She heard him out with her little eyes on his face and her darning dropped and her jaw dropped also, as if she'd been struck dead. But he expected something like that, because he very well knew Jane would hate the news and make a rare upstore about it. He was all for a short battle and very wishful to go to bed the conqueror. But he did not. Jane hadn't got his mellow flow of words, nor yet his charming touches when he wanted his way over a job; but she shared a good bit of his brain-power and she grasped at this fatal moment, with the future sagging under her feet, that she'd never be able to put up no fight nor hold her own that night. In fact, she knew, as we all do, that you can't do yourself justice after you've been knocked all ends up by a thunderbolt. But she kept her nerve and her wits and looked at him and shut her mouth and put up her work in her workbasket.

"Good night, father," she said. "Us'll talk about it to-morrow, if you please."

Then she rose up and went straight to her chamber.

He was sorry for himself, though not at all surprised; and he finished his liquor, locked the house and retired. An hour had pa.s.sed before he went to bed, and he listened at Jane's door and ordained that if by evil chance he heard her weeping he'd go in and say comforting words and play the loving father and advance his own purpose at the same time. But Jane weren't weeping; she was snoring, and John Warner nodded and went on. He couldn't help admiring her, however, even at that moment.

"She's saving all her powers for to-morrow," thought Jane's parent; and she was. She slept according to her custom, like a dormouse, and woke refreshed to put up the fight of her life. They got to it after breakfast, when the house-place was empty, and Warner soon found that, if he were to have his will, 'twould be needful to call on Heaven to help him.

Jane didn't waste no time, and if her father had astonished her, she had quite so fine a surprise for him after she'd thought it all over and collected herself.

"'Tis in a nutsh.e.l.l," she said. "All my life I've put you afore everything on earth but my Maker, and I was minded so to continue. I've been everything any daughter ever was to a father, and you have stood to me for my waking and sleeping thought ever since I could think at all. And now you want me to go under in my home and see another take my place. Well, dad, that's your look-out, of course, and if you think Mrs. Bas...o...b.. will be more useful to you than me, then take her. But I'll say here and now, please, that if you be going to marry, I shall leave Wych Elm for good and all, because I couldn't endure for another woman to be over me and closer to your interests than what I am. Never, never could I endure it. Is that quite clear?"

He looked at her and filled his tobacco pipe while he done so.

"So clear as can be, Jane," he said. "'Tis like your fine courage and affection to feel so. But I make bold to believe you haven't weighed this come-along-of-it same as I have, and find yourself getting up in the air too soon. I could no more see Wych Elm without you than I could see myself without you, and the affection I feel for Mrs. Bas...o...b.. is on a different footing altogether. Love of a wife and love of a daughter don't clash at all. They be different things, and she would no more come between me and you and our lifelong devotion than love of man would come between you and me."

He flowed on like that, so clever as need be, and she listened with a face that didn't show a spark of the thought behind it. But he failed to move her an inch, because, unknown to him, she'd got a fine trump card up her sleeve, of course.

He saw presently that he wasn't making no progress and sighed a good bit and turned on a pathetic note, which he had at command, and blew his nose once or twice; but these little touches didn't move Jane, so he ventured to ask her what her future ideas might be away from Wych Elm, if such a fearful thing was thinkable.

"G.o.d, He knows," said John Warner, "as I never thought to be up against life like this, and find myself called to choose by you, who was the apple of my very eye, between a wife and an only child; but since you can have the heart to come between me and a natural affection towards Mrs.

Bas...o...b.., may I venture to ask, dear Jane, what your own plans might be if you could bring yourself to do such a deed as to leave me?"

"That's easy," she answered. "If your love for me was not strong enough to conquer your love for Nelly Bas...o...b.., then I'm very much afraid, father, my love for you might go down in its turn, before my feelings for another man. In a word, dad, if I felt I wasn't the queen of your home no more, I should turn my attention to being queen of another."

He stared at that.

"Never heard anything more interesting, dear child," he said. "'Tis a wonderful picture to see you reigning away from Wych Elm. But though I'm sure there's a dozen men would thank their stars for such a wife as you, I can't but feel in these hard times that few struggling bachelors would be equal even to such a rare woman, unless it was in her power to bring 'em something besides her fine self."

