152CHAPTER XXIITHE HEART OF THE MYSTERY
Lucileregarded the speaker soberly for a moment. She was a dainty, pretty, bright-eyed little person, with a repose of manner that seemed, somehow, out of keeping with her obvious youth. Lucile had understood the softly spoken French question, but when she answered it was in the native tongue.
“I do not understand French,” she said, slowly. “I am an American.”
“Ah, I, too, can speak the English,” said the other, with a delightful accent. “What is it I can do for you, Mam’selle?”
Lucile could have hugged her, so great was her joy at hearing her own language spoken so unexpectedly.
“If you will just be good enough to let me stay here till the storm is over,” she said, “and tell me how to get to my friends, I will be very much obliged.”
“Ah, Mam’selle has lost her way,” said the little French girl, nodding her head quickly several times. “I know the country well and so will give you the aid you require.” She spoke with painstaking correctness. “Enter, Mam’selle!”
Lucile was very glad to avail herself of the invitation, for she was tired from the long walk and her damp clothing clung to her limbs uncomfortably.
Her diminutive hostess led her into a large, low-ceiled, home-like room, whose broad window sills were abloom with fresh-cut flowers. Lucile thought that only the sun was needed to make it the cheeriest room in the world.
“If Mam’selle will explain to me from where she comes,” the girl invited, “I will the better know how to make swift her return, since she wishes it.”153
“Thank you!” said Lucile, gratefully. “I wouldn’t care so much for myself, but I’m afraid my folks will be terribly worried.” Then she went on to describe the inn and her adventure of the morning.
When she had finished, her hostess nodded thoughtfully. “I know the place of which you speak,” she said, “and I would most gladly take you there immediately, but my servant has gone to the village with the only carriage of which we are the owner and has not yet returned. I fear he may have waited for the storm to abate,” and she glanced out the window, where the rain was still pouring down in torrents.
Lucile’s heart sank. “Then I can’t hope to get back to the folks or send word to them till the rain stops,” she said.
The girl nodded confirmation. “I fear that is so, Ma’m’selle,” she said; then, as though realizing her duty as hostess, she rose to her feet, saying, hurriedly, “But I forget myself. You must have hunger, Ma’m’selle. I will return at once.” Then, checking herself again, she added, “But I have not yet told you my name. It isJeanetteRenard.”
“And mine is Lucile Payton.”
“Now are we acquainted,” said Jeanette, gaily.
Lucile, left to herself, felt again, only to a greater extent, that strange sense of familiarity with her surroundings. Then, in a flash, the solution came to her. Why, how stupid she was not to have realized it before! The chateau corresponded, word for word, with M. Charloix’s description. In Lucile’s own words, it was it!
And her name was Jeanette! Why, of course! How absurdly simple the whole thing was! Why, this was the very scene of M. Charloix’s amazing story. But that she, Lucile, should stumble into the very midst of all this mystery——
At this point in her meditations Jeanette re-entered the room, smiling and serene. Lucile decided she was older than she looked.154
“I will send a servant with a message to your people after you have finished your repast,” she said.
“But the rain?” Lucile began.
“Ah, that is nothing,” said the girl, shrugging her shoulders, as if dismissing the subject. “She is well used to it.”
Although Lucile’s excitement and curiosity were fast reaching fever heat, she tried to control herself and to answer Jeanette calmly and sanely.
A few moments later a delicious meal was spread before her, to which she did full justice, feeling by this time on the verge of starvation.
When she had finished, Lucile expressed her curiosity and admiration for the old place and Jeanette suggested that they look about—provided her guest was not too tired. Lucile replied that she felt as if the word “tired” had never been in her vocabulary—which was literally true.
At the end of a fascinating tour of inspection, during which Lucile had started many times to put pointed questions to Jeanette and stopped just in time, Jeanette paused at the foot of a winding staircase.
She ascended a step or two; then, looking down upon her guest, said, wistfully, “I am so glad you came! I have so little company and seeing you has been like—ah, like a cup of water to one dying of thirst,” and underneath the little laugh that followed Lucile fancied she detected an infinite sadness.
Her warm young heart went out to the other girl, as she said, heartily, “Then I’m very glad I mistook the path this morning, since it has given me a chance to know you. But why don’t you ever see anybody?” she added. “Aren’t there any girls around here?”
