Quill's Window Part 7

said he, quite humbly. As he started down the path, he paused to add: "I did not know you had returned. I daresay I should have been less venturesome had I known you were in the neighbourhood."

The thinly veiled sarcasm did not escape her.

"I suppose you are the young man from New York that every one is talking about. That may account for your ignorance. In order that you may not feel called upon to visit this place again to satisfy your curiosity, I will point out to you the objects of interest.

This pile of rocks marks the grave of my father and mother. The dates speak for themselves. You may have noticed them when you scratched your match just above my mother's name. My father was murdered by my grandfather before I was born. My mother died on the day I was born. I never saw them. I do not love them, because I never knew them. But I DO respect and honour them. They were good people. I have no reason to be ashamed of them. If you will look out over those trees and across that pasture, you will see the house in which my mother died and where I was born. Directly in front of the little porch my father died as the result of a blow delivered by my grandfather. As to the disposal of the body, you may obtain all the information necessary from Alaska Spigg, our town librarian, who will be more than delighted to supply you with all the ghastly details. To your right is the post to which a man named Quill attached his ladder in order to reach the cave in the face of this rock,--where he lived for many years. This is the path leading down to the gate, which you will still find unlocked. It will not be necessary for you to come up here again. You have seen all there is to see."

With that, she deliberately turned her back on him and walked toward the edge of the cliff. He stared after her for a few seconds, his lips parted as if to speak, and then, as the flush of mortification deepened in his cheeks, he began picking his way rather blindly down the steep path.

He was never to forget his first encounter with Alix the Third.

CHAPTER VI

CHARLIE WEBSTER ENTERTAINS

That evening at the supper table, Mr. Pollock politely informed him that Alix Crown had returned from Michigan, looking as fit as a fiddle.

"You've been so sort of curious about her, Court?" (it had not taken the male boarders long to dispense with formalities), "that I thought you'd be interested in knowing that she's home. Got back last evening. Her Packard automobile met her at the depot up in the city. You'll know her when you see her. Tall girl and fairly good-looking. Puts on an awful lot of 'dog.' What is it you fellows in the Army call it? Swunk?"

"Sw.a.n.k," said Courtney, rather shortly. He was still smarting under the sting of his afternoon's experience.

"Lemme help you to some more squash, Mr. Thane," said Margaret Slattery in his ear. "And another biscuit."

"Thank you, no," said he.

"What's the matter with your appet.i.te?" she demanded. "You ain't hardly touched anything this evenin'. Sick?"

"I'm not hungry, Margaret."

"Been out in the sun too much, that's what's the matter with you.

First thing you know you'll get a sunstroke, and THEN! My Uncle Mike was sunstruck when I was--"

"Pa.s.s me the biscuits, Maggie, and don't be all night about it," put in Mr. Webster. "I'm hungry, even if Court isn't. I can distinctly remember when you used to pa.s.s everything to me first, and almost stuff it--"

"Yes, and she used to do the same for me before you shaved off your chin whiskers, Charlie," said Mr. Hatch gloomily. "How times have changed."

"It ain't the times that's changed," said Margaret. "It's you men.

You ain't what you used to be, lemme tell you that."

"True,--oh so true," lamented Mr. Webster. "I used to be nice and thin and graceful before you began showering me with attention. Now look at me. You put something like fifty pounds on me, and then you desert me. I was a handsome feller when I first came here, wasn't I, Flora? I leave it to you if I wasn't."

"I don't remember how you looked when you first came here," replied Miss Grady loftily.

"Can you beat that?" cried Charlie to Courtney across the table.

"And she used to say I was the handsomest young feller she'd ever laid eyes on. Used to say I looked like,--who was it you used to say I looked like, Flora?"

"The only thing I ever said you looked like was a mud fence, Charlie Webster."

"What did she say, Pa? Hey?" This from old Mrs. Nichols, holding her hand to her ear. "What are they laughing at?"

"She says Charlie looks like a mud fence," shouted old Mr. Nichols, his lips close to her ear.

"His pants? What about his pants?"

This time Courtney joined in the laugh.

