Otherwise Phyllis Part 52

"No, you don't! Not by a d.a.m.ned sight, you don't!"

Kirkwood saw them both clearly in their att.i.tude of antagonism--the wife who had wronged him, the friend who had betrayed him.

"You don't shake me so easily. I want my share of the profits. It was a low trick--getting rid of me so you could spend your money on yourself; humiliating me by showing me up as a drunkard in the divorce court. I owe you a good one for that!"

"Not a cent!" she repeated, lifting her head in mockery of his clumsy attempt to becloud the real issue.

Her taunting tone maddened him; without warning he gripped her throat roughly. His tightening clasp stifled her cry as she struggled to free herself.

Kirkwood stood suddenly beside them, caught Holton by the collar, and flung him back. Holton's arm was up instantly to ward off an expected blow. He turned guardedly, and his arm fell as he recognized Kirkwood.

"So that's the ticket! It was a trap, was it?" And then his anger mounting, he flung round at Lois. "So this is what brought you back!

Well, it doesn't lower my price any! He can have you and be d.a.m.ned to him, but I double my price!"

"This is my property," said Kirkwood coldly; "if you don't leave instantly, I'll turn you over to the police."

"She's come back to you, has she! Well, you needn't be so set up about it. She's anybody's woman for the asking; you ought to have learned that--"

Kirkwood's stick fell with a sharp swish across his shoulders.

"Leave these grounds at once or I'll send you to the lockup!"

Holton looked coweringly from one to the other. The strangeness of the encounter was in the mind of each: that the years had slipped away and that Kirkwood was defending her from the man for whom she had abandoned him. An unearthly quiet lay upon the garden. Children's voices rose faintly on the silvery April night from the grounds beyond. Far away, beyond the station, a locomotive puffed slowly on a steep grade. The noises of the town seemed eerily blurred and distant.

"Clear out! Your business here is finished. And don't come back," said Kirkwood firmly.

"She asked me to meet her here;--you must have known it; it was a d.a.m.ned vile trick--" Holton broke out violently; but Kirkwood touched him with the end of his stick, pointed toward the gate, and repeated his order more sharply. Holton whirled on his heel, found an opening in the hedge, and left them, the boughs snapping behind him.

Kirkwood was the first to speak.

"He's gone, I think. I'll watch until you get safely back to Amzi's."

He lifted his hat; his tone was one of dismissal and she turned as though to leave, hesitated and drew a step nearer.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to speak to you a moment. I shouldn't have thought of seeking you, of course, but this makes it possible."

He made no reply, but waited, leaning on his stick. Her foot tapped the walk nervously; as she readjusted the cloak it exhaled the faint scent of orris that reached him as though wafted down some dim aisle of memory.

"I want to speak about Phil. It was to see Phil that I came back. I want you to know that I wouldn't take her away from you if I could. There must be no misunderstanding about this. Whatever I am or have been or may be, I am not base enough for that."

He was silent for a moment.

"That is something that is not in your hands or mine," he answered.

"Phil is the mistress of her own affairs. I was perfectly willing that she should go to Amzi's to be with you; it's for her to decide whether she ever comes back to me."

"That is--generous; very generous," she replied, as though, after hesitating before using the word, her second thought confirmed the choice.

"And about the money; she told me she spoke to you about that to-day. I appreciate your att.i.tude. I want you to understand that I'm not trying to bribe her. I'm glad of a chance to say that I would do nothing to spoil her loyalty to you. You deserve that; and I have no illusions about myself. If I thought my coming would injure her--or you--in any way, I should go at once and never come back. But I had to see her, and it has all happened fortunately--Amzi's kindness, and hers--and your own! Phil is so dear--so lovable!"

Her last words broke in a sob, but she quickly regained her self-control.

"I'm glad," he replied, "if you are not disappointed in her. We have been very close--comrades and friends; but she has gone beyond me; and that was inevitable. She's an independent spirit--quite capable of managing her own affairs."

"I don't think she will ever go beyond you," Lois answered. "She has told me all the story--and I have read a good deal into it that she didn't tell me. And I am very grateful. She didn't have to tell me that you had not embittered her against me; her way of meeting me was rea.s.suring as to that. It was fine of you; it wasn't what I expected or deserved."

Unconsciously they had begun walking back and forth in the path, and once, as they turned, they looked at each other fixedly for the first time. It was the deliberate frank scrutiny of old acquaintances who seek affirmation of fading memories after long absence.

"As to the money, I want to protect her, as far as money can do it, from hardship and need hereafter. I don't want you to think I offer it as rest.i.tution--or--penance. I have plenty for myself; I'm giving up nothing in doing it."

