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diff --git a/old/44326-8.txt b/old/44326-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 37204d5..0000000 --- a/old/44326-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6844 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanted: A Husband, by Samuel Hopkins Adams - -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: Wanted: A Husband - A Novel - -Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams - -Illustrator: Frederic Dorr Steele - -Release Date: December 1, 2013 [EBook #44326] -Last Updated: January 7, 2017 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANTED: A HUSBAND *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - - - -WANTED: A HUSBAND - -A Novel - -By Samuel Hopkins Adams - -With Illustrations By Frederic Dorr Steele - -Houghton Mifflin Company 1920 - -WANTED: A HUSBAND - - - - -CHAPTER I - -OUT OF ORDER! pertly announced the placard on the elevator. To Miss -Darcy Cole, wavering on damp, ill-conditioned, and reluctant legs, this -seemed the final malignancy of the mean-spirited fates. Four beetling -flights to climb! Was it worth the effort? Was anything worth the effort -of that heart-breaking ascent? For that matter, was anything worth -anything, anyway? Into such depths of despond had the spirit of Miss -Cole lapsed. - -At the top of the frowning heights the studio apartment of Miss -Gloria Greene would open to her. There would be tea, fresh-brewed and -invigorating. There would be a broad and restful couch full of fluffy -pillows, comforting to tired limbs. There would be Gloria Greene -herself, big and beautiful and radiant, representing everything which -poor little Darcy Cole was not but most wished to be, and, furthermore, -a sure source of wise counsel, or, at worst, of kindly solace for a case -which might be too hopeless for counsel. As alternative, a return to the -wind-swept, rain-chilled New York side street. No; the thing had to be -done! Darcy nerved her soggy muscles to the ordeal. - -On the second landing she paused to divide a few moments between -hard breathing and hating the imitation-leather roll beneath her arm. -Including the wall-paper design within, just rejected by B. Riegel -& Sons, the whole affair might have weighed two pounds. To its -ill-conditioned bearer it felt like two hundred. She set a hand to her -panting chest and a thorn promptly impaled her thumb. Tearing off the -offending rose Darcy flung it over the banister rail. It was a flabby, -second-hand wraith of a rose, anyhow, having been passed down to the -wearer by her flat-mate, Maud Raines, who in turn had it, along with -eleven others, from her fiancé. - -Darcy stuck out a vindictive tongue at the discarded flower. Nobody ever -sent _her_ roses! Dully musing upon the injustices of existence, she -clambered up the third flight and leaned against the wall to rally her -spent energies, with her hands thrust deep into the sagging pockets -of her coat. Something light and scratchy rubbed against her bare -forefinger, which was protruding from a hole in her glove. Being -exhumed, it revealed itself as one of those tiny paper frills wherein -high-priced candy is chastely attired. The departed bonbon had come -from a box sent by Paul Wood, the architect, to Darcy's other flat-mate, -Helen Barrett, to whom he had just become engaged. Darcy let the -inoffensive ornament flutter from her fingers to the floor and crushed -it flat with a vengeful foot. Nobody ever sent _her_ candy in frilly -collars! Nobody ever sent her anything! Oozing wretchedness and -self-pity, she took the final flight in a rush, burst in upon the labors -of Miss Gloria Greene, planted herself in the middle of the floor, -dropped her work roll and kicked it as far as she could, and lifted up -the voice of lamentation in the accepted phrase, duly made and provided -for such of feminine sex and tender years as find the weary pattern of -the world too tangled for their solving. - -"Oh, I wuh--wuh--wish I were duh--duh--dead!" mourned Miss Cole with -violence. - -Gloria Greene dropped the typed sheets which she had been studying -and rose from her chair. She looked down at the lumpy, lax figure of -helpless, petulant rebellion before her. - -"Oh, you do, do you?" she remarked pensively. - -"Yes; I do!" - -"So do most people at one time or another," was Miss Greene's -philosophical commentary upon this. - -"Not you," declared Darcy, glancing up at the vivid face above her -resentfully. "I'll bet you've never known what it is to feel that way in -your life." - -"Oh, I'm too busy for such nonsense," returned Gloria in her serene and -caressing voice. - -Indeed, it would be difficult for any one favored with Miss Gloria -Greene's acquaintance to imagine her wishing to depart a life to the -enjoyment of which she has vastly added for thousands of people. For -under a slightly different name Miss Greene is known to and admired by -most of the theater-going populace of the United States. From the top -of her ruddy, imperiously poised head to the tip of her perfectly shod -toes, she justifies and fulfills in every line and motion the happy -thought which inspired the dean of American playwrights to nickname her -"Gloria." Deeper than her beauty and abounding vitality there lies a -more profound quality, the rare gift of giving graciously and naturally. -It is Gloria Greene's unconscious and intuitive mission in life to lend -color and light and cheer to colorless, dim, and forlorn folk wherever -she encounters them. That is why Darcy Cole was, at the moment, -dribbling tears and aspirations for an immediate demise all over -Gloria's rare Anatolian rug. Not that Darcy really desired to die. She -merely wished Gloria Greene to make life more practicable for her. - -"That's imagination, you know," continued the actress. - -"It isn't," snivelled Darcy. - -"Then it's indigestion. Have a pill." - -"I won't!" declined the girl rudely. "You're making fun of me. They all -make fun of me. I do wish I was dead!" - -"Do you, indeed!" - -Setting two slim but powerful hands upon the girl's shoulders, Gloria -Greene proceeded methodically to shake her. She shook her until her -hat (oh, but it was a bad and shabby hat!) came off and rolled upon -the floor. She shook her until her hairpins fell like hail and her -brown-black hair struggled out of its arrangement (oh, but it was a poor -and tasteless arrangement!) and tumbled about her face (and, oh, but -it was a sallow and torpid face!). She further shook her until her eyes -bulged out and a faint flame shone on her cheeks, and her buttons began -to pop, and her breath rattled on her teeth, and she could barely gasp -out: - -"St-t-t-top! You're shaking me to p-p-pieces!" - -"Why not?" inquired Miss Greene blandly, and shook harder than before. - -"D-d-d-dud-dud-_don't_" wailed the victim. "W-w-wait a m-m-m-minute!" - -The shaker desisted, still maintaining her grip. "What's the matter?" -she inquired. - -"You're killing me!" - -"Then you don't want to die, after all?" inquired the other. - -"Not that way!" gasped the girl. - -"It's my regular treatment for dead-wish-ers. - -"It's brutal," whimpered Darcy. "Everything's brutal. The world's -brutal. I hate it! I wish I--Glooo-oria! Don't begin again!" - -"_What_ do you wish?" demanded the administrator of discipline -implacably. - -"I wish I'd never come here at all." - -"That's different," commented Miss Greene, "though it probably isn't -true, either. Now sit down. Tell me all about it. I've got a few minutes -to spare." - -"It's very long," began Darcy dolefully. "You're trying to dodge. Begin -at once. Or must I apply my treatment again?" - -"Ow! No! Don't!" implored the girl. "I'll tell. But I don't know where -to begin." - -"Begin in the middle," suggested Gloria helpfully. "Then you can work -both ways." - -"I will. Well, then, you see, Maud's gone and got engaged." - -"To whom?" - -"Holcomb Lee, the illustrator." - -"Why should that make you want to die? Are you in love with Mr. Lee?" - -"I in love with Holcomb!" Darcy's bitter grin dismissed that -supposition. "I'm not in love with _anybody_. It isn't that." - -"Then what is it?" asked the patient Gloria. - -"It's the whole thing. Helen Barrett is going to marry Paul Wood." - -"If any woman know any just reason why these twain should not be joined -together in holy matrimony, let her now speak or forever after hold her -peace," solemnly misquoted Gloria. - -"But--but--but Maud and Helen and I," pursued the girl, evincing -symptoms of a melancholic relapse, "were going to be the Three Honest -Working-Girls and keep up our Fifty-Sixth Street bachelor-girl hall for -life. And now look at the darn thing!" - -"What did you expect?" argued Gloria. "Maud is pretty and energetic, and -Helen is one of those soft, fluffy creatures that some man always wants -to take care of. Bachelor-girl agreements are only made to keep until -the right man comes along, anyway." - -"But where do I come in?" demanded Darcy, opening wide her -discontented-looking eyes. - -"Oh, you'll be getting engaged yourself one of these days." - -For once in her tactful life Gloria Greene had made a stupid remark. - -"Don't you patronize me!" flashed the girl. "I just won't stand it! I -get enough of that at home from those two d---d fiancées." - -Gloria turned a face of twinkling astonishment upon her visitor. -"Why, Amanda Darcy Cole! What would the generations of your Puritan -forbears--" - -"Don't you call me Amanda, either! It's an old-maid name. I hate -it--even if it does fit." - -"It is rather a handicap," admitted her hostess. "But Darcy's pretty -enough, anyway." - -"It's the only pretty thing about me. Oh, Gloria," burst out the girl -in a sudden flood-tide of self-revelation, "if you knew how I long to -be pretty! Not beautiful, like you; I wouldn't ask as much as that. But -just pretty enough to be noticed once in a while." - -[Illustration: If you knew how I long to be pretty 028] - -"Why, Darcy, dear--" - -"No: let me talk!" Darcy proceeded in little, jerky gasps of eagerness. -"Pretty. And well-dressed. And up-to-date. And smart. And everything! -I'd sell my soul to the devil if he'd buy such a weakly, puny, piffling -little soul, just really to live and be something besides a 'thoroughly -nice girl' for one short year. 'A thoroughly nice girl'! Yah!" said -Miss Cole in a manner which, whatever else it might have been, was not -thoroughly nice. - -"That's a rotten thing to say about any one," agreed the sympathetic -Gloria. "Who calls you that?" - -"The girls. You know the way they say it! Well, no wonder. Look at me!" -she cried in passionate conclusion to her passionate outburst. - -Gloria looked at her. She beheld an ungirlish frump of a thing with a -lank but bulgy figure misclothed in woefully inappropriate garments, a -muddy complexion, a sagging mouth, a drooping chin, a mass of deranged -hair, and big, deep-gray, lusterless eyes, which implored her. The older -woman considered and marveled. - -"My dear child," she said gently, "are you sure it isn't some man?" - -"I don't care a darn for any man in the world," returned the other -with convincing promptitude. "It isn't that. It's just that I'm not--I -don't--" Her courage seemed to ebb out, but she gained command of -herself and continued plaintively: "All I want is to be in the game as -other girls play it--to have a little attention and maybe a box of candy -or some flowers once in a while: not to have men look past me like a -tree. It isn't much to ask, is it? If you knew how tired I am of being -just plain nobody! There's a--a somebody inside here"--she thumped her -narrow, ribby chest--"but I can't get it out." Rising lumpily to her -feet, she stretched out hands of piteous and grotesque appeal. "Please, -Gloria," she prayed in a dwindling and saintly voice, "I want to raise -just a little teeny bit of hell before I die." - -A flash of sympathy and comprehension from the actress's intent face -answered this noble aspiration. "Why, you're real, aren't you!" she -exclaimed. - -"Did you think I wasn't even _that?_" returned the other reproachfully. - -"Not so many people are. It's something, anyway. Are you going to be -honest, as well?" - -"How, honest?" - -"With me. Are you going to be frank?" - -"Of course." - -"Then tell me what started you on this." - -A dismal sort of muddy flush overspread the girl's features. Silently -she drew from her pocket a full-page drawing from "Life" which she -unfolded and handed to the other. She laid a finger on the central -figure. - -"That's Darcy," said she. - -"Is it?" Gloria studied the illustration interestedly. "Who drew it?" - -"Holcomb Lee." - -"That scrawl in the corner means Lee, does it? Is it drawn from life?" - -"Yes." - -"What does Maud say to your sitting as model for her young man?" - -"Maud laughed," said Darcy between her teeth. - -"Pussy, pussy!" commented Miss Greene. "That decided you to keep on, I -suppose." - -"Naturally." - -"Well, the result justifies you." - -"D' you think it's pretty?" - -"I most certainly do." - -"And don't you think it looks just the least lee-eetle bit like me?" -pursued Darcy shyly. - -Gloria scrutinized the drawing again, and then the wistful face before -her. With growing astonishment she realized the fundamental likeness. - -"More than that," said she. "That young man knows how to see with his -eyes." - -"It was his own notion," said the girl in a rush of words. "One night -I was sitting at the piano. He said there were lines in my face that he -wanted. He asked me if I'd sit for him once. Then he had me come back -again and again. I didn't mind. I--I liked it. It was the first time any -one had ever seen anything to admire about me since I was a child. -Oh, and one day he said: 'Miss Darcy, you must have been a beautiful -child.'" - -"Were you?" asked Gloria. - -From another pocket Darcy took a small photograph holder. "Exhibit B," -she said, passing it to the other. - -It showed the head and shoulders of an eleven-year-old girl. - -"It's charming," said Gloria, and meant it. "That's the way I ought to -look now, only more so, Holcomb said. He said I was a spoilt job." - -"Pig!" - -"Oh, no. He didn't mean it that way. He just blurted it out as if he was -sorry about it. He seemed to think that I was a waste of good material -and--and he was quite peeved about it and kept swearing under his breath -while he was drawing me." - -"There I'm with him," declared Gloria vigorously. "I hate waste. It's in -my Yankee blood, I suppose. And a wasted human being--that's a sort of -practical blasphemy, according to my religion." - -Darcy caught the inference. "Made in the image," she said quickly. "But -what am _I_ made in the image of!" - -"What happened to change you from this?" Gloria held up Exhibit B. - -"Well, I had an illness when I was thirteen. And about then we lost our -money. And my parents died a little while after. And I never seemed to -get back much life or spirit or ambition or digestion or anything." - -"Can't get hold of your own boot-straps?" queried the other -suggestingly. - -"Haven't got the lifting power if I did," answered the girl. She picked -nervously at her raveled and seedy sleeve. "Lee said he believed I could -look like that--the way he made me look in the picture, you know--if -only some one who knew could tell me how to go about it. D' you think -maybe--p'raps--it might be just partly possible?" - -Once more Gloria compared Exhibit A with Exhibit B, and then both with -the original. - -"I do," she pronounced with fitting solemnity. - -"Oh-h-h-h!" breathed Darcy in a long-drawn, ecstatic sigh. - -"At least partly possible. It's worth the trial, in any case. Darcy," -said Miss Greene incisively, "I'm going to take you in hand, myself." - -"Oh, Gloria! If you would! I'll love you forever for it." - -"You won't. On the contrary, you'll probably hate me poisonously before -it's half over." - -"For helping me to be something and look like something?" protested the -girl incredulously. "How could I be anything but the most grateful--" - -"Wait and see," interrupted the oracle. "We're going to begin our little -magic process right now. Presto--pass! You're a lay figure." - -"A what?" faltered Darcy. - -"A lay figure. Act accordingly." - -"What does a lay figure do, please?" - -"It doesn't. It's dead. It's dumb. Don't talk. You distract my mind." - -For several minutes she walked around the girl, debating her from every -angle with pitiless impersonality, and with the analytical eye of -the adept in a school wherein attractiveness is often a personal and -technical achievement. At the conclusion of this ordeal Darcy found -herself perched upon a high-backed seat while the actress expertly -daubed her face with make-up from a box kept for purposes of -experimentation. Next the subject's hair was arranged, and her figure -draped in the flowing lines of some shimmering fabric, chosen, after -much profound consideration on Gloria's part, from a carved chest. She -was then told to straighten her spine, and smile. Near her lay Gloria's -hand mirror. Before the proprietor could interfere the girl picked it up -and sat staring into it. - -"Well, and what do you think of yourself?" queried her mentor grimly. - -"I--I look like a bad joke," whimpered Darcy. - -"You do. But if you cry I'll set you out on the fire-escape just as you -are, for the neighbors to throw things at." - -"I'm n-n-n-not c-c-crying." - -"And don't grab, next time. Well-conditioned lay figures never do. Sit -_up!_ You're all caved in again." - -With strong hands she prodded, bent, and moulded the girl's yielding -figure to the desired posture. Finally she wheeled into position, -several yards away, a full-length glass, and turned on an overhead -light. - -"Now. Look in here." - -Looking, Darcy gave a little gasp of wonder and delight. Under the -modulated radiance and with the toning down of distance, the harsh, -turgid spots and lines of the make-up had blended into a harmonious -_ensemble_. The face was that of Holcomb Lee's picture--almost. - -"Oh!" cried Darcy hoarsely. "Could you ever make me like _that?_" - -"No." - -Darcy collapsed. "I might have known," she wailed. - -"What do you expect for a nickel, in these days of depreciated -currency?" inquired Gloria callously. "It isn't as simple as it looks." - -"But if you can't do it for me--" - -"I certainly can't, my dear." - -"Then why did you let me--" - -"But if I can't, perhaps some one else can." - -"Who?" - -"You." - -"Me!" - -"You, your own little, lone self, and no one else in the whole big, -round world," declared the actress with electrifying vigor. "Thou art -the woman." - -"What must I do? How do I do it? What do I need?" cried Darcy in a -breath. - -"Grit." - -"Is that all?" - -"All? No; it isn't all. It's just a beginning. But if you think it's an -easy one you don't know what the word means yet." - -"Pooh!" retorted Darcy with another glance at the magic glass. "I'd -cheerfully stand still and be stuck full of red-hot pins and needles, -if it would make me look like that. I'll furnish the grit," she added -confidently, "if you'll show me how to do the rest." - -There came a gleam into her mentor's eye that the girl missed. "Very -well," said Gloria. "Allowing that, let's make a start. Of all your -little ambitions which one would you like to have fulfilled first?" - -The girl pondered. "Dress," she decided presently. "I want to have -beautiful, thrilling clothes, like a princess." - -"The one princess of my acquaintance," observed Gloria, "looks as though -she dressed herself backwards out of a mail-order catalogue. But that's -beside the question. Clothes cost money. How much money have you got?" -Darcy clasped her hands. "I'm rich," she announced triumphantly. - -"How rich?" - -"Awfully rich. Two thousand big, round, hard, beautiful dollars. Isn't -that grand!" - -"I don't know that it's grand. But it's good--with care." - -"It's twice as much as I've ever made in a whole year of work on my -silly little wall-paper designs." Darcy directed a resentful look at the -imitation-leather roll, lying in the corner where she had kicked it. - -"Where did you get it?" - -"My blessed old Aunt Sarah wrote it to me." - -"_Wrote_ it? Wrote you two thousand dollars?" - -"Yes. Why not? She'd intended to leave it to me when she died. But she -doesn't feel like dying for a long time yet; so she wrote and said that -she preferred giving it and getting thanked because it was so much, -rather than willing it and getting roasted because it was so little." - -"Sensible auntie! Are you going to be sensible too?" - -"How?" - -"Put the money in the bank. And forget this experiment." - -Darcy stretched out desperate hands toward the big, blessed mirror. - -"And give up _that_ Me?" - -"Perhaps you never could be that. It's only a chance at best." - -"But it _is_ a chance. You said it was a chance yourself." - -"Yes; but--" - -"And now are you going to take that away from me?" - -Gloria's eyes were doubtful. "Is it worth two thousand big, round, hard, -beautiful dollars? Just the bare chance of it?" - -"Two million," declared Darcy with impassioned conviction. - -"Then you're determined to be a fool about this?" - -"I am." - -Suddenly Gloria seized and hugged her. "If you weren't, I'd disown you -as a recreant to our sex," she cried. - -"Then you're going to help me?" - -"To the bitter end! First let's take an inventory. Be a lay figure -again." - -The girl stiffened to attention. Gloria ticked off the points on her -fingers as she talked. - -"You've got several assets. First, you're a lady. Nothing to teach -there, and it's the hardest of all lessons. Second, you've got a really -charming voice if you didn't whine with it. Third, your hair is nice. -But it might as well be stuffing a pillow for all the good you get of -it. Fourth, you've got eyes that'd be dangerous if the whites weren't -yellow. If you'd try wearing your heart in'em instead of your liver, -they'd do very well. Fifth, the lines of the face--see 'Life.' Sixth, -you look as if you were built to be light and strong." - -"I rather like being a dummy," purred Darcy. - -"Wait. The other side of the ledger is coming. You're going to have a -bad five minutes. Stand up." - -Darcy obeyed. - -"Like a camel," dispassionately commented the actress. "Look in the -glass now," she ordered. - -Darcy looked. - -"How d'you like it?" demanded her instructor. - -"N--not as well." - -"I should think likely. You lop." - -"I--I can't help it." - -"Nonsense! You slump." - -Darcy's lips slackened petulantly down at the corners. Like a flash, -Gloria transfixed the offending mouth with two leveled fingers. "You -peeve," she accused. - -Darcy continued to peeve. Also she sniffled. "Your chin is flabby," -pursued the inexorable critic. "Your mouth is fishy. Your eyes are -bleary. Your skin is muddy. You walk like a duck, and you stand like a -bag. And if you cry I'll quit you here, now, and forever." - -With a mighty struggle, Darcy choked back her emotions. "I suppose the -Lord gave me my face," she defended herself sulkily. - -"Don't libel your Maker. The Lord gave you _a_ face. See Exhibit B." - -"I can't help it if--" - -"Of course you could have helped it! What you've done to your face is a -crime, Darcy Cole! You ought to be arrested! Not to mention what -you've done to your figure. I shouldn't be surprised," she added as the -doorbell rang, "if that were the police now, come to hale you away to -judgment. Sit still," she commanded as Darcy, suddenly conscious of her -exotic costume, looked about for a way of escape. - -The door opened, not to the police, but to a visitor who was presented -to the shrinking Miss Cole as Mr. Thomas Harmon. Mr. Harmon displayed -himself as a stocky man with very cheerful, bright brown eyes, -reassuringly deferential manners, and a curious effect of carrying his -sturdy frame as if it weighed nothing at all. Darcy mentally observed -that he looked as fit in his way as did Gloria in hers. Already she was -beginning to take note of physical condition. - -"Have I interrupted a rehearsal?" asked Mr. Harmon. - -"No," said Gloria. "That is, yes." - -"That's a fair choice," remarked Mr. Harmon magnanimously. "I'll take -yes. Am I right, Miss Cole?" - -"It doesn't matter. We'd finished," murmured Darcy confusedly. - -"I've promised Mr. Harmon," Gloria explained, turning to her, "to help -him choose an anniversary present for his sister. It won't take more -than an hour. Amuse yourself until I come back." - -On the stairway outside, Gloria, intent upon her new purpose, addressed -her companion. "Tom, what do you think of her?" - -"Of whom?" - -"Little Darcy Cole." - -"Oh"--vaguely--"I don't know." - -Gloria sighed. - -"Why the effect of hopelessness?" inquired Tom Harmon. - -"Oh, nothing. Only, you don't seem to use your eyes much." - -"I was using them to the best of purposes," declared Mr. Harmon -indignantly. "Considering that I haven't set them on you for nearly -a month, you can't expect me to waste time on casual flappers in -fancy-dress costumes. Be fair, Gloria." - -"Darcy isn't a casual flapper." - -"What is she, then? A coming genius?" - -"A reigning beauty and heart-wrecker of the future." - -"Good _Lord!_" said Mr. Harmon with such fervor that Gloria sighed -again. - -"Couldn't you see anything in her, Tom?" she asked appealingly. - -"Only the humpy way she wore that costume and the fact that she'd -apparently been crying," answered Mr. Harmon, who, despite Gloria's -strictures, was a person not devoid of discernment. "She seemed rather -a mess to me. What's the idea, Gloria? Anything I can help in?" Gloria -smiled. "It's like you to want to help. But this is my job. And," she -added to herself, "it's going to be a real one." - - - - -CHAPTER II - -LIGHT and vitality died out of the atmosphere for Darcy, with Gloria's -exit. Divesting herself of the trappings of glory and hope and promise, -she resumed her workaday garb. The long mirror, endued with a sardonic -personality, watched her with silent but pregnant commentary. She did -not wish to look into it. But her will was weak. Hypnotic effluences, -pouring from the shining surface, enveloped and drew her. She walked -before it and surveyed herself. The effect was worse, by contrast, than -she could have imagined. - -"Oh, you frump!" she whispered savagely. "You frazzled botch of a -frump!" - -Glowing ambition faded to dull and hopeless mockery in her disillusioned -soul. She made a bitter grimace at the changeling in the glass. - -"Imbecile!" said she. - -It was a surrender to grim facts. Suddenly she felt extremely languid. -The big couch in the peaceful, curtained alcove lured her. She -plumped into it higgledy-piggledy and curled up, an unsightly, humpful -excrescence upon its suave surface. Within two minutes, worn out by -stress of unaccustomed emotions, she was winging her airy way through -that realm of sleep wherein happiness is the sure prize of being, and -beauty is forever in the eye of the self-beholder. - -Dream music crept into her dreams. Clearer and richer it grew until it -filled the dreams so full that they burst wide open. The dreamer floated -out through the cleft to a realization of the fact that somebody beyond -the draperies which secreted her was piping like Pan's very self, to an -accompaniment of strange, lulling, minor chords. She peeped out. - -A tall, slender young man in clothes which seemed to Darcy's still -sleep-enchanted eyes to fit him with a perfection beyond artistry, sat -at the piano, humming in a melodious undertone a song of which he had -apparently forgotten the words. One passage seemed to puzzle him. He -repeated the melody several times, essaying various harmonies to go -with it, shook his head discontentedly, and dashed away into Gilbert and -Sullivan. - -In the midst of this the door opened. Gloria stood on the threshold. A -look of pleasure flashed over her face as she saw the player. A dozen -light, soft-footed steps carried her to him. She clasped her hands over -his eyes, let them slip to his shoulders, planted a swift, little kiss -on the top of his head, and stepped back. - -"Jack!" she cried. - -The man swung around, leaped to his feet, caught her by both hands, and -exclaimed: - -"Well, _Gloria!_ It's a treat to see you." - -"I'd begun to think you were never coming back. Where do you hail from?" - -"Oh, all over the map. But no place as good as this." - -He smiled down at her, still holding her hands. To a keen, thin, -sensitive face, with a mobile mouth and quiet eyes, the smile set the -final impression of charm. Instanter and before he had spoken ten words, -Darcy decided that he was the one man she had ever seen worthy of Gloria -Greene. And she was glad they had found each other. - -"But where's Darcy?" asked the hostess, looking about. - -"Who?" asked her visitor. - -"A little acquaintance whom I left here when I went out." - -The concealed girl sat up. "Here I am," she announced shyly. "I fell -asleep." - -"Oh, then I'm afraid I waked you up with my silly hammering," said the -man. - -"N-no. It doesn't matter. I didn't mind. I--I mean, I liked it," -stammered the girl, falling into her usual acutely zero feeling in the -presence of the masculine gender. - -"Then go and play it again, Jack," commanded Miss Greene, "while I get -off my things. And then go away. You can come back for dinner. Miss Cole -and I have important things to talk over." - -"Oh, no! Please! I can come some other time," protested Darcy in a -flutter of embarrassment. "I don't want to drive Mr.--Mr.---him away." - -"Mr. Jacob Remsen has all the time in the world," said Gloria calmly. -"Time is the least of his troubles. He kills it at sight." - -"Don't mind her, Miss Corey," put in Remsen. - -Darcy, noting the error in her name, wondered petulantly why Gloria -didn't introduce them in proper form. But her uneasiness and _gaucherie_ -presently dissipated before the cordial and winning simplicity of -Gloria's man. And, to her own surprise, she found herself volunteering -a harmonic solution of the difficult change where he had blundered over -the transition, and humming the melody while she played her version. He -accepted it with enthusiasm. - -"Sing it," he urged. "I like your voice--what little you let us hear of -it." - -Instantly Darcy stiffened up inside and stammered a refusal. She didn't -mean to be ungracious to this sunny and inspiriting young fellow. It was -just her unhappy consciousness of a cramped and graceless self. Remsen -took it with matter-of-fact good humor. - -"I'm sure you do sing, though," he called back as his hostess finally -evicted him. "I'm going to send you that song." - -But he didn't look at her, she noticed, as he said it. Why should he, -indeed, when Gloria was in the room? For that matter, men never looked -at Darcy. And here was her grievance against the scheme of things -exemplified anew. - -"There it is," she complained, waving an awkward arm toward the door -through which Mr. Jacob Remsen had vanished. "That's what I've been -trying to tell you about." - -"Jack?" puzzled her hostess. "Why, what's wrong with Jack?" - -"Oh, nothing," replied the girl wearily. "But--did you notice what he -did when he left?" - -"Offered to send you some music. I thought it was quite polite. Jack's -always courteous." - -"Oh, _courteous!_ He didn't even _look_ at me." - -"Well, why--" - -"That's it! Why? Why should any man look at me? They don't. -They--they're strictly neutral in their attitude. And women -are--well--just tolerant and friendly. 'Darcy's such a _nice_ girl.' -Where does that get you?" fiercely demanded the subject of it. "People -don't really know I'm _alive_. I might as well be a ghost. I wish I -were. At least I'd scare'em." - -"Don't try to scare me," returned the other. "Now list to the voice of -wisdom. You complain that people don't know you're alive. Why should -they? You don't give out anything--warmth, color, personality. I'm not -so sure you _are_ alive. You're inert." - -"I haven't anything to give," mourned the accused. - -"Why? Because you've wasted it. You've had beauty; good looks, anyway. -You have let that die down to nothing. One thing only you've kept up, -and that ought to be an asset. You've got a voice. Do you ever use it -for other people?" - -"I don't like to sing before people." - -"There you are! Always thinking of your little self. You give nothing to -the world, yet you think yourself ill-used because--" - -"What does the world give me?" broke in the aggrieved Darcy. - -"Nothing for nothing. What would you expect? Do you think it's going to -smile at you when you scowl at it, and stop its own business and gaze on -you adoringly and say, 'Much obliged to you for being alive'? It isn't -that kind of a world, Miss Amanda Darcy Cole." The owner of the despised -first name winced. "I never thought of that," she murmured. - -"Thinking is going to be part of your education from now on. You can't -begin too soon." - -"I'm ready," said the girl meekly. "Do you want me to begin with my -voice? Shall I take singing lessons?" - -"Oh, it's got to go a lot deeper than that," was Gloria's grim reply. -"You'll begin by taking _living_ lessons. Do you know what that means?" - -"I'm not sure I do. It sounds awfully hard," faltered the other. - -"It is. Go home and think it over. Come back here to-morrow at this time -and get your orders." - -"Yessum," said Darcy, folding her hands with assumed docility. - -Gloria regarded her with suspicion. "It isn't going to be any joke," -said she with severity. - -"No'm," assented Darcy with a still more lamblike expression. But her -eyes twinkled through it. - -"Oh, well, if you want to take it that way," observed the actress. "But -_I'd_ advise you to save your high spirits for the time when they'll be -needed." - -In the seclusion of the hallway Darcy drew out Exhibit A and sought -inspiration from the charming face which Holcomb Lee had surrounded with -gallant and admiring suitors in the illustration. - -"If it can be done," said Darcy to the picture with the solemnity of a -rite, "I'll do it." - - - - -CHAPTER III - -AT its best, the old Remsen house on West Twelfth Street, wore its -ancestral respectability cloaked with gloom. Home though it was to Jacob -of that name and possession, he regarded it with distinct distaste as he -approached the dull, brown steps leading to the massive door. All that -could reasonably be done to furbish it up against the young master's -return, old Connor, Jacob's inherited man, had faithfully attempted: the -house's face was at least washed, and its linen, so to speak, fresh and -clean. But a home long unused becomes musty to a sense deeper than -the physical. Entering, young Mr. Remsen felt a chill descend upon his -blithe spirit. A _basso profondo_ clock within struck a hollow five. - -"Hark from the tomb!" observed young Mr. Remsen. "I think I'll move -to the club." Slow footsteps, sounding from below, dissipated that -intention. - -"No; I can't do that. I've got to stay here and be looked after by -old Connor, or forever wound his feelings. That's the worst of family -responsibilities." - -The footsteps mounted the basement stairs unevenly and with a suggestion -of a stagger in them. - -"What! Connor taken to drink?" thought Jacob with sinful amusement. -"Wonder where he found it. There is hope, still!" - -The old servitor puffed into sight half carrying, half dragging a huge -clothes-basket. "What's that?" demanded Jacob': - -"Your mail, sir." - -"Is that all?" asked the other, with a sardonicism which was lost upon -Connor's matter-of-fact mind. - -"No, sir. There's another half-basket downstairs." - -"Good Lord! What'll do with it?" - -"If I may suggest, sir, it ought to be read." - -"Sound idea! You read it, Connor." - -"Me, sir?" - -"Certainly. I don't feel up to it. I'm tired. Strain of travel and all -that sort of thing. Besides"--he cast a glance of repulsion upon the -white heap--"this suggests work. And you know my principles regarding -work." - -"Yes, sir." Connor rubbed his ear painfully. Of course the master was -joking. Always a great one for his joke, he was. But-- - -"There's a special delivery quite at the top, sir, marked 'Immediate.' -Don't you think that perhaps--" - -"Oh, all right: _all_ right! If I've got to begin I may as well go -through." - -Having, like some thousands of other young Americans, departed from his -native land and normal routine of life for a long period on important -business of a muddy, sanguinary, and profoundly wearisome nature, -concerning which he had but the one wish, namely, to forget the whole -ugly but necessary affair as swiftly and comprehensively as possible, Mr -Jacob Remsen had deemed it wise to cut loose from home considerations as -far as feasible; but he now reflected that he had perhaps made a mistake -in having no mail forwarded. Well, there was nothing for it but to make -up for arrears. He took off his coat and plunged in. The "immediate" -special he set aside, to teach it, as he stated to the acquiescent -Connor, not to be so infernally assertive and insistent, while he ran -through a few scores of communications, mainly devoted to inviting him -to dinners and dances which had passed into the shades anywhere from a -year to eighteen months previously. - -"Now, I'll attend to you," said he severely to the special. "Only, don't -brag about your superior importance, next time." - -He opened it and glanced at the heading. "Connor," said he, "this is -from Mr. Bentley." - -"Yes, Mr. Jacob." - -"He says it is necessary for him to see me without delay." - -"Yes, sir." - -"Do you believe, Connor, that it is really as necessary as he pretends -for Mr. Bentley to see me without delay?" - -"Mr. Bentley is your lawyer, sir," pointed out Connor firmly. "If he -says so, sir, I think it would be so." - -"You're wrong, Connor; you're wrong! This letter is dated just seven -weeks ago. As I haven't seen Mr. Bentley yet, and am still in good -health and spirits, it can't have been vitally necessary that he see me -without delay, can it? Necessity knows no law, Connor, and law knows no -necessity that can't wait seven weeks." - -"Mr. Bentley has been telephoning, sir, almost every day." - -"Has he? Why didn't you tell me?" - -"I tried to inform you about several telephone messages, Mr. Jacob--" - -"So you did, when you met me at the pier." - -"And you told me if the telephone annoyed me, to have it taken out, -sir." - -"Right; right; perfectly right! Did you have it taken out?" - -"No, sir." - -"Then it doesn't annoy you?" - -"No, Mr. Jacob--" - -"What a blessing is philosophic calm! I'll take pattern by you and learn -not to let it annoy me, either. That's it ringing now. Let it ring. Are -my dinner clothes laid out?" - -"Yes, sir. And, beg pardon, sir; I think that's the doorbell not -the'phone. It'll be Mr. Bentley. I took the liberty of 'phoning him, sir, -that you'd be here in time to dress for dinner--" - -"His blood be on your head. Let him in, Connor." - -Mr. Herbert Bentley, of Bench & Bentley, a huge, puffy man of fifty, -rolled into the room, shook hands warmly with Remsen, went through the -usual preliminary queries as to health, recent experience, and time of -return, and then attacked the matter in hand. - -"How's your family pride, Jacob?" - -"Languid." - -"It's likely to be stirred up a bit." - -"Some of us been distinguishing ourselves?" - -"Not specially. But your cousins are threatening a will contest." - -"If they want to pry me loose from this grisly mausoleum," observed -Jacob, with an illustrative wave of the hand around the gloomful -drawing-room, "I'll listen to terms." - -"Nothing of that sort. The house is yours as long as you fulfill the -terms of your grandfather's will." - -"Then what's the contest to me? Let my amiable cousins choke themselves -and each other with law--" - -"It's a question of your Great-Uncle Simeon's estate. They want you as a -witness." - -"For what?" - -"To prove the old boy's insanity." - -"Who says he was insane?" - -"They do. Wasn't he?" - -"Well, he was eccentric in some particulars," admitted Jacob cautiously. - -"As for instance?" - -"Let me think. Whenever there was a long drought he used to claim -that he was a tree-toad, and he'd climb the ancestral elm up at the -Westchester place and squawk for rain." - -"Eccentric, as you say. Anything else?" - -"He had the largest collection of tin-can labels in Westchester County. -At least, he boasted that it was the largest, and I never heard any one -dispute it." - -"What did he do with'em?" - -"Same as any kind of a collecting bug does with his collection; -nothing." - -"I see. Is that all?" - -"Everything I can recall except that every May Day he used to put on a -high hat and a pink sash and dance around a Maypole in Central Park. -As he didn't care whose Maypole it happened to be, he usually got -arrested." - -"I see. And the rest of the family; did they show any symptoms?" < - -"Nothing special." - -"What do you mean, special? Come, out with it!" - -"Of course there was my poor old maiden aunt, Miss Melinda. You've heard -of her?" - -"Only as a name." - -"She did her best to change that. When she was fifty-four she eloped -with the coachman. Only they couldn't get any one to marry'em, so she -had to come home." - -"What was wrong? Was the coachman married already?" - -"No. But he was a trifle colored." - -"Interesting line of relatives you carry. What about the remainder of -the tribe?" - -"Just about the usual run of old families, I guess. One of the other -aunts used to do a little in the anonymous letter line and break up -happy families. Then, of course, Cousin Fred used to pull some fairly -interesting stuff when he had the d-t's, but the claim that Uncle -Simeon's first wife dressed up as the Van Cortland Manor ghost isn't--" - -"Enough said! I didn't ask for a new edition of the _Chronique -Scandaleuse_. How would you like to tell all this to the court, and -through it to the newspapers?" - -"I'll see'em d---d first!" - -"All very well. But if they put you on the stand, you'll have to tell or -go to jail. And they'll put you on, for you're their one best bet. With -you they can win and without you they can't." - -"Then they lose. I'll skip the country rather than rake up all that -dead and decayed stuff." - -"How about your grandfather's will, under which you inherit this house -and most of your fortune? Have you forgotten that you're required to -inhabit the house, from now on, at least three months out of every six -until you're married?" - -"So I have. Happy alternative! Lose the house or parade the family -skeletons all diked out in pink sashes and tin-can labels. When does the -blasted suit come on?" - -"I don't know. When I do I'll let you know. Then it's up to you either -to stand a siege in the house or to light out and go into hiding, and -take a chance on getting back within the three months." - -"Well, Connor," said Jacob Remsen after the lawyer had left, "here's -a complication for a peace-and-quiet-loving young man! How did such a -respectable person as you ever come to take service in such a herd of -black sheep?" - -"I don't know anything about those goings-on, sir," asseverated the old -man doggedly. "If they put me in jail the rest of my life I couldn't -remember ever hearing a word about any of'em, sir." - -"Good man! Don't you testify to anything that would tend to incriminate -or degrade the memory of Uncle Simeon or any other Remsen. And neither -will I. However, this isn't dressing for dinner." - -Having changed, young Mr. Remsen returned to dine with Gloria Greene. He -found her smiling over a note which she carefully blotted before turning -from her desk to greet him. - -"What did you think of my protégée?" she inquired. "I'm collecting -opinions on her." - -"The little Colter girl? She isn't as sniffy as she appears at first -sight." - -"Her name isn't Colter. And I don't know how you can judge. First sight -is all that you had of her." - -"Not so, fair lady. She passed me in the hallway as I was waiting for a -taxi to come along. I could see her nerving herself up to say something -and finally she said it." - -"Well, what was it?" - -"Nothing important. Just that she was sorry she couldn't sing for me and -that some other time she would. But she said it quite pleasantly. She -hasn't a bad voice." - -"Effect of Lesson the First," commented the actress. - -"What are you doing with that young person, Gloria? Working some of your -white magic on her?" - -"Just remaking life a little for her," replied the other offhandedly. -"This is part of it." - -She fluttered the note-paper on which she had been writing. - -"What is it?" asked Remsen. "A pass to Paradise? She looked as -cheered-up as if she were getting something of the kind." - -"It's a commutation ticket to Hades, first-class," was the actress's -Delphic response. "But the poor child won't know it till she gets -there." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -HOPE, which is credited with various magic properties, had kindled a -sickly sort of sub-glow in Darcy Cole's pasty face as she arrived at -Miss Greene's address, to keep her appointment. Part of it subsided -at sight of the indication that the elevator was still on strike. The -remainder had vanished long before she had surmounted the four flights -of stairs and stood panting dolorously before Gloria Greene. That -composed person feigned polite surprise. - -"Why, what's the matter, Darcy?" - -"Those awful--pouf!--stairs. How--whoof-uff!--d' you -ever--whoo-oo-oof!--do it?" - -"Two steps at a time," explained the actress practically, "cuts the -distance in half." - -Darcy looked skeptical. "It would kill me," she declared. - -"Very likely, as you are now. We're going to change all that." - -The gleam returned into Darcy's big, dull eyes. "Yes?" said she eagerly. -"How?" - -"I should say," answered the actress with a carefully judicial air, -"that you'd better start in by learning to give up." - -"Give up what?" - -"Everything that makes life worth living." - -"Is it a joke?" asked Darcy, dubiously. "Far from it. Food, for -instance. You eat too much." - -"Often I don't get any luncheon at all." - -"And too irregularly," pursued the accuser. "You drink too much." - -"Gloria! One cocktail before dinner," was the indignant response. - -"And too regularly," went on the relentless judge. "One is one too many -for a girl with your complexion." - -"Go on," said Darcy with sullen resignation. "You sleep too much." - -"Eight hours isn't--" - -"You interrupt too much," broke in the mentor severely. "You laze too -much. You shirk and postpone too much. You nibble too much candy. When -you feel below par you take a pill instead of a walk. Don't you?" - -The girl stared. "How do you know all these things about me?" - -"Read'em in your face, of course. And a lot more, besides." - -"Nobody else ever read'em there. Not even the doctor." - -"Probably he has, but is too polite to tell you all he sees, or too -cynical to believe that you'd take the trouble to do anything about it -if he told you. Or perhaps he just doesn't see it." - -"Then how do you?" - -"I'm an expert, my dear young innocent. It's part of my profession to be -good-looking just as it is to keep well-read and well-dressed. And a lot -harder!" - -"How can it be harder for you? You're beautiful just naturally." - -"I'm not beautiful. Your Holcomb Lee or any other artist with a real eye -could reduce my face to a mere scrap-heap of ill-assorted features. I'm -reasonably pleasant to look at because I work hard at the business of -being just that. And I'm going to keep on being pleasant to look at for -twenty good years yet if care and clothes will do it!" - -"Clothes help such a lot," sighed the girl. "When are you going to help -me with mine?" - -Gloria Greene looked disparagingly at the girl's slack and flaccid body. - -"When you develop something to put'em on," said she curtly. - -"But I thought that if I had some nice clothes--" - -"You'd develop inside them like the butterfly in the chrysalis," -supplemented the other. "Unfortunately it doesn't work that way with -humans. Didn't I tell you yesterday that it wasn't going to be easy?" - -"Yes. But you're not telling me anything now. You're just--just -discouraging me." - -"Why, you poor-spirited little grub, you haven't even touched the outer -edge of discouragement yet. Here! Can you do this?" Lifting her hands -high above her glowing head, Gloria swept them down in a long curve of -beauty, until she stood bowed but with unbending knees, her pink fingers -flattened on the floor. - -"Of course I can't," whined Darcy. - -"Try it," suggested the other enticingly. "It isn't hard." - -Darcy did not stir. "I've got corsets on," said she. - -"You have. Awful ones. Take'em off." - -"I will," she promised. - -Performance, not promise, was what her instructor demanded. "Do it now." - -With a sigh, the girl obeyed. "It makes me look sloppier than ever," she -lamented, glancing toward the mirror. - -"Not actually," was the counsel--of dubious comfort--from the other. -"You only _feel_ now as you've been looking all the time. Don't get -another pair until I tell you. I'll pick'em out if you still want them -when Andy Dunne is through with you." - -"Who's Andy Dunne?" - -"Andy," explained the actress concisely, "is the devil." - -"That's encouraging," murmured the girl. "Anyway, you'll think he is. -He's my trainer." - -"Trainer! You talk as if you were a prizefighter." - -"I cut Andy's lip with a straight left once," said Miss Greene with a -proud, reminiscent gleam in her eye. "It was one of the biggest moments -of my life." - -Taking from her desk the note which she had described to Jacob Remsen -as a commutation ticket to the last station, down-line, she handed it to -Darcy. The girl read it. - - Andy: This is Miss Darcy Cole. Put her through as you did - me, only more so. - - Gloria Greene - -Darcy tucked it carefully into her imitation-leather roll, saying: - -"It's awfully good of you to take all this trouble for me." - -"Oh, it isn't for you entirely. Call it part of my contribution to -the general welfare. It gives me a pain in my artistic sense to see a -woman-job spoiled; like a good picture daubed over by a bad amateur. -So if I can rescue you as a brand from the burning and put you back on -earth, a presentable human, I'll feel like a major of the Salvation -Army. That's why I've decided to take you in hand. And may Heaven have -mercy upon your body!" - -"Amen!" confirmed Darcy piously, feeling for the introductory note. - -"Only," added Gloria slowly, "I want to be clear on one point. I'd like -to know for whom I'm really doing this." - -"Why, for me, of course," said Darcy, big-eyed. - -"Not for any one else?" - -"Who else should there be? I told you there wasn't any--" - -"I know. You swore there was no man in this. Then on top of it, you -rouse my darkest suspicions by acting like a school-girl yesterday and -tearing your hair because the first casual man that comes along doesn't -gaze soulfully at you when he takes his departure." - -"Gloria, I hate you! D' you mean Mr. Remsen? Surely you don't for a -minute imagine--" - -"No; I don't suppose Jack has anything to do with it, personally. But -I seem to get a strong indication of Man as a species somewhere in the -background of this business." - -Pink grew Miss Darcy Cole; then red, and eventually scarlet, under -Gloria's interested regard. - -"You see!" exclaimed that acute person. "Come, now. Explain." - -"It's--it's Maud Raines's fault," blurted Darcy. - -"Agreed that it's all Maud's fault. Go on." - -"No; it isn't _all_ Maud's fault," corrected - -Darcy with a palpable effort to do exact justice. "It's partly the -British War Office's fault." - -"International complications. Maud and the British War Office. Mr. Lee -had better look out!" - -"Not at all! It isn't Maud that the British War Office has been writing -letters to." - -"No? Who is it?" - -"Me." - -"Is this a long-distance flirtation with an official Britisher, all -wound round with red tape? What kind of fetters?" - -"Well, not personal, exactly," reluctantly admitted the girl. -"Propaganda matter. It's sent out by their press bureau. But it always -comes addressed in nice, firm, man-ny handwriting." - -"But why do they send to you?" - -Darcy giggled. "That's the funny part of it. They must have got me -confused with Dorsey Coles, the essayist. He used to live on East -Fifty-Sixth Street." - -"Very likely. When does the Man enter?" - -"We-ell, you see, Maud and Helen were awfully curious about my English -correspondent." - -"Naturally." - -"So I--well, I just let'em be." - -"Is that any reason why you should wear the expression of one about to -confess to a coldblooded murder?" - -"Wait. You know I told you Maud had been catty about my sitting to -Holcomb Lee." - -"Yes." - -"This is what I overheard her say to Helen, and I'm not even sure she -didn't mean me to overhear. She said, 'Darcy's been sitting to Holcomb. -Fancy it! Darcy as a model! I can no more imagine her being a model than -I could her being engaged.' Wasn't that nasty of her, Gloria!" - -"It was. And you very properly smothered her with a pillow as she slept -and have come here to make your confession," twinkled Gloria. - -"Worse," said Darcy in a small, tremulous voice. "Much worse." - -Gloria sat up straight. "No!" she cried hopefully. - -"Yes. For Helen said, 'Well, somebody in England seems pretty much -interested in her, anyway.' That's what put it into my head." - -"I wish you'd put it; into mine," said the other plaintively. "You don't -seem to get any nearer the subject of your romance, which is Man." - -"Well--promise not to laugh at me, Gloria!" - -"I'll try." - -"Just to show'em both, I got engaged." - -"Darcy!" - -"Yes; and one evening when both of the girls were being just a little -extra peacocky over their double wedding next October and letting me -understand what a favor it was to me that I was to be double maid of -honor, I just up and told'em I didn't know whether I could be as I had -an important engagement to be married myself." - -"Lovely! Gorgeous!" - -"They jumped at the English letters. So I told them that I thought I -might as well own up about the affair; how I'd met him on my vacation in -Canada and helped him try out horses for the British Government, which -had sent him over for that purpose when he was wounded, and we had -corresponded ever since. It was awfully well done, if I do say it as -shouldn't." - -"Let me get this right," pleaded Gloria. - -"You made him all up yourself, just on the basis of those war-office -letters?" - -"N-no. That's just the trouble." - -"You _didn't_ make him up?" - -"N-n-not entirely." - -"For Heaven's sake, do be more explicit!" - -"I'm t-t-trying to," said Darcy brokenly. "I got him out of a book." - -"Then he's imaginary." - -"I'm afraid he's real. Awfully real." - -"Darcy Cole; _what_ book did you get him out of?" - -"Burke's Peerage." - -With one headlong plunge Gloria projected herself upon the couch where -she wallowed ecstatically among the pillows. - -"Oh, Darcy! Darcy!" she gasped when she could achieve coherent speech. -"For this I shall love you forever. I'll do more. I'll adopt you. I'll -endow you. I'll--I'll canonize you. What's his name?" - -"Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England," -recited the girl formally. - -Dissociating herself from a convulsed silk coverlet, Gloria straightened -up. "Sir Montrose Veyze," she repeated thoughtfully and relishingly. -"Why that particular and titled gentleman?" - -"I got to the V's before I found any one that seemed to fill the bill." - -"What special qualification commended him to your favorable -consideration, Miss Cole?" - -"Well, he's unmarried." - -"That's important." - -"And he's far away. I came across that in an English magazine." - -"How far?" - -"Way out in the East somewhere where one of the fifty-seven varieties of -left-over wars is still going on." - -"So far, so good. What are you going to do with him when he comes back?" - -"If I only knew!" was the miserable rejoinder. "Maybe he won't come -back. Maybe something will happen to him." - -"It won't. He'll bear a charmed life, just to plague you," retorted her -friend with conviction. "You bloodthirsty little beast!" she added. - -"The worst I wish him," said Darcy tearfully, "is an honorable military -death." - -"Oh! Is that all! You'd have to go into deep mourning." - -"That'd be better than suicide. And I can't see anything else for me -to do if he lives through. I won't confess to that Maud-cat! I won't! I -won't! I won't!" - -"I don't blame you. But when are you to be married?" - -"Uncertain. That's the advantage of having a fiancé at war." - -"You must make it after the double wedding," decided Gloria. "Just for -curiosity, how did you describe him?" - -"I've rather dodged that, so far. But I think I'd like to have him tall -and slender and with nice, steady, friendly eyes, like Mr. Remsen." - -"So would Monty, doubtless," surmised Gloria. - -"_Who?_" - -"Monty Veyze." - -"Gloria! Do you _know_ Sir Montrose Veyze?" - -"Rather. I visited at his sister's last time I was in England." - -"Heavens! That makes it seem so ghastly real. What's he like?" - -"Round and roly-poly and red and fiercelooking; but a good sort. And he -used to be quite an admirer of mine. I do think, Darcy, that with the -whole of Burke's Peerage to choose from you might have refrained from -trespassing on my preserves. It isn't clubby of you!" - -"You can have him!" cried the girl desperately. "Any one can have him! I -don't care how round and red and--" - -"He's rather far from your picture of him, certainly. Not a bit like -Jack Remsen. So you approve of Jack, do you?" - -"I thought him awfully attractive," said Darcy shyly. - -"Oh, Jack's a dear. It's a pity about his money." - -"Has he lost it?" - -"No. Got it. Too much. Without it he might make a real actor. He's the -best amateur in New York to-day. But--an amateur." - -"What does he do?" - -"Dabbles in artistic things. And plays at being everybody's little -sunbeam. Never mind Jack. It's the imaginary Sir Montrose Veyze that -we've got to figure on." - -"Oh, do tell me what to do with him!" implored the too-inventive Darcy. - -"Keep him. Prize him above rubies and diamonds. Nothing has given me a -laugh like that for a year." - -"But if--" - -"Let the future take care of its ifs. Who can tell what will turn up? -Fate is kind to creative genius. And I'm going to assist Fate if I can. -I'll make you a bargain, Darcy, for half of your beautiful, inspiring, -heaven-sent lie. You take me into equal partnership in it, and I'll be -your little personal Guide to Health and Beauty until we've made a job -of you. But you've got to promise on honor to keep up the Veyze myth, if -I'm to be partner and half owner in it, until I agree to drop it. Is it -a bargain?" - -The light of unholy, reckless adventure shot into Darcy's pale eyes. - -"It's a bargain," she agreed solemnly. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SUCH demoniac attributes as Mr. Andy Dunne might possess lurked in -the background on the occasion of Darcy's first visit. Smothering her -misgivings, the girl had mounted the steps of the old-fashioned house -just off Sixth Avenue, undistinguished by any sign or symbol of the -mystic activities within, and presented Gloria's letter. Mr. Dunne -revealed himself as a taciturn gentleman in funereal trousers and a -blue sweater, who suggested facially an athletic monk of reserved and -misanthropic tendency. He led her into a severely business-like office -sparsely furnished with a desk and two hard and muscular-looking chairs, -with liberal wall ornamentations of the championship Baltimore "Orioles" -("A. Dunne, 2d b." in clear script on the frame), pictures of Mr. Dunne -and other worthies in sundry impressive and hostile postures, and a -large photograph signed, with a noble flourish, "Yours truly, John L. -Sullivan." It was the crowning glory of Mr. Dunne's professional career -that he had trained the "Big Feller" for his final championship fight. - -Having perused his former pupil's brief epistle, Mr. Dunne cast an -appraising glance over the neophyte. - -"Full course?" he inquired. - -"Yes, please." - -"How long?" - -"Six months." - -The girl produced a roll of bills and laid them on the desk. Mr. Dunne -counted them twice. With a stony face and in a highly correct hand he -made out a receipt. - -"Six months. Paid in advance," he stated. "D'je meanter pay it all?" - -"Y-y-yes. Isn't it usual?" queried Darcy, wondering whether she was -shattering some conventionality of this unknown world. - -"Nope. Three's usual. What's the big idea?" - -"Gloria--that is Miss Greene told me to pay it all in advance because if -I didn't I might get tired of it and back out. But I shan't." - -From between Mr. Dunne's hard-set lips issued a vowel-less monosyllable -such as might be enunciated by a contemplative bulldog engaged in -self-communion. - -"Grmph!" said Mr. Dunne, which, Darcy decided, might mean much or -little. "Friend o' Miss Greene's?" he inquired after a pause. "Yes." - -"_Some_ lady!" said Mr. Dunne with an approach to enthusiasm which Darcy -was never thereafter to experience from his repressive spirit, save only -when he spoke of the "Big Feller." - -"Isn't she wonderful!" acquiesced Darcy. Mr. Dunne rubbed his lower lip -with a reminiscent and almost romantic gleam in his heavy-browed eyes, -and the girl with difficulty suppressed a query as to whether that was -the spot whereon Gloria had landed her triumphant left. Emerging from -his reverie he issued his first direction. "Stannup, please." - -Darcy rose and stood, consciously loppish, while the trainer -circumnavigated her twice. - -"Grmph!" he grunted. "When yah wanna begin?" - -"At once, please." - -"Gotta outfit?" - -"No." - -"Gittit." He thrust a typed list into her hand. "How much you weigh?" - -"I don't know." - -"Yah don't _know?_" - -"Somewhere about a hundred and fifty, I suppose." - -"Yah _suppose_. Grmph!" The exclamation was replete with contempt. "Come -into the shop." - -She followed him into a big airy room flooded with overhead light, and -filled with all sorts of mechanism. Obedient to a gesture she stepped on -the scales. Mr. Dunne busied himself with a careful adjustment. - -"You'll strip a hunner'n fifty-two," he declared. - -Darcy vaguely felt as if she were being accused of murder. She felt even -worse when the iron-faced Mr. Dunne made an entry in a little notebook. - -"Will I?" she said faintly. - -"Not long," retorted the trainer. - -He strode across the room and set foot upon a huge, ungainly leather -ball. It seemed but the merest touch that he gave. Nevertheless the ball -left that spot hurriedly, rolled across to Darcy and encountered her -shins with an impact that all but crumpled her flabby legs beneath her. - -"Know what that is?" demanded the trainer. - -"I'm afraid I don't." - -"Medicine-ball. Little pill. You'll _like_ the little pill." - -Prophetic voices within Darcy told her that this was improbable: but she -mildly assented. The pulley-weights were next called to her attention -and identified. - -"What do I do with them?" she inquired with a proper show of interest. - -"Pull'em up." - -"I see. And then what?" - -"Let'em down." - -It seemed to Darcy a profitless procedure, but she wisely refrained -from saying so, and was glad that she did when Mr. Dunne added in a tone -which emphasized the importance of the transaction: - -"A coupla hundred times." - -Subsequently the neophyte was introduced to the dumb-bells, the -Indian-clubs, the rings, the hand-ball court, the rowing-machine--she -earned a glance of contempt by asking where it rowed to--the -punching-bag, which she disliked at sight, the finger-grip roller, the -stationary bicycle (which also got you nowhere), the boxing-gloves, and -a further bewildering but on the whole inspiriting array of machines for -making one strong, happy, beautiful, and healthy to order. Somewhere in -the girl's consciousness lurked a suspicion that the apparatus couldn't -be expected to do all the work: that there were patient and perhaps -strenuous endeavors expected of the operator. But of the real rigors of -the awaiting fate she had but the faintest glimmer. - -As she was leaving, a door bumped violently open and there appeared in -the "shop" a horrific female figure. It was that of a fat blonde with -four sweaters on. Her cheeks were puffy red, her eyes jutted poppily -from the sockets, and her jowls dripped. As a slave, treading the -unending grind of the mill, the apparition set herself to trot heavily -around the circumference of the room. And as she ran she blubbered. - -"Oh, poor thing!" cried Darcy under her breath. "What's the matter with -her?" - -"Nothin'," said Mr. Dunne indifferently. - -"But there must be something," insisted the newcomer aghast. - -"Fat," vouchsafed Mr. Dunne. "They mostly take it hard--at the start," -he condescended to add. "She's only been at it a month." - -A month! Darcy's heart sank within her. She began to see why Gloria had -insisted on a binding prepayment. Did Gloria, splendid, vigorous Gloria, -have to go through that stage? Was this the inevitable purgatory through -which all flesh must pass to reach the goal? Could she, Darcy, conscious -of flaccidity of body and spirit, endure-- - -"Tomorra at three," cut in Mr. Dunne's brusque tones. - -Impersonal and coldly business-like though Andy Dunne might appear -to the apprehensive novice, he was an artist in his line, and took a -conscientious interest in his clients. Inspired thereby, he called up -Gloria Greene and requested information. - -"Spoiled child," was the diagnosis which he received over the'phone. - -"Fool parents?" he inquired. - -"No." - -"Rich feller?" - -"Nothing of that sort." - -"What's spoilt her, then?" - -"She's spoilt herself." - -"That's bad." - -"But she doesn't know it." - -"That's worse." - -"So I've sent her to you, Andy." And Gloria outlined her hopeful -programme for Darcy. - -"Grmph!" snorted the trainer. "Will she stand the gaff, d' yah think?" - -"She'll have to," chuckled Gloria. "If she doesn't, let me know. I've -got a hold over her." - -The mere process of purchasing has an inspiriting effect upon the -feminine psychology. By the time Darcy had acquired her simple gymnasium -outfit, her fears were forgotten in optimism. With such appropriate -clothes the experiment must be a success! Proudly she arrayed herself -in them, upon arrival at Mr. Andy Dunne's academy at the hour set; the -close-fitting, rather scratchy tights, the scant and skirtless trousers, -the light canvas shoes, the warmly enveloping sweater, and the -rubber cap to keep her hair from interfering with her exertions. Thus -appareled, Darcy quite esteemed herself as an athlete. She could already -feel her muscular potentialities developing beneath the rough, stimulant -cloth. She thought lightly of the various apparatus awaiting her in the -"shop"; playthings of her coming prowess. She would show Mr. Andy Dunne -what an apt and earnest devotee of the vigorous life could achieve. Thus -uplifted she went forth with a confident smile to meet the man who, for -weary months, was to fill a large part of her life. - -At sight of her Mr. Dunne, schooled though he was in self-restraint, -barely suppressed a groan of pained surprise. That garb which had so -pleased Darcy, however much it may have been an inspiration to her, was -a revelation to the dismayed eyes of her instructor. To Gloria Greene, -one of the few people with whom he forgot his reticence, he afterwards -made his little plaint. - -"If they're fat, I can sweat'em. If they're skinny, I can pad'em with -muscle. But this squab, she's fat and skinny _all_ in the wrong places." - -Half hopeful that he might discover some disabling symptom, he tested -her heart and her breathing. All was normal. He noted her yellowish -eyes, her sallow skin, the beginning of a fold under her chin, the -slackness of her posture. - -"How old are yah?" he demanded. - -"Just twenty-one." - -"Grmph!" barked Mr. Dunne, in a tone which unflatteringly suggested -surprise, but also relief. "Well we gotta getta work." - -How pleasurable was that hour's exercise to Darcy! With what delight did -her unforeboding spirit take to the ways of a hardy athleticism! 'Never -could she have imagined it so easy. No sooner was she weary of one kind -of a trial, dumb-bells, Indian-clubs, or pulleys, than, when her breath -began to come short, the watchful instructor stopped her and, after a -rest, set her to something else. Her skin pricked and glowed beneath the -close but unrestricting suit. Little drops of moisture came out on -her face and were gayly brushed away. She could feel herself breathing -deeper, her blood running faster and fuller in her veins, her muscles -suppling along the bones. She hurled the medi-cine-ball with fervor. -She attacked the punch-ing-bag with ferocity. She swung at the elusive -little hand-ball with a violence unhampered by any sense of direction. -From time to time she threw a glance, hopefully inviting approval, at -the stonily watchful visage of Mr. Andy Dunne. - -The approval did not manifest itself. Darcy, had she but known it, was -going through that schedule of the mildest type known derisively to -Andy's academy as "the consumptive's stunt." At the conclusion of a trot -three times around the room which she conceived herself as performing -with a light and springy step ("like a three-legged goat" was Mr. -Dunne's mental comparison), that gentleman said, "Nuff," a word which -later was to rank in his pupil's consciousness as the one assuaging -thing in an agonized world. The regulation first-day's-end catechism -then took place. - -"How d'yah feel?" - -"Fine!" - -"'s good! Lame?" - -"Not a bit." - -"Yah'll stiffen up later. Don't let it bother yah. Hot bath in the -morning." - -"All right." - -"Same time day after tomorra." He busied himself replacing the deranged -apparatus. "How's the appetite?" he asked carelessly. - -"It hasn't been so very good." - -"No? Try it on this." - -"Diet for Miss D. Cole," was typed across the top of a meager-looking -list of edibles and what that young lady would have considered -inedibles, which she found herself conning. - -"Is that _all?_" she inquired dismally. - -"Take as much as yah want of it," returned Mr. Dunne generously. - -"But--I mean--it doesn't look very nice." - -"The Big Feller trained on it," observed the other with an air of -finality. "What's wrong with it?" - -"Why--why--it's--well--monotonous," explained the girl. "There isn't a -sweet thing in it. No cakes. No desserts. Not even ice-cream. Why can't -I have a little sweets?" - -"Because," answered Mr. Dunne, "yah got creases in your stomach." - -Darcy started. "No! Have I?" she asked, vaguely alarmed as to what -profound digestive catastrophe that might portend. - -"Well, haven't yah? About there--and there--and prob'ly there." Mr. -Dunne drew an illustrative and stubby forefinger thrice vertically -across his own flat abdomen. "Look to-night and yah'll see'em." - -"Oh!" gasped Darcy, turning fiery red, for it is one of our paradoxical -conventions that a young lady may discuss the inside of her stomach -without shame, but not the outside. - -Mr. Dunne regarded the blush with disfavor. "Look-a-here," he said -bluntly. "Yah, needn't get rattled." - -"But--I--I--didn't--" - -"Cut the school-girl stuff. Yah'r my pupil. I'm yahr trainer. That's all -there is _to_ it, if we're going to get along comfortable. Get me?" - -"Yes," said Darcy. "I won't be silly again. And I'll try and mind the -diet." - -Vastly to her surprise and gratification, the neophyte arose on the -following morning without severe symptoms of lameness. Here and there -an unsuspected muscle had awakened to life and to mild protest over -the resurrection. But on the whole Darcy felt none the worse for her -experience. She began to surmise that she was one of that physically -blessed class, a born athlete. If beauty, vigor, and health were to be -achieved at no harder a price than this, they were almost like a gift of -the good fairies. The only unusual phenomena she observed as a result -of her introspection were a lack of interest in her food, which she set -down to the discredit of the diet, and a tendency to fall asleep over -her work. She went to bed early that night, quite looking forward to the -morrow's exercise. - -Nature has a stock practical joke which she plays on the physically -negligent when they begin training. Instead of inflicting muscular -remorse on the morning after, she lets the bill run for another -twenty-four hours and then pounces upon the victim with an astounding -accumulation of painful arrears. Opening her eyes on that second -day after Mr. Dunne's mild but sufficient schedule--the one muscular -movement she was able to make without acute agony--Darcy became -cognizant that every hinge in her body had rusted. She attempted to -swing her legs out of bed, and stuck, with her feet projecting out from -the clothes, paralyzed and groaning. From the bedroom next to Darcy's -alcove, Helen Barrett heard the sounds of lamentation and tottered -drowsily in. - -"What ever is the matter, Darcy?" - -"I can't get up" moaned the victim. - -"What is it? Are you ill?" - -"No! No! I'm all right. Only--" - -"Get your legs back in bed." The kindly Helen thrust back the protruding -limbs, thereby wringing from the sufferer a muffled shriek which brought -Maud Raines to the scene. - -"It's rheumatism, I think," explained Helen to the newcomer. "Or else -paralysis." - -"It isn't," denied Darcy indignantly. - -"What is it, then?" - -Racked by all manner of darting pains and convulsive cramps, Darcy -began the cautious process of emerging from bed. "Do be good--ugh!" she -implored. "And don't--ooch!--ask questions--and draw me a boiling hot -bath--ow-w-w!--and help me into it--oh-h-h-h--_dear!_" - -Greatly wondering they followed the sufferer's directions, got her duly -en-tubbed, and ensconced themselves outside the door, which they left -carefully ajar for explanations. All they got for this maneuver was an -avowal of the bather's firm intention of spending the rest of the day in -the mollifying water. - -"If you want to be really nice," she added, "you might bring my coffee -and rolls to me here." - -"Well, really!" said Maud indignantly, for this was a reversal of the -normal order of things in Bachelor-Girls' Hall. As the homely member -of an otherwise attractive trio, Darcy had been, by common consent, -constituted the meek and unprotesting servitor of the other two. Thus do -relics of Orientalism persist among the most independent race of women -known to history. - -Darcy accepted the rebuff. "It doesn't matter," said she, with a quaver -of self-pity. "I can't have coffee. I can't have hot rolls. I can't have -anything." - -Her two mates exchanged glances. "Darcy, you've got to see a doctor." - -"I haven't! I won't!" - -"But if you can't move and can't eat--" - -"I'm much better now. Really I am," declared the other, alarmed at the -threat of a physician, who might suspect the truth and give her away to -the others. "I'm going to dress." Which she did, at the price of untold -pangs. Breakfast passed in a succession of questioning silences and -suspicious glances, but Darcy guarded her tongue. To reveal the facts -and what lay behind them would be only to invite discouragement and -dissuasion if not actual ridicule. After the frugal and tasteless ordeal -of hominy without sugar, followed by one egg without butter, she limped -into the front room and set herself doggedly to the elaboration of a new -design for B. Riegel & Sons. Notwithstanding the legacy, she could -not afford to neglect the economic side of life whilst fostering the -physical. Her special course in the development of charm, via the -muscle-and-sinew route, she perceived, was going to take longer than she -had foreseen. Already she felt that the schedule ought to be radically -relaxed. Her unfitness to take the lesson set for that afternoon was -obvious. Next week, perhaps--'though, on the whole, she inclined to the -belief that she should have about ten days to recuperate. - -She would write to Mr. Dunne and explain. No; she would telephone him. -Better still, she would go up to the Academy of Tortures in person and -exhibit to the proprietor's remorseful eyes the piteous wreck which he -had made of her blithe young girlhood. - -She went. Mr. Andy Dunne regarded the piteous wreck without outward and -visible signs of distress. - -"Yah got five minutes," he remarked emotionlessly, glancing at the -clock. - -"I can't possibly go on to-day," said Darcy firmly. - -"No?" - -"Every bone in my body creaks. I haven't got a muscle that isn't sore. -I ache in places that I didn't even know I had. Why, Mr. Dunne," she -declared impressively, as a conclusion to the painful inventory, "if I -tried to go through those exercises again to-day, I'd die!" - -"Grmph!" said Mr. Dunne, indicating that he was unimpressed. - -"I c-c-c-can't do it and I won't!" said Darcy, like a very naughty -child. - -"Yah paid me three hundr'n sixty dollars, didn't yah?" - -"Yes," replied Darcy, her heart sinking, at the recollection of the sum -which she had invested in assorted agonies. - -"Did yah think that was going to buy yah what yah'r after?" - -Darcy gulped dismally. - -"It ain't. Money can't buy it. Yah gotta have gu--grit." Mr. -Dunne achieved the timely amendment in the middle of the stronger -qualification. - -Darcy's mind went back to Gloria Greene's preachment upon the text of -"grit": "You don't know what the word means, yet." Apparently she was in -a fair way to find out. - -"Two minutes gone," announced the trainer's inexorable voice. - -How she did it she never knew. But under impulsion of the sterner will, -she got into her gymnasium suit and was on the floor only three minutes -past the hour. The apparatus which she had at first encountered with so -much interest and curiosity now had a sinister effect of lying in -wait like the implements of a dentist's office. She speculated, with a -shrinking of her whole frame, upon which one would be selected as the -agency of the initial agony. Giving them not so much as a look, Mr. -Andy Dunne led her to a large, rough mat and bade her stretch out on her -back. - -"Lift the left foot in the air," he directed. - -Darcy did so, with caution. - -"Higher!" said Mr. Dunne. - -"Oo-yee!" lamented Darcy. - -"Back. Lift the right foot in the air." - -Darcy obeyed without enthusiasm. - -"Higher!" said Mr. Dunne. - -"Ow-wow!" mourned Darcy. - -"Back. Lift both feet in the air." - -"I can't!" said Darcy. - -"Yah gotta!" said Mr. Dunne. - -Two wavering, quivering legs rose slowly from the mat, attained an angle -of forty-five degrees, and dropped back to earth with a thud. Their -owner had been forcibly reminded of the three creases in her stomach -by the fact that they had unanimously set to writhing and grinding upon -each other in fiery convolutions of protest, resultant upon the unwonted -angle of the legs. - -"Higher!" commanded the pitiless Mr. Dunne. - -"Can't!" - -"Gotta!" - -With a spasmodic heave, the victim attained perhaps fifty degrees of -elevation, and straightened out, gasping. Next her instructor had her -sit up erect from a flat position, without aid from hands or elbows, -whereat all the muscles in her back, thighs, and abdomen, hitherto -unawakened, roused themselves and yelled in chorus. Then he had her -repeat the whole devastating process from the first before he spoke the -word of reprieve. - -"Nuff!" - -Darcy rolled over on her face and lay panting. "How d' yah feel?" - -"Awful!" gasped Darcy. - -"Still a bit stiff?" - -"A bit! Oh-h-h-h!" - -"Then we'll do it all again," said Mr. Dunne cheerfully. "Nothin' like -light exercise to loosen up the human frame." - -For that "light" Darcy could cheerfully have slain him. Nobody since the -world began, she felt convinced, neither gladiator of the classic arena -nor the mighty John L. himself, had ever undergone such a fearsome -grilling and lived. And now there was more to come. Over the twistings -and turnings, the arm-flexures, the hoppings and skippings, the tingling -of the outraged muscles, the panting of the overtaxed lungs, let us draw -a kindly curtain. - -When the horrid hour was over, Darcy in her cold shower felt numb. -Whether she could ever manage to get home on her own disjointed feet -seemed doubtful. But she did. She went to bed at eight o'clock that -night, having eaten almost nothing, in the firm conviction that she -never would be able to get up in the morning without help, and probably -not with it! - -Sleep such as she had not known in years submerged her. Roused late -by her companions, she moved first an arm, then a leg, tentatively. No -penalty attached to the experiment. With a low, anticipatory groan she -sat up slowly in bed. The groan was a case of crying before she was -hurt. She began to feel herself cautiously all over. Her skin was a -little tender to the touch, and she noted with interest that the blood -ran impetuously to whatever spot on the surface her exploring fingers -pressed. But of that crippling lameness, that feeling of the whole -bodily mechanism being racked and rusted, there remained only a trace. -In its place was left a new variety of pang which Darcy pleasantly -identified. She was ravenously hungry. - -Maud Raines observed to Helen Barrett after breakfast that any one who -could bolt plain oatmeal the way Darcy did must have the appetite of a -pig, and no wonder she was fat and slobby. But Andy Dunne, calling up -Gloria to report progress, thus delivered his opinion: - -"You know that squab you sent me, Miss Greene?" - -"Yes." - -"She wanted to quit." - -"No! Did she do it?" - -"I bluffed her out of it. And say, Miss Greene!" - -"Yes, Andy." - -"There may be something to that kid." - -"Glad you think so." - -Said Andy Dunne, expert on the human race slowly, consideringly, and -more prophetically than he knew: - -"I kinda think there's fighting stuff some-wheres under that fat." - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -HAD Andy Dunne's surmise been laid before Darcy, it might have brought -sorely needed encouragement to her soul as the regenerative process -went on. True she had presently passed the first crisis which athletic -regimen develops for the untrained, and which is purely muscular. She -no longer swung to and fro, a helpless pendulum, between the agonies of -apprehension and the anguish of action. The steady exercise was telling -in so far as her muscles were concerned; she had still to face the test -of discipline. In this second and sterner crisis, Andy Dunne could help -her but little. It was a question of her own power of will, a will grown -slack and flabby from lack of exercise. Ahead of her loomed, only dimly -discerned as yet, the ordeal of strenuous monotony; the deadly-dull, -prolonged grind wherein endurance, as it hardens, is subjected to a -constantly harsher strain, until the soul revolts as, in the earlier -stage, the body had rebelled. - -A subject like Gloria Greene, high and fine of spirit, the sage Mr. -Dunne could have eased through the difficult phase by appeals to her -pride and to the sense of partnership which the successful trainer -must establish between himself and his pupil. With Darcy this was -impracticable because Andy Dunne, as he would have admitted with a -regretful grin, was "in wrong." Darcy enthusiastically hated him. - -At first sight she had estimated him as a stern spirit. Through -successive changes that reckoning had been altered to "harsh," -then "brutal," and now "Satanic." Gloria's judgment of her note of -introduction as "a commutation ticket to Hades, first class," was amply -borne out. - -Professionally Mr. Dunne's discourse tended ever to the hortatory and -corrective. He was a master of the verbal rowel. - -"Keep it up!" - -"Again!" - -"Ah-h-h, put some punch in it!" - -"Yah ain't _haff_ trying!" - -"Go wan! Yah gotta do better'n'at!" And, occasionally, "Rotten!" - -Worse still was a manner he had of regarding her with an expression -of mild and regretful wonder whilst giving voice to his bulldoggish -"Grmph!" in a tone indicating only too plainly that never before was -conscientious trainer so bored and afflicted with such an utterly -incompetent, inefficient, and generally hopeless subject as the daily -withering Darcy. - -In lighter moments he would regale her with reminiscences of the Big -Feller and his eccentricities in and insubordinations under training, -while Darcy would lie, panting and spent, on the hard floor, -wondering regretfully why the Big Feller hadn't killed Mr. Dunne when -opportunities must have been so plentiful. Then, just as her labored -breathing would begin to ease, the taskmaster in Mr. Dunne would awaken, -the call "Time" would sound like doom to her ears, and she would set to -it again, arching on her back, rolling on her stomach (where the three -creases were beginning to flatten), yanking at overweighted pulleys, -interminably skipping a loathly rope, standing up like a dumb ten-pin -before the ponderous medi-cine-ball which Mr. Dunne hurled at her, -punching at an elusive and too often vengeful bag, rowing an imaginary -boat against wind, wave, and every dictate of her weary body, and -finally running silly circles around the room like a demented cat, until -the monitor uttered the one, lone word of pity in his inquisitorial -vocabulary: "Nuff!" - -Had all this deep-wrung sweat of brow and soul produced any definable -effect, Darcy could have borne it with a resigned spirit. It didn't. -Four times a week she went through the hideous grind, and nothing -happened. Each night she went to bed early and after profound sleep had -to get up out of the cuddly warmth into a shudderingly cold bath--and -nothing happened. She gave up the before-dinner cocktail and with -it what little zest she had for her deadly plain diet--and nothing -happened. She denied her sweet tooth so much as one little bite of -candy--oh, but that was a bitter deprivation--and nothing happened. To -her regimen at the gymnasium she added a stint of simple but violent -house exercises on off days--and nothing happened. Life, which she had -supposed, in her first flush of hopeful enthusiasm for the new -régime, would be one grand, sweet song, was, in fact, one petty, sour -discord--wherein nothing happened. This was quite right and logical, -had Darcy but known it. Layers of fat, physical and moral, accumulated -through years of self-coddling, are not worked off in a week or a month. - -There came a day when something did happen. There always does. It was -not of that order of occurrences which can be foreseen by the expert -eye. It seldom is. Andy Dunne, honestly and simply intent on earning -his money, had been unusually exigent. Besides, Darcy had a nail in her -shoe. Besides, Mr. Riegel had been curtly critical of her latest and -most original design as "new-fangled." Besides, Maud was becoming -satirically curious as to where she was spending so many afternoons. -Besides, it was a rotten day. There was no light on earth or in heaven! - -"What's the use of it all, anyway!" thought Darcy to herself, for -perhaps the fiftieth time, but rather more fervently than before. - -As if in exasperation of her agnostic mood, the preceptor, in the -half-time intermission, had suggested not less, but more work! - -"Yah'r gettin' stale," observed Mr. Dunne, which Darcy thought a hopeful -beginning. - -"I feel so," she said. - -"There's a clock," Mr. Dunne informed her, "at Fifty-Ninth and Eighth." - -Darcy waited. - -"There's another at a Hundred'n Tenth and Seventh," pursued the -chronometrical Mr. Dunne, and fell into calculating thought. - -Darcy waited again. - -"Yah leave Fifty-Ninth at 4.20 p.m." - -"When?" - -"Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays." - -"Oh!" said Darcy blankly. - -"And yah get to a Hundred'n-Tenth in time to hear that clock strike 5." - -"What! Walk? Nearly three miles in forty minutes?" - -"No," said Mr. Dunne thoughtfully. - -"Then, how--" - -"Yah'd better run part way, or yah won't make it on time." - -"You want to kill me!" declared the petulant and self-pitying Darcy. - -"Grmph!" said Mr. Dunne. - -"Suppose it rains?" put forth Darcy desperately. - -"Then yah'll get wet," was Mr. Dunne's reasonable answer. - -"And catch my death riding back in the bus." - -"Don't ride. Walk. I'm giving this to yah for fresh air." - -"But Mr. Dunne--" - -"Time!" - -It may have been this fresh grievance which lay heavy upon Darcy's -chest, clogging her breathing and slowing her suppled muscles. She was -conscious of doing less well than usual--and of not caring, either! The -medicine-ball was heavier and more unwieldy than ever. The punching-bag, -instinct with a demoniac vitality, came back at her on a new schedule -and bumped her nose violently, a mortifying incident which had not -occurred since the first week. The despicable little hand-ball, -propelled by her trainer, bounded just a fraction of an inch out of her -straining reach, and when she did hit it, felt as soggy as sand and as -hard as rock and raised stone-bruises on her hands. She even pinched her -thumb in the rowing-machine, which is the zenith of inexpertness. -With every fresh mishap she became more self-piteous and resentful and -reckless. Andy, the Experienced, would have ascribed all this to that -common if obscure phenomenon, an "off day," familiar to every professor -whether of integral calculus or the high trapeze. Then the dreadful -thing happened, and he revised his opinion. - -The last, and therefore worst, five minutes of the grind had come. Darcy -lay on the mat going through the loathed body-and-limb-lifting while -Andy Dunne exhorted her to speed up. "Now the legs. Come on. Hup!" - -Something in Darcy went on strike. - -"Can't," she said. - -"Grmph! What's matter?" - -"Won't!" said Darcy. - -From the corner of a hot and rebellious eye she could see overspreading -her trainer's face that familiar expression of contemptuous and weary -patience. Anything else she could have stood. But that--that was the -spark that fired the powder. Stooping over, the trainer laid hold, none -too gently, on one inert heel. - -Heaven and earth reversed themselves for Mr. Andy Dunne. Also day and -night, for a galaxy of stars appeared and circulated before his mazed -eyes. The walls and the ceiling joined in the whirl, to which an end -was set by the impact of the floor against the back of his head. For one -brief, sweet, romantic moment Andy Dunne was back in the training-ring -with the Big Feller and that venerated and mulish right had landed one -on his jaw. But why, oh, why, should the mighty John L. thereupon burst -into hysterical sobbing? And if it wasn't the Big Feller, who was it -making those grievous noises? - -Mr. Dunne sat up, viewed a huddled, girlish form trying unsuccessfully -to burrow headforemost out of sight in the hard mat, and came to a -realization of the awful fact. With all the force of her newly acquired -leg muscles, the meek Miss Cole had landed a galvanic kick on his -unprotected chin. For a moment he stared in stupefaction. Then he arose -and went quietly forth into his own place, where he sat on a chair and -rubbed his chin and thought, and presently began to chuckle, and kept it -up until the chuckle grew into a laugh which shook his tough frame more -violently than had the unexpected assault. - -"Well, I _am_ d----d!" said Mr. Dunne. "The little son-of-a-gun!" - -Meanwhile Darcy lay curled up like a quaking armadillo. Probably Andy -Dunne would kill her. She didn't much care. Life wasn't worth living, -anyhow. She was through. The one pleasant impression of her whole -disastrous gymnasium experience was the impact of her heel against that -contemptuous chin. - -She opened one eye. Andy Dunne was not where he should have landed -as the result of the revolution which he had been performing when he -whirled from her view. She opened the other eye. Andy Dunne was not -anywhere. He had vanished into nothingness. - -With all the sensation of a criminal, Darcy rose, dressed, and fled. She -fled straight to Gloria Greene. That industrious person was, as usual, -at work, and as usual found time to hear Darcy's troubles. What she -heard was gaspy and fragmentary. - -"Gloria, I've done an _awful_ thing!" - -"What? Out with it," commanded the actress. - -"I ki-ki-ki--I can't tell you," gulped Darcy. "Mr. Dunne--I mean, I -ki-ki-ki--" - -"Yes," encouraged Gloria. "What awful thing have you done to Andy Dunne? -Kissed him?" - -"_No!_ Worse." - -"Oh! You ki-ki-killed him, I suppose," twinkled Gloria. - -"I don't know. I hope so. I ki-ki-kicked him. I kicked him _good!_" - -"Darcy! Where?" - -"On the chin." - -"What did he do?" - -"Disappeared." - -"Do I understand that you kicked him into microscopical pieces?" - -"Don't laugh at me, Gloria. It's very, very serious." - -"It sounds so." - -"I'm done with it. Forever." - -"Done with what?" - -"The gymnasium. The diet. Andy Dunne. Everything." - -"Oh, no, you're not." - -"I am! I _am!_ I yam!" declared Darcy with progressive petulance. "I've -been torturing myself for nothing. It hasn't made a bit of difference. -Look at me!" - -Gloria looked and with difficulty concealed a smile of satisfaction. -For, to her expert eyes, there was a difference, a marked difference, -still submerged but obvious, beneath the surface, in movements which, -formerly sluggish, were now brisk and supple, in a clear eye, and a skin -which seemed to fit on the flesh where before it had sagged. - -"How did you get up here?" inquired Gloria abruptly. - -"Ran." - -"Up the whole four flights? The elevator is working." - -"D----n the elevator!" said the outrageous - -Darcy. - -"A few weeks ago you were damning it because it wouldn't carry up your -lazy body. Isn't there a difference now?" - -"I don't care; it isn't the difference I want. I want to look like -something. Gloria, I'm desperate." - -"No, child. That isn't despair. It's temper." - -"It's not." - -"Go back to Andy's and work it off." - -"I wont!" - -"Very well." With a sigh for her interrupted task, Gloria selected a -hat, set it carefully upon her splendid hair and pinned it in place. -"You'll excuse me, won't you, my dear?" she added in tones which aroused -her visitor's alarmed suspicions. - -"Where are you going? To see Mr. Dunne?" - -"Not at all." - -Darcy's misgivings livened into something like terror. - -"Where, then?" - -"To see Maud and Helen." - -"What for?" - -"To recount to them the authentic and interesting history of Sir -Montrose Veyze, Bart., hand-picked fiancé, of--" - -"Gloria! You wouldn't be so _base!_" - -"I would be just that base," returned the other in the measured tones -of judgment. "But I'll give you a respite until your next training day. -When is it?" - -"Day after to-morrow," answered Darcy faintly. - -"If you aren't at Andy's then to answer to the call of time, I'll -tell the whole thing to the two fiancées with whatever extra details my -imagination can provide." - -Whereupon Darcy burst into tumultuous weeping, declared that she hadn't -a friend in the world, and didn't care, anyway, because she wished she -was dead, and went forth of that unsympathetic spot with the air and -expression of one spurning earth's vanities and deceptions forever. -Being wise in her generation and kind, Gloria knew that the girl would -go back to her martyrdom. So she called up Andy Dunne for a conference, -which concluded with this sage advice from her to him: - -"This is the appointed time, Andy. When she comes back, put the screws -on hard. She'll go through. If she doesn't, let me know." - -No scapegrace of school, led back from truancy after some especially -nefarious project, ever wore a face of more tremulous abasement than -Miss Darcy Cole, returning to her faithful trainer whom she had kicked -in the jaw. As he entered the gymnasium a strip of court-plaster on the -curve of his chin caught her fascinated attention and for the moment -evicted from her mind the careful apology which she had formulated. -Before she could recapture it, the opportunity was gone. "Time!" barked -Mr. Dunne. - -The day's work was on. - -Such an ordeal as Darcy underwent in consequence of Gloria's advice, few -of Mr. Dunne's pupils other than professional athletes would have been -called upon to endure, a fact which might have helped her had she known -it. Not knowing it, she won through that violent hour on sheer grit. -At the trainer's final "Nuff," she contrived to smile, but she couldn't -quite manage to walk off the floor. She sat down upon a convenient -medicine-ball and waited for the dimness to clear. A hand fell on her -shoulder and rested there with an indefinable pressure of fellowship. -She looked up to see the taskmaster standing above her. - -"Say, kid," he began. "Yah are a kid, ainche?" he broke off, a little -doubtfully. - -"I'm going--on--twenty-two," panted Darcy. - -"Yeh, I'd figure yah about there--now. Well, I'm an old man; old enough -for the father stuff. And I wanta tell yah something. I like yah. D' yah -know why I like yah?" - -Darcy, with brightening eye, shook her head. - -"Because yah'r game," said Mr. Andy Dunne. - -A voice within Darcy's heart burst into song. For the first time in her -life she had been praised to the limit of a fellow being's measure. For -gameness, as she well knew, was the ultimate virtue to the athlete mind. -The Big Feller had been game, even in his downfall; it was that, over -and above all his victories, which had enshrined him in Andy Dunne's and -thousands of other stout and inexpressive hearts. - -Her trainer had paid her his finest compliment. - -"Yah'r game," he repeated. "I dunno exactly what yah'r out after, but -I'm backin' yah to get it." - -"Thank you, Mr. Dunne," said Darcy gratefully. - -"Grmph!" retorted that gentleman. "Cut the Mister. Andy, to you." - -"Thank you, Andy," said the recipient of the accolade. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - "_Rum_-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle!" - -THE voice sounded, fresh and brisk from behind the portals of the -Fifty-Sixth Street eyrie. It was followed by a rapid succession of -floppish noises which fell strangely upon the ears of Miss Maud Raines -and Miss Helen Barrett, panting after their long ascent, outside the -door. They had returned from a shopping tour at the unaccustomed hour of -three when Darcy usually could rely upon having the place to herself. - -"Isn't Darcy the gay young sprite!" said Helen as the song burst forth -again. - -"Flip-flop, flippity-floppity-flub" sounded in progression across the -living-room floor. - -The two fiancées looked at each other in bewilderment. - -"What on earth!" said Maud Raines. - -Again the voice was uplifted, in familiar melody, gemmed with words less -familiar: - - "Ru m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle, - I have rolled ten pounds from off my middle. - By rolling on the floor, (Flip! Flop!) - As I told you before, - Behind! - Behind! - Before!" (Floppity-flop!) - -"I do believe she's _doing_ it," whispered Helen in awed accents. - -The voice, with its strange accompaniments, resumed: - - "Ru m-tu m-tu m-tum-tu m-tu m-tiddle, - I'll roll twenty pounds from off my middle. - I have done it before. (Floppity-flop! Thump!) - I can do it some more!" (Whoof!) - -By this time Maud's key, silently inserted in the spring lock, had made -connections. She threw the door open. Darcy, giving an imitation of a -steam roller in full career toward the two entrants, was startled into a -cry. She came to her feet with a bound, without pausing to touch so much -as a finger to the floor, a detail which escaped the protruding eyes of -her flatmates, and stood facing them flushed and defiant. - -"Well!" said Maud Raines. - -"What are you up to, Darcy?" asked Helen. - -"Exercising," said Darcy blandly. - -"And practicing vocal music on the side," remarked Maud. - -"Oh, that's just for breathing," exclaimed the girl. - -"But what's it all _about?