The paternal, almost bewildering familiar cordiality with which he had greeted her and the pompously jovial urgency of the invitation which he had come to deliver in person, urging acceptance upon her because she “saw entirely too little of the young folks of the town,” was hardly in accord with the childish recollection she had carried with her, year after year, of a purple faced, cursing figure who leaned over the rickety old fence that bounded the garden, shook his fists in John Anderson’s mildly puzzled face and roared threats until he had to cease from very breathlessness.
A far different Judge had bowed low before her that afternoon when she answered the measured summons at the door––a sleek, twinkling, unctuously solicitous, far more portly Judge Maynard––and Dryad Anderson, who could not know that he had finally 44 come to agree with the rest of the village that he might “catch more flies with molasses than with vinegar,” and was ordering his campaign accordingly, flushed in painful memory for the half-clad, half-starved little creature that had clung to John Anderson’s rusty coat-tails that other day and glared black, bitter hate back at the man beyond the fence.
Leaning against the table there in the half light of the room, a slow smile curled back the corners of her lips, still childishly quizzical in contrast with that slim roundness of body which was losing its boyish litheness in a new slender fullness that throbbed on the threshold of womanhood. She smiled deprecatingly as she lifted one hand to search in the breast of the blouse that was always just enough outgrown to fail of closing across her throat, and drew out the thing which the Judge had delivered with every possible flourish, barely a few hours back.
Already the envelope was creased and worn with much handling, but the square card within, thickly, creamily white, was still unspotted. As if it were a perishably precious thing her fingers drew it with infinite care from its covering, and she leaned far across the table to prop it up before her where the light fell brightest. Pointed chin cupped in her palms, she lay devouring with hungry eyes the words upon its polished surface.
“––– requests the pleasure of,” she picked 45 up the lines which she already knew by rote; and then, “Miss Dryad Anderson’s company,” in the heavy sprawling scrawl which she knew must have come from the Judge’s own pen.
Suddenly her two hands flashed out and swept the card up to crush it against her with passionate impetuosity.
“Oh, you wonderful thing!” she crooned over it, a low laugh that was half a sob bubbling in her throat. “You wonderful thing! And to think that I’ve had you all the afternoon––almost all day––and he’s had to wait all this time for his to come. He’s had to wait for Jerry to bring his with the mail––and Jerry is so dreadfully slow at times.”
Lingeringly, as though she hated to hide it, her fingers thrust the card back inside its envelope. And she was tucking it away in its warm hiding place within the scant fullness of the white blouse when the clock on the wall behind her began to beat out the hour with a noisy whir of loosened cogs.
“Hours and hours,” she murmured, counting the strokes subconsciously.
And then as the growing total of those gong strokes beat in upon her brain, all the dreamy preoccupation faded from her face. The little compassionate smile which had accompanied the last words disappeared before the swift, taut change that straightened her lips. She whirled, peering from 46 startled eyes up at the dim old dial, refusing to believe her own count; and as she stood, body tensely poised, gazing incredulously at the hands, she realized for the first time how fast the hours had flown while she bent, forgetful of all else, over her paper patterns.