Chapter VII: Part 7

"Umhuh, I thought he was the same fellow. You'll have to drop him. I don't want you to be receivin' no footman in this house. We must draw the line somewhere."

"He's no footman, papa. He's one of Mr. Brown's friends. Mr. Brown introduced him to me himself. I think he is connected with Mr. Brown's office."

"No such thing. Hayward's footman at the White House--told me so hisself 'bout a year ago, and I saw him on the President's carriage no longer'n yesterday. Nice lie he's told you 'bout bein' in Brown's office."

"Oh, he didn't say so, papa. I supposed so because Mr. Brown said he was his friend and has introduced him to all the nice people. Surely you can't object to one of Mr. Brown's friends. Everybody likes Mr. Hayward and he is received everywhere."

"Everybody likes him, do they? Well you see to it you don't like him any too much. I can't kick him out if Brown stands for him, but you make it your business to let him down easy. Have you seen Bob Shaw lately?"

"He was here last night when Mr. Hayward came," answered Lily; and she seemed to be amused at something.

"Well, what's funny 'bout that?"

Lily knew that she must not tell her father what she was laughing at. She created a diversion.

"Mr. Shaw is so backward, and so--dark."

"Dark! He's jus' a good hones' black,--so'm I--all African and proud of it. Mebbe I'm too dark to suit yuh. Bob Shaw is not backward, miss. He's got the bes' law practice of all the niggers in the Distric', and he'll be leader of the whole crowd in a few years. He's the bes' one in the bunch of these fellers who tag after you and you better take him. My money and his brains and pull with the party 'd make a great combernation."

Lily did not commit herself. She was accustomed to her father's blunt method of indicating his wishes. She liked Shaw well enough, but old Henry's awkward interference and zeal did the lawyer's cause no good. Shaw was below the ordinary in the matter of good looks, and in his love for Lily was too submissive to her whims. He had not Hayward's easy manner, nor his assurance--for the footman was not at all abashed by Henry Porter's money nor his daughter's gentle arrogance. It is needless to say the girl preferred the serving-man to the lawyer.

After the first flush of interest in Lily and her songs had subsided Hayward made love to the pampered belle warmly or indifferently as the mood was upon him. He noted that, taking her charms in detail, they were alluring without exception; and such moments of reflective analysis were always followed by a more determined pursuit of her. Yet the careless moods came. However, he always delighted in and could be extravagant in praising her singing, even when the personal attraction was the weakest, and the general effect on the woman was a continuous tattoo of love-taps at the door of her heart.

The negro magnate's favourite, Shaw, clearly was being outdistanced, and the outraged father stamped and threatened and commanded: but to no purpose. When Hayward discovered the bitterness of the old man's opposition he chuckled.

"Here's where I get even," he said; and became more assiduous in his attentions to Lily and more aggressive in his methods.

"Your father does not appear to hold much love for me," he told Lily one evening after she had sung him into an affectionate frame of mind and the conversation had drifted along to the confidential and personal stage.

"Did I ever tell you what he did with my first request for an introduction to you?"

"No. What?"

"He stamped the feathers off of it," said Hayward, and laughingly told her the details.

"Papa thinks--everybody--should be a lawyer, or a politician with a pull," Lily commented complainingly.

The temptation to vindicate his dignity was too much for Hayward.

"I was not always a footman and do not intend always to be a footman; and yet, footman as I am, if your father values a pull with the President, perhaps, if he knew--oh, well, he might think better of me."

"Oh, you have a pull? How interesting. Do tell me about it. I have read so much about pulls that I am dying to know what one is like. How do you work it? I believe you work a pull, don't you? Or do you pull the--"

"I haven't pulled mine yet. I'm waiting," said Hayward. "But it will work when the time comes."

"And when will the time come? Tell me. I'm so anxious to see the wheels go round in a genuine political machine. How many Southern delegates can you influence in the next national convention? That's the mainspring, isn't it?"

"I'm no politician or vote vender. I've never had the pleasure of influencing my own vote yet, and won't as long as I live in the District."

"What! Without politics or votes, and yet you have a pull?"

"It is a personal matter entirely," Hayward answered carelessly, as if personal friendships with Presidents were very ordinary affairs for him. Lily Porter was a mite skeptical, but she hoped he spoke the truth, for it would more than confirm her estimate of him and would be such an effective counter to her father's nagging opposition.

"Oh, isn't that interesting! Tell me all about it!"

"Really I cannot. I have never told that, even to my mother. There is only one other person who knows of it. It is my one secret, and my life--that is, my future--depends largely upon it. There's too much at stake."

"Would you fear to trust your life--your future--in my hands?" asked the woman softly. "I could be a very good and a very faithful friend."

The lure in her voice was irresistible.

"I would trust my soul with you," he answered, and with the spoken faith the trust was perfected in his heart. "Listen."

He told her all about himself, of his name and his history, of his life and his hopes. He was modest in his recital of the creditable things he had done; but when he had told her of his claim upon the President's gratitude and the purpose toward which he would use it, and began to talk of his ambition and his dreams, his heart was fired by its own fervour, and before the very warmth of his own eloquence all obstacles and difficulties faded as mists before the sun, and he felt that he needed only to put forth his hands to grasp his heart's desires.

