Kildares of Storm Part 52

Charming laughed back over his shoulder. "You joy-rider! We're doing the best we can now--but we'll make it."

They drew up at the platform just as the train paused, a grinning porter waiting on the step with his box.

"Got your bag? Run for it," cried Channing, and followed through the pelting rain with his own luggage.

The train started even as the chuckling porter helped her on.

"Stateroom fo' N'Yawk,--yessir, yessir! Right in dis way, miss. I done seed you-all comin'. You suttinly did tek yo' foot in yo' han' an'

trabbel--yessir! yes, _suh_!"

"Lord, what a run!" Channing was saying behind her. "I left the engine going, too--old Morty will be furious when he finds her! You must be wet as an otter in spite of that great cape.--Well, little sweetheart, here we are! Let 's--"

He stopped short. Kate had turned, slipping the cape from her shoulders.--There they were, indeed. The train sped on, gathering speed with each mile.

She began to laugh, softly at first, then more and more heartily, till her whole body shook and the tears streamed down her face. The romance-loving porter, listening outside, chuckled in sympathy. Channing essayed a sickly smile.

She stopped as suddenly as she had begun, and a silence fell.

Channing broke it, of course. It was his misfortune in moments of emergency always to become chatty.

"You have taken me by surprise, really!--I--I didn't recognize you at first. That cape--Look here, this isn't entirely my fault. You must know that! I meant to keep my word, I tried to. But Jacqueline would insist upon seeing me to--to prove that she trusted me. I _told_ her it wouldn't do. She said she had made no promise.--Oh, hang it all, how could I help myself, with the girl throwing herself at my head like that? I'm no anchorite."

"No?" murmured Kate.

"No, certainly not! That is.--Look here, it's not what you think at all!

I've been meeting her at night--it was the only way we could manage. But I _am_ a gentleman, you know."

"Yes?" murmured Kate.

He tried again, perspiring freely. "This looks bad, I know, but I a.s.sure you--Jacqueline understands that I mean to marry her as soon as things are definitely settled. She understands me absolutely, the only woman, perhaps, who ever has. She has temperament herself. Why, that's the reason I consented to take her away," he continued eagerly, gaining confidence from the other's silence. "She really ought to have her training for opera. You don't realize what a voice it is, Mrs. Kildare!

I could offer her certain opportunities, lessons abroad, introductions, a career, in fact--"

"And meanwhile you were going to act as her protector?" broke in Kate.

"Why--why, yes. Exactly!"

The faintest smile just lifted her lip. "From yourself?" she murmured.

Channing's eyes dropped. He would have given years of his life to meet without flinching that little smile. "I repeat, I would have married Jacqueline as soon as it was possible." He spoke with an effort for quiet dignity that was not convincing, even to himself; perhaps because he noticed just then, for the first time, the dog-whip which Mrs.

Kildare was twisting and untwisting in her strong fingers.

"I suppose that dream is over now," he added sadly--a little hastily.

"I think we may safely say," she admitted, "that that dream is over."

He could not lift his eyes from those slender, muscular fingers. Across his too-vivid imagination had flashed Farwell's picture of the Madam going to the rescue of her fighting negroes. A little shudder went down his back. He wondered what he should do if she suddenly attacked him.

Could he lay his hands upon a woman? Should he call for help? Must he simply stand there and let her--whip him?...

At that moment a whistle sounded, and the train began to slow down for a station. To his almost sick relief, Mrs. Kildare drew her cape about her shoulders. "I get off here," she said.

He rushed into speech. "Will you please tell Jacqueline how miserably sorry I am--how I regret--"

She cut him short. "I will tell Jacqueline nothing, and neither will you. All this"--she waved an inclusive hand about the stateroom--"_it never happened_."

"What! You mean--she is to believe I did not come for her?"

"Exactly. You have disappeared. And without any explanations to anybody."

"But, Mrs. Kildare! Good Lord! What will she think of me?"

"That you have simply broken your word again; which," said Kate, "is what I intend her to think. She shall not be further humiliated by the knowledge that there has been--an audience."

He began to understand. Kate knew her daughter. Pride was to be called to the rescue, and he himself would play a very sorry part hereafter in the memory of Jacqueline.

"But, Mrs. Kildare!" his vanity protested. "Really, I can't--"

His eyes dropped again, as if magnetized, to that twisting whip.

The author was not of the material out of which he created his heroes.

He had a dread, an acute physical dislike, of what is called "a scene."--Very well! (he thought); if it helped poor, dear little Jacqueline to remember him as a cowardly wretch, as the sort of ungentlemanly villain of the piece who made engagements to elope with young women and then broke them--very well, let her so remember him.

Also, the thought occurred to him that if no explanations were to be made to any one, Philip Benoix would perhaps never hear of the thing he had tried and failed to do this night. For some odd reason, not entirely connected with the pistol he had seen in the clergyman's pocket, Channing wanted to be remembered as pleasantly as possible by Philip Benoix.

He sighed. "I see! You mean that Jacqueline shall learn to hate me.--As you wish, of course. I will make no explanations. I give you my word of honor never to write to her, or--"

"Your word of honor!" For one moment he met the full blast of the scorn in Kate's eyes, before his own fell again. "Never mind promises, sir. It will be to your advantage, Mr. Channing, to keep out of my way.

Hereafter I take care of my own!"

For the first time her gaze followed his to the whip in her hands, and once more she burst out laughing; clear, ringing laughter that wakened half the car.

"Just a dog-whip," she explained from the door, rea.s.suringly. Her voice was never sweeter. "I find after all that I shall not need it, you poor little prowling tomcat!--Good-by."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

A rather watery sun was just showing over the tree-tops when Mrs.

Kildare dismissed at her door the automobile she had commandeered, hoping to slip into the house unnoticed. But the dogs betrayed her. They were lingering hopefully about the kitchen door, with an eye on Big Liza, already up and about, for the Madam permitted no shiftless habits at Storm; and the sound of wheels brought them barking to the front of the house. Big Liza's curiosity was aroused, and she followed.

"My Lawdy, Miss Kate! whar you bin at?" she demanded, round-eyed. "You look lak a ghos', you sholy does!"

The Madam put her finger on her lip. "Business--I don't want it mentioned, Liza. You understand?"

The cook nodded importantly, pursing up her mouth. There is no safer confidante, as a rule, than a negro servant. The race is very amenable to the flattery of being trusted, and not too inquisitive about the doings of a superior order of beings. Kate had no fears with regard to Liza. It was Mag who bothered her.

The girl, who had not slept that night, met her at the foot of the stairs, looking terrified. "Oh, Miss Kate, whatever happened? Miss Jacky done come back an hour ago, and she's up in her room cryin' fit to break her heart. You--ain't _killed_ him?" she whispered. It did not seem an unlikely question to ask of that white, set face with its burning eyes.