John March, Southerner Part 54

Sometimes I think it's finer than love, for it makes no demands, no promises, no compacts, no professions----"

"Did you ever have such a friendship?"

"No, indeed! If I had--oh pshaw! I never was or shall be fit for it. But I just tell you, Miss Garnet, that in such a case as we've spoken of, the need of such a heart for such a friendship can't be reckoned!"

He smiled st.u.r.dily, and she smiled also, but let compa.s.sion speak in her eyes before she reverently withdrew them. He, too, was still.

They were approaching a large river. The porter, growing fond of them, came, saying:

"Here where we crosses into Yankeedom. Fine view fum de rear platfawm--sun jes' a-sett'n'."

They went there--the Fairs preferred to sit still--and with the eddies of an almost wintry air ruffling them and John's arm lying along the rail under the window behind them, so as to clasp her instantly if she should lurch, they watched the slender bridge lengthen away and the cold river widen under it between them and Dixie.

Their silence confessed their common emotion. John felt a condescending expansion and did not withdraw his arm even after the bridge was pa.s.sed until he thought Miss Garnet was about to glance around at it, which she had no idea of doing.

"I declare, Miss Garnet, I--I wish----"

She turned her eyes to his handsome face lifted with venturesome diffidence and frowning against the bl.u.s.tering wind.

"I'm afraid "--he gayly shook his head--"you won't like what I say if you don't take it just as I mean it." He put his hand over the iron-work again, but she was still looking into his face, and he thought she didn't know it.

"It wouldn't be fair to take it as you don't mean it," she said. "What is it?"

"Why, ha-ha--I--I wish I were your brother!--ha-ha! Seriously, I don't believe you can imagine how much a lone fellow--boy or man--can long and pine for a sister. If I'd had a sister, a younger sister--no boy ever pined for an older sister--I believe I'd have made a better man. When I was a small boy----"

Barbara glanced at his breadth and stature with a slow smile.

He laughed. "O, that was away back yonder before you can remember."

"It certainly must have been," she replied, "and yet----"

"And yet--" he echoed, enjoying his largeness.

"I thought all the pre-his-tor-ic things were big. But what was it you used to do? I know; you used to cry for a sister, didn't you?"

"Yes. Why, how'd you guess that?"

"I can't say, unless it was because I used to cry for a little brother."

"And why a little one?" he asked.

"I was young and didn't know any better."

"But later on, you----"

"I wanted the largest size."

"D'd you ever cry for a brother of the largest size?"

"Why, yes; I nearly cry for one yet, sometimes, when somebody makes me mad."

"Miss Garnet, I'm your candidate!"

"No, Mr. March. If you were elected you'd see your mistake and resign in a week, and I couldn't endure the mor-ti-fi-ca-tion."

John colored. He thought she was hinting at fickleness; but she gave him a smile which said so plainly, "The fault would be mine," that he was more than comfortable again--on the surface of his feelings, I mean.

And so with Barbara. The train had begun a down-grade and was going faster and faster. As she stood sweetly contemplating the sunset sky and sinking hills, fearing to move lest that arm behind her should be withdrawn and yet vigilant to give it no cause to come nearer, an unvoiced cry kept falling back into her heart--"Tell him!--For your misguided father's sake! Now!--Now!--Stop this prattle about friendship, love, and truth, and tell him his danger!"

But in reality she had not, and was not to have, the chance.

The young land-owner stood beside her staring at nothing and trying to bite his mustache.

He came to himself with a start. "Miss Garnet----"

As she turned the sky's blush lighted her face.

"That case we were speaking of inside, you know----"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, as I said, I knew that case myself. But, my goodness, Miss Garnet, you won't infer that I was alluding in any way to--to any experience of my own, will you?"

She made no reply.

"Law! Miss Garnet, you don't think I'd offer anybody a friendship pulled out of a slough of despond, do you?"

Barbara looked at him in trembling exaltation. "Mr. March, I know what has happened!"

He winced, but kept his guard. "Do you mean you know how it is I am on this train?"

"Yes, I know it all."

"O my soul! Have I betrayed it?"

"No, sir; the train conductor--I led him on--told us all about it before we were twenty miles from Suez."

"I ought to have guessed you'd find it out," said John, in a tone of self-rebuke.

"Yes," she replied, driving back her tears with a quiet smile, "I think you ought."

"Why--why, I--I--I'm overwhelmed. Gracious me! I owe you an humble apology, Miss Garnet. Yes, I do. I've thrust a confidence on you without your permission. I--I beg your pardon! I didn't mean to, I declare I didn't, Miss Garnet."

"It's safe."

"I know it. I'm surer of that than if you were anyone else I've ever known in my life, Miss Garnet."

"It shall be as if I had never heard it."