The Place of Honeymoons Part 19

"Oh, yes; I am very fond of Como," he found himself replying mechanically to Mrs. Harrigan. He gave up Rao as hopeless so far as coming to his rescue was concerned. He began, despite his repugnance, to watch Nora.

"It is always a little cold in the higher Alps."

"I am very fond of climbing myself." Nora was laughing and jesting with one of the English tennis players. Not for nothing had she been called a great actress, he thought. It was not humanly possible that her heart was under better control than his own; and yet his was pounding against his ribs in a manner extremely disquieting. Never must he be left alone with her; always must it be under circ.u.mstances like this, with people about, and the more closely about the better. A game like this was far more exciting than tiger-hunting. It was going to a.s.sume the characteristics of a duel in which he, being the more advantageously placed, would succeed eventually in wearing down her guard. Hereafter, wherever she went, there must he also go: St. Petersburg or New York or London. And by and by the reporters would hear of it, and there would be rumors which he would neither deny nor affirm. Sport! He smiled, and the blood seemed to recede from his throat and his heart-beats to grow normal.

And all the while Mrs. Harrigan was talking and he was replying; and she thought him charming, whereas he had not formed any opinion of her at all, nor later could remember a word of the conversation.

"Tea!" bawled the colonel. The verb had its distinct uses, and one generally applied it to the colonel's outbursts without being depressed by the feeling of inelegance.

There is invariably some slight hesitation in the selection of chairs around a tea-table in the open. Nora scored the first point of this singular battle by seizing the padre on one side and her father on the other and pulling them down on the bench. It was adroit in two ways: it put Courtlandt at a safe distance and in nowise offended the younger men, who could find no cause for alarm in the close proximity of her two fathers, the spiritual and the physical. A few moments later Courtlandt saw a smile of malice part her lips, for he found himself between Celeste and the inevitable frump.

"Touched!" he murmured, for he was a thorough sportsman and appreciated a good point even when taken by his opponent.

"I never saw anything like it," whispered Mrs. Harrigan into the colonel's ear.

"Saw what?" he asked.

"Mr. Courtlandt can't keep his eyes off of Nora."

"I say!" The colonel adjusted his eye-gla.s.s, not that he expected to see more clearly by doing so, but because habit had long since turned an affectation into a movement wholly mechanical. "Well, who can blame him?

Gad! if I were only twenty-five or thereabouts."

Mrs. Harrigan did not encourage this regret. The colonel had never been a rich man. On the other hand, this Edward Courtlandt was very rich; he was young; and he had the entree to the best families in Europe, which was greater in her eyes than either youth or riches. Between sips of tea she builded a fine castle in Spain.

Abbott and the Barone carried their cups and cakes over to the bench and sat down on the gra.s.s, Turkish-wise. Both simultaneously offered their cakes, and Nora took a ladyfinger from each. Abbott laughed and the Barone smiled.

"Oh, daddy mine!" sighed Nora drolly.

"Huh?"

"Don't let mother see those shoes."

"What's the matter with 'em? Everybody's wearing the same."

"Yes. But I don't see how you manage to do it. One shoe-string is virgin white and the other is pagan brown."

"I've got nine pairs of shoes, and yet there's always something the matter," ruefully. "I never noticed when I put them on. Besides, I wasn't coming."

"That's no defense. But rest easy. I'll be as secret as the grave."

"Now, I for one would never have noticed if you hadn't called my attention," said the padre, stealing a glance at his own immaculate patent-leathers.

"Ah, Padre, that wife of mine has eyes like a pilot-fish. I'm in for it."

"Borrow one from the colonel before you go home," suggested Abbott.

"That's not half bad," gratefully.

Harrigan began to recount the trials of forgetfulness.

Slyly from the corner of her eye Nora looked at Courtlandt, who was at that moment staring thoughtfully into his tea-cup and stirring the contents industriously. His face was a little thinner, but aside from that he had changed scarcely at all; and then, because these two years had left so little mark upon his face, a tinge of unreasonable anger ran over her.

