The Brown Study Part 19

Julius himself had sat absolutely still beside the chauffeur, his muscles tensely bracing themselves for whatever might come. Ashworth had caught Miss Vincent, rigid with fear, into his arms. Waldron, throwing up the arm next to Dorothy to grasp her with it, felt her hand leap toward him, and with his free hand seized it in his own.

Staring straight ahead then they saw a strange thing, yet not so strange when one remembers human nature. Ridgeway Jordan had leaped to his feet and thrown one leg over the side of the car ready to jump, when, before he could complete the movement, the car righted itself and he sank back into his seat.

"Holy smoke!" Julius murmured under his breath, and glanced at the chauffeur.

That nearly imperturbable youth grunted in return. His hands were steady upon the wheel, but he laughed a little shakily.

Then Julius gazed back into the depths of the car. He could not see much, for the trees at this point were heavily overshadowing the road, but he made out that Ridge Jordan was sitting stiffly in his seat, with--strange to observe!--his head turned toward the front of the car. Behind him the other figures were still and silent. Julius guessed that n.o.body felt like speaking; he did not feel like it himself. It had been a little too near a thing to discuss at first hand.

Dorothy, her heart beating in a queer, throat-choking way, became conscious that her hand was held close and warm in another hand. An arm that had been about her, whose clasp she had not consciously felt but now remembered, had been withdrawn at the moment that the danger had pa.s.sed. But evidently--for the car had now gone a quarter of a mile beyond the crucial point and was running smoothly along a wider and less dangerous highway--her hand had been imprisoned in this strange grasp for some time.

She made a gentle but decided effort to withdraw it, an effort which secured its release at once but brought a low question in her ear:

"Are you all right?"

"I--think so," she murmured in reply.

It was not only the shock of the just avoided danger which held her in its grip, but the other and even more startling revelations which had come with it. Her head was whirling, her pulses were thrilling with the conflict of new and strange impressions. Since three minutes ago a new Heaven and an old earth had suddenly shown themselves.

The low voice pressed the question: "Not faint--nor frightened?"

She looked up at him then for an instant, although she could barely see the outlines of his face. "Not with you here," she answered breathlessly, with the impulse toward absolute honesty with which such an experience sometimes shakes the spirit out of its conventionalities.

He was like a statue beside her for the s.p.a.ce of six of her heartbeats.

Then his hand again found hers, pressed it in both of his, and let it go; and his quiet speech, the note deeper than before, came once more in her ear:

"I shall never forget that."

They went on in silence.

After a time Ridge Jordan turned about and made a carefully worded inquiry into the comfort of his guests, which they answered with as careful a.s.surances that they were entirely comfortable and confident.

Ridge's voice was not quite natural. A biting shame was hara.s.sing him, whose only alleviation was the possibility that n.o.body--or at least Dorothy--had noticed in the excitement of the part that he had played.

He was saying to himself, wretchedly, that he had not known it of himself, that he could not have believed it of himself. How could he have done it--have had the impulse, even, to leap to safety and leave her behind? Had she seen--had she seen? Yet when, after a time, she leaned forward and spoke to him of her own accord, her voice was so kind, rang with such a golden note, that he felt with sudden relief that she could not have seen.

He turned about and began to talk again, growing more and more secure in his belief that at the supreme moment of danger n.o.body had thought of anybody but himself or herself, and by the time the car drew into the home town Jordan was serene again.

Under the first of the arc lights Julius took counsel with his watch. He swung about and spoke tersely: "You and I'd better jump out here and make the station, Waldron. It's closer to train time than I thought. We're awfully obliged to you, Ridge."

"We'll go that way. It's only a block or two out of our course," Jordan insisted, eager to speed the parting guest.

The car drew toward the string of electrics which lighted the small suburban station at which Waldron had arrived in the morning. The glancing, silver-arrowed radiance illumined the whole interior of the car under its wide-spreading, hooded top. Waldron could see Dorothy's brilliant eyes, the curve of her lips, the rose colour in her cheeks repeating warmly the deeper rose colour of the little silk bonnet which kept her dark hair in order--all but one wild-willed little curly strand which had escaped and was blowing about her face. Dorothy, in her turn, could see Waldron's clean-cut, purposeful face, his deep-set eyes, the modelling of his strong mouth and chin, the fine line of his cheek.

