Laurence Shafton awoke late to the sound of church bells come alive and singing hymn tunes. There was something strangely unreal in the sound, in the utter stillness of the background of Sabbath Valley atmosphere that made him think, almost, just for an instant, that he had stumbled somehow into the wrong end of the other world, and come into the fields of the blessed. Not that he had any very definite idea about what the fields of the blessed would look like or what would be going on there, but there was something still and holy between the voices of the bells that fairly compelled his jaded young soul to sit up and listen.
But at the first attempt to sit up a very sharp very decided twinge of pain caught him, and brought an assorted list of words which he kept for such occasions to his lips. Then he looked around and tried to take in the situation. It was almost as if he had been caught out of his own world and dropped into another universe, so different was everything here, and so little did he remember the happenings of the night before. He had had trouble with his car, something infernal that had prevented his going farther—he recalled having to get out and push the thing along the road, and then two loutish men who made game of him and sent him here to get his car fixed. There had been a man, a queer man who gave him bread and butter instead of wine—he remembered that—and he had failed to get his car fixed, but how the deuce did he get landed on this couch with a world of books about him and a thin muslin curtain blowing into the room, and fanning the cheeks of a lovely rose in a long stemmed clear glass vase? Did he try to start and have a smash up? No, he remembered going down the steps with the intention of starting, but stay! Now it was coming to him. He fell off the porch! He must have had a jag on or he never would have fallen. He did things to his ankle in falling. He remembered the gentle giant picking him up as if he had been a baby and putting him here, but where washere? Ah! Now he remembered! He was on his way to Opal Verrons. A bet. An elopement for the prize! Great stakes. He had lost of course. What a fool! If it hadn't been for his ankle he might have got to a trolley car or train somehow and made a garage. Money would have taken him there in time. He was vexed that he had lost. It would have been great fun, and he had the name of always winning when he set out to do so. But then, perhaps it was just as well—Verrons was a good fellow as men went—he liked him, and he was plain out and out fond of Opal just at present. It would have been a dirty shame to play the trick behind his back. Still, if Opal wanted to run away with him it was up to him to run of course. Opal was rare sport and he couldn't stand the idea of Smart-Aleck McMarter, or that conceited Percy Emerson getting there first. He wondered which had won. It made his fury rise to think of either, and he had promised the lady neither of them should. What was she thinking of him by now that he had sent her no word of his delay? That was inexcusable. He must attend to it at once.
He glanced around the pleasant room. Yes, there on the desk was a telephone! Could he get to it? He sat up and painfully edged his way over to the desk.
“Safely through another week,God has brought us on our way—”
chimed the bells,
“Let us now a blessing seek,Waiting in His courts to-day—”
But Laurie Shafton had never sung those words in his life and had no idea what the bells were seeking to get across to him. He took down the receiver and called for Long Distance.
“Oh day of rest and gladness!”
pealed out the bells joyously,
“Oh day of joy and light!Oh balm for care and sadness,Most beautiful, most bright—”
But it meant nothing to Laurie Shafton seeking a hotel in a fashionable resort. And when he finally got his number it was only Opal's maid who answered.
“Yes, Mrs. Verrons was up. She was out walking on the beach with a gentleman. No, it was not Mr. Emerson, nor yet Mr. McMarter. Neither of those gentlemen had arrived. No, it was not Mr. Verrons. He had just telegraphed that he would not be at the hotel until tomorrow night. Yes, she would tell Mrs. Verrons that he had met with an accident. Mrs. Verrons would be very sorry. Number one-W Sabbath Valley. Yes, she would write it down. What? Oh! The gentleman Mrs. Verrons was walking with? No, it was not anybody that had been stopping at the hotel for long, it was a new gentleman who had just come the night before. She hadn't heard his name yet. Yes, she would be sure to tell Mrs. Verrons at once when she came in, and Mrs. Verrons would be likely to call him up!”
He hung up the receiver and looked around the room discontentedly. A stinging twinge of his ankle added to his discomfort. He gave an angry snarl and pushed the wavering curtain aside, wishing those everlasting bells would stop their banging.
