Peter Part 33

And she liked this suit best of all. She had been peeping through the curtains and her critical admiring eyes had missed no detail. She saw that the cavalier boots were gone, but she recognized the short pea-jacket and the loose rolling collar of the soft flannel shirt circling the strong, bronzed throat, and the dash of red in the silken scarf.

And so it is not surprising that when he got within sight of her windows, his cheeks aflame with the crisp air, his eyes snapping with the joy of once more hearing her voice, her heart should have throbbed with an undefinable happiness and pride as she realized that for a time, at least, he was to be all her own. And yet when he had again taken her hand--the warmth of his last pressure still lingered in her palm--and had looked into her eyes and had said how he hoped he had not kept her waiting, all she could answer in reply was the non-committal remark:

"Well, now you look something like"--at which Jack's heart gave a great bound, any compliment, however slight, being so much manna to his hungry soul; Ruth adding, as she led the way into the sitting-room, "I lighted the wood fire because I was afraid you might still be cold."

And ten minutes had been enough for Ruth.

It had been one of those lightning changes which a pretty girl can always make when her lover is expected any instant and she does not want to lose a moment of his time, but it had sufficed. Something soft and clinging it was now; her lovely, rounded figure moving in its folds as a mermaid moves in the surf; her hair shaken cut and caught up again in all its delicious abandon; her cheeks, lips, throat, rose-color in the joy of her expectancy.

He sat drinking it all in. Had a ma.s.s of outdoor roses been laid by his side, their fragrance filling the air, the beauty of their coloring entrancing his soul, he could not have been more intoxicated by their beauty.

And yet, strange to say, only commonplaces rose to his lips. All the volcano beneath, and only little spats of smoke and dying bits of ashes in evidence! Even the message of his Chief about her not getting a new bonnet all summer seemed a G.o.dsend under the circ.u.mstances. Had there been any basis for her self-denial he would not have told her, knowing how much anxiety she had suffered an hour before. But there was no real good reason why she should economize either in bonnets or in anything else she wanted. McGowan, of course, would be held responsible; for whatever damage had been done he would have to pay. He had been present when the young architect's watchful and trained eye had discovered some defects in the masonry of the wing walls of the McGowan culvert bridging the stream, and had heard him tell the contractor, in so many words that if the water got away and smashed anything below him he would charge the loss to his account. McGowan had groveled in dissent, but it had made no impression on Garry, whose duty it was to see that the work was properly carried out and whose signature loosened the village purse strings.

None of these details would interest Ruth; nor was it necessary that they should. The bonnet, however, was another matter. Bonnets were worn over pretty heads and framed lovely hair and faces and eyes--one especially! And then again any pleasantry of her father's would tend to relieve her mind after the anxiety of the morning. Yes, the bonnet by all means!

"Oh, I never gave you your father's message," he began, laying aside his cup, quite as if he had just remembered it. "I ought to have done so before you hung up the hat you wore a while ago."

Ruth looked up, smiling: "Why?" There was a roguish expression about her mouth as she spoke. She was very happy this afternoon.

"He says you won't get a new bonnet all summer," continued Jack, toying with the end of the ribbon that floated from her waist.

Ruth put down her cup and half rose from her chair All the color had faded from her cheeks.

"Did he tell you that?" she cried, her eyes staring into his, her voice trembling as if from some sudden fright.

Jack gazed at her in wonderment:

"Yes--of course he did and--Why, Miss Ruth!--Why, what's the matter!

Have I said anything that--"

"Then something serious has happened," she interrupted in a decided tone. "That is always his message to me when he is in trouble. That is what he telegraphed me when he lost the coffer-dam in the Susquehanna.

Oh!--he did not really tell you that, did he, Mr. Breen?" The old anxious note had returned--the one he had heard at the "fill."

"Yes--but nothing serious HAS happened, Miss Ruth," Jack persisted, his voice rising in the intensity of his conviction, his earnest, truthful eyes fixed on hers--"nothing that will not come out all right in the end. Please, don't be worried, I know what I am talking about."

"Oh, yes, it is serious," she rejoined with equal positiveness. "You do not know daddy. Nothing ever discourages him, and he meets everything with a smile--but he cannot stand any more losses. The explosion was bad enough, but if this 'fill' is to be rebuilt, I don't know what will be the end of it. Tell me over again, please--how did he look when he said it?--and give me just the very words. Oh, dear, dear daddy! What will he do?" The anxious note had now fallen to one of the deepest suffering.

Jack repeated the message word for word, all his tenderness in his tones--patting her shoulder in his effort to comfort her--ending with a minute explanation of what Garry had told him: but Ruth would not be convinced.

"But you don't know daddy," she kept repeating "You don't know him.

n.o.body does but me. He would not have sent that message had he not meant it. Listen! There he is now!" she cried, springing to her feet.

She had her arms around her father's neck, her head nestling on his shoulder before he had fairly entered the door. "Daddy, dear, is it very bad?" she murmured.

"Pretty bad, little girl," he answered, smoothing her cheek tenderly with his chilled fingers as he moved with her toward the fire, "but it might have been worse but for the way Breen handled the men."

"And will it all have to be rebuilt?"

She was glad for Jack, but it was her father who now filled her mind.

"That I can't tell, Puss"--one of his pet names for her, particularly when she needed comforting--"but it's safe for the night, anyway."

