Part 10

He didn’t show the least surprise. (He is a thoroughbred, too.) “You lead,” he said; “I’ll follow.”

And so we went on--to the wagon-yard, Mr. England looking at the sidewalk, Missy looking straight ahead.

The gate was open. I went in, not stopping till I reached the door of my shanty. There, Missy got down. She was standing beside me as Mr. England came around the corner, and leaning a little upon me, one gloved hand reached up to the saddle.

Mr. England strode close up to her, and they stood for a moment, her face raised bravely to his, his eyes searching her.

“Oh, little woman!” he said, and his voice shook; “oh, little woman!”

She took her under lip in her teeth. “There’s--there’s no reason for me to conceal anything,” she said. “Matters were a little tight at home, and I had to be economical.”

He was looking at her as if he was bewildered. “Matters tight--at home----” he repeated. Then, of a sudden, he seemed to know what it all meant, and his face got as white as Missy’s. “Your father--then, your father----?” he began, almost chokingly.

Missy looked straight back at him, and there was no more leaning against me. “Yes. And now you know why I didn’t want you to come here. It wasn’t because I was ashamed of this. It was because I knew you’d find out. And then you might think--might think that I felt there was something personal about it. You see, I realise there wasn’t. Father made contracts to deliver. Afterward, wool went up----”

Mr. England groaned. “To think it reached you! That _you_ had to suffer.”

“But I _haven’t_ suffered. Work was offered me here,--work in an art line. I have felt no hardship from it. In fact, there is happiness in earning a living. I am learning so much. The only disappointment I’ve had was about Hector. He’s not been quite as comfortable----” She stopped and caressed my shoulder tenderly.

Something got into my wind-pipe then, and I had to mouth my bits to keep from coughing.

“And where do you live?” asked Mr. England. “Not where you did. I went there--more than once.”

“Well,--no-o--. But in a very nice place. I take my meals across from the store.”

“The store?”

“Yes. I am painting Christmas things--cards and so on. It’s pleasant work. And my room looks out on the side of a church. And there’s a stained-glass window there, and ivy all over the church wall.”

Mr. England began again, low and deep and earnestly. “Once in a lifetime,” he said, “a man meets a girl like you--sweet and sensible and good, that can take a blow like this without a word, find her feet again, and begin her fight bravely, doing without things that are second nature to her, and going without comforts for a friend, even when that friend is only a horse!”

“But I couldn’t do without Hector,” Missy declared. “I love him too much.”

(I rubbed my nose against her sleeve.)

“Sometimes I’ve had a terrible thought,” she said, half in a whisper. “It was that I might be forced to part with him. And--and I’ve wondered--oh, you’ll forgive me, I hope--if I have to, you’ll take him, Mr. England? He’s a perfect lady’s saddler.”

“You mean,--I may need a lady’s saddler?”

“Well, you--you might.”

“I shall--if I have _my_ way about it.”

Dear Missy turned to me again, and put her arms about my neck. “I’m not brave about this,” she whispered, and hid her face in my mane.

All of a sudden he pulled her hands free and turned her toward him. “You love him,” he said. “I wonder if there’s room in your heart for anyone else, _dear_ little woman?”

And just at that moment that ragamuffin of a stable-boy popped into sight. Of course, I was led away.

I don’t know how I ever lived through the next few days. No Missy, no dainties, nothing but a short airing each morning to take me out of that terrible shanty. Ah, I knew what had happened to me _this_ time. I was out of the Sanborn family. I was somebody else’s lady’s saddler!

Then, one morning, when the boy led me out through the gate, he started off south along the Boulevard. I had on my dress-blanket and hood. Behind me came another boy, carrying my saddle and bridle and the rest of my clothes. This was going somewhere.

“They can’t find any place in New York worse than that shanty,” I said to myself. And for the first time since leaving California, I completely lost heart. I put my head down and just stumbled long.

And then--I suddenly found that we had passed the Circle, turned east, and were in front of Hart’s! We mounted the runway. And _there it was_--the roomy box-stall across from Thunderbolt’s, deep with sweet bedding, and matted in Peter’s best style. And there was Missy, looking so pink and pretty! And there was Mr. England, smiling so hard he couldn’t talk!

“Dear Hector!” cried Missy. “Oh, Martin, be very good to him while we’re away!”

“Yes, mum,” said Martin.

