The Wrong Woman (21 page)

Steve, taking a route of his own, drove twice through the waters of the
wandering Comanche. At these wide shallows, Janet's gossip ceased while she held
to his coat-sleeve and kept her eye on the water as it hurried through the
spokes and rose steadily to the hub. But when the stout pony pulled them up the
opposite bank and the road lay before them the same length as before, she again
took up the thread of the conversation. As everybody knows, a conversation can
lead almost anywhere; the talk will get to wherever it is going by some route as
long as words point the way, and always the story of one's
self
will leak
through the sentences in the end. And where is there anything so conducive to
the objects of conversation as a Rockaway buggy wheeling it over the cushioned
sward and the flowers trooping by? We are not going to intrude upon their
pleasant situation; suffice it to say that as time passed he became more and
more Steve Brown and she became increasingly Janet.

It was about the middle of the forenoon when they reached Belleville, the
prairie highway becoming now a shady homestead street, with Southern cottages
ensconced in vines and shrubbery and sheltered by prosperous trees. Presently
they turned into a street of stores which delivered them finally to a
hitching-rack at the end of a walk leading up to the steps of the court-house.

The Professor, it devolved upon inquiry, was busy just at present, but if the
young lady would step up to his room he would give her an examination shortly.
Steve, being thus left to himself, went outside again. At the side of the gravel
walk was a green bench presided over by a china-berry tree; he sat down here and
waited. Occasionally a passer-by diversified the tenor of his waitingnow a
straight-paced lawyer garbed in black and thinking dark thoughts; again, a
leisurely stockman arrayed like himself with sombrero and spurs. His own spurs
he had not thought to remove since he got back that morning. The little town,
like other county capitals, had an atmosphere that was half the hush of the
court-room and partly the quiet of academic groves, in which state of being the
inhabitants were peacefully and permanently established, the court-house being,
in truth, Belleville's principal industry.

Having nodded to several and encountered none that he was well acquainted
with, he arose and went into the court-house again. After a spell of indecision
in the corridor, he turned and proceeded up the dark-banistered stairs to the
second story. At the head of the stairs was a long hall with two rows of doors
and a window at each end. One of the farther doors was open, but gave forth no
sound. In this direction he turned his steps,ostensibly toward the window which
was invitingly open,and as he passed the door he turned his head and viewed the
scene of the "examination." The place was filled with cast-iron desks screwed to
the floor and surrounded by blackboards; and all empty except for the seat which
held Janet. The Professor, elevated on a little platform with a table before
him, sat sidewise in his chair out of regard to a set of questions which he had
chalked upon the blackboard; meanwhile he tapped the table with his fingernails
and regarded Janet with a look of great profundity. It was a speechless process;
he wrote the questions on the blackboard, she wrote the answers on the paper.
Janet, evidently perplexed, bit the end of her penholder. She turned her eyes to
the door as Steve passed and gave him a furtive look. It made him feel as if he
were a boy again and Janet a little girl being kept after school.

He passed onward to the window. Below him was a view of the court-house yard,
and through the trees a glimpse of the short business street. For a little while
he made this the object of his attention, then he turned about and proceeded to
the window at the other end. As he passed the door he turned his eyes again and
took quick survey of affairs inside the examination-room, The other window,
being at the back of the courthouse, opened upon a wide prospect; in the near
distance were tree-hidden cottages, beyond this scene was the stretch of prairie
again. Steve sat down on the sill to wait. But in a little while he got up and
went back to the first window. When he passed the door again the young lady
blushed.

Janet was now in the very midst of that dread ordeal known as a "test." She
was being tried for her life,which is to say her living,and her speechless
inquisitor made the most of his attainments. "Give the source and course of the
Volga." Having writ down that cold-blooded query he ascended his dais again and
suppressed all feelings of triumph. Janet again put the pen-holder to her teeth.
Evidently this was more than the young lady was able to "give." He drummed on
the wood with his finger-nails; otherwise he sat before her like patience on a
pedestal. His single spectator, feeling herself no match for such a brain, was
beginning to abandon all hope of passing.

Steve Brown, having gathered some inkling of Janet's mental troubles, was
beginning to have his opinion of the whole procedure. Seeing her in such
difficulty he had a feeling of revolt against educational things in general, but
as the wrong seemed to be beyond his individual powers to remedy, he could only
make another trip to the end of the hall. Glancing again at the questions on the
board he looked in vain for some inquiry upon the subject of Climate. There did
not seem to be even one. And when next he came back, after composing himself for
about half a minute on the window ledge, the door was unceremoniously shut in
his face!

He had come to a definite stop in hope of finding at least one question upon
the subject of Climate; the door was shut in his face. Confronting him was the
printed legend"County Superintendent." His heels were frozen to the floor. If
it had not been that it was an improper and very unusual thing to do, he could
have shot each particular letter of that announcement full of bullet holes.

The remedy for this peculiar outrage not at once presenting itself, he turned
on his heel and made another trip to the farther window where he at once came
face-about and began patrolling the hallway, past the door and back again, his
spurs clicking sharply and his high boot-heels punctuating his progress as if
every step put a period to his thoughts.

As he thus took his mind a-walking, everything about Janet's present
situation struck him in a light more obnoxious and foolish. Examination!
Examin
ation
! The idea of that girl having to go to that fellow to be
tested! The idea of
his
having any such
authority
over her! And
besides, if that little Professor really wanted to get an idea of her merits,
why did n't he talk to her and find out whether she had common sense? She
certainly had more than
he
had. As if any man with half an eye could n't
see that she was the very person to teach children!

