"Not guilty."
"Swim?"
"Gloriously. Like a stone."
"Run?" Head on the other side.
"If there"s any one after me."
"Ride? Every one rides down this-away, you know."
A sudden vague pa.s.sion mouthed at Garrison"s heart. "Ride?" he echoed, eyes far away. "I--I think so."
"Only think so! Humph!" She swung a restless foot. "Can"t you do anything?"
"Well," critically. "I think I can eat, and sleep----"
"And talk nonsense. Let me see your hand." She took it imperiously, palm up, in her lap, and examined it critically, as if it were the paw of some animal. "My! it"s as small as a woman"s!" she exclaimed, in dismay.
"Why, you could wear my glove, I believe." There was one part disdain to three parts amus.e.m.e.nt, ridicule, in her throaty voice.
"It is small," admitted Garrison, eyeing it ruefully. "I wish I had thought of asking mother to give me a bigger one. Is it a crime?"
"No; a calamity." Her foot was going restlessly. "I like your eyes," she said calmly, at length.
Garrison bowed. He was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He had never met a girl like this. Nothing seemed sacred to her. She was as frank as the wind, or sun.
"You know," she continued, her great eyes half-closed, "I was awfully anxious to see you when I heard you were coming home----"
"Why?"
She turned and faced him, her grey eyes opened wide. "Why? Isn"t one always interested in one"s future husband?"
It was Garrison who was confused. Something caught at his throat. He stammered, but words would not come. He laughed nervously.
"Didn"t you know we were engaged?" asked the girl, with childlike simplicity and astonishment. "Oh, yes. How superb!"
"Engaged? Why--why----"
"Of course. Before we were born. Your uncle and aunt and my parents had it all framed up. I thought you knew. A cut-and-dried affair. Are you not just wild with delight?"
"But--but," expostulated Garrison, his face white, "supposing the real me--I mean, supposing I had not come home? Supposing I had been dead?"
"Why, then," she replied calmly, "then, I suppose, I would have a chance of marrying some one I really loved. But what is the use of supposing?
Here you are, turned up at the last minute, like a bad penny, and here I am, very much alive. Ergo, our relatives" wishes respectfully fulfilled, and--connubial misery _ad libitum_. _Mes condolences_. If you feel half as bad as I do, I really feel sorry for you. But, frankly, I think the joke is decidedly on me."
Garrison was silent, staring with hard eyes at the ground. He could not begin to a.n.a.lyze his thoughts.
"You are not complimentary, at all events," he said quietly at length.
"So every one tells me," she sighed.
"I did not know of this arrangement," he added, looking up, a queer smile twisting his lips.
"And now you are lonesomely miserable, like I am," she rejoined, crossing a restless leg. "No doubt you left your ideal in New York.
Perhaps you are married already. Are you?" she cried eagerly, seizing his arm.
"No such good luck--for you," he added, under his breath.
"I thought so," she sighed resignedly. "Of course no one would have you.
It"s hopeless."
"It"s not," he argued sharply, his pride, anger in revolt. He, who had no right to any claim. "We"re not compelled to marry each other. It"s a free country. It is ridiculous, preposterous."
"Oh, don"t get so fussy!" she interrupted petulantly. "Don"t you think I"ve tried to kick over the traces? And I"ve had more time to think of it than you--all my life. It is a family inst.i.tution. Your uncle pledged his nephew, if he should have one, and my parents pledged me. We are hostages to their friendship. They wished to show how much they cared for one another by making us supremely miserable for life. Of course, I spent my life in arranging how you should look, if you ever came home--which I devoutly hoped you wouldn"t. It wouldn"t be so difficult, you see, if you happened to match my ideals. Then it would be a real love-feast, with parents" blessings and property thrown in to boot."
"And then I turned up--a little, under-sized, nothingless pea, instead of the regular patented, double-action, stalwart Adonis of your imagination," added Garrison dryly.
"How well you describe yourself!" said the girl admiringly.
"It must be horrible!" he condoled half-cynically.
"And of course you, too, were horribly disappointed?" she added, after a moment"s pause, tapping her oxford with tennis-racket.
Garrison turned and deliberately looked into her gray eyes.
"Yes; I am--horribly," he lied calmly. "My ideal is the dark, quiet girl of the clinging type."
"She wouldn"t have much to cling to," sniffed the girl. "We"ll be miserable together, then. Do you know, I almost hate you! I think I do.
I"m quite sure I do."
Garrison eyed her in silence, the smile on his lips. She returned the look, her face flushed.
"Miss Desha--"
"You"ll have to call me Sue. You"re Billy; I"m Sue. That"s one of the minor penalties. Our prenatal engagement affords us this charming familiarity," she interrupted scathingly.
"Sue, then. Sue," continued Garrison quietly, "from your type, I thought you fashioned of better material. Now, don"t explode--yet a while. I mean property and parents" blessing should not weigh a curse with you.
Yes; I said curse--d.a.m.n, if you wish. If you loved, this burlesque engagement should not stand in your way. You would elope with the man you love, and let property and parents" blessings----"
"That would be a good way for you to get out of the muddle unscathed, wouldn"t it?" she flashed in. "How chivalrous! Why don"t you elope with some one--the dark, clinging girl--and let me free? You want me to suffer, not yourself. Just like you Yankees--cold-blooded icicles!"
Garrison considered. "I never thought of that, honestly!" he said, with a laugh. "I would elope quick enough, if I had only myself to consider."
"Then your dark, clinging girl is lacking in the very virtues you find so woefully missing in me. She won"t take a risk. I cannot say I blame her," she added, scanning the brooding Garrison.
He laughed good-humoredly. "How you must detest me! But cheer up, my sister in misery! You will marry the man you love, all right. Never fear."
"Will I?" she asked enigmatically. Her eyes were half-shut, watching Garrison"s profile. "Will I, soothsayer?"