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“Robert,” I made remark to myself after I had with difficulty removed the tweed coat and the tweed trousers and neatly folded them against ugly wrinkles of to-morrow, “you must become a sport and not climb down there and tell that other woman the truth of your lady’s estate and ask her to comfort you with affection. You were born a daredevil and you must remember those two Indians and a bear that the Grandmamma Madam Donaldson murdered for safety for herself and her children. That Mr. G. Slade is just one bear and he’s not as dangerous to you as if you wore ‘skirts’ anyway. And, also, if you are brave and propitiate the wicked Uncle, in just a few months you can travel to where the lovely lady with the blue flower eyes resides, of whom in the morning you must get the address of home, and can then make confession to her and know the joy of having her sisterly embraces that seem of so much sweetness to you now.
“But suppose it is that she arises in the night and leaves the train for her home!” I said to myself as I suddenly sat up in the dark and precipitated my head against the roof of the sleeping shelf.
“I will call down to her and ask the one simple question,” I made answer to myself. Then I reached down my head over the edge of my shelf and called very softly:
“Madam?”
“Yes?” came a soft question in answer and I felt that she arose and brought her beautiful head which had the odor of violets in the waves so heavy and black, up very near to mine. I could feel a comfort from her breath on my cheek.
“I am in fear, Madam, that you should leave the train before I am awake,” I said in a voice under my breath. “I do not want that I lose you into this great America.”
“Oh, I’m not easily lost.”
“I am desolated with loneliness and I must know where it is that you leave the train, immediately, so that I may sleep.”
“At Hayesville, Harpeth, you ridiculous boy. Now don’t disturb me again. Go to sleep.”
As I sank back on my pillow, happy with a great relief, I thought I heard two laughs in the darkness, one in a tone of silver from beneath me and one of the sound of a choke from opposite me where was reposed that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit.
“It is a good chance for you, Robert, that you go to sleep your first night in America with the sound of a nice laugh from two persons of kindness towards you, one of whom is to be with you for a friend in the same—what was it the gray lady with the pencil and paper called it?—‘tall timbers of Old Harpeth’ where all is of such strangeness to you.” And with this remark to myself I fell asleep, “as is,” I think it was that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit called my state of not being disrobed further than trousers and coat.
After many months in which came to me cruel pain and a long hard fight for the honor of my beloved, I cannot but remember that feeling of gratitude that came over me as I went into sleep on that narrow shelf under which lay the beauty of that Madam Patricia Whitworth.
In the eight years that I had become all of life to my father we had made many travels into distant lands and had seen all of beauty that the Old World had to offer seekers after it, but nowhere had I seen the majestic wonder of this, his own land, that I beheld pass by like a series of great pictures wrought by a master. All of the morning I could but sit and gaze with eyes that sometimes dimmed with tears for him as faster and faster I was carried down into his own land of the Valley of Harpeth, which he had given up for love of my Mother and from the cruelness of my wicked Uncle who would not welcome her to his home. When the great Harpeth hills, in their spring flush from the rosiness of what I afterwards learned was their honeysuckle and laurel, shot with the iridescent fire of the pale yellow and green and purple of redbud and dogwood and maple leaf, all veiled in a creamy mist over their radiance, came into view, as we arrived nearer and nearer to Hayesville my hand went forth and grasped closely the hand of Madam Whitworth. That Mr. G. Slade had left the train before my awakening and I felt relief from the absence of his eyes and could express to the beautiful lady the joy that was in my heart.
“And the small homes in the valley, Madam, with the sheep and cattle and grain and children surrounded, they need never fear the fire of shell and the roar of the cruel guns. This valley is a fold in the garment across the breast of the good God Himself and it has His cherishing. Is it that there will be a home for me in its peace and for the small Pierre and the old and faithful Nannette?”
“A home and—and other things, boy—when you ask for them,” she answered me with a very beautiful look of affection that while it pleased me greatly also made for me an unreasonable embarrassment.
“Is it that you think I will obtain the affection of my Uncle, the General Robert Carruthers, Madam Whitworth?” I asked of her with a great wistfulness, for I had told her of his summons to me and she knew already the story of his hardness of heart against my mother.
“The General is a very difficult person,” she made answer to me, and I saw that softness of her beautiful mouth become as steel as she spoke of him. “To a woman he is impossible, as I have found to my cost, but all men adore him and follow him madly, so I suppose his attitude towards them is different from his attitude towards women. My husband and I disagree utterly about the General. In fact, the old gentleman and I are at daggers’ points just now and I am afraid—afraid that he will make it difficult for you to be—be friends with me as I—I want you to be.”
“Neither the General Carruthers nor any man, Madam, dictates in matters of the heart to the Marquise de—that is, to Robert Carruthers of Grez and Bye, if that is the way I must so name myself now,” I answered in the manner of the old Marquis of Flanders, tinged with thegrande damemanner of the beautiful young Marquise of Grez and Bye whom I had murdered and left in that room of the great hotel of Ritz-Carlton in New York.
“It will be delicious to watch his face as you and I alight from this train together, boy. It will be worth the trouble of this hurried trip to New York to be introduced to a person who disappeared suddenly in a tug boat in the open ocean when he should have landed at the docks with the propriety that would have been expected of him.” And as she spoke I could see that something had happened in New York which had brought much irritation to the beautiful Madam Whitworth.
“It would seem that it is one of the customs of these great ships to send out passengers from them in those very funny small tug boats,” I remarked as I leaned forward to catch a last fleeting glimpse of a lovely girl standing in the doorway of an ancient farmhouse, giving food to chickens so near the course of the railroad train that it would seem we should disperse them with fright. “I wept when I must see my good friend, Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, depart from our ship in one of those tug boats. It was a pain in my breast that he must leave me to go into the wildness of Canada.”
“Oh, then he went to Canada first?” exclaimed that Madam Whitworth as she leaned back on her seat as if relieved from some form of a great anxiety about the departure of that Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles.
“Is it that you are also a friend of my Capitaine?” I demanded with a great eagerness of pleasure if it should be so.
“Oh, no, no, indeed!” exclaimed the beautiful Madam Whitworth. “I was speaking of my own friend who might have taken a Canadian line instead of the American. She is so careless about instructions. Now look; we are beginning to wind down into the very heart of the Harpeth Valley, and by the time you make very tidy that mop of hair you have on your head and I powder my nose, we will be in Hayesville to face the General in all of his glory. Mind you kiss my hand so he can see you! I want to give him that sensation in payment of a debt I owe him. Now do go and smooth the mop if it takes a pint of water to do it. That New York tailor has turned you out wonderfully, but even those very square English tweeds do not entirely disguise the French cavalier. You’re a beautiful boy and the girls in Hayesville will eat you up—if the General ever lets them get a sight of you—which he probably won’t. Now go to the mop!”
