The Brown Study Part 18

Julius's brotherly eye rested upon his sister, as it had done that morning, with cool satisfaction. Some of the girls looked in disarray, hair tumbled, frocks rumpled, faces burned. Dorothy's simple white serge suit was unmussed, her hair was trim under her plain white hat with its black velvet band, her colour was even, her dark eyes clear. Although Ridgeway Jordan was bestowing upon her the most devoted attentions, his eyes constantly seeking--but seldom finding--hers, she was showing no consciousness of it beyond the little, curving, half-smile with which she was answering him. In a word, her brother felt, Dot was sweet--strong and sweet and unspoiled--fascinating, too, being a woman and not without guile. Didn't she know--of course she did--that it was just that noncommittal att.i.tude of hers, amused and pleased and interested, but unimpressed by their regard, that drew the men like a magnet?

Behind Dorothy and young Jordan one of the bridesmaids, an extraordinarily pretty girl, was laughing hysterically, clutching at her attendant's sleeve and then pushing him away. He was laughing with her--and at her--and his eyes, all the time, were following Dorothy Broughton. It seemed to Julius, as the party came on, that most of the girls were behaving foolishly--and quite all the men. Perhaps it was because they had all seen so much of each other during these days and nights of merry-making that they had reached the borders of a dangerous familiarity. A little tired of one another most of them had become, it was more than probable. Against this background Dorothy showed easily the most distinction of them all; she looked in her simple attire, contrasted with the elaborate costumes of the other bridesmaids, like a young princess reigning over a too frivolous suite.

Kirke Waldron looked, unperceived, out of his window, and Julius, turning his eyes from the picture before him, observed his friend. Waldron's face was not what might be called an expressive one; it was the face of a man who had learned not to show what he might be feeling. There was no mask there; only cool and balanced control, coupled with the keenest observation. But Julius imagined that Waldron's close-set lips relaxed a little as he stared at Dorothy.

The party came on into the inn; the sound of their voices and laughter died away. Some young people at a table near, who also had been looking out of a window, made various comments to which Julius listened with interest.

"Swell-looking lot. Wonder who they are."

"Must be the bridal party they have here to-night. Dining privately."

"Awfully pretty girls," was one young woman's opinion; "better looking than the men. Why are the men in bridal parties never as good looking as you expect?"

"Bridegroom doesn't want himself cut out. He has no advantage of a veil and train; he has to stand out in his raw black and white and compete with the other men on his own merits."

"I wonder if that was the bride, that prettiest girl in front."

"Don't know. Probably. If she is, the chap's lucky who gets her."

Julius felt a desire to get up and explain that his sister was n.o.body's bride, and wasn't going to be anybody's until the right man came along.

Instead he sat still and stared at his plate. As he had watched his sister coming toward him, with Ridgeway Jordan beside her looking into her face with that look of eager hopefulness, he had experienced a powerful longing to go out and lead Ridge away to some secluded spot and explain to him that he wasn't good enough. It wasn't as if there were anything against young Jordan; there was certainly nothing specific.

Julius found himself wishing there were.

Upon the bluff in the cool darkness the two young men spent the following hour, enjoying to the full the refreshing, woods-laden breath of the night air, their pipes sending up clouds of fragrant smoke and keeping them free from the onslaughts of the insects which otherwise at that hour would have been very annoying. From time to time Julius lighted matches and consulted the unrelenting face of his watch. They did not talk much; it was a time for silence and the comradeship of silence.

The station at which the tram would stop was not a dozen rods from the hotel. Until the last minute, therefore, they could linger. But at half after nine Julius sprang up.

"Let's go back to the hotel and wait on the porch," he proposed.

The two paced back to the porch, which hummed with talk. The whole small company of the inn's few permanent guests was gathered there, obviously to see the bridal party when it should appear and take to its motors.

There was not much to amuse hotel guests up here in the mountains; they could not afford to miss so interesting a departure.

From not far in the distance suddenly a whistle pierced the night air.

"I say, that's too bad!" cried Julius low to his friend. "I hoped they'd come out before you had to go and you could meet Dot. Just our luck!"

