George knew that he ought to go, but he was not ready yet to run away. He was having the time of his life, and as for Becky, he would teach her how to play the game.
Aunt Claudia was away for three weeks.
"I wish she would come home," young Paine said one morning to his mother.
"Why?" Caroline Paine was at her desk with her mind on the dinner. "Why, Randy?"
"Oh, Dalton's going there a lot."
Mrs. Paine headed her list with gumbo soup. "Do you think he goes to see Becky?"
"Does a duck swim? Of course he goes there to see her, and he's turning her head."
"He is enough to turn any woman's head. He has nice eyes." Mrs. Paine left the topic as negligible, and turned to more important things.
"Randy, would you mind picking a few pods of okra for the soup? Susie is so busy and Bob and Jefferson are both in the field."
"Certainly, Mother," his cool answer gave no hint of the emotions which were seething within him. Becky's fate was hanging in the balance, and his mother talked of okra! He had decided some weeks ago that boarders were disintegrating—and that a mother was not a mother who had three big meals a day on her mind.
He went into the garden. An old-fashioned garden, so common at one time in the South—with a picket fence, a little gate, orderly paths—a blaze of flowers to the right, and to the left a riot of vegetables—fat tomatoes weighing the vines to the ground, cucumbers hiding under their sheltering leaves, cabbages burgeoning in blue-green, and giving the promise of unlimited boiled dinners, onions enough to flavor a thousand delectable dishes, sweet corn running in countless rows up the hill, carrots waving their plumes, Falstaffian watermelons. It was evident with the garden as an index that the boarders at King's Crest were fed on more than milk and honey.
Randy picked the okra and carried it to the kitchen, and returning to the Schoolhouse found the Major opening his morning mail.
Randy sat down on the step. "Once upon a time," he said, "we had niggers to work in our gardens. And now we are all niggers."
The Major's keen eyes studied him. "What's the matter?"
"I've been picking okra—for soup, and I'm a Paine of King's Crest."
"Well, you peeled potatoes in France."
"That's different."
"Why should it be different? If a thing is for the moment your job you are never too big for it."
"I wish I had stayed in the Army. I wish I had never come back."
The Major whistled for a moment, thoughtfully. Then he said, "Look here, Paine, hadn't you better talk about it?"
"Talk about what?"
"That's for you to tell me. There's something worrying you. You are more tragic than—Hamlet——"
"Well—it's—Becky——"
"And Dalton, of course. Why don't you cut him out, Paine——"
"Me? Oh, look here, Major, what have I to offer her?"
"Youth and energy and a fighting spirit," the Major rapped out the words.
"What is a fighting spirit worth," Randy asked with a sort of weary scorn, "when a man is poor, and the woman's rich?"
The Major had been whistling a silly little tune from a modern opera. It was an air which his men would have recognized. It came to an end abruptly. "Rich? Who is rich?"
"Becky."
The Major got up and limped to the porch rail.
"I thought she was as poor as——"
"The rest of us? Well, she isn't."
It appeared that Becky's fortune came from the Nantucket grandmother, and that there would be more when the Admiral died. It was really a very large fortune, well invested, and yielding an amazing income. One of the clauses of the grandmother's will had to do with the bringing up of Becky. Until she was of age she was to be kept as much as possible away from the distractions and temptations of modern luxury. The Judge and the Admiral had agreed that nothing could be better. The result, Randy said, was that nobody ever thought of Becky Bannister as rich.
"Yet those pearls that she wears are worth more than I ever expect to earn."
"It is rather like a fairy tale. The beggar-maid becomes a queen."
"You can gee now why I can't offer her just youth and a fighting spirit."
"I wonder if Dalton knows."
"I don't believe he does," Randy; said slowly, "I give him credit for that."
"He might have heard——"
"I doubt it. He hasn't mingled much, you know."
"It will be rather a joke on him——"
"To find that he has married—Mademoiselle Midas?"
"To find that she is Mademoiselle Midas, whether he marries her or not."
Of course Georgie-Porgie ran away. It was the inevitable climax. Flora's illness hastened things a bit.
"She wants to see her New York doctors," Waterman had said. "I think we shall close the house, and join Madge later at the Crossing."
