The Open Question Part 89

"Days? Make it two or three weeks, my dear. You know you've always been an immense favorite of mine; my husband likes you, too. He said when we visited my mother's last year that you were the most charming girl in New Plymouth. Now it's settled, and I think I heard Austin come in." She kissed Val on both cheeks, and went down-stairs to confide to Mr. Ball that "the most charming girl" was not in New Plymouth, but under his roof, and was evidently up to some mischief, and what ought they to do?

"Play dominos!" Mr. Ball's childish old father suggested vacantly.

That favorite pastime meant to him shuffling the dominos aimlessly about the table, and in his more lucid intervals rising to the height of matching them.

"Yes, paw." The good Mrs. Ball emptied the dominos out of the box and set the old man to turning them face downwards. He went to sleep before the task was done.

"_Oh!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Ball, suddenly catching sight of something in the evening paper her husband was unfolding.

"What?" She pointed to a paragraph announcing the meeting of the Sound Money men at the Central Hall. Chairman, Mr. Hezekiah Otway. Debate to be opened by Mr. Ethan Gano, etc.

"That's why she's come."

"Oh, think so?"

"Sure of it." The round good-natured face grew grave. "Husband, I think I ought to put Harry Wilbur on his guard."

"Don't you meddle with outsiders' affairs," said husband.

"My dear, Val Gano's as good as engaged to my cousin. Harry was very confidential with me the last time he was here. This Ethan Gano was at one time the barrier. Such a fascinating creature," she sighed. "Not a marrying man, and _most_ dangerous. He sha'n't come between them again."

"You can't interfere if--"

"I can wire my cousin to come and make us a visit, and I will." She bustled out.

While Val was in her first beauty sleep, Harry Wilbur arrived.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The morning was warm and balmy. Val put on her blue muslin gown, thinking rebelliously how Ethan had once said that a serge coat, and skirt, and sailor hat were the proper "togs" for the river.

"Togs" was a proper ugly word for such garments. No stiff tailor-made things for Val! "He said I'd grown prettier," she thought, gayly, as she took a last look in the gla.s.s. But it was the thousandth time she had quoted the comfortable a.s.surance to her happy heart.

She met the unexpected Harry at breakfast with such apparent cordiality that Mrs. Ball was slightly perplexed, even slightly disappointed.

"Now, what are we going to do to-day?" asked the hostess, in the middle of the meal. "It's such a comfort, Harry, that you happen along at just this moment. A man is so useful in helping to arrange things; and Austin, of course, is too busy." Austin was already at the office.

"I've just had a note from my cousin, Ethan Gano." Val put her hand on an envelope that lay, address downward, on the cloth. "He's at the Wharton House. He'll be here at ten to take me for a row." It had given her acute discomfort to make the announcement, and the look on the two faces opposite did not restore her equanimity.

After an expressive little silence, Mrs. Ball said:

"Yes, it'll be nice on the river to-day. We can all go. I'll see about a luncheon-basket;" and she rang the bell.

Thereafter the conversation flagged. At ten o'clock Ethan duly appeared, spotless in boating flannels and white shoes. There is no more becoming garb for the modern man. Val forgot her discomfiture a moment, looking at him. Mrs. Ball compared her cousin's "business suit" unfavorably with the new-comer's elegance, and promptly set down Gano's grace to his clothes.

Val had been afraid her cousin would be uncomfortably restive under the infliction of the extra couple. Before long she was resenting his too amiable acceptance of the addition to the party. They drove down to the river in the b.a.l.l.s' carryall, Harry and Val in front with the basket, Mrs. Ball and Ethan behind. Gano was laughing and talking with an unusually gracious air. Was Val to believe that under that charming exterior he was burning with the dull rage that kept her silent and _distraite_? His unwonted gayety looked suspiciously like relief.

When they got down to the landing it was found that Ethan had already provided the boat and the hamper. But Val told herself that was not the reason that he, as it were, took command of the little expedition. He would always do that. Other people found it as natural as he did himself. Mrs. Ball was to sit in the stern, "and, Val, you take the tiller." When they had pulled a few yards up-stream Ethan shipped his oars, stood up, and slipped off his white flannel coat and waistcoat.

"Will you keep my watch?"

Val nodded. How warm it felt! She put it in her bosom. No movement of her cousin's was lost upon the girl, though her eyes never rested on him. There had sprung up between them again that old, alert physical consciousness that is like a sixth sense.

That the genial, broad-chested Wilbur should appear to advantage out-of-doors was a matter of course. Val had told him once that he was like a great Newfoundland dog--"too big for the house." But the impression made by Gano's skill in open-air pursuits was partly due to a sense of surprise on the part of the on-lookers that this fine-limbed, small-handed, slender-footed creature should be as strong, apparently, as the obvious athlete.

Mrs. Ball talked incessantly about people in society--about her plan for "going to Europe" when Austin should have a holiday; about any and every thing she poured out an unfaltering stream.

During luncheon Val, in sheer desperation, began to show some consciousness of Harry Wilbur's existence. Finding that Ethan seemed not to notice, she redoubled her friendliness and gayety. At last, "Let's go for a walk--you and me," she said, jumping up and going towards the dogwood thicket.

Harry, nothing loath, strode after her. Mrs. Ball felt herself a diplomatist, and began to relax under Mr. Gano's unruffled courtesy. The little match-maker did not know that Val's high spirits went down like foam in a champagne-gla.s.s as soon as she was beyond the reach of her cousin's eyes. But she came back smiling and trailing great branches of white dogwood over her shoulder and down her sky-blue gown. She felt it must be pretty, but she got no a.s.surance that Ethan caught the effect.

Harry's ingenuous compliments only heightened her hidden wretchedness.

The day was a dreary disappointment to the girl. Ethan's apparent satisfaction in it was the most disturbing element of all. Only once did she have a word with him alone, and then not by his arrangement. She left Mrs. Ball and Harry repacking their basket, of which almost nothing had been used, and ran down the bank to help Ethan to put the cushions back in the boat.

"I suppose Julia told you her father was coming up to-morrow night?"

"No. What for?"

"He's chairman of our committee."

"Don't say anything about my being here."

"Really?"

"Really."

"All right. I wish he weren't coming, though."

"Why?" said the girl, preparing to hear her own views set forth.

"Well, you see, the trouble is, old Otway is getting very deaf; he's not really fit for public business any more, and n.o.body has the courage to tell him. Isn't it appalling the way people cling to things--to the things, too, that we're all forewarned will be taken from us if we stay here long enough?"

She looked at him with a fresh sense of curiosity and wonderment. What a strange new note he put into life! Yet those others laughed and jested with him, and thought him one of themselves.

He took off his jacket again.

"I'll take care of that." She began to fold it. "What's in the pocket?"

She put her hand in with a thrill of joy at her audacity, and brought out an old duodecimo of battered calf-skin. "Why, I remember this: it's one of those little volumes that you brought from Paris."

"Did I have it with me--"

"Yes. Have you gone on carrying it about ever since you first came to the Fort?"

"I hadn't seen it for years till the other day. I can't think how it got among my things."

"You've marked it up frightfully. Grandma would scold you if she saw that."