Against Odds Part 16

'What do you mean?'

'Simply that it is my duty to warn you, and to ask you if you know of any reason why you should be followed, or watched, or menaced by any manner of danger?'

'No'--she slowly shook her fair head--'no reason whatever.'

'And may I ask you about this person, this brunette? I would not say 'this woman.''

She started slightly, and leaned toward me.

'Is she here still?' she whispered.

I turned my head and cast a deliberate glance around the room.

'I do not see her,' I said; 'but she may be below, with an eye on the staircase.'

'It's more than likely. It's little I can tell you,' she said. 'She ran up to me that morning at the gate, her face beaming and her hand held out, and when she was close to me, and I drew away from her, she began the most profuse apologies: she was very near-sighted, and she had mistaken me for an old acquaintance she had not seen for some time; then she kept on by my side, prattling about her "mamma," who had not been able to leave the hotel since they came; of her dread of being alone, and her eagerness to see the Fair. She had hoped, when she saw me, that she had found someone who would let her "just follow along, so that she would not feel so much alone," etc. I did not like her volubility, yet I could see no way, short of absolute rudeness, of shaking her off. When I met a New York acquaintance, down near the lake sh.o.r.e, she quite surprised me by quietly slipping away. Do you think----' She paused, and arose with a quick, easy grace which seemed inherent. 'Will you come down and be introduced to my aunt?' she asked. 'I have great confidence in her judgment of--gentlemen, and she ought to know this; that is, if you can give me the time.'

'My time is entirely yours,' I declared recklessly, 'and nothing would give me more pleasure than to pay my entirely sincere respects to that lovely woman I saw in your company, and who, I am almost certain, saw me playing the spy upon her niece.'

She smiled as she moved toward the stairway, at the head of which she turned and paused a moment.

'Do you think she will approach us?' she asked.

'I can't imagine what she will do.'

'But she will see you, and----'

I think the smile on my face stopped her.

'You did not recognise me,' I said. 'She may not.'

She looked into my face keenly, and then a quick look of intelligence flashed into her eyes.

'Oh!' It was all she said, but it meant much. She took a step downward, and turned again. 'Of course I must not enlighten my aunt?'

'If you are willing to let it lie between us two--at first?'

'Certainly,' she said gravely, and went on down the stairs.

At the landing, half-way down, where the staircase turned to right and left, I saw, over her shoulder, a little dark figure standing in the west doorway.

'Turn to the right,' I said, over her shoulder. '"The longest way round," you know.'

She nodded, and without a glance in the other direction went down the east side, turned at the foot to wait for me with the air of one quite absorbed in an agreeable companion, and we went out at the door facing the Minnesota Building and the morning sun. As we stepped outside I paused in my turn.

'One word, if you will allow it. I may have to learn more of this person. It may make difficulties for me, and--who knows?--perhaps for you, if she imagines that you know her for--what she is. Or guesses, as she might----'

'What you are?' she interposed. 'You may trust me.'

We turned at the corner, and came once more to the west side and the little arbour. As we rounded the corner my companion suddenly slipped her little hand beneath my elbow, giving it at the same time a significant little pressure. The brunette, having doubtless watched our progress through the window, was coming down the steps and straight toward us.

For just a pa.s.sing moment I knew how Miss Jenrys looked to the friends who knew her, and whom she knew best. She was smiling and preoccupied as we stepped within the inclosure.

'See,' she said, hastening her own steps and mine, with a bright look toward the benches, 'there is auntie.'

The little brunette was almost abreast of us, and my companion's smiling gaze was still fixed upon the figure under the vines; then she turned her head, and, just at the place where we could turn from the walk, let her eyes turn toward the figure just opposite us.

It was charmingly done. Just as she made a step in the direction of the arbour her eyes fell quite naturally upon the face of the brunette. 'Good-morning,' she said smilingly, and with a little nod of her head. But there was no slackening of her steps; with the words on her lips we were off the walk, and crossing the gra.s.s to the place, not ten paces away, where the sweet-faced Quakeress sat, knitting and looking her surprise.

