Suddenly he sprang from the chair, exclaiming: "I'll do it. I'll do it.

She would wish me to--I will, I will."

He then went back to the storeroom, loitered behind the letter-boxes a few minutes, called Dic back to him, and said:--

"You are going to have one of the sweetest, best girls in all the world for your wife," said he. "You are lucky, Dic, but she is luckier. When you first told me of--of what happened last night, I was disappointed because I saw your career simply knocked end over end. No man, having as sweet a wife as Rita, ever amounted to anything, unless she happened to be ambitious, and Rita has no more ambition than a spring violet. Such a woman, unless she is ambitious, takes all the ambition out of a man. She becomes sufficient for him. She absorbs his aspirations, and gives him in exchange nothing but contentment. Of course, if she is ambitious and sighs for a crown for him, she is apt to lead him to it. But Rita knows how to do but one thing well--first conjugation, present infinitive, _amare_. She knows all about that, and she will bring you mere happiness--nothing else. By Jove, I'm sorry for you. You'll only be happy."

"But, Billy Little," cried Dic, "you have it wrong. Don't you see that she will be an inspiration? She will fire me. I will work and achieve greater things for her sake than I could possibly accomplish without her."

"That's why you're going to New York, is it?" asked Dic's cynical friend.

"Well, you know, that was her first request, and--and, you must understand--"

"Yes, I understand. I know she will coax you out of leaving her side long enough to plow a corn row if you are not careful. There'll be happy times for the weeds. Women of Rita's sort are like fire and water, Dic; they are useful and delightful, but dangerous. No man, however wise, knows their power. Egad! One of them would coax the face off of ye if she wanted it, before you knew you had a face. It's their G.o.d-given privilege to coax; but bless your soul, Dic, what a poor world this would be without their coaxing. G.o.d pity the man who lacks it! Eh, Dic?"

Billy was thinking of his own loneliness.

"Rita certainly knows how to coax," replied Dic. "And--and it is very pleasant."

"Have you an engagement ring for her?" asked Billy.

"No," responded Dic, "I can't afford one now, and Rita doesn't expect it. After I'm established in the law, I'll buy her a beautiful ring."

"After you're established in the law! If the poor girl waits for that--but she shan't wait. I have one here," said Billy, drawing forth the ivory box. "I value it above all my possessions." His voice broke piteously. "It is more precious to me ... than words can ... tell or ...

money can buy. It brought me ... my first great joy ... my first great grief. I give it to you, Dic, that you may give it to Rita. Egad! I believe I've taken a cold from the way my eyes water. There, there, don't thank me, or I'll take it back. Now, I want to be alone. Damme, I say, don't thank me. Get out of here, you young scoundrel; to come in here and take my ring away from me! Jove! I'll have the law on you, the law! Good-by."

"I fear I should not have given them the ring," mused Billy when Dic had gone.... "It might prove unlucky.... It came back to me because she was forced to marry another.... I wonder if it will come back to Dic?

Nonsense! It is impossible.... Nothing can come between them.... But it was a fatal ring for me.... I am almost sorry ... but it can bring no trouble to Dic and Rita ... impossible. But I am almost sorry ... go off, Billy Little; you are growing soft and superst.i.tious ... but it would break her heart. I wonder ... ah! nonsense. Maxwelton's braes are bonny, um, um, um, um, um, um." And Billy first tried to sing his grief away, then sought relief from his beloved piano.

THE FIGHT BY THE RIVER SIDE

CHAPTER VI

THE FIGHT BY THE RIVER SIDE

Deep in the forest on the home path, Dic looked at the ring, and quite forgot Billy Little, while he antic.i.p.ated the pleasure he would take in giving the golden token to Rita. He did not intend to be selfish, but selfishness was a part of his condition. A great love is, and should be, narrowing.

That evening Dic walked down the river path to Bays's and, as usual, sat on the porch with the family. Twenty-four hours earlier sitting on the porch with the family would have seemed a delightful privilege, and the moments would have been pleasure-winged. But now Mrs. Bays's profound and frequently religious philosophizing was dull compared to what might be said on the log down by the river bank.

Tom, of course, talked a good deal. Among other things he remarked to Dic:--

"I 'lowed you'd never come back here again after the way Rita treated you last night." Of course he did not know how exceedingly well Rita had treated Dic last night.

