Hedrick Madison, like too many other people, had never thought seriously about the moon; nor ever had he encouraged it to become his familiar; and he underwent his first experience of its incomparable betrayals one brilliant night during the last week of that hot month. The preface to this romantic evening was substantial and prosaic: four times during dinner was he copiously replenished with hash, which occasioned so rich a surfeit within him that, upon the conclusion of the meal, he found himself in no condition to retort appropriately to a solicitous warning from Cora to keep away from the cat. Indeed, it was half an hour later, and he was sitting—to his own consciousness too heavily—upon the back fence, when belated inspiration arrived. But there is no sound where there is no ear to hear, and no repartee, alas! when the wretch who said the first part has gone, so that Cora remained unscathed as from his alley solitude Hedrick hurled in the teeth of the rising moon these bitter words:
“Oh, no;ourcat only eatssoftmeat!”
He renewed a morbid silence, and the moon, with its customary deliberation, swung clear of a sweeping branch of the big elm in the front yard and shone full upon him. Nothing warned the fated youth not to sit there; no shadow of imminent catastrophe tinted that brightness: no angel whisper came to him, bidding him begone—and to go in a hurry and as far as possible. No; he sat upon the fence an inoffensive lad, and—except for still feeling his hash somewhat, and a gradually dispersing rancour concerning the cat—at peace. It is for such lulled mortals that the ever-lurking Furies save their most hideous surprises.
Chin on palms, he looked idly at the moon, and the moon inscrutably returned his stare. Plausible, bright, bland, it gave no sign that it was at its awful work. For the bride of night is like a card-dealer whose fingers move so swiftly through the pack the trickery goes unseen.
This moon upon which he was placidly gazing, because he had nothing else to do, betokened nought to Hedrick: to him it was the moon of any other night, the old moon; certainly no moon of his delight. Withal, it may never be gazed upon so fixedly and so protractedly—no matter how languidly—with entire impunity. That light breeds a bug in the brain. Who can deny how the moon wrought this thing under the hair of unconscious Hedrick, or doubt its responsibility for the thing that happened?
“Little boy!”
It was a very soft, small voice, silky and queer; and at first Hedrick had little suspicion that it could be addressing him: the most rigid self-analysis could have revealed to him no possibility of his fitting so ignominious a description.
“Oh, little boy!”
He looked over his shoulder and saw, standing in the alley behind him, a girl of about his own age. She was daintily dressed and had beautiful hair which was all shining in pale gold.
“Little boy!”
She was smiling up at him, and once more she used that wantonly inaccurate vocative:
“Little boy!”
Hedrick grunted unencouragingly. “Who you callin’ `little boy’?”
For reply she began to climb the fence. It was high, but the young lady was astonishingly agile, and not even to be deterred by several faint wails from tearing and ripping fabrics—casualties which appeared to be entirely beneath her notice. Arriving at the top rather dishevelled, and with irregular pennons here and there flung to the breeze from her attire, she seated herself cosily beside the dumbfounded Hedrick.
She turned her face to him and smiled—and there was something about her smile which Hedrick did not like. It discomforted him; nothing more. In sunlight he would have had the better chance to comprehend; but, unhappily, this was moonshine.
“Kiss me, little boy!” she said.
“I won’t!” exclaimed the shocked and indignant Hedrick, edging uneasily away from her.
“Let’s play,” she said cheerfully.
“Play what?”
“I like chickens. Did you know I like chickens?”
The rather singular lack of connection in her remarks struck him as a misplaced effort at humour.
“You’re having lots of fun with me, aren’t you?” he growled.
She instantly moved close to him and lifted her face to his.
“Kiss me, darling little boy!” she said.
There was something more than uncommonly queer about this stranger, an unearthliness of which he was confusedly perceptive, but she was not without a curious kind of prettiness, and her pale gold hair was beautiful. The doomed lad saw the moon shining through it.
“Kiss me, darling little boy!” she repeated.
His head whirled; for the moment she seemed divine.
George Washington used profanity at the Battle of Monmouth. Hedrick kissed her.
He instantly pushed her away with strong distaste. “There!” he said angrily. “I hope that’ll satisfy you!” He belonged to his sex.
“Kiss me some more, darling little boy!” she cried, and flung her arms about him.
