HN GPK - PRINCE 當會 ​CINDERELLA GRACE ALEXANDER 2302.71 SEE VE MRT = HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY ک7 .. سوس س 3 PRINCE CINDERELLA -HEAD4 - வ - வ Fa SD1 HT ATTRE He pressed the key into my hand PRINCE CINDERELLA By GRACE ALEXANDER Author of JUDITH WITH FRONTISPIECE BY W. B. KING INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS PZ 300 COLLE: THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY Printed in the United States of America PRESI OF BRAUNWORTH & Co. BOOK MANUFACTURERO BROOKLYN, N. Y. THE CHAPTERS · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 108 · ...... (22 · · · PAGE I TO HAVE AND TO HOLD · · · · · II COUSIN SABAH . . . . . . . . 21 III Two QUEER BIRDS . . . . . . . 35 IV SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE . . . . . . 54 V WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES . . . . 64 VI BLUE FIRES . . . . . . . . . 78 VII THE POINTED BRICK COTTAGE . . . 87 VIII SHADOWS BEFORE . . . . . IX A WASTED BLESSING . . . . . . . X HOW TO CATCH A MAN ... XI A BIT OF VAUDEVILLE . . 136 XII FORTUNE'S SLEEVE . . . . . . . 143 XIII A DAUGHTER OF EVE . . . . . . . . XIV WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW . . XV MARYLAND ROLLS . . . . . 205 XVI MY PRETTY MAID . . . . . . . 214 XVII TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS. . . . . 226 XVIII THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US . . . . 242 XIX THE MAN WITHOUT A CHARACTER . . . 266 XX IN THE KING'S NAME . . . . . 277 XXI THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER . . . . . 286 XXII WHAT IS ROMANCE . . . . . . . 308 XXIII WHICH TIES SOME KNOTS AND UNTIES OTHERS . . . . . . . . . . 325 · · · · · · · · · · · · · THE CHARACTERS (All but one) ROSE MEREDITH, an heiress MRS. WILLOUGHBY RUTLEDGE MARTIN, her chaperon MRS. CHARLES HENRY WINTERS, a friend of Rose HARRIET CARTER, a Colonial Dame THE REVEREND CUTHBERT FIELD, a retired English clergyman LEIGHTON DARRAH, a civil engineer MR. WINTERS, interested in railroad ties EZRA SHUTTERS, a constable DAISY O’MAHONEY, the housemaid BESSIE HIGHTOWER, the cook MALORY, the butler SERAPH KELIAN, the chauffeur SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE, late of Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut PRINCE CINDERELLA CHAPTER I TO HAVE AND TO SPEND THROUGH it all I was a good deal of a fool. Owning this myself at the start I may hope to take the edge off other people's saying it, as they are sure to do. Also, I may as well at the outset picture myself to you: just a girl of twenty- two, distinguished in no way unless by my frank and fixed determination to find and possess the real things in life, not the shams. I am slim, rather than thin, and I defy any normal man to scorn my Doucet gowns. As for my hair, it is a nice chestnut color, thick and wavy, and, -well- no girl without a double chin, and with decent eyes, her own teeth and lots of chestnut hair is a fright. I . TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 3 appeared. But, as mother used to say, “I'd as soon be the newly-rich as the always-poor.” Neither mother nor father got much besides satisfaction out of the Tin Can. They had both worked so hard while father was struggling to protect his patent and had denied themselves even the comforts of life so long, that when money suddenly came they just stood back in an awed way and looked at it. Mother went first, when I was twelve. She was a gentlewoman and had been delicately reared so that she was unfitted for the privations she had to endure in the first years of her married life and from which she never recovered. After that father worked harder than ever and two years later he fell an easy prey to pneumonia. When the doctors told him he would not live he sent down-stairs for me. “Rose,” he said quietly, taking my hand, "they are all yours.” (The Cans, he meant.)' "I've asked my old friend, Judge Moore, in New York to take care of things till you're of age. Get a good schooling—better go south where your mother was educated. You can't improve on her.” (Father had been a mechanic and had great 4 PRINCE CINDERELLA respect for mother's more aristocratic upbring- ing.) “Then"--and here, dying as he was, he gave my hand a grip that made me wince—"start in, and don't waste any time. Make up for both of us what we missed.” (Dear dad, how you trusted me!) I was singularly alone in the world. My mother's relatives had cast her off at the time of her marriage, and my father's, few and distant, were all in England which, as a poor boy, he had left behind to work his passage to this country of greater opportunity. Of friends we had few for. my mother's pride had caused us to keep rather closely to ourselves. Soon after father's death I left the flat muddy Illinois town in which the thousands upon thous- ands of brightly-shining, neatly stacked tin cans in his factories were about the only fresh clean thing, and went south to dear old Green Briar where I spent seven of the happiest years! At Christmas holidays and vacations I went to the Moores in the North. Judge Moore, who was now a prominent and wealthy man, had shrewdly seen the possibilities of the Can when father first TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 5 patented it and had advanced the small loan that started it going. On my graduation from Green Briar at twenty I went chiefly because I had no other place to go, to the Moores to live until by the terms of my father's will I should, a year later, start in, as he expressed it, and enjoy his wealth for him and mother as well as myself. The Moore mansion always struck a chill to my very marrow. It seemed a fitting abode-I had almost said sepulcher-for the family. It was a stone- fronted, sunless, heavily-carpeted house, with chilling marble-topped tables and bureaus, and white marble statuettes in niches along the stair, and cheerless steel engravings hung high on the high walls, and a large library of expensively bound books buried in glass tombs and seeming to my young ardor to contain nothing more mod- ern than Plutarch's Lives or anything lighter than Kant's Pure Reason. In common with many shy girls I read omniverously, finding it easier to meet new people on the printed page than at teas and parties, but the tall serried ranks of the Moore library in their forbidding calf-skin uni- form invariably put me to rout. Mrs. Moore was PRINCE CINDERELLA kind to me in her frigid fashion, but I could never be fond of her, though I tried. She was a member of a prominent stone church and attended all the stony services with strict regularity. Otherwise she lived solely in the “Judge,” as she always addressed her husband though a full quarter-century had passed since, for a single term, he had adorned the bench-and in William, as she invariably called her son. William presented a special difficulty. His mother was set on his marrying me, and Will- iam himself took up the idea, not enthusiasti- cally-William was seldom enthusiastic about anything—but as a thoroughly sound proposition like preferred oil stock or railroad shares. He had never violently pressed his suit, however, feeling, I think, fairly sure of me, as, perhaps because I am shy, I had had no affairs with men. I had come away from school without any real intimacies. Indeed on the rare occasions when I had stayed the night with another girl I couldn't even name my bed-posts. As, like most really young women, I conceived myself to be already horribly passé, I had moments of deadly TO HAVE AND TO SPEND terror lest I should some day weaken and marry William. After all, he was a man and instinc- tively I found myself weighing his undeniably good qualities. Was not every word be uttered bankable? So far, however, I had managed to keep myself at least technically free. William had indeed offered me (I am sure at his mother's behest,) a succession of quite dazzling engage- ment rings, but I had declared that for a time I would not be bound. I could not go on living at the Moores' and I never wanted to go back to the muddy Illinois flats (where capable managers were yearly turning out millions of the shining tin cans and shipping them). So, as I was fully determined on obeying to the letter father's rather remark- able counsel, I decided, on attaining my majority and freedom, to keep within spending distance of New York. (You remember, I had to spend for three.) So, after directing through competent channels that a considerable part of my income from the cans should go to the support of certain needy schools and hospitals in the South, I began my search for a home. PRINCE CINDERELLA At the Moores' I had come to know, and love, Mrs. Charles Henry Winters, who with her hus- band occasionally visited there,—dark vivid handsome Mrs. Winters who seemed to warm even the chilly marbles. Mrs. Charles Henry she is familiarly called by her friends from her own habit of always addressing her husband by both his Christian names. She is as capable as she is handsome and can manage the affairs of a dozen people as easily as most people can manage their own. When I told her that I wanted a place for myself, and gave her, pretty vaguely, some of my notions about the kind I wanted, she exclaimed at once, with characteristic decision, "I know the very house. But I will let you find it yourself. Come to me at Middlefield for a week, and we will explore the country-side.” In a motor drive which in consequence I took with her through the Connecticut valley I saw with the acutely appraising eye of the alien its unsurpassed chain of towns: Stamford, Bridge- port, New Milford, Litchfield, with their old or- dered beauty and their old names; and among them, thickly sown, little hamlets in little green TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 9 hollows, each with its patch of doddering white tombstones and its white heaven-pointing spire, and I knew that here was the place for me to plant myself and take root. So I bought Wood- croft. It was a place that had always “belonged,” and I felt new and shiny, like the Tin Can, and as if I belonged to nobody. I yearned intensely to "belong." Had I been poor I couldn't have afforded either Woodcroft or the Collection. Woodcroft is the jolliest big country-place, only two hours, as the motor-car flies, from The Avenue and the opera, but with its nine rather thickly wooded acres on a spur off the main road, and the house itself, brown as autumn, a quarter-mile down the leaf and cone-strewn drive. The house is brown not with paint but because the years have weathered and wuthered it so, and it is big and up-and- down because successive owners, not finding just what they wanted or at least not enough of it, added a room here, a wing there, as pleased their respective and at times decidedly individual fan- cies. The result is anachronistic of course, but it is also picturesque, and infinitely more live-in- Io PRINCE CINDERELLA able than if it had been put up all at once. I did not add nor, with one small exception, did I alter. Thirty rooms seemed quite enough, even with the Collection. And I loved what I found too well to wish to change. It was a furnished house, which suited me precisely. I had brave plans (plans that astonish me now in review, consider- ing my shyness) of connecting myself up with interesting people, and I was eager to put them into execution. There are deep fireplaces, and above them the flowered faces of old clocks; there are dim pas- sages, and the loveliest shivery closets in which I always half expected to see hanging by their tresses the heads of Bluebeard's wives. Some- where about I knew was hidden an old yellowed will. The drawing-room furniture was as old and as oddly assorted as were the different parts of the house, yet here again the effect was agree- able rather than otherwise. While no single pe- ried predominated and a colonial high-boy stood cheek by jowl with a Charles the Second table; while the sofas with their swelling backs were plainly magniloquent of the First Empire and the TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 11 II chairs were some of them tapestried Elizabethans and the others horsehair mongrels, through long use and wont all had arrived at the same worn and unpurchasable beauty. Like a company of players long associated they had attained a high togetherness. In the low-ceilinged dining-room, large and heavily beamed and wainscoted in black oak, I found two fine grandmotherly cupboards—tall Georgian pieces of solid old cherry, with the incomparable bloom that only old cherry has, exceedingly good for the eye to rest on; and from the ledge above the blackened fireplace, old Seth Thomas, his round face still bravely, if a bit fadedly, garlanded in pink, gave me, on a few turns of the quaint key and after a slight prelim- inary rumble in the throat natural from long silence and elderly years, a fine welcome in brisk ringing tones. A clock that strikes is the human- est thing man has made, and I felt instantly that the presiding genius of the place gave me invita- tion, newly-rich though I might be, to bide under its time-hallowed roof. In the wide center hall a white stair with 12 PRINCE CINDERELLA mahogany rail and deeply hollowed treads wound creakingly to the four-postered, many-chested bedchambers. (If only we knew what old stairs say when they creak!) Where the upper pas- sage leading to the east wing turns off there hung a full suit of armor, knightly helmet and all, past which, midday though it was, I shied, it looked in its shadowy recess so astonishingly alive. For my own use I chose what the caretaker called the Ebony Room in the east wing. I selected this room because I loved the lordly canopied bed and the tall chairs so black and richly carved, and for the view : in the distance, Waldon Ridge, dark, majestic. Close at hand, indeed less than a stone's throw over the rocky wall that marked the boundary of my grounds at this place, stood a little pointed brick cottage, old and ivied like a country chapel, once occupied by a small farmer but tenanted now only by the cardinals nesting under its eaves. On the first floor, behind the stairs, was the quaintest little powdering-room where colonial dames and daughters once slipped between dances to touch up hair and cheek. The oval gilt mir- TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 13 ervers mer ror was still hanging on the wall, but mirrors are time-servers and have no memories. The things our hands make outlast us. Of all the lovely faces, dark and fair, proud and gentle, reflected in that glass, not one shows there to-day. But I could have sworn I smelled musk in the little long-closed room-oh, dear ladies long gone, how enchanting you must have been, dancing the minuet with your bewigged and scarlet-coated gentlemen! I caught in the mirror a momentary reflection of my own wide-eyed happy face and wondered if shy lonely I would ever have a courtier. Three architects begged me to let them "adapt" the house. I said no, quite firmly. Instead I sent to Dorchester for plumbers and carpenters who, while I took refuge at Mrs. Charles Henry's, turned eight of the Bluebeard closets into jolly little baths, and made of the powdering-room a booth to conceal the incongruous long distance telephone. (I could almost catch whispers of astonishment from the lovely long-dead ladies who must have realized that there are some com- pensations for our unromantic modern life.) 14 PRINCE CINDERELLA The post-office nearest to Woodcroft is Mid- dlefield, three miles north, one of the small pic- ture towns of this region, where elderly spinsters in silks many times turned, delicately sip very pale tea and eat their exceedingly thin bread-and- butter from unbroken sets of choicest Chelsea; where in the wide streets gracious elms bend above the scant trading and the formal small talk of neighbors, and the rare stranger, probably on the trail of an antique, wonders at the scene as a shade too fine for common day, like putting out the Sunday's china for Monday's dinner. On a hot August afternoon when alone in Mrs. Charles Henry's car I was returning to Dorches- ter from Woodcroft where I had driven to inspect the repairs, a puncture brought me to a halt in the very heart of the metropolis. In each direc- tion down the long thick-shaded streets the two rows of white wide-eaved houses, each in its neat picketed garden, had retired for a midday nap in shuttered coolness. In the tiny thread-and-pin shop directly on my left which was also the post- office not a soul save the postmistress herself was to be seen, while the adjacent door, above TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 15 which projected a weather-washed sign bearing the word “Inn," had apparently been shut for years. But as I stood beside the car waiting for the chauffeur to replace the punctured tire, at the front window of the house directly on my right a green slat turned, ever so cautiously. Poor hungry soul! I have wished since that I had crossed the street, clapped the big knocker, and having effected entrance, poured forth to her (I am sure it was a she) the entire history of my life which I am positive she was dying to learn. In another moment the inn door actually opened and a slight sandy person, with bright little eyes set birdwise close to his thin acquisi- tive nose and a succession of little fussy move- ments which, together with his brown snuff clothes and bright red tie, gave him somewhat the air of an unusually large cock robin, came out on the sidewalk. He wore a large metal badge on his lapel and I judged him to be the town constable with a mind to see if the native peace of Middlefield were being threatened. For some moments he surveyed us in total silence. 16 PRINCE CINDERELLA "A quiet spot," I ventured in friendly observation. The constable spat nervously. "Tolable quiet here in winter,” he allowed, jerkily accommodating his quid in his cheek. "Snow four foot thick in Janawary," he went on with quite extraordinary loquacity, "and quiet- as a jail." Without a really wild flight of imagination I readily granted that Middlefield in the white waste of winter would be a calm place of resi- dence and hastened to add my compliments on the moral superiority of a town whose house of detention was so infrequently occupied that it could be designated by the guardian of the public safety himself as a symbol of peace. "How large a population have you?” I inquired, more from a desire to draw the sprightly constable out than from any really ardent curiosity. "Depends on how you reckon," was the cau- tious answer. “Counting East Middlefield”— and his head jerked itself over his shoulder toward a scattering handful of houses—“and n TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 17 Middlefield yan”—with a similar jerk westward toward another detached group—"and Middle- field”—here both hands indicated the center of the shade-dappled street that connected all three hamlets—“last census made it eight-fifty-six." He spoke with the easy accuracy of the well- informed. “They dew claim,” he added, spitting carefully, and speaking with a believe-it-or-not- as-you-like air, I don't vouch for it, “they dew claim eight-seventy." It was highly fortunate for me that at this critical juncture Mrs. Charles Henry's chauffeur interrupted with “Ready, miss." I bade the guardian genius of East Middlefield, Middlefield yan and Middlefield (evidently they were all three under his ruling) farewell with all the cour- tesy in my command, murmuring that doubtless eight-seventy was more nearly the correct figure, but as I glanced back through the little window in the rear of the car I saw the constable stand- ing in the middle of the empty street, quite frankly suspicious of our intrusion. I judged him a man who on occasion could be handy with his gun. 18 PRINCE CINDERELLA It is a pleasant country, this Middlefield region. The lanes go down into shady little valleys and rise on sunny uplands, and there are clean pebbly brooks across which slim birches fling white pro- tecting arms. Now and then in the short explor- ing expedition I ventured on, my mind at rest about Woodcroft, we passed a large estate for- mally terraced and brilliantly flowering, and with a sunken garden or avenue of plumy poplars, investing the scene with an old-world stateliness of beauty, the property of an intensely modern millionaire. To the north of Middlefield our road, dipping into the Housatonic Valley, crossed the river through a long wooden bridge, deliciously hollow of sound, on this glaring day deliciously dim, from whose walls an incredibly woolly Uncle Tom, and a much ringletted Little Eva, and quite marvelous lady equestrians in tights and spangles looked down from ancient play and circus bills. Beyond the river valley, a mighty wall of earth and rock and pines dark against the upper blue, looms abruptly Waldon Ridge. In the gentle landscape its sheer rise, extending almost a mile, is dramatic and noble. TO HAVE AND TO SPEND 19 At first glance I thought the road ended quite in the dark mystery of underbrush clothing the lower slopes of the Ridge, but a moment later I saw that, narrowed to less than half its former width, it turned sharply to the right and cut a gleaming tortuous line of white up the precipitous side, I was in daring mood. "Can't we go up?" I asked the chauffeur who had begun to back the car, evidently with a view to turning again to the covered bridge. For an instant he stared at me. A slow sur- prise dawned in his face. “Hey, ma'am?” he asked finally. “Can't we go up?" I repeated urgingly, long- ing to plunge into that cool piny wilderness. “Up that road," I iterated, pointing unmistakably aloft to emphasize my desire. In the chauffeur's face surprise yielded to blank astonishment, and that again to mild compassion as for one slightly but hopelessly "touched.” "Nope. That ain't a road,” he informed me, flipping a thumb in the direction of the Ridge. “That's a sheep trail.” 20 PRINCE CINDERELLA Like the poor-spirited creature I am, I felt abashed, yet it was with real reluctance and a backward look of longing that I consented to retreat. Having found that plumbers and carpenters had satisfactorily done their work, I engaged retainers and settled myself at Woodcroft, in joy. I had, I felt, made a good start toward carrying out father's behest. Daily from my windows the Ridge, lifting its dark seamless robe in majesty above the man- made patch-work of green field and fallow earth below, challenged me to mount its uninhabited steeps, and though until the imperious call of that wild night I did not respond, from the first I loved it for the challenge. CHAPTER II COUSIN SARAH CURELY my Collection was the most varied » human assortment one house ever held! (At this point my husband, who incited me to tell this story and was in consequence permitted to read over my shoulder, exclaimed, “My dear, people will think that you collected lunatics or savages unadorned. And isn't it time you were saying something about the diamond ?” But I rejoined, “Really, my dear, if I am to do this at all I must be allowed to do it in my own fashion. If,” I continued with mild sarcasm, "you could invent a way of telling a story in the first person without perpetual use of the pronoun I, you would be of some real assistance.") . Getting back to the Collection—I didn't delib- erately plan it, though after I found it on my 21 22 PRINCE CINDERELLA hands I was pleased with its resemblance to the Seven Travelers in—is it Hawthorne's tale? We too, counting myself, were seven. To begin with the most important: Of necessity I had a chaperon. I had planned to engage for this post some gay young widow as ready for her second larks as I for my first. I would write to my old preceptress at Green Briar to make discreet inquiry among the needy gentle- women of her acquaintance. But I was spared the trouble of doing this. Soon after I had set- tled myself at Woodcroft, Malory, my butler, brought me a visiting-card deeply edged with black. “Mrs. Willoughby Rutledge Martin," I read. Martin? Where had I heard that name in connection with my own? I could not at the moment recall. It was clearly the name of a per- sonage. I hurried down to the drawing-room. Firmly, and becomingly, established there in my high slim-waisted Elizabethan chair I saw a woman I had never seen before, a personage indeed. Tall, elegant, full-figured she was, and attired in perfect harmony with the deep bor- dered visiting-card. That small bonnet, edged COUSIN SARAH 23 with the finest and crispest white ruching, whose crêpe veil hung in sad but graceful folds far below the waist; that black silk traveling cloak, partly thrown back, that fine lusterless gown with the exquisite bands of white at throat and wrist which I glimpsed beneath, they were-instinc- tively I knew it-fashion's latest smartest word for grief-stricken widows. At the right of the chair stood a suit-case elegantly monogrammed in silver. There was only one incongruous note, -a large silver mesh hand-bag lying in her lap. As I advanced inquiringly into the room my visitor rose. For a tall superbly-built woman she was astonishingly light on her feet. "Ah, Cousin Rose, dear!” A delicate peck, first on my left cheek, then on my right. “You don't know me, of course. I couldn't expect that!” The voice was extraordinarily light, soft, a voice without an edge or an "r." "I am Sarah Martin, née Romney, a cousin of your mother's the Maryland Martins, you know !" That was it—the Maryland Martins! I did recall mother's speaking of them, though after they with the rest of her clan had unanimously 24 PRINCE CINDERELLA though affectionately made her aware that in marrying a man who worked with his hands she had astounded, grieved, outraged and disgraced the last one of them, she had considerately refrained from dragging them down any lower by continuing a correspondence. Resenting what they had made her suffer, I was inclined to keep up the feud, but I well knew that had any of mother's kin presented themselves at her door, the sacred altar of hospitality would instantly have been aglow. "Oh, yes, yes indeed, Cousin Sarah!” I assented, putting out my hand and striving to be cordial and cousinly. Cousin Sarah took my hand in her own small suede-gloved one, held it for a moment, gazing lovingly down at me the while, then without so much as a rustle, sank once more into the becom- ing Elizabethan chair. To say that she sat down would be vulgarly incorrect; she merely yielded to gravity. Her hair, rippling from its part over perfect temples, was black and glossy, her com- plexion brilliantly youthful, indeed for a grief- stricken widow it was quite surprisingly radiant. m- COUSIN SARAH 25 : "We Romneys are from South Carolina, you know. I was born in Charleston." Evidently Cousin Sarah considered that in marrying a mere Virginian she had condescended a little. On uttering the word "Charleston” she sat up a little straighter in the Elizabethan chair with an inde- scribable air indicating that nothing more could be said. Indeed, what could be ? "You are—you are a Saint Cecilian also, Cousin Sarah?” I asked faintly. Cousin Sarah smiled, a slight deprecating smile. She had expected me to take that for granted. A South Carolinian! A Charlestonian! A Saint Cecilian!!! Viewed from that radiant height a Biddle of Philadelphia, a Cabot of Boston, is an earthworm. My South Carolina mates at Green Briar had made this perfectly plain. I sat down in a low ordinary chair a little away from Cousin Sarah's perfect presence. I felt low and ordinary. I felt disgustingly meek. The rattle of the Tin. Can was a positive din in my ears. "I am now, Cousin Rose,” Cousin Sarah con- tinued in that peculiarly soft light voice of hers, “engaged in making a tour of the northern states 26 PRINCE CINDERELLA for the purpose of becoming acquainted with my kin in this region of the country.” She spoke with a certain grandiloquence whose effect I could not escape. "Very kind-and-and cousinly of you, I am sure,” I murmured, a bit awed at this spectacle of a triumphal progress, yet not altogether sure that I should relish my part of it. "And having recently learned, my dear child, that you are quite alone, I decided”-here, beam- ing benevolence, she leaned delicately toward me _“to come straight to you. I am alone also, since dear Willoughby was taken.” At this point Cousin Sarah opened the silver mesh bag, and taking from it a handkerchief of the finest cam- bric and with a border black enough and deep enough to drown grief for a dozen husbands of the most superior brand, she pressed it to her eyes and began to sway gently back and forth. From the width of the border on the handker- chief and the length of the crêpe veil I judged her bereavement to be recent. I sat up in alarm. A strange sleek tabby was occupied, without the slightest by-your-leave, in COUSIN SARAH 27 the very act of curling herself up on my hearth- rug. I judged that the rattle of father's Tin Can had been heard in Baltimore. But I had not the heart to say scat. A childless widow has always seemed to me the most forlorn of human crea- tures. Though the connection (Cousin Sarah had produced a letter from my mother's long- dead sister setting it plainly forth) was quite frankly several degrees removed, and was one by marriage at the most, in the generous southern reckoning of these matters which I had inherited, the word "cousin” was enough. I glanced out of the front window. No vehicle was in sight. Cousin Sarah had evidently counted with com- plete assurance on my hospitality. I was in for, a visit of uncertain duration. "Thank you, Cousin Sarah. And now you must remove your wraps and make yourself quite at ease.” Superfluous words! I, in manner more my mechanic father's child than my aristocratic mother's, envied the composed all-possessing air with which Cousin Sarah rose, leisurely removed the small crêpe bonnet, divested herself of the 28 PRINCE CINDERELLA long silk traveling cloak, drew off the long soft gloves, blew gently into each, waved all in my direction, I meanwhile reduced in my own draw- ing-room to the status of a maid—and yielding once more to gravity, resumed her place in the Elizabethan chair, consummately at ease. Cousin Sarah, it was clear, was of the quality. She had the air. She never doubted—Cousin Sarah. I rang for Malory, mentally determining to summon a little highmightiness of my own. Alas, I had no highmightiness to summon. In spite of my resolution I handed Cousin Sarah's wraps to him quite as if, like myself, he were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness. I even gave him a kind little smile. Angry with myself at this arrant absurdity, I reflected with chagrin how immensely superior to his mis- tress Cousin Sarah must appear to him. Cousin Sarah had again produced the black- edged cambric handkerchief. “Dear, dear Wil- loughby,” she sobbed afresh. “Ptomaine poison- ing! He passed on at the Cartersville Country Club." "Poor Cousin Sarah!" I exclaimed, pressing COUSIN SARAH 29 her small white hand. I was moved to genuine distress. But I had heard a good deal of the club she had mentioned, which it happened was in driving distance of Green Briar. I had never visited it, but some of my schoolmates had been more fortunate. I could not doubt that dear Willoughby's last hours had at least been passed in light and luxury. I attempted a word of con- solation to this effect. “Luxurious? Yes,” she lingered on the word. “Yes, indeed. And,” in a decidedly more cheer- ful tone, “so exclusive! Since poor Willoughby had to go I find it-ah-rather satisfying that he went at the Cartersville Country Club.” Cheered by this phase of her husband's demise Cousin Sarah restored the black-edged handker- chief to the silver mesh bag. "Cousin Sarah !” I gasped, after an instant's silence. I could say no more. Instinctively I moved back a little in my chair. Poor Willoughby indeed! More than ever I was convinced that Sarah Martin née Romney was a very distant cousin. "I have no one now to do my thinking for me. 30 PRINCE CINDERELLA I married poor Willoughby for that purpose, you know," she confided frankly, as one woman to another. I did not know, but I could have guessed from that utter coolness with which she had leeched herself upon me that in taking to herself a husband she had been completely occu- pied with advancing her own interests. "How long after your marriage did Mr. Mar- tin live, Cousin Sarah ?” I ventured to inquire. “The Honorable, he was, my dear, though you can not be expected to know that. He lived_he lived four months! And I-left alone—I, who have never even tied my own shoe-laces,” she continued plaintively. I looked down at Cousin Sarah's suede-shod French-heeled number twos and mentally decided that under my roof she would, while in health, tie her own shoe-laces. I gave Cousin Sarah a large bedchamber with sitting-room adjoining, on the west side, next to my own rooms. There was no connecting door but this fact I did not particularly lament. Cousin Sarah was soon rather more at home at Wood- croft than I, elegantly hectoring the servants and es COUSIN SARAH 31 compelling universal attention to her smallest preferences. She never waited on herself in the slightest instance, a cardinal principle with her being apparently that a lady may do nothing that would even infinitesimally increase the size of her hands and feet. Certainly her favorite, rather sole occupations—reading novels, playing bridge and making of cobweb undergarments—could have no such dire effect. Softness was Cousin Sarah's cue, and woe betide the laundress who forgot the edict, no starch! She glided casually into the habit of ordering extensively from the best shops in New York and London—at my expense. I was not long in guessing her private income to be nil. Days and weeks went by and Cousin Sarah spoke not of departing. Without the slightest desire to arrogate time rightly due other and pre- sumably clamorous kindred on that triumphal tour, I had succeeded in attaching her over- whelmingly to myself. I decided at last that she had quite abandoned all intention of moving on, if indeed she had ever entertained any. It was not a visit nor even a visitation that Cousin Sarah PRINCE CINDERELLA was making me, she intended to abide under my roof for the remaining term of her natural life. During the first weeks of her stay she fre- quently received bills and occasionally a letter, but as she seldom exerted herself to reply her correspondents apparently grew discouraged. Having found Woodcroft a genteel haven it became in her judgment superfluous to keep up connections that at an earlier and less secure pe- riod had appeared worthy of attention. Recalling that by Cousin Sarah's own statement four months of her had finished poor Willoughby I wondered when my own end might logically be expected. About Cousin Sarah, there were, however, compensations. In her youth she had traveled much abroad, and she could be extremely enter- taining when she chose. Soft fur is pleasant to stroke, and a musical purr is soothing—at times. Her self-appointed chaperonage she kept dis- creetly nominal and I went on doing exactly as I chose. When visitors began to come to Wood- croft they immensely admired Cousin Sarah undoubtedly she gave tone to my establishment COUSIN SARAH 33 —and congratulated me on my charming compan- ion. Only in one way did she ever seriously vex me. She was incredibly curious. My secrets- the little things girls usually tell only to other girls—were her mice. She delighted to tease them out of me, play with them in her velvet paws and return them to me, when she had fin- ished, quite dead of the innocent pleasure I had taken in them. Also, if I had not been twenty- two, I might have minded her excessive use of the black-bordered handkerchief (which how- ever seemed always to come away dry) and her perpetual moanings about poor Willoughby. Poor Cousin Sarah! Women who find their husbands late in life naturally cherish them with excessive devotion, but Cousin Sarah had not only waited long for married bliss—some one to do her thinking for her !