The Portygee Part 68

She turned and looked up into his face. The next moment her own face was hidden against his breast, his arms were about her, and ... and the risk, the risk he had feared to take, was taken.

They walked home after a time, but it was a slow, a very slow walk with many interruptions.

"Oh, Helen," he kept saying, "I don't see how you can. How can you? In spite of it all. I--I treated you so badly. I was SUCH an idiot. And you really care? You really do?"

She laughed happily. "I really do ... and ... and I really have, all the time."

"Always?"

"Always."

"Well--well, by George! And ... Helen, do you know I think--I think I did too--always--only I was such a young fool I didn't realize it. WHAT a young fool I was!"

"Don't say that, dear, don't... . You are going to be a great man.

You are a famous one already; you are going to be great. Don't you know that?"

He stooped and kissed her.

"I think I shall have to be," he said, "if I am going to be worthy of you."

CHAPTER XX

Albert, sitting in the private office of Z. Snow and Co., dropped his newspaper and looked up with a smile as his grandfather came in. Captain Zelotes' florid face was redder even than usual, for it was a cloudy day in October and blowing a gale.

"Whew!" puffed the captain, pulling off his overcoat and striding over to warm his hands at the stove; "it's raw as January comin' over the tops of those Trumet hills, and blowin' hard enough to part your back hair, besides. One time there I didn't know but I'd have to reef, cal'late I would if I'd known how to reef an automobile."

"Is the car running as well as ever?" asked Albert.

"You bet you! Took all but two of those hills on full steam and never slowed down a mite. Think of goin' to Trumet and back in a forenoon, and havin' time enough to do the talkin' I went to do besides. Why, Jess would have needed the whole day to make the down cruise, to say nothin'

of the return trip. Well, the old gal's havin' a good rest now, nothin'

much to do but eat and sleep. She deserves it; she's been a good horse for your grandma and me."

He rubbed his hands before the stove and chuckled.

"Olive's still scared to death for fear I'll get run into, or run over somebody or somethin'," he observed. "I tell her I can navigate that car now the way I used to navigate the old President Hayes, and I could do that walkin' in my sleep. There's a little exaggeration there," he added, with a grin. "It takes about all my gumption when I'm wide awake to turn the flivver around in a narrow road, but I manage to do it...

. Well, what are you doin' in here, Al?" he added. "Readin' the Item's prophesy about how big your majority's goin' to be?"

Albert smiled. "I dropped in here to wait for you, Grandfather," he replied. "The novel-writing mill wasn't working particularly well, so I gave it up and took a walk."

"To the parsonage, I presume likely?"

"Well, I did stop there for a minute or two."

"You don't say! I'm surprised to hear it. How is Helen this mornin'? Did she think you'd changed much since you saw her last night?"

"I don't know. She didn't say so if she did. She sent her love to you and Grandmother--"

"What she had left over, you mean."

"And said to tell you not to tire yourself out electioneering for me. That was good advice, too. Grandfather, don't you know that you shouldn't motor all the way to Trumet and back a morning like this? I'd rather--much rather go without the votes than have you do such things."

Captain Zelotes seated himself in his desk chair.

"But you ain't goin' to do without 'em," he chuckled. "Obed Nye--he's chairman of the Trumet committee--figgers you'll have a five-to-one majority. He told me to practice callin' you 'the Honorable' because that's what you'd be by Tuesday night of week after next. And next winter Mother and I will be takin' a trip to Was.h.i.+n'ton so as to set in the gallery and listen to you makin' speeches. We'll be some consider'ble proud of you, too, boy," he added, with a nod.

His grandson looked away, out of the window, over the bleak yard with its piles of lumber. The voice of Issacher raised in expostulation with the driver of Cahoon's "truck-wagon" could be faintly heard.

"I shall hate to leave you and Grandmother and the old place," he said.

"If I am elected--"

"WHEN you're elected; there isn't any 'if.'"

"Well, all right. I shall hate to leave South Harniss. Every person I really care for will be here. Helen--and you people at home."

"It's too bad you and Helen can't be married and go to Was.h.i.+n'ton together. Not to stay permanent," he added quickly, "but just while Congress is in session. Your grandma says then she'd feel as if you had somebody to look after you. She always figgers, you know, that a man ain't capable of lookin' out for himself. There'd ought to be at least one woman to take care of him, see that he don't get his feet wet and goes to meetin' reg'lar and so on; if there could be two, so much the better. Mother would have made a pretty good Mormon, in some ways."

Albert laughed. "Helen feels she must stay with her father for the present," he said. "Of course she is right. Perhaps by and by we can find some good capable housekeeper to share the responsibility, but not this winter. IF I am sent to Was.h.i.+ngton I shall come back often, you may be sure."

"When ARE you cal'latin' to be married, if that ain't a secret?"

"Perhaps next spring. Certainly next fall. It will depend upon Mr.

Kendall's health. But, Grandfather, I do feel rather like a deserter, going off and leaving you here--"

"Good Lord! You don't cal'late I'M breakin' down, runnin' strong to talk and weakenin' everywhere else, like old Minister Kendall, do you?"

"Well, hardly. But ... well, you see, I have felt a little ungrateful ever since I came back from the war. In a way I am sorry that I feel I must give myself entirely to my writing--and my political work. I wish I might have gone on here in this office, accepted that partners.h.i.+p you would have given me--"

"You can have it yet, you know. Might take it and just keep it to fall back on in case that story-mill of yours busts altogether or all hands in Ostable County go crazy and vote the wrong ticket. Just take it and wait. Always well to have an anchor ready to let go, you know."

"Thanks, but that wouldn't be fair. I wish I MIGHT have taken it--for your sake. I wish for your sake I were so const.i.tuted as to be good for something at it. Of course I don't mean by that that I should be willing to give up my writing--but--well, you see, Grandfather, I owe you an awful lot in this world ... and I know you had set your heart on my being your partner in Z. Snow and Co. I know you're disappointed."

Captain Lote did not answer instantly. He seemed to be thinking. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a box of cigars similar to those he had offered the Honorable Fletcher Fosd.i.c.k on the occasion of their memorable interview.

"Smoke, Al?" he asked. Albert declined because of the nearness to dinner time, but the captain, who never permitted meals or anything else to interfere with his smoking, lighted one of the cigars and leaned back in his chair, puffing steadily.

"We-ll, Al," he said slowly, "I'll tell you about that. There was a time--I'll own up that there was a time when the idea you wasn't goin'

to turn out a business man and the partner who would take over this concern after I got my clearance papers was a notion I wouldn't let myself think of for a minute. I wouldn't THINK of it, that's all. But I've changed my mind about that, as I have about some other things." He paused, tugged at his beard, and then added, "And I guess likely I might as well own up to the whole truth while I'm about it: I didn't change it because I wanted to, but because I couldn't help it--'twas changed for me."

He made this statement more as if he were thinking aloud than as if he expected a reply. A moment later he continued.

"Yes, sir," he said, "'twas changed for me. And," with a shrug, "I'd rather prided myself that when my mind was made up it stayed that way.

But--but, well, consarn it, I've about come to the conclusion that I was a pig-headed old fool, Al, in some ways."

"Nonsense, Grandfather. You are the last man to--"