"Permit me to disagree," he interrupted her at once, when she pathetically squirmed to another subject. "There's more than one side to this matter. You are looking at this matter from a totally wrong angle. . . . Let me inform you that statistics. . . ." Mrs.

Madison's gentle voice was no more than just audible in the short intervals he permitted; a blind listener would have thought Mr.

Trumble at the telephone. Hedrick was thankful when his mother finally gave up altogether the display of her ignorance, inaccuracy, and general misinformation, and Trumble talked alone.

That must have been the young man's object; certainly he had struggled for it; and so it must have pleased him. He talked on and on and on; he pa.s.sed from one topic to another with no pause; swinging over the gaps with a "Now you take," or, "And that reminds me," filling many a vacancy with "So-and-so and so-and-so," and other stencils, while casting about for material to continue. Everything was italicized, the significant and the trivial, to the same monotone of emphasis. Death and shoe-laces were all the same to him.

Anything was all the same to him so long as he talked.

Hedrick's irritation was gradually dispelled; and, becoming used to the sound, he found it lulling; relaxed his att.i.tude and drowsed; Mr. Lindley was obviously lost in a reverie; Mrs.

Madison, her hand shading her eyes, went over her market-list for the morrow and otherwise set her house in order; Laura alone sat straight in her chair; and her face was toward the vocalist, but as she was in deep shadow her expression could not be guessed.

However, one person in that group must have listened with genuine pleasure--else why did he talk?

It was the returned native whose departure at last rang the curtain on the monologue. The end of the long sheltered seclusion of Cora and her companion was a whispered word. He spoke it first:

"To-morrow?"

"To-morrow."

Cora gave a keen, quick, indrawn sigh--not of sorrow--and sank back in her chair, as he touched her hand in farewell and rose to go. She remained where she was, motionless and silent in the dark, while he crossed to Mrs. Madison, and prefaced a leave-taking unusually formal for these precincts with his mannered bow. He shook hands with Richard Lindley, asking genially:

"Do you still live where you did--just below here?"

"Yes."

"When I pa.s.sed by there this afternoon," said Corliss, "it recalled a stupendous conflict we had, once upon a time; but I couldn't remember the cause."

"I remember the cause," said Mr. Lindley, but, stopping rather short, omitted to state it. "At all events, it was settled."

"Yes," said the other quietly. "You whipped me."

"Did I so?" Corliss laughed gayly. "We mustn't let it happen again!"

Mr. Trumble joined the parting guest, making simultaneous adieus with unmistakable elation. Mr. Trumble's dreadful entertainment had made it a happy evening for him.

As they went down the steps together, the top of his head just above the level of his companion's shoulder, he lifted to Corliss a searching gaze like an actor's hopeful scrutiny of a new acquaintance; and before they reached the street his bark rang eagerly on the stilly night: "Now _there_ is a point on which I beg to differ with you. . . ."

Mrs. Madison gave Lindley her hand. "I think I'll go in.

Good-night, Richard. Come, Hedrick!"

Hedrick rose, groaning, and batted his eyes painfully as he faced the hall light. "What'd you and this Corliss fight about?" he asked, sleepily.

"Nothing," said Lindley.

"You said you remembered."

"Oh, I remember a lot of useless things."

"Well, what was it? I want to know what you fought about."

"Come, Hedrick," repeated his mother, setting a gently urgent hand on his shoulder.

"I won't," said the boy impatiently, shaking her off and growing suddenly very wideawake and determined. "I won't move a step till he tells me what they fought about. Not a step!"

"Well--it was about a 'show.' We were only boys, you know--younger than you, perhaps."

"A circus?"

"A boy-circus he and my brother got up in our yard. I wasn't in it."

"Well, what did you fight about?"

"I thought Val Corliss wasn't quite fair to my brother. That's all."

"No, it isn't! How wasn't he fair?"

"They sold tickets to the other boys; and I thought my brother didn't get his share."

"This Corliss kept it all?"

"Oh, something like that," said Lindley, laughing.

"Probably I was in the wrong."

"And he licked you?"

"All over the place!"

"I wish I'd seen it," said Hedrick, not unsympathetically, but as a sportsman. And he consented to be led away.

Laura had been standing at the top of the steps looking down the street, where Corliss and his brisk companion had emerged momentarily from deep shadows under the trees into the illumination of a swinging arc-lamp at the corner. They disappeared; and she turned, and, smiling, gave the delaying guest her hand in good-night.

His expression, which was somewhat troubled, changed to one of surprise as her face came into the light, for it was transfigured.

Deeply flushed, her eyes luminous, she wore that shining look Hedrick had seen as she wrote in her secret book.

"Why, Laura!" said Lindley, wondering.

She said good-night again, and went in slowly. As she reached the foot of the stairs, she heard him moving a chair upon the porch, and Cora speaking sharply:

"Please don't sit close to me!" There was a sudden shrillness in the voice of honey, and the six words were run so rapidly together they seemed to form but one. After a moment Cora added, with a deprecatory ripple of laughter not quite free from the same shrillness:

"You see, Richard, it's so--it's so hot, to-night."

CHAPTER FIVE

Half an hour later, when Lindley had gone, Cora closed the front doors in a manner which drew an immediate cry of agony from the room where her father was trying to sleep. She stood on tiptoe to turn out the gas-light in the hall; but for a time the key resisted the insufficient pressure of her finger-tips: the little orange flame, with its black-green crescent over the armature, so maliciously like the "eye" of a peac.o.c.k feather, limned the exquisite planes of the upturned face; modelled them with soft and regular shadows; painted a sullen loveliness. The key turned a little, but not enough; and she whispered to herself a monosyllable not usually attributed to the vocabulary of a damsel of rank. Next moment, her expression flashed in a brilliant change, like that of a pouting child suddenly remembering that tomorrow is Christmas. The key surrendered instantly, and she ran gayly up the familiar stairs in the darkness.

The transom of Laura's door shone brightly; but the k.n.o.b, turning uselessly in Cora's hand, proved the door itself not so hospitable. There was a brief rustling within the room; the bolt snapped, and Laura opened the door.