As Janet's situation struck him more deeply, and he began to realize how she
might feel if she failed, he stopped and glared again at that brazen lettering.
Possibly she was failing now. He felt that if he had the authority, or any
proper cause,which he could hardly make out that he had,he would march in and
reform the thing right then and there. But he had no authority. The other fellow
had the authority. And the right to close the door between them! This being
actually the case he whirled about and resumed his marching back and forth; and
his spurs began snapping their jaws again.

Janet, when she saw the door shut, caught her breath and paid strict
attention to the paper. The examiner, evidently unconscious of anything but his
own precise self, went officially to the blackboard and took up next the writing
of another set of questions. He wrote impromptu and with considerable readiness,
pausing occasionally to think up a poser.

Regularly she heard her escort coming down the hall on his return trip, and
each time she suspended mental operations until he was safely away again. About
the time that she had done her best, and worst, to the subject of Geography, he
failed to pass the door; his footsteps seemed to turn with a new and lighter
expression in some other direction. Then she heard no more of him.

The next subject was Grammar. She caught glimpses of the questions as her
examiner walked back and forth from one end of a sentence to the other. As
grammar is a subject in which there is some limit to the number of possible
questions, she felt that she now had an advantage. She would now do wonders
providing he did not ask her something easy.

Luckily he did not. She pushed Geography aside and took a new sheet of
foolscap with every prospect of passing. At first it had looked very much as if
she were going to fail.

Steve's withdrawal had merely been due to the sudden realization that he was
making a great deal of noise in the court-house; whereupon he saw that, all
things considered, he could contain himself better somewhere else. He went down
the stairs, through the corridor, and out of the grounds. Thence his feet
carried him clean to the other side of town.

When he found himself upon the silent shore of the prairie he turned about
with the intention of going straight back, but he was three times delayed, first
at the hitching-rack in front of "Hart's General Store," where a knot of
story-tellers halted him to tell him about the phenomenal good time of his
herder, and again in front of the post-office, where another group of loiterers
had to be listened to; and finally, having made his escape when he felt that it
was high time to go, he had the bad luck to run into Judge Tillotson, whose
propensity to talk was such that he could not be denied a hearing without good
excuse.

When he at last arrived at the foot of the court-house path, he saw Janet
sitting on the bench under the china-berry tree. How long had she been waiting
for him? As she caught sight of him she began dabbing her eyes hastily with her
handkerchief. Steve saw this. His stride lengthened as he came up the path.
Having reached the bench he dropped down suddenly beside her, his arm extended
along the top of the bench at her back.

"How did you make out, Miss Janet?"

There was a lugubrious attempt at a smile as she turned her eyes toward him.
The tears had been put into her pocket; but still he could see that her eyes
were swimming. To him they looked more wonderfully gentle, more wholly true than
any eyes he had ever seen.

"WellMr. BrownI failed," she said.

"What! Didn't he let you pass?"

"I already had a third-class certificate, you know."

"Yes; but that is n't any good to you."

"No," she said meditatively. "Even second-class would have got me that school
near Merrill. I think I would have passed, too, if he had only been fair in
Geography and History."

"What? Did he do anything that wasn't on the square?" he asked sternly.

"Oh, I did n't mean it that way. It is always possible to be unfair in
Geography and History, you know,and besides there is a good deal of luck about
it, too. He said he would have let me pass, but he had decided to raise the
standard."

She felt his arm stiffen behind her like an iron bar. She thought he was
going to rise.

"But he was
perfectly
fair," she added quickly.

Steve's muscle relaxed slowly; he resumed his former lax attitude and fell to
thinking.

"You deserve to get a certificate and you
did n't
," he said, suddenly
sitting up again. "It is n't
right
."

This last word came out as sharp as a challenge to fight. He seemed to have
stiffened up in the saddle with the straight look of indomitable will. Janet's
eyes opened wider with the impression she got of him.

"Oh, it is n't a great matterexcept thatof courseit is a little
disappointing."

"Yes. And somebody that it doesn't make any difference about will come along
and pass." His eye still had fight in it. "You like Texas?" he said suddenly.
"Don't you think it is a pretty good state?"

"Oh, yes, indeed," answered Janet. "I was very much in hope of being able to
stay. If I had only had more time to studymore time"

There was a quaver in her voice, and she let the sentence end itself there.

He sat for a moment looking straight at the middle of the path before him.
Then deliberately he turned about, put his arm behind her again, and took her
hand in his.

"Janet," he said, "if you had been here in two or three months from now,
there was a question I had all made up to ask you."

"A question?"

"As long as you might have to go away, I might as well tell you nowbefore
you are gone. I was going to ask you in two or three months whether, if But
no. That is n't fair. What I mean is,
will
you marry me? Would you?"

Janet paused during a space that would best be represented by a musical
resta silence in the midst of a symphony. Then her clear eyes turned toward
him.

"Yes, Steve; I would."

"You would! Do you mean that
now
for keeps?"

"I could go and live with you anywhere in the world. I could
almost
have answered that two days ago."

Her hand was taken tighter in his grasp. The edge of his sombrero touched the
top of her head, and she felt herself being taken under its broad brim with a
sense of everlasting shelter. And just then they were interrupted. A visitor to
the court-room came up the pathunnoticed till he was almost past. At the same
time there was a sound of footsteps coming down the courthouse steps. It was the
Professor. Seeing which Steve released her hand and assumed a more conventional
public attitude until this particular spectator should be gone. The Professor
passed. He kept on his way down the path and did not look back; whereupon Steve
took possession of her hand again. It was such a fine delicate hand to himso
small and tender a hand to have to grapple with things of this rough world; he
looked at it thoughtfully and hefted it as so much precious property in his own.