in his conscience. His mother had taken him gently to task. Out of respect for Molly’s wishes she refrained from speaking of the girl’s affection for him, but cautioned him to be careful not to offend her companion.
“She’s very sensitive, you know, Theodore dear, and very good to me. I really don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“I was thoughtless!... I’ll do better, mother mine,” he smiled. “I’ll go to her now and tell her so.”
Theodore found Molly writing a letter in the library. He sank into an easy chair and yawned good-naturedly. The woman was still furious with him, so merely lifted her eyes at his entrance, and went on writing. Theodore was quiet for a few moments, then with a laugh went to the desk and took the pen forcibly from Molly’s hand.
“Come and make up,” he said.
“Have we anything to make up?” she asked languidly, keeping her eyes on the paper.
“Of course we have. You know very well, Molly, you’re angry with me.... Now mother says––”
She caught his bantering tone, and resenting it, drew her fingers away haughtily.
“You learn good manners from your mother, it seems.”197
Her tone was insolent and angered him. Theodore returned quickly to his chair.
“No, I don’t,” he denied. “You know I don’t! But before you asked me to go with you Saturday, I told you I had an appointment––”
“Yes, and you told me who it was with, too,” Molly thrust back in his teeth.
“Exactly, because there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. I’ve taken an extreme interest in the little girl.... You offended me by talking against her.”
Molly’s temper was rising by the minute. She had armored herself with a statement, the truth of which she would force upon him.
“I’m not sure I said anything that wasn’t true,” she returned discourteously.
Theodore leaned back in his chair.
“Then you didn’t mean it when you said you were sorry?” he demanded shortly.
“I wanted you to go with me, that’s all.”
“And you took that way to make me. Was that it?”
Molly picked up her pen and made a few marks with it.
“I’m not interested in Miss Grandoken,” she replied.
“So I notice,” retorted Theodore, provokingly.
She turned around upon him with angry, sparkling eyes.
“I think you’ve a lot of nerve to bring her into your home.”
She hazarded this without thought of consequences.
“What do you mean?” he asked presently, searching her face with an analytical gaze.
Molly was wrought up to the point of invention, perhaps because she was madly jealous.
“Men generally keep that sort of a woman to themselves,” she explained. “A home is usually sacred to the ordinary man.”198
Theodore was stung to silence. It was a bitter fling, and his thoughts worked rapidly. It took a long moment for his tall figure to get up from the chair.
“Just whatdoyou mean?” he demanded, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
“I don’t believe I need tell you any more,” she answered.
Theodore stood in the middle of the room as if turned to stone.
“I’m dense, I guess,” he admitted huskily.
Angered beyond reason or self-control, Molly pushed the letter away impatiently and stood up.
“Well, if you’re so terribly dense, then listen. No man is ever interested in a girl like that unless she is something more to him than a mere––” She broke off, because a dark red flush was spreading in hot waves over the man’s face. But bravely she proceeded, “Of course you wouldn’t insult your family and your friends by marrying her. Then what conclusion do you want them to draw?”
Theodore looked at her as if she’d suddenly lost her senses. She had cast an aspersion upon the best little soul in God’s created world.
“Well, of all the villainous insinuations I ever heard!” he thundered harshly. “My God, woman! Haven’t you any soul ... any decency about you?”
The question leaped out of a throat tense with uncontrollable rage. It was couched in language never used to her before, and caused the woman to stagger back. She was about to demand an apology, when Theodore flung out of the room and banged the door behind him.
Molly sat down quickly. Humiliating, angry tears flowed down her cheeks and she made no effort to restrain them. What cared she that Theodore had repudiated her accusation? She felt she had discovered the truth, and nothing more need be said about it.199
After growing a little calmer, she saw that she’d made another mistake by enraging Theodore. He had not taken her insults against the girl as she had expected.
Half an hour later she called his office and was informed he was out.
