_ I
The car crossed to the Avenue and bore north. Archie was again left high in air. He had expected to be piloted by circuitous routes to some vile thieves' den in the intricate mazes of the East Side, but the car and the smartly appareled men encouraged the hope of a very different destination. The Governor, evidently enjoying his companion's befuddlement, talked of the changes that had taken place in the upper city in his memory. His reminiscences did not interest Archie greatly. He thought it likely the Governor was uttering commonplaces for the benefit of the men on the box, who could easily hear their passengers' conversation through the partition windows. The car passed two clubs in which Archie was a member in good standing and he caught a fleeting glimpse down an intersecting thoroughfare of the apartment house in which he was a tenant with a recurrence of the disagreeable questionings he had experienced so frequently as to whether he was himself or some other and very different person.
The Governor had not warned him to avoid marking the route, which was as familiar to Archie as the palm of his hand, but somewhere in the Seventies he did for a moment lose track of the streets, and the car, swinging east, stopped midway of a block of handsome residences. There was still the chance that this was all by-play, a trick for concealing their arrival in town; but the footman was already ringing the bell of a house whose facade was the most distinguished in sight. The door was opened by a manservant, whose face expressed pleasure as the Governor passed him with all the airs of incontestable proprietorship.
"I think we may as well go at once to our rooms," he said. "You understand, Baring, that we dine at seven-thirty--places for three?"
"Very good, sir: I received your telegram."
Amid the various phases of surprise through which he had passed since reaching the station Archie had kept his ears open, thinking the servants would address their employer by a name, but no such clue was forthcoming. The house exhaled an atmosphere of luxury and taste, and the furnishings were rich and consistently chosen. Archie recalled twenty houses in which he was frequently a guest that in nowise approached the Governor's establishment for comfort and charm. If he had been puzzled before he was stupefied now. The enormous effrontery of the thing overwhelmed him. He knew the general neighborhood too well not to be sure that it was not a region where a housebreaker of even the most exalted rank could live unchallenged. To be sure this was summer, and most of the houses along the street were boarded up; but the Governor would certainly not be invading in broad daylight premises to which he had no claim, and the retinue of trained and decorous servants disposed effectually of any such speculations.
On the second floor the Governor lingered in the drawing-room to call his guest's attention to some pictures, contemporary American work, which Archie recognized instantly. Indeed he knew several of the painters very well.
"We must encourage our own artists," remarked the Governor. "It's the only way we shall ever develop an American art."
Continuing up another flight (there was an elevator, the Governor explained, but he preferred the stairs) Archie surveyed approvingly a lounging room, half library and half office.
"If you have a taste for old leather there's stuff here that will please you. No rubbish, you see; a man's room, a little quaint as to furniture, and the telephone and electric fan are the only anachronisms, a concession to the spirit of modern life. Here I have worked out some most abstruse problems in astrology. A capital place to ponder the mysteries. If anything on that tray interests you, help yourself."
Archie tottered toward the stand on which decanters, syphons, and a silver bowl of ice had been placed. He helped himself generously to Scotch; the Governor contented himself with a glass of mineral water--he never took anything else, he explained.
"Odd, but I've never used the stuff at all. Bless you, no fanatical notions on the subject! If you don't see what you like there just press a button and it will probably be found for you. And now, my dear Archie"--he closed the door and turned on the fan--"you are my guest, in every sense my guest. You wouldn't be human if you didn't wonder about me rather more than at any time since we first met; you had not the slightest idea that I should bring you to so decent a shack as this. It may have occurred to you that I may be an interloper here, but such is not the case. I own this house and the ground it stands on and everything in it. You are, of course, not a prisoner; not in any sense, and there's a telephone in your room--you shall see in a moment--by which you can talk to all the world quite freely,--no restrictions whatsoever.
"My name is not Saulsbury, of course, but something quite different. The servants in this house do not know my true name. They might, of course, work it out, for I pay taxes here, and my family history is spread in the public records, but the people you see about here are trained to curb their curiosity; I trust them just as I trust you. They are all from under the crust,--the man who met us at the station is a daring housebreaker; the chauffeur a second-story man, the only one I ever knew who had the slightest judgment; the butler is a hotel thief, and a shrewd operator until he got too corpulent for transom work. Down to the scullery maid, who was a clever shoplifter, all the servants are crooks I've picked up and installed here until they can do what Leary's doing, invest their ill-gotten gains in some legitimate business. When Baring offers you the asparagus or serves your coffee you may derive a thrill from the knowledge that the man at your elbow has enough rewards hanging over him to make any one rich who can telephone his whereabouts to police headquarters in any town in America. As all branches of the profession are represented here my retainers repay my hospitality by keeping me in touch with their comrades everywhere."
Archie wiped the perspiration from his face and groped for the decanter.
"You're not afraid--not afraid of
them!"
"Ingratitude, my dear Archie, is reserved for the highbrow moralist; I trust these people with my life and liberty, and they know I'll not only protect them but that my facilities for shielding them and assisting in the liquidation of their loot is theirs to command. While they are here their lives are wholly circumspect, though they are not without their temptations. With a place like this to operate from they could raid this whole block and back vans up to my door and cart it away. Officious caretakers and hidden wires connected with detective agencies would only stimulate their wits. But nothing doing, Archie! A policeman on this beat suggested to Baring, over a bottle of beer in the basement, the lifting of plate in a house round the corner, but what did Baring do but show the fellow the door! And yet Baring has stolen thousands of dollars' worth of stuff of all kinds and has it well planted waiting for me to turn it into cash. By the way, you saw the chap who brought in the tray? You probably noticed his melancholy air? I had just told him of Hoky's death and he's all broken up. He and Hoky ranged the Missouri River towns a few years ago and the police out there are still trying to explain their plunderings."
"I suppose, I suppose," Archie timidly ventured, "you've told them about
me?"
"Not a word! They'd be jealous: wouldn't understand how I made you a guest when all the rest of 'em have to work for a living. You will act exactly as though you were a visitor in the house of an old friend. And now I must go through this mail--I've got a chap who collects my stuff from some of the unofficial post-offices up-state and here it is all ready for inspection. The first room to the right is yours.
"A few pretty good pastels stuck around here," he continued, opening a door. "That 'Moonrise on the Grand Lagoon' is rather well done. Everything seems to be in order; if you want your clothes pressed poke the button twice."
Archie snapped his fingers impatiently. When he went to Washington to say good-by to his sister he had ordered a trunk packed with the major portion of his wardrobe and held for orders. How to possess himself of the trunk without disclosing his presence in town to the valet of the Dowden Apartments was beyond his powers.
"If you have something tucked away that you'd like to get hold of--" suggested the Governor with one of his intuitive flashes.
"It's a trunk at my--er--lodgings. A man who works there packed it for me--"
"Why don't you come out with it and say that the syndicate valet in one of these palatial bachelor chambers somewhere uptown packed it for you? I can tell a man who's been valeted as far as my eyes will reach. Now I have no curiosity whatever about your personal identity or affairs of any sort, as I've told you before. I'll ring for my own valet, who was an honest tailor before he became a successful second-story worker, and you may confide your predicament to him. He'll ride home on the trunk. There was never yet a valet who wouldn't steal the trousers off a bronze statue, and I'll lift the ban on crooked work here long enough for Timmons to call at your lodgings and either by violence or corruption secure your trunk. No! Not a cent. Remember that you are my guest."