“And to Thunderbolt, too,” said Missy.

Martin bobbed, and tugged at his cap.

Then Missy reached up and pulled my head down close to her. “Darling Hector!” she whispered. “We’re home to stay!” And she kissed the star in my forehead.

THE GENEVIEVE EPIDEMIC

“I’m homely,” said Sue, smiling and pulling the grey pony down to a walk; “I’m the homeliest girl to be found at the Brampton Country Club. Why, even plain young married women ask me to their houses on protracted visits.”

As he reined his own horse, Philip Rawson turned upon her a look of reproof. “Ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “The first time a fellow meets you, maybe he only _does_ remember your hair or your eyes. You’ve got awfully attractive eyes, Sue. But the _second_ time he sees how nice you are. And the third time he’s sure to look forward to meeting you again. But by the fourth or fifth time! Well, by gad! by the fourth or fifth time there’s no half-way about it--he thinks you’re a dandy!”

Sue laughed teasingly. “You’ve grown up with those ideas,” she declared. “Do you remember that once--you were twelve, Phil,--you gave Len Hammond the nosebleed because he called me ‘cotton-top’?”

“Your hair is stunning,” said Phil defensively. “And _no_ girl could look better than you do on a horse.”

“But imagine riding a horse to a dance,” said Sue.

“Who wants to go to dances?” demanded Phil. “The idea of wasting hours getting togged for a confounded silly affair and then more hours attending it--when there’s all outdoors to enjoy!”

“Don’t scold,” said Sue. “It’s been ages since I’ve ‘wasted hours’ at a dance. And yesterday I wore out two horses.”

Phil suddenly brightened. “Let’s go to Wheaton Hill some afternoon,” he suggested. “And up to Hadbury another day. I want to see the polo-field. Brampton’s going to play Hadbury soon. And there’s a new litter of collies at the St. Ives kennels. We’ll canter over and see ’em.”

“How I’ve missed you these two years!” said Sue. “I’ve ridden a lot, of course. But my tennis has suffered. And not a single fish have I caught. The other men--even Bob and Courtney and Len, too--all wait on me when I ride with them or fish. I hate that: I hate being treated like a drawing-room ornament. Now, you, Phil,----”

“Can be pretty nearly as rude and selfish as a brother,” broke in Phil.

“You’re more like a--a chum,” said Sue. “And so I’m awfully glad to get you back, not a _bit_ spoiled, and not--married.”

Phil stared. “Married!” he repeated. “_Me?_”

“Hillcrest needs a mistress, Phil.”

“Suppose I were to pull a long face and say: ‘Sue, Arbor Lodge needs a master’?” He drew off his cap and stuffed it into the front of his shirt, shook his head vigorously, so that the morning wind could catch at his hair, and rolled his sleeves up to his elbow, showing two stout arms as brown as the pony under him.

“I’m so homely,” said Sue, “that I’m marriage-proof.”

“Sue,”--very earnestly--“I didn’t see a single girl on the other side that I could fall in love with. I guess it’ll have to be an American that takes my mother’s place.”

Sue waved her whip. “Down with foreign alliances!”

“Oh, there wasn’t anything patriotic about it,” said Phil. “I just didn’t see the girl.”

“You’re calloused,” asserted Sue. “You’ve played polo so long that you’ve got a basswood ball for a heart. Here you are, twenty-six, handsome----”

“Loyalty, thy name is Sue Townsend!”

“And wholesome and good and awfully popular; and rich, too, with such a place, such woods and streams!”

“And such a blarney of a little friend,” added Phil.

“It’s not blarney,” Sue declared. “No; I leave all that for Larry. Phil, where _did_ you pick him up?”

Phil gave a quick glance round at the red-cheeked, red-haired groom riding at the prescribed distance behind. “He was born in Dublin,” said he, grinning, “and I got him in Hongkong. He hasn’t been twenty feet away from me since. The fellows call him my ‘shadow.’”

“But, of course, you’re sure to meet your fate some day,” went on Sue. “And your kind, when they _do_ fall in love, get fearfully hard hit.”

“Huh!”

Sue nodded wisely. “I don’t believe you’ll even survive what’s in store for you this very week,” she declared.

“No? What is it?”

