_ The workmen placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about
it, and Bibbs altered the position of one or two of these, then stood
looking thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-
seeming hillock beneath the darkening November sky. "It's too bad!"
he half whispered, his lips forming the words--and his meaning was
that it was too bad that the strong brother had been the one to go.
For this was his last thought before he walked to the coupe and saw
Mary Vertrees standing, all alone, on the other side of the drive.
She had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on
a slope where the tombs were many; and behind her rose a multitude
of the barbaric and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our
graveyards: urn-crowned columns and stone-draped obelisks, shop-
carved angels and shop-carved children poising on pillars and shafts,
all lifting--in unthought pathos--their blind stoniness toward the
sky. Against such a background, Bibbs was not incongruous, with his
figure, in black, so long and slender, and his face so long and thin
and white; nor was the undertaker's coupe out of keeping, with the
shabby driver dozing on the box and the shaggy horses standing
patiently in attitudes without hope and without regret. But for
Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque setting--she was a vivid, living
creature of a beautiful world. And a graveyard is not the place for
people to look charming.
She also looked startled and confused, but not more startled and
confused than Bibbs. In "Edith's" poem he had declared his intention
of hiding his heart "among the stars"; and in his boyhood one day he
had successfully hidden his body in the coal-pile. He had been no
comrade of other boys or of girls, and his acquaintances of a recent
period were only a few fellow-invalids and the nurses at the Hood
Sanitarium. All his life Bibbs had kept himself to himself--he was
but a shy onlooker in the world. Nevertheless, the startled gaze he
bent upon the unexpected lady before him had causes other than his
shyness and her unexpectedness. For Mary Vertrees had been a shining
figure in the little world of late given to the view of this humble
and elusive outsider, and spectators sometimes find their hearts
beating faster than those of the actors in the spectacle. Thus with
Bibbs now. He started and stared; he lifted his hat with incredible
awkwardness, his fingers fumbling at his forehead before they found
the brim.
"Mr. Sheridan," said Mary, "I'm afraid you'll have to take me home
with you. I--" She stopped, not lacking a momentary awkwardness
of her own.
"Why--why--yes," Bibbs stammered. "I'll--I'll be de--Won't you get
in?"
In that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words.
Then Mary without more ado got into the coupe, and Bibbs followed,
closing the door.
"You're very kind," she said, somewhat breathlessly. "I should have
had to walk, and it's beginning to get dark. It's three miles, I
think."
"Yes," said Bibbs. "It--it is beginning to get dark. I--I noticed
that."
"I ought to tell you--I--" Mary began, confusedly. She bit her lip,
sat silent a moment, then spoke with composure. "It must seem odd,
my--"
"No, no!" Bibbs protested, earnestly. "Not in the--in the least."
"It does, though," said Mary. "I had not intended to come to the
cemetery, Mr. Sheridan, but one of the men in charge at the house
came and whispered to me that 'the family wished me to'--I think your
sister sent him. So I came. But when we reached here I--oh, I felt
that perhaps I--"
Bibbs nodded gravely. "Yes, yes," he murmured.
"I got out on the opposite side of the carriage," she continued.
"I mean opposite from--from where all of you were. And I wandered
off over in the other direction; and I didn't realize how little time
it takes. From where I was I couldn't see the carriages leaving--at
least I didn't notice them. So when I got back, just now, you were
the only one here. I didn't know the other people in the carriage
I came in, and of course they didn't think to wait for me. That's
why--"
"Yes," said Bibbs, "I--" And that seemed all he had to say just then.
Mary looked out through the dusty window. "I think we'd better be
going home, if you please," she said.
"Yes," Bibbs agreed, not moving. "It will be dark before we get
there."
She gave him a quick little glance. "I think you must be very tired,
Mr. Sheridan; and I know you have reason to be," she said, gently.
"If you'll let me, I'll--" And without explaining her purpose she
opened the door on her side of the coupe and leaned out.
Bibbs started in blank perplexity, not knowing what she meant to do.
"Driver!" she called, in her clear voice, loudly. "Driver! We'd
like to start, please! Driver! Stop at the house just north of Mr.
Sheridan's, please." The wheels began to move, and she leaned back
beside Bibbs once more. "I noticed that he was asleep when we got
in," she said. "I suppose they have a great deal of night work."
Bibbs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice.
