"That isn't a fair way to put it," she declared. "If I had been planning to run away with Larry or he with me we would have done it months ago, plumage or no plumage. I wanted to but he wouldn't anyway,"

she confessed. "I like this way much, much better though. I don't want to be married anywhere except right here in the heart of the House on the Hill."

She slipped out of her chair and away from Larry's hands at that and went over to where Doctor Philip sat.

"May we?" she asked like a child asking permission to run out and play.

"It is what we all want more than anything in the world, dear child," he said. "You belong with Larry in our hearts as well as in the heart of the House. You know that, don't you?"

"I know you are the dearest man that ever was, not even excepting Larry.

And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there. I can call you that now, can't I? I've always wanted to." And fitting the deed to the word Ruth bent over and gave Doctor Philip a fluttering little b.u.t.terfly kiss.

They rose from the table at that and Ruth was bidden go off to her room and get a long rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed gravely for them just as if his inner self were not executing wild fandangoes of joy.

Perhaps his patients did get a few waves of his happiness however for there was not one of them who did not leave the office with greater hope and strength and courage than he brought there.

"The young doctor's getting to be a lot like his uncle," one of them said to his wife later. "Just the very touch of his hand made me feel better today, sort of toned up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes."

Not so queer. Larry Holiday had just been himself electrified by love and joy. No wonder he had new power that day and was a better healer than he had ever been before.

In the living room Doctor Philip and Captain Annersley held converse. The captain expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to Australia.

"If her brother is dead as we have every reason to fear, Elinor--Ruth--is the sole owner of an immense amount of property. The lawyers are about crazy trying to keep things going without either Roderick or Ruth. They have been begging me to come out and take charge of things for months but I haven't been able to see my way clear owing to one thing or another.

Somebody will have to go at once and of course it should be Ruth."

"How would it do for her and Laurence both to go?"

"Magnificent. I was hoping you would think that was a feasible project.

They will be glad to have a man to represent the family. My cousin knows nothing about the business end of the thing. She has always approached it exclusively from the spending side. Do you think your nephew would care to settle there?"

"Possibly," said the Doctor. "That will develop later. They will have to work that out for themselves. I am rather sorry he is going to marry a girl with so much money but I suppose it cannot be helped."

"Some people wouldn't look at it that way, Doctor Holiday," grinned the captain. "But I am prepared to accept the fact that you Holidays are in a cla.s.s by yourselves. We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can't tell you what a relief it is to have her marry a man like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to go through such a punishing period of suspense waiting for his happiness.

Since there wasn't really the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut his scruples and married her long ago."

"I don't agreed with you, Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that this is what they both want. If he had taken the risk and married her when he knew he hadn't the full right to do it he would have been miserable and made her more so. Larry is an odd chap. There is a morbid streak in him. He wouldn't have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing his own self-respect would have been the worst thing that could have happened to him. No amount of actual legality could have made up for starting out on a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have to keep on moderately good terms with ourselves to be happy," he added with a quiet smile.

"I suppose you are right," admitted the Englishman. "Anyway the thing is straight and clear now. He has earned every bit of happiness that is coming to him and I hope it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth is enormous. I wish there were some way of making adequate returns for it all. But it is too big to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on your other nephew when he gets over. I certainly should like to. I don't know when I've taken such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a ripping sort."

"Ted?" Doctor Holiday smiled a little. "Well, yes, I suppose he is what you Britishers call ripping. It has been rather ripping in another sense being his guardian sometimes."

"I judge so by his own account of himself. Yoxi mustn't let that smash of his worry you. He'll find something over there that will be worth a hundred times what any college can give him, and as for the rest half the lads of mettle in the world come to earth with a jolt over a girl sooner or later and they don't all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did by, a long shot."

"So he told you about that affair? You must have gotten under his skin rather surprisingly Ted doesn't talk much about himself and I fancy he hasn't talked about that thing at all to any one. It went deep."

"I know. He shows that in a hundred ways. But it hasn't crushed him or made him reckless. It simply steadied him and I infer he needed some steadying."

Doctor Holiday nodded a.s.sent to that and asked if he thought the boy was doing well up there.

"Not a doubt of it," said the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in regard to his youngest corporal.

"That is rather astonishing," remarked Doctor Holiday. "Obedience hasn't ever been one of Ted's strong points. In fact he has been a rebel always."

"Most boys are until they perceive that there is sense instead of tyranny in law. Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard and he is all the better for it tough as it was in the process. He is making good up there. He will make good over seas. He is a born leader--a better leader of men than his brother would be though maybe Larry is finer stuff. I don't know."

"They are very different but I like to think they are both rather fine stuff. Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud of them both, Ted as well as Larry."

"You have every reason," approved the captain heartily. "I have seen a good many splendid lads in the last four years and these two measure up in a way which is an eye opener to me. In my stupid insular prejudice maybe I had fallen to thinking that the particular quality that marks them both was a distinctly British affair. Apparently you can breed it in America too. I'm glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one other thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C. and a lot of other junk like that but I'd surrender every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought that I would ever have a son that would worship me the way those lads of yours worship you. It is an honor any man might well covet."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

ALAN Ma.s.sEY LOSES HIMSELF

While Ruth and Larry steered their storm tossed craft of love into smooth haven at last; while Ted came into his own in the Canadian training camp and Tony played Broadway to her heart's content, the two Ma.s.seys down in Mexico drifted into a strange pact of friendship.