Theodore left Molly more angry than he’d ever been in his life. Instead of making him think less of Jinnie, Molly’s aspersions drew him more tenderly toward the girl. As he strode through the road under the trees, his heart burned to see her. He looked at his watch—it was four o’clock. Jinnie had had her lesson in the morning, so he could not call for her at the master’s. Just then he saw her walking quickly along the street, and she lifted shy, glad eyes as he spoke her name. By this time his temper had cooled, yet there lingered in his heart the stabbing hurt brought there by Molly’s slurs. He felt as if in some way he owed an apology to Jinnie; as if he must make up for harm done her by a vile, gossiping tongue.
He fell into step beside her and gently took the violin box from her hand.
“And how is my little friend to-day?” he asked.
His voice, unusually musical, made Jinnie spontaneously draw a little nearer him.
“I’m very well,” she returned, demurely, “and I’ve learned some very lovely things. I went up twice to-day—sometimes the master makes me come back in the afternoon.”
It eased his offended dignity to see her so happy, so vividly lovely. He had gone to Molly with the intention of asking her to go with him some day soon to Mottville. He thought of this now with a grim setting of his teeth; but looking at Jinnie, an idea more to his liking came in its place. He would takehersomewhere for a day. She needed just such a day to make her color a little brighter,200although as he glanced at her again, he had to admit she was rosy enough. Nevertheless a great desire came over him to ask her; so when they had almost reached the cobbler’s shop, he said:
“How would a nice holiday suit you?”
Jinnie looked up into his face, startled.
“What do you mean by a holiday? Not to take lessons?”
Theodore caught her thought, and laughed.
“Oh, no, not that! But I was thinking if you would go with me into the country––”
“For a whole day?” gasped Jinnie, stopping point blank.
“Yes, for a whole day,” replied Theodore, smiling.
“Oh, I couldn’t go. I couldn’t.”
“Why?... Don’t you want to?”
Of course she wanted to go. Jinnie felt that if she knew she was going with him, she’d fly to the sky and back again.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I’d like to go, but I couldn’t—for lots of reasons!... Lafe wouldn’t let me for one, and then Bobbie needs me awfully.”
They started on, and Jinnie could see Lafe’s window, but not the cobbler himself.
“But I’d bring you back at dusk,” Theodore assured her, “and you’d be happy––”
“Happy! Happy!” she breathed, with melting eyes. “I’d be more’n happy, but I can’t go.”
Theodore raised his hat quickly and left her without another word.
201CHAPTER XXVIIIJINNIE DECIDES AGAINST THEODORE
Now for a few days Theodore King had had in mind a plan which, as he contemplated it, gave him great delight. He had decided to send Jinnie Grandoken away to school, to a school where she would learn the many things he considered necessary.
So one morning at Jinnie’s lesson hour he appeared at the cobbler’s shop and was received by Lafe with his usual grave smile.
“Jinnie’s at the master’s,” said Mr. Grandoken, excusing the girl’s absence.
“Yes, I know. The fact is, I wanted to talk with you and Mrs. Grandoken.”
Lafe looked at him critically.
“Bobsie,” said he to the blind boy, “call Peggy, will you?”
When the woman and child came in hand in hand, Peggy bowed awkwardly to Mr. King. Somehow, when this young man appeared with his aristocratic manner and his genial, friendly advances, she was always embarrassed.
Theodore cleared his throat.
“For some time,” he began, “I’ve had in mind a little plan for Miss Jinnie, and I do hope you’ll concur with me in it.”
He glanced from the cobbler to his wife, and Lafe replied,202
“You’ve been too kind already, Mr. King––”
“It isn’t a question of kindness, my dear Mr. Grandoken. As I’ve told you before, I’m very much interested in your niece.”
Bobbie slipped from Mrs. Grandoken and went close to the speaker.
“She’s my Jinnie,” breathed the boy with a saintly smile.
Theodore laughed.
“Yes, I know that, my lad, but you want her to be happy, don’t you?”
“She is happy,” interjected Lafe, trembling.
“You might tell us your plan,” broke in Peg sourly, who always desired to get the worst over quickly.
“Well, it is to send her away to school for a few years.”
