THE SEARCH FOR THE SPRING
“MR. EDWARD HEATON, sir.”
Austin Knowles, sitting alone over his coffee and paper, put down his cup and leaned back, an expression of pleased surprise lighting his grave face. “Oh,—ask Mr. Heaton to come in here,” he said.
A moment, and the servant ushered in a young man whose manner, frank and boyishly eager at the threshold, at once became, on catching sight of the other, more subdued, even somewhat solicitous.
The elder looked up. “Well,” was his kindly greeting, “you’re abroad early. Take a chair. Everything all right at the building, I hope.”
“Yes, sir,—not a vacancy since McGinn & McGinn, the attorneys, leased. That was two months ago.” There was a touch of pride in Heaton’s answer.
“You’re the best superintendent I’ve ever had, Ned. I’m more than satisfied with you. And as long as your good judgment about tenants seems to have simplified your work at the building, you may feel you can branch out a little. You know Sparling is leaving me the first of the month.”
“The Montgomery street property!” Heaton’s face crimsoned with pleasure. “Oh, thank you,—I’d like to try that.”
“Well, we’ll see.” The elder man went back tohis coffee, the habitual look of gravity again settling upon his face.
Heaton was a full minute collecting himself. “What I came for this morning,” he began at last, “was a personal matter.”
“Yes?”
“I stayed up Arroyo way over Sunday. Mrs. George Thorburn spoke of you, and asked me to bring you a letter and—and back it up.” He took an envelope from a pocket, rose and handed it across the table. “Really, Ihopeyou’ll go.” His voice was deep with earnestness. He honoured Austin Knowles,—and pitied him; for he knew how rare had been the other’s devotion to the wife now seven years dead, how sincere was his mourning for her, and how lonely was his life in that big stone house on the avenue.
“I’m going up again for the rest of my vacation,” Heaton continued. “And I’ll look for you.” He held out his hand.
The elder man took it. “Perhaps,” he said absent-mindedly. And Heaton passed out.
It was a crested letter, perfumed, and written in a large, modishly angular hand.
Mrs. Thorburn’s invitation was cordial, even pressing. She wrote that the hills were simply lovely now, and that she just knew her dear Mr. Knowles was awfully fagged. So she wanted above all things that he should have a fortnight’s vacation at High Court. “Dorothy will be home,” she went on to say, “and some charming people are visiting me. You will find your stay restful, I am sure, for you shall do as you choose—except at dinner-time—andread or ride or ramble the days away. Dear Mr. Knowles, do come.”
“Restful”—his thoughts dwelt upon that word. He leaned back, covering his eyes. These seven years he had given himself no time for anything save work—hard, persistent work that had kept him from despair. But it had worn him down. His face had thinned, his hair grown grey at the temples, his shoulders rounded, his step become less elastic. Rest—he needed it. And “to read or ride or ramble” held a promise of pleasure and recuperation.
He lifted his head presently and touched a bell. It was answered by the man-servant, young and soft of foot, who approached, as Heaton had, with an air at once respectful and anxiously inquiring.
“Did you ring, sir?”
“Yes, Thomas. I’m going out of town for a couple of weeks. Pack what I’ll need—right off.” A moment ago, he had wavered over deciding. Now, of a sudden, and almost unaccountably, as though roused by a sense of coming freedom, Austin was all eagerness to get away from the lonely house, the wearing office, the noisy town.
“Will you want me to go with you, sir?”
“No,—no, I think not. You may have two weeks for yourself. Send this wire.” He scribbled a few words hastily, then rose.
“Mr. Knowles,—please.” Thomas, having received the telegram, was halted irresolutely at the door. “If I may ask, sir, if—if you’d object——”
“What, Thomas?” Austin turned, smiling encouragement.
“I’d—I’d—like to get married, sir, while you’re gone. I’d be settled and ready for my duties when you came back. It’s a young lady I’ve known a good while, sir, and we could rent that little cottage just back of here—the one with the nasturtiums over the porch. Maybe you recall it, sir.”
The smile warmed into kindness. “Marry? Why, of course,” Austin said heartily. “And, I congratulate you.”
Thomas bowed, fumbling for the knob. “Thank you, sir,” he said.
