Phebe, Her Profession Part 29

"Very."

He sat up.

"I am sorry. Miss McAlister, had it ever occurred to you that you are outspoken?"

"I don't care if I am."

For an instant, he looked at her angrily. It was a new experience to him to have any one take that tone in addressing him. Then he rose to his feet.

"I am afraid I have been intruding upon your time, Miss McAlister," he said stiffly.

"You needn't get mad," Phebe observed. "People don't all think alike, you know; and I only told you my opinion."

He bowed in silence; then he walked away his hands in his pockets and his cap tilted backwards aggressively. Half-way to the row of awnings, he spoke.

"Little vixen!" he said forcibly. Then he dropped down on the sand at Hope's feet, with his back turned flatly towards the figure under the blue umbrella.

"Then you are coming to supper with us, to-morrow night," Theodora said, as at length he rose to his feet. "I suppose music is a forbidden subject, Mr. Barrett; you probably get very tired of the things people say to you. Still, I have a little cousin staying with me, who is anxious to meet you, and--"

Her sentence was never finished, and Cicely's anxiety was left hanging in mid air, for there came a cry from Phebe,--

"Oh, Hope! Mac! Help!"

Mr. Barrett whirled about to face the surf just in time to see Mac swept off his feet by an incoming wave, drawn back under the next one and hidden from sight beneath the awful weight of water. With a quick exclamation, he ran forward into the edge of the water. Then he drew back.

"Save him," Phebe commanded. "Go in! I can't do anything in this horrid gown." As she spoke, she tugged fiercely at her fluffy skirt which, wet to her knees, clung closely about her feet. "Go in and get him!" she commanded again.

Then for the hour, Gifford Barrett wished that the sand would close over him.

"I can't," he said through his shut teeth. "It would be of no use."

"Coward!" she said fiercely. "And you would let the boy drown!"

The words had been low and hurried, and no one was near to hear them, or to check Phebe. For a moment, Mr. Barrett turned white. He started to reply; then he controlled himself and was silent. This was not the time to seek to justify himself. The little scene was ended before Billy Farrington, stripped to his waist, rushed past them and plunged into the pounding surf.

To the watchers on the sh.o.r.e, it seemed hours since he had disappeared, days since chubby little Mac had been swept out of sight. The beach chanced to be deserted, that afternoon; Dr. McAlister could not swim a stroke, Phebe was powerless to do anything in such clothing as she wore, and Billy was not an expert swimmer. Hope's anguish was almost unbearable; yet, for the moment, Theodora's suffering was greater than that of her sister. She spoke no word; she only stood, tall and stately and dry-eyed, staring into the great green, curving waves that had swallowed up her husband and, with him, all the best that had made life for her since her girlhood. There was small chance for an inexperienced swimmer in such a sea as that, least of all for one burdened with the weight of a four-year-old child.

One. Two. Three. Four. Slowly the pitiless waves came cras.h.i.+ng down on the sand. They were so mighty, so unrelenting in their grim beauty. If one must be drowned, it would have been better to die in a sunless sea, not in the gorgeousness of a day like this. Five. Six. Then Theodora sprang forward with a little, low, choking moan. The seventh wave washed up at her very feet the form of her husband, still breathing and with Mac's body dangling from his unconscious grasp.

Under such circ.u.mstances, some men would have thanked Providence. Dr.

McAlister was of other stuff.

"Phebe, come here!" he commanded. "You know what to do. You go to work on Mac, while I try to see if anything can be done for Billy. Work for your life, for there's a life hanging on yours now."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Yes dear, Uncle Billy was almost drowned, in trying to get you out of the water."

"Drowned dead, mamma?"

"Yes, Mac."

For a minute, Mac silently contemplated the possibility of his uncle's dying. Then his face dimpled into a smile once more, as he said,--

"If he was dead, mamma, I should get a little warm 'pirit and put in his stomach, and ven he would be all well again."

It seemed strange to Hope to be laughing once more. All the night through, a heavy cloud of anxiety had rested upon Valhalla where one hero at least was lying. It had been no easy feat which Billy Farrington had attempted, and no one was more keenly aware of the fact than he, himself. Well and strong enough for all practical purposes, his physique in reality was no match for men whose boyhood had been sound, and no match at all for the fury of Quantuck surf in a gale. He had realized all that, yet he had not hesitated for an instant as to what was the one thing for him to do. Billy's code of honor was a simple one and a straight-forward. It even included the possibility of laying down one's life for a little child.

All that night, the doctor worked over him. For a long time, it seemed to him a losing fight; but he prolonged it to the end, and in the end he was victorious. Phebe had succeeded in bringing Mac to consciousness, and she was superintending Hope's putting him to bed; the doctor had ordered the others out of the room, and he and Theodora were alone with Billy when at last the blue eyes opened.

"Billy! My dear old William!"

That was all the doctor heard. Then he brushed his hand across his eyes and stole away out of the room. Alone in the kitchen, he wiped his eyes again and blew his nose violently.

"That tells the story," he muttered to himself. "I wish there were more such marriages. But I thought for one while that there wasn't much chance for him." Then he shrugged his shoulders and put on his most professional manner, as he went back to his patient.

"Stop your lovering, Ted, and give him another drink of this. Lie where you are, for half an hour, Billy; then let Teddy tuck you up warm in bed and sleep it off. You did a fine thing, a mighty fine thing, and Hope will have something to say to you in the morning."

"All right, thank you, only rather stiff in the joints, so the doctor advised me to keep still, to-day," Billy said to Gifford Barrett, the next night.

The young man had met Hubert on the beach, that morning; but apparently he could be satisfied by no second-hand report from the Lodge. In the late twilight, he came strolling up to the seaward porch where he found Billy stretched out at his ease on a bamboo couch, and the others grouped around him, in full tide of family gossip.

"Then you are really none the worse for your ducking?" Mr. Barrett asked, as he took the chair that Theodora offered him.

"Rather stiff, and a bruise or two, nothing to count at all."

"And the boy?"

"Lively as a sand flea."

"How did he happen to get into the water, in the first place?" Mr.

Barrett inquired.

"Chiefly because his Aunt Phebe advised him to be careful, or he would get his feet wet," Hope answered. "There is no use in my trying to excuse my naughty boy, Mr. Barrett. Mac was so eager to a.s.sure my sister that she didn't own him that, in his defiance, he backed straight into the water."

"Oh, Hope, what is the use of telling, now it is all over?" Phebe's remonstrant tones came from inside the house.

Gifford Barrett rose and went towards the door.

"Are you there, Miss McAlister? I hoped I should see you."

"I'll be out in a minute."

The minute was a long one. Then Phebe stepped through the open doorway into the stronger light outside. Her face flushed a little, as she reluctantly touched the young man's outstretched hand; but that was all there was to show that she recalled the last words they had exchanged, the day before.