—but had seen it snatched away before the honeymoon could scarcely have set. From the first, Cousin Sarah's silver mesh bag fascinated me. Morning, noon, night, she was never without it. Yet never by any chance did I see into it. What it contained besides the black- 34 PRINCE CINDERELLA bordered handkerchief I could not conjecture. It was full to bursting, but a gray silk lining cunningly baffled my gaze. One day when chance afforded me an opportunity to touch it I felt its contents to be hard and lumpy, but this was as far as I was permitted to know. Giving a jerk quite out of accord with her customary feline languor Cousin Sarah had snatched the bag more closely to her while sparks of fire in her usually sleepy eyes warned me that I had, however unwittingly, trespassed. CHAPTER III TWO QUEER BIRDS CHAPERON was, as I have said, a neces- T sity. Perhaps my chaplain was not. But it was the only delicate way I saw of providing for a disabled (and dumpy) clergyman of refined British antecedents and no family who, shortly after my purchase of Woodcroft, had retired to sequestered Middlefield to starve on spinach, I saw him first at Mrs. Charles Henry's. They have a summer place on the edge of Middlefield -the biggest loveliest old yellow-and-white- colonial house! Indeed, they are likely to be there at almost any time of the year when they are not in Tokio or Buenos Aires or some other far corner of the globe. “My dear,” said Mrs. Charles Henry to me in son 35 36 PRINCE CINDERELLA her rich, slightly foreign voice (she is French- born), "I have made a discovery!" In her large- hearted way Mrs. Charles Henry is perpetually making "discoveries” whom she always leaves richer than she finds them, and generous as she is she is seldom imposed on. She is a clever candler and spots a bad egg the instant she holds it up to the light of her shrewd appraisement. "The most delightful clergyman, stranded in a cottage here in Middlefield, a charming English- man in extremely reduced circumstances! It is lamentable! You can see he is a gentleman and used to the best. We are having him in for the week-end and I have just slipped a dozen pairs of silk hose into his bag. Do meet him, and see for yourself how extraordinary he is!" In another moment she was presenting him to me, a gentlemanly person indeed, if somewhat shabby, of short and stocky build, apparently in early middle life, wearing great thick-lensed, shell goggles and a tired Oxonian air. “Clergyman's sore throat has ended my larger usefulness,” he confided to me in a silver drawl, as I ventured to remark that he probably found TWO QUEER BIRDS 37 Middlefield dull. At his suggestion we had sat cozily down at the round palm-sheltered tea-table at the far end of the drawing-room. It was an inviting spot. Mrs. Charles Henry is the clev- erest of hostesses, and her afternoon tea-table, mingling orchids, grapes, silver and gold glass, was stage-managed into a picture Belasco might envy. But it was no stage feast. In the silver dishes there were all sorts of good nutty things to eat, and the half-dozen gold and silver bottles contained the rarest, most aromatic liqueurs. I fancied that the Reverend Mr. Field, as Mrs. Charles Henry had introduced him, ate and drank with a relish that quite bore out her description of his poverty. "And is there no cure for clergyman's sore throat?" I asked, feeling myself in the presence of a tragedy. "None but total rest for an indefinite time,” Mr. Field answered in that silvery drawly voice that I had to admit was extremely pleasant to hear, and acknowledging my interest with a grave bow. I pitied the Reverend Mr. Field profoundly 38 PRINCE CINDERELLA and tried to enter sympathetically into his case, but in the talk that followed we seemed able to meet only by throwing out a succession of those conventional bridges provided for social emergen- cies but the use of which soon becomes a task to a simple-natured person like myself. When therefore a little later I caught sight of Harriet Carter, I murmured my excuses and rose from the table to speak to her. I knew Harriet had just had another operation, but though not in my judgment in particular need of sympathy she would expect the customary congratulations. (Harriet's tonsils and adenoids gave out recently and she will, I fear, be obliged to begin on her organs.) She was staying at Dorchester to recu- perate-she is the healthiest-looking woman I ever saw—and was occupied for diversion in an exhaustive study of the birds of the region. We had met at several houses and after thoroughly looking me over through her large toric lenses (I winced at this obvious homage to the Can) she had finally called at Woodcroft. I had returned the call and we met at the various houses of the neighborhood on sufficiently amiable TWO QUEER BIRDS 39 terms. Harriet is a distinct species and now and then I really relished her. She is a Colonial Dame and I appreciated that it was a genuine concession on her part to accept Miss Newly-Rich. It is really a lot of fun, taking people just as they are. "It may be necessary,” Harriet was dilating to a gaping group, "for me to spend some time at a sanatorium in order to recover my full strength. How I do admire these wonderful health factor- ies, as they may be termed!" I had my own opinion as to how much sense it takes to wrap fools in wet rags, but instead of expressing myself in an interesting and honest fashion I murmured the usual sympathetic inanities. Turning abruptly back to the tea-table to take final leave of my vis-à-vis of the moment before, I saw like a flash something that the bank of palms hid from the rest of the room. With an adroitness worthy of Raffles himself, the Rever- end Mr. Field was emptying into his coat pocket an entire plate of tea-cakes! He was standing with his back to me and did not know that I 40 PRINCE CINDERELLA saw. Troubled and ashamed that a clergyman should be reduced so low, I faced rapidly about and hurried away from the tea-table. I would not for worlds have him suspect that I had seen. I thought of his small and doubtless bare cottage and of Woodcroft, of his poverty and of my millions. In another moment I had managed to detach Mrs. Charles Henry from the gay group of admirers her magnetic personality always draws about her, and begged for a few words alone. With her never failing graciousness she led me across the hall into the big library. "Now we shall be quite alone. No one will come here. In fact, I seldom come here myself. I don't feel quite happy in this room.” And in an uneasy sort of way she glanced about and characteristically shrugged her handsome shoul- ders. I was too preoccupied with a little plan that had popped into my head to follow fully what she was saying. I told Mrs. Charles Henry what I had seen, and then in a dozen words made known my little plan to her, anxiously wondering what she TWO QUEER BIRDS 41 would say. With her approval I should feel safe in carrying it out. To my delight she caught both my hands ecstatically into her own. “Rose, you darling! Would you do it? And isn't he a discovery !” I was spared telling Mrs. Winters that I had found her discovery rather a bore for just then Mr. Winters came into the room. "Evening, Rose,” he said, shaking hands with me in his abrupt yet cordial way. He motored up from New York each evening and still had his driving cap and gloves in his hand. He was of medium height, in the fifties and slightly frosted, a silent man of the business type peculiar to America. Men of other nations work that they may have time to play and toys (including wives and children) to play withal. Mr. Winters worshiped his wife (a second wife she was, they had no children), but he played grudgingly as it were, and solely in order that his appetite for the manufacture of railroad ties might be maintained at its keenest edge. He had discovered that over-indulgence in the matter of railroad ties was as disastrous as over-indulgence in his favor- 42 PRINCE CINDERELLA ite highball, and with conscientious abstinence he now and then took time off for motoring, for a game of golf or a play,--like most American men he detested the opera. But having motored or golfed or gone to the theater it was, I knew, with a thrill of the heart and a delicious tighten- ing of muscles that, his stint of play accom- plished, he settled in for another long debauch of railroad ties. On her husband's entrance Mrs. Winters at once threw herself into high gear. She adored him and never for an instant suffered him to see her at her second-best. "Our darling Rose proposes, Charles Henry, to give poor Mr. Field a refuge, as long as he needs one, at Woodcroft! She will make him her superintendent of grounds, an easy post, which will insure his comfort and independence.” As she spoke she relieved her husband of his cap and gloves, pushed forward an immense easy chair, and switched on the yellow reading-lamp. Plainly as the lamp I saw "Humph” in Mr. Winters' eyes. But his wife's "discoveries" were always treated indulgently. “Very kind in Rose, TWO QUEER BIRDS 43 I'm sure,” was what he actually said in a slightly dry voice. A moment later he added, however, in caution to me, “I trust, Rose, my wife has made it clear to you that we have known this clerical chap a mighty short time. He brought, of course, some very good English letters." "Rose has talked to Mr. Field herself and formed her own impression,” answered Mrs. Charles Henry for me with a touch of spirit. “And now, my dear, I must really be going back to my guests. We shall leave the Man of Busi- ness to his evening paper.” Placing her arm around my waist, Mrs. Charles Henry turned me toward the hall door. As she did so my eyes fell on a large picture deeply framed in gold and, most singularly, turned with its face to the wall. I had noticed this picture before and had wondered greatly about it. “Oh!” I cried impulsively, releasing myself. "Why do you keep it turned so?” It wasn't good manners perhaps, but I couldn't help it! I saw Mrs. Winters glance back with quick apprehension at her husband but so absorbed 44 PRINCE CINDERELLA was he in the paper before him he had not heard me. "It is a son of Mr. Winters by his first wife,” she answered me reluctantly, in a low tone. "Five years ago his father disowned him. Wewe never speak of him." "Oh, pardon me," I exclaimed contritely, and in silence we turned to go. As we did so Mrs. Charles Henry glanced again at the humiliated portrait-I thought there was pity in her face. The next morning I despatched to Mrs. Charles Henry's needy clergyman a request that he do me the honor of making Woodcroft his home and offering him the nominal work of superintending my estate. In a note that I was forced to own was charmingly phrased, I received an immediate acceptance. This was speedily fol- lowed, on my sending my car to his cottage, by the gentleman's arrival in person. To the Reverend Cuthbert Marshmallow Field (so he had signed his note); I allotted rooms in the otherwise empty east wing. To reach it one had to pass the ghostly knight in armor, but I reflected that a clergyman would hardly share my shivers regarding it. TWO QUEER BIRDS 45 The Reverend had certainly a rummy lot of luggage,-a jumble of books, use-worn, battered old fellows, over whose faded backs my eye instinctively wandered as they rested in tumbled heaps on the lower hall floor: Colonel Newcomb, Pepys, books on English law, Shelley, Isaak Wal- ton, a botany, several eminent alienists—I won- dered a little at these latter, and a good deal at the complete absence of works on theology, but reflected that as Mr. Field had abandoned all hope of ever again taking a charge, he had prob- ably found it useless, perhaps even distressing to cart round these reminders of a lost sphere. There was a decidedly sportsmanlike array of fishing-tackle: lines, rods, flies, hooks, all of the most elaborate and expensive description-again I wondered. The gentleman's trunk and umbrella my butler would not have owned, but there was an elegant and quite new English hat box, prob- ably, I reasoned, a farewell gift from some devoted parishioner. A high rusty old-fashioned wheel, a traveling bag thickly pasted with fascin- ating foreign labels (I caught Calcutta and Hong-Kong among them and surmised that labor 46 PRINCE CINDERELLA in foreign missions had helped exhaust the cleri- cal throat); a japanned tea caddy, two badly nicked Limoges cups and a handleless stew-pan made up the remarkable belongings of my new priest, with the exception of what was apparently a large square box round which several layers of newspapers were loosely pinned, leaving visible only a brass ring at the top. Malory, with the perfection of butler's blind- ness alike to our new guest's shabby coat and the rumminess of the aforesaid luggage, took the wheel to the garage, and then made successive trips up to the east wing until the hall was cleared except for the square box, the Reverend mean- while, his little round English hat in his hand, remaining below to chat with Cousin Sarah and me. I had a dim feeling that Cousin Sarah was not wholly pleased with the arrival of Mr. Field. I felt that she disdained the rummy luggage and possibly too that she was jealous of the arrival of another claimant of my interest. Under his arm he held, rather carefully, I fancied, a large flat package wrapped in brown paper. With the same perfection of manner Malory' TWO QUEER BIRDS 47 picked up the square paper-covered box by the brass ring. “Damn it!" shrieked a voice. In sudden terror perfect Malory became human and let go the brass ring. There was a fall, a crash. Simultaneously off fell the newspapers, disclosing the most battered and bent old bird- cage, housing the most ancient and disreputable of parrots. Outraged at this violent treatment of his domicile the parrot fluttered back to the wooden perch, screaming out indignation in a string of oaths quite too dreadful to repeat. "Chizzy, Chizzy," chided the Reverend in a gentle tone. “Don't you see there are ladies present?” And he shook a warning finger at his wicked old pet. "A sailor gave him to me,” he added explainingly, turning to me, “during my course in the Old Testament, so I called him Mel- chizedek. It was a name that always escaped me when I wanted it in an exam,—you can't think what a help it was to practise on the old chap.” I was too shocked to speak. I did not dare look at Cousin Sarah. For a moment my heart misgave me. Had I bought a pig in a poke? I TWO QUEER BIRDS 49 under his arm. But declining with a decided shake of the head to surrender it, the Reverend, who had by this time regained his equanimity, turned and with a grave and really distinguished bow to me, followed Malory up the stairs, care- fully carrying the package in both hands. I won- dered if it contained the dozen pairs of silk hose that Mrs. Charles Henry had delicately pressed upon him for I somehow sensed that though threadbare now, the Reverend was by nature a dandy. Disliking to do things by halves, I sent to his room that night a check on a New York tailor who I chanced to recall was patronized by Judge Moore and his son. I really enjoyed the Reverend, especially on rainy Sundays when everybody you know has new cars they won't take out in the wet. To have exacted lengthy (and perhaps tedious) ser- mons from him would have been cruel, so, to the household assembled in the drawing-room, he merely read the service with the most aristocratic English accent and an adorable voice. I used to marvel that clergyman's sore throat could leave a voice so silvery and decided it must be quite 50 PRINCE CINDERELLA different from the red-flannel-rag-soaked-in-coal- oil-variety I had suffered from as a little girl. I marveled too that any man with serious throat trouble should smoke cigarettes almost as rapidly as he could roll them. This annoyed Cousin Sarah excessively. Hardly would he be out of hearing—I am positive she wanted him to hear -before she would begin to rail at what she termed his "filthy" habit. “Why, I am unable to see, should a man be allowed to make a club den of a drawing-room just because he wears his collar wrong side before. Dear Willoughby did not smoke.” (The Episcopal ritual does not sit well on Cousin Sarah, who is a Baptist.) "But, Cousin Sarah," I would defend mildly, "Mr. Field's cigarettes are of an extremely expen- sive imported tobacco." (I knew, for I paid the bills.) “And really, to me they have a quite delicious fragrance. Besides,"—this was my real ammunition, and woman-like I saved it for the last—"you must admit that it is something to have a man about. Women,” I concluded sagely, "are not families.” TWO QUEER BIRDS But Cousin Sarah merely raged on, and I let her rage, like the fretted porcupine. It saved noise. I liked the Reverend vastly better than I did Cousin Sarah and I hadn't the slightest notion of cutting off his perfectly delicious cigarettes to please her whim. Besides I secretly suspected that the real cause of Cousin Sarah's anger was the Reverend's failure to fling himself in adora- tion before her suede-shod number-two feet. Cousin Sarah was of a certain type of woman that expects every man she sees to become a foot- stool if she so wills it. I admired my clergyman's backbone and resolved to see that he had fair play. As superintendent of my estate he had little actual responsibility. He spent much of his time fishing in the stream on the edge of my grounds and in long rambles or rides on his awkward wheel through the foot-hills, returning generally with some botanizing specimen, and when indoors was, he told us, deeply engaged in mount- ing an herbarium (the flat package he had so carefully carried in his own hands the day he arrived must, I decided, have been this her- 52 PRINCE CINDERELLA . barium). We got on capitally. He was ordinar- ily mild as milk, but he so impressed the servants with the extreme importance of the herbarium, kept always in a locked cabinet, that they alluded to it in undertones of awe, and when gentle Daisy, her sloe eyes snapping with unprecedented temper, told me one morning that the "parson was that particular about his old dead weeds” he had asked leave to take care of his rooms, I readily consented. It was but one more whimsy. I one day politely expressed a desire to see the wonderful herbarium, but seemingly my request embarrassed Mr. Field. He colored, coughed apologetically and drawled something about an immense amount of work yet to be done on it. I forebore, rather relieved indeed, from viewing the sorry spectacle of flowers with the life and beauty systematically pressed and pasted out of them. In the excellent new broadcloth the Reverend was soon wearing, his appearance was much improved. In a way he won my liking, despite the fact that Chizzy, a most knowing old wretch, would now and again, in his master's absence, manage to escape his bars and making for the TWO QUEER BIRDS 53 corridor, perch on candle stand or armored knight, shrieking out curses fast enough and blue enough to make one think that all the saints in Heaven had on the instant become devils in hell. At such times Poe's uncanny fowl—“grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous”—was a churchyard dove in comparison. Cousin Sarah's fury was so great that had she followed her impulse she would, I am confident, have strangled Melchizedek's career and his variegated neck with one twist of her number-five hands. But before this ever actually occurred a shocked ser- vant invariably shooed the reprobate back into the Reverend's room and into his cage, not fail- ing to tie the door thereof with a bit of twine. Altogether I thought the Reverend just the nicest old lady in trousers I'd ever seen. There was something delightfully feudal about having a clerical retainer. Of his life before his "larger usefulness” had been cut short he seldom spoke and then only in the sketchiest terms. Realizing how painful the contemplation of that time must be to him, I restrained my natural curiosity and sympathetically forebore even the slightest refer- ence or inquiry. CHAPTER IV SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE ESCENDING from the aristocrats in my household to the servants, from chaplain to cook, there was black Bessie, (her other name was Hightower)—jolly middle-aged Bessie, whose fatness quivered jelly-like and whose wonderful Maryland rolls amply repaid the cost of the divorce I obtained for her from the young yellow gentleman who spent all her earnings on the bottle, fancy socks and the movies. Bessie had come over from Dorchester, ten miles, to apply for the place of cook in my establishment and I knew her at once for what she was—an old-time southern darky. But I was puzzled at the proposition she made me. "I hires fo' ten dollahs wid de baskit or twelve 54 SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE 55 widout,” she announced in delicious matter-of- fact frankness. "With the basket?" I repeated, unable to get her meaning. "De left-overs, honey. I takes 'em home at night.” I decided against "de baskit,” which seemed an arrangement capable of extraordinary elastic- ity, explaining to Bessie besides that as she would be compelled to sleep in the house she could not carry food home in the evening. I soon found, however, that in spite of the court's decree Bessie was unable to relinquish altogether the fascinating presence of her ex-husband and that he came over from Dorchester frequently when she rather openly fed him from my pantry. How- ever, what was a basket of left-overs compared to the golden flakiness of Bessie's broiled chicken and the incomparable way in which she said "Jerugalum”? Daisy, my young Irish housemaid, had a milky skin and marvelous sloe eyes. The men who called at Woodcroft used, after seeing her, to threaten to leave their cards at the back door. 56 PRINCE CINDERELLA Daisy found my house a refuge from a father who, though tidily settled, condemned his daughter to rags and drudgery and often beat her. When she showed me her back with four purple welts cut into the pearly flesh by her lov- ing parent—"All, Miss Meredith, because I went to a dance, such a teeny dance,”—I took her in. Nor was my course shaken when, next day as I was leaving Daisy's house with her and her trunk, her raw-boned stepmother called after me, "It's none of my business of course, Miss Mere- dith, but maybe it's my dooty to tell you that Daisy O'Mahoney is losing her character fast. Why, she says that when the dance music begins her feet just won't keep still. I'd hate to have feet I couldn't control better'n that! No wonder her father tries to beat Satan out of her!" "Thank you,” I answered sweetly, "but don't you think Daisy's real wickedness is in being young and pretty?” The old hypocrite, -you deserved it, I muttered to myself as I walked off. But the day came when that warning- Malory, my butler, who brought unexceptional credentials from a well-known New York em- SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE 57 ployment agency, dropped his aitches in the most approved cockney manner. If an aitch had a flavor I am positive every dish he served would have tasted of them. Perhaps a week after enter- ing my employ, Malory one morning, having finished serving my solitary breakfast, lingered unaccountably. I looked up at him inquiringly. as he stood just this side of the swinging door that leads into the pantry. His smooth-shaven face was white and he was trembling,—Malory, prince of butlers, master of himself though china fall. "Why, Malory, are you ill?” “No, madam. Thank you, madam. Hit's hit's something I got to say to you, madam.” "Well,” I suggested a little impatiently, “why not say it?" “Yes, madam. Murder will hout,” Malory sighed heavily. I swallowed a smile. "Murder?” I prompted. “Not hexactly, madam_” Poor Malory's face was now ashen, his eyes were fixed and staring 58 PRINCE CINDERELLA "Malory," I said with firmness, "get yourself a glass of port—and be a man.” “Oh," he groaned, shaking his head, "that's just hit. You're so good to us hall.” "Well," I remonstrated, forced this time to smile, "you are not good to me for you are excit- ing my curiosity beyond endurance." His plight was pitiable. “I've got to tell you. You see, you've treated me like a 'uman. That character I brought-I wrote hit myself!" "Well, Malory," I probed gently, after a moment's astonishment. "I 'ad to do it. You see where I was last- I was dismissed without any character. The- the plate 'ad been stolen.” With his face in his hands the man was actually sobbing. "I didn't take it—but things made hit look as if I ’ad. That's why I wrote my own character, madam. Nowadays a butler 'as to 'ave a charac- ter. Once I read about a man who didn't have a country. Well, madam, a butler without a char- acter is in just as awful a fix. I've packed my luggage, though if you want me to stay till hafter the 'ouse-party—" SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE 59 I rose and stepped quietly to Malory's side. "I want you to stay indefinitely, Malory.” And I gave him my hand. I should, I suppose, have given him his congé. But in spite of what the man had told me—or because of it-I liked him. 'Also, after the week I had had of his service I felt I could endure no one in his place. He says, “Yes, madam,” so inimitably. Of course I needed a chauffeur. The next day after I advertised for one there appeared at Woodcroft a young Hindoo carrying by a strap a roll of rugs he had come over from Dorchester to sell. I had no thought of buying rugs, but the boy's own extraordinary beauty fascinated me. Under twenty, I judged, and all but in rags, Seraph Kelian-50 read the soiled card he handed me—was of the most paintable type of oriental richness. Slender, arrow-straight he was, with a swift glide rather than a step; an olive cheek that flushed crimson quickly; eyes large and liquid and with a look in them of fath- omless grief, a grief not to be accounted for by wanderings and poverty. And he had quite the most beautiful nose I have ever beheld on a SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE 61 and more interested, I watched him as he ate with exceeding heartiness though with the utmost fastidiousness. "Seraph desire to attach himself to the retinue of some American princess," he announced with youthful gravity and with an upward look of charming candor. "Seraph know all about run- ning the great motor machine. Seraph can doc- tor the motor machine when she is sick.” I foresaw his dark eastern beauty in a white livery. I adore the picturesque. When I told him to stay he performed an astonishing salaam amid a torrent of oriental gratitude. It was not until after I had directed Malory to see that he had a tub and clean clothes that I realized I had hired him, so to say, for his nose. Recommen- dation of any sort he had not once mentioned. But I could not bring myself to summon him to return and give one. I considered it, indeed, extremely doubtful if he had any to give, but above this, there was that in Seraph's bearing which forbade it. It was a risk, but Seraph proved his boast. He knew how to run well cars and how to doctor sick ones. PRINCE CINDERELLA The Reverend, Cousin Sarah and I, lunched and dined together. The rest of the Collection kept democratic servants' hall, with the excep- tion of Seraph, who always ate alone in his quar- ters above the garage, an arrangement of his own, I suspected, for there was about him a singular hauteur. I once overheard Bessie describe him as "mighty stuck up for a niggah!” And I think they all resented his aloofness. Such was my household at the time things began to happen. This takes no count of the laundress, the scrub-woman and the gardener, who came over from Middlefield by the day. I must add to the list however, as the presiding deity of the place and the truest of friends, fair days and foul, Seth Thomas, Esquire, late of Ply- mouth Hollow, Connecticut. Esteem him not the less because he sat on the chimney-ledge instead of standing on the floor, an imposing grandsire solemnly measuring the wall at six feet. Rather, he was a short genial uncle, excel- lently preserved for his sixty-odd years (I am positive his digestion was perfect), Twenty- four times in the day, though I was not always SETH THOMAS, ESQUIRE 63 at hand to hear, he made valid in cheery tones the manful boast pasted on his breast, “War- ranted good.” There were hours in that trou- bled time that followed when of all my household Seth Thomas alone appeared dependable, hours when only his voice struck on my ears with abso- lute fidelity and assurance. CHAPTER V WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES M RS. CHARLES HENRY had a house full Va of people up from New York and was entertaining them with an afternoon tea and dance. Usually when the orchestra starts Beside the Sea my feet are as depraved as Daisy's. But to-day there was no tango in them. That morn- ing I had received a letter from William, Will- iam Moore,—and it was disagreeing with me. By a little maneuvering I had managed to slip away from the crowded drawing-room into the dim, quite deserted library on the opposite side of the house looking out through French doors and windows on the pretty walled garden. Something about this library-was it the humili- ated portrait on the south wall?_fascinated me. As I passed the portrait now something of pity 64 66 PRINCE CINDERELLA dow watching the frail spring sunshine sink low and lower still on the old stone garden wall, I discontentedly reviewed my seven years of William. Every branch of William's family tree has a Pilgrim Father sitting on it, and something in my cavalier blood found them dour and hard. In a wicked fit of imagination I thought I should like to shake the tree and see them all tumble, broad beavers flying, sans dignity for once. (Being myself ancestorless on one side and dis- owned on the other, William would have said I was jealous. Maybe he was right. There were times as I have already confessed when I did long mightily to belong to somebody.) From his paternal parent William had inher- ited the judicial countenance without the judicial penetration, the wig so to say and not the brain. Quite often we did not gee, and then we would jaw. I wanted to call him "Billy" and he insisted on being called “Will-yum” (he always brought it out with full organ). Of what good then was it that we united in honoring the Con- stitution and the Flag? There were times indeed WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES 67 when I felt that the Constitution and the Flag were the only things we did unite on. He was a Presbyterian and quite naturally considered Episcopalians as savoring rather strongly of the world and the flesh. (Not being gifted in self- understanding William did not perceive that it was precisely this savor in me that attracted him.) William was so good he made me seem, indeed, a bit off, which I resented, though Satan is at my elbow a lot of the time. The pale sunshine had begun to tell the closely- tucked primroses at the foot of the garden wall good night. Suddenly I heard a step. I turned back into the room, with a little catching of breath. I had completely lost myself in my reverie. Almost at my elbow a strange man faced me, a man ten or twelve years older than I, tall, dark, slender and with darkly blue eyes, a bit foreign as from far wanderings and loneliness......a man in motoring clothes, a light cap in his hand ........with a glamour about him of strange cities and of strange seas...... this man was regard- ing me out of grave inscrutable eyes. 68 PRINCE CINDERELLA The French doors at my right, leading into the garden, which I was positive had been closed when I entered the room, were ajar. So much I vaguely grasped. Who was this man,-a belated guest ? I rose to my feet, a bit unsteady. "Faith, and I'm sorry I startled you!" He bowed low, a whimsical smile brightened his grave face. The bit of brogue, the smile, the bow, the indescribable glamour there was about the man, fascinated me. I forgot that William Moore existed, I looked up at the stranger wide- eyed. "Perhaps it's wrong I am entirely to be trou- bling you with my presence?" Involuntarily I took a half step forward, “Oh, but you're not troubling me!" If only he would just go on talking like that in that wonderful low Irish voice! In the hall I heard Mrs. Charles Henry's authoritative voice. She was directing a ser- vant. “The rugs.... library." In a trice the dark polished floor was bare. From across the hall came the first haunting notes of Mandalay and through the door at the far end of the long, WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES 69 now shadowy room, two couples floated in on the hesitation waltz. I was mad about dancing, and at Green Briar we'd had so little- The whimsical smile on the stranger's face became now one of sheer kindly indulgence. He tossed his cap on the white wood mantel-shelf. Slowly he raised his arms. I gave myself to the pulse of the music and literally danced into them. So might a warrior of eld have summoned to himself a maid from some captive tribe and so might she have answered. At touch of him all questionings ceased. Dark shapes of fear melted like mist. "I'm on the way—to Mandalay” - Across the hall the younger ones began to sing it. Lured by the song the two couples who had been whirling about at the opposite end of the room whirled out into the hall and back into the crowd. Quite alone in the big shadowy library the stranger and I danced on. It's fine to have lots of space to dance in, I don't think I'd ever had enough before. With hardly a pause we glided into the encore ....for one fleeting instant as we passed a long WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES 71 He was holding up before me a gold ring -rich Roman gold set with a single large stone, a diamond it was, I suppose, and with the strangest blue fires in it. I sat transfixed. That wonderful stone shone and beckoned, beckoned and shone....I couldn't speak again. With my hands clasped before me, my lips parted, I just looked at it. It seemed a bit of magic, that marvelous jewel to come from his pocket like that. The stranger laughed softly. Then he slipped the dazzling thing once more into its chamois envelope, snapped down the flap, restored the envelope to the wallet, the wallet to his pocket, and buttoned his coat over it. In the drawing- room the violins began the second encore. The last strains-had he purposely directed our steps so ?