A CONFESSION
Because of her absorption in Miss Finch's engrossing problem, Agatha
gave the travelers of the household less of her attention on their
return that afternoon than those rather spoiled individuals had reason
to expect. Not till the following morning when she read Forbes a letter
from Julia, even more egotistic than the average communication of that
self-centered young woman, did Agatha realize that something was amiss
with her boarder. He seemed tired and low-spirited, disinclined to
conversation, in decided contrast to Howard, who was bubbling over with
items of interest relating to their brief trip. Clearly the jaunt had
been too much for the convalescent's strength.
A little conscience-stricken that she had not earlier made the
discovery, Agatha set herself resolutely to the task of reviving
Forbes' drooping spirits, though with less than her usual success.
And when late in the afternoon she suggested a walk, pleading that her
knees were growing stiff from lack of exercise, he turned the tables
on her unexpectedly by insisting that she go for a stroll with Howard
as an escort, leaving him at home. And as her protest stirred him to a
most uncharacteristic irritation, she yielded the point without further
argument.
"Of course, if you really want to get rid of us, we'll go. Only I hate
to leave you alone."
"I'm better company for myself than for others, dear lady. I'd rather
be alone for a little. I'll try to sleep and perhaps I'll wake in a
better humor."
Her only thought an impatient haste to have the ordeal over, Agatha
started out, Howard in attendance. But her dejection yielded by degrees
to the magic of the summer afternoon. It vanished completely when she
challenged her brother to a race across a green stretch of pasture.
They reached their goal laughing and breathless, Agatha in the lead,
and climbing the low stone wall they dropped panting in the shade of
a guardian elm. Agatha snuggled back against the huge trunk, tucking
her feet under her, while Howard sprawled happily at her side, laying
his head in her lap. Agatha's contented sigh as she ran her fingers
through his hair, told of relaxed nerves.
"What a pity Mr. Forbes wouldn't come! It's so restful here. What did
he do yesterday to tire him so?"
"He didn't do much of anything. Saw the doctor and Mr. Warren and
then--"
"Warren? Did he see him?"
"Sure. Telephoned the first thing when we got to the city and Mr.
Warren came up to the hotel for lunch. They let me go out and look
around for a couple of hours while they talked. Say, Aggie, I wish you
knew Mr. Warren. He's a dandy."
Agatha's expressive face betrayed no especial impatience to meet
the object of Howard's eulogy. Indeed a grim tightening of her lips
indicated that on this theme her brother and herself were far from
agreement. But before the boy had time to be impressed by her lack
of responsiveness, his attention was distracted by a cough from the
direction of the road, eminently a stagey cough, due not to a tickling
in the throat, but to some one's desire to announce his presence.
Howard turned sharply, then sprang to his feet with a shout of mingled
pleasure and astonishment.
"Why, hello, Mr. Warren! Did you come out to find us? It's the funniest
thing but I was talking about you this very minute."
Warren, immaculate in a gray business suit and spotless panama, gave no
indication of sharing the boy's pleasure in the unexpected encounter.
He looked at him with disconcerting steadiness, and Howard, turning to
his sister, saw her unconcealed consternation and realized that the
game was up. He had momentarily forgotten the necessity of explaining
Aggie. Mr. Warren would have to know the truth and undoubtedly would
take it on himself to acquaint Mr. Forbes with the surprising state of
affairs. Yet after all, Mr. Warren was a good sport. Perhaps if the
thing were put up to him--
Warren's peremptory speech broke in on the boy's confused thoughts.
"Chase along, Howard. I don't want you at present."
"What do you want me to do, Mr. Warren?"
"I don't care what you do as long as you don't stay here."
"I--but I--" Without understanding his sense of discomfiture, Howard
blushed an angry scarlet, and faced the intruder with instinctive
defiance. Then Agatha spoke wearily.
"It's all right, Howard. Run along, please."
She was not easily daunted, but something in Warren's manner was
accountable for a singular chill at her heart that was like fear. She
had forgotten how big the man was, and his nose was so unexpectedly
long and his chin so heavy, and his eyes bored into her like augers and
were of a steely gray besides, which made the figure more impressive.
He seemed quite another person from the silly young man who had talked
nonsense in the kitchen that Sunday morning and ended by kissing her
cheek.
She heard Howard stumble away, muttering angrily to himself. Very
deliberately Warren moved toward her. She forced herself to lift her
eyes. He was looking down at her with the air of one who has the
whip-hand and knows it. For some undefined reason she felt herself at a
tremendous disadvantage.
"Look here," said Warren with the same hardness in his voice she had
noticed when he spoke to Howard, "this won't do, you know."
Agatha remembered that she was Hephzibah Diggs just in time to drawl
the inquiry through her nose. "What won't do?"