Across the velvet stretch of lawn the stone church nestled among the trees, with a background of mountains, and a studding of white gravestones beyond its wide front steps. It was astonishingly beautiful, and startlingly close for a church. He had not been so near to a church except for a wedding in all his young life. Dandy place for a wedding that would be, canopy over the broad walk from the street, charming architecture, he liked the line of the arched belfry and the slender spire above. The rough stone fitted well into the scenery. The church seemed to be a thing of the ages placed there by Nature. His mind trained to detect a sense of beauty in garments, rugs, pictures, and women, appreciated the picture on which he was gazing. Where was this anyway? Surely not the place with the absurd name that he remembered now on the mountain Detour. Sabbath Valley! How ridiculous! It must be the home of some wealthy estate, and yet there seemed a rustic loveliness about it that scarcely established that theory.
The bells had ceased. He heard the roll of a deep throated organ skillfully played.
And now, his attention was suddenly attracted to the open window of the church where framed in English ivy a lovely girl sat at the organ. She was dressed in white with hair of gold, and a golden window somewhere back of her across the church, made a background of beaten gold against which her delicate profile was set like some young saint. Her white fingers moving among the keys, and gradually he came to realize that it was she who had been playing the bells.
He stared and stared, filled with admiration, thrilled with this new experience in his blase existence. Who would have expected to find a beauty like that in a little out of the way place like this? His theory of a great estate and a rich man's daughter with a fad for music instantly came to the front. What a lucky happening that he should have broken down close to this church. He would find out who the girl was and work it to get invited up to her house. Perhaps he was a fortunate loser of his bet after all.
As he watched the girl playing gradually the music entered his consciousness. He was fond of music, and had heard the best of the world of course. This was meltingly lovely. The girl had fine appreciation and much expression, even when the medium of her melody was clumsy things like bells. She had seemed to make them glad as they pealed out their melodies. He had not known bells could sound like happy children, or like birds.
His meditations were interrupted by a tap on the door, followed by the entrance of his host bearing a tray:
“Good-morning,” he said pleasantly, “I see you're up. How is the sprain? Better? Would you like me to dress it again?”
He came over to the desk and set down the tray on which was beautifully brown buttered toast, eggs and coffee:
“I've brought you just a bite. It's so late you won't want much, for we have dinner immediately after church. I suppose you wouldn't feel like going over to the service?”
“Service?” the young man drawled almost insolently.
“Yes, service is at eleven. Would you care to go over? I could assist you.”
“Naw, I shouldn't care to go,” he answered rudely, “I'm pulling out of here as soon as I can get that machine of mine running. By the way, I've been doing some telephoning”—he slung a ten dollar note on the desk. “I didn't ask how much it was, guess that'll cover it. Now, help me to the big chair and I'll sample your breakfast.”
The minister picked up the young man easily and placed him in the big chair before the guest realized what was doing, and then turned and took the ten dollar bill between his thumb and finger and flipped it down in the young man's lap.
“Keep it,” he said briefly, “It's of no consequence.”
“But it was long distance,” explained the guest loftily, “It'll be quite a sum. I talked overtime.”
“No matter,” said the minister pulling out a drawer of the desk and gathering a few papers and his Bible. “Now, would you like me to look at that ankle before I go, or will you wait for the doctor? He's likely to be back before long, and I've left a call for him.”
“I'll wait for the doctor,” the young man's tone approached the insolent note again, “and by the way, I wish you'd send for a mechanician. I've got to get that car running.”
“I'm sorry,” said Severn, “I'm afraid you'll have to wait. The only one in this region that would be at all likely to help you out with those bearings is Carter. He has a car, or had one, of that make. He might happen to have some bearings, but it is not at all likely. Or, he could tow you ten miles to Monopoly. But Carter is not at home yet.”
The young man fairly frothed at the mouth: “Do you mean to tell me that there is no one can mend a broken machine around this forsaken dump? Where's your nearest garage? Send for a man to come at once. I'm willing to pay anything,” he flourished a handful of bills.
The minister looked at his watch anxiously: “I'm sorry,” he said again, “I've got to go to the service now. There is a garage at Monopoly and their number is 97-M. You can phone them if you are not satisfied. I tried them quite early this morning while you were still sleeping, but there was nothing doing. The truth is the people around this region are a little prejudiced against working seven days out of the week, although they will help a man out in a case like yours when they can, but it seems the repair man, the only one who knows about bearings, has gone fifty miles in another direction to a funeral and won't be back till to-morrow morning. Now, if you're quite comfortable I'll have to leave you for a little while. It is time for my service to begin.”
