Flood Tide Part 17

"Indeed, there is no need for anything further," Robert Morton protested. "Perhaps, knowing me so little, it was only natural that he should distrust me."

"It was neither natural nor courteous," came hotly from Delight, "and I for one am mortified that any visitor to the village should receive such treatment."

Then as if clearing her skirts of the offending Mr. Eldridge, she drew herself to her full height and swept magnificently out the door. An awkward silence followed her departure.

Robert Morton hesitated, glancing uneasily from Willie to Janoah, scented a storm and, slipping softly from the shop, went in pursuit of the retreating figure.

"For goodness sake, Janoah, whatever set you makin' a speech like that?" Willie demanded, when the two were alone. "Have you gone plumb crazy? The very notion of your lightin' into that innocent young feller! What are you thinkin' of?"

"Mebbe he ain't so innocent as he seems," the accuser sneered.

The little old man faced him sharply.

"Come," he persisted, "let's have this thing out. What do you know about him?"

"What do you?" retorted Janoah, evading the question.

The inventor paused, chagrined.

"You don't know nothin' an' I don't know nothin'," continued Janoah, seizing the advantage he had gained. "Each of us is welcome to his opinion, ain't he? It's a free country. You're all fur believin' the chap's an angel out of heaven. You've swallered down every word he's uttered like as if it was gospel truth, an' took him into your own house same's if he was a relation. There's fish that gobble down bait just that way. I ain't that kind. Young men don't bury themselves up in a quiet spot like Wilton without they've got somethin' up their sleeve."

Staring intently at his friend, he noted with satisfaction that Willie's brow had clouded into a frown.

"Is it to be expected, I ask you now, is it to be expected that a spirited young sprig of a college feller such as him relishes spendin'

his time workin' away in this shop day in an' day out? What's he doin'

it fur, tell me that? This world ain't a benevolent inst.i.tution, an'

the folks in it don't go throwin' their elbow-grease away unless they look to get somethin' out of it. This Morton boy has boned down here like a slave. What's in it fur him?"

"Why, it's his vacation an'--"

"Vacation!" interrupted Janoah scornfully. "You call it a vacation, do you, for him to be workin' away here with you? You honestly think he hankers after doin' it?"

"He said he did."

"An' you believed it, I s'pose, same's you credited the rest of his talk," jeered Mr. Eldridge. "Look out the winder, Willie Spence, an'

tell me, if you was twenty instead of 'most seventy, if you'd be stayin' indoors a-carpenterin' these summer days when you could be outside?"

He swept a hand dramatically toward the cas.e.m.e.nt and in spite of himself the old man obeyed his injunction and looked.

A dome blue as larkspur arched the sky and to its farthest bound the sea, reflecting its azure tints, flashed and sparkled as if set with stars of gold. Along the sh.o.r.e where glittered reaches of hard white sand and a gentle breeze tossed into billows the salt gra.s.s edging the margin of the little creeks, fishermen launching their dories called to one another, their voices floating upward on the still air with musical clearness.

"Would you be puttin' in your vacation a-workin' all summer, Willie, if you was the age of that young man?" repeated Janoah.

"He ain't here for all summer," protested the unhappy inventor, catching at a straw. "He's only goin' to stay a little while."

"He was here fur over night at first, warn't he?" inquired the tormentor. "Then it lengthened into a week; an' the Lord only knows now how much longer he's plannin' to hang round the place. Besides, if he's only makin' a short visit, it's less likely than ever he'd want to put in the whole of it tinkerin' with you. He'd be goin' about seein'

Wilton, sailin', fishin', swimmin' or clammin', like other folks do that come here fur the summer, if he was a normal human bein'. But has he been anywheres yet? No, sir! I've had my weather eye out, an' I can answer for it that the feller ain't once poked his head out of this shop. What's made him so keen fur stayin' in Wilton an' workin'?"

Willie did not answer, but he took a great bandanna with a flaming border of scarlet from his pocket and mopped his forehead nervously.

"That young chap," resumed Janoah, holding up a grimy finger which he shook impressively at the wretched figure opposite, "is here for one of two reasons. You can like 'em or not, but they're true. He's either here to steal your ideas from you, or he's got his eye on Delight Hathaway."

