When the real season opened, you might have thought that the whole venture was Mr. Sam Langham's and that he had risked the whole of his money in it. Without being officious, he had words of anxious advice for the Darlings, severally and collectively. His early breakfasts in Smoke House with Mary, the chef beaming upon the efficient and friendly pair, lost something of their free and easy social quality, and became opportunities for the gravest discussions of ways and means.
The opening day would see every spare room in the place occupied—by a man. To Mary it seemed a little curious that so few women, so few families, and so many bachelors had applied for rooms. But to Sam Langham the reasons for this were clear and definite.
"It was the picture in the first issues of your advertisement that did it. I only compliment and felicitate you when I say that every bachelor who saw that picture must have made up his mind to come here if he possibly could. And thatevery woman who saw it must have felt that she could spend a happier summer somewhere else. Now, if you had circulated a picture of half a dozen men, each as good-looking as your brother Arthur, the results would have been just the opposite."
"Women aren't such idiots about other women's looks as you think they are," said Mary.
"I didn't say they were idiots; I intimated that they were sensible. The prettiest woman at a summer resort always has a good time—not the best, necessarily, but very good. Now, no woman could look at that picture of you and your sisters and expect to be considered the prettiest womanhere. Could she, Chef?"
Chef laughed a loud, scornful, defiant, gesticulant, Gallic laugh. His good-natured features focussed into a scathing Parisian sneer; he turned a delicate omelette over in the air and said, "Lala!"
"There are," continued Mr. Langham, "only half a dozen women in the world who can compare in looks with you and your sisters. There's the Princess Oducalchi—your mother. There's the Countess of Kingston, Mrs. Waring, Miss Virginia Clark—but these merely compare. They don't compete."
Mr. Langham tried to look very sly and wicked, and he sang in a humming voice: "Oh, to be a Mussulman, now that spring is here."
"Coffee?" said Mary.
"Please."
"Well," said she, as she poured, "the whys and wherefores don't matter. It's to be a bachelor resort—that seems definitely settled. But I think we had better send the triplets away. I don't want the Pritchard and Herring episodes repeated while my nerves are in this present state. And there's Lee—if she isn't leading Renier into one folly after another, I don't know what she is doing. They seem to think that keeping an inn is a mere excuse for flirtation."
"Don't send them away," said Langham. "If you sent those three girls to a place where there weren't any men at all—they'd flirt with their shadows. Better have 'em flirting where you can watch 'em than where you can't. And besides—are you quite sure that the Pritchard and Herring episodes were mere flirtations? Day before yesterday I came upon Miss Gay by accident; she was practising casting."
"That's how she spends half her time."
"But she was practising with Pritchard's rod! Yesterday I came upon her in the same place——"
"By accident?" smiled Mary.
"By design," he said honestly. "And this time she wasn't casting. She had the rod lying across her knees, and her eyes were turned dreamily toward the bluest and most distant mountain-top."
"'Why do you look at that mountain?' I said.
"'Because it's blue, too,' said she.
"'And what makes you blue?' I asked.
"'The same cause that makes the mountain blue,' said she.
"'Hum,' said I. 'Then it must be distance.'
"'Something like that,' she said. 'I sometimes think I'm the most distant person in the world.'
"'You're probably not the only person who thinks that!' said I.
"And she said, 'No? Really?' And that was all I could get out of her. Except that, just as I was walking away, I heard a sharp whistling sound and my cap—my new plaid cap—was suddenly tweaked from the top of my head and hung in a tree. She must have practised a lot with that rod of Pritchard's. It was a beautiful cast——"
"She might have put your eye out!" exclaimed Mary.
"She hung the apple of my eye in a tree," said he dolefully. "You know that one with the green and brown? And last night it rained."
"I hope she expressed sorrow," said Mary.
"She was going to, but I got laughing and then she did."
"What a dear you are!" exclaimed Mary. "And so you think she's making herself mournful over Mr. Pritchard? And what are the reasons for thinking that Phyllis is serious about Mr. Herring?"
"He's sent for blue-prints of his property outside Boston, and they are busy with plans for landscaping it. Narrow escape that! I didn't let on; but the second day I thought he was a goner. I did."
Mary sighed.
"We might just as well have called it a matrimonial agency in the first place instead of an inn."
Mr. Langham rose reluctantly.
"I have an engagement with Miss Maud," he explained.
The faintest ripple of disappointment flitted across Mary's forehead.
"I've promised to help her with her books," said he. "Some of the journal entries puzzle her;and she has an idea that The Inn ought to have more capital. And we are going into that, too."
"I hope," said Mary, "that you aren't going to lend us money without consulting me."
Chef was in a distant corner, quite out of ear-shot. And Mr. Langham, emboldened by one of the most delicious breakfasts he had ever eaten, shot an arch glance at Miss Darling.
"I wouldn't consult you about lending money," he said; "I wouldn't consult you about giving money. But any time you'll let me consult you aboutsharingmoney——"
Panic overtook him, and he turned and fled. But upon Mary's brow was no longer any ripple of disappointment—only the unbroken alabaster of smooth serenity. She reached for the household keys and said to herself:
"Maud is a steady girl—even if the rest of us aren't."
She caught a glimpse of herself in the bottom of a highly polished copper utensil and couldn't help being pleased with what she saw.