Bobbie gave a little cry and staggered to Peg, holding out his hands. She picked him up, with bitterness depicted in her face. But when she looked at her husband she was shocked, for he was leaning against the wall, breathing deeply.
“I knew the thought of letting her go would affect you, Mr. Grandoken,” soothed Theodore. “That’s why I came alone. Jinnie’s so tender-hearted I feared the sight of your first grief might cause her to refuse.”
“Does she know you was goin’ to ask us this?” demanded Peg suspiciously.
Mr. King shook his head.
“Of course not! If she had, she and I would have asked it together.”
“God bless ’er!” murmured Lafe. “You see it’s like this, sir: Peg and me don’t want to stand in her light.”
“I won’t let my Jinnie go,” sighed Bobbie. “I haven’t any stars when she’s gone.”
“The poor child’s devoted to her,” excused Lafe. “That’s what makes him act so about it.”203
Theodore’s sympathy forced him to his feet.
“So I see,” said he. “Come here, young man! I want to talk to you a minute.”
Reluctantly Bobbie left Mrs. Grandoken, and Theodore, sitting again, took him on his knee.
“Now, Bobbie, look at me.”
Bobbie turned up a wry, tearful face.
“I’ve got my eyes on you, sir,” he wriggled.
“That’s right! Don’t you want your Jinnie to learn a lot of things and be a fine young lady?”
“She is a fine young lady now,” mumbled Bobbie stubbornly, “and she’s awful pretty.”
“True,” acquiesced Theodore, much amused, “but she must study a lot more.”
“Lafe could learn her things,” argued Bobbie, sitting up very straight. “Lafe knows everything.”
Mr. King smiled and glanced at the cobbler, but Lafe’s face was so drawn and white that Theodore looked away again. He couldn’t make it seem right that he should bring about such sorrow as this, yet the thought of Jinnie and what he wanted her to be proved a greater argument with him than the grief of her family.
“I’ve told you, sir,” Lafe repeated, “and I say again, my wife and me don’t want to stand in our girl’s light. She’ll decide when she comes home.”
Theodore got up, placing Bobbie on his feet beside him.
“I hope she’ll think favorably of my idea, then,” said he, “and to-morrow I’ll see her and make some final arrangements.”
After he had gone, Peggy and Lafe sat for a long time without a word.
“Go to the kitchen, Bobbie,” said Mrs. Grandoken presently, “and give Happy Pete a bit of meat.”
The boy paused in his stumbling way to the kitchen.204
“I don’t want my Jinnie to go away,” he mumbled.
When the door closed on the blind child, Peggy shook her shoulders disdainfully.
“She’ll go, of course,” she sneered.
“An’ we can’t blame ’er if she does, Peg,” answered Lafe sadly. “She’s young yet, an’ such a chance ain’t comin’ every day.”
The woman got heavily to her feet.
“I hate ’er, but the house’s dead when she ain’t in it,” and she went rapidly into the other room.
Jinnie came into the shop wearily, but one look at the cobbler brought her to a standstill. She didn’t wait to take off her hat before going directly to him.
“Lafe—Lafe dear, you’re sick. Why, honey dear––”
“I ain’t very well, Jinnie darlin’. Would you mind askin’ Peggy to come in a minute?”
Mrs. Grandoken looked up as the girl came in.
“Lafe wants you, Peg. He’s sick, isn’t he? What happened to him, Peggy?”
Bobbie uttered a whining cry.
“Jinnie,” he called, “Jinnie, come here!”
Peg pushed the girl back into the little hall.
“You shut up, Bobbie,” she ordered, “and sit there! Jinnie’ll come back in a minute.”
Then the speaker shoved the girl ahead of her into the shop and stood with her arms folded, austerely silent.
“I want to know what’s the matter,” insisted Jinnie.
“You tell ’er, Peg. I just couldn’t,” whispered Lafe.
Mrs. Grandoken drew a deep breath and ground her teeth.
“You’ve got to go away, kid,” she began tersely, dropping into a chair.
Jinnie blanched in fright.
