Joan and Co.
was no one else. There was a Marion Thompson who had been a classmate
of his in the district school and who was now teaching in that very
school. She was a subdued sort of girl with dreamy, brown eyes. Until
this moment he had almost forgotten her, but now he bought for her a
gold necklace just because it occurred to him that it would become
her. He paid for it as much as her salary would amount to in six months.
Then he went back to his apartment and packed his new trunk with his
new clothes and his old suit-case with the rest of the new bills which
he had stopped at the bank to get. He had pretty nearly a thousand
of them. And all this time he tried to put Joan entirely out of his
mind, although she kept coming back. And every time she came back she
stung him anew and left him with a sense of martyrdom. The phrase he
used over and over again was that she had not been fair to him. She
had turned him aside exactly as though he were still nothing but a
penniless vagabond. She did not appreciate all that he was about to do
for her—closed her eyes to all the fair dreams he had for her. But he
did not intend to let that spoil his holiday nor the days after. She
would see when he came back. She would see and possibly regret.
He would do his best to make her regret. Here was something to look
forward to. He would build his house exactly as he had it in mind.
People should talk about it as the “Devons Estate.” She should hear of
it. He would make it even more pretentious than he had planned and she
should hear of it.
He knew how the eyes of those back home would pop out when he told
them about it. Here was something more to look forward to. When it
was done he would have many of them come back to see it. He would pay
their fares and give them a holiday they would remember—a holiday they
would talk about the rest of their lives. Here was something pleasant
to think about. Only if he were taking her home with him, there would
be something for them to talk about at once. If he could have brought
her back into his father’s house on his arm, if he could have taken her
through the town by his side and through the county town, then—
He was forever sliding back to her. He must keep her out of his mind
entirely. It would be easier as soon as he was started. So he paid his
bill and went to the station with his baggage two hours before train
time.
* * * * *
Devons wired ahead from Chicago, and at the little one-horse station
where he stopped he found his father there with the buckboard to meet
him. The elder Devons was a tall, spare man with rounding shoulders. He
hesitated a second before coming up to shake hands with the prosperous
young man who strode toward him.
“Hello, Dad,” said Devons.
“Hello, Sonny,” answered Devons senior uncertainly.
The two men gripped and the awkward moment was passed. The older man
shouldered the new trunk and Devons brought up the suit-cases.
“Strap the old one on tight,” he said. “I don’t want to lose that.”
Then he got on the seat with his father and hitched up his trousers to
preserve the crease, and they started over the prairie road. It was hot
and dusty and the old buckboard was hard riding after the Pullman. The
father said little, but Devons inquired after every one and listened to
the old familiar stories of hard luck about them. They continued in an
endless cycle through one generation after another.
“Marion Thompson—you remember Marion?” said his father.
“Surely.”
“She’s teaching school and boarding with us.”
“Has she changed much?”
“Dunno’s she has. People round here don’t change much.”
“In New York they change in twenty-four hours,” remarked Devons with a
frown.
“I s’pose so. You’ve done pretty well there, sonny?”
“You bet,” replied Devons with satisfaction.
They reached the old farmhouse at last. Devons shuddered as he saw it.
It looked even more like a hovel than when he had left it. His mother
was at the door—thin and hollow-eyed. She came out and kissed him
dumbly. If he had not seen her like this all through his youth, he
would have said she did not have a week to live. Behind her came his
sisters and his brothers, and behind them, timidly, a slight girl with
dreamy brown eyes. This was Marion. She was prettier than he expected.
She was in a simple calico dress that hung straight over a slender
body. As the children crowded about him he looked over their heads and
met her eyes. She blushed and shrank back a little. It gave him a sense
of power. It was evident she was terribly afraid of him.
They all made their way into the tawdry sitting-room which showed the
effect of a very recent and thorough cleaning. Here Devons unfastened
his dress-suit-case, spreading it open upon the center table. He stood
back exactly as he had dreamed.
“A little present for you and father,” said he to his mother.
She stared open-mouthed at the crushed green bills. She clasped her
hands over her breast and stared.
“There’ll be more later,” said Devons. “There’ll be plenty for you all
the rest of your lives.”
“Mark!” she choked, “be they real?”
He went to her side and placed his arm about her.
“Lord bless you, yes,” he assured her.
There was a lump in his own throat. He knew—well he knew—what that
meant to them.
Then to break the tension he unstrapped his trunk and brought out what
he had for the others. As he handed his brothers and sisters each his
present there was an excited cry of joy and amazement, but through
all the confusion he saw always that slip of a girl in the rear who,
big-eyed, looked on as at a drama.
He kept his present for her until the last. When finally he stepped
to her side she could not believe her eyes. She undid the box with
trembling fingers and drew out and held up the pretty gold chain.