The trunk was in Archie's room in just one hour. Timmons, who had received his instructions without the slightest emotion, gravely unpacked it.
"You've got to admit the service in this house is excellent. If you don't mind we'll dress for dinner," remarked the Governor lounging in the doorway. "I forgot to say that there's a lady dining with us--"
"A lady!" demanded Archie with a frown. He had assumed, when the Governor reminded Baring that dinner was to be served for three, that he was to be introduced to some prominent member of what the Governor was fond of calling the great fraternity. But the threatened projection of a woman into the household struck Archie unfavorably. The Governor's tale of his love affair with a bishop's daughter he had discounted heavily; it was hardly possible that any respectable woman would dine in the house. The Governor, with his usual quick perception, noted his companion's displeasure.
"Your qualms and your concern for the proprieties are creditable to your up-bringing. But how ungenerous of you to suspect me of wishing to mix you up with anything even remotely bordering upon an intrigue, a vulgar liaison! One thing I am not, my boy; one thing I may, with a degree of assurance, say for myself, and that is that with all my sins I am not vulgar!"
"Of course I didn't mean that," said Archie clumsily, knowing that this was exactly what he had meant. "But I thought you might be--er--more comfortable if I didn't appear."
"The suspicion had sunk deep! But once more I shall forgive you. Your presence will help me tide over a difficult situation. I am not only showing you once more the depth of my confidence and trust but, more than that, I pay you the compliment of asking your assistance. You bear yourself so like a gentleman that your presence at my table can hardly fail to reassure the lady and contribute to her own ease and peace of mind. And without you we might quarrel horribly. You will act as a buffer, a restraining influence; your charming manners will mitigate the violence of her resentment against me. The lady--"
Archie waited for what further he might have to say about the lady. The Governor had grown suddenly grave. He crossed the room, stared at the floor for a moment, and then said from the door:
"The lady, my dear boy, is my sister."
II
The Governor maintained so evenly his mood of irresponsible insouciance that the soberness with which he announced that it was his sister who was to join them at dinner sent Archie's thoughts darting away at a new tangent of speculation. He had so accommodated himself to the idea that the Governor was a man without ties, or with all his ties broken, that this intimation that he had a sister who was still on friendly enough terms with him to visit his house--an establishment which with all its conventionalities of comfort and luxury was dominated by a note of mystery--left Archie floundering. As the man himself had said, it would not be so difficult a matter to penetrate the secret of his identity. Archie knew several men in town who were veritable encyclopedias of the scandal of three generations, and if the scion of some old New York house had gone astray these gentlemen could furnish all the essential data. But he had given his word and he had no intention of prying into his friend's affairs. However, the sister might let fall some clue, and as he dressed he tried to imagine just what sort of woman the Governor's sister would prove to be.
"Julia is usually very prompt but she is motoring from Southampton and we must allow her the usual margin," the Governor remarked when they met in the drawing-room. Traces of the same nervousness he had manifested in announcing that it was his sister who was coming to dine with them were still visible.
The clock had struck the three-quarters when they heard the annunciator tinkle followed by the opening of the front door. The Governor left the room with a bound and Archie heard distinctly his hearty greetings and a woman's subdued replies.
"I'm sorry to be late, but we had to change a tire. No, I'll leave my wraps here."
"Won't you be more comfortable without your hat?"
"No, I'll keep it; thanks!"
The door framed for a moment a young woman who in her instant's pause on the threshold seemed like a portrait figure suddenly come to life. She was taller than the Governor and carried herself with a suggestion of his authoritative bearing. Her face was a feminized version of the Governor's, exquisitely modeled and illuminated by dark eyes that swept Archie with a hasty inquiry from under the brim of a black picture hat. She might have been younger or older than the Governor, but her maturity was not an affair of years. She was a person of distinction, a woman to challenge attention in any company. Archie was not sure whether she had been warned of a stranger's presence in the house, but if she was surprised to find him there she made no sign.
As Archie advanced to meet them he moved slowly, and unconsciously drew himself up, as though preparing to meet a personage who compelled homage and was not to be approached without a degree of ceremony. She was entirely in black save for the roses in her hat. She might have retained the hat, he thought, for the sake of its shadow on her face; or from a sense that it emphasized the formal and transitory nature of her visit.
"Julia, this is my friend, Mr. Comly."
Her "very glad, I'm sure," was uttered with reservations, but she smiled, a quick sad little smile.
The Governor had introduced her as Julia, carelessly, as though of course Archie knew the rest of it. The whole business was as utterly unreal as anything could be. The Governor asked perfunctorily about her drive into town, and whether it had been hot in the country. Dinner was announced immediately and they sat down at a round table whose centerpiece of sweet peas brought a coolness into the room.
The dinner was served with a deliberation befitting the end of a summer day. Julia was the most tranquil of the trio and it was in Archie's mind that she was capable of dominating even more difficult situations. She was studying him--he was conscious of that--and it was clear that she was not finding it easy to appraise and place him. The Governor had given him no hint of the possible trend of the table talk but the woman took the matter into her own hands. As though by prearrangement she touched upon wholly impersonal matters, recent movements in European affairs, a new novel, the industrial situation; things that could be broached without fear of embarrassment were picked up and flung aside when they had served their purpose. The Governor was often inattentive, the most uncomfortable member of the trio. It seemed to Archie as he met a puzzled look in Julia's eyes from time to time that she was still trying to account for him, and her manner he thought slowly changed. Her first defensive hostility yielded to something much more amiable. It was as though she had reached a decision not wholly unflattering and might be a little sorry for her earlier attitude.
The Governor roused himself presently at the mention of a new book of verse she had praised, and threw himself into the talk thereafter with characteristic spirit and humor.
"Mr. Comly shares my affection for the poets. He has been a great resource to me, Julia. I'm sure you'd be grateful to him if you knew the extent of his kindnesses. A new friend, but it's not always the old ones, you know--"
"My brother is hard to please," said Julia. "You score high in meeting his exacting requirements."
A slight smile dulled the irony of this, but the Governor, evidently concerned for the maintenance of amity, introduced the art of the Aztecs, to which he brought his usual enthusiasm.
The Aztecs carried them back to the drawing-room, where Archie, feeling that the Governor and his sister probably had personal affairs to talk about, lounged toward the door; but the Governor was quick to detect his purpose.
"Julia, if you brought those documents with you I'll take them up to my room and look them over. It's only a matter of my signature, isn't it? You and Mr. Comly can give the final twist to prehistoric art. I'll be down at once."
"Very well; you will find them in my bag in the hall. I must start home very soon, you know."
"I had hoped you would spend the night here," said the Governor; "but if you won't I'm grateful even for this little glimpse."
If Julia was displeased by the Governor's very evident intention not to be left alone with her she was at pains to conceal the feeling. Archie turned toward her inquiringly, but he met a look of acquiescence that carried also an appeal as though she wished him not to interfere.
The Governor left the room and reappeared with a small satchel, took out several bundles of legal papers and glanced at their superscriptions.
"Those are chiefly deeds and leases," Julia remarked carelessly. "They're all ready to be signed by the trustees. There are forms for our approval attached to all of them and you'll find that I've signed."
The Governor shrugged his shoulders as though business matters were not to his taste and in a moment they heard his quick step on the stair.
The novelty of the situation that left Archie alone with a woman whose very name he did not know was enhanced by the sumptuousness of the background furnished by the house itself. It was the oddest possible place for such an adventure. Julia sat with one arm flung along the back of a low chair. She fell naturally into poses that suggested portraits; there were painters who would have jumped at the chance of sketching her as she sat there with the spot of red in the big hat and the shadowed face and the white of her throat and arms relieving the long black line.
