Otherwise Phyllis Part 58

"There is every reason why I should be kind," Lois retorted. "And this brings me to a rather more serious matter, and one--one I am not broaching without reason. I want to speak of Tom!" she flashed. The smile had left her face; her lovely eyes were very grave.

"There is nothing that we need say about Mr. Kirkwood," said Nan, reddening and stirring uneasily.

"Please do not say that! This is an important moment in your life and mine. And I must speak to you of Tom before I go away. We are not children--you and I. You are a woman and a very n.o.ble one and--you must let me say it--I have been one of the worst. There's no finer man in the world than Tom; I never knew that until I had flung him away. And it's only because of you and Phil that he found himself again. I know it all as clearly as though I had been here every day of all these years. You picked up the broken pieces and made a man of him again--you and Phil.

And you very much more than Phil! I've come to tell you that I'm grateful for that. He deserves well of the world. He loves you; he wants to marry you. If I hadn't come back just when I did, you would have married him."

She knelt beside Nan with lifted face. There were tears in her eyes.

"Don't you see--don't you understand--that that is the only way I can be happy? I'm not saying this for your sake--and only half for Tom's. It's the old selfish me that is asking it," she ended, smiling once more, though with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes.

Nan turned her head.

"I can never do it! It's not fair for you to speak to me of him."

"Oh, don't I know that! But I never in my life played fair! I want you to promise me that you won't say no to him! He is started on the way up and on once more: I want you to help him gain the top. He needs you just as Phil does! You have already been to him what I never could have been.

It is all so easy and so plain! And in no other way can I be right with myself. I shall never trouble you by coming back! Phil can come to me sometimes--I'm sure you will not mind that! And I shall find peace that way! For Phil's sake you and Tom must marry!"

"Phil loves you so," said Nan; "you have no right to leave her; you don't know what you mean to her!"

"I'm only a pretty picture in a book! She's too keen; she'd see through me very soon. No! It must be my way," she said, with a little triumphant note. She rose and turned to pick up her parasol.

Nan watched her wonderingly, for an instant dumb before the plea of this woman, so unlooked-for, so amazing in every aspect. Lois touched her handkerchief to her eyes and thrust it into her sleeve.

"Now that's all over!" she said, smiling.

"No; it can't be over that way," returned Nan, quite herself again. "For a day I thought I could do it, but I'm grateful that you came back, for your coming made me see what a mistake it would have been. There's no question of his needing me. If I helped him a little to find himself, I shall always be glad, but he has tasted success now, and he will not drop back. And as for Phil, it is absurd to pretend that she needs any one. The days of her needs are pa.s.sed, and she is at the threshold of happy womanhood. I am glad you came when you did, for I see now how near I was to losing some of my old ideals that would have made the rest of my life one long regret."

"Those scruples are like you--like what I know to be true of you; but you are wrong. I believe that in a little while you will see that you are."

"No," continued Nan; "I know they are not wrong. I am ashamed of myself that I ever wavered, but now I know I shall never be tempted again. I may seem to be taking myself too seriously"--she smiled in her accession of a.s.surance--"but I have a feeling of greater relief than I dare try to explain. I am provincial and old-fashioned, and there are things I can't bring myself to think of lightly. I suppose the prejudices of my youth cling to me, and I can't dissociate myself from the idea that, inconspicuous as I am in the general scheme of things, I have my responsibility to my neighbors, to society, to the world. I am grateful that I saw the danger in time to save myself. Your coming back was well timed; it makes me believe"--she added softly--"that there is more than a fate in these things. I had misgivings from the first; I knew that it was wrong; but not till now have I seen how wrong it was! And I want you to be sure that this is final--that I shall never waver again."

"But in a little while, when I am safely out of the way--"

"Your going or coming can make no difference. I can say in all sincerity that I wish you would stay. I think it would mean much to Phil if you should. I hope you will change your decision. You must understand that so far as Mr. Kirkwood and I are concerned there is no reason whatever for your going."

Lois drew a line in the rug with the point of her parasol, her head bent in an att.i.tude of reflection.

"As for Tom and me," she said, meeting Nan's eyes after an instant, "it's only right for you to know from me that he has given me another chance. He has offered to try me again! It was for Phil's sake. It was generous--it was n.o.ble of him! But"--she shrugged her shoulders--"I've caused enough misery. Not in a thousand years would I do it!"

Nan nodded, but made no reply. It was enough that she had established her own position, and nothing that Lois could add really mattered. And Lois, with her nice sense of values, her feeling for a situation, knew that the interview was at an end.

A copy of the May number of "Journey's End" lay on a little stand with other magazines. Her hand rested upon it a moment, as though she thus referred everything back to Phil, but even this evoked nothing further from Nan.

Lois walked to the door, murmuring nothings about the weather, the charm of the flowering yards in the Lane.

At the door she caught Nan's hands, smiled into her eyes, and said, with all her charm of tone and manner:--

"You _will_ kiss me, won't you!"

CHAPTER XXVII

AMZI'S PERFIDY

In accommodating himself to the splendors of the enlarged bank room, Amzi had not abandoned his old straw hat and seersucker coat, albeit the hat had been decorated with a dab of paint by some impious workman, and the coat would not have been seriously injured by a visit to the laundry.

Amzi was observing the new facade that had been tacked onto the building, when Phil drove up in the machine. This was the afternoon of the 3d of July. Phil and her father were camping for a week in their old haunt in Turkey Run, and she had motored into town to carry Amzi to his farm, where he meant to spend the Glorious Fourth in the contemplation of the wheat Fred had been harvesting.

Phil had experienced a blow-out on her way to town, a fact to which the state of her camping clothes testified.

"Thunder!" said Amzi; "you look as though you had crawled halfway in."

"A naughty nail in a bridge plank was the sinner," she explained.

She jumped out and was admiring the alterations, which had eliminated the familiar steps to the old room, when Mrs. Waterman emerged from a neighboring shop.

"You dear Phil!" she cried effusively. "I've been wanting to see you for _weeks_!"

Her aunt caught and held the brown hand Phil had drawn from her battered gauntlet.

"Father and I are out at the Run," Phil explained.

These were the first words she had exchanged with either of her aunts since Christmas. She was not particularly interested in what her Aunt Josephine might have to say, though somewhat curious as to why that lady should be saying anything at all.

"I can't talk here," Mrs. Waterman continued, seeing that Amzi lingered in the bank door. "But there are things I want to discuss with you, Phil, dear."

Main Street is hot on July afternoons; and Phil was impatient to get back to the cool hollows of the Run.

"Oh, any time, Aunt Josie," she replied hastily.

"It's only fair--to myself, and to f.a.n.n.y and to Kate, for me to say to you that we never meant--we never had the slightest intention--in regard to your dear mother--"

"Oh, don't trouble about that!" said Phil. "Mamma never minded! And please excuse me; Amy's waiting."

She nodded good-bye, and walked through the bank to the new directors'

room where Amzi was subjecting himself to the breezes of an electric fan.

"Indian!"

"I haven't mussed you," observed Phil, placing her gloves on the new mahogany table, "since you started up the new bank. It's about time we were celebrating."

He threw up his arms to ward off the threatened attack, and when he opened his eyes and peered out she was sitting on the table with the demurest of expressions upon her countenance.

"False alarm; only I object to your comments on my complexion. I'm some burnt; but as it isn't painful to me, the rest of creation needn't worry."

"Well, you needn't kick the legs of that table with your sneakers; that table cost money!"