The Open Question Part 105

"I've already said I didn't mean you."

Whereat Ethan laughed again with more amus.e.m.e.nt than he often showed.

"Say the most obvious, commonplace thing, and an American will laugh,"

she said, reproachfully.

"Ah, you see, our national sense of humor--"

"Nonsense; it's just uneasiness and excessive desire to please."

"Ah yes, we are very simple-minded."

"There's nothing so maddening as a constant smile. That girl over there in the pervenche silk, an old school friend of mine, was condoling with me before you came upon having a brother-in-law whose habitual expression is a fixed frown. I said it didn't trouble any of us in the least. Both my sister and I had long ago agreed, if we had to choose between a man with a perpetual laugh or a perpetual scowl, we'd take the scowl and be grateful."

"Ah, I begin to understand your ladyship's tolerance for me."

"Come, now, be honest; don't you realize how much more Americans laugh than other people?"

"If it is so, it's because we're the saddest race under the sun."

Still he smiled.

"Saddest--"

"Yes; in proof of it our feverish activity, and our frequent laughter.

You remember the boy who whistled in the dark? The American laughs on the same principle."

It was early August, and they were in Scotland. A letter came from Emmie saying that she had been ill, and was a little better; but there was a settled sadness in the few lines that roused Val out of her engrossed delight in her first experience of country-house life.

"I'm so sorry, Ethan--when we're having such a good time, too; but I almost think-- Emmie has no one in the world, you know, but me."

They took the next steamer back to America.

The news they found awaiting them at the Fort was in the shape of a letter from the Mother Superior, saying that Emmie was certainly better, but that she refused to see her sister. She was for the moment immovable in her resolve to hold no personal communication with the outside world.

This, from the clinging and affectionate Emmie, was a great blow to Val.

She shed the first tears since her marriage over the letter. But until Emmie relented, or was quite well, she wanted to be within call.

"You think you'll like staying here?" Ethan looked about the faded room.

"Yes; I love the Fort. I belong here."

"I must have it freshened up for you, then."

"No, I like it as _she_ left it."

The first person to call at the Fort was Harry Wilbur. He appeared to be laboring under a suitable depression, and never addressed Val without Mrs. Gano-ing her. She said, at last:

"You mustn't be politer than I am, and I can't possibly call you anything but 'Harry.'"

He flushed and laughed.

"All right;" and he presently gave himself up to an undisguised satisfaction in Val's return.

It was from Wilbur she heard that Julia Otway was engaged to be married to Mr. Tom Scherer, Judge Wilbur's new law partner. The late-comer was reputed to be tremendously clever, and to have written a very "modern"

and highly successful novel.

"Scherer's _great_," Harry said, in his good-natured way. "He does and is all the things my father's been bothering so long to make me."

"And do you like him--this Scherer?"

"Course; he's taken a frightful responsibility off me. Besides, he's a capital fellow."

Val and Ethan were going over the river one morning soon after their arrival, when, on the bridge in the narrow footway, they met Julia and Jerry face to face. Val shook hands with them both, and as she talked to Jerry she heard Ethan saying they had expected to see Julia before this--when was she coming to the Fort? Julia made plausible excuses for not having called before, and Ethan laughingly blamed Mr. Scherer.

"Bring him to see us," he said, as they parted.

The next morning, Julia pa.s.sed by while Ethan was giving some directions to the gardeners. He called out to her, and they talked awhile at the gate. Val, at an upper window, wondered what she could say to her husband that would not betray the ground of that old quarrel, and that yet would relieve her from pretending she had shaken off the effects of it. As she stood there the bell sounded. Julia glanced up and saw her.

Ethan, seeing a change in the face, looked up, too, and called out:

"Oh, Val, here's Miss Julia; make her come in and lunch with us."

Val went down and seconded her husband's invitation. Julia declined, but Ethan insisted. In the end she came. Twice in the following week Ethan went over to play tennis at the Otways'. The last time he brought Julia and Mr. Scherer back with him.

Val was sitting on the back veranda with Ernest and Sue Halliwell.

When the Halliwells had gone, and Ethan and Mr. Scherer had strolled off to see how the newly rolled and sodded croquet-ground was looking, Julia said, with a slight embarra.s.sment:

"Your husband just _made_ us come back with him."

"I'm very glad."

"I told him you didn't want to see me."

Val looked up quickly.

"He must have thought that strange."

"He did. So then I knew you had never told."

"Told what?"

"Oh, about that old school-girl silliness of mine."

"You must have known that I would never--"

"Yes, yes--especially now that I'm engaged."