Madelon | Page 5

that he loved her, and the love of any man except Burr Gordon was to
her like a serpent.
She would not look at him, but somehow she knew that his eyes were
upon her, and that they were full of love and malice, and she knew not
which she dreaded more. She resolved that he should not have a word
with her that night if she could help it, and so she urged on her father
and her brothers with new tunes until they would have no more, and
went off to bed--all except the boy Richard. She whispered in his ear,
and he stayed behind with her while she mixed some bread and set it
for rising on the hearth.
Lot Gordon sat watching her. There was a hungry look in his hollow
blue eyes. Now and then he coughed painfully, and clapped his hand to
his chest with an impatient movement.
"Well, whether I ever get to heaven or not, I've heard music," he said,
when she passed him with the bread-bowl on her hip and her soft arm
curved around it. He reached out his slender hand and caught hold of
her dress-skirt; she jerked away with a haughty motion, and set the
bowl on the hearth. "You'd better rake down the fire now, Richard,"
said she.
The boy jostled Lot roughly as he passed around him to get the
fire-shovel. Lot looked at the clock, and the hand was near twelve. He
arose slowly.
"I met Burr on his way down to Parson Fair's," he said.

Madelon covered up the bread closely with a linen towel. There was a
surging in her ears, as if misery itself had a veritable sound, and her
face was as white as the ashes on the hearth, but she kept it turned away
from Lot.
"Well," said he, in his husky drawl, "a rose isn't a rose to a bee, she's
only a honey-pot; and she's only one out of a shelfful to him; she can't
complain, it's what she was born to. If she finds any fault it's got to be
with creation, and what's one rose to face creation? There's nothing to
do but to make the best of it. Good-night, Madelon."
"Good-night," said Madelon. The color had come back to her cheeks,
and she looked back at him proudly, standing beside her bread-bowl on
the hearth.
Lot passed out, turning his delicate face over his shoulder with a subtle
smile as he went. Richard clapped the door to after him with a jar that
shook the house, and shot the bolt viciously. "I'll get my gun and follow
him if you say so, and then I'll find Burr Gordon," he said, turning a
furious face to his sister.
"Would you make me a laughing-stock to the whole town?" said she.
"Rake down the fire; it's time to go to bed."
She looked as proudly at her brother as she had done at Lot. The
resemblance between the two faces faded a little as they confronted
each other. A virile quality in the boy's anger made the difference of
sex more apparent. He looked at her, holding his wrath, as it were, like
a two-edged sword which must smite some one. "If I thought you cared
about that man that has jilted you--and I've heard the talk about it," said
he, "I'd feel like shooting you."
"You needn't shoot," returned Madelon.
The boy looked at her as angrily as if she were Burr Gordon. Suddenly
her mouth quivered a little and her eyes fell. The boy flung both his
arms around her. "I don't care," he said, brokenly, in his sweet treble--"I
don't care, you're the handsomest girl in the town, and the best and the

smartest, and not one can sing like you, and I'll kill any man that treats
you ill--I will, I will!" He was sobbing on his sister's shoulder; she
stood still, looking over his dark head at the snow-hung window and
the night outside. Her lips and eyes were quite steady now; she had
recovered self-control when her brother's failed him, as if by some
curious mental seesaw.
"No man can treat me ill unless I take it ill," said she, "and that I'll do
for no man. There's no killing to be done, and if there were I'd do it
myself and ask nobody. Come, Richard, let me go; I'm going to bed."
She gave the boy's head a firm pat. "There's a turnover in the pantry,
under a bowl on the lowermost shelf," said she; and she laughed in his
passionate, flushed face when he raised it.
"I don't care, I will!" he cried.
"Go and get your turnover; I saved it for you," said she, with a push.
Neither of them