A week had passed—a week of new life for Garrison, such as he had never dreamed of living. Even in the heyday of his fame, forgotten by him, unlimited wealth had never brought the peace and content of Calvert House. It seemed as if his niche had long been vacant in the household, awaiting his occupancy, and at times he had difficulty in realizing that he had won it through deception, not by right of blood.
The prognostications of the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, to the effect that everything would be surprisingly easy, were fully realized. To the major and his wife the birthmark of the spur was convincing proof; and, if more were needed, the thorough coaching of Snark was sufficient.
More than that, a week had not passed before it was made patently apparent to Garrison, much to his surprise and no little dismay, that he was liked for himself alone. The major was a father to him, Mrs. Calvert a mother in every sense of the word. He had seen Sue Desha twice since his “home-coming,” for the Calvert and Desha estates joined.
Old Colonel Desha had eyed Garrison somewhat queerly on being first introduced, but he had a poor memory for faces, and was unable to connect the newly discovered nephew of his neighbor and friend with little Billy Garrison, the one-time premiere jockey, whom he had frequently seen ride.
The week's stay at Calvert House had already begun to show its beneficial effect upon Garrison. The regular living, clean air, together with the services of the family doctor, were fighting the consumption germs with no little success. For it had not taken the keen eye of the major nor the loving one of the wife very long to discover that the tuberculosis germ was clutching at Garrison's lungs.
“You've gone the pace, young man,” said the venerable family doctor, tapping his patient with the stethoscope. “Gone the pace, and now nature is clamoring for her long-deferred payment.”
The major was present, and Garrison felt the hot blood surge to his face, as the former's eyes were riveted upon him.
“Youth is a prodigal spendthrift,” put in the major sadly. “But isn't it hereditary, doctor? Perhaps the seed was cultivated, not sown, eh?”
“Assiduously cultivated,” replied Doctor Blandly dryly. “You'll have to get back to first principles, my boy. You've made an oven out of your lungs by cigarette smoke. You inhale? Of course. Quite the correct thing. Have you ever blown tobacco smoke through a handkerchief? Yes? Well, it leaves a dark-brown stain, doesn't it? That's what your lungs are like—coated with nicotine. Your wind is gone. That is why cigarettes are so injurious. Not because, as some people tell you, they are made of inferior tobacco, but because you inhale them. That's where the danger is. Smoke a pipe or cigar, if smoke you must; those you don't inhale. Keep your lungs for what God intended them for—fresh air. Then, your vitality is nearly bankrupt. You've made an old curiosity-shop out of your stomach. You require regular sleep—tons of it——”
“But I'm never sleepy,” argued Garrison, feeling very much like a schoolboy catechised by his master. “When I wake in the morning, I awake instantly, every faculty alert—”
“Naturally,” grunted the old doctor. “Don't you know that is proof positive that you have lived on stimulants? It is artificial. You should be drowsy. I'll wager the first thing you do mornings is to roll a smoke; eh? Exactly. Smoke on an empty stomach! That's got to be stopped. It's the simple life for you. Plenty of exercise in the open air; live, bathe, in sunshine. It is the essence of life. I think, major, we can cure this young prodigal of yours. But he must obey me—implicitly.”
Subsequently, Major Calvert had, for him, a serious conversation with Garrison.
“I believe in youth having its fling,” he said kindly, in conclusion; “but I don't believe in flinging so far that you cannot retrench safely. From Doctor Blandly's statements, you seem to have come mighty near exceeding the speed limit, my boy.”
He bent his white brows and regarded Garrison steadily out of his keen eyes, in which lurked a fund of potential understanding.
“But sorrow,” he continued, “acts on different natures in different ways. Your mother's death must have been a great blow to you. It was to me.” He looked fixedly at his nails. “I understand fully what it must mean to be thrown adrift on the world at the age you were. I don't wish you ever to think that we knew of your condition at the time. We didn't—not for a moment. I did not learn of your mother's death until long afterward, and only of your father's by sheer accident. But we have already discussed these subjects, and I am only touching on them now because I want you, as you know, to be as good a man as your mother was a woman; not a man like your father was. You want to forget that past life of yours, my boy, for you are to be my heir; to be worthy of the name of Calvert, as I feel confident you will. You have your mother's blood. When your health is improved, we will discuss more serious questions, regarding your future, your career; also—your marriage.” He came over and laid a kindly hand on Garrison's shoulder.
