The Bad Man. Porter Emerson Browne
to hypnotize her. And she was not the only woman who had fallen beneath his spell. But now, apparently, he did not see her.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Pell," said old Smith to the newcomer.
"How are you?" the latter answered, with no show of interest.
"Have a good nap?" Gilbert inquired; but he really didn't care at all. Pell, however, took his question seriously.
"Couldn't sleep a wink," he said. "This cursed heat, you know. Glad I don't have to live in this part of the world all the time."
Uncle Henry leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes followed Pell expectantly as the latter moved across the low room, a small satchel in his hands. "You ain't leaving, are you?" he asked.
"No," was the laconic reply.
"I was afraid you wasn't," ventured Uncle Henry; and there was an awkward pause. Then, "It's pretty hot," the invalid remarked, delighted that no one had called him to account for his obvious insult. He knew he had all the advantage of a weak woman. His little throne was immune from attack.
"It's always pretty hot till night—then it's pretty cold," Pell said.
"What've you got that bag for?" Uncle Henry pursued. No one was ever more frankly curious than Uncle Henry.
"Company, my dear sir," Pell quickly retorted, not a little annoyed at the question; and he glared at the old man. He had had two days of him, and was getting used to him. Lucia, who had remained silent by the door, saw the cloud on her husband's face, and gave a little, startled "Oh!" It was hardly more than a whisper, but Pell was swift to catch it. He turned on her, and took in her radiant figure.
"So there you are!" he half sneered. "Been riding?"
"Yes; just a little canter."
"Alone?" Pell followed up.
"Yes; why?"
"Oh, nothing—nothing at all." There was a nasal tone in his voice always—a twang that grated on sensitive ears. He turned on Gilbert. "How about dinner?" he asked, almost as though the young fellow were a hotel clerk.
"It isn't ready yet," Jones answered. He disliked the other's tone. After all, he was a guest in his, Gilbert's, house. He hoped their wretched business would soon be settled, and Pell return to New York. He had had his fill of him.
Pell, seemingly oblivious of the bad impression he had made, started toward the door. He had not put the bag down. "Well, call me when dinner is ready, will you? I won't be far away."
"Where are you going?" Lucia ventured.
"Out," was Pell's curt reply; and he almost knocked Uncle Henry's chair aside as he hurried into the yard.
There was an awkward silence at his departure. Everyone felt a little ashamed for him; but Gilbert was determined that Lucia should not read his thoughts. So he said, nonchalantly, "Well, Lucia, how did the pony behave?" just as though Pell had never been in the room.
"Splendidly!" the young wife replied, glad that the atmosphere was cleared once more. "Oh, Gil, it's wonderful here—nothing but sky and the golden desert! What a miracle place!"
"You like it here?" Jones asked, knowing that she did. She had told him so every hour of her visit.
Lucia gave him a rapt look. "Like it, Gil? Um! I love it!" She clasped her hands to her breast; and Jones thought she had never looked lovelier, more desirable. How pink her cheeks were! Yet underneath her beauty there was a wistful sadness. Anyone could see that she was not happy.
"You really love it?" Uncle Henry asked, as though he could not believe he had heard what she said.
Lucia had forgotten his presence for a moment. Now she turned to him and smiled. "Of course. Don't you?"
"It makes me sick!" was the unexpected reply.
Lucia was horrified; and she looked from Smith to Gilbert in utter confusion. "Why, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed.
"Beautiful!" Uncle Henry went on, repeating the word in derision. "What's beautiful about it? That's what I'd like to know."
"The desert," Lucia answered.
"A lot of gol darn sand!" the invalid whined.
"The sky, then!" Lucia affirmed.
But Uncle Henry merely repeated "The sky!" in whole-hearted disgust.
Lucia refused to be downed. "But think of the glorious colors—blue and gold and purple!"
"And no grass nor nothin'," the invalid retorted. "Not even a place to go fishin'. And you call it beau—Say, was you ever in Bangor?"
Gilbert roared with laughter; but Lucia took the old boy seriously. "Bangor?" she repeated, wonderingly.
"Yes. Bangor, Maine. Now there's a place as is beau—Take the town hall, for instance. And the Soldiers' Monument. And the cemetery. They got the swellest cemetery in Bangor you ever—." Gilbert was almost doubling up with laughter; but Uncle Henry went right on: "As for this gol darn place, I wish it was in—An' it wouldn't have fur to go, neither!" he added, emphatically, smiling at his own humor. "I wisht I was back in Maine! There's where I was always so happy!"
By this time Lucia was smiling too. She went over and shook her finger gently in the invalid's face. "You're cross just because you're hungry!"
"I ain't neither!" Smith replied, like a little boy.
"Yes, you are!" Lucia kept on.
"I ain't!"
"Uh, uh!" she teased him, as though she were playing with a baby.
Smith grew peevish. "Gol darn it, I tell you I ain't!" And he gave his chair a rapid twirl.
"Boo!" came from Lucia softly. She laughed, and ran up the tiny stone stairs that led to her room.
"Boo, yourself!" called out Uncle Henry, determined to have the last word, as Lucia disappeared. Then he turned querulously on his nephew, as soon as he was certain she was out of hearing. "Why did you ever invite 'em to stay here in the first place?" he wanted to know. The sound of "Red's" harmonica was heard outside.
"Because there was no decent hotel anywhere near. I couldn't do less than offer them what little hospitality I had, could I, when Sturgis suggested it?"
But his uncle didn't agree with him at all. "You could have done a whole lot less," he decided. "You could have invited 'em to keep on going. Comin' here at a time like this, and not only eatin' us out of house and home, but drinkin' up the last bottle of liquor in the world!" This seemed to him the culminating tragedy. When his nephew said nothing at all, he asked, petulantly, "Well, what are you going to do? That's what I want to know."
"What can I do?"
"Do you mean to say you're going to set here and get throwed out into the street and not even try to do something?"
Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, of all the—" his Uncle Henry went on. "It's a darn good thing for you that I'm an invalid! That's all I got to say!" He wheeled about, and aimed at the door that led to the open air. At that instant "Red" Giddings, the husky young foreman, appeared directly in his path, his shock of fiery hair like an aureole about his head. "Git out o' my way!" Uncle Henry yelled. "Gol darn the gol darn luck, anyhow!"
And through years of practice he shot into the yard as straight as an arrow.
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