"I've never been able to apologize quickly," he said, with his
accustomed slowness, "because if I try to I stammer. My brother
Roscoe whipped me once, when we were boys, for stepping on his
slate-pencil. It took me so long to tell him it was an accident,
he finished before I did."
Mary Vertrees had never heard anything quite like the drawling,
gentle voice or the odd implication that his not noticing the
motionless state of their vehicle was an "accident." She had formed
a casual impression of him, not without sympathy, but at once she
discovered that he was unlike any of her cursory and vague imaginings
of him. And suddenly she saw a picture he had not intended to paint
for sympathy: a sturdy boy hammering a smaller, sickly boy, and the
sickly boy unresentful. Not that picture alone; others flashed before
her. Instantaneously she had a glimpse of Bibbs's life and into his
life. She had a queer feeling, new to her experience, of knowing him
instantly. It startled her a litttle; and then, with some surprise,
she realized that she was glad he had sat so long, after getting into
the coupe, before he noticed that it had not started. What she did
not realize, however, was that she had made no response to his
apology, and they passed out of the cemetery gates, neither having
spoken again.
Bibbs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was
silence. The dusk, gathering in their small inclosure, was filled
with a rich presence for him; and presently it was so dark that
neither of the two could see the other, nor did even their garments
touch. But neither had any sense of being alone. The wheels creaked
steadily, rumbling presently on paved streeets; there were the
sounds, as from a distance, of the plod-plod of the horses; and
sometimes the driver became audible, coughing asthmatically, or
saying, "You, JOE!" with a spiritless flap of the whip upon an
unresponsive back. Oblongs of light from the lamps at street-corners
came swimming into the interior of the coupe and, thinning rapidly to
lances, passed utterly, leaving greater darkness. And yet neither of
these two last attendants at Jim Sheridan's funeral broke the
silence.
It was Mary who preceived the strangeness of it--too late. Abruptly
she realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of
her companion and not talking to him. "Mr. Sheridan," she began, not
knowing what she was going to say, but impelled to say anything, as
she realized the queerness of this drive--"Mr. Sheridan, I--"
The coupe stopped. "You, JOE!" said the driver, reproachfully,
and climbed down and opened the door.
"What's the trouble?" Bibbs inquired.
"Lady said stop at the first house north of Mr. Sheridan's, sir."
Mary was incredulous; she felt that it couldn't be true and that it
mustn't be true that they had driven all the way without speaking.
"What?" Bibbs demanded.
"We're there, sir," said the driver, sympathetically. "Next house
north of Mr. Sheridan's."
Bibbs descended to the curb. "Why, yes," he said. "Yes, you seem to
be right." And while he stood staring at the dimly illuminated front
windows of Mr. Vertrees's house Mary got out, unassisted.
"Let me help you," said Bibbs, stepping toward her mechanically; and
she was several feet from the coupe when he spoke.
"Oh no," she murmured. "I think I can--" She meant that she could
get out of the coupe without help, but, perceiving that she had
already accomplished this feat, she decided not to complete the
sentence.
"You, JOE!" cried the driver, angrily, climbing to his box. And he
rumbled away at his team's best pace--a snail's.
"Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Sheridan," said Mary, stiffly.
She did not offer her hand. "Good night."
"Good night," Bibbs said in response, and, turning with her, walked
beside her to the door. Mary made that a short walk; she almost ran.
Realization of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her,
beginning to shock her; she stepped aside from the light that fell
through the glass panels of the door and withheld her hand as it
touched the old-fashioned bell-handle.
"I'm quite safe, thank you," she said, with a little emphasis.
"Good night."
"Good night," said Bibbs, and went obediently. When he reached the
street he looked back, but she had vanished within the house.
Moving slowly away, he caromed against two people who were turning out
from the pavement to cross the street. They were Roscoe and his wife.
"Where are your eyes, Bibbs?" demanded Roscoe. "Sleep-walking, as
usual?"
But Sibyl took the wanderer by the arm. "Come over to our house for
a little while, Bibbs," she urged. "I want to--"
"No, I'd better--"
"Yes. I want you to. Your father's gone to bed, and they're all
quiet over there--all worn out. Just come for a minute."
He yielded, and when they were in the house she repeated herself with
real feeling: "'All worn out!' Well, if anybody is, YOU are, Bibbs!
And I don't wonder; you've done every bit of the work of it. You
mustn't get down sick again. I'm going to make you take a little
brandy." _