The Conquest of Canaan Part 22

"I think almost all I have are still in the customs warehouse."

"Then use Mamie Pike's," responded the old man. "The town never dreamed you were goin' to turn out pretty at all, let alone the WAY you've turned out pretty! The Tocsin had a good deal about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter from Paris, but the folks that remembered you kind of set that down to the way papers talk about anybody with money, and n.o.body was prepared for it when they saw you.

You don't need to drop no curtseys to ME." He set his mouth grimly, in response to the bow she made him. "_I_ think female beauty is like all other human furbelows, and as holler as heaven will be if only the good people are let in! But yet I did stop to look at you when you went past me to-day, and I kept on lookin', long as you were in sight. I reckon I always will, when I git the chance, too--only shows what human nature IS! But that wasn't all that folks were starin' at to-day. It was your walkin' with Joe Louden that really finished 'em, and I can say it upset me more than anything I've seen for a good many years."

"Upset you, Mr. Arp?" she cried. "I don't quite see."

The old man shook his head deploringly. "After what I'd written you about that boy--"

"Ah," she said, softly, touching his sleeve with her fingers, "I haven't thanked you for that."

"You needn't," he returned, sharply. "It was a pleasure. Do you remember how easy and quick I promised you?"

"I remember that you were very kind."

"Kind!" He gave forth an acid and chilling laugh. "It was about two months after Louden ran away, and before you and Roger left Canaan, and you asked me to promise to write to you whenever word of that outcast came--"

"I didn't put it so, Mr. Arp."

"No, but you'd ought of! You asked me to write you whatever news of him should come, and if he came back to tell you how and when and all about it. And I did it, and kept you sharp on his record ever since he landed here again. Do you know why I've done it? Do you know why I promised so quick and easy I WOULD do it?"

"Out of the kindness of your heart, I think."

The acid laugh was repeated. "NO, ma 'am! You couldn't of guessed colder. I promised, and I kept my promise, because I knew there would never be anything good to tell! AND THERE NEVER WAS!"

"Nothing at all?" she insisted, gravely.

"Never! I leave it to you if I've written one good word of him."

"You've written of the treatment he has received here," she began, "and I've been able to see what he has borne--and bears!"

"But have I written one word to show that he didn't deserve it all?

Haven't I told you everything, of his a.s.sociates, his--"

"Indeed you have!"

"Then do you wonder that I was more surprised than most when I saw you walking with him to-day? Because I knew you did it in cold blood and knowledge aforethought! Other folks thought it was because you hadn't been here long enough to hear his reputation, but I KNEW!"

"Tell me," she said, "if you were disappointed when you saw me with him."

"Yes," he snapped. "I was!"

"I thought so. I saw the consternation in your face! You APPROVED, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Yes, you do! I know it bothers you to have me read you between the lines, but for this once you must let me. You are so consistent that you are never disappointed when things turn out badly, or people are wicked or foolish, are you?"

"No, certainly not. I expect it."

"And you were disappointed in me to-day. Therefore, it must be that I was doing something you knew was right and good. You see?" She leaned a little closer to him, smiling angelically. "Ah, Mr. Arp," she cried, "I know your secret: you ADMIRE me!"

He rose, confused and incoherent, as full of denial as a detected pickpocket. "I DON'T! Me ADMIRE? WHAT? It's an ornery world," he protested. "I don't admire any human that ever lived!"

"Yes, you do," she persisted. "I've just proved it! But that is the least of your secret; the great thing is this: YOU ADMIRE MR. LOUDEN!"

"I never heard such nonsense," he continued to protest, at the same time moving down the walk toward the gate, leaning heavily on his stick. "Nothin' of the kind. There ain't any LOGIC to that kind of an argument, nor no REASON!"

"You see, I understand you," she called after him. "I'm sorry you go away in the bitterness of being found out."

"Found out!" His stick ceased for a moment to tap the cement. "Pooh!"

he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, uneasily. There was a pause, followed by a malevolent chuckle. "At any rate," he said, with joy in the afterthought, "you'll never go walkin' with him AGAIN!"

He waited for the answer, which came, after a time, sadly. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I shall not."

"Ha, I thought so! Good-night."

"Good-night, Mr. Arp."

She turned toward the lighted house. Through the windows nearest her she could see Mamie, seated in the familiar chair, following with happy and tender eyes the figure of Eugene, who was pacing up and down the room. The town was deadly quiet: Ariel could hear the sound of footsteps perhaps a block away. She went to the gate and gazed a long time into the empty street, watching the yellow grains of light, sieved through the maples from the arc lights on the corner, moving to and fro in the deep shadow as the lamp swung slightly in the night air.

Somewhere, not far away, the peace was broken by the screams of a "parlor organ," which honked and wailed in pious agonies (the intention was hymnal), interminably protracting each spasm. Presently a woman's voice outdid the organ, a voice which made vivid the picture of the woman who owned it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the nose-gla.s.ses, when the "grace-notes" were proudly given birth. "Rescue the Peris.h.i.+ng" was the startlingly appropriate selection, rendered with inconceivable lingering upon each syllable: "Roos-cyoo the Poor-oosh-oong!" At unexpected intervals two male voices, evidently belonging to men who had contracted the habit of holding tin in their mouths, joined the lady in a thorough search for the Lost Chord.

That was the last of silence in Canaan for an hour or so. The organ was merely inaugural: across the street a piano sounded; firm, emphatic, determined, vocal compet.i.tion with the instrument here also; "Rock of Ages" the incentive. Another piano presently followed suit, in a neighboring house: "Precious Jewels." More distant, a second organ was heard; other pianos, other organs, took up other themes; and as a wakeful puppy's barking will go over a village at night, stirring first the nearer dogs to give voice, these in turn stimulating those farther away to join, one pa.s.sing the excitement on to another, until hounds in farm-yards far beyond the town contribute to the long-distance conversation, even so did "Rescue the Peris.h.i.+ng" enliven the greater part of Canaan.

It was this that made Ariel realize a thing of which hitherto she had not been able to convince herself: that she was actually once more in the town where she had spent her long-ago girlhood; now grown to seem the girlhood of some other person. It was true: her foot was on her native heath and her name was Ariel Tabor--the very name of the girl who had shared the town's disapproval with Joe Louden! "Rescue the Peris.h.i.+ng" brought it all back to her; and she listened to these sharply familiar rites of the Canaanite Sabbath evening with a s.h.i.+ver of pain.

She turned from the gate to go into the house, heard Eugene's voice at the door, and paused. He was saying good-night to Mamie.

"And please say 'au revoir' to Miss Tabor for me," he added, peering out under his hand. "I don't know where she can have gone."

"Probably she came in and went to her room," said Mamie.

"Don't forget to tell her 'au revoir.'"

"I won't, dear. Good-night."

"Good-night." She lifted her face and he kissed her perfunctorily.

Then he came down the steps and went slowly toward the gate, looking about him into the darkness as if searching for something; but Ariel had fled away from the path of light that led from the open door.

She skimmed noiselessly across the lawn and paused at the side of the house, leaning against the veranda, where, on a night long past, a boy had hid and a girl had wept. A small creaking sound fell upon her ear, and she made out an ungainly figure approaching, wheeling something of curious shape.

"Is that you, Sam?" she said.

Mr. Warden stopped, close by. "Yes'm," he replied. "I'm a-gittin' out de hose to lay de dus' yonnah." He stretched an arm along the cross-bar of the reel, relaxing himself, apparently, for conversation.

"Y'all done change consid'able, Miss Airil," he continued, with the directness of one sure of privilege.

"You think so, Sam?"