The Varmint Part 63

He was delighted that she saw it thus, secretly wondering if she really knew every point that could be urged in his favor.

"I suppose I'll kick myself all over the lot to-morrow," he said, choosing to be lugubrious.

"Why?" she said, stopping in surprise.

"For talking as I've done."

"You don't regret it?" she said softly, laying her hand on his arm.

Stover drew a long breath--a difficult one.

"No, you bet I don't," he said abruptly. "I'd tell you anything!"

"Come," she said, smiling to herself, "we must go back--but it's so fascinating here, isn't it?"

He thought he had offended her and was in a panic.

"I say, you did not understand what I meant."

"Oh, yes, I did."

"You're not offended?"

"Not at all."

This answer left Stover in such a state of bewilderment that all speech expired. What did she mean by that? Did she really understand or not?

They walked a little way in silence, watching the lights that fell in long lines across the campus, hearing through the soft night the tinkling of mandolins and the thrumming of guitars, a vibrant, feverish life that suddenly seemed unreal to him. They were fast approaching the Lodge. A sudden fear came to him that she would go without understanding what the one, the only night had been in his life.

"I say, Miss McCarty," he began desperately.

"Yes."

"I wish I could tell you----"

"What?"

"I wish I could tell you just what a privilege it's been to meet you."

"Oh, that's very nice."

He felt he had failed. He had not expressed himself well. She did not understand.

"I shall never forget it," he said, plunging ahead.

She stopped a little guiltily and looked at him.

"You queer boy," she said, too pleasantly moved to be severe. "You queer, romantic boy! Why, of course you're going to visit us this summer, and we're going to be good chums, aren't we?"

He did not answer.

"Aren't we?" she repeated, amused at a situation that was not entirely strange.

"No!" he said abruptly, amazed at his own audacity; and with an impulse that he had not suspected he closed the conversation and led the way to the Lodge.

When at last he and Tough were homeward bound he felt he should die if he did not then and there learn certain things. So he began with Machiavellian adroitness:

"I say, Tough, what a splendid mother you've got. I didn't get half a chance to talk to her. I say, how long will she be here?"

"They're going over to Princeton first thing in the morning," said Tough, who was secretly relieved.

A b.u.t.ton on the borrowed vest popped with Stover's emotion.

"How did you get on with Sis?"

"First rate. She's--she's awful sensible," said d.i.n.k.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so."

"I say," said d.i.n.k, seeing that he made no progress, "she's been all around--had lots of experience, hasn't she?"

"Oh, she's bounded about a bit."

"Still, she doesn't seem much older than you," said d.i.n.k craftily.

"Sis--oh, she's a bit older."

"About twenty-two, I should say," said d.i.n.k hopefully.

"Twenty-four, my boy," said Tough unfeelingly. "But I say, don't give it away; she'd bite and scratch me all over the map for telling."

Stover left him without daring to ask any more questions--he knew what he wanted to know. He could not go to his room, he could not face the Tennessee Shad, possessor of the trousers. He wanted to be alone--to wander over the unseen earth, to gulp in the gentle air in long, feverish breaths, to think over what she had said, to grow hot and cold at the thought of his daring, to reconstruct the world of yesterday and organize the new.

He went to the back of chapel and sat down on the cool steps, under the impenetrable clouds of the night.

"She's twenty-four, only twenty-four," he said to himself. "I'm sixteen, almost seventeen--that's only seven years' difference."

XXII

When Stover awoke the next morning it was to the light of the blus.h.i.+ng day. He thought of the events of the night before and sprang up in horror. What had he been thinking of? He had made an a.s.s of himself, a complete, egregious a.s.s. What had possessed him? He looked at himself in the gla.s.s and his heart sunk at the thought of what she must be thinking. He was glad she was going. He did not want to see her again.

He would never visit Tough McCarty. Thank Heaven it was daylight again and he had recovered his senses.

Indignant at every one, himself most of all, he went to chapel and to recitations, profoundly thankful that he would not have to face her in the mocking light of the day. That he never could have done, never, never!