A next morning’s train carried Austin Knowles out of the city and toward the line of brown-grey California foothills midway of which was the Thorburn country-place. He watched the towns, fields, gulches and roadways slip swiftly by. The towns grew smaller and farther apart as the metropolis receded, the roadways roughened, the fields contracted, the gulches deepened, and the line of foothills took on a browner tinge. He raised a window, and a breeze swept him, tugging at his hair and bringing to his nostrils the scent of curing grass. He took a deep breath. He had not had a good smell of the country in, yes, in over seven years. The last time, he and Barbara——
The old pain gripped him, stinging his eyes and paining his throat. His hand slipped into a vest pocket and drew forth a small, round, closed locket, on one side of which, chased delicately, was a lily, upheld between two leaves; on the opposite, an A and a B, intertwined. He opened it, held it close in a palm, and looked tenderly upon the pictured face.
“Ar-roy-o!”
The trainman’s cry brought him to his feet. He put the locket away, took up a hand-satchel and hurried out and down. A trap was waiting, in charge of a man in a smart covert livery. He handed satchel and checks to a second man, who came forward from the little depot, climbed to a seat in the trap and was whirled away.
When the trap pulled up, only Mrs. Thorburn greeted him. “The others are at the tennis-court,” she explained, “Dorothy and Hal, Miss Scott—you remember her—the Lamberts, babies and all——”
“Good!” exclaimed Austin.
“And Ned Heaton.” Mrs. Thorburn rather snapped this out.
“Oh, yes,—Ned,” said Austin, wondering at her asperity.
“Hal’s fond of him,” she added in a tone which informed her hearer that she was not.
He met the house-party at luncheon. Miss Scott sat next him and was more pert than usual, owing to the roguish attentions of young Hal, who held the end of the table opposite his mother. Across from Austin, seated between the Lamberts (an ostentatiously happy married couple), was Dorothy.
“How these children grow up!” thought Austin, remembering the romping girl he had seen last in short frocks—the girl, curiously enough, that he had somehow expected to meet again. But here she was a grown woman, slender, pretty, undeniably attractive. He noticed with a feeling of regret that she strove to ape her mother’s haughtiness, but succeededin being merely petulant. Her eyes were pronouncedly eloquent. Were they not too eloquent to be honest?
But these were Austin’s first impressions. Little by little, as the meal progressed, he altered them considerably. Miss Scott’s pertness became intensified, and Dorothy’s reserve was thrown into pleasant contrast. The Lamberts proved to be extremely entertaining, and, with Hal, kept the table alive with good-natured fun. Even Mrs. Thorburn unbent to a degree that was almost kittenish. Presently, Austin responded to the infectious merriment—and found himself laughing.
Luncheon was long over, tea-time was nearly at hand, and Austin, with the young ladies looking gleefully on, was busily trying to worst Hal at billiards. Suddenly he remembered that Ned Heaton had not appeared either at luncheon or afterward.
“Oh, he’s staying at the Hamilton ranch, just back of Arroyo,” Hal explained. “Rides over every morning to help Dorothy lick us at tennis.” This with a sly smile at Miss Scott.
That smile broke up the game. Miss Scott claimed Hal’s undivided attention, demanding instruction in the handling of a cue; and Dorothy and Austin were driven forth to the lawn.
New guests were added at dinner, and this brought Miss Dorothy next him. He spoke of a ride. She agreed to it enthusiastically; and for an hour and a quarter held forth on horseback-riding and the growing popularity of stride-saddles. When dinner ended, and the company strolled out upon the lawn for coffee, she went with him.
It was not until Austin reached his room for the night that he remembered that twelve hours had passed during which all business cares had been forgotten! Yes, and even— He reached for the locket, only to find that he had not changed it from the vest of the suit he had worn throughout the day. The discovery brought a twinge of conscience. It was as if he had failed in loyalty to Her.
Dorothy and he had their ride in the morning, and came across Ned Heaton just outside of Arroyo (Dorothy had chosen that direction). The three cantered homeward together and breakfasted with the rest. Then Hal and Austin went back to their billiards, while Ned and Dorothy, with the Lamberts, sought the tennis-court.
It was the glimpse Austin got of the Lamberts as they went out that started a new train of thought for him. The husband walked close to the wife, smiling into her face and letting a round elbow rest in his hand. The sight drove Austin to the woods beyond the stables when the billiard-game came to an end. And, once in the woods, he walked aimlessly. Wise Mrs. Thorburn, with her happy couple and their pretty babies, had accomplished in twenty-four hours what seven years of grind could not do.
