Chapter XXVI

The entire company turned in startled surprise and Anne and Joe scuttled furtively over to stand by him. They had been plainly frightened by a situation that they knew they could not control.

“Oh, dad, is that you? I didn’t hear you come in. I’m glad you’ve arrived. It was naughty of you to be late the first night of my house party,” broke forth Athalie nonchalantly. “Come and let me introduce you to my guests.”

Patterson Greeves made no move to go forward. He handed his packages to the attendant Joe, and took off his hat and gloves, still standing where he had first appeared, still looking the company over, person by person, his eyes growing sterner, his mouth more displeased.

“I do not understand,” he said coming forward enquiringly, giving a searching glance into each impudent countenance, guest by guest.

“Let me have that bottle please!” He took the big bottle from the unresisting hand of the once arrogant youth and lifted it near to his nose.

“Where did you get this liquor may I ask? I’m afraid somebody has been breaking the laws of the land! I shall have to put you all under arrest until we investigate. Joe, will you kindly call up the chief of police?” The entire company of would-be revellers arose in consternation and looked to right and left for a place of exit, but Anne Truesdale, her cheeks flaming an angry crimson, her eyes like two sword points barred the way of the pantry, and the angry householder and his ancient servitor stood in the wide doorway leading to the hall. They began to steal furtively behind one another and sidle toward the pantry fancying Anne less redoubtable than their inhospitable host.

“Why dad! I think you’re horrid!” broke forth Athalie, her lips trembling. “Why, _dad_!”

“Be still Athalie! You may go to your room! You have broken all three of your promises. I have nothing more to say to you at present. You know what the consequence was to be.”

“But dad—”

“Leave the room!”

And Athalie actually left it.

The moment was awful. Even Silver felt sorry for them.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, while we are waiting for the officer let me get your names and addresses,” said Patterson Greeves his class room tone upon him, as he brought out pencil and note book. “Your name sir?” He turned to the first white-faced boy, the one who had held the bottle as he entered.

The boy lifted a face from which the fun had fled and tried to brazen it out.

“Oh, cert., my name’s Brett Hanwood. Hamilton Prep pitcher you know.”

Straight around the table he went writing down carefully the addresses, asking a searching question now and again. When he reached Marcella Mason he eyed her curiously for an instant, felt of the sleeve of her coat, a flicker of amusement passing over his otherwise grave face and said:

“And this—ah—gentleman?”

Marcella winced.

“This completes the list I think.”

Patterson Greeves lifted his pencil and counted, “four ladies and six—” his eye was on Marcella, “men! The ladies of course we will not hold accountable. And now as it is not convenient for me to entertain guests tonight they will be returned to their homes or their schools as the case may be. The men—” again he glanced at Marcella, “will await the officer’s verdict. Doubtless they will be held till the trial, or possibly let out on bail if they can furnish sufficient. The state is laying stress on this matter of prohibition just now and—!”

“Oh!” gasped Marcella and collapsed in sobs.

“Now,” said Greeves, “if you four young ladies will just go into the library I will call up your school and arrange for your return.”

“Oh—h-h-h!” murmured the girls in a panic.

Just then the officer was brought in by Joe, and Greeves explained to him in a low tone. Then he turned back to his frightened victims. “You four girls may come into the library now.”

The girls huddled in a mass and followed him. The sound of hasty feet scuttling after and Marcella arrived red and teary.

“I—I—I’m a girl too!”

“Oh,” said Greeves surveying her through his glasses, “curious specimen I must say. Man and girl! Well, well! Which school do you attend?”

Marcella bore the sarcasm meekly and tried to hide her borrowed plumage behind the other girls. They made a curious group in their wild young flapper frocks with their plump, bare shoulders shivering in the shadows of the big old room while they waited for Patterson Greeves to get long distance. They glanced mutely into one another’s eyes and thought of the school records already against them.

“Is this Briardale school for girls? Is this the principal? Let me speak to the principal please. I have four young ladies here in my house who claim to belong to your school. They have been attempting to have a hooch party during my absence. Can you tell me where they are supposed to be tonight? Shall I return them to you? Their names are—”

He consulted his paper and read off the names. The girls stood and shivered as if he were striking them.

“I beg your pardon. Did you say Miss Mason was at home at the bedside of her sick mother? Yes? And this Violet? Her sister is being married? Oh! I see!” His eyes dwelt mercilessly on the trembling Violet. “Having her eyes examined? I see. And the other one? Oh, she was taken sick and was sent home? I see. Then you would prefer that I return these young ladies to their various homes—”

“Oh, no, no!” broke in Marcella, “my father would half kill me! I’d rather go back to school.”

