CHAPTER   22.

IONE CRIED OUT. AMANDA PUT HER drink, gladly, quickly, on the tabletop, and slipped out of her chair, crouching to snatch at the rolling tumbler.

“Here, take my handkerchief,” said Thone calmly. “Ah, too bad.”

“Toby, dear!” Ione was alarmed.

Tobias was looking down at Mandy’s soft hair, at her pretty back, the rich glow of her dress, at her hand scrubbing spilled milk with Thone’s handkerchief. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, quite normally. His eyes turned in his head. He thought, None of them notice! None of them remember. I must not speak now of Belle. For none of them realize this echoing. It’s a coincidence. Only to me is it all so horribly the same.

Fanny was plain furious. Her eyes licked angrily at Mandy’s back. “You’d better have your stuff that helps you sleep, Toby, and get to bed. You’re jittery. You need to rest. You must have rest.” She switched her wrathful gaze to Thone.

“I’ll fetch more milk,” said Ione, with a wild worried look around. She hurried away. Her little feet pattered nervously. She almost ran.

Mandy, on her knees, mopped at the spot. Tobias, pinching his trouser leg, half rose out of the chair. Fanny was glaring. “I can’t drink this stuff!” she said.

But Thone gave no heed to Fanny. He put his glass of Herbsaint on Mandy’s side of the table. He took up the drink that had been prepared for her. He held it, as he had been holding his own. He sat quite still and his mouth slipped into a small, strangely triumphant little smile.

Fanny said, in a low strangling voice, “Thone, in God’s name …”

He lifted his eyes. Fanny’s face, so trained, so practiced, so able to show what she felt, showed now her perfect astonishment. Then fear. Bewilderment, then pain. Then panic.

Ah, no! He groaned inside. His smile vanished. All trace of it went out of his consciousness. Fanny would blurt out something. Fanny would say, would ask. Fanny had seen what he did and she was going to spoil it yet! Now! Now that he had succeeded. Now that Mandy was safe and all was well and it could proceed. Now that he had the danger here in his hand, and Gene waited in the canyon and they would so soon know.… He fastened his eyes on hers. He moved his lips. He made faces that said, Hush, hush.

It was no use. Fanny was going to spoil it all, unless he could … He juggled the crutch. He put the glass down to grasp it. No, he could not get up and go to her. It was too awkward. He beckoned, instead.

Fanny obeyed. She got up and came toward him, drawn, fascinated, willing, for just this moment, to be silent and listen.

Mandy, kneeling, still scrubbed. She was speaking some reassuring words about the stain.

Thone turned in the chair, caught at Fanny’s arm. The henna head came down. He whispered, “Be still. Let it go. I’ll tell you later. Fanny, if you love me …”

And in this moment, Tobias, half standing, pinching the trouser leg still with his left hand, took his trembling right forefinger and turned the table. Turned the round revolving tabletop. Quietly, unseen by anyone, unseen by Mandy, crouching there, unseen by the two who were whispering so frantically, unseen by Ione, now hurrying back, it slipped around. The glasses, in a stately figure, like an old dance, followed each other on the turning rim. They changed places.

Mandy said, “There, I think that does it.” She sat on her heels.

A mask slipped over Fanny’s face. She glided past Thone and leaned as if to inspect. “Yes, child, I should think so.”

Ione, pattering in, caught them as they were posed in her dark glance. She said cheerily, “No harm done. None at all. I’ll have this for you in a minute, Toby dear.” Tobias fell into the chair as she carried his fresh milk to the bar. Mandy got up.

“For heaven’s sake,” said Thone, squirming irritably, “sit down, everybody. Drink your drink, Mandy. Elsie can clean that, can’t she?”

“Why, of course she can,” said Ione quite gaily. “Mustn’t cry over spilled milk, anyhow.” She trilled her laughter.

Tobias lay as he had fallen. He was ill—ill.… No one must leave this house, having drunk from a dubious glass. No one. That was the impulse. But ah—he was ill. He was not clear in his head. He was somehow entangled with the past. He was not seeing clearly.

Thone, whom he called in his heart The Boy, as if he were the only best boy, the whole generation of wonderful male youth distilled in this boy, his dear own—Thone could have meant no harm. It was nothing that he’d changed so swiftly, in so slick a fashion, one glass for another under Tobias’ startled eyes. No, it meant nothing. It could mean nothing.

He could not have put any alien substance in one of those glasses. Not Thone! Ah, nol Never!

One had only to wait and see this proved before his eyes. How meaningless it was. For Thone would drink of the wrong glass and remain here, and take it in this room. And he, Tobias, would observe how nothing happened, and he would know himself to have been an old fool. A terrified old fool, worked on by memories, putting past horror into present … nothings.

For Thone would not wish to injure Mandy, sweet pretty Mandy. What Tobias had heard him saying could not apply to Mandy. Not bear to have her look at him? Resent her here? Not Thone, who had his mother’s generous heart. Not Thone, who was surely, surely … Oh, what a fool I am! Not so small as to hate, not so narrow as to resent, not so stupid as to strike out, blind and angry …

Ah, if he was cool to this pretty child, it was only because of that old affair, the other girl who’d wounded and frightened him so that he never quite dared be himself. Tobias could understand. He knew all this. He knew it well. He knew The Boy.

He was sorry, now, that he’d so impulsively changed the glasses around again. He regretted his panic, that brief loss of faith. He should have had faith!

In The Boy. This man … grown and so long away …

He began to shudder. Ah, God, but he lacked … He had no faith … since she’d left him. He was lost, lost, since she’d taken her life away. He had understood nothing since. Nothing. And he was nothing, since she’d gone so enigmatically, so cruelly, cruelly, out of the world. He was only a nervous, shattered old fool, who should have died, not hereafter, but herebefore.…

“Toby, my dear! You’re having a chill!”

Ah, empty and lost was he, with only Ione to cling to now. “I don’t know,” he said. “Ione, I don’t know.”

“Take it easy, Dad,” said Thone quietly.

The shuddering stopped.

“There, dearest. Your milk.” Ione hovered over him. “He’ll be all right,” she told the rest.

Amanda took her glass, sighing.

“Of course he will,” said Fanny. Her face was smooth but her body seemed to huddle in the chair.