"DO YOU MEAN TO TELL US THAT WE CAN'T GO?"
"Do you mean to tell us that we can't go when it isn't our fault we're here? We didn't mean to come here. We wanted to go to Seven Pines!" exclaimedRebecca Mary when she could speak, which wasn't for a full second.
"I mean just that." Major Martingale's voice sounded as if it were made from the best adamant and was warranted to withstand any pressure. It would be useless to coax or to cry. "I told you we are making a most important experiment here for the government." Surely they could understand the government. "A most important experiment," he repeated, swelling proudly. "One that will mean a great deal to the whole world. Germany has heard something about it and has been trying, is still trying, to get hold of the inventor and his idea. If she could it would go a long way toward giving her back her place in the commercial world, for it will be a vital necessity for every country. And we don't propose to let Germany have it. That is why we came down here to work and why we have a guard at the gate and why we forbid any one who comes here to go away. German propaganda hasn't stopped. Any one who employs labor will tell you that, and the socialists, the I. W. W. and the other agitators are fighting a new war for Germany. We chose a few loyal workmen, men whom we could absolutely trust, and brought them down here where they can't be influenced and coaxed away by anyagitator or German spy. You are an American, I suppose, Mrs. Simmons, but your companions, what are they?"
Granny was about to exclaim indignantly that they were Americans, too, when she glanced at Joan. Just what was Joan? Joan answered for herself.
"I must be an American," she said slowly, "for I'm honest and brave and true and free and equal. And that's what Americans are. My daddy said so."
"And he's dead right," murmured the man behind Major Martingale's right shoulder.
Major Martingale only snorted. "We shall try and make you comfortable as long as you are here," he promised with a groan. "But you can see we aren't going to take any chance of a leak. You'll have to stay until we are through with our work."
"Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Granny with more force than elegance. "We'll finish our breakfast, and then I'll telephone to Joshua Cabot and ask him if we can't go to Seven Pines."
"You can't use the telephone," Major Martingale told her sharply. "Evidently you don't understand that Riverside is cut off from the world at present."
Granny stopped on her way to the dining room."Does he actually mean that? Is he telling us the truth?" She appealed to the two young men, but they only nodded their heads. "Mayn't I even telephone to my maid for clothes?" Granny asked almost feebly.
"You may not." Major Martingale was glad that she was beginning to understand. "You may give me any message, and if I consider it safe and necessary I may send it on. While you are not actually prisoners you can't leave Riverside, and you can't communicate with any one. It isn't my fault," he added hurriedly. "I didn't bring you here. I don't want you here! Mr. Simmons shouldn't have let you come!"
"Mr. Simmons doesn't know anything about it."
"He doesn't!" The major was all suspicion again. "I'll send him word. I'll——"
Granny caught his sleeve. "No, you shan't send him word!" she exclaimed quickly. "He'd—he'd laugh at us," she explained stumblingly, and a red flush crept into her cheeks. "You see we started for our country place. Mr. Simmons always said women couldn't be trusted and he'd tease us so. Please don't tell him. We'll be model prisoners if you won't, won't we?" She appealed to Rebecca Mary. "If you do tell him you may wish you hadnever been born," she prophesied with a smile, but there was something behind the smile which made Major Martingale mop his brow and look unhappy.
"So long as you obey orders I'll keep still," he promised unwillingly. "I can't say more than that. Mr. Marshall, will you see that these ladies have breakfast. I can't waste any more time. I shan't wait for breakfast. I've lost my appetite." And he waddled away before any one could say a word.
Granny looked after him all ready to say several words if he would only stay and listen to them, but as he never looked back, she dropped into the nearest chair and laughed until the tears stood in her eyes. Rebecca Mary was frightened and ran to her.
"There, there," she said soothingly. She was sure that Granny had hysterics, and she did not know what to do for hysterics. She wished she had taken the First Aid last winter when she had a chance. "It's all right," she insisted, although she was not at all sure that it was all right.
Granny pushed her away. "It's—it's——" she began, and stopped to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Oh, my old heart!" And she put her hand to her side and looked at them helplessly.
Joan ran to her. "Is your old heart getting younger, Granny?" she asked anxiously.
Granny patted her cheek. "I expect that is it. My old heart is getting younger. No wonder I have a queer feeling in it."
"Better have some coffee," suggested Mr. Marshall. He was young enough to regard food as a panacea for every ill. He introduced them to Mr. George Barton, an electrical engineer, and explained that he was an engineer, too, a chemical one, before he persuaded Granny to return to the dining room, where Ben brought fresh coffee and eggs and toast.
And while they ate their breakfast Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barton told them that Major Martingale was quite right, most important things were being done at Riverside.
"We're all here until the experiment is proved a success or a failure," went on Mr. Marshall. "It may be for a week and it may be for two months. No one goes out but the Big Boss. He went away last night."
"What is this great experiment?" asked Rebecca Mary between two bites of soft boiled egg.
"I'm sorry but we can't breathe a word about it. We scarcely speak of it among ourselves," regretted Mr. Marshall. He looked as if he would be glad to tell them if he only could. "The Major is right, oldGermany is moving heaven and earth to get it from us."
Granny sniffed. "H-m," she murmured. "And you think we are going to stay here indefinitely while this Major Martingale—Major Cross would be a better name—finds out whether he is a fool or a genius?"
George Barton laughed joyously. "That isn't exactly the way I'd state it, but it's the way it is, isn't it, Wallie? You see the thing is frightfully important. We're scared to death for fear the Germans may get a hint. We all took an iron clad oath, but the Huns are so devilishly clever you never can tell how or when they will reach your workmen. It isn't so bad here. We don't have such worse times, good quarters, fine eats, plenty to read, a victrola and a grand piano and tennis. Do you play tennis?" he asked Rebecca Mary, who was staring at him with big round eyes. She couldn't believe yet that it was true, that she and Granny and Joan were prisoners in Riverside.
"You may call yourself prisoners if you wish," it almost seemed as if Wallace Marshall had read her thoughts. "But we shall think of you as honored guests. And, believe me, I'm glad you came,"he said fervently. "You've no idea how you will be appreciated."