The girl was touched with his fire. She listened with ready sympathy to the beginning of his story, heard with quickening pulses of his rescue of Colonel Phillips, and in the telling of his hopes was caught in the current of his transporting fervency and carried along with him to realize the vision of his martial career.

"And that is the picture of your life! It is--it will be--glorious!" She rose in her enthusiasm. "Oh, that a woman might--"

"Glorious--yes," the man said; "and till to-night it had seemed perfect to me. But I have been blind to its greatest lack. You have made me conscious of it." Hayward stood up and moved toward the girl, who wavered uncertainly between reserve and complaisance.

"I would paint another figure into that picture, Lily--the figure of a woman." He put his hands out toward her, and her coldness was melting when--"Lily," said her father from the hall, "what did you do with the evenin' paper? I want to read Mr. Shaw's speech before the convention this mornin'. Mr. Brown told me that it is the greates' speech that's been made yet."

Henry Porter came into the parlour in time to catch a glimpse of confusion and unusual attitude in his daughter and Hayward. He thought best to mount guard, and decided to talk Hayward into flight. He began with a panegyric on Shaw. Hayward caught the hint and took his leave, pulling Lily to the front door by a chain of conversation.

"Now remember," he murmured tenderly, "you hold my secret; and must keep it sacredly."

"Have no fear of me. Watch your other confidante," Lily whispered, her manner full as his of tenderness.

"Oh, she is--"

"Shaw told 'em," began the persistent and suspicious parent, coming out of the parlour;--but the footman was gone down the steps.

Hayward's mood changed in a twinkling and with a jolt. He walked a hundred paces thinking confusedly.

The question slowly framed itself in his mind.... "Do I love Lily?"

But he did not answer it.

*CHAPTER XX*

The oncoming summer promised to be long and uneventful for Helen Phillips. Late in May her mother took her and her two little sisters to Stag Inlet, leaving a perspiring father to await the perverse pleasure of a stubborn Congress before beginning his vacation, and Elise to set out upon a round of visiting that would permit her to see very little of home during the hot months. To Mrs. Phillips the restfulness of "Hill-Top" was gratefully refreshing after her trying first winter in Washington. She gave herself over fully to its soothing quiet and arranged her daily programmes on the simplest lines.

Hayward, because of his versatile abilities an indispensable part of the simple Hill-Top outfit, did not have an opportunity before leaving for Stag Inlet to see Lily Porter again. Nor indeed was he regretful on that account. He was in a state of indecision and wanted time to think. He heartily wished that he had not been so free with his confidences: yet could not justify this feeling when he sought a reason for it.

After awhile he wrote Lily a letter which was a model of diplomacy--which said much and said nothing. It did not disappoint or displease her. She read between the lines an admirable modesty and restraint, complimentary to herself and true to the artistic instinct which, she had read somewhere, always saves a full confession for a personal interview. She took her own good time to answer it. She felt sure of the man's devotion, despite the fact that his other and unknown confidante was a woman other than his mother. The tenor of her reply was reserved, though not discouraging. Hayward's impatience was not excited by the delay, nor his interest quickened by the coy missive.

* * * * *

The first morning Helen was on the lake after coming to the Inlet her launch passed a small catboat commanded by Jimmie Radwine and flying a Yale pennant from her diminutive masthead. The crew, consisting of Captain Jimmie and another youngster, both younger than Helen, were yelling themselves dizzy.

"What's Jimmie Radwine saying, Helen?" asked Nell Stewart.

Jimmie had no intention of leaving them uninformed. He had put his boat about, and come up alongside.

"Hello, Helen!" he shouted, "Harvard can't play ball! Quincy can't pitch! Tom got a home run and two two-baggers off him in four times up! Rah! rah! rah! YALE!"

Helen was a famous Harvard partisan, and many a verbal tilt had she had with Jimmie, whose brother Tom was Yale's right-fielder, as to the comparative merits of the blue and the crimson in all things from scholarship to shot-putting.

"What was the score, Jimmie?" she asked him.

"Wasn't any score--for Harvard: all for Yale. Wow! Yale--Yale--Yale!" he yelled.

Helen looked a dignified reproof of his unmannerly enthusiasm, but Jimmie's youth was proof against any such mild rebuke, and her irritation only kindled his joy. She nodded to Hayward for more speed, but as Jimmie was favoured by a stiff breeze they could not shake him off. He followed them for two miles or more up the lake, volunteering much information sandwiched between cheers for Eli, which, when he had delivered it fully and in detail, he began to repeat in order to impress it upon them. Hayward cheerfully would have bumped him with the launch.

Having so thoroughly enjoyed the morning's sport, Captain Jimmie regularly afterward flew the blue pennant from his mast, and was ever on the alert to greet Helen with the Yale yell and further particulars.

* * * * *

Less than a month later the Harvard crew rowed rings around the Yale men at New London. Helen's cup was full. The next day she and Nell Stewart and Nancy Chester were sitting out on the lawn reading an account of the race when they saw Jimmie's catboat beating about the lake.

"Come, girls," exclaimed Helen, "we must carry the news to Jimmie!"

"Hayward, come here," she called to the footman, who was tinkering at a gasoline runabout a hundred yards from them. "Get the launch ready," she added when he came nearer, "we want to overtake Mr. Radwine's boat out there."