With a smothered shout of dismay he tried to push her off, and they fell from the fence together, into the yard, at the cost of further and almost fatal injuries to the lady’s apparel.
Hedrick was first upon his feet. “Haven’t you gotanysense?” he demanded.
She smiled unwaveringly, rose (without assistance) and repeated: “Kiss me some more, darling little boy!”
“No, I won’t! I wouldn’t for a thousand dollars!”
Apparently, she did not consider this discouraging. She began to advance endearingly, while he retreated backward. “Kiss me some——”
“I won’t, I tell you!” Hedrick kept stepping away, moving in a desperate circle. He resorted to a brutal formula: “You make me sick!”
“Kiss me some more, darling lit——”
“I won’t!” he bellowed. “And if you say that again I’ll——”
“Kiss me some more, darling little boy!” She flung herself at him, and with a yell of terror he turned and ran at top-speed.
She pursued, laughing sweetly, and calling loudly as she ran, “Kiss me some more, darling little boy! Kiss me some more, darling little boy!”
The stricken Hedrick knew not whither to direct his flight: he dared not dash for the street with this imminent tattered incubus—she was almost upon him—and he frantically made for the kitchen door, only to swerve with a gasp of despair as his foot touched the step, for she was at his heels, and he was sickeningly assured she would cheerfully follow him through the house, shouting that damning refrain for all ears. A strangling fear took him by the throat—if Cora should come to be a spectator of this unspeakable flight, if Cora should hear that horrid plea for love! Then farewell peace; indeed, farewell all joy in life forever!
Panting sobbingly, he ducked under the amorous vampire’s arm and fled on. He zigzagged desperately to and fro across the broad, empty backyard, a small hand ever and anon managing to clutch his shoulder, the awful petition in his ears:
“Kiss me some more, darling little boy!”
“Hedrick!”
Emerging from the kitchen door, Laura stood and gazed in wonder as the two eerie figures sped by her, circled, ducked, dodged, flew madly on. This commonplace purlieu was become the scene of a witch-chase; the moonlight fell upon the ghastly flitting face of the pursued, uplifted in agony, white, wet, with fay eyes; also it illumined the unreal elf following close, a breeze-blown fantasy in rags.
“Kiss me some more, darling little boy!”
Laura uttered a sharp exclamation. “Stand still, Hedrick!” she called. “You must!”
Hedrick made a piteous effort to increase his speed.
“It’s Lolita Martin,” called Laura. “She must have her way or nothing can be done with her. Standstill!”
Hedrick had never heard of Lolita Martin, but the added information concerning her was not ineffective: it operated as a spur; and Laura joined the hunt.
“Stand still!” she cried to the wretched quarry. “She’s run away. She must be taken home. Stop, Hedrick! Youmuststop!”
Hedrick had no intention of stopping, but Laura was a runner, and, as he dodged the other, caught and held him fast. The next instant, Lolita, laughing happily, flung her arms round his neck from behind.
“Lemme go!” shuddered Hedrick. “Lemme go!”
“Kiss me again, darl——”
“I—woof!” He became inarticulate.
“She isn’t quite right,” his sister whispered hurriedly in his ear. “She has spells when she’s weak mentally. You must be kind to her. She only wants you to——”
“`Only’!” he echoed hoarsely. “I won’t ki——” He was unable to finish the word.
“We must get her home,” said Laura anxiously. “Will you come with me, Lolita, dear?”
Apparently Lolita had no consciousness whatever of Laura’s presence. Instead of replying, she tightened her grasp upon Hedrick and warmly reiterated her request.
“Shut up, you parrot!” hissed the goaded boy.
“Perhaps she’ll go if you let her walk with her arms round your neck,” suggested Laura.
“If Iwhat?”
“Let’s try it. We’ve got to get her home; her mother must be frantic about her. Come, let’s see if she’ll go with us that way.”
With convincing earnestness, Hedrick refused to make the experiment until Laura suggested that he remain with Lolita while she summoned assistance; then, as no alternative appeared, his spirit broke utterly, and he consented to the trial, stipulating with a last burst of vehemence that the progress of the unthinkable pageant should be through the alley.