On the way to the office Mr. Langham fell in with Arthur. This one, Uncas scolding and chatting upon his shoulder, was starting off for a day's botanizing—or dreaming maybe.
"Arthur—one moment, please," said Langham."As the head of the family I want to consult you about something."
"Yes?" said Arthur sweetly. "Of course, Uncas, you are too noisy." And he put the offended little beast into his green collecting case.
"I never would have come here," said Mr. Langham, "if it hadn't been for that advertisement."
Arthur frowned slightly.
"You mean——"
"Yes. But I came," said Mr. Langham, "not as a pagan Turk but as a Christian gentleman. I was just about to take passage for Liverpool when I saw your sister Mary looking out at me fromThe Four Seasons. And so I wrote to ask if I could come here. I have lived well, but I am not disappointed. I am very rich——"
"My dear Sam," said Arthur, "you are the best fellow in the world. What do you want of me?"
"To know that you think I'd try my best to make a girl happy if she'd let me."
"A girl?" smiled Arthur. "Anygirl?"
"In all the world," said Mr. Langham, "there is only one girl."
"If I were you," said Arthur, "I'd ask her whatshethought about it."
Langham assumed a look of terrible gloom.
"If she didn't think well of it I'd want to cut my throat. I'd rather keep on living in blissful uncertainty, but I wantedyouto know—whyI am here, andwhyI want to stay on and on."
"Why, I'm very glad to know," said Arthur, "but surely it's your own affair."
Mr. Langham shook his head.
"Last night," said he, "I was dozing on my little piazza. Who should row by at a distance but Miss Gay and Miss Lee. You know how sounds carry through an Adirondack night? Miss Lee said to Miss Gay: 'I tell you he doesn't. Notreally. He's just a male flirt.' 'A butterfly,' said Miss Gay."
"But how do you know they were referring to you?"
"By the way the blessed young things laughed at the word 'butterfly'. So I wanted you to know that my intentions are tragically serious, no matter what others may say. Whatever I may be, and I have been insulted more than once about my figure and my habits, I amnota flirt. I am just as romantic as if I was a living skeleton."
Here Arthur's head went back, and he laughed till the tears came. And Mr. Langham couldn't help laughing, too.
A few moments later he was going over The Inn books with Maud Darling and displaying for her edification an astonishing knowledge of entries and a truly magical facility in figuring. Suddenly, apropos of something not in the least germane, he said:
"Miss Maud, when in your opinion is the most opportune time for a man to propose to a girl?"
"When he's got her alone," said she promptly, "and has just been dazzling her with a display of his erudition and understanding."
And she, whom Mary had described as the one steady sister in the lot, flung him a melting and piercing glance. But Mr. Langham was not deceived.
"I ask you an academic question," he said, "and you give me an absolutely cradle-snatching answer. I maylookeasy, Miss Maud, but there are people who will protect me."
"The best time to propose to a girl? You really want to know? I thought you were just starting one of your jokes."
"If I am," said he, "the joke will be on me. But Ireallywant to know."
"The best moment," said she, "is that moment in which she learns that one of her friends or one of her sisters younger than she is engaged to bemarried. When an unengaged girl hears of another girl's engagement she has a momentary panic, during which she is helpless and defenseless. That is my best judgment, Mr. Sam Langham. And the older the girl the greater the panic. And now I've betrayed my sex. In fact, I have told you absolutely all that is definitely known about girls."
Just outside the office he met Gay.
"Halloo!" she said.
He only made signs at her and flapped his arms up and down.
"Theycan't talk," he said.
"Who can't talk?"
He held her with a stern glance, and if the word had been hissable, would have hissed it.
"Butterflies," he said.
Then Miss Gay turned the color of a scarlet maple in the fall of the year. Then she squealed and ran.
"Are we all here?" asked Mary.
She had summoned her sisters and Arthur to the office for a conference.
"All except Sam Langham," said Gay.
"I didn't know that he was one of the family," said Mary.
"Of course, youknow," said Gay; "you would.Iwas just guessing."
"Well, he isn't," said Mary, trying not to change color or to enjoy being teased about Mr. Langham.
The triplets sat in a row upon a bench made of little birch logs with the bark on. It was not soft sitting, as Lee whispered, but one had one's back to the light, and in case one had done something wrong without knowing it and was in for a scolding, that would prove an immense advantage.
"What I wanted to say," said Mary, "is just this——"
She stood up and looked rather more at the triplets than any one else, so that Lee exclaimed,"Votes for women," and Gay echoed her with, "Yes, but none for poor little girls in their teens."
"Hitherto," continued the orator, "The Inn has been only informally open. It's been more like having a few friends stopping with us. We had to see more or less of them. But after to-day there will be a crowd, and I think it would be more dignified and pleasanter for them ifsomeof us kept ourselves a little more to ourselves. What doyouthink, Arthur?"
Arthur looked up sweetly. It was evident that he had not been listening.
"Why, Mary," he said, "I think it might be managed with infinite patience."
The triplets giggled; Maud and Eve exchanged amused looks.
"Arthur," said Mary, "you can make one contribution to this discussion if you want to. You can tell us what you are really thinking about, so that we needn't waste time trying to guess."
"Why," said he gently, "you know I have quite a knack with animals, taming them and training them, and I was wondering if it would be possible to train a snail.That'swhat I was thinking about. I have a couple in my pocket at the moment, and——"
"Never mindnow," said Mary hurriedly, andshe turned to the triplets. "What doyouthink of what I said?"
