第8章

The girl ran beautifully, but a fleeter foot was behind her, and though she dodged and evaded like a creature of the woods, the reaching hand fell upon the loose sleeve of her red blouse, nor fell lightly.She gave a wrench of frenzy; the antique fabric refused the strain; parted at the shoulder seam so thoroughly that the whole sleeve came away--but not to its owner's release, for she had been brought round by the jerk, so that, agile as she had shown herself, the pursuer threw an arm about her neck, before she could twist away, and held her.

There was a sharp struggle, as short as it was fierce.Neither of these extraordinary wrestlers spoke.They fought.Victory hung in the balance for perhaps four seconds; then the girl was thrown heavily upon her back, in such a turmoil of snow that she seemed to be the mere nucleus of a white comet.She struggled to get up, plying knee and elbow with a very anguish of determination;but her opponent held her, pinioned both her wrists with one hand, and with the other rubbed great handfuls of snow into her face, sparing neither mouth nor eyes.

"You will!" he cried."You will tear up my pictures! A dirty trick, and you get washed for it!"Half suffocated, choking, gasping, she still fought on, squirming and kicking with such spirit that the pair of them appeared to the beholder like figures of mist writhing in a fountain of snow.

More violence was to mar the peace of morning.

Unexpectedly attacked from the rear, the conqueror was seized by the nape of the neck and one wrist, and jerked to his feet, simultaneously receiving a succession of kicks from his assailant.

Prompted by an entirely natural curiosity, he essayed to turn his head to see who this might be, but a twist of his forearm and the pressure of strong fingers under his ear constrained him to remain as he was; therefore, abandoning resistance, and, oddly enough, accepting without comment the indication that his captor desired to remain for the moment incognito, he resorted calmly to explanations.

"She tore up a picture of mine," he said, receiving the punishment without apparent emotion.

"She seemed to think because she'd drawn it herself she had a right to."There was a slight whimsical droop at the corner of his mouth as he spoke, which might have been thought characteristic of him.He was an odd-looking boy, not ill-made, though very thin and not tall.His pallor was clear and even, as though constitutional; the features were delicate, almost childlike, but they were very slightly distorted, through nervous habit, to an expression at once wistful and humorous; one eyebrow was a shade higher than the other, one side of the mouth slightly drawn down; the eyelids twitched a little, habitually;the fine, blue eyes themselves were almost comically reproachful--the look of a puppy who thinks you would not have beaten him if you had known what was in his heart.All of this was in the quality of his voice, too, as he said to his invisible captor, with an air of detachment from any personal feeling:

"What peculiar shoes you wear! I don't think I ever felt any so pointed before."The rescuing knight took no thought of offering to help the persecuted damsel to arise; instead, he tightened his grip upon the prisoner's neck until, perforce, water--not tears--started from the latter's eyes.

"You miserable little muff," said the conqueror, "what the devil do you mean, making this scene on our front lawn?""Why, it's Eugene!" exclaimed the helpless one.

"They didn't expect you till to-night.When did you get in?""Just in time to give you a lesson, my buck,"replied Bantry, grimly."In GOOD time for that, my playful step-brother."He began to twist the other's wrist--a treatment of bone and ligament in the application of which school-boys and even freshmen are often adept.

Eugene made the torture acute, and was apparently enjoying the work, when suddenly--without any manner of warning--he received an astounding blow upon the left ear, which half stunned him for the moment, and sent his hat flying and himself reeling, so great was the surprise and shock of it.

It was not a slap, not an open-handed push, nothing like it, but a fierce, well-delivered blow from a clinched fist with the shoulder behind it, and it was the girl who had given it.

"Don't you dare to touch Joe!" she cried, passionately."Don't you lay a finger on him."Furious and red, he staggered round to look at her.

"You wretched little wild-cat, what do you mean by that?" he broke out.

"Don't you touch Joe!" she panted."Don't you--" Her breath caught and there was a break in her voice as she faced him.She could not finish the repetition of that cry, "Don't you touch Joe!"But there was no break in the spirit, that passion of protection which had dealt the blow.Both boys looked at her, something aghast.

She stood before them, trembling with rage and shivering with cold in the sudden wind which had come up.Her hair had fallen and blew across her streaming face in brown witch-wisps; one of the ill-darned stockings had come down and hung about her shoe in folds full of snow; the arm which had lost its sleeve was bare and wet; thin as the arm of a growing boy, it shook convulsively, and was red from shoulder to clinched fist.She was covered with snow.Mists of white drift blew across her, mercifully half veiling her.

Eugene recovered himself.He swung round upon his heel, restored his hat to his head with precision, picked up his stick and touched his banjo-case with it.

"Carry that into the house," he said, indifferently, to his step-brother.

"Don't you do it!" said the girl, hotly, between her chattering teeth.