It was the returned native whose departure at last rang the curtain on the monologue. The end of the long sheltered seclusion of Cora and her companion was a whispered word. He spoke it first:
"To-morrow?"
"To-morrow."
Cora gave a keen, quick, indrawn sigh--not of sorrow--and sank back in her chair, as he touched her hand in farewell and rose to go. She remained where she was, motionless and silent in the dark, while he crossed to Mrs. Madison, and prefaced a leave-taking unusually formal for these precincts with his mannered bow. He shook hands with Richard Lindley, asking genially:
"Do you still live where you did--just below here?"
"Yes."
"When I passed by there this afternoon, said Corliss, "it recalled a stupendous conflict we had, once upon a time; but I couldn't remember the cause."
"I remember the cause," said Mr. Lindley, but, stopping rather short, omitted to state it. "At all events, it was settled."
"Yes," said the other quietly. "You whipped me."
"Did I so?" Corliss laughed gayly. "We mustn't let it happen again!"
Mr. Trumble joined the parting guest, making simultaneous adieus with unmistakable elation. Mr. Trumble's dreadful entertainment had made it a happy evening for him.
As they went down the steps together, the top of his head just above the level of his companion's shoulder, he lifted to Corliss a searching gaze like an actor's hopeful scrutiny of a new acquaintance; and before they reached the street his bark rang eagerly on the stilly night: "Now THERE is a point on which I beg to differ with you. . . ."
Mrs. Madison gave Lindley her hand. "I think I'll go in.
Good-night, Richard. Come, Hedrick!"
Hedrick rose, groaning, and batted his eyes painfully as he faced the hall light. "What'd you and this Corliss fight about?" he asked, sleepily.
"Nothing," said Lindley.
"You said you remembered."
"Oh, I remember a lot of useless things."
"Well, what was it? I want to know what you fought about."
"Come, Hedrick," repeated his mother, setting a gently urgent hand on his shoulder."
"I won't," said the boy impatiently, shaking her off and growing suddenly very wideawake and determined. "I won't move a step till he tells me what they fought about. Not a step!"
"Well--it was about a `show.' We were only boys, you know--younger than you, perhaps."
"A circus?"
"A boy-circus he and my brother got up in our yard. I wasn't in it."
"Well, what did you fight about?"
"I thought Val Corliss wasn't quite fair to my brother.
That's all."
"No, it isn't! How wasn't he fair?"
"They sold tickets to the other boys; and I thought my brother didn't get his share."
"This Corliss kept it all?"
"Oh, something like that," said Lindley, laughing.
"Probably I was in the wrong."
"And he licked you?"
"All over the place!"
"I wish I'd seen it," said Hedrick, not unsympathetically, but as a sportsman. And he consented to be led away.
Laura had been standing at the top of the steps looking down the street, where Corliss and his brisk companion had emerged momentarily from deep shadows under the trees into the illumination of a swinging arc-lamp at the corner. They dis-appeared; and she turned, and, smiling, gave the delaying guest her hand in good-night.
His expression, which was somewhat troubled, changed to one of surprise as her face came into the light, for it was transfigured. Deeply flushed, her eyes luminous, she wore that shining look Hedrick had seen as she wrote in her secret book.
"Why, Laura!" said Lindley, wondering.
She said good-night again, and went in slowly. As she reached the foot of the stairs, she heard him moving a chair upon the porch, and Cora speaking sharply:
"Please don't sit close to me!" There was a sudden shrillness in the voice of honey, and the six words were run so rapidly together they seemed to form but one. After a moment Cora added, with a deprecatory ripple of laughter not quite free from the same shrillness:
"You see, Richard, it's so--it's so hot, to-night.