The young man looked at his host with astonishment. He was not used to being treated in this off-hand way. He could hardly believe his ears. Throw back his money and lay down the law that way!
“Wait!” he thundered as the door was about to close upon the departing minister.
Severn turned and regarded his guest quietly, questioningly:
“Who's that girl over there in the window playing the organ?” He pulled the curtain aside and revealed a glimpse of the white and gold saint framed in the ivy. Severn gave a swift cold glance at the insolent youth and then answered with a slightly haughty note in his courteous voice, albeit a quiver of amusement on his lip:
“That is my daughter.”
Laurence Shafton dropped the curtain and turned to stare at his host, but the minister had closed the door and was already on his way to church. Then the youth pulled back the curtain again and regarded the lady. The man's daughter! And playing like that!
The rich notes of the organ were rolling out into the summer day, a wonderful theme from an old master, grandly played. Yes, she could play. She had been well taught. And the looks of her! She was wonderful at this distance. Were these then wealthy people perhaps summering in this quiet resort? He glanced about at the simple furnishings. That was a good rug at his feet, worn in places, but soft in tone and unmistakably of the Orient. The desk was of fumed oak, somewhat massive and dignified with a touch of hand carving. The chairs were of the same dark oak with leather cushions, and the couch so covered by his bed drapery that he could not see it, but he remembered its comfort. There was nothing showy or expensive looking but everything simple and good. One or two fine old pictures on the wall gave evidence of good taste. The only luxury seemed books, rows and rows of them behind glass doors in cases built into the wall. They lined each space between windows and doors, and in several spots reached to the ceiling. He decided that these people must have had money and lost it. These things were old and had perhaps been inherited. But the girl! She teased his curiosity. She seemed of a type entirely new, and most attractive. Well, here was good luck again! He would stay till church was out and see what she might be like at nearer view. It might amuse him to play the invalid for a day or two and investigate her. Meantime, he must call up that garage and see what could be done for the car. If he could get it patched up by noon he might take the girl out for a spin in the afternoon. One could judge a girl much better getting her off by herself that way. He didn't seem to relish the memory of that father's smile and haughty tone as he said “My daughter.” Probably was all kinds of fussy about her. But if the girl had any pep at all she surely would enjoy getting away from oversight for a few hours. He hoped Opal would call before they got back from their service. It might be awkward talking with them all around.
But the organ was suddenly drowned in a burst of song:
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to theHoly Ghost, As it was in the beginning, is now andever shall be—world without end, Amen!”
Somehow the words struck him with a strange awe, they were so distinct, and almost in the room with him. He looked about half feeling that the room was filled with people, and felt curiously alone. There was an atmosphere in the little house of everybody being gone to church. They had all gone and left him alone. It amused him. He wondered about this odd family who seemed to be under the domination of a church service. They had left him a stranger alone in their house. The doors and windows were all open. How did they know but he was a burglar?
Some one was talking now. It sounded like the voice of his host. It might be a prayer. How peculiar! He must be a preacher. Yet he had been sent to him to fix his car. He did not look like a laboring man. He looked as if he might be,—well almost anything—even a gentleman. But if he was a clergyman, why, that of course explained the ascetic type, the nun-like profile of the girl, the skilled musician. Clergymen were apt to educate their children, even without much money. The girl would probably be a prude and bore, but there was a chance that she might be a princess in disguise and need a prince to show her a good time. He would take the chance at least until after dinner.
So he ate his delicate toast, and drank his delicious coffee, and wished he had asked that queer man to have his flask filled at the drug store before he went to his old service, but consoled himself with numerous cigarettes, while he watched the face of the musician, and listened idly to the music.
It was plain that the young organist was also the choir leader, for her expressive face was turned toward the singers, and her lovely head kept time. Now and then a motion of the hand seemed to give a direction or warning. And the choir too sang with great sweetness and expression. They were well trained. But what a bore such a life must be to a girl. Still, if she had never known anything else—! Well, he would like to see her at closer range. He lit another cigarette and studied her profile as she slipped out of the organ bench and settled herself nearer the window. He could hear the man's voice reading now. Some of the words drew his idle attention:
“All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; butthe Lord weigheth the spirits.”
