And bending nearer, he sought to draw her to him in a pa.s.sionate embrace.

Pert did not move from her position in the hammock; but firmly resisted his endeavor, and, taking his arm from around her waist, simply handed it back to him, as it were. (A maneuvre upon a girl's part more aggravating, _en pa.s.sant_, than any other one thing she can do.)

"I am sorry," she said, as Arthur still sat in the hammock beside her, silent and downcast--"I 'm dreadfully sorry, Arthur, that you should have brought this matter up again. We have been such friends so many years, and you are such a good friend, when you are only a friend. I hate to wound you, if, indeed, you care for me as you say you do; but I do n't love you, Arthur, in the way you would have me, and I know I never shall. It's best that I should tell you this plainly, and I know you will be glad of it in the end. I am not the girl you think me, Arthur. You do n't know me as I really am. If you did you 'd be glad to have escaped so luckily. I always try to make a good impression, but really I am willful, selfish and discontented. You would be awfully sorry when it was too late. Believe me, I am telling the truth. So let's never talk about this any more, but be the good friends we have always been."

Arthur jumped up impatiently. "You are trifling with me, as you always do," he said, with a savage ring in his voice. "I do n't care what your faults are. I want you, just as you are, to be my wife. Care for you as I say I do! I have loved you since we were children together.

I have never cared for any one else. My every thought has been for your happiness. I have never spared trouble, time or money in doing what I thought would please you--and why do you suppose I 've done so?

for fun? for glory? for something to pa.s.s away time? I tell you, Pert, I 'm getting mighty tired of this kind of foolishness. You and I are fitted for each other by reason of natural situation, if nothing else.

What other man is there around here who is anywhere near your equal, socially? What kind of a life will you lead cooped up on this hillside farm as the years go by?--a living death, only think of it!

"Your father is willing, anxious, that you should be married and safely provided for--I have talked with him; he has told me so. My father simply worships you, and nothing on earth would please him so much as to have you for a daughter-in-law."

"But, Arthur," said Pert, almost pleadingly, "I have told you how I feel about it. I don't love you, and how can I marry a man I do n't love? I am fonder of you, much fonder, than of any other man I know, and I can't begin to tell you how bad I should feel to lose your friendship, but--"

She paused as a sound of voices reached them, and in a moment, to her great relief, Sadie and Checkers, with the banjo, came round the house and joined them.

One sweep of the strings, to be sure it was in tune, and Checkers tendered Pert the instrument.

"No, I shan't play; we want to hear you," she laughingly exclaimed, putting her hands behind her. "I am only a novice, and you know the old proverb, 'The poor ye have always with ye.'"

Without more ado Checkers sat down and played a couple of lively airs.

"Now, a song," exclaimed Pert; "I am sure that you sing."

"How did you guess it?" asked Checkers, smiling. "Well, what shall it be, a 'serio-chronic,' or a song about some 'old oaken' thing?"

"Oh, something funny, Mr. Campbell," said Sadie.

Checkers sang a song of an Irish dance. This he followed with one of the popular ballads of the day, full of melody.

He had a clear, high voice, with a touch of that boyish sweetness in it, which made Emmet so famous. A sweetness to which the open air and the sharpness of the banjo added a charm.

The girls were delighted. They called upon him for song after song, until Arthur, pulling out his watch, said abruptly, "It is time to be going," and went to untie the horses.

Amid hearty hand-shakings and cordial invitations to call again soon, Checkers said good-by, and climbed into the buggy as Arthur drove up.

Down the driveway, out upon the moon-lit road, they sat in silence.

Each was busy with his own thoughts. Arthur cut the horses viciously from time to time for no apparent reason. Checkers smoked a cigarette as though altogether pleased with himself. Arthur finally broke the spell. "Well," he exclaimed, with a rising inflection.

"A nice line of girls. Miss Barlow's 'Cla.s.s A'" answered Checkers.

"The other one is all right, too; but she 's just a few chips shy on looks."

"Looks are not the only thing in the world," snapped Arthur; "beauty's only skin deep."

"It might improve some of our friends a little to skin 'em, then, if that's so," laughed Checkers. "That reminds me," he continued musingly, "of what a friend of mine, 'Push' Miller, told me once. He said he never in his life ran across two pretty girls that trotted together. If one of 'em was a queen, her partner was safe to be about a nine-spot. He figured that the pretty one used the other as a kind of foil, while the homely one trailed along to get in on the excess trade which the pretty one drew, and turned over to her."

As Arthur neither laughed at, nor replied to, this sally, Checkers concluded he had a grouch, and left him to his own devices.

That night, upon going to bed, the girls, as was natural, had compared notes, and quickly discovered the apparent discrepancy between Checkers' statement to Mrs. Barlow, and the story Arthur had related to Pert.

"I am sorry to know that Mr. Campbell has told a deliberate lie," said Pert, "but there is some excuse for him, after all, for any other explanation would have been embarra.s.sing."

