The Happy End | Page 6

to have an idea of what's what. I don't
doubt you'll get her for a wife."
"There's nothing but slaving for a woman round here," Mrs. Braley put
in. "I'm right glad Phebe had so much spirit."
Richmond Braley evidently thought it was time for certain reservations.
"You mustn't come down so hard on Calvin and me," he said
practically. "We're both likely young fellows."
"I'll be here evening after to-morrow," Calvin told Hannah in a low
voice.
She nodded without interest. They must be married at once, he decided,

his wise horse following unerringly the rocky road, stepping through
splashing dark fords. If there was a repetition of the past visit he would
have something to say. Hannah was his, she was promised to him. He
felt the coolness of her cheeks, her bright mouth against his. A tyranny
of misery and desire flooded him at the sudden danger--it was as much
as that--threatening his happiness and life.
It was a danger founded on his entire ignorance of what he must
combat. He couldn't visualize it, but it never occurred to him that
Hannah would actually go away--leave him and Greenstream. No, it
was a quality in Hannah herself, a thing that had always lurked below
the surface, beyond his knowledge until now. Yet he realized that it
formed a part of her appeal, a part of her distinction over the other girls
of the county.
Maybe it was because he was never in his heart absolutely certain of
her--even when she was closest to him she seemed to slip away beyond
his power to follow. His love, he acknowledged for the first time, had
never been easy or contented or happy. It had been obscure, like the
night about him now; it resembled a fire that he held in his bare hands.
Hannah's particularity, too, was allied to this strange newly- awakened
peril. In a manner it was that which had carried Phebe out of the
mountains. Now the resemblance between them was far stronger than
their difference.
There was more than a touch of all this in the girls' mother, in her
bitterness and discontent. He felt that he hated the elder as much as he
did Phebe. If the latter were a man----
He dressed with the greatest care for his next evening with Hannah.
Hosmer wore no stiffer nor whiter collar, and Calvin's necktie was a
pure gay silk. He arrived just as the moon detached itself from the
fringe of mountain peaks and the frogs started insistently. His heart was
heavy but his manner calm, determined, as he entered the Braley
kitchen. No one was there but Susan; soon however, Phebe entered in
an amazing slovenly wrapper with a lace edge turned back from her
ample throat; and Hannah followed.

Phebe made a mocking reference to the sofa in the parlor, and Hannah's
expression was distasteful; but she slowly followed Calvin into the
conventional chamber.
He made no attempt to embrace her, but said instead: "I came to fix the
day for our wedding."
"Phebe wants me to go with her for a little first," she replied indirectly.
"She says I can come back whenever I like."
"Your Phebe has no say in it." He spoke harshly. "We're honestly
promised to each other and don't need outside advice or interference."
"Don't you go to call Phebe 'outside,'" she retorted. "She's my sister.
Perhaps it's a good thing she came when she did, and saved me from
being buried. Perhaps I'm not aiming to be married right off."
V
Hannah was standing, a hand on the table that held the pink-shaded
lamp, and the light showed her petulant and antagonistic. A flare of
anger threatened to shut all else from Calvin's thoughts; but suddenly
he was conscious of the necessity for care--care and patience. He
forced back his justified sense of wrong.
"I wasn't referring direct to Phebe," he told her. "I meant that between
us nobody else matters, no one in the world is of any importance to me
but you. It's all I think about. When I was building the house, our house,
I hammered you into it with every nail. It is sort of made out of you,"
he foundered; "like--like I am."
He could see her relenting in the loss of the rigidity of her pose.
Hannah's head drooped and her fingers tapped faintly on the table. He
moved closer, urging his advantage.
"We're all but married, Hannah; our carpet is being wove and that suite
of furniture ordered through Priest. You've been upset by this talk of
theaters and such. You'd get tired of them and that fly-by-night life in a

month."
"Phebe hasn't."
"What suits one doesn't suit all," he said concisely.
"It would suit more girls than you know for," she