"Where's Mr. Hawker this morning?" asked the younger Miss Worcester. "I thought he was coming up to play tennis?"
"I don't know. Confound him! I don't see why he didn't come," said Hollanden, looking across the shining valley. He frowned questioningly at the landscape. "I wonder where in the mischief he is?"
The Worcester girls began also to stare at the great gleaming stretch of green and gold. "Didn't he tell you he was coming?" they demanded.
"He didn't say a word about it," answered Hollanden. "I supposed, of course, he was coming. We will have to postpone themêlée."
Later he met Miss Fanhall. "You look as if you were going for a walk?"
"I am," she said, swinging her parasol. "To meet the stage. Have you seen Mr. Hawker to-day?"
"No," he said. "He is not coming up this morning. He is in a great fret about that field of stubble, and I suppose he is down there sketching the life out of it. These artists—they take such a fiendish interest in their work. I dare say we won't see much of him until he has finished it. Where did you say you were going to walk?"
"To meet the stage."
"Oh, well, I won't have to play tennis for an hour, and if you insist——"
"Of course."
As they strolled slowly in the shade of the trees Hollanden began, "Isn't that Hawker an ill-bred old thing?"
"No, he is not." Then after a time she said, "Why?"
"Oh, he gets so absorbed in a beastly smudge of paint that I really suppose he cares nothing for anything else in the world. Men who are really artists—I don't believe they are capable of deep human affections. So much of them is occupied by art. There's not much left over, you see."
"I don't believe it at all," she exclaimed.
"You don't, eh?" cried Hollanden scornfully. "Well, let me tell you, young woman, there is a great deal of truth in it. Now, there's Hawker—as good a fellow as ever lived, too, in a way, and yet he's an artist. Why, look how he treats—look how he treats that poor setter dog!"
"Why, he's as kind to him as he can be," she declared.
"And I tell you he is not!" cried Hollanden.
"He is, Hollie. You—you are unspeakable when you get in these moods."
"There—that's just you in an argument. I'm not in a mood at all. Now, look—the dog loves him with simple, unquestioning devotion that fairly brings tears to one's eyes——"
"Yes," she said.
"And he—why, he's as cold and stern——"
"He isn't. He isn't, Holly. You are awf'ly unfair."
"No, I'm not. I am simply a liberal observer. And Hawker, with his people, too," he went on darkly; "you can't tell—you don't know anything about it—but I tell you that what I have seen proves my assertionthat the artistic mind has no space left for the human affections. And as for the dog——"
"I thought you were his friend, Hollie?"
"Whose?"
"No, not the dog's. And yet you—really, Hollie, there is something unnatural in you. You are so stupidly keen in looking at people that you do not possess common loyalty to your friends. It is because you are a writer, I suppose. That has to explain so many things. Some of your traits are very disagreeable."
"There! there!" plaintively cried Hollanden. "This is only about the treatment of a dog, mind you. Goodness, what an oration!"
"It wasn't about the treatment of a dog. It was about your treatment of your friends."
"Well," he said sagely, "it only goes to show that there is nothing impersonal in the mind of a woman. I undertook to discuss broadly——
"Oh, Hollie!"
"At any rate, it was rather below you to do such scoffing at me."
"Well, I didn't mean—not all of it, Hollie."
"Well, I didn't mean what I said about the dog and all that, either."
"You didn't?" She turned toward him, large-eyed.
"No. Not a single word of it."
"Well, what did you say it for, then?" she demanded indignantly.
"I said it," answered Hollanden placidly, "just to tease you." He looked abstractedly up to the trees.
Presently she said slowly, "Just to tease me?"
At this time Hollanden wore an unmistakable air of having a desire to turn up his coat collar. "Oh, come now——" he began nervously.
"George Hollanden," said the voice at his shoulder, "you are not only disagreeable, but you are hopelessly ridiculous. I—I wish you would never speak to me again!"
"Oh, come now, Grace, don't—don't—— Look! There's the stage coming, isn't it?"
"No, the stage is not coming. I wish—I wish you were at the bottom of the sea, George Hollanden. And—and Mr. Hawker, too. There!"
"Oh, bless my soul! And all about an infernal dog," wailed Hollanden. "Look! Honest, now, there's the stage. See it? See it?"
"It isn't there at all," she said.
Gradually he seemed to recover his courage. "What made you so tremendously angry? I don't see why."
After consideration, she said decisively, "Well, because."
"That's why I teased you," he rejoined.
"Well, because—because——"
"Go on," he told her finally. "You are doing very well." He waited patiently.
"Well," she said, "it is dreadful to defend somebody so—so excitedly, and then have it turned out just a tease. I don't know what he would think."
"Who would think?"
"Why—he."
"What could he think? Now, what could he think? Why," said Hollanden, waxing eloquent, "he couldn't under any circumstances think—think anything at all. Now, could he?"
She made no reply.
"Could he?"
She was apparently reflecting.
"Under any circumstances," persisted Hollanden, "he couldn't think anything at all. Now, could he?"
"No," she said.
"Well, why are you angry at me, then?"
"John," said the old mother, from the profound mufflings of the pillow and quilts.
"What?" said the old man. He was tugging at his right boot, and his tone was very irascible.
"I think William's changed a good deal."
"Well, what if he has?" replied the father, in another burst of ill-temper. He was then tugging at his left boot.
"Yes, I'm afraid he's changed a good deal," said the muffled voice from the bed. "He's got a good many fine friends, now, John—folks what put on a good many airs; and he don't care for his home like he did."
