The Vehement Flame Part 13

They like to talk."

"I'd like to choke you!" the exasperated father thought. But he cast a really frightened eye at Eleanor, who grew a little paler. There was some laborious talk in the small parlor, where Eleanor's piano took up most of the s.p.a.ce: comments on the weather, and explanations of Bingo's snarling. "He's jealous," Eleanor said, with amused pride, and stroking the little faithful head that pressed so closely against her.

At which Edith began, eagerly, "Father says--" ("What the deuce will she say now?" poor Mr. Houghton thought)--"Father says Rover has a human being's horridest vice--jealousy."

"I don't think jealousy is a vice," Eleanor said, coldly.

Mr. Houghton, giving his offspring a terrible glance, said that he must go back to the hotel and take something for his headache; "And don't keep that imp out too late, Maurice. You want to get home and take care of Eleanor."

"Oh no; he doesn't," Eleanor said, and shook hands with her embarra.s.sed guest, who was saying, under his breath, "_What_ taste!"

Out in the street Maurice hurried so that Edith, tucking, unasked, her hand through his arm, had to skip once or twice to keep up with him.... "Maurice," she said, breathlessly, "will you let me row?"

"O Lord--yes! I don't care."

After that Edith did all the talking, until they reached the wharf where Maurice kept his boat; when Edith had secured the oars and they pushed off, he took the tiller ropes, and sat with moody eyes fixed on the water. The mortification of the dinner was gnawing him; he was thinking of the things he might have said to bring Eleanor to her senses! Yet he realized that to have said anything would have added to Mr. Houghton's embarra.s.sment. "I'll have it out with her when I get home," he thought, hotly. "Edith started the mess; why did she say that about Mr. Houghton and Eleanor?" He glanced at her, and Edith, rowing hard, saw the sudden angry look, and was so surprised that she caught a crab, almost keeled over, laughed loudly, and said, _"Goodness!"_ which was at that time, her most violent expletive.

"Maurice," she demanded, "did you see that lady on the float, getting into the boat with those two gentlemen?"

Maurice said, absently: "There were two or three people round. I don't know which you mean."

"The young one. She had red cheeks. I never saw such red cheeks!"

"Oh," said Maurice; "_that_ one? Yes. I saw her. Paint."

"On her cheeks?" Edith said, with round, astonished eyes. "Do ladies put paint on their cheeks?"

Miserable as Maurice was, he did chuckle. "No, Edith; _ladies_ don't,"

he said, significantly. (Such was the innocent respectability of 1903!)

Edith looked puzzled: "You mean she isn't a lady, Maurice?"

"Look out!" he said, jamming the tiller over; "you were on your right oar."

"But, Maurice," she insisted, "_why_ do you say she isn't a lady?... Oh, Maurice! There she is now! See? In that boat?"

"Well, for Heaven's sake don't announce it to the world!" Maurice remonstrated. "Guess I'll take the oars, Edith. I want some exercise."

Edith sighed, but said, "All right." She wanted to row; but she wanted even more to get Maurice good-natured again. "He's huffy," she told herself; "he's mad at Eleanor, and so am I; but it's no sense to take _my_ head off!" She hated to change seats--they drew in to sh.o.r.e to do it, a concession to safety on Maurice's part--for she didn't like to turn her back on the red-cheeked lady with the two gentlemen in the following skiff; however, she did it; after all, it was Maurice's boat, and she was his company; so, if he "wanted to row her" (thus her little friendly thoughts ran), "why, all right!" Still, she hated not to look at the lady that Maurice said was not a lady. "She must be twice as old as I am; I should think you were a lady when you were twenty-six," she reflected.

But because her back was turned to the "lady," she did not, for an instant, understand the loud splash behind them, and Maurice's exclamation, "Capsized!" The jerk of their boat, as he backed water, made it rock violently. "Idiots!" said Maurice. "I'll pick you up!" he yelled, and rowed hard toward the three people, now slapping about in not very deep water. "Tried to change seats,"--he explained to Edith.

"I'm coming!" he called again.

Edith, wildly excited and swaying back and forth, like a c.o.xswain in a boat race, screamed: "We're coming! You'll get drowned--you'll get drowned!" she a.s.sured the gasping, bubbling people, who were, somehow or other, making their muddy way toward the sh.o.r.e.

"Get our skiff, will you?" one of the "gentlemen" called to Maurice, who, seeing that there was no danger to any of the immersed merrymakers, turned and rowed out to the slowly drifting boat.