"You mustn't be putting ideas into the kid's head. He's a nice kid.
Forbes is tremendously interested in him and so is Miss Kent. On Miss
Kent's account if there were no other reason, you ought to let the boy
alone."
She glared at him, fury growing with understanding. Her baleful gaze
fought its way to him through tears of pure rage.
Her unexpected emotion softened him perceptibly. He laid aside his air
of judicial sternness as easily as he would have removed his coat.
"Come now," he said, seating himself beside her. "We mustn't quarrel.
And I dare say you meant no particular harm. Only keep in mind that
it's hands off where the boy is concerned."
"Have you got anything to say to me?"
"You bet I have. I've come clear from town to say it, Hephzibah. By the
way, isn't there something I could call you for short?"
"Yes, Miss Diggs."
He eyed her approvingly. A tear had splashed upon her burning cheek,
and was making its leisurely way toward her chin, but tears with Agatha
seldom gave the impression of feminine softness. Warren had the usual
masculine horror of weepy women. It was a relief to perceive that for
all her tears, Agatha's mood was murderous.
"No indeed, we mustn't quarrel," he repeated. "Because I've come on
purpose to see you, and do you a good turn. I'm interested in you, and
want to help you."
"I don't want none of your help."
"That's because you don't understand, little girl. This world is a
pretty big place and so far you've seen only a measly little corner."
"It suits me." He saw an added enmity in her eyes, over this aspersion
on her native village, and smiled tolerantly.
"I wouldn't waste any loyalty on this burg if I were in your place.
I asked half a dozen people where I could find you and every one
pretended he'd never heard of you."
Agatha's look showed her taken aback and Warren was not slow to follow
up his advantage.
"Of course I knew they were lying. Even in this unobservant community,
my dear Hephzibah, you could hardly escape notice any more than on
Broadway. I assume these young men were protecting their reputations by
denying the pleasure of your acquaintance."
"Oh," murmured Agatha, "I never thought I could hate anybody the way I
hate you."
"You shouldn't feel that way, my child. I'm not trying to hurt your
feelings. I'm perfectly ready to let bygones be bygones and give you a
hand up. I only mentioned this to show the narrowness of these little
country places. They never forget, Hephzibah, and believe me, they
never forgive."
The fire of her wrath had dried her tears. Her eyes bright with hate,
she met his gaze in silence.
"There's something about you, Hephzibah," continued Warren, a slight
uneasiness of manner showing that his _sang froid_ was not quite proof
against her silent hostility, "something which makes me certain that
it would pay to educate you. You could learn, I'm positive of it. And
you'll take on polish. You say you're satisfied with things as they
are. That only shows your ignorance, my dear child. Instead of being
a poor little drudge, slighted and snubbed by a lot of country jays,
you could make a place for yourself in the big world. I can't tell you
now just what will open up for you, but at the least it would be like
fairyland compared with what you have to expect here."
Her anger seemed to have moderated to tranquil contempt. She sat aloof
and disdainful, waiting for him to finish and take his departure.
"I own you don't know me well enough to feel sure of my motives in
making this offer," Warren went on almost humbly. "But you can ask Miss
Kent about the blind man who's boarding with her this summer, and see
what sort of reputation she gives him. And he's in this thing with me.
In fact it was at his suggestion that I came down here to-day."
At last he had succeeded in interesting her. Although she did not speak
she turned with a quickness that had the effect of an interruption, and
the recent disdainful calm of her expression was replaced by a rather
wistful look.
"Yes, Forbes is in for this, tooth and nail." Warren was pleased at the
altered demeanor of his audience. "When I first suggested it to him,
he talked it over with Miss Kent, and the old lady discouraged him. I
imagine she's a good sort but about as broad as a knitting needle. She
insisted that it was better for you to be let alone, and she talked old
Forbes over, and I thought the whole thing was settled. But after you
saved Forbes' life--"
"Why," cried Agatha. "How--how--." Her usually ready tongue failed
her, and in her blushing confusion Warren thought her adorable.
"I suppose you wonder how he knew you were his rescuer," Warren
continued, enjoying to the full the pleasing effect of his revelation.
"It came to him by a sort of intuition. He quizzed the kid, but Howard
wouldn't tell. It simply goes to show how strait-laced the old lady
is. She'd forbidden him even to talk about you. But something you said
or did fitted in with what I had told Forbes about you, and he decided
that he couldn't rest easy under such an obligation."
"It's only a guess." Agatha had found her voice. "You don't know
anything about it."
"It was a safe bet, even before I told you and watched your face. Now
it's a dead certainty. Listen! Forbes came to see me yesterday and we
cocked up this scheme. See how it strikes you."