She smiled at that and rather expected it.

"I thought you'd remind me how it stood and I was a pauper if you so willed," she replied. "But we needn't go into figures, because the man I'm aiming at knows you very well, and he'll quite understand that if he was to get me away from you, there won't be no flags flying when I go to him, nor yet any marriage portion. He ain't what you might call a struggling bachelor, however, but a pretty snug man by general accounts."

"And who might he be, I wonder?" asked John; because in his heart he didn't believe for a moment there was any such a man in the world; and when Jane declined to name Martin Ball, her father was more than ever convinced that she was bluffing.

"We will suffer a month to pa.s.s, Jane," he told her. "Let a full month go by for us to see where we stand and get the situation clear in our minds.

Certain it is that nought that could happen will ever cloud my undying affection for you, and I well know I'm the light also to which your fine daughterly devotions turn. So let this high matter be dead between us till four weeks have slipped by."

"Like your sense to suggest it," she answered.

And the subject weren't named again between 'em till somebody else named it.

But meantime John didn't hesitate to take the affair in strict secrecy to the woman who had promised to wed him; and when the engagement was known, of course, Martin Ball struck while the iron was hot and felt a great bound of hope that Jane would now look upon him with very different eyes.

And even while he hoped, his spirit sank a bit now and again in her company. But he put the weak side away and told himself that love was at best a fleeting pa.s.sion.

Jane didn't say much to him herself, because in truth she would have a thousand times sooner bided at Wych Elm with her parent than wed the busy man of Little Silver; but Martin screwed himself to the pinch and urged her to let there be a double wedding. He found her very evasive, however, for hope hadn't died in Jane, and she knew by a good few signs her father was hating the thought of losing her. The idea of Jane away from Wych Elm caused him a lot of deep inconvenience, and Nelly Bas...o...b.. seemingly weren't so much on his side as he had hoped. Of course the woman well knew that life at Wych Elm would be far more unrestful with Jane than without her, and so she rather took the maiden's view and tried to make John see it might be better if his girl was to leave 'em. And this she did because it happened, after a week had pa.s.sed, she knew a lot more about the truth than Mr. Warner could. He still clung to the hope that Jane was lying and that no man wanted her; and even if such man existed, John, well understanding that his daughter was not the sort to fill the male eye in herself, doubted not that the lover would soon cry off if he heard Jane's prospects were gone. He voiced this great truth to Nelly Bas...o...b.., and he'd have been a good bit surprised to know that on the very day he did so, she reported his intentions word for word to the man most interested.

Because, when the situation unfolded, Martin Ball had gone to Mrs.

Bas...o...b.. in hope to get some useful aid from her.

They were acquaint, because Nelly sold Ball's honey in her shop, but more than that Martin didn't know of the woman. She had a good name for sense, however, and when he heard that she had taken Warner, he saw what her power must now be in that quarter and asked for a tell in private. Which she was agreeable to give him, and in truth they saw each other a good few times and traversed over the situation most careful.

Nelly had a way to understand men and she listened to Martin and liked the frank fashion he faced life. He was honest as the day, though fretting a bit because Jane Warner wouldn't say "Yes" and be done with it. He'd wanted to go to her father, too, and let John know his hopes; but that Jane wouldn't allow at this stage of the affair.

"In fact, she won't let me whisper a word," said Martin to Mrs. Bas...o...b.., "and 'tis treason to her in a way my coming to you at all; but I feel terrible sure you can help, and it looks as if it would be all right and regular and suit everybody if she was to take me and leave the coast clear for you when you wed her parent."

"It does look like that to a plain sight," admitted Nelly, "but in truth things be very different. And for your confidence, in strict secrecy, I can give you mine. Warner don't want her to go. He badly wants me and her both, while, for her part, she don't want to go and hates the thought; but, so far, she's determined to do so if I come."

"That ain't love, however," argued Mr. Ball.