Curious sentence that! It caught in his brain. It seemed rather true. From the Bible probably of course, though he was not very familiar with that volume, never having been obliged to go to Sunday School in his childhood days? But was it true? Were all a man's ways clean in his own eyes? Take, for instance, his own ways? He always did about as he pleased, and he had never asked himself whether his ways were clean or not. He hadn't particularly cared. He supposed some people would think they were not—but in his own eyes, well—was he clean? Take for instance this expedition of his? Running a race to get another man's wife,—an alleged friend's wife, too? It did seem rather despicable when one thought of it after the jag was off. But then one was not quite responsible for what one did with a jag on, and what the deuce did the Lord have to do with it anyway? How could the Lord weigh the spirit? That meant of course that he saw through all subterfuges. Well, what of it?
Another sentence caught his ear:
“When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even hisenemies to be at peace with him.”
How odd, the Lord,—if there was a Lord, he had never thought much about it—but how odd, if there was a Lord for Him to care about a man's ways. If he were Lord he wouldn't care, he'd only want them to keep out of his way. He would probably crush them like ants, if he were Lord. But the Lord—taking any notice of men's ways, and being pleased by them and looking out to protect him from enemies! It certainly was quaint—a quaint idea! He glanced again at the reverent face of the girl, the down drooped eyes, the lovely sensitive mouth. Quaint, that was the word for her, quaint and unusual. He certainly was going to enjoy meeting her.
“Ting-aling-ling-ling!” burst out the telephone bell on the desk. He frowned and dropped the curtain. Was that Opal? He hobbled to the desk painfully, half annoyed that she had called him from the contemplation of this novel scene, not so sure that he would bother to call up that garage yet. Let it go till he had sampled the girl.
He took down the receiver and Opal's voice greeted him, mockingly, tauntingly from his own world. The little ivy leaved church with its Saint Cecilia at the organ, and its strange weird message about a God that cared for man's ways, dropped away like a dream that was past.
When he hung up the receiver and turned back to his couch again the girl had closed the window. It annoyed him. He did not know how his giddy badinage had clashed in upon the last words of the sermon.
It seemed a long time after the closing hymn before the little throng melted away down the maple lined street. The young man watched them curiously from behind his curtain, finding only food for amusement in most of them. And then came the minister, lingering to talk to one here and there, and his wife—it was undoubtedly his wife, even the hare-brained Laurie knew her, in the gray organdie, with the white at her neck, and the soft white hat. She had a pleasant light in her eyes, and one saw at once that she was a lady. There was a grace about her that made the girl seem possible. And lastly, came the girl.
She stepped from the church door in her white dress and simple white hat, white even to her little shoes, and correct in every way, he could see that. She was no country gawk! She came forth lightly into the sunshine which caught her hair in golden tendrils around her face as if it loved to hide therein, and she was immediately surrounded by half a dozen urchins. One had brought her some lilies, great white starry things with golden hearts, and she gathered them into her arms as if she loved them, and smiled at the boys. One could see how they adored her. She lingered talking to them, and laid her hand on one boy's shoulder, he walking like a knight beside her trying to act as if he did not know her hand was there. His head was drooped, but he lifted it with a grin at last and gave her a nod which seemed to make her glad, for her face broke forth in another smile:
“Well, don't forget, to-night,” she called as they turned to go, “and remember to tell Billy!”
Then she came trippingly across the grass, a song on her lips. Some girl! Say! She certainly was a stunner!
Opal Verrons was small and slight with large childlike eyes that could look like a baby's, but that could hold the very devil on occasions. The eyes were dark and lustrous with long curling black lashes framing them in a face that might have been modeled for an angel, so round the curves, so enchanting the lips, so lofty the white brow. Angelé Potocka had no lovelier set to her head, no more limpal fire in her eye, than had Opal Verrons. Indeed her lovers often called her the Fire Opal. The only difference was that Angelé Potocka developed her brains, of which she had plenty, while Opal Verrons had placed her entire care upon developing her lovely little body, though she too had plenty of brains on occasion.