"I guess Jimmie will haul down that blue flag now," said one of the girls when they had come to the boat-house.

"Hayward," said Helen, "run up to the house and tell mamma to give you the Harvard pennant that is in my room--and hurry!"

Hayward needed no urging. Out of the chatter he had caught the news of Harvard's victory at the oars, and he was as full of excited pleasure as Helen herself. He hurried up the hill and, not finding Mrs. Phillips, rushed to his own quarters and turned out from his trunk the crimson pennant.

Helen was too intent on the chase of Jimmie Radwine to notice that the short staff of the flag Hayward brought her, and the faded and wrinkled folds of the cloth, did not belong to the crimson emblem which was part of the decoration of her dressing-table. Jimmie, already informed of Yale's bitter defeat, surmised the purpose of the Phillips launch's coming, and tried to sail away and away: but he was relentlessly pursued and overtaken, and mercilessly repaid for all of his taunts of the last fortnight. As they came up with him Helen cried out to her friends:

"Now, everybody give the Harvard yell!"

The feminine chorus was shrill, but lacked volume.

"Again! and louder!" she commanded. "You too, Hayward!"

That was the most grateful order Hayward had received since the 10th was sent into the charge at Valencia. He stood up to drive the deep-mouthed, long-drawn rah-rah-rah's from his lungs, and added a few kinks and wrinkles at the end in orthodox phrasing and intonation by way of trimming off the severely plain Harvard slogan. Helen looked at him in some surprise, and saw that he was oblivious to his situation and seemed bent on "rattling" the hostile blue skipper. He came to himself at last, and pulled himself together in some confusion to give attention solely to his duties in running the launch. Helen thought his behaviour unusual, and watched him covertly while the badgering of Jimmie Radwine was in progress.

Jimmie was far from an easy mark, however, for by his unblushing impudence and boyish pretension to vast knowledge of facts and figures he time and again crowded Helen to her defences. Hayward could hardly keep his tongue when Jimmie presumed too much on the ignorance of the young women as to the athletic history of the blue and the crimson, and Helen could see that the negro was keeping quiet with difficulty. At one of Jimmie's most reckless statements, which overwhelmed Helen, Hayward, bending over the launch's little engine, shook his head in violent dissent.

"What is it, Hayward?" his mistress called to him.

"Beg pardon, Miss Helen, but he's--he's--misstating it!" Hayward answered with vigour.

"Then tell him of it!" Helen exclaimed impulsively.

"Pardon me, but you are altogether mistaken about that, Mr. Radwine," the negro sang out to Jimmie, shoving the launch up a little nearer the boat's windward quarter.

"What do you know about it?" Jimmie demanded scornfully.

"I know all about it," retorted Hayward with rising spirit; and he went into details in a way to take Jimmie's breath. Warming up, he did not desist on finishing the matter in dispute, but challenged others of Jimmie's audacious inaccuracies and proceeded to straighten them out. Jimmie demurred and replied more recklessly, and was soon in a rough and tumble discussion covering the whole field of college excellences. He found he was no match for Hayward either in information and enthusiasm or in assurance. Before the argument was half finished the footman was talking to him in a patronizing and fatherly way that pricked him like needles. He did not relish the idea of a controversy with, much less being routed by, this serving-man, especially in the presence of the young women. He wished the girls anywhere else so that he might smother the lackey with a sulphurous blast. But he had to stand to the losing game while Helen and her friends laughed at his defeat or waved the crimson flag and cheered the Harvard hits in a shrill treble. Helen indeed felt some compunctions for having brought about the situation but was enjoying Jimmie's discomfiture too much to end it.

Hayward had forgotten he was a lackey, had forgotten he was a negro, had forgotten he was anything save a Harvard man proud of his college, proclaiming her fair record with love and joy, confident in himself as one of her sons.... "As a man thinketh. so is he." ... The occasion was trivial, but the transforming power of thought, its triumph over circumstance, was strikingly evidenced in the footman's face. Helen noted that his bearing had lost every trace of conventional or conscious servility, that he looked easily and confidently _a man_, calling no man master.

After harrying Captain Jimmie enough to pay off all old scores they gave him good-bye with a final yell for the crimson, and turned the launch for home. In the run back Helen had her first opportunity to notice the pennant. It was not hers.

"Hayward, whose flag is this?"

"Mine, Miss Helen. I could not find your mother quickly, and I brought that to save time."

She looked from the flag to the negro. A nebulous idea floated through her mind, and she tried to fix it, but it was too elusive. She put Nell and Nancy off at their landings, and tried to grasp the intangible explanation that was hovering about her brain. It was characteristic of her to prefer working out her own answers to looking at them in the back of the book. Finally, however, she decided she did not have a full statement of the problem.

"When did you go to Harvard, Hayward?" she ventured.

"Class of 191-, Miss Helen."

"191-. Then you did not finish. The battle of Valencia was--"

"No, Miss Helen, I did not finish: but I understand two others of my class who volunteered were passed on the spring term's work and graduated by a special resolution of the Overseers. I think I will apply for my diploma sometime--if I need it."

Hayward spoke lightly, but his last words brought to Helen the same question which had occurred to her so often in the last year since she had discovered in him her father's rescuer. They only made the question more insistent.

