For reply she began to climb the fence. It was high, but the young
lady was astonishingly agile, and not even to be deterred by
several faint wails from tearing and ripping fabrics--casualties
which appeared to be entirely beneath her notice. Arriving at the
top rather dishevelled, and with irregular pennons here and there
flung to the breeze from her attire, she seated herself cosily
beside the dumbfounded Hedrick.
She turned her face to him and smiled--and there was something
about her smile which Hedrick did not like. It discomforted him;
nothing more. In sunlight he would have had the better chance to
comprehend; but, unhappily, this was moonshine.
"Kiss me, little boy!" she said.
"I won't!" exclaimed the shocked and indignant Hedrick, edging
uneasily away from her.
"Let's play," she said cheerfully.
"Play what?"
"I like chickens. Did you know I like chickens?"
The rather singular lack of connection in her remarks struck him
as a misplaced effort at humour.
"You're having lots of fun with me, aren't you?" he growled.
She instantly moved close to him and lifted her face to his.
"Kiss me, darling little boy!" she said.
There was something more than uncommonly queer about this
stranger, an unearthliness of which he was confusedly perceptive,
but she was not without a curious kind of prettiness, and her pale
gold hair was beautiful. The doomed lad saw the moon shining
through it.
"Kiss me, darling little boy!" she repeated.
His head whirled; for the moment she seemed divine.
George Washington used profanity at the Battle of Monmouth.
Hedrick kissed her.
He instantly pushed her away with strong distaste. "There!" he
said angrily. "I hope that'll satisfy you!" He belonged to his
sex.
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" she cried, and flung her
arms about him.
With a smothered shout of dismay he tried to push her off, and
they fell from the fence together, into the yard, at the cost of
further and almost fatal injuries to the lady's apparel.
Hedrick was first upon his feet. "Haven't you got _any_ sense?"
he demanded.
She smiled unwaveringly, rose (without assistance) and repeated:
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"
"No, I won't! I wouldn't for a thousand dollars!"
Apparently, she did not consider this discouraging. She began to
advance endearingly, while he retreated backward. "Kiss me
some----"
"I won't, I tell you!" Hedrick kept stepping away, moving in a
desperate circle. He resorted to a brutal formula: "You make me
sick!"
"Kiss me some more, darling lit----"
"I won't!" he bellowed. "And if you say that again I'll----"
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" She flung herself at him,
and with a yell of terror he turned and ran at top-speed.
She pursued, laughing sweetly, and calling loudly as she ran,
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy! Kiss me some more, darling
little boy!"
The stricken Hedrick knew not whither to direct his flight: he
dared not dash for the street with this imminent tattered
incubus--she was almost upon him--and he frantically made for the
kitchen door, only to swerve with a gasp of despair as his foot
touched the step, for she was at his heels, and he was sickeningly
assured she would cheerfully follow him through the house,
shouting that damning refrain for all ears. A strangling fear took
him by the throat--if Cora should come to be a spectator of this
unspeakable flight, if Cora should hear that horrid plea for love!
Then farewell peace; indeed, farewell all joy in life forever!
Panting sobbingly, he ducked under the amorous vampire's arm and
fled on. He zigzagged desperately to and fro across the broad,
empty backyard, a small hand ever and anon managing to clutch his
shoulder, the awful petition in his ears:
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"
"_Hedrick_!"
Emerging from the kitchen door, Laura stood and gazed in wonder as
the two eerie figures sped by her, circled, ducked, dodged, flew
madly on. This commonplace purlieu was become the scene of a
witch-chase; the moonlight fell upon the ghastly flitting face of
the pursued, uplifted in agony, white, wet, with fay eyes; also it
illumined the unreal elf following close, a breeze-blown fantasy
in rags.
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"
Laura uttered a sharp exclamation. "Stand still, Hedrick!" she
called. "You must!"
Hedrick made a piteous effort to increase his speed.
"It's Lolita Martin," called Laura. "She must have her way or
nothing can be done with her. Stand _still_!"
Hedrick had never heard of Lolita Martin, but the added
information concerning her was not ineffective: it operated as a
spur; and Laura joined the hunt.
