"Well, can't you speak?"
"Well, can't you speak?"
"Well, you wouldn't have to!" he answered readily. "This steamer ticket reads from New York to Liverpool."
"Liverpool?" I repeated, as blankly as if geography hadn't been my favorite book at school—to eat apples behind.
"And Hudson suggested, since you showed last night that you were keen on getting the news of the hour, that you'd likely succeed in a new line in England. We've been surfeited on Westminster Abbey and the lakes, so we wantnews! Coal strikes and suffragettes—and other curses!"
"News?"
"Instead of mooning around Hampstead Heath listening to the newest scandal about George Romney and his lady friend, stay strictly in the twentieth century and get in line with the militants. Describe how they address crowds from cart-tails."
"I see," I said slowly.
But in my attempts to see I think I must have passed my left hand across my forehead. At all events, he caught sight of its ringless state.
"Grace!" he exclaimed, catching my fingers roughly and scrutinizing the little pallid circle left by the ring's long contact—sometimes the healthiest, sometimes the deadliest pallor that female flesh is heir to! "Does this mean that you've broken off with Guilford Blake?"
"Yes."
His face grew grave.
"Then, child, I beg your pardon for talking so glibly about your going away!—I didn't know."
"But it isn't that—it's not that I'm worrying over now," I explained forlornly. "And Guilford's not hurt! Please don't waste sympathy on him. He'll be glad, when the first shock gets over, for I've tormented him unmercifully."
"Then—what is it?" he asked, very gently.
I drew away my hand.
"It's—somethingelse! And please don't change your mind about sending me abroad! I'd like very much to go away from here. Anywhere except to Italy."
He reached over and patted my bereft hand affectionately.
"So the something else is the same sort of something, after all?"
"Perhaps."
"Then run along and begin getting ready," he said. "Get clothes in your head—and salt-sprayed decks on moonlight nights, and wild adventures."
I smiled.
"That's right! Smile! Ican'tsend out a representative with a broken leg—and I'd prefer not sending out one with a broken heart."
I turned away then, struggling fiercely with something in my throat, but just for an instant.
"Broken heart!" I repeated scornfully. "It's not that bad. You mustn't think I'm such a fool."
"Well," he said briskly, "whatever it is, cut it out! And, believe me, my dear, a steamer trunk is the best possible grave for unrequited love."
Personally, I am of such an impatient disposition that I can't bear to read a chapter in a book which begins: "Meanwhile——" Life is too short for meanwhiles! But, since the Oldburgh epoch of my career has passed, and the brilliant new epoch has a sea-voyage before it—and crossing the ocean is distinctly a "meanwhile" occupation—I have decided to mark time by taking extracts from my green leather voyage book, with the solid gold clasp and the pencil that won't write. (The city editor gave me the book.)
The first entry was made at the breakfast table in an unnecessarily smart New York hotel. That's one bad feature about having a newspaper pay your traveling expenses! You can't havethe pleasure of indulging the vagabondage of your nature—as you can when you're traveling on your hook. The lonely little entry says:
"HateNew York! Always feel countrified and unpopular here!"
"HateNew York! Always feel countrified and unpopular here!"
But the next one was much better. It reads:
"Lovethe sea, whose principal charm is the sky above it! The one acceptable fact about orthodox Heaven is that it's up in the sky. You couldn't endure it if it were in any closer quarters."
"Lovethe sea, whose principal charm is the sky above it! The one acceptable fact about orthodox Heaven is that it's up in the sky. You couldn't endure it if it were in any closer quarters."
Yet between New York and Heaven there lay several unappreciated days—days when I sat for long hours facing strange faces and hearing a jumbled jargon about "barth" hours, deck chairs and miscarried roses. By the way, a strange trick of fate had filled my own bare little stateroom with flowers. I say a trick of fate, because some of them were for Pauline Calhoun, whose New York friends had heard of her proposed journey, but not of her accident, and some of them were addressed to me. I could understand the Pauline blossoms, but those directed to MissGrace Christie were mystifying—very. But I accepted them with hearty thanks, and the time I spent wondering over them kept me from grieving over the fact that the Statue of Liberty was the only person on the horizon whose face I had ever seen before; and they kept me feeling like a prima donna for half a week.
"Henry Walker couldn't have sent them," I pondered the first day, as the big, big box was deposited inside my door. "He's not such a close friend, even though he is the Hiram Walkers' son—and then, New York law students never have any money left over for orchids."
I enumerated all the other people I happened to know in New York at that time, all of them there for the purpose of "studying" something, and not for the purpose of buying vast quantities of the highest-priced flower blown, and the mystery only loomed larger.
Still, the question could not keep me entirely occupied between meals, and on the very day we sailed, before we had got into the space wherethe union of the sea and sky seem to shut out all pettiness, I got to feeling very sorry for myself. Thinking to get rid of this by mingling with humanity, I went down into the lounge, where I was amazed to find dozens of other women sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. It was not an inspiring sight, so after a vain attempt to read, I curled my arms round a sofa cushion in the corner of the big room and turned my face away from the world in general. The next communication I received was rather unexpected. I heard a brisk voice, close beside me exclaim:
"My word! A great big girl like you crying!"
It was an English voice—a woman's, or rather a girl's, and as I braced up indignantly I met the blue-gray eyes of a fresh-faced young Amazon bent toward my corner sympathetically.
"I'm not crying," I denied.
She turned directly toward me then, and I saw a surprised smile come over her face.
"Oh,you! No—I supposed that you were ill; but the little kid over there——"
I saw then that there was a tiny girl tucked farther away into the corner, her shoulders heaving between the conflict of pride and grief.
"Cheer up, and I'll tell you a story," the English girl encouraged, and after a few minutes the small flushed face came out of its hiding-place.
"So you thought I was talking toyou?"
She turned to me laughingly after the smaller bunch of loneliness had been soothed and sent away.
"I was—mistaken——"
"But I'm sure I should have offered to tell you a story—if I had supposed that it would do you any good," she continued.
"Almost anything—any sound of a human voice would do me good now," I answered desperately, and with that sky-rocket sort of spontaneity which you feel you can afford once or twice in a lifetime.
"You're alone?"
"Yes—and miserable."
Her blue eyes were very frank and friendly,and I immediately straightened up with a hope that we might discover some mutual interest nearer and dearer than the Boston Tea-Party.
That's one good thing about a seafaring life—the preliminaries that you are able to do without in making friends. If you meet a nice woman who discovers that her son went to Princeton with your father's friend's nephew you at once take it for granted that you may tell her many things about yourself that are not noted down in your passport.
