第23章

"Not for a while.A great many things have to be settled first.""What things?""Joe," she asked, earnestly, "do you think it's bad of me not to feel things I OUGHT to feel?""No.""Then I'm glad," she said, and something in the way she spoke made him start with pain, remembering the same words, spoken in the same tone, by another voice, the night before on the veranda."I'm glad, Joe, because I seemed all wrong to myself.Uncle Jonas died last night, and I haven't been able to get sorry.Perhaps it's because I've been so frightened about you, but I think not, for I wasn't sorry even before Colonel Flitcroft told me about you.""Jonas Tabor dead!" said Joe."Why, I saw him on the street yesterday!""Yes, and I saw him just before I came out on the porch where you were.He was there in the hall; he and Judge Pike had been having a long talk; they'd been in some speculations together, and it had all turned out well.It's very strange, but they say now that Uncle Jonas's heart was weak--he was an old man, you know, almost eighty,--and he'd been very anxious about his money.The Judge had persuaded him to risk it;and the shock of finding that he'd made a great deal suddenly--""I've heard he'd had that same shock before,"said Joe, "when he sold out to your father.""Yes, but this was different, grandfather says.

He told me it was in one of those big risky businesses that Judge Pike likes to go into.And last night it was all finished, the strain was over, and Uncle Jonas started home.His house is only a little way from the Pikes', you know; but he dropped down in the snow at his own gate, and some people who were going by saw him fall.He was dead before grandfather got there.""I can't be sorry," said Joe, slowly.

"Neither can I.That's the dreadful part of it!

They say he hadn't made a will, that though he was sharper than anybody else in the whole world about any other matter of business, that was the one thing he put off.And we're all the kin he had in the world, grandfather and I.And they say"--her voice sank to a whisper of excitement--"they say he was richer than anybody knew, and that this last business with Judge Pike, the very thing that killed him--something about grain--made him five times richer than before!"She put her hand on the boy's arm, and he let it remain there.Her eyes still sought his with a tremulous appeal.

"God bless you, Ariel!" he said."It's going to be a great thing for you.""Yes.Yes, it is." The tears came suddenly to her eyes."I was foolish last night, but there had been such a long time of WANTING things; and now--and now grandfather and I can go--""You're going, too!" Joe chuckled.

"It's heartless, I suppose, but I've settled it!

We're going--"

"_I_ know," he cried."You've told me a thousand times what HE'S said ten times a thousand.

You're going to Paris!"

"Paris! Yes, that's it.To Paris, where he can see at last how the great ones have painted,--where the others can show him! To Paris, where we can study together, where he can learn how to put the pictures he sees upon canvas, and where I--""Go on," Joe encouraged her."I want to hear you say it.You don't mean that you're going to study painting; you mean that you're going to learn how to make such fellows as Eugene ask you to dance.Go ahead and SAY it!""Yes--to learn how to DRESS!" she said.

Joe was silent for a moment.Then he rose and took the ragged overcoat from the back of his chair."Where's that muffler?" he asked.

She brought it from where she had placed it to dry, behind the stove.

"Joe," she said, huskily, "can't you wait till--""Till the estate is settled and you can coax your grandfather to--""No, no! But you could go with us.""To Paris?"

"He would take you as his secretary."

"Aha!" Joe's voice rang out gayly as he rose, refreshed by the coffee, toast, and warmth she had given him."You've been story-reading, Ariel, like Eugene! `Secretary'!""Please, Joe!""Where's my tin dinner-pail?" He found it himself upon the table where he had set it down.

"I'm going to earn a dishonest living," he went on."I have an engagement to take a freight at a water-tank that's a friend of mine, half a mile south of the yards.Thank God, I'm going to get away from Canaan!""Wait, Joe!" She caught at his sleeve."Iwant you to--"He had swung out of the room and was already at the front-door.She followed him closely.

"Good-bye, Ariel!"

"No, no! WAIT, Joe!"

He took her right hand in his own, and gave it a manly shake."It's all right," he said.

He threw open the door and stepped out, but she sought to detain him."Oh, have you GOT to go?" she cried.

"Don't you ever worry about me." He bent his head to the storm as he sprang down the steps, and snow-wreaths swirled between them.

He disappeared in a white whirlwind.

She stood for several minutes shivering in the doorway.Then it came to her that she would not know where to write to him.She ran down to the gate and through it.Already the blizzard had covered his footprints.