Dr. Sevier Part 30

"Why, John," said Mary, "I think you might as well say plainly that the money is borrowed money."

"That's what it is," responded Richling, and rose to spread the street-door wider open, for the daylight was fading.

"Well, I 'ope you'll egscuse that libbetty," said Narcisse, rising a little more tardily, and slower. "I muz baw' fawty dollah--some place.

Give you good secu'ty--give you my note, Mistoo Itchlin, in fact; muz baw fawty--aw thutty-five."

"Why, I'm very sorry," responded Richling, really ashamed that he could not hold his face straight. "I hope you understand"--

"Mistoo Itchlin, 'tis baw'd money. If you had a necessity faw it you would use it. If a fwend 'ave a necessity--'tis anotheh thing--you don't feel that libbetty--you ah 'ight--I honoh you"--

"I _don't_ feel the same liberty."

"Mistoo Itchlin," said Narcisse, with n.o.ble generosity, throwing himself a half step forward, "if it was yoze you'd baw' it to me in a minnit!"

He smiled with benign delight. "Well, madame,--I bid you good evening, Misses Itchlin. The bes' of fwen's muz pawt, you know." He turned again to Richling with a face all beauty and a form all grace. "I was juz sitting--mistfully--all at once I says to myseff, 'Faw distwaction I'll go an' see Mistoo Itchlin.' I don't _know_ 'ow I juz 'appen'!-- Well, _au 'evo'_, Mistoo Itchlin."

Richling followed him out upon the door-step. There Narcisse intimated that even twenty dollars for a few days would supply a stern want. And when Richling was compelled again to refuse, Narcisse solicited his company as far as the next corner. There the Creole covered him with shame by forcing him to refuse the loan of ten dollars, and then of five.

It was a full hour before Richling rejoined his wife. Mrs. Riley had stepped off to some neighbor's door with Mike on her arm. Mary was on the sidewalk.

"John," she said, in a low voice, and with a long anxious look.

"What?"

"He _didn't_ take the only dollar of your own in the world?"

"Mary, what could I do? It seemed a crime to give, and a crime not to give. He cried like a child; said it was all a sham about his dinner and his _robe de chambre_. An aunt, two little cousins, an aged uncle at home--and not a cent in the house! What could I do? He says he'll return it in three days."

"And"--Mary laughed distressfully--"you believed him?" She looked at him with an air of tender, painful admiration, half way between a laugh and a cry.

"Come, sit down," he said, sinking upon the little wooden b.u.t.tress at one side of the door-step.

Tears sprang into her eyes. She shook her head.

"Let's go inside." And in there she told him sincerely, "No, no, no; she didn't think he had done wrong"--when he knew he had.

CHAPTER XXIII.

WEAR AND TEAR.

The arrangement for Dr. Sevier to place the loan of fifty dollars on his own books at Richling's credit naturally brought Narcisse into relation with it.

It was a case of love at first sight. From the moment the record of Richling's "little quant.i.ty" slid from the pen to the page, Narcisse had felt himself betrothed to it by destiny, and hourly supplicated the awful fates to frown not upon the amorous hopes of him unaugmented.

Richling descended upon him once or twice and tore away from his embrace small fractions of the coveted treasure, choosing, through a diffidence which he mistook for a sort of virtue, the time of day when he would not see Dr. Sevier; and at the third visitation took the entire golden fleece away with him rather than encounter again the always more or less successful courts.h.i.+p of the scorner of loans.

A faithful suitor, however, was not thus easily shaken off. Narcisse became a frequent visitor at the Richlings', where he never mentioned money; that part was left to moments of accidental meeting with Richling in the street, which suddenly began to occur at singularly short intervals.

Mary labored honestly and arduously to dislike him--to hold a repellent att.i.tude toward him. But he was too much for her. It was easy enough when he was absent; but one look at his handsome face, so rife with animal innocence, and despite herself she was ready to reward his displays of sentiment and erudition with laughter that, mean what it might, always pleased and flattered him.