Granny pushed back her chair and regarded him with a strange glance. Evidently she did not care for his appreciation.
"Oh!" Rebecca Mary pushed back her chair, too. She did not know what she feared Granny might do or say.
"Rebecca Mary," to her great relief Granny chuckled as she turned to her, "did you ever hear of such a thing? I reckon I've managed to get away from that question better than I planned. No one can come here to ask me what I want for a jubilee present." And she laughed before she turned to Wallie Marshall and George Barton. "We'll stay for a while," she went on quite as if she were at the seashore arranging dates with the manager of a popular hotel instead of in prison talking to an assistant jailer. "But you will have to finish your experiment by the twentieth. I have an important engagement on the twenty-second. A very important engagement. We can't stay a minute after the twentieth. And Major Martingale will have to explain to Mrs. Swenson why we didn't come to see Otillie's wedding things."
With a broad smile Ben led the way up the stairs, talking all the time.
"Ah suah will be glad to hab ladies about agin," he chuckled. "Genelmen is all right in der way. Ah hain't got nothin' to say agin genelmen as genelmen, but no one can say they is so picturefying as de ladies. You better take the fambly rooms, Mrs. Simmons. There hain't nobody been usin' of 'em an' you'll find 'em mighty pleasant whether you looks out or in. An' they's allus ready."
He opened the door of the suite which occupied the west wing, and Rebecca Mary gave a little exclamation of delight. She quite agreed with Ben. The rooms were mighty pleasant in their pretty furnishings, while from the windows one looked over the formal garden to the river which flowed so peacefully between its two banks.
"How perfectly beautiful!" she murmured.
"Yes, they are very good cells," agreed Granny. "I'm sure we shall be as comfortable as prisoners should be. Bring in our suit cases, please, Ben.Doesn't it seem restful and quiet, Rebecca Mary? I believe it will be good for us to rest here for a few days. It is too bad we won't see Otillie's wedding things, but that isn't our fault as I shall explain to Mrs. Swenson. You heard me tell that young man that we might stay until the twentieth? That was just a blind. We'll only stay until we want to go and then we'll slip away."
"How?" laughed Rebecca Mary, still hanging enchanted over the garden. "Shall I twist a sheet and lower you from the window?"
"I don't think it will be necessary to spoil good sheets," Granny laughed, too, perhaps at the picture Rebecca Mary had painted of a golden wedding bride dangling by a twisted sheet from a second story window. "I shall find a more comfortable way. You know, Rebecca Mary," she said in an undertone so that Joan, who was trying all of the faucets in the bathroom, would not hear her, "I'm not just sure about things here. That story may be all right, it may be true that Major Martingale has brought a lot of men down here to work out some experiment for the government and he may be afraid that some hint may leak out to the Germans, but it sounds very queer to me. I can't imagine what the experiment could be. And Joshua Cabot has never hinted tome that he has loaned Riverside to any one. So I think we had better not make any fuss but just stay quietly until we can learn something definite, and then if the story isn't true we can slip away and warn Joshua that queer things are happening here."
"Why, Granny Simmons!" Rebecca Mary had never thought that Major Martingale's story could be anything but true. "How shall we find out?"
"We shall keep our eyes and ears wide open. First we must make them trust us and then—and then, Rebecca Mary, we can learn the truth. Don't ask me how again," as she saw the question trembling on Rebecca Mary's lips, "for I don't know. But we shall, and until we do we'll just forget about it. I declare I feel younger than I have for years. But I'm tired. I didn't sleep well last night. If you take my advice now, children, you'll try these beds and see how soft they are. I am sure I feel the need of at least forty good winks."
"Oh, I couldn't sleep now." Rebecca Mary was too excited even to think of sleep. She would rather go down to the garden where the big pool showed the blue sky how becoming the fleecy white clouds were. The garden was far more alluring to her just then than the softest of beds.
"I couldn't, either!" exclaimed Joan. "Must I?"
Granny did not insist, and after she was tucked under the silken comforter Rebecca Mary and Joan went down the stairs hand in hand. They ran through the open door and found a surprise on the other side, a surprise over six feet long.
"Hello!" exclaimed the surprise, all a-grin.
"Hello!" replied Rebecca Mary somewhat feebly, and then she laughed for the surprise was young Peter Simmons. If Rebecca Mary's fingers had not been in her pocket with the four-leaf clover locket she would not have believed her two gray eyes. "Then it wasn't a dream!" she said triumphantly.
"Wasn't it?" Peter looked at Rebecca Mary as she stood before him in her crumpled white frock and pink sweater. Peter never saw that the frock was crumpled. He only saw the two shining gray eyes, the smiling red mouth and the two pink cheeks which helped to make Rebecca Mary's radiant face.
"I told Granny that you found us last night and she said I was dreaming," she explained more soberly. "Have you come to rescue us again?" It would be so romantic if the four-leaf clover had sent young Peter Simmons to their rescue a second time.
"Rescue you?" He looked puzzled, for Rebecca Mary did not look as if she were in any danger as she stood there in front of the door. "I want toapologize for leaving you in the old shed," he went on. "It started to rain just before we turned in here last night and the shed was the nearest place. Yes, I picked you up, it wasn't any dream. Granny was wrong. I had received a hurry up call to come out at once and was on my way in my little gas wagon with a man from the factory when at the cross roads, a mile and half back, I came across two women and a half——"
"Was the half me?" demanded Joan, dancing up and down. "Do you mean me when you say half a woman?"
"I certainly do," smiled Peter. "One woman and a half were sound asleep and the other woman was just about asleep. The cross roads didn't seem the safest place for a nap so I left my machine to the mechanic and took the wheel of yours. I didn't dare take you to the house until I spoke to old Martingale but when I met him he wouldn't listen to my story but marched me off to the shop for a minute. The minute grew into sixty before I could get away, and when I went back to the shed you had gone. How is Granny? The idea of a child of her age going to sleep in a motor car thirty miles from home. Any one could have come along and carried you off!" It almost sounded as if Peter was scolding them.