He tried to phrase carefully his disavowal of any thought that her gift was a penitential act. He confessed that he had been concerned for Phil's future; and that so far he had not been able to provide for her in case of his death. This brought him to Amzi, whose devotion to Phil he praised warmly. They met immediately upon the safe ground of Amzi's n.o.bility. Then they recurred to Phil. Presently as they pa.s.sed the veranda, she sat down on the steps and after a moment he seated himself beside her. They had sat thus, looking out upon the newly planned garden, when the mystery and wonder of Phil's coming filled their hearts and minds.

"I've thought," she said, bending forward with her arms folded upon her knees, "that Phil ought to travel--that I might take her away for a little while." She waited for his a.s.sent; but when he was silent, she hurried on to set herself right in this. "But I don't believe that would be best. Not with me. Trotting around with me over there wouldn't do her any good. It might spoil her point of view, which is--just right--sound and healthy. The child's a genius. She wants to write--of course you know that."

He did not know it. Jealousy p.r.i.c.ked him at this sudden revelation of something in Phil that he had not with all his opportunity realized.

"She's very clever," he responded tamely.

"It's more than that! She has a trunkful of stuff she's written--some of it rubbish; some of it amazingly good."

He resented these apprais.e.m.e.nts of Phil's literary experiments. It was disagreeable to hear from Phil's mother things which he should have learned for himself. His trained a.n.a.lytical faculties were disturbed; he had regarded the theory of the superior keenness of maternal perception as rather fantastic. Phil had never confided her ambitions to him; in fact, it was now clear that she had concealed them, perhaps fearing his criticisms.

"She's so droll!"--and Lois laughed at some recollection. "She has a delicious humor--her own special flavor. All these people in Montgomery are story-book people to her. She's a deep one--that little Phil! She has written pages about them--and the drollest of all about those women over there."

She indicated with a gesture the domiciles of her sisters. The fact that Phil had utilized her aunts as literary material amused Lois profoundly.

But finding that the burden of the talk lay with her she asked, "What would you think of college for Phil? Or is it too late?"

"She didn't seem a good subject when the time came; and besides," he added bluntly, "I couldn't afford it."

"Oh, she didn't speak of it regretfully; she didn't complain because you hadn't sent her!"

"No, of course not; that wouldn't be like Phil. I'm not sure college would be a good thing for her now; she's read prodigiously--away ahead of most girls, ahead of most people! There wouldn't be so much that college could do for her. And if she really has the creative faculty, it's better not to curb or check it. Not in her case. She led her cla.s.s in high school without working at it. Whatever she wants to know she will get without tying herself up in a college course."

Lois nodded. He was an educated man who had himself been a teacher, and his testimony was ent.i.tled to respect. She was far more comfortable than he as they continued the discussion. The breadth of her understanding of Phil piqued him. In these few weeks Lois had learned much about Phil that had been a sealed book to him. His position was absurd; it was preposterous for him to be learning about Phil from Phil's mother, when it was he who had shaped the course of Phil's life. He wondered whether Lois knew that her disclosures hurt his pride, shattered his vanity.

"The dear child seems to be the sole prop of most of the paupers in the bottoms. I went with her to look at one of her families yesterday, and I could see where her spare change has been going. She's set up a piano in the box factory so the girls can amuse themselves at noontime and you may be sure they're all crazy about her. Everybody seems to be!"

The remembrance of Phil's generosities amused her. She mentioned a number of them with murmurous glee and unmistakable admiration. Phil had never confided these things to him, and he reflected ruefully that her indulgence in pianos for working-girls probably accounted for deficiencies in her own wardrobe that had not at times escaped his masculine eye. He had mildly wondered what became of the money he gave Phil for shoes! It argued an unresponsiveness in his own nature that Phil had concealed her adventures as Lady Bountiful from him--and he had thought she told him everything!

He was learning about Phil from the last person in the world who had any right to know Phil. He had seen in her precociousness, her healthy delight in books, nothing astonishing, and he had known nothing of her scribbling. His irritation grew. He was impatient to escape from this garden that Holton had spoken of as Kirkwood's graveyard; from this cheerful ghost beside him, with her low, musical voice and her murmurous laughter. His thoughts flew to Nan, to whom he now meant to go with his last appeal.

It flashed upon him that he might a.s.sure his victory over Nan's qualms by carrying to her the definite knowledge that there was absolutely no hope, as he fancied Nan believed there was, that he and Lois might bridge the wide chasm that had separated them for so many years and renew the old tie. If he could go from Lois to Nan with that news, he believed his case would be invincible. He would make the offer to Lois now, on this spot whose a.s.sociations might be supposed to create an atmosphere of sentiment favorable to its serious consideration. The interview had run into a dead wall. Quite imaginably his proximity had begun to bore Lois. He idled with his stick, pondering. She rose suddenly.

"I must go back; Phil won't know what's become of me."

"Perhaps it would be as well to tell her that we've met," he said. "In fact, I think she should know."

"I prefer not," she answered with decision. "It might trouble her; she might think--she thinks of everything!"

"Lois, there are ways--important ones--in which it would be best for her, make her happier, if we could--try again!"