""If a man went right with himself." Oh, Eugene, Eugene!" she murmured, half aloud. "You hitched your wagon to a star, but to what kind of a star--to what kind of a star?"
Then came a greater query: "Shall I go back to "Eden," to Aunt Jerry"s rule, to Eugene, to love, to easy, dependent, purposeless living? Shall I?"
A blank wall seemed suddenly to be flung across her way. Should she climb over it, hammer an opening through it, or turn back and run from it?
With these questions stalking before her she had come out to dinner and York Macpherson"s genial, entertaining conversation, and to Laura Macpherson"s gracious intuition and soothing sympathy.
Early in the evening, as the Macphersons with their guest sat watching the splendor of the sunset sky, Jerry said, suddenly:
"It has been two weeks to-day since I came here. Quite long enough for a stranger"s first visit."
"A "stranger,"" Laura Macpherson repeated. "A "stranger" who asked to be called "Jerry" the first thing. We are all so well acquainted with this "stranger" that we wouldn"t want to give her up now."
"But I must give you up pretty soon." Jerry spoke earnestly.
"Why "must"? Has the East too strong a hold for the West to break?"
York asked.
"I came out here because I believed my land would support me, and I had all sorts of foolish dreams of what I might find here that would be new and romantic." Jerry"s eyes had a far-away look in them as she recalled the unrealized picture of her prairie domain.
"You haven"t answered my question yet," York reminded her.
Jerry dropped her eyes, the bloom deepened on her fair cheek, and she clasped her small hands together. For a long time no word was spoken.
"I didn"t answer your question. I am not going back to Philadelphia.
There must be something else besides land in the West," Jerry said, at last.
"Yes, _we_ are here. Do stay right here with us," Laura Macpherson urged, warmly.
Every day the companionship of this girl had grown upon her, for that was Jerry"s gift. But to the eager invitation of her hostess the girl only shook her head.
York Macpherson sat combing his fingers through the heavy brown waves of his hair, a habit of his when he was thinking deeply. But if a vision of what might be came to him unbidden now, a vision that had come unbidden many times in the last two weeks, making sweeter the smile that won men to him, he put it resolutely away from him for the time. He must help this girl to help herself. Romance belonged to other men. He was not of the right mold for that--not now, at least.
"I heard to-day that there is need of a mathematics teacher in our high-school for next year. It pays eighty dollars a month," he said.
"Oh, York," Laura protested, earnestly. "You know Jerry never thought of such a thing as teaching. And I really must have her here. You are away so much, you know you are."
But her brother only smiled. When York Macpherson frowned he might be giving in, but his sister knew that his smile meant absolute resistance.
"Ponk was talking to me to-day. He is the treasurer of the school board now, and he mentioned the vacancy. He was casting about for some one fitted to teach mathematics. Even though his mind runs more on his garage than on education, he has a deep interest in the schools. He admires your ability to manage a car so much it occurred to him that you might consider this position. Fine course of reasoning, but he is sure of his ground."
"Let me think it over," Jerry said, slowly.
"And then forget it," Laura suggested. "York and I are invited out this evening. Won"t you come with us? It is just a little informal doings across the river."
"I would rather be alone to-night," her guest replied.
So the Macphersons let her have her way.
IX
IF A WOMAN WENT RIGHT WITH HERSELF
And thus it happened that Jerry Swaim was alone this evening behind the honeysuckle-vines, with leaf shadow and moonbeams falling caressingly on her filmy white gown and golden hair. For a long time she sat still.
Once she said, half aloud, unconscious that she was speaking at all:
"So Eugene Wellington has given up his art for an easy berth in the Darby bank. He hadn"t the courage to resist the temptation, though it made him a tool instead of a master of tools. And we promised each other we would each make our own way, independent of Aunt Jerry"s money. Maybe if I had been there things would have been different."
She gripped her hands in her quick, nervous way, as a homesick longing swept her soul. She was searching a way out for Eugene, a cause for putting all the blame on Aunt Jerry.
"I wish I had gone with the Macphersons. I could have forgotten, for a while at least."
A light step inside the house caught her ear.
"Maybe Laura has come home," she thought, too absorbed in herself to ask why Laura should have chosen the side door when she knew that Jerry was alone on the front porch.
Again she heard a movement just inside the open door; then a step on the threshold; and then a tall, thin woman walked out of the house and half-way across the wide porch before she caught sight of Jerry in an easy-chair behind the honeysuckle-vines. The intruder paused a second, staring at the corner where the girl sat motionless. From her childhood Jerry had possessed unusual physical courage. To-night it was curiosity, rather than fright, that prompted her to keep still while the strange woman"s eyes were upon her. Evidently the intruder was more surprised than herself, and Jerry let her make the first move in the game. The woman was angular, with swift but ungraceful motion. For a long time, as such seconds go, she stared at the white figure hidden by the shadows of the vines. Then with a quick stride she thrust herself before the girl and dropped into a chair.
"Well, well! This is Miss Swim, ain"t it?"
"As well that as anything. I can"t land anywhere," Jerry thought.
"I"m Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, a good friend of Laury Macpherson as she"s got in this town, unless it"s you. I seen you in York"s office this afternoon. I was sorry I intruded on you two when you come purpose to see him in his private office. When girls wants to see him that way they don"t want n.o.body, "specially women, around."
Mrs. Bahrr paused to giggle and to give Jerry time to parry her thrust, meanwhile pinning her through with the sharp points of her eyes that fairly gleamed in the shadow-checkered moonlight of the porch. Jerry was not accustomed to being accountable to anybody for what she chose to do, nor did she know that every man in New Eden, except York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk--and every woman, without exception--really feared Stella Bahrr, knowing that she would hesitate at no kind of warfare to accomplish her purpose. It is generally easier to be decent than to be courageous, and peace at any price may be more desired than nasty word battles. Not knowing Stella for the woman she was, Jerry had no mind to consider her at all, so she waited for her caller to proceed or to leave her.
"You must excuse me if I seem to be interfering in your affairs. You are a stranger here except to York and that man Ponk--" Stella began, thrusting her hooks more viciously into her catch.
"Oh, you didn"t interfere," Jerry interrupted her indifferently, and then paused.
Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath. The girl was sinfully pretty and attractive, her beauty and grace in themselves alone railing out at the older woman"s ugly spirit of envy. And she should be tender, with feeling to be lacerated for these gifts of nature. Instead, she was firm and hard, with no vulnerable spot for a poisoned shaft.
"I"m sure you had a right to go into a man"s private office. It"s everybody"s right, of course," she began, with that faint sneering tone of hers that carried a threat of what might follow.
"Yes, but a little discourteous in me to drive you out. That was Mr.
Macpherson"s fault, not mine," Jerry broke in, easily.
"Maybe that"s her grievance. I"ll be decent about it," the girl was thinking.
"I"m awfully bored right now." The wind shifted quickly. "I run up to see Laury a minute. Just slipped in the side-stoop way to save troublin"
you an" York out here. I knowed Laury wouldn"t be here, an", would you believe it? I clar forgot they was gone out, an" I seen you all leavin", too--I mean them, of course."
The threatening tone could not be reproduced. It carried, however, a most uncomfortable force like a cruel undertow beneath the seemingly safe crest of a wave.