The next morning Thayor handed Alice a telegram. It was from Jack
Randall, accepting Sam's invitation to visit him.
"I am so glad he's coming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands in
delight. "Jack is a host in himself. Ah, that was a good idea of mine,
dear--splendid idea! I want Holcomb to dine with us, of course, while
Randall is here over Sunday; it's a pity he can't stay longer." Thayor
had not said a word to her about his "idea" until he had shown her
Randall's acceptance.
Alice said nothing, except to remark that she would be glad to see Mr.
Randall again--he was always so amusing; she did not relish the idea
of Holcomb sharing their table during his visit. She wondered
whether Thayor was paying her back for the many she had given without
consulting him.
"Who do you think is coming?" exclaimed Margaret, who had run over
to Holcomb's cabin to tell him the news that afternoon; "nice Jack
Randall!" she cried before he could even begin to think.
Holcomb opened his eyes in surprise.
"Father said you had met him at The Players," added Margaret.
"Met him--why I've known Mr. Randall for years! It seems mighty good
to think I'm going to see the dear fellow again. Well, that _is_ good
news--dear old Jack!"
They were standing in the open doorway of the cabin. Holcomb thought
he had never seen her look prettier than she did this sunny morning
without her hat--dressed as she was in a simple frock of some soft
white fabric cut low about her plump brown throat.
"May I come inside," she asked timidly, as she peeped into the new
interior.
"Why, certainly. Come in and sit down; you are really the only visitor
I've had except your father--sit down--won't you?" He drew a chair up
to his freshly scrubbed deal table.
Margaret looked up into his eyes--half seriously for a moment, as she
stood by the proffered chair.
"You are coming to dine with us while he's here," she said in her
frank way. "Father says you must."
Billy's embarrassment was evident. "That's really kind of him," he
replied, "but don't you think I'd better wait until--"
"There--you're going to refuse; I was half afraid you would. But
you will come--won't you? Please, Mr. Holcomb!" She seated herself
opposite him, resting her adorable little chin in her hands, her eyes
again looking into his own.
"I mean I'd rather your mother had asked me," he said, after a
moment's hesitation. "I'm afraid Mrs. Thayor would be better pleased
if I did not come, much as I'd like to."
The brown eyes were lowered and the corners of the young mouth
quivered; she lifted her head and he saw the eyes were dim with two
big tears.
"You'll come, won't you?" she faltered, trying hard to smile. He
started to rise, looking helplessly about him as a man who casts about
him for a remedy in an emergency.
"There, I shouldn't have said what I did," he explained as she brushed
away the tears. "I'm sorry--I didn't mean to hurt you."
"You haven't hurt me," she said; "you couldn't."
There was an awkward pause during which she buried her face in her
dimpled brown hands. Holcomb breathed heavily.
"You don't understand," she resumed bravely, trying to clear the
quaver in her voice, "and it's so hard for me to explain--and I _want_
you to understand--about--mother, I mean. Mother is dreadfully rude to
people at times--she is that way to nearly everyone whom she does not
consider smart people." Her young voice grew steadier. "I mean
whom she likes and are in her own set. It makes me feel so ashamed
sometimes I could cry."
"Come," coaxed Holcomb, "you mustn't feel badly about it. People are
all different, anyway. It's just Mrs. Thayor's way, I suppose, just as
it's your way, and your father's way, to be kind to everyone," he said
tenderly. He saw the colour flush to her cheeks.
"Mother has hurt you!" she cried indignantly. "I have seen it over and
over again. Oh, why can't people be a little more considerate. It's
not considered smart, I suppose. In society nearly everyone is rude to
one another--some of them are perfectly nasty and they think nothing
of saying horrid things about you behind your back! I hate New York,"
she exclaimed hotly; "I never knew what it was to be really happy
until I came to Big Shanty and these dear old woods. You have had
them all your life, so perhaps you can't understand what they mean to
me--how much I love them, Mr. Holcomb."
"They mean considerable to me," he replied. "They seem like home. I
liked what I saw in New York, and I had a good time down there with
Jack, but I know I'd get pretty tired of it if I had to live there in
that noise."
"I hate New York," she repeated impetuously, her brown hands trembling
after the tears. "If you had to go out--out--out--all the time to
stupid teas and dances, you would hate it too. It was hard waiting
for the camp. I--I--used to count the days--longing for the days you
promised it would be ready. It was so hard to wait--but I knew you
were doing your best, and daddy knew it too."
Holcomb reddened. "I'm glad you trusted me," he said, and added, "I
hope you will trust me always."
"Why, yes, of course I will!" she exclaimed, brightening. "Oh, you
know I will, don't you?"
Holcomb was conscious of a sudden sensation of infinite joy; it seemed
to spring up like an electric current from somewhere deep within him,
and tingled all over him.
"I'm glad you'll always trust me," he said, as he rose suddenly from
his chair and, going over to her, held out his hand. The words he had
just spoken he was as unconscious of as his impulsive gesture. "I
hope you'll always trust me," he repeated. "You see I wouldn't like to
disappoint you _ever_" he went on gently.
She gave the strong fingers that held her own a firm little squeeze,
not knowing why she did it.
"Of course I will. Oh, you know I'll trust you--always--always." She
said it simply--like a child telling the truth. "I must be going," she
ventured faintly. "You will come to the dinner--I mean--to dine with
us as long as they are here--promise me!" Again she looked appealingly
into his eyes as if she were speaking in a dream.