And Garrison had been silent. He was in a mental and moral fog. He guessed that his supposed father had not been all that a man should be. The eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, had said as much. He knew himself that he was nothing that a man should be. His conscience was fully awakened by now. Every worthy ounce of blood he possessed cried out for him to go; to leave Calvert House before it was too late; before the old major and his wife grew to love him as there seemed danger of them doing.
He was commencing to see his deception in its true light; the crime he was daily, hourly, committing against his host and hostess; against all decency. He had no longer a prop to support him with specious argument, for the eminent lawyer had returned to New York, carrying with him his initial proceeds of the rank fraud—Major Calvert's check for ten thousand dollars.
Garrison was face to face with himself; he was beginning to see his dishonesty in all its hideous nakedness. And yet he stayed at Calvert House; stayed on the crater of a volcano, fearing every stranger who passed, fearing to meet every neighbor; fearing that his deception must become known, though reason told him such fear was absurd. He stayed at Calvert House, braving the abhorrence of his better self; stayed not through any appreciation of the Calvert flesh-pots, nor because of any monetary benefits, present or future. He lived in the present, for the hour, oblivious to everything.
For Garrison had fallen in love with his next-door neighbor, Sue Desha. Though he did not know his past life, it was the first time he had understood to the full the meaning of the ubiquitous, potential verb “to love.” And, instead of bringing peace and content—the whole gamut of the virtues—hell awoke in little Billy Garrison's soul.
The second time he had seen her was the day following his arrival, and when he had started on Doctor Blandly's open-air treatment.
“I'll have a partner over to put you through your paces in tennis,” Mrs. Calvert had said, a quiet twinkle in her eye. And shortly afterward, as Garrison was aimlessly batting the balls about, feeling very much like an overgrown schoolboy, Sue Desha, tennis-racket in hand, had come up the drive.
She was bareheaded, dressed in a blue sailor costume, her sleeves rolled high on her firm, tanned arms. She looked very businesslike, and was, as Garrison very soon discovered.
Three sets were played in profound silence, or, rather, the girl made a spectacle out of Garrison. Her services were diabolically unanswerable; her net and back court game would have merited the earnest attention of an expert, and Garrison hardly knew where a racket began or ended.
At the finish he was covered with perspiration and confusion, while his opponent, apparently, had not begun to warm up. By mutual consent, they occupied a seat underneath a spreading magnolia-tree, and then the girl insisted upon Garrison resuming his coat. They were like two children.
“You'll get cold; you're not strong,” said the girl finally, with the manner of a very old and experienced mother. She was four years younger than Garrison. “Put it on; you're not strong. That's right. Always obey.”
“I am strong,” persisted Garrison, flushing. He felt very like a schoolboy.
The girl eyed him critically, calmly.
“Oh, but you're not; not a little bit. Do you know you're very—very—rickety? Very rickety, indeed.”
Garrison eyed his flannels in visible perturbation. They flapped about his thin, wiry shanks most disagreeably. He was painfully conscious of his elbows, of his thin chest. Painfully conscious that the girl was physical perfection, he was a parody of manhood. He looked up, with a smile, and met the girl's frank eyes.
“I think rickety is just the word,” he agreed, spanning a wrist with a finger and thumb.
“You cannot play tennis, can you?” asked the girl dryly. “Not a little, tiny bit.”
“No; not a little bit.”
“Golf?” Head on one side.
“Not guilty.”
“Swim?”
“Gloriously. Like a stone.”
“Run?” Head on the other side.
“If there's any one after me.”
“Ride? Every one rides down this-away, you know.”
A sudden vague passion mouthed at Garrison's heart. “Ride?” he echoed, eyes far away. “I—I think so.”
“Only think so! Humph!” She swung a restless foot. “Can't you do anything?”
“Well,” critically. “I think I can eat, and sleep——”
“And talk nonsense. Let me see your hand.” She took it imperiously, palm up, in her lap, and examined it critically, as if it were the paw of some animal. “My! it's as small as a woman's!” she exclaimed, in dismay. “Why, you could wear my glove, I believe.” There was one part disdain to three parts amusement, ridicule, in her throaty voice.
