The Desired Woman Part 7

"What have you been doing to yourself?" he cried, his glance bearing down admiringly on her.

"Oh, just trying on a frock," she answered, her face charmingly pink in its warmth, her long lashes betraying a tendency to droop, and her rich round voice quivering. "Those two women in there made me come out here so they could see me. I ought to have had more sense."

"I'm certainly glad they did, since it has given me a chance to see you this way. Why, Dolly, do you know that dress is simply marvelous. I have always thought you were--" Mostyn half hesitated--"beautiful, but this dress makes you--well, it makes you--indescribable."

Avoiding his burning eyes, Dolly frankly explained the situation. "You see it is a sort of windfall," she added. "I've got enough saved up to pay for it as it is, but if it were not a bargain I could never dream of it. Mary's father is well off, and she is the special pet of a rich uncle."

Glancing down the road, she saw the bowed figure of a man approaching, and at once her face became grave. "It is Tobe Barnett," she said. "I want to ask him about Robby."

Leaving Mostyn, she hastened to the fence, meeting the uplifted and woeful glance of Barnett as he neared her. "Why, Tobe, what is the matter? You look troubled. Robby isn't worse, is he?"

"I declare, I hardly know, Miss Dolly," the gaunt man faltered. "I'm no judge, nor Annie ain't neither. She's plumb lost heart, an' I'm not any better. The doctor come this morning. He said it was a very serious case. He--but I don't want to bother you, Miss Dolly; the Lord above knows you have done too much already."

"Tobe Barnett, listen to me!" Dolly cried. "What are you beating about the bush for? Haven't I got a right to know about that child? I love it. If anything was to happen to that baby it would kill me. Did the doctor say there was no--no hope?"

"It ain't that, exactly, Miss Dolly." Barnett avoided her eyes and gulped, his half-bare, hairy breast quivering with suppressed emotion.

"Well, what is it, then?" Dolly demanded, impatiently.

"Why, if you will know my full shame it is this, Miss Dolly," he blurted out, despondently; he started to cover his face with his gaunt hand, but refrained. "I'm a scab on the face of the world. I've lost the respect and confidence of all men. The doctor left a prescription for several kinds of medicine and a rubber hot-water bag and syringe. I went to the drug store in Darley and the one here in Ridgeville but they wouldn't credit me--they said they couldn't run business on that plan. And I can't blame 'em. I owe 'em too much already."

"Look here, Tobe!" Dolly was leaning over the fence, regardless of the fact that the sleeves of the new dress were against the palings. "How much do those things cost?"

Barnett turned and stared hesitatingly at her. "More than I'd let _you_ pay for," he blurted out, doggedly. "Six dollars. When I git so low as to put my yoke on your sweet young neck I--I will kill myself--that's what I'll do. I tell you I've had enough, an' Annie has, too; but we ain't goin' to let you do no more. We had a talk about it last night.

We are fairly blistered with shame. You've already give us things that you couldn't afford to give."

Dolly's sweet face grew rigid, the lips of her pretty mouth twitched.

"Look here, Tobe," she said, huskily. "You've hurt my feelings. I love you and Annie and Robby, and it is wrong for you to talk this way when I'm so worried about the baby. You are not a cold-blooded murderer, are you? Well, you will make yourself out one if you let silly false pride stand between you and that sweet young life. Why, I would never get over it. It would haunt me night and day. Turn right around and go to the Ridgeville drug store and tell them to charge the things to me. I will pay for them to-morrow. They are anxious for my trade. They are eternally ding-donging at--bothering me, I mean, about not buying from them."

"Miss Dolly, I can't. I just _can't._"

"If you don't, then _I'll_ have to go myself, as soon as I can get out of this fool contraption," she answered, with determination. "You don't want to make me dress and go, I know, but I will if you don't, and I won't lose a minute, either."

"Why, Miss Dolly--"

"Hush, Tobe, don't be a fool!" Dolly was growing angry. She had thrust her hand over her shoulder to the topmost hook of the dress at the neck, that no time should be lost in changing her clothes. "Hurry up, and I'll go straight to Annie. I'll have the hot water ready. I know what the doctor wants. It is the same treatment I helped him give Pete Wilson's baby."

"Lord have mercy!" Tobe Barnett groaned.

"Well, I'll go, Miss Dolly. I'll go. G.o.d bless you! I'll go."

She watched him for a moment as he trudged away, and then, still trying in vain to unfasten the hook at the back of her neck and jerking at it impatiently, she turned toward the house.

Mostyn was waiting for her at the porch steps, having put down his game-bag and fishing-rod.

"I declare you are simply stunning in that thing," he said, admiration showing itself in every part of him. "It is a dream!"

She frowned, arching her brows reflectively. She bit her lip.