"I think it was tortuous and involved," said Lee, "and that it would hardly bear repetition."
"It smacked of paternalism," said Gay. And even Phyllis, her mind upon the convalescing Herring, was moved to speak.
"You said it would be more dignified for some of us to keep to ourselves. Perhaps it would. You said it would be pleasanter for the people who are coming here to stay. I doubt it!"
"Bully for you, old girl," shouted Lee and Gay; "sick her!"
Mary moaned. She was proof against their hostilities, but the language in which they were couched pierced her to the marrow.
"I am sure," she said, "that Maud and Eve will agree with me."
"Of course," said Eve.
"Naturally," said Maud.
"There!" exclaimed Mary, with evident triumph.
"We agree," said Eve, "thatsomeof us should keep ourselves more to ourselves."
And she looked sternly at the triplets. But then she turned and looked sternly at Mary and rose to her feet.
"We think," she said with aj'accuseintonation, "that those who haven't kept themselves to themselves should, and that those who have—shouldn't. Maud and I, for instance, haven't the slightest objection to being fetched for and carried for by attractive young men. Have we, Maud? But hitherto, as must have been obvious to the veriest nincompoop, we have done our own fetching and carrying."
There was a short silence. Mary blushed. Arthur fidgeted. He was wondering if snails preferred the human voice or whistling.
"I'm quite sure," said Maud, "that I haven't been wandering over the hills with future earls, or lost in swamps with interesting invalids, or basked morning after morning in the sunny smile of a gourmet——"
Mary paled under this attack.
"Mr. Langham is altogether different," she said.
"Oh, quite!" cried Lee.
"Utterly, absolutely different!" cried Gay. "To begin with, he's richer; and to end with, he's fatter."
"I shouldn't have said 'fat,'" said Lee. "I should have said 'well-larded,' but then I am something of a stylist."
"Sam Langham," said Mary, "is everybody's friend. And he's an immense help in lots of ways; and then he has a certain definite interest in The Inn. Because, if we need it, he's going to lend us money to carry our accounts."
Gay whispered to Lee behind her hand. Lee giggled.
"What was that?" asked Mary sharply.
"Only a quotation."
"What quotation?"
"Oh, Gay just said something about 'Bought and Paid For.'"
Here Arthur interrupted.
"They're like snails," said he to Mary. "You can only train 'em with infinite patience."
Phyllis rose suddenly and became the cynosure of all eyes except her own, whose particular cynosure at the moment was the floor. She moved toward the door.
"Where are you off to?" asked Mary.
"I'm just going to speak to Chef."
"What about?"
"About some chicken broth."
"For yourself?"
The gentle Phyllis was being goaded beyond endurance. At the door she turned and lifted her great eyes to Mary's.
"No," she said bitterly; "it's for Arthur's snails."
There was a silence.
"If there's any voting," said Phyllis, "I give my proxy to Gay." And she vanished through the door.
"I'm sure," said Mary, "I don't know what the modern young girl is coming to!"
"I know wherethatone is going to," said Gay; "spilling the chicken broth in her unseemly haste."
Then Arthur spoke.
"The modern young girl," he said, "is coming to just where her grandmother came, and by the same road. Girls will be girls. So let's be thankful that the men who have come here so far have been—men. And hopeful that those who are to come will be also. I've lived too much with nature not to know what's natural—when I see it."
"Do you think," said Gay sweetly, "that it's natural for a man to eat as much as Sam Langham does?"
"As natural under the peculiar circumstances," said Arthur, "as it is for you to tease."
Lee rose.
"And you?" said Mary, smiling at last.
"Oh," said Lee witheringly, "I have an engagement to carve initials surrounded by a heart on a birch-tree."
And when Lee had gone Gay spoke up.
"I shouldn't wonder," said she, "if, by way of a blind, the baggage had told the truth."
"We should never have called it The Inn," said Mary; "we should have called it The Matrimonial Agency."
"Every pretty girl," said Arthur, "is a matrimonial agency."
At this moment Uncas, the chipmunk, rushed screaming into the room and flung himself into Arthur's lap. Arthur comforted the little beast, and noticed that his nose and face bore fresh evidences of a fight. Uncas complained very bitterly; he was evidently trying to talk.
"Is Stripes hurt?" asked Mary.
"It's his feelings," said Arthur. "He's been made a victim of misplaced confidence. Some young woman has been encouraging him."
"Poor little man!" said Gay with sudden emotion. "Did ums want some nice vasy on ums poor sick nose?"
"He would only lick it off," regretted Arthur.
Mr. Langham's jolly face appeared in the open door.
"I've seen two depart," he said, "and thought maybe the meeting was over."
"It is," said Mary, and, after a moment's hesitation, she boldly joined Mr. Langham and walked off by his side. Even Arthur chuckled.
"And what was the meeting about?" asked Mr. Langham.
"Oh," said Mary, "they won't be serious—not any of them—not even Arthur. So we forgot what the meeting was for, and got into violent discussion about—about natural history."
"And what side did you take?"
"Oh," said Mary, "we were all on the same side—really, and that was what made the discussion so violent."
"The day," said Langham, "is young. I feel ripe for an adventure. And you?"
