“I want to thank you very much for your kindness,” he began, hugging his banjo rather nervously. “We’ve all done our best,—I’m sure you know that,—and your kind encouragement has helped some of us to do better than our best. I expect some of you are a little surprised to see me here to-night in this position,—perhaps even a little shocked—so I should just like to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it. Some people think a parson doesn’t enjoy making a fool of himself anywhere but in his own pulpit, but it isn’t true. ‘’Nother night we’ll all be dead,’ and perhaps even a parson will be glad then that he had a last dance. In any case, this parson is proud and happy to have had a chance of serving Miss Verity Cantacute. You none of you need telling what Miss Verity does for Cantacute; it’s before you every day, speaking for itself. A gentleman of my acquaintance—and of hers—said to me the other night just this—gave me this very pithy and definite summing-up. ‘Miss Verity,’ he told me, ‘is top-dog here in Cantacute!’ That was his tribute to her—‘Miss Verity is top-dog in Cantacute.’ Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to subscribe to that tribute. In kindness, in charm, in sweetness and sympathy, in our affection, our admiration and our respect, Miss Verity is indeed top-dog in Cantacute!”
He stepped back, and Larry grinned delightedly, stumbling to his feet at the call of the National Anthem.
“If that doesn’t send my little girl scootin’ Arevar way,” he told himself gleefully, “all the Larry Lyndesays in the world will never do it!”
CHAPTER XVII
They were left alone on the empty stage—Verity and her champion at need, shut in by the thick curtain from the ebbing crowd beyond. She had closed the piano, but she still sat beside it, looking at the polished lid, while he stared tensely at the heavy drapery, afraid to stay and yet unable to leave her. When she began to speak, he turned quickly and took a step towards her. She was still looking at the lid, running a finger along the bevelled edge.
“Will you tell me why you did it?” she asked in a low and unemotional tone; but he did not answer—only stood in the middle of the stage, looking at her very intently and very tenderly. If she had raised her eyes at that moment, she would not have needed to repeat her question.
“You won,” she went on, in the same curiously flat voice. “You were right and I was wrong. I should have thought you would be glad to see my concert spoilt—to hear me blamed on Billy’s account. You need not have saved me. Why did you do it?”
“You can’t really think that I should have been glad to hear you blamed,” he answered gently. “You don’t know much about me but you know a little. You can’t think that!”
“It would have been natural. It is true that I have set myself against you ever since you came to Cantacute. I was afraid of your influence. I was afraid that the people would learn to think more of you than they did of me. I meant to keep them at all costs; and the cost was——”
“Billy-boy Blackburn’s soul!” he finished for her, and there was silence. Then—“You didn’t understand,” he added presently, searching pityingly for excuse.