FLAREBACKS IN THE CASE OF LOVE AND A MOB

Again was Stewart a close listener, his chin resting on his knuckles, his serious eyes searching Lana's face while she talked.

A cozy harbor was afforded by the bay of the great window in the library.

When Stewart had returned to the girl he noticed that she had provided the harbor with a breakwater--a tall j.a.panese screen; waiting there she had found the room draughty, she informed him.

He was placid when he returned. His demeanor was so untroubled and his air so eagerly invited her to go on from where she had left off that she did not bother her mind about the errand which had called him away.

"I'm really glad because we adjourned the executive session for a recess,"

she confided. "I've had a chance to think over what I was saying to you, Stewart. While I talked I found myself getting a bit hysterical. I realized that I was presumptuous, but I couldn't seem to stop. But I have been going over it in my mind and I'm glad now that my feelings did carry me away. Friendship has a right to be impetuous on some occasions. I never tried to advise you in the old days. You wouldn't have listened, anyway."

"I've always been glad to listen to you," he corrected.

"But it makes a friend so provoked to have one listen and then go ahead and do just as one likes. I want to ask you--while you have been away from me have you been reflecting on what I said?"

He stammered a bit, and there was not absolute candor in his eyes. "To tell the truth, Lana, I allowed myself to be taken up considerably with other matters. But I did remember my promise to hurry back to you, just the minute I could break away," he added, apologetically.

"I'm a little disappointed in you, just the same, Stewart! I've been hoping that you were putting your mind on what I said to you. I was hoping that when you came back----"

"Well, go on, Lana!" he prompted, gently, when she paused.

"It's so hard for me to say it so it will sound as I mean it," she lamented. "To make my interest appear exactly what it is. To find the words to fit my thoughts just now! I know what they're saying about me these days in Marion. I know our folks so well! I don't need to hear the words; I have been studying their faces this evening. You, also, know what they're saying, Stewart!"

He confined his a.s.sent to a significant nod; Jeanie MacDougal's few words on the subject had been, for him, a comprehensive summary of the general gossip.

"When I was speechifying to you in St. Ronan's office you thought I had come back here filled with airs and lofty notions. I knew how you felt!"

He shook his head and allowed the extent of his negation to be limited to that! "I'll tell you how I felt--some time--but now I'll listen to you."

"I was putting all that on for show, Stewart! I felt so--so--I don't know!

Embarra.s.sed, perhaps! And I felt that you--" her color deepened then in true embarra.s.sment. "And--and--they were all there!" It was nave confession, and he smiled.

"So I said to my wee mither, Lana, by way of setting her right as to meddlesome tongues."

"I am sincere and honest still, Stewart, where my real friends are concerned. I've just complained because I can't find words to express my thoughts to you. Well, I never was at a loss when we were boy and girl together." She paused and they heard the sound of music.

"There's a frilly style of talk that belongs with that--down there," she went on. There was a hint of contempt in her gesture. "But you and I used to get along better--or worse--with plain speech." The flash of a smile of her own softened her _moue_.

"I make it serve me well in my affairs," agreed Morrison.

"Do you think I'm airy and notional and stuck up?"

"No!"

"Do you think I'm posing as a know-it-all because I have been about in the world and have seen and heard?"

"No!"

"But you do think I'm broader and wiser and more open-minded and have better judgment on matters in general than I had when I was penned up here in Marion, don't you?"

"Yes!"

"Stewart, you're not helping me much, staring at me and popping those noes and yesses at me! You make me feel like--but, honestly, I'm not! I don't intend to seem like that!"

"Eh?"

"Why, like an opinionated lecturer, laying down the law of conduct to you!

I don't mean to do all the talking."

"You'd better, Lana--for the present," he advised, seriously; "If you have something to say to me, take care and not let me get started on what I want to say to you."

She flushed. She drew away from him slightly. In her apprehensiveness she hurried on for her own protection. "I hoped you were coming back just now, Stewart, and put out your hand to me as your friend, a good pal who had given sensible advice, and say to me, 'Lana, you have used your wits to good advantage while you have been out and about in the world, and your suggestions to me are all right.' Aren't you going to say so, Stewart?"

"As I understand it, putting all you said to me awhile back in that plain language we have agreed on, you tell me that I'm missing my opportunities, have gone to sleep down here in Marion, am allowing myself to be everlastingly tied up by petty business details that keep me away from real enjoyment of a bigger and better life, and that there's not the least need of my spending my best years in that fashion."

"You state it bluntly, but that is the gist of it!"

"Yes, I was blunt. I'm going to be even more blunt! What do I get out of this prospective, bigger life, Lana?" He drew a deep breath. "Do I get--you?"

"Stewart, hush! Wait!" He had spread his hands to her appealingly. "I am talking to you as your friend--I'm talking of your business, your outlook.

I must say something further to you!"

He set as firm a grip on his emotions as he had on his anger earlier in the evening when Krylovensky's hand had dealt him a blow. Her demeanor had thrust him away effectually. The fire died in his eyes. "Go on, Lana! I have promised to allow you to have your say. And, once I start, only a 'Yes!' can stop me."

She displayed additional apprehension and plunged into a strictly commercial topic with desperate directness. "I'm positive that you have no further need of making yourself a slave to details of business. I know that you can be free to devote yourself to the higher things that are worthy of your real self and your talents, Stewart. Father says that through Mr. Daunt there will come to you the grandest opportunity of your life. I suppose that's what Mr. Daunt explained to you when you were with him this evening. Even though you may not consider me wise in men's business affairs, Stewart, you must admit that my father and Mr. Daunt know. You haven't any silly notions, have you? You're ready to seize every opportunity to make a grand success in business, the way the great men do, aren't you?"

There was a very different light in Morrison's eyes than had flamed in them a few moments before. He stared at her appraisingly, wonderingly. His demanding survey of her was disconcerting, but his somberness was that of disappointment rather than of any distrust.

"Has your father asked you to talk to me on the subject of that business?"

She did not reply promptly. But his challenge was too direct.

"I confess that father did intimate that there'd be no need of mentioning him in the matter."

"He asked you to talk to me, then?"

"Yes, Stewart!"

"And I thought you were talking only for yourself when you begged me to step up into that broader life!" His voice trembled. She did not appear to understand his emotion.

"But I _am_ talking for myself," protested the girl.

"You're talking only your father's views, his plans, his ambition, his scheme of life--talking Daunt's project for his own selfish ends!"

"I don't understand!"

"I hope you don't! For the sake of my love for you, I hope so!" He was striving to control himself. "In the name of what we have been to each other in days past, I hope you are not their--that you don't realize they are making you a----But I can't say it! I want proof from you now by word o' mouth! I don't want any more prattle of business! I want you to show me that you are talking for yourself. Lana Corson, say to me some word from your own heart--something for me alone--something from old times--to prove that you are what I want you to be! I love you. You are mine! I don't believe their gossip. I have never given you up. I've been waiting patiently for you to come back to me. Can't you go back to the old times--and speak from your own soul?"