The Varmint Part 62

"Soak it in water," said the Gutter Pup.

"Soak it in witch-hazel," said Dennis. "It will make it more fragrant."

d.i.n.k hesitated:

"Won't it smell too much?"

"Naw. It evaporates."

Stover seized the bottle and inundated his head, made an exact part in the middle and drew the sides back in the fashion of pigeon wings.

"Now clap on a dicer," said the Gutter Pup approvingly, "and she'll come up and feed from your hand."

"Are you really in love?" said Dennis softly.

Stover, ignoring all comments, tied a white satin four-in-hand with forget-me-not embossings, which had struck his fancy in Fatty Harris'

room, and inserted a stick-pin of Finnegan's.

"You ought to have a colored handkerchief to stick in your breast pocket," said the Gutter Pup, who began to yield to the excitement.

"Up his sleeve is more English, don't you know," said Dennis.

Stover stood brazenly before the mirror, looking himself over. The scrubbing he had inflicted on his face had left red, shining spots in prominent places, while his hair, slicked back and plastered down, gave him somewhat the look of an Italian barber on a Sunday off. He felt the general glistening effect without, in his innocence, knowing the remedy.

"d.i.n.k, you are bee-oo-tiful!" said Dennis.

"Be careful how you sit down," said the Tennessee Shad, thinking of the trousers.

"How are the shoes?" asked the Gutter Pup solicitously.

"Tight as mischief," said d.i.n.k, with a wry face.

"Walk on your heels."

Stover, with a last deprecating glance, opened the door and departed, amid cheers from the contributing committee.

When he arrived at the Lodge the dusky waitress who opened the door started back, as he dropped his hat, and sniffed the air. He went into the parlor, spoiling his carefully-planned entrance by tripping over the rug.

"Heavens!" said Tough, "what a smell of witch-hazel. Why, it's d.i.n.k.

What have you been doing?"

Stover felt the temperature rise to boiling.

"We had a bit of a shindy," he said desperately, trying to give it a tragic accent, "and I b.u.mped my head."

"Well, you look like a skinned rat," said Tough to put him thoroughly at his ease.

The angel, however, came to his rescue with solicitous inquiries and with such a heavenly look that Stover only regretted that he could not appear completely done up in bandages.

They went in to dinner, where d.i.n.k was so overwhelmed by the vision of Miss McCarty in all her transcendent charms that the effort of swallowing became a painful physical operation.

Afterward, Tough and his mother went over to Foundation House for a visit with the Doctor, and d.i.n.k found himself actually alone, escorting Miss McCarty about the grounds in the favoring dusk of the fast-closing twilight.

"Let's go toward the Green House," she said. "Will you take my cloak?"

The cloak settled the perplexing question of the hands. He wondered uneasily why she chose that particular direction.

"Are you sure you want to go there?" he said.

"Quite," she said. "I want to see the exact spot where the historic fight took place."

Stover moved uneasily.

"Dear me, what's the matter?"

"I never go there. I hate the place."

"Why?"

"I was miserable there," said d.i.n.k abruptly. "Hasn't Tough told you about it?"

"Tell me yourself," said the angelic voice.

Stover felt on the instant the most overpowering desire to confide his whole life's history, and being under the influence of a genuine emotion as well as aided by the obliterating hour, he began straight forward to relate the story of his months of Coventry in tense, direct sentences, without pausing to calculate either their vividness or their effect. Once started, he withheld nothing, neither the agony of his pride nor the utter hopelessness of that isolation. Once or twice he hesitated, blurting out:

"I say, does this bore you?"

And each time she answered quickly:

"No, no--go on."

They went back in the fallen night to the campus, and there he pointed out the spot where he had stood and listened to the singing on the Esplanade and made up his mind to return. All at once, his story ended and he perceived, to his utter confusion, that he had been pouring out his heart to some one whose face he couldn't see, some one who was probably smiling at his impetuous confidence, some one whom he had met only a few hours before.

"Oh, I say," he said in horror, "you must think me an awful fool to go on like this."

"No."

"You made me tell you, you know," he said miserably, wondering what she could think of him. "I never talked like this before--to any one.

I don't know what made me confide in you."

This was untrue, for he knew perfectly well what had led him to speak.

So did she and, knowing full well what was working in the tense, awkward boy beside her, she had no feeling of offense, being at an age when such tributes, when genuine, are valued, not scorned.

"I can just feel how you felt--poor boy," she said, perhaps not entirely innocent of the effect of her words. "But then, you have won out, haven't you?"

"I suppose I have," said Stover, almost suffocated by the gentleness of her voice.

"Charlie's told me all about the rest," she said. "Every one looks up to you now--it's quite a romance, isn't it?"