"I said you brought us here, I remember perfectly now, but Granny wouldn't believe me. Did you know that we would have to stay for ever?"
"For ever?" Peter didn't understand.
With Joan's assistance Rebecca Mary explained that no one who came to Riverside could leave, and Peter threw back his head and laughed and laughed.
"Good work," he chuckled. "I guess I've eliminated old Dick Cabot for a while. He always was in the way in Waloo. But why in the dickens were you and Granny and this half woman," he pinched Joan's cheek, "going to Seven Pines in the middle of the night?" Evidently he had forgotten the explanation Rebecca Mary had given him in the middle of the night.
"Your grandmother decided rather suddenly to leave home," Rebecca Mary dimpled as she remembered how suddenly Granny had decided, "and she asked me to drive her to Seven Pines. I was scared to pieces but I couldn't refuse."
"That's very good as far as it goes, but it doesn't explain why Granny had to start in the middle of the night, why she couldn't wait until morning?"
Rebecca Mary hesitated until she remembered that Granny had said she didn't care if Peter knew, she didn't care if every one knew.
"I suppose I may tell you," the corners of her mouth tilted up. "She wanted to run away from a question."
"A question?" Peter looked hopelessly bewildered. "Why should any one, least of all an old woman of sixty-eight, run away from a question?"
Even when Rebecca Mary had explained what question it was which had made Granny abandon her comfortable home in Waloo at midnight Peter didn't seem to understand, and he said so.
"That's because you're a man!" Rebecca Mary was very scornful of a man's power of comprehension. "I understand perfectly, and I don't blame Granny a bit. It must be perfectly maddening to have your husband ask you whether you want light meat or dark every time a chicken comes to the table or what you want for a birthday or a Christmas present. I don't blame Granny," she repeated for fear he had not heard her the first time she said it.
"Neither do I when you say it like that," Peter agreed amiably. "Although I can't see why she didn't go to grandfather and tell him how she felt. My grandfather, Miss Rebecca Mary Wyman, is the best old scout in the world. Don't think for a minute that he is a crabbed selfish old dub becausehe isn't. He's the head of a big manufacturing plant which he had ready to turn over to the government before the war because he saw it coming, and it's been no joke to get it back to a peace basis since the war. I don't know anything about this chicken meat proposition, but I do know that granddad has so much on his mind that it isn't surprising if he has forgotten a little thing like an anniversary——"
"Little thing!" Anniversaries were not little things to Rebecca Mary. They aren't little things to any woman. "A golden wedding a little thing!" It was perfectly clear to Peter that a golden wedding with all its tributes and attributes would never be a little thing to Rebecca Mary.
"She's going to ask me," Joan broke in excitedly. "I've never been to one, and I can't think what it will be like. What will be golden? The bride can't be, can she?"
"No," Rebecca Mary put an arm around Joan as she explained. "No, honey, the golden part will be the beautiful memory the bride and bridegroom will have of the fifty happy years they have spent together." She stopped suddenly as she remembered that was what Cousin Susan had said, that memorieswere golden. "What a long time that is!" she murmured dreamily. "Fifty years!"
"Not too long for two people who love each other," suggested Peter in a voice which sent the ready color to her cheeks. "When you are married you will want a golden wedding, won't you?"
"I wonder," her lips murmured perversely, although her heart told her with one big beat that she would, she most certainly would, want a golden wedding.
"I know," insisted Peter. "Come on in and help me find some breakfast. I haven't had a thing to eat since last night," piteously.
"We have!" Joan was triumphant. "We had strawberries and toast and eggs and coffee!"
"Greedy!" Peter made a face at her. "I hope you didn't eat all the strawberries, nor all the eggs, nor all the toast!"
Rebecca Mary and Joan sat beside Peter while he ate his strawberries and his eggs and toast and bacon. Rebecca Mary poured two cups of coffee for him in a demure little way which Peter found quite enchanting, and his eyes told her so as they followed her to the other side of the table. But there was nothing sentimental to Joan in the fact that Rebecca Mary had poured Peter two cups of coffee. She found it only interesting, and her eyes grew big when Peter broke a third egg.
"Gentlemen hold a lot more than ladies, don't they?" she asked with frank interest. "Granny only ate berries and toast and drank half a cup of coffee, and you, dear Miss Wyman, had an egg with your toast and coffee and so did I, but Mr. Simmons already has eaten——"
"Spare me the list of my victories," begged Peter. "And bear in mind, Friend Joan, that men are hard working creatures who have to be well stoked to do their job."
"But ladies work, too." Joan objected to suchsex discrimination. "I've seen them, haven't I, Miss Wyman?"
"You have unless you kept your eyes shut, which is what so many of our busy gentlemen do," twinkled Rebecca Mary. "If you are quite sure you won't have another cup of coffee, Mr. Simmons, I'll run up and see if Granny is awake and tell her the surprise that is waiting for her."
But Granny was still asleep under the rose strewn coverlet, and Rebecca Mary slipped out as quietly as she had slipped in.
Peter had finished his breakfast when she returned to the dining room, and they all walked out to the garden where he smoked a cigarette.
"But you know Granny can't stay here without sending word to grandfather," insisted Peter.
"Why can't she?"
"Why can't she?" Peter stared as if Rebecca Mary should have known better than to waste words on such a question. "My grandfather adores my grandmother, Miss Wyman, although he does tease her to death, and he'll worry his old gray head off if he doesn't know where she is."
"Mrs. Simmons left a message with Pierson."
"That she had gone to Seven Pines. When grandfathercalls up Seven Pines Granny won't be there. No, she must send him a message at once."
"You can't send any messages from Riverside. Major Martingale told us so most emphatically."
"I rather guess we could get a word to old Peter Simmons if we went about it in the right way." Young Peter seemed much amused to hear that she imagined that they couldn't. "Don't you know——" he began, and then he laughed and stopped short.