"And you have worked so hard--so hard!" Her beautiful arms, bare from the elbow, were still around his neck, her cheek pressed close--her lovely, clinging body in strong contrast to the straight, gray, forceful man in the wet storm-coat, who stood with arms about her while he caressed her head with his brown fingers.

"Well, Puss, we have one consolation--it wasn't our fault--the 'fill'

is holding splendidly although it has had a lively shaking up. The worst was over in ten minutes, but it was pretty rough while it lasted. I don't think I ever saw water come so fast. I saw you with Breen, but I couldn't reach you then. Look out for your dress, daughter. I'm pretty wet."

He released her arms from his neck and walked toward the fire, stripping off his gray mackintosh as he moved. There he stretched his hands to the blaze sod went on: "As I say, the 'fill' is safe and will stay so, for the water is going down rapidly; dropped ten feet, Breen, since you left. My!--but this fire feels good! Got into something dry--did you, Breen? That's right. But I am not satisfied about the way the down-stream end of the culvert acts"--this also was addressed to Jack--"I am afraid some part of the arch has caved in. It will be bad if it has--we shall know in the morning. You weren't frightened, Puss, were you?"

She did not answer. She had heard that cheery, optimistic note in her father's voice before; she knew how much of it was meant for her ears.

None of his disasters were ever serious, to hear daddy talk--"only the common lot of the contracting engineer, little girl," he would say, kissing her good-night, while he again pored over his plans, sometimes until daylight.

She crept up to him the closer and nestled her fingers inside his collar--an old caress of hers when she was a child, then looking up into his eyes she asked with almost a throb of suffering in her voice, "Is it as bad as the coffer-dam, daddy?"

Jack looked on in silence. He dared not add a word of comfort of his own while his Chief held first place in soothing her fears.

MacFarlane pa.s.sed his hand over her forehead--"Don't ask me, child! Why do you want to bother your dear head over such things, Puss?" he asked, as he stroked her hair.

"Because I must and will know. Tell me the truth," she demanded, lifting her head, a note of resolve in her voice. "I can help you the better if I know it all." Some of the blood of one of her great-great-grandmothers, who had helped defend a log-house in Indian times, was a.s.serting itself. She could weep, but she could fight, too, if necessary.

"Well, then, I'm afraid it is worse than the coffer-dam," he answered in all seriousness. "It may be a matter of twelve or fifteen thousand dollars--maybe more, if we have to rebuild the 'fill.' I can't tell yet."

Ruth released her grasp, moved to the sofa and sank down, her chin resting on her hand. Twelve or fifteen thousand dollars! This meant ruin to everybody--to her father, to--a new terror now flashed into her mind--to Jack--yes, Jack! Jack would have to go away and find other work--and just at the time, too, when he was getting to be the old Jack once more. With this came another thought, followed by an instantaneous decision--what could she do to help? Already she had determined on her course. She would work--support herself--relieve her father just that much.

An uncomfortable silence followed. For some moments no one spoke. Her father, stifling a sigh, turned slowly, pushed a chair to the fire and settled into it, his rubber-encased knees wide apart, so that the warmth of the blaze could reach most of his body. Jack found a seat beside him, his mind on Ruth and her evident suffering, his ears alert for any fresh word from his Chief.

"I forgot to tell you, Breen," MacFarlane said at last, "that I came up the track just now as far as the round-house with the General Manager of the Road. He has sent one of his engineers to look after that Irishman's job before he can pull it to pieces to hide his rotten work--that is, what is left of it. Of course it means a lawsuit or a fight in the Village Council. That takes time and money, and generally costs more than you get. I've been there before, Breen, and know."

"Does he understand about McGowan's contract?" inquired Jack mechanically, his eyes on Ruth. Her voice still rang in his ears--its pathos and suffering stirred him to his very depths.

"Yes--I told him all about it," MacFarlane replied. "The Road will stand behind us--so the General Manager says--but every day's delay is ruinous to them. It will be night-and-day work for us now, and no let-up. I have notified the men." He rose from his seat and crossed to his daughter's side, and leaning over, drew her toward him: "Brace up, little girl,"

there was infinite tenderness in his cadences--"it's all in a lifetime.

There are only two of us, you know--just you and me, daughter--just you and me--just two of us. Kiss me, Puss."

Regaining his full height he picked up his storm-coat from the chair where he had flung it, and with the remark to Jack, that he would change his clothes, moved toward the door. There he beckoned to him, waited until he had reached his side, and whispering in his ear: "Talk to her and cheer her up, Breen. Poor little girl--she worries so when anything like this happens"--mounted the stairs to his room.

"Don't worry, Miss Ruth," said Jack in comforting tones as he returned to where she sat. "We will all pull out yet."

"It is good of you to say so," she replied, lifting her head and leaning back so that she could look into his eyes the better, "but I know you don't think so. Daddy was just getting over his losses on the Susquehanna bridge. This work would have set him on his feet. Those were his very words--and he was getting so easy in his mind, too--and we had planned so many things!"

"But you can still go to Newport," Jack pleaded. "We will be here some months yet, and--"

"Oh--but I won't go a step anywhere. I could not leave him now--that is, not as long as I can help him."

"But aren't you going to the Fosters' and Aunt Felicia's?" She might not be, but it was good all the same to hear her deny it.

"Not to anybody's!" she replied, with an emphasis that left no doubt in his mind.