“My uncle!” she exclaimed, growing weak-kneed.205
“No such thing,” snapped Peg. “You’re goin’ to a fine school an’ learn how to be a elegant young lady.”
“Who said so?” flashed Jinnie.
“Mr. King,” cut in Lafe.
Then Jinnie understood, and she laughed hysterically. For one blessed single moment her woman’s heart told her that Theodore would not be so eager for her welfare if he didn’t love her.
“Was that what made your tears, Lafe?”
Her eyes glistened as she uttered the question.
Lafe nodded.
“And what made Bobbie cry so loud?”
“Yes.”
“Was Mr. King here?”
“Sure,” said Peg.
“And he said I was to go away to school, eh?”
“Yes,” repeated Peg, “an’ of course you’ll go.”
Jinnie went forward and placed a slender hand on Lafe’s shoulder. Then she faced Mrs. Grandoken.
“Didn’t you both know me well enough to tell him I wouldn’t go for anything in the world?”
If a bomb had been placed under Mrs. Grandoken’s chair, she wouldn’t have jumped up any more quickly, and she flung out of the door before Jinnie could stop her. Then the girl wound her arms about the cobbler’s neck.
“I wouldn’t leave you, dear, not for any school on earth,” she whispered. “Now I’m going to tell Mr. King so.”
Jinnie sped along Paradise Road and into the nearest drug store. It took her a few minutes to find Theodore’s number, and when she took off the receiver, she had not the remotest idea how to word her refusal. She only remembered Lafe’s sad face and Bobbie’s sharp, agonizing calling of her name.206
“I want to speak to Mr. King,” she said in answer to a strange voice at the other end of the wire.
Her voice was so low that a sharp reply came back.
“Who’d you want?”
“Theodore King.”
She waited a minute and then another voice, a voice she knew and loved, said,
“This is Mr. King!”
“I’m Jinnie Grandoken,” Theodore heard. “I wanted to tell you I wouldn’t go away from home ever; no, never! I wouldn’t; I couldn’t!”
“Don’t you want to study?” Mr. King asked eagerly.
Jinnie shook her head as if she were face to face with him.
“I’m studying all the time,” she said brokenly, “and I can’t go away now. If they couldn’t spare me one day, they couldn’t all the time.”
“Then I suppose that settles it,” was the reluctant reply. “I hoped you’d be pleased, but never mind! I’ll see you very soon.”
“I told him!” said Jinnie, facing the cobbler. “Now, Lafe, don’t ever think I’m going away, because I’m not. I’ve got some plans of my own for us all when I’m eighteen. Till then I stay right here.”
At dinner Peg cut off a very large piece of meat and flung it on Jinnie’s plate.
“I suppose you’re plumin’ yourself because you didn’t go to school; but you needn’t, ’cause nothin’ could drag you from this shop, an’ there’s my word for it.” Then she glanced at Lafe, and ended, “If ’er leg was nailed to your bench, she wouldn’t be any tighter here. Now eat, all of you, an’ keep your mouths shut.”
207CHAPTER XXIXPEG’S VISIT
One morning Bobbie sat down gravely some distance from Lafe, took up one of Milly Ann’s kittens, and fell into troubled thought. After permitting him to be silent a few moments, the cobbler remarked,
“Anything on your mind, comrade?”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, sighing.
“Can’t you tell a feller what it is?”
Bobbie pushed the kitten from his lap. He crept to the cobbler’s side slowly. Then, as he leaned his golden head against his friend, Lafe’s arm fell about him.
“Tell me, laddie,” insisted Mr. Grandoken.
“My stars’re all gone out,” faltered the boy sadly.
“What made ’em go out, Bob?... Can you tell?”
“Yes,” blubbered Bobbie. “I guess Jinnie’s sick, that’s what’s the matter.”
“Sick?” asked Lafe, in a startled voice. “Who said so?... Did she?”
Bobbie shook his head.
“No, but I know!... She cried last night, and other nights too.”
Lafe considered a moment.
“I’m glad you told me, Bob,” he said, knocking the ashes from his pipe.