George felt an unexpected sense of shock. The game must end, yet he wanted it to go on. The cards were in his hands, and he was not quite ready to turn the trick.
"When do we go?" he asked Oscar.
"In a couple of days if we can manage it. Flora is getting worried about herself. She thinks it is her heart."
George rode all of that afternoon with Becky. But not a word did he say about his departure. He never spoiled a thing like this with "Good-bye." Back at Waterman's, Kemp was packing trunks. In forty-eight hours there would be the folding of tents, and Hamilton Hill would be deserted. It added a pensiveness to his manner that made him more than ever charming. It rained on the way home, and it seemed to him significant that his first ride and his last with Becky should have been in the rain.
He stayed to dinner, and afterwards he and Becky walked together in the fragrance of the wet garden. A new moon hung low for a while and was then lost behind the hills.
"My little girl," George said when the moment came that he must go, "My dear little girl." He gathered her up in his arms—but did not kiss her. For once in his life, Georgie-Porgie was too deeply moved for kisses.
After he had gone, Becky went into the Bird Room, and stood on the hearth and looked up at the Trumpeter Swan. There was no one to whom she could speak of the ecstasy which surged through her. As a child she had brought her joys here, and her sorrows—her Christmas presents in the early morning—the first flowers of the spring. She had sat here often in her little black frock and had felt the silent sympathy of the wise old bird.
He gazed down at her now with an almost uncanny intelligence. She laughed a little and standing on tiptoe laid her cheek against the cool glass. "When I am married," was her wordless question, "will you sound your trumpet high up near the moon?"
There came to Huntersfield the next morning at about the same moment, Kemp in his little car with a small parcel for Becky, and Calvin with a big box from the express office.
Becky was in her room at breakfast when Calvin brought the boxes up to her. It was a sunshiny morning, and the Judge had gone a-fishing with Mr. Flippin. Becky, in a lace cap and a robe that was delicately blue, sat in a big chair with a low table in front of her.
There were white roses on the table in a silver bowl. The Judge had sent them to her. The Judge had for the women of his family a feeling that was almost youthfully romantic, and which was, unquestionably, old-fashioned. He liked to think that they had roses for their little noses, ribbons and laces for their pretty faces. He wanted no harsh winds to blow on them. And in return for the softness and ease with which he would surround them, he wanted their deference to his masculine point of view.
With the box which George sent was a note. It was the first that Becky had ever received from her lover. George's code did not include much correspondence. Flaming sentiment on paper was apt to look silly when the affair ended.
To Becky, her name on the outside of the envelope seemed written in gold. She was all blushing expectation.
"There ain't no answer," Calvin said, and she waited for him to go before she opened it.
She read it and sat there drained of all feeling. She was as white as the roses on her table. She read the note again and her hands shook.
"Flora is very ill. We are taking her up to New York. After that we shall go to the North Shore. There isn't time for me to come and say; 'Good-bye.' Perhaps it is better not to come. It has been a wonderful summer, and it is you who have made it wonderful for me. The memory will linger with me always—like a sweet dream or a rare old tale. I am sending yon a little token—for remembrance. Think of me sometimes, Becky."
That was all, except a scrawled "G. D." at the end. No word of coming back. No word of writing to her again. No word of any future in which she would have a part.
She opened the box. Within on a slender chain was a pendant—a square sapphire set in platinum, and surrounded by diamonds. George had ordered it in anticipation of this crisis. He had, hitherto, found such things rather effective in the cure of broken hearts.
Now, had George but known it, Becky had jewels in leather cases in the vaults of her bank which put his sapphire trinket to shame. There were the diamonds in which a Meredith great-grandmother had been presented at the Court of St. James, and there were the pearls of which her own string was a small part. There were emeralds and rubies, old corals and jade—not for nothing had the Admiral sailed the seas, bringing back from China and India lovely things for the woman he loved. And now the jewels were Becky's, and she had not cared for them in the least. If George had loved her she would have cherished his sapphire more than all the rest.
But he did not love her. She knew it in that moment. All of her doubts were confirmed.
The thing that had happened to her seemed incredible.
