"To the old house, Amzi!"
He saw her lips quiver and her eyes fill. There was sincere feeling in her voice, but the shadow upon her spirit was a fleeting one.
"I"m going to run up and change my shoes," she said as they left the table, and in a few moments he heard the click of her heels as she came down.
"This is much cozier," she remarked, resting her smart pumps on the fender beside his worn leathern slippers. "Now tell me about the girls; how do they get on?"
He sketched for her briefly the recent history of the family, replying to her constant interruptions with the frankness she demanded. Waterman she remembered; she had never seen Fosd.i.c.k or Hastings. Amzi"s description of Hastings amused her, and she laughed gayly at her brother"s account of the former actor"s efforts to lift the local dramatic standard.
"So that"s what Kate did, is it? Well, I suppose she has had some fun spending her money on him. Alec Waterman was always an absurd person, but from what you say I judge Josie has held on to her money better than the others. Alec never had sense enough to be a big spender."
"Thunder!" Amzi e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Josie"s broke like the rest of "em. Alec has a weakness for gold mines. That"s cost a heap, and he doesn"t earn enough practicing law to pay for the ice in Josie"s ice-box. Fosd.i.c.k lives up in the air--away up, clean out of sight. I figure that as a floorwalker in a department store Hastings would be worth about twelve dollars a week; and Fosd.i.c.k might succeed as barker for a five-legged calf in a side-show; but Alec"s place in the divine economy is something I have never placed, and I defy any man to place it!"
Amzi was enjoying himself. It was with real zest that he hit off his brothers-in-law to this sister, who afforded him an outlet for long-stifled emotions. He had been honestly loyal to the three homekeeping sisters and to their husbands also for that matter; and the fact that he could at last let himself go deepened his sense of the sympathy and the understanding that had always existed between him and Lois. He hated fuss; and his other sisters were tiresomely fussy and maddeningly disingenuous. In half an hour Lois had learned all she cared to know of the family history. She merely dipped into the bin, brought up a handful of wheat, blew away the chaff, eyed the remaining kernels with a sophisticated eye, and tossed them over her shoulder.
"As near as I can make out they"re all broke; is that about it?"
"Just about," Amzi replied. "They haven"t mortgaged their homes yet, but if Mrs. Bill Holton turns up with a new automobile next spring or gets some specially dazzling rags, I expect to see three nice fresh mortgages on those homes out there."
"Ah! Mrs. William sets the pace, does she? It"s a good thing father died before he saw the Montgomerys trying to keep up with the Holtons.
William prospers?"
"Judged by Mrs. Bill"s doings he does. By the way, Jack has been back here."
Amzi turned to see what effect the mention of Jack Holton would have upon her; but in no wise embarra.s.sed, with only a slight lifting of the brows, she said quickly:--
"I thought it likely. I suppose William ran to meet him--general love-feast and all that?"
They were approaching delicate ground; but it seemed as well to go on and be done with it. He told her, more fully than he had recounted any other incident of the sixteen years, of Phil"s party; of the insistence of her sisters upon a reconciliation with the William Holtons, and of Jack"s appearance on the threshold. His indignation waxed hot; the enormity of the offense was intensified by the fact that he was describing it to Lois; it seemed even more flagrantly directed against her, now that he thought of it, than to Phil or Phil"s father. He rose and stood with his back to the fire as he dilated upon it. Lois frowned once or twice, but at the end she laughed, her light little laugh, saying:--
"And William has got rid of him, of course."
"Oh, they had it out the next day at the bank, but Jack"s not far away.
He"s been in Indianapolis making trouble. He resented being kicked out of the bank--which is about what it came to. And Bill bounced him with reason. He"s in trouble. In spite of automobiles and the fine front they put up generally, Bill and the First National are not so all-fired prosperous. Tom"s been trying to fix things up for them."
"Tom Kirkwood?" She frowned again at the mention of her first husband, but appeared interested, listening attentively as he described the Sycamore Traction difficulties.
