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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LFNOX
TIL DE N FOUNDA" IQNS






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FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE—
“Mlss MANWARING!


NOBODY



BY
LOUIS JOSEPH YANCE
AUTHOR OF “THE LONE WOLF," "JOAN THURSDAY."
"THE BRASS BOWL." ETC.

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ILLUSTRATED BY w. L. moons


NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY





7191:;—





AS'OR, LENOX [mos
“Lam Fouuomaon
'3 19\7
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Copyright, 1914,
BY Loms JOSEPH VANCE

Copyright, 1915,
BY GEORGE H. Dom COMPANY
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This novel was originally published serially, under the title of “A n Outsider.”


lJll
IANSI'UI IRON C. 0; AUG
CHAPTER
II
III
VI
VII
VIH
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
'XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
CONTENTS
PAGE
ANARCHY . . . . . ‘11
BURGLARY . 35
ACCESSABY AFTER THE FACT *8
BLACRMAIL . . 62
CONSPIRACY . . 92
ALIAs MANWARING . -. . 102
FRAUD . . . . . . 128
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT . 143
PICABOON . . ' . . 165
LEGERDEMAIN . . ;. 1’78
THE THIRD DEGREE . I. 189
MACHIAVELLIAN . . . ~213
MARPLOT . . $1.; 1 I ‘ a , .-
MAGIC. . . 1" 2; f 311.. I Q “I 260
FALSE WITNESS . 1,_ if . 280
THE PLANT . . ;.a 11.11;]; .2 305
EXPOSI'; . . 332
BREAKING JAIL . . 342


.0 .0.


ILLUSTRATIONS
“Miss Manwaring! For the Love of
Mike—-—- !” . . . . . F rontispiece
PAGE
Full Half of Her Heart’s Desire Was Here w 42
A Fury in a. Fairy’s Dress . . . - 2416
“Aren’t There Any More Apartments To Be Had
On Riverside Drive?” . . . . . 842





NOBODY







CHAPTER I
ANARCHY

AT you gonna have?”
To this inquiry the patron made no re-
sponse; head bent, nose between the pages of the
magazine, she pored sedulously over a legend at-
tached to one of the illustrations.
After a decent pause in waiting the waitress re-
newed her demand with a sharper accent:
“Say, lis’en; what you want?”
“ ‘White satin, veiled with point d’Angleterre,’ ”
Miss Manvers replied distinctly, if without
looking up, aware simply of something impera-
tive in the starched but humid presence at her
elbow,
Pardonably startled, the waitress demanded with
the rising inflection: “Wka-a-at?”
“ ‘The court train,’ ” MiSS Manvers pursued in
abstraction, “ ‘is lined with lace and dotted with
bouquets of 0range-blossoms—’ ”
She checked herself suddenly, looked up shyly,
and essayed a pale, apologetic smile.
[II]



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“I’m sorry; I didn’t realise—”
But now the waitress had caught a glimpse of the
illustration and was bending over the patron’s shoul-
der for a better look.
“Gee!” she commented sincerely. “Ain’t that a
dream?”
“Yes,” Miss Manvers admitted wistfully, “it’s
a dream, right enough!”
“That’s so, too.” Deftly, with a large, moist,
red hand, the waitress arranged knife, fork,
spoon, and paper serviette on the unclothed
brown board before Miss Manvers. “That’s the
worst of them fashion magzines,” she complained;
“they get your goat. Sometimes after readin’
some of that dope I can’t hardly remember or-
ders right, just for wishin’ somebody’d come
along and hang some of them joyful rags onto
me!”
Then, catching the eye of the manager, she
straightway resumed her professional habit of
slightly wilted hauteur—compounded in equal parts
of discontent, tired feet, heat-fag and that profound
disdain for food-consuming animals which inevi-
tably informs the mind of every quick-lunch
waitress.
“What you gonna have?” she demanded dispas-
sionately.
“Ham-and, please.”
d —/-'___~
e 11
[12]


ANARCHY
It?

“Plate of ham-and. Cawfy?”
“Yes, iced coffee and”-—~Miss Manvers hesitated
briefly—“and a napoleon.”
Reciting the amended order, the waitress with-
drew.
F or the next few moments the customer neglected
the fashion magazine which she had found—ap-
parently a souvenir of some other absent-minded
patron—on the seat of the chair next that one of
her own casual choice.
She stared blankly at the smudged and spotted
bill of fare propped up, in its wooden frame, against
an armour-plate-china sugar-bowl. She was deeply
intrigued by the mystery of human frailty as ex-
emplified by her reckless extravagance in ordering
that Superfluous bit of pastry. Miss Manvers’s purse
contained a single coin of silver, the quarter of a
dollar; being precisely the sum of her entire fortune.
Her ham and beans would cost fifteen cents, the
coffee and the napoleon five cents each. In other
words, she would be penniless when she had paid
her score—and Heaven only knew for how long
afterward.
Her lips moved without sound in her worn and
pallid face. “VVhat’s the difference?” she bully-
ragged her conscience. “I might as well be broke
as the way I am i”
The argument was painfully reasonable; that in-
[131'



NOBODY

mate of New York who has but five cents has
nothing.
On the other hand, there was nothing whatever
to be advanced in extenuation of her folly in thus
inviting indigestion—a passion for pastry is its own
punishment no less than any other infatuation to
which mortal flesh is prone. Sally was morally
certain she would suffer, and that severely, before
nightfall.
“Well, what of it?” she grumbled sullenly. “If
I die for it, it’s cheap at the price! And, no matter
what happens, it can’t be any hotter afterward than
it is now.”
Somehow soothed by this cynical reflection, she
sat up, mopped her flushed forehead with a hand-
kerchief of which she was not proud, and drank
thirstin of her tumbler of ice-water.
The grateful draft reminded her that she had
actually been athirst ever since noon. It was now
almost three o’clock—thanks to which fact she
might eat in the comparative comfort of a lunch-
room which boasted no patron other than herself.
But she was little appreciative of this boo'n; she
comprehended her surroundings with just a little
languid resentment of their smug cleanliness and
their atmosphere impregnated with efl'luvia of cheap
edibles. But if these seemed offensive she would
have been willing to overlook them on certain con-
A~_.___/._‘____ w—
..
[14]


ANARCHY


ditions—as she proved when the waitress reap-
peared with her order.
“I don’t suppose—” Miss Manvers began, but
hesitated.
“What say?”
“I don’t suppose you need any more girls
here?”
“Lookin’ for a job?” the waitress inquired bril-
liantly. “I dunno—I’ll ask the manager, if you
want.”
Miss Manvers nodded a barely audible “Please!”
She munched drearily for a few minutes, staring
out through the front windows wherein, from dawn
till dark, a white-clad chef industriously browned
the wheats and cast sinkers; beyond their wide ex-
panse of plate-glass, stenciled with the name of the
establishment in reverse, a vista of sun-smitten street
danced drunkenly through the reek from the sheet-
iron griddles. Miss Manvers wondered dully if the
sidewalks were really less hot than those same grid-
dles. ,
“The manager says nothin’ doin’,” the waitress
reported. “But you can leave your name and
add-ress if you wanta.”
“Thanks,” said Miss Manvers; “but what’s the
use?”
“That’s right, all right,” the other sympathised.
“Besides, take it from me, this ain’t the kind of a
l


NOBODY
l


job you could make good at. You gotta be a
horse like me to stand it, ’specially days like
this.”
“Yes, I was thinking of that—”
“Believe me or not, nobody ain’t got no idear
what hot is without they’ve juggled hash in one
of these joints on a summer day. The kitchen back
there is honest’ somethin’ fierce. Three of our
girls fainted dead away in the noon rush.”
“Oh, I know,” Miss Manvers sighed; “I’ve tried
it before—and failed.”
The entrance of another customer prevented fur-
ther confidences, and Miss Manvers was left to re-
sume her scanning of the fashion magazine.
If its distracting quality was unquestionable, it
hardly contributed comfort to her mood.
“In selecting her personal apparel,” she read, “the
bride-to-be must, of necessity, be guided by indi-
vidual requirements and the social position which
she is to assume. Although much has been said
about the advisability of purchasing only what is
really needed and can be .wom before the styles
change, it is a common fault of brides to buy too
much. '. . . It is assumed that the June bride
will have already on hand a suit or two, a one-piece-
frock of serge or similar material, a top-coat, an
afternoon coat or one of the new capes, evenin
gowns, and an evening wrap, one or two aftemoo
l
I
l
is"
[16]


ANARCHY

and luncheon frocks, and hats, shoes, and similar
accessories. ”
Here Miss Manvers withdrew from the printed
page long enough mentally to inventory her own
wardrobe.
“That lets me out,” she said, and turned a page.
The caption, “A Feudal Aristocracy,” caught her
attention. “Long Island,” she learned, “is a poem
itself to-day, even if it is suffering from cheap de-
velopments, the encroachment of tenantry, and the
swarming of the commuters. It is too bad that
this garden spot must be overrun, and indeed there
has been a movement to stay the tide of immigra-
tion from the city. In one section our best people
are buying up vast stretches of property to add to
their private estates. .”
Fascinated, Miss Manvers thrust aside a garnished
plate, took a gulp of the decoction called coffee, and
attacked her napoleon.
“I am so glad,” she continued to read, “to see
that we are adding to our estates and fast form-
ing an aristocracy of the countryside; we really
live at our country places now for over half the
year. Even the large weddings are no longer town
affairs. If one has an estate it is so much smarter
now to marry ofI one’s daughters from the country
place. Yet there is always one difficulty about this
method of procedure: can such weddings be af-
411/“, r -
[I7]


NOBODY


forded the prominence necessary? Weddings, of
course, must be given a certain amount of advertise-
ment, through the proper channels, because each of
us stands for a representative house, which must
not drop into oblivion. . . .”
At this point Miss Manvers wrinkled her nose
indignantly. “Just for that,” she informed the un-
known author of this artless screed, “just for that
now, I’ve a great mind not to go to Long Island
at all this summer—not even once to Coney!”
She turned impatiently back to the advertising
pages and reviewed the “classified wants” listlessly,
forewarned by experience that they would offer no
invitation to one of her singularly modest accom-
plishments; none of these advertisers desired the
services of a saleswoman, a typist, or even a lady’s-
maid. Not that Miss Manvers imagined she would
score a success in the role of lady’s-maid, though it
was almost the only means open to her of earning a
livelihood which, thus far, she had not essayed.
Such work was hardly calculated to suit a girl
with a mind of independent cast and what is known
as a temper of her own: prohibitive barriers between
her and such bread as may be earned in the sweat
of domestic servitude.
Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to
“Chat of the Social World,” gossip which exercised
potent fascination upon the girl’s intelligence. She
“it
[18]


ANARCHY


devoured with more avidity than she had her food
those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snob-
ocracy—trite announcements of post-season lunch-
eons, dinners, dances, and bridge parties; of depar-
tures for Europe and for American country homes,
of engagements and of weddings—distilling there-
from an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all
its savour.
Such was the life for which she yearned with
every famished aspiration of her being. And Why
not? Who were these whose half-tone portraits
smirked complacence or scowled disdain to her in-
spection—who were these that they should enjoy
every good thing in life while she must go hungcring
all her days for a little pleasure? Scarce one be-
trayed by feature or expression either breeding or
intelligence superior to that of Sally Manvers, late
of the hardware notions in Huckster’s Bargain Base-
ment!
Regarding the full-page reproduction of a pho-
tograph showing a jibber-jawed June bride in full
regalia, Miss Manvers was moved enviously to para-
phrase an epigram of moot origin: “There, but for
the grace of God, stands Sally Manvers l”
There was enough truth in that to excuse a little
gulp of emotion; which, however, was craftily dis-
sembled.
In due course, rising, Miss Manvers stood and de-
[19]


NOBODY


livered at the desk of the blond cashier, then, penni-
less, wandered forth into the brutal sunshine.
Her homeward way took her up Sixth Avenue,
through Thirty-Fourth Street, and northward on
Park Avenue.
She went slowly, wearily, as suited a drudge
to whom respite from drudgery brought no earnest
of ease or pleasure. The burning air beat up into
her downcast face from sun-baked stones that
scorched through the soles of her shoddy shoes, and
she gulped down acrid mouthfuls of it rather than
breathed.
June was still young, but already summer, like
some burly ruffian shouldering spring aside with
her work half done, held the city in the hollow of a
hot and humid hand.
In the mid-afternoon glow, lower Park Avenue
owned its personal atmosphere of somnolent isola-
tion, in strong contrast with the bustle of proletarian
Fourth Avenue at its one extreme and the roar at
the other of traffic-galled Forty-Second Street. Of
the residences a few, whose awninged windows re-
sembled heavy-lidded eyes, overlooked wayfaring
folk with drowsy arrogance; the greater number,
with boarded doors and blinded windows, like
mouths and eyes tight shut in seasonable slumber,
ignored the world entirely.
Though she had passed that way twice a day for
_ . L
[20]


ANARCHY


years on end—always in consciousness of that aloof
spirit informing the inanimate, and in such resent-
ment thereof as properly rewarded 2. studied inso-
lence—never before to-day had Sarah Manvers
found the genius of the neighbourhood so unmitiga-
tedly intolerable. It was with downright relief that
presently she turned from the avenue eastward
and accomplished in the span of one short cross-
town block a transit of the most violent contrasts,
from the dull dignity of the socially eligible, if
somewhat parsé, through a stratum of shabby gen-
tility, to a region of late years dedicated to the uses
of adversity undisguised.
A few doors short of Lexington Avenue she
paused, sighed, turned, climbed weather-bitten steps
to a brownstone entrance, and addressed herself to
three long flights of naked stairs.
She left behind, at the entrance, the dingy parlours
of “Mme. Levin, Modes et Toilettes,” on the first
landing the wailing-rooms of a hag-ridden teacher of
vocal culture, on the next several dusty chambers
perennially unrented, and gained at the top an open
door whose panels sported a simple rectangle of
cardboard advertising the tenancy of (in engraved
script) Mz'ss Lucy Spade, (in ink) M. A. Warden,
and (in pencil, a scrawl) Manvers.
Through this the girl walked into a back room
of generous size, which boasted a top~light together
[21]


NOBODY


with the generic name of studio, and was furnished
with an ill-assorted company of lame and dismal
pieces. The several vocations of its tenants were
indicated by a typewriting-machine beneath a rubber
hood thick with dust, a folding metal music-stand
and a violin-case, and a large studio easel ‘supple-
mented by a number of scrubby canvases. A door
in the partition wall communicated with a small
bedcharnber of the kind commonly termed “hall
room.” And in one corner a stationary wash-stand
and a gas-stove for morbid cookery lurked behind a
Japanese screen of dilapidated panels.
Near the windows, on the end of a box-couch, a
young woman was perched, thin shoulders rounded
over the ink-stained drawing-board resting on her
knees. She had a large, self-willed mouth and dark
Bohemian hair, and wore a dreary cotton kimono
over a silk petticoat whose past had been lurid. One
hand clutched gingerly a bottle of India ink, the
other wielded a scratchy steel drafting-pen.
Interrupted, she looked up with a start that all
but spilled the ink and cried in a voice heavily col-
oured with the enervating brogue of the Southern
born:
“My land, Sally! What time is it?”
In the act of unpinning her hat (a straw that
even a drowning woman would have hesitated to
grasp at) Miss Manvers paused to consult an in-
[22]


ANARCHY


valid alarm-clock which was suffering palpitations
on an adjacent shelf.
“Twenty past three,” she reported, sententious.
The artist cocked her head, squinted malevolently
at her drawing, dipped, and busin scratched once
more. '
“Scared me,” she explained: “coming home so
early l”
Sally removed her collar with a wrench and a
grunt: “Got a date?”
“Sure ; with Sammy—four o’clock.”
“Salamander stuff, eh?”
“What do you want—a day like this? I’m half-
cooked already, and I guess I can go through a little
fire for the sake of a sixty-cent table d’héle and a
trip to Coney. But you needn’t worry; it’ll be hot-
ter than this before Sammy warms up enough to
singe anything. His intentions are so praisewor-
thy they pain him; he blushes every time he has
to recognise the sex question long enough to discuss
the delights of monogamy in a two-family house
within commuting distance of Prospect Park South.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve got that far along
—already!”
“That’s the reward of a year’s steady angling,
honey.”
“Heavens, but how you must carry on with
Sammy!”
[23]


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“Believe me, it’s something scandalous,” sighed
Lucy Spode.
“But why—” Sally began in a tone of expostu-
lation.
The other quickened with a flash of temper.
“Don’t ask me! I came No’th to study art and
mingle with the world of intellect and fashion, and
after three years I’m drawing heads for fashion
magazines at a dollar per, and I know a minor poet
who’s acquainted with the assistant editor of The
Scrap-Book, and the one man I know who owns
a dress-suit gets fifty cents an hour for posing in it.
If that isn’t enough to make me welcome even the
prospect of married life with Sammy Myerick and
a woman to do the washing, I don’t know—”
“Well, if you aren’t crazy about Sammy, why
not chuck him? Marriage isn’t the last resource for
a girl like you. You’ve got just as many wits to
live on as the next one. This town’s full of young
women no better-looking than either of us, and
with even less intelligence, who manage pretty com-
fortably, thank you, on the living the world owes
them.”
“Sally Manvers!” cried the Southern girl, scan-
dalised, “what a way to talk!”
“Oh, all right,” said the other indifferently.
“Where’s Mary Warden?”
“Lyric Hall—rehearsing.”
[24]


ANARCHY


“Lucky Mary!”
Lucy Spode looked up in astonishment. “Lucky!”
she protested; “dancing till she’s ready to drop, in
this awful heat, and no pay for rehearsals!”
“All the same,” Sally contended, “she’s got some
chance, some right to hope for better things. She’s
an understudy, and her principal might fall ill—or
something. That’s better than marrying a man you
don’t care for—or clerking at Huckster’s for seven
dollars a week.”
“Cat,” said Miss Spode dispassionately. “Who’s
been mussing your fur?”
“Life.”
The steel pen was poised again while Lucy Spode
surveyed Sally Manvers suspiciously.
“What do you mean—life?” she demanded.
“This sort of thing.” Sally waved a comprehen-
sive hand. “Living here, in this hole, and most of
the time not even able to pay my share of the rent; -
slaving for a dollar a day, and losing part of that
in unjust fines ; walking to and from the store to save
car fare; eating the sort of food we do eat; never
having pretty clothes or pleasures of any sort. I
don’t call this a life!”
“You’ve got indigestion,” Miss Spode diagnosed
shrewdly. “I’ll bet two bits you’ve been eating
napoleons again.”
“I have got indigestion, but it’s thanks only to
[25]


NOBODY


being fed up with existence—the kind we lead, at
least. I want something better.”
“The vote, perhaps?”
“For two cents I’d throw something at you.”
The artist uncoiled her legs, stuck the pen in he
hair, set the ink-bottle down on the floor, sighed,"
and, lifting the drawing-board, held it at arm’s
length, studying her work through narrowed eye-
lids.
“Then it must be a man,” she concluded absently.
“When a woman of twenty-seven wants something
and doesn’t know what it is, it’s either the vote or a
man.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“With man an odds-on favourite in the betting.”
Miss Spode laid the board aside with a “Thank
goodness, that’s finished l” and, rising, stretched her
cramped limbs. “What I’d like to know,” she per-
jsis‘ted, “is whether it’s man abstract or a man con-
'crete.”
Sally laughed bitterly. “Take a good look at me,
dear—as an exhibit, not as a friend—and tell me
honestly whether any man worth having would
glance twice at me.”
“You can be pretty enough,” Miss Spode returned
seriously, “when you want to take the trouble—”
“But I don’t—ever.”
“The more fool you.”
[26]


ANARCHY


“What’s the use—on seven a week? What’s the
good of being pretty in rags like these? It only
gets a girl in wrong. I don’t care how fetching I
might make myself seem—”
“But you ought to.” _
“Look here; do you know how a reporter would
dacribe me?”
“Of course; ‘respectable working girl.’ ”
“Well, then, men worth while don’t run after ‘re-
spectable working girls’; they leave that to things
who wear ‘Modish Men’s Clothing—with braided
cuffs and pockets slashed on the bias !——~and stand
smirking on corners we have to pass going home.
Do you think I’d do my hair becomingly, and—and
all that—to attract such creatures?”
“So it’s abstract man. Thought so?’
“It’s starvation, that’s what it is. I’m sick for
want of what other girls get without asking—pretty .
clothes and—and all that sort of thing.” ‘ .,
“Meaning,” the artist interpreted gravely, “love.”0 Q,
“Well,” Sally demanded, defiant, “why not?”
“Why not indeed?” Lucy returned obliquely,
wandering round the studio and collecting various
articles of wearing-apparel toward her appearance in
public.
“I’m twenty-seven,” Miss Manvers declared mu-
tinously. “I’ll never be younger—I want to be
loved before I’m old l”
[27]


NOBODY


She paused, viewed with reassuring amusement
Lucy’s countenance of perplexity, and laughed again.
“I’ve had ten years of independence; and what
has it brought me? The reward of virtue: that
swaybacked couch for my bed, Uneeda biscuit for
my bread, and for salt—tears of envy!”
“Virtue is its own reward,” Lucy enunciated se-
verely.
“Virtue is its only reward, you mean!”
“You don’t talk fit to eat.”
“You know what I mean. Only mental bank-
rupts go to the devil because they’re hungry. I’m
less bothered about keeping body and soul together
—-Huckster’s seven a week does that after a fashion
—than about keeping soul and mind together.”
“It sounds reasonable.”
“I’m desperate, I tell you! And there’s more
than one resort of desperation for a girl of intelli-
gence.”
“As, for instance—”
“Well—you’ve named one.”
“Man?”
“That’s the animal’s first name.”
“But you’ve just pointed out, a successful cam-
paign demands a wardrobe.”
“Even that can be had if one’s unscrupulous
enoug .”
“Whatever do you mean ?”
[28]


ANARCHY


“To seek happiness where I can find it. I’m game
for anything. I’m ‘north of fifty-three’!”
“You’re what?”
“Have you forgotten the ‘Rhyme of the Three
Sealers”? ‘There’s never a law of God or man runs
north of fifty-three’! Well, the age of twenty-seven
is a woman’s fifty-three, north latitude—at least, it
is if she’s unmarried—time to jettison scruples, mor-
als, regard for the conventions, and hoist the black
flag of social piracy!” ’
“In plain language, you think the hour has struck
to doll yourself up like a man-trap. What?”
“Yes—and hang the expense!”
“By all means, hang it. But where? It’s a case
of cash or credit; the first you haven’t got, and I
don’t see your visible means of supporting a charge-
account at Altman’s.”
“There are ways,” Sally insisted darkly.
“You can’t mean you’d do anything dishonest—~”
“I’d do anything. Look at all the people in high
places who began as nothing more nor less than ad-
venturers. Nobody’s fussing about how they got
their money. It’s a sin to be poor nowadays, but
the sin of sins'is to stay poor!”
A moment of silence followed this pronounce-
ment; then Miss Spode observed pensively:
“Something’s happened to you to-day, Sally.
What is it? You haven’t been—”
[29]


NOBODY


“Fired again? Not exactly. Just laid off in- ‘
definitely—that’s all. With good luck I may get my
job back next September.”
“Oh, but honey!” Lucy exclaimed, crossing to
drop a hand on Sally’s shoulder: “I am sorry!”
“Of course you are,” Sally returned stonily.
“But you needn’t be. I’m not going to let this make
things any harder for you and Mary Warden.”
“How perfectly mean! You know I wasn’t
thinking anything like that!”
“Yes, dear, I do know it.” In sudden contrition,
Sally caught the other girl’s hand and laid her cheek
transiently against it. “What I meant to make
clear was”—she faltered momentarily—“I’ve made
up my mind I’m a Jonah, and the only decent thing
for me to do is to quit you both, Lucy, my dear!”
She ended on a round note of determination rather
than of defiance, and endured calmly, if with a
slightly self-conscious smile, the distressed look of
her companion.
“Don’t be silly!” this last retorted, pulling herself
together. “You know you’re welcome—”
“Of course I do. All the same, I’m not taking
any more, thanks.”
“But it’s only a question of time. If you can’t wait
for Huckster’s to take you on again, Mary and I
can easily keep things going until you find another
job.”
[so]


\.\
_Q\_
1
ANARCHY

“But that wouldn’t be fair!”
“What wouldn’t be fair?”
“To sponge on you two under false pretences.”
“False pretences!” Lucy iterated blankly.
“I was laid off last Saturday. I didn’t say any-
thing, but I’ve been looking for something else ever
since—and this is Wednesday, and I’m through. I’m
sick and tired. I’ve got just as much right as any-
body to live on society, and that’s what I’m going
to do from now on!”
Miss Spode lowered a cloth skirt over her headv
and blouse before pursuing. “But what I can’t un-
derstand is how—assuming you’re in earnest—”
“Deadly earnest!” Sally declared.
“—and mean to go through with this—how you
think you’ll get a start without doing something
downright wrong.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to tempt me the way I feel
to-day.”
“There’s only one thing,” Miss Spode announced,
adjusting her hat, “that prevents me from speak-
ing to a cop about you: I know you’re a fraud.
You couldn’t do anything dishonourable to save
you.”
“Oh, couldn’t I!” Sally returned ominously.
“You wait and see!”
“Well, well,” said the other indulgently, “have
it your own way. Hooray for crime! But if I stop
1
' .I
[31]


NOBODY


’ here listening to you preach anarchy I’ll be late for
Sammy. So I’m off.” Pausing in the doorway, she
looked back with just a trace of doubt colouring her
regard. “Do try to brace up and be sensible, honey.
I’m worried about leaving you alone with all these
blue devils.”
“You needn’t be. I can take care of myself—”
“Well, promise to do nothing rash before I come
home.”
“Promises made for keeps are specifically prohib-
ited by article nine of the Social Pirate’s Letters of
Marque. But I don’t mind telling you the chances
are you’ll find me on the roof when you get back,
‘ unless this heat lets up. I’m going up now; this
place is simply suffocating!”
But her smile grew dim as she resigned herself to
an evening whose loneliness promised to be un-
broken; that faint flush faded which had crept into
her cheeks in the course of her half-whimsical, half-
serious harangue; she looked once more what life
had made her—a work-worn shop-girl, of lack-lustre
charm, on the verge of prematurely middle-aged,
hopeless spinsterhood.
Another six months of this life would break her,
body and spirit, beyond repair.
Her eyes, that ranged the confines of those mean
quarters, darkened quickly with their expression of
jaded discontent.
[32]


ANARCHY


Another six months? She felt as if she could not
suffer another six hours. . . .
After a time she rose and moved languidly out
into the hall, from which an iron ladder led up
through a scuttle to the roof, the refuge and retreat
_ of the studio’s tenants on those breathless, intermin-
able summer nights when their quarters were unen-
durably stuffy. Here they were free to lounge at
ease, en déslzabz'llé; neither the dressmaker nor the
teacher of voice-production ever troubled their pri-
vacy, and seldom did other figures appear on any of
the roofs which ran to the Park Avenue corner on an
exact plane broken only by low dividing walls and
chimney-stacks. '
Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, com-
prised the furniture of this roof-garden, with (by
way of local colour) on one of the copings a row of
four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust
from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust them-
selves up like withered elfin limbs.
Selecting the soundest chair, Sally dragged it into
the shadow cast by the hood of the studio top-light,
and settling down with her feet on the adjacent
coping, closed her eyes and sought to relax from her
temper of high, almost hysterical nervous tension.
Thoughts bred of her talk with Lucy for a time
distracted her, blending into incoherent essays at im-
aginative adventures staged in the homes and parks
[33]


NOBODY


of the wealthy, as pictured by the sycophantic fash-
ion magazine and cast with the people of its gallery
of photographs—sublimely smart women in frocks
of marvellous inspiration, and polo-playing, motor-
driving, clothes-mad men of an insouciance appal-
ling.
On the edge of unconsciousness she said aloud, but
without knowing that she spoke, three words.
These were: “Charmeuse . . . Paquin . . .
Bride . . .”
And then she slept; her pallid face upturned to
that high-arched sky of brass, from which light and
heat beat down in brutal waves, she slept the sleep
of exhaustion, deep and heavy; dark and stupefy-
ing sleep possessed her utterly, as overpowering and
obliterating as though induced by drugs.
[34]




CHAPTER II
BURGLARY

HE wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the
grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream
in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact,
drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep
it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
Without the least warning a blinding violet glare
cut the gloom, the atmosphere quaked with a ter-
rific shock of thunder, and the downpour became
heavier.
Appalled, the girl sprang from her chair and
groped her way to the scuttle through a crepuscle
resembling late twilight.
It was closed. _
Somebody, presumably the janitor, had shut it
against the impending storm without troubling to
make sure there was no one on the roof, for her chair
had been invisible behind the shoulder of the top-
light.
With a cry of dismay the girl knelt and, digging
fingers beneath the cover, tugged with all her might.
[35]


NOBODY


But it was securely hooked beneath and held
fast.
Then, driven half frantic less by the lashing rain
than by a dread of lightning which she had never
outgrown, she stumbled back to the glass face of the
top-light and pounded it with her fists, screaming to
Mary Warden to come and let her in. But no lights
showed in the studio, and no one answered; re-
luctantly she was persuaded that Mary was not yet
home from rehearsals. I r.
The long rolling, grinding broadsides of thunder
made almost continuous accompaniment—broken
only by the briefest intermissions—to the fiery
sword-play that slashed incessantly through and
through that grim tilt of swollen black cloud.
Half-stunned and wholly terrified, dazzled and
deafened as well, the girl dashed the rain from her
eyes and strove to recollect her wits and grapple
sanely with her plight.
Already she was wet to her skin—water could no
more harm her—but the mad elemental tumult con-
founded all her senses; her sole conscious impulse
was to gain shelter of some sort from the sound and
fury of the tempest. I
It was a bare chance that a scuttle on some one
of the adjacent roofs might be, at least, not fastened
down.
Fighting the buffeting wind, the scourging rain,
[36]


