Out of the Primitive Part 7

"Vievie!" she half shrieked.

Blake glanced over his shoulder and stopped short at sight of the girls locked in each other's arms. After a moment's fervent embrace, Dolores thrust her cousin out at arm's-length and surveyed her from top to toe with radiant eyes.

"Vievie! Vievie! I really can't believe it! To think you're home again--when we never expected to see you--and you've got almost all the tan off already!"

Genevieve looked up into the vivacious face of the younger girl with an affectionate smile on her delicately curved lips and tears of joy in her hazel eyes.

"It _is_ good to be home again, dear!" she murmured. She drew Dolores about to face the big man, who stood looking on with rather a surly expression, in his pale blue eyes. "Tom," she said, "this is my cousin, Miss Gantry. Dolores, Mr. Blake."

"The hee-row!" sighed Dolores, clasping a hand dramatically on her heart.

Blake's strong face lighted with a humorous smile. "Guess I've got to own up to it, Miss Dolores. Anything Jenny--Miss Leslie--says goes."

As he spoke he raised his English steamer cap slightly and extended a square powerful hand. Dolores entrusted her slender fingers to the calloused palm, which closed upon them with utmost gentleness.

"Really, Mr. Blake!" she exclaimed, "I mean it. You _are_ a hero."

Blake's smile broadened, and as he released her hand, he glanced at her mother, who had drawn a little apart with the Englishman. "Don't let me shut out your mamma and Jimmy."

"Oh, mamma believes that any display of family affection is immodest,"

she replied. "But duty, you know--duty!"

She whirled about and impressed a loud salute upon the drooping jowl of the stately Mrs. Gantry.

"Dolores!" admonished the dame. "When _will_ you remember you're no longer a hoyden? Such impetuosity--and before his lordship!"

"Goodness! Is he really?" panted her daughter, surveying the Englishman with candid curiosity.

"Is he really!" Mrs. Gantry was profoundly shocked. "If you weren't out, I'd see that you had at least two more years in a finishing school."

"Horrors! that certainly would finish me. But you forget yourself, mamma. You keep his earlship waiting for his introduction."

The Englishman shot a humorous glance at Blake, and drew out his monocle. He screwed it into his eye and stared blandly at the irrepressible Miss Gantry, while her mother, with some effort, regained a degree of composure. She bowed in a most formal manner.

"The Right Honorable the Earl of Avondale: I present my daughter."

The earl dropped his monocle, raised his cap, and bowed with unaffected grace. Dolores nodded and caught his hand in her vigorous clasp.

"Glad to meet you," she said. "It's rare we meet a real live earl in Chicago. Most of 'em are caught in New York, soon as they land."

"It's good of you to say it, Miss Gantry," he replied, tugging at the tip of his little mustache. "I've been over before, you know. Came in disguise. This time I was able to march through New York with colors flying, thanks to your mother and Miss Leslie."

Dolores sent her glance flashing after his, and saw Genevieve responding coldly to the effusive greeting of Ashton. The young man was edging towards the earl. But Genevieve turned to introduce him first to her companion.

"Mr. Blake, Mr. Brice-Ashton."

"I'm sure I'm--pleased to meet you, Mr. Blake," murmured Ashton, his voice breaking slightly as Blake grasped his gloved hand in the bare calloused palm.

"Any friend of Miss Jenny's!" responded Blake with hearty cordiality.

But as he released the other's hand, he muttered half to himself, "Ashton?--Ashton? Haven't I met you before, somewhere?"

As Ashton hesitated over his reply, Genevieve spoke for him: "No doubt it's the familiarity of the name, Tom. Mr. Brice-Ashton's father is Mr.

George Ashton, the financier."

"What! him?" exclaimed Blake. "But no. It's his face. I remember now.

Met him in your father's office."

"In father's office?"

"When I was acting as secretary for your father, Miss Genevieve,"

Ashton hastened to explain. "You remember, I was in your father's office for a year. That was before I succeeded with my--plans for the Michamac cantilever bridge and went to take charge of the construction as resident engineer."

"Your plans?" muttered Blake incredulously.

"To be sure. I remember now," said Genevieve absently, and she turned to look about, with a perplexed uptilting of her arched brows. "But, Dolores, where is papa?"

"Coming--coming, Viviekins," rea.s.sured her cousin, breaking short an animated conversation with the earl. "Don't worry, dear. He'll be along in a few minutes."

Genevieve stepped forward beside Blake to peer at the crowd. Dolores took pity on Ashton, who had edged around, eager for an introduction to the t.i.tled stranger.

"Oh, your earlship," she remarked, "this, by the way, is Mr. Laffie Brice-Ashton. I'd like to present him to you, but I'm afraid your Right Honorableness wouldn't take him even as a gift if you knew him as well as I do."

"Oh, now, Do--Miss Gon-tray!" protested Ashton.

The Englishman bowed formally and adjusted his monocle, oblivious of the hand that Ashton had stripped of its glove.

"Your--your grace--I should say, your lordship," stammered Ashton, hastily dropping his hand, "I'm extremely delighted--honored, I mean--at the unexpected pleasure of meeting your lordship."

"Ah, really?" murmured his lordship.

"Mr. Brice-Ashton's father is one of our most eminent financiers,"

interposed Mrs. Gantry.

"Ah, really? What luck!" politely exclaimed the Englishman. He stepped past the son of the eminent financier, to address Genevieve in an impulsive, boyish tone, "I say, Miss Leslie, hop up on a suitcase between Tom and me. You'll see over their heads."

"Hold on," said Blake, who was staring towards the outer door. "He's coming now."

"Where? Are you sure, Tom?" asked Genevieve, here eyes radiant.

"Sure, I'm sure," said Blake. "Met your father _once_. That was enough for me."

"Tom! You'll not-?"

"Enough for me to remember him," he explained with grim humor. "Don't worry. I don't want a row any more than you do."

"Or than he will! He'll not forget that had it not been for you--"

"And Jimmy!"