“I know from what he said how faithful and self-sacrificing--”
“You force me to remind you how much we owe to you, sir. It makes me
very uncomfortable. It’s twitting me of a debt which father and I can
never pay. Please don’t!”
So there was conversation closed on that point; I did not feel like
making Kama Holstrom uncomfortable.
“It’s all coming about just as it should. It will be all right from now
on,” she said, after a time.
She had recovered all her usual serenity; she was the girl of the
_Zizania_, cool and distant. I was irritated by her manner. That
aloofness was not a square deal between folks who had been through what
we had suffered together. It seemed to me that I was not being treated
right--first that matter-of-fact manner of Captain Rask and now this
coolness on the daughter’s part. Her first greeting had given me an
appetite for more of the same sort. Of course, I didn’t expect to be
welcomed back from the shadows with a brass band and speeches--but some
kind of hankering or dissatisfaction was gnawing inside me and I felt
ugly and cross and childish.
“I haven’t intended to go too far in anything, sir. But I have been so
anxious to help all I could--forgive me, but father and I do owe you
so much! Don’t scowl so! I’ll not mention debts again. I hope you won’t
think I was too eager--and that I meddled. But I went to her! I did not
want her to misunderstand! It was due you and due myself--and her. So I
have explained everything. I have told her the story. It will come
about all right--just as you hope--I am sure! I did not intend to
stay here--but I have been worrying about--But now you can speak for
yourself!”
She rattled it off so fast I couldn’t get in a word. She looked relieved
when she had finished--as if she had been carrying around something very
disagreeable and had handed it over to somebody for keeps. And I was
obliged to wait quite a while before I dared to trust myself to reply
to her. What she had handed to me seemed to be about as gratifying as
if she had dropped a sea-crab down the back of my neck and then sat back
and expected me to give her three cheers.
“Look-a-here!” I yapped. “Where did you get the notion that I wanted you
or anybody else to act as my attorney over there?” I jerked my thumb in
the direction of the Kingsley house.
“But your head was not right--I knew it,” she stammered. “I was afraid
there would be a misunderstanding--and after what you made me promise
on the _Zizania_--”
“Don’t you know that I was as crazy as a coot?”
“But I knew that deep down in your heart you must love her.”
“A crazy man doesn’t tell the truth.”
“Oh, he does when he is revealing his real soul.”
“I wasn’t revealing any soul. I was babbling away--and I knew I was
talking fool talk and I couldn’t stop my tongue. I didn’t mean that
guff. And now you have got this thing all tangled up by talking to
Celene Kingsley. I can do my own love-making!” That temper of mine
was working in fine shape. And Kama Holstrom was no wilting daisy in
temperament!
“From what I know of you myself, and what _others_--I call no
names--have said, you are about as well qualified in that direction as a
catfish.” She jumped up and stamped her foot.
“But I know now what love--”
“Mr. Sidney, you have just insulted me because I tried to be your
friend. And your _sweetheart_,” she sneered, “has no better manners
than you! She has not even thanked me for bringing you to her! I do not
understand! I shall go to her at once and tell her that you are in your
right senses at last. After this you handle your own love affairs. Don’t
you mention the word ‘love’ to me again!” She marched out and banged
the door so violently behind her that all the brass handles on the old
high-boy were left jingling shrilly--as if the high-boy had gone into a
spasm of giggles over my comeuppance!
In a few minutes the kindly face of Dodovah Vose appeared at the door,
his eyes full of solicitude.
“Fall out of bed?” he inquired.
“No, out of heaven,” I snapped. He came in and shut the door and showed
anxiety.
“See here, son, you seem to have a turn for the worse all of a sudden.
You’ve been gaining fine. But your eyes look crazy to-day. And what you
just said--”
Say, I came nigh bawling out Dodovah Vose, right then! Nobody seemed
to know anything about my case except Kama Holstrom--and she knew too
blamed much! I rolled myself out of bed and stood on my feet.
“My Lawd!” gasped my old friend, “you mustn’t do that. It’s against her
orders. You’re sartain out of your head!”
“Don’t you worry one mite about my knob,” I shouted, cracking my scarred
knuckles against it--and the pain in the knuckles made me all the
uglier. “I’m not going to be nursed and fussed over any longer. I
have been nursed too much already. They’re even nursing my own private
business--and making it sicker all the time. From now on I’m going to
tend to my own affairs. Mr. Vose, help me get these bandages off my
feet!”
He stood back and flapped his hands and protested. I knew he felt that
I had become a lunatic, and so I convinced him by walking up and giving
him a good, sane stare.
“Do you think I’m going to stay in bed the rest of my life--a man who
has so much to live for as I have?”
“That’s right--a man who is wuth--”
At last somebody was going to post me on my financial status--satisfy my
wild eagerness to find out! And I stopped him.