Jinnie left the master’s home with lagging footsteps. The idea of going away to school had not appealed to her,208but never in all her life had she been so tempted to do anything as to go with Theodore for one blessed day in the country—but a whole day from home could not be thought of.
The cobbler saw her crossing the tracks, and after the daily salute, she came on with bent head. He watched her closely during the evening meal and gave Bobbie credit for discovering the truth. After Peg had wheeled him back to the shop and he was alone with Jinnie, Lafe called her to him.
“Bring the stool,” said he, “an’ sit here.”
Languidly she sank down, resting against him. She was very tired besides being very unhappy. Lafe placed two fingers under her chin, lifting her face to his. Her eyes were full of tears, and she no longer tried to conceal her suffering. The cobbler remained quiet while she cried softly. At last:
“It’s Maudlin Bates, ain’t it, darlin’?” he asked.
“No, Lafe.”
“Can’t you tell your friend what ’tis?”
“I guess I’m crying because I’m foolish, dear,” she replied.
“No, that’s not true, Jinnie. I feel as bad seeing you cry’s if ’twas Peggy.”
This was a compliment, and Jinnie tried to sit up bravely, but a friendly hand held her close.
“Just begin, an’ the rest’ll come easy,” Lafe insisted.
Jinnie’s tongue refused to talk, and of a sudden she grew ashamed and dropped her scarlet face.
“I don’t believe I can tell it, Lafe dear,” she got out.
“Something about a man?”
Jinnie nodded.
“Then I got to know! Tell me!” he directed.
His insistence drew forth a tearful confession.209
“Before Mr. King spoke about the school, he asked me to go a day in the country with my fiddle, and I couldn’t.”
After the telling, she caught her breath and hid her face.
“Why?” Lafe demanded. “Why couldn’t you?”
Jinnie raised startled eyes to the cobbler’s for the better part of a minute. What did he mean? Was it possible––
“I thought you wouldn’t let me––”
“You didn’t ask me, did you, Jinnie?”
“No, because—because––”
“Because why?” Lafe intended to get at the root of the matter.
“Too long from the shop! Bobbie needs me,” replied Jinnie.
“I don’t think so, child.... The kid’d be all right with me and Peg.”
“Lafe?” cried Jinnie, standing up and throwing her arms around him.
“You ought to a told me when he spoke of it, Jinnie. I could a fixed it.”
The cobbler smiled, and then laughed.
Once more on the stool in front of him, Jinnie said:
“I’m afraid Mr. King was a little offended.”
“It would a done you a lot of good to get out in the fields––” chided Lafe.
“And the woods, Lafe. I’d taken my fiddle. He asked me to.”
“Sure,” replied Lafe.... “Call Peggy.”
Mrs. Grandoken, looking from one to the other, noticed Lafe’s gravity and signs of Jinnie’s tears.
“What’s the matter?” she inquired.
Lafe told her quietly, and finished with his hand on Jinnie’s head.
“Our little helper ought to have some fun, Peggy.”210
Jinnie glanced up. What would Peggy think? But for a few minutes Peg didn’t tell them. Then she said:
“She ought a went, I think, Lafe.”
Jinnie got up so quickly that Happy Pete and Milly Ann stirred in their sleep.
“Oh, Peg, I do want to—but how can I, now I’ve said I wouldn’t?... How can I?”
“You can’t,” decided Peg gruffly, and Jinnie dropped down once more at Lafe’s feet.
“I guess you’ll have to forget about it, child, an’ be ‘Happy in Spite’,” said Lafe, with a sigh.
The next day Peggy took Lafe into her confidence.
“I think it could be did,” she ended, looking at her husband.
“Mebbe,” said Mr. Grandoken thoughtfully.
“I’ll do it,” snapped Peg, “but I hate ’er, an’ you can bang me if that ain’t a fact, but—but I’ll go, I said.”
About ten o’clock Peggy dressed and went out.
