Chapter VIII: Part 8

When they had ridden out of the porte-cochere I set off across the fields to keep my tryst with Hezekiah. The air had been washed sweet and clean by the rain of the night, and sky was never bluer. I was surprised at my own increasing detachment from the world. Nothing that had happened before the Asolando mattered greatly; my meeting with Miss Octavia Hollister had marked a climacteric from which all events must now be reckoned. I had embarked with high hope in a profession to which I had been drawn from youth, had failed utterly to find clients, and had therefore taken up the doctoring of flues, a vocation whose honors are few and dubious, and in which I felt it to be damning praise that I was called the best in America. My days at Hopefield were the happiest of my life. Few as they had been, they had changed my gray bleak course into a path bright with promise. The world had been too much with me, and I had escaped from it as completely as though I had stepped upon another planet "where all is possible and all unknown."

I reached the fallen tree that Hezekiah had appointed as our trysting-place a little ahead of time, and indulged in pleasant speculations while I waited. I was looking toward the hills expecting her to come skimming along the highway on her bicycle, when a splash caused me to turn to the lake. Dull of me not to have known that Hezekiah would contrive a new entrance for a scene so charmingly set as this! She had stolen upon me in a light skiff, and laughed to see how her silent approach startled me. She dropped one oar and used the other as a paddle, driving the boat with a sure hand through the reeds into the bank.

"'Tis morning and the days are long!"

Such was Hezekiah's greeting as she jumped ashore. She wore a dark green skirt and coat, and a narrow four-in-hand cravat tied under a flannel collar that clasped her throat snugly. A boy's felt hat, with the brim pinned up in front, covered her head.

"You seem none the worse for your wetting, Hezekiah. You must have been soaked."

"So must you, Chimneys, but you look as fit as I feel, and I never felt better. Did they catch you crawling in last night?"

"I did n't see a soul. You know I'm an old member of the family now. Nobody was ever as nice to me as your Aunt Octavia."

"How about Cecilia?"

"Having found her silver note-book and given it back to her before breakfast, I may say that our relations are altogether cordial."

"Are you in love with her--yet?" asked Hezekiah, carelessly, tossing a pebble into the lake. The "yet" was so timed that it splashed with the pebble.

"No; not--yet," I replied.

"It will come," said Hezekiah a little ruefully, casting a pebble farther upon the crinkled water.

"You mean, Hezekiah, that men always fall in love with your sister."

She nodded.

"Well, she's a good deal of a girl."

"Beautiful and no end cultivated. They all go crazy about her."

"You mean Hartley Wiggins and his fellow-bandits at the Prescott Arms."

"Yes; and lots of others."

"And sometimes, Hezekiah, it has seemed to you that she got all the admiration, and that you did n't get your share. So when her suitors began a siege of the castle whose gates were locked against you, you plugged the chimney with a trunk-tray, and played at being ghost and otherwise sought to terrify your sister's lovers."

"That's not nice, Chimneys. You mean that I'm jealous."

"No. I don't mean that you are jealous now: I throw it into the remote and irrevocable past. You were jealous. You don't care so much now. And I hope you will care less!"

"That is being impertinent. If you talk that way I shall call you Mr. Ames and go home!"

"You can't do that, Hezekiah."

"I should like to know why not? If you say I 'm jealous of Cecilia now, or that I ever was, I shall be very, very angry. For it's not true."

"No. You see things very differently now. You told me only last night that Cecilia might have Hartley Wiggins. Assuming that she wants him! And you and he have been good friends, have n't you? You had good times on the other side. And while Cecilia was in town assisting Providence in finding your aunt a cook, you went walking with him."

"I did, I did!" mocked Hezekiah. "And why do you suppose I did?"

"Because Wiggy's the best of fellows; a solid, substantial citizen, who raises wheat to make bread out of."

"And angel food and ginger cookies," added Hezekiah, feeling absently in the pockets of her coat. "No, Chimneys, you 're a nice boy and you don't yell like a wild man when a feather-duster hits you in the dark; but there are some things you don't know yet."

"I am here to grow wise at the feet of Hezekiah, Daughter of Kings. Open the book of wisdom and teach me the alphabet, but don't be sad if I balk at the grammar."

"I never knew all the alphabet myself," said Hezekiah dolefully; then she laughed abruptly. "I was bounced from two convents and no end of Hudson River and Fifth Avenue education shops."

"The brutality of that, Hezekiah, wrings my heart! Yet you are the best teacher I ever had, and I thought I was educated when I met you. But I had only been to school, which is different. Not until the first time our eyes met, not until that supreme moment"--

"Mr. Ames," Hezekiah interrupted, in the happiest possible imitation of Miss Octavia's manner, "if you think that, because I am a poor lone girl who knows nothing of the great, wide world, I am a fair mark for your cajolery, I assure you that you were never more mistaken in your life!"

"You ought n't to mimic your aunt. It is n't respectful; and besides you have something to tell me. What's all this rumpus about Cecilia's silver memorandum-book? Suppose we discuss that and get through with it."

We were sitting on the fallen tree, which lay partly in the lake, and Hezekiah leaned over and broke off a number of reeds from the thicket at the water's edge. Out of her pocket she drew a small penknife and trimmed them uniformly.

