The Dark Star Part 16

"Then we'll make it a family party," he said, "your father and mother and you, shall we? And we'll just go off for the day."

"Thank you."

"Would you like it?"

"Yes."

"Will you go?"

"I--work in the mill."

"Every day?"

"Yes."

"How about Sunday?"

"We go to church.... I don't know.... Perhaps we might go in the afternoon."

"I'll ask your father," he said, watching the delicately flushed face with odd, almost sluggish persistency.

His grey-green eyes seemed hypnotised; he appeared unable to turn them elsewhere; and she, gradually becoming conscious of his scrutiny, kept her own eyes averted.

"What were you looking at in the water?" he asked.

"I was looking for our boat. It isn't there. I'm afraid it has gone over the dam."

"I'll help you search for it," he said, "when I come back from the village. I'm going to walk over and find somebody who'll cart that runabout to the railroad station.... You're not going that way, are you?" he added, rising.

"No."

"Then----" he lifted his hat high and put it on with care--"until a little later, Miss Carew.... And I want to apologise for speaking so familiarly to you yesterday. I'm sorry. It's a way we get into in New York. Broadway isn't good for a man's manners.... Will you forgive me, Miss Carew?"

Embarra.s.sment kept her silent; she nodded her head, and finally turned and looked at him. His smile was agreeable.

She smiled faintly, too, and rose.

"Until later, then," he said. "This is the Gayfield road, isn't it?"

"Yes."

She turned and walked toward the house; and as though he could not help himself he walked beside her, his hat in his hand once more.

"I like this place," he said. "I wonder if there is a hotel in Gayfield."

"The Gayfield House."

"Is it _very_ bad?" he asked jocosely.

She seemed surprised. It was considered good, she thought.

With a slight, silent nod of dismissal she crossed the road and went into the house, leaving him standing beside his wrecked machine once more, looking after her out of sluggish eyes.

Presently, from the house, emerged Stull, his pasty face startling in its pallor under the cloudless sky, and walked slowly over to Brandes.

"Well, Ben," said the latter pleasantly, "I'm going to Gayfield to telegraph for another car."

"How soon can they get one up?" inquired Stull, inserting a large cigar into his slitted mouth and lighting it.

"Oh, in a couple of days, I guess. I don't know. I don't care much, either."

"We can go on to Saratoga by train," suggested Stull complacently.

"We can stay here, too."

"What for?"

Brandes said in his tight-lipped, even voice:

"The fis.h.i.+ng's good. I guess I'll try it." He continued to contemplate the machine, but Stull's black eyes were turned on him intently.

"How about the races?" he asked. "Do we go or not?"

"Certainly."

"When?"

"When they send us a car to go in."

"Isn't the train good enough?"

"The fis.h.i.+ng here is better."

Stull's pasty visage turned sourer:

"Do you mean we lose a couple of days in this G.o.d-forsaken dump because you'd rather go to Saratoga in a runabout than in a train?"

"I tell you I'm going to stick around for a while."

"For how long?"

"Oh, I don't know. When we get our car we can talk it over and----"

"Ah," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Stull in disgust, "what the h.e.l.l's the matter with you? Is it that little skirt you was buzzing out here like you never seen one before?"

"How did you guess, Ben?" returned Brandes with the almost expressionless jocularity that characterised him at times.

"_That_ little red-headed, spindling, freckled, milk-fed mill-hand----"