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diff --git a/1671-0.txt b/1671-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f351edd --- /dev/null +++ b/1671-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6651 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of When a Man Marries, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: When a Man Marries + +Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart + +Posting Date: November 23, 2008 [EBook #1671] +Release Date: March, 1999 +Last Updated: October 11, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN A MAN MARRIES *** + + + + +Produced by Theresa Armao + + + + + +WHEN A MAN MARRIES + +By Mary Roberts Rinehart + + + + +Contents + + I At Least I Meant Well + II The Way It Began + III I Might Have Known It + IV The Door Was Closed + V From The Tree Of Love + VI A Mighty Poor Joke + VII We Make An Omelet + VIII Correspondents’ Department + IX Flannigan’s Find + X On The Stairs + XI I Make A Discovery + XII The Roof Garden + XIII He Does Not Deny It + XIV Almost, But Not Quite + XV Suspicion and Discord + XVI I Face Flannigan + XVII A Clash and A Kiss + XVIII It’s All My Fault + XIX The Harbison Man + XX Breaking Out In A New Place + XXI A Bar of Soap + XXII It Was A Delirium + XXIII Coming + + + + + Needles and pins + Needles and pins, + When a man marries + His trouble begins. + + + + +Chapter I. AT LEAST I MEANT WELL + +When the dreadful thing occurred that night, every one turned on me. +The injustice of it hurt me most. They said I got up the dinner, that +I asked them to give up other engagements and come, that I promised all +kinds of jollification, if they would come; and then when they did come +and got in the papers and every one--but ourselves--laughed himself +black in the face, they turned on ME! I, who suffered ten times to their +one! I shall never forget what Dallas Brown said to me, standing with a +coal shovel in one hand and a--well, perhaps it would be better to tell +it all in the order it happened. + +It began with Jimmy Wilson and a conspiracy, was helped on by a +foot-square piece of yellow paper and a Japanese butler, and it +enmeshed and mixed up generally ten respectable members of society and +a policeman. Incidentally, it involved a pearl collar and a box of soap, +which sounds incongruous, doesn’t it? + +It is a great misfortune to be stout, especially for a man. Jim was +rotund and looked shorter than he really was, and as all the lines of +his face, or what should have been lines, were really dimples, his face +was about as flexible and full of expression as a pillow in a tight +cover. The angrier he got the funnier he looked, and when he was raging, +and his neck swelled up over his collar and got red, he was entrancing. +And everybody liked him, and borrowed money from him, and laughed at his +pictures (he has one in the Hargrave gallery in London now, so people +buy them instead), and smoked his cigarettes, and tried to steal his +Jap. The whole story hinges on the Jap. + +The trouble was, I think, that no one took Jim seriously. His ambition +in life was to be taken seriously, but people steadily refused to. His +art was a huge joke--except to himself. If he asked people to dinner, +every one expected a frolic. When he married Bella Knowles, people +chuckled at the wedding, and considered it the wildest prank of Jimmy’s +career, although Jim himself seemed to take it awfully hard. + +We had all known them both for years. I went to Farmington with Bella, +and Anne Brown was her matron of honor when she married Jim. My first +winter out, Jimmy had paid me a lot of attention. He painted my portrait +in oils and had a studio tea to exhibit it. It was a very nice picture, +but it did not look like me, so I stayed away from the exhibition. Jim +asked me to. He said he was not a photographer, and that anyhow the rest +of my features called for the nose he had given me, and that all the +Greuze women have long necks. I have not. + +After I had refused Jim twice he met Bella at a camp in the Adirondacks +and when he came back he came at once to see me. He seemed to think I +would be sorry to lose him, and he blundered over the telling for twenty +minutes. Of course, no woman likes to lose a lover, no matter what she +may say about it, but Jim had been getting on my nerves for some time, +and I was much calmer than he expected me to be. + +“If you mean,” I said finally in desperation, “that you and Bella +are--are in love, why don’t you say so, Jim? I think you will find that +I stand it wonderfully.” + +He brightened perceptibly. + +“I didn’t know how you would take it, Kit,” he said, “and I hope we will +always be bully friends. You are absolutely sure you don’t care a whoop +for me?” + +“Absolutely,” I replied, and we shook hands on it. Then he began about +Bella; it was very tiresome. + +Bella is a nice girl, but I had roomed with her at school, and I was +under no illusions. When Jim raved about Bella and her banjo, and Bella +and her guitar, I had painful moments when I recalled Bella, learning +her two songs on each instrument, and the old English ballad she had +learned to play on the harp. When he said she was too good for him, I +never batted an eye. And I shook hands solemnly across the tea-table +again, and wished him happiness--which was sincere enough, but +hopeless--and said we had only been playing a game, but that it was time +to stop playing. Jim kissed my hand, and it was really very touching. + +We had been the best of friends ever since. Two days before the wedding +he came around from his tailor’s, and we burned all his letters to me. +He would read one and say: “Here’s a crackerjack, Kit,” and pass it +to me. And after I had read it we would lay it on the firelog, and Jim +would say, “I am not worthy of her, Kit. I wonder if I can make her +happy?” Or--“Did you know that the Duke of Belford proposed to her in +London last winter?” + +Of course, one has to take the woman’s word about a thing like that, but +the Duke of Belford had been mad about Maude Richard all that winter. + +You can see that the burning of the letters, which was meant to be +reminiscently sentimental, a sort of how-silly-we-were-but-it-is +all-over-now occasion, became actually a two hours’ eulogy of Bella. And +just when I was bored to death, the Mercer girls dropped in and heard +Jim begin to read one commencing “dearest Kit.” And the next day after +the rehearsal dinner, they told Bella! + +There was very nearly no wedding at all. Bella came to see me in a +frenzy the next morning and threw Jim and his two-hundred odd pounds in +my face, and although I explained it all over and over, she never quite +forgave me. That was what made it so hard later--the situation would +have been bad enough without that complication. + +They went abroad on their wedding journey, and stayed several months. +And when Jim came back he was fatter than ever. Everybody noticed it. +Bella had a gymnasium fitted up in a corner of the studio, but he would +not use it. He smoked a pipe and painted all day, and drank beer and +WOULD eat starches or whatever it is that is fattening. But he adored +Bella, and he was madly jealous of her. At dinners he used to glare at +the man who took her in, although it did not make him thin. Bella was +flirting, too, and by the time they had been married a year, people +hitched their chairs together and dropped their voices when they were +mentioned. + +Well, on the anniversary of the day Bella left him--oh yes, she left him +finally. She was intense enough about some things, and she said it got +on her nerves to have everybody chuckle when they asked for her husband. +They would say, “Hello, Bella! How’s Bubbles? Still banting?” And Bella +would try to laugh and say, “He swears his tailor says his waist is +smaller, but if it is he must be growing hollow in the back.” + +But she got tired of it at last. Well, on the second anniversary of +Bella’s departure, Jimmy was feeling pretty glum, and as I say, I am +very fond of Jim. The divorce had just gone through and Bella had taken +her maiden name again and had had an operation for appendicitis. We +heard afterward that they didn’t find an appendix, and that the one they +showed her in a glass jar WAS NOT HERS! But if Bella ever suspected, she +didn’t say. Whether the appendix was anonymous or not, she got box after +box of flowers that were, and of course every one knew that it was Jim +who sent them. + +To go back to the anniversary, I went to Rothberg’s to see the +collection of antique furniture--mother was looking for a sideboard +for father’s birthday in March--and I met Jimmy there, boring into a +worm-hole in a seventeenth-century bedpost with the end of a match, and +looking his nearest to sad. When he saw me he came over. + +“I’m blue today, Kit,” he said, after we had shaken hands. “Come and +help me dig bait, and then let’s go fishing. If there’s a worm in every +hole in that bedpost, we could go into the fish business. It’s a good +business.” + +“Better than painting?” I asked. But he ignored my gibe and swelled up +alarmingly in order to sigh. + +“This is the worst day of the year for me,” he affirmed, staring +straight ahead, “and the longest. Look at that crazy clock over there. +If you want to see your life passing away, if you want to see the steps +by which you are marching to eternity, watch that clock marking the +time. Look at that infernal hand staying quiet for sixty seconds and +then jumping forward to catch up with the procession. Ugh!” + +“See here, Jim,” I said, leaning forward, “you’re not well. You can’t go +through the rest of the day like this. I know what you’ll do; you’ll +go home to play Grieg on the pianola, and you won’t eat any dinner.” He +looked guilty. + +“Not Grieg,” he protested feebly. “Beethoven.” + +“You’re not going to do either,” I said with firmness. “You are going +right home to unpack those new draperies that Harry Bayles sent you from +Shanghai, and you are going to order dinner for eight--that will be two +tables of bridge. And you are not going to touch the pianola.” + +He did not seem enthusiastic, but he rose and picked up his hat, and +stood looking down at me where I sat on an old horse-hair covered sofa. + +“I wish to thunder I had married you!” he said savagely. “You’re the +finest girl I know, Kit, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, and you are going to throw +yourself away on Jack Manning, or Max, or some other--” + +“Nothing of the sort,” I said coldly, “and the fact that you didn’t +marry me does not give you the privilege of abusing my friends. Anyhow, +I don’t like you when you speak like that.” + +Jim took me to the door and stopped there to sigh. + +“I haven’t been well,” he said heavily. “Don’t eat, don’t sleep. +Wouldn’t you think I’d lose flesh? Kit”--he lowered his voice +solemnly--“I have gained two pounds!” + +I said he didn’t look it, which appeared to comfort him somewhat, and, +because we were old friends, I asked him where Bella was. He said he +thought she was in Europe, and that he had heard she was going to marry +Reggie Wolfe. Then he signed again, muttered something about ordering +the funeral baked meats to be prepared and left me. + +That was my entire share in the affair. I was the victim, both of +circumstances and of their plot, which was mad on the face of it. + +During the entire time they never once let me forget that I got up the +dinner, that I telephoned around for them. They asked me why I couldn’t +cook--when not one of them knew one side of a range from the other. And +for Anne Brown to talk the way she did--saying I had always been crazy +about Jim, and that she believed I had known all along that his aunt was +coming--for Anne to talk like that was sheer idiocy. Yes, there was an +aunt. The Japanese butler started the trouble, and Aunt Selina carried +it along. + + + +Chapter II. THE WAY IT BEGAN + +It makes me angry every time I think how I tried to make that dinner a +success. I canceled a theater engagement, and I took the Mercer girls in +the electric brougham father had given me for Christmas. Their chauffeur +had been gone for hours with their machine, and they had telephoned all +the police stations without success. They were afraid that there had +been an awful smash; they could easily have replaced Bartlett, as Lollie +said, but it takes so long to get new parts for those foreign cars. + +Jim had a house well up-town, and it stood just enough apart from +the other houses to be entirely maddening later. It was a three-story +affair, with a basement kitchen and servants’ dining room. Then, of +course, there were cellars, as we found out afterward. On the first +floor there was a large square hall, a formal reception room, behind it +a big living room that was also a library, then a den, and back of all +a Georgian dining room, with windows high above the ground. On the +top floor Jim had a studio, like every other one I ever saw--perhaps a +little mussier. Jim was really a grind at his painting, and there +were cigarette ashes and palette knives and buffalo rugs and shields +everywhere. It is strange, but when I think of that terrible house, I +always see the halls, enormous, covered with heavy rugs, and stairs that +would have taken six housemaids to keep in proper condition. I dream +about those stairs, stretching above me in a Jacob’s ladder of shining +wood and Persian carpets, going up, up, clear to the roof. + +The Dallas Browns walked; they lived in the next block. And they brought +with them a man named Harbison, that no one knew. Anne said he would +be great sport, because he was terribly serious, and had the most +exaggerated ideas of society, and loathed extravagance, and built +bridges or something. She had put away her cigarettes since he had been +with them--he and Dallas had been college friends--and the only chance +she had to smoke was when she was getting her hair done. And she had +singed off quite a lot--a burnt offering, she called it. + +“My dear,” she said over the telephone, when I invited her, “I want you +to know him. He’ll be crazy about you. That type of man, big and deadly +earnest, always falls in love with your type of girl, the appealing +sort, you know. And he has been too busy, up to now, to know what love +is. But mind, don’t hurt him; he’s a dear boy. I’m half in love with him +myself, and Dallas trots around at his heels like a poodle.” + +But all Anne’s geese are swans, so I thought little of the Harbison man +except to hope that he played respectable bridge, and wouldn’t mark the +cards with a steel spring under his finger nail, as one of her “finds” + had done. + +We all arrived about the same time, and Anne and I went upstairs +together to take off our wraps in what had been Bella’s dressing room. +It was Anne who noticed the violets. + +“Look at that!” she nudged me, when the maid was examining her wrap +before she laid it down. “What did I tell you, Kit? He’s still quite mad +about her.” + +Jim had painted Bella’s portrait while they were going up the Nile on +their wedding trip. It looked quite like her, if you stood well off in +the middle of the room and if the light came from the right. And just +beneath it, in a silver vase, was a bunch of violets. It was really +touching, and violets were fabulous. It made me want to cry, and +to shake Bella soundly, and to go down and pat Jim on his generous +shoulder, and tell him what a good fellow I thought him, and that +Bella wasn’t worth the dust under his feet. I don’t know much about +psychology, but it would be interesting to know just what effect those +violets and my sympathy for Jim had in influencing my decision a half +hour later. It is not surprising, under the circumstances, that for some +time after the odor of violets made me ill. + +We all met downstairs in the living room, quite informally, and Dallas +was banging away at the pianola, tramping the pedals with the delicacy +and feeling of a football center rush kicking a goal. Mr. Harbison was +standing near the fire, a little away from the others, and he was all +that Anne had said and more in appearance. He was tall--not too tall, +and very straight. And after one got past the oddity of his face being +bronze-colored above his white collar, and of his brown hair being +sun-bleached on top until it was almost yellow, one realized that he was +very handsome. He had what one might call a resolute nose and chin, and +a pleasant, rather humorous, mouth. And he had blue eyes that were, +at that moment, wandering with interest over the lot of us. Somebody +shouted his name to me above the Tristan and Isolde music, and I held +out my hand. + +Instantly I had the feeling one sometimes has, of having done just that +same thing, with the same surroundings, in the same place, years before, +I was looking up at him, and he was staring down at me and holding my +hand. And then the music stopped and he was saying: + +“Where was it?” + +“Where was what?” I asked. The feeling was stronger than ever with his +voice. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said, and let my hand drop. “Just for a second +I had an idea that we had met before somewhere, a long time ago. I +suppose--no, it couldn’t have happened, or I should remember.” He was +smiling, half at himself. + +“No,” I smiled back at him. “It didn’t happen, I’m afraid--unless we +dreamed it.” + +“We?” + +“I felt that way, too, for a moment.” + +“The Brushwood Boy!” he said with conviction. “Perhaps we will find a +common dream life, where we knew each other. You remember the Brushwood +Boy loved the girl for years before they really met.” But this was a +little too rapid, even for me. + +“Nothing so sentimental, I’m afraid,” I retorted. “I have had exactly +the same sensation sometimes when I have sneezed.” + +Betty Mercer captured him then and took him off to see Jim’s newest +picture. Anne pounced on me at once. + +“Isn’t he delicious?” she demanded. “Did you ever see such shoulders? +And such a nose? And he thinks we are parasites, cumberers of the earth, +Heaven knows what. He says every woman ought to know how to earn her +living, in case of necessity! I said I could make enough at bridge, and +he thought I was joking! He’s a dear!” Anne was enthusiastic. + +I looked after him. Oddly enough the feeling that we had met before +stuck to me. Which was ridiculous, of course, for we learned afterward +that the nearest we ever came to meeting was that our mothers had been +school friends! Just then I saw Jim beckoning to me crazily from the +den. He looked quite yellow, and he had been running his fingers through +his hair. + +“For Heaven’s sake, come in, Kit!” he said. “I need a cool head. Didn’t +I tell you this is my calamity day?” + +“Cook gone?” I asked with interest. I was starving. + +He closed the door and took up a tragic attitude in front of the fire. +“Did you ever hear of Aunt Selina?” he demanded. + +“I knew there WAS one,” I ventured, mindful of certain gossip as to +whence Jimmy derived the Wilson income. + +Jim himself was too worried to be cautious. He waved a brazen hand at +the snug room, at the Japanese prints on the walls, at the rugs, at the +teakwood cabinets and the screen inlaid with pearl and ivory. + +“All this,” he said comprehensively, “every bite I eat, clothes I wear, +drinks I drink--you needn’t look like that; I don’t drink so darned +much--everything comes from Aunt Selina--buttons,” he finished with a +groan. + +“Selina Buttons,” I said reflectively. “I don’t remember ever having +known any one named Buttons, although I had a cat once--” + +“Damn the cat!” he said rudely. “Her name isn’t Buttons. Her name is +Caruthers, my Aunt Selina Caruthers, and the money comes from buttons.” + +“Oh!” feebly. + +“It’s an old business,” he went on, with something of proprietary pride. +“My grandfather founded it in 1775. Made buttons for the Continental +Army.” + +“Oh, yes,” I said. “They melted the buttons to make bullets, didn’t +they? Or they melted bullets to make buttons? Which was it?” + +But again he interrupted. + +“It’s like this,” he went on hurriedly. “Aunt Selina believes in me. She +likes pictures, and she wanted me to paint, if I could. I’d have given +up long ago--oh, I know what you think of my work--but for Aunt Selina. +She has encouraged me, and she’s done more than that; she’s paid the +bills.” + +“Dear Aunt Selina,” I breathed. + +“When I got married,” Jim persisted, “Aunt Selina doubled my allowance. +I always expected to sell something, and begin to make money, and in +the meantime what she advanced I considered as a loan.” He was eyeing me +defiantly, but I was growing serious. It was evident from the preamble +that something was coming. + +“To understand, Kit,” he went on dubiously, “you would have to know her. +She won’t stand for divorce. She thinks it is a crime.” + +“What!” I sat up. I have always regarded divorce as essentially +disagreeable, like castor oil, but necessary. + +“Oh, you know well enough what I’m driving at,” he burst out savagely. +“She doesn’t know Bella has gone. She thinks I am living in a little +domestic heaven, and--she is coming tonight to hear me flap my wings.” + +“Tonight!” + +I don’t think Jimmy had known that Dallas Brown had come in and was +listening. I am sure I had not. Hearing his chuckle at the doorway +brought us up with a jerk. + +“Where has Aunt Selina been for the last two or three years?” he asked +easily. + +Jim turned, and his face brightened. + +“Europe. Look here, Dal, you’re a smart chap. She’ll only be here about +four hours. Can’t you think of some way to get me out of this? I want to +let her down easy, too. I’m mighty fond of Aunt Selina. Can’t we--can’t +I say Bella has a headache?” + +“Rotten!” laconically. + +“Gone out of town?” Jim was desperate. + +“And you with a houseful of dinner guests! Try again, Jim.” + +“I have it,” Jim said suddenly. “Dallas, ask Anne if she won’t play +hostess for tonight. Be Mrs. Wilson pro tem. Anne would love it. Aunt +Selina never saw Bella. Then, afterward, next year, when I’m hung in +the Academy and can stand on my feet”--(“Not if you’re hung,” Dallas +interjected.)--“I’ll break the truth to her.” + +But Dallas was not enthusiastic. + +“Anne wouldn’t do at all,” he declared. “She’d be talking about the +kids before she knew it, and patting me on the head.” He said it +complacently; Anne flirts, but they are really devoted. + +“One of the Mercer girls?” I suggested, but Jimmy raised a horrified +hand. + +“You don’t know Aunt Selina,” he protested. “I couldn’t offer Leila in +the gown she’s got on, unless she wore a shawl, and Betty is too fair.” + +Anne came in just then, and the whole story had to be told again to her. +She was ecstatic. She said it was good enough for a play, and that of +course she would be Mrs. Jimmy for that length of time. + +“You know,” she finished, “if it were not for Dal, I would be Mrs. Jimmy +for ANY length of time. I have been devoted to you for years, Billiken.” + +But Dallas refused peremptorily. + +“I’m not jealous,” he explained, straightening and throwing out his +chest, “but--well, you don’t look the part, Anne. You’re--you are +growing matronly, not but what you suit ME all right. And then I’d +forget and call you ‘mammy,’ which would require explanation. I think +it’s up to you, Kit.” + +“I shall do nothing of the sort!” I snapped. “It’s ridiculous!” + +“I dare you!” said Dallas. + +I refused. I stood like a rock while the storm surged around me and beat +over me. I must say for Jim that he was merely pathetic. He said that my +happiness was first; that he would not give me an uncomfortable minute +for anything on earth; and that Bella had been perfectly right to +leave him, because he was a sinking ship, and deserved to be turned out +penniless into the world. After which mixed figure, he poured himself +something to drink, and his hands were shaking. + +Dal and Anne stood on each side of him and patted him on the shoulders +and glared across at me. I felt that if I was a rock, Jim’s ship had +struck on me and was sinking, as he said, because of me. I began to +crumble. + +“What--what time does she leave?” I asked, wavering. + +“Ten: nine; KIT, are you going to do it?” + +“No!” I gave a last clutch at my resolution. “People who do that kind +of thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She’s almost +certain to miss her train.” + +“You’re temporizing,” Dallas said sternly. “We won’t let her miss her +train; you can be sure of that.” + +“Jim,” Anne broke in suddenly, “hasn’t she a picture of Bella? There’s +not the faintest resemblance between Bella and Kit.” + +Jim became downcast again. “I sent her a miniature of Bella a couple of +years ago,” he said despondently. “Did it myself.” + +But Dal said he remembered the miniature, and it looked more like me +than Bella, anyhow. So we were just where we started. And down inside of +me I had a premonition that I was going to do just what they wanted +me to do, and get into all sorts of trouble, and not be thanked for it +after all. Which was entirely correct. And then Leila Mercer came and +banged at the door and said that dinner had been announced ages ago and +that everybody was famishing. With the hurry and stress, and poor Jim’s +distracted face, I weakened. + +“I feel like a cross between an idiot and a criminal,” I said shortly, +“and I don’t know particularly why every one thinks I should be the +victim for the sacrifice. But if you will promise to get her off early +to her train, and if you will stand by me and not leave me alone with +her, I--I might try it.” + +“Of course, we’ll stand by you!” they said in chorus. “We won’t let you +stick!” And Dal said, “You’re the right sort of girl, Kit. And after +it’s all over, you’ll realize that it’s the biggest kind of lark. Think +how you are saving the old lady’s feeling! When you are an elderly +person yourself, Kit, you will appreciate what you are doing tonight.” + +Yes, they said they would stand by me, and that I was a heroine and the +only person there clever enough to act the part, and that they wouldn’t +let me stick! I am not bitter now, but that is what they promised. Oh, I +am not defending myself; I suppose I deserved everything that happened. +But they told me that she would be there only between trains, and that +she was deaf, and that I had an opportunity to save a fellow-being from +ruin. So in the end I capitulated. + +When they opened the door into the living room, Max Reed had arrived and +was helping to hide a decanter and glasses, and somebody said a cab was +at the door. + +And that was the way it began. + + + +Chapter III. I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN IT + +The minute I had consented I regretted it. After all, what were Jimmy’s +troubles to me? Why should I help him impose on an unsuspecting elderly +woman? And it was only putting off discovery anyhow. Sooner or later, +she would learn of the divorce, and--Just at that instant my eyes fell +on Mr. Harbison--Tom Harbison, as Anne called him. He was looking on +with an amused, half-puzzled smile, while people were rushing around +hiding the roulette wheel and things of which Miss Caruthers might +disapprove, and Betty Mercer was on her knees winding up a toy bear that +Max had brought her. What would he think? It was evident that he thought +badly of us already--that he was contemptuously amused, and then to have +to ask him to lend himself to the deception! + +With a gasp I hurled myself after Jimmy, only to hear a strange voice in +the hall and to know that I was too late. I was in for it, whatever was +coming. It was Aunt Selina who was coming--along the hall, followed by +Jim, who was mopping his face and trying not to notice the paralyzed +silence in the library. + +Aunt Selina met me in the doorway. To my frantic eyes she seemed to +tower above us by at least a foot, and beside her Jimmy was a red, +perspiring cherub. + +“Here she is,” Jimmy said, from behind a temporary eclipse of black +cloak and traveling bag. He was on top of the situation now, and he was +mendaciously cheerful. He had NOT said, “Here is my wife.” That would +have been a lie. No, Jimmy merely said, “Here she is.” If Aunt Selina +chose to think me Bella, was it not her responsibility? And if I chose +to accept the situation, was it not mine? Dallas Brown came forward +gravely as Aunt Selina folded over and kissed me, and surreptitiously +patted me with one hand while he held out the other to Miss Caruthers. I +loathed him! + +“We always expect something unusual from James, Miss Caruthers,” he +said, with his best manner, “but THIS--this is beyond our wildest +dreams.” + +Well, it’s too awful to linger over. Anne took her upstairs and into +Bella’s bedroom. It was a fancy of Jim’s to leave that room just as +Bella had left it, dusty dance cards and favors hanging around and a +pair of discarded slippers under the bed. I don’t think it had been +swept since Bella left it. I believe in sentiment, but I like it brushed +and dusted and the cobwebs off of it, and when Aunt Selina put down her +bonnet, it stirred up a gray-white cloud that made her cough. She did +not say anything, but she looked around the room grimly, and I saw her +run her finger over the back of a chair before she let Hannah, the maid, +put her cloak on it. + +Anne looked frightened. She ran into Bella’s bath and wet the end of a +towel and when Hannah was changing Aunt Selina’s collar--her concession +to evening dress--Anne wiped off the obvious places on the furniture. +She did it stealthily, but Aunt Selina saw her in the glass. + +“What’s that young woman’s name?” she asked me sharply, when Anne had +taken the towel out to hide it. + +“Anne Brown, Mrs. Dallas Brown,” I replied meekly. Every one replied +meekly to Aunt Selina. + +“Does she live here?” + +“Oh, no,” I said airily. “They are here to dinner, she and her husband. +They are old friends of Jim’s--and mine.” + +“Seems to have a good eye for dirt,” said Aunt Selina and went on +fastening her brooch. When she was finally ready, she took a bead purse +from somewhere about her waist and took out a half dollar. She held it +up before Hannah’s eyes. + +“Tomorrow morning,” she said sternly, “You take off that white cap +and that fol-de-rol apron and that black henrietta cloth, and put on +a calico wrapper. And when you’ve got this room aired and swept, Mrs. +Wilson will give you this.” + +Hannah took two steps back and caught hold of a chair; she stared +helplessly from Aunt Selina to the half dollar, and then at me. Anne was +trying not to catch my eye. + +“And another thing,” Aunt Selina said, from the head of the stairs, “I +sent those towels over from Ireland. Tell her to wash and bleach the one +Mrs. What’s-her-name Brown used as a duster.” + +Anne was quite crushed as we went down the stairs. I turned once, +half-way down, and her face was a curious mixture of guilt and hopeless +wrath. Over her shoulder, I could see Hannah, wide-eyed and puzzled, +staring after us. + +Jim presented everybody, and then he went into the den and closed the +door and we heard him unlock the cellarette. Aunt Selina looked at +Leila’s bare shoulders and said she guessed she didn’t take cold +easily, and conversation rather languished. Max Reed was looking like a +thundercloud, and he came over to me with a lowering expression that I +had learned to dread in him. + +“What fool nonsense is this?” he demanded. “What in the world possessed +you, Kit, to put yourself in such an equivocal position? Unless”--he +stopped and turned a little white--“unless you are going to marry Jim.” + +I am sorry for Max. He is such a nice boy, and good looking, too, if +only he were not so fierce, and did not want to make love to me. No +matter what I do, Max always disapproves of it. I have always had a +deeply rooted conviction that if I should ever in a weak moment marry +Max, he would disapprove of that, too, before I had done it very long. + +“Are you?” he demanded, narrowing his eyes--a sign of unusually bad +humor. + +“Am I what?” + +“Going to marry him?” + +“If you mean Jim,” I said with dignity, “I haven’t made up my mind yet. +Besides, he hasn’t asked me.” + +Aunt Selina had been talking Woman’s Suffrage in front of the fireplace, +but now she turned to me. + +“Is this the vase Cousin Jane Whitcomb sent you as a wedding present?” + she demanded, indicating a hideous urn-shaped affair on the mantel. It +came to me as an inspiration that Jim had once said it was an ancestral +urn, so I said without hesitation that it was. And because there was a +pause and every one was looking at us, I added that it was a beautiful +thing. + +Aunt Selina sniffed. + +“Hideous!” she said. “It looks like Cousin Jane, shape and coloring.” + +Then she looked at it more closely, pounced on it, turned it upside down +and shook it. A card fell out, which Dallas picked up and gave her with +a bow. Jim had come out of the den and was dancing wildly around and +beckoning to me. By the time I had made out that that was NOT the vase +Cousin Jane had sent us as a wedding present, Aunt Selina had examined +the card. Then she glared across at me and, stooping, put the card in +the fire. I did not understand at all, but I knew I had in some way done +the unforgivable thing. Later, Dal told me it was HER card, and that +she had sent the vase to Jim at Christmas, with a generous check inside. +When she straightened from the fireplace, it was to a new theme, which +she attacked with her usual vigor. The vase incident was over, but she +never forgot it. She proved that she never did when she sent me two +urn-shaped vases with Paul and Virginia on them, when I--that is, later +on. + +“The Cause in England has made great strides,” she announced from the +fireplace. “Soon the hand that rocks the cradle will be the hand that +actually rules the world.” Here she looked at me. + +“I’m not up on such things,” Max said blandly, having recovered some of +his good humor, “but--isn’t it usually a foot that rocks the cradle?” + +Aunt Selina turned on him and Mr. Harbison, who were standing together, +with a snort. + +“What have you, or YOU, ever done for the independence of woman?” she +demanded. + +Mr. Harbison smiled. He had been looking rather grave until then. “We +have at least remained unmarried,” he retorted. And then dinner was +again announced. + +He was to take me out, and he came across the room to where I sat +collapsed in a chair, and bent over me. + +“Do you know,” he said, looking down at me with his clear, disconcerting +gaze, “do you know that I have just grasped the situation? There was +such a noise that I did not hear your name, and I am only realizing now +that you are my hostess! I don’t know why I got the impression that this +was a bachelor establishment, but I did. Odd, wasn’t it?” + +I positively couldn’t look away from him. My features seemed frozen, and +my eyes were glued to his. As for telling him the truth--well, my +tongue refused to move. I intended to tell him during dinner if I had +an opportunity; I honestly did. But the more I looked at him and saw +how candid his eyes were, and how stern his mouth might be, the more I +shivered at the plunge. And, of course, as everybody knows now, I didn’t +tell him at all. And every moment I expected that awful old woman to +ask me what I paid my cook, and when I had changed the color of my +hair--Bella’s being black. + +Dinner was a half hour late when we finally went out, Jimmy leading off +with Aunt Selina, and I, as hostess, trailing behind the procession with +Mr. Harbison. Dallas took in the two Mercer girls, for we were one man +short, and Max took Anne. Leila Mercer was so excited that she wriggled, +and as for me, the candles and the orchids--everything--danced around +in a circle, and I just seemed to catch the back of my chair as it flew +past. Jim had ordered away the wines and brought out some weak and cheap +Chianti. Dallas looked gloomy at the change, but Jim explained in +an undertone that Aunt Selina didn’t approve of expensive vintages. +Naturally, the meal was glum enough. + +Aunt Selina had had her dinner on the train, so she spent her time in +asking me questions the length of the table, and in getting acquainted +with me. She had brought a bottle of some sort of medicine downstairs +with her, and she took a claret-glassful, while she talked. The stuff +was called Pomona; shall I ever forget it? + +It was Mr. Harbison who first noticed Takahiro. Jimmy’s Jap had been the +only thing in the menage that Bella declared she had hated to leave. +But he was doing the strangest things: his little black eyes shifted +nervously, and he looked queer. + +“What’s wrong with him?” Mr. Harbison asked me finally, when he saw that +I noticed. “Is he ill?” + +Then Aunt Selina’s voice from the other end of the table: + +“Bella,” she called, in a high shrill tone, “do you let James eat +cucumbers?” + +“I think he must be,” I said hurriedly aside to Mr. Harbison. “See how +his hands shake!” But Selina would not be ignored. + +“Cucumbers and strawberries,” she repeated impressively. “I was +saying, Bella, that cucumbers have always given James the most fearful +indigestion. And yet I see you serve them at your table. Do you remember +what I wrote you to give him when he has his dreadful spells?” + +I was quite speechless; every one was looking, and no one could help. It +was clear Jim was racking his brain, and we sat staring desperately at +each other across the candles. Everything I had ever known faded from +me, eight pairs of eyes bored into me, Mr. Harbison’s politely amused. + +“I don’t remember,” I said at last. “Really, I don’t believe--” Aunt +Selina smiled in a superior way. + +“Now, don’t you recall it?” she insisted. “I said: ‘Baking soda in water +taken internally for cucumbers; baking soda and water externally, rubbed +on, when he gets that dreadful, itching strawberry rash.’” + +I believe the dinner went on. Somebody asked Aunt Selina how much +over-charge she had paid in foreign hotels, and after that she was as +harmless as a dove. + +Then half way through the dinner we heard a crash in Takahiro’s +pantry, and when he did not appear again, Jim got up and went out to +investigate. He was gone quite a little while, and when he came back he +looked worried. + +“Sick,” he replied to our inquiring glances. “One of the maids will come +in. They have sent for a doctor.” + +Aunt Selina was for going out at once and “fixing him up,” as she put +it, but Dallas gently interfered. + +“I wouldn’t, Miss Caruthers,” he said, in the deferential manner he had +adopted toward her. “You don’t know what it may be. He’s been looking +spotty all evening.” + +“It might be scarlet fever,” Max broke in cheerfully. “I say, scarlet +fever on a Mongolian--what color would he be, Jimmy? What do yellow and +red make? Green?” + +“Orange,” Jim said shortly. “I wish you people would remember that we +are trying to eat.” + +The fact was, however, that no one was really eating, except Mr. +Harbison who had given up trying to understand us, considering, no +doubt, our subdued excitement as our normal condition. Ages afterward +I learned that he thought my face almost tragic that night, and that he +supposed from the way I glared across the table, that I had quarreled +with my husband! + +“I am afraid you are not well,” he said at last, noticing my food +untouched on my plate. “We should not have come, any of us.” + +“I am perfectly well,” I replied feverishly. “I am never ill. I--I ate a +late luncheon.” + +He glanced at me keenly. “Don’t let them stay and play bridge tonight,” + he urged. “Miss Caruthers can be an excuse, can she not? And you are +really fagged. You look it.” + +“I think it is only ill humor,” I said, looking directly at him. “I am +angry at myself. I have done something silly, and I hate to be silly.” + +Max would have said “Impossible,” or something else trite. The Harbison +man looked at me with interested, serious eyes. + +“Is it too late to undo it?” he asked. + +And then and there I determined that he should never know the truth. He +could go back to South America and build bridges and make love to the +Spanish girls (or are they Spanish down there?) and think of me always +as a married woman, married to a dilettante artist, inclined to be +stout--the artist, not I--and with an Aunt Selina Caruthers who made +buttons and believed in the Cause. But never, NEVER should he think of +me as a silly little fool who pretended that she was the other man’s +wife and had a lump in her throat because when a really nice man came +along, a man who knew something more than polo and motors, she had to +carry on the deception to keep his respect, and be sedate and +matronly, and see him change from perfect open admiration at first to a +hands-off-she-is-my-host’s-wife attitude at last. + +“It can never be undone,” I said soberly. + +Well, that’s the picture as nearly as I can draw it: a round table +with a low centerpiece of orchids in lavenders and pink, old silver +candlesticks with filigree shades against the somber wainscoting; nine +people, two of them unhappy--Jim and I; one of them complacent--Aunt +Selina; one puzzled--Mr. Harbison; and the rest hysterically mirthful. +Add one sick Japanese butler and grind in the mills of the gods. + +Every one promptly forgot Takahiro in the excitement of the game we were +all playing. Finally, however, Aunt Selina, who seemed to have Takahiro +on her mind, looked up from her plate. + +“That Jap was speckled,” she asserted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s +measles. Has he been sniffling, James?” + +“Has he been sniffling?” Jim threw across at me. + +“I hadn’t noticed it,” I said meekly, while the others choked. + +Max came to the rescue. “She refused to eat it,” he explained, +distinctly and to everybody, apropos absolutely of nothing. “It said on +the box, ‘ready cooked and predigested.’ She declared she didn’t care who +cooked it, but she wanted to know who predigested it.” + +As every one wanted to laugh, every one did it then, and under cover +of the noise I caught Anne’s eye, and we left the dining room. The men +stayed, and by the very firmness with which the door closed behind us, I +knew that Dallas and Max were bringing out the bottles that Takahiro had +hidden. I was seething. When Aunt Selina indicated a desire to go over +the house (it was natural that she should want to; it was her house, in +a way) I excused myself for a minute and flew back to the dining room. + +It was as I had expected. Jim hadn’t cheered perceptibly, and the +rest were patting him on the back, and pouring things out for him, and +saying, “Poor old Jim” in the most maddening way. And the Harbison man +was looking more and more puzzled, and not at all hilarious. + +I descended on them like a thunderbolt. + +“That’s it,” I cried shrewishly, with my back against the door. “Leave +her to me, all of you, and pat each other on the back, and say it’s gone +splendidly! Oh, I know you, every one!” Mr. Harbison got up and pulled +out a chair, but I couldn’t sit; I folded my arms on the back. “After a +while, I suppose, you’ll slip upstairs, the four of you, and have your +game.” They looked guilty. “But I will block that right now. I am going +to stay--here. If Aunt Selina wants me, she can find me--here!” + +The first indication those men had that Mr. Harbison didn’t know the +state of affairs was when he turned and faced them. + +“Mrs. Wilson is quite right,” he said gravely. “We’re a selfish lot. If +Miss Caruthers is a responsibility, let us share her.” + +“To arms!” Jim said, with an affectation of lightness, as they put their +glasses down, and threw open the door. Dal’s retort, “Whose?” was +lost in the confusion, and we went into the library. On the way Dallas +managed to speak to me. + +“If Harbison doesn’t know, don’t tell him,” he said in an undertone. +“He’s a queer duck, in some ways; he mightn’t think it funny.” + +“Funny,” I choked. “It’s the least funny thing I ever experienced. +Deceiving that Harbison man isn’t so bad--he thinks me crazy, anyhow. +He’s been staring his eyes out at me--” + +“I don’t wonder. You’re really lovely tonight, Kit, and you look like a +vixen.” + +“But to deceive that harmless old lady--well, thank goodness, it’s nine, +and she leaves in an hour or so.” + +But she didn’t and that’s the story. + + + +Chapter IV. THE DOOR WAS CLOSED + +It was infuriating to see how much enjoyment every one but Jim and +myself got out of the situation. They howled with mirth over the +feeblest jokes, and when Max told a story without any point whatever, +they all had hysteria. Immediately after dinner Aunt Selina had begun +on the family connection again, and after two bad breaks on my part, Jim +offered to show her the house. The Mercer girls trailed along, unwilling +to lose any of the possibilities. They said afterward that it was +terrible: she went into all the closets, and ran her hand over the tops +of doors and kept getting grimmer and grimmer. In the studio they came +across a life study Jim was doing and she shut her eyes and made the +girls go out while he covered it with a drapery. Lollie! Who did the +Bacchante dance at three benefits last winter and was learning a new one +called “Eve”! + +When they heard Aunt Selina on the second floor, Anne, Dal and Max +sneaked up to the studio for cigarettes, which left Mr. Harbison to me. +I was in the den, sitting in a low chair by the wood fire when he came +in. He hesitated in the doorway. + +“Would you prefer being alone, or may I come in?” he asked. “Don’t mind +being frank. I know you are tired.” + +“I have a headache, and I am sulking,” I said unpleasantly, “but at +least I am not actively venomous. Come in.” + +So he came in and sat down across the hearth from me, and neither of us +said anything. The firelight flickered over the room, bringing out the +faded hues of the old Japanese prints on the walls, gleaming in the +mother-of-pearl eyes of the dragon on the screen, setting a grotesque +god on a cabinet to nodding. And it threw into relief the strong profile +of the man across from me, as he stared at the fire. + +“I am afraid I am not very interesting,” I said at last, when he +showed no sign of breaking the silence. “The--the illness of the butler +and--Miss Caruthers’ arrival, have been upsetting.” + +He suddenly roused with a start from a brown reverie. + +“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I--oh, of course not! I was wondering +if I--if you were offended at what I said earlier in the evening; +the--Brushwood Boy, you know, and all that.” + +“Offended?” I repeated, puzzled. + +“You see, I have been living out of the world so long, and never seeing +any women but Indian squaws”--so there were no Spanish girls!--“that I’m +afraid I say what comes into my mind without circumlocution. And then--I +did not know you were married.” + +“No, oh, no,” I said hastily. “But, of course, the more a woman is +married--I mean, you can not say too many nice things to married women. +They--need them, you know.” + +I had floundered miserably, with his eyes on me, and I half expected him +to be shocked, or to say that married women should be satisfied with the +nice things their husbands say to them. But he merely remarked apropos +of nothing, or following a line of thought he had not voiced, that it +was trite but true that a good many men owed their success in life to +their wives. + +“And a good many owe their wives to their success in life,” I retorted +cynically. At which he stared at me again. + +It was then that the real complexity of the situation began to develop. +Some one had rung the bell and been admitted to the library and a maid +came to the door of the den. When she saw us she stopped uncertainly. +Even then it struck me that she looked odd, and she was not in uniform. +However, I was not informed at that time about bachelor establishments, +and the first thing she said, when she had asked to speak to me in the +hall, knocked her and her clothes clear out of my head. Evidently she +knew me. + +“Miss McNair,” she said in a low tone. “There is a lady in the drawing +room, a veiled person, and she is asking for Mr. Wilson.” + +“Can you not find him?” I asked. “He is in the house, probably in the +studio.” + +The girl hesitated. + +“Excuse me, miss, but Miss Caruthers--” + +Then I saw the situation. + +“Never mind,” I said. “Close the door into the drawing room, and I will +tell Mr. Wilson.” + +But as the girl turned toward the doorway, the person in question +appeared in it, and raised her veil. I was perfectly paralyzed. It was +Bella! Bella in a fur coat and a veil, with the most tragic eyes I ever +saw and entirely white except for a dab of rouge in the middle of each +cheek. We stared at each other without speech. The maid turned and went +down the hall, and with that Bella came over to me and clutched me by +the arm. + +“Who was being carried out into that ambulance?” she demanded, glaring +at me with the most awful intensity. + +“I’m sure I don’t know, Bella,” I said, wriggling away from her fingers. +“What in the world are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe.” + +“You are hiding something from me!” she accused. “It is Jim! I see it in +your face.” + +“Well, it isn’t,” I snapped. “It seems to me, really, Bella, that you +and Jim ought to be able to manage your own affairs, without dragging me +in.” It was not pleasant, but if she was suffering, so was I. “Jim is as +well as he ever was. He’s upstairs somewhere. I’ll send for him.” + +She gripped me again, and held on while her color came back. + +“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” she said, and she had quite got hold of +herself again. “I do not want to see him: I hope you don’t think, Kit, +that I came here to see James Wilson. Why, I have forgotten that there +IS such a person, and you know it.” + +Somebody upstairs laughed, and I was growing nervous. What if Aunt +Selina should come down, or Mr. Harbison come out of the den? + +“Why DID you come, then, Bella?” I inquired. “He may come in.” + +“I was passing in the motor,” she said, and I honestly think she hoped I +would believe her, “and I saw that am--” She stopped and began again. +“I thought Jim was out of town, and I came to see Takahiro,” she said +brazenly. “He was devoted to me, and Evans is going to leave. I’ll tell +you what to do, Kit. I’ll go back to the dining room, and you send Taka +there. If any one comes, I can slip into the pantry.” + +“It’s immoral,” I protested. “It’s immoral to steal your--” + +“My own butler!” she broke in impatiently. “You’re not usually so +scrupulous, Kit. Hurry! I hear that hateful Anne Brown.” + +So we slid back along the hall, and I rang for Takahiro. But no one +came. + +“I think I ought to tell you, Bella,” I said as we waited, and Bella was +staring around the room--“I think you ought to know that Miss Caruthers +is here.” + +Bella shrugged her shoulders. + +“Well, thank goodness,” she said, “I don’t have to see her. The only +pleasant thing I remember about my year of married life is that I did +NOT meet Aunt Selina.” + +I rang again, but still there was no answer. And then it occurred to +me that the stillness below stairs was almost oppressive. Bella was +noticing things, too, for she began to fasten her veil again with a +malicious little smile. + +“One of the things I remember my late husband saying,” she observed, +“was that HE could manage this house, and had done it for years, with +flawless service. Stand on the bell, Kit.” + +I did. We stood there, with the table, just as it had been left, between +us, and waited for a response. Bella was growing impatient. She raised +her eyebrows (she is very handsome, Bella is) and flung out her chin as +if she had begun to enjoy the horrible situation. + +I thought I heard a rattle of silver from the pantry just then, and I +hurried to the door in a rage. But the pantry was empty of servants and +full of dishes, and all the lights were out but one, which was burning +dimly. I could have sworn that I saw one of the servants duck into the +stairway to the basement, but when I got there the stairs were empty, +and something was burning in the kitchen below. + +Bella had followed me and was peering over my shoulder curiously. + +“There isn’t a servant in the house,” she said triumphantly. And when we +went down to the kitchen, she seemed to be right. It was in disgraceful +order, and one of the bottles of wine that had ben banished from the +dining room sat half empty on the floor. + +“Drunk!” Bella said with conviction. But I didn’t think so. There had +not been time enough, for one thing. Suddenly I remembered the ambulance +that had been the cause of Bella’s appearance--for no one could believe +her silly story about Takahiro. I didn’t wait to voice my suspicion to +her; I simply left her there, staring helplessly at the confusion, and +ran upstairs again: through the dining room, past Jimmy and Aunt Selina, +past Leila Mercer and Max, who were flirting on the stairs, up, up to +the servants’ bedrooms, and there my suspicions were verified. There was +every evidence of a hasty flight; in three bedrooms five trunks stood +locked and ominous, and the closets yawned with open doors, empty. Bella +had been right; there was not a servant in the house. + +As I emerged from the untidy emptiness of the servants’ wing, I met Mr. +Harbison coming out of the studio. + +“I wish you would let me do some of this running about for you, Mrs. +Wilson,” he said gravely. “You are not well, and I can’t think of +anything worse for a headache. Has the butler’s illness clogged the +household machinery?” + +“Worse,” I replied, trying not to breathe in gasps. “I wouldn’t be +running around--like this--but there is not a servant in the house! They +have gone, the entire lot.” + +“That’s odd,” he said slowly. “Gone! Are you sure?” + +In reply I pointed to the servants’ wing. “Trunks packed,” I said +tragically, “rooms empty, kitchen and pantries, full of dishes. Did you +ever hear of anything like it?” + +“Never,” he asserted. “It makes me suspect--” What he suspected he did +not say; instead he turned on his heel, without a word of explanation, +and ran down the stairs. I stood staring after him, wondering if every +one in the place had gone crazy. Then I heard Betty Mercer scream and +the rest talking loud and laughing, and Mr. Harbison came up the stairs +again two at a time. + +“How long has that Jap been ailing, Mrs. Wilson?” he asked. + +“I--I don’t know,” I replied helplessly. “What is the trouble, anyhow?” + +“I think he probably has something contagious,” he said, “and it +has scared the servants away. As Mr. Brown said, he looked spotty. I +suggested to your husband that it might be as well to get the house +emptied--in case we are correct.” + +“Oh, yes, by all means,” I said eagerly. I couldn’t get away too soon. +“I’ll go and get my--” Then I stopped. Why, the man wouldn’t expect me +to leave; I would have to play out the wretched farce to the end! + +“I’ll go down and see them off,” I finished lamely, and we went together +down the stairs. + +Just for the moment I forgot Bella altogether. I found Aunt Selina +bonneted and cloaked, taking a stirrup cup of Pomona for her nerves, +and the rest throwing on their wraps in a hurry. Downstairs Max was +telephoning for his car, which wasn’t due for an hour, and Jim was +walking up and down, swearing under his breath. With the prospect of +getting rid of them all, and, of going home comfortably to try to forget +the whole wretched affair, I cheered up quite a lot. I even played up my +part of hostess, and Dallas told me, aside, that I was a brick. + +Just then Jim threw open the front door. + +There was a man on the top step, with his mouth full of tacks, and he +was nailing something to the door, just below Jim’s Florentine bronze +knocker, and standing back with his head on one side to see if it was +straight. + +“What are you doing?” Jim demanded fiercely, but the man only drove +another tack. It was Mr. Harbison who stepped outside and read the card. + +It said “Smallpox.” + +“Smallpox,” Mr. Harbison read, as if he couldn’t believe it. Then he +turned to us, huddled in the hall. + +“It seems it wasn’t measles, after all,” he said cheerfully. “I move we +get into Mr. Reed’s automobile out there, and have a vaccination party. +I suppose even you blase society folk have not exhausted that kind of +diversion.” + +But the man on the step spat his tacks in his hand and spoke for the +first time. + +“No, you don’t,” he said. “Not on your life. Just step back, please, and +close the door. This house is quarantined.” + + + +Chapter V. FROM THE TREE OF LOVE + +There is hardly any use trying to describe what followed. Anne Brown +began to cry, and talk about the children. (She went to Europe once and +stayed until they all got over the whooping cough.) And Dallas said he +had a pull, because his mill controlled I forget how many votes, and the +thing to do was to be quiet and comfortable and we would get out in +the morning. Max took it as a huge joke, and somebody found him at +the telephone, calling up his club. The Mercer girls were hysterically +giggling, and Aunt Selina sat on a stiff-backed chair and took aromatic +spirits of ammonia. As for Jim, he had collapsed on the lowest step of +the stairs, and sat there with his head in his hands. When he did look +up, he didn’t dare to look at me. + +The Harbison man was arguing with the impassive individual on the top +step outside, and I saw him get out his pocketbook and offer a crisp +bundle of bills. But the man from the board of health only smiled and +tacked at his offensive sign. After a while Mr. Harbison came in and +closed the door, and we stared at one another. + +“I know what I’m going to do,” I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. +“I’m going to get out through a basement window at the back. I’m going +home.” + +“Home!” Aunt Selina gasped, jumping up and almost dropping her ammonia +bottle. “My dear Bella! Home?” + +Jimmy groaned at the foot of the stairs, but Anne Brown was getting over +her tears and now she turned on me in a temper. + +“It’s all your fault,” she said. “I was going to stay at home and get a +little sleep--” + +“Well, you can sleep now,” Dallas broke in. “There’ll be nothing to do +but sleep.” + +“I think you haven’t grasped the situation, Dal,” I said icily. “There +will be plenty to do. There isn’t a servant in the house!” + +“No servants!” everybody cried at once. The Mercer girls stopped +giggling. + +“Holy cats!” Max stopped in the act of hanging up his overcoat. “Do you +mean--why, I can’t shave myself! I’ll cut my head off.” + +“You’ll do more than that,” I retorted grimly. “You will carry coal and +tend fires and empty ash pans, and when you are not doing any of those +things there will be pots and pans to wash and beds to make.” + +Then there WAS a row. We had worked back to the den now, and I stood in +front of the fireplace and let the storm beat around me, and tried +to look perfectly cold and indifferent, and not to see Mr. Harbison’s +shocked face. No wonder he thought them a lot of savages, browbeating +their hostess the way they did. + +“It’s a fool thing anyhow,” Max Reed wound up, “to celebrate the +anniversary of a divorce--especially--” Here he caught Jim’s eye and +stopped. But I had suddenly remembered. BELLA DOWN IN THE BASEMENT! + +Could anything have been worse? And of course she would have hysteria +and then turn on me and blame me for it all. It all came over me at once +and overwhelmed me, while Anne was crying and saying she wouldn’t cook +if she starved for it, and Aunt Selina was taking off her wraps. I felt +queer all over, and I sat down suddenly. Mr. Harbison was looking at me, +and he brought me a glass of wine. + +“It won’t be so bad as you fear,” he said comfortingly. “There will be +no danger once we are vaccinated, and many hands make light work. They +are pretty raw now, because the thing is new to them, but by morning +they will be reconciled.” + +“It isn’t the work; it is something entirely different,” I said. And it +was. Bella and work could hardly be spoken in the same breath. + +If I had only turned her out as she deserved to be, when she first came, +instead of allowing her to carry through the wretched farce about seeing +Takahiro! Or if I had only run to the basement the moment the house was +quarantined, and got her out the areaway or the coal hole! And now time +was flying, and Aunt Selina had me by the arm, and any moment I expected +Bella to pounce on us through the doorway and the whole situation to +explode with a bang. + +It was after eleven before they were rational enough to discuss ways and +means, and, of course, the first thing suggested was that we all adjourn +below stairs and clean up after dinner. I could have slain Max Reed for +the notion, and the Mercer girls for taking him up. + +“Of course we will,” they said in a duet. “What a lark!” And they +actually began to pin up their dinner gowns. It was Jim who stopped +that. + +“Oh, look here, you people,” he objected, “I’m not going to let you do +that. We’ll get some servants in tomorrow. I’ll go down and put out the +lights. There will be enough clean dishes for breakfast.” + +It was lucky for me that they started a new discussion then and there +about who would get the breakfast. In the midst of the excitement I +slipped away to carry the news to Bella. She was where I had left her, +and she had made herself a cup of tea, and was very much at home, which +was natural. + +“Do you know,” she said ominously, “that you have been away for two +hours; and that I have gone through agonies of nervousness for fear Jim +Wilson would come down and think I came here to see him?” + +“No one would think that, Bella,” I soothed her. “Everybody knows you +loathe him--Jim, too.” She looked at me over the edge of her cup. + +“I’ll run along now,” she said, “since Takahiro isn’t here. And if Jim +has any sense at all, he will clear out every maid in the house. I never +saw such a kitchen in all my life. Well, lead the way, Kit. I suppose +they are deep in bridge, or roulette, or something.” + +She was fixing her veil, and I saw I would have to tell her. Personally, +I would much rather have told her the house was on fire. + +“Wait a minute, Bella,” I said. “You see, something queer has happened. +You know this is the anniversary--well, you know what it is--and Jim was +awfully glum. So we thought we would come--” + +“What are you driving at?” she demanded. “You are sea-green, Kit. What’s +the matter? You needn’t think I mind because Jim has a jollification to +celebrate his divorce.” + +“It--it was Takahiro--in the ambulance,” I blurted. “Smallpox. +We--Bella, we are shut in, quarantined.” + +She didn’t faint. She just sat down and stared at me, and I stared back +at her. Then a miserable alarm clock on the table suddenly went off like +an explosion, and Bella began to laugh. I knew what that was--hysteria. +She always had attacks like that when things went wrong. I was quite +despairing by that time; I hoped they would all hear her and come +downstairs and take her up and put her to bed like a Christian, so she +could giggle her soul out. But after a bit she quieted down and began to +cry softly, and I knew the worst was over. I gave her a shake, and she +was so angry that she got over it altogether. + +“Kit, you are horrid,” she choked. “Don’t you see what a position I am +in? I am not going upstairs to face Anne and the rest of them. You can +just put me in the coal cellar.” + +“Isn’t there a window you could get through?” I asked desperately. +“Locking the door doesn’t shut up a whole house.” + +Bella’s courage revived at that, and she said yes, there were windows, +plenty of them, only she didn’t see how she could get out. And I +said she would HAVE to get out, because I was playing Bella in the +performance, and I didn’t care to have an understudy. Then the situation +dawned on her, and she sat down and laughed herself weak in the knees. +Of course she wanted to stay, then, and see the fun out. But I was firm; +she would have to go, and I told her so. Things were complicated enough +without her. + +Well, we looked funny, no doubt, Bella in a Russian pony automobile coat +over the black satin she had worn at the Clevelands’ dinner, and I in +cream lace, the skirt gathered up from the kitchen floor, with Bella’s +ermine pelerine around my bare shoulders, and dishes and overturned +chairs everywhere. + +Bella knew more about the lower regions of her ex-home than I would have +thought. She opened a door in a corner and led the way through a narrow +hall past the refrigerating room, to a huge, cemented cellar, with a +furnace in the center, and a half-dozen electric lights making it really +brilliant. + +“Get a chair,” Bella said over her shoulder, excitedly. “I can get out +easily here, through the coal hole. Imagine my--” + +But it was my turn to grip Bella. From behind the furnace were coming +the most terrible sounds, rasping noises that fairly frayed the silk of +my nerves. We stood petrified for an instant. Then Bella laughed. “They +are not all gone,” she said carefully. “Some one is asleep there.” + +We tiptoed to where we could see around the furnace, and, sure enough, +some one WAS asleep there. Only, it was not one of the servants; it was +a portly policeman, with a newspaper and an empty plate on the floor on +one side, and a champagne bottle on the other. He had slid down in his +chair, with his chin on his brass buttons, and his helmet had rolled a +dozen feet away. Bella had to clap her hand over her mouth. + +“Fairly caught!” she whispered. “Sartor Resartus, the arrester arrested. +Oh, Jim and his flawless service!” + +But after we got over our surprise, we saw the situation was serious. +The policeman was threatening to awaken. Once he stopped snoring to yawn +noisily, and we beat a hasty retreat. Bella switched off the lights in +a hurry and locked the door behind us. We hardly breathed until we were +back in the kitchen again, and everything quiet. And then Jimmy called +my name from up above somewheres. + +“I am going to call him down, Bella,” I said firmly. “Let him help you +out. I’m sure I don’t see why I should have all this when the two of +you--” + +“Oh, no, no! Surely, Kit, you wouldn’t be so cruel!” she whispered +pleadingly. “You know what he would think. He--oh, Kit, let them all get +settled for the night, and then come down, like a dear, and help me out. +I know loads of ways--honestly I do.” + +“If I leave you here,” I debated, “what about the policeman?” + +“Never mind him”--frantically. “Listen! There’s Jim up in the pantry. +Run, for the sake of Heaven!” + +So--I ran. At the top of the stairs I met Jimmy, very crumpled as to +shirt-front and dejected as to face. + +“I’ve been hunting everywhere for you,” he said dismally. “I thought you +had added to the general merriment by falling downstairs and breaking +your neck.” + +I went past him with my chin up. Now that I had time to think about it, +I was furiously angry with him. + +“Kit!” he called after me appealingly, but I would not hear. Then he +adopted different tactics. He took advantage of my catching my foot in +the lace of my gown to pass me, and to stand with his back against the +door. + +“You’re not going until you hear me, Kit,” he declared miserably. “In +the first place, for all you are down on me, is it my fault? Honestly, +now IS IT MY FAULT?” + +I refused to speak. + +“I was coming home to be miserable alone,” he went on, “and--oh, I know +you meant well, Kit; but YOU asked all these crazy people here.” + +“Perhaps you will give me credit for some things,” I said wearily. “I +did NOT give Takahiro smallpox, for instance, and--if you will permit me +to mention the fact--Aunt Selina is not MY Aunt Selina.” + +“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about,” Jimmy went on wretchedly, +trying not to look at me. “You see, when they were rowing so about who +would get the breakfast--I never saw such a lot of people; half of +them never touch breakfast, but of course now they want all kinds of +things--when they were talking, Aunt Selina said she knew YOU would get +it, being the hostess, and responsible, besides knowing where things +are kept.” He had fixed his eyes on the orchids, and he looked shrunken, +actually shrunken. “I thought,” he finished, “you might give me a few +pointers now, and I could come down in the morning, and--and fuss up +something, coffee and so on. I would say you did it! Oh, hang it all, +Kit, why don’t you say something?” + +“What do you want me to say?” I demanded. “That I love to cook, and of +course I’ll fix trays and carry them up in the morning to Anne Brown +and Leila Mercer and the rest; and that I will have the shaving water +ready--” + +“I know what I’m going to do,” Jimmy said, with a sudden resolution. +“Aunt Selina and her money can go to blazes. I am going right upstairs +and tell her the truth, tell her who you are, what I am, and all the +rest of it.” He opened the door. + +“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” I gasped, catching him in time. “Don’t +you dare, Jimmy Wilson! Why, what would they think of me? After letting +her call me Bella, and him--Jim, if Mr. Harbison ever learns the +truth--I--I will take poison. If we are going to be shut up here +together, we will have to carry it on. I couldn’t stand the disgrace.” + +In spite of an heroic effort, Jim looked relieved. “They have been +hunting for the linen closet,” he said, more cheerfully, “and there will +be room enough, I think. Harbison and I will hang out in the studio; +there are two couches there. I’m afraid you’ll have to take Aunt Selina, +Kit.” + +“Certainly,” I said coldly. That was the way it was all along. Whenever +there was something to do that no one else would undertake--any +unpleasant responsibility--that entire mongrel household turned with one +gesture and pointed its finger at me! Well, it is over now, and I ought +not to be bitter, considering everything. + +It was quite characteristic of that memorable evening (that is quite +novelesque, I think) that my interview with Jimmy should have a +sensational ending. He was terribly down, of course, and as I was trying +to pass him to get to the door, he caught my hand. + +“You’re a girl in a thousand, Kit,” he said forlornly. “If I were not so +damnably, hopelessly, idiotically in love with--somebody else, I should +be crazy about you.” + +“Don’t be maudlin,” I retorted. “Would you mind letting my hand go?” I +felt sure Bella could hear. + +“Oh, come now, Kit,” he implored, “we’ve always got along so well. It’s +a shame to let a thing like this make us bad friends. Aren’t you ever +going to forgive me?” + +“Never,” I said promptly. “When I once get away, I don’t want ever to +see you again. I was never so humiliated in my life. I loathe you!” + +Then I turned around, and, of course, there was Aunt Selina with her +eyes protruding until you could have knocked them off with a stick, and +beside her, very red and uncomfortable, Mr. Harbison! + +“Bella!” she said in a shocked voice, “is that the way you speak to your +husband! It is high time I came here, I think, and took a hand in this +affair.” + +“Oh, never mind, Aunt Selina,” Jim said, with a sheepish grin. +“Kit--Bella is tired and nervous. This is a h--deuce of a situation. +No--er--servants, and all that.” + +But Aunt Selina did mind, and showed it. She pulled the unlucky Harbison +man through the door and closed it, and then stood glaring at both of +us. + +“Every little quarrel is an apple knocked from the tree of love,” she +announced oratorically. + +“This was a very little quarrel,” Jim said, edging toward the door; +“a--a green apple, Aunt Selina, a colicky little green apple.” But she +was not to be diverted. + +“Bella,” she said severely, “you said you loathed him. You didn’t mean +that.” + +“But I do!” I cried hysterically. “There isn’t any word to tell how +I--how I detest him.” + +Then I swept past them all and flew to Bella’s dressing room and locked +myself in. Aunt Selina knocked until she was tired, then gave up and +went to bed. + +That was the night Anne Brown’s pearl collar was stolen! + + + +Chapter VI. A MIGHTY POOR JOKE + +Of course, one knows that there are people who in a different grade of +society would be shoplifters and pickpockets. When they are restrained +by obligation or environment they become a little overkeen at bridge, +or take the wrong sables, or stuff a gold-backed brush into a muff at +a reception. You remember the ivory dressing set that Theodora Bucknell +had, fastened with fine gold chains? And the sensation it caused at the +Bucknell cotillion when Mrs. Van Zire went sweeping to her carriage with +two feet of gold chain hanging from the front of her wrap? + +But Anne’s pearl collar was different. In the first place, instead of +three or four hundred people, the suspicion had to be divided among ten. +And of those ten, at least eight of us were friends, and the other two +had been vouched for by the Browns and Jimmy. It was a horrible mix-up. +For the necklace was gone--there couldn’t be any doubt of that--and +although, as Dallas said, it couldn’t get out of the house, still, there +were plenty of places to hide the thing. + +The worst of our trouble really originated with Max Reed, after all. +For it was Max who made the silly wager over the telephone, with Dick +Bagley. He bet five hundred even that one of us, at least, would break +quarantine within the next twenty-four hours, and, of course, that +settled it. Dick told it around the club as a joke, and a man who owns +a newspaper heard him and called up the paper. Then the paper called up +the health office, after setting up a flaming scare-head, “Will Money +Free Them? Board of Health versus Millionaire.” + +It was almost three when the house settled down--nobody had any night +clothes, although finally, through Dallas, who gave them to Anne, who +gave them to the rest, we got some things of Jimmy’s--and I was still +dressed. The house was perfectly quiet, and, after listening carefully, +I went slowly down the stairs. There was a light in the hall, and +another back in the dining room, and I got along without any trouble. +But the pantry, where the stairs led down, was dark, and the wretched +swinging door would not stay open. + +I caught my skirt in the door as I went through, and I had to stop to +loosen it. And in that awful minute I heard some one breathing just +beside me. I had stooped to my gown, and I turned my head without +straightening--I couldn’t have raised myself to an erect posture, for +my knees were giving way under me--and just at my feet lay the still +glowing end of a match! + +I had to swallow twice before I could speak. Then I said sharply: + +“Who’s there?” + +The man was so close it is a wonder I had not walked into him; his voice +was right at my ear. + +“I am sorry I startled you,” he said quietly. “I was afraid to speak +suddenly, or move, for fear I would do--what I have done.” + +It was Mr. Harbison. + +“I--I thought you were--it is very late,” I managed to say, with dry +lips. “Do you know where the electric switch is?” + +“Mrs. Wilson!” It was clear he had not known me before. “Why, no; don’t +you?” + +“I am all confused,” I muttered, and beat a retreat into the dining +room. There, in the friendly light, we could at least see each other, +and I think he was as much impressed by the fact that I had not +undressed as I was by the fact that he HAD, partly. He