She put the sapphire back in its box, wrapped it, tied the string carefully and called Mandy.
"Tell Calvin to take this to Mr. Dalton."
Mandy knew at once that something was wrong. But this was not a moment for words. The Bannisters did not talk about things that troubled them. They held their heads high. And Becky's was high at this moment, and her eyes were blazing.
As she sat there, tense, Becky wondered what Dalton could have thought of her. If she had not had a jewel in the world, she would not have kept his sapphire. Didn't he know that?
But how could he know? To him it had been "a sweet dream—a rare old tale," and she had thought him a Romeo ready to die for her sake, an Aucassin—willing to brave Hell rather than give her up, a Lohengrin sent from Heaven!
She shuddered and hid her face in her hands. At last she crept into bed. Mandy, coming in to straighten the room, was told to lower the curtains.
"My—my head aches, Mandy."
Mandy, wise old Mandy, knew of course that it was her heart. "You res' an' sleep, honey," she said, and moved about quietly setting things in order.
But Becky did not sleep. She lay wide awake, and tried to get the thing straight in her mind. How had it happened? Where had she failed? Oh, why hadn't Sister Loretto told her that there were men like this? Why hadn't Aunt Claudia returned in time?
In the big box which Mandy had brought up were clothes—exquisite things which Becky had ordered from New York. She had thought it a miracle that George should have fallen in love with her believing her poor. It showed, she felt, his splendidness, his kindly indifference to—poverty. Yet she had planned a moment when he should know. When their love was proclaimed to the world he should see her in a splendor which matched his own. He had loved her in spite of her faded cottons, in spite of her shabby shoes. She had made up her list carefully, thinking of his sparkling eyes when he behold her.
She got out of bed and opened the box. The lively garments were wrapped in rosy tissue paper, and tied with ribbons to match. It seemed to Becky as if those rosy wrappings held the last faint glow of her dreams.
She untied the ribbons of the top parcel, and disclosed a frock of fine white lace—there was cloth of silver for a petticoat, and silver slippers. She would have worn her pearls, and George and she would have danced together at the Harvest Ball at the Merriweathers. It was an annual and very exclusive affair in the county. It was not likely that the Watermans and their guests would be invited, but there would have been a welcome for Dalton as her friend—her more than friend.
There was a white lace wrap with puffs of pink taffeta and knots of silver ribbon which went with the gown. Becky with a sudden impulse put it on. She stripped the cap from her head, and wound her bronze locks in a high knot. She surveyed herself.
Well, she was Becky Bannister of Huntersfield—and the mirror showed her beauty. And Dalton had not known or cared. He thought her poor; and had thrown her aside like an old glove!
Down-stairs the telephone rang. Old Mandy, coming up to say that Mr. Randy was on the wire, stood in amazement at the sight of Becky in the rosy wrap with her hair peaked up to a topknot.
"Ain' you in baid?" she asked, superfluously.
"No. Who wants me, Mandy?"
"I tole you—Mr. Randy."
Becky deliberated. "I'll go down. When I come up we'll unpack all this, Mandy."
Randy at the other end of the wire was asking Becky to go to a barbecue the next day.
"The boarders are giving it—it is Mother's birthday and they want to celebrate. It is to be on Pavilion Hill. They want you and the Judge——"
"To-morrow? Oh, I don't know, Randy."
"Why not? Have you another engagement?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter? Can't you tear yourself away from your shining knight?"
Silence.
"Becky—oh, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry—Becky——"
Her answer came faintly, "I'll come."
"What's the matter with the wire? I can't hear you."
There was nothing the matter with the wire. The thing that was the matter was Becky's voice. She found it suddenly unmanageable. "We'll come," she told him finally, and hung up the receiver.
She ascended the stairs as if she carried a burden on her back. Mandy was on her knees before the hamper, untying the rosy packages.
"Is you goin' to try 'em on, honey?" she asked.
Becky stood in the doorway, the lace wrap hanging from her shoulders and showing the delicate blue of the negligee beneath—her face was like chalk but her eyes shone. "Yes," she said, "there's a pink gingham I want to wear to the barbecue to-morrow. There ought to be a hat to match. Did the hats come, Mandy?"
