"You think not?" Her interest in this dull business struck him as astonishing, and yet in character with her as he had known her in Plattville. Then he wondered unhappily if she thought that talking of the "Herald" and learning things about the working of a country newspaper would help her to understand Brainard Macauley.
"Why have you let him go on with it?" she asked. "I suppose you have encouraged him?"
"Oh, yes, I encouraged him. The creature"s recklessness fascinated me. A dare-devil like that is always charming.""
"You think there is no chance for the creature"s succeeding with the daily?"
"None," he replied indifferently.
"You mentioned work-baskets, I think?"
He laughed again. "I believe him to be the original wooden-nutmeg man.
Once a week he produces a "Woman"s Page," wherein he presents to the Carlow female public three methods for making currant jelly, three receipts for the concoction of salads, and directs the ladies how to manufacture a pretty work-basket out of odd sc.r.a.ps in twenty minutes.
The astonishing part of it is that he has not yet been mobbed by the women who have followed his directions."
"So you think the daily is a mistake and that your enterprising idiot should be mobbed? Why?" She seemed to be taking him very seriously.
"I think he may be--for his "Woman"s Page.""
"It is all wrong, you think?"
"What could a Yankee six-footer cousin of old Fisbee"s know about currant jelly and work-baskets?"
"You know about currant jelly and work-baskets yourself?"
"Heaven defend the right, I do not!"
"You are sure he is six feet?"
"You should see his signature; that leaves no doubt. And, also, his ability denotes his stature."
"You believe that ability is in proportion to height, do you not?" There was a dangerous luring in her tone.
His memory recalled to him that he was treading on undermined ground, so he hastened to say: "In inverse proportion."
"Then your subst.i.tute is a failure. I see," she said, slowly.
What m.u.f.fled illumination there was in their nook fell upon his face; her back was toward it, so that she was only an outline to him, and he would have been startled and touched to the quick, could he have known that her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears as she spoke the last words. He was happy as he had not been since his short June day; it was enough to be with her again. Nothing, not even Brainard Macauley, could dull his delight. And, besides, for a few minutes he had forgotten Brainard Macauley. What more could man ask than to sit in the gloom with her, to know that he was near her again for a little while, and to talk about anything--if he talked at all? Nonsense and idle exaggeration about young Fisbee would do as well as another thing.
"The young gentleman is an exception," he returned. "I told you I owed everything to him; my grat.i.tude will not allow me to admit that his ability is less than his stature. He suggested my purchase of a quant.i.ty of Mr. Watts"s oil stock when it was knocked flat on its back by two wells turning out dry; but if Mr. Watts"s third well comes in, and young Fisbee has convinced me that it will, and if my Midas"s extra booms the stock and the boom develops, I shall oppose the income tax. Poor old Plattville will be full of strangers and speculators, and the "Herald"
will advocate vast improvements to impress the investor"s eye.
Stagnation and picturesqueness will flee together; it is the history of the Indiana town. Already the "Herald" is clamoring with Schofields"
Henry--you remember the bell-ringer?--for Main Street to be asphalted.
It will all come. The only trouble with young Fisbee is that he has too much ability."
"And yet the daily will not succeed?"
"No. That"s too big a jump, unless my young man"s expressions on the tariff command a wide sale amongst curio-hunters."
"Then he is quite a fool about political matters?"
"Far from it; he is highly ingenious. His editorials are often the subtlest cups of flattery I ever sipped, many of them showing a.s.siduous study of old files to master the method and notions of his eagle-eyed predecessor. But the tariff seems to have got him. He is a very masculine person, except for this one feminine quality, for, if I may say it without ungallantry, there is a legend that no woman has ever understood the tariff. Young Fisbee must be an extremely travelled person, because the custom-house people have made an impression upon him which no few encounters with them could explain, and he conceives the tariff to be a law which discommodes a lady who has been purchasing gloves in Paris. He thinks smuggling the great evil of the present tariff system; it is such a temptation, so insidious a break-down of moral fibre. His views must edify Carlow."