Out among the oaks on the hillside, he sat down in the shade. Before him lay a wooded slope that fell rapidly to the winding ribbon of the lane. Beyond the lane, over the inch-wide railroad track and the rugged little creek, rose other slopes, bare and smooth and round. Upon them, glistening red-and-white specks against the wonderful velvety brown, went cattle. And there was borne to him from across the valley the faint, sweet tinkle of a bell.
“It’s like a Keith canvas,” he said, looking at the great, low-branched oaks with their horny trunks and tufts of mistletoe. He lay back, his head on his hat, his eyes shut. Here was rest indeed!
Thegobble, gobble, gobbleof an angry turkey-cock disturbed the quiet. He sat up, watching to the left, where, through a break in the woods, could be seen the long, regular rows of a hillside vineyard. Something was moving at its edge—a woman. He rose to his feet. Even at that distance he could see that she was young and dark, and dressed in something light and simple. She was swinging a hat by one hand; the other held a leafy branch; and with hat and branch, she shooed forward into the woods a small band of bronze-coloured turkeys.
The birds came straight toward him, and made a pretty sight as they advanced, little and big together, now scattering in an eager search through the grass, now rushing together over some loudly announced find. Behind them, directing their way, walked the turkey-girl.
She approached so slowly that Austin sat down again. Presently, he heard her singing, though he could not distinguish the words or the tune. Through the song, punctuating it, sounded the piercing crescendo of young turkeys,cheep, cheep, cheep. Then, song and words became audible; but not understandable, for the approaching herder was singing in Italian.
“The daughter of the farmer,” concluded Austin. Then, “Why, I declare!”
For she was close at hand now, a slender, pliantfigure that took the steep path lightly, and he marked, almost in bewilderment, the beauty of the girl: her small head set upon a graceful brown throat; her black hair, crisply curling at the temples; hazel eyes, heavy-lashed, that suggested the yellow pansies he had seen sunning themselves along the lane; a straight, delicate nose; and a sweet mouth, brilliantly touched with scarlet.
The mother-birds saw him now and divided to pass, uttering startled warnings. She, too, caught sight of him, and stopped short, covering her surprise by giving a tardy gobbler an energetic brush with her hat. Then she looked at him with unconcealed interest and curiosity.
He took off his hat, at which the turkeys gave way in renewed fear. “Good-morning,” he said, pleasantly.
“Good-morning,” she answered, speaking without a trace of foreign accent. Then, waving branch and hat, she passed on, replying to his smile timidly.
He mentioned her at lunch. “Ah!” said Hal; “a-a-ah!” as if he had found something especially delectable on his plate. “That’s Vincenza. And I’ll bet she’s the prettiest girl in California.”
Everyone at the table promptly agreed. Austin felt something like surprise over this singleness of opinion. Even Miss Scott and Dorothy came out with no protesting “buts.” And Mrs. Thorburn—where was the heated belittlement that might be expected of an adoring and excusably ambitious mother? Did she not realise that here was an eligible and very likeable young man, and, on the next ranch, an astonishing lovely girl?
But the talk was of something else now, and Vincenza was forgotten.
That evening, as he was sitting beside Mrs. Thorburn in the music-room, listening to Dorothy’s facile rendering of a Grieg number, the elder woman turned to him suddenly and rested a hand on his arm.
“I think you’ve been happier than usual these two days,” she said. “Don’t you keep too close to your work and your home, Mr. Knowles?”
“Work, yes,” answered Austin. “But I can scarcely say that I have a home. It—it is empty.”
“You choose to have it so.” She was frankly reproving. “And yet you’re comparatively young, have means in abundance, and are the kind of man that sensible young women like.”
Austin was silent a moment. Then he said, “I’ve turned forty, and I’ve never thought of filling my wife’s place. Perhaps it’s not gallant to say it, but I’m afraid the place couldn’t be filled.”
“You’re wrong,” began Mrs. Thorburn, decisively. “There are many young women who could make you happy, cheer you, look after you—oh, every man needs looking after. And then, a son or a daughter would give you new interests in life.”
“That’s true. Somehow, I’ve hardly even thought of it before, and never spoken of it to anyone. But you are—are sympathy itself.”
“I lost my husband, and I know how it is with you. I didn’t marry again—I had my dear children.”
Austin nodded. Across the room, still seated before the piano, and coaxing something wonderfullypathetic from the long keyboard was Dorothy, a dainty picture in her gown of flowing white.