wore a hideous +dressing gown of Jimmy’s, much too small, and his hair, parted and +plastered down in the early evening, stood up in a sort of brown brush +all over his head. He was trying to flatten it with his hands. + +“It must be three o’clock,” he said, with polite surprise, “and the +house is like a barn. You ought not to be running around with your arms +uncovered, Mrs. Wilson. Surely you could have called some of us.” + +“I didn’t wish to disturb any one,” I said, with distinct truth. + +“I suppose you are like me,” he said. “The novelty of the situation--and +everything. I got to thinking things over, and then I realized the +studio was getting cold, so I thought I would come down and take a look +at the furnace. I didn’t suppose any one else would think of it. But +I lost myself in that pantry, stumbled against a half-open drawer, and +nearly went down the dumb-waiter.” And, as if in judgment on me, at +that instant came two rather terrific thumps from somewhere below, +and inarticulate words, shouted rather than spoken. It was uncanny, of +course, coming as it did through the register at our feet. Mr. Harbison +looked startled. + +“Oh, by the way,” I said, as carelessly as I could. “In the excitement, +I forgot to mention it. There is a policeman asleep in the furnace room. +I--I suppose we will have to keep him now,” I finished as airily as +possible. + +“Oh, a policeman--in the cellar,” he repeated, staring at me, and he +moved toward the pantry door. + +“You needn’t go down,” I said feverishly, with visions of Bella Knowles +sitting on the kitchen table, surrounded by soiled dishes and all the +cheerless aftermath of a dinner party. “Please don’t go down. I--it’s +one of my rules--never to let a stranger go down to the kitchen. I--I’m +peculiar--that way--and besides, it’s--it’s mussy.” + +Bang! Crash! through the register pipe, and some language quite +articulate. Then silence. + +“Look here, Mrs. Wilson,” he said resolutely. “What do I care about the +kitchen? I’m going down and arrest that policeman for disturbing the +peace. He will have the pipes down.” + +“You must not go,” I said with desperate firmness. “He--he is probably +in a very dangerous state just now. We--I--locked him in.” + +The Harbison man grinned and then became serious. + +“Why don’t you tell me the whole thing?” he demanded. “You’ve been in +trouble all evening, and--you can trust me, you know, because I am a +stranger; because the minute this crazy quarantine is raised I am off +to the Argentine Republic,” (perhaps he said Chili) “and because I don’t +know anything at all about you. You see, I have to believe what you +tell me, having no personal knowledge of any of you to go on. Now tell +me--whom have you hidden in the cellar, besides the policeman?” + +There was no use trying to deceive him; he was looking straight into my +eyes. So I decided to make the best of a bad thing. Anyhow, it was going +to require strength to get Bella through the coal hole with one arm and +restrain the policeman with the other. + +“Come,” I said, making a sudden resolution, and led the way down the +stairs. + +He said nothing when he saw Bella, for which I was grateful. She was +sitting at the table, with her arms in front of her, and her head buried +in them. And then I saw she was asleep. Her hat and veil were laid +beside her, and she had taken off her coat and draped it around her. She +had rummaged out a cold pheasant and some salad, and had evidently had +a little supper. Supper and a nap, while I worried myself gray-headed +about her! + +“She--she came in unexpectedly--something about the butler,” I explained +under my breath. “And--she doesn’t want to stay. She is on bad terms +with--with some of the people upstairs. You can see how impossible the +situation is.” + +“I doubt if we can get her out,” he said, as if the situation were quite +ordinary. “However, we can try. She seems very comfortable. It’s a pity +to rouse her.” + +Here the prisoner in the furnace room broke out afresh. It sounded +as though he had taken a lump of coal and was attacking the lock. Mr. +Harbison followed the noise, and I could hear him arguing, not gently. + +“Another sound,” he finished, “and you won’t get out of here at all, +unless you crawl up the furnace pipe!” + +When he came back, Bella was rousing. She lifted her head with her eyes +shut and then opened them one at a time, blinked, and sat up. She didn’t +see him at first. + +“You wretch!” she said ungratefully, after she had yawned. “Do you know +what time it is? And that--” Then she saw Mr. Harbison and sat staring +at him. + +“This is Mr. Harbison,” I said to her hastily. “He--he came with Anne +and Dal and--he is shut in, too.” + +By that time Bella had seen how handsome he was, and she took a hair pin +out of her mouth, and arched her eyebrows, which was always Bella’s best +pose. + +“I am Miss Knowles,” she said sweetly (of course, the court had given +her back her name), “and I stopped in tonight, thinking the house +was empty, to see about a--a butler. Unfortunately, the house was +quarantined just at that time, and--here I am. Surely there can not be +any harm in helping me to get out?” (Pleading tone.) “I have not been +exposed to any contagion, and in the exhausted state of my health the +confinement would be positively dangerous.” + +She rolled her eyes at him, and I could see she was making an +impression. Of course she was free. She had a perfect right to marry +again, but I will say this: Bella is a lot better looking by electric +light than she is the next morning. + +The upshot of it was that the gentleman who built bridges and looked +down on society from a lofty, lonely pinnacle agreed to help one of the +most gleaming members of the aforesaid society to outwit the law. + +It took about fifteen minutes to quiet the policeman. Nobody ever knew +what Mr. Harbison did to him, but for twenty-four hours he was quite +tractable. He changed after that, but that comes later in the story. +Anyhow, the Harbison man went upstairs and came down with a Bagdad +curtain and a cushion to match, and took them into the furnace room, +and came out and locked the door behind him, and then we were ready for +Bella’s escape. + +But there were four special officers and three reporters watching the +house, as a result of Max Reed’s idiocy. Once, after trying all the +other windows and finding them guarded, we discovered a little bit of a +hole in an out-of-the-way corner that looked like a ventilator and was +covered with a heavy wire screen. No prisoners ever dug their way out of +a dungeon with more energy than that with which we attached that screen, +hacking at it with kitchen knives, whispering like conspirators, being +scratched with the ragged edges of the wire, frozen with the cold air +one minute and boiling with excitement the next. And when the wire was +cut, and Bella had rolled her coat up and thrust it through and was +standing on a chair ready to follow, something outside that had looked +like a barrel moved, and said, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. +It would be certain to be undignified, and probably it would be +unpleasant--later.” + +We coaxed and pleaded and tried to bribe, and that happened, as it +turned out, to be one of the worst things we had to endure. For the +whole conversation came out the next afternoon in the paper, with the +most awful drawings, and the reporter said it was the flashing of the +jewels we wore that first attracted his attention. And that brings me +back to the robbery. + +For when we had crept back to the kitchen, and Bella was fumbling +for her handkerchief to cry into and the Harbison man was trying to +apologize for the language he had used to the reporter, and I was on the +verge of a nervous chill--well, it was then that Bella forgot all about +crying and jumped and held out her arm. + +“My diamond bracelet!” she screeched. “Look, I’ve lost it.” + +Well, we went over every inch of that basement, until I knew every crack +in the flooring, every spot on the cement. And Bella was nasty, and said +that she had never seen that part of the house in such condition, and +that if I had acted like a sane person and put her out, when she had no +business there at all, she would have had her freedom and her bracelet, +and that if we were playing a joke on her (as if we felt like joking!) +we would please give her the bracelet and let her go and die in a +corner; she felt very queer. + +At half-past four o’clock we gave up. + +“It’s gone,” I said. “I don’t believe you wore it here. No one could +have taken it. There wasn’t a soul in this part of the house, except the +policeman and he’s locked in.” + +At five o’clock we put her to sleep in the den. She was in a fearful +temper, and I was glad enough to be able to shut the door on her. Tom +Harbison--that was his name--helped me to creep upstairs, and wanted +to get me a glass of ale to make me sleep. But I said it would be of no +use, as I had to get up and get the breakfast. The last thing he said +was that the policeman seemed above the average in intelligence, and +perhaps we could train him to do plain cooking and dishwashing. + +I did not go to sleep at once. I lay on the chintz-covered divan in +Bella’s dressing room and stared at the picture of her with the violets +underneath. I couldn’t see what there was about Bella to inspire such +undying devotion, but I had to admit that she had looked handsome that +night, and that the Harbison man had certainly been impressed. + +At seven o’clock Jimmy Wilson pounded at my door, and I could have +choked him joyfully. I dragged myself to the door and opened it, and +then I heard excited voices. Everybody seemed to be up but Aunt Selina, +and they were all talking at once. + +Anne Brown was in the corner of the group, waving her hands, while +Dallas was trying to hook the back of her gown with one hand and hold a +blanket around himself with the other. No one was dressed except Anne, +and she had been up for an hour, looking in shoes and under the corners +of rugs and around the bed clothing for her jeweled collar. When she saw +me she began all over again. + +“I had it on when I went into my room,” she declared, “and I put it on +the dressing table when I undressed. I meant to put it under my pillow, +but I forgot. And I didn’t sleep well; I was awake half the night. +Wasn’t I, Dal? Then, when the clock downstairs in the hall was chiming +five, something roused me, and I sat up in bed. It was still dark, but I +pinched Dal and said there was somebody in the room. You remember that, +don’t you, Dal?” + +“I thought you had nightmare,” he said sheepishly. + +“I lay still for ages, it seemed to me, and then--the door into the +hall closed. I heard the catch click. I turned on the light over the bed +then, and the room was empty. I thought of my collar, and although it +seemed ridiculous, with the house sealed as it is, and all of us friends +for years--well, I got up and looked, and it was gone!” + +No one spoke for an instant. It WAS a queer situation, for the collar +was gone; Anne’s red eyes showed it was true. And there we stood, every +one of us a miserable picture of guilt, and tried to look innocent and +debonair and unsuspicious. Finally Jim held up his hand and signified +that he wanted to say something. + +“It’s like this,” he said, “until this thing is cleared up, for Heaven’s +sake, let’s try to be sane! If every fellow thinks the other fellow +did it, this house will be a nice little hell to live in. And if +anybody”--here he glared around--“if anybody has got funny and is hiding +those jewels, I want to say that he’d better speak up now. Later, it +won’t be so easy for him. It’s a mighty poor joke.” + +But nobody spoke. + + + +Chapter VII. WE MAKE AN OMELET + +It was Betty Mercer who said she was hungry, and got us switched from +the delicate subject of which was the thief to the quite as pressing +subject of which was to be cook. Aunt Selina had slept quietly through +the whole thing--we learned afterward that she customarily slept on her +left side, which was on her good ear. We gathered in the Dallas Browns’ +room, and Jimmy proposed a plan. + +“We can have anything sent in that we want,” he suggested speciously, +“and if Dal doesn’t make good with the city fathers, you girls can +get some clothes anyhow. Then, we can have dinner sent from one of the +hotels.” + +“Why not all the meals?” Max suggested. “I hope you’re not going to be +small about things, Jimmy.” + +“It ought to be easy,” Jim persisted, ignoring the remark, “for nine +reasonably intelligent people to boil eggs and make coffee, which is all +we need for breakfast, with some fruit.” + +“Nine of us!” Dallas said wickedly, looking at Tom Harbison, who was +out of earshot, “Why nine of us? I thought Kit here, otherwise known as +Bella, was going to show off her housewifely skill.” + +It ended, however, with Mr. Harbison writing out a lot of slips, cook, +scullery-maid, chamber-maid, parlor-maid, furnace-man, and butler, and +as that left two people over--we didn’t count Aunt Selina--he added +another furnace-man and a trained nurse. Betty Mercer drew the trained +nurse slip, and, of course, she was delighted. It seems funny now to +look back and think what a dreadful time she really had, for Aunt Selina +took the grippe, you know, that very day. + +It was fate that I should go back to that awful kitchen, for of course +my slip said “cook.” Mr. Harbison was butler, and Max and Dal got the +furnace, although neither of them had ever been nearer to a bucket of +coal than the coupons on mining stock. Anne got the bedrooms, and Leila +was parlor-maid. It was Jimmy who got the scullery work, but he was +quite crushed by this time, and did not protest at all. + +Max was in a very bad temper; I suppose he had not had enough sleep--no +one had. But he came over while the lottery was going on and stood over +me and demanded unpleasantly, in a whisper, that I stop masquerading as +another man’s wife and generally making a fool of myself--which is the +way he put it. And I knew in my heart that he was right, and I hated him +for it. + +“Why don’t you go and tell him--them?” I asked nastily. No one was +paying any attention to us. “Tell them that, to be obliging, I have +nearly drowned in a sea of lies; tell them that I am not only not +married, but that I never intend to marry; tell them that we are a lot +of idiots with nothing better to do than to trifle with strangers within +our gates, people who build--I mean, people that are worth two to our +one! Run and tell them.” + +He looked at me for a minute, then he turned on his heel and left me. It +looked as though Max might be going to be difficult. + +While I was improvising an apron out of a towel, and Anne was pinning a +sheet into a kimono, so she could take off her dinner gown and still be +proper, Dallas harked back to the robbery. + +“Ann put the collar on the table there,” he said. “There’s no mistake +about that. I watched her do it, for I remember thinking it was the sole +reminder I had that Consolidated Traction ever went above thirty-nine.” + +Max was looking around the room, examining the window locks and +whistling between his teeth. He was in disgrace with every one, for by +that time it was light enough to see three reporters with cameras across +the street waiting for enough sun to snap the house, and everybody knew +that it was Max and his idiotic wager that had done it. He had made two +or three conciliatory remarks, but no one would speak to him. His antics +were so queer, however, that we were all watching him, and when he had +felt over the rug with his hands, and raised the edges, and tried to +lift out the chair seats, and had shaken out Dal’s shoes (he said people +often hid things and then forgot about it), he made a proposition. + +“If you will take that infernal furnace from around my neck, I’ll +undertake either to find the jewels or to show up the thief,” he +said quietly. And of course, with all the people in the house under +suspicion, every one had to hail the suggestion with joy, and to offer +his assistance, and Jimmy had to take Max’s share of the furnace. So +they took the scullery slip downstairs to the policeman, and gave Jim +Max’s share of the furnace. (Yes, I had broken the policeman to them +gently. Of course, Anne said at once that he was the thief, but they +found him tucked in and sound asleep with his back against the furnace.) + +“In the first place,” Max said, standing importantly in the middle of +the room, “we retired between two and three--nearer three. So the +theft occurred between three and five, when Anne woke up. Was your door +locked, Dal?” + +“No. The door into the hall was, but the door into the dressing room was +open, and we found the door from there into the hall open this morning.” + +“From three until five,” Max repeated. “Was any one out of his room +during that time?” + +“I was,” said Tom Harbison promptly, from the foot of the bed. “I was +prowling all around somewhere about four, searching”--he glanced at +me--“for a drink of water. But as I don’t know a pearl from a glass +bead, I hope you exonerate me.” + +Everybody laughed and said, “Of course,” and “Sure, old man,” and +changed the subject quickly. + +While that excitement was on, I got Jim to one side and told him about +Bella. His good-natured face was radiant at first. + +“I suppose she DID come to see Takahiro, eh, Kit?” he asked delicately. +“She didn’t say anything about me?” + +“Nothing good. She said the house was in a disgraceful condition,” I +said heartlessly. “And her diamond bracelet was stolen while she took +a nap on the kitchen table”--he groaned--“and--oh, Jim, you are such +a goose! If I could only manage my own affairs the way I could my +friends’! She’s too sure of you, Jimmy. She knows you adore her, +and--how brutal could you be, Jim?” + +“Fair,” he said. “I may have undiscovered depths of brutality that I +have never had occasion to use. However, I might try. Why?” + +“Listen, Jim,” I urged. “It was always Bella who did things here; she +managed the house, she tyrannized over her friends, and she bullied you. +Yes, she did. Now she’s here, without your invitation, and she has to +stay. It’s your turn to bully, to dictate terms, to be coldly civil or +politely rude. Make her furious at you. If she is jealous, so much the +better.” + +“How far would you sacrifice yourself on the altar of friendship?” he +asked. + +“You may pay me all the attention you like, in public,” I replied, and +after we shook hands we went together to Bella. + +There was an ominous pause when we went into the den. Bella was sitting +by the register, with her furs on, and after one glance over her +shoulder at us, she looked away again without speaking. + +“Bella,” Jim said appealingly. And then I pinched his arm, and he drew +himself up and looked properly outraged. + +“Bella,” he said, coldly this time, “I can’t imagine why you have put +yourself in this ridiculous position, but since you have--” + +She turned on him in a fury. + +“Put MYSELF in this position!” + +She was frantic. “It’s a plot, a wretched trick of yours, this +quarantine, to keep me here.” + +Jim gasped, but I gave him a warning glance, and he swallowed hard. + +“On the contrary,” he said, with maddening quiet, “I would be the last +person in the world to wish to perpetuate an indiscretion of yours. For +it was hardly discreet, was it, to visit a bachelor establishment alone +at ten o’clock at night? As far as my plotting to keep you here is +concerned, I assure you that nothing could be further from my mind. Our +paths were to be two parallel lines that never touch.” He looked at me +for approval, and Bella was choking. + +“You are worse that I ever thought you,” she stormed. “I thought you +were only a--a fool. Now I know you--for a brute!” + +Well, it ended by Jim’s graciously permitting Bella to remain--there +being nothing else to do--and by his magnanimously agreeing to keep her +real identity from Aunt Selina and Mr. Harbison, and to break the news +of her presence to Anne and the rest. It created a sensation beside +which Anne’s pearls faded away, although they came to the front again +soon enough. + +Jim broke the news at once, gathering everybody but Harbison and Aunt +Selina in the upper hall. He was palpitatingly nervous, but he tried to +carry it off with a high hand. + +“It’s unfortunate,” he said, looking around the circle of faces, each +one frozen with amazement, and just a suspicion, perhaps of incredulity. +“It’s particularly unfortunate for her. You all know how high-strung +she is, and if the papers should get hold of it--well, we’ll all have to +make it as easy as we can for her.” + +With Jim’s eyes on them, they all swallowed the butler story without a +gulp. But Anne was indignant. + +“It’s like Bella,” she snapped. “Well, she has made her bed and she can +lie on it. I’m sure I shan’t make it for her. But if you want to know my +opinion, Mr. Harbison may be a fool, but you can’t ram two Bellas, both +NEE Knowles, down Miss Caruthers’ throat with a stick.” + +We had not thought of that before and every one looked blank. Finally, +however, Jim said Bella’s middle name was Constantia, and we decided to +call her that. But it turned out afterward that nobody could remember +it in a hurry, and generally when we wanted to attract her attention, we +walked across the room and touched her on the shoulder. It was quicker +and safer. + +The name decided, we went downstairs in a line to welcome Bella, to try +to make her feel at home, and to forget her deplorable situation. Leila +had worked herself into a really sympathetic frame of mind. + +“Poor dear,” she said, on the way down. “Now don’t grin, anybody, just +be cordial and glad to see her. I hope she doesn’t cry; you know the +spells she takes.” + +We stopped outside the door, and everybody tried to look cheerful and +sympathetic, and not grinny--which was as hard as looking as if we had +had a cup of tea--and then Jim threw the door open and we filed in. + +Bella was comfortably reading by the fire. She had her feet up on a +stool and a pillow behind her head. She did not even look at us for a +minute; then she merely glanced up as she turned a page. + +“Dear me,” she said mockingly, “what a lot of frumps you all are! I had +hoped it was some one with my breakfast.” + +Then she went on reading. As Leila said afterward, that kind of person +OUGHT to be divorced. + +Aunt Selina came down just then and I left everybody trying to explain +Bella’s presence to her, and fled to the kitchen. The Harbison man +appeared while I was sitting hopelessly in front of the gas range, and +showed me about it. + +“I don’t know that I ever saw one,” he said cheerfully, “but I know the +theory. Likewise, by the same token, this tea kettle, set on the flame, +will boil. That is not theory, however, that is early knowledge. ‘Polly, +put the kettle on; we’ll all take tea.’ Look at that, Mrs. Wilson. I +didn’t fight bacilli with boiled water at Chickamauga for nothing.” + +And then he let out the policeman and brought him into the kitchen. He +was a large man, and his face was a curious mixture of amazement, alarm +and dignity. No doubt we did look queer, still in parts of our evening +clothes and I in the white silk and lace petticoat that belonged under +my gown, with a yellow and black pajama coat of Jimmy’s as a sort of +breakfast jacket. + +“This is Officer Flannigan,” Mr. Harbison said. “I explained our +unfortunate position earlier in the morning, and he is prepared to +accept our hospitality. Flannigan, every person in this house has got +to work, as I also explained to you. You are appointed dishwasher and +scullery maid.” + +The policeman looked dazed. Then, slowly, like dawn over a sleeping +lake, a light of comprehension grew in his face. + +“Sure,” he said, laying his helmet on the table. “I’ll be glad to be +doing anything I can to help. Me and Mrs. Wilson--we used to be friends. +It’s many the time I’ve opened the carriage door for her, and she with +her head in the air, and for all that, the pleasant smile. When any one +around her was having a party and wanted a special officer, it was Mrs. +Wilson that always said, Get Flannigan, Officer Timothy Flannigan. He’s +your man.’” + +My heart had been going lower and lower. So he knew Bella, and he knew I +was not Bella, although he had not grasped the fact that I was usurping +her place. The odious Harbison man sat on the table and swung his feet. + +“I wonder if you know,” he said, looking around him, “how good it is +to see a white woman so perfectly at home in a civilized kitchen again, +after two years of food cooked by a filthy Indian squaw over a portable +sheet-iron stove!” + +SO PERFECTLY AT HOME? I stood in the middle of the room and stared +around at the copper things hanging up and the rows of blue and white +crockery, and the dozens and hundreds of complicated-looking utensils, +whose names I had never even heard, and I was dazed. I tried with some +show of authority to instruct Flannigan about gathering up the soiled +things, and, after listening in puzzled silence for a minute, he +stripped off his blue coat with a tolerant smile. + +“Lave em to me, miss,” he said. The “miss” passed unnoticed. “I mayn’t +give em a Turkish bath, which is what you are describin’, but I’ll get +the grease off all right. I always clean up while the missus is in bed +with a young un.” + +He rolled up his sleeves, found a brown checked gingham apron behind +the door, and tied it around his neck with the ease of practice. Then +he cleared off the plates, eating what appealed to him as he did so, and +stopping now and again for a deep-throated chuckle. + +“I’m thinkin’,” he said once, stopping with a dish in the air, “what a +deuce of a noise there will be when the vaccination doctor comes around +this mornin’. In a week every one of us will be nursin’ a sore arm or +walkin’ on one leg, beggin’ your pardon, miss. The last time the force +was vaccinated, I asked to be done behind me ear; I needed me legs and I +needed me arms, but didn’t need me head much!” + +He threw his head back and laughed. Mr. Harbison laughed. Oh, we were +very cheerful! And that awful stove stared at me, and the kettle began +to hum, and Aunt Selina sent down word that she was not well, and would +like some omelet on her tray. Omelet! + +I knew that it was made of eggs, but that was the extent of my +knowledge. I muttered an excuse and ran upstairs to Anne, but she was +still sniffling over her necklace, and said she didn’t know anything +about omelets and didn’t care. Food would choke her. Neither of the +Mercer girls knew either, and Bella, who was still reading in the den, +absolutely declined to help. + +“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. You can get yourself +out, as you got yourself in,” she said nastily. “The simplest thing, if +you don’t mind my suggesting it, is to poison the coffee and kill the +lot of us. Only, if you decide to do it, let me know; I want to live +just long enough to see Jimmy Wilson WRITHE!” + +Bella is the kind of person who gets on one’s nerves. She finds a +grievance and hugs it; she does ridiculous things and blames other +people. And she flirts. + +I went downstairs despondently, and found that Mr. Harbison had +discovered some eggs and was standing helplessly staring at them. + +“Omelet--eggs. Eggs--omelet. That’s the extent of my knowledge,” he +said, when I entered. “You’ll have to come to my assistance.” + +It was then that I saw the cook book. It was lying on a shelf beside the +clock, and while Mr. Harbison had his back turned I got it down. It was +quite clear that the domestic type of woman was his ideal, and I did +not care to outrage his belief in me. So I took the cook book into the +pantry and read the recipe over three times. When I came back I knew it +by heart, although I did not understand it. + +“I will tell you how,” I said with a great deal of dignity, “and since +you want to help, you may make it yourself.” + +He was delighted. + +“Fine!” he said. “Suppose you give me the idea first. Then we’ll go over +it slowly, bit by bit. We’ll make a big fluffy omelet, and if the others +aren’t around, we’ll eat it ourselves.” + +“Well,” I said, trying to remember exactly, “you take two eggs--” + +“Two!” he repeated. “Two eggs for ten people!” + +“Don’t interrupt me,” I said irritably. “If--if two isn’t enough we can +make several omelets, one after the other.” + +He looked at me with admiration. + +“Who else but you would have thought of that!” he remarked. “Well, here +are two eggs. What next?” + +“Separate them,” I said easily. No, I didn’t know what it meant. I hoped +he would; I said it as casually as I could, and I did not look at him. I +knew he was staring at me, puzzled. + +“Separate them!” he said. “Why, they aren’t fastened together!” Then he +laughed. “Oh, yes, of course!” When I looked he had put one at each end +of the table. “Afraid they’ll quarrel, I suppose,” he said. “Well, now +they’re separated.” + +“Then beat.” + +“First separate, then beat!” he repeated. “The author of that cook book +must have had a mean disposition. What’s next? Hang them?” He looked up +at me with his boyish smile. + +“Separate and beat,” I repeated. If I lost a word of that recipe I was +gone. It was like saying the alphabet; I had to go to the beginning +every time mentally. + +“Well,” he reflected, “you can’t beat an egg, no matter how cruel you +may be, unless you break it first.” He picked up an egg and looked at +it. “Separate!” he reflected. “Ah--the white from the--whatever you +cooking experts call it--the yellow part.” + +“Exactly!” I exclaimed, light breaking on me. “Of course. I KNEW you +would find it out.” Then back to the recipe--“beat until well mixed; +then fold in the whites.” + +“Fold?” he questioned. “It looks pretty thin to fold, doesn’t it? +I--upon my word, I never heard of folding an egg. Are you--but of course +you know. Please come and show me how.” + +“Just fold them in,” I said desperately. “It isn’t difficult.” And +because I was so transparent a fraud and knew he must find me out then, +I said something about butter, and went into the pantry. That’s the +trouble with a lie; somebody asks you to tell one as a favor to somebody +else, and the first thing you know, you are having to tell a thousand, +and trying to remember the ones you have told so you won’t contradict +yourself, and the very person you have tried to help turns on you and +reproaches you for being untruthful! I leaned my elbows despondently +on the shelf of the kitchen pantry, with the feet of a guard visible +through the high window over my head, and waited for Mr. Harbison to +come in and demand that I fold a raw egg, and discover that I didn’t +know anything about cooking, and was just as useless as all the others. + +He came. He held the bowl out to me and waved a fork in triumph. + +“I have solved it,” he said. “Or, rather, Flannigan and I have solved +it. The mixture awaits the magic touch of the cook.” + +I honestly thought I could do the rest. It was only to be put in a pan +and browned, and then in the oven three minutes. And I did it properly, +but for two things: I should have greased the pan (but this was the +book’s fault; it didn’t say) and I should have lighted the oven. The +latter, however, was Mr. Harbison’s fault as much as mine, and I had wit +enough to lay it to absent-mindedness on the part of both of us. + +After that, Aunt Selina or no Aunt Selina, we decided to have boiled +eggs, and Mr. Harbison knew how to cook them. He put them in the +tea kettle and then went to look at the furnace. And Officer Timothy +Flannigan ground the coffee and gave his opinion of the board of health +in no stinted terms. As for me, I burned my fingers and the toast, and +felt myself growing hot and cold, for I was going to be found out as +soon as Flannigan grasped the situation. + +Then, of course, I did the thing that caused me so much trouble later. +I put down the toaster--at least the Harbison man said it was a +toaster--and went over and stood in front of the policeman. + +“I don’t suppose you will understand--exactly,” I said, “but--but if +anything occurs to--to make you think I am not--that things are not what +they seem to be--I mean, what I say they are--you will understand that +it is a joke, won’t you? A joke, you know.” + +Yes, that was what I said. I know it sounds like a raving delirium, +but when Max came down and squizzled some bacon, as he said, and told +Flannigan about the robbery, and how, whether it was a joke or deadly +earnest, somebody in the house had taken Anne’s pearls, that wretched +policeman winked at me solemnly over Max’s shoulder. Oh, it was awful! + +And, to add to my discomfort, the most unpleasant ideas WOULD obtrude +themselves. WHAT was Mr. Harbison doing on the first floor of the house +that night? Ice water, he had said. But there had been plenty of water +in the studio! And he had told me it was the furnace. + +Mr. Harbison came back in a half hour, and I remembered the eggs. We +fished them out of the tea kettle, and they were perfectly hard, but we +ate them. + +The doctor from the board of health came that morning and vaccinated us. +There was a great deal of excitement, and Aunt Selina was done on the +arm. As she did not affect evening clothes this was entirely natural, +but later on in the week, when the wretched things began to take, nobody +dared to limp, and Leila made a terrible break by wearing a bandage on +her left arm, after telling Aunt Selina that she had been vaccinated on +the right. + + + +Chapter VIII. CORRESPONDENTS’ DEPARTMENT + +The following letters were found in the house post box after the lifting +of the quarantine, and later were presented to me by their writers, +bound in white kid (the letters, not the authors, of course). + +FROM THOMAS HARBISON, LATE ENGINEER OF BRIDGES, PERUVIAN TRUNK LINES, +SOUTH AMERICA, TO HENRY LLEWELLYN, CARE OF UNION NITRATE COMPANY, +IQUIQUE, CHILI. + +Dear Old Man: + +I think I was fully a week trying to drive out of my mind my last +glimpse of you with your sickly grin, pretending to be tickled to pieces +that the only white man within two hundred miles of your shack was +going on a holiday. You old bluffer! I used to hang over the rail of the +steamer, on the way up, and see you standing as I left you beside the +car with its mule and the Indian driver, and behind you a million miles +of soul-destroying pampa. Never mind, Jack; I sent yesterday by mail +steamer the cigarettes, pipes and tobacco, canned goods and poker +chips. Put in some magazines, too, and the collars. Don’t know about the +ties--guess it won’t matter down there. + +Nothing happened on the trip. One of the engines broke down three days +out, and I spent all my time below decks for forty-eight hours. Chief +engineer raving with D.T.’s. Got the engine fixed in record time, and +haven’t got my hands clean yet. It was bully. + +With this I send the papers, which will tell you how I happen to be +here, and why I have leisure to write you three days after landing. If +the situation were not so ridiculous, it would be maddening. Here I +am, off for a holiday and congratulating myself that I am foot free and +heart free--yes, my friend, heart free--here I am, shut in the house +of a man I never saw until last night, and wouldn’t care if I never +saw again, with a lot of people who never heard of me, who are almost +equally vague about South America, who play as hard at bridge as I ever +worked at building one (forgive this, won’t you? The novelty has gone +to my head), and who belong to the very class of extravagant, +luxury-loving, non-producing parasites (isn’t that what we called them?) +that you and I used to revile from our lofty Andean pinnacle. + +To come down to earth: here we are, six women and five men, including +a policeman, not a servant in the house, and no one who knows how to do +anything. They are really immensely interesting, these people; they +all know each other very well, and it is “Jimmy” here, and “Dal” + there--Dallas Brown, who went to India with me, you remember my speaking +of him--and they are good natured, too, except at meal times. The little +hostess, Mrs. Wilson, took over the cooking, and although luncheon was +better than breakfast, the food still leaves much to the imagination. + +I wish you could see this Mrs. Wilson, Hal. You would change a whole lot +of your ideas. She is a thoroughbred, sure enough, and of course some +of her beauty is the result of the exquisite care about which you and +I--still from our Andean pinnacle--used to rant. But the fact is, she is +more than that. She has fire, and pluck, no end. If you could have seen +her this morning, standing in front of a cold kitchen range, determined +to conquer it, and had seen the tilt of her chin when I offered to take +over the cooking--you needn’t grin; I can cook, and you know it--you +would understand what I mean. It was so clear that she was paralyzed +with fright at the idea of getting breakfast, and equally clear that +she meant to do it. By the way, I have learned that her name was McNair +before she married this would-be artist, Wilson, and that she is a +daughter of the McNair who financed the Callao branch! + +I have not met the others so intimately. There are two sisters named +Mercer, inclined to be noisy--they are playing roulette in the next +room now. One is small and dark, almost Hebraic in type, named Leila and +called Lollie. The other, larger, very blonde and languishing, and with +a decided preference for masculine society, even, saving the mark, +mine! Dallas Brown’s wife, good looking, smokes cigarettes when I am not +around--they all do, except Mrs. Wilson. + +Then there is a maiden aunt, who is ill today with grippe and +excitement, and a Miss Knowles, who came for a moment last night to +see Mrs. Wilson, was caught in the quarantine (see papers), and, after +hiding all night in the basement, is sulking all day in her room. Her +presence created an excitement out of all proportion to the apparent +cause. + +From the fact that I have reason to know that my artist host and his +beautiful wife are on bad terms, and from the significant glances with +which the announcement of Miss Knowles’ presence was met, the state of +affairs seems rather clear. Wilson impresses me as a spineless sort, +anyhow, and when the lady of the basement shut herself away from the +rest today and I happened on “Jimmy,” as they call him, pleading with +her through the door, I very nearly kicked him down the stairs. Oh, yes, +I’ll keep out, right enough; it isn’t my affair. + +By the way, after the quarantine and with the policeman locked in the +furnace room, a pearl necklace and a diamond bracelet were stolen! Just +ten of us to divide the suspicion! Upon my word, Hal, it’s the queerest +situation I ever heard of. Which of us did it? I make a guess that not +a few of us are fools, but which is the knave? The worst of it is, I am +the only unaccredited member of the household! + +This is more scandal than I ever wrote in my life. Lay it to +circumscribed environment, and the lack of twenty miles over the +pampa before breakfast. We have all been vaccinated, and the officious +gentlemen from the board of health have taken their grins and their +formaldehyde and gone. Ye gods, how we cough! + +The Carlton order will go through all right, I think. Phoned him this +morning. If it does, old man, we will take a month in September and +explore the Mercator property. + +Do you know, Hal, I have been thinking lately that you and I stick too +close to the grind. Business is right enough, but what’s the use of +spending one’s best years succeeding in everything except the things +that are worth while? I’ll be thirty sooner than I care to say, and--oh, +well, you won’t understand. You’ll sit down there, with the Southern +Cross and the rest of the infernal astronomical galaxy looking down on +you, and the Indians chanting in the village, and you will think I have +grown sentimental. I have not. You and I down there have been looking at +the world through the reverse end of the glass. It’s a bully old world, +Hal, and this is God’s part of it. + +Burn this letter after you read it; I suspect it is covered with germs. +Well, happy days, old man. + +Yours, Tom + +P.S. By the way, can’t you spare some of the Indian pottery you picked +up at Callao? I told Mrs. Wilson about it, and she was immensely +interested. Send it to this address. Can you get it to the next +steamer?