_" queried Helen. "I've gone into training." - -"You! What for?" - -"Oh, I don't know. Just for fun." - -"You look it," was Maud's grim commentary. "Who's training you?" - -"Andy Dunne. He trained John L. Sullivan and Gloria Greene." - -"And which one are you modeling yourself on?" asked Maud maliciously. - -"Oh, I'd rather be like Gloria, of course," retorted Darcy easily. "But -I feel more like John L." - -"I think it very clever of you, Darcy," approved the kind-hearted Helen. -"Englishmen are so athletic." - -Darcy seized upon the convenient suggestion. "Monty is crazy for me to -be a real sport," she said modestly. - -"It's a good thing he can't see you learning," remarked Maud. - -"Did you ever know anything more pathetic!" said Helen, when they had -withdrawn, leaving Darcy to resume her exercises. - -"Pathetic! Driveling foolishness! Such a figure as she cuts! And it's -all such a waste," concluded Maud, complacent in her own bright-hued -prettiness. - -But a more discerning eye took a different view. Holcomb Lee, who hadn't -seen Darcy for some weeks, had no sooner said, "Hello!" in his usual -offhand way, when he came to call that evening, than he seized a pencil -and demanded a sheet of paper. - -"You're always drawing Darcy!" said Maud disdainfully. - -"Just that curve from the ear down," said he absently. "Something's -happened to it." - -"What?" asked Maud. - -"It's come true. The way I wanted it to be. Only better." - -He took Darcy into the corner, under the light, and sketched busily. -As his quick glances appraised her, a look of puzzlement came into his -eyes. He leaned forward, and with the inoffensive impersonality of the -one-ideaed artist ran his hand lightly over her shoulder and down the -arm. - -"Moses!" said Holcomb Lee. - -Darcy had flexed her upper arm and the long, slender muscles came up -like iron. - -"Training?" he asked. - -Darcy nodded. - -Again he regarded her subtly altered face. "What for? The chorus?" - -"Haven't I been chorus long enough?" twinkled Darcy. - -"I get you," said Lee with emphasis. "You'll make the _ingénue_ hustle -for her job, whoever she is. By Jinks, it's a miracle!" - -"But don't tell them," said Darcy. - -"Who? The girls? Haven't they noticed? Why, a blind man could feel the -difference in you ten feet away." - -"You're the only one that has noticed it so far, and you're an artist." - -"Well, I suppose the girls wouldn't," said the illustrator thoughtfully. -"They see too much of you to recognize the change." - -What Andy Dunne's exercises had so obviously wrought in muscle and -condition, Andy Dunne's discipline had accomplished for character. -Imperceptibly even to herself, the inner Darcy was growing strong. One -result was a new zest in her designing, taking the form of experiments -aside from the beaten track which did not always meet the approval of -B. Riegel, active head of B. Riegel & Sons, manufacturers of wall-paper. -Now Mr. Riegel's approval, with the consequent check, was highly -essential to Miss Darcy Cole's plans. And Miss Darcy Cole's attitude -toward Mr. Riegel had always been acquiescent, not to say humble. - -But on a particular morning, when the designer was even more alive than -she was now accustomed to feel, she brought in a particular design, upon -which she had spent much time and thought, and with which she was well -content. Not so Mr. Riegel. Being first, last, and between times a man -of business, he hardly gave a glance to the dowdy girl as she entered, -but bestowed his entire attention on the sketch. "Too blank," was his -verdict. - -"That makes it restful," suggested Darcy. "Who wants restfulness? Pep! -That's what goes these days." - -"It's for a sleeping-room, you know." - -For all the effect upon the wall-paper man she might as well not have -spoken. He set two pencil cross-marks on the design. - -"Ornamentation here, and here," he directed curtly. - -"I prefer it as it is," said Darcy calmly. - -Two months--yes, two weeks before--Darcy would have stepped meekly out -and ruined her pattern by introducing the Riegel ornamentation. But all -was different now. Andy Dunne's encomium, "because yah'r game," had put -fire in her blood. There was a reflection of it in her cheeks when -Mr. Riegel looked up at her in surprise and annoyance. He saw the same -familiar figure in the same shabby, ill-fitting clothes. But now she -was standing up inside them. And she, whose dull regard formerly drooped -away from the most casual encounter, was confronting him with bright and -level eyes. - -"Suppose you give my way a trial," suggested this changeling. - -"Mebbe you know more about this business than I do," he challenged. - -"Not at all. But it's my design, after all, isn't it?" said the girl -pleasantly. - -Gathering it up with hands which somehow suggested protectiveness -against the Philistine blight of Mr. Riegel, she bestowed it safe in her -imitation-leather roll. "I'll try to bring you another next week," she -promised. - -"Wait, now, a minute!" cried the perplexed employer. "What're you going -to do with this one?" - -"Try it on Balke & Stover." - -"Leave it," he ordered. "Check'll be sent." He whirled around in his -chair, presenting the broad hint of a busy back to her. - -"Make it for thirty dollars, please," said Darcy to the back. - -Mr. Riegel performed a reverse whirl so much more swiftly than his -swivel-chair was prepared for that it was thrown off its balance, and -its occupant, with a smothered yelp, beheld himself orbitally projected -toward a line of open sample paints waiting on the floor for a test. -Mr. Riegel's own person was the last medium in the world upon which he -desired to test them, for much stress had been laid upon their lasting -quality. He was sprawling out, fairly above them, beyond human help, -it seemed, when something happened. Darcy, standing in that attitude of -unconscious but alert poise which rigid physical training inculcates, -thrust forth a slender but powerful hand, caught the despairing Riegel, -as it were in mid-flight, brought him up all standing, restored him to -the chair and both of them to the _status quo_. - -"Urf!" gasped the victim of these maneuvers. He bent a look upon Darcy -which was a curious blend of wonder, skepticism, and respect. "Say," he -said, "you couldn't use a job in the trucking department, maybe?" Then, -recovering himself, he growled: "What was that you said about thirty -dollars?" - -The growl had no effect. Darcy's confidence had been stiffened by the -little interlude of the chair. - -"My prices have gone up," she informed him. - -"The devil they have! Beg y' pardon, Miss Watchemame--" - -"My name is Cole." - -"Miss Cole. Look-a-here, now; d' you think your work is worth ten -dollars more than it has been?" - -"Put it this way; I think you've been paying me ten dollars too little. -Don't you?" - -At bottom Mr. Riegel was a fair-minded as well as a shrewd person. -Moreover, he had been tremendously impressed by the unsuspected -physical prowess of this queer specimen. To catch him in mid-flight and -reëstablish his equilibrium had required no mean quality of muscle. Yet -this sloppy-looking girl had done it without turning a hair! And now she -was striking him for a raise. He laughed aloud. - -"That ain't the point," said he. "I don't; but some of my competitors -might. Lessay twenty-five for the next half-dozen: after that, thirty, -and this one goes, as is." - -"Right!" said Darcy, composedly. - -Exultant she went out into a dusk of wind and rain, such as would have -swamped her spirit in misery aforetime, and fought her way joyously -through it, ending her journey by taking the long flights of the -apartment two steps at a time and singing as she sped. Outside the door -she had noticed a taxi. In the front room she found Gloria, who had -stopped on her way to the theater, stretched on the divan and talking -with the turtledoves. - -"I looked in to see how you were getting on," said the actress, eyeing -Darcy keenly. - -"Splendidly!" - -"Everything all right in the gymnasium? Did Andy--er--" - -"Oh, yes. It's all right," hastily broke in the girl, having no mind to -hear her felonies discussed by her flat-mates. "Just as right as right -can be." - -"You're awfully chirpy, considering what a beast of a raw, rainy day -it's been," observed Helen. - -"Is it bad?" said Darcy blandly. "I suppose it is, but I hardly -noticed." - -"Another British mail in, I suppose," conjectured Maud. "That always -brightens her up." - -"If there is I haven't got anything yet," answered Darcy, who had -neglected to consult the morning papers for the incoming steamship -entries. Her myth involved so many supporting lies, that it was -difficult and ticklish to keep it properly bolstered up. - -"Has she told you about the Britisher, Gloria?" asked Helen. - -"Monty Veyze? Of course. I know him." - -"You know him!" cried Helen and Maud in a breath. "What's he like?" - -"Oh, he's all that Darcy thinks he is," smiled Gloria. "It's years since -I've seen him. To put it Englishwise, he was by way of being horribly -smart, then. Just where is he now, Darcy?" - -"Near the Siberian frontier," said Darcy shortly. There was a gleam in -Gloria's eye which she neither understood nor liked. - -"In one of the twenty-two sub-wars that signalize the universal peace, I -suppose," laughed the actress. "Or is it twenty-nine." - -"I thought long engagements weren't the thing in England," said Maud, -musingly. "Particularly in these uncertain times when--when anything -might happen." - -"I think that's pretty horrid of you, Maud," retorted Darcy with -carefully assumed sadness, smothering a private and murderous wish that -"anything" would happen to her home-made fiancé. - -"I don't mean it that way. But if I were really engaged to an Englishman -on active service, I'd go over and marry him, on his very first leave." - -Casual though Maud's "really" sounded, it brought red to Darcy's cheeks -and a livelier gleam to Gloria's eyes. The latter turned to Darcy. - -"Why not tell them?" - -"Tell them what?" inquired the girl, staring at her mentor in amaze and -alarm. - -"All about Monty. The whole thing. You know, I claim a partnership in -him." - -By a mighty effort Darcy suppressed a gasp. What was Gloria up to, now? - -"Go on," the actress urged. "Tell them." - -"I-I can't," stammered Darcy, which was exactly what the feminine -Macchiavelli on the divan was maneuvering for. - -"Shy?" said she, sweetly. "Very well, then. I'll tell them. May I?" - -Receiving a dubious nod, Gloria proceeded: - -"Sir Montrose Veyze has finally got his leave. He'll be here about the -middle of October." (That "gone" feeling came over Darcy.) - -"By the 15th?" asked Helen eagerly. "In time for our wedding?" - -"No. That's the unfortunate part. We hoped we could make it a triple -wedding. That's the little surprise Darcy has been waiting to spring on -you." - -"Can't he make it?" asked Maud. The notion of a titled adjunct to her -marriage appealed strongly to her practical mind. - -"Not quite. The best he can do is the 16th. Possibly later. So they'll -be married quite quietly from my apartment and have a month's honeymoon -before he goes back." - -To all of which Darcy listened in the stupefaction of despair. She was -roused by Helen Barrett's bear-hug of congratulations. - -"Do you know," said Helen, "I haven't really quite been able to believe -it up to now. Oh, Darcy, I'm so glad for you!" - -With some faltered excuse for getting out of the room, the subject -of this untimely felicitation escaped. Her brain seethed with horrid -conjectures. Here was a furtherance of her phantom plans for which she -was wholly unprepared. Doubtless Gloria had something in mind; but what -could it be? When the day of inevitable reckoning should come, -Darcy could see no adequate solution other than suicide or permanent -disappearance. Meanwhile Gloria was putting her to the test of the -severest judgment by asking her flat-mates: - -"Don't you think Darcy looks well?" - -If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so likewise is the lack of -it. Having become habituated to regarding their junior partner as -aesthetically and femininely negligible, the other girls failed to -appreciate the vital changes that were in progress. Miracles, set under -our eyes, do not arrest us. Otherwise we should all stand about in -stupefaction watching trees grow. - -"She looks healthy," granted Maud indifferently. - -"And she's a lot more cheerful and lively," added Helen. "But she'll -always be--well, just Darcy." - -Being a scrupulously courteous person Miss Gloria Greene refrained from -the prophetic comparison which suggested itself to her annoyed mind as -appropriate, and contented herself with the inward retort: - -"Oh, will she! Wait until I've dressed her. And then keep a watchful eye -on your Holcomb Lees and your Paul Woods!" - -On her way out Darcy pounced upon her. "Gloria! What have you let me in -for? How am I ever going to get out of it?" - -"Heaven knows!" returned the actress airily. "Don't __you know?" - -"Haven't an idea. Sufficient unto the day is--" - -"Unto all the rest of my days, I should think," interrupted the dolorous -Darcy. - -"Engagements have to come to a head sometime, somehow," pointed out -Gloria. - -"But you've made this so dreadfully definite!" - -"Darcy, I had to! I just couldn't stand Maud's insinuation that you -weren't really engaged--the cat! She as much as said that Montrose Veyze -was just having a silly flirtation with you and that you took it _au -grand sérieux_." - -"What if she knew the awful truth?" - -"Don't be afraid. She won't." - -"How are we going to help it?" - -"Break the engagement; there's one way. Say the word, Darcy, my child," -said Gloria striking a sacrificial attitude, "and I'll go across and -gather in Monty Veyze, myself, for your sake." - -"Isn't there an obstacle on this side of the water?" suggested Darcy -shyly, thinking of Jack Remsen. - -Gloria reddened a little. "Not that any one knows of," she returned. - -"Anyway, if the engagement is broken, they'll say he jilted me." - -"Then jilt him." - -"They'd never believe it." - -"Probably not," assented Gloria. - -"And October is _awfully_ near! I'll never dare show my face again," -wailed Darcy. - -"Oh, I don't know," returned the other reassuringly. "If it were your -old face, now, you might be justified in not wanting to show it. Faces -change, and we change with'em, as the prophet says." - -"It wasn't the prophet, and he didn't say that, anyway. He said, 'Times -change, and--" - -"--and faces change with'em, worse luck!" supplied the actress -cheerfully. "Though all of'em don't change for the worse. Darcy, how -much do you weigh?" she demanded with an abrupt change of tone to the -business-like. - -"One hundred and twenty-eight and a half, as I go on the gym floor." - -"That's good enough. 'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk -of many things; of shoes, and shirts, and chemisettes, of hats and eke -_stockings._'" - -"Clothes!" cried Darcy, her eyes sparkling. "Clothes. Are you prepared, -in the sight of heaven and earth, to spend seven or eight hundred of -Aunt Sarah's hard-earned on a trousseau?" - -"Oof! Don't say trousseau to me! It reminds me. Apart from that--try -me!" - -"All right. What are you going to do tomorrow at three?" - -"Cover Central Park lengthwise and back in the even hour. Andy's -orders." - -"Far be it from me to interfere. Make it the day after at ten o'clock -in the morning. Meet me at my place. We'll have a sartorial orgy." That -night Darcy dreamed herself a princess. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -"SELFISHNESS," says that wise and happy and altogether radiant person, -Gloria Greene, "comes from lack of vitality. Most people haven't enough -capital stock of vigor to live on comfortably. So you can't expect them -to loan or give away any in the form of thoughtfulness for any one else. -They're paupers, poor things! The bankruptest person I ever knew had -eighty thousand a year, and nothing else." - -Adroitly and by indirection the proponent of this doctrine had been -suggesting it to Darcy Cole, and that adaptable pupil had unconsciously -absorbed much of it. The new character that she had built up out of -discipline and abstinence as the weeks grew into months, the solidifying -confidence in herself, the burgeoning of vigor, and the subtle -development of that wondrous and mysterious quality which we term -personality and which is the touchstone between our inner and outer -worlds, had combined to open and broaden Darcy's life. Andy Dunne had -long ago begun to take certain of his professional problems to her and -profit by her shrewd helpfulness. More than once she had, of her -own initiative, laid hold on some shrinking, draggled, disheartened -neophyte, such as she herself had been, who through mere helplessness -had reduced Andy to wrathful despair, and, by a forced loan of will -power and buoyancy, pulled her through the shallows to fair going again. -On one occasion she had gone to police court with Andy on behalf of a -girl who was "going wrong," the sister of one Gillig, a promising -young pugilist under Andy's guidance; where she had so impressed the -magistrate that (seeing her with Andy, whom he knew) he asked if she was -a trainer, and hinted that he would be glad of her help on some of the -border-line cases which reach our lower courts in a status of suspended -balance, and are either hauled back to safety or plunged into the chasm -of the underworld, according as they are handled with or without tact -and sympathy. After that visit, Darcy took to dropping in at the court -twice a week or so to act as unofficial counselor where the judge -mistrusted the mechanical rigidity of official intervention. It gave her -a fresh zest in life to find herself of some practical use to others. -As to the extra work, she took that upon her supple shoulders without a -quiver. Body and soul, Darcy had grown as fresh and vigorous as ripening -fruit and as sturdy as the tree that bears it. - -Satisfying as was the compliment paid her by the magistrate, she had a -better one from Andy not long after. At the conclusion of one of their -five-minute boxing bouts, in the course of which she had landed once -with force and precision below the professional's properly cauliflowered -ear, he said to her, with a somewhat hesitant air: - -"Say, Miss Darcy; are yah rich?" - -"I certainly am not." - -"But--excuse _me_ if I'm too nosey--yah got money, ain't yah?" - -"Only what I earn." - -"Earn? D' yah work?" - -"Of course. I'm the original Honest Working Girl you read about, Andy." - -"Pretty good job?" - -"Fairly." - -"Yah wouldn't wanta quit it, I guess," surmised the trainer. - -"For what?" asked the Wondering Darcy. - -"Yah see," explained Andy, nonchalantly juggling a medicine-ball the -while, "since the tight skirt come in I'm getting a lot of ladies to -train down to their skirts. More'n I can really handle right. Now, I -kinda thought if you'd come in as assistant--well, yah can name yahr own -terms, Miss Darcy." - -The girl looked at him with bright and affectionate eyes. "Andy, you're -a dear. That's the nicest thing that ever happened to me." - -"It ain't a proposition I'd make to everybody, I can tell yah," averred -the professional. "In fact, I dunno as there's any one else I'd make it -to but you. Except Miss Greene," he added loyally. - -"I'm awfully sorry, Andy. But I couldn't very well drop my other work." - -"No?" sighed Andy. "Well, I s'pose not. Well," he added, palliating the -blow to his hopes, "yah'll be gettin' married one of these days, and -then it'd be all off, anyhow." - -"Married!" laughed his pupil. "Who'd marry a plain little stick like me -in a city full of pretty girls?" - -"Go-wan!" retorted the other. Regarding her candid face, he perceived -that this was no bluff. "Go-wan!" he repeated fervidly. "Get onto -yahrself. Ain't yah got a _mirrah_ in the house?" - -"Oh, that's just because you like me, Andy," she returned. - -Nevertheless she thrilled to the rough compliment. Holcomb Lee, with his -artistic sense, and now this expert of flesh and blood! Was her dream -really coming true already? - -That very afternoon it was shattered. - -The Fifth Avenue bus went sliding, slewing, and curving along the -wet pavement. Within sat a moist and bedraggled but cheerful Darcy, -returning from a highly encouraging consultation with Mr. B. Riegel and -the head of his color-room called in to meet the firm's most promising -contributor of designs. Another advance in her rates had been -foreshadowed; so what did Darcy care, though forgotten umbrella and -overshoes had exposed her to a violent shower, now clearing? Her Central -Park jaunts had hardened her to a point where she disregarded weather -with contemptuous indifference. So now, instead of being huddled in -her seat, contemplative of her own discomfort, she sat alert and -interestedly watchful of the outside world that went sliding past her -window. At the corner of Fifteenth Street the bus skidded to a stop at -the signal of a frail, poorly dressed young woman who staggered out from -the curb, lugging a large suitcase in both hands. She tried to lift it -to the step and failed. - -Now, it was nobody's business how the chance fare got on the bus, or, -indeed, whether she got on at all or was left standing on the asphalt, -except the conductor's and he was busy upstairs. Certainly it was no -affair of Darcy's; and the old Darcy would have taken that view in the -improbable event of her having noticed the overweighted woman at all. -The new Darcy was up instinctively and out like a flash. She grabbed the -case and got a surprise. It weighed at least sixty pounds. Darcy had the -basis for a fairly accurate estimate, as she had been recently occupying -herself with a sixty-pound dumb-bell. Thanks to a persuasive quality -of muscle which this exercise had imparted to her, she whisked the -ponderous thing to the platform, and bore it victoriously inside. The -woman followed, panting out her gratitude. As Darcy was setting her -burden down, the bus gave an unexpected lurch and one end of the case -landed upon a slightly projecting shoe. The owner of the shoe gave -utterance to a startled and pained interjection. - -"Oh, I'm so sorry!" apologized Darcy, shifting the offending bag. - -The injured one turned upon her a smile as unruffled and good-humored -as if his main enjoyment in life was having heavy things dropped on his -feet. But there was no recognition in the smile nor in the brief glance -which accompanied it. Yet the smiler was Mr. Jacob Remsen. - -"Entirely my fault," said he. "Teach me to keep my feet out of the -aisle." Darcy murmured something muffled and incoherent. - -"Let me stow that for you," offered Remsen, and, finding a spot for it -beneath the steps, deposited it there, bowed in response to the thanks -of the two women, and resumed his seat. The newcomer slipped in beside -Darcy. - -"You work, don't you?" asked she, timidly. - -"Yes. What makes you think so?" - -"Because you're so kind. And you're awful strong." - -"That suitcase is much too heavy for you. You'll injure yourself with -it," said Darcy, who was no larger than the other, severely. - -"Metal advertising cuts," explained the other. "I only have to carry it -twice a week." - -"Where to?" - -"Thirtieth over beyond Third Av'nyeh." - -"But that's a terribly long way to carry that weight." - -The woman sighed. "Yes, I know. It's nearer by the Fourth Av'nyeh line, -but I go this way because the bus conductors are so decent about helpin' -you on and off," said she, paying a merited compliment to the most -courteous and serviceable of New York's transportation employees. "It's -worth the extra nickel." - -"I'll get off with you and give you a lift." Different arrangements, -however, were in process. Nearing the corner of the prospective -debarkation Mr. Jacob Remsen arose, walked to the door, and vigorously -yanked the corpulent valise from its nook. - -"I beg your pardon," said he, dividing his impersonal and courteous -regard between the two occupants of the seat, "but I overheard your -conversation. It just happens that I'm bound for Third Avenue, myself. -So, if you will permit me--" - -Darcy's companion, abashed by the elegance of this obvious "swell," -wriggled and fluttered and protested. Mr. Remsen paid no heed. - -"Here we are," he announced cheerily, stepping to the pavement. "Watch -your step." Thus overruled, the woman followed. The assumer of burdens -not his own attained the sidewalk and all but dislocated his neck by -the jerk with which he turned it, as a voice from the departing bus said -clearly, and, as he thought, a shade maliciously: - -"Thank you, Mr. Remsen." - -The malice was there. It was a reflex of Miss Darcy Cole's resentment -in that, apart from any question of recognition, Mr. Jacob Remsen had -failed to see, in one casual glance at her face, anything which impelled -him to bestow a second glance. Genuine though they had been, the -testimonials of Messrs. Andy Dunne and Holcomb Lee were thereby -attainted and brought to naught. - -No one, to hear Miss Cole's lightsome subsequent report of the -occurrence for the benefit of Gloria Greene, would have dreamed that it -had left a sting. - -"Now, what," concluded the narrator of the episode, "do you suppose the -magnificent Mr. Remsen was doing in a scrubby Third Avenue locality?" - -"Precisely what you were going to do," opined Gloria. "Helping some one -who needed his help." - -"You mean that that combination of Adonis and Ananias had no real -business of his own there at all?" - -"I can't conceive what it would be." - -Darcy opened wide and luminous eyes. "Then it was just to be a good -fellow?" - -"Probably. You wouldn't think it of Jack Remsen, would you?" - -"I don't know that I wouldn't. Why not?" - -"Oh, he gives the impression to those who don't know him of being so -particular about himself and so indifferent about all the rest of the -world that isn't a Remsen," said Gloria. - -"D'you think so?" queried Darcy carelessly. "That wasn't the impression -he gave me when I first met him." - -"What was your reading of his character, oh, wise and profound student -of human nature?" - -"If you laugh at me I won't tell you," retorted Darcy, and, as Gloria -was openly laughing at her, proceeded to do it in the following -inventory: - -"I thought that if I was a very old, plain woman with a lot of bundles, -or a sick cat, or a man in an awful mess, I'd look to him first in any -crowd." - -"Jack would like that," commented Gloria, with her sunlit smile. - -"But not if I were a plain, little, unnoticeable girl" - -Gloria twinkled. "An afterthought," she declared. "Meaning yourself?" - -"Meaning myself." - -"Liar." - -"Well, aren't I that kind of a girl? And if I aren't, why didn't he -recall me, or even look at me twice?" - -"Perhaps he's engrossed in his own troubles." - -"Didn't look as if he had a trouble in the world." - -"No; Jack wouldn't if he were to be shot at sunrise." - -"Is he?" - -"Not that I know of. But he's going to be exiled or forced into hiding -or something evasive and lonely. Some boresome family row that threatens -to burst into a lawsuit, and when it does, Jack has to take cover and -keep it until it's over, so as not to be called as a witness. So you -needn't feel insulted simply because he is brooding on his own affairs -to the neglect--" - -"I'm not feeling insulted," denied the girl vigorously. "It's nothing -to me whether people remember me or not." Suddenly her face sparkled -and her mobile lips quivered delicately with suppressed glee. "Oh, but I -_have_ been insulted. I've saved it up to tell you." - -"Business of listening eagerly," said the actress. "Who did it?" - -"A man." - -"Naturally. Hence the dimple." She pointed an accusing finger at Darcy's -cheek. "Where?" - -"Mouseley's restaurant, on the Circle." - -"Gracious, child! You _are_ peeking around the comers of life. Don't you -know the Mouse-Trap isn't respectable?" - -"I do now. I didn't then. Tea was all I wanted. The tea was respectable -enough. It was very good tea." - -"Never mind the tea. Tell me the rest." - -"He--the man--came over to my table. He wasn't a bad-looking man at all; -so freshcolored and pinky-brown, and dressed like the back page of a -magazine. And he called me"--Darcy chuckled most reprehensibly at this -point--"he called me Miss Glad-Eyes." - -"Did you shoo him away?" - -"I told him he'd made a mistake, and he said he'd like to make one like -it every day in the week and pulled out a chair and sat down. It was -awfully funny." - -"It sounds so. What did you do then?" - -"I don't know what I'd have done, but I didn't have to do anything. -Another man came up--" - -"Two!" murmured Gloria. "Shades of Circe! Well?" - -"This one had a funny ear and short hair and he said, 'You don't know -me, miss. But I seen you workin'-out at Andy's. My name's Gillig. You -done a good turn for my kid sister once and I ain't forgot it.' So I -said, 'How do you do, Mr. Gillig. I can't introduce you to this other -gentleman because he helped himself to this chair without mentioning his -name.' 'That kind does,' Mr. Gillig said. 'He'd better take a run.' My -pinky-brown caller didn't seem to take to the suggestion. 'Maybe so; -maybe not,' he said. 'I belong to the Bouncers' Union, myself.' Then -Mr. Gillig looked at him hard and said, 'I'm Spike Gillig, the -welter-weight. I don't practice me art for me health'--Yes, he did, -Gloria; he spoke of it as his art!--'And I ain't strong for scrappin' -out of business hours,' he said. 'But I ain't goin' to sit by and see -any rough stuff pulled on this young lady.' 'Whad-dye mean, rough -stuff?' said the other man, quite dignified and injured. 'Lemme tell -you, I'm as much a gent as you are. And I ain't duckin' any muss, -professional or amachure. My weight is a hundred-and-eighty, stripped, -beggin' Miss Peach's pardon, and if you wanta know who I am, I'm Scrap -Gilfillan, shortstop of the Marvels, comin' champions of the world. But -if you say this lady is a friend of yours--' - -"For some reason, Gloria, that seemed to make Mr. Gillig awfully angry. -He got purple clear to his ears, and growled, 'She ain't no friend of -mine. See? This is a lady, this is.' 'I gotcha,' the shortstop man said. -He turned to me. 'Am I in wrong, miss? Was you ever to this joint -before?' 'Never,' I told him. 'Apologies all round,' he said, quite -handsomely. 'And if no offense is taken where none's meant, would the -two of you kindly have one little one with me just to prove it?" - -"Lovely!" cried the entranced Gloria. "What did you do? This is -important. Oh, this is most awfully important!" - -"Do?" rippled the girl. "I took sarsaparilla." - -"Darcy Cole, formerly Amanda Darcy Cole," said Gloria solemnly. "Come -to my arms. I hereby declare you a full Fellow of the Institute of -Life, free of its brotherhood, equipped to come and go in all its ways -unafraid and unembarrassed by any complication. Blessed are those who -are not too meek, for they shall take their own share of the earth -without waiting forever to inherit it. Go forth and take yours. You'll -like it." - -"I love it! And I'm not afraid of it any more." - -"It'd better be afraid of you," commented Gloria, regarding the vivid, -youth-flushed creature before her. "Wait till I get you dressed up to -your looks! Are you ready to gird on your armor for the campaign?" - -"I'm dying with impatience!" - -"We'll have a taxi by the hour and go forth to wallow in clothing. Oh, -my blessed young protégée, but you're going to make some trouble for -this neglectful old world of ours before you wither, or I miss my -guess." - -"I shan't," returned the girl demurely, but with dancing eyes, "unless -it calls me 'Poor Darcy.'" - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -WHILE life and the lust of lovely things remain to Darcy Cole, she will -not forget the thrilling experience of that day and other shopping days -to follow. When it was all over she possessed: - -_Item_: A dark-blue serge business suit, cut with a severity of line -which on a less graciously girlish figure would have been grim, with a -small, trim, expensive hat and the smartest of tan shoes and tan gloves. -Clad in that Darcy suggested a demure and business-like bluebird. - -_Item_: A black-and-white small-checked suit with just a little more -latitude of character to it, and, to go with this, black patent-leather -shoes from the best shop in town, and a black sailor hat, with a flash -of white feather in it. In that Darcy resembled a white-breasted chat, -which is perhaps the very most correct and smartest bird that flies. - -_Item--several items, in fact_: Wonderful but unobvious garments, -conjured by the magic touch of Gloria from the purchase of a whole bolt -of white, filmy crêpe de chine and several bolts of baby-blue ribbon, -together with well-chosen odds and ends of laces; no less wonderful, -but much more visible négligées, with long, lustrous rhythmical lines, -devised by the same Gloria from the bargain purchase of an odd lot of -pink crêpe de chine; arrayed in which Darcy was able to give herself a -very fair imitation of a complacent though pale flamingo. - -_Item_: An evening gown of shimmering silver and blue, carried out, in -the curve of the daintiest of silk stockings, to the tip of fairy-gift -silver slippers; and over it a blue velvet wrap lined and trimmed with -an old chinchilla coat, which Sensible Auntie had given her several -years before; wherein Darcy felt like some winged and shining thing come -down from a moonlit cloud. - -That was the end of eight hundred of Aunt Sarah's, hard, round, -beautiful dollars. But not of the wonderful trip to Clothes-Land. For, -at the last, Gloria produced the most stunning of traveling coats, -dark-blue cheviot, with a quaint little cape, the whole lined with -silken gray--a gray with a touch of under-color to match the blue warmth -behind the gray of Darcy's eyes. - -"For your wedding present, my dear," explained Gloria mischievously. - -And when the girl wept for sheer delight, her mentor abused her and -called her "Amanda," and threatened her with dreadful reprisals unless -she at once dried her eyes so that account could be duly taken of her. -Of that stock-taking Gloria, re-creatrix, made no report to the subject. -But this is what her gratified eyes saw. - -A girl who held herself straight like an Indian and at ease like -an animal. Where there had been sallow cheeks and an unwholesome -flabbiness, the blood now shone in living pink through the lucent skin. -The eyes were twice as large as when, the year before, Darcy had set out -upon her determined beauty quest; but that was because the sagging lines -beneath had disappeared and the eyes themselves, deep gray against -clear white, were softly brilliant with health. Above the broad, smooth, -candid forehead, the hair, so deep brown as to be almost black, played -the happy truant in little waves and whorls as delicate and errant as -blown smoke. The chin was set and firm--that was Andy Dunne's -discipline of soul and body. Above it the mouth smiled as naturally and -unconsciously as it had formerly drooped, and two little dimples had -come to live in the corners. Beyond and above the sheer formative change -in the girl, she was so pulsating, so palpitant with life that, even as -she stood quiescent before Gloria's appraising eyes, she seemed to sway -to some impalpable rhythm of the blood. - -Yet Gloria was not wholly content. Hers was a wisdom that went deep. -The re-created Darcy was a notable triumph, to be sure; looking upon -her handiwork, Gloria found it good, nor did she doubt that others would -find it good. But what of Darcy's own bearing toward all these -changes? Had she found herself? Until that question was settled in the -affirmative, Gloria, re-creatrix, would not be satisfied. - -"Just the same I'd like to see Jack Remsen or any other man look at -her as she is now once without looking twice," Gloria challenged the -masculine world on behalf of her candidate for troubles and honors in -the Great Open Lists. - -Not men alone, but women as well, became addicted to that second look -when Darcy passed their way in her new feathers. To her housemates the -change, now forced upon their reluctant acceptance, was a matter of -bewilderment if not of actual perturbation. Holcomb Lee, justified of -his prophecies, exulted over the fact to such a point that Maud Raines -felt it her womanly duty to fix a quarrel upon him. Undismayed, Holcomb -took Darcy out to dinner. ("Never, never, never in the world would I -have accepted, Gloria," that dangerous young person assured her mentor, -"if Maud Raines hadn't been so catty and sneery about Holcomb's drawing -me.") And Miss Raines hastily drowned her trumped-up grievance in -a flood of alarmed tears. Even matter-of-fact Paul Wood, Helen's -betrothed, was impressed to the point of admiring comment. - -"That chrysalis has hatched for fair," said he. - -"Hatched!" retorted Helen. "It didn't hatch. It exploded!" - -She and Maud wished to know, not without asperity, first why Darcy -was getting her trousseau in advance of the season; next, why she was -wearing it, item by item. Darcy was wearing the unaccustomed finery for -a perfectly sound and feminine reason which she did not feel called upon -to expound for the enlightenment of the two fiancées. She felt taller, -straighter, and more independent in it. Moreover, she found it a -business asset. Palpably affected by the richness and variety of her -wardrobe, B. Riegel had proffered a guarantee basis of work which -assured her future income. Thus the clothes bade fair to pay -for themselves. But on alternate afternoons, Darcy, faithful to her -training, garbed herself in rusty sweater, short skirt, and shapeless -shoes, and did her stunt through Central Park. Her term at Andy's -academy having expired, she had taken on a new schedule of two hours per -week: that being all, her preceptor assured her, that was needed for the -preservation of her fitness "to jump in the ring and put'em up with the -Big Feller himself at the clang of the bell." A slight exaggeration, but -to Darcy, a grateful one. - -With ever-growing approval, Gloria saw the girl accomplish that -distinctively feminine feat known as "settling into your clothes." - -"My dear," she remarked one day when the two had come in from a walk, -"if Monty Veyze could see us together now, I wouldn't have a chance with -him." - -Darcy grabbed and hugged her. "You're talking nonsense, and you know it. -No man in the world would look at me if you were in the same block." - -"Wouldn't they!" retorted the actress ungrammatically. "I'd hate to put -it to the test of a regular constituted jury." - -"I'd have to bar Mr. Remsen from the jury box," smiled Darcy. - -"Have you seen Jack again?" - -"Ran into him, plop, on Fifth Avenue yesterday." - -"Were you in your best bib-and-tucker?" - -"The black-and-white check." - -"Did he look through you?" asked the actress. - -"N-not exactly." - -"Did he look past you?" asked the actress, "N-o-o-o." - -"Well, did he look at you?" she persisted. "Yes. But he didn't know me." - -"I'm sure he didn't," chuckled Gloria. "Didn't you bow to him?" she -added. "Next time you meet a nice young man like Jack Remsen, you march -straight up to him and take him by the beard--" - -"He hasn't got a beard." - -"--metaphorically speaking, and ask him if he isn't ashamed of himself -for not remembering you. He will be. Oh, never fear he will be!" - -Darcy pursed her red lips up to a funny little assumption of prudery. -"He'd think me a forward young hussy." - -"Let him. You've been backward long enough." - -"I--I--I haven't really got used to--to the new feeling yet," said the -girl shyly. - -"To being pretty? Say it out. It's easy enough to get used to. Just -feel as pretty as you look. Go on a perpetual parade until you learn -the right kind of self-consciousness. Being a woman is an asset, not a -liability in life. When you've absorbed that powerful truth, come to me -and I'll impart some more wisdom." She fell into thought. "Darcy," she -said portentously. - -"Well?" - -"I've got a grand and glorious idea for a grand and glorious -feeling--like Mr. Briggs's." - -"Don't keep me waiting. I can't stand suspense." - -"I'm going to give a party for you, with the brides for side dishes, but -principally to celebrate your graduation." - -"Oh, joy!" cried Darcy. - -Joy proved to be a mild and inexpressive word for the party. So far as -Miss Darcy Cole was concerned, it was a triumph. The two brides, each -sufficiently attractive in her own type, simply paled away before their -unconsidered flat-mate. Gloria didn't pale away. No rivalry could shadow -her superb individuality. With her guest of honor she shared the laurels -of a victorious evening. Stimulated to her best self by the realization -of success, conscious of a buoyant body, perfectly clad, and a soaring -spirit, Darcy unwittingly took and held the center of the stage, into -which Gloria cunningly and unobtrusively maneuvered her. At the end of -the long night of fun, Miss Cole sat enthroned. Miss Cole had sung like -a lark. Miss Cole had danced like an elf. Miss Cole had laughed like -a spirit of mirth. Miss Cole had fairly radiated a wholesome, keen, -full-blooded, high-spirited gayety and happiness shot through with that -indefinable glow of womanhood which is as mysterious and unmistakable as -the firefly's light and perhaps as unconsciously purposeful. - -One thing only detracted from Gloria Greene's satisfaction in the -triumph of her protégée. Jacob Remsen had not been a witness to it. - -Mr. Remsen was in retirement. - -"I do want you and Jack to like each other," said Gloria to Darcy, in -the inevitable talk-over which followed the grand triumphal party. - -"Of course," returned the girl softly and warmly regarding her friend. -"And of course I'm going to like him just as hard as ever I can, if -he'll let me." - -"For your sake" was the implication of that warmth, which would have -considerably astonished Gloria had she appreciated it. But how should -she know the interpretation given by the girl to that casual kiss -overseen in the studio? Gloria's mind was running in quite a different -direction. - -Sequels to the party and to Darcy's success were promptly manifested in -the form of sundry boxes and parcels bearing fashionable trade insignia -which flowed in upon Bachelor-Girls' Hall. But not for Miss Raines or -Miss Barrett. Out of her sumptuous surplus, Miss Cole was pleased to -present a dozen American Beauty roses to Miss Raines and a five-pound -box of "special" candies to Miss Barrett, explaining kindly that she -could not possibly use them herself. That was the glory-crowned summit -of a delicate revenge, long overdue. "Poor Darcy," indeed! - -So Darcy came into her own. One year Gloria had given her. The year had -not yet gone. But most of Aunt Sarah's gift had. Who cared? Not Darcy. -She had won her heritage of womanhood. Where, a few brief months -before--and she could laugh now at the pangs and hardships of those -months which were so small a price to pay for the results!--she had -looked a worn thirty years old and felt like a sapless leaf, she now -looked a budding twenty and felt like a baby with a drum. - -Life was her drum. - -All its stirring rataplan, however, could not quite drown out the grim -voice of reckoning, which spoke with the accent of Sir Montrose Veyze, -Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -FIVE times Mr. Thomas Harmon vainly rang the bell of the Remsen mansion. -While engaged upon the sixth variation he became aware of a face in the -window, scrutinizing him. - -"All right," called the face. - -Mr. Harmon was then admitted through a crack scarcely adequate to his -well-set, muscular frame, to the presence of Mr. Jacob Remsen, who wore -an expensive dressing-gown and an expression of unutterable boredom. - -"Laid up?" inquired Mr. Harmon, shaking hands. - -"Bottled up," answered the young man gloomily. - -"Can I help?" - -"Possibly. Did you ever kill a subpoena-server?" - -"Not yet." - -"Care to try?" - -"What does the thing look like?" - -"Cast your eyes toward the Avenue and you'll see one." - -"Hm! Not much to look at, is he?" - -"A worse-looking one comes on at ten and stays all night." - -"I see," said the visitor. "It's a blockade." - -"Hard and fast." - -Among Mr. Harmon's many endearing virtues is this: he never asks -questions about other people's troubles. He now busied himself in -thought. - -"Haven't you any of your amateur theatrical duds here?" was the outcome -of his cogitations. - -"All of'em." - -"Why not dress a part and walk away _incognito?_" - -"Oh, certainly!" assented the other with bitterness. "Put on a suit -of tights and dive out of the conservatory window disguised as Annette -Kellerman, I suppose." - -"What's the matter with an old man makeup and the front door?" - -"Just this. Friend Murphy on watch hauls out his little paper and on the -chance of its being me, slaps the wrist of anybody who appears on those -steps. He'll do it to you when you go out." - -"He didn't when I came in." - -"No, he wouldn't, coming in." - -"Then why not fool him by coming in?" - -"How the devil can I come in without going out?" demanded Mr. Remsen -crossly, for confinement was beginning to tell upon his equable -disposition. - -"Simplest thing in the world if you'll be guided by me." - -"Spill it." - -"Merely a matter of distracting Friend Murphy's attention for ten -seconds. At the end of the ten seconds you will be seen going up the -steps to the front door. Presently you will be seen coming down again, -unable to effect an entrance against the watchfulness of the faithful -Connor. Do you get me?" - -"I get you. I'm to be in disguise. But how shall we get the -process-server off guard?" - -"Leave that to me." - -The two conspirators elaborated their plan, built it up, revised it, -tested it at every point, and pronounced it perfect. - -"But we've forgotten one point," said Remsen at the end of the -discussion. - -"What's that?" - -"Where do I go when I get out?" - -"Where do you want to go?" - -"Anywhere out of the world." - -Mr. Thomas Harmon submerged himself in thought and came up bearing a -pearl of great price. - -"Keno! I've got it. Refuges furnished to order. You've never been to my -place in the mountains, have you?" - -"No." - -"Boulder Brook on Lake Quam. Plumb in the dead center of nowhere. -Thirteen miles from a railroad. Fishing and hunting on the premises." - -"Reads like a real-estate man's prospectus," observed Remsen. - -"This year," pursued Harmon, "I'm keeping open house for a special -reason. Two fellows I know are getting married to-morrow. It's a double -wedding. It's also a double honeymoon. But they aren't onto that yet." -Harmon's clear brown eyes twinkled. "One half won't know how the other -half lives till they get there. I've loaned the place to both couples -for a fortnight. It's a dead secret. Neither couple knows where the -other is going. They're on oath." - -"They won't thank you when they meet across the dinner-table." - -"Oh, it isn't as bad as that. They'll be a mile apart. The Lees will -be at the cottage. They get off at Meredith and go in on the truck. The -Woods I'm sending to the Island. They climb out at Ashland and go over -by boat. Unless they all happen to take the same train, one pair won't -even know the other is around until they meet up on the lake or in the -woods." - -"Sounds like a party." - -"Doesn't it? Want to join?" - -"What? Butt in on a double bridal tour? Excuse me with thanks." - -"No butt in about it. You can go to Laconia, get yourself a car from -the garage, and motor to the Bungalow. That's at the third corner of -my little triangular piece of mountain and forest. By the practice of -expert woodcraft and dodging you can avoid seeing the others." - -"Wouldn't know them if I did. Any other agreeable surprises about the -resort?" - -"No. Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. There's a little friend of Gloria -Greene's. Girl. Tired out. Too much gayety or something. Don't know what -it is or who she is, but she's up against it for a month's rest. So Miss -Greene wished her on Boulder Brook, and welcome." - -"Where does _she_ go?" inquired Remsen suspiciously. "To the Cave? -Or the Castle on the Crags? Or the Haunted Manor House? Or the -Co-educational Club? Or which one of the numerous institutions you -maintain in your private city?" - -"She goes to the Farmhouse. Mrs. Bond, my housekeeper, is looking after -her. Seclusion is her watchword. If you see her, make a noise like a dry -leaf and blow away. You'll go, won't you?" - -Remsen meditated. "It certainly seems made to order. And it's mighty -good of you, old man. Yes, I'll just take you up on that." - -"There's a train at nine o'clock in the morning. To-morrow?" - -"Make it the day after. I've got some things to attend to." - -"Now, about our jail-breaking scheme? I've got an amendment. How would -it be if the taxi I arrive in should catch fire at the psychological -moment?" - -"Can it be done?" - -"Easily. I'm not a manufacturer of chemicals for nothing." - -"Great! Keep it going for ten seconds for the benefit of the watchful -Murphy, and if you look up after that, you'll see the Englishest looking -Englishman you ever sat eyes on outside the pages of _Punch_, trying to -tear my old-fashioned doorbell out by the roots." - -"That's your best make-up, is it, Remsen?" - -"As good as any. Fortified by my accent, it is most convincing. That'll -be Carteret." - -"Who?" - -"Rodney Carteret." - -"Am I supposed to know him?" - -"Rather. Not know a man with whom you toured for two months in Japan?" -said Remsen reproachfully. - -"Stupid of me," confessed Harmon, grinning. "Carteret. Good old Roddy! -Certainly. Then I'd better capture you--him, I mean, and take him to the -nine o'clock train for Boulder Brook, in my taxi." - -"Right-o, old thing! Be here at eight-thirty. Cheery-o!" said his host -Britishly. - -Promptly at that hour, on the second morning thereafter, a taxicab -swerved violently into the curbstone almost at the feet of the patient -and vigilant Murphy, and stopped with an alarming scrunch of brakes. -From its window emerged a heavy puff of smoke. From its door emerged Mr. -Thomas Harmon, who rolled upon the pavement apparently strangling. -Mr. Murphy rushed to his aid. When he was restored to his feet and his -breath, and the taxi had ceased to imitate Fafnir the Dragon, a tall -figure in an extremely English ulster (which had hastily emerged from -the Remsen front door, rushed down ten steps, and leisurely climbed -them again) was wrenching violently at the bell. For a time Mr. Murphy -regarded him disdainfully, then crossed over, held brief colloquy, and -returned. - -"Hot chance he's got of breaking in," he observed to Mr. Harmon. - -"What is he making all the fuss about?" inquired that gentleman as the -visitor again applied himself forcefully to the bell. - -"Wants to see Mr. Remsen. But the old bulldog of a butler won't let him -put his nose inside the door. Says his name is Carteret, and he's come -all the way from England to see him." - -"England? Not Roddy Carteret!" It was done almost as well as that -accomplished actor, Mr. Jacob Remsen, could have done it. Harmon sprang -across the street. - -"Carteret! Roddy Carteret!" he called. "What on earth are you doing over -here?" The bell-ringer adjusted a monocle and ambled down the steps to -shake hands. "Well met, m'deah fellah! Perhaps you can tell me what's -amiss with this beastly house." - -"I'll tell you," proffered the obliging and innocent Mr. Murphy. He did -so. - -"Then I'll just go back and jolly well camp there till somebody jolly -well lets me in," decided the caller. - -Argument followed while the chauffeur burrowed into the mechanism of his -car. It ended by the Englishman bestowing two dollars upon Mr. Murphy to -get a message to Mr. Remsen containing a protest and an address. The two -gentlemen then moved away in the extinguished taxi. - -Tickets had been provided by the forethoughtful Harmon. The fugitive -was the first man in the parlor car. Hardly had he settled when a young -couple in suspiciously new apparel arrived, and were shown into -Drawing-Room "A," at the upper end of the car. Shortly after, another -couple, also glistening as to garb, entered and took possession of -Drawing-Room "B," at the lower end of the car. The eluder of justice -eyed them and drew his own conclusions. - -"Here we are, all of us," he said to himself, retiring discreetly behind -his newspaper. - -This was just one short of the full and fateful facts. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -ONE into the dim recesses of the past was the nuptial day of October 15. -Gone also, into what dim recesses their erstwhile flat-mate knew not, -were Mrs. Holcomb Lee, _née_ Maud Raines, and Mrs. Paul Wood, _née_ -Helen Barrett. Presently Darcy would be gone also, for this was October -17, and, although the fact had been successfully concealed from the -society editors of the metropolis, ever avid of news with a title in -it, on October 16 she had been married to Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze -Holdings, Hampshire, England, at the Church of the Imagination. Sir -Montrose had sent a wireless (forged by Miss Gloria Greene) advising his -fiancee that he would arrive on the 16th, and they would be married -at once. All of which would have profoundly astonished and perhaps -scandalized the authentic Sir Montrose Veyze, at that particular time -huddled over an insufficient stove and fervently cursing a Siberian -northeaster with three feet of snow in its clouds. - -No little strategy had been required to keep up the deception until -after the real brides were wedded, and, as the conspirators supposed, -safely out of the way. Gloria supplied the required strategy, but it -exhausted her store. What was going to be the outcome she knew no more -than Darcy did. One fact only was clear: Darcy must disappear for a -while. Accordingly the self-appointed manageress of the affair had -borrowed Tom Harmon's hospitality for her protégée. Unfortunately, or -fortunately according to the point of view, Mr. Harmon had refrained -from mentioning to Gloria the other prospective visits. - -Behold, then, on the fateful 17th of October, Miss Darcy Cole, a one-day -bride of fancy, swinging down the long platform of the Grand Central -Terminal with fifteen minutes to spare for the nine o'clock train. In -her hand was a ticket to Weirs, and a small green slip entitling her to -seat No. 12 in the parlor car "Chorea." In her eyes was a twinkling and -perilous light, and in her heart a song of sheer, happy bravado. For -Darcy was feeling in reckless spirits. It was her first vacation -for more than a year. She was tingling with health and vitality. She -rejoiced in that satisfaction, more precious to woman than rubies or -diamonds or a conscience clear of reproach, the pervading sense of being -perfectly dressed. As for the wraith of Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of -Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, and all the consequences depending -therefrom, she was much in the mood to twiddle her thumbs at the whole -affair and defy fate to do its worst. - -She entered the car and saw him. - -If ever a willful, skillful, careful, circumstantial lie came to life -and embodiment for the purpose of confronting its perpetrator, hers -stood before her with a monocle in its eye. In every detail it was as -she had conceived Sir Montrose Veyze: tall, slender, clad in impeccable -tweeds, with an intelligent, thin face inappropriately half-framed in -side whiskers, and an expression of dissociation with the outside -world; not so much conscious aloofness as a sort of habitual mental -absenteeism. The apparition was, at the moment, trying to dispose an -extremely British ulster in a rather insufficient rack. - -Darcy stared at it, mute with amazement. It moved a little to let her -pass and what the girl saw beyond it froze her blood. In Drawing-Room A -sat Paul Wood and his bride! - -Flight, instant and precipitate, was Darcy's one idea; flight forth from -that unchancy car. She whirled around, started for the lower exit, took -three steps and halted with a choked cry. - -In Drawing-Room B sat Maud Raines, that was, with her bridegroom. - -Fate, defied, had promptly accepted the challenge. Darcy was trapped. - -Kentucky cherishes a legend concerning the potency of its moonshine -whiskey which is said to be such that one drink of it will inspire a -rabbit to spit in the eye of a bulldog. Desperation will produce much -the same psychological effect in the soul of woman. There, in monocle -and whiskers, was Darcy's bulldog. And before her and behind her -threatened Desperation, double-barreled. Darcy took a short, gaspy -breath--it was all she could get--and advanced upon her unwitting -victim. - -The apparition had just succeeded in its aerial enterprise with the -ulster when it became aware of a mute appeal at its elbow. It turned. -It saw a girlish face, suffused with a wonderful warmth of color, clear, -steady eyes, with an irresistible plea in them; lips that looked both -firm and soft and were tremulous at the corners with what might be -fear, but seemed much like mirth, and two perfectly gloved little hands -stretched out in welcome. No possible doubt about it; those hands were -held out to the apparition. - -The apparition's face underwent a sort of junior earthquake. Its monocle -fell out. It replaced the doubtful aid to vision. It contemplated -the creature of bewildering charm and still more bewildering behavior -confronting it. Hesitatingly its hands went forth to meet those little, -appealing, waiting hands. - -"Monty!" said the girl in a clear, ringing, happy voice, and inexpertly -kissed the apparition on the nose. - -"Holy Snakes!" gasped the apparition. - -It took a step backward. Its knees caught. It collapsed in its chair. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -AFTER that one exclamatory lapse from Briticism, the tweed-clad man -sat speechless, struggling to regain command over his shattered -sensibilities. In this laudable endeavor he was severely handicapped by -his _vis-à-vis_. She had turned the chair next his and was now seated -facing him with parted lips, fluttering color, and lovely, desperate, -suppliant eyes, a picture to divert the most determined attempt at -concentration. - -"Please! Please," she implored, like a child, holding out her small, -quivering hands to him. "Won't you speak to me?" - -"Why--er--to be sure! To be sure! What shall I say, for choice?" - -"Anything. Weather. Politics. 'Shakespeare and the musical glasses.' -Only, talk!" - -"But I'm afraid--er--there's some beastly mistake, you know." - -"Pretend it isn't," she urged. "Oh, help me pretend it isn't." - -There was the sound of a clicking latch back of her, and the tension of -the girl's face relaxed a little. A second click in front indicated a -similar closure of Drawing-Room B. - -Darcy took a long breath. No longer under observation, she enjoyed a -truce in which to lay her plans. Incidentally she did her newly wed -friends the gross injustice of rejoicing that Pullman doors have no -keyholes. - -"Now I can explain," said she composedly. "Pray do." There was lively -interest in his tone. - -"No, I don't know that I can, either. I'm afraid you won't understand." - -"Give me a sporting chance at it." - -How very English he was! Had he been American, she might have appealed -to his sense of the jocular and absurd. No hope with this ultra-British -solemnity. - -"Well," she began desperately, "there' are some people in this car that -I don't want to see." - -"In the--er--compartment?" - -"In both compartments. And they mustn't see me." - -"Quite so." - -"But they've already seen me." - -"Awkward, that," he murmured. - -"Not so awkward as if they'd seen me alone. They've seen us. Together." - -"But--er--it's no end nice of you, you know, and--and all that sort of -thing. But why together?" - -"That's what I'm trying to explain." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm -finding it rather hard." - -"Perhaps you're not supposed to be traveling alone," he suggested. - -"Now, that's quite clever of you!" Darcy beamed gratitude upon him. "I'm -not. But I started alone and--and--" - -"You were to meet a--a companion who failed you?" He was really striving -to be helpful, but Darcy felt herself getting in deeper and deeper. - -"No: that isn't it, at all." - -"Then--er--I may be beastly stupid, but--er--really--" Blank -bewilderment was expressed in every feature of his face including the -monocle. - -"Not at all," returned the girl politely. "No wonder you find it -puzzling. It's quite involved." Then she took the plunge. "I'm eloping." - -"Eloping?" Her _vis-à-vis_ dropped his monocle, replaced it, and stared -at Darcy. "Eloping! Impossible!" - -"Why impossible? Don't you elope in England?" - -"Er--personally, seldom. And never alone." - -Was there a twinkle behind the monocle? Were the jokesmiths wrong -about the English lack of humor? Or had she, happily, encountered a -phenomenon? Darcy embraced the hope and changed her strategy in the -midst of the assault. - -"Here's your chance," she said with calm effrontery. "You see, my--the -other person in my elopement failed to live up to his opportunity." - -Her companion was understood to reflect adversely upon the sanity of the -recreant. - -"So," pursued the girl, her color flushing and paling, but her -eyes unflinchingly steady, "if you would--oh, please don't think me -dreadful!--if you could just pretend to be the man! It's only for a -little while," she pleaded. "Just until we can get away from those -people. Will you?" - -"I will," he said solemnly. - -"I wish you wouldn't say that as if--as if we were in church," protested -the startled Darcy, plaintively. - -"Ah, yes; by the way, have we been?" - -"Have we been what?" - -"To church." - -"This isn't Sunday." - -"No; but you say that we are eloping." - -"Just for the present." - -"Quite so. But is this--er--before or after?" - -"Before or--Oh!!" Comprehension flooded the girl's mind and colored -her cheeks simultaneously. "After," she said, in a small, gaspy voice. -"We--we're married." - -"Buck up!" exhorted her companion. "Don't take it so hard. It will soon -be over. I merely wished to know, in case any question arose. When?" - -"Ye--ye--yesterday. I mean, this morning." - -"Best stick to yesterday," he advised kindly. "Before 9 a.m. is too -early for probability." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. - -"You're not growing faint under the strain, I hope?" inquired Darcy, -recovering her spirits. - -"It isn't that," he replied dreamily. "I am only thinking that things -like this do _not_ happen to people. I shall count three, and if -you're still there I shall know--well, I shall know that my mind is -failing--and be glad of it." - -Darcy began rather to like her accomplice. He was really quite -nice--though old. "Count ten," she advised. "It's a better test." - -He began to count slowly, and an elderly lady who came down the aisle to -take the chair opposite hastily sought the porter with a view to having -her seat changed. When he had declaimed "Ten" and opened his eyes, the -quite startling exclamation which followed convinced the old lady that -her caution was well judged. The enumerator had found himself facing -emptiness. - -"Turn around," directed a soft voice behind him. - -He pivoted. "Oh!" he exclaimed in the most flattering tones of relief. - -"The door of Drawing-Room B was getting nervous," she said. "So I -changed. I don't want them to catch my eye. They might come out to speak -to us." - -"Come one, come all," declaimed the other; "this chair shall fly from -its firm base as soon as I." - -"Fine poetry," granted the girl. "But this is prose." - -"Nothing of the sort, if you'll pardon me. Impossible and glorious -romance. Words by Lewis Carroll. Music by Lohengrin. Mr. Brit-ling is -for seeing it through." - -"Mr. Britling--if you're sure that Mr. H. G. Wells would be willing to -lend you the name--" - -"I'll chance it." - -"Then Mr. Britling doesn't know his part yet and might get poor me into -awful difficulties. No, we must get out of this car." - -"Stamford the next stop," said the porter, who had overheard in passing. - -"Can you put us into another car?"'Darcy asked him. - -"Farther away from the restaurant car," added her companion, and she -thanked him with a glance for his shrewdness. If they were between the -"Chorea" and the diner, her friends would pass them at luncheon-time. - -"Dey's a obsehvation cah, reah cah," suggested the porter. "No extra -chahge." - -Darcy immediately rewarded him with a dollar. "If any one inquires about -us," she said, "tell them that we got off at New Haven." - -"Yassum. What name please, maddum?" - -"No name. The lady and gentleman in 14 and 16." - -Fortune had left vacant for their coming a semi-retired alcove in the -observation car. Therein ensconced, they took breath and thought and -stock of each other. - -"Now, if you don't mind," said the man. "Who am I?" - -"Your name is Veyze," answered the girl, dimpling. "You're English. -You're awfully English! You're as English as--as yourself." - -"Happy coincidence! Mayn't I have more than one name?" - -"A full allowance. Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire." - -"I say! Then I've come into the title." - -"Quite a while ago. What you were before your succession, you know -better than I." - -He caught the point. "Rodney Carteret, at your service," he replied. -"Here on a short stay. Diplomatic affairs." - -"Well, Mr. Carteret, I'll remember you forever, for helping me out of an -awful scrape. It must seem dreadfully flitter-headed and bad taste and -ill-bred--" - -"I can imagine you being flitter-headed--odd words you Americans -use--but I really can't conceive of you doing anything ill-bred or in -bad taste," said he with such sincerity that the girl flushed again. - -"That's nice of you," she responded gratefully, "considering what I've -done to you." Thereupon she proceeded to repay his courtesy by a tissue -of fabrications which did credit to her long practice in mendacity. - -"You wouldn't understand our American humor," she wound up; "but I -put up a joke on my friends in the other car by pretending I was to be -married yesterday. I won't bore you with the circumstances. I was going -away for a trip all by my little self and they were to think it was my -wedding trip. Who would have thought there could be such awful luck as -to find them on my train? And me without a ghost of a husband to show on -my honeymoon--until I grabbed you!" - -"Then you're not actually married or betrothed or anything of the sort?" -he inquired with lively hopefulness. - -"Oh, but I am engaged," she answered, reverting to her original -fiction. "My fiancé is on duty and can't get away. As soon as he comes -over we're to be married. Now, please, do you think it's _very_ awful? -You've been so good, I should hate to have you despise me." - -"Oh, I'm no sort of a despiser," he assured her. "And if I felt like -doing a bit of despising, I'd go out in the woods and despise a toad. -Certainly I shouldn't try my hand on anything as plucky and resourceful -as you." - -"Resourcefulness is good as far as it goes," said she. "But could I -carry the thing through if my friends come back here and I have to -present you?" - -"I shouldn't concern myself about that," he comforted her. "Surely they -won't come." - -"Why not?" - -"Bridal touring couples don't commonly go about seeking other -companionship, do they?" Darcy stared. "How do you know they are on -their bridal trip? I never told you." - -"Surmised it from something my friend, Mr. Thomas Harmon told me." - -"Do _you_ know Mr. Harmon?" - -"Rah-ther! I'm on my way to his place." - -"What place?" gasped Darcy. - -"Boulder Brook, he calls it. It's up on the edge of the mountains." - -The girl leaned back, closed her eyes, and began to count slowly: -"One--two--three--four--" - -"I say," broke in the partner of her plot. "Let a chap in on this. -What's wrong?" - -"You said it just now: 'These things do _not_ happen to people.' -You were right. They don't. Anyhow, they ought not to be allowed to. -Five--six--seven--Oh, there's no use counting ten on this." She opened -her great, gray-blue eyes wide upon him. "So'm I," she announced. - -"So'm you _what?_" - -"Going to Boulder Brook." - -Barely in time did he check the natural rejoinder, "So are your friends, -the bridal couples," for he bethought himself that, if she knew, she -would doubtless escape from the train at the first station and this -astounding and priceless adventure would be abruptly terminated. Instead -he said: - -"May I take you over with me? I'm having a car at Laconia." - -"Mr. Harmon is having me met at Weirs. Weirs is miles nearer." - -"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me a lift with you. I'm for the -Bungalow, wherever that is." - -"And I'm for the Farmhouse, and the chaperonage of Mrs. Bond. So it -isn't as terribly compromising as it sounds, is it? Though what in the -world Mr. Harmon would think, if this ever got to his ears--" - -"It won't. In any case, Harmon is not a thinker of evil." - -Nevertheless the girl saw trouble in his eyes. Partly it was her -innocence, partly the bravado to which the emergency of the day had -strung her, which kept that same trouble out of her own eyes. With him -it attained speech. - -"How old are you?" - -Across his shoulder Darcy's eye caught a number on the paneled side of -the car. "Twenty-six," she lied promptly. - -He was taken aback. "Really!" he murmured. "I should have -said--aw--much' younger. Are you sure you appreciate the -possible--well--er--misconstructions to which this visit might give -rise?" - -"I don't see why it should," returned Darcy stoutly. "Anyway, I've no -other place to go." - -"But I could put off my trip." - -"That would be a nuisance to you, wouldn't it?" - -"To be quite frank, it would be rather more than that. I should risk -getting caught." - -"Caught?" echoed Darcy interestedly. "It sounds thrilling. Are you a -fugitive from justice?" - -"No. I'm a fugitive from injustice. See here, Miss Romancia, I'm -something of a faker myself. Being up against it _good_, I'm going -to 'fess up. - -"'Faker'? 'Up against it'? Why--why, where's your English accent gone?" - -"Cut out. Pretty soon I'm going to do the same with these whiskers. They -tickle." - -So many surprises had been forced upon Darcy that, inured to them, she -was able to sustain this one unperturbed. "It's a wonderful disguise," -she approved. "And you play the part beautifully. But, if the question -isn't indiscreet, why?" - -"As I indicated, I'm flying for my life." - -"Then I hope it's something thrilling like murder or arson, and not -something petty like bigamy or fancy finance." - -"Nothing as interesting as crime. I'm wanted as a witness in a will -case. They're trying to catch me and put me on the stand and make me -testify that my great-uncle was a crafty and vicious old lunatic." - -"When he wasn't? How horrid!" - -"When he was. That's horrider. And that others of my relatives were -_roués_ and scandalmongers and drunkards." - -"I seem to have eloped into a nice cheerful sort of family," observed -the girl. - -"It'll be a lot less cheerful if they ever get me on the stand. My -lawyer was to have warned me in time to get away, but the other -side stole a march on him, and I barely managed to sneak out in this -disguise. So I was going to lie low at Harmon's place until they gave up -the chase. But as matters are, I can stick to my whiskers and my accent -a while longer. And, really, much as I should like to continue this -prose poem of ours, I think that for the sake of--well, of appearances, -I'd better go on somewhere else. Unless you're quite sure that Mrs. Bond -is there and--" - -"She is," broke in Darcy. "I've had a telegram." - -"In that case--" - -"In that case, you come along in the car with me. I won't have your trip -spoiled. Besides, don't you think I have some curiosity in my make-up? -I've got to see you without yours, or perish!" - -There was no irruption of the newly-weds to complicate matters. The -pseudo-weds had sandwiches and ginger ale in the observation car and sat -there getting better acquainted and more content with each other until -the "Chorea's" porter sought them out. - -"Drawin'-rooms is bofe gone," he said. "A got off at Ashlan' an' B lef' -at Meredith. S'pi-cioned you-all might lak to know." - -His suspicion brought its reward. Ten minutes before the arrival at -Weirs, Darcy's confederate excused himself. - -"You get out by yourself," he said. "I'll join you on the platform." - -Not yet comprehending, she followed instructions. Shortly after, -there descended in front of the jaw-loose and petrified porter the -ultra-British ulster, and the forceful tweed suit, enclosing not -a bewhiskered, monocled, and blond Englishman, but a smooth-faced, -pleasant-visaged young man who looked out upon the world from his own -unaided, keen, and twink-ing eyes. - -As the train pulled out with the porter still bulging, incredulous, from -the door, the changeling turned to join his self-appointed bride. - -"How do you do, Mr. Remsen?" said she. - -For the second time that day sheer amazement loosed the hinges of Mr. -Jacob Remsen's knees, and the wellsprings of Mr. Jacob Remsen's sincere -American speech. - -"Well, I _am_ jiggered!" gasped Mr. Jacob Remsen, tottering back against -a truck. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -R. JACOB REMSEN, late Rodney Carteret, Esq., of Somewhere-in-England, -was roused from his Semi-paralysis by a broad and bearded native who -approached, and, with a friendly grin, inclusive of both parties to the -_vis-à-vis_, inquired: - -"Either of yeh Miss Cole for Boulder Brook?" - -"Both," said Darcy. - -"Haw!" barked the native. - -"That is, we are both going to Mr. Harmon's." - -"Free bus to Boulder Brook," proclaimed the humorous native. "It's -jest as well there's two of ye, though Mr. Tom didn't say nothin' about -more'n one. Ye won't rattle s' much when we hit the rocks." - -"I joined the party at the last moment," explained the impromptu -bridegroom. "I'm for the Bungalow." - -"Ye'll be there before ye know it. Twenty-one mile in twenty-eight -minutes, comin' over in the ole boat." - -Their cicerone led the way to "the ole boat," a large, battered, -comfortably purring car, tucked them in with many robes, and applied -himself to the wheel with an absorption which left them free to resume -their own concerns. The surrounding mountains were in full panoply of -their blazing October foliage, a scene to enthrall the dullest vision. -Notwithstanding, Mr. Remsen's eyes kept straying from those splendors to -the face of his companion. Attractive though this nearer view was, his -own face wore the expression of one who painfully seeks the answer to an -insoluble riddle. The girl answered his look with challenging mockery. - -"Don't overheat your poor brain about it," she implored. - -"He called you Miss Cole," said Remsen, with furrowed brows. - -"Why not, since it's my name?" - -"Cole? Cole!" ruminated her companion. "No. Positively no!" - -"Positively, yes! Do you think it's quite gallant in you to forget me -entirely." - -"First you say I'm your husband," complained Remsen, "and now you claim -acquaintance with me. It isn't fair. It muddles one's brain." - -"Look at me hard." - -"I've been doing that all day." - -"But it doesn't seem to have any result Haven't you ever seen me -before?" - -"Certainly." - -Darcy almost jumped. "Which time? I mean, where?" - -"On the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, at -2.30 p.m. September 11th," returned the other, as one who recites a -well-conned lesson. "You were looking up at an aeroplane and ran into -me. You wore a black-and-white checked suit and a most awfully smart -little hat, and I stood there gawking after you until I was in danger of -being arrested for obstructing the traffic." - -"Why?" - -"Frankly, because I hadn't seen anything quite like you since I landed, -and I wanted to make the most of a poor opportunity." - -"Then why didn't you lift your hat politely and say, 'How do you do, -Miss Cole?' Like that." - -"Because, by Heavens!" cried the badgered Remsen, "I don't know any Miss -Cole." - -"Think again," adjured Darcy. "There was a blowy, windy day on a Fifth -Avenue coach when you got off to help a woman with a suitcase--" - -"Full of burglar's tools or solid gold ingots, I don't know which. Never -thought a suitcase could weigh so much!" - -"Poor Mr. Remsen!" laughed the girl, but her eyes were soft as she -turned them to him. "You must have been terribly bored. But you were -game. You didn't see me on the coach?" - -"I didn't notice any one but the two working-girls with the suitcase. -Do you think I could have seen you and forgotten you?" - -"Be careful! You're only making it worse. One of the two working-girls -called after you to thank you, didn't she?" - -Remsen fell suddenly thoughtful. "Now I recall, the voice did seem -familiar. But--surely--" - -"Perhaps this will help." She hummed softly a passage of the lulling, -lilting song which she had heard from his lips on that memorable day of -her great resolve. - -"Wait!" he cried. "I'm getting it! Gloria Greene's studio. A girl asleep -on the divan, while I was playing. She corrected a change of chord for -me. But--you! Never tell me that was you!" - -"Darcy Cole, at your service." - -"Well--well, but," stammered Remsen, for once in his life wholly -confused and bewildered. "What were _you_ in disguise for?" - -"I wasn't." - -"Then I must have been stone blind that day!" - -"You had no eyes at all--for me," said she demurely. "However, that's -not to be wondered at." - -"If it were, somebody else would have to do the wondering. My capacity -in that direction is totally exhausted. Won't you please explain?" - -"With pleasure. If you'll tell me what." Miss Cole was enjoying herself -greatly. - -"What this transformation scene means? At the studio you were, well--" - -"Say it," she encouraged. "I was an ugly little toad." - -Remsen made gestures and gurgles of violent protest. "Not at all! But -you were--well, quite different." - -"Yes, I wasn't very well. Nor very happy." - -"Judging from appearances, you must be about the healthiest and happiest -person in the world to-day, then," he retorted. - -"Do you know," she reproved, "that your compliments lack subtlety?" - -"That's easy. Because I mean'em." - -The native at the wheel made a quarter turn with his head, extended his -mouth to a point east by north of his right ear, and from the corner of -it shouted: "Set tight. Here's where she gits kinder streaky." - -Thereupon, as at a signal call, the car gathered itself together and -proceeded to emulate the chamois of the Alps. For several frantic leaps -and jounces the couple in the back seat preserved the conventionalities. -Then came a stretch where an ancient, humpbacked vein of granite had -thrust itself up through the road's surface, and all decorum was flung -to the winds. Miss Cole crossed the car in two bunny-jumps and fell upon -Mr. Remsen's neck, thrusting his head against the side curtain with -such force as to form a bulge, which several outreaching trees playfully -poked with their branches. As further evidence of her affection, she -stuck her elbow in his eye, after which she coyly retreated into her own -corner by the aerial route. Mr. Remsen assisted her flight by a method -known in football as "giving the shoulder." He then rose to explain, -settled squarely upon both her feet, and concluded the performance by -seating himself on her knees and browsing a mouthful from the veil which -was twisted about her hat. Taking advantage of a precious but fleeting -moment when the car soared like a gull across a bay of mud, they both -addressed the chauffeur. "Stop!" shrieked Miss Cole. - -"Schlupff!" vociferated Mr. Remsen, meaning the same thing. But the veil -had become involved with his utterance. - -The native brought his "boat" to a halt, just short of a ghastly blind -turn, screened by a wooded cliff. - -"S' matter?" he inquired. - -"You're shaking us to bits," protested Darcy. "Please don't go so fast." - -"Shucks!" said the other. "Call _that_ fast? I could do better with a -hearse." - -"Very likely," returned Remsen. "The passenger in a hearse hasn't -anything to say about how he travels. We have. Ease it up." - -What retort the native might have found was cut off by a persistent -trumpeting from around the curve. - -"Honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump! Honk! Honk-honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump, -prr-rr-rramp!" - -"Two cars," interpreted the native. "Bel-lerin' fer help, I wouldn't -wonder. Prob'ly bogged down in that mud-waller at the foot of the hill. -One of'em sounds like our truck." Again the brazen voice of warning and -appeal thrilled through the air. - -"'_T is_ our truck," confirmed the chauffeur. "I know the old caow's -voice. I pree-soom that couple for the boss's cottage is gettin' a taste -of real country life in the roadin' line." - -"What couple?" asked Darcy, sitting up. "Young married pair. Got off the -train at Meredith." - -"At Meredith?" repeated Darcy, in troubled tones. - -"There's another couple due from Ashland for the Island. All friends of -the boss's. Like's not that's the other car that's whoopin' it up daown -there't the foot o' the hill. Quite a pa'ty." - -The gleam of a horrid surmise shone in the look which Darcy turned upon -Remsen. - -"Do you suppose it _could_ be they? Oh, it _couldn't!_" - -"I'm very much afraid it is." - -"Oh, that would be too awful! _Don't_ let it be Maud and Helen!" - -"If I could help it, I would," he replied, bracing himself for -confession. "I'm sure it is your friends. In fact, Tom Harmon told me -they were coming." - -"You knew it all the time?" - -"I did." - -"And let me come here without a word of warning?" The girl's tone rasped -Remsen's accusing conscience. She spoke like a hurt child whose trust -has been betrayed. - -Remsen waited until the chauffeur, who had jumped out and was on his -way to the scene of distress, was beyond hearing. Then he said: "Please -don't think me wholly selfish. But how was I to know that the presence -of other couples--I mean other people--would be so distressing to you?" - -"Don't pretend to be stupid," she rebuked him. "There I was, a bride -without any bridegroom, looking for a place to hide myself and you let -me run right into the very people of all in the world that I didn't want -to see. You knew I didn't want to see them. I told you so," she ended -with a suggestion of fearfulness, "the first thing. On the train." - -"Before you had a husband," he reminded her. "Now you have one--" - -"And that makes it worse! A thousand times worse. Oh, why didn't you -tell me on the train?" - -"Suppose I had. What would you have done?" - -"Got off at the next station. Jumped out of the window. Anything!" - -"And have been alone in some strange place with nobody to look after -you? If you'd done that, I should have felt obligated to get off, too." - -"You wouldn't!" Darcy stamped her foot. "You haven't any right." - -"When a lady puts a claim on a gentleman as her husband," remonstrated -Remsen mildly, "while he may not have the right to prevent her from -jumping out of the window of a moving train, at least he may use all -fair means to see her through." - -"Do you think you've been fair in this?" - -"_Kamerad!_ I surrender! I don't! The plain fact is, I knew you'd -run away if I told you, and I couldn't bear to lose you, after I'd -miraculously found you again." - -"Consequently," she accused, "I am here where the girls are sure to -find me, married and without a husband, or with a husband that they'll -discover is bogus. What am I going to do?" - -"List to an inspired idea! I've just thought it out. When you see your -friends, tell them that I didn't get off the train at all. I went right -on to Montreal." - -"And deserted your bride?" - -"Emergency call on imperative official business. Back to-morrow or next -day, or whenever you choose to tell'em. That'll give you time to arrange -things and fix up a good, water-tight lie." - -"No lie could be good enough." - -"Wait till we put our heads together over it." - -"How can we put our heads together if your head is in Montreal?" - -"It won't be, except for publication to the bridal party. It'll be at -the Bungalow. I'm going to carry it there now, on foot." - -"And stay there until it's time for you to get back from Montreal?" - -"Precisely. When you need your titled Britisher back, I'll be ready, -with the accent and the infernal, scratchy whiskers." - -"Suppose, meantime, the bridal couples come wandering about the -Bungalow?" - -"Then I'll take to the woods. Lives of the hunted and all that sort of -thing. Before I'm through with all this I may have to disguise myself as -a rabbit and learn to twitch my ears." - -"It's fearfully risky--" began the girl. - -"It is," he confirmed, "with the woods full of amateur hunters. But I've -known rabbits to live to a ripe old age. There was an old cottontail on -Uncle Simeon's place--" - -"Please don't joke. It's fearfully serious for me. I've got to go ahead -and face the girls." - -"Say the word and I'll gird my gospel armour on--I mean my -side-burns--and support you." - -"Yes: and what would our frisky chauffeur think of that! Gracious -goodness! I forgot about him. What will he think about your -disappearance if you run away now?" - -"Leave him to me. I've got an argument for him." - -The native reappeared with the information that the truck was bemired -and that the garage car in which one couple had arrived from Ashland -(the motor-boat having broken down) was unable to pull it out unaided. -Therefore, he told them, he would have to go to the rescue with his car. - -Mr. Remsen produced a roll of greenbacks. "Have you any aversion to a -ten-dollar bill?" he inquired. - -"I ain't never knowed one teh make me sick t' my stommick yet," -confessed the native. - -"Try this one," said Remsen. - -But the speeder withheld his hand. "What am I bein' hired fer?" - -"To tell me a short cut by foot to the Bungalow." - -"Over this hill, and yeh can see it. Only house in sight. Whut else?" - -"To ferget that you've seen me." - -"Nuthin' fishy about this?" inquired the cautious chauffeur. - -"It's just a little joke on the people in front." - -"My mem'ry," said the other, pocketing the bill, "ain't whut it was. I -c'n t ba'ly rec'lect t' say 'Thank-ye,' but there my power gives out. -Some one comin' aroun! the bend," he added. - -Remsen made a dive into the underbrush. From somewhere above Darcy, a -moment later, a tree found voice to speak like a dryad: - -"I'll be at your call to-morrow." - -At the elbow of the road appeared Maud and Holcomb Lee. Darcy, envying -Daniel what has been regarded as one of the most trying experiences in -the records of animal training, walked forward to meet them. - -Her head was high. - -Her chin was firm. - -Her step was light. - -Her eyes danced with defiance. - -Andy Dunne would have been proud of her. - -She was game. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -ROUSED into semi-wakefulness by the first shaft of sunlight that -pierced the Bungalow windows, Mr. Jacob Remsen indulged in sleepy -self-communion. - -"Who are we this morning? Not our bright and lovely self. That's a -cinch... Rodney Carteret? No: we shook Rodney in New York... Veyze! -That's it; Montrose Veyze. _Sir_ Montrose, if you please.... Oh, Lord! -The bride." Unaccustomed though he was to allow the sun's early rays to -pry him forth from his slumbers, the man of aliases leapt out of bed, -chuckled himself through his toilet and breakfast, and still -emitting sub-sounds, not so much of glee as of a profound and abiding -satisfaction in life, took the road for Center Harbor. Darcy, still -wrapped in dreams at the Farmhouse, would have made the distance in -better time; nevertheless, his hour-and-a-half was a fairly creditable -performance. In consequence of certain telephonic efforts of the -previous evening, he expected to find an express package at his -destination, wherein he was not disappointed. - -At eleven o'clock, Darcy rambled down the long, wooded driveway, leading -from the Farmhouse to the lake. Off to her right, where a little brook -brawled gayly down among rounded boulders, another dryad-haunted tree -burst into soft, familiar music. She answered the whistled melody with a -pipe of her own, as true and sweet. - -"Coast clear?" asked the tree, which, for a good American hickory, spoke -with a surprisingly British accent. - -"Yes. Come out." - -"Just a minute. What's my nationality?" - -"English, this morning." - -"I thought likely. So I put on the regalia." The owner of the voice -stepped forth in the full panoply of wig, whiskers, and monocle. - -Darcy surveyed him disparagingly. "No," she decided. "I don't like it as -well as I did." - -"Perhaps you prefer the original," he suggested modestly. "I do, myself. -But I was afraid some one might be around." - -"Nobody is likely to be here this morning. And the rig doesn't fit in -with that great box you're carrying. What's in it? More disguises?" He -uncovered the box and held it out to her. - -"Grown on the premises," he lied gayly. "Picked with the dew still -on'em." - -The girl gathered the blooms into her arms and drew them up to her face -with a sudden, tender, mothering gesture which caused the giver's heart -an unaccustomed and disturbing thrill. He was well repaid for the trip -to Center Harbor. - -"How lovely!" she cried. "And how good of you! What kind are they? For -reward you may take off your disguise, but you must hide if the others -come." - -"I will," he agreed, and answered her question: "They're bride and -bridesmaid roses. Appropriate to the occasion." - -Darcy had the grace to blush. "Out of date," she said hastily. - -"What! Already?" - -"I've changed my mind," was her calm announcement. "I've decided that -you're not my husband." - -"Wedded and Parted--by Bertha M. Clay. Who's the Bertha M. that's done -this thing to me: - -"I am. As soon as you left I saw that it wouldn't fit in at all for us -to be married. The servants here probably visit between house and house. -And it was bound to come out that I was at the Farmhouse and you at -the Bungalow, and--well--don't you see that would look funny if we were -married?" - -What Jack Remsen saw was that the girl was like the pinkest of the -bridesmaid roses when she blushed, though a sweeter, warmer pink. -"Didn't I go to Montreal, then?" - -"No. Though you may have to, later. There's some legal formality to be -gone through yet before we can be married." - -"Oh, then we're still engaged." - -"Indeed, yes! Don't think you're going to get out of it so easily. The -legal papers are in Montreal. So, instead of being married on the 16th, -as we had planned, we've had to wait, and you've brought me up here, on -your way to Montreal." - -"Is this the genial fiction that you've handed out to your friends, the -newly-weds?" - -"It is." - -"How did they take it?" - -"Hard. Maud--that's Mrs. Lee--especially feels that she has a terrible -weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was going to wire Gloria -Greene until I told her that Mrs. Bond, the housekeeper, is Mr. Harmon's -own second cousin and therefore, a fully equipped chaperon." - -"Is she?" said Remsen in surprise. - -"How do I know?" returned the girl innocently. "She might be. I hadn't -asked her. But I had to invent something to pacify Maud." - -"Invention," observed the admiring Mr. Remsen, "appears to be mere -child's play for you." - -"Even so, it didn't satisfy Maud. She quite insisted on my moving over -to the Cottage, to be under her eye." - -"You're not going to do that?" he cried apprehensively. - -"And play the goosiest kind of gooseberry? Indeed, I'm not!" - -"What comes next? Am I to meet the turtledoves?" - -"If you don't, it will look suspicious." - -"So it will. Let's get it over with, then. I'll risk a small bet that -after meeting Sir Montrose Veyze once, they won't care to repeat the -experience." - -"What are you going to do to them?" - -"Treat them to an exhibition of British hauteur and superiority." - -"Hasn't that sort of thing rather gone out since the war?" - -"Not in the family into which you've married, my dear young lady. With -the Veyzes nothing ever comes in and nothing ever goes out. Don't -you think that would be a good line to spring on them?" he added with -animation. - -"You mustn't be too horrid," enjoined Darcy. "I don't want them to think -I'm marrying a--a--" - -"A lemon," supplied the other. "Speaking of lemons, don't you think it -would be a pious idea for you to invite your fiancé to lunch with you?" - -"Excellent. And you can practice your accent on Mrs. Bond." - -Profound and awesome was the impression made upon that lady. She found -it only natural that the couple should wander off immediately after the -meal; though she would have been surprised enough at the actual basis -of their desire for seclusion, which was that they might work out their -plan for the encounter with the honeymooning quartette. The boathouse, -which commands the approach to the Farm, was selected for the scene of -the presentation. - -About mid-afternoon the Lees and the Woods appeared, motoring up the -lower road, and were halted by Darcy, who, pink and excited, indicated -a figure on the boathouse porch. The figure was tipped back in a chair, -with its feet on the railing, smoking a pipe. - -"Come and meet my Monty," invited Darcy. - -Upon their approach, the figure removed its feet from the railing with -obvious reluctance. It did not remove its pipe from its face at all. To -the women it bowed glumly. To the men it offered a flabby half-portion -of hand. Holcomb Lee took it and dropped it. Paul Wood looked at the -fingers presented to him in turn, looked at Darcy, looked at the sky and -observed dispassionately that it looked like rain. - -"Vay likely. Beastly weathah!" grunted the other. - -"Bad weather makes good fishing, they say up here," said Helen Wood, -pleasantly. "Have you tried it?" - -"Nothin' but sunfishes and little basses, they tell me. Beastly water!" - -"You might find the hunting better," proffered Maud Lee. - -"Huntin'? Where's one to find a decent mount?" - -"Mrs. Lee means the shooting, dear," explained Darcy, sweetly. - -"Haw! Nevah heard shootin' called huntin' before. No decent shootin', -either. Tramped about all mornin' and flushed one chippin' squirrel." - -"He means chipmunk," expounded the helpful Darcy. "Poor Monty finds our -American speech so difficult." - -"Beastly language," murmured the bogus baronet, resuming his seat. - -"But surely," said the kindly-spirited Helen, "you find the mountains -beautiful." - -"Haw! Too crowded. No chance to turn about without knockin' people's -elbows." - -The visitors took a hasty departure. - -"Stupid ass!" growled Lee before they were fairly out of earshot. - -"Oh, for just one good swing at his fat head," yearned the husky Wood. - -"Did you _ever_ see such a boor!" was Helen's contribution to the -symposium. - -"He's _old_." disclosed the observing Maud. "That's a wig he had on. I'd -swear to it. Poor Darcy!" - -Dissolved in mirth, Darcy congratulated the amateur upon a highly -distinguished performance. - -"Did Gloria teach you to act like that?" she inquired. - -"If Gloria would train me," he returned, "I could do something. But she -won't waste time on an amateur. Do you know that she's one of the very -best coaches in the profession?" - -"I know that she's the most wonderful woman in the world. What she's -done for me--" - -"It's probably no more than she's done for hundreds of other people," -said Remsen, and launched out into a panegyric of the actress which -would have made a press agent feel like an amateur. - -With more experience of men, Darcy would have known that this was the -language of the highest type of admiration, but of nothing more. In -her innocence she took it as a final confirmation of the scene she had -witnessed in the studio. - -"Gloria wants you to work, doesn't she?" she asked shyly. - -"Gloria's such a tremendous worker, herself, that she thinks every one -ought to be busy on some job all the time. Doesn't she get after -you? You look far too much of the lily-of-the-field type to meet her -approval." - -"Lily-of-the-field, yourself!" returned the girl indignantly. "I've -brought a lot of work up here with me. Can you say the same?" - -"Guilty! I'm jobless, except as your present slave." - -"Have you ever done anything worth while in the world?" Darcy -challenged; but the smile with which she accompanied the words was -indulgent. - -He took silent counsel with himself. "At a class reunion I once chased -a trolley-car on a dromedary," he said hopefully. "That made life -temporarily happier for a good many people, including the dromedary, who -was conducting the performance." - -"Sir Monty--my real Sir Monty--used to be an officer in a camel corps," -fabricated Darcy dreamily. - -"Now, why drag in my fellow fiancé, just as I was beginning to forget -him?" he expostulated. - -"We--you--he isn't to be forgotten," said the girl hastily. - -"Of course not. I'm sorry. Tell me about him." - -Attempting to do so, Darcy found that the flavor had unaccountably -oozed out of her lie. Pretense and falsification with this man who had -unprotestingly let himself in for an indefinite career of both on his -own account, to aid a girl whom he didn't even know in what, for all -he could tell, might be only an unworthy prank--well, it simply went -against the grain. - -"No; I don't believe I will just now," she returned. "I might confuse -him with your masterly impersonation." - -"Then tell me about yourself. What would you have done if you hadn't -found a readymade Englishman on the bridal train?" - -"Heaven only knows! Committed suicide, I think. I may have to come to -that yet," she said dismally. "Oh, dear! The further it goes, the worse -it gets. You've helped me out, for the present, but--" - -"Then let me help you out some more," he urged. "Murder, arson, forgery, -bigamy, anything you wish. I'm an outlaw, anyway, and a crime or two -makes no difference to me." Underneath his lightness, she divined the -deeper wish to be of service. - -"Take off your disguise," she said quietly, "I want to look at the real -you." - -He obeyed, and endured the scrutiny of her intent eyes, smiling. - -"Yes," she decided. "You'd be a real friend. I could trust you. And I -want to. Oh, I do want to. I'm in an awful mess." - -"Probably it isn't nearly as bad as it looks. Trot it out, and let's -examine it." - -"But it isn't my secret, alone. I've got a--a partner." - -"The 'wicked partner'?" - -"She _isn't_ wicked." - -"Oh, it's a she! The shadows deepen." - -"And I've promised a hope-to-die promise." - -"Beg off from it." - -She jumped up, clapping her hands like a child. "I'll try. You go home -now, and don't touch your telephone, for it's a party wire and I'm going -to phone a night letter to my partner." - -This is the night-letter which went to Gloria Greene. - -Will you release me from promise and let me tell one person, very near -to you, who can help? Also, may I tell same person that I know about you -two? - -Darcy - -The entire telegram puzzled the recipient more than a little, -particularly the last portion. Not understanding, she took the wisest -course and played safe by wiring a veto. The wording of her reply caused -much painful puzzlement in the virginal breast of the lady telegraph -operator who, on the following morning, thus 'phoned it to Miss Darcy -Cole: - -"This the Farmhouse?... That Miss Cole?... I gotta telegram f'r you, -Miss Cole, an' I d'knowz I ken make it all out. Sounds queer t' me. -Shall I get a repeat?... Give it t' you first? All right. Jussuz you -say. Ready?...'