HEAT LIGHTNING
"We'll finish the peaches to-night, and call it a day's work," remarked
Mrs. Owen. "Sylvia, you'd better give another turn to the covers on
those last jars. There's nothing takes the heart out of a woman like
opening a can of fruit in January and finding mould on top. There,
Annie, that's enough cinnamon. Put in too much and your peaches will
taste like a drug store."
Spicy odors floated from the kitchen of Mrs. Owen's house on Waupegan.
The August afternoon sun struck goldenly upon battalions of glasses and
jars in the broad, screened veranda, an extension of the kitchen itself.
The newly affixed labels announced peach, crab-apple, plum, and
watermelon preserves (if the mention of this last item gives you no
thrill, so much the worse for you!); jellies of many tints and flavors,
and tiny cucumber pickles showing dark green amid the gayer colors. Only
the most jaded appetite could linger without sharp impingements before
these condensations and transformations of the kindly fruits of the
earth.
In Mrs. Owen's corps of assistants we recognize six young women from
Elizabeth House--for since the first of July Elizabeth House has been
constantly represented on Waupegan, girls coming and going in sixes for
a fortnight at the farm. Mrs. Owen had not only added bedrooms to the
rambling old farmhouse to accommodate these visitors, but she had, when
necessary, personally arranged with their employers for their vacations.
On the face of it, the use of her farm as a summer annex to the working
girls' boarding-house in town was merely the whim of a kind-hearted old
woman with her own peculiar notions of self-indulgence. A cynical member
of the summer colony remarked at the Casino that Mrs. Owen, with
characteristic thrift, was inveigling shop-girls to her farm and then
putting them to work in her kitchen. Mrs. Owen's real purpose was the
study of the girls in Elizabeth House with a view to determining their
needs and aptitude: she was as interested in the woman of forty
permanently planted behind a counter as in the gayest eighteen-year-old
stenographer. An expert had built for her that spring a model plant for
poultry raising, an industry of which she confessed her own ignorance,
and she found in her battery of incubators the greatest delight.
"When a woman has spent twenty years behind a counter, Sylvia, or
working a typewriter, she hasn't much ahead of her. What's the matter
with ducks?"
They made prodigious calculations of all sorts that summer, and
continued their study of catalogues. Mrs. Owen expected to visit the
best vocational schools in the country during the fall and winter. The
school could not be a large one, but it must be wisely planned. Mrs.
Owen had already summarized her ideas on a sheet of paper in the neat,
Italian script which the daguerreotype ladies of our old seminaries
alone preserve for us. The students of the proposed school were to be
girls between fifteen and eighteen, who were driven by necessity into
shops, factories, and offices. None should be excluded for lack of the
knowledge presupposed in students ready for high school, and the general
courses were to be made flexible so that those who entered deficient
might be brought to a fixed standard. The vocational branches were the
most difficult, and at Sylvia's suggestion several well-known
authorities on technical education were called into conference. One of
these had visited Waupegan and expressed his enthusiastic approval of
Mrs. Owen's plans. She was anxious to avoid paralleling any similar
work, public or private. What the city schools did in manual training
was well enough, and she did not mean to compete with the state's
technical school, or with its reformatory school for erring girls. The
young girl about to take her place behind the ribbon counter, or at a
sewing-machine in a garment factory, or as a badly equipped, ignorant,
and hopeless stenographer, was the student for whom in due course the
school should open its doors. Where necessary, the parents of the
students were to be paid the wages their daughters sacrificed in
attending school during the two-year course proposed. The students were
to live in cottages and learn the domestic arts through their own
housekeeping, the members of each household performing various duties in
rotation. The school was to continue in session the year round, so that
flower--and kitchen--gardening might take rank with dressmaking,
cooking, fruit culture, poultry raising, and other branches which Mrs.
Owen proposed to have taught.
