Ten minutes later he emerged with bag, hat, and stick. The last item of corduroy had vanished from his apparel. He was quietly dressed, as an exploiter of the ma.s.ses or a mechanic. He set the bag on the desk, and going to a window peered from behind the curtain into the street.

"Some of those rowdies are still prowling about," he said, "but there are cabs directly across the street."

He pulled the soft hat well down over his brow.

Wilbur had sat motionless in his chair while the dressing went on. He got up now.

"Listen!" he said. "If you hear back home of my telling people you're a dangerous radical, don't be worried. Even the Cowans have some family pride. And don't worry about the prowling rowdies out there. I'll get you across the street to a cab. Give me the bag."

As they crossed the street, Merle--at his brother's elbow--somewhat jauntily whistled, with fair accuracy, not the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," but an innocent popular ballad. Nor did he step aside for a torn strip of red cloth lying in their way.

CHAPTER XXI

The next morning Wilbur found the Penniman household in turmoil. The spirit of an outraged Judge Penniman pervaded it darkly, and his wife wept as she flurried noisily about the kitchen. Neither of them would regard him until he enforced their notice. The judge, indignantly fanning himself in the wicker porch chair, put him off with vague black mutters about Winona. The girl had gone from bad to worse. But his skirts were clean. The mother was the one to blame. He'd talked all he could.

Then Wilbur, in the disordered kitchen, put himself squarely in the way of the teary mother. He commanded details. The distraught woman, hair tumbling from beneath a cap set rakishly to one side, vigorously stirred yellow dough in an earthen mixing dish.

"Stop this nonsense!" he gruffly ordered.

Mrs. Penniman abandoned the long spoon and made a pitiful effort to dry her eyes with an insufficient ap.r.o.n.

"Winona!" she sobbed. "Telegram--coming home tomorrow--nothing cooked up--trying to make chocolate cake--"

"Why take it so hard? You knew the blow had to fall some time."

Mrs. Penniman broke down again.

"It's not a joke!" she sobbed. Then with terrific effort--"Mar--married!"

"Winona Penniman married?"

The stricken mother opened swimming eyes at him, nodding hopelessly.

"Why, the little son of a gun!" said Wilbur, admiringly. "I didn't think she'd be so reckless!"

"I'm so glad!" whimpered the mother.

She seized the spoon and the bowl. Judge Penniman hovered at the open door of the kitchen.

"I told her what would happen!" he stormed. "She'll listen to me next time! Always the way in this house!"

Mrs. Penniman relapsed.

"We don't know the party. Don't know him from Adam. She don't even sign her right name."

Wilbur left the house of mourning and went out to the barn, where all that day he worked at the Can, fretting it at last into a decent activity.

Dave Cowan that night became gay and tasteless on hearing the news. He did what he could to fan the judge's resentment. He said it was probably, knowing Winona's ways, that she had wed a dissolute French n.o.bleman, impoverished of all but his t.i.tle. He hoped for the best, but he had always known that the girl was a light-minded baggage. He wondered how she could ever justify her course to Matthew Arnold if the need rose. He said the old house would now be turned into a saloon, or salong, as the French call it. He wished to be told if the right to be addressed as Madame la Marquise could compensate the child for those things of simple but enduring worth she had cast aside. He somewhat cheered Mrs. Penniman, but left the judge puffing with scorn.

Wilbur Cowan met the noon train next day. The Can rattled far too much for its size, but it went. Then from the train issued Winona, bedecked in alien gauds and fur-belows, her keen little face radiant under a Paris trifle of brown velvet, her small feet active--under a skirt whose scant length would once have appalled her--in brown suede pumps and stockings notoriously of silken texture. Her quick eyes darting along the platform to where Wilbur stood, she rushed to embrace him.

"Where's the other one?" he demanded.

Astoundingly she tripped back to the still emptying car and led forward none other than Edward--Spike--Brennon. He was in the uniform of a private and his eyes were hidden by dark gla.s.ses. Wilbur fell upon him.

Spike's left arm went up expertly to guard his face from the rush, but came down when he recognized his a.s.sailant. Wilbur turned again to Winona.

"But where's he?" he asked. "Where's the main squeeze?"

Winona looked proudly at Spike Brennon.

"I'm him," said Spike.

"He's him," said Winona, and laid an arm protectingly across his shoulder.

"You wild little son of a gun!" He stared incredulously at the bride, then kissed her. "You should say 'he's he,' not 'he's him,'" he told her.

"Lay off that stuff!" ordered Winona.

"You come on home to trouble," directed Wilbur. He guided Spike to the car.

"It's like one of these dreams," said Spike above the rattle of the Can.

"How a pretty thing like her could look twice at me!"

Winona held up a gloved hand to engage the driver's eye. Then she winked.

"Say," said Spike, "this is some car! When I get into one now'days I like to hear it go. I been in some lately you could hardly tell you moved."

The front of the house was vacant when the Can laboured to the gate, though the curtain of a second-floor front might have been seen to move.

Winona led her husband up the gravelled walk.

"It's lovely," she told him, "this home of mine and yours. Here you go between borders all in bloom, phlox and peonies, and there are pansies and some early dahlias, and there's a yellow rosebush out."

"It smells beautiful," said Spike. He sniffed the air on each side.

"Sit here," said Winona, nor in the flush of the moment was she conscious of the enormity of what she did. She put Spike into a chair that had for a score of years been sacred to the person of her invalid father. Then she turned to greet her mother. Mrs. Penniman, arrayed in fancy dress-making, was still damp-eyed but joyous.

"Your son, mother," said Winona. "Don't try to get up, Spike."

Mrs. Penniman bent over to kiss him. Spike's left went up accurately.

"He's so nervous," explained Winona, "ever since that French general sneaked up and kissed him on both cheeks when he pinned that medal on him."

"Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Penniman.