_ CHAPTER XXIII. LUCILE TRIUMPHS
Lucile sped down the steps and into the waiting arms of her assembled family.
She was hugged and kissed and handed from one to the other in a very ecstasy of reunion, until Mr. Payton spoke, a trifle huskily.
"Perhaps," said he, "perhaps it would be just as well to thank the young person who handed our runaway back to us," and he glanced inquiringly in the direction of the chateau.
"No, no," said Lucile, hurriedly. "You see, it----" She hesitated; then, throwing secrecy to the winds, she pushed Jessie and Evelyn ahead of her into the automobile, crying excitedly, "I can't keep it in another minute; there's no use trying--I can't--I can't----" and, turning from her astonished friends to her no less astonished father, she said, "Dad, if you'll only get started for home, I'll tell you all about it----"
"All about what?" Jessie started to interrupt.
"I'm going to tell you, Jessie, dear, but we must get started first," and she clapped her hands impatiently while Mr. Payton gave the necessary orders and the chauffeur started the motor.
"Oh, Phil, Phil, do stop staring so!" she cried, hysterically. "I know you are going to be awfully cut up when you learn that your much-abused and misunderstood sister was right, after all."
"Lucile," cried Evelyn, in exasperation. "If you don't stop talking in riddles and get down to plain United States that everybody can understand----"
"Oh, I will," gasped Lucile. "Did any of you see anything unusual about that chateau?" she questioned. "Didn't it look--well, rather familiar to you?"
"There she goes again!" wailed Evelyn, and Jessie added, "We were too busy looking at you to notice the old house. What's that got to do with your story, anyway?"
"You'd find out if you would only have a little patience. I've a good mind not to tell you, anyway," she finished, rather childishly, for, you see, in spite of the excitement, or, more probably, because of it, Lucile was very tired and a finicky audience didn't appeal to her. She wanted to tell her story her own way.
"Go ahead, Lucy; forgive us!" said Jessie, all compunction at once. "You've made us so excited we can't wait, that's all."
"Yes, we promise not to interrupt again," added Evelyn.
"Oh, go ahead and tell your story, Lucy; cut out the sob stuff!" This from an unsympathetic brother, who should have withered next minute beneath the scathing searchlight of scorn turned his way.
Then Lucile told her story, from the minute she left the girls to the present time. During the recital they forgot more than once their promise not to interrupt, but Lucile, heart and soul in her story, never noticed them.
Mr. Payton was as much interested as the young folks, for he had entertained a sincere liking for the despondent young Frenchman.
When Lucile, flushed and breathless, finished the recital and leaned back against the cushions, the girls and Phil overwhelmed her with a flood of questions.
"So that was really the chateau old Charloix told us about. Why didn't you tell us while we were there, so we could have had a good look at the place?" Phil objected. "Let's go back, Dad," he added, eagerly. "It wouldn't take very long and it's a crime not to give the place the once over now that we have the chance."
"Oh, Phil, we can't go back now," wailed his sister. "I'm a perfect mess----"
"Of course we can't; there isn't time, anyway," said Jessie, sweeping the suggestion aside with a
sang-froid that aggravated Phil. "The thing I'm most interested in now is that will and the letters her father left her. Oh, it's too wonderful!"
"And to think," said Evelyn, with shining eyes, "to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I'd only had the nerve to follow you!"
"Yes, just think of that lost opportunity," wailed Jessie. "Such a chance will never come again, never. But, Lucile, dear, do tell us what Jeanette looked like," she begged, for the fiftieth time at least.
Before she could reply, Mr. Payton said, slowly, "It is a very serious, a very delicate thing, to interfere in the lives of two people, Lucile. In this instance the end justifies the means, but it might easily have turned out otherwise. This isn't a lecture, dear," he added, patting the brown head tenderly, "simply a caution."
"I know," said Lucile, looking up understandingly into her father's kind eyes, "and I will be more careful in the future, Dad. But oh," she offered, in extenuation, "when mystery marches right up to you and begs to be looked into, what can you do? Oh, girls, if you could only have been there--if you only could!"
"Don't rub it in," cried Evelyn, clapping her hands to her ears. "You have me fairly jumping with envy now."
"Do you think you could find Henri Charloix for Jeanette, Dad?" said Lucile, turning eagerly to her father and ignoring the interruption. "You see, there's nothing to stand between them now."