"I can't set 'em all up in business, but I want a girl that goes through
the school to feel that she won't have to break her back in an overall
factory all her life, or dance around some floor-walker with a waxed
mustache. They tell me no American girl who has ever seen a trolley car
will go into a kitchen to work--she can't have her beaux going round to
the back door. Sylvia, we've got to turn out cooks that are worth going
to kitchen doors to see! Now, I've taught you this summer how to make
currant jelly that you needn't be ashamed of anywhere on earth, and it
didn't hurt you any. A white woman can't learn to cook the way darkies
do, just by instinct. That's a miracle, by the way, that I never heard
explained--how these colored women cook as the good ones do--those
old-fashioned darkies who take the cook book out of your hand and look
at it upside down and grin and say, 'Yes, Miss Sally,' when they can't
read a word! You catch a clean, wholesome white girl young enough, and
make her understand that her kitchen's a laboratory, and her work
something to be proud of, and she'll not have any trouble finding places
to work where they won't ask her to clean out the furnace and wash the
automobile."
The Bassetts had opened their cottage early and Morton Bassett had been
at the lake rather more constantly than in previous summers. Marian was
off on a round of visits to the new-found friends that were the fruit
of her winter at the capital. She was much in demand for house parties,
and made her engagements, quite independently of her parents, for weeks
and fortnights at widely scattered mid-Western resorts. Mrs. Bassett was
indulging in the luxury of a trained nurse this summer, but even with
this reinforcement she found it impossible to manage Marian. It need
hardly be said that Mrs. Owen's philanthropic enterprises occasioned her
the greatest alarm. It was enough that "that girl" should be spending
the summer at Waupegan, without bringing with her all her fellow
boarders from Elizabeth House.
Mrs. Bassett had now a tangible grievance against her husband.
Blackford's course at the military school he had chosen for himself had
been so unsatisfactory that his father had been advised that he would
not be received for another year. It was now Mrs. Bassett's turn to
cavil at her husband for the sad mess he had made of the boy's
education. She would never have sent Blackford to a military school if
it had been her affair; she arraigned her husband for having encouraged
the boy in his dreams of West Point.
Blackford's father continuing indifferent, Mrs. Bassett rose from bed
one hot August day filled with determination. Blackford, confident of
immunity from books through the long vacation, was enjoying himself
thoroughly at the lake. He was a perfectly healthy, good-natured lad,
whose faults were much like those of the cheerful, undisciplined
Marian. His mother scanned the reports of Blackford's demerits and
decided that he required tutoring immediately. She thereupon reasoned
that it would score with her aunt if she employed "that girl" to coach
the delinquent Blackford. It would at any rate do no harm to manifest a
friendly interest in her aunt's protégée, who would doubtless be glad of
a chance to earn a little pin-money. She first proposed the matter to
her aunt, who declared promptly that it must be for Sylvia to say; that
Sylvia was busy writing a book (she was revising her grandfather's
textbook), besides helping to entertain the Elizabeth House guests; but
when the matter was referred to Sylvia, she cheerfully agreed to give
Blackford two hours a day.
Sylvia quickly established herself on terms of good comradeship with her
pupil. Blackford was old enough to find the proximity of a pretty girl
agreeable, and Sylvia was sympathetic and encouraging. When he confided
to her his hopes of a naval career (he had finally renounced the Army)
Sylvia sent off to Annapolis for the entrance requirements. She told him
of her Grandfather Kelton's service in the Navy and recounted some of
the old professor's exploits in the Civil War. The stories Sylvia had
heard at her grandfather's knee served admirably as a stimulus. As the
appointments to Annapolis had to be won in competitive examinations she
soon persuaded him that the quicker he buckled down to hard study the
sooner he would attain the goal. This matter arranged, Mrs. Bassett went
back to bed, where she received Sylvia occasionally and expressed her
sorrow that Mrs. Owen, at her time of life, should be running a
boarding-house for a lot of girls who were better off at work. Her aunt
was merely making them dissatisfied with their lot. She did not guess
the import of the industries in Mrs. Owen's kitchen, as reported through
various agencies; they were merely a new idiosyncracy of her aunt's old
age, a deplorable manifestation of senility.