“Oh, yes, there are some—but it is so long a story, I would not bore you with it. Come, we will go upstairs!” And, though Lucile was dying to hear more, she wisely forbore to press the point.
While they were looking about them happily there was the sound of wheels on the drive and Jeanette, rushing to the window, exclaimed, “There’s Pierre at this minute.155Mam’selle will pardon if I speak with him a moment?” and for the second time that day Lucile was left alone in this house of romance and mystery.
“She won’t mind if I look around by myself,” and so she began to explore in earnest. She was tremendously excited.
“They say these old chateaux are full of secret passages, but I’d never have the luck to find any. Oh, I’m afraid the girls won’t believe me when I tell them about it—and I won’t blame them much if they don’t; I’d have to see it to believe it myself.”
The attic was large and many cornered, with a sharply slanted roof, shading tiny, many-paned dormer windows. There were the regulation cobwebs, that hung in attractive festoons from the rafters. These, with the quantities of discarded but beautiful old furniture, scattered about in picturesque confusion, formed an effective background for Lucile’s detective work.
She groped her way over every inch of the wall, sometimes getting down on her knees, trying to persuade herself she really hoped to find a spring that would release something hidden—she didn’t care much what it was, but it must be hidden. However, after she had convinced herself that there was not a square inch of space she had not investigated, she rose to her feet reluctantly, feeling as though she had been cheated.
“Horrid old thing!” she murmured, dusting the cobwebs from her hands. “You look so nice and interesting and mysterious just on purpose to discourage promising young sleuths like me. I wish I hadn’t given you the satisfaction of bothering with you,” and she leaned against the wall in utter disgust.
Thus does fortune, in the very hour of our despair, place in our hands the thing for which we have been so hopelessly searching. Even as her elbow touched the panel behind her there came a sharp click and before Lucile’s startled gaze a small, square door opened slowly and deliberately, trembled, seemed to hesitate, and then came to a full stop, leaving its shallow interior exposed to view.156
It was not till then, when she stood, open-mouthed and open-eyed, staring dumbly at this apparition, that she realized how little she had really expected it to happen.
“Well, I’m not dreaming, that’s one sure thing,” she murmured, approaching the little opening with extreme caution, while chills of alternate fear and excitement coursed all over her. “It seems so weird and ghostly to see that thing open all by itself, with nothing to help it along! Ghosts or not, I’m going to see what’s there,” and, strengthened by this resolve, she started to place her hand in the opening, but drew it back quickly with a frightened gasp.
“You’re a coward,” she accused herself, angrily. “Any one would think you had touched a snake. If you don’t hurry up, Jeanette will be here and spoil everything. I think she’s coming now,” and spurred on by the sound of approaching footsteps, she reached in and drew forth a long, rolled-up, legal-looking document, tied and sealed and covered with dust.
“I know it’s the will. I’m right, I’m right!” she cried, joyfully. “She istheJeanette—but, oh, how the plot thickens——”
“What have you found?” said a soft voice behind her, and she turned to confront Jeanette, who was smiling and curious.
“Look!” said Lucile, waving the document wildly. “The door just opened—I don’t know how; my elbow must have touched a spring—and this thing was in it—the opening, I mean, not the door.”
“But what is it?” asked Jeanette, puzzled. “I have not the remembrance of having looked at it before.”
“Then you don’t know?” said Lucile, wide eyed.
The girl shook her head, eyeing the document with a puzzled expression. Gradually bewilderment changed to surprise, surprise to incredulity.
“It’s the will!” she cried. “The will of Henri Charloix! Oh, it cannot be so; it can’t—you say you found it in here?” she questioned, and, without waiting for an answer,157plunged her hand into the opening, while Lucile drew nearer to her.
“May I look?” she asked, and the girl nodded, turning luminous eyes upon the pretty, awed face at her shoulder. “You may prove to be the best friend I have ever yet known,” she said, solemnly, and drew from the secret hiding-place a very ordinary tin box, with a scrap of writing bound to it with a coarse cord.
The wording was in French, but Jeanette, translating for her benefit, read: “To be opened by my little daughter Jeanette on the event of her twenty-first birthday. Signed,Edouard Renard.”
“It is from my father!” cried Jeanette, sinking down, all white and trembling, upon a worn old couch and clasping the precious box to her as though she could not let it go. “Father! father!” she cried, and, bending her head upon her arms, sobbed as though her heart would break.
