Chapter VI

Refreshments had been served, the last ear of corn was husked and thrown into the barn, and they had all risen to depart, when Hillhouse came down the path from the cottage. He was panting audibly, and had evidently been walking fast. He shook hands hurriedly with Pole and his wife, and then turned to Cynthia.

“I’m just from your house,” he said, “and I promised your mother to come over after you. I was afraid I’d be late. The distance never seemed so long before.”

“I’m afraid you are too late,” said Floyd, with a cold smile. “I was lucky enough to find the first red ear of corn, and the reward was that I might take home anyone I asked. I assure you I’ll see that Miss Cynthia is well taken care of.”

“Oh! I—I see.” The preacher seemed stunned by the disappointment. “I didn’t know; I thought——”

“Yes, Floyd has won fast enough,” said Pole, “an’ he’s acted the part of the gentleman all through.” Pole explained what Floyd had done in excusing Cynthia from the principal forfeit he had won.

Hillhouse seemed unable to reply. The young people were moving toward the house, and he fell behind Floyd and his partner, walking along with the others and saying nothing.

It was a lonely, shaded road which Floyd and Cynthia traversed to reach her house.

“My luck turned just in the nick of time,” Floyd said exultantly. “I went there, little girl, especially to talk with you, and I was mad enough to fight when I saw how Pole had arranged everything. Then by good fortune and cheating I found that red ear; and—well, here we are. I never wanted to see anyone so badly in my life. Really, I——”

“Stop, don’t begin that!” Cynthia suddenly commanded, and she turned her eyes upon him steadily.

“Stop? Why do you say that?”

“Because,” retorted she, “you talk that way to all the girls, and I don’t want to hear it.”

Floyd laughed. “You know I mean what I say,” he replied. “You know it; you are just talking to hear your sweet, musical voice. Keep on; I could listen all night.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t like you when you speak that way,” the girl said seriously. “It sounds insincere—it makes me doubt you more than anything else.”

“Then some things about me don’t make you doubt me,” he said, with tentative eagerness.

She was silent for a moment, then she nodded her head. “I’ll admit that some things I hear of you make me admire you—that is, in a way.”

“Please tell me what they are,” he said, with a laugh.

“I’ve heard, for one thing, of your being very good and kind to poor people—people that Mr. Mayhew would have turned out of their homes for debt if you hadn’t interfered.”

“Oh, that was only business, little girl,” Floyd laughed. “I can simply see farther than the old man can. He thought they never would be able to pay, but I knew they would some day, and, also, that they would come up with the back interest.”

“I don’t believe it!” the girl said firmly. “Those things make me rather like you, while the others make me—they make me—afraid.”

“Afraid? Oh, how absurd—how very absurd!” They had reached a spring which flowed from a great bed of rocks in the side of a rugged hill. He pointed to a flat stone quite near it. “Do you remember the first time I ever had a talk with you? It was while we were seated on this rock.”

She recalled it, but only nodded her head.

“It was a year ago,” he went on. “You had on a pink dress and wore your hair like a little girl, in a plait down your back. Cynthia, you were the prettiest creature I had ever seen. I could hardly talk to you for wondering over your dazzling beauty. You are even more beautiful now; you have ripened physically and mentally—grown to be a wonderful woman.”

He sat down on the stone, still holding to her hand, and drawing her toward him.

She hesitated, looking back toward Baker’s cottage.

“Sit down, little girl,” he entreated her. “I’m tired. I’ve worked hard all day at the store, and that corn-shucking wasn’t the best thing to taper off on.”

She hesitated an instant longer, and then allowed him to draw her down beside him.

“There, now,” he said, “that’s more like it.” He still held her hand; it lay warm, pulsating and helpless in his strong grasp.

“Do you know why I did not kiss you back there?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t know why you didn’t, but it was good of you,” she answered.

“No, it wasn’t,” he laughed. “I don’t want credit for what I don’t deserve. I simply put it off, little girl—I put it off. I knew we would be alone on our way home, and that you would not refuse me.”

“But I shall!” she said. “I’m not going to let you kiss me here in—in—this way.”