Mrs. Thorburn saw the direction of his look. “Dorothy is never interested in very young men,” she said. “I like to see her evident pleasure inyourcompany. I hope she’ll help to make your stay a very pleasant one. You know, after all, there’s no virtue in continued mourning, in nursing one’s grief.” Then, quickly, seeing Austin breathe deep, “Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean we should forget soon, or forget at all. Only, we’re put on this earth for happiness—happiness that doesn’t conflict with the happiness of others.”
“Yes,” said Austin; “yes, I’m sure that’s so.” When she got up to move over to the Lamberts, chatting together in a corner, he stayed where he was. For a second time he was thinking along new lines. This time, however, his thoughts were decidedly definite.
“I wonder,” he said to himself, “I wonder how it would have been ifIhad died and Barbara lived.” The thought of another man in his place came up. “Well, I’d have wished it.” And, presently, when he went up to bed, his mind was so engrossed that, for the first time since She had gone, he forgot to take his nightly look at the picture in the round locket.
The next morning he and Dorothy rode again. It proved a less entertaining ride than the other. For she was unusually silent, even distrait, and, Austin thought, rather sad. They went beyond Arroyo, as before, and passed the ranch where Ned Heaton was staying. But they did not see him,and as the sun had grown unpleasantly warm by that time, they headed their horses back.
The wistfulness of Dorothy’s eyes, and the little droop at the corners of her pretty mouth, touched Austin considerably. “We should have started earlier,” he said, and, “I’m afraid you’ve overdone. Sha’n’t we rest awhile at the creek?”
But she was hungry, she declared, and gave her horse a sharp cut with her quirt to put him into a gallop. Austin kept alongside, feeling somewhat contrite. When they reached the house, he helped her dismount with marked care, and anxiously followed her to the veranda. There she left him, and he did not see her again till dinner, which fact kept him waiting about all day, not a little worried.
After dinner, they walked together in the cool. Somehow, Austin came to help her occasionally, taking her by the arm, for the road was gravelled and her slippers were thin. Again she was quiet; again, her eyes were sad, and glistened with what seemed to him to be unshed tears. He was very gentle with her, and won a wan smile now and then, or a quick, grateful look.
When their walk was over, and Dorothy had said good-night, Mrs. Thorburn came to sit beside Austin, under the rose-covered pergola. Once more she laid her hand upon his arm, and again her speech was full of friendly interest and sympathy, leading, at last, to the subject of a change in Austin’s mode of life, and then—to marriage.
There could be no doubt as to her meaning. She admired and respected him. His loyalty to his dead wife was, to her, a sure sign that he would make aloyal husband to a new one. And Dorothy felt so, too.
Later, he held a conference with himself—and felt just a trifle disappointed at the thought that Mrs. Thorburn was descending to match-making. “Perhaps I would be happier, though,” he said to himself, “and more contented. But—Dorothy is twenty.”
Was there not too wide a gap between their ages? He had always held that youth naturally turned to youth for happiness; he had always strongly disapproved of the marriage of May with December, pointing out that such a union never took place when December was poor. But—was forty December? On the other hand, he was not poor.
“But the Thorburns don’t need money,” he said decisively. “It wouldn’t be a purchase.” The idea was so abhorrent that he determinedly put it aside, and fell asleep thinking of possible changes in the decorations and furnishings of the big, stone house on the avenue.
The miniature had not been forgotten: he had purposely refrained from looking at it.
It was early morning when he awoke and looked out. The sun was just rising. High Court was yet asleep. The only moving thing about the grounds was a gardener, pushing before him a barrow filled with weeds and tools. Austin dressed hurriedly, and quietly made his way out upon the broad lawn. Then he pulled his soft hat over his eyes, settled his coat, and made off down the carriage road, walking briskly.
To reach the creek was easy. But once on itsedge, he looked up at the house and felt that the long pull back would be less difficult after a refreshing cup of coffee. The thought touched his pride—had he grown to be such an old fogy that he must have his usual breakfast stimulant before making a little extra physical effort! The town lay up the level track. He turned that way.
Breakfast over at the little Mexican restaurant, he started homeward, leaving the tracks, this time, and following a trail that led through a small field of alfalfa. When the woods were reached, he settled himself against a log in the sun, and looked down upon the town, toward which a pigmy freight train was crawling, and upon the fringed creek and the small, fenced alfalfa fields bordering the lane.