"It is no doubt clear to you," she remarked without altering her position and with no lowering of the habitual tone of her speech, "that my brother prefers not to be alone with me."
"I rather surmised that," Archie replied with an ease he did not feel. She might ask questions; it might be that she would cross-examine him as to the Governor's recent movements. He turned to drop his cigarette into the brass receiver at his elbow to avoid contact with her gaze, which was bent upon him disconcertingly.
"We have but a moment, and we must have a care not to seem to be confidential. He didn't close his door, I think."
The draperies at the end of the room swayed a little and Archie walked back and glanced into the dining-room. He nodded reassuringly and she indicated a seat a little nearer than the one he had left.
"Please don't be alarmed, but it's a singular fact that I know you; we met once, passingly, at a tea in Cambridge; it's a good while ago and we exchanged only a word, so don't try to remember. I much prefer that you shouldn't." Archie didn't remember; he had attended many teas at Cambridge during commencement festivities and had always hated them. "It was not until we were at the table that I placed you tonight. I'm telling you this," she went on, "not to disturb you but to let you know that I'm relieved, infinitely relieved to know that you are with my brother. How it came about is none of my affair. But you are a gentleman; in the strange phase through which"--her lips formed to speak a name but she caught herself up sharply--"through which he is passing I'm gratified that he has your companionship. I want you to promise to be kind to him, and to protect him so far as possible. I only know vaguely--I am afraid to surmise--how he spends his time; this is my first glimpse of him in a year, and for half a dozen years I have met him only in some such way as this. You have probably questioned his sanity; that would be only natural, but there is no such excuse for him. Once something very cruel happened to him; something that greatly embittered him, a very cruel, hard thing, indeed; and after the first shock of it--" She turned her head slightly and her lips quivered.
"That is all," she said, and faced him again with her beautiful repose accentuated, her perfect self-control that touched him with an infinite pity. She was superb, and he had listened with a shame deepened by the consciousness that, remembering him from a chance meeting, she attributed to him an honor and decency he had relinquished, it seemed to him, in some state of existence before the dawn of time. What she knew or did not know about her brother was not of importance; it was the assumption that he was capable of exercising an influence upon the man, protecting and saving him from himself that hurt, hurt with all the poignancy of physical pain. She did not dream that she had got the whole thing upside-down; that if the Governor was a social pariah he himself was no whit better, and had thrown himself upon the Governor's mercy.
"I shall do what I can," he said. "You can see that I am very fond of him; he has been enormously kind to me."
She gave little heed to this, though she nodded her head slowly as though she had counted upon his promise.
"You probably know that with all his oddities and whimsicalities he has some theory of life that doesn't belong to our day. It may help you to know that there's a crisis approaching in his affairs. He has hinted at it for several years; it's a part of the mystery in which he wraps himself; but I never know quite how to take him. He wears a smiling mask. Please understand that it is because I love him so much that I am saying these things to you; that and because I know I can trust you. You are remaining with him, I hope--"
"Yes; we plan to be together for some time."
"If anything should happen to him I should like to know." She paused a moment. "It was distinctly understood between us when he called me by telephone this morning that I was not to hint in any way as to his identity, or mine for that matter, and I shall not break faith with him. He would be greatly displeased if he knew what I have said to you; but I resolved after I had been in the house half an hour that I could count on your aid. We have but a moment more."
She mused a moment and then with quick decision stepped to a writing table, snatched a sheet of paper and wrote rapidly, while he filled in the interval by talking of irrelevant things to guard against the chance that the Governor might be on his way down and would note their silence.
She thrust the sheet into an envelope and sealed it.
"I trust you completely," she said, lingering with, a smile upon the last word. "I shall be at that address until the first of October. You can wire me in any emergency."
When the Governor reappeared they were seemingly in the midst of a leisurely discussion of the drama.
"Back into the bag they go," said the Governor. "Everything's all right, Julia. I checked up the items with my inventory and am entirely satisfied. I'm delighted that you two get on so well together; but I knew you would hit it off. Mr. Comly has been most kind and considerate, Julia. In my long pilgrimage I have never before met a man so much to my taste. The Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman had no such luck. Sweet it is to wander with a good comrade, taking no care for the morrow, but letting every day suffice unto itself."
He walked to a grand piano at the end of the room, sat down and began to play.
Surprise was dead in Archie where the Governor was concerned; he could only marvel at the ease and finish with which the man made the room vibrate with the most exquisite melodies of Schumann, Chopin, MacDowell. He played for half an hour without airs or affectations, things that bruised and hurt the spirit by their very tenderness and wistfulness.
"It's as though some one had been flinging handfuls of rose leaves into the room," said Julia softly when the last chords had died away.
The music had at least served the purpose of dispersing any unhappy hovering ghosts, and she was quick to seize the moment as a propitious one for her departure. The Governor did not demur when she asked him to see if her car was waiting.
"You are not afraid to drive out alone? I should be glad, you know, to make the run with you."
"Not in the least afraid," she answered lightly.
Fear, Archie thought, was not a thing one would associate with her. The Governor brought her coat, a long garment that covered her completely. She produced from the bag a cap which she substituted for the hat and Archie had thus his first view of her handsome head and abundant dark hair and her face freed of the baffling shadow.
In carrying her wrap into the room the Governor had frustrated any hope she may have had for a private word with him; but she betrayed no resentment.
"It's really much nicer changing indoors," she laughed, standing before a mirror to adjust the cap. "Coming in I shifted my headgear just before we reached town. Behold me now, a woman transformed!"
The Governor plucked Archie's sleeve as a sign that he was not to drop back and she walked to the car between them.
With a smile and a wave of the hand she was gone and they stood at the curb looking after her until the limousine was out of sight.
"Thank you, lad," said the Governor quietly.
They went up to his den, where they smoked for some time in silence. The Governor seemed to be gathering himself together after the strain of the three difficult hours and when he spoke finally it was with a deep sigh.
"Well, Archie, we must bear ourselves as men in all our perplexities. We are put into this world for a purpose, every chick of us, and there's no use kicking the shins of the high gods. I feel a leading; there's something pulling us both; unseen powers knocking us about. Tomorrow I shall be engaged most of the day; there are some of the brotherhood to meet and it must be managed with caution. I suggest that you stretch your legs in the park and feed the swans as a tranquilizer. Soon we shall be abroad on the eternal quest. The quest for what, I see written in your eyes! For peace, Archie; for happiness! It may be nearer than we think--there's always that to tie our hopes to!"
"It would be possible, I suppose," said Archie slowly, "for us to cut it all out, settle back into our old places--"
"Never!" cried the Governor., "I tell you we've got to complete the circle! If we stop now we're ruined, both of us! We've got to go right on. I know what's the matter with you; it's that dear sister of mine who has wakened in you all manner of regrets and yearnings for your old life. Ah, she couldn't fail to affect you that way; she's so wholly the real thing! Seeing her probably made you homesick for your Isabel. There! I thought you would jump! And maybe you think I haven't been troubled in the same way about my little affair! There would be something fundamentally wrong with us, lad, if we didn't feel, when we stood before a beautiful noble woman, as though we were in a divine presence. That's the test, Archie; so long as we are sensible of that feeling there's some hope for us in this world and the next."