"You see," she began, biting her lip in the earnestness of her labor, "I'm going to tell you something, and yet I 'm not going to tell you. So far as you and I have gone you 've been tolerably satisfactory. If I did n't think you had some wits in your head I should n't have bothered with you at all. That's frank, is n't it?"

"It certainly is. But I'm terribly fussed for fear I may not be equal to this new ordeal."

"If you fail we shall never meet again; that's all there is to that. Now listen real hard. You know something about it already, but not the main point. Aunt Octavia got father to consent to let her marry us off--Cecilia and me. Cecilia, being older, came first. I was to keep out of the way, and father and I were not to come to Aunt Octavia's new house up there or meddle in any way. While we were abroad I was treated as a little girl, and not as a grown-up at all. But you see I 'm really nineteen, and some of Cecilia's suitors were nice to me when we were traveling. They were nice to me on Cecilia's account, you know."

"Of course. You're so hard to look at, it must have been painful to them to be nice to you,--almost like taking poison! Go on, Hezekiah!"

"You need n't interrupt me like that. Well, as part of the understanding, and Cecilia agreed to it,--she thought she had to for papa's sake,--she was to marry a particular man. Do you understand me, a particular man? Aunt Octavia gave her the little note-book--she bought it at a shop in Paris at the time Cecilia consented to the plan--and she was to keep a sort of diary, so that she'd know when the right man turned up. Now we will drop the note-book for a minute; only I'll say that Cecilia was to keep the book all to herself and not show it to any one, not even to Aunt Octavia, you know, until the right man had asked Cecilia to marry him. Now who do you suppose, Mr. Ames, that man is?"

I watched her hands as they deftly cut and fashioned the dry reeds. The air grew warm as the sun climbed to the zenith, and Hezekiah flung aside her coat. The breeze caught the ends of her tie and snapped them behind her. She was wholly absorbed in her task, and no boy could have managed a pocket-knife better. The first reed she made a trifle longer than her hand; the succeeding ones she trimmed to graduated lessening lengths, till seven in all had been cut, and then she notched them.

"Seven," she murmured, laying them neatly in order on her knee. "I remember the right number by a poem I read the other day in an old magazine."

She reached down and plucked several long leaves of tough grass with which she began to bind the reeds together, repeating,--

"Seven gold reeds grew tall and slim,
Close by the river's beaded brim.

"Syrnix the naiad flitted past:
Pan, the goat-hoofed, followed fast.

"It will be easier," said Hezekiah, "if you hold the pipes while I tie them."

I found this propinquity wholly agreeable. It was pleasant to sit on a log beside Hezekiah. It seemed no far cry to the storied Mediterranean and Pan and dryads and naiads, as Hezekiah bound her reeds to the music of couplets. There was no self-consciousness in her recitation; she seemed to be telling me of something that she had seen herself an hour ago.

"He spread his arms to clasp her there
Just as she vanished into air.

"And to his bosom warm and rough
Drew the gold reeds close enough.

"I don't remember the rest," she broke off. "But there! That's a pipe fit for any shepherd."

She put it to her lips and blew. I shall not pretend that the result was melodious: she whistled much better without the reeds; but the sight of her, sitting on the fallen tree beside the lake, beating time with her foot, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed in a mockery of rapture at the shrill, wheezy uncertainties and ineptitudes she evoked, thrilled me with new and wonderful longings. A heart, a spirit like hers would never grow old! She was next of kin to all the elusive, fugitive company of the elf-world. And on such a pipe as she had strung together beside that pond, to this day Sicilian shepherd boys whistle themselves into tune with Theocritus!

"Take it," she said; "I can't tell you more than I have; and yet it is all there, Chimneys. Read the riddle of the reeds if you can."

I took the pipe and turned it over carefully in my hands; but I fear my thoughts were rather of the hands that had fashioned it, the fingers that had danced nimbly upon the stops.

"There are seven reeds,--seven," she affirmed.

She amused herself by skipping pebbles over the surface of the water while I pondered. And I deliberated long, for one did not like to blunder before Hezekiah! Then I jumped up and called to her.

"One, two, three, four, five, six--seven! Not until the seventh man offers himself shall Cecilia have a husband! Is that the answer?"

For a moment Hezekiah watched the widening ripples made by the casting of her last pebble; then she came back and resumed her seat.

"You have done well, Chimney Man; and now I 'll not make you guess any more, though I found it all out for myself. When Aunt Octavia gave that memorandum-book to Cecilia, I knew it must have something to do with the seventh man. You know I love all Aunt Octavia's nonsense because it's the kind of foolishness I like myself, and the idea of a pretty little note-book to write down proposals in was precisely the sort of thing that would have occurred to my aunt. And it was in the bargain, too, that she herself should not in any way interfere, or try to influence the course of events: it should be the seventh suitor, willy-nilly. And I suspect she's been a little scared too."

"She has indeed! She was almost ready to throw the whole scheme over last night. Your naughtiness had got on her nerves."

