The Rapids Part 19

"Nothing."

"Then with you?"

"Nothing."

"May an old woman make a fool of herself?"

"Please--but it won't be that."

"Then has Elsie found some one else--if you don't mind my asking?"

"Possibly,--I can't say."

"But you're the only man in town who takes her anywhere. The judge is fond of you, he told me so, and Mrs. Worden thinks you are the whole world. What's the matter, Jimmy?"

Belding got rather red. "I'm afraid I can't say."

Mrs. Dibbott's eyebrows went up, then she leaned over and patted his hand. "Whoever it is you'll knock him out. Sorry I did make a fool of myself, but it's my fixed belief that you come first with Elsie, though perhaps she doesn't know it."

Belding laughed in spite of himself. "She certainly doesn't know it yet."

"Now tell me about the iron works."

"It will be a couple of years before they are finished." Belding's brain began to throb once more. In imagination he was putting up blast furnaces.

"It will mean a good deal for the town, won't it?"

He nodded. "The biggest thing yet--St. Marys is all right now."

"And it was that dirty old Fisette who found the mine?"

Belding chuckled. "He's not old nor dirty, and was the best prospector of the lot. Yes, he found it."

"Goodness! were there many of them?"

"About twenty. They all worked in different districts and knew nothing about each other."

"Then that's what brought that special train load up from Philadelphia?"

"I suppose so. They seemed very happy when they left."

Mrs. Dibbott poured out some more elderberry wine. "When I think what that man has done just out of water, it makes me gasp. I switch on the light and don't trim any more lamp wicks, and the well's gone dry and I don't care, and Mr. Filmer told me last night there are eight thousand more people in St. Mary's. Do you remember that meeting?"

"Every word of it."

"And Mr. Manson--he was a wet blanket, wasn't he?"

"But he was snowed under, fortunately."

"I know he was, but did you hear that he has made a fortune out of real estate, and is going round with a face as long as his back?"

Belding knew nothing about Manson--he had been too busy.

"Every one says he's in the dumps because he sold out just before Fisette found that mine and real estate has been jumping ever since."

"But he never believed in Mr. Clark."

"Some of him does and some of him doesn't," said Mrs. Dibbott sagely.

"How much did he make?" Belding was wiser with other people's money than with his own.

"They say twenty-five thousand and," she added enigmatically, "I'm sorry for his wife."

The engineer laughed, said good-by and turned toward the Worden house.

At the sound of his step in the garden Elsie looked up, a provocative smile on her face. She was so dainty, so desirable, that he felt a swift hunger throbbing even to his finger tips. She made room for him on the bench.

"I'm for Mother Earth." He stretched himself at her feet. "Where have you been lately, we've missed you at the works."

"I've just got back, been away for two weeks. Are you still very busy?"

He nodded, but business was not what he wanted to talk about. It was more than two years now since they first met and he had a feeling that all that time he had been an open book to her bright eyes.

"Don't let us talk business," he said a little unsteadily.

She swung her large straw hat by its silk ribbons. "You shall choose your own subject."

"It isn't business, it's you," he went on bluntly. "I've tried to tell you before but you wouldn't let me."

"It's a heavenly evening for a proposal."

"Do you mean that?" he gasped.

"Why shouldn't I? The moon is just coming up and the river is quiet and we can hear the rapids, and here you are at my feet. What more could a girl ask?"

Something twitched at Belding's fancy. "Then I love you and I want you desperately and I'll take care of you all my life. Is there any one else?"

His voice sobered her. "Don't, you mustn't say it like that, it sounds too real."

"But it is real," he protested, "the most real thing I ever said."

"You mustn't," she answered a little shakily. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone on like that."

Belding captured her hand. "I'm glad you did, Elsie, it was just right."

"But I didn't mean it," she said pitifully, "and it wasn't fair of me.

I didn't know you felt like that."

Belding stared at her astonished. "You must have known."