Sunlight Patch Part 24

"Well, we come out there, about two miles above this disappearing stream. It's a cinch! By the way, what becomes of that stream?"

"No one knows. Years ago we painted several pieces of wood, and hacked some logs in a certain way for identification, then let them all float down and be sucked into that hole. None ever bobbed up at our end, and, so far as we ever heard, they were never found floating on other streams. I fancy the water rushes into some vast subterranean sea."

Zack came out with the beverage, Brent bowed to the Colonel, drank it and sighed. It was an atrociously strong toddy, purposely made so by the old servant to compensate for the long day's absence; and almost at once, especially as he had eaten nothing since breakfast, its strength began to tell.

"Zack, when Doctor Meal comes tonight, I wish you'd send him up to graft a dozen mule legs on me."

"Mule legs, Ma.r.s.e Brent!" the old negro peered at him.

"I haven't heard from Meal," the old gentleman laughed. "But there is a young doctor named Stone who will be here; he might do it."

There were, indeed, now two doctors in Buckville: the former old man with a soft name, who wore long whiskers which served to hide the missing collar and cravat, who had for forty years ministered to the needs of the surrounding country, who rode a pacing mare and carried medicines in a saddle-bag across her back;--and he of the hard name, who had lately come as graduate of the University, who visited the sick in a gasoline runabout of uncertain age which steered with a lever and heaved prodigiously, who wrote prescriptions to be filled at the drug-store. If Doctor Meal were not among his bees, or grafting pear buds, he might be found in a tilted chair on the sidewalk, beneath the giant locust trees which shaded the town's one pharmacy. But Doctor Stone's telephone was invariably answered by a trained servant who, if he were away, knew exactly where to find him. Perhaps in no other respects was the changing life of Buckville better ill.u.s.trated than by these two doctors: the old and the new; the pa.s.sing and the coming. And because it was the pa.s.sing, Doctor Meal had not yet gone as far as the post office for his mail; but in less than an hour after the stamp had been cancelled on Stone's invitation, the Colonel received his acceptance by telephone.

"Well," Brent sighed, "I've got to get 'em somewhere!"

"You might gallop up stairs on the four you have," the Colonel suggested. "Our guests will soon be arriving."

"And Dale will beat you down," Jane called from the library.

"Oh, Jane, I'm all in," he groaned. "I can't, honest!"

"Are you so much more tired than Dale?" she asked sweetly.

"Certainly not," he flushed.

He pushed himself slowly out of the chair and went to the French window.

"Where are you?" he began asking before stepping through. "I want some encouragment to climb those stairs!"

She was sitting, balanced lightly on the library table, with her hands clasped about one knee.

"What an old man you've suddenly become," she laughed.

"You'd be an old man, too," he said, "if you'd been paced all day by a camel!"

"I thought engineers were inured to those things;--I thought they could withstand all manner of hards.h.i.+ps;--that, really, the elements themselves were playthings in their hands!"

He leaned against the table and looked down at her. That toddy, put into his tired and empty frame, was gripping him with surprising activity.

"No," he slowly replied. "Engineers can't master all the elements;--at least, I know one who can't. I wish he could!"

She may have flushed slightly, but her chin kept its tantalizing tip and her eyes their laughing mischief.

"One never knows what one can do until one tries," she said; and after a dangerous hesitation, added: "I believe this is the first day you've really attempted any serious work since you came."

Now, when a girl balances on the edge of a table in a softly lighted room, with her hands clasped about one of her knees, her chin tipped enticingly up, and a riot of mischief rippling through her eyes and parted lips, she has no business telling an over-toddied gentleman that he'll never know what he can do until he tries. She may add that she refers to the building of a railroad, to the conquering of a nation, to the playing of a hand of bridge--but he will see nothing beyond the seductive challenge. And Brent looked another instant at that enticing picture, then stooped down and kissed her hair.

There was no tilted chin, no laughing challenge, now as she sprang up and faced him. The change in her was like that of a limpid pool which has suddenly become roiled by a violent splash, and her eyes flashed as though all the vials of hate were about to be broken upon his head.

"I thought you were a gentleman." Her voice came slowly, with such utter contempt that he winced.

"Your thought is quite correct," he said. "I am a gentleman, and a man, and therefore vulnerable to such a temptation as you willfully threw at me."

Her cheeks flamed. "I never dreamed of such a thing!"

"Don't misunderstand me. I didn't say invitation; I said temptation."

"But you meant invitation," she hotly retorted.

"I know I did," he surprised her by admitting, "and you meant invitation, also. If you didn't, you're stupid;--and I'd rather think of you as daring than stupid."

"You will please not think of me at all, or speak to me, ever again!"

she coolly said, and left the room.

Brent looked at the door through which she had disappeared. For several minutes he stood, without any sign of movement, except that his teeth were pressing rather hard upon his lower lip.

"John Barleycorn, you're a d.a.m.ned sneak," he muttered. "I've half a notion never to speak to you again!"

Then, with a sigh, he went up stairs to dress.

CHAPTER XVIII

A DINNER OF SILENCES

The dinner was late, because Uncle Zack, wis.h.i.+ng to make an everlasting impression upon these neighbors of more moderate circ.u.mstances, had spurred the cook to the limit of her capacity. So family and guests were scattered about the porch, conversationally distrait as people are wont to be while momentarily expecting the servant's announcement.

Nancy, in whose toilette discerning eyes would have seen a generous share of Ann and Jane, was talking to the Colonel; who, in his turn, was making her position of honor guest less trying than she had pictured it during that long day of suspense.

Brent, terribly in the blues, sat at the extreme end of the porch, pretending to read the morning paper which had come in that afternoon's rural mail. Jane and Ann were near by, and Jane was noticeably quiet.

Bob, having in mind his tobacco crop, called to the reader:

"What's the weather prediction for this section, old scout?"

The engineer sighed and let his eyes travel to Jane who was gazing in moody silence out at the tangle of trees and vines. Turning again to the paper, and with much rustling of the pages, he made a pretense of reading:

"The high barometric pressure and lovely suns.h.i.+ne generally spreading over central and southeastern Kentucky is showing no disposition to move in the direction of Arden. Forecast for the next twenty-four hours: great humility, and low, angry clouds, accompanied by moisture in the eyes and a crackling drought under the fourth left rib. Here," he handed the paper to Bob, and sent another questioning glance at Jane, "read it for yourself. I'm going in before the storm bursts!"

Bob looked after him, and then his surprised eyes sought Ann; but that young matron answered with a comprehensive smile, whereupon he sank comfortably behind the pages. Ann might have smiled again had she followed Brent to the dining-room, and there watched him change two place-cards.

Thus it chanced that Jane found herself seated next to him, and, having arranged the place-cards herself, understood exactly how it came about.

The situation was decidedly awkward, and she came very near wis.h.i.+ng their quarrel might have been postponed a few hours; especially as she realized that her other side was flanked by the Colonel, with Nancy on his right--a condition positively closing any hope of attention from this kind-hearted host. In a few minutes she was driven to seek refuge across the table in Dale; but Ann--having made a shrewd, though by no means accurate, diagnosis of the situation--determinedly held the mountaineer in leash. She then turned to Bob, but he had become engrossed with a neighbor on the subject of crops. Miss Liz was next sounded, but that lady, frivolously entangled with various occupations, proved hopeless. Finally, she tried eating, but the silence of her plate became utterly intolerable. Brent had been waiting for this.

"It's no use," he softly told her. "Suppose we make up!"

She might not have heard him.