"You missed the target that time: Aunt Octavia loves my naughtiness, and I think she has really been afraid Sir Pumpkin Wiggins would catch me. Now I did n't roam my aunt's house just for fun. I was doing my best to keep Cecilia from getting into some scrape about that seventh-suitor plan. I found out by chance how to get into Hopefield, and about the hidden stairway and the old rooms tucked away there. Papa really discovered that. A carpenter in Katonah who worked on the house helped to build papa's bungalow, and he told us how that ruin came to be there. That dyspepsia-cure man, who also immortalized himself by inventing the ribless umbrella, was very superstitious. He believed that if he built an entirely new house he would die. So he had his architect build around and retain those two rooms and that stairway of a house that had been on the ground almost since the Revolution. Mr. Pepperton, the architect, humored him, but hid the remains of the relic as far out of sight as possible."

"Trust Pep for that! And he did it neatly!"

"Yes; but it did n't save the umbrella-man; he died anyhow; or maybe his pies killed him. Papa was so curious about it that he took me with him one night just before Aunt Octavia moved here, and he and I found the rooms and the stair and the secret spring by which, if you know just where to poke the wall in the fourth-floor hall, you can disappear as mysteriously as you please."

"But how on earth did you darken the halls so easily? You nearly gave me heart-disease doing that!"

"Oh, that was a mere matter of a young lady in haste! When I found how easily I could pass you on the stair it became a fascinating game, and it was no end of fun to see just how long it would take you to catch me."

"I wish, Hezekiah, that you would stay caught!"

"Be very, very careful, sir! We're talking business now. There's another ordeal for you before you dare become sentimental."

"Then hasten; let us be after it."

"Things are in a serious predicament, I can tell you. I was frightened when I looked into that note-book,--I did n't like to do that, but I had to assist Providence a little. Five men have already got their quietus."

"Then why don't they clear out, and stop their nonsense?"

"Oh, it's their pride, I suppose; and every man probably thinks that when Cecilia has seen a little more of him in particular, in contrast with the others, he will win her favor. They 're afraid of one another, those men; that's the reason they've been herding together so close since that first day you came. Mr. Wiggins was taking it for granted that he was the whole thing--just like the man!--and those others forced him to join in some sort of arrangement by which they were to hang together. These calls in a bunch came from that, as though any one of them would n't take advantage of the others if he saw a chance! Some of this I got from Wiggy himself, the rest I just guessed."

"But you may not know that they sent a delegation after me into town, to warn me off the grass."

"That was Mr. Dick. He never saw me when Cecilia was around. And he was terribly snippy sometimes, and supercilious; but I'm going to get even with him. I've about underlined him for number six," she concluded, with the manner of a queen who, about to give her chief executioner his orders for the day, glances calmly over the list of victims.

"That's a good idea; Dick is insufferable; I hope you have n't counted wrong."

"As we were saying, about the note-book," she resumed, "the fifth man has already been respectfully declined. The dates of the proposals are written in the note-book; so I learned from the book that Mr. Ormsby, Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gorse had proposed on the steamer. Professor Hume, as you know, tried his luck at Hopefield; and Lord Arrowood must have stopped Cecilia as she was riding to the station on my bicycle yesterday morning. His goose is cooked."

"His gooseberry pie was cooked, but I took it away from him. No pie sacred to Hezekiah can be confiscated by an indigent lord so long as I keep my present health and spirits. It's the close season for lords in Westchester County; I potted the last one. By the way, he thought you were a real ghost when you were playing tag with him in the dark."

"He stopped to tell papa good-bye and spoke very highly of you; papa and you are the only gentlemen he met in America. But now we come to Mr. Wiggins."

"We do; and why in the name of all that is beautiful and good has n't he tried his luck?"

"Because, knowing Cecilia's admiration for him," replied Hezekiah demurely, "I have kept him so diverted that he has n't been able to bring himself to the scratch."

She examined the palm of her hand critically to allow me time to grasp this.

"You did n't want him to blunder in as the first, fourth, or sixth man?"

Hezekiah gravely nodded her pretty head.

"And while you were engaged in this sisterly labor, Cecilia has been afraid that you were seriously interested in him!"

"That is like Cecilia. She's fine, and would n't cause me trouble for anything;" and there was no doubt of Hezekiah's sincerity.

"But now that I see the light and understand all this, how can we make sure that Wiggy will be on the spot at the right moment? While we sit here, he may be the sixth man! There's my friend, the eminent thinker from Nebraska; he's likely to kneel before Cecilia at any moment, and Henderson and Shallenberger are not asleep."

"That's all true; and you've got to fix it."

"You're leaving the fate of Wiggins and your sister in my hands? That's a heavy responsibility, Hezekiah. I might take care of Wiggy by asking Cecilia to marry me, being careful to have him appear johnny-on-the-spot when I had been duly declined."

"Um, I should n't take any chances if I were you," she replied, feigning to look at an imaginary bird in a tree-top; "for if you had counted wrong and were really the seventh man, she would have to accept you!"

"Hezekiah!"

"Oh, I really did n't mean what you thought I meant. We don't need to discuss it any more. That's the ordeal I've arranged for you," she answered, and set her lips sternly.

"But, my dear Hezekiah, by what means can this be effected? I don't dare tell him the combination he's playing against or sit on him until his hour strikes."