BURGLARY


and her panic fright, she gained the scuttle of the
roof to the west, but found it immovable.
She tried the next roof, with no better fortune.
Panting, even sobbing a little in her terror, she
scrambled on through a sort of nightmarish progress
to the next roof, and on and on to the next and the
next.
She kept on reckoning, and couldn’t have said how
many roofs she had crossed, when at length she dis-
covered a scuttle that was actually ajar, propped
wide to the pounding flood; and without pause to
wonder at this circumstance, or what might be her
reception and how to account for herself, she swung
down into that hospitable black hole, found foot-
ing on the ladder, let herself farther'down—and
by mischance dislodged the iron arm supporting the
cover.
It fell with a bang and a click, and Sally barely
escaped crushed fingers by releasing the rim and
tumbling incontinently to the floor.
Happily she hadn’t far to fall, wasn’t hurt, and
hastily picking herself up, stood half-dazed, listen-
ing for sounds of alarm within the house.
Coincidently the storm sounded a crisis in a series
of tremendous, shattering crashes, so heavy and so
prolonged that all the world seemed to rock and vi-
brate, echoing the uproar like a gigantic sounding-
board.
[37]


NOBODY


This passed; but from the body of the house Sally V
heard nothing—only the crepitation of rain on the
roof and the sibilant splatter of drops trickling from
her saturated skirts into the puddle that had formed
beneath the scuttle.
She stood in what at first seemed unrelieved dark-
ness—but for glimpses revealed by the incessant
slash and flare of lightning—at one end of a short
hallway, by the rail of a staircase well. Three or
four doors opened upon this hall; but she detected
no sign of any movement in the shadows, and still
heard no sound.
Wondering—and now, as she began to appreciate
her position, almost as unhappy in her refuge as she
had been in the storm—Sally crept to the rail and
peered down. But her straining senses detected noth-
ing below more than shadows, solitude, and silence;
which, however, failed to convey reassurance; the
fact of the open scuttle would seem to indicate that
she hadn’t stumbled into an uninhabited house.
Stealthily she proceeded to investigate the several
rooms of that topmost story——servants’ quarters,
comfortably furnished, but tenantless.
Then step by timid step she descended to the next
floor, which she found devoted to three handsomely
appointed bedchambers, also empty. And slowly,
as her courage served, another flight took her down
to a story given over wholly to two bedchambers


[38]


BURGLARY


with baths, dressing-rooms and boudoirs adjoining,
all very luxurious to a hasty survey.
Below this again was an entrance hall, giving
access to a drawing-room, a library, and, at the back
of the house, a dining-room, each apartment in its
way deepening the impression of a home toward
whose making wealth and good taste had worked in
rarely harmonious collaboration.
And finally the basement proved to be as deserted
as any room above; this though the kitchen clock
still ticked on stertorously, though the fire in the
range had been banked rather than drawn, though
one had but to touch the boiler to learn it still held
water piping-hot.
It required, however, only a moment’s sober
thought, once satisfied she was alone, to suggest as
One reasonable solution to the puzzle that the own-
ers had fled town for the week-end, leaving the es-
tablishment in care of untrustworthy servants, who
had promptly elected to seek their own pleaSure else-
where. '
Content with this theory, Sally chose one of the
windows of the servants’ dining-room from which to
spy out stealthily, between the shade and the sill,
over a flooded area and street; first remarking a sen-
sible modification of the gloom in spite of an una-
bated downpour, then that the house was near the
Park Avenue corner, finally a policeman sheltered
[39]


NOBODY


in the tradesman’s entrance of the dwelling across
the way.
At this last disquieting discovery Sally retreated
expeditiously from the window, for the first time
realising that her presence in that house, however
adventitious and innocent, wouldn’t be easy to ex-
plain to one of a policeman’s incredulous idiosyn-
crasy; the legal definition of burglar, strictly ap-
plied, fitted Sarah Manvers with disconcerting neat-
ness.
But nobody knew; it was only half past six by the
clock in the kitchen; it was reasonably improbable
that the faithless servants would come back much
before midnight; and she need only wait for the
storm to pass to return across the roofs, or, for that
matter, to leave circumspectly by the front door.
For it would certainly be dark by the time the storm
uttered its last surly growl and trailed its bedraggled
skirts off across Long Island.
For an instant finely thrilled with a delicious sense
of the wild adventure of being alone in a strange
house, free to range and pry at will, she found the
full piquancy a bit difficult to relish with sodden
clothing clinging clamrnily to her body and limbs.
None the less it was quite without definite design
that Sally retraced her way to that suite of rooms
in the second story which seemed to be the quarters
of the mistress of the establishment; and it was no
[40]


BURGLARY

more than common-sense precaution (prompted, it’s
true, by sheer, idle curiosity) which moved her to
darken windows already shuttered by drawing their
draperies of heavy, rose-coloured silk before switch-
ing on the lights.
It may have been merely the reflection of rose-
tinted walls that lent the face of the girl unwonted
colour, but the glow that informed her eyes as she
looked about was unquestionably kindled by envy
as much as by excitement.
Nothing, indeed, lacked to excite envy in that
hungry heart of hers. The bedchamber and its
boudoir and bath were not only exquisitely ap-
pointed, but stood prepared for use at a moment’s
notice; the bed itself was beautifully dressed; the
dressing-table was decked with all manner of scent-
_ bottles, mirrors, and trays, together with every con-
ceivable toilet implement in tortoise-shell with a sil-
ver-inlay monogram—apparently A-M-S; the rugs
were silken, princely, priceless; elusive wraiths of
seductive perfumes haunted the air like memories of
lost caresses.
And when the girl pursued her investigations to
the point of opening closed doors she found clothes-
presses containing a wardrobe to cope with every
imaginable emergency—frocks of silk, of lace, of
satin, of linen; gowns for dinner, the theatre, the
street, the opera; boudoir-robes and negligées with-
[41]


NOBODY


out end; wraps innumerable, hats, shoes, slippers,
mules—and a treasure of lingerie to ravish any wom-
an’s heart.
And against all this sybaritic store the intruder
had to set the figure mirrored by a great cheval-glass
—the counterfeit of a jaded shop-girl in shabby,
shapeless, sodden garments, her damp, dark hair
framing stringily a pinched and haggard face with
wistful, care-worn eyes. '
Her heart ached with a reawakened sense of the
cruel unfairness of life. Her flesh crept with the
touch of her rain-soaked clothing. And in her
thoughts temptation stirred like a whispering ser-
pent.
Beyond dispute it was wrong, what she contem-
plated, utterly wrong, and wild to madness; but the
girl was ripe for such temptation and frail with a
weakness due to long years of deprivation. Full
half of her heart’s desire was here, free to her
covetous fingers, a queen’s trousseau of beautiful be-
longings.
“It’s only for an hour. No one need ever know.
I’ll leave everything just as I found it. And I’m
so uncomfortable!”
She hesitated a moment longer, but only a mo-
ment; of a sudden smouldering embers of jealousy
and desire broke into devastating flame, consuming
doubts and scruples in a trice. Swift action ensued;
[42]


. eat... it i
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list; .
vii/.1511}? .




AS HERE.
8 DESIRE W
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HALF OF HER HEART
FULL






THE risw YORK
PU b’LlC LIBRARY
Aaron, LF ~01!
TILDE n FOUNOAYIONS


BURGLARY


this was no more an affair of conscience, but of per-
suasion and resistless impulse. She flew about like
one possessed—as, indeed, she was, no less.
Her first move was to turn on hot water in the
shining porcelain tub. Then, instinctively closing
and locking the hall door, she slipped from her
despised garments and, hanging them up to dry in a
tiled corner where their dampness could harm noth-
ing, slipped into the bath. . . .
Half an hour later, deliciously caressed by gar-
ments of soft white beneath a feather-weight
robe-de-ckambre, she sat'libeforeithe dressing-table,
drying her hair in' the warm draft of an electric fan
and anointing face, hands, and: arms with creams
and delicately scented lotions. .
A faint smile touched‘lips' now guiltless of any
hint of sullenness; she hummed softly to herself,
whose heart had almost forgotten its birthright of
song and laughter; never the least pang of conscience
flawed the serene surface of her content.
Properly dressed, her hair was beautiful, soft, fine
and plentiful, with a natural wave that lent an ac-
cent to its brownish lustre. When she finished ar-
ranging it to her complete satisfaction she .hardly
knew the face that smiled back at her from the mir-
ror’s depths. Miraculously it seemed to have gained
new lines of charm; its very thinness was now at-
tractive, its colour unquestionably intrinsic; and her
[43]


NOBODY


eyes were as the eyes of a happy child, exulting in
the attainment of long-coveted possessions.
It wasn’t in human nature to contemplate this
transformation and feel contrition for whatever steps
had been necessary to bring it about.
And when she could do no more to beautify her
person Sally turned again to the clothes-press, by
now so far gone in self-indulgence, her moral sense
so insidiously sapped by the sheer sensual delight she
had of all this pilfered luxury, that she could con-
template without a qualm less venial experiments
with the law of mean: et luum.
She entertained, in short, a project whose lawless
daring enchanted her imagination, if one as yet of
vague detail. But with command of the resources
of this wonderful wardrobe, what was to prevent
her from appropriating a suitable costume and steal-
ing forth, when the storm had passed, to seek ad-
venture, perhaps to taste for a night those joys she
had read about and dreamed about, longed for and
coveted, all her life long? Nothing could be more
mad; there was no telling what might not happen;
there was every warrant for believing that the out- '
come might be most unpleasant. But adventures
are to the adventurous; and surely this one had
started off propitiously enough!
“And what I need she’ll never miss. Besides, I
can send back everything in the morning, anon-
[44]


BURGLARY

ymously, by parcel-post. It’s only borrowing.”
Already she had passed from contemplation to
purpose and stood committed to the enterprise,
reckless of its consequence.
But she found it far from easy to make her selec-
tion; it wouldn’t do to fare forth en dérollete'e with-
out an escort—a consideration that sadly complicated
the search for just the right thing, at once simple
and extravagant, modish and becoming. Moreover,
any number of captivating garments positively de-
manded to be tried on, then clung tenaciously to her
pretty shoulders, refusing to be rejected.
She wasted many a sigh over her choice, which
was ultimately something darkish, a frock (I think)
of dark-blue crépe-de-chine, designed primarily for
afternoon wear, but, supplemented by a light silk
wrap, quite presentable for evening; and it fitted
to admiration:
This question once settled, she experienced little
trouble finding slippers and a hat to her taste.
The testimony of a small gilt clock startled her
when at length she stood ready for the next step in
her nefarious career: the hour-hand was passing
ten. That seemed almost incredible.
Running into the unlighted boudoir, she caught
back the window-draperies, raised the sash, and
peered cautiously out through the slanted slats of the
wooden blinds.
[4s]


NOBODY


The sky that now shone down upon the city was
a fair shield of stars unblurred by cloud; the storm
had passed without her knowledge.
Closing the window, Sally delayed for one last,
rapturous survey of herself in the cheval-glass, then
put out the lights and went to the door.
She hardly knew why it was that she opened it
so gently and waited so long upon the threshold,
every nerve tensed to detect alien sound in the still-
ness of the empty house. But it was as if with dark-
ness those vacant rooms and passages had become
populous with strange, hostile spirits. She heard
nothing whatever, yet it was with an effect of peril
strong upon her senses that she stole forth through
the hallway and up the stairs to the topmost floor,
where, perched precariously upon the iron ladder, she
tried her patience sorely with a stubborn scuttle-
cover before recalling the click that had accompanied
its closing—the click of a spring-latch.
And this last, when gropingly located, proved
equally obdurate; she fumbled doggedly until back
and limbs ached with the strain of her position; but
her fingers lacked cunning to solve the secret; and in
the end, when on the point of climbing down to
fetch matches, she heard a sound that chilled her
heart and checked her breath in a twinkling—an
odd, scuflling noise on the roof.
At first remote and confused, it drew nearer and
[46]


BURGLARY

grew more clear—a sound of light footfalls on the
sheet-tin.
Her self-confidence and satisfaction measurably
dashed, she climbed down, so fearful of betraying
herself to the person on the roof that she went to the
absurd extreme of gathering her skirts up tightly
to still their silken murmur.
Now she must leave by the street. And now
she remembered the policeman who kept nightly vigil
at the avenue crossing!
She was beginning to be definitely frightened,
vividly picturing to herself the punishment that must
follow detection.
And as she crept down-stairs, guided only by the
banister-rail, the sense of her loneliness and helpless-
ness there in that strange, dark place worked upon
the temper of the girl until her plight, however real,
was exaggerated hideously and endued with terrors
so frightful that she was ready to scream at the least
alarm.
[47]




CHAPTER III
ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT

T the foot of the stairs Sally paused in the
entry-hall, thoughtfully considering the front
door, the pale rectangle of whose plate-glass was
stenciled black ‘with the pattern of a lace panel.
But she decided against risking that avenue of es-
cape; it would be far less foolhardy to steal away
'vz'a the basement, unostentatiously, that the always-
possible passer-by might more readily take her for a
servant. ‘-
Turning back, then, toward the basement stair-
case, she began to grope her way through blinding
darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps
when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little
stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save
that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp
of a great and enervating fear.
If she could not have said what precisely it was
that she feared, her fright was no less desperately
real. She could see nothing; she had heard no sound;
[48]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT


her hands had touched nothing more startling than
the banister-rail, and yet . . .
It was as if sensitive filaments of perceptions even
finer than sight, touch, and hearing had found and
recoiled from something strange and terrible skulk-
ing there, masked by the encompassing murk.
Probably less than twenty seconds elapsed, but it
seemed a long minute before her heart stirred anew,
leaping into action with a quickened beat, and she
was able to reassert command of her reason and—
reassured, persuaded her fright lacked any real
foundation—move on.
Five paces more brought her to the elbow of the
rail; here, in the very act of turning to follow it
down to the basement, she halted involuntarily,
again transfixed with terror.
But this time her alarm had visible excuse; that
there was something wrong in that strange house, so
strangely deserted, was evident beyond dispute.
She stood facing the dining-room door, the door
to the library on her left; if not in any way evident
to her senses, she could fix its position only approxi-
mately by an effort of memory. But through the
former opening her vision, ranging at random, in-
stinctively seeking relief from the oppression of
blank darkness, detected a slender beam of artificial
light no thicker than a lead-pencil—a golden blade
that lanced the obscurity, gleaming dull upon a rug,
[49]


NOBODY


more bright on naked parquetry, vivid athwart the
dust-cloth shrouding the dining-table.
For a moment or two the girl lingered, unstirring,
fascinated by that slender, swerveless ray; then,
slowly, holding her breath, urged against her will
by importunate curiosity, she crossed the threshold
of the dining-room, following the light back to its
source—a narrow crack in the folding doors com—
municating with the library.
Now Sally remembered clearly that the folding
doors had been wide open at the time of her first
tour of investigation; as, indeed, had the door be-
tween the library and hall—now tight shut, else this
light would have been perceptible in the hall as
well.
It was undeniable, then, that since she had closeted
herself up-stairs another person had entered the
house—some one who had shut himself up there in
the library for a purpose apparently as clandestine
as her own. Or why such pains to mask the light,
and why such care not to disturb the silence of the
house?
To have gone on and made good an escape with-
out trying to read this riddle would have been hardly
human of the girl, for all her misgivings; she stole
on to the folding doors with less noise than a
mouse had made and put an eye to the crack, which,
proving somewhat wider than she had imagined,
[so]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT

afforded a fair view of the, best part of the other
room.
An electric chandelier was on full-blaze above the
broad and heavy centre-table of mahogany, beyond
which, against the farther wall, stood on the one
hand a bookcase, on the other a desk of the roll-top
type—closed. Above each of these the wall was
decorated with trophies of ancient armour; between
them hung a huge canvas in a massive gilt frame—
the portrait of a beautiful woman beautifully
painted. And immediately beneath the portrait
stood a young man, posed in profound abstraction,
staring at the desk.
He rested lightly against the table, his back square
to Sally’s view, revealing a well-turned head
thatched with dark hair, clipped snugly by well-
forrned ears, and the salient line of one lean, brown
cheek. But even so, with his countenance hidden,
something conveyed a strong impression to the girl
of a perplexed and disconcerted humour.
She was frankly disappointed. For some reason
she had thought to discover a burglar of one or
another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman
in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, panther-
ish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly
bnite in the rags and tatters of a tramp. But this
man wore unromantic blue serge upon a person
neither fascinating nor repellent. She could hardly
[51]


NOBODY

imagine him either stealing a diamond tiara or hop-
ping a freight.
But that he was of a truly criminal disposition
she was not permitted long to doubt; for in another
moment he started from his pensive pose with the
animation of one inspired, strode alertly to the wall,
stepped up on the seat of a chair beside the desk,
and straining on tiptoes (though tolerably tall) con; _
trived to grasp the handle of a short-bladed Roman
sword which formed part of one of the trophies.
With some difficulty and, in the end, a grunt of
satisfaction, he worked the weapon loose and, jump-
ing down, turned to the desk, thrust the point of
the sword between the writing-pad and the edge of
the roll-top, forced the blade well in, and bore all
his Weight upon the haft of this improvised jimmy.
Promptly, with a sound of rending wood, the top
flew half-way up.
At this the man released the sword, which fell
with a thump to the rug at his feet, pushed the top
as far back as it would go, and, bending over the
desk, explored its rack of pigeonholes and drawers.
One of the latter eventually yielded the object of
his search; he took from it first a small automatic
pistol, which he placed carelessly to one side, then a
small leather-bound book whose pages he thumbed
in nervous haste, evidently seeking some memoran-
dum essential to his ends. This found, he paused,
[52]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT


conned it attentively for an instant, then turned
and took the book with him across the room beyond
the bookcase, thus vanishing from the field of Sally’s
vision.
Now was her chance to slip down-stairs and, un-
detected, away. But, surprisingly enough, she
proved of two minds about advantaging herself of
the opportunity. To begin with, she was no more
afraid—at least, not to any great extent. What, she
argued scornfully, was one man, after all ?——es-
pecially one who had no more lawful business than
she upon those premises! She wasn’t afraid of
men; and even were this one to catch her watching
him (something Sally meant to take good care he
shouldn’t) he could hardly denounce her to the po-
lice. Besides, what was he up to, anyhow,
over there in that corner, cut of sight? She simply
had to know the meaning of those noises he was
making.
They were difficult to diagnose—an odd whirring
sound broken by repeated muffled clanks and by
several others as bafiiing, notably a muted metallic
knocking and rattling. '
She experienced an exasperating effect of trying
to see round a corner.
But in the end she identified those sounds beyond
mistake: the man was fretting the combination of a
safe, pausing now and again to try the handle. For
[53]


NOBODY


what, indeed, had he forced that desk if not to find
the combination?
In due course the noises ceased and the malefactor
re-appeared, bringing with him a morocco-bound box
of good size. She made no doubt whatever that this
was a jewel-case, and took his smile for confirmation
' of her surmise, though it was really less a smile
than satisfaction twitching the full lips beneath his
dark little moustache (one of those modishly flat
affairs so widely advertised by collarmakers).
For now the misereant was facing Sally as he
bent over the table and fumbled with the lock of the
jewel-case, and she made good use of this chance to
memorise a countenance of mildly sardonic cast, not
unhandsomeQ—the face of a conventional modern
voluptuary, self-conscious, self-satisfied, selfish—
rather attractive withal in the eyes of an excited
young woman.
But a moment later, finding the case to be fast-
locked, the burglar gave utterance to an exclama-
tion that very nearly cost him his appeal to her
admiration. She couldn’t hear distinctly, for the
impatient monosyllable was breathed rather than
spoken, but at that distance it sounded damnably
like “Psha'w!”
And immediately the man turned back to the
desk to renew his rummaging—in search of a key
to fit the case, she guessed. But his business there
[54]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT


was surprisingly abbreviated—interrupted in a fash-
ion certainly as startling to him as to her who skulked
and spied on the dark side of the folding doors.
Neither received the least intimation that the door
from the library to the hall had been opened. Sally,
for one, remained firmly persuaded that they two
were alone in the silent house until the instant when
she saw a second man hurl himself upon the back of
the first—a swift-moving shape of darkness, some-
thing almost feline in his grim, violent fury that
afforded the victim no time either to turn or to lift a
hand in self-defence. In a twinkling the two went
headlong to the floor and disappeared, screened by
the broad top of the table.
There, presumably, Blue Serge recovered suffi-
ciently from the shock of surprise to make some show
of fighting back. Confused sounds of scuffling and
hard breathing became audible, with a thump or two
deadened by the rug; but more than that, nothing—
never a word from either combatant. There was
something uncanny in the silence of it all.
For an instant Sally remained where she was,
rooted in fright and wonder; but the next, and with-
out in the least understanding how she had come
there, she found herself by the open door in the
entry-hall, just beyond the threshold of the library,
commanding an unobstructed view of the conflict.
Apparently this neared its culmination. Though
[55]


NOBODY


he had gone down face forward, Blue Serge had
contrived to turn over on his back, in which position
he now lay, still struggling, but helpless, beneath
the bulk of his assailant—a burly, blackavised scoun-
drel who straddled the chest of his prey, a knee
pinning down either arm, both hands busy with
efforts to make an unappetising bandana serve as a
gag-
Pardonably rewarded for this inconsiderate treat-
ment, the fat one suddenly snatched one hand away,
conveyed a bitten finger to his mouth, instantly spat
it out together with a gust of masterful profanity
and, the other taking advantage of the opportunity
to renew his struggles, shifted his grip to Blue Serge’s
throat and, bending forward, strove with purpose
undoubtedly murderous to get possession of the short
Roman sword.
It lay just an inch beyond his reach. He strained
his utmost toward it, almost touched its haft with
eager finger-tips. _
At this a strange thing happened—strangest of all
to Sally. For she, who never in her life had touched
firearm or viewed scene of violence more desperate
than a schoolboy squabble, discovered herself inside
the library, standing beside the desk and levelling
at the head of the heavy villain the automatic pistol
that had rested there.
Simultaneously she was aware of the sound of her
[56]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT


own voice, its accents perhaps a bit shaky, but none
the less sharp, crying: “Stop! Don’t you dare!
Drop that sword and put up your hands! I say,
put up your hands!”
The stout assassin started back and turned up to
the amazing apparition of her a ludicrous mask of
astonishment, eyes agoggle, mouth agape, pendulous
beard-rusty chin aquiver like some unsavoury sort of
jelly. Then slowly—thanks to something convinc-
ing in the manner of this young woman, afiame as
she was with indignant championship of the under
dog—he elevated two grimy hands to a point of con-
spicuous futility; and a husky whisper, like a stifled
roar, rustled past his lips:
“Well, can yuh beat it?”
A thrill of self-confidence galvanised the person
of Miss Manvers, steadying at once her hand and
her voice.
“Get up!” she snapped. “No—keep your hands
in sight. Get up somehow, and be quick about
it!”
Without visible reluctance, if with some difficulty,
like a clumsy automaton animated by unwilling
springs, the fat scoundrel lurched awkwardly to his
feet and paused.
“Very good.” She was surprised at the cold, level
menace of her tone. “Now stand back—to the wall!
Quick!”
[57]


NOBODY


She was abruptly interrupted by a vast, discordant
bellow: “Look out, lady! Look out! That gun
might go of!”
And as if hoping by that sudden and deafening
roar to startle her off guard, the man started toward
her, but pulled up as quickly, dashed and sullen.
For she did not flinch an inch.
“That’s your lookout!” she retorted incisively.
“If you’re afraid of it—stand back and keep your
hands up!”
With a flicker of a sheepish grin the rogue obeyed,
falling back until his shoulders touched the wall
and keeping his hands level with his ears.
Still holding the pistol ready, the girl shifted her
glance to Blue Serge.
He had already picked himself up, and now stood
surveying his ally with a regard which wavered be-
tween amaze and admiration, suspicion and surprise.
Meanwhile he felt gingerly of his throat, as if it
were still sore, and nervously endeavoured to re-
adjust a collar which had broken from its moorings.
Catching her inquiring eye, he bowed jerkily.
“Thanks!” he panted. “I——ah——good of you, I’m
sure—”
She checked him coolly. “Take your time—
plenty of it, you know—get your breath and pull
yourself together.”
He laughed uncertainly. “Ah—thanks again.
[58]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT


Just a minute. I’m—ah—as dumfounded as grate-
ful, you know.”
She nodded with a curtness due to disillusionment;
the man was palpably frightened; and, whatever his
excuse, a timid Raffles was a sorry object in her
esteem at that instant. She had anticipated of him—-
she hardly knew what—something brilliant, bold,
and dashing, something as romantic as one has every
right to expect of a hero of romantic fiction. But
this one stood panting, trembling, “sparring for
wind,” for all the world like any commonplace per-
son fresh from rough handling!
It was most disappointing, so much so that she
conceded grudgingly the testimony of her senses to
the rapidity with which he regained his normal poise
and command of resource; for one evidence of which
last she noted that he backed up to the centre-table
with a casual air, as if needing its support, and with
a deft, certain, swift gesture slipped the jewel-case
into his coatpocket. And she noted, too, a flash of
anxiety in his eyes, as if he were wondering whether
she had noticed.
At this she lost patience. “Well?” she said briskly.
“If you’ve had time to think—”
“To be sure,” Blue Serge returned easily. “You
mean, about this gentleman? If you ask me, I think
he’d be far less potentially mischievous facing the
wall.”
[59]


NOBODY


“All right,” Sally agreed, and added with a fine'
flourish of the pistol: “Face about, you!”
With flattering docility the fat rascal faced about.
“And now,” Blue Serge suggested, “by your
leave—”
Drawing near the girl, he held out his hand for
the pistol, and to her own surprise she surrendered
it without demur, suddenly conscious that he was no
more afraid, that he was rapidly assuming compre-
hensive command of the situation beyond her to gain-
say, and that he knew, and knew that she knew he
knew, that she had never entertained any real inten-
tion of pulling the trigger, however desperate the
emergency.
And incontinently, as though he had taken away
all her courage, together with that nickel-plated
symbol, she started back, almost cringing in a panic
of sadly jangled nerves.
Happily for her conceit, once he had disarmed her,
Blue Serge transferred his interest exclusively to his
late assailant.
Calmly showing the girl his back, he stepped over,
poked the pistol’s nose significantly into the folds
of the ruffian’s neck, and with a sharp word of warn-
ing slapped smartly his two hips; in conse-
quence of which singular performance he thrust a
hand beneath the tail of the fellow’s coat and brought
away a bull-dog revolver of heavy calibre.
[60]


ACCESSARY AFTER THE FACT


And then he stepped back, smiling, with a sidelong
glance of triumph for Sally’s benefit—a glance that
spent itself on emptiness.
For Sally was no more there; her uninstructed
fingers were already fumbling with the fastenings of
the front door when Blue Serge discovered her de-
fection.
[61]




CHAPTER IV
BLACKMAIL

HERE was a breathless instant while the com-
bination of knobs, bolts, and locks defied her
importunity so obstinately that Sally was tempted
to despair.
She dared not look behind her; but momentarily,
as she groped, fumbled, and trembled at the front
door, she was aware that a man had backed out of
the library into the hall and paused there in the gush
of light, staring after her.
And when the door suddenly yielded she heard—
or fancied that she heard—his voice, its accent pe-
remptory: “Stop!” Or perhaps it was: “Wait!”
She did neither; the door slarmned behind her
with a crash that threatened its glass; she was at the
foot of the front steps before that sound had fairly
registered on her consciousness; and her panic-winged
heels had carried the young woman well round the
corner and into Park Avenue before she appreciated
how interesting her tempestuous flight from that
rather thoroughly burglarised mansion would be apt
[62]


BLACKMAIL

to seem to a peg-post policeman. And then she
pulled up short, as if reckoning to divert suspicion
with a semblance of nonchalance—now that she had
escaped.
But a covert glance aside brought prompt reassur-
ance; after all, the gods were not unkind; the police-
man was just then busy on the far side of the avenue,
hectoring humility into the heart of an unhappy
taxicab operator who had, presumably, violated some
minor municipal ordinance.
Inconsistently enough—so strong is the habit of a
law-abiding mind—the sight of that broad, belted,
self-sufficient back, symbolic of the power and san-
ity of the law, affected Sally with a mad impulse to
turn, hail the officer, and inform him of the condi-
tions she had just quitted. And she actually swerved
aside, as if to cross the avenue, before she realised
how difficult it would be to invoke the law without
implicating herself most damningly.
Recognition of that truth was like receiving a dash
of ice-water in her face; she gasped, cringed, and
scurried on up Park Avenue as if hoping to outdis- i
tance thought. A forlorn hope, that: refreshed
from its long rest (for since the storm she had been
little better than the puppet of emotions, appetites,
and inarticulate impulses) her mind had resumed its
normal functioning.
Inexorably it analysed her plight and proved that
[63]


NOBODY


what she had conceived in an hour of discontent and
exccuted on the spur of an envious instant could
neverrnore be undone. What had been planned to
be mere temporary appropriation of an outfit of
clothing—“to be returned in good order, reasonable
wear and tear excepted”—was one thing; safe-break-
ing, with the theft of Heaven only knew what treas-
ure, was quite another. As to that, had she not been
guilty of active complicity in the greater crime?
How could she be sure (come to think of it) that
the stout man had not been the lawful caretaker
rather than a rival housebreaker?
She had indeed commenced adventuress with a
vengeance!
The police were bound to learn of the affair all
too soon; her part in it was as certain to become
known; too late she was reminded that the name
“Manvers” indelibly identified every garment aban-
doned in the bath-room. Before morning certainly,
before midnight probably, Sarah Manvers would be
the quarry of a clamorous hue-and-cry.
Appalled, she hurried on aimlessly, now and again
breaking into desperate little jog-trots, with many
a furtive glance over shoulder, with as many questing
roundabout for refuge or resource.
But the city of that night wore a visage new and
strange to her, and terrifying. The very quietness
of those few residential blocks, marooned amid ever-
at“. .._J
[64]


