第94章

"Yes, yes, he told me. What difference does that make? Peabody be hanged! He ain't in this. It's you and me--don't you see? What made you do all this for me?"She looked at the floor and not at him as she answered.

"Why, because I wanted to help you," she said. "I've been alone in the world ever since mother died, years ago. I've had few real friends. Your friendship had come to mean a great deal to me. The splendid fight you were making for that little girl proved what a man you were. And you fought so bravely when almost everyone was against you, I couldn't help wanting to do something for you. How could I? And now it has come to nothing--my part of it. I'm so sorry.""It ain't, neither. It's come to everything. Phoebe, I didn't mean to say very much more than to beg your pardon when I headed for here. But I've got to--I've simply got to. This can't go on.

I can't have you keep comin' to see me--and Bos'n. I can't keep meetin' you every day. I CAN'T."She looked up, as if to speak, but something, possibly the expression in his face, caused her to look quickly down again.

She did not answer.

"I can't do it," continued the captain desperately. "'Tain't for what folks might say. They wouldn't say much when I was around, Itell you. It ain't that. It's because I can't bear to have you just a friend. Either you must be more'n that, or--or I'll have to go somewheres else. I realized that when I was in Washin'ton and cruisin' to California and back. I've either got to take Bos'n and go away for good, or--or--"She would not help him. She would not speak.

"You see?" he groaned. "You see, Phoebe, what an old fool I am.

I can't ask you to marry me, me fifty-five, and rough from knockin' round the world, and you, young and educated, and a lady. I ain't fool enough to ask such a thing as that. And yet, I couldn't stay here and meet you every day, and by and by see you marry somebody else. By the big dipper, I couldn't do it! So that's why I can't shake hands with you to-day--nor any more, except when I say good-by for keeps."

Then she looked up. The color was still bright in her face, and her eyes were moist, but she was smiling.

"Can't shake hands with me?" she said. "Please, what have you been doing for the last five minutes?"Captain Cy dropped her hand as if his own had been struck with paralysis.

"Good land!" he stammered. "I didn't know I did it; honest truth, I didn't."Phoebe's smile was still there, faint, but very sweet.

"Why did you stop?" she queried. "I didn't ask you to.""Why did I stop? Why, because I--I--I declare I'm ashamed--"She took his hand and clasped it with both her own.

"I'm not," she said bravely, her eyes brightening as the wonder and incredulous joy grew in his. "I'm very proud. And very, very happy."There was to be a big supper at the Cy Whittaker place that night.

It was an impromptu affair, arranged on the spur of the moment by Captain Cy, who, in spite of the lawyer's protests and anxiety concerning his health, went serenely up and down the main road, inviting everybody he met or could think of. The captain's face was as radiant as a spring sunrise. His smile, as Asaph said, "pretty nigh cut the upper half of his head off." People who had other engagements, and would, under ordinary circumstances, have refused the invitation, couldn't say no to his hearty, "Can't come?

Course you'll come! Man alive! I WANT you.""Invalid, is he?" observed Josiah Dimick, after receiving and accepting his own invitation. "Well, I wish to thunder I could be took down with the same kind of disease. I'd be willin' to linger along with it quite a spell if it pumped me as full of joy as Whit seems to be. Don't give laughin' gas to keep off pneumonia, do they? No? Well, I'd like to know the name of his medicine, that's all."Supper was to be ready at six. Georgianna, assisted by Keturah Bangs, Mrs. Sylvanus Cahoon, and other volunteers, was gloriously busy in the kitchen. The table in the dining room reached from one end of the big apartment to the other. Guests would begin to arrive shortly. Wily Mr. Peabody, guessing that Captain Cy might prefer to be alone, had taken the Board of Strategy out riding behind the span.

In the sitting room, around the baseburner stove, were three persons--Captain Cy, Bos'n, and Phoebe. Miss Dawes had "come early," at the captain's urgent appeal. Now she was sitting in the rocker, at one side of the stove, gazing dreamily at the ruddy light behind the isinglass panes. She looked quietly, blissfully contented and happy. At her feet, on the braided mat, sat Bos'n, playing with Lonesome, who purred lazily. The little girl was happy, too, for was not her beloved Uncle Cyrus at home again, with all danger of their separation ended forevermore?

As for Captain Cy himself, the radiant expression was still on his face, brighter than ever. He looked across at Phoebe, who smiled back at him. Then he glanced down at Bos'n. And all at once he realized that this was the fulfillment of his dream. Here was his "picture"; the sitting room was now as he had always loved to think of it--as it used to be. He was in his father's chair, Phoebe in the one his mother used to occupy, and between them--just where he had sat so often when a boy--the child. The Cy Whittaker place had again, and at last, come into its own.

He drew a long breath, and looked about the room; at the stove, the lamp, the old, familiar furniture, at his grandfather's portrait over the mantel. Then, in a flash of memory, his father's words came back to him, and he said, laughing aloud from pure happiness:

"Bos'n, run down cellar and get me a pitcher of cider, won't you?--there's a good feller."