"Yes, if you want me," he said softly, almost in a whisper, still
thrilled by the pressure of her warm little hand. He stood watching
her as she slowly re-crossed the compound. Then he went in and shut
the door of his cabin and stood for some moments gazing at the chair
in which she had been seated--his heart beating fast.
* * * * *
The dinner was all that Thayor could have wished it. In this he had
consulted Blakeman, and not Alice. The soup was perfect; so were
a dozen young trout taken from an ice-cold brook an hour before,
accompanied by a dish of tender cucumbers fresh from the garden and
smothered in crushed ice; so was the dry champagne--a rare vintage
of hissing gold poured generously into Venetian glasses frail as
a bubble, iridescent and fashioned like an open flower; so was the
saddle of mutton that followed--and so, too, were the salad and
cheese--and the minor drinkables and eatables to the very end.
Moreover, Alice was in her best humour and in her best clothes; the
doctor genial; Thayor beaming; Margaret merry as a lark; Holcomb's
ease and personality a delight (Mrs. Thayor had at the last moment
sent a special invitation by Margaret, and he had come)--and Jack a
never-ending joy. That rare something which made every man who knew
him love him, bubbled out of him as ceaselessly as the ascending
commotion in the golden vintage. Moreover, this good fellow was
overjoyed at the change in his host; he felt that Thayor's splendid
health was largely due to his advice.
Jack's repertoire was famous; he had been a prime favourite at the
University smokers for years, and so when dinner was over, and the
guests were grouped about the roaring fire in the living room, Sperry
next to Alice, Blakeman passing the coffee, liqueurs and cigars,
he was ready to answer any call. And thus it was that Thayor, amid
general applause, led--or rather dragged--Jack triumphantly to the new
grand piano, finally picking him up bodily and depositing him before
the keyboard, where he held him on the stool with the grip of a
sheriff, until this best of fellows raised his hands hopelessly and
smiled to his eager audience.
Few skilled pianists possessed Jack's touch; his playing was snappy
and sympathetic--it was gay, and invested with a swing and rhythm
that were irresistible. He had at his command a vast host of
memories--everything from a Hungarian "Czardas" to Grieg. He rippled
on fantastically, joining together the seemingly impossible by a
series of harmonic transitions entirely his own. His crisp execution
was as facile as that of a virtuoso; he did things contrary to even
the first principles found in the instruction books of the pianoforte.
He rushed from the Dance of the Sun Feast of the Sioux Indians,
through a passage of rag time into the tenderest of cradle songs that
emerged in turn, by an intricate series of harmonic byways, into the
trio from Faust and leaped, as a climax at a single bound, to the
Rakoczy March--the shrill war march of Hungary, the rhythm of which
stirs the blood and made men fight up hill with forty clarionets in
line in the days when the Magyar took all before him--a march that
brought the blood to Alice Thayor's cheeks and diffused a lazy
brilliancy in her eyes--eyes that looked at Sperry under their curved
lashes. Under its spell there welled within her an irresistible desire
to scream--to dance savagely until she swooned. The last chord was as
vibrant as the crack of a whip.
As for Holcomb, a strange happiness had come to him. He had heard
Alice voice her surprise at his ease of manner and good breeding. "He
is a gentleman, Sam; I never could have believed it," and his eyes had
lighted up when his employer had replied, "As well-bred as Jack,
my dear. I am glad to hear you acknowledge it at last." But even a
greater joy possessed him,--a happiness which he dared not speak
about or risk the danger of destroying. Margaret trusted him!--that in
itself was enough for the moment. She had a way of looking earnestly
into his eyes now--moments when he made awkward attempts at concealing
his joy. There was, too, a certain note of tenderness in her voice
when she spoke to him. That firm pressure of her soft little hand--her
tears! What had she meant by it? he wondered. She seemed a different
being to him now--divine--not of this world. When they were alone
together her very presence made him forget all else save his loyalty
toward Thayor--in brief moments such as these he would gaze at her,
when she was not looking; conversation he found difficult. There were
moments, too, when he experienced a feeling of silent depression, and
other times when there sprang up within him a positive fear--the
first fear he had ever experienced. The dread that he might lose his
self-control and tell her frankly all that lay in his heart--how much
he thought of her--how much he would always think of her. Yet he
would rather have left Big Shanty forever than have offended her. How
strange it all seemed to him! Could she really care for him?--this
girl, the very essence of refinement--this child of luxury. The
realization of the wide social breach that lay between them was plain
enough to him; he was not of her world--not of her blood.
The hopelessness of this thought brought with it a feeling of
bitterness. Once he dreamed she had kissed him. It was all so real
to him in his dream--they were a long way off in the woods somewhere
together, back of Big Shanty, near a pond which he had never seen; he
was leading her down to its edge through some rough timber, when she
sighed, "I am so tired, Billy," and sank down in a little heap half
fainting from exhaustion. He took her into his arms and carried
her--she cuddled her head against his throat. Then she kissed him
twice, and he awoke.
For a long time he sat wondering on the edge of his cot--the light
from a waning moon streaking across the cabin floor. He tried to go
to sleep, in the hope that his dream might continue, but he dreamed of
horses breaking through the ice. He wakened again at the first glimmer
of dawn--dressed and went out in the crisp air for a tramp, still
thinking of his dream and the memory of her dear lips against his
cheek.