BLACKMAIL

rising tides of trade, had an ominous accent. All
the houses seemed to have drawn together, cheek by
jowl, in secret conference on her case, sloughing their
disdainful daytime pose and following her fugitive,
guilty figure with open amusement and contempt.
Some (she thought) leered horribly at her, others
scowled, others again assumed a scornful cast; one
and all pretended to a hideous intelligence, as though
they knew and, if they would, could say what and
why she fled.
It was as if the storm had been a supernatural
visitation upon the city, robbing it of every intimate,
homely aspect, leaving it inhumanly distorted in an
obsession of abominable enchantment.
With the start of one suddenly delivered from
dream-haunted sleep, she found herself arrived at
Forty-Second Street, and safe; none pursued her,
nothing in her manner proclaimed the new-fledged
malefactor; she need only observe ordinary circum-
spection to escape notice altogether. And for several
moments she remained at a complete standstill there
on the corner, blocking the fairway of foot traffic
and blindly surveying the splendid facade of Grand
Central Station, spellbound in wonder at the amazing
discovery that Providence did not always visit incon-
tinent retribution upon the heads of sinners—~since it
appeared that she who had sinned was to escape
soot-free.
[65]


NOBODY


With this she was conscious of a flooding spirit of
exultant impenitence; the deadly monotony of her
days was done with once and for all. It mattered
little that—since it were suicidal to return to the
studio, the first place the police would search for
her—she was homeless, friendless, penniless; it mat-
tered little that she was hungry (now that she re-
membered it) and had not even a change of clothing
for the morrow; these things would somehow be
arranged—whether by luck or by virtue of her wit—
they must!
All that really mattered was that the conunonplace
was banished from her ways, that she was alive, foot-
loose and fancy-free, finally and definitely committed
to the career of an adventuress.
Paradoxically, she was appalled by contemplation
of her amazing callousness; outlawed, derlassée, she
was indifferent to her degradation, and alive only to
the joy of freedom from the bondage of any certain
social status.
Now as she lingered on the corner, people were
passing her continually on their way over to the
terminal; and one of these presently caught her atten-
tion—a man who, carrying a small oxford hand-bag,
came up hastily from behind, started to cross the
street, drew back barely in time to escape annihila-
tion at the wheels of a flying squadron of taxicabs,
and so for a moment waited, in impatient preoccupa-
[66]


BLACKMAIL


tion with his own concerns, only a foot or two in
advance but wholly heedless of the girl.
Sally caught her breath sharply, and her Wits
_ seemed to knit together with a sort of mental click;
the man was Blue Serge, identified unmistakably to
her eyes by the poise of his blue-clad person—the
same Blue Serge who owed his life to Sally Manvers!
In another instant the way cleared and the man
moved smartly on again, with every indication of one
spurred on by an urgent errand—but went no more
alone. Now a pertinacious shadow dogged him to
the farther sidewalk, into the yawning vestibule of
the railway station, on (at a trot) through its stupen-
dous lobbies, even to the platform gates that were
rudely slammed in his face by implacable destiny
in the guise and livery of a gateman.
At this, pausing a little to one side, Sally watched
Blue Serge accost the guardian, argue, protest, ex-
hibit tickets, and finally endeavour to bribe a way
past the barrier. But the train was already pulling
out; with a shake of his stubborn head the uniformed
official moved on; and ruminating on a power of
pent profanity, Blue Serge turned and strode back
into the waiting-room, passing so near to Sally that
their elbows almost touched without his rousing to
the least recognition of her existence.
But that in itself was nothing to dismay or check
the girl in her purpose, and when Blue Serge a minute
[67]


NOBODY


later addressed himself to the Pullman bureau she
was still his shadow—an all but open eavesdropper
upon his communications with the authority of the
brass-barred wicket.
“I’ve just missed the eleven ten for Boston,” she
heard him explain as he displayed tickets on the
marble ledge, “and, of course, I'm out my berth
reservation. Can you give me a lower on the mid-
night express?”
“No,” Authority averred with becoming senten-
tiousness.
“An upper, then?”
“Nothing left on the midnight.”
“Not even a stateroom?”
“I told you nothing doing.”
“Well, then, perhaps you can fix me up for the
Owl train?”
“Wait a minute.”
A pause ensued while Authority consulted his
records; not a long pause, but one long enough to
permit a wild, mad inspiration to flash like lightning
athwart the clouded horizon of Sally’s doubt and per-
plexity. Surely it were strangely inconsistent with
her role of adventuress to permit this man to escape,
now that destiny had delivered him into her un-
scrupulous hands!
“Owl train? De luxe room or ordinary state-
room—all I got left.”
[68]


BLACKMAIL


“Good enough. I’ll take—”
If Blue Serge failed promptly to nominate his
choice, it was only because Miss Manvers chose that
juncture to furnish him—and incidentally herself,
when she had time to think things over—with
what was unquestionably for both of them the
most staggering surprise of that most surprising
night.
Peremptorily plucking a blue-serge sleeve with the
brazenest impudence imaginable, she advised her vic-
tirn:
“Take both, if you please!”
Had she schemed deliberately to strike him dumb
in consternation, her success must have afforded Sally
intense satisfaction. Since she hadn’t, her personal
consternation was momentarily so overpowering as
to numb her sense of appreciation. So that for the
period of a long minute neither of them moved nor
spoke, but remained each with a blank countenance
reflecting a witless mind, hypnotised by the stupe-
faction of the other.
Then, perhaps a shade the quicker to recover, Sally
fancied that her victim’s jaw had slackened a bit and
his colour faded perceptibly; and with this encour-
agement she became herself again, collected, aggres-
sive, confronting him undismayed before recognition
dawned upon Blue Serge, and, with it, some amused
appreciation of her cffrontery. Even so, his first
[69]


NOBODY


essay at response was nothing more formidable than
a starnmered “I beg your pardon?”
She explained with absolute composure: “I said,
take both rooms, please. I’m going to Boston, too.”
“Oh!” he replied stupidly.
She nodded with determination and glanced sig-
nificantly aside, with a little toss of her head, toward
the middle of the lobby.
“There’s a Central Office man over there,” she ob-
served obliquely, dissembling considerable uncer-
tainty as to what a Central Office man really was,
and why.
“There is!”
“If you go to Boston, I go,” she persisted stolidly.
His countenance darkened transiently with distrust
or temper. Then of a sudden the man was shaken
by a spasm of some strange sort—the corners of his
mouth twitched,'his eyes twinkled, he lifted a quiz-
zical eyebrow, his lips parted.
But whatever retort he may have contemplated
was checked by the accents of Authority and the
tapping of an imperative pencil on the window-
ledge.
“Say, I’m busy. Which are- you going to take
now, de luxe room or—”
“Both!” With the dexterity of a stage conjurer
Blue Serge whipped a bill from his pocket and thrust
it beneath the wicket, not for an instant detaching
[7O]


BLACKMAIL


his gaze from Sally. “And quick,” said he; “I’m in
a hurry!”
Grunting resentfully, Authority proceeded to issue
the reservations, thus affording Sally, constrained to
return without a tremor the steadfast regard of her
burglar, time to appreciate the lengths to which bra-
vado had committed her. And though she stood
her ground without flinching, her cheeks had taken
on a hue of bright crimson before Blue Serge, with-
out troubling to verify them, seiZed tickets and
change and turned squarely to her.
“Now that’s settled,” he inquired amiably, “what
next?”
The better to cover her lack of a ready answer, she
made believe to consult the mellow orb of the four-
faced clock that crowns the bureau of information.
“The Owl train leaves when?” she asked with a
finely speculative air.
“One o’clock.”
“Then we’ve got over an hour and a half to
wait!”
“How about a bite of supper? The station res-
taurant is just down-stairs—”
“Thank you,” she agreed with a severe little nod.
Lugging his bag, he led the way with the air of
one receiving rather than conferring a favour.
“Curious how things fall out,” he observed cheer-
fully; “isn’t it?”
[71]


NOBODY
’u

“Yes—”
“I mean, your popping up like this just when I
was thinking of you. Coincidence, you know.”
' “Coincidences,” Sally informed him consciously,
“are caviar only to book critics. There’s nothing
more common in real life.”
He suffered this instruction with a mildly an-
guished smile.
“That’s true, I presume, if one knows anything
about real life. I don’t go in for realistic novels
you see, so can’t say. But you’re right one way: it
isn’t anything extraordinary, come to consider it, that
you and I, both headed for Boston, should run into
each other here. By the way,” he added with a
casual air, “speaking of coincidences, it sort of triple-
plated this one to have your friend from Central
Office hanging round so handy, didn’t it? If he’s in
sight, why not be a sport and tip me off?”
“I don’t see the necessity,” Sally returned, biting
her lip—Wet.” '
“Not from your point of view, perhaps—from
mine, yes. Forewamed is fortunate, you know.”
“I dare say.”
“You won’t put me wise?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, of course, one can guess why.”
“Can one?”
“Why, forgive me for calling your bluff, it
[72]


BLACKMAIL


wouldn’t be safe, would it? Of course, I’m a sure-
enough bad man—and all that. But you must be a
bird of my feather, or you wouldn’t flock together
so spontaneously.”
Sally opened her eyes wide and adopted a won-
dering drawl known to have been of great service to
Miss Lucy Spode: “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Good!” Blue Serge applauded. “Now I know
where I stand. That baby stare is the high sign of
our fraternity—of blackbirds. Only the guilty ever
succeed in looking as transparently innocent. Too
bad you didn’t think of that in time.”
“I don’t follow you,” she said truthfully, begin-
ning to feel that she wasn’t figuring to great advan-
tage in this passage of repartee.
“I mean, your give-away is calculated to cramp
your style; now you can’t very well cramp mine,
threatening to squeal.”
“Oh, can’t I?”
“No. I know you won’t go through with it; not,
that is, unless you’re willing to face Sing Sing your-
self. For that matter, I don’t see how you’re going
to make Boston at all to-night, after that break,
unless you go on your own; I don’t believe I’m scared
enough to stand for being shaken down for your
transportation.”
He was gaining the whip-hand much too easily.
She averted her face to mask a growing trepidation
[73]


NOBODY


and muttered sullenly: “What makes you think
I’m afraid—?”
“Oh, come!” he chuckled. “I know you hadn’t
any lawful business in that house, don’t I?”
“How do you know it?”
“Because if you had, I would now be going peace-
ful, with the kind policeman instead of being a
willing victim of a very pleasant form of black-
mail.”
Burning with indignation and shivering a bit
with fear of the man, she stopped short, midway
down the ramp to the “lower level,” and momen-
tarily contemplated throwing herself upon his mercy
and crawling out of it all with whatever grace she
might; but his ironic and skeptical smile provoked
her beyond discretion.
“Oh, very well!” she said ominously, turning,
“if that’s the way you feel about it, we may as well
have this thing out here and now.” ,
And she made as if to go back the way she had
come; but his hand fell upon her arm with a touch
at once light and imperative.
“Steady!” he counselled quietly. “This is no
place for either bickering or barefaced confidences.
Besides, you mustn’t take things so much to heart.
I was only making fun, and you deserved as much
for your cheek, you know. Otherwise, there’s no
harm done. If you banker to go to Boston, go
[74]


BLACKMAIL


you shall, and no thanks to me. Even if I do pay
the bill, I owe you a heap more than I’ll ever be
able to repay, chances are. So take it easy; and
I say, do brace up and make a bluff, at least, of
being on speaking terms. I’m not a bad sort, but
I’m going to stick to you like grim death to a sick
nigger’s bedside until we know each other better.
That’s flat, and you may as well resign ydurself
to it. And here we are.”
Unwillingly, almost unaware, she had permitted
herself to be drawn through the labyrinth of ramps
to the very threshold of the restaurant, where, be-
fore she could devise any effectual means of reas-
serting herself, a bland head waiter took them in
tow and, at Blue Serge’s direction, allotted them a
table well over to one side of the room, out of ear-
shot of their nearest neighbours.
Temporarily too fagged and flustered to react
either to the danger or to the novelty of this exper-
ience, or even to think to any good purpose, Sally
dropped mechanically into the chair held for her,
wondering as much at herself for accepting the
situation as at the masterful creature opposite,
earnestly but amiably conferring with the head
waiter over the bill of fare.
Surely a strange sort of criminal, she thought,
with his humour and ready address, his sudden shifts
from slang of the street to phrases chosen with a
[75]


NOBODY


discriminating taste in English, his cool indifference
to her threatening attitude, and his paradoxical pose
of warm—it seemed—personal interest in and con-
sideration for a complete and, to say the least, a
very questionable stranger.
She even went so far as to admit that she might
find him very likable, if only it were not for that
affected little moustache and that semi-occasional
trick he practised of looking down his nose when
he talked.
On the other hand, one assumed, all criminals
must seem strange types to the amateur observer.
Come to think of it, she had no standard to measure
this man by, and knew no law that prescribed for
his kind either dress clothing with an inverness
and a mask of polished imperturbability, or else a
pea-jacket, a pug-nose, a cauliflower ear, with bow
legs and a rolling gait. . . .
“There, I fancy that will do. But hurry it along,
please.”
“Very good, sir—immediately.”
' The head waiter ambled off, and Blue Serge faced
Sally with an odd, illegible smile.
“At last!” he hissed in the approved manner of
melodrama, “we are alone!”
She wasn’t able to rise to his irresponsible hu-
mour. Thus far her audacity seemed to have
earned her nothing but his derision. He was not
[76]


BLACKMAIL


in the least afraid of her—and he was a desperate
criminal. Then what was she in his esteem?
Such thoughts drove home a fresh painful realisa-
tion of her ambiguous personal status. It began
to seem that she had been perhaps a little hasty in
assuming she was to be spared punishment for her
sin, however venial that might in charity be reck-
oned. Chance had, indeed, offered what was appar-
ently a broad and easy avenue of escape; but her
own voluntary folly has chosen the wrong turning.
Her hands were twisted tight together in her lap
as she demanded with tense directness:
“What have you done with them?”
He lifted the ironic eyebrow. “Them .3”
“The jewels. I saw you steal them—watched
you from the dining-room, through the folding
doors—”
“The deuce you did!”
“I saw you break open the desk—and every-
thing.”
“Well,” he admitted fairly, “I’m jiggered!”
“What have you done with them?”
“Oh, the jewels?” he said with curious intona-
tion. “Ah—yes, to be sure; the jewels, of course.
You’re anxious to know what I’ve done with
them?”
“Oh, no,” she countered irritably; “I only ask
out of politeness.”
[77]


NOBODY


“Thoughtful of you!” he laughed. “Why,
they’re outside, of course—in my bag.”
“Outside ?”
“Didn’t you notice? I checked it with my hat,
rather than have a row. I ought to be ashamed of
myself, I know, but I’m a moral coward before a
coat-room attendant. I remember keeping tabs one
surruner, and—will you believe me?—a common,
ordinary, every-day three-dollar straw lid set me
back twenty-two dollars and thirty cents in tips.
But I hope I’m not boring you.”
“Oh, how can you?” she protested, lips tremulous
with indignation.
“Don’t flatter ; I bore even myself at times.”
“I don’t mean that, and you know I don’t. How
can you sit there joking when you—when you’ve
just—”
“Come off the job?” he caught her up as she fal-
tered. “But why not? I feel anything but sad
about it. It was a good job—wasn’t it?—a clean
haul, a clear getaway. Thanks, of course, to you.”
She responded, not without some difficulty:
“Please! I wouldn’t have dared if he hadn’t tried
to get at that sword.”
“Just like him, too!” Blue Serge observed with
a flash of indignation: “his kind, I mean—less bur-
glars than bunglers, with no professional pride, no
decent instincts, no human consideration. They
[78]


BLACKMAIL

15
never stop to think it’s tough enough for a house-
holder to come home to a cracked crib without find-
ing a total stranger to boot—a man he’s never even
seen before, like as not—ah—weltering on the
premises—”
“Oh, do be serious!”
“Must I? If you wish.”
The man composed his features to a mask of
whimsical attention.
“What—what did you do with him?” the girl
stammered after a pause during which consciousness
of her disadvantage became only more acute.
“Our active little friend, the yegg? Why, I
didn’t do anything with him.”
“You didn’t leave him there?”
“Oh, no; he went away, considerately enough—
up-stairs and out through the scuttle—the way he
broke in, you know. Surprisingly spry on his feet
for a man of his weight and age—had all I could
do to keep up. He did stop once, true, as if he’d
forgotten something, but the sword ran into him—-
I happened thoughtlessly to be carrying it—only a
quarter of an inch or so—and he changed his mind,
and by the time I got my head through the
scuttle he was gone—vanished utterly from human
ken!”
“He had broken the scuttle open, you say?”
“Pried it up with a jirmny.”
[79]


NOBODY


“And you left it so? He’ll go back.”
“No, he won’t. I found hammer and nails and
made all fast before I left.”
“But,” she demanded, wide-eyed with wonder,
“why did you take that trouble?”
“My silly conceit, I presume. I couldn’t bear the
thought of having that roughneck return and muss
up one of my neatest jobs.”
“I don’t understand you at all,” she murmured,
utterly confounded.
“Nor I you, if it matters. Still, I’m sure you
won’t keep me much longer in suspense, considering
how open-faced I’ve been. But here’s that animal
of a waiter again.”
She was willingly silent, though she exerted her-
self to seem at ease with indifferent success. The
voice of her companion was like a distant, hollow
echo in her hearing; her wits were all awhirl, her
nerves as taut and vibrant as banjo-strings; before
her vision the face of Blue Serge swam, a flesh-tinted
moon now and again traversed by a flash of white
when he smiled.
“Come!” the man rallied her sharply, if in an
undertone, “this will never do. You’re as white
as a sheet, trembling and staring as if I were a
leper—or a relation by marriage or—something
repulsive !”
She sat forward mechanically and mustered an
[30]


BLACKMAIL


uncertain smile. “Forgive me. I’m a little over-
wrought—the heat and—everything.”
“Not another word, then, till you’ve finished.
I’ll do the talking, if it’s all the same to you. But
you needn’t ansWer—needn’t listen, for that matter.
I’ve no pride in my conversational powers, and you
mustn’t risk losing your appetite.”
He seemed to find it easy enough to make talk;
but Sally spared him little attention, being at first
exclusively preoccupied with the demands of her
hunger, and later—as the meal progressed, renewing
her physical strength and turning the ebb-ing tide
of her spirits—thoroughly engaged with the
problem of how to extricate herself from this em-
barrassing association or, if extrication proved im-
possible, how to turn it to her own advantage. For
if the affair went on this way—his way—she were a
sorry adventuress indeed.
Small cups of black coffee stood before them,
steaming, when a question roused her, and she shook
herself together and faced her burglar across the
cloth, once more full mistress of her faculties.
“You’re feeling better?”
“Very much,” she smiled, “and thank you!”
“Don’t make me uncomfortable; remember, this
is all your fault.
“That I’m here, alive and whole, able to enjoy
a most unique situation. Who are you?”
[31]


NOBODY


But she wasn’t to be caught by any such simple
stratagem as a question plumped suddenly at her
with all the weight of a rightful demand; she smiled
again and shook her head.
“Shan’t tell.”
“But if I insist?”
“Why don’t you, then?”
“Meaning insistence won’t get me anything?”
Sensitive to the hint of a hidden trump, she
stiffened slightly.
“I haven’t asked you to commit yourself. I’ve
got a right to my own privacy.”
There fell a small pause. Lounging, an elbow
on the table, a cigarette fuming idly between his
fingers, the man favoured her with a steady look
of speculation whose challenge was modified only
by the inextinguishable humour smouldering in his
eyes—a look that Sally met squarely, dissembling
her excitement. For with all her fears and per-
plexity she could never quite forget that, whatever
its sequel, this was verily an adventure after her
own heart, that she was looking her best in a won-
derful frock and pitting her wits against those of
an engaging rogue, that she who had twelve hours
ago thought herself better dead was now living in-
tensely an hour of vital emergency.
“But,” the man said suddenly, and yet deliber-
.L_ a. .i _.~_:h
[32]


BLACKMAIL


ately, “surely you won’t dispute my right to know
who makes free with my own home?”
Her bravado was extinguished as 'suddenly as a
candle-flame in a gust of wind.
“Your home?” she parroted witlessly.
“Mine, yes. If you can forgive me.” He fum-
bled for his card-case. “It has been amusing to play
the part you assigned me of amateur cracksman,
but really, I’m afraid, it can’t be done without
a better make-up.”
He produced and placed before her on the cloth
a small white card; and as soon as its neat black
script ceased to writhe and run together beneath her
gaze she comprehended the name of Mr. Walter
Arden Savage, with a residence address identical
with that of the house wherein her great adventure
had begun. .I
“You!” she breathed aghast, “you’re not really
Mr. Savage?”
He smiled indulgently. “I rather think I am.”
C‘But_”
Sally’s voice failed her entirely, and he laughed
a tolerant little laugh as he bent forward to explain.
“I don’t wonder you are surprised—or at your
mistake. The fact is, the circumstances are peculiar.
It’s my sister’s fault, really; she’s such a flighty
little thing—unpardonably careless. I must have
warned her a hundred times, if once, never to leave
[83]


NOBODY


valuables in that silly old tin safe. But she won’t
listen to reason—never would. And it’s her house
‘ —her safe. I’ve got no right to install a better one.
And that is why we’re here.”
He smiled thoughtfully down his nose. “It’s
really a chapter of accidents to which I’m indebted
for this charming adventure,” he pursued with a
suavely personal nod, “beginning with the blow-out
of the taxicab tire that made us five minutes late
for this evening’s boat. We were bound up the
Sound, you understand, to spend a fortnight with
a maternal aunt. And our luggage is well on its
way there now. So when we missed the boat there
was nothing for it but go by train. We taxied back
here through that abominable storm, booked for
Boston by the eleven ten, and ducked across the way
to dine at the Biltmore. No good going home, of
course, with the servants out—and everything. And
just as we were finishing dinner this amiable sister
of mine gave a whoop and let it out that she’d for-
gotten her jewels. Well, there was plenty of time.
I put her aboard the train as soon as the sleepers
were open—ten o’clock, you know—and trotted back
home to fetch the loot.”
A reminiscent chuckle punctuated his account, but
struck no echo from Sally’s humour. Moveless and
mute, the girl sat unconsciously clutching the edge
of the table as if it were the one stable fact in
.i ‘Ar-LPJJ . (minke-
[84]


BLACKMAIL


her whirling world; all her bravado dissipating as
her daze of wonder yielded successively to doubt,
suspicion, consternation.
“I said there was plenty of time, and so there
was, barring accidents. But the same wouldn’t be
barred. I manufactured the first delay for myself,
forgetting to ask Adele for the combination. I knew
where to find it, in a little book locked up in the
desk; but I hadn’t a key to the desk, so felt obliged
to break it open, and managed that so famously I
was beginning to fancy myself a bit as a Rafiles
when, all of a sudden—Pow!” he laughed—“that
fat devil landed on my devoted neck with all the
force and fury of two hundredweight of professional
jealousy!
“And then,” he added, “in you walked from God
knows where—”
His eyes affixed a point of interrogation to the
simple declarative. I
She started nervously in response, divided between
irnpulses which she had no longer sufficient wit to
weigh. Should she confess, or try to lie out of it?
Must she believe this glibly simple and adequate
account or reject it on grounds of pardonable skep-
ticism?
If this man were what he professed to be, surely
he must recognise her borrowed plumage as his
sister’s property. True, that did not of necessity
[85]


NOBODY


follow; men have so little understanding of women’s
clothing; it pleases them or it displeases, if thrust
upon their attention, but once withdrawn it is for-
gotten utterly. Such might well be the case in this
present instance; the man gave Sally, indeed, every
reason to believe him as much bewildered and mys-
tified by her as she was by him.
On the other hand, and even so . . .
The infatuate impulse prevailed, to confess and
take the consequences.
“I’m afraid—” she began in a quaver.
“No need to be—none I know of, at least,” he
volunteered promptly, if without moderating his
exacting state.
“You don’t understand—P
She hesitated, sighed, plunged in desperation.
“It’s no use; there’s nothing for me to do but own
up. What you were not to-night, Mr. Savage, I
was.”
“Sounds like a riddle to me. What is the an-
swer?”
“You were just make-believe. I was the real
thing—a real thief. No, let me go on; it’s easier
if you don’t interrupt. Yes, I’ll tell you my name,
but it won’t mean anything. I’m nobody. I’m
Sarah Manvers. I’m a shop-girl out of work.”
“Still I don’t see . . .”
“I’m coming to that. I live on your block—the
[86]


BLACKMAIL


Lexington Avenue end, of course—with two other
girls. And this afternoon—the studio was so hot
and stuffy and lonesome, with both my friends away
——I went up on the roof for better air, and fell
asleep there and got caught by the storm. Some-
body had closed the scuttle, and I ran across roofs
looking for another that wasn’t fastened down, and
when I found one—it was your house—I was so
frightened by the lightning I hardly knew what I
was doing. I just tumbled in—”
“And welcome, I’m sure,” Blue Serge interpo-
lated.
She blundered on, unheeding: “I went all
through the house, but there wasn’t anybody, and—
I was so wet and miserable that I—made myself at
home—decided to take a bath and—and borrow
some things to wear until my own were dry. And
then I thought . . .”
She halted, confused, realising how impossible it
would be to convince anybody with the tale of her
intention merely to borrow the clothing for a single
night of arabesque adventure, finding it difficult now
to believe in on her own part, and hurried breath-
lesst on to cover the hiatus.
“And then I heard a noise on the roof; I had
closed the scuttle, but I was frightened. And I
crept down-stairs and—saw the light in the library
and . . . That’s all.”
w
[87]


NOBODY \


And when he didn’t reply promptly, she adc' ed
with a trace of challenge: “So now you know!”
He started as from deep reverie.
“But why call yourself a thief—for that?”
“Because . . . because . . .” Overstrung nerves
betrayed her in gusty confession. “Because it’s no
good blinking facts: that’s what I was in my heart
of hearts. Oh, it’s all very well for you to be gen-
erous, and for me to pretend I meant only to bor-
row, and—and all that! But the truth is, I did steal
—-and I never honestly meant to send the things
back. At first—yes; then I meant to return them,
but never once they were on my back. I told myself
I did, I believed I did; but deep down, all along, I
didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t! I’m a liar as well as a
thief.”
“Oh, come now!” Blue Serge interjected in a
tone of mild remonstrance, lounging back and eying
the girl intently. “Don’t be so down on yourself.”
“Well, everything I’ve said was true except that
one word ‘borrow’; but that in itself was a lie big
enough to eclipse every word of truth. . . . But
you’ll never understand—never! Men can’t. They
simply can’t know what it is to be clothes-hungry—
starving for something fit to wear—as I have been
for years and years and years, as most of us in
the shops are all our lives long.”
“Perhaps I understand, though,” he argued with
[88]


BLACKMAIL

an odd look. “I know what you mean, at any rate,
even if I’m not ready to admit that shop-girls are
the only people who ever know what it is to desire
the unattainable. Other people want things, at
times, just as hard as you do clothes.”
“Well, but . . .” She stammered, unable to re-
fute this reasonable contention, but, womanlike, per-
sistent to try: “It’s different—when you’ve never
had anything. Try to think what it must be to work
from eight till six—sometimes later—six days a
week, for just enough to keep alive on, if you call
such an existence being alive! Why, in ten years I
haven’t seen the country or the sea—unless you
count trips to Coney on crowded trolley-cars, and
mighty few of them. I never could afford a vaca-
tion, though I’ve been idle often enough—never
earned more than ten dollars a week, and that not
for many weeks together. I’ve lived on as little
as five—on as little as charity, on nothing but the
goodness of my friends at times. That’s why,
when I saw myself prettily dressed for once, and
thought nothing could stop my getting away, I
couldn’t resist the temptation. I didn’t know where
I was going, dressed like this, and not a cent; but
I was going some place, and I wasn’t ever coming
back!”
“Good Lord!” the man said gently. “Who’d
blame you?”
[89]


BLACKMAIL


down upon him in a sudden, wild flutter of words
and gestures:
“Walter! Thank God I’ve found you! I’ve
been so upset—hardly knew what to do—when you
didn’t show up. . . .”
What more she might have said dried instantly
on the newcomer’s lips as her gaze embraced Sally.
She stiffened slightly and drew back, elevating her
eyebrows to the frost-line.
“Who is this woman? What does this mean?”
Without awaiting an answer to either question,
she observed in accents that had all the chilling force
and cutting edge of a winter wind:
“My dress! My hat!”
[91]




CHAPTER V
CONSPIRACY

Y dear sister!” interposed Mr. Savage with
an imitation so exact of the woman’s tone
that he nearly wrung a smile even from Sally. “Do
calm yourself—don’t make a scene. The matter
is quite easy to explain—”
“But what—”
“Oh, give us a chance. But permit me!” He
bowed with his easy laugh. “Adele, this is Miss
' Manvers—Miss Manvers, my sister Mrs. Standish.
And’now”-—as Sally half started from her chair
and Mrs. Standish acknowledged her existence by
an embittered nod—“do sit down, Adele!”
With the manner of one whose amazement has
paralysed her parts of speech, the woman sank
mechanically into the chair which Savage (having
thoughtfully waved away the hovering waiter)
placed beside the table, between himself and his
guest. But once seated, precisely as if that position
were a charm to break the spell that sealed them,
[92]