"Certainly not; you must n't tell him or anybody else. You know the plan; but you're not supposed to; and nobody must know I've meddled. Meanwhile, Cecilia must expose herself to proposals at all times. Aunt Octavia's heart would be broken if she thought Providence had been tampered with. She likes Wiggy well enough, except that his ancestors were all Tories and he can't be a son of the Revolution."

"Too bad; it was very careless of him not to do better about his ancestors; but he can't change that now."

"Well, you've behaved with considerable intelligence so far, and now with your friend's fate in your hands you will need to use great judgment and tact in all that follows. I wash my hands of the whole business."

She rose quickly and pointed to her coat.

"Drop it into the boat for me, Chimneys. We meet in funny places, don't we? Papa expects me for luncheon, and I must row back and get my bicycle. You? No, you can't go along; you've got a lot of thinking to do, and you'd better be doing it."

XVIII

TROUBLE AT THE PRESCOTT ARMS

A few minutes later, as I swung along the highway toward the Prescott Arms, I saw Cecilia Hollister riding toward me at a lively gallop. She crossed the bridge without checking her horse, and then, with a hurried glance over her shoulder, she pointed with her crop to a by-way that led deviously into a strip of forest and vanished.

I hurried after her, and found her waiting for me in a quiet lane. She had dismounted and seemed greatly disturbed as I addressed her. Her horse, a superb Estabrook thoroughbred, had evidently been pushed hard. Cecilia had taken off her hat, and was giving a touch to the wayward strands of hair that had been shaken loose in her flight. The color glowed in her dark cheeks, and her eyes were bright with excitement.

"I hadn't expected to meet you; I thought you rode off with your aunt toward Mt. Kisco."

"We did; but on our way home Aunt Octavia stopped to call on a friend, and as I did n't feel in a mood for visits this morning I rode on alone."

She spoke further of her aunt's friend, of whom I had never heard before, to calm herself before touching upon the cause of her wild ride or her wish to speak to me. She pinned on her hat and drew on her riding-gloves while I helped to make conversation, and soon regained her composure. The haste with which she had withdrawn into the wood, and the imperative wave of her crop by which she had bidden me follow her, indicated that something of importance had happened and that she wished to confide in me.

"I was walking my horse in the road beyond Bedford, just after I left Aunt Octavia, when who should ride up beside me but Mr. Wiggins. He had evidently been following me."

She expected me to express surprise; and with the information that Hezekiah had just imparted fresh in my mind I dare say she was not disappointed in the effect of her words. I was thinking rapidly and fearfully. If my friend had sought her in the highway and offered himself in some fresh accession of ardor, he might even now be a rejected and hopeless man; but I was unwilling to believe that this had happened.

"Hartley is fond of riding, and nothing could be more natural than for him to have his horse sent out from town."

"Oh, it's natural enough," she cried; "but I was greatly taken aback when he rode up beside me."

"An old friend joining you in the highway, on a bright October morning! I can't for the life of me see anything surprising or alarming in that, Miss Hollister."

"But only yesterday, you remember I told you I had seen him walking with my sister."

"It's perfectly easy to talk to Hezekiah! It seems to me that that only shows a friendly attitude toward all the family. Let us deal with facts if I am to help you. I understand perfectly that Hartley Wiggins wishes to marry you; and that being the case I see no reason why he should n't be courteous to your sister. I 've always heard that it's the proper thing to be polite to the sisters, cousins, and aunts of one's prospective wife. I know of no more delightful occupation than listening to Hezekiah. Just now, for an hour or so, I have been enjoying her conversation myself. Nothing could be more refreshing or stimulating. She is an unusual young woman, and most amazingly wise."

"You have seen Hezekiah this morning!" she exclaimed.

"I have indeed. I hope I may say that she and I are becoming good friends. I am learning to understand her; though, believe me, I don't speak boastingly. However, this morning we got on famously together. But won't you continue and tell me what happened in the road when Hartley rode up beside you?"

"Oh, nothing happened; really nothing! Nothing could have happened, for the excellent reason that I ran away from him. It was n't what he did or said; it was the fear of what he might say!"

"If it had been Mr. Dick who had joined you in exactly the same way in the highway, you would not have minded in the least, Miss Hollister. Is n't that the truth?"

Her hand that had rested on the pommel of her saddle dropped to her side, and she stood erect, her eyes wide with wonder.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"I mean exactly what I have said; that if it had been that strutting young philosopher from the West you would--well, you would have allowed him to say what was in his mind, no matter whether it had been his latest thought on Kantianism, the weather, or his admiration for yourself. Am I not right?"

"I wonder, I wonder"--she faltered, drawing away, the better to observe me.

"You wonder how much I know! To relieve your mind without parleying further, I will say to you that I know everything."

"Then Aunt Octavia must have told you; and that seems incredible. It was distinctly understood"--

"Your aunt told me nothing. Not by words did any one tell me."

"Not by words?" she asked, eyeing me wonderingly and clearly fearing that I might be playing some trick upon her. "Then can it be that Hezekiah--but no! Hezekiah does n't know!"