-brought us back to the open French doors leading into the now fast darken- ing garden. A faint odor of young growing things reached us on the moist, slightly chill air. Some one flashed on the light..... in the hall there was a hubbub of good-nights and laughter .....somewhere a clock toned six, 72 PRINCE CINDERELLA The stranger released my waist, took both my hands. He was laughing softly. “It's Prince Cinderella I am. When the clock strikes I must go. Behold my pumpkin coach!" Through the open door, beyond the garden on the side street, I saw, its lights glittering in the dusk, a great yellow-bodied limousine. My throat had suddenly a queer little ache in it, but I turned to meet my Prince's farewell with a smile. He was feeling in his waistcoat pocket. Impatiently he tugged at it-glancing at the hall door as he did so. Something flew out. He stooped hastily and picked it up. It was a key. He spoke low, hurriedly. “For me”.... pressing the key into my hand ...."after I am gone, lock the door. Hide the key behind the china shepherdess on the mantel. It is always kept there." Stooping, he swiftly raised the tips of my fingers, foreign fashion, and kissed them. Snatching his cap he darted out of the door and across the dusky garden. I saw him lightly leap the low garden wall. I heard a chug, a whir. The great, lighted yellow-bodied car glided WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES 73 rapidly down the side street and out on the coun- try road. My Prince was gone. Dazed, sorry-glad, I stood following the car with my eyes for the brief seconds granted me till it rounded the corner. Then I turned to do for my Prince the little thing he, confident that I would do it, had asked. Softly I shut the French doors against the scented twilight. I turned the key in the lock, and then going to the white wood mantel-piece I dropped it safely behind the silly little shepherdess.... Mrs. Charles Henry's voice was calling, "Rose, Rose, you little mouse....” But another voice was knocking at my heart: "When the clock strikes I must go...... Behind the china shepherdess...." How did he know of the little key and the place of its hiding? How did he get the key.... and how could he laugh? As quickly as I could I got away from Mrs. Charles Henry. “Child, you have fever," she exclaimed anxiously as I slipped into my warm redingote. It was true. My cheeks were burning. 74 PRINCE CINDERELLA But with a kiss and a laughing evasion I ran down the steps and sprang into my limousine. I am fond of Mrs. Charles Henry, but I could not tell her of Prince Cinderella. That night, after dinner, leaving Cousin Sarah and the Reverend at the earliest possible moment to their tiresome whist-the one bond between them I hurried up to my own room. After loosening my hair and slipping on a warm dressing-gown I turned out my light, and draw- ing aside the curtains at the window, raised it and sat down cross-legged on the floor-an old trick of mine as a child. I held my arms out happily to the spring night and drank in its intoxicating beauty. As if it were a May bowl I drained the fresh piny air, the ineffable night peace. Aloft from clouds swiftly moving, darkly blue, the moon, just rounded to her full, was pouring her silver cup down the heavenly steeps. Below me a broad ribbon of light-the drive curved away among the dark pines and walnuts. Across the western sky Waldon Ridge upreared its dark majestic heights. The cool air was delicious to my still burning face. WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES 75 In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures life may perfect be. Oh, Ben Jonson, rare indeed, you and your verse, this scrap of which I had kept in my heart ever since as a schoolgirl I had torn it from a corner of the daily newspaper and carried it about in my shopping bag with other treasures of chocolate candy, Lucy Larcom, three-cornered notes and lace valentines. During dinner I had been compelled to pay some sort of attention to Cousin Sarah and the Reverend, but now I once again caught the lilt Mandalay—could dance again those all too brief measures with Prince Cinderella in the dim shadowy library. Once again I gazed at the ring with the wonderful blue stone. Once again he kissed my finger-tips and pressed into my hand the little key. And again I saw him dart across the dusky garden and leap into the yellow coach, to vanish I knew not where. I did not even know his name. The dusk had swallowed him up. Should I ever see him again? Suddenly as if in answer to my thought, among the dark pines on lofty Waldon Ridge, 76 PRINCE CINDERELLA at the southernmost end of the Ridge, a solitary light gleamed. For an instant it shone bright as a star, then it disappeared. Could my Prince be on those heights? The Ridge is a wilderness, too narrow, steep and rocky for any cultivation. From below, its thicket of trees and brush appeared indeed impenetrable. Foxes, wolves and even an occasional wildcat had been shot there by hunters, but there was nothing to tempt a human being to abide on that summit. The singular light fascinated me and I remained at the open window watching for its reappearance until the increasing chill of the night air warned me to bed. But the light did not shine again. It was like my Prince to be on the Ridge, - there was the kinship of romance between them. But though the notion pleased my fancy I finally dismissed it, for how could his great yel- low coach ascend' that rocky narrow way which I had been told was only a sheep trail? Another thought indeed was troubling me. Though he had gaily called himself' Prince Cin- derella, he was, I saw plainly, an aristocrat born. If we should ever meet again, would he, when WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES 77 he heard the rattle of father's tin cans, turn away? Only the Sunday before a New York newspaper had spread a picture of Woodcroft, with a description of father's factories and an account of his invention over its entire front page. Somehow it sounded like dump-heaps. I held my head as high as the best of them, and I still loved father, but would that Tin Can forever follow me? I hoped—and I feared. In the meantime I would, to borrow Du Maurier's pretty saying, mark this day with a white stone. CHAPTER VI BLUE FIRES NEXT morning even as my room became a reality to my slowly wakening senses I realized that a rosy mist had come over every- thing. I had had an adventure. Romance had come to me. Always, perhaps because the Can was depressingly practical, I had craved the romantic. It was, I think, the chief thing that stood between William and me. On the very last night I had spent at his father's house after buying Woodcroft I had tried desperately to make William see. We had been talking of the touring-car I had ordered that afternoon. "William," I wound up, "some magic silver night I'm going to drive all night. I'll drive on and on through ghostly woods and past lone farm-houses...." BLUE FIRES 79 “Why, Rose,” he interrupted in that shocked, you-don't-tell-me tone I detest, "that would make talk, wouldn't it? And the night air....sore throat, you know!" Can't you see how utterly hopeless he was? In my despair I could have seized him by the collar and shaken him. He persisted always in taking literally every word I uttered. “William,” I exploded, "you will never understand!” Poor William! For a moment he uttered not a word in reply. “Look out, Rose! I may sur- prise you some day!” he muttered then. He was awfully peeved. It was really not William's fault. Disraeli says adventures come to the adventurous, and surely the understanding of them likewise lodges there. William is not adventurous. Yet even I had almost lost hope of Romance. At twenty-two illusions already show signs of wearing thin and I had begun to see that everybody has fried potatoes for supper. My Prince had charmed me back into that child world where fried potatoes become ambrosia. The morning following Mrs. Charles Henry's PRINCE CINDERELLA a 1 dance, Seraph, whose duty it was to go for the mail (Woodcroft was on a rural route), brought me just as I was finishing breakfast a half- dozen letters, the usual tradesmen's bills and a little box that had been marked "registered.” Eagerly I caught up the letters. A faint wild hope had seized me. Would one of them be addressed in a strange hand? But no, I knew each instantly and unmistakably. Hastily I opened one after another and ran through them. One of course was from William who wrote to me in the same conscientious spirit in which each morning he somewhat audibly crunched a certain cold gritty breakfast food he believed to be especially nutritious. A lover may be too faith- ful. I had forgotten until that moment that Will- iam was to arrive that evening. Laying down the letters, my hope dashed, I idly picked up the little box—a round box of the type used by druggists for their nasty pills. As I started to undo the very heavy wrappings I noticed that Seraph had not left the room. He was, indeed, standing quite close to me, his olive cheek flushed, his dark eyes fixed on the box in BLUE FIRES 81 my hand. Catching my look of reproof he salaamed profoundly—a habit I had at first feebly rebuked and then vainly permitted—and went out. For a moment I puzzled over this breach of propriety in Seraph, whose native refinement was exquisite, whose observance of etiquette was extraordinary. Immediately the box was open I forgot Ser- aph's existence. On a white cotton bed lay a ring of rich Roman gold set with a single large diamond shaped like a robin's egg and with glints of a like heavenly blue. Instantly I rec- ognized it. It was the ring my Prince had shown me the afternoon before at Mrs. Charles Henry's. As in a dream I picked it up and held it to the light. Once more it fascinated me. A jewel of such color, size, luster, such a gem as the name Golconda conjures up....why had he sent it to me? I slipped it on.... it fitted perfectly ....but instantly I took it off again. I would not, could not wear it until my Prince himself- I grabbed the discarded paper wrappings and searched for the post-mark, A little dim it was, BLUE FIRES have my wonderful day marred by them. In the Doré sycamore just outside the window a meadow-lark was singing madly. Scent of lilacs invited me forth. As Cousin Sarah indulged in the lazy habit of breakfasting in bed, and the Reverend's throat could not, he had informed me, suffer the dampness of early day, I was alone. Taking my precious robin's egg with me I would go out into the morning world. Just as I was in the act of restoring the ring to its white nest I felt between my shoulder- blades the bore of a pair of eyes. I turned irresistibly. Malory was standing in the door leading to the butler's pantry, his gaze glued on the bit of blue fire in my hand. I never saw Malory flush. On the rare occa- sions when anything went wrong at table, he always paled. He turned singularly pale now. “Beg pardon, madam, did you—did you ring?" He brought out this last in quite a naive way as if he had a faint hope that I would lie and so save his face for him. For the life of me I could not refuse to do it. “Yes, Malory.” Casting about for a reason PRINCE CINDERELLA for which I might have summoned him, my eyes fell on the crystal flower bowl. “Will you please see that the roses on the table have fresh water ?” I well knew that the request was superfluous. Perfect Malory thought of everything. But it was the best on the spur of the moment that I could do. Gratefully he accepted it and with a "Thank you, madam,” took the rose bowl, and the pantry door swung to behind him. The lit- tle incident had about it a sort of Henry James subtlety, I reflected, as I rose from my chair. I had instinctively taken a cue out of the air, as it were, and had forborne to shame my butler for perfectly evident impertinence. I doted on The Golden Bowl, but did I care for webs and weav- ings in my own quiet household? They might prove interesting-mysteries had always fascin- ated membut who, should a mystery develop, would “see me through,” as James would say. . For the first time it occurred to me to doubt my wisdom in having told Malory, after his con- fession of a forged "character," to stay. The look I had surprised on his face was one of covetous- ness unmistakable. I was genuinely perplexed, BLUE FIRES 85 even a little troubled, for why should I-a lone girl (in common with others of my sex I was reluctant to call myself a woman) keep a sus- pected thief in my house? A slight occurrence will sometimes open the door to a large thought. For the first time in my life I realized how com- pletely alone I was in the world, how utterly without adequate counsel or protection should need for either arise. William's father and I had never agreed. William himself would gladly advise me on any subject at any time—in that cold breakfast-food way of his that I so greatly disliked. The Charles Henrys were indeed kind, but I had not known them long and should hesi- tate to burden them with my affairs. Just then Seth Thomas began striking the hour of nine. Instinctively I looked up, there was always something so wise as well as heartening in his voice. But having scrupulously obeyed, in his customary brisk manner, the promptings of brass within, he discreetly forbore to utter another word. Perhaps at his age he had his own notions as to the folly of trying to advise roman- tic young women! But the ardor of my joy was lai roman- 86 PRINCE CINDERELLA too great to be long dampened. Hugging the lovely elusive ring to my breast I ran out to the larks and the lilacs. CHAPTER VII THE POINTED BRICK COTTAGE DUT as high sun warned me that noon was near and I turned toward the house, I found myself curiously depressed. The beautiful blue stone had reacted on me singularly. It was a responsibility I did not feel equal to carrying by myself. In the first rapture of receiving it I had thought only of its extraordinary beauty, but Malory's look had awakened me to the fact that it must be of enormous value. It was not of course mine for keeps, but until my Prince required it of me I must guard it safely. At this moment I felt a deep sympathy with the reason Cousin Sarah had given for marrying poor Wil- loughby: I too wanted some one to do my think- ing for me. My dear old preceptress at Green Briar was too far away to give me immediate 88 PRINCE CINDERELLA counsel. I could not confide in Mrs. Charles Henry since to do so would be to betray my Prince. And before showing it to me he had asked if I could keep a secret. Plainly he didn't care to have the ring talked about. Yet dis- turbed as I was I could not bring myself to send it through my attorneys in New York to a safety-deposit box as I might easily have done. If we women were not just such queer bundles of contradiction how differently things would turn out! I resolved for the present to hide the ring safely. Where? Under a rug in my room? In my pompadour? Rather a bright idea, that, and instinctively I clapped my hand to the round fluffy roll with which fashion had becomingly aureoled my rather small head. At the same instant looking up to the wide veranda of the house I saw Cousin Sarah, her silver mesh bag as usual in her lap. She was sitting perfectly still, regarding me, rather intently, I thought. Instinctively, my hand closed over the blue stone. Impossible that she could have seen it, although she might have noticed the empty box and the THE POINTED BRICK COTTAGE 89 wrappings which I realized I had a little thoughtlessly left on the table in the dining-room. Having seen the box, to discover what came in it would, I knew, become her occupation for the day. Usually I gratified her curiosity,—her life was so empty and colorless except for what I put into it. But this morning I could not confide in her. I would not show her the blue stone. I ascended the veranda steps with my treasure tightly clutched in my hand. Cousin Sarah was really a dose I didn't feel equal to just then and I meant to pass her with a word. But this was not possible. “My dear Rose!” she observed plaintively. “Yes, Cousin Sarah?” I paused perforce. "Have you noticed how terribly careless Daisy is growing?" she went on in her soft light tones. "I dislike to speak of it, but I am sure she does not properly shake the sheets when she makes my bed. They are q-u-i-t-e c-r-u-m-b-y!" I had long ago learned not to argue with Cousin Sarah. "I'll go right in now and speak to Daisy. Thank you, Cousin Sarah,” I answered. 90 PRINCE CINDERELLA As I started for the door however Cousin Sarah's silver mesh bag dropped from her lap. Stooping, I picked it up—and out from my own hand flew the robin's egg diamond ring. Blushing, I grabbed the bag, receiving a second time an impression of hard lumpiness, handed it to her and hurried to where the blue stone had fallen, feeling guilty as a thief. How much bet- ter to have shown it to her at first! I half hoped she didn't really see what it was, but as I straight- ened up, the ring in my hand, and looked at her, I saw that the pupils of her ordinarily sleepy eyes had suddenly expanded until she might fairly be glaring at me. Immediately I colored and looked away. It was an embarrassing moment--and of the two, I was the more embarrassed because I knew that I had awkwardly caused the faux pas. Mumbling I know not what I went on into the house, not to speak to Daisy about crumby bed- sheets but to my own room to collect my scattered wits. Of one thing I was sure: Cousin Sarah had deliberately stopped me to learn if possible what had come in the little box. Her complaint about Daisy had been a pretext. THE POINTED BRICK COTTAGE 91 Once there, I went to my dressing-table which stood in the open bay window and laying the ring down on the glass top I sank into the chair before it, fascinated by its blue fires, its more than earthly beauty...... "Oh, ma'am, excuse me! I knocked, and you didn't answer, so—" I turned like a shot. Daisy stood in the open doorway. Her eyes had followed mine—those wonderful sloe eyes that would have made her fortune had she possessed a brain to match them --and were fixed on the robin's egg. She had broken off her sentence, hypnotized by the stone shining there on my dressing-table in the morn- ing sunlight like a bit of heaven's own blue. Why should I falter in the presence of a mere chit, my housemaid? Why indeed? But the sudden possession of a stone of fabulous worth seemed a thing I was obliged to account for even to Daisy. From this folly I found refuge in Cousin Sarah's complaint. “Mrs. Martin tells me, Daisy, that you do not sufficiently shake her sheets. She says they are quite crumby!” In my agitation I brought out the 92 PRINCE CINDERELLA last two words with Cousin Sarah's own emphasis, suggesting a penitentiary offense. The sloe eyes filled with tears. "Indeed, ma'am, how can that be? I've been giving Mrs. Martin fresh sheets every day—she's that particular!” “That will do, Daisy,” I commanded, with quite unprecedented sharpness. “Let me have no further cause for complaint.” Crushed and bewildered Daisy left the room, astonished at my asperity, closing the door behind her with soft humility. I was ashamed. Could I be developing nerves ? Delicately built I am, but nerves—I viewed them with con- tempt. Resolving as soon as opportunity afforded to "make it up” to Daisy I dismissed her from my mind. The immediate problem before me was the safe disposition of the ring. I rose, closed and bolted the door against further intru- sion and once again sat down in the window. before the blue diamond. The incidents of the last few moments had not lightened the load of responsibility it had laid on my shoulders. I suddenly appreciated that THE POINTED BRICK COTTAGE 93 not only for my own sake but for the sake of my household I should have made a greater effort to conceal the ring. What could such a stone be to a girl like Daisy, a man like Malory, but a temptation? Singularly, too, though it had been in my possession only a few hours, four members of my household knew of its existence. What fatality was pursuing me? True, Seraph had beheld only the outside of the box in which it had come, but those oriental eyes of his always seemed to see right through. Then and there I knew that the universe is founded on truth—else it wouldn't be so hard to lie, or to hide a thing—which is a kind of lying. But as somebody has said, "If some things were different, other things would be otherwise." Four of the oddly assorted persons under my roof knew, and three of them were probably not, in simple candor, above temptation. I took up the beautiful smooth glittering jewel and held it to the light. Why, I was half bewitched by it myself! Already I loved it, not merely for its owner's sake but frankly for itself, the half- barbaric, wholly splendid thing, 94. PRINCE CINDERELLA All at once my glance was attracted to the tenantless pointed brick cottage which, I have explained, stood a short distance from my win- dow. I distinctly saw the old curtain at the upper window nearest me move. With a sudden instinct of fear I jerked down the Venetian blind. I was certain a pair of eyes had gazed at me from between the folds of the curtain. There was one other thing I was equally certain of: the eyes were gray. CHAPTER VIII SHADOWS BEFORE TEAK from fright, trembling, I sank on the window-seat, the blue diamond ring roll- ing from my loosened fingers unheeded to the floor. A fifth person now knew about it, was watch- ing it and me. An unknown person who presum- ably had secretly entered the vacant cottage in order to watch me! Whose were those gray eyes? There was something positively uncanny in the fact that I had seen nothing but the eyes. A convenient hole in the old curtain had given the stranger the chance to see without being seen except for those two steely orbs. - I rose, picked up the ring and laid it once more on the dressing-table. Realizing my dazed con- dition and inability to think clearly I went to the 95 96 PRINCE CINDERELLA narrow old-fashioned cupboard over the fireplace and took down the glass fruit-jar that contained the supply of freshly-ground coffee I always kept at hand. I braced myself sufficiently to brew over my alcohol lamp a strong cup of my cher- ished Mocha. Coffee-courage is nothing to boast of but it will keep one going. I needed a stimulant more than I realized, for even as I drained the last rich fragrant drop, it came over me that the eyes that had peered at me from the hole in the curtain were not necessarily those of a stranger. There were gray eyes under my own roof! Bessie had them,-great gray eyes strikingly set in her coal-black face; eyes that had been eloquent with gratitude on the day I had brought home to her her release from the yellow gentle- man. Did Bessie know of the precious jewel I had so unexpectedly acquired? It would be pass- ing strange for her to have gone over to the deserted cottage for the purpose of looking across into my room. Besides, though the shrubbery was thick I seemed to remember a little path through it, and the stone wall, not higher than SHADOWS BEFORE 97 an ordinary fence,—but then Bessie could not yet know of the diamond-unless indeed, Daisy had gone straight to the kitchen with news of it and of my tantrum- "Rose Meredith," I said aloud, with great firmness, rising and facing my scared image in the cheval glass, "you are losing your senses ! May not a cook-a perfectly dandy cook, too- have gray eyes without being suspected of trying to spy? I am ashamed of you!" A light ringing laugh made me aware that in my fright I had spoken aloud. Behind the Vene- tian blind the window was still up and evidently the rebuke I had administered to myself had been overheard in the cottage by Gray Eyes. There was something in the quality of the laugh, gay and even friendly, that instantly banished fear. But I was indignant. Couldn't I scold myself if I chose without being ridiculed for it? I have never been sorry that I can show a bit of temper now and then-indeed, knowing that as a rule I give way weakly to the wills of those about me, I am rather proud of the fact that on occasion I flare up. Grasping my anger as a 98 PRINCE CINDERELLA stick to lean on, I smoothed my hair preparatory to going down to luncheon which must, I knew, be ready. Simultaneously I resolved to investi- gate the brick cottage. But that moment Seth Thomas struck a summoning “one.” There was in the familiar sound something that calmed and cheered me. Before leaving the room I must dispose of the ring. Casting about for a place in which to conceal it my eyes lighted on the glass fruit-jar two-thirds filled with ground coffee. Where could it be safer? Dropping it in, I screwed on the lid and then replaced the jar in its usual place on the bottom shelf of the cup- board. I locked the cupboard door, slipped the key into the pocket of my pongee shirt-waist, and started down-stairs. The blue stone was safe, for the time at least. But I had the sensation of having insulted it by thrusting it into the brown depths of a common coffee jar. Its bright beauty demanded light, homage, adoration. It belonged in a gorgeous Indian palace, with princes, priests, a multitude of rich bowing turbans. I felt as if I had slapped a rajah in the face. SHADOWS BEFORE 99 “Ah, my dear Miss Meredith!” drawled the Reverend gently, rising, as I entered the dining- room, from his seat on the window-ledge with a touch of humility in his bearing. He was to suit my taste rather too much the poor relation though at times he could chirp into the conversation in a surprisingly buoyant way. Cousin Sarah, clad in her widow's dignity and in the best black silk at seventeen dollars the yard to be ordered from the most exclusive shop in London (I knew, for I footed the bills), glided in on the instant and we sat down. No one would have taken her for a poor relation,--that rôle between us would unhesitatingly have been assigned to me. In her sleek bearing there was no hint of our little encounter on the veranda. It was Malory's day off and Daisy was serv- ing. Her sloe eyes showed faint traces of tears. “You may take the pony cart for the afternoon, Daisy," I said as she brought in the salad. "Oh, thank you, thank you, ma'am.” Sun- beams from Daisy. "Just be sure to return in good time. We have guests to-night, you remember.” 100 PRINCE CINDERELLA “Yes, ma'am.” "Daisy, have you ever noticed any one about the little brick cottage on the next place?" "Why, no, ma'am. There ain't nobody lived there for ever so long." "So I had understood. But this morning I fancied I saw some one at the window opposite my room_” Thump! The Reverend Cuthbert Marshmal- low Field had dropped his salad fork to the floor. Daisy's attention was immediately transferred to the necessity of getting him a fresh one from the sideboard. "Damned awkward of me!" I stared in utter amazement. My household priest, my ecclesiastical ornament, had sworn! At once Chizzy's extraordinary skill in oaths recurred to me. Perhaps the Reverend did not mind so much as he had declared, his wicked old pet's profanity! Perhaps, indeed, they were a pair of bad old birds between them! It was shocking—and pitiful. I glanced out of the tail of my eye at Cousin Sarah. She was the incarna- tion of outraged dignity. SHADOWS BEFORE 101 A lively brick-red spread slowly over the clerical features. "Pardon me, ladies-a survival of undergrad- uate days," and Mr. Field bowed in deep apology. I said nothing. What could I say? Gradu- ally we all regained our customary social sur- faces and the meal proceeded in the desultory way usual with people whose regular meetings twice or thrice a day soon carry them past their store of common interests. Talk doubtless would have been livelier had I not been preoccupied with the robin's egg and the strange pair of eyes that had gazed at me from the red brick cottage. It had just occurred to me that I might ask the Reverend to go over after luncheon to the cottage with me. If any thief were in hiding there so close to my own premises I ought to know it. In broad daylight and with him for a protector I should not be afraid- Ping! On the still noon air a shot rang out sharply. In an instant the noise brought us all to our feet. I was first to speak. I thought I knew whence that sound had come. The dining-room is on the west side of the house yet- oom IC 102 PRINCE CINDERELLA "It is the man in the cottage," I cried out sud- denly. Though I had seen only the eyes, I be- came sure that it was a man. “Excuse me, ladies, and I will investigate," said the Reverend immediately. "Please do,” I begged, alarmed at this appar- ently fresh confirmation of my fears of an hour before. At once the Reverend left the room. I was gratified at the promptness with which he assumed a man's responsibility in the affair. Cousin Sarah and I sat down again at the table and began a slight pretense of eating our dessert. But as we were nervously expecting every second a repetition of the shot we soon laid down our forks and Bessie's delectable raspberry roll was scarcely touched. No second shot came. But within fifteen min- utes the Reverend appeared, walking quietly in from the open front door and with not the slight- est trace of agitation in his manner. Judging from his complete composure one might have inferred that mysterious pistol-shots were with him matters of daily occurrence. “Probably a farmer boy and a treed rabbit,” ! SHADOWS BEFORE 103 he explained, resuming his seat at table. “At all events I went clear through the cottage, up-stairs and down and caught not a glimpse of any one.” He picked up his dessert fork and attacked his raspberry roll with relish. "Thank you, Mr. Field,” I said, but I had no mind myself for raspberry roll at that moment. Cousin Sarah had followed Mr. Field's example and having smothered her portion of dessert in the thick cream she loved, ate as if the incident were quite dismissed from her mind. But I was far from being satisfied with the Reverend's matter-of-fact statement. It was not a farmer boy's laugh I had heard that morning. I deter- mined to see further for myself. Accordingly when at last I could leave the luncheon table, I slipped out the porte-cochère and running along the ivied boulder wall just beyond it, I found the little gate, almost hidden in shrub- bery, that led to the next place. The Reverend must have leaped the wall,-clearly no one had passed through the gate recently for all of my strength was required to push it free of the thick old rope vines in which it was meshed and bound. 104 PRINCE CINDERELLA In another moment I was standing in front of the house, facing the old wide-paneled front door, standing half open, doubtless as the Reverend had left it. There has always been for me a fascination about a deserted dwelling, arising from a spirit- ual residue I am bold enough to fancy I can detect in its rooms from the human lives that have been lived there. Several times since mov- ing to Woodcroft I had thought that some day I would explore the little brick cottage. This after- noon, after the peculiar incident of the morning and the shot that had interrupted our luncheon, I should have been afraid to enter it except that I had the Reverend's assurance that he had gone completely through it and found no one. I didn't feel a particle of fear as I pushed the old door wide open and stepped inside the tiny hall. From the hall I entered the small square parlor, from this I went to the dining-room, thence to the kitchen. These rooms occupied all the space on this floor. In each room there was a large deep cupboard quite empty, as I assured . myself. The old green shutters were closed but SHADOWS BEFORE 105 the slats were turned, half admitting through the thick cobweb draperies bars of light quite suffi- cient for me to see that, as far as the first floor was concerned, it was true not only as the Rever- end had said that no one was here, but there was no sign that in years any one had been. There were, to be sure, footprints in the thick dust on the floor but these I judged to have been made by the Reverend himself. The rooms were empty of furniture save for an old sugar chest in the second room, a good cherry piece indiffer- ently left by some inappreciative tenant whose ownership I resolved to investigate. My tour of the lower rooms complete, I mounted the steep narrow stairs going up within six feet of the front door. There was no upper passage, hall space having evidently been con- sidered by the builder as so much waste. Above, as below, there were three chambers, connected as were the lower rooms, with the charm of queer cranny, sloping ceilings and twittering eaves, and all obviously empty. I returned down- stairs, still unsatisfied, though what I expected or wished to find I could have told no one. 106 PRINCE CINDERELLA Once more I passed slowly through the three lower rooms. The back door, leading from the kitchen into what, judging from the regular ridges of earth that still marked it, had once been a vegetable garden, was wide open. I stood in the door and surveyed what was now a tall picturesque tangle of asparagus, wild mustard, sweet fennel and spotted tawny lilies. Diagonally across this wilderness extended a narrow open track in which vines and plants had been vio- lently trampled as by rapidly fleeing footsteps. The natural explanation of course was that the farmer's boy pursuing his rabbit had dashed through here, but for some reason not defined to myself I walked slowly into the trampled space. It was of course a most likely spot for snakes but at that moment I never thought of them. I had caught sight, a few steps ahead, of something small and dark that had, I guessed, dropped from the pocket of the person to whom those fleeing footsteps belonged. In another moment I had gained and picked it up-a little green morocco-covered book of the finest workmanship, an edition de luxe of Tom SHADOWS BEFORE 109 Moore's ballads, just such a book as would slip snugly into a man's pocket. I thought it quite probable that the owner of the book and the owner of the gray eyes and the gay ringing laugh were the same. Clearly it was not the property of any farm boy pursuing rabbits. In any case I felt rewarded for my search of the brick cottage and its premises,' I walked slowly back through the little gate with my book of Irish ballads and went straight to my room. I had a feeling that I would not just then tell any one that I had found it. It was a bit of booty I didn't have to show to anybody, As I ascended the stairs in my own house I was inclined to believe I should hear more of that pistol-shot. CHAPTER IX 'A WASTED BLESSING L OW a woman loves a frock she's worn when she had some particularly happy time! That night as I went up-stairs to dress for din- ner I determined to put on again the little rose silk in which I had met my Prince. I had a silly notion it might bring me luck a second time. And defying discretion I unscrewed the coffee jar and taking out the ring with the strange lovely stone I slipped it on the third finger of my right hand. It was the only ring I would wear. Men's voices in the lower hall.... William and his friend had come. Secured against bore- dom by a secret thrill, I fairly floated down- stairs to the drawing-room. At the door I paused. 