“She’s coming to The Lilacs to-day to stay a month--Mrs. Vander Laan knew her mother. Last year she visited me. She’s tall and slender, and has the most beautiful eyes, and hair, and nose, and mouth, and complexion----”

“Hold! Hold!” cried Phil, in mock alarm.

“She’s perfect, in fact. Let’s take this dapply road.”

“Haven’t time--the fellows expect me at practice. Go on about the goddess.”

“She _is_ a goddess. And everybody worships at her shrine. You’ve heard of faces that haunt?”

“Creditors?” suggested Phil.

“I met her first at Miss Pendleton’s. She ruled the school, she was so beautiful. No man’s _ever_ seen her without capitulating.”

“Number one,” announced Phil, pointing at his chest. “What’s her name?”

“Genevieve.”

“I never cared for it.” He looked at his watch. “If I get to the field in time I’ll have to turn now. Want to come along?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.” Sue wheeled the grey. “Grandmamma hasn’t been well lately. I shall stay with her to-day. Let’s race home.”

Galloping level, the grey and the brown made back along the shaded road, with the wind tugging harder than ever at Phil’s hair, and blowing out wisps against Sue’s pink cheeks. At the wide, stone gate of Arbor Lodge they drew rein.

“See you to-morrow?” he asked.

“Telephone me,” said Sue. “Meanwhile, you _may_ meet Genevieve. And I warn you----”

“Rubbish!” said Phil.

* * * * *

The polo enthusiasts of the Brampton Country Club were in despair; in particular, three members of the team reserved for the Hadbury game were pulling their hair wildly. But the fourth member was apparently indifferent to the awfulness of the situation--a situation of which he was himself the cause. And the reason for his indifference was not far to seek. The majority of the club knew it quite as well as if he had put up blue-and-white enameled signs beside the advertisements of automobile tires on every fence in that part of the country, and on the signs one line: _The Brampton’s Captain is_---- But wait.

In their anxiety, the trio who were to go against Hadbury called in solemn conclave upon Sue Townsend. Not that Sue was in any way implicated--Sue had never been concerned in an affair of this particular sort. The three players wished to state the case to her and ask her immediate aid.

“We shan’t keep you a minute,” began Leonard Hammond, when Sue greeted her visitors in the library at Arbor Lodge, “I see you’re going out. But”--his tone was mournful--“it’s something horribly serious.” (Mr. Hammond had constituted himself the first spokesman because, playing Number One in the team, he realised his Captain’s value.)

Sue was very smart in a linen habit, and she gave the three glum faces an encouraging and hospitable smile. “Oh, it won’t matter in the least if you keep me a few minutes,” she declared, shaking hands warmly. “Do sit down.” She indicated the library couch. “You see, I’m only going for a ride, and Phil hasn’t come yet.” She took a plump chair which was in front of the couch and leaned back to recover breath after her tripping rush down the stairs.

“Phil!” repeated the three in chorus, and dropped rather precipitately upon the couch. Then: “We are just in time!”--this from Mr. Hammond.

Sue leaned forward suddenly. Her eyes were dark-blue and heavy-lashed, and now they looked her solicitude. “Is something--wrong with Phil?” she asked.

Mr. Courtney Graves, Second Forward of the team, almost stared at her. “Wrong?” he repeated. “Haven’t you heard?”

“No.” She looked from one to another, the colour going from her cheeks. “Bob! What is it?”

Mr. Robert St. Ives, Half-back, began: “It’s a mess, Sue, hanged if it isn’t!--a confounded mess. Phil was to play against the Hadbury team, you know, and reserved us for the game.”

“Yes.” With one hand Sue smoothed a round gold locket that hung between the lapels of her coat.

“Now,” continued Mr. St. Ives, biting each word short to give it full significance, “--now, all at once, he’s dropped off in his practice, says he doesn’t want to go to Hadbury, wants _me_ to be captain--rot! And he spends his time in his car, while his ponies hammer their legs to pieces in their boxes. We got _that_ much from Larry.”

She leaned back once more, relieved and smiling. “Why has Phil changed?” she inquired in mild surprise.

“Because he wants to stay at Brampton,” answered Mr. St. Ives forcibly, “and motor when he can, or hang out on the club veranda when she won’t motor. That’s why.”

“She?” said Sue, under her breath. “Who?”

