Part 41

“Poker hand?” She remained honestly vague.

It rejoiced me to be the first to tell her. “You haven’t heard of Master John’s last performance? Well, finding himself forced by that immeasurable old Aunt Josephine of yours to shake hands, he shook ‘em all right, but he took thirty dollars away as a little set-off for his pious docility.”

“Oh!” she murmured, overwhelmed with astonishment. Then she broke into one of her delicious peals of laughter.

“Anybody,” I said, “likes a boy who plays a hand--and a fist--to that tune.” I continued to say a number of commendatory words about young John, while her sparkling eyes rested upon me. But even as I talked I grew aware that these eyes were not sparkling, were starry rather, and distant, and that she was not hearing what I said; so I stopped abruptly, and at the stopping she spoke, like a person waking up.

“Oh, yes! Certainly he can take care of himself. Why not?”

“Rather creditable, don’t you think?”

“Creditable?”

“Considering his aunts and everything.”

She became haughty on the instant. “Upon my word! And do you suppose the women of South Carolina don’t wish their men to be men? Why”--she returned to mirth and that arch mockery which was her special charm--“we South Carolina women consider virtue our business, and we don’t expect the men to meddle with it!”

“Primal, perpetual, necessary!” I cried. “When that division gets blurred, society is doomed. Are you sure John can take care of himself every way?”

“I have other things than Mr. Mayrant to think about.” She said this quite sharply.

It surprised me. “To be sure,” I assented. “But didn’t you once tell me that you thought he was simple?”

She opened her ledger. “It’s a great honor to have one’s words so well remembered.”

I was still at a loss. “Anyhow, the wedding is postponed,” I continued; “and the cake. Of course one can’t help wondering how it’s all coming out.”

She was now working at her ledger, bending her head over it. “Have you ever met Miss Rieppe?” She inquired this with a sort of wonderful softness--which I was to hear again upon a still more memorable occasion.

“Never,” I answered, “but there’s nobody at present living whom I long to see so much.”

She wrote on for a little while before saying, with her pencil steadily busy, “Why?”

“Why? Don’t you? After all this fuss?”

“Oh, certainly,” she drawled. “She is so much admired--by Northerners.”

“I do hope John is able to take care of himself,” I purposely repeated.

“Take care of yourself!” she laughed angrily over her ledger.

“Me? Why? I understand you less and less!”

“Very likely.”

“Why, I want to help him!” I protested. “I don’t want him to marry her. Oh, by the way do you happen to know what it is that she is coming here to see for herself?”

In a moment her ledger was left, and she was looking at me straight. Coming? When?

“Soon. In an automobile. To see something for herself.”

She pondered for quite a long moment; then her eyes returned, searchingly, to me. “You didn’t make that up?”

I laughed, and explained. “Some of them, at any rate,” I finished, “know what she’s coming for. They were rather queer about it, I thought.”