"Oh, well, I don't guess he's changed very much," said the old man cheerfully. He was now free of both boots.
She raised herself on an elbow and looked out with a troubled face. "John, I think he likes that girl."
"What girl?" said he.
"What girl? Why, that awful handsome girl you see around—of course."
"Do you think he likes 'er?"
"I'm afraid so—I'm afraid so," murmured the mother mournfully.
"Oh, well," said the old man, without alarm, or grief, or pleasure in his tone.
He turned the lamp's wick very low and carried the lamp to the head of the stairs, where he perched it on the step. When he returned he said, "She's mighty good-look-in'!"
"Well, that ain't everything," she snapped. "How do we know she ain't proud, and selfish, and—everything?"
"How do you know she is?" returned the old man.
"And she may just be leading him on."
"Do him good, then," said he, with impregnable serenity. "Next time he'll know better."
"Well, I'm worried about it," she said, as she sank back on the pillow again. "I think William's changed a good deal. He don't seem to care about—us—like he did."
"Oh, go to sleep!" said the father drowsily.
She was silent for a time, and then she said, "John?"
"What?"
"Do you think I better speak to him about that girl?"
"No."
She grew silent again, but at last she demanded, "Why not?"
"'Cause it's none of your business. Go to sleep, will you?" And presently he did, but the old mother lay blinking wild-eyed into the darkness.
In the morning Hawker did not appear at the early breakfast, eaten when the blue glow of dawn shed its ghostly lights upon the valley. The old mother placed various dishes on the back part of the stove. At ten o'clock he came downstairs. His mother was sweeping busily in the parlour at the time, but she saw him and ran to the back part of the stove. She slid the various dishes on to the table. "Did you oversleep?" she asked.
"Yes. I don't feel very well this morning," he said. He pulled his chair close to the table and sat there staring.
She renewed her sweeping in the parlour. When she returned he sat still staring undeviatingly at nothing.
"Why don't you eat your breakfast?" she said anxiously.
"I tell you, mother, I don't feel very well this morning," he answered quite sharply.
"Well," she said meekly, "drink some coffee and you'll feel better."
Afterward he took his painting machinery and left the house. His younger sister was at the well. She looked at him with a little smile and a little sneer. "Going up to the inn this morning?" she said.
"I don't see how that concerns you, Mary?" he rejoined, with dignity.
"Oh, my!" she said airily.
"But since you are so interested, I don't mind telling you that I'm not going up to the inn this morning."
His sister fixed him with her eye. "She ain't mad at you, is she, Will?"
"I don't know what you mean, Mary." He glared hatefully at her and strode away.
Stanley saw him going through the fieldsand leaped a fence jubilantly in pursuit. In a wood the light sifted through the foliage and burned with a peculiar reddish lustre on the masses of dead leaves. He frowned at it for a while from different points. Presently he erected his easel and began to paint. After a a time he threw down his brush and swore. Stanley, who had been solemnly staring at the scene as if he too was sketching it, looked up in surprise.
In wandering aimlessly through the fields and the forest Hawker once found himself near the road to Hemlock Inn. He shied away from it quickly as if it were a great snake.
While most of the family were at supper, Mary, the younger sister, came charging breathlessly into the kitchen. "Ma—sister," she cried, "I know why—why Will didn't go to the inn to-day. There's another fellow come. Another fellow."
"Who? Where? What do you mean?" exclaimed her mother and her sister.
"Why, another fellow up at the inn," she shouted, triumphant in her information. "Another fellow come up on the stage thismorning. And she went out driving with him this afternoon."
"Well," exclaimed her mother and her sister.
"Yep. And he's an awful good-looking fellow, too. And she—oh, my—she looked as if she thought the world and all of him."
"Well," exclaimed her mother and her sister again.
"Sho!" said the old man. "You wimen leave William alone and quit your gabbling."
The three women made a combined assault upon him. "Well, we ain't a-hurting him, are we, pa? You needn't be so snifty. I guess we ain't a-hurting him much."
"Well," said the old man. And to this argument he added, "Sho!"
They kept him out of the subsequent consultations.
The next day, as little Roger was going toward the tennis court, a large orange and white setter ran effusively from around the corner of the inn and greeted him. Miss Fanhall, the Worcester girls, Hollanden, and Oglethorpe faced to the front like soldiers. Hollanden cried, "Why, Billie Hawker must be coming!" Hawker at that moment appeared, coming toward them with a smile which was not overconfident.
Little Roger went off to perform some festivities of his own on the brown carpet under a clump of pines. The dog, to join him, felt obliged to circle widely about the tennis court. He was much afraid of this tennis court, with its tiny round things that sometimes hit him. When near it he usually slunk along at a little sheep trot and with an eye of wariness upon it.
At her first opportunity the younger Worcester girl said, "You didn't come up yesterday, Mr. Hawker."
Hollanden seemed to think that Miss Fanhall turned her head as if she wished to hear the explanation of the painter's absence, so he engaged her in swift and fierce conversation.
"No," said Hawker. "I was resolved to finish a sketch of a stubble field which I began a good many days ago. You see, I was going to do such a great lot of work this summer, and I've done hardly a thing. I really ought to compel myself to do some, you know."
"There," said Hollanden, with a victorious nod, "just what I told you!"
"You didn't tell us anything of the kind," retorted the Worcester girls with one voice.
A middle-aged woman came upon the porch of the inn, and after scanning for a moment the group at the tennis court she hurriedly withdrew. Presently she appeared again, accompanied by five more middle-aged women. "You see," she said to the others, "it is as I said. He has come back."
