Fran Part 27

She gripped the whip tightly. He could not loosen her hold, but he could keep her hand in his, which was just as well. Still, a semblance of struggling was called for, and that is why the sound of approaching wheels was drowned in laughter.

"Here we are!" Fran cried wickedly--"Make-Believe World of Every-Day, and some of its inhabitants..."

A surrey had come down the seldom-used road--had Miss Sapphira followed Abbott in order to discover him with Fran? The suspicion was not just, but his conscience seemed to turn color--or was it his face?

In fact, Fran and Abbott were both rather red--caused, possibly, by their struggle over the whip.

On the front seat of the surrey were Miss Sapphira and Bob Clinton. On the back seat was Simon Jefferson whose hairy hand gripped a halter fastened to a riderless horse: the very horse which should have been between the shafts of the Gregory buggy.

Miss Sapphira stared at Abbott, speechless. So _this_ is what he had meant by wanting the air unstrained by window-screens. Studying, indeed! Abbott, in his turn, stared speechlessly at the led horse.

Bob Clinton drew rein, and grasped his hay-colored mustache, inadequate to the situation. He glanced reproachfully at Abbott; the young fellow must know that his fate was to be decided this very night.

Abbott could not take his fill of the sight of Simon Jefferson whom he had fancied not far away, eyes glued on cork, hands in pockets to escape mosquitoes, sun on back, serenely fishing. He had supposed the horse grazing near by, enjoying semi-freedom with his gra.s.s. Now it seemed far otherwise. Miss Sapphira had even had him telephone to Bob to bring her hither. With his own hands he had dug his pitfall.

Fran, suddenly aware of her ridiculous att.i.tude, sat down and began to laugh.

Bob Clinton inquired, "Taking a drive, Abb?"

Miss Sapphira set her heavy foot upon her brother's unseemly jocularity. "Unfortunately," said Miss Sapphira, speaking with cold civility, "Mr. Jefferson had to come clear to town before he could recapture the horse. We were giving him a lift, and had no idea--no _idea_ that we should find--should come upon--We are sorry to intrude." Had her life depended on it, Miss Sapphira could not have withheld a final touch--"Possibly you were not looking for Mr.

Jefferson to come back _so soon."_

"Why," answered Abbott, stepping to the ground, "hardly so soon." At any rate, he felt that nothing was to be gained by staying in the buggy. "Is that the horse that belongs to this buggy? Let me hitch it up, Mr. Simon."

"This has been a terrible experience for me," growled Simon. All the same, he let Abbott do the work, but not as if he meant to repay him with grat.i.tude.

"What was the matter with your horse, anyway?" Abbott cheerfully inquired.

Simon looked at him sourly. "Didn't Fran tell you that the horse got scared at her throwing rocks at my cork, and broke from the tree where I'd fastened it, and bolted for town?"

"Mr. Simon," said Fran innocently, "I don't believe the horse was mentioned once, while you were gone."

"It would be interesting to know what was," remarked Robert with humor so dry that apparently it choked him; he fell to coughing huskily.

Miss Sapphira gave him a look while he was struggling in his second paroxysm. It healed him by suggestion.

"Turn," said Miss Sapphira with becoming gravity. Robert, still under the influence of her thought-wave, solemnly drove her from the scene.

When the last buckle was clasped--"I came out here for a quiet peaceable fishing," said Simon.

"I've spent my time hunting horses, and being afraid something might happen to Fran."

"Mr. Ashton took care of me," Fran said rea.s.suringly.

Simon cried explosively, "And who took care of _him?"_ He climbed in beside Fran and begrudgingly offered Abbott the imaginary s.p.a.ce of a third occupant; but Abbott declared his preference for strolling.

"This has been a hard day for my heart," Simon grumbled, as he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the whip vindictively.

The buggy rolled away.

"Mine, too," Abbott called after them emphatically.

Fran looked back at him, from over the lowered top. He saw her hand go to her bosom, then something fluttered in the air and fell in the gra.s.sy road. He darted after it as if it were a clue, showing the way to the princess' castle.

Perhaps it was. He pounced upon it--it was the Queen of Hearts.

CHAPTER XVI

A TAMER OF LIONS

The life of a household progresses, usually by insensible gradations, toward some great event, some climax, for the building of which each day has furnished its grain of sand. To-day, Hamilton Gregory and Grace Noir were in the library, with nothing to indicate the approach of the great moment in their lives. It was Grace's impatience to drive Fran away even before Robert Clinton should bring the secret from Springfield, that precipitated matters.

Grace might have been prompted in part by personal antipathy, but she believed herself acting from a pure sense of duty. Those who absented themselves from the house of worship were goats; those who came were sheep. In vain might you delude yourself that you were a camel, horse, or bird of plumage; to Grace's thinking, there were no such animals in the religious world--her clear eye made nothing of hump, flowing mane, or gaudy feathers; that eye looked dispa.s.sionately for the wool upon your back--or the beard under your chin.

"May I speak to you, Mr. Gregory?" She rose from the typewriter, slightly pale from sudden resolution. He noted the pallor, and it seemed to him that in that spiritual face his faith became visible.

One hand rested upon the keys of the typewriter as if to show how little she needed substantial support.

Gregory never missed a movement of his secretary, but now he lifted his head ostensibly, to make his observation official.

"It's about Mr. Clinton," said Grace in a low voice, feeling her way to "that Fran".

He laid down his pen with a frown. Suddenly his missions in New York and Chicago became dead weights. Why Grace's "Mr. Clinton" instead of her customary "Brother Clinton"? It seemed to equip the school- director with formidable powers. Gregory hastened to put him where he belonged.

"Oh! Something about Bob?" he asked casually.

Her look was steady, her voice humble: "Yes."

Her humility touched him profoundly. Knowing how unshakable were her resolutions, he made a desperate attempt to divert her mind: "That is settled, Miss Grace, and it's too late now to alter the decision, for the school-board has already voted us a new superintendent--he has been sent his notification. Abbott Ashton is out of it, and it's all his fault Bob was the only one to stand up for him, but he wasn't strong enough to hold his friend above the wave of popular opinion.

Don't ask me to interview Bob for Abbott Ashton."

Grace calmly waited for this futility to pa.s.s; then with an air suggesting, "Now, shall we talk sensibly?" she resumed: "I approve the action of the school-board. It did well in dismissing Professor Ashton. May I speak about Mr. Clinton? He urges me to marry him at once."

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed.

"It is not nonsense," Grace calmly responded. "He thinks I could make him a better man. We would work among the very poor in the Chicago settlements; maybe in one of your own missions, I often wonder if I couldn't do more good by personal contact with evil, than I can here, with a person like Fran always clogging my efforts."

He started up. "Grace! _You_ go away?--And--and leave me and my work?"

"Let Fran fill my position. You think she's the daughter of your boyhood friend--it would give her position and independence."

"No one can ever fill your place," Gregory exclaimed, with violence.

His cheeks burned, lambent flames gleamed in his brown eyes. The effect was startlingly beautiful. At such exalted moments, thinking no evil because ceasing to think, grown all feeling, and it but an infinite longing, the glow of pa.s.sion refined his face, always delicately sensitive. The vision of Grace, in giving herself to another, like a devouring fire consumed those temporary supports that held him above the shifting sands of his inner nature.