"Me!"

"Yes, Nellie, I'm not a suspicious man, but a child in arms could see through your little game. I dare say you mean it kindly, but when a man's not looking for a wife, it's embarra.s.sing to have first one woman and then another thrown at his head."

"I suppose," commented Mrs. Gibson acridly, "you'd rather end up your days a pitiable old bachelor, mooning over the woman who played with you for a dozen years and threw you down at last."

"If she threw me down, 'twas because I deserved it."

"Deserve nothing. You haven't the sense to go in when it rains, Thomas Hardin, and a week-old kitten would beat you for gumption. But for all that, you're a long sight more of a catch than most men."

This impa.s.sioned tribute apparently left Thomas dumb. Mrs. Gibson followed up her advantage.

"I suppose you'd rather set in meeting and look at the back of Persis Dale's bonnet than to have a nice wife of your own in the pew beside you."

"Well, since you ask me, Nellie, I would."

"She's made you a laughing-stock. She don't care any more for you--"

"Of course she don't. Why should she? A woman like her."

"Then I wash my hands of you." Mrs. Gibson's voice suggested tears.

"Thank you, Nellie," Thomas returned gratefully, and his sister's receiver slammed into the hook. Thomas followed suit, and last of all, Persis Dale, after a.s.suring herself that she was not likely to hear more, returned the receiver to its place and went to satisfy her friend's curiosity.

"Well?" Mrs. West had emptied her teacup and the soothing effects of the potion showed in her altered voice.

"Yes, Josephine's there," Persis replied to the elliptical inquiry.

"But I gathered from something that was let drop that maybe she wouldn't stay long. So if you want a visit with her you'd better not waste any time."

CHAPTER XXIII

WEDDING BELLS

The wedding dress was finished and a success.

"I guess it'll have to be my valedictory," Persis said with ill-concealed elation. "I'm never going to beat that if I dressmake till I'm a hundred." As for Diantha, her ecstasy implied that whatever the risks attached to the matrimonial venture, they were abundantly offset by the privilege of arraying one's self in habiliments of such transcendental charm.

But of the two, the girl's happiness was the least overcast. Diantha did not realize the pathos of her ability to leave her home without a pang. Since tears are only the reverse side of joy, the bride who says farewell to her girlhood dry-eyed is a legitimate object of sympathy.

Diantha's unclouded happiness was significant of all that her youth had lacked.

But Persis' satisfaction was superficial. Underneath her stubborn cheer, her genial vivacity, self-reproach was astir. While she listened to the outpourings of Diantha's ardent confidence and laughed over the children's naive inquiries regarding the approaching and stupendous event, she stood a prisoner at the bar of her conscience, summoned to defend herself against the charge of injustice to a friend.

And the more she pondered the question, the more advisable it seemed for her to plead guilty and throw herself upon the mercy of the court.

She recalled in extenuation of Thomas's offense that his confession had been strictly voluntary, prompted only by his own sense of honor. He might have retained the confidence and friendship he valued above all else, simply by holding his peace. Moreover his provocation had not been slight. "She looked so like a kitten," he had said of Annabel.

Persis knew the look he meant, that inimitable blending of challenge and retreat, shyness and daring so commingled as to be most provocative. Of course he was no match for Annabel, poor honest Thomas.

"It's the good men they make the quickest work of," thought Persis, turning restlessly on an uneasy pillow. "It never would have entered Thomas' head, to think any harm of a married woman. A different kind of man would be on his guard against her and against himself, too. It came on Thomas like a thunder-clap out of a clear sky."

Having reached the point of leniency toward her one-time lover, severity with herself was a natural sequence. "'Tain't as if I was a girl," Persis owned, in sorrowful compunction. "I'd ought to know what men are by this time, and that the best of 'em need to be braced up by some good woman's backbone." She could not escape from the painful conviction that she had failed her friend. He had turned to her for help and her hurt pride had rendered her oblivious to his need.