The five surveyed the group at the tennis court, and then said: "So he has. I knew he would. Well, I declare! Did you ever?"Their voices were pitched at low keys and they moved with care, but their smiles were broad and full of a strange glee.
"I wonder how he feels," said one in subtle ecstasy.
Another laughed. "You know how you would feel, my dear, if you were him and saw yourself suddenly cut out by a man who was so hopelessly superior to you. Why, Oglethorpe's a thousand times better looking. And then think of his wealth and social position!"
One whispered dramatically, "They say he never came up here at all yesterday."
Another replied: "No more he did. That's what we've been talking about. Stayed down at the farm all day, poor fellow!"
"Do you really think she cares for Oglethorpe?"
"Care for him? Why, of course she does. Why, when they came up the path yesterday morning I never saw a girl's face so bright. I asked my husband how much of the Chambers Street Bank stock Oglethorpe owned, and he said that if Oglethorpe took his money out there wouldn't be enough left to buy a pie."
The youngest woman in the corps said: "Well, I don't care. I think it is too bad. I don't see anything so much in that Mr. Oglethorpe."
The others at once patronized her. "Oh, you don't, my dear? Well, let me tell you that bank stock waves in the air like a banner. You would see it if you were her."
"Well, she don't have to care for his money."
"Oh, no, of course she don't have to. But they are just the ones that do, my dear. They are just the ones that do."
"Well, it's a shame."
"Oh, of course it's a shame."
The woman who had assembled the corps said to one at her side: "Oh, the commonest kind of people, my dear, the commonest kind. The father is a regular farmer, you know. He drives oxen. Such language! You can really hear him miles away bellowing at those oxen. And the girls are shy, half-wild things—oh, you have no idea! I saw one of them yesterday when we were out driving. She dodged as we came along, for I suppose she was ashamed of her frock, poor child! Andthe mother—well, I wish you could see her! A little, old, dried-up thing. We saw her carrying a pail of water from the well, and, oh, she bent and staggered dreadfully, poor thing!"
"And the gate to their front yard, it has a broken hinge, you know. Of course, that's an awful bad sign. When people let their front gate hang on one hinge you know what that means."
After gazing again at the group at the court, the youngest member of the corps said, "Well, he's a good tennis player anyhow."
The others smiled indulgently. "Oh, yes, my dear, he's a good tennis player."
One day Hollanden said, in greeting, to Hawker, "Well, he's gone."
"Who?" asked Hawker.
"Why, Oglethorpe, of course. Who did you think I meant?"
"How did I know?" said Hawker angrily.
"Well," retorted Hollanden, "your chief interest was in his movements, I thought."
"Why, of course not, hang you! Why should I be interested in his movements?"
"Well, you weren't, then. Does that suit you?"
After a period of silence Hawker asked, "What did he—what made him go?"
"Who?"
"Why—Oglethorpe."
"How was I to know you meant him? Well, he went because some important business affairs in New York demanded it, he said;but he is coming back again in a week. They had rather a late interview on the porch last evening."
"Indeed," said Hawker stiffly.
"Yes, and he went away this morning looking particularly elated. Aren't you glad?"
"I don't see how it concerns me," said Hawker, with still greater stiffness.
In a walk to the lake that afternoon Hawker and Miss Fanhall found themselves side by side and silent. The girl contemplated the distant purple hills as if Hawker were not at her side and silent. Hawker frowned at the roadway. Stanley, the setter, scouted the fields in a genial gallop.
At last the girl turned to him. "Seems to me," she said, "seems to me you are dreadfully quiet this afternoon."
"I am thinking about my wretched field of stubble," he answered, still frowning.
Her parasol swung about until the girl was looking up at his inscrutable profile. "Is it, then, so important that you haven't time to talk to me?" she asked with an air of what might have been timidity.
A smile swept the scowl from his face. "No, indeed," he said, instantly; "nothing is so important as that."
She seemed aggrieved then. "Hum—you didn't look so," she told him.
"Well, I didn't mean to look any other way," he said contritely. "You know what a bear I am sometimes. Hollanden says it is a fixed scowl from trying to see uproarious pinks, yellows, and blues."
A little brook, a brawling, ruffianly little brook, swaggered from side to side down the glade, swirling in white leaps over the great dark rocks and shouting challenge to the hillsides. Hollanden and the Worcester girls had halted in a place of ferns and wet moss. Their voices could be heard quarrelling above the clamour of the stream. Stanley, the setter, had sousled himself in a pool and then gone and rolled in the dust of the road. He blissfully lolled there, with his coat now resembling an old door mat.
"Don't you think Jem is a wonderfully good fellow?" said the girl to the painter.
"Why, yes, of course," said Hawker.
"Well, he is," she retorted, suddenly defensive.
"Of course," he repeated loudly.
She said, "Well, I don't think you like him as well as I like him."
"Certainly not," said Hawker.
"You don't?" She looked at him in a kind of astonishment.
"Certainly not," said Hawker again, and very irritably. "How in the wide world do you expect me to like him as well as you like him?"
"I don't mean as well," she explained.
"Oh!" said Hawker.
"But I mean you don't like him the way I do at all—the way I expected you to like him. I thought men of a certain pattern always fancied their kind of men wherever they met them, don't you know? And I was so sure you and Jem would be friends."
"Oh!" cried Hawker. Presently he added, "But he isn't my kind of a man at all."
"He is. Jem is one of the best fellows in the world."
Again Hawker cried "Oh!"
They paused and looked down at thebrook. Stanley sprawled panting in the dust and watched them. Hawker leaned against a hemlock. He sighed and frowned, and then finally coughed with great resolution. "I suppose, of course, that I am unjust to him. I care for you myself, you understand, and so it becomes——"
He paused for a moment because he heard a rustling of her skirts as if she had moved suddenly. Then he continued: "And so it becomes difficult for me to be fair to him. I am not able to see him with a true eye." He bitterly addressed the trees on the opposite side of the glen. "Oh, I care for you, of course. You might have expected it." He turned from the trees and strode toward the roadway. The uninformed and disreputable Stanley arose and wagged his tail.
As if the girl had cried out at a calamity, Hawker said again, "Well, you might have expected it."
At the lake, Hollanden went pickerel fishing, lost his hook in a gaunt, gray stump, and earned much distinction by his skill in discovering words to express his emotion without resorting to the list ordinarily used in such cases. The younger Miss Worcester ruined a new pair of boots, and Stanley sat on the bank and howled the song of the forsaken. At the conclusion of the festivities Hollanden said, "Billie, you ought to take the boat back."
"Why had I? You borrowed it."
"Well, I borrowed it and it was a lot of trouble, and now you ought to take it back."
Ultimately Hawker said, "Oh, let's both go!"
On this journey Hawker made a long speech to his friend, and at the end of it he exclaimed: "And now do you think she cares so much for Oglethorpe? Why, she as goodas told me that he was only a very great friend."
Hollanden wagged his head dubiously. "What a woman says doesn't amount to shucks. It's the way she says it—that's what counts. Besides," he cried in a brilliant afterthought, "she wouldn't tell you, anyhow, you fool!"
"You're an encouraging brute," said Hawker, with a rueful grin.
Later the Worcester girls seized upon Hollanden and piled him high with ferns and mosses. They dragged the long gray lichens from the chins of venerable pines, and ran with them to Hollanden, and dashed them into his arms. "Oh, hurry up, Hollie!" they cried, because with his great load he frequently fell behind them in the march. He once positively refused to carry these things another step. Some distance farther on the road he positively refused to carry this old truck another step. When almost to the inn he positively refused to carry this senseless rubbish another step. The Worcester girls had such vivid contempt for his expressed unwillingness that they neglected to tell himof any appreciation they might have had for his noble struggle.
As Hawker and Miss Fanhall proceeded slowly they heard a voice ringing through the foliage: "Whoa! Haw! Git-ap, blast you! Haw! Haw, drat your hides! Will you haw? Git-ap! Gee! Whoa!"
Hawker said, "The others are a good ways ahead. Hadn't we better hurry a little?"
The girl obediently mended her pace.
"Whoa! haw! git-ap!" shouted the voice in the distance. "Git over there, Red, git over! Gee! Git-ap!" And these cries pursued the man and the maid.
At last Hawker said, "That's my father."
"Where?" she asked, looking bewildered.
"Back there, driving those oxen."
The voice shouted: "Whoa! Git-ap! Gee! Red, git over there now, will you? I'll trim the shin off'n you in a minute. Whoa! Haw! Haw! Whoa! Git-ap!"
Hawker repeated, "Yes, that's my father."
"Oh, is it?" she said. "Let's wait for him."
"All right," said Hawker sullenly.
Presently a team of oxen waddled into view around the curve of the road. They swung their heads slowly from side to side, bent under the yoke, and looked out at the world with their great eyes, in which was a mystic note of their humble, submissive, toilsome lives. An old wagon creaked after them, and erect upon it was the tall and tattered figure of the farmer swinging his whip and yelling: "Whoa! Haw there! Git-ap!" The lash flicked and flew over the broad backs of the animals.
"Hello, father!" said Hawker.
"Whoa! Back! Whoa! Why, hello, William, what you doing here?"
"Oh, just taking a walk. Miss Fanhall, this is my father. Father——"
"How d' you do?" The old man balanced himself with care and then raised his straw hat from his head with a quick gesture and with what was perhaps a slightly apologetic air, as if he feared that he was rather over-doing the ceremonial part.
The girl later became very intent upon the oxen. "Aren't they nice old things?" she said, as she stood looking into the faces ofthe team. "But what makes their eyes so very sad?"
"I dunno," said the old man.
She was apparently unable to resist a desire to pat the nose of the nearest ox, and for that purpose she stretched forth a cautious hand. But the ox moved restlessly at the moment and the girl put her hand apprehensively behind herself and backed away. The old man on the wagon grinned. "They won't hurt you," he told her.
"They won't bite, will they?" she asked, casting a glance of inquiry at the old man and then turning her eyes again upon the fascinating animals.
"No," said the old man, still grinning, "just as gentle as kittens."
She approached them circuitously. "Sure?" she said.
"Sure," replied the old man. He climbed from the wagon and came to the heads of the oxen. With him as an ally, she finally succeeded in patting the nose of the nearest ox. "Aren't they solemn, kind old fellows? Don't you get to think a great deal of them?"
"Well, they're kind of aggravating beastssometimes," he said. "But they're a good yoke—a good yoke. They can haul with anything in this region."
"It doesn't make them so terribly tired, does it?" she said hopefully. "They are such strong animals."
"No-o-o," he said. "I dunno. I never thought much about it."
With their heads close together they became so absorbed in their conversation that they seemed to forget the painter. He sat on a log and watched them.
Ultimately the girl said, "Won't you give us a ride?"