Sylvia was a comfortable confessor; Mrs. Bassett said many things to her
that she would have liked to say to Mrs. Owen, with an obscure hope that
they might in due course be communicated to that inexplicable old woman.
And Sylvia certainly was past the difficult art of brushing
hair without tangling and pulling it, thereby tearing one's nerves to
shreds--as the nurse did. Mrs. Owen's visits were only occasional, but
they usually proved disturbing. She sniffed at the nurse and advised her
niece to get up. She knew a woman in Terre Haute who went to bed on her
thirtieth birthday and left it only to be buried in her ninetieth year.
Sylvia was a far more consoling visitor to this invalid propped up on
pillows amid a litter of magazines, with the cool lake at her elbow.
Sylvia did not pooh-pooh Christian Science and New Thought and such
things with which Mrs. Bassett was disposed to experiment. Sylvia even
bestowed upon her a boon in the shape of the word "psychotherapy." Mrs.
Bassett liked it, and declared that if she read a paper before the
Fraserville Woman's Club the next winter--a service to which she was
solemnly pledged--psychotherapy should be her subject. Thus Mrs.
Bassett found Sylvia serviceable and comforting. And the girl knew her
place, and all.
Morton Bassett found Sylvia tutoring his son one day when he arrived at
Waupegan unexpectedly. Mrs. Bassett explained the arrangement privately
in her own fashion.
"You seem to take no interest in your children, Morton. I thought
Blackford was your particular pride, but the fact that he was
practically expelled from school seemed to make not the slightest
impression on you. I thought that until you _did_ realize that the boy
was wasting his time here, I'd take matters into my own hands. Miss
Garrison seems perfectly competent; she tells me Blackford is very
quick--all he needs is application."
"I hadn't got around to that yet, Hallie. I'd intended taking it up this
week. I'm very busy," murmured Bassett.
His wife's choice of a tutor seemed inconsistent with her earlier
animosity toward Sylvia, but he shrank from asking explanations. Mrs.
Bassett had grown increasingly difficult and arbitrary.
"That's the American father all over! Well, I've done my duty."
"No doubt it's a good arrangement. We've got to keep Blackford in hand.
Where's Marian?"
"She's visiting the Willings at their place at Whitewater. She's been
gone a week."
"The Willings? Not those Burton Willings? How did that happen;--I don't
believe we care to have her visit the Willings."
"They are perfectly nice people," she replied defensively, "and Marian
knew their daughter at school. Allen Thatcher is in the party, and
they're all people we know or know about."
"Well, I don't want Marian visiting around promiscuously. I know nothing
about the family, but I don't care for Willing. And we've had enough of
young Thatcher. Marian's already seen too much of him."
"Allen's a perfectly nice fellow. It isn't fair to dislike him on his
father's account. Allen isn't a bit like his father; but even if he were
you used to think well enough of Ed Thatcher."
This shot was well aimed, and Bassett blinked, but he felt that he must
exercise his parental authority. If he had been culpable in neglecting
Blackford he could still take a hand in Marian's affairs.
"So I did," he replied. "But I'm going to telegraph Marian to come home.
What's the Willings' address?"
"Oh, you'll find it on a picture postal card somewhere about. I'll write
Marian to come home; but I wouldn't telegraph if I were you, Morton. And
if you don't like my employing Miss Garrison, you can get rid of her: I
merely felt that _something_ had to be done. I turn it all over to you,"
she ended mournfully.
"Oh, I have no objections to Miss Garrison. We'll see how Blackford gets
on with her."
Bassett was troubled by other things that summer than his son's
education. Harwood's declaration of war in the White River Canneries
matter had proved wholly disagreeable, and Fitch had not been able to
promise that the case might not come to trial, to Bassett's
discomfiture. It was a hot summer, and Bassett had spent a good deal of
time in his office at the Boordman Building, where Harwood's name no
longer adorned the door of Room 66. The 'Advertiser' continued to lay on
the lash for his defeat of the appropriations necessary to sustain
several important state institutions while he carried through his
corporation bill. They were saying in some quarters that he had lost his
head, and that he was now using his political power for personal warfare
upon his enemies. Thatcher loomed formidably as a candidate for the
leadership, and many predicted that Bassett's power was at last broken.