"Oh, a little thing like a lie or two does n't stand in the way of the average man," said Sadie.

"Well, there is something back of Arthur's story, Sadie, I know from the way he hesitated. We 'll know all about it before long, I guess.

He 's an awfully cute little fellow, though, isn't he? I hope he'll decide to stay a while; he 's such jolly good company, and Arthur's so tiresome."

"Poor Arthur!" sighed Sadie.

"Poor Pert," echoed Pert.

VI

The following afternoon Arthur complained of feeling ill. On the way home from the store he was taken with a violent chill, which was followed by a raging fever. The doctor was summoned, and p.r.o.nounced it malaria, but typhoid symptoms developed later, and for weeks his life hung in the balance.

Meanwhile Checkers worked early and late at the store, to make up for Arthur's absence. He felt this loss of a companion keenly, and soon the long drive home alone, and the air of apprehension and lonesomeness, which pervaded the house, became so irksome to him that he arranged to stay in town with Mr. Bradley, who kept house with a maiden sister in their little home just next to the store.

It was from this same sister, who disliked Arthur, but had taken to Checkers, as every one did, that Pert at last learned the reason of Checkers coming to Clarksville.

Mr. Bradley had told his sister the bare facts as he had learned them from Arthur, and these she had enlarged upon in relating them to Pert, embellishing the story to suit her fancy.

The discovery of this attempt upon Arthur's part to shield himself, and belittle his friend, checked the growing pity and tenderness Pert felt for him because of his illness, and killed every possible vestige of regard she might have had remaining for him. Checkers, on the contrary, grew in favor. He had discovered that it was but a pleasant and picturesque walk from town to the Barlow place, and evening after evening found him seated under the trees with the girls, banjo in hand, singing for them, and telling them interesting tales of his many and varied experiences.

Sadie's father returned, and she went back to town to be with him. But Checkers still took his evening walk out the country road, except when Pert came in to spend the night with her cousin, as she often did.

Under such conditions friendships quickly ripen, and Checkers, at least, soon found himself upon the borderland of a warmer sentiment; but his manner continued one of purely good-natured interest and friendship, for, in spite of what Sadie had told him, he still felt that Pert belonged to Arthur.

One night he stayed somewhat later than usual. It had been dreadfully hot all day, but now it was gratefully cool. The stars were bright, as he had never seen them bright before; the scent of the magnolias was delicious, and he and Pert had been singing together. She looked more than sweet in her thin, white dress, and the night, the perfume and the music had stirred him strangely. He longed for the power to tell her in beautiful words, he knew not what. But he had the good sense to realize that he and poetry were far apart. Nevertheless, as he said good night, he held her small white hand in his, till she forcibly withdrew it, but not with any sign of anger.

How his heart swelled as he walked along. How he still thrilled with the gentle pressure he fancied he had felt returned. Here was the faintest opening to possibilities which might end, who could tell where? He had never before known a girl like this. In fact, with the one exception previously mentioned, girls had never in any way entered his life. Still he had learned in his fight with the world to look at everything from a practical standpoint, and he had not gone very far before his natural shrewdness a.s.serted itself.

"It won't do, Campbell," he soliloquized, with an unconscious sigh.

"You 're 'playing a dead one.' It's a hundred-to-one shot in the first place, and there is Arthur in the second. I wonder how he is to-day.

I wonder if he's going to get well. If he shouldn't--but, my G.o.d, I hope he does--ain't it awful what thoughts will come to a fellow?

"I wonder if he 's got her 'nailed;' she does n't act much like it to me. But I do n't believe I 'm acting on the square to try to 'do' him when he ain't around to look after his trade. I 'll go up home to-morrow night and see the old man, if he 's able to sit up. I had my nerve with me to hold her hand--I wonder what she 'd have done if I 'd have kissed it? Gee! but it's tough to be on the tram," he continued with a sigh. "With a couple of thou. what could n't I do? But a man without money hasn't got 'openers;' he draws four to a queen and never betters."

He found Arthur convalescent and jealous of all the time that could be spared to him. So, much to Checkers' disgust, his only opportunity of now seeing Pert lay in her occasional visits to the store, when shopping, generally accompanied by Sadie.

As soon as Arthur was strong enough to be about the house, Aunt Deb, as a little surprise for him, asked Sadie and Pert to one o'clock Sunday dinner.

Arthur's hollow eyes beamed lovingly from his thin, pale face, as Pert entered the room. Checkers saw it, and his conscience smote him. "I 'll scratch my entry," he inwardly resolved, "and leave Arthur a walk-over."

The afternoon pa.s.sed uneventfully. The day was warm, the sun shone bright, and they all sat under the shade of the trees, enjoying the air and the beautiful view of the mountains, now made gorgeous by the brilliant and variegated colors of the changing autumn leaves.

Pert so managed that she was not left alone with Arthur at any time, and she and Sadie left somewhat early in order to reach home well before dark.