--T. + +FROM MAXWELL REED TO RICHARD BURTON BAGLEY, UNIVERSITY CLUB, NEW YORK. + +Dear Dick: + +Enclosed find my check for five hundred, as per wager. Possibly you were +within your rights in protecting your bet in the manner you chose, but +while I do not wish to be offensive, your reporters are damnably so. + +Yours, Maxwell Reed + +FROM OFFICER FLANNIGAN TO MRS. MAGGIE FLANNIGAN, ERIN STREET. + +Dear Maggie: + +As soon as you receive this, go down to Mac and tell him the story as I +tell you hear. Tell him I was walkin my beat, and I’d been afther seein +Jimmy Alverini about doin the right thing for Mac on Monday, at the +poles, when I seen a man hangin suspicious around this house, which is +Mr. Wilson’s, on Ninety-fifth. And, of coorse, afther chasin the man a +mile or more, I lose him, which was not my fault. So I go back to the +Wilson house, and tell them to be careful about closin up fer the +night, and while I’m standin in the hall, with all the swells around me, +sparklin with jewels, the board of health sends a man to lock us all in, +because the Jap thats been waiter has took the smallpox and gone to the +hospitle. I stood me ground. I sez, sez I, you cant shtop an officer in +pursute of his duty. I rafuse to be shut in. Be shure to tell Mac that. + +So here I am, and like to be for a month. Tell Mac theres four votes +shut up here, and I can get them for him, if he can stop this monkey +business. + +Then go over to the Dago Church on Webster Avenue and put a dollar in +Saint Anthony’s box. He’ll see me out of this scrape, right enough. Do +it at once. Now remember, go to Mac first; maybe you can get the dollar +from him, and mind what you tell him. + +Your husband, Tim Flannigan + +FROM ME TO MOTHER--MRS. THEODORE McNAIR, HOTEL HAMILTON, BERMUDA. + +Dearest Mother: + +I hope you will get this before you read the papers, and when you DO +read them, you are not to get excited and worried. I am as well as can +be, and a great deal safer than I ever remember to have been in my life. +We are quarantined, a lot of us, in Jim Wilson’s house, because his +irreproachable Jap did a very reproachable thing--took smallpox. Now +read on before you get excited. HIS ROOM HAS BEEN FUMIGATED, and we have +been vaccinated. I am well and happy. I can’t be killed in a railway +wreck or smashed when the car skids. Unless I drown myself in my bath, +or jump through a window, positively nothing can happen to me. So gather +up all your maternal anxieties and cast them to the Bermuda sharks. + +Anne Brown is here--see the papers for list--and if she can not play +propriety, Jimmy’s Aunt Selina can. In fact, she doesn’t play at it; she +works. I have telephoned Lizette for some clothes--enough for a couple +of weeks, although Dallas promises to get us out sooner. Now, dear, do +go ahead and have a nice time, and on no account come home. You could +only have the carriage to stop in front of the house, and wave to me +through a window. + +Mother, I want you to do something for me. You know who is down there, +and--this is awfully delicate, Mumsy--but he’s a nice boy, and I thought +I liked him. I guess you know he has been rather attentive. Now, I +DO like him, Mumsy, but not the way I thought I did, and I want you +to--very gently, of course--to discourage him a little. You know how +I mean. He’s a dear boy, but I am so tired of people who don’t know +anything but horses and motors. + +And, oh, yes,--do you remember a girl named Lucille Mellon who was at +school with you in Rome? And that she married a man named Harbison? +Well, her son is here! He builds railroads and bridges and things, and +he even built himself an automobile down in South America, because he +couldn’t afford to buy one, and burned wood in it! Wood! Think of it! + +I wired father in Chicago for fear he would come rushing home. The +picture in the paper of the face at the basement window is supposed to +be Mr. Harbison, but of course it isn’t any more like him than mine is +like me. + +Anne Brown mislaid her pearl collar when she took it off last night, +and has fussed herself into a sick headache. She declares it was stolen! +Some of the people are playing bridge, Betty Mercer is doing a cake +walk to the RHAPSODIE HONGROISE--Jim has no every-day music--and +the telephone is ringing. We have received enough flowers for a +funeral--somebody sent Lollie a Gates Ajar, only with the gates shut. + +There are no servants--think of it, Mumsy. I wish you had made me learn +to cook. Mr. Harbison has shown me a little--he was a soldier in the +Spanish War--but we girls are a terribly ignorant lot, Mumsy, about the +real things of life. + +Now, don’t worry. It is more sport than camping in the Adirondacks, and +not nearly so damp. + +Your loving daughter, Katherine. + +P.S.--South America must be wonderful. Why can’t we put the Gadfly in +commission, and take a coasting trip this summer? It is a shame to own a +yacht and never use it. K. + +THIS NOTE, EVIDENTLY DELIVERED BY MESSENGER, WAS FOUND AMONG OTHER +LITTER IN THE VESTIBULE AFTER THE LIFTING OF THE QUARANTINE. + +Mr. Alex Dodds, City Editor, Mail and Star: + +Dear D.--Can’t get a picture. Have waited seven hours. They have closed +the shutters. + +McCord. + +WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF THE ABOVE NOTE. + +Watch the roof. + +Dodds. + + + +Chapter IX. FLANNIGAN’S FIND + +The most charitable thing would be to say nothing about the first day. +We were baldly brutal--that’s the only word for it. And Mr. Harbison, +with his beautiful courtesy--the really sincere kind--tried to patch up +one quarrel after another and failed. He rose superbly to the occasion, +and made something that he called a South American goulash for luncheon, +although it was too salty, and every one was thirsty the rest of the +day. + +Bella was horrid, of course. She froze Jim until he said he was going to +sit in the refrigerator and cool the butter. She locked herself in the +dressing room--it had been assigned to me, but that made no difference +to Bella--and did her nails, and took three different baths, and refused +to come to the table. And of course Jimmy was wild, and said she would +starve. But I said, “Very well, let her starve. Not a tray shall leave +my kitchen.” It was a comfort to have her shut up there anyhow; it +postponed the time when she would come face to face with Flannigan. + +Aunt Selina got sick that day, as I have said. I was not so bitter as +the others; I did not say that I wished she would die. The worst I ever +wished her was that she might be quite ill for some time, and yet, when +she began to recover, she was dreadful to me. She said for one thing, +that it was the hard-boiled eggs and the state of the house that did +it, and when I said that the grippe was a germ, she retorted that I had +probably brought it to her on my clothing. + +You remember that Betty had drawn the nurse’s slip, and how pleased she +had been about it. She got up early the morning of the first day +and made herself a lawn cap and telephoned out for a white nurse’s +uniform--that is, of course, for a white uniform for a nurse. She really +looked very fetching, and she went around all the morning with a red +cross on her sleeve and a Saint Cecilia expression, gathering up bottles +of medicine--most of it flesh reducer, which was pathetic, and closing +windows for fear of drafts. She refused to help with the house work, and +looked quite exalted, but by afternoon it had palled on her somewhat, +and she and Max shook dice. + +Betty was really pleased when Aunt Selina sent for her. She took in a +bottle of cologne to bathe her brow, and we all stood outside the door +and listened. Betty tiptoed in in her pretty cap and apron, and we heard +her cautiously draw down the shades. + +“What are you doing that for?” Aunt Selina demanded. “I like the light.” + +“It’s bad for your poor eyes,” Betty’s tone was exactly the proper +bedside pitch, low and sugary. + +“Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea!” Dal hummed +outside. + +“Put up those window shades!” Aunt Selina’s voice was strong enough. +“What’s in that bottle?” + +Betty was still mild. She swished to the window and raised the shade. + +“I’m SO sorry you are ill,” she said sympathetically. “This is for your +poor aching head. Now close your eyes and lie perfectly still, and I +will cool your forehead.” + +“There’s nothing the matter with my head,” Aunt Selina retorted. “And +I have not lost my faculties; I am not a child or a sick cow. If that’s +perfumery, take it out.” + +We heard Betty coming to the door, but there was no time to get away. +She had dropped her mask for a minute and was biting her lip, but when +she saw us she forced a smile. + +“She’s ill, poor dear,” she said. “If you people will go away, I can +bring her around all right. In two hours she will eat out of my hand.” + +“Eat a piece out of your hand,” Max scoffed in a whisper. + +We waited a little longer, but it was too painful. Aunt Selina demanded +a mustard foot bath and a hot lemonade and her back rubbed with liniment +and some strong black tea. And in the intervals she wanted to be read +to out of the prayer book. And when we had all gone away, there came the +most terrible noise from Aunt Selina’s room, and every one ran. We found +Betty in the hall outside the door, crying, with her fingers in her ears +and her cap over her eye. She said she had been putting the hot water +bottle to Aunt Selina’s back, and it had been too hot. Just then +something hit against the door with a soft thud, fell to the floor and +burst, for a trickle of hot water came over the sill. + +“She won’t let me hold her hand,” Betty wailed, “or bathe her brow, or +smooth her pillow. She thinks of nothing but her stomach or her back! +And when I try to make her bed look decent, she spits at me like a cat. +Everything I do is wrong. She spilled the foot bath into her shoes, and +blamed me for it.” + +It took the united efforts of all of us--except Bella, who stood back +and smiled nastily--to get Betty back into the sick room again. I was +supremely thankful by that time that I had not drawn the nurse’s slip. +With dinner ordered in from one of the clubs, and the omelet ten hours +behind me, my position did not seem so unbearable. But a new development +was coming. + +While Betty was fussing with Aunt Selina, Max led a search of the house. +He said the necklace and the bracelet must be hidden somewhere, and that +no crevice was too small to neglect. + +We made a formal search all together, except Betty and Aunt Selina, +and we found a lot of things in different places that Jim said had been +missing since the year one. But no jewels--nothing even suggesting a +jewel was found. We had explored the entire house, every cupboard, +every chest, even the insides of the couches and the pockets of Jim’s +clothes--which he resented bitterly--and found nothing, and I must +say the situation was growing rather strained. Some one had taken the +jewels; they hadn’t walked away. + +It was Flannigan who suggested the roof, and as we had tried every place +else, we climbed there. Of course we didn’t find anything, but after all +day in the house with the shutters closed on account of reporters, the +air was glorious. It was February, but quite mild and sunny, and we +could look down over Riverside Drive and the Hudson, and even recognize +people we knew on horseback and in cars. It was a pathetic joy, and we +lined up along the parapet and watched the motor boats racing on the +river, and tried to feel that we were in the world as well as of it, but +it was very hard. + +Betty had been making tea for Aunt Selina, and of course when she heard +us up there, she followed, tray and all, and we drank Aunt Selina’s tea +and had the first really nice time of the day. Bella had come up, too, +but she was still standoffish and queer, and she stood leaning against a +chimney and staring out over the river. After a little Mr. Harbison put +down his cup and went over to her, and they talked quite confidentially +for a long time. I thought it bad taste in Bella, under the +circumstances, after snubbing Dallas and Max, and of course treating Jim +like the dirt under her feet, to turn right around and be lovely to Mr. +Harbison. It was hard for Jim. + +Max came and sat beside me, and Flannigan, who had been sent down for +more cups, passed tea, putting the tray on top of the chimney. Jim was +sitting grumpily on the roof, with his feet folded under him, playing +Canfield in the shadow of the parapet, buying the deck out of one pocket +and putting his winnings in the other. He was watching Bella, too, and +she knew it, and she strained a point to captivate Mr. Harbison. Any one +could see that. + +And that was the picture that came out in the next morning’s papers, +tea cups, cards and all. For when some one looked up, there were four +newspaper photographers on the roof of the next house, and they had the +impertinence to thank us! + +Flannigan had seen Bella by that time, but as he still didn’t understand +the situation, things were just the same. But his manner to me puzzled +me; whenever he came near me he winked prodigiously, and during all the +search he kept one eye on me, and seemed to be amused about something. + +When the rest had gone down to dress for dinner, which was being sent +in, thank goodness, I still sat on the parapet and watched the darkening +river. I felt terribly lonely, all at once, and sad. There wasn’t any +one any nearer than father, in the West, or mother in Bermuda, who +really cared a rap whether I sat on that parapet all night or not, +or who would be sorry if I leaped to the dirty bricks of the next +door-yard--not that I meant to, of course. + +The lights came out across the river, and made purple and yellow streaks +on the water, and one of the motor boats came panting back to the yacht +club, coughing and gasping as if it had overdone. Down on the street +automobiles were starting and stopping, cabs rolling, doors slamming, +all the maddening, delightful bustle of people who are foot-free to +dine out, to dance, to go to the theater, to do any of the thousand +possibilities of a long February evening. And above them I sat on the +roof and cried. Yes, cried. + +I was roused by some one coughing just behind me, and I tried to +straighten my face before I turned. It was Flannigan, his double row of +brass buttons gleaming in the twilight. + +“Excuse me, miss,” he said affably, “but the boy from the hotel has left +the dinner on the doorstep and run, the cowardly little divil! What’ll +I do with it? I went to Mrs. Wilson, but she says it’s no concern of +hers.” Flannigan was evidently bewildered. + +“You’d better keep it warm, Flannigan,” I replied. “You needn’t wait; +I’m coming.” But he did not go. + +“If--if you’ll excuse me, miss,” he said, “don’t you think ye’d betther +tell them?” + +“Tell them what?” + +“The whole thing--the joke,” he said confidentially, coming closer. +“It’s been great sport, now, hasn’t it? But I’m afraid they will get on +to it soon, and--some of them might not be agreeable. A pearl necklace +is a pearl necklace, miss, and the lady’s wild.” + +“What do you mean?” I gasped. “You don’t think--why, Flannigan--” + +He merely grinned at me and thrust his hand down in his pocket. When +he brought it up he had Bella’s bracelet on his palm, glittering in the +faint light. + +“Where did you get it?” Between relief and the absurdity of the thing, +I was almost hysterical. But Flannigan did not give me the bracelet; +instead, it struck me his tone was suddenly severe. + +“Now look here, miss,” he said; “you’ve played your trick, and you’ve +had your fun. The Lord knows it’s only folks like you would play April +fool jokes with a fortune! If you’re the sinsible little woman you look +to be, you’ll put that pearl collar on the coal in the basement tonight, +and let me find it.” + +“I haven’t got the pearl collar,” I protested. “I think you are crazy. +Where did you get that bracelet?” + +He edged away from me, as if he expected me to snatch it from him and +run, but he was still trying in an elephantine way to treat the matter +as a joke. + +“I found it in a drawer in the pantry,” he said, “among the dirty linen. +And if you’re as smart as I think you are, I’ll find the pearl collar +there in the morning--and nothing said, miss.” + +So there I was, suspected of being responsible for Anne’s pearl collar, +as if I had not enough to worry me before. Of course I could have called +them all together and told them, and made them explain to Flannigan what +I had really meant by my delirious speech in the kitchen. But that +would have meant telling the whole ridiculous story to Mr. Harbison, and +having him think us all mad, and me a fool. + +In all that overcrowded house there was only one place where I could be +miserable with comfort. So I stayed on the roof, and cried a little +and then became angry and walked up and down, and clenched my hands +and babbled helplessly. The boats on the river were yellow, horizontal +streaks through my tears, and an early searchlight sent its shaft like +a tangible thing in the darkness, just over my head. Then, finally, +I curled down in a corner with my arms on the parapet, and the lights +became more and more prismatic and finally formed themselves into a +circle that was Bella’s bracelet, and that kept whirling around and +around on something flat and not over-clean, that was Flannigan’s palm. + + + +Chapter X. ON THE STAIRS + +I was roused by someone walking across the roof, the cracking of tin +under feet, and a comfortable and companionable odor of tobacco. I +moved a very little, and then I saw that it was a man--the height and +erectness told me which man. And just at that instant he saw me. + +“Good Lord!” he ejaculated, and throwing his cigar away he came across +quickly. “Why, Mrs. Wilson, what in the world are you doing here? I +thought--they said--” + +“That I was sulking again?” I finished disagreeably. “Perhaps I am. In +fact, I’m quite sure of it.” + +“You are not,” he said severely. “You have been asleep in a February +night, in the open air, with less clothing on than I wear in the +tropics.” + +I had got up by this time, refusing his help, and because my feet were +numb, I sat down on the parapet for a moment. Oh, I knew what I looked +like--one of those “Valley-of-the-Nile-After-a-Flood” pictures. + +“There is one thing about you that is comforting,” I sniffed. “You said +precisely the same thing to me at three o’clock this morning. You never +startle me by saying anything unexpected.” + +He took a step toward me, and even in the dusk I could see that he was +looking down at me oddly. All my bravado faded away and there was a +queerish ringing in my ears. + +“I would like to!” he said tensely. “I would like, this minute--I’m +a fool, Mrs. Wilson,” he finished miserably. “I ought to be drawn and +quartered, but when I see you like this I--I get crazy. If you say the +word, I’ll--I’ll go down and--” He clenched his fist. + +It was reprehensible, of course; he saw that in an instant, for he shut +his teeth over something that sounded very fierce, and strode away from +me, to stand looking out over the river, with his hands thrust in his +pockets. Of course the thing I should have done was to ignore what he +had said altogether, but he was so uncomfortable, so chastened, that, +feline, feminine, whatever the instinct is, I could not let him go. I +had been so wretched myself. + +“What is it you would like to say?” I called over to him. He did not +speak. “Would you tell me that I am a silly child for pouting?” No +reply; he struck a match. “Or would you preach a nice little sermon +about people--about women--loving their husbands?” + +He grunted savagely under his breath. + +“Be quite honest,” I pursued relentlessly. “Say that we are a lot +of barbarians, say that because my--because Jimmy treats me +outrageously--oh, he does; any one can see that--and because I loathe +him--and any one can tell that--why don’t you say you are shocked to +the depths?” I was a little shocked myself by that time, but I couldn’t +stop, having started. + +He came over to me, white-faced and towering, and he had the audacity +to grip my arm and stand me on my feet, like a bad child--which I was, I +dare say. + +“Don’t!” he said in a husky, very pained voice. “You are only talking; +you don’t mean it. It isn’t YOU. You know you care, or else why are you +crying up here? And don’t do it again, DON’T DO IT AGAIN--or I will--” + +“You will--what?” + +“Make a fool of myself, as I have now,” he finished grimly. And then he +stalked away and left me there alone, completely bewildered, to find my +way down in the dark. + +I groped along, holding to the rail, for the staircase to the roof was +very steep, and I went slowly. Half-way down the stairs there was a +tiny landing, and I stopped. I could have sworn I heard Mr. Harbison’s +footsteps far below, growing fainter. I even smiled a little, there in +the dark, although I had been rather profoundly shaken. The next instant +I knew I had been wrong; some one was on the landing with me. I could +hear short, sharp breathing, and then-- + +I am not sure that I struggled; in fact, I don’t believe I did--I was +too limp with amazement. The creature, to have lain in wait for me like +that! And he was brutally strong; he caught me to him fiercely, and held +me there, close, and he kissed me--not once or twice, but half a dozen +times, long kisses that filled me with hot shame for him, for myself, +that I had--liked him. The roughness of his coat bruised my cheek; I +loathed him. And then someone came whistling along the hall below, and +he pushed me from him and stood listening, breathing in long, gasping +breaths. + +I ran; when my shaky knees would hold me, I ran. I wanted to hide my hot +face, my disgust, my disillusion; I wanted to put my head in mother’s +lap and cry; I wanted to die, or be ill, so I need never see him again. +Perversely enough, I did none of those things. With my face still +flaming, with burning eyes and hands that shook, I made a belated +evening toilet and went slowly, haughtily, down the stairs. My hands +were like ice, but I was consumed with rage. Oh, I would show him--that +this was New York, not Iquique; that the roof was not his Andean +tableland. + +Every one elaborately ignored my absence from dinner. The Dallas Browns, +Max and Lollie were at bridge; Jim was alone in the den, walking the +floor and biting at an unlighted cigar; Betty had returned to Aunt +Selina and was hysterical, they said, and Flannigan was in deep +dejection because I had missed my dinner. + +“Betty is making no end of a row,” Max said, looking up from his game, +“because the old lady upstairs insists on chloroform liniment. Betty +says the smell makes her ill.” + +“And she can inhale Russian cigarettes,” Anne said enviously, “and +gasolene fumes, without turning a hair. I call a revoke, Dal; you +trumped spades on the second round.” + +Dal flung over three tricks with very bad grace, and Anne counted them +with maddening deliberation. + +“Game and rubber,” she said. “Watch Dal, Max; he will cheat in the score +if he can. Kit, don’t have another clam while I am in this house. I have +eaten so many lately my waist rises and falls with the tide.” + +“You have a stunning color, Kit,” Lollie said. “You are really quite +superb. Who made that gown?” + +“Where have you been hiding, du kleine?” Max whispered, under cover of +showing me the evening paper, with a photograph of the house and a cross +at the cellar window where we had tried to escape. “If one day in the +house with you, Kit, puts me in this condition, what will a month do?” + +From beyond the curtain of a sort of alcove, lighted with a red-shaded +lamp, came a hum of conversation, Bella’s cool, even tones, and a heavy +masculine voice. They were laughing; I could feel my chin go up. He was +not even hiding his shame. + +“Max,” I asked, while the others clamored for him and the game, “has any +one been up through the house since dinner? Any of the men?” + +He looked at me curiously. + +“Only Harbison,” he replied promptly. “Jim has been eating his heart +out in the den every since dinner; Dal played the Sonata Appasionata +backward on the pianola--he wanted to put through one of Anne’s lingerie +waists, on a wager that it would play a tune; I played craps with +Lollie, and Flannigan has been washing dishes. Why?” + +Well, that was conclusive, anyhow. I had had a faint hope that it might +have been a joke, although it had borne all the evidences of sincerity, +certainly. But it was past doubting now; he had lain in wait for me at +the landing, and had kissed me, ME, when he thought I was Jimmy’s wife. +Oh, I must have been very light, very contemptible, if that was what he +thought of me! + +I went into the library and got a book, but it was impossible to read, +with Jimmy lying on the couch giving vent to something between a sigh +and a groan every few minutes. About eleven the cards stopped, and Bella +said she would read palms. She began with Mr. Harbison, because she +declared he had a wonderful hand, full of possibilities; she said he +should have been a great inventor or a playwright, and that his attitude +to women was one of homage, respect, almost reverence. He had the +courage to look at me, and if a glance could have killed he would have +withered away. + +When Jimmy proffered his hand, she looked at it icily. Of course she +could not refuse, with Mr. Harbison looking on. + +“Rather negative,” she said coldly. “The lines are obscured by cushions +of flesh; no heart line at all, mentality small, self-indulgence and +irritability very marked.” + +Jim held his palm up to the light and stared at it. + +“Gad!” he said. “Hardly safe for me to go around without gloves, is it?” + +It was all well enough for Jim to laugh, but he was horribly hurt. He +stood around for a few minutes, talking to Anne, but as soon as he could +he slid away and went to bed. He looked very badly the next morning, +as though he had not slept, and his clothes quite hung on him. He was +actually thinner. But that is ahead of the story. + +Max came to me while the others were sitting around drinking nightcaps, +and asked me in a low tone if he could see me in the den; he wanted to +ask me something. Dal overheard. + +“Ask her here,” he said. “We all know what it is, Max. Go ahead and +we’ll coach you.” + +“Will you coach ME?” I asked, for Mr. Harbison was listening. + +“The woman does not need it,” Dal retorted. And then, because Max looked +angry enough really to propose to me right there, I got up hastily and +went into the den. Max followed, and closing the door, stood with his +back against it. + +“Contrary to the general belief, Kit,” he began, “I did NOT intend to +ask you to marry me.” + +I breathed easier. He took a couple of steps toward me and stood with +his arms folded, looking down at me. “I’m not at all sure, in fact, that +I shall ever propose to you,” he went on unpleasantly. + +“You have already done it twice. You are not going to take those back, +are you, Max?” I asked, looking up at him. + +But Max was not to be cajoled. He came close and stood with his hand on +the back of my chair. “What happened on the roof tonight?” He demanded +hoarsely. + +“I do not think it would interest you,” I retorted, coloring in spite of +myself. + +“Not interest me! I am shut in this blasted house; I have to see the +only woman I ever loved--REALLY loved,” he supplemented, as he caught my +eye, “pretend she is another man’s wife. Then I sit back and watch her +using every art--all her beauty--to make still another man love her, +a man who thinks she is a married woman. If Harbison were worth the +trouble, I would tell him the whole story, Aunt Selina be--obliterated!” + +I sat up suddenly. + +“If Harbison were worth the trouble!” I repeated. What did he mean? Had +he seen-- + +“I mean just this,” Max said slowly. “There is only one unaccredited +member of this household; only one person, save Flannigan, who was +locked in the furnace room, one person who was awake and around the +house when Anne’s jewels went, only one person in the house, also, who +would have any motive for the theft.” + +“Motive?” I asked dully. + +“Poverty,” Max threw at me. “Oh, I mean comparative poverty, of course. +Who is this fellow, anyhow? Dal knew him at school, traveled with him +through India. On the strength of that he brings him here, quarters him +with decent people, and wonders when they are systematically robbed!” + +“You are unjust!” I said, rising and facing him. “I do not like Mr. +Harbison--I--I hate him, if you want to know. But as to his being a +thief, I--think it is quite as likely that you took the necklace.” + +Max threw his cigarette into the fire angrily. + +“So that is how it is!” he mocked. “If either of us is the thief, it is +I! You DO hate him, don’t you?” + +I left him there, flushed with irritation, and joined the others. Just +as I entered the room, Betty burst through the hall door like a cyclone, +and collapsed into a chair. “She’s a mean, cantankerous old woman!” she +declared, feeling for her handkerchief. “You can take care of your own +Aunt Selina, Jim Wilson. I will never go near her again.” + +“What did you do? Poison her?” Dallas asked with interest. + +“G--got camphor in her eyes,” snuffed Betty. “You never--heard such a +noise. I wouldn’t be a trained nurse for anything in the world. She--she +called me a hussy!” + +“You’re not going to give her up, are you, Betty?” Jim asked +imploringly. But Betty was, and said so plainly. + +“Anyhow, she won’t have me back,” she finished, “and she has sent +for--guess!” + +“Have mercy!” Dal cried, dropping to his knees. “Oh, fair ministering +angel, she has not sent for me!” + +“No,” Betty said maliciously. “She wants Bella--she’s crazy about her.” + + + +Chapter XI. I MAKE A DISCOVERY + +Really, I have left Aunt Selina rather out of it, but she was important +as a cause, not as a result; at least at first. She came out strong +later. I believe she was a very nice old woman, with strong likes and +prejudices, which she was perfectly willing to pay for. At least, I only +presume she had likes; I know she had prejudices. + +Nobody every understood why Bella consented to take Betty’s place with +Aunt Selina. As for me, I was too much engrossed with my own affairs +to pay the invalid much attention. Once or twice during the day I had +stopped in to see her, and had been received frigidly and with marked +disapproval. I was in disgrace, of course, after the scene in the dining +room the night before. I had stood like a naughty child, just inside the +door, and replied meekly when she said the pillows were overstuffed, and +why didn’t I have the linen slips rinsed in starch water? She laid the +blame of her illness on me, as I have said before, and she made Jim read +to her in the afternoon from a book she carried with her, Coals of Fire +on the DOMESTIC Hearth, marking places for me to read. + +She sent for me that night, just as I had taken off my gown; so I threw +on a dressing gown and went in. To my horror, Jim was already there. At +a gesture from Aunt Selina, he closed the door into the hall and tiptoed +back beside the bed, where he sat staring at the figures on the silk +comfort. + +Aunt Selina’s first words were: + +“Where’s that flibberty-gibbet?” + +Jim looked at me. + +“She must mean Betty,” I explained. “She has gone to bed, I think.” + +“Don’t--let--her--in--this--room--again,” she said, with awful emphasis. +“She is an infamous creature.” + +“Oh, come now, Aunt Selina,” Jim broke in; “she’s foolish, perhaps, but +she’s a nice little thing.” + +Aunt Selina’s face was a curious study. Then she raised herself on her +elbow, and, taking a flat chamois-skin bag from under her pillow, held +it out. + +“My cameo breastpin,” she said solemnly; “my cuff-buttons with gold rims +and storks painted on china in the middle; my watch, that has put me to +bed and got me up for forty years, and my money--five hundred and ten +dollars and forty cents!