A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 12

"I'll see this fellow, Munn, after breakfast," he said, lighting an expensive cigar.

"I'll go with you," volunteered Lansing, casually, strolling out towards the veranda.

"No, no!" called out Sprowl; "you'll only hamper me." But Lansing did not hear him outside in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Agatha Sprowl laid one fair, heavily ringed hand on the table and pushed her chair back. The Major gallantly waddled to withdraw her chair; she rose with a gesture of thanks, and a glance which shot the Major through and through--a wound he never could accustom himself to receive with stoicism.

Mrs. Sprowl turned carelessly away, followed by her two Great Danes--a superb trio, woman and dogs beautifully built and groomed, and expensive enough to please even such an amateur as Peyster Sprowl, M.F.H.

"Gad, Sprowl!" sputtered the Major, "your wife grows handsomer every minute--and you grow fatter."

Sprowl, midway in a gla.s.s of claret, said: "This simple backwoods regime is what she and I need."

Agatha Sprowl was certainly handsome, but the Major's eyesight was none of the best. She had not been growing younger; there were lines; also a discreet employment of tints on a very silky skin, which was not quite as fresh as it had once been.

Dr. Lansing, strolling on the veranda with his pipe, met her and her big dogs turning the corner in full sunlight. Coursay was with her, his eager, flushed face close to hers; but he fell back when he saw his kinsman Lansing, and presently retired to the lawn to unreel and dry out a couple of wet silk lines.

Agatha Sprowl sat down on the veranda railing, exchanging a gay smile across the lawn with Coursay; then her dark eyes met Lansing's steel-gray ones.

"Good-morning, once more," she said, mockingly.

He returned her greeting, and began to change his mist leader for a white one.

"Will you kindly let Jack Coursay alone?" she said, in a low voice.

"No," he replied, in the same tone.

"Are you serious?" she asked, as though the idea amused her.

"Of course," he replied, pleasantly.

"Is it true that you came here because he came?" she inquired, with faint sarcasm in her eyes.

"Yes," he answered, with perfect good-nature. "You see he's my own kin; you see I'm the old-fas.h.i.+oned sort--a perfect fool, Mrs. Sprowl."

There was a silence; he unwound the glistening leader; she flicked at shadows with her dog-whip; the Great Danes yawned and laid their heavy heads against her knees.

"Then you _are_ a fool," she concluded, serenely.

He was young enough to redden.

Three years ago she had thought it time to marry somebody, if she ever intended to marry at all; so she threw over half a dozen young fellows like Coursay, and married Sprowl. For two years her beauty, audacity, and imprudence kept a metropolis and two capitals in food for scandal.

And now for a year gossip was coupling her name with Coursay's.

"I warned you at Palm Beach that I'd stop this," said Lansing, looking directly into her eyes. "You see, I know his mother."

"Stop what?" she asked, coolly.

He went on: "Jack is a curiously decent boy; he views his danger without panic, but with considerable surprise. But n.o.body can tell what he may do. As for me, I'm indifferent, liberal, and reasonable in my views of ... other people's conduct. But Jack is not one of those 'other people,'

you see."

"And _I_ am?" she suggested, serenely.

"Exactly; I'm not your keeper."

"So you confine your attention to Jack and the Decalogue?"

"As for the Commandments," observed Lansing, "any a.s.s can shatter them with his hind heels, so why should he? If he _must_ be an a.s.s, let him be an original a.s.s--not a cur."

"A cur," repeated Agatha Sprowl, unsteadily.

"An _affaire de coeur_ with a married woman is an affair do cur," said Lansing, calmly--"Gallicize it as you wish, make it smart and fas.h.i.+onable as you can. I told you I was old-fas.h.i.+oned.... And I mean it, madam."

The leader had eluded him; he uncoiled it again; she mechanically took it between her delicate fingers and held it steady while he measured and shortened it by six inches.

"Do you think," she said, between her teeth, "that it is your mission to padlock me to _that_--in there?"

Lansing turned, following her eyes. She was looking at her husband.

"No," replied Lansing, serenely; "but I shall see that you don't transfer the padlock to ... _that_, out _there_"--glancing at Coursay on the lawn.

"Try it," she breathed, and let go of the leader, which flew up in silvery crinkles, the cast of brightly colored flies dancing in the suns.h.i.+ne.

"Oh, let him alone," said Lansing, wearily; "all the men in Manhattan are drivelling about you. Let him go; he's a sorry trophy--and there's no natural treachery in him; ... it's not in our blood; ... it's too cheap for us, and we can't help saying so when we're in our right minds."

There was a little color left in her face when she stood up, her hands resting on the spiked collars of her dogs. "The trouble with you," she said, smiling adorably, "is your innate delicacy."

"I know I am brutal," he said, grimly; "let him alone."

She gave him a pretty salutation, crossed the lawn, pa.s.sed her husband, who had just ridden up on a powerful sorrel, and called brightly to Coursay: "Take me fis.h.i.+ng, Jack, or I'll yawn my head off my shoulders."

Before Lansing could recover his wits the audacious beauty had stepped into the canoe at the edge of the lawn, and young Coursay, eager and radiant, gave a flourish to his paddle, and drove it into the glittering water.

If Sprowl found anything disturbing to his peace of mind in the proceeding, he did not betray it. He sat hunched up on his big sorrel, eyes fixed on the distant clearing, where the white gable-end of O'Hara's house rose among the trees.

Suddenly he wheeled his mount and galloped off up the river road; the sun glowed on his broad back, and struck fire on his spurs, then horse and rider were gone into the green shadows of the woods.

To play spy was not included in Lansing's duties as he understood them.

He gave one disgusted glance after the canoe, shrugged, set fire to the tobacco in his pipe, and started slowly along the river towards O'Hara's with a vague idea of lending counsel, aid, and countenance to his president during the expected interview with Munn.

At the turn of the road he met Major Brent and old Peter, the head-keeper. The latter stood polis.h.i.+ng the barrels of his shot-gun with a red bandanna; the Major was fuming and wagging his head.

"Doctor!" he called out, when Lansing appeared; "Peter says they raised the devil down at O'Hara's last night! This can't go on, d'ye see! No, by Heaven!"

"What were they doing, Peter?" asked Lansing, coming up to where the old man stood.

"Them s.h.i.+nin' Banders? Waal, sir, they was kinder rigged out in white night-gounds--robes o' Jordan they call 'em--an' they had rubbed some kind o' s.h.i.+ny stuff--like matches--all over these there night-gounds, an' then they sang a spell, an' then they all sot down on the edge o'

the river."