Lucile turned and tiptoed from the room, thinking she had intruded long enough; but a soft call from Jeanette made her pause. She seated herself on the stairs and waited.
To Lucile’s tingling consciousness that short wait seemed an eternity. Her head ached with the flood of imagination that besieged it, her two hands grasped the banister to keep her rooted to the spot, while her feet tapped an impatient tattoo on the floor.
At last the longed-for summons came.
“Lucile,” called a low, unsteady voice, “will you come to me?”
Would she come? Lucile flew up the winding stairs and came to a standstill before Jeanette a trifle uncertainly, not quite sure what was expected of her.
The uncertainty lasted only a moment, for, as Jeanette, shy, and dewy-eyed, held out her arms to her new-found friend, quite suddenly Lucile knew. Impulsively she threw her arms about the older girl and drew her close, whispering, softly, “Tell me all you feel you can, Jeanette; you can trust me.”158
“Oh, I believe that,” said Jeanette, between sharp little intakes of breath. “Were I not sure of it, I could not so confide in you.”
“Thank you,” said Lucile, simply.
“You see,” the girl continued, “when I was very young I went to live with M. Charloix, whose will this is,” indicating the document.
“And M. Charloix had a son, named after him, Henri,” Lucile supplemented.
The girl drew back in startled wonder, while the bright color flooded her face. “You know that—but how?” she cried.
“We sailed with M. Charloix from New York to Liverpool,” Lucile explained, striving vainly to keep her voice calm and steady. “He was searching for you.”
“Then you know—he has told you everything,” whispered the girl, while the document in her trembling hand rattled and shook. “Was he—did he—oh, how did he look?” And she turned pleading eyes upon Lucile.
Lucile’s own eyes filled suddenly and she had to choke back the tears before she could continue. “He looked very wan and sad. You see, uncertainty like that must be pretty hard to bear.”
“Ah, it has not been easy for me,” said the girl, softly. “It is a great thing to renounce all you hold most dear in this world—to fly for refuge to a spot like this—the long, weary nights—the waiting—the longing—oh, you cannot know!” and she burst into a passion of weeping.
“You—you’re going to make me cry,” said Lucile, while a tear rolled down her face and splashed upon Jeanette’s bowed head.
“Ah, I am so foolish! There is no reason for tears—not now,” and over the girl’s tear-stained face flashed such a look of radiant joy that Lucile could only gaze, dumbfounded, at the transformation.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
“Ah, you wonder, you are amazed—but you will not be when I have told you all. Look, this is the will—the will for which I have heard Henri is hunting. But that is159not everything—oh, it is nothing! See!” and she held up the little tin box for Lucile’s inspection, feverishly, eagerly. “In this is a letter from my father—my father, who died when I was so young and left me to the care of my guardian. He was good to me, but M. Charloix——” She shivered slightly. “But the letter,”—she drew it forth reverently—“ah, that changes the world for Henri and me!
“You see, when my father was very young, scarcely more than a boy, he ran away and married a girl of great beauty and intelligence, but one considered by the people among whom he moved as far beneath him in station. The rest is so old a story—his family were so cruel to him when it came to their knowledge, disinheriting him; and my father, not being accustomed to earn his own living, could not make enough to protect his sweet young wife—my mother——” Her voice broke, and Lucile squeezed the small, brown hand encouragingly.
“Ah, imagine it!” she cried. “Most often she had not enough to eat. Then, when I was only an infant, heart-broken at the suffering she thought herself to have brought upon herself and little daughter, together with so great privation itself, she died. My father followed soon after—heart-broken. Before he died, he wrote me this—ah, see how old it is—for he could not bear that I should hear of him from other lips than his.”
“But you, the child?” Lucile interrupted, eagerly. “What became of you?”
“Ah, he bequeathed me to the one friend whom he had not lost—and he was good; I cannot make you understand how good!”
“But he never told you about your parents?”
“It was my father’s request that he should not—and—and——” Her voice trailed off into silence. Chin in hand, she gazed unseeingly at the opposite wall.
Lucile was silent for a moment, busy patching the pieces of the story together into one connected whole. Then, leaning forward suddenly, she cried, excitedly, “Then M. Charloix deliberately made up that wicked, cruel lie that separated you and his son?”160
The girl nodded. “But nothing matters now, save that it was a lie,” she cried, and Lucile, looking at her, marveled.
The raucous toot of a motor horn brought both the girls to their feet with a startled exclamation.