And then—gobble, gobble, gobble. He glanced along the trail. Some turkeys were coming into view, and beyond them, a wide, bobbing hat.
When Vincenza appeared, driving the laziest gobbler before her, Austin rose. “Out early with your turkeys, I see,” he began. “You’re Miss Vincenza. Mrs. Thorburn has spoken of you. I’m staying at High Court for a few days.”
She had been standing very still while he talked, modestly watching him. Now, she smiled frankly, and nodded. “Yes, I know Mrs. Thorburn,” she said. “All the time, ladies and gentlemen come from the city to visit her. Sometimes I see them—I go up to the house to take a turkey, maybe, and then I see them on the porch.”
She moved away, following the flock, and he walked with her. They went slowly, accommodating themselves to the vagaries of the leading hens, whoseslender chicks, forever cheeping shrilly, ran on and on in a little brown, eager brood.
“Isn’t the morning beautiful!” he said. “I live in the city, you know, and never see the sun come up.”
“I always see it,” she answered. “I drive the turkeys out early. They are in a coop at night, for the coyotes would like to eat them. When they get loose, oh, they walk and walk. They walk my feet off!” She shook her head in mock despair.
They paused now, the foremost turkeys having stopped to explore a manzanita thicket. Austin took a closer look at her than he had had before, his wonder growing over her delicate beauty. Never had he seen its equal. And yet she seemed unconscious of it, and had none of the smirking and simpering and obvious showing-off of her prettiness that marred most girls. Then, for some reason, there rose up before him a certain, doll-like face, pretty and petulant, but distinguished by eyes that were purposefully eloquent.
The hazel pair at hand were watching the valley. Austin looked and saw a horseman threading the lane by the creek. At that great distance, the horse looked to him scarcely more than a rabbit in size.
Vincenza’s face lighted as she looked. “Ah!” she exclaimed presently; “it is Guido!” And shaping her slim hands to form a mouth-trumpet, she sent down a long, clear halloo.
The horseman reined sharply and, taking off his hat, waved it about his head. Then he rode on, with a trail of dust rising like smoke behind him.
Between the galloping horseman and the hill, twopeople on foot were moving slowly. Austin studied them a moment. One was a woman, in a white dress, the other a man—Heaton, surely, for there was no mistaking that broad sombrero. But who was the girl?
Vincenza now hurried forward, all anxiety for her flock. “Fantana,” she called, “oh, where are the babies?” Spying them out, all safe, she came back to give the ever-lagging gobbler a smart cuff. “Why,whydo you not stay with the little ones and take care of them?” she demanded in a scold. “You bad Dewey!”
Austin was delighted. He gave over watching the couple in the valley and helped her circle the flock and keep them from spreading. Then, together, they freed a little turk that had tangled his over-long legs among some vines.
The next four days passed with amazing swiftness for Austin. His mornings were spent among the oaks upon the hill, where the turkeys never failed to make their appearance. He took a shotgun with him, Hal having suggested that the ranch could spare an occasional coyote or rabbit—or even a wildcat! But the afternoons were devoted to High Court, and billiards or bridge made the warm hours go quickly. In the evening there was a drive, perhaps, or a stroll.
As a rule, after dinner, Austin walked with Dorothy, the others rather pairing off or grouping so that this might be the case. One night, however, toward the end of his stay, Miss Scott fell to his lot. The first half-hour with her he contrived to spend agreeably. Once you knew her, he had cometo think, she was really a nice enough girl. Her pertness grew out of her natural sharpness rather than out of any intent to be caustic or malicious. But—did it?
They had arrived at a palm-bordered turn in the road that led to the valley. There they paused, looking back at the low, white house, the wide windows of which were all brilliantly alight.
“Isn’t it a delightful home?” said Austin. “So simple, yet it would be hard to find a detail that could be improved.”
“Thereisone, though,” retorted Miss Scott. “Only you can’t see—a mortgage.” The expression of her face, it was as if she had winked, carried full meaning.
It worked like a sudden poison. Now Austin understood Hal’s apparently enthusiastic liking for him; now he understood Mrs. Thorburn’s well-veiled wishes and friendly pats upon his arm; now he understood Dorothy, sulky at times, at others over-cordial, in fact, gushing, and always so eloquent of eye.
