"And you'll"--Geraldine swallowed--"you'll be careful?"

Ben nodded. "All my promises hold," he replied, looking straight into her eyes with only the ghost of his old smile, as Miss Upton noticed.

Geraldine ran upstairs, brought down her father's letter, and gave it to him.

He took it with a nod of thanks. "How do you think you will like to fly, Pete?" he asked. "You can go home with me, or, if you prefer it, in the trolley."

"Anywhere with you, Master," returned the boy. He felt certain that Rufus Carder would not be met among the clouds, but who could be sure that he would not pop up in a trolley car.

"Very well, then. Good-bye, everybody, and expect us when you see us."

"Good-bye, you dear boy," cried Miss Mehitable. _Somebody_ should call him "dear." She was determined on that. "Always workin' for others," she continued loudly, "and riskin' your life the way you are." She moved to the door, and raised her voice still higher as the strangely a.s.sorted pair moved away up the road. "I hope you'll get your reward sometime!"

she shouted; then she turned back and glared at Geraldine.

The girl put her hand on her heart. "It startled me so to see him--just as he looked on that--that--dreadful day," she was going to say, but how could she so characterize the day of her full joy and wonder? So her voice died to silence, and Miss Upton began slamming articles up on the shelves with unnecessary violence, while Geraldine, smiling into the packing-boxes, meekly set about helping her.

Pete, like Geraldine before him, was in such terror of his former master and so full of trust in his present one, that he swallowed his fears as the plane rose for its short trip, and he found the experience enjoyable. Ben, when they reached the house, sought his mother. She was walking on the piazza.

"You didn't tell me you were off for a flight," she said in an annoyed tone.

"Well, it was now you see me and now you don't this time, wasn't it? You had hardly time to miss me. I flew over to the Port to get Pete. We have to go to the city to-night. I'll be gone a few days, Mother, perhaps a week."

"On some disgusting business connected with that unspeakable man, I suppose."

"Verily I believe it will be very disgusting; but it has to be gone through with."

"Why does it?" His mother stood before him and spoke desperately. "Why can't you let it alone?"

"I've told you--because it affects the happiness of my future wife."

Mrs. Barry's eyes were hard, though her cheeks grew crimson. "You haven't announced your engagement to me. Don't you think I should be one of the first to know?" she said.

"I'm not engaged." Ben smiled into her angry, hurt eyes. "Something stands in the way as yet."

"What?"

"Can't you guess?"

They continued to exchange a steady gaze. She spoke first.

"Do you mean to say that anyone concerned in the affair still considers _me_?"

Her boy's smile became a laugh at the deliberate manner of her sarcasm.

"Oh, cut it out, Mother mine," he said. And though she tried to hold stiffly away from him, he hugged her and kissed her and pulled her down beside him on a wicker seat.

She could not get away from his encircling arm and probably she did not wish to.

"Ben, I've had a most disagreeable day," she declared. "Everybody within fifteen miles knows that you flew into the village with a strange girl."

"They said she was pretty, didn't they?"

"I can't leave the house without somebody stopping me and asking me about it, and I'll have to order the telephone taken out if this goes on. I can hardly bear to answer it any more. I called on Miss Melody, but she had gone to town, and that hopeless Mrs. Whipp babbled about your attentions. I don't want you to break the apple blossoms anyway."

"All right, honey, I won't. They're nearly gone; but I shall always love apple blossoms. They're fragrant like her spirit, pink and white like her, wholesome like her, modest like her. You see she has always been kept in the background. No one has taken the bloom from her freshness.

She has had blows, has come in contact with some of the world's mud, but it washed away and disappeared under her own purity."

Mrs. Barry looked into the speaker's flashing eyes. "My poor boy," she said at last. "I wonder whether you're crazy or whether you're right.

What am I going to do!"

"Of course I don't know what you're going to do," he returned, his lips and voice suddenly serious. "It depends largely upon whether you want my future wife to hand out ice-cream cones to the trippers at Keefeport."

"What do you mean now?" Mrs. Barry asked it severely.

"Why, the little girl is going to try to earn her living, of course, and she will be slow to leave Miss Upton's protection, for she has proved, that a girl's beauty may be her worst enemy. Miss Upton will do a bigger business than ever, that is easily prophesied. The hilarious, rowdy parties that come over in motor-boats will pa.s.s the word along that there is something worth seeing at Upton's this year. They will crack their jokes, and Miss Melody will be loyal to her employer. She won't want to discourage trade. They will make longer visits than usual and the phonograph will work overtime."

