第50章 CHAPTER XI(3)

"Then you've missed something. Do you know his friend, the one on the football team--Crawford Smith, his name is--do you know him?"

Mary nodded. "I--I've met him," she said.

"You HAVE? Don't you think he is perfectly splendid?"

"I don't know. Is he?"

"Of course he is. Haven't you read about him in the papers? He made that long run for a touchdown in the Yale game. Oh, you should have seen it! I couldn't speak for two days after that game. He was just as cool and calm. All the Yale men were trying to get him and he dodged--I never saw anyone so cool and who kept his head so well."

"I thought the papers spoke most of the way he kept his feet."

"Then you did read about it! Of course you did! I'm just dying to know him. All the girls are crazy about him. Where did you meet him? Tell me!"

Mary smiled. On the occasion of her only meeting with Crawford Smith that young fellow had been anything but cool.

"I met him in my uncle's store at South Harniss," she said. "It was three years ago."

"And you haven't seen him since? He is a great friend of Sam's.

And Sam's people have a summer home at the Cape. Perhaps you'll meet him there again."

"Perhaps."

"Goodness! One would think you didn't want to."

"Why, I don't know that I do, particularly. Why should I?"

"Why should you! Mary Lathrop, I do think you are the queerest girl. You don't talk like a girl at all. Sometimes I think you are as old as--as Prissy." "Prissy" was the disrespectful nickname by which the young ladies referred, behind her back, to Miss Priscilla Cabot.

Mary laughed. "Not quite, I hope," she said. "But I don't see why I should be so very anxious to meet Crawford Smith. And I'm sure he isn't anxious to meet me. If all the other girls are crazy about him, that ought to be enough, I should think."

This astonishing profession of indifference to the fascination of the football hero, indifference which Miss Barbara declared to be only make-believe, was made on a Saturday. The next day, as Mrs.

Wyeth and Mary were on their way home from church, the former made an announcement.

"We are to have a guest, perhaps guests, at dinner this noon," she said. Sunday dinner at Mrs. Wyeth's was served, according to New England custom, at one o'clock.

"Samuel, Mr. John Keith's son, is to dine with us," continued Mrs.

Wyeth. "He may bring a college friend with him. You have met Samuel, haven't you, Mary?"

Mary said that she had. She was a trifle embarrassed at the prospect of meeting Sam Keith in her new surroundings. At home, in South Harniss, they had met many times, but always at the store. He was pleasant and jolly and she liked him well enough, although she had refused his invitations to go on sailing parties and the like.

She knew perfectly well that his mother and sister would not have approved of these invitations, for in the feminine Keith mind there was a great gulf fixed between the summer resident and the native.

The latter was to be helped and improved but not encouraged socially beyond a certain point. Mary sought neither help nor improvement of that kind. Sam, it is true, had never condescended or patronized, but he had never called at her home nor had she been asked to visit his.

And now she was to meet him in a house where she was considered one of the family. His father had been influential in bringing her there. Did Sam know this and, if he did, what influence would the knowledge have upon his manner toward her? Would he be lofty and condescending or, on the other hand, would he pretend a familiar acquaintanceship which did not exist? Alone in her room she considered these questions and then put them from her mind.

Whatever his manner might be, hers, she determined, should be what it had always been. And if any embarrassment was evident to others at this meeting it should not be on her part.

When she came downstairs, Mrs. Wyeth called to her to come into the parlor. As she entered the room two young men rose from the chairs beside the mahogany center table. One of these young men was Sam Keith; she had expected to see Sam, of course. But the other--the other was the very individual in whose daring deeds and glorified personality she had expressed a complete lack of interest only the day before, the young fellow whom she had last seen racing madly across the fields in the rear of Hamilton and Company's store with the larger portion of a sheet of sticky fly paper attached to his white flannels. Mr. Crawford Smith was taller and broader than on that memorable occasion but she recognized him instantly.

It was evident that he did not recognize her. Mrs. Wyeth came to meet her.

"Mary," she said, "you know Samuel, I think. You and he have met before. Samuel, will you introduce your friend?"

Sam was staring at Mary with eyes which expressed a variety of emotions, intense surprise the most prominent. He was in a state which Barbara Howe would have described as "fussed," one most unusual for him. He had known of Mary's presence in the house; after the affair was settled John Keith told his family what he had done, facing with serene philosophy his wife's displeasure and prophecies of certain regrets. Sam had vivid and pleasing recollections of the pretty country girl in the South Harniss store.

He had not told his college friend that they were to meet her that day, one reason being that he was not certain they would meet, and the other a secret misgiving that it might be well to wait and inspect and listen before boasting of previous acquaintanceship.

Sam's mother had lectured him on the subject before he left home.

"Don't be too familiar, Sam," was her warning. "You may be sorry if you do. The girl is well enough here in South Harniss, where she is accustomed to her surroundings, but in Boston she may be quite out of place and impossible. I have told your father so, but he won't listen, of course. Don't YOU be foolish, for my sake."