He was a Harvard man,--to Helen's mind a title of all excellence and dignity. That explained much. His intelligence, even his physical grace and soldierly courage, seemed to fit naturally into that character. But why a flunkey?--shirking higher duties and the honours that pertained to his degree, careless of the evidence of his scholarly merit, putting aside the rewards of his soldierly heroism.

"Do you care nothing for everything, Hayward?--except this flag? You seem to have valued it."

"It is the one possession dearest to my heart," he answered in simple truth, and then showed the first faint trace of embarrassment she had ever seen him exhibit.

"Yes, you have loved the Harvard pennant but concealed your Harvard lineage. You champion Harvard's name enthusiastically against Jimmie Radwine's gibes, but you affect to be careless of Harvard's diploma. You carry the Harvard culture, and yet--you choose to be a footman."

Hayward winced. Helen tempered the thrust by adding:

"You do a soldier's work, but decline a soldier's honours. You are _too_ modest. You overdo the part."

"I hope yet to do something worthy of Harvard, Miss Helen. I am not without ambition, however much you may think it. Indeed I fear I have too much ambition."

A Harvard man need set no limit to his ambition. Helen spoke with the wisdom and confidence of youth and loyalty.

The launch was at the landing. The girl climbed out and up the steep stairs. At the top she bethought herself and turned about.

"Oh, here's your 'heart's dearest possession,'" she said with a laugh, and she pitched the little crimson flag down upon Hayward, who was making the boat fast.

The man looked up to catch the flag as it fell, and memory in that instant worked the magic which brought the scene on Soldiers Field clearly before Helen's mind. She knew him in that moment. She gazed at him without speaking. She looked at the flag and then at him--once, and again. All the incidents of the driving finish of that ever memorable football game came back to her, bringing to her pulses an echoing tremor of its tense excitement and wild enthusiasm and her unstinted girlish admiration for the player who had saved his college, her Harvard, from black defeat.

At last she remembered his words about the pennant which she had quoted to him a moment since. Her cheek flushed and she was in two minds whether to be offended or amused. Graham saw her look of surprised recognition, her glances at the pennant, and read the significance of her rising colour. He felt the presumption of his very presence, and, conscious and guilty, he looked abjectly out across the lake.

The man's humility went far to mollify Helen's anger or levity; but she could not spare him entirely.

"So you prefer another name to your own," she said. "Why is that?"

"Oh, no, Miss Helen. I am not ashamed of my name. There's no reason why I should be. I--"

"Then why use another?"

"My name is John Hayward Graham. I am using my own, but not all of my own."

"But why the masquerade? It doesn't look well. What have you done to be afraid of your full name?"

"Nothing, Miss Helen, I declare upon honour. I'll tell you the whole story. You have been kind to respect my wishes not to make known my services to your father, and I'll gladly tell you all about it. But I must go now, if you will excuse me? Mrs. Phillips ordered the carriage for five o'clock and it's nearly that time now."

"I'll excuse you, Hayward," Helen answered, intending a dismissal of the subject as well as of the servant.

*CHAPTER XXI*

For a year now Helen had had an unconsciously growing regard for her footman's mental abilities and for his gift of entertaining her with his tales of battle and camp and other incidental themes of conversation which at odd times had beguiled the moments of the past summer after his identity had been revealed to her as "the trooper of the 10th" of her father's most thrilling battle story. It was but natural that conversation with a man of his cultivation of mind and wide information should dull the sense of caste and superiority and enhance a feeling of genuine respect. It was only occasionally now that she assumed an air of command:--at best it is a difficult thing to patronize intellect.

Helen did not have an opportunity to hear Hayward's proffered explanation for quite a long time, and she cared little to know anything further of it; but her attitude of mind toward him had changed. Formerly she sometimes had wondered that a footman should be so intelligent. Finding that he was a Harvard man, however, had reversed the problem. It raised him to a level of respectability above his calling, and left the fact that he was a serving-man to be accounted for as anomalous. That he was a negro counted with her, of course, for naught one way or the other. He was nothing less than a footman.

However, with all her democratic ideas, she was a President's daughter; and that he was a footman, until it was explained, and even after it was explained,--as long, in fact, as he remained a footman,--would cause that vacillation between anger and amusement which came to her yet with the remembrance of his embarrassed declaration that her pennant was his heart's dearest possession.... She was somewhat annoyed by her own mild self-consciousness--an unusual mental state for her; more so than by any forwardness on the man's part in speaking the speech,--for there had been nothing of that.... She would not think of it.... Why should she think of it? The idea was ridiculous. She would laugh it away.... Of course the pennant was a dear possession: the man prized it as a memento of his college life and his daringly won victory.... Certainly, it was a very dear possession: she had similar school-day souvenirs which were precious to her heart though recalling moments of less energy of loyalty and wild delirium of joy.... Besides he may have meant, he could have meant, nothing personal to herself,--for he could not have known her--she was nothing more than a child seeing her first great football match--and he had caught but a glimpse of her in all that yelling throng--if he had seen her at all.... It would be a miracle if he remembered her... And yet he seemed to remember.... Though why should she think so? He had _said_ nothing to indicate it.... But he knew--she was sure that he knew.... And what if he did know, and did value the pennant on that account? The personal consideration was not imperative. Was she not the President's daughter, and would not any man deem it an honour to be decorated by her hand or high privilege to carry her flag? The lowest menial might properly take pride in her approbation and set great store by a token of her approval.... But--this man is neither low nor menial, for all his servile livery. He is a gentleman by every token: educated, brave, strong, modest, self-sacrificing, chivalrous. It is hard to consider him as an underling--a footman.... And why is he a footman? ... She does not care why he is a footman ... or that he is a footman.... He must keep his place.