--taken with the doors locked under my nose.” + Which was ambiguous, but forcible. + +“But, good gracious, Miss Car--Aunt Selina!” I exclaimed, “you don’t +think Betty Mercer took those things?” + +“No,” she said grimly; “I think I probably got up in my sleep and +lighted the fire with them, or sent em out for a walk.” Then she stuffed +the bag away and sat up resolutely in bed. + +“Have you made up?” she demanded, looking from one to the other of us. +“Bella, don’t tell me you still persist in that nonsense.” + +“What nonsense?” I asked, getting ready to run. + +“That you do not love him.” + +“Him?” + +“James,” she snapped irritably. “Do you suppose I mean the policeman?” + +I looked over at Jimmy. She had got me by the hand, and Jimmy was making +frantic gestures to tell her the whole thing and be done with it. But +I had gone too far. The mill of the gods had crushed me already, and +I didn’t propose to be drawn out hideously mangled and held up as an +example for the next two or three weeks, although it was clear enough +that Aunt Selina disapproved of me thoroughly, and would have been glad +enough to find that no tie save the board of health held us together. +And then Bella came in, and you wouldn’t have known her. She had put on +a straight white woolen wrapper, and she had her hair in two long braids +down her back. She looked like a nice, wide-eyed little girl in her +teens, and she had some lobster salad and a glass of port on a tray. +When she saw the situation, she put the things down and had the +nastiness to stay and listen. + +“I’m not blind,” Aunt Selina said, with one eye on the tray. “You two +silly children adore each other; I saw some things last night.” + +Bella took a step forward; then she stopped and shrugged her shoulders. +Jim was purple. + +“I saw you kiss her in the dining room, remember that!” Aunt Selina went +on, giving the screw another turn. + +It was Bella’s turn to be excited. She gave me one awful stare, then she +fixed her eyes on Jim. + +“Besides,” Aunt Selina went on, “you told me today that you loved her. +Don’t deny it, James.” + +Bella couldn’t keep quiet another instant. She came over and stood at +the foot of the bed. + +“Please don’t excite yourself, DEAR Miss Caruthers,” she said in a voice +like ice. “Every one knows that he loves her; he simply overflows +with it. It--it is quite a by-word among their friends. They have been +sitting together in a corner all evening.” + +Yes, that was what she said; when I had not spoken to Jimmy the whole +time in the den. Bella was cattish, and she was jealous, too. I turned +on my heel and went to the door; then I turned to her, with my hand on +the knob. + +“You have been misinformed,” I said coldly. “You can not possibly know, +having spent three hours in a corner yourself--with Mr. Harbison.” I +abhor jealousy in a woman. + +Well, Aunt Selina ate all the lobster salad, and drank the port after +Bella had told her it was beef, iron and wine, and she slept all night, +and was able to sit up in a chair the next day, and was so infatuated +with Bella that she would not let her out of her sight. But that is +ahead of the story. + +At midnight the house was fairly quiet, except for Jim, who kept walking +around the halls because he couldn’t sleep. I got up at last and ordered +him to bed, and he had the audacity to have a grievance with me. + +“Look at my situation now!” he said, sitting pensively on a steam +radiator. “Aunt Selina is crazy. I only kissed your hand, anyhow, and I +don’t know why you sat in the den all evening; you might have known that +Bella would notice it. Why couldn’t you leave me alone to my misery?” + +“Very well,” I said, much offended. “After this I shall sit with +Flannigan in the kitchen. He is the only gentleman in the house.” + +I left him babbling apologies and went to bed, but I had an +uncomfortable feeling that Bella had been a witness to our conversation, +for the door into Aunt Selina’s room closed softly as I passed. + +I knew beforehand that I was not going to sleep. The instant I turned +out the light the nightmare events of the evening ranged themselves in +a procession, or a series of tableaus, one after the other; Flannigan on +the roof, with the bracelet on his palm, looking accusingly at me; Mr. +Harbison and the scene on the roof, with my flippancy; and the result +of that flippancy--the man on the stairs, the arms that held me, the +terrible kisses that had scorched my lips--it was awful! And then the +absurd situation across Aunt Selina’s bed, and Bella’s face! Oh, it +was all so ridiculous--my having thought that the Harbison man was +a gentleman, and finding him a cad, and worse. It was excruciatingly +funny. I quite got a headache from laughing; indeed I laughed until I +found I was crying, and then I knew I was going to have an attack of +strangulated emotion, called hysteria. So I got up and turned on all the +lights, and bathed my face with cologne, and felt better. + +But I did not go to sleep. When the hall clock chimed two, I discovered +I was hungry. I had had nothing since luncheon, and even the thirst +following the South American goulash was gone. There was probably +something to eat in the pantry, and if there was not, I was quite equal +to going to the basement. + +As it happened, however, I found a very orderly assortment of left-overs +and a pitcher of milk, which had no business there in the pantry, and +with plenty of light I was not at all frightened. + +I ate bread and butter and drank milk, and was fast becoming a rational +person again; I had pulled out one of the drawers part way, and with a +tray across the corner I had improvised a comfortable seat. And then I +noticed that the drawer was full of soiled napkins, and I remembered the +bracelet. I hardly know why I decided to go through the drawer again, +after Flannigan had already done it, but I did. I finished my milk and +then, getting down on my knees, I proceeded systematically to empty the +drawer. I took out perhaps a dozen napkins and as many doilies without +finding anything. Then I took out a large tray cloth, and there was +something on it that made me look farther. One corner of it had been +scorched, the clear and well defined imprint of a lighted cigarette or +cigar, a blackened streak that trailed off into a brown and yellow. +I had a queer, trembly feeling, as if I were on the brink of a +discovery--perhaps Anne’s pearls, or the cuff buttons with storks +painted on china in the center. But the only thing I found, down in the +corner of the drawer, was a half-burned cigarette. + +To me, it seemed quite enough. It was one of the South American +cigarettes, with a tobacco wrapper instead of paper, that Mr. Harbison +smoked. + + + +Chapter XII. THE ROOF GARDEN + +I was quite ill the next morning--from excitement, I suppose. Anyhow, +I did not get up, and there wasn’t any breakfast. Jim said he roused +Flannigan at eight o’clock, to go down and get the fire started, and +then went back to bed. But Flannigan did not get up. He appeared, +sheepishly, at half-past ten, and by that time Bella was down, in a +towering rage, and had burned her hand and got the fire started, and had +taken up a tray for Aunt Selina and herself. + +As the others straggled down they boiled themselves eggs or ate fruit, +and nobody put anything away. Lollie Mercer made me some tea and +scorched toast, and brought it, about eleven o’clock. + +“I never saw such a house,” she declared. “A dozen housemaids couldn’t +put it in order. Why should every man that smokes drop ashes wherever he +happens to be?” + +“That’s the question of the ages,” I replied languidly. “What was +Max talking so horribly about a little while ago?” Lollie looked up +aggrieved. + +“About nothing at all,” she declared. “Anne told me to clean the bath +tubs with oil, and I did it, that’s all. Now Max says he couldn’t get it +off, and his clothes stick to him, and if he should forget and strike a +match in the--in the usual way, he would explode. He can clean his own +tub tomorrow,” she finished vindictively. + +At noon Jim came in to see me, bringing Anne as a concession to Bella. +He was in a rage, and he carried the morning paper like a club in his +hand. + +“What sort of a newspaper lie would you call this?” he demanded +irritably. “It makes me crazy; everybody with a mental image of me +leaning over the parapet of the roof, waving a board, with the rest of +you sitting on my legs to keep me from overbalancing!” + +“Maybe there’s a picture!” Anne said hopefully. + +Jim looked. + +“No picture,” he announced. “I wonder why they restrained themselves! +I wish Bella would keep off the roof,” he added, with fresh access +of rage, “or wear a mask or veil. One of those fellows is going to +recognize her, and there’ll be the deuce to pay.” + +“When you are all through discussing this thing, perhaps you will tell +me what is the matter,” I remarked from my couch. “Why did you lean over +the parapet, Jim, and who sat on your legs?” + +“I didn’t; nobody did,” he retorted, waving the newspaper. “It’s a +lie out of the whole cloth, that’s what it is. I asked you girls to +be decent to those reporters; it never pays to offend a newspaper man. +Listen to this, Kit.” + +He read the article rapidly, furiously, pausing every now and then to +make an exasperated comment. + +ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE FRUSTRATED MEMBERS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED DEFY THE LAW + +“Special Officer McCloud, on duty at the quarantined house of James +Wilson, artist and clubman, on Ninety-fifth Street, reported this +morning a daring attempt at escape, made at 3 A.M. It is in this house +that some eight or nine members of the smart set were imprisoned +during the course of a dinner party, when the Japanese butler developed +smallpox. The party shut in the house includes Miss Katherine McNair, +the daughter of Theodore McNair, of the Inter-Ocean system; Mr. and Mrs. +Dallas Brown; the Misses Mercer; Maxwell Reed, the well-known clubman +and whip; and a Mr. Thomas Harbison, guest of the Dallas Browns and a +South American. + +“Officer McCloud’s story, told to a Chronicle reporter this morning, is +as follows: The occupants of the house had been uneasy all day. From the +air of subdued bustle, and from a careful inspection of the roof, +made by the entire party during the afternoon, his suspicion had been +aroused. Nothing unusual, however, occurred during the early part of the +night. From eight o’clock to twelve, McCloud was relieved from duty, his +place being taken by Michael Shane, of the Eighty-sixth Street Station. + +“When McCloud came on duty at midnight, Shane reported that about eleven +o’clock the searchlight of a steamer on the river, flashing over the +house, had shown a man crouching on the parapet, evidently surveying +the roof across, which at this point is only twelve feet distant, with a +view of making his escape. One seeing Shane below, however, he had beat +a retreat, but not before the officer had seen him distinctly. He was +dressed in evening clothes and wore a light tan overcoat. + +“Officer McCloud relieved Shane at midnight, and sent for a +plain-clothes man from the station house. This man was stationed on the +roof of the Bevington residence next door, with strict injunctions +to prevent an escape from the quarantined mansion. Nothing suspicious +having occurred, the man on the roof left about 3 A.M., reporting +to McCloud below that everything was quiet. At that moment, glancing +skyward, one of the officers was astounded to see a long narrow board +project itself from the coping of the Wildon house, waver uncertainly +for a moment, and then advance stealthily toward the parapet across. +When it was within a foot or two of a resting place, McCloud called +sharply to the invisible refugee above, at the same time firing his +revolver in the ground. + +“The result was surprising. The board stopped, trembled, swayed a +little, and dropped, missing the vigilant officers by a hair’s breadth, +and crashing to the cement with a terrific force. An inspection of the +roof from the Bevington house, later, revealed nothing unusual. It +is evident, however, that the quarantine is proving irksome to the +inhabitants of the sequestered residence, most of whom are typical +society folk, without resources in themselves. Their condition, without +valets and maids, is certainly pitiable. It has been rumored that +the ladies are doing their own hair, and that the gentlemen have been +reduced to putting their own buttons in their shirts. This deplorable +situation, however, is unavoidable. + +“The vigilance of the board of health has been most commendable in this +case. Beginning with a wager over the telephone that they would break +quarantine in twenty-four hours, and ending with the attempt to span +a twelve-foot gulf with a board, over which to cross to freedom, these +shut-in society folk have shown characteristic disregard of the laws +of the state. It is quite time to extend to the millionaire the same +strictness that keeps the commuter at home for three weeks with the +measles; that makes him get the milk bottles and groceries from the +gate post and smell like dog soap for a month afterward, as a result of +disinfection.’” + +We sat in dead silence for a minute. Then: + +“Perhaps it is true,” I said. “Not of you, Jim--but some one may have +tried to get out that way. In fact, I think it extremely likely.” + +“Who? Flannigan? You couldn’t drive him out. He’s having the time of his +life. Do you suspect me?” + +“Come away and don’t fight,” Anne broke in pacifically. “You will have +to have luncheon sent in, Jimmy; nobody has ordered anything from the +shops, and I feel like old Mother Hubbard.” + +“I wish you would all go out,” I said wearily. “If every man in the +house says he didn’t try to get over to the next roof last night, well +and good. But you might look and see if the board is still lying where +it fell.” + +There was an instantaneous rush for the window, and a second’s pause. +Then Jimmy’s voice, incredulous, awed: + +“Well, I’ll be--blessed! There’s the board!” + +I stayed in my room all that day. My head really ached and then, too, +I did not care to meet Mr. Harbison. It would have to come; I realized +that a meeting was inevitable, but I wanted time to think how I would +meet him. It would be impossible to cut him, without rousing the +curiosity of the others to fever pitch; and it was equally impossible to +ignore the disgraceful episode on the stairs. As it happened, however, I +need not have worried. I went down to dinner, languidly, when every +one was seated, and found Max at my right, and Mr. Harbison moved over +beside Bella. Every one was talking at once, for Flannigan, ambling +around the table as airily as he walked his beat, had presented Bella +with her bracelet on a salad plate, garnished with romaine. He had found +it in the furnace room, he said, where she must have dropped it. And he +looked at me stealthily, to approve his mendacity! + +Every one was famished, and as they ate they discussed the board in the +area way, and pretended to deride it as a clever bit of press work, to +revive a dying sensation. No one was deceived; Anne’s pearls and the +attempt to escape, coming just after, pointed only to one thing. I +looked around the table, dazed. Flannigan, almost the only unknown +quantity, might have tried to escape the night before, but he would not +have been in dress clothes. Besides, he must be eliminated as far as the +pearls were concerned, having been locked in the furnace room the night +they were stolen. There was no one among the girls to suspect. The +Mercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wanted +legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question about +it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom--or is +it a viper?--and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must say +that, looking over the table, at Jimmy’s breadth and not very imposing +personality, at Max’s lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, at +Dallas, blond, growing bald and florid, and then at the Harbison boy, +tall, muscular, clear-eyed and sunburned, one would have taken Max at +first choice as the villain, with Dal next, Jim third, and the Harbison +boy not in the running. + +It was just after dinner that the surprise was sprung on me. Mr. +Harbison came around to me gravely, and asked me if I felt able to go +up on the roof. On the roof, after last night! I had to gather myself +together; luckily, the others were pushing back their chairs, showing +Flannigan the liqueur glasses to take up, and lighting cigars. + +“I do not care to go,” I said icily. + +“The others are coming,” he persisted, “and I--I could give you an arm +up the stairs.” + +“I believe you are good at that,” I said, looking at him steadily. “Max, +will you help me to the roof?” + +Mr. Harbison really turned rather white. Then he bowed ceremoniously and +left me. + +Max got me a wrap, and every one except Mr. Harbison and Bella, who was +taking a mass of indigestables to Aunt Selina, went to the roof. + +“Where is Tom?” Anne asked, as we reached the foot of the stairs. “Gone +ahead to fix things,” was the answer. But he was not there. At the top +of the last flight I stopped, dumb with amazement; the roof had been +transformed, enchanted. It was a fairy-land of lights and foliage and +colors. I had to stop and rub my eyes. From the bleakness of a tin roof +in February to the brightness and greenery of a July roof garden! + +“You were the immediate inspiration, Kit,” Dallas said. “Harbison +thought your headache might come from lack of exercise and fresh air, +and he has worked us like nailers all day. I’ve a blister on my right +palm, and Harbison got shocked while he was wiring the place, and +nearly fell over the parapet. We bought out two full-sized florists by +telephone.” + +It was the most amazing transformation. At each corner a pole had been +erected, and wires crossed the roof diagonally, hung with red and amber +bulbs. Around the chimneys had been massed evergreen trees in tubs, +hiding their brick-and-mortar ugliness, and among the trees tiny lights +were strung. Along the parapet were rows of geometrical boxwood plants +in bright red crocks, and the flaps of a crimson and white tent had +been thrown open, showing lights within, and rugs, wicker chairs, and +cushions. + +Max raised a glass of benedictine and posed for a moment, +melodramatically. + +“To the Wilson roof garden!” he said. “To Kit, who inspired; to the +creators, who perspired; and to Takahiro--may he not have expired.” + +Every one was very gay; I think the knowledge that tomorrow Aunt Selina +might be with them urged them to make the most of this last night of +freedom. I tried to be jolly, and succeeded in being feverish. Mr. +Harbison did not come up to enjoy what he had wrought. Jim brought up +his guitar and sang love songs in a beautiful tenor, looking at Bella +all the time. And Bella sat in a steamer chair, with a rug over her and +a spangled veil on her head, looking at the boats on the river--about as +soft and as chastened as an an acetylene headlight. + +And after Max had told the most improbable tale, which Leila advised him +to sprinkle salt on, and Dallas had done a clog dance, Bella said it +was time for her complexion sleep and went downstairs, and broke up the +party. + +“If she only give half as an much care to her immortal soul,” Anne said +when she had gone, “as she does to her skin, she would let that nice +Harbison boy alone. She must have been brutal to him tonight, for he +went to bed at nine o’clock. At least, I suppose he went to bed, for he +shut himself in the studio, and when I knocked he advised me not to come +in.” + +I had pleaded my headache as an excuse for avoiding Aunt Selina all day, +and she had not sent for me. Bella was really quite extraordinary. +She was never in the habit of putting herself out for any one, and she +always declared that the very odor of a sick room drove her to Scotch +and soda. But here she was, rubbing Aunt Selina’s back with chloroform +liniment--and you know how that smells--getting her up in a chair, +dressed in one of Bella’s wadded silk robes, with pillows under her +feet, and then doing her hair in elaborate puffs--braiding her gray +switch and bringing it, coronet-fashion, around the top of her head. +She even put rice powder on Aunt Selina’s nose, and dabbed violet water +behind her ears, and said she couldn’t understand why she (Aunt Selina) +had never married, but, of course, she probably would some day! + +The result was, naturally, that the old lady wouldn’t let Bella out of +her sight, except to go to the kitchen for something to eat for her. +That very day Bella got the doctor to order ale for Aunt Selina (oh, +yes; the doctor could come in; Dal said “it was all a-coming in, and +nothing going out”) and she had three pints of Bass, and learned to eat +anchovies and caviare--all in one day. + +Bella’s conduct to Jim was disgraceful. She snubbed him, ignored him, +tramped on him, and Jim was growing positively flabby. He spent most of +his time writing letters to the board of health and playing solitaire. +He was a pathetic figure. + +Well, we went to bed fairly early. Bella had massaged Aunt Selina’s +face and rubbed in cold cream, Anne and Dallas had compromised on which +window should be open in their bedroom, and the men had matched to see +who should look at the furnace. I did not expect to sleep, but the cold +night air had done its work, and I was asleep almost immediately. + +Some time during the early part of the night I wakened, and, after +turning and twisting uneasily, I realized that I was cold. The couch +in Bella’s dressing room was comfortable enough, but narrow and low. I +remember distinctly (that was what was so maddening; everybody thought I +dreamed it)--I remember getting an eiderdown comfort that was folded +at my feet, and pulling it up around me. In the luxury of its warmth I +snuggled down and went to sleep almost instantly. It seemed to me I had +slept for hours, but it was probably an hour or less, when something +roused me. The room was perfectly dark, and there was not a sound save +the faint ticking of the clock, but I was wide awake. + +And then came the incident that in its ghastly, horrible absurdity made +the rest of the people shout with laughter the next day. It was not +funny then. For suddenly the eiderdown comfort began to slip. I heard no +footstep, not the slightest sound approaching me, but the comfort +moved; from my chin, inch by inch, it slipped to my shoulders; awfully, +inevitably, hair-raisingly it moved. I could feel my blood gather around +my heart, leaving me cold and nerveless. As it passed my hands I gave +an involuntary clutch for it, to feel it slip away from my fingers. Then +the full horror of the situation took hold of me; as the comfort slid +past my feet I sat up and screamed at the top of my voice. + +Of course, people came running in all sorts of things. I was still +sitting up, declaring I had seen a ghost and that the house was haunted. +Dallas was struggling for the second armhole of his dressing gown and +Bella had already turned on the lights. They said I had had a nightmare, +and not to sleep on my back, and perhaps I was taking grippe. + +And just then we heard Jimmy run down the stairs, and fall over +something, almost breaking his wrist. It was the eiderdown comfort, +half-way up the studio staircase! + + + +Chapter XIII. HE DOES NOT DENY IT + +Aunt Selina got up the next morning and Jim told her all the strange +things that had been happening. She fixed on Flannigan, of course, +although she still suspected Betty of her watch and other valuables. The +incident of the comfort she called nervous indigestion and bad hours. + +She spent the entire day going through the storeroom and linen closets, +and running her fingers over things for dust. Whenever she found any +she looked at me, drew a long breath, and said, “Poor James!” It was +maddening. And when she went through his clothes and found some buttons +off (Jim didn’t keep a man, and Takahiro had stopped at his boots) she +looked at me quite awfully. + +“His mother was a perfect housekeeper,” she said. “James was brought up +in clothes with the buttons on, put on clean shelves.” + +“Didn’t they put them on him?” I asked, almost hysterically. It had been +a bad morning, after a worse night. Every one had found fault with the +breakfast, and they straggled down one at a time until I was frantic. +Then Flannigan had talked to me about the pearls, and Mr. Harbison had +said, “Good morning,” very stiffly, and nearly rattled the inside of the +furnace out. + +Early in the morning, too, I overheard a scrap of conversation between +the policeman and our gentleman adventurer from South America. Something +had gone wrong with the telephone and Mr. Harbison was fussing over it +with a screw driver and a pair of scissors--all the tools he could find. +Flannigan was lifting rugs to shake them on the roof--Bella’s order. + +“Wash the table linen!” he was grumbling. “I’ll do what I can that’s +necessary. Grub has to be cooked, and dishes has to be washed--I’ll +admit that. If you’re particular, make up your bed every day; I don’t +object. But don’t tell me we have to use thirty-three table napkins +a day. What did folks do before napkins was invented? Tell me +that!”--triumphantly. + +“What’s the answer?” Mr. Harbison inquired absently, evidently with the +screw driver in his mouth. + +“Used their pocket handkerchiefs! And if the worst comes to the +worst, Mr. Harbison, these folks here can use their sleeves, for all +I care--not that the women has any sleeves to speak of. Wash clothes I +will not.” + +“Well, don’t worry Mrs. Wilson about it,” the other voice said. +Flannigan straightened himself with a grunt. + +“Mrs. Wilson!” he said. “A lot she would worry. She’s been a +disappointment to me, Mr. Harbison, me thinking that now she’d come back +to him, after leavin’ him the way she did, they’d be like two turtle +doves. Lord! The cook next door--” + +But what the cook had told about Bella and Jimmy was not divulged, +for the Harbison man caught him up with a jerk and sent Flannigan, +grumbling, with his rugs to the roof. + +It did not seem possible to carry on the deception much longer, but if +things were bad now, what would they be when Aunt Selina learned she had +been lied to, made ridiculous, generally deceived? And how would I be +able to live in the house with her when she did know? Luckily, every +one was so puzzled over the mystery in the house that numbers of little +things that would have been absolutely damning were never noticed at +all. For instance, my asking Jimmy at luncheon that day if he took cream +in his coffee! And Max coming to the rescue by dropping his watch in +his glass of water, and creating a diversion and giving everybody an +opportunity to laugh by saying not to mind, it had been in soak before. + +Just after luncheon Aunt Selina brought me some undergarments of Jim’s +to be patched. She explained at length that he had always worn out his +undergarments, because he always squirmed around so when he was sitting. +And she showed me how to lay one of the garments over a pillow to get +the patch in properly. + +It was the most humiliating moment of my life, but there was no escape. +I took my sewing to the roof, while she went away to find something else +for me to do when that was finished, and I sat with the thing on my +knee and stared at it, while rebellious tears rolled down my cheeks. +The patch was not the shape of the hole at all, and every time I took a +stitch I sewed it fast to the pillow beneath. It was terrible. Jim came +up after a while and sat down across from me and watched, without saying +anything. I suppose what he felt would not have been proper to say to +me. We had both reached the point where adequate language failed us. +Finally he said: + +“I wish I were dead.” + +“So do I,” I retorted, jerking the thread. + +“Where is she now?” + +“Looking for more of these.” I indicated the garment over the pillow, +and he wiggled. “Please don’t squirm,” I said coldly. “You will wear out +your--lingerie, and I will have to mend them.” + +He sat very still for five minutes, when I discovered that I had put the +patch in crosswise instead of lengthwise and that it would not fit. As I +jerked it out he sneezed. + +“Or sneeze,” I added venomously. “You will tear your buttons off, and I +will have to sew them on.” + +Jim rose wrathfully. “Don’t sit, don’t sneeze,” he repeated. “Don’t +stand, I suppose, for fear I will wear out my socks. Here, give me that. +If the fool thing has to be mended, I’ll do it myself.” + +He went over to a corner of the parapet and turned his back to me. He +was very much offended. In about a minute he came back, triumphant, and +held out the result of his labor. I could only gasp. He had puckered up +the edges of the hole like the neck of a bag, and had tied the thread +around it. “You--you won’t be able to sit down,” I ventured. + +“Don’t have any time to sit,” he retorted promptly. “Anyhow, it will +give some, won’t it? It would if it was tied with elastic instead of +thread. Have you any elastic?” + +Lollie came up just then, and Jim took himself and his mending +downstairs. Luckily, Aunt Selina found several letters in his room that +afternoon while she was going over his clothes, and as it took Jim some +time to explain them, she forgot the task she had given me altogether. + +When Lollie came up to the roof, she closed the door to the stairs, and +coming over, drew a chair close to mine. + +“Have you seen much of Tom today?” she asked, as an introduction. + +“I suppose you mean Mr. Harbison, Lollie,” I said. “No--not any more +than I could help. Don’t whisper, he couldn’t possibly hear you. And if +it’s scandal I don’t want to know it.” + +“Look here, Kit,” she retorted, “you needn’t be so superior. If I like +to talk scandal, I’m not so sure you aren’t making it.” + +That was the way right along: I was making scandal; I brought them there +to dinner; I let Bella in! + +And, of course, Anne came up then, and began on me at once. + +“You are a very bad girl,” she began. “What do you mean by treating Tom +Harbison the way you do? He is heart-broken.” + +“I think you exaggerate my influence over him,” I retorted. “I haven’t +treated him badly, because I haven’t paid any attention to him.” + +Anne threw up her hands. + +“There you are!” she said. “He worked all day yesterday fixing this +place for you--yes, for you, my dear. I am not blind--and last night you +refused to let him bring you up.” + +“He told you!” I flamed. + +“He wondered what he had done. And as you wouldn’t let him come within +speaking distance of you, he came to me.” + +“I am sorry, Anne, since you are fond of him,” I said. “But to me he is +impossible--intolerable. My reasons are quite sufficient.” + +“Kit is perfectly right, Anne,” Leila broke in. “I tell you, there is +something queer about him,” she added in a portentous whisper. + +Anne stiffened. + +“He is perfect,” she declared. “Of good family, warm-hearted, +courageous, handsome, clever--what more do you ask?” + +“Honesty,” said Leila hotly. “That a man should be what he says he is.” + +Anne and I both stared. + +“It is your Mr. Harbison,” Leila went on, “who tried to escape from the +house by putting a board across to the next roof!” + +“I don’t believe it,” said Anne. “You might bring me a picture of him, +board in hand, and I wouldn’t believe it.” + +“Don’t then,” Lollie said cruelly. “Let him get away with your pearls; +they are yours. Only, as sure as anything, the man who tried to escape +from the house had a reason for escaping, and the papers said a man in +evening dress and light overcoat. I found Mr. Harbison’s overcoat today +lying in a heap in one of the maids’ rooms, and it was covered with +brick dust all over the front. A button had even been torn off.” + +“Pooh!” Anne said, when she had recovered herself a little. “There isn’t +any reason, as far as that goes, why Flannigan shouldn’t have worn Tom’s +overcoat, or--any of the others.” + +“Flannigan!” Leila said loftily. “Why, his arms are like piano legs; he +couldn’t get into it. As for the others, there is only one person who +would fit, or nearly fit, that overcoat, and that is Dallas, Anne.” + +While Anne was choking down her wrath, Leila got up and darted out of +the tent. When she came back she was triumphant. + +“Look,” she said, holding out her hand. And on her palm lay a lightish +brown button. “I found it just where the paper said the board was thrown +out, and it is from Mr. Harbison’s overcoat, without a doubt.” + +Of course I should not have been surprised. A man who would kiss a woman +on a dark staircase--a woman he had known only two days--was capable of +anything. + +“Kit has only been a little keener than the rest of us,” Lollie said. +“She found him out yesterday.” + +“Upon my word,” said Anne indignantly, preparing to go, “if I didn’t +know you girls so well, I would think you were crazy. And now, just to +offset this, I can tell you something. Flannigan told me this morning +not to worry; that he has my pearl collar spotted, and that YOUNG LADIES +WILL HAVE THEIR JOKES!” + +Yes, as I said before, it was a cheerful, joy-producing situation. + +I sat and thought it over after Anne’s parting shot, when Leila had +flounced downstairs. Things were closing in; I gave the situation +twenty-four hours to develop. At the end of that time Flannigan would +accuse me openly of knowing where the pearls were; I would explain my +silly remark to him and the mine would explode--under Aunt Selina. + +I was sunk in dejected reverie when some one came on the roof. When he +was opposite the opening in the tent, I saw Mr. Harbison, and at that +moment he saw me. He paused uncertainly, then he made an evident effort +and came over to me. + +“You are--better today?” + +“Quite well, thank you.” + +“I am glad you find the tent useful. Does it keep off the wind?” + +“It is quite a shelter”--frigidly. + +He still stood, struggling for something to say. Evidently nothing came +to his mind, for he lifted the cap he was wearing, and turning away, +began to work with the wiring of the roof. He was clever with tools; one +could see that. If he was a professional gentleman-burglar, no doubt he +needed to be. After a bit, finding it necessary to climb to the parapet, +he took off his coat, without even a glance in my direction, and fell to +work vigorously. + +One does not need to like a man to admire him physically, any more than +one needs to like a race horse or any other splendid animal. No one +could deny that the man on the parapet was a splendid animal; he looked +quite big enough and strong enough to have tossed his slender bridge +across the gulf to the next roof, without any difficulty, and coordinate +enough to have crossed on it with a flourish to safety. + +Just then there was a rending, tearing sound from the corner and a +muttered ejaculation. I looked up in time to see Mr. Harbison throw up +his arms, make a futile attempt to regain his balance, and disappear +over the edge of the roof. One instant he was standing there, splendid, +superb; the next, the corner of the parapet was empty, all that stood +there was a broken, splintered post and a tangle of wires. + +I could not have moved at first; at least, it seemed hours before the +full significance of the thing penetrated my dazed brain. When I got up +I seemed to walk, to crawl, with leaden weights holding back my feet. + +When I got to the corner I had to catch the post for support. I knew +somebody was saying, “Oh, how terrible!” over and over. It was only +afterward that I knew it had been myself. And then some other voice was +saying, “Don’t be alarmed. Please don’t be frightened. I’m all right.” + +I dared to look over the parapet, finally, and instead of a crushed and +unspeakable body, there was Mr. Harbison, sitting about eight feet below +me, with his feet swinging into space and a long red scratch from the +corner of his eye across his cheek. There was a sort of mansard there, +with windows, and just enough coping to keep him from rolling off. + +“I thought you had fallen--all the way,” I gasped, trying to keep my +lips from trembling. “I--oh, don’t dangle your feet like that!” + +He did not seem at all glad of his escape. He sat there gloomily, +peering into the gulf beneath. + +“If it wasn’t so--er--messy and generally unpleasant,” he replied +without looking up, “I would slide off and go the rest of the way.” + +“You are childish,” I said severely. “See if you can get through the +window behind you. If you can not, I’ll come down and unfasten it.” But +the window was open, and I had a chance to sit down and gather up the +scattered ends of my nerves. To my surprise, however, when he came back +he made no effort to renew our conversation. He ignored me completely, +and went to work at once to repair the damage to his wires, with his +back to me. + +“I think you are very rude,” I said at last. “You fell over there and I +thought you were killed. The nervous shock I experienced is just as bad +as if you had gone--all the way.” + +He put down the hammer and came over to me without speaking. Then, when +he was quite close, he said: + +“I am very sorry if I startled you. I did not flatter myself that you +would be profoundly affected, in any event.” + +“Oh, as to that,” I said lightly, “it makes me ill for days if my car +runs over a dog.” He looked at me in silence. “You are not going to get +up on that parapet again?” + +“Mrs. Wilson,” he said, without paying the slightest attention to my +question, “will you tell me what I have done?” + +“Done?” + +“Or have not done? I have racked my brains--stayed awake all of last +night. At first I hoped it was impersonal, that, womanlike you were +merely venting general disfavor on one particular individual. But--your +hostility is to me, personally.” + +I raised my eyebrows, coldly interrogative. + +“Perhaps,” he went on calmly--“perhaps I was a fool here on the +roof--the night before last. If I said anything that I should not, I ask +your pardon. If it is not that, I think you ought to ask mine!” + +I was angry enough then. + +“There can be only one opinion about your conduct,” I retorted warmly. +“It was worse than brutal. It--it was unspeakable. I have no words for +it--except that I loathe it--and you.” + +He was very grim by this time. “I have heard you say something like that +before--only I was not the unfortunate in that case.” + +“Oh!” I was choking. + +“Under different circumstances I should be the last person to recall +anything so--personal. But the circumstances are unusual.” He took an +angry step toward me. “Will you tell me what I have done? Or shall I go +down and ask the others?” + +“You wouldn’t dare,” I cried, “or I will tell them what you did! How you +waylaid me on those stairs there, and forced your caresses, your kisses, +on me! Oh, I could die with shame!” + +The silence that followed was as unexpected as it was ominous. I knew +he was staring at me, and I was furious to find myself so emotional, so +much more the excited of the two. Finally, I looked up. + +“You can not deny it,” I said, a sort of anti-climax. + +“No.” He was very quiet, very grim, quite composed. “No,” he repeated +judicially. “I do not deny it.” + +He did not? Or he would not? Which? + + + +Chapter XIV. ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE + +Dal had been acting strangely all day. Once, early in the evening, when +I had doubled no trump, he led me a club without apology, and later +on, during his dummy, I saw him writing our names on the back of an +envelope, and putting numbers after them. At my earliest opportunity I +went to Max. + +“There is something the matter with Dal, Max,” I volunteered. “He +has been acting strangely all day, and just now he was making out a +list--names and numbers.” + +“You’re to blame for that, Kit,” Max said seriously. “You put washing +soda instead of baking soda in those biscuits today, and he thinks he is +a steam laundry. Those are laundry lists he’s making out. He asked me a +little while ago if I wanted a domestic finish.” + +Yes, I had put washing soda in the biscuits. The book said soda, and how +is one to know which is meant? + +“I do not think you are calculated for a domestic finish,” I said coldly +as I turned away. “In any case I disclaim any such responsibility. +But--there is SOMETHING on Dal’s mind.” + +Max came after me. “Don’t be cross, Kit. You haven’t said a nice word +to me today, and you go around bristling with your chin up and two red +spots on your cheeks--like whatever-her-name-was with the snakes instead +of hair. I don’t know why I’m so crazy about you; I always meant to love +a girl with a nice disposition.” + +I left him then. Dal had gone into the reception room and closed the +doors. And because he had been acting so strangely, and partly to escape +from Max, whose eyes looked threatening, I followed him. Just as I +opened the door quietly and looked in, Dallas switched off the lights, +and I could hear him groping his way across the room. Then somebody--not +Dal--spoke from the corner, cautiously. + +“Is that you, Mr. Brown, sir?” It was Flannigan. + +“Yes. Is everything here?” + +“All but the powder, sir. Don’t step too close. They’re spread all over +the place.” + +“Have you taken the curtains down?