"Calvin he say there's another box, but he ain' brought it up from the deepot. He was ridin' dat Jo-mule, and this yer basket was all he could ca'y."
In the pink frock Becky looked like a lovely child.
"Huc-cum you-all gettin' eve'y thing pink, Miss Becky?" Mandy asked.
"For a change," said Becky.
And how could she tell old Mandy that she had felt that in a rose-colored world everything should be rose-color?
She tried on each frock deliberately. She tried on every pair of slippers. She tried on the wraps, and the hats which came up finally with Calvin staggering beneath the bulkiness of the box. She was lovely in everything. And she was no longer the little Becky Bannister whom Dalton had wooed. She was Mademoiselle Midas, appraising her beauty in her lovely clothes, and wondering what Dalton would think if he could see her.
Becky did not, after all, wear the pink gingham. The Judge elected to go on horseback, so Becky rode forth by his side correctly and smartly attired in a gray habit, with a straight black sailor and a high stock and boots that made her look like a charming boy.
They came to Pavilion Hill to find the boarders like the chorus in light opera very picturesque in summer dresses and summer flannels, and with Mrs. Paine in a broad hat playing the part of leading lady. Mr. Flippin, who was high-priest at all of the county barbecues, was superintending the roasting of a whole pig, and Mrs. Flippin had her mind on hot biscuits. The young mulatto, Daisy, and Mandy's John, with the negroes from the Paine household, were setting the long tables under the trees. There was the good smell of coffee, much laughter, and a generally festive atmosphere.
The Judge, enthroned presently in the Pavilion, was the pivotal center of the crowd. Everybody wanted to hear his stories, and with this fresh audience to stimulate him, he dominated the scene. He wore a sack suit and a Panama hat and his thin, fine face, the puff of curled white hair at the back of his neck, the gayety of his glance gave an almost theatric touch to his appearance, so that one felt he might at any moment come down stage and sing a topical song in the best Gilbertian manner.
It was an old scene with a new setting. It was not the first time that Pavilion Hill had been the backgrounds of a barbecue. But it was the first time that a Paine of King's Crest had accepted hospitality on its own land. It was the first time that it had echoed to the voices of an alien group. It was the first time that it had seen a fighting black man home from France. The old order had changed indeed. No more would there be feudal lords of Albemarle acres.
Yet old loyalties die hard. It was the Judge and Mrs. Paine and Becky and Randy who stood first in the hearts of the dusky folk who served at the long tables. The boarders were not in any sense "quality." Whatever they might be, North, East and West, their names were not known on Virginia records. And what was any family tree worth if it was not rooted in Virginia soil?
"Effen the Jedge was a king and wo' a crown," said Mandy's John to Daisy, "he couldn't look mo' bawn to a th'one."
Daisy nodded. "Settin' at the head o' that table minds me o' whut my old Mammy used to say, 'han'some is as han'some does.' The Bannistersdonehan'some and theyishandsome."
"They sure is," John agreed; "that-all's whut makes you so good-lookin', Daisy."
He came close to her and she drew away. "You put yo' min' on passin' them plates," she said with severity, "or you'll be spillin' po'k gravy on they haids." Her smile took away the sting of her admonition. John moved on, murmuring, "Well, yo' does han'some and yo' is han'some, Daisy, and that's why I loves you."
There were speeches after dinner. One from Randy, in which he thanked them in the name of his mother, and found himself quite suddenly and unexpectedly being fond of the boarders. Major Prime was not there. He had been summoned back to Washington, but would return, he hoped, for the week-end.
It was after lunch that Randy and Becky walked to the woods. Nellie Custis followed them. They sat down at last at the foot of a hickory tree. Becky took off her hat and the wind blew her shining hair about her face. She was pale and wore an air of deep preoccupation.
"Randy," she asked suddenly out of a long silence, "did you ever kiss a girl?"
Her question did not surprise him. He and Becky had argued many matters. And they usually plunged in without preliminaries. He fancied that Becky was discussing kisses in the abstract. It never occurred to him that the problem was personal.
"Yes," he said, "I have. What about it?"
