The Whirligig of Time Part 37

"Good-by, my dear," she said at length; "I'm sure I hope you'll enjoy yourself. Brown s.h.i.+pley, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Harry. He was a little disconcerted; Aunt Selina played the game almost too well. Then as he stood unconsequently before her, he was seized by a sudden desire to confide in her. "Do you know why I'm going, Aunt Selina?" he asked.

"No, my dear."

"Well, why do you _think_?"

"I prefer not to guess, if that is what you mean. You may tell me, if you wish."

"Madge Elliston," mumbled Harry.

Aunt Selina stared immovably at her bank book for a moment; then she got up and faced her nephew.

"There is a streak of horse sense in the Wimbourne blood that has been the saving of all of us," she said. "I'm glad to see it come out in you.

Good-by, my dear." She kissed him on the cheek.

"How do--how would you like it?" he asked, still hesitating, uncertain as to her meaning.

"Nothing better. I wish you the best of luck. And I think you're doing the wisest possible thing."

"I'm glad you do." He looked at her gratefully. "Did you suspect anything?"

"Not a thing."

"Then I don't believe any one does.... Good-by, Aunt Selina."

"You've done me a great honor. Good-by, dear."

They kissed again and he went out, feeling greatly strengthened and encouraged. As he drove down to the station he determined to go to a hotel in New York and keep out of the way of the James Wimbournes and all other possible confidants. The interview with Aunt Selina had been so perfect that he could not bear the thought of risking anti-climaxes to it. Suddenly he remembered that certain Cunard and White Star boats sailed to the Mediterranean from Boston. He could go directly there and wait for a steamer in perfect security.

So he took the next train to Boston and that very afternoon engaged pa.s.sage to Gibraltar on a steamer sailing two days later. The interval he spent chiefly in laying up a great store of books on Spain and Portugal, which countries he planned to visit _in extenso_.

The dull, wet voyage he found enchanting when brightened up by the glowing pages of Lope de Vega, Calderon, "Don Quixote," "The Lusiads,"

"The Bible in Spain," and Lea's "History of the Inquisition," a galaxy further enhanced by the businesslike promises of guide books and numerous works on Hispanic architecture and painting. He landed at Gibraltar with something almost approaching regret at the thought that land traveling would allow him less time for reading.

In leisurely fas.h.i.+on he strolled through southern Spain and Portugal, presently reaching Santiago de Compostela. It had been his intention, when this part of the trip was finished, to go to Biarritz and from there work on through the towns of southern France, but a traveling Englishman told him that he ought on no account to miss seeing the cathedral of Gerona. So he changed his plans and proceeded eastward.

When he reached Gerona he called himself a fool for having so nearly missed it, but after a week or ten days among the huge dark churches of Catalonia he suddenly sickened of sight-seeing and that very night caught a through express from Barcelona to Paris.

Harry had never known Paris well enough to care for it particularly, but just now there was something rather attractive to him in its late June gaiety. He arrived there just at the time of the Grand Prix, and as he strolled, lonely and unnoticed, through the brilliant Longchamps crowd he felt his heart unaccountably warming to these well-groomed children of the world. He had been outside the realm of social intercourse so long that he felt a sudden desire for converse with smart, cheerful, people of their type.

His desire was not difficult of fulfilment, as nothing but seven hours'

traveling lay between him and a welcoming Belgrave Square. The next day he crossed the Channel and took his uncle and aunt completely by surprise. They were delighted to see him and were unaffectedly disappointed at having to leave him almost immediately for a dinner in Downing Street.

"But we're going to see a lot of you while you're here, dear boy," said Aunt Miriam, "if we have to break every engagement on our list. It isn't every day that I have a nephew turn into a successful playwright! What about a dinner, now? Giles, have you anything on for a week from Monday?"

"The truth is," observed Sir Giles to his nephew, "you've become a lion, and a lion is a lion even if he is in the family. Poor Harry, I feel for you!"

"That'll do, G. It's good for the boy."

"There's small danger of my being a lion in London, anyway," said Harry.

"Oh, I don't know," ruminated Uncle Giles: "adoration of success is the great British vice, you know."

