The Siege of the Seven Suitors Part 26

"Yes," she replied breathlessly.

"Is it not possible, then, that that little booklet, hardly heavier than paper itself, may have been brushed off without your seeing it?"

"It is possible; I must admit that it is possible; but"--

"It is on that 'but' that any theory implicating another hand must break. What I have indicated is exactly what must have happened. To the nice care that characterizes the house-keeping of this establishment we must now turn. I find that when I go to my own room after dinner it is always in perfect order,--pens restored to the rack on my writing-table, brushes laid straight on the dressing-table, and so on. The well-trained maid who cares for your room, seeing sc.r.a.ps of paper in the basket by your desk, naturally carried it off. When I accepted your commission last night I went directly to the cellar, sought the bin into which waste paper is thrown, and found among old envelopes and other litter this small trinket, which but for my promptness might have been lost forever."

"It does n't seem possible," she faltered.

"Oh," I laughed easily, "possible or impossible, you could not on the witness-stand swear that the book had not dropped into the waste-paper basket precisely as I have described."

"No, I suppose I couldn't," she answered slowly.

My powers of mendacity were improving; but her relief at holding the book again in her hand was so great that she would probably have believed anything.

"You see," she said, clasping the book tight, "this was given me for a particular purpose and it contains a memorandum of greatest importance.

And I was in a panic when I found that it was gone, for my recollection of certain items I had recorded here was confused, and there was no possible way of setting myself straight. Now all is clear again. I feel that I make poor acknowledgment of your service; but if, at any time"--

"Pray think no more of it," I replied; and at this moment Miss Hollister appeared and called us to breakfast.

"If it is perfectly agreeable to you, Arnold, I will hear the story of the finding of the ghost at four o'clock, or just before tea. I have sent a telegram to Mr. Pepperton asking him to be present. He 's at his country home in Redding and can very easily motor down. As no motors are allowed on my premises he shall be met at the gate with a trap."

"You have sent for Pepperton!" I exclaimed.

"That is exactly what I have done, and as he knows that I never accept apologies under any circ.u.mstances, he will not disappoint me. In addition to reprimanding him for not telling me of the secret pa.s.sage in this house, I have another matter that concerns you, Arnold, which I wish to lay before him. The new cook that Providence sent to my kitchen yesterday is the best we have had, Cecilia, and I beg that you both indulge yourselves in a second helping of country scrambled eggs."

Miss Octavia made no further allusion to the incidents of the night, but went on turning over her mail. I have neglected to say that her library contained a most remarkable array of books in praise of man's fort.i.tude and daring. I have learned later that these had been a.s.sembled for her by a distinguished scholar, and many of them were rare editions. A "Karlamagnus Saga" elbowed Malory and the "Reali di Francia;" and Roland's horn challenged in all languages. She greatly admired and had often visited the Chateau de Luynes, and had a portfolio filled with water-color and pen-and-ink drawings of it. Such books as Viollet-le-Duc's "Dictionnaire du Mobilier Francais" I constantly found lying spread open on the library table. She read German and French readily, and declared her purpose to attack old French that she might pursue certain obscure _chansons de geste_ which, an Oxford professor had told her, were not susceptible of adequate translation. Why should one read the news of the day when the news of all time was available! Magazines and reviews she tolerated, but no newspaper was as good as Froissart. She therefore read newspapers only through a clipping bureau, which sent her items bearing upon her own peculiar interests. By some error the story of a heavy embezzlement in a city bank had that day crept in among a number of cuttings relating to a ship that had been found somewhere off the Chilean coast with all sails set and everything in perfect order, but with not a soul on board. She expressed her bitterest contempt for men in responsible positions who betrayed their trusts: highway robbery she thought a much n.o.bler crime, as the robber dignified his act by exposing himself to personal danger.

"In our day, Arnold," she said, placing her knife and fork carefully on her plate, "in our day the ten commandments have lost their moral significance and retain, I fear, only a very slight literary interest."

She reminded Cecilia of an appointment to ride that morning; in the early afternoon she was to install a new kennel-master; and otherwise there was a full day ahead of her. It was a cheerful breakfast table.