Theodore King was in his office, trying to keep his mind on a line of figures. Of late work palled on him. He sighed and leaned back thoughtfully, striking and touching a match to his cigar. Memories of blue-eyed Jinnie enveloped him in a mental maze. She stood radiant and beckoning, her exquisite face smiling into his at every turn.
He realized now how much he desired Jinnie Grandoken—and were she with him at that moment, life could offer him nothing half so sweet.
“I want her always,” he said grimly, aloud to himself.
A boy’s head appeared at the door.
“Woman to see you, sir,” said he.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Grandoken.”
“Show her in,” and Theodore stood up.211
Peggy came in embarrassedly. She had a mission to perform which she very much disliked.
“Good morning, Mrs. Grandoken,” said Theodore, holding out his hand.
“Good morning, sir,” said Peg, flushing darkly.
Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. How could she state her errand to this dignified, handsome young man? He was looking at her questioningly; but that wasn’t all—he was smiling encouragingly also.
“Won’t you sit down?” said he.
Peggy coughed, smoothed her mouth with her hand, pulled the thin shawl more closely about her shoulders, and took the indicated seat. Taking no time to reflect on the best way to present her case, she blurted out,
“Lafe didn’t know till last night about your askin’ Jinnie to go for a holiday?”
“Oh!”
The man was at a loss to say more than that one word in question.
“No,” replied Peggy, “and she’s been cryin’––”
“Crying?” ejaculated Theodore. “Crying, you say?”
“Yes,” nodded Peggy.
“What’d she cry for?” asked Theodore. “She positively refused to go with me.”
“I know it, but she thought me an’ Lafe wouldn’t let ’er.”
Theodore moved uneasily about the office.
“And would you?” he asked presently.
“Sure,” responded Peggy, nodding vigorously. “Sure! Jinnie’s been workin’ awful hard for years, an’ Lafe’d like you to take ’er. But you musn’t tell ’er I come here.”
Saying this, Peggy rose to her feet. She had finished what she had come to say and was ready to go. Theodore King laughingly thanked her and shook her heartily212by the hand. Then he escorted her to the door, and she returned to Lafe a little less grim.
It was nearly noon when Jinnie left the master’s music room, carrying her fiddle box. Her teacher noticed she played with less spirit than usual, but had refrained from mentioning it.
She was coming down the steps when King’s car dashed up to the door. Her meetings with him were always unexpected and found her quite unprepared for the shock to her emotions.
“I’ve come to take you home, Jinnie,” said Theodore, jumping out.
Jinnie’s throat filled, and silently she allowed him to help her to the seat. They were in the flat of the town before he turned to her.
“I haven’t given up my plan to take you away for a day,” he said gently.
Jinnie gulped with joy. He was going to ask her again! Lafe and Peg had said she could go. She waited for him to proceed, which he did more gravely.
“When I make up my mind to do a thing, I generally do it. Now which day shall it be, Jinnie?”
“I guess I’ll have to let you tell,” whispered Jinnie, which whisper Theo caught despite the noise of the chugging motor.
“Then, to-morrow,” he decided, driving up to the cobbler’s shop. “I’ll come for you at nine o’clock.... Look at me, Jinnie.”
Slowly she dragged a pair of unfathomable blue eyes to his.
“We’re going to be happy for one whole beautiful day, Jinnie,” said he hoarsely.
He helped her out, and neither one spoke again. The motor started away, and the girl rushed into the shop.213
Lafe had just said to Peggy, “There they be! He’s been after ’er!”
“Lafe, Lafe dear,” Jinnie gurgled. “I’m going with ’im to-morrow. All day with the birds and flowers! Oh, Peggy dear, I’m so happy!”
Mrs. Grandoken glared at her.
“Ugh! ’S if it matters to me whether you’re happy or not!”
Jinnie stooped and smothered Bobbie with caresses. With his arms tightly about her neck, he purred contentedly,
“My stars’re all shinin’ bright, Jinnie.”
“Kiss me, both of you kids!” was all Lafe said.
214CHAPTER XXXWHAT THE FIDDLE TOLD THEODORE
Jinnie looked very sweet when she bade farewell to Peg and Lafe the next morning. Mr. King’s car was at the door, and the cobbler watched him as he stepped from it with a monosyllabic greeting to the girl and helped her to the seat next to his. Peggy, too, was craning her neck for a better view.
“They’re thick as thieves,” she said, with a dubious shake of her head.
“I guess he likes ’er,” chuckled Lafe. “To make a long story short, wife, a sight like that does my eyes good!”
Mrs. Grandoken shrugged her shoulders, growled deep in her throat, and opined they were all fools.
“An’ quit doin’ yourself proud, Lafe!” she grumbled. “You’re grinnin’ like a Cheshire cat. ’Tain’t nothin’ to your credit she’s goin’ to have the time of her life.”
“No, ’tain’t to my credit, Peggy,” retorted the cobbler, “but ’tis to yours, wife.”
By the time Lafe finished this statement, Mr. King and Jinnie Grandoken were bowling along a white road toward a hill bounding the west side of the lake.
“See that basket down here?” said the man after a long silence.
“Yes.”
“That’s our picnic dinner! I brought everything I thought a little girl with a sweet tooth might like.”215
Jinnie had forgotten about food. Her mind had dwelt only upon the fact she was going to be with him all day, one of those long, beautiful days taken from Heaven’s cycle for dear friends. The country, too, stretched in majestic splendor miles ahead of them, trees rimming the road on each side and making a thick woodland as far as one could see.
“I’m glad I brought my fiddle,” Jinnie remarked presently.
“I am, too,” said Theodore.
The place he chose for their outing was far back from the highway, and leaving the car at one side of the road, they threaded their way together to it. The sky above was very blue, the lake quietly reflecting its sapphire shades. Off in the distance the high hills gazed down upon the smaller ones, guarding them in quietude.
Theodore spread one of the auto robes on the ground, and shyly Jinnie accepted his invitation to be seated.
“Oh, it’s lovely,” she said in soft monotone, glancing at the lake.
“Yes,” replied Theodore dreamily.
His eyes were upon the placid water, his thoughts upon the girl at his side. Jinnie was thinking of him, too, and there they both sat, with passionate longing in their young hearts, watching nature’s great life go silently by.
“Play for me,” Theodore said at length, without taking his eyes from the water. “Stand by that big tree so I can look at you.”
Flushed, palpitating, and beautiful, Jinnie took the position he directed. She had come to play for him, to mimic the natural world for his pleasure.
“Shall I play about the fairies?” she asked bashfully.
“Yes,” assented King.
As on that night in his home when first she came into216his life in full sway, the man now imagined he saw creeping from under the flower petals and from behind the tall trees, the tiny inhabitants of Jinnie’s fairyland. Then he turned his eyes toward her, and as he watched the lithe young figure, the pensive face lost and rapt in the lullaby, Theodore came to the greatest decision of his life. He couldn’t live without Jinnie Grandoken! No matter if she was the niece of a cobbler, no matter who her antecedents were—she was born into the world for him, and all that was delicate and womanly in her called out to the manhood in him; and all that was strong, masterful, and aggressive in him clamored to protect and shield her, and in that fleeting moment the brilliant young bachelor suddenly lost his hold on bachelordom, as a boy loses his hold on a kite. There are times in every human life when such a decision as Theodore then made seemed the beginning of everything. It was as if the past had wrapped him around like the grey shell of a cocoon.
A loose lock of hair fell coquettishly from the girl’s dark head low upon the fiddle, and Theodore loved and wanted to kiss it, and when the instrument dropped from under the dimpled chin, he held out his hand.
“Come here, Jinnie,” he said softly. “Come sit beside me.”
She came directly, as she always did when he asked anything of her. He drew her down close to his side, and for a long time they remained quiet. Jinnie was facing the acme of joy. The day had only begun, and she was with the object of her dreams. Just as when she had lived in the hills the fiddle had held the center of her soul, so now Theodore King occupied that sacred place. The morning light rose in her eyes, the blue fire transforming her face.