"Monday the fourth, then, Giles," said his wife.

"Hooray, the national holiday!" retorted the irrepressible baronet. "I say, we'll have the room decorated with American flags and set off fireworks in the square afterward. We might make a real day of it, if you like, and go to tea at the American Emba.s.sy!"

"No, I don't think we'll do that," answered Aunt Miriam, closing her lips rather firmly.

Harry had a short talk alone with his aunt that night after she came back from the evening's business.

"Come in and help me take off my tiara," she said, leading the way into her bedroom. "I rather want to talk to you. Do you know, dear boy, I fancy something's come over you lately, you're changed, somehow. Is it only your success? What brought you over here, in the first place?"

"Spanish churches," answered Harry promptly. He had at one time half decided to confide in Aunt Miriam, but he definitely gave up the idea now. She was too sympathetic, by half. "Do you know Barcelona and Batalha? There's nothing like them."

"No, I've never been to Spain. They say there are fleas, and the beds are not reliable. I also understand that other arrangements are somewhat primitive."

"Oh, not always," replied Harry, smiling. "Still, I don't think I do quite see you in Spain, Aunt Miriam." Then he kissed her good night quite affectionately. He could be very fond of her, from a short distance.

As he strolled down Bond Street next morning Harry sighted an old school acquaintance; a man whom he had known as plain Tommy Erskine, but whom a succession of timely deaths, as he now vaguely remembered, had brought into the direct line of an earldom. Harry wondered if he would remember him; they had not met since their Harrow days. The other's somewhat gla.s.sy stare relaxed quickly enough, however, when he saw who it was.

"Well, Harry! Jolly old Harry!" he said in a tone of easy cordiality, as though he had not seen Harry perhaps for a week. "I say, turn around and toddle down to Truefitt's again with me, will you? Fellah puts stinking stuff on my hair three times a week; never do to miss a time, wot? Well, jolly old Harry; wherever have you been all these yahs? Didn't go up to Oxford, did you?"

"No," said Harry, "I went home, to America, and I've stayed there ever since. I'm a thorough Yankee again now; you won't know me. But Tommy, what's all this rot about you being a viscount or something?"

"Oh, bilge! Such a bilgy name, too--Clairloch--like a fellah with phlegm in his throat, wot? Never call me that, though; call me Tommy, and I'll call you Wiggers, just like jolly old times, wot?"

Harry felt himself warming to this over-mannered, over-dressed, over-exercised dandy who was such a simple and affectionate creature beneath his immaculate cutaway, and rather hoped he might see something of him during his stay in London.

"Do you ever ride these days, Tommy?" he asked presently. "That is, would you ride with me some day, if I can scratch up an animal?"

"Oh, rather. Every morning, before brekker. Only I'll mount you. Lots of bosses, all eating their silly heads off. Oh, rot!" he went on, as Harry demurred; "rot, Wiggers, of course I shall mount you. No trouble 't all.

Pleasure. You come to England, I mount you. I go to America, you mount me. Turn about, you know."

"I'm afraid not, as we haven't got any saddle horses at present,"

answered Harry. "You can drive with Aunt Selina in the victoria, though, if you like," he added, smiling at the thought.

"Wot? Wot's that? Delighted, I'm shaw," said Tommy, vaguely scenting an invitation. "Oh, I say, Wiggers, speaking of aunts, wotever became of that jolly cousin of yaws? Carson gell--oldest--sister married Ned Twombly--you know." (For Jane had fulfilled her mission in life by marrying the heir to a thoroughly satisfactory peerage.)

"She's not my cousin," said Harry, "but she's still living in America, keeping house for my aunt--the one I mentioned just now--and doing lots of other things. Settlement work, and such. She and my aunt are thick as thieves."

"I say, how rum. Fancy, gell like that--good looks, and all that--trotting off to do slum work in a foreign country. Wot's the matter with London? Lots of slums here. Can't und'stand it, 't all.

Never could und'stand it. Rum."

"Oh, no one ever understands Beatrice," said Harry. "Her friends have given up trying. Well, Tommy, I think I won't go into Truefitt's with you. See you to-morrow morning?"

"Righto--Achilles statue--seven-thirty sharp."