Part 78

Then he, too, shrugged his shoulders; mentally, that is, for he was incapable of so theatric a gesture in the flesh. He himself was in an odd humor, a sort of resigned indifference. He had, for the moment, lost interest in the whole affair. It was too fantastic, too confusing; he didn’t care very much what happened, just now.

“Let me out here!” she said. “There’s not time for you to take me up to the house. I’ll walk. Now hurry!”

He stopped the car at the corner of Wygatt Road; she got out, and he went on, alone. And he was surprised by the difference which her going made. It was as if a monstrous oppression were lifted from his spirit, and he could once more draw a free breath, and once more see the open sky. One clear star was out. No; it was not a mad world; there was awful and majestic order in the universe, inexorable law.

And she was truly pitiable, hurrying home beneath that one star; a poor, helpless futile young thing, defying the whole world for her own desire. She wanted him to help her! He would not help her in her desperate folly, but he would not leave her now. Not now.

These admirable ideas were entirely put out of his head by a new dilemma. He arrived at the station; he heard the train coming in, and he could find no advantageous place for his car. All the good places were taken. He had to stop where he was certain Mr. Solway would never find him, until, as the train came in, a taxi was seized by an alert woman, and Ross got his car into that vacant place.

Mr. Solway was not in the vanguard of the commuters; he came leisurely and with dignity, talking with another man. Ross stood beside the open door of the car; with a nod Mr. Solway got in, and the other man, too. They paid no attention whatever to Ross; they settled themselves, and went on talking, as if he were a ghost.

“They closed at five and an eighth,” said the other man. “I can’t help thinking that--”

“Now, see here!” Mr. Solway interrupted. “You hold on to them, my boy. I told you it was a good thing.”

“It would be,” said the other. “A very good thing, sir, if I could unload at five and an eighth--or even a bit less--when I bought at three and three-fourths.”

“Now, see here!” said Mr. Solway. “I’ll tell you something--which you needn’t mention anywhere. I’m _buying_ at five and an eighth--up to six and a half. Buying, mind you, my boy!”

This was almost more than Ross could bear. This was just the sort of talk he had thirsted for; this was what he had come to New York for; to buy stocks at three and three-fourths and sell at six and one-half, or more. There he sat, with his peaked cap pulled down over his lean, impassive face, listening with a sort of rage. If he could only ask Mr. Solway questions, only tell him that he had a few thousands of his own all ready and waiting for a little venture like this.

“And you’ll need all you can get, my boy,” Mr. Solway went on, “if you’re going to marry Amy.”

Then this was Gayle? Ross turned his head for one hasty glance--and then, encountering the astonished frown of Mr. Solway, realized what an improper thing he had done. Chauffeurs must not look.

He had had this look, though, and had gained a pretty accurate impression of the stranger. A tall young fellow, fair haired and gray eyed; he was stalwart and broad shouldered, and altogether manly, but there was in his face something singularly gentle and engaging.

“And that’s the fellow!” thought Ross. “That’s the fellow who’s going to be fooled and lied to.”

He liked him. And he liked the vigorous and blustering Mr. Solway, and he liked this rational, masculine conversation. It reassured him. He reflected that, after all, he was not alone in this miserable affair, not hopelessly cornered with the preposterous girl. No; Solway was her stepfather, and the other man was her “Gayle.” They were in it, too. They were his natural allies.

“She’s got to tell them, that’s all,” he said to himself. “They’ll both stand by her. I’ll make her tell them. I can’t handle this infernal mystery alone. I’m too much in the dark.”

He drove in at the gates, up the driveway, and stopped the car before the house with a smartness that pleased him. Mr. Solway bounced out.

“Here, now!” he said. “You--Moss--Moss, that’s it. Moss, just lend a hand with this bag. That’s right; up the stairs--first door on the left. That’s it! That’s it! There you are, Gayle, my boy!”

He turned to Ross.

“Moss,” he said. “Everything going along all right? That’s it! That’s it! You let me know if there’s anything wrong.”

Ross was hard put to it to suppress a smile. He imagined how it would be if he should say:

“Well, sir, there _was_ one little thing--a dead man under the housekeeper’s sofa. But, perhaps I shouldn’t mention it.”

He looked for a moment into the bluff, scowling, kindly face of the man Eddy had called “a prince.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and turned away, down the hall toward the back stairs. And, as he came round the corner into the corridor, where the housekeeper’s room was, his quick ear caught some words of such remarkable personal interest to him that he stood still.

“Another James Ross!” Mrs. Jones was saying. “That’s a likely story, I must say! Amy, that man’s a fraud and a spy!”

“No, Nanna darling, he’s not!” answered Amy, with sweet obstinacy.

“I tell you he is, child. He’s got to go.”

“No, dear,” said Amy. “He’s going to help me.”