For many years, since the lonely day just after the death of my mother, when my father took me into the furthest depths of his sad heart and told me of his exile from the place in which he had been born, and about the elder brother who had hated my beautiful mother, who hated all women, I had spent much time erecting in my mind a statue that would be the semblance of that wicked and cruel Uncle. I had taken every disagreeable feature of face and body that I had beheld in another human, or in a picture, or had read of in the tales of that remarkable Mr. Dickens, who could so paint in words a monstrous person to come when the lights are out to haunt the darkness, and had carefully patched them one upon another so as to make them into an ideal of an old Uncle of great wickedness. On that very ship itself I had beheld a man, who came upon the lower deck from the engine, who had but one eye and a great scar where that other eye should have been placed. Immediately my image of the General Robert Carruthers lost one of the wicked eyes I had given him from out the head of the stepfather who did so cruelly stare at the poor young David Copperfield, and became a man with only one eye which still held the malevolence that was hurled at that small David. And with this squat, crooked, evil image of the General Robert Carruthers in my heart I alighted from the train into the City of Hayesville, which is the capital of the great American State of Harpeth. The black man had swung himself off with my bags and that of the beautiful Madam Whitworth, who with me was the last of the passengers to descend from the steps of the car.
“My dear Jeff!” exclaimed my so lovely new friend as she raised her veil for a very seemly kiss from a tall and quite broad gentleman with a very wide hat and long mustachios that dropped far down with want of wax that it is the custom to use for their elevation in France, as I well know from my father’s wrathy remarks to his valet if he made a too great use of it upon his. “And this is General Carruthers’ nephew who came down on the train with me. My husband, Mr. Carruthers of Grez and Bye!” with which introduction she confronted me with the gentleman.
“Glad to know you, young man; glad to know you,” he answered as he took my hand and gave it an embrace of such vigor that I almost made outcry. “There’s the General over there looking for you. Come to see us sometime. Come on, Patsy!”
“Good-bye, Mr. Carruthers. I’ll see you soon,” said the beautiful Madam Whitworth as she held out her hand to me. “Do it now; there comes the General! Quick, kiss my hand!”
I bent and did as she bade me and as I had promised her to do, and as I raised myself she slipped away quickly after her husband with a salutation of great coolness to a person over my shoulder and a “How do you do, General Carruthers” remark as she went.
Instantly I turned and faced the materialization of the ogre it had taken me years to build up into my wicked Uncle. And what did I see?
My eyes looked straight into eyes of the greatest kindness and wisdom I had ever before beheld, and it was with difficulty I restrained myself from flinging myself and my suit of English tweed straight into the strong arms and burying my head on the broad deep chest that confronted me as the huge old gentleman, with as perfect a mop of white hair as is mine of black, rioting over his large head, towered over me.
“You gallivanting young idiot, where did you pick up that dimity?” he demanded of me as he laid a large hand with long strong fingers on my shoulders and gave me a slight shake. “Don’t tell me it was over Pat Whitworth you had that ruckus at the Ritz-Carlton day before yesterday!”
“No, Monsieur, it was not,” I answered, looking him straight in the eyes and feeling as if I was looking into kind eyes that I had seen close to me forever in the old convent in France, and as I spoke I could not help it that I raised my arm in its covering of a man’s tweed and let my woman’s fingers grasp one of the long fingers on my shoulder and cling to it as I had done other long fingers just like them that had guided my first footsteps down the sunny garden paths of the old Chateau de Grez.
“I’m your Uncle Robert, sonny, and don’t you ever forget that, sir,” he answered as he gave me another shake and I could see a longing for the embrace, which I so desired, in his keen eyes that had softened with a veil of mist in the last second. “Lord, I’m glad you’re not a woman! And from now on just stop knowing the creatures exist—Pat Whitworth and her kind. None of that tea-throwing in Hayesville, sir! We’ve got work to do to put out a fire—fire of dishonor and devastation. No time for tea-fighting here. Come on to my car over there; we’ve no time to waste.”
“What is it that you say about that throwing of tea which occurred only the day before yesterday in the City of New York many hundreds of miles from here? How did that knowledge arrive here, my Uncle Robert?” I questioned.
“Associated Press, sir. The greatest power in this America. Associated Press! Full account, you and me, titles and all, printed in this afternoon’s paper. Any money left of that thousand?”
“No, my Uncle Robert,” I faltered. “It was necessary that I spend—”
“Don’t tell me about it. I sent it to you so you could get as much as possible out of your system. The hussies! I’ve got work for you to do here. Forget ’em! Hop in!” And he motioned me into a very large blue touring car that stood beside the station platform.
“Drive to the Governor’s Mansion and don’t sprout grass under your wheels,” he commanded the black chauffeur. “The Governor’s Mansion, private door on Sixth Street.”
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And it was en route to the mansion of the Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth that my Uncle, the General Robert, did enlighten me as to the urgent need of me in his affairs of business.
“It is a question of mules, sir, and of a dishonor to the State that I’m going to prevent if my hot old head is laid low in doing it, as it probably will be if I get into the ruckus with Jefferson Whitworth that now threatens. They have insinuated themselves into the confidence of Governor Faulkner until they have made it well-nigh impossible for him to see the matter except as they put it. They will get his signature to the rental grant of the lands, make a get-away with the money and let the State crash down upon his head when it finds out that he has been led into bringing it and himself into dishonor. Why, damn it, sir, I’d like to have every one of them, especially Jeff Whitworth, at the end of a halter and feed him a raw mule, hoof and ears. I’m probably going to be done to death all alone before the pack of wolves, but I’m going to die hard—for Bill Faulkner, who holds in his hand the honor of his State and my State, I’ll die hard!” And he spoke the words with such a fierceness that his white mustache, which was waxed with the propriety of the world, divided like crossed silver swords beneath his straight nose with its thin and trembling nostrils.
“It will be that I can help you protect this honor of the Gouverneur Faulkner and the State of Harpeth, will it not, my Uncle Robert?” I asked with a great anxiety. “If you must fall on the field of honor it will be the glory of Robert Carruthers of Grez and Bye to fall beside you, sir. I am a very good sport, my father has said.”
“God bless my soul, how like Henry you are, boy!” exclaimed my Uncle, the General Robert, and he did lay one of his long and very strong arms across my shoulder and give to me the embrace for which I had so longed; but for not enough time for me to yield myself to it. “Henry always wanted to tag ‘Brother Bob,’ and he too—would—have died—fighting for me—at my side. I’ve been hard—and when I heard of his death—I wanted you, boy, I wanted you more—Now what do you mean, sir, by making me forget for one moment the fix Bill Faulkner and I are in?” And my Uncle, the General Robert, gave to me a good shake as he extracted his very large white handkerchief and blew upon his nose with such power that the black chauffeur looked around at us and made the car to jump even as he and I had done.
