The Open Question Part 75

The old woman recalled a glimpse she had had the evening before of Val laying her cheek against the graven name.

"I'm not sure but I _shall_ take it off," she said, half smiling, half threatening.

"You don't want to get me out of the habit of thinking of the Fort as 'home'?"

"You've never really been in the habit--you belong elsewhere."

He studied her in perplexity.

"Do you realize that at this moment the rain is coming in floods into Uncle John's room?"

"The rain won't trouble your uncle John." She had turned away again.

"But there are others here--"

"It is those others I have to consider. Your uncle John's insurance will mend his children's roof."

"And you won't give me the happiness--"

"My dear boy," she said, with some impatience, "your happiness doesn't lie here."

She began to rock back and forth with lowering brow.

"You want to get rid of me."

She stopped rocking, and turned to him with a moved and gentler aspect.

"Personally, I very much want you to stay; but there are many things to think of. I am not alone here. You bring an atmosphere of--of unrest from out the world you belong to. I see the danger that you may import some of it into our quiet lives."

"How little you realize! The young life here is seething with unrest."

"That is what I am realizing."

"But I found it like that."

She shook her head.

"You must go away, my dear."

She was of the same mind, then, as her son had been. Go away! Go away!

That was all the welcome they had here for Ethan Gano. A feeling of bitterness took hold on him, of such loneliness that it was as if, without warning, he had heard p.r.o.nounced a sentence of perpetual exile.

"For that's what it is," he thought: "she will never ask me to come again." And he was right--she never did.

He had got up after a moment or two, and gone out to the veranda, where he walked up and down, with the noise of the rain in his ears.

Presently Emmie looked out.

"Where's Val?" asked Ethan.

"Up-stairs. Ever since supper she's been seeing if the tubs and things are under all the leaks."

"Ask her to come out here when she's finished, will you?"

"Yes," said Emmie reluctantly, and turned away.

Ethan had no eyes for the sudden shadow on the sweet face. He began to stride up and down again, angrily, eagerly, looking out through the tracery of the wistaria as an animal might through the bars of its cage.

"Well, here I am!"

Val stood smiling as he turned.

"Oh, good! Let us sit down."

"On the black benches? Never!"

She gathered her skirts round her with a gesture of comic horror.

"Here, then"--he spread out a large white handkerchief--"sit on this."

"And you?"

"Sit down!" he commanded.

She took the place meekly, with hands crossed in mockery, and laughing eyes, but her pale cheeks flushed.

"Now, you are to promise me something," he said, standing before her with folded arms.

"Oh, I've always got to promise you things. What have you ever promised me?"

His moody eyes caressed the upturned face.

"What do you want me to promise?" he said, more gently.

"Will you do it?"

"I--a--"

"You _see_!"

"I only want to know what it is."

She looked away.

"Tell me what _you_ want first," she said.

Instead of answering, her cousin turned and walked to the end of the dripping veranda, where the wind had blown the rain in several feet across the boards. She watched him furtively, biting her upper lip the while, catching it cruelly with her sharp white teeth to still its trembling. She watched him turn slowly, come back a few paces, raising his eyes as he was pa.s.sing the first of the long room windows, and stop short with a queer, guilty start. He nodded gravely to the watchful eyes within and continued his walk, only more rapidly, muttering to himself, "The old lioness!"

Val had an impulse to go and look through the window nearest her, but something held her where she was. Presently, as Ethan paced back and forth, a pale shine came through the panes, mixing uncertainly with the evening light. Venie must have taken in the big bronze lamp. Yes, one could hear her now letting down the blinds. Val was glad she had resisted the impulse to look in. Ethan had stopped his restless pacing, as soon as the blinds were drawn.