"Did you—ask her to marry you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
He pulled Nellie Custis' ears. "One of them wasn't a nice sort of girl—not the kind that I should have cared to introduce to—you."
"Yet you cared to—kiss her?"
Randy flushed faintly. "I know how it looks to you. I hated it afterwards, but I couldn't marry a girl—like that——"
"Who was the other girl?"
For a moment he did not reply, then he said with something of an effort, "It was you, Becky."
"Me? When?" She turned on him her startled gaze.
"Do you remember at Christmas—oh, ten years ago—and your grandfather had a party for you. There was mistletoe in the hall, and we danced and stopped under the mistletoe——"
"I remember, Randy—how long ago it seems."
"Yet ten years isn't really such a long time, is it, Becky? I was only a little boy, but I told myself then that I would never kiss any other girl. I thought then that—that some day I might ask you to marry me. I—I had a wild dream that I might try to make you love me. I didn't know then that poverty is a millstone about a man's neck." He gave a bitter laugh.
Becky's breath came quickly. "Oh, Randy," she said, "poverty wouldn't have had anything to do with it—not if we had—cared——"
"I care," said Randy, "and I think the first time I knew how much I cared was when I kissed that other girl. Somehow you came to me that night, a little white thing, so fine and different, and I loathed her."
He was standing now—tall and lean and black-haired, but with the look of race on his thin face, a rather princely chap in spite of his shabby clothes. "Of course you don't care," he said; "I think if I had money I should try to make you. But I haven't the right. I had thought that, perhaps, if no other man came that some time I might——"
Becky picked up her riding crop, and as she talked she tapped her hoot in a sort of staccato accompaniment.
"That other man has come,"tap-tap, "he kissed me,"tap-tap, "and made me love him,"tap-tap, "and he has gone away—and he hasn't asked me to marry him."
One saw the Indian in Randy now, in the lifted head, the square-set jaw, the almost cruel keenness of the eyes.
"Of course it is George Dalton," he said.
"Yes."
"I could kill him, Becky."
She laughed, ruefully. "For what? Perhaps he thinks I'm not a nice sort of girl—like the one you kissed——"
"For God's sake, Becky."
He sat down on a flat rock. He was white, and shaking a little. He wanted more than anything else in the wide world to kill George Dalton. Of course in these days such things were preposterous. But he had murder in his heart.
"I blame myself," Becky said,tap-tap, "I should have known that a man doesn't respect,"tap-tap, "a woman he can kiss."
He took the riding crop forcibly out of her hands. "Look at me, look at me, Becky, do you love him?"
She whispered, "Yes."
"Then he's got to marry you."
But her pride was up. "Do you think I want him if he doesn't want—me?"
"He shall want you," said Randy Paine; "the day shall come when he shall beg on his knees."
Randy had studied law. But there are laws back of the laws of the white man. The Indian knows no rest until his enemy is in his hands. Randy lay awake late that night thinking it out. But he was not thinking only of Georgie. He was thinking of Becky and her self-respect. "She will never get it back," he said, "until that dog asks her to marry him."
He had faith enough in her to believe that she would not marry Dalton now if he asked her. But she must be given the chance.
The Judge and Mr. Flippin were fishing, with grasshoppers for bait. The fish that they caught they called "shiners." As an edible product "shiners" were of little account. But the Judge and Mr. Flippin did not fish for food, they fished for sport. It was mild sport compared to the fishing of other days when the Judge had waded into mountain streams with the water coming up close to the pocket of his flannel shirt where he kept his cigars, or had been poled by Bob Flippin from "riffle" to pool. Those had been the days of speckled trout and small-mouthed bass, and Bob had been a boy and the Judge at middle age. Now Bob Flippin had reached the middle years, and the Judge was old, but they still fished together. They were comrades in a very close and special sense. What Bob Flippin lacked in education and culture he made up in wisdom and adoration of the Judge. When he talked he had something to say, but as a rule he let the Judge talk and was always an absorbed listener.
There was in their relations, however, a complete adjustment to the class distinctions which separated them. The Judge accepted as his right the personal service with which Bob Flippin delighted to honor him. It was always Bob who pulled the boat and carried the basket. It was Bob who caught the grasshoppers and cooked the lunch.
