PAGE 7
Speed
by
“I will, but—thanks. &
#8221;
He came down from the Apogee street, inconspicuously creeping through the dust, a large, amiable man in a derby.
He had only fifty-one minutes before the return of the Apogee branch train to the junction to connect with the next express westward.
He rang; he pounded at the front door; he went round to the back; and there he discovered Aurilla’s mother, washing napkins. She looked at him over her spectacles, and she sniffed: “Yes?”
“Do you remember I came through here recently? Racing car? I wanted to see Miss Rivers for a moment. ”
“You can’t. She’s at school, teaching. ”
“When will she be back? It’s four now. ”
“Maybe right away, maybe not till six. ”
His train left at four-forty-nine. He waited on the front steps. It was four-twenty-one when Aurilla Rivers came along the walk. He rushed to her, his watch in his hand, and before she could speak, he was pouring out:
“‘Member me? Darn glad! Got less ‘n twenty-eight minutes before have to catch train San Francisco steamer Japan possibly India afterwards glad to see me please oh please don’t be a Rivers be Aurilla just got twenty-seven ‘n’ half minutes glad?”
“Why—why—ye-es—”
“Thought about me?”
“Of course. ”
“Ever wish I might come shooting through again?”
“You’re so egotistical!”
“No, just in a hurry. Only got twenty-seven minutes more! Ever wish I’d come back? Oh—please! Can’t you hear the Japan steamer whistling—calling us?”
“Japan!”
“Like to see it?”
“Terribly. ”
“Will you come with me? I’ll have a preacher meet us on the train. If you’ll phone to Detroit, find out all about me. Come! Quick! Marry me! Just twenty-six and a half more. ”
She could only whisper in answer: “No. I mustn’t think of it. It tempts me. But Mother would never consent. ”
“What has your mother to do—”
“Everything! With our people, the individual is nothing, the family’s sacred. I must think of Bradley Rivers, and old Zenas, and hundreds of fine old Yankees, building up something so much bigger than just one individual happiness. It’s, oh, noblesse oblige!” How could he, in face of her ancestor worship, tell the truth? He burst out:
“But you’d like to? Aurilla! Just twenty-five minutes now!” He chucked his watch into his pocket. “See here. I want to kiss you. I’m going seven thousand miles away, and I can’t stand it, unless— I’m going to kiss you, there under the grape arbor!” His fingers slipped under her elbow.
She came reluctantly, appealing, “No, no, please, no!” till he swept the words away with a kiss, and in the kiss she forgot all that she had said, and clung to him, begging: “Oh, don’t go away. Don’t leave me here in this dead village. Stay here—catch the next steamer! Persuade Mother—”
“I must catch this one. I’m due there—big race. Come!”
“With—without clothes?”
“Buy ’em on way—San Francisco!”
“No, I mustn’t. And there are others to consider besides Mother. ”
“Mr. Dawson? Really care for him?”
“He’s very gentle and considerate and really such a good scholar. Mother wants Mr. Dawson to get a pastorate on Cape Cod, and she thought that way I might pick up with the old threads, and be a real Rivers again. As Mrs. Dawson, I could find the old house and all—” She was interrupted by his two hands behind her shoulders, by his eyes searching hers with a bitter honesty.
“Don’t you ever get tired of ancestors?” he cried.
“I do not! Whatever I may be—they were splendid. Once in a mutiny on the clipper that he was commanding, Zenas Rivers—”
“Dear, there wasn’t any Zenas Rivers. He was a Portuguese immigrant named Ribeiro, Fernao Ribeiro. The picture there in the house is a Captain Gould. ”