“It is small,” admitted Garrison, eyeing it ruefully. “I wish I had thought of asking mother to give me a bigger one. Is it a crime?”
“No; a calamity.” Her foot was going restlessly. “I like your eyes,” she said calmly, at length.
Garrison bowed. He was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He had never met a girl like this. Nothing seemed sacred to her. She was as frank as the wind, or sun.
“You know,” she continued, her great eyes half-closed, “I was awfully anxious to see you when I heard you were coming home——”
“Why?”
She turned and faced him, her grey eyes opened wide. “Why? Isn't one always interested in one's future husband?”
It was Garrison who was confused. Something caught at his throat. He stammered, but words would not come. He laughed nervously.
“Didn't you know we were engaged?” asked the girl, with childlike simplicity and astonishment. “Oh, yes. How superb!”
“Engaged? Why—why——”
“Of course. Before we were born. Your uncle and aunt and my parents had it all framed up. I thought you knew. A cut-and-dried affair. Are you not just wild with delight?”
“But—but,” expostulated Garrison, his face white, “supposing the real me—I mean, supposing I had not come home? Supposing I had been dead?”
“Why, then,” she replied calmly, “then, I suppose, I would have a chance of marrying some one I really loved. But what is the use of supposing? Here you are, turned up at the last minute, like a bad penny, and here I am, very much alive. Ergo, our relatives' wishes respectfully fulfilled, and—connubial miseryad libitum.Mes condolences. If you feel half as bad as I do, I really feel sorry for you. But, frankly, I think the joke is decidedly on me.”
Garrison was silent, staring with hard eyes at the ground. He could not begin to analyze his thoughts.
“You are not complimentary, at all events,” he said quietly at length.
“So every one tells me,” she sighed.
“I did not know of this arrangement,” he added, looking up, a queer smile twisting his lips.
“And now you are lonesomely miserable, like I am,” she rejoined, crossing a restless leg. “No doubt you left your ideal in New York. Perhaps you are married already. Are you?” she cried eagerly, seizing his arm.
“No such good luck—for you,” he added, under his breath.
“I thought so,” she sighed resignedly. “Of course no one would have you. It's hopeless.”
“It's not,” he argued sharply, his pride, anger in revolt. He, who had no right to any claim. “We're not compelled to marry each other. It's a free country. It is ridiculous, preposterous.”
“Oh, don't get so fussy!” she interrupted petulantly. “Don't you think I've tried to kick over the traces? And I've had more time to think of it than you—all my life. It is a family institution. Your uncle pledged his nephew, if he should have one, and my parents pledged me. We are hostages to their friendship. They wished to show how much they cared for one another by making us supremely miserable for life. Of course, I spent my life in arranging how you should look, if you ever came home—which I devoutly hoped you wouldn't. It wouldn't be so difficult, you see, if you happened to match my ideals. Then it would be a real love-feast, with parents' blessings and property thrown in to boot.”
“And then I turned up—a little, under-sized, nothingless pea, instead of the regular patented, double-action, stalwart Adonis of your imagination,” added Garrison dryly.
“How well you describe yourself!” said the girl admiringly.
“It must be horrible!” he condoled half-cynically.
“And of course you, too, were horribly disappointed?” she added, after a moment's pause, tapping her oxford with tennis-racket.
Garrison turned and deliberately looked into her gray eyes.
“Yes; I am—horribly,” he lied calmly. “My ideal is the dark, quiet girl of the clinging type.”
“She wouldn't have much to cling to,” sniffed the girl. “We'll be miserable together, then. Do you know, I almost hate you! I think I do. I'm quite sure I do.”
Garrison eyed her in silence, the smile on his lips. She returned the look, her face flushed.
“Miss Desha—”
“You'll have to call me Sue. You're Billy; I'm Sue. That's one of the minor penalties. Our prenatal engagement affords us this charming familiarity,” she interrupted scathingly.
“Sue, then. Sue,” continued Garrison quietly, “from your type, I thought you fashioned of better material. Now, don't explode—yet a while. I mean property and parents' blessing should not weigh a curse with you. Yes; I said curse—damn, if you wish. If you loved, this burlesque engagement should not stand in your way. You would elope with the man you love, and let property and parents' blessings——”
“That would be a good way for you to get out of the muddle unscathed, wouldn't it?” she flashed in. “How chivalrous! Why don't you elope with some one—the dark, clinging girl—and let me free? You want me to suffer, not yourself. Just like you Yankees—cold-blooded icicles!”