"Trust Hezekiah for not telling secrets," I answered evasively. "Give me credit for some imagination. The air of Hopefield is stimulating, and in the few days I have spent in your aunt's house I have learned much that I never dreamed of before. I am not at all the person you greeted with so much courtesy in the library when I arrived there, a chimney-doctor and an ignorant person, a few afternoons ago,--called, as I thought, to prescribe for flues that proved to be in admirable condition, but really summoned by higher powers to assist the fates in the proper and orderly performance of their duties to several members of the house of Hollister,--yourself among them."

"I don't understand it; you are wholly inexplicable."

"I am the simplest and least guileful of beings, I assure you. Yet I have done some things here not in the slightest way related to chimney doctoring; and something else I expect to do for which I believe you will thank me through all the years of your life."

"Ah, if you really know, that is possible!" she sighed wearily. "I am very tired of it all. I was very foolish ever to have agreed to Aunt Octavia's plan. You have seen those men,--any one of them might, you know"-- And she shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

"Any one of them might be the seventh man! There, you see I do know! And I mean to help you!"

She was immensely relieved; there was no question of that. Gratitude shone in her eyes; and then, as I marvelled at their beautiful dark depths, fear suddenly possessed them. The change in her was startling. Several motors had swept by in the outer road while we talked; they were faintly visible through the trees; and just now we both heard a horse and caught a fleeting glimpse of Hartley Wiggins, riding slowly with bowed head toward the inn. Cecilia's horse flung up his head, but she clapped her hands upon his nostrils and held them there to prevent his whinnying until that figure of despair had passed out of hearing.

I was smitten with sorrow for Hartley Wiggins. I could put myself in his place and imagine his feelings as he rode like a defeated general back to the inn, there to face the other suitors after the humiliating experience which Cecilia Hollister had just described. In his ignorance of the cause of her eagerness to escape from him, he no doubt believed that he had all unconsciously made himself intolerable to her. It was plain that that glimpse of him had touched Cecilia's pity; if I had doubted the sincerity of her regard for him before, I spurned the thought now. I was anxious to requicken hope in her,--an odd office for me to assume when in my own affairs I had always yielded my sword readily to the blue devils! Yet during my short stay at Hopefield I had already found it possible to restore Miss Octavia's confidence in her own chosen destiny, and in this delicate love-affair between Cecilia Hollister and my best friend I proffered counsel and sympathy with an assurance that astonished me.

"I have told you enough, Miss Hollister, to make it clear that I am in a position to help you. Believe me, I have no other business before me but to complete the service I have undertaken."

"But there is always"--she began, then ceased abruptly, and lifted her head proudly--"there is always Mr. Wiggins's attitude toward my sister. Not for anything in the world would I cause her the slightest unhappiness. You must see that, now that you know her."

I laughed aloud. Cecilia's concern for Hezekiah's happiness was so absurd that I could not restrain my mirth for a moment. Displeasure showed promptly in Cecilia's face.

"I am sorry if you doubt my sincerity, Mr. Ames. I will put the matter directly, to make sure I have not been misunderstood heretofore, and say that if Hezekiah is interested in Hartley Wiggins and cares for him in the least,--you know she is young and susceptible,--I shall take care that he never sees me again."

"Pardon me, but maybe you don't quite understand Hezekiah!"

"Is it possible, then, that you do?" she inquired coldly. "I imagine your opportunities for seeing her have not been numerous."

"Well, it is n't so much a matter of seeing her, when you've read of her all your life and dreamed about her. She's in every fairy story that ever was written; she dances through the mythologies of all races. Hers is the kingdom of the pure in heart. Her mind is like a beautiful bright meadow by the sea, and her thoughts the dipping of swallow-wings on lightly swaying grasses."

Cecilia's manner changed, and she smiled.

"You seem to have an attack of something; it looks serious. You have n't known her long enough to find out so much!"

"Longer than you would believe. She and I sat on the shore together when Ulysses sailed by; we were among those present at the sack of Troy; we heard Roland's ivory trumpet at Roncesvalles."

"Such words from you amaze me. I didn't imagine there was so much romance in chimneys."

"They are full of it! Commend me to an open fire, with a flue that knows its business, and a dream or two! I 've renounced my profession. I shall hereafter offer myself as adviser to persons in need of illusions; we 'd all be poets if we dared!"

I helped her into the saddle, and she looked down at me with amusement in her eyes. My praise of Hezekiah had pleased her, and I felt, as when we journeyed together into town, her kindly, human qualities. The perplexities and embarrassments resulting from her compact with her aunt had doubtless checked the natural flow of her spirits. She talked on buoyantly, though I was eager to be off, to avert the catastrophe that only her flight had prevented and which Wiggins might at any moment precipitate. She gathered up her reins.

"You are not coming home for luncheon? Then I shall see you at four. I hope the hiding-place of the ghost will prove interesting. Aunt Octavia has built her hopes high, and I may add that she has expressed the greatest admiration of you to me. On her ride this morning she declared that great things are in store for you. I hope so, too, Mr. Ames."

She gave me her hand and rode away, and before I had reached the highway she was across the bridge and galloping rapidly homeward.