And pride was still to be reckoned with. Even now when she realized her fault, she shrank from extending the olive branch. Thomas loved her and had always loved her. The episode of Annabel Sinclair had not altered his loyalty by so much as a ripple on the surface. And yet to show by a lifted eyelash or a hand held out that she was ready to let bygones be bygones seemed among the impossibilities. The generations of dumb women whose blood ran in her veins stretched out ghostly hands to hold her back from frankness. That was a woman's lot, to endure silently and leave the initiative to the man.

June came and found her vacillating and uncertain. Mystic fragrances, still whispery nights, dewy mornings, gay with flowers, were flung into the scale. And when Diantha's wedding was but two days off, Persis suddenly capitulated.

"I've always said that folks who'd let their lives go to smash for want of speaking out deserved all they got. And now it looks as if I was that sort of a fool myself. Algie!" Apparently apprehensive that common sense would again yield the field to tradition, she flew: to the window. "Algie!" she shrieked.

The boy came on the run. Something in Persis' voice made him aware that the occasion did not admit of trifling.

"Algie, jump on your wheel and ride down to Mr. Hardin's store. Tell him that if it's convenient I'd like to see him this evening. Quick now."

Algie's obedience was instantaneous. With compressed lips Persis watched his vanishing figure, her color coming and going.

"Well, so far, so good. I guess now I've got up my courage to send for him I can leave the rest to luck."

Thomas came that evening, extremely self-conscious in a new suit, his air of unwonted elegance heightened by a fresh shave and with his shoes polished into almost immodest prominence. The children, in spite of their aggrieved protests, had been sent to bed with the chickens. Mary had been despatched to young Mrs. Thompson's on an errand, and the two had the house to themselves. Thomas waited for Persis to explain her summons. As she rendered him no a.s.sistance, he took the responsibility of steering the conversation.

"I looks pretty fine round here, Persis. Shouldn't hardly know the place."

"Well, there have been lots of changes, Thomas, Joel gone and all.

Five children in a house change things without anybody to help 'em."

"They're nice-looking children, too. That oldest boy, Algie, takes my eye."

"He'll be better-looking when that cut on his lip heals up. He got hurt in a fight the other day, the second he's had in three months. I wanted to ask you what you thought I'd ought to do when he gets to fighting."

Thomas' heart went down with a thud. So this was why she had sent for him, to consult him regarding the training of the boys. He had not known how her summons had inflated his hopes until this sickening collapse. It was only by an effort that he rallied his thoughts sufficiently to answer.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that if I was you, Persis. Seems like all young things was taken the same way. Puppies are always squabbling, but 'tisn't that there's any hard feeling. They just want to try their teeth. Seems to me I'd be pretty worried over a boy who never wanted to fight."

Persis listened appreciatively. "Thank you, Thomas. It's a good thing for a woman who's bringing up a pair of boys to get a man's point of view now and then. I'm afraid I've kind of neglected those children this spring. I've been so taken up with Diantha Sinclair's wedding."

"She'll be a mighty pretty bride," observed Thomas, striving manfully to do his part in the conversational see-saw. "She looks a lot like her mother when--" He broke off, overwhelmed by the realization that he had introduced the one topic which should never have been mentioned between Persis and himself. Choking with mortification, turning deeply crimson as all the blood in his body seemed rushing toward his brain, he sat motionless, an unhappy martyr consumed in the fires of his own sensitiveness.

But something had given Persis a clew. She leaned forward, quite forgetful of her recent shrinking.

"Thomas, you remember what you told me about Annabel Sinclair the last time you were here?"

"Lord!" he panted, but her gaze held him mercilessly. "I'm not likely to forget it."

"What I want to know is this. How old was Annabel when--when you kissed her?"

Thomas drew out his handkerchief and mopped his damp forehead.

"Why, I s'pose she was fifteen or sixteen. She wasn't as tall as Diantha is, and I guess she was a few years younger."

Persis did not reply. When he ventured to look in her direction, she was regarding him with strange dilated eyes.