"Quite so--yes."
They walked on in silence for some time. Then Galusha stopped short.
"I have just thought of something," he said. "It--it MAY have some influence. She has often said she wished she might see Egypt. We could go together, couldn"t we?"
Cousin Gussie roared again. "Of course you could," he declared. "And I only wish I could go along. Loosh, you are more than superb. You are magnificent."
He telephoned for his car and chauffeur and, soon after dinner, said good-by to his hostess and his cousin and prepared to start for Boston.
The Sunday dinner was a bountiful one, well cooked, and he did justice to it. Galusha, however, ate very little. He seemed to be not quite certain whether he was at the table or somewhere in the clouds.
The chauffeur discovered that he had scarcely oil and gasoline sufficient for his hundred-mile trip and decided to drive to Trumet to obtain more. Cabot, who felt the need of exercise after his hearty meal, took a walk along the bluff edge as far as the point from which he could inspect the property owned by the Development Company.
He was gone almost an hour. On his return he met Galusha walking slowly along the lane. The little man was without his overcoat, his hands were clasped behind him and, although his eyes were open, he seemed to see nothing, for he stumbled and staggered, sometimes in the road and sometimes in the dead weeds and briars beside it. He did not see his cousin, either, until the latter spoke. Then he looked up and nodded recognition.
"Oh!" he observed. "Yes, of course. Ah--How do you do?"
Cabot was looking him straight in the face.
"Loosh," he asked, sharply. "What is it? What is the matter?"
Galusha pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," he answered.
"Nonsense! You look as if--Well, you can"t tell me nothing is wrong.
ISN"T there something wrong?"
The saddest smile in all creation pa.s.sed across Galusha"s face.
"Why--why, yes," he said. "I suppose everything is wrong. I should have expected it to be, of course. I--I did, but--ah--for a little while I was--ah--foolish and--and hoped. It is quite all right, Cousin Gussie, absolutely so. She said it was--ah--impossible. Of course it is. She is quite right. Oh, quite."
Cabot caught his meaning. "Do you mean to say," he demanded, "that you asked that--that Phipps woman to marry you and she REFUSED?"
"Eh? Oh, yes, she refused. I told you she would not think of such a thing. That is exactly what she said; it was impossible, she could not think of it."
"Well, confound her impudence!... Oh, all right, Galusha, all right. I beg your pardon--and hers. But, really--"
Galusha stopped him. "Cousin Gussie," he said, "if you don"t mind I think I won"t talk about it any more. You will excuse me, won"t you?
I shall be all right, quite all right--after I--ah--after a time, you know."
"Where are you going now?"
"Eh? Oh, I don"t know. Just somewhere, that"s all. Good-by, Cousin Gussie."
He turned and walked on again, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bent. Cabot watched him for several minutes, then, entirely upon impulse and without stopping to consider, he began what was, as he said afterwards, either the craziest or the most inspired performance of his life. He walked straight to the Phipps" gate and up the walk to the Phipps" door. His chauffeur called to him that the car was ready, but he did not answer.
Primmie opened the door in answer to his knock. Yes, Miss Martha was in the sitting room, she said. "But, my savin" soul, what are you doin"
back here, Mr. Cabot? Has the automobile blowed up?"
He did not satisfy her curiosity. Instead, he knocked on the door of the sitting room and, when Miss Phipps called to him to come in, he obeyed, closing the door behind him. She was sitting by the window and her sewing was in her lap. Yet he was almost certain she had not been sewing. Her face was very grave and, although he could not see distinctly, for the afternoon was cloudy and the room rather dark, it seemed to him that there was a peculiar look about her eyes. She, like her maid, was surprised to see him again.
"Why, Mr. Cabot," she cried, rising, "what is it? Has something happened?"
He plunged headfirst into the business that had brought him there. It was the sort of business which, if approached with cool deliberation, was extremely likely never to be transacted.