Had there been no other ministrations offered save those of creature comfort alone d.i.c.k would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan Ma.s.sey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits to militate against recovery.

But there was more than creature comfort in Alan's service. Without the latter's presence loneliness, homesickness and heartache would have gnawed at the younger man r.e.t.a.r.ding his physical gains. With Alan Ma.s.sey life even on a sick bed took on fascinating colors like a prism in sunlight.

For the sick lad's delectation Alan spun long thrilling tales, many of them based on personal experience in his wide travels in many lands. He was a magnificent raconteur and d.i.c.k propped up among his pillows drank it all in, listening like another Desdemona to strange moving accidents of fire and flood which his scribbling soul recognized as superb copy.

Often too Alan read from books, called in the masters of the pen to set the listener's eager mind atravel through wondrous, unexplored worlds.

Best of all perhaps were the twilight hours when Alan quoted long pa.s.sages of poetry from memory, lending to the magic of the poet's art his own magic of voice and intonation. These were wonderful moments to d.i.c.k, moments he was never to forget. He drank deep of the soul vintage which the other man offered him out of the abundance of his experience as a life long pilgrim in the service of beauty.

It was a curious relation--this growing friendship between the two men.

In some respects they were as master and pupil, in others were as man and man, friend and friend, almost brother and brother. When Alan Ma.s.sey gave at all he gave magnificently without stint or reservation. He did now.

And when he willed to conquer he seldom if ever failed. He did not now.

He won, won first his cousin's liking, respect, and grat.i.tude and finally his loyal friendship and something else that was akin to reverence.

Tony Holiday's name was seldom mentioned between the two. Perhaps they feared that with the name of the girl they both loved there might return also the old antagonistic forces which had already wrought too much havoc. Both sincerely desired peace and amity and therefore the woman who held both their hearts in her keeping was almost banished from the talk of the sick room though she was far from forgotten by either.

So things went on. In time d.i.c.k was judged by the physician well enough to take the long journey back to New York. Alan secured the tickets, made all the arrangements, permitting d.i.c.k not so much as the lifting of a finger in his own behalf. And just then came Tony Holiday's letter to Alan telling him she was his whenever he wanted her since he had cleared the shield forever in her eyes by what he had done for d.i.c.k. She trusted him, knew he would not ask her to marry him unless he was quite free morally and every other way to ask her. She wanted him, could not be surer of his love or her own if she waited a dozen years. He meant more to her than her work, more than her beloved freedom more even than Holiday Hill itself although she felt that she was not so much deserting the Hill as bringing Alan to it. The others would learn to love him too.

They must, because she loved him so much! But even if they did not she had made her choice. She belonged to him first of all.

"But think, dear," she finished. "Think well before you take me. Don't come to me at all unless you can come free, with nothing on your soul that is going to prevent your being happy with me. I shall ask no questions if you come. I trust you to decide right for us both because you lave me in the high way as well as all the other ways."

Alan took this letter of Tony's out into the night, walked with it through flaming valleys of h.e.l.l. She was his. Of her own free will she had given herself to him, placed him higher in her heart at last than even her sacred Hill. And yet after all the Hill stood between them, in the challenge she flung at him. She was his to take if he could come free. She left the decision to him. She trusted him.

Good G.o.d! Why should he hesitate to take what she was willing to give? He had atoned, saved his cousin's life, lived decently, honorably as he had promised, kept faith with Tony herself when he might perhaps have won her on baser terms than he had made himself keep to because he loved her as she said "in the high way as well as all the other ways." He would contrive some way of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear eyes but he was more afraid of something else--his own soul which somehow Tony had created by loving and believing in him.

All the next day, the day before they were to leave on the northern journey, Alan behaved as if all the devils of h.e.l.l which he had invoked were with him. The old mocking bitterness of tongue was back, an even more savage light than d.i.c.k remembered that night of their quarrel was in his green eyes. The man was suddenly acidulated as if he had over night suffered a chemical transformation which had affected both mind and body.

A wild beast tortured, evil, ready to pounce, looked out of his drawn, white face.

d.i.c.k wondered greatly what had caused the strange reaction and seeing the other was suffering tremendously for some reason or other unexplained and perhaps inexplicable was profoundly sorry. His friendship for the man who had saved his life was altogether too strong and deep to be shaken by this temporary lapse into brutality which he had known all along was there although held miraculously in abeyance these many weeks. The man was a genius, with all the temperamental fluctuations of mood which are comprehensible and forgivable in a genius. d.i.c.k did not begrudge the other any relief he might find in his debauch of ill humor, was more than willing he should work it off on his humble self if it could do any good though he would be immensely relieved when the old friendly Alan came back.

Twilight descended. d.i.c.k turned from the mirror after a critical survey of his own lean, fever parched, yellow countenance.