The Stolen Singer Part 30

"The Lord will establish the work of your hands, my child!" She suddenly turned with one of her practical ideas. "I wouldn't let that new city man in to see Mr. Hambleton just yet, if I were you."

"Is Mr. Straker trying to get in to see Mr. Hambleton?"

"Knocked at the door twice this morning, and I told him he couldn't come in. 'Why not?' said he. 'Danger of fever,' said I. Then Mr.

Hambleton asked me who was there, and I said, 'I don't exactly know, but it's either Miss Redmond's maid's beau or a press agent,' and then Mr. Hambleton called out, as quick and strong as anybody, 'Go 'way! I think I've got smallpox.' And he went off, quicker'n a wink, and hasn't been back since." Mrs. Stoddard's grim old face wrinkled in a humorous smile. "I guess he'll get over his smallpox scare, but Mr.

Hambleton don't want to see him, not yet. He wants to see you."

"I'm going in to see him soon, anyway," said Agatha.

But still she waited a little before going in for her morning visit with James. It meant so much to her! It wasn't to be taken lightly and casually, but with a little pomp and ceremony. Each day since the night of the crisis she had paid her morning call, and each day she had seen new lights in Jimmy's eyes. In vain had she been matter-of-fact and practical, treating him as an invalid whose vagaries should be indulged even though they were of no importance. He would not accept her on those terms. Back of his weakness had been a strength, more and more perceptible each day, touching her with the sweetest flattery woman ever receives. It was the strength of a lover's spirit, looking out at her from his eyes and speaking to her in every inflection of his voice. Moreover, while he stoutly and continuously denied his fever-sickness, he took no trouble to conceal this other malady. As soon as he could speak distinctly he proclaimed his spiritual madness, though n.o.body but Agatha, and possibly Mrs. Stoddard, quite understood.

"I'm not sick; don't be an idiot, Hand. And give me a shave, for Heaven's sake. Anybody can get knocked on the head--that's all the matter with me. Give me some clothes and you'll see." Even Hand had to give in quickly. Jimmy's resilience pa.s.sed all expectations. He came up like a rubber ball; and now, on a fine September morning, he was getting shaved and clothed in one of Aleck's suits. Finally he was propped up in an easy chair by a window overlooking the towering elm tree and the white church.

"Er--Andy--couldn't you get me some kind of a tie? This soft s.h.i.+rt business doesn't look very fit, does it, without a tie?" coaxed Jim.

"If you ask me, I say you look fine."

"Where'd you get all your good clothes, I'd like to know?" inquired Jim sternly, looking at Hand's immaculate linen.

"Miss Sallie washes 'em after I go to bed in the morning," confessed Hand.

"Oh, she does, does she!" jeered Jimmy. "Well, you'll have to go to bed at night, like other folks, now. And then what'll you do?"

"I guess Miss Sallie'll have to sit up nights," modestly suggested Hand, when a slipper struck him in the back. "Good shot! What d'you want now--an opera hat?" he inquired derisively.

"Andy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jim, dismay settling on his features. "I've just thought! Do you s'pose I'm paying hotel bills all this time at The Larue?"

Hand grinned unsympathetically. "If you engaged a room, sir, and didn't give it up, I believe it's the custom--"

"That'll do for now, Handy Andy, if you can't get up any better answer than that. Lord, what's that!" Jim suddenly exclaimed, as if he hadn't been waiting, all ears, for that very step in the pa.s.sage.

"I guess likely that'll be Miss Redmond," replied the respectful Hand.

And so it was.

Agatha, fresh as the morning, stood in the doorway for a contemplative moment, before coming forward to take Jim's outstretched hand.

"Samson--shorn!" she exclaimed gaily. "I hardly know you, all fixed up like this."

"Oh, I look much better than this when I'm really dressed up, you know," Jim a.s.serted. Agatha patted his knuckles indulgently, looked at the thinness and whiteness of the hand, and shook her head.

"Not gaining enough yet," she said. "That isn't the right color for a hand."

"It needs to be held longer."

"Oh, no, it needs more quiet. Fewer visitors, no talking, and plenty of fresh milk and eggs."

Jimmy almost stamped his foot. "Down with eggs!" he cried. "And milk, too. I'm going to inst.i.tute a mutiny. Excuse me, I know I'm visiting and ought to be polite, but no more invalid's food for me. Handy Andy and I are going out to kill a moose and eat it--eh, Andy?"

But Hand was gone. Agatha sat down in a big rocker at the other window. "In that case," she said demurely, "we'll all have to be thinking of Lynn and New York and work."

Jim shamelessly turned feather. "Oh, no," he cried. "I'm very ill.

I'm not able to go to Lynn. Besides, my time isn't up yet. This is my vacation."

He looked up smiling into Agatha's face, ingenuous as a boy of seven.

"Do you always take such--such venturesome holidays?" she asked.

"I never took any before; at least, not what I call holidays," he said.

"If you don't come over here and sit near me, I shall get up and go over to you. And Andy says I'm very wobbly on my legs. I might by accident drop into your lap."

Agatha pushed her chair over toward James, and before she could sit down he had drawn it still closer to his own. "The doctor says my hand has to be held!" he a.s.sured her, as he got firm hold of hers.

"For shame!" she cried. "Mustn't tell fibs."

"Tell me," he begged, "is this your house, really'n truly?" It brought, as he knew it would, her ready smile.

"Yep," she nodded.

"And is that your tree out there?"

"Yep."

"Ah!" he sighed. "It's great! It's Paradise. I've dreamed of just such a heavenly place. And Andy says we've been here two weeks."

"Yes--and a little more."

"My holiday half gone!" His mood suddenly changed from its jocund and boyish manner, and he turned earnestly toward Agatha.

"I don't know, dear girl, all that has happened since that night--with you--on the water. Hand shuts me off most villainously. But I know it's Heaven being here, with Aleck and every one so good to me, and you! You've come back, somehow, like a reality from my dreams. I watch for you. You're all I think of, whether I'm awake or asleep."

Agatha earnestly regarded his frank face, with its laughing, true eyes.

"Jimmy," she said--he had begged her to call him that--"it seems as if I, too, had known you a long time. More than these little two weeks."

"It is more; you said so," put in Jim.

"Yes; a little more. And if it hadn't been for you, I shouldn't be here, or anywhere. I often think of that."

"You see!" he cried. "I had to have you, even if I followed you half-way round the globe; even if I had to jump into the sea.

Kismet--you can't escape me!"

But Agatha was only half smiling. "No," she protested, "it is not that. I owe--"

Jim put his fingers on her lips. "Tut, tut! Dear girl, you owe nothing, except to your own courage and good swimming. But as for me, why, you know I'm yours."

"James," Agatha could not help preaching a bit, "just because we happen to be the actors in an adventure is no reason, no real reason, why we should be silly about each other. We don't have to end the story that way."

"Oh, don't we! We'll see!" shouted Jim. "And I'm not silly, if some other people are. I don't see why I should be cheated out of a perfectly good climax, if you put it that way, any more than the next fellow. Agatha, dearest--"

But she wouldn't listen to him. "No, no," she protested, slowly but earnestly. "Look here, Mr. James Hambleton, of Lynn! I promise to do anything, or everything, that you honestly want, after you get well.