The hope which was carrying Mr. Opp to the dizziest heights dropped to earth at this unexpected shaft, and for a moment he was too stunned to speak.
“Kippy?” he began at last, and his voice softened at the name. “Why, you [p223] don’t understand about her. She’s just similar to a little child. I told Miss Guin-never all about her; she never made any objections. You—you—wouldn’t ask me to make any promises along that line?” Abject entreaty shone from Mr. Opp’s eyes; it was a plea for a change of sentence. She had asked of him the only sacrifice in the world at which he would have faltered. “Don’t—don’t put it like that!” he pleaded, laying his hand on her arm in his earnestness. “I’m all she’s got in the world; I’ve kind of become familiar with her ways, you know, and can manage her. She’ll love Miss Guin-never if I tell her to. She shan’t be a bit of care or trouble; I and Aunt Tish will continue on doing everything for her. You won’t refuse your consent on that account, will you? You’ll promise to say yes, now won’t you, Mrs. Gusty?”
A slight and ominous cough in the doorway caused them both to start. Mr. Tucker, in widower’s weeds, but with a jonquil jauntily thrust through his buttonhole, [p224] stood with his hand still on the knob, evidently transfixed by the scene he had witnessed.
For a moment the company was enveloped in a fog of such dense embarrassment that all conversation was suspended. Mrs. Gusty was the first to emerge.
“Howdy, Mr. Tucker,” she said, rustling forward in welcome. “I didn’t think you’d get here before five. Mr. Opp just dropped in to consult me about—about boarding a friend of his. Won’t you draw up to the fire?”
Mr. Tucker edged forward with a suspicious eye turned upon Mr. Opp, who was nervously searching about for his hat.
“There it is, by the door,” said Mrs. Gusty, eager to speed his departure; and as they both reached for it, the picture upon which it hung toppled forward and fell, face upward, on the floor. It was the portrait of Mr. Tucker mourning under the willow-tree which Miss Jim had left with Mrs. Gusty for safe-keeping.
[p225]
Mr. Opp went home across the fields that evening instead of through the town. He was not quite up to any of his rôles—editor, promoter, or reformer. In fact, he felt a desperate need of a brief respite from all histrionic duties. A reaction had set in from the excitement of the past week, and the complication involved in Mrs. Gusty’s condition puzzled and distressed him. Of course, he assured himself repeatedly, there was a way out of the difficulty; but he was not able to find it just yet. He had observed that Mrs. Gusty’s opinions became fixed convictions under the slightest opposition, whereas Guinevere’s firmest decision trembled at a breath of disapproval. He sighed deeply as he meditated upon the vagaries of the feminine mind.
Overhead the bare trees lifted a network of twigs against a dull sky, a cold wind stirred the sedge grass, and fluttered the dry leaves that had lain all winter in the fence corners. Everything looked old and worn and gray, even Mr. Opp, as he leaned against a gaunt, white [p226] sycamore, his head bent, and his brows drawn, wrestling with his problem.
Suddenly he lifted his head and listened, then he smiled. In the tree above him a soft but animated conversation was in progress. A few daring birds had braved the cold and the wind, and had ventured back to their old trysting-place to wait for the coming of the spring. No hint of green had tinged the earth, but a few, tiny, pink maple-buds had given the secret away, and the birds were cuddled snugly together, planning, in an ecstasy of subdued enthusiasm, for the joyous days to come.