"What sort of an adventure?"
"I thought that if one—or rather iftwoclimbed to the top of a very little hill and sat down in the sunshine and admired the view——"
Far out on the lake they could see Lee, lolling in the stern of a guide boat. Young Renier was at the oars. But the boat was not being propelled. It was merely drifting.
"I wonder," said Langham, and he watched her face stealthily, "if by any chance those two are really engaged?"
Was there the least hardening of that lovely, gentle face, the least fleeting expression of that sort of panic which one experiences when arriving at the station in time to see the train pull out but not too late to get aboard by the exercise of swift and energetic manœuvres?
"Don't say such things!" she said presently. "It's like jumping out from behind a tree and shouting, 'Boo!'"
Mr. Langham smiled complacently and changed the subject. But he said to himself: "That Maud is a clever girl!"
"I suppose," said Mary after a while, "that this is the last really peaceful day we'll have for a long time. To-morrow the place will be full of strange, critical faces. And it will be one long wrestle to make everything go smoothly all the time."
She sighed.
"There are only two ways to success," said Langham. "One is across the wrestling-mat, and one is through the pasture of old Bull Luck. But I'm convinced that The Inn is going to pay very handsomely. There is a fortune in it."
"There mightn't be," said Mary, "if—" and she broke into a peal of embarrassed laughter.
"If what?"
"I was thinking of thatdreadfulpicture."
"I often think of it," said Mr. Langham, "and of the first time I saw it."
Mary gave him a somewhat shy look.
"Of course it didn't influence you," she said.
"But it did. And that day I forgot to eat any lunch. I am looking forward," he said, "to warm weather—I enjoy a swim as much as anybody."
"Why is it," said Mary, "that a girl is ashamed when it is her money that attracts a man, and proud when it is her face? Both are equally fortuitous; both are assets in a way—but of the two, it is the money alone which is really useful."
"It sounds convincing to a girl," mused Mr. Langham, "when a man says to her: 'I love you because of your beautiful blue eyes!' But it wouldn't sound in the least convincing if he said: 'I love you because of your beautiful green money!' I don't attempt to explain this. I am merely stating what appears to me to be a fact. But, as you say, money is, or should be, an asset of attraction."
"I suppose beauty is held in greater esteem,"said Mary, "because it is more democratically bestowed. Money seems to beget hatred because it isn't."
"The French people," said Langham, "hated the nobility because of their wealth and luxury. To-day a common mechanic has more real luxuries at his disposal than poor Louis XVI had, but he hates the rich people who have more than he has—and so it will go on to the end of time."
"Will there always be rich people and poor people?"
"There will always be rich people, but some time they will learn to spend their money more beneficently, and then there won't be any really poor people. If the attic of your house were infected with dirt and vermin you couldn't sleep until it had been cleaned and disinfected. So, some day, rich men will feel about their neighbors; cities about their slums; and nations about other nations. I can imagine a future Uncle Sam saying to a future John Bull"—and he sunk his voice to a comically confidential whisper: "'Say, old man, I hear you're pressed for ready cash; now't just so happens I'm well fixed at the moment, and—oh, just among friends! Bother the interest!' What a spectacle this world is—it's like the old English schools that Dickens wrote outof existence—just bullying and hazing all around! Why, if a country was run on the most elementary principles of honesty and efficiency, the citizens of that country would never have occasion to say: 'Our taxes are almost unbearable.' They would be nudging each other in the streets and saying: 'My, that was a big dividend we got!'"
Mr. Langham only stopped because he was out of breath. His face was red and shining. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.
Mary was almost perfectly happy. She loved to hear Langham run on and on. His voice was so pleasant, and his face beamed so with kindness. And from many things which he had from time to time let slip she was convinced that she needn't be an old maid unless she wanted to be. And so to climb a little hill with him, to sit in the sun, and to admire the view was really an exciting venture. For she never knew what he was going to let slip next. And equally exciting was the fact that if that slip should be in the nature of a leading question, she could only guess what her answer would be.
When a man is offered something that he very much wants—a trifling loan, for instance—his first instinct is to deny the need. And a girl, when the man she wants offers himself, usually refusesat the first time of asking. And some, especially rich in girl nature, which is experience of human nature and somewhat short of divine, will persist in refusing even unto the twentieth and thirtieth time.
Mary Darling was in a deep reverie. From this, his eyes twinkling behind their thick glasses, Mr. Langham roused her with the brisk utterance of one of his favorite quotations:
"'General Blank's compliments,'" said he, "'and he reports that the colored troops are turning black in the face.'"
Mary smiled her friendliest smile.
"I was wondering," she said, "what had become of Lee and Renier."
"I have noted," said Mr. Langham, "that she always calls him by his last name, sometimes with the prefix you—'You Renier' put like that. And I was wondering if he ever turns the trick on her."
"Why should he?" asked Mary innocently.
"You have forgotten," said he, "that her last name is Darling." His eyes twinkled with amazing and playful boldness. "You'reallDarlings," he exclaimed, "and"—a note of self-pity in his voice—"I'm just a fat old stuff!"
"That," said Mary primly, "is perfectly correct,but for three trifling errors—you're not fat, you're not old, and you're not a stuff!"
If she had told him that he was handsome as Apollo he could not have been more pleased.
