Prudence Says So Part 20

"Do you?" she asked sweetly. "How you have changed! When I was a freshman I remember you told me you received nothing but business letters, because you didn't want to take time to write letters, and--"

"Did I?" For a second he seemed a little confused. "Well, I'm not crazy about writing letters, as such. But I'll be so glad to get yours that I know I'll even enjoy answering them."

Inside the parsonage gate they stood a moment among the rose bushes.

Once again she offered her hand, and he took it gravely, looking with sober intentness into her face, a little pale in the moonlight. He noted again the royal little head with its grown-up crown of hair, and the slender figure with its grown-up length of skirt.

Then he put his arms around her, and kissed her warmly upon the childish unexpecting lips.

A swift red flooded her face, and receding as swiftly, left her pale.

Her lips quivered a little, and she caught her hands together. Then st.u.r.dily, and only slightly tremulous, she looked into his eyes and laughed. The professor was in nowise deceived by her attempt at light-heartedness, remembering as he did the quick quivering of the lips beneath his, and the unconscious yielding of the supple body in his arms. He condemned himself mentally in no uncertain terms for having yielded to the temptation of her young loveliness. Carol still laughed, determined by her merriment to set the seal of insignificance upon the act.

"Come and walk a little farther, Carol," he said in a low voice. "I want to say something else." Then after a few minutes of silence, he began rather awkwardly, and David Arnold Duke was not usually awkward:

"Carol, you'll think I'm a cad to say what I'm going to, after doing what I have just done, but I'll have to risk that. You shouldn't let men kiss you. It isn't right. You're too pretty and sweet and fine for it. I know you don't allow it commonly, but don't at all. I hate to think of any one even touching a girl like you."

Carol leaned forward, tilting back her head, and looking up at him roguishly, her face a-sparkle.

He blushed more deeply. "Oh, I know it," he said. "I'm ashamed of myself. But I can't help what you think of me. I do think you shouldn't let them, and I hope you won't. They're sure to want to."

"Yes," she said quietly, very grown-up indeed just then, "yes, they do.

Aren't men funny? They always want to. Sometimes we hear old women say, 'Men are all alike.' I never believe it. I hate old women who say it.

But--are they all alike, Professor?"

"No," he said grimly, "they are not. But I suppose any man would like to kiss a girl as sweet as you are. But men are not all alike. Don't you believe it. You won't then, will you?"

"Won't believe it? No."

"I mean," he said, almost stammering in his confusion, "I mean you won't let them touch you."

Carol smiled teasingly, but in a moment she spoke, and very quietly.

"P'fessor, I'll tell you a blood-red secret if you swear up and down you'll never tell anybody. I've never told even Lark--Well, one night, when I was a soph.o.m.ore,--do you remember Bud Garvin?"

"Yes, tall fellow with black hair and eyes, wasn't he? In the freshman zoology cla.s.s."

"Yes. Well, he took me home from a party. Hartley took Lark, and they got in first. And Bud, well--he put his arm around me, and--maybe you don't know it, Professor, but there's a big difference in girls, too.

Now some girls are naturally good. Prudence is, and so's Lark. But Fairy and I--well, we've got a lot of the original Adam in us. Most girls, especially in books--nice girls, I mean, and you know I'm nice--they can't bear to have boys touch them.--P'fessor, I like it, honestly I do, if I like the boy. Bud's rather nice, and I let him--oh, just a little, but it made me nervous and excited. But I liked it. Prudence was away, and I hated to talk to Lark that night so I sneaked in Fairy's room and asked if I might sleep with her. She said I could, and told me to turn on the light, it wouldn't disturb her. But I was so hot I didn't want any light, so I undressed as fast as I could and crept in. Somehow, from the way I snuggled up to Fairy, she caught on. I was out of breath, really I was ashamed of myself, but I wasn't just sure then whether I'd ever let him put his arm around me again or not. But Fairy turned over, and began to talk. Professor," she said solemnly, "Fairy and I always pretend to be snippy and sarcastic and sneer at each other, but in my heart, I think Fairy is very nearly as good as Prudence, yes, sir, I do.

Why, Fairy's fine, she's just awfully fine."

"Yes, I'm sure she is."

"She said that once, when she was fifteen, one of the boys at Exminster kissed her good night. And she didn't mind it a bit. But father was putting the horses in the barn, and he came out just in time to see it; it was a moonlight night. After the boys had gone, father hurried in and took Fairy outdoors for a little talk, just the two of them alone. He said that in all the years he and my mother were married, every time he kissed her he remembered that no man but he had ever touched her lips, and it made him happy. He said he was always sort of thanking G.o.d inside, whenever he held her in his arms. He said nothing else in the world made a man so proud, and glad and grateful, as to know his wife was all his own, and that even her lips had been reserved for him like a sacred treasure that no one else could share. He said it would take the meanest man on earth, and father thinks there aren't many as mean as that, to go back on a woman like that. Fairy said she burst out crying because her husband wouldn't ever be able to feel that way when he kissed her. But father said since she was so young, and innocent, and it being the first time, it wouldn't really count. Fairy swore off that minute,--never again! Of course, when I knew how father felt about mother, I wanted my husband to have as much pleasure in me as father did in her, and Fairy and I made a solemn resolve that we would never, even 'hold hands,' and that's very simple, until we got crazy enough about a man to think we'd like to marry him if we got a chance. And I never have since then, not once."

