第77章 XXIV.(4)

About you! He's asked your father--I can't understand yet why he did it, only he's so delicate and honorable, and goodness known we appreciate it--whether he can tell you that--that--" It was not possible for such a mother as Mrs. Kenton to say "He loves you"; it would have sounded as she would have said, too sickish, and she compromised on: "He likes you, and wants to ask you whether you will marry him. And, Ellen," she continued, in the ample silence which followed, "if you don't say you will, I will have nothing more to do With such a simpleton. I have always felt that you behaved very foolishly about Mr. Bittridge, but I hoped that when you grew older you would see it as we did, and--and behave differently. And now, if, after all we've been through with you, you are going to say that you won't have Mr. Breckon--"Mrs. Kenton stopped for want of a figure that would convey all the disaster that would fall upon Ellen in such an event, and she was given further pause when the girl gently answered, "I'm not going to say that, momma.""Then what in the world are you going to say?" Mrs. Kenton demanded.

Ellen had turned her face away on the pillow, and now she answered, quietly, "When Mr. Breckon asks me I will tell him.""Well, you had better!" her mother threatened in return, and she did not realize the falsity of her position till she reported Ellen's words to the judge.

Well, Sarah, I think she had you there," he said, and Mrs. Kenton then said that she did not care, if the child was only going to behave sensibly at last, and she did believe she was.

"Then it's all right" said the judge, and he took up the Tuskingum Intelligencer, lying till then unread in the excitements which had followed its arrival the day before, and began to read it.

Mrs. Kenton sat dreamily watching him, with her hands fallen in her lap.

She suddenly started up, with the cry, "Good gracious! What are we all thinking of?"Kenton stared at her over the top of his paper. "How, thinking of?""Why Mr. Breckon! He must be crazy to know what we've decided, poor fellow!""Oh," said the judge, folding the Intelligencer on his knee. "I had forgotten. Somehow, I thought it was all settled."Mrs, Kenton took his paper from him, and finished folding it. "It hasn't begun to be settled. You must go and let him know.""Won't he look me up?" the judge suggested.

"You must look him up. Go at once dear! Think how anxious he must be!"Kenton was not sure that Breckon looked very anxious when he found him on the brick promenade before the Kurhaus, apparently absorbed in noting the convulsions of a large, round German lady in the water, who must have supposed herself to be bathing. But perhaps the young man did not see her; the smile on his face was too vague for such an interest when he turned at Kenton's approaching steps.

The judge hesitated for an instant, in which the smile left Breckon's face. "I believe that's all right, Mr. Breckon," he said. "You'll find Mrs. Kenton in our parlor," and then the two men parted, with an "Oh, thank you!" from Breckon, who walked back towards the hotel, and left Kenton to ponder upon the German lady; as soon as he realized that she was not a barrel, the judge continued his walk along the promenade, feeling rather ashamed.

Mrs. Kenton had gone to Ellen's room again when she had got the judge off upon his mission. She rather flung in upon her. "Oh, you are up!" she apologized to Ellen's back. The girl's face was towards the glass, and she was tilting her head to get the effect of the hat on it, which she now took off.

"I suppose poppa's gone to tell him," she said, sitting tremulously down.

"Didn't you want him to?" her mother asked, stricken a little at sight of her agitation.

"Yes, I wanted him to, but that doesn't make it any easier. It makes it harder. Momma!""Well, Ellen?"

"You know you've got to tell him, first."

"Tell him?" Mrs. Kenton repeated, but she knew what Ellen meant.

"About--Mr. Bittridge. All about it. Every single thing. About his kissing me that night."At the last demand Mrs. Kenton was visibly shaken in her invisible assent to the girl's wish. "Don't you think, Ellen, that you had better tell him that--some time?""No, now. And you must tell him. You let me go to the theatre with him." The faintest shadow of resentment clouded the girl's face, but still Mrs. Kenton, thought she knew her own guilt, could not yield.

"Why, Ellen," she pleaded, not without a reproachful sense of vulgarity in such a plea, "don't you suppose HE ever--kissed any one?""That doesn't concern me, momma," said Ellen, without a trace of consciousness that she was saying anything uncommon. "If you won't tell him, then that ends it. I won't see him.""Oh, well!" her mother sighed. "I will try to tell him. But I'd rather be whipped. I know he'll laugh at me.""He won't laugh at you," said the girl, confidently, almost comfortingly.

"I want him to know everything before I meet him. I don't want to have a single thing on my mind. I don't want to think of myself!"Mrs. Kenton understood the woman--soul that spoke in these words.

"Well," she said, with a deep, long breath, "be ready, then."But she felt the burden which had been put upon her to be so much more than she could bear that when she found her husband in their parlor she instantly resolved to cast it upon him. He stood at the window with his hat on.

"Has Breckon been here yet?" he asked.

"Have you seen him yet?" she returned.

"Yes, and I thought he was coming right here. But perhaps he stopped to screw his courage up. He only knew how little it needed with us!""Well, now, it's we who've got to have the courage. Or you have. Do you know what Ellen wants to have done?" Mrs. Kenton put it in these impersonal terms, and as a preliminary to shirking her share of the burden.

"She doesn't want to have him refused?"