III
Archie learned from Baring, who brought up his breakfast, that the Governor had left the house.
"It was our orders to take good care of you, sir; if there's any way we can serve you--"
"A morning paper; that will be all, thank you. I shall be going out presently."
"Very good, sir. The master thought it likely you would spend the day out. He will hardly be in himself before six."
Here again was an opportunity to abandon the Governor, but keen now for new experiences and sensations, Archie dismissed the idea. The appeal of the Governor's sister had imposed a new burden upon him, and the Governor's voluble prattle about fate and the inevitable drawing of destiny had impressed him. He could depart for Banff and take the chance of never being molested for any of his crimes, but to do this would be cowardice, just that fear of his fate that Isabel had twitted him about.
He chose a stick with care from a rack at the front door, walked to the Avenue and turned determinedly cityward, walking jauntily. Beyond Forty-second Street he passed several acquaintances, who nodded, just as the Governor had predicted, little dreaming that he was a reckless criminal, a man with an
alias and a fortnight's record that would make a lively story for the newspapers.
He was rather disappointed that no one followed him, no hand was clapped on his shoulder. He reached Madison Square unwearied, wondering whether the obliteration of his moral sense had destroyed also his old fears about his health. He climbed to the front seat of a bus and rode up the Avenue, a conspicuous figure.
He grinned as he saw seated in the upper window of the most conservative of all his clubs one of his several prosperous uncles, an old gentleman who for years was to be found in that same spot at this same hour of the day.
Having sufficiently exposed himself to the eyes of the world he determined to eat luncheon in the park restaurant. His appetite demanded an amount of food that he would have been incapable of consuming a month earlier, and having given his order he surveyed the pavilion tranquilly. Women and children were the chief patrons, with a sprinkling of sightseers resting from their contemplation of the city's wonders.
He watched idly a young woman with two children who occupied a table directly in his line of vision. He was sure she was their mother, and not a governess; she was smartly dressed, and her manner with the youngsters was charming. She occasionally glanced about nervously, and he detected several times a troubled look in her face. The children chattered gaily, but it was evidently with an effort that she answered their questions or entered into their talk. Children always interested him, and the boy was a handsome little fellow, but it was the girl who held Archie's attention, first as the embodiment of the beauty and innocence of youth, and then with a perplexed sense that he had seen her before. She suddenly turned toward him, her fair curls tumbling about her shoulders, and glanced idly across the pavilion. The fine oval face, the eyes dancing with merriment at something her brother had directed her attention to, sent his thoughts flying to Bailey Harbor. As though consciously aiding his memory, she fell into the relaxed pose so happily caught by the photograph, with the same childish archness and captivating smile.
Their luncheon had just been served and he continued to inspect them with a deepening conviction that the woman was Mrs. Congdon and these the children mentioned in the telegram he had found tucked under the plate of the Bailey Harbor house. The resemblance between the young woman and the child with the roguish smile was unmistakable. She might on occasion present the same smiling countenance, though in unguarded moments a tense, worried look came into her face, and she continued her anxious survey of her neighbors.
It was a dispiriting thought that there under his eyes, so close that the babble of the children occasionally reached him across the intervening tables, was the family of the man he had shot.
Their ignorance of that dark transaction gave him little comfort, nor was there any extenuation of his sin in the fact that the wife had fled to escape from her husband's brutality. He tried to console himself with the reflection that the thing had a ludicrous side. He might walk over to Mrs. Congdon and say: "Pardon me, madam, but it may interest you to know that I shot your husband at Bailey Harbor and you have nothing further to fear from him. I am unable to state at the moment whether the wound was a mortal one, but from my knowledge of your family affairs I judge that you would hardly be grieved if you never saw him again."
He was shocked at his own levity. The thing was not in any aspect a laughing matter. Amid other experiences he had freed himself for a few days of the thought of Putney Congdon lying dead in a lonely cleft of the Maine rocks, but meeting the man's family in this fashion was almost as disconcerting as a visit from Congdon's ghost.
The Congdons had eaten their meal hurriedly and were already paying their check. He watched them move away toward the interior of the park, marked their direction and chose a parallel course with a view to keeping them in sight.
Occasionally he caught glimpses of the children dancing ahead of their mother. The remote paths she chose for the ramble confirmed his suspicion that she was on guard against the threatened seizure of the youngsters by their father, and having been driven from Bailey Harbor was now in town to formulate her plans for the future, or perhaps only whiling away the hours until she could escape to some other place in the country. Unable to argue himself out of a feeling that Mrs. Congdon's troubles were no affair of his he was beset by the fear that he might be doomed for the rest of his life to follow them, to view them from afar off, never speaking to them, but led on by the guilty knowledge that he was a dark factor in their lives.
He became so engrossed that he lost track of them for a time; then a turn of the path brought him close upon them. Mrs. Congdon was sitting on a bench under a big elm and the children were joyously romping on the lawn in front of her, playing with a toy balloon to which a bit of bark had been fastened. They would toss it in the air and jump and catch it while the weight prevented its escape. A gust of wind caught it as Archie passed and drove it across his path, while the children with screams of glee pursued it. The string caught under his hat brim and he seized it just as the girl, outdistancing her brother, plunged into him.
"Edith!" called the mother, rising quickly. "Children, you mustn't go into the path. There's plenty of room here for you to play."
"The wind was a little too much for you that time!" laughed Archie, as the children, panting from their run, waited for the restoration of their plaything. He measured the buoyancy of the balloon against the ballast, and let go of it with a little toss that seemed to free it, then he sprang up and caught it amid their excited cries.
The little girl curtsied as he put the string in her hand.
"Thank you very much!" they chorused.
Mrs. Congdon had walked a little way toward the path but now that the children were again scampering over the lawn she paused and made a slight, the slightest, inclination of the head as Archie lifted his hat and continued on his way.
Edith was the name used in the telegram he had found in the Bailey Harbor house, and this coupled with his closer view of the child disposed of Archie's last hope that after all it might not be Mrs. Congdon and her children he had stumbled upon. She had no business to throw herself across his path, he fumed. The appearance of Putney Congdon's father at Cornford had shaken him sufficiently, but that he should be haunted by the man's wife and children angered him. He wanted to fly from the park and hide himself again in his room at the Governor's house, but he was without will to leave. The decent thing for him to do was to take the first train for Bailey, and begin diligent search for Putney Congdon, dead or alive. He had no right to assume that the man's serious injury or death would be any consolation to the wife and children. And the quarrel between husband and wife might have been only a tiff, something that would have been adjusted without further bitterness but for his interference. There was no joy in the fate that kept continually bringing his crime to his attention. Thoroughly miserable, he threw himself upon a bench and lapsed into gloomy meditations. The light-hearted laughter of the children--Putney Congdon's children--was borne to him fitfully to add to his discomfiture, but he was held to the spot. There was something weirdly fascinating in their propinquity, and in the thought that he alone of all men on earth could ever tell them just what had happened in their house when their father went there to search for them.
He sat half an hour pensively, noting an occasional pedestrian or the flash of a motor that rolled through the unfrequented driveway. But for the hum of the cars the deep calm of a June afternoon lay upon the landscape.
Then a piercing scream, the shrill cry of a child in terror, brought him to his feet.
"Help! Help! Oh, Edith!
Edith!"
The cries sent him at a run toward the place in which he had left the Congdons.
Rounding a curve in the path he saw a man rushing down the road with Edith in his arms. The mother was racing after him, while the little boy lay wailing where he had fallen in his frantic effort to follow. In the distance stood a car, with a woman waiting beside the open door.