"You're American—of course?" this English girl asked next.
I acquiesced patriotically, but not arrogantly.
"Yes—I'm American! My name's Grace Christie, and I'm a newspaper woman from—from——"
I hesitated, and she looked at me inquiringly.
"I didn't understand the name of the state?" she said.
"Because I haven't told you yet!" I laughed. "I remember other experiences in mentioning mynative place to you English. You always say, 'Oh, the place where the negro minstrels come from!'"
She smiled, and her face brightened suddenly.
"The South! How nice! IloveAmericans!" she exclaimed, confiding the clause about her affection for my countrymen in a lowered voice, and looking around to make sure that no one heard.
Then, after this, it took her about half a minute to invite me out of my corner and to propose that I go and meet her father and mother.
"We'll find them in the library," she ventured, and we did.
"The South! How nice! WeloveAmericans!" they both exclaimed, as we unearthed them a little while later in a corner of the reading-room. And before they had confided to me their affection for my countrymen they lowered their voices and glanced at their daughter to make sure that she was not listening. They made their observations in precisely the same tone and they looked preciselyalike, except that the father had side-whiskers. They were both small and slight and very durably dressed.
"Miss Christie is a newspaper woman—traveling alone!"
The daughter, whom they addressed as "Hilda" made the announcement promptly, and her manner seemed to warn them that if they found this any just cause or impediment they were to speak now or else hereafter forever hold their peace.
"Indeed?" said the mother, looking over my clothes with a questioning air, which, however, did not disapprove. "Indeed?"
"My word!" said the father, also taking stock of me, but his glance got no further than my homesick face. "Myword!"
But you are not to suppose from the tone that anything had gone seriously wrong with his word. He said it in a gently searching way, as an old grandfather, seeking about blindly on the mantlepiece might say, "My spectacles!"
So realistic was the impression of his peeringaround mildly in search of something that I almost jumped up from my chair to see if I could, by mistake, be sitting on his word.
"Isn't she young?"
His twinkling little gray eyes sought his wife's as if for corroboration, and she nodded vigorously.
"Indeed, yes, Herbert! But they shed their pinafores long before our girls do, remember!"
Then he turned to his daughter.
"My dear, the American womenareso capable!" he said, and she threw him a smile which would have been regarded as impertinent—on English soil.
"Well, I'm sure I've no objections to being an American woman myself," she said.
"And you do not mind the loneliness of the trip you're taking?" the mother put in hastily, as if to cover her daughter's remark.
"I didn't—until to-day."
"But we must see to it now that you're not too lonely," she hastened to assure me. "Wherehave they put you in the dining-room, my dear?"
I mentioned my table's location.
"Oh, but we'll get the steward to change you at once!" they chorused, when it had been pointed out to them that my position in the salon was isolated and far away from the music of the orchestra.
"We're just next the captain's table," Hilda explained. "We happened to know him and——"
"And it's inspiring to watch the liberties he takes with the menu," the father said. "I'd best write down our number, though I'll see the steward myself."
From his pocketbook he produced a card, scribbling their table number upon the back and handing it to me.
I took it and glanced at the legend the face of it bore, first of all, for figures are just figures, even though they do radiate out from the captain's table.
"Mr. Herbert Montgomery, Bannerley Hall, Bannerley, Lancashire," was the way it read.
"Lancashire?" I asked, looking up so quickly that Hilda mistook my emotion for dismay.
"Yes, we live in Lancashire, but——"
"But we're going on to London first," Mrs. Montgomery assured me.
"We'll see to it that you're put down, safe and sound, at Charing Cross," Mr. Herbert Montgomery finished up.
I looked up again, this time in sheer bewilderment.
"Liverpool's in Lancashire," Hilda explained. "I thought perhaps you were afraid we would desert you as soon as we docked."
I laughed in some embarrassment.
"I'm sure I never before heard that Liverpool had any connection with Lancashire," I explained. "But I was thinking of—something else."
"Something else—how curious! Why, what else is Lancashire noted for in America, pray?"
They were all three looking at me in some excitement, for my eyes were betraying the palpitations I was experiencing.
"Do you—does it happen that you have ever heard of Colmere Abbey?" I asked.
They drew a deep breath, evidently relieved.
"Do we!" they chorused again, as they had a habit of doing, I learned, whenever they were surprised or amused. "Well,rather!"
"Surely you don't mean to tell me that it's your own home?" I demanded, wondering if coincidence had gone so far, but they shook their heads.
"No! Just next-door neighbors."
"Next-door neighbors to the place, my dear young lady," Mr. Montgomery modified, glancing at his wife rather reproachfully. "Not to the—owner of Colmere!"
But I scarcely heard him. I was trying to place an ancient memory in my mind.
"'Bannerley Hall!'"
"That's our place."
"But I'm trying to remember where I have heard of it," I explained. "Of course! They all mentioned it at one time or another."
"They?—Who, my dear? Why Herbert—isn't this interesting?"
"Why, Washington Irving—and Lady Frances Webb—and Uncle James Christie."
Their questions and my half-dazed answers were tumbling over one another.
"James Christie—Grace Christie?" Mrs. Montgomery asked, connecting our names with a delighted opening of her eyes. "Why, mydear!"
"How fortunate I was!" observed Hilda. "I knew, though, from the moment I saw the back of your head that you were no ordinary American tourist!"
"They all 'rode over to Bannerley Hall—the day being fine!'" I quoted, from one of the letters written by Lady Frances Webb.
"That was in my great-grandfather's time," Mr. Montgomery elucidated. "And James Christie was your——"
"Uncle—with several 'greats' between."
"He was even more famous in England than in his own country," Mrs. Montgomery threw inhastily, as she saw her husband's eyes twinkling—a sure sign, I afterward learned, that he was going to say something wicked. "He painted all the notable people of the age."
"He made many pictures of the Lady Frances Webb," Mr. Montgomery succeeded in saying, after a while. "I don't know whether it's well known in America or not, but—there was—talk!"
"Herbert!"
He stiffened.
"It's true, my dear."
"We don't know whether it's true or not!" she contended.
"Well, it's tradition! I'm sure Miss Christie wouldn't want to come to England and not learn all the old legends she might."
Then, partly because I was bubbling over with excitement, and partly because I wished to ease Mrs. Montgomery's mind on the subject, I began telling them my story—from the day of Aunt Patricia's sudden whim, three days before her death, down to the packet of faded letters lyingat that moment in the bottom of my steamer trunk.