"Men have died and worms have eaten them," she thought cynically. Perhaps the air between them was sufficiently charged with electricity to convey the impression across the intervening s.p.a.ce; for his eyes came up quickly, but not quickly enough to catch her. She dropped her glance to Abbott, transferred it to the Barone, and finally let it rest on her father's face. Four handsomer men she had never seen.

"You never told me you knew Courtlandt," said Harrigan, speaking to Abbott.

"Just happened that way. We went to school together. When I was little they used to make me wear curls and wide collars. Many's the time Courtlandt walloped the school bullies for mussing me up. I don't see him much these days. Once in a while he walks in. That's all. Always seems to know where his friends are, but none ever knows where he is."

Abbott proceeded to elaborate some of his friend's exploits. Nora heard, as if from afar. Vaguely she caught a glimmer of what the contest was going to be. She could see only a little way; still, she was optimistically confident of the result. She was ready. Indeed, now that the shock of the meeting was past, she found herself not at all averse to a conflict. It would be something to let go the pent-up wrath of two years. Never would she speak to him directly; never would she permit him to be alone with her; never would she miss a chance to twist his heart, to humiliate him, to snub him. From her point of view, whatever game he chose to play would be a losing one. She was genuinely surprised to learn how eager she was for the game to begin so that she might gage his strength.

"So I have heard," she was dimly conscious of saying.

"Didn't know you knew," said Abbott.

"Knew what?" rousing herself.

"That Courtlandt nearly lost his life in the eighties."

"In the eighties!" dismayed at her slip.

"Lat.i.tudes. Polar expedition."

"Heavens! I was miles away."

The padre took her hand in his own and began to pat it softly. It was the nearest he dared approach in the way of suggesting caution. He alone of them all knew.

"Oh, I believe I read something about it in the newspapers."

"Five years ago." Abbott set down his tea-cup. "He's the bravest man I know. He's rather a friendless man, besides. Horror of money. Thinks every one is after him for that. Tries to throw it away; but the income piles up too quickly. See that Indian, pa.s.sing the cakes? Wouldn't think it, would you, that Courtlandt carried him on his back for five miles! The Indian had fallen afoul a wounded tiger, and the beaters were miles off. I've been watching. They haven't even spoken to each other. Courtlandt's probably forgotten all about the incident, and the Indian would die rather than embarra.s.s his savior before strangers."

"Your friend, then, is quite a hero?"

What was the matter with Nora's voice? Abbott looked at her wonderingly.

The tone was hard and unmusical.

"He couldn't be anything else, being d.i.c.k Courtlandt's boy," volunteered Harrigan, with enthusiasm. "It runs in the family."

"It seems strange," observed Nora, "that I never heard you mention that you knew a Mr. Courtlandt."

"Why, Nora, there's a lot of things n.o.body mentions unless chance brings them up. Courtlandt--the one I knew--has been dead these sixteen years. If I knew he had had a son, I'd forgotten all about it. The only graveyard isn't on the hillside; there's one under everybody's thatch."

The padre nodded approvingly.

Nora was not particularly pleased with this phase in the play. Courtlandt would find a valiant champion in her father, who would blunder in when some fine pa.s.ses were being exchanged. And she could not tell him; she would have cut out her tongue rather. It was true that she held the princ.i.p.al cards in the game, but she could not table them and claim the tricks as in bridge. She must patiently wait for him to lead, and he, as she very well knew, would lead a card at a time, and then only after mature deliberation. From the exhilaration which attended the prospect of battle she pa.s.sed into a state of depression, which lasted the rest of the afternoon.

"Will you forgive me?" asked Celeste of Courtlandt. Never had she felt more ill at ease. For a full ten minutes he chatted pleasantly, with never the slightest hint regarding the episode in Paris. She could stand it no longer. "Will you forgive me?"

"For what?"

"That night in Paris."