"I think so," said Mr. Payton, his eyes kindling with an interest almost as great as his daughter's. "I'll spare no trouble to bring those poor harassed young people together. It's an outrage the way the French hand their children about like so much merchandise. I'll do my best little girl, now that you have started the ball rolling," he promised.
Lucile squeezed his hand gratefully, and Jessie suddenly broke out with, "Now I know why Phil hasn't seemed to take much interest in the proceedings, and why he has been studying the sky with such concentration ever since Lucile has been talking."
"Why?" cried both girls, in a single breath.
"Simply because"--she paused for dramatic effect, then flung her bomb with force at the intended victim--"he's jealous!" she hissed.
"Oh, is that so?" said Phil, drawing his gaze reluctantly from the far horizon and letting it rest dreamily on his accuser. "May I be allowed to ask what intricate and devious chain of reasoning leads you to make so unheard-of a charge?"
"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Jessie, disrespectfully. "You know you're jealous, so why deny it? Seems to me I remember"--it was her turn to let her gaze wander sky-ward--"if I mistake not, that a short time ago a certain young gentleman--I mention no names, but look where I'm looking"--she threw him a mischievous glance, which he was by no means loath to intercept--"did, upon occasion, laugh and scoff----"
"Same thing," Phil interrupted.
"At his sister," Jessie continued, undaunted, "when she ventured to prophesy that which has really taken place."
"Yes. 'Paris is a very large place, you know,'" mocked Lucile.
"Take it all back, take it all back!" cried Phil, overwhelmed. "I'll admit you're the greatest sleuth outside of Sherlock, Lucy. Hands up and spare my life!"
The girls laughed with the joy of the victorious and Evelyn was about to speak, when Phil called out suddenly:
"Jack Turnbull, by all that's lucky! What brought you here?" And he fairly flung himself out of the stopping machine.
They had come upon the inn suddenly over the rise in the ground and there, standing against the pillar and nonchalantly surveying the scenery was--Lucile had to rub her eyes to be sure of unimpaired vision.
Then, the machine coming to a full stop, the two girls stepped out, while Lucile followed more slowly in their wake, conscious suddenly of dust-stained clothing and rumpled hair. "And I wanted to look my best," she wailed, in truly feminine despair.
She had not much time for lamentation, for, through the handshakings of Phil and the ecstatic demonstrations of his cousin, Jack's handsome eyes sought and found hers.
"It's a long way to come just to see you," he cried, gripping her hands tightly. "But it's sure worth it," he added, boyishly.
Lucile never had longed so for a mirror. She knew her hair was all awry, that her dress was wrinkled and covered with dust, and that her eyes must look funny from crying over Jeanette, and----
"I'm very glad to--to see you," she stammered. "If you will--excuse me just--a minute--I'll change this awful rig--and--and----" She flashed him an uncertain little smile and was gone through the broad doorway, leaving him to gaze after her, mystified and troubled.
"It's all right, Jack!" consoled Phil, with the superior knowledge of one who has a sister toward one who hasn't, and therefore knoweth not the ways of woman. "It's her clothes; but wait till she gets all dolled up; there will be a change. To talk of something else, how did you happen to strike the old inn?" and Jack, somewhat enlightened, entered upon the subject with a will, while the two girls followed in the wake of the deserter.
They found Lucile standing before the mirror, surveying herself dejectedly.
"What did you want to run away for?" charged Jessie. "Jack felt hurt, I know, even though Phil did try to explain."
"Just look at me," Lucile began, miserably.
"Well, look at you," repeated Evelyn. "What's the matter with you? Your eyes aren't red any more--the wind took that away--and your hair always looks better when it's rumpled----"
"And as for your dress," Jessie took it up, "do you think Jack would notice what you had on? He wasn't looking at that----"
"Well, how did I know I was beautiful with red eyes and wild hair and a dress that looks as if it were new in the seventeenth century?" cried Lucile, brought to bay.
"We'd have told you if you'd asked us," said Jesse, fondly.
Lucile threw an arm about each of the girls and drew them before the mirror--two fair heads with a dark one in between.
"You're great comforts, both of you. But, girls, I did think I was such a--mess!" she chuckled, happily. _