"Stand still!" she cried to the wretched quarry. "She's run away.
She must be taken home. Stop, Hedrick! You _must_ stop!"
Hedrick had no intention of stopping, but Laura was a runner, and,
as he dodged the other, caught and held him fast. The next
instant, Lolita, laughing happily, flung her arms round his neck
from behind.
"Lemme go!" shuddered Hedrick. "Lemme go!"
"Kiss me again, darl----"
"I--woof!" He became inarticulate.
"She isn't quite right," his sister whispered hurriedly in his
ear. "She has spells when she's weak mentally. You must be kind to
her. She only wants you to----"
"`_Only_'!" he echoed hoarsely. "I won't ki----" He was unable to
finish the word.
"We must get her home," said Laura anxiously. "Will you come with
me, Lolita, dear?"
Apparently Lolita had no consciousness whatever of Laura's
presence. Instead of replying, she tightened her grasp upon
Hedrick and warmly reiterated her request.
"Shut up, you parrot!" hissed the goaded boy.
"Perhaps she'll go if you let her walk with her arms round your
neck," suggested Laura.
"If I _what_?"
"Let's try it. We've got to get her home; her mother must be
frantic about her. Come, let's see if she'll go with us that way."
With convincing earnestness, Hedrick refused to make the
experiment until Laura suggested that he remain with Lolita while
she summoned assistance; then, as no alternative appeared, his
spirit broke utterly, and he consented to the trial, stipulating
with a last burst of vehemence that the progress of the
unthinkable pageant should be through the alley.
"Come, Lolita," said Laura coaxingly. "We're going for a nice
walk." At the adjective, Hedrick's burdened shoulders were racked
with a brief spasm, which recurred as his sister added: "Your
darling little boy will let you keep hold of him."
Lolita seemed content. Laughing gayly, she offered no opposition,
but, maintaining her embrace with both arms and walking somewhat
sidewise, went willingly enough; and the three slowly crossed the
yard, passed through the empty stable and out into the alley. When
they reached the cross-street at the alley's upper end, Hedrick
balked flatly.
Laura expostulated, then entreated. Hedrick refused with sincere
loathing to be seen upon the street occupying his present position
in the group. Laura assured him that there was no one to see; he
replied that the moon was bright and the evening early; he would
die, and readily, but he would not set foot in the street.
Unfortunately, he had selected an unfavourable spot for argument:
they were already within a yard or two of the street; and a
strange boy, passing, stopped and observed, and whistled
discourteously.
"Ain't he the spooner!" remarked this unknown with hideous
admiration.
"I'll thank you," returned Hedrick haughtily, "to go on about your
own business."
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" said Lolita.
The strange boy squawked, wailed, screamed with laughter, howled
the loving petition in a dozen keys of mockery, while Hedrick
writhed and Lolita clung. Enriched by a new and great experience,
the torturer trotted on, leaving viperish cachinnations in his
wake.
But the martyrdom was at an end. A woman, hurrying past,
bareheaded, was greeted by a cry of delight from Lolita, who
released Hedrick and ran to her with outstretched arms.
"We were bringing her home, Mrs. Martin," said Laura,
reassuringly. "She's all right; nothing's the matter except that
her dress got torn. We found her playing in our yard."
"I thank you a thousand times, Miss Madison," cried Lolita's
mother, and flutteringly plunged into a description of her
anxiety, her search for Lolita, and concluded with renewed
expressions of gratitude for the child's safe return, an
outpouring of thankfulness and joy wholly incomprehensible to
Hedrick.
"Not at all," said Laura cheerfully. "Come, Hedrick. We'll go home
by the street, I think." She touched his shoulder, and he went
with her in stunned obedience. He was not able to face the
incredible thing that had happened to him: he walked in a trance
of horror.
"Poor little girl!" said Laura gently, with what seemed to her
brother an indefensibly misplaced compassion. "Usually they have
her live in an institution for people afflicted as she is, but
they brought her home for a visit last week, I believe. Of course
you didn't understand, but I think you should have been more
thoughtful. Really, you shouldn't have flirted with her."
Hedrick stopped short.
