"For distinguished service beyond the line of duty," added the young wife, casually.
"I was so happy when I got your wire," sputtered her mother. "Of course, I was fl.u.s.tered just at first--so sudden and all."
"In the Army we do things suddenly," said Winona.
Heavy steps sounded within, and the judge paused at the open door. He was arrayed as for the Sabbath, a portentous figure in frock coat and gray trousers. A heavy scent of moth b.a.l.l.s had preceded him.
"What"s that new one I get?" asked Spike, sniffing curiously.
Winona pecked at her father"s marbled cheeks, then led him to the chair.
"Father, this is my husband."
"How do you do, sir?" began the judge, heavily.
Spike"s left forearm shielded his face, while his right hand went to meet the judge"s.
"It"s all right, Spike. No one else is going to kiss you."
"Spike?" queried the judge, uncertainly.
"It"s a sort of nickname for him," explained Winona.
She drew her mother through the doorway and they became murmurous in the parlour beyond.
"This here is a peach of a chair," said Spike.
The judge started painfully. Until this moment he had not detected the outrage.
"Wouldn"t you prefer this nice hammock?" he politely urged.
"No, thanks," replied Spike, firmly. "This chair kind of fits my frame."
Wilbur Cowan, standing farther along the porch, winked at Spike before he remembered.
"Say, ain"t you French?" demanded the judge with a sudden qualm.
He had taken no stock in that fool talk of Dave Cowan"s about a French n.o.bleman; still, you never could tell. He had thought it as well to be dressed for it should he be required to meet even impoverished n.o.bility.
"h.e.l.l, no!" said Spike. "Irish!" He moved uneasily in the chair. "Excuse me," he added.
"Oh!" said the judge, regretting the superior comfort of his linen suit.
He eyed the chair with covetous glance. "Well, I hope everything"s all for the best," he said, doubtfully.
"How beautiful it smells!" said Spike, sniffing away from the moth b.a.l.l.s toward the rosebush. "Everything"s beautiful, and this peach of a chair and all. What gets me--how a beautiful girl like she is could ever take a second look at me."
The judge regarded him sharply, with a new attention to the hidden eyes.
"Say, are you blind?" he asked.
"Blind as a bat! Can"t see my hand before my face."
The horrified judge stalked to the door.
"You hear that?" he called in, but only the parrot heeded him.
"Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle!" it screeched.
Winona and her mother came to the door. They had been absent for a brief cry.
"What she could ever see in me," Spike was repeating--"a pretty girl like that!"
"Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" screamed the parrot.
Its concluding laugh was evil with irony. Winona sped to the cage, regarding her old pet with dismay. She glanced back at Spike.
"Smart birdie, all right, all right," called Spike. "He knows her."
"Pretty girl, pretty girl!" Again came the derisive guffaw.
Never had Polly"s sarcasm been so biting. Winona turned a murderous glance from it and looked uneasily back at her man.
"Dinner"s on," called Mrs. Penniman.
"I"m having one of my bad days," groaned the judge. "Don"t feel as if I could eat a mouthful."
But he was merely insuring that he could be the first to leave the table plausibly. He intended that the apparent misunderstanding about the wicker chair should have been but a thing of the moment, quickly past and forgotten.
"Why, what"s the trouble with you, Father?" asked Winona in the tone of one actually seeking information.
The judge shot her a hurt look. It was no way to address an invalid of his standing.
"Chow, Spike," said Wilbur, and would have guided him, but Winona was lightly before him.
Dave Cowan followed them from the little house.
"Present me to His Highness," said he, after kneeling to kiss the hand of Winona.
The mid-afternoon hours beheld Spike Brennon again strangely occupying the wicker porch chair. He even wielded the judge"s very own palm-leaf fan as he sat silent, sniffing at intervals toward the yellow rose. Once he was seen to be moving his hand, with outspread fingers, before his face.
Winona had maneuvered her father from the chair, nor had she the grace to veil her subterfuge after she lured him to the back of the house. She merely again had wished to know what, in plain terms, his ailment was; what, for that matter, had been the trouble with him for twenty years.
The judge fell speechless with dismay.
"You eat well and you sleep well, and you"re well nourished" went on the daughter, remorseless all at once.
"Little you know," began the judge at last.