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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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