“Oh, it is your friends,” said Jeanette, running to the window. “You must go down at once. Ah, I am sorry to part with you,ma cherie,” holding the younger girl from her gently and looking earnestly into the flushed, eager, face. “You have come into my life like some good fairy, bringing happiness with you.”
Emotion choked the words Lucile wanted to say, but her silence was more eloquent than words and Jeanette was satisfied.
A moment later they were descending the stairs, arm in arm, and very reluctant to part.
To Lucile’s surprise, Jeanette paused as they reached the lower hall and motioned her to go on.
“But I want you to meet my father and mother and the girls,” Lucile protested. “You’ve got to give them a chance to thank you.”
But Jeanette only shook her head. “I can see no one now,” she whispered, tremulously. “Ah, I could not bear it!”
Lucile nodded understandingly. Then, “Monsieur Charloix?” she questioned.
“Send him to me.” This last was very low.
161CHAPTER XXIIILUCILE TRIUMPHS
Lucile sped down the steps and into the waiting arms of her assembled family.
She was hugged and kissed and handed from one to the other in a veryecstasyof reunion, until Mr. Payton spoke, a trifle huskily.
“Perhaps,” said he, “perhaps it would be just as well to thank the young person who handed our runaway back to us,” and he glanced inquiringly in the direction of the chateau.
“No, no,” said Lucile, hurriedly. “You see, it——” She hesitated; then, throwing secrecy to the winds, she pushed Jessie and Evelyn ahead of her into the automobile, crying excitedly, “I can’t keep it in another minute; there’s no use trying—I can’t—I can’t——” and, turning from her astonished friends to her no less astonished father, she said, “Dad, if you’ll only get started for home, I’ll tell you all about it——”
“All about what?” Jessie started to interrupt.
“I’m going to tell you, Jessie, dear, but we must get started first,” and she clapped her hands impatiently while Mr. Payton gave the necessary orders and the chauffeur started the motor.
“Oh, Phil, Phil, do stop staring so!” she cried, hysterically. “I know you are going to be awfully cut up when you learn that your much-abused and misunderstood sister was right, after all.”
“Lucile,” cried Evelyn, in exasperation. “If you don’t stop talking in riddles and get down to plain United States that everybody can understand——”
“Oh, I will,” gasped Lucile. “Did any of you see anything unusual about that chateau?” she questioned. “Didn’t it look—well, rather familiar to you?”162
“There she goes again!” wailed Evelyn, and Jessie added, “We were too busy looking at you to notice the old house. What’s that got to do with your story, anyway?”
“You’d find out if you would only have a little patience. I’ve a good mind not to tell you, anyway,” she finished, rather childishly, for, you see, in spite of the excitement, or, more probably, because of it, Lucile was very tired and a finicky audience didn’t appeal to her. She wanted to tell her story her own way.
“Go ahead, Lucy; forgive us!” said Jessie, all compunction at once. “You’ve made us so excited we can’t wait, that’s all.”
“Yes, wepromisenot to interrupt again,” added Evelyn.
“Oh, go ahead and tell your story, Lucy; cut out the sob stuff!” This from an unsympathetic brother, who should have withered next minute beneath the scathing searchlight of scorn turned his way.
Then Lucile told her story, from the minute she left the girls to the present time. During the recital they forgot more than once their promise not to interrupt, but Lucile, heart and soul in her story, never noticed them.
Mr. Payton was as much interested as the young folks, for he had entertained a sincere liking for the despondent young Frenchman.
When Lucile, flushed and breathless, finished the recital and leaned back against the cushions, the girls and Phil overwhelmed her with a flood of questions.
“So that was really the chateau old Charloix told us about. Why didn’t you tell us while we were there, so we could have had a good look at the place?” Phil objected. “Let’s go back, Dad,” he added, eagerly. “It wouldn’t take very long and it’s a crime not to give the place the once over now that we have the chance.”
“Oh, Phil, we can’t go back now,” wailed his sister. “I’m a perfect mess——”
“Of course we can’t; there isn’t time, anyway,” said Jessie, sweeping the suggestion aside with asang-froidthat aggravated Phil. “The thing I’m most interested in163now is that will and the letters her father left her. Oh, it’s too wonderful!”
“And to think,” said Evelyn, with shining eyes, “to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I’d only had the nerve to follow you!”