And she knew how to dress! So simply, so slightly sometimes, so perfectly to give a setting—the right setting—to her little self. She wore her heavy dark hair bobbed, and it curled about her small head exquisitely, giving her the look of a Raphael Cherub or a boy page in the court of King Arthur. With a flat band of silver olive leaves about her brow, and the soft hair waving out below, nothing more was necessary for a costume save a brief drapery of silver spangled cloth with a strap of jewels and a wisp of black malines for a scarf. She was always startling and lovely even in her simplest costume. Many people turned to watch her in a simple dark blue serge made like a child's girded with a delicate arrangement of medallions and chains of white metal, her dark rough woollen stockings rolled girlishly below white dimpled knees, and her feet shod in flat soled white buckskin shoes. She was young enough to “get away with it,” the older women said cattishly as they watched her stroll away to the beach with a new man each day, and noted her artless grace and indifferent pose. That she had a burly millionaire husband who still was under her spell and watched her jealously only made her more interesting, and they pitied her for being tied to a man twice her age and bulky as a bale of cotton. She who could dance like a sylph and was light on her little feet as a thistle down. Though wise ones sometimes said that Opal had her young eyes wide open when she married Ed Verrons, and she had him right under her little pink well manicured thumb. And some said she was not nearly so young as she looked.
Her hands were the weakest point in Opal Verron's whole outfit. Not that they were unlovely in form or ungraceful. They were so small they hardly seemed like hands, so undeveloped, so useless, with the dimpling of a baby's, yet the sharp nails of a little beast. They were so plump and well cared for they were fairly sleek, and had an old wise air about them as she patted her puffy curls daintily with a motion all her own that showed her lovely rounded arm, and every needle-pointed shell-tinted finger nail, sleek and puffy, and never used, not even for a bit of embroidery or knitting. She couldn't, you know, with those sharp transparent little nails, they might break. They were like her little sharp teeth that always reminded one of a mouse's teeth, and made one shudder at how sharp they would be should she ever decide to bite.
But her smile was like the mixing of all smiles, a baby's, a woman-of-the-world, a grieved child's, and a spirit who had put aside all moral purpose. Perhaps, like mixed drinks it was for that reason but the more intoxicating. And because she did not hide her charms and was lavish with her smiles, there were more poor victims about her little feet than about any other woman at the shore that summer. Men talked about her in the smoking rooms and billiard rooms and compared her to vamps of other seasons, and decided she had left them all in the shade. She was a perfect production of the modern age, more perfect than others because she knew how to do the boldest things with that cherubic air that bereft sin of its natural ugliness and made it beautiful and delicious, as if degradation had suddenly become an exalted thing, like some of the old rites in a Pagan Temple, and she a lovely priestess. And when each new folly was over there was she with her innocent baby air, and her pure childlike face that looked dreamily out from its frame of little girl hair, and seemed not to have been soiled at all. And so men who played her games lost their sense of sin and fell that much lower than those who sin and know it and are afraid to look themselves in the face. When a man loses his sense of shame, of being among the pigs, he is in a far country indeed.
But Opal Verrons sauntering forth to the Hotel piazza in company with three of her quondam admirers suddenly lost her luxurious air of nestling content. The hotel clerk handed her two telegrams as she passed the desk. She tore them open carelessly, but her eyes grew wide with horror as she read.
Percy Emerson had been arrested. He had run over a woman and a baby and both were in a hospital in a critical condition. He would be held without bail until it was seen whether they lived.
She drew in her breath with a frightened gasp and bit at her red lip with her little sharp teeth. A pretty child with floating curls and dainty apparel ran laughing across her way, its hand outstretched to a tiny white dog that was dancing after her, and Opal gave a sharp cry and tore the telegram into small bits. But when she opened the second message her face paled under its delicate rouge as she read: “Mortimer McMarter killed in an accident when his car collided with a truck. His body lies at Saybrook Inn. We find your address on his person, with a request to let you know if anything happens to him. What do you wish done with the body?”
Those who watched her face as she read say that it took on an ashen color and she looked years older. Her real spirit seemed to be looking forth from those wide limpid eyes for an instant, the spirit of a coward who had been fooling the world; the spirit of a lost soul who had grown old in sin; the spirit of a soul who had stepped over the bounds and sinned beyond her depth.