"Oh, I don't know!" she said. "I was just trying it on to please mother and Miss Stella. Look at the silly things gaping like goggle-eyed perch at the window. One would think that the revolutions of the earth on its axis and the movement of all the planets depended on this sc.r.a.p of cloth and the vain thing that has it on."

"Take my advice and buy it," Mostyn urged. "It fairly transforms you--makes you look like a creature from another world."

She shrugged her shoulders. She cast a slow glance after the figure trudging along the dusty road. She looked down at her breast and daintily flicked at the pink ribbons which were fluttering in the gentle breeze.

"It is a flimsy thing," he heard her say, as if in self-argument. "It wouldn't stand many wearings before it would look a sight. It wouldn't wash--man as you are, Mr. Mostyn, you know it wouldn't wash. I'm going to take it off and try to have some sense. I'm in no position to try to make a show. School-teachers here in the backwoods have no right to excite comment by the gaudy finery they wear. I'm paid by people's taxes. Did you know that? I might find myself out of a job--out of employment, I mean. Some of these crusty old fellows that believe it is wrong to have an organ in church had just as soon as not enter a complaint against me as being too frivolous to hold a position of trust like mine."

"Oh, I think you are very wrong to allow such an idea as that to influence you," Mostyn argued, warmly. He was about to add more, but Tom Drake sauntered round the corner, chewing tobacco and smiling broadly. He scarcely deigned to notice Dolly's altered appearance.

"John says you didn't git a nibble," he laughed. "I hardly 'lowed you would. The water is too low and clear. I've ketched 'em with my hand under the rocks in such weather as this."

Leaving them together, Dolly went into the house, where she was met by the two eager women.

"I'll bet Mr. Mostyn thought it was nice," Mrs. Drake was saying.

"Well, I certainly hope so," Miss Munson answered. "They say Atlanta men in his set are powerful good judges of women's wear."

Dolly had advanced straight to the mirror and stood looking at her reflection, a quizzical expression on her face.

"Hurry, unhook me!" she ordered, sharply. "Quick! I've got to run over to Barnett's cabin. Robby isn't any better. In fact, he is dangerous and Annie needs me."

The two women, eying each other inquiringly, edged up close to her, one on either side. "Dolly, what is the matter? I knew something was wrong the minute you come in the door."

"It is all right," Dolly said, in a low tone. "It is very sweet and pretty, Miss Stella, but I have decided not to--not to take it."

"Not take it!" The words came from two pairs of lips simultaneously.

"Not take it!" The miracle happened again, in tones of double bewilderment.

"Well, I can't say I really expected you to," Miss Munson retorted, in frigid tones. "I only stopped by. To tell you the truth, I am on the way over to Peterkins'. Sally is the right size and will jump at it."

Dolly's lips were tight. Her eyes held a light, half of anger, half of an odd sort of doggedness.

"Please unhook me!" she said, coldly. "There is no time to lose. Annie is out of her head with trouble."

"Well, well, well!" Mrs. Drake sank into a chair and folded her slender hands with a vigorous slap of the palms. "n.o.body under high heavens can ever tell what you will do or what you won't do," she wailed. "I never wanted anything for myself as much as for you to have that dress, and--" Her voice ended in a sigh of impatience.

With rapid, angry fingers the seamstress was disrobing the slender form roughly, jerking hooks, ribbons, and bits of lace. "Huh, huh!" she kept sniffing, as she filled her mouth with pins. "I might as well not have stopped, but it don't matter; it don't make a bit o' difference. You couldn't have it now if you offered me double the cost."

Dolly seemed oblivious of what was pa.s.sing. Getting out of the garment, she quickly put on her skirt and waist, noting as she did so that her father was seated behind her on the window-sill, nursing his knee and chewing and spitting vigorously on the porch floor.

"What a bunch o' rowin' she-cats!" she heard him chuckling. "An' about nothin' more important than a flimsy rag that looks like a hollyhock bush with arms an' legs."

Without noticing him Dolly hurriedly finished b.u.t.toning her waist, and, throwing on her sun-bonnet, she dashed out of the room.

"I don't blame you for losin' patience, Miss Stella," Mrs. Drake sighed, "but I've thought it out. It is as plain as the nose on your face. You know an' I know she was tickled to death with it till she met Mr. Mostyn in the yard just now. Mark my words, he said something to her about the style of it. Maybe it's not exactly the latest wrinkle accordin' to town notions."

"Yes, that's it." Miss Munson paused in her flurried efforts to restore the dress to its wrapper. The twine hung from her teeth as she stood glaring. "Yes, _he's_ at the bottom of it. As if a man of _his_ stripe an' character would be a judge. I have heard a few items about him if you all haven't. Folks talk about 'im scand'lous in Atlanta. They say he leads a fast life down there. You'd better keep Dolly away from 'im.

He won't do. He has robbed good men an' women of their money in his shady deals, an' folks tell all sorts o' tales about 'im."