"It ain't," admitted Nelly Bas...o...b.., "and you mustn't fox yourself to think she'll come to you for love. A good helper she'd be to any man in her own way; but she belongs to the order of women who can't love very grand as a wife. She do love as a daughter can love a father, however, and it's very clear to me that John Warner is her life in a manner of speaking. On the other hand, it would upset her existence to the very roots if I went to Wych Elm at farmer's right hand, where naturally I should be."

Mr. Ball listened and nodded, and his blue eyes rested upon Mrs.

Bas...o...b..'s grey ones.

"You throw a great light," he said. "In a word, there was deeper reasons far than any growing affection for me that have made her so on-coming of late?"

"G.o.d forbid as I should suggest such a thing as that," answered Nelly.

"You're a sort of man to please any woman, if I may say so; but I'm only telling you what lies in her mind. And I'll say more in fairness to the both of you. Her father don't believe there is a man after her at all.

Jane's just sitting on the fence, in fact, and waiting to see if she can't shake him off me. And if I'm turned down, then you'll be turned down. 'Tis rather amusing in a way."

"It may be, but I ain't much one for a joke," he confessed, and then went on. "Though too busy for love-making and all that, yet I've got my pride, Mrs. Bas...o...b.., and I shouldn't like to be taken as a last resort--amusing though it might be."

"No man would," she answered. "And I hope I'm wrong. She may be turning to you for your qualities. She may be coming for affection after all, knowing you'd prove a very fine husband."

"I would," declared Mr. Ball. "I can tell you, without self-conceit or any such thing, that where I loved I'd stick, and the woman as shared my life would share my all. There's a lot in me only hid because nothing have yet happened to draw it out. I'm busy and I'm wishful to do my little bit of work in the world for other people; but if I was married, my home would be a find thought to me, and my wife would be first always and her comfort and happiness a lot more to me than my own. 'My home' I call it, but it have long been borne in upon me that a home is a hollow word with nought in it but an aunt such as Mary Ball. It may be like blowing my own trumpet, and I wouldn't say it save in an understanding ear; but I do think Jane Warner would find I was good enough."

"She certainly would," admitted Nelly; and deep in her heart, such was her powers of perspection, she couldn't help contrasting Martin's simple nature and open praise of himself with John Warner's cleverer speechifying and far more downy and secret mind.

After that Ball and the widow met a good few times unknown to the farmer and his daughter, and there's no doubt that the more Martin saw of Mrs.

Bas...o...b.., the more impressed he felt with her good sense. They couldn't advance each other's interests, however, for all Nelly was able to tell him amounted to nothing. John revealed to her that Jane hadn't taken no steps to relieve the situation, but that she still a.s.serted that she'd got a man up her sleeve; while all Martin could say was that Jane held off and marked time and wouldn't decide for or against.

"At the end of a month," explained Nelly. "John Warner is to get on to Jane again. He's death on her stopping at Wych Elm; but she's given no sign that she will stop if I come. I may also tell you that she's been to see me on the subject and given it as her opinion I'll be doing a very rash act to go to Wych Elm. She says I'll live to find out a lot about her wonderful father as might surprise me painfully."

"And for her part to me," replied Martin Ball, "she says I'm still in her mind as a husband, but there's a good bit to consider and I mustn't name the thing again till she do. In a word, she's still tore in half between her father and me. And I don't like it too well, because, little though I know of love, I feel a screw's loose somewhere still."

Nelly looked at Martin, in doubt whether to tell him something more, or not. But her woman's mind decided to tell him.

"And another curious fact," she said, "I do believe, at the bottom of his mind, which is deep as a well, her father's torn in half between me and her also!"

His blue eyes goggled at that.

"G.o.d's goodness!" he cried. "He knows what love is surely--even if she don't. You must be dreaming, woman."

"No," she answered. "You don't dream much at forty years old. He thinks to hide it--my John does--so to call him. But I see it very plain indeed. He knows what amazing gifts his daughter have got, and he knows she's vital to Wych Elm; but he don't know what gifts I have got to put against 'em, and so I do believe that deep out of sight he's weighing her parts against mine."

"That ain't love, however," vowed Martin.