Old Crow Part 26

"No," she said, "I spoke to him. Suddenly I seemed to see how Charlotte would have spoken--that mother way, you know, men can't stand up against. I said--I _think_ I said--'Mr. Tenney, what under the sun are you carrying on like this for? I should think you were in liquor.'"

Raven, wondering if he should cry at the relief of having her safe out of the ogre's den, had to laugh with her.

"It caught him," said Nan, beginning to enjoy it, "as grandsir used to say, between wind and water. He looked down at the thing in his hands--the rags, you know--and dropped them into the wood-box. You see that was the real wiliness of the serpent, my telling him he was in drink. He's full of spiritual pride, all eat up with it. Then I played Charlotte some more. I told Mrs. Tenney to come in, and remarked that she'd get her death o' cold; and she did come in and her eyes--what eyes they are, Rookie!--they were big as bread and b.u.t.ter plates. I suspected she regarded me as specially sent. And I lit on him and told him, in good set terms, that if I knew of his driving his wife out of the house in one of his sprees, I'd have him hauled up and testify myself. Then I ordered him to get his hat and walk home with me."

"And he did!" cried Raven, in amazement at her. "Oh, yes, of course he did. Go on."

"Yes, he came to heel with a promptness that would have surprised you.

And I didn't let up a minute. I discoursed all the way, on the whole duty of man."

"Did he answer?"

"Yes. That is, he spoke twice, the only times I'd let him. Once he broke in: 'I ain't a drinkin' man.' That rankled, you see."

"What did you say?"

"I said: 'Yes, you are, too. No decent man would act as you've been acting, unless he was drunk. And probably,' I said, 'you've been brewing it in the cellar, and selling it to the neighbors.'"

"That was a bliffer."

"It was. I had an idea he might drop dead in his tracks."

"That all he said?"

"Yes. Oh, no, there was one other thing. He asked me if I were saved."

"What did you say?"

"Told him not to be a fool."

Raven lifted up his voice and laughed.

They were opposite his own house, and d.i.c.k, who had just opened the front door, heard him.

"Oh," said d.i.c.k icily, when they came up to him. "So that's where you were. Uncle Jack"--for now he saw he had just cause for anger--"I'll thank you to let my hat alone."

"Yes, d.i.c.k," said Raven meekly. "But I saw it and it's such a dandy hat."

"Don't be rude to your only uncle," said Nan.

She was slipping off her coat and Raven judged, seeing her so calm, that her evening pleased her.

"Mother in there?" Raven inquired of d.i.c.k.

He had hung up the pilfered coat and hat, with great nicety of care, in the hall closet.

"No," said d.i.c.k. "She's gone to bed."

The implication was that she shouldn't have been allowed to get bored enough to go to bed.

"I'm going, too," said Nan. She gave her hand to Raven. "'Night, Rookie." Then she apparently remembered d.i.c.k, and shook her head at him.

"Silly!" she commented. "n.o.body'll love you if you behave like that."

d.i.c.k did not answer. He turned about and went into the library, and Raven following, after he had seen Nan at the top of the stairs, found him reading a day-old paper with a studied absorption it was evident he was far from feeling.

XVIII

d.i.c.k tossed the paper aside and turned upon Raven who, taking his chair at the hearth, had bent to throw on a handful of light wood: the sticks that wake and change a room so completely that they might almost lighten the mood of the man their burning plays upon.

"Look here," said d.i.c.k, "you put the devil into Nan. What do you do it for?"

Raven looked up at him in a complete surprise.

"No, I don't. The devil? Nan's got less to do with the devil than anybody you and I ever saw. She's kept herself unspotted. She's a child."

This last he said of sudden intent for, having noted its effect on Milly, he wondered how it would strike d.i.c.k.

"Oh, no, she isn't," said d.i.c.k, with bitterness. "Unspotted--yes, of course she is. But Nan knows her way about. She can play fast and loose with the rest of 'em."

He stopped, conscious of talking too much, and ashamed of it. Raven remembered that quick interchange of owners.h.i.+p and repudiation between the two as they flashed back at each other in his library, those weeks ago, but he could not tell the boy Nan had kissed him out of her impetuous bounty only because the terrors of the time had lifted her beyond habit and because d.i.c.k's need was so great. She had put the draught of life to his lips, that was all. He remembered Monna Vanna going to the sacrificial tent, and his heart melted at the thought of woman's wholesale giving even when the act is bound to recoil upon herself alone.

"You'd better not remind her of anything she said to you over there," he allowed himself to advise. "Things were pretty strenuous then, d.i.c.k, don't you remember? We've come back to a"--his voice failed him as he thought how base a time they had returned to--"a different sort of thing altogether. I'm an old fellow, according to you, but there's one thing I know. You won't get a girl by 'flying off the handle,' as Charlotte would say. Honest, old boy, when you have these fits of yours, you don't seem, according to the prophet of your generation, as impressive as usual."

"Who is the prophet of my generation?" put in d.i.c.k sourly, as if that were the issue between them.

"G. B. S., I've understood," said Raven mildly. "Don't I recall your telling me he was the greatest ever, at least since Aristophanes?"

"Oh, cut it," said d.i.c.k, whose G.o.ds were subject to change.

"Cut it by all means. But there is a thing or two I'd like your vote on.

Your mother now: what's your impression of her plans about staying along here? Think she's game to tough it out as long as I do?"

"She'll stay as long as Nan does." d.i.c.k was frowning into the fire, and Raven doubted whether one of his admonitory words had sunk in. "I had an idea I could go back to town to-morrow morning and wire her I'd broken my leg or something. But Nan's got to go with me."

"Nan will do as she pleases," said Raven. He rose from his chair disgusted with young love so unpicturesque and cub-like. "Turn off the lights, will you, when you go?" And he went off to bed.

But in the morning, when he came down, d.i.c.k met him at the foot of the stairs. It was a changed d.i.c.k. His lip was trembling. Raven concerned, yet unable to deny himself a flippant inward comment, thought the boy looked as if he'd been saying his prayers.

"She's gone, Jack," said d.i.c.k.

In stress of intimacy, he often dropped the prefatory t.i.tle.

"Gone?" Raven's mind flew to Tira. "Where?"