Mr. Opp pa.s.sed into the parlor and hung his hat on the corner of a large, unframed canvas that stood on the floor with its face to the wall. The room had evidently been prepared for a visitor, for a fire was newly kindled and a vase of flowers adorned the table. But Mr. Opp was not making observations. He alternately warmed his cold hands at the fire, and fanned his flushed face with his handkerchief. He was too nervous to sit still, yet his knees trembled when he moved about. It was only when he touched the little packet of letters in his breast pocket that his courage revived.

At last Mrs. Gusty came in with a rustle of garments suggestive of Sunday. Even in his confusion Mr. Opp was aware that there was something unusual in her appearance. Her hair, ordinarily drawn taut to a prim knot at the rear, had burst forth into curls and puffs of an amazing complexity. Moreover, her change of coiffure had apparently affected her spirits, for she, too, was flurried and self-conscious and glanced continually at the clock on the mantel.

"I'll endeavor not to intrude long on your time," began Mr. Opp, politely, when they were seated side by side on the horse-hair sofa.

"You--er--can't be in total ignorance of the subject that--er--I mean to bring forward." He moistened his lips, and glanced at her for succor, but she was adamant. "I want to speak with you," he plunged on desperately--"that is, I thought I had better talk with you about Mr.

Hinton."

"Who?" blazed forth Mrs. Gusty in indignant surprise.

"Mr. Hinton," said Mr. Opp, breathlessly, "a young friendly acquaintance of mine. Wants to get board for the summer, you know; would like a nice, quiet place and all that, Mrs. Gusty. I thought I'd consult you about it, Mrs. Gusty, if you don't mind."

She calmly fixed one eye upon him and one upon the clock while he went into particulars concerning Mr. Hinton. When he paused for breath, she folded her arms and said:

"Mr. Opp, if you want to say what you come to say, you haven't got but four minutes to do it in."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Opp, gratefully, but helplessly; "I was just coming to that point. It's a matter--that--er--well you might say it is in a way pertaining--to--"

"Guin-never!" snapped Mrs. Gusty, unable longer to stand his hesitation.

"I'd have been a deaf-mute and a fool to boot not to have known it long ago. Not that I've been consulted in the matter." She lifted a stiffened chin, and turned her gaze upward.

"You have," declared Mr. Opp, earnestly; "that is, you will be.

Everything is pending on you. There has been no steps whatever taken by Miss Guin-never or I--rather I might say by her. I can't say but what I have made some slight preliminary arrangements." He paused, then went on anxiously: "I trust there ain't any personal objections to the case."

Mrs. Gusty made folds in her black-silk skirt and creased them down with her thumb-nail. "No," she said shortly; "far as I can see, Guin-never would be doing mighty well to get you. You'd be a long sight safer than a good-looking young fellow. Of course a man being so much older than a girl is apt to leave her a widow. But, for my part, I believe in second marriages."

Mr. Opp felt as if he had received a hot and cold douche at the same time; but the result was a glow.

"Then you don't oppose it, Mrs. Gusty," he cried eagerly. "You'll write her you are willing?"

"Not yet," said Mrs. Gusty; "there's a condition."

"There ain't any condition in the world I won't meet to get her," he exclaimed recklessly, his fervor bursting its bounds. "You don't know how I feel about that young lady. Why, I'd live on bread and water all the rest of my life if it would make her happy. There hasn't been a hour since I met her that she hasn't held my soul--as you might say--in the pa'm of her hand."

"People don't often get it so bad at our age," remarked Mrs. Gusty, sarcastically, and Mr. Opp winced.

"The condition," went on Mrs. Gusty, "that I spoke about, was your sister. Of course I never would consent to Guin-never living under the same roof with a crazy person."

The hope which was carrying Mr. Opp to the dizziest heights dropped to earth at this unexpected shaft, and for a moment he was too stunned to speak.

"Kippy?" he began at last, and his voice softened at the name. "Why, you don't understand about her. She's just similar to a little child. I told Miss Guin-never all about her; she never made any objections.

You--you--wouldn't ask me to make any promises along that line?" Abject entreaty shone from Mr. Opp's eyes; it was a plea for a change of sentence. She had asked of him the only sacrifice in the world at which he would have faltered. "Don't--don't put it like that!" he pleaded, laying his hand on her arm in his earnestness. "I'm all she's got in the world; I've kind of become familiar with her ways, you know, and can manage her. She'll love Miss Guin-never if I tell her to. She shan't be a bit of care or trouble; I and Aunt Tish will continue on doing everything for her. You won't refuse your consent on that account, will you? You'll promise to say yes, now won't you, Mrs. Gusty?"

A slight and ominous cough in the doorway caused them both to start. Mr.

Tucker, in widower's weeds, but with a jonquil jauntily thrust through his b.u.t.tonhole, stood with his hand still on the k.n.o.b, evidently transfixed by the scene he had witnessed.

For a moment the company was enveloped in a fog of such dense embarra.s.sment that all conversation was suspended. Mrs. Gusty was the first to emerge.

"Howdy, Mr. Tucker," she said, rustling forward in welcome. "I didn't think you'd get here before five. Mr. Opp just dropped in to consult me about--about boarding a friend of his. Won't you draw up to the fire?"

Mr. Tucker edged forward with a suspicious eye turned upon Mr. Opp, who was nervously searching about for his hat.

