Passion of this kind, which in a less sincere society restricts its expression to innuendo or forced politeness, left the rustic Ira only dumb and lethargic.He moved slowly and abstractedly around the room, accenting his slight lameness more than ever, or dropped helplessly into a chair, where he sat, inanely conscious of the contiguity of his wife and the deputy, and stupidly expectant of--he knew not what.The atmosphere of the little house seemed to him charged with some unwholesome electricity.It kindled his wife's eyes, stimulating the deputy and his follower to coarse playfulness, enthralled his own limbs to the convulsive tightening of his fingers around the rungs of his chair.Yet he managed to cling to his idea of keeping his wife occupied, and of preventing any eyeshot between her and her guests, or the indulgence of dangerously flippant conversation, by ordering her to bring some refreshment."What's gone o' the whiskey bottle?" he said, after fumbling in the cupboard.
Mrs.Beasley did not blench.She only gave her head a slight toss.
"Ef you men can't get along with the coffee and flapjacks I'm going to give ye, made with my own hands, ye kin just toddle right along to the first bar, and order your tangle-foot there.Ef it's a barkeeper you're looking for, and not a lady, say so!"The novel audacity of this speech, and the fact that it suggested that preoccupation he hoped for, relieved Ira for a moment, while it enchanted the guests as a stroke of coquettish fascination.
Mrs.Beasley triumphantly disappeared in the kitchen, slipped off her cuffs and set to work, and in a few moments emerged with a tray bearing the cakes and steaming coffee.As neither she nor her husband ate anything (possibly owing to an equal preoccupation) the guests were obliged to confine their attentions to the repast before them.The sun, too, was already nearing the horizon, and although its nearly level beams acted like a powerful search-light over the stretching plain, twilight would soon put an end to the quest.Yet they lingered.Ira now foresaw a new difficulty: the cows were to be brought up and fodder taken from the barn; to do this he would be obliged to leave his wife and the deputy together.
I do not know if Mrs.Beasley divined his perplexity, but she carelessly offered to perform that evening function herself.Ira's heart leaped and sank again as the deputy gallantly proposed to assist her.But here rustic simplicity seemed to be equal to the occasion."Ef I propose to do Ira's work," said Mrs.Beasley, with provocative archness, "it's because I reckon he'll do more good helpin' you catch your man than you'll do helpin' ME! So clear out, both of ye!" A feminine audacity that recalled the deputy to himself, and left him no choice but to accept Ira's aid.I do not know whether Mrs.Beasley felt a pang of conscience as her husband arose gratefully and limped after the deputy; I only know that she stood looking at them from the door, smiling and triumphant.
Then she slipped out of the back door again, and ran swiftly to the barn, fastening on her clean cuffs and collar as she ran.The fugitive was anxiously awaiting her, with a slight touch of brusqueness in his eagerness.
"Thought you were never coming!" he said.
She breathlessly explained, and showed him through the half-opened door the figures of the three men slowly spreading and diverging over the plain, like the nearly level sun-rays they were following.
The sunlight fell also on her panting bosom, her electrified sandy hair, her red, half-opened mouth, and short and freckled upper lip.
The relieved fugitive turned from the three remoter figures to the one beside him, and saw, for the first time, that it was fair.At which he smiled, and her face flushed and was irradiated.
Then they fell to talk,--he grateful, boastful,--as the distant figures grew dim; she quickly assenting, but following his expression rather than his words, with her own girlish face and brightening eyes.But what he said, or how he explained his position, with what speciousness he dwelt upon himself, his wrongs, and his manifold manly virtues, is not necessary for us to know, nor was it, indeed, for her to understand.Enough for her that she felt she had found the one man of all the world, and that she was at that moment protecting him against all the world! He was the unexpected, spontaneous gift to her, the companion her childhood had never known, the lover she had never dreamed of, even the child of her unsatisfied maternal yearnings.If she could not comprehend all his selfish incoherences, she felt it was her own fault; if she could not follow his ignorant assumptions, she knew it was SHE who was deficient; if she could not translate his coarse speech, it was because it was the language of a larger world from which she had been excluded.To this world belonged the beautiful limbs she gazed on,--a very different world from that which had produced the rheumatic deformities and useless mayhem of her husband, or the provincially foppish garments of the deputy.Sitting in the hayloft together, where she had mounted for greater security, they forgot themselves in his monologue of cheap vaporing, broken only by her assenting smiles and her half-checked sighs.The sharp spices of the heated pine-shingles over their heads and the fragrance of the clover-scented hay filled the close air around them.The sun was falling with the wind, but they heeded it not;until the usual fateful premonition struck the woman, and saying "Imust go now," she only half-unconsciously precipitated the end.
For, as she rose, he caught first her hand and then her waist, and attempted to raise the face that was suddenly bending down as if seeking to hide itself in the hay.It was a brief struggle, ending in a submission as sudden, and their lips met in a kiss, so eager that it might have been impending for days instead of minutes.
"Oh, Sue! where are ye?"