On the other hand, Bassett's old lieutenants smiled knowingly; the old
Bassett machine was still in perfect running order, they said, as
Thatcher would learn when he felt the wheels grinding him.
Bassett saw Sylvia daily, and he was wary of her at first. She had dealt
him a staggering blow that rainy evening at the door of Elizabeth
House--a blow which, from her, had an effect more poignant than she
knew. That incident was ended, however, and he felt that he had nothing
to fear from her. No one appreciates candor so thoroughly as the man who
is habitually given to subterfuge, evasion, and dissimulation. Sylvia's
consent to tutor Blackford indicated a kindly feeling toward the family.
It was hardly likely that she would report to Mrs. Bassett his
indiscretions with Rose Farrell. And his encounters with Sylvia had
moreover encouraged the belief that she viewed life broadly and
tolerantly.
There was little for a man of Bassett's tastes to do at Waupegan. Most
of the loungers at the Casino were elderly men who played bridge, which
he despised; and he cared little for fishing or boating. Tennis and golf
did not tempt him. His wife had practically ceased to be a figure in the
social life of the colony; Marian was away, and Blackford's leisure was
spent with boys of his own age. Morton Bassett was lonely.
It thus happened that he looked forward with growing interest to
Sylvia's daily visits to his house. He found that he could mark her
progress from Mrs. Owen's gate round the lake to his own cottage from
the window of a den he maintained in the attic. He remained there under
the hot shingles, conscious of her presence in his house throughout her
two hours with Blackford. Once or twice he took himself off to escape
from her; but on these occasions he was surprised to find that he was
back on the veranda when Sylvia emerged from the living-room with her
pupil. She was always cheery, and she never failed to say something
heartening of Blackford's work.
A number of trifling incidents occurred to bring them together. The cook
left abruptly, and Mrs. Bassett was reduced to despair. Bassett,
gloomily pacing his veranda, after hearing his wife's arraignment of the
world in general and domestic servants in particular, felt the clouds
lift when Sylvia came down from a voluntary visit to the invalid. He
watched her attack the problem by long-distance telephone. Sensations
that were new and strange and sweet assailed him as he sat near in the
living-room of his own house, seeing her at the telephone desk by the
window, hearing her voice. Her patience in the necessary delays while
connection was made with the city, her courtesy to her unseen auditors,
the smile, the occasional word she flung at him--as much as to say, of
course it's bothersome but all will soon come right!--these things
stirred in him a wistfulness and longing such as the hardy oak must feel
when the south wind touches its bare boughs with the first faint breath
of spring.
"It's all arranged--fixed--accomplished!" Sylvia reported at last.
"There's a cook coming by the afternoon train. You'll attend to meeting
her? Please tell Mrs. Bassett it's Senator Ridgefield's cook who's
available for the rest of the summer, as the family have gone abroad.
She's probably good--the agent said Mrs. Ridgefield had brought her from
Washington. Let me see! She must have Thursday afternoon off and a
chance to go to mass on Sunday. And you of course stand the railroad
fare to and from the lake; it's so nominated in the bond!"
She dismissed the whole matter with a quick gesture of her hands.
Their next interview touched again his domestic affairs. He had
telegraphed Marian to come home without eliciting a reply, and the next
day he found in a Chicago newspaper a spirited and much-beheadlined
account of the smashing of the Willings' automobile in a collision. It
seemed that they had run into Chicago for a day's shopping and had met
with this misadventure on one of the boulevards. The Willings' chauffeur
had been seriously injured. Miss Marian Bassett, definitely described as
the daughter of Morton Bassett, the well-known Indiana politician, had
been of the party. Allen Thatcher was another guest of the Willings, a
fact which added to Bassett's anger. He had never visited his hatred of
Thatcher upon Allen, whom he had regarded as a harmless boy not to be
taken seriously; but the conjunction of his daughter's name with that of
his enemy's son in a newspaper of wide circulation in Indiana greatly
enraged him. It was bound to occasion talk, and he hated publicity. The
Willings were flashy people who had begun to spend noisily the money
earned for them by an automobile patent. The indictment he drew against
Marian contained many "counts." He could not discuss the matter with his
wife; he carefully kept from her the newspaper story of the smash-up.