"There it is, by the door," said Mrs. Gusty, eager to speed his departure; and as they both reached for it, the picture upon which it hung toppled forward and fell, face upward, on the floor. It was the portrait of Mr. Tucker mourning under the willow-tree which Miss Jim had left with Mrs. Gusty for safe-keeping.

Mr. Opp went home across the fields that evening instead of through the town. He was not quite up to any of his roles--editor, promoter, or reformer. In fact, he felt a desperate need of a brief respite from all histrionic duties. A reaction had set in from the excitement of the past week, and the complication involved in Mrs. Gusty's condition puzzled and distressed him. Of course, he a.s.sured himself repeatedly, there was a way out of the difficulty; but he was not able to find it just yet. He had observed that Mrs. Gusty's opinions became fixed convictions under the slightest opposition, whereas Guinevere's firmest decision trembled at a breath of disapproval. He sighed deeply as he meditated upon the vagaries of the feminine mind.

Overhead the bare trees lifted a network of twigs against a dull sky, a cold wind stirred the sedge gra.s.s, and fluttered the dry leaves that had lain all winter in the fence corners. Everything looked old and worn and gray, even Mr. Opp, as he leaned against a gaunt, white sycamore, his head bent, and his brows drawn, wrestling with his problem.

Suddenly he lifted his head and listened, then he smiled. In the tree above him a soft but animated conversation was in progress. A few daring birds had braved the cold and the wind, and had ventured back to their old trysting-place to wait for the coming of the spring. No hint of green had tinged the earth, but a few, tiny, pink maple-buds had given the secret away, and the birds were cuddled snugly together, planning, in an ecstasy of subdued enthusiasm, for the joyous days to come.

Mr. Opp listened and understood. They were all whispering about one thing, and he wanted to whisper about it, too. It was the simple theme of love without variations--love, minus problems, minus complications, minus consequences. He took out his little packet of letters and read them through; then, unmindful of the chill, he stretched himself under the tree and listened to the birds until the twilight silenced them.

When he reached home at last, Miss Kippy met him at the door with a happy cry of welcome.

"D.," she said, with her arm through his, and her cheek rubbing his sleeve, "I've been good. I've let my hair stay up all day, and Aunt Tish is making me a long dress like a lady." She looked at him shyly and smiled, then she pulled his head down and whispered, "If I'm very good, when I grow up, can I marry Mr. Hinton?"

Miss Kippy, too, had been listening to the bird-song.

XIII

It was May when Willard Hinton arrived at the Cove and took up his abode at Mrs. Gusty's. For the first week he kept to his bed, but at the end of that time he was able to crawl down to the porch and, under the protection of dark gla.s.ses and a heavy shade, sit for hours at a time in the sunshine. The loss of his accustomed environment, the ennui that ensues from absolute idleness, the consciousness that the light was growing dimmer day by day, combined to plunge him into abysmal gloom.

He shrank from speaking to any one, he scowled at a suggestion of sympathy, he treated Mr. Opp's friendly overtures with open discourtesy.

Conceiving himself on the rack of torture, he set his teeth and determined to submit in silence, but without witnesses.

One endless day dragged in the wake of another, and between them lay the black strips of night that were heavy with the suggestion of another darkness pending. When sleep refused to come, he would go out into the woods and walk for hours, moody, wretched, and sick to his innermost soul with loneliness.

The one thing in the whole dreary round of existence that roused in him a spark of interest was his hostess. She bestowed upon him the same impersonal attention that she gave her fowls. She fed him and cared for him and doctored him as she saw fit, and after these duties were performed, she left him to himself, pursuing her own vigorous routine in her own vigorous way.

Hinton soon discovered that Mrs. Gusty was temperamental. Her intensely energetic nature demanded an emotional as well as a physical outlet.

Sometime during the course of each day she indulged in emotional fireworks, bombs of anger, rockets of indignation, or set pieces of sulks and pouts.

These periodic spells of anger acted upon her like wine: they warmed her vitals and exhilarated her; they made her talk fluently and eloquently.

As a toper will accept any beverage that intoxicates, so Mrs. Gusty accepted any cause that would rouse her. At stated intervals her feelings demanded a stimulant, and obeying the call of nature, she went forth and got angry.

Hinton came to consider these outbursts as the one diversion in a succession of monotonous hours. He tabulated the causes, and made bets with himself as to the strength and duration of each.

Meanwhile the sun and the wind and the silence were working their miracle. Hinton was introduced to nature by a warlike old rooster whose h.e.l.lenic cast of countenance had suggested the name of Menelaus. A fierce combat with a brother-fowl had inevitably recalled the great fight with Paris, and upon investigation Hinton found that the speckled hen was Helen of Troy! This was but the beginning of a series of discoveries, and the result was an animated and piquant version of Greek history, which boldly set aside tradition, and suggested many possibilities heretofore undreamed of.

Early one morning as Hinton was wandering listlessly about the yard he heard the gate click, and, looking up, saw Mr. Opp hurrying up the walk with a large bunch of lilacs in one hand and a cornet in the other.

"Good morning," said that gentleman, cheerily. "Mighty glad to see you out enjoying the beauties of nature. I haven't got but a moment in which to stop; appointment at eight-fifteen. We are arranging for a concert soon up in Main Street, going to practise this afternoon. I'll be glad to call by for you if you feel able to enjoy some remarkable fine selections."

Hinton accepted the proffered bouquet, but made a wry face at the invitation.