The Early Bird Part 12

Mr. Turner stated that he would do so with pleasure. Miss Westlake surveyed her dearest friend more in anger than in sorrow. It was such a brazen trick, and she gazed from her brother to Mr. Turner in sheer wonder that they were not startled into betrayal of how shocked they were. Whatever strong emotions they might have had upon that subject were utterly without reflection upon the outside, however, for Billy Westlake and Sam Turner were eying each other solely with a vacuous mutual wish of saying something decently polite and human. Mr. Turner made a desperate stab.

"I hope you're in good form for the bowling tournament to-night," he observed with self-urged anxiety. "Hollis Creek mustn't win, you know."

"I'm as near fit as usual," said Billy; "but Princeman is the chap who's going to carry off the honors for Meadow Brook. Bowled an average last night of two forty-five. I'm sorry you couldn't make the team."

"I should have started fifteen years ago to do that," said Sam with a wry smile. "I think I would get along all right, though, if they didn't have those grooves at the side of the alleys."

Billy Westlake looked at him gravely. Since Sam did not smile, this could not be a joke.

"But they are absolutely necessary, you know," he protested, as he took his sister's arm and helped her down the slope.

Miss Westlake went away entirely out of patience with the two men, and very much to Billy's surprise gave him her revised estimate of that Hastings girl. Miss Hastings, however, was in a far different frame of mind. She was an exclamation point of admiration about an endless variety of things; about the dear little amphitheatre, about how well her friend Miss Westlake was looking and how successful Hallie had been this summer in reducing, and how much Mr. Turner was improving in his tennis and croquet and riding and bowling and everything. "And, Mr.

Turner, what is pulp? And do they actually make paper out of it?" she wound up.

Very gravely Mr. Turner informed her on the process of paper making, and she was a chorus of little vivacious ohs and ahs all the way through. She sat on the side of the stone circle from which she could look down the road, and she chattered on and on and on, and still on, until something she saw below warned her that she was staying an unconscionable length of time, so she rose and told Mr. Turner they must really go, and held out her hand to be helped down the slope.

That was really a very slippery rock, and it was probably no fault of Miss Hastings that her feet slipped and that she had to throw herself squarely into Mr. Turner's embrace, and even throw her arm up over his shoulder to save herself. It was a staggery place, even for a st.u.r.dily muscled young man like Mr. Turner to keep his footing, and with that fair burden upon him he had to stand some little time poised there to retain his balance. Then, very gently and carefully, he turned straight about, lifting Miss Hastings entirely from her feet and setting her gravely down on the safe ledge below the sloping rock; but before he had even had time to let go of her he glanced down into the road, toward which the turn had faced him, and saw there, looking up aghast at the tableau, Mr. Princeman and Miss Stevens!

The sharp and instantly suppressed laugh of Princeman came floating up to them, but Miss Stevens turned squarely about in the direction of the glade, and being instantly joined by Princeman, they walked quietly away.

Mr. Turner suddenly found himself perspiring profusely, and was compelled to mop his brow, but Miss Hastings disdained to give any sign that anything unusual whatsoever had happened, except by walking with a limp, albeit a very slight one, as she returned to the glade. That limp comforted Mr. Turner somewhat, and, spying Miss Stevens in a little group near the tables, he was very careful to parade Miss Hastings straight over there and place her limp on display. Miss Stevens, however, walked away; no mere limp could deceive her!

Well, if she wanted to be miffed at a little accident like that, and read things falsely, and think the worst of people, she might; that was all Sam had to say about it! but what he had to say about it did not comfort him. He rather savagely "shook" Miss Hastings at his first opportunity, and Vivian's dearest friend, who had been hovering in the offing, saw him do it, which was a great satisfaction to her. Later she seized upon him, although he had savagely sworn to stick to the men, and by some incomprehensible process Sam found himself once more tete-a-tete with Miss Westlake, just over at the edge of the glade where the sumac grew. She made him gather a lot of the leaves for her, and showed him how they used to weave clover wreaths when she was a little girl, and wove one for him of sumac, and gaily crowned him with it; and just as she was putting the fool thing on his head he glanced up, and there Princeman, laughing, was just pa.s.sing them a little ways off, in company with Miss Josephine Stevens!

CHAPTER X

THE VALUE OF A PIANOLA TRAINING

On that very same evening Hollis Creek came over to the bowling tournament, and Miss Stevens, arriving with young Hollis, promptly lost that perfervid young man, who had become somewhat of a nuisance in his sentimental insistence. Mr. Turner, watching her from afar, saw her desert the calfly smitten one, and immediately dashed for the breach.

He had watched from too great a distance, however, for Billy Westlake gobbled up Miss Josephine before Sam could get there, and started with her for that inevitable stroll among the brookside paths which always preceded a bowling tournament. While he stood nonplussed, looking after them, Miss Hastings glided to his side in a matter of course way.

"Isn't it a perfectly charming evening?" she wanted to know.

"It is a regular dear of an evening," admitted Sam savagely.

