The Wild Olive Part 26

"I said I did, dear--after a fashion--and so I do."

"In that case I should think a good deal would depend upon the fashion.

Look here. It's addressed--_Miss Strange._ That's his writing. That's how he scribbles his name. And there's something written in tiny, tiny letters in the corner. What is it?" Without touching the envelope she bent down to see. "It's _The Wild Olive_. Now, what in this world can that mean? That's not business, anyhow. That means something."

"No, that's not business, but I haven't an idea what it means." Miriam was glad to be able to disclaim something. "It was probably on the envelope by accident. Some clerk wrote it, and Mr. Strange didn't notice it."

Evie let the explanation pa.s.s, while continuing to stare at the object of her suspicions.

"That's not papers," she said, at last, pointing as she spoke to something protruding between the rubber bands. "There's something in there. It looks like a"--she hesitated to find the right article--"it looks like a card-case."

"Perhaps it is," Miriam agreed. "But I'm sure I don't know why he should bring me a card-case."

"Why don't you look?"

"I wasn't in a hurry; but you can look yourself if you want to."

Evie took offence. "I'm sure I don't want to. That's the last thing."

"I wish you would. Then you'd see."

"I only do it under protest," she declared--"because you force me to." She took up the envelope, and began to unloose the rubber bands. "_The Wild Olive_" she quoted, half to herself. "Ridiculous! I should think clerks might have something better to do than write such things as that--on envelopes--on people's business." But her indignation turned to surprise when a small flat thing, not unlike a card-case, certainly, tumbled out.

"What in the name of goodness--?"

Only strong self-control kept Miriam from darting forward to s.n.a.t.c.h it from the floor. She remembered it at once. It was a worn red leather pocket-book, which she had last seen when it was fresh and new--sitting in the sunset, on the heights above Champlain, and looking at the jewelled sea. A card fell from it, on which there was something written. Evie dropped on one knee to pick it up. Miriam was sorry to risk anything, but she felt constrained to say, as quietly as possible:

"You'd better not read that, dear. It might be private."

Evie slipped the card back into the pocket-book, which she threw on the table, where Miriam let it lie. "I won't look at anything else," Evie said, with dignity, turning away.

"I want you to," Miriam said, authoritatively. "I beg you to."

Thus commanded, Evie drew forth a flat doc.u.ment, on which she read, in ornamental letters, the inscription, _New York, Toronto, and Great Lakes Railroad Company_. She unfolded it slowly, looking puzzled.

"It's nothing but a lot of little square things," she said, with some disdain.

"The little square things are called coupons, if you know what they are."

"I know they're things people cut--when they have a lot of money. I don't know why they cut them; and still less do I know why he should be bringing them to you."

Miriam had a sudden inspiration that made her face beam with relief.

"I'll tell you why he brought them to me, dear--though I do it under protest, as you say yourself. Your curiosity forces my hand, and makes me show it ahead of time. He brought them to me because it's a wedding-present for you. When you get married--or begin to get married--you can have all that money for your trousseau."

"Aunt Helen is going to give me my trousseau. She said so."

"Then you can have it for anything you like--for house-furnishings or a pearl necklace. You know you wanted a pearl necklace--and there's plenty for a nice one. Each of those papers is worth a thousand dollars, or nearly. And there are--how many?"

"Three. You seem very keen on getting rid of them."

"So I am--to you, darling."

Evie prepared to depart, looking unconvinced.

"It's awfully nice of you--of course. But still--if that's what you had meant at first--from the beginning--you would have--Well, I'll tell Aunt Queenie you'll come."

Left alone, Miriam made haste to read the card in the pocket-book.

_As deep calls to deep, so Spirit speaks to Spirit. It is the only true communion between mutually comprehending souls. But it is unerring--pardoning all, because understanding all, and making the crooked straight._

She read it more than once. She was not sure that it was meant for her.

She was not sure that it was in Ford's own handwriting. But in their situation it had a meaning; she took it as a message to herself; and as she read, and read again, she felt on her face the trickling of one or two slow, hard tears.

XVII

The result of the dinner that evening was that Evie grew more fretful.

After the departure of her guests, she evolved a brief formula which she used frequently during the next few weeks: "There's something!" With her quick eyes and quicker intuitions, it was impossible for her not to see that Ford and Miriam possessed common memories of the kind that distinguish old acquaintances from new ones. When it did not transpire in chance words she caught it in their glances or divined it in the mental atmosphere. As autumn pa.s.sed into early winter she became nervous, peevish, and exacting; she lost much from her pretty ways and something from her looks. In the family the change was ascribed to the fatigue incidental to the sudden round of lunches, dinners, dances, suppers, theatre-parties, opera-goings, and "teas" with which American boys and girls of a certain age are surfeited pitilessly with pleasure, as Strasburg geese are stuffed for pate de foie gras. Ford, however, suspected the true reason, and Miriam knew it. They met as seldom as might be; and yet, with the many things requiring explanation between them, frank conversation became imperative.

"You see how it is already," Miriam said to him. "It's making her unhappy from the start. You can't conceal the truth from her very long."

"She isn't fretting about the truth; she's fretting about what she imagines."

"She's fretting because she doesn't understand, and she'll go on fretting till she does. I'm not sorry. It must show you--"

"It shows me the necessity of our being married as soon as possible, so that I may take care of her, and put a stop to it."

"I agree with you that you'd put a stop to it. You'd put a stop to everything. She wouldn't live a year--or you wouldn't. Either she'd die--or she'd abhor you. And if she didn't die, you'd want to."

"I wish to the Lord I had died--eight years ago. The great mistake I made was when the lumber-jacks loosed my hand-cuffs and started me through the woods. They called it giving me a chance, and for a few minutes I thought it was one. A chance! Good G.o.d! I remember feeling, as I ran, that I was deserting something. I didn't know what it was just then, but I've understood it since. It would have been a pluckier thing to have been in my coffin as Norrie Ford--or even doing time--than to be here as Herbert Strange."

She said nothing for the moment, but as they walked along side by side he shot a glance at her, and saw her coloring. They had met in the park. He was going toward the house in Seventy-second Street when she was coming away from it. Seizing the opportunity of a few words in private, he had turned to stroll back with her.

"I didn't expect you to be here as Herbert Strange," she said, as though in self-excuse. "I had to give you a name that was like my own, when I was writing letters about your ticket, and sending checks. I had to do everything to avoid suspicion at a time when Greenport was watched. I thought you might be able to take your own name or something like it--"

He explained to her how that had never been possible.

"Evie fidgets about it," he continued. "She puts together the two facts that you and I seem to have known each other, and that my name is identical with your father's. She doesn't know what to make of it; she only thinks 'there's something.' She hasn't said more than that in words, but I see her little mind at work."

"Evie isn't the only one," she informed him. "There's Mr. Wayne. He has to be reckoned with. He recognized your voice from the first minute of hearing it, though he hasn't said yet that he knows whose it is. He may do so at any time. He's very surprising at that sort of thing. I can see him listening when you're there, not only to your words, but to your very movements, trying to recapture--"

"The upshot of everything," he said, abruptly, "is that I must marry her, take her back to the Argentine, where I found her, and where we shall both be out of harm's way."

"You wouldn't be out of harm's way. You can't turn your back on it like that. You alone might be able to slip through, but not if you have Evie."

"That will be my affair; I'll see to it. I take the full responsibility on myself."