Helen returned with the unexpectedness in which all returning Gants delighted. She came in on members of her family, one afternoon, in the kitchen at Dixieland.
“Hello, everybody!” she said.
“Well, for G-g-god’s sake,” said Luke after a moment. “Look who’s here!”
They embraced heartily.
“Why, what on earth!” cried Eliza, putting her iron down on the board, and wavering on her feet, in an effort to walk in two directions at once. They kissed.
“I was just thinking to myself,” said Eliza, more calmly, “that it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you should come walking in. I had a premonition, I don’t know what else you’d call it—”
“Oh, my God!” groaned the girl, good-humoredly, but with a shade of annoyance. “Don’t start that Pentland spooky stuff! It makes my flesh crawl.”
She exchanged a glance of burlesque entreaty with Luke. Winking, he turned suddenly, and with an idiotic laugh, tickled Eliza sharply.
“Get away!” she shrieked.
He chortled madly.
“I’ll declare, boy!” she said fretfully. “I believe you’re crazy. I’ll vow I do!”
Helen laughed huskily.
“Well,” said Eliza, “how’d you leave Daisy and the children?”
“They’re all right, I suppose,” said Helen wearily. “Oh, my God! Deliver me!” she laughed. “You never saw such pests! I spent fifty dollars on them in toys and presents alone! You’d never think it from the thanks I get. Daisy takes it all as her due! Selfish! Selfish! Selfish!”
“For G-g-god’s sake!” said Luke loyally.
She was one fine girl.
“I paid for everything I got at Daisy’s, I can assure you!” she said, sharply, challengingly. “I spent no more time there than I had to. I was at Mrs. Selborne’s nearly all the time. I had practically all my meals there.”
Her need for independence had become greater; her hunger for dependents acute. Her denial of obligation to others was militant. She gave more than she received.
“Well, I’m in for it,” she said presently, trying to mask her strong eagerness.
“In for what?” asked Luke.
“I’ve gone and done it at last,” she said.
“Mercy!” shrieked Eliza. “You’re not married, are you?”
“Not yet,” said Helen, “but I will be soon.”
Then she told them about Mr. Hugh T. Barton, the cash register salesman. She spoke loyally and kindly of him, without great love.
“He’s ten years older than I am,” she said.
“Well,” said Eliza thoughtfully, moulding her lips. “They sometimes make the best husbands.” After a moment, she asked: “Has he got any property?”
“No,” said Helen, “they live up all he makes. They live in style, I tell you. There are two servants in that house all the time. The old lady doesn’t turn her hand over.”
“Where are you going to live?” said Eliza sharply. “With his folks?”
“Well, I should say not! I should say not!” said Helen slowly and emphatically. “Good heavens, mama!” she continued irritably. “I want a home of my own. Can’t you realize that? I’ve been doing for others all my life. Now I’m going to let them do for me. I want no in-laws about. No, sir!” she said emphatically.
Luke bit his nails nervously.
“Well, he’s g-g-getting a great g-g-girl,” he said. “I hope he has sense enough to realize that.”
Moved, she laughed bigly, ironically.
“I’ve got one booster, haven’t I?” she said. She looked at him seriously with clear affectionate eyes. “Well, thanks, Luke. You’re one of the lot that’s always had the interests of the family at heart.”
Her big face was for a moment tranquil and eager. A great calm lay there: the radiant decent beauty of dawn and rainwater. Her eyes were as luminous and believing as a child’s. No evil dwelt in her. She had learned nothing.
“Have you told your papa?” said Eliza, presently.
“No,” she said, after a pause, “I haven’t.”
They thought of Gant in silence, with wonder. Her going was a marvel.
“I have a right to my own life,” said Helen angrily, as if someone disputed that right, “as much as anyone. Good heavens, mama! You and papa have lived your lives—don’t you know that? Do you think it’s right that I should go on forever looking after him? Do you?” Her voice rose under the stress of hysteria.
“Why, no-o. I never said—” Eliza began, flustered and conciliatory.
“You’ve spent your life f-f-finking of others and not of yourself,” said Luke. “That’s the trouble. They don’t appreciate it.”
“Well, I’m not going to any longer. That’s one thing sure! No, indeed! I want a home and some children. I’m going to have them!” she said defiantly. In a moment, she added tenderly:
“Poor old papa! I wonder what he’s going to say?”
He said very little. The Gants, after initial surprise, moulded new events very quickly into the texture of their lives. Abysmal change widened their souls out in a brooding unconsciousness.
Mr. Hugh Barton came up into the hills to visit his affianced kin. He came, to their huge delight, lounging in the long racing chassis of a dusty brown 1911 Buick roadster. He came, in a gaseous coil, to the roaring explosion of great engines. He descended, a tall, elegant figure, dyspeptic, lean almost to emaciation, very foppishly laundered and tailored. He looked the car over slowly, critically, a long cigar clamped in the corner of his saturnine mouth, drawing his gauntlets off deliberately. Then, in the same unhurried fashion, he removed from his head the ten-gallon gray sombrero—the only astonishing feature of his otherwise undebatable costume—and shook each long thin leg delicately for a moment
