"No," returned Blakeman, "I don't. It would go hard with him and Miss Margaret; he's had h.e.l.l enough in his life already; he's happy now--so is Miss Margaret. It's not always you find two people happy in the same family." He b.u.t.toned the collar of his shooting coat about his neck, for the sun was burning below the edge of the forest and with its last rays the woods grew still and cold. "I propose to watch madame and find out whether she is bad or whether she's only losing her head," said Blakeman, as he rose to go. "Mind you do the same--mind you promise me you will."

Blakeman had lifted his mask. Holcomb saw in him no longer the suave, trained domestic, but a man of intelligence--a man with a heart and a wide experience in a world which he as yet knew but little of.

"You can count on me," said Holcomb, as he straightened to his feet.

Blakeman rested his gun in the hollow of his arm.

"We must be going," he said, "or I shall be late for my table. Have you a short cut home in your memory?"

"Come on," said Holcomb, and the two disappeared in the thick timber.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next morning Thayor handed Alice a telegram. It was from Jack Randall, accepting Sam's invitation to visit him.

"I am so glad he's coming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands in delight. "Jack is a host in himself. Ah, that was a good idea of mine, dear--splendid idea! I want Holcomb to dine with us, of course, while Randall is here over Sunday; it's a pity he can't stay longer." Thayor had not said a word to her about his "idea" until he had shown her Randall's acceptance.

Alice said nothing, except to remark that she would be glad to see Mr.

Randall again--he was always so amusing; she did not relish the idea of Holcomb sharing their table during his visit. She wondered whether Thayor was paying her back for the many she had given without consulting him.

"Who do you think is coming?" exclaimed Margaret, who had run over to Holcomb's cabin to tell him the news that afternoon; "nice Jack Randall!" she cried before he could even begin to think.

Holcomb opened his eyes in surprise.

"Father said you had met him at The Players," added Margaret.

"Met him--why I've known Mr. Randall for years! It seems mighty good to think I'm going to see the dear fellow again. Well, that _is_ good news--dear old Jack!"

They were standing in the open doorway of the cabin. Holcomb thought he had never seen her look prettier than she did this sunny morning without her hat--dressed as she was in a simple frock of some soft white fabric cut low about her plump brown throat.

"May I come inside," she asked timidly, as she peeped into the new interior.

"Why, certainly. Come in and sit down; you are really the only visitor I've had except your father--sit down--won't you?" He drew a chair up to his freshly scrubbed deal table.

Margaret looked up into his eyes--half seriously for a moment, as she stood by the proffered chair.

"You are coming to dine with us while he's here," she said in her frank way. "Father says you must."

Billy's embarra.s.sment was evident. "That's really kind of him," he replied, "but don't you think I'd better wait until--"

"There--you're going to refuse; I was half afraid you would. But you will come--won't you? Please, Mr. Holcomb!" She seated herself opposite him, resting her adorable little chin in her hands, her eyes again looking into his own.

"I mean I'd rather your mother had asked me," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "I'm afraid Mrs. Thayor would be better pleased if I did not come, much as I'd like to."

The brown eyes were lowered and the corners of the young mouth quivered; she lifted her head and he saw the eyes were dim with two big tears.

"You'll come, won't you?" she faltered, trying hard to smile. He started to rise, looking helplessly about him as a man who casts about him for a remedy in an emergency.

"There, I shouldn't have said what I did," he explained as she brushed away the tears. "I'm sorry--I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You haven't hurt me," she said; "you couldn't."

There was an awkward pause during which she buried her face in her dimpled brown hands. Holcomb breathed heavily.

"You don't understand," she resumed bravely, trying to clear the quaver in her voice, "and it's so hard for me to explain--and I _want_ you to understand--about--mother, I mean. Mother is dreadfully rude to people at times--she is that way to nearly everyone whom she does not consider smart people." Her young voice grew steadier. "I mean whom she likes and are in her own set. It makes me feel so ashamed sometimes I could cry."

"Come," coaxed Holcomb, "you mustn't feel badly about it. People are all different, anyway. It's just Mrs. Thayor's way, I suppose, just as it's your way, and your father's way, to be kind to everyone," he said tenderly. He saw the colour flush to her cheeks.

"Mother has hurt you!" she cried indignantly. "I have seen it over and over again. Oh, why can't people be a little more considerate. It's not considered smart, I suppose. In society nearly everyone is rude to one another--some of them are perfectly nasty and they think nothing of saying horrid things about you behind your back! I hate New York,"

she exclaimed hotly; "I never knew what it was to be really happy until I came to Big Shanty and these dear old woods. You have had them all your life, so perhaps you can't understand what they mean to me--how much I love them, Mr. Holcomb."

"They mean considerable to me," he replied. "They seem like home. I liked what I saw in New York, and I had a good time down there with Jack, but I know I'd get pretty tired of it if I had to live there in that noise."

"I hate New York," she repeated impetuously, her brown hands trembling after the tears. "If you had to go out--out--out--all the time to stupid teas and dances, you would hate it too. It was hard waiting for the camp. I--I--used to count the days--longing for the days you promised it would be ready. It was so hard to wait--but I knew you were doing your best, and daddy knew it too."

Holcomb reddened. "I'm glad you trusted me," he said, and added, "I hope you will trust me always."

"Why, yes, of course I will!" she exclaimed, brightening. "Oh, you know I will, don't you?"

Holcomb was conscious of a sudden sensation of infinite joy; it seemed to spring up like an electric current from somewhere deep within him, and tingled all over him.