The inn was a mile distant, and I set off at a brisk pace, turning over in my mind various projects for controlling the characters now upon the stage in such manner that Wiggins should become the seventh man. Cecilia could not always run away from him without violating the terms of her aunt's stipulation; and it was unlikely that she would attempt further to guide or thwart the pointing finger of fate. I relied little upon any arrangement effected among the suitors to stand together. Hume had already found a chance to speak. Lord Arrowood had bitten the dust and turned his face homeward, and Wiggins had been near the brink only that morning. It was unlikely that any of the active candidates remaining would stumble upon the key to the situation, which Hezekiah had given into my keeping.

It was well on toward two o'clock when I approached the inn. Before long the suitors would depart for their afternoon call at the Manor, which was an established event of the day. Just as I was about to enter the gate I was arrested by an imperious voice calling, and John Stewart Dick came running toward me. He had evidently been expecting me, and I paused, thinking him about to renew his attack upon me. To my surprise he greeted me cordially, even offering his hand.

"You thought you would come after all. Well, I'm glad you did. I've decided that there should be peace between us."

In stature he was the shortest of the suitors, but what he lacked in height was compensated for by a tremendous dignity. A dark Napoleonic lock lay across his forehead, and his clear-cut profile otherwise suggested the Corsican, the resemblance being, I wickedly assumed, one that the philosopher encouraged.

"You have several times addressed me, Mr. Ames, in a spirit of contumely which I have hesitated to punish by the chastisement you deserve; but I am willing to let bygones be bygones."

His changed tone put me on guard, but it was impossible for me to take him seriously. In spite of the fact that he was a vigorous muscular young fellow who could have threshed me without trouble, I could not resist the impulse he always roused in me to address him in language any self-respecting man would resent.

"Chant the _dies irae_ with considerable _allegro_, Plato, for I am hungry and would fain pay for food at the adjacent inn."

"I will overlook the coarseness of your humor," he rejoined haughtily. "My own time is as valuable as yours. You have sneered at my attainments as a philosopher; but I will pass that for the present. I am disposed to treat you magnanimously. You have an excellent opinion of yourself; you have come here as an intruder upon the rights of those of us who followed Cecilia Hollister across Europe and home to America; but in spite of this I waive my rights in your favor. I had intended to offer myself to Miss Hollister this afternoon, with every hope of success, but I yield to you. My only request is that you inform me at once when you have learned her decision."

He clapped on his cap and folded his arms, clearly satisfied with the expressions of surprise to which my feelings betrayed me. Could it be possible that he had guessed the truth, perhaps by deductive processes of which I was ignorant? Whether he had reasoned from some remark thrown out by Miss Octavia as to the influence of seven in the affairs of life and her application of that fateful principle to the choice of a husband for Cecilia, I could not guess, but assuming that he had caught that clue, he might readily enough have managed the rest. Having crossed on the steamer with the suitor host, a man of his intelligence might readily enough have kept track of the vanquished. In any case he had hit upon me as a likely victim, and on the plea of generously waiting till I had tried my luck he hoped to thrust me forward as the sixth suitor, and immediately thereafter project himself as the inevitable seventh man. The whole situation was rendered perilously complex by the knowledge that, unaided, he had possessed himself of so much dangerous information. I must not, however, allow him to see what I suspected.

"My dear professor, there's an ancient warning against the Greeks bearing gifts. You must give me time to inspect the horse."

"Are you questioning my good faith?"

"Be it far from me! I'm a good deal tickled though by your genial assumption that if I offered myself to this lady I should be declined with thanks. You have fretted yourself into a state of mind that bodes ill for American philosophy."

He was again belligerent. It may have occurred to him that I might know as much as he, but at any rate he grinned; it was a saturnine grin I did not like.

"I'm starving to death at the door of an inn, and you must excuse me. Have you seen Hartley Wiggins lately?"

"I have, indeed! He's taken to lonely horseback rides; he's off somewhere now. He has n't the stamina for a contest like this. One by one the autumn leaves are falling," he added, with special intention, "and I have given you your chance."

"Thanks, light-bringing Socrates from the lands of the Ogalallas! For so much courtesy I shall take pleasure in reading all your posthumous works. Let us cease being absurd."

He laid his hand on my arm and lowered his tone.

"Don't be an ass. If you and I both know what's underneath all this mystery we might come to an understanding."

"I don't follow you. Please make a light, like a man about to have an idea."

"You mean that you don't understand?" He eyed me doubtfully, uncertain whether I knew or not.

"You have implied that I am incapable of understanding; suppose we let it go at that."

With this I left him and entered the low-raftered office--it was really a pleasant lounging-room, unspoiled by the usual hotel-office paraphernalia. Dick had followed close behind, and as I paused, hearing voices raised angrily in the dining-room beyond, I turned to him for an explanation. As the suitors had been the only guests of the inn since their advent, having stipulated that the proprietor should exclude other applicants for meals or lodging, I attributed the commotion to strife in their own ranks. Dick nodded sullenly and bade me keep on.

"You 'd better take a look at those fellows. I 've quit them--quite out of it; remember that."

The dining-room door was slightly ajar, and I flung it open.

Ormsby, Shallenberger, Henderson, Hume, Gorse, and Arbuthnot had been engaged with cards at a round table in an alcove, but some dispute having apparently risen, they stood in their places engaged in acrimonious debate. As near as I could determine, some one of them--I think it was Ormsby--wished to abandon the game, which had been undertaken to determine in what order they should be permitted to pay visits to Hopefield in future, the calls _en masse_ having grown intolerable. They were so absorbed in their argument that they failed to note my appearance, and I stood unobserved within the door. The dialogue between the card-players was swift and hot.

