MOONLIGHT AND MISTAKES
The musicale was over. The first floor of the Standish house looked as
though a devastating army had camped there. Caine, who had lingered for
a goodnight word with Letty, glanced over the empty music room.
“I wonder,” he said, “if there is anything else on earth quite so
vacant as the place a crowd of guests have just deserted. They always
seem to have carried away with them whatever local atmosphere there was
and to have left behind a vacuum of desolation.”
Letty did not answer. She was tired, nerve-worn, relaxed, after the
evening’s strain. Characteristically, she was aware of a mild desire to
make someone else uncomfortable. Someone who cared for her enough to
be hurt. Caine suited her purpose to perfection. Hence the sheath of
grieved silence that always brought him hastening to the anxious seat.
The ruse prevailed now, as ever.
“You aren’t unhappy about anything, are you, dear?” he queried
solicitously.
“Oh, no!” she replied, a throaty quaver in her voice.
“_I_ haven’t done anything, have I?” came the second stereotyped
question in love’s catechism.
“Oh, _no_!” she returned briefly with full feminine power of making the
answer read, “Oh, yes!”
“But _what_?” he begged.
“Oh, nothing!” with the rarified loftiness that precedes a plunge into
the vale of tears, “Nothing! Nothing at all.”
Nor was it until he had rung all the traditional changes on the query
and had worked himself into a state of pitiable humility that she would
consent to burst forth into the flood-tide of her grievances.
“You made me so unhappy,” she wept. “It was all your fault. _Why_ did
you do it? How _could_ you?”
“Please--_please_ tell me!” he urged. “I don’t understand. How?”
“That disgusting man! That brute you brought here!”
“Conover? _I_ didn’t bring him. Your father--”
“He is your friend, though,” she insisted, “And he frightened me and he
behaved so abominably. And everybody laughed when he went to sleep. I
could have died of mortification.”
“But why?” he reasoned. “_You_ weren’t responsible for him. If anyone
had cause to feel mortified it was Miss Shevlin who sat beside him. Yet
she--”
“Please don’t talk about her!” demanded Letty with a flash of watery
dignity, “I have enough to bear without that. If she chose to sit up,
looking unconcerned, and talking to him as if nothing had happened,
and keeping the brute wide awake and interested all the rest of the
evening--it was probably because she knew no better. I suppose her sort
of people--”
And here the gods deprived Amzi Nicholas Caine of wisdom.
“She’s a little thoroughbred!” he interposed stoutly, “I never saw
anything better done in my life than her treatment of that poor,
sheepish, suddenly-awakened chap. It made one ashamed of having wanted
to laugh. I--”
“If you are going to take other people’s part against me,” sniffed
Letty, “you needn’t trouble to wait here any longer. Goodnight. I am
very tired and _very_ miserable.”
Caine forthwith performed prodigies of self abasement that little by
little wooed Letty back from tears to temper.
“Just the same!” she snapped. “It _was_ your fault. If it hadn’t been
for you, I’m quite sure Father would never have invited him.”
“I never heard of your father’s sacrificing his own wishes to that
extent for my sake,” said Caine, unwarily. “If he invited Conover out
of compliment to me, he didn’t think it important enough to tell me so.
Shall I thank him?”
“No, no!” cried Letty in alarm. “And,” with recovering self-control,
“I never want to see that man again as long as I live. I
feel--_strangled_--when he is near me. As if he were trying to master
_me_ as he does his railroads and legislatures. He hypnotizes me,
with his mud-colored eyes and that great lower jaw. I--I _hate_ him.
I’ll--I’ll never have to see him again, _will_ I? Promise me!”
Punishment had given place to a demand for coddling. Caine rose
ardently to the occasion. Yet she was not content.
“_Promise me!_” she reiterated, “Promise me he’ll never come here
again.”
“He’ll have to pay a dinner call,” protested Caine. “Even Conover knows
enough to do that, I’m afraid. If he doesn’t, Miss Shevlin will tell
him.”
“I won’t be at home!” she declared, fearfully, “I--he can’t _make_ me
see him. I never want to see either of them again. _Either_ of them.
Promise me I needn’t. Promise me you’ll thrash him if he annoys me.”
She peered coyly up at him from between thin, soaked lashes; her nose
quivering. But, for once, loverlike heroics were lacking. For, even as
he started to voice the idle promise, a picture of Blacarda,--smashed
and unrecognizable, screaming in agony of terror--flashed into Caine’s
mind. And the pardonable boast stuck midway in his throat.
“I think you are getting tired of me,” sobbed Letty, accusingly. “If
you are, don’t be afraid to say so. I can bear it. It’s only one thing
more for me to bear.”