In his single thoughtedness he was scrambling wildly about within the interior of his skull for a pretext to get rid of Miss Hastings, but it suddenly occurred to him that now he had a legitimate excuse for following the receding couple, and promptly upon the birth of this idea, he pulled in that direction and Miss Hastings came right along, though a trifle silently. With all her vivacious chattering, she was not without shrewdness, and with no trouble whatever she divined precisely why Sam chose the path he did, and why he seemed in such almost blundering haste. They _were_ a little late, it was true, for just as they started, Billy and Miss Stevens turned aside and out of sight into the shadiest and narrowest and most involved of the shrubbery-lined paths, the one which circled about the little concealed summer-house with a dove-cote on top, which was commonly dubbed "the cooing place." Following down this path the rear couple suddenly came upon a tableau which made them pause abruptly. Billy Westlake, upon the steps of the summer-house, was upon his knees, there in the swiftly blackening dusk, before the appalled Miss Stevens; actually upon his knees! Silently the two watchers stole away, but when they were out of earshot Miss Hastings t.i.ttered. Sam, though the moment was a serious one for him, was also compelled to grin.

"I didn't know they did it that way any more," he confessed.

"They don't," Miss Hastings informed him; "that is, unless they are very, very young, or very, very old."

"Apparently you've had experience," observed Sam.

"Yes," she admitted a little bitterly. "I think I've had rather more than my share; but all with ineligibles."

Sam felt a trace of pity for Miss Hastings, who was of polite family, but poor, and a guest of the Westlakes, but he scarcely knew how to express it, and felt that it was not quite safe anyhow, so he remained discreetly silent.

By mutual, though unspoken impulse, they stopped under the shade of a big tree up on the lawn, and waited for the couple who had been found in the delicate situation either to reappear on the way back to the house, or to emerge at the other end of the path on the way to the bowling shed. It was scarcely three minutes when they reappeared on the way back to the house, and both watchers felt an instant thrill of relief, for the two were by no means lover-like in their att.i.tudes.

Billy had hold of Miss Josephine's arm and was helping her up the slope, but their shoulders were not touching in the process, nor were arms clasped closely against sides. They pa.s.sed by the big tree unseeing, then, as they neared the house, without a word, they parted.

Miss Stevens proceeded toward the porch, and stopped to take a handkerchief from her sleeve and pa.s.s it carefully and lightly over her face. Billy Westlake strode off a little way toward the bowling shed, stopped and lit a cigarette, took two or three puffs, started on, stopped again, then threw the cigarette to the ground with quite unnecessary vigor, and stamped on it. Miss Hastings, without adieus of any sort, glided swiftly away in the direction of Billy, and then a dim glimmer of understanding came to Sam Turner that only Miss Stevens had stood in the way of Miss Hastings' capture of Billy Westlake. He wasted no time over this thought, however, but strode very swiftly and determinedly up to Miss Josephine.

"I'm glad to find you alone," he said; "I want to make an explanation."

"Don't bother about it," she told him frigidly. "You owe me no explanations whatsoever, Mr. Turner."

"I'm going to make them anyhow," he declared. "You saw me twice this afternoon in utterly asinine situations."

"I remember of no such situations," she stated still frigidly, and started to move on toward the house.

"But wait a minute," said Sam, catching her by the arm and detaining her. "You did see me in silly situations, and I want you to know the facts about them."

"I'm not at all interested," she informed him, now with absolute north pole iciness, and started to move away again.

He held her more tightly.

"The first time," he went on, "was when Miss Hastings slipped on the rocks and I had to catch her to keep her from falling."

"Will you kindly let me go, Mr. Turner?" demanded Miss Josephine.

"No, I will not!" he replied, and pulled her about a trifle so that she was compelled to face him. "I don't choose to have anybody, least of all you, think wrongly of me."

"Mr. Turner, I do not choose to be detained against my will," declared Miss Josephine.

"Mr. Turner," boomed a deep-timbered voice right behind them, "the lady has requested you to let her go. I should advise you to do so."

Mr. Turner was attempting to frame up a reasonable answer to this demand when Miss Josephine prevented him from doing so.

"Mr. Princeman," said she to the interrupting gallant, "I thank you for your interference on my behalf, but I am quite capable of protecting myself," and leaving the two stunned gentlemen together, she once more took her handkerchief from her sleeve and walked swiftly up to the porch, brushing the handkerchief lightly over her face again.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!" said Princeman, looking after her in more or less bewilderment.

"So will I," said Sam. "Have you a cigarette about you?"

Princeman gave him one and they took a light from the same match, then, neither one of them caring to discuss any subject whatever at that particular moment, they separated, and Sam hunted a lonely corner. He wanted to be alone and gloom. Confound bowling, anyhow! It was a dull and uninteresting game. He cared less for it as time went on, he found; less to-night than ever. He crept away into the dim and deserted parlor and sat down at the piano, the only friend in which he cared to confide just then. He played, with a queer lingering touch which had something of hesitation in it, and which reduced all music to a succession of soft chords, _The Maid of Dundee_ and _Annie Laurie_, _The Banks of Banna_ and _The Last Rose of Summer_, then one of the simpler nocturnes of Chopin, and, following these, a quaint, slow melody which was like all of the others and yet like none.

"Bravo!" exclaimed a gentle voice in the doorway, and he turned, startled, to see Miss Stevens standing there. She did not explain why she had relented, but came directly into the room and stood at the end of the piano. He reached up and shook hands with her quite naturally, and just as naturally and simply she let her hand lie in his for an instant. How soft and warm her palm was, and how grateful the touch of it!

"What a pleasant surprise!" she said. "I didn't know you played."

"I don't," he confessed, smiling. "If you had stopped to listen you would have known. You ought to hear my kid brother play though. He's a corker."

"But I did listen," she insisted, ignoring the reference to his "kid brother." "I stood there a long time and I thought it beautiful. What was that last selection?"

He flushed guiltily.

"It was--oh, just a little thing I sort of put together myself," he told her.