Wild Wings Part 31

But Ted Holiday was not an easily daunted person. With one flying leap he landed in the canoe, all but upsetting the craft in his sudden descent upon it.

The two youths faced each other. Larry was still white, and his sombre eyes blazed with half subdued fires. He looked anything but hospitable to advances, however well meant.

"Better quit," he advised slowly in a queer, quiet voice which Ted knew was quiet only because Larry was making it so by a mighty effort of will. "I'm not responsible just now. We'll both be sorry if you don't leave me alone."

"I won't quit, Larry. I can't. It was my fault. Confound it, old man!

Please listen. I didn't mean to make you mad. Come ash.o.r.e and punch my fool head if it will make you feel any better."

Still Larry said nothing, just sat hunched in a heap, running his fingers over the handle of the paddle. He no longer even looked at Ted.

His mouth was set at its stubbornest.

Ted rushed on, desperately in earnest, entirely sincere in his willingness to undergo any punishment, himself, to help Larry.

"Honest, I didn't mean to make trouble," he pleaded. "I just picked her up and made her dance on impulse, though she told me she wouldn't and couldn't. I never thought for a minute you would care. Maybe it was a mean trick. I can see it might have looked so, but I didn't intend it that way. Gee, Larry! Say something. Don't swallow it all like that. Get it out of your system. I'd rather you'd give me a dozen black eyes than sit still and feel like the devil."

Larry looked up then. His face relaxed its sternness a little. Even the hottest blaze of wrath could not burn quite so fiercely when exposed to a generous penitence like his young brother's. He understood Ted was working hard not only to make peace but to spare himself the sharp battle with the demon which, as none knew better that Larry Holiday, did, indeed, half kill.

"Cut it, Ted," he ordered grimly. "'Nough said. I haven't the slightest desire to give you even one black eye at present, though I may as well admit if you had been in my hands five minutes ago something would have smashed."

"Don't I know it?" Ted grinned a little. "Gee, I thought my hour had struck!"

"What made you come after me then?"

Ted's grin faded.

"You know why I came, old man. You know I'd let you pommel my head off any time if it could help you anyhow. Besides it was my fault as I told you. I didn't mean to be mean. I'll do any penance you say."

Larry picked up the paddle.

"Your penance is to let me absolutely alone for fifteen minutes. You had better go ash.o.r.e though. You will miss a lot of dances."

"Hang the dances! I'm staying."

Ted settled down among the cushions against which Ruth's blonde head had nestled a few hours ago. He took out his watch, struck a match, looked at the time, lit a cigarette with the same match, replaced the watch and relapsed into silence.

The canoe shot down the lake impelled by long, fierce strokes. Larry was working off the demon. Far away the rhythmic beat of dance music reached them faintly. Now and then a fish leaped and splashed or a bull frog bellowed his hoa.r.s.e "Better go home" into the silence. Otherwise there was no sound save the steady ripple of the water under the canoe.

Presently Ted finished his cigarette, sent its still ruddy remains flashing off into the lake where it fell with a soft hiss, took out his watch again, lit another match, considered the time, subtracted gravely, looked up and announced "Time's up, Larry."

Larry laid down the paddle and a slow reluctant smile played around the corners of his mouth, though there was sharp distress still in his eyes. He loathed losing his temper like that. It sickened him, filled him with spiritual nausea, a profound disgust for himself and his mastering weakness.

"I've been a fool, kid," he admitted. "I'm all right now. You were a trump to stand by me. I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it," nonchalantly from Ted "Going back to the pavilion?"

His brother nodded, resumed the paddle and again the canoe shot through the waters, this time toward the music instead of away from it.

"I suppose you know why your dancing with Ruth made me go savage," said Larry after a few moments of silence.

"d.a.m.ned if I do," said Ted cheerfully. "It doesn't matter. I don't need a glossary and appendix. Suit yourself as to the explanations. I put my foot in it. I've apologized. That is the end of it so far as I am concerned unless you want to say something more yourself. You don't have to you know."

"It was plain, fool movie stuff jealousy. That is the sum and substance of it. I'm in love with her. I couldn't stand her dancing with you when she had refused me. I could almost have killed you for a minute. I am ashamed but I couldn't help it. That is the way it was.

Now--forget it, please."

Ted swallowed hard and pulled his forelock in genuine perturbation.

"Good Lord, Larry!" he blurted. "I--"

His brother held up an imperious warning hand.

"I said 'forget it.' Don't make me want to dump you now, after coming through the rest."

Ted saluted promptly.

"Ay, ay, sir! It's forgot. Only perhaps you'll let me apologize again, underscored, now I understand. Honest, I'm no end sorry, Larry."

The other nodded acceptance of the underscored apology and again silence had its way.

As they landed Ted fastened the canoe and for a moment the two brothers stood side by side in the starlight. Larry put out his hand. Ted took it.

Their eyes met, said more than any words could have expressed.

"Thank you, Ted. You've been great--helped a lot."

Larry's voice was a little unsteady, his eyes were full of trouble and shame.

"Ought to, after starting the conflagration," said Ted. "I'll attend to the general explanations. You go to Ruth."

More than one person had wondered at the mysterious disappearance of the two Holidays. It is quite usual, and far from unexpected, when two young persons of the opposite s.e.x drift off somewhere under the stars on a summer night without giving any particular account of themselves; but one scarcely looks for that sort of social--or unsocial--eccentricity from two youths, especially two brothers. n.o.body but Ruth and Tony, and possibly shrewd-eyed Sue, suspected a quarrel, but everybody was curious and ready to burst into interrogation upon the simultaneous return of the two young men which was quite as sudden as their vanishing had been.

"Larry and I had a wager up," announced Ted to Sue in a perfectly clear, distinct voice which carried across the length of the small hall now that the music was silent. "He said he could paddle down to the point, current against him, faster than I could paddle back, current with me. We took a notion to try it out tonight. Please forgive us, Susanna, my dear. A Holiday is a creature of impulse you know."

Sue made a little face at the speaker. She was quite sure he was lying about the wager, but she was a good hostess and played up to his game.

"You don't deserve to be forgiven, either of you," she sniffed.

"Especially Larry who never comes to parties and when he does has to go off and do a silly thing like that. Who won though? I will ask that." She smiled at Ted and he grinned back.

"Larry, of course. Give me a dance, Sue. I've got my second wind."

"Bless Ted!" thought Tony, listening to her brother's glib excuses.

"Thank goodness he can lie like that. Larry never could." And as her eyes met Ted's a moment later when they pa.s.sed each other in the maze of dancers he murmured "All right" in her ear and she was well content.

Bless Ted, indeed!

Meanwhile Larry had gone, as Ted bade him, straight to Ruth. He bent over her tired little white face, an agony of remorse in his own.

"Ruth, forgive me. I'll never forgive myself."

"Don't, Larry. It is I who ought to be sorry and I am--oh so sorry--you don't know. Ted didn't mean any harm. I ought not to have let him do it.

It was my fault."