Sunlight Patch Part 26

"Don't muddy the water, please. Let's whittle on one stick at a time.

Have you played fair?"

"Of course, I have!"

"That's all I want to know."

But this reply suggested a subtle accusation which she did not like, and she asked:

"What do you mean?"

"Only this," he leaned so that his words could not be overheard, and his voice was tense with a strange seriousness. "You knew perfectly well that I was hardly to blame--and, blamable as that defense may be, what I did was done reverently. You may not know, though I'll tell you now, that you were the most exquisite thing I have ever beheld!--absolutely the most adorable and exquisite! You literally balanced yourself before my eyes, you literally taunted me with words which were a challenge of unresisting sweetness, you literally drew me, and when I came, you flew into a rage. You call that fair? I call it grossly unfair! Take it from me, Jane, that a girl who willfully fires a man, as Almighty G.o.d fires the heavens in a tempest, and then springs behind her propriety to escape, has a serious form of pyromania that'll consume her some day, just as sure as I'm talking to you--but not before it drives a lot of decent fellows to eternal flames!"

"You're talking like a madman!" she gasped.

"Far from it. I'm talking the most rational stuff you ever heard in all your life! In fact, your very presence compels me to be rational."

"An enigmatic compliment," she could not help smiling. "What kind of deliriant have you been taking tonight?"

"You!" he whispered. "Just you, who intoxicate and torture me! And as for enigmatic compliments, I swear that you inspire me with only the highest reverence at all times. Don't think the library episode indicates a lack of respect! It was the very soul of reverence speaking--though," he slowly added, "it would not have spoken in just that way if Zack's toddy--"

"I'm beginning to hate the very word of julep and toddy," she said pa.s.sionately; and the Colonel, hearing this, turned with an amused expression of surprise.

Ann had let Dale off her leash, and he now was making mental charges across the table to Jane, very much as a playful puppy would physically have done to one it wished to attract. She caught his eye and smiled, and then saw the haunted look in his face which aroused her at once to what was going on.

The table had centered in a general conversation, and Miss Liz, without suspecting the sting it carried, had launched into a tirade against the lawlessness of the mountaineers who killed and were killed with an abandon worthy of Apaches. That he should now be so frantically signalling, as though he knew in her would be found help, touched the girl's responsive nature. Brent, seeing this--as he saw much that pa.s.sed about him--whispered to her:

"After all's said and done, it's a good feeling--that of being needed, isn't it?"

"Our mountaineers are not law breakers, Lizzie," the Colonel was saying with more than ordinary sharpness in defense of his guest--and of his State. "They keep the law extraordinarily well."

"How can you make such a statement!" the good lady cried. "I constantly hear of men being killed up in that wicked country!"

"It's very much exaggerated, as Brent would say," he chuckled. "At any rate," he cleared his throat, "I refer to the common law."

Bob and Brent exchanged winks. They knew the old gentleman was getting frightfully tangled, and were curious to see how he would work himself out of it.

"Then I suppose you mean," her voice rang with the challenge, "that killing people is compatible with the common law?"

"Legal hangings are," he smiled blandly. "But, what I do seriously mean is this: the common law of a country, and therefore the common law of a place, is merely--and nothing more than--a common custom plus the power to change that custom. This being the case, the mountaineer of Kentucky is within the common law of his section, providing that he kills only within that section where it is a common custom--plus the power to change that custom."

Miss Liz sighed. "It doesn't sound like good sense," she said, "but may be correct. I have always thought that law is law, everywhere."