_Miss Dassy Cole, The Farm, Boulder Brook. No. Don't dare -trust you with the truth. You do too well with the other thing_' Get -that?... yes;'s funny, ain't it? There's funnier comin'. Ready?... -'_Keep it up till you hear from me by following letter._' Now comes -the queer part. '_Don't be a damp hool._' Get that?... Yes; hool... Me? -don't know what a hool is. Spell it? D-a-m-p; got hat?... H-double o-l. -Got that? Well, mebbe it is funny, but _I_ don't get no laughter out -of it. What?... Oh, yes; of course. Signed _Gloria_. Want me to get a -repeat? No. Jussuz you say; I'm sat'sfied if you are. But theh ain't no -sech a word in _my_ dictionary. I jest looked it up." - -Miss Darcy Cole, gazing out into a worldful of rain, mused upon the -message, with its definite inhibition. For a moment she was tempted -to derive some compensating mirth from the telegram by calling up the -telegraph lady, advising her to re-read the cryptic sentence which had -so disturbed her professional calm, by dividing the two words after -the _m_ instead of the _p_--and then listening for the reaction to the -shock. But this she dismissed as not worth while. - -"But I think I _am_ one," she reflected drearily, "not to make Gloria -release me, anyway." - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -MISS DARCY COLE sat on the edge of Red Rock, swinging twenty dollars' -worth of the very smartest obtainable boots, the personal selection of -Miss Gloria Greene, over two hundred feet of shimmering October air. -Behind her Mr. Jacob Remsen was using the residue of the atmosphere to -replenish his exhausted lungs, for he had undertaken to keep pace with -his companion up the face of the declivity, with all but fatal results. -It is not well for a man who has been cooped up within a city house, -exerciseless and under the espionage of a minion of the law, to compete -on a thirty-per-cent grade with a woman who has just come from the -training of Andy Dunne. - -Lack of her accustomed outdoor exercise had simply lent zest to Darcy. -Three days before, the rains had descended and the floods had come and -kept on coming. Now, when the skies of this mountain region set out -seriously to rain, the local ducks borrow mackintoshes. Several times -the visitor at the Farmhouse had ventured forth, only to be promptly -beaten back to shelter. - -There she would have led a lonely existence, for the bridal couples -were weather-bound, and even the rural delivery was cut off (so that -the promised letter from Gloria hadn't arrived), had it not been for her -neighbor of the Bungalow. Each morning he waded over the soaking mile, -and, of course, in such weather a decent sense of hospitality compelled -his hostess to keep him for luncheon and dinner. So they had come -to know each other on an inevitable footing of unconscious intimacy, -better, perhaps, than they normally would have done in the conventional -encounters of a year's acquaintanceship; and he played for her and -she sang to him; and they discussed people and differed about art, and -agreed about books and quarreled about politics and religion, and were -wholly and perilously content with one another and the situation. - -On the afternoon of the fourth day the sun broke gloriously through, and -Darcy challenged Remsen to make the precipitous ascent of the front of -Red Hill. - -Behold her, then, at the conclusion serenely overlooking the lowland and -the lake while her companion stretched out panting behind her. - -"This is a peak on the Siberian front," she announced. "And I'm an -outpost." - -"What do you see, Sister Anne?" - -"Wait and I'll tell you. An aeroplane"--she pointed to a wheeling crow -above them--"has just signaled me--" - -("Caw," said the crow; "Thank you," said Darcy and threw the bird a -kiss.) - -"--that a regiment is coming up from below. There's the advance guard." - -She pointed down the sheer rock. Remsen moved across and looked over the -edge. "That spider?" he inquired unimaginatively. - -"He's just pretending to be a spider. But he's really a spy disguised as -a spider. Now the question is, Shall I drop this bomb on him?" - -She held a pebble above the toiling crawler. "War is hell," observed -Remsen lazily. "Why add to its horrors?" - -"How far away it all seems!" said the girl dreamily. "Do you suppose, -over there, it's beautiful and peaceful like this hillside one day, -and then the next--I guess I'll let my spy spider live," she broke off, -dropping her chin in her hand. - -Remsen sat down at her side. - -"What's your soldier man like?" he asked abruptly. - -"What? Who?" inquired the startled Darcy. "Oh, Monty!" Gloria's -insufficient sketch came to her aid. "Why, he's short and round and -roly-poly." - -"Then I don't give a very exact imitation of him, do I?" - -"Not very. And he's red and fierce-looking, with a stubby, scrubby -mustache," she added, augmenting Gloria's description. - -Her companion stared. "Not what I should call a particularly -enthusiastic portaiture." - -"Oh, but of course he's awfully nice," she made haste to amend. "Not -really a bit fierce, you know, but very brave and--and" (eagerly casting -about) "a lovely voice." - -"What kind?" - -"Barytone." - -"And you sing together?" he asked gloomily. - -"Oh, lots!" - -"I suppose so." He gathered some loose stones and began idly to drop -them over the rock's crest. - -"There! You've given the alarm to the spy," she accused. "See him -wigwagging at you! Now he'll go and report." - -"Darcy!" - -"Well?" - -"You don't mind my calling you Darcy, do you?" - -"N-n-no, I like it." - -"I wonder if you'll mind what I'm going to say now." - -"I don't believe I should mind anything you would say." - -"It's about the little song. The one that you set right for me." - -"Our song." - -"Our song," he repeated with a wistful emphasis on the pronoun. "Darcy, -you won't sing that--to him--will you?" - -"No," she said. Her eyes were dimly troubled and would not meet his. "I -won't sing that--to any one--again." - -"Thank you," he said humbly. - -"Oh, look!" she cried with an effort at gayety. "The enemy! They -approach. Let's go and meet'em." - -She jumped to her feet and pointed to a far stretch of the road where -four figures were slowly moving along. - -"That means I've got to put on my infernal whiskers and wig!" he -groaned. - -"Just think how long a vacation you've had from them," she reproached -him. - -"And my still more uncomfortable manners." - -"Tone them down a little," she advised. "I think Holcomb and Paul are -just about ready to turn on the haughty Britisher, and rend him limb -from limb." - -"Don't blame'em," he said lazily. "But they seem to be turning off -toward the village," he added, peering down into the valley. - -"And the girls are coming on," said Darcy. "Probably they've got the -mail." - -"With foreign letters?" said Remsen jealously. "Did you leave a -forwarding address?" She shot a swift, indirect look at him. But he was -gazing out over the regally garbed forest spread below them. - -"Come along!" she urged. "We must hurry. We'll take the Bungalow trail, -and I'll wait while you put on your Veyze outfit. Then we'll catch the -girls on their return from the Farm." Having carried through the first -part of this programme, they took the road together and presently -came upon the two brides. Maud bore a folded newspaper as if it were a -truncheon of official authority. Her expression was stem and important. -Helen was obviously struggling with a tendency to hysterical excitement. -Upon catching sight of Darcy and her escort, Maud marched with an almost -military front, straight upon them, her fellow bride acting as rear -guard. - -"Darcy," said Maud, ignoring the now perfectly whiskered fiance, "I -should like to speak to you alone." - -A qualm of mingled intuition and caution warned Darcy. - -"What about, Maud?" she asked. - -"A private matter which your fiancé can hear later," returned the -uncompromising Maud. "Please, Darcy," added Helen. - -"Not at all," returned the girl with spirit.' "Has it anything to do -with Monty?" - -"It has a great deal to do with him," was the grim response. - -"Then he should hear it at the same time." - -"Haw! By all means. Haw!" confirmed the fiancé, bringing his monocle to -bear upon Maud and Helen in turn. - -"Very well," said Maud in a your-blood-be-on-your-own-head voice. "Read -that." - -She thrust the newspaper into Darcy's hand, pointing to a penciled -paragraph on the front page. To Darcy's eternal credit be it said, she -succeeded in preserving a calm and unperturbed face, while she read the -paragraph, and then passed it to her waiting fiancé. - -It informed the world that, for distinguished service in the aerial -corps, the King of England had, on the previous day, personally -decorated Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, -England. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -FOR the death, disappearance, or capture of Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze -Holdings, Hampshire, England, Darcy was duly prepared, in a spirit of -Christian fortitude and resignation. That fame might mark him' out, thus -forcing the issue for her, was wholly unforeseen. It took her completely -aback. The Darcy of a year before would have collapsed miserably under -it. But this was a different Darcy. She faced the accuser with a quiet -smile, back of which her thoughts ran desperately around in circles, -like a bevy of little rabbits cut off from cover. - -"You've read what it says in the newspaper?" said Maud, in the accents -of a cross-examining counsel. - -"Yes. Oh, certainly!" - -"Then perhaps you can explain." - -Darcy shot a swift glance at the bogus Sir Montrose. He also was -smiling. Most illogically Darcy's heart began to sing a little private -Hymn of Hate of its own. What did he mean by standing there with a -sickly grin on his silly face when the whole fabric of their mutual -pretense was being riddled? - -(Herein she was ungrateful as well as illogical. The face was silly -because she had compelled him to make it so. As for the rest, the smile -was good enough of its kind. He was not smiling because he felt like it, -but to conceal the fact that he was doing some high-pressure thinking of -his own.) - -From the smirking countenance of her ally, Darcy turned to the lowering -front of the enemy. - -"Well, you see," she said with an air of great candor, after -deliberately tearing out the paragraph, "it's rather an involved -matter." - -"I don't see anything involved about it," returned the lofty and -determined Maud. "Who is this man?" - -"Yes; who is he?" echoed Helen, coming mildly to her support. - -From the corner of her eye the badgered girl could see the object of the -inquiry. Still smiling! It was too much. Then and there Darcy committed -that ignoble act known and reprehended in the higher sporting circles, -wherein Andy Dunne moves, as "passing the buck." - -"_You_ tell them, Monty," she said sweetly. - -Of a great statesman, now dead, it has been written: - - Cheated by treachery and beguiled by Fate, - Once in his life we well may call him great. - -Thus with Mr. Jacob Remsen _alias_ Sir Montrose Veyze. Out of -conscious nothing he had, in that precious moment's respite, evoked an -instantaneous and full-fledged plan to meet the crisis. - -Fixing upon Maud as the more formidable antagonist, he impaled her on -the beam of his monocle. - -"Haw!" he ejaculated. "You've heard about the Veyze Succession, I -assume." - -"Never," said Maud stoutly. - -"_What?_ Nevah heard of the King's Judgment? Why, my _deah_ lady, we're -as well known as the Tower of London or the--the Crystal Palace." - -"In America, you see," explained the more pacific Helen, "these things -don't get to us." - -"But I assuah you," cried the other, turning his glassy regard upon her, -"your atrocious American press has been quite full of it from time to -time. Come, now! You're spoofing me. You must have read of the Veyze -divided title. What?" - -Hypnotized by the glare of the monocle, Helen's imagination inspired her -to confess that she did vaguely recall something about it, which was -the more gratifying to the representative of the Veyzes in that he had -introduced the press feature on the inspiration of the moment. - -The less impressionable Maud was not to be diverted from the main issue. - -"Even if we knew all about your family, it would not explain Sir -Montrose Veyze being here in America at the same time that he is being -received by the King in London." - -"Wearing two swords. Doesn't the press report mention that? It should," -put in the Veyze representative conscientiously piling up picturesque -detail to embellish and fortify his case. "Don't forget that, please. -It's a Veyze prerogative." - -"Is it a Veyze prerogative to be in two places at once?" queried the -cross-examiner. "Or--there aren't two of you, I suppose." - -"Of _cawse!_" - -The accused delivered the answer in a tone of calm and wondering -contempt. Obviously he was incredulous that such ignorance as his -interrogator displayed could exist in a Christian country. - -"_Two_ Sir Montrose Veyzes? Of the same name and title?" Maud was -glaring, now. - -"Of _cawse!_ The famous Veyze twins. Though we're not rahlly twins any -more, you understand." - -Under the calm and steady beam of the monocle, Maud weakened. "What are -you famous for?" she asked, more amenably. - -"Because there are two of us to the divided title. Bally hard for an -American to understand, I'm afraid. It begins back in the early days of -the title, quite before Columbus landed the Puritans at Bunker Hill, you -know." - -"Columbus wasn't a Puritan, dear," corrected Darcy. - -"No? Nevah heard anything against the man's morals, that I can recall." - -"Never mind Columbus," said the interested Helen. "Do tell us about the -Veyzes." - -"Right-o! Two brothers were born--twins, d' you see? There was some -natural confusion. Which was the heir--born first, you know? -Nobody could tell. The King was stayin' at Veyze Holdings then for the -shootin'; very famous shootin'. The family referred it to him. Would he -play the part of Solomon and decide? His Majesty graciously acceded to -the request. He decreed that the title should thenceforth be a dual one. -It's remained so ever since. We don't produce twins any more, but the -two eldest sons of the line inherit title and property jointly, and each -carries two swords at court. There's Sir Montrose and Sir Montrose II. -I'm II." - -[Illustration: There are two of us to the divided title 236] - -"How romantic!" breathed Helen. - -"Rah-ther. We pride ourselves on that sort of thing, we Veyzes." - -As the glory of his performance developed before her enraptured mind, -the Hymn of Hate died out within Darcy, to be succeeded by a Pæan of -Praise. - -"And now," said she severely, "I should think you girls might have the -decency to apologize to Sir Montrose." - -"Rah-ther!" confirmed her ally. - -"I'm awfully sorry," said Helen contritely. "I'll apologize when I'm -proved wrong," returned Mrs. Lee dubiously. "We'll know soon enough." - -"Yes? And how?" - -"Mr. Wood is trying to get the British Embassy on long-distance'phone." - -"My respects to Lord Wyncombe," said the undisturbed suspect. "But why -go to so much trouble? Surely there's a simpler way." - -"How?" asked Darcy, wondering what fresh audacity was developing in that -fertile brain. - -"Don't you have--er--public libraries in your American towns?" - -"Certainly." - -"Then perhaps there is one at Center Harbor." - -"There is," answered Helen, so promptly that Darcy shot a glance of -suspicion at her. - -"What more easy than to drive over there at once," observed the suspect -blandly, "and consult their Burke." - -"Burke's Peerage, you mean?" said Darcy. "Perhaps they haven't one." - -"They haven't," blurted Maud, and stopped, reddening. - -"Apparently you've tried," remarked Darcy witheringly. "We appreciate -your interest." But Sir Montrose II was painfully shocked. "Not got a -Burke!" he exclaimed. "Unbelievable! What a country! I'll send for one, -at once." - -Impressed, despite herself, Maud Lee hesitated, looking from Darcy to -her fiancé. - -"It may be all right," she admitted. "I don't say that it isn't. But -until it is cleared up beyond a doubt, don't you think, Darcy, you ought -to come and stay with us?" - -"I think not," put in Darcy's escort quietly. "I'm taking Miss Cole back -to the Farm. If you've nothing further to add--" - -"Nothing--now," answered the baffled Mrs. Lee. - -"Then we'll bid you good-day." - -Safely around the curve they stopped and faced each other. - -"You wonderful person!" giggled Darcy hysterically. "How did you ever -think of it!" Assuming a grandiose pose he declaimed: - - You may break, you may shatter, the Veyze if you will, - But the scent of the Montrose will cling to it still. - -"To get down to prose, how long will it cling?" she asked thoughtfully. - -"Allowing for inevitable official red tape, I should say anywhere from -twenty-four hours to a month." - -"Paul Wood has a cousin in the State Department." - -"In that case, nearer the twenty-four hours than the month." - -Darcy seated herself on a boulder and took her chin into her cupped -hands. "Let me think," she murmured. - -Remsen watched her as she considered and would have given much to be -able to read her mind. Presently she looked up. - -"Do you mind leaving me here?" she inquired. - -"Yes," he said. - -"Why?" - -"I always mind leaving you. It gives me a lost feeling." - -She nodded. "Yes; I know what you mean. I feel it, too." - -"Do you?" he cried eagerly. - -"You've been so wonderfully good to me all through this queer mess," she -supplemented, a little hurriedly. - -He disregarded this. "Besides," he said, "I'm afraid this is going to be -our last walk." She looked her startled question. - -"What I'd like, of course," he pursued, "is to stay here and face it -through with you. But that's going to be worse for you than if I went, -isn't it?" - -"I'm afraid it is." - -"Then it's up to me to leave." - -"But what if they find you and take you back to New York?" - -"I've got to take the risk. They're pretty likely to find out about me -here if they undertake a _Veyze_ investigation." - -"That's true," she cried. "I've made this place impossible for you as a -refuge." - -"Not you. I did it myself. I'd do it again--a thousand times--for these -last four days." - -"When would you go?" - -"To-night. Eleven o'clock. Meredith." - -"Wait till to-morrow." - -His heart leaped. "We're to have this evening together?" - -"No," she said gently. "I want this evening to myself. I have to think." - -"I'm a marvelous stimulus to thought," he pleaded. - -She shook an obstinate head. - -"Might I walk back to the Farm with you?" - -"No; please. I'd rather you didn't." She rose and laid her hand in his. -"You've been a very parfait, gentil knight," she said. - -"Darcy!" - -But she was already swinging up the hill with that free, lithe, rhythmic -pace of hers. At the summit she turned and waved. For one brief second -he saw her sweet, flushed profile clear against the sweet, flushed sky. -It disappeared leaving earth and heaven dim and void. - -Remsen turned blindly homeward. He knew, at last, what had happened to -him. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -ALL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the -Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote. - -All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen, at the -Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out and relighted -it and mused again. - -All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur sleuths -at the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn't come. - -At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold cloud -sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity of large, -soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was darkened and -the earth whitened with them. - -Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined, tramped -Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack Remsen, deep in such -trouble of heart as he had never known before, and most undetermined. -Both were headed for the same spot, the mailbox at the entrance from the -main road to the byway which leads up to the Bungalow. - -Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there first. -She opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to another -mail-box some distance along the road and opposite the Island, where she -deposited a second epistle. That left her two and a half hours in which -to make the ten miles of dark, heavy road to Meredith. If it were too -little, she had learned of a trail through meadowland and forest which -would cut off nearly two miles. Darcy didn't like woods at night--most -of us don't, if we're honest with ourselves--but she proposed to catch -that train. - -Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery boxes -there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the raising -and the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box, shortly -after the wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack Remsen observed -with surprise that the flag, which he knew to have been down, was -raised. - -"How's this?" inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. "I've been here -and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a day. Yet -you're flying signals." - -As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside. Darcy's -note rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive matches and -at the cost of scorched fingers, he read it: - -Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful one. -But I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You must stay. I -have written to Helen--she is the kind one--and told her about it; just -how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir Montrose's place. I had -to tell her who you were. But your secret won't be betrayed. So you -won't have to go away. You'll be safe here. I'm glad. I like to think of -you here. It's been good--hasn't it? Perhaps when you are able to come -back to New York I'll see you at Gloria's some time. - -I can't say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn't even if there -were time. You've been so good to me--so good. And all you've had for it -is trouble. I'm sorry. - -Good-night, Knight. D. C. - -"Even if there were time." As has been indicated, Jack Remsen's mind -could, on occasion, work swiftly. - -Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because -she was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her -departure. That could mean only the eleven o'clock train from Meredith: -the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his -departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note! -On her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory -letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time -before that letter reached its addressee! - -Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There -were the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black -wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up -with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the -undivided attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the -road at a dogtrot. - -His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable by -several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a second -to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box behind, his -inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein Darcy had set -forth her circumstantial but by no means complete confession which was -to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself. Remsen's heart beat a -little faster under that bulky epistle with its contents of courage and -self-sacrifice. - -At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this -he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not -obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine. -He jogged on with high hopes. - -On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of -speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he -might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to -send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he -pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the strong, -lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless pace of -hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled vigor. - -Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the -flash on the road. - -No footmarks were visible. - -Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him on all -sides. No result. - -Struggling to keep cool, he turned back, going slowly, careful to miss -no trace which intent scrutiny might discover. A quarter of a mile back -he picked up the trail where she had left the road to cross a brooklet -and take to the open fields. Her object he guessed; to cut across a -broad and heavily wooded hill, thus saving herself some two miles of -travel where the road took a wide double curve. - -Eased in his breathing by the enforced slowness of the search, he was -now able to accelerate his pace. Halfway up the open hillside a sudden -fury of storm descended, lapping him in whirling darkness. Ahead of him -stretched the dead-black line of woodland. More by luck than direction, -he came upon a gateway, and thus set foot to the forest path, less -difficult to discern in such conditions than the open trail of the -meadows. With his light he could follow it quite easily. But when he -thought of Darcy, lightless and inexperienced in woodcraft, with only -her strength and her courage to help her, wandering in that wilderness, -his spirit sickened with terror. The numbed fingers of the hand which -gripped the flash warned him of dropping temperature. One might easily -freeze on such a night, in the open. Worst of all, the marks in the snow -were now all but invisible under the fresh fall. - -He blundered desperately onward, shouting her name into the gale as he -went. There was an answering call. He threw his light on. She rose from -a fallen tree-trunk into the arc of radiance. - -"I've been lost," she said, and walked straight to his arms. - -Just for the comfort and safety and relief of it she clung to him, with -no other or further thought than that where he was no harm could reach -her. But now that she was found, Remsen's self-control broke under -the reaction. His arms closed about her. With a shock of sweetness, -amazement, and terror she felt his lips on hers--and answered them. For -the briefest instant only. The thought of Gloria pierced through the -rapture of the moment, a poisoned dart. She thrust herself back from -him, her hands on his breast. - -"Go away!" she sobbed. "You've no right. You know you've no right!" - -As she had thought of Gloria, so now he thought of the Briton oversea, -fighting in his country's service. - -"I know," he groaned. "Forgive me." - -She stood back from him, staring with bewildered, dismayed eyes. - -"I forgot for the moment that I'm only a counterfeit," he pleaded. - -"You forgot--many things," said she slowly. - -"Forgive me, Darcy," he said again. "It--it swept me off my feet--the -sweetness of it. It was base--dishonorable--anything you want to call -it; but when I felt you in my arms--" - -"Oh, _don't!_" she wailed. - -"Will it make it better or worse if I tell you that I love you as I -never loved or thought I could love any woman?" - -"Worse! Worse! Infinitely worse!" - -"This is the end of me," he said. He spoke quietly and in a flat, even -tone as a man might speak who knew that he was giving up everything -in life worth having. "I'll not offend again. But--after I'd kissed -you--you had to know. I couldn't let you think it anything less than it -was, the going out to you of a heart that I could no longer control." - -"In dishonor!" - -"If you will have it so. The dishonor is mine. You are untouched by -it.... Now, let us get to other matters. Are you hurt?" - -"No." - -"Then you can follow me back?" he said. "Where?" - -"To the Farmhouse." - -"I'll never go back to the Farmhouse." - -"You must. I'm going away on this train." - -"What good would that do? Haven't you read my note to you?" - -"Of course. Otherwise I shouldn't have got on your trail." - -"Then you must know that I've written the whole thing to Helen Wood, and -even if I wanted to go back, now--" - -"Dismiss that letter from your mind. I got it, on my way here." - -"_You_ took my letter to Helen? Did you read it?" - -"Do you think me dishonorable in everything?" he returned quietly. - -"Oh, I'm sorry!" cried the girl impetuously. "I don't think you -dishonorable. I know you're not. I don't know what to think or do." - -"Take this light and hurry back to the Farmhouse. I've still got time -for the train. Or I'll take you back and make the morning train." - -"One thing I cannot and will not do: spend another night at the Farm." - -"Is that your last word?" - -"Yes." Obstinacy itself was in the monosyllable. - -"Then I'll go with you to Meredith." - -"I won't let you." - -"I'll go," he retorted in a tone which ended that discussion. - -Under his guidance and in silence they regained the main road. At Center -Harbor he succeeded in getting a team to take them the rest of the way. -Not until the end of the journey did Darcy speak to him. - -"What shall you do now?" - -"I don't know. Go somewhere," said he gloomily. - -"You must go back." - -"Boulder Brook--without you?" he said passionately. - -"But where else can you go?" - -"It doesn't matter." - -They stood in silence until her train pulled in. - -"I shan't see you again, shall I?" he said wretchedly. - -"You've made it impossible. Oh, why did you do it?" she wailed softly. - -With no further word she turned from him and went into the car. Remsen -stood, dazed with misery. Forward, something was shunted from an express -car with a heavy crash. There was a babel of voices, a moment's delay. -Darcy flashed out upon the steps again, her eyes starry. Remsen jumped -to meet her. She caught his hands in hers with a swift, forgiving little -pressure. - -"I couldn't leave you so," she said tremulously. "You've been too good -to me. Good-bye, and--forget." - -Before he could answer she was gone again. - -Until the tail-light of the train glimmered into obscurity around the -curve, Remsen stood uncovered in the gale. Then he turned to the miles -of lonely road. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -DARCY, in her berth, sat huddled up and wide-eyed. She knew at last what -had happened to her. The burning memory of that kiss in the woods had -left nothing unrevealed to a soul as frank with itself as Darcy's had -grown to be. She knew, too, what she had to face. There was no doubt or -hesitancy in her thoughts, no weak attempt to justify herself or find an -easy way out. If it had been any one but Gloria Greene whose happiness -was at stake, Gloria who had picked her up from the scrap-heap of waste -and made a living, pulsating, eager human creature of her, Darcy might -have fought for her own hand. But how could a man who had loved Gloria -Greene, and whom Gloria loved, care seriously for any other woman on -earth? No; this was only a sudden, unreckonable infatuation on Jack -Remsen's part.... Then she recalled the look in his eyes when they -parted, and knew that her conscience was lying to her heart. In any -case, her course was clear. She must be game. - -In her deep trouble her thoughts turned to Gloria, the wise, kind -counsellor, the safe refuge. But she would not do for this crisis! To -betray Remsen to her--that was unthinkable, and nothing short of the -whole truth would serve with Gloria. Darcy knew that she must fight it -out alone. Never, not even in the old, dead days, had she felt so alone. - -Human nature being what it is, there is nothing strange in the fact -that, on her return to New York, Darcy shrank from meeting Gloria. -Although the girl's conscience absolved her, except for that one, -instinctive lapse when she had been caught off her guard, her sore heart -pleaded guilty to the self-brought charge of a lasting disloyalty. With -the thrill of Jack Remsen's kiss still in her veins, how could she face -the woman to whom Remsen owed his allegiance, the woman who, moreover, -had been the kindest, most effectual, most unselfish friend of her own -unbefriended life? - -Yet there remained to be concluded the obsequies of Sir Montrose Veyze, -of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. Those remains, of unblessed -memory, must positively be removed from the premises before they gave -rise to further and even more painful complications. Darcy experienced -the grisly emotions of a murderer with an all-too-obvious corpse to -dispose of. First of all, Gloria's absolution from the promise of -secrecy must be obtained, which she would doubtless be more than ready -to accord, now that Sir Montrose had become too heavy a burden to carry; -also Gloria's advice and aid if she would give it. Nerving herself for -the encounter, Darcy went to see the actress and told her the whole (if -she herself was to be believed) disastrous tale. - -Gloria was too shrewd to believe quite that far. There were obvious -hesitancies, blank spaces, and reservations wherever the name and deeds -of Mr. Jacob Remsen, _alias_ Sir Montrose Veyze II, or in his own proper -person, entered into the narrative. And there was a something in the -girl's eyes, deep down where the warm gray was lighted to warmer blue, -which hadn't been there before. It completed the woman in her. With an -inner flush of creative pride Gloria communed with herself upon the new -miracle: - -"This is a wonderful and lovable thing that I have made." Instinctive -honesty compelled her, however, to add: "But somebody else has given the -finishing touch." - -She was too keen an observer not to suspect who her fellow creative -artist was. Being of the ultra-blessed who hold their tongues until it -is time to speak, Gloria made no comment upon this phase, but set her -mind singly to the problem in hand as presented by Darcy's recital. -"It's time to own up," was her decision. - -"I suppose so," agreed the girl. "I don't look forward to telling Maud." - -"Let me handle Maud." - -"Would you, Gloria? You _are_ good. However well you do it, though," she -added resentfully, "I suppose I'll be 'Poor Darcy' again without even -the compensation of being 'Such a _nice_ girl.'" - -"Do you _feel_ like 'Poor Darcy'?" - -"No." - -"Do you _look_ like 'Poor Darcy'?" - -The girl glanced at the long studio mirror back of her. "No, I don't," -she replied, and two dimples came forward and offered corroborative -testimony. - -"Then whom is the joke on?" - -The dimples vanished. "On me," said their erstwhile proprietor. - -"Don't be an imbecile!" adjured her mentor. "Can't help it," returned -Darcy dolefully. "I've got the habit." - -"Break it. Hark to the voice of Pure Reason (that's me). As long as -you were 'Poor Darcy,' you had to invent a fiancé or go without, didn't -you?" - -"Yes." - -"And your invention was sure to be a regular old Frankenstein monster, -and to come back and devour you as soon as you were found out." - -"I can hear the clanking of his joints this minute!" - -"You can't. He isn't there. If you were still 'Poor Darcy,' there'd be -no hope for you. You're not. You're something totally different." - -"That's your view of it," returned the dispirited Darcy. "But to -other--" - -"It's anybody's view that isn't blind as a bat! Half the men you meet -are crazy about you. Aren't they?" - -"I haven't met many, lately," said Darcy demurely. - -"You met plenty at our party. Even Maud and Helen saw the effect. Their -eyes bunged out!" - -"I don't see how their eyes bunging out is going to help explain Sir -Montrose Veyze I, let alone Sir Montrose Veyze II." - -"Why worry, when I'm here to take the burden from you? I propose," -said Miss Greene relishingly, "to tell those girls the truth, the whole -truth, and nothing but the truth." - -"Gloria! They'll pass it on and I'll be the laughing-stock--" - -"Will they! I dare'em to pass it on!" - -"Why shouldn't they?" cried the girl. "It's just the sort of thing that -Maud would revel in." - -"Allowing that she could get away with it, you're right. She couldn't." - -"Couldn't make people believe it, you mean?" - -"Never. Never in the world!" - -"But it's _true!_" - -"Dear and lovely innocence! Do you think _that_ helps it to get itself -believed? Besides, the main part of it isn't true." - -"I mean it's true that it isn't true, and if Maud tells the truth about -what isn't true--" - -"Come out of that skein of metaphysical wool, kitten," laughed Gloria. -"You're tangled. Here's what isn't true; that you're 'Poor Darcy' who -has to get lovers out of books for lack of'em in real life." - -"But I _have_ been." - -"All right. Let Maud tell the people that used to know you, and make -them believe it. There's only a few of them and they don't count. As -for trying it on any one else, all she'll get will be a reputation -for green-eyed jealousy. How would anybody convince Jack Remsen, for -instance" (Darcy winced, and Gloria's quick sense caught it), "that you -had to invent an imaginary adorer because you couldn't get a real one? -No, indeed! The evidence is all against it from Exhibit A, Darcy's eyes, -down to Exhibit Z, Darcy's smart little boots. For an unattractive girl, -your little effort of the imagination would be a pathetic, desperate, -ridiculous invention, with the laugh on the inventor. For an attractive -girl, it's just a festive little joke. Don't you see how it works out? -The pretty girl (that's you) can have all the adorers she wants, but she -prefers to take in her friends by inventing one. Is the joke on the girl -or her friends? One guess. Why, oh, why," concluded Gloria addressing -the Scheme of the World in a burst of self-admiration, "wasn't I born a -professor of logic instead of an actress?" - -"It sounds reasonable," confessed Darcy. "But will Maud and Helen be -clever enough to see it?" - -"Probably not." - -"Then--" - -"Therefore I shall point it out to them in my inimitable and convincing -style, with special hints as to the perils and disadvantages of getting -a reputation for jealousy of a better-looking girl!" - -"Then that's all settled," said Darcy with a sigh. "Now what about Sir -Montrose? The real Sir Montrose, I mean." - -"Well, _what_ about him?" - -"Suppose he should come over here and hear about it?" - -"He won't. He's engaged to an English girl. I've just heard." - -"How nice and considerate of him! You know, Gloria, I could almost love -that man." - -"Could you? What about the bogus Sir Montrose?" asked the actress -significantly. - -Darcy flushed faintly. "Well, _what_ about him?" she echoed. - -"How much does _he_ know?" - -"Not very much. Do you think I ought to tell him?" - -"Does the child expect me to manage her conscience as well as her -affairs!" cried the actress. "If any one is to tell him, you're the one. - -"I suppose so," assented Darcy, spiritlessly, and made her farewells in -no more cheerful frame of mind than when she had come, albeit one load -was off her shoulders. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -For a week or more Gloria neither saw nor heard from the girl. At the -end of that time she did, to her surprise, encounter the erstwhile bogus -Sir Montrose without his hirsute adornments and in his proper person of -Mr. Jacob Remsen, sauntering idly along the Park. Hailing him, she took -him into her taxi. Mr. Remsen was not looking his customary sunny self. - -"Did the law's minions catch you in spite of your whiskers?" she asked. - -"No. Case was compromised. So I've come back." - -"And what are you going to do now?" - -"I'm going to work." - -"Work! You?" said the actress with unfeigned and unflattering surprise. -"Why? What's the answer?" - -"Ambition," replied Mr. Remsen in a lifeless voice. - -"Sounds more like penal servitude," commented Gloria. "And what is to be -the scene of your violent endeavors?" - -"Ask the Government," he replied wearily. "Washington, maybe. Or perhaps -San Francisco or Savannah. Or right here in New York, for all I know." - - "Jerusalem and Madagascar - And North and South Amerikee," - -quoted the other. "Are you about to become an American courier for the -peripatetic Mr. Cook, his agency?" - -"Got a chance to go into the Treasury Department," answered Remsen -gloomily. - -"Don't give up heart," she encouraged him. "Strong young men like you -often survive the rigors of that life. Pity they don't send you to -London, where your monocle and your accent would be appreciated. By the -way, have you seen your quondam fiancée since your return?" - -"No," said Remsen. - -Gloria, noting that he winced much as Darcy had winced, wondered, and -turned the talk to other topics which gave her opportunity to revolve -the problem of the two masqueraders in her mind. That there was a -problem she was now well assured. She took it to luncheon with her, -after dropping one of the subjects of it, and came to a conclusion -characteristic of her philosophy and worthy of a mathematician; namely, -that the figures in any problem work out their own solution if properly -arranged. She decided to do the arranging after luncheon by telephone. - -She sent word to Darcy to meet her at the studio without fail at five. -Then she got Remsen at his club and told him that a matter of importance -had come up about which she wanted to see him at her place about -five-fifteen. Whether she herself could get through her engagements and -be back home at that hour she did not know nor particularly care. Her -duties as hostess did not weigh heavily upon her in this respect. Let -Jack or Darcy or both reach the place before her; it didn't greatly -matter. Perhaps it would even be better that way. - -Furthermore, Gloria Greene was very deeply and happily preoccupied with -certain affairs of her most intimate own, which will serve to explain -a slight vagueness in her usually accurate schedules, with consequences -quite unforeseen by her managerial self. For one of Miss Greene's -errands that day had been to send a vitally important telegram which -called for an answer in person on the following day. That the answer -in person might arrive that same day she had not reckoned. She had -consulted only railway time-tables, forgetting that far-and-swift-flying -chariot of Cupid, the high-powered automobile. - -ALL things threaten a guilty conscience. - -Haunted by the unlaid ghost of Sir Montrose Veyze, Darcy, on receipt of -Gloria's message, fearfully anticipated that some new complication had -arisen. Having concluded a satisfactory interview with B. Riegel & Sons -(whose representative was impressed anew with her splendor) she reached -Gloria's studio a little before the appointed time. The place was empty. -For a few moments she idled about, examining the new pictures, glancing -casually at books, and presently drifted to the piano seat. - -Insensibly guided by memories, her fingers wandered into the little, -soothing cradle-song which she had first heard in that very spot from -Jack Remsen's lips. Long ago, it seemed; so long ago! Once she played it -through, and then in her tender and liquid voice she crooned it softly. - -She did not hear the door open and close. But she felt a light draught -of air, and the next instant a man's figure loomed through the gathering -dusk, a man's strong hands fell on her shoulders, and a man's glad voice -cried: - -"Dearest!" - -"Oh!" exclaimed Darcy in consternation. "Good Lord!" ejaculated the -newcomer in an altered and horrified tone. - -Darcy turned to confront Thomas Harmon. She had seen him but once, -but she carried the clearest memory of his quiet eyes, his vital -personality, his big, light-moving, active frame, and his persuasively -friendly manner. Mr. Harmon was a person not easy to forget. Now he was -covered with confusion. - -"I--I _really_ beg your pardon," he stammered. "It was inexcusably -stupid of me." Darcy held out her hand, smiling. "I'm Darcy Cole, Mr. -Harmon," she said. "And I have a great deal to thank you for." - -"Me?" said the big man in surprise. "I'd be glad to think so, but--" - -"But you don't know why," she concluded, kindly intent on putting him -at his ease. (Darcy, who a year before would have been on live coals of -embarrassment before any strange man!) "You gave me a refuge at Boulder -Brook when I very much needed one." - -"Oh! So you're Gloria's--Miss Greene's little friend. I hope they made -you comfortable." - -"Didn't you get a note from me telling you how delightful your place -is?" - -"No. But, you see, I've been away. Just got in." - -They stood looking at each other for a moment, the girl demure but -dimpling, the man still in some confusion of spirit. Then, encouraged -perhaps by the dimples, perhaps by some aura of fellowship and -understanding which exhaled from the girl, Hannon burst out boyishly: - -"I've heard a lot about you, Miss Darcy, and I believe you're a--well, a -good fellow." - -"I am," Darcy assured him with absolute conviction. - -"Well, after the break I made I've got to tell somebody or _bust_." - -"Tell me," invited the girl. "Whom did you think I was when you rushed -on me?" - -"Gloria, of _course!_" - -"Gloria!" - -Although untrained in fancy gymnastics, Darcy's brain whirled around -ten times in one direction, clicked, and whirled around ten times on the -reverse. She put her hand to her head dizzily, striving to readjust her -thoughts. - -"Isn't it very sudden?" she faltered. - -"About as sudden as Jacob's little affair with Rachel," laughed Harmon. -"It's been a seven-year siege on my part." - -"But, Gloria--" - -"Oh, it's been a heap suddener for Gloria. In fact she only--I only got -the word to-day. And here I am." He examined the girl's troubled face. -"You don't look exactly pleased," he added, crestfallen. - -"Indeed, you mustn't think that," she cried earnestly. "But I--I--I -thought it was Mr. Remsen." In her bewilderment she blundered on. "I -saw her k-k-k-" Too late she strove to catch herself on the brink of a -shameful betrayal. - -"You saw her kiss Jack," he interpreted, smiling. "He's a sort of a -third cousin or something, and a privileged character, anyway." - -"I didn't know," answered the girl. Then, recovering herself: "Oh, Mr. -Harmon, I _am_ so glad. I believe you're just as fine as Gloria is--and -that's the most any one could say." - -"My dear," he said more gravely. "Nobody on earth is that. But--well, -I want to shout and sing and--Play your music again, won't you? Maybe -that'll help." - -Maybe, thought Darcy, it would help her, too; for she also wanted to -shout and sing, and, most contradictorily, to hide and cry--and wait. - -Forgetful, in the turmoil of her mind, of the pledge to Jack Remsen -about the little song which was to be their one keepsake of those -enchanted days in the mountains, she turned back to the piano and hummed -the melody. - -"It's built for a second part," commented Harmon. "Do you mind if I try -it?" - -So she went over it again, and he struck in, in a clear, charming -barytone, and with a singularly happy inspiration of a tenor part. Over -and over it they went, she suggesting, and he perfecting his second; and -they were still at it when the door opened again, upon deaf ears. - -In the hallway Jack Remsen stopped dead. The first thing of which he was -conscious was that the voice of the girl he loved and had continued -to love against every dictate of conscience and honor was running like -sweet fire through his veins again. Instantly the fire became bitter -and scorching. For there was another voice, accompanying and fulfilling -hers, the barytone which she had adduced as one of her British lover's -chief charms. - -(Remsen had to admit the quality of the voice, now raised in _his_ song. -The song which she had promised to keep as his and hers; the one thing -which he might claim of her!) - -A hot anger rose in his heart and as quickly faded. Why shouldn't she -sing that song with her lover? At most it was an idle promise which he -had had no right to exact. He conquered an impulse to turn and leave. -No; the thing had to be faced. Might as well face it now. When the -chords died down he advanced to the door and spoke. - -Darcy whirled on her seat, and rose, very white. His one glance told -Remsen that she was lovelier than ever. Then everything was swallowed up -in the amazement of finding Hannon there. Harmon--alone in the dusk -with Darcy where he had expected to find the fiancé--his song--and that -charming, clear barytone of which Darcy had boasted in Sir Montrose! - -An explanation came to his mind, light in the darkness. It was just -another masquerade--Darcy apparently specialized in them--and Veyze had -been but a blind for Harmon, the real lover in the background, all the -time. He felt Harmon wringing his hand in welcome and heard himself -saying with a creditable affect of heartiness: - -"Then I suppose it's you that I'm to congratulate." - -"It is," returned the other, chuckling joyously. "Though how on earth -you knew it I can't conceive." - -"Isn't it evident enough?" said Jack. - -He marched over to Darcy. She saw him changed, thinned, with lines in -his smooth face; lines of thoughtfulness, of self-control, of achieved -manhood, and her heart was in her eyes as they met his and drooped. - -"And you," he said. "I wish you every happiness. I couldn't wish you -better than Tom Harmon." - -"_What!_" cried that complimented but astounded gentleman. "Me? Miss -Darcy?" - -"Well, if it isn't you," said Jack lifelessly, looking from one to the -other: "will you kindly tell--" - -"It _is_ me, but it isn't her," broke in Harmon, with the superb -disregard of grammar suitable to the occasion. "Man alive, it's -_Gloria!_" - -As if in confirmation, Gloria's voice came to them, down the hallway. - -"Darcy! Where are you, child?" - -Two chairs which foolishly attempted to impede Mr. Thomas Harmon's -abrupt and athletic progress across the floor were sent to the janitor -next day. - -"Tom!" cried Gloria's voice in a breathless and different tone. Then the -door slammed. - -Jack Remsen turned to Darcy. "So that's it, is it?" he said slowly. - -"That," answered Darcy, "is it. Isn't it splendid!" - -"Couldn't be splendider--for those most concerned. What about the rest -of it?" - -"The rest of it?" Her brows were raised in dainty puzzlement, but her -eyes refused to meet his. - -"Where is Veyze?" - -"On his way back to the East, I understand," said Darcy carefully. - -"When is he coming over?" - -"Not at all." - -"Are you going over there--to England?" - -"No." - -"You're not looking me in the face." - -"I--I don't want to look you in the face. You're not pretty when you -make a--a catechism of yourself." - -"Darcy," said Remsen, "there's been something queer about this Veyze -business from the start. As long as I could help I did, didn't I?" - -"Yes," said the girl quite low. - -"And I asked no questions?" - -"No," she said, even lower. - -"But now I've got to know. I've got a right to know." - -"Why?" It was the merest whisper. "Because I've come back loving you -more than when you left me. I wouldn't have believed it possible. But -it's so. Every hope and wish of my heart is bound up in you. Darcy, is -it broken off between you and Montrose Veyze?" - -She raised her eyes to his. The color flushed and trembled adorably in -her face. She spoke, clear and sweet as music. - -"There never was anything between me and Sir Montrose Veyze." - -"You mean," said the astounded Remsen, "that you were only -acquaintances?" - -"If Sir Montrose walked into the room this minute I shouldn't know him." - -"But, how--" - -"I made it up. All. Every bit of it." She put her hands together in a -posture of half-mocking plea. "Please, sir, do I have to tell you the -whole shameful story?" - -He caught the hands between his. "There's only one thing you have to -tell me, Darcy. Shall I tell you what it is?" - -There was no need. The hands stole to his shoulders, and then around his -neck. "Oh, I do! I do!" she breathed. "There never was any Veyze, or any -engagement, or anything or anybody--but--just--you." - -"But, Darcy, love," he demanded, holding her close, "why wouldn't you -give me a chance, when we were at Boulder Brook?" - -"I--I--I thought it was G-g-g-gloria with you, all the time." - -"You didn't! How could you miss seeing that I was mad about you from the -first? Why didn't you tell me what you thought?" - -With her cheek against his and her lips at his ear, she confessed, -between soft, quick catchings of the breath: - -"Because I was afraid--of letting you see how much I cared. I--I've been -such a little fool, Jack, dear. And--and about the Veyze thing--I'm a -cheat--and an awful little liar--and--and--and--and a forger, I guess. -But it never hurt anybody but myself--and I've been loving you all the -time--until my heart--almost broke." - -"I'm pretty good at those crimes myself," returned her lover -comfortingly. "And worse. I've robbed a mail-box. When did you ever -descend to such desperate depths as that?" - -"I tried to kill my trainer," retorted Darcy proudly; "and he's the best -friend I ever had except Gloria. He's the one that made me presentable." - -"I'll ask him to be best man," said her lover promptly. "As for our -crimes, I'll tell you, darling of my heart; let's turn over a new leaf -and live straight and happy ever after." - -"Let's," agreed Darcy with a sigh of happiness. - -Half an hour later Tom Harmon and Gloria outside heard music, the -cradling measures of the little song, and crept to the door hand in -hand. They caught the mention of Boulder Brook and shamelessly listened. -The pair within were already future-building on Tom Harmon's property. - -"And we'll get on that same train right after the wedding," said Remsen. - -"And get off at Weirs," added the prospective bride. - -"And have the festive native there to meet us with 'th' ole boat.'" - -"And take that awful, bumpy road slower than we did before." - -"And go straight to the Farmhouse--" - -"I'm sorry, children," the rightful owner of the coolly appropriated -property broke in upon their dreams; "but you can't have the Farmhouse." - -"Oh!" said Darcy, hastily moving north-by-west on the piano seat. - -"That's taken," explained Harmon, beaming upon Gloria, "for another -couple." - -"Heaven bless'em!" said Jack heartily. "Thank you! You," concluded their -past and future host, "may have the Bungalow." - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -SOMEWHERE in Siberia, quite unaware of his activities as an absentee -Cupid, Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, with -a spread of huge composition planes where his dovelike wings should have -been, and a quick-firer at his side in place of bow and quiver, reached -out of his aeroplane for the long-overdue mail and read with languid -surprise an invitation to be present at the marriage of Miss Darcy -Cole to Mr. Jacob Remsen, in New York City, New York, on the preceding -Christmas day. - -"Now, where the dayvle," puzzled Sir Montrose Veyze as he rose into the -clouds "did I ever know those people?" - -THE END - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Wanted: A Husband, by Samuel Hopkins Adams - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANTED: A HUSBAND *** - -***** This file should be named 44326-8.txt or 44326-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/3/2/44326/ - -Produced by David Widger - -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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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanted: A Husband, by Samuel Hopkins Adams
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-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: Wanted: A Husband
-A Novel
-
-Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams
-
-Illustrator: Frederic Dorr Steele
-
-Release Date: December 1, 2013 [EBook #44326]
-Last Updated: March 12, 2018
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANTED: A HUSBAND ***
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-Produced by David Widger
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-
-<div style="height: 8em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h1>
-WANTED: A HUSBAND
-</h1>
-<h3>
-A Novel
-</h3>
-<h2>
-By Samuel Hopkins Adams
-</h2>
-<p>
-<br />
-</p>
-<h3>
-With Illustrations By Frederic Dorr Steele
-</h3>
-<p>
-<br />
-</p>
-<h5>
-Houghton Mifflin Company 1920
-</h5>
-<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="frontispiece" width="100%" /><br />
-</div>
-<p>
-<br />
-</p>
-<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="titlepage" width="100%" /><br />
-</div>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<p>
-<b>CONTENTS</b>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER I
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>UT OF ORDER! pertly announced the placard on the elevator. To Miss Darcy
-Cole, wavering on damp, ill-conditioned, and reluctant legs, this seemed
-the final malignancy of the mean-spirited fates. Four beetling flights to
-climb! Was it worth the effort? Was anything worth the effort of that
-heart-breaking ascent? For that matter, was anything worth anything,
-anyway? Into such depths of despond had the spirit of Miss Cole lapsed.
-</p>
-<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-<img src="images/020.jpg" alt="020" width="100%" /><br />
-</div>
-<p>
-At the top of the frowning heights the studio apartment of Miss Gloria
-Greene would open to her. There would be tea, fresh-brewed and
-invigorating. There would be a broad and restful couch full of fluffy
-pillows, comforting to tired limbs. There would be Gloria Greene herself,
-big and beautiful and radiant, representing everything which poor little
-Darcy Cole was not but most wished to be, and, furthermore, a sure source
-of wise counsel, or, at worst, of kindly solace for a case which might be
-too hopeless for counsel. As alternative, a return to the wind-swept,
-rain-chilled New York side street. No; the thing had to be done! Darcy
-nerved her soggy muscles to the ordeal.
-</p>
-<p>
-On the second landing she paused to divide a few moments between hard
-breathing and hating the imitation-leather roll beneath her arm. Including
-the wall-paper design within, just rejected by B. Riegel & Sons, the
-whole affair might have weighed two pounds. To its ill-conditioned bearer
-it felt like two hundred. She set a hand to her panting chest and a thorn
-promptly impaled her thumb. Tearing off the offending rose Darcy flung it
-over the banister rail. It was a flabby, second-hand wraith of a rose,
-anyhow, having been passed down to the wearer by her flat-mate, Maud
-Raines, who in turn had it, along with eleven others, from her fiancé.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy stuck out a vindictive tongue at the discarded flower. Nobody ever
-sent <i>her</i> roses! Dully musing upon the injustices of existence, she
-clambered up the third flight and leaned against the wall to rally her
-spent energies, with her hands thrust deep into the sagging pockets of her
-coat. Something light and scratchy rubbed against her bare forefinger,
-which was protruding from a hole in her glove. Being exhumed, it revealed
-itself as one of those tiny paper frills wherein high-priced candy is
-chastely attired. The departed bonbon had come from a box sent by Paul
-Wood, the architect, to Darcy's other flat-mate, Helen Barrett, to whom he
-had just become engaged. Darcy let the inoffensive ornament flutter from
-her fingers to the floor and crushed it flat with a vengeful foot. Nobody
-ever sent <i>her</i> candy in frilly collars! Nobody ever sent her
-anything! Oozing wretchedness and self-pity, she took the final flight in
-a rush, burst in upon the labors of Miss Gloria Greene, planted herself in
-the middle of the floor, dropped her work roll and kicked it as far as she
-could, and lifted up the voice of lamentation in the accepted phrase, duly
-made and provided for such of feminine sex and tender years as find the
-weary pattern of the world too tangled for their solving.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I wuh—wuh—wish I were duh—duh—dead!” mourned
-Miss Cole with violence.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria Greene dropped the typed sheets which she had been studying and
-rose from her chair. She looked down at the lumpy, lax figure of helpless,
-petulant rebellion before her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, you do, do you?” she remarked pensively.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes; I do!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So do most people at one time or another,” was Miss Greene's
-philosophical commentary upon this.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not you,” declared Darcy, glancing up at the vivid face above her
-resentfully. “I'll bet you've never known what it is to feel that way in
-your life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I'm too busy for such nonsense,” returned Gloria in her serene and
-caressing voice.
-</p>
-<p>
-Indeed, it would be difficult for any one favored with Miss Gloria
-Greene's acquaintance to imagine her wishing to depart a life to the
-enjoyment of which she has vastly added for thousands of people. For under
-a slightly different name Miss Greene is known to and admired by most of
-the theater-going populace of the United States. From the top of her
-ruddy, imperiously poised head to the tip of her perfectly shod toes, she
-justifies and fulfills in every line and motion the happy thought which
-inspired the dean of American playwrights to nickname her “Gloria.” Deeper
-than her beauty and abounding vitality there lies a more profound quality,
-the rare gift of giving graciously and naturally. It is Gloria Greene's
-unconscious and intuitive mission in life to lend color and light and
-cheer to colorless, dim, and forlorn folk wherever she encounters them.
-That is why Darcy Cole was, at the moment, dribbling tears and aspirations
-for an immediate demise all over Gloria's rare Anatolian rug. Not that
-Darcy really desired to die. She merely wished Gloria Greene to make life
-more practicable for her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's imagination, you know,” continued the actress.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It isn't,” snivelled Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then it's indigestion. Have a pill.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I won't!” declined the girl rudely. “You're making fun of me. They all
-make fun of me. I do wish I was dead!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you, indeed!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Setting two slim but powerful hands upon the girl's shoulders, Gloria
-Greene proceeded methodically to shake her. She shook her until her hat
-(oh, but it was a bad and shabby hat!) came off and rolled upon the floor.
-She shook her until her hairpins fell like hail and her brown-black hair
-struggled out of its arrangement (oh, but it was a poor and tasteless
-arrangement!) and tumbled about her face (and, oh, but it was a sallow and
-torpid face!). She further shook her until her eyes bulged out and a faint
-flame shone on her cheeks, and her buttons began to pop, and her breath
-rattled on her teeth, and she could barely gasp out:
-</p>
-<p>
-“St-t-t-top! You're shaking me to p-p-pieces!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why not?” inquired Miss Greene blandly, and shook harder than before.
-</p>
-<p>
-“D-d-d-dud-dud-<i>don't</i>” wailed the victim. “W-w-wait a m-m-m-minute!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The shaker desisted, still maintaining her grip. “What's the matter?” she
-inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're killing me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then you don't want to die, after all?” inquired the other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not that way!” gasped the girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's my regular treatment for dead-wish-ers.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's brutal,” whimpered Darcy. “Everything's brutal. The world's brutal.
-I hate it! I wish I—Glooo-oria! Don't begin again!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>What</i> do you wish?” demanded the administrator of discipline
-implacably.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I wish I'd never come here at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's different,” commented Miss Greene, “though it probably isn't true,
-either. Now sit down. Tell me all about it. I've got a few minutes to
-spare.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's very long,” began Darcy dolefully. “You're trying to dodge. Begin at
-once. Or must I apply my treatment again?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ow! No! Don't!” implored the girl. “I'll tell. But I don't know where to
-begin.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Begin in the middle,” suggested Gloria helpfully. “Then you can work both
-ways.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I will. Well, then, you see, Maud's gone and got engaged.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To whom?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Holcomb Lee, the illustrator.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why should that make you want to die? Are you in love with Mr. Lee?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I in love with Holcomb!” Darcy's bitter grin dismissed that supposition.
-“I'm not in love with <i>anybody</i>. It isn't that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then what is it?” asked the patient Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's the whole thing. Helen Barrett is going to marry Paul Wood.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If any woman know any just reason why these twain should not be joined
-together in holy matrimony, let her now speak or forever after hold her
-peace,” solemnly misquoted Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But—but—but Maud and Helen and I,” pursued the girl, evincing
-symptoms of a melancholic relapse, “were going to be the Three Honest
-Working-Girls and keep up our Fifty-Sixth Street bachelor-girl hall for
-life. And now look at the darn thing!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What did you expect?” argued Gloria. “Maud is pretty and energetic, and
-Helen is one of those soft, fluffy creatures that some man always wants to
-take care of. Bachelor-girl agreements are only made to keep until the
-right man comes along, anyway.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But where do I come in?” demanded Darcy, opening wide her
-discontented-looking eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, you'll be getting engaged yourself one of these days.”
- </p>
-<p>
-For once in her tactful life Gloria Greene had made a stupid remark.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't you patronize me!” flashed the girl. “I just won't stand it! I get
-enough of that at home from those two d—-d fiancées.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria turned a face of twinkling astonishment upon her visitor. “Why,
-Amanda Darcy Cole! What would the generations of your Puritan forbears—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't you call me Amanda, either! It's an old-maid name. I hate it—even
-if it does fit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is rather a handicap,” admitted her hostess. “But Darcy's pretty
-enough, anyway.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's the only pretty thing about me. Oh, Gloria,” burst out the girl in a
-sudden flood-tide of self-revelation, “if you knew how I long to be
-pretty! Not beautiful, like you; I wouldn't ask as much as that. But just
-pretty enough to be noticed once in a while.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
-</p>
-<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-<img src="images/028.jpg" alt="If You Knew How I Long to Be Pretty 028"
- width="100%" /><br />
-</div>
-<p>
-“Why, Darcy, dear—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No: let me talk!” Darcy proceeded in little, jerky gasps of eagerness.
-“Pretty. And well-dressed. And up-to-date. And smart. And everything! I'd
-sell my soul to the devil if he'd buy such a weakly, puny, piffling little
-soul, just really to live and be something besides a 'thoroughly nice
-girl' for one short year. 'A thoroughly nice girl'! Yah!” said Miss Cole
-in a manner which, whatever else it might have been, was not thoroughly
-nice.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's a rotten thing to say about any one,” agreed the sympathetic
-Gloria. “Who calls you that?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The girls. You know the way they say it! Well, no wonder. Look at me!”
- she cried in passionate conclusion to her passionate outburst.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria looked at her. She beheld an ungirlish frump of a thing with a lank
-but bulgy figure misclothed in woefully inappropriate garments, a muddy
-complexion, a sagging mouth, a drooping chin, a mass of deranged hair, and
-big, deep-gray, lusterless eyes, which implored her. The older woman
-considered and marveled.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My dear child,” she said gently, “are you sure it isn't some man?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't care a darn for any man in the world,” returned the other with
-convincing promptitude. “It isn't that. It's just that I'm not—I
-don't—” Her courage seemed to ebb out, but she gained command of
-herself and continued plaintively: “All I want is to be in the game as
-other girls play it—to have a little attention and maybe a box of
-candy or some flowers once in a while: not to have men look past me like a
-tree. It isn't much to ask, is it? If you knew how tired I am of being
-just plain nobody! There's a—a somebody inside here”—she
-thumped her narrow, ribby chest—“but I can't get it out.” Rising
-lumpily to her feet, she stretched out hands of piteous and grotesque
-appeal. “Please, Gloria,” she prayed in a dwindling and saintly voice, “I
-want to raise just a little teeny bit of hell before I die.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A flash of sympathy and comprehension from the actress's intent face
-answered this noble aspiration. “Why, you're real, aren't you!” she
-exclaimed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did you think I wasn't even <i>that?</i>” returned the other
-reproachfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not so many people are. It's something, anyway. Are you going to be
-honest, as well?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How, honest?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“With me. Are you going to be frank?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of course.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then tell me what started you on this.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A dismal sort of muddy flush overspread the girl's features. Silently she
-drew from her pocket a full-page drawing from “Life” which she unfolded
-and handed to the other. She laid a finger on the central figure.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's Darcy,” said she.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is it?” Gloria studied the illustration interestedly. “Who drew it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Holcomb Lee.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That scrawl in the corner means Lee, does it? Is it drawn from life?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What does Maud say to your sitting as model for her young man?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Maud laughed,” said Darcy between her teeth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pussy, pussy!” commented Miss Greene. “That decided you to keep on, I
-suppose.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Naturally.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, the result justifies you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“D' you think it's pretty?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I most certainly do.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And don't you think it looks just the least lee-eetle bit like me?”
- pursued Darcy shyly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria scrutinized the drawing again, and then the wistful face before
-her. With growing astonishment she realized the fundamental likeness.
-</p>
-<p>
-“More than that,” said she. “That young man knows how to see with his
-eyes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It was his own notion,” said the girl in a rush of words. “One night I
-was sitting at the piano. He said there were lines in my face that he
-wanted. He asked me if I'd sit for him once. Then he had me come back
-again and again. I didn't mind. I—I liked it. It was the first time
-any one had ever seen anything to admire about me since I was a child. Oh,
-and one day he said: 'Miss Darcy, you must have been a beautiful child.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Were you?” asked Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-From another pocket Darcy took a small photograph holder. “Exhibit B,” she
-said, passing it to the other.
-</p>
-<p>
-It showed the head and shoulders of an eleven-year-old girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's charming,” said Gloria, and meant it. “That's the way I ought to
-look now, only more so, Holcomb said. He said I was a spoilt job.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Pig!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, no. He didn't mean it that way. He just blurted it out as if he was
-sorry about it. He seemed to think that I was a waste of good material and—and
-he was quite peeved about it and kept swearing under his breath while he
-was drawing me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There I'm with him,” declared Gloria vigorously. “I hate waste. It's in
-my Yankee blood, I suppose. And a wasted human being—that's a sort
-of practical blasphemy, according to my religion.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy caught the inference. “Made in the image,” she said quickly. “But
-what am <i>I</i> made in the image of!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What happened to change you from this?” Gloria held up Exhibit B.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, I had an illness when I was thirteen. And about then we lost our
-money. And my parents died a little while after. And I never seemed to get
-back much life or spirit or ambition or digestion or anything.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Can't get hold of your own boot-straps?” queried the other suggestingly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haven't got the lifting power if I did,” answered the girl. She picked
-nervously at her raveled and seedy sleeve. “Lee said he believed I could
-look like that—the way he made me look in the picture, you know—if
-only some one who knew could tell me how to go about it. D' you think
-maybe—p'raps—it might be just partly possible?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Once more Gloria compared Exhibit A with Exhibit B, and then both with the
-original.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I do,” she pronounced with fitting solemnity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh-h-h-h!” breathed Darcy in a long-drawn, ecstatic sigh.
-</p>
-<p>
-“At least partly possible. It's worth the trial, in any case. Darcy,” said
-Miss Greene incisively, “I'm going to take you in hand, myself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, Gloria! If you would! I'll love you forever for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You won't. On the contrary, you'll probably hate me poisonously before
-it's half over.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“For helping me to be something and look like something?” protested the
-girl incredulously. “How could I be anything but the most grateful—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wait and see,” interrupted the oracle. “We're going to begin our little
-magic process right now. Presto—pass! You're a lay figure.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A what?” faltered Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A lay figure. Act accordingly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What does a lay figure do, please?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It doesn't. It's dead. It's dumb. Don't talk. You distract my mind.”
- </p>
-<p>
-For several minutes she walked around the girl, debating her from every
-angle with pitiless impersonality, and with the analytical eye of the
-adept in a school wherein attractiveness is often a personal and technical
-achievement. At the conclusion of this ordeal Darcy found herself perched
-upon a high-backed seat while the actress expertly daubed her face with
-make-up from a box kept for purposes of experimentation. Next the
-subject's hair was arranged, and her figure draped in the flowing lines of
-some shimmering fabric, chosen, after much profound consideration on
-Gloria's part, from a carved chest. She was then told to straighten her
-spine, and smile. Near her lay Gloria's hand mirror. Before the proprietor
-could interfere the girl picked it up and sat staring into it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, and what do you think of yourself?” queried her mentor grimly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I—I look like a bad joke,” whimpered Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You do. But if you cry I'll set you out on the fire-escape just as you
-are, for the neighbors to throw things at.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm n-n-n-not c-c-crying.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And don't grab, next time. Well-conditioned lay figures never do. Sit <i>up!</i>
-You're all caved in again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-With strong hands she prodded, bent, and moulded the girl's yielding
-figure to the desired posture. Finally she wheeled into position, several
-yards away, a full-length glass, and turned on an overhead light.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now. Look in here.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Looking, Darcy gave a little gasp of wonder and delight. Under the
-modulated radiance and with the toning down of distance, the harsh, turgid
-spots and lines of the make-up had blended into a harmonious <i>ensemble</i>.
-The face was that of Holcomb Lee's picture—almost.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh!” cried Darcy hoarsely. “Could you ever make me like <i>that?</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy collapsed. “I might have known,” she wailed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What do you expect for a nickel, in these days of depreciated currency?”
- inquired Gloria callously. “It isn't as simple as it looks.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But if you can't do it for me—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I certainly can't, my dear.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then why did you let me—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But if I can't, perhaps some one else can.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Who?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You, your own little, lone self, and no one else in the whole big, round
-world,” declared the actress with electrifying vigor. “Thou art the
-woman.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What must I do? How do I do it? What do I need?” cried Darcy in a breath.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is that all?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“All? No; it isn't all. It's just a beginning. But if you think it's an
-easy one you don't know what the word means yet.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Pooh!” retorted Darcy with another glance at the magic glass. “I'd
-cheerfully stand still and be stuck full of red-hot pins and needles, if
-it would make me look like that. I'll furnish the grit,” she added
-confidently, “if you'll show me how to do the rest.”
- </p>
-<p>
-There came a gleam into her mentor's eye that the girl missed. “Very
-well,” said Gloria. “Allowing that, let's make a start. Of all your little
-ambitions which one would you like to have fulfilled first?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl pondered. “Dress,” she decided presently. “I want to have
-beautiful, thrilling clothes, like a princess.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The one princess of my acquaintance,” observed Gloria, “looks as though
-she dressed herself backwards out of a mail-order catalogue. But that's
-beside the question. Clothes cost money. How much money have you got?”
- Darcy clasped her hands. “I'm rich,” she announced triumphantly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How rich?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Awfully rich. Two thousand big, round, hard, beautiful dollars. Isn't
-that grand!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know that it's grand. But it's good—with care.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's twice as much as I've ever made in a whole year of work on my silly
-little wall-paper designs.” Darcy directed a resentful look at the
-imitation-leather roll, lying in the corner where she had kicked it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where did you get it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My blessed old Aunt Sarah wrote it to me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Wrote</i> it? Wrote you two thousand dollars?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes. Why not? She'd intended to leave it to me when she died. But she
-doesn't feel like dying for a long time yet; so she wrote and said that
-she preferred giving it and getting thanked because it was so much, rather
-than willing it and getting roasted because it was so little.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sensible auntie! Are you going to be sensible too?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Put the money in the bank. And forget this experiment.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy stretched out desperate hands toward the big, blessed mirror.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And give up <i>that</i> Me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Perhaps you never could be that. It's only a chance at best.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But it <i>is</i> a chance. You said it was a chance yourself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes; but—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And now are you going to take that away from me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria's eyes were doubtful. “Is it worth two thousand big, round, hard,
-beautiful dollars? Just the bare chance of it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Two million,” declared Darcy with impassioned conviction.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then you're determined to be a fool about this?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I am.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Suddenly Gloria seized and hugged her. “If you weren't, I'd disown you as
-a recreant to our sex,” she cried.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then you're going to help me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To the bitter end! First let's take an inventory. Be a lay figure again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl stiffened to attention. Gloria ticked off the points on her
-fingers as she talked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You've got several assets. First, you're a lady. Nothing to teach there,
-and it's the hardest of all lessons. Second, you've got a really charming
-voice if you didn't whine with it. Third, your hair is nice. But it might
-as well be stuffing a pillow for all the good you get of it. Fourth,
-you've got eyes that'd be dangerous if the whites weren't yellow. If you'd
-try wearing your heart in'em instead of your liver, they'd do very well.
-Fifth, the lines of the face—see 'Life.' Sixth, you look as if you
-were built to be light and strong.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I rather like being a dummy,” purred Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wait. The other side of the ledger is coming. You're going to have a bad
-five minutes. Stand up.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy obeyed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Like a camel,” dispassionately commented the actress. “Look in the glass
-now,” she ordered.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy looked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How d'you like it?” demanded her instructor.
-</p>
-<p>
-“N—not as well.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I should think likely. You lop.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I—I can't help it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nonsense! You slump.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy's lips slackened petulantly down at the corners. Like a flash,
-Gloria transfixed the offending mouth with two leveled fingers. “You
-peeve,” she accused.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy continued to peeve. Also she sniffled. “Your chin is flabby,”
- pursued the inexorable critic. “Your mouth is fishy. Your eyes are bleary.
-Your skin is muddy. You walk like a duck, and you stand like a bag. And if
-you cry I'll quit you here, now, and forever.”
- </p>
-<p>
-With a mighty struggle, Darcy choked back her emotions. “I suppose the
-Lord gave me my face,” she defended herself sulkily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't libel your Maker. The Lord gave you <i>a</i> face. See Exhibit B.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I can't help it if—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of course you could have helped it! What you've done to your face is a
-crime, Darcy Cole! You ought to be arrested! Not to mention what you've
-done to your figure. I shouldn't be surprised,” she added as the doorbell
-rang, “if that were the police now, come to hale you away to judgment. Sit
-still,” she commanded as Darcy, suddenly conscious of her exotic costume,
-looked about for a way of escape.
-</p>
-<p>
-The door opened, not to the police, but to a visitor who was presented to
-the shrinking Miss Cole as Mr. Thomas Harmon. Mr. Harmon displayed himself
-as a stocky man with very cheerful, bright brown eyes, reassuringly
-deferential manners, and a curious effect of carrying his sturdy frame as
-if it weighed nothing at all. Darcy mentally observed that he looked as
-fit in his way as did Gloria in hers. Already she was beginning to take
-note of physical condition.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Have I interrupted a rehearsal?” asked Mr. Harmon.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No,” said Gloria. “That is, yes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's a fair choice,” remarked Mr. Harmon magnanimously. “I'll take yes.
-Am I right, Miss Cole?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It doesn't matter. We'd finished,” murmured Darcy confusedly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I've promised Mr. Harmon,” Gloria explained, turning to her, “to help him
-choose an anniversary present for his sister. It won't take more than an
-hour. Amuse yourself until I come back.”
- </p>
-<p>
-On the stairway outside, Gloria, intent upon her new purpose, addressed
-her companion. “Tom, what do you think of her?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of whom?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Little Darcy Cole.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh”—vaguely—“I don't know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria sighed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why the effect of hopelessness?” inquired Tom Harmon.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, nothing. Only, you don't seem to use your eyes much.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I was using them to the best of purposes,” declared Mr. Harmon
-indignantly. “Considering that I haven't set them on you for nearly a
-month, you can't expect me to waste time on casual flappers in fancy-dress
-costumes. Be fair, Gloria.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy isn't a casual flapper.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What is she, then? A coming genius?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A reigning beauty and heart-wrecker of the future.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Good <i>Lord!</i>” said Mr. Harmon with such fervor that Gloria sighed
-again.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Couldn't you see anything in her, Tom?” she asked appealingly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Only the humpy way she wore that costume and the fact that she'd
-apparently been crying,” answered Mr. Harmon, who, despite Gloria's
-strictures, was a person not devoid of discernment. “She seemed rather a
-mess to me. What's the idea, Gloria? Anything I can help in?” Gloria
-smiled. “It's like you to want to help. But this is my job. And,” she
-added to herself, “it's going to be a real one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER II
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>IGHT and vitality died out of the atmosphere for Darcy, with Gloria's
-exit. Divesting herself of the trappings of glory and hope and promise,
-she resumed her workaday garb. The long mirror, endued with a sardonic
-personality, watched her with silent but pregnant commentary. She did not
-wish to look into it. But her will was weak. Hypnotic effluences, pouring
-from the shining surface, enveloped and drew her. She walked before it and
-surveyed herself. The effect was worse, by contrast, than she could have
-imagined.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, you frump!” she whispered savagely. “You frazzled botch of a frump!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Glowing ambition faded to dull and hopeless mockery in her disillusioned
-soul. She made a bitter grimace at the changeling in the glass.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Imbecile!” said she.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was a surrender to grim facts. Suddenly she felt extremely languid. The
-big couch in the peaceful, curtained alcove lured her. She plumped into it
-higgledy-piggledy and curled up, an unsightly, humpful excrescence upon
-its suave surface. Within two minutes, worn out by stress of unaccustomed
-emotions, she was winging her airy way through that realm of sleep wherein
-happiness is the sure prize of being, and beauty is forever in the eye of
-the self-beholder.
-</p>
-<p>
-Dream music crept into her dreams. Clearer and richer it grew until it
-filled the dreams so full that they burst wide open. The dreamer floated
-out through the cleft to a realization of the fact that somebody beyond
-the draperies which secreted her was piping like Pan's very self, to an
-accompaniment of strange, lulling, minor chords. She peeped out.
-</p>
-<p>
-A tall, slender young man in clothes which seemed to Darcy's still
-sleep-enchanted eyes to fit him with a perfection beyond artistry, sat at
-the piano, humming in a melodious undertone a song of which he had
-apparently forgotten the words. One passage seemed to puzzle him. He
-repeated the melody several times, essaying various harmonies to go with
-it, shook his head discontentedly, and dashed away into Gilbert and
-Sullivan.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the midst of this the door opened. Gloria stood on the threshold. A
-look of pleasure flashed over her face as she saw the player. A dozen
-light, soft-footed steps carried her to him. She clasped her hands over
-his eyes, let them slip to his shoulders, planted a swift, little kiss on
-the top of his head, and stepped back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Jack!” she cried.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man swung around, leaped to his feet, caught her by both hands, and
-exclaimed:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, <i>Gloria!</i> It's a treat to see you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'd begun to think you were never coming back. Where do you hail from?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, all over the map. But no place as good as this.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He smiled down at her, still holding her hands. To a keen, thin, sensitive
-face, with a mobile mouth and quiet eyes, the smile set the final
-impression of charm. Instanter and before he had spoken ten words, Darcy
-decided that he was the one man she had ever seen worthy of Gloria Greene.
-And she was glad they had found each other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But where's Darcy?” asked the hostess, looking about.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who?” asked her visitor.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A little acquaintance whom I left here when I went out.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The concealed girl sat up. “Here I am,” she announced shyly. “I fell
-asleep.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, then I'm afraid I waked you up with my silly hammering,” said the
-man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“N-no. It doesn't matter. I didn't mind. I—I mean, I liked it,”
- stammered the girl, falling into her usual acutely zero feeling in the
-presence of the masculine gender.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then go and play it again, Jack,” commanded Miss Greene, “while I get off
-my things. And then go away. You can come back for dinner. Miss Cole and I
-have important things to talk over.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, no! Please! I can come some other time,” protested Darcy in a flutter
-of embarrassment. “I don't want to drive Mr.—Mr.—-him away.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mr. Jacob Remsen has all the time in the world,” said Gloria calmly.
-“Time is the least of his troubles. He kills it at sight.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't mind her, Miss Corey,” put in Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy, noting the error in her name, wondered petulantly why Gloria didn't
-introduce them in proper form. But her uneasiness and <i>gaucherie</i>
-presently dissipated before the cordial and winning simplicity of Gloria's
-man. And, to her own surprise, she found herself volunteering a harmonic
-solution of the difficult change where he had blundered over the
-transition, and humming the melody while she played her version. He
-accepted it with enthusiasm.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Sing it,” he urged. “I like your voice—what little you let us hear
-of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Instantly Darcy stiffened up inside and stammered a refusal. She didn't
-mean to be ungracious to this sunny and inspiriting young fellow. It was
-just her unhappy consciousness of a cramped and graceless self. Remsen
-took it with matter-of-fact good humor.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm sure you do sing, though,” he called back as his hostess finally
-evicted him. “I'm going to send you that song.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But he didn't look at her, she noticed, as he said it. Why should he,
-indeed, when Gloria was in the room? For that matter, men never looked at
-Darcy. And here was her grievance against the scheme of things exemplified
-anew.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There it is,” she complained, waving an awkward arm toward the door
-through which Mr. Jacob Remsen had vanished. “That's what I've been trying
-to tell you about.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Jack?” puzzled her hostess. “Why, what's wrong with Jack?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, nothing,” replied the girl wearily. “But—did you notice what he
-did when he left?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Offered to send you some music. I thought it was quite polite. Jack's
-always courteous.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, <i>courteous!</i> He didn't even <i>look</i> at me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, why—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's it! Why? Why should any man look at me? They don't. They—they're
-strictly neutral in their attitude. And women are—well—just
-tolerant and friendly. 'Darcy's such a <i>nice</i> girl.' Where does that
-get you?” fiercely demanded the subject of it. “People don't really know
-I'm <i>alive</i>. I might as well be a ghost. I wish I were. At least I'd
-scare'em.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't try to scare me,” returned the other. “Now list to the voice of
-wisdom. You complain that people don't know you're alive. Why should they?