“Amy!” cried Mrs. Jones. “Can’t you trust me? I tell you it’s all right. He won’t come to-night. I promise you he won’t!”

“Oh, you mean well!” Amy remarked. “But you’ve made plenty of mistakes before this.”

“Amy, I promise you--”

“No,” said Amy. “You told me before that I needn’t worry, that you’d ‘settled everything.’ And what happened? No; I’m afraid you’re getting old, Nanna--old and stupid. I’m going to manage for myself now. And Jimmy’s going to help me.”

“Child!” Mrs. Jones protested. “That man will ferret out--”

“I don’t care if he does,” said Amy. “He won’t tell, anyhow. Now don’t bother me any more, Nanna. I’ve simply got to go.”

Ross stepped quickly backward along the hall for a few yards; then he went forward again, with a somewhat heavier tread. And just round the corner of the corridor, he came face to face with Amy.

Her beauty almost took his breath away. She wore a dress of white and silver, and round her slender throat a short string of pearls. And against all this gleaming white the pallor of her skin was rich and warm, with a tint almost golden; and her misty hair was like a cloud about her face, and her black eyes so soft, so limpid.

“Jimmy!” she whispered. “Do I look nice?”

“Er--yes; very nice,” Ross answered stiffly.

She came close to him, put her hand on his shoulder.

“Please, Jimmy!” she said, earnestly. “I do so awfully want to be happy--just for a little while!”

Ross had a moment of weakness. She was so young, so lovely; it seemed important, even necessary, that she should be happy. But he valiantly resisted the spell.

“Who doesn’t?” he inquired.

“Jimmy, dear!” she said. “I’m coming to the garage after dinner--to ask you something--to beg you to do something. Will you do it, my _dear_ little Jimmy?”

“I’ll have to hear what it is first,” said Ross.

But she seemed satisfied.

X

Ross went up to the room over the garage, and sat down there. He was hungry and tired, and in no pleasant humor.

“It’s entirely too damned much!” he said to himself. “I’m--comparatively speaking--a rich man. There’s money waiting for me. There’s a nice, comfortable room in a hotel waiting for me; and decent clothes. I could have gone to a play to-night. There was one I wanted to see. And here I am--in a garage--dressed up like a monkey. No, it’s too much! I’m going back to the city to-morrow. I’m going to see Teagle, and settle my affairs. If Amy wants me to help her, I suppose I shall. But I won’t stay here, and I won’t be a chauffeur.”

The more he thought of all this, the more exasperated he became. And it was nearly nine o’clock before he was summoned to dinner, which did not tend to placate him. In spite of his hunger, he took his time in going over to the house. He had no objection to being late, and he would have no objection to hearing some one complain about it. Indeed, he wished that some one would complain. Just one word.

Looking for trouble, Ross was, when he entered the house. He pushed open the swing door of the kitchen.

What marvelous aromas were there! What a festive air! That grave woman, the cook, was wreathed in smiles, for had she not this night accomplished a dinner which even Mrs. Jones had praised?

And the disagreeable housemaid was in softened mood, too, for she had waited upon romance. She had already described, more than once, the splendor of Miss Amy’s costume, and the way “him and her” had looked at each other.

The laundress was elated, because she was fond of romance, and still more because she was a greedy young creature, and scented an especially good dinner. And they all welcomed Ross with cordiality.

“It’s too bad you had to be waiting the long time it was!” said the cook. “You’ve a right to be famished entirely, Mr. Moss!”

Much mollified, the young man admitted that he _was_ hungry.

“You’d oughter of come over for a cuper tea this afternoon,” said the housemaid. “And a piecer cake.”

“You’d oughter of tole him, Gracie,” the laundress added. “Poor feller! He don’t know the ways here, yet!”

“Sit down, the lot of ye!” said the cook.

They did, and that unparalleled dinner began. It must be borne in mind that Ross was wholly unaccustomed to this sort of thing, to home cooking at its best, to the maternal kindness of women toward a hungry man. He liked it.

He was in no hurry to go back to the solitude of the garage, and his own thoughts. Being invited to smoke, he lit a cigarette and made himself very comfortable, while the cook washed the dishes, and Gracie and the laundress dried them. He was still taciturn, because he couldn’t be anything else; but he answered questions.

He admitted that he had traveled a bit, and when the laundress, who was disposed to be arch, asked to be told about them queer places, he gave a few facts about the exports and imports of Manila. Anyhow, they all listened to him, and said, “Didjer ever!” and it was altogether the pleasantest hour he had yet spent in his native land.

And then--the swing door banged open, and there stood Amy, with a fur coat over her shimmering dress, and an ominous look in her black eyes.

“Moss!” she said. “What are you doing here? Get up and come with me at once! I want to speak to you!”

Without a word, he arose and followed her into the passage.