"I thought perhaps the present owner of Colmere might let me burn them there!" I explained. "I have pictured her as a dear and somewhat lonely old dowager who would take a great deal of interest in this ancient affair."
The three looked at me intently for an instant, but not one of them laughed.
"And you're carrying them back to Colmere—instead of selling them!" Mrs. Montgomery finally uttered in a little awed voice, as I finished my story. "How extraordinary!"
"Very," said Hilda.
"Most un-American—if you'll not be offended with me for saying so, Miss Christie," Mr. Montgomery observed. Then he turned to his wife. "My dear, onlythinkof Lord Erskine!" he said.
She shook her head.
"But I mustn't!" she answered, with a sad little smile. "I really couldn't think of Lord Erskine while listening to anything so pretty."
I caught at the name, curiously.
"Lord Erskine?"
"Yes—the present owner of the abbey."
"But—what a beautiful-sounding name! Lord Erskine!"
I looked at them encouragingly, but a hush seemed to have fallen over their audible enthusiasm. Mrs. Montgomery's lips presently primped themselves up into a signal for me to come closer to her side—where her husband might not hear her.
"Lord Erskine is, my dear—the most—notorious old man inEngland!" she pronounced—so terribly that "And may the Lord have mercy on his soul" naturally followed. Her verdict was final.
"But what has he done?" I started to inquire, the journalistic tendency for the moment uppermost, but her lips showed white lines of repression.
"He is nevermentioned!" she warned briefly, and I felt constrained to wish that the same punishmentcould be applied to America's ancient sinners.
"Oh, so bad as that?"
She leaned closer.
"My dear Miss Christie, it would be impossible—quite impossible—to enumerate the peccadillos of that wretched old creature!"
"Yet you women are always ready to attempt the impossible!" her husband interposed, after his noisy attempt at lighting a cigarette had failed to drown out our voices.
She looked up at him.
"Herbert, I don't understand you, I'm sure."
He laughed.
"Well, I don't understand you, either!" he replied. "For twenty years now I have noticed that when two or three women in our part of the country are gathered together the first thing they say to each other before the men have come into the room is that Lord Erskine's recent escapades are positively unmentionable—then they fly ateach other's throats for the privilege of retailing them."
She continued to stare at him, steadily and with no especial unfriendliness in her gaze.
"And the men—over their wine?" she asked casually.
He squared his shoulders.
"That's a very different matter," he declared. "With us he is as honest and open a diversion as hunting! The first thing we say in greeting, if we meet a neighbor on the road is: 'What's the latest news from Lord Erskine?'"
Their eyes challenged each other humorously for another moment, when Hilda broke in.
"Don't you think we've given Miss Christie a fairly good idea that she mustn't expect to be invited down to Colmere Abbey—and that if she is invited, she mustn't go?" she inquired, with gentle sarcasm.
"But, before we get away from the subject—what of the Webb family?" I begged forlornly."Is there no one living who might take an interest in the story of Lady Frances?"
I am sure my voice was as sad with disappointment as old Joe Jefferson's used to be when he'd plead: "Doesno oneknow Rip Van Winkle?"
"Lord Erskine's mother was a Webb," Mrs. Montgomery explained.
"The one fact which can be stated about the old gentleman which need not be blushed for," her husband added. "In truth, he has always been vastly proud of his lineage."
"About all that he's ever had to be proud of! His own performances in social and family life have been—well, what I have outlined to you. I happened to know details of some earlier happenings, and all I can say is that my own attitude toward Lord Erskine is rather unchristian."
"But I believe Miss Christie was asking about the family history further back than the present lord," Hilda reminded them again, and her mother took the cue.
"Ah, yes! To be sure! It's the failing oflater years, my dear, to wish to discuss one's own memories! But of course your interest lies in the traditions of the novelist."
"Her history has always held a peculiar interest for me," I replied, "first, naturally, on account of the connecting link—then on account of the—tragic complication——"
She nodded her head briskly.
"Yes—poor Lady Frances! She was not very happy, if the ancient reports be true."
"I judge not—from her letters."
"But her memory is held in great reverence by the educated people around in the country," she hastened to assure me. "And there is a lovely memorial tablet in the church—quite aside from the tomb! A literary club of London had it placed there!"
"And every birthday there are wreaths," Mr. Montgomery threw in, evidently hoping to make it up to me for the disheartening gossip of the present age; but my dreams were rapidly fading—and I saw my chances for having a bonfire onthe library hearth at Colmere go up in something far more unsubstantial than smoke.
"Well, I'm sure we've told Miss Christie quite enough about our neighbors—for a first sitting," Hilda Montgomery broke in at this point, as she rose and made a reckless suggestion that we go out and walk a little while. "Idon't wish to spend the whole afternoon talking about a villainous old Englishman!" she confided, when we were well out of ear-shot. "One might spend the time talking about 'Americans—don't you know?'"
"Americans?"
"Yes—charming, handsome, young Americans! You remember the first thing I told you was that I loved Americans?"
"Yes—and your father and mother said they did, too—when you weren't listening."
She nodded her blond head, in energetic delight.
"They are trying to pretend that it will be a difficult matter to win their consent—but it won't."
We steered our course around a group of people who were disputing, in Wabash tones, over a game of shuffleboard.
"Consent?" I repeated.
"His name is John McAdoo Carpenter—and he lives at South Bend, Indiana—did you ever hear of the place? Did you ever hear of him?"
She caught me by the arm and we walked precipitately over to the railing—out of the sound of the Wabash tones.
"If I don't talk to somebody before that sun goes down I'll jump right over this railing," she explained. "Here's his picture!"
I took the small blue leather case and looked at the honest, rather distinguished face it held.
"But why should your parents disapprove ofhim?" I asked in such genuine surprise that she gave me a smile which sealed forever our friendship.
"They don't—really! It's just that they like to torment me because he happened not to be born in either New York or Kentucky. An Englishman'sknowledge of America's excellence extends no further than that."
Night was coming on—and the sea looked pretty vast and unfriendly. It was the lonesome hour, when any feminine thing far away from home has to wax either confidential or tearful. Hilda was determined to be confidential, and I let her have her say. I went down, after a while, and dressed for dinner—listlessly and without heart, but when I went into the dining-room a little later and found my place at the table next the captain's, the geniality of the family atmosphere I found there was vastly cheering.
Mrs. Montgomery was a rather magnificent little gray-haired lady in gray satin and diamonds, and her husband had made the evolution from the chrysalis state into that of the butterfly by donning his dress clothes and putting up a monocle in place of the comfortable reading glasses he had worn in the afternoon. Hilda was wholesome and sweet-looking but quite secondary to her parents, in a soft blue gown.