"Grab the painter!" he told Edith as he gained upon it; she obeyed his orders with prompt dexterity. "You can always depend on old Skeezics,"

Maurice told himself, with a friendly look at her. He had forgotten Eleanor's behavior, and was trying to suppress his grins at the forlorn and dripping people, who were on land now, shivering, and talking with astonishing loudness.

"Oh, the lady's cheeks are coming off!" Edith gasped, as they beached.

Maurice, shoving the trailing skiff on to its owners, said: "Can I do anything to help you?"

"I'll catch my death," said the lady, who was crying; her trickling tears and her sopping handkerchief removed what remnants of her "cheeks"

the sudden bath in the river had left. As the paint disappeared, one saw how very pretty the poor draggled b.u.t.terfly was--big, honey-dark eyes, and quite exquisite features. "Oh, my soul and body!--I'll die!"

she said, sobbing with cold and shock.

"Here," said Maurice, stripping off his coat; "put this on."

The girl made some faint demur, and the men, who were bailing out their half-filled skiff, said, "Oh--she can have our coats."

"They're soaked, aren't they?" Maurice said; "and I don't need mine in the least."

Edith gasped; such reckless gallantry gave her an absolutely new sensation. Her heart seemed to lurch, and then jump; she breathed hard, and said, under her breath, "Oh, _my_!" She felt that she could never speak to Maurice again; he was truly a grown-up gentleman! Her eyes devoured him.

"Do take it," she heard him say to the crying lady, who no longer interested her; "I a.s.sure you I don't need it," he said, carelessly; and the "lady" reached out a small, shaking hand, on which the kid glove was soaking wet, and said, her teeth chattering, that she was awfully obliged.

"Get in--get in!" one of the "gentlemen" said, crossly, and as she stepped into the now bailed-out skiff, she said to Maurice, "Where shall I return it to?"

"I'll come and get it," Maurice said--and she called across the strip of water widening between the two boats:

"I'm Miss Lily Dale--" and added her street and number.

Maurice, in his shirt sleeves, lifted his hat; then looked at Edith and grinned. "Did you ever see such idiots? Those men are chumps. Did you hear the fat one jaw at the girl?"

"Did he?" Edith said, timidly. She could hardly bear to look at Maurice, he was so wonderful.

But he, entirely good-natured again, was overflowing with fun. "Let's turn around," he said, "and follow 'em! That fatty was rather happy--did you get on to that flask?"

Edith had no idea what he meant, but she said, breathlessly, "Yes, Maurice." In her own mind she was seeing again that princely gesture, that marvelous tossing of his own coat to the "lady"! "He is _exactly_ like Sir Walter Raleigh," she said to herself. She remembered how at Green Hill she had wanted him to spread his coat before Eleanor's feet;--but _that_ was commonplace! Eleanor was just a married person, "like mother." This was a wonderful drowning lady! Oh, he _was_ Sir Walter! Her eyes were wide with an entirely new emotion--an emotion which made her draw back sharply when once, as he rowed, his hand touched hers. She was afraid of that careless touch. Yet oh, if he would only give _her_ some of his clothes! Oh, why hadn't _she_ fallen into the water! Her heart beat so that she felt she could not speak. It was not necessary; Maurice, singing a song appropriate to the lady with the red cheeks, was not aware of her silence.

"I bet," he said, "that cad takes it out of the little thing! She looked scared, didn't you think, Edith?"

"Yes, ... _sir_" the little girl said, breathlessly.

Maurice did not notice the new word; "Sorry not to take you down to the Point," he said; "but I ought to keep tabs on that boat. If they capsize again, somebody really might get hurt. She's a--a little fool, of course; but I'd hate to have the fat brute drown her, and he looks capable of it."

However, trailing along in the deepening dusk behind the fat brute, who was rowing hard against the current, they saw the dripping survivors of the shipwreck reach the wharf safely five minutes ahead of them, and scurry off into the darkness of the street.

Maurice, in high spirits, had quite forgiven Eleanor. "I meant to treat you to ice cream, Skeezics," he said, "but I can't go into the hotel.

Shirt sleeves wouldn't be admitted in the elegant circles of the Mercer House!"

Instantly a very youthful disappointment readjusted things for Edith; she forgot that strange consciousness which had made her shrink from his careless touch; she had no impulse to say "sir"; she was back again at the point at which the red-cheeked lady had broken in upon their lives.

She said, frowning: "My! I did want some ice cream. I _wish_ you hadn't given the lady your coat!"

When Maurice got home, he found a repentant Eleanor bathing very red and swollen eyes.

"How's your head?" he said, as he came, in his shirt sleeves, into her room; she, turning to kiss him and say it was better, stopped short.