Chapter XXXII The Answer
The duties of the day were at last done, and I turned toward the Kendrick house with a lively sense of my obligation to relieve the anxieties that might still be felt in that household. The afternoon had been taken up with the fag ends of our business complications, and darkness had set in before I could leave the office. The streets were quiet, and, except for the Vigilante patrols, were almost deserted.
As I neared my destination a large man halted me with a raised pick-handle, and said:
“Vere go you, mine vrendt? Don’d you petter go home?”
I laughed and showed him my committee badge.
“That’s where I’m going. And I hope you will have a quieter time than they gave us last night.”
“Oxcuse me,” said the Vigilante. “I mine orders obey, and mine block of hoodlums kept swept.” And with a good night, I hastened on my way to the Kendrick place.
I found Laura and Mercy together.
“Well,” said Laura graciously, “I’m glad to see that you have kept out of the fighting for one little while. I was supposing that you were down on the Barbary Coast getting your head smashed. Take that big easy-chair; it’s the softest, and I’m sure you ought to appreciate it after all the knocks you’ve had.”
“Oh, it looks as though there was no more fighting to be done. The hoodlums have taken to their holes, and the Vigilante pick-handles rule the city.”
“Well, if it’s all over it will be a great relief to my mind,” she replied. “And I suppose you’ll be glad to hear that uncle is better. He has come to his senses again, and I’ve set his mind at rest about the business, and Doctor Roberts says he will be out in a few weeks.”
“Well, all our troubles are coming to an end at once then,” I said with a lightened spirit.
“Yes, I got your note saying that the worst was over, and the business safe. It was good of you to send it. That was a shocking thing about Mr. Bolton. He was an old—well, I won’t say what, for he’s dead and gone—but I believe I feel sorry for him, after all.”
“Yes,” said Mercy, with a grave nod, “whomever he injured, we know that it was himself he injured most of all. What will they do with Mr. Merwin?”
“They’ve turned him loose already. The committing magistrate called it justifiable homicide, which is bad law, though there’s some elemental justice about it, and the crowd carried Merwin out of the court on their shoulders. The Grand Jury may take it up, but Bolton was not a popular character. At any rate Merwin is free now.”
“Well, he is a much injured man,” said Laura, “though I don’t see that he has bettered himself. And now what did you mean in your note about having a very important communication from Big Sam? I have some curiosity left after all the excitement.”
“It’s highly interesting. Moon Ying turns out to be the long-lost daughter of a Somebody. Also Big Sam has a suitor for her hand.”
“Who is he? What is he?” came in a breath from the two girls.
“A merchant, a Chinaman and a widower,” I replied. And then I gave them the information that Big Sam had confided to me.
“Well,” said Laura decisively, “that’s very interesting about Moon Ying’s family, but I don’t see that it can do her much good. And that widower can come up here, and we’ll look him over. I can tell you right now that he will have to pass a very rigid examination, and he shan’t have Moon Ying unless she wants him.”
“Hm-m! I suspect he will have to acquire some new ideas on the qualifications of an expectant husband, and I’m afraid he’s rather old to learn.”
“Well, if the ideas are new to him, it’s time he learned ’em,” said Laura, “and if he’s too old to learn, why, so much the worse for him. He can go back where he came from.”
“Yes,” said Mercy quietly, “if it is to be worse for him or worse for her, why, he is the one who must give way.”
“I’m afraid you are in a fair way to upset the whole scheme of Chinese domesticity,” I said.
“Well, it’s high time it was upset,” returned Laura. “And if I’m not much mistaken, Moon Ying has learned a thing or two since she has been here that will upset it for at least one household. So Mr. No-Name Chinaman had better be preparing his credentials and studying up to pass his examinations.” And she thereupon gave such a list of qualifications for a possible husband for Moon Ying that I was disposed to condole with Big Sam’s candidate on his chances of election to the blessed state of matrimony.
Mercy Fillmore expressed a somewhat less exalted ideal of the suitor who would fill the measure of Moon Ying’s maiden fancies, though I was certain that it was one that would astonish the celestial widower. And then in sudden concern, lest her patients should be in need of her attention, she excused herself, and Laura and I were left alone.
For a little time she was silent, gazing dreamily at the floor, and I was content to watch her without speech. The storm and stress of the past few weeks had given something more of womanliness to the delicately cut features, and, to my eyes at least, there was an added grace to the attitude and movements of the small figure. It seemed as though the woman in her had suddenly bloomed into the strength that the girl had only suggested.
At last a little smile dimpled the corners of her mouth, and without raising her eyes she said:
“Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at one so?”
“I beg your pardon,” I returned impenitently, “but it’s impossible to help it.”
“Oh,” she said, with a quick return to her matter-of-fact tone, “that’s ruder yet. And now I want to know how much longer you’re going to keep this pack of men around the house. They’re rather a responsibility for a housekeeper, and it’s something like living in a public square.”
“I’m going to cut the force in half to-morrow, but the rest of them will stay till Moon Ying is out of the place. I’m taking no more risks.”
“I suppose you are right,” she said slowly. Then she looked up impulsively, and added: “How good you have been to us! I don’t see how we should have got through without you. We are through, aren’t we? I’m hoping you feel that you have our thanks, at least.”
I stepped to her side and took her hand.
“I’ve asked for much more than that,” I began. I intended to say a good deal more, but a diabolic click in my throat interfered with my voice, and a whirl of brain cells tangled my ideas into such inextricable confusion that I was able only to gasp out: “I want an answer to my question. I want you, and I’m going to have you.”
She had risen to her feet, and I was panic-stricken with the fear that she was going to run away. Then, while I was struggling to get my ideas and my vocal organs into subordination that would make them of use in this emergency, the hereditary instinct coming from some ancestor with, more courage than I—may Heaven bless him for coming into the family!—inspired my arm, and I clasped her in close embrace. She struggled for a moment. Then she looked up at me, and, my ancestor’s courage inspiring me once more, I bent down and kissed her.
“Oh, it isn’t fair,” she whispered in protesting accent; and I repeated the offense. “How can I answer?” she added. “You know I can’t.”
“There’s only one answer,” I whispered in return, “and you might as well give it now.”
At this moment I heard a gasp, and Mercy Fillmore’s voice exclaimed in consternation:
“Oh, I beg pardon—I hadn’t any idea—”
At the sound, Laura whirled about and was out of my clasp, with a strength and quickness marvelous and unexpected.
“You may come in, Mercy,” she said with an enviable self-possession, though her face bloomed into a most admirable variety of rose-colors. “You shall be the first to congratulate us. We—we didn’t intend to announce it yet—but we are engaged to be married.”
Mercy gave her good wishes most prettily, and though I suspected that she considered Mr. Baldwin a more suitable match, she was kind enough not to give any hint of it, and kissed Laura, and assured me that I had won the greatest prize in the world.