on the fifteenth of each october the turkey-wing fan, rarely out of miss gibbie's hands in warm weather, was put away in camphor, and on that evening knitting-needles and white shetland wool were brought out. in a basket of rare weaving these materials now lay on the library table near which miss gibbie sat, but as yet they were untouched, for before the open fire her hands lay idle in her lap. every now and then she lifted first one foot and then the other and put it on the fender, and presently she drew closer the tall screen with its framed square of tapestried lambs and shepherdess wrought by her grandmother's fingers many years ago. placing it so that her face might be protected from the scorching heat of the dancing flames, she tilted it at the right angle, and then tilted her head also.
"no use blistering my face because young people prefer to be fools!" she said, presently. "and what fools! you might have known, gibbie gault, you'd make a mess of it if you put your finger in a lovers' pie. if life has taught you nothing else it has taught you to let people do their own paddling, and yet at your age you tried to steer a man in a way he didn't want to go. you thought it was the wisest way, and in the end would bring him to the promised land, but your mistake lay in not letting him fall overboard the way he preferred to fall. a man would rather fail according to his own ideas than succeed according to another's. and you certainly can't say this little arrangement of yours concerning john and mary has proven a brilliant one. of the three simpletons, just at present, you deserve what's coming to you more than the other two, for better than they you understand that women is an unknown quantity. even her maker couldn't anticipate her behavior, and when she wills to torment a man she has seemingly neither soul not sense. in your wise and worldly advice to john you forgot mary's possibilities of denseness, and your meddlesome medicine has had the wrong effect."
she sighed queerly and changed the left foot on the fender to the right, and again tapped the arms of her chair with the tips of her delicately pointed fingers. "what a silly, sensitive little thing this self-love, this pride of ours, is! and it's mary's hardiest sin. she wouldn't let the angels of heaven take her up to-day and put her down to-morrow, and while she laughs at much in life, there are certain things she doesn't smile at. a friend who fails in her eyes isn't even in a class with toads. she has an idea that john is no longer the friend of old. she does not say so, has apparently forgotten he's living, rarely mentions his name, and doesn't know that my old eyes see clearly how gayly miserable she is. i have pretended to be blind, and have encouraged the idea that john was interested in that pink-and-white offspring of snobby deford. what a bunch of idiots we all have been, and i the biggest of all—the biggest of all!"
at the library door celia stood, hand on knob. "mr. maxwell is here, miss gibbie. will you see him?"
"i will." miss gibbie leaned back in her chair, put her feet on the stool in front of it, and crossed her hands in her lap. "and bring in tea at once."
"it is good of you to let me see you." john maxwell bent over the beautiful hand held out to him, but the boyish banter of other days was gone. before miss gibbie was no pretence, and his face was that of a man who no longer has time to waste or the will for wasting.
"not good at all. if you hadn't come i should have sent for you." she tilted the screen at a different angle. "sit down, and sit where i can see you. but first put that table a little closer to me. here's celia with the tea."
the table was moved and the large silver tray with its little silver legs was placed upon it, the lamp under the kettle lighted, and celia waved out, and again miss gibbie leaned back.
"what day did you get here?" she asked. "time has such a somersault way of passing, one can't keep up with it. how long have you been here?"
"ten days. i came on the twenty-ninth, and this is the eighth of november."
"when are you going away?"
"i don't know." john crossed his right leg over his left, shifted his position and shaded his eyes with his hand.
miss gibbie took up the tea-caddy. "do you think you've accomplished great things by coming? judging by your manner of late, not to mention your looks, you haven't been drunk with happiness since you reached this town of historic importance and modern inconsequence. but of course—" she tilted the spout of the kettle into the teapot—"my suggestion that you stay where you belong was a mere woman's, and you saw fit to ignore it. men like to bring blessings on their head—and my friend john maxwell is most verily a man."
"you seem to forget it." he got up and began to walk backward and forward the length of the room. "i wonder if i am sometimes. when i see that round, red, moon-faced pig driving around town with mary, taking long horseback rides with her, and going to see her whenever he pleases, i don't know how i keep from killing him. he isn't fit to be in the same town with her. i know the man, went to school with him. he's a cad and a coward and a big fat fool. he has some money— that is, his father has—and a smearing of education, but he's coarse and common and not to be trusted. van orm was a gentleman at least, and if mary wanted—"
"does mary know as much of your friend mr. fielding as you do?"
miss gibbie handed him a cup of tea, but he waved it back.