"Samuel always was a bad case. So it"s come to this, that Tom is trying to keep William out of jail? It"s rather a pretty situation, as you think of it," she murmured. "Just how does Tom get on?"
"Tom didn"t get on at all for a long time; but whenever he was pushed into a case he burnt himself up on it. Tom was always that kind of a fellow--if the drums beat hard enough he would put on his war paint and go out and win the fight. There"s a dreamy streak in Tom; I guess he never boiled out all the college professor he had in him; but he"s to the front now. They think a lot of him over at Indianapolis; he"s had a chance to go into one of the best law firms there. He"s got brains in his head--and if--"
His jaws shut with a snap, as he remembered that his auditor was a woman who had weighed Tom Kirkwood in the balance and found him wanting. Lois noted his abrupt silence. She had clasped her knees and bent forward, staring musingly into the fire, as he began speaking of Kirkwood. Amzi"s cheeks filled with the breath that had nearly voiced that "if."
"If he hadn"t married a woman who didn"t appreciate him and who wrecked his life for him, there"s no telling what he might have done."
She finished his sentence dispa.s.sionately, and sat back in her chair; and as he blinked in his fear of wounding her by anything he might say, she took matters in her own hands.
"I was a fool, Amzi. There you have it all tied up in a package and labeled in red ink; and we needn"t ever speak of it again. It"s on the shelf--the top one, behind the door, as far as I"m concerned. I haven"t come back to cry over spilt milk, like a naughty dairymaid who trips and falls on the cellar steps. I ought to; I ought to put on mourning for myself and crawl into Center Church on my knees and ask the Lord"s forgiveness before the whole congregation. But I"m not going to do anything of the kind. One reason is that it wouldn"t do me any good; and the other is that I"d never get out of the church alive. They"d tear me to pieces! It"s this way, Amzi, that if we were all made in the same mould you could work out a philosophy from experience that would apply to everybody; but the trouble is that we"re all different. I"m different; it was because I was different that I shook Tom and went off with Jack. Of course, the other man is a worthless cur and loafer; that"s where fate flew up and struck at me--a deserved blow. But when I saw that I had made a bad break, I didn"t sit down and sob; I merely tried to put a little starch into my self-respect and keep from going clear downhill. Tom"s probably forgotten me by this time; he never was much of a hater and I guess that"s what made me get tired of him. He always had the other cheek ready, and when I annoyed him he used to take refuge in the Greek poets, who didn"t mean anything to me."
She smiled as though the recollection of the Greek poets amused her and ran on in her low, musical voice:--
"When I saw I"d drawn a blank in Jack Holton, it really didn"t bother me so much as you might think. Of course, I was worried and humiliated at times; and there were days when I went into the telegraph office and went through the motions of sending for you to come and fish me out of my troubles. I tore up half a dozen of those messages, so you never heard me squeal; and then I began playing my own game in my own way. I hung a smile on the door, so to speak, and did my suffering inside. For ten years Jack never knew anything about me--the real me. For a long time I couldn"t quite come to the point of shaking him, and he couldn"t shake me,--he couldn"t without starving"; and she smiled the ghost of a grim little smile. "I suppose I wasn"t exactly in a position to insist on a husband"s fidelity, but when he began to be a filthy nuisance I got rid of him. Just before I went abroad this last time I divorced him, and gave him enough to keep him running for a while. My story in a nutsh.e.l.l is this," and she touched her fingers lightly as she epitomized her personal history: "married at eighteen, to a gentleman; a mother at twenty; at twenty-three, ran off with a blackguard; married him in due course to satisfy the _convenances_. Not forty yet and divorced twice!
And here I am, tolerably cheerful and not so much the worse for wear."
She waited for him to say something; but there appeared to be little for Amzi to say.
"I guess we all do the best we can, Lois. You don"t have to talk to me about those things. I"m glad you"re back; that"s all."