“I told you I was coming to the garage!” she pointed out, in a low, furious voice. “Why didn’t you wait there?”

“Look here!” said Ross. “I don’t like this sort of thing.”

Before his tone her wrath vanished at once.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy!” she said. “I didn’t mean to be horrid. Only, it was so hard for me to slip away--and I went all the way out to the garage in the cold and the dark, and you weren’t there--and I’m so terribly worried. Oh, you will hurry, won’t you?”

“Hurry? Well, what do you want me to do?”

“It may be too late, even now. Any instant he may come. He’ll ring the bell, and Gracie will open the door. I _can’t_ tell her not to. He’ll come in. Oh, Jimmy, you won’t let that happen, will you? Oh, do, do please hurry!”

“But just what--”

“Go out and hide some place where you can watch the front door. And if you see him coming--stop him! A thin, dark man, with a mustache. Oh, hurry, Jimmy! All evening long I’ve been waiting and waiting--in torment--for the sound of the bell. Go, Jimmy dear!”

“How long do you expect me to wait for him?”

“Oh, not so awfully long, dear. Just--” She paused. “Just till Eddy comes home. I’m sure he won’t be late. Now hurry!”

“I don’t want to do this,” said Ross. “I can’t stop--”

“Oh, shut up!” she cried; and then tried to atone by patting his cheek. “Jimmy, I’m desperate! Just help me this once! To-morrow I’ll explain it all, and you’ll see. Only go now!”

“I’ll have to get my overcoat from the garage,” he explained.

“All right, dear!” she said, gently, and turned away. And as he went toward the back door, he heard her sob.

All the way to the garage that sob echoed in his ears. Her tears had not affected him; they were too facile, too convenient. But that half stifled sob in the dark--He went quickly, taking the key from his pocket as he went; he, too, was in a hurry, now, to spare her this thing she dreaded.

He unlocked the door, turned on the switch, ran up the stairs, through the sitting room, and into the bedroom, where his coat hung.

He stopped short in the doorway. For, sitting on the bed was a tiny girl, seriously engaged in tying a ribbon about the waist of a white flannel rabbit. She looked up at the young man, but apparently was not interested, and went on with her job.

“Who are _you_?” demanded Ross.

“Lil-lee,” said she.

“Yes, but I mean--how did you get here?”

“I comed in a balloon,” she assured him.

Ross was completely ignorant about young children, but he realized that they were not to be held strictly accountable for their statements. And this child was such a very small one; such a funny little doll. She had a great mane of fair hair hanging about her shoulders, and, on one temple, a wilted bit of pink ribbon; she had serene blue eyes, a plump and serious face, by no means clean.

She wore a white dress, still less clean, a coral necklace, white--or grayish white--socks all down about her ankles, and the most dreadful little white shoes. He observed all this, because it was his way to observe, and because he was so amazed that he could do nothing but stare at her.

“But who brought you?” he asked.

“Minoo,” she replied.

“Who’s Minoo?”

The child held up the rabbit.

“Oh, Lord!” cried Ross. “Won’t you please try to be--sensible? I don’t know--Are you all alone here?”

“I fink I are.”

“The door was locked,” he said, aloud. “I can’t see--But what shall I do with you?”

“Gimme my dindin,” said she.

Ross wished to treat so small and manifestly incompetent a creature with all possible courtesy, but he was handicapped by his inexperience.

“Look here, Lily!” he said, earnestly. “I’m in the deuce of a hurry just now. If you’ll wait here, I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“I will be a good baby!” said she. “But I want my dindin!”

He could have torn his hair. He could not fail Amy now. And he could not leave a good baby alone and hungry, for he did not know how long.

“Shall I take it to the house?” he thought. “The cook would feed it. But--perhaps it’s another of these damned mysteries. I haven’t time to think it out now. I’d better keep it here until I’ve thought a bit. See here, Lily, what do you eat?”

“Dindin,” Lily answered.

“Yes, I know. But--I’ve got bread. Will that do?”

“I _like_ bread and thugar!” she agreed.

He hurried into the kitchen, cut four good, sturdy slices of bread, covered them well with butter and sugar, and brought them back on a plate. Then, with a vague memory of a puppy he had once had, he thought of water, and brought a glassful.

“Now I’ve got to go, Lily,” he explained. “But I’ll come back as soon as I can. You just wait, see?”

“I will!” she said, pleasantly, and held out her arms.

He hesitated for a moment, half frightened; then he caught up the funny little doll and kissed its cheek.

It was not a doll. It was warm and alive, and solider than it looked. It clung to him, and kissed him back again.

XI

“You won’t feel the cold the first winter in the States.”

That was what people in Manila and Porto Rico had told Ross. He thought of those people now. You didn’t feel it, did you? Yes, you did!

