CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. I LISTEN TO MY FOREBEARS
Helen had come home. She preferred living with mother and myself, rather than opening up Jim's house, which she had been told belonged to her. Yes, her memory of past events was still gone, and each night I sat with her and repeated bits here and there of the experiences through which she had lived. Every now and then a thought would come to her and she would be able to fill in parts of the narrative, but this was seldom. In a way, it was fortunate, for I was able to leave out all the sordid details of her past and give her only the recollections worth keeping. As soon as she is quite strong, Doctor Forbes is going to reconstruct the tragedy for her, and he says he has every reason to believe that he will be successful in restoring her memory. In the meantime, she is entirely happy and content, and more beautiful than ever.
Mary had not spoken to me for a month. Somehow we could not get together. I realized how hasty and peremptory I had been in commanding her not to go with Woods, and I tried in a thousand different ways to make her realize that I was sorry. Whenever I found we were to be invited to the same dance or supper party, I lay awake half the night before, planning how I would approach her; what she would say and what I would say. It was a delightful game to play, because I always came out the victor. I made her say and do just the things that would make a reconciliation easy, but when we actually met, it was vastly different.
We were both invited to the Rupert-Smiths' ball, and I made up my mind that before the evening was over, I would be back in her good graces, on the same old footing. As much as I hated being treated like a younger brother, it was far better than being treated like a stepchild.
As soon as I saw her come into the ballroom, I hurried toward her, but at that moment the orchestra began a fox-trot and she whirled away in the arms of young Davis, smiling into his face as though she adored him. Davis holds a girl so tightly that it is actually indecent, but she seemed to enjoy it.
I was by her side, almost before the music stopped, but she turned away without looking in ray direction and, literally hanging on Davis' arm, made her way from the ballroom. I finally caught her alone while she was waiting for some yokel to get her a glass of punch.
"Mary, may I have a dance?" I blurted out.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Thompson, but my program is full," she answered sweetly—too sweetly. "But there aren't any programs," I insisted. "Nor have I any dances left," she countered. "Mary, I'm awfully sorry—" "Oh! There you are, Mr. Steel," she laughed over my shoulder, "I almost thought you had forgotten me." I fled, leaving that ass, Steel, cooing the most puerile rot about how he couldn't forget her and so forth. I called up Anne McClintock before the McClintock dinner and begged her as my guardian angel to put me next to Mary. She agreed on condition that she could put that Sterns woman, the parlor Bolshevic, on the other side of me. I consented, and through the entire dinner, Mary talked to old Grandfather McClintock about the labor disputes although she doesn't know the difference between a strike-out and a lock-out. She actually seemed perfectly contented to shout into that old man's ear all evening, though I did everything to get her attention except spill my plate in her lap. Afterward I heard her telling that Sterns woman what a charming couple we'd make. I tried to call on Mary twice and both times she was out—to me.
Finally people began to see that there was a serious difference between us and they avoided inviting us to small parties together, so that I saw her at only the largest, most formal and most stupid functions.
I had told Helen one day that I would be late to dinner on account of an important case. About three o'clock in the afternoon, however, I found that a certain book I needed was at the house, so I jumped into the car and went up after it. Mary's electric was out in front. For a moment I contemplated flight, Mary so obviously disliked me, but being determined that no girl in the world could keep me from going where I pleased, I trotted up the steps.
The door opened just as I reached the porch, and disclosed Mary hastily saying "Good-by" to Helen. The sight of her leaving, so as to avoid meeting me, angered me and some piratical old forebear of mine came down from above or came up from below at that moment and perched on my right shoulder.
"Treat 'em rough!" he whispered.
I hurried over to the door, walked in and slammed it after me.
Helen laughed and said: "Warren, dear, aren't you getting noisy?" "Helen," I said, "will you please go into the other room?" "Helen, stay here!" Mary ordered.
"I shall do neither the one nor the other. I shall go up-stairs." She turned to leave.
"If you go, Helen, I'll go with you," Mary announced. Another ancestral spook with dwarfed, hairy body and gorilla arms, climbed to my left shoulder, sat down on his hunkers and whispered in my ear: "Treat 'em rough!" "You're going to stay right here!" I commanded, grabbing her by the hand.
"Let go of my hand!" Mary demanded. "I am not going to stay here." The sight of her sweet indignant face made my heart jump to my throat. Helen laughed and went up-stairs.
"Mary—" I began, my voice softening. My ancient forebears made wry faces at each other and hopped down from my shoulders.
"He's a fool!" announced the cave man.
"I'll say he is," answered the pirate. "I'm not going to stay here a minute longer. Will you please get out of my way?" Mary said coldly.
"No, I won't!" I yelled. "I've had about enough of this, Mary. You think you can dangle me on the end of a string, like a damned jumping- jack, until you see fit to let me have a little rest." My guiding ancestors hopped back on my shoulders.
"That's the stuff to give 'em!" yelled Hunkers.
"Treat 'em rough!" shouted Captain Kidd.
"You know I was right when I objected to your going with Frank Woods. It wasn't a friendly thing to do, after the way he messed up things in my family." "Well, if you hadn't been so dictatorial—" "Why shouldn't I be dictatorial?" I shouted, while my ancestors held their sides with laughter, "and this being my house I'm going to talk as loud as I please. If the girl I love, as no man ever loved a girl before, tries to go out with a man I think is wholly unworthy of her, why shouldn't I object? I'll do it again. I want you and I'm to have you, if I've got to fight for you. Even if I have to fight you for you." Suddenly Mary buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.
"Don't cry, Mary! I know I've—" "I'm not crying, I—I'm laughing," she gurgled, dropping into a chair. "Bupps, you do look so funny when you get excited." I went over to her and made her make room for me on her chair, and then I put my arms around her.
"Mary, lover-darling, why did you go out with Frank Woods that day?" "Why, Bupps, I was hunting the same proof that you were. I felt all along that Frank was guilty." "I'm a brute!" "You're a foolish boy," she said, twisting one of my few locks of hair. She snuggled closer.
"Dearest of dearests, when are you going to stop teasing me?" I asked.
"Never, Buppkins!" she replied. "I just discovered that it brings out your strong points." "Do you remember what you said when I tried to ask you to marry me?" I whispered. She shook her head.
"You told me to wait until Helen was well." "You know, Bupps—the first thing I said to Helen this—this afternoon was—" "What?" "'How—how well you're looking.'" With her face so close to mine and those lovely lips smiling at me so invitingly, there was only one thing to do, so I did it.
"The kid's got the stuff in him after all," said Hunkers. "I'll say he has," agreed Captain Kidd. THE END
