Where There's a Will Part 41

She was flushed and shaken, but she looked past him without blinking an eyelash to me.

"Dear me," she said, "the sermon must have been exciting, Minnie! You are quite trembly!"

And with that she picked up her m.u.f.f and went out, with not a glance at him.

He looked at me.

"Well," he said, "THAT'S over. She's angry, Minnie, and she'll never forgive me."

"Stuff!" I snapped, "I notice she waited to hear it all, and no real woman ever hated a man for saying he loved her."

CHAPTER XXIX

A BIG NIGHT TO-NIGHT

I carried out the supper to the shelter-house as usual that night, but I might have saved myself the trouble. Mrs. d.i.c.ky was sitting on a box, with her hair in puffs and the folding card-table before her, and Mr.

d.i.c.k was uncorking a bottle of champagne with a nail. There were two or three queer-smelling cans open on the table.

Mrs. d.i.c.k looked at my basket and turned up her nose.

"Put it anywhere, Minnie," she said loftily, "I dare say it doesn't contain anything reckless."

"Cold ham and egg salad," I said, setting it down with a slam. "Stewed prunes and boiled rice for dessert. If those cans taste as they smell, you'd better keep the basket to fall back on. Where'd you get THAT?"

Mr. d.i.c.k looked at me over the bottle and winked. "In the next room,"

he said, "iced to the proper temperature, paid for by somebody else, and coming after a two-weeks' drought! Minnie, there isn't a shadow on my joy!"

"He'll miss it," I said. But Mr. d.i.c.k was pouring out three large tumblersful of the stuff, and he held one out to me.

"Miss it!" he exclaimed. "Hasn't he been out three times to-day, tapping his little CACHE? And didn't he bring out Moody and the senator and von Inwald this afternoon, and didn't they sit in the next room there from two to four, roaring songs and cracking bottles and jokes."

"Beasts!" Mrs. d.i.c.ky said savagely. "Two hours, and we daren't move!"

"Drink, pretty creature!" Mr. d.i.c.k said, motioning to my gla.s.s. "Don't be afraid of it, Minnie; it's food and drink."

"I don't like it," I said, sipping at it. "I'd rather have the spring water."

"You'll have to cultivate a taste for it," he explained. "You'll like the second half better."

I got it down somehow and started for the door. Mr. d.i.c.k came after me with something that smelled fishy on the end of a fork.

"Better eat something," he suggested. "That was considerable champagne, Minnie."

"Stuff and nonsense," I said. "I was tired and it has rested me. That's all, Mr. d.i.c.k."

"Sure?"

"Certainly," I said with dignity, "I'm really rested, Mr. d.i.c.k. And happy--I'm very happy, Mr. d.i.c.k."

"Perhaps I'd better close the door," he said. "The light may be seen--"

"You needn't close it until I've finished talking," I said. "I've done my best for you and yours, Mr. d.i.c.k. I hope you appreciate it. Night after night I've tramped out here through the snow, and lost sleep, and lied myself black in the face--you've no idea how I've had to lie, Mr.

d.i.c.k."

"Come in and shut the door, d.i.c.k," Mrs. d.i.c.k called, "I'm freezing."

That made me mad.

"Exactly," I said, glaring at her through the doorway. "Exactly--I can wade through the snow, bringing you meals that you scorn--oh, yes, you scorn them. What did you do to the basket tonight? Look at it, lying there, neglected in a corner, with p--perfectly good ham and stewed fruit in it."

All of a sudden I felt terrible about the way they had treated the basket, and I sat down on the steps and began to cry. I remember that, and Mr. d.i.c.k sitting down beside me and putting his arm around me and calling me "good old Minnie," and for heaven's sake not to cry so loud.

But I was past caring. I had a sort of recollection of his getting me to stand up, and our walking through about twenty-one miles of snow to the spring-house. When we got there he stood off in the twilight and looked at me.

"I'm sorry, Minnie," he said, "I never dreamed it would do that."

"Do what?"

"Nothing. You're sure you won't forget?"

"I never forget," I said. I had got up the steps by this time and was trying to figure why the spring-house door had two k.n.o.bs.

I hadn't any idea what he meant.

"Remember," he said, very slowly, "Thoburn is going to have his party to-night instead of to-morrow. Tell Pierce that. To-night, not to-morrow." I was pretty well ashamed when I got in the spring-house and sat down in the dark. I kept saying over and over to myself, so I'd not forget, "tonight, not to-morrow," but I couldn't remember WHAT was to be to-night. I was sleepy, too, and my legs were cold and numb. I remember going into the pantry for a steamer rug, and sitting down there for a minute, with the rug around my knees before I started to the house. And that is all I DO remember.

I was wakened by a terrible hammering in the top of my head. I reached out for the gla.s.s of water that I always put beside my bed at night and I touched a door-k.n.o.b instead. Then I realized that the knocking wasn't all in my head. There was a sort of steady movement of feet on the other side of the door, with people talking and laughing. And above it all rose the steady knock--knock of somebody beating on tin.

"Can't do it." It was the bishop's voice. "I am convinced that nothing but dynamite will open this tin of lobster."

"Just a moment, Bishop," Mr. Thoburn's voice and the clink of bottles, "I have a can opener somewhere. You'll find the sauce a la Newburg--"

"Here, somebody, a gla.s.s, quick! A bottle's broken!"

"Did anybody remember to bring salt and pepper?"

"DEAR Mr. Thoburn!" It sounded like Miss Cobb. "Think of thinking of all this!"

"The credit is not mine, dear lady," Mr. Thoburn said. "Where the deuce is that corkscrew? No, dear lady, man makes his own destiny, but his birth date remains beyond his control."

"Ladies and gentlemen," somebody said, "to Mr. Thoburn's birthday being beyond his control!"

There was the clink of gla.s.ses, but I had remembered what it had been that I was to remember. And now it was too late. I was trapped in the pantry of my spring-house and Mr. Pierce was probably asleep. I clutched my aching head and tried to think. I was roused by hearing somebody say that Miss Jennings had no gla.s.s, and by steps nearing the pantry. I had just time to slip the bolt.

"Pantry's locked!" said a voice.