"Law is law, my dear," he gently explained to her, "until it is changed; certainly. But it is not always good sense. Take our waterways hereabouts! They are every one governed by the same old law of riparian rights which we took from England, whose waterways are no more like those in this country than threads are like ropes. And, moreover, England's law was construed long before the dream of artificial power, having to do merely with streams adapted to navigation. Who cared then for a falls or rapids? Who would have been mad enough to think of bridled electricity? So today, these falls and rapids, which are quite out of the question for navigable purposes, but possess as great a value in other respects to the people at large, are entirely demoralized through the application of an antiquated law framed to deal with streams of a totally different character. Don't you see, my dear, how fallible may be the thing called law if it runs counter to public good? And does it not show you that every common law must be--in order to be sensible--a consensus of public consent? Therefore, do I maintain that the mountaineers of our proud State, who in common consent prosecute their own feuds in their own domain, are within the common law of that domain. Some day, when Brent's and other railroads have poured into them a different civilization, their environment will be changed;--there will arise amongst them a giant to turn things upside down--as Jeremy Bentham threw defiance to the law of diodens."

The Colonel now, having distorted a little knowledge into a great flow of verbal pyrotechnics which hopelessly confused and downed Miss Liz, turned back to Nancy with a satisfied smile.

"Wasn't diodens a sort of old law that confiscated anything which destroyed life?" Brent, in an undertone, asked Jane.

It seemed a safe enough subject, and she nodded: "I think so."

"I was just wondering," he whispered, "that if this law prevailed now, which would the State confiscate--your eyes, your mouth, the tip of your chin, your--"

"If thoughts kill," she frowned, "my mind would be seized. I've murdered you several times with that."

"You've murdered me several times with everything about you! I wish I were the State!"

"State of Idiocy? Why carry coals to Newcastle?"

"To heap on your head," he laughed, "and scorch your uncharitable soul!"

"My poor lost soul," she murmured.

"Then take notice that, if finders are keepers, I'm heading a search party."

She looked gaily up at him, for it was hard to remember that she was angry; but quickly her face sobered.

"I forgot, and I must not forget, that you've mortally offended me."

There was something very serious in the way she said it--something totally beyond the slightest echo of banter--that affected him. She was looking back fearlessly into his face, and he saw the hurt in her eyes--and he saw in her eyes that she was anxious. A certain faint and subtle element of surprise and wonderment had pa.s.sed across them, like a cloud shadow over a sunlit field of waving grain. It thrilled him to the very depth of his nature. For the first time in his life he was being driven by an influence, by a storm, or what you will, which contained not one element of self.

"For the love of G.o.d, what have you done?" he whispered, almost accusingly in his earnestness.

"Done?" she asked, looking away from him. "You are saying queer things tonight!"

"I am experiencing queer things tonight," his voice trembled. "May I come tomorrow and apologize properly?"

"Apologies are futile; besides, I am going to church with Bip."

"Then the next Sunday!" he entreated. "I know you've a lot to forgive--but I'm so terribly sorry! It hasn't murdered our friendship, has it, Jane?"

"I--I don't know. I'm tired tonight, and maybe can't see things as I should."

"I'm coming tomorrow, anyway, and explain," he whispered.

"No. And please promise you will never refer to this evening again!"

"Very well. And there's another promise I'll make you, too--"

But Miss Liz had arisen, and the others were pushing back their chairs, so Jane did not hear this other promise he would have made; for she was moving from the table with Doctor Stone, having pinned that gentleman as they first arose with no intention of letting him leave her. He had made one or two amateurish efforts to wait for Nancy, and now in a bewildered sort of way wondered why he continued with this other girl against his will. Doctor Stone's university course had not included psychodynamics in the female species. Thus it was that he walked from the dining-room to its carefully trimmed terrace with Jane, and thus it was that Nancy slowly followed with the Colonel, who had filled her arms with a gorgeous bouquet of peonies.

The honor guest's face was flushed, but it had been flushed throughout the dinner. Never had she sat down at so well appointed a table, and never had she openly been shown attention by one of the Colonel's social standing. She was excited and happy; she wanted to run and dance, as a flower-laden child might run and dance along a sun-kissed, wooded path!

CHAPTER XIX

THE MERITS OF HORSEFLESH