Otherwise Phyllis Part 22

"Oh, is that the answer? Then, all right!"

He picked up his hat, drew on his coat unhurriedly, walked calmly round the table and lounged out of the bank.

CHAPTER XII

NAN BARTLETT'S DECISION

"Dad's gone to Indianapolis to be gone several days and didn't expect to be back to-night; so come over and stay with me, won't you--please? If you won't I'll have to go to Aunt Josephine's, which is a heartbreaking thought."

This was the second day after the party, and Nan agreed to go. Phil's maid-of-all-work did not sleep at the house and the aunts had a.s.serted that Phil's new status as a member of society made necessary some sort of chaperonage. Nan arrived at the house late in the afternoon and found Phil opening a box of roses that had just come from Indianapolis by express.

"American beauties! and grand ones!"

She handed Nan the card and watched her face as she read it.

"I should have guessed Charlie Holton," said Nan colorlessly. "Well, they're fine specimens."

"It's very nice of him, I think," said Phil. "Particularly when I was so snippy to him."

"Why did you snip him?" asked Nan, watching Phil thrust the last of the long stems into a tall vase.

"Oh, he started in to rush me. And I guess he's some rusher. I suppose he's had a lot of practice."

"I suppose he has," said Nan indifferently.

"And n.o.body ever gave me just the line of talk he puts up, except of course Lawr_i_nce."

She feigned to be observing the adjustment of the roses with a particular interest, and looking round caught Nan frowning.

"Is he trying to flirt with you? I supposed even he had his decent moments. When did that happen?"

"Oh, at the party; everything happened at the party."

"Two men making love to you on the same evening is a good record for Montgomery. I suppose Lawrence played the ardent Romeo game; I understand that he's better 'off' than 'on.' And you snipped him, of course."

"Oh, I mean to snip them all! Isn't that right?"

"It's pathetic that Lawrence Hastings never quite forgets that he played the banana circuit in repertoire. That man's an awful bore."

"I find him amusing," said Phil provokingly. "And he always gives me a box at matinees. Which is just that much more than I ever get out of my other imitation uncles. If I led him on a trifle, don't you suppose he might come to the point of proposing to fly with me? That would be a consummation devoutly to be worked for."

"Phil, I'll send you to bed if you talk like that."

"There's always the window and the old apple tree; I dare you to put me to bed! I suppose," she said, nodding in the direction of the roses, "that those are a sort of peace offering, to make up for his uncle coming to the party as he did. If that's the idea it was decent of him."

The maid brought in a box that had just been left at the kitchen door.

Phil ran to the window and caught a glimpse of a man closing the gate.

It was Fred Holton, in a long ulster with the collar turned up about his ears. He untied his horse, attached to a ramshackle buggy, and drove off. Phil recognized him instantly, but made no sign to Nan.

Across the top of the small pasteboard box, "Perishable" was scrawled.

Inside, neatly dressed, lay six quails. On a card was written:--

"_Compliments of Listening Hill Farm._"

"What's Listening Hill Farm?" asked Nan.

"That's Fred Holton's. He lives out there now. It's just like that boy to slip round to the back door with an offering like that. Roses from Charlie; birds from Fred. And there's just about that difference between them."

Nan's eyes clouded.

"Phil," she said with emphasis, "those three aunts of yours haven't the sense of rabbits! The comparison flatters them. They had no business asking the Holtons to your party. It was unnecessary--it was absurd. It was cruel!"

Nan was not often like this. There was unmistakable indignation in her tone as she continued:--

"Your Uncle Amzi should have set his face against it. And I suppose they were satisfied with the outcome; I devoutly hope so."

"Well, don't jump on Amy; he only let them have their way to avoid a fuss. When the three of them descend on him they do try Amy's soul; he never admits it, but I always know afterwards. It unsettles him for a week."

