第95章 CHAPTER XX(2)

Elnora gathered violets and made a fancy basket to put them in for Edith's birthday.I started to err in too open admiration for Elnora,but her mother brought me up with a whirl I never forgot.Fifty times a day in the swamps and forests Elnora made a perfect picture,but I neither looked nor said anything.I never met any girl so downright noble in bearing and actions.

I never hated anything as I hated leaving her,for we were dear friends,like two wholly congenial men.Her mother was almost always with us.She knew how much I admired Elnora,but so long as I concealed it from the girl,the mother did not care.""Yet you left such a girl and came back whole-hearted to Edith Carr!""Surely!You know how it has been with me about Edith all my life.""Yet the girl you picture is far her superior to an unprejudiced person,when thinking what a man would require in a wife to be happy.""I never have thought what I would `require'to be happy!

I only thought whether I could make Edith happy.I have been an idiot!What I've borne you'll never know!

To-night is only one of many outbursts like that,in varying and lesser degrees.""Phil,I love you,when you say you have thought only of Edith!I happen to know that it is true.

You are my only son,and I have had a right to watch you closely.I believe you utterly.Any one who cares for you as I do,and has had my years of experience in this world over yours,knows that in some ways,to-night would be a blessed release,if you could take it;but you cannot!Go to bed now,and rest.To-morrow,go back to her and fix it up.""You heard what I said when I left her!I said it because something in my heart died a minute before that,and I realized that it was my love for Edith Carr.Never again will I voluntarily face such a scene.If she can act like that at a ball,before hundreds,over a thing of which I thought nothing at all,she would go into actual physical fits and spasms,over some of the household crises I've seen the mater meet with a smile.Sir,it is truth that I have thought only of her up to the present.Now,Iwill admit I am thinking about myself.Father,did you see her?Life is too short,and it can be too sweet,to throw it away in a battle with an unrestrained woman.

I am no fighter--where a girl is concerned,anyway.

I respect and love her or I do nothing.Never again is either respect or love possible between me and Edith Carr.

Whenever I think of her in the future,I will see her as she was to-night.But I can't face the crowd just yet.

Could you spare me a few days?"

"It is only ten days until you were to go north for the summer,go now.""I don't want to go north.I don't want to meet people I know.There,the story would precede me.I do not need pitying glances or rough condolences.I wonder if I could not hide at Uncle Ed's in Wisconsin for awhile?"The book closed suddenly.The father leaned across the table and looked into the son's eyes.

"Phil,are you sure of what you just have said?""Perfectly sure!"

"Do you think you are in any condition to decide to-night?""Death cannot return to life,father.My love for Edith Carr is dead.I hope never to see her again.""If I thought you could be certain so soon!But,come to think of it,you are very like me in many ways.I am with you in this.Public scenes and disgraces I would not endure.It would be over with me,were I in your position,that I know.""It is done for all time,"said Philip Ammon."Let us not speak of it further.""Then,Phil,"the father leaned closer and looked at the son tenderly,"Phil,why don't you go to the Limberlost?""Father!"