*CHAPTER XXII*

Helen was taking her early morning ride. She pulled her horse up sharply and waited for her groom to overtake her.

"Why are you a footman, Hayward?"

Hayward was startled. The girl had been uncertain in her treatment of him for a month, and he was expecting anything that might happen, from a plain discharge to arrest as a suspicious character. He was confused by the suddenness of the question, and by the peculiar mingling of sympathy and impatience in Helen's voice.

"Who are you, and what are you trying to do?"

"I am John Hayward Graham, Miss Helen, as I told you before. I am a footman now because it seems to be necessary. I did not intend to be a footman so long as this when I obtained the position." Helen thought she detected a shade of embarrassment again. "But after I was employed at the White House my mother's health gave way suddenly and she could no longer support herself and I was compelled to keep the place."

The man saw that he was making an awkward mess of it, and the quick intelligence of Helen's eyes showed him her inferences were all adverse.

"Oh, well," he said, "I'll begin again. It took all the money my mother had, Miss Helen, to pay for my education--all, and more. That she ever met the expense of my tuition has been a miracle to me. But she did it--insisted upon doing it. My father was a Harvard man. He died when I was two years old, leaving as his only admonition the injunction that I be thoroughly educated. My mother was faithful to that exhortation. She spent her meagre fortune and the abundant strength of her life to the last cent and almost to the last heart-beat in a religious obedience to it."

"Your mother is still living?"

"Yes; and please do not think I was so ungrateful and so unfilial as purposely to wait till she was helpless before lifting the burden of breadwinning from her shoulders. I was in five months of graduation when the call came for volunteers in the spring of 191-; yet I could not resist that call, nor would my mother have me resist it."

"A Spartan mother," commented Helen.

"My grandfather died in the front of battle, Miss Helen,--to make men free. My father was a soldier. The first bauble that I can remember playing with as a child was a medal of honour with its red, white and blue ribbon which was given to him for some daring service to the flag, I know not what. That medal and his good name was all that he left to me. I lost the medal before I knew what it stood for, and I have temporarily laid aside the name of Graham; but none the less is the memory of that bronze eagle-and-star an inspiration to me to a life work creditable to the name.

"When I enlisted I was really taking a large financial burden from my mother, and if, after my first term of enlistment was up, I was unthinking of her, it was because out of the blood of my fathers and my army experience had been born a life ambition which filled all my thoughts: the ambition to be a soldier. I was off my guard, for I had never thought of my mother as having a human frailty. When she came to place herself in my care I noticed, as I had not a month before, how far spent was her strength, and I was alarmed at the sudden change in her appearance. This change had come to her as it comes to many--with the moment of her surrender to the inevitable. Men and women may stand with determined and unshaken front against the assaults of weakness until it wins into the very citadel of their strength and possesses everything save the flag which flies at the tower-top. So with my mother: she had stood to her duty till there remained of her wonderful energies only her unshaken resolution, and when that flag was hauled down there was nothing left to surrender."

Everything in the man's tribute to his mother--sentiment and metaphor--appealed to Helen, and the tears came to her lashes.

"But she still has the strength to be vastly ambitious for her son, Miss Helen. Death itself will hardly weaken that. She talks to me of little beside the day when I shall be an officer in the army."

"You aspire to a commission, then?"

"Yes; and it is for that reason that I desire the President shall not know now that I am the man who carried him out of danger at Valencia. I know that naturally he will be grateful, and I wish to make no draft upon his gratitude till I ask for that commission. I expect much difficulty, and I wish to marshal at one moment every circumstance in my favour."

"As papa says, 'attack with horse, foot and guns,'" said Helen.

"Yes, that's the idea. I had hoped that by the end of a second term of enlistment my preparedness together with your father's friendliness and a growing liberality in public sentiment toward men of my race would win for me my heart's desire--a lieutenancy of cavalry."

"Your race will not count against you, Hayward," said Helen. "Papa has no such provincial notions as that. And I am sure he will not be ungrateful."

"I thank you for the assurance, Miss Helen. Your father is my ideal of a fearless and just man. I count more upon his fearlessness and fairness than upon his gratitude. But my heart is too keenly set on realizing this ambition for me to omit to enlist any favourable influence."

"But why are you a footman?" Helen repeated the question with which she had first addressed him.

"I was on my furlough, Miss Helen, when I took this place temporarily, fully intending to re-enlist when my time was up; but my mother's break-down just before that time compelled me to forego re-enlistment and to hold this position which pays a wage sufficient to support the two of us. A soldier's pay would not accomplish it, and my mother's condition would not permit me to leave her. However, I have not thought of foregoing my career as a soldier. I am studying every day to prepare myself for the duties of an officer. My Harvard training fortunately supplies me with all but the purely technical knowledge required, and makes it possible for me to acquire that without assistance. I will win yet, Miss Helen."

"A Harvard man _must_ win." Helen spoke with dogmatic faith.