"Can you help liking him?" she would ask John. "I can't, to save my life!"

Had the treasure been earnings, Richling said--and believed--he could firmly have repelled Narcisse's importunities. But coldly to withhold an occasional modest heave-offering of that which was the free bounty of another to him was more than he could do.

"But," said Mary, straightening his cravat, "you intend to pay up, and he--you don't think I'm uncharitable, do you?"

"I'd rather give my last cent than think you so," replied John.

"Still,"--laying the matter before her with both open hands,--"if you say plainly not to give him another cent I'll do as you say. The money's no more mine than yours."

"Well, you can have all my share," said Mary, pleasantly.

So the weeks pa.s.sed and the h.o.a.rd dwindled.

"What has it got down to, now?" asked John, frowningly, on more than one morning as he was preparing to go out. And Mary, who had been made treasurer, could count it at a glance without taking it out of her purse.

One evening, when Narcisse called, he found no one at home but Mrs.

Riley. The infant Mike had been stuffed with rice and milk and laid away to slumber. The Richlings would hardly be back in less than an hour.

"I'm so'y," said Narcisse, with a baffled frown, as he sat down and Mrs.

Riley took her seat opposite. "I came to 'epay 'em some moneys which he made me the loan--juz in a fwenly way. And I came to 'epay 'im. The sum-total, in fact--I suppose he nevva mentioned you about that, eh?"

"No, sir; but, still, if"--

"No, and so I can't pay it to you. I'm so'y. Because I know he woon like it, I know, if he fine that you know he's been bawing money to me. Well, Misses Wiley, in fact, tha.s.s a _ve'y_ fine gen'leman and lady--that Mistoo and Misses Itchlin, in fact?"

"Well, now, Mr. Narcisse, ye'r about right? She's just too good to live--and he's not much better--ha! ha!" She checked her jesting mood.

"Yes, sur, they're very peaceable, quiet people. They're just simply ferst tla.s.s."

"'Tis t'ue," rejoined the Creole, fanning himself with his straw hat and looking at the Pope. "And they handsome and genial, as the lite'ati say on the noozpapeh. Seem like they almoze wedded to each otheh."

"Well, now, sir, that's the trooth!" She threw her open hand down with emphasis.

"And isn't that as man and wife should be?"

"Yo' mighty co'ect, Misses Wiley!" Narcisse gave his pretty head a little shake from side to side as he spoke.

"Ah! Mr. Narcisse,"--she pointed at herself,--"haven't I been a wife?

The husband and wife--they'd aht to jist be each other's guairdjian angels! Hairt to hairt sur; sperit to sperit. All the rist is nawthing, Mister Narcisse." She waved her hands. "Min is different from women, sur." She looked about on the ceiling. Her foot noiselessly patted the floor.

"Yes," said Narcisse, "and tha.s.s the cause that they dwess them dif'ent.

To show the dif'ence, you know."

"Ah! no. It's not the mortial frame, sur; it's the sperit. The sperit of man is not the sperit of woman. The sperit of woman is not the sperit of man. Each one needs the other, sur. They needs each other, sur, to purify and strinthen and enlairge each other's speritu'l life. Ah, sur!

Doo not I feel those things, sur?" She touched her heart with one backward-pointed finger, "_I_ doo. It isn't good for min to be alone--much liss for women. Do not misunderstand me, sur; I speak as a widder, sur--and who always will be--ah! yes, I will--ha! ha! ha!" She hushed her laugh as if this were going too far, tossed her head, and continued smiling.

So they talked on. Narcisse did not stay an hour, but there was little of the hour left when he rose to go. They had pa.s.sed a pleasant time. The Creole, it is true, tried and failed to take the helm of conversation. Mrs. Riley held it. But she steered well. She was still expatiating on the "strinthenin'" spiritual value of the marriage relation when she, too, stood up.