108 A WASTED BLESSING 109 . Near the middle of the long room, beside the red reading-lamp and facing me, very much at home sat William-square, tow-headed, blue- eyed William, intent on a small pocket volume. Quite at the far end, his side to me, a tall man was bending over the grand pianoforte as he idly turned the music on the rack. So engrossed in his little book was William he did not hear my slippered foot fall as I advanced into the room. But the tall man heard. He turned from the piano. My heart bounded. It was my Prince. Over William's unconscious tow head our glances flashed together. Utterly astonished, I was about to cry out my pleasure but with the loveliest smile and dancing eyes he lifted his finger to his lips. I stifled my exclamation, but I dropped my fan. William looked up then. Deliberately he laid down his little book, put a ribbon marker in the place, rose and came forward. Evening clothes, I suddenly decided, did not suit William. The white stiff bow under his chin made him seem even a bit more faultless. "So nice of you to let us come, Rose," he 110 PRINCE CINDERELLA began, in his married-forty-years manner. “Let me present my friend, Mr. Leighton Darrah.” To Leighton Darrah-romantic name I gave my hand willingly enough, albeit shyly. He bowed over it just a little, making a bit of cere- mony as he murmured my name. Neither of us said that we were glad to meet, but William did not notice the omission of this conventionality. Mr. Darrah stooped to pick up the fan and as I put out my hand to take it, we both looked at the ring on my finger. I colored and glanced hastily at William. He had gone back to the table for his little book. With an air of triumph he held it up for me to see. "How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day! An extraordinary book, Rose! Think of it! No wasted moments! So much reading accomplished while you are eating breakfast, so much more while you ride down to business" "Now, do you know,” quizzically interposed Mr. Darrah, "I think Arnold Bennett draws it a little hard. I quite like wasting moments.” "Little drops of water, little grains of sand,” I warned him. A WASTED BLESSING III William nodded gravely. I wanted to shout with laughter. William was always the prize boy in school and is still the prize boy. He does not see that in the life school you may be letter- perfect in your lesson and yet remain at the foot of the line. "Miss Meredith, I took the liberty of bringing with me my Scotch collie.” Mr. Darrah had become serious again. "I am absurdly attached to him, perhaps because he once saved my life. He will, if you don't mind, sleep outside my door at night as is his custom. He's very likable, is Bob, a gentleman indeed, unless roused by some mischief. Your butler kindly took him in charge. It's yourself shall see him to-morrow." I love a good dog, especially a collie, and should have bought one for myself except for Cousin Sarah's expressed dislike of the whole canine breed. “Bob will be a welcome guest indeed," I assured Mr. Darrah with unassumed cordiality. I liked him the better for liking his dog. And the phrase "He once saved my life" had pricked my ears. Clearly Mr. Darrah had had adventures. II2 PRINCE CINDERELLA Just here Malory announced Harriet Carter, or what the surgeon had left of her. I had got Harriet from Dorchester, by long distance, for the week at the last moment, I confess, for a pur- pose. It had all at once occurred to me that another woman's presence would make it easier for me to avoid William who would assuredly assume the right to know whose ring I was wear- ing. On the other hand I should be introducing to her two perfectly eligible men, which ought to be sufficient compensation for the slight service she would unconsciously be rendering me. Besides, Woodcroft and the adjoining country would afford her unsurpassed opportunity for bird stunts. By the time I had presented William and Mr. Darrah to Harriet, Cousin Sarah swept in. She was always a little late, liking, I think, the bit of added importance a delayed entrance gave, though she didn't need it, heaven knows, for we all instantly looked crude and garish as she approached radiating her incomparable air of candles and ceremony. Almost immediately after her the Reverend appeared in the doorway. He, A WASTED BLESSING 113 in too, was likely to arrive at the last moment, not from vanity but, I suspected, because company bored him. For a moment he remained in the door and I saw his eyes, behind those thick lenses, sweep my guests appraisingly. For one imperceptible instant they lingered-or so I fan- cied-on my Prince. He came forward then in that tired Oxonian way of his, and in acknowl- edgment of his introduction to Harriet, bowed deeply. If he had been interested in Leighton Darrah the moment before, he appeared anything but interested now and rather awkwardly failed to catch the name the first time I mentioned it. "Ah! Pardon my stupidity, Miss Meredith. I have it now. Mr. Leighton Darrah!" he repeated quite distinctly and shook hands in his usual deliberate fashion. I was inclined to be cross with my clerical ornament, but just then Malory announced dinner and we all went out to the dining-room. As we stood with bowed heads while the Rev- erend in that silver drawl of his asked a blessing I felt a commotion brewing round the table. Instinctively I knew what had caused it. It was 114 PRINCE CINDERELLA the robin's egg. As I lifted my head I caught Cousin Sarah, from her place directly opposite me, glaring straight at it and rapidly fingering the silver mesh bag she held in her hands. Old cat, she was sharpening her claws and getting ready to scratch if I didn't tell her all about it. Harriet Carter, at Cousin Sarah's right, had opened her rather watery blue eyes behind their toric lenses to their widest extent. Mr. Darrah, at Cousin Sarah's left, looked frankly puzzled. The Rev- erend, at my right, as his cloth entitled him to be, glánced away so quickly that I could not say what his expression was. As we sat down I stole a look at William. In his usually rather empty countenance anger was striving with decorum in a way that was positively comical. I suspected that the blessing had been wasted on all present. If it hadn't been for Mr. Darrah I don't think I should ever have lived through that dinner. As, with that blue stone shining like the Koh-i- noor on my finger, I began to ladle out the soup for Malory to pass, I shot my Prince an imploring glance. Instantly he came to my relief. There was almost immediately a lessening of tension A WASTED BLESSING 115 round the table as Leighton Darrah began to relate his experience in India while an engineer in the employ of the British Government. As he mentioned India my pulse leaped, and it was all I could do to keep from flashing the robin's egg before them all in triumph. I was right. It was an Indian gem,—there was such ages-old mystery in those deep blue fires it could have come from no other land. Even William's heavy jowl brightened and I saw that the Rev- erend behind his great shell goggles was follow- ing the account with narrowed eyelids as if he found it of extraordinary interest. A second time I had the feeling there was something of magic about Leighton Darrah. Need I distrust him in consequence? Because my Prince glit- tered, was he none the less gold? So bright and bouyant he seemed I felt a real pang of pity for dull drab William and his Pilgrim Fathers. Leighton Darrah's forebears I was sure had been laughing Irish kings and tuneful troubadours. By the time we returned to the drawing-room the atmosphere had become almost normal. Leighton Darrah, as we found chairs, was view- 116 PRINCE CINDERELLA ever so I never son ing Harriet as a distinctly amusing specimen. The Reverend's attitude toward her reminded me of what Henry James has claimed for English intuition over American. He says they know ever so much quicker than we do what they don't want. I never saw any person decide that another's game was not worth his candle faster than the Reverend decided about Harriet. He picked her up and dropped her, so to say, in a single glance. William I caught looking repeatedly at the robin's egg, but I observed also that he contrasted with approval Harriet's flat Boston shoes, well- revealed by her decidedly abbreviated gown, with my own frivolous bronze French-heeled ones. (Some women have large feet and others wear short skirts. Harriet came in on both counts.) I was surprised—and not a little bit nettled, I own—to find that Harriet has two distinct man- ners with men: sometimes she is coltish and sometimes she is coy. She prefers to be coltish, but as William looked alarmed, at this method she quickly passed over into the other one. With that talent for managing which homely women A WASTED BLESSING 117 sometimes so unexpectedly disclose, she soon had him quite to herself, an absorbed listener, I judged, as she continued her discourse on diet and hygiene. William is strong for what he terms Serious Conversation. Harriet's large toric lenses and militant pompadour, too high for her elongated face, did not dismay him. Natur- ally William took on new interest in my eyes. I was not so lucky as Harriet. I had hoped that Cousin Sarah and the Reverend would retire to the card table in the window recess in one of these strange partnerships that whist will some- times make. Naturally antagonistic (I am sure the Reverend disliked Cousin Sarah as cordially as she disliked him) they were perforce com- pelled to play together their favorite game if they played at all, as I have no head for cards. This would have left me alone with Mr. Darrah. But to-night they did not play, seeming, I vowed, determined to remain directly with Mr. Darrah and me. Cousin Sarah, in her high- backed Elizabethan chair, sat erect and silent, except for a little purr of assent now and then. The Reverend drew out his cigarette case and 118 PRINCE CINDERELLA offered the hospitality of the house to Mr. Dar- rah, who accepted, and to William, who declined. He then rolled the first of his own series, lighted it and began, rather sharply, I fancied, to question Mr. Darrah about his stay in India. "In what province, Mr. Darrah, were you working, may I ask?” “In Ajmere. A wild part entirely, as you may know." "The wildest, as I do know," answered the Reverend quietly. "I was there last year during the insurrection when the Rajah was murdered. It was said, you know, that a white man did it.” I saw Mr. Darrah draw a quick breath. He was about to say something but checked himself. He flashed a keen glance at the Reverend, then instantly he became casual again and turning to me, asked if I played MacDowell. I had studied the Woodland Sketches and was glad to go to the pianoforte with him. But by this time I was wrought up again, and when I attempted The Wild Rose it was only to crush and tear its delicate beauty. In the far corner William was still listening intently to A WASTED BLESSING 119 Harriet Carter. Harriet had found a rocking chair and had put it hard at work. (I have noticed that hard rockers are generally hard talkers.) I hate people who can't keep still while music is going on even bad music. But for the moment as I ruined with a bang MacDowell's last exquisite note I was in effect quite alone with Mr. Darrah. “Forgive me," I begged in a low voice. “I love the ring, but-but I think it has made me a bit nervous.” He smiled with that utter kindness that had made me so happy in the library the afternoon before. “But why," he asked in a voice for my ear only, "why don't you wear it on your left hand ?” "Why, I–I couldn't do that," I murmured in a confusion of happiness that made me rise and turn quickly away toward the Reverend and Cousin Sarah still at the other end of the room. I was just in time to catch the Reverend glanc- ing rapidly first at Mr. Darrah and then at a small flat something in his hand which I guessed instantly to be a pocket photograph. Had he A WASTED BLESSING 121 Which was quite as catty as Cousin Sarah ever gets! Many times that night I said over to myself wonderingly Mr. Darrah's words spoken to me at the pianoforte about the blue diamond: “Why don't you wear it on your left hand ?" A strange lover indeed, if lover at all he were. I had met him only the day before, and he had spoken no overt syllable of love to me. Was ever a girl so wooed? But Mr. Darrah was not the usual sort. It was a question that might mean everything- or nothing. CHAPTER X HOW TO CATCH A MAN TN THE past William had annoyed me by the very monotony of his devotion. He annoyed mę now quite as much by his sudden flare for Harriet Carter and her awful stomach pump. It was, you see, just the Williamness of William that I couldn't stand, and inconsistent, even unjust as I might be, I couldn't help it. Before twenty-four hours had passed however-but I am getting ahead of my story. That night, somewhere in the small fearsome hours, I found myself suddenly sitting straight up in bed. Through the long windows a flood of silver light was pouring. Distinctly before me in one of the great carved ebony chairs that directly faced my bed I saw a barbaric figure in splendid robes, the head, that of a man of middle 122 HOW TO CATCH A MAN 123 years, fallen horribly forward on the chest, the folded turban awry, and in the center of its circlet of jewels a large empty setting....at the heart a knife still sticking in the death-wound. From out of the shadows I saw with equal distinctness a tall dark man swiftly emerge, pull out the knife, thrust it into his pocket and as swiftly disappear. The man was Leighton Darrah. I felt of the stone in the ring that I had child- ishly worn to bed; I knew it had once adorned that kingly turban. Clouds drove across the sky, engulfing the sil- ver moon-shallop. When, ages later, as it seemed to me, it emerged and once more lighted the room the dreadful figure in the ebony chair was gone. It had faded into air, into thin air, leaving no wrack behind. Chittering with fear I lay down again and covered my head with the bed-clothes. But I could not banish that kingly dreadful figure. Sleep was out of the question. Rising reluctantly I threw on a kimono, slipped out into the dim moonlighted hall and down the side stair to the library for a book to read. I was calmer now, and remembering William's 124 PRINCE CINDERELLA cherished volume on the drawing-room table I decided to take a look at its instructive contents. This brought me back up the winding front stair whence to reach my own room, I had to pass the entrance to the east wing where stood the knight in armor. Just as I was entering my room, I fancied I heard a slight noise, a rattle it was, and then—a clink. Glancing back swiftly over my shoulder I became instantly petrified with fear. The knight in armor had moved. In another instant, forcing a laugh at the absurdity of what, the second before I could have sworn I saw, I flew into my room and inconsist- ently locked and bolted the door. I switched on the electric light, sat down and feverishly opened William's little book. But I could not profit by Arnold Bennett's preachment. I could not fix my mind on his words. The stone on my finger seemed no longer blue but crimson with human blood. I rose desperately at last, flung down Arnold Bennett, reckoning little for him or Will- iam, and going to the fireplace I opened the near- est of the tall cupboards on either side above the mantel-shelf, placed the glittering jewel inside HOW TO CATCH A MAN 125 and locked fast the door. The key I slipped on a thin gold chain and the chain I fastened around my neck. Once more in bed I fell finally into a troubled sleep. I woke late the next morning with a start. Broad sunshine filling the room told me it was eight o'clock at least-yellow sunshine and the open face of day where silver moonbeams and hideous secrecy had been the night before. I stared at the great carved ebony chair-black and stately—and empty, as usual, it was. “Rose Meredith, you should not have eaten that lobster salad at dinner,” I scolded, and dress- ing rapidly hurried down-stairs. Morning is the cream of the day and I hate a late breakfast as I hate skimmed milk. Just as I was about to sit down alone in the dining-room, Mr. Darrah came, waving “Good morning,” buoyantly in through the open French door, his two hands filled with dewy bright nasturtiums from my green-house. For an instant his eyes marked the little blue shadows my bad night had penciled under my eyes, then he began deftly arranging the nas- turtiums in a china bowl he captured from the 126 PRINCE CINDERELLA high cherry cupboard in the corner. At sight of him in his morning tweeds in the clear sunshine how fantastic and unreal my night- But he was speaking. “They are good to eat, you know, too,” he remarked carelessly. And on the word he thrust one of the fragile bright things into his mouth and ruthlessly crushed and swallowed it. “You are eating a flower!" I gasped. “Oh, you hurt me!” Trivial as the act was it gave me the feeling that he was capable of cruelty. For answer he laughed gently and quite delib- erately patted the hand I had put forth in protest. “And now," I quavered on the verge of tears, "you are laughing!” "Little Rose Meredith,” he replied gravely, "don't you know that laughter is the key to life?” Without giving me a chance to speak he went on, looking again at my hand, "Your ring—you are not wearing it this morning !" "One doesn't wear diamonds in the morning, does one?” I stammered. “Not even an engagement ring ?” he urged softly, so softly that I pretended not to hear. I HOW TO CATCH A MAN 127 T2 wasn't ready for that yet. My heart beat riot- ously with its joy. In the room there was no sound save the friendly tick-tock of old Seth Thomas on the mantel-ledge. Dare I ask him if he were in India at the time of the uprising-in daylight my thoughts refused to budge beyond that. But no-vaguely I sensed that, doubted, he might depart never to return. I longed to tell him, to warn him that for some inexplicable rea- son the Reverend suspected him.... But this, too, I feared to do now. I would wait, mean- while watching over him, guarding him if need be..... Apparently I was never to have more than snatched moments with Mr. Darrah. Just here William-William, innocent alike of dream or doubt-came in, and immediately after, to my intense surprise, Cousin Sarah followed. Bother Cousin Sarah! Did I have to be chaperoned at breakfast? After that the talk sank to that level of com- monplace it almost invariably drops to in a group, any two members of which if alone might rise to a very decent altitude of individuality and 128 PRINCE CINDERELLA interest. It was Daisy's morning to serve, and with a hateful little prick in my heart I saw Mr. Darrah note those marvelous sloe eyes. I had forgotten to provide William's pet brand of cold gritty breakfast food and he was in consequence of that—or was it something else ?-glum and touchy. My bare ringless hands seemed to affect him peculiarly. He glanced repeatedly at them, looked from one to the other as if he could hardly believe his eyes. I knew that soon or late I should hear from William about that ring—I shouldn't at all mind telling him quite frankly when the time came it was my own affair, but to give him a little chase was a prospect irresistible and I determined to dodge him as long as I could. When, just as Mr. Darrah and I were leaving the room, Harriet Carter straggled in (she explained quite audibly to me that she always used it before breakfast) William brightened per- ceptibly. Mr. Darrah went on out but—I lin- gered a moment to learn if I could how Harriet had so quickly caught her man. In a few moments I saw. William was a proud male bird, and she had put the salt of flattery on his tail. man HOW TO CATCH A MAN 129 Outside on the veranda Mr. Darrah, hat in hand, came up to me. A little behind him stood his dog. With that instant sensitiveness to the presence of a stranger that marks the high-bred collie, Bob had halted and was appraising me. In another moment I was by his side, my hand laid, with the gentlest, most respectful touch I could command, on Bob's finely shaped head, looking into the noblest dog face I ever saw. Bob's brown sagacious eyes looked back into my own and straightway a bond of friendship was sealed between us. He had, I judged, passed but recently from puppyhood into years of dis- cretion, being in the very pink and prime of young doghood. I could fancy his surveying with a fine show of dignity and benevolent toleration any puppyish delights such as a waving line of newly washed clothes, but in a fight of whose righteous- ness his soul was assured, he would sink his teeth into his enemy's flesh with a grip never to be relaxed this side of death to one of the two. As if to demonstrate his acceptance of our pact he sat down on his haunches by my side with an air that in its way was as fine as Cousin Sarah's. I saw distinct pleasure in Mr, Darrah's facę. 130 PRINCE CINDERELLA "You say he once saved your life. You'll tell me, won't you?” I asked. "It was in India,” he answered. “He was just a pup too. Rather a long story," he added in a tone that asked permission to postpone the tale. "I have to run down to New York this morning; indeed, I may be compelled to remain all day. But I shall return in ample time for dinner.” My heart sank. It was such a morning for a country drive! Harriet and William had already planned an excursion for the day and I was per- fectly free. My tell-tale face showed my disap- pointment, I fancy, for he halted a moment as if turning over a plan. He surveyed my pink linen house-dress thoughtfully. "If you could slip on a long coat—that is, if you have shopping to do and we could have a bit of lunch somewhere together” “Give me three minutes," I cried, and I meant it. I should not have kept him waiting an instant longer. A two-hour spin with my Prince through that delicious May air!!! Spring shop- ping! A pink-candle luncheon tête-à-tête at one of the smart places !!! HOW TO CATCH A MAN 131 But the words were hardly out of my mouth when he spoke again, this time quickly, irritably.. “No, no! I must not. Forgive me !" Give a gutter child an orange, and straightway take it from him—that was how I felt. Seeing the depths of my disappointment, “I have much to do to-day.” He came quite close and took both my hands. “Everything depends on how I do it,” he added gravely. Looking straight into my eyes, and with deep emphasis on the “everything." "Thank you," I said softly,-I meant for trust- ing me so far with his secret, and because he had wanted at least to give me the orange. I won- dered what he meant by "everything." He and William had come by train the evening before to Dorchester and had been driven over. I suggested he make the trip to New York this morning in my little gray roadster, and Seraph brought it round,—a shining smart little car which he kept in crack condition and which I loved alike for its beauty and its tested virtues. I had never lent it before. As Seraph leaped from the car, Mr. Darrah, raising his hat in good-by, turned toward him. 132 PRINCE CINDERELLA Instantly the most extraordinary look came into Seraph's face,-a flash of surprise, apparently of recognition. But Mr. Darrah, seeming not to notice, brushed past the boy with a quick word of thanks, and springing to the wheel, gave me a last wave of the hand and was off down the drive at high speed. With a thrill of pleasure I saw how instantly and completely the little car responded to a skilled touch. Thump, thump! Bob, in his gentlemanly way was expressing by raps of his tail on the veranda floor, a sense of being slightly left out of things. I gave him a caress, but my eyes returned to the drive for one more glimpse of the gray car. A moment later it had entirely van- ished. I was glad Bob had been left behind with me. I turned again to pat him and again his tail began to rap on the floor smart unmistakable raps of deep satisfaction. Seraph had not moved. He was standing with a statue's poise and immobility looking down the long drive though even his keen eyes could not possibly have penetrated the thicket of firs and walnuts around which the car had disappeared. HOW TO CATCH A MAN 133 “Seraph," I called. With swift grace Seraph turned, crossed the lawn and halting just below me on the veranda steps, salaamed deeply. The smart raps Bob's tail had been making on the veranda floor sud- denly ceased. "Seraph,” I asked sharply, bending a little for- ward, "where have you seen Mr. Darrah before?” “Surely,” he answered in that remarkably pure English at which I had more than once mar- veled, "surely the honorable princess jests with her servant. Poor Seraph does not know noble gentlemans like Sahib Darrah.” “Urr-r-r-h!" Did Bob recognize the name of his beloved master and object to it on the tongue of this dark foreign youth? For some reason at least he sprang to his feet and with a low growl seemed to warn against its repetition. Across Seraph's olive cheek ran a deep red anger vivid as a birth-mark. At that moment his face was one to fear. "Quiet, Bob," I said soothingly, and Bob sank slowly back on his haunches. It was a reluctant obedience. His muscles were still tense, and with 134 PRINCE CINDERELLA his remarkably accomplished tail he began in that telegraphic dot-and-dash system of thumps instantly intelligible to any dog-lover, to say, “Don't fool yourself. I am still on guard.” Slowly the flush of anger faded from Seraph's face and again he salaamed as if to signify his understanding that the interview was closed. I repressed the little flutter of pleasure my vanity always took in his homage and searched the dark oriental face. It was as blank as a sheet of paper. Yet I was ready to swear he was lying to me. I turned back into the house, the morning's bright edge dulled by Mr. Darrah's departure. Perversely I wished that it had been William who had gone away in the gray roadster. As I re- entered the hall I saw William coming toward me with a look of exceeding firmness on his brow. I knew that he intended to say, “Rose, I expect you to be reasonable and return that ring!" which always made me want to be particularly unrea- sonable. Certainly I should not give the ring back to Mr. Darrah until I chose to do so. With a little giggle of glee I cut across the hall and flew up the stairs and into my room. CHAPTER XI A BIT OF VAUDEVILLE POR one awful moment we stared at each T other, fascinated. Neither blinked an eye. Then I laughed a little in a weak scared way. It was for all the world like a bit of vaudeville. "Why, Cousin Sarah !" I gasped at last. “Well, Cousin Rose!" she retorted in tones of ice. “Funny, isn't it?” I managed to bring out. “A coincidence indeed," she observed at the same freezing temperature in which she had first spoken. "A double cupboard — perfectly natural, though I never suspected it before-yours as much as mine," I murmured in a faint effort to restore a conventional equilibrium despite the dreadful seed of suspicion in my mind. 136 A BIT OF VAUDEVILLE 137 “My cupboard as much as yours," repeated Cousin Sarah with smart emphasis, "though not until this morning did I decide to use it. It will make an admirable medicine cabinet.” She remained on her side of the opening with a mili- tant air as one who had obtained a strategic advantage and did not intend to relinquish it. She meant to overpower me, to face me down. When Cousin Sarah takes command I strike my colors and retire from the field. “In future the cupboard will be all yours, Cousin Sarah!" I observed in tones that were intended to be cutting, but that fell on my ears with the sharpness of warm butter as with an undignified little slam I shut the door in her face. Weak with amazement and with fear I dropped down on my bed. My first clear thought was one of thankfulness that Mr. Darrah would be away all the day. I should have time to pull myself together. I might even recover the ring. How else indeed could I face him? If he did indeed actually consider it our engagement ring what a dreadful opinion of me he would have! By this time the dark seed of suspicion sown in 138 PRINCE CINDERELLA my mind when I had been confronted by Cousin Sarah at the other end of the cupboard was rap- idly sprouting. Yet it seemed incredible. Cousin Sarah—a member, though by marriage only, of my own family—a thief? Cousin Sarah Martin, née Romney, the widow of the Honor- able Willoughby, he who had breathed his last in the exalted precincts of the Cartersville Country Club, a common criminal? I did not want to believe it. Yet I could not deny that she was the only person in the house besides myself who pos- sessed a key to that cupboard, nor could I escape the impression that when I came on her she had seemed to be returning so to speak to the scene of her crime as criminals, fascinated, are said to do. Did she secretly hate the hand that fed her, as dependents sometimes do, and so take the ring, which she naturally supposed to be mine, as a species of justified reprisal? As far as I knew I had abundantly supplied her every want, indeed her every wish except for a maid to tie her shoe-laces—from the day when, her entire equipment contained in a single suit-case, she had elected to make Woodcroft the first-and last A BIT OF VAUDEVILLE 139 stop on the triumphal tour. Indignation began slowly to swell in my breast. Cousin Sarah had been decidedly cool in quartering herself on me, she had been impudent, she had been-to use a word that would never have passed Cousin Sarah's own Charlestonian lips-she had been cheeky! As I recalled the letter of identification she had brought (and which I had of course returned after reading) it was a commonplace affair containing many endearments and chiefly made up of glittering generalities. My lips tightened with a sudden penetration. Was it not just the sort of letter than long-haired mediums foist on hungry credulous hearts, in short, was it not a fraud ? Was not Cousin Sarah herself a fraud-no cousin of mine at all? Fortunately I owned a complete genealogy of my mother's family which I kept in the library. Ashamed of my suspicions and truly anxious to grant the cousinship after the most liberal south- ern fashion I hurried down-stairs and quickly finding the small compact volume, snatched it from the shelf. I had never looked into it before. Those people had disowned my mother, they 140 PRINCE CINDERELLA should not own me and I cared naught about them—at least so I thought. But in spite of myself there was a fascination in that array of names, names that once were men and women thrilling with life, each of supreme importance- to at least one being—himself. I was bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh, yet I hoped, with my father's strain, a little less narrow and pride- bound. For an instant I was so absorbed I quite forgot the robin's egg. All at once I came to a place where a page had been torn out. It was the page on which were set forth the Maryland Mar- tins, as they were called. I felt older, and decid- edly more serious as, after assuring myself I had not made a mistake, I quietly closed the little book and replaced it on the shelf. As I did so a fresh stab of loneliness entered my heart. These people had belonged to one another. I belonged to nobody. What an easy thing it had been for Cousin Sarah to do (I was convinced now)—to shin up my family tree and perch on a distant branch with such assurance I had never doubted she belonged there! Probably she despised me for A BIT OF VAUDEVILLE 141 an e an easy tool. I almost despised myself. Still I had no certain proof. Where my southern kin such of them as still survived—were living I did not know. One thing I could do. I could apply to the chief of police in Cartersville, where Cousin Sarah said she had lost her husband, for information concerning Willoughby Rutledge Martin, asking if he had really died at the Coun- try Club (or elsewhere—that tale of Cousin Sarah's had a really fishy sound in my ears now), also if he had left a handsome widow whose Christian name was Sarah. I returned to my own room and at once wrote out this request, adding that any particulars as to the personal appearance of the widow and her present whereabouts would be gratefully received and liberally paid for. “Kindly wire information at my expense” was my closing sentence. The letter, as I read it over, addressed it, affixed six of Uncle Sam's swift little red Mercurys, and marked it boldly "Special,” seemed so delightfully mysterious I found myself for the moment elated. Does not every man and woman of us believe in his heart that he could have been a Sherlock Holmes ? 