"I can't advise at all; it just ain't for me to do that. You are honorin' us by stoppin' in our midst. What I want you to do is to be on the lookout, an' if things start wrong, anywhere—school or church or with your friends, the Macphersons, for instance, as they might—just run down old Stellar before you go to guessin', or misunderstandin', and if you can't do it alone"—Ponk smote his broad bosom dramatically—"I'm here to help. That leads me to the thirdly of my triplet purpose in askin' the pleasure of your company."
Jerry looked up with a smile. The little man was so thoroughly good, and yet so impossible. York Macpherson seemed head and shoulders above any other man she had ever known in her life—except her father. In fact, he seemed like a sort of father to her—and Joe Thomson. That was just a shadow across her consciousness, for all these men belonged here and at heart were not of her world.
"Miss Swaim, will you let me, without no recompense, be a friend at court whenever you need my help? You seem to me like a sort of female Robinson Crusoe cast away on the desert island of the Sage Brush country in Kansas. Let me be your Man Friday. I'd like to be your Saturday and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. York Macpherson would come lopin' in to claim Thursday, I reckon."
The sincerity of the fat little man offset the pompous ridiculousness of his speech.
"If I seem cuttin' into the Macpherson melon-patch it's because I got on to some of Stellar Bahrr's gossip that set me thinkin'. She's up to turnin' Miss Laury against you because of York's admiring you so much."
Jerry grasped the situation now. The hotel-keeper was not only wishing to befriend and shield her—he thought he was in love with her. And he thought that York Macpherson was also in love. Was he? The girl's mind worked rapidly. Little as she cared for the opinion of New-Edenites, outside of these three good friends, she realized that these same New-Edenites were interested in her and dared to discuss her affairs; and that if she stayed here, as she meant to do, she must meet them and be, in a way, of them. How much of this newly discovered admiration which her companion evidently felt, and which he felt sure York Macpherson possessed, might be really the outgrowth of pity for her in the new position in which she found herself? And there was Laura. Stellar Bahrr had hinted about her being neglected by her brother for other women. Whatever might be the real motive, Jerry and love had parted company on the day that Eugene Wellington's letter had come telling of his renunciation of his art for an easy clerkship. But Laura didn't know that, and she might have heard the town-meddler—Oh, bother Stellar and all her works! Jerry Swaim would have none of them. And Laura was such a sweet, companionable, refined friend. This thing must be overcome in some way.
"Tell me, Mr. Ponk, why do the New Eden people listen to a sharp-tongued trouble-maker, since they know her power?" Jerry asked, after a pause.
"Why? 'Cause they enjoy it when 'tain't about them—all of us do that, bein' human. Are you right sure you wouldn't believe her yourself, much as you despised any story of hers you'd be forced to listen to? Well as I know her, I have to keep pinchin' my right arm to see if it's got nerve enough to strike back if I'm hit, you might say."
On Jerry's cheeks the bloom deepened. She had let a word of Mrs. Bahrr's set her to wondering about both her host and hostess.
"They's one more thing I want to say, the third reason for askin' you out this evenin'," Ponk went on, and the pompous manner fell from him somewhat in his earnestness. "I don't want you to leave Macpherson's home for anything, right now. They want you and—well, I hope you won't. Even at the loss of a boarder for myself at the hotel and gurrage I hope you won't. But if some time—if it was ever possible you'd find a need for me more 'n what we spoke of—I ain't no show. I'm clear below your society back East, but, if you ever needed a real, devoted, honest man who tried to be a Christian—"