University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII

Edith, glancing casually into the "ready-made" library, stopped abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read it:

"Bibbs!" Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her coat.

Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed by the poem. "Pretty young, isn't it?" he said. "There must have been something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe the poem did it."

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a low voice: "I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all, Bibbs. I'd like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn't want them to frame it, and I wish to goodness papa'd quit talking about it; but here, that night, after the dinner, didn't he go and read it aloud to the whole crowd of 'em! And then they all wanted to know what other poems I'd written and why I didn't keep it up and write some more, and if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this and why that, till I thought I'd die of shame!"

"You could tell 'em you had writer's cramp," Bibbs suggested.

"I couldn't tell 'em anything! I just choke with mortification every time anybody speaks of the thing."

Bibbs looked grieved. "The poem isn't that bad, Edith. You see, you were only seventeen when you wrote it."

"Oh, hush up!" she snapped. "I wish it had burnt my fingers the first time I touched it. Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where it was. I had no business to take it, and I've been ashamed—"

"No, no," he said, comfortingly. "It was the very most flattering thing ever happen to me. It was almost my last flight before I went to the machine-shop, and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to—"

"But I don't like it!" she exclaimed. "I don't even understand it—and papa made so much fuss over its getting the prize, I just hate it! The truth is I never dreamed it 'd get the prize."

"Maybe they expected father to endow the school," Bibbs murmmered.

"Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a line! I hate poetry, anyhow; and Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how I 'keep my heart among the stars.' He makes it seem such a mushy kind of thing, the way he says it. I hate it!"

"You'll have to live it down, Edith. Perhaps abroad and under another name you might find—"

"Oh, hush up! I'll hire some one to steal it and burn it the first chance I get." She turned away petulantly, moving to the door. "I'd like to think I could hope to hear the last of it before I die!"

"Edith!" he called, as she went into the hall.

"What's the matter?"

"I want to ask you: Do I really look better, or have you just got used to me?"

"What on earth do you mean?" she said, coming back as far as the threshold.

"When I first came you couldn't look at me," Bibbs explained, in his impersonal way. "But I've noticed you look at me lately. I wondered if I'd—"

"It's because you look so much better," she told him, cheerfully. "This month you've been here's done you no end of good. It's the change."

"Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium—the change."

"You look worse than 'most anybody I ever saw," said Edith, with supreme candor. "But I don't know much about it. I've never seen a corpse in my life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you mustn't judge by me. I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say. But you're right about my not being able to look at you at first. You had a kind of whiteness that—Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose, but you've got more just ordinarily pale; not that ghastly look. Anybody could look at you now, Bibbs, and no—not get—"

"Sick?"

"Well—almost that!" she laughed. "And you're getting a better color every day, Bibbs; you really are. You're getting along splendidly."

"I—I'm afraid so," he said, ruefully.

"'Afraid so'! Well, if you aren't the queerest! I suppose you mean father might send you back to the machine-shop if you get well enough. I heard him say something about it the night of the—" The jingle of a distant bell interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch. "Bobby Lamhorn! I'm going to motor him out to look at a place in the country. Afternoon, Bibbs!"

When she had gone, Bibbs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf, his eye wandering among the titles of the books. The library consisted almost entirely of handsome "uniform editions": Irving, Poe, Cooper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott, Thackeray, Dickens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Tasso. There were shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of "famous classics," of "Oriental masterpieces," of "masterpieces of oratory," and more shelves of "selected libraries" of "literature," of "the drama," and of "modern science." They made an effective decoration for the room, all these big, expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace; but Bibbs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them considered them a relief, and that white-jacket considered them a burden of dust, and that nobody else considered them at all. Himself, he disturbed not one.

There came a chime of bells from a clock in another part of the house, and white-jacket appeared beamingly in the doorway, bearing furs. "Awready, Mist' Bibbs," he announced. "You' ma say wrap up wawm f' you' ride, an' she cain' go with you to-day, an' not f'git go see you' pa at fo' 'clock. Aw ready, suh."

He equipped Bibbs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded; and in the manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way. In the hall they passed the Moor, and Bibbs paused before it while white-jacket opened the door with a flourish and waved condescendingly to the chauffeur in the car which stood waiting in the driveway.