And so their adventure progressed in the pleasant sunlight that warmed the top of the little hill. No very exciting adventure, you say? And of a shilly-shallying and even snail-like motion?
Oh, you can't be always riding to rescues, and falling over cliffs, and escaping from burning houses.
At that moment, by the purest accident, the tip of Mr. Langham's right forefinger just brushed against Mary's sleeve. And there went through him from head to foot a great thrill, as if trumpets had suddenly sounded.
"I suppose," said Mary, after a little while, "that we ought to be going."
"But I'd rather sit here than eat," said Mr. Langham.
"Honestly? So would I."
"Then," said Mr. Langham, "without exposing ourselves to any other danger than that of starvation, I propose that we lose ourselves—asother people do—in short, that we remain here until one or other of us would rather—eat."
"Good gracious," said Mary, "we might be here a week!"
Mr. Langham rose slowly to his feet. Far off he could see pale smoke flitting upward through the tree-tops. He turned and looked into Miss Darling's smiling, upturned face.
"I'll just run down and tell Arthur we're notreallylost," he said. "But I'll make him promise not to look for us. I'll be right back—almost before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"
She held out her hands. He took them and helped her to her feet. And then they both laughed aloud.
"Thank Heaven," said Mary, "that whatever else you and I may suffer from, it isn't from insanity—or slim appetites! As a matter of fact, I'm famished."
"Thank God!" said Mr. Langham; "so am I."
And they began to descend the hill. For to keep men and women and adventurers going, the essential thing is food. And there's many a promising romance that has come to nothing for want of a loaf of bread and a jug of wine.
In a certain part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice, Colonel Melville Meredith stood beside the charred foundations of a house and nursed his chin with his hand. With the exception of a sword which the King of Greece had given him, all those possessions which he had considered of value had gone up in smoke with the house of his ancestors. The family portraits were gone, the silver Lamarie, and Lesage, and all the Domingan satinwood. If Colonel Meredith had been an older man, he must almost have wept. But the grip upon his chin was not of one mourning. It was the grip of consideration. He was wondering what sort of a new house he should build upon the foundations of the old.
He must, of course, build upon the old site. There were other good sites among his thousands of acres, but none which was so well planted. A good architect could copy the Taj Mahal for you. But the Pemaque oak is one hundred and seven feet, or less, in circumference, and the avenue of oaks leading from the turnpike, two miles away,was planted in 1653. There were also divers jungles of rhododendrons, laurel, and azalea in the river garden that it had taken no less than a great-grandmother to plant.
"It can't be the first conflagration in the family," he thought. "Everybody's ancestors, at one time or another, must have lost by fire and built again. As for Pemaque—itwasa lovely old house, but a new house could be just as lovely, and it could have bathrooms and be made rat-proof. And I wouldn't mind if people scratched the floors."
I have said that Colonel Meredith had lost all the possessions which he valued. But of course the land remained, the trees, the duck ponds, the alligator sloughs, and so forth. There remained, also, a robust youth, crowded with experiences and memories of wars and statesmen and of delightful people who live for pleasure. There remained, also—least valuable of all to a man of action and sentiment—a perfectly safe income, derived from bonds, of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Colonel Meredith was by all odds the richest man in that part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice.
It was piping hot among the foundations ofthe old house; the sticky, ticky season had descended upon the Carolina seacoast. The snakes and the lizards were saying among themselves, "Now this is really something like," and were behaving accordingly. Every few minutes a new and ambitious generation of mosquitoes was hatched. The magnolias were going to seed. Colonel Meredith's Gordon setter, a determined expression upon his face, had been scratching himself with almost supercanine speed for the last twenty minutes.
Colonel Meredith scorned ticks, trod with indifference upon snakes, and was not poisoned or even pained by mosquitoes, but he had travelled all over the world and was not averse to being cooler and more comfortable.
"We've got the grandest climate in the world," he thought loyally, "for eight months in the year—but when it comes to summer give me Vera Cruz, Singapore, or even hell. I'll build a home for autumn, winter, and spring, but when it gets to be summer, I'll go away and shoot polar bears."
He whistled his dog and walked thoughtfully to where his automobile was waiting in the shade. His driver, an Irish boy from New York, was in a state of wilt.
"I have determined," said Colonel Meredith,"not to begin building until cool weather. We shall go North to-night. I hope the thought will refresh you. Now we will go back to Mr. Jonstone's. Do you feel able to drive, or shall I?"
It was typical of the region that the Mr. Jonstone with whom Meredith was stopping should own the best bed of mint south of Washington, and could make the best mint-juleps. The mint-bed was about all he did own. Everything else was heavily mortgaged. Everything, that is, except the family silver and jewels. These Jonstone's grandmother had buried when Sherman came marching through, and had almost immediately forgotten where she had buried them. Jonstone employed one trustworthy negro whose year-around business was to dig for the treasure. There existed a list of the objects buried, which was enough to make even a rich man's palm itch.
"Nothing to-day," said Jonstone as his guest drove up. "And it's about time for a julep."
"I'm going North to-night," said Meredith, "and you're going with me."
They were cousins, second or third, of about the same age. They even looked alike, but whereas Meredith had travelled all over the world, Jonstone had never been south of Savannah or north of Washington.
He began with an ivory toddy-stick to convert sugar and Bourbon into sirup.
"How's that, Mel?" he asked. "And why?"