"Sure," said the old man. "Come on, and I'll help you up." He assisted her very painstakingly to the old board that usually served him as a seat, and he clambered to a place beside her. "Come on, William," he called. The painter climbed into the wagon and stood behind his father, putting his hand on the old man's shoulder to preserve his balance.
"Which is the near ox?" asked the girl with a serious frown.
"Git-ap! Haw! That one there," said the old man.
"And this one is the off ox?"
"Yep."
"Well, suppose you sat here where I do; would this one be the near ox and that one the off ox, then?"
"Nope. Be just same."
"Then the near ox isn't always the nearest one to a person, at all? That ox there is always the near ox?"
"Yep, always. 'Cause when you drive 'em a-foot you always walk on the left side."
"Well, I never knew that before."
After studying them in silence for a while, she said, "Do you think they are happy?"
"I dunno," said the old man. "I never thought." As the wagon creaked on they gravely discussed this problem, contemplating profoundly the backs of the animals. Hawker gazed in silence at the meditating two before him. Under the wagon Stanley, the setter, walked slowly, wagging his tail in placid contentment and ruminating upon his experiences.
At last the old man said cheerfully, "Shall I take you around by the inn?"
Hawker started and seemed to wince at the question. Perhaps he was about to interrupt, but the girl cried: "Oh, will you? Take us right to the door? Oh, that will be awfully good of you!"
"Why," began Hawker, "you don't want—you don't want to ride to the inn on an—on an ox wagon, do you?"
"Why, of course I do," she retorted, directing a withering glance at him.
"Well——" he protested.
"Let 'er be, William," interrupted the old man. "Let 'er do what she wants to. I guess everybody in th' world ain't even got an ox wagon to ride in. Have they?"
"No, indeed," she returned, while withering Hawker again.
"Gee! Gee! Whoa! Haw! Git-ap! Haw! Whoa! Back!"
After these two attacks Hawker became silent.
"Gee! Gee! Gee there, blast—s'cuse me. Gee! Whoa! Git-ap!"
All the boarders of the inn were upon its porches waiting for the dinner gong. There was a surge toward the railing as a middle-aged woman passed the word along her middle-aged friends that Miss Fanhall, accompanied by Mr. Hawker, had arrived on the ox cart of Mr. Hawker's father.
"Whoa! Ha! Git-ap!" said the old man in more subdued tones. "Whoa there, Red! Whoa, now! Wh-o-a!"
Hawker helped the girl to alight, and she paused for a moment conversing with the old man about the oxen. Then she ran smiling up the steps to meet the Worcester girls.
"Oh, such a lovely time! Those dear old oxen—you should have been with us!"
"Oh, Miss Fanhall!"
"What is it, Mrs. Truscot?"
"That was a great prank of yours last night, my dear. We all enjoyed the joke so much."
"Prank?"
"Yes, your riding on the ox cart with that old farmer and that young Mr. What's-his-name, you know. We all thought it delicious. Ah, my dear, after all—don't be offended—if we had your people's wealth and position we might do that sort of unconventional thing, too; but, ah, my dear, we can't, we can't! Isn't the young painter a charming man?"
Out on the porch Hollanden was haranguing his friends. He heard a step and glanced over his shoulder to see who was about to interrupt him. He suddenly ceased his oration, and said, "Hello! what's the matter with Grace?" The heads turned promptly.
As the girl came toward them it could be seen that her cheeks were very pink and her eyes were flashing general wrath and defiance.
The Worcester girls burst into eager interrogation. "Oh, nothing!" she replied at first, but later she added in an undertone, "That wretched Mrs. Truscot——"
"What did she say?" whispered the younger Worcester girl.
"Why, she said—oh, nothing!"
Both Hollanden and Hawker were industriously reflecting.
Later in the morning Hawker said privately to the girl, "I know what Mrs. Truscot talked to you about."
She turned upon him belligerently. "You do?"
"Yes," he answered with meekness. "It was undoubtedly some reference to your ride upon the ox wagon."
She hesitated a moment, and then said, "Well?"
With still greater meekness he said, "I am very sorry."
"Are you, indeed?" she inquired loftily. "Sorry for what? Sorry that I rode uponyour father's ox wagon, or sorry that Mrs. Truscot was rude to me about it?"
"Well, in some ways it was my fault."
"Was it? I suppose you intend to apologize for your father's owning an ox wagon, don't you?"
"No, but——"
"Well, I am going to ride in the ox wagon whenever I choose. Your father, I know, will always be glad to have me. And if it so shocks you, there is not the slightest necessity of your coming with us."
They glowered at each other, and he said, "You have twisted the question with the usual ability of your sex."
She pondered as if seeking some particularly destructive retort. She ended by saying bluntly, "Did you know that we were going home next week?"
A flush came suddenly to his face. "No. Going home? Who? You?"
"Why, of course." And then with an indolent air she continued, "I meant to have told you before this, but somehow it quite escaped me."
He stammered, "Are—are you, honestly?"
She nodded. "Why, of course. Can't stay here forever, you know."
They were then silent for a long time.
At last Hawker said, "Do you remember what I told you yesterday?"
"No. What was it?"
He cried indignantly, "You know very well what I told you!"
"I do not."
"No," he sneered, "of course not! You never take the trouble to remember such things. Of course not! Of course not!"
"You are a very ridiculous person," she vouchsafed, after eying him coldly.
He arose abruptly. "I believe I am. By heavens, I believe I am!" he cried in a fury.
She laughed. "You are more ridiculous now than I have yet seen you."