CONSPIRACY

promptly her lips reformed the opening syllables
Of “What does this mean?”
Mr. Savage, however, diplomatically gave her
no chance to utter more than the first word.
“Do hold your tongue,” he pleaded, with a rude-
ness convincingly fraternal, “and listen to me. I
am deeply indebted to Miss Manvers—for my very
life, in fact. Oh, don’t look so blamed incredulous;
I’m perfectly sober. Now will you please give me
a show?”
And, the lady executing a gesture that matched
Well her look of blank resignation, her brother ad-
dressed himself to a terse summing up of the affair
which, while it stressed the gravity of the adventure
with the fat burglar, did not seem to extenuate
Sally’s offence in the least, and so had the agreeable
upshot of leaving the sister in a much-placated
humour and regarding the girl with a far more
indulgent countenance than Sally had found any
reason at first to hope for.
As for that young woman, the circumstance that
she was inwardly all a-shudder didn’t in the least
hinder her exercise of that feminine trick of men-
tally photographing, classifying, and cataloguing
the other woman’s outward aspects in detail and, at
the same time, distilling her more subtle phases of
personality in the retort of instinct and minutely
analysing the precipitate.
[93]


NOBODY


The result laid the last lingering ghost of sus-
picion that all was not as it should be between
these two, that Blue Serge had not been altogether
frank with her.
She had from the first appreciated the positive
likeness between Mrs. Standish and the portrait in
the library, even though her observation of the latter
had been limited to the most casual inspection
through the crack of the folding doors; there wasn’t
any excuse for questioning the identification. The
woman before her, like the woman of the picture,
was of the slender, blonde class—intelligent, neuro-
tic, quick-tempered, inclined to suffer spasmodically
from exaltation of the ego. And if she had not
always been pampered with every luxury that money
has induced modern civilisation to invent, the fact
was not apparent; she dressed with such exquisite
taste as only money can purchase, if it be not innate;
she carried herself with the ease of affluence founded
upon a rock, while her nervousness was manifestly
due rather to impatience than to the vice of wor-
tying.
“And now,” Mr. Savage wound up with a grace-
less grin, “if you’ll be good enough to explain what
the dickens you’re doing here instead of being on
the way to Boston by the eleven-ten, I’ll be grateful;
Miss Manvers will quit doubting my veracity—
secretly, if not openly; and we can proceed to con-
[94]


CONSPIRACY


sider something I have to suggest with respect to
the obligations of a woman who has been saved the
loss of a world of gewgaws as well as those of a
man who is alive and whole exclusively, thanks
to . . . Well, I think you know what I mean.”
“Oh, as for that,” said Mrs. Standish absently,
“when you turned up missing on the train I stopped
it at the Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street station
and came back to find out what was the matter.
I’ve been all through this blessed place looking for
you—”
“Pardon!” Mr. Savage interrupted. “Did I un-
derstand you to say you had stopped the train?”
“Certainly. Why not? You don’t imagine I
was going to let myself be carried all the way to
Boston in ignorance—”
“Then, one infers, the eleven-ten doesn’t nor-
mally stop at One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth
Street?”
“No. I had to speak to the conductor. Do be
quiet. It doesn’t matter. What were you going
to say?”
“Nothing much, except that the clothes Miss
Manvers stands in are hardly to be considered an
adequate reward.”
“True. But you mentioned some suggestion or
other—”
“Without being downright about it, thereby spar-
[9s]


NOBODY


ing Miss Manvers any embarrassment she might
feel should you disapprove, as I’m confident you
won’t—”
This was the woman’s turn; she silenced him
with a gesture of infinite ennui. “Why is it,” she
complained, “that you never get anywhere without
talking all around Robin Hood’s barn?”
“Objection,” Mr. Savage offered promptly, “on
the ground of mixed metaphor.”
“Objection sustained,” his sister conceded. “But
do come to the point.”
“I wish only to remind you of the news im-
parted by our respected aunt in her letter of recent
date.”
The woman frowned slightly, as with mental
effort; then a flash of comprehension lightened her
blue eyes. Immediately her brows mutely circum-
flexed a question. A look of profound but illegible
significance passed between the two. Mr. Savage
nodded. Mrs. Standish pursed speculatively her
thin, well-made-up lips and visibly took thought,
according to the habit of her sex, by means of a
series of intuitive explosions. Then she nodded
vigorously and turned upon Miss Manvers a be-
wildering smile, for the first time addressing her
directly.
“My dear,” she said pleasantly enough—though,
of course, the term had no accent whatever of affec-
[96]


CONSPIRACY


tion—“this half-witted brother of mine once 1 ,6m
while stumbles upon the most brilliant inspiratio.
imaginable. I’m sure he has seen enough of you in
this last hour to be making no mistake in offering
you as one answer to a very delicate question which
has been distressing us both for a long time. If
you’re not overscrupulous . . . ”
She paused with a receptive air.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re driving at,”
Sally said bluntly; “but I’m hardly in a position
to be nice-minded about trifles.”
“It’s this way,” Savage interposed; “we’re offer-
ing you a chance to get away, to enjoy a surmner
by the seashore, to mix with a lot of mighty inter-
esting people, and all that sort of thing—everything
you tell me you’ve been pining for—if you’ll con-
sent to sail under false colours.” .
“Please!” Sally begged with a confused and ex-
cited little laugh.
“He sirnply can’t help it; indirection is Walter’s
long suit,” Mrs. Standish took up the tale. “First
of all, you must know this aunt of ours is rather
an eccentric—frightfully Well off, spoiled, self-
willed, and quite blind to her best interests. She’s
been a widow so long she doesn’t know the mean-
ing of wholesome restraint. She’s got all the high
knee-action of a thoroughbred never properly broken
to harness. She sets her own pace—and Heaven
[97]


NOBODY



. the hinderrnost! All in all, I think Aunt
mg .
+- oby’s the most devil-may-care person I’ve ever
ma?
“You’re too modest,” Mr. Savage commented
abstractedly.
“Be quiet, Walter. Aunt Abby’s passionately
fond of two things—cards and what she calls ‘inter-
esting people.’ Neither would matter much but for
the other. She gambles for sheer love of it, and
doesn’t care a rap whether she wins or loses. And
her notion of an interesting person is anybody for-
tunate or misfortunate enough to be noticed by the
newspapers. A bit of a scandal is sure bait for her
regard . . 3’
Pausing, Mrs. Standish smiled coolly. “Take me,
for example. Until I found it necessary to get
unmarried, my aunt never could find time to waste
on me. But now, in spite of the fact that the decree
was in my favour, I’m the object of her mad attach-
ment. And if Walter hadn’t come into the lime-
light through a Senatorial inquiry into high finance,
and made such a sick witness, and got so deservedly
roasted by the newspapers—well, nothing is now
too good for him. So, you see, the people Aunt
Abby insists on entertaining are apt to be a rather
dubious lot. I don’t mean she’d pick up with any-
body openly immoral, you know; but she certainly
manages to fill her houses—she’s got several—with
l
[98]


CONSPIRACY

a wild crew of adventurers and—esses—to call ’em ,
by their first names.
“They’re smart enough, God knows, and they do
make things hum, but they charge her—some of
them—fat fees for the privilege of entertaining
them. Funny things have happened at her card-
tables. So Walter and I have been scheming to
find some way to protect her without rousing her
resentment by seeming to interfere. If we could
only get evidence enough to talk privately to some
of her friends—about time-tables, for instance—it
would be all right. And only recently she herself
showed us the way—wrote me that she had quar-
relled with her corresponding secretary, a spinster
of acid maturity, and discharged her; and would we
please look round for somebody to replace Miss
Matring. Do you see?”
“You mean,” Sally faltered, dumfounded—“you
Can’t mean you’ll recommend me for the posi-
tion?”
“I’ll do more. I’ll see that you get it; I’ll take
you with me to-night, and by to-morrow noon you’ll
be engaged. But you must understand we’re giving
you the chance solely that you may serve us as well
as Aunt Abby, by keeping your eyes and ears wide
open and reporting to us in strictest confidence and
Secrecy anything that doesn’t look right to you.”
“But—but I—but how—why do you think you
[99]
8233.122


NOBODY


can trust me?” the girl stammered. “Knowing what
you do—”
“That’s just the point. Don’t you see? We can
trust you because you won’t dare betray us.”
“But—but after I’ve stolen—”
“Don’t say it!” Savage cut in. “You stole noth-
ing, if you please; you merely anticipated a reward
for a service not yet rendered.” ,
“But . . . Oh, it’s kind of you, but don’t you see
it’s impossible?”
“Nothing is impossible except your refusal,” said
Mrs. Standish. “Do be sensible, my dear, and
realise that we—that I intend you shall have this
chance. What can you possibly find to object to?
The deceit? Surely an innocent deception, practised
upon a dear old lady for her own good!”
“Deceit,” Mr. Savage propounded very sagely,
“is like any other sin, it’s only sinful when it is.
That’s elementary sophistry, but I invented it, and
I’m strong for it. Besides, we’ve got just twenty
minutes now to get aboard the Owl—and I’ve got
to beg, borrow, or buy transportation on it, because
there wasn’t a room left but the two I bought for
you and me—and now Adele will have to have one
of the rooms--”
“But I’ve nothing to wear but these things!”
“Don’t worry about that,” Mrs. Standish reas-
sured her. “I’ve ot nine trunks on the wa ——-and
g Y
[100]
- mikqa‘s'ofiitsr
T


CONSPIRACY

you unquestionably fill my things out like another
perfect fhgurel’
“But how will you explain? Who am I to be?
You can’t introduce me as a shop-girl out of work
Whom you caught stealing your clothes.”
“La nuz't porte consez'l,” Mr. Savage announced
sagely, and with what was no doubt an excellent
accent. “Let Adele sleep on it, and if she doesn’t
come through in the morning with a good, old-
fashioned, all wool, yard-wide lie that will blanket
every possible contingency, I don’t know my little
sister.”
“An elder brother, let me tell you, Miss Manvers,
is the best possible preceptor in prevarication.”
“Elder!” exclaimed the outraged young man.
“Well, of all—” He turned appealingly to Sally.
“What did I tell you?”
[101]




CHAPTER VI
ALIAS MANWARING

ICKLE-MINDED fortune favoured Mr. Sav-
age’s belated application for additional
sleeping-car accommodation: somebody turned back
a reservation only ten minutes or so before train-
time, in consequence of which Mrs. Standish and
Miss Manvers enjoyed adjoining compartments of
luxury, while Mr. Savage contented himself with
less pretentious quarters farther aft.
Thus it was that at one minute past one o’clock,
when a preternaturally self-respecting porter dis-
passionately ascertained that nothing more would be
required of him till morning and shut himself out
of her presence, the girl subsided upon the edge of
a bed of such sybaritic character as amply to war-
rant the designation de luxe, and, flushed and trem-
bling with excitement (now that she dared once
again to be her natural self) and with all incredulity
appropriate to the circumstances, stared at the young
woman who blankly stared back from a long mirror
framed in the door.
,.,._,Lr.-I=_a'....l-
[102]


ALIAS MANWARING

It was truly a bit difficult to identify that mo-
dishly dressed and brilliantly animated young per-
son with S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions in
Huckster’s Bargain Basement, while reason tottered
and common sense tittered when invited to credit
the chain of accidents responsible for the trans-
formation.
Strange world of magic romance, this, into which
she had stumbled over the threshold of a venial
misdemeanour! Who now would dare contend that
life was ever sordid, grim, and cruel, indigestible
from soup to savoury? Who would have the hardi-
hood to uphold such contention when made ac-
quainted with the case of Sarah Manvers, yester-
day’s drudge, unlovely and unloved, to-day’s child
of fortune, chosen of a golden destiny?
Sally’s jubilation was shadowed by a pensive mo-
ment; dare she assume that the winters of her dis-
content had been forever banished by one wave of
Chance’s wand?
She shook a confounded head, smiled an uncertain
smile, sighed a little, broken sigh, and with deter-
mination bade adieu to misgivings, turning a deaf
ear to the dull growls of mother-wit arguing that
the Board of Health ought to be advised about the
State of Denmark. Sufficient unto the night its
room de luxe; she found her couch no less comfort-
[103]


NOBODY


able for the sword that conceivably swayed above it,
suspended by a thread of casual favour.
For a time she rested serenely in the dark—only
half undressed in view of the ever-possible accident
—cheek to pillow, face turned to the window that
endlessly screened the sweeping mysteries of that
dark glimmering countryside, quite resigned so to
while away the night, persuaded it was inevitable
that one with so much to ponder should be unable
to sleep a wink.
Deliberately, to prove this point, she closed her
eyes. . . .
And immediately opened them to broad daylight,
revealing, through that magic casement, the outskirts
of a considerable city, street after suburban street
wheeling away like spokes from a restless hub.
A simultaneous pounding on the door warned her
she had but ten minutes in which to dress; no time
to grasp the substance of a dream come true, no
time even to prepare a confident attitude with which
to salute the fairy godparents of her social debut——
time only to struggle into her outer garments and
muster a half-timid, deprecatory smile for those
whom she was to find awaiting her: in the corridor,
impatient to be off, none too amiany conscious of
foregone beauty sleep, accepting their protégée with
a matter-of-course manner almost disillusioning.
“Got to hurry, you know,” Savage informed her
[104]


ALIAS MANWARING

brusquely ; “only twenty minutes to snatch a bite be-
fore our train leaves for the Island.”
They hurried down a platform thronged with fel-
low passengers similarly haunted by the seven dev-
ils of haste, beneath a high glazed but opaque
vault penning an unappetizing atmosphere com-
posed in equal parts of a stagnant warm air and
stale steam, into a restaurant that had patently
been up all night, through the motions of swallow-
ing alternate mouthfuls of denatured coffee and de-
jected rolls, up again and out and down another
platform—at last into the hot and dusty haven of
a parlour-car.
Then impressions found time for readjustment.
The journey promised, and turned out, to be by no
means one of unalloyed delights. The early mom-
ing temper discovered by Mrs. Standish offered
chill comfort to one like Sally, saturate with all the
emotions of a stray puppy hankering for a friendly
pat. Ensconced in the chair beside her charge, the
patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her
was visible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted
cheek and buried her nose in a best-selling novel,
ignoring overtures analogous to the wagging of a
propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair be-
yond his sister, betrayed every evidence of being
heartily grateful for a distance that precluded con-
versation and to a Providence that tolerated Town
[105]


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Topics. Sally was left to improve her mind with a
copy of V am'ly Faz'r, from contemplation of whose
text and pictures she emerged an amateur adven-
turess sadly wanting in the indispensable quality of
assurance. It wasn’t that she feared to measure
wits, intelligence, or even lineage with the elect.
But in how many mysterious ways might she not fall
short of the ideal of Good Form?
What—she pondered gloomily, chin in hand,
eyes vacantly reviewing a countryside of notable
charms adrowse in the lethargic peace of a mid-
summer moming—what the dickens was Good Form,
anyway?
Nothing, not even her own normally keen power
of observation, offered any real enlightenment.
She summed up an hour’s studious reflection in
the dubious conclusion that Good Form had some-
thing subtly to do with being able to sit cross-kneed
and look arrogantly into the impertinent lens of a
camp-follower’s camera—to be impudently self-
conscious, that is—to pose and pose and get away
with it.
The train came to a definite stop, and Sally star-
tled up to find Mrs. Standish, afoot, smiling down
at her with all her pretty features except her eyes,
and Mr. Savage smiling in precisely the reverse
fashion.
“All out,” he announced.
[106]
“Change here for the
. -flr-A
"a


ALIAS MANWARING

boat. Another hour, and—as somebody says Henry
James says—there, in a manner of speaking, we all
are.”
They straggled across a wharf to a fussy small
steamer, Mrs. Standish leading the way with an ap-
prehensive eye for possible acquaintances and, once
established with her brother and Sally in a se-
cluded corner of the boat’s upper deck, uttering her
relief in a candid sigh.
“Nobody we know aboard,” she added, smiling
less tensely at Sally.
“Eh—what say?” Mr. Savage inquired from a
phase of hypnosis induced by a glimpse of Good
Form in a tailored skirt of white corduroy.
“Nobody of any consequence in this mob,” his
sister paraphrased, yawning delicately.
“Oh,” he responded with an accent of doubt.
But the white corduroy vanished round a shoulder'
of the deck-house, and he bestirred himSelf to pay
a little attention to Sally.
“There’s the Island,” he said, languidly waving a
hand. “That white-pillared place there among the
trees-—left of the lighthouse——that’s Aunt Abby’s.”
Sally essayed a smile of intelligent response.
Not that the Island failed to enchant her; seen across
a fast diminishing breadth of wind-darkened blue
water, bathed in golden mid-morning light, its villas
of delicious grey half buried in billows of delicious
[107]


NOBODY

v—
if
green, its lawns and terraces crowning fluted grey-
stone cliffs from whose feet a broad beach shelved
gently into the sea, it seemed more beautiful to
Miss Manvers than anything she had ever dreamed
of.
But what was to be her reception there, what her
status, what her fortunes?
“I’ve been thinking,” Mrs. Standish announced
when a sidelong glance had reassured her as to their
practical privacy, “about Miss Manvers.”
“I hope to Heaven you’ve doped out a good one,”
Savage interrupted fervently. “In the cold grey
dawn it doesn’t look so good to me. But then I’m
only a duffer. Perhaps it’s just as well; if I’d been
a good liar I might have married to keep my hand
in. As it is, I never forget to give thanks, in my
evening prayers, for my talented little sister.”
“Are you finished?” Mrs. Standish inquired frig-
idly.
“I’d better be.”
“Then, please pay close attention, Miss Manvers.
To begin with, I’m going to change your name.
From now on it’s Sara Manwaring—Sara without
the 72.” .-
“Manwaring with the w silent, as in wrapper
and wretch?” Savage asked politely.
For Sally’s benefit Mrs. Standish spelled the word
patiently.
--‘-- ~ 7 . ,_ m._i._v..-illam.a..' -_-_.-_._.\“.
[108]


ALIAS MANWARING


“And the record of the fair impostor?” Savage
prompted.
“That’s very simple. Miss Manwaring came to
me yesterday with a letter of introduction from
Edna English. Edna sailed for Italy last Saturday,
and by the time she’s back Aunt Abby will have for-
gotten to question Miss Manwaring’s credentials.”
“What did I tell you?” Mr. Savage wagged a
solemn head at Sally. “There’s Art for you!”
“She comes from a family prominent socially in”
—Mrs. Standish paused a fraction of a second—
“Massillon, Ohio—”
“Is there any such place?”
“Of course—”
“What a lot you do know, Adele!”
“But through a series of unhappy accidents in-
volving the family fortunes was obliged to earn her
own living.”
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
“Plenty. Simple, succinct, stupendous! It has
only one flaw.”
“And that, if you please?” Mrs. Standish de-
manded, bristling a trifle.
“It ain’t possible for any one to be prominent
socially in a place named Massillon, Ohio. It can’t
be done—not in a place I never heard of before.”
“Do you understand, Miss Manwaring?” the
[109]


NOBODY


woman asked, turning an impatient shoulder to her
brother.
“Perfectly,” Sally assented eagerly; “only—who
is Edna English?”
“Mrs. Cornwallis English.
heard of her.”
“Oh, yes, in the newspapers . . .”
“Social uplift’s her fad. She’s done a lot of work
among department-store girls.”
You must have
“To their infinite annoyance,” interpolated
Savage. ‘
“At all events, that’s how she came to notice
you.”
“I see,” said Sally humbly.
“You may fill in the outlines at your discretion,”
Mrs. Standish pursued sweetly. “That’s all I know
about you. You called at the house with the letter
from Mrs. English yesterday afternoon, and I took
a fancy to you and, knowing that Aunt Abby needed
a secretary, brought you along.”
“Thank you,” said Sally. “I hope you under-
stand how grate—”
“That’s quite understood. Let us say no more
about it.”
“Considerable story,” Savage approved.
what became of the letter of introduction?”
“I mislaid it,” his sister explained complacently.
“Don’t I mislay everything?”
“But
[110]


I
l
ALIAS MANWARING

For once the young man was dumb with admira‘
tion. But his look was eloquent.
Deep thought held the amateur adventuress
spellbound for some minutes. “There’s only one
thing,” she said suddenly, with a puzzled frown.
“And that?” Mrs. Standish prompted.
“What about the burglary? Your servants, when
they came home last night, must have noticed and
notified the police.”
“Oh, I say!” Savage exclaimed blankly.
“Don’t let’s worry about that,” Mrs. Standish
interrupted. “We can easily let it be understood
that what was stolen was later recovered from—
whatever they call the places where thieves dispose
of their stealings.”
“That covers everything,” Savage insisted impa-
tiently. “Do come along. There’s the car wait-
ing.”
Coincident with this announcement a series of
slight jars shook the steamer, and with surprise Sally
discovered that, without her knowledge in the pre-
occupation of being fitted with a completely new
identity, the vessel had rounded a wooded head-
land, opening up a deep harbour dotted with pleas-
ure craft, and was already nuzzling the town wharf
of a sizable community.
She rose and followed her fellow conspirators aft
and below to the gangway, her mind registering
[III]


NOBODY


rresh impressions with the rapidity of a cinema film.
The grey cliff had given place to green-clad bluffs
sown thick with cottages of all sorts, from the
quaintly hideous and the obviously inexpensive to
the bewitchingly pretty and the pretentiously ornate
——a haphazard arrangement that ran suddenly into
a plot of streets linking a clutter of utilitarian build-
ings, all converging upon the focal point of the vil-
lage wharf.
Upon this last a cloud of natives and summer
folk swarmed and buzzed. At its head a cluster
of vehicles, horse-drawn as well as motor-driven,
waited. In the shadow beneath it, and upon the
crescent beach that glistened on its either side, a
multitude of children, young and old, paddled and
splashed in shallows and the wash of the steamer.
Obviously the less decorative and exclusive side
of the island, it was none the less enchanting in
Sally’s vision. A measure of confidence reinfused
her mood. She surrendered absolutely to fatalistic
enjoyment of the gifts the gods had sent. Half
closing her eyes, she drank deep of salt-sweet air
vibrant with the living warmth of a perfect day.
A man whose common face was as impassive as
a mask shouldered through the mob and bur-
dened himself with the hand-luggage of the party.
Sally gathered that he was valet to Mr. Savage.
And then they were pushing through the gantlet
[112]


ALIAS MANWARING


of several hundred curious eyes and making toward
the head of the pier.
“Trying,” Mrs. Standish observed in an aside to
the girl. “I always say that everything about the
Island is charming but the getting here.”
Sally murmured an inarticulate response and won-
dered. Disdain of the commonalty was implicit in
that speech; it was contact with the herd, subjec-
tion to its stares, that Mrs. Standish found so try-
ing. How, then, had she brought herself so readily
to accept association on almost equal terms with
a shop-girl misdemeanant—out of gratitude, or sheer
goodness of heart, or something less superficial?
The shadow of an intimation that something was
wrong again came between Sally and the sun, but
passed as swiftly as a wind-sped cloud.
The valet led to a heavy, seven-seated touring-
car, put their luggage in the rear, shut the door on
the three, and swung up to the seat beside the chauf-
feur. The machine threaded a cautious way out of
the rank, moved sedately up a somnolent street,
turned a comer and pricked up its heels to the tune
of a long, silken snore, flinging over its shoulder
two miles of white, well-metalled roadway with no
appreciable effort whatever.
For a moment or two dwellings swept by like so
many telegraph-poles past a car-window. Then they
became more widely spaced, and were succeeded by
[113]


NOBODY


a blurred and incoherent expanse of woods, fields,
parks, hedges, glimpses of lawns surfaced like a
billiard-table, flashes of white facades maculated
with cool blue shadows.
Then, without warning if without a jar, the car
slowed down to a safe and sane pace and swung
off between two cobblestone pillars into a well-
kept wilderness of trees that stood as a wall of
privacy between the highroad and an exquisitely
parked estate bordering the cliffs.
Debouching into the open, the drive swept a gra-
cious curve round a wonderful wide lawn of living
velvet and through the pillared porte-cochEre of a
long, white-walled building with many gaily awn-
inged windows in its two Wide-spread wings.
Sentinelled by sombre cypresses, relieved against
a sapphire sky bending to a sea of scarcely deeper
shade, basking in soft, clear sunlight, the house
seemed to hug the earth very intimately, to belong
most indispensably, with an effect of permanence,
of orderliness and dignity that brought to mind in-
stinctively the term estate, and caused Sally to re-
call (with misspent charity) the fulsome frenzy of
a sycophantic scribbler ranting of feudal aristocra-
cies, representative houses, and encroaching ten-
antry.
The solitary symptom of a tenantry in evidence
here was a perfectly good American citizen in shirt-
[114]


ALIAS MANWARING


sleeves and overalls, pipe in mouth, toleration in
his mien, calmly steering a wheelbarrow down the
drive. Sally caught the glint of his cool eyes and
experienced a flash of intuition into a soul steeped
in contemplative indulgence of the city crowd and
its silly antics. And forthwith, for some reason she
found no time to analyse, she felt more at home,
less apprehensive.
As the car pulled up beneath the porte-coch‘ere a
mild-eyed footman ran out to help the valet with
the luggage; Savage skipped blithely down and gave
a hand to his sister, offering like assistance to Sally
in turn; and on the topmost of three broad, white,
stone steps the chatelaine of Gosnold House ap-
peared to welcome her guests—a vastly different
personality, of course, from any in Sally’s somewhat
incoherent anticipations.
Going upon the rather sketchy suggestions of Mrs.
Standish, the girl had prefigured Aunt Abby as a
skittish female of three-score years and odd; a gab-
bling creature with a wealth of empty gesticulation
and a parrot’s vacant eye; semi-irresponsible, prone
to bright colours and an overyouthful style of
dress.
She found, to the contrary, a lady of quiet reserve,
composed of manner, authoritative of speech, not
lacking in humour, of impeccable taste in dress, and
to all appearances not a day older than forty-five,
[115]


NOBODY
>


despite hair like snow that framed a face of rich
but indisputably native complexion.
In her regard, when it was accorded exclusively
to Sally, the girl divined a mildly diverted question,
quite reasonable, as to her choice of travelling cos-
tume. Otherwise her reception was cordial, with
reservations; nothing warranted the assumption that
Mrs. Gosnold (Aunt Abby by her legitimate title)
was not disposed to make up her mind about Miss
Manwaring at her complete leisure. Interim she
was very glad to see her; any friend of Adele’s was
always welcome to Gosnold House; and would Miss
Manwaring be pleased to feel very much at
honae.
At this point Mrs. Standish affectionately linked
arms with her relation and, with the nonchalant.
rudeness that was in those days almost a badge of
caste, dragged her off to a cool and dusky corner of
the panelled reception-hall to acquaint her with the
adulterated facts responsible for the phenomenon
of Miss Manwaring.
“Be easy,” Mr. Savage comforted the girl airily;
“trust Adele to get away with it. That young
woman is sure of a crown and harp in the hereafter
if only because she’ll make St. Peter himself believe
black is white. You’ve got nothing to worry about.
Now I’m off for a bath and nap; just time before
luncheon. See you then. So-long.”
[116]


ALIAS MANWARING


He blew a most débonnaire kiss to his maternal
aunt and trotted lightly up the broad staircase; and
as Sally cast about for some place to wait incon-
spicuously on the pleasure of her betters, Mrs. Gos-
nold called her.
“Oh, Miss Manwaring!”
The girl responded with an unaffected diffi-
dence apparently pleasing in the eyes of her pros-
pective employer.
“My niece has been telling me about you,” she
said with an engaging smile; “and I am already
inclined to be grateful to her. It isn’t often—truth
to tell——she makes such prompt acknowledgment of
my demands. And I’m a most disorderly person, so
I miss very much the services of my former secre-
tary. Do come nearer.”
Sally drew within arm’s-length, and the elder
woman put out a hand and caught the girl’s in a
firm, cool, friendly grasp.
“Your first name?” she inquired with a look of
keen yet not unpleasant scrutiny.
“Sarah,” said Sarah bluntly. “Man’aring” stuck
in her guilty throat.
“S-a-r-a,” Mrs. Standish punctiliously spelled it
out.
“Thank you; I recognise it now.” A shrewd,
sidelong glance flickered amusement at Mrs. Gos-
nold’s niece. “You come from the middle West, I
[117]


NOBODY


understand, and you’ve had rather a hard time of it
in New York. What do you do best?”
“Why—I’ve tried to write,” Sally confessed
shyly.
“Oh? Novels?”
“Not quite so ambitious; short stories to begin
with and then special articles for the newspapers—
anything that promised to bring in a little money,
but nothing ever did.”
“Then, I presume, you’re familiar with type-
writers?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And can punctuate after a fashion?”
“I think so.”
“You don’t look it; far too womanly, unless your
appearance is deceptive, to know the true difference
between a semicolon and a hyphen. No matter;
you have every qualification, it seems, including a
good manner and a pleasant smile. You’re en-
gaged—on probation; I mean to say, for this one
week we’ll consider you simply my guest, but willing
to help me out with my correspondence. Then, if
you like the place and I like you as much as I hope
I shall, you’ll become my personal secretary at a
salary of twenty-five dollars a week and all ex-
penses. N o—don’t thank me; thank your sensible
eyes.”
Mrs. Gosnold laughed lightly, gave Sally’s hand
4. a. _..1: . I,__..,__..-._
[118]


ALIAS MANWARING


a final but barely perceptible pressure, and released
It.
“Now Thomas will show you your room. Mrs.
Standish tells me she has promised to outfit you;
her maid will bring you more suitable things by the
time you’ve had your tub and some rest. Plenty of
time; we lunch at one-thirty.”
The girl stammered some sort of an acknowledg-
ment ; she was never able to recall precisely what she
said, in truth, but it served. And then .she was
amazedly ascending the broad staircase and follow-
ing the flunky’s back down a long, wide, drafty
corridor to a room at one extreme of the building—
a small room, daintily furnished and bright with
summery cretonne, its individual bath adjoining.
“I’ll be sending the maid to you at once, ma’am,”
said Thomas, and shut the door.
Sally wandered to a window, lifted the shade,
and looked out with bewildered eyes.
From the front of the house to the edge of the
cliff the grounds were as severely composed as an
Italian formal garden; but to one side, screened by
high box hedges, a tennis-court was in the active
possession of four young people, none of them, ap-
parently over twenty years of age. Their calls and
clear laughter rang in the quietness, vibrant with
careless joy of living.
They did not in the least suggest the crew of
[119]


NOBODY


adventurers which Mrs. Standish had led Sally to
expect.
Thus far, indeed, Sally had failed to detect any-
thing in the atmosphere of the establishment or in
the bearing of its mistress to bear out the innuendo
that Gosnold House was infested by a parasitic
swarm and “Aunt Abby” the dupe of her own un-
holy passions. Doubts hummed in Sally’s head,
and she was abruptly surprised to find the view ob-
scured by a mist of her own making—by, in short,
nothing less than tears.
The simple kindliness of Mrs. Gosnold’s welcome
had touched the impostor more deeply than she had
guessed. All this was offered her, this life of semi-
idleness and luxury in this spot of poetic beauty, in
return for nothing but trifling services. But she
was not worthy!
A little gust of anger shook her—anger with her
benefactors, that they could not have introduced her
to this mundane paradise as her simple self, Miss
Manvers—Sarah with the vulgar h—by her own
merits and defects to stand or fall. . . .
But, as though the fates were weaving the fab-
ric of her destiny less blindly than is their com-
monly reputed custom, the young woman’s con-
science during those few first hours had little time
in which to work upon her better nature. Its first
squeamish qualms, when it at length got Sally alone,
[120]


ALIAS MANWARING


were quickly counteracted by a knock at her door
and what followed—the entrance of a quiet-man-
nered maid whose fresh-coloured countenance loomed
like some amiable, mature moon above a double
armful of summery apparel.
“Mrs. Standish’s compliments, ma’am, and I’m
bringing your things. There’s more to come—as
much again I’m to fetch immediate—and the rest,
Mrs. Standish’says, there’ll be time enough for after
luncheon, when all her trunks is unpacked.”
Carefully depositing her burden upon the bed, she
beamed acknowledgment of Sally’s breathless thanks
and made off briskly, to return much too soon to suit
one who would have been glad of longer grace in
which to become more intimately acquainted with
this new donation of her ravishing good fortune.
None the less, it didn’t need another double arm-
ful of beautiful things to satisfy Sally that, what-
ever and how many might be the faults of her bene-
factress, niggardliness was not of their number.
“That’s all for now, and Mrs. Standish’s com-
pliments, and will you be so kind as to stop and see
her, when you’re dressed, before going down to
lunch. It’s the last door on the left, just this side
the stairs. Will I turn on your bath now?”
“Please don’t trouble. I—-”
“No trouble at all, ma’am. Indeed, and I’m sure
you’ll find us all very happy to do anything we can
[12!]


