A Girl to Come Home To (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

her!

      He cast a quick look toward his father, and saw him eating quietly along, enjoying the festive dinner, not seeming to question what had become of Rod. Not being upset nor allowing any tenseness in the pleasant home atmosphere since these old-time friends suddenly dropped in upon them so unexpectedly. Just taking it as if it were an everyday happening.

      “Jeremy,” said his mother pleasantly, “take this coffeepot out to Hetty and ask her to make a little more coffee. These friends will have a cup of coffee with us surely, even if they have had their dinner.”

      Jeremy arose promptly, smilingly, took the coffeepot, and vanished kitchen-ward.

      Then arose Jessica, scowling. “I think we should be going,” she said sharply. “I want to find Rod.”

      “Oh,” said Marcella Ashby, whose car they had come in, “but how will you find him? You don’t know where he’s gone.”

      “Oh,” said Jessica scornfully, “we’ll just scout around until we find him. I imagine he’ll not be hard to find. Will he, Mr. Graeme?”

      Father Graeme looked up with an inscrutable smile. “I wouldn’t know, Jessie,” he said. “Rodney has always been a bit unpredictable, and there’s no telling now, since he’s been off to war on his own.”

      Jessica turned angrily and marched toward the hall door looking back to say, as Jeremy came in with the coffeepot, “No coffee for me, thank you. I’m going out to find Rod.”

      But suddenly Marcella spoke up. “Speak for yourself, Jess. I’m staying for coffee. I haven’t had any of the Graeme coffee in ages, and there’s nobody else in Riverton can make coffee like old Hetty.”

      Jessica paused angrily. “Oh well, then give me your keys to the car. I haven’t any time to waste. I can pick you up later when I’m ready to go back to your house.” It was spoken quite haughtily, as if Marcella might be a sort of hired servant.

      “No, you don’t get my car keys,” said Marcella, reaching out to accept the cup of coffee Mother Graeme made haste to pour for her. “I’m not running any risks like that. You always do make a car act all haywire. And besides, I know the hours you keep. I’m not going to wait around here and make everybody stay up entertaining me nor walk home without the car.”

      “Oh, very well,” said Jessica disagreeably. “Next time I’ll hire a car of my own or get a gentleman to accompany me.”

      So Jessica stood pettishly in the doorway, staring down the hall, wondering what had become of the coats and caps she had seen on the hat rack when she came in. And there she stubbornly stood while the rest of the party lingered drinking their coffee in a leisurely manner, reluctant to leave the pleasant old home and the charming family circle that had once been so dear to them all.

      CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      Out in the pantry, Rodney, boiling with rage, slammed his plate down on the pantry shelf and scowled. What right did those girls have to come here the first night he was at home and barge into the dining room? Yes, they were old friends, most of them, but they ought to have better sense. And that girl! What was her idea in coming? He and she had nothing in common anymore, and he didn’t want to see her ever again. Rotten little double-crosser! And then presume to think she could smile and smooth it all over and be just as good friends as ever. Not on your life he wouldn’t.

      He didn’t know what the family would think of his having run away, when perhaps Mom didn’t know anything about it all and wouldn’t understand. Though he could usually depend on his family to stand back of him whatever he did. And of course those others. He didn’t know what they would think about him, and he didn’t much care. Had any of them seen him go? He thought not, for the hall wasn’t exactly in line with where he had been sitting. But he was most troubled about Mom. Of course she might have heard some gossip and might have got on to the fact that there was a break between him and Jessica. Still, he hadn’t meant to have it come to her knowledge in such a way as this. But since it had come, it had, and he would have to take it and get it over with, no matter what. Of course, if Jessica had carried out her threat and got married, Mom would certainly have heard some gossip, but he was definitely not going to be friends with Jessica, not even acquaintances if he could help it. He thought of the hours of peril and danger through which he had lived, and of how he had all this time also battled with the thought of her disloyalty to him, disloyalty to the tender vows of everlasting love she had uttered before he went away, and how many times he had writhed in their memory as he went forth to fight the enemy! He had thought over all the precious times of their youthful association, her professed overwhelming love for him, which she had so utterly repudiated afterward, all those treasured looks and touches of her hands and lips! No, he had torn them from his consciousness, flung them away to some foreign breeze in a strange land, renounced them forever, erased them from his memory. And now that he had come back to a pleasant homeland, did she think that he could smooth them all over and be friends? Could she think that for a smile from her he would take her back into his friendship? No! A thousand times no! He was done with her forever. If she forced him ever to have to see her again or speak to her, he would certainly make her understand clearly that he had no faith in her whatever. Not even if she should repent and say she was sorry and want him back would he ever love her again. For, strange to say, the separation and the peril and her own disloyalty had utterly killed all the love he used to think he had for her. And suddenly, sitting there in the pantry, he saw that it never had been real love but only imagination. He had taken her lovely image, beautiful features, a flawless complexion, gorgeous hair that seemed so like the crowning of a young saint, and upon those outward forms he had built up a character for her that was not really hers.

      And now, was it possible that he could ever be glad that all this happened and that her action would, in a way, set him free from whatif it had gone on as he had plannedwould have been a galling life of torture for him? Disillusionment had come early and in a hard way at a hard time. But how much better that it had come now instead of after they were married and he was doomed to a life that would have been worse than imprisonment or death. Come back to her and be good friends? Well, she could guess again. He was done with her forever. He didn’t ever want to see her again, and wouldn’t if he could help it. But if he had to see her again under circumstances where he couldn’t help it, he would make her understand once and for all that he was finished.

      Just then Hetty tapped softly at the pantry door. “Mr. Roddy,” she whispered softly, using his old pet name by which she used to call him when he was a child, “I’se got some more good chicken for you, an’ some mashed taters real hot, an’ some o’ them yeller turnips you useta love so much, an’ nobody won’t know you’se here. They all think you’se gone away.”

      Cautiously, Rod shoved away the chair he had braced under the latch of the door and held out his empty plate, grinning sheepishly.

      Silently the old servant filled his plate with choice pieces and much hot gravy, added a cup of coffee and an extra understanding grin, and Rod attacked his second helping with much gusto. Somehow he would have to make his peace afterward with his mother, but after all, Mom always understood, and maybe she never had cared much for Jessica anyway. He tried to think back and began to see a glimmer of half disapproval in the past. Well, anyway, it was good to be at home, and his hunger was getting appeased. Good old Hetty, who had always understood, too! Now, whenever those stupid visitors departed, he could come out of hiding and be none the worse for wear.

      As he finished off the last breast of chicken Hetty had brought him and started in on the applesauce and hot biscuits, he grinned across the kitchen at Hetty as she hovered just outside the dining room door with her ear trained near to a hearing crack and an interested eagerness on her kind old face.

      He lifted his hand with a summoning gesture, and Hetty stole noiselessly across the smooth kitchen floor with a questioning look.

      “Who’s in there, Hetty?” he asked. “Anybody