“And those mules that it would be your wish to feed to that Mr. Jeff Whitworth, my Uncle Robert, will you not tell me further about them? In Paris it is said that they are a very good food when made fat after being old or wounded in the army. I have—”
“That will do, sir. If you’ve had to eat mule in Paris don’t tell me about it. My constitution wouldn’t stand that, though during our war, just before Vicksburg, I ate—but we won’t go into that either. Now this is the situation, as much as a lad from the wilds of Paris could understand it. The French Government wants five thousand mules by the fall of the year, and there are no such mules in the world as this State produces. They are sending a man over here to try to make a deal with the State of Harpeth to purchase the mules from private breeders, graze them on the government lands and deliver them in a lot for shipment the first of August at Savannah. There is no authority on the statute book for the State to make such a deal, but Jeff Whitworth has fixed up a sort of contract, that wouldn’t hold water in the courts, by which the Governor of the State, Williamson Faulkner, grants the grazing rights on the State’s lands to a private company of which he is to be a member, which, in a way, guarantees the deal. They’ve made him believe it to be a good financial thing for the State and he can’t see that they are going to buy cheap stock, fatten it on a low rate from the State and hand it over to the French Government at a fancy rake-off—and then leave him with the bag to hold when the time for settlement and complaint comes. There is a strong Republican party in this State and they’re keeping quiet, but year after next, when Bill Faulkner comes up for re-election, downright illegality will be alleged, and he will be defeated in dishonor and with dishonor to the State. I am his Secretary of State and I’m going to save him if I can. And you are going to help me, sir!” And as he spoke my Uncle, the General Robert, gave to me a distinguished shake of the hand that made my pride to rise in my throat, which gave to my speaking a great huskiness.
“I will help in the rescue of the honor of that Gouverneur Bill Faulkner, my Uncle Robert, with the last breath in my body, and I will also assist to feed mule to that Mr. Jefferson Whitworth, though not to his beautiful wife whom I do so much admire.”
“That’s just it; she’ll have to eat mule the first one. She’s at the Governor day and night with her wiles, and in my mind it’s her dimity influence that is making him see things with this slant. They say she put her brand on him in early youth. He’s the soul of honor but what chance has a man’s soul-honor got when a woman wants to cash it in for a fortune with which to lead a gay life? None! None, sir!” And the countenance of my Uncle, the General Robert, became so fierce that it was difficult to find words to answer.
“Oh, my Uncle Robert, is it that a woman would make a cheat in giving the mule animal of not sufficient strength to carry food to poor boys of France in the trenches when there is too much mud for gasoline!” I exclaimed with a great horror from knowledge given me by my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles.
“Just exactly what she is trying to do, boy. Let those poor chaps with guns in their hands to defend her civilization as well as theirs, die for want of a supply train hauled by reliable mules when unreliable gasoline fails. That’s what women are like.” And as he spoke I perceived the depth of dislike that was in the heart of my Uncle, the General Robert, for all of womankind.
“There are some women who would not so comport themselves, my Uncle Robert. I give you my word as one—” Then as I hesitated in terror at the revelation of my woman’s estate I had been about to make, my Uncle, the General Robert, made this remark to me:
“Women are like crows, all black; and the exceptional white one only makes the rest look blacker. The only way to stop them in their depredations is to trap them, since the law forbids shooting them.” And as he made this judgment of women I forgot for a moment that we discussed that Madam Whitworth, whom it was causing me great pain to discover to be the enemy of France, and I thought of my beautiful mother, whom he had judged without ever having encountered, and a great longing rose in my heart so to comport myself that his heart should learn to trust in me as a man and then discover the honor of woman through me at some future time. I took a resolve that such should be the case and to that end I asked of him:
“How is it that I can serve you in these serious troubles, my Uncle Robert?” And as I asked that question I made also a vow in my heart against that black crow woman.
“Now that’s what I’m coming to. The French Government is sending an army expert down here to look over the situation and make the contracts. I can’t speak their heathenish tongue or read it, and I want somebody whom I can trust—trust, mind you—to help me talk with him and make any necessary translations. That Whitworth hussy has been translating for us and I don’t trust her. Your letter was handed to me in the Governor’s private office and both he and I saw what a help it would be to have you here when this Frenchie—who is a Count Something or Other—and his servants and secretaries, what he calls his suite, arrive. By George, sir, we need your advice in eating and drinking them! Do you suppose they’ll have intelligence enough to eat the manna of the gods, which is corn pone, and drink the nectar, which is plain whiskey, or will we be expected to furnish them with snails and absinthe?”
At that I laughed a very large laugh and made this answer to the perturbation of my Uncle, the General Robert:
“I will tell you after luncheon, my Uncle Robert, because I have not as yet eaten in this Harpeth country of America.”
“All right, we’ll talk about it after you’ve had one of old Kizzie’s fried chicken dinners. Here we are at the Mansion. Remember, you know thewholesituation and are only supposed to know the part that Governor Billthinksis the whole. Look at me, boy!” And as the big car drove up to the curb before a great stone house with tall pillars on guard of its front, he laid both his hands upon my shoulders and turned me towards him with force and no gentleness and then with his keen eyes did he look down into the very soul of me.
“Yes, I see I can trust you, sir. God bless you, boy!” he said after a very long moment of time.
“Yes, my Uncle Robert,” I answered him without turning my eyes from his.
“Well, then, here we are. I came to the side door so I wouldn’t have to introduce you to any of the boys this morning, for we want to have a talk with the Governor before dinner and I don’t dare keep Kizzie waiting. It riles her, and a riled woman burns up things: masters, husbands, cooking or worse. Come on.” And as we walked up the broad side steps of that Mansion of the Gouverneur, my Uncle Robert’s hand was on my arm and I felt that I was being marched up to the mouth of the gun of Fate and I wished very much I could have been habited in my corduroy or cheviot skirts, no matter how short or narrow they might be. A number of gentlemen sat upon the wide verandah smoking pipes or long cigars under the budding rose vine that trailed from one tall pillar to another, and more stood and talked in groups beside the large front door that opened into the wide hall. At the back of the hall before a closed door stood a very large black man who was very old and bent and who had tufts of white wool of the aspect of a sheep upon his head. He was attired in a long gray coat of a military cut that I afterwards learned was of the late Confederacy, and I soon had much affection for him because of his reminiscences of that war and also because of his affection for my noble father, to whom he had told the same stories’ in his early youth.
My Uncle, the General Robert, had not paused to present to me any of the gentlemen with whom he had exchanged jovial greetings, but he stopped beside the old black man and said:
“This is Henry’s boy, Robert, Cato. Fine young chap, eh?”
“Yes, sir, Mas’ Robert,” answered Cato as he peered into my face with the nicest affection in his black eyes set in large spaces of white.