The subject under discussion when I arrived was evidently the points of superiority of one American locality over another and they took me into their confidence at once.
"I appeal to you, Miss Christie, as an American," Mr. Montgomery said, after the steward who had acted as my pilot was out of hearing. "Shouldn't you think now—if you didn't know the difference—shouldn'tyou think now that a 'SouthBender'was a species of acrobat?"
Then, try as hard as I might to keep all physical signs of my mental infirmity from cropping out in my log-book, the second evening out found an entry like this showing itself—written almost entirely without effort on my part—like "spirit writing":
"To-night the orchestra is playingThe Rosary, and I had to get away from all those people in the lounge!"I have come down here—away from it, as I thought, but, no! Those same high, wailingnotes that we heard that first day—that first day—are ringing in my ears this minute."How they sob—sob—sob! And over the hours they spent together! That's the foolish part of it! I am sobbing over the hours Imighthave spent with him—and didn't!"'Are like a string of pearls to me!'"Bah! The hours I spent with him wouldn't make pearls enough for a stick-pin—much less a rosary!"To meCaro Mio Benis a much more sensible little love plaint! I wonder ifheknows it? I wonder if he heard that girl singing in the parlor the night of the Kendalls' dance—and if it still rings—rings—rings in his mind every time he thinks of me? Or if he ever thinks of me at all?"
"To-night the orchestra is playingThe Rosary, and I had to get away from all those people in the lounge!
"I have come down here—away from it, as I thought, but, no! Those same high, wailingnotes that we heard that first day—that first day—are ringing in my ears this minute.
"How they sob—sob—sob! And over the hours they spent together! That's the foolish part of it! I am sobbing over the hours Imighthave spent with him—and didn't!
"'Are like a string of pearls to me!'
"Bah! The hours I spent with him wouldn't make pearls enough for a stick-pin—much less a rosary!
"To meCaro Mio Benis a much more sensible little love plaint! I wonder ifheknows it? I wonder if he heard that girl singing in the parlor the night of the Kendalls' dance—and if it still rings—rings—rings in his mind every time he thinks of me? Or if he ever thinks of me at all?"
I have inserted this not so much to show you how very critical my case was, as to demonstrate how valuable a thing is diversion. Without Hilda and the elder Montgomerys I should no doubt have tried to emulate Lady Frances Webb in the feat of writing heart-throbs.
The third day's observation was a distinct improvement.
"The men on shipboard are rather better than the women—just as they are on dry land. True, there are some who have sold Chicago real estate, and are now bent upon spending the rest of their lives running over to Europe to criticize everything that they can not buy. Nothing is sacred to them—until after they have paid duty on it. They revere and caress their own Italian mantlepieces, their cases of majolica, and their collection of Wedgwood—when these are safely decorating their lake-shore homes—but what Europe keeps for herself they scorn."'Bah! I don't see anything so swell about St. Mark's—nor St. Doge's either!' I heard one emit this morning. 'But, old man, you just ought to see the champagne glasses I bought last year in Venice. The governor dined with me the other night, and he said——' etc."Then, there's another sort of Philistine, who goes all over the Old World eating his lunch off places where men have suffered, died, or invented pendulums."'That confounded Leaning Towerdoesfeel like it's wiggling as you go up, but pshaw! it's perfectly safe! Why, I stayed on top long enough to eat three sandwiches and drink a bottle of that red ink you get for half a dollar in Florence!'"This doesn't create much of a stir, however, because there's always one better."'Nice little tower down there in Pisa—and you really have to have something like that to relieve your constitution of the pictorial strain in Florence—but you see, after you've eaten hard-boiled eggs on top ofCheops, climbing the Leaning Tower is not half so exciting as riding a sapling was when you were a boy!'"'And oh, speaking of hard-boiled eggs—have you ever been to Banff, Mr. Smith?' one of the women in the crowd speaks up. 'Yes, the scenery in the Canadian Rockies is all right, of course, but just tothinkof having your eggs perfectly hot and well done in the waters of Banff!'"There are other women on board, however, whose thoughts are not on food. They are more amusing by far to watch than the innocent creatures who love Banff. They manage to stay well out of view by strong daylight, then come into the lounge at night, dressed in plumes and diamonds like Cinderella's stepsisters, and select the husbands of sea-sick wives to ask advice about focusing a kodak or going to Gibraltar to buy a mandarin coat!"But, as I have said, the men for the greater part are much more interesting than the women—still I have never aspired to a nautical flirtation, for a month after one is past you can't recall the principal's name. You do well if you can remember his nationality."
"The men on shipboard are rather better than the women—just as they are on dry land. True, there are some who have sold Chicago real estate, and are now bent upon spending the rest of their lives running over to Europe to criticize everything that they can not buy. Nothing is sacred to them—until after they have paid duty on it. They revere and caress their own Italian mantlepieces, their cases of majolica, and their collection of Wedgwood—when these are safely decorating their lake-shore homes—but what Europe keeps for herself they scorn.
"'Bah! I don't see anything so swell about St. Mark's—nor St. Doge's either!' I heard one emit this morning. 'But, old man, you just ought to see the champagne glasses I bought last year in Venice. The governor dined with me the other night, and he said——' etc.
"Then, there's another sort of Philistine, who goes all over the Old World eating his lunch off places where men have suffered, died, or invented pendulums.
"'That confounded Leaning Towerdoesfeel like it's wiggling as you go up, but pshaw! it's perfectly safe! Why, I stayed on top long enough to eat three sandwiches and drink a bottle of that red ink you get for half a dollar in Florence!'
"This doesn't create much of a stir, however, because there's always one better.
"'Nice little tower down there in Pisa—and you really have to have something like that to relieve your constitution of the pictorial strain in Florence—but you see, after you've eaten hard-boiled eggs on top ofCheops, climbing the Leaning Tower is not half so exciting as riding a sapling was when you were a boy!'
"'And oh, speaking of hard-boiled eggs—have you ever been to Banff, Mr. Smith?' one of the women in the crowd speaks up. 'Yes, the scenery in the Canadian Rockies is all right, of course, but just tothinkof having your eggs perfectly hot and well done in the waters of Banff!'
"There are other women on board, however, whose thoughts are not on food. They are more amusing by far to watch than the innocent creatures who love Banff. They manage to stay well out of view by strong daylight, then come into the lounge at night, dressed in plumes and diamonds like Cinderella's stepsisters, and select the husbands of sea-sick wives to ask advice about focusing a kodak or going to Gibraltar to buy a mandarin coat!