"`_Flirted_'!" His voice was beginning to show symptoms of
changing, this year; it rose to a falsetto wail, flickered and
went out.
With the departure of Lolita in safety, what had seemed bizarre
and piteous became obscured, and another aspect of the adventure
was presented to Laura. The sufferings of the arrogant are not
wholly depressing to the spectator; and of arrogance Hedrick had
ever been a master. She began to shake; a convulsion took her, and
suddenly she sat upon the curbstone without dignity, and laughed
as he had never seen her.
A horrid distrust of her rose within him: he began to realize in
what plight he stood, what terrors o'erhung.
"Look here," he said miserably, "are you--you aren't--you don't
have to go and--and _talk_ about this, do you?"
"No, Hedrick," she responded, rising and controlling herself
somewhat. "Not so long as you're good."
This was no reassuring answer.
"And politer to Cora," she added.
Seemingly he heard the lash of a slave-whip crack in the air. The
future grew dark.
"I know you'll try"--she said; and the unhappy lad felt that her
assurance was justified; but she had not concluded the
sentence--"darling little boy," she capped it, choking slightly.
"No other little girl ever fell in love with you, did there,
Hedrick?" she asked, and, receiving an incoherent but furious
reply, she was again overcome, so that she must lean against the
fence to recover. "It seems--so--so _curious_," she explained,
gasping, "that the first one--the--the only one--should be
an--a--an----" She was unable to continue.
Hedrick's distrust became painfully increased: he began to feel
that he disliked Laura.
She was still wiping her eyes and subject to recurrent outbursts
when they reached their own abode; and as he bitterly flung
himself into a chair upon the vacant front porch, he heard her
stifling an attack as she mounted the stairs to her own room. He
swung the chair about, with its back to the street, and sat facing
the wall. He saw nothing. There are profundities in the abyss
which reveal no glimpse of the sky.
Presently he heard his father coughing near by; and the sound was
hateful, because it seemed secure and unshamed. It was a cough of
moral superiority; and just then the son would have liked to
believe that his parent's boyhood had been one of degradation as
complete as his own; but no one with this comfortable cough could
ever have plumbed such depths: his imagination refused the picture
he was bitterly certain that Mr. Madison had never kissed an
idiot.
Hedrick had a dread that his father might speak to him; he was in
no condition for light conversation. But Mr. Madison was unaware
of his son's near presence, and continued upon his purposeless
way. He was smoking his one nightly cigar and enjoying the
moonlight. He drifted out toward the sidewalk and was accosted by
a passing acquaintance, a comfortable burgess of sixty, leading a
child of six or seven, by the hand.
"Out taking the air, are you, Mr. Madison?" said the pedestrian,
pausing.
"Yes; just trying to cool off," returned the other. "How are you,
Pryor, anyway? I haven't seen you for a long time."
"Not since last summer," said Pryor. "I only get here once or
twice a year, to see my married daughter. I always try to spend
August with her if I can. She's still living in that little house,
over on the next street, I bought for her through your real-estate
company. I suppose you're still in the same business?"
"Yes. Pretty slack, these days."
"I suppose so, I suppose so," responded Mr. Pryor, nodding.
"Summer, I suppose it usually is. Well, I don't know when I'll be
going out on the road again myself. Business is pretty slack all
over the country this year."
"Let's see--I've forgotten," said Madison ruminatively. "You
travel, don't you?"
"For a New York house," affirmed Mr. Pryor. He did not, however,
mention his "line." "Yes-sir," he added, merely as a decoration,
and then said briskly: "I see you have a fine family, Mr. Madison;
yes-sir, a fine family; I've passed here several times lately and
I've noticed 'em: fine family. Let's see, you've got four, haven't
you?"
"Three," said Madison. "Two girls and a boy."
"Well, sir, that's mighty nice," observed Mr. Pryor; "_mighty_
nice! I only have my one daughter, and of course me living in New
York when I'm at home, and her here, why, I don't get to see much
of her. You got both your daughters living with you, haven't you?"
"Yes, right here at home."
"Let's see: neither of 'em's married, I believe?"
"No; not yet."
