"I have to ask you to change to the large boat going back," he said, a little stiffly perhaps; "Mr. Jonas is taking Mrs. Garnier in the small one, and Mr. Henderson says he will see to you."
When she answered her voice was lightly nonchalant.
"Why not?" she said, absorbed in putting on her jacket.
She took her place in the boat by Mr. Henderson. Evidently the evening had gone wrong with him, for his face was ghastly in the moonlight, and his long, nervous fingers never stopped fingering the little gold cross hanging below the line of his vest.
William Leroy did not return with the party at all. Not that she was concerned with that, Alexina a.s.sured herself proudly, it was only that she could not help hearing the others wondering at his entering a boat with the negro boy and rowing swiftly away up the lake. It was clear to her. Lake Nancy would have been the next lake on the chain had the channel been cut. He meant to tramp across home to save himself the trouble of going back to town. She did not think he had very good manners at any rate. Yet, when the boats came in at the hotel pier, it was William Leroy who met them. He waited for Alexina and walked with her a little ahead of the others up through the yard.
"Mrs. Garnier is not well," he told her. "I went home and drove in and Mr. Jonas is putting her in the wagon now. We"ll take her out to mother; she"s all upset over something."
She stopped short, having forgotten her mother. "I can"t let you," she declared; "it isn"t right to Mrs. Leroy."
"Mother"s waiting," he said. "You"d better go in and say something to somebody, and get Celeste."
Mrs. Leroy said that people always obeyed the King William tone.
Alexina stood, hesitating. He waited.
Then she went.
He was in the wagonette when she and Celeste came out. The place was still and deserted, even Mr. Jonas gone, for which Alexina was grateful.
Molly was on the back seat, and Celeste, gaunt and taciturn, started to mount beside her.
Molly protested. "Not you, mammy; go in front. I want Malise--not the big Malise, you know--the little one."
The girl, taking the wraps from the old woman, got in by her mother and began to put a shawl about her. The dew was falling heavily. Molly touched her hand. "Once Alexander said to me, "Let Malise keep tight hold on you, Molly.""
William Leroy was flicking the mules travelling briskly through the sandy streets, and talking to the old woman, but she was sullen and the conversation died.
Alexina"s heart was choking her. Her father--daddy--Molly had spoken to her of daddy.
And all the while Molly was talking on, feverishly, incessantly. "You must keep him away, Malise, that minister, he worries me and his eyes make me uncomfortable, following me. He makes me remember things, and I don"t want to. He says it"s his duty. He said to-night I"m not going to get well and that he had to tell me in order to save me from myself. Make him keep away from me, Malise; I"m afraid of him. I took it, _that_, to-night, to forget what he said; say it isn"t so, Malise--say it."
w.i.l.l.y leaned back over the seat, talking in steady, everyday fashion.
"There"s the moon setting ahead of us; see it, Mrs. Garnier?
Everything"s so still, you say? Why, no; it"s not so still. There is a c.o.c.k crowing somewhere, and that must be a gopher scuttling under the palmetto. Now, look backward. See that line of light? It"s the dawn."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next evening at Nancy, an hour or two after supper, King William was tapping at Mrs. Garnier"s door, which was ajar.
"She is asleep," warned Alexina from within.
"Then come on out," he begged, "the moon"s up."
"Go on," Mrs. Leroy told her, "w.i.l.l.y wants you," which to Charlotte was reason for all things.
"It"s windy," he called softly, "bring a wrap."
The girl came, bringing her reefer jacket and her Tam and put them on in the hall. The jacket was blue, the Tam was scarlet, and both were jaunty. He regarded her in them with satisfaction.
"Now, there," said he, with King William approval, "I like that."
They went down and out. She was tired, she said, so they sat on the bench under the wild orange. The moss, drooping from the branches, fluttered above them. The wind was fitful, lifting and dying. It was a grey night, with scattered mists lying low over the lake, while a shoal of little clouds were slipping across the face of the moon.
"It"s been too soft and warm," said he; "it can"t last."
But Alexina shivered a little, for there was a chill whenever the wind rose.
"Walk down to the pier," he begged, "and back. Then you shall go in."
The path led through the grove. Stopping to select an orange for her, he pa.s.sed his hand almost caressingly up and down a limb of the tree.
"And you begin to pick the oranges Monday?" said Alexina.
"Monday."
"And this is Thursday."
They walked on. He was peeling away the yellow rind that she might have a white cup to drink from.
"I won"t be here to see the picking," said Alexina. "I have to go to Kentucky for two weeks, something about business. Uncle Austen wrote me in the letter you brought out to-day, that it would simplify things if I could come. And Emily--Emily Carringford, you know--Uncle Austen"s wife, wrote too, asking me to stay with them."
"So," said he, "you go--"
"Monday. I"ve been talking to your mother, and she"s willing, if Captain Leroy and you are; I came out to ask you--I am always to be asking favors of your family, it seems--if you will let me leave Molly here instead of at the hotel. Celeste can attend to everything."
"Why not?" asked w.i.l.l.y.
"It"s--it"s a business proposition," said Alexina. But it took a bit of courage to bring it out.
"Is it?" said he.
"Or I can"t do it, you know."
They had reached the lake and were sitting like children on the edge of the pier. The water was ruffled, the incoming waves white-crested, and the wind was soughing a little around the boat-house behind them.
He was breaking bits off a twig and flinging them out to see them drift in.
"Great country this," he said, "that can"t produce a pebble for a fellow to fling."
He looked off toward the shining, shadowy distance, where the moon gleamed against the mists. "You are"--then he changed the form of his question--"are you very rich?"
"Leave the very out, and, yes, I suppose I am rich," said Alexina.