“Come, Lolita,” said Laura coaxingly. “We’re going for a nice walk.” At the adjective, Hedrick’s burdened shoulders were racked with a brief spasm, which recurred as his sister added: “Your darling little boy will let you keep hold of him.”
Lolita seemed content. Laughing gayly, she offered no opposition, but, maintaining her embrace with both arms and walking somewhat sidewise, went willingly enough; and the three slowly crossed the yard, passed through the empty stable and out into the alley. When they reached the cross-street at the alley’s upper end, Hedrick balked flatly.
Laura expostulated, then entreated. Hedrick refused with sincere loathing to be seen upon the street occupying his present position in the group. Laura assured him that there was no one to see; he replied that the moon was bright and the evening early; he would die, and readily, but he would not set foot in the street. Unfortunately, he had selected an unfavourable spot for argument: they were already within a yard or two of the street; and a strange boy, passing, stopped and observed, and whistled discourteously.
“Ain’t he the spooner!” remarked this unknown with hideous admiration.
“I’ll thank you,” returned Hedrick haughtily, “to go on about your own business.”
“Kiss me some more, darling little boy!” said Lolita.
The strange boy squawked, wailed, screamed with laughter, howled the loving petition in a dozen keys of mockery, while Hedrick writhed and Lolita clung. Enriched by a new and great experience, the torturer trotted on, leaving viperish cachinnations in his wake.
But the martyrdom was at an end. A woman, hurrying past, bareheaded, was greeted by a cry of delight from Lolita, who released Hedrick and ran to her with outstretched arms.
“We were bringing her home, Mrs. Martin,” said Laura, reassuringly. “She’s all right; nothing’s the matter except that her dress got torn. We found her playing in our yard.”
“I thank you a thousand times, Miss Madison,” cried Lolita’s mother, and flutteringly plunged into a description of her anxiety, her search for Lolita, and concluded with renewed expressions of gratitude for the child’s safe return, an outpouring of thankfulness and joy wholly incomprehensible to Hedrick.
“Not at all,” said Laura cheerfully. “Come, Hedrick. We’ll go home by the street, I think.” She touched his shoulder, and he went with her in stunned obedience. He was not able to face the incredible thing that had happened to him: he walked in a trance of horror.
“Poor little girl!” said Laura gently, with what seemed to her brother an indefensibly misplaced compassion. “Usually they have her live in an institution for people afflicted as she is, but they brought her home for a visit last week, I believe. Of course you didn’t understand, but I think you should have been more thoughtful. Really, you shouldn’t have flirted with her.”
Hedrick stopped short.
“`Flirted’!” His voice was beginning to show symptoms of changing, this year; it rose to a falsetto wail, flickered and went out.
With the departure of Lolita in safety, what had seemed bizarre and piteous became obscured, and another aspect of the adventure was presented to Laura. The sufferings of the arrogant are not wholly depressing to the spectator; and of arrogance Hedrick had ever been a master. She began to shake; a convulsion took her, and suddenly she sat upon the curbstone without dignity, and laughed as he had never seen her.
A horrid distrust of her rose within him: he began to realize in what plight he stood, what terrors o’erhung.
“Look here,” he said miserably, “are you—you aren’t—you don’t have to go and—andtalkabout this, do you?”
“No, Hedrick,” she responded, rising and controlling herself somewhat. “Not so long as you’re good.”
This was no reassuring answer.
“And politer to Cora,” she added.
Seemingly he heard the lash of a slave-whip crack in the air. The future grew dark.
“I know you’ll try”—she said; and the unhappy lad felt that her assurance was justified; but she had not concluded the sentence—“darling little boy,” she capped it, choking slightly.
“No other little girl ever fell in love with you, did there, Hedrick?” she asked, and, receiving an incoherent but furious reply, she was again overcome, so that she must lean against the fence to recover. “It seems—so—socurious,” she explained, gasping, “that the first one—the—the only one—should be an—a—an——” She was unable to continue.
Hedrick’s distrust became painfully increased: he began to feel that he disliked Laura.
She was still wiping her eyes and subject to recurrent outbursts when they reached their own abode; and as he bitterly flung himself into a chair upon the vacant front porch, he heard her stifling an attack as she mounted the stairs to her own room. He swung the chair about, with its back to the street, and sat facing the wall. He saw nothing. There are profundities in the abyss which reveal no glimpse of the sky.