"Miss Phipps," he said, "I came back here on an impulse. I have something I want to say to you. In a way it isn"t my affair at all and you will probably consider my mentioning it a piece of brazen interference. But--well, there is a chance that my interfering now may prevent a very serious mistake--a grave mistake for two people--so I am going to take the risk. Miss Phipps, I just met my cousin and he gave me to understand that you had refused his offer of marriage."
He paused, momentarily, but she did not speak. Her expression said a good many things, however, and he hurried on in order to have his say before she could have hers.
"I came here on my own responsibility," he explained. "Please don"t think that he has the slightest idea I am here. He is, as you know, the mildest person on earth, but I"m not at all sure he wouldn"t shoot me if he knew what I came to say to you. Miss Phipps, if you possibly can do so I earnestly hope you will reconsider your answer to Galusha Bangs.
He is very fond of you, he would make you a kind, generous husband, and, honestly, I think you are just the sort of wife he needs."
She spoke then, not as if she had meant to, but more as if the words were involuntarily forced from her by shock.
"You--you think I am the sort of wife he needs?" she gasped. "_I_?"
"Yes, you. Precisely the sort."
"For--for HIM. YOU think so?"
"Yes. Now, of course, if you do not--er--care for him, if you could not think of him as a husband--oh, hang it, I don"t know how to put it, but you know what I mean. If you don"t WANT to marry him then that is your business altogether and you are right in saying no. But if you SHOULD care for him and refused him because you may have thought there was any--er--unsuitability--er--unfitness--oh, the devil, I don"t know what to call it--if you thought there was too large an element of that in the match, then I beg of you to reconsider, that"s all. He needs you."
"Needs me? Needs ME?... Oh--oh, you must be crazy!"
"Not a bit of it. He needs you. You have all the qualities, common sense, practicability, everything he hasn"t got. It is for his sake I"m asking this, Miss Phipps. I truly believe you have the making or marring of his future in your hands--now. That is why I hope you will--well, change your mind.... There! I have said it. Thank you for listening.
Good-day."
He turned to the door. She spoke once more. "Oh, you MUST be jokin"!"
she cried. "How CAN you say such things? His people--his family--"
"Family? Oh... well, I"ll tell you the truth about that. When he was young he had altogether too much family. Now he hasn"t any, really--except myself, and I have expressed my opinion. Good-by, Miss Phipps."
He went out. Martha slowly went back to her rocking-chair and sat down.
A moment later she heard the roar of the engine as the Cabot car got under way. The sound died away in the distance. Martha rose and went up the stairs to her own room. There she sat down once more and thought--and thought.
Some time later she heard her lodger"s footstep--how instantly she recognized it--in the hall and then in his bedroom. He was in that room but a short time, then she heard him go down the stairs again. Perhaps ten minutes afterward Primmie knocked. She wished permission to go down to the village.
"I just thought maybe I"d go down to the meetin" house," explained Primmie. "They"re goin" to have a Sunday school concert this afternoon at four o"clock. Zach he said he was cal"latin" to go. And besides, Mr. Bangs he give me this letter to leave to the telegraph office, Miss Martha."
"The telegraph office isn"t open on Sundays, Primmie."
"No"m, I know "tain"t. But Ras Beebe he takes care of all the telegraphs there is and telephones "em over to Denboro, where the telegraph place IS open Sundays."
"Oh, all right, Primmie, you may go. Is Mr. Bangs in?"
"No"m, he ain"t. He"s gone out somewheres. To walk, I cal"late. Last I see of him he was moonin" along over towards the lighthouse way."
Primmie departed and Martha, alone in the gathering dimness of the afternoon, resumed her thinking. It was an endless round, that thinking of hers--but, of course, it could end in but one way. Even to wish such things was wicked. For his sake, that was what Mr. Cabot had said. Ah, yes, but it was for his sake that she must remain firm.
A big drop of rain splashed, and exploded like a miniature watery bombsh.e.l.l, against the windowpane. Martha looked up. Then she became aware of a faint tinkling in the room below. The telephone bell was ringing.