After a pause he said magnificently, "Well, Miss Fanhall, you will doubtless find Mr. Hollanden's conversation to have a much greater interest than that of such a ridiculous person."
Hollanden approached them with the blithesome step of an untroubled man. "Hello,you two people, why don't you—oh—ahem! Hold on, Billie, where are you going?"
"I——" began Hawker.
"Oh, Hollie," cried the girl impetuously, "do tell me how to do that slam thing, you know. I've tried it so often, but I don't believe I hold my racket right. And you do it so beautifully."
"Oh, that," said Hollanden. "It's not so very difficult. I'll show it to you. You don't want to know this minute, do you?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Well, come over to the court, then. Come ahead, Billie!"
"No," said Hawker, without looking at his friend, "I can't this morning, Hollie. I've got to go to work. Good-bye!" He comprehended them both in a swift bow and stalked away.
Hollanden turned quickly to the girl. "What was the matter with Billie? What was he grinding his teeth for? What was the matter with him?"
"Why, nothing—was there?" she asked in surprise.
"Why, he was grinding his teeth until hesounded like a stone crusher," said Hollanden in a severe tone. "What was the matter with him?"
"How should I know?" she retorted.
"You've been saying something to him."
"I! I didn't say a thing."
"Yes, you did."
"Hollie, don't be absurd."
Hollanden debated with himself for a time, and then observed, "Oh, well, I always said he was an ugly-tempered fellow——"
The girl flashed him a little glance.
"And now I am sure of it—as ugly-tempered a fellow as ever lived."
"I believe you," said the girl. Then she added: "All men are. I declare, I think you to be the most incomprehensible creatures. One never knows what to expect of you. And you explode and go into rages and make yourselves utterly detestable over the most trivial matters and at the most unexpected times. You are all mad, I think."
"I!" cried Hollanden wildly. "What in the mischief have I done?"
"Look here," said Hollanden, at length, "I thought you were so wonderfully anxious to learn that stroke?"
"Well, I am," she said.
"Come on, then." As they walked toward the tennis court he seemed to be plunged into mournful thought. In his eyes was a singular expression, which perhaps denoted the woe of the optimist pushed suddenly from its height. He sighed. "Oh, well, I suppose all women, even the best of them, are that way."
"What way?" she said.
"My dear child," he answered, in a benevolent manner, "you have disappointed me, because I have discovered that you resemble the rest of your sex."
"Ah!" she remarked, maintaining a noncommittal attitude.
"Yes," continued Hollanden, with a sad but kindly smile, "even you, Grace, were notabove fooling with the affections of a poor country swain, until he don't know his ear from the tooth he had pulled two years ago."
She laughed. "He would be furious if he heard you call him a country swain."
"Who would?" said Hollanden.
"Why, the country swain, of course," she rejoined.
Hollanden seemed plunged in mournful reflection again. "Well, it's a shame, Grace, anyhow," he observed, wagging his head dolefully. "It's a howling, wicked shame."
"Hollie, you have no brains at all," she said, "despite your opinion."
"No," he replied ironically, "not a bit."
"Well, you haven't, you know, Hollie."
"At any rate," he said in an angry voice, "I have some comprehension and sympathy for the feelings of others."
"Have you?" she asked. "How do you mean, Hollie? Do you mean you have feeling for them in their various sorrows? Or do you mean that you understand their minds?"
Hollanden ponderously began, "There have been people who have not questioned my ability to——"
"Oh, then, you mean that you both feel for them in their sorrows and comprehend the machinery of their minds. Well, let me tell you that in regard to the last thing you are wrong. You know nothing of anyone's mind. You know less about human nature than anybody I have met."
Hollanden looked at her in artless astonishment. He said, "Now, I wonder what made you say that?" This interrogation did not seem to be addressed to her, but was evidently a statement to himself of a problem. He meditated for some moments. Eventually he said, "I suppose you mean that I do not understand you?"
"Why do you suppose I mean that?"
"That's what a person usually means when he—or she—charges another with not understanding the entire world."
"Well, at any rate, it is not what I mean at all," she said. "I mean that you habitually blunder about other people's affairs, in the belief, I imagine, that you are a great philanthropist, when you are only making an extraordinary exhibition of yourself."
"The dev——" began Hollanden. Afterward he said, "Now, I wonder what in blue thunder you mean this time?"
"Mean this time? My meaning is very plain, Hollie. I supposed the words were clear enough."
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "your words were clear enough, but then you were of course referring back to some event, or series of events, in which I had the singular ill fortune to displease you. Maybe you don't know yourself, and spoke only from the emotion generated by the event, or series of events, in which, as I have said, I had the singular ill fortune to displease you."
"How awf'ly clever!" she said.
"But I can't recall the event, or series of events, at all," he continued, musing with a scholarly air and disregarding her mockery. "I can't remember a thing about it. To be sure, it might have been that time when——"
"I think it very stupid of you to hunt for a meaning when I believe I made everything so perfectly clear," she said wrathfully.
"Well, you yourself might not be aware of what you really meant," he answered sagely. "Women often do that sort of thing, youknow. Women often speak from motives which, if brought face to face with them, they wouldn't be able to distinguish from any other thing which they had never before seen."
"Hollie, if there is a disgusting person in the world it is he who pretends to know so much concerning a woman's mind."
"Well, that's because they who know, or pretend to know, so much about a woman's mind are invariably satirical, you understand," said Hollanden cheerfully.