"if she doesn't it's because she's trying to be blind and deaf. i have seen practically nothing of her since i came down. you think i shouldn't have come. perhaps i shouldn't, but i'm here, and for the present am going to stay. for six months i've held off, but through them we've been generally friendly, and i was hoping it might work, the thing you suggested. i stayed away as long as i could. but i had to come. i had to see for myself—see how she was, even if i came through hell."
"a trip through hell might help many men. the trouble is they might not be able to pass though. ten days of it—"
"is more than man is meant to stand. you are quite right." he stopped and looked down at her. "what is it? what is the matter with mary? she is horribly polite, but were i a leper she could not hold herself more aloof. morning, noon, and night she has engagements, and frequently with that brass-coated mine-owner of the middle west. do you think"—his face darkened, fear had unnerved him—"do you think she has any idea of marrying him?"
miss gibbie's head turned. the cup on its way to her lips was held back and her left eye closed.
"marrying whom? that fielding person?" the tea was blown into bubbles. "he uses a toothpick in public. do you think mary would marry a thing of that kind?"
he laughed begrudgingly. "i can't imagine it, but neither can i imagine why she is doing what she does—why she treats me as if i were the most incidental acquaintance."
miss gibbie put down her cup, and pushed her chair a little farther from the fire. "you don't have to, john. there are some things god doesn't expect of a man. one is to see through a woman. he knows the limitations of the male, and won't hold you responsible. sit down!" she waved to the chair in front of her. "i can't talk to any one i can't see."
with a half-smile, half-frown john took his seat, and again shaded his eyes with his hand. "being that dense creature, a man, i would appreciate the opinion of an illuminating lady on the tactics of her sex. what have i done to bring this nonsense to pass? i make no pretence of understanding any sort of woman, much less mary's sort, but why this charming indifference at one time, this indignant curtness at another? i'm in the air, i admit, but i'm here to stay as long as that familiar-mannered individual stays. i'd like mary to understand it, whether she wishes to or not. would you mind making the intimation? she doesn't give me the chance."
miss gibbie tapped her lips with the tips of her fingers, blew through them for a few seconds, then she tilted the stool over and kicked it aside.
"for a person of ordinary sense you are extraordinarily dull at times." she looked at him long and searchingly, then she leaned forward. "tell me," she said, "are you honestly in earnest when you say you don't know what is the matter with mary?"
"with god as witness—"
"you're such a fool! don't you see she's just found out—she loves you?"
half a moment he stared as if not hearing. in the glow of firelight she saw his face whiten; then he got up and walked to the window behind her. for some time he stayed there, looking through it with eyes that saw not, and only the crackling logs broke the stillness of the room. celia came in to turn on lights and take away the tea-tray, but miss gibbie waved her back. "i want the firelight," she said. "when i need you i'll ring."
a few minutes more she watched the dancing flames and, watching them, her face grew pale and strangely gentle. into it came memories of the days that were for her no more. presently, without turning, she called:
"john!"
"well."
"i have something to tell you."
slowly he came toward her. in his face was the look she had seen in the long ago, and suddenly hers was buried in her hands.
he stood beside her. "for the love of god"—his voice was not yet steady—"don't tell me what you have just said—is not true."
with effort her hands were opened, and again she leaned back in her chair, but she did not look up. "i shall tell you nothing that is not true," she said, wearily. "mary loves you, but she is as stubborn as you were blind. it has pleased you to put hope in mrs. deford's heart, pleased you to be attentive to her little make-believe of a daughter. mary has seen and heard things that have led her to imagine you were in love with lily."
