All that Evelyn Tripp had said to Elizabeth was entirely true; her
feelings had been hurt--outraged, she again assured herself, as she
hurried away, her eyes blurred with tears of anger and self-pity. Yet
deep down in her heart she felt sure that George Hickey loved her for
herself alone, and that all was not over between them. She had refused
him, to be sure, and in no uncertain terms; but that he was not a man to
be daunted by difficulties, she remembered with a little thrill of
satisfaction. All had not been said when their interview was terminated
by the unlooked-for arrival of the Stanfords; and he had said at
parting, "I must see you again--soon. I wish to--explain. I will come
to-morrow."
He would come; she was sure of it, and as she pictured his vexed
astonishment at finding her already gone, her eyes filled with fresh
tears. "He doesn't even know my Dorchester address," she murmured with
inconsistent regret. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did
not hear a masterful step on the sidewalk behind her; but at the sound
of his voice she glanced up without the least surprise. It appeared to
Evelyn that Mr. Hickey's presence at that particular instant was in full
accord with the verities.
"I was afraid you might be leaving early," he said directly, his eyes
searching her face with an open anxiety that filled her with a warm
delight. "I--er--found that I could not apply myself to business as I
should this morning, so I thought best to--er--see you without delay."
Evelyn's head dropped; a faint smile flitted about her lips.
"Indeed, I am just leaving this afternoon," she said, in a voice that
trembled a little in spite of her efforts to preserve an easy society
manner.
"And you were going without--letting me know," said Mr. Hickey, in the
tone of one who derives an unpleasant deduction from an undeniable fact.
He looked down at her suddenly. "Did you, or did you not intend giving
me the chance to--er--continue our conversation of last evening?" he
asked with delightful sternness.
She was sure now that he loved her; but her day had been long in coming
and she could not resist the temptation to enjoy it slowly, lingeringly,
as one tastes an anticipated feast.
"I thought," she murmured indistinctly, "that there was nothing more
to--say." She was deliciously frightened by the look that came into his
deep-set eyes.
"I asked you to marry me," he said deliberately, "and you--refused. I
want to know your reasons. I must know them. I am not in the habit of
giving up what I want, easily," he went on, his brows meeting in a
short-sighted frown, which raised Evelyn to the seventh heaven of
anticipated bliss. "I've always gotten what I wanted--sooner or later. I
want--you, Evelyn, and--and it's getting late. I'm forty-two, and
you----"
She blushed resentfully, for at that moment she felt twenty, no older.
Nevertheless, something in her downcast face must have encouraged him.
"Won't you take pity on me, dear?" he entreated. "I'm old and ugly to
look at, I know; but I _want you_, Evelyn."
She would have answered him then; the words trembled upon her lips.
"Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn!"
The two shrill little voices upraised in urgent unison pierced the
confused maze of her thoughts. She looked around, not without a wilful
sense of relief to see the two older Brewster children running toward
her brandishing a muff, which she presently recognised as one of her own
cherished possessions, un-missed as yet since her brief visit with
Elizabeth.
"Mother found it on the floor after you'd gone, an' she said for us to
run after you an' give it to you," Carroll began, with a large sense of
his own importance. "Doris wanted to carry it; but I was 'fraid she'd
drop it in the wet. I didn't drop it, Aunty Evelyn; but Doris threw some
snow at me, an' it got on the muff, an' I stopped to brush it off. I
thought we'd never catch up."
Doris had snuggled her small person between Mr. Hickey and Miss Tripp,
where she appropriated a hand of each in a friendly and impartial way.
"I guess girls know how to carry muffs better'n boys," she observed
calmly. "Carroll was too fresh; that is why I threw snow at him."
"Why, Doris dear, where did you ever learn such an expression?" murmured
Miss Tripp, vaguely reproving.
Doris gazed up at her mentor with an expression of preternatural
intelligence.
"Why, don't you know," she explained; "folks is too fresh when they make
you mad, an' make you cry. Who made you cry, Aunty Evelyn? Did Mr.
Hickey?"
"I wish you'd find out for me, Doris," said that gentleman gloomily.
"I'd give anything to know."
Miss Tripp gazed about her with gentle distraction, as if in search of
an entirely suitable remark with which to continue the difficult
conversation. Finding no inspiration in the expanse of slushy street, or
in the dull houses which bordered it on either side, she turned bravely
to Mr. Hickey.
"I think," she said in a low voice, "that the children really ought to
go home to--to--their luncheon."
Her eyes (quite unknown to herself) held an appeal which filled him with
unreasoning satisfaction.