"But, as I have said, the men for the greater part are much more interesting than the women—still I have never aspired to a nautical flirtation, for a month after one is past you can't recall the principal's name. You do well if you can remember his nationality."
The entry broke off with this piece of sarcasm, which, after all, is actual truth. A friend of mine had such an experience. A month after a bitter parting on a moonlit deck one night she came face to face with the absent one in a church in Rome—and all she could stammer was: "Oh—youCanadian!"
The fourth day—after the last vestige of the gulls had been left behind—I began to grow impatient. The "meanwhile" aspect of life in general was beginning to press down.
"I wish mother had named me 'Patience,' for I love a joke!" I wrote frantically—with the same feeling of suffocation which caused Lady Frances Webb to rush out to the rose garden where the sun-dial stood, to keep from hearing the clock tick."To me, the inertia which a woman is supposed to exhibit is the hardest part of her whole earthly task! And I don't know what it's for, either, unless to prepare her for a future incarnation into a camel!"Yet, if you're a woman, you just must stay still and let your heart's desire slip through yourfingers—even if you have to lock yourself up into your bedroom closet to accomplish it!"
"I wish mother had named me 'Patience,' for I love a joke!" I wrote frantically—with the same feeling of suffocation which caused Lady Frances Webb to rush out to the rose garden where the sun-dial stood, to keep from hearing the clock tick.
"To me, the inertia which a woman is supposed to exhibit is the hardest part of her whole earthly task! And I don't know what it's for, either, unless to prepare her for a future incarnation into a camel!
"Yet, if you're a woman, you just must stay still and let your heart's desire slip through yourfingers—even if you have to lock yourself up into your bedroom closet to accomplish it!"
And yet, even as I wrote, I wondered what I'd do when I should be back in America. Somehow, I didn't exactly fancy myself getting a ticket home from New York with stop-over privileges at Pittsburgh—where I could spend an exciting time looking up a city directory!
And so the remaining days of the voyage passed. The Montgomery family planned to have me go home with them, after a day in London, and declared that I could find as much interesting news to write home for theHeraldfrom Lancashire as from any other portion of the United Kingdom, since one never knew where a fire would be started or a bomb discovered through the playful antics of the women who have changed the "clinging" sex into theflingingsex; and I had accepted fervently—when, on the trip from Liverpool down to London, these arrangements were abruptly upset.
We were a little late in landing, and rushedstraight to the train, where a tea-basket, operated in the compartment which we had to ourselves, was giving me the assurance that surely, next to a hayloft on a rainy morning, a private compartment in a British train is the coziest spot on the face of the earth, when Mr. Montgomery suddenly dropped the sheet of newspaper he had been eagerly scanning.
"Myword!" he said.
His exclamation was so insistent that I immediately felt in my pocket to see if I had his word, and his wife glanced up from the lamp which she was handling lovingly.
"Yes, Herbert?"
"But I say—Lord Erskine is dead!"
"Herbert!"
Her tone was accusing, but her husband nodded, with a pleased look of assurance.
"You may read it for yourself, I'm sure—if you don't believe me!"
He handed the paper over to her, and she received it gingerly, after looking to the tea-basketwith a housewifely air, and placing the lamp quite to one side, out of harm's way. Then she turned to the article indicated, reading slowly, while her daughter looked over her shoulder.
"Why, he'sbeendead!"
She glanced up suddenly, toward me, with a shamefaced look.
"He was dead at the very time you were telling Grace all those atrocious things about him!" Hilda reminded her, smiling at the look of discomfiture which had crept over the kindly, wrinkled little face.
"Yes! It's—extraordinary!"
"And it makes us both feel—a little uncomfortable, eh?"
Her husband's tone was tormenting, but she turned on him seriously.
"I'm sure, Herbert, dear, you said quite as much as I did!" she declared, evidently finding relief in the knowledge. "Still—this news does rather make one—think."
The girl rattled the sheet of paper excitedly.
"I'm thinking!" she announced, her eyes wide. "I'm thinking of Colmere Abbey! What a chance for some rich decent American! Somebody that one could easily endure, you understand!"
"Hilda!"
She waved aside the reprimand.
"Grace understands me—and what I think of Americans," she answered quickly. "But, mother, thisisa problem! What Englishman would buy the place—with its haunting tales—and monstrous value? Nobody would be rich enough except one of the millionaires who owns a dozen homes already. And the next-of-kin will inherit nothing along with the place to keep it up!"
"Hilda! This is neither respectful nor neighborly," her mother remonstrated again, then she turned to her husband. "Shall you write to the new Lord Erskine from London, Herbert?"
Her tone was one of foregone conclusion, conventional enough, but very kindly, and her husband nodded obediently.
"Oh, to be sure, my dear," he chirruped in a dutiful way. "I shall wire his lawyers immediately and——"
"And ask for the pleasure of putting him up while he's in the country?"
"Certainly! Certainly!"
"It will be unpleasant—this period of mourning that we shall have to affect—for his sake," she went on, "but it is out of respect for the neighborly proprieties, after all."
Mrs. Montgomery was looking at us all in turn, in some little perplexity, when a sudden recollection came to me of how difficult it is sometimes to amalgamate guests—no matter how many rooms there are to one's house.
"And I'll defer my visit until later?" I suggested.
She instantly smiled across at me.
"Just a few days—if you don't mind, dear," she said. "I had planned so many delightful things foryourstay—and I know that you wouldn't enjoy the period of mourning."
"Not so much as you would if you had known Lord Erskine!" her husband put in wickedly. "And I'm determined to mourn only the briefest time possible."
"Not an hour later than Saturday!" his wife promised generously—and a few hours afterward when they put me down at Charing Cross and sent me whirling away to a lady-like hotel in Bloomsbury, it was with spoken, written and pantomime directions as to which trains, and what-timed trains—andhow manytrains I was to take toward the end of the week to get to Bannerley.
In the meanwhile I knuckled down devotedly to London—and sent my deductions home across seas, in neatly typed packets, toThe Oldburgh Herald.
What can't be appreciated can always be ridiculed—whether it's Old Masters, new waltzes, or a wife's Easter bonnet—and this is the reason we have always had such reams of journalistic "fun" at the expense of the broad English "a" and the narrow English view.
For my part, I consider that—next to the French in New Orleans—the English in England are the golden-ruliest people to be found in profane history.