"Seems to me now," said Pryor, taking off his glasses and wiping
them, "seems to me I did hear somebody say one of 'em was going to
be married engaged, maybe."
"No," said Madison. "Not that I know of."
"Well, I suppose you'd be the first to know! Yes-sir." And both
men laughed their appreciation of this folly. "They're mighty
good-looking girls, _that's_ certain," continued Mr. Pryor. "And
one of 'em's as fine a dresser as you'll meet this side the Rue de
la Paix."
"You mean in Paris?" asked Madison, slightly surprised at this
allusion. "You've been over there, Pryor?"
"Oh, sometimes," was the response. "My business takes me over, now
and then. I _think_ it's one of your daughters I've noticed
dresses so well. Isn't one of 'em a mighty pretty girl about
twenty-one or two, with a fine head of hair sort of lightish
brown, beautiful figure, and carries a white parasol with a green
lining sometimes?"
"Yes, that's Cora, I guess."
"Pretty name, too," said Pryor approvingly. "Yes-sir. I saw her
going into a florist's, downtown, the other day, with a
fine-looking young fellow--I can't think of his name. Let's see:
my daughter was with me, and she'd heard his name--said his family
used to be big people in this town and----"
"Oh," said Madison, "young Corliss."
"Corliss!" exclaimed Mr. Pryor, with satisfaction. "That's it,
Corliss. Well, sir," he chuckled, "from the way he was looking at
your Miss Cora it struck me he seemed kind of anxious for her name
to be Corliss, too."
"Well, hardly I expect," said the other. "They just barely know
each other: he's only been here a few weeks; they haven't had time
to get much acquainted, you see."
"I suppose not," agreed Mr. Pryor, with perfect readiness. "I
suppose not. I'll bet _he_ tries all he can to get acquainted
though; he looked pretty smart to me. Doesn't he come about as
often as the law allows?"
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Madison indifferently. "He
doesn't know many people about here any more, and it's lonesome
for him at the hotel. But I guess he comes to see the whole
family; I left him in the library a little while ago, talking to
my wife."
"That's the way! Get around the old folks first!" Mr. Pryor
chuckled cordially; then in a mildly inquisitive tone he said:
"Seems to be a fine, square young fellow, I expect?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Pretty name, `Cora'," said Pryor.
"What's this little girl's name?" Mr. Madison indicated the child,
who had stood with heroic patience throughout the incomprehensible
dialogue.
"Lottie, for her mother. She's a good little girl."
"She is _so_! I've got a young son she ought to know," remarked
Mr. Madison serenely, with an elderly father's total
unconsciousness of the bridgeless gap between seven and thirteen.
"He'd like to play with her. I'll call him."
"I expect we better be getting on," said Pryor. "It's near
Lottie's bedtime; we just came out for our evening walk."
"Well, he can come and shake hands with her anyway," urged
Hedrick's father. "Then they'll know each other, and they can play
some other time." He turned toward the house and called loudly:
"Hedrick!"
There was no response. Behind the back of his chair Hedrick could
not be seen. He was still sitting immovable, his eyes torpidly
fixed upon the wall.
"Hed-_rick_!"
Silence.
"Oh, _Hed_-rick!" shouted his father. "Come out here! I want you
to meet a little girl! Come and see a nice little girl!"
Mr. Pryor's grandchild was denied the pleasure. At the ghastly
words "_little girl_," Hedrick dropped from his chair flat upon
the floor, crawled to the end of the porch, wriggled through the
railing, and immersed himself in deep shadow against the side of
the house.
Here he removed his shoes, noiselessly mounted to the sill of one
of the library windows, then reconnoitred through a slit in the
blinds before entering.
The gas burned low in the "drop-light"--almost too dimly to reveal
the two people upon a sofa across the room. It was a faint murmur
from one of them that caused Hedrick to pause and peer more
sharply. They were Cora and Corliss; he was bending close to her;
her face was lifting to his.
"Ah, kiss me! Kiss me!" she whispered.
Hedrick dropped from the sill, climbed through a window of the
kitchen, hurried up the back-stairs, and reached his own apartment
in time to be violently ill in seclusion.