“Like Henry, isn’t he?”
“’Fore God, yes, sir!”
“Look after him, Cato. He’ll be about considerable.”
“Dat I will—Mas’ Henry’s boy!”
“No lobbying dimity chasing him, Cato!”
“Yes, sir; I understands, sir.”
“Is the Governor ready for me?”
“Yes, sir, you’s to go right in, Mas’ Robert. Mr. Clendenning is with him jest now, but he’ll be out in a turkey’s call of time. Jest walk in, sir, and you, the young marster,” and with a bow that almost allowed that the tails of the long gray coat swept the floor, the old black man opened the door and motioned us into the room of the Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth.
It has been given to me in the very short time of my life to be often in the home of the President of France, to be presented at the court of England with my father, to the Czar at Petrograd and to the old Franz Joseph, as well as to the beloved Albert and Elizabeth in Brussels, where I did go often to play with the young princess, and I do know very well how to manage skirts whether very tight, or very wide with ruffles, in the case of such presentations, but my heart rose very high up and beat so near to the roots of my tongue that it was impossible for me to speak as I was presented, in the traveling tweeds of a young man of American fashion, to the very wonderful and beautiful and fearful Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner of the State of Harpeth.
“Here’s my boy, Governor,” was all the introduction my Uncle, the General Robert, administered to me, and I stood and looked into the face of him whom afterwards I discovered to be the greatest gentleman in the world, with my heart beating in my throat and yet astir under my woman’s breast in the place it had always before resided.
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I do not know how it is that I shall find words in which to write down the loveliness of that Gouverneur of Old Harpeth. He was not as tall as my Uncle, the General Robert, and he was slender and lithe as some wild thing in a forest, but the power in the broadness of his shoulders and in the strength of his nervous hands was of a greatness of which to be frightened; that is, I think, of which a man should be frightened but in which a woman would take much glory. His hair was of the tarnished gold of a sunset storm and upon his temples was a curved crest of white that sparkled like the spray of a wave. All of which I must have seen with some kind of inward eyes, for from the moment my eyes lifted themselves from contemplating the carpet in embarrassment over my tweed trousers they were looking into his in a way which at dawn my eyes have gazed into the morning star rising near to me over the little wood at the Chateau de Grez. I did not for many days know whether those eyes were gray or blue or purple, for when I regarded them I forgot to decide, and also they were so deep and shadowed by the blackness of their lashes and brows that such a decision was difficult. At this time I only knew that in them lay the fire of the lightning over Old Harpeth when the storm breaks, the laugh of the very small boy who splashes bare feet in the water with glee, and also a coldness of the stars upon the frost of winter. I was glad that I came across the dark ocean to flee from the cruel guns into a strange land to look into those eyes.
“It is good that you have come, Robert Carruthers, for the General and I both need you,” were the words I heard him saying to me in a voice that was as deep and of as much interest as the eyes, and as he spoke those words he took one of my hands in both of his strong ones. “And if you say snails, snails it shall be, if Cato and I have to invade every rose garden in Hayesville and vicinity and stay up all night to catch them.”
“I think I shall choose that corn pone and whiskey that my Uncle, the General Robert, has promised to me from one bad tempered cook at the time of my luncheon,” I found myself saying with a laugh that answered the bare-footed boy who suddenly looked at me out of the cool eyes.
“I thought I would let him have a try-out with Kizzie before we decided what to feed the savages,” also said my Uncle, the General Robert, with a laugh. “Besides, he’s one himself and I’ll have to go slow and tame him gradually.”
“No, he’s ours. He’s just come back to his own from a strange land, General, and you’ll kill the fatted calf or rooster, whichever Kizzie decides, with joy at getting him.” And this time the star eyes gave to me the quick sympathy for which I had prayed before the Virgin with the Infant in her arms in the little chapel of the old convent just before we had to flee from the shells, leaving my father to the Sisters to bury after the enemy had come. I think my eyes did tell that tale to his and the tears ached in my throat.
“I know, boy,” he said softly and then turned and presented me to the Mr. Clendenning who was arranging papers at a desk beside the window.
I do like with my whole heart that funny Buzz Clendenning, who has the reddest hair, the largest brown speckles on his face and the widest mouth that I have ever beheld. Also, his laugh is even wider than is his mouth and overflows the remainder of his face in ripples of what is called grin. He is not much taller than am I, but of much more powerful build, as is natural, though he did not at that moment recognize the reason thereof.
“Shake hands, boys; don’t stand looking at each other like young puppies,” said my Uncle, the General Robert, as he clapped his hand on the back of the Mr. Buzz Clendenning. “You don’t have to fight it out. Your fathers licked each other week about for twenty years.”
“Can’t I even ask him to take off his coat once, General?” answered that Mr. Buzz with the grin all over his face and spreading to my countenance as he took my hand in his to administer one of those shakes of which I had had so many since my arrival in America. For a second he looked startled and glanced down at my white hand that he held in his and from it to my eyes that were looking into his with the entire friendliness of my heart. Suddenly I had a great fright of discovery within me and my knees began to again tremble together for their skirts, but before that fright had reached my eyes quite, I had born to me an elder brother in the person of that Buzz Clendenning, and I now know that I can never lose him, even when he knows that—
“I’m no shakes in the duel, Prince, so let’s kiss and make up before you get out your sword,” he said as he also, as my Uncle, the General Robert, had done, laid an arm across my shoulders in an embrace of affection. It was then I made a discovery in the strange land into which I was penetrating: Men have much sentiment in their hearts that it is impossible for a woman to discover from behind a fan. They keep it entirely for each other as comrades, and I received a large portion of such an affection when that Mr. Buzz Clendenning adopted me in what he thought was my foreign weakness, as a small brother to be protected in his large heart.
“I am very happy to so salute you instead of the duel,” I made answer and did immediately put a kiss on his one cheek, expecting that he would return it upon my cheeks, first one and then another, as is the custom of comrades and officers in France.
“Here, help! Don’t do that again or I’ll call out the police,” responded that funny Mr. Buzz Clendenning, as he shook me away from him, while my Uncle, the General Robert, and the great Gouverneur did both indulge in laughter.
“I am abashed and I beg your pardon for offending against the customs of your country. I do remember now that my father did not permit such a salutation from his brother officers, and I will not do so again, Monsieur Buzz Clendenning,” I said as my cheeks became crimson with mortification and tears would have come over my eyes had my pride permitted.
“This is what he meant you to do, Buzz, you duffer. I said good-bye to twenty-two of my friends this way the day I set sail from old Heidelberg,” and as he spoke, that great and beautiful and exalted Gouverneur Faulkner did bend his head to mine and give to me the correct comrade salute of my own country on first one of my cheeks and then upon the other.