Mrs. Barry had risen slowly during this harangue and now looked down upon her son with haughty, displeased eyes.

"I shall speak to Miss Upton," she said.

"I advise you not to," returned Ben dryly, crossing one leg over the other and embracing his knee. "I don't think you are in any position to dictate. I left a merry party down there just now. Mrs. Whipp cracking the air with chuckles, Mehitable rocking the store with her activities, Miss Melody enveloped in a gigantic ap.r.o.n and with a large smudge across her cheek, having the time of her life unpacking boxes. I was sorry to bereave them of Pete, but it won't take them long now to be ready for business."

Mrs. Barry did not speak. A catbird sang in an apple tree, a call to vespers.

"This won't do for me," said Ben, suddenly rising. "I'll go up and throw a few things into my bag. Give us a bite to eat, Mother dear, and tell Lawson to bring the car around. We must get the seven-thirty."

After her boy and his humble lieutenant had left for the train, the mother sat a long time on the piazza thinking. The telephone rang at last. She sighed, went to its corner, and sat down to stop its annoying peremptoriness. For days it had reminded her of an inescapable, buzzing gnat, a thousand times magnified.

"Oh, Mrs. Barry," came a girlish voice across the wire. "Don't think me too inquisitive, but we're all dying to know if that beautiful girl, Miss Melody, is going to live with Miss Upton? Mrs. Whipp said they were going to take her to Keefeport with them, and somebody said they did move to-day and that she did go with them. We thought she was visiting you and I wanted to ask when we might come to call. We're all dying to meet her. You know Ben has been a sort of brother to us all, and we're simply crazy to know this girl and hear about her rescue."

While this speech gushed into Mrs. Barry's unwilling ear, her martyred look was fixed upon the wall and her wits were working. It was Adele Hastings talking. She had always liked Adele. In fact this young girl had been her secret choice for Ben in those innocent days when she supposed she would have some voice in the most important affair of his life. She could not turn Adele off as she had other questioners.

"I suppose this is Adele Hastings speaking."

"Oh, didn't I say? I do beg your pardon. I just saw Ben on the station platform with the queerest little bow-legged boy. Ben looked like a giant beside him. I just flew home to the telephone to ask how you were and--and--about everything."

"That is just a servant Ben has picked up." ("A member of our new menagerie," Mrs. Barry felt like adding, but held her peace and continued to look at the wall.)

"Well, Mother wanted me to say to you that if you were house cleaning, or there was any other reason why it was inconvenient for you to have Miss Melody with you, she would be so glad to have her come to us till you are ready. I told Mother she had probably gone to Keefeport to recuperate in the quiet before the season really begins. I haven't seen Miss Upton or that cross thing that tends store for her, but some people have, and we've heard such fairy tales about that lovely creature--I saw her on the train with Miss Upton--about her being shut up with a madman and Ben literally flying to her rescue and carrying her off under the creature's nose. Why, it's perfectly wonderful! I can hardly wait to hear the truth about it. Talk about the prince on a milk-white steed that always rescued the princess--Ben in his aeroplane makes _him_ look like thirty cents."

"Tut, tut," said Mrs. Barry; "you know I don't like slang."

The girlish voice laughed. "But, dear Mrs. Barry, 'marry come up' and 'ods bodikins' were probably slang in the day of the spear and shield.

When may I see you and hear about it?"

This direct question forced Mrs. Barry to a decision. The impossible Charlotte Whipp, who had not hesitated to tell her regal self of her son's attentions to the waif, had doubtless poured enough of the yeast of gossip into eager ears to set the whole village to swelling with curiosity, and her dignity as well as Ben's depended on the att.i.tude she took at the present moment.

Her rather stiff and formal voice took on a more confidential tone. "I'm going to ask you to wait a few days, Adele. We have been pa.s.sing through rather stirring times. I thank your mother very much for her kind offer, but it seemed best for Miss Melody to go to the sea, at least for a few days. You know what an excellent soul Miss Upton is. Miss Melody knew her before, and as the girl was a good deal upset by some exciting experiences, and as I was a complete stranger, Miss Upton stepped into the breach. Please don't believe the exaggerated stories that may be going about. Ben was able to do the young lady a favor, that is all. As you say, she is very charming to look upon. We shall all know her better after a while."