Count Bunker Part 29

"Vell, Bonker, she is not so bad."

"Ah," commented Bunker.

"Bot, Bonker, it is not vat I do think of her. Ach, no! It is not for mein own pleasure. Ach, nein! How shall I do my duty to Tollyvoddle? Zat is vat I ask myself."

"And what answer do you generally return?"

"Ze answer I make is," said the Baron gravely and with the deliberation the point deserved--"Ze answer is zat I shall vait and gonsider vich lady is ze best for him."

"The means you employ will no doubt include a further short personal interview with each of them?"

"Vun short! Ach, Bonker, I most investigate mit carefulness. No, no; I most see zem more zan zat."

"How long do you expect the process will take you?"

For the first time the Baron noticed with surprise a shade of impatience in his friend's voice.

"Are you in a horry, Bonker?"

"My dear Baron, I grudge no man his sport--particularly if he is careful to label it his duty. But, to tell the truth, I have never played gamekeeper for so long before, and I begin to find that picking up your victims and carrying them after you in a bag is less exhilarating to-day than it was a week ago. I wouldn't curtail your pleasure for the world, my dear fellow! But I do ask you to remember the poor keeper."

"My dear friend," said the Baron cordially, "I shall remember! It shall take bot two or tree days to do my duty. I shall not be long."

"A day or two of sober duty, Then, Hoch! for London, home, and beauty!"

trolled the Count pleasantly.

The Baron did not echo the "Hoch"; but after retaining his thoughtful expression for a few moments, a smile stole over his face, and he remarked in an absent voice--

"Vun does not alvays need to go home to find beauty."

"Yes," said the Count, "I have always held it to be one of the advantages of travel that one learns to tolerate the inhabitants of other lands."

CHAPTER XXIII

"Ach, you are onfair," exclaimed the Baron. "Really?" said Eva, with a sarcastic intonation he had not believed possible in so sweet a voice.

It was the day following the luncheon at Lincoln Lodge, and they were once more seated in the shady arbor: this time the Count had guaranteed not only to leave them uninterrupted by his own presence, but to protect the garden from all other intruders. Everything, in fact, had presaged the pleasantest of tete-a-tetes. But, alas! the Baron was learning that if Amaryllis pouts, the shadiest corner may prove too warm. Why, he was asking himself, should she exhibit this incomprehensible annoyance? What had he done? How to awake her smiles again?

"I do not forget my old friends so quickly," he protested. "No, I do a.s.sure you! I do not onderstand vy you should say so."

"Oh, we don't profess to be old FRIENDS, Lord Tulliwuddle! After all, there is no reason why you shouldn't turn your back on us as soon as you see a newer--and more amusing--ACQUAINTANCE."

"But I have not turned my back!"

"We saw nothing else all yesterday."

"Ah, Mees Gallosh, zat is not true! Often did I look at you!"

"Did you? I had forgotten. One doesn't treasure every glance, you know."

The Baron tugged at his mustache and frowned.

"She vill not do for Tollyvoddle," he said to himself.

But the next instant a glance from Eva's brilliant eyes--a glance so reproachful, so appealing, and so stimulating, that there was no resisting it--diverted his reflections into quite another channel.

"Vat can I do to prove zat I am so friendly as ever?" he exclaimed.

"So FRIENDLY?" she repeated, with an innocently meditative air.

"So vary parteecularly friendly!"

Her air relented a little--just enough, in fact, to make him ardently desire to see it relent still further.

"You promise things to me, and then do them for other people's benefit."

The Baron eagerly demanded a fuller statement of this abominable charge.

"Well," she said, "you told me twenty times you would show me something really Highland--that you'd kill a deer by torchlight, or hold a gathering of the clans upon the castle lawn. All sorts of things you offered to do for me, and the only thing you have done has been for the sake of your NEW friends! You gave THEM a procession and a dance."

"But you did see it too!" he interrupted eagerly.

"As part of your procession," she retorted scornfully. "We felt much obliged to you--especially as you were so attentive to us afterwards!"

"I did not mean to leave you," exclaimed the Baron weakly. "It was jost zat Miss Maddison----"

"I am not interested in Miss Maddison. No doubt she is very charming; but, really, she doesn't interest me at all. You were unavoidably prevented from talking to us--that is quite sufficient for me. I excuse you, Lord Tulliwuddle. Only, please, don't make me any more promises."

"Eva! Ach, I most say 'Eva' jost vunce more! I am going to leave my castle, to leave you, and say good-by."

She started and looked quickly at him.

"Bot before I go I shall keep my promise! Ve shall have ze pipers, and ze kilts, and ze dancing, and toss ze caber, and fling ze hammer, and it shall be on ze castle lawn, and all for your sake! Vill you not forgive me and be friends?"

"Will it really be all for my sake?"

She spoke incredulously, yet looked as if she were willing to be convinced.

"I swear it vill!"

The latter part of this interview was so much more agreeable than the beginning that when the distant rumble of the luncheon gong brought it to an end at last they sighed, and for fully half a minute lingered still in silence. If one may dare to express in crude language a maiden's unspoken, formless thought, Eva's might be read--"There is yet a moment left for him to say the three short words that seem to hang upon his tongue!" While on his part he was reflecting that he had another duologue arranged for that very afternoon, and that, for the simultaneous suitor of two ladies, an open mind was almost indispensable.

"Then you are going for a drive with the Count Bunker this afternoon?"

she asked, as they strolled slowly towards the house.

"For a leetle tour in my estate," he answered easily.