"We'd better be off," said Waldron, and he led the way. It was a flag station, as he had learned, and he could not afford to lose the train. It would be after midnight before he could get back to the city as it was, and he was to leave the city at nine in the morning for his long absence.

Someone was waving a lantern as they approached the station. The forest hid the track in both directions, but the roar of the nearing train could now be plainly heard.

Walking fast, a trifle in advance, Waldron suddenly turned and spoke over his shoulder: "I suppose my ears deceive me, but that certainly sounds as if it were coming from the wrong direction."

"Your ears do deceive you, of course," Julius responded. "All sounds are queer in the night. Still--by George! it certainly does seem to come from--"

The train, puffing and panting from its pull up the grade, now showed its headlight through the trees. There was no question about it, it was coming from the wrong direction, and therefore, unquestionably, was going in the wrong direction.

"Must be two trains pa.s.s here," cried Julius, and he ran ahead to the hotel hand who was still waving his lantern, although the train was slowing to a standstill. "There's another train to-night?" he questioned.

"No, sir. This one's all the' is to-night."

Julius turned and looked at his friend. "Well, I certainly have got you into a nice sc.r.a.pe," he said solemnly.

"It looks like it," Waldron answered shortly. "The thing is now, how to get out of it. We must hire something and drive back--or to a station somewhere."

They debated the question. They hurried back to the office and interviewed the management, which shook its head dubiously. The little mountain resort was far from stations where trains could be had for the city fifty miles away. The inn had no conveyance to offer except one work team of horses and a wagon, guests invariably coming by train or motor.

There were three automobiles out on the driveway, but they belonged to the bridal party. There had been other automobiles, but they had all left soon after dinner, their pa.s.sengers having come for the dinner only, and proceeding on their way in time to make some other stopping place by bedtime. There seemed to be no way to get Waldron back except to ask a favour of Ridgeway Jordan.

Kirke Waldron knit his brows when Julius made this suggestion as a last resort. "I certainly hate to ask such a favour in the circ.u.mstances," he said. "But it's a case of 'must.' I wouldn't miss that ship to-morrow morning for any sum you could name; I can't miss it."

"I'll call Ridge out," said Julius promptly, "or--well, good luck! here he comes."

Wheeling, he advanced to meet a slim young man who was hurrying down the wide staircase to the lobby. Jordan's first glance was one of astonishment, his second of suspicion. The reputation of Julius Broughton for mischief, particularly at times like these, was one not to be lightly overlooked. But Julius's air of earnestness was disarming.

"No joking, Ridge," he said. "Mr. Waldron and I wandered over here on a long tramp. Dot wouldn't tell me where you people were going. We meant to take the train at nine forty-five, but--well, you know timetables. It turned out to be an up train instead of a down train. It was all my fault. It wouldn't matter, but Mr. Waldron will miss a more than important engagement with a ship sailing for South America if he doesn't get back to catch the eleven-fifty to town. You see there isn't a conveyance here--"

But of course there was no need to explain further. Jordan was a gentleman, and even if he had doubted Julius there was no doubting the expression in the eyes of the man to whom Julius now presented him. Young Jordan knew a man of serious affairs when he saw one; unquestionably he saw one now. He promptly offered seats in one of the cars.

Waldron expressed his regret that they should be obliged to force themselves upon a private party, and Jordan a.s.sured him that it would be a pleasure to serve them, although he said it with one more appraising glance at Julius. He added that he would take them in his own car, that being the only one which had two seats to spare. As Julius had noted this fact in the morning he was not surprised, only grateful that he had not had to scheme for this distribution of the company.

Jordan went to the desk and gave an order, then returned to his party upstairs.

Julius and Waldron retired to the porch.

Presently the party came trooping out, arrayed for the trip. Dorothy in an enveloping white coat, her hat replaced by a particularly effective little rose-coloured bonnet of her own clever manufacture, found herself confronted upon the lantern-lighted porch, as she was about to step into the car, by her brother with a strange man at his elbow.

She looked straight up at him, as Julius presented him. He looked straight down at her, and for an appreciable period of time the two pairs of eyes continued to dwell upon each other. Until this extraordinarily thorough mutual survey was over neither said a word. The rest of the party, diverting themselves with the usual laughter and badinage--some of it of a recognizably sleepy character--took their places, and only those nearest noted the addition to the list of pa.s.sengers. The other man and girl of Jordan's car were an engaged pair, absorbed in each other, an astute reason for his selection of them to accompany himself and Dorothy.