She gave a quick, stifled cry. "Oh! there isn"t a word of truth in what you say! Not a word! I did not think you could be so cruel!"
He bent forward, peering at her in astonishment.
"Cruel!"
"You know it is a hateful distortion--an exaggeration!" she exclaimed pa.s.sionately. "No man living could have so little sense as you say he has. The tariff is perfectly plain to any child. When you were in Plattville you weren"t like this--I didn"t know you were unkind!"
"I--I don"t understand, please----"
"Miss Hinsdale has been talking--raving--to me about you! You may not know it--though I suppose you do--but you made a conquest last night.
It seems a little hard on the poor young man who is at work for you in Plattville, doing his best for you, plodding on through the hot days, and doing all he knows how, while you sit listening to music in the evenings with Clara Hinsdale, and make a mock of his work and his trying to please you----"
"But I didn"t mention him to Miss Hinsdale. In fact, I didn"t mention _anything_ to Miss Hinsdale. What have I done? The young man is making his living by his work--and my living, too, for that matter. It only seems to me that his tariff editorials are rather humorous."
She laughed suddenly--ringingly. "Of course they are! How should I know?
Immensely humorous! And the good creature knows nothing beyond smuggling and the custom-house and chalk marks? Why, even _I_--ha, ha, ha!--even _I_--should have known better than that. What a little fool your enterprising idiot must be!--with his work-baskets and currant jelly and his trying to make the "Herald" a daily!--It will be a ludicrous failure, of course. No doubt he thought he was being quite wise, and was pleased over his tariff editorials--his funny, funny editorials--his best--to please you! Ha, ha, ha! How immensely funny!"
"Do you know him?" he asked abruptly.
"I have not the honor of the gentleman"s acquaintance. Ah," she rejoined bitterly, "I see what you mean; it is the old accusation, is it? I am a woman, and I "sound the personal note." I could not resent a cruelty for the sake of a man I do not know. But let it go. My resentment is personal, after all, since it is against a man I do know--_you_!"
He leaned toward her because he could not help it. "I"d rather have resentment from you than nothing."
"Then I will give you nothing," she answered quickly.
"You flout me!" he cried. "That is better than resentment."
"I hate you most, I think," she said with a tremulousness he did not perceive, "when you say you do not care to go back to Plattville."
"Did I say it?"
"It is in every word, and it is true; you don"t care to go back there."
"Yes, it is true; I don"t."
"You want to leave the place where you do good; to leave those people who love you, who were ready to die to avenge your hurt!" she exclaimed vehemently. "Oh, I say that is shameful!"
"Yes, I know," he returned gravely. "I am ashamed."
"Don"t say that!" she cried. "Don"t say you are ashamed of it. Do you suppose I do not understand the dreariness it has been for you? Don"t you know that I see it is a horror to you, that it brings back your struggle with those beasts in the dark, and revivifies all your suffering, merely to think of it?" Her turns and sudden contradictions left him tangled in a maze; he could not follow, but must sit helpless to keep pace with her, while the sheer happiness of being with her tingled through his veins. She rose and took a step aside, then spoke again: "Well, since you want to leave Carlow, you shall; since you do not wish to return, you need not.--Are you laughing at me?" She leaned toward him, and looked at him steadily, with her face close to his. He was not laughing; his eyes shone with a deep fire; in that nearness he hardly comprehended what she said. "Thank you for not laughing," she whispered, and leaned back from him. "I suppose you think my promises are quite wild, and they are. I do not know what I was talking about, or what I meant, any better than you do. You may understand some day. It is all--I mean that it hurts one to hear you say you do not care for Carlow." She turned away. "Come."
"Where?"
"It is my turn to conclude the interview. You remember, the last time it was you who--" She broke off, shuddering, and covered her face with her hands. "Ah, that!" she exclaimed. "I did not think--I did not mean to speak of that miserable, miserable night. And _I_ to be harsh with you for not caring to go back to Carlow!"