Jupiter Lights Part 23

The judge vouchsafed him no reply. It was one thing for this backwoodsman to go about with him; it was another to aspire to an acquaintance with the ladies of his family. Poor Hollis aspired to nothing; he was the most modest of men; all the same it would never have occurred to him that he was not on an equality with everybody. They returned to Port aux Pins by the road.

The beach was in sight all the way on the left; Eve's figure in three-quarter length was visible whenever Hollis turned his head in that direction, which was often. She gained on them. Then she pa.s.sed them.

"She's a tip-top walker, isn't she? I see her coming in almost every day from 'way out somewhere--she doesn't mind how far. Our ladies here don't walk much; they don't seem to find it interesting. But Miss Bruce, now--she says the woods are beautiful. Can't say I have found 'em so myself."

"Have you had any new cases lately?" inquired the judge, coldly.

"Did that Paul tell you I was a lawyer? Was once, but have given up practising. I've got an Auction and Commission store now; never took you there because business hasn't been flourishing; sometimes for days together there's been nothing but the skeleton." The judge looked at him. "I don't mean myself! Say, now, did you really think I meant myself?" And he laughed without a sound. "No, this is a real one; it was left with me over a year ago to be sold on commission--medical students, or a college, you know. Man never came back--perhaps he's a skeleton himself in the lake somewhere--so there it hangs still; first-cla.s.s, and in elegant condition. To-day there are six bonnets to keep it company; so we're full."

They were now entering the town. Presently, at a corner, they came suddenly upon Eve; she was waiting for them. "I saw you walking in from the Park, so I came across to join you," she said.

Hollis showed his satisfaction by a broad smile; he did not raise his hat, but, extracting one of his hands from the depths of his trousers pocket, he offered it frankly. "You don't mind a longish walk, do you?

You look splendid."

"We need not take you further, Mr. Hollis," said the judge. "Your time must be valuable to you."

"Not a bit; there's no demand to-day for the bonnets--unless the skeleton wants to wear 'em."

"Is it an exhibition?" asked Eve, non-comprehendingly.

"It's my store--Auction and Commission. Not crowded. It's round the next corner; want to go in?" And he produced a key and dangled it at Eve invitingly.

"By all means," said Eve.

It was evident that she liked to be with him. The judge had perceived this before now.

Hollis unlocked a door, or rather two doors, for the place had been originally a wagon shop. A portion of the s.p.a.ce within was floored, and here, between the two windows, the long white skeleton was suspended, moving its legs a little in the sudden draught.

"Here are the bonnets," said Hollis. "They may have to go out to the mines. You see, it's part of a bankrupt stock. Not but what they ain't first-cla.s.s;--remarkably so." He went to a table where stood six bandboxes in a row; opening one of them, he took out a bonnet, and, freeing it from its wrappings, held it anxiously towards Eve, perched on one of his fingers.

"Are you trying to make Miss Bruce buy that old rubbish?" said a voice at the door. It was Paul Tennant's voice.

"Old?" said Hollis, seriously. "Why, Paul, I dare say this here bonnet was made in Detroit not later than one year ago."

"If I cannot buy it myself," said Eve, "I might take it out to the mines for you, Mr. Hollis, and sell it to the women there; I might take out all six." She spoke gayly.

"You'd do it a heap better than I could," Hollis declared, admiringly.

"Let me see, I can try." She opened a bandbox and took out a second bonnet. This she began to praise in very tropical language; she turned it round, now rapidly, now slowly; she magnified its ribbons, its general air. Finally, taking off her round-hat, she perched it on her own golden braids, and, holding the strings together under her chin, she said, dramatically: "What an effect!" She did not smile, but her eyes shone. She looked brilliant.

The judge stared, amazed. Hollis, contorting himself like an angle-worm in his delight, applauded. Paul looked on tranquilly.

"Whatever the rest of you may do, I must be going," said the judge, determinedly. He went towards the door, each short step sounding on the planks.

"So must I," said Eve. "Wait until I put back the bonnets." With deft hands she returned them to their boxes, Paul and Hollis looking on. Then they all went out together, Hollis relocking the door.

"I was on my way home," said Paul, "and I suppose you were too? Hollis, won't you come along?"

He went on in advance with Eve, Hollis following with the unwilling judge, whose steps were still like little taps with a hammer.

The cottage was on the outskirts of the town. To walk thither took twenty minutes.

XV.

PAUL had succeeded in keeping Cicely tranquil by a system of telegraphic despatches and letters, one or the other arriving daily; each morning Ferdie's wife received a few lines from Romney, written either by Miss Sabrina or the nurse; after she had read her note, she let herself be borne along indifferently on the current of another Port aux Pins day.

