Stories That End Well Part 18

"Awful--intolerable," agreed w.i.l.l.y. "I simply will not."

"And _your_ father wants you--" She looked so sympathetic that w.i.l.l.y broke right in:

"Yes. I never seem able to do anything my father wants. I can't manage men and make friends and run the business as my brothers did. Now he wants me to marry a girl he has picked out for me; and I've got to disappoint him again. I wrote him I'd try to meet his wishes every other way--I'd accept dinner invitations; I'd learn the steel business; I could ride and run an automobile, and I had been up in an airship, and I'd try to win a golf cup; and I'm taking bridge lessons, but--the hand of Douglas was his own, you know."

"I think that's splendid!" cried the girl heartily. "_I_ don't want to; but maybe I shall have to, to save Moira."

"Don't you do it!" he exclaimed. "It makes me sick to think of their trying to force you into such a thing." He did look moved.

"Don't get into such a wax. They can't force me--do I look like a person to be forced?--and poor old daddy of all people in the world! If you just knew him; we're the greatest pals in the world. But there's Moira.

If I were to marry some one with a lot of money, she could marry poor Reggy; and Moira couldn't stand being unhappy near so well as I can."

"Who's the man?" growled w.i.l.l.y in a tone of mingled gloom and fury.

"I don't know his name," replied the girl sadly. "It was like this: Dad met his father, and they became very chummy, and they got to talking. He talked about his son, who is a 'nice fellow' with elegant tastes and doesn't like business. Oh, I know, a perfectly odious person."

"Odious," w.i.l.l.y agreed morosely; "a downright _sissy_! You'd be _watched_!"

"Yes," sighed Lady Jean; "but Moira would be wretcheder because she would always be thinking of Reggy. And besides"--she grew more cheerful--"men never fancy me; no doubt he'll think I'm too ugly and dowdy, and I'm so shy I shall be hideously awkward."

"You're nothing of the kind!" w.i.l.l.y interrupted; "it--it's the most abominable cold-blooded bargain-and-sale business! And your father told you--"

"Oh, no, he didn't tell me. It was Ellen. She was so pleased; she never had any hopes of _me_, don't you know; and now she says they won't need to sacrifice Moira. But if the young man doesn't want me, _I_ shan't be to blame. Now tell me about your girl!"

"There's nothing to tell. I never saw her. I don't know her name, even.

Only she's got a t.i.tle; and she is very brilliant and charming and modest, and I'll be lucky. It's another case of parents b.u.t.ting in. All he wants, he says, is for me to _see_ her; I told him I should run away if I knew I were in the same town! But never mind me. Don't worry, little girl. _I'll_ think up a way to save you all right, all right."

His face, as he spoke, was stern and dark. She was sure that he must have great latent strength of character.

Abruptly she changed the subject recalling the elusive mowing-machine and the approach of the Brookes' dinner-hour. w.i.l.l.y was sure that Mr.

Rivers would want her to see the mower, it was--was--so typically American; and if he would take her directly and swiftly home, wouldn't she go on another search to-morrow?

"If you win," said she; she felt that she must hesitate at nothing which would give him that cup. "Another thing, don't you give another thought to me; you think every minute of your game. If you distract your mind it may get onto your game."

"I won't let it hurt my game, don't you worry," returned w.i.l.l.y confidently.

Mrs. Brooke had none of the difficulty which she had antic.i.p.ated in persuading w.i.l.l.y to dine with them; and she wondered what suffering friends of hers who had had his reluctant presence at social functions, meant by their stories. To be sure, he didn't talk much, but he was a most intelligent listener; and he was visibly having a good time.

The next day it was bruited about (no one but Jabez Rivers, who had walked the links with a reporter, could have quite told how) that young Butler was playing a wonderful game. A dozen of the golf lovers deserted the great man and his only less great opponent and saw w.i.l.l.y limp over eleven links, as he beat his man with leisurely ease.

That afternoon, while again searching for the mowing-machine which that unsuspected but efficient emissary of the Blind G.o.d, Jabez Rivers, had advised them to be sure to find--after with his own eyes he had seen it trundling into the garage--w.i.l.l.y submitted his plan of rescue. They were rolling noislessly along a wide avenue, above which the great elm boughs made a vaulted arch like the groined vault of a cathedral. Through the arches filtered the sunset rose. w.i.l.l.y suddenly stopped the machine. He did not look at her. He clutched the handle of the lever very hard; and she was positive he was pale, a pallor which threw his freckles into high relief. But she was thinking of anything else than freckles.

"I've thought it all out," said w.i.l.l.y very firmly, "and I wouldn't bother you the least little bit, not the least. And we think alike about so many things. I believe I could make it all right with your people. I can do anything, when _you_ are backing me. It would ease my mind awfully; I should be sure to win the cup. I know that would please my father, and he'd help us, maybe. Besides, I've a fortune of my own; I'd settle it all on you--"

"What _do_ you mean?" cried Lady Jean.

"You wouldn't need to marry anybody else if you married _me_," said w.i.l.l.y.