"And _I_ must win,--not only a commission, but the 'well-done' which is a soldier's real recompense for a life-time's service. Not only my 'Harvard lineage,' as you once called it, but my grandfather's death, my father's life, my mother's toil and sacrifice, lay the compulsion of endeavour and success upon me. My mother is a hopeless invalid, but I pray she may live to read my lieutenant's commission. I have concealed from her the juggling with my name. I--"

"And why did you juggle with it?"

"Some pride in my patronymic and in that very Harvard lineage would not permit me to degrade either by becoming a footman as John Graham."

"And again, then: why are you a footman? You have not answered that question yet. Your purposes in life are admirable, your motives are--beautiful, your success will be brilliant I earnestly hope,--even more, I dare to prophesy; and I shall be proud to know when your name is famous, that I gave you your first flag;"--She laughed--"but why did you become a _footman_, Hayward?"

She pulled her horse up to wait for his answer. Hayward looked steadily in her eyes, which were regarding him with frank enquiry, until a quickness came to his pulses and a rashness into his heart, and by his gaze her eyes were beaten down and the colour brought to her cheek.

"Why?" Her voice had as much of appeal as of demand.

Hayward caught his breath quickly.

"You have read Ruy Blas, Miss Helen?"

"No," Helen answered. "What has that to do with it?"

Hayward had the same sensation as when in the Venezuelan campaign he had first keyed his nerves for battle at sound of the picket's shots only to have the danger pass. Then the releasing tension had been painful. Here it was grateful. He drew a breath of relief. He was very glad the girl had not read of _Ruy Blas_,--of the lackey who loved a queen.

"The place of footman was the only position open to me. I applied for another but failed to get it." He ignored the question and through this lie outright, told in words of perfect truth, he made a precipitate retreat. "The service was to be short, and it gave me an opportunity to see at close range something of the man upon whom my hopes so much depend," he added as an afterthought.

"And a closer view has not dampened your hope?" asked Helen.

"No, Miss Helen. Increased it, rather. Your father puts heart into a man. His broad sympathies and firm principles of justice inspire one to the highest and best that is in him. The lofty example of his courage and purity and effectiveness, personal and civic, is a living inspiration to the nation."

"For which the nation is indebted to your heroism," added Helen. "For myself and all the people I thank you."

If Hayward had been white he would have blushed. The personal turn Helen gave the matter left him with nothing to say. He sat his horse abashed.

A stray thought of her dignity flitted across Helen's mind. She drew herself up, touched her horse with the crop, and rode on. Hayward, at the command of her manner, stiffened into _attention_ as she drew away, and followed--at the proper distance.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

Helen inherited Bobby Scott when the real men came around.

Elise had brought Lola DeVale, Dorothy Scott and Caroline Whitney with her for a two-weeks stay at Hill-Top and they had planned for a breathing-spell in which they hoped to be rid of men and have a restful girlish good time. Bobby Scott, Dorothy's brother, had been asked to come because he was present when the thing was first proposed, and had accepted--much to Caroline's disappointment. But really he did not disturb their plans very much. Bobby was somewhat young, and entirely manageable: and, as said before, Helen inherited him when the real men came along.

And they came: Hazard, the moment Congress adjourned; Tom Radwine, every minute he was not asleep after he knew Caroline Whitney was there; Captain Howard, after three days' wait at Newport; and, for a day and a half, no less a personage than Senator Richland. The Senator had a heart to heart talk with President Phillips about a certain matter of politics, but he deceived no one, not even himself.

Bobby Scott felt his importance, for the reason that he and the Senator were entertained at Hill-Top. He felt that he was in a position of vantage and really ought to profit by it. But the ease and sang-froid with which Tom Radwine always relieved him of Caroline was not only exasperating but rather confusing to him. Why couldn't Tom look out for Dorothy? She was not his sister; and, beside, she was no end better looking than Caroline. Here came Tom now, straight past the other young women, to disturb his _tete-a-tete_ with Caroline.

"Come on, Mr. Scott," called Helen, "we'll go and have a ride."

Bobby pretended not to hear. Helen's assumption that he must vacate when Radwine appeared nettled him. He liked Helen in everything save that she would not take him seriously. He sat still, determined to hold his position against all comers.

"I've won in a walk," said Radwine to the young woman. "It's ten minutes yet to five o'clock--good afternoon, Mr. Scott--oh, I am all sorts of a winner."

Caroline's answer to Radwine was just as meaningless to Bobby, and in half a minute without the slightest discourtesy on the part of the others, he felt that he was a rank outsider.

"Are you coming, Mr. Scott?" Helen called to him again--and Bobby went.

"If you will excuse me?"--he asked Caroline's permission.

"Certainly, if you must go. Take good care of Helen. She is so young and venturesome."

This last speech in a measure placated Bobby's offended notions of dignity, and he and Helen went off toward the stables, where Hayward brought the horses out and put the saddles on while Bobby looked them over.

"That is a very handsome mount," he said to Helen, indicating Prince William. "He's a dead match for the horse of Lieutenant Lavine, of the Squadron."

"Beg pardon, sir," Hayward interrupted to ask, "what squadron?"