"Between us two, Bob," said Meredith, "this is one hell of a climate in summer. The brighter we are the quicker we'll get out of it."
"I'd like to go you on that, but aside from the family silver I haven't a penny in the world."
"Bob, I'm sick of offering to lend you money. I'm sick of offering to give you money. There's only one chance left."
Jonstone made a gentle clashing sound with fine ice.
"As you know, my family silver has all gone up in smoke. Now yours hasn't. Suppose you sell me yours. What's it worth?"
"With or without the diamonds?"
"If I should ever marry, it would be advisable to have the diamonds."
"Well," said Jonstone, beginning to turn over a bundle of straws, with the object of selecting four which should be flawless, "I don't want to stick you. We have a complete list of the pieces, with their weights and dates. Some of the New York dealers could tell us what the collection would be worth in the open market. Double that sum in the name of sentiment, and I'll go you."
"I must have a free hand to hunt for the stuff in my own way— It's perfection—you never, never made a better one—now, how about the diamonds?"
"I have the weights. And you know the Jonstones were always particular about water."
"That's why they are all dead but you. Then you'll come?"
Bob Jonstone nodded.
"You'll have to lend me a suit of clothes—but, look here, Mel: suppose the silver and stuff has been lifted—doesn't exist any more? Wouldn't I, in selling it to you, be guilty of sharp practice?"
"Our great-great-grandfather, the Signer, doesn't exist any more, Bob. That silver is somewhere—in some form or other. I pay for it, and it's mine. Does it matter if I never see it or handle it? I shall always be able to allude to it—isn't that enough? As for you, you'll be able to pay all your mortgages, to fix the front door so's it won't have to be kept shut with a keg of nails, and to spend what is necessary on your fields."
"Of course," said Jonstone, who had finished his julep. "It afflicts me to part with what has been in the family so long."
"But you ought to be afflicted."
"Why?"
"Didn't you vote for Wilson?"
Jonstone nodded solemnly.
"Come, then," said Meredith, as if he were pardoning an erring child; "there's just time for one julep and to pack up our things. You'll just love New York. And when we get there we'll make up our minds whether we'll go to Newport or Bar Harbor. Bob, did it ever occur to you that you and I ought to get married? That looks as if it was going to be better than the other, though darker— What's the use of having ancestors if you're not going to be one?"
"Show me a girl as handsome as Sully's portrait of Great-grandmother Pringle, and I'll take notice."
"Why, every other girl in a Broadway chorus has got the old lady skinned to death, Bob!"
"You may be worldly-wiser than me, Mel, but you've lost your reverence. It's always been agreed in the family that Great-grandmother Pringle was the most beautiful woman in the South. And when a man says 'the South,' and refers at the same time to female charms, he has as good as said the whole world."
"Bob, among ourselves, do you really thinkJefferson Davis was a greater man than Abraham Lincoln?"
"Ssssh!" said Jonstone.
"Do you really think the Southern armies wiped up the map with the Northern armies every time they met? And do you really think that wooden-faced doll that Sully painted has no equal for beauty north of the Mason and Dixon line? What you need is travel and experience."
"What's the matter withyougetting married?—My God, don't spill that, Mel!"
"There's nothing the matter with it. And I'll tell you what I'll do: I will if you will."
"They ought to be sisters, seeing as how you and I have always been like brothers and voted the Democratic ticket and fought chickens."
"And fed the same ticks and mosquitoes."
"We'll have a double wedding. We'll each be the other's best man, and they'll each be the other's best girl."
"No—no; they are each to be our best girls."
"What I mean is——"
"I know what you mean, but you've made this julep too strong."
"That'sonething they can't do in the North."
"What's that?"
"Make a julep."
Meredith considered this at some length. "No, Bob," he said at length, "they can't. But I once met a statesman from Maine who made a thing that looked like a julep, tasted like a julep, and that—I'd say it if it was my dying statement—had the same effect."
"She must be better-looking than Great-grandmother Pringle," said Jonstone. "She must be able to make a julep, and she must have a sister just like her. Can you lend me a suit of clothes till we get to New York?"
"I can lend you anything from a yachting suit to a Bulgarian uniform."
"And you're sure I'm not imposing on you in the matter of the silver?"
"Sure. I just want to know it's mine."
In the morning, soon after this precious pair had breakfasted, a boy went through the train with newspapers and magazines. He proclaimed in the sweetest Virginian voice that his magazines were just out, but a copy ofThe Four Seasonswhich Colonel Meredith bought proved not only to be of an ancient date but to have had coffee spilled upon it.
At the moment when this discovery was made, the youthful paper-monger had just swung fromthe crawling train to the platform of a way station, so there was no redress. The cousins agreed, laughing, that if a Yankee had played them such a trick they would have wished to cut his heart out, but that, turned upon them by a fellow countryman, it was merely a proof of smartness and push.
"Between you and me, Bob," said Colonel Meredith, "an accurate count of our Southern population would proclaim a villain or two here and there. I was brought up to believe that to be born in a certain region was all that was necessary. But that's not so. I tell you this because I am afraid that when you are meeting people in New York and having a good time you will be wanting to lay down the law, to wit, that one Southerner can whip five Yankees. Don't do it. I will tell you a horrid truth. I was once whipped by a small-sized Frenchman within an inch of my life. He had studiedle boxeunder Carpentier and I hadn't. Did you ever studyle boxe? No? An Anglo-Saxon imagines that he was born boxing. And it takes a licking by a man of Latin blood to prove to him that he wasn't. Just because people make funny noises and monkey cries when they fight doesn't prove that they are afraid. There is nothing so ridiculous as ababoon going into action and nothing more terrible when he gets there."
