The Ghost Girl Part 22

"'It's just about time for another little drink--' some sense in poetry like that, isn't there? But all the drinks are in the house and I don't want to go in. I'm hiding from Pap. Last night when he was ratty with rheumatism, he let out at me, saying the young people weren't any good, saying Maria Pinckney was the only person he knew with sense in her head, called me a name because I poured him out a dose of liniment instead of medicine, by mistake--though he didn't swallow it--and wished Maria was here. So I just sent Jake, the page boy, off with a wire to her; didn't tell any one, just sent it. Come on and look at the garden--you've got to look at the garden, you know."

He led the way past the barn to a farmyard, where hens were clucking and scratching and sc.r.a.ping in the sunshine; the deep double ba.s.s grunting of pigs came from the sties, by the low wall across which one could see the country stretching far away, the cotton fields, the woods, all hazed by the warmth of the afternoon.

"Let's sit down and look at the garden," said he, pointing to a huge log by the near wall--"and aren't the convolvuluses beautiful?"

"Beautiful," said Phyl, falling into the vein of the other. "And listen to the roses."

"They grunt like that because it's near dinner time--they're pretty much like humans." He took a cigarette case from his pocket and a cigarette from the case.

"You don't mind smoking, do you?"

"Not a bit."

"Have one?"

"I daren't."

"Maria Pinckney won't know."

"It's not her--I smoked one once and it made me sick."

"Well, try another--I won't look if you are."

"They'll--she'll smell it."

"Not she, you can eat some parsley, that takes the smell away."

"Oh, I don't mind telling her--it's only--well, there."

She took a cigarette and he lit it for her.

"Blow it through your nose," he commanded, "that's the way. Now let's pretend we're two old darkies sitting on a log, you push against me and I'll push against you, you're Jim and I'm Uncle Joseph. 'What yo' crowding me for, Jim,'" he squeezed up gently against her, and Phyl jumped to her feet.

He glanced up at her, sideways, laughing, and for the life of her she could not be angry.

"Don't you think we'd better go and look at the garden?" said she.

"In a minute, sit down again. I won't knock against you. It was only my fun. We'll pretend I'm Pap, and you're Maria Pinckney, if you like. You've let your cigarette go out."

"So I have."

"You can light it from mine."

Phyl hesitated and was lost.

It was the nearest thing to a kiss, and as she drew back with the lighted cigarette between her lips, she felt a not unpleasant sense of wickedness, such as the virtuous boy feels when led to adventure by the bad boy.

Sitting on a log, smoking cigarettes, talking familiarly with a stranger, taking a light from him in such a fashion with her face so close to his that his eyes-- They smoked in silence for a moment.

Then Silas spoke:

"Do you ever feel lonesome?" said he.

"Awfully--sometimes."

"So do I."

Silence for a moment. Then:

"I go off to Charleston when I feel like that--once in a fortnight or so--Where do you live in Charleston?"

"I live with Miss Pinckney--I thought you knew."

"You didn't say that. You only said you came with her."

"Well, I live with her at Vernons. I'm Irish, y' know. My--my father died in Charleston, and I came from Ireland to live with Miss Pinckney. Mr.

Richard Pinckney is my guardian."

"Your which? d.i.c.k Pinckney your guardian! Why, he's not older than I am--that fellow your guardian--why, he wears a flannel petticoat."

"He doesn't," cried Phyl, flinging away the cigarette, which had become noxious, and roused to sudden anger by the slighting tone of the other.

"What do you mean by saying such a thing?"

"Oh, I only meant that he's too awfully proper for this life. He goes to Charleston races, but never backs a horse, scarcely, and one Mint Julep would make him see two crows. He's a sort of distant relation of ours."

Phyl was silent. She resented his criticism of her friend, and just in this moment the something mad and harum scarum in the character of Silas seemed shown up to her with electrical effect. Criticism is a most dangerous thing to indulge in, unless anonymously in the pages of a journal, for the right to criticise has to be made good in the mind of the audience, unless the audience is hostile to the criticised.

Then she said: "I don't know anything about Mint Juleps or race courses, but I do know that Mr. Pinckney has been--is--is my friend, and I'd rather not talk about him, if you please."

"Now, you're huffed," cried Silas exultingly, as though he had scored a point at some game.

"I'm not."

"You are--you've flushed."

Phyl turned pale, a deadly sign.

"I'd never dream of getting out of temper with _you_," said she.

It was his turn to flush. You might have struck Silas Grangerson without upsetting his balance, but the slightest suspicion of a sneer raised all the devil in him. Had Phyl been a man he would have knocked him off the log. He cast the stump of his cigarette on the ground and pounded it with his heel. Had there been anything breakable within reach he would have broken it. Her anger with him vanished and she laughed.

"You've flushed now," said she.

CHAPTER III