The rear seat of the great car easily held four people. Ashworth and Miss Vincent occupied two of the places; during the day Jordan and Dorothy had held the other two. Ashworth had already handed in Miss Vincent. The two chaperons of the party young Jordan had throughout the day thoughtfully bestowed in the other cars.

"Put my friend beside Sis, will you, Ridge?" suggested Julius in his host's ear. "They used to be old schoolmates and haven't met for years.

He's off to-morrow for a long stay. It's their only chance to talk over old times."

Jordon nodded; there was nothing else to do. He could joyfully have taken his friend Julius by the scruff of his neck and hurled him out into the night, if by some miracle he could suddenly have become that young man's superior in strength. But social training prevailed over natural brute instinct, and it was with entire politeness that he made this arrangement of his guests.

He then put Julius into the seat beside the chauffeur, and himself took one of the extra folding seats, swinging it about to half face those upon the rear seat. In this manner he was nearly as close to Miss Dorothy Broughton as he would have been beside her--nearly, but not quite! To his notion there was all the difference in the world.

Kirke Waldron, understanding intuitively the position as come-between in which he had been placed in Ridgeway Jordan's big automobile by Julius's misreading of the railway timetable, and, as far as that part of the situation was concerned, wishing himself a hundred miles away, was also keenly alive to that which the G.o.ds--and Julius--had given him by seating him beside Dorothy. As the car hummed down the long trail from the inn he played his part with all the discretion of which he was capable; and he had learned many things since the days when he had fallen over his own awkward feet on the way to the blackboard. He talked a little with Dorothy--not too much; he talked considerably more with Ridgeway Jordan--but not more than was necessary; the greater part of the time he was silent with the rest, as was most fitting of all in the summer moonlight and the balmy night air.

Dorothy, sitting beside him, reminded Julius, as from time to time he glanced contentedly back at her from, his place beside the chauffeur, of a particularly demure kitten in the presence of two well-bred but definitely intentioned hunting dogs. She was very quiet, and only now and then he caught a word or two from her or the low sound of her attractive contralto laugh.

Just once, as the car whirled through a brightly lighted square in a small village where a country festival of some sort was in progress, he saw her take advantage of a moment when everybody's attention was caught by the scene, and look suddenly and absorbedly at Kirke Waldron's face in profile. But when Ridge Jordan whirled about upon his folding seat, to call her attention to the antics of a clown in the square, she was ready for him with a smile and a gay word of a.s.sent. Julius laughed to himself.

There was no question that Kirke's face, even in profile, was one to make Ridge's look insignificant. As for the man himself--

The car, rushing on through the summer night, its powerful searchlights sending ahead a long, clear lane of safety where the road was straight, but making the dark walls on either side resolve into black pockets of mystery where the curves came, approached one of those long, winding descents, followed by a second abrupt turn and a corresponding ascent, which are--or should be--the terror of motorists. All good drivers, at such places, hurling themselves through the darkness, sound warning signals, lest other cars, less cautious, be rushing toward them without sound of their coming.

Jordan's chauffeur, sending his car on down the winding hill with hardly appreciable loss of speed, took this precaution, and the mellow but challenging notes of his horn were winding a long warning when the thing happened which was to happen. No accident, but the horror of one which comes so close that it all but seizes its victims, and leaves them weak and shuddering with what might have been.

Another car dashed around the lower turn, apparently not hearing the warning, or determined to ignore it, that no momentum with which to climb the steep grade coming should be lost. There was an instant in which the two drivers glimpsed each other out of the gloom of the unlighted curve; then quick action upon the part of both--lightning-like swerves to avoid the danger--two great cars rocking each on the brink of disaster, then righting themselves and running on into safety, no pausing to let any look back and ponder upon the closeness of the escape.

It was all over so quickly that it was like the swift pa.s.sage of a hideous thought, but there had been time for every soul in the car to look death in the face. And in that moment of peril there had been individual action--instantaneous--the action which is instinctive and born of character.