"Oh, that was nothing," returned Dic. "Rita was right. I hope she will always--always--" The sentence was hard to finish.

"You hope she'll always treat you that-a-way?" asked Tom, derisively. "I bet if you had her alone she wouldn't be so hard to manage--would you, Rita?" Tom thought himself a rare wit, and a mistake of that sort makes one very disagreeable. Rita's face burned scarlet at Tom's witticism, and Mrs. Bays promptly demanded of her daughter:--

"What on earth are you talking about?" Poor Rita had not been talking at all, and therefore made no answer. The demand was then made of Tom, but in a much softer tone of voice:--

"Tell me, Tom," his mother asked.

"I'll not tell you. Rita and Dic may, but I'll not. I'm no tell-tale."

No, not he!

The Chief Justice turned upon Rita, looked sternly over her gla.s.ses, and again insisted:--

"What have you been doing, girl? Tell me at once. I command you by the duty you owe your mother."

"I can't tell you, mother. Please don't ask," replied Rita, hanging her head.

"You can tell me, and you shall," cried the fond mother.

"I can't tell you, mother, and I won't. Please don't ask."

"Do my ears deceive me? You refuse to obey your parents? 'Obey thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long'--"

Tom interrupted her: "Oh, mother, for goodness' sake, quit firing that quotation at Rita. I'm sick of it. If it's true, I ought to have died long ago. I don't mind you. Never did. Never will."

"Yes, you do, Tom," answered his mother, meekly. "And this disobedient girl shall mind me, too." Rita had never in all her life disobeyed a command from either father or mother. She was obedient from habit and inclination, and in her guileless, affectionate heart believed that a terrific natural cataclysm of some sort would surely occur should she even think of disobeying.

With ostentatious deliberation Mrs. Bays folded her knitting and placed it on the floor beside her; took off her spectacles, put them in the case, and put the case in her pocket. Rita knew her mother was clearing the decks for action and that Justice was coldly arranging to have its own. So great was the girl's love and fear for this hard woman that she trembled as if in peril.

"Now, Margarita Fisher Bays," the Chief Justice began, glaring at the trembling girl. When on the bench she addressed her daughter by her full name in long-drawn syllables, and Rita's full name upon her mother's lips meant trouble. But at the moment Mrs. Bays began her address from the bench Billy Little came around the corner of the house and stopped in front of the porch.

Tom said, "h.e.l.lo, Billy Little," Mr. Bays said, "Howdy," and Mrs. Bays said majestically: "Good evening, Mr. Little. You have come just in time to see the ungratefullest creature the world can produce--a disobedient daughter."

"I can't believe that you have one," smiled Billy.

Rita's eyes flashed a look of grat.i.tude upon her friend. Dic might not be able to understand the language of those eyes, but Billy knew their vocabulary from the smallest to the greatest word.

"I wouldn't believe it either," said Mrs. Bays, "if I had not just heard her say it with my own ears."

"Did she say it with your own ears?" interrupted Tom.

"Now, Tom, please don't interrupt, my son," said Mrs. Bays. "She said to her own mother, Mr. Little, 'I won't;' said it to her own mother who has toiled and suffered and endured for her sake all her life long; to her own mother who has nursed her and watched over her and tried to do her duty according to the poor light that G.o.d has vouchsafed--and--and I've been troubled with my heart all day."

Rita, poor girl, had been troubled with her heart many days.

"Yes, with my heart," continued the dutiful mother. "Dr. Kennedy says I may drop any moment." (Billy secretly wished that Kennedy had fixed the moment.) "And when I asked her to tell me what she did last night at the social, she answered, 'I can't and won't.' I should have known better than to let her go. She hasn't sense enough to be let out of my sight.

She lied to me about the social, too. She pretended that she did not want to go, and she did want to go." That was the real cause of Mrs.

Margarita's anger. She suspected she had been duped into consenting, and the thought had rankled in her heart all day.

"You did want to go, didn't you?" snapped out the old woman.

"Yes, mother, I did want to go," replied Rita.

"There, you hear for yourself, Mr. Little. She lied to me, and now is brazen enough to own up to it."