Archie redoubled his pace, passed Mrs. Congdon and gained the car as the man with the child in his arms jumped into it. The woman, who had evidently been acting as watcher, stumbled as she attempted to spring in after them and delayed flight for an instant. The door slammed viciously on Archie's arm as he landed on the running board. The car was moving rapidly and a man's voice bade the driver hurry. Within the child's screams were suddenly stifled, the door swung open for an instant and a blow, delivered full in the face, sent Archie reeling into the road.
When he gained his feet Mrs. Congdon stood beside him moaning and wringing her hands. A mounted policeman rode upon the scene, listened for an instant to Archie's explanations and, sounding his whistle, set off after the car at a gallop. A dozen of the park police were on the spot immediately, followed by a crowd of excited spectators. Mrs. Congdon had fainted and several women were ministering to her. The little boy, sobbing plaintively, tried to answer the questions of the sergeant who took charge and despatched men in every direction to search for the kidnapers and send the alarm through the city.
Archie's nose bled from the rap in the face and his back ached where he had struck the earth. The sergeant plied him with questions which he answered carefully, knowing that in all the circumstances of his having loitered in the vicinity he might not unnaturally be suspected of complicity. When his name was asked, he answered promptly.
"John B. Wright, Boston; stopping at the Hotel Ganymede."
"Business?"
"Broker, Nanonet Building, Boston."
These items officially written down, he described truthfully how he had first seen the woman and her children in the pavilion, the subsequent walk, and the episode of the balloon. He pointed out just where he had been sitting when the screams attracted his attention.
"This is a serious case and you will be wanted as a witness," said the officer. "You didn't know these people--never saw them before?"
"No. I had come to the park to kill time until four o'clock, when I have an engagement at the Plaza Hotel."
The officer noted carefully his description of the woman who had assisted in the kidnaping and such meager facts as he was able to give as to the man who had carried off the little girl under the very eyes of her mother.
The sergeant glanced at Archie's ruddy handkerchief and grinned.
"Guess that let's you out! You didn't get the number of the taxi? That would help a little."
"There wasn't time for that. I was trying to hang on till help came, but this smash in the face spoiled that."
To the jostling crowd anxious to hear his story Archie was a hero, or very nearly one. He heard their murmurs of admiration as he described the manner in which he had attempted to board the car. There were enormous hazards in the whole situation and every consideration of personal security demanded that he leave the park at once, but Mrs. Congdon was now recovering, and he was reluctant to abandon her and the frightened boy to the mercies of the park police and staring spectators.
She had recovered sufficiently to tell her story, and to Archie's relief corroborated his own version in a manner to dispose of any question as to his innocence.
The woman's composure struck Archie as remarkable and her replies to the officer's questions were brief and exact. Several times she appealed to him for confirmation on some point, and he edged closer and stood beside her defensively. Her inquisitor had neglected to ask her name and address in his eagerness for information as to the appearance of the kidnapers. Her reply gave Archie a distinct shock.
"Mrs. George W. Kendall, 117 E. Corning Street, Brooklyn."
"Have you been threatened in any way? Have you any enemy who might have attempted to steal the child?"
"Nothing of the kind. I brought the children to the park just for an outing and with no thought that anything so horrible could happen."
It was incredible that any one could lie with so convincing an air. He was satisfied that she was Mrs. Putney Congdon, and that the child she had called Edith was the original of the photograph he had seen at Bailey Harbor. And the stealing of the child was in itself but the actual carrying out of her husband's threat. He knew far too much about the Congdons for his own peace of mind, but he was unwilling to desert her in her perplexities. When the owners of several machines offered to take her home, she glanced about uncertainly and her eyes falling upon him seemed to invite his assistance.
"Pardon me, but if I can serve you in any way--"
"Thank you," she said with relief. "I must get away from this; it's unbearable."
He put her and the boy into a taxi, whose driver had been early on the scene, and drove away with them, with a final promise to the sergeant to report later at the park station.
"Brooklyn!" he ordered.
For a few minutes she was busy comforting the child and Archie deep in thought turned to meet the searching gaze of her gray eyes.
"You are a gentleman; I am sure of that; and I feel that I can trust you."
That the wife of a man he had tried to kill and possibly had slain should be paving the way for confidences, gave him a bewildered sense of being whisked through some undiscovered country where the impossible had become the real.
"I'm in a strange predicament, and I'm forced to ask your help. The name and address I gave the police were fictitious. I know it has a queer look; but I had to do it. I know perfectly well who carried away my little girl. The man and woman you saw at the car were servants employed by my father-in-law, who cordially dislikes me. There had been trouble--"
With a shrug she expressed her impatience of her troubles, and bent over the boy who was demanding to be taken to Edith.
"You'll see Edith soon, dear, so don't trouble any more," she said kindly.
Having quieted the child, she returned to her own affairs, glancing out to note the direction of the car. She had done some quick thinking in making her decision to hide her identity from the police. There was fight in her eyes and Archie realized that he had to do with a woman of spirit. He waited eagerly for a hint as to her plans.
"Of course I'm not going to Brooklyn," she said, as the taxi swung into Fifth Avenue. "Please tell the man to drive to the Altmore, ladies' entrance. I'll walk through to the main door and take another taxi. I mean to lose myself," she went on, after Archie had given the instructions. "I have every intention of keeping away from policemen and reporters, but there's no reason why you should bother any further. I'm only sorry your name had to be brought into it. The moment they find I've deceived them they'll be after you for further information, and I regret that exceedingly. I wish to avoid publicity and keep my domestic affairs out of the newspapers; but this of course will only center attention the more on you. If there's anything I could do--"
"You needn't bother about that at all," replied Archie with a reassuring smile. "The name and address I gave were both false."
"You mean that really!"
"I mean that; just that! My reasons are of importance to no one but myself, and have nothing to do with the loss of your child, I assure you. I give you my word that neither the police nor the reporters will ever find me. I know nothing about you and of course it is quite unnecessary for me to know."
"Thank you; you are very kind," she murmured.
It struck him as highly amusing that he should be conspiring with the wife of a gentleman he had shot. In every aspect it was ridiculous and not since boyhood had he felt so much like giggling. And Mrs. Congdon was wonderful; it was a delight to be the repository of the confidences of so handsome a young matron and one who met so difficult a situation so courageously. They were both liars; both were practising a deceit that could hardly fail to bring them under sharp scrutiny if they should be caught.
Women were far from being the simple creatures he had believed them to be. The heart of woman was a labyrinth of mystery. Mrs. Congdon, altogether lovely and bearing all the marks of breeding, had lied quite as convincingly as Sally Walker. The ways of Isabel were beyond all human understanding; and yet her contradictions only added to her charm. Isabel's agitation over the affairs of the Congdons led him close to the point of mentioning her name to note its effect upon Mrs. Congdon, but to do this might be an act of betrayal that would only confirm Isabel's opinion of him as a stupid, meddlesome person. Nothing was to be gained by attempting to hasten the culmination of the fate that flung him about like a chip on a turbulent stream. Fiends and angels might be battling for his soul, and Lucifer might take him in the end, but meanwhile he was having a jolly good time.
He looked at her covertly and they laughed with the mirth of children planning mischief in secret.
"The little girl," he ventured; "you are not apprehensive about her?"