The hotel to which the Willings had retired for repairs was mentioned,
and Bassett resolved to go to Chicago and bring Marian home.
The best available train passed Waupegan Station at midnight, and he sat
alone on his veranda that evening with anger against Marian still hot in
his heart. He had yet to apprise Mrs. Bassett of his intended journey,
delaying the moment as long as possible to minimize her inevitable
querulous moanings. Blackford was in his room studying, and Bassett had
grimly paced the veranda for half an hour when the nurse came down with
a request that he desist from his promenade, as it annoyed Mrs. Bassett
in her chamber above.
He thereupon subsided and retired to the darkest corner of the veranda.
A four-hour vigil lay before him, and he derived no calm from the still
stars that faintly shadowed the quiet waters below. He was assailed by
torments reserved for those who, having long made others writhe without
caring that they suffered, hear the swish of the lash over their own
heads. He had only lately been conscious of his growing irritability. He
hated men who yield to irritation; it was a sign of weakness, a failure
of self-mastery. He had been carried on by a strong tide, imagining that
he controlled it and guided it. He had used what he pleased of the
apparatus of life, and when any part of the mechanism became
unnecessary, he had promptly discarded it. It angered him to find that
he had thrown away so much, that the mechanism was no longer as
responsive as it had been. The very peace of the night grated upon him.
A light step sounded at the end of the veranda. A figure in white was
moving toward the door, and recognizing Sylvia, he rose hastily and
advanced to meet her.
"Is that you, Mr. Bassett? I ran over with a new grammar for Blackford
that he will like better than the one he's using. I've marked his lesson
so he can look it over before I come in the morning. How is Mrs.
Bassett?"
"She's very tired and nervous to-night. Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you, no. If it isn't too late I'll run up and see Mrs. Bassett
for a moment."
"I think you'd better not. The nurse is trying to get her to sleep."
"Oh, then of course I shan't stop," and Sylvia turned to go. "How soon
will Marian be home?"
"To-morrow evening; I'm going up to get her to-night," he answered
harshly.
"You are going to the Willings to come home with her?" asked Sylvia,
surprised by his gruffness.
He spoke in a lower tone.
"You didn't see to-day's papers? She's been to Chicago with those
Willings and their machine was smashed and the chauffeur hurt. I'm going
to bring her back. She had no business to be visiting the Willings in
the first place, and their taking her to Chicago without our consent was
downright impudence. I don't want Mrs. Bassett to know of the accident.
I'm going up on the night train."
It satisfied his turbulent spirit to tell her this; he had blurted it
out without attempting to conceal the anger that the thought of Marian
roused in him.
"She wasn't hurt? We should be glad of that!"
Sylvia lingered, her hand on the veranda rail. She seemed very tall in
the mellow starlight. His tone had struck her unpleasantly. There was no
doubt of his anger, or that Marian would feel the force of it when he
found her.
"Oh, she wasn't hurt," he answered dully.
"It's very unfortunate that she was mixed up in it. I suppose she ought
to come home now anyhow."
"The point is that she should never have gone! The Willings are not the
kind of people I want her to know. It was a great mistake, her ever
going."
"Yes, that may be true," said Sylvia quietly. "I don't believe--"
"Well--" he ejaculated impatiently, as though anxious for her to speak
that he might shatter any suggestion she made. Before she came he had
sharply vizualized his meeting with Marian and the Willings. He was
impatient for the encounter, and if Sylvia projected herself in the path
of his righteous anger, she must suffer the consequences.
"If I were you I shouldn't go to Chicago," said Sylvia calmly. "I think
your going for Marian would only make a disagreeable situation worse.
The Willings may not be desirable companions for her, but she has been
their guest, and the motor run to Chicago was only an incident of the
visit. We ought to be grateful that Marian wasn't hurt."