-You don't give out anything—warmth, color, personality. I'm not so
-sure you <i>are</i> alive. You're inert.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I haven't anything to give,” mourned the accused.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why? Because you've wasted it. You've had beauty; good looks, anyway. You
-have let that die down to nothing. One thing only you've kept up, and that
-ought to be an asset. You've got a voice. Do you ever use it for other
-people?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't like to sing before people.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There you are! Always thinking of your little self. You give nothing to
-the world, yet you think yourself ill-used because—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What does the world give me?” broke in the aggrieved Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Nothing for nothing. What would you expect? Do you think it's going to
-smile at you when you scowl at it, and stop its own business and gaze on
-you adoringly and say, 'Much obliged to you for being alive'? It isn't
-that kind of a world, Miss Amanda Darcy Cole.” The owner of the despised
-first name winced. “I never thought of that,” she murmured.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Thinking is going to be part of your education from now on. You can't
-begin too soon.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm ready,” said the girl meekly. “Do you want me to begin with my voice?
-Shall I take singing lessons?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, it's got to go a lot deeper than that,” was Gloria's grim reply.
-“You'll begin by taking <i>living</i> lessons. Do you know what that
-means?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm not sure I do. It sounds awfully hard,” faltered the other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It is. Go home and think it over. Come back here to-morrow at this time
-and get your orders.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yessum,” said Darcy, folding her hands with assumed docility.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria regarded her with suspicion. “It isn't going to be any joke,” said
-she with severity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No'm,” assented Darcy with a still more lamblike expression. But her eyes
-twinkled through it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, well, if you want to take it that way,” observed the actress. “But <i>I'd</i>
-advise you to save your high spirits for the time when they'll be needed.”
- </p>
-<p>
-In the seclusion of the hallway Darcy drew out Exhibit A and sought
-inspiration from the charming face which Holcomb Lee had surrounded with
-gallant and admiring suitors in the illustration.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If it can be done,” said Darcy to the picture with the solemnity of a
-rite, “I'll do it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER III
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>T its best, the old Remsen house on West Twelfth Street, wore its
-ancestral respectability cloaked with gloom. Home though it was to Jacob
-of that name and possession, he regarded it with distinct distaste as he
-approached the dull, brown steps leading to the massive door. All that
-could reasonably be done to furbish it up against the young master's
-return, old Connor, Jacob's inherited man, had faithfully attempted: the
-house's face was at least washed, and its linen, so to speak, fresh and
-clean. But a home long unused becomes musty to a sense deeper than the
-physical. Entering, young Mr. Remsen felt a chill descend upon his blithe
-spirit. A <i>basso profondo</i> clock within struck a hollow five.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hark from the tomb!” observed young Mr. Remsen. “I think I'll move to the
-club.” Slow footsteps, sounding from below, dissipated that intention.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No; I can't do that. I've got to stay here and be looked after by old
-Connor, or forever wound his feelings. That's the worst of family
-responsibilities.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The footsteps mounted the basement stairs unevenly and with a suggestion
-of a stagger in them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What! Connor taken to drink?” thought Jacob with sinful amusement.
-“Wonder where he found it. There is hope, still!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The old servitor puffed into sight half carrying, half dragging a huge
-clothes-basket. “What's that?” demanded Jacob':
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your mail, sir.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is that all?” asked the other, with a sardonicism which was lost upon
-Connor's matter-of-fact mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No, sir. There's another half-basket downstairs.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Good Lord! What'll do with it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If I may suggest, sir, it ought to be read.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sound idea! You read it, Connor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Me, sir?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Certainly. I don't feel up to it. I'm tired. Strain of travel and all
-that sort of thing. Besides”—he cast a glance of repulsion upon the
-white heap—“this suggests work. And you know my principles regarding
-work.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, sir.” Connor rubbed his ear painfully. Of course the master was
-joking. Always a great one for his joke, he was. But—
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's a special delivery quite at the top, sir, marked 'Immediate.'
-Don't you think that perhaps—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, all right: <i>all</i> right! If I've got to begin I may as well go
-through.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Having, like some thousands of other young Americans, departed from his
-native land and normal routine of life for a long period on important
-business of a muddy, sanguinary, and profoundly wearisome nature,
-concerning which he had but the one wish, namely, to forget the whole ugly
-but necessary affair as swiftly and comprehensively as possible, Mr Jacob
-Remsen had deemed it wise to cut loose from home considerations as far as
-feasible; but he now reflected that he had perhaps made a mistake in
-having no mail forwarded. Well, there was nothing for it but to make up
-for arrears. He took off his coat and plunged in. The “immediate” special
-he set aside, to teach it, as he stated to the acquiescent Connor, not to
-be so infernally assertive and insistent, while he ran through a few
-scores of communications, mainly devoted to inviting him to dinners and
-dances which had passed into the shades anywhere from a year to eighteen
-months previously.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now, I'll attend to you,” said he severely to the special. “Only, don't
-brag about your superior importance, next time.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He opened it and glanced at the heading. “Connor,” said he, “this is from
-Mr. Bentley.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, Mr. Jacob.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He says it is necessary for him to see me without delay.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, sir.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you believe, Connor, that it is really as necessary as he pretends for
-Mr. Bentley to see me without delay?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mr. Bentley is your lawyer, sir,” pointed out Connor firmly. “If he says
-so, sir, I think it would be so.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You're wrong, Connor; you're wrong! This letter is dated just seven weeks
-ago. As I haven't seen Mr. Bentley yet, and am still in good health and
-spirits, it can't have been vitally necessary that he see me without
-delay, can it? Necessity knows no law, Connor, and law knows no necessity
-that can't wait seven weeks.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mr. Bentley has been telephoning, sir, almost every day.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Has he? Why didn't you tell me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I tried to inform you about several telephone messages, Mr. Jacob—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So you did, when you met me at the pier.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And you told me if the telephone annoyed me, to have it taken out, sir.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Right; right; perfectly right! Did you have it taken out?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, sir.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then it doesn't annoy you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, Mr. Jacob—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What a blessing is philosophic calm! I'll take pattern by you and learn
-not to let it annoy me, either. That's it ringing now. Let it ring. Are my
-dinner clothes laid out?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, sir. And, beg pardon, sir; I think that's the doorbell not
-the'phone. It'll be Mr. Bentley. I took the liberty of 'phoning him, sir,
-that you'd be here in time to dress for dinner—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“His blood be on your head. Let him in, Connor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Herbert Bentley, of Bench & Bentley, a huge, puffy man of fifty,
-rolled into the room, shook hands warmly with Remsen, went through the
-usual preliminary queries as to health, recent experience, and time of
-return, and then attacked the matter in hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How's your family pride, Jacob?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Languid.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's likely to be stirred up a bit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Some of us been distinguishing ourselves?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not specially. But your cousins are threatening a will contest.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If they want to pry me loose from this grisly mausoleum,” observed Jacob,
-with an illustrative wave of the hand around the gloomful drawing-room,
-“I'll listen to terms.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothing of that sort. The house is yours as long as you fulfill the terms
-of your grandfather's will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then what's the contest to me? Let my amiable cousins choke themselves
-and each other with law—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's a question of your Great-Uncle Simeon's estate. They want you as a
-witness.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“For what?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To prove the old boy's insanity.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Who says he was insane?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They do. Wasn't he?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, he was eccentric in some particulars,” admitted Jacob cautiously.
-</p>
-<p>
-“As for instance?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let me think. Whenever there was a long drought he used to claim that he
-was a tree-toad, and he'd climb the ancestral elm up at the Westchester
-place and squawk for rain.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Eccentric, as you say. Anything else?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He had the largest collection of tin-can labels in Westchester County. At
-least, he boasted that it was the largest, and I never heard any one
-dispute it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What did he do with'em?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Same as any kind of a collecting bug does with his collection; nothing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I see. Is that all?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Everything I can recall except that every May Day he used to put on a
-high hat and a pink sash and dance around a Maypole in Central Park. As he
-didn't care whose Maypole it happened to be, he usually got arrested.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I see. And the rest of the family; did they show any symptoms?” <
-</p>
-<p>
-“Nothing special.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What do you mean, special? Come, out with it!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of course there was my poor old maiden aunt, Miss Melinda. You've heard
-of her?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Only as a name.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She did her best to change that. When she was fifty-four she eloped with
-the coachman. Only they couldn't get any one to marry'em, so she had to
-come home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What was wrong? Was the coachman married already?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. But he was a trifle colored.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Interesting line of relatives you carry. What about the remainder of the
-tribe?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just about the usual run of old families, I guess. One of the other aunts
-used to do a little in the anonymous letter line and break up happy
-families. Then, of course, Cousin Fred used to pull some fairly
-interesting stuff when he had the d-t's, but the claim that Uncle Simeon's
-first wife dressed up as the Van Cortland Manor ghost isn't—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Enough said! I didn't ask for a new edition of the <i>Chronique
-Scandaleuse</i>. How would you like to tell all this to the court, and
-through it to the newspapers?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll see'em d—-d first!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“All very well. But if they put you on the stand, you'll have to tell or
-go to jail. And they'll put you on, for you're their one best bet. With
-you they can win and without you they can't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then they lose. I'll skip the country rather than rake up all that dead
-and decayed stuff.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How about your grandfather's will, under which you inherit this house and
-most of your fortune? Have you forgotten that you're required to inhabit
-the house, from now on, at least three months out of every six until
-you're married?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So I have. Happy alternative! Lose the house or parade the family
-skeletons all diked out in pink sashes and tin-can labels. When does the
-blasted suit come on?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know. When I do I'll let you know. Then it's up to you either to
-stand a siege in the house or to light out and go into hiding, and take a
-chance on getting back within the three months.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, Connor,” said Jacob Remsen after the lawyer had left, “here's a
-complication for a peace-and-quiet-loving young man! How did such a
-respectable person as you ever come to take service in such a herd of
-black sheep?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know anything about those goings-on, sir,” asseverated the old
-man doggedly. “If they put me in jail the rest of my life I couldn't
-remember ever hearing a word about any of'em, sir.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Good man! Don't you testify to anything that would tend to incriminate or
-degrade the memory of Uncle Simeon or any other Remsen. And neither will
-I. However, this isn't dressing for dinner.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Having changed, young Mr. Remsen returned to dine with Gloria Greene. He
-found her smiling over a note which she carefully blotted before turning
-from her desk to greet him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What did you think of my protégée?” she inquired. “I'm collecting
-opinions on her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The little Colter girl? She isn't as sniffy as she appears at first
-sight.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Her name isn't Colter. And I don't know how you can judge. First sight is
-all that you had of her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not so, fair lady. She passed me in the hallway as I was waiting for a
-taxi to come along. I could see her nerving herself up to say something
-and finally she said it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, what was it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothing important. Just that she was sorry she couldn't sing for me and
-that some other time she would. But she said it quite pleasantly. She
-hasn't a bad voice.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Effect of Lesson the First,” commented the actress.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What are you doing with that young person, Gloria? Working some of your
-white magic on her?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just remaking life a little for her,” replied the other offhandedly.
-“This is part of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She fluttered the note-paper on which she had been writing.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What is it?” asked Remsen. “A pass to Paradise? She looked as cheered-up
-as if she were getting something of the kind.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's a commutation ticket to Hades, first-class,” was the actress's
-Delphic response. “But the poor child won't know it till she gets there.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER IV
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>OPE, which is credited with various magic properties, had kindled a
-sickly sort of sub-glow in Darcy Cole's pasty face as she arrived at Miss
-Greene's address, to keep her appointment. Part of it subsided at sight of
-the indication that the elevator was still on strike. The remainder had
-vanished long before she had surmounted the four flights of stairs and
-stood panting dolorously before Gloria Greene. That composed person
-feigned polite surprise.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why, what's the matter, Darcy?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Those awful—pouf!—stairs. How—whoof-uff!—d' you
-ever—whoo-oo-oof!—do it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Two steps at a time,” explained the actress practically, “cuts the
-distance in half.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy looked skeptical. “It would kill me,” she declared.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Very likely, as you are now. We're going to change all that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The gleam returned into Darcy's big, dull eyes. “Yes?” said she eagerly.
-“How?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I should say,” answered the actress with a carefully judicial air, “that
-you'd better start in by learning to give up.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Give up what?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Everything that makes life worth living.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is it a joke?” asked Darcy, dubiously. “Far from it. Food, for instance.
-You eat too much.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Often I don't get any luncheon at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And too irregularly,” pursued the accuser. “You drink too much.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria! One cocktail before dinner,” was the indignant response.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And too regularly,” went on the relentless judge. “One is one too many
-for a girl with your complexion.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Go on,” said Darcy with sullen resignation. “You sleep too much.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Eight hours isn't—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You interrupt too much,” broke in the mentor severely. “You laze too
-much. You shirk and postpone too much. You nibble too much candy. When you
-feel below par you take a pill instead of a walk. Don't you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl stared. “How do you know all these things about me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Read'em in your face, of course. And a lot more, besides.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nobody else ever read'em there. Not even the doctor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Probably he has, but is too polite to tell you all he sees, or too
-cynical to believe that you'd take the trouble to do anything about it if
-he told you. Or perhaps he just doesn't see it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then how do you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm an expert, my dear young innocent. It's part of my profession to be
-good-looking just as it is to keep well-read and well-dressed. And a lot
-harder!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How can it be harder for you? You're beautiful just naturally.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm not beautiful. Your Holcomb Lee or any other artist with a real eye
-could reduce my face to a mere scrap-heap of ill-assorted features. I'm
-reasonably pleasant to look at because I work hard at the business of
-being just that. And I'm going to keep on being pleasant to look at for
-twenty good years yet if care and clothes will do it!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Clothes help such a lot,” sighed the girl. “When are you going to help me
-with mine?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria Greene looked disparagingly at the girl's slack and flaccid body.
-</p>
-<p>
-“When you develop something to put'em on,” said she curtly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But I thought that if I had some nice clothes—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You'd develop inside them like the butterfly in the chrysalis,”
- supplemented the other. “Unfortunately it doesn't work that way with
-humans. Didn't I tell you yesterday that it wasn't going to be easy?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes. But you're not telling me anything now. You're just—just
-discouraging me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why, you poor-spirited little grub, you haven't even touched the outer
-edge of discouragement yet. Here! Can you do this?” Lifting her hands high
-above her glowing head, Gloria swept them down in a long curve of beauty,
-until she stood bowed but with unbending knees, her pink fingers flattened
-on the floor.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Of course I can't,” whined Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Try it,” suggested the other enticingly. “It isn't hard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy did not stir. “I've got corsets on,” said she.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You have. Awful ones. Take'em off.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I will,” she promised.
-</p>
-<p>
-Performance, not promise, was what her instructor demanded. “Do it now.”
- </p>
-<p>
-With a sigh, the girl obeyed. “It makes me look sloppier than ever,” she
-lamented, glancing toward the mirror.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not actually,” was the counsel—of dubious comfort—from the
-other. “You only <i>feel</i> now as you've been looking all the time.
-Don't get another pair until I tell you. I'll pick'em out if you still
-want them when Andy Dunne is through with you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Who's Andy Dunne?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Andy,” explained the actress concisely, “is the devil.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's encouraging,” murmured the girl. “Anyway, you'll think he is. He's
-my trainer.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Trainer! You talk as if you were a prizefighter.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I cut Andy's lip with a straight left once,” said Miss Greene with a
-proud, reminiscent gleam in her eye. “It was one of the biggest moments of
-my life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Taking from her desk the note which she had described to Jacob Remsen as a
-commutation ticket to the last station, down-line, she handed it to Darcy.
-The girl read it.
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-Andy: This is Miss Darcy Cole. Put her through as you did
-me, only more so.
-
-Gloria Greene
-</pre>
-<p>
-Darcy tucked it carefully into her imitation-leather roll, saying:
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's awfully good of you to take all this trouble for me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, it isn't for you entirely. Call it part of my contribution to the
-general welfare. It gives me a pain in my artistic sense to see a
-woman-job spoiled; like a good picture daubed over by a bad amateur. So if
-I can rescue you as a brand from the burning and put you back on earth, a
-presentable human, I'll feel like a major of the Salvation Army. That's
-why I've decided to take you in hand. And may Heaven have mercy upon your
-body!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Amen!” confirmed Darcy piously, feeling for the introductory note.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Only,” added Gloria slowly, “I want to be clear on one point. I'd like to
-know for whom I'm really doing this.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why, for me, of course,” said Darcy, big-eyed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not for any one else?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Who else should there be? I told you there wasn't any—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I know. You swore there was no man in this. Then on top of it, you rouse
-my darkest suspicions by acting like a school-girl yesterday and tearing
-your hair because the first casual man that comes along doesn't gaze
-soulfully at you when he takes his departure.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria, I hate you! D' you mean Mr. Remsen? Surely you don't for a minute
-imagine—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No; I don't suppose Jack has anything to do with it, personally. But I
-seem to get a strong indication of Man as a species somewhere in the
-background of this business.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Pink grew Miss Darcy Cole; then red, and eventually scarlet, under
-Gloria's interested regard.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You see!” exclaimed that acute person. “Come, now. Explain.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's—it's Maud Raines's fault,” blurted Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Agreed that it's all Maud's fault. Go on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No; it isn't <i>all</i> Maud's fault,” corrected
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy with a palpable effort to do exact justice. “It's partly the British
-War Office's fault.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“International complications. Maud and the British War Office. Mr. Lee had
-better look out!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not at all! It isn't Maud that the British War Office has been writing
-letters to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No? Who is it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is this a long-distance flirtation with an official Britisher, all wound
-round with red tape? What kind of fetters?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, not personal, exactly,” reluctantly admitted the girl. “Propaganda
-matter. It's sent out by their press bureau. But it always comes addressed
-in nice, firm, man-ny handwriting.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But why do they send to you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy giggled. “That's the funny part of it. They must have got me
-confused with Dorsey Coles, the essayist. He used to live on East
-Fifty-Sixth Street.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Very likely. When does the Man enter?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“We-ell, you see, Maud and Helen were awfully curious about my English
-correspondent.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Naturally.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So I—well, I just let'em be.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is that any reason why you should wear the expression of one about to
-confess to a coldblooded murder?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wait. You know I told you Maud had been catty about my sitting to Holcomb
-Lee.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“This is what I overheard her say to Helen, and I'm not even sure she
-didn't mean me to overhear. She said, 'Darcy's been sitting to Holcomb.
-Fancy it! Darcy as a model! I can no more imagine her being a model than I
-could her being engaged.' Wasn't that nasty of her, Gloria!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It was. And you very properly smothered her with a pillow as she slept
-and have come here to make your confession,” twinkled Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Worse,” said Darcy in a small, tremulous voice. “Much worse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria sat up straight. “No!” she cried hopefully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes. For Helen said, 'Well, somebody in England seems pretty much
-interested in her, anyway.' That's what put it into my head.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I wish you'd put it; into mine,” said the other plaintively. “You don't
-seem to get any nearer the subject of your romance, which is Man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well—promise not to laugh at me, Gloria!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll try.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just to show'em both, I got engaged.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes; and one evening when both of the girls were being just a little
-extra peacocky over their double wedding next October and letting me
-understand what a favor it was to me that I was to be double maid of
-honor, I just up and told'em I didn't know whether I could be as I had an
-important engagement to be married myself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lovely! Gorgeous!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They jumped at the English letters. So I told them that I thought I might
-as well own up about the affair; how I'd met him on my vacation in Canada
-and helped him try out horses for the British Government, which had sent
-him over for that purpose when he was wounded, and we had corresponded
-ever since. It was awfully well done, if I do say it as shouldn't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let me get this right,” pleaded Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You made him all up yourself, just on the basis of those war-office
-letters?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“N-no. That's just the trouble.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You <i>didn't</i> make him up?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“N-n-not entirely.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“For Heaven's sake, do be more explicit!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm t-t-trying to,” said Darcy brokenly. “I got him out of a book.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then he's imaginary.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm afraid he's real. Awfully real.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy Cole; <i>what</i> book did you get him out of?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Burke's Peerage.”
- </p>
-<p>
-With one headlong plunge Gloria projected herself upon the couch where she
-wallowed ecstatically among the pillows.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, Darcy! Darcy!” she gasped when she could achieve coherent speech.
-“For this I shall love you forever. I'll do more. I'll adopt you. I'll
-endow you. I'll—I'll canonize you. What's his name?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England,”
- recited the girl formally.
-</p>
-<p>
-Dissociating herself from a convulsed silk coverlet, Gloria straightened
-up. “Sir Montrose Veyze,” she repeated thoughtfully and relishingly. “Why
-that particular and titled gentleman?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I got to the V's before I found any one that seemed to fill the bill.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What special qualification commended him to your favorable consideration,
-Miss Cole?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, he's unmarried.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's important.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And he's far away. I came across that in an English magazine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How far?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Way out in the East somewhere where one of the fifty-seven varieties of
-left-over wars is still going on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So far, so good. What are you going to do with him when he comes back?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If I only knew!” was the miserable rejoinder. “Maybe he won't come back.
-Maybe something will happen to him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It won't. He'll bear a charmed life, just to plague you,” retorted her
-friend with conviction. “You bloodthirsty little beast!” she added.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The worst I wish him,” said Darcy tearfully, “is an honorable military
-death.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh! Is that all! You'd have to go into deep mourning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That'd be better than suicide. And I can't see anything else for me to do
-if he lives through. I won't confess to that Maud-cat! I won't! I won't! I
-won't!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't blame you. But when are you to be married?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Uncertain. That's the advantage of having a fiancé at war.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You must make it after the double wedding,” decided Gloria. “Just for
-curiosity, how did you describe him?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've rather dodged that, so far. But I think I'd like to have him tall
-and slender and with nice, steady, friendly eyes, like Mr. Remsen.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So would Monty, doubtless,” surmised Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Who?</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Monty Veyze.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria! Do you <i>know</i> Sir Montrose Veyze?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Rather. I visited at his sister's last time I was in England.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Heavens! That makes it seem so ghastly real. What's he like?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Round and roly-poly and red and fiercelooking; but a good sort. And he
-used to be quite an admirer of mine. I do think, Darcy, that with the
-whole of Burke's Peerage to choose from you might have refrained from
-trespassing on my preserves. It isn't clubby of you!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You can have him!” cried the girl desperately. “Any one can have him! I
-don't care how round and red and—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He's rather far from your picture of him, certainly. Not a bit like Jack
-Remsen. So you approve of Jack, do you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I thought him awfully attractive,” said Darcy shyly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, Jack's a dear. It's a pity about his money.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Has he lost it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. Got it. Too much. Without it he might make a real actor. He's the
-best amateur in New York to-day. But—an amateur.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What does he do?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Dabbles in artistic things. And plays at being everybody's little
-sunbeam. Never mind Jack. It's the imaginary Sir Montrose Veyze that we've
-got to figure on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, do tell me what to do with him!” implored the too-inventive Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Keep him. Prize him above rubies and diamonds. Nothing has given me a
-laugh like that for a year.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But if—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let the future take care of its ifs. Who can tell what will turn up? Fate
-is kind to creative genius. And I'm going to assist Fate if I can. I'll
-make you a bargain, Darcy, for half of your beautiful, inspiring,
-heaven-sent lie. You take me into equal partnership in it, and I'll be
-your little personal Guide to Health and Beauty until we've made a job of
-you. But you've got to promise on honor to keep up the Veyze myth, if I'm
-to be partner and half owner in it, until I agree to drop it. Is it a
-bargain?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The light of unholy, reckless adventure shot into Darcy's pale eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's a bargain,” she agreed solemnly.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER V
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>UCH demoniac attributes as Mr. Andy Dunne might possess lurked in the
-background on the occasion of Darcy's first visit. Smothering her
-misgivings, the girl had mounted the steps of the old-fashioned house just
-off Sixth Avenue, undistinguished by any sign or symbol of the mystic
-activities within, and presented Gloria's letter. Mr. Dunne revealed
-himself as a taciturn gentleman in funereal trousers and a blue sweater,
-who suggested facially an athletic monk of reserved and misanthropic
-tendency. He led her into a severely business-like office sparsely
-furnished with a desk and two hard and muscular-looking chairs, with
-liberal wall ornamentations of the championship Baltimore “Orioles” (“A.
-Dunne, 2d b.” in clear script on the frame), pictures of Mr. Dunne and
-other worthies in sundry impressive and hostile postures, and a large
-photograph signed, with a noble flourish, “Yours truly, John L. Sullivan.”
- It was the crowning glory of Mr. Dunne's professional career that he had
-trained the “Big Feller” for his final championship fight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Having perused his former pupil's brief epistle, Mr. Dunne cast an
-appraising glance over the neophyte.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Full course?” he inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes, please.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How long?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Six months.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl produced a roll of bills and laid them on the desk. Mr. Dunne
-counted them twice. With a stony face and in a highly correct hand he made
-out a receipt.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Six months. Paid in advance,” he stated. “D'je meanter pay it all?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Y-y-yes. Isn't it usual?” queried Darcy, wondering whether she was
-shattering some conventionality of this unknown world.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Nope. Three's usual. What's the big idea?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria—that is Miss Greene told me to pay it all in advance because
-if I didn't I might get tired of it and back out. But I shan't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-From between Mr. Dunne's hard-set lips issued a vowel-less monosyllable
-such as might be enunciated by a contemplative bulldog engaged in
-self-communion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” said Mr. Dunne, which, Darcy decided, might mean much or little.
-“Friend o' Miss Greene's?” he inquired after a pause. “Yes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Some</i> lady!” said Mr. Dunne with an approach to enthusiasm which
-Darcy was never thereafter to experience from his repressive spirit, save
-only when he spoke of the “Big Feller.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Isn't she wonderful!” acquiesced Darcy. Mr. Dunne rubbed his lower lip
-with a reminiscent and almost romantic gleam in his heavy-browed eyes, and
-the girl with difficulty suppressed a query as to whether that was the
-spot whereon Gloria had landed her triumphant left. Emerging from his
-reverie he issued his first direction. “Stannup, please.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy rose and stood, consciously loppish, while the trainer
-circumnavigated her twice.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” he grunted. “When yah wanna begin?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“At once, please.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gotta outfit?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gittit.” He thrust a typed list into her hand. “How much you weigh?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yah don't <i>know?</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Somewhere about a hundred and fifty, I suppose.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yah <i>suppose</i>. Grmph!” The exclamation was replete with contempt.
-“Come into the shop.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She followed him into a big airy room flooded with overhead light, and
-filled with all sorts of mechanism. Obedient to a gesture she stepped on
-the scales. Mr. Dunne busied himself with a careful adjustment.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You'll strip a hunner'n fifty-two,” he declared.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy vaguely felt as if she were being accused of murder. She felt even
-worse when the iron-faced Mr. Dunne made an entry in a little notebook.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Will I?” she said faintly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not long,” retorted the trainer.
-</p>
-<p>
-He strode across the room and set foot upon a huge, ungainly leather ball.
-It seemed but the merest touch that he gave. Nevertheless the ball left
-that spot hurriedly, rolled across to Darcy and encountered her shins with
-an impact that all but crumpled her flabby legs beneath her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Know what that is?” demanded the trainer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm afraid I don't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Medicine-ball. Little pill. You'll <i>like</i> the little pill.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Prophetic voices within Darcy told her that this was improbable: but she
-mildly assented. The pulley-weights were next called to her attention and
-identified.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What do I do with them?” she inquired with a proper show of interest.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pull'em up.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I see. And then what?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let'em down.”
- </p>
-<p>
-It seemed to Darcy a profitless procedure, but she wisely refrained from
-saying so, and was glad that she did when Mr. Dunne added in a tone which
-emphasized the importance of the transaction:
-</p>
-<p>
-“A coupla hundred times.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Subsequently the neophyte was introduced to the dumb-bells, the
-Indian-clubs, the rings, the hand-ball court, the rowing-machine—she
-earned a glance of contempt by asking where it rowed to—the
-punching-bag, which she disliked at sight, the finger-grip roller, the
-stationary bicycle (which also got you nowhere), the boxing-gloves, and a
-further bewildering but on the whole inspiriting array of machines for
-making one strong, happy, beautiful, and healthy to order. Somewhere in
-the girl's consciousness lurked a suspicion that the apparatus couldn't be
-expected to do all the work: that there were patient and perhaps strenuous
-endeavors expected of the operator. But of the real rigors of the awaiting
-fate she had but the faintest glimmer.
-</p>
-<p>
-As she was leaving, a door bumped violently open and there appeared in the
-“shop” a horrific female figure. It was that of a fat blonde with four
-sweaters on. Her cheeks were puffy red, her eyes jutted poppily from the
-sockets, and her jowls dripped. As a slave, treading the unending grind of
-the mill, the apparition set herself to trot heavily around the
-circumference of the room. And as she ran she blubbered.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, poor thing!” cried Darcy under her breath. “What's the matter with
-her?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothin',” said Mr. Dunne indifferently.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But there must be something,” insisted the newcomer aghast.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Fat,” vouchsafed Mr. Dunne. “They mostly take it hard—at the
-start,” he condescended to add. “She's only been at it a month.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A month! Darcy's heart sank within her. She began to see why Gloria had
-insisted on a binding prepayment. Did Gloria, splendid, vigorous Gloria,
-have to go through that stage? Was this the inevitable purgatory through
-which all flesh must pass to reach the goal? Could she, Darcy, conscious
-of flaccidity of body and spirit, endure—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tomorra at three,” cut in Mr. Dunne's brusque tones.
-</p>
-<p>
-Impersonal and coldly business-like though Andy Dunne might appear to the
-apprehensive novice, he was an artist in his line, and took a
-conscientious interest in his clients. Inspired thereby, he called up
-Gloria Greene and requested information.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Spoiled child,” was the diagnosis which he received over the'phone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Fool parents?” he inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Rich feller?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothing of that sort.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What's spoilt her, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She's spoilt herself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's bad.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But she doesn't know it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's worse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So I've sent her to you, Andy.” And Gloria outlined her hopeful programme
-for Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” snorted the trainer. “Will she stand the gaff, d' yah think?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She'll have to,” chuckled Gloria. “If she doesn't, let me know. I've got
-a hold over her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The mere process of purchasing has an inspiriting effect upon the feminine
-psychology. By the time Darcy had acquired her simple gymnasium outfit,
-her fears were forgotten in optimism. With such appropriate clothes the
-experiment must be a success! Proudly she arrayed herself in them, upon
-arrival at Mr. Andy Dunne's academy at the hour set; the close-fitting,
-rather scratchy tights, the scant and skirtless trousers, the light canvas
-shoes, the warmly enveloping sweater, and the rubber cap to keep her hair
-from interfering with her exertions. Thus appareled, Darcy quite esteemed
-herself as an athlete. She could already feel her muscular potentialities
-developing beneath the rough, stimulant cloth. She thought lightly of the
-various apparatus awaiting her in the “shop”; playthings of her coming
-prowess. She would show Mr. Andy Dunne what an apt and earnest devotee of
-the vigorous life could achieve. Thus uplifted she went forth with a
-confident smile to meet the man who, for weary months, was to fill a large
-part of her life.
-</p>
-<p>
-At sight of her Mr. Dunne, schooled though he was in self-restraint,
-barely suppressed a groan of pained surprise. That garb which had so
-pleased Darcy, however much it may have been an inspiration to her, was a
-revelation to the dismayed eyes of her instructor. To Gloria Greene, one
-of the few people with whom he forgot his reticence, he afterwards made
-his little plaint.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If they're fat, I can sweat'em. If they're skinny, I can pad'em with
-muscle. But this squab, she's fat and skinny <i>all</i> in the wrong
-places.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Half hopeful that he might discover some disabling symptom, he tested her
-heart and her breathing. All was normal. He noted her yellowish eyes, her
-sallow skin, the beginning of a fold under her chin, the slackness of her
-posture.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How old are yah?” he demanded.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Just twenty-one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” barked Mr. Dunne, in a tone which unflatteringly suggested
-surprise, but also relief. “Well we gotta getta work.”
- </p>
-<p>
-How pleasurable was that hour's exercise to Darcy! With what delight did
-her unforeboding spirit take to the ways of a hardy athleticism! 'Never
-could she have imagined it so easy. No sooner was she weary of one kind of
-a trial, dumb-bells, Indian-clubs, or pulleys, than, when her breath began
-to come short, the watchful instructor stopped her and, after a rest, set
-her to something else. Her skin pricked and glowed beneath the close but
-unrestricting suit. Little drops of moisture came out on her face and were
-gayly brushed away. She could feel herself breathing deeper, her blood
-running faster and fuller in her veins, her muscles suppling along the
-bones. She hurled the medicine-ball with fervor. She attacked the
-punch-ing-bag with ferocity. She swung at the elusive little hand-ball
-with a violence unhampered by any sense of direction. From time to time
-she threw a glance, hopefully inviting approval, at the stonily watchful
-visage of Mr. Andy Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-The approval did not manifest itself. Darcy, had she but known it, was
-going through that schedule of the mildest type known derisively to Andy's
-academy as “the consumptive's stunt.” At the conclusion of a trot three
-times around the room which she conceived herself as performing with a
-light and springy step (“like a three-legged goat” was Mr. Dunne's mental
-comparison), that gentleman said, “Nuff,” a word which later was to rank
-in his pupil's consciousness as the one assuaging thing in an agonized
-world. The regulation first-day's-end catechism then took place.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How d'yah feel?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fine!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“'s good! Lame?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not a bit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yah'll stiffen up later. Don't let it bother yah. Hot bath in the
-morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“All right.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Same time day after tomorra.” He busied himself replacing the deranged
-apparatus. “How's the appetite?” he asked carelessly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It hasn't been so very good.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No? Try it on this.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Diet for Miss D. Cole,” was typed across the top of a meager-looking list
-of edibles and what that young lady would have considered inedibles, which
-she found herself conning.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is that <i>all?</i>” she inquired dismally.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Take as much as yah want of it,” returned Mr. Dunne generously.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But—I mean—it doesn't look very nice.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The Big Feller trained on it,” observed the other with an air of
-finality. “What's wrong with it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why—why—it's—well—monotonous,” explained the
-girl. “There isn't a sweet thing in it. No cakes. No desserts. Not even
-ice-cream. Why can't I have a little sweets?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Because,” answered Mr. Dunne, “yah got creases in your stomach.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy started. “No! Have I?” she asked, vaguely alarmed as to what
-profound digestive catastrophe that might portend.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, haven't yah? About there—and there—and prob'ly there.”
- Mr. Dunne drew an illustrative and stubby forefinger thrice vertically
-across his own flat abdomen. “Look to-night and yah'll see'em.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh!” gasped Darcy, turning fiery red, for it is one of our paradoxical
-conventions that a young lady may discuss the inside of her stomach
-without shame, but not the outside.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Dunne regarded the blush with disfavor. “Look-a-here,” he said
-bluntly. “Yah, needn't get rattled.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But—I—I—didn't—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cut the school-girl stuff. Yah'r my pupil. I'm yahr trainer. That's all
-there is <i>to</i> it, if we're going to get along comfortable. Get me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes,” said Darcy. “I won't be silly again. And I'll try and mind the
-diet.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Vastly to her surprise and gratification, the neophyte arose on the
-following morning without severe symptoms of lameness. Here and there an
-unsuspected muscle had awakened to life and to mild protest over the
-resurrection. But on the whole Darcy felt none the worse for her
-experience. She began to surmise that she was one of that physically
-blessed class, a born athlete. If beauty, vigor, and health were to be
-achieved at no harder a price than this, they were almost like a gift of
-the good fairies. The only unusual phenomena she observed as a result of
-her introspection were a lack of interest in her food, which she set down
-to the discredit of the diet, and a tendency to fall asleep over her work.
-She went to bed early that night, quite looking forward to the morrow's
-exercise.
-</p>
-<p>
-Nature has a stock practical joke which she plays on the physically
-negligent when they begin training. Instead of inflicting muscular remorse
-on the morning after, she lets the bill run for another twenty-four hours
-and then pounces upon the victim with an astounding accumulation of
-painful arrears. Opening her eyes on that second day after Mr. Dunne's
-mild but sufficient schedule—the one muscular movement she was able
-to make without acute agony—Darcy became cognizant that every hinge
-in her body had rusted. She attempted to swing her legs out of bed, and
-stuck, with her feet projecting out from the clothes, paralyzed and
-groaning. From the bedroom next to Darcy's alcove, Helen Barrett heard the
-sounds of lamentation and tottered drowsily in.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What ever is the matter, Darcy?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I can't get up” moaned the victim.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What is it? Are you ill?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No! No! I'm all right. Only—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Get your legs back in bed.” The kindly Helen thrust back the protruding
-limbs, thereby wringing from the sufferer a muffled shriek which brought
-Maud Raines to the scene.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's rheumatism, I think,” explained Helen to the newcomer. “Or else
-paralysis.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It isn't,” denied Darcy indignantly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What is it, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Racked by all manner of darting pains and convulsive cramps, Darcy began
-the cautious process of emerging from bed. “Do be good—ugh!” she
-implored. “And don't—ooch!—ask questions—and draw me a
-boiling hot bath—ow-w-w!—and help me into it—oh-h-h-h—<i>dear!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-Greatly wondering they followed the sufferer's directions, got her duly
-en-tubbed, and ensconced themselves outside the door, which they left
-carefully ajar for explanations. All they got for this maneuver was an
-avowal of the bather's firm intention of spending the rest of the day in
-the mollifying water.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If you want to be really nice,” she added, “you might bring my coffee and
-rolls to me here.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, really!” said Maud indignantly, for this was a reversal of the
-normal order of things in Bachelor-Girls' Hall. As the homely member of an
-otherwise attractive trio, Darcy had been, by common consent, constituted
-the meek and unprotesting servitor of the other two. Thus do relics of
-Orientalism persist among the most independent race of women known to
-history.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy accepted the rebuff. “It doesn't matter,” said she, with a quaver of
-self-pity. “I can't have coffee. I can't have hot rolls. I can't have
-anything.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Her two mates exchanged glances. “Darcy, you've got to see a doctor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I haven't! I won't!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But if you can't move and can't eat—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm much better now. Really I am,” declared the other, alarmed at the
-threat of a physician, who might suspect the truth and give her away to
-the others. “I'm going to dress.” Which she did, at the price of untold
-pangs. Breakfast passed in a succession of questioning silences and
-suspicious glances, but Darcy guarded her tongue. To reveal the facts and
-what lay behind them would be only to invite discouragement and dissuasion
-if not actual ridicule. After the frugal and tasteless ordeal of hominy
-without sugar, followed by one egg without butter, she limped into the
-front room and set herself doggedly to the elaboration of a new design for
-B. Riegel & Sons. Notwithstanding the legacy, she could not afford to
-neglect the economic side of life whilst fostering the physical. Her
-special course in the development of charm, via the muscle-and-sinew
-route, she perceived, was going to take longer than she had foreseen.
-Already she felt that the schedule ought to be radically relaxed. Her
-unfitness to take the lesson set for that afternoon was obvious. Next
-week, perhaps—'though, on the whole, she inclined to the belief that
-she should have about ten days to recuperate.
-</p>
-<p>
-She would write to Mr. Dunne and explain. No; she would telephone him.
-Better still, she would go up to the Academy of Tortures in person and
-exhibit to the proprietor's remorseful eyes the piteous wreck which he had
-made of her blithe young girlhood.
-</p>
-<p>
-She went. Mr. Andy Dunne regarded the piteous wreck without outward and
-visible signs of distress.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah got five minutes,” he remarked emotionlessly, glancing at the clock.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I can't possibly go on to-day,” said Darcy firmly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Every bone in my body creaks. I haven't got a muscle that isn't sore. I
-ache in places that I didn't even know I had. Why, Mr. Dunne,” she
-declared impressively, as a conclusion to the painful inventory, “if I
-tried to go through those exercises again to-day, I'd die!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” said Mr. Dunne, indicating that he was unimpressed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I c-c-c-can't do it and I won't!” said Darcy, like a very naughty child.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah paid me three hundr'n sixty dollars, didn't yah?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes,” replied Darcy, her heart sinking, at the recollection of the sum
-which she had invested in assorted agonies.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did yah think that was going to buy yah what yah'r after?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy gulped dismally.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It ain't. Money can't buy it. Yah gotta have gu—grit.” Mr. Dunne
-achieved the timely amendment in the middle of the stronger qualification.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy's mind went back to Gloria Greene's preachment upon the text of
-“grit”: “You don't know what the word means, yet.” Apparently she was in a
-fair way to find out.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Two minutes gone,” announced the trainer's inexorable voice.
-</p>
-<p>
-How she did it she never knew. But under impulsion of the sterner will,
-she got into her gymnasium suit and was on the floor only three minutes
-past the hour. The apparatus which she had at first encountered with so
-much interest and curiosity now had a sinister effect of lying in wait
-like the implements of a dentist's office. She speculated, with a
-shrinking of her whole frame, upon which one would be selected as the
-agency of the initial agony. Giving them not so much as a look, Mr. Andy
-Dunne led her to a large, rough mat and bade her stretch out on her back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Lift the left foot in the air,” he directed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy did so, with caution.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Higher!” said Mr. Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oo-yee!” lamented Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Back. Lift the right foot in the air.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy obeyed without enthusiasm.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Higher!” said Mr. Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ow-wow!” mourned Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Back. Lift both feet in the air.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I can't!” said Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah gotta!” said Mr. Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-Two wavering, quivering legs rose slowly from the mat, attained an angle
-of forty-five degrees, and dropped back to earth with a thud. Their owner
-had been forcibly reminded of the three creases in her stomach by the fact
-that they had unanimously set to writhing and grinding upon each other in
-fiery convolutions of protest, resultant upon the unwonted angle of the
-legs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Higher!” commanded the pitiless Mr. Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Can't!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gotta!”
- </p>
-<p>
-With a spasmodic heave, the victim attained perhaps fifty degrees of
-elevation, and straightened out, gasping. Next her instructor had her sit
-up erect from a flat position, without aid from hands or elbows, whereat
-all the muscles in her back, thighs, and abdomen, hitherto unawakened,
-roused themselves and yelled in chorus. Then he had her repeat the whole
-devastating process from the first before he spoke the word of reprieve.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Nuff!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy rolled over on her face and lay panting. “How d' yah feel?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Awful!” gasped Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Still a bit stiff?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A bit! Oh-h-h-h!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then we'll do it all again,” said Mr. Dunne cheerfully. “Nothin' like
-light exercise to loosen up the human frame.”
- </p>
-<p>
-For that “light” Darcy could cheerfully have slain him. Nobody since the
-world began, she felt convinced, neither gladiator of the classic arena
-nor the mighty John L. himself, had ever undergone such a fearsome
-grilling and lived. And now there was more to come. Over the twistings and
-turnings, the arm-flexures, the hoppings and skippings, the tingling of
-the outraged muscles, the panting of the overtaxed lungs, let us draw a
-kindly curtain.
-</p>
-<p>
-When the horrid hour was over, Darcy in her cold shower felt numb. Whether
-she could ever manage to get home on her own disjointed feet seemed
-doubtful. But she did. She went to bed at eight o'clock that night, having
-eaten almost nothing, in the firm conviction that she never would be able
-to get up in the morning without help, and probably not with it!
-</p>
-<p>
-Sleep such as she had not known in years submerged her. Roused late by her
-companions, she moved first an arm, then a leg, tentatively. No penalty
-attached to the experiment. With a low, anticipatory groan she sat up
-slowly in bed. The groan was a case of crying before she was hurt. She
-began to feel herself cautiously all over. Her skin was a little tender to
-the touch, and she noted with interest that the blood ran impetuously to
-whatever spot on the surface her exploring fingers pressed. But of that
-crippling lameness, that feeling of the whole bodily mechanism being
-racked and rusted, there remained only a trace. In its place was left a
-new variety of pang which Darcy pleasantly identified. She was ravenously
-hungry.
-</p>
-<p>
-Maud Raines observed to Helen Barrett after breakfast that any one who
-could bolt plain oatmeal the way Darcy did must have the appetite of a
-pig, and no wonder she was fat and slobby. But Andy Dunne, calling up
-Gloria to report progress, thus delivered his opinion:
-</p>
-<p>
-“You know that squab you sent me, Miss Greene?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She wanted to quit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No! Did she do it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I bluffed her out of it. And say, Miss Greene!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, Andy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There may be something to that kid.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Glad you think so.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Said Andy Dunne, expert on the human race slowly, consideringly, and more
-prophetically than he knew:
-</p>
-<p>
-“I kinda think there's fighting stuff some-wheres under that fat.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER VI
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>AD Andy Dunne's surmise been laid before Darcy, it might have brought
-sorely needed encouragement to her soul as the regenerative process went
-on. True she had presently passed the first crisis which athletic regimen
-develops for the untrained, and which is purely muscular. She no longer
-swung to and fro, a helpless pendulum, between the agonies of apprehension
-and the anguish of action. The steady exercise was telling in so far as
-her muscles were concerned; she had still to face the test of discipline.
-In this second and sterner crisis, Andy Dunne could help her but little.
-It was a question of her own power of will, a will grown slack and flabby
-from lack of exercise. Ahead of her loomed, only dimly discerned as yet,
-the ordeal of strenuous monotony; the deadly-dull, prolonged grind wherein
-endurance, as it hardens, is subjected to a constantly harsher strain,
-until the soul revolts as, in the earlier stage, the body had rebelled.
-</p>
-<p>
-A subject like Gloria Greene, high and fine of spirit, the sage Mr. Dunne
-could have eased through the difficult phase by appeals to her pride and
-to the sense of partnership which the successful trainer must establish
-between himself and his pupil. With Darcy this was impracticable because
-Andy Dunne, as he would have admitted with a regretful grin, was “in
-wrong.” Darcy enthusiastically hated him.
-</p>
-<p>
-At first sight she had estimated him as a stern spirit. Through successive
-changes that reckoning had been altered to “harsh,” then “brutal,” and now
-“Satanic.” Gloria's judgment of her note of introduction as “a commutation
-ticket to Hades, first class,” was amply borne out.
-</p>
-<p>
-Professionally Mr. Dunne's discourse tended ever to the hortatory and
-corrective. He was a master of the verbal rowel.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Keep it up!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Again!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ah-h-h, put some punch in it!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yah ain't <i>haff</i> trying!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Go wan! Yah gotta do better'n'at!” And, occasionally, “Rotten!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Worse still was a manner he had of regarding her with an expression of
-mild and regretful wonder whilst giving voice to his bulldoggish “Grmph!”
- in a tone indicating only too plainly that never before was conscientious
-trainer so bored and afflicted with such an utterly incompetent,
-inefficient, and generally hopeless subject as the daily withering Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-In lighter moments he would regale her with reminiscences of the Big
-Feller and his eccentricities in and insubordinations under training,
-while Darcy would lie, panting and spent, on the hard floor, wondering
-regretfully why the Big Feller hadn't killed Mr. Dunne when opportunities
-must have been so plentiful. Then, just as her labored breathing would
-begin to ease, the taskmaster in Mr. Dunne would awaken, the call “Time”
- would sound like doom to her ears, and she would set to it again, arching
-on her back, rolling on her stomach (where the three creases were
-beginning to flatten), yanking at overweighted pulleys, interminably
-skipping a loathly rope, standing up like a dumb ten-pin before the
-ponderous medicine-ball which Mr. Dunne hurled at her, punching at an
-elusive and too often vengeful bag, rowing an imaginary boat against wind,
-wave, and every dictate of her weary body, and finally running silly
-circles around the room like a demented cat, until the monitor uttered the
-one, lone word of pity in his inquisitorial vocabulary: “Nuff!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Had all this deep-wrung sweat of brow and soul produced any definable
-effect, Darcy could have borne it with a resigned spirit. It didn't. Four
-times a week she went through the hideous grind, and nothing happened.
-Each night she went to bed early and after profound sleep had to get up
-out of the cuddly warmth into a shudderingly cold bath—and nothing
-happened. She gave up the before-dinner cocktail and with it what little
-zest she had for her deadly plain diet—and nothing happened. She
-denied her sweet tooth so much as one little bite of candy—oh, but
-that was a bitter deprivation—and nothing happened. To her regimen
-at the gymnasium she added a stint of simple but violent house exercises
-on off days—and nothing happened. Life, which she had supposed, in
-her first flush of hopeful enthusiasm for the new régime, would be one
-grand, sweet song, was, in fact, one petty, sour discord—wherein
-nothing happened. This was quite right and logical, had Darcy but known
-it. Layers of fat, physical and moral, accumulated through years of
-self-coddling, are not worked off in a week or a month.
-</p>
-<p>
-There came a day when something did happen. There always does. It was not
-of that order of occurrences which can be foreseen by the expert eye. It
-seldom is. Andy Dunne, honestly and simply intent on earning his money,
-had been unusually exigent. Besides, Darcy had a nail in her shoe.
-Besides, Mr. Riegel had been curtly critical of her latest and most
-original design as “new-fangled.” Besides, Maud was becoming satirically
-curious as to where she was spending so many afternoons. Besides, it was a
-rotten day. There was no light on earth or in heaven!
-</p>
-<p>
-“What's the use of it all, anyway!” thought Darcy to herself, for perhaps
-the fiftieth time, but rather more fervently than before.
-</p>
-<p>
-As if in exasperation of her agnostic mood, the preceptor, in the
-half-time intermission, had suggested not less, but more work!
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah'r gettin' stale,” observed Mr. Dunne, which Darcy thought a hopeful
-beginning.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I feel so,” she said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's a clock,” Mr. Dunne informed her, “at Fifty-Ninth and Eighth.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy waited.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's another at a Hundred'n Tenth and Seventh,” pursued the
-chronometrical Mr. Dunne, and fell into calculating thought.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy waited again.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah leave Fifty-Ninth at 4.20 p.m.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“When?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh!” said Darcy blankly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And yah get to a Hundred'n-Tenth in time to hear that clock strike 5.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What! Walk? Nearly three miles in forty minutes?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No,” said Mr. Dunne thoughtfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then, how—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yah'd better run part way, or yah won't make it on time.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You want to kill me!” declared the petulant and self-pitying Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” said Mr. Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Suppose it rains?” put forth Darcy desperately.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then yah'll get wet,” was Mr. Dunne's reasonable answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And catch my death riding back in the bus.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't ride. Walk. I'm giving this to yah for fresh air.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But Mr. Dunne—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Time!”
- </p>
-<p>
-It may have been this fresh grievance which lay heavy upon Darcy's chest,
-clogging her breathing and slowing her suppled muscles. She was conscious
-of doing less well than usual—and of not caring, either! The
-medicine-ball was heavier and more unwieldy than ever. The punching-bag,
-instinct with a demoniac vitality, came back at her on a new schedule and
-bumped her nose violently, a mortifying incident which had not occurred
-since the first week. The despicable little hand-ball, propelled by her
-trainer, bounded just a fraction of an inch out of her straining reach,
-and when she did hit it, felt as soggy as sand and as hard as rock and
-raised stone-bruises on her hands. She even pinched her thumb in the
-rowing-machine, which is the zenith of inexpertness. With every fresh
-mishap she became more self-piteous and resentful and reckless. Andy, the
-Experienced, would have ascribed all this to that common if obscure
-phenomenon, an “off day,” familiar to every professor whether of integral
-calculus or the high trapeze. Then the dreadful thing happened, and he
-revised his opinion.
-</p>
-<p>
-The last, and therefore worst, five minutes of the grind had come. Darcy
-lay on the mat going through the loathed body-and-limb-lifting while Andy
-Dunne exhorted her to speed up. “Now the legs. Come on. Hup!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Something in Darcy went on strike.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Can't,” she said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grmph! What's matter?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Won't!” said Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-From the corner of a hot and rebellious eye she could see overspreading
-her trainer's face that familiar expression of contemptuous and weary
-patience. Anything else she could have stood. But that—that was the
-spark that fired the powder. Stooping over, the trainer laid hold, none
-too gently, on one inert heel.
-</p>
-<p>
-Heaven and earth reversed themselves for Mr. Andy Dunne. Also day and
-night, for a galaxy of stars appeared and circulated before his mazed
-eyes. The walls and the ceiling joined in the whirl, to which an end was
-set by the impact of the floor against the back of his head. For one
-brief, sweet, romantic moment Andy Dunne was back in the training-ring
-with the Big Feller and that venerated and mulish right had landed one on
-his jaw. But why, oh, why, should the mighty John L. thereupon burst into
-hysterical sobbing? And if it wasn't the Big Feller, who was it making
-those grievous noises?
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Dunne sat up, viewed a huddled, girlish form trying unsuccessfully to
-burrow headforemost out of sight in the hard mat, and came to a
-realization of the awful fact. With all the force of her newly acquired
-leg muscles, the meek Miss Cole had landed a galvanic kick on his
-unprotected chin. For a moment he stared in stupefaction. Then he arose
-and went quietly forth into his own place, where he sat on a chair and
-rubbed his chin and thought, and presently began to chuckle, and kept it
-up until the chuckle grew into a laugh which shook his tough frame more
-violently than had the unexpected assault.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, I <i>am</i> d——d!” said Mr. Dunne. “The little
-son-of-a-gun!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Meanwhile Darcy lay curled up like a quaking armadillo. Probably Andy
-Dunne would kill her. She didn't much care. Life wasn't worth living,
-anyhow. She was through. The one pleasant impression of her whole
-disastrous gymnasium experience was the impact of her heel against that
-contemptuous chin.
-</p>
-<p>
-She opened one eye. Andy Dunne was not where he should have landed as the
-result of the revolution which he had been performing when he whirled from
-her view. She opened the other eye. Andy Dunne was not anywhere. He had
-vanished into nothingness.
-</p>
-<p>
-With all the sensation of a criminal, Darcy rose, dressed, and fled. She
-fled straight to Gloria Greene. That industrious person was, as usual, at
-work, and as usual found time to hear Darcy's troubles. What she heard was
-gaspy and fragmentary.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Gloria, I've done an <i>awful</i> thing!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What? Out with it,” commanded the actress.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I ki-ki-ki—I can't tell you,” gulped Darcy. “Mr. Dunne—I
-mean, I ki-ki-ki—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes,” encouraged Gloria. “What awful thing have you done to Andy Dunne?
-Kissed him?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>No!</i> Worse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh! You ki-ki-killed him, I suppose,” twinkled Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I don't know. I hope so. I ki-ki-kicked him. I kicked him <i>good!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy! Where?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“On the chin.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What did he do?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Disappeared.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do I understand that you kicked him into microscopical pieces?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't laugh at me, Gloria. It's very, very serious.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It sounds so.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm done with it. Forever.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Done with what?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The gymnasium. The diet. Andy Dunne. Everything.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, no, you're not.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I am! I <i>am!</i> I yam!” declared Darcy with progressive petulance.
-“I've been torturing myself for nothing. It hasn't made a bit of
-difference. Look at me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria looked and with difficulty concealed a smile of satisfaction. For,
-to her expert eyes, there was a difference, a marked difference, still
-submerged but obvious, beneath the surface, in movements which, formerly
-sluggish, were now brisk and supple, in a clear eye, and a skin which
-seemed to fit on the flesh where before it had sagged.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How did you get up here?” inquired Gloria abruptly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ran.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Up the whole four flights? The elevator is working.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“D——n the elevator!” said the outrageous
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A few weeks ago you were damning it because it wouldn't carry up your
-lazy body. Isn't there a difference now?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't care; it isn't the difference I want. I want to look like
-something. Gloria, I'm desperate.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, child. That isn't despair. It's temper.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's not.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Go back to Andy's and work it off.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I wont!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Very well.” With a sigh for her interrupted task, Gloria selected a hat,
-set it carefully upon her splendid hair and pinned it in place. “You'll
-excuse me, won't you, my dear?” she added in tones which aroused her
-visitor's alarmed suspicions.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where are you going? To see Mr. Dunne?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy's misgivings livened into something like terror.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To see Maud and Helen.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What for?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To recount to them the authentic and interesting history of Sir Montrose
-Veyze, Bart., hand-picked fiancé, of—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria! You wouldn't be so <i>base!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I would be just that base,” returned the other in the measured tones of
-judgment. “But I'll give you a respite until your next training day. When
-is it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Day after to-morrow,” answered Darcy faintly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If you aren't at Andy's then to answer to the call of time, I'll tell the
-whole thing to the two fiancées with whatever extra details my imagination
-can provide.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Whereupon Darcy burst into tumultuous weeping, declared that she hadn't a
-friend in the world, and didn't care, anyway, because she wished she was
-dead, and went forth of that unsympathetic spot with the air and
-expression of one spurning earth's vanities and deceptions forever. Being
-wise in her generation and kind, Gloria knew that the girl would go back
-to her martyrdom. So she called up Andy Dunne for a conference, which
-concluded with this sage advice from her to him:
-</p>
-<p>
-“This is the appointed time, Andy. When she comes back, put the screws on
-hard. She'll go through. If she doesn't, let me know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-No scapegrace of school, led back from truancy after some especially
-nefarious project, ever wore a face of more tremulous abasement than Miss
-Darcy Cole, returning to her faithful trainer whom she had kicked in the
-jaw. As he entered the gymnasium a strip of court-plaster on the curve of
-his chin caught her fascinated attention and for the moment evicted from
-her mind the careful apology which she had formulated. Before she could
-recapture it, the opportunity was gone. “Time!” barked Mr. Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-The day's work was on.
-</p>
-<p>
-Such an ordeal as Darcy underwent in consequence of Gloria's advice, few
-of Mr. Dunne's pupils other than professional athletes would have been
-called upon to endure, a fact which might have helped her had she known
-it. Not knowing it, she won through that violent hour on sheer grit. At
-the trainer's final “Nuff,” she contrived to smile, but she couldn't quite
-manage to walk off the floor. She sat down upon a convenient medicine-ball
-and waited for the dimness to clear. A hand fell on her shoulder and
-rested there with an indefinable pressure of fellowship. She looked up to
-see the taskmaster standing above her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Say, kid,” he began. “Yah are a kid, ainche?” he broke off, a little
-doubtfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm going—on—twenty-two,” panted Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yeh, I'd figure yah about there—now. Well, I'm an old man; old
-enough for the father stuff. And I wanta tell yah something. I like yah.
-D' yah know why I like yah?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy, with brightening eye, shook her head.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Because yah'r game,” said Mr. Andy Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-A voice within Darcy's heart burst into song. For the first time in her
-life she had been praised to the limit of a fellow being's measure. For
-gameness, as she well knew, was the ultimate virtue to the athlete mind.
-The Big Feller had been game, even in his downfall; it was that, over and
-above all his victories, which had enshrined him in Andy Dunne's and
-thousands of other stout and inexpressive hearts.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her trainer had paid her his finest compliment.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah'r game,” he repeated. “I dunno exactly what yah'r out after, but I'm
-backin' yah to get it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Thank you, Mr. Dunne,” said Darcy gratefully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grmph!” retorted that gentleman. “Cut the Mister. Andy, to you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Thank you, Andy,” said the recipient of the accolade.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER VII
-</h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“<i>Rum</i>-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle!”
- </pre>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE voice sounded, fresh and brisk from behind the portals of the
-Fifty-Sixth Street eyrie. It was followed by a rapid succession of
-floppish noises which fell strangely upon the ears of Miss Maud Raines and
-Miss Helen Barrett, panting after their long ascent, outside the door.
-They had returned from a shopping tour at the unaccustomed hour of three
-when Darcy usually could rely upon having the place to herself.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Isn't Darcy the gay young sprite!” said Helen as the song burst forth
-again.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Flip-flop, flippity-floppity-flub” sounded in progression across the
-living-room floor.
-</p>
-<p>
-The two fiancées looked at each other in bewilderment.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What on earth!” said Maud Raines.
-</p>
-<p>
-Again the voice was uplifted, in familiar melody, gemmed with words less
-familiar:
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Ru m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle,
-I have rolled ten pounds from off my middle.
-By rolling on the floor, (Flip! Flop!)
-As I told you before,
-Behind!
-Behind!
-Before!” (Floppity-flop!)
-</pre>
-<p>
-“I do believe she's <i>doing</i> it,” whispered Helen in awed accents.
-</p>
-<p>
-The voice, with its strange accompaniments, resumed:
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Ru m-tu m-tu m-tum-tu m-tu m-tiddle,
-I'll roll twenty pounds from off my middle.
-I have done it before. (Floppity-flop! Thump!)
-I can do it some more!” (Whoof!)
-</pre>
-<p>
-By this time Maud's key, silently inserted in the spring lock, had made
-connections. She threw the door open. Darcy, giving an imitation of a
-steam roller in full career toward the two entrants, was startled into a
-cry. She came to her feet with a bound, without pausing to touch so much
-as a finger to the floor, a detail which escaped the protruding eyes of
-her flatmates, and stood facing them flushed and defiant.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well!” said Maud Raines.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What are you up to, Darcy?” asked Helen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Exercising,” said Darcy blandly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And practicing vocal music on the side,” remarked Maud.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, that's just for breathing,” exclaimed the girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But what's it all <i>about?</i>” queried Helen. “I've gone into
-training.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You! What for?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I don't know. Just for fun.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You look it,” was Maud's grim commentary. “Who's training you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Andy Dunne. He trained John L. Sullivan and Gloria Greene.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And which one are you modeling yourself on?” asked Maud maliciously.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I'd rather be like Gloria, of course,” retorted Darcy easily. “But I
-feel more like John L.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I think it very clever of you, Darcy,” approved the kind-hearted Helen.
-“Englishmen are so athletic.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy seized upon the convenient suggestion. “Monty is crazy for me to be
-a real sport,” she said modestly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's a good thing he can't see you learning,” remarked Maud.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did you ever know anything more pathetic!” said Helen, when they had
-withdrawn, leaving Darcy to resume her exercises.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pathetic! Driveling foolishness! Such a figure as she cuts! And it's all
-such a waste,” concluded Maud, complacent in her own bright-hued
-prettiness.
-</p>
-<p>
-But a more discerning eye took a different view. Holcomb Lee, who hadn't
-seen Darcy for some weeks, had no sooner said, “Hello!” in his usual
-offhand way, when he came to call that evening, than he seized a pencil
-and demanded a sheet of paper.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're always drawing Darcy!” said Maud disdainfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Just that curve from the ear down,” said he absently. “Something's
-happened to it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What?” asked Maud.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's come true. The way I wanted it to be. Only better.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He took Darcy into the corner, under the light, and sketched busily. As
-his quick glances appraised her, a look of puzzlement came into his eyes.
-He leaned forward, and with the inoffensive impersonality of the
-one-ideaed artist ran his hand lightly over her shoulder and down the arm.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Moses!” said Holcomb Lee.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy had flexed her upper arm and the long, slender muscles came up like
-iron.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Training?” he asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy nodded.
-</p>
-<p>
-Again he regarded her subtly altered face. “What for? The chorus?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Haven't I been chorus long enough?” twinkled Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I get you,” said Lee with emphasis. “You'll make the <i>ingénue</i>
-hustle for her job, whoever she is. By Jinks, it's a miracle!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But don't tell them,” said Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who? The girls? Haven't they noticed? Why, a blind man could feel the
-difference in you ten feet away.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You're the only one that has noticed it so far, and you're an artist.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, I suppose the girls wouldn't,” said the illustrator thoughtfully.
-“They see too much of you to recognize the change.”
- </p>
-<p>
-What Andy Dunne's exercises had so obviously wrought in muscle and
-condition, Andy Dunne's discipline had accomplished for character.
-Imperceptibly even to herself, the inner Darcy was growing strong. One
-result was a new zest in her designing, taking the form of experiments
-aside from the beaten track which did not always meet the approval of B.
-Riegel, active head of B. Riegel & Sons, manufacturers of wall-paper.
-Now Mr. Riegel's approval, with the consequent check, was highly essential
-to Miss Darcy Cole's plans. And Miss Darcy Cole's attitude toward Mr.
-Riegel had always been acquiescent, not to say humble.
-</p>
-<p>
-But on a particular morning, when the designer was even more alive than
-she was now accustomed to feel, she brought in a particular design, upon
-which she had spent much time and thought, and with which she was well
-content. Not so Mr. Riegel. Being first, last, and between times a man of
-business, he hardly gave a glance to the dowdy girl as she entered, but
-bestowed his entire attention on the sketch. “Too blank,” was his verdict.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That makes it restful,” suggested Darcy. “Who wants restfulness? Pep!
-That's what goes these days.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's for a sleeping-room, you know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-For all the effect upon the wall-paper man she might as well not have
-spoken. He set two pencil cross-marks on the design.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ornamentation here, and here,” he directed curtly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I prefer it as it is,” said Darcy calmly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Two months—yes, two weeks before—Darcy would have stepped
-meekly out and ruined her pattern by introducing the Riegel ornamentation.
-But all was different now. Andy Dunne's encomium, “because yah'r game,”
- had put fire in her blood. There was a reflection of it in her cheeks when
-Mr. Riegel looked up at her in surprise and annoyance. He saw the same
-familiar figure in the same shabby, ill-fitting clothes. But now she was
-standing up inside them. And she, whose dull regard formerly drooped away
-from the most casual encounter, was confronting him with bright and level
-eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Suppose you give my way a trial,” suggested this changeling.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Mebbe you know more about this business than I do,” he challenged.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not at all. But it's my design, after all, isn't it?” said the girl
-pleasantly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gathering it up with hands which somehow suggested protectiveness against
-the Philistine blight of Mr. Riegel, she bestowed it safe in her
-imitation-leather roll. “I'll try to bring you another next week,” she
-promised.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wait, now, a minute!” cried the perplexed employer. “What're you going to
-do with this one?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Try it on Balke & Stover.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Leave it,” he ordered. “Check'll be sent.” He whirled around in his
-chair, presenting the broad hint of a busy back to her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Make it for thirty dollars, please,” said Darcy to the back.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Riegel performed a reverse whirl so much more swiftly than his
-swivel-chair was prepared for that it was thrown off its balance, and its
-occupant, with a smothered yelp, beheld himself orbitally projected toward
-a line of open sample paints waiting on the floor for a test. Mr. Riegel's
-own person was the last medium in the world upon which he desired to test
-them, for much stress had been laid upon their lasting quality. He was
-sprawling out, fairly above them, beyond human help, it seemed, when
-something happened. Darcy, standing in that attitude of unconscious but
-alert poise which rigid physical training inculcates, thrust forth a
-slender but powerful hand, caught the despairing Riegel, as it were in
-mid-flight, brought him up all standing, restored him to the chair and
-both of them to the <i>status quo</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Urf!” gasped the victim of these maneuvers. He bent a look upon Darcy
-which was a curious blend of wonder, skepticism, and respect. “Say,” he
-said, “you couldn't use a job in the trucking department, maybe?” Then,
-recovering himself, he growled: “What was that you said about thirty
-dollars?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The growl had no effect. Darcy's confidence had been stiffened by the
-little interlude of the chair.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My prices have gone up,” she informed him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The devil they have! Beg y' pardon, Miss Watchemame—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My name is Cole.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Miss Cole. Look-a-here, now; d' you think your work is worth ten dollars
-more than it has been?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Put it this way; I think you've been paying me ten dollars too little.
-Don't you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-At bottom Mr. Riegel was a fair-minded as well as a shrewd person.
-Moreover, he had been tremendously impressed by the unsuspected physical
-prowess of this queer specimen. To catch him in mid-flight and reëstablish
-his equilibrium had required no mean quality of muscle. Yet this
-sloppy-looking girl had done it without turning a hair! And now she was
-striking him for a raise. He laughed aloud.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That ain't the point,” said he. “I don't; but some of my competitors
-might. Lessay twenty-five for the next half-dozen: after that, thirty, and
-this one goes, as is.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Right!” said Darcy, composedly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Exultant she went out into a dusk of wind and rain, such as would have
-swamped her spirit in misery aforetime, and fought her way joyously
-through it, ending her journey by taking the long flights of the apartment
-two steps at a time and singing as she sped. Outside the door she had
-noticed a taxi. In the front room she found Gloria, who had stopped on her
-way to the theater, stretched on the divan and talking with the
-turtledoves.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I looked in to see how you were getting on,” said the actress, eyeing
-Darcy keenly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Splendidly!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Everything all right in the gymnasium? Did Andy—er—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, yes. It's all right,” hastily broke in the girl, having no mind to
-hear her felonies discussed by her flat-mates. “Just as right as right can
-be.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You're awfully chirpy, considering what a beast of a raw, rainy day it's
-been,” observed Helen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is it bad?” said Darcy blandly. “I suppose it is, but I hardly noticed.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Another British mail in, I suppose,” conjectured Maud. “That always
-brightens her up.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If there is I haven't got anything yet,” answered Darcy, who had
-neglected to consult the morning papers for the incoming steamship
-entries. Her myth involved so many supporting lies, that it was difficult
-and ticklish to keep it properly bolstered up.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Has she told you about the Britisher, Gloria?” asked Helen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Monty Veyze? Of course. I know him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You know him!” cried Helen and Maud in a breath. “What's he like?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, he's all that Darcy thinks he is,” smiled Gloria. “It's years since
-I've seen him. To put it Englishwise, he was by way of being horribly
-smart, then. Just where is he now, Darcy?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Near the Siberian frontier,” said Darcy shortly. There was a gleam in
-Gloria's eye which she neither understood nor liked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“In one of the twenty-two sub-wars that signalize the universal peace, I
-suppose,” laughed the actress. “Or is it twenty-nine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I thought long engagements weren't the thing in England,” said Maud,
-musingly. “Particularly in these uncertain times when—when anything
-might happen.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I think that's pretty horrid of you, Maud,” retorted Darcy with carefully
-assumed sadness, smothering a private and murderous wish that “anything”
- would happen to her home-made fiancé.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I don't mean it that way. But if I were really engaged to an Englishman
-on active service, I'd go over and marry him, on his very first leave.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Casual though Maud's “really” sounded, it brought red to Darcy's cheeks
-and a livelier gleam to Gloria's eyes. The latter turned to Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why not tell them?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tell them what?” inquired the girl, staring at her mentor in amaze and
-alarm.
-</p>
-<p>
-“All about Monty. The whole thing. You know, I claim a partnership in
-him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-By a mighty effort Darcy suppressed a gasp. What was Gloria up to, now?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Go on,” the actress urged. “Tell them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I-I can't,” stammered Darcy, which was exactly what the feminine
-Macchiavelli on the divan was maneuvering for.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Shy?” said she, sweetly. “Very well, then. I'll tell them. May I?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Receiving a dubious nod, Gloria proceeded:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Sir Montrose Veyze has finally got his leave. He'll be here about the
-middle of October.” (That “gone” feeling came over Darcy.)
-</p>
-<p>
-“By the 15th?” asked Helen eagerly. “In time for our wedding?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. That's the unfortunate part. We hoped we could make it a triple
-wedding. That's the little surprise Darcy has been waiting to spring on
-you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Can't he make it?” asked Maud. The notion of a titled adjunct to her
-marriage appealed strongly to her practical mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not quite. The best he can do is the 16th. Possibly later. So they'll be
-married quite quietly from my apartment and have a month's honeymoon
-before he goes back.”
- </p>
-<p>
-To all of which Darcy listened in the stupefaction of despair. She was
-roused by Helen Barrett's bear-hug of congratulations.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do you know,” said Helen, “I haven't really quite been able to believe it
-up to now. Oh, Darcy, I'm so glad for you!”
- </p>
-<p>
-With some faltered excuse for getting out of the room, the subject of this
-untimely felicitation escaped. Her brain seethed with horrid conjectures.
-Here was a furtherance of her phantom plans for which she was wholly
-unprepared. Doubtless Gloria had something in mind; but what could it be?
-When the day of inevitable reckoning should come, Darcy could see no
-adequate solution other than suicide or permanent disappearance. Meanwhile
-Gloria was putting her to the test of the severest judgment by asking her
-flat-mates:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't you think Darcy looks well?”
- </p>
-<p>
-If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so likewise is the lack of it.
-Having become habituated to regarding their junior partner as
-aesthetically and femininely negligible, the other girls failed to
-appreciate the vital changes that were in progress. Miracles, set under
-our eyes, do not arrest us. Otherwise we should all stand about in
-stupefaction watching trees grow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“She looks healthy,” granted Maud indifferently.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And she's a lot more cheerful and lively,” added Helen. “But she'll
-always be—well, just Darcy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Being a scrupulously courteous person Miss Gloria Greene refrained from
-the prophetic comparison which suggested itself to her annoyed mind as
-appropriate, and contented herself with the inward retort:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, will she! Wait until I've dressed her. And then keep a watchful eye
-on your Holcomb Lees and your Paul Woods!”
- </p>
-<p>
-On her way out Darcy pounced upon her. “Gloria! What have you let me in
-for? How am I ever going to get out of it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Heaven knows!” returned the actress airily. “Don't __you know?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Haven't an idea. Sufficient unto the day is—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Unto all the rest of my days, I should think,” interrupted the dolorous
-Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Engagements have to come to a head sometime, somehow,” pointed out
-Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But you've made this so dreadfully definite!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy, I had to! I just couldn't stand Maud's insinuation that you
-weren't really engaged—the cat! She as much as said that Montrose
-Veyze was just having a silly flirtation with you and that you took it <i>au
-grand sérieux</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What if she knew the awful truth?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't be afraid. She won't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How are we going to help it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Break the engagement; there's one way. Say the word, Darcy, my child,”
- said Gloria striking a sacrificial attitude, “and I'll go across and
-gather in Monty Veyze, myself, for your sake.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Isn't there an obstacle on this side of the water?” suggested Darcy
-shyly, thinking of Jack Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria reddened a little. “Not that any one knows of,” she returned.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Anyway, if the engagement is broken, they'll say he jilted me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then jilt him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They'd never believe it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Probably not,” assented Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And October is <i>awfully</i> near! I'll never dare show my face again,”
- wailed Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I don't know,” returned the other reassuringly. “If it were your old
-face, now, you might be justified in not wanting to show it. Faces change,
-and we change with'em, as the prophet says.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It wasn't the prophet, and he didn't say that, anyway. He said, 'Times
-change, and—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“—and faces change with'em, worse luck!” supplied the actress
-cheerfully. “Though all of'em don't change for the worse. Darcy, how much
-do you weigh?” she demanded with an abrupt change of tone to the
-business-like.
-</p>
-<p>
-“One hundred and twenty-eight and a half, as I go on the gym floor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's good enough. 'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of
-many things; of shoes, and shirts, and chemisettes, of hats and eke <i>stockings.</i>'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Clothes!” cried Darcy, her eyes sparkling. “Clothes. Are you prepared, in
-the sight of heaven and earth, to spend seven or eight hundred of Aunt
-Sarah's hard-earned on a trousseau?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oof! Don't say trousseau to me! It reminds me. Apart from that—try
-me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“All right. What are you going to do tomorrow at three?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cover Central Park lengthwise and back in the even hour. Andy's orders.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Far be it from me to interfere. Make it the day after at ten o'clock in
-the morning. Meet me at my place. We'll have a sartorial orgy.” That night
-Darcy dreamed herself a princess.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER VIII
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>ELFISHNESS,” says that wise and happy and altogether radiant person,
-Gloria Greene, “comes from lack of vitality. Most people haven't enough
-capital stock of vigor to live on comfortably. So you can't expect them to
-loan or give away any in the form of thoughtfulness for any one else.
-They're paupers, poor things! The bankruptest person I ever knew had
-eighty thousand a year, and nothing else.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Adroitly and by indirection the proponent of this doctrine had been
-suggesting it to Darcy Cole, and that adaptable pupil had unconsciously
-absorbed much of it. The new character that she had built up out of
-discipline and abstinence as the weeks grew into months, the solidifying
-confidence in herself, the burgeoning of vigor, and the subtle development
-of that wondrous and mysterious quality which we term personality and
-which is the touchstone between our inner and outer worlds, had combined
-to open and broaden Darcy's life. Andy Dunne had long ago begun to take
-certain of his professional problems to her and profit by her shrewd
-helpfulness. More than once she had, of her own initiative, laid hold on
-some shrinking, draggled, disheartened neophyte, such as she herself had
-been, who through mere helplessness had reduced Andy to wrathful despair,
-and, by a forced loan of will power and buoyancy, pulled her through the
-shallows to fair going again. On one occasion she had gone to police court
-with Andy on behalf of a girl who was “going wrong,” the sister of one
-Gillig, a promising young pugilist under Andy's guidance; where she had so
-impressed the magistrate that (seeing her with Andy, whom he knew) he
-asked if she was a trainer, and hinted that he would be glad of her help
-on some of the border-line cases which reach our lower courts in a status
-of suspended balance, and are either hauled back to safety or plunged into
-the chasm of the underworld, according as they are handled with or without
-tact and sympathy. After that visit, Darcy took to dropping in at the
-court twice a week or so to act as unofficial counselor where the judge
-mistrusted the mechanical rigidity of official intervention. It gave her a
-fresh zest in life to find herself of some practical use to others. As to
-the extra work, she took that upon her supple shoulders without a quiver.
-Body and soul, Darcy had grown as fresh and vigorous as ripening fruit and
-as sturdy as the tree that bears it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Satisfying as was the compliment paid her by the magistrate, she had a
-better one from Andy not long after. At the conclusion of one of their
-five-minute boxing bouts, in the course of which she had landed once with
-force and precision below the professional's properly cauliflowered ear,
-he said to her, with a somewhat hesitant air:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Say, Miss Darcy; are yah rich?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I certainly am not.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But—excuse <i>me</i> if I'm too nosey—yah got money, ain't
-yah?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Only what I earn.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Earn? D' yah work?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of course. I'm the original Honest Working Girl you read about, Andy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Pretty good job?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fairly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yah wouldn't wanta quit it, I guess,” surmised the trainer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For what?” asked the Wondering Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yah see,” explained Andy, nonchalantly juggling a medicine-ball the
-while, “since the tight skirt come in I'm getting a lot of ladies to train
-down to their skirts. More'n I can really handle right. Now, I kinda
-thought if you'd come in as assistant—well, yah can name yahr own
-terms, Miss Darcy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl looked at him with bright and affectionate eyes. “Andy, you're a
-dear. That's the nicest thing that ever happened to me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It ain't a proposition I'd make to everybody, I can tell yah,” averred
-the professional. “In fact, I dunno as there's any one else I'd make it to
-but you. Except Miss Greene,” he added loyally.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm awfully sorry, Andy. But I couldn't very well drop my other work.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No?” sighed Andy. “Well, I s'pose not. Well,” he added, palliating the
-blow to his hopes, “yah'll be gettin' married one of these days, and then
-it'd be all off, anyhow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Married!” laughed his pupil. “Who'd marry a plain little stick like me in
-a city full of pretty girls?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Go-wan!” retorted the other. Regarding her candid face, he perceived that
-this was no bluff. “Go-wan!” he repeated fervidly. “Get onto yahrself.
-Ain't yah got a <i>mirrah</i> in the house?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, that's just because you like me, Andy,” she returned.
-</p>
-<p>
-Nevertheless she thrilled to the rough compliment. Holcomb Lee, with his
-artistic sense, and now this expert of flesh and blood! Was her dream
-really coming true already?
-</p>
-<p>
-That very afternoon it was shattered.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Fifth Avenue bus went sliding, slewing, and curving along the wet
-pavement. Within sat a moist and bedraggled but cheerful Darcy, returning
-from a highly encouraging consultation with Mr. B. Riegel and the head of
-his color-room called in to meet the firm's most promising contributor of
-designs. Another advance in her rates had been foreshadowed; so what did
-Darcy care, though forgotten umbrella and overshoes had exposed her to a
-violent shower, now clearing? Her Central Park jaunts had hardened her to
-a point where she disregarded weather with contemptuous indifference. So
-now, instead of being huddled in her seat, contemplative of her own
-discomfort, she sat alert and interestedly watchful of the outside world
-that went sliding past her window. At the corner of Fifteenth Street the
-bus skidded to a stop at the signal of a frail, poorly dressed young woman
-who staggered out from the curb, lugging a large suitcase in both hands.
-She tried to lift it to the step and failed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Now, it was nobody's business how the chance fare got on the bus, or,
-indeed, whether she got on at all or was left standing on the asphalt,
-except the conductor's and he was busy upstairs. Certainly it was no
-affair of Darcy's; and the old Darcy would have taken that view in the
-improbable event of her having noticed the overweighted woman at all. The
-new Darcy was up instinctively and out like a flash. She grabbed the case
-and got a surprise. It weighed at least sixty pounds. Darcy had the basis
-for a fairly accurate estimate, as she had been recently occupying herself
-with a sixty-pound dumb-bell. Thanks to a persuasive quality of muscle
-which this exercise had imparted to her, she whisked the ponderous thing
-to the platform, and bore it victoriously inside. The woman followed,
-panting out her gratitude. As Darcy was setting her burden down, the bus
-gave an unexpected lurch and one end of the case landed upon a slightly
-projecting shoe. The owner of the shoe gave utterance to a startled and
-pained interjection.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I'm so sorry!” apologized Darcy, shifting the offending bag.
-</p>
-<p>
-The injured one turned upon her a smile as unruffled and good-humored as
-if his main enjoyment in life was having heavy things dropped on his feet.
-But there was no recognition in the smile nor in the brief glance which
-accompanied it. Yet the smiler was Mr. Jacob Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Entirely my fault,” said he. “Teach me to keep my feet out of the aisle.”
- Darcy murmured something muffled and incoherent.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let me stow that for you,” offered Remsen, and, finding a spot for it
-beneath the steps, deposited it there, bowed in response to the thanks of
-the two women, and resumed his seat. The newcomer slipped in beside Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You work, don't you?” asked she, timidly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes. What makes you think so?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Because you're so kind. And you're awful strong.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That suitcase is much too heavy for you. You'll injure yourself with it,”
- said Darcy, who was no larger than the other, severely.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Metal advertising cuts,” explained the other. “I only have to carry it
-twice a week.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where to?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Thirtieth over beyond Third Av'nyeh.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But that's a terribly long way to carry that weight.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The woman sighed. “Yes, I know. It's nearer by the Fourth Av'nyeh line,
-but I go this way because the bus conductors are so decent about helpin'
-you on and off,” said she, paying a merited compliment to the most
-courteous and serviceable of New York's transportation employees. “It's
-worth the extra nickel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll get off with you and give you a lift.” Different arrangements,
-however, were in process. Nearing the corner of the prospective
-debarkation Mr. Jacob Remsen arose, walked to the door, and vigorously
-yanked the corpulent valise from its nook.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I beg your pardon,” said he, dividing his impersonal and courteous regard
-between the two occupants of the seat, “but I overheard your conversation.
-It just happens that I'm bound for Third Avenue, myself. So, if you will
-permit me—”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy's companion, abashed by the elegance of this obvious “swell,”
- wriggled and fluttered and protested. Mr. Remsen paid no heed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here we are,” he announced cheerily, stepping to the pavement. “Watch
-your step.” Thus overruled, the woman followed. The assumer of burdens not
-his own attained the sidewalk and all but dislocated his neck by the jerk
-with which he turned it, as a voice from the departing bus said clearly,
-and, as he thought, a shade maliciously:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Thank you, Mr. Remsen.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The malice was there. It was a reflex of Miss Darcy Cole's resentment in
-that, apart from any question of recognition, Mr. Jacob Remsen had failed
-to see, in one casual glance at her face, anything which impelled him to
-bestow a second glance. Genuine though they had been, the testimonials of
-Messrs. Andy Dunne and Holcomb Lee were thereby attainted and brought to
-naught.
-</p>
-<p>
-No one, to hear Miss Cole's lightsome subsequent report of the occurrence
-for the benefit of Gloria Greene, would have dreamed that it had left a
-sting.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now, what,” concluded the narrator of the episode, “do you suppose the
-magnificent Mr. Remsen was doing in a scrubby Third Avenue locality?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Precisely what you were going to do,” opined Gloria. “Helping some one
-who needed his help.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You mean that that combination of Adonis and Ananias had no real business
-of his own there at all?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I can't conceive what it would be.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy opened wide and luminous eyes. “Then it was just to be a good
-fellow?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Probably. You wouldn't think it of Jack Remsen, would you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know that I wouldn't. Why not?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, he gives the impression to those who don't know him of being so
-particular about himself and so indifferent about all the rest of the
-world that isn't a Remsen,” said Gloria.