Garrison considered. “I never thought of that, honestly!” he said, with a laugh. “I would elope quick enough, if I had only myself to consider.”
“Then your dark, clinging girl is lacking in the very virtues you find so woefully missing in me. She won't take a risk. I cannot say I blame her,” she added, scanning the brooding Garrison.
He laughed good-humoredly. “How you must detest me! But cheer up, my sister in misery! You will marry the man you love, all right. Never fear.”
“Will I?” she asked enigmatically. Her eyes were half-shut, watching Garrison's profile. “Will I, soothsayer?”
He nodded comprehensively, bitterly.
“You will. One of the equations of the problem will be eliminated, and thus will be found the answer.”
“Which?” she asked softly, heel tapping gravel.
“The unnecessary one, of course. Isn't it always the unnecessary one?”
“You mean,” she said slowly, “that you will go away?”
Garrison nodded.
“Of course,” she added, after a pause, “the dark, clinging girl is waiting?”
“Of course,” he bantered.
“It must be nice to be loved like that.” Her eyes were wide and far away. “To have one renounce relatives, position, wealth—all, for love. It must be very nice, indeed.”
Still, Garrison was silent. He had cause to be.
“Do you think it is right, fair,” continued the girl slowly, her brow wrinkled speculatively, “to break your uncle's and aunt's hearts for the sake of a girl? You know how they have longed for your home-coming. How much you mean to them! You are all they have. Don't you think you are selfish—very selfish?”
“I believe the Bible says to leave all and cleave unto your wife,” returned Garrison.
“Yes. But not your intended wife.”
“But, you see, she is of the cleaving type.”
“And why this hurry? Aren't you depriving your uncle and aunt unnecessarily early?”
“But it is the only answer, as you pointed out. You then would be free.”
He did not know why he was indulging in this repartee. Perhaps because the situation was so novel, so untenable. But a strange, new force was working in him that day, imparting a peculiar twist to his humor. He was hating himself. He was hopeless, cynical, bitter.
If he could have laid hands upon that eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, he would have wrung his accomplished neck to the best of his ability. He, Snark, must have known about this prenatal engagement. And his bitterness, his hopelessness, were all the more real, for already he knew that he cared, and cared a great deal, for this curious girl with the steady gray eyes and wealth of indefinite hair; cared more than he would confess even to himself. It seemed as if he always had cared; as if he had always been looking into the depths of those great gray eyes. They were part of a dream, the focusing-point of the misty past—forever out of focus.
The girl had been considering his answer, and now she spoke.
“Of course,” she said gravely, “you are not sincere when you say your primal reason for leaving would be in order to set me free. Of course you are not sincere.”
“Is insincerity necessarily added to my numerous physical infirmities?” he bantered.
“Not necessarily. But there is always the love to make a virtue of necessity—especially when there's some one waiting on necessity.”
“But did I say that would be my primal reason for leaving—setting you free? I thought I merely stated it as one of the following blessings attendant on virtue.”
“Equivocation means that you were not sincere. Why don't you go, then?”
“Eh?” Garrison looked up sharply at the tone of her voice.
“Why don't you go? Hurry up! Reward the clinging girl and set me free.”
“Is there such a hurry? Won't you let me ferret out a pair of pajamas, to say nothing of good-bys?”
“How silly you are!” she said coldly, rising. “The question, then, rests entirely with you. Whenever you make up your mind to go—”
“Couldn't we let it hang fire indefinitely? Perhaps you could learn to love me. Then there would be no need to go.” Garrison smiled deliberately up into her eyes, the devil working in him.
Miss Desha returned his look steadily. “And the other girl—the clinging one?” she asked calmly.
“Oh, she could wait. If we didn't hit it off, I could fall back on her. I would hate to be an old bachelor.”
“No; I don't think it would be quite a success,” said the girl critically. “You see, I think you are the most detestable person I ever met. I really pity the other girl. It's better to be an old bachelor than to be a young—cad.”
Garrison rose slowly.