The Port aux Pins days were, in themselves, harder for the judge than for Cicely. For Cicely remained pa.s.sive; but the old judge could not be pa.s.sive to things he hated so intensely. At last, by good-fortune, Hollis found something that placated him a little; this was fishing, fishing for trout; not the great rich creature of the lakes, which pa.s.ses under that name, but that exquisite morsel, the brook-trout. The judge had gone off contentedly, even happily, in search of this delicate prey; he and Hollis had explored the trout-streams of the two neighboring rivers. A third river, at a greater distance, was reported richer than any other; one morning they reached it, not only the two fishermen, but Cicely also, and Eve and Paul. They had crossed by steamer to a village on the north sh.o.r.e, an old fur-trading post; here they had engaged canoes and two Indians, and had spent a long day afloat on the clear wild stream. Its sh.o.r.es were rocky, deeply covered to the water's edge with a dark forest of spruce-trees; the branchlet trout-brooks, therefore, had been hard to find under the low-sweeping foliage. But in this search, Hollis was an expert; with his silk hat tipped more than ever towards the back of his head, he kept watch, and he and the judge were put ash.o.r.e several times in the course of the day, returning smiling and amiable whether they brought trout or not, with the serene contentment of fishermen. The others remained in the canoes, those light birch-bark craft of the American red-men, which, for grace and beauty, have never been surpa.s.sed. Two red-men were paddling one of them at present; they were civilized red-men, they called themselves Bill and Jim. But, under their straw hats, hung down their long straight Indian hair, and the eagle profiles seemed out of place above the ready-made coats and trousers. On their slender feet they wore beaded moccasins. Paul Tennant and Hollis also wore moccasins, and the judge had put on his thinnest shoes; for the birch-bark canoe has a delicate floor.

The boat paddled by the Indians carried Cicely, Porley and Jack, and the judge; the second held only three persons--Eve, Hollis, and Paul Tennant. Paul was propelling it alone, his paddle touching the water now on one side, now on the other, lifted across as occasion required as lightly as though it had been a feather. Cicely was listless, Paul good-natured, but indifferent also--so it seemed to Eve; and Eve herself, though she remained quiet (as the judge had described her), Eve was at heart excited. These thick dark woods without a path, without a sound, the wild river, the high Northern air which was like an intoxicant--all these seemed to her wonderful. She breathed rapidly; she glanced at the others in astonishment. "Why don't they admire it? Why doesn't he admire it?" she thought, looking at Paul.

Once the idea came suddenly that Paul was laughing at her, and the blood sprang to her face; she kept her gaze down until the stuff of her dress expanded into two large circles in which everything swam, so that she was obliged to close her eyes dizzily.

And then, when at last she did look up, her anger and her dizziness had alike been unnecessary, for Paul was gazing at the wooded sh.o.r.e behind her; it was evident that he had not thought of her, and was not thinking of her now.

This was late in the day, on their way back. A few minutes afterwards, as they entered the lake, she saw a distant flash, and asked what it was.

"Jupiter Light," said Paul. "It's a flash-light, and a good one."

"There's a Jupiter Light on Abercrombie Island, too," Eve remarked.

"It's a common enough name," Paul answered; "the best-known one is off the coast of Florida."

The Indians pa.s.sed them, paddling with rushing, rapid strokes.

"They're right; we shall be late for the steamer if we don't look out,"

said Paul. "You can help now if you like, Kit."

He and Hollis took off their coats, and the canoe flew down the lake under their feathery paddles; the water was as calm as a floor. Eve was sitting at the bow, facing Paul. No one spoke, though Hollis now and then crooned, or rather chewed, a fragment of his favorite song:

_"'At the battle of the Nile I was there all the while--'"_

The little voyage lasted half an hour.

They reached the village in time for the steamer, and soon afterwards not only Jack and Porley, but Cicely, the judge, and Hollis, tired after their long day afloat, had gone to bed. When Cicely sought her berth Eve also sought hers, the tiny cells being side by side. Since their arrival at Port aux Pins, Cicely had become more lenient to Eve; she was not so cold, sometimes she even spoke affectionately. But she was very changeable.

To-night, after a while, Eve tapped at Cicely's door. "Are you really going to bed so early?"

"I am in bed already."

"Do you want anything? Isn't there something I can bring you?"

"No."

Eve went slowly back to her own cell. But the dimness, the warm air, oppressed her; she sat down on a stool behind her closed door, the excitement of the day still remaining with her. "Is it possible that I am becoming nervous?--I, who have always despised nervousness?" She kept saying to herself, "I will go to bed in a few minutes." But the idea of lying there on that narrow shelf, staring at the light from the grating, repelled her. "At any rate I will _not_ go on deck."