Rebecca Mary knew, of course, that he had meant to tell her what an important man his grandfather was, and she liked him the better for breaking his sentence off in the middle and not boasting. He chuckled to himself several times as he walked with Rebecca Mary through the garden which was such a riot of gorgeous color, around the flower-bordered pool, by the old lichen-studded sun dial and through the green wreathed pergola to the river bank, where Peter forgot his grandparents as he remembered his history and told Rebecca Mary the legend the Indians had written on the big rock on the other side. It was a gruesome tale, and Joan shook in her small shoes. Rebecca Mary would have shivered in her larger oxfords if she had not remembered that the gruesomeness was some two hundred years old. They had a most delightful morning and strolled backwhen they heard the clang of a big bell, a bell which Peter told Joan talked of absolutely nothing but food.
"The mechanics are quartered in the farmhouse," he explained.
There was one word in his sentence which reminded Rebecca Mary that she was a member of Granny's detective bureau, and she looked up quickly.
"Just what is this experiment which is going to mean so much to the world?" she asked with serpent guile. The minute she had seen young Peter Simmons she knew that Major Martingale's story was true, but she should like to know more of his experiment. She had no doubt Peter would tell her more.
Peter squirmed uneasily. He wanted to tell her what he knew but a man's tongue is sometimes tied.
"I'm sorry," he said as Wallie Marshall had said earlier in the morning. "But we aren't allowed to breathe a word. We're under oath, you know. Can't run the risk of any leak."
"You don't trust me?" For just a second Rebecca Mary threatened to be injured or indignant. Peter held his breath. "Never mind!" She decided to smile, and Peter drew a sigh of relief. "It must have something to do with aëroplanes——"
"I'm not here as an aviator," Peter told her quickly, and then seemed sorry that he had spoken.
"You're not?" But as Peter refused to say in what capacity he was at Riverside she went on rather scornfully; "I suppose it has nothing to do with chemistry or electricity, either, although Mr. Marshall told me he was one kind of an engineer and Mr. Barton was the other."
"The dickens he did!" Peter grinned at her powers of deduction.
"I dare say I'll know all about it in time." Rebecca Mary tossed her head with a fair show of indifference. "That is if there is anything to know. Come, Joan, I'm sure Granny is awake now."
"I say, you're not angry with me?" Peter did not see why he should be intrusted with secrets which would make Rebecca Mary angry with him. He caught her hand.
She looked down at the five fingers which rested on Peter's broad palm and then up at his face, and to his delight there was no anger in her eyes, nothing but the most innocent surprise.
"Why should I be angry?" And when he didn't tell her she went on lightly: "Of course, I should want to know anything I shouldn't know, any girl would, and equally, of course, you must keep youroath, but——" She shrugged her shoulders and took her fingers away from Peter.
"I see," muttered Peter ruefully as he followed her. But he didn't see at all.
They found Granny awake, and on the terrace. She was surprised to see Peter for she had not believed a word of Rebecca Mary's dream, and she asked him at once if Major Martingale's story were true or should she and Rebecca Mary run away and warn Joshua Cabot that queer things were taking place at Riverside? There was no beating about the bush with Granny. She did not hesitate a second, and she looked very crestfallen when Peter told her that Major Martingale had told nothing but the truth.
"You'd never believe how important the experiment is nor how much Germany wants it," he said. "Old Martingale has to be suspicious and careful. He can't trust any one who isn't on oath. You were lucky you weren't shot at sunrise. No, you can't do a thing but stay until the Major lets you go. I'm glad you're here. It will make it pleasanter for me," he explained with a grin. "Although I'll confess that I didn't realize that things were on quite such a military footing. I didn't bring you here to be locked up but because I thought it wassafer than to leave you on the high road. I didn't know you would have to stay," he insisted. "Better send a message to grandfather," he told his grandmother.
She shook her head. "I can't. I'm not allowed to send messages to any one."
"I'm sure I can get old Martingale to let you write a letter." There was a funny twinkle in Peter's eyes as he told what he could do.
But Granny just shook her head again. "It won't do your grandfather any harm to worry about me for a while. He has been too sure of me, and I've been too good-natured. You know yourself, Peter, that we never would have left Waloo if we hadn't gone before he came home. I made allowances for him during the war, but that is over. No, Peter, I'm just full of things it wouldn't be safe to say to him now. I want a peaceful golden wedding, so I'll just stay where Fate has put me. If he were to come here and ask me what I want for a golden wedding present I'm afraid I should lose my temper. Why, we've talked of it hundreds of times and he should know. Perhaps it is a little thing, Peter, but you're old enough to know that life is made up largely of little things and they must be right. The big thingscome so seldom that we can overlook the wrong in them."
"Grandfather's an awfully busy man just now," Peter began, but she would not let him finish.
"That's what I've been told for fifty years, and I've overlooked a lot because he was so busy and so important. But I rather think I'll be important for a while now. No, Peter Simmons, and if you say anything to Major Martingale I shall be cross. I don't know why I feel this way, I never did before, but I do feel that I can't be teased now. There is no use arguing with me. You might as well save your breath."
"It's all wrong," Peter grumbled to Rebecca Mary the minute they were alone. "Grandfather shouldn't have this private worry when he has so much public responsibility. Women have no sense of proportion."
"How can they have any when men have so much?" Rebecca Mary spoke as if there was just so much sense of proportion in the world and the men had taken it all. She showed how sarcastic she could be in a few words. "I don't blame Granny a bit, but I'll give you a little advice. If you leave her alone she will agree with you a lot sooner than ifyou argue with her. That's the way I manage the children and it succeeds nine times out of ten."
"I'll bet it does!" Peter was all admiration as he heard her method. "All right, I'll stop badgering the old dear—for a while anyway. Come and have a try at tennis. I'll wager you play a good game."
Rebecca Mary did not play a good game,—how could she when she had had so little practice?—but she obediently followed Peter to the court and let him knock balls toward her. She made up in effort what she lacked in skill.
She jumped up to hit a ball, which flew high above her head and struck it in such a way that it bounded from the court and went off at a tangent to strike the shoulder of a man who was hurrying to the house. He stopped and swung around to throw the ball back to the court.
"Oh!" Joan gave a shriek. "It's my father! It's my own father!" And she dashed to him as fast as her two feet would take her. He met her half way and caught her in his arms.
Rebecca Mary and Peter drifted toward each other.