-</p>
-<p>
-“D'you think so?” queried Darcy carelessly. “That wasn't the impression he
-gave me when I first met him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What was your reading of his character, oh, wise and profound student of
-human nature?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If you laugh at me I won't tell you,” retorted Darcy, and, as Gloria was
-openly laughing at her, proceeded to do it in the following inventory:
-</p>
-<p>
-“I thought that if I was a very old, plain woman with a lot of bundles, or
-a sick cat, or a man in an awful mess, I'd look to him first in any
-crowd.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Jack would like that,” commented Gloria, with her sunlit smile.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But not if I were a plain, little, unnoticeable girl”
- </p>
-<p>
-Gloria twinkled. “An afterthought,” she declared. “Meaning yourself?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Meaning myself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Liar.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, aren't I that kind of a girl? And if I aren't, why didn't he recall
-me, or even look at me twice?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Perhaps he's engrossed in his own troubles.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Didn't look as if he had a trouble in the world.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No; Jack wouldn't if he were to be shot at sunrise.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is he?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not that I know of. But he's going to be exiled or forced into hiding or
-something evasive and lonely. Some boresome family row that threatens to
-burst into a lawsuit, and when it does, Jack has to take cover and keep it
-until it's over, so as not to be called as a witness. So you needn't feel
-insulted simply because he is brooding on his own affairs to the neglect—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm not feeling insulted,” denied the girl vigorously. “It's nothing to
-me whether people remember me or not.” Suddenly her face sparkled and her
-mobile lips quivered delicately with suppressed glee. “Oh, but I <i>have</i>
-been insulted. I've saved it up to tell you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Business of listening eagerly,” said the actress. “Who did it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Naturally. Hence the dimple.” She pointed an accusing finger at Darcy's
-cheek. “Where?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mouseley's restaurant, on the Circle.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gracious, child! You <i>are</i> peeking around the comers of life. Don't
-you know the Mouse-Trap isn't respectable?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I do now. I didn't then. Tea was all I wanted. The tea was respectable
-enough. It was very good tea.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never mind the tea. Tell me the rest.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He—the man—came over to my table. He wasn't a bad-looking man
-at all; so freshcolored and pinky-brown, and dressed like the back page of
-a magazine. And he called me”—Darcy chuckled most reprehensibly at
-this point—“he called me Miss Glad-Eyes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Did you shoo him away?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I told him he'd made a mistake, and he said he'd like to make one like it
-every day in the week and pulled out a chair and sat down. It was awfully
-funny.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It sounds so. What did you do then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know what I'd have done, but I didn't have to do anything.
-Another man came up—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Two!” murmured Gloria. “Shades of Circe! Well?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“This one had a funny ear and short hair and he said, 'You don't know me,
-miss. But I seen you workin'-out at Andy's. My name's Gillig. You done a
-good turn for my kid sister once and I ain't forgot it.' So I said, 'How
-do you do, Mr. Gillig. I can't introduce you to this other gentleman
-because he helped himself to this chair without mentioning his name.'
-'That kind does,' Mr. Gillig said. 'He'd better take a run.' My
-pinky-brown caller didn't seem to take to the suggestion. 'Maybe so; maybe
-not,' he said. 'I belong to the Bouncers' Union, myself.' Then Mr. Gillig
-looked at him hard and said, 'I'm Spike Gillig, the welter-weight. I don't
-practice me art for me health'—Yes, he did, Gloria; he spoke of it
-as his art!—'And I ain't strong for scrappin' out of business
-hours,' he said. 'But I ain't goin' to sit by and see any rough stuff
-pulled on this young lady.' 'Whad-dye mean, rough stuff?' said the other
-man, quite dignified and injured. 'Lemme tell you, I'm as much a gent as
-you are. And I ain't duckin' any muss, professional or amachure. My weight
-is a hundred-and-eighty, stripped, beggin' Miss Peach's pardon, and if you
-wanta know who I am, I'm Scrap Gilfillan, shortstop of the Marvels, comin'
-champions of the world. But if you say this lady is a friend of yours—'
-</p>
-<p>
-“For some reason, Gloria, that seemed to make Mr. Gillig awfully angry. He
-got purple clear to his ears, and growled, 'She ain't no friend of mine.
-See? This is a lady, this is.' 'I gotcha,' the shortstop man said. He
-turned to me. 'Am I in wrong, miss? Was you ever to this joint before?'
-'Never,' I told him. 'Apologies all round,' he said, quite handsomely.
-'And if no offense is taken where none's meant, would the two of you
-kindly have one little one with me just to prove it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lovely!” cried the entranced Gloria. “What did you do? This is important.
-Oh, this is most awfully important!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do?” rippled the girl. “I took sarsaparilla.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy Cole, formerly Amanda Darcy Cole,” said Gloria solemnly. “Come to
-my arms. I hereby declare you a full Fellow of the Institute of Life, free
-of its brotherhood, equipped to come and go in all its ways unafraid and
-unembarrassed by any complication. Blessed are those who are not too meek,
-for they shall take their own share of the earth without waiting forever
-to inherit it. Go forth and take yours. You'll like it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I love it! And I'm not afraid of it any more.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It'd better be afraid of you,” commented Gloria, regarding the vivid,
-youth-flushed creature before her. “Wait till I get you dressed up to your
-looks! Are you ready to gird on your armor for the campaign?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm dying with impatience!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“We'll have a taxi by the hour and go forth to wallow in clothing. Oh, my
-blessed young protégée, but you're going to make some trouble for this
-neglectful old world of ours before you wither, or I miss my guess.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I shan't,” returned the girl demurely, but with dancing eyes, “unless it
-calls me 'Poor Darcy.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER IX
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HILE life and the lust of lovely things remain to Darcy Cole, she will
-not forget the thrilling experience of that day and other shopping days to
-follow. When it was all over she possessed:
-</p>
-<p>
-<i>Item</i>: A dark-blue serge business suit, cut with a severity of line
-which on a less graciously girlish figure would have been grim, with a
-small, trim, expensive hat and the smartest of tan shoes and tan gloves.
-Clad in that Darcy suggested a demure and business-like bluebird.
-</p>
-<p>
-<i>Item</i>: A black-and-white small-checked suit with just a little more
-latitude of character to it, and, to go with this, black patent-leather
-shoes from the best shop in town, and a black sailor hat, with a flash of
-white feather in it. In that Darcy resembled a white-breasted chat, which
-is perhaps the very most correct and smartest bird that flies.
-</p>
-<p>
-<i>Item—several items, in fact</i>: Wonderful but unobvious
-garments, conjured by the magic touch of Gloria from the purchase of a
-whole bolt of white, filmy crêpe de chine and several bolts of baby-blue
-ribbon, together with well-chosen odds and ends of laces; no less
-wonderful, but much more visible négligées, with long, lustrous rhythmical
-lines, devised by the same Gloria from the bargain purchase of an odd lot
-of pink crêpe de chine; arrayed in which Darcy was able to give herself a
-very fair imitation of a complacent though pale flamingo.
-</p>
-<p>
-<i>Item</i>: An evening gown of shimmering silver and blue, carried out,
-in the curve of the daintiest of silk stockings, to the tip of fairy-gift
-silver slippers; and over it a blue velvet wrap lined and trimmed with an
-old chinchilla coat, which Sensible Auntie had given her several years
-before; wherein Darcy felt like some winged and shining thing come down
-from a moonlit cloud.
-</p>
-<p>
-That was the end of eight hundred of Aunt Sarah's, hard, round, beautiful
-dollars. But not of the wonderful trip to Clothes-Land. For, at the last,
-Gloria produced the most stunning of traveling coats, dark-blue cheviot,
-with a quaint little cape, the whole lined with silken gray—a gray
-with a touch of under-color to match the blue warmth behind the gray of
-Darcy's eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For your wedding present, my dear,” explained Gloria mischievously.
-</p>
-<p>
-And when the girl wept for sheer delight, her mentor abused her and called
-her “Amanda,” and threatened her with dreadful reprisals unless she at
-once dried her eyes so that account could be duly taken of her. Of that
-stock-taking Gloria, re-creatrix, made no report to the subject. But this
-is what her gratified eyes saw.
-</p>
-<p>
-A girl who held herself straight like an Indian and at ease like an
-animal. Where there had been sallow cheeks and an unwholesome flabbiness,
-the blood now shone in living pink through the lucent skin. The eyes were
-twice as large as when, the year before, Darcy had set out upon her
-determined beauty quest; but that was because the sagging lines beneath
-had disappeared and the eyes themselves, deep gray against clear white,
-were softly brilliant with health. Above the broad, smooth, candid
-forehead, the hair, so deep brown as to be almost black, played the happy
-truant in little waves and whorls as delicate and errant as blown smoke.
-The chin was set and firm—that was Andy Dunne's discipline of soul
-and body. Above it the mouth smiled as naturally and unconsciously as it
-had formerly drooped, and two little dimples had come to live in the
-comers. Beyond and above the sheer formative change in the girl, she was
-so pulsating, so palpitant with life that, even as she stood quiescent
-before Gloria's appraising eyes, she seemed to sway to some impalpable
-rhythm of the blood.
-</p>
-<p>
-Yet Gloria was not wholly content. Hers was a wisdom that went deep. The
-re-created Darcy was a notable triumph, to be sure; looking upon her
-handiwork, Gloria found it good, nor did she doubt that others would find
-it good. But what of Darcy's own bearing toward all these changes? Had she
-found herself? Until that question was settled in the affirmative, Gloria,
-re-creatrix, would not be satisfied.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Just the same I'd like to see Jack Remsen or any other man look at her as
-she is now once without looking twice,” Gloria challenged the masculine
-world on behalf of her candidate for troubles and honors in the Great Open
-Lists.
-</p>
-<p>
-Not men alone, but women as well, became addicted to that second look when
-Darcy passed their way in her new feathers. To her housemates the change,
-now forced upon their reluctant acceptance, was a matter of bewilderment
-if not of actual perturbation. Holcomb Lee, justified of his prophecies,
-exulted over the fact to such a point that Maud Raines felt it her womanly
-duty to fix a quarrel upon him. Undismayed, Holcomb took Darcy out to
-dinner. (“Never, never, never in the world would I have accepted, Gloria,”
- that dangerous young person assured her mentor, “if Maud Raines hadn't
-been so catty and sneery about Holcomb's drawing me.”) And Miss Raines
-hastily drowned her trumped-up grievance in a flood of alarmed tears. Even
-matter-of-fact Paul Wood, Helen's betrothed, was impressed to the point of
-admiring comment.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That chrysalis has hatched for fair,” said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hatched!” retorted Helen. “It didn't hatch. It exploded!”
- </p>
-<p>
-She and Maud wished to know, not without asperity, first why Darcy was
-getting her trousseau in advance of the season; next, why she was wearing
-it, item by item. Darcy was wearing the unaccustomed finery for a
-perfectly sound and feminine reason which she did not feel called upon to
-expound for the enlightenment of the two fiancées. She felt taller,
-straighter, and more independent in it. Moreover, she found it a business
-asset. Palpably affected by the richness and variety of her wardrobe, B.
-Riegel had proffered a guarantee basis of work which assured her future
-income. Thus the clothes bade fair to pay for themselves. But on alternate
-afternoons, Darcy, faithful to her training, garbed herself in rusty
-sweater, short skirt, and shapeless shoes, and did her stunt through
-Central Park. Her term at Andy's academy having expired, she had taken on
-a new schedule of two hours per week: that being all, her preceptor
-assured her, that was needed for the preservation of her fitness “to jump
-in the ring and put'em up with the Big Feller himself at the clang of the
-bell.” A slight exaggeration, but to Darcy, a grateful one.
-</p>
-<p>
-With ever-growing approval, Gloria saw the girl accomplish that
-distinctively feminine feat known as “settling into your clothes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My dear,” she remarked one day when the two had come in from a walk, “if
-Monty Veyze could see us together now, I wouldn't have a chance with him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy grabbed and hugged her. “You're talking nonsense, and you know it.
-No man in the world would look at me if you were in the same block.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wouldn't they!” retorted the actress ungrammatically. “I'd hate to put it
-to the test of a regular constituted jury.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'd have to bar Mr. Remsen from the jury box,” smiled Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Have you seen Jack again?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ran into him, plop, on Fifth Avenue yesterday.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Were you in your best bib-and-tucker?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The black-and-white check.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Did he look through you?” asked the actress.
-</p>
-<p>
-“N-not exactly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Did he look past you?” asked the actress, “N-o-o-o.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, did he look at you?” she persisted. “Yes. But he didn't know me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm sure he didn't,” chuckled Gloria. “Didn't you bow to him?” she added.
-“Next time you meet a nice young man like Jack Remsen, you march straight
-up to him and take him by the beard—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He hasn't got a beard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“—metaphorically speaking, and ask him if he isn't ashamed of
-himself for not remembering you. He will be. Oh, never fear he will be!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy pursed her red lips up to a funny little assumption of prudery.
-“He'd think me a forward young hussy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let him. You've been backward long enough.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I—I—I haven't really got used to—to the new feeling
-yet,” said the girl shyly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“To being pretty? Say it out. It's easy enough to get used to. Just feel
-as pretty as you look. Go on a perpetual parade until you learn the right
-kind of self-consciousness. Being a woman is an asset, not a liability in
-life. When you've absorbed that powerful truth, come to me and I'll impart
-some more wisdom.” She fell into thought. “Darcy,” she said portentously.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've got a grand and glorious idea for a grand and glorious feeling—like
-Mr. Briggs's.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't keep me waiting. I can't stand suspense.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm going to give a party for you, with the brides for side dishes, but
-principally to celebrate your graduation.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, joy!” cried Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-Joy proved to be a mild and inexpressive word for the party. So far as
-Miss Darcy Cole was concerned, it was a triumph. The two brides, each
-sufficiently attractive in her own type, simply paled away before their
-unconsidered flat-mate. Gloria didn't pale away. No rivalry could shadow
-her superb individuality. With her guest of honor she shared the laurels
-of a victorious evening. Stimulated to her best self by the realization of
-success, conscious of a buoyant body, perfectly clad, and a soaring
-spirit, Darcy unwittingly took and held the center of the stage, into
-which Gloria cunningly and unobtrusively maneuvered her. At the end of the
-long night of fun, Miss Cole sat enthroned. Miss Cole had sung like a
-lark. Miss Cole had danced like an elf. Miss Cole had laughed like a
-spirit of mirth. Miss Cole had fairly radiated a wholesome, keen,
-full-blooded, high-spirited gayety and happiness shot through with that
-indefinable glow of womanhood which is as mysterious and unmistakable as
-the firefly's light and perhaps as unconsciously purposeful.
-</p>
-<p>
-One thing only detracted from Gloria Greene's satisfaction in the triumph
-of her protégée. Jacob Remsen had not been a witness to it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Remsen was in retirement.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I do want you and Jack to like each other,” said Gloria to Darcy, in the
-inevitable talk-over which followed the grand triumphal party.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Of course,” returned the girl softly and warmly regarding her friend.
-“And of course I'm going to like him just as hard as ever I can, if he'll
-let me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“For your sake” was the implication of that warmth, which would have
-considerably astonished Gloria had she appreciated it. But how should she
-know the interpretation given by the girl to that casual kiss overseen in
-the studio? Gloria's mind was running in quite a different direction.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sequels to the party and to Darcy's success were promptly manifested in
-the form of sundry boxes and parcels bearing fashionable trade insignia
-which flowed in upon Bachelor-Girls' Hall. But not for Miss Raines or Miss
-Barrett. Out of her sumptuous surplus, Miss Cole was pleased to present a
-dozen American Beauty roses to Miss Raines and a five-pound box of
-“special” candies to Miss Barrett, explaining kindly that she could not
-possibly use them herself. That was the glory-crowned summit of a delicate
-revenge, long overdue. “Poor Darcy,” indeed!
-</p>
-<p>
-So Darcy came into her own. One year Gloria had given her. The year had
-not yet gone. But most of Aunt Sarah's gift had. Who cared? Not Darcy. She
-had won her heritage of womanhood. Where, a few brief months before—and
-she could laugh now at the pangs and hardships of those months which were
-so small a price to pay for the results!—she had looked a worn
-thirty years old and felt like a sapless leaf, she now looked a budding
-twenty and felt like a baby with a drum.
-</p>
-<p>
-Life was her drum.
-</p>
-<p>
-All its stirring rataplan, however, could not quite drown out the grim
-voice of reckoning, which spoke with the accent of Sir Montrose Veyze,
-Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER X
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>IVE times Mr. Thomas Harmon vainly rang the bell of the Remsen mansion.
-While engaged upon the sixth variation he became aware of a face in the
-window, scrutinizing him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“All right,” called the face.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Harmon was then admitted through a crack scarcely adequate to his
-well-set, muscular frame, to the presence of Mr. Jacob Remsen, who wore an
-expensive dressing-gown and an expression of unutterable boredom.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Laid up?” inquired Mr. Harmon, shaking hands.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Bottled up,” answered the young man gloomily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Can I help?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Possibly. Did you ever kill a subpoena-server?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not yet.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Care to try?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What does the thing look like?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cast your eyes toward the Avenue and you'll see one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hm! Not much to look at, is he?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A worse-looking one comes on at ten and stays all night.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I see,” said the visitor. “It's a blockade.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hard and fast.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Among Mr. Harmon's many endearing virtues is this: he never asks questions
-about other people's troubles. He now busied himself in thought.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haven't you any of your amateur theatrical duds here?” was the outcome of
-his cogitations.
-</p>
-<p>
-“All of'em.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why not dress a part and walk away <i>incognito?</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, certainly!” assented the other with bitterness. “Put on a suit of
-tights and dive out of the conservatory window disguised as Annette
-Kellerman, I suppose.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What's the matter with an old man makeup and the front door?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just this. Friend Murphy on watch hauls out his little paper and on the
-chance of its being me, slaps the wrist of anybody who appears on those
-steps. He'll do it to you when you go out.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He didn't when I came in.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, he wouldn't, coming in.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then why not fool him by coming in?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How the devil can I come in without going out?” demanded Mr. Remsen
-crossly, for confinement was beginning to tell upon his equable
-disposition.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Simplest thing in the world if you'll be guided by me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Spill it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Merely a matter of distracting Friend Murphy's attention for ten seconds.
-At the end of the ten seconds you will be seen going up the steps to the
-front door. Presently you will be seen coming down again, unable to effect
-an entrance against the watchfulness of the faithful Connor. Do you get
-me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I get you. I'm to be in disguise. But how shall we get the process-server
-off guard?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Leave that to me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The two conspirators elaborated their plan, built it up, revised it,
-tested it at every point, and pronounced it perfect.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But we've forgotten one point,” said Remsen at the end of the discussion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What's that?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where do I go when I get out?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where do you want to go?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Anywhere out of the world.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mr. Thomas Harmon submerged himself in thought and came up bearing a pearl
-of great price.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Keno! I've got it. Refuges furnished to order. You've never been to my
-place in the mountains, have you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Boulder Brook on Lake Quam. Plumb in the dead center of nowhere. Thirteen
-miles from a railroad. Fishing and hunting on the premises.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Reads like a real-estate man's prospectus,” observed Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“This year,” pursued Harmon, “I'm keeping open house for a special reason.
-Two fellows I know are getting married to-morrow. It's a double wedding.
-It's also a double honeymoon. But they aren't onto that yet.” Harmon's
-clear brown eyes twinkled. “One half won't know how the other half lives
-till they get there. I've loaned the place to both couples for a
-fortnight. It's a dead secret. Neither couple knows where the other is
-going. They're on oath.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They won't thank you when they meet across the dinner-table.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, it isn't as bad as that. They'll be a mile apart. The Lees will be at
-the cottage. They get off at Meredith and go in on the truck. The Woods
-I'm sending to the Island. They climb out at Ashland and go over by boat.
-Unless they all happen to take the same train, one pair won't even know
-the other is around until they meet up on the lake or in the woods.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sounds like a party.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Doesn't it? Want to join?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What? Butt in on a double bridal tour? Excuse me with thanks.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No butt in about it. You can go to Laconia, get yourself a car from the
-garage, and motor to the Bungalow. That's at the third corner of my little
-triangular piece of mountain and forest. By the practice of expert
-woodcraft and dodging you can avoid seeing the others.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wouldn't know them if I did. Any other agreeable surprises about the
-resort?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. There's a little friend of Gloria Greene's.
-Girl. Tired out. Too much gayety or something. Don't know what it is or
-who she is, but she's up against it for a month's rest. So Miss Greene
-wished her on Boulder Brook, and welcome.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where does <i>she</i> go?” inquired Remsen suspiciously. “To the Cave? Or
-the Castle on the Crags? Or the Haunted Manor House? Or the Co-educational
-Club? Or which one of the numerous institutions you maintain in your
-private city?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She goes to the Farmhouse. Mrs. Bond, my housekeeper, is looking after
-her. Seclusion is her watchword. If you see her, make a noise like a dry
-leaf and blow away. You'll go, won't you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Remsen meditated. “It certainly seems made to order. And it's mighty good
-of you, old man. Yes, I'll just take you up on that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There's a train at nine o'clock in the morning. To-morrow?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Make it the day after. I've got some things to attend to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Now, about our jail-breaking scheme? I've got an amendment. How would it
-be if the taxi I arrive in should catch fire at the psychological moment?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Can it be done?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Easily. I'm not a manufacturer of chemicals for nothing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Great! Keep it going for ten seconds for the benefit of the watchful
-Murphy, and if you look up after that, you'll see the Englishest looking
-Englishman you ever sat eyes on outside the pages of <i>Punch</i>, trying
-to tear my old-fashioned doorbell out by the roots.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's your best make-up, is it, Remsen?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As good as any. Fortified by my accent, it is most convincing. That'll be
-Carteret.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Who?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Rodney Carteret.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Am I supposed to know him?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Rather. Not know a man with whom you toured for two months in Japan?”
- said Remsen reproachfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stupid of me,” confessed Harmon, grinning. “Carteret. Good old Roddy!
-Certainly. Then I'd better capture you—him, I mean, and take him to
-the nine o'clock train for Boulder Brook, in my taxi.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Right-o, old thing! Be here at eight-thirty. Cheery-o!” said his host
-Britishly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Promptly at that hour, on the second morning thereafter, a taxicab swerved
-violently into the curbstone almost at the feet of the patient and
-vigilant Murphy, and stopped with an alarming scrunch of brakes. From its
-window emerged a heavy puff of smoke. From its door emerged Mr. Thomas
-Harmon, who rolled upon the pavement apparently strangling. Mr. Murphy
-rushed to his aid. When he was restored to his feet and his breath, and
-the taxi had ceased to imitate Fafnir the Dragon, a tall figure in an
-extremely English ulster (which had hastily emerged from the Remsen front
-door, rushed down ten steps, and leisurely climbed them again) was
-wrenching violently at the bell. For a time Mr. Murphy regarded him
-disdainfully, then crossed over, held brief colloquy, and returned.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hot chance he's got of breaking in,” he observed to Mr. Harmon.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What is he making all the fuss about?” inquired that gentleman as the
-visitor again applied himself forcefully to the bell.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wants to see Mr. Remsen. But the old bulldog of a butler won't let him
-put his nose inside the door. Says his name is Carteret, and he's come all
-the way from England to see him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“England? Not Roddy Carteret!” It was done almost as well as that
-accomplished actor, Mr. Jacob Remsen, could have done it. Harmon sprang
-across the street.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Carteret! Roddy Carteret!” he called. “What on earth are you doing over
-here?” The bell-ringer adjusted a monocle and ambled down the steps to
-shake hands. “Well met, m'deah fellah! Perhaps you can tell me what's
-amiss with this beastly house.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll tell you,” proffered the obliging and innocent Mr. Murphy. He did
-so.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then I'll just go back and jolly well camp there till somebody jolly well
-lets me in,” decided the caller.
-</p>
-<p>
-Argument followed while the chauffeur burrowed into the mechanism of his
-car. It ended by the Englishman bestowing two dollars upon Mr. Murphy to
-get a message to Mr. Remsen containing a protest and an address. The two
-gentlemen then moved away in the extinguished taxi.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tickets had been provided by the forethoughtful Harmon. The fugitive was
-the first man in the parlor car. Hardly had he settled when a young couple
-in suspiciously new apparel arrived, and were shown into Drawing-Room “A,”
- at the upper end of the car. Shortly after, another couple, also
-glistening as to garb, entered and took possession of Drawing-Room “B,” at
-the lower end of the car. The eluder of justice eyed them and drew his own
-conclusions.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here we are, all of us,” he said to himself, retiring discreetly behind
-his newspaper.
-</p>
-<p>
-This was just one short of the full and fateful facts.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XI
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>NE into the dim recesses of the past was the nuptial day of October 15.
-Gone also, into what dim recesses their erstwhile flat-mate knew not, were
-Mrs. Holcomb Lee, <i>née</i> Maud Raines, and Mrs. Paul Wood, <i>née</i>
-Helen Barrett. Presently Darcy would be gone also, for this was October
-17, and, although the fact had been successfully concealed from the
-society editors of the metropolis, ever avid of news with a title in it,
-on October 16 she had been married to Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze
-Holdings, Hampshire, England, at the Church of the Imagination. Sir
-Montrose had sent a wireless (forged by Miss Gloria Greene) advising his
-fiancee that he would arrive on the 16th, and they would be married at
-once. All of which would have profoundly astonished and perhaps
-scandalized the authentic Sir Montrose Veyze, at that particular time
-huddled over an insufficient stove and fervently cursing a Siberian
-northeaster with three feet of snow in its clouds.
-</p>
-<p>
-No little strategy had been required to keep up the deception until after
-the real brides were wedded, and, as the conspirators supposed, safely out
-of the way. Gloria supplied the required strategy, but it exhausted her
-store. What was going to be the outcome she knew no more than Darcy did.
-One fact only was clear: Darcy must disappear for a while. Accordingly the
-self-appointed manageress of the affair had borrowed Tom Harmon's
-hospitality for her protégée. Unfortunately, or fortunately according to
-the point of view, Mr. Harmon had refrained from mentioning to Gloria the
-other prospective visits.
-</p>
-<p>
-Behold, then, on the fateful 17th of October, Miss Darcy Cole, a one-day
-bride of fancy, swinging down the long platform of the Grand Central
-Terminal with fifteen minutes to spare for the nine o'clock train. In her
-hand was a ticket to Weirs, and a small green slip entitling her to seat
-No. 12 in the parlor car “Chorea.” In her eyes was a twinkling and
-perilous light, and in her heart a song of sheer, happy bravado. For Darcy
-was feeling in reckless spirits. It was her first vacation for more than a
-year. She was tingling with health and vitality. She rejoiced in that
-satisfaction, more precious to woman than rubies or diamonds or a
-conscience clear of reproach, the pervading sense of being perfectly
-dressed. As for the wraith of Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze
-Holdings, Hampshire, England, and all the consequences depending
-therefrom, she was much in the mood to twiddle her thumbs at the whole
-affair and defy fate to do its worst.
-</p>
-<p>
-She entered the car and saw him.
-</p>
-<p>
-If ever a willful, skillful, careful, circumstantial lie came to life and
-embodiment for the purpose of confronting its perpetrator, hers stood
-before her with a monocle in its eye. In every detail it was as she had
-conceived Sir Montrose Veyze: tall, slender, clad in impeccable tweeds,
-with an intelligent, thin face inappropriately half-framed in side
-whiskers, and an expression of dissociation with the outside world; not so
-much conscious aloofness as a sort of habitual mental absenteeism. The
-apparition was, at the moment, trying to dispose an extremely British
-ulster in a rather insufficient rack.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy stared at it, mute with amazement. It moved a little to let her pass
-and what the girl saw beyond it froze her blood. In Drawing-Room A sat
-Paul Wood and his bride!
-</p>
-<p>
-Flight, instant and precipitate, was Darcy's one idea; flight forth from
-that unchancy car. She whirled around, started for the lower exit, took
-three steps and halted with a choked cry.
-</p>
-<p>
-In Drawing-Room B sat Maud Raines, that was, with her bridegroom.
-</p>
-<p>
-Fate, defied, had promptly accepted the challenge. Darcy was trapped.
-</p>
-<p>
-Kentucky cherishes a legend concerning the potency of its moonshine
-whiskey which is said to be such that one drink of it will inspire a
-rabbit to spit in the eye of a bulldog. Desperation will produce much the
-same psychological effect in the soul of woman. There, in monocle and
-whiskers, was Darcy's bulldog. And before her and behind her threatened
-Desperation, double-barreled. Darcy took a short, gaspy breath—it
-was all she could get—and advanced upon her unwitting victim.
-</p>
-<p>
-The apparition had just succeeded in its aerial enterprise with the ulster
-when it became aware of a mute appeal at its elbow. It turned. It saw a
-girlish face, suffused with a wonderful warmth of color, clear, steady
-eyes, with an irresistible plea in them; lips that looked both firm and
-soft and were tremulous at the comers with what might be fear, but seemed
-much like mirth, and two perfectly gloved little hands stretched out in
-welcome. No possible doubt about it; those hands were held out to the
-apparition.
-</p>
-<p>
-The apparition's face underwent a sort of junior earthquake. Its monocle
-fell out. It replaced the doubtful aid to vision. It contemplated the
-creature of bewildering charm and still more bewildering behavior
-confronting it. Hesitatingly its hands went forth to meet those little,
-appealing, waiting hands.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Monty!” said the girl in a clear, ringing, happy voice, and inexpertly
-kissed the apparition on the nose.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Holy Snakes!” gasped the apparition.
-</p>
-<p>
-It took a step backward. Its knees caught. It collapsed in its chair.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XII
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>FTER that one exclamatory lapse from Briticism, the tweed-clad man sat
-speechless, struggling to regain command over his shattered sensibilities.
-In this laudable endeavor he was severely handicapped by his <i>vis-Ã -vis</i>.
-She had turned the chair next his and was now seated facing him with
-parted lips, fluttering color, and lovely, desperate, suppliant eyes, a
-picture to divert the most determined attempt at concentration.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Please! Please,” she implored, like a child, holding out her small,
-quivering hands to him. “Won't you speak to me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why—er—to be sure! To be sure! What shall I say, for choice?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Anything. Weather. Politics. 'Shakespeare and the musical glasses.' Only,
-talk!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But I'm afraid—er—there's some beastly mistake, you know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Pretend it isn't,” she urged. “Oh, help me pretend it isn't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-There was the sound of a clicking latch back of her, and the tension of
-the girl's face relaxed a little. A second click in front indicated a
-similar closure of Drawing-Room B.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy took a long breath. No longer under observation, she enjoyed a truce
-in which to lay her plans. Incidentally she did her newly wed friends the
-gross injustice of rejoicing that Pullman doors have no keyholes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now I can explain,” said she composedly. “Pray do.” There was lively
-interest in his tone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No, I don't know that I can, either. I'm afraid you won't understand.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Give me a sporting chance at it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-How very English he was! Had he been American, she might have appealed to
-his sense of the jocular and absurd. No hope with this ultra-British
-solemnity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well,” she began desperately, “there' are some people in this car that I
-don't want to see.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In the—er—compartment?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In both compartments. And they mustn't see me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Quite so.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But they've already seen me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Awkward, that,” he murmured.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not so awkward as if they'd seen me alone. They've seen us. Together.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But—er—it's no end nice of you, you know, and—and all
-that sort of thing. But why together?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's what I'm trying to explain.” She looked at him doubtfully. “I'm
-finding it rather hard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Perhaps you're not supposed to be traveling alone,” he suggested.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now, that's quite clever of you!” Darcy beamed gratitude upon him. “I'm
-not. But I started alone and—and—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You were to meet a—a companion who failed you?” He was really
-striving to be helpful, but Darcy felt herself getting in deeper and
-deeper.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No: that isn't it, at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then—er—I may be beastly stupid, but—er—really—”
- Blank bewilderment was expressed in every feature of his face including
-the monocle.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not at all,” returned the girl politely. “No wonder you find it puzzling.
-It's quite involved.” Then she took the plunge. “I'm eloping.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Eloping?” Her <i>vis-Ã -vis</i> dropped his monocle, replaced it, and
-stared at Darcy. “Eloping! Impossible!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why impossible? Don't you elope in England?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Er—personally, seldom. And never alone.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Was there a twinkle behind the monocle? Were the jokesmiths wrong about
-the English lack of humor? Or had she, happily, encountered a phenomenon?
-Darcy embraced the hope and changed her strategy in the midst of the
-assault.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's your chance,” she said with calm effrontery. “You see, my—the
-other person in my elopement failed to live up to his opportunity.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Her companion was understood to reflect adversely upon the sanity of the
-recreant.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So,” pursued the girl, her color flushing and paling, but her eyes
-unflinchingly steady, “if you would—oh, please don't think me
-dreadful!—if you could just pretend to be the man! It's only for a
-little while,” she pleaded. “Just until we can get away from those people.
-Will you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I will,” he said solemnly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I wish you wouldn't say that as if—as if we were in church,”
- protested the startled Darcy, plaintively.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ah, yes; by the way, have we been?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Have we been what?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To church.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“This isn't Sunday.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No; but you say that we are eloping.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just for the present.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Quite so. But is this—er—before or after?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Before or—Oh!!” Comprehension flooded the girl's mind and colored
-her cheeks simultaneously. “After,” she said, in a small, gaspy voice. “We—we're
-married.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Buck up!” exhorted her companion. “Don't take it so hard. It will soon be
-over. I merely wished to know, in case any question arose. When?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ye—ye—yesterday. I mean, this morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Best stick to yesterday,” he advised kindly. “Before 9 a.m. is too early
-for probability.” He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're not growing faint under the strain, I hope?” inquired Darcy,
-recovering her spirits.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It isn't that,” he replied dreamily. “I am only thinking that things like
-this do <i>not</i> happen to people. I shall count three, and if you're
-still there I shall know—well, I shall know that my mind is failing—and
-be glad of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy began rather to like her accomplice. He was really quite nice—though
-old. “Count ten,” she advised. “It's a better test.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He began to count slowly, and an elderly lady who came down the aisle to
-take the chair opposite hastily sought the porter with a view to having
-her seat changed. When he had declaimed “Ten” and opened his eyes, the
-quite startling exclamation which followed convinced the old lady that her
-caution was well judged. The enumerator had found himself facing
-emptiness.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Turn around,” directed a soft voice behind him.
-</p>
-<p>
-He pivoted. “Oh!” he exclaimed in the most flattering tones of relief.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The door of Drawing-Room B was getting nervous,” she said. “So I changed.
-I don't want them to catch my eye. They might come out to speak to us.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Come one, come all,” declaimed the other; “this chair shall fly from its
-firm base as soon as I.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fine poetry,” granted the girl. “But this is prose.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothing of the sort, if you'll pardon me. Impossible and glorious
-romance. Words by Lewis Carroll. Music by Lohengrin. Mr. Brit-ling is for
-seeing it through.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mr. Britling—if you're sure that Mr. H. G. Wells would be willing
-to lend you the name—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll chance it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then Mr. Britling doesn't know his part yet and might get poor me into
-awful difficulties. No, we must get out of this car.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Stamford the next stop,” said the porter, who had overheard in passing.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Can you put us into another car?” Darcy asked him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Farther away from the restaurant car,” added her companion, and she
-thanked him with a glance for his shrewdness. If they were between the
-“Chorea” and the diner, her friends would pass them at luncheon-time.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Dey's a obsehvation cah, reah cah,” suggested the porter. “No extra
-chahge.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy immediately rewarded him with a dollar. “If any one inquires about
-us,” she said, “tell them that we got off at New Haven.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yassum. What name please, maddum?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No name. The lady and gentleman in 14 and 16.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Fortune had left vacant for their coming a semi-retired alcove in the
-observation car. Therein ensconced, they took breath and thought and stock
-of each other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now, if you don't mind,” said the man. “Who am I?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Your name is Veyze,” answered the girl, dimpling. “You're English. You're
-awfully English! You're as English as—as yourself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Happy coincidence! Mayn't I have more than one name?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A full allowance. Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I say! Then I've come into the title.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Quite a while ago. What you were before your succession, you know better
-than I.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He caught the point. “Rodney Carteret, at your service,” he replied. “Here
-on a short stay. Diplomatic affairs.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, Mr. Carteret, I'll remember you forever, for helping me out of an
-awful scrape. It must seem dreadfully flitter-headed and bad taste and
-ill-bred—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I can imagine you being flitter-headed—odd words you Americans use—but
-I really can't conceive of you doing anything ill-bred or in bad taste,”
- said he with such sincerity that the girl flushed again.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's nice of you,” she responded gratefully, “considering what I've
-done to you.” Thereupon she proceeded to repay his courtesy by a tissue of
-fabrications which did credit to her long practice in mendacity.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You wouldn't understand our American humor,” she wound up; “but I put up
-a joke on my friends in the other car by pretending I was to be married
-yesterday. I won't bore you with the circumstances. I was going away for a
-trip all by my little self and they were to think it was my wedding trip.
-Who would have thought there could be such awful luck as to find them on
-my train? And me without a ghost of a husband to show on my honeymoon—until
-I grabbed you!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then you're not actually married or betrothed or anything of the sort?”
- he inquired with lively hopefulness.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, but I am engaged,” she answered, reverting to her original fiction.
-“My fiancé is on duty and can't get away. As soon as he comes over we're
-to be married. Now, please, do you think it's <i>very</i> awful? You've
-been so good, I should hate to have you despise me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I'm no sort of a despiser,” he assured her. “And if I felt like doing
-a bit of despising, I'd go out in the woods and despise a toad. Certainly
-I shouldn't try my hand on anything as plucky and resourceful as you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Resourcefulness is good as far as it goes,” said she. “But could I carry
-the thing through if my friends come back here and I have to present you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I shouldn't concern myself about that,” he comforted her. “Surely they
-won't come.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why not?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Bridal touring couples don't commonly go about seeking other
-companionship, do they?” Darcy stared. “How do you know they are on their
-bridal trip? I never told you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Surmised it from something my friend, Mr. Thomas Harmon told me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do <i>you</i> know Mr. Harmon?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Rah-ther! I'm on my way to his place.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What place?” gasped Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boulder Brook, he calls it. It's up on the edge of the mountains.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl leaned back, closed her eyes, and began to count slowly: “One—two—three—four—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I say,” broke in the partner of her plot. “Let a chap in on this. What's
-wrong?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You said it just now: 'These things do <i>not</i> happen to people.' You
-were right. They don't. Anyhow, they ought not to be allowed to. Five—six—seven—Oh,
-there's no use counting ten on this.” She opened her great, gray-blue eyes
-wide upon him. “So'm I,” she announced.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So'm you <i>what?</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Going to Boulder Brook.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Barely in time did he check the natural rejoinder, “So are your friends,
-the bridal couples,” for he bethought himself that, if she knew, she would
-doubtless escape from the train at the first station and this astounding
-and priceless adventure would be abruptly terminated. Instead he said:
-</p>
-<p>
-“May I take you over with me? I'm having a car at Laconia.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mr. Harmon is having me met at Weirs. Weirs is miles nearer.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me a lift with you. I'm for the
-Bungalow, wherever that is.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And I'm for the Farmhouse, and the chaperonage of Mrs. Bond. So it isn't
-as terribly compromising as it sounds, is it? Though what in the world Mr.
-Harmon would think, if this ever got to his ears—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It won't. In any case, Harmon is not a thinker of evil.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Nevertheless the girl saw trouble in his eyes. Partly it was her
-innocence, partly the bravado to which the emergency of the day had strung
-her, which kept that same trouble out of her own eyes. With him it
-attained speech.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How old are you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Across his shoulder Darcy's eye caught a number on the paneled side of the
-car. “Twenty-six,” she lied promptly.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was taken aback. “Really!” he murmured. “I should have said—aw—much'
-younger. Are you sure you appreciate the possible—well—er—misconstructions
-to which this visit might give rise?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't see why it should,” returned Darcy stoutly. “Anyway, I've no
-other place to go.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But I could put off my trip.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That would be a nuisance to you, wouldn't it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To be quite frank, it would be rather more than that. I should risk
-getting caught.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Caught?” echoed Darcy interestedly. “It sounds thrilling. Are you a
-fugitive from justice?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. I'm a fugitive from injustice. See here, Miss Romancia, I'm something
-of a faker myself. Being up against it <i>good</i>, I'm going to 'fess up.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Faker'? 'Up against it'? Why—why, where's your English accent
-gone?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cut out. Pretty soon I'm going to do the same with these whiskers. They
-tickle.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So many surprises had been forced upon Darcy that, inured to them, she was
-able to sustain this one unperturbed. “It's a wonderful disguise,” she
-approved. “And you play the part beautifully. But, if the question isn't
-indiscreet, why?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As I indicated, I'm flying for my life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then I hope it's something thrilling like murder or arson, and not
-something petty like bigamy or fancy finance.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothing as interesting as crime. I'm wanted as a witness in a will case.
-They're trying to catch me and put me on the stand and make me testify
-that my great-uncle was a crafty and vicious old lunatic.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“When he wasn't? How horrid!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“When he was. That's horrider. And that others of my relatives were <i>roués</i>
-and scandalmongers and drunkards.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I seem to have eloped into a nice cheerful sort of family,” observed the
-girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It'll be a lot less cheerful if they ever get me on the stand. My lawyer
-was to have warned me in time to get away, but the other side stole a
-march on him, and I barely managed to sneak out in this disguise. So I was
-going to lie low at Harmon's place until they gave up the chase. But as
-matters are, I can stick to my whiskers and my accent a while longer. And,
-really, much as I should like to continue this prose poem of ours, I think
-that for the sake of—well, of appearances, I'd better go on
-somewhere else. Unless you're quite sure that Mrs. Bond is there and—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She is,” broke in Darcy. “I've had a telegram.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In that case—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In that case, you come along in the car with me. I won't have your trip
-spoiled. Besides, don't you think I have some curiosity in my make-up?
-I've got to see you without yours, or perish!”
- </p>
-<p>
-There was no irruption of the newly-weds to complicate matters. The
-pseudo-weds had sandwiches and ginger ale in the observation car and sat
-there getting better acquainted and more content with each other until the
-“Chorea's” porter sought them out.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Drawin'-rooms is bofe gone,” he said. “A got off at Ashlan' an' B lef' at
-Meredith. S'pi-cioned you-all might lak to know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-His suspicion brought its reward. Ten minutes before the arrival at Weirs,
-Darcy's confederate excused himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You get out by yourself,” he said. “I'll join you on the platform.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Not yet comprehending, she followed instructions. Shortly after, there
-descended in front of the jaw-loose and petrified porter the ultra-British
-ulster, and the forceful tweed suit, enclosing not a bewhiskered, monocled,
-and blond Englishman, but a smooth-faced, pleasant-visaged young man who
-looked out upon the world from his own unaided, keen, and twink-ing eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-As the train pulled out with the porter still bulging, incredulous, from
-the door, the changeling turned to join his self-appointed bride.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How do you do, Mr. Remsen?” said she.
-</p>
-<p>
-For the second time that day sheer amazement loosed the hinges of Mr.
-Jacob Remsen's knees, and the wellsprings of Mr. Jacob Remsen's sincere
-American speech.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, I <i>am</i> jiggered!” gasped Mr. Jacob Remsen, tottering back
-against a truck.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XIII
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">R</span>. JACOB REMSEN, late Rodney Carteret, Esq., of Somewhere-in-England, was
-roused from his Semi-paralysis by a broad and bearded native who
-approached, and, with a friendly grin, inclusive of both parties to the <i>vis-Ã -vis</i>,
-inquired:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Either of yeh Miss Cole for Boulder Brook?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Both,” said Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haw!” barked the native.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That is, we are both going to Mr. Harmon's.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Free bus to Boulder Brook,” proclaimed the humorous native. “It's jest as
-well there's two of ye, though Mr. Tom didn't say nothin' about more'n
-one. Ye won't rattle s' much when we hit the rocks.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I joined the party at the last moment,” explained the impromptu
-bridegroom. “I'm for the Bungalow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ye'll be there before ye know it. Twenty-one mile in twenty-eight
-minutes, comin' over in the ole boat.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Their cicerone led the way to “the ole boat,” a large, battered,
-comfortably purring car, tucked them in with many robes, and applied
-himself to the wheel with an absorption which left them free to resume
-their own concerns. The surrounding mountains were in full panoply of
-their blazing October foliage, a scene to enthrall the dullest vision.
-Notwithstanding, Mr. Remsen's eyes kept straying from those splendors to
-the face of his companion. Attractive though this nearer view was, his own
-face wore the expression of one who painfully seeks the answer to an
-insoluble riddle. The girl answered his look with challenging mockery.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't overheat your poor brain about it,” she implored.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He called you Miss Cole,” said Remsen, with furrowed brows.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why not, since it's my name?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cole? Cole!” ruminated her companion. “No. Positively no!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Positively, yes! Do you think it's quite gallant in you to forget me
-entirely.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“First you say I'm your husband,” complained Remsen, “and now you claim
-acquaintance with me. It isn't fair. It muddles one's brain.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Look at me hard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've been doing that all day.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But it doesn't seem to have any result Haven't you ever seen me before?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Certainly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy almost jumped. “Which time? I mean, where?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“On the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, at 2.30 p.m.
-September 11th,” returned the other, as one who recites a well-conned
-lesson. “You were looking up at an aeroplane and ran into me. You wore a
-black-and-white checked suit and a most awfully smart little hat, and I
-stood there gawking after you until I was in danger of being arrested for
-obstructing the traffic.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Frankly, because I hadn't seen anything quite like you since I landed,
-and I wanted to make the most of a poor opportunity.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then why didn't you lift your hat politely and say, 'How do you do, Miss
-Cole?' Like that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Because, by Heavens!” cried the badgered Remsen, “I don't know any Miss
-Cole.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Think again,” adjured Darcy. “There was a blowy, windy day on a Fifth
-Avenue coach when you got off to help a woman with a suitcase—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Full of burglar's tools or solid gold ingots, I don't know which. Never
-thought a suitcase could weigh so much!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Poor Mr. Remsen!” laughed the girl, but her eyes were soft as she turned
-them to him. “You must have been terribly bored. But you were game. You
-didn't see me on the coach?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I didn't notice any one but the two working-girls with the suitcase. Do
-you think I could have seen you and forgotten you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Be careful! You're only making it worse. One of the two working-girls
-called after you to thank you, didn't she?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Remsen fell suddenly thoughtful. “Now I recall, the voice did seem
-familiar. But—surely—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Perhaps this will help.” She hummed softly a passage of the lulling,
-lilting song which she had heard from his lips on that memorable day of
-her great resolve.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wait!” he cried. “I'm getting it! Gloria Greene's studio. A girl asleep
-on the divan, while I was playing. She corrected a change of chord for me.
-But—you! Never tell me that was you!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy Cole, at your service.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well—well, but,” stammered Remsen, for once in his life wholly
-confused and bewildered. “What were <i>you</i> in disguise for?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I wasn't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then I must have been stone blind that day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You had no eyes at all—for me,” said she demurely. “However, that's
-not to be wondered at.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If it were, somebody else would have to do the wondering. My capacity in
-that direction is totally exhausted. Won't you please explain?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“With pleasure. If you'll tell me what.” Miss Cole was enjoying herself
-greatly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What this transformation scene means? At the studio you were, well—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Say it,” she encouraged. “I was an ugly little toad.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Remsen made gestures and gurgles of violent protest. “Not at all! But you
-were—well, quite different.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, I wasn't very well. Nor very happy.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Judging from appearances, you must be about the healthiest and happiest
-person in the world to-day, then,” he retorted.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do you know,” she reproved, “that your compliments lack subtlety?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's easy. Because I mean'em.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The native at the wheel made a quarter turn with his head, extended his
-mouth to a point east by north of his right ear, and from the corner of it
-shouted: “Set tight. Here's where she gits kinder streaky.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Thereupon, as at a signal call, the car gathered itself together and
-proceeded to emulate the chamois of the Alps. For several frantic leaps
-and jounces the couple in the back seat preserved the conventionalities.
-Then came a stretch where an ancient, humpbacked vein of granite had
-thrust itself up through the road's surface, and all decorum was flung to
-the winds. Miss Cole crossed the car in two bunny-jumps and fell upon Mr.
-Remsen's neck, thrusting his head against the side curtain with such force
-as to form a bulge, which several outreaching trees playfully poked with
-their branches. As further evidence of her affection, she stuck her elbow
-in his eye, after which she coyly retreated into her own corner by the
-aerial route. Mr. Remsen assisted her flight by a method known in football
-as “giving the shoulder.” He then rose to explain, settled squarely upon
-both her feet, and concluded the performance by seating himself on her
-knees and browsing a mouthful from the veil which was twisted about her
-hat. Taking advantage of a precious but fleeting moment when the car
-soared like a gull across a bay of mud, they both addressed the chauffeur.
-“Stop!” shrieked Miss Cole.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Schlupff!” vociferated Mr. Remsen, meaning the same thing. But the veil
-had become involved with his utterance.
-</p>
-<p>
-The native brought his “boat” to a halt, just short of a ghastly blind
-turn, screened by a wooded cliff.
-</p>
-<p>
-“S' matter?” he inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're shaking us to bits,” protested Darcy. “Please don't go so fast.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Shucks!” said the other. “Call <i>that</i> fast? I could do better with a
-hearse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Very likely,” returned Remsen. “The passenger in a hearse hasn't anything
-to say about how he travels. We have. Ease it up.”
- </p>
-<p>
-What retort the native might have found was cut off by a persistent
-trumpeting from around the curve.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump! Honk! Honk-honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump,
-prr-rr-rramp!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Two cars,” interpreted the native. “Bel-lerin' fer help, I wouldn't
-wonder. Prob'ly bogged down in that mud-waller at the foot of the hill.
-One of'em sounds like our truck.” Again the brazen voice of warning and
-appeal thrilled through the air.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'<i>T is</i> our truck,” confirmed the chauffeur. “I know the old caow's
-voice. I pree-soom that couple for the boss's cottage is gettin' a taste
-of real country life in the roadin' line.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What couple?” asked Darcy, sitting up. “Young married pair. Got off the
-train at Meredith.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“At Meredith?” repeated Darcy, in troubled tones.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's another couple due from Ashland for the Island. All friends of
-the boss's. Like's not that's the other car that's whoopin' it up daown
-there't the foot o' the hill. Quite a pa'ty.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The gleam of a horrid surmise shone in the look which Darcy turned upon
-Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do you suppose it <i>could</i> be they? Oh, it <i>couldn't!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm very much afraid it is.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, that would be too awful! <i>Don't</i> let it be Maud and Helen!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If I could help it, I would,” he replied, bracing himself for confession.
-“I'm sure it is your friends. In fact, Tom Harmon told me they were
-coming.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You knew it all the time?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I did.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And let me come here without a word of warning?” The girl's tone rasped
-Remsen's accusing conscience. She spoke like a hurt child whose trust has
-been betrayed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Remsen waited until the chauffeur, who had jumped out and was on his way
-to the scene of distress, was beyond hearing. Then he said: “Please don't
-think me wholly selfish. But how was I to know that the presence of other
-couples—I mean other people—would be so distressing to you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't pretend to be stupid,” she rebuked him. “There I was, a bride
-without any bridegroom, looking for a place to hide myself and you let me
-run right into the very people of all in the world that I didn't want to
-see. You knew I didn't want to see them. I told you so,” she ended with a
-suggestion of fearfulness, “the first thing. On the train.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Before you had a husband,” he reminded her. “Now you have one—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And that makes it worse! A thousand times worse. Oh, why didn't you tell
-me on the train?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Suppose I had. What would you have done?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Got off at the next station. Jumped out of the window. Anything!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And have been alone in some strange place with nobody to look after you?
-If you'd done that, I should have felt obligated to get off, too.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You wouldn't!” Darcy stamped her foot. “You haven't any right.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“When a lady puts a claim on a gentleman as her husband,” remonstrated
-Remsen mildly, “while he may not have the right to prevent her from
-jumping out of the window of a moving train, at least he may use all fair
-means to see her through.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you think you've been fair in this?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Kamerad!</i> I surrender! I don't! The plain fact is, I knew you'd run
-away if I told you, and I couldn't bear to lose you, after I'd
-miraculously found you again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Consequently,” she accused, “I am here where the girls are sure to find
-me, married and without a husband, or with a husband that they'll discover
-is bogus. What am I going to do?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“List to an inspired idea! I've just thought it out. When you see your
-friends, tell them that I didn't get off the train at all. I went right on
-to Montreal.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And deserted your bride?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Emergency call on imperative official business. Back to-morrow or next
-day, or whenever you choose to tell'em. That'll give you time to arrange
-things and fix up a good, water-tight lie.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No lie could be good enough.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wait till we put our heads together over it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How can we put our heads together if your head is in Montreal?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It won't be, except for publication to the bridal party. It'll be at the
-Bungalow. I'm going to carry it there now, on foot.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And stay there until it's time for you to get back from Montreal?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Precisely. When you need your titled Britisher back, I'll be ready, with
-the accent and the infernal, scratchy whiskers.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Suppose, meantime, the bridal couples come wandering about the Bungalow?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then I'll take to the woods. Lives of the hunted and all that sort of
-thing. Before I'm through with all this I may have to disguise myself as a
-rabbit and learn to twitch my ears.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's fearfully risky—” began the girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It is,” he confirmed, “with the woods full of amateur hunters. But I've
-known rabbits to live to a ripe old age. There was an old cottontail on
-Uncle Simeon's place—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Please don't joke. It's fearfully serious for me. I've got to go ahead
-and face the girls.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Say the word and I'll gird my gospel armour on—I mean my side-burns—and
-support you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes: and what would our frisky chauffeur think of that! Gracious
-goodness! I forgot about him. What will he think about your disappearance
-if you run away now?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Leave him to me. I've got an argument for him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The native reappeared with the information that the truck was bemired and
-that the garage car in which one couple had arrived from Ashland (the
-motor-boat having broken down) was unable to pull it out unaided.
-Therefore, he told them, he would have to go to the rescue with his car.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mr. Remsen produced a roll of greenbacks. “Have you any aversion to a
-ten-dollar bill?” he inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I ain't never knowed one teh make me sick t' my stommick yet,” confessed
-the native.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Try this one,” said Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-But the speeder withheld his hand. “What am I bein' hired fer?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To tell me a short cut by foot to the Bungalow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Over this hill, and yeh can see it. Only house in sight. Whut else?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To ferget that you've seen me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nuthin' fishy about this?” inquired the cautious chauffeur.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's just a little joke on the people in front.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My mem'ry,” said the other, pocketing the bill, “ain't whut it was. I c'n
-t ba'ly rec'lect t' say 'Thank-ye,' but there my power gives out. Some one
-comin' aroun! the bend,” he added.
-</p>
-<p>
-Remsen made a dive into the underbrush. From somewhere above Darcy, a
-moment later, a tree found voice to speak like a dryad:
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'll be at your call to-morrow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-At the elbow of the road appeared Maud and Holcomb Lee. Darcy, envying
-Daniel what has been regarded as one of the most trying experiences in the
-records of animal training, walked forward to meet them.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her head was high.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her chin was firm.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her step was light.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her eyes danced with defiance.
-</p>
-<p>
-Andy Dunne would have been proud of her.
-</p>
-<p>
-She was game.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XIV
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">R</span>OUSED into semi-wakefulness by the first shaft of sunlight that pierced
-the Bungalow windows, Mr. Jacob Remsen indulged in sleepy self-communion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who are we this morning? Not our bright and lovely self. That's a
-cinch... Rodney Carteret? No: we shook Rodney in New York... Veyze! That's
-it; Montrose Veyze. <i>Sir</i> Montrose, if you please.... Oh, Lord! The
-bride.” Unaccustomed though he was to allow the sun's early rays to pry
-him forth from his slumbers, the man of aliases leapt out of bed, chuckled
-himself through his toilet and breakfast, and still emitting sub-sounds,
-not so much of glee as of a profound and abiding satisfaction in life,
-took the road for Center Harbor. Darcy, still wrapped in dreams at the
-Farmhouse, would have made the distance in better time; nevertheless, his
-hour-and-a-half was a fairly creditable performance. In consequence of
-certain telephonic efforts of the previous evening, he expected to find an
-express package at his destination, wherein he was not disappointed.
-</p>
-<p>
-At eleven o'clock, Darcy rambled down the long, wooded driveway, leading
-from the Farmhouse to the lake. Off to her right, where a little brook
-brawled gayly down among rounded boulders, another dryad-haunted tree
-burst into soft, familiar music. She answered the whistled melody with a
-pipe of her own, as true and sweet.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Coast clear?” asked the tree, which, for a good American hickory, spoke
-with a surprisingly British accent.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes. Come out.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just a minute. What's my nationality?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“English, this morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I thought likely. So I put on the regalia.” The owner of the voice
-stepped forth in the full panoply of wig, whiskers, and monocle.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy surveyed him disparagingly. “No,” she decided. “I don't like it as
-well as I did.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Perhaps you prefer the original,” he suggested modestly. “I do, myself.
-But I was afraid some one might be around.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nobody is likely to be here this morning. And the rig doesn't fit in with
-that great box you're carrying. What's in it? More disguises?” He
-uncovered the box and held it out to her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Grown on the premises,” he lied gayly. “Picked with the dew still on'em.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl gathered the blooms into her arms and drew them up to her face
-with a sudden, tender, mothering gesture which caused the giver's heart an
-unaccustomed and disturbing thrill. He was well repaid for the trip to
-Center Harbor.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How lovely!” she cried. “And how good of you! What kind are they? For
-reward you may take off your disguise, but you must hide if the others
-come.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I will,” he agreed, and answered her question: “They're bride and
-bridesmaid roses. Appropriate to the occasion.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy had the grace to blush. “Out of date,” she said hastily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What! Already?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've changed my mind,” was her calm announcement. “I've decided that
-you're not my husband.”
- </p>
-<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="frontispiece" width="100%" /><br />
-</div>
-<p>
-“Wedded and Parted—by Bertha M. Clay. Who's the Bertha M. that's
-done this thing to me:
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am. As soon as you left I saw that it wouldn't fit in at all for us to
-be married. The servants here probably visit between house and house. And
-it was bound to come out that I was at the Farmhouse and you at the
-Bungalow, and—well—don't you see that would look funny if we
-were married?”
- </p>
-<p>
-What Jack Remsen saw was that the girl was like the pinkest of the
-bridesmaid roses when she blushed, though a sweeter, warmer pink. “Didn't
-I go to Montreal, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. Though you may have to, later. There's some legal formality to be
-gone through yet before we can be married.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, then we're still engaged.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Indeed, yes! Don't think you're going to get out of it so easily. The
-legal papers are in Montreal. So, instead of being married on the 16th, as
-we had planned, we've had to wait, and you've brought me up here, on your
-way to Montreal.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is this the genial fiction that you've handed out to your friends, the
-newly-weds?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How did they take it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hard. Maud—that's Mrs. Lee—especially feels that she has a
-terrible weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was going to wire
-Gloria Greene until I told her that Mrs. Bond, the housekeeper, is Mr.
-Harmon's own second cousin and therefore, a fully equipped chaperon.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is she?” said Remsen in surprise.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How do I know?” returned the girl innocently. “She might be. I hadn't
-asked her. But I had to invent something to pacify Maud.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Invention,” observed the admiring Mr. Remsen, “appears to be mere child's
-play for you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Even so, it didn't satisfy Maud. She quite insisted on my moving over to
-the Cottage, to be under her eye.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You're not going to do that?” he cried apprehensively.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And play the goosiest kind of gooseberry? Indeed, I'm not!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What comes next? Am I to meet the turtledoves?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If you don't, it will look suspicious.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So it will. Let's get it over with, then. I'll risk a small bet that
-after meeting Sir Montrose Veyze once, they won't care to repeat the
-experience.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What are you going to do to them?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Treat them to an exhibition of British hauteur and superiority.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hasn't that sort of thing rather gone out since the war?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not in the family into which you've married, my dear young lady. With the
-Veyzes nothing ever comes in and nothing ever goes out. Don't you think
-that would be a good line to spring on them?” he added with animation.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You mustn't be too horrid,” enjoined Darcy. “I don't want them to think
-I'm marrying a—a—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A lemon,” supplied the other. “Speaking of lemons, don't you think it
-would be a pious idea for you to invite your fiancé to lunch with you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Excellent. And you can practice your accent on Mrs. Bond.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Profound and awesome was the impression made upon that lady. She found it
-only natural that the couple should wander off immediately after the meal;
-though she would have been surprised enough at the actual basis of their
-desire for seclusion, which was that they might work out their plan for
-the encounter with the honeymooning quartette. The boathouse, which
-commands the approach to the Farm, was selected for the scene of the
-presentation.
-</p>
-<p>
-About mid-afternoon the Lees and the Woods appeared, motoring up the lower
-road, and were halted by Darcy, who, pink and excited, indicated a figure
-on the boathouse porch. The figure was tipped back in a chair, with its
-feet on the railing, smoking a pipe.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come and meet my Monty,” invited Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-Upon their approach, the figure removed its feet from the railing with
-obvious reluctance. It did not remove its pipe from its face at all. To
-the women it bowed glumly. To the men it offered a flabby half-portion of
-hand. Holcomb Lee took it and dropped it. Paul Wood looked at the fingers
-presented to him in turn, looked at Darcy, looked at the sky and observed
-dispassionately that it looked like rain.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Vay likely. Beastly weathah!” grunted the other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Bad weather makes good fishing, they say up here,” said Helen Wood,
-pleasantly. “Have you tried it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothin' but sunfishes and little basses, they tell me. Beastly water!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You might find the hunting better,” proffered Maud Lee.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Huntin'? Where's one to find a decent mount?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mrs. Lee means the shooting, dear,” explained Darcy, sweetly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haw! Nevah heard shootin' called huntin' before. No decent shootin',
-either. Tramped about all mornin' and flushed one chippin' squirrel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He means chipmunk,” expounded the helpful Darcy. “Poor Monty finds our
-American speech so difficult.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Beastly language,” murmured the bogus baronet, resuming his seat.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But surely,” said the kindly-spirited Helen, “you find the mountains
-beautiful.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Haw! Too crowded. No chance to turn about without knockin' people's
-elbows.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The visitors took a hasty departure.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stupid ass!” growled Lee before they were fairly out of earshot.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, for just one good swing at his fat head,” yearned the husky Wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did you <i>ever</i> see such a boor!” was Helen's contribution to the
-symposium.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He's <i>old</i>.” disclosed the observing Maud. “That's a wig he had on.
-I'd swear to it. Poor Darcy!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Dissolved in mirth, Darcy congratulated the amateur upon a highly
-distinguished performance.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did Gloria teach you to act like that?” she inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If Gloria would train me,” he returned, “I could do something. But she
-won't waste time on an amateur. Do you know that she's one of the very
-best coaches in the profession?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I know that she's the most wonderful woman in the world. What she's done
-for me—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's probably no more than she's done for hundreds of other people,” said
-Remsen, and launched out into a panegyric of the actress which would have
-made a press agent feel like an amateur.
-</p>
-<p>
-With more experience of men, Darcy would have known that this was the
-language of the highest type of admiration, but of nothing more. In her
-innocence she took it as a final confirmation of the scene she had
-witnessed in the studio.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Gloria wants you to work, doesn't she?” she asked shyly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Gloria's such a tremendous worker, herself, that she thinks every one
-ought to be busy on some job all the time. Doesn't she get after you? You
-look far too much of the lily-of-the-field type to meet her approval.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lily-of-the-field, yourself!” returned the girl indignantly. “I've
-brought a lot of work up here with me. Can you say the same?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Guilty! I'm jobless, except as your present slave.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Have you ever done anything worth while in the world?” Darcy challenged;
-but the smile with which she accompanied the words was indulgent.
-</p>
-<p>
-He took silent counsel with himself. “At a class reunion I once chased a
-trolley-car on a dromedary,” he said hopefully. “That made life
-temporarily happier for a good many people, including the dromedary, who
-was conducting the performance.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sir Monty—my real Sir Monty—used to be an officer in a camel
-corps,” fabricated Darcy dreamily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now, why drag in my fellow fiancé, just as I was beginning to forget
-him?” he expostulated.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We—you—he isn't to be forgotten,” said the girl hastily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Of course not. I'm sorry. Tell me about him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Attempting to do so, Darcy found that the flavor had unaccountably oozed
-out of her lie. Pretense and falsification with this man who had
-unprotestingly let himself in for an indefinite career of both on his own
-account, to aid a girl whom he didn't even know in what, for all he could
-tell, might be only an unworthy prank—well, it simply went against
-the grain.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No; I don't believe I will just now,” she returned. “I might confuse him
-with your masterly impersonation.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then tell me about yourself. What would you have done if you hadn't found
-a readymade Englishman on the bridal train?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Heaven only knows! Committed suicide, I think. I may have to come to that
-yet,” she said dismally. “Oh, dear! The further it goes, the worse it
-gets. You've helped me out, for the present, but—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then let me help you out some more,” he urged. “Murder, arson, forgery,
-bigamy, anything you wish. I'm an outlaw, anyway, and a crime or two makes
-no difference to me.” Underneath his lightness, she divined the deeper
-wish to be of service.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Take off your disguise,” she said quietly, “I want to look at the real
-you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He obeyed, and endured the scrutiny of her intent eyes, smiling.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes,” she decided. “You'd be a real friend. I could trust you. And I want
-to. Oh, I do want to. I'm in an awful mess.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Probably it isn't nearly as bad as it looks. Trot it out, and let's
-examine it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But it isn't my secret, alone. I've got a—a partner.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The 'wicked partner'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She <i>isn't</i> wicked.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, it's a she! The shadows deepen.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And I've promised a hope-to-die promise.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Beg off from it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She jumped up, clapping her hands like a child. “I'll try. You go home
-now, and don't touch your telephone, for it's a party wire and I'm going
-to phone a night letter to my partner.”
- </p>
-<p>
-This is the night-letter which went to Gloria Greene.
-</p>
-<p>
-Will you release me from promise and let me tell one person, very near to
-you, who can help? Also, may I tell same person that I know about you two?
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy
-</p>
-<p>
-The entire telegram puzzled the recipient more than a little, particularly
-the last portion. Not understanding, she took the wisest course and played
-safe by wiring a veto. The wording of her reply caused much painful
-puzzlement in the virginal breast of the lady telegraph operator who, on
-the following morning, thus 'phoned it to Miss Darcy Cole:
-</p>
-<p>
-“This the Farmhouse?... That Miss Cole?... I gotta telegram f'r you, Miss
-Cole, an' I d'knowz I ken make it all out. Sounds queer t' me. Shall I get
-a repeat?... Give it t' you first? All right. Jussuz you say. Ready?...'<i>Miss
-Dassy Cole, The Farm, Boulder Brook. No. Don't dare trust you with the
-truth. You do too well with the other thing</i>' Get that?... yes's
-funny, ain't it? There's funnier comin'. Ready?... '<i>Keep it up till you
-hear from me by following letter.</i>' Now comes the queer part. '<i>Don't
-be a damp hool.</i>' Get that?... Yes; hool... Me? don't know what a hool
-is. Spell it? D-a-m-p; got hat?... H-double o-l. Got that? Well, mebbe it
-is funny, but <i>I</i> don't get no laughter out of it. What?... Oh, yes;
-of course. Signed <i>Gloria</i>. Want me to get a repeat? No. Jussuz you
-say; I'm sat'sfied if you are. But theh ain't no sech a word in <i>my</i>
-dictionary. I jest looked it up.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Miss Darcy Cole, gazing out into a worldful of rain, mused upon the
-message, with its definite inhibition. For a moment she was tempted to
-derive some compensating mirth from the telegram by calling up the
-telegraph lady, advising her to re-read the cryptic sentence which had so
-disturbed her professional calm, by dividing the two words after the <i>m</i>
-instead of the <i>p</i>—and then listening for the reaction to the
-shock. But this she dismissed as not worth while.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But I think I <i>am</i> one,” she reflected drearily, “not to make Gloria
-release me, anyway.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XV
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>ISS DARCY COLE sat on the edge of Red Rock, swinging twenty dollars'
-worth of the very smartest obtainable boots, the personal selection of
-Miss Gloria Greene, over two hundred feet of shimmering October air.
-Behind her Mr. Jacob Remsen was using the residue of the atmosphere to
-replenish his exhausted lungs, for he had undertaken to keep pace with his
-companion up the face of the declivity, with all but fatal results. It is
-not well for a man who has been cooped up within a city house,
-exerciseless and under the espionage of a minion of the law, to compete on
-a thirty-per-cent grade with a woman who has just come from the training
-of Andy Dunne.
-</p>
-<p>
-Lack of her accustomed outdoor exercise had simply lent zest to Darcy.
-Three days before, the rains had descended and the floods had come and
-kept on coming. Now, when the skies of this mountain region set out
-seriously to rain, the local ducks borrow mackintoshes. Several times the
-visitor at the Farmhouse had ventured forth, only to be promptly beaten
-back to shelter.
-</p>
-<p>
-There she would have led a lonely existence, for the bridal couples were
-weather-bound, and even the rural delivery was cut off (so that the
-promised letter from Gloria hadn't arrived), had it not been for her
-neighbor of the Bungalow. Each morning he waded over the soaking mile,
-and, of course, in such weather a decent sense of hospitality compelled
-his hostess to keep him for luncheon and dinner. So they had come to know
-each other on an inevitable footing of unconscious intimacy, better,
-perhaps, than they normally would have done in the conventional encounters
-of a year's acquaintanceship; and he played for her and she sang to him;
-and they discussed people and differed about art, and agreed about books
-and quarreled about politics and religion, and were wholly and perilously
-content with one another and the situation.
-</p>
-<p>
-On the afternoon of the fourth day the sun broke gloriously through, and
-Darcy challenged Remsen to make the precipitous ascent of the front of Red
-Hill.
-</p>
-<p>
-Behold her, then, at the conclusion serenely overlooking the lowland and
-the lake while her companion stretched out panting behind her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“This is a peak on the Siberian front,” she announced. “And I'm an
-outpost.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What do you see, Sister Anne?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wait and I'll tell you. An aeroplane”—she pointed to a wheeling
-crow above them—“has just signaled me—”
- </p>
-<p>
-(“Caw,” said the crow; “Thank you,” said Darcy and threw the bird a kiss.)
-</p>
-<p>
-“—that a regiment is coming up from below. There's the advance
-guard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She pointed down the sheer rock. Remsen moved across and looked over the
-edge. “That spider?” he inquired unimaginatively.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He's just pretending to be a spider. But he's really a spy disguised as a
-spider. Now the question is, Shall I drop this bomb on him?”
- </p>
-<p>
-She held a pebble above the toiling crawler. “War is hell,” observed
-Remsen lazily. “Why add to its horrors?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How far away it all seems!” said the girl dreamily. “Do you suppose, over
-there, it's beautiful and peaceful like this hillside one day, and then
-the next—I guess I'll let my spy spider live,” she broke off,
-dropping her chin in her hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-Remsen sat down at her side.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What's your soldier man like?” he asked abruptly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What? Who?” inquired the startled Darcy. “Oh, Monty!” Gloria's
-insufficient sketch came to her aid. “Why, he's short and round and
-roly-poly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then I don't give a very exact imitation of him, do I?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not very. And he's red and fierce-looking, with a stubby, scrubby
-mustache,” she added, augmenting Gloria's description.
-</p>
-<p>
-Her companion stared. “Not what I should call a particularly enthusiastic
-portaiture.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, but of course he's awfully nice,” she made haste to amend. “Not
-really a bit fierce, you know, but very brave and—and” (eagerly
-casting about) “a lovely voice.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What kind?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Barytone.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And you sing together?” he asked gloomily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, lots!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I suppose so.” He gathered some loose stones and began idly to drop them
-over the rock's crest.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There! You've given the alarm to the spy,” she accused. “See him
-wigwagging at you! Now he'll go and report.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You don't mind my calling you Darcy, do you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“N-n-no, I like it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I wonder if you'll mind what I'm going to say now.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't believe I should mind anything you would say.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's about the little song. The one that you set right for me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Our song.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Our song,” he repeated with a wistful emphasis on the pronoun. “Darcy,
-you won't sing that—to him—will you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No,” she said. Her eyes were dimly troubled and would not meet his. “I
-won't sing that—to any one—again.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Thank you,” he said humbly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, look!” she cried with an effort at gayety. “The enemy! They approach.
-Let's go and meet'em.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She jumped to her feet and pointed to a far stretch of the road where four
-figures were slowly moving along.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That means I've got to put on my infernal whiskers and wig!” he groaned.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Just think how long a vacation you've had from them,” she reproached him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And my still more uncomfortable manners.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tone them down a little,” she advised. “I think Holcomb and Paul are just
-about ready to turn on the haughty Britisher, and rend him limb from
-limb.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't blame'em,” he said lazily. “But they seem to be turning off toward
-the village,” he added, peering down into the valley.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And the girls are coming on,” said Darcy. “Probably they've got the
-mail.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“With foreign letters?” said Remsen jealously. “Did you leave a forwarding
-address?” She shot a swift, indirect look at him. But he was gazing out
-over the regally garbed forest spread below them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come along!” she urged. “We must hurry. We'll take the Bungalow trail,
-and I'll wait while you put on your Veyze outfit. Then we'll catch the
-girls on their return from the Farm.” Having carried through the first
-part of this programme, they took the road together and presently came
-upon the two brides. Maud bore a folded newspaper as if it were a
-truncheon of official authority. Her expression was stem and important.
-Helen was obviously struggling with a tendency to hysterical excitement.
-Upon catching sight of Darcy and her escort, Maud marched with an almost
-military front, straight upon them, her fellow bride acting as rear guard.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Darcy,” said Maud, ignoring the now perfectly whiskered fiance, “I should
-like to speak to you alone.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A qualm of mingled intuition and caution warned Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What about, Maud?” she asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A private matter which your fiancé can hear later,” returned the
-uncompromising Maud. “Please, Darcy,” added Helen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not at all,” returned the girl with spirit.' “Has it anything to do with
-Monty?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It has a great deal to do with him,” was the grim response.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then he should hear it at the same time.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Haw! By all means. Haw!” confirmed the fiancé, bringing his monocle to
-bear upon Maud and Helen in turn.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Very well,” said Maud in a your-blood-be-on-your-own-head voice. “Read
-that.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She thrust the newspaper into Darcy's hand, pointing to a penciled
-paragraph on the front page. To Darcy's eternal credit be it said, she
-succeeded in preserving a calm and unperturbed face, while she read the
-paragraph, and then passed it to her waiting fiancé.
-</p>
-<p>
-It informed the world that, for distinguished service in the aerial corps,
-the King of England had, on the previous day, personally decorated Sir
-Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XVI
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OR the death, disappearance, or capture of Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze
-Holdings, Hampshire, England, Darcy was duly prepared, in a spirit of
-Christian fortitude and resignation. That fame might mark him' out, thus
-forcing the issue for her, was wholly unforeseen. It took her completely
-aback. The Darcy of a year before would have collapsed miserably under it.
-But this was a different Darcy. She faced the accuser with a quiet smile,
-back of which her thoughts ran desperately around in circles, like a bevy
-of little rabbits cut off from cover.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You've read what it says in the newspaper?” said Maud, in the accents of
-a cross-examining counsel.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes. Oh, certainly!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then perhaps you can explain.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy shot a swift glance at the bogus Sir Montrose. He also was smiling.
-Most illogically Darcy's heart began to sing a little private Hymn of Hate
-of its own. What did he mean by standing there with a sickly grin on his
-silly face when the whole fabric of their mutual pretense was being
-riddled?
-</p>
-<p>
-(Herein she was ungrateful as well as illogical. The face was silly
-because she had compelled him to make it so. As for the rest, the smile
-was good enough of its kind. He was not smiling because he felt like it,
-but to conceal the fact that he was doing some high-pressure thinking of
-his own.)
-</p>
-<p>
-From the smirking countenance of her ally, Darcy turned to the lowering
-front of the enemy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, you see,” she said with an air of great candor, after deliberately
-tearing out the paragraph, “it's rather an involved matter.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't see anything involved about it,” returned the lofty and
-determined Maud. “Who is this man?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes; who is he?” echoed Helen, coming mildly to her support.
-</p>
-<p>
-From the corner of her eye the badgered girl could see the object of the
-inquiry. Still smiling! It was too much. Then and there Darcy committed
-that ignoble act known and reprehended in the higher sporting circles,
-wherein Andy Dunne moves, as “passing the buck.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>You</i> tell them, Monty,” she said sweetly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Of a great statesman, now dead, it has been written:
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-Cheated by treachery and beguiled by Fate,
-Once in his life we well may call him great.
-</pre>
-<p>
-Thus with Mr. Jacob Remsen <i>alias</i> Sir Montrose Veyze. Out of
-conscious nothing he had, in that precious moment's respite, evoked an
-instantaneous and full-fledged plan to meet the crisis.
-</p>
-<p>
-Fixing upon Maud as the more formidable antagonist, he impaled her on the
-beam of his monocle.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haw!” he ejaculated. “You've heard about the Veyze Succession, I assume.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never,” said Maud stoutly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>What?</i> Nevah heard of the King's Judgment? Why, my <i>deah</i>
-lady, we're as well known as the Tower of London or the—the Crystal
-Palace.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In America, you see,” explained the more pacific Helen, “these things
-don't get to us.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But I assuah you,” cried the other, turning his glassy regard upon her,
-“your atrocious American press has been quite full of it from time to
-time. Come, now! You're spoofing me. You must have read of the Veyze
-divided title. What?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Hypnotized by the glare of the monocle, Helen's imagination inspired her
-to confess that she did vaguely recall something about it, which was the
-more gratifying to the representative of the Veyzes in that he had
-introduced the press feature on the inspiration of the moment.
-</p>
-<p>
-The less impressionable Maud was not to be diverted from the main issue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Even if we knew all about your family, it would not explain Sir Montrose
-Veyze being here in America at the same time that he is being received by
-the King in London.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wearing two swords. Doesn't the press report mention that? It should,”
- put in the Veyze representative conscientiously piling up picturesque
-detail to embellish and fortify his case. “Don't forget that, please. It's
-a Veyze prerogative.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is it a Veyze prerogative to be in two places at once?” queried the
-cross-examiner. “Or—there aren't two of you, I suppose.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of <i>cawse!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-The accused delivered the answer in a tone of calm and wondering contempt.
-Obviously he was incredulous that such ignorance as his interrogator
-displayed could exist in a Christian country.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Two</i> Sir Montrose Veyzes? Of the same name and title?” Maud was
-glaring, now.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Of <i>cawse!</i> The famous Veyze twins. Though we're not rahlly twins
-any more, you understand.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Under the calm and steady beam of the monocle, Maud weakened. “What are
-you famous for?” she asked, more amenably.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Because there are two of us to the divided title. Bally hard for an
-American to understand, I'm afraid. It begins back in the early days of
-the title, quite before Columbus landed the Puritans at Bunker Hill, you
-know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Columbus wasn't a Puritan, dear,” corrected Darcy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No? Nevah heard anything against the man's morals, that I can recall.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never mind Columbus,” said the interested Helen. “Do tell us about the
-Veyzes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Right-o! Two brothers were born—twins, d' you see? There was some
-natural confusion. Which was the heir—born first, you know? Nobody
-could tell. The King was stayin' at Veyze Holdings then for the shootin';
-very famous shootin'. The family referred it to him. Would he play the
-part of Solomon and decide? His Majesty graciously acceded to the request.
-He decreed that the title should thenceforth be a dual one. It's remained
-so ever since. We don't produce twins any more, but the two eldest sons of
-the line inherit title and property jointly, and each carries two swords
-at court. There's Sir Montrose and Sir Montrose II. I'm II.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a>
-</p>
-<div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
-<img src="images/236.jpg"
- alt="There Are Two of Us to the Divided Title 236 " width="100%" /><br />
-</div>
-<p>
-“How romantic!” breathed Helen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Rah-ther. We pride ourselves on that sort of thing, we Veyzes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-As the glory of his performance developed before her enraptured mind, the
-Hymn of Hate died out within Darcy, to be succeeded by a Pæan of Praise.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And now,” said she severely, “I should think you girls might have the
-decency to apologize to Sir Montrose.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Rah-ther!” confirmed her ally.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm awfully sorry,” said Helen contritely. “I'll apologize when I'm
-proved wrong,” returned Mrs. Lee dubiously. “We'll know soon enough.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes? And how?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Mr. Wood is trying to get the British Embassy on long-distance'phone.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My respects to Lord Wyncombe,” said the undisturbed suspect. “But why go
-to so much trouble? Surely there's a simpler way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How?” asked Darcy, wondering what fresh audacity was developing in that
-fertile brain.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't you have—er—public libraries in your American towns?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Certainly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then perhaps there is one at Center Harbor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There is,” answered Helen, so promptly that Darcy shot a glance of
-suspicion at her.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What more easy than to drive over there at once,” observed the suspect
-blandly, “and consult their Burke.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Burke's Peerage, you mean?” said Darcy. “Perhaps they haven't one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They haven't,” blurted Maud, and stopped, reddening.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Apparently you've tried,” remarked Darcy witheringly. “We appreciate your
-interest.” But Sir Montrose II was painfully shocked. “Not got a Burke!”
- he exclaimed. “Unbelievable! What a country! I'll send for one, at once.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Impressed, despite herself, Maud Lee hesitated, looking from Darcy to her
-fiancé.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It may be all right,” she admitted. “I don't say that it isn't. But until
-it is cleared up beyond a doubt, don't you think, Darcy, you ought to come
-and stay with us?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I think not,” put in Darcy's escort quietly. “I'm taking Miss Cole back
-to the Farm. If you've nothing further to add—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Nothing—now,” answered the baffled Mrs. Lee.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then we'll bid you good-day.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Safely around the curve they stopped and faced each other.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You wonderful person!” giggled Darcy hysterically. “How did you ever
-think of it!” Assuming a grandiose pose he declaimed:
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-You may break, you may shatter, the Veyze if you will,
-But the scent of the Montrose will cling to it still.
-</pre>
-<p>
-“To get down to prose, how long will it cling?” she asked thoughtfully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Allowing for inevitable official red tape, I should say anywhere from
-twenty-four hours to a month.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Paul Wood has a cousin in the State Department.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In that case, nearer the twenty-four hours than the month.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Darcy seated herself on a boulder and took her chin into her cupped hands.
-“Let me think,” she murmured.
-</p>
-<p>
-Remsen watched her as she considered and would have given much to be able
-to read her mind. Presently she looked up.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do you mind leaving me here?” she inquired.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes,” he said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Why?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I always mind leaving you. It gives me a lost feeling.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She nodded. “Yes; I know what you mean. I feel it, too.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you?” he cried eagerly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You've been so wonderfully good to me all through this queer mess,” she
-supplemented, a little hurriedly.
-</p>
-<p>
-He disregarded this. “Besides,” he said, “I'm afraid this is going to be
-our last walk.” She looked her startled question.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What I'd like, of course,” he pursued, “is to stay here and face it
-through with you. But that's going to be worse for you than if I went,
-isn't it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm afraid it is.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then it's up to me to leave.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But what if they find you and take you back to New York?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've got to take the risk. They're pretty likely to find out about me
-here if they undertake a <i>Veyze</i> investigation.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's true,” she cried. “I've made this place impossible for you as a
-refuge.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not you. I did it myself. I'd do it again—a thousand times—for
-these last four days.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“When would you go?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To-night. Eleven o'clock. Meredith.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wait till to-morrow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-His heart leaped. “We're to have this evening together?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No,” she said gently. “I want this evening to myself. I have to think.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm a marvelous stimulus to thought,” he pleaded.
-</p>
-<p>
-She shook an obstinate head.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Might I walk back to the Farm with you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No; please. I'd rather you didn't.” She rose and laid her hand in his.
-“You've been a very parfait, gentil knight,” she said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Darcy!”
- </p>
-<p>
-But she was already swinging up the hill with that free, lithe, rhythmic
-pace of hers. At the summit she turned and waved. For one brief second he
-saw her sweet, flushed profile clear against the sweet, flushed sky. It
-disappeared leaving earth and heaven dim and void.
-</p>
-<p>
-Remsen turned blindly homeward. He knew, at last, what had happened to
-him.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XVII
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>LL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the
-Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote.
-</p>
-<p>
-All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen, at the
-Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out and relighted
-it and mused again.
-</p>
-<p>
-All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur sleuths at
-the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn't come.
-</p>
-<p>
-At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold cloud
-sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity of large,
-soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was darkened and the
-earth whitened with them.
-</p>
-<p>
-Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined, tramped
-Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack Remsen, deep in such
-trouble of heart as he had never known before, and most undetermined. Both
-were headed for the same spot, the mailbox at the entrance from the main
-road to the byway which leads up to the Bungalow.
-</p>
-<p>
-Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there first. She
-opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to another mail-box
-some distance along the road and opposite the Island, where she deposited
-a second epistle. That left her two and a half hours in which to make the
-ten miles of dark, heavy road to Meredith. If it were too little, she had
-learned of a trail through meadowland and forest which would cut off
-nearly two miles. Darcy didn't like woods at night—most of us don't,
-if we're honest with ourselves—but she proposed to catch that train.
-</p>
-<p>
-Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery boxes
-there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the raising and
-the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box, shortly after the
-wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack Remsen observed with surprise
-that the flag, which he knew to have been down, was raised.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How's this?” inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. “I've been here
-and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a day. Yet
-you're flying signals.”
- </p>
-<p>
-As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside. Darcy's note
-rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive matches and at the
-cost of scorched fingers, he read it:
-</p>
-<p>
-Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful one. But
-I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You must stay. I have
-written to Helen—she is the kind one—and told her about it;
-just how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir Montrose's place. I
-had to tell her who you were. But your secret won't be betrayed. So you
-won't have to go away. You'll be safe here. I'm glad. I like to think of
-you here. It's been good—hasn't it? Perhaps when you are able to
-come back to New York I'll see you at Gloria's some time.
-</p>
-<p>
-I can't say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn't even if there
-were time. You've been so good to me—so good. And all you've had for
-it is trouble. I'm sorry.
