"You are living in her house; I guess you know about them," ran on John's companion.
"Know about them—know what about them?" he demanded, all but fiercely.
"Huh!" ejaculated the girl. "Have you been so busy with your bricks and mortar that you haven't heard that they have been sweethearts since they were tiny tots? Why, even my mother and father always inquire, when I get home from a party, whether Joel and Tilly got together? You see, few folks sympathize with her hard-shell old daddy, and everybody loves Joel—everybody, man, woman, and child. And I know why. It is because he is so fine, noble, and constant. Some think—some few—that Tilly will give in to her father and drop Joel, but take it from me—and I'm a girl—she won't. She loves him—down deep she loves him, for no girl could help it. She wouldn't be a true woman if she went back on adoration like that. He is not handsome, but there is something in him too sweet and good to talk about. Once we all were arguing at Sunday-school whether anybody could actually forgive an enemy, and nearly all of us agreed that we couldn't but that Joel Eperson could. Wasn't that funny? When I talk to him I feel restful. If I was about to do a bad thing and he spoke to me, I'd throw it up. He did once, but never mind about that. It is too long to tell you now. But I'll always—always love him for what he did and said right while I was wavering."
John now saw that Joel had given Tilly his arm and was leading her across the grass to a rustic seat under an oak-tree. The circle of forms and faces became blurred to John's sight. There was much laughter, much darting to and fro across the ring, but John heard only the voice of the little analyst at his elbow.
"There they go for the second dose of soothing-syrup," she twittered. "Old man Whaley doesn't know which side his bread is buttered on. By trying to keep them apart he is only driving them together. 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,' and so does opposition. That pair is lapping up stolen sweets to-night."
CHAPTER XV
The game was breaking up. The couples were moving toward the house. John was desperate enough to have shaken the unconscious tantalizer now on his arm. He could think of nothing to say and didn't care what his companion thought about his inattention. He was wondering why Martha Jane Eperson had said what she had said, and why he had been so foolish as to believe it. Perhaps she had a motive. Perhaps it was sarcasm born in the knowledge of his presumption. For aught he knew, she might now be laughing over his credulity.
John was only a boy, and a crude one. Without excusing himself from his companion, he left her at the steps and abruptly stalked away. He had his choice of entering the crowded farm-house or sauntering about the grounds. Taking a cigar from his pocket, he struck a match on the door-step, lighted the cigar, and then turned toward the stables at one side of the house. Here among the horses and vehicles he stood reflecting gloomily, rebelliously. Across the lighted lawn he saw Joel and Tilly still on the bench. How close they seemed to sit, one against the other! The hot weight of rage again bore down on John's brain. He forgot to smoke. His cigar died in his inert fingers. Again he wanted to throttle his meek and placid rival. The man's sheer gentleness enraged him, for it was a quality he himself did not possess, and till now had denied. In the half-darkness he saw two young men come to a buggy not far from him, take from under the seat a flask, and heard them joking as they drank.
"I knew you had your arm around her, you sly dog!" one said, "and I held my horse in to give you a chance."