第59章

"You don't want them to take me for a fool, Little Ann.You're standing up for me; that's it.""You can stand up for yourself, Mr.Temple Barholm, if you're not taken by surprise," she said confidently."If you understand things a bit, you won't be."His feelings almost overpowered him.

"God bless your dear little soul!" he broke out."Say, if this goes on, that dog of your grandmother's wouldn't have a show, Ann.I should bite him before he could bite me.""I won't go on if you can't be sensible, Mr.Temple Barholm.I shall just go away and not come back again.That's what I shall do." Her tone was that of a young mother.

He gave in incontinently.

"Good Lord! no!" he exclaimed."I'll do anything if you'll stay.I'll lie down on the mat and not open my mouth.Just sit here and tell me things.I know you won't let me hold your hand, but just let me hold a bit of your dress and look at you while you talk." He took a bit of her brown frock between his fingers and held it, gazing at her with all his crude young soul in his eyes."Now tell me," he added.

"There's only one or two things about the people who'll come to Temple Barholm.Grandmother's talked it over with me.She knew all about those that came in the late Mr.Temple Barholm's time.He used to hate most of them.""Then why in thunder did he ask them to come?""He didn't.They've got clever, polite ways of asking themselves sometimes.He couldn't bear the Countess of Mallowe.She'll come.

Grandmother says you may be sure of that."

"What'll she come for?"

Little Ann's pause and contemplation of him were fraught with thoughtfulness.

"She'll come for you," at last she said.

"She's got a daughter she thinks ought to have been married eight years ago," announced Hutchinson.

Tembarom pulled at the bit of brown tweed he held as though it were a drowning man's straw.

"Don't you drive me to drink, Ann," he said."I'm frightened.Your grandmother will have to lend ME the dog."This was a flightiness which Little Ann did not encourage.

"Lady Joan--that's her daughter--is very grand and haughty.She's a great beauty.You'll look at her, but perhaps she won't look at you.

But it's not her I'm troubled about.I'm thinking of Captain Palliser and men like him.""Who's he?"

"He's one of those smooth, clever ones that's always getting up some company or other and selling the stock.He'll want you to know his friends and he'll try to lead you his way."As Tembarom held to his bit of her dress, his eyes were adoring ones, which was really not to be wondered at.She WAS adorable as her soft, kind, wonderfully maternal girl face tried to control itself so that it should express only just enough to help and nothing to disturb.

"I don't want him to spoil you.I don't want anything to make you--different.I couldn't bear it."

He pulled the bit of dress pleadingly.

"Why, Little Ann?" he implored quite low.

"Because," she said, feeling that perhaps she was rash-- "because if you were different, you wouldn't be T.Tembarom; and it was T.

Tembarom that--that was T.Tembarom," she finished hastily.

He bent his head down to the bit of tweed and kissed it.

"You just keep looking after me like that," he said, "and there's not one of them can get away with me."She got up, and he rose with her.There was a touch of fire in the forget-me-not blue of her eyes.

"Just you let them see--just you let them see that you're not one they can hold light and make use of." But there she stopped short, looking up at him.He was looking down at her with a kind of matureness in his expression."I needn't be afraid," she said."You can take care of yourself; I ought to have known that.""You did," he said, smiling; "but you wanted to sort of help me.And you've done it, by gee! just by saying that thing about T.Tembarom.

You set me right on my feet.That's YOU."