142 PRINCE CINDERELLA But, I reminded myself, the fact that a signifi- cant leaf in the genealogy was missing did not of a certainty mean that Cousin Sarah, as I must still call her, had torn it out, In any case, until I heard from the chief of police it would be not only decent but absolutely necessary to let mat- ters rest as they were. I went down-stairs, and taking up the post-bag that was lying on the big hall table slipped my letter into it. I had decided to give the bag to Seraph with instruction to drive rapidly to Dor- chester where he could mail its contents on the fast train going south at twelve instead of on the local at Middlefield as was the custom. Of one thing I was sure. If Cousin Sarah had taken the robin's egg it was at this moment in her silver mesh bag. Who, I wondered, was doing Cousin Sarah's thinking for her these days? CHAPTER XII FORTUNE'S SLEEVE I WAS restless, and it occurred to me that I might go to Dorchester myself with the let- ter. I returned up-stairs accordingly for a wrap, meaning to send word by Malory that I required Seraph's services when, to my astonishment, I saw Seraph himself starting up the stairs leading to the third floor. These stairs were almost directly opposite my own door and were the ones used by the servants to reach their quarters. To see Seraph on the second floor was in itself sur- prising since he had no reason to enter that part of the house at all. But what really astonished me was the sight, in his arms, of his queer sandal- wood traveling box and the small rug he had reverentially shown me on the day of his arrival and had designated as sacred. Seraph was mov- 143 FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 145 from the table, and after a word to Malory not to wait luncheon if I were not back on time, we started. The May day was fair, with the dew of its youth upon it, and a blush from pink apple orchards new-blossomed. Beside stone walls May apples lifted tiny green umbrellas. The pus- sies on the willows were doing their best to become catkins. Young bird broods were abroad, filling the air with the silver interlacings of their calls and the exquisite whir of wings. I noted young larks keeping discreetly close to earth and old ones steady and sure of wing above it; the proud robin, stepping along the gold-dusted way- side but bending to say grace each time he ate; the loud d-m of the woodpecker and the caw of the clownish crow. In the fields plowmen cheerily pursued their immemorial task. The spring stir was in the earth and in the hearts of men. Middlefield east, Middlefield, and Middlefield yan,--we had passed at good speed the length of the sweet sunny sleepy street and were out again on the scarce sleepier road, had rounded the bend 146 PRINCE CINDERELLA where the road joins the river and were bowling swiftly alongside the spring-swift current when suddenly the car came to a stop. Seraph made a rapid survey of interior conditions. I was genu- inely provoked. My watch showed twenty-five minutes to twelve. But for this accident we should have had plenty of time to catch the train. As it was, if Seraph were not further delayed we might still make it in a dash. I had to own, annoyed as I was, that this was the first time Seraph had started with the car not in per- fect running order. "Seraph bow' his head everlastingly for par- don. Go back to village. Get nut. Come again quick.” And he was off. I got down and walked impatiently along the road past the bend, holding my watch in my hand and consulting it every dozen steps. At pre- cisely six minutes to twelve Seraph came loping easily and rapidly into sight, the necessary nut in his hand and in a trice he had passed me and was clamping it on. As I reentered the car I noticed that the post bag had fallen to the floor and lay there partly open. Feeling that I had been care- n care- FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 147 less I picked it up, fastened it and replaced it beside me on the seat. At sixty miles an hour we flashed into Dor- chester, flashed below the big hotel crowning the bluff, and whirled in the direction of the station. The train pulled in. Just as we drew up I opened the bag to take out my letter and have it in readiness for mailing. It was not there. Hurriedly I turned the bag upside down and emptied its contents on my lap. There was no doubt about it. My letter to the chief of police was not among them. Yet I had put it into the bag with my own hands before starting. That the letter had been stolen I could not doubt. There had been opportunity for theft I now realized before I had started from the house during the moments when, thoughtlessly enough, I had left the bag on the lower hall table while I went up-stairs for hat and coat. In that interval Cousin Sarah, always curious and now doubtless keenly watchful, must have opened it and taken the letter out. But I was not to be defeated. I would wire. (I dote on telegrams.) Going into the dingy little station I sent a message whose 148 PRINCE CINDERELLA length and character rendered the operator speechless as I reentered my car triumphant. I felt I had checkmated Cousin Sarah beautifully. My errand now accomplished I was in no haste to return to Woodcroft. We drove back there- fore at moderate speed. As we entered Middle- field yan the fancy struck me to lunch at the little inn. I had a feeling that away from Woodcroft I could think better. The little inn would surely be a place of peace. In Middlefield proper, therefore, we halted before the inn door and I dismissed Seraph, bidding him return with the car in an hour. I did not want him around. The inn was only a small cottage whose front door, opening apparently into a sort of parlor, stood partly open. As I put my foot on the one low step I thought I caught a whiff of a familiar, expensive tobacco, and the next instant the sound of a familiar voice. The first clack of the knocker brought no response. In some annoyance I dropped it a second time and with more force. I heard an inner door close hastily and then the door before me opened wide. Within it stood the cocky little man who had so kindly beguiled FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 149 my first stay in Middlefield, the redoubtable vil- lage constable. "Come right in, miss. Glad to see you again.” He was hospitably smiling, but at the end of his speech he snapped his jaws to with a peculiar click of the teeth as if he had not merely closed his mouth but locked it lest an unwary word should slip out. As a man he welcomed me, as an officer of the law he would observe a proper caution in conversing with strangers. “Yes, mother will give you a bite. Shutters is our name. Ezra.” At the mention of what was evidently his Christian name, Mr. Shutters tapped the large badge of office glittering on the lapel of his coat as if to signify that Ezra Shut- ters and duty were one and the same. And again he snapped and locked his jaws with that odd click of the teeth. The little parlor into which I stepped was cu- riously dim and musty. Both of its narrow win- dows were closed and their green shutters fas- tened against the bright spring air. So stale was the room I judged it was habitually kept like this. From the twilight that filtered in between 150 PRINCE CINDERELLA the slats of the shutters and the broad yellow beam diagonally admitted by the door behind me, which still stood partly open, I saw that, as I had expected, there was no one else in it. But the hasty shutting of the inner door and the tardy response to my knocking found concrete explana- tion in a round English hat lying on a remark- ably fine antique mahogany table directly before me. For a moment I stared at the hat. It was not surprising that a clergyman whose larger use- fulness had been ended and whose duties were largely nominal, should while away an hour with the town constable (who seemed, indeed, a spicy and likable individual), but why had he flown at my approach, leaving his hat behind him? Did Ezra Shutters read my thoughts? To this hour I can not say, your guileless New Englander is so many fathoms deep. If he did read them, the completeness with which he did not see that hat was magnificent. What he said, staving off apparently any question of mine that might prove awkward, was: "Ever see a finer table ?” Without waiting for my answer which, with perfect safety indeed he FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 151 assumed would be in the negative-"Mother's," he went on. A covetous look leaped into my eyes, but again Ezra Shutters forestalled me. “No. She wouldn't part with it. A little touchy about that table, mother is, and flares a bit when strangers want to buy it. She brought it with her from her own home down Concord way when she married father. Examine the legs, miss. That's the test,-old pieces or humans. Give me a man with good underpinnings and I trust him.” Whatever merit Ezra Shutters' test possessed, the old table stood it. I noted with joy the union of strength and elegance in its supports and then I glanced round the room, my eyes by this time accustomed to the dimness. The table supporting the Reverend's hat was the only fine thing to be seen. But a curious sight met my gaze. On an old what-not, on other tables, on shelves and a high old wardrobe, in fact crowd- ing all the wall-space in the little room, stood stuffed birds and animals of varied species and in astonished attitudes. The owl that perched on the wardrobe had dropped one of its glass eyes, and moths had feasted on the wildcat that 152 PRINCE CINDERELLA crouched upon a bureau. But in sprightliness not only had nothing been lost, rather art had improved on nature until every bird and beast in the room seemed ready to spring, fly, screech or dart at me with even more power than they had possessed in life. What a place I had selected in which to calm my nerves! I managed, some- what faintly, to express my belief that the collec- tion was unique. I think Mr. Shutters mistook my faintness for awe. "Father's," he brought out with a proud inclu- sive gesture. “He was a wonder at it—a taxi- what do you call 'em, miss? A stuffer. Make you a little nervous ? L'adies sometimes say so. But fine, though mother never seemed to set so much store by them. She might part with one of them," and Ezra Shutters cocked his small head a trifle toward the stuffed wonders. His last sentence he uttered in a deliciously blended tone in which desire to convey to me the full value of my opportunity mingled with caution that I was not to be too sure the opportunity actually existed, while both of these were colored by pure FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 153 joy anticipative of a bargain to be driven in the neat New England manner. I realized that I must pull myself together. “Thank you. Very remarkable indeed. But just now I think I must deny myself," I managed to reply. If Mr. Shutters was disappointed he cleverly hid his feelings. Perhaps, after all, he was glad to keep so extraordinary a collection intact. Even the life-changing events that crowded so swiftly on my visit to Middlefield Inn that day can not dull the memory of the warm blueberry pie, the yellow cream, the mild new cheese on which, out of such pleasant blue dishes I pres- ently feasted in the room back of the parlor, ordi- narily reached by a side door, with a white curtain dancing in the wide sunny window and a tidy charm of newly scrubbed floor and rag rugs and table spread with an exquisitely mended blue and white cloth. In contrast the room I had just left seemed a repository of dead hopes. On ushering me into the second room Mr. Shutters had explained that guests at the inn were “mother's lookout,” seeming to imply that 154 PRINCE CINDERELLA he found the duties of the constabulary too oner- ous to admit of his participation in their enter- tainment, if not indeed of a nature to render such participation liable to situations unpleasantly awkward. To clap handcuffs on your man after playing host to him, Ezra Shutters apparently foresaw would prove embarrassing. I have said that I shall not forget the simple delicious meal I ate in that sun-sweet room. Still less shall I forget my hostess. She was a white- haired woman with features verging on that softness of line that even in the firmest faces (and hers was very firm) marks the approach of seventy. Her large dark eyes had a look of unquenchable youth in them and her manner of serving me was of an equal fineness with the antique table she would not sell. Mother and son seemed curiously unrelated; there appeared to exist between them kindliness rather than under- standing affection, and I wondered if in her mar- riage to the stuffer, Mrs. Shutters had not stepped down, and if the mahogany table were not cherished as a last link between herself and a less narrow world she had as a girl, for girlish love, FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 155 turned her back upon. Yet she had the air of one who is on top of life and in our little talk I felt almost as if I had been guided to this woman, so imperceptibly did her sheer presence calm and hearten me. She possessed something that I with, my wealth lacked. That afternoon a carpenter did indeed find an infinitesimal leak in the room recently occupied in the garage by Seraph but the room opposite equally comfortable and wholly dry, was, he must have known, at his disposal. Why had Seraph chosen at this time to move into the house and presumably to eat with the other servants, which, I was sure, must be racially offensive to him? Exceedingly troubled at this evident duplicity in one for whom I had felt a real affection I went back to the house. In the main hall I saw Malory engaged in polishing the silver card tray. A sud- den question came into my mind. “Malory, when did Seraph ask to move his sleeping quarters into the house ?” “This morning, madam. Hit's all right, madam?” he continued solicitously. 156 PRINCE CINDERELLA "Certainly, Malory, quite all right.” But as I walked away I asked myself if it were not the robin's egg diamond that had drawn Seraph, and if instead of being in Cousin Sarah's silver mesh bag it might not be hidden away in my chauf- feur's sandalwood traveling box under the silk prayer rug ? Since Cousin Sarah according to her own statement had not used the cupboard it was probable that it had remained unlocked on her side, and the robin's egg might easily have been stolen from it during the breakfast hour or in the latter part of the night. Goose that I had been, to take into my employ a wily oriental of whom I knew nothing and who had given earnest of eligibility chiefly by his pos- session of an uncommonly fine nose! A chauf- feur with an ordinary nose, even one with a pug, plus recommendations, would have been a wiser acquisition. Doubtless those very rugs that had served to introduce the handsome scamp and which at this moment adorned my drawing-room floor, had been stolen. Well, they were sleeping dogs, and I would just let them lie. They were awfully good rugs and I didn't intend to inquire FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 157 into their dubious past at the risk of having to part with them. As for the robin's egg I was for the present as helpless with Seraph as with Cousin Sarah. I couldn't, without a scrap of evidence, demand that he allow me to search his box and his sacred silk rug. How I wished that I knew where Mr. Darrah was, that I might get him on the long distance and beg him to return to Woodcroft as fast as the gray roadster would carry him! William, indeed, was probably not far off and would gladly advise me in his cold breakfast-food way. "Be sensible, Rose!” I could hear him say plainly. He would want me to advertise for the strange blue stone in the staid columns of the New York Evening Post or drag in a beery detec- tive to search for it! Never! It was now three o'clock, and my head throbbed. But a faint hope still stirred within me that I should yet recover the ring and be spared the humiliation of confess- ing to him I had proved myself unequal to being the keeper of such high beauty. If it were indeed an engagement ring its loss was an ill omen on our love, 158 PRINCE CINDERELLA was If Cousin Sarah had it—and this, shock- ing as it was, seemed most likely--there was little danger of its getting permanently away from me. Unless openly accused she would not, I was confident, leave her excellent berth at Wood- croft. I was equally sure that if she had the diamond she would not risk sending it away by mail, and she never went alone in the motor, either to Middlefield or to Dorchester. Her motive in taking the diamond I conceived to be one of thrift purely. Unless she should cease to mourn the late Honorable Willoughby Rutledge Martin (and her grief, though excessive, had impressed me as genuine) she would never wear so striking a stone even if in another part of the country, she would be safe in doing so. She was a dependent and might naturally fear that my marriage at some time or my caprice at any time, would turn her adrift. I was troubled at this exceedingly probable state of affairs and sorry I had not removed my relative from temptation's path by settling a comfortable annuity upon her for life when she had first come to me. But it was too late to make good that omission. Until FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 159 the arrival of an answer to my telegram I could only watch the progress of events with such patience as I might command. The chief of police to whom I had wired could not of course tell me whether or not Cousin Sarah had taken the robin's egg, but I had small doubt that I should learn from him whether Cousin Sarah herself were an impostor. If it appeared that she was, open accusation would inevitably be my next step. I might reasonably look for this tele- gram the following day. I rang the handy old bell cord by my door and in a moment Daisy appeared. “Daisy, I've a perfectly wretched headache. When tea-time comes tell Mrs. Martin and the others, please, that I shall not be down.” "Oh, ma'am, and is your head bad ? It's that pleased I would be to rub it for you!" Daisy was kind and she was comely. She was also very young, seventeen in years perhaps, but her youth was even more of the spirit than the body. I looked at her an instant in silence, real- izing the beauty of her abnegation and wonder- ing why life gives to one woman millions and to 160 PRINCE CINDERELLA another servitude. Yet at that moment Daisy was probably happier than I. I had a particular reason for believing this. “Thank you, Daisy, no," I answered gently. In my present state of nerves even her quiet touch would have set me screaming. As she turned to go, I added even more gently, “And Daisy !” “Yes, ma'am.” I thought Daisy seemed a trifle confused as she righted herself to face me respectfully once more. But possibly it was only because she anticipated what I intended to say. “Haven't I seen you, once or twice, walking in the evening with young Mayhew, the son of the farmer on the next place?” “Yes, ma'am,” very low, from Daisy. “You don't object to our keeping company a little now and then, do you, ma'am?” she added anxiously. "No, indeed! I only hope he is a fine steady fellow. I shall take pains to find out. For you are a good girl, Daisy." To my surprise Daisy burst into tears at these words and ran out of the room. I did not know what to make of the girl. Was she really in love with young Mayhew already and had anything FORTUNE'S SLEEVE 161 occurred to balk her happiness? I had a few problems of my own, but I instantly decided to penetrate at a suitable time Daisy's love tangle and help her out if I could. After all, we women are all in the same boat. Staying away from afternoon tea would of course be continuing to give Harriet a perfectly clear field with William, but by this time William might, for all I cared, go hang. I loved Leighton Darrah, and I should never love any other man. As I sat before my dressing-table unpinning my hair I thought again of that late afternoon hour in Mrs. Winters' library. And a conviction that had secretly disturbed me from the beginning forced itself at last fully upon me. Leighton Darrah had not been an invited guest. He had come into the room secretly and had left it in the same way—like a thief! Link by link the chain of evidence against him had forged itself in my mind. Accepting as clairvoyance the moonlit scene in the carved ebony chair I had witnessed the night before, then Leighton Darrah had not only been in India-he had murdered the Rajah, had taken the robin's CHAPTER XIII A DAUGHTER OF EVE I INABLE to rest I decided to go for a walk. The headache I had complained of to Daisy was no fib. I wanted the air—and I wanted something besides. I got quickly into out-of- door togs. Just as I was pinning on my blue toque I caught sight out of my window of Har- riet and an extraordinary male creature trudging away side by side across the lawn and headed apparently for the adjoining field. From Har- riet's shoulder hung a pair of huge field-glasses. She was a brave figure in her khaki, with a wide mannish coat and a remarkably short and narrow trotteur, but her companion was dazzling. Despite strong evidence to the contrary one would be forced to conclude that he was a biped, of species human. He had on two little short 164 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 165 skirts-one on each leg-of-vociferous brown and yellow Scotch plaid, but his skirts were gath- ered in at the knee, forming quite the loudest baggiest knickerbockers I had ever beheld. Below the knickerbockers, encased in golf stockings of the brightest green and an incredible smoothness, were displayed two large and amazingly perfect calves. A coat of the same cheery plaid as the knickerbockers was belted in at the waist with an effect surprisingly juvenile considering the height of the wearer and the circumference of the calves. On the owner's fair round expanse of head rested a patch of the same astonishing green as the stockings—a pointed silk trifle— doubtless at the haberdasher's it had been bought and paid for as a cap, perhaps indeed the pur- chaser fancied it a wishing-cap, it being quite conceivable that in that rigging the boldest would at times feel an overpowering desire to become invisible. All in all, it was a costume that of itself cried “Hoot, mon!" In lieu of bag-pipes the jaunty gentleman carried under his right arm a large—and I judged decidedly heavy-photog- rapher's outfit. 166 PRINCE CINDERELLA I looked at him more closely, wondering where Harriet—she was always man-hunting-could have sighted and brought him down. I looked yet again. Something about Harriet's conquest —was it the tow hair sticking rather stiffly out below the awful greenness of the infinitesimal cap?—was curiously familiar. I gasped in astonishment. It was William. Evidently Harriet had invited him to go bird- hunting with her and quite as evidently he had accepted. To think of it! William, surrender- ing precious hours of daylight to the doubtful identification of the fowls of the air, he who car- ried about with him little books that he might study how not to waste a moment; William the Dignified in speaking plaid and screaming green! Yet it was fairly plain from the marked erect- ness of William's form and the springiness of his step, despite the large and heavy photographer's outfit, that he fancied himself rather in that suit. As he had never to my knowledge golfed, tennised or fished I wondered at his possessing it. He must have bought it in honor of Wood- A DAUGHTER OF EVE 167 croft. Appreciation was demanded of me undoubtedly, but I could only murmur, "Poor William !” Had he forgotten the Pilgrim Fathers, and was it a costume likely to lure shy birdlings, were questions I asked myself. But it was not the birds, it was Harriet. How strong and self-sufficing man seems, yet he may be caught firmly and forever in a light silken net. Poor William! I foresaw the end of that bird-bat and pitied him. Despite the thous- and dollars' worth of work she has had done on her (she sometimes puts it that way in terms of carpentering) Harriet has unflagging energy. She is a tireless tramper. (I know.) The wetter the swamp, the steeper and rougher the hill, the hotter the sun, the farther she can stride in quest of some especially elusive species, and I knew that by dinner-time it would be William—totally unused to tramps--and not herself who would be tuckered out. Dismissing both Harriet and William from my thoughts I stole softly down-stairs. I had made up my mind to say nothing to anybody about going out, and the surer to escape Cousin Sarah, 168 PRINCE CINDERELLA who never napped at seemly hours when other people did but was forever prowling around the house, I decided to slip out by a side door from the dining-room. As I entered the room I glanced instinctively at Seth Thomas. He had stopped. Had he for once in his life failed of his duty? No, I had failed of mine. In the excite- ment of the night before I had forgotten to wind the old chap. Great as was my anxiety to leave the house quickly and unobserved, I could not go until I had atoned for my neglect to my good friend. My watch told me it was a quarter past three. I wound Seth and properly set him whereupon to my dismay he insisted on deliber- ately striking all the strokes he had left unstruck since nine that morning. Seth has a Jonathan Edwards conscience. Congratulating myself that I had escaped Cousin Sarah I whistled for Bob, who came joy- fully bounding, and together we set out on the road to Middlefield. Always before I had driven there. But to-day Leighton Darrah had my gray roadster, the only one of my cars I could drive myself, and to have ordered out the limousine A DAUGHTER OF EVE 169 would have meant taking Seraph, and I had begun to fear that impassive oriental face. On another day I should have reveled in the blossomy May time, the May sunshine, the clean sandy road curving vagabondishly—a very gipsy of a road—through the thrifty green country- side, with here and there across the fields an ancient windmill rhythmically saluting with its long arms the fresh blowy day. I should have drunk with ecstasy the pungent piny odors from the not infrequent bordering woodlands, have answered with a cheery note of my own the soft chirpy calls of new-fledged meadow-larks and song sparrows. But on this afternoon I was insensible to the charm of the scene about me, my nostrils breathed unheedingly the balm-laden spring air. Now and again when Bob, darting from my side, would make a fine show of chas- ing Molly Cottontail into the brush and return- ing from his sally, tail a-wag, would positively wink his joke at me in sheer need of sociableness and sympathy, I would rouse myself and placing a hand on his shaggy noble head give him for an instant the companionship he craved and 170 PRINCE CINDERELLA deserved. But save for these brief interruptions, every faculty of my being was strained unremit- tingly toward one goal: to reach Middlefield and the Winters' house as speedily as possible. At the Winters' door the house man informed me that his mistress was in New York. I had before starting counted on this, as Mrs. Charles Henry had told me at the thé-dansante of a shop- ping tour which she was projecting for this time. The man knew me well, and without question instantly acceded to my request to be allowed to go to the library for a short book ramble. Bidding Bob wait outside the door I entered the house. A moment, and I was alone in the great book-lined room. What things had hap- pened to me in the short space since I had last visited it !—such things as had made a jumbled picture-puzzle of my world, and I did not know if I could again fit the oddly shaped colored bits into a form of beauty and meaning. Instinc- tively I moved to the white wooden chimney- piece and felt behind the silly little Dresden shepherdess. Yes, the key was there, just as I had placed it . A DAUGHTER OF EVE 171 in obedience to my Prince's request. It had all really happened just as I remembered it. I tried the French doors—for no reason at all—they were of course locked. I stood a moment before the full-length cheval glass in which that after- noon I had glimpsed our two figures close together. Under my blue toque was a small tired face; my cheeks were not burning with a fever of happiness to-day, they were white and wan with the chill of dread. I was gaining time for my- self, desperately staving something off-the thing I had hurried all this way for, and which my heart cried out against doing, and yet which I knew I should do. Pulling myself together at last I softly shut the hall door against any possible observer. Then slowly I turned to the south wall where, its brown canvas back alone visible, hung the gilt-framed portrait that had excited both my curiosity and my compassion. In its ignominious obscurity it seemed a thing accursed. Another moment and I knew. The portrait, heavy as the frame was, had turned easily on its cords. I fell back a little 172 PRINCE CINDERELLA way and for a moment I found it hard to breathe. Prepared as I had thought myself to find on that canvas the face I loved yet dreaded to see, the shock of actually beholding it left me hardly able to stand. My heart cried out that it could not be he but my eyes told me that it was, that face of a boy hardly more than twenty, yet how much like the Leighton Darrah I knew, with its slightly rippling thick black hair, its inscrutable deep blue eyes, its gently smiling mouth! My Prince was—I could not escape it—the wayward son of Mr. Winters' first marriage. Some allusions to that marriage I recalled now to have heard at the Moores'. The first Mrs. Winters had been a young Irish lady of the great- est personal beauty and passionately attached to her country, so that she had persuaded her Amer- ican husband to spend much of their time there and where, following a fall from a horse in pur- suance of her favorite exercise, she had died while still in her early twenties. It was a tragic, roman- tic story from which I easily evolved a superb careless honey-sweet creature, fit mother for a son so gallantly turned ! A DAUGHTER OF EVE 173 But alas! the splendid young mother had died and the son had so disgraced his father's name that he had been disowned and his very painted semblance subjected to public and enduring in- sult. The nature of his escapades no one had told me, but clearly they must have been serious to have caused to be meted out to the offender a punishment so severe. In the lower right-hand corner of the canvas, if further proof were wanted that this was Leighton Darrah's por- trait, I traced three dim tell-tale initials: L. D. W. Evidently on leaving the parental roof, or at some later time when expedience dictated, the last name had been dropped. No wonder Leighton Darrah knew where the key to the gar- den door was kept, no wonder that on the after- noon of the thé-dansante, he had come and gone by that door-like a thief! I pushed one of the great leather chairs in front of the portrait and mounting, tenderly wiped away with my handkerchief the thick dust of the years. No portrait is ever quite so affect- ing as a youthful one of a person we love. There is a pathos in the very freshness of the face that 174 PRINCE CINDERELLA has as yet known neither sin nor sorrow that knocks irresistibly at our hearts. Tears gushed from my eyes, and gently-as one kisses the dead --I pressed my lips to that boyish cheek. Slowly then, hating myself for doing it, I turned the bright debonair face once more to the wall and stumbled down from the chair. I was bitterly sorry that I had come. Why, I asked myself wretchedly, had I almost run to this place to prove beyond the last shadow of doubt that my Prince was unworthy? Doubt left room for hope, and now I had no hope. What mis- chief we women make for ourselves with our unquiet spirits! How swiftly we intermeddle with our fortunes when if we would only bide, the right doors would open to us as by unseen hands! It must be true that the rib Eve was fash- ioned from wore the shape of a question mark. That he did not yet know of my perfidy was a detail. A remorseless fate would, I was quite certain, uncover it for my punishment. And if it did not I must own it to him myself. His gulf was plain but it was my place, it had been my opportunity, to trust him. Whatever came A DAUGHTER OF EVE 175 now, my happiness was undone by my own hand. Even if, out of his great heart, he should forgive me, I could never forgive myself. My jig was up. I stole out into the hall, and, in no mood for curious servants' eyes, let myself quietly out at the front door. Bob joined me with friendly leaps and little barks and yelps of frenzied joy. He wanted plainly to plunge into a perfect pow- wow of dog talk, but I had not heart to join him. The very sound of his yelps, the very sight of his happy tail reproached me, and as for look- ing into his honest brown eyes, that was a thing I was ashamed to do. We turned the corner and were at once in the open country. The road was fast darkening and I knew that I must make all haste if I were to reach Woodcroft in time to dress for dinner. How lucky, I realized now, had been the chance that had taken Mrs. Charles Henry to New York, otherwise I should undoubtedly have included her and her husband in my house-party, with results too disastrous to be imagined. Even now I should have to exercise the greatest care lest Mr. Winters and his son should meet. 178 PRINCE CINDERELLA at such skill I hastened my steps toward the house. If the reckless driver had been Leighton Darrah I should probably know within the next hour. I had just reached the great clump of walnut trees in front of Woodcroft when, a little to my left, I saw approaching two figures a woman and a man. It was Harriet and William, returning from their bird-hunt. A stream of light from a window of the drawing-room revealed them clearly. Putting a warning hand on Bob's head- the dear fellow was always adorably obedient- we waited in the shadow for them to enter the house. Harriet, slightly in advance, was making for the front door with bounding step. William in the rear was finishing in a feeble trot suggestive of a noble racer descended in declining years to the milk-wagon. In the once amazingly smooth green calves large holes doubtless torn by cruel burrs appeared. Gone was the springy step, gone the jaunty little green cap. The evening wind was chill, and I feared for William. Also I won- dered if, in newly acquired scientific enthusiasm he had inadvertently lost his cap in a thicket or A DAUGHTER OF EVE 179 if some outraged innocent of the air had seized and borne it away. Under his right arm he still lugged the large photographer's outfit which probably weighed thrice what it did at the outset of the expedition, and it was he who now bore the immense field-glasses hanging from a strap across his shoulder. Together with his spiritless step they lent him the air of being shackled. To avoid meeting them in the hall I skirted the walnut trees rapidly on the right and turned at the side door into the dim yellow-lighted dining- room where on the white damask the evening array of silver, glass and china already shone. Malory fortunately was in the kitchen, I could hear him giving directions to Bessie about the "hartichokes.” As I scurried mouse-like through the room the only other sound was the tick- tocking of Seth Thomas on the chimney-ledge, a bit rapid, I thought, and feverish. Had the excitement in the house affected even his steady pulse ? CHAPTER XIV WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW DLESS the man who first invented coffee! Let those who will take pale anemic tea,- the rich gold-brown cup of courage for me! Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes, is king of Care and mistress of Melancholy also. The soldier, shivering with cold at gray dawn in his trench; the weary nurse, watching at mid- night the ever so faintly changing face on the pillow; the jaded student, before whose eyes the letters on the printed page that he must master have begun to dance; the criminal, who must die with the rise of sun,-all have drained this cup with clearer eyes to see, with stouter hearts to do. A toast to coffee, to be drunk in its own matchless self! 180 WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 181 Once more in my room and hastily dressed for dinner, I brewed a generous measure of my fragrant Mocha and comforted myself as best I could. After all, I knew nothing definitely damaging about Leighton Darrah. His father's judgment against him might have been as Mrs. Charles Henry had said for some youthful folly, long outgrown, and my fear that it was he who had murdered the Rajah of Ajmere had for foundation only a dream or trance, the Rever- end's curiosity, Seraph's look of recognition. Should I who loved him convict him on evidence that would not be held sufficient by a judge or jury? Once more I worked myself into a hope- ful state. But I was weary in spirit and in body. I wanted no more adventures. Except for the responsibility of its having been committed to my care, I could have wished I should never again see the robin's egg diamond. Better the most commonplace of engagement rings—if indeed it were an engagement ring! Instinctively I had slipped on a white embroidered frock. Prithee, Fortune, my heart cried, a truce! Just as I switched off my light preparatory to 182 PRINCE CINDERELLA going down I caught the puff-puff of a badly winded motor coming up the drive. The porte- cochère, with its bright globe of light was just to the left below my window. In the darkness I pressed my face close against the pane. The chug-chug was louder now. In another moment I should know. Yes, there it was, my little gray roadster come limping in like an over-driven steed. The smart beautiful little car that had flashed Leighton Dar- rah down the avenue of walnuts that morning had returned in sad plight. Her shining body and trim wheels were sorrily bespattered with mud. One of the cylinders was evidently not hitting. As it stopped abruptly under the brightly-lighted porte-cochère I saw that one of the fenders was bent and one of the front lights smashed. I loved my little gray car and could not have forgiven such treatment of her for any but desperate reasons. But had I not cause to believe that Leighton Darrah's case was desper- ate? Had he not said as much to me that morn- ing? The mud on my roadster had never come from the smooth splendid post-roads between WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 183 Woodcroft and New York. With a thrill I real- ized that my little car had performed a feat that with all my owner's pride and faith in her I should have deemed impossible. She had climbed and descended Waldon Ridge at what risk to Leighton Darrah I trembled to conjecture. Breathlessly I waited. In another instant Leighton Darrah leaped to the ground, a driver to match that disheveled car and that wild drive -mud, from hat to heels, and such an utterly weary droop to his shoulders-Bob's joyous greeting he answered only with the placing of a hand on his head. The day's business whose immense significance he had imparted to me in the morning could not have gone well. Dinner that night minus the robin's egg prom- ised to be as difficult as it had been the night before with it. When Malory announced its readiness Leighton Darrah had not yet appeared in the drawing-room. Immediately after he came in, hurried but resplendent. "Can you forgive me, Miss Meredith ?” he asked, with much more of distress in his voice 184 PRINCE CINDERELLA than a moment's tardiness demanded. “I have been detained. And your car"-he went on in a lower voice—"I am ashamed to tell you, will need the services of a mechanician. With your permission I will telephone to Dorchester for an expert to come over early in the morning." "Don't disturb yourself in the least," I reas- sured him, as we all went out to the dining-room. “Unless it is something very serious, Seraph can make any repairs that are necessary." “Unfortunately," Leighton Darrah demurred, . "your Hindoo boy appears to have acquired a dislike for me. To-night as he took the car from me he was distinctly sullen, perhaps indeed just because he considered quite naturally that I had abused it! But if as I hope, I am to use the car again—" He looked at me almost imploringly, asking me to trust him, trust him, trust him. "Has Seraph dared to be insolent to you, Mr. Darrah?” I asked sharply, feeling myself on the verge of I knew not what. “Oh, not at all,” he responded quickly. “It is evidently just a personal antagonism. Those Hindoos are extraordinarily sensitive, They can WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 185 love and hate on the turning of a hair, can they not, Mr. Field ?" We were standing behind our chairs waiting for the Reverend's customary sacred formula. Apparently Leighton Darrah's question had startled him. Behind the great shell-rimmed spectacles I saw his gray eyes flash. “They can love and hate—and kill, on the turn- ing of a hair," he amended slowly in that silver drawl of his. Something in the way he spoke turned my blood cold. I glanced at Leighton Darrah. A look of fear unmistakable was in his eyes. For the moment my own answering fear for him made me throw discretion to the winds. “This morning—as you entered the car,” I stammered, “Seraph looked at you as if—you never saw Seraph before, I suppose?” I finished lamely. "Never, surely," was Leighton Darrah's instant answer, as a look of surprise leaped into his eyes. “I congratulate you," he recovered himself and went on with his usual gentle courtesy, "on so picturesque a chauffeur.” My head inclined ever so slightly at his com- 186 PRINCE CINDERELLA pliment but I could not look at him. Had he spoken the truth? Seraph's look had been so swift, so certain! But I hated myself for having asked him the question and miserably owned that it would be no better than I deserved if the swan, in the guise of an officer of the law, should appear at any moment and take away my Lohengrin. Giving the Reverend no chance to pull back my chair for me I sat down abruptly in my place. One of the legs of the chair had lost its glide and (important moments are so absurdly tagged with trifles) I shall never forget how horribly it rasped on the floor, and on my nerves. Imme- diately I was seated the others followed my- example and I realized that I had allowed the Reverend no opportunity to say grace. Feeling miserably that no dinner so badly begun could turn out well I tried to make a show at least of eating my caviar. When I glanced again at Leighton Darrah the look of fear had gone out of his eyes. But clearly he was worried, and that the cause of his worry was something vastly more than the dam- WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 187 age he had done to my gray roadster, I was sure. Mystery as well as magic seemed inseparable from him. I saw him look sharply at my ring- less hands-failing the robin's egg I would not wear any jewels that night—and then he tried to catch my glance with a question in his own. I forbore, however, to meet his eyes lest he should guess from mine that the robin's egg was gone, lest he should see that now unhappily I knew him for what he was. Cousin Sarah also was disturbed, and, it seemed to me, clutched her silver mesh bag as if she feared some one might snatch it from her. The Reverend was, during the soup, more than usually self-occupied. He appeared to be think- ing hard about something or somebody, so hard I fancied I could hear his brain tick. I wished that I could take off the slightly bald top of his head and see what was going on inside. Harriet Carter alone was in high spirits. At times she had William, as any one could see, fairly eating out of her hand. Again, aching, I suspected in every joint in his body from the bird- hunt in which I could wager he felt on his own 188 PRINCE CINDERELLA account not the slightest interest, he would as it were break away from Harriet and glower at my bare fingers as if to demand then and there an explanation of the extraordinary diamond he had seen me wear the night before. I might in vain plead that I had not worn it on the engagement finger. William's New England blood would want to know. He was plainly very tired, and when William is tired he grows lumpish and is inclined to be cross. When I ventured a perfectly polite inquiry as to the success of the afternoon's expedition you should have heard him snap me up. "Do you feel satisfied, Billy, with the results of your tramp this afternoon?” was my quite unexceptional remark. But he was in that state of mind and body—when any harmless word may prick. “Satisfied” seemed to annoy him. He probably suspected me—this time unjustly, of trying to tease, which he invariably sets down as an offense against his dignity. Also he prob- ably objected because I had forgotten and called him “Billy.” "Satisfied ? I should say so," he growled. 190 PRINCE CINDERELLA revived already. But I felt like tipping it to her to be cautious. She did not have William planted as yet, he was only, as my gardener would say, heeled in. Another bird-bat might ruin every- thing. For I saw now that Harriet wanted to marry William. Even Malory was clearly not himself. His dinner was flawless, but his serving was, for him, awkward, and a bit noisy. His face was pecu- liarly pale as it had been once before, on that morning when he had confessed imposing a false "character” on me, and again when I had caught him gazing at the robin's egg. Once or twice he coughed slightly. Oh, why hadn't I coldly sent him away on the day of his confes- sion? With that ashen pallor on his face he looked singularly like a convict.... those creden- tials had been awfully well forged- As for Uncle Seth Thomas, if he had appeared feverish an hour earlier, he seemed positively tipsy now. He cocked his one eye at me as though he were saying plainly, “High jinks in this quiet old house, indeed!" I had that morn- ing invitingly set a fine old decanter filled with WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 191 cherry bounce on a little candlestand beside the big armchair in front of the fireplace. Had I erred in thus putting temptation at the old chap's very elbow? If it hadn't been for the Reverend that dinner would have turned out a dreadful thing to remem- ber. To my astonishment and gratitude he came manfully to my relief at the critical moment. Things had been stupid enough indeed but when Malory nervously spilled the parsley sauce on the collar of William's dinner coat I was desperate. I would rather it had happened to any one else William, so pink and white and clean, with a sauce smear on his coat,-it was awful to think of his distress. Besides I had never forgotten that, with the queer notion people have that knowing you well gives them the right to be nasty when they choose he had once informed me when, during a prolonged illness of his mother's I had assumed the management of the Moore ménage, he had no opinion whatever of my housekeeperly abilities. William's lips tightened. Except that he never swears I should have expected him to cry, “Out, 192 PRINCE CINDERELLA damned spot!" Poor Malory begged pardon most contritely and did his best with a clean napkin, but William, though by the aid of the Pilgrim Fathers he repressed all outward excla- mation of disgust, was mollified not a whit. Below a certain social level William, unfortu- nately for himself, like the Prince in The Golden Bowl, does not see. A butler is to him not an interesting human being but an automaton exist- ing solely for the convenient serving of expensive food, to be paid adequately indeed, sent to a hos- pital if ill but never by any chance to be admitted into the finer air of sympathy and brotherliness. At this stage even Harriet's high flag began to droop. Even the dull disjointed talk that had bored every one but that had kept up within what some one has called “the margin of manners”— it was sometimes a mighty narrow margin!- ceased quite. A species of paralysis seized me. I could do or say nothing. Suddenly at my right a silver voice in British accents calm and clear, with a masterly assump- tion of command, a real England-expects-every- man-to-do-his-duty air, took over the situation. WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 193 "I think, Miss Meredith, you will recall that Rugby was my school?” The Reverend laid down his dinner fork. He made me a slight bow of the most finished deference. “Yes, Mr. Field,” I fibbed lightly. He was lying, but it was a magnificent lie. I could have sworn he had never mentioned Rugby in my hear- ing, but then, it was true, I had never been very attentive to the Reverend's talk. At all events I would play up, hoping he would prove an unex- pected ally. I attended now with every fiber of my being. In a brief space and after a little skilful skirmishing that made the subject of Eng- lish boys' schools seem one of pressing interest, he had us all laughing at his tales of youthful pranks. I caught William's rather heavy “Ha-ha” among the rest and stole a glance at him. Appar- ently he had quite forgotten the parsley sauce smeared on the collar of his dinner coat, he had forgotten his aching joints and most surprising of all he had quite forgotten Harriet. And I believe he had forgotten me. He was not only WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 195 the sinners that silver voice might have saved if its owner's “larger usefulness” had not been so unfortunately terminated. For the first time since I had known him I liked him warmly. He might keep a dozen profane old parrots for aught I would say. He had by his generosity saved a social situation and a man who is socially gener- ous may be counted on to act generously in any circumstance in life. Yet, as, having for the time at least put us all once more on good terms with one another and with our digestions, he rather abruptly retired into himself again, my mind flew back to the evening previous in the drawing-room, and I heard again his curiously sharp questioning of Leighton Darrah, saw again his glance shifting from Leighton Darrah's face to the little card photograph as I believed it to be, in his hand. I wondered if in any way I might manage to see that photograph. But of all this the Reverend had to-night appeared utterly unconscious. He had been "putting it over," as an actor would say, most beautifully. As we were about to return to the drawing-room for coffee, however, WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 197 take out her usually indispensable deep-bordered handkerchief. This, though a trifling detail, appeared significant, but overwrought as I was I did not quite forget that evidence is often what you think you see when you are seeking support for a theory formed before you saw it. "Ah, certainly not, Mrs. Martin, unless you wish it,” granted the Reverend in the politest of tones. Straightway burying himself in the deep Morris-chair before the glowing wood fire which the chill spring evening made so grateful to one's bones, he found revenge in smoking an incredible number of cigarettes which he rolled so rapidly I watched him fascinated. (Who is it has said that the capacity for swift movement is always attractive?) He had fine skilful hands, had the Reverend, and it suddenly occurred to me that in estimating him I had perhaps not counted them quite sufficiently against his somewhat heavy face and dumpy body. The Reverend did not again come to the sur- face. Apparently he considered that having saved the dinner, it was clearly some one's else duty to save the drawing-room. But though as it were WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 199 “Miss Meredith !” I started. Leighton Darrah was speaking to me with that kindness which I think never failed him. “Miss Meredith, won't you play to us again this evening? A little Chopin, perhaps—" “No, I can't," I answered nervously, as rude in my turn as Cousin Sarah had been in hers. As a matter of fact I could not from sheer ner- vousness have played three consecutive bars. But immediately I was sorry I had spoken so-such a look of pain and disappointment came into his tired face it was almost more than I could bear. I knew he wanted to speak to me alone. But I dared not risk giving him the opportunity to do so as yet. I was still hoping against hope that the ring would come back to me. When it did I meant to go with it straight to him and ask him either to clear away the dark cloud of mys- tery and danger that enveloped it or to give me instead a phony sparkler from the Bowery. Harriet was, I could see, furious because I persisted in remaining with her and William. But she had her chance, after all, and I know her well enough to venture that she did not waste it. 200 PRINCE CINDERELLA Leighton Darrah, after a last attempt to draw me into a tête-à-tête, rose slowly. "Mrs. Martin, Miss Meredith, I am tremen- dously sorry—a business man is not always master of his time. If I might be excused to write sev- eral really important letters for the night mail ?” Cousin Sarah bowed consent, and I bowed, ever so little. I did not raise my eyes. I was ashamed to the toes of my white satin pumps. I had answered him sharply, I had lost his ring- and worse-infinitely worse I had that day betrayed him in my heart. Once he was out of the room nothing in it had any longer an interest for me. I wanted to get away myself to my own room. Luckily, chance in another moment put the opportunity in my path. Cousin Sarah had risen. "I think, Cousin Rose, I would best retire, early as it is." Then, in a perfectly audible aside to me, “This vile cigarette smoke, you know, really makes me quite ill. Dear Willoughby did not smoke.” “Certainly, Cousin Sarah," I answered, not in the least unwilling to spare both her society and WILLIAM WANTS TO KNOW 201 her chaperonage. To reach the hall door she would have to pass me. A wild idea of putting out a foot and tripping her, causing dignity and the silver mesh bag to fall when the latter might fly open, dashed through my brain, but again I felt hampered by the requirements of our modern civilization. With an air of deeply offended pride, casting slight nods in the direction of Will- iam and Harriet, and wholly ignoring the Reverend who apparently was quite unaware of his punishment, being still engaged in thinking very hard about something or somebody, Cousin Sarah sailed out of the drawing-room, splendidly supported by her widow's dignity and the expen- sive black silk trailing richly behind her. (I should not have minded paying seventeen dollars a yard for that silk if Cousin Sarah had not explained to me that she wore the best in order to sustain my position properly.) I decided to make an excuse of Cousin Sarah's departure to cover my own. I rose. "Cousin Sarah does not seem to be feeling very well,” I murmured. "I think I would best go up to her." 202 PRINCE CINDERELLA If Harriet had been a timid young thing I should never have done it. But she was thirty if she was a day so that William was several years her junior. Besides, any one who can joy- ously face the operating table need not fear to be left alone with William Moore. William is in no sense dangerous. His flash-point is low. I have just said, she need not mind being left alone with William. The Reverend, buried in the deep Morris-chair by the wood fire, delicately blowing endless little blue spirals ceiling-ward, hardly counted at all. I paused before him, in my newly awakened admiration and gratitude not liking to leave him quite so abruptly as I had left William and Harriet. Before I opened my lips,-could it be indeed that he was not, as I had supposed, half asleep?—with a toss of his unfinished cigarette into the fire he sprang to his feet and stood at attention. Straight into my eyes he looked, in a quizzical though kindly way, and I knew he had seen right through my little hoax. Dared I make a friend of the Reverend and tell him all-all, that is, of course, but my love for Leighton Darrah? -- -- - -- - --- 204 PRINCE CINDERELLA kitchen and ask if he were ill. I walked rapidly into the side hall leading to the culinary end of the establishment. I was safe from actual cross- examination from William for another twelve hours. CHAPTER XV MARYLAND ROLLS S I neared the kitchen I heard the clatter of dish-washing, also I heard voices, neither of which was Malory's. They were rich African voices, and one of them was masculine. Bessie's young yellow gentleman was making a haul. I was in no mood for pretense and advanced boldly into the room. Slam! The back door was suddenly shut with quite unnecessary vigor. Bessie had heard my step as I crossed the threshold. But I caught a fleeting vision of a lemon-colored Adonis in a speaking costume of black and white check tightly trousered in the latest cut, white spats and a rakish Derby, carrying a basket whose heaped contents were sufficiently suggested by the large white napkin neatly tucked over them. 205 206 PRINCE CINDERELLA war Bessie had still a pile of dessert plates to wash but pretending not to be aware of my presence, instead of turning to finish them, she went to the flour-barrel and scooping out a liberal pan- ful, started sifting the snowy contents into a wooden bowl. At the same moment she began singing heartily what is to me the most pictur- esque and moving of all the old down-South folk songs : When Israel was in Egypt land, Let my people go. Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go. Bessie, Bessie, black delicious fraud that you were! You knew that I had seen your ex-hus- band, and with consummate artistry you brought out your two trump stunts, in the hope of avert- ing my displeasure. You knew the power of that wild African melody, and you knew that I loved the incomparable Maryland rolls you were pre- paring to put to “raise” for breakfast! I stood mute in the doorway, compelled to admiration, while Bessie continued to sift flour 210 PRINCE CINDERELLA w “Bessie, who was that man just leaving the kitchen as I came in?” This was in itself almost a surrender for Bessie knew that I knew the identity of the intruder. "Law, Miss Rose, don' you worry 'bout him. Him jes' a follower—will come, can't help myse'f.” A lie or at the least, an equivocation. In the short space that I had been in the room, Bessie had tried to deceive me, lied to me, flat- tered me, shamelessly wheedled me, yet I liked her none the less. Can it be that likableness is a quality in itself quite apart from the virtues ? I gave up completely on the yellow gentleman and asked another question. Though much had happened to put into the back of my mind the glimpse I had had on Thursday morning of some one at the window of the little pointed brick cottage so close to my bedchamber, I had by no means forgotten the incident. Bessie from her kitchen windows commanded a view of the rear of the cottage. "Bessie”-I spoke a little more sharply, and I looked at her closely—“Bessie, have you seen 212 PRINCE CINDERELLA called him on the telephone? There was no one in Middlefield, so far as I knew, with whom he would naturally have the slightest connection, or in Dorchester either-all kitchen supplies such as our garden did not supply being purchased thrice weekly from a huckster who passed the place. I could not help connecting Malory's pallor and nervousness during dinner with the mysterious message and his abrupt departure immediately after receiving it. I stayed to make only one more inquiry—why Daisy was not helping with the dishes. "Done gone up-stairs. Dat gal no good to-day nohow. Been cryin' 'bout somethin'.” Troubled anew at my butler's unprecedented behavior and at Daisy's second fit of tears that day, I retreated ingloriously from the kitchen, leaving my ebony diplomat victorious on the field. Verily there were times when the Collec- tion cost me all it was worth. And as I went slowly back through the hall I reflected how easily trifles stuck to Bessie's fingers, and how natural it would have been—assuming she knew I had the robin's egg diamond, which I MARYLAND ROLLS 213 could hardly doubt—that she should have taken it and passed it on to her young yellow gentleman. When I reached the dining-room door I turned in toward Seth Thomas, lighting a candle first, as I always did, being positive my elderly friend did not care for our modern glare of electricity. The old chap creaked as I began to wind him and called loudly for oil. I gave him a liberal dose from a little can I kept in the fireplace cupboard and as I left the room he chirped out ten in his usual even blithe tones. His jag, if indeed I had not done him an injustice, had been of brief duration. Footsteps on the long front veranda. I looked out of the tiny glass panes at the side of the wide old-fashioned front hall door. Harriet and Will- iam were promenading up and down in the moonlight. A little late for that sort of thing, I said spitefully to myself. Each woman has her own peculiar modes of being indiscreet and quite honestly abhors those of other women. CHAPTER XVI MY PRETTY MAID W HEN you see a spider, look out for a web. Conversely, see a web, and you may be sure a spider is at hand. I had a most disagree- able feeling that a web was weaving about me, and instinctively I wondered where my spider was. The side stairs were nearest, so I ascended these instead of going back to the winding stair in front. I meant to keep on up to the third floor to ask Daisy frankly for her confidence. But I did not have to go so far to seek her. In a shadowy recess off the main hall on the second floor I saw her standing, her hands clasped before her, her wonderful eyes and tear-stained face lifted to Leighton Darrah. Instinctively I halted, and for an instant stood watching them. 214 MY PRETTY MAID 215 Most women are not pretty when they cry, but Daisy O'Mahoney was. Her tears slid as easily from her sloe eyes as dewdrops from a black- eyed Susan. She was very young, quite the youngest thing in long petticoats I ever saw, absolutely of no age at all. The fair ringlets on her forehead were damp, like a new-bathed baby's, her round cheeks were softly flushed. Very appealing she looked in her white embroid, ered bib apron and silly little fluted cap. What Leighton Darrah was saying to her I could not hear, nor did I want to hear. I slipped back down-stairs, a little sick. Hadn't he called himself my Prince Cinderella? Hurrying into the front hall I went quickly to my own room, securely locked the door and sat down. I felt like a steamer disabled at sea. All around me was the mighty ocean of life, but my own accustomed power of propulsion was for the time quite destroyed. Gradually I arrived at some ability to think. The words of Daisy's stepmother, which at the time I had rated as pure spite, recurred to me. Daisy O'Mahoney was losing her character- 216 PRINCE CINDERELLA which in country parlance, being interpreted, means reputation—fast. She had too much tango in her toes, or words to that effect, her step- mother had said. Could the stepmother have been right? But in the little tableau I had overseen my sympathies were all with Daisy. I resented it first for her sake. She was younger even than I, and she was, by virtue of her service, under my protection. Leighton Darrah would turn the child's head and leave her. What would become of her then, and what would become of the affair, only that morning apparently so promising, with young Farmer Mayhew, of whom Daisy and I had talked ? But here my thought took quite another tack. Love is a leveler, and the queen on her throne is at the mercy of the humblest maid in her train. It was wholly within the bounds of the possible that Leighton Darrah had really fallen in love with Daisy O'Mahoney. His sending me the robin's egg might have been only a prompting of romantic mischief, and he had since said and done nothing that I could fairly say gave me a MY PRETTY MAID 217 claim on his fidelity. He could have seen Daisy, I reflected, only two or three times since he had come into the house. But he had noticed her wonderful eyes at breakfast the first time he had encountered her, and judging from the speed my own heart had shown in surrendering to him it was quite conceivable that Daisy's had required quite as little time. Had they met by accident or by design? I had directed Malory to house my two men guests in the east wing where the Reverend was domi- ciled, Harriet Carter having the room beyond Cousin Sarah's. It was Daisy's hour for going the rounds of the bedchambers to turn down the covers and fill night drinking pitchers. Quite naturally Leighton Darrah might have encoun- tered her thus, but why need he have stopped to talk to her? Those important letters he had excused himself to write, was he delaying them for Daisy's sake or had they been a blind? Was Leighton Darrah the cause of the tears Daisy had shed twice that day or was he only her comforter? I could see that a world wanderer such as he might not mark social distinctions at all—and 218 PRINCE CINDERELLA Daisy was lovely to look at, much more so, I owned bitterly, than I; she had a kind of milk- maid's prettiness so often attractive to men. Her face was my misfortune, I misquoted bitterly. I need not, I reflected, have that morning pitied Daisy her humble station in life. At that moment I would gladly have given her Woodcroft and my wealth in exchange for her fluted maid's cap, her charm and the love of Leighton Darrah. Perhaps her Irish blood called in a peculiar way to his own. In spite of the difference in birth and education between them, the idea of his loving her was not, I had to admit, repugnant, except for the apparent secrecy of his attitude. Daisy was not only kempt and comely, there was a natural refinement about her. Once indeed she had with simple pride informed me that her father was "degenerated” so she had expressed it with unconscious irony of truth, from a great Irish lord, and at her house I had been shown a quaint heirloom platter of Wedgewood and a will in a faded sloping hand and antic phrase that sug- gested some confirmation of the childish boast. I could fancy Leighton Darrah carrying Daisy, MY PRETTY MAID 219 away with him to some fair far isle in the Hebrides where they two would live for each other, letting the world and its conventions go hang. I did not in the least blame Daisy for what I had seen in the hall. The fault-if fault there were---was Leighton Darrah's all. Daisy was hardly more than a child, and nature had bestowed on her the judgment of a gosling. Try as I could to justify Leighton Darrah for his part in that little scene, and, failing of justification, to invent excuses for it, I was obliged to own it had a bad look. Life is strong meat and takes a good stomach. I set myself sternly for inevitable readjustment. As regarded Daisy, I could not for the pres- ent, ask her confidence as I had planned to do. I would watch closely and when the right time came I would guide her according to my best judgment. Meanwhile I compelled myself to undress for bed. As I hung the white dress away in my closet I came across the little rosy silk in which I had met my Prince. I had loved the bloomy 220 PRINCE CINDERELLA dress for his sake, but after this, I must hate it. I took it slowly down from its peg and slipped it off the hanger thinking that on the morrow I would destroy it. But no, I could not quite bring myself to do that. One can fall in love quickly, but the falling out is a longer process; sometimes it is an impossible one. Back the dress went into the closet. Not until we have made a gift shall we be loved. What had I done I asked myself to earn Leighton Darrah's love? I had foolishly and unsought bestowed my own heart upon him, and I had painfully sought out proof of his mistakes. I suddenly realized that like many of my sex I might have entertained an undue estimate of the value of my affections. I would make him a gift and I would see that it was beautiful. I would trust him. I would not wait until I was sure that he was worthy of the best, but help to guide him toward that best if need be by believing in him. It is the office of love, I reminded myself, to afford a haven, not a judgment seat. If I could behold my own self-graph, I might pass it by in utter unrecognition and contempt MY PRETTY MAID 221 for its unworthiness. I wanted not to judge, not because I wished myself to escape judging, but because I did not know, and so I could not be fair. The trouble about judging is that you can never be quite sure where the other person is,-from what far dim seat in the crowded theater he is trying to see and understand the play. My reason told me that after all if Leighton Darrah really loved Daisy, it was best that I had seen the little incident in the hall. But my heart cried out in weakness “No.” It is easy to say that one prefers truth naked, but when it is the truth about ourselves we are likely to choose it with its frills on. Tired out, brain and body both, I got at last creepingly to bed. I was humiliated to the earth. But resolutely I determined to trust Leighton Darrah. I might, I reflected, taking a morsel of comfort, atone ever so little in this way for my unfaith of the afternoon. And for my own heart's health I knew my course was best. I could not stop loving Leighton Darrah, so the only remedy was to love him better, more deeply, And I made up my mind to be very, very 222 PRINCE CINDERELLA patient with all my dependents whatever their mistakes, since I had made so many myself. Weak, subject to temptation as they all seemingly were, I loved every one of them. Yes, in a way, I even loved Cousin Sarah, though probably I could get on in comfort with somewhat less of her society. Faintly from below, as I fell into a troubled doze, sounded Seth Thomas, striking the mid- night hour. I fancied his voice faltered ever so slightly, as in sadness. Just when it was during those long dark hours that I heard slight sounds in the passage outside I do not know. Rising, I slipped on a kimono and softly opened my door. Half-way up the stairs leading to the third story I saw, in the light of the candle borne by one of them, the figures of two men. The first man was Malory, and dim as was the light he carried, it was enough to reveal a face more dreadful than I had ever before seen, a face whitey-gray, in which the light of life seemed to have been put out by anguish and despair. His step was slow and leaden. Directly behind, MY PRETTY MAID 223 crowding his heels fairly, was a small man whose general outline struck me as familiar, but whom I could not make out until, at the head of the stairs, he half turned so that the light from Malory's candle fell athwart his face. It was the guardian of East Middlefield, Middlefield yan and Middlefield. It was Ezra Shutters. His sharp little robin's eyes were almost boring a hole in the back of poor Malory's thinly thatched head and his jaws had that peculiar look I had noticed before that made me fancy them not merely set but locked like a steel trap; instinctively I car- ried the fancy further now. Of all the suspicious circumstances connected with my butler, this was easily the most suspi- cious. Why was he returning at this early morn- ing hour, his face gray with despair in company with, if not indeed in the custody of, a constable ? In dumb amazement I watched them move on down the upper passage where Malory presently opened the door of his room, Shutters followed and closed the door. I pressed the electric switch at the right of my door and stood waiting a moment, considering if 224 PRINCE CINDERELLA I should call any one. Suddenly, just at the foot of the knight in armor, I saw something lying on the floor. I stooped to pick it up, catching from somewhere as I did so, an unmistakable odor of stale tobacco. It was a little card photo- graph. Instantly I guessd it to be the one which the Reverend had held concealed in his hand in the drawing-room the night he had so closely scrutinized Leighton Darrah's face. It had evidently dropped from his pocket. I ran into my room and switched on the light. The same dark youthful charming face that I had seen in the painted portrait in the Winters' library looked up at me. The two likenesses must have been taken at about the same time. Where had the Reverend obtained the little photograph? Quite likely there were photographs of Mr. Winters' son at the Winters' house, and the Reverend might easily have purloined one of them while staying there. But why had he done so ? Could it be because he had while in India learned of the robin's egg and coveted it? In my newly awakened admiration and regard for the Reverend I did not like the idea at all. But MY PRETTY MAID 225 several disagreeable straws pointed this way. Of his career as a clergyman I knew practically nothing—no one in Middlefield knew much as Mr. Winters had warned me. Despite his clerical halo and his clerical collar he was but a man, a poor man, subject to such a man's temptations. Perhaps I was wronging Cousin Sarah by my suspicions of her. The trouble-making jewel would, assuming that the Reverend could success- fully sell so conspicuous a stone, mean a fortune to him. Perhaps-yes, shocking as this would be, it was wholly possible !