A letter from my a.s.sistant confirming his telegraphed resignation did not disturb me; Miss Octavia showed no further signs of abandoning her quest of the golden coasts of youth, and Cecilia, having recovered her notebook, faced the new day cheerfully.

A little later I met Miss Hollister in the hall dressed for her ride.

"Arnold, you may ride whenever you like. I may have forgotten to mention it. What have you on hand this morning?"

"An appointment with a lady," I replied.

"If you are about to meet the owner of that Beacon Street slipper I wish you good luck."

She was drawing on her gauntlets, and turned away to hide a smile, I thought; then she tapped me lightly with her riding-crop.

"Cecilia's silver note-book was missing last night. She told me of her loss with tears. She has it again this morning. Did you restore it?"

"It was my good fortune to do so."

"Then allow me to add my thanks to hers. You are an unusually practical person, Arnold Ames, as well as the possessor of an imagination that pleases me. You are becoming more and more essential to me. Cecilia approaches, and I cannot say more at this time."

When they had ridden out of the porte-cochere I set off across the fields to keep my tryst with Hezekiah. The air had been washed sweet and clean by the rain of the night, and sky was never bluer. I was surprised at my own increasing detachment from the world. Nothing that had happened before the Asolando mattered greatly; my meeting with Miss Octavia Hollister had marked a climacteric from which all events must now be reckoned. I had embarked with high hope in a profession to which I had been drawn from youth, had failed utterly to find clients, and had therefore taken up the doctoring of flues, a vocation whose honors are few and dubious, and in which I felt it to be d.a.m.ning praise that I was called the best in America. My days at Hopefield were the happiest of my life. Few as they had been, they had changed my gray bleak course into a path bright with promise. The world had been too much with me, and I had escaped from it as completely as though I had stepped upon another planet "where all is possible and all unknown."

I reached the fallen tree that Hezekiah had appointed as our trysting-place a little ahead of time, and indulged in pleasant speculations while I waited. I was looking toward the hills expecting her to come skimming along the highway on her bicycle, when a splash caused me to turn to the lake. Dull of me not to have known that Hezekiah would contrive a new entrance for a scene so charmingly set as this! She had stolen upon me in a light skiff, and laughed to see how her silent approach startled me. She dropped one oar and used the other as a paddle, driving the boat with a sure hand through the reeds into the bank.

"'Tis morning and the days are long!"

Such was Hezekiah's greeting as she jumped ash.o.r.e. She wore a dark green skirt and coat, and a narrow four-in-hand cravat tied under a flannel collar that clasped her throat snugly. A boy's felt hat, with the brim pinned up in front, covered her head.

"You seem none the worse for your wetting, Hezekiah. You must have been soaked."

"So must you, Chimneys, but you look as fit as I feel, and I never felt better. Did they catch you crawling in last night?"

"I did n't see a soul. You know I'm an old member of the family now.

n.o.body was ever as nice to me as your Aunt Octavia."

"How about Cecilia?"

"Having found her silver note-book and given it back to her before breakfast, I may say that our relations are altogether cordial."

"Are you in love with her--yet?" asked Hezekiah, carelessly, tossing a pebble into the lake. The "yet" was so timed that it splashed with the pebble.

"No; not--yet," I replied.

"It will come," said Hezekiah a little ruefully, casting a pebble farther upon the crinkled water.

"You mean, Hezekiah, that men always fall in love with your sister."

She nodded.

"Well, she's a good deal of a girl."

"Beautiful and no end cultivated. They all go crazy about her."

"You mean Hartley Wiggins and his fellow-bandits at the Prescott Arms."

"Yes; and lots of others."

"And sometimes, Hezekiah, it has seemed to you that she got all the admiration, and that you did n't get your share. So when her suitors began a siege of the castle whose gates were locked against you, you plugged the chimney with a trunk-tray, and played at being ghost and otherwise sought to terrify your sister's lovers."

"That's not nice, Chimneys. You mean that I'm jealous."

"No. I don't mean that you are jealous now: I throw it into the remote and irrevocable past. You were jealous. You don't care so much now.

And I hope you will care less!"

"That is being impertinent. If you talk that way I shall call you Mr.

Ames and go home!"

"You can't do that, Hezekiah."