Presently he heard his father coughing near by; and the sound was hateful, because it seemed secure and unshamed. It was a cough of moral superiority; and just then the son would have liked to believe that his parent’s boyhood had been one of degradation as complete as his own; but no one with this comfortable cough could ever have plumbed such depths: his imagination refused the picture he was bitterly certain that Mr. Madison had never kissed an idiot.
Hedrick had a dread that his father might speak to him; he was in no condition for light conversation. But Mr. Madison was unaware of his son’s near presence, and continued upon his purposeless way. He was smoking his one nightly cigar and enjoying the moonlight. He drifted out toward the sidewalk and was accosted by a passing acquaintance, a comfortable burgess of sixty, leading a child of six or seven, by the hand.
“Out taking the air, are you, Mr. Madison?” said the pedestrian, pausing.
“Yes; just trying to cool off,” returned the other. “How are you, Pryor, anyway? I haven’t seen you for a long time.”
“Not since last summer,” said Pryor. “I only get here once or twice a year, to see my married daughter. I always try to spend August with her if I can. She’s still living in that little house, over on the next street, I bought for her through your real-estate company. I suppose you’re still in the same business?”
“Yes. Pretty slack, these days.”
“I suppose so, I suppose so,” responded Mr. Pryor, nodding. “Summer, I suppose it usually is. Well, I don’t know when I’ll be going out on the road again myself. Business is pretty slack all over the country this year.”
“Let’s see—I’ve forgotten,” said Madison ruminatively. “You travel, don’t you?”
“For a New York house,” affirmed Mr. Pryor. He did not, however, mention his “line.” “Yes-sir,” he added, merely as a decoration, and then said briskly: “I see you have a fine family, Mr. Madison; yes-sir, a fine family; I’ve passed here several times lately and I’ve noticed ’em: fine family. Let’s see, you’ve got four, haven’t you?”
“Three,” said Madison. “Two girls and a boy.”
“Well, sir, that’s mighty nice,” observed Mr. Pryor; “mightynice! I only have my one daughter, and of course me living in New York when I’m at home, and her here, why, I don’t get to see much of her. You got both your daughters living with you, haven’t you?”
“Yes, right here at home.”
“Let’s see: neither of ’em’s married, I believe?”
“No; not yet.”
“Seems to me now,” said Pryor, taking off his glasses and wiping them, “seems to me I did hear somebody say one of ’em was going to be married engaged, maybe.”
“No,” said Madison. “Not that I know of.”
“Well, I suppose you’d be the first to know! Yes-sir.” And both men laughed their appreciation of this folly. “They’re mighty good-looking girls,that’scertain,” continued Mr. Pryor. “And one of ’em’s as fine a dresser as you’ll meet this side the Rue de la Paix.”
“You mean in Paris?” asked Madison, slightly surprised at this allusion. “You’ve been over there, Pryor?”
“Oh, sometimes,” was the response. “My business takes me over, now and then. Ithinkit’s one of your daughters I’ve noticed dresses so well. Isn’t one of ’em a mighty pretty girl about twenty-one or two, with a fine head of hair sort of lightish brown, beautiful figure, and carries a white parasol with a green lining sometimes?”
“Yes, that’s Cora, I guess.”
“Pretty name, too,” said Pryor approvingly. “Yes-sir. I saw her going into a florist’s, downtown, the other day, with a fine-looking young fellow—I can’t think of his name. Let’s see: my daughter was with me, and she’d heard his name—said his family used to be big people in this town and——”
“Oh,” said Madison, “young Corliss.”
“Corliss!” exclaimed Mr. Pryor, with satisfaction. “That’s it, Corliss. Well, sir,” he chuckled, “from the way he was looking at your Miss Cora it struck me he seemed kind of anxious for her name to be Corliss, too.”
“Well, hardly I expect,” said the other. “They just barely know each other: he’s only been here a few weeks; they haven’t had time to get much acquainted, you see.”
“I suppose not,” agreed Mr. Pryor, with perfect readiness. “I suppose not. I’ll bethetries all he can to get acquainted though; he looked pretty smart to me. Doesn’t he come about as often as the law allows?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Madison indifferently. “He doesn’t know many people about here any more, and it’s lonesome for him at the hotel. But I guess he comes to see the whole family; I left him in the library a little while ago, talking to my wife.”
