第13章

"Don't put yourself out, Fanny," said he."If the boy wants Ruth and she wants him, why, well and good.But you'll only make a mess interfering.Let the young people alone.""I'm surprised, George Warham," cried Fanny, "that you can show so little sense and heart.""To hear you talk, I'd think marriage was a business, like groceries."Mrs.Warham thought it was, in a sense.But she would never have dared say so aloud, even to her husband--or, rather, especially to her husband.In matters of men and women he was thoroughly innocent, with the simplicity of the old-time man of the small town and the country; he fancied that, while in grocery matters and the like the world was full of guile, in matters of the heart it was idyllic, Arcadian, with never a thought of duplicity, except among a few obviously wicked and designing people.

"I guess we both want to see Ruth married well," was all she could venture.

"I'd rather the girls stayed with us," declared Warham."I'd hate to give them up.""Of course," hastily agreed Fanny."Still--it's the regular order of nature.""Oh, Ruth'll marry--only too soon," said Warham."And marry well.I'm not so sure, though, that marrying any of old Wright's breed would be marrying what ought to be called well.Money isn't everything--not by a long sight--though, of course, it's comfortable.""I never heard anything against Sam," protested Mrs.Warham.

"You've heard what I've heard--that he's wild and loose.But then you women like that in a man.""We've got to put up with it, you mean," cried Fanny, indignant.

"Women like it," persisted Warham."And I guess Sam's only sowing the usual wild oats, getting ready to settle.No, mother, you let Ruth alone.If she wants him, she'll get him--she or Susan."Mrs.Warham compressed her lips and lowered her eyes.Ruth or Susan--as if it didn't matter which! "Susan isn't _ours_," she could not refrain from saying.

"Indeed, she is!" retorted George warmly."Why, she couldn't be more our own----""Yes, certainly," interrupted Fanny.

She moved toward the door.She saw that without revealing her entire scheme--hers and Ruth's--she could make no headway with George.And if she did reveal it he would sternly veto it.So she gave up that direction.She went upstairs; George took his hat from the front hall rack and pushed open the screen door.As he appeared on the veranda Susan was picking dead leaves from one of the hanging baskets; Ruth, seated in the hammock, hands in lap, her whole attitude intensely still, was watching her with narrowed eyes.

"What's this I hear," cried Warham, laughing, "about you two girls setting your caps for Sam Wright?" And his good-humored brown eyes glanced at Ruth, passed on to Susan's wealth of wavy dark hair and long, rounded form, and lingered there.

Ruth lowered her eyes and compressed her lips, a trick she had borrowed from her mother along with the peculiarities of her mother's disposition that it fitted.Susan flung a laughing glance over her shoulder at her uncle."Not Ruth," said she.

"Only me.I saw him first, so he's mine.He's coming to see me this evening.""So I hear.Well, the moon's full and your aunt and I'll not interrupt--at least not till ten o'clock.No callers on a child like you after ten.""Oh, I don't think I'll be able to hold him that long.""Don't you fret, Brownie.But I mustn't make you vain.Coming along to the store?""No.Tomorrow," said Susan."I can finish in the morning.I'm going to wear my white dress with embroidery, and it's got to be pressed--and that means I must do it myself.""Poor Sam! And I suppose, when he calls, you'll come down as if you'd put on any old thing and didn't care whether he came or not.And you'll have primped for an hour--and he, too--shaving and combing and trying different ties."Susan sparkled at the idea of a young man, and _such_ a young man, taking trouble for her.Ruth, pale, kept her eyes down and her lips compressed.She was picturing the gallant appearance the young Sophomore from Yale, away off in the gorgeous fashionable East, would make as he came in at that gate yonder and up the walk and seated himself on the veranda--with Susan!

Evidently her mother had failed; Susan was not to be taken away.

When Warham departed down the walk Ruth rose; she could not bear being alone with her triumphant rival--triumphant because unconscious.She knew that to get Sam to herself all she would have to do would be to hint to Susan, the generous, what she wanted.But pride forbade that.As her hand was on the knob of the screen door, Susan said: "Why don't you like Sam?""Oh, I think he's stuck-up.He's been spoiled in the East.""Why, I don't see any sign of it."

"You were too flattered by his talking to you," said Ruth, with a sweet-sour little laugh--an asp of a sneer hid in a basket of flowers.

Susan felt the sting; but, seeing only the flowers, did not dream whence it had come."It _was_ nice, wasn't it?" said she, gayly."Maybe you're right about him, but I can't help liking him.You must admit he's handsome.""He has a bad look in his eyes," replied Ruth.Such rage against Susan was swelling within her that it seemed to her she would faint if she did not release at least part of it."You want to look out for him, Susie," said she, calmly and evenly."You don't want to take what he says seriously.""Of course not," said Susan, quite honestly, though she, no more than the next human being, could avoid taking seriously whatever was pleasantly flattering.

"He'd never think of marrying you." Ruth trembled before and after delivering this venomous shaft.

"Marrying!" cried Susan, again quite honestly."Why, I'm only seventeen."Ruth drew a breath of relief.The shaft had glanced off the armor of innocence without making the faintest dent.She rushed into the house.She did not dare trust herself with her cousin.

What might the demon within her tempt her to say next?