He had her attention now, close and serious, with no suggestion of
disdain. Painstakingly he explained the plan. They had selected a woman
both knew to act as Hephzibah's tutor. They would send her to some
quiet place where there would be little to distract the girl's thoughts
from her work. Her tutor, an impoverished gentlewoman, would undertake
the cultivation of manners befitting the best society, and would mold
her literary taste by reading to her from the English classics, in
addition to her regular instruction.
"I don't say it will be so very much fun for six months," Warren owned
frankly. "But we both think it would be a good idea for you to work for
all you are worth at the start, and make all the progress possible. And
when once you--well, when the rough edges are smoothed off a little,
you can come to town and mix in a little fun with the day's work. What
do you think of the idea?"
Agatha's answer was a shake of her head.
"Too strenuous a program, is it?" Warren looked disappointed at her
lack of ambition. "Well, it isn't necessary to travel at such a pace.
Both Forbes and I felt it would be more encouraging to you in the long
run, if your advancement was so rapid that you couldn't help realizing
it."
"Yes, that would be better if--but it won't work. Thank you. It's kind
of you, but I--I can't go away."
"Away? Do you mean away from this hole in the woods?"
Agatha nodded with no attempt to defend her native place against his
sneers.
"This home of yours, where a nice kid like Howard is forbidden to speak
of you, and where older men look scared when your name is mentioned and
say they never heard of you?"
"You said all that before." Agatha had turned rather white. "And it
won't do any good to say it again."
Warren studied her averted face, a pensive face at that moment. He had
a confused certainty that he had been too hard on her. He had only
spoken the truth and for her good, but he had overdone it. He had been
brutal.
"Hephzibah," he said suddenly, a new gentleness in his voice, "I know
what's the matter with you. You're in love."
There was something so virginal in her protesting recoil that he had to
stop a moment for breath. Yet a quality in the movement gave him an odd
conviction of her innate fineness, in spite of that chapter in her past
he found it hard to forget.
"There's no other explanation, Hephzibah." He tried to speak lightly
without any great degree of success. "When a girl of your sort sticks
to a place of this sort, like a barnacle to a ship's bottom, it's as
sure as shooting that there's a man in the case. Come, Hephzibah, own
up."
She lifted her chin in a regal way she had--an incongruous motion in
a country girl who "worked out"--and looked at him squarely. With a
little thrill he saw that her eyes had filled again. And though she did
not speak, those brimming eyes seemed a brave, frank avowal that his
surmise had hit the mark.
"Well, Hephzibah, I'm glad you aren't going to need our help--Forbes'
and mine--in order to be happy. I hope your young man knows he's
lucky." He was astonished at the keenness of the pang which marked this
formal renunciation. "When is it to be, Hephzibah?"
"Why, it's not--you don't understand--I'm not going to be married."
Warren sat up straight. "The devil, you're not," he said, his voice
harshly cynical.
The girl rose and stamped her foot on the grass. The soft turf
swallowed the sound, but the passionate gesture was not less impressive
because noiseless. "You hush!" she said. "Don't you dare to think
things like that about him. He's perfect. He never harmed anybody,
never! And for you to dare to blacken him with your beastly thoughts
just because I've been fool enough to care."
Swayed by unprecedented emotion, Warren rose to his feet. In her
earlier anger the girl had been merely a lovely virago. Now, in her
furious defense of the man he had apparently misjudged, she was superb.
Warren felt himself swept from his moorings.
"Very well, Hephzibah. I'll take your word for it that he's all right."
"He doesn't know. He doesn't even dream. There's--He loves some one
else."
"Don't, Hephzibah. Poor little girl! What a damned muddle life is." He
was fumbling for his card.
"Can you write, dear?"
"After a fashion." All in a minute she was another woman, with radiant
mischief peering out of her eyes.
"Here's my address on this card. If you should change your mind, write
me. I hope and believe you will. Just because one man is blind, it
doesn't follow that there's nothing else in life."
She gave a slight start, looking at him obliquely, the mischief
quite gone from her eyes. But she accepted his card, and then of her
own accord gave him her hand. "You have been good to take so much
trouble," she said. "Thank you." The two had changed markedly since the
dialogue under the elm tree began. The girl's hostility had vanished as
completely as the man's condescension.
On his way back to the city that night, Warren evolved the theory
that Hephzibah was originally of gentle blood. That accounted for the
quality of her beauty, for something in her manner suggesting one
accustomed to homage rather than to service. Warren was inclined to
believe it also explained a singular fact which impressed him more as
he thought over the events of the afternoon than it had at the time.
There could be no question but that in moments of extreme excitement,
a certain uncouthness disappeared from her speech and manner, and
she lapsed, so to speak, into the idioms of her presumably cultured
forebears. In Warren's opinion this cast a most interesting side-light
on the subject of heredity.