“Then you’ll not be keeping your part of the contract,” he said, tightening his grasp on her hand. “I’ve always considered you so fair in everything; and, Cynthia, you don’t know how much I want to kiss you. No, you won’t refuse me—you can’t!” His left arm was behind her, and it encircled her waist. She made an effort to draw herself erect, but he drew her closer to him. Her head sank upon his shoulder and lay there while he pressed his lips to hers.

Then she sat up, and firmly pushed his arm down from her waist.

“I’m sorry I let you do it,” she said, under her breath.

“But why, darling?”

“Because I’ve said a thousand times that I would not; but I have—I have, and I shall hate myself always.”

“When you have made me the happiest fellow in the state?” Floyd said. “Don’t go!” he urged.

She had risen and turned toward her home. He walked beside her, suiting his step to hers.

“Do you remember the night we sat and talked in the grape-arbor at your house?” he asked. “Well, you never knew it, but I’ve been there three nights within the last month, hoping that I’d get to see you by some chance or other. I always work late on my accounts, and when I am through and the weather is fine, I walk to your house, climb over the fence, slip through the orchard, and sit in that arbor, trying to imagine you are there with me. I often see a light in your room, and the last time I became so desperate that I actually whistled for you. This way.” He put his thumb and little finger between his lips and made an imitation of a whippoorwill’s call. “You see, no one could tell that from the real thing. If you ever hear that sound from the grape-arbor, you’ll know I need you, little girl, and you must not disappoint me.”

“I’d never respond to it,” Cynthia said firmly. “The idea of such a thing!”

“But you know I can’t go to your house often, with your mother opposing my visits as she does, and when I’m there she never leaves us alone. No, I must have you to myself once in awhile, little woman, and you must help me. Remember, if I call you, I’ll want you badly.”

He whistled again, and the echo came back on the still air from a nearby hillside. They were passing a log cabin which stood a few yards from the roadside.

“Budd Crow moved there today,” Cynthia said, as if desirous of changing the subject. “He rented twenty acres from my father. The White Caps whipped him a week ago, for being lazy and not working for his family. His wife came over and told me all about it. She said it really had brought him to his senses, but that it had broken her heart. She cried while she was talking to me. Why does God afflict some women with men of that kind, and make others the wives of governors and Presidents?”

“Ah, there you are beyond my philosophic depth, Cynthia! You mustn’t bother your pretty head about those things. I sometimes rail against my fate for giving me the ambition of a king, while I do not even know who—But I think you know what I mean!”

“Yes, I think I do,” said the girl sympathetically, “and some day I believe all that will be cleared up. Some coarse natures wouldn’t care a straw about it, but you do care, and it is the things we want and can’t get that count.”

“It is strange,” he said thoughtfully, “but of late I always think of my mother as being young and beautiful. I think of her, too, as being well-bred and educated. I think all those things without any proof even as to what her maiden name was or where she came from—Are you still unhappy at home, Cynthia?”

“Nearly all the time,” the girl sighed. “As she grows older my mother seems more faultfinding and suspicious than ever. Then she has set her mind on my marrying Mr. Hillhouse. They seem to be working together to that end, and it is very tiresome to me.”

“I’m glad you don’t love him,” Floyd said. “I don’t think he could make anyone of your nature happy.”

The girl stared into his eyes. They had reached the gate of the farmhouse, and he opened it for her.

“Now, good night,” he said, pressing her hand. “Remember, if you ever hear a lonely whippoorwill calling, that he is longing for companionship.”

She leaned over the gate, drawing it toward her till the latch clicked in its catch. She was thinking of the hot kiss he had pressed upon her lips, and what he might later think about it.

“I’ll never meet you there at night,” she said firmly. “My mother does not treat me right, but I shall not do that when she is asleep. You may come to see me here once in awhile if you wish.”

“Well, I shall sit alone in the arbor,” he returned, with a low laugh, “and I hope your hard heart will keep you awake.”

She opened the front door, which was never locked, and went into her room on the right of the little hall. The night was very still, and down the road she heard Floyd’s whippoorwill call growing fainter and fainter as he strode away. She found a match and lighted the lamp on her bureau, and looked at her reflection in the little oval-shaped mirror. Instinctively she shuddered and brushed her lips with her hand as she remembered his embrace.