Mr. Courtney Graves stood up and pointed, first to the fireplace, then to a writing-desk, last of all to a panel between two bookcases. Above the fireplace, on the carved mantel, was the full-length portrait of a beautiful girl--a dark, imperious, queenly girl in ball dress. On the writing-desk, in delicate frames of hand-wrought silver, were two other photographs of the same girl. One of these showed her in a trailing carriage-coat, with furs; the other was a lake scene, and she was seated in a drifting boat, with a ruffled parasol shading her lovely face. In the panel between the bookcase was a fourth picture of the selfsame subject--an etching done with great skill and effectiveness. The dark girl, gowned in clinging white, was shown against a massed background. A flowered hat rested upon her poised head; one hand was outstretched to feed a fawn.

“He has it!” announced Mr. Graves portentously; “he’s another added to the epidemic. Sue, Phil Rawson’s in love with Genevieve Unger.” Whereupon he sank between his companions.

Sue did not speak, but sat regarding them from the depths of her chair.

“It’s a particularly bad case,” said Mr. Hammond, “and we fear the worst.”

“The worst?” questioned Sue in a low voice.

“You know Miss Unger. Is she going to let Hillcrest slip through her fingers? Hang these visiting girls, anyhow! They always create trouble.”

Sue put up a gloved hand quickly. “Please don’t criticise Genevieve to me, Len,” she said. “She’s my friend.”

“Just the same, you know what she’ll do,” persisted Mr. Hammond. “She’ll keep Phil dangling as long as she can--perhaps one month, perhaps two--then she’ll haughtily accept him. Meanwhile, what’ll he be good for? Polo? And the Hadbury game comes off in just ten days. We’ll lose it without him.” He nursed a knee disconsolately.

“We thought,” began Mr. Graves, taking up the matter where Mr. Hammond had left off, “that you might be able to shorten the period of agony--the dangling period, I mean. If Miss Unger imagined there was the least danger that she’d lose him, why, she’d grab him.”

“Yes, she would,” declared Mr. St. Ives. “Her visit at The Lilacs is up pretty soon. Where’ll she go next?”

“Here,” said Sue quietly, “--if anyone is speaking unkindly of her.”

“That’s lucky for _her_,” went on Mr. Graves. “Your hospitality isn’t to be sneezed at by a girl who likes to spend all of her income on her duds.”

Sue rose. “Really,” she said, “I can’t listen any longer. Genevieve is the handsomest girl in the State of New York. She’s a darling to boot. And you gentlemen”--this with studied candor--“would have _less_ to say if each and every one of you had not been given your--your----”

“Mitten?” suggested Mr. St. Ives politely.

“--Last year,” concluded Sue. “I’m sorry I’ve listened to a single unkind thing about her. I insist that you talk of something else while you remain.”

“We’d better go, then,” said Mr. Hammond, his face eloquent of woe. “We came to talk about just that, you see. There isn’t a dashier player, or a stronger hitter, or a better shot at goal in Westchester County. Of course, there’s Tommy Watts. He could sub. But none of us want Tommy, he’s so wild with that whippy stick of his. Oh, why--_why_----”

“I haven’t seen Phil for nearly two weeks,” said Sue. “Grandmamma has been quite ill.”

“How is Mrs. Townsend?” inquired Mr. St. Ives. “Pardon our forgetting to ask. We’re so confounded worried----”

“Phil’s happiness must come before polo,” went on Sue very decidedly. “Surely you didn’t think that I would conspire against him.”

“Oh, nothing of the sort!” cried Mr. Graves. “Our hope wasn’t that you would butt in--that is, interfere unpleasantly--and break things up. On the contrary, we wanted you to--er--well, to sort of stampede Genevieve so that she’d say ‘Yes’ at once, or maybe elope. Oh, if Phil _only_ had an old cat of a mother who would oppose the match!”

Sue looked down at her boots. Then, after a moment’s thought: “If you like Phil, and think so badly of Genevieve,” she argued, “why should you wish to see them marry? I refuse to be the cat.”

“The Hadbury game!” cried Mr. Hammond. “Sue, we want to win that game!”

“Well,” she said, “if Phil really loves Genevieve, and if Genevieve loves Phil, I’ll try my best to--to--but I make you no promise. I shall think only of their happiness, of course.”

The three filed to the door. There they turned. “Point out to Genevieve,” suggested Mr. St. Ives, “that Hillcrest is an ideal place for entertaining.”