Mrs. Hawarden, at Desirée’s whispered plea, had offered Caleb a
homeward lift in her carriage. The Fighter sat in heavy silence
throughout the drive. When the carriage stopped at Desirée’s door,
he helped her out and, with a grunt of goodnight to Mrs. Hawarden,
followed the girl up the walk. Nor did he speak as he unlocked the door
for her.
But Desirée was in no haste to say goodnight. A waning moon made the
veranda bright. The air was still warm. She threw her cloak over a
chair arm and seated herself in a porch rocker; Caleb standing dumbly
before her. She leaned back comfortably in the deep chair, looking
up with inscrutable eyes at his silhouette that bulked big in the
moonlight. Of a sudden, she fell to laughing softly.
“Oh, you big baby!” she cried. “You’ve punished yourself all you’re
going to. It’s _all_ right. Now stop being unhappy! Stop! _Smile!_”
“You aren’t sore on me?” he asked in lingering doubt.
“Silly! Why should I be?”
“I--I made awful small of you, the way I acted,” he confessed.
“If I can stand it, _you_ ought to,” she retorted. “Now be friends and
stop sulking.”
“You’re sure you ain’t mad,” he queried, still in doubt.
“Mad? Not one smidgin!--I--”
“Oh, Dey,” he interrupted, all contrition. “It was _rotten_ of me!
To think of my snorin’ out loud an’ makin’ everybody rubber at you
while they gave me the laugh! An’ you never batted an eye! You sat
there lookin’ so friendly an’ cool, an’ talkin’ to me like nothin’ had
happened! I could a’ knelt down and kissed both your feet, I kep’ a’
thinkin’ all evenin’ that you’d most likely take it out on me when we
was alone. It’d a’ been only hooman nature if you had. That’s why I
came here now. To take my medicine. An’ you ain’t even disgusted with
me. You _ain’t_ are you?” he added in hasty need for reassurance.
“Would you have been ‘disgusted’ with _me_,” she asked, “if it had been
I instead of you that--?”
“You know blame well I wouldn’t!” he declared, “An’ I’d a’licked ev’ry
man in the place that dared to laugh or look sneerin’. I’d a’--”
“That’s just what I wanted to do,” said Desirée. “If I was cross
inside, it wasn’t at _you_, dear boy.”
“I’ll win out on ’em yet,” growled Conover. “I made a mistake. An’ I’m
ashamed of it. The only feller who’s never ashamed of his mistakes is a
loonatic. And I ain’t a loonatic, by a long shot. I’m ashamed. But I’ll
win.”
“Listen to me!” she demanded, “If there was a big, lovable, splendid
child you knew and he insisted on going to play with children who
hadn’t the sense to see how fine he was and what good company he could
be, it wouldn’t make you angry at _him_, would it, if he got laughed at
for not understanding their stiff, set ways? Of course not. But when
he’d _had_ his lesson and had burned his poor stubby fingers, wouldn’t
it make you just the least little bit impatient if he began right away
to plan to try his luck with those same horrid children again? Wouldn’t
you be tempted to spank him or--?”
“You’re dead right, little girl,” he admitted, “An’ you’re a lot
cleverer than I am. I--”
“Then you _will_ give it up?” she urged.
“I can’t, Dey! Honest, I can’t. I couldn’t look myself in the face
again if I let those gold-shirters beat me out. You see how it is,
don’t you? I’m in to _win_. If I ever was to give up a fight, I could
never win another. It’d take the ‘win’ out of me, for keeps. _Please_
don’t make me do it, Dey!”
“All right!” she sighed, in comic despair, “It’s only for your own sake
and because I care for you.”
“If it’s goin’ to make you unhappy or ashamed of me, I’ll give it up,”
he said with slow resignation.
“No,” she forbade. “You needn’t feel that way about it. It doesn’t make
me unhappy, except on your account. And I couldn’t be ‘ashamed’ of you
if I tried all day. You know I couldn’t.”
“You’re the dandiest, littlest, prettiest girl there is!” he said
gratefully, “An’ those big eyes of yours kind of make me feel like I
was in church. Now I’ll chase home an’ give you a chance to do some
sleepin’. Say--” as he started to go, “What do you think of Miss
Standish?”
“Why,” she answered, perplexed, “I never thought much about her. She’s
very nice;--and pretty, too; isn’t she?”
“Looks a little like a rabbit, don’t she?” he ventured.
The girl’s quick laugh flashed out and she clasped her hands together.
“Beautiful!” she cried. “How did you _ever_ think of it?”
“Struck me the first time I saw her,” he replied, flattered, “I told
her about it to-night at dinner.”
“Caleb! You _didn’t_!”
“Honest, I did!” he reiterated. “I--”
“What _did_ she say?”
“Oh, she didn’t seem to mind. Got sort o’ red, an’ grinned. I guess
she liked it. Her’n me didn’t get on so bad together, takin’ all into
account. I guess we’ll pull together first rate when we’re better
acquainted.”