A dog ran frantically across the lawn, his nose high in the air and his countenance expressing vast perturbation and alarm. "Why, Billie forgot to whistle for his dog when he started for home," said Hollanden. "Come here, old man! Well, 'e was a nice dog!" The girl also gave invitation, but the setter would not heed them. He spun wildly about the lawn until he seemed to strike his master's trail, and then, with his nose near to the ground, went down the road at an eager gallop. They stood and watched him.
"Stanley's a nice dog," said Hollanden.
"Indeed he is!" replied the girl fervently.
Presently Hollanden remarked: "Well,don't let's fight any more, particularly since we can't decide what we're fighting about. I can't discover the reason, and you don't know it, so——"
"I do know it. I told you very plainly."
"Well, all right. Now, this is the way to work that slam: You give the ball a sort of a lift—see!—underhanded and with your arm crooked and stiff. Here, you smash this other ball into the net. Hi! Look out! If you hit it that way you'll knock it over the hotel. Let the ball drop nearer to the ground. Oh, heavens, not on the ground! Well, it's hard to do it from the serve, anyhow. I'll go over to the other court and bat you some easy ones."
Afterward, when they were going toward the inn, the girl suddenly began to laugh.
"What are you giggling at?" said Hollanden.
"I was thinking how furious he would be if he heard you call him a country swain," she rejoined.
"Who?" asked Hollanden.
Oglethorpe contended that the men who made the most money from books were the best authors. Hollanden contended that they were the worst. Oglethorpe said that such a question should be left to the people. Hollanden said that the people habitually made wrong decisions on questions that were left to them. "That is the most odiously aristocratic belief," said Oglethorpe.
"No," said Hollanden, "I like the people. But, considered generally, they are a collection of ingenious blockheads."
"But they read your books," said Oglethorpe, grinning.
"That is through a mistake," replied Hollanden.
As the discussion grew in size it incited the close attention of the Worcester girls, but Miss Fanhall did not seem to hear it. Hawker, too,was staring into the darkness with a gloomy and preoccupied air.
"Are you sorry that this is your last evening at Hemlock Inn?" said the painter at last, in a low tone.
"Why, yes—certainly," said the girl.
Under the sloping porch of the inn the vague orange light from the parlours drifted to the black wall of the night.
"I shall miss you," said the painter.
"Oh, I dare say," said the girl.
Hollanden was lecturing at length and wonderfully. In the mystic spaces of the night the pines could be heard in their weird monotone, as they softly smote branch and branch, as if moving in some solemn and sorrowful dance.
"This has been quite the most delightful summer of my experience," said the painter.
"I have found it very pleasant," said the girl.
From time to time Hawker glanced furtively at Oglethorpe, Hollanden, and the Worcester girl. This glance expressed no desire for their well-being.
"I shall miss you," he said to the girlagain. His manner was rather desperate. She made no reply, and, after leaning toward her, he subsided with an air of defeat.
Eventually he remarked: "It will be very lonely here again. I dare say I shall return to New York myself in a few weeks."
"I hope you will call," she said.
"I shall be delighted," he answered stiffly, and with a dissatisfied look at her.
"Oh, Mr. Hawker," cried the younger Worcester girl, suddenly emerging from the cloud of argument which Hollanden and Oglethorpe kept in the air, "won't it be sad to lose Grace? Indeed, I don't know what we shall do. Sha'n't we miss her dreadfully?"
"Yes," said Hawker, "we shall of course miss her dreadfully."
"Yes, won't it be frightful?" said the elder Worcester girl. "I can't imagine what we will do without her. And Hollie is only going to spend ten more days. Oh, dear! mamma, I believe, will insist on staying the entire summer. It was papa's orders, you know, and I really think she is going to obey them. He said he wanted her to have oneperiod of rest at any rate. She is such a busy woman in town, you know."
"Here," said Hollanden, wheeling to them suddenly, "you all look as if you were badgering Hawker, and he looks badgered. What are you saying to him?"
"Why," answered the younger Worcester girl, "we were only saying to him how lonely it would be without Grace."
"Oh!" said Hollanden.
As the evening grew old, the mother of the Worcester girls joined the group. This was a sign that the girls were not to long delay the vanishing time. She sat almost upon the edge of her chair, as if she expected to be called upon at any moment to arise and bow "Good-night," and she repaid Hollanden's eloquent attention with the placid and absent-minded smiles of the chaperon who waits.
Once the younger Worcester girl shrugged her shoulders and turned to say, "Mamma, you make me nervous!" Her mother merely smiled in a still more placid and absent-minded manner.
Oglethorpe arose to drag his chair nearer to the railing, and when he stood the Worcester mother moved and looked around expectantly, but Oglethorpe took seat again. Hawker kept an anxious eye upon her.
Presently Miss Fanhall arose.
"Why, you are not going in already, are you?" said Hawker and Hollanden and Oglethorpe. The Worcester mother moved toward the door followed by her daughters, who were protesting in muffled tones. Hollanden pitched violently upon Oglethorpe. "Well, at any rate——" he said. He picked the thread of a past argument with great agility.
Hawker said to the girl, "I—I—I shall miss you dreadfully."
She turned to look at him and smiled. "Shall you?" she said in a low voice.
"Yes," he said. Thereafter he stood before her awkwardly and in silence. She scrutinized the boards of the floor. Suddenly she drew a violet from a cluster of them upon her gown and thrust it out to him as she turned toward the approaching Oglethorpe.
"Good-night, Mr. Hawker," said the latter. "I am very glad to have met you, I'm sure. Hope to see you in town. Good-night."