But could he give unquestioning belief to the mere insinuation of a sharp-tongued envious girl? What right had he, on such flimsy evidence, to jump to the conclusion that the Thorburns, mother and son, were cold-blooded bargainers; that Dorothy, in her sweeter moods, was acting a crafty lie?
As he walked silently homeward, he was forced to acknowledge to himself that he had not an inkling as to what were the girl’s true inclinations. Her artificial life, and her training under false standards, made it possible for her to mask her real self. Ifthere were no one to influence her, would she seek her happiness with him?
His meeting with Vincenza next morning was like a breath of scented air after a stifling room. She did not know of his wealth, she did not parade her beauty, she was not hunting a human bank. If it were a question of what were her feelings, how easily, how unerringly, it could be answered! For what she said came straight from her innocent heart, and could be accepted absolutely. She was truth itself.
While they sat together under a broad live-oak, with the turkeys settled down near by in the sun, he listened with keen pleasure to her naïve chatter and to the sturdy announcement that she was going to the city—soon, too, this with a blush, and that even now she was having a “tailor-suit” made for her journey.
“A tailor-suit!” thought Austin, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of it. She seemed so fitted to the simple print dress and the broad sun-hat she was wearing.
The following day he breakfasted before the others and hurried off eagerly, carrying the gun. He had never fired it yet, but it served as an excellent excuse for his long rambles. When he reached the oak grove on the hillside, he leaned the weapon against a tree. Then he stretched himself out, his soft hat under his head.
Vincenza—in the last twenty-four hours, how often the thought of her had come to him! What a contrast this girl of the fields was to Dorothy Thorbum! How winsome, how unaffected. She was a little woman to be prized as a jewel by a fortunateman. How disinterested her companionship with him had been! She liked him solely for himself—with no knowledge, and, therefore, no thought, of the big stone house that would be a veritable palace of fairyland to a girl like her; with no thought of fine raiment, or of luxuries of any sort.
Something moved in the chaparral clump above him. He turned, and saw two small brown-feathered birds emerge.
“Quail!” he said under his breath. He reached for the gun, aimed quickly, and fired.
Instantly mingled cries went up: the frightened gobbling of grown turkeys, the pitiful cheeps of a young bird as it tumbled about in the grass, and, louder than these, the wailing plea of a girl—“Oh! oh! don’t shoot!”
Then, racing down upon him, came Vincenza, her hat gone, her dark hair flying, her face white with anxiety for her flock.
There he stood, red-handed, the gun in his grasp, the injured chick at his feet.
She saw the little crumpled victim now, and with a pitiful sob sank down and took it into her lap. “Ah! poor Maria!” she wept, smoothing a stained wing.
“Vincenza,” pleaded Austin, putting the gun aside and kneeling beside her, “I didn’t mean to do it. I thought it was a quail. Oh, I’m so sorry. Listen. I’ll make the loss up a thousand times. Come,pleasedon’t cry.”
The chaparral crashed above him. He stood up—in time to meet the angry black eyes of a stalwartyoung man, who came panting upon the scene, carrying Vincenza’s hat.
“What’s the matter?” demanded the newcomer. “My Vincenza, are you hurt? This fool has been shooting.” And lifting the girl up, he held her, as if in defence, against his breast. [Instantly Austin divined why the mistress of High Court had no need to belittle the turkey-girl!]
“No, no, Guido,” Vincenza sobbed protestingly, “he is not a fool.”
“He kills the turkeys,” went on Guido, glaring at Austin. “Say, Mister, what’s the matter with you?”
“I’ll make it right,” Austin answered in a low voice.
“The devil!” began Guido, almost shaking Vincenza in his wrath. “But she loves each little one.”
Vincenza interrupted him. A slim hand came up and settled determinedly upon his mouth. “Guido,” she entreated, “do not be so mad. I would have to sell them all before the wedding, would I not? And Maria was so young—she was not worth two-bits. Only”—plaintively—“she dies a little sooner.”
“Well, anyhow,” went on Guido, not a whit pacified, “I like to know why you hang around and hang around here all the time. Vincenza, she is mine, and I do not——”
Again, the girl interrupted. This time, she stepped back a little, holding her lover at arm’s length and smiling at him through her tears. “Oh, poor Guido,” she cried teasingly, with a swift looktoward Austin. “What you think? He is jealous! And of this kind old gentleman!”
Austin involuntarily straightened, and his head jerked back as if from a blow. The doubts that had troubled him were settled. Truth had spoken.