"Not in the slightest. My father-in-law is most disagreeably eccentric, but he is very fond of my children. It was quite like him to attempt to carry off the little girl, always a particular pet of his. I was shocked, of course, when it happened. I thought I should be safe in the park for a few hours until I could catch a train. I meant to put the children quite out of my husband's way. I didn't know he was in town; in fact, I don't know now that he is or anything about him. But he's undoubtedly in communication with his father. It's rather a complicated business, you see."
It was much more complex than she knew, and not, all things considered, a laughing matter. He spent an uncomfortable moment pondering a situation which he viewed with the mingled joy and awe of a child watching the fire in a fuse approach a fire-cracker.
"I shall be glad to assist you if I can aid you in any way. You will try to recover the child--?" he suggested.
"It's generous of you to offer, but I think you had better keep out of it. Of course I shall have Edith back; you may be sure of that."
"You have some idea of where they are taking her--?"
"No, I really haven't. But she will be safe, though I hate to think of her being subjected to so hideous an experience. It's rather odd, as I think of it, that my husband didn't personally try to take the child from me."
This, uttered musingly, gave Archie a perturbed moment. But the car had reached the Altmore. He lifted out the boy and accompanied them to the door.
"Thank you, very much," she said in a tone that dismissed him.
Archie drove to another hostelry for a superficial cleaning up, explaining to the brush boy who scraped the oily mud from his trousers that he had been in an automobile accident. He rode downtown in the subway, strolled past the skyscraper in which his office was situated and returned to the Governor's house feeling on the whole well pleased with himself.
IV
Refreshed by a nap and a shower he was dressed and waiting for the Governor at seven. On his way through the hall he ran into a man whose sudden appearance gave him a start. He was not one of the servants but a rough-looking stranger with drooping shoulders and a smear of dirt across his cheek. He would have passed him in the street as a laborer returning from a hard day's work. The man did not lift his eyes but shuffled on to the door of the Governor's room which he opened and then, flinging round, stood erect and laughed aloud.
"Pardon me, Archie, for giving you a scare! I couldn't resist the impulse to test this makeup!"
"You!" cried Archie, blinking as the Governor switched on the light.
"I went and came in these togs; not for a lark, I assure you, but because I had to go clear down under the crust today. Turn the water on in my tub and I'll be slipping into decent duds in a jiffy. Here's an extra I picked up downtown. The scream of the evening is a kidnaping--most deplorable line of business! Have you ever noticed a certain periodicity in child stealing? About every so often you hear of such a case. Despicable; a foul crime hardly second to murder. Hanging is not too severe a punishment. Clear out now, for if we begin talking I'll never get dressed!"
The account of the kidnaping in the park was little more than a bulletin, but Archie soon had it committed to memory. The police had not yet learned that the two most important witnesses had given fictitious names, for both pseudonyms appeared in the article.
In spite of the Governor's frequently avowed assertion that he wished to know nothing about him, Archie felt strongly impelled to make a clean breast of the Bailey Harbor affair, the two encounters with Isabel and his meeting with Mrs. Congdon. His resolution strengthened when the Governor appeared, dressed with his usual care and exhilarated by his day's adventures. At the table the Governor threw a remark now and then at the butler as to the whereabouts and recent performances of some of that functionary's old pals. Baring received this information soberly with only the most deferential murmurs of pleasure or dismay at the successes or failures of the old comrades. Baring retired after the dinner had been served, and the Governor, in cozy accord with his cigar, remarked suddenly:
"Odd; you might almost say singular! I've crossed old man Congdon's trail again! You recall him--the old boy we left to the tender mercies of Seebrook and Walters?"
"Yes; go on!" exclaimed Archie so impatiently that the Governor eyed him in surprise.
"It's remarkable how my theory that every man is a potential crook finds fresh proof all the time. Now old Congdon is rich and there's no reason on earth why he shouldn't live straight; but, bless you, it's quite otherwise! He's a victim of the same aberration that prompts people apparently as upright as a flagstaff to drop hotel towels into their trunks, collect coffee spoons in popular restaurants, or steal flowers in public gardens when they have expensive conservatories at home. You never can tell, Archie."
Archie, with the Congdons looming large on his horizon, was not interested in the philosophical aspects of petty pilfering.
"Stick to Eliphalet," he suggested.
"Oh, yes! Well, I met today one of the most remarkable of all the men I know who camp outside the pale. Perky is his name in Who's Who in No Man's Land. A jeweler by trade, he fell from his high estate and went on the road as a yegg. The work was too rough for him for one thing, and for another it was too much of a gamble. Opening safes only to find that they contained a few dollars in stamps and the postmaster's carpet slippers vexed him extremely and he then entered into the game of boring neat holes in the rim of twenty-dollar gold pieces, leaving only the outer shell and filling 'em up with a composition he invented that made the coin ring like a marriage bell. While he was still experimenting he ran into old Eliphalet sitting with his famous umbrella on a bench in Boston Common. Perky thought Eliphalet was a stool pigeon for a con outfit, but explanations followed and it was a case of infatuation on both sides. The old man was as tickled with the scheme as a boy with a new dog. He now assists Perky to circulate the spurious medium of exchange. Perky says he's a wonderful ally, endowed with all the qualities of a first class crook."
"You'll appreciate that better," said Archie, "when you hear what I know about the Congdon family. You've been mighty decent in not pressing me for any account of myself but you've got to hear my story now. We'll probably both be more comfortable if I don't tell you my name, but you shall have that, too, if you care for it. So many things have happened since I left Bailey Harbor that you don't know about, things that I haven't dared tell you, that I'm going to spout it all now and here. If you want to chuck me when you've heard it, well enough; but I don't mind saying that to part with you would hurt me terribly. I never felt so dependent on any man as I do on you; and I've grown mighty fond of you, old man."
"Thank you, lad," said the Governor.
He listened patiently, nodding occasionally or throwing in a question. When Archie finished he rose and clapped him on the shoulder.
"By Jove, you've tossed my stars around like so many dice! I've got to consult the oracles immediately."
He darted from the room and when Archie reached his study the Governor was poring over a map of the heavens.
"Your Isabel's all tangled up in our affairs!" declared the Governor with mock resentment. "It's she who has upset the calculations of all star-gazers from the time of Ptolemy!"
"Isabel!" cried Archie excitedly. "I don't catch the drift of this at all!"
"I should be surprised if you did! Note that countless lines converge upon my diagram. Isabel will dawn upon your gaze again very soon--I feel it coming. Our next move was clearly outlined to me before we came to town, but I must verify the figures in the light of this pistol practice at Bailey." He covered many sheets of a large tablet with figures and threw down his pencil with a satisfied sigh.
"Rochester!" he muttered. "Rochester of all places!"
"Would you mind telling me just what Rochester has to do with all this?" Archie demanded testily.
"My dear boy, Rochester is one of the suburbs of Paradise! The commerce and manufactures of that city are nothing; it's an outpost of Romance, like Bagdad and Camelot, a port of call on the sea of dreams, like Carcassonne! You may recall that I told you of a certain tile in a summer house where my adored promised to leave a message for me if her heart softened or she needed me. Well, the secret post-office is at Rochester; there the incomparable visits her aunt and about this time of year she's likely to be there. And if you knew the way of the stars and could understand my calculations you'd see that your Isabel is likely to have some business in that neighborhood just about now."
"Rubbish! I happen to know that her business was all to be in northern Michigan this summer. Your stars have certainly made a monkey of you this time!"
