The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 17

"I've always loved you."

She spoke in a whisper.

"I'll find a way." He told her. "There must be a way."

"But how? How?"

"I don't know. I never thought about it before. I never knew you cared.

I thought it was just the flowers. Nothing but the flowers. I hate the flowers. The feel of them--the sight of them--the smell of them. I couldn't ever come here without being suffocated. I was jealous of them; fearfully jealous."

"And--I--thought." Her voice was low.

"I--thought--that--because--I--feel--they--love--me;--because--I love--them;--somehow--they--brought--you--here."

"And when I come--"

"When?"

Her voice itself trailed to a whisper.

"I will come to you! I--will!"

"How--can--you--find--me?"

"Somehow--I will!"

"If--only--you--could. I am lonely. Terribly--lonely.

If--it--would--be--soon."

"It--must--be--soon."

"I'll--wait--for you--always. But--if you are--real--you'll--come--soon.

It's lonely--waiting. And--I--don't--even--know--if--you--are.

I--don't--even--know."

The Reverend William Cruthers started from his chair.

Some one had banged the window closed. Some one had lit the lamp on the center table. Its yellow light trickled through the room and over the scant old fas.h.i.+oned furniture and crept upwards across the booklined walls.

The room was stuffy and close. The smell of flowers had gone.

"Billy!"

He turned to see his sister rus.h.i.+ng across the room to him. He stooped a bit and caught her in his arms.

"Why, Gina. I didn't know. Why didn't you write and tell me? Who brought you up from the station?"

The girl kissed him hastily and enthusiastically on either cheek.

"A nice welcome home!" She laughed breathlessly. "I was just about to make a graceful and silent exit."

"But, Gina, I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know. You couldn't. I wouldn't write. I wanted to surprise you. Aren't you surprised, Billy?"

"Awfully," he conceded.

"Awfully?"

Her brows puckered.

"Very much so, I mean."

"You never do know just what you do mean. Do you, William?"

"Naturally, I do."

"It wouldn't be natural for you if you did."

The girl slid away from him and went and perched herself comfortably on the arm of the chair in which he had been sitting. Her hands were busy with her hatpins and her eyes that peered up at him were filled with laughter.

"How did you get up from the station, Gina?"

"Oh, such a lovely way, Billy! And so very energetic for me. I walked.

Now, what do you know about that?"

He frowned a bit.

"Very good for you, I don't doubt." He said it stiffly. "After all the motoring you must have done with those friends of yours!"

She had gotten her hat off. She sat dangling it by the brim. The lamplight streaked over her hair.

"Now, don't be nasty, William. And whatever you do, don't speak to me as if I were a congregation. The Trents are perfectly lovely people, even if they are terribly rich and not very Christian. And--and Georgie Trent is a sweet boy; and," she added it hastily. "Wood Mills is a duck of a place!"

He thrust his hands into his coat pockets.

"I never said it wasn't, Gina."

She paid no attention to him. Her legs were crossed. Her one foot was swinging to and fro. Her eyes were fixed speculatively on the foot.

"And you ought to be very glad to have me here again. Suppose I'd listened to Georgie and married him right off, instead of coming back here. A nice fix you'd have been in. You know perfectly well no one in all the world does for you as nicely as I do. You know that, don't you?"

He smiled down at her.

"To be sure I do."

"As a matter of fact," she went on. "When I came in here you were half, if not altogether, asleep in this chair."

"I wasn't asleep, Gina."