"It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this 'statue' when I first came home, George," said Bibbs, thoughtfully. "What did you tell me?"

"Yessuh!" George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for some unknown reason Bibbs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the Moor. "You ast me when you firs' come home, an' you ast me nex' day, an' mighty near ev'y day all time you been here; an' las' Sunday you ast me twicet." He shook his head solemnly. "Look to me mus' be somep'm might lamidal 'bout 'at statue!"

"Mighty what?"

"Mighty lamidal!" George, burst out laughing. "Whatdo 'at word mean, Mist' Bibbs?"

"It's new to me, George. Where did you hear it?"

"I nev' did hear it!" said George. "I uz dess sittin' thinkum to myse'f an' she pop in my head—'lamidal,' dess like 'at! An' she soun' so good, seem like she gotta mean somep'm!"

"Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something. Why, yes—"

"Do she?" cried George. "What she mean?"

"It's exactly the word for the statue," said Bibbs, with conviction, as he climbed into the car. "It's a lamidal statue."

"Hiyi!" George exulted. "Man! Man! Listen! Well, suh, she mighty lamidal statue, but lamidal statue heap o' trouble to dus'!" "I expect she is!" said Bibbs, as the engine began to churn; and a moment later he was swept from sight.

George turned to Mist' Jackson, who had been listening benevolently in the hallway. "Same he aw-ways say, Mist' Jackson—'I expec' she is!' Ev'y day he try t' git me talk 'bout 'at lamidal statue, an' aw-ways, las' thing he say, 'I expec' she is!' You know, Mist' Jackson, if he git well, 'at young man go' be pride o' the family, Mist' Jackson. Yes-suh, right now I pick 'im fo' firs' money!"

"Look out with all 'at money, George!" Jackson warned the enthusiast. "White folks 'n 'is house know 'im heap longer 'n you. You the on'y man bettin' on 'im!"

"I risk it!" cried George, merrily. "I put her all on now—ev'y cent! 'At boy's go' be flower o' the flock!"

This singular prophecy, founded somewhat recklessly upon gratitude for the meaning of "lamidal," differed radically from another prediction concerning Bibbs, set forth for the benefit of a fair auditor some twenty minutes later.

Jim Sheridan, skirting the edges of the town with Mary Vertrees beside him, in his own swift machine, encountered the invalid upon the highroad. The two cars were going in opposite directions, and the occupants of Jim's had only a swaying glimpse of Bibbs sitting alone on the back seat—his white face startlingly white against cap and collar of black fur—but he flashed into recognition as Mary bowed to him.

Jim waved his left hand carelessly. "It's Bibbs, taking his constitutional," he explained.

"Yes, I know," said Mary. "I bowed to him, too, though I've never met him. In fact, I've only seen him once—no, twice. I hope he won't think I'm very bold, bowing to him."

"I doubt if he noticed it," said honest Jim.

"Oh, no!" she cried.

"What's the trouble?"

"I'm almost sure people notice it when I bow to them."

"Oh, I see!" said Jim. "Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibbs is funny."

"Is he? How?" she asked. "He strikes me as anything but funny."

"Well, I'm his brother," Jim said, deprecatingly, "but I don't know what he's like, and, to tell the truth, I've never felt exactly like I was his brother, the way I do Roscoe. Bibbs never did seem more than half alive to me. Of course Roscoe and I are older, and when we were boys we were too big to play with him, but he never played anyway, with boys his own age. He'd rather just sit in the house and mope around by himself. Nobody could ever get him todo anything; you can't get him to do anything now. He never had any life in him; and honestly, if he is my brother, I must say I believe Bibbs Sheridan is the laziest man God ever made! Father put him in the machine-shop over at the Pump Works—best thing in the world for him—and he was just plain no account. It made him sick! If he'd had the right kind of energy—the kind father's got, for instance, or Roscoe, either—why, it wouldn't made him sick. And suppose it was either of them—yes, or me, either—do you think any of us would have stopped if we were sick? Not much! I hate to say it, but Bibbs Sheridan 'll never amount to anything as long as he lives."

Mary looked thoughtful. "Is there any particular reason why he should?" she asked.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean that, do you? Don't you believe in a man's knowing how to earn his salt, no matter how much money his father's got? Hasn't the business of this world got to be carried on by everybody in it? Are we going to lay back on what we've got and see other fellows get ahead of us? If we've got big things already, isn't it every man's business to go ahead and make 'em bigger? Isn't it his duty? Don't we always want to get bigger and bigger?"