"Cynic! The thought seems to please you! You want to see me discomfited and defeated. Very well; you can drop me right here if you like, but I'll wager something handsome that you'll regret your skepticism all the rest of your days. Resistance to the course of events marked by the stars is bound to result in confusion. And here's another striking coincidence: You mentioned casually that Isabel spoke of buried treasure in the far north. I'm overpowered by that. The sweet influences of Pleiades have long beguiled me with the promise of a quest for hidden gold; for years, Archie, the thing has haunted me."
"You talk like a nonsense book! How much luggage are we taking?"
"Take everything you've got! This is going to be the most important of all my enterprises, Archie. It's just as well to be fully prepared."
He rang for Timmons to do their packing and fell upon a time table.
"We shall take it easy tomorrow, arriving at Rochester, the city of dreams, just as the shades of night are falling fast. Run along now; I've got a lot to think about."
Archie was roused the next morning by the Governor, who flung an armful of newspapers on his bed.
"The police have confessed with unusual frankness that they were duped in the park kidnaping. You and the attractive Mrs. Congdon both stepped into the void. The names and addresses are found to be imaginary and they're in the air! You stirred up a pretty row, you two."
"I'd give something handsome to know where she went," said Archie. "I ought to have stood by to help her instead of leaving her and her troubles at a hotel door."
"Having shot her husband, your concern for her safety and happiness does you credit! If the fellow died on the beach and his body was washed out to sea Mrs. Congdon is a widow. And in that event it's rather up to you to offer to marry her. The conventions of good society demand it. Your story gave me a restless night. I'm flabbergasted by the way things are happening. For a modest fellow you are certainly capable of stirring up a queer mess of situations. And the singular thing about it is that for thousands of years we've been moving toward each other out of the void! And all the other people who were to influence our destinies were on the way to join us--scores of 'em, Archie!"
"Detectives, policemen, and all the rest of them! Grand juries, prosecuting officers, judges of criminal courts and prison wardens!"
"You're going to bore me one of these days by that sort of prattle. On to Rochester!"
V
They wrote themselves down on the hotel register at Rochester as Saulsbury and Comly and were quickly in the rooms the Governor had engaged by wire.
"We dress, of course; unless I give you explicit directions to the contrary we always dress for dinner," said the Governor. "It's a lot more distinguished to be shot in a white tie than in a morning suit. Always keep that in mind, Archie--you who go about popping at men in their own houses with their own pistols."
"Not going with me!" he exclaimed after they had dined sedately in the main dining-room of the hotel. "This is truly the
reductio ad absurdum! Three times I've invaded the premises of my beloved's aunt and twice nearly got into trouble with policemen and gardeners. I need you, Archie; really I do; and you're not a chap to desert a pal."
Under this compulsion Archie found himself whisked away to a handsome residential area where the Governor dismissed the driver at a corner and continued afoot for several blocks.
"Our silk hats would disarm suspicion in even more exclusive neighborhoods. In fact we lend a certain distinction to the entire Genesee Valley. Alleys are distasteful to me, but into an alley we must plunge with all our splendor."
Alleys were not only distasteful to Archie, but he thought the search for a message in the grounds of the handsome estate the Governor seemed bent upon exploring utterly silly and foolhardy. The Governor ran his stick along the top of a wall that grimly guarded the rear of the premises.
"Glass!" he exclaimed, and cleared a space with a sweep of his cane. He caught the edge of the wall and was quickly on top. When Archie hung back the Governor grasped him by the arms and swung him up and dropped him into a dark corner of the garden. The house at the street end of the deep lot was a large establishment that argued for the prosperous worldly state of the aunt of the Governor's inamorata.
The Governor left him with the injunction to remain where he was, and he saw in a moment the glimmer of a match in the summer house. He was gazing at the tender, wistful new moon that suddenly slipped into his vision in the west, when he felt the Governor's hand on his arm.
"Archie! Oh, Archie!" the Governor whispered excitedly, brushing an envelope across the bewildered Archie's face. "Strike a match before I perish."
He tore open the envelope, and his fingers trembled as he held the note to the light. He read the two sheets to himself eagerly; then demanded a second match and read aloud:
... "If this reaches you, remain near at hand until I can see you. Please understand that I promise nothing, but it is very possible that you may be able to serve me. My aunt is giving a party for me Thursday night. I must leave it to you as how best to arrange for a short interview the day following. A very dear friend needs help. The matter is urgent. You will think it a fine irony that I should call upon you for a service that may be disagreeable if not dangerous, when your unaccountable way of life has caused me so much unhappiness."
The match curled and fell from Archie's fingers. A tense silence lay upon the garden. A bat slanted eerily through the warm air. The Governor clasped Archie's hand tightly. He seemed swayed by a deep emotion, and when he spoke it was in a husky whisper.
"It has come as I always knew it would come! And something tells me I am near the end. Even with all my faith, boy, it's staggering. And this is the very night of the dance. Ah, listen to that!"
They had moved out into a broad walk and Archie saw that the house was brilliantly lighted. Suddenly the strains of a lively two-step drew their attention to a platform that extended out upon the lawn from the conservatory, and at the same moment electric lamps shone in dozens of Japanese lanterns along the hedge-lined paths. The Governor looked at his watch. It was half-past nine.
"It's about time for us to clear out," Archie remarked.
"What! Leave this sacred soil when
she's here? Not on your life, Archie! I shall not leave till I've had speech with her."
"She mentioned the day following the dance in the note," Archie protested. "You'd certainly make a mess of things if you tried to butt into the party."
"On the other hand the festal occasion offers an ideal opportunity for the meeting! It's going to be a big affair; already machines are dashing into the driveway in large numbers. We can merge in the happy throng and trust to our wits to get us out alive. The aunt is seventy and very wise; she'll know us instantly as men of quality."
He urged Archie, still resisting, through the grounds to the front entrance, where they were admitted with several other guests who arrived at the same moment. The gentlemen they found in the dressing room merely glanced at them carelessly or nodded. An old gentleman, mistaking Archie for some one else, asked assistance with an obstreperous tie and expressed his gratitude in the warmest terms. The Governor, primping with the greatest deliberation, had never been calmer. To Archie this intrusion in the house of perfect strangers was a culminating act of folly, bound to result in humiliation.
"We maybe a trifle early," the Governor remarked, lighting a cigarette and settling himself in a rocker. "We shall receive greater consideration if we linger a few moments."
As Archie had counted on slipping downstairs heavily supported by properly invited guests, he paced the floor for a quarter of an hour while the Governor imperturbably read a magazine.
The room had cleared when at last he expressed his readiness to go.
"The receiving line is probably broken up by this time. Our hostess doesn't know either of us from the lamented Adam but I shall introduce you quite casually, you know. Her name, by the way, is Lindsay. There are scads of people here; the very first families. We may mingle freely without fear of lowering our social standards."
The stately old lady they found in the drawing-room lifted a lorgnette as they approached, smiled affably and gave the Governor her hand.
"Mrs. Lindsay, my friend, Mr. Comly. He arrived unexpectedly an hour ago and I thought you wouldn't mind my bringing him along, so I didn't bother you by telephoning."
"I should have been displeased if you had hesitated a moment--any friend of yours, you know!"
"Ruth is with you, of course? I haven't seen her since the last time she visited you."
"She's the same wonderful girl! You will find her dancing, I think."