ALIAS MANWARING


this gratuitous source of information. With
some guilty conceit, befitting one indulging in al-
most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall an extrava-
gantly absent-minded “Yes?” and was rewarded,
quite properly, with a garrulous history of her pre-
decessor’s career, from which she disengaged only
two profitable impressions: that the staff of servants
was devoted to their mistress, and that it would lit-
tle advantage a secretary to quarrel with the one in
the hope of ingratiating herself with the other.
So she contrived, as soon as might be WlthOut
giving offence, to interrupt and dismiss the maid;
then steeled her heart against the temptation to try
on everything at once, and profited by long practice
in the nice art of bathing, dressing, breakfasting,
and trudging two miles in minimum time—between,
that is, the explosion of a matutinal alarm and the
last moment when one might, without incurring a
fine, register arrival on the clock at Huckster’s en-
trance for employees. She hadn’t the slightest no-
tion what Mrs. Standish might want of her, but she
was very sure that she didn’t mean to invite dis-
pleasure by seeming careless of the lady’s whims.
Consequently it was surprisingly soon that she
stood, refreshed and comfortable in white linen, tap-
ping at the door that Emmy, the maid, had desig-
nated.
Another maid, less prepossessing, admitted her to
[123]


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' the dressing-room of the woman of fashion; and this
last greeted Sally with a fretful, preoccupied frown,
visible in the mirror, which reflected as well the
excellent results obtainable from discreet employ-
ment of a high-keyed palette.
“Oh, it’s you!” said Mrs. Standish shortly. “I
was hoping you wouldn’t be forever. Though you
do look well in those duds. I’ve something quite
important to say. You may go now, Ellen; I sha’n’t
want you again until evening.”
With a scowl Ellen made off, an effort of masterly
self-restraint alone enabling her to refrain from slam-
ming the door.
“A most ridiculous thing has happened,” Mrs.
Standish pursued, delicately lining in her devastat-
ing eyebrows—“most annoying!” She jerked an
impatient thumb at a telegram that lay open on the
dressing-table. “Read that. It was waiting our
arrival.”
Sally obeyed with an opening wonder that swiftly
gave place to panic consternation.
House entered by burglars last night discovered this
morning forced entrance by scuttle extent of loss unknown
but desk broken open safe cleaned out dining-room silver
gone some clothing dresses missing one of gang evidently
woman garments left in bath-room name indelible ink faded
but apparently manners or manvers police notified detectives
on case advise return please wire instructions—RIGGS.
[1241


ALIAS MANWARING


“Now don’t have hysterics!” Mrs. Standish
snapped as Sally, with a low cry of dismay, sank
stunned into a chair. “There’s nothing for you to
fret about—you’re all right, here, with me, under
my protection. Nobody’s going to look for you
here; but think how fortunate it was I had the wit
to change your name. ,'No, it’s I who have to
worry!”
“But I don’t understand,” the girl stammered.
“Of course there must be some mistake; you haven’t
really lost anythin ”
“Oh, haven’t I? I wish I could believe that.
Don’t you see what the telegram says—‘safe cleaned
out, dining-room silver gone’? That sounds suspi-
ciously like a loss to me. Walter didn’t ‘clean
out’ the safe, and of course he didn’t touch the
silver. On the contrary, he’s positive he shut the
safe and fixed the combination before leaving.
As for the dining-room, he didn’t once set foot
in it.”
“Then—that burglar must have come back.”
“That’s our theory, naturally. Walter was so
sure he’d scared the man off, he simply left the scut-
tle closed——”
“But he told me he found hammer and nails and
fastened it up securely!”
“That was just his blague; he was having a good
time, pretending to be what you took him for—an

[125]


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amateur cracksman; he made up that story to fool
you. The truth is, he made an uncommonly asinine
exhibition, even for Walter—so excite'd and upset
by that fight with the real burglar, to say nothing
of the mystery of your interference, that he didn’t
stop to make sure he had got hold of the right jewel-
case. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t; everything I
own of any real value was left behind; what Walter
brought me was an old case containing a lot of
trinkets worth little or nothing aside from senti-
mental associations.”
“Oh, I am so sorry!”
“I’m sure you are, but that doesn’t mend matters.
The only thing that will is for you to make good
here and keep away from New York until the whole
affair has blown over and, above all, never, under
any consideration, breathe a word of the truth to a
living soul.”
“I’m hardly likely to do that, Mrs. Standish; it
wouldn’t—”
“But you might. I’ve got to warn you. Every-
thing depends on secrecy. Suppose some one were
to question you, and you thought you had to tell the
truth—a detective, for instance. It’s not unlikely
that one may come down here to interview me.
Walter is leaving for New York by the first boat—-
in hopes of preventing anything of the sort—but
still it isn’t impossible. And if it ever comes out
[126] t




CHAPTER VII
F R A U D

T Gosnold House that day, in an airy dining-
A room from which sunlight was jealously ex-
cluded by Venetian blinds at every long, wide win-
dow, creating an oasis of cool twilight in the arid
heart of day, ten persons sat at luncheon—a meal
of few and simple courses, but admirably ordered
and served upon a clothless expanse of dark mahog-
any, relieved at each place by little squares of lace
and fine linen, and in the center by a great, brazen
bowl of vivid roses. '
In this strange atmosphere the outsider main-
tained a covertly watchful silence (which, if rarely
interrupted, was altogether of her own election)
and was happily guiltless of any positive fault; long
prescription to the social hinterland of dingy board-
ing-houses, smug quick-lunch rooms, and casual stu-
dio feeding had not affected her nice feeling for the
sensible thing at table. She possessed, furthermore,
in full measure that amazing adaptability which
seems to be innate with most American women of
___ -_.¢,-- _.\i , _,__ __ _ J, I, -
[128]


FRAUD

any walk in life; whatever she might lack to her
detriment or embarrassment she was quick to mark,
learn, assimilate, and make as much her own as if
she had never been without it.
And then—for in spite of reassurances persistently
iterated by Mrs. Standish, the news from New York
troubled her profoundly—preoccupation largely
counteracted self-consciousness through those first
few dreaded moments of Sally’s modest social début.
The men on either side of her she found severally,
if quite amiably, agreeable to indulge her reticence.
Savage, for one, was secretly, she guessed, quite as
much disconcerted by the reported contretemps in
town; but he dissembled well, with a show of whim-
sical exasperation because of this emergency that
tore him so soon away from both Gosnold House
and his other neighbour at table, a Mrs. Artemas—
a spirited, mercurial creature, not over-handsome of
face, but wonderfully smart in dress and gesture,
superbly stayed and well aware of it; a dark, fine
woman who recognised the rivalry latent in Sally’s
dark looks without dismay—as Sally conceded she
might well.
On her other hand sat a handsome, Well-bred boy
of eighteen or so, one of the tennis four, answering
to the name of Bob—evidently acheerful soul, but
at ease in the persuasion that comparative children
should be seen and so forth. His partner of the
, A Mia L.
[129]


NOBODY

courts sat next him—name, Babs—a frank-eyed,
wholesome girl, perhaps a year his senior. Their
surnames did not transpire, but they impressed Sally,
and correctly, as unrelated save in community of
unsentimental interests. The other players were
not present.
Aside from these, the faces strange to her were
those of a Miss Pride and Messrs. Lyttleton and
Trego.
The last-named impressed her as a trifle ill at ease,
possibly because of the blandishments of Mrs. Ar-
temas, who had openly singled him out to be her
special prey, and discovered an attitude of proprie-
torship to which he could not be said to respond
with the ardour of a passionate, impulsive nature.
A youngish man, with a heavy body, a bit ungainly
in carriage, Mr. Trego had a square-j awed face with
heavy-lidded, tranquil eyes. When circumstances
demanded, he seemed capable of expressing himself
simply and to the point, with a sure-footed if
crushing wit. In white flannels his broad-shoul-
dered bulk dwarfed the other men to insignificance.
Mr. Lyttleton—assigned to entertain his hostess,
and (or Mrs. Gosnold flattered him) scoring heavily
in that office—was as slenderly elegant and extreme
a gallant as one may hope to encounter between
magazine covers. He had an indisputable air, a
way with him, the eye of a killer; if he perhaps fan-
J 14., I ,_,_
[130]


FRAUD


eied himself a trace too fervently, something subtle
in his bearing toward Mrs. Standish fostered the
suspicion that he was almost fearfully sensible of the
charms of that lady.
Miss Pride, on Mrs. Gosnold’s other hand, was a
wiry roan virgin who talked too much but seldom
stupidly, exhibited a powerful virtuosity in strange
gestures, and pointedly designated herself as a “spin”
(diminutive for spinster) apparently deriving from
this conceit an amusement esoteric to her audience.
Similarly, she indulged a mettlesome fancy for re-
ferring to her hostess as “dear Abigail.” Her own
maiden name was eventually disclosed as Mercedes
—pronounced, by request, Mar-say-daze.
From her alone Sally was conscious at the very
outset of their acquaintance of a certain frigidity
-—as one may who approaches an open window in
the winter unawares. And it was some time before
she discovered that Miss Pride accounted her a rival,
thanks to a cherished delusion, wholly of independ-
ent inspiration, that dear Abigail was a forlorn
widow-woman in sore want of some thoroughly un-
selfish friend—somebody, whose devotion could not
possibly be thought mercenary—somebody very
much like Mercedes Pride, Spin.
The table talk was so much concerned with the
sensation of the hour, the burglary, that Sally grew
quickly indifferent to the topic, and thus was able
' [I31]


NOBODY


to appreciate Savage’s mental dexterity in discussing
it with apparent candour, but without once verging
upon any statement or admission that might count
against the interests of his sister. He seemed wholly
unconstrained, but the truth was not in him. Or,.
if it were, it was in on a life sentence.
The consensus pronounced Mrs. Standish a very
fortunate woman to be so thoroughly protected by
insurance, and this the lucky victim indorsed with
outspoken complacence, even to the extent of a
semiserious admission that she almost hoped the
police would fail to recover the plunder. For while
many items of the stolen property, of course, were
priceless, things not to be duplicated, things (with
a pensive sigh) inexpressibly endeared to one
through associations, she couldn’t deny (more
brightly again) it would be rather a lark to get all
that money and go shopping to replenish her treas-
ure-chests from the most famous jewellers of the
three capitals.
This aspect of the case made Mrs. Artemas frankly
envious. “How perfectly ripping!” she declared.
“I’m almost tempted to hire a burglar of my own!”
“And then,” Lyttleton observed profoundly, “if
one isn’t in too great a hurry—there’s no telling-—
one may run across the lost things in odd corners
and buy them back for a song or so. Anne War-
ridge did, when they looted her Southampton place,
4 ~ A 'L.1.4_,1.A. ,__-_.,_.
[132]


FRAUD


some time ago. Remember the year ‘motor-car pi-
rates’ terrorized Long Island? Well, long after
everything was settled and the inSurance people had
paid up, Anne unearthed several of her best pieces
in the shops of bogus Parisian antiquaries, and
bought them back at bargain rates.”
“It sounds like a sin to me,” Savage commented.
“But I call you all to witness that, if anything like
that happens in this family, I hereby declare in on
the profits. It’s worth something, this trip to town
—and nobody sorry to see me go!”
After luncheon the party dispersed without for-
mality. Mrs. Artemas vanished bodily, Mrs. Stand-
ish in the car with her brother to see him off; Bob
and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and
disappeared forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading over-
due correspondence, Trego was snapped up for auc-
tion bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally
being elected to fourth place as one whose defective
education must be promptly remedied, lest the roof
fall in.
She found it very pleasant, playing on a breeze-
fanned veranda that overlooked the terrace and har-
bour, and proved a tolerably apt pupil. A very little
practice evoked helpful memories of whist-lore that
she had thought completely atrophied by long dis-
use, and she was aided besides by a strong infusion
in her mentality of that mysterious faculty we call
[133]


NOBODY


card-sense. Before the end of the second rubber she
was playing a game that won the outspoken approval
of Trego and Mrs. Gosnold, and certainly compared
well with Miss Pride’s, in spite of the undying in-
fatuation for auction professed by dear Abigail’s
one true friend.
It was noteworthy that dear Abigail seemed to
have no interests of any character that were not pas-
sionately indorsed by her faithful Mercedes.
Pondering this matter, Sally found time to won-
der that Mercedes had not been deemed a suffi-
ciently vigilant protector for the poor rich widow;
it was her notion that Mercedes missed few bets.
A circumstance which Sally herself had over-
looked turned out to be the tacit understanding on
which the game had been made up; and when, at the
conclusion of the third rubber, Mr. Trego summed
up the score, then calmly presented her with a
twenty-dollar bill and some loose silver—Mercedes
with stoic countenance performing the same painful
operation on her own purse in favour of dear Abigail
—the girl was overcome with consternation.
“But—no!” she protested, and blushed. “We
weren’t playing for money, surely!”
“Of course we were!” Miss Pride snapped, with
the more spirit since Sally’s stupidity supplied an
unexpected outlet. “I never could see the amuse-
ment in playing cards without a trifling stake——
[134]


FRAUD


though I always do say five cents a point is too
much for a friendly game.”
“It’s our custom,” Mrs. Gosnold smiled serenely.
“You haven’t conscientious scruples about playing
for money, I hope?”
“Oh, no; but”—Sally couldn’t, simply couldn’t
confess her penniless condition before Miss Pride
and Mr. Trego—“but I didn’t understand.”
“That’s all right,” Trego insisted. “You won it
fairly, and it wasn’t all beginners’ luck, either. It
was good playing; some of your inferences were as
sound as any I ever noticed.”
“It really doesn’t seem right,” Sally demurred.
None the less she could not well refuse the money.
“I must have my revenge!” Miss Pride announced
briskly, that expression being sanctioned by conven-
tion. “To-night, dear Abigail? Or would you like
another rubber now?”
Mrs. Gosnold shook her head and laughed. “No,
thank you; I’ve had enough for one afternoon, and
I’m sleepy besides.” She thrust back her chair and
rose. “If you haven’t tried the view from the ter-
race, Miss Manwaring, I’m sure you’ll find it worth
while. And let your ill-gotten gains rest lightly
on your conscience; put them in the war-chest against
the rainy day that’s sure to dawn for even the best
players. I myself play a rather conservative game,
you’ll find, but there are times when for days on end
[135]


NOBODY


I can’t seem to get a hand much better than a yar-
boroug .”
“Do you,” Sally faltered, timidly appreciating the
impertinence, “do you lose very much?”
“I? No fear!” Mrs. Gosnold laughed again. “It
amuses me to keep a bridge account, and there’s
seldom a year when it fails to show a credit balance
of at least a thousand.”
If Sally’s bewilderment was only the deeper for
this information, she was sensible enough to hold her
tongue.
Why need Mrs. Standish deliberately have ut-
tered so monumental a falsehood about the losses
of her aunt at cards? She might, of course, be
simply and sincerely mistaken, misled by over-solici-
tude fora well-beloved kinswoman.
On the other hand, the gesture of Adele Standish
was not that of a woman easily deceived.
Thus the puzzle swung full circle.
“Mind if I show you the way, Miss Manwaring ?”
“Oh, no!” Sally started from her abstraction to
find Trego had lingered, and, smiling, turned to
the steps that led down to the terrace. “I’ll be
very glad . . .”
But the truth was that she was not glad of this
unsolicited company; she wanted uninterrupted
opportunity to think things over; furthermore, she
thought the sheer weight and masculine force of
S3
s.
a
[136]


FRAUD


Trego’s personality less ingratiating than another’s
—Savage’s, for instance, however shallow, was al-
ways amusing—or Lyttleton’s, with his flashing in-
souciant smile, his easy grace and utter repose of
manner.
But this Mr. Trego, swinging ponderously by her
side down the terrace walks, maintaining what was
doubtless intended as a civil silence but what
achieved only oppressiveness, of a sudden inspired
a sharp impression that he would prove a man easy
to dislike intensely—the sort of man who is capable
of inspiring fear and makes enemies without any
perceptible difliculty.
And if that were so—if, as it seemed, she had
already, intuitively, acquired a distaste for Mr.
Trego—how could she at once retain her self-respect
and his money—money which she had won in defi-
ance of the rules of fair play?
It stuck in her fist, a hard little wad of silver
wrapped in the bill; nearly twenty-one dollars, the
equivalent of three weeks’ pay for drudgery, the
winnings of an idle hour, the increment of false
pretences.
“There’s your view,” Trego’s voice broke upon
the reverie. “Pretty fine, isn’t it?”
They paused in a corner of the terrace, where a
low stone wall, grey, weathered and lichened, fenced
the brow of the cliff; and Sally’s glance compassed
[137]


NOBODY


a panorama of sea and sky and rocky headlands,
with little appreciation of its wild, exquisite beauty.
She uttered an absent-minded “Yes,” hesitated,
plunged boldly: “Mr. Trego, I do wish you’d let
me give back this money!”
His slowness in replying moved her to seek an
answer in his face. He was unquestionably sifting
his surprise for some excuse for her extraordinary
request; a deep gravity informed his heavy-lidded
eyes that were keen with an intelligence far more
alert than she had previously credited.
He said deliberately: “Why?”
“I’d rather not say.” She offered the money in
her open hand. “But I’d feel—well, easier, if you’d
take it back.”
He clasped his hands behind him and shook his
head. “Not without good reason. I don’t under-
stand, and what I don’t understand I can’t be
party to.”
She tried the effect of a wistful smile. “Please!
I wish you wouldn’t make me tell you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t put me in such an uncom-
fortable position. I don’t like to refuse you any-
thing you’ve set your heart on, but my notion of
playing the game is to lose like a loser and—win
like a winner.”
“That’s just it. I can’t win like a winner be-
cause——because I didn’t win fairly.”
[138]


FRAUD


\
“You nEver cheated.”
It was less a question than an assertion.
“How do you know?”
“I’d have known quick enough if you’d tried.
Anyway, you’re not that kind.”
“How do you knoyv I’m not?”
There was a pause. Then Trego smiled oddly.
“Better not ask me. You don’t know me very well
yet.” '
She coloured faintly. “Therr I must tell you you
are wrong. I did cheat. I did, I tell you! I played
for money without a cent to pay, my losses if I
lost. You don’t call that fair play, do you?”
“Depends. Of course, it’s hard to believe.”
“I’m penniless. You don’t understand my posi-
tion here. I’m—nobody. Mrs. Standish took pity
on me because I was out of work and brought me
here to act as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold.”
Trego nodded heavily. “I guessed it. I mean
I felt pretty sure you were—well, of another world.”
He jerked a disrespectful head toward the smiling
face of Gosnold House. “The same as me,” he
added. “That’s why I thought . . . But it doesn’t
matter what I thought.”
An unreasonable resentment held her true to the
course of her purpose. '
“Well, now you know, you must see it’s impds-
sible—”
[139]


NOBODY


“I don’t,” be contended stubbornly. “Maybe I’m
the devil’s advocate, but the way I see it—to begin
with, I was playing for money; if I had won I’d
have expected you to pay up.”
“But I couldn’t—”
“You would have; that is, Mrs. Gosnold would
have paid for you. It was up to her. She meant
it that way. She was staking you against the Pride
person and myself; that’s why you played together;
if you and she had lost, she’d have paid for both.
So, you see, you may as well quit trying to make
me touch that money.”
His sophistry baffled her. She shook her head,
confused and a little angry in defeat, liking him less
than ever.
“Very well. But I don’t feel right about it—
and I think it most unkind of you.”
“Sorry. I only want to play the game as it lies,
and this is my idea of doing it.”
There was a brief pause while Sally, at a loss,
stared out over the shining harbour, now more than
ever sensible of the profound, peaceful beauty of
its aZure floor over which bright sails swung and
swayed like slim, tall ladies treading a measure of
some stately dance.
“If you ask my definition of unfair play,” Trego
volunteered, “it’s this present attitude of yours
—forcing a quarrel on me and getting mad be-
1
[140]


FRAUD


cause I stick up for my notion of a square deal!”
“Oh, you misunderstand!” she protested. “I’m
only distressed by my conception of what’s
wrong.”
“It’s the worst of gambling,” he complained:
“always winds up in some sort of a row.”
“Why gamble, then?”
“Why not? We’ve got to do something here to
keep from yawning in one another’s faces.”
“Is there _so much of it going on all the time—
gambling—here ?”
“Oh, not a great deal. Not bad gambling, at
least.” He smiled faintly. “Not what I call gam-
bling. But I was bred on strong meat—in mining
camps—where my father made his money. There
men gambled with their lives. Here—hmp!” He‘
grunted amusedly. “It’s just enough like the real
thing to make a fellow restless. Sometimes I wish
the old man hadn’t struck it quite so rich. If he
hadn’t, we’d both be happier. As it is, he fluffs
around, making a pest of himself in Wall Street
because he thinks it’s the proper thing. And here
am I, instead of earning dividends on what little
’ knowledge I do happen to possess, sticking round
with a set of idle egoists, simply because the old
man’s got his heart set on his son being in society!
He won’t be happy till he sees me married to one
of these—er—women. Sometimes . . .”
[I41]


NOBODY


Morosely he rurninated on the suppressed adjec-
tive for a moment. “Sometimes I feel it coming
over me that the governor’s liable to be happy, ac-
cording to his lights, considerably quicker than I
am.”
[142]




_ CHAPTER VIII-
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

HE sat beside the wide window of her bed-
chamber, on that third midnight at Gosnold
House, in a state of lawless exaltation not less
physical than spiritual and mental, a temper that
proscribed sleep hopelessly.
The window was open, the night air still and
suave and warm, her sole protection a filmy négligée
over a night-dress of sheerest silk and lace. And
in that hour Sarah Manvers was as nearly a beauti-
ful woman as ever she was to be—her face faintly
flushed in the rich moonlight, faintly shadowed
from within by the rich darkness of her blood,
her dreaming eyes twin pools of limpid shad-
ow, her dark lips shadowed by a slight elusive
smile.
She was relishing the sensation of life intensely,
almost painfully; she was intensely alive for the
first time in all her life, it seemed; in throat and
wrists and temples pulses sang, now soft, now loud;
and all her body glowed, from crown of head to
[I43]


NOBODY


tips of toes nestling in silken mules, with the warmth
and the languor of life.
She was deeply and desperately in love.
The genius of her curious destiny, not content
with making her free of all the good material things
of life, had granted her as well this last and dearest
boon. For though her years were twienty-seven
she had not loved before. She had dreamed of love,
had been in love with love and with being loved, had
believed she loved; but nothing in her experience
compared with such rapture as to-night obsessed
her being, wholly and without respite.
Life, indeed, grants no compensation for the ig-
nomirrious necessity of love but this, that no other
love was ever real but to-day’s alone.
And so the beauty of that moonlight midnight
seemed supemal. Becalmed, the island lay steeped
in floods of ethereal silver, its sky an iridescent dome,
its sea a shimmering shield of opalescence, its lawns
and terraces argentine shadowed with deepest violet.
There was never a definite sound, only the sibilance
of a stillness made of many interwoven sounds, soft
lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet below,
hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and planta-
tions, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and
homeless in that vast serenity, wailing of a far vio-
lin, rumour of distant motor-cars. A night of
potent witchery, a woman willingly bewitched. . . .
_— <s-_ i.
[I44]


NOBODY


of an admirable person, he wore the habit of dis-
tinction like a garment made for him alone. In
short, the man was irresistible, and the woman didn’t
' even want to resist but only despaired of oppor-
tunity ever to capitulate.
She was as love-sick as a schoolgirl of sixteen;
a hundred times, if once, her barely parted lips
breathed his name to the sympathetic night that
never would betray her: “Donald—Donald—Don-
aid Lyttleton. . . .”
Now all the while she wasted sighing for him
by the window Mr. Lyttleton spent idly speculating
about her—lounging in a corner of the smoking-
room, on the edge of a circle of other masculine
guests making common excuse of alcohol to defer
the tiresome formalities of going to bed and getting
up again in the morning.
If this gentleman was Sally’s junior in the matter
of a year or two, he was overwhelmingly her senior
in knowledge of his world—a world into which he
had been brought neither to toil nor yet to spin, but
simply to be the life and soul of the party. And
at twenty-five he was beyond permitting sentiment
to run away with judgment; he could resist tempta-
tion with as much fortitude as any man, always
providing he could see any sound reason for resisting
it—any reason, that is, promising a profit from the
deed of abstinence.
[I46]


\
Mr. Lyttleton had ten thousand a year of his own,
income from a principal fortunately beyond his
power to hypothecate; he spent twenty thousand
with an easy conscience; he earnestly desired to be
able to spend fifty without fear of consequences.
Talents such as his merited maintenance—failing
independent means, such maintenance as comes from
marrying money and a wife above suspicion of par-
simony. If only he had been able, or even had cared
to behave himself, Mr. Lyttleton’s fortunes might
long since have been established on some such satis-
factory basis. But he was sorely handicapped by
the weakness of a sentimental nature; women would
persist in falling in love with him—always, un-
happily, women of moderate means. He couldn’t
help being sorry for them and seeking to assuage
their sufferings; he couldn’t forever be running
away from some infatuate female; and so he was
forever being found out and forgiven—by women.
Most men, meanly envious, disliked him; all men
held him in pardonable distrust. Devilish hard luck.
Take this Manwaring girl—pretty, intelligent,
artless little woman, perhaps a bit mature, but fas-
cinating all the same, affectingly naive about her
trouble, which was simply spontaneous combustion,
one more of those first-sight affairs. He had noticed
the symptoms immediately, that night of her intro-
duction to Gosnold House. He hadn’t paid much
A THIE'F IN THE NIGHT

\
\
[147]


NOBODY


attention to her during luncheon, and only sought
her out—when they got up, on the spur of the
moment, that informal after-dinner dance by
moonlight on the veranda—partly because he hap-
pened to notice her sitting to one side, so obviously
longing for him to ask her, partly because it was
his business to dance, and partly because—well,be-
cause it was less dangerous, everything considered,
than dancing with Mrs. Standish.
And then the eloquent treachery of Sally’s eyes
and that little gesture of surrender with which she
yielded herself to his guidance. It was really too
bad, he thought, especially since she had made occa-
sion to tell him frankly she hadn’t a dollar to bless
herself with. Still, he must give himself credit for
behaving admirably; he hadn’t encouraged the girl.
Not much, at all events. Of course, it wasn’t in
human nature to ignore her entirely after that ; more-
over, to slight her would have been conspicuous,
not to say uncivil. But one must draw the line
somewhere.
To-night, for example, he had danced with her
perhaps too often for her own good, to say nothing
of his own. And they had sat out a dance or two——
awfully old-fashioned custom; went out years ago
——still, one did it, regardless, now and then.
Curious girl, the Manwaring; one moment almost
melting into his arms, the next practically warning
k “am-p ...__ .‘-Jl_.-‘-.'---- M"-
[148]


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
.¢_.


him against herself. And curiously reticent—said
she was “Nobody”—let it go at that. Very probably
told the truth; she seemed to know nobody who was
anybody; and though she was apparently very much
at her case most of the time, and not readily im-
pressed, he noticed now and then a little tensity
in her manner, a covert watchfulness of other
women, as though she were waiting for her cue.
At this juncture in his reverie Mr. Lyttleton per-
emptorily dismissed luckless Miss Manwaring from
his mind, compounded his nightcap at the buffet,
and joined in the general conversation.
Coincidentally the reverie of Miss Manwaring at
her bedchamber window digressed to review frag-
mentarily the traffic and discoveries of three won-
derful days.
Days in whose glamorous radiance the romance
of Cinderella paled to the complexion of a sordidly
realistic narrative of commonplaces; contemplating
them, Sally, for the sake of her self-conceit, felt
constrained to adopt an aloof, superior, sceptical
pose. Conceding freely the incredible reality of
this phase of her history, she none the less contended
that in it no more true permanence inhered than
in a dream.
She recapitulated many indisputable signs of the
instability of her affairs. And of all those the
foremost, the most glaring, was her personal success,
[I49]