-perhaps— CHAPTER XVII TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS THE May day had gone from red sun east to 1 red sun west. We, that is, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Henry, Harriet, William and I, in our tennis togs, sat on the stone benches in the ter- raced garden back of the house and sipped the delicately amber tea Malory had just brought. Of the strange visit paid in secret by Ezra Shutters to Malory's room so late the night before, I had said nothing to Malory or to any one. I did not believe that my butler had the robin's egg, and if private troubles of his own were afoot I must, I felt, know more of them from the out- side before forcing his confidence. If the visit of Ezra Shutters to Woodcroft should be repeated, or if other strange circumstance should transpire, I might resort to this extreme measure. 226 TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS 229 my direction on William's part. From my knowl- edge of William in the past I could have wagered he had already definitely weighed Harriet's pos- sibilities as a life companion, that he had, so to say, placed her on one side of the scales and the Pilgrim Fathers on the other, and had found that she balanced as nearly as any man with a proper sense of the dignity of those P. F.'s could expect any woman to do. I hate the weigh-and-measure method in love-making,-a man should fall, or as some one has happily put it, rise in love, and that should be the whole of it. But William, I knew, would not now be letting himself go with- out having first duly found Harriet worthy. Yet at times his eyes would seek my hands as if in search of the robin's egg, and once he gave me a stern, rebuking Cotton Mather look intended to pierce my frivolity and extort explanation. Har- riet had-all unconsciously-performed even bet- ter than I had hoped the task of helping me out with William. From morning until night Will- iam wants to know, and without her I could never have staved him off so long. I am not athletic and I turned away a little to escape them. 230 PRINCE CINDERELLA The late sun had drawn a rosy ring round the world and made shining cathedral aisles through the walnuts and beeches behind the tennis court. In the western sky clear lakes of light lay softly beside blue moors, celestial heather fields for sanctified Sandies. Quivering bird-notes hung on the still air. A robin, perched in the garden wall, sang with that peculiar poignant thrill that marks his song at this hour. May dawn and May dusk! Not for me the garish noontime! In another sense than the old Hebrew scribe intended, the morning and the evening are indeed the day. Mrs. Charles Henry with her racquet in hand came to where I was standing. “You must forgive Mr. Winters these atrocious balls, Rose, dear. He is terribly upset. He heard to-day that his son has been seen about the neighborhood." "I am sorry he is disturbed," I replied neu- trally. It was all I could say. With so black a cloud of danger already hovering over Leighton Darrah I would not utter a syllable that might precipitate upon him further calamity in the TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS 231 shape of a father's wrath. But how different were father and son! As I looked at Mr. Winters, so utterly bored with our afternoon's game and thought of Leighton Darrah who played at life itself with a game's grace and careless charm I found myself wondering if the matter between them might not in its final analysis be mainly a difference of opinion as to the joy of manufac- turing railroad ties. But in the last half-hour I had formed a deter- mination I would talk to Mr. Field about Leigh- ton Larrah and the robin's egg. Almost mo- mently since, the night before, he had so gallantly come to my rescue at dinner, and later had deli- cately caused me for an instant, to throw up my guard, I had been nerving myself toward a frank challenge-frank yet friendly. It is true that on discovering the little card photograph beside the armored knight I had foolishly entertained a brief doubt of Mr. Field. But the suppositions that had then entered my head were clearly fanciful and absurd. I felt now that though a conversa- tion with him about Leighton Darrah would almost certainly confirm my fears of him as in 232 PRINCE CINDERELLA some way my Prince's enemy, it would not be in my power to hate him. I even ventured to hope that I might turn him from an enemy to an ally. At all events merely to speak to some trust- worthy person of the extraordinary events of the last few days would of itself unspeakably ease my mind and heart, and whatever else might be true of the Reverend he was, I now believed, as "safe" as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in his own smoky London. Whether or not I was right about this, affairs with me had reached a state that made it imperative for me to speak to some one—and who else was at hand? All the day my nerves had been a-quiver with the expectation of receiving an answer to my wire about Cousin Sarah. Each time the telephone jangled I had been alert for such a message. None having come I was the less able to contain myself longer in silence. Possibly in that absurd way that important wires have, my telegram had miscar- ried-or was Cousin Sarah's past so black and so voluminous as to require more than twenty-four hours' investigating? I had indeed already twice during the day tried to waylay the Reverend, but TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS 233 ver my timid “Oh, Mr. Field, if you please," he had both times seemed not to hear-or didn't he want to heed ? At this very instant, while I was turning over one way and another by which he could be approached, I caught sight of him strolling across the side lawn toward the dining-room, a gleaming string of bass dangling from a pole in his hand. Pleading the necessity of a word with my butler about dinner, I escaped from tennis and tea, and running swiftly across the grass followed him into the house. I closed the door behind me. Mr. Field, about to leave the room by the hall door opposite, heard and turned. In my green linen skirt and white china silk blouse I stood, flushed and panting, against the door. In the pocket of my blouse was the little card photograph. It was to be my trump card. When I should confront Mr. Field with it he would have to tell me the whole truth. My clergyman saw that he was pursued. For one instant he considered the possibility of dodging “Ah, Miss Meredith,” he drawled, "I was TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS 235 other hand he still held the pole from which dangled the silvery string of bass. As I passed the fish, each still with a ruthless hook in its gills, I shuddered slightly. "You are an adroit angler, Mr. Field. But the poor fish! Does it ever occur to you that your sport is torture and death to them?”. "My dear Miss Meredith," was the cool answer, “when I am catching fish the one thing I think of is-landing them." And with a smile and a murmured "Pardon!” he left me at the library door for his momentary errand to the kitchen. I entered the small high-ceilinged room through whose tall narrow windows I saw Mr. and Mrs. Charles Henry, attended by Cousin Sarah, ele- gantly covering my desertion, passing around the house to their car in front, and Harriet and Will- iam sauntering behind, evidently in no haste to dress for dinner. I remained standing within the deep embrasure of the window, Mr. Field's last words ringing in my ears...."The one thing I think of islanding them!” From such a man, cool, skilful, relentless, what hope of mercy for Leighton Darrah? There was a glowing 240 PRINCE CINDERELLA "Miss Meredith! Allow me one glance at the little photograph! On my honor you shall have it back unharmed.” And gently ignoring alike my confession and my tears he took it from my unresisting fingers and stooping to the firelight, examined it. “Quite as I thought!” he remarked coolly, ris- ing. “On my honor as a gentleman, I have not, Miss Meredith, the slightest interest in this photo- graph. Shall I prove it to you?” And to my amazement and distress he made, with a quick toss of the hand, as if to cast it into the flames before us. “No, no!” And snatching it in horror from him I ran as fast as I could out of the room. Up-stairs in my own bedroom I could fairly have stamped my foot in vexation at my silliness. My carefully rehearsed scene I had allowed Mr. Field to produce according to his own pleasure or purpose, if he had a purpose. I had told him the very thing I had meant not to tell and he had told me nothing! Was he lying and with intent to throw me off his track, when he declared that the little photograph did not interest him- TENNIS, TEA AND TEARS 241 . MS or could I have been mistaken all along in sup- posing that it had ever done so? Whatever the truth, I had foolhardily shown myself unconvoyed on the high seas, and he had sunk me without allowing me so much as one peep at his periscope. He had not even been rude, allowing me no decent excuse, after I recovered my senses, for continuing to be angry at him, and affording me no opportunity, without myself being rude, of asking him to leave the house. Out in the hall a hoarse high voice suddenly began to d—n the universe and all that it con- tained. Chizzy, startled by my mad flight up the stairs, had with his strong beak opened the door of his prison and was "doing for” creation in the most thorough and blood-chilling way he could command. It is a dreadful thing to say but somehow, shiver as I did, the sound of him relieved my soul. Things were going badly for me and I foresaw that they would likely soon be going worse. CHAPTER XVIII THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US THE rest had all preceded me to the drawing- room for the usual Sunday morning ser- vice: Presbyterian William and Harriet, Cousin Sarah, Baptist, Leighton Darrah, an Episcopalian I judged, by the ease with which he made his responses; Mohammedan Seraph, Roman Catho- lic Daisy, too far from her own church to make attendance there practicable; Methodist Bessie, and Malory of no form of faith at all as far as I knewma strange congregation and every per- son in it a factor more or less vital in my own life. We often speak of life as if it were a simple thing, to be compassed by the rule of three. The truth is, it is about as simple as one of Seraph's rugs. "Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture 242 THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 243 moveth us in sundry places...." The Reverend Mr. Field in his black gown was so correct, so high-toned (to restore to its rightful place an ill-used term), commanding in spite of myself my complete respect as indeed on these occasions he had always done, and he was withal so imperturb- able in the encounter of his glance with mine, that I could almost fancy our rather remarkable interview of the evening before to have been a sheer figment of my imagination. As we sank on our foot-stools it momentarily receded from the front of my consciousness and I found myself wondering if all clergymen have large feet or is it the cassock?—and what manner of souls we looked to the Almighty as we knelt there in His name. One of us—which one I did not know- was a thief, and one—the one I loved—was a murderer. One had committed forgery and one bore the taint of the Pharisee. I had been faith- less. We were all guilty, and I doubted if in His eyes one sin were blacker than another. I wondered what Seraph's oriental mind would be making of our English ritual and stole a glance in his direction. The look on his face startled me 244 PRINCE CINDERELLA so that I almost dropped my prayer-book. He was paying no heed whatever to the Reverend, but with hate unquenchable in his eyes was gaz- ing straight at Leighton Darrah, kneeling just before him. Seraph indeed! There was nothing seraphic in that face now. About the first look he had given Leighton Darrah in front of the house two mornings before I might, I felt, have been mistaken, but this second time I knew. Somewhere Seraph had known Leighton Darrah and cherished against him an undying enmity. I looked at Cousin Sarah and received another shock. For the first time I could remember since she had come to Woodcroft she did not have with her the silver mesh bag! This might not be significant of course. Yet I felt an intense desire to know where that bag was. I had a sense that events were hastening to a solution when at the conclusion of morning prayer Cousin Sarah announced that she was not feeling well and that she would in conse- quence retire to her own room for the remainder of the day. "Indeed, Cousin Sarah, you are not looking THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 245 yourself.” Disturbed as I was, I could not help sympathizing with her. She looked pasty and a sort of grayness seemed to have settled on her. But Cousin Sarah only glared at me and went on up-stairs in high dudgeon. To tell a beauty that she has gone off in looks is, I perceived, even with the kindest intentions, a blunder she will not condone. Cousin Sarah had, I knew, been disappointed in the house party and this I conceived to have had something to do with her retirement. Har- riet's mannishness and frank discussion of her anatomy disgusted her, and “Your men guests, my dear Rose, are a little lacking in certain things to which a southern lady is accustomed,” she had informed me. William in his bread-and-butter way and Leighton Darrah in his humorous one, had, like the Reverend, declined to be foot-stools. William was indeed civil, he had been duly taught to mind his manners with a lady, and Leighton Darrah had gallantly fetched and car- ried for her and listened attentively to well-nigh endless genealogies. But neither of them had pre- tended to be in love with her, which was really 246 PRINCE CINDERELLA WE what she wanted. Cousin Sarah was Southern Tradition, and she expected the homage of the heart from all men whatever their ages compared to her own. William and Leighton Darrah were of the world modern. A woman was to them merely a comrade unless indeed she were truly a sweetheart. Toward noon the fine spring morning grew extraordinarily warm. The air was heavy and breathless and continued increasingly so. Inside the house and out of it I felt a hush as if a storm were brewing. One plan of action after another formed itself in my brain. I could, for some trumped up reason, bid the Reverend seek other hospitality, but would that really save Leighton Darrah from exposure at his hands? Would it not even precipitate a crisis which if deferred might by some unforeseen turn of events be avoided altogether? Must not Leighton Darrah himself suspect the Reverend's knowledge of his crime against the Rajah, and if so, why did he stay on under the same roof? Why had he lifted his hand against the Rajah's life at all? Beauti- ful as was the robin's egg I could not believe that some 248 PRINCE CINDERELLA It was with a twinge of envy at Harriet's superior angling powers that I saw them start down the drive and for a moment I meditated toric lenses and a militant pompadour for myself. But it was a relief to have them go,—they were becoming tiresomely wrapped up in each other. Their departure left me alone in the drawing- room. I went to one of the long windows and stood looking moodily out. In the strong wind that was now blowing, the trees had upturned their leaves like so many thousand little white flags of truce to the approaching storm. Across the western sky raced great clouds of gray like giant steeds bearing fallen earthly heroes into Valhalla. “Rose Meredith!” I turned abruptly and saw at my side Leighton Darrah, motor cap and gloves in hand, a long cravenette over his tweed suit. His face was sharp and white, and about the jaw there was a set look as of a man gathering his mightiest inner forces to meet his fate. He spoke rapidly, chisel- ing finely the words as they fell from his deter- mined lips, THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 249 "The Dorchester mechanician....he has just finished. I have tested the little car, and I can assure you it feels as fit as it ever did. May I use it once more, this little gray car that you love, I know, almost as a part of yourself? I need it, badly. A life—depends on my having it.” The strain of silence and fear and mystery had been too much for me. Impulsively I put out both my hands. “Take me with you. Do, do!" I pleaded. He took my hands and held them firmly in his own strong white ones as I looked beseech- ingly up at him. I cared naught what happened to my little gray car, so that it served his need. I cared naught for the storm, terrible in the sure slowness of its mustering, if only I might be with him and mayhap help in that service. He placed my hands together and holding them still within his own drew me a little closer. His head shook sadly and his face softened. He was comforting me with kindness; he would not take me with him. I drew my hands away. “I must go alone. I must not risk your life as well as my own." This was all that he said and 250 PRINCE CINDERELLA again in his eyes was that look of beseechment for trust. I could not resist it. Yet I could not speak. Silently I gave him my hand to say what my lips did not. He pressed it in token of under- standing-he had always a wonderful way of helping you out. Stooping then, he lightly kissed my brow, and whirled out of the room. Two minutes later, while I still felt his kiss of benedic- tion on my forehead, I saw the little gray car streak madly down the drive. If only he had flung out an arm in farewell—but no, he gave no sign. I was forgotten in that strange all- possessing mission on which he was bent. He sat at the wheel as though he and it were one and as though, scorning its own motive power, he was driving it forward by sheer transmitted will volts. It was maddening to be left behind, and to have been kissed, precisely as if I were à child being given a consoling red and white striped candy stick! Suddenly viewed in that light the kiss became hateful. I was a woman and I wanted Leighton Darrah to know it! I felt like calling after him. "I'm twenty-two! I'm twenty-two!” Hoping he might yet relent and THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 253 “Telegram.....for..... Miss.... .. Rose..... Meredith.” It was the Middlefield operator. I pressed the receiver more tightly against my ear and shouted back, “I am Miss Meredith.” There followed another infinity of solo work on the part of the telephone, punctuated by feeble attempts on the part of the operator (it was not her Cousin Sarah who was being investigated by the police !) to capture the stage. By this time I was absolutely sure that Cousin Sarah had com- mitted every crime in the calendar, including mur- der. Finally there came a second volley of pistol-shots. "Shall.....I..read..... it?" My sex saved me and nothing more. Else I should have shaken the composure of that young woman at the other end of the line by borrowing a good round one out of Melchizedek's choice string. As it was I shouted back in my politest tones, if it is possible to shout politely, “Yes, please.” "Delicious...." In spite of the jangle-a little more subdued now, in spite of Central's THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 255 the instrument was still working clearly, and Cen- tral's voice, snipping off each humiliating word in those cool tones (I thought them haughty and patronizing now) reached me with inescapable distinctness: Party mentioned died of delirium tremens twenty-two years ago at Country Club. Scandal hushed up. Handsome and stylish widow mar- ried four months before left penniless. Maiden name Rodney. Daughter of a policeman. Since kept fashionable boarding-house. Said at pres- ent to be sponging on northern relatives. Thomas Scanlan, Chief of Police. “Chief of Police,” Central repeated the words witheringly "Thank you, yes, I understand," I answered faintly, and putting up the receiver I dropped into the nearest chair. What a pretty tissue of lies and truth Cousin Sarah had imposed on me! Poor dear Wil- loughby had been dead almost a quarter of a century! This and other factors in the case, including the cause of his demise, doubtless accounted for the dryness of her tears. Dear Willoughby had not smoked, but if Chief Scan- 258 PRINCE CINDERELLA to have things out with her. More than ever it seemed certain to me that Cousin Sarah had the robin's egg in her silver mesh bag. With the information I now possessed from an authorita- tive course I had something to proceed on. I went straight to Cousin Sarah's room and knocked on her door. This time she vouchsafed no reply whatever. I knocked a second time, loudly, demandingly. Still she did not answer, she, who might be counted on to sleep cat-wise and hear the faintest sound. I tried the door. It resisted pressure but in another moment the weak old lock gave way. I entered the room and switched on the light. Cousin Sarah was not there. The next moment my first impression righted itself. The Cousin Sarah I had known was indeed gone. But huddled and half hidden among the bed-clothes, scourged in the very abandonment of despair, her face turned to the wall, was a gray-headed, white, hollow-cheeked old woman. I drew back silently in consterna- tion—and in pity. Chief Scanlan's message had given me no hint THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 259 of preparation for this shock. If I had ever thought definitely about Cousin Sarah's years at all, I should have placed them at that magic num- ber thirty-nine, at which a woman often reflow- ers into the most charming youthfulness. Uncon- sciously I had credited her with one of those very early marriages so common in the South. As a matter of fact she must have been in the forties when she met, or at least married, the Honorable Willoughby. Before that, how had shema policeman's daughter--managed so to float her social and financial stock as to travel abroad and to render marriage with a Maryland Martin however rakish the individual specimen, a possi- bility? I scented adventures- The noise I had made in forcing the door must, I felt sure, have roused Cousin Sarah had she been asleep, but if she were aware of my pres- ence she gave no sign. Her eyes were closed and she remained motionless. I looked eagerly round the disordered room hoping to see the silver mesh bag. Before me on the bureau lay the glossy black hair that with such wondrous perfection had rippled from its 260 PRINCE CINDERELLA parting over Cousin Sarah's temples. Beside it lay one of the high white cambric bands, so exquisitely hemstitched, so exquisitely starchless, which she had invariably worn, and which had skilfully concealed the withered neck. On the floor beside the bureau, where apparently they had been flung in anger, lay French corsets, so marvelously padded they would have imparted grace and shapeliness to a bed slat. The silver mesh bag was nowhere to be seen. A heap of small delicately-arched shoes lay, where pretty women like to toss their shoes, under the bed. It was her shoes, perhaps more than anything else about Cousin Sarah except her elegant bearing, that had seemed to mark her a patrician. Well, wasn't she by nature patrician, and what had been her whole life, dispassionately viewed, but a struggle to get out of the pedestrian into the carriage class which she was so much better qualified to adorn than many born to it? Beauty of body had been her sole stock in life, and when that failed her, she had, in her empti- ness, ingeniously contrived an artificial substitute. How complete and clever her concealment of the 262 PRINCE CINDERELLA Sarah with her mask down I felt that in her way she had truly loved her blue-blooded rake. It was easy, too, to understand now why she had not wanted me to come into the room. Lacking her rouge, her secret was out, she was forced to the wall, naked and ashamed. Pity for her nakedness made me for the moment quite forget the robin's egg. Cousin Sarah had deceived me; she had coolly spent my money; she had, in her grand duchess way, domineered over my entire household, yet I could not muster one atom of anger toward her. I longed to cover her and depart. Suddenly it occurred to me that Cousin Sarah might have died. A chill of fear seized my heart. I forced myself to approach the bed. “Go away, please.” From the huddle of bed-clothes where Cousin Sarah lay the voice came, but lifelessly, as if indeed the dead had spoken. I stopped short, two feet from the bed. I could not speak. The dead voice spoke again, “I don't know where it is.” There was a slight movement of the bed-coverings but the eyes remained closed, the face remained turned toward the wall. THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 263 "Some one must have entered my room last night and taken my bag. It was in the bag. I- I intended to put it back.” The slight movement of the bed-coverings ceased. I remained where I was, I was suffering acutely. Cousin Sarah had used paint for so many years that it had finally stained her very soul. She was now pitifully trying to wash her soul white, I doubted the success of such an operation deferred so long, and in any event the process was being attended by so much pain to us both I resolved to cut it short. On the instant I deter- mined to say nothing to her of Chief Scanlan's message. To let her know that I had found her completely out would be rubbing salt into her pride-wounds without bringing back the robin's egg. I would go. To leave her alone would be the kindest possible course. “My only wish, Cousin Sarah”-I said it with all gentleness "is that you will not distress yourself further, I will fetch you some lunch." I switched off the light and went quickly out of the room, leaving Cousin Sarah in a slough of despondency and humiliation whence no human 264 PRINCE CINDERELLA words could rescue her. Going to the kitchen I prepared a tray which I took up-stairs, and with a knock on her door, left just outside. The flesh- foods, face cream and rouge-pots that had so rudely been stolen away from her with the robin's egg would have been infinitely more welcome and I should gladly have restored them, but I knew not where to look for them. I went then to my own desk in the library. For Cousin Sarah to remain longer under my roof would be even from her own point of view, intolerable. I wrote therefore to my attorney in New York, directing him to settle five thousand a year for life on Mrs. Sarah Martin on receipt from her of her future address. I then wrote a note to Cousin Sarah informing her of this action and delicately sug- gesting that she resume her grand tour of the northern states since by this time other relatives were doubtless pining for her society. I said nothing about the robin's egg for I pitied her temptation, and I did not doubt that she had really intended to replace it in the cupboard, moved perhaps by the fact that dear Willoughby had departed this life at the Country Club. My THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US 265 note with a check for traveling expenses I slipped well under her door. I was glad to note that the lunch tray had been taken inside. This accomplished I retraced my steps thought- fully to the drawing-room. I could now see, as it were, right through Cousin Sarah (minus her rouge her skin had literally looked almost trans- parent), but the general mystery of things still baffled and blinded me. I did not in the least doubt that she had spoken the truth about the robin's egg. It had gone from her possession with the silver mesh bag. The immediate ques- tion before me therefore was, who had entered her room the night before and stolen the bag ? THE MAN WITHOUT A CHARACTER 267 my own room I lay down on the bed I could not rest. I loosened my hair but a strange prevision of emergency kept me from undressing. The storm broke just as Seth Thomas struck nine. With the first sharp crash, as of the cracking of world upon world, I sprang up, thrust my feet into slippers and ran out into the hall. I pressed the electric button but there was no answering light. I returned to my own room and by a flash of lightning found a candle and matches. Ordi- narily I do not fear a storm, but to-night-I determined, childish and unmistress-like as it must appear, to go up to Daisy on the third floor and ask her to come down and stay with me. I was lonely and I was afraid. I should have wel- comed the return even of William and Harriet, though when in the house they gave me but the crusts of their presence. Unless they had reached shelter they would assuredly be drenched (when, I predicted, Harriet would catch it good and plenty from William). As for Leighton Darrah -where was he in this tempest of wind and rain? Once in the hall, lighted candle in hand, I real- 268 PRINCE CINDERELLA ized that Daisy had undoubtedly gone out early in the afternoon, according to custom, with her farmer swain and with no thought of returning until late. Daisy, I reflected bitterly, was more accomplished than I. She could keep two lovers going at once. But company of some sort I must have. I would find Bessie and ask her to sit with me. Holding my candle high I ascended the slightly steep stairs leading to the third floor and knocked at Bessie's door. She did not answer. I opened the door and saw that the room was empty. Bessie, of course, had before the storm broke, gone to Dorchester, (doubtless "wid be baskit") to join her young yellow gentleman. Seraph's door was next. It too was closed. On an'impulse I tapped, and receiving no answer I tried the knob. The door was locked. What was the mean- ing of this? I decided that before many hours had passed that door should, if necessary, be forced. Slowly I returned to the second floor. Something in the storm made postponement of action intolerable. I must find the robin's egg. Perhaps I had already delayed too long. In the THE MAN WITHOUT A CHARACTER 269 sons dark web that was weaving more and more closely about Leighton Darrah, the restoration of it to its rightful owners, whoever they were, might be a matter of life or death. But for this, it would all have seemed like a game of button, button. Which of all the persons under my roof had the robin's egg? My guests, Harriet and William, were, I felt, beyond suspicion. I could not associate jewels of any description with Harriet Carter, nor any- thing so unconventional as theft with an exem- plary descendent of the Pilgrim Fathers like William. William had been brought up on the P. F.'s. They had been his porridge in infancy and his strong meat in youth. No, William was innocent. I glanced down the shadow-hung passage leading to the east wing toward the Rev- erend's door. It was closed. I had not seen him since luncheon. Probably he had followed his habit on Sunday afternoon of taking a long ramble, and being caught by the storm had somewhere sought refuge. Meanwhile, as far as human companionship went, I was alone in that great lonely house. My fear for myself, still 270 PRINCE CINDERELLA more my dread for Leighton Darrah, increased tenfold. I walked to the upper hall window just as a dazzling flash of lightning rent the inky curtain of the night. Outside the great beech and walnut trees were rocking helplessly, and a sound as of the beating of a mighty surf had begun. Candle in hand I found my way down-stairs to the front hall where I tried the electric switch beside the telephone booth. No light rewarded me. Save for the pale flicker of the candle in my hand the entire house was in darkness. The storm had evidently destroyed our fuse. I en- tered the booth and by the light of my candle soon found the number I wanted. I had deter- mined to summon help. “Middlefield,” I said distinctly. “Middlefield 172.” It was the town constable's number. The lit- tle guardian of East Middlefield, Middlefield yan and Middlefield had seemed a man jealous to uphold the law. I might be able to furnish quiet Middlefield jail with a tenant. I would tell Ezra Shutters the entire story of the robin's egg as far THE MAN WITHOUT A CHARACTER 271 as I knew it, concealing only such share in its past history that I suspected Leighton Darrah to possess. I would not expose Cousin Sarah except on such a pledge of secrecy as experienced offi- cers of the law must frequently be called on to give. The surf sound in the trees was deeper now. Thunder rolled through the house like the trump of the Last Judgment. On the loose slats of the shutters the wind was playing mad arpeggios. B-1-1-1. The telephone was behaving badly. “Middlefield," I repeated crisply. There was no response. Only a harsh b-r-r-y again jarred my senses. Out of the shadows at my left a voice spoke. . “All telephone connections are hout, madam.” It was Malory who spoke. Startled, I turned toward him at the open door of the telephone booth, letting go the receiver. It dropped, banging against the wall unheeded. I had not known that Malory was in the house. This was indeed, being Sunday, his night "hout." Regularly twice a week, Malory ceased for the period of five hours to be a butler and became a 274 PRINCE CINDERELLA one of these intervals I caught on the gravel drive the wheels of a motor-car, doubtless my little gray roadster. And as Seth Thomas struck ten I heard Leighton Darrah come up-stairs-I always knew his step-and with infinite relief said to myself, “For to-night at least he is safe.” Still I felt no inclination to go to bed. The terrific cannonading of thunder bolts that