Come Out of the Kitchen! Part 13

Raising his eyes, he found Smithfield looking at him with an expression he did not thoroughly like.

VI

ON the stroke of seven o'clock the next morning, Burton came downstairs with that exactness which even the most careless man can display in regard to his favorite sport. The rigors of the cub-hunting season being over, the meet did not take place until eight.

Cora was not yet ready for breakfast, and Crane went to fill his cigarette case before starting.

The drawing-room was still dark and in disorder. Crane lit a match to find his way to the table where the tobacco was kept. It was the same table on which had lain the miniature of the lady in the mauve ball dress; and as he held up his lighted match, his eyes sought once more that enchanting pearl circle. The flame died down and burned his fingers before his eyes had encountered what they were looking for. He lit a second match, and then a candle, before he could a.s.sure himself that the miniature was really gone.

He sprang into the hall and called: "Smithfield!" with a violence that had little respect for late sleepers.

Smithfield came hurrying out of the dining-room.

"Where's the miniature that used to be on this table?"

"The what is it, sir?"

"The miniature, a picture in a pearl frame."

Smithfield looked thoughtful.

"And what was it a picture of, sir?"

"Of a lady."

"In a black lace cap, and she with white hair, sir?"

"No," said Crane, "she was young and lovely, in a ball dress and a wreath. You must remember it. It was here yesterday."

Smithfield shook his head blankly.

"No, sir," he said, "I can't rightly say that I remember it, but I'll inquire for it."

Crane swore with an uncontrollable irritation--irritation at Smithfield for being so stupid, irritation that he himself had been so careless as to leave the picture about among a houseful of unknown servants.

He was not distracted even by the sight of Cora coming downstairs, looking very workmanlike in her habit with her hat well down over her brows, and her boots, over which Brindlebury had evidently expended himself, showing off her slender feet.

They breakfasted alone; but Burton's mind ran on the loss of the miniature, and he did not really recover his temper until he had mounted Cora, found all the straps of her skirt, adjusted her stirrup, loosened the curb for her, and finally swung himself up on his own hunter, a big ugly chestnut.

The meet was near-by and they were going to jog quietly over to it. They took a short cut across the lawn, and at the sight of the turf, at the smell of the fresh clear morning, the horses began to dance as spontaneously as children will at the sound of a street organ. Crane and Cora glanced at each other and laughed at this exhibition of high spirits on the part of their darlings.

No horseman is proof against the pleasure of seeing one of his treasured animals well shown by its rider; and the Irish mare had never looked as well as she now did under Cora's skilful management. He told her so, praising her hands, her appearance, her understanding of the horse's mind; and she, very fittingly, replied with flattery of the mare and of Crane's own remarkable powers of selection.

They were getting on so well that Burton found himself saying earnestly:

"You really must stay on as long as I do, Cora. Don't let your mother take you away, as she wants to."

The girl's surprise actually checked the mare in her stride.

"My mother is thinking of going away?" she cried.

Well, of course, he wanted her to stay, wanted her, even, to want to stay, but somehow he did not want her to be so much terrified at the thought of departure, did not want her black eyes to open upon him with such manifest horror at the bare idea of departure.

He suggested sending the horses along a little, and they cantered side by side on the gra.s.s at the roadside. Crane kept casting the glances of a lover, not at Cora, but at the black mare, as she arched her neck to a light touch on the curb, so that the sunlight ran in iridescent colors along her crest.

Presently they saw two hors.e.m.e.n ahead of them, one of them in that weather-stained pink that, to hunting eyes, makes the most beautiful piece of color imaginable against the autumn fields.

"That's Eliot, the Master," cried Crane. "The hounds must be just ahead.

He's a nice old fellow; let's join him. I can't make out who the other one is--no one who was out the last time we hunted."

The canter had given Cora a color. She looked straight before her for a moment, and then she said:

"I think I recognize that other man."

"Who is it?"

"Some one I should like you to know, Burt. His name is Lefferts."

The lane was now too narrow for four to ride abreast. Crane drew Eliot to his side. He wanted to ask him about the Crosslett-Billingtons, for since the disappearance of the miniature, he had made up his mind to investigate the references of his staff. But strange to say, Eliot had never heard of the Billingtons, of their collection of tapestry, or their villa at Capri. He wished to talk of the Revellys.

"A great loss they are to the county, Crane, though, of course, we gain you. I wonder where they are. Gone North, I heard, though I thought I saw one of the boys out the morning of the day you came. The Revellys will hunt anything, from a plow-horse to a thoroughbred. Hard up, you know. Glad they consented to rent their house. Didn't suppose they ever would. Too proud, you know. They have things in it of immense value.

Portrait of the grandfather, Marshall Revelly. Second in command to Stonewall Jackson at one time. I'd like to have you know them. Paul, the elder brother, is a man of some ability; may make his mark. And the younger daughter, Miss Claudia Revelly--" Do what he would, Eliot's voice changed slightly in p.r.o.nouncing the name. "--Miss Claudia is one of our great beauties, the recipient of a great deal of attention. Why, sir, last summer, when Daniel W. Williams, the Governor-elect of this State, saw Miss Claudia at--"

But the story, in which, to be candid, Crane did not take a great deal of interest, was interrupted by Cora who pushed her mare forward in order to attract Crane's attention and to introduce him to her companion.

The young man was extraordinarily good-looking. His eyes were a strange greenish-brown color, like the water in the dock of a city ferry; his skin was ivory in hue and as smooth as a woman's, but his hands and a certain decisiveness of gesture were virile in the extreme.

"We ought to have a good run," said Crane, in order to say something.

"If any run can be good," answered the young man.

"You don't like hunting?"

"I hate anything to do with horses," answered Lefferts, plaintively.

"You must admit they are particularly unintelligent animals. If they weren't, of course they wouldn't let us bully them and ride them about, when they could do anything they wanted with us. No, I only do it because she," he nodded toward Miss Falkener, "makes me."

Cora, looking very handsome, laughed.

"He's a poet," she said.

"Is that why he has to hunt?" asked Crane, and he wondered if poetry had anything to do with the excellence of the young man's coat and boots.

"Yes, poets have to be athletic nowadays. It's the fashion, and a very good one, too."