T. Tembarom Part 66

"Yes! Yes! I have never talked to any one. There has been no one to listen."

"Talk all you want," he answered, with immense gentleness. "I'm here."

"I can't understand it even now, but he would not see me!" she broke out. "I was half mad. I wrote, and he would not answer. I went to his chambers when I heard he was going to leave England. I went to beg him to take me with him, married or unmarried. I would have gone on my knees to him. He was gone! Oh, why? Why?"

"You didn't think he'd gone because he didn't love you?" he put it to her quite literally and unsentimentally. "You knew better than that?"

"How could I be sure of anything! When he left the room that awful night he would not look at me! He would not look at me!"

"Since I've been here I've been reading a lot of novels, and I've found out a lot of things about fellows that are not the common, practical kind. Now, he wasn't. He'd lived pretty much like a fellow in a novel, I guess. What's struck me about that sort is that they think they have to make n.o.ble sacrifices, and they'll just walk all over a woman because they won't do anything to hurt her. There's not a bit of sense in it, but that was what he was doing. He believed he was doing the square thing by you--and you may bet your life it hurt him like h.e.l.l. I beg your pardon--but that's the word--just plain h.e.l.l."

"I was only a girl. He was like iron. He went away alone. He was killed, and when he was dead the truth was told."

"That's what I've remembered "--quite slowly--"every time I've looked at you. By gee! I'd have stood anything from a woman that had suffered as much as that."

It made her cry--his genuineness--and she did not care in the least that the tears streamed down her cheeks. How he had stood things! How he had borne, in that odd, unimpressive way, insolence and arrogance for which she ought to have been beaten and blackballed by decent society! She could scarcely bear it.

"Oh! to think it should have been you," she wept, "just you who understood!"

"Well," he answered speculatively, "I mightn't have understood as well if it hadn't been for Ann. By jings! I used to lie awake at night sometimes thinking `supposing it bad been Ann and me!' I'd sort of work it out as it might have happened in New York--at the office of the Sunday Earth. Supposing some fellow that'd had a grouch against me had managed it so that Galton thought I'd been getting away with money that didn't belong to me--fixing up my expense account, or worse. And Galton wouldn't listen to what I said, and fired me; and I couldn't get a job anywhere else because I was down and out for good. And n.o.body would listen. And I was killed without clearing myself. And Little Ann was left to stand it--Little Ann! Old Hutchinson wouldn't listen, I know that. And it would be all shut up burning in her big little heart--burning. And T. T. dead, and not a word to say for himself. Jehoshaphat!"--taking out his handkerchief and touching his forehead--"it used to make the cold sweat start out on me. It's doing it now. Ann and me might have been Jem and you. That's why I understood."

He put out his hand and caught hers and frankly squeezed it--squeezed it hard; and the unconventional clutch was a wonderful thing to her.

"It's all right now, ain't it?" he said. "We've got it straightened out. You'll not be afraid to come back here if your mother wants you to." He stopped for a moment and then went on with something of hesitation: "We don't want to talk about your mother. We can't. But I understand her, too. Folks are different from each other in their ways. She's different from you. I'll--I'll straighten it out with her if you like."

"Nothing will need straightening out after I tell her that you are going to marry Little Ann Hutchinson," said Joan, with a half-smile.

"And that you were engaged to her before you saw me."

"Well, that does sort of finish things up, doesn't it?" said T.

Tembarom.

He looked at her so speculatively for a moment after this that she wondered whether he had something more to say. He had.

"There's something I want to ask you," he ventured.

"Ask anything."

"Do you know any one--just any one--who has a photo-- just any old photo--of Jem Temple Barholm?"

She was rather puzzled.

"Yes. I know a woman who has worn one for nearly eight years. Do you want to see it?"

"I'd give a good deal to," was his answer.

She took a flat locket from her dress and handed it to him.

"Women don't wear lockets in these days." He could barely hear her voice because it was so low. "But I've never taken it off. I want him near my heart. It's Jem!"

He held it on the palm of his hand and stood under the light, studying it as if he wanted to be sure he wouldn't forget it.

"It's--sorter like that picture of Miles Hugo, ain't it?" he suggested.

"Yes. People always said so. That was why you found me in the picture- gallery the first time we met."

"I knew that was the reason--and I knew I'd made a break when I b.u.t.ted in," he answered. Then, still looking at the photograph, "You'd know this face again most anywhere you saw it, I guess."

"There are no faces like it anywhere," said Joan.

"I guess that's so," he replied. "And it's one that wouldn't change much either. Thank you, Lady Joan."

He handed back the picture, and she put out her hand again.

"I think I'll go to my room now," she said. "You've done a strange thing to me. You've taken nearly all the hatred and bitterness out of my heart. I shall want to come back here whether my mother comes or not--I shall want to."

"The sooner the quicker," he said. "And so long as I'm here I'll be ready and waiting."

"Don't go away," she said softly. "I shall need you."

"Isn't that great?" he cried, flushing delightedly. "Isn't it just great that we've got things straightened so that you can say that.

Gee! This is a queer old world! There's such a lot to do in it, and so few hours in the day. Seems like there ain't time to stop long enough to hate anybody and keep a grouch on. A fellow's got to keep hustling not to miss the things worth while."

The liking in her eyes was actually wistful.

"That's your way of thinking, isn't it?" she said. "Teach it to me if you can. I wish you could. Good-night." She hesitated a second. "G.o.d bless you!" she added, quite suddenly--almost fantastic as the words sounded to her. That she, Joan Fayre, should be calling down devout benisons on the head of T. Tembarom--T. Tembarom!

Her mother was in her room when she reached it. She had come up early to look over her possessions--and Joan's--before she began her packing. The bed, the chairs, and tables were spread with evening, morning, and walking-dresses, and the millinery collected from their combined wardrobes. She was examining anxiously a lace appliqued and embroidered white coat, and turned a slightly flushed face toward the opening door.

"I am going over your things as well as my own," she said. "I shall take what I can use. You will require nothing in London. You will require nothing anywhere in future. What is the matter?" she said sharply, as she saw her daughter's face.

Joan came forward feeling it a strange thing that she was not in the mood to fight--to lash out and be glad to do it.

"Captain Palliser told me as I came up that Mr. Temple Barholm had been talking to you," her mother went on. "He heard you having some sort of scene as he pa.s.sed the door. As you have made your decision, of course I know I needn't hope that anything has happened."

"What has happened has nothing to do with my decision. He wasn't waiting for that," Joan answered her. "We were both entirely mistaken, Mother."

"What are you talking about?" cried Lady Mallowe, but she temporarily laid the white coat on a chair. "What do you mean by mistaken?"

"He doesn't want me--he never did," Joan answered again. A shadow of a smile hovered over her face, and there was no derision in it, only a warming recollection of his earnestness when he had said the words she quoted: "He is what they call in New York `dead stuck on another girl."'

Lady Mallowe sat down on the chair that held the white coat, and she did not push the coat aside.

"He told you that in his vulgar slang!" she gasped it out. "You--you ought to have struck him dead with your answer."

"Except poor Jem Temple Barholm," was the amazing reply she received, "he is the only friend I ever had in my life."