was still in progress would have made sleep for me impossible. It was during another interval much later between these bolts that I heard a slight sound in the hall. It was a creaking sound, so slight that I should not, except for my storm- racked nerves, have caught it at all—the sound of a step on a stair made by a person who does not want to be heard. It was a sound at that hour of night (Seth Thomas had long ago struck one) to affright a stouter heart than mine. I shivered like a leaf in the storm outside. I laid down my book and listened intently. The sound came a second time, a third time. To remain still, knowing as I now knew, that it would continue to come, was a course that every instinct in my brain and every nerve in my body 276 PRINCE CINDERELLA ing blade. This Rajah, so I instinctively denom- inated him, had not been stabbed; he was himself going forth to stab. Darkness, utter pitchy darkness once more, and the deep diapason of the rain.... CHAPTER XX IN THE KING'S NAME THE lightning's flash was no quicker than my divination for that it seemed—of the meaning of what I had seen. This was neither dream nor trance; I was horribly awake. The lithe splendid figure in Indian robes was Seraph Kelian. He was about to murder Leighton Darrah. Some things came clear to me that instant; the look of recognition and the look of hatred I had surprised on Seraph's face; the lies I had detected on his lips, his moving into the house, the disappearance of the robin's egg, the habitual reticence and the princely beauty and bearing of my young chauffeur. He was, I now realized, verily a prince, son of the murdered Rajah of Ajmere, come to America in humble guise to 277 IN THE KING'S NAME 279 that in the execution of his vengeance it had appeared fitting to him to assume them, doubt- less they had been brought with him for that very purpose in the queer sandal-wood box he had, with his sacred prayer rug, so carefully guarded. The rain-drops were beating on my heart now. Seconds seemed hours as I tried to think of some way by which to stop that vengeance-dealing arm, that uplifted knife. Whatever Leighton Darrah had done, he must not die....that dreadful step again still in advance of me.... could I prevent....there was Malory, but Malory was weak—and there was not time for him to come from the third floor, though if I screamed he would probably hear....No, I must go my- self, I, weak of wrist and weaponless, I must at least try.... On the instant I heard a knob carefully turned, and across the corridor of the east wing before me a long finger of light shot diagonally out from the opened door of Leighton Darrah's sit- ting-room. It was Prince Seraph Kelian (if that were, indeed, his name!) who had opened the door. He stood now, his back still turned 280 PRINCE CINDERELLA toward me, his eyes intently fixed on something within the room. The light, evidently from a candle, the fact that Prince Seraph had halted, and above all the dreadful intentness of his gaze told me that Leighton Darrah was in the room. For some reason he had not, on returning from his wild drive, gone to bed. But why did he make no outcry? And where was Bob, his adoring faithful pro- tector, whose habit it had been to sleep outside his master's door, Bob who had once saved that , master's life! Suddenly I realized that I had not had even a glimpse of Bob all the day. Thoughtless of fear I darted noiselessly over the thickly carpeted floor until I reached a point at which I too could see beyond Seraph Kelian into the candle-lighted sitting-room. Yes, Leighton Darrah was there, on a couch, lying at full length as he had thrown himself, still in his cravenette, with all the mud and water-stains of his mad journey yet upon him, dead asleep. At such moments the retina of the mind is so sensi- tive that impressions of the most trifling char- acter are received with others of vital significance. IN THE KING'S NAME 281 I remember noticing that his thick black hair, which waved slightly, was tossed back, exposing a lock of gray I had never seen before, and how smooth and white was that part of the brow thus exposed, compared to the rest of the sun-and- wind-tanned face. The candle on the stand beside the couch was low in its socket; probably he had not been aware that he had left it burn- ing. No wonder that from the depths of that slumber he had failed utterly to hear Prince Seraph's light footsteps or his adroit opening of the door. I willed a cry that should warn him, but no sound came from my lips. I willed to rush past Prince Seraph into the room but my muscles did not obey my call. Yet I was not so much par- alyzed by fear as fascinated by the glittering barbaric figure just ahead of me. Except that I believed Prince Seraph to be unaware of my presence I should have said he held me there rooted and stifled by the exercise of some ancient charm of his mystery-steeped East. But for what was he himself waiting? Since he had come to stab Leighton Darrah, why, with his enemy com- 282 PRINCE CINDERELLA pletely at his mercy did he pause, standing there, staring? On this instant a slight rattling noise from behind fell on my super-keyed senses. It broke the spell and instinctively I turned to look whence it came. A second time the knight in armor moved! Prince Seraph Kelian heard also and turned just in time to be received, knife and all, into the embrace of Mr. Field who, a Roman senator in a bath robe, emerging suddenly from the shadows behind the armored knight, gripped him with a power I had never suspected him to possess, stocky and square of torso though he was. The knife fell. Simultaneously from the lips of Prince Seraph rang a cry of anguish. “Dirt under my feet! Seraph kill thee also!” he cursed. In the sharpest imaginable contrast came Mr. Field's rejoinder. Holding his antagonist help- less at arm's length with his two hands he spoke in a quiet tone and with an admonishing kindness as to a little child. “Gently, thrice blessed Prince, son of Rajah IN THE KING'S NAME 283 was the Beloved foully murdered, it is written, thou shalt not kill! Return to thy country and rule thy people. Justice shall indeed fall on the slayer of thy father but not by thy hand!” I heard the words thus solemnly spoken, but they remained in the porches of my understand- ing. I was too dazed, too terrified, to admit them farther. I could grasp only a part of what was so swiftly transpiring. Why had I once caught an odor of stale tobacco near the knight in armor, and why that dread steely figure had one night as I passed it seemed to move, I clearly understood, for I knew now that Mr. Field had hidden there and watched. At this moment Prince Seraph, in whose face a look of altered purpose had dawned, by an extraordinary twist of his entire supple body (I think it must have been what the Japanese call jiu-jutsu) slipped like running water from Mr. Field's grasp, and darting swiftly along the cor- ridor, fairly skimmed the winding front stairs in his descent. At this juncture Melchizedek, in the room opposite, startled from ungodly slum- bers by the encounter, began to dash about 284 PRINCE CINDERELLA within his cage and to hawk and sputter and shriek his most shocking oaths. Below, the noise of the front door being opened told that Seraph had fled the house. I heard a shot, two shots Simultaneously Leighton Darrah sat bolt upright on his couch and looked dazedly about him. He rose slowly, bewilderedly. "What the deuce-Miss Meredith, Mr. Field, I beg your pardon. Have I been dreaming?” He advanced questioningly toward us. Mr. Field, thus appealed to, did not reply. Instead he looked uncertainly at me. "Miss Mer- edith, it is very late, or rather it is early! Don't you think”-all the distinguished courtesy he could command was in his tone and attitude “don't you think you would better retire?” "But I'm not sleepy the least bit,” I protested stoutly. "And it's all so dreadful, and mixed up! I suppose Seraph has taken the blue diamond away with him?" "Quite right. And as it is his property by inheritance I made no effort to prevent his doing so. Since you elect to remain, I must, Miss Mer- IN THE KING'S NAME 285 edith, 'do in your presence what I would rather not do." How cold his voice was now! Any suffering that resulted, it seemed to say, was no affair of his. “I must, Miss Meredith, land my fish!" And as I stood breathless watching him he slipped a small shining pistol from an inner pocket and held it at my Prince's forehead. "Mr. Darrah, in the name of His Majesty, I arrest you!" No sooner were the words out of his mouth than with the other hand he drew a whistle from another pocket and placing it to his lips blew on it twice sharply. It seemed as if the whistle were scarcely restored to its place before we heard running steps on the stairs, and Ezra Shutters appeared at the head of them, a pair of handcuffs in his hand, and took his stand beside Mr. Field. THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER 287 which I thought had faded, my doubt of him which I had unreasoningly dodged; all the whole, hidden business in which the three of us were vitally mixed and over which social convention had as it were kept up floating in smiles and small talk, rose spectrally before us and stared us quite down at last. Added to all this there stood Ezra Shutters, handcuffs in hand, the very embodi- ment of grim inexorable law. I understood now who had fired those two shots at the fleeing Seraph. For an instant no one spoke. For the sake of the man I loved, whose life I now understood was absolutely at Mr. Field's mercy, I was trying to control my anger and my contempt for Mr. Field himself who I now saw had for months tricked me, passing himself off as a destitute clergyman when in fact he was a secret agent of the British Government. He had abused under this pretense every law of honor and hospitality. In vain I sought self-mastery. Powerful as I knew him to be I turned defiantly toward him, my head high, my cheeks hot with indignation. My voice rang sharply out the scorn that filled me. 292 PRINCE CINDERELLA always kept—lord love him!-of using his walk- ing powers chiefly to get into mischief. Seemed to scent it, as a dog scents a fox, when nobody else knew it was within miles. "Our father at this time was, I believe, more conscious that he had lost a wife than that his sons had been deprived of a mother. He re- turned to America to remain permanently, and worked hard at manufacturing railroad ties until, I think, the acquired taste ruled all his other interests in life as an adopted child some- times rules a house. “Lester and I continued to live most of our time in Ireland, but we spent several summer vacations here in Middlefield. We used to haunt Waldon Ridge. At home we lived in the country with an old grand-aunt of our mother's who pre- tended to look after Lester, but it was all a pre- tense entirely. The lady allowed him his own way altogether, and his governess, and later his tutors, were not permitted to restrain him. I tried to steady the boy when I was at home-I went to Trinity College after my first school- but it was myself that needed steadying now and 294 PRINCE CINDERELLA pranks took so much of his time he couldn't well study and he lost his degree. There were debts- “Our going to India seemed to alienate father utterly, though why he had counted on our lov- ing him and wanting, when we were grown, to be with him, when he'd never given us anything but money—that we asked him to stop sending when we took our commissions. And we decided to use only our first and middle names,—we were both Darrahs, after our mother, she had been Lady Mary Darragh spelled, Mr. Field, with a 'g' as you noticed Lester always spells it. "About this time our father married again. I had the kindest possible letter from the lady (father had not written at all since the time when he said he'd turned Lester's portrait, which had always hung in the library, against the wall). She wrote, she said, without her husband's knowl- edge, but she hoped that she might in time soften his anger and sent us both the warmest good wishes and a welcome if ever we came back to America. "You understand that I, though not act- ually disowned, as Lester had been, was under THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER 297 and hoped that, after the affair had quieted, some means would be found of restoring the jewel and that Lester could then safely attempt to leave the country. “Two nights later, while I was hourly hoping to hear from Lester whom I dared not try to join, we were all awakened toward ten o'clock by the Colonel's man rushing in and crying out that some one had murdered the Rajah. It was a fact, there was no doubt about it—the knife was still sticking in his breast, the man declared, and on the hilt of it the initials L. D. were chased. The fellow looked at me, doubtless thinking Lester had done it, but after he was gone the men in the tent agreed to a man that Lester Darragh was innocent. How I managed secretly by their aid and by the note from the Colonel, to reach the room where the dead Rajah still sat in his throne chair, and pull out the incriminating knife, I will not take time to explain. It was indeed my brother's knife, used, I was confident, by Robert Judd, whom the Rajah had once reported to our Colonel for some offense and who was thus evening two scores in 1 298 PRINCE CINDERELLA one. Judd was one of the few who knew that I had recovered Lester's knife and he knew also, I am sure, that I suspected him. At all events, later that same night some one tried to enter my, tent, intending, I imagine, to dispose of me in the same manner as the Rajah, and if it hadn' been for Bob, my collie—that's the story, Rose, I promised you—he would, I fancy, have suc- ceeded the second time also. I do not ask you, Mr. Field, to take my word as to Lester's inno- cence. But you will, I think, accept any state- ment made by Colonel Eldridge?” "I will,” came unhesitatingly from Mr. Field's lips. “Colonel Eldridge will tell you—you person- ally and confidentially, Mr. Field, for as his regiment is still stationed in Ajmere he would dare make no official statement—that he knows Lester Darragh to be innocent of the murder of Rajah, the Beloved. The reason he knows is that Lester was hidden that night in the Colonel's own bedchamber. He had daringly stolen back to the garrison and was immediately taken under the Colonel's personal protection. The 300 PRINCE CINDERELLA for some years indeed he will be safer in Chile or the Argentine. An Indian's hatred never dies till the last trace of scent is lost. Evidently you do not know that the Rajah's own son, believing Lester Darragh to have murdered his father, and mistaking you for him, having never seen your brother but once-really, the resemblance be- tween you two must be extraordinary!—followed you in disguise to this country, and as our hostess' chauffeur has been awaiting the oppor- tunity to kill you. He had learned that Middle- field had at times been your home, and cleverly sought a post in the neighborhood that would enable him to look out for you. Miss Meredith will be my witness that a moment before you woke from your nap I did you rather a good turn in preventing His Royal Highness from knifing you. "Your collie, Bob, whom you have per- haps missed to-day, I discovered late last night suffering severely from the first effects of poison undoubtedly administered by our royal friend. It just happened that I guessed the par- ticular antidote his case demanded and he is now 304 PRINCE CINDERELLA tent. To be at his side was enough. After I had seen his life threatened I could never have consented to his going up the Ridge alone. Suddenly returning to a consciousness of my presence Leighton Darrah gave me a quick look-over. "This won't do. No wrap. Here," and in a trice he had whipped off his cravenette, and despite my protests, was gently, masterfully put- ting my arms into the sleeves. It was a dis- tinctly new sensation, being bossed, and I liked it. William, to be sure, had repeatedly tried to manage me but that, please note, is quite another thing. We hardly spoke as with good speed we moved down the drive. Leighton Darrah seemed wonderfully to understand my wanting to wait for question and answer, to see with me that talk would disturb the exquisite balance of the hour. Meanwhile day, the lily, was slowly unfolding its calyx. On the branches of trees and in the tangly roadside borders happy hoppy birds were telling their love stories madly. But for us that time was not yet. Leighton Darrah had taken the THE FIRST RIDE TOGETHER 305 precaution to slip Mr. Field's pistol in his breast pocket, but we saw no sign of Seraph. Except for their fresh bath of night rain and dawn light, East Middlefield, Middlefield and Middlefield yan seemed scarcely more asleep than I had beheld them at high noon. Not a soul was to be seen and apparently none was yet astir, for no chimney wreaths were curling heaven- ward. As we flashed past the inn a dog barked only to deepen the stillness that ensued. I thought of all the stuffer's wild creatures in that tightly closed front room and wondered fanci- fully if the night magic did not still call to them; I thought with tenderness of the beautiful old woman sleeping doubtless in the upper chamber; and I tried afresh to conjecture the purpose of Ezra Shutters in visiting Woodcroft in the dead of the night before. By the time we reached the river the lusty young morning, steadily as we had held to our first speed, had blown apace. A scarlet streak passed us and for an instant one silver note hung on the air behind; it was a tanager, belated herald of the day. Along the plashy river banks we could make out the gray- 306 PRINCE CINDERELLA green of fringy young willows, free and graceful of line as gay bacchantes. Birds were every- where calling to buds on this mad May morning to open, open. It was, they seemed to say, an hour for giving what one had : song, color, scent, heart's love. We shot, still in silence, into the long rumbling bridge whence night had not yet fled. The spot was lonely. Years before, so the country fire- sides told the story, a man had been murdered at this bridge. I shivered slightly inside of myself, with a distinct little thrill immediately after of satisfaction in the protector at my side. Just beyond the bridge, at the foot of the dark piny steep, Leighton Darrah with a quick turn of the wheel swerved the car to the right and then pressed the brake. He was allowing all of us- I say all, for the plucky little car seemed a living creature-an instant's breath-taking prior to our upward plunge. We looked toward the east. In the pearly sky there were rosy flecks now, deli- cate as baby finger-tips. “We must hurry!” cried Leighton Darrah softly, and set his gear firmly. “Afraid ?” he 310 PRINCE CINDERELLA ean of my troth with Leighton Darrah. Apparently he was ready too. He stepped closer to me. "Rose!” he said gently. At last it was to come, that sure word of car- ing for which I had hungered. Fortune had in this respect scanted me shabbily; two dances, a few bars of music, a few looks and phrases that could mean nothing as easily as they might mean all,- I was too truly a woman to be satisfied. Leighton Darrah spoke again and made as if to take my hand. "Rose". A slight snapping sound and- "Faith, and it's a bit of the mornin's self ye are, Miss Meredith!" Lester Darrah, for I knew instantly it was he, stood before the green thicket from which he had just emerged, facing us, cap held in outsweeping gesture of pure Irish grace, like an actor acknowledging the plaudits of a multitude. Straight at me he tossed his pretty compliment with a flash of blue eyes (curious that I had ever thought them gray!) eyes filled with laugh- ter yet strangely ready for tears. There was, I judged from Leighton Darrah's narrative, a WHAT IS ROMANCE 311 1901 nean matter of ten years between them as time goes, yet save for the greater exuberance of Lester, the resemblance was extraordinary. Lester's hair, like Leighton's, curled slightly but was without a hint of gray, a detail which, I sud- denly realized, had probably made Seraph aware that he was pursuing the wrong man. A darling broth of a boy, that Lester Darrah, worth in the sheer sunny charm of him all the worry that he made other people suffer in payment of it! He had need to be a darling in that moment for because of him, my hour of knowing, as all women want to know, was once more put off. My little gray car held three in comfort, so presently we made our start down the Ridge, driving at a more moderate speed than we had ascended. Luck as well as love must have been with us for we reached level ground and the old bridge with not the slightest mishap. In the broad beauty of this later hour bees as well as birds were busy. It was the sweet of the year, and there was rare store of honey in the close white heads of the clover. That rogue, Lester Darrah, teased me, I might say, every foot of the 316 PRINCE CINDERELLA Just as I was wondering how I could manage chaperonless, with three men in the house, even for the briefest interval, Lester Darrah made excuse to leave us. An Irishman is never guilty of being de trop. In the great dining-room I was once more alone with my Prince, and again with riotously beating heart I awaited his word of love. With eyes fixed on my plate I listened for an interminable moment to Seth Thomas on the mantel-shelf. “Tick, tock, tick, tock!" I think the excitement and the long strain of the night were beginning to tell on me. For the first time since I had known my elderly friend I was irritated at him. "Hoity, toity, hoity, toity! Young ladies in love, young ladies in love!" So Uncle Seth's measured swinging seemed to say. From his place directly opposite me across the little round table I felt Leighton Darrah's eyes on me. When at last he spoke and I per- force lifted my own eyes, my cheeks were, I am sure, as pink as the tiny rose sprigs in the printed morning dress into which I had hastily changed, 1. WHAT IS ROMANCE 317 What he actually said was the last thing in the world that I expected to hear. "It seems to me, Miss Meredith, that you take the loss of your engagement ring—such an engagement ring too !-rather coolly.” As he spoke he continued to look at me in a penetrating steady way I couldn't quite comprehend. My eyes opened wide. I sat straight up and stared at him. I was hurt and bewildered. “But I'm glad it's gone,” I answered him. “It brought trouble to everybody. It nearly caused your death. Anyway, it was taken—I couldn't help that, could I? And it's now in the hands of the man who has the right to it.” I flared quite decidedly on these last words. Leighton Darrah laughed softly and continued to look straight at me. The pink in my cheeks must have outmatched the sprigs in my dress by now. “Legally, yes. But I am wondering just how Moore will feel about that.” It was the second time that he had, as it were, twitted me about William Moore. I rose slowly, giving my chair a slight push backward, sum- WHAT IS ROMANCE 319 forgetting dignity I ran as fast as I could from the room out into the hall. Where I was going I did not know nor did I care. My universe was a spent balloon. I wanted only with every atom of my nature to get away from this man who had deceived me. All too clearly now I under- stood William's searching looks at me, his glances at my hands, his wanting to know why I didn't wear the diamond. All too clearly now I saw that in a way he had a right to know. Supreme egoist that he is, he had calmly expected me to guess that he had sent the ring, and my failure, day after day to acknowledge his gift after wearing it, and then my appearing, equally without explanation without it, had been almost too much. Meanwhile Harriet Midway of the hall Leighton Darrah caught me, and heedless of who might see, clapped both his hands about my waist and with no ado what- ever lifted and literally carried me into the draw- ing-room. Scold as I might, it was no use. His arms were strong, his will was iron. Gently, as if I were some naughty little girl whom he intended to chide, he set me down on the great WHAT IS ROMANCE 321 “Real romance, Rose, is still there, under- neath, where it has always been. You have only torn away the tawdry covering. I understand it all now. To make things clear to you, I must go back a bit. My brother—the devil's imp that he is entirely—once in this country began to feel that the blue diamond was too wonderful to be owned by a heathen even if he is a rajah. He had no thought of making money by it, money being the last of his concerns altogether, but just the better to take care of it he had it set in a ring. When I found him I knew this would never do. I half cajoled, half persuaded him to let me have it. "That night in New York, I saw William Moore, whom I had known pretty well as a boy. My father's sister married a brother of Mrs. Moore and after her death the two families con- tinued to visit. We'd met several times since my return to this country. William is a queer duck but we always got on rather well and on an impulse I showed him the ring. Instantly he begged me to let him buy it. I replied that it wasn't for sale. He asked then that he might 326 PRINCE CINDERELLA to which was pinned a bill for twenty yards of her favorite black silk necessary now apparently to the support of her own position since she could no longer be said to be upholding mine. A person of spirit would have returned the bill unpaid; I sent a check. I glanced at the table of Maryland Martins on the leaf she had sent. Yes, there was the tell-tale record of Sarah Rod- ney's marriage. Whether Cousin Sarah did indeed continue the triumphal tour of her northern relatives I did not seek to learn. But when I thought of her I regarded that course as probable. The thought pleased me. She was of an adventurous nature and I did not like to picture her settling down to the drab routine of one of these boarding homes maintained by cold-bosomed society for spinsters and widows. I hoped that on the con- trary she had again found in the home of some other of her kinsmen, remote like myself though he might be, a warm hearth-rug to curl upon and the cream of luxury to lap. In June William married—shall I say—the remains of Harriet. As soon as I saw them on WHICH TIES SOME KNOTS 327 Empresa since s etabit ad se I chos the morning following the storm I knew that he was completely hers. They belong to the same church and they like the same breakfast food, and they give every sign of being happy. I had to own that Harriet had understood William better than I. In love the wrong person may do all seemingly right things and it availeth him or her nothing, and the right person may do all the seemingly wrong things and as a reward be adored. Manage a man in precisely the right way and you can bring him to any terms you choose, even to bird-bats. William has developed a positive enthusiasm for them and has bought field-glasses of his own. The truth of course was that all along William had never really cared for me as he thought he did. It had been much more his mother's doings than his own. His vanity was indeed horribly and, as far as I was con- cerned, irreparably hurt because I had never dreamed he sent me the ring, but as things turned out I had really no need to pity him. It had all led him straight to Harriet Carter. I was awfully glad that William had found Harriet. He is not a matinée idol, fascinating to fevered females, is name? -g dors ciety fit the con- of some spon and them on 332 PRINCE CINDERELLA rah had not recognized her. But she had only to ask after Master Lester to make him remem- ber and freely give her the comfort she required. Malory's pallor, it developed speedily, was not all or even mainly due to fear. Ezra Shutters came with a warrant for his arrest on the very night after the storm. I think Malory was expecting him for all the day he had been gut- tering like a candle about to go out. At sight of Shutters holding the warrant in his hand my poor friend—for so indeed I had come to think him- trembled and then began violently to cough. Immediately a bright stream of blood gushed from between his lips. Ezra Shutters, who was really kind, unlocked his steel-trap jaws far enough to say, “Them prisons-lungs ain't got no chance in 'em! Talk about Christians !” And in the gentlest way he helped Leighton Darrah put Malory to bed in his room while I telephoned to Dorchester for medical aid. My butler was an escaped convict, wanted for larceny, but Ezra Shutters, who foresaw with me that Malory's end was near, readily agreed not to press the serving of the warrant. Later WHICH TIES SOME KNOTS 335 ID in the end had his own fish to fry. As we all talked things over together I found myself admir- ing Mr. Field extraordinarily. I am positive that he knew Cousin Sarah had been the first to take the robin's egg and I greatly liked the delicacy which restrained him from making any mention, now unnecessary, of this fact. And quite voluntarily he cleared her of my accusation of stealing my letter to the chief of police about her. "While you were delayed on the road to Dor- chester, Miss Meredith, I watched you from the thicket screening the river path where I had fol- lowed on my wheel. Perhaps you don't know how much shorter that path is than the road. When you walked down past the bend in the road looking impatiently in the direction of Middle- field for Seraph I opened the bag and took the letter. It was really one of Mr. Darrah's I was after, but when I saw that you were communicat- ing with the police authorities in another city I felt I just must know why. I should have resealed and returned it but I didn't dare take the time." WHICH TIES SOME KNOTS 337 Meredith, you must admit you were a temptation. When you actually invited me to live under your roof I could scarcely believe it. You would really have swallowed a much bigger yarn. “I must apologize for Chizzy's strong language and indeed for a little that I have used myself while your guest. I formed the habit, I confess, during the early years of my deaconate, after frequent enforced attendance on missionary teas. You see, Miss Meredith, I took orders because my mother insisted on it. But I had always a tremendous interest in criminal life and I soon decided that I could best serve my king and country in another way. My work is lower doubt- less in the scale of service than ministering to souls, but at all events it is honest, and with me the other could not have been. Sometimes I think that religion is whatever is not for the body or wholly for now. I have, it is true, frequently used my vestments as camouflage but I have yet, as far as I am aware, to disgrace them. At least none of the good bishops who know my real occupation has suggested that I should be unfrocked.” 338 PRINCE CINDERELLA "And your herbarium?" I now felt free to ask. Mr. Field laughed quietly. The prettiest collection of rogues' thumb marks you ever saw. Some day, if you like, you shall see them.” "And the library of alienists?" I pressed him further, he seemed so delightfully willing to clear up everything. "Oh, I've a feeling that the crazy man and the crook are pretty closely akin, both abnormal, you know. I want to understand. I don't hate or despise the men I bring to what we call justice. I love them." "Mr. Field,” I cried, leaning impulsively toward him, "you ought to have a parish. Feel- ing as you do about people—even bad ones—and then your wonderful voice!" Up to this Mr. Field's manner had been gay but now on answering me he became for the moment serious. “Oh, no, no! I was never cut out for a parson. I'm not fit.” So you see, this is a plot without a villain, unless indeed poor William be he, and surely no one would unkindly condemn that well-inten- 340 PRINCE CINDERELLA sie bridled quite perceptibly and with her old delicious frankness awaited congratulations. To have censured her for haste or for leading me on to approve her marriage before she con- fessed it would have been absurdly useless and indeed unfair. Bessie was a born diplomat,-it was one of the things I had liked her for, and we must accept the defects of our friends' virtues. So I congratulated her upon being a second time Mrs. Hightower, made a tidy wedding present and told her—what she had doubtless already guessed—that the house party was broken up and I myself was soon to leave Woodcroft for an indefinite time. My chaperon had flown,-I was compelled perforce to take a protector of another sort. With Leighton Darrah's permission I had sent on Cousin Sarah's flight for Mrs. Charles Henry and then I left her alone in the drawing-room with him and Lester. Within half an hour Leighton Darrah came for me to join them,—all three of them caught up in a gale of good friendship. Mrs. Charles Henry thereupon set to work to reconcile Mr. Charles Henry with his WHICH TIES SOME KNOTS 341 I sons. She is a woman who deals wisely with her husband, making few overt demands, with the result that when with all her half foreign magne- tism and beauty she does ask something, he capitulates on the instant. They were handsome enough, those sons, God knows, for any father in his senses to be glad to own,—and, well, we all cried and laughed and hung upon one another out of sheer joy when those three proud men “made up.” Leighton wanted me to go at once with him and Lester to the Argentine, so on Wednesday in the little rosy silk frock in which I first met him (he would have it so!) Mr. Field married us in the great dining-room just before noon. Twelve o'clock, Seth Thomas sang immediately we raised our heads, and such was the jocund ring of my old friend's tones I almost heard him add, “And all's well.” “All's well indeed!" I murmured, looking up happily into my husband's face. He did not, of course, understand Seth Thomas as I did, but it was no time for explanations. I have heard of a fool's paradise; I am con- 342 PRINCE CINDERELLA vinced that there is also a fool's providence. The things I had loved had at last come to me,-I believe because I loved them. If I had not been expecting such a man as Leighton Darrah assuredly he would never have found me. Lester Darrah was the first to kiss me. Hadn't he, he said, as my one brother, the right? Anyway, he was only returning the kiss I had that afternoon in the Winters' library given to his portrait, now happily turned once more face front. For a wedding present he asked to make my own the little book of Irish ballads that I had found in the garden behind the cottage, writing my new name in it and begging pardon for trou- bling me with such a trifle. Cousin Sarah departed, Daisy married, Bes- sie remarried, Malory buried, the Reverend, accompanied by his beloved Chizzy, on his way to India to find and arrest Robert Judd, there was but one thing to do with Woodcroft and that was to lease it. We ourselves expect to make a tour of the world when once we have seen Lester Darrah safely out of mischief in far South America. Left to himself it is doubtful if