He stood near when the girl said to Hawker: "Good-bye. You have given us such a charming summer. We shall be delighted to see you in town. You must come some time when the children can see you, too. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," replied Hawker, eagerly and feverishly, trying to interpret the inscrutable feminine face before him. "I shall come at my first opportunity."
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
Down at the farmhouse, in the black quiet of the night, a dog lay curled on the door-mat. Of a sudden the tail of this dog began to thump, thump, on the boards. It began as a lazy movement, but it passed into a state of gentle enthusiasm, and then into one of curiously loud and joyful celebration. At last the gate clicked. The dog uncurled, and went to the edge of the steps to greet his master. He gave adoring, tremulous welcome with his clear eyes shining in the darkness. "Well, Stan, old boy," said Hawker, stooping to stroke the dog's head. After his master had entered the house the dog went forward andsniffed at something that lay on the top step. Apparently it did not interest him greatly, for he returned in a moment to the door-mat.
But he was again obliged to uncurl himself, for his master came out of the house with a lighted lamp and made search of the door-mat, the steps, and the walk, swearing meanwhile in an undertone. The dog wagged his tail and sleepily watched this ceremony. When his master had again entered the house the dog went forward and sniffed at the top step, but the thing that had lain there was gone.
It was evident at breakfast that Hawker's sisters had achieved information. "What's the matter with you this morning?" asked one. "You look as if you hadn't slep' well."
"There is nothing the matter with me," he rejoined, looking glumly at his plate.
"Well, you look kind of broke up."
"How I look is of no consequence. I tell you there is nothing the matter with me."
"Oh!" said his sister. She exchanged meaning glances with the other feminine members of the family. Presently the other sister observed, "I heard she was going home to-day."
"Who?" said Hawker, with a challenge in his tone.
"Why, that New York girl—Miss What's-her-name," replied the sister, with an undaunted smile.
"Did you, indeed? Well, perhaps she is."
"Oh, you don't know for sure, I s'pose."
Hawker arose from the table, and, taking his hat, went away.
"Mary!" said the mother, in the sepulchral tone of belated but conscientious reproof.
"Well, I don't care. He needn't be so grand. I didn't go to tease him. I don't care."
"Well, you ought to care," said the old man suddenly. "There's no sense in you wimen folks pestering the boy all the time. Let him alone with his own business, can't you?"
"Well, ain't we leaving him alone?"
"No, you ain't—'cept when he ain't here. I don't wonder the boy grabs his hat and skips out when you git to going."
"Well, what did we say to him now? Tell us what we said to him that was so dreadful."
"Aw, thunder an' lightnin'!" cried the old man with a sudden great snarl. They seemed to know by this ejaculation that he had emerged in an instant from that place where man endures, and they ended the discussion. The old man continued his breakfast.
During his walk that morning Hawkervisited a certain cascade, a certain lake, and some roads, paths, groves, nooks. Later in the day he made a sketch, choosing an hour when the atmosphere was of a dark blue, like powder smoke in the shade of trees, and the western sky was burning in strips of red. He painted with a wild face, like a man who is killing.
After supper he and his father strolled under the apple boughs in the orchard and smoked. Once he gestured wearily. "Oh, I guess I'll go back to New York in a few days."
"Um," replied his father calmly. "All right, William."
Several days later Hawker accosted his father in the barnyard. "I suppose you think sometimes I don't care so much about you and the folks and the old place any more; but I do."
"Um," said the old man. "When you goin'?"
"Where?" asked Hawker, flushing.
"Back to New York."
"Why—I hadn't thought much about—— Oh, next week, I guess."
"Well, do as you like, William. You know how glad me an' mother and the girls are to have you come home with us whenever you can come. You know that. But you must do as you think best, and if you ought to go back to New York now, William, why—do as you think best."
"Well, my work——" said Hawker.
From time to time the mother made wondering speech to the sisters. "How much nicer William is now! He's just as good as he can be. There for a while he was so cross and out of sorts. I don't see what could have come over him. But now he's just as good as he can be."
Hollanden told him, "Come up to the inn more, you fool."
"I was up there yesterday."
"Yesterday! What of that? I've seen the time when the farm couldn't hold you for two hours during the day."
"Go to blazes!"
"Millicent got a letter from Grace Fanhall the other day."
"That so?"
"Yes, she did. Grace wrote—— Say,does that shadow look pure purple to you?"
"Certainly it does, or I wouldn't paint it so, duffer. What did she write?"
"Well, if that shadow is pure purple my eyes are liars. It looks a kind of slate colour to me. Lord! if what you fellows say in your pictures is true, the whole earth must be blazing and burning and glowing and——"
Hawker went into a rage. "Oh, you don't know anything about colour, Hollie. For heaven's sake, shut up, or I'll smash you with the easel."
"Well, I was going to tell you what Grace wrote in her letter. She said——"
"Go on."
"Gimme time, can't you? She said that town was stupid, and that she wished she was back at Hemlock Inn."
"Oh! Is that all?"
"Is that all? I wonder what you expected? Well, and she asked to be recalled to you."
"Yes? Thanks."
"And that's all. 'Gad, for such a devotedman as you were, your enthusiasm and interest is stupendous."
The father said to the mother, "Well, William's going back to New York next week."
"Is he? Why, he ain't said nothing to me about it."
"Well, he is, anyhow."
"I declare! What do you s'pose he's going back before September for, John?"
"How do I know?"
"Well, it's funny, John. I bet—I bet he's going back so's he can see that girl."
"He says it's his work."