He had found “some place where he could hide and watch the front door”; a plantation of firs halfway between the house and the gates. He had been there more than an hour, prowling up and down behind the screen of branches; he had at first tried to smoke, but darkness and cold annihilated any sort of zest in the tobacco. He had attempted the army setting-up exercises, considerably hampered by his overcoat; but nothing produced in him either bodily warmth or a patient serenity of mind.

He was worried about that child. Not once did he say to himself that it was none of his business; he admitted willingly that a creature of that size had a claim upon all full-grown persons; he admitted that, whoever it was, and wherever it came from, it was entitled to his protection.

“She’s too little to be left there alone,” he thought. “Much too little. They always have nurses--or some one. She might fall down the stairs--or turn on the gas stove. I’ve been gone more than an hour. Good Lord! This is too much! What the devil’s the matter with that fellow, anyhow?”

He was disgusted with this thin dark man with a mustache, who was so outrageously late in coming. Very likely the funny little doll was sitting up there, crying. The raw cold pierced to the marrow of his bones.

And this, he reflected, was his second night in his native land. The first had been spent imprisoned in the garage, at the point of a revolver, but it had been a thousand times better than this. He had been warm and comfortable--and he had been innocent, a victim. Now he was taking an active part in a thoroughly discreditable affair.

He was committed to wait for a thin dark man with a mustache, and to prevent his entering the house. And how was he to do this? Walk up to him and begin to expostulate? Try to bribe him?

The thought of bribery aroused in the young man an anger which almost made him warm. No Ross would ever pay blackmail. Indeed, no Ross of his branch was fond of parting with money for any purpose at all. They were very prompt in paying their just bills and debts, but they took care that these should be moderate.

“No!” thought Ross. “If I was fool enough to give this fellow money, he’d only come back for more, later on. I’m not going to start that. No! But how am I going to stop him? Knock him out? That’s all very well, but suppose he knocked me out? Or he may carry a gun. Of course, I suppose I could come up behind him and crack him over the head with a rock. That’s what my Cousin Amy would appreciate. But somehow it doesn’t appeal to me. After all, what have I got against this fellow? What do I know about him? Only what she’s told me. And she’s not what you’d call overparticular with her words.”

His thoughts were off, then, upon the track of that problem which obsessed him. What had happened to the man under the sofa? He couldn’t still be there. But who had taken him away, and where was he now? He looked toward the house, so solid and dignified, with its façade of lighted windows. He remembered his cozy dinner in the kitchen; he thought of the orderly life going on there.

It was impossible! Yet it was true. He had seen that dead man with his own eyes. He had touched him.

Who else knew? Surely Amy; but it was obvious that she had some one to help her in all emergencies. Mrs. Jones? Ross believed that Mrs. Jones had been well aware of the man’s presence in her room. Eddy? Eddy’s behavior had been highly suspicious.

He refused to go on with this profitless and exasperating train of thought. He was sick of the whole thing. Amy had said that she would “explain everything” to him the next day. Not for a moment did he believe that she would do anything of the sort, but he did hope that at least she would tell him a little. And, anyhow, whatever she told him, whatever happened or did not happen, he was going away--back to normal, honest, decent life.

“I said I’d help her, and, by Heaven, I am!” he thought. “After to-night we’re quits. I’ll hold my tongue about all this; but--I’m going!”

He whacked his stiff arms across his chest.

“Hotel Benderly, West Seventy-Seventh Street,” he said to himself. “I’m going there to-morrow.”

For he no longer saw Phyllis Barron as a danger. He was considerably less infatuated with liberty after these two days. It occurred to him, now, that to be entirely free meant to be entirely alone, and that to be without a friend was not good.

He wanted some one to trust, and he trusted Phyllis. No matter that he had known her only five days; he had seen that she was honest; that she was steadfast, and, loveliest virtue of all, she was self-controlled. He knew that from her one need never dread tears, fury, despairs, selfishness and cajoleries.

Out there, in the cold and dark of his unhappy vigil, he thought of Phyllis, and longed for her smile.

“She’d never in her life get a fellow into a mess like this!” he thought. “But Amy--”

His distrust for his Cousin Amy was without limits. There was nothing, he thought, that she might not do. She was perfectly capable of forgetting all about him, and then, in the morning, if he were found frozen to death at his post, she would pretend to wonder what on earth the new chauffeur had been doing out there.

“After eleven,” he thought. “And Eddy hasn’t come yet. Very likely she knew he wouldn’t come. Perhaps he’s never coming back. All right! I’ll wait till twelve, and then I’m going to take a look at that little kid. I’ve got to. It’s too little.”

So he walked up and down, up and down, over the rough, frozen patch of ground behind the fir trees; his coat collar turned up, his soft hat pulled low over his eyes, his face grim and dour; a sinister figure he would have been to meet on a lonely road.