“And mention,” added Mr. Graves, “that Phil’s income is in the first flight--oh, don’t omit that.”

“But, above all things, cut down the dangling,”--this from Mr. Hammond. They shook hands with her impressively and filed out into the hall.

Sue returned to the plump chair and sat down. Directly before her was the writing-desk with its pair of silver-bordered photographs. She studied the pictures earnestly for a while. And when she turned from them it was to go to a mirror and look at her own reflection--long and keenly and with honest eyes. There were her horseback freckles, dotting her nose as the stars dot the sky, and her square, little, undimpled chin, and her sunburned cheeks, roughened by all the winds of spring. “Ah,” she said at last, “she is _so_ beautiful. _I_ love her for her beauty, too. I don’t blame _any_body for loving her.” Then she left the mirror and went back to the chair before the couch.

Many another person had contrasted the two. And not a few of the Country Club members openly asserted--and with wrath--that Genevieve Unger’s desire for Sue Townsend’s society lay in the fact that Sue, with her wisp of a figure and her irregular little face, served as a contrast to the other girl’s stateliness and radiant beauty. But there were other striking contrasts between the girls, apart from the one of looks. As one club wag put it, a mere comparison of their footwear accounts for the year presented the essential difference between them. During the season, Sue wore out two pairs of riding-boots, tan; one pair of riding-boots, black; one pair of boots for climbing; three pairs of stout shoes for morning wear; six pairs of sandals suitable for use in the surf; ten pairs of tennis shoes, and two pairs of slippers; while Genevieve’s list for the same length of time included six pairs of boudoir slippers; six pairs of carriage shoes--to match as many gowns; one pair of high-heeled shoes unsuitable for street wear; and twenty-two pairs of slippers in velvet, satin and kid.

But to Sue, ready for her ride forty minutes ahead of the appointed time, only one contrast appeared. And when Mr. Rawson was announced she sprang from her chair, bade the servant tell him that she would be down in one moment, and fled up the stairs to her dressing-room, where she dabbed a bit of powder upon the offending nose, fluffed out her hair at either temple, and donned a white chiffon veil.

But Phil barely glanced at her as she came out to her horse. His eyes, blue like her own, had a far-away expression in them, and he answered her greeting absent-mindedly. When he had put her up and mounted his own pony he rode away beside her at a walk, his look fixed ahead of him eagerly but unseeing; his lips parted in a faint smile. Behind them, at the prescribed distance, followed the red-cheeked, red-haired groom.

Sue said nothing, letting her companion have all his thoughts for himself. Every now and then she gave him a quick, inquiring glance.

When he broke silence at last he spoke musingly--almost as if to himself. “What a day to be at the dentist’s,” he said. “I hope he won’t hurt her.”

“Dentist’s?” inquired Sue. “Who’s gone?”

“Why--Miss Unger.” He coloured self-consciously.

“Oh, has she?” went on Sue, surprised. “Are you sure? I thought this was the date for that lawn fête at the Fanshaws’--Greenwich, you know--for the benefit of something or other. Genevieve telephoned me she’d promised to go and sell fudge.”

“But she went to town instead,”--this with finality.

At this point, Sue thought of Messrs. Hammond, Graves and St. Ives, and of the oncoming contest at Hadbury. “Did you play this morning?” she asked. “I suppose the team is getting splendidly drilled.”

“I suppose so,” he answered vaguely. He was looking far ahead once more.

“I think I’ll ask Genevieve to drive to Hadbury with me the day of the game,” resumed Sue.

He turned toward her, then, undisguised pleasure brightening his face: “How you always think of doing nice things for others!” he said. “Go, Sue. It’ll be a corking match.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything. And, of course, I’d take Genevieve. One can’t help doing nice things for _her_. Isn’t she beautiful, Phil!” She said it earnestly.

“So beautiful that most of the girls aren’t especially kind to her,” Phil answered. “Just this morning Elizabeth Carlton had to throw out something--a nasty hint, you understand. It was about Valentine, that English chap who’s been at the club so much lately.”

“I really don’t know him,” returned Sue. “But I’ve heard----”

“Yes, and I’ll wager it’s all true,” went on Phil hotly. “He isn’t the sort of a man you’d like to see her marry.”

“Phil, you’ve fallen a victim, too,” said Sue gently.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Well, I told you you would.”