"No, you cannot," she interrupted. "At least, not for a long time, unless one of your scholars dies and leaves you a legacy. It is the future that I am thinking about. No matter what you might sweep away, and to what position you might attain, it could always be said, 'He married a woman who used to keep a tavern.' Now, every one who is a friend to you, who knows what is before you, if you choose to try for it, should do everything that can be done to prevent such a thing ever being said of you. I am a friend to you, and I am going to prevent it."

I stood unable to say one word. Her voice, her eyes, even the manner in which she stood before me, a.s.sured me that she meant everything she said. It was almost impossible to believe that such an amiable creature could turn into such an icicle.

"I do not want you to feel worse than you can help," she said, "but it was necessary for me to speak as firmly and decidedly as I could, and now it is all settled."

I knew it was all settled. I knew it as well as if it had been settled for years. But, with my eyes still ardently fixed on her, I remembered the little flush when she came into the room.

"Tell me one thing," said I, "and I will go. If it were not for what you say about your position in life, and all that--if there had not been such a place as this inn--then could you--"

She moved away from me. "You are as great a bear as the other one!"

she exclaimed, and turning she left the room by a door in the rear.

But in the next moment she ran back, holding out her hand. "Good-bye!"

she said.

I took her hand, but held it not a second. Then she was gone. I stood looking at the door which she had closed behind her, and then I left the house. There was no reason why I should stay in that place another minute.

As I was about to mount my bicycle the boy came around the corner of the inn. Upon his face was a diabolical grin. The thought rushed into my mind that he might have been standing beneath the parlor window.

Instinctively I made a movement towards him, but he did not run. I turned my eyes away from him and mounted. I could not kill a boy in the presence of a nurse-maid.

CHAPTER XVII

A FORECASTER OF HUMAN PROBABILITIES

I was about to turn in the direction of Walford, but then into my trouble-tossed mind there came the recollection that I had intended, no matter what happened, to call on the Larramies before I went home.

I owed it to them, and at this moment their house seemed like a port of refuge.

The Larramies received me with wide-opened eyes and outstretched hands. They were amazed to see me before the end of my vacation, for no member of that family had ever come back from a vacation before it was over; but they showed that they were delighted to have me with them, be it sooner or later than they had expected, and I had not been in the house ten minutes before I received three separate invitations to make that house my home until school began again.

The house was even livelier than when I left it. There was a married couple visiting there, enthusiastic devotees of golf; one of Mr.

Walter's college friends was with him; and, to my surprise, Miss Amy Willoughby was there again.

Genevieve received me with the greatest warmth, and I could see that her hopes of a gentleman friend revived. Little Clara demanded to be kissed as soon as she saw me, and I think she now looked upon me as a permanent uncle or something of that kind. As soon as possible I was escorted by the greater part of the family to see the bear.

Miss Edith had welcomed me as if I had been an old friend. It warmed my heart to receive the frank and cordial handshake she gave me. She said very little, but there was a certain interrogation in her eyes which a.s.sured me that she had much to ask when the time came. As for me, I was in no hurry for that time to come. I did not feel like answering questions, and with as much animation as I could a.s.sume I talked to everybody as we went to see the bear.

This animal had grown very fat and super-contented, but I found that the family were in the condition of Gentleman Waife in Bulwer's novel, and were now wondering what they would do with it.

"You see," cried Percy, who was the princ.i.p.al showman, "the neighbors are all on pins and needles about him. Ever since the McKenna sisters spread the story that Orso was in the habit of getting under beds, there isn't a person within five miles of here who can go to bed without looking under it to see if there is a bear there. There are two houses for sale about a mile down the road, and we don't know any reason why people should want to go away except it's the bear. Nearly all the dogs around here are kept chained up for fear that Orso will get hold of them, and there is a general commotion, I can tell you. At first it was great fun, but it is getting a little tiresome now. We have been talking about shooting him, and then I shall have his bones, which I am going to set up as a skeleton, and it is my opinion that you ought to have the skin."