NOBODY


at once actual and impossible. She saw herself
(from that remote and weather-beaten coign of scep-
ticism) moving freely to and fro in the great world
of the socially elect, unhindered, unquestioned,
tacitly accepted, meeting, chatting, treating and
parting with its denizens with a gesture of confidence
that was never the gesture of S. Manvers of the
Hardware Notions; a Nobody on terms of equality
with indisputable Somebodies—vastly important
Somebodies indeed, for the most part; so much so
that by common consent mankind had created for
them a special world within the world and set it
apart for their exclusive shelter and delectation, for
them to live in and have their being untroubled
and uncontaminated by contact with the common-
alty.
‘ For all that, Sally couldn’t see why they must be
so cared for and catered to. The only thing that
apparently distinguished them from those who
lacked their advantages, who looked up reverently to
them and read enviously of their doings in the
papers, was their assurance, a quality ostensibly in-
imitable; yet she imitated it with seemingly flawless
art. A contradiction that defied her wits to recon-
cile.
She wasted time in the endeavour; her oiwn per-
sonality was prepossessing; she had sufficifent tact
never to seek to ingratiate herself; her solecisijns were
[150] *
fi-IA” M»
|
l


NOBODY


mysteriously, was bent on marrying him by main
strength and good-will first time she caught him with
lowered guard.
His misgivings were measurably corroborated by
the attitude towardSally adopted by Mrs. Standish
in her capacity as close friend, foil, and confidant
of Mrs. Artemas. In the course of those three days
the girl had not been insensible to intimations of
a strong, if as yet restrained, animus in the mind
of the older woman. In alarm and regret she did
her futile best to discourage this gentleman without
being overtly discourteous. She could hardly do
more; impossible to explain to her benefactress that
he was not the man of her heart’s choice.
Unfortunately, Trego was indifferent to tempered
rebuffs.
“If you don’t mind,” he interrupted one of Sally’s
protracted snubs, “I’ll just stick around and keep
on enjoying the society of a human being. Of
course, I know these others are all human in their
way, but it isn’t your way or mine. Perhaps it only
seems so to me because I don’t understand ’em.
It’s quite possible. One thing’s sure, they don’t
understand me. At least, the women don’t; I can
get along with the men—most of ’em. They’re not
a bad lot, if immature. You can stand a lot of
foolishness from children once you realise their
grown-uppishness is only make-believe.
[152]


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT


“They don’t know how to enjoy themselves,” he
expatiated; “they’ve got too much of everything,
including spare time. What’s a holiday to anybody
who has never done a stroke of work? You and I
know the difference; we can appreciate the fun of
loafing between spells of work; but these people '
have got no standards to measure their fun by, so
it’s all the same to them—flat, vapid, monotonous,
unless they season it up with cocktails and carrying
on; and even that gets to have all the same flavour
of tastelessness after a while. That’s why so many
of these women are going in for the suffragette busi-
ness; it isn’t that they care a whoop for the vote;
it’s because they want the excitement of wanting
something they haven’t got and can’t get by signing
a check for it.”
“You’re prejudiced,” the girl objected. “You’re
at loose-ends yourself, idle and restless, and it dis-
torts your mental vision. For my part, I’ve never
met more charming people—”
“That’s your astigmatism,” he contended. “You’ve
been wanting this society thing all your life, and
now you’ve got it you’re as pleased as a child with
a new toy. Wait till the paint wears off and it
won’t shut its eyes when you put it down on its back
and sawdust begins to leak out at the joints.”
“VVouldn’t it be>more kind of you to leave me
to discover the sawdust for myself?”
[153]


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT


vent her carrying to her grave the memory of this
one glorious flight: “better to have loved and lost—”
The wraith of an old refrain troubled Sally’s
reverie. How did it go? “Now die the dream—”
Saturate with exquisite melancholy, she leaned
out over the window-sill into the warm, still moon-
light, drinking deep of the wine-scent of roses, dwell-
ing upon the image of him whom she loved so
madly. I
What were the words again?
6
‘. . . The past is not in vain,
For wholly as it was your life,
Can never be again, my dear,
Can never be again.”
She shook a moumful head, sadly envisaging the
loveliness of the world through a mist of facile
tears; that was too exquisitely, too poignantly true
of her own plight; for, wholly as it was, her life
could never be again.
And not for worlds would she have had it other-
wise. L
Below, in the deserted drawing-room, a time-
mellowed clock chimed sonorously the hour of two.
Two o’clock of a Sunday morning, and all well;
long since Gosnold House had lapsed into decent
silence; an hour ago she had heard the last laggard
footsteps, the last murmured good nights in the
[157]


NOBODY


corridor outside her door as the men-folk took them-
selves reluctantly off to their beds.
She leaned still farther out over the sill, peering
along the gleaming white facade; no window
showed a light that she could see. She listened
acutely; not a sound but the muttering of fretful
little waves and the drowsy complaint of some bird
troubled in its sleep.
Of all that heedless human company, it seemed,
she alone remained awake.
Something in that circumstance proved almost
resistlessly provocative to her innate lust for adven-
ture. For upward of two hours she had been passive
there in her chair, a-prey to imeas‘y thoughts; now
she was weary 'with much thinking, but as far as
ever from the wish to sleep; never, indeed, more wide
awake—possessed by a demon of restlessness, con-
sumed with desire to rise up and go out into the
scented moonstruck night and lose herself in its
loneliness and—see what she should see.
Why not? No one need ever know. A stair-
case at her end of the corridor—little used except
by servants—led to a small door opening directly
upon the terrace. Providing it were not locked
and the key removed, there was no earthly reason
why, if so minded, she should not go quietly forth
that way and drink her fill of the night’s loveliness.
To a humour supple to such temptation the tang
[158]


_A THIEF IN THE NIGHT


of lawlessness in a project innocent enough was
irresistible. Besides, what was the harm? What
could be the objection, even were the escapade to
be discovered by misadventure?
Among other items in her collection of borrowed
plumage she possessed an evening wrap, somewhat
out of fashion, but eminently adapted to her pur-
pose—long enough to cloak her figure to the ground,
thus eliminating all necessity for dressing against
chance encounter with some other uneasy soul. Worn
with black stockings and slippers, it would render
her almost invisible in shadow.
In another minute, without turning on a light,
she had found and,,donned those several articles,
and from her door was narrowly inspecting the hall-
way before venturing a step across the threshold.
It was quite empty and silent, its darkness mod-
erated only by the single nightlight burning at the
head of the main staircase.
Satisfied, she closed the door and crept noiselessly
down the steps, to find the side door not even locked.
Leaving it barely ajar, she [stepped out beneath
the stars, hesitated for a moment of cautious recon-
naissance, then darted across an open space of moon-
light as swiftly as the shadow of a cloud wind-sped
‘ athwart the moon, and so gained the sheltering
shadow of the high hedge between the formal gar-
den and tennis-court.
[159]


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT


zigzag of stairs to the sands, looked back toward
the house.
Sally held her breath. But her heart was like a
mad thing—the man was Donald Lyttleton. He
still wore evening dress, but had exchanged the
formal coat for that hybrid garment which Sally
had lately learned should not be termed a Tuxedo.
The brim of a soft, dark hat masked his eyes. He
carried one shoulder stiny, as if holding something
in the hollow of his arm. She could not make out
or imagine what this might be.
His hesitation was brief. Satisfied, he swung
round to the stairway, in another instant had van-
ished. Only light footfalls on the wooden steps told
of a steady descent, and at the same time furnished
assurance that Sally had not victimised herself with
a waking vision bred of her infatuation.
The footfalls, not loud at best, had become in-
audible before she found courage to approach the
platform. With infinite pains to avoid a sound, she
peered over the edge of its stone parapet.
For a little the gulf swam giddily beneath her
who was never quite easy at any unusual height.
But she set herself with determination to master this
weakness and presently was able to examine the
beach with a clear vision.
It was only partially shadowed by the cliffs, but
that shadow was dense, and outside it nothing
[161]


NOBODY


stirred. None the less, after a time she was able
to discern Lyttleton’s figure kneeling on the sands
at the immediate foot of the cliff, a hundred feet
or so to one side of the steps. And while she watched
he rose, stood for a little staring out to sea, wasted
a number of matches lighting a cigarette (which
seemed curious, in view of the unbroken calm) and
moved on out of sight beyond a shoulder of stone.
She waited fully ten minutes; but he did not
reappean
Then, retreating to her seat on the stone wall,
she waited as long again—still no sign of Lyttleton.
But something else marked that second period of
waiting that intrigued her no less than the mys-
terious actions of her beloved—this although she
could imagine no link between the two.
Some freak of chance drew her attention to a
small, dark shape, with one staring red eye, that
was stealing quietly across the Sound in'the middle
distanch indefinite contour against the darken-
ing waters, but undoubtedly a motor-boat, since
there was no wind to drive any sailing vessel at its
pace, or indeed at any pace at all.
While she watched it incuriously it came to a
dead pause, and so remained for several minutes.
Then, deliberately, with infinitely sardonic effect, it
winked its single eye of red' at her—winked porten-
tously three times.
_ _ .a.__-
[162]


A THIEF IN THE NIGHT


She made nothing of that, and in her profound
ignorance of all things nautical might have con-
sidered it some curious bit of sea etiquette had she
not, the next instant, caught out of the corner of
her eye the sudden glow of a window lighted in
the second story of Gosnold House.
As she turned in surprise the light went out. A
pause of perhaps twenty seconds ensued. Then the
window shone out again—one in the left wing, the
wing at the end of which her bedchamber was lo-
cated. But when she essayed to reckon the rooms
between it and her own it turned black again, and
after another twenty seconds once more shone out
and once more was lightless.
After this it continued stubbome dark, and by
the time Sally gave up trying to determine precisely
which window it had been, and turned her gaze sea-
ward again, the boat had vanished. Its lights, at
least, were no longer visible, and it was many min-
utes before the girl succeeded in locating the blur
it made on the face of the waters. It seemed to
be moving, but the distance was so great that she
could not be sure which way.
A signal—yes, obviously; but between whom and
for what purpose?
Who was on that boat? And who the tenant of
that room of the flashing window? She was satis-
fied that the latter was one of a row of six windows
[I63]


NOBODY


to three rooms occupied by Mrs. Standish, Mrs.
Artemas, and a pretty young widow who had ar-
rived late Saturday afternoon and whose name Sally
had yet to learn.
She pondered it all with ever-deepening perplexity
until a change came over the night—a wind stirred,
leaves rattled, boughs soughed plaintively, the
waters wakened and filled the void of silence with
soft clashing. Then, shivering, Sally rose and crept
back toward the house.
But when she paused on the edge of the last
shadow, preparatory to the dash across the moonlit
space to the door, a step sounded beside her, a hand
caught at her cloak.
She started back with a stifled cry.
“Steady!” Lyttleton’s voice counselled her guard-
edly. “Don’t make a row! Blessed if it ain’t Miss
In
Manwaring .
[I64]




CHAPTER IX
PICAROON

LUCKING peremptorily at her cloak, Lyttle-
ton drew the girl to him and, seizing her
hand, without further ceremony dragged her round
the clump of shrubbery to a spot secure from ob-
servation.
She submitted without a hint of resistance. But
she was trembling violently, and the contact with
his hand was as fire to her blood.
Pausing, he stared and laughed uncertainly.
I”
“Of all people. he said in an undertone. “I
never for an instant thought of you!”
Controlling her voice tolerably, she asked directly:
“How did you get up again without my seeing
you?”
“Simply enough—by the steps of the place next
door. I saw you watching me——saw your head over
the edge of the landing, black against the sky—and
knew I’d never know who it was, unless by strategy.
So I came up the other way and cut across to head
you off.”
[165]


NOBODY


He added, after a pause, with a semi-apologetic
air: “What do you mean by it, anyway?”
“What——?”
“Watching me this way—spying on me—?”
“But I didn’t mean to. I was as surprised to see
you as you were, just now, to see me.”
‘ ‘Honestly ?”
His eyes searched hers suspiciously. Flushing,
she endeavoured to assume some little dignity—-
drew up, lifted her chin, resumed possession of her
hand. '
“Of course,” she said in an injured voice.
“Sure Mrs—sure nobody sent you to spy on
me?”
“Mr. Lyttleton!”
“I want to believe you.”
“You’ve no right not to!”
“But what, will you tell me, are you doing out
here this time of night?”
“I came out because I wanted to—I was restless,
couldn’t sleep.”
He reflected upon this doubtfully. “Funny
freak,” he remarked.
“You’re impertinent!”
“I don’t mean to be. Forgive me. I’m only
puzzled—” ‘
“So am I puzzled,” she retorted with spirit.
“Suppose you tell me what you’re doing out here at
[166]


PICAROON


this time of night—down on the beach—anxitiiis to
escape notice. If you ask me, I call that a funnier
freak than mine!”
“Quite so,” he agreed soberly; “and a very rea-
sonable retort. Only I can’t tell you. It’s—er—a
private matter.”
“So I presumed—”
“Look here, Miss Manwaring; this is a serious
business with me. Give me your word—”
“What makes that essential? Why do you think
I’d lie—to you?”
It was just that little quaver prefacing her last
two words which precipitated the affair. Otherwise
a question natural enough under the circumstances
would have proved innocuous. But for the life of
her she could not control her voice; on those simple
words it broke; and so the question became con-
fession—confession, accusation and challenge all in
one.
It created first a pause, an instant of breathless
suspense, while Lyttleton stared in doubt and Sally
steeled herself, with an effect of trembling, reluc-
tant, upon the brink of some vast mystery.~
Then: “To me?” he said slowly. “You mean
me to understand you might lie to another—but
not to me?”
Her response was little better than a gasp: “You
know it!”
[167]


NOBODY


He acknowledged this with half avnod; he knew
it well, too well.
Now she must have seemed very lovely to the
man in that moment of defiance. She saw his eyes
lighten with a singular flash, saw his face darken
suddenly in the paling moonlight, and heard the
sharp sibilance of his indrawn breath.
And whether or not it was so, she fancied the
wind had fallen, that the night was hushed once
more, and now more profoundly than it had ever
been, as though the very world were standing still
in anticipation.
She heard him cry, almost angrily: “Oh, damn
it, I must not!”
And with that she was in his arms, sobbing, pant-
ing, going to heaven against his lips. . . .
Then fell a lull. She was conscious that his em-
brace relaxed a trifle, heard the murmur of his con-
sternation: “Oh, this is madness, madness!”
But when she tried to release herself his arms
tightened.
“No!” he said thickly, “not now—not after this.
Don’t. I love you!”
She braced her hands against his breast, struggled,
thrust him away from her, found herself free at
last.
“You don’t!” she sobbed miserably; “you don’t
love me. Don’t lie to me! Let me go!”
[168]


PICAROON


“Why do you say that? You love me, and I—”
“Don’t say it! It isn’t true! I know. I threw
myself at your head. What else could you do?
You care nothing about me; to you I’m just one
more silly woman. No; let me be, please! You
do not love me——you don’t, you don’t, you don’t!”
He shrugged, relinquished his effort to recapture
her, muttered uncertainly: “Blessed if I know!”
Recovering a little, she drew her hands swiftly
across face and eyes that still burned with his kisses.
“Oh!” she cried brokenly, “why did you—why
did 1—?”
“What’s the good of asking that? It’s done
now,” he argued with a touch of aggrieved resent-
ment. “I didn’t mean—I meant to—I don’t know
what I meant. Only—never this.”
He took an impatient stride or two in the shelter
of the shadow, turned back to her, expostulant:
“It’s too bad! I’d have given worlds—”
“But now I’ve gone and done it!” she retorted
bitterly. In chagrin, her own indignation mounted.
“It is too had, poor Mr. Lyttleton !”
That was too much; he came closer and grasped
her wrist. “Why do you talk that way to me?”
he demanded wrathfully. “What have I done—?”
“You? Nothing!” she broke in, roughly wrench-
ing her hand free in a fury of humiliation. “Do
you ever do anything? Isn’t the woman always
[169]


NOBODY


the aggressor? Never your fault—of course not!
But don’t, please, worry; I shan’t ever remind you.
You’re quite free to go and forget what’s happened
as quickly as you like!”
She scrubbed the knuckles of one hand roughly
across her quivering lips. “Forget!” she cried. “Oh,
if only I might ever . . . But that’s my penance,
the mortification of remembering how I took advan-
tage of the chivalry of a man who didn’t care for
me—and couldn’t!”
“You don’t know that,” Lyttleton retorted.
Provoked to imprudence by this sudden contrariety,
this strange inconsistence, he made a futile attempt
to regain her hand. “Don’t be foolish. Can’t you
see I’m crazy about you?”
“Oh, yes!” she laughed, contemptuous.
“You’re no fool,” he declared hotly. “You know
well you can’t—a woman like you—play with a
man like me as if he were a child. I tell you I——”
He checked himself with a firm hand; since, it
seemed, she was one who took such matters seriously.
“I’m mad about you,” he repeated in a more subdued
tone, “and I’d give anything if . . . Only . . . the
deuce of it is, I can’t . . .”
“You can’t afford to!” she snapped him up. “Oh,
I understand you perfectly. Didn’t I warn you I
was penniless? You can’t afford to love a penniless
Nobody, can you—a shop-girl masquerading in bor-
[I70]


PICAROON


rowed finery! No—please don’t look so incredu-
lous; you must have guessed. Anyway, that’s all
I am, or was—a shop-girl out of work—before I
was brought here to be Mrs. Gosnold’s secretary.
And that’s all I’ll be to-morrow, or as soon as ever
she learns that I waylay her men guests at all hours
and—steal their kisses!”
“She won’t learn that from me,” said Lyttleton,
“not if you hold your tongue.”
She drew back a pace, as though he had made to
strike her, and for a moment was speechless, staring
into the new countenance he showed her—the set,
cold mask of the insolent, conquering male. And
chagrin ate at her heart like an acid, so that inwardly
she writhed with the pain of it.
“1—!” she breathed, incredulous. “I hold my
tongue! Oh! Do you think for an instant I’m
anxious to advertise my ignominy ?”
“It’s a bargain, then?” he suggested coolly. “For
my part, I don’t mind admitting I’d much rather it
didn’t ever become known that I, too, was—let’s
say—troubled with insomnia to-night. But if you
say nothing, and I say nothing—why, of course——
there’s not much I wouldn’t do for you, my
dear!”
After a little she said quietly: “Of course I
deserved this. But I’m glad now it turned out the
way it has. Two minutes ago I was wild with the
[171]


NOBODY


shame of making myself so cheap as to let you—
of being such a fool as to dream you would lower
yourself to the level of a woman not what you’d
call your social equal, who could so far forget her
dignity as to let you see she cared for you. But,
of course, since I am not that—your peer—but only
a shop-girl, I’m glad it’s happened. Because now
I understand some things better—you, for example.
I understand you very well now—too well!”
She laughed quietly to his dashed countenance:
“Oh, I’m cured, no fear!” and turned as if to leave
him.
He proved, however, unexpectedly loath to let
her go.
Such spirit was not altogether new in his expe-
rience, but it wasn’t every day one met a girl who
had it; whatever her social status, here was rare fire
—or the promise of it. Nor had he undervalued
her; he had suspected as much from the very first;
connoisseur that he was, his flair had not deceived
him.
His lips tightened, his eyes glimmered ominously.
And she was, in a way, at his mercy. If what
she said of herself were true, he need only speak a
word and she would be as good as thrown out. Even
Abigail Gosnold couldn’t protect her, insist on peo-
ple inviting a shop-girl to their houses. And if such
drudgery were really what she had come up from,
Lt ..
[1721


PICAROON


you might be sure she’d break her heart rather than
forfeit all this that she had gained.
And then again she had been all for him from
the very first. She had admitted as much out of
her own mouth. Her own mouth, for that matter,
had taken his kisses—and hungrily, or he was no
judge of kissing. Only the surprise of it, his own
dumb unreadiness, his unwonted lack of ingenuity
and diplomatics had almost lost her to him. Not
quite, however; it was not yet too late; and though
the risk was great, the penalty heavy if he were
discovered pursuing an affair under this roof, the
game was well worth the candle.
Thus Mr. Lyttleton to his conscience; and thus
it happened that, when she turned to go, he stepped
quickly to her side and said quietly: “Oh, please,
my dear—one minute.”
The unexpected humility of his tone, mixed with
the impudence of that term of endearrnent, so struck
her that she hesitated despite the counsel of a sound
intuition.
“We mustn’t part this way—misunderstanding
one another,” he insisted, ignoring the hostility in
her attitude and modulating his voice to a tone whose
potency often had been proved. “Three words‘can
set me right with you, if you’ll only listen—”
She said frostily: “Well?”
“Three words.” He drew still nearer. “I’ve said
[173]


PICAROON


blushed to remember—to cure. And the shock of
waking from that mad dream, no less than the shock
of physical contact, had made her frantic and un-
reasonable. She could but admit that and, admit-
ting it, be generous enough to let him clear himself.
If only he would not insist on his declaration of
love, that she knew to be untrue, as if the compli-
ment of it must be a balm to a spirit as bruised
as her own!
He went on: “And all this because I seemed
to hesitate—because I did hesitate, knowing I
couldn’t say all I wanted to. And before I could
explain—”
“You’re not married?” she inquired with an
absence of emotion that should have warned him.
“Of course not. But I’m dependent, and good
for nothing in a business way. My income is from
my family, and depends on their favour. What can
I say? I love you—I do—on my soul, I do!”
He put his arms once more round her shoulders,
and she did not resist him, but none the less held
her head up and back, eying him steadily.
“I love you desperately, but I can’t ask you to
marry me until I get the permission of my family.
Till then . . . is there any reason . . . ? Be kind
to me, be sweet to me, O sweetest of women! I’m
mad, mad about you!”
With no more warning he lowered his head,
[17s]


NOBODY


fastening his lips to the curve of her throat; and
diScovered suddenly and definitely his error. In a
twinkling it was a savage animal he held in his
arms, and before he knew what was happening she
had broken his grasp and he was reeling back
with a head that rang from the impact of an open
hand upon his ear.
“You shrew!” he chattered. “You infernal little
vixen! And I thought——!”
He sprang toward her, beside himself, with a pur-
pose that failed only through the intervention of a
third party.
A man swinging suddenly round the end of the
hedge shouldered between Lyttleton and the object
of his rage—a man whose bulk, in the loose flannels
of a lounge suit, seemed double that of Lyttleton.
“Oh, here!” said Trego impatiently, but without
raising his voice. “Come, come!” He caught Lyt-
tleton’s wrists and forced them down. “Don’t be
an idiot—~as well as a cad. Do you want to rouse
the household? If you do, and get kicked out, you’ll
never get another chance on this island, my friend.”
“Damn your impudence!” Lyttleton stuttered,
sufliciently recalled to his senses to guard his tone,
and wrenched at his wrists. “Let me go! I’ll—”
“Sure I’ll let you go,” Trego agreed cheerfully.
“But unless you want a thrashing in the presence of
a. lady, you’ll do nothing foolish.”
[176]


PICAROON


With this he released Mr. Lyttleton in such wise
that he was an instant later picking himself up from
the gravel path.
And while he was picking himself up he was
also reflecting swiftly, this notwithstanding that
Sally was no longer present to be a stay upon. their
brawling. \‘
If his look was vicious, his tone was Subdued as
he stood brushing off the dust of his downfall.
“Lucky you came when you did,” he said, with
an effort to seem composed. “I presume I ought to
thank you for knocking me about. This confounded
temper of mine will get me into serious trouble yet
if I’m not careful. I was driven pretty nearly wild
by that little devil—”
“Cut it right there!” Trego interrupted sharply.
“I don’t know anything about your row—didn’t
hear a word that passed between you two—and it’s
none of my business. But if there’s any blame to
be borne, you’d better shoulder it yourself, for I
warn you, I’m not going to hear any woman called
In
names by a pup like you.
'[177]




CHAPTER x
LEGERDEMAIN

ITH a mind half distracted, the battlefield
of a dozen unhappy emotions of which the
most coherent were seething self-reproach and fran-
tic irritation with Trego (why must it have been
he, of all men?) Sally inconsiderately left the two
to conclude their quarrel Without an audience—took
to her heels incontinently and sped like a hunted
shadow across the open lawn. She flung through
the side door and left it wide, stumbled blindly
up-stairs to her bedchamber door, and shut this last
behind her with no anticipation so fond as that of
solitude and freedom to cry her eyes out. ‘
But she had no more than turned from the door
toward her bed, in the same movement shrugging
off her black cloak and letting it fall regardless
to the floor, when she became aware that solitude
was no more in that room, that she shared it with
an alien Presence—a shape of misty pallor, filling
the armchair, silhouetted vaguely against the moon-
lit rectangle of the window.
[178]


LEGERDEMAIN


And she faltered and stopped stock-still, with a
strangled whimper, due in part to sheer surprise,
but mostly to semi-superstitious dread.
The Presence did not move; but she was fright-
fully aware of the fixed regard of its coldly hostile'
eyes.
“Who are you?” she demanded in a choking
whisper. “What are you doing here? What do
you want?”
“Where have you been?” the Presence retorted
in a level voice instantly identified as that of Mrs.
Standish. “What have you been doing”—a spectral
arm gestured vaguely toward the terrace—“out
there?”
Sally took firm hold of herself and mustered all
her wit against this emergency.
“I went out,” she said slowly, “because I couldn’t
sleep, and—everything seemed so lovely. . . .”
“Dressed like that!”
Profound scorn informed this comment. The girl
writhed, but held herself well in hand.
“It was so late,” she explained, “I didn’t think
it possible there’d be anybody else about.”
“Of course you didn’t.” The woman’s tone was
saturated with hateful innuendo. “On the other
hand, you soon discovered your mistake, didn’t
you?”
Sally muttered a sullen “Yes . . .”
Mm"
[179]


NOBODY


“You’re wise not to lie to me,” her patroness
remarked with just a suspicion of satisfaction. “I
knew, you see. I’ve been sitting here, waiting, the
better part of an hour, listening to you two bicker-
ing behind the hedge. You little fool!”
Sally said nothing. Her mood was all obsessed
now with the conviction that this was the end to
her life of a moth. An end to everything; come
morning and she must be cast forth in disgrace, to
go back to . . .
She choked upon an importunate sob and dug
nails into the palms of her hands.
“Who was the man?” Mrs. Standish pursued
inexorably.
Then she didn’t know!
“pr/“Does it matter?” Sally fenced.
“Certainly. I insist upon knowing. Remember
your positionihere—and mine. I have assumed re-
sponsibility for you; but I cannot permit you to
make me answerable for the antics of a man-crazy
woman. If you can’t behave yourself and refrain
from annoying my aunt’s guests, you must go. I
thought you understood that.”
“Of course,” the girl muttered. “You didn’t
think I expected anything else, did you ?”
“Who was the man you followed out there?”
The calculated offensiveness of this was balanced
[180]


LEGERDEMAIN


by its sudden revelation to Sally’s mind of the fact
that Mrs. Standish didn’t know there had been two
men. It was, however, true that the window did
not command a view of the approach to the side
dOOL
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Please, Mrs._ Standish, I’d rather not.”
“Think again, my girl, and don’t forget the cir-
cumstances under which I was persuaded, against
my better judgment, to introduce you here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you forgotten you were caught in the act
of burglarising my house—that I first saw you
wearing clothes stolen from me? You told a story,
but how do I know it was true? You may well
have been an accomplice of the ruffian who nearly
killed my brother.”
“That’s hardly likely, is it?”
“How am I to judge? You may have quarrelled
and turned on hhn in revenge. Judged by your
conduct here, I’m sure you’re capable of anything.
Or you may have thought you saw a way to win,
greater profit by aiding my brother.”
“That’s all nonsense,” Sally retorted hotly, “and
you know it.”
If dismissal from Gosnold House were inevitable,
then there was no reason why she should not call
her soul her own.
[181]


NOBODY


A pause was filled by the dramatic effect of Mrs.
Standish nobly holding her temper in leash.
“When are you going to answer my question?”
Sally was dumb.
“Was it—that man you went out there to meet—”
“I didn’t go to meet anybody. It was an acci-
dent.”
“So you say. Was it some one of the guests
here?”
Silence was all the answer.
“If you persist in your present attitude, remember-
ing your dubious history, I have every right to take
it for granted you went to meet an accomplice in
crime—-”
“Oh, rot!” Sally interjected impatiently.
And then, encouraged by consciousness of her
audacity, she let her temper run away with her for
an instant.
“All that’s no good,” she declared forcibly, “and
you know it. If you mean to speak to Mrs. Gosnold
about me in the morning, and have me sent away
merely because I’ve had an unpleasant experience
and refuse to discuss it with you—when it’s none of
your affair—why, I can’t stop you. But I’m not
a child, to be bullied and browbeaten, and I’m cer-
tainly not going to humour your curiosity about my
private business. And that’s flat. Now run and
tell, if you really must—but you won’t.”
[182]