"The more you travel, Mel, the more you show a deplorable tendency to foul your own nest."
"Irun down the South? I like that! But, my dear Bob, there is only one chosen people. And it isn't us." Here he made a significant gesture with his hands, turning the palms up, and they both laughed. "A Jew," he went on, "is what he is because he is a Jew. His good points and his bad are racial. But between two men of our race there is no material resemblance. One is mean, the other generous; one broad, one narrow; one brave, the other not. Do you know why hornless cows give less milk than horned cows? Because there are fewer of them. Do you know why there are more honest men in the North, and pretty girls, than there are in the South? Simply because there are more men and more girls. It also follows that there are more dishonest men and ugly girls; more of everything, in fact."
He was slowly turning over the pages ofThe Four Seasons, looking always, with Pemaque in mind, at pictures of country houses. Suddenly he closed the magazine, looked pensively out ofthe window, and began to whistle with piercing sweetness. He once more opened the magazine, but this time with great caution as if he was half afraid that something disagreeable would jump out at him. Nothing did, however. He folded the magazine back upon itself and held it close to his eyes, then far off, then at mid-distance.
"What's the matter with you?" said Bob Jonstone.
"Nothing," said Meredith, "only I'm thinking there ought to be six of us instead of only two. Look at that page and tell me where we're going to spend the summer."
Jonstone took the magazine and saw the six Darling sisters sitting on the float in their bathing-dresses. Presently he smiled and said: "You've just won an argument, Mel."
"How's that?"
"Why, in the South there wouldn't be so many of them—but maybe they are not always there. Maybe they were only there last summer."
"Well, we can find out where they've gone, can't we?"
"It doesn't seem in strict good breeding to pursue ladies one doesn't know."
"Why, bless you, I chased all over Europeafter a face I saw inThe Sketch, only to find out that she was willing to marry anybody with money and had a voice like a guinea-hen. And after I'd found that out, she chasedmeall over Europe and as far East as Cairo."
"I've never been chased by a woman," said Jonstone a little wistfully. "What happened in the end?"
"I left Cairo between two days, fled away into the desert with some people just stepped out of the Bible, and never came back."
"Suppose she hadn't been willing to marry you and had had a voice like a dove?"
"Don't suppose. We are on a new quest."
"What is the Adirondacks?"
"We wouldn't think much of it in the South. It's a place where you are always cool and clean and can drink the nearest water. The trout don't eat mud and haven't got long white whiskers, and the deer are bigger than dogs, and you don't go to sleep at night. The night just comes and puts you to sleep. It's just like Bar Harbor—only a little more so in some ways and a little less so in others."
Jonstone spreadThe Four Seasonswide open upon his knees.
"Let's agree right now," he said, "which eachof us thinks is the prettiest. It would be dreadful after travelling so far if we were both to pick on the same one."
"We would have to fight a duel," said Meredith, "with swords, and considering that you could never even sharpen a pencil without cutting yourself——"
"A boy wouldn't come along," said Jonstone, "and sell us a copy of a magazine months old if fate hadn't meant us to see this picture. I think I like the third one from the end."
"I think I like the three that look just alike."
"That is because you have travelled in Turkey. You never seem to remember that you are a Christian gentleman."
When they found out how much the buried silver was worth—the inventory was very thorough in the matter of description, dates, and weights—Mr. Bob Jonstone burst out laughing. But Colonel Meredith, although determined to stand by his bargain whatever the cash cost, looked like a man who has just missed the last train.
"I haven't got that much money loose, Bob," he said, "but I can raise it in a few days and then we'll execute a bill of sale. Meanwhile, allow me to congratulate you on your accession to the aristocracy."
"Aristocracy? It's blood that counts—not money."
"According to the old democracy, yes. According to the new, distinguished people pay an income tax and common people don't. And you, a moment ago, before the valuation was completed, were a very common fellow, indeed."
"Mel, I had no idea that old junk was worth so much."
"You hadn't? Well, it's worth more. I'm getting a bargain. Thank the Lord you're a gentleman, so there's no danger of your backing out."
Jonstone seized his cousin's hand and pressed it affectionately.
"Mel," he said, "can you afford to do this thing? God knows the money will make all the difference in the world to me! But in taking it I don't feel any too noble."
"It was always ridiculous for me to be rich and for you to be poor. That's done with. I'm still rich, thank God!—and you're well-to-do. You can travel if you like, breed horses, install plumbing, burn coal, and marry."
"If I was sure that the silver would ever be turned up, I wouldn't feel so sheepish."
"As long as you don't look sheepish or act sheepish—suppose that now, after a slight fortification, we visit a tailor. It is necessary for you to dress according to your station in life."