You'll find that they're "insular" only when they're traveling off their dear island—and it's homesickness, after all, which makes them so disagreeably arrogant.
To be sure, the Frenchman in New Orleanswill, if you ask him for a word of direction toward the Old Absinthe House, take you into his private office, draw for you a diagram of the whole city, advise you at length not to go unescorted into the Market, then follow you to the door with the final warning: "And it would be well for you to observe a certain degree of caution, my dear young lady, for our city is filled with wickedness, and your eyes are—pardon?—most charming!"
This is delightful, of course, and by far the most romantic thing in the way of adventure America has to offer, but rambling around London presents a dearer and more home-like charm.
The Englishman who directs you to a church, or a university square, stops to say nothing about your eyes—much less would he mention the existence of good and evil—but he points out to you the tomb, or chained Bible, or famous man's pew you are seeking, then glides modestly away before you've had time to say: "It's awfully good of you to take all this trouble for a stranger!"
But the truth of the matter is that you don't in the least feel yourself a stranger in London, and you like your kindly Englishman so cordially that you secretly resolve to put a muzzle on your own particular cannon cracker the next Fourth of July.
The shilling guide-books speak of London as the "gray old grandmother of cities," meaning thereby to call attention to her upstart progeny across the seas, but to my mind the title of grandmother is much more applicable on account of the joyous surprises she has shut away in dark closets.
One of the main pleasures of a visit to any grandmother is the gift of treasure which she is likely to call forth mysteriously from some tightly-closed cupboard and place in your hands for your own exclusive possession—and certainly this old dingy city outgrannies granny when it comes to that.
In the dingiest little book-stall imaginable, lighted by a candle and tended by a ragged-cuffed gentleman with a passion for Keats, you may findthe very edition of something that college professors in your native town are offering half a year's salary for! You buy it for five dollars—which seems much more insignificant when spoken of by the pound—then run out and hail the nearest cab, offering the chauffeur an additional shilling to get you out of the neighborhood in ten seconds! Your heart is thumping in guilty fear that the ragged-cuffed gentleman with the passion for Keats may discover his mistake and run after you to demand his treasure back!
You make a similar escape, a few hours later, with a Wedgwood tea-caddy, whose delicate color the pottery has never been able to duplicate—and with Sheffield plate your suit-case runneth over!
And your emotions while doing all this? Why, you've never before known what "calm content" could mean.
In the first place, you never feel countrified and unpopular in London, as you do in New York. Your clothes have a way of brightening up andlooking noticeably smart as if they'd just enjoyed a sojourn at the dry cleaner's—and everybody you meet seems to care particularly for Americans. You are at home there—not merely with the at-home feeling which a good hotel and agreeable society give—but there's a feeling of satisfaction much deeper than this. Something in you, which has always known and loved England, is seeing familiar faces again—the something which made you strain your eyes overMother Gooseby firelight years ago, and thrill overIvanhoeand anything which held the name "Sherwood Forest" on its printed page. It's something congenial—or prenatal—who knows?
(Oh yes! I answer very readily "Present!" when any one calls: "Anglomaniac!")
It was only natural that I should let my adoration for Great Britain show through in the copy I sent home toThe Oldburgh Herald, and as if to prove that honesty is the best policy, I received a letter of praise from Captain Macauley.
"Anybody can run a foreign country down," he wrote, "but you've proved that you're original by praising one! Stay there as long as you have an English adjective left to go upon, then forget your sorrows, chase away down to Italy and show us what you can do with 'bellissimo.'"
But I didn't do this, for the letter overtook me only after I had reached Bannerley, and was seeing things which I could hope for no words, either English or Italian, to describe.
I left London on Friday—which I ought to have had better sense than to do, having been properly brought up by a black mammy—hoping to reach the home of my shipboard friends early enough Saturday morning to hear the pigeons coo under the eaves of Bannerley Hall. All my life I had cherished an ambition to hear pigeons coo under eaves of an ancestral place, and with this thought uppermost in my heart, I packed my suit-case and drove to Paddington Station. I received my first damper at the ticket window.
"Bannerley?" the agent repeated, looking at me with a shade of pity, as I mentioned my destination. "Bannerley?"
"Certainly, Bannerley!" I insisted, with some effort toward a dignified bearing, but the first glance at his doubtful face caused my spirits to sink. Being by nature an extremist, they sank to the bottom. All in a twinkling the cooing of pigeons in my mental picture was changed to the croaking of ravens. "It's not so very difficult to get to Bannerley, is it?"
He scratched his head.
"No-o—not in a general way, miss, but there ain't no tellingwhenyou'll get there."
I drew back, more hurt than angry.
"But my friends have already warned me that I shall have to change at Leamington—and Manchester—and Oldham—and——"
"Can't help that!" he exclaimed heartlessly, looking over my shoulder at the line of waiting tourists. "Since the coal strike, trains on themside-lines has been as scarce and irregular as a youngster's teeth at shedding time."
I tried to smile politely, but another glance at his face showed me that he wasn't expecting such an act of supererogation.
"Getting off into the unbeaten paths sounds pretty enough in a guide-book," he kept on hastily, "but the first thing you do when you meet an unbeaten path is to want to beat it!"
I faded out of the line and let my successor take my place.
"He's just an old grouch!" I told myself consolingly, as I got a seat next a window. "Nothing really terrible can befall you when traveling—if you've got a Masonic pin on your coat!"
(One of my Christie relations had thus decorated me and assured me.)
Then I forgot all about his gloomy warnings, for the train rumbled across a thousand street crossings—then out into all the sheep pastures in the civilized world, and—it was summer!
"This countrymustbe Kent!" I mused, not geographically, but esthetically certain—as soft feathery green broke off occasionally into a pollard-trimmed swamp—then came up again a little later into a gentle, sheep-dotted rise. And I remembered the Duchess once more—"A stalwart, fair-haired lover, and a dozen Kentish lanes!"
I have lived to learn that this is common to Americans who have been brought up to understand that Kent is the garden-spot of England. No matter at which point along the entire coastline they may board a train, their first conviction upon seeing suburban scenery is that itmustbe Kent! (I say "suburban" advisedly, for none of it is far enough away from the other to be rural.)
So my journey through an elongated and rather circuitous Kent kept my mind away from the croakings of the ticket seller at Paddington—until the next morning at daybreak, when I found myself put down with mournful ceremony at alittle wayside station which ought to have been labeled "St. Helena."
"Just as sorry as you are, miss, but this is your nearest hope for a train to Bannerley!" the guard said, by way of an appropriate farewell, so off I got.