“That’s the way! Get around the old folks first!” Mr. Pryor chuckled cordially; then in a mildly inquisitive tone he said: “Seems to be a fine, square young fellow, I expect?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Pretty name, `Cora’,” said Pryor.
“What’s this little girl’s name?” Mr. Madison indicated the child, who had stood with heroic patience throughout the incomprehensible dialogue.
“Lottie, for her mother. She’s a good little girl.”
“She isso! I’ve got a young son she ought to know,” remarked Mr. Madison serenely, with an elderly father’s total unconsciousness of the bridgeless gap between seven and thirteen. “He’d like to play with her. I’ll call him.”
“I expect we better be getting on,” said Pryor. “It’s near Lottie’s bedtime; we just came out for our evening walk.”
“Well, he can come and shake hands with her anyway,” urged Hedrick’s father. “Then they’ll know each other, and they can play some other time.” He turned toward the house and called loudly:
“Hedrick!”
There was no response. Behind the back of his chair Hedrick could not be seen. He was still sitting immovable, his eyes torpidly fixed upon the wall.
“Hed-rick!”
Silence.
“Oh,Hed-rick!” shouted his father. “Come out here! I want you to meet a little girl! Come and see a nice little girl!”
Mr. Pryor’s grandchild was denied the pleasure. At the ghastly words “little girl,” Hedrick dropped from his chair flat upon the floor, crawled to the end of the porch, wriggled through the railing, and immersed himself in deep shadow against the side of the house.
Here he removed his shoes, noiselessly mounted to the sill of one of the library windows, then reconnoitred through a slit in the blinds before entering.
The gas burned low in the “drop-light”—almost too dimly to reveal the two people upon a sofa across the room. It was a faint murmur from one of them that caused Hedrick to pause and peer more sharply. They were Cora and Corliss; he was bending close to her; her face was lifting to his.
“Ah, kiss me! Kiss me!” she whispered.
Hedrick dropped from the sill, climbed through a window of the kitchen, hurried up the back-stairs, and reached his own apartment in time to be violently ill in seclusion.
Villages are scattered plentifully over the unstable buttresses of Vesuvius, and the inhabitants sleep o’ nights: Why not? Quite unaware that he was much of their condition, Mr. Madison bade his incidental gossip and the tiny Lottie good-night, and sought his early bed. He maintained in good faith that Saturday night was “a great night to sleep,” because of the later hour for rising; probably having also some factitious conviction that there prevailed a hush preparative of the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, in summer, the other members of his family always looked uncommonly haggard at the Sunday breakfast-table. Accepting without question his preposterous legend of additional matutinal slumber, they postponed retiring to a late hour, and were awakened—simultaneously with thousands of fellow-sufferers—at about half-after five on Sunday morning, by a journalistic uprising. Over the town, in these early hours, rampaged the small vendors of the manifold sheets: local papers and papers from greater cities, hawker succeeding hawker with yell upon yell and brain-piercing shrillings in unbearable cadences. No good burgher ever complained: the people bore it, as in winter they bore the smoke that injured their health, ruined their linen, spoiled their complexions, forbade all hope of beauty and comfort in their city, and destroyed the sweetness of their homes and of their wives. It is an incredibly patient citizenry and exalts its persecutors.
Of the Madison family, Cora probably suffered most; and this was the time when it was no advantage to have the front bedroom. She had not slept until close upon dawn, and the hawkers woke her irreparably; she could but rage upon her hot pillow. By and by, there came a token that another anguish kept company with hers. She had left her door open for a better circulation of the warm and languid air, and from Hedrick’s room issued an “oof!” of agonized disgust. Cora little suspected that the youth reeked not of newsboys: Hedrick’s miseries were introspective.
The cries from the street were interminable; each howler in turn heard faintly in the distance, then in crescendo until he had passed and another succeeded him, and all the while Cora lay tossing and whispering between clenched teeth. Having ample reason, that morning, to prefer sleep to thinking, sleep was impossible. But she fought for it: she did not easily surrender what she wanted; and she struggled on, with closed eyes, long after she had heard the others go down to breakfast.