“You seem pretty certain of being ‘better acquainted’”, she mocked;
albeit there was a little tug at her heart.
“I am,” he answered, coolly, “The fact is, Dey, I’m thinkin’ of makin’
it a case of marry.”
For a moment she did not answer. The footfalls of a pedestrian sounded
rhythmically distinct in the silence that fell between the man and the
girl. Then Desirée observed, with a slight restraint that sat strangely
upon her:--
“I don’t think that is a very nice joke.”
“’Tisn’t a joke at all,” Caleb assured her, “I mean it. I’d a’ talked
it over with you before, only the idee never came clear to me till
to-night. Here’s how it is--”
“You--you care for her?” asked Desirée very quietly. Caleb, full as he
was of his own aspirations, noticed how dull and lifeless her voice had
all at once grown.
“You’re tired out!” he cried, all remorse, “Here I keep you up,
listenin’ to my fool talk when you ought to be sound asleep! Nice sort
of guardian I am! I’m goin’--”
“No. Wait!” she ordered, with a pitiful shadow of her wonted dainty
imperiousness, “I’m not tired. Tell me. Are you in love with her?”
“In love with her?” scoffed Caleb. “With that little rabbit-faced bunch
of silliness? Not me! But she comes of about the biggest fam’ly here.
She’s pop’lar ev’rywhere. If I was to marry her, I’d get with the
best crowd in Granite. My place’d be as sure as yours’ll be when you
marry that gold-shirt chap--whoever he turns out to be--that we was
talkin’ about the other day. I was speakin’ of the idee to Caine, only
to-night, an’ he says--”
“_Oh!_”
The furious monosyllable snapped through his rambling talk like a
pistol shot. Caleb paused in amaze. The girl had risen. Her tiny fists
were clinched, her face was hard as a statue’s. The moonlight gave back
cold fire from her great eyes.
“How dare you?” she panted, “How _dare_ you! You speak of marrying
Letty Standish as you would speak of buying a horse! You even talk
it over with the man she has promised to marry! But I suppose you
chuckled to yourself over your barroom cunning in getting an opinion
from him without letting him know it was _his_ sweetheart you planned
to steal. You sneer at her as a ‘rabbit-faced little bunch of
silliness’ and yet you speak in the same breath of making her your
wife. Do you realize you are not only insulting her by such a thought,
but you are insulting _me_ by speaking so in my presence?”
“_Dey!_” gasped the bewildered man, “You must be crazy, child! I never
saw you like--”
“Be still!” she commanded, her silver voice ringing harsh, “I forbid
you to speak to me, now or any time. A man who can plan what you are
planning, and who can boast of it, isn’t fit to speak to _any woman_.
You went to that house as a guest--and you asked mens’ opinions in the
smoking room--”
“It was the dressin’ room, Dey,” he pleaded, “An’ it was only me an’
Caine--”
“You ask mens’ opinion,” blazed on Desirée, unheeding, “as to whether
you are likely to gain anything in a social way by wrecking an innocent
girl’s life. You sit by her at dinner--at her own father’s table--and
plan in smug complacency how to separate her from a man she really
loves,--and to compel her to marry _you_. Why, you aren’t fit to marry
her chambermaid. There isn’t a groom in her stable that hasn’t higher,
holier ideals. Now _go_! This is the last time I want to see you as
long as I live!”
A swirl of soft skirts, the sharp slam of a door, and Caleb Conover,
aghast, wordless with dismay stood alone on the little moon-lit porch.
For a full minute he stood there, dumbfounded. Then, from somewhere in
the darkness beyond the closed door, came faintly the sound of sobbing.
Rending, heartbroken sobs that brought a lump to his own throat.
“Dey!” he called, frantically miserable, “Dey!”
He tried the locked door, and rapped as loudly as he dared upon its
panels. The sobbing died away. For an hour Conover waited; alternately
whispering the girl’s name and tapping appealingly for admittance. But
the house remained silent. At length with a despairing growl he turned
away.
“Now what in blazes could a’ made her act like that?” he pondered,
half-aloud. “Gee, but I’d rather be horsewhipped than make that kid
cry! An’ I s’pose,” he went on as he passed out of the gate, “I s’pose
’bout this time Letty Standish an’ Caine are sayin’ goodnight, all
slushly like, an’ grinnin’ at each other, like a couple of measly
love-birds.”
He looked back once more at the dark house; sighed noisily, and started
homeward. A passing policeman recognized him; and, in deference to the
Fighter’s fast-growing political power, so far unbent as to say:
“Good evenin’, Mr. Conover. Fine night, ain’t it? Are--?”
“Oh, go to hell!” snarled Caleb.