"I thought her father was dead!" exclaimed Peter.
"Oh, no!" Rebecca Mary was dying to turn and look at Count Ernach de Befort but she was withheldby a fine delicacy from staring at Joan's father.
Joan brought him across the court at once, clinging to his hand.
"I've found him!" She was tremulously triumphant. "I'm the first to find what we came for. This is my own father, dear Miss Wyman."
Her own father took the hand which Miss Wyman offered him and clasped it warmly. Now that she could see more than his back, Rebecca Mary felt rather than knew that Joan had not drawn him from her imagination. He was very different from the father in the photograph, older and more serious. There was a tired, worn look in the face which showed where Joan had found her black eyes and broad forehead and he had an absent-minded, detached air which explained how he had been able to leave his little daughter alone in Waloo with a housekeeper. He drew his heels together as Rebecca Mary had seen German officers draw their heels together in the movies, and Rebecca Mary caught her breath for she remembered the Prussian uniform he had worn in his photograph, the German eagle on his breast, and she remembered also that Major Martingale had said no Germans were to be at Riverside.
"I cannot understand," he said, bewildered and surprised as he tried to follow Joan's incoherent explanation, and although his English was quite correct there was a foreign intonation which Rebecca Mary found fascinating for it told her that Joan might be right and her father might really be Count Ernach de Befort. Counts of any nationality were a novelty to Rebecca Mary. She had not met one of them in the third grade of the Lincoln school.
She assisted Joan to explain that Mrs. Muldoon had been called away by the illness of her son and had left Joan with her teacher.
"She loaned me, daddy," emphasized Joan. "I'm so glad she did."
But Joan's father frowned as if he were not glad that his only daughter had been loaned to any one, and the explanation went on to state how they had come to Riverside.
"And we're prisoners!" exclaimed Joan. "Are you a prisoner, too, daddy?"
"The same kind of a prisoner that you are. Isn't that right, Mr. Befort?" laughed Peter.
Rebecca Mary breathed easier. If Peter laughed that way it must be all right for Frederick Befort to be at Riverside.
Frederick Befort smiled as if he thought it wouldbe very pleasant to have his daughter and her teacher fellow prisoners at Riverside before he said that he was one of the men working on the great experiment.
"I am surprised at Mrs. Muldoon," he went on with a frown. "She has been so honest and faithful that I was sure I could trust her to take care of Joan until I returned. My work here I could not leave to another. You know——" He looked at Peter.
Peter nodded. "Sure, I know." And he put his hand on the older man's shoulder. Yes, decided Rebecca Mary, it must be all right. "Funny I never connected you with the kid, for Befort isn't a common name. I guess I was so interested in your job I never thought of you as a father."
"I have," confessed Rebecca Mary impulsively. "I've thought of you a lot. Because we knew so little," she hastened to explain when Frederick Befort looked surprised to hear that he had occupied so many of Rebecca Mary's thoughts. "Granny Simmons and I have searched the map of Germany for Echternach, the place Joan said you came from, but we couldn't find it anywhere. We began to think that Joan had made up the name."
"You searched all Germany?" asked Frederick Befort, putting his fingers over Joan's lips as shetried to tell them that she hadn't made up the name of Echternach. "No wonder you could not find it. It is a small place, Miss Wyman, but old, very old. One of your English saints, Willibrod, came there in the seventh century as a missionary. You should have looked down in the southern part of Germany"—Rebecca Mary was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. So Granny was right and he was a German—"to the very edge of Rhenish Prussia until you found the river Sure, and on the other side of that river you would have discovered Echternach. But it is not in Prussia, it is in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg." He drew himself up proudly as he told her where Echternach was.
"Oh?" Rebecca Mary could not say another word to save her soul. She could only look at him with the pinkest of cheeks. "I was so afraid that you were a German!" she told him honestly.
The laughter left his lips and a grave light took the place of the smile in his eyes.
"No, Echternach is not in Germany. It is not strange that you thought it was, Miss Wyman. And if you traveled in our duchy you often would be puzzled to know whether you were in Germany or in France. German is spoken almost as much as French and we used German money. But a Germanregiment was garrisoned in Luxembourg for fifty years and we have not forgotten. Germany tried to swallow us as she tried to swallow so many principalities, but Luxembourg would not be swallowed. Can you repeat for Miss Wyman our national hymn,ma petite?" he said to Joan. "The words the Cathedral bells ring out every other hour for fear we shall forget them. Now then." His voice prompted Joan's as they repeated the Luxembourg anthem:
"Mîr welle jô kê Preise gin;Mîr welle bleime wat mor sin!"
"That means we shall never become Prussians. We shall remain what we are," he translated, and his eyes flashed.
Rebecca Mary's eyes were larger than any saucer as she gazed at him. She had known Russians and Italians and Bohemians and Roumanians and Serbians, she had taught children of almost every nationality, but she had never met a Luxembourger before, and she tried to remember something of the grand duchy. But she couldn't remember a thing.
"Joan should have told you." Frederick Befort did not understand why she should look so pleased. "You have been away from your native countrymany months,mignonne, but you have not forgotten which side of the Sure was your home?"
"No," wriggled Joan. "But no one knows of Luxembourg and the grand duchess, and every one knows of Germany and the old kaiser."
"Alas, that it is so!" Frederick Befort shook his head sadly before he looked at Rebecca Mary and said, oh, so feelingly: "I cannot understand how Mrs. Muldoon could desert my little girl, but I am grateful to the good God that he sent her such a friend in you. I cannot thank you for your heavenly kindness to my little daughter." And before Rebecca Mary realized what he was doing he had taken her hand and kissed it.
If it had thrilled Rebecca Mary to have her fingers kissed by fat Mrs. Klavachek you may imagine how shaken inwardly she was to have them kissed by Count Ernach de Befort.
"It wasn't anything," she stammered, wishing for goodness' sake that she could think of something clever to say.
"It was everything!" he insisted, gazing into her eyes.
"Aren't you glad I found my daddy, Miss Wyman!" Joan was jumping up and down as she clung to her father's hand. "But I'm sorry you haven'tfound any payment for your memory insurance," she went on regretfully.