"But this place is surely named St. Helena," I groaned, as I looked about me, yet the only actual similarity was in the matter of its being entirely surrounded. The island entirely surrounded by water, of course—this station entirely surrounded by land. I believe that I had never before in my life seen such a stretch of unimproved property!
"'The woods and I—and their infinite call,'" I quoted, as I looked out somewhat shamefacedly across the acres. For it was exactly the kind of place I had always longed to possess for my very own—yet here I had arrived at it, and might, for all I knew to the contrary, take possession of it by right of discovery—yet I was feeling lonely and resentful at the very start.
Then I remembered Robinson Crusoe and took heart, straining my eyes in hope of a sail, but nowhere was there a human face to be seen, nor sign of life. Not even a freight car stood drearily on a side-track—and, as you know, you have to be very far away from the center of things not to find a freight car! None was here, however, for there wasn't a side-track for it to stand upon—the main line running in two shining threads far away toward Ireland.
The only moving bodies visible were a paper sack being blown gently down the track, a blue fly buzzing around a blackened banana peeling and a rook cawing overhead. I looked up at the rook and smiled philosophically.
"I anticipated a 'coo,' then apprehended a 'croak'—what I get is a happy compromise, a 'caw,'" I said, and I find that things usually turn out this way in the great journey of life. Nothing is ever so good, nor so bad, as you think it's going to be when you're standing at the ticket window. The great anticipator is also a greatapprehender—therefore realization is bound to be a relief.
Then, as if in reward of my optimism, I began to scent the odor of escaping coffee.
"Itisinhabited!" I cried.
Springing up, I darted around to the other side of the station, and there, in a clump of trees, lying snug and humane-looking in the morning light, was a tiny cottage. I waited, and presently there issued from the doorway a man—wiping his mouth reminiscently.
He espied me at once and came up, cap in hand.
"Was you wanting something, miss?" he asked.
"A train," I replied, trying to sound inconsequential with the lordliness that comes of intense disgust. "I have a ticket to Bannerley—and I have friends therewaiting!"
The man dared to smile.
"Since the coal strike that's mostly what folks does, miss," he explained.
There was a moment of strained silence, which was broken by the appearance of a young boy—aneerie creature who had seemed to glide straight out of the eastern horizon on a bicycle. The station-master turned to him.
"Take this here parcel up to Lord Erskine—and be quicker than you was yesterday!" he said.
The boy's face and mine changed simultaneously, his brightening, mine paling.
"Lord Erskine!" I cried, a little ghostly feeling of fear stealing over me—for my American instincts failed to grasp the rapidity with which dead men's shoes can be snatched off and fitted with new rubber heels in England—"Lord Erskine is dead."
The little messenger boy looked at me pityingly.
"'Ewuz," he explained, "but 'e ain't now!"
"And—and do you mean to tell me that this is the station for Colmere Abbey?" I demanded, turning again to the man.
"Yes, miss."
He tried hard not to look supercilious, but there, six feet above my head, was the name "Colmere" in faded yellow letters against theblack background of the sign-board. And I had always believed in psychic warnings!
"I—I hadn't thought to look at the sign-board," I endeavored to explain. "It seems that it doesn't matter what your station is, for you're as far away from your destination at one place as at another—during the coal strike! You think I can't get a train to Bannerley until——"
"Perhaps to-night—perhaps not until to-morrow morning," he answered with cruel frankness, and I knew from heresay that trains did occasionally wander, comet-fashion, out of their orbit, and come through stations at unexpected moments. "Still, there's a railroad hotel about a mile down the track."
"A railroad hotel?"
"Where the men get their meals—the guards and porters!"
My spirits sank.
"That old kill-joy at Paddington knew what he was talking about!" I said to myself—then aloud: "But, couldn't I get a carriage, or a——"
He shook his head.
"We mostly uses bicycles around here—when we don't walk," he explained.
"But I must get to Bannerley!" I burst out in desperation. "And I am a first-rate walker! How far is it?"
I was beginning to realize that the adventure might make good copy, headed: "Wonderful Pedestrian Journey through Historic Lancashire." Many a slighter incident has called forth heavier head-lines.
"Walk?"
"Certainly—then take up the matter with the railroad company in Glasgow, just before I sail for home!"
My terrible manner caused him to look me over, quickly.
"Was you wanting to get to the village—or the hall?" he asked, evidently impressed by my severity, and my heart softened.
"To the hall," I answered. "Mrs. Montgomery is expecting me."
He tried hard not to show that he was impressed, but he failed. Evidently Mrs. Montgomery was a great personage, and I took on a tinge of reflected glory not to be entirely ignored.
"The hall is a mile from the village—and the village is three miles from here," he explained gently. "Of course, there's short cuts, if a body knows 'em—but for a lady like you——"
The click of the telegraph instrument clamored for his attention, so he reluctantly left me. I remained outside, listening to the caw of the rook. Presently he came out again.
"There will be a train through here pretty soon—but it's coming from the direction of Bannerley instead of going toward there—still——"
"Still, it will give us occasion to hope for better things later on," I answered cheerfully. "And it has occurred to me that I might while away a portion of the morning by walking up to the gates of Colmere Abbey. That boy went in this direction, didn't he?"
"Not a quarter of a mile, miss—down in thisdirection," he assured me. "Just follow this road, and you'll find the lodge in a clump of trees."
The "May" hedges were glistening with the early sunbeams, and as I walked down the railroad track the distance seemed quite a good deal short of the quarter of a mile mentioned. I found the clump of trees indicated—then a small gray building. My heart bounded, and I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was awake.
"Is this the entrance to Colmere Abbey?" I asked of the boy on the bicycle, who was turning out of the gate at that moment.
"This is one of the lodges—but not the grand one, madam!" he answered anxiously.
"Oh, indeed? But one can get to the park through this gate?" I persisted.
"Oh, yes, madam."
He showed an inclination to act as my esquire, but I got rid of him by promising him sixpence if he would take care of my bag until I returned to the station—then I crossed the greasy railroadtrack and entered the shade of the trees. It was far from being my ideal entrée into the old house of my heart's desire, but it was something of an adventure—until I reached the gates. There I was halted.
"Yes, miss—if you please?"
It was an acid voice, and I looked at the doorway of the house, out of which an old woman was issuing. She was garbed in profound black.
"I want to get in—to see the grounds of the abbey," I explained casually, but she was not to be overwhelmed by any airy nonchalance. She shook her head.
"But that can't be!"
The smile which accompanied this information was almost gleeful.
"No? But why not?"
