The House 'Round the Corner Part 10

"But Robert what?"

"No, just Bob."

"Don't be silly. You must have another name."

"The name on Mr. Walker's register is such a mouthful--Armathwaite, if you _will_ have it."

"What a queer way to put it! 'On Mr. Walker's register.' Isn't it your real name?"

"There! I was sure you would say that. Why not be content with blunt and honest-sounding Bob?"

"Shall we establish a sort of cousins.h.i.+p? You're Bob and I'm Meg."

"That would be a most excellent beginning, Meg."

She laughed delightedly.

"We're having quite an adventure!" she cried. "It sounds like a chapter out of an exciting novel. I hope you didn't think I was rude about your other name--the long one--Bob! You see, I used to be Meg Garth, but now I'm Meg Ogilvey. I'm hardly accustomed to the Ogilvey yet, but I rather like it. Don't you?"

Armathwaite's face darkened, and he swallowed a piece of bacon without giving it even one of the twenty-nine bites recommended by dietists as a minimum.

"Why, that makes you look at me black as thunder," she vowed. "It's a quite simple matter. My people came into some money when we left Elmdale, and the Ogilvey was part of the legacy. It reaches us from the maternal side of the family, and the change was easy enough for dad, because he always wrote under the pen-name of Stephen Ogilvey."

"Stephen Ogilvey--the man who is an authority on folk-lore?"

The genuine surprise in his voice evidently pleased his hearer.

"Yes. How thrilling that you should recognize him! That is real fame, isn't it?--to be regarded as top-dog in your particular line. But you seemed to be angry when I told you about it."

"I thought you were married," he said, secretly quaking at his own temerity.

Again she knitted her brows in a rather fascinating effort to appear sagacious.

"I don't quite see----" she began. Then she stopped suddenly.

"You think that if I were married I wouldn't be quite such a tom-boy--is that it?" she went on.

"No. You've failed so badly in your interpretation of my thought that I dare hardly tell you its true meaning."

"Please do. I hate to misunderstand people."

"Well, I'll try and explain. You have not forgotten, I hope, that I have already described you as an angel?"

"Your quotation wasn't a bit more applicable than mine."

"Be that as it may, I cannot imagine an angel married. Can you?"

"Good gracious! Am I to remain single all my life?"

"Who am I that I should choose between an angel and Meg Ogilvey?"

"I wouldn't limit your choice so narrowly," she said, eluding his point with ease. "Besides, I've been expecting every minute to hear that there is a Mrs. Armathwaite."

"There isn't!"

"I'm sorry. I wish there was, and that she was here now. Then, if she was nice, and you wouldn't have married her if she wasn't, she would ask me to stay a few days. And I would say 'Yes, please.' As it is, I must hurry over my packing, and take myself back to Ches.h.i.+re."

"Yes," said he, compelling the words. "There is no doubt about that. You cannot remain here."

"Well, you needn't hammer in the fact that you'll be glad to be rid of me. Have some more coffee?"

A heavy step sounded on the path without. The girl, who was seated with her back to the window, turned and looked out.

"Here's Tom Bland, the Nuttonby carrier," she cried excitedly, smiling and nodding at some person visible only to herself. "Dear old Tom! Won't he be surprised at seeing me!"

Armathwaite's wandering wits were suddenly and sharply recalled to the extraordinary situation confronting him.

"You don't mean that some local man has recognized you?" he growled, and the note of real annoyance in his voice brought a wondering glance from the girl.

"We gazed straight at one another, at any rate," she said, with a perceptible stiffening of manner. "Considering that Tom knows me as well as I know him, it would be stupid to pretend that neither of us knows the other. It would be useless where Tom is concerned, at any rate. He grinned all over his face, so I may as well go to the door and have a word with him."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Armathwaite, springing to his feet, and upsetting a plate in his hurry. "If Tom Bland says he has seen you here, I'll tell him he's several varieties of a liar. At this moment Marguerite Garth simply doesn't exist. She's a myth. The lady in this room is Meg Ogilvey, whom Tom Bland has never heard of before. Now, understand, that I forbid you to move or show your face again at the window."

"Oh, my!" pouted the girl, making believe to be very much afraid of him.

That was the hardest part of the task confronting the Grange's latest tenant. He could awe and keep in check ten thousand turbulent and fanatical Pathans for many a year, but a clear-eyed English girl of twenty-two refused to be either awe-stricken or kept in restraint for as many minutes. Yet he must bend her to his will, for her own sake. He must force her away from Elmdale, from the hourly possibility of some ghastly revelation which would darken and embitter her life. The undertaking would go against the grain, but he dared not s.h.i.+rk it, and, once his mind was made up, he was not one whose resolution faltered.

CHAPTER V

GATHERING CLOUDS

The Nuttonby carrier took the new tenant of the Grange into his circle of acquaintances with the ready camaraderie of his cla.s.s.

"Fine morning, sir," said he.

"An excellent morning," said Armathwaite. "Have you brought my boxes?"

"Yes, sir. They be rare an' heavy, an' all."

"You and I can manage them between us, I have no doubt," and Armathwaite led the way to the gate. As they pa.s.sed the dining-room, Bland stared candidly through the window, but the girl was not visible.

"I didn't reckon on seein' Miss Meg to-day, sir," he said.

"Miss Meg? Who's Miss Meg?" smiled the other.

"Why, poor Mr. Garth's la.s.s, to be sure."