“No, only an old maid, Phineas,” she replied, softly. “Sometimes I think that old maids are like poets—born, not made.”
“But you’ve let ’em make you one,” he retorted. “It isn’t often I speak of it, Sylvena. You know that. It has been enough for me to walk the same streets with you and have a smile and a word of friendliness—-it’s enough most of the time. But my heart has been stirred to-day, and all the old feelings are on top. You have let that stingy old man——” he shook his fist at the Judge, who returned this salute with great spirit, “rob you of the best that a woman ought to have—and that’s a home and a good husband. Oh, I am not speaking of myself!” he cried, his colour coming and a sort of boyish embarrassment overwhelming him. “I don’t know how to say such things very well, but I didn’t mean myself. I never could wake ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ But if the prince himself had come along your father would have driven him away so that he could continue to monopolise your loyalty and devotion. The only reason he wants you to marry King Bradish is because he knows that Bradish will sit outside like a pup and wait until he opens the door.”
The Squire was thoroughly angry. The spectacle of the old man hobbling down the lawn and calling at them as though they were offending children exasperated him.
“Forgive me, Sylvena,” he choked, breaking in upon her pained and somewhat indignant protest. “But, being a Look, I am pretty much human. You can’t stop me from loving you. God knows I can’t stop myself. I’d like to be able to put out my hand and say to you ‘Sister!’ and look at you as you look at me, but I can’t do it!”
“From the time I was fifteen years old, Phineas,” she said wistfully, “I was mother to my mother!” A picture of the frail paralytic in her wheel chair rose before him. “I took her place in our home when she died—yes, before she died. It is a sacred promise that a girl makes to a mother, Phineas, when that mother, helpless as an infant, trusts her, believes her and goes smiling down into the grave, securely depending on that promise.”
The Judge was close upon them.
“I didn’t hardly expect you to marry me, Sylvena,” said the Squire, gazing gloomily at the old man.
“I’ve never dared to think much about marrying any one,” she said, her eyes straying to the caravan in its halo of dust. “Somehow, it hasn’t seemed to come right.”
“Some day there’ll be a man come along and you’ll know what it means to be willing to give up every other thing in this world and not be able to think about letting any one else step between you, and as it will have to be a mighty good man to make you feel that way, I’ll step up then and give you the best word I have, Sylvena, and perhaps I can begin to feel like a brother toward you. I’m generous enough to pray God that you may feel that way sometime.”
“No wonder you’re trying to beg off your brother, Phineas Look,” shrilled the Judge, interposing himself between them. He had caught a word of the Squire’s speech as he came up. “But you can’t do it! The law is going to take him. I’ll see that it does.” He whirled on his daughter. “Why do you stand here talking with this man when you know what he and his tribe are and how they have always treated us?”