"It's no good, I tell you!" cried Ormsby. "There's no fairness in this unless all take their chances together!"

"You ought to have thought of that before we began. This was your scheme, but because the cards are running against you, you want to quit. I say we'll go on!" This from Henderson, who struck the table sharply as he concluded.

"You knew Wiggins and Dick were n't going in when we started, and you are not likely to get them in now. Your anxiety to cut the rest of us out by any means seems to have unsettled your mind," shouted Gorse. "I say let's drop this and stand to our original agreement that no man speak till the end of the fortnight."

"After that whole scheme has been torn to pieces like paper! There's been nothing fair in this business from the start! We ought to have kept Arrowood here and held together. And we ought to have got rid of that Ames fellow--he did n't belong in this at all; and instead of protecting ourselves against outsiders we have sat here like a lot of fools while he's been making himself agreeable there in the house--right there in the house!"

Ormsby's voice rose to a disagreeable squeak as he closed with this indictment of me. Hume fidgeted uneasily, and met my eye so warily that I wondered whether he suspected that I knew of his breach of faith with the other suitors. Much dallying with Scandinavian literature had not lightened his heart, and there was nothing in Ibsen to which he could refer his present plight. Shallenberger seemed to be the only one of the group who had not lost his senses. He was in the farther corner of the alcove, out of sight from the door, but I heard him distinctly as he addressed the other suitors with rising anger.

"We're acting like cads, and cads of the most contemptible sort! I only agreed to this game to satisfy Ormsby. The idea of our sitting here to draw cards to determine the order in which we shall offer ourselves to the noblest and most beautiful woman in the world would be coarse and vulgar if it were not so ridiculous! The men who had their chance on the steamer or after we came here--and I don't pretend to know who they are--ought in decency to have left the field. We seem to have forgotten that we pretend to be gentlemen; or, far less pardonable, that we pay court to a lady. Damn you all! I refuse to have anything more to do with you, and if you try to interfere with my affairs in any way I'll smash your heads collectively or separately as you prefer!"

My interest in this colloquy had led me further into the room, and hearing my step they all turned and faced me. Dick had continued at my side, but the black looks they sent our way were intended, I thought, rather for me. Shallenberger, having taken himself out of the tangle, leaned against the wall and filled his pipe with unconcern. My appearance roused Ormsby to a fresh outburst.

"You're responsible! If you had n't forced yourself upon the ladies at Hopefield there would n't have been any of this trouble!"

"You're only an impostor anyhow. You went to the house to fix a chimney, and seem to think you 're engaged to spend the rest of your natural life there!" protested Henderson, twisting the ends of his moustache.

Then they dropped me and assailed Dick.

"We'd like to know what you expect to gain by dropping out! You got cold feet mighty sudden!" bellowed Ormsby.

Gorse and Henderson paid similar tributes to the apostate, whose melancholy grin only deepened. Shallenberger was pacing the floor slowly and puffing his pipe. Hume and Arbuthnot growled occasionally, but shared, I thought, Shallenberger's changed feeling.

My silence had been effective up to this time, but I was afraid to risk it longer. Dick, I imagined, had kept close to me for fear of missing any part of the altercation he knew my appearance would provoke. The more vociferous suitors had howled themselves hoarse and glared at me while I considered the situation. Henderson rallied for a final shot.

"A good horsewhipping is what you deserve," he cried, leveling his finger at me.

"Gentlemen," I began, not without inward quaking, "you have spoken loud naughty words to me, and in reply I must say that your vocal efforts suggest only the melodies of the braying jackass, and that your manners, to speak mildly, are susceptible of considerable improvement."

"You leave this neighborhood within an hour!" boomed Ormsby; and in his efforts to free himself from his chair it fell backward with a crash that echoed through the long room.

"Then summon the coroner by telephone, for I shall not be taken alive," I answered quietly, trying to recall my youthful delight in Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. "I should dislike to change the mild color-scheme of this pleasant dining-room, but as sure as you lay hands on me, these walls will become a playground for any corpuscles you carry in your loathsome persons."

"Come along, let us put him out," Henderson was saying in an aside to Ormsby.

"You were playing a game here for a stake not yours for the winning," I continued. "Now I suggest that you shuffle the pack,--you three, who are so full of valor,--shuffle the pack, I say, and draw for the jack of clubs. Whoever is the fortunate man I shall take pleasure in pitching through yonder very charming casement."

"Agreed!" cried Henderson, and the three flung themselves into their chairs.

The alacrity of their consent had unnerved me for a moment. D'Artagnan, I was sure, would have fought them all, but I consoled myself, as the cards rattled on the bare table, with the reflection that, considering the fact that I had never in my life laid violent hands on a fellow-being, I was conducting myself with admirable assurance. My weight has always hung well within one hundred and thirty, and physicians have told me that I was incapable of taking on flesh or muscle. Any one of these men could easily toss me through the window I had indicated as a means of their own exit.