“And what is a cad?” he asked abstractedly.
“One who shames his birth and position by his breeding.”
“And no question of dishonesty enters into it?” He could not say why he asked. “It is not, then, a matter of moral ethics, but of mere—well——”
“Sensitiveness,” she finished dryly. “I really think I prefer rank dishonesty, if it is offset by courtesy and good breeding. You see, I am not at all moral.”
Here Mrs. Calvert made her appearance, with a book and sunshade. She was a woman whom a sunshade completed.
“I hope you two have not been quarreling,” she observed. “It is too nice a day for that. I was watching the slaughter of the innocents on the tennis-court. Really, you play a wretched game, William.”
“So I have been informed,” replied Garrison. “It is quite a relief to have so many people agree with me for once.”
“In this instance you can believe them,” commented the girl. She turned to Mrs. Calvert. “Whose ravings are you going to listen to now?” she asked, taking the book Mrs. Calvert carried.
“A matter of duty,” laughed the older woman. “No; it's not a novel. It came this morning. The major wishes me to assimilate it and impart to him its nutritive elements—if it contains any. He is so miserably busy—doing nothing, as usual. But it is a labor of love. If we women are denied children, we must interest ourselves in other things.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, with interest; “it's the years record of the track!” She was thumbing over the leaves. “I'd love to read it! May I when you've done? Thank you. Why, here's Sysonby, Gold Heels, The Picket—dear old Picket! Kentucky's pride! And here's Sis. Remember Sis? The Carter Handicap—”
She broke off suddenly and turned to the silent Garrison. “Did you go much to the track up North?” She was looking straight at him.
“I—I—that is—why, yes, of course,” he murmured vaguely. “May I see it?”
He took the book from her unwilling hand. A full-page photograph of Sis was confronting him. He studied it long and carefully, passing a troubled hand nervously over his forehead.
“I—I think I've seen her,” he said, at length, looking up vacantly. “Somehow, she seems familiar.”
Again he fell to studying the graceful lines of the thoroughbred, oblivious of his audience.
“She is a Southern horse,” commented Mrs. Calvert. “Rather she was. Of course you-all heard of her poisoning? It never said whether she recovered. Do you know?”
Garrison glanced up quickly, and met Sue Desha's unwavering stare.
“Why, I believe I did hear that she was poisoned, or something to that effect, now that you mention it.” His eyes were still vacant.
“You look as if you had seen a ghost,” laughed Sue, her eyes on the magnolia-tree.
He laughed somewhat nervously. “I—I've been thinking.”
“Is the major going in for the Carter this year?” asked the girl, turning to Mrs. Calvert. “Who will he run—Dixie?”
“I think so. She is the logical choice.” Mrs. Calvert was nervously prodding the gravel with her sunshade. “Sometimes I wish he would give up all ideas of it.”
“I think father is responsible for that. Since Rogue won the last Carter, father is horse-mad, and has infected all his neighbors.”
“Then it will be friend against friend,” laughed Mrs. Calvert. “For, of course, the colonel will run Rogue again this year—”
“I—I don't think so.” The girl's face was sober. “That is,” she added hastily, “I don't know. Father is still in New York. I think his initial success has spoiled him. Really, he is nothing more than a big child.” She laughed affectedly. Mrs. Calvert's quiet, keen eyes were on her.
“Racing can be carried to excess, like everything,” said the older woman, at length. “I suppose the colonel will bring home with him this Mr. Waterbury you were speaking of?”
The girl nodded. There was silence, each member of the trio evidently engrossed with thoughts that were of moment.
Mrs. Calvert was idly thumbing over the race-track annual. “Here is a page torn out,” she observed absently. “I wonder what it was? A thing like that always piques my curiosity. I suppose the major wanted it for reference. But then he hasn't seen the book yet. I wonder who wanted it? Let me—yes, it's ended here. Oh, it must have been the photograph and record of that jockey, Billy Garrison! Remember him? What a brilliant career he had! One never hears of him nowadays. I wonder what became of him?”
“Billy Garrison?” echoed Garrison slowly, “Why—I—I think I've heard of him—”
He was cut short by a laugh from the girl. “Oh, you're good! Why, his name used to be a household word. You should have heard it. But, then, I don't suppose you ever went to the track. Those who do don't forget.”