“Yes, just think of that lost opportunity,” wailed Jessie. “Such a chance will never come again, never. But, Lucile, dear, do tell us what Jeanette looked like,” she begged, for the fiftieth time at least.
Before she could reply, Mr. Payton said, slowly, “It is a very serious, a very delicate thing, to interfere in the lives of two people, Lucile. In this instance the end justifies the means, but it might easily have turned out otherwise. This isn’t a lecture, dear,” he added, patting the brown head tenderly, “simply a caution.”
“I know,” said Lucile, looking up understandingly into her father’s kind eyes, “and I will be more careful in the future, Dad. But oh,” she offered, in extenuation, “when mystery marches right up to you and begs to be looked into, what can you do? Oh, girls, if you could only have been there—if you only could!”
“Don’t rub it in,” cried Evelyn, clapping her hands to her ears. “You have me fairly jumping with envy now.”
“Do you think you could find Henri Charloix forJeanette, Dad?” said Lucile, turning eagerly to her father and ignoring the interruption. “You see, there’s nothing to stand between them now.”
“I think so,” said Mr. Payton, his eyes kindling with an interest almost as great as his daughter’s. “I’ll spare no trouble to bring those poor harassed young people together. It’s an outrage the way the French hand their children about like so much merchandise. I’ll do my best little girl, now that you have started the ball rolling,” he promised.
Lucile squeezed his hand gratefully, and Jessie suddenly broke out with, “Now I know why Phil hasn’t seemed to take much interest in the proceedings, and why he has164been studying the sky with such concentration ever since Lucile has been talking.”
“Why?” cried both girls, in a single breath.
“Simply because”—she paused for dramatic effect, then flung her bomb with force at the intended victim—“he’s jealous!” she hissed.
“Oh, is that so?” said Phil, drawing his gaze reluctantly from the far horizon and letting it rest dreamily on his accuser. “May I be allowed to ask what intricate and devious chain of reasoning leads you to make so unheard-of a charge?”
“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Jessie, disrespectfully. “You know you’re jealous, so why deny it? Seems to me I remember”—it was her turn to let her gaze wander sky-ward—“if I mistake not, that a short time ago a certain young gentleman—I mention no names, but look where I’m looking”—she threw him a mischievous glance, which he was by no means loath to intercept—“did, upon occasion, laugh and scoff——”
“Same thing,” Phil interrupted.
“At his sister,” Jessie continued, undaunted, “when she ventured to prophesy that which has really taken place.”
“Yes. ‘Paris is a very large place, you know,’” mocked Lucile.
“Take it all back, take it all back!” cried Phil, overwhelmed. “I’ll admit you’re the greatest sleuth outside of Sherlock, Lucy. Hands up and spare my life!”
The girls laughed with the joy of the victorious and Evelyn was about to speak, when Phil called out suddenly:
“Jack Turnbull, by all that’s lucky! What brought you here?” And he fairly flung himself out of the stopping machine.
They had come upon the inn suddenly over the rise in the ground and there, standing against the pillar and nonchalantly surveying the scenery was—Lucile had to rub her eyes to be sure of unimpaired vision.
Then, the machine coming to a full stop, the two girls stepped out, while Lucile followed more slowly in their165wake, conscious suddenly of dust-stained clothing and rumpled hair. “And I wanted to look my best,” she wailed, in truly feminine despair.
She had not much time for lamentation, for, through the handshakings of Phil and the ecstatic demonstrations of his cousin, Jack’s handsome eyes sought and found hers.
“It’s a long way to come just to see you,” he cried, gripping her hands tightly. “But it’s sure worth it,” he added, boyishly.
Lucile never had longed so for a mirror. She knew her hair was all awry, that her dress was wrinkled and covered with dust, and that her eyes must look funny from crying over Jeanette, and——
“I’m very glad to—to see you,” she stammered. “If you will—excuse me just—a minute—I’ll change this awful rig—and—and——” She flashed him an uncertain little smile and was gone through the broad doorway, leaving him to gaze after her, mystified and troubled.
“It’s all right, Jack!” consoled Phil, with the superior knowledge of one who has a sister toward one who hasn’t, and therefore knoweth not the ways of woman. “It’s her clothes; but wait till she gets all dolled up; there will be a change. To talk of something else, how did you happen to strike the old inn?” and Jack, somewhat enlightened, entered upon the subject with a will, while the two girls followed in the wake of the deserter.
They found Lucile standing before the mirror, surveying herself dejectedly.
