The Rose-Garden Husband Part 15

It was nearly six when she went up, engulfed in children, to the circulating room. There the night-librarian caught her. She had evidently been told to try to get Phyllis for more story-hours, for she did her best to make her promise. They talked shop together for perhaps an hour and a half. Then the growing twilight reminded Phyllis that it was time to go back. She had been s.h.i.+rking going home, she realized now, all the afternoon. She said good-by to the night-librarian, and went on down the village street, lagging unconsciously. It must have been about eight by this time.

It was a mile back to the house. She could have taken the trolley part of the way, but she felt restless and like walking. She had forgotten that walking at night through well-known, well-lighted city streets, and going in half-dusk through country byways, were two different things.

She was destined to be reminded of the difference.

"Can you help a poor man, lady?" said a whining voice behind her, when she had a quarter of the way yet to go. She turned to see a big tramp, a terrifying brute with a half-propitiating, half-fierce look on his heavy, unshaven face. She was desperately frightened. She had been spoken to once or twice in the city, but there there was always a policeman, or a house you could run into if you had to. But here, in the unguarded dusk of a country lane, it was a different matter. The long gold chain that swung below her waist, the big diamond on her finger, the gold mesh-purse--all the jewelry she took such a childlike delight in wearing--she remembered them in terror. She was no brown-clad little working-girl now, to slip along disregarded. And the tramp did not look like a deserving object.

"If you will come to the house to-morrow," she said, hurrying on as she spoke, "I'll have some work for you. The first house on this street that you come to." She did not dare give him anything, or send him away.

"Won't you gimme somethin' now, lady?" whined the tramp, continuing to follow. "I'm a starvin' man."

She dared not open her purse and appease him by giving him money--she had too much with her. That morning she had received the check for her monthly income from Mr. De Guenther, sent Wallis down to cash it, and then stuffed it in her bag and forgotten it in the distress of the day.

The man might take the money and strike her senseless, even kill her.

"To-morrow," she said, going rapidly on. She had now what would amount to about three city blocks to traverse still. There was a short way from outside the garden-hedge through to the garden, which cut off about a half-block. If she could gain this she would be safe.

"Naw, yeh don't," snarled the tramp, as she fled on. "Ye'll set that bull-pup o' yours on me. I been there, an' come away again. You just gimme some o' them rings an' things an' we'll call it square, me fine lady!"

Phyllis's heart stood still at this open menace, but she ran on still. A sudden thought came to her. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her gilt sash-buckle--a pretty thing but of small value--from her waist, and hurled it far behind the tramp. In the half-light it might have been her gold mesh-bag.

"There's my money--go get it!" she gasped--and ran for her life. The tramp, as she had hoped he would, dashed back after it and gave her the start she needed. Breathless, terrified to death, she raced on, tearing her frock, dropping the library cards and parasol she still had held in her hand. Once she caught her sash on a tree-wire. Once her slipper-heel caught and nearly threw her. The chase seemed unending. She could hear the dreadful footsteps of the tramp behind her, and his snarling, swearing voice panting out threats. He was drunk, she realized with another thrill of horror. It was a nightmare happening.

On and on--she stumbled, fell, caught herself--but the tramp had gained.

Then at last the almost invisible gap in the hedge, and she fled through.

"_Allan! Allan! Allan!_" she screamed, fleeing instinctively to his chair.

The rose-garden was like a place of enchanted peace after the terror of outside. Her quick vision as she rushed in was of Allan still there, moveless in his chair, with the little black bull-dog lying asleep across his arms and shoulder like a child. It often lay so. As she entered, the scene broke up before her eyes like a dissolving view. She saw the little dog wake and make what seemed one flying spring to the tramp's throat, and sink his teeth in it--and Allan, at her scream, _spring from his chair_!

Phyllis forgot everything at the sight of Allan, standing. Wallis and the outdoor man, who had run to the spot at Phyllis's screams, were dealing with the tramp, who was writhing on the gra.s.s, choking and striking out wildly. But neither Phyllis nor Allan saw that. Which caught the other in an embrace they never knew. They stood locked together, forgetting everything else, he in the idea of her peril, she in the wonder of his standing.

"Oh, darling, darling!" Allan was saying over and over again. "You are safe--thank heaven you are safe! Oh, Phyllis, I could never forgive myself if you had been hurt! Phyllis! Speak to me!"

But Phyllis's own safety did not concern her now. She could only think of one thing. "_You can stand! You can stand!_" she reiterated. Then a wonderful thought came to her, striking across the others, as she stood locked in this miraculously raised Allan's arms. She spoke without knowing that she had said it aloud. "_Do you care, too?_" she said very low. Then the dominant thought returned. "You must sit down again," she said hurriedly, to cover her confusion, and what she had said. "Please, Allan, sit down. Please, dear--you'll tire yourself."

Allan sank into his chair again, still holding her. She dropped on her knees beside him, with her arms around him. She had a little leisure now to observe that Wallis, the ever-resourceful, had tied the tramp neatly with the outdoor man's suspenders, which were nearer the surface than his own, and succeeded in prying off the still unappeased Foxy, who evidently was wronged at not having the tramp to finish. They carried him off, into the back kitchen garden. Allan, now that he was certain of Phyllis's safety, paid them not the least attention.

"Did you mean it?" he said pa.s.sionately. "Tell me, did you mean what you said?"

Phyllis dropped her dishevelled head on Allan's shoulder.