Other arrivals facilitated their escape. As they passed down the drawing-room the Governor directed Archie's attention to a portrait which he pronounced a Copley, and insisted upon examining closely. It was with difficulty that Archie persuaded him to leave it, so enraptured was the Governor with the likeness of a stern old gentleman in powdered wig, who gazed down upon them with anything but a friendly eye.
As they stepped into the conservatory the music ceased and there was a flutter as the dancers sought seats, or stepped out upon the lawn. Archie, acutely uncomfortable, heard the Governor stifle an exclamation.
"That is she! Stand by me now! That chap's just left her. This is our chance!"
A young woman was just seating herself in a chair at the farther corner of the conservatory and her partner had darted away toward a table where punch was offered. The Governor moved toward her quickly. Archie saw her lift her head suddenly and her lips parted as though she were about to make an outcry. Then the Governor bowed low over her hand, uttering explanations in a low tone. Her surprise had yielded to what Archie, loitering behind, thought an expression of relief and satisfaction. He moved forward as the Governor turned toward him.
"Miss Hastings, Mr. Comly."
The girl had risen, perhaps the better to hide her agitation, Archie thought. She absently accepted the cup of punch brought by her partner, who, seeing her preoccupied with two strangers, pledged her to another dance and left them.
"My name here," the Governor was saying, "is Saulsbury."
A slight shrug and a frown betrayed displeasure, but it was only for a moment and she smiled in spite of herself. The Governor's occasional references to the woman who had enchained his affections had not prepared Archie for this presentation to a Ruth who might have passed for seventeen in a hasty scrutiny and upon whose graceful head it seemed a wickedness to add the five years the Governor had attributed to her. She was below medium height, with brown hair and eyes. There was something wonderfully sweet and appealing in her eyes. Imagination had set its light in them and the Governor was a man to awaken romantic dreams in imaginative women. The tan of her cheeks emphasized her look of youth; she would have passed for a school girl who lived in tennis courts and found keen delight on the links. How and where the Governor could have known her was a matter of speculation, but in his wanderings just such a charming gipsy might easily have captured his fancy. The Governor had never, not even in the presence of his sister, been so wholly the gentleman as now. He was enormously happy, but with a subdued happiness. He was upon his good behavior and Archie was satisfied that he would in no way abuse the hospitality of the house he had entered with so much effrontery. The girl would take care of that in any event. The humor of the thing was appealing to her, and her eyes danced with excitement. How much she knew about the Governor was another baffling matter; but she knew enough at least to know that his appearance was an impudence and with all discretion she was enjoying her connivance in her lover's appearance. A wise, self-contained young person, capable of extricating herself from even more perilous situations. Archie liked Ruth. The Governor had said that she was a bishop's daughter but for all that she might have been the child of a race of swarthy kings.
"You couldn't have thought that I would wait when I knew that you were in a mood to tolerate me or that I might serve you!" said the Governor gravely. "If our presence is likely to prove embarrassing--"
"Oh, Aunt Louise doesn't know the names of half the people here. She never goes out herself; she merely asked old friends and the children of old friends. I really didn't want this party for I'm here on business, and it's about that that I want to speak to you, please!"
"I think," said Archie, ill at ease, "that the moment has come for me to retire."
"We shall not turn you adrift!" cried Ruth. "I have a very dear friend I must introduce you to. Oh--" she hesitated and turned to the Governor, "is Mr. Comly a roamer? Has he a heart for high adventure?"
"He speaks without accent the language of all who love the long brown road."
"Then let him come with me!"
She laid her hand on Archie's arm, and walked toward the wide-flung doors. The orchestra was again summoning the dancers.
"Oh, Isabel!"
Following her gaze he was glad of the slight pressure of her hand on his arm. Here at least was something tangible in a world that tottered toward chaos. For it was Isabel Perry who turned at the sound of Ruth's voice. She was just at the point of gliding away with her partner.
"Miss Perry, Mr. Comly!"
The eyes that had haunted him in his wanderings flashed upon him, then narrowed questioningly.
"Oh, Mr. Comly!" There was the slightest stress on the assumed name. "After this dance--"
She slipped away leaving him staring.
"Please take me back to Mr. Saulsbury," said Ruth. "I've got to cut this dance. I will introduce you to some other girls."
But as no other girls were immediately available he protested that he would do very well and guided her to the Governor.
"Isabel is very busy, as usual," said Ruth, "but if Mr. Comly is a good strategist, he will not fail to find her again. Isabel, you know--"
"Isabel!" exclaimed the Governor. "Not really--"
"Yes, really," Archie answered, his voice hoarse as he raised it above the music.
The Governor struck his gloved hands together smartly. Ruth, turning from a youth to whom she had excused herself, asked quickly:
"What has happened? You both look as though you had seen a ghost."
"It's more mysterious than ghosts. Come; we must make the most of these minutes. Your next partner won't give you up as meekly as that last one did."
Archie saw them a moment later pacing back and forth in one of the walks a little distance from the house. He stationed himself at the door with some other unattached men, and followed Isabel's course over the floor with intent, eager eyes. The dance, to a new and enchanting air, was prolonged and he died many deaths as he watched her, catching tantalizing glimpses of her face only to lose it again.
No one in the happy throng seemed gayer than she; and once as she tripped by he assured himself that there was no hostility in the swift glance she gave him. Seeing her again rilled him with a great happiness untinged with bitterness. Among all the women of the bright company she alone was superb, and not less regal for his remembrance of her anger, the anger that had brought tears to her lovely eyes.
At the conclusion of the number, she remained, to his discomfiture, at the farther end of the platform, and when he hurried forward in the hope of detaching her from the group that surrounded her she did not see him at all, which was wholly discouraging. A partner sought her for the next dance and as the music struck up he made bold to accost her.
"I am not to be eluded!" he said. "I must have at least one dance!"
"My card is filled--but I am reserving a boon for you! You shall have the intermission," and added as by an afterthought, "Mr. Comly," with a delicious mockery.
He passed Ruth, returning to put herself in the path of her next partner.
"This is your punishment for coming late!" laughed the girl. There was happiness in her eyes. "How perfectly ridiculous you two men are!"
"Suppose we talk a bit," said the Governor when they had found a bench on the lawn. He was silent for several minutes, sitting erect with arms folded.
"It's nearing the end!" he said solemnly; "there are other changes and chances perhaps, but the end is in sight. The whole thing was unalterable from the beginning; it makes little difference what we do now. And it's you--it's you that have brought it all about. We are bound together by ties not of earthly making."
He laughed softly, turned and placed his hand on Archie's shoulder.
"You are beginning to believe at last?"
"I don't know what to believe," Archie answered slowly. "There's something uncanny in all this. Just how much do you understand of it?"
"Precious little! Your Isabel and my Ruth are friends; quite intimate friends indeed. In college together, I'd have you know, but I never knew it till now. That's news to you, isn't it?"
"Most astonishing news!"
"And this is the very Isabel who shattered your equanimity; told you to shoot up the world and then treated you like a pick-pocket the next time you met! But as old William said 'Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.'"
"Don't jump at conclusions! I was just bragging when I gave you the idea that there was anything between us. The love's all on my side! She twitted me about my worthlessness that night in Washington; bade me tear down the heavens. And it oddly happened that from that hour I have never been a free man; I have done things I believed myself incapable of doing."
"You did them rather cheerfully, I must say! But on the whole, nothing very naughty. And I'll prepare you a little for what I prefer you should hear from Isabel--I got it from Ruth--you're not quite finished yet with that pistol shot in the Congdon house. It seems to be echoing round the world!" _