The Man on the Box Part 40

She dropped her hand and spoke to James, who was waiting near by for her orders.

"James, you will have Pierre fill a saddle-hamper; two plates, two knives and forks, and so forth. We shall ride in the north country this afternoon. It will be your last ride. To-morrow the horses will be sold." How bravely she said it!

"Yes, Miss Annesley." Whom were they going to meet in the north country? "At what hour shall I bring the horses around?"

"At three."

She entered the house and directed her steps to the study. She found her father arranging the morning's mail. She drew up a chair beside him, and ran through her own letters. An invitation to lunch with Mrs.

Secretary-of-State; she tossed it into the waste-basket. A dinner-dance at the Country Club, a ball at the Brazilian legation, a tea at the German emba.s.sy, a box party at some coming play, an informal dinner at the executive mansion; one by one they fluttered into the basket. A bill for winter furs, a bill from the dressmaker, one from the milliner, one from the glover, and one from the florist; these she laid aside, reckoning their sum-total, and frowning. How could she have been so extravagant? She chanced to look at her father. He was staring rather stupidly at a slip of paper which he held in his trembling fingers.

"What is it?" she asked, vaguely troubled.

"I do not understand," he said, extending the paper for her inspection.

Neither did she at first.

"Karloff has not done this," went on her father, "for it shows that he has had it discounted at the bank. It is canceled; it is paid. I did not have twenty thousand in the bank; I did not have even a quarter of that amount to my credit. There has been some mistake. Our real estate agent expects to realize on the home not earlier than Monday morning.

In case it was not sold then, he was to take up the note personally.

This is not his work, or I should have been notified." Then, with a burst of grief: "Betty, my poor Betty! How can you forgive me? How can I forgive myself?"

"Father, I am brave. Let us forget. It will be better so."

She kissed his hand and drew it lovingly across her cheek. Then she rose and moved toward the light. She studied the note carefully. There was nothing on it save Karloff's writing and her father's and the red imprint of the bank's cancelation. Out of the window and beyond she saw James leading the horses to the watering trough. Her face suddenly grew crimson with shame, and as suddenly as it came the color faded. She folded the note and absently tucked it into the bosom of her dress.

Then, as if struck by some strange thought, her figure grew tense and rigid against the blue background of the sky. The glow which stole over her features this time had no shame in it, and her eyes shone like the waters of sunlit seas. It must never be; no it must never be.

"We shall make inquiries at the bank," she said. "And do not be downcast, father, the worst is over. What mistakes you have made are forgotten The future looks bright to me."

"Through innocent young eyes the future is ever bright; but as we age we find most of the suns.h.i.+ne on either side, and we stand in the shadow between. Brave heart, I glory in your courage. G.o.d will provide for you; He will not let my shadow fall on you. Yours shall be the joy of living, mine shall be the pain. G.o.d bless you! I wonder how I shall ever meet your mother's accusing eyes?"

"Father, you _must_ not dwell upon this any longer; for my sake you must not. When everything is paid there will be a little left, enough till I and my violin find something to do. After all, the world's applause must be a fine thing. I can even now see the criticisms in the great newspapers. 'A former young society woman, well-known in the fas.h.i.+onable circles of Was.h.i.+ngton, made her _debut_ as a concert player last night. She is a stunning young person.' 'A young queen of the diplomatic circles, here and abroad, appeared in public as a violinist last night. She is a member of the most exclusive sets, and society was out to do her homage.' 'One of Was.h.i.+ngton's brilliant young horsewomen,' and so forth. Away down at the bottom of the column, somewhere, they will add that I play the violin rather well for an amateur." In all her trial, this was the one bitter expression, and she was sorry for it the moment it escaped her. Happily her father was not listening. He was wholly absorbed in the mystery of the canceled note.

She had mounted Jane and was gathering up the reins, while James strapped on the saddle-hamper. This done, he climbed into the saddle and signified by touching his cap that all was ready. So they rode forth in the sweet freshness of that November afternoon. A steady wind was blowing, the compact white clouds sailed swiftly across the brilliant heavens, the leaves whispered and fluttered, hither and thither, wherever the wind listed; it was the day of days. It was the last ride, and fate owed them the compensation of a beautiful afternoon.

The last ride! Warburton's mouth drooped. Never again to ride with her!

How the thought tightened his heart! What a tug it was going to be to give her up! But so it must be. He could never face her grat.i.tude. He must disappear, like the good fairies in the story-books. If he left now, and she found out what he had done, she would always think kindly of him, even tenderly. At twilight, when she took out her violin and played soft measures, perhaps a thought or two would be given to him.

After what had happened--this contemptible masquerading and the crisis through which her father had just pa.s.sed--it would be impossible for her to love him. She would always regard him with suspicion, as a witness of her innocent shame.

He recalled the two wooden plates in the hamper. Whom was she going to meet? Ah, well, what mattered it? After to-day the abyss of eternity would yawn between them. How he loved her! How he adored the exquisite profile, the warm-tinted skin, the s.h.i.+ning hair!... And he had lost her! Ah, that last ride!