"Oh, you think so! You don't know that her mother had written for her to
come home, and that I had telegraphed her."
"When did you telegraph her?" asked Sylvia, standing her ground.
"Yesterday; yesterday morning, in care of Willing at his farm address."
"Then of course she didn't get your message; she couldn't have had it if
the accident happened in time for this morning's Chicago papers. It must
have taken them all day to get from their place to Chicago." "If she had
been at the Willings' where we supposed she was she would have, got the
message. And her mother had written--twice!"
"I still think it would be a serious mistake in all the circumstances
for you to go up there in a spirit of resentment to bring Marian home.
It's not exactly my business, Mr. Bassett. But I'm thinking of Marian;
and you could hardly keep from Mrs. Bassett the fact that you went for
Marian. It would be sure to distress her."
"Marian needs curbing; she's got to understand that she can't go
gallivanting over the country with strangers, getting her name in the
newspapers. I'm not going to have it; I'm going to stop her nonsense!"
His voice had risen with his anger. Sylvia saw that nothing was to be
gained by argument.
"The main thing is to bring Marian home, isn't it, Mr. Bassett?"
"Most certainly. And when I get her here she shall stay; you may be sure
of that!"
"I understand of course that you want her back, but I hope you will
abandon the idea of going for her yourself. Please give that up! I
promise that she shall come home. I can easily take the night train and
come back with her. What you do afterward is not my affair, but somehow
I think this is. Please agree to my way of doing it! I can manage it
very easily. Mrs. Owen's man can take me across to the train in the
launch. I shan't even have to explain about it to her, if you'd rather I
didn't. It will be enough if I tell her I'm going on business. You will
agree, won't you--please?"
It was not in his heart to consent, and yet he consented, wondering that
he yielded. The rescue of Marian from the Willings was taken out of his
hands without friction, and there remained only himself against whom to
vent his anger. He was curiously agitated by the encounter. The ironic
phrases he had already coined for Marian's discomfiture clinked into the
melting-pot. Sylvia was turning away and he must say something, though
he could not express a gratitude he did not feel. His practical sense
grasped one idea feebly. He felt its imbecility the moment he had
spoken.
"You'll allow me, of course, to pay your expenses. That must be
understood."
Sylvia answered over her shoulder.
"Oh, yes; of course, Mr. Bassett. Certainly."
He meant to accompany her to Mrs. Owen's door, but before he could move
she was gone, running along the path, a white, ghost-like figure faintly
discernible through the trees. He walked on tiptoe to the end of the
veranda to catch the last glimpse of her, and waited till he caught
across the quiet night the faint click of Mrs. Owen's gate. And he was
inexpressibly lonely, now that she had gone.
He opened the door of the living-room and found his wife standing like
an accusing angel by the centre table. She loomed tall in her blue
tea-gown, with her brown braids falling down her back.
"Whom were you talking to, Morton?" she demanded with ominous severity.
"Miss Garrison came over to bring a book for Blackford. It's a grammar
he needed in his work."
He held up the book in proof of his assertion, and as she tossed her
head and compressed her lips he flung it on the table with an effort to
appear at ease.
"She wanted him to have it before his lesson in the morning."
"She certainly took a strange time to bring it over here."
"It struck me as very kind of her to trouble about it. You'll take cold
standing there. I supposed you were asleep."
"I've no doubt you did, Morton Bassett; but how do you suppose I could
sleep when you were talking right under my window? I had already sent
word about the noise you were making on the veranda."
"We were not talking loudly; I didn't suppose we were disturbing you."
"So you were talking quietly, were you! Will you please tell me what you
have to talk to that girl about that you must whisper out there in the
dark?"
"Please be reasonable, Hallie. Miss Garrison was only here a few
minutes. And as I knew noises on the veranda had disturbed you I tried
to speak in a low tone. We were speaking of Blackford."
"Well, I'd like you to know that I employed that girl to remedy your
mistakes in trying to educate Blackford, and if she has any report to
make she can make it to me."