Mrs. Calvert walked slowly away. “Of course you'll stay for lunch, Sue,” she called back. “And a canter might get up an appetite. William, I meant to tell you before this that the major has reserved a horse for your use. He is mild and thoroughly broken. Crimmins will show him to you in the stable. You must learn to ride. You'll find riding-clothes in your room, I think. I recommend an excellent teacher in Sue. Good-by, and don't get thrown.”
“Are you willing?” asked the girl curiously.
Garrison's heart was pounding strangely. His mouth was dry. “Yes, yes,” he said eagerly.
The tight-faced cockney, Crimmins, was in the stable when Garrison, in riding-breeches, puttee leggings, etc., entered. Four names were whirling over and over in his brain ever since they had been first mentioned. Four names—Sis, Waterbury, Garrison, and Crimmins. He did not know whey they should keep recurring with such maddening persistency. And yet how familiar they all seemed!
Crimmins eyed him askance as he entered.
“Goin' for a canter, sir? Ho, yuss; this 'ere is the 'orse the master said as 'ow you were to ride, sir. It don't matter which side yeh get on. 'E's as stiddy-goin' as a alarum clock. Ho, yuss. I calls 'im Waterbury Watch—partly because I 'appen to 'ave a brother wot's trainer for Mr. Waterbury, the turfman, sir.”
Crimmins shifted his cud with great satisfaction at this uninterrupted flow of loquacity and brilliant humor. Garrison was looking the animal over instinctively, his hands running from hock to withers and back again.
“How old is he?” he asked absently.
“Three years, sir. Ho, yuss. Thoroughbred. Cast-off from the Duryea stable. By Sysonby out of Hamburg Belle. Won the Brighton Beach overnight sweepstakes in nineteen an' four. Ho, yuss. Just a little off his oats, but a bloomin' good 'orse.”
Garrison turned, speaking mechanically. “I wonder do you think I'm a fool! Sysonby himself won the Brighton sweepstakes in nineteen-four. It was the beginning of his racing career, and an easy win. This animal here is a plug; an out-and-out plug of the first water. He never saw Hamburg Belle or Sysonby—they never mated. This plug's a seven-year-old, and he couldn't do seven furlongs in seven weeks. He never was class, and never could be. I don't want to ride a cow, I want a horse. Give me that two-year-old black filly with the big shoulders. Whose is she?”
Crimmins shifted the cud again to hide his astonishment at Garrison's suddensavoir-faire.
“She's wicked, sir. Bought for the missus, but she ain't broken yet.”
“She hasn't been handled right. Her mouth's hard, but her temper's even. I'll ride her,” said Garrison shortly.
“Have to wear blinkers, sir.”
“No, I won't. Saddle her. Hurry up. Shorten the stirrup. There, that's right. Stand clear.”
Crimmins eyed Garrison narrowly as he mounted. He was quite prepared to run with a clothes-basket to pick up the remains. But Garrison was up like a feather, high on the filly's neck, his shoulders hunched. The minute he felt the saddle between his knees he was at home again after a long, long absence. He had come into his birthright.
The filly quivered for a moment, laid back her ears, and then was off.
“Cripes!” ejaculated the veracious Crimmins, as wide-eyed he watched the filly fling gravel down the drove, “'e's got a seat like Billy Garrison himself. 'E can ride, that kid. An' 'e knows 'orse-flesh. Blimy if 'e don't! If Garrison weren't down an' out I'd be ready to tyke my Alfred David it were 'is bloomin' self. An' I thought 'e was a dub! Ho, yuss—me!”
Moralizing on the deceptiveness of appearances, Crimmins fortified himself with another slab of cut-plug.
Miss Desha, up on a big bay gelding with white stockings, was waiting on the Logan Pike, where the driveway of Calvert House swept into it.
“Do you know that you're riding Midge, and that she's a hard case?” she said ironically, as they cantered off together. “I'll bet you're thrown. Is she the horse the major reserved for you? Surely not.”
“No,” said Garrison plaintively, “they picked me out a cow—a nice, amiable cow; speedy as a traction-engine, and with as much action. This is a little better.”
The girl was silent, eyeing him steadily through narrowed lids.
“You've never ridden before?”