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Matches?” + +“Here, sir.” + +“Light one, will you, Flannigan? I want to see the time.” + +The flare showed Dallas and Flannigan bent over the timepiece. And it +showed something else. The rug had been turned back from the windows +which opened on the street, and the curtains had been removed. On the +bare hardwood floor just beneath the windows was an array of pans of +various sizes, dish pans, cake tins, and a metal foot tub. The pans were +raised from the floor on bricks, and seemed to be full of paper. All the +chairs and tables were pushed back against the wall, and the bric-a-brac +was stacked on the mantel. + +“Half an hour yet,” Dal said, closing his watch. “Plenty of time, and +remember the signal, four short and two long.” + +“Four short and two long--all right, sir.” + +“And--Flannigan, here’s something for you, on account.” + +“Thank you, sir.” + +Dal turned to go out, tripped over the rug, said something, and passed +me without an idea of my presence. A moment later Flannigan went out, +and I was left, huddled against the wall, and alone. + +It was puzzling enough. “Four long and two short!” “All but the powder!” + Not that I believed for a moment what Max had said, and anyhow Flannigan +was the sanest person I ever saw in my life. But it all seemed a part +of the mystery that had been hanging over us for several days. I felt my +way across the room and knelt by the pans. Yes, they were there, full of +paper and mounted on bricks. It had not been a delusion. + +And then I straightened on my knees suddenly, for an automobile passing +under the windows had sounded four short honks and two long ones. The +signal was followed instantly by a crash. The foot bath had fallen from +its supports, and lay, quivering and vibrating with horrid noises at my +feet. The next moment Mr. Harbison had thrown open the door and leaped +into the room. + +“Who’s there?” he demanded. Against the light I could see him reaching +for his hip pocket, and the rest crowding up around him. + +“It’s only me,” I quavered, “that is, I. The--the dish pan upset.” + +“Dish pan!” Bella said from back in the crowd. “Kit, of course!” + +Jim forced his way through then and turned on the lights. I have no +doubt I looked very strange, kneeling there on the bare floor, with a +row of pans mounted on bricks behind me, and the furniture all piled on +itself in a back corner. + +“Kit! What in the world--!” Jim began, and stopped. He stared from me to +the pans, to the windows, to the bric-a-brac on the mantel, and back to +me. + +I sat stonily silent. Why should I explain? Whenever I got into a +foolish position, and tried to explain, and tell how it happened, and +who was really to blame, they always brought it back to ME somehow. So I +sat there on the floor and let them stare. And finally Lollie Mercer got +her breath and said, “How perfectly lovely; it’s a charade!” + +And Anne guessed “kitchen” at once. “Kit, you know, and the pans +and--all that,” she said vaguely. At that they all took to guessing! And +I sat still, until Mr. Harbison saw the storm in my eyes and came over +to me. + +“Have you hurt your ankle?” he said in an undertone. “Let me help you +up.” + +“I am not hurt,” I said coldly, “and even if I were, it would be +unnecessary to trouble you.” + +“I can not help being troubled,” he returned, just as evenly. “‘You see, +it makes me ill for days if my car runs over a dog.’” + +Luckily, at that moment Dal came in. He pushed his way through the +crowd without a word, shut off the lights, crashed through the pans and +slammed the shutters closed. Then he turned and addressed the rest. + +“Of all the lunatics--!” he began, only there was more to it than that. +“A fellow goes to all kinds of trouble to put an end to this miserable +situation, and the entire household turns out and sets to work to +frustrate the whole scheme. You LIKE to stay here, don’t you, like +chickens in a coop? Where’s Flannigan?” + +Nobody understood Dal’s wrath then, but it seems he meant to arrange +the plot himself, and when it was ripe, and the hour nearly come, he +intended to wager that he could break the quarantine, and to take any +odds he could get that he would free the entire party in half an hour. +As for the plan itself, it was idiotically simple; we were perfectly +delighted when we heard it. It was so simple and yet so comprehensive. +We didn’t see how it COULD fail. Both the Mercer girls kissed Dal on the +strength of it, and Anne was furious. Jim was not so much pleased, for +some reason or other, and Mr. Harbison looked thoughtful rather than +merry. Aunt Selina had gone to bed. + +The idea, of course, was to start an embryo fire just inside the +windows, in the pans, to feed it with the orange-fire powder that is +used on the Fourth of July, and when we had thrown open the windows and +yelled “fire” and all the guards and reporters had rushed to the +front of the house, to escape quietly by a rear door from the basement +kitchen, get into machines Dal had in waiting, and lose ourselves as +quickly as we could. + +You can see how simple it was. + +We were terribly excited, of course. Every one rushed madly for motor +coats and veils, and Dal shuffled the numbers so the people going the +same direction would have the same machine. We called to each other as +we dressed about Mamaroneck or Lakewood or wherever we happened to have +relatives. Everybody knew everybody else, and his friends. The Mercer +girls were going to cruise until the trouble blew over, the Browns were +going to Pinehurst, and Jim was going to Africa to hunt, if he could get +out of the harbor. + +Only the Harbison man seemed to have no plans; quite suddenly with the +world so near again, the world of country houses and steam yachts and +all the rest of it, he ceased to be one of us. It was not his world at +all. He stood back and watched the kaleidoscope of our coats and veils, +half-quizzically, but with something in his face that I had not seen +there before. If he had not been so self-reliant and big, I would have +said he was lonely. Not that he was pathetic in any sense of the word. +Of course, he avoided me, which was natural and exactly what I wished. +Bella never was far from him and at the last she loaded him with her +jewel case and a muff and traveling bag and asked him to her cousins’ on +Long Island. I felt sure he was going to decline, when he glanced across +at me. + +“Do go,” I said, very politely. “They are charming people.” And he +accepted at once! + +It was a transparent plot on Bella’s part: Two elderly maiden ladies, +house miles from anywhere, long evenings in the music room with an open +fire and Bella at the harp playing the two songs she knows. + +When we were ready and gathered in the kitchen, in the darkness, of +course, Dal went up on the roof and signaled with a lantern to the cars +on the drive. Then he went downstairs, took a last look at the drawing +room, fired the papers, shook on the powder, opened the windows and +yelled “fire!” + +Of course, huddled in the kitchen we had heard little or nothing. But we +plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling +“fire,” and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of the +house. And at that instant we remembered Aunt Selina! + +That was the cause of the whole trouble. I don’t know why they turned on +me; she wasn’t my aunt. But by the time we had got her out of bed, and +had wrapped her in an eiderdown comfort, and stuck slippers on her feet +and a motor veil on her head, the glare at the front of the house was +beginning to die away. She didn’t understand at all and we had no time +to explain. I remember that she wanted to go back and get her “plate,” + whatever that may be, but Jim took her by the arm and hurried her along, +and the rest, who had waited, and were in awful tempers, stood aside and +let them out first. + +The door to the area steps was open, and by the street lights we could +see a fence and a gate, which opened on a side street. Jim and Aunt +Selina ran straight for the gate; the wind blowing Aunt Selina’s comfort +like a sail. Then, with our feet, so to speak, on the first rungs of the +ladder of Liberty, it slipped. A half-dozen guards and reporters came +around the house and drove us back like sheep into a slaughter pen. It +was the most humiliating moment of my life. + +Dal had been for fighting a way through, and just for a minute I think +I went Berserk myself. But Max spied one of the reporters setting up a +flash light as we stood, undecided, at the top of the steps, and after +that there was nothing to do but retreat. We backed down slowly, to show +them we were not afraid. And when we were all in the kitchen again, and +had turned on the lights and Bella was crying with her head against Mr. +Harbison’s arm, Dal said cheerfully, + +“Well, it has done some good, anyhow. We have lost Aunt Selina.” + +And we all shook hands on it, although we were sorry about Jim. And Dal +said we would have some champagne and drink to Aunt Selina’s comfort, +and we could have her teeth fumigated and send them to her. Somebody +said “Poor old Jim,” and at that Bella looked up. + +She stared around the group, and then she went quite pale. + +“Jim!” she gasped. “Do you mean--that Jim is--out there too?” + +“Jim and Aunt Selina!” I said as calmly as I could for joy. You can see +how it simplified the situation for me. “By this time they are a mile +away, and going!” + +Everybody shook hands again except Bella. She had dropped into a chair, +and sat biting her lip and breathing hard, and she would not join in any +of the hilarity at getting rid of Aunt Selina. Finally she got up and +knocked over her chair. + +“You are a lot of cowards,” she stormed. “You deserted them out there, +left them. Heaven knows where they are--a defenseless old woman, +and--and a man who did not even have an overcoat. And it is snowing!” + +“Never mind,” Dal said reassuringly. “He can borrow Aunt Selina’s +comfort. Make the old lady discard from weakness. Anyhow, Bella, if I +know anything of human nature, the old lady will make it hot enough for +him. Poor old Jim!” + +Then they shook hands again, and with that there came a terrible banging +at the door, which we had locked. + +“Open the door!” some one commanded. It was one of the guards. + +“Open it yourself!” Dallas called, moving a kitchen table to reenforce +the lock. + +“Open that door or we will break it in!” + +Dallas put his hands in his pockets, seated himself on the table, and +whistled cheerfully. We could hear them conferring outside, and they +made another appeal which was refused. Suddenly Bella came over and +confronted Dallas. + +“They have brought them back!” she said dramatically. “They are out +there now; I distinctly heard Jim’s voice. Open that door, Dallas!” + +“Oh, DON’T let them in!” I wailed. It was quite involuntary, but the +disappointment was too awful. “Dallas, DON’T open that door!” + +Dal swung his feet and smiled from Bella to me. + +“Think what a solution it is to all our difficulties,” he said easily. +“Without Aunt Selina I could be happy here indefinitely.” + +There was more knocking, and somebody--Max, I think--said to let them +in, that it was a fool thing anyhow, and that he wanted to go to bed and +forget it; his feet were cold. And just then there was a crash, and part +of one of the windows fell in. The next blow from outside brought the +rest of the glass, and--somebody was coming through, feet first. It was +Jim. + +He did not speak to any of us, but turned and helped in a bundle of red +and yellow silk comfort that proved to be Aunt Selina, also feet first. +I had a glimpse of a half-dozen heads outside, guards and reporters. +Then Jim jerked the shade down and unswathed Aunt Selina’s legs so +that she could walk, offered his arm, and stalked past us and upstairs, +without a word! + +None of us spoke. We turned out the lights and went upstairs and took +off our wraps and went to bed. It had been almost a fiasco. + + + +Chapter XV. SUSPICION AND DISCORD + +Every one was nasty the next morning. Aunt Selina declared that her +feet were frost-bitten and kept Bella rubbing them with ice water all +morning. And Jim was impossible. He refused to speak to any of us and he +watched Bella furtively, as if he suspected her of trying to get him out +of the house. + +When luncheon time came around and he had shown no indication of going +to the telephone and ordering it, we had a conclave, and Max was chosen +to remind him of the hour. Jim was shut in the studio, and we waited +together in the hall while Max went up. When he came down he was +somewhat ruffled. + +“He wouldn’t open the door,” he reported, “and when I told him it was +meal time, he said he wasn’t hungry, and he didn’t give a whoop about +the rest of us. He had asked us here to dinner; he hadn’t proposed to +adopt us.” + +So we finally ordered luncheon ourselves, and about two o’clock Jim came +downstairs sheepishly, and ate what was left. Anne declared that Bella +had been scolding him in the upper hall, but I doubted it. She was never +seen to speak to him unnecessarily. + +The excitement of the escape over, Mr. Harbison and I remained on terms +of armed neutrality. And Max still hunted for Anne’s pearls, using them, +the men declared, as a good excuse to avoid tinkering with the furnace +or repairing the dumb waiter, which took the queerest notions, and +stopped once, half-way up from the kitchen, for an hour, with the dinner +on it. Anyhow, Max was searching the house systematically, armed with +a copy of Poe’s Purloined Letter and Gaboriau’s Monsieur LeCoq. He went +through the seats of the chairs with hatpins, tore up the beds, and +lifted rugs, until the house was in a state of confusion. And the next +day, the fourth, he found something--not much, but it was curious. He +had been in the studio, poking around behind the dusty pictures, with +Jimmy expostulating every time he moved anything and the rest standing +around watching him. + +Max was strutting. + +“We get it by elimination,” he said importantly. “The pearls being +nowhere else in the house, they must be here in the studio. Three parts +of the studio having yielded nothing, they must be in the fourth. Ladies +and gentlemen, let me have your attention for one moment. I tap this +canvas with my wand--there is nothing up my sleeve. Then I prepare +to move the canvas--so. And I put my hand in the pocket of this +disreputable velvet coat, so. Behold!” + +Then he gave a low exclamation and looked at something he held in his +hand. Every one stepped forward, and on his palm was the small diamond +clasp from Anne’s collar! + +Jimmy was apoplectic. He tried to smile, but no one else did. + +“Well, I’ll be flabbergasted!” he said. “I say, you people, you don’t +think for a minute that I put that thing there? Why, I haven’t worn that +coat for a month. It’s--it’s a trick of yours, Max.” + +But Max shook his head; he looked stupefied, and stood gazing from the +clasp to the pocket of the old painting coat. Betty dropped on a folding +stool, that promptly collapsed with her and created a welcome diversion, +while Anne pounced on the clasp greedily, with a little cry. + +“We will find it all now,” she said excitedly. “Did you look in the +other pockets, Max?” + +Then, for the first time, I was conscious of an air of constraint among +the men. Dallas was whistling softly, and Mr. Harbison, having +rescued Betty, was standing silent and aloof, watching the scene +with non-committal eyes. It was Max who spoke first, after a hurried +inventory of the other pockets. + +“Nothing else,” he said constrainedly. “I’ll move the rest of the +canvases.” + +But Jim interfered, to every one’s surprise. + +“I wouldn’t, if I were you, Max. There’s nothing back there. I had ‘em +out yesterday.” He was quite pale. + +“Nonsense!” Max said gruffly. “If it’s a practical joke, Jim, why don’t +you fess up? Anne has worried enough.” + +“The pearls are not there, I tell you,” Jim began. Although the studio +was cold, there were little fine beads of moisture on his face. “I must +ask you not to move those pictures.” And then Aunt Selina came to the +rescue; she stalked over and stood with her back against the stack of +canvases. + +“As far as I can understand this,” she declaimed, “you gentlemen are +trying to intimate that James knows something of that young woman’s +jewelry, because you found part of it in his pocket. Certainly you will +not move the pictures. How do you know that the young gentleman who said +he found it there didn’t have it up his sleeve?” + +She looked around triumphantly, and Max glowered. Dallas soothed her, +however. + +“Exactly so,” he said. “How do we know that Max didn’t have the clasp +up his sleeve? My dear lady, neither my wife nor I care anything for the +pearls, as compared with the priceless pearl of peace. I suggest tea on +the roof; those in favor--? My arm, Miss Caruthers.” + +It was all well enough for Jim to say later that he didn’t dare to have +the canvases moved, for he had stuck behind them all sorts of chorus +girl photographs and life-class crayons that were not for Aunt Selina’s +eye, besides four empty siphons, two full ones, and three bottles of +whisky. Not a soul believed him; there was a a new element of suspicion +and discord in the house. + +Every one went up on the roof and left him to his mystery. Anne drank +her tea in a preoccupied silence, with half-closed eyes, an attitude +that boded ill to somebody. The rest were feverishly gay, and Aunt +Selina, with a pair of arctics on her feet and a hot-water bottle at her +back, sat in the middle of the tent and told me familiar anecdotes of +Jimmy’s early youth (had he known, he would have slain her). Betty and +Mr. Harbison had found a medicine ball, and were running around like +a pair of children. It was quite certain that neither his escape from +death nor my accusation weighed heavily on him. + +While Aunt Selina was busy with the time Jim had swallowed an open +safety pin, and just as the pin had been coughed up, or taken out of +his nose--I forget which--Jim himself appeared and sulkily demanded the +privacy of the roof for his training hour. + +Yes, he was training. Flannigan claimed to know the system that had +reduced the president to what he is, and he and Jim had a seance every +day which left Jim feeling himself for bruises all evening. He claimed +to be losing flesh; he said he could actually feel it going, and he and +Flannigan had spent an entire afternoon in the cellar three days before +with a potato barrel, a cane-seated chair and a lamp. + +The whole thing had been shrouded in mystery. They sandpapered the +inside of the barrel and took out all the nails, and when they had +finished they carried it to the roof and put it in a corner behind the +tent. Everybody was curious, but Flannigan refused any information about +it, and merely said it was part of his system. Dal said that if HE had +anything like that in his system he certainly would be glad to get rid +of it. + +At a quarter to six Jim appeared, still sullen from the events of the +afternoon and wearing a dressing gown and a pair of slippers, Flannigan +following him with a sponge, a bucket of water and an armful of bath +towels. Everybody protested at having to move, but he was firm, and they +all filed down the stairs. I was the last, with Aunt Selina just ahead +of me. At the top of the stairs, she turned around suddenly to me. + +“That policeman looks cruel,” she said. “What’s more, he’s been in a +bad humor all day. More than likely he’ll put James flat on the roof +and tramp on him, under pretense of training him. All policemen are +inhuman.” + +“He only rolls him over a barrel or something like that,” I protested. + +“James had a bump like an egg over his ear last night,” Aunt Selina +insisted, glaring at Flannigan’s unconscious back. “I don’t think it’s +safe to leave him. It is my time to relax for thirty minutes, or I +would watch him. You will have to stay,” she said, fixing me with her +imperious eyes. + +So I stayed. Jim didn’t want me, and Flannigan muttered mutiny. But +it was easier to obey Aunt Selina than to clash with her, and anyhow I +wanted to see the barrel in use. + +I never saw any one train before. It is not a joyful spectacle. First, +Flannigan made Jim run, around and around the roof. He said it stirred +up his food and brought it in contact with his liver, to be digested. + +Flannigan, from meekness and submission, of a sort, in the kitchen, +became an autocrat on the roof. + +“Once more,” he would say. “Pick up your feet, sir! Pick up your feet!” + +And Jim would stagger doggedly past me, where I sat on the parapet, his +poor cheeks shaking and the tail of his bath robe wrapping itself around +his legs. Yes, he ran in the bath robe in deference to me. It seems +there isn’t much to a running suit. + +“Head up,” Flannigan would say. “Lift your knees, sir. Didn’t you ever +see a horse with string halt?” + +He let him stop finally, and gave him a moment to get his breath. Then +he set him to turning somersaults. They spread the cushions from the +couch in the tent on the roof, and Jim would poke his head down and say +a prayer, and then curve over as gracefully as a sausage and come up +gasping, as if he had been pushed off a boat. + +“Five pounds a day; not less, sir,” Flannigan said encouragingly. +“You’ll drop it in chunks.” + +Jim looked at the tin as if he expected to see the chunks lying at his +feet. + +“Yes,” he said, wiping the back of his neck. “If we’re in here thirty +days that will be one hundred and fifty pounds. Don’t forget to stop in +time, Flannigan. I don’t want to melt away like a candle.” + +He was cheered, however, by the promise of reduction. + +“What do you think of that, Kit?” he called to me. “Your uncle is going +to look as angular as a problem in geometry. I’ll--I’ll be the original +reductio ad absurdum. Do you want me to stand on my head, Flannigan? +Wouldn’t that reduce something?” + +“Your brains, sir,” Flannigan retorted gravely, and presented a pair of +boxing gloves. Jim visibly quailed, but he put them on. + +“Do you know, Flannigan,” he remarked, as he fastened them, “I’m +thinking of wearing these all the time. They hide my character.” + +Flannigan looked puzzled, but he did not ask an explanation. He demanded +that Jim shed the bath robe, which he finally did, on my promise to +watch the sunset. Then for fully a minute there was no sound save of +feet running rapidly around the roof, and an occasional soft thud. Each +thud was accompanied by a grunt or two from Jim. Flannigan was grimly +silent. Once there was a smart rap, an oath from the policeman, and a +mirthless chuckle from Jim. The chuckle ended in a crash, however, and I +turned. Jim was lying on his back on the roof, and Flannigan was wiping +his ear with a towel. Jim sat up and ran his hand down his ribs. + +“They’re all here,” he observed after a minute. “I thought I missed +one.” + +“The only way to take a man’s weight down,” Flannigan said dryly. + +Jim got up dizzily. + +“Down on the roof, I suppose you mean,” he said. + +The next proceedings were mysterious. Flannigan rolled the barrel into +the tent, and carried in a small glass lamp. With the material at hand +he seemed to be effecting a combination, no new one, to judge by his +facility. Then he called Jim. + +At the door of the tent Jim turned to me, his bathrobe toga fashion +around his shoulders. + +“This is a very essential part of the treatment,” he said solemnly. “The +exercise, according to Flannigan, loosens up the adipose tissue. The +next step is to boil it out. I hope, unless your instructions compel +you, that you will at least have the decency to stay out of the tent.” + +“I am going at once,” I said, outraged. “I’m not here because I’m mad +about it, and you know it. And don’t pose with that bath robe. If you +think you’re a character out of Roman history, look at your legs.” + +“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said sulkily. “Only I’m tired of +having you choked down my throat every time I open my mouth, Kit. And +don’t go just yet. Flannigan is going for my clothes as soon as he +lights the--the lamp, and--somebody ought to watch the stairs.” + +That was all there was to it. I said I would guard the steps, and +Flannigan, having ignited the combination, whatever it was, went +downstairs. How was I to know that Bella would come up when she did? Was +it my fault that the lamp got too high, and that Flannigan couldn’t +hear Jim calling? Or that just as Bella reached the top of the steps +Jim should come to the door of the tent, wearing the barrel part of his +hot-air cabinet, and yelling for a doctor? + +Bella came to a dead stop on the upper step, with her mouth open. She +looked at Jim, at the inadequate barrel, and from them she looked at me. +Then she began to laugh, one of her hysterical giggles, and she turned +and went down again. As Jim and I stared at each other we could hear her +gurgling down the hall below. + +She had violent hysterics for an hour, with Anne rubbing her forehead +and Aunt Selina burning a feather out of the feather duster under her +nose. Only Jim and I understood, and we did not tell. Luckily, the next +thing that occurred drove Bella and her nerves from everybody’s mind. + +At seven o’clock, when Bella had dropped asleep and everybody else was +dressed for dinner, Aunt Selina discovered that the house was cold, and +ordered Dal to the furnace. + +It was Dal’s day at the furnace; Flannigan had been relieved of that +part of the work after twice setting fire to a chimney. + +In five minutes Dal came back and spoke a few words to Max, who followed +him to the basement, and in ten minutes more Flannigan puffed up the +steps and called Mr. Harbison. + +I am not curious, but I knew that something had happened. While Aunt +Selina was talking suffrage to Anne--who said she had always been +tremendously interested in the subject, and if women got the suffrage +would they be allowed to vote?--I slipped back to the dining room. + +The table was laid for dinner, but Flannigan was not in sight. I could +hear voices from somewhere, faint voices that talked rapidly, and after +a while I located the sounds under my feet. The men were all in the +basement, and something must have happened. I flew back to the basement +stairs, to meet Mr. Harbison at the foot. He was grimy and dusty, +with streaks of coal dust over his face, and he had been examining his +revolver. I was just in time to see him slip it into his pocket. + +“What is the matter?” I demanded. “Is any one hurt?” + +“No one,” he said coolly. “We’ve been cleaning out the furnace.” + +“With a revolver! How interesting--and unusual!” I said dryly, and +slipped past him as he barred the way. He was not pleased; I heard him +mutter something and come rapidly after me, but I had the voices as a +guide, and I was not going to be turned back like a child. The men had +gathered around a low stone arch in the furnace room, and were looking +down a short flight of steps, into a sort of vault, evidently under the +pavement. A faint light came from a small grating above, and there was a +close, musty smell in the air. + +“I tell you it must have been last night,” Dallas was saying. “Wilson +and I were here before we went to bed, and I’ll swear that hole was not +there then.” + +“It was not there this morning, sir,” Flannigan insisted. “It has been +made during the day.” + +“And it could not have been done this afternoon,” Mr. Harbison said +quietly. “I was fussing with the telephone wire down here. I would have +heard the noise.” + +Something in his voice made me look at him, and certainly his expression +was unusual. He was watching us all intently while Dallas pointed out to +me the cause of the excitement. From the main floor of the furnace room, +a flight of stone steps surmounted by an arch led into the coal cellar, +beneath the street. The coal cellar was of brick, with a cement floor, +and in the left wall there gaped an opening about three feet by three, +leading into a cavernous void, perfectly black--evidently a similar +vault belonging to the next house. + +The whole place was ghostly, full of shadows, shivery with +possibilities. It was Mr. Harbison finally who took Jim’s candle and +crawled through the aperture. We waited in dead silence, listening to +his feet crunching over the coal beyond, watching the faint yellow light +that came through the ragged opening in the wall. Then he came back and +called through to us. + +“Place is locked, over here,” he said. “Heavy oak door at the head of +the steps. Whoever made that opening has done a prodigious amount of +labor for nothing.” + +The weapon, a crowbar, lay on the ground beside the bricks, and he +picked it up and balanced it on his hand. Dallas’ florid face was almost +comical in his bewilderment; as for Jimmy--he slammed a piece of slag at +the furnace and walked away. At the door he turned around. + +“Why don’t you accuse me of it?” he asked bitterly. “Maybe you could +find a lump of coal in my pockets if you searched me.” + +He stalked up the stairs then and left us. Dallas and I went up +together, but we did not talk. There seemed to be nothing to say. Not +until I had closed and locked the door of my room did I venture to look +at something that I carried in the palm of my hand. It was a watch, not +running--a gentleman’s flat gold watch, and it had been hanging by its +fob to a nail in the bricks beside the aperture. + +In the back of the watch were the initials, T.H.H. and the picture of a +girl, cut from a newspaper. + +It was my picture. + + + +Chapter XVI. I FACE FLANNIGAN + +Dinner waited that night while everybody went to the coal cellar and +stared at the hole in the wall, and watched while Max took a tracing of +it and of some footprints in the coal dust on the other side. + +I did not go. I went into the library with the guilty watch in the fold +of my gown, and found Mr. Harbison there, staring through the February +gloom at the blank wall of the next house, and quite unconscious of the +reporter with a drawing pad just below him in the area-way. I went over +and closed the shutters before his very eyes, but even then he did not +move. + +“Will you be good enough to turn around?” I demanded at last. + +“Oh!” he said wheeling. “Are YOU here?” + +There wasn’t any reply to that, so I took the watch and placed it on the +library table between us. The effect was all that I had hoped. He stared +at it for an instant, then at me, and with his hand outstretched for it, +stopped. + +“Where did you find it?” he asked. I couldn’t understand his expression. +He looked embarrassed, but not at all afraid. + +“I think you know, Mr. Harbison,” I retorted. + +“I wish I did. You opened it?” + +“Yes.” + +We stood looking at each other across the table. It was his glance that +wavered. + +“About the picture--of you,” he said at last. “You see, down there in +South America, a fellow hasn’t much to do in the evenings, and a--a chum +of mine and I--we were awfully down on what we called the plutocrats, +the--the leisure classes. And when that picture of yours came in the +paper, we had--we had an argument. He said--” He stopped. + +“What did he say?” + +“Well, he said it was the picture of an empty-faced society girl.” + +“Oh!” I exclaimed. + +“I--I maintained there were possibilities in the face.” He put both +hands on the table, and, bending forward, looked down at me. “Well, I +was a fool, I admit. I said your eyes were kind and candid, in spite of +that haughty mouth. You see, I said I was a fool.” + +“I think you are exceedingly rude,” I managed finally. “If you want to +know where I found your watch, it was down in the coal cellar. And +if you admit you are an idiot, I am not. I--I know all about Bella’s +bracelet--and the board on the roof, and--oh, if you would only +leave--Anne’s necklace--on the coal, or somewhere--and get away--” + +My voice got beyond me then, and I dropped into a chair and covered my +face. I could feel him staring at the back of my head. + +“Well, I’ll be--” something or other, he said finally, and then he +turned on his heel and went out. By the time I got my eyes dry (yes, I +was crying; I always do when I am angry) I heard Jim coming downstairs, +and I tucked the watch out of sight. Would anyone have foreseen the +trouble that watch would make! + +Jim was sulky. He dropped into a chair and stretched out his legs, +looking gloomily at nothing. Then he got up and ambled into his den, +closing the door behind him without having spoken a word. It was more +than human nature could stand. + +When I went into the den he was stretched on the davenport with his face +buried in the cushions. He looked absolutely wilted, and every line of +him was drooping. + +“Go on out, Kit,” he said, in a smothered voice. “Be a good girl and +don’t follow me around.” + +“You are shameless!” I gasped. “Follow you! When you are hung around +my neck like a--like a--” Millstone was what I wanted to say, but I +couldn’t think of it. + +He turned over and looked up from his cushions like an ill-treated and +suffering cherub. + +“I’m done for, Kit,” he groaned. “Bella went up to the studio after we +left, and investigated that corner.” + +“What did she find? The necklace?” I asked eagerly. He was too wretched +to notice this. + +“No, that picture of you that I did last winter. She is crazy--she says +she is going upstairs and sit in Takahiro’s room and take smallpox and +die.” + +“Fiddlesticks!” I said rudely, and somebody hammered on the door and +opened it. + +“Pardon me for disturbing you,” Bella said, in her best +dear-me-I’m-glad-I-knocked manner. “But--Flannigan says the dinner has +not come.” + +“Good Lord!” Jim exclaimed. “I forgot to order the confounded dinner!” + +It was eight o’clock by that time, and as it took an hour at least +after telephoning the order, everybody looked blank when they heard. The +entire family, except Mr. Harbison, who had not appeared again, escorted +Jim to the telephone and hung around hungrily, suggesting new dishes +every minute. And then--he couldn’t raise Central. It was fifteen +minutes before we gave up, and stood staring at one another +despairingly. + +“Call out of a window, and get one of those infernal reporters to +do something useful for once,” Max suggested. But he was indignantly +hushed. We would have starved first. Jim was peering into the +transmitter and knocking the receiver against his hand, like a watch +that had stopped. But nothing happened. Flannigan reported a box of +breakfast food, two lemons, and a pineapple cheese, a combination that +didn’t seem to lend itself to anything. + +We went back to the dining room from sheer force of habit and sat around +the table and looked at the lemonade Flannigan had made. Anne WOULD talk +about the salad her last cook had concocted, and Max told about a little +town in Connecticut where the restaurant keeper smokes a corn-cob pipe +while he cooks the most luscious fried clams in America. And Aunt Selina +related that in her family they had a recipe for chicken smothered in +cream. And then we sipped the weak lemonade and nibbled at the cheese. + +“To change this gridiron martyrdom,” Dallas said finally, “where’s +Harbison? Still looking for his watch?” + +“Watch!” Everybody said it in a different tone. + +“Sure,” he responded. “Says his watch was taken last night from the +studio. Better get him down to take a squint at the telephone. Likely he +can fix it.” + +Flannigan was beside me with the cheese. And at that moment I felt Mr. +Harbison’s stolen watch slip out of my girdle, slide greasily across +my lap, and clatter to the floor. Flannigan stooped, but luckily it had +gone under the table. To have had it picked up, to have had to explain +how I got it, to see them try to ignore my picture pasted in it--oh, it +was impossible! I put my foot over it. + +“Drop something?” Dallas asked perfunctorily, rising. Flannigan was +still half kneeling. + +“A fork,” I said, as easily as I could, and the conversation went on. +But Flannigan knew, and I knew he knew. He watched my every movement +like a hawk after that, standing just behind my chair. I dropped my +useless napkin, to have it whirled up before it reached the floor. I +said to Betty that my shoe buckle was loose, and actually got the watch +in my hand, only to let it slip at the critical moment. Then they all +got up and went sadly back to the library, and Flannigan and I faced +each other. + +Flannigan was not a handsome man at any time, though up to then he had +at least looked amiable. But now as I stood with my hand on the back of +my chair, his face grew suddenly menacing. The silence was absolute. +I was the guiltiest wretch alive, and opposite me the law towered and +glowered, and held the yellow remnant of a pineapple cheese! And in the +silence that wretched watch lay and ticked and ticked