About a hundred yards from her windows, to the rear, were the open windows of a church which fronted the next street, and stood dos-a-dos to the dwelling of the Madisons. The Sunday-school hour had been advanced for the hot weather, and, partly on this account, and partly because of the summer absence of many families, the attendants were few. But the young voices were conducted, rather than accompanied, in pious melody by a cornetist who worthily thought to amend, in his single person, what lack of volume this paucity occasioned. He was a slender young man in hot black clothes; he wore the unfacaded collar fatally and unanimously adopted by all adam’s-apple men of morals; he was washed, fair, flat-skulled, clean-minded, and industrious; and the only noise of any kind he ever made in the world was on Sunday.
“Prashus joowuls, sweet joowuls,theejams off iz crowowun,” sang the little voices feebly. They were almost unheard; but the young man helped them out: figuratively, he put them out. And the cornet was heard: it was heard for blocks and blocks; it was heard over all that part of the town—in the vicinity of the church it was the only thing that could be heard. In his daily walk this cornetist had no enemies: he was kind-hearted; he would not have shot a mad dog; he gladly nursed the sick. He sat upon the platform before the children; he swelled, perspired and blew, and felt that it was a good blowing. If other thoughts vapoured upon the borders of his mind, they were of the dinner he would eat, soon after noon, at the house of one of the frilled, white-muslin teachers. He was serene. His eyes were not blasted; his heart was not instantly withered; his thin, bluish hair did not fall from his head; his limbs were not detached from his torso—yet these misfortunes had been desired for him, with comprehension and sincerity, at the first flat blat of his brassy horn.
It is impossible to imagine the state of mind of this young cornetist, could he have known that he had caused the prettiest girl in town to jump violently out of bed with what petitions upon her lips regarding his present whereabouts and future detention! It happened that during the course of his Sunday walk on Corliss Street, that very afternoon, he saw her—was hard-smitten by her beauty, and for weeks thereafter laid unsuccessful plans to “meet” her. Her image was imprinted: he talked about her to his boarding-house friends and office acquaintances, his favourite description being, “the sweetest-looking lady I ever laid eyes on.”
Cora, descending to the breakfast-table rather white herself, was not unpleasantly shocked by the haggard aspect of Hedrick, who, with Laura and Mrs. Madison, still lingered.
“Good-morning, Cora,” he said politely, and while she stared, in suspicious surprise, he passed her a plate of toast with ostentatious courtesy; but before she could take one of the slices, “Wait,” he said; “it’s very nice toast, but I’m afraid it isn’t hot. I’ll take it to the kitchen and have it warmed for you.” And he took the plate and went out, walking softly.
Cora turned to her mother, appalled. “He’ll be sick!” she said.
Mrs. Madison shook her head and smiled sadly.
“He helped to wait on all of us: he must have been doing something awful.”
“More likely he wants permission to do something awful.”
Laura looked out of the window.
“There, Cora,” said Hedrick kindly, when he brought the toast; “you’ll find that nice and hot.”
She regarded him steadfastly, but with modesty he avoided her eye. “You wouldn’t make such a radical change in your nature, Hedrick,” she said, with a puzzled frown, “just to get out of going to church, would you?”
“I don’t want to get out of going to church,” he said. He gulped slightly. “I like church.”
And church-time found him marching decorously beside his father, the three ladies forming a rear rank; a small company in the very thin procession of fanning women and mopping men whose destination was the gray stone church at the foot of Corliss Street. The locusts railed overhead: Hedrick looked neither to the right nor to the left.
They passed a club, of which a lower window was vacated simultaneously with their coming into view; and a small but ornate figure in pale gray crash hurried down the steps and attached itself to the second row of Madisons. “Good-morning,” said Mr. Wade Trumble. “Thought I’d take a look-in at church this morning myself.”
Care of this encumbrance was usually expected of Laura and Mrs. Madison, but to their surprise Cora offered a sprightly rejoinder and presently dropped behind them with Mr. Trumble. Mr. Trumble was also surprised and, as naively, pleased.
“What’s happened?” he asked with cheerful frankness. “You haven’t given me a chance to talk to you for a long while.”
“Haven’t I?” she smiled enigmatically. “I don’t think you’ve tried very hard.”