He took out a bulging leather purse, opened it, and let a dozen shining fives run into his hand. Then, his sensitive face pale, his look subdued, he held out the money to Guido.
The young Italian received it with something short of a bow, and proffered it to Vincenza. “Here,” he said soothingly.
Vincenza, black lashes still wet, gazed in wonderment upon the little pile of coins. “Oh!” she cried, “but Maria was not worth so much!”
Austin picked up the gun, buttoned his coat, and returned Guido’s bow. “It is partly a—a little wedding gift,” he said. “And I wish you both all the happiness that life can give. Good-day.” He lifted his hat and wheeled.
At that moment he saw, halted in a well-screened turn of the distant road by the creek, two figures. One was slender and dressed in white, and one was topped by a wide sombrero. And, as he looked, the white-clad figure was suddenly caught close to the other—so close that two heads were shielded by the same broad hat.
“Well,” said Austin, at luncheon, smiling upon his hostess, “I go back to town to-day.”
Mrs. Thorburn’s face, until now wreathed in smiles that were marvels of effusive amiability, dropped as suddenly as if a rough hand had beendrawn down across it; then it slowly reddened, and two eyes, startled, even apprehensive, exchanged a glance with Hal.
“Nonsense!” cried the son of the house, leaning toward Austin. “We can’t let you go—that’s all there is about it. Ned here is off in the morning, and—and we can’t afford to lose anyone else. Can we, mother?”
By now Mrs. Thorburn had recovered somewhat from her momentary surprise. Once more beaming amiably, she shook a finger at Austin in playful sternness. “I protest,” she said. “No, no, you can’t go. We all protest. Dorothy——”
“Yes, indeed,” chimed in the girl, but with illy feigned enthusiasm. “Why—why should you go?”
“I’ve got such a lot to do,” explained Austin. “You know Thomas—the man that’s been with me such a long time. He’s just been married, and I want to attend to a wedding-present for him.”
“The idea of your hurrying away to look after a servant’s comfort,” cooed Mrs. Thorburn, “when you need rest so badly yourself.”
“I think you’re right,” admitted Austin, airily. “I’m not as young as I was once.”
“Not so young!” repeated Mrs. Thorburn. “Oh, how ridiculous!” And, “Bosh!” added Hal. But Dorothy said nothing, only coloured, as if in guilt. Ned was watching her, his boyish face set, his eyes half closed. The Lamberts alone were concerned with their luncheon. Miss Scott was all attention. Her sharp chin was up, her sharper eyes travelling alertly.
“Yes, not so young,” continued Austin, jovially.“In fact, I’m nothing less than an old gentleman.” He gave a hearty laugh.
Mrs. Thorburn shifted uneasily. His demeanour had in it an entirely strange note. The subdued, seemingly pliable Austin she understood. But what of this new one, changed all at once—more youthful, cheery and dominating?
“You know, these two weeks, I’ve had time to take stock of myself,” Austin continued. “I was in a groove. Well, travelling over these hills has taught me the value of change and recreation. I’m going back to town to settle things up so that I can get away to Europe for a long vacation. I’m afraid that means more work for you, Ned.”
The young man looked back at him soberly. “Yes, sir?”
“Sort of a manager. What do you say?”
For a moment there was perfect silence; next, a general movement; then—Dorothy’s fork fell from her hand and clattered upon a plate.
“Manager,” repeated Heaton.
The older man nodded, and smiled from one to another of the circle. When he came to Dorothy, he saw a face from which petulance and pretence were gone. Her eyes, as they met his, were as childishly honest as Vincenza’s own. And they were shining with tears.
“And while I’m away you could take care of my house, Ned, if—if you weren’t a single man.”
Again, a perfect silence, a silence almost electric. Hal and his mother exchanged a second swift glance. Miss Scott leaned forward. She looked at no one, and spoke with sly triumph.
“Congratulations,” she said.
With Arroyo far behind, and High Court only a white dot upon the brown-grey hills, Austin turned from the car window, took out the round locket and opened it. In his face there was none of the old pain. Instead, he looked with a tender smile upon the pictured face of his wife.
“Barbara,” he said, “the spring of youth—it never could be found a second time. We drank from it together—we enjoyed it to the full. What a mistake—mourning instead of exulting in the memory of it—a memory that no one can take from me—of youth with you, dearest, of youth withyou!”