And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.

CHAPTER VIII

Edith, glancing casually into the "ready-made" library, stopped abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read it:

FUGITIVE

I will forget the things that sting: The lashing look, the barbed word.

I know the very hands that fling The stones at me had never stirred To anger but for their own scars.

They've suffered so, that's why they strike.

I'll keep my heart among the stars Where none shall hunt it out. Oh, like These wounded ones I must not be, For, wounded, I might strike in turn!

So, none shall hurt me. Far and free Where my heart flies no one shall learn.

"Bibbs!" Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her coat.

Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed by the poem. "Pretty young, isn't it?" he said. "There must have been something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe the poem did it."

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a low voice: "I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all, Bibbs. I'd like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn't want them to frame it, and I wish to goodness papa'd quit talking about it; but here, that night, after the dinner, didn't he go and read it aloud to the whole crowd of 'em! And then they all wanted to know what other poems I'd written and why I didn't keep it up and write some more, and if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this and why that, till I thought I'd die of shame!"

"You could tell 'em you had writer's cramp," Bibbs suggested.

"I couldn't tell 'em anything! I just choke with mortification every time anybody speaks of the thing."

Bibbs looked grieved. "The poem isn't THAT bad, Edith. You see, you were only seventeen when you wrote it."

"Oh, hush up!" she snapped. "I wish it had burnt my fingers the first time I touched it. Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where it was. I had no business to take it, and I've been ashamed--"

"No, no," he said, comfortingly. "It was the very most flattering thing ever happen to me. It was almost my last flight before I went to the machine-shop, and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to--"

"But I DON'T like it!" she exclaimed. "I don't even understand it--and papa made so much fuss over its getting the prize, I just hate it! The truth is I never dreamed it'd get the prize."

"Maybe they expected father to endow the school," Bibbs murmured.

"Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a LINE!

I hate poetry, anyhow; and Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how I 'keep my heart among the stars.' He makes it seem such a mushy kind of thing, the way he says it. I hate it!"

"You'll have to live it down, Edith. Perhaps abroad and under another name you might find--"

"Oh, hush up! I'll hire some one to steal it and burn it the first chance I get." She turned away petulantly, moving to the door. "I'd like to think I could hope to hear the last of it before I die!"

"Edith!" he called, as she went into the hall.

"What's the matter?"

"I want to ask you: Do I really look better, or have you just got used to me?"

"What on earth do you mean?" she said, coming back as far as the threshold.

"When I first came you couldn't look at me," Bibbs explained, in his impersonal way. "But I've noticed you look at me lately. I wondered if I'd--"

"It's because you look so much better," she told him, cheerfully. "This month you've been here's done you no end of good. It's the change."

"Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium--the change."

"You look worse than 'most anybody I ever saw," said Edith, with supreme candor. "But I don't know much about it. I've never seen a corpse in my life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you mustn't judge by me. I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say.

But you're right about my not being able to look at you at first. You had a kind of whiteness that--Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose, but you've got more just ordinarily pale; not that ghastly look. Anybody could look at you now, Bibbs, and no--not get--"

"Sick?"

"Well--almost that!" she laughed. "And you're getting a better color every day, Bibbs; you really are. You're getting along splendidly."

"I--I'm afraid so," he said, ruefully.

"'Afraid so'! Well, if you aren't the queerest! I suppose you mean father might send you back to the machine-shop if you get well enough.

I heard him say something about it the night of the--" The jingle of a distant bell interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch. "Bobby Lamhorn! I'm going to motor him out to look at a place in the country.

Afternoon, Bibbs!"

When she had gone, Bibbs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf, his eye wandering among the t.i.tles of the books. The library consisted almost entirely of handsome "uniform editions": Irving, Poe, Cooper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott, Thackeray, d.i.c.kens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Ta.s.so. There were shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of "famous cla.s.sics," of "Oriental masterpieces," of "masterpieces of oratory," and more shelves of "selected libraries" of "literature," of "the drama," and of "modern science." They made an effective decoration for the room, all these big, expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace; but Bibbs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them considered them a relief, and that white-jacket considered them a burden of dust, and that n.o.body else considered them at all. Himself, he disturbed not one.

There came a chime of bells from a clock in another part of the house, and white-jacket appeared beamingly in the doorway, bearing furs.

"Awready, Mist' Bibbs," he announced. "You' ma say wrap up wawm f' you'

ride, an' she cain' go with you to-day, an' not f'git go see you' pa at fo' 'clock. Aw ready, suh."

He equipped Bibbs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded; and in the manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way. In the hall they pa.s.sed the Moor, and Bibbs paused before it while white-jacket opened the door with a flourish and waved condescendingly to the chauffeur in the car which stood waiting in the driveway.

"It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this 'statue' when I first came home, George," said Bibbs, thoughtfully. "What did you tell me?"

"Yessuh!" George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for some unknown reason Bibbs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the Moor. "You ast me when you firs' come home, an' you ast me nex' day, an' mighty near ev'y day all time you been here; an' las' Sunday you ast me twicet." He shook his head solemnly. "Look to me mus' be somep'm might lamiDAL 'bout 'at statue!"

"Mighty what?"

"Mighty lamiDAL!" George, burst out laughing. "What DO 'at word mean, Mist' Bibbs?"

"It's new to me, George. Where did you hear it?"

"I nev' DID hear it!" said George. "I uz dess sittin' think.u.m to myse'f an' she pop in my head--'lamiDAL,' dess like 'at! An' she soun' so good, seem like she GOTTA mean somep'm!"

"Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something. Why, yes--"

"Do she?" cried George. "WHAT she mean?"

"It's exactly the word for the statue," said Bibbs, with conviction, as he climbed into the car. "It's a lamiDAL statue."

"Hiyi!" George exulted. "Man! Man! Listen! Well, suh, she mighty lamiDAL statue, but lamiDAL statue heap o' trouble to dus'!" "I expect she is!"

said Bibbs, as the engine began to churn; and a moment later he was swept from sight.