“He’ll despise me,” she muttered. “He’ll think I am weak like all the rest, but I am not. I am not! I’ll show him that he can’t—and yet”—her head sank to her hands, which were folded on the top of the bureau—“I couldn’t help it. My God, I couldn’t help it! I must have wanted—no, I didn’t. I didn’t!”

There was a soft step in the hall. The door of her room creaked like the low scream of a cat. A figure in white stood on the threshold. It was Mrs. Porter in her nightdress, her feet bare, her iron-gray half-twisted hair hanging upon her shoulders.

“I couldn’t go to sleep, Cynthia,” she said, “till I knew you were safe at home.”

“Well, I’m here all right, mother; so go back to bed, and don’t catch your death of cold.”

The old woman moved across the room to Cynthia’s bed and sat down on it. “I heard you coming down the road and went to the front window. I had sent Brother Hillhouse for you, but it was Nelson Floyd who brought you home. Didn’t Brother Hillhouse get there before you left?”

“Yes, but I had already promised Mr. Floyd.”

The old woman met her daughter’s glance steadily. “I suppose all I’ll do or say won’t amount to anything. Cynthia, you know what I’m afraid of.”

Cynthia stood straight, her face set and white, her great dreamy eyes flashing.

“Yes, and that’s the insult of it, mother. I tell you, you will drive me too far. A girl at a certain time of her life wants a mother’s love and sympathy; she doesn’t want threats, fears and disgraceful suspicions.”

Mrs. Porter covered her face with her bony hands and groaned aloud.

“You are confessing,” she said, “that you are tied an’ bound to him by the heart, and that there isn’t anything left for you but the crumbs he lets fall from his profligate table.”

“Stop!” Cynthia sprang to her mother and laid her small hand heavily on the thin shoulder. “Stop! You know you are telling a deliberate—” She paused, turned and went slowly back to the bureau. “God forgive me! God help me remember my duty to you as my mother. You’re old; you’re out of your head!”

“There, you said something.” The old woman had drawn herself erect and sat staring at her daughter, her hands on her sharp knees. “You know my sister Martha got to worryin’ when she was along about my age over her lawsuit matters, and kept it up till her brain gave way. Folks always said she and I were alike. Dr. Strong has told me time after time to guard against worry, or I’d go out and kill myself as she did. I haven’t mentioned this before, but I will now. I can’t keep down my fears and suspicions while the very air is full of that man’s doings. He’s a devil. Your pretty face has caught his fancy, and your holding him off, so far, has made him determined to crush you like a plucked flower. Why don’t he go to the Duncans, and the Prices, and lay his plans? Because the men of those families shoot at the drop of the hat. He knows your pa is not of that stamp, and that you haven’t any men kin to defend our honor. He hasn’t any of his own; nobody knows who or what he is.”

“Mother!” Cynthia’s tone had softened. Her face was filling with sudden pity for the quivering creature on the bed. “Mother, will you not have confidence in me? If I promise you faithfully to take care of myself with him, and make him understand what and who I am, won’t that satisfy you? Even men with bad reputations have a good side to their natures, and they often reach a point at which they reform. I well know there are strong women and weak women. Mother, I’m not a weak woman. As God is my judge, I’m able to take care of myself. It pains me to say this, for you ought to know it; you ought to feel it, see it in my eye and hear it in my voice. Now, go to bed and sleep. I’m really afraid you may lose your mind, since you told me about Aunt Martha.”

The face of the old woman changed; it lighted up with hope.

“Somehow, I believe what you say,” she said, with a faint smile. “Anyway, I’ll try not to worry any more.” She rose and went to the door. “Yes, I’ll try not to worry any more,” she repeated. “It may all come out right.”

When she found herself alone Cynthia turned and looked at her reflection in the glass.

“He didn’t once tell me in so many words that he loved me,” she said. “He has never used that word. He has never said that he wanted to mar—” She broke off, staring into the depths of her own great, troubled eyes. “And yet I let him kiss me—me!” A hot flush filled her neck and face and spread to the roots of her hair. Then suddenly she blew out the light and crept to her bed.

(To be continued.)