"No, but, seems to me, Silas does," replied the other.
CHAPTER VI
One bright morning three days later, as Phyl was crossing Meeting Street near the Charleston Hotel, whom should she meet but Silas.
Silas in town get up, quite a different looking individual from the Silas of Grangersons, dressed in perfectly fitting light grey tweed, a figure almost condoning one for the use of that old-time, half-discredited word "Elegant."
"There you are," said Silas, his face lighting up. "I thought it wouldn"t be long before I met you. Meeting Street is like a rabbit run, and I reckon the whole of Charleston pa.s.ses through it twice a day."
His manner was genuinely frank and open, and he seemed to have completely forgotten the incident of the kissing. Phyl said nothing for a moment; she felt put out, angry at having been caught like a rabbit, and not over pleased at being compared to one.
Then she spoke freezingly enough:
"I don"t know much about the habits of Charleston; you will not find _me_ here every day. I have only been out twice here alone and--I"m in a hurry."
"Why, what"s the matter with you?" cried Silas in a voice of astonishment.
"Nothing."
"But there is, you"re not angry with me, are you?"
"Not in the least," replied the other, quite determined to avoid being drawn into explanations.
"Well, that"s all right. You don"t mind my walking with you a bit?"
"No!"
"I only came here last night, and I"m putting up at the Charleston," said Silas. "Of course there are a lot of friends I could stay with but I always prefer being free; one is never quite free in another person"s house; for one thing you can"t order the servants about, though, upon my word, now-a-days one can"t do that, much, anywhere."
"I suppose not," said Phyl.
The fact was being borne in upon her that Silas in town was a different person from Silas in the country, or seemed so; more sedate and more conventional. She also noticed as they walked along that he was saluted by a great many people, and also, before she had done with him that morning, she noticed that the leery, impudent looking, coloured folk seemed to come under a blight as they pa.s.sed him, giving him the wall and yards to spare.
It was as though the impersonification of the blacksnake whip were walking with her as well as a most notoriously dangerous man, a man who would strike another down, white or coloured, for a glance, not to say a word.
She had come out on business, commissioned by Miss Pinckney to purchase a ball of magenta Berlin wool. Miss Pinckney still knitted antimaca.s.sars, and the construction of antimaca.s.sars is impossible without Berlin wool--that obsolete form of German Frightfulness.
She bestowed the things on poor folk to brighten their homes.
When Phyl went into the store to buy the wool Silas waited outside, and when she came out they walked down the street together.
She had intended returning straight home after making her purchase but they were walking now not towards Vernons but towards the Battery.
"What do you do with yourself all day?" asked Silas, suddenly breaking silence.
"Oh, I don"t know," she replied, "nothing much--we go out for drives."
"In that old basket carriage thing?"
"With Miss Pinckney."
"I know, I"ve seen her often--what else do you do?"
"Oh, I read."
"What do you read?"
"Books."
"Doesn"t Pinckney ever take you out?"
"No, I don"t go out much with Mr. Pinckney; you see, he"s generally so busy."
Silas sniffed. They had reached the Battery and were standing looking over the blue water of the harbour. The day was perfect, dreamy, heavenly, warm and filled with sea scents and harbour sounds; scarcely a breath of wind stirred across the water where a three-master was being towed to her moorings by a tug.
"She"s coming up to the wharves," said Silas. "They steer by the spire of St. Philips, the line between there and Fort Sumpter is all deep water.
How"d you like to be a sailor?"
"Wouldn"t mind," said Phyl.
"How"d you like to take a boat--I mean a decent sized fishing yawl and go off round the world, or even down Florida way? Florida"s fine, you don"t know Florida, it"s got two coasts and it"s hard to tell which is the best.
From Indian River right round and up to Cedar Keys there"s all sorts of fishing, and you can camp out on the reefs; one cooks one"s own food and you can swim all day. There"s tarpon and barracuda and sword fish, and nights when there"s a moon you could see to read a book."
"How jolly!"
"Let"s go there?"
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, just you and I. I"m fed up with everything. We could have a boatman to help sail and steer."
He spoke lightly and laughingly, and without much enthusiasm and as though he were talking to some one of his own s.e.x, and Phyl, not knowing how to take him, said nothing.
He went on, his tone growing warmer.
"I"m not joking, I"m dead sick of Grangersons and Charleston, and I reckon you are too--aren"t you?"
"No."
"You may think so, but you are, all the same, without knowing it."
"I think you are talking nonsense," said Phyl hurriedly, fighting against a deadly sort of paralysis of mind such as one may suppose comes upon the mind of a bird under the spell of a serpent.
"No one could be kinder than Miss Pinckney, and so no one could be happier than I am. I love Vernons."
"All the same," said Silas, "you are not really alive there. It"s the life of a cabbage, must be, there"s only you and Maria and--Pinckney. Maria is a decent old sort but she"s only a woman, and as for Pinckney--he doesn"t care for you."