"Squadron A, New York," Bobby replied, and began to relate to Helen some incident of his experience as a trooper in that organization, and afterward to dispense general information as to horses and horsemanship. He would not have been so garrulous about these things perhaps but for the fact that his membership in Squadron A was a new toy from which the gilt had not been worn off. Hayward listened to him, first with interest and then with wonder. He did not know the young gentleman was a very new and very raw recruit in the Squadron's forces, and he came near dropping a saddle at some of Bobby's ebullitions of ignorance.

"This knee," said Bobby with a look of concern as he ran his hand down Prince William's fore-leg, "seems to be slightly swollen. You should be careful to guard against spavin. It is a serious--"

The negro laughed in his face before he could check himself.

"Well, what is it?" demanded Bobby.

"Beg pardon, sir,"--Hayward pulled his face into respectful shape--"spavin is a disease of the hock, not of the knee. The Prince struck that knee against a hub on the carriage this morning. No damage done, I think, sir.... They are ready, ma'am."

As Mr. Scott prepared to mount he noticed that Prince William's bridle had only one rein.

"Where is the snaffle-rein?" he asked Hayward.

"The curb rein was broken this morning, sir, and I haven't another yet. I changed that rein from the snaffle-rings to the curb."

"Change it back," Mr. Scott directed. "He will not trot with the curb."

"True, sir, he'll not; but the Prince has not been ridden in several days, and he'll be hard to hold. I think you'd better use the curb, sir."

No use to advise Mr. Scott. He had heard that your true cavalryman delights in a trot.

"Just change it, will you," he commanded.

The footman glanced at Helen before complying.

"Certainly," she said; "put the rein on the snaffle-rings, Hayward."

Hayward obeyed and they were off. He watched them out of sight, and remarked as he turned into the stable:

"What he doesn't know is something considerable."

* * * * *

"If all the flunkeys were as modest and respectful as they are timorous," Bobby said to Helen as they rode off, "the service would be greatly improved the world over. And if they were as full of courage as they are of conceit, bravery would be a drug on the market. I believe you said Hayward is your footman?"

"Yes," Helen answered.

"That explains it. These coachmen and footmen become so accustomed to carriage cushions that the saddle is an uncertain and rather fearsome seat for them. Their personal fears would not be out of the way if they would not impute them to men who can ride."

The sparkle of interest in Helen's eyes encouraged Mr. Scott to proceed.

"My observation has been that the under-classes do not ride well--or cannot ride at all. I think that riding is naturally and really the diversion of gentlemen, the _hoi polloi_ do not take to it."

It occurred to Helen that the _hoi polloi_ of Bobby's town of New York had not the money with which to "take to" saddle-horses, but she did not raise the point. Bobby continued to talk.

"I would not consider my education complete if I were not accustomed to the saddle. I think that many of our young fellows are not only careless of a most healthful and gentlemanly sport, but are recreant to duty as citizens, in not perfecting themselves in feats of arms and horsemanship. What is it that Kipling says in lamenting the degeneracy in sterner virtues of the gentry of Britain? Something like

"'And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your
iron pride
Ere--ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could
shoot and ride.'"

"Good for you, Mr. Scott. I did not imagine you were so seriously interested in Kipling as to memorize his lines. He is fine, though, isn't he?"

"Yes, that couplet impressed itself upon me without effort on my part. It appeals to me. I think it is a disgrace for a young man not to know how to shoot and ride. Alas, there are so many who do not. Little wonder that I am asked to put myself within the precautionary limitations of a timid flunkey."

Helen said nothing. She saw Mr. Scott was deeply offended because he had known so little about spavin. His dissertation on horsemanship caused her to note with some interest his manner of doing the thing. As they rode along, her mare in a slow canter and Prince William in a trot, the young man was giving a faithful exhibition of the method taught by "Old Stirrups," the Squadron's riding-master; but Helen could see that he was keenly conscious of every detail of the process, from the tilt of his toes to the crook of his left elbow.

Yet Mr. Scott was enjoying the ride--no doubt of that. Never had he had such an opportunity to parade his pet ideas and conceits, and never had he had such a respectful hearing. At last the younger Miss Phillips was taking him seriously. He plumed himself, and essayed a more elaborate panegyric on manly preparedness. Helen permitted him to do all the talking.

He was at some pains to instruct her in the art of riding. He advised her how to hold the reins, how to make her horse change from a canter to a trot then to a gallop, how to change the step-off in the gallop, and, all together, passed on to her about all he could remember of the information acquired from "Old Stirrups." It was imparted, however, after the manner of first hand knowledge born of large experience. He felt that he was living up to Caroline's admonition to look well after Helen, and was gratified that the young lady received his coaching with such beautiful humility and seriousness.

"This the best part of the Lake Drive," Helen suggested finally, "the mile from here to 'The Leap.' May we not let the horses go a little?"

"Why, certainly, if you wish," Mr. Scott consented. "Don't be nervous. Just keep the rein tight enough to feel her mouth firmly so she won't stumble, and let her go 'long."

Helen clucked to her mare and swung into a moderately fast gallop.... The exhilaration of it occupied her for a time, and then she noticed Mr. Scott was not altogether comfortable. The Prince was pulling against the bit in a stiff trot that was making a monkey of the young man's memorized method. Helen thought that the riding would be easier for him if Prince William would break into a gallop, and she pushed her mount to a faster pace in order to make the horse break over. Feeling perfectly at ease in her saddle, she unwittingly urged the mare faster and faster in kindly meant effort, till finally the increasing speed became so furious that she was a bit alarmed, and pulled in on her bridle-rein. Horror! the mare was beyond control!