She looked about upon them all, stricken, appalled,—not sorry but just afraid,—and not for her friends, but for herself! And then she gave a horrid little lost laugh and dropping the telegram as if it had burned her, she flung out her voice upon them with a blaze in her big eyes and a snarl in her lute-voice:
“Well, I wasn't to blame was I? They all were grown men, weren't they? It was up to them.I'mgoing to get out of here! This is anawfulplace!”
She gave a shudder and turning swiftly fled to the elevator, catching it just as the door was being shut, and they saw her rising behind the black and gold grating and waving a mocking little white hand at them as they watched her amazed. Then one of them stooped and picked up the telegram. And while they still stood at the doorway wondering some one pointed to a brilliant blue car that was sliding down the avenue across the beach road.
“She has gone!” they said looking at one another strangely. Did she really care then?
The dinner at Sabbath Valley parsonage was a good one. It was quite different from any dinner Laurie Shafton had ever eaten before. It had a taste that he hadn't imagined just plain chicken and mashed potatoes and bread and butter and coffee and cherry pie could have.
Those were things he seldom picked out from a menu, and he met them as something new and delicious, prepared in this wonderful country way.
Also the atmosphere was queer and interesting.
The minister had helped him into the dining-room, a cheery room with a bay window looking toward the church and a window box of nasturtiums in which the bees hummed and buzzed.
The girl came in and acknowledged the casual introduction of her father with a quite sophisticated nod and sat down across from him. And there was aprayerat the beginning of the meal! Just as he was about to say something graceful to the girl, there was aprayer. It was almost embarrassing. He had never seen one before like this. At a boarding school once he had experienced a thing they called “grace” which consisted in standing behind their chairs while the entire assembled hungry multitude repeated a poem of a religious nature. He remembered they used to spend their time making up parodies on it—one ran something about “this same old fish upon my plate,” and rhymed with “hate.” He stared at the lovely bowed hair of the girl across the table while it was going on, and got ready a remark calculated to draw her smiles, but the girl lifted eyes that seemed so far away he felt as though she did not see him, and he contented himself with replying to his host's question something about the part of the chicken he liked best. It was a queer home to him, it seemed so intimate. Even the chicken seemed to be a detail of their life together, perhaps because there was only one chicken, and one breast. Where he dwelt there were countless breasts, and everybody had a whole breast if he wanted it, or a whole chicken for the matter of that. Here they had to stop and ask what others liked before they chose for themselves. This analysis went queerly on in his mind while he sat waiting for his plate and wondering over the little things they were talking about. Mrs. Severn said Miss Saxon had been crying all through church, and she told her Billy had been away all night. She was awfully worried about his going with that baseball team.
A fleeting shadow passed over the girl's face:
“Billy promised me he would be there to-day,” she said thoughtfully, “something must have happened. I don't think Billy was with the baseball team—” then her eyes travelled away out the window to the distant hills, she didn't seem to see Laurence Shafton at all. It was a new experience for him. He was fairly good looking and knew it.
Who the deuce was this Billy? And what did she care about Miss Saxon crying? Did she care so much for Billy already? Would it be worth his while to make her uncare?
“Mrs. Carter wasn't out,” said Mrs. Severn as she poured coffee, “I hope she's not having more trouble with her neuralgia.”
The minister suddenly looked up from his carving:
“Did Mark come back yesterday, Marilyn?”
The girl drew a quick breath and brought back her eyes from the hills, but she did not look at the young man: “No, father he didn't come.”
Who the deuce wasMark? Of course there would be several, but there was alwaysone. Billy and Mark! It was growing interesting.
But Billy and Mark were not mentioned again, though a deep gravity seemed to have settled into the eyes of the family since their names had come up. Laurie decided to speak of the weather and the roads:
“Glorious weather we're having,” he chirped out condescendingly, “But you certainly have the limit for roads. What's the matter with the highway? Had a Detour right in the best part of the road. Bridge down, it said, road flooded! Made the deuce of a time for me—!”
“Bridge?” remarked Marilyn looking up thoughtfully.
“Flood?” echoed the minister sharply.
“Yes. About two miles back where the highway crosses this valley. Put me in some fix. Had a bet on you know. Date with a lady. Staked a lot of money on winning, too. Hard luck,” Then he looked across at Marilyn's attentive face. Ah! He was getting her at last! More on that line.