“I thank you, your Excellency,” I murmured with gratitude. I wonder what that Russian Count Estzkerwitch or Mr. Peter Scudder or Lord Leigholm on those Scotch moors, would have thought to hear Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, express such gratitude for two small pecks upon her cheek delivered in America.
“Yes, sir, it’s mighty pretty to look at but I reckon the kid had better stow the habit before he is introduced to Jeff Whitworth and Miles Menefee and the rest of the bunch,” said that Mr. Buzz as he left off wiping from his cheek with the back of his hand the kiss I had put there, and administered to me another embrace on my shoulders with his long arm. “Besides, youngster, there aregirlsin Hayesville,” he added with a grin that again was reflected on my face without my will and which did entirely take away my anger and embarrassment at his repulse.
“Girls! Girls!” exploded my Uncle, the General Robert. “The female young generally known as girls are about as much use to humanity as a bunch of pin feathers tied with a pink ribbon would be in the place of the household feather duster that the Lord lets them grow into after they reach their years of discretion. Robert has no time to waste with the unfledged. Don’t even suggest it to him, Clendenning. And now you can take him around to my house and tell Kizzie to begin filling you both up while I wait for a moment to go over these papers with the Governor. And both of you avoid the female young, for we’ve work for you; mind you, work and no gallivanting. Now go! Depart!”
“The old boy is a forty-two centimeter gun that fires at the mention of the lovely sex and doesn’t stop until the ammunition gives out,” said Mr. Buzz Clendenning as he slid into the seat of his slim gray racer beside me and started from the curb on high without a single kick of the engine. “I’d like to wish a nice girl, whom he couldn’t shake off, onto him for about a week and watch him squirm along to surrender. Wait until you see Sue Tomlinson get hold of him down on the street some day. He shuts his eyes and just fires away at her while she purrs at him, and it is a sight for the gods. Sue’s father died and left her with her invalid mother and not enough money to invite in the auctioneer, but the General took some old accounts of the Doctor’s, collected and invested them and made up plenty of money for Sue’s grubstake, though he goes around three blocks to get past her. Sue adores him and approaches him from all sides, but has never made a landing yet. Say, you’ll like Sue. She is pretty enough to eat, but don’t try to bite. It’s no use.”
“Is it that this lovely Mademoiselle Sue does not like gentlemen save my Uncle, the General Robert?” I asked with great interest. I was glad in my heart that I was soon to see and speak with a nice girl even if it had to be in character of a man.
“Oh, she loves us—all,” answered that Mr. Buzz with the greatest gloom. “Allof us—every blamed son-of-a-gun of us.”
“Oh, I comprehend now that it is your wish that she love only you, Mr. Clendenning, and are sad that she does not,” I said as I looked at him with much sympathy.
“That is about it, Prince, but don’t say I said so. Everybody chases Susan. She even wins an occasional ice cream smile from His Excellency. I bet she’d go up against that august iceberg itself in a try-out for a ‘First Lady of the State’ badge if Mrs. Pat Whitworth hadn’t got the whole woman bunch to believe she has a corner on his ice. Mrs. Pat is some little cornerer, believe me.”
“Oh, I did like that Madam Whitworth, and I hope that it will be my pleasure to see her again soon,” I said with an ice in my voice as I caught my breath while Mr. Buzz Clendenning drove between two cars and a wagon with not so much as an inch to spare on all three sides of the car. It is as I like to drive when at the wheel, but sitting beside another—
“You’ll see her at the Governor’s dinner for you Tuesday, if not sooner, and just watch her and the General war dance with each other. He opens his eyes when Mrs. Pat attacks and he imagines he is the whole Harpeth Valley Militia defending His Excellency of Iceland from her wiles. Just watch him!” And this time it was three wagons that we slid between and beyond.
“Why is it that the great Gouverneur Faulkner has such a coldness for ladies?” I asked of that Mr. Buzz. “I did find him to be of such a beautiful kindness.”
“He’s been too much chased. He’s got his fingers crossed on them, they tell me. Just watch him in action at his dinner. He side-steps so gently that they never know it.”
“Why is it then that he gives to me this dinner of honor when he so dislikes all—that is, I mean to ask of you why is it that I am so honored by that very great Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth?” I asked, and I had a great fright that I had again so nearly betrayed Robert Carruthers to be one of the sex so hated by that noble gentleman, the Gouverneur Faulkner. “I must think of myself as a man in future,” I commanded myself.
“Didn’t the General tell you about it? It is to introduce you to the flower and chivalry of your native land. Believe me, it will be some dinner dance. The General wanted it to be a stag, but Sue fought to the last trench, which was tears, and he gave in. These days the Governor loses no chance to honor his Secretary of State for—for political reasons,” and as he spoke that good Mr. Clendenning looked at the wheel for steering, and I could see that there was deep concern in his eyes.
“Is it that—that trouble of mules, Monsieur Clendenning?” I asked of him softly in a woman’s way for administering sympathy for distress but without the masculine discretion that I was to learn swiftly thereafter to employ.
“Don’t talk about it, for I don’t know how much either of us knows or our chief wants us to know, but Governor Williamson Faulkner is a man of honor and I’d stake my life on that. He’s being pushed hard and—Gee! Here we are at the General’s and I can smell Kizzie’s cream gravy with my mind’s nose. I understand that your father was the last Henry Carruthers of five born up in the old mahogany bedstead that the General inhabits between the hours of one and five A.M. Some shack, this of the General’s, isn’t it? Nothing finer in the State.” And as he spoke that Mr. Buzz Clendenning stopped the car before the home of my Uncle, the General Robert, and we alighted from it together.
I do not know how it is that I can put into words the beautiful feeling that rose from the inwardness of me as I stood in front of the home of my fathers in this far-away America. The entire city of Hayesville is a city of old homes, I had noticed as I drove in the gray car so rapidly along with Mr. Buzz Clendenning while he was speaking to me, but no house had been so beautiful as was this one. It was old, with almost the vine-covered age of the Chateau de Grez, but instead of being of gray stone it was of a red brick that was as warm as the embers of an oak fire with the film of ashes crusting upon it. Thus it seemed to be both red and gray beneath the vines that were casting delicate green traceries over its walls. Great white pillars were to the front of it like at the Mansion of the Gouverneur, and many wide windows and doors opened out from it. Two old oak trees which give to it the name of Twin Oaks stood at each side of the old brick walk that led from the tall gate, and as I walked under them I felt that I had from a cruel world come home.
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And, if I felt in that manner as I entered the house, I felt it to a still greater degree when I was welcomed by that most lovely old black slave woman of the high temper and good cookery. She opened the door for us herself, though a nice boy the color of a chocolate bonbon stood in waiting to perform that office. She had a spoon in her hand and upon her head was a spotless white turban, as also was an apron of an equal spotlessness tied around her very large waist.
