Kent Knowles: Quahaug - Kent Knowles: Quahaug Part 35
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Kent Knowles: Quahaug Part 35

The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation had its pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the other, and Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had been. To have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily arranged, her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth and the joy of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more pains with my morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to dress for dinner, a concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my easy-going habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that the immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the "sing" in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of my dinner coat. He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and at ease.

I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked at him.

I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the talking, I was not allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly the masculine portion, would not have objected to my silence, I am sure, but "my niece" seemed to take mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell. She had a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at times when my attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with promptness. After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree with whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and being left to myself.

This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but apparently it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being present, the conversation turned to the subject of American athletic sports. The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought in England apparently, that all American games were not games, but fights in which the true sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost. I had said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons.

First, that I had given my views on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was, in that company, fruitless effort. The simplest way to end discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.

But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.

"Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles," he asked, "that the American football player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?"

My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they were centered about "my niece's" hands. She had very pretty hands and a most graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning some sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out between the pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt, was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of swinging it as she sat upon the piano stool.

Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention of my name, I looked up.

"I beg pardon?" said I.

Bayliss repeated his question.

"Oh, yes," said I, and looked down again at the foot.

"So I have been told," said the questioner, triumphantly. "And without that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would they not?"

"What? Oh, yes; yes, of course."

"And many are killed or badly injured as it is?"

"Oh, yes."

"How many during a season, may I ask?"

"Eh? Oh--I don't know."

"A hundred?"

The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.

"A--oh, thousands," said I, at random. If the number were large enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.

"A beastly game," declared Judson, with conviction. "How can a civilized country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?"

"Yes--er--that is, no."

"You agree, then, that it is brutal?"

"Certainly, certainly." Would the fellow never stop?

"Then--"

"Nonsense!" It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she appeared highly indignant. "Nonsense!" she said again. "He doesn't agree to any such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured.

We play polo and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of accidents. I don't believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than we are, not in the least."

Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the "States" as an uncivilized country, this declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one.

Hephzy clapped her hands.

"Of course they aren't," she declared. "Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't mean that they were, either."

Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming to the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance at me.

"Why do you say such things?" she demanded. "You know they weren't true."

"What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions."

"It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!"

"My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when they are as old as I am. They're young now."

This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more indignant than ever.

"Nonsense!" she cried. "You speak as if you were an Old Testament patriarch."

Hephzy put in a word.

"Why, Frances," she said, "I thought you didn't like America."

"I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him sit there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer them as he should? If I were an American no one--NO one should rag me about my country without getting as good as they gave."

I was amused. "What would you have me do?" I asked. "Rise and sing the 'Star Spangled Banner'?"

"I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a--like a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was one."

It was quite evident that "my niece" was a young person of whims. The next time the "States" were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their defence, she calmly espoused the other side and "ragged" as mercilessly as the rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state of affairs had one good effect at least--that of waking me up.

Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as "Auntie." And she would not permit "Auntie" to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy were becoming really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like her--to discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I expressed this thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.

"Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy," she said, "but only this mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked like her, she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture right in the middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she was at first because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets who and what we are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods, livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.

You can't blame her for that, I suppose. But--but how is it all goin' to end? _I_ don't know."

I didn't know either.

"I had hoped," I said, "that, living with us as she does, she might come to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the sort she has believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would listen to reason."

"I--I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing, Hosy.

She needs clothes and--and lots of things. She realizes it. Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She asked me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by herself."

"Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so far as I know."

"You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send us the bills."