“Um-m-m,” said Garrison; “why, yes, I suppose so.” He laughed in sudden joy. “It feels so good,” he confided.
“You remind me of a person in a dream,” she said, after a little, still watching him closely. “Nothing seems real to you—your past, I mean. You only think you have done this and that.”
He was silent, biting his lip.
“Come on, I'll race you,” she cried suddenly. “To that big poplar down there. See it? About two furlongs. I'll give you twenty yards' start. Don't fall off.”
“I gave, never took, handicaps.” The words came involuntarily to Garrison's surprise. “Come on; even up,” he added hurriedly. “Ready?”
“Yes. Let her out.”
The big bay gelding was off first, with the long, heart-breaking stride that eats up the ground. The girl's laugh floated back tantalizingly over her shoulder. Garrison hunched in the saddle, a smile on his lips. He knew the quality of the flesh under him, and that it would not be absent at the call.
“Tote in behind, girlie. He got the jump on you. That's it. Nip his heels.” The seconds flew by like the trees; the big poplar rushed up. “Now, now. Make a breeze, make a breeze,” sang out Garrison at the quarter minute; and like a long, black streak of smoke the filly hunched past the gelding, leaving it as if anchored. It was the old Garrison finish which had been track-famous once upon a time, and as Garrison eased up his hard-driven mount a queer feeling of exultation swelled his heart; a feeling which he could not quite understand.
“Could I have been a jockey once?” he kept asking himself over and over. “I wonder could I have been! I wonder!”
The next moment the gelding had ranged up alongside.
“I'll bet that was close to twenty-four, the track record,” said Garrison unconsciously. “Pretty fair for dead and lumpy going, eh? Midge is a comer, all right. Good weight-carrying sprinter. I fancy that gelding. Properly ridden he would have given me a hard ride. We were even up on weight.”
“And so you think I cannot ride properly!” added the girl quietly, arranging her wind-blown hair.
“Oh, yes. But women can't really ride class, you know. It isn't in them.”
She laughed a little. “I'm satisfied now. You know I was at the Carter Handicap last year.”
“Yes?” said Garrison, unmoved. He met her eyes fairly.
“Yes, you know Rogue, father's horse, won. They say Sis, the favorite, had the race, but was pulled in the stretch.” She was smiling a little.
“Indeed?” murmured Garrison, with but indifferent interest.
She glanced at him sharply, then fell to pleating the gelding's mane. “Um-m-m,” she added softly. “Billy Garrison, you know, rode Sis.”
“Oh, did he?”
“Yes. And, do you know, his seat was identical with yours?” She turned and eyed him steadily.
“I'm flattered.”
“Yes,” she continued dreamily, the smile at her lips; “it's funny, of course, but Billy Garrison used to be my hero. We silly girls all have one.”
“Oh, well,” observed Garrison, “I dare say any number of girls loved Billy Garrison. Popular idol, you know——”
“I dare say,” she echoed dryly. “Possibly the dark, clinging kind.”
He eyed her wonderingly, but she was looking very innocently at the peregrinating chipmunk.
“And it was so funny,” she ran on, as if she had not heard his observation nor made one herself. “Coming home in the train from the Aqueduct the evening of the handicap, father left me for a moment to go into the smoking-car. And who do you think should be sitting opposite me, two seats ahead, but—Who do you think?” Again she turned and held his eyes.
“Why—some long-lost girl-chum, I suppose,” said Garrison candidly.
She laughed; a laugh that died and was reborn and died again in a throaty gurgle. “Why, no, it was Billy Garrison himself. And I was being annoyed by a beast of a man, when Mr. Garrison got up, ordered the beast out of the seat beside me, and occupied it himself, saying it was his. It was done so beautifully. And he did not try to take advantage of his courtesy in the least. And then guess what happened.” Still her eyes held his.
“Why,” answered Garrison vaguely, “er—let me see. It seems as if I had heard of that before somewhere. Let me see. Probably it got into the papers—No, I cannot remember. It has gone. I have forgotten. And what did happen next?”
“Why, father returned, saw Mr. Garrison raise his hat in answer to my thanks, and, thinking he had tried to scrape an acquaintance with me, threw him out of the seat. He did not recognize him.”
“That must have been a little bit tough on Garrison, eh?” laughed Garrison idly. “Now that you mention it, it seems as if I had heard it.”