and ticked. Then +Flannigan creaked over and closed the door into the hall, came back, +picked up the watch, and looked at it. + +“You’re unlucky, I’m thinkin’,” he said finally. “You’ve got the nerve +all right, but you ain’t cute enough.” + +“I don’t know what you mean,” I quavered. “Give me that watch to return +to Mr. Harbison.” + +“Not on your life,” he retorted easily. “I give it back myself, like +I did the bracelet, and--like I’m going to give back the necklace, if +you’ll act like a sensible little girl.” + +I could only choke. + +“It’s foolish, any way you look at it,” he persisted. “Here you are, +lots of friends, folks that think you’re all right. Why, I reckon there +isn’t one of them that wouldn’t lend you money if you needed it so bad.” + +“Will you be still?” I said furiously. “Mr. Harbison left that +watch--with me--an hour ago. Get him, and he will tell you so himself!” + +“Of course he would,” Flannigan conceded, looking at me with grudging +approval. “He wouldn’t be what I think he is, if he didn’t lie up and +down for you.” There were voices in the hall. Flannigan came closer. +“An hour ago, you say. And he told me it was gone this morning! It’s +a losing game, miss. I’ll give you twenty-four hours and then--the +necklace, if you please, miss.” + + + +Chapter XVII. A CLASH AND A KISS + +The clash that came that evening had been threatening for some time. +Take an immovable body, represented by Mr. Harbison and his square jaw, +and an irresistible force, Jimmy and his weight, and there is bound to +be trouble. + +The real fault was Jim’s. He had gone entirely mad again over Bella, and +thrown prudence to the winds. He mooned at her across the dinner table, +and waylaid her on the stairs or in the back halls, just to hear her +voice when she ordered him out of her way. He telephoned for flowers and +candy for her quite shamelessly, and he got out a book of photographs +that they had taken on their wedding journey, and kept it on the library +table. The sole concession he made to our presumptive relationship was +to bring me the responsibility for everything that went wrong, and his +shirts for buttons. + +The first I heard of the trouble was from Dal. He waylaid me in the hall +after dinner that night, and his face was serious. + +“I’m afraid we can’t keep it up very long, Kit,” he said. “With Jim +trailing Bella all over the house, and the old lady keener every day, +it’s bound to come out somehow. And that isn’t all. Jim and Harbison had +a set-to today--about you.” + +“About me!” I repeated. “Oh, I dare say I have been falling short again. +What was Jim doing? Abusing me?” + +Dal looked cautiously over his shoulder, but no one was near. + +“It seems that the gentle Bella has been unusually beastly today to Jim, +and--I believe she’s jealous of you, Kit. Jim followed her up to the +roof before dinner with a box of flowers, and she tossed them over the +parapet. She said, I believe, that she didn’t want his flowers; he could +buy them for you, and be damned to him, or some lady-like equivalent.” + +“Jim is a jellyfish,” I said contemptuously. “What did he say?” + +“He said he only cared for one woman, and that was Bella; that he never +had really cared for you and never would, and that divorce courts were +not unmitigated evils if they showed people the way to real happiness. +Which wouldn’t amount to anything if Harbison had not been in the tent, +trying to sleep!” + +Dal did not know all the particulars, but it seems that relations +between Jim and Mr. Harbison were rather strained. Bella had left the +roof and Jim and the Harbison man came face to face in the door of the +tent. According to Dal, little had been said, but Jim, bound by his +promise to me, could not explain, and could only stammer something about +being an old friend of Miss Knowles. And Tom had replied shortly that +it was none of his business, but that there were some things friendship +hardly justified, and tried to pass Jim. Jim was instantly enraged; he +blocked the door to the roof and demanded to know what the other man +meant. There were two or three versions of the answer he got. The +general purport was that Mr. Harbison had no desire to explain further, +and that the situation was forced on him. But if he insisted--when a man +systematically ignored and neglected his wife for some one else, there +were communities where he would be tarred and feathered. + +“Meaning me?” Jim demanded, apoplectic. + +“The remark was a general one,” Mr. Harbison retorted, “but if you wish +to make a concrete application--!” + +Dal had gone up just then, and found them glaring at each other, Jim +with his hands clenched at his sides, and Mr. Harbison with his arms +folded and very erect. Dal took Jim by the elbow and led him downstairs, +muttering, and the situation was saved for the time. But Dal was not +optimistic. + +“You can do a bit yourself, Kit,” he finished. “Look more cheerful, +flirt a little. You can do that without trying. Take Max on for a day or +so; it would be charity anyhow. But don’t let Tom Harbison take into his +head that you are grieving over Jim’s neglect, or he’s likely to toss +him off the roof.” + +“I have no reason to think that Mr. Harbison cares one way or the other +about me,” I said primly. “You don’t think he’s--he’s in love with me, +do you, Dal?” I watched him out of the corner of my eye, but he only +looked amused. + +“In love with you!” he repeated. “Why bless your wicked little heart, +no! He thinks you’re a married woman! It’s the principle of the thing +he’s fighting for. If I had as much principle as he has, I’d--I’d put it +out at interest.” + +Max interrupted us just then, and asked if we knew where Mr. Harbison +was. + +“Can’t find him,” he said. “I’ve got the telephone together and have +enough left over to make another. Where do you suppose Harbison hides +the tools? I’m working with a corkscrew and two palette knives.” + +I heard nothing more of the trouble that night. Max went to Jim about +it, and Jim said angrily that only a fool would interfere between a man +and his wife--wives. Whereupon Max retorted that a fool and his wives +were soon parted, and left him. The two principals were coldly civil +to each other, and smaller issues were lost as the famine grew more and +more insistent. For famine it was. + +They worked the rest of the evening, but the telephone refused to revive +and every one was starving. Individually our pride was at low ebb, but +collectively it was still formidable. So we sat around and Jim played +Grieg with the soft stops on, and Aunt Selina went to bed. The weather +had changed, and it was sleeting, but anything was better than the +drawing room. I was in a mood to battle with the elements or to cry--or +both--so I slipped out, while Dal was reciting “Give me three grains +of corn, mother,” threw somebody’s overcoat over my shoulders, put on a +man’s soft hat--Jim’s I think--and went up to the roof. + +It was dark in the third floor hall, and I had to feel my way to the +foot of the stairs. I went up quietly, and turned the knob of the door +to the roof. At first it would not open, and I could hear the wind +howling outside. Finally, however, I got the door open a little and +wormed my way through. It was not entirely dark out there, in spite of +the storm. A faint reflection of the street lights made it possible to +distinguish the outlines of the boxwood plants, swaying in the wind, and +the chimneys and the tent. And then--a dark figure disentangled itself +from the nearest chimney and seemed to hurl itself at me. I remember +putting out my hands and trying to say something, but the figure caught +me roughly by the shoulders and knocked me back against the door frame. +From miles away a heavy voice was saying, “So I’ve got you!” and then +the roof gave from under me, and I was floating out on the storm, and +sleet was beating in my face, and the wind was whispering over and over, +“Open your eyes, for God’s sake!” + +I did open them after a while, and finally I made out that I was laying +on the floor in the tent. The lights were on, and I had a cold and damp +feeling, and something wet was trickling down my neck. + +I seemed to be alone, but in a second somebody came into the tent, and I +saw it was Mr. Harbison, and that he had a double handful of half-melted +snow. He looked frantic and determined, and only my sitting up quickly +prevented my getting another snow bath. My neck felt queer and stiff, +and I was very dizzy. When he saw that I was conscious he dropped the +snow and stood looking down at me. + +“Do you know,” he said grimly, “that I very nearly choked you to death a +little while ago?” + +“It wouldn’t surprise me to be told so,” I said. “Do I know too much, or +what is it, Mr. Harbison?” I felt terribly ill, but I would not let him +see it. “It is queer, isn’t it--how we always select the roof for our +little--differences?” He seemed to relax somewhat at my gibe. + +“I didn’t know it was you,” he explained shortly. “I was waiting +for--some one, and in the hat you wore and the coat, I mistook you. +That’s all. Can you stand?” + +“No,” I retorted. I could, but his summary manner displeased me. The +sequel, however, was rather amazing, for he stooped suddenly and picked +me up, and the next instant we were out in the storm together. At the +door he stooped and felt for the knob. + +“Turn it,” he commanded. “I can’t reach it.” + +“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” I said shrewishly. “Let me down; I can +walk perfectly well.” + +He hesitated. Then he slid me slowly to my feet, but he did not open +the door at once. “Are you afraid to let me carry you down those stairs, +after--Tuesday night?” he asked, very low. “You still think I did that?” + +I had never been less sure of it than at that moment, but an imp of +perversity made me retort, “Yes.” + +He hardly seemed to hear me. He stood looking down at me as I leaned +against the door frame. + +“Good Lord!” he groaned. “To think that I might have killed you!” And +then--he stooped and suddenly kissed me. + +The next moment the door was open, and he was leading me down into the +house. At the foot of the staircase he paused, still holding my hand, +and faced me in the darkness. + +“I’m not sorry,” he said steadily. “I suppose I ought to be, but I’m +not. Only--I want you to know that I was not guilty--before. I didn’t +intend to now. I am--almost as much surprised as you are.” + +I was quite unable to speak, but I wrenched my hand loose. He stepped +back to let me pass, and I went down the hall alone. + + + +Chapter XVIII. IT’S ALL MY FAULT + +I didn’t go to the drawing room again. I went into my own room and sat +in the dark, and tried to be furiously angry, and only succeeded in +feeling queer and tingly. One thing was absolutely certain: not the same +man, but two different men had kissed me on the stairs to the roof. +It sounds rather horrid and discriminating, but there was all the +difference in the world. + +But then--who had? And for whom had Mr. Harbison been waiting on the +roof? “Did you know that I nearly choked you to death a few minutes +ago?” Then he rather expected to finish somebody in that way! Who? Jim, +probably. It was strange, too, but suddenly I realized that no matter +how many suspicious things I mustered up against him--and there were +plenty--down in my heart I didn’t believe him guilty of anything, except +this last and unforgivable offense. Whoever was trying to leave the +house had taken the necklace, that seemed clear, unless Max was still +foolishly trying to break quarantine and create one of the sensations he +so dearly loves. This was a new idea, and some things upheld it, but Max +had been playing bridge when I was kissed on the stairs, and there was +still left that ridiculous incident of the comfort. + +Bella came up after I had gone to bed, and turned on the light to brush +her hair. + +“If I don’t leave this mausoleum soon, I’ll be carried out,” she +declared. “You in bed, Lollie Mercer and Dal flirting, Anne hysterical, +and Jim making his will in the den! You will have to take Aunt Selina +tonight, Kit; I’m all in.” + +“If you’ll put her to bed, I’ll keep her there,” I conceded, after some +parley. + +“You’re a dear.” Bella came back from the door. “Look here, Kit, you +know Jim pretty well. Don’t you think he looks ill? Thinner?” + +“He’s a wreck,” I said soberly. “You have a lot to answer for, Bella.” + +Bella went over to the cheval glass and looked in it. “I avoid him all +I can,” she said, posing. “He’s awfully funny; he’s so afraid I’ll think +he’s serious about you. He can’t realize that for me he simply doesn’t +exist.” + +Well, I took Aunt Selina, and about two o’clock, while I was in my first +sleep, I woke to find her standing beside me, tugging at my arm. + +“There’s somebody in the house,” she whispered. “Thieves!” + +“If they’re in they’ll not get out tonight,” I said. + +“I tell you, I saw a man skulking on the stairs,” she insisted. + +I got up ungraciously enough, and put on my dressing gown. Aunt Selina, +who had her hair in crimps, tied a veil over her head, and together we +went to the head of the stairs. Aunt Selina leaned far over and peered +down. + +“He’s in the library,” she whispered. “I can see a light.” + +The lust of battle was in Aunt Selina’s eye. She girded her robe about +her and began to descend the stairs cautiously. We went through the hall +and stopped at the library door. It was empty, but from the den beyond +came a hum of voices and the cheerful glow of fire light. I realized the +situation then, but it was too late. + +“Then why did you kiss her in the dining room?” Bella was saying in her +clear, high tones. “You did, didn’t you?” + +“It was only her hand,” Jim, desperately explaining. “I’ve got to pay +her some attention, under the circumstances. And I give you my word, I +was thinking of you when I did it.” THE WRETCH! + +Aunt Selina drew her breath in suddenly. + +“I am thinking of marrying Reggie Wolfe.” This was Bella, of course. “He +wants me to. He’s a dear boy.” + +“If you do, I will kill him.” + +“I am so very lonely,” Bella sighed. We could hear the creak of Jim’s +shirt bosom that showed that he had sighed also. Aunt Selina had gripped +me by the arm, and I could hear her breathing hard beside me. + +“It’s only Jim,” I whispered. “I--I don’t want to hear any more.” + +But she clutched me firmly, and the next thing we heard was another +creak, louder and-- + +“Get up! Get up off your knees this instant!” Bella was saying +frantically. “Some one might come in.” + +“Don’t send me away,” Jim said in a smothered voice. “Every one in the +house is asleep, and I love you, dear.” + +Aunt Selina swallowed hard in the darkness. + +“You have no right to make love to me,” Bella. “It’s--it’s highly +improper, under the circumstances.” + +And then Jim: “You swallow a camel and stick at a gnat. Why did you meet +me here, if you didn’t expect me to make love to you? I’ve stood for +a lot, Bella, but this foolishness will have to end. Either you love +me--or you don’t. I’m desperate.” He drew a long, forlorn breath. + +“Poor old Jim!” This was Bella. A pause. Then--“Let my hand alone!” Also +Bella. + +“It is MY hand!”--Jim’s most fatuous tone. “THERE is where you wore +my ring. There’s the mark still.” Sounds of Jim kissing Bella’s ring +finger. “What did you do with it? Throw it away?” More sounds. + +Aunt Selina crossed the library swiftly, and again I followed. Bella +was sitting in a low chair by the fire, looking at the logs, in the most +exquisite negligee of pink chiffon and ribbon. Jim was on his knees, +staring at her adoringly, and holding both her hands. + +“I’ll tell you a secret,” Bella was saying, looking as coy as she knew +how--which was considerable. “I--I still wear it, on a chain around my +neck.” + +On a chain around her neck! Bella, who is decollete whenever it is +allowable, and more than is proper! + +That was the limit of Aunt Selina’s endurance. Still holding me, she +stepped through the doorway and into the firelight, a fearful figure. + +Jim saw her first. He went quite white and struggled to get up, +smiling a sickly smile. Bella, after her first surprise, was superbly +indifferent. She glanced at us, raised her eyebrows, and then looked at +the clock. + +“More victims of insomnia!” she said. “Won’t you come in? Jim, pull up a +chair by the fire for your aunt.” + +Aunt Selina opened her mouth twice, like a fish, before she could speak. +Then-- + +“James, I demand that that woman leave the house!” she said hoarsely. + +Bella leaned back and yawned. + +“James, shall I go?” she asked amiably. + +“Nonsense,” Jim said, pulling himself together as best he could. “Look +here, Aunt Selina, you know she can’t go out, and what’s more, I--don’t +want her to go.” + +“You--what?” Aunt Selina screeched, taking a step forward. “You have the +audacity to say such a thing to me!” + +Bella leaned over and gave the fire log a punch. + +“I was just saying that he shouldn’t say such things to me, either,” + she remarked pleasantly. “I’m afraid you’ll take cold, Miss Caruthers. +Wouldn’t you like a hot sherry flip?” + +Aunt Selina gasped. Then she sat down heavily on one of the carved +teakwood chairs. + +“He said he loved you; I heard him,” she said weakly. “He--he was going +to put his arm around you!” + +“Habit!” Jim put in, trying to smile. “You see, Aunt Selina, it’s--well, +it’s a habit I got into some time ago, and I--my arm does it without my +thinking about it.” + +“Habit!” Aunt Selina repeated, her voice thick with passion. Then she +turned to me. “Go to your room at once!” she said in her most awful +tone. “Go to your room and leave this--this shocking affair to me.” + +But if she had reached her limit, so had I. If Jim chose to ruin +himself, it was not my fault. Any one with common sense would have known +at least to close the door before he went down on his knees, no matter +to whom. So when Aunt Selina turned on me and pointed in the direction +of the staircase, I did not move. + +“I am perfectly wide awake,” I said coldly. “I shall go to bed when I am +entirely ready, and not before. And as for Jim’s conduct, I do not know +much about the conventions in such cases, but if he wishes to embrace +Miss Knowles, and she wants him to, the situation is interesting, but +hardly novel.” + +Aunt Selina rose slowly and drew the folds of her dressing gown around +her, away from the contamination of my touch. + +“Do you know what you are saying?” she demanded hoarsely. + +“I do.” I was quite white and stiff from my knees up, but below I +was wavery. I glanced at Jim for moral support, but he was looking +idolatrously at Bella. As for her, quite suddenly she had dropped her +mask of indifference; her face was strained and anxious, and there were +deep circles I had not seen before, under her eyes. And it was Bella who +finally threw herself into the breach--the family breach. + +“It is all my fault, Miss Caruthers,” she said, stepping between Aunt +Selina and myself. “I have been a blind and wicked woman, and I have +almost wrecked two lives.” + +Two! What of mine? + +“You see,” she struggled on, against the glint in Aunt Selina’s eyes. +“I--I did not realize how much I cared, until it was too late. I did so +many things that were cruel and wrong--oh, Jim, Jim!” + +She turned and buried her head on his shoulder and cried; real tears. I +could hardly believe that it was Bella. And Jim put both his arms around +her and almost cried, too, and looked nauseatingly happy with the eye +he turned to Bella, and scared to death out of the one he kept on Aunt +Selina. + +She turned on me, as of course I knew she would. + +“That,” she said, pointing at Jim and Bella, “that shameful picture +is due to your own indifference. I am not blind; I have seen how you +rejected all his loving advances.” Bella drew away from Jim, but +he jerked her back. “If anything in the world would reconcile me to +divorce, it is this unbelievable situation. James, are you shameless?” + +But James was and didn’t care who knew it. And as there was nothing else +to do, and no one else to do it, I stood very straight against the door +frame, and told the whole miserable story from the very beginning. I +told how Dal and Jim had persuaded me, and how I had weakened and found +it was too late, and how Bella had come in that night, when she had no +business to come, and had sat down in the basement kitchen on my hands +and almost turned me into a raving maniac. As I went on I became fluent; +my sense of injury grew on me. I made it perfectly clear that I hated +them all, and that when people got divorces they ought to know their own +minds and stay divorced. And at that a great light broke on Aunt Selina, +who hadn’t understood until that minute. + +In view of her principles, she might have been expected to turn on Jim +and Bella, and disinherit them, and cast them out, figuratively, with +the flaming sword of her tongue. BUT SHE DID NOT! + +She turned on me in the most terrible way, and asked me how I dared to +come between husband and wife, because divorce or no divorce, whom God +hath joined together, and so on. And when Jim picked up his courage in +both hands and tried to interfere, she pushed him back with one hand +while she pointed the other at me and called me a Jezebel. + + + +Chapter XIX. THE HARBISON MAN + +She talked for an hour, having got between me and the door, and she +scolded Jim and Bella thoroughly. But they did not hear it, being +occupied with each other, sitting side by side meekly on the divan with +Jim holding Bella’s hand under a cushion. She said they would have to be +very good to make up for all the deception, but it was perfectly +clear that it was a relief to her to find that I didn’t belong to her +permanently, and as I have said before, she was crazy about Bella. + +I sat back in a chair and grew comfortably drowsy in the monotony of her +voice. It was a name that brought me to myself with a jerk. + +“Mr. Harbison!” Aunt Selina was saying. “Then bring him down at once, +James. I want no more deception. There is no use cleaning a house and +leaving a dirty corner.” + +“It will not be necessary for me to stay and see it swept,” I said, +mustering the rags she had left of my self-respect, and trying to pass +her. But she planted herself squarely before me. + +“You can not stir up a dust like this, young woman, and leave other +people to sneeze in it,” she said grimly. And I stayed. + +I sat, very small, on a chair in a corner. I felt like Jezebel, or +whatever her name was, and now the Harbison man was coming, and he +was going to see me stripped of my pretensions to domesticity and of a +husband who neglected me. He was going to see me branded a living lie, +and he would hate me because I had put him in a ridiculous position. He +was just the sort to resent being ridiculous. + +Jim brought him down in a dressing gown and a state of bewilderment. +It was plain that the memory of the afternoon still rankled, for he was +very short with Jim and inclined to resent the whole thing. The clock +in the hall chimed half after three as they came down the stairs, and I +heard Mr. Harbison stumble over something in the darkness and say that +if it was a joke, he wasn’t in the humor for it. To which Jim retorted +that it wasn’t anything resembling a joke, and for heaven’s sake not to +walk on his feet; he couldn’t get around the furniture any faster. + +At the door of the den Mr. Harbison stopped, blinking in the light. +Then, when he saw us, he tried to back himself and his dishabille out +into the obscurity of the library. But Aunt Selina was too quick for +him. + +“Come in,” she called, “I want you, young man. It seems that there are +only two fools in the house, and you are one.” + +He straightened at that and looked bewildered, but he tried to smile. + +“I thought I was the only one,” he said. “Is it possible that there is +another?” + +“I am the other,” she announced. I think she expected him to say +“Impossible,” but, whatever he was, he was never banal. + +“Is that so?” he asked politely, trying to be interested and to +understand at the same time. He had not seen me. He was gazing fixedly +at Bella, languishing on the divan and watching him with lowered lids, +and he had given Jim a side glance of contempt. But now he saw me and +he colored under his tan. His neck blushed furiously, being much whiter +than his face. He kept his eyes on mine, and I knew that he was mutely +asking forgiveness. But the thought of what was coming paralyzed me. My +eyes were glued to his as they had been that first evening when he had +called me “Mrs. Wilson,” and after an instant he looked away, and his +face was set and hard. + +“It seems that we have all been playing a little comedy, Mr. Harbison,” + Aunt Selina began, nasally sarcastic. “Or rather, you and I have been +the audience. The rest have played.” + +“I--I don’t think I understand,” he said slowly. “I have seen very +little comedy.” + +“It was not well planned,” Aunt Selina retorted tartly. “The idea +was good, but the young person who was playing the part of Mrs. +Wilson--overacted.” + +“Oh, come, Aunt Selina,” Jim protested, “Kit was coaxed and cajoled into +this thing. Give me fits if you like; I deserve all I get. But let Kit +alone--she did it for me.” + +Bella looked over at me and smiled nastily. + +“I would stop doing things for Jim, Kit,” she said. “It is SO +unprofitable.” + +But Mr. Harbison harked back to Aunt Selina’s speech. + +“PLAYING the part of Mrs. Wilson!” he repeated. “Do you mean--?” + +“Exactly. Playing the part. She is not Mrs. Wilson. It seems that that +honor belonged at one time to Miss Knowles. I believe such things are +not unknown in New York, only why in the name of sense does a man want +to divorce a woman and then meet her at two o’clock in the morning to +kiss the place where his own wedding ring used to rest?” + +Jim fidgeted. Bella was having spasms of mirth to herself, but the +Harbison man did not smile. He stood for a moment looking at the fire; +then he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his dressing gown, and +stalked over to me. He did not care that the others were watching and +listening. + +“Is it true?” he demanded, staring down at me. “You are NOT Mrs. Wilson? +You are not married at all? All that about being neglected--and loathing +HIM, and all that on the roof--there was no foundation of truth?” + +I could only shake my head without looking up. There was no defense to +be made. Oh, I deserved the scorn in his voice. + +“They--they persuaded you, I suppose, and it was to help somebody? It +was not a practical joke?” + +“No,” I rallied a little spirit at that. It had been anything but a +joke. + +He drew a long breath. + +“I think I understand,” he said slowly, “but--you could have saved me +something. I must have given you all a great deal of amusement.” + +“Oh, no,” I protested. “I--I want to tell you--” + +But he deliberately left me and went over to the door. There he turned +and looked down at Aunt Selina. He was a little white, but there was no +passion in his face. + +“Thank you for telling me all this, Miss Caruthers,” he said easily. +“Now that you and I know, I’m afraid the others will miss their little +diversion. Good night.” + +Oh, it was all right for Jim to laugh and say that he was only huffed +a little and would be over it by morning. I knew better. There was +something queer in his face as he went out. He did not even glance in my +direction. He had said very little, but he had put me as effectually in +the wrong as if he had not kissed me--deliberately kissed me--that very +evening, on the roof. + +I did not go to sleep again. I lay wretchedly thinking things over and +trying to remember who Jezebel was, and toward morning I distinctly +heard the knob of the door turn. I mistrusted my ears, however, and so +I got up quietly and went over in the darkness. There was no sound +outside, but when I put my hand on the knob I felt it move under my +fingers. The counter pressure evidently alarmed whoever it was, for the +knob was released and nothing more happened. But by this time anything +so uncomplicated as the fumbling of a knob at night had no power to +disturb me. I went back to bed. + + + +Chapter XX. BREAKING OUT IN A NEW PLACE + +Hunger roused everybody early the next morning, Friday. Leila Mercer had +discovered a box of bonbons that she had forgotten, and we divided them +around. Aunt Selina asked for the candied fruit and got it--quite a +third of the box. We gathered in the lower hall and on the stairs and +nibbled nauseating sweets while Mr. Harbison examined the telephone. + +He did not glance in my direction. Betty and Dal were helping him, and +he seemed very cheerful. Max sat with me on the stairs. Mr. Harbison had +just unscrewed the telephone box from the wall and was squinting into +it, when Bella came downstairs. It was her first appearance, but as she +was always late, nobody noticed. When she stopped, just above us on +the stairs, however, we looked up, and she was holding to the rail and +trembling perceptibly. + +“Mr. Harbison, will you--can you come upstairs?” she asked. Her voice +was strained, almost reedy, and her lips were white. + +Mr. Harbison stared up at her, with the telephone box in his hands. + +“Why--er--certainly,” he said, “but, unless it’s very important, I’d +like to fix this talking machine. We want to make a food record.” + +“I’d like to break a food record,” Max put in, but Bella created a +diversion by sitting down suddenly on the stair just above us, and +burying her face in her handkerchief. + +“Jim is sick,” she said, with a sob. “He--he doesn’t want anything to +eat, and his head aches. He--said for me--to go away and let him die!” + +Dal dropped the hammer immediately, and Lollie Mercer sat petrified, +with a bonbon halfway to her mouth. For, of course, it was unexpected, +finding sentiment of any kind in Bella, and none of them knew about the +scene in the den in the small hours of the morning. + +“Sick!” Aunt Selina said, from a hall chair. “Sick! Where?” + +“All over,” Bella quavered. “His poor head is hot, and he’s thirsty, but +he doesn’t want anything but water.” + +“Great Scott!” Dal said suddenly. “Suppose he should--Bella, are you +telling us ALL his symptoms?” + +Bella put down her handkerchief and got up. From her position on the +stairs she looked down on us with something of her old haughty manner. + +“If he is ill, you may blame yourselves, all of you,” she said cruelly. +“You taunted him with being--fat, and laughed at him, until he stopped +eating the things he should eat. And he has been exercising--on the +roof, until he has worn himself out. And now--he is ill. He--he has a +rash.” + +Everybody jumped at that, and we instinctively moved away from Bella. +She was quite cold and scornful by that time. + +“A rash!” Max exclaimed. “What sort of rash?” + +“I did not see it,” Bella said with dignity, and turning, she went up +the stairs. + +There was a great deal of excitement, and nobody except Mr. Harbison was +willing to go near Jim. He went up at once with Bella, while Max and Dal +sat cravenly downstairs and wondered if we would all take it, and Anne +told about a man she knew who had it, and was deaf and dumb and blind +when he recovered. + +Mr. Harbison came down after a while, and said that the rash was there, +right enough, and that Jim absolutely refused to be quarantined; that he +insisted that he always got a rash from early strawberries and that if +he DID have anything, since they were so touchy he hoped they would all +get it. If they locked him in he would kick the door down. + +We had a long conference in the hall, with Bella sitting red-eyed and +objecting to every suggestion we made. And finally we arranged to +shut Jim up in one of the servants’ bedrooms with a sheet wrung out of +disinfectant hung over the door. Bella said she would sit outside in +the hall and read to him through the closed door, so finally he gave +a grudging consent. But he was in an awful humor. Max and Dal put on +rubber gloves and helped him over, and they said afterward that the way +he talked was fearful. And there was a telephone in the maid’s room, and +he kept asking for things every five minutes. + +When the doctor came he said it was too early to tell positively, and he +ordered him liquid diet and said he would be back that evening. + +Which--the diet--takes me back to the famine. After they had moved Jim, +Mr. Harbison went back to the telephone, and found everything as it +should be. So he followed the telephone wire, and the rest followed him. +I did not; he had systematically ignored me all morning, after having +dared to kiss me the night before. And any other man I know, after +looking at me the way he had looked a dozen times, would have been at +least reasonably glad to find me free and unmarried. But it was clear +that he was not; I wondered if he was the kind of man who always makes +love to the other man’s wife and runs like mad when she is left a widow, +or gets a divorce. + +And just when I had decided that I hated him, and that there was one man +I knew who would never make love to a woman whom he thought married and +then be very dignified and aloof when he found she wasn’t, I heard what +was wrong with the telephone wire. + +It had been cut! Cut through with a pair of silver manicure scissors +from the dressing table in Bella’s room, where Aunt Selina slept! The +wire had been clipped where it came into the house, just under a window, +and the scissors still lay on the sill. + +It was mysterious enough, but no one was interested in the mystery just +then. We wanted food, and wanted it at once. Mr. Harbison fixed the +wire, and the first thing we did, of course, was to order something to +eat. Aunt Selina went to bed just after luncheon with indigestion, to +the relief of every one in the house. She had been most unpleasant all +morning. + +When she found herself ill, however, she insisted on having Bella, and +that made trouble at once. We found Bella with her cheek against the +door into Jim’s room, looking maudlin while he shouted love messages to +her from the other side. At first she refused to stir, but after Anne +and Max had tried and failed, the rest of us went to her in a body and +implored her. We said Aunt Selina was in awful shape--which she was, as +to temper--and that she had thrown a mustard plaster at Anne, which was +true. + +So Bella went, grumbling, and Jim was a maniac. We had not thought it +would be so bad for Bella, but Aunt Selina fell asleep soon after she +took charge, holding Bella’s hand, and slept for three hours and never +let go! + +About two that afternoon the sun came out, and the rest of us went +to the roof. The sleet had melted and the air was fairly warm. Two +housemaids dusting rugs on the top of the next house came over and +stared at us, and somebody in an automobile down on Riverside Drive +stood up and waved at us. It was very cheerful and hopelessly lonely. + +I stayed on the roof after the others had gone, and for some time I +thought I was alone. After a while, I got a whiff of smoke, and then +I saw Mr. Harbison far over in the corner, one foot on the parapet, +moodily smoking a pipe. He was gazing out over the river, and paying no +attention to me. This was natural, considering that I had hardly spoken +to him all day. + +I would not let him drive me away, so I sat still, and it grew darker +and colder. He filled his pipe now and then, but he never looked in my +direction. Finally, however, as it grew very dusk, he knocked the ashes +out and came toward me. + +“I am going to make a request, Miss McNair,” he said evenly. “Please +keep off the roof after sunset. There are--reasons.” I had risen and was +preparing to go downstairs. + +“Unless I know the reasons, I refuse to do anything of the kind,” I +retorted. He bowed. + +“Then the door will be kept locked,” he rejoined, and opened it for me. +He did not follow me, but stood watching until I was down, and I heard +him close the roof door firmly behind me. + + + +Chapter XXI. A BAR OF SOAP + +Late that evening Betty Mercer and Dallas were writing verses of +condolence to be signed by all of us and put under the door into Jim’s +room when Bella came running down the stairs. + +Dal was reading the first verse when she came. “Listen to this, Bella,” + he said triumphantly: + + “There was a fat artist named Jas, + Who cruelly called his friends nas. + When, altho’ shut up tight, + He broke out over night + With a rash that is maddening, he clas.” + +Then he caught sight of Bella’s face as she stood in the doorway, and +stopped. + +“Jim is delirious!” she announced tragically. “You shut him in there all +alone and now he’s delirious. I’ll never forgive any of you.” + +“Delirious!” everybody exclaimed. + +“He was sane enough when I took him his chicken broth,” Mr. Harbison +said. “He was almost fluent.” + +“He is stark, staring crazy,” Bella insisted hysterically. “I--I locked +the door carefully when I went down to my dinner, and when I came up +it--it was unlocked, and Jim was babbling on the bed, with a sheet over +his face. He--he says the house is haunted and he wants all the men to +come up and sit in the room with him.” + +“Not on your life,” Max said. “I am young, and my career has only begun. +I don’t intend to be cut off in the flower of my youth. But I’ll tell +you what I will do; I’ll take him a drink. I can tie it to a pole or +something.” + +But Mr. Harbison did not smile. He was thoughtful for a minute. Then: + +“I don’t believe he is delirious,” he said quietly, “and I wouldn’t +be surprised if he has happened on something that--will be of general +interest. I think I will stay with him tonight.” + +After that, of course, none