There was one dish dedicated to a day's fishing—fried ham and eggs. Bob had a long-handled frying-pan, and the food was seasoned with the salt and savor of the out-of-doors.
There were always several dogs to bear their masters company. The Judge's three were beagles—tireless hunters of rabbits, and somewhat in disgrace as a species since Germany had gone to war with the world. Individually, however, they were beloved by the Judge because they were the children and grandchildren of a certain old Dinah who had slept in a basket by his bed until she died.
Bob Flippin had a couple of setters, and the five canines formed a wistful semicircle around the lunch basket.
The lunch basket was really a fishing-basket, lined with tin. In one end was a receptacle for ice. After the lunch was eaten, the fish were put next to the ice, and the basket thus served two purposes.
Among the other edibles there were always corncakes for the dogs. They knew it, and had the patience of assured expectation.
"Truxton comes on Saturday," said the Judge as he watched Bob turn the eggs expertly in the long-handled pan, "and Claudia. I told Becky to ride over this morning and ask your wife if she could help Mandy. Mandy's all right when there's nobody but the family, but when there's company in prospect she moans and groans."
"Mollie's up at the Watermans'; Mrs. Waterman is worse. They expected to take her to New York, but she is too ill, and they are going to have the doctors bring another nurse."
"I had a note from Mr. Dalton," said the Judge, "saying they were going. It was rather sudden, and he was sorry. Nice fellow. He liked to come over and look at my birds."
Bob Flippin's eyes twinkled. "I reckon he liked to look at a pretty girl——"
The Judge stared at him. "At Becky?"
Flippin nodded. "Didn't you know it?"
"Bless my soul." The Judge was unquestionably startled. "But I don't know anything about him. I can't have him running after Becky."
"Seems to me he's been a-runnin'."
"But what would Claudia say? I don't know anything about his family. Maybe he hasn't any family. How do I know he isn't a fortune-hunter?"
"Well, he isn't a bird hunter, I can tell you that. I saw him kick one of your dogs. A man that will kick a dog isn't fit to hold a gun."
"No, he isn't," said the Judge, soberly. "I'm upset by what you've said, Flippin. Dalton's all right as far as I can see as a friend of mine. But when anybody comes courting at Huntersfield he's got to show credentials."
He ate his lunch without much appetite. He was guiltily aware of what Claudia would say if she knew what had happened.
But perhaps nothing had happened and perhaps she need not know. He cheered up and threw a bit of ham to the waiting dogs. Perhaps Becky wasn't interested. Perhaps, after all, Dalton had been genuine in his interest in the stuffed birds.
"Becky's too young for things like that," he began hopefully.
But Bob Flippin shook his head. "Girls are queer, Judge, and you never can tell what they're goin' to do next. Now, there's my Mary—running off and getting married, and coming home and not talking much about it. She—didn't even bring her marriage certificate. Said that he had kept it. But she's never lied to me, and I know when she says she's married, she's—married—but it's queer. He ain't written now for weeks, but she ain't worried. She says she knows the reason, but she can't tell me. And when I try to ask questions, she just looks me straight in the eye and says, 'I never lied to you, Father, did I? And it's all right.'"
"He has a good name," said the Judge. "Branch—it's one of our names—my wife's family."
"But I reckon there ain't never been any Truelove Branches in your family tree. I laugh at Mary when she calls him that. '"Truelove" ain't any name for a man, Mary,' I tell her. But she says there couldn't be a better one. And she insisted on naming the child 'Fidelity.' But if anybody had told me that my little Mary—would take things into her own hands like that—why, Judge, before she went away to teach school, she leaned on me and her mother—and now she's as stiff as a poker when we try to ask about her affairs——"
"Does he support her?" the Judge asked.
"Sends her plenty of money. She always seems to have enough, even when he doesn't write. He'll be coming one of these days—and then we'll get the thing straight, but in the meantime there ain't any use in asking Mary."
He brought out the bag of corn-cakes and fed the dogs. They were a well-bred crew and took their share in turn, sitting in a row and going through the ceremony with an air of enjoying not only the food but the attention they attracted front the two men.