"You are entirely right," he agreed joyfully; "the children should go
home immediately. They must be in need of food. Go home, children, at
once. You are hungry--very hungry."
"Oh, no, we're not," warbled Doris. "An' we like to walk with you an'
Aunty Evelyn. Mother said our lunch wouldn't be ready for fifteen
minutes. We won't have to go home for quite a while yet."
At this Mr. Hickey laughed, more loudly than the humour of the situation
appeared to demand. "Very good," he said firmly; "that being the case,
I'll say at once what I had in mind without further delay; for I'm
anxious to let the whole world know that I love you, Evelyn, and I hope
you'll allow me to go on loving you as long as I live."
The events which followed immediately upon this bold statement Elizabeth
learned as a result of her somewhat bewildered questionings, when her
two children, breathless and excited from a competitive return, flung
their small persons upon her at their own door.
"Now you just let me tell, Carroll Brewster, 'cause I got here first;
Aunty Evelyn said----"
"We gave Aunty Evelyn her muff," said Carroll, taking unfair advantage
of Doris' breathless condition. "And what do you think, mother, Doris
said I was too fresh to Aunty Evelyn, and she said----"
"Aunty Evelyn cried when we gave her the muff, an' she said----"
"Aunty Evelyn didn't cry 'cause we gave her the muff," interpolated
Carroll, with superior sagacity. "She was cryin' to Mr. Hickey, an' he
said----"
"He said he'd give me most anythin'--a great big doll with real hair or
a gold ring, or anythin' at all if I'd find out why Aunty Evelyn was
cryin'."
"But, Doris dear, Mr. Hickey wasn't with Aunty Evelyn; was he?" asked
Elizabeth, a fine mingling of reproof and eager curiosity flushing her
young face.
"Mr. Hickey didn't say a big doll with real hair, or a gold ring,"
Carroll interrupted indignantly. "You just made up that part, Doris."
"I didn't make it up either; I thought it," retorted Doris. "He said
he'd give me anythin' at all, an' I guess a great big doll with real
hair is anythin'. So there!"
"I don't understand, children," murmured the smiling Elizabeth, who was
beginning to understand very well, indeed. "You should have come home at
once, instead of stopping to talk to Aunty Evelyn. Your luncheon is
waiting."
"That's what Aunty Evelyn said," put in Carroll reproachfully, "an' Mr.
Hickey said 'Go home at once, children; you're very hungry.' An' I was
going; but Doris, she wouldn't go. She----"
"I wasn't a bit hungry then; but I am now, an' I smell somethin' good,"
observed that young lady, sniffing delicately.
"She said she wasn't in any hurry, an' I guess Mr. Hickey didn't like
it. Anyway he laughed, an' he took right hold of Aunty Evelyn's hand,
an' she cried some more."
"She didn't cry 'cause he squeezed her hand. She said 'I thought you
didn't really like me.' An' Mr. Hickey----. Now don't int'rupt,
Carroll; it's rude to int'rupt; isn't it, mother? Mr. Hickey said 'Yes,
I do too!' Jus' like that he conterdicted."
"An' then Doris said, 'it's rude to conterdict,' right out to Mr. Hickey
she said. That was an awful imp'lite thing for Doris to say; wasn't it,
mother? I said it was."
"But Aunty Evelyn said _sometimes_ it wasn't rude to conterdict.
An'--'n' she said she was glad Mr. Hickey conterdicted; 'cause she was
'fraid he wasn't goin' to; an' then----"
"She told us to run along home an' tell our mother she was very much
mistaken this mornin'."
"No; she said to say our mother was perfec'ly right, an' she was----"
"Well, that's jus' exac'ly what I said. What did Aunty Evelyn mean,
mother? An' why did Mr. Hickey make her cry?"
Elizabeth wiped a laughing tear or two from her own eyes. "I'm glad
Aunty Evelyn found out that I was right," was all she said. "Now come,
children, and let mother wash your hands. Celia has baked a beautiful
gingerbread man for Carroll's lunch and a beautiful gingerbread lady
for Doris and a cunning little gingerbread baby for Baby Dick."
"Oh, goody! goody!" shouted the children in ecstatic chorus.
In a trice their singular encounter with Aunty Evelyn and Mr. Hickey was
forgotten in eager contemplation of the more obvious and immediate
future of the gingerbread man, the gingerbread lady and the gingerbread
child; each of whom, plump and shining, reposed in the middle of a pink
china plate, their black currant eyes widely opened upon destiny.