This was too careless; it did not quite serve, even for Trumble. “What’s up?” he asked, not without shrewdness. “Is Richard Lindley out of town?”
“I don’t know.”
“I see. Perhaps it’s this new chap, Corliss? Has he left?”
“What nonsense! What have they got to do with my being nice to you?” She gave him a dangerous smile, and it wrought upon him visibly.
“Don’t you ever be nice to me unless you mean it,” he said feebly.
Cora looked grave and sweet; she seemed mysteriously moved. “I never do anything I don’t mean,” she said in a low voice which thrilled the little man. This was machine-work, easy and accurate.
“Cora——” he began, breathlessly.
“There!” she exclaimed, shifting on the instant to a lively brusqueness. “That’s enough for you justnow. We’re on our way to church!”
Trumble felt almost that she had accepted him.
“Have you got your penny for the contribution box?” she smiled. “I suppose you really give a great deal to the church. I hear you’re richer and richer.”
“I do pretty well,” he returned, coolly. “You can know just how well, if you like.”
“Not on Sunday,” she laughed; then went on, admiringly, “I hear you’re very dashing in your speculations.”
“Then you’ve heard wrong, because I don’t speculate,” he returned. “I’m not a gambler—except on certainties. I guess I disappointed a friend of yours the other day because I wouldn’t back him on a thousand-to-one shot.”
“Who was that?” she asked, with an expression entirely veiled.
“Corliss. He came to see me; wanted me to put real money into an oil scheme. Too thin!”
“Why is it `too thin’?” she asked carelessly.
“Too far away, for one thing—somewhere in Italy. Anybody who put up his cash would have to do it on Corliss’s bare word that he’s struck oil.”
“Well?” She turned her face to him, and a faint perturbation was manifest in her tone. “Isn’t Mr. Corliss’s `bare word’ supposed to be perfectly good?”
“Oh, I suppose so, but I don’t know. He isn’t known here: nobody really knows anything about him except that he was born here. Besides, I wouldn’t make an investment on my own father’s bare word, if he happened to be alive.”
“Perhaps not!” Cora spoke impulsively, a sudden anger getting the better of her, but she controlled it immediately. “Of course I don’t mean that,” she laughed, sweetly. “ButIhappen to think Mr. Corliss’s scheme a very handsome one, and I want my friends to make their fortunes, of course. Richard Lindley and papa are going into it.”
“I’ll bet they don’t,” said Trumble promptly. “Lindley told me he’d looked it over and couldn’t see his way to.”
“He did?” Cora stiffened perceptibly and bit her lip.
Trumble began to laugh. “This is funny: you trying to talk business! So Corliss has been telling you about it?”
“Yes, he has; and I understand it perfectly. I think there’s an enormous fortune in it, and you’d better not laugh at me: a woman’s instinct about such things is better than a man’s experience sometimes.”
“You’ll find neither Lindley nor your father are going to think so,” he returned skeptically.
She gave him a deep, sweet look. “But I mustn’t be disappointed in you,” she said, with the suggestion of a tremor in her voice, “whatevertheydo! You’ll take my advice, won’t you—Wade?”
“I’ll take your advice in anything but business.” He shook his head ominously.
“And wouldn’t you take my advice in business,”—she asked very slowly and significantly—“underanycircumstances?”
“You mean,” he said huskily, “if you were my wife?”
She looked away, and slightly inclined her head. “No,” he answered doggedly, “I wouldn’t. You know mighty well that’s what I want you to be, and I’d give my soul for the tip of your shoe, but business is an entirely different matter, and I——”
“Wade!” she said, with wonderful and thrilling sweetness. They had reached the church; Hedrick and his father had entered; Mrs. Madison and Laura were waiting on the steps. Cora and Trumble came to a stop some yards away. “Wade, I—Iwantyou to go into this.”
“Can’t do it,” he said stubbornly. “If you ever make up your mind to marry me, I’ll spend all the money you like onyou, but you’ll have to keep to the woman’s side of the house.”
“You make it pretty hard for me to be nice to you,” she returned, and the tremor now more evident in her voice was perfectly genuine. “You positively refuse to do this—for me?”