"Of course," said Mr. Flippin as he gathered, up the lunch things, "I'm saying to you what I wouldn't say to another soul. Mary's my girl, and she's all right. But I naturally have the feelings of a father."
The Judge stretched himself on the grass, and pulled his hat over his eyes. "Girls are queer, and if that Dalton thinks he can court my Becky——" He stopped, and spoke again from under his hat, "Oh, what's the use of worrying, Bob, on a day like this?"
The Judge always napped after lunch, and Bob Flippin, stretched beside him, lay awake and watched the stream slip by in a sheet of silver, he watched a squirrel flattened on the limb above him, he watched the birds that fluttered down to the pools to bathe, he watched the buzzards sailing high above the hills.
And presently he found himself watching his own daughter Mary, as she came along the opposite bank of the stream.
She was drawing Fiddle-dee-dee in a small red cart and was walking slowly.
She walked well. Country-born and country-bred, there was nothing about her of plodding peasant. All her life she had danced with the Bannisters and the Beauforts. Yet she had never been invited to the big balls. When the Merriweathers gave their Harvest Dance, Mary and her mother would go over and help bake the cakes, and at night they would sit in the gallery of the great ballroom and watch the dancers, but Mary would not be asked out on the floor.
Seeing the Judge asleep, Mary stopped and beckoned from the other side.
Flippin rose and made his way across the stream, stepping from stone to stone.
"Mother wants you to come right up to the Watermans', Father. Mrs. Waterman is to have an operation, and you are to direct the servants in fitting up a room for the surgeons. The nurse will tell you what to do."
Mr. Flippin rubbed his face with his handkerchief. "I don't like to wake the Judge."
"I'll stay here and tell him," Mary said. "And you can send Calvin down to carry the basket."
She was standing beside him, and suddenly she laid her cheek against his arm. "I love you," she said, "you are a darling, Daddy."
He patted her cheek. "That sounds like my little Mary."
"Don't I always sound like your little Mary?"
"Not always."
"Well—I've had things on my mind." Her blue eyes met his, and she flushed a bit. "Not things that I am sorry for, but things that I am worried about. But now—well, I am very happy in my heart, Daddy."
He smiled down at her. "Have you heard from T. Branch?"
"Yes, by wireless——"
He looked his astonishment. "Wireless?"
"Heart-wireless, Daddy. Didn't you get messages that way when you were young—from Mother?"
"How do I know? It's been twenty-five years since then, and we haven't had to send messages. We've just held on to each other's hands, thank God." He bent and kissed her. "You stay and tell the Judge, Mary. He'll sleep for a half-hour yet: he's as regular as the clock."
His own two dogs followed him, but the Judge's beagles lay with their noses on their paws at their master's feet. Now and then they snapped at flies but otherwise they were motionless.
Before the half hour was up Fiddle-dee-dee fell asleep, and the Judge waking, saw on the other side of a stream propped against the gray old oak, the young mother cool in her white dress, her child in her arms.
"Father had to go," she told him, and explained the need; "he'll send Calvin for the basket."
"I can carry my own basket, Mary; I'm not a thousand years old."
"It isn't that. But you've never carried baskets, Judge."
The Judge chuckled. "You say that as if it were an accusation."
"It isn't. Only some of us seem born to carry baskets and others are born to—let us carry them." Her smile redeemed her words from impertinence.
"Are you a Bolshevik, Mary?"
"No. I believe in the divine rights of kings and—Judges. I'd hate to see you carry a basket. It would rob you of something—just as I would hate to see a king without his crown or a queen without her scepter."
"Oh, Mary, Mary, your father has never said things like that to me."
"He doesn't feel them. Father believes in The God of Things as They are——"
"And don't you?"
"I believe in you," she rose and carrying her sleeping child, crossed the stream on the stones as easily as if she carried no burden; "you know I believe in you, don't you—and in all the Bannisters?"
It was said so lightly that he took it lightly. No one was so touchy as the Judge about his dignity if it were disregarded. But here was little Mary smiling up at him and telling him that he was a king with a crown and she liked it.
"Well, well. Let's sit down, Mary."
"Fish, if you want to, and I'll watch."