"Oh, but I have!" Rebecca Mary forgot to be shy because a Luxembourg count had kissed her fingers, and she laughed. "I've found a tremendous payment!"
Granny was very much surprised when they trooped in to tell her that a tennis ball had just found Joan's father, and that he was not a German but a good Luxembourger. The width of a river had kept him from being a German. Granny knew little more of Luxembourg than Rebecca Mary, but she "oh'd" and "ah'd" before she looked at Frederick Befort and said slowly:
"You are quite sure you are from the Luxembourg side of that river?"
Frederick Befort's eyes never wavered as he looked at her. "Quite sure. There was a time when I regretted that I did not belong on the other side of the river. You know I went to school in Germany, in Bonn, and I had many German friends. The old emperor was a friend of my grandfather's. I was named for him; and the present emperor has visited us at Echternach."
"That is why he made you an eagle, isn't it?" Joan broke in, eager to have a share in these interesting explanations.
"Indirectly, yes." He smiled at her as she stood beside him. "I was able to arrange a very successful wild boar hunt and the kaiser was so pleased that he decorated me. He was with us for several days and made excursions all over the duchy. It was as if he wished to learn every road and mountain path. We thought nothing of it then, fools that we were! I even put on the Prussian uniform of one of the officers and wore it at the costume ball that my wife gave in his honor." So that was why he had been photographed in a Prussian uniform. Rebecca Mary's eyes crinkled. "There always has been a close relation between Luxembourg and Germany," he went on, and a frown chased the smile from his face. "Before our present grand duchess came to the throne German influence was supreme, most of our trade was with Germany, our railroads were developed with German money and by Germans, but in our hearts we had no love for Germany. And then came the day when the German army would have marched through the duchy and our grand duchess, brave little Marie Louise Adelheid, motored out to forbid them to use her country as a thoroughfare. She had her car turned across the road to bar their entrance, and the German officers laughed at her. Laughed at her, madame! They told her to go home. What couldMarie Louise Adelheid do? We had an army of three hundred, only a palace guard and a military band," he laughed bitterly. "We were not soldiers, we were farmers. Germany knew that. And our little grand duchess had to go home. It would have been useless to resist. Germany would have devastated Luxembourg as she devastated Belgium. But I have it in my heart to wish that we had resisted, that we had fought and died as the Belgians did. The Germans have used Luxembourg as they pleased. For fifty years our capital was garrisoned by German troops. They left an odious memory and the German soldiers who have swarmed over the duchy since 1914 are even more odious. No, madame, you need not ask. No people hate Germany as do we of Luxembourg."
His words sounded brave and true, and his face looked brave and true. His eyes flashed fire. It was easy to believe that he would rather have fought and died than to have yielded to the German hordes.
"We are small," he said more quietly, "but we are rich. Germany wanted us, she wanted our iron, our factories, but she did not get them. No! You see, madame, I have changed my mind. I no longer believe that I was born on the wrong side of theSure. I thank God now that there is no German blood in my veins!"
"You should," nodded Granny, "Men of German blood, and women, too, will have to pay a fearful price for their nationality, the price of a world hatred. That is a dreadful thing, to be hated by a whole world." She shivered as she thought what a dreadful thing it would be.
"How can it be otherwise?" Frederick Befort shrugged his shoulders. "If you had seen what I have seen——" He broke off with a shudder.
Granny leaned forward and put her hand on his. "It is strange that we should find you here," she said after a moment. "Providence has queer ways of bringing people together. It would have seemed easier to have introduced us that afternoon we were all in the Viking room at the Waloo."
"On my birthday," Joan whispered to her father, "Miss Wyman was there and Granny Simmons and young Mr. Simmons, and, oh, everybody."
"It might have been easier but would it have been as thrilling?" Rebecca Mary was almost faint from the thrills of the afternoon. "We might never have had such wonderful times if we had met that day at the Waloo." She drew a long breath as she thoughtof the wonderful times which had followed that tea hour.
Granny smiled at her, so did young Peter and Frederick Befort, and unconsciously they all promised Rebecca Mary more wonderful times. Enthusiasm does make people so much more generous than quiet acceptance.
"Then, perhaps Joan is right and you are really Count Ernach de Befort?" laughed Granny. "We thought the child was romancing."
"Yes, in Luxembourg I am a count but in America I like best to be just Mr. Befort." And Mr. Befort looked almost apologetic.
For the first time in her life Rebecca Mary knew what it was to be a popular girl. As she had told Granny, since she had been in Waloo she had known no men over eight years of age and while the boys in her third grade were interesting and dear they were young. Here at Riverside, where she was a prisoner, Rebecca Mary found three most attractive men of exactly the right age, Peter Simmons, Wallace Marshall and George Barton, and one very fascinating older man, Frederick Befort, who was a count in his own country, a country which Rebecca Mary scarcely knew by name.
Busy as the men were over the experiment whichwas to be such a boon to the world, they found many hours in which to walk with Rebecca Mary, to play tennis with her, to talk with her, to dance with her while the victrola played a new fox trot, or to ride with her around the farm on the fat horses which Peter borrowed from the farmer. Each one of them showed Rebecca Mary very plainly that there was no other girl in his world, as indeed there wasn't just then, and Rebecca Mary, to her undying astonishment, discovered that she could flirt and play one man against another as well as any woman. She scarcely had time to record the payments on her memory insurance policy she was so busy making them.
And if the three younger men admired her for her youth and sex and gay enthusiasm, Frederick Befort revered her for her kindness to Joan. When he was not absorbed in the experiment or at the shop, where he worked with a detached interest to the world around him, which would have made Granny and Rebecca Mary understand many things about Joan which they had not understood, he had to think of what might have happened if Rebecca Mary had not accepted the loan of Joan. His gratitude was sometimes embarrassing and always thrilling to Rebecca Mary, who often had to pinch herself to makesure that she really was Rebecca Mary Wyman. She told herself a dozen times a day that, of course, it was because she was the only girl at Riverside that every one was so perfectly wonderful to her, but she liked to pretend that it was because she was so beautiful and fascinating. At heart Rebecca Mary was not a bit conceited. Her life never had let her accumulate enough vanity to balance on the point of a pin. And if you had told her that really she was very pretty and very charming she would have laughed at you.
