She kept free of companions for nearly an hour, taunting those who tried to intercept her, and racing away from several cavaliers who combined in an effort to corner her. Then having gained the heights of her imaginings, she was ready to be a social being once more.
Charles Holton, who had viewed her flights with admiration as he helped the timid and awkward tyros of the company, swung into step with her.
"It"s wonderful how you do it? Please be kind to me a mere mortal!"
He caught her pace and they moved along together at ease. Her mood had changed and she let him talk all he liked and as he liked. They had met twice at parties since she had snubbed him at Amzi"s the night of her presentation, and he had made it plain that he admired her. He contrasted advantageously with the young gentlemen of Montgomery. He was less afraid of being polite, or his politeness was less self-conscious and showed a higher polish. He had twice sent her roses and once a new novel, and these remembrances had not been without their effect. It was imaginable that his tolerance of the simple sociabilities of Montgomery was attributable to an interest in Phil, who dreamed a great deal these days; and there was s.p.a.ce enough in the ivory tower of her fancy to enshrine lovers innumerable. Charles was a personable young man, impressionable and emotional, and not without imagination of his own.
Her humor, and the healthy common-sense philosophy that flowered from it, were the girl"s only protection from her own emotionalism and susceptibility. Even in the larger world of the capital there was no girl as pretty as Phil, Charles a.s.sured himself; she was not only agreeable to look at, but she piqued him by her indifference to his advances. His usual cajoleries only provoked retorts that left him blinking, not certain whether they were intended to humble him or to stimulate him to more daring efforts.
"You"re the only girl in the bunch who skates as though she loved it.
You do everything as though it was your last hour on earth and you meant to make the most of it. I like that. It"s the way I feel about things myself. If I had your spirit I"d conquer the world."
"Well, the world is here to be conquered," said Phil. "What peak have you picked to plant your flag on?"
"Oh, I want money first--you"ve got to have it these days to do things with; and then I think I"d like power. I"d go in for politics--the governor"s chair or the senate. If father hadn"t died he could have got the governorship easy; he was ent.i.tled to it and it would have come along just in the course of things. What would you like to do best of all?"
"If I told you, you wouldn"t believe it. I don"t want a thing I haven"t got--not a single thing. On a day like this everything is mine--that long piece of woods over there--black against the blue sky--and the creek underfoot--I couldn"t ask for a single other thing!"
"But there must be a goal you want to reach--everybody has that."
"Oh, you"re talking about to-morrow! and this is to-day. And sufficient unto the day is the joy thereof. If I ever told anybody what I mean to do to-morrow, it would be spoiled. I"m full of dark secrets that I never tell any one."
"But you might tell me--I"m the best possible person to tell secrets to."
"I can"t be sure of that, when I hardly know you at all."
"That"s mighty cruel, you know, when I feel as though I had known you always."
He tried to throw feeling into this, but the time and place and her vigorous strides over the ice did not encourage sentiment.
"You oughtn"t to tell girls that you feel you have known them always. It isn"t complimentary. You ought to express sorrow that they are so difficult to know and play the card that you hope by great humility and perseverance one day to know them. That is the line I should take if I were a man."
He laughed at this. There were undoubted fastnesses in her nature that were not easily attainable. She seemed to him amazingly mature in certain ways, and in others she was astonishingly childlike.
"They say you"re a genius; that you"re going to do wonderful things," he said.
"Who says it?" asked Phil practically, but not without interest.
"Oh, my aunt says it; she says other people say it."
"Well, my aunts haven"t said it," remarked Phil. "According to them my only genius is for doing the wrong thing."
"We needn"t any of us expect to be appreciated in our own families.
That"s always the way. You read a lot, don"t you?"
"I like to read; but you can read a lot without being a genius. Geniuses don"t have to read--they know it all without reading. So there"s that."
"I"ll wager you write, too;--confess now that you do!"
"Letters to my father when he"s away from home--one every night. But he isn"t away very much."
"But stories and things like that. Yes; don"t deny it: you mean to be a writer! I"m sure you can succeed at that. Lots of women do; some of the best writers are women. You will write novels like--like--George Eliot."
Phil laughed her derision of the idea.
"She knew a lot; more than I could ever know if I studied all my life.
But there"s only one George Eliot; I"m hardly likely--just Phil Kirkwood in Montgomery, Indiana,--to be number two."
