The Portygee Part 31

"Why, my asking you to walk home with me, after--after our trouble. It is strange, I suppose, particularly as you had not spoken before this whole evening."

"_I_--spoken to YOU? Why, you bowed to me when I came into the room and that was the only sign of recognition you gave me until just now. Not a dance--not one."

"Did you expect me to look you up and beg you to dance with me?"

"Did you expect me to trot at that fellow's heels and wait my chance to get a word with you, to take what he left? I should say not! By George, Helen, I--"

She interrupted him. "Hush, hus.h.!.+" she pleaded. "This is all so silly, so childish. And we mustn't quarrel any more. I have made up my mind to that. We mustn't."

"Humph! All right, _I_ had no thought of quarreling in the beginning.

But there are some things a self-respecting chap can't stand. I have SOME pride, I hope."

She caught her breath quickly. "Do you think," she asked, "that it was no sacrifice to my pride to beg you to walk home with me? After--after the things you said the other evening? Oh, Albert, how could you say them!"

"Well--" he hesitated, and then added, "I told you I was sorry."

"Yes, but you weren't really sorry. You must have believed the things that hateful Issachar Price said or you wouldn't have repeated them.

... Oh, but never mind that now, I didn't mean to speak of it at all. I asked you to walk home with me because I wanted to make up our quarrel.

Yes, that was it. I didn't want to go away and feel that you and I were not as good friends as ever. So, you see, I put all MY pride to one side--and asked."

One phrase in one sentence of this speech caught and held the young man's attention. He forgot the others.

"You are going away?" he repeated. "What do you mean? Where are you going?"

"I am going to Cambridge to study. I am going to take some courses at Radcliffe. You know I told you I hoped to some day. Well, it has been arranged. I am to live with my cousin, father's half sister in Somerville. Father is well enough to leave now and I have engaged a capable woman, Mrs. Peters, to help Maria with the housework. I am going Friday morning, the day after to-morrow."

He stopped short to stare at her.

"You are going away?" he asked, again. "You are going to do that and--and--Why didn't you tell me before?"

It was a characteristic return to his att.i.tude of outraged royalty. She had made all these plans, had arranged to do this thing, and he had not been informed. At another time Helen might have laughed at him; she generally did when he became what she called the "Grand Bashaw." She did not laugh now, however, but answered quietly.

"I didn't know I was going to do it until a little more than a week ago," she said. "And I have not seen you since then."

"No, you've been too busy seeing someone else."

She lost patience for the instant. "Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she cried.

"I know who you mean, of course. You mean Ed Raymond. Don't you know why he has been at the house so much of late? Why he and I have been so much together? Don't you really know?"

"What? ... No, I don't--except that you and he wanted to be together."

"And it didn't occur to you that there might be some other reason? You forgot, I suppose, that he and I were appointed on the Ticket Committee for this very dance?"

He had forgotten it entirely. Now he remembered perfectly the meeting of the French Relief Society at which the appointment had been made. In fact Helen herself had told him of it at the time. For the moment he was staggered, but he rallied promptly.

"Committee meetings may do as an excuse for some things," he said, "but they don't explain the rest--his calls here every other evening and--and so on. Honest now, Helen, you know he hasn't been running after you in this way just because he is on that committee with you; now don't you?"

They were almost at the parsonage. The light from Mr. Kendall's study window shone through the leaves of the lilac bush behind the white fence. Helen started to speak, but hesitated. He repeated his question.

"Now don't you?" he urged.

"Why, why, yes, I suppose I do," she said, slowly. "I do know--now. But I didn't even think of such a thing until--until you came that evening and told me what Issy Price said."

"You mean you didn't guess at all?"

"Well--well, perhaps I--I thought he liked to come--liked to--Oh, what is the use of being silly! I did think he liked to call, but only as a friend. He was jolly and lots of fun and we were both fond of music. I enjoyed his company. I never dreamed that there was anything more than that until you came and were so--disagreeable. And even then I didn't believe--until to-night."

Again she hesitated. "To-night?" he repeated. "What happened to-night?"

"Oh nothing. I can't tell you. Oh, why can't friends be friends and not.

... That is why I spoke to you, Albert, why I wanted to have this talk with you. I was going away so soon and I couldn't bear to go with any unfriendliness between us. There mustn't be. Don't you see?"

He heard but a part of this. The memory of Raymond's face as he had seen it when the young man strode out of the cloakroom and out of the hotel came back to him and with it a great heart-throbbing sense of relief, of triumph. He seized her hand.

"Helen," he cried, "did he--did you tell him--Oh, by George, Helen, you're the most wonderful girl in the world! I'm--I--Oh, Helen, you know I--I--"

It was not his habit to be at a loss for words, but he was just then. He tried to retain her hand, to put his arm about her.

"Oh, Helen!" he cried. "You're wonderful! You're splendid! I'm crazy about you! I really am! I--"

She pushed him gently away. "Don't! Please don't!" she said. "Oh, don't!"

"But I must. Don't you see I... . Why, you're crying!"

Her face had, for a moment, been upturned. The moon at that moment had slipped behind a cloud, but the lamplight from the window had shown him the tears in her eyes. He was amazed. He could have shouted, have laughed aloud from joy or triumphant exultation just then, but to weep!

What occasion was there for tears, except on Ed Raymond's part?

"You're crying!" he repeated. "Why, Helen--!"

"Don't!" she said, again. "Oh, don't! Please don't talk that way."

"But don't you want me to, Helen? I--I want you to know how I feel. You don't understand. I--"

"Hus.h.!.+ ... Don't, Al, don't, please. Don't talk in that way. I don't want you to."

"But why not?"

"Oh, because I don't. It's--it is foolish. You're only a boy, you know."

"A boy! I'm more than a year older than you are."

"Are you? Why yes, I suppose you are, really. But that doesn't make any difference. I guess girls are older than boys when they are our age, lots older."

"Oh, bother all that! We aren't kids, either of us. I want you to listen. You don't understand what I'm trying to say."

"Yes, I do. But I'm sure you don't. You are glad because you have found you have no reason to be jealous of Ed Raymond and that makes you say--foolish things. But I'm not going to have our friends.h.i.+p spoiled in that way. I want us to be real friends, always. So you mustn't be silly."

"I'm not silly. Helen, if you won't listen to anything else, will you listen to this? Will you promise me that while you are away you won't have other fellows calling on you or--or anything like that? And I'll promise you that I'll have nothing to say to another girl--in any way that counts, I mean. Shall we promise each other that, Helen? Come!"