“But it'll not be all loss,” he added gallantly with a gesture of admiration toward her, “You see I didn't have any idea I was going to meetyou.”
But Marilyn's eyes were regarding him soberly, steadily, analytically, without an answering smile. It was as if she did not like what he had said—if indeed she had heard it at all—as if she were offended at it. Then the eyes look on an impersonal look and wandered thoughtfully to the mountains in the distance. Laurie felt his cheeks burn. He felt almost embarrassed again, like during the prayer. Didn't the girl know he was paying her a compliment? Or was she such a prude that she thought him presuming on so slight an acquaintance? Her father was speaking:
“I don't quite understand,” 'he said thoughtfully. “There is no bridge within ten miles, and nothing to flood the road but the Creek, which never was known to overflow its banks more than a few feet at most. The highway is far above the valley. You must have been a bit turned around.”
The young man laughed lightly:
“Well, perhaps I had a jag on. I'm not surprised. I'd been driving for hours and had to drink to keep my nerve till morning. There were some dandy spilling places around those mountain curves. One doesn't care to look out and see when one is driving at top speed.”
Heavens! What had he said now? The girl's eyes came round to look him over again and went through to his soul like a lightning flash and away again, and there was actually scorn on her lips. He must take another line. He couldn't understand this haughty country beauty in the least.
“I certainly did enjoy your music,” he flashed forth with a little of his own natural gaiety in his voice that made him so universal a favorite.
The girl turned gravely toward him and surveyed him once more as if she were surprised and perhaps had not done him justice. She looked like one who would always be willing to do one justice. He felt encouraged:
“If it hadn't been for this blamed foot of mine I'd have hobbled over to the—service. I was sorry not to hear the music closer.”
“There is another service this evening,” she said pleasantly, “Perhaps father can help you over. It is a rather good organ for so small a one.” She was trying to be polite to him. It put him on his metal. It made him remember how rude he had been to her father the night before.
“Delightful organ I'm sure,” he returned, “but it was the organist that I noticed. One doesn't often hear such playing even on a good organ.”
“Oh, I've been well taught,” said the girl without self-consciousness. “But the children are to sing this evening. You'll like to hear the children I'm sure. They are doing fairly well now.”
“Charmed, I'm sure,” he said with added flattery of his eyes which she did not take at all because she was passing her mother's plate for more gravy. How odd not to have a servant pass it!
“You come from New York?” the host hazarded.
“Yes,” drawled the youth, “Shafton's my name, Laurence Shafton, son of William J., of Shafton and Gates you know,” he added impressively.
The host was polite but unimpressed. It was almost as though he had never heard of William J. Shafton the multi-millionaire. Or was it? Dash the man, he had such a way with him of acting as though he knew everything andnothingimpressed him; as though he was just as good as the next one! As though his father was something even greater than a millionaire! He didn't seem to be in the least like Laurie's idea of a clergyman. He couldn't seem to get anywhere with him.
The talk drifted on at the table, ebbing and flowing about the two ladies as the tide touches a rising strand and runs away. The girl and her mother answered his questions with direct steady gaze, and polite phrases, but they did not gush nor have the attitude of taking him eagerly into their circle as he was accustomed to being taken in wherever he went. Nothing he said seemed to reach further than kindly hospitality. When that was fulfilled they were done and went back to their own interests.
Marilyn did not seem to consider the young man a guest of hers in any sense personally. After the dinner she moved quietly out to the porch and seated herself in a far chair with a leather bound book, perhaps a Bible, or prayer book. He wasn't very familiar with such things. She took a little gold pencil from a chain about her neck and made notes on a bit of paper from what she read, and she joined not at all in the conversation unless she was spoken to, and then her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. It was maddening.