"I'm afraid--I'm going to cry, and--and I know you don't like it!" she panted. Allan half drew, half guided her up into his arms.

"Was it true?" he insisted, giving her an impulsive little shake. She sat up on his knees, wide-eyed and wet-cheeked like a child.

"But you knew that all along!" she said. "That was why I felt so humiliated. It was _you_ that _I_ thought didn't care----"

Allan laughed joyously. "Care!" he said. "I should think I did, first, last, and all the time! Why, Phyllis, child, didn't I behave like a brute because I was jealous enough of John Hewitt to throw him in the river? He was the first man you had seen since you married me--attractive, and well, and clever, and all that--it would have been natural enough if you'd liked him."

"Liked him!" said Phyllis in disdain. "When there was you? And I thought--I thought it was the memory of Louise Frey that made you act that way. You didn't want to talk about her, and you said it was all a mistake----"

"I was a brute," said Allan again. "It was the memory that I was about as useful as a rag doll, and that the world was full of live men with real legs and arms, ready to fall in love with you.

"There's n.o.body but _you_ in the world," whispered Phyllis.... "But you're well now, or you will be soon," she added joyously. She slipped away from him. "Allan, don't you want to try to stand again? If you did it then, you can do it now."

"Yes, by Jove, I do!" he said. But this time the effort to rise was noticeable. Still, he could do it, with Phyllis's eager help.

"It must have been what Dr. Hewitt called neurasthenic inhibition," said Phyllis, watching the miracle of a standing Allan. "That was what we were talking about by the door that night, you foolish boy!... Oh, how tall you are! I never realized you were tall, lying down, somehow!"

"I don't have to bend very far to kiss you, though," suggested Allan, suiting the action to the word.

But Phyllis, when this was satisfactorily concluded, went back to the great business of seeing how much Allan could walk. He sat down again after a half-dozen steps, a little tired in spite of his excitement.

"I can't do much at a time yet, I suppose," he said a little ruefully.

"Do you mean to tell me, sweetheart--come over here closer, where I can touch you--you're awfully far away--do you mean to tell me that all that ailed me was I thought I couldn't move?"

"Oh, no!" explained Phyllis, moving her chair close, and then, as that did not seem satisfactory, perching on the arm of Allan's. "You'd been unable to move for so long that when you were able to at last your subconscious mind clamped down on your muscles and was convinced you couldn't. So no matter how much you consciously tried, you couldn't make the muscles go till you were so strongly excited it broke the inhibition--just as people can lift things in delirium or excitement that they couldn't possibly move at other times. Do you see?"

"I do," said Allan, kissing the back of her neck irrelevantly. "If somebody'd tried to shoot me up five years ago I might be a well man now. That's a beautiful word of yours, Phyllis, inhibition. What a lot of big words you know!"

"Oh, if you won't be serious!" said she.

"We'll have to be," said Allan, laughing, "for here's Wallis, and, as I live, from the direction of the house. I thought they carried our friend the tramp out through the hedge--he must have gone all the way around."

Phyllis was secretly certain that Wallis had been crying a little, but all he said was, "We've taken the tramp to the lock-up, sir."

But his master and his mistress were not so dignified. They showed him exhaustively that Allan could really stand and walk, and Allan demonstrated it, and Wallis nearly cried again. Then they went in, for Phyllis was sure Allan needed a thorough rest after all this. She was shaking from head to foot herself with joyful excitement, but she did not even know it. And it was long past dinner-time, though every one but Lily-Anna, to whom the happy news had somehow filtered, had forgotten it.

"I've always wanted to hold you in my arms, this way," said Allan late that evening, as they stood in the rose-garden again; "but I thought I never would.... Phyllis, did you ever want me to?"

It was too beautiful a moonlight night to waste in the house, or even on the porch. The couch had been wheeled to its accustomed place in the rose-garden, and Allan was supposed to be lying on it as he often did in the evenings. But it was hard to make him stay there.

"Oh, you _must_ lie down," said Phyllis hurriedly, trying to move out of the circle of his arms. "You mustn't stand till we find how much is enough.... I'm going to send for the wolfhound next week. You won't mind him now, will you?"

"Did you ever want to be here in my arms, Phyllis?"

"Of course not!" said Phyllis, as a modest young person should.

"But--but----"

"Well, my wife?"

"I've often wondered just where I'd reach to," said Phyllis in a rush.... "Allan, _please_ don't stand any longer!"

"I'll lie down if you'll sit on the couch by me."

"Very well," said Phyllis; and sat obediently in the curve of his arm when he had settled himself in the old position, the one that looked so much more natural for him.

"Mine, every bit of you!" he said exultantly. "Heaven bless that tramp!... And to think we were talking about annulments!... Do you remember that first night, dear, after mother died? I was half-mad with grief and physical pain. And Wallis went after you. I didn't want him to. But he trusted you from the first--good old Wallis! And you came in with that swift, sweeping step of yours, as I've seen you come fifty times since--half-flying, it seemed to me then--with all your pretty hair loose, and an angelic sort of a white thing on. I expect I was a brute to you--I don't remember how I acted--but I know you sat on the bed by me and took both my wrists in those strong little hands of yours, and talked to me and quieted me till I fell fast asleep. You gave me the first consecutive sleep I'd had in four months. It felt as if life and calmness and strength were pouring from you to me. You stayed till I fell asleep."