It, and Other Stories Part 14

"Very well, then," said she. "I tear them up."

"Oh!" cried Larkin. "Don't make a mess of a beautiful incident."

"Then take them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Oh, you know as well as I do that a man can't borrow from a girl."

"A man?" asked Miss Tennant simply, as if she doubted having heard correctly. Then, as he nodded, she turned a pair of eyes upon him that were at once kind, pained, and deeply thoughtful. And she began to speak in a quiet, repressed way upon the theme that he had suggested.

"A man," she said; "what is a man? I can answer better by telling you what a man is not. A man is not a creature who loafs when he ought to be at work, who loses money that he hasn't got, who drinks liquor that he cannot carry, and who upon such a n.o.ble groundwork feels justified in making love to a decent, self-respecting girl. That is not a _man_, David. A man would have no need of any help from me.... But you--you are a child that has escaped from its nurse, a bird that has fallen out of its nest before it has learned to fly, and you have done nothing but foolish things.... But somehow I have learned to suspect you of a better self, where, half-strangled with foolishnesses and extravagance, there lurks a certain contrition and a certain sweetness.... G.o.d knows I should like to see you a man...."

Larkin jumped to his feet, and all of him that showed was crimson, and he could have cried. But he felt no anger, and he kept his eyes upon hers.

"Thank you," he said; "may I have them?"

He stuffed the bills into his pocket.

"I have no security," he said. "But I will give you my word of honor neither to drink, neither to gamble, neither to loaf, nor to make love until I have paid you back interest and princ.i.p.al."

"Where will you go? What will you do, David?"

"West--G.o.d knows. I _will_ do something.... You see that I can't say any thanks, don't you? That I am almost choking, and that at any moment I might burst into sobs?"

They were silent, and she looked into his face unconsciously while he mastered his agitation. He sat down beside her presently, his elbows on his knees, his chin deep in his hands.

"Is G.o.d blessing you by any chance?" he said. "Do you feel anything of the kind? Because I am asking Him to--so very hard. I shall ask Him to a million times every day until I die.... Would it be possible for one who has deserved nothing, but who would like it for the strengthingest, beautifulest memory...."

"Quick, then," said she, "some one's coming."

That very night screams pierced to every corner of the Tennants' great house on the Whiskey Road. Those whom screams affect in one way sprang from bed; those whom they affect in another hid under the bedclothes.

Mr. Tennant himself, a man of sharp temper and implacable courage, dashed from his room in a suit of blue-and-white pajamas, and overturned a Chippendale cabinet worth a thousand dollars; young Mr. Tennant barked both s.h.i.+ns on a wood-box and dropped a loaded Colt revolver into the well of the stair; Mrs. Tennant was longer in appearing, having tarried to try the effect upon her nerves and color sense of three divers wrappers. The butler, an Admirable Crichton of a man, came, bearing a bucket of water in case the house was on fire. Mrs. Tennant's French maid carried a case of her mistress's jewels, and seemed determined to leave.

Miss Tennant stood in the door-way of her room. She was pale and greatly agitated, but her eyes shone with courage and resolve. Her arched, blue-veined feet were thrust into a pair of red Turkish slippers turning up at the toes. A mandarin robe of dragoned blue brocade was flung over her night-gown. In one hand she had a golf club--a niblick.

"Oh!" she cried, when her father was sufficiently recovered from overturning the cabinet to listen, "there was a man in my room."

Mr. Tennant } { furiously.

Young Mr. } { Tennant } { sleepily.

} { The butler } "A man?" { as if he thought she } { meant to say a fire.

The French } { maid } { blus.h.i.+ng crimson.

Then, and again all together:

Mr. Tennant-- "Which way did he go?"

Young Mr. Tennant-- "Which man?"

The butler-- "A white man?"

The French maid (with a kind of ecstasy)-- "A man!"

"Out the window!" cried Miss Tennant.

Her father and brother dashed downstairs and out into the grounds. The butler hurried to the telephone (still carrying his bucket of water) and rang Central and asked for the chief of police. Central answered, after a long interval, that the chief of police was out of order, and rang off.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Tennant arrived, and, having coldly recovered her jewel-case from the custody of the French maid, prepared to be told the details of what hadn't happened.

"He was bending over my dressing-table, mamma," said Miss Tennant. "I could see him plainly in the moonlight; he had a mask, and was smooth shaven, and he wore gloves."

"I wonder why he wore gloves," mused Mrs. Tennant.

"I suppose," said Miss Tennant, "that he had heard of the Bertillon system, and was afraid of being tracked by his finger-marks."

"Did he say anything?"

"Not to me, I think," said Miss Tennant, "but he kept mumbling to himself so I could hear: 'Slit her d.a.m.n throat if she makes a move; slit it right into the backbone.' So, of course, I didn't make a move--I thought he was talking to a confederate whom I couldn't see."

"Why a _confederate_?" asked Mrs. Tennant. "Oh, I see--you mean a sort of partner."

"But there was only the one," said Miss Tennant. "And when he had filled his pockets and was gone by the window--I thought it was safe to scream, and I screamed."

"Have you looked to see what he took?"

"No. But my jewels were all knocking about on the dressing-table. I suppose he got them."

"Well," said Mrs. Tennant, "let's be thankful that he didn't get mine."

"And only to think," said Miss Tennant, "that only last night papa asked me why I had given up wearing my pearls, and was put out about it, and I promised to wear them oftener!"

"Never mind, my dear," said her mother confidentially; "if you are sorry enough long enough your father will buy you others. He can be wonderfully generous if you keep at him."

"Oh," said Miss Tennant, "I feel sure that they will be recovered some day--it may not be to-morrow, or next day--but somehow--some time I feel sure that they will come back. Of course papa must offer a reward."

"I wonder how much he will offer!"

"Oh, a good round sum. I shall suggest five thousand dollars, if he asks me."

The next day Miss Tennant despatched the following note to Mr.

Hemingway:

DEAR, KIND MR. HEMINGWAY: