Part 48

"Good-bye, Champney."

* * * * *

"Champ's worried about something," he said to himself; he was making fast the boat. "I never see him look like that--I hope he hasn't got hooked in with any of those Wall Street sharks."

In a few minutes he heard the carriage wheels on the gravel in the driveway. He stopped on his way to the stable to listen.

"He's driving like Jehu," he muttered. He was still listening; he heard the frequent snorting of the horse, the rapid click of hoofs on the highroad--but he did not hear what was filling the driver's ears at that moment: the roar of an unseen cataract.

Champney Googe was realizing for the first time that he was in mid-stream; that he might not be able to breast the current; that the eddying water about him was in fact the whirlpool; that the rush of what he had deemed mere harmless rapids was the prelude to the thunderous fall of a cataract ahead.

For several weeks after her nephew's visit, Mrs. Champney occupied many of her enforced leisure half-hours in trying to put two and two together in their logical combination of four; but thus far she had failed. She learned through Octavius that Champney had returned to New York on Saturday evening; that in consequence he was obliged to give up the cruise with the Van Ostends; from Champney himself she had no word. Her conclusion was that there had been no chance for him to see Aileen during the twelve hours he was in town, for the girl came home as requested shortly before six, but with a headache, and the excuse for it that she had rowed too far in the sun on the way up to the sheds.

"My nephew told me he was going to row up to the sheds, too--did you happen to meet him there?" she inquired. She was studying the profile of the girl's flushed and sunburned face. Aileen had just said good night and was about to leave Mrs. Champney's room. She turned quickly to face her. She spoke with sharp emphasis:

"I did not meet your nephew at the sheds, Mrs. Champney, nor did I see him there--and I'll thank you, after what you said to me this morning, to draw no more conclusions in regard to your nephew's seeing or meeting me at the sheds or anywhere else--it's not worth your while; for I've no desire either to see or meet him again. Perhaps this will satisfy you." She left the room at once without giving Mrs. Champney time to reply.

A self-satisfied smile drew apart Mrs. Champney's thin lips; evidently the girl's lesson was a final and salutary one. She would know her place after this. She determined not to touch on this subject again with Aileen; she might run the risk of going too far, and she desired to keep her with her as long as possible. But she noticed that the singing voice was heard less and less frequently about the house and grounds. Octavius also noticed it, and missed it.

"Aileen, you don't sing as much as you did a while ago--what's the matter?" he asked her one day in October when she joined him to go up street after supper on an errand.

"Matter?--I've sung out for one while; I'm taking a rest-cure with my voice, Tave."

"It ain't the kind of rest-cure that'll agree with you, nor I guess any of us at Champo. There ain't no trouble with her that's bothering you?" He pointed with a backward jerk of his thumb to the house.

"No."

"She's acted mad ever since I told her Champney had to go back that night and tend to business; guess she'd set her heart on his making a match on that yachting cruise--well, 't would be all in the family, seeing there's Champney blood in the Van Ostends, good blood too,--there's no better," he added emphatically.

"Oh, Tave, you're always blowing the Champneys' horn--"

"And why shouldn't I?"--he was decidedly nettled. "The Champneys are my folks, my townspeople, the founders of this town, and their interests have always been mine--why shouldn't I speak up for 'em, I'd like to know? You won't find no better blood in the United States than the Champneys'."

Aileen made no reply; she was looking up the street to Poggi's fruit stall, where beneath a street light she saw a crowd of men from the quarries.

"Romanzo said there was some trouble in the sheds--do you know what it is?" she asked.

"No, I can't get at the rights of it; they didn't get paid off last week, so Romanzo told me last night, but he said Champney telegraphed he'd fix it all right in another week. He says dollars are scarce just at this time--crops moving, you know, and market dull."

She laughed a little scornfully. "You seem to think Mr. Googe can fix everything all right, Tave."

"Champney's no fool; he's 'bout as interested in this home work as anybody, and if he says it'll be all right, you may bet your life it will be--There's Jo Quimber coming; p'raps he's heard something and can tell us."

"What's that crowd up to, Uncle Jo?" said Aileen, linking her arm in the old man's and making him right about face to walk on with them.

"Talkin' a strike. I heerd 'em usin' Champ's name mighty free, Tave, just now--guess he'd better come home an' calm 'em down some, or there'll be music in the air thet this town never danced to yet. By A. J., it riles me clear through to hear 'em!"

"You can't blame them for wanting their pay, Uncle Jo." There was a challenge in the girl's voice which Uncle Jo immediately accepted.

"So ye've j'ined the majority in this town, hev ye, Aileen? I don't say ez I'm blamin' anybody fer wantin' his pay; I'm jest sayin' it don't set well on me the way they go at it to get it. How's the quickest way to git up a war, eh? Jest keep talkin' it up--talkin' it up, an' it's sure to come. They don't give a man like Champ a chance--talkin' behind his back and usin' a good old Flamsted name ez ef 't wuz a mop rag!" Joel's indignation got the better of his discretion; his voice was so loud that it began to attract the attention of some men who were leaving Poggi's; the crowd was rapidly dispersing.

"Sh--Joel! they'll hear you. You've been standing up for everything foreign that's come into this town for the last seven years--what's come over you that you're going back on all your preaching?"

"I ain't goin' back on nothin'," the old man replied testily; "but a man's a man, I don't keer whether he's a Polack or a 'Merican--I don't keer nothin' 'bout thet; but ef he's a man he knows he'd oughter stop backbitin' and hittin' out behind another man's back--he'd oughter come out inter the open an' say, 'You ain't done the right thing by me, now let's both hev it out', instead of growlin' and grumblin' an' spittin' out such all-fired nonsense 'bout the syndicaters and Champ--what's Champ got to do with it, anyway? He can't make money for 'em."