“You, Mas’ Robert, you done come home from the heathen land to keep my food waiting jest like yo’ father did from the minute I ontied him from my apron string. Come right into the dining room ’fore my gravy curdles and the liver wing I done saved for you gits too brown in the skillet,” was all of the introduction or greeting that she gave to me as she waddled along behind Mr. Buzz Clendenning and myself, driving us down the hall and into the dining-room. “Mas’ Buzz, how is yo’ mother? I ’lowed to git over to see her soon as this ruckus of young Mas’ coming home is over. Now, here’s the place fer you both and that no ‘count boy will bring in yo’ dinner proper to you or he’ll be skunt alive.” With which she departed through a door, from which came an aroma that led to madness of hunger, and left the bonbon servant to attend us.
“Gee, I hope Kizzie killed by the half dozen last night; if there aren’t three chickens apiece you’ll be hungry, L’Aiglon,” said Mr. Buzz Clendenning with a laugh as he seated himself beside me and unfolded his napkin.
“I wish that you might call me Robert, Mr. Clendenning,” I said with a great friendliness as I ate a food that I had not before tasted and that I did so much like that I was tempted to steal some to put in my pocket for fear I would come to believe that I had dreamed it to exist. It is called corn pone and is made of maize, and it will be found in some form at every meal upon my Uncle, the General Robert’s, table, good Kizzie assured me as I made her a compliment about it.
“Though the name of that son of our great Napoleon is very dear to me,” I added at his quick glance, fearing he might think me offended at what is called a nickname.
“Sure, Bobbie, and you’ll forget that I wouldn’t let you kiss me, won’t you?” he answered as he drew back from the table and lit a cigarette after passing me the case. “Everybody calls me Buzz the Bumble Bee because of a historic encounter of mine with a whole nest of bumblebees right out here in the General’s garden. It is a title of heroism and I’d like to have you use it as if we’d been kids together as we were slated to have been. Gee, I bet you could have beat the bees down some. You looked all soft to me when I first saw you but you are so quick and lithe and springy that you must be some steel. What do you weigh out, stripped?”
“Er—er, about one-thirty,” I answered, and I made a resolve not to blush or show anything of embarrassment, no matter what was to be said to me in my estate of a young gentleman.
And I make this note to myself that it is a great pleasure and interest to sit beside a nice young man with a cigarette in his mouth and one in my hand as if for smoking, which I do not like to do from its bitterness, and converse with him about matters of good sense without having in any way to use that coquetry which breaks into small sections the usual conversation between a man and a woman of enthusiastic youngness.
“I tip at one fifty-two, but I’m an inch and a half taller. Do you run? You’re good and deep chested,” he further inquired and it was with difficulty that I again controlled the blush.
“I fence and I’m large of lung,” I answered quickly.
“Ride?”
“Anything ever foaled,” I answered in words I had heard my father use about my horsemanship.
“Don’t smoke?”
“Don’t like it.”
“Golf?”
“Some—wild.”
“I play a hurry game myself,” he laughed. “Dance?”
“With a greatness of pleasure,” I answered.
After that for a time he puffed at his cigarette and I looked around the long dining room that was almost as large as the dining-hall at the Chateau de Grez and which was dark and rich and full of old silver on the sideboard and old portraits on the walls. Finally my Buzz put out the stub of his cigarette in his saucer and looked me keenly in the face as I raised my eyes to his.
“Booze?” he asked quietly.
“No!”
“That’s good, old top. Me neither! Say, let’s go call on Sue and you can get a nice little initiation into the girl bunch before the General stops you by locking you away from them.”
“I wish that I might, but I must unpack my bags and write the letters to small Pierre and my nurse Nannette; also be ready for translations for my Uncle, the General Robert, when he arrives. Will you persuade the lovely Mademoiselle Sue that she save one little dance for me on that evening of Tuesday?” I said as we rose and walked down the long hall towards the wide door under the budding rose vine.
“She’ll dead sure give you one—of mine,” he answered me with a laugh, “but come along with me now, L’Aiglon. The General won’t be home until night. I laid some letters on his desk that will hold him and Governor Bill until sunset. They’ll have pie and milk sent in and work it all out together. What’s the use of having them to watch the affairs of the State of Harpeth for us if we don’t use the time they are on watch in having some joy life? Come on!”
“I go,” I made answer with a great pleasure.
Then we descended to the gray car of much speed and did use that speed in turning many streets until we came to another very fine old house, where, I was informed by my Mr. Buzz Clendenning, resides that Mademoiselle Susan of so much loveliness.
And it is of a truth that I discovered that loveliness to be as great as was told to me by her true lover. When I raised my head from the kiss of presentation I gave to her hand I looked into very deep and very wonderful girl eyes that had in their depths tears that were for a sympathy for me, I knew. My heart of an exile beat very high in my own girl’s breast that ached for the refuge of her woman’s arms, and I must have partly betrayed my yearning to her, for I saw an expression of confused question come into her eyes that looked into mine; then the beautiful thing that had come into my Mr. Buzz Clendenning’s eyes for me came also into hers in place of the question. I saw then in those eyes a sister born to the boy Robert Carruthers of a great French strangeness.
“I’ve been thinking about you all morning, Mr. Carruthers, and hoping Buzz would bring you with him to see me first of all. I wanted to be the first one of the girls to say, ‘Welcome home’ to you.” And as she spoke those words of much tenderness I again bent over her hand in salutation because I could give forth no words from my throat.
“Sue, you are the real sweet thing—and now notice me a bit, will you?” said my fine Mr. Buzz Clendenning with both emotion and a teasing in his voice. “I know I haven’t got French manners and don’t look like L’Aiglon, but I’m an affectionate rough jewel.”
“Please don’t mind Buzz, Mr. Carruthers—he just can’t help buzzing. Isn’t it great about the dance Tuesday night? I fought hard to save you from a horrid long banquet with a lot of solemn men. I ought to be the belle of that ball and you and Buzz will be ungrateful if you neglect me,” and as she made these remarks for laughter, I liked still more this new friend.
“You are the good, thoughtful little missionary to the foreigner, Susan. I suppose you wanted to stay at home and tat socks while Bobbie and I dined and wined—not,” was the very unappreciative answer that was made to her by that Buzz.
“For always I will be your humble slave, Mademoiselle Susan,” was the answer I made into her laughing eyes. “All the evening I will wait in loneliness for the small crumbs of dance that you throw to me.”
“That will do, Robert; you don’t know how spoiled Susan is and you’re making trouble for me. Besides, you haven’t seen the baby Belle in war paint yet. Let’s go call on her now!” And that Mr. Buzz Clendenning was in a moment ready for making more new friends for me. “Come on, Susan, we can tie Prince Bob on the running board.”