"I'm glad you'll always trust me," he said, as he rose suddenly from his chair and, going over to her, held out his hand. The words he had just spoken he was as unconscious of as his impulsive gesture. "I hope you'll always trust me," he repeated. "You see I wouldn't like to disappoint you _ever_" he went on gently.

She gave the strong fingers that held her own a firm little squeeze, not knowing why she did it.

"Of course I will. Oh, you know I'll trust you--always--always." She said it simply--like a child telling the truth. "I must be going," she ventured faintly. "You will come to the dinner--I mean--to dine with us as long as they are here--promise me!" Again she looked appealingly into his eyes as if she were speaking in a dream.

"Yes, if you want me," he said softly, almost in a whisper, still thrilled by the pressure of her warm little hand. He stood watching her as she slowly re-crossed the compound. Then he went in and shut the door of his cabin and stood for some moments gazing at the chair in which she had been seated--his heart beating fast.

The dinner was all that Thayor could have wished it. In this he had consulted Blakeman, and not Alice. The soup was perfect; so were a dozen young trout taken from an ice-cold brook an hour before, accompanied by a dish of tender cuc.u.mbers fresh from the garden and smothered in crushed ice; so was the dry champagne--a rare vintage of hissing gold poured generously into Venetian gla.s.ses frail as a bubble, iridescent and fashioned like an open flower; so was the saddle of mutton that followed--and so, too, were the salad and cheese--and the minor drinkables and eatables to the very end.

Moreover, Alice was in her best humour and in her best clothes; the doctor genial; Thayor beaming; Margaret merry as a lark; Holcomb's ease and personality a delight (Mrs. Thayor had at the last moment sent a special invitation by Margaret, and he had come)--and Jack a never-ending joy. That rare something which made every man who knew him love him, bubbled out of him as ceaselessly as the ascending commotion in the golden vintage. Moreover, this good fellow was overjoyed at the change in his host; he felt that Thayor's splendid health was largely due to his advice.

Jack's repertoire was famous; he had been a prime favourite at the University smokers for years, and so when dinner was over, and the guests were grouped about the roaring fire in the living room, Sperry next to Alice, Blakeman pa.s.sing the coffee, liqueurs and cigars, he was ready to answer any call. And thus it was that Thayor, amid general applause, led--or rather dragged--Jack triumphantly to the new grand piano, finally picking him up bodily and depositing him before the keyboard, where he held him on the stool with the grip of a sheriff, until this best of fellows raised his hands hopelessly and smiled to his eager audience.

Few skilled pianists possessed Jack's touch; his playing was snappy and sympathetic--it was gay, and invested with a swing and rhythm that were irresistible. He had at his command a vast host of memories--everything from a Hungarian "Czardas" to Grieg. He rippled on fantastically, joining together the seemingly impossible by a series of harmonic transitions entirely his own. His crisp execution was as facile as that of a virtuoso; he did things contrary to even the first principles found in the instruction books of the pianoforte.

He rushed from the Dance of the Sun Feast of the Sioux Indians, through a pa.s.sage of rag time into the tenderest of cradle songs that emerged in turn, by an intricate series of harmonic byways, into the trio from Faust and leaped, as a climax at a single bound, to the Rakoczy March--the shrill war march of Hungary, the rhythm of which stirs the blood and made men fight up hill with forty clarionets in line in the days when the Magyar took all before him--a march that brought the blood to Alice Thayor's cheeks and diffused a lazy brilliancy in her eyes--eyes that looked at Sperry under their curved lashes. Under its spell there welled within her an irresistible desire to scream--to dance savagely until she swooned. The last chord was as vibrant as the crack of a whip.

As for Holcomb, a strange happiness had come to him. He had heard Alice voice her surprise at his ease of manner and good breeding. "He is a gentleman, Sam; I never could have believed it," and his eyes had lighted up when his employer had replied, "As well-bred as Jack, my dear. I am glad to hear you acknowledge it at last." But even a greater joy possessed him,--a happiness which he dared not speak about or risk the danger of destroying. Margaret trusted him!--that in itself was enough for the moment. She had a way of looking earnestly into his eyes now--moments when he made awkward attempts at concealing his joy. There was, too, a certain note of tenderness in her voice when she spoke to him. That firm pressure of her soft little hand--her tears! What had she meant by it? he wondered. She seemed a different being to him now--divine--not of this world. When they were alone together her very presence made him forget all else save his loyalty toward Thayor--in brief moments such as these he would gaze at her, when she was not looking; conversation he found difficult. There were moments, too, when he experienced a feeling of silent depression, and other times when there sprang up within him a positive fear--the first fear he had ever experienced. The dread that he might lose his self-control and tell her frankly all that lay in his heart--how much he thought of her--how much he would always think of her. Yet he would rather have left Big Shanty forever than have offended her. How strange it all seemed to him! Could she really care for him?--this girl, the very essence of refinement--this child of luxury. The realization of the wide social breach that lay between them was plain enough to him; he was not of her world--not of her blood.

The hopelessness of this thought brought with it a feeling of bitterness. Once he dreamed she had kissed him. It was all so real to him in his dream--they were a long way off in the woods somewhere together, back of Big Shanty, near a pond which he had never seen; he was leading her down to its edge through some rough timber, when she sighed, "I am so tired, Billy," and sank down in a little heap half fainting from exhaustion. He took her into his arms and carried her--she cuddled her head against his throat. Then she kissed him twice, and he awoke.

For a long time he sat wondering on the edge of his cot--the light from a waning moon streaking across the cabin floor. He tried to go to sleep, in the hope that his dream might continue, but he dreamed of horses breaking through the ice. He wakened again at the first glimmer of dawn--dressed and went out in the crisp air for a tramp, still thinking of his dream and the memory of her dear lips against his cheek.