The Opened Shutters Part 53

"No, no," laughed Sylvia, putting out a protesting hand. "She doesn't need it. It's not fit for Edna. Take it yourself, and--the consequences."

Dunham looked over the rim of the cup at the merry, defiant face, and drank. He then replaced the cup on the table, with sudden gravity and a look of tardy apprehension in the direction of Edna.

"It's not sweet," he said.

"No," returned Sylvia, "except in its results."

Their young hostess stood there, rigid, her hand leaning on the back of a chair. John could not meet the speaker's eyes.

"I have a new story upstairs," he said abruptly. "I'm going to get it and see if I can't induce one of you to read aloud."

He disappeared, and Sylvia regarded the empty bottle with reminiscent eyes.

"What did you expect to do with that stuff, Sylvia?" asked Edna.

"Something that will make a transformation in my life," replied the other slowly. "I want to tell you about it when we have more time. I know you have to go back now to your workmen,--but I'm very hopeful, Edna, and, unless I deceive myself greatly, I shall be happy; and you've been so wonderfully generous to a stranger, you'll be happy for me, I'm sure."

"We haven't time to talk now, as you say," returned Edna, with a measured coldness that caused her friend to look up, the light vanishing from her face. "Your actions have amazed me beyond words.

Would you be willing that Thinkright should know the dreams and plans you have indulged in in this place?"

Sylvia stood dumb, transfixed, convicted of guilt.

"It does not come gracefully from your hostess to lecture you, I know; but against my will I have learned what I know, and--the disappointment has been bitter, Sylvia. Don't be vexed with me for speaking plainly. I can help you, I believe, when we get an opportunity for a quiet talk.

Yes, I'm coming, Jenny," for the girl was at the door, bringing a question from the carpenter. "Excuse me, Sylvia. We'll talk later."

Dunham, upon reaching his room, forgot all about the book he had come to seek. Standing still in the middle of the floor, he alternately went into paroxysms of laughter and scowled gravely at the wall.

"Nonsense!" he ruminated. "Edna and I are both idiots. I could see that Edna was back in that kitchen while we stood there. This is the twentieth century, and Sylvia has never lived out of the world."

So from moment to moment he would dispose of the Idea; but then there was the Look. That had been unmistakable. There was a chamber in Dunham's heart where that memory picture hung, and it seemed to him impertinence to open the door. As often as the recollection returned to him he recoiled from it. That look had been a theft from Sylvia, not a gift; but she had given him the potion at last. Again John laughed at himself for believing in her intention. Again he scowled at the wall because she had fulfilled it.

At last he shook himself together. An unacknowledged longing possessed him to see how she would carry herself now. He caught up the book he had come for, and went downstairs to the piazza. Sylvia had vanished.

Disappointed, he went back into the house. Straying to the piano, he sat down and began to play a Chopin prelude. It was John's one and only instrumental achievement, learned by ear, and dug out of the ivories, as one might say, by long hours of laborious search for its harmonies.

Edna glided into the room. "If you don't mind, John," she said, "this is Miss Lacey's nap-time."

He dropped his hands. "Certainly I won't mind, if you'll produce Miss Sylvia. She's slipperier than a drop of quicksilver."

Edna stiffened slightly. "Perhaps she has gone to sleep, too."

"Well, you haven't, anyway. Come! I hate those carpenters with a virulence that grows worse every hour."

The young hostess laughed. "I've only to stay with them a little while longer. Come with me. They're nearly through, and then we'll get Sylvia and go off somewhere."

John followed lazily to mysterious regions at the back of the cottage.

Sylvia, listening at the head of the stairs, heard them go. It was her opportunity.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE WHITE BAG

Edna's responsibilities and nap-time came to an end simultaneously, and Dunham proposed that they take their book to the Fir Ledges, as a spot where the waves were not too noisy and the outlook was superb for such luxurious mortals as need lend their ears only, and not their eyes, to the story.

They came into the living-room as he made his suggestion, and saw Miss Lacey just coming downstairs.

"Where is Sylvia?" asked Edna.

"I don't believe she's up yet," replied Miss Martha. "She went to her room at the same time I did, and she certainly did look tired out. I begged her to show common sense and not run around so incessantly. I told her to lie down and not move until she was rested. Foolish child!

She's so in love with this place she seems to think she's wasting time unless she's on the keen jump from morning until night."

"Wouldn't it rest her to come with us?" asked Dunham. "We're going to the Fir Ledges to read."

"Well, I don't know,"--Miss Lacey tossed her head doubtfully,--"it's quite a walk down there, and her door is tight shut."

John looked at Edna.

"I suppose the kindest thing to do would be to let her alone," said Edna. "When she comes down. Miss Martha, please tell her where we are, and ask her to join us. Perhaps she can bring you and Judge Trent with her. I see he is still motionless in that hammock."

"Yes, tell her to be sure to come," said Dunham; and the two left the house and started off through the wood road.

Edna did not regret her words to Sylvia, but she could not help connecting them with Miss Lacey's description of the girl's f.a.gged appearance. So temperamental a creature as Sylvia would be p.r.o.ne to exaggerate a situation. Very well, Edna would take the earliest opportunity--bedtime this evening--for an open talk with her. Perhaps it was the excitement of having given John that which she had prepared for him which had left her pale by the time her aunt met her,--that and the sudden realization that her hostess understood her motives and actions. What a mercy that big, blundering, honest John Dunham had not connected himself with Sylvia's fantasies, although his joking had fitted in so well with her plans!

In the absence of other interests, and the idleness of pleasant hours, John had shown considerable interest in Sylvia. Edna had on several occasions resented the trifling signs of his admiration, fearing they might mislead so inexperienced a girl as her guest, even supposing the girl were not already making a hero of him, and bent upon his subjugation.

The thoughts of the pair were running along parallel lines as they pursued the woodland path, and at last John came to himself.

"Pardon my stupidity, Edna. Sylvia says it's a great proof of friendship for two people to be silent when together."

"Especially if they tell their thoughts afterward," rejoined the girl.

"What were yours?"

Dunham hesitated a moment. "I was thinking it was a pity if Miss Sylvia has overtired herself."

"And I," said Edna, "was thinking it was a pity for you to pursue even a mild flirtation with her. She hasn't met many men of your stamp,--she is only a grown-up child, as you have seen."

"I don't know," replied John deliberately. "I'm making up my mind slowly but surely that she is a jewel."

Surprise and something like contempt flashed over Edna's face. "Is it since you drank the blueberry juice?" she asked, and the next moment could have bitten her tongue for its rashness.

Dunham showed no surprise. "Oh, it's a gradual estimate," he said.

The girl laughed. "Very gradual. Is it three days or four?"

"Time doesn't enter much into that sort of impression."