In the motor cars parked before the tall gate of the Poplars all of the guests embarked for their review of the beauties of Goodloets. Nickols remained behind them while the half sober but skillful Jefferson wrestled with a slight tire trouble of his slim blue racer. For a few minutes we were alone in the center of the wonderful garden, which had never seemed so lovely as upon the day in which it had fulfilled its own and Nickols' destiny.
"To-day has brought just what I have longed for, have worked for and waited for, the commission for the spending of millions of dollars to make a little corner of the earth beautiful. Not a bad religion, that," said Nickols, as he told me that Jeffries had spoken a few words of decided business to him as he had packed him into Mr. Cockrell's car with father and Mr. Goodloe. "We'll take a honeymoon wander on the other side, as far from the machine guns as possible, and then I'll come home to begin my masterpiece." And as Nickols spoke his wonderful eyes glowed as he looked out at Paradise Ridge as if he were gazing into a radiant future—perhaps he saw a city not made with hands and did not—recognize it. "I see it all," he said, and put his arm around me while we started down the front walk as Jefferson pressed the horn to signal the readiness of the tire.
"I'm too busy to go with you, but I'll meet you at Mrs. Sproul's," a sudden impulse made me say, for I had intended until that instant to accompany him.
"A man can't eat his bride and have a trousseau, too," he laughed, as he drove off rapidly, leaving me standing by the old gate watching him. Then I turned and slowly walked out into the garden and down to the old graybeards. And seated on one of the grass mats I found the reason I had unconsciously been drawn back. Martha was waiting for me there.
"Why, Martha," I exclaimed, startled without understanding just why. "I might have gone and not known you were waiting. Why didn't you come and tell me you were here?"
"I couldn't—I found I couldn't," she answered me, looking up into my face with her strange, sad eyes. "I—I suppose I just came to peep in on you like I did to the coming-out party." She laughed softly, with a note of self-scorn in her voice.
"Is anything the matter with—with Sonny?" I asked quickly, again unconsciously using the name for the Stray that her tenderness had given him. Her white face and desperate manner frightened me.
"No, he's dressed in one of Jimmy Morgan's old suits and he is going to be taken from me this afternoon forever," she answered with the note of bitterness deepening.
"But you want him to go to school, don't you, Martha?" I asked patiently, as I sat down on a mat beside her. I spoke to her as one speaks to the limited intelligence of a child and I was slightly impatient at her distress.
"He asked me yesterday why everybody called him Stray and if it did mean Stranger like Charlotte said, and if he would always be called that or have an everyday name like Jimmy. Soon he'll know and then I'll lose him as I'm losing everything else."