“Yes I do. I wouldn’t buy sight-unseen to please God ‘lmighty, Cora Madison.” He looked at her shrewdly, struck by a sudden thought. “Did Corliss ask you to try and get me in?”
“He did not,” she responded, icily. “Your refusal is final?”
“Certainly!” He struck the pavement a smart rap with his walking-stick. “By George, I believe hedidask you! That spoils church for me this morning; I’ll not go in. When you quit playing games, let me know. You needn’t try to work me any more, because I won’t stand for it, but if you ever get tired of playing, come and tell me so.” He uttered a bark of rueful laughter. “Ha! I must say that gentleman has an interesting way of combining business with pleasure!”
Under favourable circumstances the blow Cora dealt him might have been physically more violent. “Good-morning,” she laughed, gayly. “I’m not bothering much about Mr. Corliss’s oil in Italy. I had a bet with Laura I could keep you from saying `I beg to differ,’ or talking about the weather for five minutes. She’ll have to pay me!”
Then, still laughing, she lowered her parasol, and with superb impudence, brushed it smartly across his face; turned on her heel, and, red with fury, joined her mother and sister, and went into the church.
The service failed to occupy her attention: she had much in her thoughts to distract her. Nevertheless, she bestowed some wonderment upon the devotion with which her brother observed each ceremonial rite. He joined in prayer with real fervour; he sang earnestly and loudly; a great appeal sounded in his changing voice; and during the sermon he sat with his eyes upon the minister in a stricken fixity. All this was so remarkable that Cora could not choose but ponder upon it, and, observing Hedrick furtively, she caught, if not a clue itself, at least a glimpse of one. She saw Laura’s clear profile becoming subtly agitated; then noticed a shimmer of Laura’s dark eye as it wandered to Hedrick and so swiftly away it seemed not to dare to remain. Cora was quick: she perceived that Laura was repressing a constant desire to laugh and that she feared to look at Hedrick lest it overwhelm her. So Laura knew what had wrought the miracle. Cora made up her mind to explore this secret passage.
When the service was over and the people were placidly buzzing their way up the aisles, Cora felt herself drawn to look across the church, and following the telepathic impulse, turned her head to encounter the gaze of Ray Vilas. He was ascending the opposite aisle, walking beside Richard Lindley. He looked less pale than usual, though his thinness was so extreme it was like emaciation; but his eyes were clear and quiet, and the look he gave her was strangely gentle. Cora frowned and turned away her head with an air of annoyance. They came near each other in the convergence at the doors; but he made no effort to address her, and, moving away through the crowd as quickly as possible, disappeared.
Valentine Corliss was disclosed in the vestibule. He reached her an instant in advance of Mr. Lindley, who had suffered himself to be impeded; and Cora quickly handed the former her parasol, lightly taking his arm. Thus the slow Richard found himself walking beside Laura in a scattered group, its detached portion consisting of his near-betrothed and Corliss; for although the dexterous pair were first to leave the church, they contrived to be passed almost at once, and, assuming the position of trailers, lagged far behind on the homeward way.
Laura and Richard walked in the unmitigated glare of the sun; he had taken her black umbrella and conscientiously held it aloft, but over nobody. They walked in silence: they were quiet people, both of them; and Richard, not “talkative” under any circumstances, never had anything whatever to say to Laura Madison. He had known her for many years, ever since her childhood; seldom indeed formulating or expressing a definite thought about her, though sometimes it was vaguely of his consciousness that she played the piano nicely, and even then her music had taken its place as but a colour of Cora’s background. For to him, as to every one else (including Laura), Laura was in nothing her sister’s competitor. She was a neutral-tinted figure, taken-for-granted, obscured, and so near being nobody at all, that, as Richard Lindley walked beside her this morning, he glanced back at the lagging couple and uttered a long and almost sonorous sigh, which he would have been ashamed for anybody to hear; and then actually proceeded on his way without the slightest realization that anybody had heard it.
She understood. And she did not disturb the trance; she did nothing to make him observe that she was there. She walked on with head, shoulders, and back scorching in the fierce sun, and allowed him to continue shading the pavement before them with her umbrella. When they reached the house she gently took the umbrella from him and thanked him; and he mechanically raised his hat.
They had walked more than a mile together; he had not spoken a word, and he did not even know it.