“Shut up,” I fairly barked. “I don’t want to be reminded of that every
five minutes. Excuse me, Mr. Vose. But get my clothes.”
I had made up my mind that only one voice in all the world should tell
me what my sacrifice had wrung from the Pacific for my own self! Silly
notion, eh? No matter. I felt that a certain pair of lips would bless
the information when it passed them.
A half-hour later I was dressed after a fashion. I walked down-stairs,
or it may be better to say that I scuffed and skated down, for I could
not squeeze my feet into shoes and was provided with a pair of Dodovah
Vose’s slippers--carpet affairs with a hectic rose on each instep.
I found Captain Holstrom on the porch with my uncle Deck; their chairs
were tipped back and they were confabbing in most amiable fashion. My
uncle grinned at me, and I floundered for words because I wasn’t sure
what I had said to him prior to my awakening or just what our diplomatic
relations were. His grin encouraged me.
“Damn it,” he ejaculated, “I’ve said right along it was best for you
to be up and around. But Cap’s girl would have it t’other way. Feel all
right, sonny?”
“I’ll feel better, Uncle Deck, if I’m sure that you and I will never
have any more misunderstandings. As we have said--”
I stopped there and waited, figuring that I had left about the right
kind of an opening to find out what we _had_ said. My uncle arose and
clapped my shoulder.
“Sonny, I tell you again, now when you stand man-fashion in front of
me, that the night when I took my first trick at sitting up with you we
fixed it all! For I found out how you felt, underneath, about _him!_ And
about the whole proposition!” He nudged me. “I’m taking my comfort
these days watching him. No more liberty than old Potter Crabtree’s
clay-grinding hoss--around and around in an everlasting circle. I hope
he’ll live long enough to pay his debts--that means a considerable
stretch of enjoyment for me. I wouldn’t trig his wheel for all the
world!”
That was how it stood, eh? And I let it stand, for I wasn’t just sure
what my private sentiments were in regard to Judge Kingsley at that
time. Furthermore, I had some very special business of my own on my
mind. I turned to Captain Rask.
“Where is Kama?”
“Reckon she’s over saying good-by to your girl.”
My uncle stared at me--I must have been telling him things when he sat
up with me.
Saying good-by! Then she probably had told her father that she was ready
to go away. I started across the village square, sliding along in my
huge slippers like a man walking on snow-shoes. I banged the big knocker
on the front door of Judge Kingsley’s mansion and the maid admitted me.
I was not bashful that day--I walked right into the sitting-room.
If I am any judge of expressions I did not interrupt any amiable and
confidential tête-à-tête. The two girls rose and, after a few moments
of constraint, Celene Kingsley asked me to be seated. I told her that I
preferred to stand; I reckon that I wasn’t sure that I _could_ sit down;
the stiffness of the whole situation made me feel as if I did not have
any joints.
“I have finished my errand,” declared Kama. The red was in her cheeks
and there was no encouragement for me in her eyes. “I will say, Mr.
Sidney, that I have apologized to Miss Kingsley for meddling in matters
between you two. I thought I understood and I have tried to help. I
deserve exactly what I have received! I assure you both that I will keep
out of the way after this.” She started for the door, but I was standing
where I could block her. I supplemented my interference by an appeal to
the lady of the mansion.
“Will you ask Miss Holstrom to remain for a moment?” I entreated. And
Miss Holstrom did remain, biting her lower lip with impatience.
“I haven’t had much time for thinking on what to say,” I confessed. “I
don’t know how to talk to ladies very well, anyway.”
My face was flaming--I could hardly control my voice--I felt sure that
I was committing a dreadful sin in point of etiquette and all that--but
once more I was playing a big game in my life--bigger, even, for the
sake of my happiness than when I offered to go down after the remainder
of the treasure of the _Golden Gate_. I was operating again on human
nature--and that nature was in the complex little personality of Kama
Holstrom who pressed impatiently at my elbow, frowning at me. I knew
with all my heart and soul that unless she stood in the presence of
Celene Kingsley and myself--as she then stood--and heard the truth about
my boyhood folly, my cause was lost; because the pride of a girl makes
the way of a man with a maid a mighty doubtful proposition.
“May I hope that you have found out that I am not the scoundrel you
believed me to be?”
“I know the truth now. My father is wiser! I am trying to find words--”
She hesitated, just as if she did not know what she ought to say to me,
and I could not blame her for feeling pretty uncertain. She looked at me
with a sort of kindly and tolerant expression--but, good heavens, there
wasn’t any love in her eyes! I had found out what love-light was like
when Kama Holstrom kneeled beside my bed that afternoon!
