a wide country road stretched out in the moonlight before john and tilly. they walked slowly. tilly still held his arm and he was transported with sheer ecstasy by that close contact with her. once or twice he started to speak, but found himself unable to think of anything appropriate, and this both angered and alarmed him, for, he asked himself, how was it that eperson was always so ready with his tongue when in tilly's presence? but tilly seemed to understand john's way and not to care much whether he talked or was silent. as he dared to glance down on her pretty head just below his left shoulder he remembered the bride and the bridegroom on the train, and the contractor's words came back to him like breeze music from the waving tops of celestial trees: "it is ahead of you, my boy."
ahead of him? marriage? a home for tilly and himself alone? she, his wife?—actually his wife? absurd! impossible! the bare thought, checked though it was, set fire to his brain and he was thrilled in all his nerves and members. he caught her upward glance and she smiled almost as if she had glimpsed his vision and was thus responding to it.
"you don't like joel," she said, knowing full well that that remark would prod his tardy speech.
"well, what if i don't?" he answered, with querulous sharpness.
"well, you shouldn't dislike him," the little minx[pg 82] continued, designedly. "he hasn't done you any harm. how could he? you have known each other such a short time."
had john been other than the crude working-boy that he was, he might have made a more adroit answer, but, even as it was, it was not unpleasing to his sly tormentor.
"what is he hanging around you so much for?" john demanded. "i've heard that your father doesn't like him. what does he mean by coming, at the slightest excuse, like to-night, for instance?"
"joel and i have been friends ever since we were tiny tots," tilly answered, as casually as a school-girl chewing gum. "and even if—if he really does love me and—and wants me to be his wife, should he be blamed for that?"
the very suggestion of her marriage to any one, and that man in particular, drove john wild. he bit his lip; he swore under his breath, and his oaths had never been guarded before meeting tilly; his eyes flashed from the fires behind them. he clenched his fists.
"you are mine, mine, mine!" he said to himself with the grinding teeth of a cave-man, and he was all but unaware that his words were not audible. she was smiling up at him, so sweetly, so placidly. what a nimbus of transcendental charm hovered over the wonderful face in the moonlight. suddenly he checked his onward stride, caught her, and drew her around facing him. what he might have said or done he never knew, but tilly gravely started on again, gently extracting her hand from his fierce clasp and restoring it to his arm.
"we must not stop," she said. "i hear a horse behind us. it is somebody going to the party, perhaps."
he said nothing as her fingers left his, and they walked[pg 83] on again. it was a horse and a buggy containing a couple from the village. tilly spoke merrily to them and they answered back as they dashed on.
"it is marietta slocum and fred murray," tilly explained. "they are engaged."
"engaged?" the word seemed to fill the entire consciousness of the crude social anomaly. he told himself that an engagement must naturally precede marriage, and how was that to come about with that helpless tongue in his mouth? besides, how did he know but that tilly might refuse him? how did he know but that there might even now be some understanding between her and eperson? the sheer thought chilled him like a blast from a cavern of ice. she seemed to feel the limpness of the arm she held or in some way to sense the despair that was on him so quickly following the mood she had interrupted only a moment before.
"you are so strange!" she sighed, taking a better grasp on his arm, and even bearing down on it slightly as she lowered her head thoughtfully. "you are a mystery to me. i can't make you out."
he could not explain. he was not sure that he cared to explain the terrible internal quakings which to him seemed so unmanly, so unlike any feelings that had ever come to him. he wondered if eperson had actually spoken open words of love to her, and, if so, how had the fellow, with all his suave ability, managed it?
another buggy passed. tilly explained who the occupants of it were after she had greeted them. they were george whitton and ella bell roberts. then she added, with a touch of seriousness:
"you ought to have lifted your hat just now."
"lifted my hat? why, i don't know her— i've never[pg 84] seen her before!" he retorted, with the irritation of a great mind descending to a triviality.
"because he lifted his to me and you are with me," tilly persisted in her mild rebuke. "it is the custom here, but it may not be at ridgeville."
john was chagrined, but determined to hide it. "i have never heard of a man bowing to a man or a woman he never saw before," he fumed. "i don't care what you all do; it is foolishness out and out."
"well, when you are in rome," tilly quoted in quite a grave tone, "you ought to do as the romans do."
the thing rankled within him. the blood had mounted to his brow and stayed there. even tilly was telling him how to deport himself. he adored her, but he was angry enough to have sworn in her gentle, uplifted eyes. she observed his moody mien and playfully shook his arm.
"don't be mad," she urged, sweetly. "i meant no harm, but i do want them all to like you, and i'm afraid they won't if you fail in little things like that just now. they won't understand—they will think you are stuck up, and i know you are not a bit vain. i am sure of that—as sure as i'm alive. if you were i'd not like you."
she had intimated that she liked him, and that ought to have been sufficient to quell the storm within him, but it did not quite. her rebuke hurt far more than any which had ever come to him. she adroitly changed the subject. she spoke of the work on the court-house and praised his part of it, but what did that matter? he knew what his work was and he was just learning profound and relentless things about the difference between himself and her—between her puzzling environment and his, which was all too distinctly plain for his present comfort. as they neared teasdale's and saw the lights streaming[pg 85] from the open doors and windows across the lush greensward and noted the considerable collection of horses and vehicles under the shade-trees and along the fences, he became conscious of an overwhelming timidity with which he felt unable to cope. had tilly been like himself and feared the entry into the light and easy gaiety of the chattering throng, he would not have felt so isolated. but her very unconsciousness of the thing as any sort of ordeal to be dreaded depressed him as emphasizing the fateful demarcation between her walk of life and his.
they reached the steps of the large, rather rambling one-story farm-house. there was a long veranda in front, both ends of which were filled with merrymakers. there was a wide hallway, and it, too, was filled with jolly, loud-talking couples, as well as the big parlor on the right.
"oh, here they are!" sally teasdale cried, coming forward and taking tilly into her slim, pretentious arms. "i heard of you two poking along like snails on the big road. as if you couldn't see enough of mr. trott at home! i am going to introduce myself to him, to pay you back. i'm sally teasdale"—holding out her hand to john—"and i am glad you came to my party."
john did not know what he said, if he said anything audible. it was the damnable glibness of speech of others which he had to contend with and which seemed to be as silly as unattainable.
"now, dear, run back to my room and take off your wrap," miss teasdale said to tilly. "i'll show mr. trott the men's room."
"he has nothing but his hat," tilly lingered to say, "and he can leave that anywhere."
"yes, if you like," his hostess said, leading him to a spot on the veranda where many men's hats were hanging[pg 86] on nails driven into the weather-boarding. he hung up his and immediately felt sally clutch his arm.
"tilly says you don't dance," she ran on. "what a pity! it is great fun, and a good way to get acquainted. i suppose you are a member of the church. which one?"
"none at all," he heard himself saying, as if in a dense fog and from a great distance.
"how funny that you don't dance, then?" she went on, leaving an opening for him which he did not enter. he did not like her. she was too tall and angular, too harsh of voice and fluent of talk and irritating suggestion. he had the sense of being managed when he wanted above all to be unmolested. besides, she had sent tilly away, and without tilly he felt lost.
"i must introduce you to my father," sally said. "he is old-fashioned and wants his way about everything. he would scold me if i didn't introduce you at once. he is inside. come on. my stepmother is busy in the kitchen fixing refreshments."