-</p>
-<p>
-Good-night, Knight. D. C.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Even if there were time.” As has been indicated, Jack Remsen's mind
-could, on occasion, work swiftly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because she
-was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her
-departure. That could mean only the eleven o'clock train from Meredith:
-the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his
-departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note! On
-her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory
-letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time before
-that letter reached its addressee!
-</p>
-<p>
-Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There were
-the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black wildness
-of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up with Darcy Cole
-when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the undivided
-attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the road at a
-dogtrot.
-</p>
-<p>
-His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable by
-several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a second to
-complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box behind, his inside
-pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein Darcy had set forth her
-circumstantial but by no means complete confession which was to exculpate
-her partner and inculpate herself. Remsen's heart beat a little faster
-under that bulky epistle with its contents of courage and self-sacrifice.
-</p>
-<p>
-At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this he
-could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not
-obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine. He
-jogged on with high hopes.
-</p>
-<p>
-On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of
-speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he
-might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to send
-a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he pictured
-to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the strong, lithe
-shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless pace of hers that
-had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled vigor.
-</p>
-<p>
-Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the
-flash on the road.
-</p>
-<p>
-No footmarks were visible.
-</p>
-<p>
-Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him on all
-sides. No result.
-</p>
-<p>
-Struggling to keep cool, he turned back, going slowly, careful to miss no
-trace which intent scrutiny might discover. A quarter of a mile back he
-picked up the trail where she had left the road to cross a brooklet and
-take to the open fields. Her object he guessed; to cut across a broad and
-heavily wooded hill, thus saving herself some two miles of travel where
-the road took a wide double curve.
-</p>
-<p>
-Eased in his breathing by the enforced slowness of the search, he was now
-able to accelerate his pace. Halfway up the open hillside a sudden fury of
-storm descended, lapping him in whirling darkness. Ahead of him stretched
-the dead-black line of woodland. More by luck than direction, he came upon
-a gateway, and thus set foot to the forest path, less difficult to discern
-in such conditions than the open trail of the meadows. With his light he
-could follow it quite easily. But when he thought of Darcy, lightless and
-inexperienced in woodcraft, with only her strength and her courage to help
-her, wandering in that wilderness, his spirit sickened with terror. The
-numbed fingers of the hand which gripped the flash warned him of dropping
-temperature. One might easily freeze on such a night, in the open. Worst
-of all, the marks in the snow were now all but invisible under the fresh
-fall.
-</p>
-<p>
-He blundered desperately onward, shouting her name into the gale as he
-went. There was an answering call. He threw his light on. She rose from a
-fallen tree-trunk into the arc of radiance.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I've been lost,” she said, and walked straight to his arms.
-</p>
-<p>
-Just for the comfort and safety and relief of it she clung to him, with no
-other or further thought than that where he was no harm could reach her.
-But now that she was found, Remsen's self-control broke under the
-reaction. His arms closed about her. With a shock of sweetness, amazement,
-and terror she felt his lips on hers—and answered them. For the
-briefest instant only. The thought of Gloria pierced through the rapture
-of the moment, a poisoned dart. She thrust herself back from him, her
-hands on his breast.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Go away!” she sobbed. “You've no right. You know you've no right!”
- </p>
-<p>
-As she had thought of Gloria, so now he thought of the Briton oversea,
-fighting in his country's service.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I know,” he groaned. “Forgive me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She stood back from him, staring with bewildered, dismayed eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I forgot for the moment that I'm only a counterfeit,” he pleaded.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You forgot—many things,” said she slowly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Forgive me, Darcy,” he said again. “It—it swept me off my feet—the
-sweetness of it. It was base—dishonorable—anything you want to
-call it; but when I felt you in my arms—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, <i>don't!</i>” she wailed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Will it make it better or worse if I tell you that I love you as I never
-loved or thought I could love any woman?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Worse! Worse! Infinitely worse!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“This is the end of me,” he said. He spoke quietly and in a flat, even
-tone as a man might speak who knew that he was giving up everything in
-life worth having. “I'll not offend again. But—after I'd kissed you—you
-had to know. I couldn't let you think it anything less than it was, the
-going out to you of a heart that I could no longer control.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In dishonor!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If you will have it so. The dishonor is mine. You are untouched by it....
-Now, let us get to other matters. Are you hurt?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then you can follow me back?” he said. “Where?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To the Farmhouse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll never go back to the Farmhouse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You must. I'm going away on this train.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What good would that do? Haven't you read my note to you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Of course. Otherwise I shouldn't have got on your trail.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then you must know that I've written the whole thing to Helen Wood, and
-even if I wanted to go back, now—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Dismiss that letter from your mind. I got it, on my way here.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>You</i> took my letter to Helen? Did you read it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you think me dishonorable in everything?” he returned quietly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, I'm sorry!” cried the girl impetuously. “I don't think you
-dishonorable. I know you're not. I don't know what to think or do.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Take this light and hurry back to the Farmhouse. I've still got time for
-the train. Or I'll take you back and make the morning train.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“One thing I cannot and will not do: spend another night at the Farm.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is that your last word?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes.” Obstinacy itself was in the monosyllable.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then I'll go with you to Meredith.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I won't let you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll go,” he retorted in a tone which ended that discussion.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under his guidance and in silence they regained the main road. At Center
-Harbor he succeeded in getting a team to take them the rest of the way.
-Not until the end of the journey did Darcy speak to him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What shall you do now?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't know. Go somewhere,” said he gloomily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You must go back.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Boulder Brook—without you?” he said passionately.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But where else can you go?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It doesn't matter.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They stood in silence until her train pulled in.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I shan't see you again, shall I?” he said wretchedly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You've made it impossible. Oh, why did you do it?” she wailed softly.
-</p>
-<p>
-With no further word she turned from him and went into the car. Remsen
-stood, dazed with misery. Forward, something was shunted from an express
-car with a heavy crash. There was a babel of voices, a moment's delay.
-Darcy flashed out upon the steps again, her eyes starry. Remsen jumped to
-meet her. She caught his hands in hers with a swift, forgiving little
-pressure.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I couldn't leave you so,” she said tremulously. “You've been too good to
-me. Good-bye, and—forget.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Before he could answer she was gone again.
-</p>
-<p>
-Until the tail-light of the train glimmered into obscurity around the
-curve, Remsen stood uncovered in the gale. Then he turned to the miles of
-lonely road.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XVIII
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>ARCY, in her berth, sat huddled up and wide-eyed. She knew at last what
-had happened to her. The burning memory of that kiss in the woods had left
-nothing unrevealed to a soul as frank with itself as Darcy's had grown to
-be. She knew, too, what she had to face. There was no doubt or hesitancy
-in her thoughts, no weak attempt to justify herself or find an easy way
-out. If it had been any one but Gloria Greene whose happiness was at
-stake, Gloria who had picked her up from the scrap-heap of waste and made
-a living, pulsating, eager human creature of her, Darcy might have fought
-for her own hand. But how could a man who had loved Gloria Greene, and
-whom Gloria loved, care seriously for any other woman on earth? No; this
-was only a sudden, unreckonable infatuation on Jack Remsen's part.... Then
-she recalled the look in his eyes when they parted, and knew that her
-conscience was lying to her heart. In any case, her course was clear. She
-must be game.
-</p>
-<p>
-In her deep trouble her thoughts turned to Gloria, the wise, kind
-counsellor, the safe refuge. But she would not do for this crisis! To
-betray Remsen to her—that was unthinkable, and nothing short of the
-whole truth would serve with Gloria. Darcy knew that she must fight it out
-alone. Never, not even in the old, dead days, had she felt so alone.
-</p>
-<p>
-Human nature being what it is, there is nothing strange in the fact that,
-on her return to New York, Darcy shrank from meeting Gloria. Although the
-girl's conscience absolved her, except for that one, instinctive lapse
-when she had been caught off her guard, her sore heart pleaded guilty to
-the self-brought charge of a lasting disloyalty. With the thrill of Jack
-Remsen's kiss still in her veins, how could she face the woman to whom
-Remsen owed his allegiance, the woman who, moreover, had been the kindest,
-most effectual, most unselfish friend of her own unbefriended life?
-</p>
-<p>
-Yet there remained to be concluded the obsequies of Sir Montrose Veyze, of
-Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. Those remains, of unblessed memory,
-must positively be removed from the premises before they gave rise to
-further and even more painful complications. Darcy experienced the grisly
-emotions of a murderer with an all-too-obvious corpse to dispose of. First
-of all, Gloria's absolution from the promise of secrecy must be obtained,
-which she would doubtless be more than ready to accord, now that Sir
-Montrose had become too heavy a burden to carry; also Gloria's advice and
-aid if she would give it. Nerving herself for the encounter, Darcy went to
-see the actress and told her the whole (if she herself was to be believed)
-disastrous tale.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria was too shrewd to believe quite that far. There were obvious
-hesitancies, blank spaces, and reservations wherever the name and deeds of
-Mr. Jacob Remsen, <i>alias</i> Sir Montrose Veyze II, or in his own proper
-person, entered into the narrative. And there was a something in the
-girl's eyes, deep down where the warm gray was lighted to warmer blue,
-which hadn't been there before. It completed the woman in her. With an
-inner flush of creative pride Gloria communed with herself upon the new
-miracle:
-</p>
-<p>
-“This is a wonderful and lovable thing that I have made.” Instinctive
-honesty compelled her, however, to add: “But somebody else has given the
-finishing touch.”
- </p>
-<p>
-She was too keen an observer not to suspect who her fellow creative artist
-was. Being of the ultra-blessed who hold their tongues until it is time to
-speak, Gloria made no comment upon this phase, but set her mind singly to
-the problem in hand as presented by Darcy's recital. “It's time to own
-up,” was her decision.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I suppose so,” agreed the girl. “I don't look forward to telling Maud.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let me handle Maud.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Would you, Gloria? You <i>are</i> good. However well you do it, though,”
- she added resentfully, “I suppose I'll be 'Poor Darcy' again without even
-the compensation of being 'Such a <i>nice</i> girl.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you <i>feel</i> like 'Poor Darcy'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Do you <i>look</i> like 'Poor Darcy'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl glanced at the long studio mirror back of her. “No, I don't,” she
-replied, and two dimples came forward and offered corroborative testimony.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then whom is the joke on?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The dimples vanished. “On me,” said their erstwhile proprietor.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't be an imbecile!” adjured her mentor. “Can't help it,” returned
-Darcy dolefully. “I've got the habit.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Break it. Hark to the voice of Pure Reason (that's me). As long as you
-were 'Poor Darcy,' you had to invent a fiancé or go without, didn't you?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And your invention was sure to be a regular old Frankenstein monster, and
-to come back and devour you as soon as you were found out.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I can hear the clanking of his joints this minute!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You can't. He isn't there. If you were still 'Poor Darcy,' there'd be no
-hope for you. You're not. You're something totally different.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That's your view of it,” returned the dispirited Darcy. “But to other—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's anybody's view that isn't blind as a bat! Half the men you meet are
-crazy about you. Aren't they?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I haven't met many, lately,” said Darcy demurely.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You met plenty at our party. Even Maud and Helen saw the effect. Their
-eyes bunged out!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I don't see how their eyes bunging out is going to help explain Sir
-Montrose Veyze I, let alone Sir Montrose Veyze II.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why worry, when I'm here to take the burden from you? I propose,” said
-Miss Greene relishingly, “to tell those girls the truth, the whole truth,
-and nothing but the truth.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria! They'll pass it on and I'll be the laughing-stock—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Will they! I dare'em to pass it on!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why shouldn't they?” cried the girl. “It's just the sort of thing that
-Maud would revel in.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Allowing that she could get away with it, you're right. She couldn't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Couldn't make people believe it, you mean?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never. Never in the world!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But it's <i>true!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Dear and lovely innocence! Do you think <i>that</i> helps it to get
-itself believed? Besides, the main part of it isn't true.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I mean it's true that it isn't true, and if Maud tells the truth about
-what isn't true—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Come out of that skein of metaphysical wool, kitten,” laughed Gloria.
-“You're tangled. Here's what isn't true; that you're 'Poor Darcy' who has
-to get lovers out of books for lack of'em in real life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But I <i>have</i> been.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“All right. Let Maud tell the people that used to know you, and make them
-believe it. There's only a few of them and they don't count. As for trying
-it on any one else, all she'll get will be a reputation for green-eyed
-jealousy. How would anybody convince Jack Remsen, for instance” (Darcy
-winced, and Gloria's quick sense caught it), “that you had to invent an
-imaginary adorer because you couldn't get a real one? No, indeed! The
-evidence is all against it from Exhibit A, Darcy's eyes, down to Exhibit
-Z, Darcy's smart little boots. For an unattractive girl, your little
-effort of the imagination would be a pathetic, desperate, ridiculous
-invention, with the laugh on the inventor. For an attractive girl, it's
-just a festive little joke. Don't you see how it works out? The pretty
-girl (that's you) can have all the adorers she wants, but she prefers to
-take in her friends by inventing one. Is the joke on the girl or her
-friends? One guess. Why, oh, why,” concluded Gloria addressing the Scheme
-of the World in a burst of self-admiration, “wasn't I born a professor of
-logic instead of an actress?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It sounds reasonable,” confessed Darcy. “But will Maud and Helen be
-clever enough to see it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Probably not.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Therefore I shall point it out to them in my inimitable and convincing
-style, with special hints as to the perils and disadvantages of getting a
-reputation for jealousy of a better-looking girl!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then that's all settled,” said Darcy with a sigh. “Now what about Sir
-Montrose? The real Sir Montrose, I mean.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, <i>what</i> about him?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Suppose he should come over here and hear about it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“He won't. He's engaged to an English girl. I've just heard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How nice and considerate of him! You know, Gloria, I could almost love
-that man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Could you? What about the bogus Sir Montrose?” asked the actress
-significantly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy flushed faintly. “Well, <i>what</i> about him?” she echoed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How much does <i>he</i> know?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not very much. Do you think I ought to tell him?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Does the child expect me to manage her conscience as well as her
-affairs!” cried the actress. “If any one is to tell him, you're the one.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I suppose so,” assented Darcy, spiritlessly, and made her farewells in no
-more cheerful frame of mind than when she had come, albeit one load was
-off her shoulders.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XIX
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>OR a week or more Gloria neither saw nor heard from the girl. At the end
-of that time she did, to her surprise, encounter the erstwhile bogus Sir
-Montrose without his hirsute adornments and in his proper person of Mr.
-Jacob Remsen, sauntering idly along the Park. Hailing him, she took him
-into her taxi. Mr. Remsen was not looking his customary sunny self.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did the law's minions catch you in spite of your whiskers?” she asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No. Case was compromised. So I've come back.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And what are you going to do now?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm going to work.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Work! You?” said the actress with unfeigned and unflattering surprise.
-“Why? What's the answer?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ambition,” replied Mr. Remsen in a lifeless voice.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Sounds more like penal servitude,” commented Gloria. “And what is to be
-the scene of your violent endeavors?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ask the Government,” he replied wearily. “Washington, maybe. Or perhaps
-San Francisco or Savannah. Or right here in New York, for all I know.”
- </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Jerusalem and Madagascar
-And North and South Amerikee,”
- </pre>
-<p>
-quoted the other. “Are you about to become an American courier for the
-peripatetic Mr. Cook, his agency?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Got a chance to go into the Treasury Department,” answered Remsen
-gloomily.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Don't give up heart,” she encouraged him. “Strong young men like you
-often survive the rigors of that life. Pity they don't send you to London,
-where your monocle and your accent would be appreciated. By the way, have
-you seen your quondam fiancée since your return?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No,” said Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gloria, noting that he winced much as Darcy had winced, wondered, and
-turned the talk to other topics which gave her opportunity to revolve the
-problem of the two masqueraders in her mind. That there was a problem she
-was now well assured. She took it to luncheon with her, after dropping one
-of the subjects of it, and came to a conclusion characteristic of her
-philosophy and worthy of a mathematician; namely, that the figures in any
-problem work out their own solution if properly arranged. She decided to
-do the arranging after luncheon by telephone.
-</p>
-<p>
-She sent word to Darcy to meet her at the studio without fail at five.
-Then she got Remsen at his club and told him that a matter of importance
-had come up about which she wanted to see him at her place about
-five-fifteen. Whether she herself could get through her engagements and be
-back home at that hour she did not know nor particularly care. Her duties
-as hostess did not weigh heavily upon her in this respect. Let Jack or
-Darcy or both reach the place before her; it didn't greatly matter.
-Perhaps it would even be better that way.
-</p>
-<p>
-Furthermore, Gloria Greene was very deeply and happily preoccupied with
-certain affairs of her most intimate own, which will serve to explain a
-slight vagueness in her usually accurate schedules, with consequences
-quite unforeseen by her managerial self. For one of Miss Greene's errands
-that day had been to send a vitally important telegram which called for an
-answer in person on the following day. That the answer in person might
-arrive that same day she had not reckoned. She had consulted only railway
-time-tables, forgetting that far-and-swift-flying chariot of Cupid, the
-high-powered automobile.
-</p>
-<p>
-ALL things threaten a guilty conscience.
-</p>
-<p>
-Haunted by the unlaid ghost of Sir Montrose Veyze, Darcy, on receipt of
-Gloria's message, fearfully anticipated that some new complication had
-arisen. Having concluded a satisfactory interview with B. Riegel &
-Sons (whose representative was impressed anew with her splendor) she
-reached Gloria's studio a little before the appointed time. The place was
-empty. For a few moments she idled about, examining the new pictures,
-glancing casually at books, and presently drifted to the piano seat.
-</p>
-<p>
-Insensibly guided by memories, her fingers wandered into the little,
-soothing cradle-song which she had first heard in that very spot from Jack
-Remsen's lips. Long ago, it seemed; so long ago! Once she played it
-through, and then in her tender and liquid voice she crooned it softly.
-</p>
-<p>
-She did not hear the door open and close. But she felt a light draught of
-air, and the next instant a man's figure loomed through the gathering
-dusk, a man's strong hands fell on her shoulders, and a man's glad voice
-cried:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Dearest!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh!” exclaimed Darcy in consternation. “Good Lord!” ejaculated the
-newcomer in an altered and horrified tone.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy turned to confront Thomas Harmon. She had seen him but once, but she
-carried the clearest memory of his quiet eyes, his vital personality, his
-big, light-moving, active frame, and his persuasively friendly manner. Mr.
-Harmon was a person not easy to forget. Now he was covered with confusion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I—I <i>really</i> beg your pardon,” he stammered. “It was
-inexcusably stupid of me.” Darcy held out her hand, smiling. “I'm Darcy
-Cole, Mr. Harmon,” she said. “And I have a great deal to thank you for.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Me?” said the big man in surprise. “I'd be glad to think so, but—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But you don't know why,” she concluded, kindly intent on putting him at
-his ease. (Darcy, who a year before would have been on live coals of
-embarrassment before any strange man!) “You gave me a refuge at Boulder
-Brook when I very much needed one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh! So you're Gloria's—Miss Greene's little friend. I hope they
-made you comfortable.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Didn't you get a note from me telling you how delightful your place is?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No. But, you see, I've been away. Just got in.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They stood looking at each other for a moment, the girl demure but
-dimpling, the man still in some confusion of spirit. Then, encouraged
-perhaps by the dimples, perhaps by some aura of fellowship and
-understanding which exhaled from the girl, Hannon burst out boyishly:
-</p>
-<p>
-“I've heard a lot about you, Miss Darcy, and I believe you're a—well,
-a good fellow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I am,” Darcy assured him with absolute conviction.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, after the break I made I've got to tell somebody or <i>bust</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tell me,” invited the girl. “Whom did you think I was when you rushed on
-me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria, of <i>course!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gloria!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Although untrained in fancy gymnastics, Darcy's brain whirled around ten
-times in one direction, clicked, and whirled around ten times on the
-reverse. She put her hand to her head dizzily, striving to readjust her
-thoughts.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Isn't it very sudden?” she faltered.
-</p>
-<p>
-“About as sudden as Jacob's little affair with Rachel,” laughed Harmon.
-“It's been a seven-year siege on my part.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But, Gloria—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh, it's been a heap suddener for Gloria. In fact she only—I only
-got the word to-day. And here I am.” He examined the girl's troubled face.
-“You don't look exactly pleased,” he added, crestfallen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Indeed, you mustn't think that,” she cried earnestly. “But I—I—I
-thought it was Mr. Remsen.” In her bewilderment she blundered on. “I saw
-her k-k-k-” Too late she strove to catch herself on the brink of a
-shameful betrayal.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You saw her kiss Jack,” he interpreted, smiling. “He's a sort of a third
-cousin or something, and a privileged character, anyway.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I didn't know,” answered the girl. Then, recovering herself: “Oh, Mr.
-Harmon, I <i>am</i> so glad. I believe you're just as fine as Gloria is—and
-that's the most any one could say.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My dear,” he said more gravely. “Nobody on earth is that. But—well,
-I want to shout and sing and—Play your music again, won't you? Maybe
-that'll help.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Maybe, thought Darcy, it would help her, too; for she also wanted to shout
-and sing, and, most contradictorily, to hide and cry—and wait.
-</p>
-<p>
-Forgetful, in the turmoil of her mind, of the pledge to Jack Remsen about
-the little song which was to be their one keepsake of those enchanted days
-in the mountains, she turned back to the piano and hummed the melody.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's built for a second part,” commented Harmon. “Do you mind if I try
-it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-So she went over it again, and he struck in, in a clear, charming
-barytone, and with a singularly happy inspiration of a tenor part. Over
-and over it they went, she suggesting, and he perfecting his second; and
-they were still at it when the door opened again, upon deaf ears.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the hallway Jack Remsen stopped dead. The first thing of which he was
-conscious was that the voice of the girl he loved and had continued to
-love against every dictate of conscience and honor was running like sweet
-fire through his veins again. Instantly the fire became bitter and
-scorching. For there was another voice, accompanying and fulfilling hers,
-the barytone which she had adduced as one of her British lover's chief
-charms.
-</p>
-<p>
-(Remsen had to admit the quality of the voice, now raised in <i>his</i>
-song. The song which she had promised to keep as his and hers; the one
-thing which he might claim of her!)
-</p>
-<p>
-A hot anger rose in his heart and as quickly faded. Why shouldn't she sing
-that song with her lover? At most it was an idle promise which he had had
-no right to exact. He conquered an impulse to turn and leave. No; the
-thing had to be faced. Might as well face it now. When the chords died
-down he advanced to the door and spoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-Darcy whirled on her seat, and rose, very white. His one glance told
-Remsen that she was lovelier than ever. Then everything was swallowed up
-in the amazement of finding Hannon there. Harmon—alone in the dusk
-with Darcy where he had expected to find the fiancé—his song—and
-that charming, clear barytone of which Darcy had boasted in Sir Montrose!
-</p>
-<p>
-An explanation came to his mind, light in the darkness. It was just
-another masquerade—Darcy apparently specialized in them—and
-Veyze had been but a blind for Harmon, the real lover in the background,
-all the time. He felt Harmon wringing his hand in welcome and heard
-himself saying with a creditable affect of heartiness:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then I suppose it's you that I'm to congratulate.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is,” returned the other, chuckling joyously. “Though how on earth you
-knew it I can't conceive.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Isn't it evident enough?” said Jack.
-</p>
-<p>
-He marched over to Darcy. She saw him changed, thinned, with lines in his
-smooth face; lines of thoughtfulness, of self-control, of achieved
-manhood, and her heart was in her eyes as they met his and drooped.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And you,” he said. “I wish you every happiness. I couldn't wish you
-better than Tom Harmon.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>What!</i>” cried that complimented but astounded gentleman. “Me? Miss
-Darcy?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, if it isn't you,” said Jack lifelessly, looking from one to the
-other: “will you kindly tell—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It <i>is</i> me, but it isn't her,” broke in Harmon, with the superb
-disregard of grammar suitable to the occasion. “Man alive, it's <i>Gloria!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-As if in confirmation, Gloria's voice came to them, down the hallway.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Darcy! Where are you, child?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Two chairs which foolishly attempted to impede Mr. Thomas Harmon's abrupt
-and athletic progress across the floor were sent to the janitor next day.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tom!” cried Gloria's voice in a breathless and different tone. Then the
-door slammed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jack Remsen turned to Darcy. “So that's it, is it?” he said slowly.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That,” answered Darcy, “is it. Isn't it splendid!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Couldn't be splendider—for those most concerned. What about the
-rest of it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The rest of it?” Her brows were raised in dainty puzzlement, but her eyes
-refused to meet his.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where is Veyze?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“On his way back to the East, I understand,” said Darcy carefully.
-</p>
-<p>
-“When is he coming over?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Are you going over there—to England?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You're not looking me in the face.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I—I don't want to look you in the face. You're not pretty when you
-make a—a catechism of yourself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darcy,” said Remsen, “there's been something queer about this Veyze
-business from the start. As long as I could help I did, didn't I?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes,” said the girl quite low.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And I asked no questions?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No,” she said, even lower.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But now I've got to know. I've got a right to know.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Why?” It was the merest whisper. “Because I've come back loving you more
-than when you left me. I wouldn't have believed it possible. But it's so.
-Every hope and wish of my heart is bound up in you. Darcy, is it broken
-off between you and Montrose Veyze?”
- </p>
-<p>
-She raised her eyes to his. The color flushed and trembled adorably in her
-face. She spoke, clear and sweet as music.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There never was anything between me and Sir Montrose Veyze.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You mean,” said the astounded Remsen, “that you were only acquaintances?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If Sir Montrose walked into the room this minute I shouldn't know him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But, how—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I made it up. All. Every bit of it.” She put her hands together in a
-posture of half-mocking plea. “Please, sir, do I have to tell you the
-whole shameful story?”
- </p>
-<p>
-He caught the hands between his. “There's only one thing you have to tell
-me, Darcy. Shall I tell you what it is?”
- </p>
-<p>
-There was no need. The hands stole to his shoulders, and then around his
-neck. “Oh, I do! I do!” she breathed. “There never was any Veyze, or any
-engagement, or anything or anybody—but—just—you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But, Darcy, love,” he demanded, holding her close, “why wouldn't you give
-me a chance, when we were at Boulder Brook?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I—I—I thought it was G-g-g-gloria with you, all the time.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You didn't! How could you miss seeing that I was mad about you from the
-first? Why didn't you tell me what you thought?”
- </p>
-<p>
-With her cheek against his and her lips at his ear, she confessed, between
-soft, quick catchings of the breath:
-</p>
-<p>
-“Because I was afraid—of letting you see how much I cared. I—I've
-been such a little fool, Jack, dear. And—and about the Veyze thing—I'm
-a cheat—and an awful little liar—and—and—and—and
-a forger, I guess. But it never hurt anybody but myself—and I've
-been loving you all the time—until my heart—almost broke.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm pretty good at those crimes myself,” returned her lover comfortingly.
-“And worse. I've robbed a mail-box. When did you ever descend to such
-desperate depths as that?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I tried to kill my trainer,” retorted Darcy proudly; “and he's the best
-friend I ever had except Gloria. He's the one that made me presentable.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll ask him to be best man,” said her lover promptly. “As for our
-crimes, I'll tell you, darling of my heart; let's turn over a new leaf and
-live straight and happy ever after.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Let's,” agreed Darcy with a sigh of happiness.
-</p>
-<p>
-Half an hour later Tom Harmon and Gloria outside heard music, the cradling
-measures of the little song, and crept to the door hand in hand. They
-caught the mention of Boulder Brook and shamelessly listened. The pair
-within were already future-building on Tom Harmon's property.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And we'll get on that same train right after the wedding,” said Remsen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And get off at Weirs,” added the prospective bride.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And have the festive native there to meet us with 'th' ole boat.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And take that awful, bumpy road slower than we did before.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And go straight to the Farmhouse—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm sorry, children,” the rightful owner of the coolly appropriated
-property broke in upon their dreams; “but you can't have the Farmhouse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Oh!” said Darcy, hastily moving north-by-west on the piano seat.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's taken,” explained Harmon, beaming upon Gloria, “for another
-couple.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Heaven bless'em!” said Jack heartily. “Thank you! You,” concluded their
-past and future host, “may have the Bungalow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CHAPTER XX
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>OMEWHERE in Siberia, quite unaware of his activities as an absentee
-Cupid, Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, with a
-spread of huge composition planes where his dovelike wings should have
-been, and a quick-firer at his side in place of bow and quiver, reached
-out of his aeroplane for the long-overdue mail and read with languid
-surprise an invitation to be present at the marriage of Miss Darcy Cole to
-Mr. Jacob Remsen, in New York City, New York, on the preceding Christmas
-day.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now, where the dayvle,” puzzled Sir Montrose Veyze as he rose into the
-clouds “did I ever know those people?”
- </p>
-<h3>
-THE END
-</h3>
-<div style="height: 6em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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diff --git a/old/44326.txt b/old/44326.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6ca086f..0000000 --- a/old/44326.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6843 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanted: A Husband, by Samuel Hopkins Adams - -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: Wanted: A Husband - A Novel - -Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams - -Illustrator: Frederic Dorr Steele - -Release Date: December 1, 2013 [EBook #44326] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANTED: A HUSBAND *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - - - -WANTED: A HUSBAND - -A Novel - -By Samuel Hopkins Adams - -With Illustrations By Frederic Dorr Steele - -Houghton Mifflin Company 1920 - -WANTED: A HUSBAND - - - - -CHAPTER I - -OUT OF ORDER! pertly announced the placard on the elevator. To Miss -Darcy Cole, wavering on damp, ill-conditioned, and reluctant legs, this -seemed the final malignancy of the mean-spirited fates. Four beetling -flights to climb! Was it worth the effort? Was anything worth the effort -of that heart-breaking ascent? For that matter, was anything worth -anything, anyway? Into such depths of despond had the spirit of Miss -Cole lapsed. - -At the top of the frowning heights the studio apartment of Miss -Gloria Greene would open to her. There would be tea, fresh-brewed and -invigorating. There would be a broad and restful couch full of fluffy -pillows, comforting to tired limbs. There would be Gloria Greene -herself, big and beautiful and radiant, representing everything which -poor little Darcy Cole was not but most wished to be, and, furthermore, -a sure source of wise counsel, or, at worst, of kindly solace for a case -which might be too hopeless for counsel. As alternative, a return to the -wind-swept, rain-chilled New York side street. No; the thing had to be -done! Darcy nerved her soggy muscles to the ordeal. - -On the second landing she paused to divide a few moments between -hard breathing and hating the imitation-leather roll beneath her arm. -Including the wall-paper design within, just rejected by B. Riegel -& Sons, the whole affair might have weighed two pounds. To its -ill-conditioned bearer it felt like two hundred. She set a hand to her -panting chest and a thorn promptly impaled her thumb. Tearing off the -offending rose Darcy flung it over the banister rail. It was a flabby, -second-hand wraith of a rose, anyhow, having been passed down to the -wearer by her flat-mate, Maud Raines, who in turn had it, along with -eleven others, from her fiance. - -Darcy stuck out a vindictive tongue at the discarded flower. Nobody ever -sent _her_ roses! Dully musing upon the injustices of existence, she -clambered up the third flight and leaned against the wall to rally her -spent energies, with her hands thrust deep into the sagging pockets -of her coat. Something light and scratchy rubbed against her bare -forefinger, which was protruding from a hole in her glove. Being -exhumed, it revealed itself as one of those tiny paper frills wherein -high-priced candy is chastely attired. The departed bonbon had come -from a box sent by Paul Wood, the architect, to Darcy's other flat-mate, -Helen Barrett, to whom he had just become engaged. Darcy let the -inoffensive ornament flutter from her fingers to the floor and crushed -it flat with a vengeful foot. Nobody ever sent _her_ candy in frilly -collars! Nobody ever sent her anything! Oozing wretchedness and -self-pity, she took the final flight in a rush, burst in upon the labors -of Miss Gloria Greene, planted herself in the middle of the floor, -dropped her work roll and kicked it as far as she could, and lifted up -the voice of lamentation in the accepted phrase, duly made and provided -for such of feminine sex and tender years as find the weary pattern of -the world too tangled for their solving. - -"Oh, I wuh--wuh--wish I were duh--duh--dead!" mourned Miss Cole with -violence. - -Gloria Greene dropped the typed sheets which she had been studying -and rose from her chair. She looked down at the lumpy, lax figure of -helpless, petulant rebellion before her. - -"Oh, you do, do you?" she remarked pensively. - -"Yes; I do!" - -"So do most people at one time or another," was Miss Greene's -philosophical commentary upon this. - -"Not you," declared Darcy, glancing up at the vivid face above her -resentfully. "I'll bet you've never known what it is to feel that way in -your life." - -"Oh, I'm too busy for such nonsense," returned Gloria in her serene and -caressing voice. - -Indeed, it would be difficult for any one favored with Miss Gloria -Greene's acquaintance to imagine her wishing to depart a life to the -enjoyment of which she has vastly added for thousands of people. For -under a slightly different name Miss Greene is known to and admired by -most of the theater-going populace of the United States. From the top -of her ruddy, imperiously poised head to the tip of her perfectly shod -toes, she justifies and fulfills in every line and motion the happy -thought which inspired the dean of American playwrights to nickname her -"Gloria." Deeper than her beauty and abounding vitality there lies a -more profound quality, the rare gift of giving graciously and naturally. -It is Gloria Greene's unconscious and intuitive mission in life to lend -color and light and cheer to colorless, dim, and forlorn folk wherever -she encounters them. That is why Darcy Cole was, at the moment, -dribbling tears and aspirations for an immediate demise all over -Gloria's rare Anatolian rug. Not that Darcy really desired to die. She -merely wished Gloria Greene to make life more practicable for her. - -"That's imagination, you know," continued the actress. - -"It isn't," snivelled Darcy. - -"Then it's indigestion. Have a pill." - -"I won't!" declined the girl rudely. "You're making fun of me. They all -make fun of me. I do wish I was dead!" - -"Do you, indeed!" - -Setting two slim but powerful hands upon the girl's shoulders, Gloria -Greene proceeded methodically to shake her. She shook her until her -hat (oh, but it was a bad and shabby hat!) came off and rolled upon -the floor. She shook her until her hairpins fell like hail and her -brown-black hair struggled out of its arrangement (oh, but it was a poor -and tasteless arrangement!) and tumbled about her face (and, oh, but -it was a sallow and torpid face!). She further shook her until her eyes -bulged out and a faint flame shone on her cheeks, and her buttons began -to pop, and her breath rattled on her teeth, and she could barely gasp -out: - -"St-t-t-top! You're shaking me to p-p-pieces!" - -"Why not?" inquired Miss Greene blandly, and shook harder than before. - -"D-d-d-dud-dud-_don't_" wailed the victim. "W-w-wait a m-m-m-minute!" - -The shaker desisted, still maintaining her grip. "What's the matter?" -she inquired. - -"You're killing me!" - -"Then you don't want to die, after all?" inquired the other. - -"Not that way!" gasped the girl. - -"It's my regular treatment for dead-wish-ers. - -"It's brutal," whimpered Darcy. "Everything's brutal. The world's -brutal. I hate it! I wish I--Glooo-oria! Don't begin again!" - -"_What_ do you wish?" demanded the administrator of discipline -implacably. - -"I wish I'd never come here at all." - -"That's different," commented Miss Greene, "though it probably isn't -true, either. Now sit down. Tell me all about it. I've got a few minutes -to spare." - -"It's very long," began Darcy dolefully. "You're trying to dodge. Begin -at once. Or must I apply my treatment again?" - -"Ow! No! Don't!" implored the girl. "I'll tell. But I don't know where -to begin." - -"Begin in the middle," suggested Gloria helpfully. "Then you can work -both ways." - -"I will. Well, then, you see, Maud's gone and got engaged." - -"To whom?" - -"Holcomb Lee, the illustrator." - -"Why should that make you want to die? Are you in love with Mr. Lee?" - -"I in love with Holcomb!" Darcy's bitter grin dismissed that -supposition. "I'm not in love with _anybody_. It isn't that." - -"Then what is it?" asked the patient Gloria. - -"It's the whole thing. Helen Barrett is going to marry Paul Wood." - -"If any woman know any just reason why these twain should not be joined -together in holy matrimony, let her now speak or forever after hold her -peace," solemnly misquoted Gloria. - -"But--but--but Maud and Helen and I," pursued the girl, evincing -symptoms of a melancholic relapse, "were going to be the Three Honest -Working-Girls and keep up our Fifty-Sixth Street bachelor-girl hall for -life. And now look at the darn thing!" - -"What did you expect?" argued Gloria. "Maud is pretty and energetic, and -Helen is one of those soft, fluffy creatures that some man always wants -to take care of. Bachelor-girl agreements are only made to keep until -the right man comes along, anyway." - -"But where do I come in?" demanded Darcy, opening wide her -discontented-looking eyes. - -"Oh, you'll be getting engaged yourself one of these days." - -For once in her tactful life Gloria Greene had made a stupid remark. - -"Don't you patronize me!" flashed the girl. "I just won't stand it! I -get enough of that at home from those two d---d fiancees." - -Gloria turned a face of twinkling astonishment upon her visitor. -"Why, Amanda Darcy Cole! What would the generations of your Puritan -forbears--" - -"Don't you call me Amanda, either! It's an old-maid name. I hate -it--even if it does fit." - -"It is rather a handicap," admitted her hostess. "But Darcy's pretty -enough, anyway." - -"It's the only pretty thing about me. Oh, Gloria," burst out the girl -in a sudden flood-tide of self-revelation, "if you knew how I long to -be pretty! Not beautiful, like you; I wouldn't ask as much as that. But -just pretty enough to be noticed once in a while." - -[Illustration: If you knew how I long to be pretty 028] - -"Why, Darcy, dear--" - -"No: let me talk!" Darcy proceeded in little, jerky gasps of eagerness. -"Pretty. And well-dressed. And up-to-date. And smart. And everything! -I'd sell my soul to the devil if he'd buy such a weakly, puny, piffling -little soul, just really to live and be something besides a 'thoroughly -nice girl' for one short year. 'A thoroughly nice girl'! Yah!" said -Miss Cole in a manner which, whatever else it might have been, was not -thoroughly nice. - -"That's a rotten thing to say about any one," agreed the sympathetic -Gloria. "Who calls you that?" - -"The girls. You know the way they say it! Well, no wonder. Look at me!" -she cried in passionate conclusion to her passionate outburst. - -Gloria looked at her. She beheld an ungirlish frump of a thing with a -lank but bulgy figure misclothed in woefully inappropriate garments, a -muddy complexion, a sagging mouth, a drooping chin, a mass of deranged -hair, and big, deep-gray, lusterless eyes, which implored her. The older -woman considered and marveled. - -"My dear child," she said gently, "are you sure it isn't some man?" - -"I don't care a darn for any man in the world," returned the other -with convincing promptitude. "It isn't that. It's just that I'm not--I -don't--" Her courage seemed to ebb out, but she gained command of -herself and continued plaintively: "All I want is to be in the game as -other girls play it--to have a little attention and maybe a box of candy -or some flowers once in a while: not to have men look past me like a -tree. It isn't much to ask, is it? If you knew how tired I am of being -just plain nobody! There's a--a somebody inside here"--she thumped her -narrow, ribby chest--"but I can't get it out." Rising lumpily to her -feet, she stretched out hands of piteous and grotesque appeal. "Please, -Gloria," she prayed in a dwindling and saintly voice, "I want to raise -just a little teeny bit of hell before I die." - -A flash of sympathy and comprehension from the actress's intent face -answered this noble aspiration. "Why, you're real, aren't you!" she -exclaimed. - -"Did you think I wasn't even _that?_" returned the other reproachfully. - -"Not so many people are. It's something, anyway. Are you going to be -honest, as well?" - -"How, honest?" - -"With me. Are you going to be frank?" - -"Of course." - -"Then tell me what started you on this." - -A dismal sort of muddy flush overspread the girl's features. Silently -she drew from her pocket a full-page drawing from "Life" which she -unfolded and handed to the other. She laid a finger on the central -figure. - -"That's Darcy," said she. - -"Is it?" Gloria studied the illustration interestedly. "Who drew it?" - -"Holcomb Lee." - -"That scrawl in the corner means Lee, does it? Is it drawn from life?" - -"Yes." - -"What does Maud say to your sitting as model for her young man?" - -"Maud laughed," said Darcy between her teeth. - -"Pussy, pussy!" commented Miss Greene. "That decided you to keep on, I -suppose." - -"Naturally." - -"Well, the result justifies you." - -"D' you think it's pretty?" - -"I most certainly do." - -"And don't you think it looks just the least lee-eetle bit like me?" -pursued Darcy shyly. - -Gloria scrutinized the drawing again, and then the wistful face before -her. With growing astonishment she realized the fundamental likeness. - -"More than that," said she. "That young man knows how to see with his -eyes." - -"It was his own notion," said the girl in a rush of words. "One night -I was sitting at the piano. He said there were lines in my face that he -wanted. He asked me if I'd sit for him once. Then he had me come back -again and again. I didn't mind. I--I liked it. It was the first time any -one had ever seen anything to admire about me since I was a child. -Oh, and one day he said: 'Miss Darcy, you must have been a beautiful -child.'" - -"Were you?" asked Gloria. - -From another pocket Darcy took a small photograph holder. "Exhibit B," -she said, passing it to the other. - -It showed the head and shoulders of an eleven-year-old girl. - -"It's charming," said Gloria, and meant it. "That's the way I ought to -look now, only more so, Holcomb said. He said I was a spoilt job." - -"Pig!" - -"Oh, no. He didn't mean it that way. He just blurted it out as if he was -sorry about it. He seemed to think that I was a waste of good material -and--and he was quite peeved about it and kept swearing under his breath -while he was drawing me." - -"There I'm with him," declared Gloria vigorously. "I hate waste. It's in -my Yankee blood, I suppose. And a wasted human being--that's a sort of -practical blasphemy, according to my religion." - -Darcy caught the inference. "Made in the image," she said quickly. "But -what am _I_ made in the image of!" - -"What happened to change you from this?" Gloria held up Exhibit B. - -"Well, I had an illness when I was thirteen. And about then we lost our -money. And my parents died a little while after. And I never seemed to -get back much life or spirit or ambition or digestion or anything." - -"Can't get hold of your own boot-straps?" queried the other -suggestingly. - -"Haven't got the lifting power if I did," answered the girl. She picked -nervously at her raveled and seedy sleeve. "Lee said he believed I could -look like that--the way he made me look in the picture, you know--if -only some one who knew could tell me how to go about it. D' you think -maybe--p'raps--it might be just partly possible?" - -Once more Gloria compared Exhibit A with Exhibit B, and then both with -the original. - -"I do," she pronounced with fitting solemnity. - -"Oh-h-h-h!" breathed Darcy in a long-drawn, ecstatic sigh. - -"At least partly possible. It's worth the trial, in any case. Darcy," -said Miss Greene incisively, "I'm going to take you in hand, myself." - -"Oh, Gloria! If you would! I'll love you forever for it." - -"You won't. On the contrary, you'll probably hate me poisonously before -it's half over." - -"For helping me to be something and look like something?" protested the -girl incredulously. "How could I be anything but the most grateful--" - -"Wait and see," interrupted the oracle. "We're going to begin our little -magic process right now. Presto--pass! You're a lay figure." - -"A what?" faltered Darcy. - -"A lay figure. Act accordingly." - -"What does a lay figure do, please?" - -"It doesn't. It's dead. It's dumb. Don't talk. You distract my mind." - -For several minutes she walked around the girl, debating her from every -angle with pitiless impersonality, and with the analytical eye of -the adept in a school wherein attractiveness is often a personal and -technical achievement. At the conclusion of this ordeal Darcy found -herself perched upon a high-backed seat while the actress expertly -daubed her face with make-up from a box kept for purposes of -experimentation. Next the subject's hair was arranged, and her figure -draped in the flowing lines of some shimmering fabric, chosen, after -much profound consideration on Gloria's part, from a carved chest. She -was then told to straighten her spine, and smile. Near her lay Gloria's -hand mirror. Before the proprietor could interfere the girl picked it up -and sat staring into it. - -"Well, and what do you think of yourself?" queried her mentor grimly. - -"I--I look like a bad joke," whimpered Darcy. - -"You do. But if you cry I'll set you out on the fire-escape just as you -are, for the neighbors to throw things at." - -"I'm n-n-n-not c-c-crying." - -"And don't grab, next time. Well-conditioned lay figures never do. Sit -_up!_ You're all caved in again." - -With strong hands she prodded, bent, and moulded the girl's yielding -figure to the desired posture. Finally she wheeled into position, -several yards away, a full-length glass, and turned on an overhead -light. - -"Now. Look in here." - -Looking, Darcy gave a little gasp of wonder and delight. Under the -modulated radiance and with the toning down of distance, the harsh, -turgid spots and lines of the make-up had blended into a harmonious -_ensemble_. The face was that of Holcomb Lee's picture--almost. - -"Oh!" cried Darcy hoarsely. "Could you ever make me like _that?_" - -"No." - -Darcy collapsed. "I might have known," she wailed. - -"What do you expect for a nickel, in these days of depreciated -currency?" inquired Gloria callously. "It isn't as simple as it looks." - -"But if you can't do it for me--" - -"I certainly can't, my dear." - -"Then why did you let me--" - -"But if I can't, perhaps some one else can." - -"Who?" - -"You." - -"Me!" - -"You, your own little, lone self, and no one else in the whole big, -round world," declared the actress with electrifying vigor. "Thou art -the woman." - -"What must I do? How do I do it? What do I need?" cried Darcy in a -breath. - -"Grit." - -"Is that all?" - -"All? No; it isn't all. It's just a beginning. But if you think it's an -easy one you don't know what the word means yet." - -"Pooh!" retorted Darcy with another glance at the magic glass. "I'd -cheerfully stand still and be stuck full of red-hot pins and needles, -if it would make me look like that. I'll furnish the grit," she added -confidently, "if you'll show me how to do the rest." - -There came a gleam into her mentor's eye that the girl missed. "Very -well," said Gloria. "Allowing that, let's make a start. Of all your -little ambitions which one would you like to have fulfilled first?" - -The girl pondered. "Dress," she decided presently. "I want to have -beautiful, thrilling clothes, like a princess." - -"The one princess of my acquaintance," observed Gloria, "looks as though -she dressed herself backwards out of a mail-order catalogue. But that's -beside the question. Clothes cost money. How much money have you got?" -Darcy clasped her hands. "I'm rich," she announced triumphantly. - -"How rich?" - -"Awfully rich. Two thousand big, round, hard, beautiful dollars. Isn't -that grand!" - -"I don't know that it's grand. But it's good--with care." - -"It's twice as much as I've ever made in a whole year of work on my -silly little wall-paper designs." Darcy directed a resentful look at the -imitation-leather roll, lying in the corner where she had kicked it. - -"Where did you get it?" - -"My blessed old Aunt Sarah wrote it to me." - -"_Wrote_ it? Wrote you two thousand dollars?" - -"Yes. Why not? She'd intended to leave it to me when she died. But she -doesn't feel like dying for a long time yet; so she wrote and said that -she preferred giving it and getting thanked because it was so much, -rather than willing it and getting roasted because it was so little." - -"Sensible auntie! Are you going to be sensible too?" - -"How?" - -"Put the money in the bank. And forget this experiment." - -Darcy stretched out desperate hands toward the big, blessed mirror. - -"And give up _that_ Me?" - -"Perhaps you never could be that. It's only a chance at best." - -"But it _is_ a chance. You said it was a chance yourself." - -"Yes; but--" - -"And now are you going to take that away from me?" - -Gloria's eyes were doubtful. "Is it worth two thousand big, round, hard, -beautiful dollars? Just the bare chance of it?" - -"Two million," declared Darcy with impassioned conviction. - -"Then you're determined to be a fool about this?" - -"I am." - -Suddenly Gloria seized and hugged her. "If you weren't, I'd disown you -as a recreant to our sex," she cried. - -"Then you're going to help me?" - -"To the bitter end! First let's take an inventory. Be a lay figure -again." - -The girl stiffened to attention. Gloria ticked off the points on her -fingers as she talked. - -"You've got several assets. First, you're a lady. Nothing to teach -there, and it's the hardest of all lessons. Second, you've got a really -charming voice if you didn't whine with it. Third, your hair is nice. -But it might as well be stuffing a pillow for all the good you get of -it. Fourth, you've got eyes that'd be dangerous if the whites weren't -yellow. If you'd try wearing your heart in'em instead of your liver, -they'd do very well. Fifth, the lines of the face--see 'Life.' Sixth, -you look as if you were built to be light and strong." - -"I rather like being a dummy," purred Darcy. - -"Wait. The other side of the ledger is coming. You're going to have a -bad five minutes. Stand up." - -Darcy obeyed. - -"Like a camel," dispassionately commented the actress. "Look in the -glass now," she ordered. - -Darcy looked. - -"How d'you like it?" demanded her instructor. - -"N--not as well." - -"I should think likely. You lop." - -"I--I can't help it." - -"Nonsense! You slump." - -Darcy's lips slackened petulantly down at the corners. Like a flash, -Gloria transfixed the offending mouth with two leveled fingers. "You -peeve," she accused. - -Darcy continued to peeve. Also she sniffled. "Your chin is flabby," -pursued the inexorable critic. "Your mouth is fishy. Your eyes are -bleary. Your skin is muddy. You walk like a duck, and you stand like a -bag. And if you cry I'll quit you here, now, and forever." - -With a mighty struggle, Darcy choked back her emotions. "I suppose the -Lord gave me my face," she defended herself sulkily. - -"Don't libel your Maker. The Lord gave you _a_ face. See Exhibit B." - -"I can't help it if--" - -"Of course you could have helped it! What you've done to your face is a -crime, Darcy Cole! You ought to be arrested! Not to mention what -you've done to your figure. I shouldn't be surprised," she added as the -doorbell rang, "if that were the police now, come to hale you away to -judgment. Sit still," she commanded as Darcy, suddenly conscious of her -exotic costume, looked about for a way of escape. - -The door opened, not to the police, but to a visitor who was presented -to the shrinking Miss Cole as Mr. Thomas Harmon. Mr. Harmon displayed -himself as a stocky man with very cheerful, bright brown eyes, -reassuringly deferential manners, and a curious effect of carrying his -sturdy frame as if it weighed nothing at all. Darcy mentally observed -that he looked as fit in his way as did Gloria in hers. Already she was -beginning to take note of physical condition. - -"Have I interrupted a rehearsal?" asked Mr. Harmon. - -"No," said Gloria. "That is, yes." - -"That's a fair choice," remarked Mr. Harmon magnanimously. "I'll take -yes. Am I right, Miss Cole?" - -"It doesn't matter. We'd finished," murmured Darcy confusedly. - -"I've promised Mr. Harmon," Gloria explained, turning to her, "to help -him choose an anniversary present for his sister. It won't take more -than an hour. Amuse yourself until I come back." - -On the stairway outside, Gloria, intent upon her new purpose, addressed -her companion. "Tom, what do you think of her?" - -"Of whom?" - -"Little Darcy Cole." - -"Oh"--vaguely--"I don't know." - -Gloria sighed. - -"Why the effect of hopelessness?" inquired Tom Harmon. - -"Oh, nothing. Only, you don't seem to use your eyes much." - -"I was using them to the best of purposes," declared Mr. Harmon -indignantly. "Considering that I haven't set them on you for nearly -a month, you can't expect me to waste time on casual flappers in -fancy-dress costumes. Be fair, Gloria." - -"Darcy isn't a casual flapper." - -"What is she, then? A coming genius?" - -"A reigning beauty and heart-wrecker of the future." - -"Good _Lord!_" said Mr. Harmon with such fervor that Gloria sighed -again. - -"Couldn't you see anything in her, Tom?" she asked appealingly. - -"Only the humpy way she wore that costume and the fact that she'd -apparently been crying," answered Mr. Harmon, who, despite Gloria's -strictures, was a person not devoid of discernment. "She seemed rather -a mess to me. What's the idea, Gloria? Anything I can help in?" Gloria -smiled. "It's like you to want to help. But this is my job. And," she -added to herself, "it's going to be a real one." - - - - -CHAPTER II - -LIGHT and vitality died out of the atmosphere for Darcy, with Gloria's -exit. Divesting herself of the trappings of glory and hope and promise, -she resumed her workaday garb. The long mirror, endued with a sardonic -personality, watched her with silent but pregnant commentary. She did -not wish to look into it. But her will was weak. Hypnotic effluences, -pouring from the shining surface, enveloped and drew her. She walked -before it and surveyed herself. The effect was worse, by contrast, than -she could have imagined. - -"Oh, you frump!" she whispered savagely. "You frazzled botch of a -frump!" - -Glowing ambition faded to dull and hopeless mockery in her disillusioned -soul. She made a bitter grimace at the changeling in the glass. - -"Imbecile!" said she. - -It was a surrender to grim facts. Suddenly she felt extremely languid. -The big couch in the peaceful, curtained alcove lured her. She -plumped into it higgledy-piggledy and curled up, an unsightly, humpful -excrescence upon its suave surface. Within two minutes, worn out by -stress of unaccustomed emotions, she was winging her airy way through -that realm of sleep wherein happiness is the sure prize of being, and -beauty is forever in the eye of the self-beholder. - -Dream music crept into her dreams. Clearer and richer it grew until it -filled the dreams so full that they burst wide open. The dreamer floated -out through the cleft to a realization of the fact that somebody beyond -the draperies which secreted her was piping like Pan's very self, to an -accompaniment of strange, lulling, minor chords. She peeped out. - -A tall, slender young man in clothes which seemed to Darcy's still -sleep-enchanted eyes to fit him with a perfection beyond artistry, sat -at the piano, humming in a melodious undertone a song of which he had -apparently forgotten the words. One passage seemed to puzzle him. He -repeated the melody several times, essaying various harmonies to go -with it, shook his head discontentedly, and dashed away into Gilbert and -Sullivan. - -In the midst of this the door opened. Gloria stood on the threshold. A -look of pleasure flashed over her face as she saw the player. A dozen -light, soft-footed steps carried her to him. She clasped her hands over -his eyes, let them slip to his shoulders, planted a swift, little kiss -on the top of his head, and stepped back. - -"Jack!" she cried. - -The man swung around, leaped to his feet, caught her by both hands, and -exclaimed: - -"Well, _Gloria!_ It's a treat to see you." - -"I'd begun to think you were never coming back. Where do you hail from?" - -"Oh, all over the map. But no place as good as this." - -He smiled down at her, still holding her hands. To a keen, thin, -sensitive face, with a mobile mouth and quiet eyes, the smile set the -final impression of charm. Instanter and before he had spoken ten words, -Darcy decided that he was the one man she had ever seen worthy of Gloria -Greene. And she was glad they had found each other. - -"But where's Darcy?" asked the hostess, looking about. - -"Who?" asked her visitor. - -"A little acquaintance whom I left here when I went out." - -The concealed girl sat up. "Here I am," she announced shyly. "I fell -asleep." - -"Oh, then I'm afraid I waked you up with my silly hammering," said the -man. - -"N-no. It doesn't matter. I didn't mind. I--I mean, I liked it," -stammered the girl, falling into her usual acutely zero feeling in the -presence of the masculine gender. - -"Then go and play it again, Jack," commanded Miss Greene, "while I get -off my things. And then go away. You can come back for dinner. Miss Cole -and I have important things to talk over." - -"Oh, no! Please! I can come some other time," protested Darcy in a -flutter of embarrassment. "I don't want to drive Mr.--Mr.---him away." - -"Mr. Jacob Remsen has all the time in the world," said Gloria calmly. -"Time is the least of his troubles. He kills it at sight." - -"Don't mind her, Miss Corey," put in Remsen. - -Darcy, noting the error in her name, wondered petulantly why Gloria -didn't introduce them in proper form. But her uneasiness and _gaucherie_ -presently dissipated before the cordial and winning simplicity of -Gloria's man. And, to her own surprise, she found herself volunteering -a harmonic solution of the difficult change where he had blundered over -the transition, and humming the melody while she played her version. He -accepted it with enthusiasm. - -"Sing it," he urged. "I like your voice--what little you let us hear of -it." - -Instantly Darcy stiffened up inside and stammered a refusal. She didn't -mean to be ungracious to this sunny and inspiriting young fellow. It was -just her unhappy consciousness of a cramped and graceless self. Remsen -took it with matter-of-fact good humor. - -"I'm sure you do sing, though," he called back as his hostess finally -evicted him. "I'm going to send you that song." - -But he didn't look at her, she noticed, as he said it. Why should he, -indeed, when Gloria was in the room? For that matter, men never looked -at Darcy. And here was her grievance against the scheme of things -exemplified anew. - -"There it is," she complained, waving an awkward arm toward the door -through which Mr. Jacob Remsen had vanished. "That's what I've been -trying to tell you about." - -"Jack?" puzzled her hostess. "Why, what's wrong with Jack?" - -"Oh, nothing," replied the girl wearily. "But--did you notice what he -did when he left?" - -"Offered to send you some music. I thought it was quite polite. Jack's -always courteous." - -"Oh, _courteous!_ He didn't even _look_ at me." - -"Well, why--" - -"That's it! Why? Why should any man look at me? They don't. -They--they're strictly neutral in their attitude. And women -are--well--just tolerant and friendly. 'Darcy's such a _nice_ girl.' -Where does that get you?" fiercely demanded the subject of it. "People -don't really know I'm _alive_. I might as well be a ghost. I wish I -were. At least I'd scare'em." - -"Don't try to scare me," returned the other. "Now list to the voice of -wisdom. You complain that people don't know you're alive. Why should -they? You don't give out anything--warmth, color, personality. I'm not -so sure you _are_ alive. You're inert." - -"I haven't anything to give," mourned the accused. - -"Why? Because you've wasted it. You've had beauty; good looks, anyway. -You have let that die down to nothing. One thing only you've kept up, -and that ought to be an asset. You've got a voice. Do you ever use it -for other people?" - -"I don't like to sing before people." - -"There you are! Always thinking of your little self. You give nothing to -the world, yet you think yourself ill-used because--" - -"What does the world give me?" broke in the aggrieved Darcy. - -"Nothing for nothing. What would you expect? Do you think it's going to -smile at you when you scowl at it, and stop its own business and gaze on -you adoringly and say, 'Much obliged to you for being alive'? It isn't -that kind of a world, Miss Amanda Darcy Cole." The owner of the despised -first name winced. "I never thought of that," she murmured. - -"Thinking is going to be part of your education from now on. You can't -begin too soon." - -"I'm ready," said the girl meekly. "Do you want me to begin with my -voice? Shall I take singing lessons?" - -"Oh, it's got to go a lot deeper than that," was Gloria's grim reply. -"You'll begin by taking _living_ lessons. Do you know what that means?" - -"I'm not sure I do. It sounds awfully hard," faltered the other. - -"It is. Go home and think it over. Come back here to-morrow at this time -and get your orders." - -"Yessum," said Darcy, folding her hands with assumed docility. - -Gloria regarded her with suspicion. "It isn't going to be any joke," -said she with severity. - -"No'm," assented Darcy with a still more lamblike expression. But her -eyes twinkled through it. - -"Oh, well, if you want to take it that way," observed the actress. "But -_I'd_ advise you to save your high spirits for the time when they'll be -needed." - -In the seclusion of the hallway Darcy drew out Exhibit A and sought -inspiration from the charming face which Holcomb Lee had surrounded with -gallant and admiring suitors in the illustration. - -"If it can be done," said Darcy to the picture with the solemnity of a -rite, "I'll do it." - - - - -CHAPTER III - -AT its best, the old Remsen house on West Twelfth Street, wore its -ancestral respectability cloaked with gloom. Home though it was to Jacob -of that name and possession, he regarded it with distinct distaste as he -approached the dull, brown steps leading to the massive door. All that -could reasonably be done to furbish it up against the young master's -return, old Connor, Jacob's inherited man, had faithfully attempted: the -house's face was at least washed, and its linen, so to speak, fresh and -clean. But a home long unused becomes musty to a sense deeper than -the physical. Entering, young Mr. Remsen felt a chill descend upon his -blithe spirit. A _basso profondo_ clock within struck a hollow five. - -"Hark from the tomb!" observed young Mr. Remsen. "I think I'll move -to the club." Slow footsteps, sounding from below, dissipated that -intention. - -"No; I can't do that. I've got to stay here and be looked after by -old Connor, or forever wound his feelings. That's the worst of family -responsibilities." - -The footsteps mounted the basement stairs unevenly and with a suggestion -of a stagger in them. - -"What! Connor taken to drink?" thought Jacob with sinful amusement. -"Wonder where he found it. There is hope, still!" - -The old servitor puffed into sight half carrying, half dragging a huge -clothes-basket. "What's that?" demanded Jacob': - -"Your mail, sir." - -"Is that all?" asked the other, with a sardonicism which was lost upon -Connor's matter-of-fact mind. - -"No, sir. There's another half-basket downstairs." - -"Good Lord! What'll do with it?" - -"If I may suggest, sir, it ought to be read." - -"Sound idea! You read it, Connor." - -"Me, sir?" - -"Certainly. I don't feel up to it. I'm tired. Strain of travel and all -that sort of thing. Besides"--he cast a glance of repulsion upon the -white heap--"this suggests work. And you know my principles regarding -work." - -"Yes, sir." Connor rubbed his ear painfully. Of course the master was -joking. Always a great one for his joke, he was. But-- - -"There's a special delivery quite at the top, sir, marked 'Immediate.' -Don't you think that perhaps--" - -"Oh, all right: _all_ right! If I've got to begin I may as well go -through." - -Having, like some thousands of other young Americans, departed from his -native land and normal routine of life for a long period on important -business of a muddy, sanguinary, and profoundly wearisome nature, -concerning which he had but the one wish, namely, to forget the whole -ugly but necessary affair as swiftly and comprehensively as possible, Mr -Jacob Remsen had deemed it wise to cut loose from home considerations as -far as feasible; but he now reflected that he had perhaps made a mistake -in having no mail forwarded. Well, there was nothing for it but to make -up for arrears. He took off his coat and plunged in. The "immediate" -special he set aside, to teach it, as he stated to the acquiescent -Connor, not to be so infernally assertive and insistent, while he ran -through a few scores of communications, mainly devoted to inviting him -to dinners and dances which had passed into the shades anywhere from a -year to eighteen months previously. - -"Now, I'll attend to you," said he severely to the special. "Only, don't -brag about your superior importance, next time." - -He opened it and glanced at the heading. "Connor," said he, "this is -from Mr. Bentley." - -"Yes, Mr. Jacob." - -"He says it is necessary for him to see me without delay." - -"Yes, sir." - -"Do you believe, Connor, that it is really as necessary as he pretends -for Mr. Bentley to see me without delay?" - -"Mr. Bentley is your lawyer, sir," pointed out Connor firmly. "If he -says so, sir, I think it would be so." - -"You're wrong, Connor; you're wrong! This letter is dated just seven -weeks ago. As I haven't seen Mr. Bentley yet, and am still in good -health and spirits, it can't have been vitally necessary that he see me -without delay, can it? Necessity knows no law, Connor, and law knows no -necessity that can't wait seven weeks." - -"Mr. Bentley has been telephoning, sir, almost every day." - -"Has he? Why didn't you tell me?" - -"I tried to inform you about several telephone messages, Mr. Jacob--" - -"So you did, when you met me at the pier." - -"And you told me if the telephone annoyed me, to have it taken out, -sir." - -"Right; right; perfectly right! Did you have it taken out?" - -"No, sir." - -"Then it doesn't annoy you?" - -"No, Mr. Jacob--" - -"What a blessing is philosophic calm! I'll take pattern by you and learn -not to let it annoy me, either. That's it ringing now. Let it ring. Are -my dinner clothes laid out?" - -"Yes, sir. And, beg pardon, sir; I think that's the doorbell not -the'phone. It'll be Mr. Bentley. I took the liberty of 'phoning him, sir, -that you'd be here in time to dress for dinner--" - -"His blood be on your head. Let him in, Connor." - -Mr. Herbert Bentley, of Bench & Bentley, a huge, puffy man of fifty, -rolled into the room, shook hands warmly with Remsen, went through the -usual preliminary queries as to health, recent experience, and time of -return, and then attacked the matter in hand. - -"How's your family pride, Jacob?" - -"Languid." - -"It's likely to be stirred up a bit." - -"Some of us been distinguishing ourselves?" - -"Not specially. But your cousins are threatening a will contest." - -"If they want to pry me loose from this grisly mausoleum," observed -Jacob, with an illustrative wave of the hand around the gloomful -drawing-room, "I'll listen to terms." - -"Nothing of that sort. The house is yours as long as you fulfill the -terms of your grandfather's will." - -"Then what's the contest to me? Let my amiable cousins choke themselves -and each other with law--" - -"It's a question of your Great-Uncle Simeon's estate. They want you as a -witness." - -"For what?" - -"To prove the old boy's insanity." - -"Who says he was insane?" - -"They do. Wasn't he?" - -"Well, he was eccentric in some particulars," admitted Jacob cautiously. - -"As for instance?" - -"Let me think. Whenever there was a long drought he used to claim -that he was a tree-toad, and he'd climb the ancestral elm up at the -Westchester place and squawk for rain." - -"Eccentric, as you say. Anything else?" - -"He had the largest collection of tin-can labels in Westchester County. -At least, he boasted that it was the largest, and I never heard any one -dispute it." - -"What did he do with'em?" - -"Same as any kind of a collecting bug does with his collection; -nothing." - -"I see. Is that all?" - -"Everything I can recall except that every May Day he used to put on a -high hat and a pink sash and dance around a Maypole in Central Park. -As he didn't care whose Maypole it happened to be, he usually got -arrested." - -"I see. And the rest of the family; did they show any symptoms?" < - -"Nothing special." - -"What do you mean, special? Come, out with it!" - -"Of course there was my poor old maiden aunt, Miss Melinda. You've heard -of her?" - -"Only as a name." - -"She did her best to change that. When she was fifty-four she eloped -with the coachman. Only they couldn't get any one to marry'em, so she -had to come home." - -"What was wrong? Was the coachman married already?" - -"No. But he was a trifle colored." - -"Interesting line of relatives you carry. What about the remainder of -the tribe?" - -"Just about the usual run of old families, I guess. One of the other -aunts used to do a little in the anonymous letter line and break up -happy families. Then, of course, Cousin Fred used to pull some fairly -interesting stuff when he had the d-t's, but the claim that Uncle -Simeon's first wife dressed up as the Van Cortland Manor ghost isn't--" - -"Enough said! I didn't ask for a new edition of the _Chronique -Scandaleuse_. How would you like to tell all this to the court, and -through it to the newspapers?" - -"I'll see'em d---d first!" - -"All very well. But if they put you on the stand, you'll have to tell or -go to jail. And they'll put you on, for you're their one best bet. With -you they can win and without you they can't." - -"Then they lose. I'll skip the country rather than rake up all that -dead and decayed stuff." - -"How about your grandfather's will, under which you inherit this house -and most of your fortune? Have you forgotten that you're required to -inhabit the house, from now on, at least three months out of every six -until you're married?" - -"So I have. Happy alternative! Lose the house or parade the family -skeletons all diked out in pink sashes and tin-can labels. When does the -blasted suit come on?" - -"I don't know. When I do I'll let you know. Then it's up to you either -to stand a siege in the house or to light out and go into hiding, and -take a chance on getting back within the three months." - -"Well, Connor," said Jacob Remsen after the lawyer had left, "here's -a complication for a peace-and-quiet-loving young man! How did such a -respectable person as you ever come to take service in such a herd of -black sheep?" - -"I don't know anything about those goings-on, sir," asseverated the old -man doggedly. "If they put me in jail the rest of my life I couldn't -remember ever hearing a word about any of'em, sir." - -"Good man! Don't you testify to anything that would tend to incriminate -or degrade the memory of Uncle Simeon or any other Remsen. And neither -will I. However, this isn't dressing for dinner." - -Having changed, young Mr. Remsen returned to dine with Gloria Greene. He -found her smiling over a note which she carefully blotted before turning -from her desk to greet him. - -"What did you think of my protegee?" she inquired. "I'm collecting -opinions on her." - -"The little Colter girl? She isn't as sniffy as she appears at first -sight." - -"Her name isn't Colter. And I don't know how you can judge. First sight -is all that you had of her." - -"Not so, fair lady. She passed me in the hallway as I was waiting for a -taxi to come along. I could see her nerving herself up to say something -and finally she said it." - -"Well, what was it?" - -"Nothing important. Just that she was sorry she couldn't sing for me and -that some other time she would. But she said it quite pleasantly. She -hasn't a bad voice." - -"Effect of Lesson the First," commented the actress. - -"What are you doing with that young person, Gloria? Working some of your -white magic on her?" - -"Just remaking life a little for her," replied the other offhandedly. -"This is part of it." - -She fluttered the note-paper on which she had been writing. - -"What is it?" asked Remsen. "A pass to Paradise? She looked as -cheered-up as if she were getting something of the kind." - -"It's a commutation ticket to Hades, first-class," was the actress's -Delphic response. "But the poor child won't know it till she gets -there." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -HOPE, which is credited with various magic properties, had kindled a -sickly sort of sub-glow in Darcy Cole's pasty face as she arrived at -Miss Greene's address, to keep her appointment. Part of it subsided -at sight of the indication that the elevator was still on strike. The -remainder had vanished long before she had surmounted the four flights -of stairs and stood panting dolorously before Gloria Greene. That -composed person feigned polite surprise. - -"Why, what's the matter, Darcy?" - -"Those awful--pouf!--stairs. How--whoof-uff!--d' you -ever--whoo-oo-oof!--do it?" - -"Two steps at a time," explained the actress practically, "cuts the -distance in half." - -Darcy looked skeptical. "It would kill me," she declared. - -"Very likely, as you are now. We're going to change all that." - -The gleam returned into Darcy's big, dull eyes. "Yes?" said she eagerly. -"How?" - -"I should say," answered the actress with a carefully judicial air, -"that you'd better start in by learning to give up." - -"Give up what?" - -"Everything that makes life worth living." - -"Is it a joke?" asked Darcy, dubiously. "Far from it. Food, for -instance. You eat too much." - -"Often I don't get any luncheon at all." - -"And too irregularly," pursued the accuser. "You drink too much." - -"Gloria! One cocktail before dinner," was the indignant response. - -"And too regularly," went on the relentless judge. "One is one too many -for a girl with your complexion." - -"Go on," said Darcy with sullen resignation. "You sleep too much." - -"Eight hours isn't--" - -"You interrupt too much," broke in the mentor severely. "You laze too -much. You shirk and postpone too much. You nibble too much candy. When -you feel below par you take a pill instead of a walk. Don't you?" - -The girl stared. "How do you know all these things about me?" - -"Read'em in your face, of course. And a lot more, besides." - -"Nobody else ever read'em there. Not even the doctor." - -"Probably he has, but is too polite to tell you all he sees, or too -cynical to believe that you'd take the trouble to do anything about it -if he told you. Or perhaps he just doesn't see it." - -"Then how do you?" - -"I'm an expert, my dear young innocent. It's part of my profession to be -good-looking just as it is to keep well-read and well-dressed. And a lot -harder!" - -"How can it be harder for you? You're beautiful just naturally." - -"I'm not beautiful. Your Holcomb Lee or any other artist with a real eye -could reduce my face to a mere scrap-heap of ill-assorted features. I'm -reasonably pleasant to look at because I work hard at the business of -being just that. And I'm going to keep on being pleasant to look at for -twenty good years yet if care and clothes will do it!" - -"Clothes help such a lot," sighed the girl. "When are you going to help -me with mine?" - -Gloria Greene looked disparagingly at the girl's slack and flaccid body. - -"When you develop something to put'em on," said she curtly. - -"But I thought that if I had some nice clothes--" - -"You'd develop inside them like the butterfly in the chrysalis," -supplemented the other. "Unfortunately it doesn't work that way with -humans. Didn't I tell you yesterday that it wasn't going to be easy?" - -"Yes. But you're not telling me anything now. You're just--just -discouraging me." - -"Why, you poor-spirited little grub, you haven't even touched the outer -edge of discouragement yet. Here! Can you do this?" Lifting her hands -high above her glowing head, Gloria swept them down in a long curve of -beauty, until she stood bowed but with unbending knees, her pink fingers -flattened on the floor. - -"Of course I can't," whined Darcy. - -"Try it," suggested the other enticingly. "It isn't hard." - -Darcy did not stir. "I've got corsets on," said she. - -"You have. Awful ones. Take'em off." - -"I will," she promised. - -Performance, not promise, was what her instructor demanded. "Do it now." - -With a sigh, the girl obeyed. "It makes me look sloppier than ever," she -lamented, glancing toward the mirror. - -"Not actually," was the counsel--of dubious comfort--from the other. -"You only _feel_ now as you've been looking all the time. Don't get -another pair until I tell you. I'll pick'em out if you still want them -when Andy Dunne is through with you." - -"Who's Andy Dunne?" - -"Andy," explained the actress concisely, "is the devil." - -"That's encouraging," murmured the girl. "Anyway, you'll think he is. -He's my trainer." - -"Trainer! You talk as if you were a prizefighter." - -"I cut Andy's lip with a straight left once," said Miss Greene with a -proud, reminiscent gleam in her eye. "It was one of the biggest moments -of my life." - -Taking from her desk the note which she had described to Jacob Remsen -as a commutation ticket to the last station, down-line, she handed it to -Darcy. The girl read it. - - Andy: This is Miss Darcy Cole. Put her through as you did - me, only more so. - - Gloria Greene - -Darcy tucked it carefully into her imitation-leather roll, saying: - -"It's awfully good of you to take all this trouble for me." - -"Oh, it isn't for you entirely. Call it part of my contribution to -the general welfare. It gives me a pain in my artistic sense to see a -woman-job spoiled; like a good picture daubed over by a bad amateur. -So if I can rescue you as a brand from the burning and put you back on -earth, a presentable human, I'll feel like a major of the Salvation -Army. That's why I've decided to take you in hand. And may Heaven have -mercy upon your body!" - -"Amen!" confirmed Darcy piously, feeling for the introductory note. - -"Only," added Gloria slowly, "I want to be clear on one point. I'd like -to know for whom I'm really doing this." - -"Why, for me, of course," said Darcy, big-eyed. - -"Not for any one else?" - -"Who else should there be? I told you there wasn't any--" - -"I know. You swore there was no man in this. Then on top of it, you -rouse my darkest suspicions by acting like a school-girl yesterday and -tearing your hair because the first casual man that comes along doesn't -gaze soulfully at you when he takes his departure." - -"Gloria, I hate you! D' you mean Mr. Remsen? Surely you don't for a -minute imagine--" - -"No; I don't suppose Jack has anything to do with it, personally. But -I seem to get a strong indication of Man as a species somewhere in the -background of this business." - -Pink grew Miss Darcy Cole; then red, and eventually scarlet, under -Gloria's interested regard. - -"You see!" exclaimed that acute person. "Come, now. Explain." - -"It's--it's Maud Raines's fault," blurted Darcy. - -"Agreed that it's all Maud's fault. Go on." - -"No; it isn't _all_ Maud's fault," corrected - -Darcy with a palpable effort to do exact justice. "It's partly the -British War Office's fault." - -"International complications. Maud and the British War Office. Mr. Lee -had better look out!" - -"Not at all! It isn't Maud that the British War Office has been writing -letters to." - -"No? Who is it?" - -"Me." - -"Is this a long-distance flirtation with an official Britisher, all -wound round with red tape? What kind of fetters?" - -"Well, not personal, exactly," reluctantly admitted the girl. -"Propaganda matter. It's sent out by their press bureau. But it always -comes addressed in nice, firm, man-ny handwriting." - -"But why do they send to you?" - -Darcy giggled. "That's the funny part of it. They must have got me -confused with Dorsey Coles, the essayist. He used to live on East -Fifty-Sixth Street." - -"Very likely. When does the Man enter?" - -"We-ell, you see, Maud and Helen were awfully curious about my English -correspondent." - -"Naturally." - -"So I--well, I just let'em be." - -"Is that any reason why you should wear the expression of one about to -confess to a coldblooded murder?" - -"Wait. You know I told you Maud had been catty about my sitting to -Holcomb Lee." - -"Yes." - -"This is what I overheard her say to Helen, and I'm not even sure she -didn't mean me to overhear. She said, 'Darcy's been sitting to Holcomb. -Fancy it! Darcy as a model! I can no more imagine her being a model than -I could her being engaged.' Wasn't that nasty of her, Gloria!" - -"It was. And you very properly smothered her with a pillow as she slept -and have come here to make your confession," twinkled Gloria. - -"Worse," said Darcy in a small, tremulous voice. "Much worse." - -Gloria sat up straight. "No!" she cried hopefully. - -"Yes. For Helen said, 'Well, somebody in England seems pretty much -interested in her, anyway.' That's what put it into my head." - -"I wish you'd put it; into mine," said the other plaintively. "You don't -seem to get any nearer the subject of your romance, which is Man." - -"Well--promise not to laugh at me, Gloria!" - -"I'll try." - -"Just to show'em both, I got engaged." - -"Darcy!" - -"Yes; and one evening when both of the girls were being just a little -extra peacocky over their double wedding next October and letting me -understand what a favor it was to me that I was to be double maid of -honor, I just up and told'em I didn't know whether I could be as I had -an important engagement to be married myself." - -"Lovely! Gorgeous!" - -"They jumped at the English letters. So I told them that I thought I -might as well own up about the affair; how I'd met him on my vacation in -Canada and helped him try out horses for the British Government, which -had sent him over for that purpose when he was wounded, and we had -corresponded ever since. It was awfully well done, if I do say it as -shouldn't." - -"Let me get this right," pleaded Gloria. - -"You made him all up yourself, just on the basis of those war-office -letters?" - -"N-no. That's just the trouble." - -"You _didn't_ make him up?" - -"N-n-not entirely." - -"For Heaven's sake, do be more explicit!" - -"I'm t-t-trying to," said Darcy brokenly. "I got him out of a book." - -"Then he's imaginary." - -"I'm afraid he's real. Awfully real." - -"Darcy Cole; _what_ book did you get him out of?" - -"Burke's Peerage." - -With one headlong plunge Gloria projected herself upon the couch where -she wallowed ecstatically among the pillows. - -"Oh, Darcy! Darcy!" she gasped when she could achieve coherent speech. -"For this I shall love you forever. I'll do more. I'll adopt you. I'll -endow you. I'll--I'll canonize you. What's his name?" - -"Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England," -recited the girl formally. - -Dissociating herself from a convulsed silk coverlet, Gloria straightened -up. "Sir Montrose Veyze," she repeated thoughtfully and relishingly. -"Why that particular and titled gentleman?" - -"I got to the V's before I found any one that seemed to fill the bill." - -"What special qualification commended him to your favorable -consideration, Miss Cole?" - -"Well, he's unmarried." - -"That's important." - -"And he's far away. I came across that in an English magazine." - -"How far?" - -"Way out in the East somewhere where one of the fifty-seven varieties of -left-over wars is still going on." - -"So far, so good. What are you going to do with him when he comes back?" - -"If I only knew!" was the miserable rejoinder. "Maybe he won't come -back. Maybe something will happen to him." - -"It won't. He'll bear a charmed life, just to plague you," retorted her -friend with conviction. "You bloodthirsty little beast!" she added. - -"The worst I wish him," said Darcy tearfully, "is an honorable military -death." - -"Oh! Is that all! You'd have to go into deep mourning." - -"That'd be better than suicide. And I can't see anything else for me -to do if he lives through. I won't confess to that Maud-cat! I won't! I -won't! I won't!" - -"I don't blame you. But when are you to be married?" - -"Uncertain. That's the advantage of having a fiance at war." - -"You must make it after the double wedding," decided Gloria. "Just for -curiosity, how did you describe him?" - -"I've rather dodged that, so far. But I think I'd like to have him tall -and slender and with nice, steady, friendly eyes, like Mr. Remsen." - -"So would Monty, doubtless," surmised Gloria. - -"_Who?