Part 37

"No; only a week or two at most; but I shall run up often; the business will require it." He looked at Aileen. "Will you be so kind as to come over with me to the coach house, Miss Armagh, and hand my property over to me? Good-bye, Aunt Meda."

Aileen rose. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Mrs. Champney, or will you go in now?"

"There's no dew, and the air is so fresh I'll sit here till you come."

The two went down the terrace steps side by side. Mrs. Champney watched them out of sight; there was a kindling light in her faded eyes.

"Now, we'll see," said Champney, as they neared the coach house and saw in the window the bundle of brown tow with black nose flattened on the pane and eyes filled with longing under the tangled topknot. The stub of a tail was marking time to the canine heartbeats. Champney opened the door; the dog scurried out and sprang yelping for joy upon Aileen.

"Rag, come here!" The dog's day of judgment was in that masculine command. The little terrier nosed Aileen's hand, hesitated, then pressed more closely to her side. The girl laughed out in merry triumph. Champney noted that she showed both sets of her strong white teeth when she laughed.

"Rag, dear old boy!" She parted with caressing fingers the skein of tow on the frowsled head.

"Come on, Rag." Champney whistled and started up the driveway. The terrier fawned on Aileen, slavered, snorted, sniffed, then crept almost on his belly, tail stiff, along the ground after Champney who turned and laid his hand on him. The dog crouched in the road. He gently pulled the stumps of ears--"Now come!"

He went whistling up the road, and the terrier, recognizing his master, trotted in a lively manner after him.

Champney turned at the gate and lifted his hat. "How about fidelity now, Miss Armagh?" He wanted to tease in payment for that amazed look she gave him for taking a liberty with her Christian name.

"Well, of course, he's your dog," she called merrily after him, "but I wouldn't have done it if I'd been Rag!"

Champney found himself wondering on the homeward way if she really meant what she said.

It was a careless question, carelessly put, and yet--Aileen Armagh, before she returned to the house, was also asking herself if she meant what she said, asking it with an unwonted timidity of feeling she could not explain. On coming in sight of the terrace, she saw that Mrs. Champney was still there. She hesitated a moment, then crossed the lawn to the boat house. She wanted to sit there a while in the shade, to think things out with herself if possible. What did this mean--this strange feeling of timidity?

The course of her life was not wholly smooth. It was inevitable that two natures like hers and Mrs. Champney's should clash at times, and the impact was apt to be none of the softest. Twice, Aileen, making a confidant of Octavius, threatened to run away, for the check rein was held too tightly, and the young life became restive under it. When the child first came to Champ-au-Haut, its mistress recognized at once that in her mischief, her wilfulness, her emphatic assertion of her right of way, there was nothing vicious, and to Octavius Buzzby's amazement, she dealt with her, on the whole, leniently.

"She amuses me," she would say when closing an eye to some of Aileen's escapades that gave a genuine shock to Octavius in the region of his local prejudices.

There had been, indeed, no "folderols" in her education. Sewing, cooking, housework she was taught root and branch in the time not spent at school, both grammar and high. During the last year Mrs. Champney permitted her to learn French and embroidery in a systematic manner at the school established by the gentle Frenchwomen in The Gore; but she steadily refused to permit the girl to cultivate her voice through the medium of proper instruction. This denial of the girl's strongest desire was always a common subject of dissension and irritation; however, after Aileen was seventeen a battle royal of words between the two was a rare occurrence.

At the same time she never objected to Aileen's exercising her talent in her own way. Father Honore encouraged her to sing to the accompaniment of his violin, knowing well that the instrument would do its share in correcting faults. She sang, too, with Luigi Poggi, her "knothole boy" of the asylum days; and, as seven years before, Nonna Lisa often accompanied with her guitar. The old Italian, who had managed to keep in touch with her one-time protegee, and her grandson Luigi, made their appearance in the village one summer after Aileen had been two years in Flamsted. Luigi, now that his vaudeville days were over, was in search of work at the quarries; his grandmother was to keep house for him till he should be able to establish himself in trade--the goal of so many of his thrifty countrymen.

