Sunlight Patch Part 38

"Then," Brent tried to corner him, "until you admit yourself de-charmed, church this morning is your only alternative."

"It would be a very good place for your soul, young man," he sternly retorted. "When I was a gay spark, ladies of--of almost the same loveliness," he bowed again, "were kept busy weeks in advance accepting my invitations to church, sir! The very rocks and rills of our beloved Commonwealth would strike me dead, sir, if I had permitted so enchanting an opportunity to escape!" And once more he bowed low before her.

"Mistress Jane," Brent sprang to his feet and bent double with an abandon that the Colonel's old bones would have resented, "will you adorn my buggy as far as the meetin'-house?"

"You overwhelm me," she murmured.

"And, will you tell us, O gracious bewitcher, how you knew what I was whistling for?"

"Help me up and I will," her hands went out to him. "When you whistled, Uncle Zack yelled: 'I'se fixin' 'em!'"

"I shall have that n.i.g.g.e.r shot," the Colonel cried in delight. "Suppose poor, dear Lizzie had been here!"

"What time shall we start?" she turned to Brent, seeing Zack on his way from the house, and somehow feeling that she could not stay just then.

Her aversion for this was increasing. She did not know how firmly, how stubbornly, Brent had begun to shut down on his own indulgences.

"Any time you say," he agreeably answered. "Is it town?"

"No, the convent chapel."

"But--er--you'll forgive my wretched memory if I can't seem to recall when these things take up?"

"Five o'clock, over there," she smiled.

"Five! I never heard of such an hour for church, did you, Colonel?"

"Most certainly, sir!" His affirmation suggested a long personal acquaintance with such matters. "They always begin at five!"

Jane gave him a quick, twinkling glance, but only added:

"I thought the vesper service might be cooler, and a pleasanter drive.

We ought to start a little after four, don't you think so? And we'll take Bip, and Dale."

"I wouldn't stop there," Brent moodily suggested.

"I think that will be enough for one day," she laughed. "They're the princ.i.p.al ones whom--not who ought to go, you understand, but whom I want to go."

"But Bip is too young," he protested.

"'Suffer the little children--'" she said prettily.

"He'll go to sleep!"

"Then you may hold him."

"Maybe he'll snore!"

"Then you have my permission to choke him," she laughed.

Yet, he was very much in a pout, and staring gloomily at the ground.

"You'll be awfully crowded," he said at last, "with Dale in the buggy, too!"

"We'll take the surrey."

"And he'll be bored stiff!"

"Not from hearing complimentary things said to me," she gently rebuked him.

"Oh, Jane, be a sport and let's go alone! I'm worth saving, ain't I, Colonel?"

"You can't prove it by me, you rogue," the old gentleman a.s.serted.

"I may think about it," she compromised, smiling over her shoulder as she turned away.

They drew up to the table and arranged the chess board. Zack stood waiting for the goblets, having no intention to leave these treacherous exhibits again at large should a spirit of fatigue overtake the players.

So there was a prolonged pause while the men fortified themselves for the coming fray, and when the Colonel noisily sucked the very last drop through the cooling ice--and took a piece of this in his mouth to crunch--he leaned back with a sigh of satisfaction. Zack, as he walked slowly away, also sighed, but it held a curious mixture of perplexity and antic.i.p.ation: perplexity, because Brent had scarcely drunk a third of his julep, and antic.i.p.ation for an obvious reason.

"All the same," the engineer announced when they were alone, "Bip is too young!"

"Of course, he's too young," the Colonel heartily agreed. "Anybody's too young, or too old, or too something, when it comes to being third person on such a pleasant prospect. I would stand no intrusion, sir!"

"I didn't mean just that," Brent flushed.

"Certainly not, you altruistic and good natured liar," the old gentleman chuckled. "Come, sir; here goes p.a.w.n to King four! Now be on your guard!"

"To King four," Brent replied, leaning over and pushing out his own King's p.a.w.n.

They had not been playing many minutes when the Colonel, pausing to light a cigar, looked up with a start of surprise. Brent wheeled about and there stood Tom Hewlet, swaying awkwardly and weeping. It was uncanny the way he had approached so near without being heard.

"Well, Tom," the Colonel asked sharply, "what do you want?"

"I just want to call it quits, Cunnel. I ain't done nuthin' to be locked up for!"

"You're very drunk," the old gentleman thundered. "I'm surprised you would approach my place in such a condition!"

"There wasn't no other way, Cunnel. I'm sorry, I am, 'bout what I aimed to do--an' I won't no moh, if Mister McElroy'll let up! I'm a hard workin' man, an' got a big fam'ly to keer for!"

"Do you know what he's talking about?" the old gentleman asked Brent.

"I told you some of it the other day--but I think an approaching delirium tremens is partially responsible for this!"

"Ah, so you did! Tom, you tried to practice blackmail!" The Colonel's eyes were glowering.

"But I ain't no moh," Hewlet turned his back and began anew to weep.

"Don't do nuthin' to me!"

Brent motioned the Colonel to let him speak.