The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors Part 9

"Let me go riding, too. I don't want to go home."

"No, not this time. My little red car doesn't like to take for long rides boys who make their sisters cry."

So Bobby had to climb meekly in to be ignominiously dumped at the yard gate while Douglas was whisked off in the count's natty little red roadster.

"Now you are looking like your beautiful self," he declared, slowing down his racer and turning to gaze into Douglas's face. "What is it that made you weep so profusely? Not the little brother. Beautiful damsels do not weep so much because of little brothers."

Douglas smiled.

"Ah, the sun has come out! Now I am happy. I am so distressed by tears that I can hardly bear it."

"You must have a very tender heart."

"Yes, perhaps! Now tell me what caused your grief."

How handsome this man was and how kind! He seemed like an old friend. He really did care what was troubling her and it would be a relief to pour out all of her foolish griefs. Douglas missed her father's sympathy. She knew that he was as ready as ever with his love and solicitude for her, but she felt that she must not add to his worries one iota. Her mother was out of the question and Helen was too young. Before she knew it, she was trying to tell Count de Lestis all about it, all but about Lewis Somerville--somehow that was something she could not mention. Her grievances sounded very small when she tried to put them into words.

Naturally she could not dwell upon her mother's extravagancies or this man would think her poor little mother was selfish; Helen was such a trump, the fact that she longed for stylish clothes certainly was not enough to make a grown girl sit on the roadside and dissolve in tears; while Nan and Lucy were commuting to school like little soldiers. It ended by being a humorous account of Bobby and his blame pay.

Of course the count knew perfectly well that that was not all that had made this lovely girl give way so to grief. No doubt Bobby's misbehavior was the last straw, but there had been a heavy load to carry before Douglas's camel of endurance had got his back broken. He laughed merrily over the fleas and Douglas forgot all about her worries and laughed, too.

"Poor little Minnie! She did squirm so, and think of her being too ladylike to scratch, and how she must have disappointed those bad boys by refraining!"

"Yes, if all women would just squirm and not scratch it would take much from the pleasure of teasing them," laughed de Lestis. "What amuses me is how boys are alike all the world over. The discipline of my school days was very strict, but a thing like that might have happened among boys in Berlin as much as here in a rural school in Virginia."

"Berlin! But you are Hungarian!"

"So! So--but Hungarians can go to school in Berlin. Even Americans have profited by the educational advantages offered there."

Douglas thought her companion's tone sounded a little harsh. She bent her candid gaze on him and met his glowing eyes. Blue eyes looked unflinchingly into black until the steering of the red car forced him to give his attention to the wheel.

"I wish the count's moustache did not turn up quite so much at the corners," thought the girl. "It makes him look a wee bit like the Kaiser; of course, though, he is kind and the Kaiser is cruel."

"Perhaps we had better turn around now," she suggested gently, contrite that even for a moment she had thought this kind friend could resemble the hated Kaiser.

Certainly the wind had wiped away all traces of the emotional storm from Douglas's countenance. The young man by her side could but admire the pure profile presented to him, with its soft, girlish lines but withal a look of strength and determination. Her loosened hair was like sunlight and her cheeks had the pink of the Cherokee rose. Profiles were all well enough, but he would like another look into those eyes as blue as summer skies after a shower.

"Of course, my dear Miss Carter, I know that the little rascal Bobby must have been very annoying but I cannot but think that you have not entrusted to me your real troubles."

Douglas stiffened almost imperceptibly.

"When one finds a beautiful damsel sitting by the roadside in such grief that her charming face is convulsed with weeping, one cannot but divine that some affair of the heart has touched her. Tell me, has some bold cavalier trifled with her affections?"

Douglas stiffened more perceptibly.

"Your father told me of a young cousin, a Mr. Somerville, who is now on the Mexican border----"

"Father told you! I don't believe it."

"My dear young lady, he only told me there was such a cousin; you have told me the rest. Now! Now! Don't let your sweet eyes shed another tear for him. He is not worth it! If he can find amus.e.m.e.nt in the ladies of Mexico, who are, when all is told, an untidy lot, why should you worry?

There are other fish in the sea!"

If the Count de Lestis wished to see something more of Douglas's eyes he had his desire fulfilled now. She turned and once more blue eyes looked unflinchingly into black. This time the black eyes had a mischievous gleam and the blue ones looked more like winter ice than summer skies.

"Now I have made you angry." Once more his car took his attention for the moment.

"Not at all!" icily.

"You wish you had not come with me."

"I appreciate your kindness in bringing me for the drive very much,"

still cold and formal in tone.

"I guessed too well, that is where I sinned."

Douglas was silent, but she still looked at her companion.

"She is like the little Minnie: she squirms but will not scratch."

"I was just thinking," said Douglas, changing the subject with a swiftness that disarmed the count, "your moustache certainly turns up at the ends just like Emperor William's."

CHAPTER VIII

SAt.u.r.dAY

"Isn't it glorious to be living and for it to be Sat.u.r.day?" yawned Lucy.

"Yes, and not to have to catch that old train," and Nan snuggled down luxuriously under the bedclothes. "I used to think Sat.u.r.day was a pretty good inst.i.tution when we lived in town, but now--Oh, ye G.o.ds! Now!"

"Did you know that Sat.u.r.day was decreed a half-holiday in the days of the Saxon King Edgar 958 A. D.?" asked Lucy, who had a way of springing historical facts on people.

"No, but I know it's going to be a whole holiday for Nan Carter in the year of grace 1916. I intend to do nothing but laze the whole day long, laze and read."

"I bet you won't. I bet you go nutting with Mag and me, because if we go it means Billy goes along, and if he goes along he'll be in a terrible grouch unless you go, too."

October had delightfully spread over into November. The weather had obligingly stayed good, and although our Carters had been at Valhalla more than a month, they had experienced no real bad days.

Nippy, frosty nights had put Mr. Carter wise to the many cracks that he must stop up. Weather strips must be put on windows and doors, panes of gla.s.s must be puttied in. Suspicious stains on walls and ceilings warned him of leaks, but he had to wait for a rain to locate them. He found himself almost as busy as he had been before his breakdown, but busy in such a different way.

"I'm glad it's Sat.u.r.day! I think I won't work today," he had remarked to his wife at about the same time Nan and Lucy were having their talk.

"Come and walk in the woods with me."

That lady had graciously consented, if he promised not to go far and to lift her over fences.

"I think I'll wash my hair today; and darn the stockings; and go over the accounts; and write some letters; and read the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_," said Douglas as she and Helen dressed hurriedly. Their little attic room was hot in summer and cold in winter.