of the others would confess that he was +afraid, so with the South American leading, they all went upstairs. The +women of the party sat on the lower steps and listened, but everything +was quiet. Now and then we could hear the sound of voices, and after +a while there was a rapid slamming of doors and the sound of some one +running down to the second floor. Then quiet again. + +None of us felt talkative. Bella had followed the men up and had been +put out, and sat sniffling by herself in the den. Aunt Selina was +working over a jig-saw puzzle in the library, and declaring that some of +it must be lost. Anne and Leila Mercer were embroidering, and Betty and +I sat idle, our hands in our laps. The whole atmosphere of the house +was mysterious. Anne told over again of the strange noises the night +her necklace was stolen. Betty asked me about the time when the comfort +slipped from under my fingers. And when, in the midst of the story, the +telephone rang, we all jumped and shrieked. + +In an hour or so they sent for Flannigan, and he went upstairs. He came +down again soon, however, and returned with something over his arm that +looked like a rope. It seemed to be made of all kinds of things tied +together, trunk straps, clothesline, bed sheets, and something that +Flannigan pointed to with rage and said he hadn’t been able to keep his +clothes on all day. He refused to explain further, however, and trailed +the nondescript article up the stairs. We could only gaze after him and +wonder what it all meant. + +The conclave lasted far into the night. The feminine contingent went to +bed, but not to sleep. Some time after midnight, Mr. Harbison and Max +went downstairs and I could hear them rattling around testing windows +and burglar alarms. But finally every one settled down and the rest of +the night was quiet. + +Betty Mercer came into my room the next morning, Sunday, and said Anne +Brown wanted me. I went over at once, and Anne was sitting up in bed, +crying. Dal had slipped out of the room at daylight, she said, and +hadn’t come back. He had thought she was asleep, but she wasn’t, and +she knew he was dead, for nothing ever made Dal get up on Sunday before +noon. + +There was no one moving in the house, and I hardly knew what to do. It +was Betty who said she would go up and rouse Mr. Harbison and Max, who +had taken Jim’s place in the studio. She started out bravely enough, but +in a minute we heard her flying back. Anne grew perfectly white. + +“He’s lying on the upper stairs!” Betty cried, and we all ran out. It +was quite true. Dal was lying on the stairs in a bathrobe, with one of +Jim’s Indian war clubs in his hand. And he was sound asleep. + +He looked somewhat embarrassed when he roused and saw us standing +around. He said he was going to play a practical joke on somebody +and fell asleep in the middle of it. And Anne said he wasn’t even an +intelligent liar, and went back to bed in a temper. But Betty came in +with me, and we sat and looked at each other and didn’t say much. The +situation was beyond us. + +The doctor let Jim out the next day, there having been nothing the +matter with him but a stomach rash. But Jim was changed; he mooned +around Bella, of course, as before, but he was abstracted at times, and +all that day--Sunday--he wandered off by himself, and one would come +across him unexpectedly in the basement or along some of the unused back +halls. + +Aunt Selina held service that morning. Jim said that he always had a +prayer book, but that he couldn’t find anything with so many people +in the house. So Aunt Selina read some religious poetry out of the +newspapers, and gave us a valuable talk on Deception versus Honesty, +with me as the illustration. + +Almost everybody took a nap after luncheon. I stayed in the den and read +Ibsen, and felt very mournful. And after Hedda had shot herself, I lay +down on the divan and cried a little--over Hedda; she was young and it +was such a tragic ending--and then I fell asleep. + +When I wakened Mr. Harbison was standing by the table, and he held +my book in his hands. In view of the armed neutrality between us, I +expected to see him bow to me curtly, turn on his heel and leave the +room. Indeed, considering his state of mind the night before, I should +hardly have been surprised if he had thrown Hedda at my head. (This is +not a pun. I detest them.) But instead, when he heard me move he glanced +over at me and even smiled a little. + +“She wasn’t worth it,” he said, indicating the book. + +“Worth what?” + +“Your tears. You were crying over it, weren’t you?” + +“She was very unhappy,” I asserted indifferently. “She was married and +she loved some one else.” + +“Do you really think she did?” he asked. “And even so, was that a +reason?” + +“The other man cared for her; he may not have been able to help it.” + +“But he knew that she was married,” he said virtuously, and then he +caught my eye and he saw the analogy instantly, for he colored hotly and +put down the book. + +“Most men argue that way,” I said. “They argue by the book, and--they do +as they like.” + +He picked up a Japanese ivory paper weight from the table, and stood +balancing it across his finger. + +“You are perfectly right,” he said at last. “I deserve it all. My +grievance is at myself. Your--your beauty, and the fact that I thought +you were unhappy, put me--beside myself. It is not an excuse; it is a +weak explanation. I will not forget myself again.” + +He was as abject as any one could have wished. It was my minute of +triumph, but I can not pretend that I was happy. Evidently it had been +only a passing impulse. If he had really cared, now that he knew I +was free, he would have forgotten himself again at once. Then a new +explanation occurred to me. Suppose it had been Bella all the time, and +the real shock had been to find that she had been married! + +“The fault of the situation was really mine,” I said magnanimously; +“I quite blame myself. Only, you must believe one thing. You never +furnished us any amusement.” I looked at him sidewise. “The discovery +that Bella and Jim were once married must have been a great shock.” + +“It was a surprise,” he replied evenly. His voice and his eyes were +inscrutable. He returned my glance steadily. It was infuriating to have +gone half-way to meet him, as I had, and then to find him intrenched in +his self-sufficiency again. I got up. + +“It is unfortunate that our acquaintance has begun so unfavorably,” I +remarked, preparing to pass him. “Under other circumstances we might +have been friends.” + +“There is only one solace,” he said. “When we do not have friends, we +can not lose them.” + +He opened the door to let me pass out, and as our eyes met, all the +coldness died out of his. He held out his hand, but I was hurt. I +refused to see it. + +“Kit!” he said unsteadily. “I--I’m an obstinate, pig-headed brute. I am +sorry. Can’t we be friends, after all?” + +“‘When we do not have friends we can not lose them,’” I replied with +cool malice. And the next instant the door closed behind me. + +It was that night that the really serious event of the quarantine +occurred. + +We were gathered in the library, and everybody was deadly dull. Aunt +Selina said she had been reared to a strict observance of the Sabbath, +and she refused to go to bed early. The cards and card tables were put +away and every one sat around and quarreled and was generally nasty, +except Bella and Jim, who had gone into the den just after dinner and +firmly closed the door. + +I think it was just after Max proposed to me. Yes, he proposed to me +again that night. He said that Jim’s illness had decided him; that any +of us might take sick and die, shut in that contaminated atmosphere, and +that if he did he wanted it all settled. And whether I took him or not +he wanted me to remember him kindly if anything happened. I really +hated to refuse him--he was in such deadly earnest. But it was quite +unnecessary for him to have blamed his refusal, as he did, on Mr. +Harbison. I am sure I had refused him plenty of times before I had +ever heard of the man. Yes, it was just after he proposed to me that +Flannigan came to the door and called Mr. Harbison out into the hall. + +Flannigan--like most of the people in the house--always went to Mr. +Harbison when there was anything to be done. He openly adored him, +and--what was more--he did what Mr. Harbison ordered without a word, +while the rest of us had to get down on our knees and beg. + +Mr. Harbison went out, muttering something about a storm coming up, and +seeing that the tent was secure. Betty Mercer went with him. She had +been at his heels all evening, and called him “Tom” on every possible +occasion. Indeed, she made no secret of it; she said that she was mad +about him, and that she would love to live in South America, and have +an Indian squaw for a lady’s maid, and sit out on the veranda in the +evenings and watch the Southern Cross shooting across the sky, and eat +tropical food from the quaint Indian pottery. She was not even daunted +when Dal told her the Southern Cross did not shoot, and that the food +was probably canned corn on tin dishes. + +So Betty went with him. She wore a pale yellow dinner gown, with just a +sophisticated touch of black here and there, and cut modestly square in +the neck. Her shoulders are scrawny. And after they were gone--not her +shoulders; Mr. Harbison and she--Aunt Selina announced that the next day +was Monday, that she had only a week’s supply of clothing with her, and +that no policeman who ever swung a mace should wash her undergarments +for her. + +She paused a moment, but nobody offered to do it. Anne was reading De +Maupassant under cover of a table, and the rest pretended not to hear. +After a pause, Aunt Selina got up heavily and went upstairs, coming down +soon after with a bundle covered with a green shawl, and with a white +balbriggan stocking trailing from an opening in it. She paused at the +library door, surveyed the inmates, caught my unlucky eye and beckoned +to me with a relentless forefinger. + +“We can put them to soak tonight,” she confided to me, “and tomorrow +they will be quite simple to do. There is no lace to speak of”--Dal +raised his eyebrows--“and very little flouncing.” + +Aunt Selina and I went to the laundry. It never occurred to any one that +Bella should have gone; she had stepped into all my privileges--such as +they were--and assumed none of my obligations. Aunt Selina and I went to +the laundry. + +It is strange what big things develop from little ones. In this case it +was a bar of soap. And if Flannigan had used as much soap as he should +have instead of washing up the kitchen floor with cold dish water, it +would have developed sooner. The two most unexpected events of the whole +quarantine occurred that night at the same time, one on the roof and one +in the cellar. The cellar one, although curious, was not so serious as +the other, so it comes first. + +Aunt Selina put her clothes in a tub in the laundry and proceeded +to dress them like a vegetable. She threw in a handful of salt, some +kerosene oil and a little ammonia. The result was villainous, but after +she tasted it--or snuffed it--she said it needed a bar of soap cut up to +give it strength--or flavor--and I went into the store room for it. + +The laundry soap was in a box. I took in a silver fork, for I hated to +touch the stuff, and jabbed a bar successfully in the semi-darkness. +Then I carried it back to the laundry and dropped it on the table. Aunt +Selina looked at the fork with disgust; then we both looked at the soap. +ONE SIDE OF IT WAS COVERED WITH ROUND HOLES THAT CURVED AROUND ON EACH +OTHER LIKE A COILED SNAKE. + +I ran back to the store room, and there, a little bit sticky and +smelling terribly of rosin, lay Anne’s pearl necklace! + +I was so excited that I seized Aunt Selina by the hands and danced her +all over the place. Then I left her, trying to find her hair pins on the +floor, and ran up to tell the others. I met Betty in the hall and waved +the pearls at her. But she did not notice them. + +“Is Mr. Harbison down there?” she asked breathlessly. “I left him on the +roof and went down to my room for my scarf, and when I went back he +had disappeared. He--he doesn’t seem to be in the house.” She tried +to laugh, but her voice was shaky. “He couldn’t have got down without +passing me, anyhow,” she supplemented. “I suppose I’m silly, but so many +queer things have happened, Kit.” + +“I wouldn’t worry, Betty,” I soothed her. “He is big enough to take care +of himself. And with the best intentions in the world, you can’t have +him all the time, you know.” + +She was too much startled to be indignant. She followed me into the +library, where the sight of the pearls produced a tremendous excitement, +and then every one had to go down to the store room, and see where the +necklace had been hidden, and Max examined all the bars of soap for +thumb prints. + +Mr. Harbison did not appear. Max commented on the fact caustically, +but Dal hushed him up. And so, Anne hugging her pearls, and Aunt Selina +having put a final seasoning of washing powder on the clothes in the +tub, we all went upstairs to bed. It had been a long day, and the +morning would at least bring bridge. + +I was almost ready for bed when Jim tapped at my door. I had been very +cool to him since the night in the library when I was publicly staked +and martyred, and he was almost cringing when I opened the door. + +“What is it now?” I asked cruelly. “Has Bella tired of it already, or +has somebody else a rash?” + +“Don’t be a shrew, Kit,” he said. “I don’t want you to do anything. I +only--when did you see Harbison last?” + +“If you mean ‘last,’” I retorted, “I’m afraid I haven’t seen the last of +him yet.” Then I saw that he was really worried. “Betty was leading him +to the roof,” I added. “Why? Is he missing?” + +“He isn’t anywhere in the house. Dal and I have been over every inch +of it.” Max had come up, in a dressing gown, and was watching me +insolently. + +“I think we have seen the last of him,” he said. “I’m sorry, Kit, to nip +the little romance in the bud. The fellow was crazy about you--there’s +no doubt of it. But I’ve been watching him from the beginning, and I +think I’m upheld. Whether he went down the water spout, or across a +board to the next house--” + +“I--I dislike him intensely,” I said angrily, “but you would not dare to +say that to his face. He could strangle you with one hand.” + +Max laughed disagreeably. + +“Well, I only hope he is gone,” he threw at me over his shoulder, “I +wouldn’t want to be responsible to your father if he had stayed.” I was +speechless with wrath. + +They went away then, and I could hear them going over the house. At +one o’clock Jim went up to bed, the last, and Mr. Harbison had not been +found. I did not see how they could go to bed at all. If he had escaped, +then Max was right and the whole thing was heart-breaking. And if he had +not, then he might be lying-- + +I got up and dressed. + +The early part of the night had been cloudy, but when I got to the roof +it was clear starlight. The wind blew through the electric wires +strung across and set them singing. The occasional bleat of a belated +automobile on the drive below came up to me raucously. The tent gleamed, +a starlit ghost of itself, and the boxwoods bent in the breeze. I went +over to the parapet and leaned my elbows on it. I had done the +same thing so often before; I had carried all my times of stress so +infallibly to that particular place, that instinctively my feet turned +there. + +And there in the starlight, I went over the whole serio-comedy, and I +loathed my part in it. He had been perfectly right to be angry with me +and with all of us. And I had been a hypocrite and a Pharisee, and had +thanked God that I was not as other people, when the fact was that I was +worse than the worst. And although it wasn’t dignified to think of him +going down the drain pipe, still--no one could blame him for wanting to +get away from us, and he was quite muscular enough to do it. + +I was in the depths of self-abasement when I heard a sound behind me. It +was a long breath, quite audible, that ended in a groan. I gripped the +parapet and listened, while my heart pounded, and in a minute it came +again. + +I was terribly frightened. Then--I don’t know how I did it, but I was +across the roof, kneeling beside the tent, where it stood against +the chimney. And there, lying prone among the flower pots, and almost +entirely hidden, lay the man we had been looking for. + +His head was toward me, and I reached out shakingly and touched his +face. It was cold, and my hand, when I drew it back, was covered with +blood. + + + +Chapter XXII. IT WAS DELIRIUM + +I was sure he was dead. He did not move, and when I caught his hands and +called him frantically, he did not hear me. And so, with the horror over +me, I half fell down the stairs and roused Jim in the studio. + +They all came with lights and blankets, and they carried him into the +tent and put him on the couch and tried to put whisky in his mouth. But +he could not swallow. And the silence became more and more ominous until +finally Anne got hysterical and cried, “He is dead! Dead!” and collapsed +on the roof. + +But he was not. Just as the lights in the tent began to have red rings +around them and Jim’s voice came from away across the river, somebody +said, “There, he swallowed that,” and soon after, he opened his eyes. He +muttered something that sounded like “Andean pinnacle” and lapsed into +unconsciousness again. But he was not dead! He was not dead! + +When the doctor came they made a stretcher out of one of Jim’s six-foot +canvases--it had a picture on it, and Jim was angry enough the next +day--and took him down to the studio. We made it as much like a +sick-room as we could, and we tried to make him comfortable. But he lay +without opening his eyes, and at dawn the doctor brought a consultant +and a trained nurse. + +The nurse was an offensively capable person. She put us all out, and +scolded Anne for lighting Japanese incense in the room--although Anne +explained that it is very reviving. And she said that it was unnecessary +to have a dozen people breathing up all the oxygen and asphyxiating +the patient. She was good-looking, too. I disliked her at once. Any +one could see by the way she took his pulse--just letting his poor hand +hang, without any support--that she was a purely mechanical creature, +without heart. + +Well, as I said before, she put us all out, and shut the door, and asked +us not to whisper outside. Then, too, she refused to allow any flowers +in the room, although Betty had got a florist out of bed to order some. + +The consultant came, stayed an hour, and left. Aunt Selina, who proved +herself a trump in that trying time, waylaid him in the hall, and +he said it might be a fractured skull, although it was possibly only +concussion. + +The men spent most of the morning together in the den, with the door +shut. Now and then one of them would tiptoe upstairs, ask the nurse how +her patient was doing, and creak down again. Just before noon they all +went to the roof and examined again the place where he had been found. +I know, for I was in the upper hall outside the studio. I stayed there +almost all day, and after a while the nurse let me bring her things as +she needed them. I don’t know why mother didn’t let me study nursing--I +always wanted to do it. And I felt helpless and childish now, when there +were things to be done. + +Max came down from the roof alone, and I cornered him in the upper hall. + +“I’m going crazy, Max,” I said. “Nobody will tell me anything, and I +can’t stand it. How was he hurt? Who hurt him?” + +Max looked at me quite a long time. + +“I’m darned if I understand you, Kit,” he said gravely. “You said you +disliked Harbison.” + +“So I do--I did,” I supplemented. “But whether I like him or not has +nothing to do with it. He has been injured--perhaps murdered”--I choked +a little. “Which--which of you did it?” + +Max took my hand and held it, looking down at me. + +“I wish you could have cared for me like that,” he said gently. “Dear +little girl, we don’t know who hurt him. I didn’t, if that’s what you +mean. Perhaps a flower pot--” + +I began to cry then, and he drew me to him and let me cry on his arm. He +stood very quietly, patting my head in a brotherly way and behaving very +well, save that once he said: + +“Don’t cry too long, Kit; I can stand only a certain amount.” + +And just then the nurse opened the door to the studio, and with Max’s +arm still around me, I raised my head and looked in. + +Mr. Harbison was conscious. His eyes were open, and he was staring at us +both as we stood framed by the doorway. + +He lay back at once and closed his eyes, and the nurse shut the door. +There was no use, even if I had been allowed in, in trying to explain +to him. To attempt such a thing would have been to presume that he was +interested in an explanation. I thought bitterly to myself as I brought +the nurse cracked ice and struggled to make beef tea in the kitchen, +that lives had been wrecked on less. + +Dal was allowed ten minutes in the sick room during the afternoon, and +he came out looking puzzled and excited. He refused to tell us what he +had learned, however, and the rest of the afternoon he and Jim spent in +the cellar. + +The day dragged on. Downstairs people ate and read and wrote letters, +and outside newspaper men talked together and gazed over at the house +and photographed the doctors coming in and the doctors going out. As for +me, in the intervals of bringing things, I sat in Bella’s chair in the +upper hall, and listened to the crackle of the nurse’s starched skirts. + +At midnight that night the doctors made a thorough examination. When +they came out they were smiling. + +“He is doing very well,” the younger one said--he was hairy and dark, +but he was beautiful to me. “He is entirely conscious now, and in about +an hour you can send the nurse off for a little sleep. Don’t let him +talk.” + +And so at last I went through the familiar door into an unfamiliar room, +with basins and towels and bottles around, and a screen made of Jim’s +largest canvases. And someone on the improvised bed turned and looked +at me. He did not speak, and I sat down beside him. After a while he put +his hand over mine as it lay on the bed. + +“You are much better to me than I deserve,” he said softly. And because +his eyes were disconcerting, I put an ice cloth over them. + +“Much better than you deserve,” I said, and patted the ice cloth to +place gently. He fumbled around until he found my hand again, and we +were quiet for a long time. I think he dozed, for he roused suddenly and +pulled the cloth from his eyes. + +“The--the day is all confused,” he said, turning to look at me, +“but--one thing seems to stand out from everything else. Perhaps it +was delirium, but I seemed to see that door over there open, and you, +outside, with--with Max. His arms were around you.” + +“It was delirium,” I said softly. It was my final lie in that house of +mendacity. + +He drew a satisfied breath, and lifting my hand, held it to his lips and +kissed it. + +“I can hardly believe it is you,” he said. “I have to hold firmly to +your hand or you will disappear. Can’t you move your chair closer? You +are miles away.” So I did it, for he was not to be excited. + +After a little-- + +“It’s awfully good of you to do this. I have been desperately sorry, +Kit, about the other night. It was a ruffianly thing to do--to kiss you, +when I thought--” + +“You are to keep very still,” I reminded him. He kissed my hand again, +but he persisted. + +“I was mad--crazy.” I tried to give him some medicine, but he pushed the +spoon aside. “You will have to listen,” he said. “I am in the depths of +self-disgust. I--I can’t think of anything else. You see, you seemed +so convinced that I was the blackguard that somehow nothing seemed to +matter.” + +“I have forgotten it all,” I declared generously, “and I would be quite +willing to be friends, only, you remember you said--” + +“Friends!” his voice was suddenly reckless, and he raised on his elbow. +“Friends! Who wants to be friends? Kit, I was almost delirious that +night. The instant I held you in my arms--It was all over. I loved you +the first time I saw you. I--I suppose I’m a fool to talk like this.” + +And, of course, just then Dallas had to open the door and step into the +room. He was covered with dirt and he had a hatchet in his hand. + +“A rope!” he demanded, without paying any attention to us and diving +into corners of the room. “Good heavens, isn’t there a rope in this +confounded house!” + +He turned and rushed out, without any explanation, and left us staring +at the door. + +“Bother the rope!” I found myself forced to look into two earnest eyes. +“Kit, were you VERY angry when I kissed you that night on the roof?” + +“Very,” I maintained stoutly. + +“Then prepare yourself for another attack of rage!” he said. And Betty +opened the door. + +She had on a fetching pale blue dressing gown, and one braid of her +yellow hair was pulled carelessly over her shoulder. When she saw me +on my knees beside the bed (oh, yes, I forgot to say that, quite +unconsciously, I had slid into that position) she stopped short, just +inside the door, and put her hand to her throat. She stood for quite a +perceptible time looking at us, and I tried to rise. But Tom shamelessly +put his arm around my shoulders and held me beside him. Then Betty +took a step back and steadied herself by the door frame. She had really +cared, I knew then, but I was too excited to be sorry for her. + +“I--I beg your pardon for coming in,” she said nervously. “But--they +want you downstairs, Kit. At least, I thought you would want to go, +but--perhaps--” + +Just then from the lower part of the house came a pandemonium of noises; +women screaming, men shouting, and the sound of hatchet strokes and +splintering wood. I seized Betty by the arm, and together we rushed down +the stairs. + + + +Chapter XXIII. COMING + +The second floor was empty. A table lay overturned at the top of the +stairs, and a broken flower vase was weltering in its own ooze. Part way +down Betty stepped on something sharp, that proved to be the Japanese +paper knife from the den. I left her on the stairs examining her foot +and hurried to the lower floor. + +Here everything was in the utmost confusion. Aunt Selina had fainted, +and was sitting in a hall chair with her head rolled over sidewise and +the poker from the library fireplace across her knees. No one was paying +any attention to her. And Jim was holding the front door open, while +three of the guards hesitated in the vestibule. The noises continued +from the back of the house, and as I stood on the lowest stair Bella +came out from the dining room, with her face streaked with soot, and +carrying a kettle of hot water. + +“Jim,” she called wildly. “While Max and Dal are below, you can pour +this down from the top. It’s boiling.” + +Jim glanced back over his shoulder. “Carry out your own murderous +designs,” he said. And then, as she started back with it, “Bella, for +Heaven’s sake,” he called, “have you gone stark mad? Put that kettle +down.” + +She did it sulkily and Jim turned to the policeman. + +“Yes, I know it was a false alarm before,” he explained patiently, “but +this is genuine. It is just as I tell you. Yes, Flannigan is in the +house somewhere, but he’s hiding, I guess. We could manage the thing +very well ourselves, but we have no cartridges for our revolvers.” Then +as the noise from the rear redoubled, “If you don’t come in and help, I +will telephone for the fire department,” he concluded emphatically. + +I ran to Aunt Selina and tried to straighten her head. In a moment she +opened her eyes, sat up and stared around her. She saw the kettle at +once. + +“What are you doing with boiling water on the floor?” she said to me, +with her returning voice. “Don’t you know you will spoil the floor?” The +ruling passion was strong with Aunt Selina, as usual. + +I could not find out the trouble from any one; people appeared and +disappeared, carrying strange articles. Anne with a rope, Dal with his +hatchet, Bella and the kettle, but I could get a coherent explanation +from no one. When the guards finally decided that Jim was in earnest, +and that the rest of us were not crawling out a rear window while he +held them at the door, they came in, three of them and two reporters, +and Jim led them to the butler’s pantry. + +Here we found Anne, very white and shaky, with the pantry table and two +chairs piled against the door of the kitchen slide, and clutching the +chamois-skin bag that held her jewels. She had a bottle of burgundy open +beside her, and was pouring herself a glass with shaking hands when we +appeared. She was furious at Jim. + +“I very nearly fainted,” she said hysterically. “I might have been +murdered, and no one would have cared. I wish they would stop that +chopping, I’m so nervous I could scream.” + +Jim took the Burgundy from her with one hand and pointed the police to +the barricaded door with the other. + +“That is the door to the dumb-waiter shaft,” he said. “The lower one +is fastened on the inside, in some manner. The noises commenced about +eleven o’clock, while Mr. Brown was on guard. There were scraping sounds +first, and later the sound of a falling body. He roused Mr. Reed and +myself, but when we examined the shaft everything was quiet, and dark. +We tried lowering a candle on a string, but--it was extinguished from +below.” + +The reporters were busily removing the table and chairs from the door. + +“If you have a rope handy,” one of them said, “I will go down the +shaft.” + +(Dal says that all reporters should have been policemen, and that all +policemen are natural newsgatherers.) + +“The cage appears to be stuck, half-way between the floors,” Jim said. +“They are cutting through the door in the kitchen below.” + +They opened the door then and cautiously peered down, but there was +nothing to be seen. I touched Jim gingerly on the arm. + +“Is it--is it Flannigan,” I asked, “shut in there?” + +“No--yes--I don’t know,” he returned absently. “Run along and don’t +bother, Kit. He may take to shooting any minute.” + +Anne and I went out then and shut the door, and went into the dining +room and sat on our feet, for of course the bullets might come up +through the floor. Aunt Selina joined us there, and Bella, and the +Mercer girls, and we sat around and talked in whispers, and Leila Mercer +told of the time her grandfather had had a struggle with an escaped +lunatic. + +In the midst of the excitement Tom appeared in a bathrobe, looking +very pale, with a bandage around his head, and the nurse at his heels +threatening to leave and carrying a bottle of medicine and a spoon. He +went immediately to the pantry, and soon we could hear him giving orders +and the rest hurrying around to obey them. The hammering ceased, and the +silence was even worse. It was more suggestive. + +In about fifteen minutes there was a thud, as if the cage had fallen, +and the sound of feet rushing down the cellar stairs. Then there were +groans and loud oaths, and everybody talking at once, below, and the +sound of a struggle. In the dining room we all sat bent forward, with +straining ears and quickened breath, until we distinctly heard someone +laugh. Then we knew that, whatever it was, it was over, and nobody was +killed. + +The sounds came closer, were coming up the stairs and into the pantry. +Then the door swung open, and Tom and a policeman appeared in the +doorway, with the others crowding behind. Between them they supported +a grimy, unshaven object, covered with whitewash from the wall of the +shaft, an object that had its hands fastened together with handcuffs, +and that leered at us with a pair of the most villainously crossed eyes +I have ever seen. + +None of us had ever seen him before. + +“Mr. Lawrence McGuirk, better known as Tubby,’” Tom said cheerfully. +“A celebrity in his particular line, which is second-story man and +all-round rascal. A victim of the quarantine, like ourselves.” + +“We’ve missed him for a week,” one of the guards said with a grin. +“We’ve been real anxious about you, Tubby. Ain’t a week goes by, when +you’re in health, that we don’t hear something of you.” + +Mr. McGuirk muttered something under his breath, and the men chuckled. + +“It seems,” Tom said, interpreting, “that he doesn’t like us much. He +doesn’t like the food, and he doesn’t like the beds. He says just when +he got a good place fixed up in the coal cellar, Flannigan found it, and +is asleep there now, this minute.” + +Aunt Selina rose suddenly and cleared her throat. + +“Am I to understand,” she asked severely, “that from now on we will have +to add two newspaper reporters, three policemen and a burglar to the +occupants of this quarantined house? Because, if that is the case, I +absolutely refuse to feed them.” + +But one of the reporters stepped forward and bowed ceremoniously. + +“Madam,” he said, “I thank you for your kind invitation, but--it will +be impossible for us to accept. I had intended to break the good news +earlier, but this little game of burglar-in-a-corner prevented me. The +fact is, your Jap has been discovered to have nothing more serious than +chicken-pox, and--if you will forgive a poultry yard joke, there is no +longer any necessity for your being cooped up.” + +Then he retired, quite pleased with himself. + +One would have thought we had exhausted our capacity for emotion, but +Jim said a joyful emotion was so new that we hardly knew how to receive +it. Every one shook hands with every one else, and even the nurse shared +in the excitement and gave Jim the medicine she had prepared for Tom. + +Then we all sat down and had some champagne, and while they were waiting +for the police wagon, they gave some to poor McGuirk. He was still quite +shaken from his experience when the dumb-waiter stuck. The wine cheered +him a little, and he told his story, in a voice that was creaky from +disuse, while Tom held my hand under the table. + +He had had a dreadful week, he said; he spent his days in a closet in +one of the maids’ rooms--the one where we had put Jim. It was Jim waking +out of a nap and declaring that the closet door had moved by itself and +that something had crawled under his bed and out of the door, that had +roused the suspicions of the men in the house--and he slept at night on +the coal in the cellar. He was actually tearful when he rubbed his hand +over his scrubby chin, and said he hadn’t had a shave for a week. He +took somebody’s razor, he said, but he couldn’t get hold of a portable +mirror, and every time he lathered up and stood in front of the glass in +the dining room sideboard, some one came and he had had to run and hide. +He told, too, of his attempts to escape, of the board on the roof, of +the home-made rope, and the hole in the cellar, and he spoke feelingly +of the pearl collar and the struggle he had made to hide it. He said +that for three days it was concealed in the pocket of Jim’s old smoking +coat in the studio. + +We were all rather sorry for him, but if we had made him uncomfortable, +think of what he had done to us. And for him to tell, as he did later in +court, that if that was high society he would rather be a burglar, and +that we starved him, and that the women had to dress each other because +they had no lady’s maids, and that the whole lot of us were in love with +one man, it was downright malicious. + +The wagon came for him just as he finished his story, and we all went +to the door. In the vestibule Aunt Selina suddenly remembered something, +and she stepped forward and caught the poor fellow by the arm. + +“Young man,” she said grimly. “I’ll thank you to return what you took +from ME last Tuesday night.” + +McGuirk stared, then shuddered and turned suddenly pale. + +“Good Lord!” he ejaculated. “On the stairs to the roof! YOU?” + +They led him away then, quite broken, with Aunt Selina staring after +him. She never did understand. I could have explained, but it was too +awful. + +On the steps McGuirk turned and took a farewell glance at us. Then he +waved his hand to the policemen and reporters who had gathered around. + +“Goodby, fellows,” he called feebly. “I ain’t sorry, I ain’t. Jail’ll be +a paradise after this.” + +And then we went to pack our trunks. + +NOTE FROM MAX WHICH CAME THE NEXT DAY WITH ITS ENCLOSURE. + +My Dear Kit--The enclosed trunk tag was used on my trunk, evidently by +mistake. Higgins discovered it when he was unpacking and returned it +to me under the misapprehension that I had written it. I wish I had. I +suppose there must be something attractive about a fellow who has the +courage to write a love letter on the back of a trunk tag, and who +doesn’t give a tinker’s damn who finds it. But for my peace of mind, ask +him not to leave another one around where I will come across it. Max. + +WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF THE TRUNK TAG. + +Don’t you know that I won’t see you until tomorrow? For Heaven’s sake, +get away from this crowd and come into the den. If you don’t I will kiss +you before everybody. Are you coming? T. + +WRITTEN BELOW. + +No indeed. K. + +THIS WAS SCRATCHED OUT AND BENEATH. + +Coming. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s When a Man Marries, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN A MAN MARRIES *** + +***** This file should be named 1671-0.txt or 1671-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/7/1671/ + +Produced by Theresa Armao + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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