Gordon Keith Part 103

"Why, you dear boy, where did you come from?" she asked him in pleased surprise. "I thought you were stretched at Mrs. Wentworth's feet in the--Where has she been this summer?"

Keith's brow clouded. He remembered when Wickersham was her "dear boy."

"It is a position I am not in the habit of occupying--at least, toward ladies who have husbands to occupy it. You are thinking of some one else," he added coldly, wishing devoutly that Mrs. Nailor were in Halifax.

"Well, I am glad you have come here. You remember, our friendship began in the country? Yes? My husband had to go and get sick, and I got really frightened about him, and so we determined to come here, where we should be perfectly quiet. We got here last Sat.u.r.day. There is not a man here."

"Isn't there?" asked Keith, wishing there were not a woman either. "How long are you going to stay?" he asked absently.

"Oh, perhaps a month. How long shall you be here?"

"Not very long," said Keith.

"I tell you who is here; that little governess of Mrs. Wentworth's she was so disagreeable to last winter. She has been very ill. I think it was the way she was treated in New York. She was in love with Ferdy Wickersham, you know? She lives here, in a lovely old place just outside of town, with her old aunt or cousin. I had no idea she had such a nice old home. We saw her yesterday. We met her on the street."

"I remember her; I shall go and see her," said Keith, recalling Mrs.

Nailor's speech at Mrs. Wickersham's dinner, and Lois's revenge.

"I tell you what we will do. She invited us to call, and we will go together," said Mrs. Nailor.

Keith paused a moment in reflection, and then said casually:

"When are you going?"

"Oh, this afternoon."

"Very well; I will go."

Mrs. Nailor drove Keith out to The Lawns that afternoon.

In a little while Miss Huntington came in. Keith observed that she was dressed as she had been that evening at dinner, in white, but he did not dream that it was the result of thought. He did not know with what care every touch had been made to reproduce just what he had praised, or with what sparkling eyes she had surveyed the slim, dainty figure in the old cheval-gla.s.s. She greeted Mrs. Nailor civilly and Keith warmly.

"I am very glad to see you. What in the world brought you here to this out-of-the-way place?" she said, turning to the latter and giving him her cool, soft hand, and looking up at him with unfeigned pleasure, a softer and deeper glow coming into her cheek as she gazed into his eyes.

"A sudden fit of insanity," said Keith, taking in the sweet, girlish figure in his glance. "I wanted to see some roses that I knew bloomed in an old garden about here."

"He, perhaps, thought that, as Brookford is growing so fashionable now, he might find a mutual friend of ours here?" Mrs. Nailor said.

"As whom, for instance?" queried Keith, unwilling to commit himself.

"You know, Alice Lancaster has been talking of coming here? Now, don't pretend that you don't know. Whom does every one say you are--all in pursuit of?"

"I am sure I do not know," said Keith, calmly. "I suppose that you are referring to Mrs. Lancaster, but I happened to know that she was not here. No; I came to see Miss Huntington." His face wore an expression of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Mrs. Nailor made some smiling reply. She did not see the expression in Keith's eyes as they, for a second, caught Lois's glance.

Just then Miss Abigail came in. She had grown whiter since Keith had seen her last, and looked older. She greeted Mrs. Nailor graciously, and Keith cordially. Miss Lois, for some reason of her own, was plying Mrs.

Nailor with questions, and Keith fell to talking with Miss Abigail, though his eyes were on Lois most of the time.

The old lady was watching her too, and the girl, under the influence of the earnest gaze, glanced around and, catching her aunt's eye upon her, flashed her a little answering smile full of affection and tenderness, and then went on listening intently to Mrs. Nailor; though, had Keith read aright the color rising in her cheeks, he might have guessed that she was giving at least half her attention to his side of the room, where Miss Abigail was talking of her. Keith, however, was just then much interested in Miss Abigail's account of Dr. Locaman, who, it seemed, was more attentive to Lois than ever.

"I don't know what she will do," she said. "I suppose she will decide soon. It is an affair of long standing."

Keith's throat had grown dry.

"I had hoped that my cousin Norman might prove a protector for her; but his wife is not a good person. I was mad to let her go there. But she would go. She thought she could be of some service. But that woman is such a fool!"

"Oh, she is not a bad woman," interrupted Keith.

"I do not know how bad she is," said Miss Abigail. "She is a fool. No good woman would ever have allowed such an intimacy as she allowed to come between her and her husband; and none but a fool would have permitted a man to make her his dupe. She did not even have the excuse of a temptation; for she is as cold as a tombstone."

"I a.s.sure you that you are mistaken," defended Keith. "I know her, and I believe that she has far more depth than you give her credit for--"

"I give her credit for none," said Miss Abigail, decisively. "You men are all alike. You think a woman with a pretty face who does not talk much is deep, when she is only dull. On my word, I think it is almost worse to bring about such a scandal without cause than to give a real cause for it. In the latter case there is at least the time-worn excuse of woman's frailty."

Keith laughed.

"They are all so stupid," a.s.serted Miss Abigail, fiercely. "They are giving up their privileges to be--what? I blushed for my s.e.x when I was there. They are beginning to mistake civility for servility. I found a plenty of old ladies tottering on the edge of the grave, like myself, and I found a number of ladies in the shops and in the churches; but in that set that you go with--! They all want to be 'women'; next thing they'll want to be like men. I sha'n't be surprised to see them come to wearing men's clothes and drinking whiskey and smoking tobacco--the little fools! As if they thought that a woman who has to curl her hair and spend a half-hour over her dress to look decent could ever be on a level with a man who can handle a trunk or drive a wagon or add up a column of figures, and can wash his face and hands and put on a clean collar and look like--a gentleman!"

"Oh, not so bad as that," said Keith.

"Yes; there is no limit to their folly. I know them. I am one myself."

"But you do not want to be a man?"

"No, not now. I am too old and dependent. But I'll let you into a secret. I am secretly envious of them. I'd like to be able to put them down under my heel and make them--squeal."

Mrs. Nailor turned and spoke to the old lady. She was evidently about to take her leave. Keith moved over, and for the first time addressed Miss Huntington.

"I want you to show me about these grounds," he said, speaking so that both ladies could hear him. He rose, and both walked out of the parlor.

When Mrs. Nailor came out, Keith and his guide were nowhere to be found, so she had to wait; but a half-hour afterwards he and Miss Huntington came back from the stables.

As they drove out of the grounds they pa.s.sed a good-looking young fellow just going in. Keith recognized Dr. Locaman.

"That is the young man who is so attentive to your young friend," said Mrs. Nailor; "Dr. Locaman. He saved her life and now is going to marry her."

It gave Keith a pang.

"I know him. He did not save her life. If anybody did that, it was an old country doctor, Dr. Balsam."

"That old man! I thought he was dead years ago."

"Well, he is not. He is very much alive."

A few evenings later Keith found Mrs. Lancaster in the hotel. He had just arrived from The Lawns when Mrs. Lancaster came down to dinner. Her greeting was perfect. Even Mrs. Nailor was mystified. She had never looked handsomer. Her black gown fitted perfectly her trim figure, and a single red rose, half-blown, caught in her bodice was her only ornament.

She possessed the gift of simplicity. She was a beautiful walker, and as she moved slowly down the long dining-room as smoothly as a piece of perfect machinery, every eye was upon her. She knew that she was being generally observed, and the color deepened in her cheeks and added the charm of freshness to her beauty.

"By Jove! what a stunning woman!" exclaimed a man at a table near by to his wife.