As I have confessed and have shown, I was pretty much of a blunderer in
affairs with women. But do me this credit in your estimate: I had not
come into the presence of Celene Kingsley that day harboring any more
illusions as to how I stood with her. I was awake! Think back with me!
Never had she given me a word of affection. Rather, her tolerance of me
had been plainly inspired by her zeal in her father’s behalf. After that
piece of brazen idiocy of mine, when I had taken her in my arms, she had
been careful to keep out of my reach. Allow me to say that I had been
doing some swift and coherent thinking on my way from the tavern.
In my soul was the shamed consciousness that I had been making a real
thing out of a dream--and had been babbling unwarrantably. I was a
pitiful object as I stood there between them--I deserved punishment at
the hands of both of them. For I had made free with Celene Kingsley’s
name and had misdirected Kama Holstrom’s devoted obedience to a promise.
I say, I knew with all my heart and being that I had never struck a
spark of real love from the condescending nature of Judge Kingsley’s
daughter; I knew that I loved Kama Holstrom with all the tender devotion
one pours forth to the true mate.
Yet I dared not say a word lest I should appear as an atrocious cad
seeking release from the old love before taking on the new.
Equally did Celene Kingsley’s high-bred delicacy restrain her tongue; I
understood that she did not want to betray me as a mere cheeky boaster.
So we stood there looking at one another, three as unhappy specimens of
humanity as there were in Levant that day.
“I am too much of a fool to know what to say and how to say it,” I
blurted, and the tears ran down my cheeks.
It was Celene who stepped into the breach; she wasn’t in love, and she
was cooler than the other two in the party.
She walked up to Kama and took her hands in caressing grasp.
“Don’t you understand, dear?”
“No,” faltered the poor girl.
“I hoped you could understand without obliging me to speak. I hoped you
would guess when I refused to discuss certain matters with you--I made
you angry, and I’m sorry.”
“I know I meddled--”
“My dear, I understood you all the time! I understood my old school
friend, too!” She reached out her hand and drew me close to Kama. “He
has been very noble in his help in a great trial in my family, dear!
I owe my happiness to him. And I’m speaking out, rather boldly--rather
bluntly, because I want to help him in obtaining his great happiness. I
know what must happen to make him happy.” She put Kama’s hand in mine.
“Now, my dear, do not force me to disparage one of the best young men
I have ever known by telling you that I never dreamed of him as a
husband--nor was I anything else to him except a school-day fancy, a--”
“An inspiration to set me on the way to make something of myself,” I
insisted.
“And now--say it, Ross Sidney, or you’re a coward--say it, and let me
hear it! She deserves it!”
“I have found out that real love differs from boyhood fancies--and
I--I--want to--”
She gently pushed us toward the door while I was stammering.
“You want to tell a dear girl the sweetest story in the world, Ross
Sidney! My blessing on you both. Good night!”
We did not speak to each other for some time after we were out of doors
together. I took her arm in gentle manner and led her steps away from
the tavern. We could see its lights in the early dusk, and I wanted to
keep away from lights for a time.
I was glad the autumn dusk had settled--a sliver of new moon was a
comforting sight for a lover.
“I guess neither of us knows very well how to talk about love, Kama,” I
told her, hobbling along beside her as best I could. The judge’s orchard
was shaded by the evening’s gloom, and when I turned down there she did
not resist.
“I’m sure I’m mighty awkward about making love,” I went on, “but God
knows I want to learn how.”
“Why do you think I can do any better as a tutor in love than as an
attorney?” she asked.
“Because I’ll be such a willing pupil, dear.”
“I heard you inform Miss Kingsley with a great deal of earnestness just
now that you have found out what real love is like.” She couldn’t keep
all the naughty teasing from her tone, though her voice trembled. “Who
is the fortunate one?”
Then I caught her to me, and with her warm cheek close to mine and her
lips near and never denying caresses, I told her and I convinced her.
“I think,” she admitted, after a long time and after many words there in
the blessed shadows, “that you are entitled to your diploma, Ross. You
are showing me that you know more than your tutor. But is there a woman
who is not jealous when she is in love? Here!” She pressed into my hand
a little packet; it contained the three rings. I drew her along to the
cleft tree. I dropped them into the hollow.
“One for fancy, one for folly, one for the freakish dreams of boyhood!”
I told her. “All buried! Come back to the tavern, precious girl! I want
you to tell Dodovah Vose how to decorate the parlor for the wedding!”
She reached on tiptoe and plucked two apples from the old tree. She gave
one to me.
“An apple of gold from the only woman in the world,” I said.
“Don’t say ‘gold’ to me, Ross! Don’t! A boy of your age with half a
million safe in the bank--”
There was my news at last! I kissed the lips which told me!
Then, eating the sweet fruit of our new knowledge of life and of each
other, we went on our way up through the whispering trees toward the
welcoming, glowing windows of the old tavern.