"Of course not. I have the bonds and Charlie"s a long way from here by this time."
She recounted her meeting with Charles in the Holton barn, and when they expressed incredulity, she sprang up and darted from the room. When she reappeared with the suit-case and dumped its contents on the table, Amzi, narrowly averting apoplexy, counted the bonds carefully, and made a calculation of the accrued and unpaid interest.
"Thunder!" he blurted. "Now, look here, Fred, don"t you do anything foolish! We"ll stack these up in the bank until Kirkwood can pa.s.s on this business. He might have them annulled, I suppose; but we"ll wait and see."
"You wouldn"t have Fred steal them, Amy!"
"Steal them! Thunder! We"ll run "em through the estate and out to Fred again. I guess Charlie took care of his sister in the original whack; but if he didn"t we"ll give her a slice." He glared at Phil fiercely.
"You, Phil!"
"What"s the matter, Amy?"
"You lied to the sheriff of this county!"
"If you talk to me like that I"ll most certainly muss you; I will, I will!"
"You concealed stolen property! You helped a fugitive to escape from justice! You--you--!" Words failing him, he bent over the table, shaking an accusing finger under her nose.
"Forget it, Amy! If I did I glory in my shame. Put that in your pipe.
Incidentally, it occurs to me that it"s about time to think of going home."
"I don"t know what to say to all this," said Fred as they rose from the table. He looked from one to the other, the deep feeling showing in his face. "It was fine of you, Phil, to help Charlie get away; I appreciate that. I want to say again that I think Charlie means all right. He"s the best-hearted fellow in the world."
"Well," said Lois kindly, "we hope he will find another chance and make good." Then after a moment she added: "We most of us need two chances in this world, and some of us three!"
"And about the farm, I didn"t expect that: I"m not sure it"s right to take it back," said Fred. "I want to do the square thing."
"Thunder!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Amzi; and then, seeing that Phil was already engaged in repacking the hamper with the empty dishes he turned upon her with his mock fury and demanded that she give him another pickled peach before the jar was disposed of.
"Get that article at my house, Phil?"
Phil walked close to him and shouted in his ear as to a deaf man:--
"No, you grand old imbecile! Anybody but you would know that they represent the perfection of Rose Bartlett"s art! Now, will you be good!"
CHAPTER XXVI
A CALL IN BUCKEYE LANE
"Going out, mamma?"
"Rather think so, Phil!" replied Lois.
It was the week after the visit to the farm, and Phil, who was now scratching away furiously on a short story, had opened her mother"s door late in the afternoon to find that lady contemplating with unusual gravity a frock she had flung across the bed for inspection.
"What are you up to, Phil?"
"Up to my chin in ink," replied Phil, holding up a forefinger empurpled from the ink she was affecting. She had read in a literary note that one of the most distinguished of contemporaneous women novelists always used purple ink. Phil was spreading a good deal of it over legal cap purloined from her father"s office. Kirkwood was just now in town, and he had called her on the telephone to invite her to supper with him at the Morton House, an arrangement which she disclosed to her mother.
"Your father"s home again?" Lois asked indifferently.
"Yes. He has something to do here about those bonds of Charlie Holton"s.
It sounded rather complicated; and he wants to see Fred, and Amy was to call him into town."
Lois"s mind was upon the gown. She compressed her lips as she continued to scrutinize it. It was a gown from Paris and a very handsome one.
Having decided that it suited her purposes, she brought out a hat that matched it and tossed it onto the bed.
"How do you think I"d look in those things?"
"Adorable! Shall I order up the machine?"
"Um, no: I"ll walk, I think."
"I rather take it that I"m not invited," laughed Phil.
"Bless me, no! I have a call to make that wouldn"t interest you."
Phil walked to the bureau--a new one of mahogany that had been among her mother"s recent subst.i.tutions for the old walnut with which the house had been filled. The folder of a steamship company lay sprawled open across the neatly arranged toilet articles. Phil picked it up idly, and noted certain pencilings that caused her heart to give a sudden bound.
She flung round upon her mother with tears in her eyes.
"You are not--not thinking of that!"
Lois walked over to her and kissed her. She took Phil"s face in her hands, looking into her eyes steadily.
"You dear chick, you would care!"
"Oh, you mustn"t! You must _not_!" Phil cried. "And you have been thinking of it and not telling me! And just when I thought we understood everything."
"I meant to tell you to-day: I really did. It wasn"t easy. But I"ve got to go, Phil. I"m not sure that I haven"t stayed too long! You know I never meant to stay forever."
"Then you haven"t been happy here! You don"t--you don"t like _me_!"
Lois sank into a chair by the window and drew the girl down beside her.
Phil gripped her mother"s hands tight, and stared into her face with tear-filled eyes.
"It"s as hard for me as it is for you, Phil. But we may as well have it out. I"ve taken pa.s.sage for the first Sat.u.r.day in June, and it"s not far off. Some friends are spending the summer in Switzerland and I"m going to join them. It was half-understood when I came here."
"It"s hard; it"s unkind," Phil whispered. The fact that her mother had planned flight so long ahead did not mitigate the hurt of it. Nothing, it seemed, could ever be right in this world! And she had just effected all the difficult readjustments made necessary by her mother"s return!
She had given herself so unreservedly to this most wonderful of women!
Lois was touched by her show of feeling.
"I"m sorry," she said, stroking Phil"s brown head. "I have had thoughts of taking you with me. That would be easy enough--" she paused uncertainly, as the clasp of Phil"s hands tightened. "But, Phil, I have no right to do that. It wouldn"t be for your happiness in the end; I know that; I"m sure of that."
"Oh, if you only would! I"ll be very good--a lot nicer than you think I am if you will take me."