She liked them all, even old Major Martingale, whom she had identified as the short, stout, red-faced man who had consumed such quantities of hot buttered toast that afternoon at the Waloo. She discovered that Wallie Marshall and George Barton had been in the tea room on that memorable afternoon also and it did seem strange, as Granny had said that Fate should bring them together again in this fashion. Never for a moment did Rebecca Mary suspect that Major Martingale had slipped the four-leaf clover into her hand, but she did wonder if one of the others had. She did not want to ask them outright, that would have ended, perhaps spoiled, the delightful mystery. She would have to wait and the waiting was proving very enjoyable.Once Rebecca Mary had hoped that it was Peter who had given her the talisman but now she wished it was Frederick Befort. It would be so romantic when she was sixty to remember that it had been Count Ernach de Befort. Dear me, but Rebecca Mary was glad that Cousin Susan had been so foolish as to spend her kitchen curtains for two cups of tea.
And while Rebecca Mary was the belle of Riverside, Granny took the rest cure.
"It's a heaven sent chance," she told Rebecca Mary and Peter. "I was in such a whirl all through the war that I'm still wound up in a hard knot. I'm sorry we didn't get to Seven Pines but I'll just rest here for a few days and perhaps I'll be in a good condition to enjoy my golden wedding."
"Grandfather——" began Peter, but she cut him short.
"Don't say grandfather to me, Peter Simmons. When you've been married fifty years less a few weeks you'll understand more than your grandfather ever understood if I know anything of the modern girl. Won't he, Rebecca Mary?"
"I don't know how much his grandfather understands." Rebecca Mary was proving every day what a help she would be to a diplomatic corps.
"He doesn't understand anything about women," grumbled Granny.
She did not come down to breakfast but let Rebecca Mary take a tray to her room and after she had eaten her berries and toast and drunk her coffee she exchanged her bed for a couch in the sun room, where she dozed until luncheon, when she appeared in the dining room to be received like a queen. A nap over a novel filled the afternoon, and after dinner she always played three games of double Canfield with Major Martingale, who frowned blackly over the first game, was puzzled at the second and smiled broadly at the third, which Granny always let him win.
"That keeps him in a good humor," she explained to Rebecca Mary. "Men have to be managed even over a game of cards."
She took Rebecca Mary over the house and showed her the original part which had been built by the great grandfather of Richard and Joshua Cabot.
"He was one of the big pioneers of the northwest," she said. "He came from Pennsylvania in the early forties as an Indian trader. Later he went into the transportation business. He used wagons first, those queer Red River carts. You've seenthem at state celebrations?" Rebecca Mary nodded. She remembered the quaint two-wheeled squeaky carts if she didn't remember the Cabots. "Old Mr. Cabot built here when the state was still a territory, and from an historical standpoint I suppose there isn't a more interesting house in the northwest. Councils of war, political rallies, balls, celebrations of every sort were held in these rooms. He entertained all the important people who came to the northwest. His wife was the daughter of a rival French trader, and Joshua Cabot's grandfather was prouder of his French blood than he was of what his father had done to open up a new country. I think Richard is like the old Pennsylvanian," she went on thoughtfully. "More so than Joshua or any of the others. I expect he will do something big some day."
"I should say he has done something big already," exclaimed Rebecca Mary, rather surprised to find herself championing Richard Cabot. "There aren't many men of his age who are vice-presidents of a bank like the First National. And Peter told me how splendid he was at selling Liberty bonds."
"That's true," admitted Granny soberly, and she carefully hid the twinkle in her eyes from Rebecca Mary. "And banks and bonds are not the onlythings that interest Richard. I used to think they were. But they're not."
"Yes?" questioned Rebecca Mary politely, but she was too polite, and too unconcerned. Granny refused to tell her what, with stocks and bonds, shared Richard's interest. Rebecca Mary had to guess what Granny meant. It was astonishing how often they talked of Richard, or would have been astonishing if they had not been prisoners in Richard's great-grandfather's old house.
No one came to Riverside as one day ran after another. They were quiet and restful days for Granny, but far from quiet or restful to Rebecca Mary and Joan. Joan made friends with the farmer's wife and the farmer's eight months' old baby and a maltese cat, and she deserted Rebecca Mary for the farmhouse. There were chickens at the farmhouse which Joan was allowed to feed if Mrs. Erickson did not have to say "don't" too many times, and a shaggy dog and a flock of young turkeys as well as the baby, which Joan was permitted to hold if she was sure that her hands were clean.
Bread and milk may be a healthy change from lobster à la Newburg and chiffonade salad, but to a palate accustomed to the rich food a simple fare soon palls. Before many days Granny began tofeel so rested that she was not satisfied to lie in the sun room and doze. She began to wonder what old Peter Simmons was doing, what he had said when Pierson delivered her message the night he came home on the eleven fifty-five and found her gone, and to wonder last of all if she had been wise to run away. Her conscience began to prick and prick hard. At last she went to Sallie Cabot's pretty writing table.
"My dear old Peter," she began, "of course Pierson told you that I had left for Seven Pines with a couple of young friends. I did not wait to see you for several reasons. If you take time to think you will know why I felt that I had to go to Seven Pines just now. Do take care of yourself. I shall die if anything should happen to spoil our golden wedding. I've looked forward to it for over fifty years."
"My dear old Peter," she began, "of course Pierson told you that I had left for Seven Pines with a couple of young friends. I did not wait to see you for several reasons. If you take time to think you will know why I felt that I had to go to Seven Pines just now. Do take care of yourself. I shall die if anything should happen to spoil our golden wedding. I've looked forward to it for over fifty years."
She signed herself "Your affectionate wife," with a little grunt and sigh and then she carefully tore the "Riverside" mark from the paper. She folded her letter and put it in a plain envelop, which she inclosed in a second envelop, which was addressed to the housekeeper at Seven Pines. She gave the letter to Peter and told him that as he had botheredher so unceasingly she had written to his grandfather and the letter could be sent if it could go by way of Seven Pines.