“What did you want to run away for?” charged Jessie. “Jack felt hurt, I know, even though Phil did try to explain.”
“Just look at me,” Lucile began, miserably.
“Well, look at you,” repeated Evelyn. “What’s the matter with you? Your eyes aren’t red any more—the wind took that away—and your hair always looks better when it’s rumpled——”166
“And as for your dress,” Jessie took it up, “do you think Jack would notice what you had on? He wasn’t looking at that——”
“Well, how did I know I was beautiful with red eyes and wild hair and a dress that looks as if it were new in the seventeenth century?” cried Lucile, brought to bay.
“We’d have told you if you’d asked us,” said Jesse, fondly.
Lucile threw an arm about each of the girls and drew them before the mirror—two fair heads with a dark one in between.
“You’re great comforts, both of you. But, girls, I did think I was such a—mess!” she chuckled, happily.
167CHAPTER XXIV“TWO’S COMPANY”
Lucile was happy even before she awoke that morning. The sense of something delightful in store pervaded even her dreams. For a long time she lingered in that delightful interim between waking and sleeping, when the spirit seems to detach itself and fly on wings of golden sunshine through a dewy, scented universe. In her confused imagining she was resting on a rose-colored cloud, while all around her other clouds of varying tints swam and swirled, taking different shapes as they passed her by.
“How pretty!” she murmured, and woke with a start to find Jessie regarding her sleepily.
“What on earth were you muttering about, Lucy?” cried the latter, fretfully. “I guess you must have been having a bad dream.”
“No, it wasn’t; it was beautiful,” she contradicted, putting her hands behind her head and gazing up at the ceiling. “I wish you hadn’t waked me up; I was having an awfully good time.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” said Jessie, so sourly that Lucile chuckled.
“You know, Jessie,” she said, “the only time you are ever cross is when you are sleepy—and that’s most all the time,” she added, wickedly.
“What?” said the accused, sitting up in bed and seizing Lucile by the arm. “Unsay those words or I will have your life!”
“Now, you know you don’t need it half as much as I do,” reasoned Lucile. “You have one of your own.” Whereupon Jessie laughed, and peace was almost restored when there came a knock at the door.168
The girls started and looked at each other in questioning bewilderment.
“Now what have you been doing?” whispered Lucile. “I knew one of these days you would have the law upon us.”
“Up to your old tricks again, I suppose,” Jessie countered. “But you’d better answer them, Lucy.”
“Why don’t you?” said Lucile; but, receiving no answer, called out in a small voice, as the rap was repeated, “Who is it?”
“Aren’t you girls ever going to get up?” whispered a gruff voice, which they, nevertheless, recognized as belonging to Phil. “It’s almost eight o’clock and you said you’d be down by half-past seven. We’ve been waiting for half an hour.”
“All right; we’ll be down right away, Phil,” said Lucile, jumping out of bed and beginning to dress hastily. “I had no idea it was so late.”
“You know you won’t have time for a walk before breakfast, even if you are down in half an hour—which I doubt,” said Phil, pessimistically. “Jack and I are going for our walk, anyway.”
“Run along,” sang Jessie, cheerfully, “and don’t hurry back.”
“You just wait till I get you, Jet,” he threatened—Jet being a recent nickname to which he had clung despite Jessie’s vehement protestations that the name would fit a Southern mammy a good deal better than it did her, for the simple reason that a darky was jet, but she wasn’t nor ever would be.
“All right; only see that you pay enough,” she assented. “I’m mercenary.”
“I have always suspected something in your life, woman,” he hissed through the keyhole. “Farewell!” And they heard his retreating footsteps on the stairs.
The girls laughed merrily, just as Evelyn, fully dressed, emerged from the next room—they always drew lots to see169who slept together—looking very sweet and dainty in her spotless white.
“Hurry up, you old slow-pokes,” she greeted them, gaily. “I’ve been up for ever so long. It’s a wonderful day.”
“Oh, Evelyn, dear, you look darling in that dress! I’ve never seen it before!” cried Lucile, enthusiastically. “Turn around in the back. Isn’t it cute, Jessie? Goodness! You make me ashamed of myself!” And she began dressing with renewed vigor.
“Will you get dressed for me, too, Evelyn?” begged Jessie. “With so much energy flying around loose, I ought to catch some of it, but I don’t. Oh, for another hour’s sleep!”
