The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
Читать онлайн книгу.
Oblongs of light abruptly dropped from the windows confronting them, one, falling across the bench, appropriately touching with lemon the acrid, withered face and trembling hands of the veteran. "You are younger than you were nine years ago, Mr. Arp," said Ariel, gayly. "I caught a glimpse of you upon the street, to-day, and I thought so then. Now I see that I was right."
"Me--YOUNGER!" he groaned. "No, ma'am! I'm mighty near through with this fool world--and I'd be glad of it, if I didn't expect that if there IS another one afterwards, it would be jest as ornery!"
She laughed, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knee, and her chin in her hand, so that the shadow of her hat shielded her eyes from the light. "I thought you looked surprised when you saw me to day."
"I reckon I did!" he exclaimed. "Who wouldn't of been?"
"Why?"
"Why?" he repeated, confounded by her simplicity. "Why?"
"Yes," she laughed. "That's what I'm anxious to know."
"Wasn't the whole town the same way?" he demanded. "Did you meet anybody that didn't look surprised?"
"But why should they?"
"Good Lord Admighty!" he broke out. "Ain't you got any lookin'-glasses?"
"I think almost all I have are still in the customs warehouse."
"Then use Mamie Pike's," responded the old man. "The town never dreamed you were goin' to turn out pretty at all, let alone the WAY you've turned out pretty! The Tocsin had a good deal about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter from Paris, but the folks that remembered you kind of set that down to the way papers talk about anybody with money, and nobody was prepared for it when they saw you. You don't need to drop no curtseys to ME." He set his mouth grimly, in response to the bow she made him. "_I_ think female beauty is like all other human furbelows, and as holler as heaven will be if only the good people are let in! But yet I did stop to look at you when you went past me to-day, and I kept on lookin', long as you were in sight. I reckon I always will, when I git the chance, too--only shows what human nature IS! But that wasn't all that folks were starin' at to-day. It was your walkin' with Joe Louden that really finished 'em, and I can say it upset me more than anything I've seen for a good many years."
"Upset you, Mr. Arp?" she cried. "I don't quite see."
The old man shook his head deploringly. "After what I'd written you about that boy--"
"Ah," she said, softly, touching his sleeve with her fingers, "I haven't thanked you for that."
"You needn't," he returned, sharply. "It was a pleasure. Do you remember how easy and quick I promised you?"
"I remember that you were very kind."
"Kind!" He gave forth an acid and chilling laugh. "It was about two months after Louden ran away, and before you and Roger left Canaan, and you asked me to promise to write to you whenever word of that outcast came--"
"I didn't put it so, Mr. Arp."
"No, but you'd ought of! You asked me to write you whatever news of him should come, and if he came back to tell you how and when and all about it. And I did it, and kept you sharp on his record ever since he landed here again. Do you know why I've done it? Do you know why I promised so quick and easy I WOULD do it?"
"Out of the kindness of your heart, I think."
The acid laugh was repeated. "NO, ma 'am! You couldn't of guessed colder. I promised, and I kept my promise, because I knew there would never be anything good to tell! AND THERE NEVER WAS!"
"Nothing at all?" she insisted, gravely.
"Never! I leave it to you if I've written one good word of him."
"You've written of the treatment he has received here," she began, "and I've been able to see what he has borne--and bears!"
"But have I written one word to show that he didn't deserve it all? Haven't I told you everything, of his associates, his--"
"Indeed you have!"
"Then do you wonder that I was more surprised than most when I saw you walking with him to-day? Because I knew you did it in cold blood and knowledge aforethought! Other folks thought it was because you hadn't been here long enough to hear his reputation, but I KNEW!"
"Tell me," she said, "if you were disappointed when you saw me with him."
"Yes," he snapped. "I was!"
"I thought so. I saw the consternation in your face! You APPROVED, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yes, you do! I know it bothers you to have me read you between the lines, but for this once you must let me. You are so consistent that you are never disappointed when things turn out badly, or people are wicked or foolish, are you?"
"No, certainly not. I expect it."
"And you were disappointed in me to-day. Therefore, it must be that I was doing something you knew was right and good. You see?" She leaned a little closer to him, smiling angelically. "Ah, Mr. Arp," she cried, "I know your secret: you ADMIRE me!"
He rose, confused and incoherent, as full of denial as a detected pickpocket. "I DON'T! Me ADMIRE? WHAT? It's an ornery world," he protested. "I don't admire any human that ever lived!"
"Yes, you do," she persisted. "I've just proved it! But that is the least of your secret; the great thing is this: YOU ADMIRE MR. LOUDEN!"
"I never heard such nonsense," he continued to protest, at the same time moving down the walk toward the gate, leaning heavily on his stick. "Nothin' of the kind. There ain't any LOGIC to that kind of an argument, nor no REASON!"
"You see, I understand you," she called after him. "I'm sorry you go away in the bitterness of being found out."
"Found out!" His stick ceased for a moment to tap the cement. "Pooh!" he ejaculated, uneasily. There was a pause, followed by a malevolent chuckle. "At any rate," he said, with joy in the afterthought, "you'll never go walkin' with him AGAIN!"
He waited for the answer, which came, after a time, sadly. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I shall not."
"Ha, I thought so! Good-night."
"Good-night, Mr. Arp."
She turned toward the lighted house. Through the windows nearest her she could see Mamie, seated in the familiar chair, following with happy and tender eyes the figure of Eugene, who was pacing up and down the room. The town was deadly quiet: Ariel could hear the sound of footsteps perhaps a block away. She went to the gate and gazed a long time into the empty street, watching the yellow grains of light, sieved through the maples from the arc lights on the corner, moving to and fro in the deep shadow as the lamp swung slightly in the night air. Somewhere, not far away, the peace was broken by the screams of a "parlor organ," which honked and wailed in pious agonies (the intention was hymnal), interminably protracting each spasm. Presently a woman's voice outdid the organ, a voice which made vivid the picture of the woman who owned it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the nose-glasses, when the "grace-notes" were proudly given birth. "Rescue the Perishing" was the startlingly appropriate selection, rendered with inconceivable lingering upon each syllable: "Roos-cyoo the Poor-oosh-oong!" At unexpected intervals two male voices, evidently belonging to men who had contracted the habit of holding tin in their mouths, joined the lady in a thorough search for the Lost Chord.
That was the last of silence in Canaan for an hour or so. The organ was merely inaugural: across the street a piano sounded; firm, emphatic, determined, vocal competition with the instrument here also; "Rock of Ages" the incentive. Another piano presently followed suit, in a neighboring house: "Precious