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Page 51
He made one last heroic effort to break his chain of thraldom. After
an interval of bitter insubordination which ended each night in
surrender, he set his teeth and vowed by every sacred thing he knew
that to-morrow night, summons or no summons, he would not go to the
sitting room of Adam Craig. He would secretly leave the farmhouse at
dusk with Joan and when Hughie knocked on his bedroom door, ready to
say that the old man was lonely and in pain, he would be safe and
serene in the cabin in the pines. Was it fated to be his refuge too?
Torrential rain woke him in the morning. Kenny stared out at the wet
valley in tragic unbelief. It simply could not be; for he wanted a
dusk flecked with stars. But the rain gave no promise of abating and
late that afternoon he altered the detail of his rebellion.
Fortunately there were other ways. When the dusk closed in and the old
man watched the clock and waited, he would go boldly downstairs to the
old piano and register his rebellion in music that Adam Craig could
hear. He would spend his evening openly with Joan; he would go through
fire and water; he would ride the whirlwind and direct the storm but
what this time he would assure his emancipation.
Instinct had warned him to abandon, in his hours with Adam Craig,
certain picturesque forms of attire in which he delighted. To-night,
whistling with a feeling of gayety and unrestraint, he rummaged his
trunks, selecting his clothing with fastidious attention to minor
detail and held the lamp high at the end to afford a better glimpse of
the handsome Irishman smiling back at him from the mirror in the
bureau. No doubt of it, give a fashionable tailor disposed to be
experimental, his head and enough money on account and he could create
a dash and piquancy worth while. Always remembering that such a
creative artisan was fortunate to find a suitable contrast of shoulder
and hip to wear his inspiration.
Kenny in the best of spirits went downstairs. The lamp in the parlor
was already lighted; soft yellow shadows lay upon the faded walls; dust
and cobwebs had long ago surrendered to the siege of Hannah's broom.
Kenny drew the curtains to close out the splash of rain upon the window
panes and went to the piano. Even the noise of wind and rain left him
calm and cold and invincible. He played brilliantly snatches of
everything he knew. When Joan came and curled up in a chair beside him
with her chin upon her hand, he forgot Adam Craig entirely and went on
playing. Not the music of rebellion; it was more the music of dreams,
dusk-moths of melody that flitted through his memory, curiously
iridescent.
He drifted dangerously after a while into the tenderness and passion of
the _Liebestraume_, the one thing perhaps that, loving, he knew to the
end; swept through the downward cadenza with exquisite accuracy and
feeling, and forgot the rest. With the girl's soft pensive eyes upon
him he could have forgotten anything; he even forgot that love is
transient.
"Joan!" he gasped.
A loud voice rasped through the silence.
"Kenny!"
Joan shivered. Kenny stared at her in terror. It was the voice of
Adam Craig.
"Kenny!" The voice, sharp with indignation, brought them both to their
feet.
"Yes?" stammered Kenny, his face scarlet.
"Do you know _all_ of anything?"
Lamp in hand Kenny went to the foot of the stairway.
"Adam," he demanded, staring up aghast at the wheel-chair and the
wrinkled, saturnine face bending over the railing with a leer of
triumph, "how in God's name did you get there?"
"Wheeled myself, you Irish fool!" snapped Adam.
Kenny went wearily up the stairway and set the lamp in a corner of the
hallway.
"Well," bristled the old man. "Why don't you say something? What are
you going to do about it?"
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