He baited his hook and cast his line into the stream. It had a bobbing red cork which fascinated Fiddle-dee-dee. She tried to wade out and get it, and had to be held by her very short skirts lest she drown in the attempt.
"So I'm a confounded autocrat," the Judge chuckled. "Nobody ever said that to me before, but maybe some of them have been thinking it."
"Maybe they have," said Mary gravely, "but they haven't really cared. Having the Bannisters at Huntersfield is like the English having a Victoria or an Edward or a George at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor; it adds flavor to their—democracy——"
"Mary—who's been saying all this to you?" he demanded.
"My husband."
"Truelove Branch?"
She nodded.
"I'd like to meet him, by Jove, I'd like to meet him. He has been teaching his wife to poke fun at her old friend——"
She faced him fearlessly. "I'm not poking fun. I—I'd hate to have the Bannisters lose one little bit of their beautiful traditions. I—I—— Some day I'm going to teach little Fiddle those traditions, and tell her what it means when—when people have race back of them. You see, I haven't it, Judge, but I know what it's worth."
He was touched by her earnestness. "My dear Mary," he said, "I wish my own grandson looked at it that way. His letters of late have been very disturbing."
A little flush crept into her cheeks. "Disturbing?"
"He writes that we Americans have got to fit our practice to our theories. He says that we shout democracy and practice autocracy. That we don't believe that all men are free and equal, and that, well, in your words, Mary—we let other people carry our baskets."
Mary was smiling to herself. "You are glad he is coming home?"
"Truxton? Yes. On Saturday."
"Becky told me. She rode over to get Mother to help Mandy."
"I am going to have a lot of people to dine the day he arrives," said the Judge, "and next week there'll be the Merriweathers' ball. He will have a chance to see his old friends."
"Yes," said Mary, "he will."
They talked a great deal about Truxton after that.
"I wish he bore the Bannister name," said the Judge. "Becky is the only Bannister."
After the death of her husband Mrs. Beaufort had come to live with the Judge. Truxton's boyhood had been spent on the old estate. The Judge's income was small, and Truxton had known few luxuries. Like the rest of the boys of the Bannister family he was studying law at the University. He and Randy had been classmates, but had gone into different branches of the service.
"When he comes back," the Judge told Mary, "he must show the stuff he is made of. I can't have him selling cars around the county like Randy Paine."
"Well, Randy has sold a lot of them," said Mary. "Father has given him an order——"
"You don't mean to gay that Bob Flippin is going to buy a car——"
"He is."
"He didn't dare tell me," the Judge said; "what's he going to do with his horses?"
"Keep them," said Mary serenely; "the car is for Mother—she's going to drive it herself."
The Judge, with a vision of Mollie Flippin's middle-aged plumpness upon him, exclaimed: "You don't mean that your mother is going to—drive a car?"
"Yes," said Mary, "she is."
"I would as soon think of Claudia——"
"No," said Mary, "Mrs. Beaufort will never drive her own car. She has the coachman habit, and if she ever gets a car, there'll be a man at the wheel."
She brought the conversation back to Truxton. "Do you remember how we had a picnic here years ago, Mother packed the lunch, and Truxton ate up all the raspberry tarts?"
"He loved tarts," said the Judge, "and chocolate cake. Well, well, I shall be glad to see him."
"Perhaps—perhaps when he gets here you'll be disappointed."
"Why," sharply, "why should I?"
Mary did not answer. She stood up with Fiddle in her arms. "Calvin's coming for the basket," she said, "and I shall have to go up on the other side—I left the cart."
She said "good-bye" and crossed by the stepping-stones. The Judge wound up his fishing tackle. The day's sport resulted in three small "shiners." But he had enjoyed the day—there been the stillness and the sunlight, and the good company of Bob Flippin and his daughter Mary.
The dogs followed, and Mary from the other side of the stream watched the little procession, Calvin in the lead with the load, the Judge straight and slim with his fluff of white hair, the three little dogs paddling on their short legs.
"Judge Bannister of Huntersfield," said Mary Flippin. Then she raised Fiddle high in her arms. "SayGranddad, Fiddle," she whispered, "sayGranddad."