“Mine would take my next month’s allowance away and it’s spent already,” wept Violet. Then hushed to hear what was being said on the telephone.

“You say this Violet lives in our neighboring city? And Miss Mason in a suburb? Where? Oh, Hazelbrook. Yes, I know it quite well. I’m not sure but her father is an old friend of mine. Walter Mason? That’s the one. Very well, then. I quite agree with you that these two should go to their homes. I will personally escort them there at once. The other two you would prefer to have return to the school tonight? Just how far is that from the Junction? I see. No, there is no train out of here until ten o’clock. That would miss connection. I think it would be better to get an automobile. Yes, I have a reliable man and his wife, old trusted servants. I can send them in their care. Oh, that’s all right. I’m only glad to get it all so easily arranged. They will be there tonight. It may be late. I may be delayed in finding a car, but they will arrive, don’t worry. Thank you! Good night!”

The girls were trembling and furious, but looking in his determined face they saw they had no way of escape. Especially did Marcella quail as she looked down at her borrowed garments and thought of her father’s face when he should hear the report of his old friend.

Patterson Greeves hung up the receiver, rang for Anne Truesdale, and said:

“Now, young ladies, you will go up stairs in charge of Mrs. Truesdale and find your belongings. We shall be ready to start in twenty minutes.”

He herded them to the stairs, and went into the dining room to consult with the chief of police who had the bottle of liquor in his hand and was asking keen questions with eyes that were used to reading human countenances and penetrating human masks.

After a brief consultation between the two men, the uncomfortable boys were called into the library and subjected to a telephone conversation much like that which the girls had passed through, except that it was decided by the headmaster of the school that the boys should be returned in a body under police escort, and that their fathers should be at once summoned from their various homes. The boys looked even more hunted than the girls had done. They perhaps had more reason to fear both parental and scholastic discipline.

The boys were marched out of the house at once with hastily packed suit cases and sober looks on their faces. A grocery truck was requisitioned, the boys piled in, and six men, two of them regular police aides, the other four pressed into service from the fire house with hastily improvised uniforms, climbed in after them, a man to a boy. There was no escape.

The guards hugely enjoyed the occasion. They were getting a night’s excitement and a long ride free. It would be something to talk about at the fire house for many a day. Uri Weldon had been the first one to volunteer. He had no time even to telephone to Lizette before leaving. But then Lizette was not one to worry about him.

In a quarter of an hour an automobile arrived and two unhappy maidens with handkerchiefs to their eyes stole out and crept into the back seat. Molly in a flannel petticoat and an extra sweater under her long winter coat, climbed fearfully in between them, and Joe took the front seat beside the driver. They moved off hurriedly through the night and presently Patterson Greeves and two silent, angry, frightened girls emerged from the house and walked down the street to the ten o’clock train for the city.

“Well, they’re all getting away early!” sighed mother Vandemeeter. “Now we can go to bed in peace. I was afraid they were going to have a dance and that would have been so out of place in the old Silver house. I just couldn’t have gone to sleep for thinking.”

“I don’t know as they could have gone much later!” said grandma, getting stiffly up from her padded rocking chair and tottering toward her downstairs bedroom door. “This is the last train, isn’t it?”

Said Pristina up at her top bedroom window:

“Now! I wonder which one he is taking to the train!”

Silver and Anne Truesdale busied themselves in putting the house to rights and gathering up the debris of the brief onslaught of the enemy.

“Them old stemmed fruit cups was one of Miss Lavinia’s best prized set,” Anne mourned. “To think one shoulda got broke tonight fer them little fools. I almost just used the old sauce dishes and then I thought the master might not like it!”

“Never mind, Anne, what difference does a glass or two less make? They’re gone. They might have broken more if they had stayed longer. It looked to me as if they were out to break more than fruit glasses.”

“Yes!” said Anne. “My soul! So that’s that!”

Five hours later, Patterson Greeves, dismissing the car that had brought him back from the city, walked up from the post office corner where he had got out, and let himself silently into the house. Anne, released from her vigil, turned over and murmured drowsily to herself again:

“So that’s _that_!”

In the wee small hours of the morning, with the east paling into pink, the only two who had got any enjoyment out of the affair, Molly and Joe on their way home from their long pilgrimage, sitting in the back seat holding hands, and never saying a word, were having a second honeymoon. Their first automobile ride! An all night affair. They were sore and stiff with the long ride, next day. But what mattered it? They had something to remember to their dying day. They might have other rides, doubtless would when Patterson Greeves got time from parenting to buy a car of his own, but never would any be like that first one, where the moonlight lay like thin sheets of silver over the springtime world.