He saw his victim start violently.

"Mebbe it's the one, mebbe it's the other; I ain't sayin'," announced Janoah with malicious pleasure. "It may even be both reasons put together. He's aimin' fur some landin' place, you can be certain of that, an' I'm warnin yer as a friend to look out fur him, that's all."

"I--I--don't believe it," burst out the little inventor, his benumbed faculties beginning slowly to a.s.semble themselves. "Why, there ain't a finer, better-spoken young man to be found than Bob Morton."

Janoah caught up the final phrase with derision.

"The better spoken he is the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he.

"There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab."

"I'll not believe it!" Willie reiterated.

Mr. Eldridge shrugged his shoulders.

"Take it or leave it," he said. "You're welcome to your own way. Only don't say I didn't warn yer."

Flinging this parting shot backward into the room, Janoah Eldridge pa.s.sed out into the rose-scented sunshine.

With a sad look in his eyes Willie let him go, watching the tall form as it strode waist-high through the brakes and sweet fern that patched the meadow. It was his first real quarrel with Janoah. Since boyhood they had been friends, the gentleness of the little inventor bridging the many disagreements that had arisen between them. Now had come this mammoth difference, a divergence of standard too vital to be smoothed over by a gloss of cajolery. Willie was angry through every fiber of his being. Slowly it seeped into his consciousness that Janoah's fundamental philosophy and his own were at odds; their att.i.tude of mind as antagonistic as the poles. Against trust loomed suspicion, against generosity narrowness, against optimism pessimism. Janoah believed the worst of the individual while he, Willie, reason as he might, inherently believed the best. One creed was the fruit of a jealous and envious personality that rejoiced rather than grieved over the limitations of our human clay; the other was a result of that charity _that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things_, because of a divine faith in the G.o.d in man.

For a long time Willie stood there thinking, his gaze fixed upon the gently swaying plumage of the pines. The shock of his discovery left him suddenly feeling very sad and very much alone. It was as if he had buried the friend of half a century. Yet even to bring Janoah back he could not retract the words he had uttered or exchange the light he followed for Janoah's sinister beckonings. In spite of a certain reasonableness in the pessimist's logic; in spite of circ.u.mstances he was incapable of explaining; in spite, even, of Cynthia Galbraith, a latent belief in Robert Morton's integrity crystallized into certainty, and he rose to his feet freed of the doubts that had previously a.s.sailed him.

At the instant of this emanc.i.p.ation the young man himself entered.

What had pa.s.sed during the interval since he had gone out of the workshop Willie could only surmise, but it had evidently been of sufficiently inspiring a character to bring into his countenance a radiance almost supernatural in its splendor. Nevertheless he did not speak but stood immovable before the little old inventor as if awaiting a judge's decree, the glory fading from his eyes and a half-veiled anxiety stealing into them.

Willie smiled and, reaching up, placed his hands on the broad shoulders that towered opposite.

"I'm sorry, Bob," he affirmed with a sweetness as winning as a woman's.

"You mustn't mind what Jan said. He's gettin' old an' a mite crabbed, an' he's kinder foolish about me, mebbe. I wouldn't 'a' had him hurt your feelin's--"

Robert Morton caught the expression of pain in the troubled face and cut the apology short.

"It's all right, Mr. Spence," he cried. "Don't give it another thought. So long as you remain my friend I don't care what Mr.

Eldridge thinks. We'll pa.s.s it off as jealousy and let it go at that."

The old man tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth drooped and he sighed instead. To have Janoah's weaknesses thus nakedly set forth by another was a very different thing from recognizing them himself, and instinctively his loyalty rose in protest.

"Mebbe 'twas jealousy," he replied. "Folks have always stood out that Janoah was jealous. But somehow I'd rather think 'twas tryin' to look after me an' my affairs that misled him. S'pose we call it a sort of slab-sided friendliness."

"We'll call it anything you like," a.s.sented Bob, with a happy laugh.

This time Willie laughed also.

"So she stood by you, did she?" queried he with quick understanding.