Part 36

"No, no!" she persisted. "Newspapers are sometimes mistaken, aren't they?" Laughing a little, she swept across the bulbous face beside her a swift regard that was like a search-light. "How do you KNOW, Mr. Flitcroft," she went on very rapidly, raising her voice,--"how do you KNOW that Mr. Louden is familiar with this place? The newspapers may have been falsely informed; you must admit that? Then how do you KNOW? Have you ever MET any one who has seen him there?"

"I've seen him there myself!" The words skipped out of Norbert's mouth like so many little devils, the instant he opened it. She had spoken so quickly and with such vehemence, looking him full in the eye, that he had forgotten everything in the world except making the point to which her insistence had led him.

Mamie looked horrified; there was a sound of smothered laughter, and Norbert, overwhelmed by the treachery of his own mouth, sat gasping.

"It can't be such a terrific place, then, after all," said Ariel, gently, and turning to Eugene, "Have you ever been there, Mr. Bantry?" she asked.

He changed color, but answered with enough glibness: "No."

Several of the young men rose; the wretched Flitcroft, however, evading Mamie's eye--in which there was a distinct hint,--sat where he was until all of them, except Eugene, had taken a reluctant departure, one group after another, leaving in the order of their arrival.

The rosy pigment which had colored the trees faded; the gold-dust of the western distance danced itself pale and departed; dusk stalked into the town from the east; and still the watcher upon the steps and the warden of the gate (he of the lilac-bushes and the Bible) held their places and waited--waited, alas! in vain.... Ah! Joe, is THIS the mettle of your daring? Did you not say you would "try"? Was your courage so frail a vessel that it could not carry you even to the gate yonder? Surely you knew that if you had striven so far, there you would have been met! Perhaps you foresaw that not one, but two, would meet you at the gate, both the warden and the watcher. What of that? What of that, O faint heart? What was there to fear? Listen! The gate clicks. Ah, have you come at last?

Ariel started to her feet, but the bent figure, coming up the walk in the darkness, was that of Eskew Arp. He bowed gloomily to Mamie, and in response to her inquiry if he wished to see her father, answered no; he had come to talk with the granddaughter of his old friend Roger Tabor.

"Mr. Arp!" called Ariel. "I am so very glad!" She ran down to him and gave him her hand. "We'll sit here on the bench, sha'n't we?"

Mamie had risen, and skirting Norbert frostily, touched Eugene upon the shoulder as she went up the steps. He understood that he was to follow her in-doors, and, after a deep look at the bench where Ariel had seated herself beside Mr. Arp, he obeyed. Norbert was left a lonely ruin between the cold, twin dogs. He had wrought desolation this afternoon, and that sweet verdure, his good name, so long in the planting, so carefully tended, was now a dreary waste; yet he contemplated this not so much as his present aspect of splendid isolation. Frozen by the daughter of the house, forgotten by the visitor, whose conversation with Mr. Arp was carried on in tones so low that he could not understand it, the fat one, though heart-breakingly loath to take himself away, began to comprehend that his hour had struck. He rose, descended the steps to the bench, and seated himself unexpectedly upon the cement walk at Ariel's feet. "Leg's gone to sleep," he explained, in response to her startled exclamation; but, like a great soul, ignoring the accident of his position as well as the presence of Mr. Arp, he immediately proceeded: "Will you go riding with me to-morrow afternoon?"

"Aren't you very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft?" she asked, with an odd intonation.

"I'm imposed on, often enough," he replied, rubbing his leg, "by people who think I am! Why?"

"It is only that your sitting so abruptly upon the ground reminded me of something that happened long ago, before I left Canaan, the last time I met you."

"I don't think I knew you before you went away. You haven't said if you'll go riding with me to-morrow. Please--"

"Get up," interrupted Mr. Arp, acidly. "Somebody 'll fall over you if you stay there."

Such a catastrophe in truth loomed imminent. Judge Pike was rapidly approaching on his way to the house, Bible in hand--far better in hand than was his temper, for it is an enraging thing to wait five hours in ambush for a man who does not come. In the darkness a desecration occurred, and Norbert perfected to the last detail whatever had been left incomplete of his own destruction. He began lumberingly to rise, talking at the same time, urging upon Ariel the charms of the roadside; wild flowers were in blossom, he said, recounting the benefits she might derive through acceptance of his invitation; and having, thus busily, risen to his knees, became aware that some one was passing near him. This some one Mr. Flitcroft, absorbed in artful persuasions, may have been betrayed by the darkness to mistake for Eugene. Reaching out for assistance, he mechanically seized upon the skirts of a coat, which he put to the uses of a rope, coming up hand-over-hand with such noble weight and energy that he brought himself to his feet and the owner of the coat to the ground simultaneously. The latter, hideously astonished, went down with an objurgation so outrageous in venom that Mr. Arp jumped with the shock. Judge Pike got to his feet quickly, but not so quickly as the piteous Flitcroft betook himself into the deep shadows of the street. Only a word, hoarse and horror-stricken, was left quivering on the night breeze by this accursed, whom the gods, intent upon his ruin, had early in the day, at his first sight of Ariel, in good truth, made mad: "MURDER!"

"Can I help you brush off, Judge?" asked Eskew, rising painfully.

Either Martin Pike was beyond words, or the courtesy proposed by the feeble old fellow (for Eskew was now very far along in years, and looked his age) emphasized too bitterly the indignity which had been put upon him: whatever the case, he went his way in-doors, leaving the cynic's offer unacknowledged. Eskew sank back upon the bench, with the little rusty sounds, suggestions of creaks and sighs, which accompany the movement of antiques. "I've always thought," he said, "that the Judge had spells when he was hard of hearing."

Oblongs of light abruptly dropped from the windows confronting them, one, falling across the bench, appropriately touching with lemon the acrid, withered face and trembling hands of the veteran. "You are younger than you were nine years ago, Mr. Arp," said Ariel, gayly. "I caught a glimpse of you upon the street, to-day, and I thought so then. Now I see that I was right."

"Me--YOUNGER!" he groaned. "No, ma'am! I'm mighty near through with this fool world--and I'd be glad of it, if I didn't expect that if there IS another one afterwards, it would be jest as ornery!"

She laughed, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knee, and her chin in her hand, so that the shadow of her hat shielded her eyes from the light. "I thought you looked surprised when you saw me to day."

"I reckon I did!" he exclaimed. "Who wouldn't of been?"

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated, confounded by her simplicity. "Why?"

"Yes," she laughed. "That's what I'm anxious to know."

"Wasn't the whole town the same way?" he demanded. "Did you meet anybody that didn't look surprised?"

"But why should they?"

"Good Lord Admighty!" he broke out. "Ain't you got any lookin'-glasses?"