Once when a tough looking little urchin went by with a grin she flew down off the porch to the gate to talk with him; she stood there some time in earnest converse. What could a girl like that find to say to a mere kid? When she came back there was a look of trouble in her eyes, and by and by her father asked if Harry had seenBilly,and she shook her head with a cloud on her brow. It must beBillythen. Billy was the one! Well, dash him! If he couldn't go one better than Billy he would see! Anyhow Billy didn't have a sprained ankle, and a place in the family! A girl like that was worth a few days' invalidism. His ankle didn't hurt much since the minister had dressed it again. He believed he could get up and walk if he liked, but he did not mean to. He meant to stay here a few days and conquer this young beauty. It was likely only her way of vamping a man, anyway, and a mighty tantalizing one at that. Well, he would show her! And he would show Billy, too, whoever Billy was! A girl like that! Why,—A girl like that with a face like that would grace any gathering, any home! He had the fineness of taste to realize that after he got done playing around with Opal and women like her, this would be a lady any one would be proud to settle down to. And why not? If he chose to fall in love with a country nobody, why could'nt he? What was the use of being Laurie Shafton, son of the great William J. Shafton, if he couldn't marry whom he would? Shafton would be enough to bring any girl up to par in any society in the universe. So Laurie Shafton set himself busily to be agreeable.
And presently his opportunity arrived. Mrs. Severn had gone in the house to take a nap, and the minister had been called away to see a sick man. The girl continued to study her little book:
“I wish you would come and amuse me,” he said in the voice of an interesting invalid.
The girl looked up and smiled absently:
“I'm sorry,” she said, “but I have to go to my Sunday-school class in a few minutes, and I was just getting my lesson ready. Would you like me to get you something to read?”
“No,” he answered crossly. He was not used to being crossed in any desire by a lady, “I want you to talk to me. Bother the Sunday-school! Give them a vacation to-day and let them go fishing. They'll be delighted, I'm sure. You have a wonderful foot. Do you know it? You must be a good dancer. Haven't you a victrola here? We might dance if only my foot weren't out of commission.”
“I don't dance, Mr. Shafton, and it is the Sabbath,” she smiled indulgently with her eyes on her book.
“Why don't you dance? I could teach you easily. And what has the Sabbath got to do with it?”
“But I don't care to dance. It doesn't appeal to me in the least. And the Sabbath has everything to do with it. If I did dance I would not do it to-day.”
“But why?” he asked in genuine wonder.
“Because this is the day set apart for enjoying God and not enjoying ourselves.”
He stared.
“You certainly are the most extraordinary young woman I ever met,” he said admiringly, “Did no one ever tell you that you are very beautiful.”
She gave him the benefit of her beautiful eyes then in a cold amused glance:
“Among my friends, Mr. Shafton, it is not considered good form to say such things to a lady of slight acquaintance.” She rose and gathered up her book and hat that lay on the floor beside her chair, and drew herself up till she seemed almost regal.
Laurie Shafton stumbled to his feet. He was ashamed. He felt almost as he had felt once when he was caught with a jag on being rude to a friend of his mother's:
“I beg your pardon,” he said gracefully, “I hope you will believe me, I meant no harm.”
“It is no matter,” said the girl graciously, “only I do not like it. Now you must excuse me. I see my class are gathering.”
She put the hat on carelessly, with a push and a pat and slipped past him down the steps and across the lawn. Her dress brushed against his foot as she went and it seemed like the touch of something ethereal. He never had felt such an experience before.
She walked swiftly to a group of boys, ugly, uncomely, overgrown kids, the same who had followed her after church, and met them with eagerness. He felt a jealous chagrin as he watched them follow her into the church, an anger that she dared to trample upon him that way, a fierce desire to get away and quaff the cup of admiration at the hand of some of his own friends, or to quaff some cup,anycup, for he was thirsty, thirsty,thirsty, and this was a dry and barren land. If he did stay and try to win this haughty country beauty he would have to find a secret source of supply somewhere or he never would be able to live through it.
The Sunday-school hour wore away while he was planning how to revenge himself, but she did not return. She lingered for a long time on the church steps talking with those everlasting kids again, and after they were gone she went back into the church and began to play low, sweet music.
It was growing late. Long red beams slanted down the village street across the lawn, lingered and went out. A single ruby burned on one of the memorial windows like a lamp, and went purple and then gray. It was growing dusk, and that girl played on! Dash it all! Why didn't she quit? It was wonderful music, but he wanted to talk to her. If he hobbled slowly could he get across that lawn? He decided to try. And then, just as he rose and steadied himself by the porch pillar, down the street in a whirl of dust and noisy claxon there came a great blue car and drew up sharp in front of the door, while a lute-like voice shouted gaily: “Laurie, Laurie Shafton, is that you?”