After supper he sat on the front porch with the Pollocks and Miss Grady. It was a warm, starry night. Charlie Webster and Doc Simpson had strolled off down the street. Mr. Hatch and Miss Miller sat in the parlour.

"She's going to land Furman Hatch, sure as you're a foot high,"

confided Mr. Pollock, with a significant jerk of his head in the direction of the parlour.

"Heaven knows she's been trying long enough," said Miss Grady. "I heard him ask Doc and Charlie to wait for him, but she nabbed him before he could get out. Now he's got to sit in there and listen to her tell about how interested she is in art,--and him just dyin'

for a smoke. Why, there's Alix Crown now. She's comin' in here."

A big touring car drew up to the sidewalk in front of the Tavern.

Miss Crown sprang lightly out of the seat beside the chauffeur and came up the steps.

"How do you do, Mrs. Pollock? h.e.l.lo, Flora. Good evening, Mr.

Editor," was her cheery greeting as she pa.s.sed by and entered the house.

"She comes around every once in a while and takes the Dowd girls out riding in her car," explained Mrs. Pollock.

"Mighty nice of her," said Mr. Pollock, taking his feet down from the porch-rail and carefully brushing the cigar ashes off of his coat sleeve. "Takes old Alaska Spigg out too, and the Nicholses, and--"

"We've been out with her a great many times," broke in Mrs. Pollock.

"I think a Packard is a wonderful car, don't you, Mr. Thane? So smooth and--"

"I think I'll take a little stroll," said Courtney abruptly; and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his hat from the floor beside his chair he hurried down the steps.

She had not even glanced at him as she crossed the porch. He had the very uneasy conviction that so far as she was concerned he might just as well not have been there at all. In the early dusk, her face was clearly revealed to him. There was nothing cold or unfriendly about it now. Instead, her smile was radiant; her eyes,--even in the subdued light,--glowed with pleasure. Her voice was clear and soft and singularly appealing. In the afternoon's encounter he had been struck by its unexpected combination of English and American qualities; the sharp querulousness of the English and the melodious drawl of the American were strangely blended, and although there had been castigation in her words and manner, he took away with him the disturbing memory of a voice he was never to forget. And now he had seen the smile that even the most envious of her kind described as "heavenly." It was broad and wholesome and genuine. There was a flash of white, even teeth between warm red lips, a gleam of merriment in the half-closed eyes, a gay tilt to the bare, shapely head. Her dark hair was coiled neatly, and the ears were exposed. He liked her ears. He remembered them as he had seen them in the afternoon, fairly large, shapely and close to the head. No need for her to follow the prevailing fashion of the day! She had no reason to hide her ears beneath a mat of hair.

In the evening glow her face was gloriously beautiful,--clear-cut as a cameo, warm as a rose. It was no longer clouded with anger.

She seemed taller. The smart riding costume had brought her trim figure into direct contrast with his own height and breadth, and she had looked like a slim, half-grown boy beside his six feet and over. Now, in her black and white checked sport skirt and dark sweater jacket, she was revealed as a woman quite well above the average height.

He was standing in front of the drug store when the big car went by a few minutes later, filled with people. She was driving, the chauffeur sitting in the seat beside her. In the tonneau he observed the two Dowd sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Pollock and Flora Grady.

As the car whizzed by, A. Lincoln Pollock espied him. Waving his hand triumphantly, the editor called out:

"h.e.l.lo, Court!"

The object of this genial shout did not respond by word or action.

He looked to see if the girl at the wheel turned her head for a glance in his direction. She did not, and he experienced a fresh twinge of annoyance. He muttered something under his breath. The car disappeared around a bend as he turned to enter the store.

"That was Alix Crown, Court," remarked Charlie Webster from the doorway. "Little too dark to get a good look at her, but wait till she flashes across you in broad daylight some time. She'll make you forget all those Fifth Avenue skirts so quick your head'll swim."

"Is THAT so?" retorted Courtney, allowing rancour to get the better of fairness. Down in his heart he had said that Alix Crown was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. "What do you know about Fifth Avenue?"