Several demurrers now arose, for n.o.body seemed to think that I would want such an ugly skin as that.

"Ugly!" cried Percy, who was evidently very anxious to pursue his study of comparative anatomy. "It's a magnificent skin. Look at that long, heavy fur. Why, if you take that skin and have it all cleaned, and combed out, and dyed some nice color, it will be fit to put into any room."

Genevieve was in favor of combing and cleaning, oiling and dyeing the hide of the bear without taking it off.

"If you would do that," she declared, "he would be a beautiful bear, and we would give him away. They would be glad to have him at Central Park."

The Larramies would not listen to my leaving that day. There were a good many people in the house, but there was room enough for me, and, when we had left the bear without solving the problem of his final disposition, there were so many things to be done and so many things to be said that it was late in the afternoon before Miss Edith found the opportunity of speaking to me for which she had been waiting so long.

"Well," said she, as we walked together away from the golf links, but not towards the house, "what have you to report?"

"Report?" I repeated, evasively.

"Yes, you promised to do that, and I always expect people to fulfil their promises to me. You came here by the way of the Holly Sprig Inn, didn't you?"

I a.s.sented. "A very roundabout way," she said. "It would have been seven miles nearer if you had come by the cross-road. But I suppose you thought you must go there first."

"That is what I thought," I answered.

"Have you been thinking about her all the time you have been away?"

"Nearly all the time."

"And actually cut off a big slice of your vacation in order to see her?"

I replied that this was precisely the state of the case.

"But, after all, you weren't successful. You need not tell me anything about that--I knew it as soon as I saw you this morning. But I will ask you to answer one thing: Is the decision final?"

I sighed--I could not help it, but she did not even smile. "Yes," I said, "the affair is settled definitely."

For a minute or so we walked on silently, and then she said: "I do not want you to think I am hard-hearted, but I must say what is in me. I congratulate you, and, at the same time, I am sorry for her."

At this amazing speech I turned suddenly towards her, and we both stopped.

"Yes," said she, standing before me with her clear eyes fixed upon my face, "you are to be congratulated. I think it is likely she is the most charming young woman you are ever likely to meet--and I know a great deal more about her than you do, for I have known her for a long time, and your acquaintance is a very short one--she has qualities you do not know anything about; she is lovely! But for all that it would be very wrong for you to marry her, and I am glad she had sense enough not to let you do it."

"Why do you say that?" I asked, a little sharply.

"Of course you don't like it," she replied, "but it is true. She may be as lovely as you think her--and I am sure she is. She may be of good family, finely educated, and a great many more things, but all that goes for nothing beside the fact that for over five years she has been the landlady of a little hotel."

"I do not care a snap for that!" I exclaimed. "I like her all the better for it. I--"

"That makes it worse," she interrupted, and as she spoke I could not but recollect that a similar remark had been made to me before. "I have not the slightest doubt that you would have been perfectly willing to settle down as the landlord of a little hotel. But if you had not--even if you had gone on in the course which father has marked out for you, and you ought to hear him talk about you--you might have become famous, rich, n.o.body knows what, perhaps President of a college, but still everybody would have known that your wife was the young woman who used to keep the Holly Sprig Inn, and asked the people who came there if they objected to a back room, and if they wanted tea or coffee for their breakfast. Of course Mrs. Chester thought too much of you to let you consider any such foolishness."

I made no answer to this remark. I thought the young woman was taking a great deal upon herself.

"Of course," she continued, "it would have been a great thing for Mrs.

Chester, and I honor her that she stood up stiffly and did the thing she ought to do. I do not know what she said when she gave you her final answer, but whatever it was it was the finest compliment she could have paid you."

I smiled grimly. "She likened me to a bear," I said. "Do you call that a compliment?"

Edith Larramie looked at me, her eyes sparkling. "Tell me one thing,"

she said. "When she spoke to you in that way weren't you trying to find out how she felt about the matter exclusive of the inn?"