_" - -"Monty Veyze." - -"Gloria! Do you _know_ Sir Montrose Veyze?" - -"Rather. I visited at his sister's last time I was in England." - -"Heavens! That makes it seem so ghastly real. What's he like?" - -"Round and roly-poly and red and fiercelooking; but a good sort. And he -used to be quite an admirer of mine. I do think, Darcy, that with the -whole of Burke's Peerage to choose from you might have refrained from -trespassing on my preserves. It isn't clubby of you!" - -"You can have him!" cried the girl desperately. "Any one can have him! I -don't care how round and red and--" - -"He's rather far from your picture of him, certainly. Not a bit like -Jack Remsen. So you approve of Jack, do you?" - -"I thought him awfully attractive," said Darcy shyly. - -"Oh, Jack's a dear. It's a pity about his money." - -"Has he lost it?" - -"No. Got it. Too much. Without it he might make a real actor. He's the -best amateur in New York to-day. But--an amateur." - -"What does he do?" - -"Dabbles in artistic things. And plays at being everybody's little -sunbeam. Never mind Jack. It's the imaginary Sir Montrose Veyze that -we've got to figure on." - -"Oh, do tell me what to do with him!" implored the too-inventive Darcy. - -"Keep him. Prize him above rubies and diamonds. Nothing has given me a -laugh like that for a year." - -"But if--" - -"Let the future take care of its ifs. Who can tell what will turn up? -Fate is kind to creative genius. And I'm going to assist Fate if I can. -I'll make you a bargain, Darcy, for half of your beautiful, inspiring, -heaven-sent lie. You take me into equal partnership in it, and I'll be -your little personal Guide to Health and Beauty until we've made a job -of you. But you've got to promise on honor to keep up the Veyze myth, if -I'm to be partner and half owner in it, until I agree to drop it. Is it -a bargain?" - -The light of unholy, reckless adventure shot into Darcy's pale eyes. - -"It's a bargain," she agreed solemnly. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -SUCH demoniac attributes as Mr. Andy Dunne might possess lurked in -the background on the occasion of Darcy's first visit. Smothering her -misgivings, the girl had mounted the steps of the old-fashioned house -just off Sixth Avenue, undistinguished by any sign or symbol of the -mystic activities within, and presented Gloria's letter. Mr. Dunne -revealed himself as a taciturn gentleman in funereal trousers and a -blue sweater, who suggested facially an athletic monk of reserved and -misanthropic tendency. He led her into a severely business-like office -sparsely furnished with a desk and two hard and muscular-looking chairs, -with liberal wall ornamentations of the championship Baltimore "Orioles" -("A. Dunne, 2d b." in clear script on the frame), pictures of Mr. Dunne -and other worthies in sundry impressive and hostile postures, and a -large photograph signed, with a noble flourish, "Yours truly, John L. -Sullivan." It was the crowning glory of Mr. Dunne's professional career -that he had trained the "Big Feller" for his final championship fight. - -Having perused his former pupil's brief epistle, Mr. Dunne cast an -appraising glance over the neophyte. - -"Full course?" he inquired. - -"Yes, please." - -"How long?" - -"Six months." - -The girl produced a roll of bills and laid them on the desk. Mr. Dunne -counted them twice. With a stony face and in a highly correct hand he -made out a receipt. - -"Six months. Paid in advance," he stated. "D'je meanter pay it all?" - -"Y-y-yes. Isn't it usual?" queried Darcy, wondering whether she was -shattering some conventionality of this unknown world. - -"Nope. Three's usual. What's the big idea?" - -"Gloria--that is Miss Greene told me to pay it all in advance because if -I didn't I might get tired of it and back out. But I shan't." - -From between Mr. Dunne's hard-set lips issued a vowel-less monosyllable -such as might be enunciated by a contemplative bulldog engaged in -self-communion. - -"Grmph!" said Mr. Dunne, which, Darcy decided, might mean much or -little. "Friend o' Miss Greene's?" he inquired after a pause. "Yes." - -"_Some_ lady!" said Mr. Dunne with an approach to enthusiasm which Darcy -was never thereafter to experience from his repressive spirit, save only -when he spoke of the "Big Feller." - -"Isn't she wonderful!" acquiesced Darcy. Mr. Dunne rubbed his lower lip -with a reminiscent and almost romantic gleam in his heavy-browed eyes, -and the girl with difficulty suppressed a query as to whether that was -the spot whereon Gloria had landed her triumphant left. Emerging from -his reverie he issued his first direction. "Stannup, please." - -Darcy rose and stood, consciously loppish, while the trainer -circumnavigated her twice. - -"Grmph!" he grunted. "When yah wanna begin?" - -"At once, please." - -"Gotta outfit?" - -"No." - -"Gittit." He thrust a typed list into her hand. "How much you weigh?" - -"I don't know." - -"Yah don't _know?_" - -"Somewhere about a hundred and fifty, I suppose." - -"Yah _suppose_. Grmph!" The exclamation was replete with contempt. "Come -into the shop." - -She followed him into a big airy room flooded with overhead light, and -filled with all sorts of mechanism. Obedient to a gesture she stepped on -the scales. Mr. Dunne busied himself with a careful adjustment. - -"You'll strip a hunner'n fifty-two," he declared. - -Darcy vaguely felt as if she were being accused of murder. She felt even -worse when the iron-faced Mr. Dunne made an entry in a little notebook. - -"Will I?" she said faintly. - -"Not long," retorted the trainer. - -He strode across the room and set foot upon a huge, ungainly leather -ball. It seemed but the merest touch that he gave. Nevertheless the ball -left that spot hurriedly, rolled across to Darcy and encountered her -shins with an impact that all but crumpled her flabby legs beneath her. - -"Know what that is?" demanded the trainer. - -"I'm afraid I don't." - -"Medicine-ball. Little pill. You'll _like_ the little pill." - -Prophetic voices within Darcy told her that this was improbable: but she -mildly assented. The pulley-weights were next called to her attention -and identified. - -"What do I do with them?" she inquired with a proper show of interest. - -"Pull'em up." - -"I see. And then what?" - -"Let'em down." - -It seemed to Darcy a profitless procedure, but she wisely refrained -from saying so, and was glad that she did when Mr. Dunne added in a tone -which emphasized the importance of the transaction: - -"A coupla hundred times." - -Subsequently the neophyte was introduced to the dumb-bells, the -Indian-clubs, the rings, the hand-ball court, the rowing-machine--she -earned a glance of contempt by asking where it rowed to--the -punching-bag, which she disliked at sight, the finger-grip roller, the -stationary bicycle (which also got you nowhere), the boxing-gloves, and -a further bewildering but on the whole inspiriting array of machines for -making one strong, happy, beautiful, and healthy to order. Somewhere in -the girl's consciousness lurked a suspicion that the apparatus couldn't -be expected to do all the work: that there were patient and perhaps -strenuous endeavors expected of the operator. But of the real rigors of -the awaiting fate she had but the faintest glimmer. - -As she was leaving, a door bumped violently open and there appeared in -the "shop" a horrific female figure. It was that of a fat blonde with -four sweaters on. Her cheeks were puffy red, her eyes jutted poppily -from the sockets, and her jowls dripped. As a slave, treading the -unending grind of the mill, the apparition set herself to trot heavily -around the circumference of the room. And as she ran she blubbered. - -"Oh, poor thing!" cried Darcy under her breath. "What's the matter with -her?" - -"Nothin'," said Mr. Dunne indifferently. - -"But there must be something," insisted the newcomer aghast. - -"Fat," vouchsafed Mr. Dunne. "They mostly take it hard--at the start," -he condescended to add. "She's only been at it a month." - -A month! Darcy's heart sank within her. She began to see why Gloria had -insisted on a binding prepayment. Did Gloria, splendid, vigorous Gloria, -have to go through that stage? Was this the inevitable purgatory through -which all flesh must pass to reach the goal? Could she, Darcy, conscious -of flaccidity of body and spirit, endure-- - -"Tomorra at three," cut in Mr. Dunne's brusque tones. - -Impersonal and coldly business-like though Andy Dunne might appear -to the apprehensive novice, he was an artist in his line, and took a -conscientious interest in his clients. Inspired thereby, he called up -Gloria Greene and requested information. - -"Spoiled child," was the diagnosis which he received over the'phone. - -"Fool parents?" he inquired. - -"No." - -"Rich feller?" - -"Nothing of that sort." - -"What's spoilt her, then?" - -"She's spoilt herself." - -"That's bad." - -"But she doesn't know it." - -"That's worse." - -"So I've sent her to you, Andy." And Gloria outlined her hopeful -programme for Darcy. - -"Grmph!" snorted the trainer. "Will she stand the gaff, d' yah think?" - -"She'll have to," chuckled Gloria. "If she doesn't, let me know. I've -got a hold over her." - -The mere process of purchasing has an inspiriting effect upon the -feminine psychology. By the time Darcy had acquired her simple gymnasium -outfit, her fears were forgotten in optimism. With such appropriate -clothes the experiment must be a success! Proudly she arrayed herself -in them, upon arrival at Mr. Andy Dunne's academy at the hour set; the -close-fitting, rather scratchy tights, the scant and skirtless trousers, -the light canvas shoes, the warmly enveloping sweater, and the -rubber cap to keep her hair from interfering with her exertions. Thus -appareled, Darcy quite esteemed herself as an athlete. She could already -feel her muscular potentialities developing beneath the rough, stimulant -cloth. She thought lightly of the various apparatus awaiting her in the -"shop"; playthings of her coming prowess. She would show Mr. Andy Dunne -what an apt and earnest devotee of the vigorous life could achieve. Thus -uplifted she went forth with a confident smile to meet the man who, for -weary months, was to fill a large part of her life. - -At sight of her Mr. Dunne, schooled though he was in self-restraint, -barely suppressed a groan of pained surprise. That garb which had so -pleased Darcy, however much it may have been an inspiration to her, was -a revelation to the dismayed eyes of her instructor. To Gloria Greene, -one of the few people with whom he forgot his reticence, he afterwards -made his little plaint. - -"If they're fat, I can sweat'em. If they're skinny, I can pad'em with -muscle. But this squab, she's fat and skinny _all_ in the wrong places." - -Half hopeful that he might discover some disabling symptom, he tested -her heart and her breathing. All was normal. He noted her yellowish -eyes, her sallow skin, the beginning of a fold under her chin, the -slackness of her posture. - -"How old are yah?" he demanded. - -"Just twenty-one." - -"Grmph!" barked Mr. Dunne, in a tone which unflatteringly suggested -surprise, but also relief. "Well we gotta getta work." - -How pleasurable was that hour's exercise to Darcy! With what delight did -her unforeboding spirit take to the ways of a hardy athleticism! 'Never -could she have imagined it so easy. No sooner was she weary of one kind -of a trial, dumb-bells, Indian-clubs, or pulleys, than, when her breath -began to come short, the watchful instructor stopped her and, after a -rest, set her to something else. Her skin pricked and glowed beneath the -close but unrestricting suit. Little drops of moisture came out on -her face and were gayly brushed away. She could feel herself breathing -deeper, her blood running faster and fuller in her veins, her muscles -suppling along the bones. She hurled the medi-cine-ball with fervor. -She attacked the punch-ing-bag with ferocity. She swung at the elusive -little hand-ball with a violence unhampered by any sense of direction. -From time to time she threw a glance, hopefully inviting approval, at -the stonily watchful visage of Mr. Andy Dunne. - -The approval did not manifest itself. Darcy, had she but known it, was -going through that schedule of the mildest type known derisively to -Andy's academy as "the consumptive's stunt." At the conclusion of a trot -three times around the room which she conceived herself as performing -with a light and springy step ("like a three-legged goat" was Mr. -Dunne's mental comparison), that gentleman said, "Nuff," a word which -later was to rank in his pupil's consciousness as the one assuaging -thing in an agonized world. The regulation first-day's-end catechism -then took place. - -"How d'yah feel?" - -"Fine!" - -"'s good! Lame?" - -"Not a bit." - -"Yah'll stiffen up later. Don't let it bother yah. Hot bath in the -morning." - -"All right." - -"Same time day after tomorra." He busied himself replacing the deranged -apparatus. "How's the appetite?" he asked carelessly. - -"It hasn't been so very good." - -"No? Try it on this." - -"Diet for Miss D. Cole," was typed across the top of a meager-looking -list of edibles and what that young lady would have considered -inedibles, which she found herself conning. - -"Is that _all?_" she inquired dismally. - -"Take as much as yah want of it," returned Mr. Dunne generously. - -"But--I mean--it doesn't look very nice." - -"The Big Feller trained on it," observed the other with an air of -finality. "What's wrong with it?" - -"Why--why--it's--well--monotonous," explained the girl. "There isn't a -sweet thing in it. No cakes. No desserts. Not even ice-cream. Why can't -I have a little sweets?" - -"Because," answered Mr. Dunne, "yah got creases in your stomach." - -Darcy started. "No! Have I?" she asked, vaguely alarmed as to what -profound digestive catastrophe that might portend. - -"Well, haven't yah? About there--and there--and prob'ly there." Mr. -Dunne drew an illustrative and stubby forefinger thrice vertically -across his own flat abdomen. "Look to-night and yah'll see'em." - -"Oh!" gasped Darcy, turning fiery red, for it is one of our paradoxical -conventions that a young lady may discuss the inside of her stomach -without shame, but not the outside. - -Mr. Dunne regarded the blush with disfavor. "Look-a-here," he said -bluntly. "Yah, needn't get rattled." - -"But--I--I--didn't--" - -"Cut the school-girl stuff. Yah'r my pupil. I'm yahr trainer. That's all -there is _to_ it, if we're going to get along comfortable. Get me?" - -"Yes," said Darcy. "I won't be silly again. And I'll try and mind the -diet." - -Vastly to her surprise and gratification, the neophyte arose on the -following morning without severe symptoms of lameness. Here and there -an unsuspected muscle had awakened to life and to mild protest over -the resurrection. But on the whole Darcy felt none the worse for her -experience. She began to surmise that she was one of that physically -blessed class, a born athlete. If beauty, vigor, and health were to be -achieved at no harder a price than this, they were almost like a gift of -the good fairies. The only unusual phenomena she observed as a result -of her introspection were a lack of interest in her food, which she set -down to the discredit of the diet, and a tendency to fall asleep over -her work. She went to bed early that night, quite looking forward to the -morrow's exercise. - -Nature has a stock practical joke which she plays on the physically -negligent when they begin training. Instead of inflicting muscular -remorse on the morning after, she lets the bill run for another -twenty-four hours and then pounces upon the victim with an astounding -accumulation of painful arrears. Opening her eyes on that second -day after Mr. Dunne's mild but sufficient schedule--the one muscular -movement she was able to make without acute agony--Darcy became -cognizant that every hinge in her body had rusted. She attempted to -swing her legs out of bed, and stuck, with her feet projecting out from -the clothes, paralyzed and groaning. From the bedroom next to Darcy's -alcove, Helen Barrett heard the sounds of lamentation and tottered -drowsily in. - -"What ever is the matter, Darcy?" - -"I can't get up" moaned the victim. - -"What is it? Are you ill?" - -"No! No! I'm all right. Only--" - -"Get your legs back in bed." The kindly Helen thrust back the protruding -limbs, thereby wringing from the sufferer a muffled shriek which brought -Maud Raines to the scene. - -"It's rheumatism, I think," explained Helen to the newcomer. "Or else -paralysis." - -"It isn't," denied Darcy indignantly. - -"What is it, then?" - -Racked by all manner of darting pains and convulsive cramps, Darcy -began the cautious process of emerging from bed. "Do be good--ugh!" she -implored. "And don't--ooch!--ask questions--and draw me a boiling hot -bath--ow-w-w!--and help me into it--oh-h-h-h--_dear!_" - -Greatly wondering they followed the sufferer's directions, got her duly -en-tubbed, and ensconced themselves outside the door, which they left -carefully ajar for explanations. All they got for this maneuver was an -avowal of the bather's firm intention of spending the rest of the day in -the mollifying water. - -"If you want to be really nice," she added, "you might bring my coffee -and rolls to me here." - -"Well, really!" said Maud indignantly, for this was a reversal of the -normal order of things in Bachelor-Girls' Hall. As the homely member -of an otherwise attractive trio, Darcy had been, by common consent, -constituted the meek and unprotesting servitor of the other two. Thus do -relics of Orientalism persist among the most independent race of women -known to history. - -Darcy accepted the rebuff. "It doesn't matter," said she, with a quaver -of self-pity. "I can't have coffee. I can't have hot rolls. I can't have -anything." - -Her two mates exchanged glances. "Darcy, you've got to see a doctor." - -"I haven't! I won't!" - -"But if you can't move and can't eat--" - -"I'm much better now. Really I am," declared the other, alarmed at the -threat of a physician, who might suspect the truth and give her away to -the others. "I'm going to dress." Which she did, at the price of untold -pangs. Breakfast passed in a succession of questioning silences and -suspicious glances, but Darcy guarded her tongue. To reveal the facts -and what lay behind them would be only to invite discouragement and -dissuasion if not actual ridicule. After the frugal and tasteless ordeal -of hominy without sugar, followed by one egg without butter, she limped -into the front room and set herself doggedly to the elaboration of a new -design for B. Riegel & Sons. Notwithstanding the legacy, she could -not afford to neglect the economic side of life whilst fostering the -physical. Her special course in the development of charm, via the -muscle-and-sinew route, she perceived, was going to take longer than she -had foreseen. Already she felt that the schedule ought to be radically -relaxed. Her unfitness to take the lesson set for that afternoon was -obvious. Next week, perhaps--'though, on the whole, she inclined to the -belief that she should have about ten days to recuperate. - -She would write to Mr. Dunne and explain. No; she would telephone him. -Better still, she would go up to the Academy of Tortures in person and -exhibit to the proprietor's remorseful eyes the piteous wreck which he -had made of her blithe young girlhood. - -She went. Mr. Andy Dunne regarded the piteous wreck without outward and -visible signs of distress. - -"Yah got five minutes," he remarked emotionlessly, glancing at the -clock. - -"I can't possibly go on to-day," said Darcy firmly. - -"No?" - -"Every bone in my body creaks. I haven't got a muscle that isn't sore. -I ache in places that I didn't even know I had. Why, Mr. Dunne," she -declared impressively, as a conclusion to the painful inventory, "if I -tried to go through those exercises again to-day, I'd die!" - -"Grmph!" said Mr. Dunne, indicating that he was unimpressed. - -"I c-c-c-can't do it and I won't!" said Darcy, like a very naughty -child. - -"Yah paid me three hundr'n sixty dollars, didn't yah?" - -"Yes," replied Darcy, her heart sinking, at the recollection of the sum -which she had invested in assorted agonies. - -"Did yah think that was going to buy yah what yah'r after?" - -Darcy gulped dismally. - -"It ain't. Money can't buy it. Yah gotta have gu--grit." Mr. -Dunne achieved the timely amendment in the middle of the stronger -qualification. - -Darcy's mind went back to Gloria Greene's preachment upon the text of -"grit": "You don't know what the word means, yet." Apparently she was in -a fair way to find out. - -"Two minutes gone," announced the trainer's inexorable voice. - -How she did it she never knew. But under impulsion of the sterner will, -she got into her gymnasium suit and was on the floor only three minutes -past the hour. The apparatus which she had at first encountered with so -much interest and curiosity now had a sinister effect of lying in -wait like the implements of a dentist's office. She speculated, with a -shrinking of her whole frame, upon which one would be selected as the -agency of the initial agony. Giving them not so much as a look, Mr. -Andy Dunne led her to a large, rough mat and bade her stretch out on her -back. - -"Lift the left foot in the air," he directed. - -Darcy did so, with caution. - -"Higher!" said Mr. Dunne. - -"Oo-yee!" lamented Darcy. - -"Back. Lift the right foot in the air." - -Darcy obeyed without enthusiasm. - -"Higher!" said Mr. Dunne. - -"Ow-wow!" mourned Darcy. - -"Back. Lift both feet in the air." - -"I can't!" said Darcy. - -"Yah gotta!" said Mr. Dunne. - -Two wavering, quivering legs rose slowly from the mat, attained an angle -of forty-five degrees, and dropped back to earth with a thud. Their -owner had been forcibly reminded of the three creases in her stomach -by the fact that they had unanimously set to writhing and grinding upon -each other in fiery convolutions of protest, resultant upon the unwonted -angle of the legs. - -"Higher!" commanded the pitiless Mr. Dunne. - -"Can't!" - -"Gotta!" - -With a spasmodic heave, the victim attained perhaps fifty degrees of -elevation, and straightened out, gasping. Next her instructor had her -sit up erect from a flat position, without aid from hands or elbows, -whereat all the muscles in her back, thighs, and abdomen, hitherto -unawakened, roused themselves and yelled in chorus. Then he had her -repeat the whole devastating process from the first before he spoke the -word of reprieve. - -"Nuff!" - -Darcy rolled over on her face and lay panting. "How d' yah feel?" - -"Awful!" gasped Darcy. - -"Still a bit stiff?" - -"A bit! Oh-h-h-h!" - -"Then we'll do it all again," said Mr. Dunne cheerfully. "Nothin' like -light exercise to loosen up the human frame." - -For that "light" Darcy could cheerfully have slain him. Nobody since the -world began, she felt convinced, neither gladiator of the classic arena -nor the mighty John L. himself, had ever undergone such a fearsome -grilling and lived. And now there was more to come. Over the twistings -and turnings, the arm-flexures, the hoppings and skippings, the tingling -of the outraged muscles, the panting of the overtaxed lungs, let us draw -a kindly curtain. - -When the horrid hour was over, Darcy in her cold shower felt numb. -Whether she could ever manage to get home on her own disjointed feet -seemed doubtful. But she did. She went to bed at eight o'clock that -night, having eaten almost nothing, in the firm conviction that she -never would be able to get up in the morning without help, and probably -not with it! - -Sleep such as she had not known in years submerged her. Roused late -by her companions, she moved first an arm, then a leg, tentatively. No -penalty attached to the experiment. With a low, anticipatory groan she -sat up slowly in bed. The groan was a case of crying before she was -hurt. She began to feel herself cautiously all over. Her skin was a -little tender to the touch, and she noted with interest that the blood -ran impetuously to whatever spot on the surface her exploring fingers -pressed. But of that crippling lameness, that feeling of the whole -bodily mechanism being racked and rusted, there remained only a trace. -In its place was left a new variety of pang which Darcy pleasantly -identified. She was ravenously hungry. - -Maud Raines observed to Helen Barrett after breakfast that any one who -could bolt plain oatmeal the way Darcy did must have the appetite of a -pig, and no wonder she was fat and slobby. But Andy Dunne, calling up -Gloria to report progress, thus delivered his opinion: - -"You know that squab you sent me, Miss Greene?" - -"Yes." - -"She wanted to quit." - -"No! Did she do it?" - -"I bluffed her out of it. And say, Miss Greene!" - -"Yes, Andy." - -"There may be something to that kid." - -"Glad you think so." - -Said Andy Dunne, expert on the human race slowly, consideringly, and -more prophetically than he knew: - -"I kinda think there's fighting stuff some-wheres under that fat." - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -HAD Andy Dunne's surmise been laid before Darcy, it might have brought -sorely needed encouragement to her soul as the regenerative process -went on. True she had presently passed the first crisis which athletic -regimen develops for the untrained, and which is purely muscular. She -no longer swung to and fro, a helpless pendulum, between the agonies of -apprehension and the anguish of action. The steady exercise was telling -in so far as her muscles were concerned; she had still to face the test -of discipline. In this second and sterner crisis, Andy Dunne could help -her but little. It was a question of her own power of will, a will grown -slack and flabby from lack of exercise. Ahead of her loomed, only dimly -discerned as yet, the ordeal of strenuous monotony; the deadly-dull, -prolonged grind wherein endurance, as it hardens, is subjected to a -constantly harsher strain, until the soul revolts as, in the earlier -stage, the body had rebelled. - -A subject like Gloria Greene, high and fine of spirit, the sage Mr. -Dunne could have eased through the difficult phase by appeals to her -pride and to the sense of partnership which the successful trainer -must establish between himself and his pupil. With Darcy this was -impracticable because Andy Dunne, as he would have admitted with a -regretful grin, was "in wrong." Darcy enthusiastically hated him. - -At first sight she had estimated him as a stem spirit. Through -successive changes that reckoning had been altered to "harsh," -then "brutal," and now "Satanic." Gloria's judgment of her note of -introduction as "a commutation ticket to Hades, first class," was amply -borne out. - -Professionally Mr. Dunne's discourse tended ever to the hortatory and -corrective. He was a master of the verbal rowel. - -"Keep it up!" - -"Again!" - -"Ah-h-h, put some punch in it!" - -"Yah ain't _haff_ trying!" - -"Go wan! Yah gotta do better'n'at!" And, occasionally, "Rotten!" - -Worse still was a manner he had of regarding her with an expression -of mild and regretful wonder whilst giving voice to his bulldoggish -"Grmph!" in a tone indicating only too plainly that never before was -conscientious trainer so bored and afflicted with such an utterly -incompetent, inefficient, and generally hopeless subject as the daily -withering Darcy. - -In lighter moments he would regale her with reminiscences of the Big -Feller and his eccentricities in and insubordinations under training, -while Darcy would lie, panting and spent, on the hard floor, -wondering regretfully why the Big Feller hadn't killed Mr. Dunne when -opportunities must have been so plentiful. Then, just as her labored -breathing would begin to ease, the taskmaster in Mr. Dunne would awaken, -the call "Time" would sound like doom to her ears, and she would set to -it again, arching on her back, rolling on her stomach (where the three -creases were beginning to flatten), yanking at overweighted pulleys, -interminably skipping a loathly rope, standing up like a dumb ten-pin -before the ponderous medi-cine-ball which Mr. Dunne hurled at her, -punching at an elusive and too often vengeful bag, rowing an imaginary -boat against wind, wave, and every dictate of her weary body, and -finally running silly circles around the room like a demented cat, until -the monitor uttered the one, lone word of pity in his inquisitorial -vocabulary: "Nuff!" - -Had all this deep-wrung sweat of brow and soul produced any definable -effect, Darcy could have borne it with a resigned spirit. It didn't. -Four times a week she went through the hideous grind, and nothing -happened. Each night she went to bed early and after profound sleep had -to get up out of the cuddly warmth into a shudderingly cold bath--and -nothing happened. She gave up the before-dinner cocktail and with -it what little zest she had for her deadly plain diet--and nothing -happened. She denied her sweet tooth so much as one little bite of -candy--oh, but that was a bitter deprivation--and nothing happened. To -her regimen at the gymnasium she added a stint of simple but violent -house exercises on off days--and nothing happened. Life, which she had -supposed, in her first flush of hopeful enthusiasm for the new -regime, would be one grand, sweet song, was, in fact, one petty, sour -discord--wherein nothing happened. This was quite right and logical, -had Darcy but known it. Layers of fat, physical and moral, accumulated -through years of self-coddling, are not worked off in a week or a month. - -There came a day when something did happen. There always does. It was -not of that order of occurrences which can be foreseen by the expert -eye. It seldom is. Andy Dunne, honestly and simply intent on earning -his money, had been unusually exigent. Besides, Darcy had a nail in her -shoe. Besides, Mr. Riegel had been curtly critical of her latest and -most original design as "new-fangled." Besides, Maud was becoming -satirically curious as to where she was spending so many afternoons. -Besides, it was a rotten day. There was no light on earth or in heaven! - -"What's the use of it all, anyway!" thought Darcy to herself, for -perhaps the fiftieth time, but rather more fervently than before. - -As if in exasperation of her agnostic mood, the preceptor, in the -half-time intermission, had suggested not less, but more work! - -"Yah'r gettin' stale," observed Mr. Dunne, which Darcy thought a hopeful -beginning. - -"I feel so," she said. - -"There's a clock," Mr. Dunne informed her, "at Fifty-Ninth and Eighth." - -Darcy waited. - -"There's another at a Hundred'n Tenth and Seventh," pursued the -chronometrical Mr. Dunne, and fell into calculating thought. - -Darcy waited again. - -"Yah leave Fifty-Ninth at 4.20 p.m." - -"When?" - -"Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays." - -"Oh!" said Darcy blankly. - -"And yah get to a Hundred'n-Tenth in time to hear that clock strike 5." - -"What! Walk? Nearly three miles in forty minutes?" - -"No," said Mr. Dunne thoughtfully. - -"Then, how--" - -"Yah'd better run part way, or yah won't make it on time." - -"You want to kill me!" declared the petulant and self-pitying Darcy. - -"Grmph!" said Mr. Dunne. - -"Suppose it rains?" put forth Darcy desperately. - -"Then yah'll get wet," was Mr. Dunne's reasonable answer. - -"And catch my death riding back in the bus." - -"Don't ride. Walk. I'm giving this to yah for fresh air." - -"But Mr. Dunne--" - -"Time!" - -It may have been this fresh grievance which lay heavy upon Darcy's -chest, clogging her breathing and slowing her suppled muscles. She was -conscious of doing less well than usual--and of not caring, either! The -medicine-ball was heavier and more unwieldy than ever. The punching-bag, -instinct with a demoniac vitality, came back at her on a new schedule -and bumped her nose violently, a mortifying incident which had not -occurred since the first week. The despicable little hand-ball, -propelled by her trainer, bounded just a fraction of an inch out of her -straining reach, and when she did hit it, felt as soggy as sand and as -hard as rock and raised stone-bruises on her hands. She even pinched her -thumb in the rowing-machine, which is the zenith of inexpertness. -With every fresh mishap she became more self-piteous and resentful and -reckless. Andy, the Experienced, would have ascribed all this to that -common if obscure phenomenon, an "off day," familiar to every professor -whether of integral calculus or the high trapeze. Then the dreadful -thing happened, and he revised his opinion. - -The last, and therefore worst, five minutes of the grind had come. Darcy -lay on the mat going through the loathed body-and-limb-lifting while -Andy Dunne exhorted her to speed up. "Now the legs. Come on. Hup!" - -Something in Darcy went on strike. - -"Can't," she said. - -"Grmph! What's matter?" - -"Won't!" said Darcy. - -From the corner of a hot and rebellious eye she could see overspreading -her trainer's face that familiar expression of contemptuous and weary -patience. Anything else she could have stood. But that--that was the -spark that fired the powder. Stooping over, the trainer laid hold, none -too gently, on one inert heel. - -Heaven and earth reversed themselves for Mr. Andy Dunne. Also day and -night, for a galaxy of stars appeared and circulated before his mazed -eyes. The walls and the ceiling joined in the whirl, to which an end -was set by the impact of the floor against the back of his head. For one -brief, sweet, romantic moment Andy Dunne was back in the training-ring -with the Big Feller and that venerated and mulish right had landed one -on his jaw. But why, oh, why, should the mighty John L. thereupon burst -into hysterical sobbing? And if it wasn't the Big Feller, who was it -making those grievous noises? - -Mr. Dunne sat up, viewed a huddled, girlish form trying unsuccessfully -to burrow headforemost out of sight in the hard mat, and came to a -realization of the awful fact. With all the force of her newly acquired -leg muscles, the meek Miss Cole had landed a galvanic kick on his -unprotected chin. For a moment he stared in stupefaction. Then he arose -and went quietly forth into his own place, where he sat on a chair and -rubbed his chin and thought, and presently began to chuckle, and kept it -up until the chuckle grew into a laugh which shook his tough frame more -violently than had the unexpected assault. - -"Well, I _am_ d----d!" said Mr. Dunne. "The little son-of-a-gun!" - -Meanwhile Darcy lay curled up like a quaking armadillo. Probably Andy -Dunne would kill her. She didn't much care. Life wasn't worth living, -anyhow. She was through. The one pleasant impression of her whole -disastrous gymnasium experience was the impact of her heel against that -contemptuous chin. - -She opened one eye. Andy Dunne was not where he should have landed -as the result of the revolution which he had been performing when he -whirled from her view. She opened the other eye. Andy Dunne was not -anywhere. He had vanished into nothingness. - -With all the sensation of a criminal, Darcy rose, dressed, and fled. She -fled straight to Gloria Greene. That industrious person was, as usual, -at work, and as usual found time to hear Darcy's troubles. What she -heard was gaspy and fragmentary. - -"Gloria, I've done an _awful_ thing!" - -"What? Out with it," commanded the actress. - -"I ki-ki-ki--I can't tell you," gulped Darcy. "Mr. Dunne--I mean, I -ki-ki-ki--" - -"Yes," encouraged Gloria. "What awful thing have you done to Andy Dunne? -Kissed him?" - -"_No!_ Worse." - -"Oh! You ki-ki-killed him, I suppose," twinkled Gloria. - -"I don't know. I hope so. I ki-ki-kicked him. I kicked him _good!_" - -"Darcy! Where?" - -"On the chin." - -"What did he do?" - -"Disappeared." - -"Do I understand that you kicked him into microscopical pieces?" - -"Don't laugh at me, Gloria. It's very, very serious." - -"It sounds so." - -"I'm done with it. Forever." - -"Done with what?" - -"The gymnasium. The diet. Andy Dunne. Everything." - -"Oh, no, you're not." - -"I am! I _am!_ I yam!" declared Darcy with progressive petulance. "I've -been torturing myself for nothing. It hasn't made a bit of difference. -Look at me!" - -Gloria looked and with difficulty concealed a smile of satisfaction. -For, to her expert eyes, there was a difference, a marked difference, -still submerged but obvious, beneath the surface, in movements which, -formerly sluggish, were now brisk and supple, in a clear eye, and a skin -which seemed to fit on the flesh where before it had sagged. - -"How did you get up here?" inquired Gloria abruptly. - -"Ran." - -"Up the whole four flights? The elevator is working." - -"D----n the elevator!" said the outrageous - -Darcy. - -"A few weeks ago you were damning it because it wouldn't carry up your -lazy body. Isn't there a difference now?" - -"I don't care; it isn't the difference I want. I want to look like -something. Gloria, I'm desperate." - -"No, child. That isn't despair. It's temper." - -"It's not." - -"Go back to Andy's and work it off." - -"I wont!" - -"Very well." With a sigh for her interrupted task, Gloria selected a -hat, set it carefully upon her splendid hair and pinned it in place. -"You'll excuse me, won't you, my dear?" she added in tones which aroused -her visitor's alarmed suspicions. - -"Where are you going? To see Mr. Dunne?" - -"Not at all." - -Darcy's misgivings livened into something like terror. - -"Where, then?" - -"To see Maud and Helen." - -"What for?" - -"To recount to them the authentic and interesting history of Sir -Montrose Veyze, Bart., hand-picked fiance, of--" - -"Gloria! You wouldn't be so _base!_" - -"I would be just that base," returned the other in the measured tones -of judgment. "But I'll give you a respite until your next training day. -When is it?" - -"Day after to-morrow," answered Darcy faintly. - -"If you aren't at Andy's then to answer to the call of time, I'll -tell the whole thing to the two fiancees with whatever extra details my -imagination can provide." - -Whereupon Darcy burst into tumultuous weeping, declared that she hadn't -a friend in the world, and didn't care, anyway, because she wished she -was dead, and went forth of that unsympathetic spot with the air and -expression of one spurning earth's vanities and deceptions forever. -Being wise in her generation and kind, Gloria knew that the girl would -go back to her martyrdom. So she called up Andy Dunne for a conference, -which concluded with this sage advice from her to him: - -"This is the appointed time, Andy. When she comes back, put the screws -on hard. She'll go through. If she doesn't, let me know." - -No scapegrace of school, led back from truancy after some especially -nefarious project, ever wore a face of more tremulous abasement than -Miss Darcy Cole, returning to her faithful trainer whom she had kicked -in the jaw. As he entered the gymnasium a strip of court-plaster on the -curve of his chin caught her fascinated attention and for the moment -evicted from her mind the careful apology which she had formulated. -Before she could recapture it, the opportunity was gone. "Time!" barked -Mr. Dunne. - -The day's work was on. - -Such an ordeal as Darcy underwent in consequence of Gloria's advice, few -of Mr. Dunne's pupils other than professional athletes would have been -called upon to endure, a fact which might have helped her had she known -it. Not knowing it, she won through that violent hour on sheer grit. -At the trainer's final "Nuff," she contrived to smile, but she couldn't -quite manage to walk off the floor. She sat down upon a convenient -medicine-ball and waited for the dimness to clear. A hand fell on her -shoulder and rested there with an indefinable pressure of fellowship. -She looked up to see the taskmaster standing above her. - -"Say, kid," he began. "Yah are a kid, ainche?" he broke off, a little -doubtfully. - -"I'm going--on--twenty-two," panted Darcy. - -"Yeh, I'd figure yah about there--now. Well, I'm an old man; old enough -for the father stuff. And I wanta tell yah something. I like yah. D' yah -know why I like yah?" - -Darcy, with brightening eye, shook her head. - -"Because yah'r game," said Mr. Andy Dunne. - -A voice within Darcy's heart burst into song. For the first time in her -life she had been praised to the limit of a fellow being's measure. For -gameness, as she well knew, was the ultimate virtue to the athlete mind. -The Big Feller had been game, even in his downfall; it was that, over -and above all his victories, which had enshrined him in Andy Dunne's and -thousands of other stout and inexpressive hearts. - -Her trainer had paid her his finest compliment. - -"Yah'r game," he repeated. "I dunno exactly what yah'r out after, but -I'm backin' yah to get it." - -"Thank you, Mr. Dunne," said Darcy gratefully. - -"Grmph!" retorted that gentleman. "Cut the Mister. Andy, to you." - -"Thank you, Andy," said the recipient of the accolade. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - "_Rum_-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle!" - -THE voice sounded, fresh and brisk from behind the portals of the -Fifty-Sixth Street eyrie. It was followed by a rapid succession of -floppish noises which fell strangely upon the ears of Miss Maud Raines -and Miss Helen Barrett, panting after their long ascent, outside the -door. They had returned from a shopping tour at the unaccustomed hour of -three when Darcy usually could rely upon having the place to herself. - -"Isn't Darcy the gay young sprite!" said Helen as the song burst forth -again. - -"Flip-flop, flippity-floppity-flub" sounded in progression across the -living-room floor. - -The two fiancees looked at each other in bewilderment. - -"What on earth!" said Maud Raines. - -Again the voice was uplifted, in familiar melody, gemmed with words less -familiar: - - "Ru m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle, - I have rolled ten pounds from off my middle. - By rolling on the floor, (Flip! Flop!) - As I told you before, - Behind! - Behind! - Before!" (Floppity-flop!) - -"I do believe she's _doing_ it," whispered Helen in awed accents. - -The voice, with its strange accompaniments, resumed: - - "Ru m-tu m-tu m-tum-tu m-tu m-tiddle, - I'll roll twenty pounds from off my middle. - I have done it before. (Floppity-flop! Thump!) - I can do it some more!" (Whoof!) - -By this time Maud's key, silently inserted in the spring lock, had made -connections. She threw the door open. Darcy, giving an imitation of a -steam roller in full career toward the two entrants, was startled into a -cry. She came to her feet with a bound, without pausing to touch so much -as a finger to the floor, a detail which escaped the protruding eyes of -her flatmates, and stood facing them flushed and defiant. - -"Well!" said Maud Raines. - -"What are you up to, Darcy?" asked Helen. - -"Exercising," said Darcy blandly. - -"And practicing vocal music on the side," remarked Maud. - -"Oh, that's just for breathing," exclaimed the girl. - -"But what's it all _about?_" queried Helen. "I've gone into training." - -"You! What for?" - -"Oh, I don't know. Just for fun." - -"You look it," was Maud's grim commentary. "Who's training you?" - -"Andy Dunne. He trained John L. Sullivan and Gloria Greene." - -"And which one are you modeling yourself on?" asked Maud maliciously. - -"Oh, I'd rather be like Gloria, of course," retorted Darcy easily. "But -I feel more like John L." - -"I think it very clever of you, Darcy," approved the kind-hearted Helen. -"Englishmen are so athletic." - -Darcy seized upon the convenient suggestion. "Monty is crazy for me to -be a real sport," she said modestly. - -"It's a good thing he can't see you learning," remarked Maud. - -"Did you ever know anything more pathetic!" said Helen, when they had -withdrawn, leaving Darcy to resume her exercises. - -"Pathetic! Driveling foolishness! Such a figure as she cuts! And it's -all such a waste," concluded Maud, complacent in her own bright-hued -prettiness. - -But a more discerning eye took a different view. Holcomb Lee, who hadn't -seen Darcy for some weeks, had no sooner said, "Hello!" in his usual -offhand way, when he came to call that evening, than he seized a pencil -and demanded a sheet of paper. - -"You're always drawing Darcy!" said Maud disdainfully. - -"Just that curve from the ear down," said he absently. "Something's -happened to it." - -"What?" asked Maud. - -"It's come true. The way I wanted it to be. Only better." - -He took Darcy into the corner, under the light, and sketched busily. -As his quick glances appraised her, a look of puzzlement came into his -eyes. He leaned forward, and with the inoffensive impersonality of the -one-ideaed artist ran his hand lightly over her shoulder and down the -arm. - -"Moses!" said Holcomb Lee. - -Darcy had flexed her upper arm and the long, slender muscles came up -like iron. - -"Training?" he asked. - -Darcy nodded. - -Again he regarded her subtly altered face. "What for? The chorus?" - -"Haven't I been chorus long enough?" twinkled Darcy. - -"I get you," said Lee with emphasis. "You'll make the _ingenue_ hustle -for her job, whoever she is. By Jinks, it's a miracle!" - -"But don't tell them," said Darcy. - -"Who? The girls? Haven't they noticed? Why, a blind man could feel the -difference in you ten feet away." - -"You're the only one that has noticed it so far, and you're an artist." - -"Well, I suppose the girls wouldn't," said the illustrator thoughtfully. -"They see too much of you to recognize the change." - -What Andy Dunne's exercises had so obviously wrought in muscle and -condition, Andy Dunne's discipline had accomplished for character. -Imperceptibly even to herself, the inner Darcy was growing strong. One -result was a new zest in her designing, taking the form of experiments -aside from the beaten track which did not always meet the approval of -B. Riegel, active head of B. Riegel & Sons, manufacturers of wall-paper. -Now Mr. Riegel's approval, with the consequent check, was highly -essential to Miss Darcy Cole's plans. And Miss Darcy Cole's attitude -toward Mr. Riegel had always been acquiescent, not to say humble. - -But on a particular morning, when the designer was even more alive than -she was now accustomed to feel, she brought in a particular design, upon -which she had spent much time and thought, and with which she was well -content. Not so Mr. Riegel. Being first, last, and between times a man -of business, he hardly gave a glance to the dowdy girl as she entered, -but bestowed his entire attention on the sketch. "Too blank," was his -verdict. - -"That makes it restful," suggested Darcy. "Who wants restfulness? Pep! -That's what goes these days." - -"It's for a sleeping-room, you know." - -For all the effect upon the wall-paper man she might as well not have -spoken. He set two pencil cross-marks on the design. - -"Ornamentation here, and here," he directed curtly. - -"I prefer it as it is," said Darcy calmly. - -Two months--yes, two weeks before--Darcy would have stepped meekly out -and ruined her pattern by introducing the Riegel ornamentation. But all -was different now. Andy Dunne's encomium, "because yah'r game," had put -fire in her blood. There was a reflection of it in her cheeks when -Mr. Riegel looked up at her in surprise and annoyance. He saw the same -familiar figure in the same shabby, ill-fitting clothes. But now she -was standing up inside them. And she, whose dull regard formerly drooped -away from the most casual encounter, was confronting him with bright and -level eyes. - -"Suppose you give my way a trial," suggested this changeling. - -"Mebbe you know more about this business than I do," he challenged. - -"Not at all. But it's my design, after all, isn't it?" said the girl -pleasantly. - -Gathering it up with hands which somehow suggested protectiveness -against the Philistine blight of Mr. Riegel, she bestowed it safe in her -imitation-leather roll. "I'll try to bring you another next week," she -promised. - -"Wait, now, a minute!" cried the perplexed employer. "What're you going -to do with this one?" - -"Try it on Balke & Stover." - -"Leave it," he ordered. "Check'll be sent." He whirled around in his -chair, presenting the broad hint of a busy back to her. - -"Make it for thirty dollars, please," said Darcy to the back. - -Mr. Riegel performed a reverse whirl so much more swiftly than his -swivel-chair was prepared for that it was thrown off its balance, and -its occupant, with a smothered yelp, beheld himself orbitally projected -toward a line of open sample paints waiting on the floor for a test. -Mr. Riegel's own person was the last medium in the world upon which he -desired to test them, for much stress had been laid upon their lasting -quality. He was sprawling out, fairly above them, beyond human help, -it seemed, when something happened. Darcy, standing in that attitude of -unconscious but alert poise which rigid physical training inculcates, -thrust forth a slender but powerful hand, caught the despairing Riegel, -as it were in mid-flight, brought him up all standing, restored him to -the chair and both of them to the _status quo_. - -"Urf!" gasped the victim of these maneuvers. He bent a look upon Darcy -which was a curious blend of wonder, skepticism, and respect. "Say," he -said, "you couldn't use a job in the trucking department, maybe?" Then, -recovering himself, he growled: "What was that you said about thirty -dollars?" - -The growl had no effect. Darcy's confidence had been stiffened by the -little interlude of the chair. - -"My prices have gone up," she informed him. - -"The devil they have! Beg y' pardon, Miss Watchemame--" - -"My name is Cole." - -"Miss Cole. Look-a-here, now; d' you think your work is worth ten -dollars more than it has been?" - -"Put it this way; I think you've been paying me ten dollars too little. -Don't you?" - -At bottom Mr. Riegel was a fair-minded as well as a shrewd person. -Moreover, he had been tremendously impressed by the unsuspected -physical prowess of this queer specimen. To catch him in mid-flight and -reestablish his equilibrium had required no mean quality of muscle. Yet -this sloppy-looking girl had done it without turning a hair! And now she -was striking him for a raise. He laughed aloud. - -"That ain't the point," said he. "I don't; but some of my competitors -might. Lessay twenty-five for the next half-dozen: after that, thirty, -and this one goes, as is." - -"Right!" said Darcy, composedly. - -Exultant she went out into a dusk of wind and rain, such as would have -swamped her spirit in misery aforetime, and fought her way joyously -through it, ending her journey by taking the long flights of the -apartment two steps at a time and singing as she sped. Outside the door -she had noticed a taxi. In the front room she found Gloria, who had -stopped on her way to the theater, stretched on the divan and talking -with the turtledoves. - -"I looked in to see how you were getting on," said the actress, eyeing -Darcy keenly. - -"Splendidly!" - -"Everything all right in the gymnasium? Did Andy--er--" - -"Oh, yes. It's all right," hastily broke in the girl, having no mind to -hear her felonies discussed by her flat-mates. "Just as right as right -can be." - -"You're awfully chirpy, considering what a beast of a raw, rainy day -it's been," observed Helen. - -"Is it bad?" said Darcy blandly. "I suppose it is, but I hardly -noticed." - -"Another British mail in, I suppose," conjectured Maud. "That always -brightens her up." - -"If there is I haven't got anything yet," answered Darcy, who had -neglected to consult the morning papers for the incoming steamship -entries. Her myth involved so many supporting lies, that it was -difficult and ticklish to keep it properly bolstered up. - -"Has she told you about the Britisher, Gloria?" asked Helen. - -"Monty Veyze? Of course. I know him." - -"You know him!" cried Helen and Maud in a breath. "What's he like?" - -"Oh, he's all that Darcy thinks he is," smiled Gloria. "It's years since -I've seen him. To put it Englishwise, he was by way of being horribly -smart, then. Just where is he now, Darcy?" - -"Near the Siberian frontier," said Darcy shortly. There was a gleam in -Gloria's eye which she neither understood nor liked. - -"In one of the twenty-two sub-wars that signalize the universal peace, I -suppose," laughed the actress. "Or is it twenty-nine." - -"I thought long engagements weren't the thing in England," said Maud, -musingly. "Particularly in these uncertain times when--when anything -might happen." - -"I think that's pretty horrid of you, Maud," retorted Darcy with -carefully assumed sadness, smothering a private and murderous wish that -"anything" would happen to her home-made fiance. - -"I don't mean it that way. But if I were really engaged to an Englishman -on active service, I'd go over and marry him, on his very first leave." - -Casual though Maud's "really" sounded, it brought red to Darcy's cheeks -and a livelier gleam to Gloria's eyes. The latter turned to Darcy. - -"Why not tell them?" - -"Tell them what?" inquired the girl, staring at her mentor in amaze and -alarm. - -"All about Monty. The whole thing. You know, I claim a partnership in -him." - -By a mighty effort Darcy suppressed a gasp. What was Gloria up to, now? - -"Go on," the actress urged. "Tell them." - -"I-I can't," stammered Darcy, which was exactly what the feminine -Macchiavelli on the divan was maneuvering for. - -"Shy?" said she, sweetly. "Very well, then. I'll tell them. May I?" - -Receiving a dubious nod, Gloria proceeded: - -"Sir Montrose Veyze has finally got his leave. He'll be here about the -middle of October." (That "gone" feeling came over Darcy.) - -"By the 15th?" asked Helen eagerly. "In time for our wedding?" - -"No. That's the unfortunate part. We hoped we could make it a triple -wedding. That's the little surprise Darcy has been waiting to spring on -you." - -"Can't he make it?" asked Maud. The notion of a titled adjunct to her -marriage appealed strongly to her practical mind. - -"Not quite. The best he can do is the 16th. Possibly later. So they'll -be married quite quietly from my apartment and have a month's honeymoon -before he goes back." - -To all of which Darcy listened in the stupefaction of despair. She was -roused by Helen Barrett's bear-hug of congratulations. - -"Do you know," said Helen, "I haven't really quite been able to believe -it up to now. Oh, Darcy, I'm so glad for you!" - -With some faltered excuse for getting out of the room, the subject -of this untimely felicitation escaped. Her brain seethed with horrid -conjectures. Here was a furtherance of her phantom plans for which she -was wholly unprepared. Doubtless Gloria had something in mind; but what -could it be? When the day of inevitable reckoning should come, -Darcy could see no adequate solution other than suicide or permanent -disappearance. Meanwhile Gloria was putting her to the test of the -severest judgment by asking her flat-mates: - -"Don't you think Darcy looks well?" - -If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so likewise is the lack of -it. Having become habituated to regarding their junior partner as -aesthetically and femininely negligible, the other girls failed to -appreciate the vital changes that were in progress. Miracles, set under -our eyes, do not arrest us. Otherwise we should all stand about in -stupefaction watching trees grow. - -"She looks healthy," granted Maud indifferently. - -"And she's a lot more cheerful and lively," added Helen. "But she'll -always be--well, just Darcy." - -Being a scrupulously courteous person Miss Gloria Greene refrained from -the prophetic comparison which suggested itself to her annoyed mind as -appropriate, and contented herself with the inward retort: - -"Oh, will she! Wait until I've dressed her. And then keep a watchful eye -on your Holcomb Lees and your Paul Woods!" - -On her way out Darcy pounced upon her. "Gloria! What have you let me in -for? How am I ever going to get out of it?" - -"Heaven knows!" returned the actress airily. "Don't __you know?" - -"Haven't an idea. Sufficient unto the day is--" - -"Unto all the rest of my days, I should think," interrupted the dolorous -Darcy. - -"Engagements have to come to a head sometime, somehow," pointed out -Gloria. - -"But you've made this so dreadfully definite!" - -"Darcy, I had to! I just couldn't stand Maud's insinuation that you -weren't really engaged--the cat! She as much as said that Montrose Veyze -was just having a silly flirtation with you and that you took it _au -grand serieux_." - -"What if she knew the awful truth?" - -"Don't be afraid. She won't." - -"How are we going to help it?" - -"Break the engagement; there's one way. Say the word, Darcy, my child," -said Gloria striking a sacrificial attitude, "and I'll go across and -gather in Monty Veyze, myself, for your sake." - -"Isn't there an obstacle on this side of the water?" suggested Darcy -shyly, thinking of Jack Remsen. - -Gloria reddened a little. "Not that any one knows of," she returned. - -"Anyway, if the engagement is broken, they'll say he jilted me." - -"Then jilt him." - -"They'd never believe it." - -"Probably not," assented Gloria. - -"And October is _awfully_ near! I'll never dare show my face again," -wailed Darcy. - -"Oh, I don't know," returned the other reassuringly. "If it were your -old face, now, you might be justified in not wanting to show it. Faces -change, and we change with'em, as the prophet says." - -"It wasn't the prophet, and he didn't say that, anyway. He said, 'Times -change, and--" - -"--and faces change with'em, worse luck!" supplied the actress -cheerfully. "Though all of'em don't change for the worse. Darcy, how -much do you weigh?" she demanded with an abrupt change of tone to the -business-like. - -"One hundred and twenty-eight and a half, as I go on the gym floor." - -"That's good enough. 'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk -of many things; of shoes, and shirts, and chemisettes, of hats and eke -_stockings._'" - -"Clothes!" cried Darcy, her eyes sparkling. "Clothes. Are you prepared, -in the sight of heaven and earth, to spend seven or eight hundred of -Aunt Sarah's hard-earned on a trousseau?" - -"Oof! Don't say trousseau to me! It reminds me. Apart from that--try -me!" - -"All right. What are you going to do tomorrow at three?" - -"Cover Central Park lengthwise and back in the even hour. Andy's -orders." - -"Far be it from me to interfere. Make it the day after at ten o'clock -in the morning. Meet me at my place. We'll have a sartorial orgy." That -night Darcy dreamed herself a princess. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -"SELFISHNESS," says that wise and happy and altogether radiant person, -Gloria Greene, "comes from lack of vitality. Most people haven't enough -capital stock of vigor to live on comfortably. So you can't expect them -to loan or give away any in the form of thoughtfulness for any one else. -They're paupers, poor things! The bankruptest person I ever knew had -eighty thousand a year, and nothing else." - -Adroitly and by indirection the proponent of this doctrine had been -suggesting it to Darcy Cole, and that adaptable pupil had unconsciously -absorbed much of it. The new character that she had built up out of -discipline and abstinence as the weeks grew into months, the solidifying -confidence in herself, the burgeoning of vigor, and the subtle -development of that wondrous and mysterious quality which we term -personality and which is the touchstone between our inner and outer -worlds, had combined to open and broaden Darcy's life. Andy Dunne had -long ago begun to take certain of his professional problems to her and -profit by her shrewd helpfulness. More than once she had, of her -own initiative, laid hold on some shrinking, draggled, disheartened -neophyte, such as she herself had been, who through mere helplessness -had reduced Andy to wrathful despair, and, by a forced loan of will -power and buoyancy, pulled her through the shallows to fair going again. -On one occasion she had gone to police court with Andy on behalf of a -girl who was "going wrong," the sister of one Gillig, a promising -young pugilist under Andy's guidance; where she had so impressed the -magistrate that (seeing her with Andy, whom he knew) he asked if she was -a trainer, and hinted that he would be glad of her help on some of the -border-line cases which reach our lower courts in a status of suspended -balance, and are either hauled back to safety or plunged into the chasm -of the underworld, according as they are handled with or without tact -and sympathy. After that visit, Darcy took to dropping in at the court -twice a week or so to act as unofficial counselor where the judge -mistrusted the mechanical rigidity of official intervention. It gave her -a fresh zest in life to find herself of some practical use to others. -As to the extra work, she took that upon her supple shoulders without a -quiver. Body and soul, Darcy had grown as fresh and vigorous as ripening -fruit and as sturdy as the tree that bears it. - -Satisfying as was the compliment paid her by the magistrate, she had a -better one from Andy not long after. At the conclusion of one of their -five-minute boxing bouts, in the course of which she had landed once -with force and precision below the professional's properly cauliflowered -ear, he said to her, with a somewhat hesitant air: - -"Say, Miss Darcy; are yah rich?" - -"I certainly am not." - -"But--excuse _me_ if I'm too nosey--yah got money, ain't yah?" - -"Only what I earn." - -"Earn? D' yah work?" - -"Of course. I'm the original Honest Working Girl you read about, Andy." - -"Pretty good job?" - -"Fairly." - -"Yah wouldn't wanta quit it, I guess," surmised the trainer. - -"For what?" asked the Wondering Darcy. - -"Yah see," explained Andy, nonchalantly juggling a medicine-ball the -while, "since the tight skirt come in I'm getting a lot of ladies to -train down to their skirts. More'n I can really handle right. Now, I -kinda thought if you'd come in as assistant--well, yah can name yahr own -terms, Miss Darcy." - -The girl looked at him with bright and affectionate eyes. "Andy, you're -a dear. That's the nicest thing that ever happened to me." - -"It ain't a proposition I'd make to everybody, I can tell yah," averred -the professional. "In fact, I dunno as there's any one else I'd make it -to but you. Except Miss Greene," he added loyally. - -"I'm awfully sorry, Andy. But I couldn't very well drop my other work." - -"No?" sighed Andy. "Well, I s'pose not. Well," he added, palliating the -blow to his hopes, "yah'll be gettin' married one of these days, and -then it'd be all off, anyhow." - -"Married!" laughed his pupil. "Who'd marry a plain little stick like me -in a city full of pretty girls?" - -"Go-wan!" retorted the other. Regarding her candid face, he perceived -that this was no bluff. "Go-wan!" he repeated fervidly. "Get onto -yahrself. Ain't yah got a _mirrah_ in the house?" - -"Oh, that's just because you like me, Andy," she returned. - -Nevertheless she thrilled to the rough compliment. Holcomb Lee, with his -artistic sense, and now this expert of flesh and blood! Was her dream -really coming true already? - -That very afternoon it was shattered. - -The Fifth Avenue bus went sliding, slewing, and curving along the -wet pavement. Within sat a moist and bedraggled but cheerful Darcy, -returning from a highly encouraging consultation with Mr. B. Riegel and -the head of his color-room called in to meet the firm's most promising -contributor of designs. Another advance in her rates had been -foreshadowed; so what did Darcy care, though forgotten umbrella and -overshoes had exposed her to a violent shower, now clearing? Her Central -Park jaunts had hardened her to a point where she disregarded weather -with contemptuous indifference. So now, instead of being huddled in -her seat, contemplative of her own discomfort, she sat alert and -interestedly watchful of the outside world that went sliding past her -window. At the corner of Fifteenth Street the bus skidded to a stop at -the signal of a frail, poorly dressed young woman who staggered out from -the curb, lugging a large suitcase in both hands. She tried to lift it -to the step and failed. - -Now, it was nobody's business how the chance fare got on the bus, or, -indeed, whether she got on at all or was left standing on the asphalt, -except the conductor's and he was busy upstairs. Certainly it was no -affair of Darcy's; and the old Darcy would have taken that view in the -improbable event of her having noticed the overweighted woman at all. -The new Darcy was up instinctively and out like a flash. She grabbed the -case and got a surprise. It weighed at least sixty pounds. Darcy had the -basis for a fairly accurate estimate, as she had been recently occupying -herself with a sixty-pound dumb-bell. Thanks to a persuasive quality -of muscle which this exercise had imparted to her, she whisked the -ponderous thing to the platform, and bore it victoriously inside. The -woman followed, panting out her gratitude. As Darcy was setting her -burden down, the bus gave an unexpected lurch and one end of the case -landed upon a slightly projecting shoe. The owner of the shoe gave -utterance to a startled and pained interjection. - -"Oh, I'm so sorry!" apologized Darcy, shifting the offending bag. - -The injured one turned upon her a smile as unruffled and good-humored -as if his main enjoyment in life was having heavy things dropped on his -feet. But there was no recognition in the smile nor in the brief glance -which accompanied it. Yet the smiler was Mr. Jacob Remsen. - -"Entirely my fault," said he. "Teach me to keep my feet out of the -aisle." Darcy murmured something muffled and incoherent. - -"Let me stow that for you," offered Remsen, and, finding a spot for it -beneath the steps, deposited it there, bowed in response to the thanks -of the two women, and resumed his seat. The newcomer slipped in beside -Darcy. - -"You work, don't you?" asked she, timidly. - -"Yes. What makes you think so?" - -"Because you're so kind. And you're awful strong." - -"That suitcase is much too heavy for you. You'll injure yourself with -it," said Darcy, who was no larger than the other, severely. - -"Metal advertising cuts," explained the other. "I only have to carry it -twice a week." - -"Where to?" - -"Thirtieth over beyond Third Av'nyeh." - -"But that's a terribly long way to carry that weight." - -The woman sighed. "Yes, I know. It's nearer by the Fourth Av'nyeh line, -but I go this way because the bus conductors are so decent about helpin' -you on and off," said she, paying a merited compliment to the most -courteous and serviceable of New York's transportation employees. "It's -worth the extra nickel." - -"I'll get off with you and give you a lift." Different arrangements, -however, were in process. Nearing the corner of the prospective -debarkation Mr. Jacob Remsen arose, walked to the door, and vigorously -yanked the corpulent valise from its nook. - -"I beg your pardon," said he, dividing his impersonal and courteous -regard between the two occupants of the seat, "but I overheard your -conversation. It just happens that I'm bound for Third Avenue, myself. -So, if you will permit me--" - -Darcy's companion, abashed by the elegance of this obvious "swell," -wriggled and fluttered and protested. Mr. Remsen paid no heed. - -"Here we are," he announced cheerily, stepping to the pavement. "Watch -your step." Thus overruled, the woman followed. The assumer of burdens -not his own attained the sidewalk and all but dislocated his neck by -the jerk with which he turned it, as a voice from the departing bus said -clearly, and, as he thought, a shade maliciously: - -"Thank you, Mr. Remsen." - -The malice was there. It was a reflex of Miss Darcy Cole's resentment -in that, apart from any question of recognition, Mr. Jacob Remsen had -failed to see, in one casual glance at her face, anything which impelled -him to bestow a second glance. Genuine though they had been, the -testimonials of Messrs. Andy Dunne and Holcomb Lee were thereby -attainted and brought to naught. - -No one, to hear Miss Cole's lightsome subsequent report of the -occurrence for the benefit of Gloria Greene, would have dreamed that it -had left a sting. - -"Now, what," concluded the narrator of the episode, "do you suppose the -magnificent Mr. Remsen was doing in a scrubby Third Avenue locality?" - -"Precisely what you were going to do," opined Gloria. "Helping some one -who needed his help." - -"You mean that that combination of Adonis and Ananias had no real -business of his own there at all?" - -"I can't conceive what it would be." - -Darcy opened wide and luminous eyes. "Then it was just to be a good -fellow?" - -"Probably. You wouldn't think it of Jack Remsen, would you?" - -"I don't know that I wouldn't. Why not?" - -"Oh, he gives the impression to those who don't know him of being so -particular about himself and so indifferent about all the rest of the -world that isn't a Remsen," said Gloria. - -"D'you think so?" queried Darcy carelessly. "That wasn't the impression -he gave me when I first met him." - -"What was your reading of his character, oh, wise and profound student -of human nature?" - -"If you laugh at me I won't tell you," retorted Darcy, and, as Gloria -was openly laughing at her, proceeded to do it in the following -inventory: - -"I thought that if I was a very old, plain woman with a lot of bundles, -or a sick cat, or a man in an awful mess, I'd look to him first in any -crowd." - -"Jack would like that," commented Gloria, with her sunlit smile. - -"But not if I were a plain, little, unnoticeable girl" - -Gloria twinkled. "An afterthought," she declared. "Meaning yourself?" - -"Meaning myself." - -"Liar." - -"Well, aren't I that kind of a girl? And if I aren't, why didn't he -recall me, or even look at me twice?" - -"Perhaps he's engrossed in his own troubles." - -"Didn't look as if he had a trouble in the world." - -"No; Jack wouldn't if he were to be shot at sunrise." - -"Is he?" - -"Not that I know of. But he's going to be exiled or forced into hiding -or something evasive and lonely. Some boresome family row that threatens -to burst into a lawsuit, and when it does, Jack has to take cover and -keep it until it's over, so as not to be called as a witness. So you -needn't feel insulted simply because he is brooding on his own affairs -to the neglect--" - -"I'm not feeling insulted," denied the girl vigorously. "It's nothing -to me whether people remember me or not." Suddenly her face sparkled -and her mobile lips quivered delicately with suppressed glee. "Oh, but I -_have_ been insulted. I've saved it up to tell you." - -"Business of listening eagerly," said the actress. "Who did it?" - -"A man." - -"Naturally. Hence the dimple." She pointed an accusing finger at Darcy's -cheek. "Where?" - -"Mouseley's restaurant, on the Circle." - -"Gracious, child! You _are_ peeking around the comers of life. Don't you -know the Mouse-Trap isn't respectable?" - -"I do now. I didn't then. Tea was all I wanted. The tea was respectable -enough. It was very good tea." - -"Never mind the tea. Tell me the rest." - -"He--the man--came over to my table. He wasn't a bad-looking man at all; -so freshcolored and pinky-brown, and dressed like the back page of a -magazine. And he called me"--Darcy chuckled most reprehensibly at this -point--"he called me Miss Glad-Eyes." - -"Did you shoo him away?" - -"I told him he'd made a mistake, and he said he'd like to make one like -it every day in the week and pulled out a chair and sat down. It was -awfully funny." - -"It sounds so. What did you do then?" - -"I don't know what I'd have done, but I didn't have to do anything. -Another man came up--" - -"Two!" murmured Gloria. "Shades of Circe! Well?" - -"This one had a funny ear and short hair and he said, 'You don't know -me, miss. But I seen you workin'-out at Andy's. My name's Gillig. You -done a good turn for my kid sister once and I ain't forgot it.' So I -said, 'How do you do, Mr. Gillig. I can't introduce you to this other -gentleman because he helped himself to this chair without mentioning his -name.' 'That kind does,' Mr. Gillig said. 'He'd better take a run.' My -pinky-brown caller didn't seem to take to the suggestion. 'Maybe so; -maybe not,' he! said. 'I belong to the Bouncers' Union, myself.' Then -Mr. Gillig looked at him hard and said, 'I'm Spike Gillig, the -welter-weight. I don't practice me art for me health'--Yes, he did, -Gloria; he spoke of it as his art!--'And I ain't strong for scrappin' -out of business hours,' he said. 'But I ain't goin' to sit by and see -any rough stuff pulled on this young lady.' 'Whad-dye mean, rough -stuff?' said the other man, quite dignified and injured. 'Lemme tell -you, I'm as much a gent as you are. And I ain't duckin' any muss, -professional or amachure. My weight is a hundred-and-eighty, stripped, -beggin' Miss Peach's pardon, and if you wanta know who I am, I'm Scrap -Gilfillan, shortstop of the Marvels, comin' champions of the world. But -if you say this lady is a friend of yours--' - -"For some reason, Gloria, that seemed to make Mr. Gillig awfully angry. -He got purple clear to his ears, and growled, 'She ain't no friend of -mine. See? This is a lady, this is.' 'I gotcha,' the shortstop man said. -He turned to me. 'Am I in wrong, miss? Was you ever to this joint -before?' 'Never,' I told him. 'Apologies all round,' he said, quite -handsomely. 'And if no offense is taken where none's meant, would the -two of you kindly have one little one with me just to prove it?" - -"Lovely!" cried the entranced Gloria. "What did you do? This is -important. Oh, this is most awfully important!" - -"Do?" rippled the girl. "I took sarsaparilla." - -"Darcy Cole, formerly Amanda Darcy Cole," said Gloria solemnly. "Come -to my arms. I hereby declare you a full Fellow of the Institute of -Life, free of its brotherhood, equipped to come and go in all its ways -unafraid and unembarrassed by any complication. Blessed are those who -are not too meek, for they shall take their own share of the earth -without waiting forever to inherit it. Go forth and take yours. You'll -like it." - -"I love it! And I'm not afraid of it any more." - -"It'd better be afraid of you," commented Gloria, regarding the vivid, -youth-flushed creature before her. "Wait till I get you dressed up to -your looks! Are you ready to gird on your armor for the campaign?" - -"I'm dying with impatience!" - -"We'll have a taxi by the hour and go forth to wallow in clothing. Oh, -my blessed young protegee, but you're going to make some trouble for -this neglectful old world of ours before you wither, or I miss my -guess." - -"I shan't," returned the girl demurely, but with dancing eyes, "unless -it calls me 'Poor Darcy.'" - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -WHILE life and the lust of lovely things remain to Darcy Cole, she will -not forget the thrilling experience of that day and other shopping days -to follow. When it was all over she possessed: - -_Item_: A dark-blue serge business suit, cut with a severity of line -which on a less graciously girlish figure would have been grim, with a -small, trim, expensive hat and the smartest of tan shoes and tan gloves. -Clad in that Darcy suggested a demure and business-like bluebird. - -_Item_: A black-and-white small-checked suit with just a little more -latitude of character to it, and, to go with this, black patent-leather -shoes from the best shop in town, and a black sailor hat, with a flash -of white feather in it. In that Darcy resembled a white-breasted chat, -which is perhaps the very most correct and smartest bird that flies. - -_Item--several items, in fact_: Wonderful but unobvious garments, -conjured by the magic touch of Gloria from the purchase of a whole bolt -of white, filmy crepe de chine and several holts of baby-blue ribbon, -together with well-chosen odds and ends of laces; no less wonderful, -but much more visible negligees, with long, lustrous rhythmical lines, -devised by the same Gloria from the bargain purchase of an odd lot of -pink crepe de chine; arrayed in which Darcy was able to give herself a -very fair imitation of a complacent though pale flamingo. - -_Item_: An evening gown of shimmering silver and blue, carried out, in -the curve of the daintiest of silk stockings, to the tip of fairy-gift -silver slippers; and over it a blue velvet wrap lined and trimmed with -an old chinchilla coat, which Sensible Auntie had given her several -years before; wherein Darcy felt like some winged and shining thing come -down from a moonlit cloud. - -That was the end of eight hundred of Aunt Sarah's, hard, round, -beautiful dollars. But not of the wonderful trip to Clothes-Land. For, -at the last, Gloria produced the most stunning of traveling coats, -dark-blue cheviot, with a quaint little cape, the whole lined with -silken gray--a gray with a touch of under-color to match the blue warmth -behind the gray of Darcy's eyes. - -"For your wedding present, my dear," explained Gloria mischievously. - -And when the girl wept for sheer delight, her mentor abused her and -called her "Amanda," and threatened her with dreadful reprisals unless -she at once dried her eyes so that account could be duly taken of her. -Of that stock-taking Gloria, re-creatrix, made no report to the subject. -But this is what her gratified eyes saw. - -A girl who held herself straight like an Indian and at ease like -an animal. Where there had been sallow cheeks and an unwholesome -flabbiness, the blood now shone in living pink through the lucent skin. -The eyes were twice as large as when, the year before, Darcy had set out -upon her determined beauty quest; but that was because the sagging lines -beneath had disappeared and the eyes themselves, deep gray against -clear white, were softly brilliant with health. Above the broad, smooth, -candid forehead, the hair, so deep brown as to be almost black, played -the happy truant in little waves and whorls as delicate and errant as -blown smoke. The chin was set and firm--that was Andy Dunne's -discipline of soul and body. Above it the mouth smiled as naturally and -unconsciously as it had formerly drooped, and two little dimples had -come to live in the comers. Beyond and above the sheer formative change -in the girl, she was so pulsating, so palpitant with life that, even as -she stood quiescent before Gloria's appraising eyes, she seemed to sway -to some impalpable rhythm of the blood. - -Yet Gloria was not wholly content. Hers was a wisdom that went deep. -The re-created Darcy was a notable triumph, to be sure; looking upon -her handiwork, Gloria found it good, nor did she doubt that others would -find it good. But what of Darcy's own bearing toward all these -changes? Had she found herself? Until that question was settled in the -affirmative, Gloria, re-creatrix, would not be satisfied. - -"Just the same I'd like to see Jack Remsen or any other man look at -her as she is now once without looking twice," Gloria challenged the -masculine world on behalf of her candidate for troubles and honors in -the Great Open Lists. - -Not men alone, but women as well, became addicted to that second look -when Darcy passed their way in her new feathers. To her housemates the -change, now forced upon their reluctant acceptance, was a matter of -bewilderment if not of actual perturbation. Holcomb Lee, justified of -his prophecies, exulted over the fact to such a point that Maud Raines -felt it her womanly duty to fix a quarrel upon him. Undismayed, Holcomb -took Darcy out to dinner. ("Never, never, never in the world would I -have accepted, Gloria," that dangerous young person assured her mentor, -"if Maud Raines hadn't been so catty and sneery about Holcomb's drawing -me.") And Miss Raines hastily drowned her trumped-up grievance in -a flood of alarmed tears. Even matter-of-fact Paul Wood, Helen's -betrothed, was impressed to the point of admiring comment. - -"That chrysalis has hatched for fair," said he. - -"Hatched!" retorted Helen. "It didn't hatch. It exploded!" - -She and Maud wished to know, not without asperity, first why Darcy -was getting her trousseau in advance of the season; next, why she was -wearing it, item by item. Darcy was wearing the unaccustomed finery for -a perfectly sound and feminine reason which she did not feel called upon -to expound for the enlightenment of the two fiancees. She felt taller, -straighter, and more independent in it. Moreover, she found it a -business asset. Palpably affected by the richness and variety of her -wardrobe, B. Riegel had proffered a guarantee basis of work which -assured her future income. Thus the clothes bade fair to pay -for themselves. But on alternate afternoons, Darcy, faithful to her -training, garbed herself in rusty sweater, short skirt, and shapeless -shoes, and did her stunt through Central Park. Her term at Andy's -academy having expired, she had taken on a new schedule of two hours per -week: that being all, her preceptor assured her, that was needed for the -preservation of her fitness "to jump in the ring and put'em up with the -Big Feller himself at the clang of the bell." A slight exaggeration, but -to Darcy, a grateful one. - -With ever-growing approval, Gloria saw the girl accomplish that -distinctively feminine feat known as "settling into your clothes." - -"My dear," she remarked one day when the two had come in from a walk, -"if Monty Veyze could see us together now, I wouldn't have a chance with -him." - -Darcy grabbed and hugged her. "You're talking nonsense, and you know it. -No man in the world would look at me if you were in the same block." - -"Wouldn't they!" retorted the actress ungrammatically. "I'd hate to put -it to the test of a regular constituted jury." - -"I'd have to bar Mr. Remsen from the jury box," smiled Darcy. - -"Have you seen Jack again?" - -"Ran into him, plop, on Fifth Avenue yesterday." - -"Were you in your best bib-and-tucker?" - -"The black-and-white check." - -"Did he look through you?" asked the actress. - -"N-not exactly." - -"Did he look past you?" asked the actress, "N-o-o-o." - -"Well, did he look at you?" she persisted. "Yes. But he didn't know me." - -"I'm sure he didn't," chuckled Gloria. "Didn't you bow to him?" she -added. "Next time you meet a nice young man like Jack Remsen, you march -straight up to him and take him by the beard--" - -"He hasn't got a beard." - -"--metaphorically speaking, and ask him if he isn't ashamed of himself -for not remembering you. He will be. Oh, never fear he will be!" - -Darcy pursed her red lips up to a funny little assumption of prudery. -"He'd think me a forward young hussy." - -"Let him. You've been backward long enough." - -"I--I--I haven't really got used to--to the new feeling yet," said the -girl shyly. - -"To being pretty? Say it out. It's easy enough to get used to. Just -feel as pretty as you look. Go on a perpetual parade until you learn -the right kind of self-consciousness. Being a woman is an asset, not a -liability in life. When you've absorbed that powerful truth, come to me -and I'll impart some more wisdom." She fell into thought. "Darcy," she -said portentously. - -"Well?" - -"I've got a grand and glorious idea for a grand and glorious -feeling--like Mr. Briggs's." - -"Don't keep me waiting. I can't stand suspense." - -"I'm going to give a party for you, with the brides for side dishes, but -principally to celebrate your graduation." - -"Oh, joy!" cried Darcy. - -Joy proved to be a mild and inexpressive word for the party. So far as -Miss Darcy Cole was concerned, it was a triumph. The two brides, each -sufficiently attractive in her own type, simply paled away before their -unconsidered flat-mate. Gloria didn't pale away. No rivalry could shadow -her superb individuality. With her guest of honor she shared the laurels -of a victorious evening. Stimulated to her best self by the realization -of success, conscious of a buoyant body, perfectly clad, and a soaring -spirit, Darcy unwittingly took and held the center of the stage, into -which Gloria cunningly and unobtrusively maneuvered her. At the end of -the long night of fun, Miss Cole sat enthroned. Miss Cole had sung like -a lark. Miss Cole had danced like an elf. Miss Cole had laughed like -a spirit of mirth. Miss Cole had fairly radiated a wholesome, keen, -full-blooded, high-spirited gayety and happiness shot through with that -indefinable glow of womanhood which is as mysterious and unmistakable as -the firefly's light and perhaps as unconsciously purposeful. - -One thing only detracted from Gloria Greene's satisfaction in the -triumph of her protegee. Jacob Remsen had not been a witness to it. - -Mr. Remsen was in retirement. - -"I do want you and Jack to like each other," said Gloria to Darcy, in -the inevitable talk-over which followed the grand triumphal party. - -"Of course," returned the girl softly and warmly regarding her friend. -"And of course I'm going to like him just as hard as ever I can, if -he'll let me." - -"For your sake" was the implication of that warmth, which would have -considerably astonished Gloria had she appreciated it. But how should -she know the interpretation given by the girl to that casual kiss -overseen in the studio? Gloria's mind was running in quite a different -direction. - -Sequels to the party and to Darcy's success were promptly manifested in -the form of sundry boxes and parcels bearing fashionable trade insignia -which flowed in upon Bachelor-Girls' Hall. But not for Miss Raines or -Miss Barrett. Out of her sumptuous surplus, Miss Cole was pleased to -present a dozen American Beauty roses to Miss Raines and a five-pound -box of "special" candies to Miss Barrett, explaining kindly that she -could not possibly use them herself. That was the glory-crowned summit -of a delicate revenge, long overdue. "Poor Darcy," indeed! - -So Darcy came into her own. One year Gloria had given her. The year had -not yet gone. But most of Aunt Sarah's gift had. Who cared? Not Darcy. -She had won her heritage of womanhood. Where, a few brief months -before--and she could laugh now at the pangs and hardships of those -months which were so small a price to pay for the results!--she had -looked a worn thirty years old and felt like a sapless leaf, she now -looked a budding twenty and felt like a baby with a drum. - -Life was her drum. - -All its stirring rataplan, however, could not quite drown out the grim -voice of reckoning, which spoke with the accent of Sir Montrose Veyze, -Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -FIVE times Mr. Thomas Harmon vainly rang the bell of the Remsen mansion. -While engaged upon the sixth variation he became aware of a face in the -window, scrutinizing him. - -"All right," called the face. - -Mr. Harmon was then admitted through a crack scarcely adequate to his -well-set, muscular frame, to the presence of Mr. Jacob Remsen, who wore -an expensive dressing-gown and an expression of unutterable boredom. - -"Laid up?" inquired Mr. Harmon, shaking hands. - -"Bottled up," answered the young man gloomily. - -"Can I help?" - -"Possibly. Did you ever kill a subpoena-server?" - -"Not yet." - -"Care to try?" - -"What does the thing look like?" - -"Cast your eyes toward the Avenue and you'll see one." - -"Hm! Not much to look at, is he?" - -"A worse-looking one comes on at ten and stays all night." - -"I see," said the visitor. "It's a blockade." - -"Hard and fast." - -Among Mr. Harmon's many endearing virtues is this: he never asks -questions about other people's troubles. He now busied himself in -thought. - -"Haven't you any of your amateur theatrical duds here?" was the outcome -of his cogitations. - -"All of'em." - -"Why not dress a part and walk away _incognito?_" - -"Oh, certainly!" assented the other with bitterness. "Put on a suit -of tights and dive out of the conservatory window disguised as Annette -Kellerman, I suppose." - -"What's the matter with an old man makeup and the front door?" - -"Just this. Friend Murphy on watch hauls out his little paper and on the -chance of its being me, slaps the wrist of anybody who appears on those -steps. He'll do it to you when you go out." - -"He didn't when I came in." - -"No, he wouldn't, coming in." - -"Then why not fool him by coming in?" - -"How the devil can I come in without going out?" demanded Mr. Remsen -crossly, for confinement was beginning to tell upon his equable -disposition. - -"Simplest thing in the world if you'll be guided by me." - -"Spill it." - -"Merely a matter of distracting Friend Murphy's attention for ten -seconds. At the end of the ten seconds you will be seen going up the -steps to the front door. Presently you will be seen coming down again, -unable to effect an entrance against the watchfulness of the faithful -Connor. Do you get me?" - -"I get you. I'm to be in disguise. But how shall we get the -process-server off guard?" - -"Leave that to me." - -The two conspirators elaborated their plan, built it up, revised it, -tested it at every point, and pronounced it perfect. - -"But we've forgotten one point," said Remsen at the end of the -discussion. - -"What's that?" - -"Where do I go when I get out?" - -"Where do you want to go?" - -"Anywhere out of the world." - -Mr. Thomas Harmon submerged himself in thought and came up bearing a -pearl of great price. - -"Keno! I've got it. Refuges furnished to order. You've never been to my -place in the mountains, have you?" - -"No." - -"Boulder Brook on Lake Quam. Plumb in the dead center of nowhere. -Thirteen miles from a railroad. Fishing and hunting on the premises." - -"Reads like a real-estate man's prospectus," observed Remsen. - -"This year," pursued Harmon, "I'm keeping open house for a special -reason. Two fellows I know are getting married to-morrow. It's a double -wedding. It's also a double honeymoon. But they aren't onto that yet." -Harmon's clear brown eyes twinkled. "One half won't know how the other -half lives till they get there. I've loaned the place to both couples -for a fortnight. It's a dead secret. Neither couple knows where the -other is going. They're on oath." - -"They won't thank you when they meet across the dinner-table." - -"Oh, it isn't as bad as that. They'll be a mile apart. The Lees will -be at the cottage. They get off at Meredith and go in on the truck. The -Woods I'm sending to the Island. They climb out at Ashland and go over -by boat. Unless they all happen to take the same train, one pair won't -even know the other is around until they meet up on the lake or in the -woods." - -"Sounds like a party." - -"Doesn't it? Want to join?" - -"What? Butt in on a double bridal tour? Excuse me with thanks." - -"No butt in about it. You can go to Laconia, get yourself a car from -the garage, and motor to the Bungalow. That's at the third corner of -my little triangular piece of mountain and forest. By the practice of -expert woodcraft and dodging you can avoid seeing the others." - -"Wouldn't know them if I did. Any other agreeable surprises about the -resort?" - -"No. Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. There's a little friend of Gloria -Greene's. Girl. Tired out. Too much gayety or something. Don't know what -it is or who she is, but she's up against it for a month's rest. So Miss -Greene wished her on Boulder Brook, and welcome." - -"Where does _she_ go?" inquired Remsen suspiciously. "To the Cave? -Or the Castle on the Crags? Or the Haunted Manor House? Or the -Co-educational Club? Or which one of the numerous institutions you -maintain in your private city?" - -"She goes to the Farmhouse. Mrs. Bond, my housekeeper, is looking after -her. Seclusion is her watchword. If you see her, make a noise like a dry -leaf and blow away. You'll go, won't you?" - -Remsen meditated. "It certainly seems made to order. And it's mighty -good of you, old man. Yes, I'll just take you up on that." - -"There's a train at nine o'clock in the morning. To-morrow?" - -"Make it the day after. I've got some things to attend to." - -"Now, about our jail-breaking scheme? I've got an amendment. How would -it be if the taxi I arrive in should catch fire at the psychological -moment?" - -"Can it be done?" - -"Easily. I'm not a manufacturer of chemicals for nothing." - -"Great! Keep it going for ten seconds for the benefit of the watchful -Murphy, and if you look up after that, you'll see the Englishest looking -Englishman you ever sat eyes on outside the pages of _Punch_, trying to -tear my old-fashioned doorbell out by the roots." - -"That's your best make-up, is it, Remsen?" - -"As good as any. Fortified by my accent, it is most convincing. That'll -be Carteret." - -"Who?" - -"Rodney Carteret." - -"Am I supposed to know him?" - -"Rather. Not know a man with whom you toured for two months in Japan?" -said Remsen reproachfully. - -"Stupid of me," confessed Harmon, grinning. "Carteret. Good old Roddy! -Certainly. Then I'd better capture you--him, I mean, and take him to the -nine o'clock train for Boulder Brook, in my taxi." - -"Right-o, old thing! Be here at eight-thirty. Cheery-o!" said his host -Britishly. - -Promptly at that hour, on the second morning thereafter, a taxicab -swerved violently into the curbstone almost at the feet of the patient -and vigilant Murphy, and stopped with an alarming scrunch of brakes. -From its window emerged a heavy puff of smoke. From its door emerged Mr. -Thomas Harmon, who rolled upon the pavement apparently strangling. -Mr. Murphy rushed to his aid. When he was restored to his feet and his -breath, and the taxi had ceased to imitate Fafnir the Dragon, a tall -figure in an extremely English ulster (which had hastily emerged from -the Remsen front door, rushed down ten steps, and leisurely climbed -them again) was wrenching violently at the bell. For a time Mr. Murphy -regarded him disdainfully, then crossed over, held brief colloquy, and -returned. - -"Hot chance he's got of breaking in," he observed to Mr. Harmon. - -"What is he making all the fuss about?" inquired that gentleman as the -visitor again applied himself forcefully to the bell. - -"Wants to see Mr. Remsen. But the old bulldog of a butler won't let him -put his nose inside the door. Says his name is Carteret, and he's come -all the way from England to see him." - -"England? Not Roddy Carteret!" It was done almost as well as that -accomplished actor, Mr. Jacob Remsen, could have done it. Harmon sprang -across the street. - -"Carteret! Roddy Carteret!" he called. "What on earth are you doing over -here?" The bell-ringer adjusted a monocle and ambled down the steps to -shake hands. "Well met, m'deah fellah! Perhaps you can tell me what's -amiss with this beastly house." - -"I'll tell you," proffered the obliging and innocent Mr. Murphy. He did -so. - -"Then I'll just go back and jolly well camp there till somebody jolly -well lets me in," decided the caller. - -Argument followed while the chauffeur burrowed into the mechanism of his -car. It ended by the Englishman bestowing two dollars upon Mr. Murphy to -get a message to Mr. Remsen containing a protest and an address. The two -gentlemen then moved away in the extinguished taxi. - -Tickets had been provided by the forethoughtful Harmon. The fugitive -was the first man in the parlor car. Hardly had he settled when a young -couple in suspiciously new apparel arrived, and were shown into -Drawing-Room "A," at the upper end of the car. Shortly after, another -couple, also glistening as to garb, entered and took possession of -Drawing-Room "B," at the lower end of the car. The eluder of justice -eyed them and drew his own conclusions. - -"Here we are, all of us," he said to himself, retiring discreetly behind -his newspaper. - -This was just one short of the full and fateful facts. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -ONE into the dim recesses of the past was the nuptial day of October 15. -Gone also, into what dim recesses their erstwhile flat-mate knew not, -were Mrs. Holcomb Lee, _nee_ Maud Raines, and Mrs. Paul Wood, _nee_ -Helen Barrett. Presently Darcy would be gone also, for this was October -17, and, although the fact had been successfully concealed from the -society editors of the metropolis, ever avid of news with a title in -it, on October 16 she had been married to Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze -Holdings, Hampshire, England, at the Church of the Imagination. Sir -Montrose had sent a wireless (forged by Miss Gloria Greene) advising his -fiancee that he would arrive on the 16th, and they would be married -at once. All of which would have profoundly astonished and perhaps -scandalized the authentic Sir Montrose Veyze, at that particular time -huddled over an insufficient stove and fervently cursing a Siberian -northeaster with three feet of snow in its clouds. - -No little strategy had been required to keep up the deception until -after the real brides were wedded, and, as the conspirators supposed, -safely out of the way. Gloria supplied the required strategy, but it -exhausted her store. What was going to be the outcome she knew no more -than Darcy did. One fact only was clear: Darcy must disappear for a -while. Accordingly the self-appointed manageress of the affair had -borrowed Tom Harmon's hospitality for her protegee. Unfortunately, or -fortunately according to the point of view, Mr. Harmon had refrained -from mentioning to Gloria the other prospective visits. - -Behold, then, on the fateful 17th of October, Miss Darcy Cole, a one-day -bride of fancy, swinging down the long platform of the Grand Central -Terminal with fifteen minutes to spare for the nine o'clock train. In -her hand was a ticket to Weirs, and a small green slip entitling her to -seat No. 12 in the parlor car "Chorea." In her eyes was a twinkling and -perilous light, and in her heart a song of sheer, happy bravado. For -Darcy was feeling in reckless spirits. It was her first vacation -for more than a year. She was tingling with health and vitality. She -rejoiced in that satisfaction, more precious to woman than rubies or -diamonds or a conscience clear of reproach, the pervading sense of being -perfectly dressed. As for the wraith of Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of -Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, and all the consequences depending -therefrom, she was much in the mood to twiddle her thumbs at the whole -affair and defy fate to do its worst. - -She entered the car and saw him. - -If ever a willful, skillful, careful, circumstantial lie came to life -and embodiment for the purpose of confronting its perpetrator, hers -stood before her with a monocle in its eye. In every detail it was as -she had conceived Sir Montrose Veyze: tall, slender, clad in impeccable -tweeds, with an intelligent, thin face inappropriately half-framed in -side whiskers, and an expression of dissociation with the outside -world; not so much conscious aloofness as a sort of habitual mental -absenteeism. The apparition was, at the moment, trying to dispose an -extremely British ulster in a rather insufficient rack. - -Darcy stared at it, mute with amazement. It moved a little to let her -pass and what the girl saw beyond it froze her blood. In Drawing-Room A -sat Paul Wood and his bride! - -Flight, instant and precipitate, was Darcy's one idea; flight forth from -that unchancy car. She whirled around, started for the lower exit, took -three steps and halted with a choked cry. - -In Drawing-Room B sat Maud Raines, that was, with her bridegroom. - -Fate, defied, had promptly accepted the challenge. Darcy was trapped. - -Kentucky cherishes a legend concerning the potency of its moonshine -whiskey which is said to be such that one drink of it will inspire a -rabbit to spit in the eye of a bulldog. Desperation will produce much -the same psychological effect in the soul of woman. There, in monocle -and whiskers, was Darcy's bulldog. And before her and behind her -threatened Desperation, double-barreled. Darcy took a short, gaspy -breath--it was all she could get--and advanced upon her unwitting -victim. - -The apparition had just succeeded in its aerial enterprise with the -ulster when it became aware of a mute appeal at its elbow. It turned. -It saw a girlish face, suffused with a wonderful warmth of color, clear, -steady eyes, with an irresistible plea in them; lips that looked both -firm and soft and were tremulous at the comers with what might be -fear, but seemed much like mirth, and two perfectly gloved little hands -stretched out in welcome. No possible doubt about it; those hands were -held out to the apparition. - -The apparition's face underwent a sort of junior earthquake. Its monocle -fell out. It replaced the doubtful aid to vision. It contemplated -the creature of bewildering charm and still more bewildering behavior -confronting it. Hesitatingly its hands went forth to meet those little, -appealing, waiting hands. - -"Monty!" said the girl in a clear, ringing, happy voice, and inexpertly -kissed the apparition on the nose. - -"Holy Snakes!" gasped the apparition. - -It took a step backward. Its knees caught. It collapsed in its chair. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -AFTER that one exclamatory lapse from Briticism, the tweed-clad man -sat speechless, struggling to regain command over his shattered -sensibilities. In this laudable endeavor he was severely handicapped by -his _vis-a-vis_. She had turned the chair next his and was now seated -facing him with parted lips, fluttering color, and lovely, desperate, -suppliant eyes, a picture to divert the most determined attempt at -concentration. - -"Please! Please," she implored, like a child, holding out her small, -quivering hands to him. "Won't you speak to me?" - -"Why--er--to be sure! To be sure! What shall I say, for choice?" - -"Anything. Weather. Politics. 'Shakespeare and the musical glasses.' -Only, talk!" - -"But I'm afraid--er--there's some beastly mistake, you know." - -"Pretend it isn't," she urged. "Oh, help me pretend it isn't." - -There was the sound of a clicking latch back of her, and the tension of -the girl's face relaxed a little. A second click in front indicated a -similar closure of Drawing-Room B. - -Darcy took a long breath. No longer under observation, she enjoyed a -truce in which to lay her plans. Incidentally she did her newly wed -friends the gross injustice of rejoicing that Pullman doors have no -keyholes. - -"Now I can explain," said she composedly. "Pray do." There was lively -interest in his tone. - -"No, I don't know that I can, either. I'm afraid you won't understand." - -"Give me a sporting chance at it." - -How very English he was! Had he been American, she might have appealed -to his sense of the jocular and absurd. No hope with this ultra-British -solemnity. - -"Well," she began desperately, "there' are some people in this car that -I don't want to see." - -"In the--er--compartment?" - -"In both compartments. And they mustn't see me." - -"Quite so." - -"But they've already seen me." - -"Awkward, that," he murmured. - -"Not so awkward as if they'd seen me alone. They've seen us. Together." - -"But--er--it's no end nice of you, you know, and--and all that sort of -thing. But why together?" - -"That's what I'm trying to explain." She looked at him doubtfully. "I'm -finding it rather hard." - -"Perhaps you're not supposed to be traveling alone," he suggested. - -"Now, that's quite clever of you!" Darcy beamed gratitude upon him. "I'm -not. But I started alone and--and--" - -"You were to meet a--a companion who failed you?" He was really striving -to be helpful, but Darcy felt herself getting in deeper and deeper. - -"No: that isn't it, at all." - -"Then--er--I may be beastly stupid, but--er--really--" Blank -bewilderment was expressed in every feature of his face including the -monocle. - -"Not at all," returned the girl politely. "No wonder you find it -puzzling. It's quite involved." Then she took the plunge. "I'm eloping." - -"Eloping?" Her _vis-a-vis_ dropped his monocle, replaced it, and stared -at Darcy. "Eloping! Impossible!" - -"Why impossible? Don't you elope in England?" - -"Er--personally, seldom. And never alone." - -Was there a twinkle behind the monocle? Were the jokesmiths wrong -about the English lack of humor? Or had she, happily, encountered a -phenomenon? Darcy embraced the hope and changed her strategy in the -midst of the assault. - -"Here's your chance," she said with calm effrontery. "You see, my--the -other person in my elopement failed to live up to his opportunity." - -Her companion was understood to reflect adversely upon the sanity of the -recreant. - -"So," pursued the girl, her color flushing and paling, but her -eyes unflinchingly steady, "if you would--oh, please don't think me -dreadful!--if you could just pretend to be the man! It's only for a -little while," she pleaded. "Just until we can get away from those -people. Will you?" - -"I will," he said solemnly. - -"I wish you wouldn't say that as if--as if we were in church," protested -the startled Darcy, plaintively. - -"Ah, yes; by the way, have we been?" - -"Have we been what?" - -"To church." - -"This isn't Sunday." - -"No; but you say that we are eloping." - -"Just for the present." - -"Quite so. But is this--er--before or after?" - -"Before or--Oh!!" Comprehension flooded the girl's mind and colored -her cheeks simultaneously. "After," she said, in a small, gaspy voice. -"We--we're married." - -"Buck up!" exhorted her companion. "Don't take it so hard. It will soon -be over. I merely wished to know, in case any question arose. When?" - -"Ye--ye--yesterday. I mean, this morning." - -"Best stick to yesterday," he advised kindly. "Before 9 a.m. is too -early for probability." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. - -"You're not growing faint under the strain, I hope?" inquired Darcy, -recovering her spirits. - -"It isn't that," he replied dreamily. "I am only thinking that things -like this do _not_ happen to people. I shall count three, and if -you're still there I shall know--well, I shall know that my mind is -failing--and be glad of it." - -Darcy began rather to like her accomplice. He was really quite -nice--though old. "Count ten," she advised. "It's a better test." - -He began to count slowly, and an elderly lady who came down the aisle to -take the chair opposite hastily sought the porter with a view to having -her seat changed. When he had declaimed "Ten" and opened his eyes, the -quite startling exclamation which followed convinced the old lady that -her caution was well judged. The enumerator had found himself facing -emptiness. - -"Turn around," directed a soft voice behind him. - -He pivoted. "Oh!" he exclaimed in the most flattering tones of relief. - -"The door of Drawing-Room B was getting nervous," she said. "So I -changed. I don't want them to catch my eye. They might come out to speak -to us." - -"Come one, come all," declaimed the other; "this chair shall fly from -its firm base as soon as I." - -"Fine poetry," granted the girl. "But this is prose." - -"Nothing of the sort, if you'll pardon me. Impossible and glorious -romance. Words by Lewis Carroll. Music by Lohengrin. Mr. Brit-ling is -for seeing it through." - -"Mr. Britling--if you're sure that Mr. H. G. Wells would be willing to -lend you the name--" - -"I'll chance it." - -"Then Mr. Britling doesn't know his part yet and might get poor me into -awful difficulties. No, we must get out of this car." - -"Stamford the next stop," said the porter, who had overheard in passing. - -"Can you put us into another car?"'Darcy asked him. - -"Farther away from the restaurant car," added her companion, and she -thanked him with a glance for his shrewdness. If they were between the -"Chorea" and the diner, her friends would pass them at luncheon-time. - -"Dey's a obsehvation cah, reah cah," suggested the porter. "No extra -chahge." - -Darcy immediately rewarded him with a dollar. "If any one inquires about -us," she said, "tell them that we got off at New Haven." - -"Yassum. What name please, maddum?" - -"No name. The lady and gentleman in 14 and 16." - -Fortune had left vacant for their coming a semi-retired alcove in the -observation car. Therein ensconced, they took breath and thought and -stock of each other. - -"Now, if you don't mind," said the man. "Who am I?" - -"Your name is Veyze," answered the girl, dimpling. "You're English. -You're awfully English! You're as English as--as yourself." - -"Happy coincidence! Mayn't I have more than one name?" - -"A full allowance. Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire." - -"I say! Then I've come into the title." - -"Quite a while ago. What you were before your succession, you know -better than I." - -He caught the point. "Rodney Carteret, at your service," he replied. -"Here on a short stay. Diplomatic affairs." - -"Well, Mr. Carteret, I'll remember you forever, for helping me out of an -awful scrape. It must seem dreadfully flitter-headed and bad taste and -ill-bred--" - -"I can imagine you being flitter-headed--odd words you Americans -use--but I really can't conceive of you doing anything ill-bred or in -bad taste," said he with such sincerity that the girl flushed again. - -"That's nice of you," she responded gratefully, "considering what I've -done to you." Thereupon she proceeded to repay his courtesy by a tissue -of fabrications which did credit to her long practice in mendacity. - -"You wouldn't understand our American humor," she wound up; "but I -put up a joke on my friends in the other car by pretending I was to be -married yesterday. I won't bore you with the circumstances. I was going -away for a trip all by my little self and they were to think it was my -wedding trip. Who would have thought there could be such awful luck as -to find them on my train? And me without a ghost of a husband to show on -my honeymoon--until I grabbed you!" - -"Then you're not actually married or betrothed or anything of the sort?" -he inquired with lively hopefulness. - -"Oh, but I am engaged," she answered, reverting to her original -fiction. "My fiance is on duty and can't get away. As soon as he comes -over we're to be married. Now, please, do you think it's _very_ awful? -You've been so good, I should hate to have you despise me." - -"Oh, I'm no sort of a despiser," he assured her. "And if I felt like -doing a bit of despising, I'd go out in the woods and despise a toad. -Certainly I shouldn't try my hand on anything as plucky and resourceful -as you." - -"Resourcefulness is good as far as it goes," said she. "But could I -carry the thing through if my friends come back here and I have to -present you?" - -"I shouldn't concern myself about that," he comforted her. "Surely they -won't come." - -"Why not?" - -"Bridal touring couples don't commonly go about seeking other -companionship, do they?" Darcy stared. "How do you know they are on -their bridal trip? I never told you." - -"Surmised it from something my friend, Mr. Thomas Harmon told me." - -"Do _you_ know Mr. Harmon?" - -"Rah-ther! I'm on my way to his place." - -"What place?" gasped Darcy. - -"Boulder Brook, he calls it. It's up on the edge of the mountains." - -The girl leaned back, closed her eyes, and began to count slowly: -"One--two--three--four--" - -"I say," broke in the partner of her plot. "Let a chap in on this. -What's wrong?" - -"You said it just now: 'These things do _not_ happen to people.' -You were right. They don't. Anyhow, they ought not to be allowed to. -Five--six--seven--Oh, there's no use counting ten on this." She opened -her great, gray-blue eyes wide upon him. "So'm I," she announced. - -"So'm you _what?_" - -"Going to Boulder Brook." - -Barely in time did he check the natural rejoinder, "So are your friends, -the bridal couples," for he bethought himself that, if she knew, she -would doubtless escape from the train at the first station and this -astounding and priceless adventure would be abruptly terminated. Instead -he said: - -"May I take you over with me? I'm having a car at Laconia." - -"Mr. Harmon is having me met at Weirs. Weirs is miles nearer." - -"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me a lift with you. I'm for the -Bungalow, wherever that is." - -"And I'm for the Farmhouse, and the chaperonage of Mrs. Bond. So it -isn't as terribly compromising as it sounds, is it? Though what in the -world Mr. Harmon would think, if this ever got to his ears--" - -"It won't. In any case, Harmon is not a thinker of evil." - -Nevertheless the girl saw trouble in his eyes. Partly it was her -innocence, partly the bravado to which the emergency of the day had -strung her, which kept that same trouble out of her own eyes. With him -it attained speech. - -"How old are you?" - -Across his shoulder Darcy's eye caught a number on the paneled side of -the car. "Twenty-six," she lied promptly. - -He was taken aback. "Really!" he murmured. "I should have -said--aw--much' younger. Are you sure you appreciate the -possible--well--er--misconstructions to which this visit might give -rise?" - -"I don't see why it should," returned Darcy stoutly. "Anyway, I've no -other place to go." - -"But I could put off my trip." - -"That would be a nuisance to you, wouldn't it?" - -"To be quite frank, it would be rather more than that. I should risk -getting caught." - -"Caught?" echoed Darcy interestedly. "It sounds thrilling. Are you a -fugitive from justice?" - -"No. I'm a fugitive from injustice. See here, Miss Romancia, I'm -something of a faker myself. Being up against it _good_, I'm going -to 'fess up. - -"'Faker'? 'Up against it'? Why--why, where's your English accent gone?" - -"Cut out. Pretty soon I'm going to do the same with these whiskers. They -tickle." - -So many surprises had been forced upon Darcy that, inured to them, she -was able to sustain this one unperturbed. "It's a wonderful disguise," -she approved. "And you play the part beautifully. But, if the question -isn't indiscreet, why?" - -"As I indicated, I'm flying for my life." - -"Then I hope it's something thrilling like murder or arson, and not -something petty like bigamy or fancy finance." - -"Nothing as interesting as crime. I'm wanted as a witness in a will -case. They're trying to catch me and put me on the stand and make me -testify that my great-uncle was a crafty and vicious old lunatic." - -"When he wasn't? How horrid!" - -"When he was. That's horrider. And that others of my relatives were -_roues_ and scandalmongers and drunkards." - -"I seem to have eloped into a nice cheerful sort of family," observed -the girl. - -"It'll be a lot less cheerful if they ever get me on the stand. My -lawyer was to have warned me in time to get away, but the other -side stole a march on him, and I barely managed to sneak out in this -disguise. So I was going to lie low at Harmon's place until they gave up -the chase. But as matters are, I can stick to my whiskers and my accent -a while longer. And, really, much as I should like to continue this -prose poem of ours, I think that for the sake of--well, of appearances, -I'd better go on somewhere else. Unless you're quite sure that Mrs. Bond -is there and--" - -"She is," broke in Darcy. "I've had a telegram." - -"In that case--" - -"In that case, you come along in the car with me. I won't have your trip -spoiled. Besides, don't you think I have some curiosity in my make-up? -I've got to see you without yours, or perish!" - -There was no irruption of the newly-weds to complicate matters. The -pseudo-weds had sandwiches and ginger ale in the observation car and sat -there getting better acquainted and more content with each other until -the "Chorea's" porter sought them out. - -"Drawin'-rooms is bofe gone," he said. "A got off at Ashlan' an' B lef' -at Meredith. S'pi-cioned you-all might lak to know." - -His suspicion brought its reward. Ten minutes before the arrival at -Weirs, Darcy's confederate excused himself. - -"You get out by yourself," he said. "I'll join you on the platform." - -Not yet comprehending, she followed instructions. Shortly after, -there descended in front of the jaw-loose and petrified porter the -ultra-British ulster, and the forceful tweed suit, enclosing not -a bewhiskered, moroded, and blond Englishman, but a smooth-faced, -pleasant-vis-aged young man who looked out upon the world from his own -unaided, keen, and twink-ing eyes. - -As the train pulled out with the porter still bulging, incredulous, from -the door, the changeling turned to join his self-appointed bride. - -"How do you do, Mr. Remsen?" said she. - -For the second time that day sheer amazement loosed the hinges of Mr. -Jacob Remsen's knees, and the wellsprings of Mr. Jacob Remsen's sincere -American speech. - -"Well, I _am_ jiggered!" gasped Mr. Jacob Remsen, tottering back against -a truck. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -R. JACOB REMSEN, late Rodney Carteret, Esq., of Somewhere-in-England, -was roused from his Semi-paralysis by a broad and bearded native who -approached, and, with a friendly grin, inclusive of both parties to the -_vis-a-vis_, inquired: - -"Either of yeh Miss Cole for Boulder Brook?" - -"Both," said Darcy. - -"Haw!" barked the native. - -"That is, we are both going to Mr. Harmon's." - -"Free bus to Boulder Brook," proclaimed the humorous native. "It's -jest as well there's two of ye, though Mr. Tom didn't say nothin' about -more'n one. Ye won't rattle s' much when we hit the rocks." - -"I joined the party at the last moment," explained the impromptu -bridegroom. "I'm for the Bungalow." - -"Ye'll be there before ye know it. Twenty-one mile in twenty-eight -minutes, comin' over in the ole boat." - -Their cicerone led the way to "the ole boat," a large, battered, -comfortably purring car, tucked them in with many robes, and applied -himself to the wheel with an absorption which left them free to resume -their own concerns. The surrounding mountains were in full panoply of -their blazing October foliage, a scene to enthrall the dullest vision. -Notwithstanding, Mr. Remsen's eyes kept straying from those splendors to -the face of his companion. Attractive though this nearer view was, his -own face wore the expression of one who painfully seeks the answer to an -insoluble riddle. The girl answered his look with challenging mockery. - -"Don't overheat your poor brain about it," she implored. - -"He called you Miss Cole," said Remsen, with furrowed brows. - -"Why not, since it's my name?" - -"Cole? Cole!" ruminated her companion. "No. Positively no!" - -"Positively, yes! Do you think it's quite gallant in you to forget me -entirely." - -"First you say I'm your husband," complained Remsen, "and now you claim -acquaintance with me. It isn't fair. It muddles one's brain." - -"Look at me hard." - -"I've been doing that all day." - -"But it doesn't seem to have any result Haven't you ever seen me -before?" - -"Certainly." - -Darcy almost jumped. "Which time? I mean, where?" - -"On the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, at -2.30 p.m. September 11th," returned the other, as one who recites a -well-conned lesson. "You were looking up at an aeroplane and ran into -me. You wore a black-and-white checked suit and a most awfully smart -little hat, and I stood there gawking after you until I was in danger of -being arrested for obstructing the traffic." - -"Why?" - -"Frankly, because I hadn't seen anything quite like you since I landed, -and I wanted to make the most of a poor opportunity." - -"Then why didn't you lift your hat politely and say, 'How do you do, -Miss Cole?' Like that." - -"Because, by Heavens!" cried the badgered Remsen, "I don't know any Miss -Cole." - -"Think again," adjured Darcy. "There was a blowy, windy day on a Fifth -Avenue coach when you got off to help a woman with a suitcase--" - -"Full of burglar's tools or solid gold ingots, I don't know which. Never -thought a suitcase could weigh so much!" - -"Poor Mr. Remsen!" laughed the girl, but her eyes were soft as she -turned them to him. "You must have been terribly bored. But you were -game. You didn't see me on the coach?" - -"I didn't notice any one but the two work-ing-girls with the suitcase. -Do you think I could have seen you and forgotten you?" - -"Be careful! You're only making it worse. One of the two working-girls -called after you to thank you, didn't she?" - -Remsen fell suddenly thoughtful. "Now I recall, the voice did seem -familiar. But--surely--" - -"Perhaps this will help." She hummed softly a passage of the lulling, -lilting song which she had heard from his lips on that memorable day of -her great resolve. - -"Wait!" he cried. "I'm getting it! Gloria Greene's studio. A girl asleep -on the divan, while I was playing. She corrected a change of chord for -me. But--you! Never tell me that was you!" - -"Darcy Cole, at your service." - -"Well--well, but," stammered Remsen, for once in his life wholly -confused and bewildered. "What were _you_ in disguise for?" - -"I wasn't." - -"Then I must have been stone blind that day!" - -"You had no eyes at all--for me," said she demurely. "However, that's -not to be wondered at." - -"If it were, somebody else would have to do the wondering. My capacity -in that direction is totally exhausted. Won't you please explain?" - -"With pleasure. If you'll tell me what." Miss Cole was enjoying herself -greatly. - -"What this transformation scene means? At the studio you were, well--" - -"Say it," she encouraged. "I was an ugly little toad." - -Remsen made gestures and gurgles of violent protest. "Not at all! But -you were--well, quite different." - -"Yes, I wasn't very well. Nor very happy." - -"Judging from appearances, you must be about the healthiest and happiest -person in the world to-day, then," he retorted. - -"Do you know," she reproved, "that your compliments lack subtlety?" - -"That's easy. Because I mean'em." - -The native at the wheel made a quarter turn with his head, extended his -mouth to a point east by north of his right ear, and from the corner of -it shouted: "Set tight. Here's where she gits kinder streaky." - -Thereupon, as at a signal call, the car gathered itself together and -proceeded to emulate the chamois of the Alps. For several frantic leaps -and jounces the couple in the back seat preserved the conventionalities. -Then came a stretch where an ancient, humpbacked vein of granite had -thrust itself up through the road's surface, and all decorum was flung -to the winds. Miss Cole crossed the car in two bunny-jumps and fell upon -Mr. Remsen's neck, thrusting his head against the side curtain with -such force as to form a bulge, which several outreaching trees playfully -poked with their branches. As further evidence of her affection, she -stuck her elbow in his eye, after which she coyly retreated into her own -corner by the aerial route. Mr. Remsen assisted her flight by a method -known in football as "giving the shoulder." He then rose to explain, -settled squarely upon both her feet, and concluded the performance by -seating himself on her knees and browsing a mouthful from the veil which -was twisted about her hat. Taking advantage of a precious but fleeting -moment when the car soared like a gull across a bay of mud, they both -addressed the chauffeur. "Stop!" shrieked Miss Cole. - -"Schlupff!" vociferated Mr. Remsen, meaning the same thing. But the veil -had become involved with his utterance. - -The native brought his "boat" to a halt, just short of a ghastly blind -turn, screened by a wooded cliff. - -"S' matter?" he inquired. - -"You're shaking us to bits," protested Darcy. "Please don't go so fast." - -"Shucks!" said the other. "Call _that_ fast? I could do better with a -hearse." - -"Very likely," returned Remsen. "The passenger in a hearse hasn't -anything to say about how he travels. We have. Ease it up." - -What retort the native might have found was cut off by a persistent -trumpeting from around the curve. - -"Honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump! Honk! Honk-honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump, -prr-rr-rramp!" - -"Two cars," interpreted the native. "Bel-lerin' fer help, I wouldn't -wonder. Prob'ly bogged down in that mud-waller at the foot of the hill. -One of'em sounds like our truck." Again the brazen voice of warning and -appeal thrilled through the air. - -"'_T is_ our truck," confirmed the chauffeur. "I know the old caow's -voice. I pree-soom that couple for the boss's cottage is gettin' a taste -of real country life in the roadin' line." - -"What couple?" asked Darcy, sitting up. "Young married pair. Got off the -train at Meredith." - -"At Meredith?" repeated Darcy, in troubled tones. - -"There's another couple due from Ashland for the Island. All friends of -the boss's. Like's not that's the other car that's whoopin' it up daown -there't the foot o' the hill. Quite a pa'ty." - -The gleam of a horrid surmise shone in the look which Darcy turned upon -Remsen. - -"Do you suppose it _could_ be they? Oh, it _couldn't!_" - -"I'm very much afraid it is." - -"Oh, that would be too awful! _Don't_ let it be Maud and Helen!" - -"If I could help it, I would," he replied, bracing himself for -confession. "I'm sure it is your friends. In fact, Tom Harmon told me -they were coming." - -"You knew it all the time?" - -"I did." - -"And let me come here without a word of warning?" The girl's tone rasped -Remsen's accusing conscience. She spoke like a hurt child whose trust -has been betrayed. - -Remsen waited until the chauffeur, who had jumped out and was on his -way to the scene of distress, was beyond hearing. Then he said: "Please -don't think me wholly selfish. But how was I to know that the presence -of other couples--I mean other people--would be so distressing to you?" - -"Don't pretend to be stupid," she rebuked him. "There I was, a bride -without any bridegroom, looking for a place to hide myself and you let -me run right into the very people of all in the world that I didn't want -to see. You knew I didn't want to see them. I told you so," she ended -with a suggestion of fearfulness, "the first thing. On the train." - -"Before you had a husband," he reminded her. "Now you have one--" - -"And that makes it worse! A thousand times worse. Oh, why didn't you -tell me on the train?" - -"Suppose I had. What would you have done?" - -"Got off at the next station. Jumped out of the window. Anything!" - -"And have been alone in some strange place with nobody to look after -you? If you'd done that, I should have felt obligated to get off, too." - -"You wouldn't!" Darcy stamped her foot. "You haven't any right." - -"When a lady puts a claim on a gentleman as her husband," remonstrated -Remsen mildly, "while he may not have the right to prevent her from -jumping out of the window of a moving train, at least he may use all -fair means to see her through." - -"Do you think you've been fair in this?" - -"_Kamerad!_ I surrender! I don't! The plain fact is, I knew you'd -run away if I told you, and I couldn't bear to lose you, after I'd -miraculously found you again." - -"Consequently," she accused, "I am here where the girls are sure to -find me, married and without a husband, or with a husband that they'll -discover is bogus. What am I going to do?" - -"List to an inspired idea! I've just thought it out. When you see your -friends, tell them that I didn't get off the train at all. I went right -on to Montreal." - -"And deserted your bride?" - -"Emergency call on imperative official business. Back to-morrow or next -day, or whenever you choose to tell'em. That'll give you time to arrange -things and fix up a good, water-tight lie." - -"No lie could be good enough." - -"Wait till we put our heads together over it." - -"How can we put our heads together if your head is in Montreal?" - -"It won't be, except for publication to the bridal party. It'll be at -the Bungalow. I'm going to carry it there now, on foot." - -"And stay there until it's time for you to get back from Montreal?" - -"Precisely. When you need your titled Britisher back, I'll be ready, -with the accent and the infernal, scratchy whiskers." - -"Suppose, meantime, the bridal couples come wandering about the -Bungalow?" - -"Then I'll take to the woods. Lives of the hunted and all that sort of -thing. Before I'm through with all this I may have to disguise myself as -a rabbit and learn to twitch my ears." - -"It's fearfully risky--" began the girl. - -"It is," he confirmed, "with the woods full of amateur hunters. But I've -known rabbits to live to a ripe old age. There was an old cottontail on -Uncle Simeon's place--" - -"Please don't joke. It's fearfully serious for me. I've got to go ahead -and face the girls." - -"Say the word and I'll gird my gospel armour on--I mean my -side-burns--and support you." - -"Yes: and what would our frisky chauffeur think of that! Gracious -goodness! I forgot about him. What will he think about your -disappearance if you run away now?" - -"Leave him to me. I've got an argument for him." - -The native reappeared with the information that the truck was bemired -and that the garage car in which one couple had arrived from Ashland -(the motor-boat having broken down) was unable to pull it out unaided. -Therefore, he told them, he would have to go to the rescue with his car. - -Mr. Remsen produced a roll of greenbacks. "Have you any aversion to a -ten-dollar bill?" he inquired. - -"I ain't never knowed one teh make me sick t' my stommick yet," -confessed the native. - -"Try this one," said Remsen. - -But the speeder withheld his hand. "What am I bein' hired fer?" - -"To tell me a short cut by foot to the Bungalow." - -"Over this hill, and yeh can see it. Only house in sight. Whut else?" - -"To ferget that you've seen me." - -"Nuthin' fishy about this?" inquired the cautious chauffeur. - -"It's just a little joke on the people in front." - -"My mem'ry," said the other, pocketing the bill, "ain't whut it was. I -c'n t ba'ly rec'lect t' say 'Thank-ye,' but there my power gives out. -Some one cornin' aroun! the bend," he added. - -Remsen made a dive into the underbrush. From somewhere above Darcy, a -moment later, a tree found voice to speak like a dryad: - -"I'll be at your call to-morrow." - -At the elbow of the road appeared Maud and Holcomb Lee. Darcy, envying -Daniel what has been regarded as one of the most trying experiences in -the records of animal training, walked forward to meet them. - -Her head was high. - -Her chin was firm. - -Her step was light. - -Her eyes danced with defiance. - -Andy Dunne would have been proud of her. - -She was game. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -ROUSED into semi-wakefulness by the first shaft of sunlight that -pierced the Bungalow windows, Mr. Jacob Remsen indulged in sleepy -self-communion. - -"Who are we this morning? Not our bright and lovely self. That's a -cinch... Rodney Carteret? No: we shook Rodney in New York... Veyze! -That's it; Montrose Veyze. _Sir_ Montrose, if you please.... Oh, Lord! -The bride." Unaccustomed though he was to allow the sun's early rays to -pry him forth from his slumbers, the man of aliases leapt out of bed, -chuckled himself through his toilet and breakfast, and still -emitting sub-sounds, not so much of glee as of a profound and abiding -satisfaction in life, took the road for Center Harbor. Darcy, still -wrapped in dreams at the Farmhouse, would have made the distance in -better time; nevertheless, his hour-and-a-half was a fairly creditable -performance. In consequence of certain telephonic efforts of the -previous evening, he expected to find an express package at his -destination, wherein he was not disappointed. - -At eleven o'clock, Darcy rambled down the long, wooded driveway, leading -from the Farmhouse to the lake. Off to her right, where a little brook -brawled gayly down among rounded boulders, another dryad-haunted tree -burst into soft, familiar music. She answered the whistled melody with a -pipe of her own, as true and sweet. - -"Coast clear?" asked the tree, which, for a good American hickory, spoke -with a surprisingly British accent. - -"Yes. Come out." - -"Just a minute. What's my nationality?" - -"English, this morning." - -"I thought likely. So I put on the regalia." The owner of the voice -stepped forth in the full panoply of wig, whiskers, and monocle. - -Darcy surveyed him disparagingly. "No," she decided. "I don't like it as -well as I did." - -"Perhaps you prefer the original," he suggested modestly. "I do, myself. -But I was afraid some one might be around." - -"Nobody is likely to be here this morning. And the rig doesn't fit in -with that great box you're carrying. What's in it? More disguises?" He -uncovered the box and held it out to her. - -"Grown on the premises," he lied gayly. "Picked with the dew still -on'em." - -The girl gathered the blooms into her arms and drew them up to her face -with a sudden, tender, mothering gesture which caused the giver's heart -an unaccustomed and disturbing thrill. He was well repaid for the trip -to Center Harbor. - -"How lovely!" she cried. "And how good of you! What kind are they? For -reward you may take off your disguise, but you must hide if the others -come." - -"I will," he agreed, and answered her question: "They're bride and -bridesmaid roses. Appropriate to the occasion." - -Darcy had the grace to blush. "Out of date," she said hastily. - -"What! Already?" - -"I've changed my mind," was her calm announcement. "I've decided that -you're not my husband." - -"Wedded and Parted--by Bertha M. Clay. Who's the Bertha M. that's done -this thing to me: - -"I am. As soon as you left I saw that it wouldn't fit in at all for us -to be married. The servants here probably visit between house and house. -And it was bound to come out that I was at the Farmhouse and you at -the Bungalow, and--well--don't you see that would look funny if we were -married?" - -What Jack Remsen saw was that the girl was like the pinkest of the -bridesmaid roses when she blushed, though a sweeter, warmer pink. -"Didn't I go to Montreal, then?" - -"No. Though you may have to, later. There's some legal formality to be -gone through yet before we can be married." - -"Oh, then we're still engaged." - -"Indeed, yes! Don't think you're going to get out of it so easily. The -legal papers are in Montreal. So, instead of being married on the 16th, -as we had planned, we've had to wait, and you've brought me up here, on -your way to Montreal." - -"Is this the genial fiction that you've handed out to your friends, the -newly-weds?" - -"It is." - -"How did they take it?" - -"Hard. Maud--that's Mrs. Lee--especially feels that she has a terrible -weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was going to wire Gloria -Greene until I told her that Mrs. Bond, the housekeeper, is Mr. Harmon's -own second cousin and therefore, a fully equipped chaperon." - -"Is she?" said Remsen in surprise. - -"How do I know?" returned the girl innocently. "She might be. I hadn't -asked her. But I had to invent something to pacify Maud." - -"Invention," observed the admiring Mr. Remsen, "appears to be mere -child's play for you." - -"Even so, it didn't satisfy Maud. She quite insisted on my moving over -to the Cottage, to be under her eye." - -"You're not going to do that?" he cried apprehensively. - -"And play the goosiest kind of gooseberry? Indeed, I'm not!" - -"What comes next? Am I to meet the turtledoves?" - -"If you don't, it will look suspicious." - -"So it will. Let's get it over with, then. I'll risk a small bet that -after meeting Sir Montrose Veyze once, they won't care to repeat the -experience." - -"What are you going to do to them?" - -"Treat them to an exhibition of British hauteur and superiority." - -"Hasn't that sort of thing rather gone out since the war?" - -"Not in the family into which you've married, my dear young lady. With -the Veyzes nothing ever comes in and nothing ever goes out. Don't -you think that would be a good line to spring on them?" he added with -animation. - -"You mustn't be too horrid," enjoined Darcy. "I don't want them to think -I'm marrying a--a--" - -"A lemon," supplied the other. "Speaking of lemons, don't you think it -would be a pious idea for you to invite your fiance to lunch with you?" - -"Excellent. And you can practice your accent on Mrs. Bond." - -Profound and awesome was the impression made upon that lady. She found -it only natural that the couple should wander off immediately after the -meal; though she would have been surprised enough at the actual basis -of their desire for seclusion, which was that they might work out their -plan for the encounter with the honeymooning quartette. The boathouse, -which commands the approach to the Farm, was selected for the scene of -the presentation. - -About mid-afternoon the Lees and the Woods appeared, motoring up the -lower road, and were halted by Darcy, who, pink and excited, indicated -a figure on the boathouse porch. The figure was tipped back in a chair, -with its feet on the railing, smoking a pipe. - -"Come and meet my Monty," invited Darcy. - -Upon their approach, the figure removed its feet from the railing with -obvious reluctance. It did not remove its pipe from its face at all. To -the women it bowed glumly. To the men it offered a flabby half-portion -of hand. Holcomb Lee took it and dropped it. Paul Wood looked at the -fingers presented to him in turn, looked at Darcy, looked at the sky and -observed dispassionately that it looked like rain. - -"Vay likely. Beastly weathah!" grunted the other. - -"Bad weather makes good fishing, they say up here," said Helen Wood, -pleasantly. "Have you tried it?" - -"Nothin' but sunfishes and little basses, they tell me. Beastly water!" - -"You might find the hunting better," proffered Maud Lee. - -"Huntin'? Where's one to find a decent mount?" - -"Mrs. Lee means the shooting, dear," explained Darcy, sweetly. - -"Haw! Nevah heard shootin' called huntin' before. No decent shootin', -either. Tramped about all mornin' and flushed one chippin' squirrel." - -"He means chipmunk," expounded the helpful Darcy. "Poor Monty finds our -American speech so difficult." - -"Beastly language," murmured the bogus baronet, resuming his seat. - -"But surely," said the kindly-spirited Helen, "you find the mountains -beautiful." - -"Haw! Too crowded. No chance to turn about without knockin' people's -elbows." - -The visitors took a hasty departure. - -"Stupid ass!" growled Lee before they were fairly out of earshot. - -"Oh, for just one good swing at his fat head," yearned the husky Wood. - -"Did you _ever_ see such a boor!" was Helen's contribution to the -symposium. - -"He's _old_." disclosed the observing Maud. "That's a wig he had on. I'd -swear to it. Poor Darcy!" - -Dissolved in mirth, Darcy congratulated the amateur upon a highly -distinguished performance. - -"Did Gloria teach you to act like that?" she inquired. - -"If Gloria would train me," he returned, "I could do something. But she -won't waste time on an amateur. Do you know that she's one of the very -best coaches in the profession?" - -"I know that she's the most wonderful woman in the world. What she's -done for me--" - -"It's probably no more than she's done for hundreds of other people," -said Remsen, and launched out into a panegyric of the actress which -would have made a press agent feel like an amateur. - -With more experience of men, Darcy would have known that this was the -language of the highest type of admiration, but of nothing more. In -her innocence she took it as a final confirmation of the scene she had -witnessed in the studio. - -"Gloria wants you to work, doesn't she?" she asked shyly. - -"Gloria's such a tremendous worker, herself, that she thinks every one -ought to be busy on some job all the time. Doesn't she get after -you? You look far too much of the lily-of-the-field type to meet her -approval." - -"Lily-of-the-field, yourself!" returned the girl indignantly. "I've -brought a lot of work up here with me. Can you say the same?" - -"Guilty! I'm jobless, except as your present slave." - -"Have you ever done anything worth while in the world?" Darcy -challenged; but the smile with which she accompanied the words was -indulgent. - -He took silent counsel with himself. "At a class reunion I once chased -a trolley-car on a dromedary," he said hopefully. "That made life -temporarily happier for a good many people, including the dromedary, who -was conducting the performance." - -"Sir Monty--my real Sir Monty--used to be an officer in a camel corps," -fabricated Darcy dreamily. - -"Now, why drag in my fellow fiance, just as I was beginning to forget -him?" he expostulated. - -"We--you--he isn't to be forgotten," said the girl hastily. - -"Of course not. I'm sorry. Tell me about him." - -Attempting to do so, Darcy found that the flavor had unaccountably -oozed out of her lie. Pretense and falsification with this man who had -unprotestingly let himself in for an indefinite career of both on his -own account, to aid a girl whom he didn't even know in what, for all -he could tell, might be only an unworthy prank--well, it simply went -against the grain. - -"No; I don't believe I will just now," she returned. "I might confuse -him with your masterly impersonation." - -"Then tell me about yourself. What would you have done if you hadn't -found a readymade Englishman on the bridal train?" - -"Heaven only knows! Committed suicide, I think. I may have to come to -that yet," she said dismally. "Oh, dear! The further it goes, the worse -it gets. You've helped me out, for the present, but--" - -"Then let me help you out some more," he urged. "Murder, arson, forgery, -bigamy, anything you wish. I'm an outlaw, anyway, and a crime or two -makes no difference to me." Underneath his lightness, she divined the -deeper wish to be of service. - -"Take off your disguise," she said quietly, "I want to look at the real -you." - -He obeyed, and endured the scrutiny of her intent eyes, smiling. - -"Yes," she decided. "You'd be a real friend. I could trust you. And I -want to. Oh, I do want to. I'm in an awful mess." - -"Probably it isn't nearly as bad as it looks. Trot it out, and let's -examine it." - -"But it isn't my secret, alone. I've got a--a partner." - -"The 'wicked partner'?" - -"She _isn't_ wicked." - -"Oh, it's a she! The shadows deepen." - -"And I've promised a hope-to-die promise." - -"Beg off from it." - -She jumped up, clapping her hands like a child. "I'll try. You go home -now, and don't touch your telephone, for it's a party wire and I'm going -to phone a night letter to my partner." - -This is the night-letter which went to Gloria Greene. - -Will you release me from promise and let me tell one person, very near -to you, who can help? Also, may I tell same person that I know about you -two? - -Darcy - -The entire telegram puzzled the recipient more than a little, -particularly the last portion. Not understanding, she took the wisest -course and played safe by wiring a veto. The wording of her reply caused -much painful puzzlement in the virginal breast of the lady telegraph -operator who, on the following morning, thus 'phoned it to Miss Darcy -Cole: - -"This the Farmhouse?... That Miss Cole?... I gotta telegram f'r you, -Miss Cole, an' I d'knowz I ken make it all out. Sounds queer t' me. -Shall I get a repeat?... Give it t' you first? All right. Jussuz you -say. Ready?...'_Miss Dassy Cole, The Farm, Boulder Brook. No. Don't dare -trust you with the truth. You do too well with the other thing_' Get -that?... yes;'s funny, ain't it? There's funnier comin'. Ready?... -'_Keep it up till you hear from me by following letter._' Now comes -the queer part. '_Don't be a damp hool._' Get that?... Yes; hool... Me? -don't know what a hool is. Spell it? D-a-m-p; got hat?... H-double o-l. -Got that? Well, mebbe it is funny, but _I_ don't get no laughter out -of it. What?... Oh, yes; of course. Signed _Gloria_. Want me to get a -repeat? No. Jussuz you say; I'm sat'sfied if you are. But theh ain't no -sech a word in _my_ dictionary. I jest looked it up." - -Miss Darcy Cole, gazing out into a worldful of rain, mused upon the -message, with its definite inhibition. For a moment she was tempted -to derive some compensating mirth from the telegram by calling up the -telegraph lady, advising her to re-read the cryptic sentence which had -so disturbed her professional calm, by dividing the two words after -the _m_ instead of the _p_--and then listening for the reaction to the -shock. But this she dismissed as not worth while. - -"But I think I _am_ one," she reflected drearily, "not to make Gloria -release me, anyway." - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -MISS DARCY COLE sat on the edge of Red Rock, swinging twenty dollars' -worth of the very smartest obtainable boots, the personal selection of -Miss Gloria Greene, over two hundred feet of shimmering October air. -Behind her Mr. Jacob Remsen was using the residue of the atmosphere to -replenish his exhausted lungs, for he had undertaken to keep pace with -his companion up the face of the declivity, with all but fatal results. -It is not well for a man who has been cooped up within a city house, -exerciseless and under the espionage of a minion of the law, to compete -on a thirty-per-cent grade with a woman who has just come from the -training of Andy Dunne. - -Lack of her accustomed outdoor exercise had simply lent zest to Darcy. -Three days before, the rains had descended and the floods had come and -kept on coming. Now, when the skies of this mountain region set out -seriously to rain, the local ducks borrow mackintoshes. Several times -the visitor at the Farmhouse had ventured forth, only to be promptly -beaten back to shelter. - -There she would have led a lonely existence, for the bridal couples -were weather-bound, and even the rural delivery was cut off (so that -the promised letter from Gloria hadn't arrived), had it not been for her -neighbor of the Bungalow. Each morning he waded over the soaking mile, -and, of course, in such weather a decent sense of hospitality compelled -his hostess to keep him for luncheon and dinner. So they had come -to know each other on an inevitable footing of unconscious intimacy, -better, perhaps, than they normally would have done in the conventional -encounters of a year's acquaintanceship; and he played for her and -she sang to him; and they discussed people and differed about art, and -agreed about books and quarreled about politics and religion, and were -wholly and perilously content with one another and the situation. - -On the afternoon of the fourth day the sun broke gloriously through, and -Darcy challenged Remsen to make the precipitous ascent of the front of -Red Hill. - -Behold her, then, at the conclusion serenely overlooking the lowland and -the lake while her companion stretched out panting behind her. - -"This is a peak on the Siberian front," she announced. "And I'm an -outpost." - -"What do you see, Sister Anne?" - -"Wait and I'll tell you. An aeroplane"--she pointed to a wheeling crow -above them--"has just signaled me--" - -("Caw," said the crow; "Thank you," said Darcy and threw the bird a -kiss.) - -"--that a regiment is coming up from below. There's the advance guard." - -She pointed down the sheer rock. Remsen moved across and looked over the -edge. "That spider?" he inquired unimaginatively. - -"He's just pretending to be a spider. But he's really a spy disguised as -a spider. Now the question is, Shall I drop this bomb on him?" - -She held a pebble above the toiling crawler. "War is hell," observed -Remsen lazily. "Why add to its horrors?" - -"How far away it all seems!" said the girl dreamily. "Do you suppose, -over there, it's beautiful and peaceful like this hillside one day, -and then the next--I guess I'll let my spy spider live," she broke off, -dropping her chin in her hand. - -Remsen sat down at her side. - -"What's your soldier man like?" he asked abruptly. - -"What? Who?" inquired the startled Darcy. "Oh, Monty!" Gloria's -insufficient sketch came to her aid. "Why, he's short and round and -roly-poly." - -"Then I don't give a very exact imitation of him, do I?" - -"Not very. And he's red and fierce-looking, with a stubby, scrubby -mustache," she added, augmenting Gloria's description. - -Her companion stared. "Not what I should call a particularly -enthusiastic portaiture." - -"Oh, but of course he's awfully nice," she made haste to amend. "Not -really a bit fierce, you know, but very brave and--and" (eagerly casting -about) "a lovely voice." - -"What kind?" - -"Barytone." - -"And you sing together?" he asked gloomily. - -"Oh, lots!" - -"I suppose so." He gathered some loose stones and began idly to drop -them over the rock's crest. - -"There! You've given the alarm to the spy," she accused. "See him -wigwagging at you! Now he'll go and report." - -"Darcy!" - -"Well?" - -"You don't mind my calling you Darcy, do you?" - -"N-n-no, I like it." - -"I wonder if you'll mind what I'm going to say now." - -"I don't believe I should mind anything you would say." - -"It's about the little song. The one that you set right for me." - -"Our song." - -"Our song," he repeated with a wistful emphasis on the pronoun. "Darcy, -you won't sing that--to him--will you?" - -"No," she said. Her eyes were dimly troubled and would not meet his. "I -won't sing that--to any one--again." - -"Thank you," he said humbly. - -"Oh, look!" she cried with an effort at gayety. "The enemy! They -approach. Let's go and meet'em." - -She jumped to her feet and pointed to a far stretch of the road where -four figures were slowly moving along. - -"That means I've got to put on my infernal whiskers and wig!" he -groaned. - -"Just think how long a vacation you've had from them," she reproached -him. - -"And my still more uncomfortable manners." - -"Tone them down a little," she advised. "I think Holcomb and Paul are -just about ready to turn on the haughty Britisher, and rend him limb -from limb." - -"Don't blame'em," he said lazily. "But they seem to be turning off -toward the village," he added, peering down into the valley. - -"And the girls are coming on," said Darcy. "Probably they've got the -mail." - -"With foreign letters?" said Remsen jealously. "Did you leave a -forwarding address?" She shot a swift, indirect look at him. But he was -gazing out over the regally garbed forest spread below them. - -"Come along!" she urged. "We must hurry. We'll take the Bungalow trail, -and I'll wait while you put on your Veyze outfit. Then we'll catch the -girls on their return from the Farm." Having carried through the first -part of this programme, they took the road together and presently -came upon the two brides. Maud bore a folded newspaper as if it were a -truncheon of official authority. Her expression was stem and important. -Helen was obviously struggling with a tendency to hysterical excitement. -Upon catching sight of Darcy and her escort, Maud marched with an almost -military front, straight upon them, her fellow bride acting as rear -guard. - -"Darcy," said Maud, ignoring the now perfectly whiskered fiance, "I -should like to speak to you alone." - -A qualm of mingled intuition and caution warned Darcy. - -"What about, Maud?" she asked. - -"A private matter which your fiance can hear later," returned the -uncompromising Maud. "Please, Darcy," added Helen. - -"Not at all," returned the girl with spirit.' "Has it anything to do -with Monty?" - -"It has a great deal to do with him," was the grim response. - -"Then he should hear it at the same time." - -"Haw! By all means. Haw!" confirmed the fiance, bringing his monocle to -bear upon Maud and Helen in turn. - -"Very well," said Maud in a your-blood-be-on-your-own-head voice. "Read -that." - -She thrust the newspaper into Darcy's hand, pointing to a penciled -paragraph on the front page. To Darcy's eternal credit be it said, she -succeeded in preserving a calm and unperturbed face, while she read the -paragraph, and then passed it to her waiting fiance. - -It informed the world that, for distinguished service in the aerial -corps, the King of England had, on the previous day, personally -decorated Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, -England. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -FOR the death, disappearance, or capture of Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze -Holdings, Hampshire, England, Darcy was duly prepared, in a spirit of -Christian fortitude and resignation. That fame might mark him' out, thus -forcing the issue for her, was wholly unforeseen. It took her completely -aback. The Darcy of a year before would have collapsed miserably under -it. But this was a different Darcy. She faced the accuser with a quiet -smile, back of which her thoughts ran desperately around in circles, -like a bevy of little rabbits cut off from cover. - -"You've read what it says in the newspaper?" said Maud, in the accents -of a cross-examining counsel. - -"Yes. Oh, certainly!" - -"Then perhaps you can explain." - -Darcy shot a swift glance at the bogus Sir Montrose. He also was -smiling. Most illogically Darcy's heart began to sing a little private -Hymn of Hate of its own. What did he mean by standing there with a -sickly grin on his silly face when the whole fabric of their mutual -pretense was being riddled? - -(Herein she was ungrateful as well as illogical. The face was silly -because she had compelled him to make it so. As for the rest, the smile -was good enough of its kind. He was not smiling because he felt like it, -but to conceal the fact that he was doing some high-pressure thinking of -his own.) - -From the smirking countenance of her ally, Darcy turned to the lowering -front of the enemy. - -"Well, you see," she said with an air of great candor, after -deliberately tearing out the paragraph, "it's rather an involved -matter." - -"I don't see anything involved about it," returned the lofty and -determined Maud. "Who is this man?" - -"Yes; who is he?" echoed Helen, coming mildly to her support. - -From the corner of her eye the badgered girl could see the object of the -inquiry. Still smiling! It was too much. Then and there Darcy committed -that ignoble act known and reprehended in the higher sporting circles, -wherein Andy Dunne moves, as "passing the buck." - -"_You_ tell them, Monty," she said sweetly. - -Of a great statesman, now dead, it has been written: - - Cheated by treachery and beguiled by Fate, - Once in his life we well may call him great. - -Thus with Mr. Jacob Remsen _alias_ Sir Montrose Veyze. Out of -conscious nothing he had, in that precious moment's respite, evoked an -instantaneous and full-fledged plan to meet the crisis. - -Fixing upon Maud as the more formidable antagonist, he impaled her on -the beam of his monocle. - -"Haw!" he ejaculated. "You've heard about the Veyze Succession, I -assume." - -"Never," said Maud stoutly. - -"_What?_ Nevah heard of the King's Judgment? Why, my _deah_ lady, we're -as well known as the Tower of London or the--the Crystal Palace." - -"In America, you see," explained the more pacific Helen, "these things -don't get to us." - -"But I assuah you," cried the other, turning his glassy regard upon her, -"your atrocious American press has been quite full of it from time to -time. Come, now! You're spoofing me. You must have read of the Veyze -divided title. What?" - -Hypnotized by the glare of the monocle, Helen's imagination inspired her -to confess that she did vaguely recall something about it, which was -the more gratifying to the representative of the Veyzes in that he had -introduced the press feature on the inspiration of the moment. - -The less impressionable Maud was not to be diverted from the main issue. - -"Even if we knew all about your family, it would not explain Sir -Montrose Veyze being here in America at the same time that he is being -received by the King in London." - -"Wearing two swords. Doesn't the press report mention that? It should," -put in the Veyze representative conscientiously piling up picturesque -detail to embellish and fortify his case. "Don't forget that, please. -It's a Veyze prerogative." - -"Is it a Veyze prerogative to be in two places at once?" queried the -cross-examiner. "Or--there aren't two of you, I suppose." - -"Of _cawse!_" - -The accused delivered the answer in a tone of calm and wondering -contempt. Obviously he was incredulous that such ignorance as his -interrogator displayed could exist in a Christian country. - -"_Two_ Sir Montrose Veyzes? Of the same name and title?" Maud was -glaring, now. - -"Of _cawse!_ The famous Veyze twins. Though we're not rahlly twins any -more, you understand." - -Under the calm and steady beam of the monocle, Maud weakened. "What are -you famous for?" she asked, more amenably. - -"Because there are two of us to the divided title. Bally hard for an -American to understand, I'm afraid. It begins back in the early days of -the title, quite before Columbus landed the Puritans at Bunker Hill, you -know." - -"Columbus wasn't a Puritan, dear," corrected Darcy. - -"No? Nevah heard anything against the man's morals, that I can recall." - -"Never mind Columbus," said the interested Helen. "Do tell us about the -Veyzes." - -"Right-o! Two brothers were born--twins, d' you see? There was some -natural confusion. Which was the heir--born first, you know? -Nobody could tell. The King was stayin' at Veyze Holdings then for the -shootin'; very famous shootin'. The family referred it to him. Would he -play the part of Solomon and decide? His Majesty graciously acceded to -the request. He decreed that the title should thenceforth be a dual one. -It's remained so ever since. We don't produce twins any more, but the -two eldest sons of the line inherit title and property jointly, and each -carries two swords at court. There's Sir Montrose and Sir Montrose II. -I'm II." - -[Illustration: There are two of us to the divided title 236] - -"How romantic!" breathed Helen. - -"Rah-ther. We pride ourselves on that sort of thing, we Veyzes." - -As the glory of his performance developed before her enraptured mind, -the Hymn of Hate died out within Darcy, to be succeeded by a Paean of -Praise. - -"And now," said she severely, "I should think you girls might have the -decency to apologize to Sir Montrose." - -"Rah-ther!" confirmed her ally. - -"I'm awfully sorry," said Helen contritely. "I'll apologize when I'm -proved wrong," returned Mrs. Lee dubiously. "We'll know soon enough." - -"Yes? And how?" - -"Mr. Wood is trying to get the British Embassy on long-distance'phone." - -"My respects to Lord Wyncombe," said the undisturbed suspect. "But why -go to so much trouble? Surely there's a simpler way." - -"How?" asked Darcy, wondering what fresh audacity was developing in that -fertile brain. - -"Don't you have--er--public libraries in your American towns?" - -"Certainly." - -"Then perhaps there is one at Center Harbor." - -"There is," answered Helen, so promptly that Darcy shot a glance of -suspicion at her. - -"What more easy than to drive over there at once," observed the suspect -blandly, "and consult their Burke." - -"Burke's Peerage, you mean?" said Darcy. "Perhaps they haven't one." - -"They haven't," blurted Maud, and stopped, reddening. - -"Apparently you've tried," remarked Darcy witheringly. "We appreciate -your interest." But Sir Montrose II was painfully shocked. "Not got a -Burke!" he exclaimed. "Unbelievable! What a country! I'll send for one, -at once." - -Impressed, despite herself, Maud Lee hesitated, looking from Darcy to -her fiance. - -"It may be all right," she admitted. "I don't say that it isn't. But -until it is cleared up beyond a doubt, don't you think, Darcy, you ought -to come and stay with us?" - -"I think not," put in Darcy's escort quietly. "I'm taking Miss Cole back -to the Farm. If you've nothing further to add--" - -"Nothing--now," answered the baffled Mrs. Lee. - -"Then we'll bid you good-day." - -Safely around the curve they stopped and faced each other. - -"You wonderful person!" giggled Darcy hysterically. "How did you ever -think of it!" Assuming a grandiose pose he declaimed: - - You may break, you may shatter, the Veyze if you will, - But the scent of the Montrose will cling to it still. - -"To get down to prose, how long will it cling?" she asked thoughtfully. - -"Allowing for inevitable official red tape, I should say anywhere from -twenty-four hours to a month." - -"Paul Wood has a cousin in the State Department." - -"In that case, nearer the twenty-four hours than the month." - -Darcy seated herself on a boulder and took her chin into her cupped -hands. "Let me think," she murmured. - -Remsen watched her as she considered and would have given much to be -able to read her mind. Presently she looked up. - -"Do you mind leaving me here?" she inquired. - -"Yes," he said. - -"Why?" - -"I always mind leaving you. It gives me a lost feeling." - -She nodded. "Yes; I know what you mean. I feel it, too." - -"Do you?" he cried eagerly. - -"You've been so wonderfully good to me all through this queer mess," she -supplemented, a little hurriedly. - -He disregarded this. "Besides," he said, "I'm afraid this is going to be -our last walk." She looked her startled question. - -"What I'd like, of course," he pursued, "is to stay here and face it -through with you. But that's going to be worse for you than if I went, -isn't it?" - -"I'm afraid it is." - -"Then it's up to me to leave." - -"But what if they find you and take you back to New York?" - -"I've got to take the risk. They're pretty likely to find out about me -here if they undertake a _Veyze_ investigation." - -"That's true," she cried. "I've made this place impossible for you as a -refuge." - -"Not you. I did it myself. I'd do it again--a thousand times--for these -last four days." - -"When would you go?" - -"To-night. Eleven o'clock. Meredith." - -"Wait till to-morrow." - -His heart leaped. "We're to have this evening together?" - -"No," she said gently. "I want this evening to myself. I have to think." - -"I'm a marvelous stimulus to thought," he pleaded. - -She shook an obstinate head. - -"Might I walk back to the Farm with you?" - -"No; please. I'd rather you didn't." She rose and laid her hand in his. -"You've been a very parfait, gentil knight," she said. - -"Darcy!" - -But she was already swinging up the hill with that free, lithe, rhythmic -pace of hers. At the summit she turned and waved. For one brief second -he saw her sweet, flushed profile clear against the sweet, flushed sky. -It disappeared leaving earth and heaven dim and void. - -Remsen turned blindly homeward. He knew, at last, what had happened to -him. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -ALL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the -Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote. - -All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen, at the -Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out and relighted -it and mused again. - -All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur sleuths -at the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn't come. - -At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold cloud -sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity of large, -soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was darkened and -the earth whitened with them. - -Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined, tramped -Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack Remsen, deep in such -trouble of heart as he had never known before, and most undetermined. -Both were headed for the same spot, the mailbox at the entrance from the -main road to the byway which leads up to the Bungalow. - -Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there first. -She opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to another -mail-box some distance along the road and opposite the Island, where she -deposited a second epistle. That left her two and a half hours in which -to make the ten miles of dark, heavy road to Meredith. If it were too -little, she had learned of a trail through meadowland and forest which -would cut off nearly two miles. Darcy didn't like woods at night--most -of us don't, if we're honest with ourselves--but she proposed to catch -that train. - -Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery boxes -there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the raising -and the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box, shortly -after the wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack Remsen observed -with surprise that the flag, which he knew to have been down, was -raised. - -"How's this?" inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. "I've been here -and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a day. Yet -you're flying signals." - -As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside. Darcy's -note rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive matches and -at the cost of scorched fingers, he read it: - -Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful one. -But I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You must stay. I -have written to Helen--she is the kind one--and told her about it; just -how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir Montrose's place. I had -to tell her who you were. But your secret won't be betrayed. So you -won't have to go away. You'll be safe here. I'm glad. I like to think of -you here. It's been good--hasn't it? Perhaps when you are able to come -back to New York I'll see you at Gloria's some time. - -I can't say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn't even if there -were time. You've been so good to me--so good. And all you've had for it -is trouble. I'm sorry. - -Good-night, Knight. D. C. - -"Even if there were time." As has been indicated, Jack Remsen's mind -could, on occasion, work swiftly. - -Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because -she was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her -departure. That could mean only the eleven o'clock train from Meredith: -the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his -departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note! -On her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory -letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time -before that letter reached its addressee! - -Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There -were the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black -wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up -with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the -undivided attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the -road at a dogtrot. - -His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable by -several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a second -to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box behind, his -inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein Darcy had set -forth her circumstantial but by no means complete confession which was -to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself. Remsen's heart beat a -little faster under that bulky epistle with its contents of courage and -self-sacrifice. - -At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this -he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not -obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine. -He jogged on with high hopes. - -On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of -speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he -might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to -send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he -pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the strong, -lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless pace of -hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled vigor. - -Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the -flash on the road. - -No footmarks were visible. - -Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him on all -sides. No result. - -Struggling to keep cool, he turned back, going slowly, careful to miss -no trace which intent scrutiny might discover. A quarter of a mile back -he picked up the trail where she had left the road to cross a brooklet -and take to the open fields. Her object he guessed; to cut across a -broad and heavily wooded hill, thus saving herself some two miles of -travel where the road took a wide double curve. - -Eased in his breathing by the enforced slowness of the search, he was -now able to accelerate his pace. Halfway up the open hillside a sudden -fury of storm descended, lapping him in whirling darkness. Ahead of him -stretched the dead-black line of woodland. More by luck than direction, -he came upon a gateway, and thus set foot to the forest path, less -difficult to discern in such conditions than the open trail of the -meadows. With his light he could follow it quite easily. But when he -thought of Darcy, lightless and inexperienced in woodcraft, with only -her strength and her courage to help her, wandering in that wilderness, -his spirit sickened with terror. The numbed fingers of the hand which -gripped the flash warned him of dropping temperature. One might easily -freeze on such a night, in the open. Worst of all, the marks in the snow -were now all but invisible under the fresh fall. - -He blundered desperately onward, shouting her name into the gale as he -went. There was an answering call. He threw his light on. She rose from -a fallen tree-trunk into the arc of radiance. - -"I've been lost," she said, and walked straight to his arms. - -Just for the comfort and safety and relief of it she clung to him, with -no other or further thought than that where he was no harm could reach -her. But now that she was found, Rem-sen's self-control broke under -the reaction. His arms closed about her. With a shock of sweetness, -amazement, and terror she felt his lips on hers--and answered them. For -the briefest instant only. The thought of Gloria pierced through the -rapture of the moment, a poisoned dart. She thrust herself back from -him, her hands on his breast. - -"Go away!" she sobbed. "You've no right. You know you've no right!" - -As she had thought of Gloria, so now he thought of the Briton oversea, -fighting in his country's service. - -"I know," he groaned. "Forgive me." - -She stood back from him, staring with bewildered, dismayed eyes. - -"I forgot for the moment that I'm only a counterfeit," he pleaded. - -"You forgot--many things," said she slowly. - -"Forgive me, Darcy," he said again. "It--it swept me off my feet--the -sweetness of it. It was base--dishonorable--anything you want to call -it; but when I felt you in my arms--" - -"Oh, _don't!_" she wailed. - -"Will it make it better or worse if I tell you that I love you as I -never loved or thought I could love any woman?" - -"Worse! Worse! Infinitely worse!" - -"This is the end of me," he said. He spoke quietly and in a flat, even -tone as a man might speak who knew that he was giving up everything -in life worth having. "I'll not offend again. But--after I'd kissed -you--you had to know. I couldn't let you think it anything less than it -was, the going out to you of a heart that I could no longer control." - -"In dishonor!" - -"If you will have it so. The dishonor is mine. You are untouched by -it.... Now, let us get to other matters. Are you hurt?" - -"No." - -"Then you can follow me back?" he said. "Where?" - -"To the Farmhouse." - -"I'll never go back to the Farmhouse." - -"You must. I'm going away on this train." - -"What good would that do? Haven't you read my note to you?" - -"Of course. Otherwise I shouldn't have got on your trail." - -"Then you must know that I've written the whole thing to Helen Wood, and -even if I wanted to go back, now--" - -"Dismiss that letter from your mind. I got it, on my way here." - -"_You_ took my letter to Helen? Did you read it?" - -"Do you think me dishonorable in everything?" he returned quietly. - -"Oh, I'm sorry!" cried the girl impetuously. "I don't think you -dishonorable. I know you're not. I don't know what to think or do." - -"Take this light and hurry back to the Farmhouse. I've still got time -for the train. Or I'll take you back and make the morning train." - -"One thing I cannot and will not do: spend another night at the Farm." - -"Is that your last word?" - -"Yes." Obstinacy itself was in the monosyllable. - -"Then I'll go with you to Meredith." - -"I won't let you." - -"I'll go," he retorted in a tone which ended that discussion. - -Under his guidance and in silence they regained the main road. At Center -Harbor he succeeded in getting a team to take them the rest of the way. -Not until the end of the journey did Darcy speak to him. - -"What shall you do now?" - -"I don't know. Go somewhere," said he gloomily. - -"You must go back." - -"Boulder Brook--without you?" he said passionately. - -"But where else can you go?" - -"It doesn't matter." - -They stood in silence until her train pulled in. - -"I shan't see you again, shall I?" he said wretchedly. - -"You've made it impossible. Oh, why did you do it?" she wailed softly. - -With no further word she turned from him and went into the car. Remsen -stood, dazed with misery. Forward, something was shunted from an express -car with a heavy crash. There was a babel of voices, a moment's delay. -Darcy flashed out upon the steps again, her eyes starry. Remsen jumped -to meet her. She caught his hands in hers with a swift, forgiving little -pressure. - -"I couldn't leave you so," she said tremulously. "You've been too good -to me. Good-bye, and--forget." - -Before he could answer she was gone again. - -Until the tail-light of the train glimmered into obscurity around the -curve, Remsen stood uncovered in the gale. Then he turned to the miles -of lonely road. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -DARCY, in her berth, sat huddled up and wide-eyed. She knew at last what -had happened to her. The burning memory of that kiss in the woods had -left nothing unrevealed to a soul as frank with itself as Darcy's had -grown to be. She knew, too, what she had to face. There was no doubt or -hesitancy in her thoughts, no weak attempt to justify herself or find an -easy way out. If it had been any one but Gloria Greene whose happiness -was at stake, Gloria who had picked her up from the scrap-heap of waste -and made a living, pulsating, eager human creature of her, Darcy might -have fought for her own hand. But how could a man who had loved Gloria -Greene, and whom Gloria loved, care seriously for any other woman on -earth? No; this was only a sudden, unreckonable infatuation on Jack -Remsen's part.... Then she recalled the look in his eyes when they -parted, and knew that her conscience was lying to her heart. In any -case, her course was clear. She must be game. - -In her deep trouble her thoughts turned to Gloria, the wise, kind -counsellor, the safe refuge. But she would not do for this crisis! To -betray Remsen to her--that was unthinkable, and nothing short of the -whole truth would serve with Gloria. Darcy knew that she must fight it -out alone. Never, not even in the old, dead days, had she felt so alone. - -Human nature being what it is, there is nothing strange in the fact -that, on her return to New York, Darcy shrank from meeting Gloria. -Although the girl's conscience absolved her, except for that one, -instinctive lapse when she had been caught off her guard, her sore heart -pleaded guilty to the self-brought charge of a lasting disloyalty. With -the thrill of Jack Rem-sen's kiss still in her veins, how could she face -the woman to whom Remsen owed his allegiance, the woman who, moreover, -had been the kindest, most effectual, most unselfish friend of her own -unbefriended life? - -Yet there remained to be concluded the obsequies of Sir Montrose Veyze, -of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. Those remains, of unblessed -memory, must positively be removed from the premises before they gave -rise to further and even more painful complications. Darcy experienced -the grisly emotions of a murderer with an all-too-obvious corpse to -dispose of. First of all, Gloria's absolution from the promise of -secrecy must be obtained, which she would doubtless be more than ready -to accord, now that Sir Montrose had become too heavy a burden to carry; -also Gloria's advice and aid if she would give it. Nerving herself for -the encounter, Darcy went to see the actress and told her the whole (if -she herself was to be believed) disastrous tale. - -Gloria was too shrewd to believe quite that far. There were obvious -hesitancies, blank spaces, and reservations wherever the name and deeds -of Mr. Jacob Remsen, _alias_ Sir Montrose Veyze II, or in his own proper -person, entered into the narrative. And there was a something in the -girl's eyes, deep down where the warm gray was lighted to warmer blue, -which hadn't been there before. It completed the woman in her. With an -inner flush of creative pride Gloria communed with herself upon the new -miracle: - -"This is a wonderful and lovable thing that I have made." Instinctive -honesty compelled her, however, to add: "But somebody else has given the -finishing touch." - -She was too keen an observer not to suspect who her fellow creative -artist was. Being of the ultra-blessed who hold their tongues until it -is time to speak, Gloria made no comment upon this phase, but set her -mind singly to the problem in hand as presented by Darcy's recital. -"It's time to own up," was her decision. - -"I suppose so," agreed the girl. "I don't look forward to telling Maud." - -"Let me handle Maud." - -"Would you, Gloria? You _are_ good. However well you do it, though," she -added resentfully, "I suppose I'll be 'Poor Darcy' again without even -the compensation of being 'Such a _nice_ girl.'" - -"Do you _feel_ like 'Poor Darcy'?" - -"No." - -"Do you _look_ like 'Poor Darcy'?" - -The girl glanced at the long studio mirror back of her. "No, I don't," -she replied, and two dimples came forward and offered corroborative -testimony. - -"Then whom is the joke on?" - -The dimples vanished. "On me," said their erstwhile proprietor. - -"Don't be an imbecile!" adjured her mentor. "Can't help it," returned -Darcy dolefully. "I've got the habit." - -"Break it. Hark to the voice of Pure Reason (that's me). As long as -you were 'Poor Darcy,' you had to invent a fiance or go without, didn't -you?" - -"Yes." - -"And your invention was sure to be a regular old Frankenstein monster, -and to come back and devour you as soon as you were found out." - -"I can hear the clanking of his joints this minute!" - -"You can't. He isn't there. If you were still 'Poor Darcy,' there'd be -no hope for you. You're not. You're something totally different." - -"That's your view of it," returned the dispirited Darcy. "But to -other--" - -"It's anybody's view that isn't blind as a bat! Half the men you meet -are crazy about you. Aren't they?" - -"I haven't met many, lately," said Darcy demurely. - -"You met plenty at our party. Even Maud and Helen saw the effect. Their -eyes bunged out!" - -"I don't see how their eyes bunging out is going to help explain Sir -Montrose Veyze I, let alone Sir Montrose Veyze II." - -"Why worry, when I'm here to take the burden from you? I propose," -said Miss Greene relishingly, "to tell those girls the truth, the whole -truth, and nothing but the truth." - -"Gloria! They'll pass it on and I'll be the laughing-stock--" - -"Will they! I dare'em to pass it on!" - -"Why shouldn't they?" cried the girl. "It's just the sort of thing that -Maud would revel in." - -"Allowing that she could get away with it, you're right. She couldn't." - -"Couldn't make people believe it, you mean?" - -"Never. Never in the world!" - -"But it's _true!_" - -"Dear and lovely innocence! Do you think _that_ helps it to get itself -believed? Besides, the main part of it isn't true." - -"I mean it's true that it isn't true, and if Maud tells the truth about -what isn't true--" - -"Come out of that skein of metaphysical wool, kitten," laughed Gloria. -"You're tangled. Here's what isn't true; that you're 'Poor Darcy' who -has to get lovers out of books for lack of'em in real life." - -"But I _have_ been." - -"All right. Let Maud tell the people that used to know you, and make -them believe it. There's only a few of them and they don't count. As -for trying it on any one else, all she'll get will be a reputation -for green-eyed jealousy. How would anybody convince Jack Remsen, for -instance" (Darcy winced, and Gloria's quick sense caught it), "that you -had to invent an imaginary adorer because you couldn't get a real one? -No, indeed! The evidence is all against it from Exhibit A, Darcy's eyes, -down to Exhibit Z, Darcy's smart little boots. For an unattractive girl, -your little effort of the imagination would be a pathetic, desperate, -ridiculous invention, with the laugh on the inventor. For an attractive -girl, it's just a festive little joke. Don't you see how it works out? -The pretty girl (that's you) can have all the adorers she wants, but she -prefers to take in her friends by inventing one. Is the joke on the girl -or her friends? One guess. Why, oh, why," concluded Gloria addressing -the Scheme of the World in a burst of self-admiration, "wasn't I born a -professor of logic instead of an actress?" - -"It sounds reasonable," confessed Darcy. "But will Maud and Helen be -clever enough to see it?" - -"Probably not." - -"Then--" - -"Therefore I shall point it out to them in my inimitable and convincing -style, with special hints as to the perils and disadvantages of getting -a reputation for jealousy of a better-looking girl!" - -"Then that's all settled," said Darcy with a sigh. "Now what about Sir -Montrose? The real Sir Montrose, I mean." - -"Well, _what_ about him?" - -"Suppose he should come over here and hear about it?" - -"He won't. He's engaged to an English girl. I've just heard." - -"How nice and considerate of him! You know, Gloria, I could almost love -that man." - -"Could you? What about the bogus Sir Montrose?" asked the actress -significantly. - -Darcy flushed faintly. "Well, _what_ about him?" she echoed. - -"How much does _he_ know?" - -"Not very much. Do you think I ought to tell him?" - -"Does the child expect me to manage her conscience as well as her -affairs!" cried the actress. "If any one is to tell him, you're the one. - -"I suppose so," assented Darcy, spiritlessly, and made her farewells in -no more cheerful frame of mind than when she had come, albeit one load -was off her shoulders. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -For a week or more Gloria neither saw nor heard from the girl. At the -end of that time she did, to her surprise, encounter the erstwhile bogus -Sir Montrose without his hirsute adornments and in his proper person of -Mr. Jacob Remsen, sauntering idly along the Park. Hailing him, she took -him into her taxi. Mr. Remsen was not looking his customary sunny self. - -"Did the law's minions catch you in spite of your whiskers?" she asked. - -"No. Case was compromised. So I've come back." - -"And what are you going to do now?" - -"I'm going to work." - -"Work! You?" said the actress with unfeigned and unflattering surprise. -"Why? What's the answer?" - -"Ambition," replied Mr. Remsen in a lifeless voice. - -"Sounds more like penal servitude," commented Gloria. "And what is to be -the scene of your violent endeavors?" - -"Ask the Government," he replied wearily. "Washington, maybe. Or perhaps -San Francisco or Savannah. Or right here in New York, for all I know." - - "Jerusalem and Madagascar - And North and South Amerikee," - -quoted the other. "Are you about to become an American courier for the -peripatetic Mr. Cook, his agency?" - -"Got a chance to go into the Treasury Department," answered Remsen -gloomily. - -"Don't give up heart," she encouraged him. "Strong young men like you -often survive the rigors of that life. Pity they don't send you to -London, where your monocle and your accent would be appreciated. By the -way, have you seen your quondam fiancee since your return?" - -"No," said Remsen. - -Gloria, noting that he winced much as Darcy had winced, wondered, and -turned the talk to other topics which gave her opportunity to revolve -the problem of the two masqueraders in her mind. That there was a -problem she was now well assured. She took it to luncheon with her, -after dropping one of the subjects of it, and came to a conclusion -characteristic of her philosophy and worthy of a mathematician; namely, -that the figures in any problem work out their own solution if properly -arranged. She decided to do the arranging after luncheon by telephone. - -She sent word to Darcy to meet her at the studio without fail at five. -Then she got Remsen at his club and told him that a matter of importance -had come up about which she wanted to see him at her place about -five-fifteen. Whether she herself could get through her engagements and -be back home at that hour she did not know nor particularly care. Her -duties as hostess did not weigh heavily upon her in this respect. Let -Jack or Darcy or both reach the place before her; it didn't greatly -matter. Perhaps it would even be better that way. - -Furthermore, Gloria Greene was very deeply and happily preoccupied with -certain affairs of her most intimate own, which will serve to explain -a slight vagueness in her usually accurate schedules, with consequences -quite unforeseen by her managerial self. For one of Miss Greene's -errands that day had been to send a vitally important telegram which -called for an answer in person on the following day. That the answer -in person might arrive that same day she had not reckoned. She had -consulted only railway time-tables, forgetting that far-and-swift-flying -chariot of Cupid, the high-powered automobile. - -ALL things threaten a guilty conscience. - -Haunted by the unlaid ghost of Sir Montrose Veyze, Darcy, on receipt of -Gloria's message, fearfully anticipated that some new complication had -arisen. Having concluded a satisfactory interview with B. Riegel & Sons -(whose representative was impressed anew with her splendor) she reached -Gloria's studio a little before the appointed time. The place was empty. -For a few moments she idled about, examining the new pictures, glancing -casually at books, and presently drifted to the piano seat. - -Insensibly guided by memories, her fingers wandered into the little, -soothing cradle-song which she had first heard in that very spot from -Jack Remsen's lips. Long ago, it seemed; so long ago! Once she played it -through, and then in her tender and liquid voice she crooned it softly. - -She did not hear the door open and close. But she felt a light draught -of air, and the next instant a man's figure loomed through the gathering -dusk, a man's strong hands fell on her shoulders, and a man's glad voice -cried: - -"Dearest!" - -"Oh!" exclaimed Darcy in consternation. "Good Lord!" ejaculated the -newcomer in an altered and horrified tone. - -Darcy turned to confront Thomas Harmon. She had seen him but once, -but she carried the clearest memory of his quiet eyes, his vital -personality, his big, light-moving, active frame, and his persuasively -friendly manner. Mr. Harmon was a person not easy to forget. Now he was -covered with confusion. - -"I--I _really_ beg your pardon," he stammered. "It was inexcusably -stupid of me." Darcy held out her hand, smiling. "I'm Darcy Cole, Mr. -Harmon," she said. "And I have a great deal to thank you for." - -"Me?" said the big man in surprise. "I'd be glad to think so, but--" - -"But you don't know why," she concluded, kindly intent on putting him -at his ease. (Darcy, who a year before would have been on live coals of -embarrassment before any strange man!) "You gave me a refuge at Boulder -Brook when I very much needed one." - -"Oh! So you're Gloria's--Miss Greene's little friend. I hope they made -you comfortable." - -"Didn't you get a note from me telling you how delightful your place -is?" - -"No. But, you see, I've been away. Just got in." - -They stood looking at each other for a moment, the girl demure but -dimpling, the man still in some confusion of spirit. Then, encouraged -perhaps by the dimples, perhaps by some aura of fellowship and -understanding which exhaled from the girl, Hannon burst out boyishly: - -"I've heard a lot about you, Miss Darcy, and I believe you're a--well, a -good fellow." - -"I am," Darcy assured him with absolute conviction. - -"Well, after the break I made I've got to tell somebody or _bust_." - -"Tell me," invited the girl. "Whom did you think I was when you rushed -on me?" - -"Gloria, of _course!_" - -"Gloria!" - -Although untrained in fancy gymnastics, Darcy's brain whirled around -ten times in one direction, clicked, and whirled around ten times on the -reverse. She put her hand to her head dizzily, striving to readjust her -thoughts. - -"Isn't it very sudden?" she faltered. - -"About as sudden as Jacob's little affair with Rachel," laughed Harmon. -"It's been a seven-year siege on my part." - -"But, Gloria--" - -"Oh, it's been a heap suddener for Gloria. In fact she only--I only got -the word to-day. And here I am." He examined the girl's troubled face. -"You don't look exactly pleased," he added, crestfallen. - -"Indeed, you mustn't think that," she cried earnestly. "But I--I--I -thought it was Mr. Remsen." In her bewilderment she blundered on. "I -saw her k-k-k-" Too late she strove to catch herself on the brink of a -shameful betrayal. - -"You saw her kiss Jack," he interpreted, smiling. "He's a sort of a -third cousin or something, and a privileged character, anyway." - -"I didn't know," answered the girl. Then, recovering herself: "Oh, Mr. -Harmon, I _am_ so glad. I believe you're just as fine as Gloria is--and -that's the most any one could say." - -"My dear," he said more gravely. "Nobody on earth is that. But--well, -I want to shout and sing and--Play your music again, won't you? Maybe -that'll help." - -Maybe, thought Darcy, it would help her, too; for she also wanted to -shout and sing, and, most contradictorily, to hide and cry--and wait. - -Forgetful, in the turmoil of her mind, of the pledge to Jack Remsen -about the little song which was to be their one keepsake of those -enchanted days in the mountains, she turned back to the piano and hummed -the melody. - -"It's built for a second part," commented Harmon. "Do you mind if I try -it?" - -So she went over it again, and he struck in, in a clear, charming -barytone, and with a singularly happy inspiration of a tenor part. Over -and over it they went, she suggesting, and he perfecting his second; and -they were still at it when the door opened again, upon deaf ears. - -In the hallway Jack Remsen stopped dead. The first thing of which he was -conscious was that the voice of the girl he loved and had continued -to love against every dictate of conscience and honor was running like -sweet fire through his veins again. Instantly the fire became bitter -and scorching. For there was another voice, accompanying and fulfilling -hers, the barytone which she had adduced as one of her British lover's -chief charms. - -(Remsen had to admit the quality of the voice, now raised in _his_ song. -The song which she had promised to keep as his and hers; the one thing -which he might claim of her!) - -A hot anger rose in his heart and as quickly faded. Why shouldn't she -sing that song with her lover? At most it was an idle promise which he -had had no right to exact. He conquered an impulse to turn and leave. -No; the thing had to be faced. Might as well face it now. When the -chords died down he advanced to the door and spoke. - -Darcy whirled on her seat, and rose, very white. His one glance told -Remsen that she was lovelier than ever. Then everything was swallowed up -in the amazement of finding Hannon there. Harmon--alone in the dusk -with Darcy where he had expected to find the fiance--his song--and that -charming, clear barytone of which Darcy had boasted in Sir Montrose! - -An explanation came to his mind, light in the darkness. It was just -another masquerade--Darcy apparently specialized in them--and Veyze had -been but a blind for Harmon, the real lover in the background, all the -time. He felt Harmon wringing his hand in welcome and heard himself -saying with a creditable affect of heartiness: - -"Then I suppose it's you that I'm to congratulate." - -"It is," returned the other, chuckling joyously. "Though how on earth -you knew it I can't conceive." - -"Isn't it evident enough?" said Jack. - -He marched over to Darcy. She saw him changed, thinned, with lines in -his smooth face; lines of thoughtfulness, of self-control, of achieved -manhood, and her heart was in her eyes as they met his and drooped. - -"And you," he said. "I wish you every happiness. I couldn't wish you -better than Tom Harmon." - -"_What!_" cried that complimented but astounded gentleman. "Me? Miss -Darcy?" - -"Well, if it isn't you," said Jack lifelessly, looking from one to the -other: "will you kindly tell--" - -"It _is_ me, but it isn't her," broke in Harmon, with the superb -disregard of grammar suitable to the occasion. "Man alive, it's -_Gloria!_" - -As if in confirmation, Gloria's voice came to them, down the hallway. - -"Darcy! Where are you, child?" - -Two chairs which foolishly attempted to impede Mr. Thomas Harmon's -abrupt and athletic progress across the floor were sent to the janitor -next day. - -"Tom!" cried Gloria's voice in a breathless and different tone. Then the -door slammed. - -Jack Remsen turned to Darcy. "So that's it, is it?" he said slowly. - -"That," answered Darcy, "is it. Isn't it splendid!" - -"Couldn't be splendider--for those most concerned. What about the rest -of it?" - -"The rest of it?" Her brows were raised in dainty puzzlement, but her -eyes refused to meet his. - -"Where is Veyze?" - -"On his way back to the East, I understand," said Darcy carefully. - -"When is he coming over?" - -"Not at all." - -"Are you going over there--to England?" - -"No." - -"You're not looking me in the face." - -"I--I don't want to look you in the face. You're not pretty when you -make a--a catechism of yourself." - -"Darcy," said Remsen, "there's been something queer about this Veyze -business from the start. As long as I could help I did, didn't I?" - -"Yes," said the girl quite low. - -"And I asked no questions?" - -"No," she said, even lower. - -"But now I've got to know. I've got a right to know." - -"Why?" It was the merest whisper. "Because I've come back loving you -more than when you left me. I wouldn't have believed it possible. But -it's so. Every hope and wish of my heart is bound up in you. Darcy, is -it broken off between you and Montrose Veyze?" - -She raised her eyes to his. The color flushed and trembled adorably in -her face. She spoke, clear and sweet as music. - -"There never was anything between me and Sir Montrose Veyze." - -"You mean," said the astounded Remsen, "that you were only -acquaintances?" - -"If Sir Montrose walked into the room this minute I shouldn't know him." - -"But, how--" - -"I made it up. All. Every bit of it." She put her hands together in a -posture of half-mocking plea. "Please, sir, do I have to tell you the -whole shameful story?" - -He caught the hands between his. "There's only one thing you have to -tell me, Darcy. Shall I tell you what it is?" - -There was no need. The hands stole to his shoulders, and then around his -neck. "Oh, I do! I do!" she breathed. "There never was any Veyze, or any -engagement, or anything or anybody--but--just--you." - -"But, Darcy, love," he demanded, holding her close, "why wouldn't you -give me a chance, when we were at Boulder Brook?" - -"I--I--I thought it was G-g-g-gloria with you, all the time." - -"You didn't! How could you miss seeing that I was mad about you from the -first? Why didn't you tell me what you thought?" - -With her cheek against his and her lips at his ear, she confessed, -between soft, quick catchings of the breath: - -"Because I was afraid--of letting you see how much I cared. I--I've been -such a little fool, Jack, dear. And--and about the Veyze thing--I'm a -cheat--and an awful little liar--and--and--and--and a forger, I guess. -But it never hurt anybody but myself--and I've been loving you all the -time--until my heart--almost broke." - -"I'm pretty good at those crimes myself," returned her lover -comfortingly. "And worse. I've robbed a mail-box. When did you ever -descend to such desperate depths as that?" - -"I tried to kill my trainer," retorted Darcy proudly; "and he's the best -friend I ever had except Gloria. He's the one that made me presentable." - -"I'll ask him to be best man," said her lover promptly. "As for our -crimes, I'll tell you, darling of my heart; let's turn over a new leaf -and live straight and happy ever after." - -"Let's," agreed Darcy with a sigh of happiness. - -Half an hour later Tom Harmon and Gloria outside heard music, the -cradling measures of the little song, and crept to the door hand in -hand. They caught the mention of Boulder Brook and shamelessly listened. -The pair within were already future-building on Tom Harmon's property. - -"And we'll get on that same train right after the wedding," said Remsen. - -"And get off at Weirs," added the prospective bride. - -"And have the festive native there to meet us with 'th' ole boat.'" - -"And take that awful, bumpy road slower than we did before." - -"And go straight to the Farmhouse--" - -"I'm sorry, children," the rightful owner of the coolly appropriated -property broke in upon their dreams; "but you can't have the Farmhouse." - -"Oh!" said Darcy, hastily moving north-by-west on the piano seat. - -"That's taken," explained Harmon, beaming upon Gloria, "for another -couple." - -"Heaven bless'em!" said Jack heartily. "Thank you! You," concluded their -past and future host, "may have the Bungalow." - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -SOMEWHERE in Siberia, quite unaware of his activities as an absentee -Cupid, Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, with -a spread of huge composition planes where his dovelike wings should have -been, and a quick-firer at his side in place of bow and quiver, reached -out of his aeroplane for the long-overdue mail and read with languid -surprise an invitation to be present at the marriage of Miss Darcy -Cole to Mr. Jacob Remsen, in New York City, New York, on the preceding -Christmas day. - -"Now, where the dayvle," puzzled Sir Montrose Veyze as he rose into the -clouds "did I ever know those people?" - -THE END - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Wanted: A Husband, by Samuel Hopkins Adams - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANTED: A HUSBAND *** - -***** This file should be named 44326.txt or 44326.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/3/2/44326/ - -Produced by David Widger - -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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