The direction of the talk was grateful to her. It was pleasant to feel the warmth of his interest in her new secret aims without having to acknowledge them. It was flattering that he surmised the line of her interests, and spoke of them so kindly and sympathetically.
"I try to do some reading all the time," he went on; "but a business man hasn"t much chance. Still, I usually keep something worth while on the center table, and when I travel I carry some good book with me. I like pictures, too, and music; and those things you miss in a town like Montgomery."
"Well, Montgomery is interesting just the same," said Phil defensively.
"The people are all so nice and folksy."
He hastened to disavow any intention of slurring the town. He should always feel that it was home, no matter how far he might wander. He explained, in the confidence that seemed to be establishing itself between them, that there was a remote possibility that he might return to Montgomery and go into the bank with his uncle, who needed a.s.sistance. It was desirable, he explained, to keep the management of the bank in the hands of the family.
"You know," he went on, "they printed outrageous stories about all of us in the "Advertiser." They were the meanest sort of lies, but I"d like you to know that we met the issue squarely. I"ve turned over to your father as trustee all the property they claimed we had come by dishonestly. The world will never know this, for your father shut up the newspapers--it was quite wonderful the way he managed it all;--and, of course, it doesn"t make any difference what the world thinks. This was my affair, the honor of my family, and a matter of my own conscience."
Her knowledge of the traction muddle was sufficient to afford a background of plausibility for this highminded renunciation. There was something likable in Charles Holton. His volubility, which had prejudiced her against him in the beginning, seemed now to speak for a frankness that appealed to her. There was no reason for his telling her these things unless he cared for her good opinion; and it was not disagreeable to find that this man, who was ten years her senior and possessed of what struck her as an ample experience of life, should be at pains to entrench himself in her regard.
As she made no reply other than to meet his eyes in a look of sympathetic comprehension, he went on:--
"You won"t mind my saying that we were all terribly cut up over Uncle Jack"s coming back here; but I guess we"ve disposed of him. I don"t think he"s likely to trouble Montgomery very much. Uncle Will had it out with him the day after he showed up so disgracefully at your party; and, of course, Uncle Jack would never have done that if he had been himself.
He went to Indianapolis and tried to make a lot of trouble for all of us, but that was where your father showed himself the fine man he is. I guess it isn"t easy to put anything over on that father of yours; he"s got the brains and character to meet any difficulty squarely."
Phil murmured her appreciation. They had paused in the middle of the course and were idly cutting figures, keeping within easy conversational range.
"Your initials are hard to do," said Holton, backing into line beside her and indicating the letters his skates had traced on the surface. The "P. K." was neatly done. Phil without comment etched a huge "C" and then cut an "H" within its long loop.
"Splendid! You are the best skater I ever saw! I"d like to cut that out and keep it in cold storage as a souvenir."
This did not please her so much as his references to her hidden ambitions, and seeing that she failed to respond, and fearing one of her taunts, he led the way toward the gorge. It was four o"clock, and already shadows were darkening the deep vale where most of the skaters had now gathered about the bonfires. Phil"s popularity was attested by the tone in which the company greeted her. She sat down on a log and entered into their give-and-take light-heartedly, while Holton unfastened her skates. He had found her coat and thrown it round her shoulders. He was very thoughtful and attentive, and his interest in her had not gone unremarked.
"We were just wondering," said one of the girls, "whether anybody here was sport enough to scale that wall in the winter? We"ve saved that for you, Phil."
Phil lifted her head and scanned the steep slope. She had scaled it often; in fact one of her earliest remembered adventures had been an inglorious tumble into the creek as the reward of her temerity. That was in her sixth year when she had clambered up the cliff a few yards in pursuit of a chipmunk.
"I haven"t done that for several moons; but I have done it, children.
There wouldn"t be any point in doing it, of course, if anybody else had done it--I mean to-day, with ice all over the side."
"You mustn"t think of it, Phil," said Mrs. Holton, glancing up anxiously.
"I shan"t think of it, Mrs. Holton, unless somebody says it can"t be done. I"m not going to take a dare."
"Just for that," said Charles, "I"m going to do it myself."
"Better not tackle it," said one of the college boys, eyeing the cliff critically. "I"ve done it in summer, and it"s hard enough then; but you can see how the ice and snow cover all the footholds. You"d have to do it with ropes the way they climb the Alps."
Holton looked at Phil as she sat huddled in her coat. It was in her eyes that she did not think he would attempt it, and he resented her lack of faith in his courage.