Kenny Part 56

He moved mechanically toward the door. . . . Yes, he cared more for Joan's happiness than for his own. And she was suffering. Why, the tired truth of it was, he loved them both enough to want to see them happy . . . And he would be a part of Don's erratic atonement.

He smiled wryly and realized with a start that he was already out-of-doors, walking dazedly toward the cabin in the pines. The fresh, sweet wind blew through his hair and into his face, but the blur persisted, filled with voices and memories and promptings from G.o.d alone knew where.

The odor of pine was sharply reminiscent. . . . And then with a shock that stung him out of inhibition he was staring in at the cabin window.

Joan sat by the table, her head upon her arm, her shoulders heaving.

"Poor child!" he said heavily. "Poor child!" And savagely cursed the summer pictures that flamed in his mind at the sight of her. The cabin, the wistaria ladder, the punt, the girl by the willow in the gold brocade--

Well, he must go hurriedly toward that door or not at all. His courage was failing.

The sound of the door startled her. Joan leaped to her feet and stood, shaking violently, by the table, one hand clutching at the edge of it in terror.

In that tongue-tied minute, if he had but known, with his fingers clenched in his hair and his face scarlet, he was like that turbulent boy who such a little while ago had crashed into his life with a sob.

Joan's agonized eyes, wet with tears, brought home to him the need of a steady head . . . and responsibility. Yes, he must keep his two feet solidly on the ground and face a gigantic responsibility.

"Don't cry, dear, please!" he said gently. "It's just one of the things that can't be helped. Don told me. He overheard."

Her low cry hurt--viciously. And she came flying wildly across the room to his arms, sobbing out her grief and remorse.

"Oh, Kenny, Kenny." she sobbed. "I--want--you--both."

His shaking arms sheltered her. A heart-broken child! He must remember that. And, as Don said, he could have been her father.

"Happiness with the least unhappiness to others, girleen," he reminded with his cheek against her hair. "Remember?"

"Yes," she choked.

"You must go to Brian. Any foolish notion of sacrifice now will only tangle the lives of all of us."

"But--I cannot forget! Kenny, if only you would hate me!"

"I didn't mean to love you, mavourneen. It was like the tale of Killarney. I left a cover off in my heart and a spring gushed out and flooded my life."

"I am blaming myself!"

"You must not do that. You were in love with love. You must now know how different it--" But he could not say it, courageous as he felt.

"And the money!" choked Joan. "Oh, Kenny, Kenny, the ragged money!

And I gave it away. And you were so good--so good!"

He frowned, unable to understand at once the relevance of the ragged money and realized that Joan was sobbing into his shoulder the tale of an eavesdropping bartender and a doctor. He accepted it, dazedly, thunderstruck at the alertness of his Nemesis who missed no single chance to shoot an arrow.

"And Don must give that money back. I will tell him--"

"No," said Kenny. "No, he must not."

She stared at him in wonder.

"Mavourneen," he pleaded wistfully, "may I--not do that at least for someone who is yours? Don needs it."

He could not know that his kindness was to her more poignant torment than his bitterest reproach. He thought as the color fled from her lips and left her gray and trembling, that she was fainting. He held her closely in his arms.

She slipped away from him and sat down weakly in a chair. Dusk lay beyond the windows. Joan covered her face with her hands.

"The Gray Man," she whispered. "He's peeping in."

Pain flared intolerably in Kenny's throat and stabbed into his heart.

He drew the shades with a shudder and lighted the lamp.

In the supreme moment of his agony, came inspiration. He must save them all with a lie! Queer that, queer and contradictory! Yes, after practicing the truth, he must save them all from s.h.i.+pwreck with a lie.

"Girleen," he said, "there is something now that I must tell you. I thought never to say it. You came into my dream that day beneath the willow in gold brocade, with afterglow behind you and an ancient boat.

I am an Irishman--and a painter. 'Twas a spot of rare enchantment and I said to myself, I am falling in love--again."

"Again!" echoed Joan a little blankly.

"Again!" said Kenny inexorably. "You see, Joan, dear, I was used to falling in love. There are men like that. You and Brian would never understand."

"No," said the girl, shocked. "No."

"You made a mistake, the sort of mistake that drives half the lifeboats on the rocks. I mean, dear, falling in love with love. But you're over that. It was--a different sort of love with me. I knew as we crossed the river that first day in the punt that the madness could not last. You see--it never had."

"Kenny!"

If Joan in that moment had remembered the Irishman tearing bricks from the fireplace in a spasm of histrionic zeal, she might have distrusted the steadiness of his level, kindly glance. She might have guessed that again he was reckless and on his mettle. But she did not remember.

"Romance and mystery," said Kenny, lighting a cigarette and smiling at her through a cloud of smoke, "were always the death of me. My fancy's wayward and romantic. Afterward your will-of-the-wisp charm held me oddly. You kept yourself apart and precious. And I was always pursuing. It was provocative--and unfamiliar. And then came Samhain, the--the summer-ending." There was an odd note in his voice. "I faced a new experience. I had gone over the usual duration of my madness and I thought," he smiled, "I thought I was loving you for good. But--"

Her dark eyes stared at him, wistful and yet in the moment of her hope a shade reproachful.

"And--your love--did not last, Kenny?" It was a forlorn little voice, for all its unmistakable note of rejoicing. How very young she was--and childlike!

"It--did--not--last!" said Kenny deliberately. "It never does with me.

I should have known it. I love you sincerely, girleen. I always shall. But I love you as I would have loved--my daughter."

"Your daughter! Kenny, why then did you speak so of the flood of Killarney?"

"I was testing you. You can see for yourself. I could not honorably tell you this, dear, if you still cared."

"But I do care," cried Joan, flinging out her hands with a gesture of appeal. "I love you so much, Kenny, that it hurts."

"But not in the way you love Brian."

"No."

"And that, mavourneen, is as it should be."

He told her of the stage mother. Let the lie go with the castle he had built upon it. And he would begin afresh.