The horses were about neck and neck, with Prince William a nose in the lead and going hard against the snaffle in a trot of such driving speed as the young Mr. Scott had never been taught to negotiate. He was pulling his arms stiff against the smooth bit, but that only steadied the Prince to his work. Helen gave a despairing pull with all her strength, but it did not affect the mare's seeming determination to overcome the Prince's lead. She called to her escort.

"Stop her! I can't hold her, Mr. Scott!"

Mr. Scott tried to reply, but his effort at speech resulted in a stutter which that merciless trot jolted from between his teeth.... He could not help her.... His own emergency was more than he could meet. His right foot had been shaken from its stirrup, and could not regain it. With his right hand he held in grim determination and desperation the cantle of the combative saddle which was treating him so roughly. No, no help from him.

Helen, riding in perfect comfort, though at a frightful pace, looked toward Mr. Scott to see why he gave no aid. She saw his predicament was worse than hers. He had no hand to offer her. He needed both of his, and more.... She remembered her footman and his lifting her from her falling horse,--and wished heartily for him in this crisis. She realized that she must save herself, and with that to reinforce and stiffen her resolution she again pitted her strength and will against those of the headstrong mare. Her heart sank when she thought how near they were coming to "The Leap," and she threw every ounce of will and muscle against the bit, and held it there.

At last, as if with a knowledge of the danger just ahead, the mare slowed down. But the madcap Prince William took a longer chance.

On a little promontory jutting out into the lake the roadway makes a sharp turn at a point some seven or eight feet above the water and almost overhanging it. Helen and her father had facetiously named it "Lover's Leap." Prince William knew as much about that turn as Helen's mare, but he disdained caution. He was a bold and close calculator,--for he made the turn by a hair's-breadth, at top speed.

Not so Mr. Scott. As the horse swung mightily to the left the rider's momentum pried him away from the saddle, and he took the water clear of all obstacles.... Helen, close behind him, but already relieved of fear for herself, felt her heart stop beating when the man went off his horse, for he missed a tree by a dangerously narrow margin. But he picked himself up unhurt out of two feet of water, and clambered up to the driveway, covered with humiliation and the friendly lake mud.

Helen had been too thoroughly frightened to laugh then, but she preserved in memory the picture of "Bobby's stunt," and many a time afterward laughed at it till the tears came. For many moons she could not think of Kipling or "flaunting an iron pride" without an insane impulse to giggle.

Prince William, having caused all the distress, afterward acted very nicely about it. He permitted himself to be caught, and carried Mr. Scott back to Hill-Top in the most manageable and equable of tempers. Mr. Scott himself, however, was in a temper entirely other. Inwardly he was choking with stifled oaths, for in Helen's presence he must needs be decent in speech. He began at once to berate Hayward, but realized before he had finished a sentence that he could not make out a case against him, and he saw disapproval in Helen's face. He gave it over as a situation to which no words were adequate, and the ride home was a strenuous essay at lofty silence.

Helen, despite her rising mirth and her contempt for Bobby's puerile desire to shift the blame for his mishap, had enough pity for him in his miserable plight to suggest that they make a detour and approach home from the rear side and avoid the eyes of the people assembled there. Bobby was grateful for the suggestion. It promised success. That Hayward should see him, he of course expected, and he rode up to the stable-door, dismounted and handed his bridle to the footman with an air of unconcern and assurance befitting a man at ease with himself and in good humour with the world. Hayward regarded him calmly from head to heel, but did not betray his flunkey's role by so much as the tremble of an eyelash. This made Mr. Scott angry. He had expected something different, and had prepared a very dignified reproof.

"Damn that insufferable negro. Why didn't he laugh outright?" he growled as he walked around the house. Helen had run away as soon as she had dismounted in order to save her fast toppling dignity. Mr. Scott's flanking movement was successful and he was almost safe when--he ran plump into Caroline and Tom Radwine on the side porch. Caroline's outburst brought the others to see what the fun was.

"Mis-ter Scott!" she exclaimed. "What kind of a stunt have you been doing? You look comical to kill. Oo--ooh!"

Bobby took on a sickly grin when Caroline's gaze first fell upon him; but when she called him comical it was a serious affair at once, and his face showed it. Dorothy rushed up at that moment.

"Oh, Robert, Robert!" she cried, putting her hand upon his shoulder, "what have you done? Tell me. Are you hurt? Have you been pulling Helen out of the lake?" A glance at Helen answered that question. "Well what, then, you precious boy?"

This was the first time that his older sister had ever complied with Bobby's insistent request that she call him Robert, and he somehow wished she hadn't.

"Oh, Dorothy, have some sense--let me go--I must have on some dry clothes. I took a tumble into the lake--yes--that's all."

"Next time you decide to do that, Mr. Scott, I'll be glad to loan you a bathing-suit." This from Tom Radwine made Bobby mad as a hornet.

"Took a tumble into the lake, you say, Mr. Scott?" asked President Phillips, pushing through the crowd. "How did that happen?"

"I was riding your horse, Prince William, sir, and he was on edge. He spilled me off the drive into the water at that sharp turn a couple of miles up. I had only a snaffle-rein and could not hold him."