“This is for me?” she gasped.
“Let me put it round your neck,” he answered.
With her cheeks a deep crimson she allowed him to do as he wished and
he clasped it. His fingers brushed her warm skin and he found his
cheeks almost as hot as hers.
“There,” he concluded, “if you had been with me I couldn’t have
selected anything more your own.”
“It is beautiful,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
There was a mirror on the side of the wall.
“Come here and see how it looks.”
She obeyed. He stood behind her and in the mirror their eyes met. He
saw in them both wonder and admiration. It was very satisfying. It was
quite the most satisfying feature of his home-coming.
That evening, after all the children had gone to bed and a little later
father and mother had followed, he found himself sitting on the steps
with Marion by his side. Together they looked far across the level
country and at the stars above it—so very far above it. There he found
himself telling her the story of these last ten years—telling her
because she leaned forward tensely and listened as children listen to
a stirring tale of adventure. In contrast to the gray routine of her
own life his narrative was as colorful as a Turkish rug. She grew quite
breathless about it. So he covered the years up to the new developments
in his business. There he paused. He loved the telling of it. As he
rambled on she helped him to forget all the dull places and dramatized
for him all the joyful spots. But he was afraid at length that he was
tiring her.
“Go on,” she pleaded.
“I think you would like New York,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
In her voice there was something that made him feel he was talking of
ancient Bagdad.
“It’s a queer city,” he said. “Either it gets you by the throat and
crushes you back to the pavement or you get it by the throat and make
it give up the choice things of the world.”
“And you—you got it by the throat.”
“I have now,” he answered. “I wish you had been with me as I went up
and down Fifth Avenue before I came away. You would have known then.
And when I get back—”
He found himself telling her of the Arkwright house. Only he elaborated
still more upon it. He embellished it with a dozen new features he
thought of on the spur of the moment sitting there by her side, looking
over the prairie. She responded to them all with a little gasp.
“It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “It’s like magic.”
“When it’s done I want to have a house party and bring you all on to
see it,” he exclaimed grandly.
She laughed a little at that.
“I can’t believe I’ll ever do it,” she answered.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“I’ve gone on day by day so long that I can only think of day by day.”
“You’d like to get away from here?”
She rose. Her arms were tense by her side.
“That’s like asking if one would like to get out of prison,” she
answered.
In the deepening dusk of the night her plain gown became blurred. He
saw only her girlish figure, and as she lifted her face to the sky her
soft lips and cheeks. She was so slender and eager and responsive! Here
was one who would add fresh pleasures to all he had. Here was one whose
eyes would stay big day after day with the sights he could show her.
Here was one upon whom he could spend his money and receive his reward
in palpitating enthusiasm. Here was one who stood ahungered for all he
was in a position to give. She would make every dollar seem like ten.
By that much she would multiply his fortune by ten. That other—ah, here
was one who might make even that other envious.
She turned toward the house. He took her arm. Seized with a sudden
passion he spoke her name.
“Marion!”
She turned back, startled.
“Marion,” he cried, “come back with me! I want you with me to share all
these new things. By to-morrow or next day I’ll have to go. I thought I
should stay a month, but I want to get back. You’ll come with me?”
“You—you mean—”
“I want you to marry me. The next three weeks we’ll spend in New York
on our honeymoon. We’ll start on the house.”
“But, Mark—” she trembled.
He took her in his arms. He kissed her lips.
Breathless, like some captured bird, she felt her heart beat against
his.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE LAST ACT
It was at least a novelty for Joan to find it impossible to get hold
of Dicky when the desire seized her to talk with him. Under ordinary
circumstances she would have found it humiliating to be forced to
accept excuse after excuse in response to her messages—excuses that
were none too adept. It began to seem almost as though he were
deliberately avoiding her. But even in that she blamed herself and
justified him. After all she deserved very little of him. In the hour
when he had needed her, she had turned away from him, and now in her
hour of need he was repaying her in kind.
For she did need him very much. Her mind was all topsy-turvy, and at
this moment he seemed to be the only one who could help her straighten
it out, because somehow her thoughts all revolved about him. She found
herself awakening in the morning to thoughts of him. Every day since
Devons had left had begun that way. Whether the sun was shining and the
world in tune with the singing of birds or whether the sky was dark
and the rain beating down, she felt that she must see Dicky in order
to get a fair start. It was as though her life were marking time for
him. There was no especial point in getting up, but neither was there
any especial point in lying in bed. Without him the forenoon had no
particular significance, neither had the afternoon and evening. It was
a frame of mind she would have found absurd in any one else.
Yet she was not the least bit ashamed of it in herself. Rather she
gloried in it. She accepted it in a way as a sort of purgatory.
And always she admitted with utter frankness her love for him. She