LEGERDEMAIN


“Oh—indeed?” Mrs. Standish rose with vast
dignity. “And why won’t I, if you please?”
“Because you won’t dare risk that insurance
money, for one thing—”
“So you think you can blackmail—”
“Call it anything you like,” Sally flashed de-
fiantly. “Only bear in mind, I’m not going to sub-
mit tamely and be sent away in disgrace, like a
kitchen-maid. I’ll go, right enough—you don’t need
to worry about that—but I’ll go on my own excuse.
If you tell on me, I’ll tell on you, and I’ll tell
everything I know, too.”
“And what, please,” the woman purred danger-
ously, “do you think you know— ?”
“What about your signalling that yacht just
now ?”
It was shot at a venture; she had no real knowl-
edge that the lighted window had been that of Mrs.
Standish’s bedroom; but it was just possible, and
she chanced it, and it told, though she was not yet
to know that with any certainty.
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Standish
hesitated with a hand on the door-knob.
“You know well enough. I saw what I saw.
People don’t do things like that unless there’s some-
thing secret about it, something they don’t want
known.” '
“I think you must be out of your head,” the
[183]


NOBODY


woman responded with crushing hauteur. “I haven’t
the slightest notion what you mean, and you needn’t
trouble to enlighten me. I don’t in the least care.
But you may sleep on this—that your insolence shall
be properly rewarded as soon as I can see my aunt
in the morning. Good night.”
With a defiant sniff that covered a spirit cringing
in consternation, Sally turned her back and threw
herself angrily into a chair. But the sound that
she had expected of the door closing did not come,
and after a minute she looked round to find Mrs.
Standish still at pause upon the threshold.
“Oh,” said Sally, with an impertinent assumption
of remedying an oversight, “good night, I’m sure!”
Instead of audible reply, the woman shut the door
and turned back to the middle of the room.
“I don’t wish to be unjust,” she said quietly.
“I am quick-tempered, just as you are, but I always
try to be fair in the end. Perhaps I was unpleasant
and too exacting just now; but, you must admit,
I really know little or nothing about you, and have
every right to watch you closely.”
She paused, as if expecting an answer; but before
Sally could overcome her astonishment she resumed
in the same level, reasonable tone:
“I was greatly distressed when I came here and
found you had gone out at this hour of the night:
certainly, you must allow, a queer proceeding on the
r.
[184]


NOBODY


“I quite understand. There—compose yourself.”
“If you still wish me to—if you insist—of course
I’ll tell you—”
“No.” It cost the other woman an effort of re-
nunciation, but she was steadfast to her secret pur-
pose. “Forget that. It doesn’t matter. I had no
right to ask, and really do not care to know. But if
you’re quite able to pay attention, I’d like to consult
with you—about what got me out of bed and
brought me here this morning.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. But it has been on my
nerves all evening, until I felt as if I must talk to
somebody—and you are the only one I can trust.”
Sally stared in a state of dumb bewilderment that
eclipsed all she had experienced before. Truly the
world was topsyturvy this madcap night! What
under the moon now?
“You know how worried I’ve been about that
affair in town. Men are so inconsiderate; simply
because he knew how things were going—and I pre-
sumed they must have been going well—Walter left
me without a word till this evening. Then he
telegraphed he’d be here to-morrow afternoon and
that everything was all right; but that he is bring-
ing with him one of the adjusters for the burglar-
insurance people—a detective, I presume, the man
is, really—and I’ll have to answer some questions
._,_ .-_ hkm_hc-
[186]


LEGERDEMAIN


before we can collect the money to cover my loss.”
“A detective!”
“Adjuster is a much more pleasant name. And
I know it’s merely a matter of formality, and I
oughtn’t to be silly about it, but I can’t help it.
I’ve been on edge ever since, fretting for fear some-
thing would come out about that case that Walter
did bring me from the safe, you remember. If that
were found—as it might be, if they ask me to pro-
duce what jewelry I have with me—well, I simply
can’t think what to do.”
“Why not hide the case ?”
“That’s just it. But where? I can’t imagine.
Of course I can’t very well smuggle it out of the
house myself. So I thought perhaps you . . . At
any rate, I’ve brought it to you.”
“To me?”
“Don’t be alarmed. Nobody will ever suspect
you of any connection whatever with the affair. It’ll
be perfectly safe here, in your keeping, until you find
a way to dispose of it. To-morrow night, for in-
stance, as soon as it’s dark, you might take it down
to the shore, put a stone in it, and throw it out into
the water. Or bury it in the sand. Anything. No-
body will pay any attention if 'you excuse yourself
to go to your room or out to the terrace for half
an hour. But I—well, you must see. I’ve hidden
the case under your pillow. You may find some
[187]


NOBODY


better place for it—but then you haven’t a maid to
hoodwink. I declare it has nearly driven me mad,
these last few days, trying to keep the thing out of
Ellen’s sight. She’s such a nosy, prying creature.”
Mrs. Standish rose. “You will do this for me,
won’t you? I was sure I could depend on you. And
—let us forget our little misunderstanding. I’ve
forgotten it already.”
She had left the room before Sally could formu-
late reasonable protest—reasonable, that is, remem-
bering her burden of obligation to this woman.
It was an hour later before she at length settled
upon satisfactory concealment for the incriminating
jewel-case——in the recess behind a bureau-drawer,
where it fitted precisely in the wrappings she did not
trouble to remove.
In the grey twilight of the dawn at last, she
flung herself upon the bed—and fell instantly asleep.
[188]




CHAPTER XI
THE THIRD DEGREE

N the sequel to that night of mischief and mis-
adventure Sarah Manvers had sound reason to
be thankful for the resilient youth which still ani-
mated her body. But of course she 'wasn’t; youth
will ever misprize till it must mourn its blessings.
Yet by virtue of that inestimable attribute alone
was she able to do with only four hours’ sleep (when
Adele Standish, for example, needed eight, and then
was seedy) and be the first of the household to ap-
pear for breakfast—clear of eye and fresh of colour,
with a countenance as serene as her temper and a
temper as normal as her appetite.
As for this last, she made an excellent breakfast,
alone in the sun-bright dining-room. And if at
times, as she sat and munched, her look was pensive
and remote, this was due less to misgivings than to
mystification.
The quarrel and reconciliation with Mrs. Standish
had cleared the atmosphere of their relations; hence-
forward there could be no more misunderstanding;
[I89]


NOBODY


they hated each other heartily; neither entertained
any illusion as to that; but their interests were too
far interdependent to license any play of private
feeling. Sally wanted to stay on at Gosnold House,
and Mrs. Standish was resigned; Mrs. Standish
wanted her insurance money, and Sally would help
her get it—by keeping quiet. Sally might be dealt
with severely by the law if Mrs. Standish said the
word, and Mrs. Standish, if Sally spoke, would
suffer not only in her pocketbook, but in the graces
of her aunt.
But Sally was not without compunction in respect
to the deception practised on her still prospective
employer. It wasn’t possible to know Mrs. Gosnold
and not like her; if that personality enforced respect,
it was a lodestone for affection, and Sally meant
with all her heart to serve faithfully and well; if
she was to have her way, neither would know a
single regret because of their association until time
and chance conspired to sunder it.
Then, too, sleep had appreciably changed the com-
plexion of her mind toward the Lyttleton episode.
She was not yet able to recall that'chapter of in-
fatuation without a cringe of shame; but that would
pass with time, and the experience had not been
without a value already apparent. For even as she
had said to him, she was cured—and more than
cured, she was instructed; she was not only better
[190]


THE THIRD DEGREE


acquainted with herself, but had learned to read the
Lyttleton temperament too well ever to require
repetition of the lesson. If she had played the fam-
ous moth, she had come through cheaply, with wings
not even singed; for what she had taken for flame
had proved to be no more than cheapest incandes-
eence. She felt so sure of all this that she could
even contemplate the affair with some inklings of
the amusement that it would yet afford her. And
she was fixed to make this the key of her attitude
toward the man in all such future intercourse as was
unavoidable.
But Trego . . .
Trego was a horse of another colour altogether.
The very name of Trego was hateful in her hearing.
There was little she would not willingly have done,
however unjust and unfair, to avoid further com-
munications with this animal of a Trego.
And yet, as she had learned, the term of his stay
at Gosnold House had still another week to run,
and he was in some way a favourite and intimate
of Mrs. Gosnold, apt frequently to figure as her
guest; and since'this was so, and Sally herself bade
fair (barring accidents) to prove a fixture in the
household, it seemed inevitable that they must be
often thrown together. So she must at all costs
school herself to treat him civilly—at least without
overt animosity.
[191]


NOBODY


She could imagine no task more difficult or dis-
tasteful; short of forfeiting her place in this new
sphere, she would have paid almost any price for
remission of that duty.
The irony of life seemed a bitter draft. Grant-
ing it had been requisite to some strange design of
fate, in its inscrutable vagary, that several persons
should suffer a night of broken rest at Gosnold
House, why must they have been those four and
none other—Sally, Adele Standish, Lyttleton,
Trego? Especially Trego! Why that one? Pal-
pable bonds of mutual interest linked the three first
named; their common affliction might conceivably
have been ascribable to subtle psychological affinity.
But Trego was well outside the triangle, even as
perceptiny out of sympathy with a majority of
Mrs. Gosnold’s guests.
Mrs. Standish was studious in her avoidance of
him without appearance of open slight. His nature
and Lyttleton’s were essentially antagonistic. Sally’s
animus had been well defined from the very begin-
ning, when she had resented his being both physically
and temperamentally so completely out of the pic-
ture of that existence to which she aspired.
But reconnaissance up that dark alley demon-
strated it an indisputable impasse and Sally gave it
up, reserving the grievance for tender nursing (she
had a very human weakness for selected wrongs)
— “fie _ .1 M. L, . ._; As-__,._-l->_~.._._|.I_l_,_<
[I92]


THE THIRD DEGREE


and turned her attention to the puzzle involving
Lyttleton’s business on the beach at 2 A. M. and the
signals exchanged between yacht and window.
Nor did she make much headway in this quarter.
Instinct indicated a delicate harmony between those
events and the forrnless shadow to which Sally had
all along been sensitive, of something equivocal in
the pretensions of Mrs. Standish. But that clue
played will-o’-the-wisp with her fancy, leading it
ever farther astray in a bottomless bog of black
bewilderment.
None the less, she had just succeeded in estab-
lishing to her own satisfaction the probability that
her sponsor had been, if not active in, at least ac-
quainted with the business of the signals—reasoning
shrewdly upon that lady’s high-handed treatment of
Sally’s insinuation as inconsequential—when Mr.
Trego elected to appear for breakfast.
That unhappy young man had been more wise
if he had not taken it for granted that nine o’clock
would be too early for Sally as well as for every-
body else who didn’t make breakfast in bed a habit;
and a more diplomatic person would have been at
pains to prepare himself against that inevitable ren-
contre with a young woman of exacerbated sensibili-
ties. Nothing could have been more surely pre-
destined to ghastly failure than his cheerful assump-
tion of a complete understanding, with the hint im-
[I93]


THE THIRD DEGREE


from the beach—” she amended, feeling it obliga-
tory upon her not to seem too short of civility.
“You don’t mind that when you come to it after
va swim,” Trego declared. “It’s only in anticipa-
tion, when you’re snug between sheets and debating
the rival claims of the distant beach and your handy
bathtub; then, I grant you, the climb up the cliff
weighs heavily in the scale of disadvantages.”
He drew out the chair adjoining Sally’s and at-
tacked the half of an iced canteloup, but after the
first mouthful put down his spoon.
“Sugar, please,” he said with a deprecatory
grirnace, indicating the bowl just beyond the girl’s
place. “I know I ought to go in for salt if I want
to come through as a regular guy; but if you won’t
tell on me, I’m going to enjoy this melon in my own
primitive Western way. Than .”
He cormnitted the unpardonable deed with a
liberal hand. “F rightfully weird, you know,” he
mimicked with a chuckle, adding: “It takes the
rude, untutored mind of a barbarian to be satisfied
with sweetening a thing with sweetness instead of
bitterness, doesn’t it?”
“But I prefer salt myself,” said the girl; “it
brings out 'the flavour.”
She concluded her defence in some confusion due
to Trego’s practically synchronous utterance of her
identical phrase: “it brings out the flavour.” Then
[195]


NOBODY


she realised that he had deliberately trapped her
and was meanly laughing in the triumph of his low
cunning. And she had to laugh, too, to save her
face; but it was an empty laugh and accompanied
by a flush that might have warned the man had
he not too soon returned attention to his melon.
“Never fails,” he remarked. “Though, of course,
it isn’t safe to work it on anybody in this outfit——
not, at least, unless you’re pretty sure there’s a trace
of human humour in the make-up of the specimen.
I’m making a collection of those stereotypes; it helps
a lot. 0 table-talk! where is thy sting—when a
fellow knows all the answers?”
He rose, set aside the shell of the maltreated
melon, and returned with his plunder from the hot-
water dishes, to find Sally on the point of leaving.
“Not going?” he protested more soberly. “Don’t
tell me I offended you, catching you up like that!”
“How absurd!” the infuriated girl replied, smil-
ing falsely. “But-——”
“Then, if you’ve nothing pressing on, keep me
company for a little. I want to ask your advice.
I’m puzzled. Maybe you can suggest something.”
She couldn’t well go, then, without betraying
umbrage, so she settled herself with a resigned tem-
per, and for want of a better lead contented her-
self ,with'a conversational stop-gap—“Puzzled?”-——
spoken in an encouraging tone.
[I96]


THE THIRD DEGREE


“Yes. Something I noticed this morning. But
it weaves into last night—maybe. Maybe not. I’m
a slow thinker when it comes to puzzles.”
He filled a cup with coffee from the shining um
and resumed his chair.
“You see . . .” Some intimation of his gaucherie
made him stumble. “Of course,” he went on, semi-
apologetic, “you understand that I’m going on the
assumption that you’re as human as I am.”
“Thank you,” said Sally sweetly.
“Human enough,” he explained, “not to think
I’m a savage because I’ve reminded you of last
night.”
“I see no reason—” she began with dignity.
“And there isn’t any,” he argued heartily. “We’re
both old enough to behave like grown-ups. Only,
a fellow never can tell where he stands with most of
these festive dames.. I’ve been lorgnetted until I’m
scared to open my month. But With you—well,
it’s like meeting somebody from home to talk to
you.” . '
“But the puzzle?” she reminded him with more
patience than he knew.
“Oh, yes. I was going to say when I side-tracked
myself: what got me up was Lyttleton. He has
the room next mine, you know. I’d just turned out
my bedside light—--been reading, you understand—
when I heard his door open very gently and some-
I
\
[I97]


NOBODY


body go pussy-footing down the hall. And for some
reason that kept me awake—because it was none of
my business, I guess—waiting for him to come back
and wondering what in thunder took him out on the
prowl like that. And when I had wondered myself
wide awake I got up and dressed—thought I’d take
a walk, too, since the night was so fine. I honestly
had no idea of following him—that was all an acci-
dent, my butting in the way I did.”
Sudden perception of a footing upon ground
properly taboo even to angels caused the man to
flush brick-red. His eyes sought Sally’s in honest
consternation.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he mumbled.
“Please go on,” she said, conscious of the heat
in her own cheeks, and holding him in an esteem
proportionately more poisonous.
“Well. About this morning: As I say, I went
down to the beach for a dip. You know how that
beach is—about a twelve-foot breadth of sand from
the bottom of the cliff when the tide’s high, with
about twenty feet more when it’s low. So foot-
prints show until the weather rubs them out—takes
a tolerable storm, as a rule. Below high-water
mark it’s different; the sand is covered up and
smoothed out twice a day. Well, then, just below
high-water mark—that is, about five feet below it,
or at quarter-tide mark—I noticed the print of a
c. . e __..___i..~4 ___._.Jumlx:
[198]


THE THIRD DEGREE


rowboat’s bows on the sand. It had landed there
and waited a while——drawn up only part way out
of the water—about three o’clock this morning.
Two men had got out; one waited with the boat, the
other went up toward the foot of the steps and
mixed his footprints up with all the others. I don’t
know what for and can’t imagine; but that’s what
happened, and presently he turned round and went
back to the boat, and the two of them shoved her
off again—trusting, I guess, to the tide to cover
up the signs of their landing.
“Why they should want to be secret about it, God
only knows; but if they didn’t, why three o’clock?
It’s all private beach along here, and Whereas I be-
lieve there are no property rights below high-water
mark, and anybody has a right to land anywhere
in an emergency—where was the emergency? There
was no gale last night, and if there had been, you’d
think distressed mariners would have sense enough
to come ashore farther along, toward the village,
where they could find shelter—and all that. The
more I_think about it, the funnier it looks to me.”
He finished his breakfast and his statement at the
same time, pushed back his chair, and produced a
cigarette-case.
“You don’t mind? Thanks. Now what do you
think?”
Sally shook her head and looked blank. “Three
[199]


THE THIRD DEGREE


to suspect Lyttleton of complicity in something un-
derhand, she would not have betrayed him to this
man—if to anybody.
“I’m sure I can’t say.”
“Well—it’s funny, anyhow. Guess we better not
say anything about it. After all, it’s no concern of
ours.”
She couldn’t refrain from the question: “But
why should you think he—?”
“Well, what war he doing all that time—?”
He checked and stammered with embarrassment.
“I beg your pardon!”
“You needn’t. He wasn’t—with me—all that
time.” i
The situation grown intolerable, Sally got up sud-
denly and without a word of excuse took her scar-
let cheeks out of the dining-room and back to her
bedchamber.
On the dot of their standing appointment she
found Mrs. Gosnold unconsciously, perhaps, but
none the less strikingly posed in the golden glow
of her boudoir window for the portrait of a lady
of quality on fatigue duty—very much at her case
in a lavender-silk morning gown and stretched out
in a chaise longae, a tray with fruit, coffee and rolls
on her left dividing attention with a sheaf of mom-
ing notes on the other side and the portable writing-
case on her knees.
[201]


NOBODY


Acknowledging Sally’s appearance with a pleas-
ant if slightly abstracted smile, she murtnured:
“Oh, is it you, Miss Manwaring? Sit down, please.
Half aminute . . .”
On the guz' nice for any indication that Mrs.
Standish had been false to her word or Mrs. Gos-
nold informed through any other channel of the
secret history of that night and consequently in-
clined to hold her secretary in distrust, Sally de-
tected nothing in the other’s manner to add to her
uneasiness. To the contrary, in fact. She sat and
watched in admiration, and thought that she had
never known a woman better poised, more serenely
mistress of herself and of the technique of life. If
Mrs. Gosnold nursed a secret sorrow, anxiety, or
grievance, the world would never learn of it through
any flaw in the armour of her self-possession.
She wrought busily with a fountain pen for little
longer than the stipulated period of delay, then ad-
dressed and sealed a note and looked up again with
her amiable, shrewd smile.
“Good morning!” she laughed, quite as if she
had not till then recognised Sally’s presence.
“You’ve slept well, I trust?”
Sally did not hesitate perceptibly; the honest im-
pulse prevailed. Secretly she was determined to tell
no more major lies, though the heavens fell—only
such minor fibs as are necessary to lubricate the ma-
[202]


THE THIRD DEGREE


chinery of society. She would do her best, of course,
to preserve the hateful truth that had been so cun-
ningly covered up by the lies of Mrs. Standish’s
first invention; but she would do that best, if pos-
sible, more by keeping silence than by coining and
uttering fresh falsehoods.
“Not so well last night,” she confessed. “I don’t
know what was the matter with me, but somehow
I didn’t seem even to want to sleep.”
“I know,” Mrs. Gosnold nodded wisely. “I’m
not yet old enough to have forgotten these midsum-
mer moonlight nights of ours. When I was a girl
and being courted, from this very house, I know I
used to wait until everybody had gone to bed and
creep out and wander for hours . . .”
Her pause invited confidences. And momentarily
Sally’s heart thumped like a trip-hammer. Did she,
then, either know or guess?
“I did that last night,” she responded; “but I
hadn’t your excuse.”
“You mean, you’re not being courted? Don’t be
impatient. Once to every woman—once too often
to most. And it’s well to take one’s time nowadays.
Perhaps it’s a sign of age, and I shouldn’t own it,
but it does seem to me that the young men of to-day
are an uncommonly godless crew. I should be sorry
to have you make a mistake . . .”
She contented herself with that much warning
[203]


NOBODY


and no more; but Sally knew their thoughts were
one, focused upon a singular though by no means
strange example of the young men of the present
day.
“I think,” her employer pursued, with a look ex-
cusing the transient keenness of her scrutiny, “our
Island air agrees with you. If you have had one
poor night, all the same you’re quite another girl
than the one who came here—was it only four days
ago? I hope you’re quite comfortable.”
“Oh, yes, indeed.”
“And would you care to stay on?”
“With all my heart!”
“I see no reason why you shouldn’t. I like you
very well; you’re quick and willing—and you hu-
mour my Weakness for the respect of my associates.
I don’t ask for their dependence. ‘ If you like, we’ll
say your engagement begins to-day, the first of the
week.”
“You are very kind.”,
“I’m very selfish. I like intelligence, prettiness,
and youth—must have them at any cost! So that’s
understood. Of course, there are certain questions
to be settled, arrangements to be made. For ex-
ample, I assume responsibility for your losses at
bridge, because playing when I wish you to is one
of your duties. But these matters adjust themselves
as they come up from time to time.”
[204]


THE THIRD DEGREE


“Thank you,” said Sally in a tone that, though
little more than a whisper, was more eloquent of her
gratitude than the mere phrase could possibly have
been.
“So now I shall stop calling you Miss Man-
waring.”
“Please do.”
“It’s much too formal, considering I’m old enough
to be your mother.”
“Oh, no!” Sally protested involuntarily. “That
isn’t possible.”
“I’ll not see fifty-five again,” Mrs. Gosnold an-
nounced. “But that’s a boudoir secret.”
“I’ll never—”
“And a secret of Polichinelle besides,” the other
laughed; “everybody I know or care a snap for
knows it. At the same time, no woman cares to
have her age discussed, even if it is public property
and she quite old enough to be beyond such vanity.
No matter; I’m going to call you Sara, if you’ve
no objection.”
“Why not Sally?” the girl suggested tentatively.
“That’s my name—I mean, what I’m accustomed
to.”
“Thank you; I like it even better,” Mrs. Gosnold
affirmed. “I’m conservative enough to favour old-
time names. 'My own, for instance, Abigail, pleases
me immensely, though I seldom meet a young woman
[205]


NOBODY


these days who can hear it without looking either
incredulous or as though she doubted the sanity of
my sponsors in baptism.”
She stayed the obvious reply with an indulgent
toss of a hand still fair.
' “Now to work. I’ve mapped out a busy mom-
ing for you. To begin with, here are a dozen or so
notes to deliver. You may take the dog-cart—no,
to save time, one of the motors. We must give these
good people as much time as possible, considering
it’s a spur-of-the-moment affair. That is why, you
understand, there are so few invitations—because
I’d no time to write and post a number. But each
of these is a bid to some friend with a houseful of
people to come and bring all her guests.
“Oh!” she laughed, catching the look of puzzle-
ment on the girl’s face, “I haven’t told you what
it is. Well, my dear, it’s an old woman’s )whim.
Every so often I break loose this way and keep my
memory green as one who, in her day, never enter-
tained but in some unique fashion. I was once fa-.
mous for that sort of thing, but of late years I
haven’t exerted myself except when bored to extinc-
tion by the deadly commonplace amusements most
people offer us.
“For some time I’ve had this in mind, and every-
thing prepared; you may, if you like, call it a spon-
taneous masquerade by moonlight. Half the fun
_ Habitat-raw; --ll--J
[206] '


THE THIRDZEGREE

_—"—T’ w
of such affairs coriies of the last-moment, makeshift
costumes; if you .__give people much time to think
them up it is always a stiff and frigid function.
Moreover, it demands a perfect night—and we can’t
count on our Island weather twenty-four hours in ad-
vance. But to-day is perfect, and to-night will be
fair with the moon at its full. You may dance on
the veranda or make love on the terrace, just as
you please, from ten o’clock till three—or later.
Supper will be served from midnight on. At one
we shall unmask.
“As I say, all preparations had been made, weather
permitting; I had merely to telephone the caterers,
electricians, and musicians, and scribble these invi-
tations. I’d advise-you to arrange your day to in-
clude a good long nap before dinner, for you’ll be
up till all hours very likely. I fancy I can promise
you some fun.”
Mrs. Gosnold ceased upon a note of mischievous
enjoyment in anticipation that would have suited a
girl of sixteen, then analysed the trouble behind
Sally’s perturbed countenance.
“As for your costume, you’re not to give it a
thought. I have arranged for it to be brought to
your room at half past nine, and I pledge you my
word you’ll find it becoming. I have only two re—
quests to make of you: that you refrain from un-
masking or admitting your identity until one o’clock,
[207]


:OBODY,
‘-
I '-
and that if you recognise me, you hold your tongue.
Is it a bargain?”
“You’re so good to me,” said Sally simply, “I
can’t think how to thank you.”
“Leave that, too, to me. It’s quite possible I may
suggest a way.” Mrs. Gosnold smiled curiously as
at a thought reserved. “Now run along—order the
car and put on your prettiest hat. But a moment!”
She illustrated the process of taking thought by
puckering her brows and clipping her chin between
a thumb and forefinger.
“Let me see. Have I remembered everybody?”
She conned, half aloud, a list of names. “But no!
What an oversight! I should never have forgiven
myself—or have been forgiven. And my fountain
pen needs refilling. No”—-—as Sally offered to take
the pen—“sit there at the desk and write at my dic-
tation. I will sign it.”
Obediently Sally took her place at the escritoire,
arranged a sheet of the monogrammed note-paper
used by Mrs. Gosnold for correspondence with per-
sonal friends (as distinguished from the formal let-
ter-head of Gosnold House, with its bristling array
of telephone numbers and telegraph, post-office, rail-
road and steamboat addresses), dipped a pen, and
waited with a mind preoccupied by visions of the
night to come. Her first ball! Her first real func-
tion in Society!
[208]


THE THIRD DEGREE


“My dear friend,” Mrs. Gosnold enunciated de-
liberately in a colourless, placid voice. “(Colon,
dash, paragraph) It was only late last night, and
then by merest chance, I learned you had come to
the island yesterday instead of sailing last week, in
accordance with your announced intention (period).
So I cannot decently begin by berating you (dash)
as I should, had you been here twenty-four hours
without personally letting me know (period).”
A pause. Sally dreamed a beautiful dream of a
crinoline costume, beflowered and beflounced, such
as Vogue had lately pictured as a forecast of autumn
fashions, an iridescent bubble of a dream shattered
by the query: “Where was I, please?”
“ ‘Letting me know,’ ” she quoted absently.
“Oh, yes. (Paragraph) I hope with all my
heart your-change of plans was not brought about
by any untoward accident (semicolon); but Italy’s
loss is the island’s gain (semicolon) ; and I am look-
ing forward with the keenest pleasure to seeing you
again (period, paragraph). May I hope that it will
be not later than to-night (point of interrogation)?
I have arranged an impromptu masquerade by moon-
light on the terrace (period). It should be a pretty
sight (period). From ten o’clock till any time you
like (dash) masks until one (period). Do come
and help make the evening a happy one for me
(period).”
[209]


NOBODY


Another contemplative pause. But this time Sally
did not dream. She sat quite still in speculative
wonder, troubled with a vague alarm as disturbing
as the sound of distant thunder in the evening, of
an August day.
“Cue, please?”
The girl replied in a low tone: “ ‘Evening a
happy one’—”
“Yes. Add: affectionately yours—or wait!
Have you written—?”
“ ‘Affectionately yours’—--yes.”
“No matter; leave a space for my signature, and
add this: P. S. You will be glad to see, no doubt,
that your letter to Adele has borne fruit (period).
Miss Manwaring does splendidly as an amanuensis
(period). Your judgment was always trustworthy
(period). And address the envelope, of course, to
Mrs. Cornwallis English. She is stopping, I hear,
with the Lorirners at Bleak House—the grey stone
house on the hill at the end of West Harbor Drive.”
After a time Mrs. Gosnold said almost sharply:
“Well, Miss Manwaring! You have little time to
waste. Bring me the note, please, and a pen.”
With a gesture of despair the girl twistedin her
chair and showed the woman a stricken face.
“Are you sure-—?” she stammered.
“Yes?” Mrs. Gosnold prompted with an accent
of surprise. “What is it, Sally?”
[210]


THE THIRD DEGREE


The girl gulped hard, and mechanically put a
hand to her throat, rising as she spoke.
“Are you sure Mrs. English is on the Island?”
“What of it? Why, I presumed you would be
glad of the opportunity to thank her for that letter
of—”
“There was no letter!”
“I beg pardon?” Mrs. Gosnold opened wide her
eyes.
“I say,” Sally faltered, yet with determination,
“there was no letter. Mrs. Standish—that is—we
both lied to you. I don’t know Mrs. English; I never
spoke a word to her in all my life. I didn’t take
any letter to Mrs. Standish. That was_a story man-
ufactured out of whole cloth to account for me—
get me this position here.” '
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Gosnold assented coolly. “I felt
quite sure of that in the beginning. You never could
believe a word Adele said from the time she was able
to talk. Even if the truth would have served as
well and with less trouble, she was sure to disfigure
it beyond identification. And Walter’s just as bad.
But you, my dear, will never make a good liar; the
first words we spoke together I saw your eyes wince,
and knew you were tormented by something on your
conscience. Moreover, the last person Edna English
would send any one with a letter of recommendation
to is my niece, who has not yet been proved guilty
[211]


NOBODY


of one unselfish act. So I thought I’d test the story.
Now you may tear up that note—Mrs. English is in
Italy this very day, to the best of my belief—and
tell me what it’s all about.”
A 44 .AA
[212]


~__


CHAPTER XII
MACHIAVELLIAN

ITHIN the span of an exceedingly bad quar-
ter of an hour for Sally the cat was com-
pletely out of the bag, the fat as irretrievably in the
fire; Sally was out of breath and in tears of peni-
tence and despair; Mrs. Gosnold was out of her
chair, thoughtfully pacing to and fro, and in full
possession of all facts materially bearing upon the
translation of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions
into S. Manwaring of the Golden Destiny.
No vital detail had escaped her penetrating probe;
she proved herself past mistress in the art of cross-
examination, and found in Sally a willing witness.
For the latter, however, it had seemed less giving
of testimony than a hysteric confessional. She had
wrung her conscience dry, deriving from the act a
sort of awful joy mitigated by the one regret: that
she had not more to confess, that the mystery of her
favouring must remain a mystery which, with all the
good-will in the world, no word of hers could elu-
cidate.
[213]