As they had looked at each other when they first met, so they looked at each other again before they parted. Yet between that meeting and that parting something had happened. It was in his eyes as he looked at her; it was in her eyes as for one instant, before she dropped bewildering lashes, she gave him back his look. It meant that South America was not so far away but that a voyager could come back over the same high seas which had conveyed him there. And that when he came--

"I'm grateful to you, Mr. Jordan," Waldron said, shaking hands beside the car, "more than I can say to you. You have done me a greater kindness than you know. Good-night--to you all!"

He went away with Julius without a glance behind after the salute of his lifted hat, which included everybody.

By some common impulse the rest of the party all looked after the two as they walked away toward the station door.

"Seems like an uncommonly nice chap," was Ashworth's comment. "I'll wager he's something, somewhere."

"He has a very interesting face," his fiancee conceded.

"Yes, hasn't he?" Dorothy agreed lightly, something evidently being expected of her.

"He may be the tenth wonder of the world," declared Ridgeway Jordan, springing in to take his old place beside her for the drive of an eighth of a mile left to him; "but I grudge him this hour by you. Jove, but I thought the drive would never end!"

Julius, after seeing his friend off with a sense of comradeship more worth while than any he had known, walked rapidly back, eager for a word with Dorothy. Quick as he was, however, she was quicker, and he found her locked into her own room. By insisting on talking through the door he got her to open it, but there was not so much satisfaction in this as he had expected, because she had extinguished her lights.

"How did you like him?" was his first eager question.

"Very well," said a cool, low voice in the darkness. "Much better than the trick you used to carry out your wishes."

"Trick!" her brother exclaimed, all the angel innocence he could summon in his voice. "When you wouldn't tell me a word of where you were going!"

"You guessed it. It was abominable of you."

"Oh, see here! If I hadn't managed it you wouldn't have seen him--and he wouldn't have seen you."

"And what of that?" queried the cool voice, cool but sweet. Dot's voice, even in real anger, was never harsh.

"Well, what of it?" was the counter-question. "Can you honestly say you wish you hadn't met him, a real man like that?"

There was silence. Julius moved cautiously across the room, avoiding chairs as best he could. "Be honest now. Isn't he the real thing?

And isn't Ridge Jordan--"

"Please don't talk about poor Ridge that way, Jule."

"Poor Ridge!" cried Julius. "Well, well, you didn't speak of him that way this morning. What's happened?"

"Nothing has happened. That is--"

He came close. There was a queer little shake in Dorothy's voice. She began to laugh then quite suddenly to cry. Julius came near enough to pat her down-bent head.

"Did that confounded close call shake you up a bit?" he inquired sympathetically. "By George! when I think what I let you and Kirke and everybody in for, starting earlier than they meant and all that, so we were just in time to meet that fool in the worst place on the road--"

Dorothy looked up. To his astonishment she sprang to her feet and clasped him about the neck, burying her face on his shoulder. She began to say something into his ear, laughing and crying at the same time, so that all he was at length able to gather was that she didn't regret the close call at all, for it had shown her--had shown her--

Julius had not seen Ridge Jordan make his move to spring from the car, but he had felt it--felt Ridge's hand strike his shoulder, his knee hit his back. He had not taken in its meaning at the instant, but when he had turned about and seen Ridge sitting stiffly facing ahead it came to him what had happened at the crisis. He had wondered whether Dot had seen it.

Now he knew. Not that she said it. In fact, she said nothing intelligible, but she held her brother tight before she sent him away; and somehow he understood that Fate had helped him to show Dorothy her "real man."

Somehow she had known that Waldron would write. It was impossible to recall his face and not know that he was a man of action. He would not go away for six months and leave behind him only a memory to hold her thoughts to his. She wondered only when his letter would come.

Four times a day the postman was accustomed to leave the mail in an interesting heap upon the table in Mrs. Jack Elliot's hall. Dorothy, from the very morning after the trip to Saxifrage Inn, had found herself scanning the pile with a curious sense of antic.i.p.ation. She wondered what Waldron's handwriting was like. She recalled his workmanlike little figures upon the blackboard, and made up her mind that his penmanship would be of a similar character, compact and regular. Another man would have sent her flowers before he sailed. Instinctively she knew that Waldron would not do this; she did not expect nor wish it. But he would write--unquestionably. How would he write? That was the question which made her pulses thrill.

It was some time before the letter came, as she had guessed it would be.