XLVI.

A PAIR OF SMUGGLERS

A short way farther within the wood they began to find flowers.

"Well--yes," said Fannie, musingly. "And pop consented to be treasurer _pro tem._, but that was purely to help John. You know he fairly loves John. They all think it'll be so much easier to get Northern capital if they can show they're fully organized and all interests interested, you know." She stooped to pick a blossom. Barbara was bending in another direction. Two doves alighted on the ground near by and began to feed, and, except for size, the four would have seemed to an on-looker to have been very much of a kind.

Presently Fannie spoke again. "But I think pop's more and more distrustful of the thing every day. Barb, I reckon I'll tell you something."

Barbara crouched motionless. "Tell on."

"O--well, I asked pop yesterday what he thought of this Widewood scheme anyhow, and he said, 'There's money in it for some men.' 'Well, then, why can't you be one of them,' I asked him, and said he, 'It's not the kind of money I want, Fan.'"

"O pshaw, Fannie, men are always saying that about one another."

"Yes," murmured Fannie.

"Fan," said Barbara, tenderly, "do stop talking that way; you know I'm nearly as proud of your father as you are, don't you?"

"Yes, sweetheart."

"Well, then, go on, dear."

"I asked him if John was one," resumed Fannie, "and, said he, 'No, I shouldn't be a bit surprised to see John lose everything he and his mother have got.'"

Barbara flinched and was still again. "Has he told him that?"

"No, he says John's a very hard fellow to tell anything to. And, you know, Barb, that's so. I used to could tell him things, but I mustn't even try now."

"Why, Fan, you don't reckon Mr. Ravenel would care, do you?"

"Barb, I'll never know how much he cares about anything till it's too late. You can't try things on Jeff-Jack."

"I wish," softly said Barbara, "you wouldn't smile so much like him."

"Don't say anything against him, Barb, now or ever! I'm his and he's mine, and I wouldn't for both worlds have it any other way." But this time the speaker's smile was her own and very sweet. The two returned to the road.

"I asked pop," said Fannie, "where Jeff-Jack stands in this affair. He laughed and said, 'Jeff-Jack doesn't take stands, Fan, he lays low.'"

"Somebody ought to tell him."

"Tell who? Oh, John!--yes, I only wish to gracious some one would! But men don't do that sort of thing for one another. If a man takes such a risk as that for another you may know he loves him; and if a woman takes it you may know she doesn't."

"Fan," said Barbara, as they locked arms, "would it do for me to tell him?"

"No, my dear; in the first place you wouldn't get the chance. You can't begin to try to tell him till you've clean circ.u.mgyrated yourself away down into his confidence. It's a job, Barb, and a bigger one than you can possibly want. Now, if we only knew some girl of real sense who was foolish enough to be self-sacrificingly in love with him--but where are we going to find the combination?"

"And even if we could, you say no woman in love with a man would do it."

"There are exceptions, sweet Simplicity. What we want is an exception!

Law, Barb, what a fine game a girl of the true stuff could play in such a case! Not having his love yet, but wanting it worse than life, and yet taking the biggest chance of losing it for the chance of saving him from the wreck of his career. O see!" They stopped on the bridge again to watch the sun's last beams gilding the waters, and Barbara asked,

"Do you believe the right kind of a girl would do that?"

"Why, if she could do it without getting found out, yes! Why, Law, I'd have done it for Jeff-Jack! You see, she might save him and win him, too; or she might win him even if she tried and failed to save him."

"But she might," said Barbara, gazing up the river, "she might even save him and still lose."

"Yes, for a man thinks he's doing well if he so much as forgives a deliverer--in petticoats. Yet still, Barb, wouldn't a real woman sooner lose by saving him, than sit still and let him lose for fear she might lose by trying to save him?"

"I don't know; you can't imagine mom-a doing such a thing, can you?"

"What! Cousin Rose? Why, of all women she was just the sort to have done it. Barb, you'd do it!" Fannie expected her friend to look at her with an expression of complimented surprise. But the surprise was her own when Barbara gave a faint start and bent lower over the parapet. The difference was very slight, as slight as the smile of fond suspicion that came into Fannie's face.

"Fannie"--still looking down into the gliding water--"how does your father think Mr. March is going to lose so much; is he afraid he'll be swindled?"

"I believe he is, Barb."

"And do you think"--the words came very softly and significantly--"that that makes it any special matter of mine that he should be warned?"

"Yes, sweetheart, I do."

"Then"--the speaker looked up with distressed resolve--"I must do what I can. Will you help me, or let me help you, rather?"

"Yes, either way, as far as I can." They moved on for a moment. Then Barbara stopped abruptly, looking much amused. "There's one risk you didn't count!"

"What's that?"

"Why, if he should mistake my motive, and----"

"What? suspect you of being----"

"A girl of the true stuff!"

"O but, sweet, how could he?"

As they laughed Fannie generously prepared to keep her guess to herself, and to imply, still more broadly, that all she imputed to her friend was the determination secretly to circ.u.mvent a father's evil designs.

Barbara roused from a reverie. "I know who'll help us, Fan,--Mr. Fair."

She withstood her companion's roguish look with one of caressing gravity until the companion spoke, when she broke into a smile as tranquil as a mother's.

"Barb, Barb, you deep-dyed villain!"

The only reply of the defendant--they were once more in the shady lane--was to give her accuser a touch of challenge, and the two sprang up a short acclivity to where a longer vista opened narrowly before them. But here, as if rifles had been aimed at them, they shrank instantly downward. For in the dim sylvan light two others walked slowly before them, their heads hidden by the evergreen branches, but their feet perfectly authenticated and as instantly identified. One pair were twos, one were elevens, and both belonged to the Committee on Decorations. An arm that by nature pertained unto the elevens was about the waist that pertained unto the twos, and at the moment of discovery, as well as could be judged by certain sinuosities of lines below, there was a distance between the two pairs of lips less than any a.s.signable quant.i.ty.