“Why, there’s Belle at the gate now and—yes—it’s Mrs. Whitworth with her. I wonder when she came from New York,” said Mademoiselle Susan as we went to meet the guests approaching, I on the one side of her and the Mr. Buzz on the other.
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“The beautiful Madam Whitworth came down upon the same train which I occupied,” I said as I remembered to raise from my head my hat by that action on the part of my Mr. Buzz.
“Oh, then you have been presented to L’Aiglon?” said Mr. Buzz to that Madam Whitworth who stood smiling while I was presented to the very lovely girl of great blondness, who both blushed and what is called giggled as I kissed her hand, though in her eyes I found a nice friendliness to me.
“We are old friends who know all about each other, aren’t we, Mr. Robert Carruthers?” and in her gay answer to that Mr. Buzz I detected a challenge as her eyes of blue flowers in snow looked into mine with the keenness of a knife, to detect if I had yet been told aught of her by my Uncle. And in the answering look of friendliness I gave her was concealed also a knife of great keenness, which came from a brain with which I hoped to do to the death that enemy of France. And also I felt my heart spring to the protection of the honor of great Gouverneur Faulkner, who had given me a comrade’s salute within a few hours past; and also to the protection of the honor of my house in the person of my Uncle, the General Robert.
“Indeed, I have much joy that I was given the opportunity to know the very beautiful Madam Whitworth at so early a time in my life in America,” I made answer to her question in words as I bent also over her hand for a kiss of salutation.
And then I had a great amusement at the skill with which that Madam Whitworth brought it to pass that I walked with her from that gate and left the three new and lovely friends I had made looking after me with affection and regret at my departure.
“Of course, it was horrid of me to snatch you like that from those infants, but—I really had the claim to have you for a little time to hear your impressions of Hayesville, now, didn’t I?—you boy with eyes as beautiful as a girl’s!” she said to me as I walked down the wide street beside her.
“I hope you will always make such claims of me, Madam,” I made answer with the great sweetness with which I was determined for the time to keep covered the steel knife.
“I know how to claim—and also to reward,” she answered me with a warmth that gave me a great discomfort. “And how did you escape from the General into feminine society on your very first day? Wasn’t there work for you at the Capitol? I understand that they are expecting that French Commissioner very soon now.” She asked the question with an indifference that I knew to be false.
“I think it is that I am allowed to get my—what you say in English?—land legs,” I answered with much unconcern.
“Speaking of that Frenchman who is coming down for the mule contracts, of which by this time you have doubtless heard, I wonder why it is that the Count of Lasselles, your friend, is sending one of his lieutenants instead of coming himself. Did he say anything of coming down later? I wish he would, for to my mind he is one of your greatest soldiers and I would like to look into his face. That portrait in theReviewis one of the most interesting I have almost ever seen. Is there any chance of his coming down?” And I was of a great curiosity at the anxiety in her face about the movements of my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles.
“He told me only that he would go to the grain fields of English Canada, Madam,” I answered her by guardedly telling her no more than my words upon that train had revealed to her.
“If he writes to you, you must tell me about it,” she said with great friendliness. “I am interested in everything that happens to him.”
“I will do that, with thanks for your interest,” I answered to her with an air of great devotion. “And behold, is it not the Twin Oaks of my Uncle I see across the street?” I asked as I stopped in front of that fine old home that was now mine.
“Come on down the street to my home and I’ll give you a cup of tea,” she invited me with very evident desire for my company for more questioning.
“I give many thanks, but that is not possible to me, as I must write notes to my Pierre and old Nannette for the evening railroad. I bid you good day, beautiful Madam,” and again I bent over her hand in a salutation of departure.
“Then I’ll see you again soon,” she said and smiled at me as I stood with my hat in my hand as she went away from me down the street.
“Vive la Franceand Harpeth America!” I said to myself as I ascended the steps, was admitted by the Bonbon and conducted up the stairway to my apartments by good Kizzie, whom I met in the wide hall.
And there ensued an hour of the greatest interest to me as the very good old slave woman led me from one of the rooms in the large house to another, with many stories of great interest. At last we came to that room in which had been deposited my bags and my other equipment for my journey and there we made a very long pause.
“This is your Grandma Carruthers’ room, the General’s grandma, and she was the high-headedest lady of the whole family. That am her portrait over the mantelshelf. You is jest like her as two peas in the pod and I reckin I’ll have to take a stick to you like I did to yo’ father when he was most growed up and stole all the fruitcake I had done baked in July fer Christmas,” she said with a wide smile of great affection upon her very large mouth.
“I beg that you put under a key that cake, beloved Madam Kizzie,” I made answer to her with also a laugh.
“Never was no key to nothing in this house, chile,” she answered to me. “I ’lowed to the Gener’l that he had oughter git a lock and key fer this here flowered silk dress in the glass case on the wall dat de ole Mis’ wore at the ball where she met up with Mas’ Carruthers, but they do say that she comes back and walks as a ha’nt all dressed in it and these here slippers and stockings and folderols in the carved box on the table here under her picture. Is you ‘fraid of ha’nts, honey?”
“I will not be afraid of this beautiful Grandmamma in this dress of so great magnificence, my good Kizzie,” I made answer to her with more of courage than I at that moment felt.
“Well, it’s only in case of a death in the house that she—Lands alive, am that my cake burning?” With which exclamation the good Kizzie left me to the company of the beautiful Grandmamma.
After having unpacked and nicely put away all of the apparel from my two large bags, the fine Bonbon retired below to answer a summons from good Kizzie, and left me alone for the first time since I had opened my eyes that morning while being whirled in the railway train down into the State of Harpeth. I looked at the hunting watch strapped to my wrist, which I had worn while traveling, and saw that it was after five o’clock, and I felt that I must sleep before dining, if for only a moment.
Thereupon I immediately climbed slowly and awkwardly out of that gray tweed suit of clothes. I did so wonder what could be the best method of releasing one’s self from trousers. It is a feat of balance to stand on one foot and remove one portion of the two sides of the trousers, and yet it is an entanglement to drop the two portions upon the floor and attempt to step out of them with the shoes upon your feet. Having succeeded in getting out of them the last night when prone upon the sleeping shelf of the railroad train, without injury to them, I again prostrated myself upon the huge bed in my room and disentangled myself from them while in that position.
After having completely disrobed I took the bath of the temperature of milk that Nannette is accustomed to administer to me, inserted myself in the very lovely ‘wedding’ garments for sleeping that Mr. G. Slade had so admired, and sank into deep slumber upon the large bed with a silk covering beflowered like the skirt of a lady’s dress upon me.
“Well, well, you young sleepyhead, up and into your clothes, sir. We are late for the Capitol now,” were the words I heard in what seemed almost the first moment after I had closed my eyes. Behold, my Uncle, the General Robert, fully dressed, stood beside the bed and a morning sun was shining through the windows. I had slept through a long night like a small child upon the bosom of the bed of my beautiful Grandmamma who smiled down upon me.