john sat down suddenly, limp with incredulity. "in love with lily—
lily deford? did she think i was a—"
"she did. she felt about you very much as really fine women would feel could they look down from the battlements of heaven and see the sort of things their husbands frequently bring home to take their place. you have been seen with lily morning, noon, and night when she wasn't with that pugh boy, who they say is in love with her, and—"
"i was with her as a bluff. billy pugh is a friend of mine, and a good, clean fellow. having troubles of my own, i felt sorry for him, and was standing by; that was all. he's not responsible for his father's or grandfather's business. they were in it before he was born, and it's been honestly conducted always, which, unfortunately, is more than lily's father's was. lily's father was a rascal, if he is the husband of his wife. i'm not telling you what you don't know; only why i have no patience with this rotten pride of mrs. deford. i've been lily's dump. into my ears she's poured oceans of lamentations, and i've let her babble on because it gave her such tearful satisfaction. i like billy, and stand ready to help any time he can squeeze out courage to take things in his own hands."
"and you've been party to these secret meetings, have you? been thinking so much of lily's happiness you forgot other people's. you'd help them run away, i suppose?"
"i would. i believe in all respect being paid parents, believe their consent to marriage should always be asked, their approval desired. but if for any fool ancestral reasons consent and approval are denied, then were i one of the parties i should invite the parents to the wedding, but let them understand that whether they came or not the bells would ring. were i billy pugh and loved his little lily i'd marry her to-morrow. if he had a million mrs. deford would forget he didn't have recorded forefathers. the trouble with billy is he's not yet rich. i told him a week ago i was ready to help."
his face suddenly changed and he leaned forward. "do you mean that mary has actually, seriously imagined i was interested in lily deford?" with a hard grip his hands interclasped as he looked in the dancing flames, and when he next spoke his voice was again unsteady. "it is not given to many men to love as i love mary. i could speak of this to no one else, for words are not for love like mine. but having known her, having in my life but one thought, one hope—why didn't you tell her? why did you let her think i was such a fool?"
"why?" miss gibbie sat upright. "i thought you were one myself. your unremitting attendance upon lily was carrying my suggestions rather far. in matters of compromise a man is a master. he'd fall in love with anything if there was nothing else to fall in love with. mary has been something of a trail, and how did i know your vanity had not surrendered to the soothing balm of adoration? a bit of encouragement and lily would have swung incense. she's that kind. many a man marries a woman because of her admiration for him. many a woman marries her husband because no to her man asked her. only occasionally do we find either man or woman who carries through life one image alone in the heart. when you came down here you went first to the defords.
"and why? you were with mary, and for important matters of business discussion. i would have been in the way. i walked out to tree hill and back, had a fight with myself about coming in, but knew i shouldn't. i came down purposely on the twenty ninth, the anniversary of mary's return to yorkburg, but—"
"have you told mary this?"
"told her? i've told her nothing. she gives me no chance."
"gives? a man who doesn't /take/ his chance doesn't deserve it! for the love of heaven, stop being so considerate and remember a woman has to be mastered every now the then!"
she pulled up her silk skirt and held the tips of her velvet slippers to the fire.
"put on a fresh log, will you? not even backlogs have backbone any more. when i was young, men had red blood, and color and flavor went with love-making. nowadays people are afraid of emotion, and courtship is a milk-and-mush affair. what time is it?"
john took out his watch. "quarter to six."
"time to go home, boy. you are going to the porters' party, i suppose? i understand the little pot and big pot will be put on to-night. they'll live on herrings for breakfast and cheese for supper the rest of the winter, doubtless, but josephine porter is bound to blow out once a year. those decorations of her grandfather, by royalty bestowed, must be kept in remembrance. with whom are you going?"
"i asked mary, and am going with lily." john smiled grimly. "i got an invitation for billy and will hand her over as soon as her mother is out of the way. i can't understand why billy doesn't assert himself."
"you can't? queer!" miss gibbie looked in the fire. "mary is going to the party with that fielding person, i believe. to-morrow night she spends here. at supper i have some things to talk over with her; so you can't come to supper. you might come in about eight-thirty. i'm reading a french novel that mary objects to. she read it, and told me i mustn't. unless some one talks to her she'll talk to me. would you mind dropping in so i can get at the book?"
she held out her hand. "our bargain," he said, gravely. "i can no longer hold to it. do you release me?"
"release you?" she strangled the sudden sob in her throat.
"love has released you. don't you see—mary is awake?"
