Part 104

"I won't drive way up, Tave; but I'd like you to put me down at the sheds. Maggie says it's really beautiful now in Shed Number Two. While I'm waiting for you, I can nose round all I want to and you can pick me up there on your way back. Just wait till I run up to the house to see the nurse myself, will you?" Octavius nodded.

She ran up the steps of the terrace, and on her return found Octavius with the surrey at the front door.

Aileen was silent during the first part of the drive. This was unusual when the two were together, and, after waiting a while, Octavius spoke:

"I'm wondering what she wants to see Father Honore for."

"I'd like to know myself."

"It's got into my head, and somehow I can't get it out, that it's something to do with Champney--"

"Champney!--" the name slipped unawares through the red barrier of her lips; she bit them in vexation at their betrayal of her thought--"you mean Champney Googe?" She tried to speak indifferently.

"Who else should I mean?" Octavius answered shortly. Aileen's ways at times, especially during these last few years when Champney Googe's name happened to be mentioned in her presence, were irritating in the extreme to the faithful factotum at Champ-au-Haut.

"I wish, Aileen, you'd get over your grudge against him--"

"What grudge?"

"You can tell that best yourself--there's no use your playing off--I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can put my finger on the very year and the very month you turned against Champney Googe who never had anything but a pleasant word for you ever since you was so high--" he indicated a few feet on his whipstock--"and first come to Champo. 'T ain't generous, Aileen; 't ain't like a true woman; 't ain't like you to go back on a man just because he has sinned. He stands in need of us all now, although they say at the sheds he can hold his own with the best of 'em--I heard the manager telling Emlie he'd be foreman of Shed Number Two if he kept on, for he's the only one can get on with all of the foreigners; guess Jim McCann knows--"

"What do you mean by the year and the month?"

"I mean what I say. 'T was in August seven years ago--but p'r'aps you don't remember," he said. His sarcasm was intentional.

She made no reply, but smiled to herself--a smile so exasperating to Octavius that he sulked a few minutes in silence. After another eighth of a mile, she spoke with apparent interest:

"What makes you think Mrs. Champney wants to see Father Honore about her nephew?"

"Because it looks that way. This afternoon, when you was out, she got me to move Mr. Louis' picture from the library to her room, and I had to hang it on the wall opposite her bed--" Octavius paused--"I believe she don't think she'll last long, and she don't look as if she could either. Last week she had Emlie up putting a codicil to her will. The nurse told me she was one of the witnesses, she and Emlie and the doctor--catch her letting me see any of her papers!" He reined into the road that led to the sheds.

"I hope to God she'll do him justice this time," he spoke aloud, but evidently to himself.

"How do you mean, Tave?"

"I mean by giving him what's his by rights; that's what I mean." He spoke emphatically.

"He wouldn't be the man I think he is if he ever took a cent from her--not after what she did!" she exclaimed hotly.

Octavius turned and looked at her in amazement.

"That's the first time I ever heard you speak up for Champney Googe, an' I've known you since before you knew him. Well, it's better late than never." He spoke with a degree of satisfaction in his tone that did not escape Aileen. "Which door shall I leave you at?"

"Round at the west--there are some people coming out now--here we are. You'll find me here when you come back."

"I shall be back within a half an hour; I telephoned Father Honore I was coming up--you're sure you don't mind waiting here alone? I'll get back before dusk."

"What should I be afraid of? I won't let the stones fall on me!"

She sprang to the ground. Octavius turned the horse and drove off.

* * * * *

On entering the shed she caught her breath in admiration. The level rays of the July sun shone into the gray interior illumining the farthest corners. Their glowing crimson flushed the granite to a scarcely perceptible rose. Portions of the noble arches, parts of the architrave, sculptured cornice and keystone, drums, pediments and capitals, stone mullions, here and there a huge monolith, caught the ethereal flush and transformed Shed Number Two into a temple of beauty.