"Very well, then. It was only a few days ago that you told me you had
done all you were going to do about Blackford; you gave me to
understand that you washed your hands of him. You're nervous and
excited,--very unnecessarily excited,--and I insist that you go back to
bed. I'll call Miss Featherstone."
"Miss Featherstone is asleep and you needn't bother her. I'm going to
send her away at the end of her week anyhow. She's the worst masseuse I
ever had; her clumsiness simply drives me frantic. But I never thought
you would treat me like this--entertaining a young woman on the veranda
when you thought I was asleep and out of the way. I'm astonished at Miss
Garrison; I had a better opinion of her. I thought she knew her place. I
thought she understood that I employed her out of kindness; and she's
abused my confidence outrageously."
"You can't speak that way of that young woman; she's been very good to
you. She's come to see you nearly every day and shown you many
kindnesses. It is kind of her to be tutoring Blackford at all when she
came to the lake for rest."
"For rest!"
She gulped at the enormity of this; it was beyond belief that any
intelligent being could have been deceived in a matter that was as plain
as daylight to any understanding. "You think she came here for rest!
Don't you know that she's hung herself around Aunt Sally's neck, and
that she's filling Aunt Sally's head with all manner of wild ideas?
She's been after Aunt Sally's money ever since she saw that she could
influence her. Did you ever know of Aunt Sally's taking up any other
girl? Has she ever traveled over the country with Marian or shown any
such interest in her own flesh and blood?"
"Please quiet yourself. You'll have Blackford and the nurse down here in
a minute. You know perfectly well that Aunt Sally started Elizabeth
House long before she had ever heard of this girl, and you know that
your aunt is a vigorous, independent woman who is not led around by
anybody."
Her nostrils quivered and her eyes shone with tears. She leveled her arm
at him rigidly.
"I saw you walking with that girl yesterday! When she left here at noon
you came down from the den and walked along to Aunt Sally's gate with
her. I could see you through the trees from my bed, laughing and talking
with her. I suppose it was then you arranged for her to come and sit
with you on the veranda when you thought I was asleep!"
He took a step toward her and seized the outstretched hand roughly.
"You are out of your senses or you wouldn't speak in this way of Miss
Garrison. She's been a kind friend to you all summer; you've told me
yourself self how she's gone up to brush your hair and do little things
for you that the nurse couldn't do as well. You've grown morbid from
being ill so long, but nothing was ever more infamous than your
insinuations against Miss Garrison. She's a noble girl and it's not
surprising that Aunt Sally should like her. Everybody likes her!"
Having delivered this blow he settled himself more firmly on his feet
and glared.
"Everybody likes her!" she repeated, snatching away her hand. "I'd like
to know how you come to know so much about her."
"I know enough about her: I know all about her!"
"Then you know more than anybody else does. Nobody else seems to know
_anything_ about her!" she ended triumphantly.
"There you go again with insinuations! It's ungenerous, it's unlike
you."
"Morton Bassett," she went on huskily, "if you took some interest in
your own children it would be more to your credit. You blamed me for
letting Marian go to the Willings' and then telegraphed for her to come
home. It's a beautiful relationship you have established with your
children! She hasn't even answered your telegram. But I suppose if she
had you'd have kept it from me. The newspapers talk about your secretive
ways, but they don't know you, Morton Bassett, as I do. I suppose you
can't imagine yourself entertaining Marian on the veranda or walking
with her, talking and laughing, as I saw you with that girl."
"Well, thank God there's somebody I can talk and laugh with! I'm glad to
be able to tell you that Marian will be home to-morrow. You may have the
satisfaction of knowing that if you _would_ let her go to the Willings'
with Allen Thatcher I can at least bring her back after you failed to do
it."
"So you did hear from her, did you! Of course you couldn't have told me:
I suppose you confide in Miss Garrison now," she ended drearily.
His wife's fatigue, betrayed in her tired voice, did not mitigate the
stab with which he wished to punish her references to Sylvia. And he
delivered it with careful calculation.
"You are quite right, Hallie. I did speak to Miss Garrison about Marian.
Miss Garrison has gone to bring Marian home. That's all; go to bed."