Our Next-Door Neighbors Part 9

We dined without the pleasure of the society of Ptolemy and Diogenes, who had been invited to sit at the table with the landlady's children. I might state, incidentally, that the invitation was never repeated.

Beth was quite excited over her walk.

"Ptolemy and I," she boasted, "made more of a discovery than Mr.

Rossiter did. We found a haunted house, a perfectly haunted house."

"I am not surprised," declared Silvia. "You couldn't expect any other kind of a house in such a region."

"Where is it?" I asked, "and what is it haunted by?"

"Insects," suggested Silvia.

"You go around sh.o.r.e about two miles, only it's farther, as you have to make so many ups and downs over the rocks. Then you leave the sh.o.r.e and go through a low marshy stretch, sort of a Dismal Swamp, and then up a hill. After Ptolemy and I climbed to the top, we looked down and saw, hidden in a clump of lonely looking poplars, a small, rudely built house. We went down to explore and had hard work making our way through a thick growth of--everything. We crawled under some tangled vines and came up on the steps. The house was vacant, although there were a few old pieces of furniture--a couple of cots, a cook-stove, table, and chairs.

"On our way home we met a woman who gave us a history of the house. An old miser lived there long ago. One night he was robbed and murdered, and his ghost still haunts the place. No one ventures in its vicinity, and she said most likely we were the first people who had gone there since the tragedy. She told us of a nearer way to reach it. You take the road to Windy Creek, and about two miles below here, turn into a lane and then go through a grove and over a hill."

"You don't really believe the story, that is, the ghost part of it?"

asked Rossiter.

"N--o," allowed Beth. "Still, I'd like to. It makes it interesting.

Ptolemy and I are going down there some night to see if we can find the ghost."

"You won't see one," I a.s.sured her. "Ptolemy's presence would be sufficient to keep even a ghost in the background."

"Ptolemy's a peach," declared Beth emphatically.

"If he were older, you wouldn't think so," said Rob.

"Why not?" asked Beth in surprise, or seeming surprise.

He smiled enigmatically, and irrelevantly asked her if she wouldn't really be afraid to go to the haunted house at night with only Ptolemy for protection.

She a.s.sured him she shouldn't be afraid of a ghost if she saw one, and that she shouldn't be afraid to go alone.

Throughout the evening, which we spent in rowing, walking, and later at a little impromptu supper, I was interested in observing the puzzling behavior of Beth and my chum. I had expected that he would avoid her as much as possible and speak to her only when common politeness made conversation obligatory, and that she, a born coquette, would seek to add his scalp to her collection. Instead, to my surprise, their roles were reversed. He appeared interested in her every remark and looked at her often and intently. He was quite a.s.siduous in his attentions which, strange to say, she discouraged, not with the deep design of a flirt to increase his ardor, but with a calm firmness that admitted of no doubt as to her feelings.

"Your sister," he remarked to me as we were walking down to the lake for a swim just before going to bed, "is a very unusual type."

"Not at all!" I a.s.sured him. "Beth is the true feminine type which you have never taken the trouble to know."

"Oh, come, Lucien! Not feminine, you know. Though she is inconsistent."

I resented the imputation hotly, but he only laughed and said that he guessed it was true that a man didn't understand the women in his family as well as an outsider did.

"You think," I said, "just because she says she isn't afraid of ghosts--"

"Not at all," he denied. "That wasn't the reason, but--I like her type, though I always supposed I wouldn't. It is a new one to me--anyway. I didn't think so young a girl as she--"

Our discussion was cut short by the inevitable, ever-present Ptolemy, who came running up to us, clad in about four inches of swimming trunks.

"Why aren't you in bed?" I demanded.

"I was in bed, but it was so warm I couldn't sleep, and I went to the window and saw you coming down here, so I thought I'd come, too."

I repeated Rob's remarks to Silvia when I returned to our room, and she betrayed Beth's confidences in regard to Rob.

"She says she would like him if it were not for one trait that she dislikes more than any other in a man and that it was sufficient in her estimation to counterbalance all his good qualities."

"What can she mean?" I asked bewildered. "I don't see a flaw in Rob, except for his being a woman-hater, and he surely hasn't betrayed that fact to her, judging from his manner toward her. I think he is making an effort to be nice to her on my account, and she doesn't appreciate it."

"I asked her what the flaw was, and she flushed and said she couldn't tell me."

"Well, I guess all around it is a good thing we are going off on our fishing expedition. I don't want my friend turned down by my sister, and I don't want my friend calling my sister a new type and unfeminine."

CHAPTER VIII

_Ptolemy Disappears and I Visit a Haunted House_

When Rob and I, with our camping outfit, drove off through the woods, Ptolemy's eyes followed us so enviously and he pleaded so eloquently to be taken with us that Rob was actually on the point of considering it.

"See here, Rob Rossiter!" I exclaimed, "This is my vacation and all I came to this G.o.d-forsaken place for was to escape the Polydores. If he goes, I stay. You know I've always tried to meet issues, but this antique family has got me going."

"All right," he yielded.

After a drive of a few miles we came to the lake and pitched our tent.

Two days of ideal camp life followed. The weather was fine, Rob was a first-cla.s.s cook, and the sport was beyond our most optimistic expectation. We landed enough of the Friday food to satisfy the most fastidious fishing fiend, and the mosquitoes, finding we were impervious to their stings, finally let us alone.

I forgot all business cares and disappointments, yes, even the Polydores; but on the morning of the third day Rob began to show signs of restlessness and spoke of the likelihood of my wife's being lonely.

"Not with Beth and Ptolemy in calling distance," I told him.

"But they will be off together," he replied, "and your wife will be alone with that _enfant terrible_. I fancy, too, that your sister isn't exactly a companion for your wife."

"Well, that shows how little you know her. She and Silvia are great friends."

"Oh, yes, of course they are friendly, but I mean their tastes are so different, and they are so unlike. Your sister doesn't care for domesticity."

"Sure she does. You have turned the wrong searchlight on Beth. If you knew her, you'd like her."

"I do like her," he declared. "It's too bad she--"

He stopped abruptly and quickly changed the conversation. In spite of my efforts to renew the controversy about Beth, he refused to return to the subject.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He pleaded eloquently to be taken with us.]