The girl was holding her head high because her heart was full. No more to ride on a bright morning, with the wind rus.h.i.+ng past her, bringing the odor of the gra.s.ses, of the flowers, of the earth to tingle her nostrils; no more to follow the hounds on a winter's day, with the pack baying beyond the hedges, the gay, red-coated riders sweeping down the field; no more to wander through the halls of her mother's birthplace and her own! Like a breath on a mirror, all was gone. Why? What had _she_ done to be flung down ruthlessly? She, who had been brought up in idleness and luxury, must turn her hands to a living! Without being worldly, she knew the world. Once she appeared upon the stage, she would lose caste among her kind. True, they would tolerate her, but no longer would her voice be heard or her word have weight.

Soon she would be tossed about on the whirlpool and swallowed up. Then would come the haggling with managers, long and tiresome journeys, gloomy hotels and indifferent fare, curious people who desired to see the one-time fas.h.i.+onable belle; her portraits would be lithographed and hung in shop-windows, in questionable resorts, and the privacy so loved by gentlewomen gone; and perhaps there would be insults. And she was only on the threshold of the twenties, the radiant, blooming twenties!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Go home, Colonel--and stay home!"--ACT III.]

During the long ride (for they covered something like seven miles) not a word was spoken. The girl was biding her time; the man had nothing to voice. They were going through the woods, when they came upon a clearing through which a narrow brook loitered or sallied down the incline. She reined in and raised her crop. He was puzzled. So far as he could see, he and the girl were alone. The third person, for whom, he reasoned, he had brought the second plate, was nowhere in sight.

A flat boulder lay at the side of the stream, and she nodded toward it.

Warburton emptied the hamper and spread the cloth on the stone. Then he laid out the salad, the sandwiches, the olives, the almonds, and two silver telescope-cups. All this time not a single word from either; Warburton, busied with his task, did not lift his eyes to her.

The girl had laid her face against Jane's nose, and two lonely tears trailed slowly down her velvety cheeks. Presently he was compelled to look at her and speak.

"Everything is ready, Miss." He spoke huskily. The sight of her tears gave him an indescribable agony.

She dropped the bridle-reins, brushed her eyes, and the suns.h.i.+ne of a smile broke through the troubled clouds.

"Mr. Warburton," she said gently, "let us not play any more. I am too sad. Let us hang up the masks, for the comedy is done."

XXVI

THE CASTLE OF ROMANCE

How silent the forest was! The brook no longer murmured, the rustle of the leaves was without sound. A spar of suns.h.i.+ne, filtering through the ragged limbs of the trees, fell aslant her, and she stood in an aureola. As for my hero, a species of paralysis had stricken him motionless and dumb. It was all so unexpected, all so sudden, that he had the sensation of being whirled away from reality and bundled unceremoniously into the unreal.... She knew, and had known! A leaf brushed his face, but he was senseless to the touch of it. All he had the power to do was to stare at her. . . . She knew, and had known!

d.i.c.k stepped into the brook and began to paw the water, and the intermission of speech and action came to an end.

"You-and you knew?" What a strange sound his voice had in his own ears!

"Yes. From the very beginning--I knew you to be a gentleman in masquerade; that is to say, when I saw you in the police-court. The absence of the beard confused me at first, but presently I recognized the gentleman whom I had noticed on board the s.h.i.+p."

So she had noticed him!

"That night you believed me to be your sister Nancy. But I did not know this till lately. And the night I visited her she exhibited some photographs. Among these was a portrait of you without a beard."

Warburton started. And the thought that this might be the case had never trickled through his thick skull! How she must have laughed at him secretly!

She continued: "Even then I was not sure. But when Colonel Raleigh declared that you resembled a former lieutenant of his, then I knew."

She ceased. She turned to her horse as if to gather the courage to go on; but Jane had her nose hidden in the stream, and was oblivious of her mistress' need.

He waited dully for her to resume, for he supposed that she had not yet done.

"I have humiliated you in a hundred ways, and for this I want you to forgive me. I sent the butler away for the very purpose of making you serve in his stead. But you were so good about it all, with never a murmur of rebellion, that I grew ashamed of my part in the comedy. But now--" Her eyes closed and her body swayed; but she clenched her hands, and the faintness pa.s.sed away. "But for you, my poor father would have been dishonored, and I should have been forced into the arms of a man whom I despise. Whenever I have humiliated you, you have returned the gift of a kind deed. You will forgive me?"

"Forgive you? There is nothing for me to forgive on my side, much on yours. It is you who should forgive me. What you have done I have deserved." His tongue was thick and dry. How much did she know?

"No, not wholly deserved it." She fumbled with the b.u.t.tons of her waist; her eyes were so full that she could not see. She produced an oblong slip of paper.

When he saw it, a breath as of ice enveloped him. The thing she held out toward him was the canceled note. For a while he did me the honor to believe that I had betrayed him.

"I understand the kind and generous impulse which prompted this deed.

Oh, I admire it, and I say to you, G.o.d bless you! But don't you see how impossible it is? It can not be; no, no! My father and I are proud.

What we owe we shall pay. Poverty, to be accepted without plaint, must be without debts of grat.i.tude. But it was n.o.ble and great of you; and I knew that you intended to run away without ever letting any one know."

"Who told you?"