“Oh, my Uncle Robert, how much time is it that I have to make my toilet?” I begged of him as I sat up and made a rubbing of my eyes.
“Less than an hour, sir, to get out of that heathenish toggery that the men of your generation have substituted for the honest nightshirt, into proper garments, and eat your breakfast. I’ll call you when I am ready to go.”
It was very little more than the hour my Uncle, the General Robert, had given to me, that I consumed in the accomplishment of a very difficult toilet in a suit of very beautiful brown cheviot which the good man in New York from whom I had procured it had said to be for very especial morning wear. To my good Kizzie I gave a great uneasiness that I did not consume the very elaborate meal that resembled a dinner, which she had ready for the Bonbon to serve to me, and desired only a cup of her coffee and two very small pieces of white bread called biscuits.
“All the Carruthers men folks is friends with their food, they is,” she admonished me.
“At luncheon, my Kizzie, just watch me,” I said to her in nice United States words as I departed with my Uncle, the General Robert, to the Capitol of the State of Harpeth, which is a tall building set on an equally tall hill.
I found much business awaiting me in the form of making a correct translation of all of the letters in a very large portfolio, all of which were pertaining to that very tiresome animal, the mule. But I made not very much progress, for a very large number of gentlemen came into the office of my Uncle, the General Robert, and to all of them I must be presented.
In fact, in all of what remained of that entire week, for most of my moments in the Capitol I was having very painful shakes of the hand given to me and receiving assurances of my great resemblance to my honored father.
All of which I did greatly enjoy, but nothing was of so much pleasure to me as the visits I accomplished into the office of that Gouverneur Faulkner with messages of importance from my Uncle, the General Robert.
It was with a very fine and cold smile of friendliness that he at first received me, as I stood with humble attention before his desk upon my first mission to him, but with each message I perceived that the stars in his eyes, so hid beneath his brows, shone upon me with a greater interest.
And in observing the many heavy burdens that pressed upon his strong shoulders until at the close of each day a whiteness was over his very beautiful face, I grew to desire that I could make some little things for him easier. I sought to so do and I discovered that it was possible to beguile many very heavy persons to tell to me what it was they wished to impose upon him.
I took upon a long ride in the car of my Uncle, the General Robert, that Road Commissioner, who was making a trouble for my Gouverneur Faulkner about taking much money from the sum that he desired to be voted for use on the roads of the State of Harpeth, thus making my Gouverneur Faulkner not beloved of the people in the country around the capital city, and when I returned him I had used many beguilements in the way of flattery about the superiority of the roads of America to the roads of all of the world, and had also jolted him to such an extent that he did write a nice letter to my Gouverneur Faulkner asking that that money be not voted less but even more, so as to “beat out the world with the roads of Harpeth.”
“Good boy,” was the reward that I got from my Gouverneur Faulkner for that feat, and a smile that was of such a loveliness that it lasted me all of the day.
Also I made a hard work for myself in saving that Gouverneur Faulkner by much flattery from a large lady who was anxious that he sign a paper by which all women might vote that no more whiskey for mint julep should exist. I very willingly put the name of Mr. Robert Carruthers to the paper, for I do not like those juleps, and I persuaded the nice large lady that she go in that car of my Uncle, the General Robert, with me away from the proximity to my chief, the Gouverneur Faulkner, to a place in the city where we could drink that ice cream soda water that I do so love.
That lady was very like many other persons who came to see my Gouverneur and whom I persuaded to make me much exhaustion instead of him. It was while telling him of the lady and the two very delicious soda ice creams that he very suddenly interrupted me with a nice smile that had in it a small warmth like the first glow of a fire, and said:
“Robert, I’m going to ask the General to lend you to me for a couple of weeks while I am so pressed. Buzz can do more for him than you do and—and, well, just looking at you and hearing you tell about the flies you brush from my wearied brow, rests me. Report to me to-morrow instead of to him. I know it will be all right, for he really needs Buzz. Now you run home and get ready for one great time at this party I’m giving to you to-night. And, Robert, remember to tell me everything the flies say, translated in your United States.”
“I will and I go, my Gouverneur Faulkner,” I made an answer to him with a laugh in which I did not show entirely all of the pleasure I experienced when I discovered I was to be in the place of his secretary, that fine Buzz Clendenning.
And with much haste I took my departure from the Capitol of the State of Harpeth to Twin Oaks in the car of my Uncle, the General Robert, for I knew that upon this evening I must make a new and terrible toilet and I would require much time thereto.
The good old Nannette and my Governess Madam Fournet have always taught me that the art of a lovely woman’s toilet could not be performed in less than two hours, and I felt that I had better begin in the way to which I was accustomed and go as far as I could in that direction, then finish in the manly manner which would now be of a necessity to me.
The good Bonbon, whom I now know is called Sam, had laid out my evening apparel, from the queer dancing shoes with flat heels to a very stiff and high collar, upon a couch in the huge room, and after my bath I began to put them upon me with as much rapidity as was possible to me. For a few moments all went well, even up to having tucked the fine and very stiff white linen shirt garment into the silky black cloth trousers, but a trouble arose when I put upon myself the beautiful long coat that is in the shape of a raven, which the American gentleman wears for evening toilet. My shoulders were sufficiently broad to hold it nicely in place and it fell with a gracefulness upon my hips, but at my waist it collapsed on account of a slimness in that locality. The fit of the tweed, which had been like to that of a bag, had been very correct and had not revealed the curve of waist, but now it was manifest.
“What is it that you must do, Roberta, to disguise your roundness of a young woman? All is lost!” I said to myself in despair. Then a thought came to me. I had never been habited in a corset in my life on account of a prejudice entertained to that garment by my Nannette, but I bethought me to remove that shirt and also the silk one underneath and swath about me one of the heavy towels of the bath. Immediately I did so and fastened it in place with a needle and thread from the gentleman’s traveling case that I found in the pocket of my bag. Over it I then drew the silk undershirt and then that of fine linen, before again putting myself into the black raven’s dress. Behold, all roundness and slimness had disappeared and when the collar was added I could see that I was as beautifully habited as either Mr. Peter Scudder or that Mr. Saint Louis of the boat.
“Roberta of Grez and Bye,” I said to myself as I looked into the tall mirror, “it is indeed a sorrow to you that you cannot make your courtesy to that Gouverneur Faulkner habited in the white lace and tulle garment that is in those trunks which you have lost in that New York, with your throat that your Russian Cossack has said was like a lily at the blush of dawn, bare to his eyes, but you are a nice, clean, upstanding American boy who can be his friend. You must be and you must play the game.”
And in the language of that Mr. Willie Saint Louis, it was “some game.”