He showed his embarra.s.sment, shifting from one foot to the other, and rubbing his hand nervously across his head.
"Amzi, you"re the best man in the world, and I didn"t come back here to be a nuisance to you. I can sleep here and run off on the early train--I looked it up before I came. But I thought I"d like to see the house--and you in it--once more. It"s a big world, and there are plenty of places to go. There"s a lot of Europe I haven"t seen yet, and I like it over there. I have some good friends in Dresden, and I promised them to come back. So don"t feel that I"m on your hands. I"m not! I can clear out in the morning and n.o.body need know that I"ve been here."
He walked up to her and laid his hands on her shoulders. He gasped at her suggestion of immediate flight. He had not known how much she meant to him; and oh, she was so like Phil! It was Phil who had danced in his mind while she summarized her life; it was the Phil she did not know--had never known--and for whom, astonishingly, she had not asked beyond her casual inquiry as to the girl"s whereabouts. Nothing was clear in his mind save that Lois must see and know Phil.
"I want you to stay, Lois; you"ve got to stay. And everything"s going to be all right."
"Please be square with me, Amzi. This is a small town and a woman can"t coolly break all the commandments and then come back and expect to be met with a bra.s.s band. You and I understand each other; but you"ve got to think of the rest of the family; my coming will doubtless outrage our sisters" delicate moral natures--I know that--and there"s Tom--it"s hardly fair to him to come trailing back. And the town"s too small for me to hide in--it was always a gossipy hole."
He clasped her wrists tightly. The working of his face showed his deep feeling. Not often in his life had he been so touched, so moved. Two big tears rolled down his ruddy cheeks.
"You"ve got to stay because of Phil! I tell you there"s n.o.body to think about but Phil!"
Suddenly she threw her arms about his neck and burst into tears.
"Oh, I couldn"t speak of her! You don"t understand that it"s because of Phil I ought to go! You thought I was heartless about it, but it"s not that I don"t care. I"m afraid to see Phil! I"m afraid!"
"Don"t you worry about Phil," he answered, digging the tears out of his eyes with his knuckles. "Phil"s all right," he concluded.
He crossed the hall and when he returned, carrying a bulky photograph alb.u.m, she had regained her composure, and stood holding her hands to the fire.
"Sit here and look at Phil: I"ve got all her pictures from the time she was a baby. I guess you remember these first ones."
She sat down by the center table and he turned up the gas in the blue-shaded lamp. She pa.s.sed the baby pictures quickly, but looked closely at those that showed her daughter at school age. Under each photograph Amzi had written the date, so that as a record the collection was complete. There were half a dozen disclosures of Phil in her M.H.S.
sweater. Amzi called attention to these with a chuckle.
"Nearly killed the girls; Phil chasing round town in that thing! And here she"s trigged out in her graduating clothes. I guess you"d have been proud of her that night. Her piece was about tramp dogs; funniest thing you ever heard! And here she is--let me see--yes, that was last summer. Those other things are just little snapshots; and here"s a group showing Phil with her cla.s.s. Phil in front--she was the head of her cla.s.s all right!" he ended proudly.
Whatever emotions may have been aroused by this pictorial review of her child"s life, Lois outwardly made no sign. She murmured her pleasure at one and another of the pictures, looked closely at the latest in point of time, sighed and closed the book.
"She looks like me, I suppose. Is she taller?"
"The least bit, maybe; but you"re as like as two peas," answered Amzi; and then added, with the diffidence of a man unused to graceful speeches, "I guess you"d almost pa.s.s for sisters. By George, Lois, you"re a wonder! You ain"t a year older!"
"That"s no compliment, Amzi! I ought to have changed," she replied soberly. "But there"s gray in my hair if you know where to look, and the wrinkles are getting busy."
"The more I think of it, the more remarkable the resemblance gets," he persisted, ignoring her confessions.
"That doesn"t make it any easier, Amzi; please don"t speak of that again."