Paradise Garden Part 44

"He'll be delighted--Ho! There's his whistle now." I sounded the familiar call on my fingers and moved toward the cabin, but she stopped me.

"You're not to leave me, Mr. Canby, or I'll go."

"Why?"

"A chance meeting would have been different. This is premeditation.

Don't leave me. Do you hear!"

I nodded and when Jerry came in sight I called him. He appeared in the path, a basket of wine in one hand, a fis.h.i.+ng rod in the other.

"h.e.l.lo, Roger," he shouted and then paused, setting the basket down.

"I didn't know--"

"A surprise, Jerry!"

"Why, it's Una!" he cried. "Una! What on earth--?"

"I was b.u.t.terflying, and wandered through." She laughed. "I told you to have that railing mended."

"The necessity for that is past," he laughed gayly. "Oh, it's jolly good to see you."

He took her by both hands and held her off from him examining her delightedly.

"It seems like yesterday. I'm not sure it isn't yesterday that you broke in and I was going to throw you over the wall. Imagine it! You!

You're just the same--so different from the sober little mouse of Blank Street. I believe you have on the very same clothes, the same gaiters--"

"Naturally. Do you think I'm a millionaire?"

Three was a crowd. I would have given my right hand to have transported the cabin and all the gay people expected there to the ends of the earth. In a moment the woods would be full of them. I was at a loss what to do, for when they came the bird would take flight, but Jerry seemed to have forgotten everything but the girl before him.

It was a real enthusiasm and happiness that he showed, the first in weeks.

"So you expected to slip in and out without being caught, did you?"

Jerry was saying. "Pretty sort of a friend, you are! You might at least have let a fellow know you were going to be in this part of the world; where are you staying?"

"I don't see how that's the slightest concern of yours," she said demurely.

"The same old Una!" cried Jerry delightedly. "Always making game of a fellow. Do sit down again and let's have a chat. It seems ages since I've seen you. How's the day nursery coming on? Did you get the last check? I meant to stop in and see the plans. I couldn't, though," he frowned a little. "Something turned up. Business, you know."

"Jerry _is_ busy," I put in mischievously, as I sat down beside them.

"He worked Tuesday and Wednesday this week."

"Aren't you afraid of injuring your health, Jerry?" she asked sweetly.

"I hope you're not working _too_ hard."

He frowned and then burst into laughter.

"Roger's a chump. He sits staring at a sheet of foolscap all day and thinks he's working. I do work, though. I'm reorganizing a railroad,"

he finished proudly.

"How splendid! I'm sure it needs it. Railroads are the most disorganized and disorganizing--"

"And I'm engaged in a freight war with a rival steams.h.i.+p company. It's perfectly bully. I've got 'em backed off the map. We're carrying stuff for almost nothing and they're howling for help." He had taken out his pipe and was lighting it. "I'm going to buy 'em out," he finished.

"But you don't want to hear about _me_. What are--"

"I do. Of course"--and she exchanged a quick glance with me. "Of course, I see a little about you in the papers--your interest in athletics--"

"Oh, I say, Una," he cried, flus.h.i.+ng a dark red. "It's not fair to--"

"I'm fearfully interested," she persisted calmly. "You know it's actually gotten me into the habit of the sporting page. 'Walloping'

Houligan and 'Scotty' Smith, the Harlem knock-out artist, are no longer empty names for me. They're real people with jabs and things."

"It's not kind of you--"

"I've been waiting breathlessly for your next encounter. I hope it's with 'Scotty.' It would be so much more of an achievement to win from a real knock-out artist--"

"Stop it, Una," he cried painfully. "I forbid you--"

"Do you mean," she asked innocently, "that you don't like to discuss--"

"I--I'd rather talk of something else," he stammered. "I've stopped boxing."

"Why?" wide-eyed. "The newspapers were wild about you. It _was_ a fluke, wasn't it--Clancy 'getting' you in the ninth?"

"No," he muttered sullenly, "he whipped me fairly."

"Really. I'm awfully sorry. When one sets one's heart upon a thing--"

"Will you be quiet, Una?" he cried impetuously. "I won't have you talking this way, of these things. I--I was jollied into the thing. I mean," with a glance at me, "I never thought of the consequences.

It--it was only a lark. I'm out of it, for good."

"Oh!" she said in a subdued tone, her gaze upon a distant tree-trunk.

"It's too bad."

Whatever she meant by that cryptic remark, Jerry looked most uncomfortable. Her irony had cut him to the quick, and her humor had flayed his quivering sensibilities. That he took it without anger argued much for the quality of the esteem in which he held her.

Another person, even I, in similar circ.u.mstances, would have courted demolition. Secretly, I was delighted. She had struck just the right note. He still writhed inwardly, but he made no effort at unconcern. I think he was perfectly willing that she should be a witness of his self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

"I was an idiot, Una, a conceited, silly fool. I deserve everything you say. I think it makes me a little happier to hear you say it, because if you weren't my friend you'd have kept quiet."

"I haven't said anything," she remarked urbanely. "And of course it's none of my affair."

"But it _is_," he was insisting.

I had risen, for along the path some people were coming. Jerry and Una, their backs being turned, were so absorbed in their conversation that they did not hear the rustle of footsteps, but when I rose they glanced at me and saw my face. I would have liked to have spirited them away, but it was too late. I made out the visitors now, Marcia, Phil Laidlaw, Sarah Carew and Channing Lloyd. I saw a change come in Jerry's face, as though a gray cloud had pa.s.sed over it. Una started up, b.u.t.terfly-net in hand, and glanced from one to the other of us, a question in her eyes, her face a trifle set.

"Oh, here you are," Marcia's soft voice was saying. "It seemed ages getting here."

Jerry took charge of the situation with a discretion that did the situation credit.