“You don’t have to get up,” said Evelyn, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “You can sleep till noon if you want to, while Lucy and I have a look at the Capitol and dine at some nice little cafe——”
“Say not another word,” commanded Jessie, bouncing out of bed and winding her long braids about her head. “I’d like to see anybody leave me behind. Lucy, do get out of my way—I have to have the mirror some of the time!”
Lucile laughed. “All right; I’ll fix my hair in Evelyn’s room, now she’s through, and let you have the whole place to yourself,” she said, and gathering up hairpins and ribbons, she ran into the other room to finish up.
“What are you going to wear this morning, Lucy?” asked Evelyn, from the doorway, where she could see both girls at once.
“The little flowered one, I guess,” said Lucile, struggling with her hair. “I haven’t worn it yet and Dad raves about it.”
“I wish you would wear the blue one,” Evelyn suggested. “I think it’s the prettiest thing you have.”
“But I’ve worn it so much,” Lucile objected. “I don’t want to be known by my dress.”
With apparent irrelevance, Jessie called out from the other room, “Jack loves blue.”170
Instead of looking confused, as she knew was expected of her, Lucile answered, readily. “I’ll wear it then, of course. Phil likes blue, too.”
Evelyn and Jessie exchanged glances and the latter laughed aggravatingly.
“Evelyn, what have you done with my tan shoes?” cried Jessie, searching wildly under the bed. “I’m sure I put them intheirplace, and they’re nowhere to be seen,” and she sat back on her heels to glare menacingly about her.
“Here they are,” called Lucile from the other room. “You left them here last night. Hurry up! I’m all ready now.”
They were pictures of youthful loveliness as they began to descend the stairs—Evelyn, in her snowy white, looking for all the world like a plump and mischievous little cherub, and Jessie in the palest pink, which set off and enhanced her fairness. But it was to Lucile that all eyes instinctively clung. The soft curls framing the lovely, eager face; the color that came and went with each varying emotion; the instinctive grace with which she carried her proud little head, won her admiration wherever she went.
All this, and more, Jack was thinking as he watched the trio descend. He and Phil were occupying a strategic position, from which they could see but not be seen; in fact, they had left the front door slightly ajar with that very end in view.
“It seems very strange,” Lucile was saying as they reached the foot of the stairs, “that we haven’t heard any breakfast bell. If it’s as late as the boys say it is, everybody ought to be up.”
Then she flung open the door and came upon the boys, seated on the railing of the veranda, apparently engrossed in conversation. The girls gasped with amazement at sight of the boys, and the boys gasped with very genuine admiration at sight of the girls.
“Wh-what——” began Lucile, bewildered. “I thought you and Phil were going for a walk.”171
“So we are,” said Jack, easily. “We were only waiting for you.”
“Phil,” Lucile turned accusingly to her brother, “this is some trick you are trying to play on us. Why isn’t there any breakfast and why aren’t there any people. Come on, ’fess up!”
Jessie threw up her hands wearily. “We ought to know enough to suspect him by this time,” she sighed. “But I guess we’ll never get over being taken in.”
“By the position of the sun,” quoth Evelyn, “it ought to be about six thirty.”
“Just about,” Lucile corroborated. “No wonder we were sleepy.”
All this time the boys had been regarding the victims of their deception with an assumption of innocence, made ineffective by the suppressed laughter in their eyes.
“Now I guess we’re even for all the insults you’ve heaped upon my unoffending head in days gone by, Jet,” Phil gibed. “Routing you up at six o’clock evens up for a lifetime.”
“You needn’t take so much credit to yourself, brother, dear,” Lucile countered. “We were going to get up, anyway, weren’t we, girls,” to which the girls agreed shamelessly.
“It’s a compliment, anyway,” said Jessie, philosophically. “They were so eager for our society that they even had to resort to tricks.”
“Right you are,” laughed Jack. “Now that we have some time, let’s make good use of it. Come on; we’ll hike,” and, taking Lucile’s arm, he started down the drive.
“Where to?” called Phil.
“Makes no difference to me where we go,” Jack flung back, recklessly. “Let the girls decide.”
“Make Lucile take the lead,” Jessie suggested. “Maybe she can unearth some more mysteries.”
“No, she won’t; she’s through,” said Phil, decidedly. “If there are any more clues floating around loose, it’s172going to be her brother that will find them. I want that distinctly understood.”