"Ye-es—I don't know. But I feel rather sorry for your brother. He looked so lonely—and sick."

"He's gettin' better every day," Jim said. "Dr. Gurney says so. There's nothing much the matter with him, really—it's nine-tenths imaginary. 'Nerves'! People that are willing to be busy don't have nervous diseases, because they don't have time to imagine 'em."

"You mean his trouble is really mental?"

"Oh, he's not a lunatic," said Jim. "He's just queer. Sometimes he'll say something right bright, but half the time what he says is 'way off the subject, or else there isn't any sense to it at all. For instance, the other day I heard him talkin' to one of the darkies in the hall. The darky asked him what time he wanted the car for his drive, and anybody else in the world would have just said what time they did want it, and that would have been all there was to it; but here's what Bibbs says, and I heard him with my own ears. 'What time do I want the car?' he says. 'Well, now, that depends—that depends,' he says. He talks slow like that, you know. 'I'll tell you what time I want the car, George,' he says, 'if you'll tell me what you think of this statue!' That's exactly his words! Asked the darky what he thought of that Arab Edith and mother bought for the hall!"

Mary pondered upon this. "He might have been in fun, perhaps," she suggested.

"Askin' a darky what he thought of a piece of statuary—of a work of art! Where on earth would be the fun of that? No, you're just kind-hearted—and that's the way you OUGHT to be, of course—"

"Thank you, Mr. Sheridan!" she laughed.

"See here!" he cried. "Isn't there any way for us to get over this Mister and Miss thing? A month's got thirty-one days in it; I've managed to be with you a part of pretty near all the thirty-one, and I think you know how I feel by this time—"

She looked panic-stricken immediately. "Oh, no," she protested, quickly. "No, I don't, and—"

"Yes, you do," he said, and his voice shook a little. "You couldn't help knowing."

"But I do!" she denied, hurriedly. "I do help knowing. I mean—Oh, wait!"

"What for? You do know how I feel, and you—well, you've certainly wanted me to feel that way—or else pretended—"

"Now, now!" she lamented. "You're spoiling such a cheerful afternoon!"

"'Spoilin' it!'" He slowed down the car and turned his face to her squarely. "See here, Miss Vertrees, haven't you—"

"Stop! Stop the car a minute." And when he had complied she faced him as squarely as he evidently desired her to face him. "Listen. I don't want you to go on, to-day."

"Why not?" he asked, sharply.

"I don't know."

"You mean it's just a whim?"

"I don't know," she repeated. Her voice was low and troubled and honest, and she kept her clear eyes upon his.

"Will you tell me something?"

"Almost anything."

"Have you ever told any man you loved him?"

And at that, though she laughed, she looked a little contemptuous. "No," she said. "And I don't think I ever shall tell any man that—or ever know what it means. I'm in earnest, Mr. Sheridan."

"Then you—you've just been flirting with me!" Poor Jim looked both furious and crestfallen.

"Not on bit!" she cried. "Not one word! Not one syllable! I've meant every single thing!"

"I don't—"

"Of course you don't!" she said. "Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start the car. Now! Thank you. Slowly, till I finish what I have to say. I have not flirted with you. I have deliberately courted you. One thing more, and then I want you to take me straight home, talking about the weather all the way. I said that I do not believe I shall ever 'care' for any man, and that is true. I doubt the existence of the kind of 'caring' we hear about in poems and plays and novels. I think it must be just a kind of emotional talk— most of it. At all events, I don't feel it. Now, we can go faster, please."

"Just where does that let me out?" he demanded. "How does that excuse you for—"

"It isn't an excuse," she said, gently, and gave him one final look, wholly desolate. "I haven't said I should never marry."

"What?" Jim gasped.

`She inclined her head in a broken sort of acquiescence, very humble, unfathomably sorrowful.

"I promise nothing," she said, faintly.

"You needn't!" shouted Jim, radiant and exultant. "You needn't! By George! I know you're square; that's enough for me! You wait and promise whenever you're ready!"

"Don't forget what I asked," she begged him.

"Talk about the weather? I will! God bless the old weather!" cried the happy Jim.