“I've always wanted to apologize to Mr. Garrison, though I do not know him—he does not know me,” said the girl softly, pleating the gelding's mane at a great rate. “It was all a mistake, of course. I wonder—I wonder if—if he held it against me!”
“Oh, very likely he's forgotten all about it long ago,” said Garrison cheerfully.
She bit her lip and was silent. “I wonder,” she resumed, at length, “if he would like me to apologize and thank him—” She broke off, glancing at him shyly.
“Oh, well, you never met him again, did you?” asked Garrison. “So what does it matter? Merely an incident.”
They rode a furlong in absolute silence. Again the girl was the first to speak. “It is queer,” she moralized, “how fate weaves our lives. They run along in threads, are interwoven for a time with others, dropped, and then interwoven again. And what a pattern they make!”
“Meaning?” he asked absently.
She tapped her lips with the palm of her little gauntlet.
“That I think you are absurd.”
“I?” He started. “How? Why? I don't understand. What have I done now?”
“Nothing. That's just it.”
“I don't understand.”
“No? Um-m-m, of course it is your secret. I am not trying to force a confidence. You have your own reasons for not wishing your uncle and aunt to know. But I never believed that Garrison threw the Carter Handicap. Never, never, never. I—I thought you could trust me. That is all.”
“I don't understand a word—not a syllable,” said Garrison restlessly. “What is it all about?”
The girl laughed, shrugging her shoulders. “Oh, nothing at all. The return of a prodigal. Only I have a good memory for faces. You have changed, but not very much. I only had to see you ride to be certain. But I suspected from the start. You see, I admit frankly that you once were my hero. There is only one Billy Garrison.”
“I don't see the moral to the parable.” He shook his head hopelessly.
“No?” She flushed and bit her lip. “William C. Dagget, you're Billy Garrison, and you know it!” she said sharply, turning and facing him. “Don't try to deny it. You are, are, are! I know it. You took that name because you didn't wish your relatives to know who you were. Why don't you 'fess up? What is the use of concealing it? You've nothing to be ashamed of. You should be proud of your record. I'm proud of it. Proud—that—that—well, that I rode a race with you to-day. You're hiding your identity; afraid of what your uncle and aunt might say—afraid of that Carter Handicap affair. As if we didn't know you always rode as straight as a string.” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes flashing.
Garrison eyed her steadily. His face was white, his breath coming hot and hard. Something was beating—beating in his brain as if striving to jam through. Finally he shook his head.
“No, you're wrong. It's a case of mistaken identity. I am not Garrison.”
Her gray eyes bored into his. “You really mean that—Billy?”
“I do.”
“On your word of honor? By everything you hold most sacred? Take your time in answering.”
“It wouldn't matter if I waited till the resurrection. I can't change myself. I'm not Garrison. Faith of a gentleman, I'm not. Honestly, Sue.” He laughed a little nervously.
Again her gray eyes searched his. She sighed. “Of course I take your word.”
She fumbled in her bosom and brought forth a piece of paper, carefully smoothing out its crumpled surface. Without a word she handed it to Garrison, and he spread it out on his filly's mane. It was a photograph of a jockey—Billy Garrison. The face was more youthful, care-free. Otherwise it was a fair likeness.
“You'll admit it looks somewhat like you,” said Sue, with great dryness.
Garrison studied it long and carefully. “Yes—I do,” he murmured, in a perplexed tone. “A double. Funny, isn't it? Where did you get it?” She laughed a little, flushing.
“I was silly enough to think you were one and the same, and that you wished to conceal your identity from your relatives. So I made occasion to steal it from the book your aunt was about to read. Remember? It was the leaf she thought the major had abstracted.”
“I must thank you for your kindness, even though it went astray. May I have it?”
“Ye-es. And you are sure you are not the original?”
“I haven't the slightest recollection of being Billy Garrison,” reiterated Billy Garrison, wearily and truthfully.
The ride home was mostly one of silence. Both were thinking. As they came within sight of Calvert House the girl turned to him:
“There is one thing you can do—ride. Like glory. Where did you more than learn?”
“Must have been born with me.”
“What's bred in the bone will come out in the blood,” she quoted enigmatically. She was smiling in a way that made Garrison vaguely uncomfortable.