"Those women," said Nan, "have been all over town apologizing for Jack Holton--as though it was up to them to defend him for turning up at your party vilely drunk. I tell you, Phil, I'm glad you have the sense you have in that head of yours and that you've grown up to a point where we can talk of things. The Holtons are no good! There's a crooked streak in the whole lot. And all that's the matter with your blessed trio of aunts is their ambition to stand well with Mrs. William, and your precious uncles lean on the First National counter when they want to borrow money. But you'd think they'd have some respect for your father, for your uncle, for you!"

"Oh, well, it's all over now," replied Phil.

"It's a good thing you're the wise child you are! You understand perfectly that the Holtons are not for you in this world. And if your father weren't the gentleman he is he would have made a big row about those people being asked to your party: it was an insult, too deep for my powers of description. Those women treat your father as though he were a halfway idiot--a fool to be thrust around when it pleases them, and to be the object of simpering tears when they want to play the pathetic in speaking of your mother to people. They are detestable, contemptible. And Jack Holton's turning up at Amzi's was the very last straw."

Phil gazed at Nan with increasing surprise. This was not the familiar Nan Bartlett of the unfailing gentleness, the whimsical humor. This was almost a scene, and scenes were not to the liking of either of the Bartlett sisters.

"Daddy hardly referred to that, Nan. I don't think it really troubled him."

"That's the worst of it, dear child! Of course he wouldn't show feeling about it! That's the heartbreaking thing about that father of yours, that he has borne that old trouble so bravely. It was ghastly that that man of all men should have stumbled into Amzi's house in that way.

Nothing was ever n.o.bler than the way your father bore it."

She knelt suddenly and clasped Phil in her arms as though to shield her from all the wrongs of the world. There were tears in Nan's eyes, unmistakably, when Phil stroked her cheek, and then for the first time with a sudden impulse Nan kissed her. Phil's intercourse with the Bartletts had been in the key of happy companionship, marked with a restraint that the girl respected and admired. There had been an imperceptible line beyond which she had never carried her pranks with them. Tears she had never a.s.sociated with either of the sisters. She would have a.s.sumed, if it had ever been a question in her mind, that Rose would have been the likelier to yield to emotion.

Nan walked to the window and looked out upon the slowly falling snow.

Phil was busy for a moment readjusting herself to the new intimacy established by the sight of her friend's agitation. These first tears that Phil had ever seen in Nan's eyes had a clarifying effect upon her consciousness and understanding. There flashed upon her keen mind a thought--startling, almost incredible. It was as though in some strange fashion, in the unlikeliest spot, she had come upon a rare flower, too marvelous to breathe upon. Her quick wits held it off guardedly for bewildered inspection. Could it be possible that it was for her father that Nan had yielded to tears? Beneath liking and sympathy might there lie a deeper feeling than friendship in this woman's heart? There had always seemed to be an even balance of regard for the sisters in all her father's intercourse with Buckeye Lane. They had been a refuge and resource, but she had imagined that he went there as she did because it was the very pleasantest place in town to visit. Whether he admired one more than the other had never been a problem in her mind, though now she recalled the intimations of her aunts--intimations which she had cast into the limbo to which she committed their views and insinuations on most topics. Phil stood by the black slate mantel of the shelf-lined sitting-room, her heart beating fast. But Nan turned to her laughingly.

"It's old age, Phil! Rose always tells me that I must stop peppering my victuals or I'll become one of the sobbing sisterhood one of these days.

What have you been reading lately, Phil?"

"Just finished 'The Gray Knight of Picardy.' Daddy didn't want me to read it--said it was only half good and that I oughtn't to waste time on books that weren't a hundred per cent good. I think it's bully. I'm crazy about it. It's so beautifully, deliciously funny. And Nan--why, Nan, it sounds just like you!"

"Elucidate," remarked Nan carelessly.

"Oh, it's like you, some of it--the general absurdness of it all; and then some of it is so amazingly like dad--when he has a high-falutin'

fit and talks through his hat in the old Morte Darthur lingo. It's Malory brought up to date, with a dash of Quixote. I nearly died at that place where the knight breaks his lance on the first automobile he ever saw and then rides at the head of the circus parade. It's certainly a ticklesome yarn."