Shallenberger caught my eye and indicated with a slight jerk of the head that I had better run before it was too late. The painstaking care with which Henderson had fallen upon the cards was disquieting, to put it mildly. Dick nudged me in the ribs and offered to hold my coat.

"It will not be necessary," I replied carelessly. "Tender your services to the other gentlemen."

I felt the cold sweat gathering on my brow. The three had begun to draw cards, and I heard them slap the bits of pasteboard smartly upon the table as they lifted them from the deck and, finding the jack of clubs still undrawn, waited the next turn. I had no idea that a pack of cards would dissolve so readily by the drawing process, and my memory ceased trying to recall the adventures of D'Artagnan and hovered with ominous persistence about the mad don of La Mancha. I cannot say now whether I stood my ground out of sheer physical inability to run or from an accession of courage due to the remembrance of my success in detecting the Hopefield ghost. In any case I affected coolness as I waited, even throwing out my arms to "shoot" my cuffs once or twice, and yawning.

"Come, gentlemen, hurry: let us not waste time here," I exclaimed impatiently.

"If Ormsby turns up the card you're a dead man," Dick was muttering gloomily.

"They're all alike to me," I replied loudly. "Mr. Ormsby is very beautiful; I shall hope not to disfigure him permanently;" but as I spoke my tongue was a wobbly dry clapper in my mouth.

I was bending over now, watching the three men pick up the cards, and once, when I misread the jack of spades for the jack of clubs, a shudder passed over me. They were down to the last card, and Ormsby's hand was on it. I recall that a group of steins on a shelf over Henderson's head seemed to be dancing wildly. Then I looked at the floor to steady myself, and hope leaped within me, for there, by Ormsby's foot,--a large and heavy one,--lay an upturned card, the jack of clubs, whose lone symbol magnified itself enormously in my amazed eyes.

At this moment, I became conscious that something had occurred to distract the attention of the other men, who were staring at some one who had entered noiselessly.

"Gentlemen, you seem immensely interested in the turn of those cards. I am glad to have arrived at the critical moment. Mr. Ormsby, will you kindly lift the remaining card from the table?"

Miss Octavia stood beside me. She was dressed in a dark brown riding-habit; the feather in her fedora hat emphasized her usual brisk air. She swung her riding-crop lightly in her hand, and bent over the table with the deepest interest.

Ormsby turned up the card. It was the ten of diamonds.

"Gentlemen," I cried, pointing to the card, "what trick is this? Can it be possible that you have been trifling with me in a fashion for which men have died the world over by sword and pistol!"

"Kindly explain, Arnold, the nature of this difficulty," Miss Octavia commanded.

"Simply this, Miss Hollister, if I must answer; I had offered to fight these three gentlemen in order. It was agreed that the man who drew the jack of clubs from the pack with which they had been playing should be my first victim. They have shuffled their own cards and have drawn the whole pack and there is no jack of clubs in the pack! The only possible explanation is one to which I hesitate to apply the obvious plain Saxon terms."

"It dropped out, that's all! You don't dare pretend that we threw out the jack to avoid drawing it!" protested Ormsby, though I saw from the glances the trio exchanged that they suspected one another. Ormsby and Gorse bent down to look for the missing card, but before they found it I stepped forward and drove my fist upon the table with all the power I could put into the blow.

"Stop!" I cried. "I gave you every opportunity to stand up and take a trouncing, but I need hardly say that after this contemptible knavery I refuse to soil my hands on you!"

"Do you insinuate"--began Henderson, jumping to his feet.

"Gentlemen," said Miss Hollister, lifting the riding-crop, "it is perfectly clear to me that Mr. Ames has gone as far as any gentleman need go in protecting his honor. I do not offer myself as an arbitrator here, but I advise my young friend that nothing further is required of him in this deplorable affair."

With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of cards that lay on the table as they had been stacked when drawn.

"Arnold," she said, with indescribable dignity, "will you kindly attend me to my horse?"

XIX

THE GHOST OF ADONIRAM CALDWELL

A stable-boy held Miss Octavia's horse at the inn-door. Her face, her figure, her voice expressed outraged dignity as she tested the saddle-girth.

"You need never tell me what had happened to provoke your wrath, for that is none of my affair; but I wish to say that your conduct and bearing won my highest approval. They had undoubtedly hidden the jack of clubs to avoid the drubbing you would have administered to the unfortunate man who would have drawn that card if it had been in the pack."

"I was not in the slightest danger at any time, Miss Hollister," I protested. "By one of those tricks of fate to which you and I are becoming so accustomed, the card had fallen to the floor unnoticed. If you had not arrived so opportunely the lost jack would have been discovered, the cards reshuffled, and very likely Mr. Ormsby would have been dusting the inn-floor with me at this very minute."

"I refuse to believe any such thing," declared Miss Octavia, who had mounted and continued speaking from the saddle. "Your perfect confidence was admirable, and I shudder to think of the terrible punishment you would have given them. I do not particularly dislike Mr. Ormsby, though the possibility of Cecilia marrying him has troubled me not a little as I have recalled the unromantic aspect of Utica as seen from the car-windows; but it is much to your credit that you defied them all and brought them to the fighting-point, and then, by a stroke of cleverness it pleased me to witness, placed them irretrievably in the wrong."