The Maker of Opportunities Part 30

"But we can't leave him up there," said Steve, more seriously. "That bull will be there until--until the cows come home."

"Jimmy is perfectly safe," said Patricia, "unless he goes to sleep and falls out; and he can't starve unless he throws all the apples at the bull."

"Patty, you're heartless," said Aurora, but she laughed when she said it.

The farmer who came along in the wagon took in the situation at a glance and laughing more loudly than any of them, consented at last to drive to the barnyard and tell the farmer.

"It won't do any good," he said, sagely. "That bull won't go back until he follows the cows at milking time. He might quit before that--I dunno.

I'll do what I can though." And with a laconic chirrup to his nag, he departed in the direction of the Van Westervelts' farmyard.

The party of three followed him with their eyes until he had disappeared in a cloud of dust and then examined the apple-tree from which the Sphynx's legs dangled hopelessly. The rest of him was hidden among the leaves.

"Until the cows come home," said Patricia, solemnly, and looking into one another's eyes all three of them burst into shameless laughter. And with that laugh free-masonry was established. It was plainly to be read in Aurora's eyes. The toppling of Jimmy's dignity had been too much for her own sense of gravity.

Patricia meanwhile had taken out her watch. "This, my dear children,"

she said, indicating with a fine gesture, the Sphynx's apple-tree, "is one of the hazards of the New Game of Golf. There is only an hour and a half to finish in. Play the game, you two, I must wait."

"It wouldn't be the sporting thing," said Steve, struggling with a desire to obey.

"I'd like to know who is as good a judge of the rules of a game as its inventor," said Patricia. "Am I right, Aurora?"

Aurora by this time was fingering at the strap of Ventnor's golf bag.

"Yes," she decided, "as Patricia says, it's in the game."

Steve glanced at her quickly, joyfully, but her head was lowered and she was already down the steps of the stile and walking along the road toward the adjoining meadow. Ventnor's eyes met Patricia's for the fraction of a second of wireless telegraphy, after which Steve plunged down the steps and followed his caddy.

The gabled roof of Augustus North's house was visible above the trees scarcely half a mile away, but the paper chase led to it by devious, sequestered ways, which Steve Ventnor and his caddy scrupulously followed. Many times on the way they stopped in the shadow of the trees, and but a few minutes of time remained when Steve ran down his putt. It had taken him just one hundred and three shots to do that last nine hundred yards in an hour and forty minutes. His caddy counted them; which only went to prove her a conscientious person, for under the circ.u.mstances book-keeping was a difficult matter.

Perched upon her stile, in smiling patience Patricia waited "until the cows came home," while Mortimer Crabb, who had been notified over the telephone of the disaster, drove up to see the final chapter in Jimmy McLemore's undoing. For the farmer came and at some pains extracted him from his perilous post. The Crabbs drove McLemore to his home in their motor and then ran over to the Norths to hear how the cross-country match had finished. The happy couple met them at the steps.

"The ball is in the hole, Patty, dear," said Steve Ventnor. "Do I win the Cup?"

"You do," said Patricia, looking at her watch, "by three hours and a half. And it's a loving-cup, Steve, with cupids and things, I had it made especially for you and Aurora."

Aurora kissed Patricia with enthusiasm.

"How did you know, Patty, it was to be Steve?"

"Simplest thing imaginable! Because Steve is the most adorable boy, always excepting Mort, that was ever born--and then you know, Aurora--you couldn't have married Jimmy!"

"That's true," said Aurora, thinking of Jimmy's legs in the apple-tree, "I really couldn't."

Steve refused to return to the Crabbs' to dinner, so the Makers of Opportunities departed alone. Mortimer drove slowly through the gathering dusk and Patricia sat silent.

"Are you happy, Patty?" he asked, at last.

"No, of course not," said Patricia, pinching his ear, "you know I'm never happy with you, Mort."

"Aren't you getting a little tired of putting the world in order?"

"Oh, yes. But young people are _so_ provoking. They can never make up their own minds, and you know _somebody_ has to do it for them."

"Haven't you ever wondered how the world would get on without you?"

"No, but sometimes I've wondered how you would."

"I? Ah! I wouldn't get on at all. And yet you know there's a responsibility in being married to a Dea ex Machina."

"What, please?"

"The machinery may run down."

"And then?"

"The G.o.ddess may end in the ditch."

"Mort!"

"Or get a blow-out--you came near it, Patty."

"I didn't, Mort--ever."

"How about----?"

He was going to say John Doe, but she put her fingers over his lips so that he only mumbled.

"No, Mort--I'm a prudent G.o.ddess--a chauffeuse extraordinary."

"I'm sure of that, but----"

"But what?"

"No car can endure so long out of the garage."

"You're a silly old thing." She sighed comfortably and leaned her head over on his shoulder. In a moment she spoke again. "I think you're quite right though, Mort."

"Aren't you tired of making opportunities for other people?"

She made a sound that he understood.

"I am, a little, you know, Patty," he added. The motor purred gently as it glided out of a country road into the turnpike.

"What do you say if we begin making opportunities for each other?"

She started up with a laugh.

"I never thought of that," she said. "When shall we start?"