"Carol," he said in a low voice, "I wish I had known it. I wouldn't have kissed you for anything. G.o.d knows I wouldn't. I--I think I am man enough not to have done it anyhow if I had only thought a minute, but G.o.d knows I wouldn't have done it if I had known about this. You don't know how--contemptible--I feel."

"Oh, that's all right," she said comfortingly, her eyes glowing. "That's all right. We just meant beaux, you know. We didn't include uncles, and fathers, and old school-teachers, and things like that. You don't count.

That isn't breaking my pledge."

The professor smiled, but he remembered the quivering lips, and the relaxing of the lithe body, and the forced laughter, and was not deceived.

"You're such a strange girl, Carol. You're so honest, usually, so kind-hearted, so generous. But you always seem trying to make yourself look bad, not physically, that isn't what I mean." Carol smiled, and her loving fingers caressed her soft cheek. "But you try to make folks think you are vain and selfish, when you are not. Why do you do it? Every one knows what you really are. All over Mount Mark they say you are the best little kid in town."

"They do!" she said indignantly. "Well, they'd better not. Here I've spent years building up my reputation to suit myself, and then they go and shatter me like that. They'd better leave me alone."

"But what's the object?"

"Why, you know, P'fessor," she said, carefully choosing her words, "you know, it's a pretty hard job living up to a good reputation. Look at Prudence, and Fairy, and Lark. Every one just naturally expects them to be angelically and dishearteningly good. And if they aren't, folks talk.

But take me now. No one expects anything of me, and if once in a while, I do happen to turn out all right by accident, it's a sort of joyful surprise to the whole community. It's lots more fun surprising folks by being better than they expect, than shocking them by turning out worse than they think you will."

"But it doesn't do you any good," he a.s.sured her. "You can't fool them.

Mount Mark knows its Carol."

"You're not going?" she said, as he released her hand and straightened the collar of his coat.

"Yes, your father will chase me off if I don't go now. How about the letters, Carol? Think you can manage a little oftener?"

"I'd love to. It's so inspiring to get a letter from a five-thousand-dollars-a-year scientist, I mean, a was-once. Do my letters sound all right? I don't want to get too chummy, you know."

"Get as chummy as you can," he urged her. "I enjoy it."

"I'll have to be more dignified if you're going to McCormick.

Presbyterian! The Presbyterians are very dignified. I'll have to be formal from this on. Dear Sir: Respectfully yours. Is that proper?"

He took her hands in his. "Good-by, little pal. Thank you for coming out, and for telling me the things you have. You have done me good. You are a breath of fresh sweet air."

"It's my powder," she said complacently. "It does smell good, doesn't it? It cost a dollar a box. I borrowed the dollar from Aunt Grace. Don't let on before father. He thinks we use Mennen's baby--twenty-five cents a box. We didn't tell him so, but he just naturally thinks it. It was the breath of that dollar powder you were talking about."

She moved her fingers slightly in his hand, and he looked down at them.

Then he lifted them and looked again, admiring the slender fingers and the pink nails.

"Don't look," she entreated. "They're teaching me things. I can't help it. This spot on my thumb is fried egg, here are three doughnuts on my arm,--see them? And here's a regular pancake." She pointed out the pancake in her palm, sorrowfully.

"Teaching you things, are they?"

"Yes. I have to darn. Look at the tips of my fingers, that's where the needle rusted off on me. Here's where I cut a slice of bread out of my thumb! Isn't life serious?"

"Yes, very serious." He looked thoughtfully down at her hands again as they lay curled up in his own. "Very, very serious."

"Good-by."

"Good-by." He held her hand a moment longer, and then turned suddenly away. She watched until he was out of sight, and then slipped up-stairs, undressed in the dark and crept in between the covers. Lark apparently was sound asleep. Carol giggled softly to herself a few times, and Lark opened one eye, asking, "What's amatter?"

"Oh, such a good joke on p'fessor," whispered Carol, squeezing her twin with rapture. "He doesn't know it yet, but he'll be so disgusted with himself when he finds it out."

"What in the world is it?" Lark was more coherent now.

"I can't tell, Lark, but it's a dandy. My, he'll feel cheap when he finds out."

"Maybe he won't find it out."