Their first day in New York was immensely amusing to both of them. Meredith was coming back to it after a long absence; Jonstone was seeing it for the first time, and for the first time his pockets were full of money that he did not owe. Now, New York is one of the finest summer resortsin the world. Do not pity the poor business man who sends his family to the mountains for the hot weather, for while they are burned by the sun and fed an interminable succession of blueberry pies, he basks in the cool of electric fans and dines on the fat of the land. His business may worry him, but there is no earthly use in his attending to it. That is done for him. He can skip away when he pleases for an afternoon's golf or tennis. Somebody's motor is always going somewhere where there is pleasure to be found and laughter. The lights of Luna Park are brighter than the Bar Harbor stars, and the ocean which pounds upon Long Beach is just as salt as that which thunders against Great Head—and about twice as warm. For pure torture give me a swim anywhere north of Cape Cod. Merely to step into such water is like having one's foot bitten off by a shark.
It did not take Jonstone long to acknowledge that New York is even bigger than Richmond, Virginia, and even livelier. The discovery of a superannuated mosquito in his bathroom had made him feel at home, and the fact that the head bartender in the hotel, though a native of Ireland, fashioned a delicious julep.
But his equanimity came very near to beingupset in the subway. He felt a hand slipping into his pocket and caught it by the wrist. He had a grip like looped wire twisted with pinchers. The would-be thief uttered a startled shriek and was presently turned over to a policeman.
All the way to the station-house Mr. Jonstone talked excitedly and triumphantly to his cousin.
"Yes, sir," he said, "you had me groggy with your high buildings and your Aladdin-cave stores and your taxicabs and park systems. But by the Everlasting, sir, this would never have happened to me south of the Mason and Dixon line. No, sir; we may be short on show but we're long on honesty down there. I don't even have to lock my door at night."
"That's because the lock's broken and you've always kept it shut with a keg of nails. There are more pickpockets in New York than in Charleston, but only because there are more pockets to pick."
"I don't get you," said Jonstone stiffly. A little later he did.
The culprit was asked his name by a formidable desk sergeant.
"Stephen Breckenridge."
Bob Jonstone gasped.
"Where do you come from?"
"Lexington, Kentucky."
Colonel Meredith let forth a howl of laughter. And after he had been frowned into decorum by the sergeant, he continued for a long time to look as if he was going to burst.
For some hours Mr. Jonstone was moody and unamused. Then suddenly he broke into a winning smile.
"Mel," he said, "I wouldn't have minded so much if he had been smart enough to get my money. It was bad finding out that he was a compatriot of ours, but much more to realize that he was a fool."
Mr. Langham was consulted about everything. And it was to him that Maud Darling took Meredith's letter asking for accommodations.
"We've only two rooms left," she said, "and such nice people have come, or are coming, that it would be an awful pity if we had the bad luck to fill up with two men that weren't nice. Did you ever hear of a Colonel Meredith?"
"Is that his letter? May I look?"
Mr. Langham read the letter through very carefully. Then he said, looking at her over the tops of his thick glasses:
"I don't know if you know it, but I have made quite a study of handwritings. The writer of this letter is a gentleman—a Southern gentleman, if I am not mistaken. Accepting this premise, we may assume that his friend Mr. Robert Middleton Jonstone is also a Southern gentleman. Middleton, in fact, is pure South Carolinian."
"But if they are from South Carolina, wouldn'tour terms stagger them? I've always understood that Southern gentlemen lost all their money in the war."
"Nevertheless," said Mr. Langham, "this is the writing of a rich man."
"Howcanyou know that?"
"I tell you that I have made a study of handwriting. It is also the writing of a horse-loving, war-loving, much-travelled man—in the late twenties."
"You will tell me next that he is about five feet ten inches tall, has blue eyes, and is handsome as an angel."
"You take the words out of my mouth, Miss Maud."
"Tell me more." She was laughing now.
"He is very handsome, but not as angels are—his eyes are too bold and roving. If he wasn't a good man he would be a very bad man. There was a time, even, when strong drink appealed to him. He is quixotically brave and generous. And I should by all means advise you to let him have his accommodations."
"I can never tell when you are joking."
"I was never more serious in my life. Shall I tell you something else that I have deduced?"
"Please."
"Well, then, he isn't married, Miss Maud, and he is a great catch!"
Miss Maud blushed a trifle.
"I don't know if you know it," she said, "but I have made a profound study of palmistry. Will you lend me your hand a moment?"
"Very willingly. And I don't care if some one were to see us."
She studied his palm with great sternness.
"I read here," she said, "with regret, that you are an outrageous flirt. It seems also that you are something of a fraud."
"One more calumny," exclaimed Mr. Langham, "and I withdraw my hand with a gesture of supreme indignation."
But she held him very tightly by the fingers.
"And this little line," she cried, "tells me that you have known Colonel Meredith intimately for years and that you never studied handwriting in all your born days."
Mr. Langham began to chuckle all over.
"The next time," he said, "that people tell me you are easily imposed on, I shall deny it."
"Youdoknow him?"
He blinked and nodded like a wise owl.
"Shall I write or telegraph?"
"You will use your own judgment."
So she did both. She wrote out a telegram and sent it to Carrytown in theStreak. And she tried to picture in her mind a young man who should look like an angel if his eyes weren't too bold and roving.
Her sisters and her brother all proclaimed that Maud was a really sensible person. But none of them knew how really sensible she was.
She was, for instance, more interested in Colonel Meredith than in his cousin Mr. Jonstone, and for the simple reason that she knew the one to be rich and handsome and knew nothing whatever about the other.