Meanwhile, Lucile and Jack had swung off into a narrow and much more difficult road than the one they were on, and Phil shouted a remonstrance.
“Why not stick to the road we know about?” he shouted, and they stopped and looked back. “That looks like a pretty stiff climb.”
“We know as much about this as we do the other,” Jack shouted back, “and this is lots prettier. Come on; if it gets too steep, we can always go back.”
“No, I guess we’ll stick to this one,” Phil decided. “It looks like too much work where you are,” and the trio walked on.
Lucile started to follow, but Jack laid a restraining hand on her arm. “We don’t have to follow them,” he pleaded. “It’s so long since I’ve seen you, and I haven’t been able to talk to you yet.”
Lucile hesitated; then, “Well, just for a short distance,” she conceded. “And then we can meet them on the way back.”
“Thanks,” he said; then added, “I thought you weren’t very glad to see me yesterday. You know, I was strongly tempted to take the next steamer across the Atlantic. Haven’t you thought of me at all?”
It was rather a hard question to ask, and Lucile blushed when she remembered how often she had thought of him and his letters.
“Of course,” she said; “and I wrote to you——”
“Just twice,” he finished. “I came very near sending you a box of writing paper—thought there must be a scarcity of it over here.”
Lucile laughed her gay little laugh. “That would have been a surprise,” she chuckled; then, more seriously, “But you know, there are so many people to write to, and it was awfully hard——”
“Oh, yes, I know all about it,” he broke in. “Terribly busy; couldn’t find time, and all that, but if you think173very much of somebody, writing isn’t a duty; it’s a pleasure.”
“But I didn’t say,” Lucile began; then, desperately, “Oh, please, can’t we talk of something else?”
“Certainly,” he agreed, and Lucile sensed the hurt in his voice. “We’ll talk of anything you please. What plans have you made for the day?”
“Why, Dad said he would take us to Paris,” said Lucile, instantly sorry for her little speech, yet afraid to say so. “We simply can’t wait to get there! Of course you are going with us?”
“If I may. I came over with my uncle, you know, and left him in Paris to transact some important business while I hunted you up. It’s a good little place—the inn, I mean—and I’m glad your father asked me to stay for the night. It’s a charming spot and quite close enough to the city.”
“That’s what Dad thought. Then, after we have lunch at some swell little restaurant—you know——”
“Yes, I know,” he agreed, laughingly. “Colored lights, and music, orchestra, and that,” and he waved his hand expressively.
“Uh-huh; and after all that, he’s going to drop us at the Louvre—oh, how naturally I speak of it now, and it used to seem like something on a different planet—while he tries to look up M. Charloix—he gave Dad his card on shipboard, luckily.”
“And then?” he prompted, laughing eyes fixed on the lovely, animated face at his shoulder.
“Well, then,” she continued eagerly, “then comes the very best of all. We’re going somewhere for dinner, then the theater, then dinner again, oh-h——”
“Just one glorious day of gladness,” he laughed; then, noticing her quickened breath, “We mustn’t tire you too much this morning when you have such a long day before you. Suppose we rest a while.”
“And here is the very place,” she agreed, indicating a great, flat rock, shaded by a huge, spreading tree. “Oh,174isn’t the view wonderful from here? I hadn’t noticed it before.”
“You said it,” Jack agreed, stretching his lazy length on the grass at her feet. “The hill has formed a sort of shallow precipice and the lake sure does look great down there.”
For a few moments they were silent, drinking in the beauty prodigal Nature lavished all about them. Furtively Lucile examined this cavalier of hers. Straight of feature, bronzed from living in the open, eyes so full of fun you had to laugh in sympathy—oh, he was handsome; there was no doubt of that. And his hair, black and wavy and soft—Lucile was sure it was soft——
“I wish you would tell me what you are thinking about,” he said, looking up with a quizzical little smile. “You were quiet so long——”
“That is unusual,” she laughed, trying not to look confused. “Perhaps we had better be starting back,” she added; “the others will be looking for us.”
“Just as you say,” he answered for the second time that morning; then, as he helped her to her feet, “I wish we could have this day together; it’s been great to be alone with you even for this short time. But I forgot that that subject was unwelcome——”
“Oh, please,” she begged, laying an impulsive little hand on his arm. “I—I didn’t mean to be cross.”
He caught the little peace-making hand in both his own, laughing down into the prettiest eyes he had ever seen.
“That’s the best thing I have heard to-day,” he exulted.