In the Midst of Alarms. Barr Robert

I am willing to admit, now that I look back on it, that the joke was rather poor; but, then, most of my jokes are rather shopworn.”

      “I am afraid I lack a sense of humor.”

      “All women do,” said Yates with easy confidence. “At least, all I’ve ever met.”

      Yates was sitting in a wooden chair, which he now placed at the end of the table, tilting it back until his shoulders rested against the wall. His feet were upon the rung, and he waved his hat back and forth, fanning himself, for it was warm. In this position he could look up at the face of the pretty girl before him, whose smooth brow was touched with just the slightest indication of a faint frown. She did not even glance at the self-confident young man, but kept her eyes fixed resolutely on her work. In the silence the table creaked as Margaret kneaded the dough. Yates felt an unaccustomed sensation of embarrassment creeping over him, and realized that he would have to re-erect the conversation on a new basis. It was manifestly absurd that a resourceful New Yorker, who had conversed unabashed with presidents, senators, generals, and other great people of a great nation, should be put out of countenance by the unaccountable coldness of a country girl in the wilds of Canada.

      “I have not had an opportunity of properly introducing myself,” he said at last, when the creaking of the table, slight as it was, became insupportable. “My name is Richard Yates, and I come from New York. I am camping out in this neighborhood to relieve, as it were, a mental strain—the result of years of literary work.”

      Yates knew from long experience that the quickest and surest road to a woman’s confidence was through her sympathy. “Mental strain” struck him as a good phrase, indicating midnight oil and the hollow eye of the devoted student.

      “Is your work mental, then?” asked Margaret incredulously, flashing, for the first time, a dark-eyed look at him.

      “Yes,” Yates laughed uneasily. He had manifestly missed fire. “I notice by your tone that you evidently think my equipment meager. You should not judge by appearances, Miss Howard. Most of us are better than we seem, pessimists to the contrary notwithstanding. Well, as I was saying, the camping company consists of two partners. We are so different in every respect that we are the best of friends. My partner is Mr. Stillson Renmark, professor of something or other in University College, Toronto.”

      For the first time Margaret exhibited some interest in the conversation.

      “Professor Renmark? I have heard of him.”

      “Dear me! I had no idea the fame of the professor had penetrated beyond the precincts of the university—if a university has precincts. He told me it had all the modern improvements, but I suspected at the time that was merely Renny’s brag.”

      The frown on the girl’s brow deepened, and Yates was quick to see that he had lost ground again, if, indeed, he had ever gained any, which he began to doubt. She evidently did not relish his glib talk about the university. He was just about to say something deferentially about that institution, for he was not a man who would speak disrespectfully of the equator if he thought he might curry favor with his auditor by doing otherwise, when it occurred to him that Miss Howard’s interest was centered in the man, and not in the university.

      “In this world, Miss Howard,” he continued, “true merit rarely finds its reward; at least, the reward shows some reluctance in making itself visible in time for man to enjoy it. Professor Renmark is a man so worthy that I was rather astonished to learn that you knew of him. I am glad for his sake that it is so, for no man more thoroughly deserves fame than he.”

      “I know nothing of him,” said Margaret, “except what my brother has written. My brother is a student at the university.”

      “Is he really? And what is he going in for?”

      “A good education.”

      Yates laughed.

      “Well, that is an all-round handy thing for a person to have about him. I often wish I had had a university training. Still, it is not valued in an American newspaper office as much as might be. Yet,” he added in a tone that showed he did not desire to be unfair to a man of education, “I have known some university men who became passably good reporters in time.”

      The girl made no answer, but attended strictly to the work in hand. She had the rare gift of silence, and these intervals of quiet abashed Yates, whose most frequent boast was that he could outtalk any man on earth. Opposition, or even abuse, merely served as a spur to his volubility, but taciturnity disconcerted him.

      “Well,” he cried at length, with something like desperation, “let us abandon this animated discussion on the subject of education, and take up the more practical topic of bread. Would you believe, Miss Howard, that I am an expert in bread making?”