Peter seemed quite sure he could have it sent that way. "Good work, Granny!" He patted her shoulder approvingly. "You won't be sorry," he promised.
"I hope I shan't," sighed Granny.
"She's a good old sport," Peter told Rebecca Mary when he had his turn for a dance or a walk and they chose a walk down by the river. "I honestly didn't think she'd do it, but she did. Of course——" He stopped suddenly and called her attention to the hollyhocks, like pink and white sentinels.
Rebecca Mary was not to be diverted by pink or white hollyhocks. "Yes? You were saying——"
"Nothing, that is, nothing of any consequence," he told her hurriedly. "I say what was old Wallie telling you before dinner that made you both howl? I haven't heard a good joke for some time and that must have been a scream from the way you two chortled."
But if Peter wouldn't tell her she wouldn't tell him. "I don't feel at liberty to repeat Mr. Marshall's jokes," she said very loftily.
"Now you're testy and it isn't my fault. I say,you know, you're not the girl you were in Waloo," reproachfully. "You wouldn't have exploded at nothing in Waloo," he complained.
It was only the truth. Rebecca Mary was not the same girl she had been in Waloo. She knew it as well as he did and laughed triumphantly. She was so glad she was not that old scowling shabby Waloo girl. The soft low laugh rather went to Peter's head. He put out his hand and took Rebecca Mary's fingers in his warm palm.
"I say," he began a bit huskily, "you shouldn't look at a fellow like that. You—you——"
"Yes?" Rebecca Mary dared him with a racing heart.
"Hi there, Simmons! Miss Wyman!" shouted a voice behind them and there was Wallie Marshall, all indignation. "You think a fat lot of yourself, don't you?" he said to Peter with some heat, "to run off with all the partners at this dance. What do you think you are? Come this way, Miss Wyman. I found a corking place among the willows this afternoon when I was fishing. Let us see how it looks by moonlight."
"It looks beautiful," Rebecca Mary told him when they had found the corking place. She had been rather glad to run away with him from Peter. Assoon as she had dared Peter she was sorry, afraid, for a girl never knows what will happen when she dares a man. "All shined up with the best silver polish. It should be inhabited by fairies."
"I guess there isn't any fairy that has anything on you," stammered Wallie. "You make a fellow like me feel so clumsy and rough."
"Clumsy! Rough! You!" The three exclamations told his scarlet ears that Rebecca Mary did not think he was either the one or the other.
He drew closer. "I say, you're a wonder, all right. My word!" He drew a deep breath. "But I'm glad you dropped in here. Just imagine if we had never met!" He couldn't imagine it. It was too horrible.
"We might have run across each other somewhere else," suggested Rebecca Mary. "The Waloo tea room perhaps. Strange things have happened there." She giggled as she remembered one of the strange things.
He shook his head. "No other place would be like this, where I can see such a lot of you. I hope you don't think it's too much?" He was seized with a sudden fear. "I don't bore you, do I?"
She assured him that he didn't. He hadn't boredher for a second. He beamed, but he could not leave well enough alone.
"Then you like to be with me as much as with Simmons?" he asked jealously.
"Don't incriminate yourself, Miss Wyman," advised George Barton, who had come up behind them. "Cut along, Wallie. You're through."
"Through!" shouted the indignant Wallie.
George turned away from him. "Strange effect the moonlight has, Miss Wyman. See that bush over there? Doesn't it cast a shadow like a fool's-cap on the head of our friend, Wallie?"
She laughed, she couldn't help it, and when he heard her Wallie groaned and walked away.
"This is better." George twisted himself on the garden seat so that he could look up into Rebecca Mary's dimpling face. "Gee, but we have had a day!"
"Didn't things go well?" Rebecca Mary knew no more about the work which took the men over to the shop and sent them back to her than she did the day she had come to Riverside, but she always was interested to hear them mention it.
"Oh, yes, well enough, but don't let's talk about that now that I have found the girl and the time and the place. Moonlight is awfully becoming toyou, Miss Wyman, you should always wear it. It makes you shimmer and sparkle."
"Too bad I can't buy a few yards to put away."
"You don't really need it. I've seen you sparkle quite fetchingly in the sunlight. You know you're different from any girl I ever knew," he went on with a curious wonder that he had found Rebecca Mary so different.
"In what way?" Rebecca Mary always had thought that she was different and, oh, how she wanted to be like other girls.
"In what way?" he repeated as if it should be as plain to her as it was to him. "Why, other girls—other girls are just nowhere beside you!"
"Oh!" Rebecca Mary was quite willing to be unlike other girls in the way described by his deep drawn breath and flushed face, but she looked at him provokingly and murmured sadly: "That might be taken in two ways."
Before he could tell her that it most certainly could be taken in but one way, Joan pushed through the shrubbery to announce excitedly that Ben had made some ice cold lemonade and if they wanted any they had better run, for Mr. Marshall said he was thirsty from his head to his heels, and Mr. Marshall was six feet three inches tall and the lemonadepitcher wasn't more than eighteen inches. Mr. Marshall had said so. A scant eighteen inches, he had said.
"Mercy, mercy, Joan!" Rebecca Mary caught her hand. "Let's fly!"
And away they dashed by the snapdragons, by the foxgloves and the hollyhocks, by the pool to the rose tangled terrace where the six-foot-three Mr. Marshall waited triumphantly beside the scant eighteen-inch lemonade pitcher.
Frederick Befort waited there, too, and when Rebecca Mary, pink and breathless, murmured something about the roses, he drew her into a fragrant corner to tell her of the wonderful roses which have made Luxembourg famous, for there are roses everywhere, climbing the garden walls, the houses, the battlements and the towers. It made her flush and sigh to hear of the beauty of that rose garlanded city, and suddenly he flushed, too, and began hurriedly to talk of the eight hundred primary schools in which education is compulsory, for education is much thought of in the little duchy. And later, oh, much later, as Rebecca Mary brushed her hair before the mirror, she told her smiling reflection that she never had realized what a fascinating subject education could be.