'Auntie, I have brought you a new acquaintance,' Miss Jenrys said, in a voice slightly raised; and then, looking after the retreating figure of the brunette and seeing that she was quite out of hearing, she added, 'and I have found my bag.'

I took the bag from my pocket, where it had grown to seem a quite familiar bulk, and laid it in her lap, and she began at once to narrate to the wondering Quakeress the adventures of the little bag.

She heard it through, with here and there a soft little exclamation of wonder, and I saw that she was slightly deaf, and quite given to misunderstanding and miscalling words and phrases.

'Thee has been very lucky, my dear,' the good soul said when Miss Jenrys had done, 'and the young man has been at great pains to restore thy reticule. It was hardly worth so much trouble, do you think?'

'Not in actual value perhaps, auntie, but it contained one or two little keepsakes that I valued'--she breathed a little fluttering sigh--'for the sake of the giver.'

'Is that why thee has mourned the loss of the little bag so much, and said so many unkind things about those poor benighted men of Turkey?

Then, indeed, I must add my thanks to thine.' And she turned and extended to me a soft slim hand, ungloved and delicately veined; and then she began to question me about the Fair and the things I had seen, showing in her questions and comments a singular mixture of innocent unworldliness, and native shrewdness, and mother wit.

In the midst of our talk Miss Jenrys broke in with a low, quick exclamation, which caused us to cease and turn toward her.

'Mr. Masters,' she said, in a low tone, 'our friend the brunette is looking over from the gallery windows of the Dakota Building--see! the one next the corner, toward the bridge. She does not make herself needlessly conspicuous, and it was only by the peculiar shade her figure threw, as she stood at one side--the eastern side--that I was drawn to observe her. My eyes are very strong--I am sure I am not mistaken.'

'It is only what I expected,' I replied. 'She will wait, no doubt, until she gets an opportunity to speak with you. Evidently she has some object in view, something to learn from you, or something to tell you. I would give something to know what it is.'

She looked at me a moment with thoughtful eyes. I had purposely spoken in a guarded tone, and when she answered it was in the same manner.

'Would it help you to learn her object?'

'It might, and it might give us a hint as to their reasons for following you.'

'Their reasons? Do you think----' She stopped abruptly.

'I don't know what to think, Miss Jenrys. It looked as if this person were following you on the day you lost your bag, and I am convinced that she is in some way connected with two or more men who are more than suspected of being offenders against the law. Miss Jenrys, do you know of any reason why you should be watched--followed? Have you an enemy? Are you in anyone's way?'

Instead of answering, she turned to the elder lady, who had been listening like one who but half comprehends.

'Auntie, you heard me say that Mr. Masters has strong reasons for thinking that the young woman who just pa.s.sed us, and who has forced herself upon my notice, and tried to claim my bag, is loitering about now for the purpose of speaking to me?'

'I heard thee: yes, June, surely I did, and I cannot understand the thing at all.'

'Nor do we, Aunt Ann.' She turned to me again. 'I am getting the fever for investigation,' she said, slightly smiling. 'I am not alarmed at what you have told me, but I do not doubt it, and if you think it best, if it will help you, I will give that young woman a chance to ease her mind to me. I will leave you here with Aunt Ann, and go, under her eyes, to the building next to this, on to the Washington House, and give her a chance to follow.'

I waited for the elder lady to speak, and my own surprise was great at her brave proposition--for it was brave, braver than she knew; and I was asking myself if I had the right to let her go to meet--an adventuress at the least, a criminal possibly. But her aunt gave the decisive word.

'My dear June, thee knows I do not like a mystery. If anything is to be learned concerning this person's strange conduct, we should find it out, and end the following and spying, else it will not be safe for thee to come here alone, even by day.'