Ramshackle House. Footner Hulbert

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      “Shall we go outside?” suggested Counsell.

      “Mosquitoes!” said Pen smiling.

      She led the way into the great dim drawing-rooms on the other side of the hall. The only illumination was given by a piano lamp with a yellow paper shade standing beside an old ebony upright.

      “You play?” asked Counsell.

      “Not for you,” said Pen promptly. “You know too much.”

      “Anyway, I’d rather have you talk to me,” he said. “We haven’t started to get acquainted yet.”

      Pen’s inner voice cried: “What’s the use? What’s the use?”

      Her little painful smile tantalized him. He said involuntarily: “You mock at everything I say.”

      “Not at you,” said Pen. “At myself!”

      “I don’t understand you,” he complained.

      “And you have known so many girls!” said Pen, drawing down the corners of her lips.

      “Yes,” he said. “But never one like you. In town they seem to be cut out pretty much to a pattern. Some well cut, some badly. But all the same pattern.”

      Pen thought: “He’s a good-natured sort. He thinks I expect to hear this sort of thing.”

      There they sat side by side on the big sofa in the seductive half light of the great room—but something was the matter. They made no progress. Perhaps having desired this moment so much, the realization of it frightened them. With too much feeling they were dumb; and they did not know each other well enough to be comfortably silent together. So each made various attempts to start something which only resulted in utter banality. They found themselves talking as primly as a couple in an old-fashioned romance. The sources of laughter were frozen up. And the more self-conscious they became, the stiffer grew their tongues.

      It was chiefly Pen’s fault. She got the notion in her head that he merely desired to repay her hospitality with a little gallantry, and she blighted his warm overtures as with a frost. It was due to her fatal instinct to guard against a pain which might be more than she could bear.

      However the young man was determined; moreover he had a reputation to keep up. More experienced than Pen he had learned how a little naturalness clears the air, and he was resolved to speak his mind no matter how hard she made it for him. In the end he blurted it out awkwardly:

      “Why shouldn’t I tell you…? A fellow like me…knocking about…making a joke of everything…you get the notion girls are charming useless creatures you’ve got to put up with because they’re so charming…and lots of them are useless without even being charming… Makes a man cynical…and then to meet one more charming than any and useful!… Oh, I express myself rottenly!… Well, it gives you a jolt. You’ve got to rearrange all your ideas…”

      This was simply more than Pen could bear. She insisted to herself that it was simply gallantry on his part. Gallantry is part of the Maryland tradition. She laughed in a way that dried him up, and made him turn a dull red.

      “Thanks for useful,” she said.

      The sullen, hurt glance he bent on her seemed to say: “You’re charming but you’re very prickly!”

      That put the finish to their conservation. To the outward view they presented the spectacle of two normal young people slightly bored with each other and exchanging perfunctory remarks, but in reality each was suffering keenly. They couldn’t make it go. Pendleton returned to the dining-room where they could hear him rattling the newspaper, and they were even ready to wish that he would come in and separate them in their unhappiness. Finally Counsell got the idea that Pen wished to be rid of him. After all he’d been hanging about the place all day. He rose to go.

      Pen’s heart said: “This is the end!” But her face only showed a polite and wistful blank. She said quietly:

      “You’ll be moving on to-morrow, I suppose.”

      “I suppose so,” he said sullenly.

      Pen greatly wished to say: “Well don’t forget us,” or something of the sort, light and friendly, but she could not get the words out.

      And of course he took her silence to mean it was all one to her whether he went or stayed.

      But he could not go like that. He hung indecisively at the door of the room. Finally he blurted out like a boy:

      “I say, what’s the matter?”

      “Why, nothing!” answered Pen with a startled look.

      “This afternoon we were like pals.… What have I done to offend you?”

      “Nothing whatever,” said Pen.

      “Oh,” he said sorely, “then it’s just that you don’t fancy my style much anyhow.”

      “Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” said Pen with a teasing smile. Heaven knows what it cost her.

      “I quite understand,” he said with a man’s absurd injured vanity.

      “You understand nothing!” murmured Pen.

      He moved to the front door, and failed to hear her. For a moment or two they looked unhappily out at the night. The moon had risen behind the house and was casting long shadows athwart the lawn. Beyond the edge of the bank there was a mystical sea of subdued radiance.

      “Well…good-night…good-by,” he mumbled. “Thank you so much for your kindness…good-by.”

      “My kindness!” Pen’s heart cried. “Good-by,” she said aloud, without a suspicion of a shake or a tremor. “Father is in the dining-room.”

      “Please say good-night to him for me,” he said hurriedly… “Good-by.” He held out his hand.

      “Good-by,” said Pen, letting her cold fingers lie within his for a moment without any response to his pressure.

      He went slowly across the front porch and stepped down. She closed the door. She stood there, her arms hanging. Her thoughts were like a dialogue back and forth within her.

      “He didn’t want to go. Why did you send him?.… But what did he want to stay for? Just a summer night’s flirtation. That would have finished me. It’s better this way… Maybe he meant it… No! That sort of happiness is not for me! Might as well get used to it soon as late!… I’m not going to run upstairs and cry, either! There are the chickens to fasten up, the yeast to make and the milk to set out!” Her arms went up above her head and fell again. “Oh God! but life is dreary!”

      From the dining-room her father called her in a strange, agitated voice that sent the blood flying from her heart:

      “Pen! Pen! Come here, quickly!”

CHAPTER II

      THE STORY IN THE SUN-PAPER

      When Pen СКАЧАТЬ