"_My word!_" gasped Lady Jean. "But you told me you didn't want to marry _anybody_."

"I shouldn't mind _you_ so much," said he.

She was thoughtful, her own mind a chaos to herself. She stole a furtive glance at his miserable face; something tender and compa.s.sionate and strange made her lips quiver, but she set them closely.

"You would be making an awful sacrifice for me?"

He did not deny it.

"It would be an awful sacrifice for me, too."

"I know," he acquiesced sadly.

"Still--I suppose you ought to have your mind settled before to-morrow or it will get on your game."

"Yes, that's just it! I'd be awfully grateful--"

Without any warning she began to laugh. "I think you are the funniest boy in the world! I don't want to marry anybody. I want to live with daddy and take care of him and be like Aunt Jean, but if I _have_ to marry anybody, I'd rather marry you. Shall we let it go at that for the present?"

"You are awfully good," cried the boy. He wondered at the extraordinary calm, almost elation, of his mood. That he should be engaged to be married and not be revolving suicide! He had read of the exaltation of self-sacrifice--maybe this was it. But how hard it must be for her.

"I'll make it just as easy for you as I can--dear." He added the last word very softly. Probably she didn't hear it, for she answered in her ordinary tone, not in the least offended, that she knew he would, then immediately demanded a sight of the mowing-machine; since it wasn't there, he would better take her home.

"Don't you begin to love this island?" he said, as he obeyed her.

"It is lovely," she said: "I never thought I could really like any place without mountains, but I do."

"I love mountains," said w.i.l.l.y.

"They were again surprised at their similarity of taste. Motor-cars and carriages pa.s.sed them continually; luxurious open vehicles, victorias and golf-carts and automobiles with their hoods lowered, disclosing billows of diaphanous feminine finery and pretty, uncovered girlish heads. w.i.l.l.y marveled over his own ease as he returned greetings punctiliously. A week ago he would have raced his horse into the darkest woodland road to escape a pa.s.sing salute, the hazard of a little casual badinage.

"How pretty American girls are," said Lady Jean a little wistfully; "such lovely wavy hair."

w.i.l.l.y's glance furtively took note of her sleek brown head and the heavy braid between her slim shoulders, which had caused him to think her a child.

"I don't much like this corrugated hair," said he carelessly; "it looks so machine-made."

Lady Jean declined all proffers of seats, even Rivers' invitation to a place by him in his runabout. She was going to walk; one could see better walking. Which was entirely correct, but was not her most intimate reason; in truth she could not endure to be sitting at her ease while w.i.l.l.y, footsore and weary, would be doggedly tramping after his ball. He presented rather a grotesque figure, did w.i.l.l.y, that eventful morning, being shod as to his sound foot with one of his own neat golf shoes, but as to his left (thanks to the ministrations of Rivers), with one of the latter's ample slippers over swathings of bandage soaked in healing-lotion. Every caddy on the ground (except w.i.l.l.y's) was in secret ecstasies over his appearance. "We ain't out for a beauty prize, but the champeen golf cup," says the faithful Tommy haughtily. "Yes, that's a bottle of liniment. I wet him up with it between whiles. He's in terrible agony. But he don't mind long's he can keep limber. And say, jest git onto our game, will you? Two up, and first round over."

Tommy and Jean were waiting when the first round ended, Rivers having taken the Brookes to the luncheon-tent to secure seats for them all. The game that morning had surprised all but the newspaper men and the few who had followed w.i.l.l.y the day before. The only hope of the friends of the champion lay in the possible exhaustion of the lame wonder whose unerring approaches were even more dangerous than his drives and his putts. "If his foot holds out," Rivers said to Brooke, "he's got the cup."

And at this very moment, as if fate conspired against w.i.l.l.y's chances, a frightful commotion arose. w.i.l.l.y, talking to Jean a moment about the game, could see the gay groups outside the white tent scatter in violent agitation with waving hands; could hear an uproar of shouts and screams.

There came a quick change in Lady Jean's face, in every face near--the caddy's, the young red-jacketed officer's at the blackboard, the women's faces in a pa.s.sing carriage. At first no intelligible sound penetrated the din; but in a thought's time a blood-curdling cry tore out of a score of throats, "Mad dog! Mad dog!" as men with golf-irons and pistols, raced toward the little group on the links, after a foam-flecked, glaring-eyed, panting little beast. The creature made straight for Tommy, who fled like a deer; but his foot hit the marker, and he stumbled and fell. It seemed in the same eyeblink that the dog was on the child and w.i.l.l.y Butler was on the dog, his bare hands twisting its collar into a tourniquet.

With one impulse Lady Jean and the young officer each s.n.a.t.c.hed a golf-club and sprang to help him. "Keep off!" he cried. "I can hold him.

Get a strap; we have to keep him alive to find out--_Jean!_ For G.o.d's sake--"

His heart seemed to stand still. Lady Jean had dropped on her knees by the dog, shielding him from the young officer's club. "Don't," she said; "_he's_ not mad! It's Mrs. Brooke's dog--Why can't you _see_? The poor brute's _wagging his tail_!"