These two Italians were typical of thousands of their nationality who come to our shores; whom our national life, through naturalization and community of interests, is able in a marvellously short time to assimilate--and for the public good. Intelligent, business-like, keen at a bargain, but honest and graciously gentle and friendly in manner, Luigi Poggi soon established himself in the affections of Flamsted--in no one's more solidly than in Elmer Wiggins', strange to say, who capitulated to the "foreigner's" progressive business methods--and after three years of hard and satisfactory work at the quarries and in the sheds, by living frugally and saving thriftily he was able to open the first Italian fruit stall in the quarry town. The business was flourishing and already threatened to overrun its quarters. Luigi was in a fair way to become fruit capitalist; his first presidential vote had been cast, and he felt prepared to enjoy to the full his new Americanhood.

But with his young manhood and the fulfilment of its young aspirations, came other desires, other incentives for making his business a success and himself a respected and honored citizen of these United States. Luigi Poggi was ready to give into Aileen's keeping--whenever she might choose to indicate by a word or look that she was willing to accept the gift--his warm Italian heart that knew no subterfuge in love, but gave generously, joyfully, in the knowledge that there would be ever more and more to bestow. He had not as yet spoken, save with his dark eyes, his loving earnestness of voice, and the readiness with which, ever since his appearance in Flamsted he ran and fetched and carried for her.

Aileen enjoyed this devotion. The legitimate pleasure of knowing she is loved--even when no response can be given--is a girl's normal emotional nourishment. Through it the narrows in her nature widen and the shallows deepen to the dimensions that enable the woman's heart to give, at last, even as she has received,--ay, even more than she can ever hope to receive. This novitiate was now Aileen's.

As a foil, against which Luigi's silent devotion showed to the best advantage, Romanzo Caukins' dogged persistence in telling her on an average of once in two months that he loved her and was waiting for a satisfactory answer, served its end. For six years, while Romanzo remained at Champ-au-Haut, the girl teased, cajoled, tormented, amused, and worried the Colonel's eldest. Of late, since his twenty-first birthday, he had turned the tables on her, and was teasing and worrying her with his love-blind persistence. That she had given him a decided answer more than once made no impression on his determined spirit. In her despair Aileen went to Octavius; but he gave her cold comfort.

"What'd I tell you two years ago, Aileen? Didn't I say you couldn't play with even a slow-match like Roman, if you didn't want a fire later on? And you wouldn't hear a word to me."

"But I didn't know, Tave! How could I think that just because a boy tags round after you from morning till night for the sake of being amused, that when he gets to be twenty-one he is going to keep on tagging round after you for the rest of his days? I never saw such a leech! He simply won't accept the fact once for all that I won't have him; but he's got to--so now!"

Octavius smiled at the sudden little flurry; he was used to them.

"I take it Roman doesn't think you know your own mind."

"He doesn't! Well, he'll find out I do, then. Oh, dear, why couldn't he just go on being Romanzo Caukins with no nonsense about him, and not make such a goose of himself! Anyway, I'm thankful he's gone; it got so I couldn't so much as tell him to harness up for Mrs. Champney, that he didn't consider it a sign of 'yielding' on my part!" She laughed out. "Oh, Tavy dear, what should I do without you!--Now if I could make an impression on you, it might be worth while," she added mischievously.

Octavius would have failed to be the man he was had he not felt flattered; he smiled on her indulgently. "Well, I shouldn't tag round after you much if I was thirty year younger; 't ain't my way. But there's one thing, Aileen, I want to say to you, and if you've got any common sense you'll heed me this time: I want you to be mighty careful how you manage with Luigi. You've got no slow-match to play with this time, let me tell you; you've got a regular sleeping volcano like some of them he was born near; and it won't do, I warn you. He ain't Romanzo Caukins--Roman's home made; but t'other is a foreigner; they're different."

"Oh, don't preach, Octavius." She always called him by his unabbreviated name when she was irritated. "I like well enough to sing with Luigi, and go rowing with him, and play tennis, and have the good times, but it's nonsense for you to think he means anything serious. Why, he never spoke a word of love to me in his life!"