She looked at me pityingly.
"Didn't you know we was in mourning?" she demanded, bristling with importance.
I instantly made a penitent face, then glanced appreciatively at her gown, but she gave no evidenceof being a physiognomist. She failed to take note of my contrite expression.
"You can't go sight-seeing in here!" she said.
"Not even a little way?"
I accompanied this plea by the display of a shining half-crown, which I carried in my glove for emergency. That's one good thing about being away from the United States—you don't have to regard money so tenderly. You realize that shillings and francs and lire were made to spend for souvenirs and service, but dollars—ugh! They were made to put in the bank! So I twinkled this ever-ready half-crown temptingly in the morning light, but she shook her head again.
"While we was in mourning?" she demanded, with a gasp of outraged propriety. "Why—wha'ud the minister say?"
At this I turned away sadly—for I had been in England long enough to know there's never any use trying to surmisewhatthe minister 'ud say!
"Just the same, you'd make a dandy old servant—and I'm a great mind to buy you and put you in my suit-case, along with the Sheffield candlesticks," I thought, as I made my way back to the station.
During my absence a train had come clattering in—and it stood stock-still now, while the engineer and the station-master held a long conversation over a basket of homing pigeons which had been deposited upon the platform. I viewed the locomotive listlessly enough—the walk having taken some of my former impatient energy away, but my interest was aroused as I came upon the platform by the appearance of a servant in livery, disentangling from one of the compartments a suit-case and leather hat-box.
The man's back was toward me, as he struggled to lift his burden high above the precious basket of pigeons which was usurping place and attention, but the look of the traveling paraphernalia held my eye for a moment.
"Could it belong to an American?" I mused.
The servant deposited the cases on the platform, then turned, still with his back toward me, and took part in the lively pigeon argument. I looked at the beautiful smoothness of the leather.
"Of course they're American!" I decided, for you must know that nearly any Englishman's luggage would compare unfavorably with the bags Aunt Jemima brings with her when she comes up to the city for a week's mortification to her nephews.
"Never judge an Englishman by the luggage he lugs!" is only a fair act of discretion.
I crossed the platform, partly to get away from the mournful sounds emanating from the wicker basket, and then, at the door of the little station I was arrested by another sound. It was a sound which had certainly not been there when I had left, half an hour before! I halted—wondering if there really could be anything in psychic warnings!
Inside the dingy little room some one was whistling! The melody was falling upon the airwith a certain softness which, however, did not conceal its suppressed vehemence—and the tune wasCaro Mio Ben!
"Anybody has a right to whistle it!" I told myself savagely, but I still hesitated—my heart standing still from the mere force of the hypothesis. After a moment it began beating again, as if to make up for lost time.
The whistling man inside left off his music—then I heard his footsteps tramping impatiently across the bare wooden floor. He finally came to the door and looked out. I glanced up, and our eyes met! Itwas Caro Mio Ben! It was Caro Mio Ben!
"Well?" he said.
He stood perfectly still for half a minute it seemed—making no effort toward a civilized greeting.
"Well!" I responded—as soon as I could.
"This is queer, isn't it?"
I looked at him.
"'Queer?'" I managed to repeat—that is, Iheard the word escaping past the tightening muscles of my throat. "Queer!"
"Most extraordinary!"
"I should—I think I should like to sit down!" I decided, as he continued to stand staring at me, and I suddenly realized that I was very tired.
He moved aside.
"By all means! Come in and sit down, Miss Christie. This station fellow here tells me that you have been disappointed in your train."
"I have," I answered.
I might have added that I had been disappointed in everything most important in life, as well—but his own face was wearing such an expression of calm serenity that I was soothed as I looked at it.
"That's quite a problem here in England just now," he observed politely.
"So I have been informed."
After this, conversation flagged, until the silence made me nervous.
"I should think we ought to be asking eachother—questions!" I suggested, trying to bring him to a realization of the necessary formalities, but he only turned and looked down at me, with a slightly amused, slightly superior smile.
"Questions?"
"Aboutships—and how long we intend staying—and what travelers usually ask!" I said.
He shook his head, as if the subjects held little interest for him.
"Why should I ask that—when I happen to know?" he inquired.
"You know—what?"
"That you came over on theLuxuria."
"Yes?"
"And thatThe Oldburgh Heraldsent you—to write up the coal strike."
"Yes—it did."
"And that you are going to stay—some time."
I was decidedly uncomfortable.
"Will you please explain how you knew all this?" I asked.
His smile died away.
"Mrs. Hiram Walker wrote her son to call on me while I was in New York," he explained in his serious lawyer-like manner, "and he happened to leave a copy ofThe Oldburgh Heraldin my rooms."
"Oh! That was quite simple, wasn't it?"
"Quite!"
It occurred to me then that there was no use trying to keep fate's name out of this conversation—and also it came to me that the orchids were no longer a mystery—but before I could make up my mind to mention this he turned to me ferociously.
"Youdidmake a fool of me!" he accused.
My heart began thumping again.
"What do you mean?" I began, but he cut me short.
"It is this that I can not get over! The thought has come to me that perhaps if I might hear you acknowledge it, I might be able to forgive you better."
"Forgive me?"
He leaned toward me.
"If you don't mind, I should like to hear you say: 'Maitland Tait, I did make a fool of you!'"
"But I didn't!" I denied stoutly, while my face flushed, and all the fighting blood in me seemed to send forth a challenge from my cheeks. "I'll say what Idothink, however, if you wish to hear it!"
"And that is——?"
"Maitland Tait, you made a fool of yourself!"
He looked disappointed.
"Oh, I know that!" he replied.
"You do? Since when, please?"
"Why, I knew it before I crossed the Ohio River!" he acknowledged, seeming to take some pride in the fact. "I—I intended to apologize—or something—when I got to Pittsburgh, but when I reached New York, on my way here, I saw that you were coming to England, too——"
"So you thought the matter could easily wait—I see!" I observed, then, to change the subject, I asked: "Have you been here long?"
"Two weeks! I knew that I should get news of you inthisneighborhood, sooner or later."
I instantly smiled.
"I have come here for my first Sunday, you see, but——"
"But you haven't been to the abbey yet, have you?" he asked.
The boyish anxiety in his tone gave me a thrill. Something in the thought of his remembering my romantic whim touched me.
"No. I have just come from there—the lodge—but the old woman at the gates wouldn't let me in."
He looked interested.
"No? But why not?"
"The master of the house has just died," I explained. "It would be a terrible breach of etiquette to go sight-seeing over the mourning acres."