NOBODY


As for the secret history of last night’s dark trans-
actions, however, that was not altogether hers to dis-
close. The interests and affairs of others were in-
volved, she dared not guess how disastrously; she
was only sensitive to the feeling that something black
and foul and hideous skulked behind that shut door.
Heaven forfend that hers should be the hand to open
it and let ruin loose upon this pleasant world of
(}osnold.IIouse!
It seemed incumbent upon her to explain that Mrs.
Standish had brought to her room a jewel-case for
Sally to hide or otherwise dispose of. Beyond this
she feared to go. She would not mention Lyttle-
ton or Trego or the yacht, or the window of the
signals.
In the end, stopping tears and sobs as best she
might, she waited listlessly her sentence of expul-
sion. Now nothing mattered; if her heart was
lighter, her future was darker; and presently the
nobody that she was would return into that drab
nowhere whence some ill wind of chance had wafted
ha.
“Don’t be a fool!” Mrs. Gosnold counselled her
abruptly with unwonted brusqueness. “Do you
really think I’m capable of baiting a trap for you
with fair words and flattery for the sheer, inhuman
pleasure of seeing you suffer until I choose to set
you adrift? See how you’ve upset me already;
.l 444-, #~
[214]


MACHIAVELLIAN


metaphor is never safe in a woman’s hands, but I’m
seldom as bad as all that!”
Sally sniffed abjectly. “I’m willing to do any-
thing . . .”
“You’ve done enough. Be content. If it were
not for you and what you’ve been able to tell me,
I’d . .- . Well, no matter; I don’t know What I’d
do. As it is . . . Look here!”
She paused in front of Sally, dropped one hand
kindly on the girl’s shoulder, with the other lifted
her chin, exploring her tear-wet eyes with a gaZe
at once charitable and discriminating.
“I’ve taken a fancy to you, if you are a bit of
an idiot. And I believe implicitly every word you’ve
uttered. Perhaps~ I oughtn’t to, and I probably
wouldn’t, if your account of yourself didn’t chime so
exactly with what I know about my dutiful niece
and nephew. But, you see, I do know them, and
very well—and that they’re quite capable of all you
say, and more to boot. Adele Standish in especial
I know far too well to believe for an instant she’d
burden herself with benevolent intentions toward
another woman without expecting to reap some
wildly inadequate reward. That’s all that bothers
me. I can’t understand what they wanted with you.
But I’m not going to let my mystification lose me the
services of a promising amanuensis—not in these
days, when intelligence is scarce and far to seek.”
[215]


NOBODY


“Do you mean I’m to stay?” Sally gasped in-
credulously.
“Most assuredly I mean you’re to stay. Why not?
You’re modest and well-mannered, and you’ve got
too much sense to try again to pull wool over my
eyes, even if you’re wicked enough to want to, which
I don’t believe. No; as far as you’re concerned,
your position here is far more firmly established now
than an hour ago, when everything was against my
liking you—in spite of the fact that I did—espe-
cially your loyalty to those hopeless ingrates!”
She fumed in silence for a moment. “I could
have forgiven almost anything—but this! The in-
solence of it! To dare picture me to you—or any-
body—as a silly old fool of a woman without the
wit to protect herself from being fleeced by a gang
of adventurers. My friends!” she broke off with a
snort of superindignation. “My guests here a set
of rogues and vagabonds—and worse!”
She flopped into her chair with a helpless “Oh
dear!” and began to laugh.
“It’s too ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “If it ever
got out, I’d almost be ashamed to show my face in
public again. Promise you’ll never breathe a syl-
lable-—”
“Oh, I promise—I do promise!” Sally protested
fervently. “But, Mrs. Gosnold . . .”
“Well, what now?”
[216]


MACHIAVELLIAN


“I suppose,” said Sally, “the only way to show
my gratitude is by serving you faithfully—”
“You might,” the elder woman interposed in a
quizzical turn, “spare me, if you can, a little affec-
tion, since it seems I’ve lost that of my sister’s chil-
dren, together with their respect.”
“I don’t think you’ll ever complain for want of
that,” Sally told her very seriously. “But can you
afford to run the risk of the police coming here to
find Sarah Manvers, who disappeared last week af-
ter breaking into a house—burglarising it—leaving
her discarded clothing behind her for one positive
clue—”
“You must make your mind easy as to that; unless
I’m vastly mistaken, no police will ever look for you
in Gosnold House; if any did, they wouldn’t be ad-
mitted; and if by any chance they did happen to get
in, they wouldn’t find Sarah Manvers. Please un-
derstand, you’re to remain Sara Manwaring for some
time to come—for good, if I think best. Don’t im-
agine I’m going to permit you to resume your right
name and spoil everything. I hope I make myself
clear.”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Gosnold!”
“And—attend to me—you’re not to give Adele-—
or Walter, either, when he gets here, any reason to
suspect you’ve confided in me. I wish everything to
go on precisely as it has been going—so far as they
[217]


NOBODY


can see. Avoid them as much as possible; when it
isn’t possible, give them a dose of their own medi-
cine if necessary—I mean, lie. There’s an explosion
coming, but I don’t wish it to happen until I’m sure
who and what are going to be blown sky-high, and
I am quite prepared to stand by and enjoy the fire-
works. Meantime, don’t let anybody frighten you;
no matter how serious matters may seem or be rep-
resented to you, rely implicitly on me. And what-
ever is said to you that seems of any consequence—-
or if you should see anything—find some way to
report quickly to me. Now what did you say you
did with that jewel-case Adele gave you?”
Sally repeated her account of its hiding-place.
“You didn’t unwrap it, you say. Well and
good!” Mrs. Gosnold nodded intently. “Then
don’t; leave it as it is, and some time to-day, if I
can manage without being observed, I’ll drop into
your room and have a look at the box myself. But
you are on no consideration whatever to touch it un-
til I give you leave.”
“I understand.”
“If Adele and Walter want to know what you’ve
done with it, tell them the truth—you’ve done noth-
ing. Say you’ve not yet found a good chance to.
Tell them where it is, but assure them it’s perfectly
safe there.”
“Yes, Mrs. Gosnold.”
[218]


MACHIAVELLIAN

Momentarily the older woman was lost in a rev-
erie of semimalicious cast, to judge by the smile that
faintly shadowed the firm lines of her handsome
face.
“A surprise party . . .” she observed obscurely.
Of a sudden, with a sort of snap, she roused her-
self back to more immediate issues. “Oh, come! the
morning almost gone already and nothing accom-
plished! Off with you! But before you go, do,
for goodness’ sake, attend to your eyes; if some one
were to see you going through the halls the way
you are—it might be ruinous. Bathe them with
cold water in the bath-room there—and you’ll
find plenty of powder and stuff on my dressing-
table.”
And while Sally hastened to profit by this advice,
the other pursued: “You should school yourself
never to cry, my girl. You’re too sensitive and emo-
tional by half. If you go on this way, at the least
excuse—great Heavens! what a moist married life
you’ll lead! Now let me look at you. That’s much
better. You’ll do very well—if only you’ve wit
enough not to worry—to trust me, whatever the
emergency. Now, please, get about my errands.
And when you come back, tell Thomas to let me
know. If I need you during the day I’ll send for
you.”
As it happened, she didn’t send for Sally before
[219]


MACHIAVELLIAN


eccentric genius, that day could hardly be said to
wane; rather, it waxed to its close in an atmosphere
of electric excitement steadily cumulative. The col-
ony droned like some huge dynamo with the rumour
of secret preparation against the night. Other than
servants scurrying to and fro on pressing but mysteri-
ous errands, few folk were visible in the afternoon;
the drives and beaches, the lawns, terraces, courts,
gardens, verandas and casinos were one and all de-
serted.
At Gosnold House, below-stairs, in kitchens and
servants’ halls, and all about the grounds as well,
a multitude of work-people swarmed like an invad-
ing army of ants. Astonishing feats of preparation
were consummated as if by legerdemain. And
though the routine of the household proceeded mar-
vellously without apparent hitch or friction, lunch-
eon and dinner degenerated into affairs of emptiest
formality. At the latter, indeed, Mrs. Gosnold pre-
sided over an oddly balanced board; three-fourths
of those present were men—fully half the feminine
guests dining from trays in their rooms or else ab-
staining altogether in order that not one precious
moment might be lost to the creation of their impro-
vised disguises. And the talk at table was singu-
larly disconnected, with an average of interest un-
commonly low. People were obviously saving them-
selves up. There was no lingering over tobacco;
[221]


NOBODY


the last course served, the guests dispersed in all
haste compatible with decency.
It was at this meal that Sally got her first glimpse
of Savage since his arrival in the course of the af-
ternoon. She had been far too busy to keep watch
and unable to invent any plausible excuse for in-
quiring after him, but the thought of his return had
never been far out of mind. However busy, she
had been unable to dismiss entirely the consideration
that Savage was bringing the first authentic news of
whatever activities the police might have inaugu-
rated in connection with the burglary and whatever
their progress in pursuit of the clue furnished by the
garments discarded in the bath-room. And all the
reassurances of Mrs. Gosnold were impotent to coun-
teract apprehensions fostered by such reflections.
But there was the length and the width of the
table between them. She had to be content with all
that Savage found chance to accord her—a bow, a
smile, and a glance down his nose significant of un-
speakable intelligence.
She thought he looked a bit pale and worried and
betrayed more nervousness than was natural in the
man as she had come to know him.
Whether or not he had been accompanied by the
threatened insurance adjuster (or detective!) she was
unable to surmise; nothwithstanding several strange
faces in the number at table, she was inclined to
[222]


NOBODY


must have forgotten—but perhaps it’s there now.”
“Well, keep an eye bright for me, then. I’ll be
Harlequin—an old costume I happened by sheer luck
to have left here some years ago. Otherwise, I guess,
I’d have to wrap up in a sheet and act like a dead
one.”
She laughed mechanically, murmured “I must
fly!” and forthwith dashed up the great staircase
and to her room.
Her costume had not yet been delivered; she had
still to wait half an hour by the clock; but there was
plenty of detail wherewith to occupy her time. On
the other hand, the routine of one’s toilet is a famous
incentive to thoughtfulness, and as she went auto-
matically through the motions of beautifying herself
and dressing her hair, Sally’s mind took advantage
of this, its first real freedom of the day, and focused
sharply on her own concerns.
It reminded her, among other things, of the fact
that she had not seen Lyttleton since an adventitious
glimpse of him going in to breakfast just as she was
leaving the house to deliver the invitations.
She wondered idly about him, in an odd humour
of tolerant superiority, as one might contemplate
the presumption of an ill-bred child. And she won-
dered dumny at herself, whom she found able to
imagine without flinching an encounter with him
of the mildly flirtatious description licensed by the
[224]


MACHIAVELLIAN


masquerade. Would he know instinctively-who she
was and avoid her? Or have the impudence to re-
new his advances? Or would he fail to fathom her
identity and so lay himself open to her castigation?
She did not for an instant forget that she was
endued, not only by personal right as an injured
woman herself at fault, but also by the authority of
Mrs. Gosnold, with letters of marque and reprisal.
That she would penetrate at sight his disguise,
whatever its character, she hadn’t the faintest
doubt.
But, then, woman’s faith in her vaunted if
vaguely comprehended faculty of intuition is a
beautiful thing and a joy to her forever.
And she wondered what Savage would have to
say to her. But in this phase her thoughts wore a
complexion of far less self-assurance, notwithstand-
ing the moral support of her employer. What could
have happened in New York that he must seek an
early meeting to discuss it with her? What had
been the outcome of that terribly incriminating clue,
her name on the garments composing that sloughed
chrysalis of yesterday? Was it possible that her
comrades of the studio (Heavens! how historically
remote and almost unreal seemed that well-hated
chapter of existence) had become anxious enough to
notify the police of her long absence? In such cases,
she believed, something called a general alarm was
[225]


NOBODY


issued—a description of the absentee was read to
every member of the metropolitan police force, that
it might be on the alert to apprehend or succour the
lost, strayed or stolen. Could that possibly have
been done in the case of missing Sally Manvers?
And, if so, could the police detectives possibly have“
overlooked the fact that the name of the wanting
woman was identical with the name of the woman
wanted?
For all the strength of her tower of refuge Sally
shivered.
And she realised with a twinge of sincere regret
that she would never dare return and share these
happier fortunes with those two unhappy partners
of her days of suffering and privation.
She wasn’t heartless; she had thought frequently
of them before, but always with the notion that she
would some day, and by happy chance some day not
distant, reveal her transfigured self to them and,
out of the plenitude of her blessings, lend them a
little, and much more than a little, aid and comfort.
Something of ‘that sort, indeed, was the least she
could do; it was but justice; it was simply repay-
ment of acknowledged indebtedness. And now, it
seemed, it might never be!
From this she passed into new wonder and bewil-
derment at the duplicity of Savage and his sister,
and the mystery of their motives and the still deeper
[226]


MACHIAVELLIAN


disguise the fact that she was deeply wounded and
profoundly agitated.
She sat regally enthroned upon a spindle-shank
chair that matched her escritoire, and betrayed her
impatient humour by the quick tapping of one ex-
quisitely shod foot. And the others seemed to wait
upon her pleasure in a silence almost of subjugation
—a nervous, unnatural, ominous hush.
It was broken on Sally’s entrance by the mistress
of Gosnold House, who nodded without a sign of
recognition and said in a bleak manner thus far in
Sally’s experience wholly foreign to the nature of
the speaker: “Come in, please, shut the door, and
find some place to sit down. Retain your mask.
There are two guests wanting, and we must wait for
them.”
There were no chairs vacant, and a majority of the
men were already standing, but another (by whose.
unquestionably authentic cowboy costume Sally was
sure she recognised Trego) rose and silently sur-
rendered to her his place.
She accepted it with a stifled murmur of thanks.
The slight stir occasioned by her addition to the
company subsided, and the sense of constraint be-
came even more marked. Nobody appeared to care.
to know his neighbour; there was no whispering, no
murmuring, even the indispensable fidgeting was ac-
complished in an apprehensive and apologetic man-
[229]


NOBODY


nothing else, the final effect of meaningless mystery
seemed to have been consummated.
But this, as it happened, was coincident with the
arrival of the last two guests—one of whom was a
lithe and shapely Harlequin in party-coloured tights,
and the other a bewitchingly blond Columbine—
and then the purpose of the meeting was soon
exposed.
With no more expression than she had employed
in the case of Sally, Mrs. Gosnold saluted the last
comers with a request to enter and be seated, then
directed her maid to go out into the hall, close the
door, and stand guard to prevent eavesdropping.
When the door was closed she plunged directly into a
prepared address.
“I owe every one an apology,” she began with a
fugitive, placating smile, “for all this inconvenience
and nonsense—as itmust seem. But I’m sure you
will bear with me when you know the circumstances,
which are extraordinary, and my motive, quite a
natural one.
“We are now,” she pursued with a swift glance
that embraced the room, “just twenty-three, includ-
ing myself; that is to say, everybody who slept here
last night, and one or two more. And your masks are
a sure screen for any betrayal of emotion when I tell
you why I have asked you to oblige me by meeting
here. So please retain them whatever happens.”
[232]


MACHIAVELLIAN


' She paused, made a little gesture of deprecation.
“I would rather almost anything than be obliged to
say what I must.
“One of us,” she announced deliberately, “is a
thief. These rooms were entered some time last
night, while I was asleep, and all my personal
jewelry was stolen. Please no one interrupt.
I will answer all the natural questions before I
finish.
“The robbery was not difficult to accomplish.
The Island is well-policed, there has not been a bur-
glary in its history, and I am a careless old woman.
When I take my things off at night I leave them on
my dressing-table. Marie, my maid, puts them away
in the morning. I have three large jewel-cases, none
of which is ever locked except when I travel. I
have never had a safe. The jewel-cases are stored
away in unlocked dresser-drawers. My bedroom and
boudoir doors are never locked. And I am a sound
sleeper. There is-—and was—nothing to prevent
the thief from entering after I had turned out my
light and, employing ordinary discretion, helping
him or her self. Which is precisely what happened
last night. Every piece of jewelry was taken from
my dressing-table, and the three jewel-cases from
their drawers.
“I discovered my loss promptly after waking up
this morning. I said nothing, but after setting in
[233]


MACHIAVELLIAN


thief to have deposited my jewelry in some hid-
ing-place about the house or grounds——a dozen will
suggest themselves on a moment’s thought—the spot
to be indicated on the card. By this method ample
time is granted in which to make restitution with
complete immunity from recognition, the secret will
be kept, the scandal hushed up, and, best of all, I
shall be able to continue considering each and every
one of you my very dear friend.
“But”—and her handsome old face darkened with
the shadow of the determination that rang in her
tone——“if this scheme should fail, and the thief re-
fuse to make restitution, then, though it break my
heart, I shall feel without alternative other than to
take certain steps—steps which I cannot now con-
template without positive loathing, so repugnant are
they to me. . . .
“Now I- have finished,” Mrs. Gosnold said quietly.
“I am sorry to have imposed in this way upon your
patience, but it seemed, I think you’ll grant me, war-
ranted and necessary. I thank you, and hope you’ll
forgive me. And now will you please return to your
rooms, without asking me any questions, and do as
I have begged? And I sincerely hope that this
wretched business may not interfere with your en-
joyment to-night. For my part, I am so confident
of the success of this scheme that I mean to con-
“..ider thatI have not been robbed—that everything
[235]




CI-LkPTER XIII
M A R P L O T

NCE sheltered by the privacy of her bedcham-
ber and seated before the little white-enamel
desk with its chintz-covered fittings that suited so
well the simple, cheerful scheme of decoration, the
girl lingered long, an idle pencil caught between fin-
gers infirm of purpose. Her gaze was fixed as if
hypnotised to the blank white face of the bit of card-
board that lay before her on the blotting-pad, her
thoughts far astray in a dark jungle of horror,
doubts, suspicions, fears.
Immediately after shutting herself in she had
gone straight to this desk, possessed by the notion
that there was a message requiring to be written
upon the card, one self-exculpatory sentence which
had framed itself in her mind as she sped down the
corridor from that remarkable meeting in Mrs. Gos-
nold’s rooms.
“I have not told you everything—but I am inno-
cent,” thus ran the words which she felt were de-
manded of her and a legitimate privilege, her duty
[237]


NOBODY
to herself in sheer self—preservation. And as they
wrote themselves down before her mental vision she
saw two heavy strokes of the pen underlining “every-
thing,” and her own true name, Sarah Manvers,
following in the place of the signature—no more
“Sara Manwaring,” Mrs. Gosnold’s explicit com-
mands to the contrary notwithstanding.
But that had been an impulse, only natural in the
first shock of horror inevitably attending the dis-
closure of the robbery, to clear herself; or, rather,
to reaffirm her innocence.
For with second thought had come the considera-
tion: Was she not already cleared, was her inno-
cence not already established?
She was prepared to believe that Mrs. Gosnold
knew everything. That extraordinary woman!
What had she not known, indeed? Mark how cun-
ningly she had drawn from Sally the admission that '
she had been up and about the house and grounds
long after she had gone to her bedchamber for the
night—at the very time, most probably, when the
robbery was being done! And that had been by way
of preface to the pledge she had made Sally of her
protection before startling confession from the girl
—a pledge not only given in advance, but by im-
plication at least renewed when the truth was
out.
If she had believed Sally guilty, or party to the
[238]


NOBODY


there on the beach? Why had heleft it there?
Why such anxiety to escape observation as to make
the man alert to notice Sally’s head peering over
the parapet of the landing at the head of the cliff?
And if he had been employed in no way to be
ashamed of, and had no consequences to fear, why
that roundabout way up the cliff again and that
ambush of his watcher?
And why those signals between window and yacht,
if not to apprise the latter that something had been
consummated, that the coast was clear for its tender
to come in and take away the plunder?
It would seem, then, that Mr. Lyttleton must
have had a confederate in the house, and for that
role Mrs. Standish was plainly designated. An un-
derstanding of some close sort between her and
Lyttleton had been quite evident from the very first
day. And whose bedchamber window had shown
the signals, if not hers? Not the pretty young
widow’s—not in any likelihood Mrs. Artemas’. To
believe the latter intimate with the affair was to
assume an understanding between her and Lyttleton
-—-or else Trego.
Trego!
Sally was conscious of a slight mental start, a
flurry of thoughts and sensations, of judgment in
conflict with emotions.
Why not Trego? A likelier man than Lyttleton
[240]


MARPLOT


for such 'a job, indeed. Trego had such force of
personality as to excuse the suspicion that what he
might desire he would boldly go after and possess
himself of. With a nature better adapted to the
planning and execution of adventures demanding
courage, daring and indifference to ethical consid-
erations, Trego was capable of anything. Lyttle-
ton was of flimsier stuff, or instinct were untrust-
worthy.
But after a little the girl sighed and shook her
head. It was less plausible, this effort of hers, to
cast Trego for the role of villain. True, he might
have invented that story of the marks on the sands;
true again, he might have acted in accord with Mrs.
Artemas. But those were far-fetched possibilities.
Unless, indeed, professed distruSt and dislike of Mrs.
Artemas had been altogether ingenious, a mask
manufactured in anticipation of just this devel-
opment.
No, it wasn’t likely of Trego. She could not over-
look the impression he conveyed of rugged honesty
and straightforwardness. However strong the aver-
sion he inspired, Sally could ignore neither that im-
pression nor yet its correlative, that if he was not
an over-righteous scomer of lies, he was the sort
that would sufler much rather than seek to profit by
a lie.
She perceived, with a little qualm of contrition,
[241]


NOBODY


that she had been eager to condemn the man out of
sheer unreasonable prejudice, all too ready to do
him injustice in her thoughts. Unpleasant though
she found his personality, harshly though his crudi-
ties grated upon her sensibilities, she owed him grati-
tude for an intimate service in an emergency when
she had been only too glad of his personal interven-
tion; and it were rank ingratitude to wish him ill,
just as it was frankly base of her to be eager to think
ill of him.
Repentance had got hold of this girl by the nape
of her neck; it shook her roughly, if justly. For a
little time she cringed in shame of herself and was
torn by desire in some way to make amends to this
animal of a Trego, whom she so despised because he
__ refused to play up to the snob in her and ape the
imanners of his putative betters even as she was
keen to ape them. .
Perhaps it had needed this ugly happening, or
something as unsettling, to reveal the girl to her-
self in a true light—at least a light less flattering
than she found pleasant.
Certainly its aftermath in the way of private com-
munion served well to sober and humble Sally in
her own esteem. Outside the immediate field of
her reverie she was now conscious of the words “sy-
cophant” and “parasite” buzzing like mosquitoes
about the head of some frantic wooer of sleep, elu-
[242]


MARPLOT


sive, pitiless, exasperating, making it just so much
more diflicult to concentrate upon this importunate
problem of her duty.
If she was not to protest her own innocence, what
ought she to say upon that card?
Was it consistent with loyalty to Mrs. Gosnold
to keep silence about matters that might clear up the
mystery and repair the wrong-doing?
But how could she attack another? How bring
herself to point the finger of accusation at Lyt-
tleton?
On the terrace outside her window a stringed or-
chestra tuned and hummed softly in the perfumed
night. Rumour of gay voices and light laughter
came to her in ever greater volume. Before her dis-
tracted gaze swam a view of the formal garden, "
a-glimmer like a corner of fairy-land with the hun-
dreds of tiny lamps half concealed amid the foli-
age of its shrubs and hedges.
She knew that she must rouse herself and be seen
below; not only must her message take its place with
its twenty-odd fellows in the mail-box, but nothing
could seem so incriminating as prolonged and delib-
erate absence from the féte.
Yet she had little desire now for what two hours
since had seemed a prospect of bewitching promise.
The music rose and fell in magic measure without
its erstwhile power to stir her pulses. There was
[243]


NOBODY


“But what about last night? You came to my
room while I was inexplicably out and waited till I
returned. I can’t see why you should care if that
became known.”
“Have you written anything about that?” Mrs.
Standish demanded insistently.
“And even if I had, and you were merely afraid
of being embarrassed, I couldn’t very well drag you
in without incriminating myself, now could I?”
“I don’t care to bandy words with you, young
woman. Tell me—”
“You needn’t to please me, you know. And I
shan’t tell you anything.”
tiWhy_—?,,
“My business,” said Sally with all the insolence
she knew how to infuse into her tone. “I think we
covered that question rather completely last night
—or rather this morning. I imagined it was settled.
In fact, it was. I don’t care to reopen it; but I
will say this—or repeat it, if you prefer: I’m not
going to permit you to interfere in my private
affairs.”
“You refuse to tell me what you’ve written?”
“For the last time—positively.”
“See here,” Mrs. Standish ventured, after a baf-
fled moment: “be reasonable. There’s no sense in
making me lose my temper.”
“I’m sure I don’t wish you to.”
[246]





S DRESS
9
A FURY IN A FAIRY




TH 3w YORK
PUBLIC LIBRAR
ASTOR, LENOK
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
‘___._.____


MARPLOT


“Then tell me—”
“No.”
“Must I threaten you?”
Sally elevated supercilious eyebrows. “If you
like.”
“I have a way to force you to obey me.”
“Oh?” There was an accent in this innocent
syllable cunningly calculated to madden.
“Very well. If you will have it. Do you recall
a certain letter of introduction?”
“Why—no.” - >
“That you brought me from Mrs. Cornwallis
English.”
“What do you mean?”j_ f _
“Don’t be stupid. You surely are not prepared
to deny that you came to me last Wednesday, look-
ing for work, with what purported to be a letter
of recommendation from Mrs. English.”
“Please go on.”
“Well,” Mrs. Standish announced triumphantly,
“I kept that letter, of course, and now I’ve had
occasion to look closely, I find it’s a forgery.”
“Please!” Sally faltered.
“I tell you, I have safe in my possession a letter
recommending you to me and signed with the forged
signature of Mrs. Cornwallis English. If necessary
to protect myself, I shall not scruple to exhibit that
letter.”
[247]


MARPLOT


“To protect yourself, of course. I don’t believe
you mean to confess—” .,
“Confess!” '
“Take advantage of this opportunity to restore
the jewels—and get off without punishment. Prob-
ably you can’t. Probably the man you met outside
and gave them to is by now so far away that you
couldn’t, even if you wanted to.”
“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. I
don’t want to make any mistake.”
“Sensible of you, I’m sure.”
“You really mean to accuse me of this abominable
thing?”
“I know no reason to believe you incapable of it.
And you did meet a man out there last night.”
“Then why do you hesitate to inform Mrs. Gos-
nold? Isn’t it your duty?”
“I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt,
providing you—”
“Have you consulted Mr. Lyttleton about this?”
That shot told. Mrs. Standish paused with an
open mouth. “Mr. Lyttleton!” she exclaimed, re-
covering, in a tone that implied complete ignorance
of the existence of any such person.
“Mr. Lyttleton,” Sally repeated. “You know
very well it was he to whom I was talking out there
—and I know you know it.”
“Say I do, for the sake of the argument; do you
[249]


NOBODY


animated scene disclosed by the wide reception-hall.
She was looking for Queen Elizabeth’s imperious
ruff, anxious to find and keep in the shadow of that
great lady’s sovereign presence; and she was also
looking for the leather-banded sombrero of the cow-
boy and the skull-cap of Harlequin, with a concern
keen to avoid those gentlemen.
Considerably to her surprise, still more to her dis-
appointment, not even the first of these was in evi-
dence (as Sally had made sure Mrs. Gosnold would
be) waiting to welcome her guests just within the
doorway to the porte-cochere.
None the less, the lady must be found, and that
without delay; the envelope, with its blank enclosure
half crushed in Sally’s hand, was an ever-present
reminder of her duty first to herself, secondly to her
employer. If she had written nothing, and but for
Mrs. Standish would have kept her counsel till the
last minute, the latter’s threat of denunciation had
lent the temper of the girl another complexion'alto-
gether; as Sally saw it, she no longer had any choice
other than to find Mrs. Gosnold as quickly as pos-
sible and make complete the revelation of last night’s
doings. And her mind was fixed to this, with a cast
of angry pertinacity that would prove far from
easy to oppose or even to modify; whether or not
the hostess wished it, she must suffer herself to be in-
formed immediately and completely.
[252]


NOBODY


where the one she wanted, but everywhere the con-
firmation of her secret thought—that there was no
place here for her, no room, no welcome. On every
hand love lurked, lingered, languished, but not for
her. Whichever way she turned she saw some lover
searching for his mistress, but not for her. They
crossed her path and paused and stared, sometimes
they spoke and looked deep into her eyes and hark-
ened to the voice with which she answered them,
giving back jest for jest—and they muttered excuses
and hurried on; she was never for them.
It was as if life and fate conspired to humble her
spirit and prove her ambitious of place beyond her
worth; to perSuade her that she was by birth, and
must resign herself to remain always, Nobody.
F orlomly haunted, she circled back to the house,
and on impulse sought again the boudoir door.
Marie answered, but shook her head; no, she could
not say where Mrs. Gosnold might be found.
Impulse again took her out by the door to the
drive. Motors were still arriving and departing, to
return at a designated hour, but here, at what might
be termed the back of Gosnold House—-if that man-
sion could be said to have either back or front—here
on the landward side was little light or noise or
movement. And after an undecided moment on the
steps beneath the porte-cochEre the Quakeress stepped
down and out into the blackness of the shadow cast
[254]


NOBODY


“You’ve simply got to make her listen to rea-
son . . .”
“Oh, leave that to my well-known art!”
“She’ll see a great light before one o’clock or
I’m—”
Silence fell like a thunderclap as the Quaker Girl
confronted Harlequin, Columbine, and Sir Francis
Drake.
She said coolly: “You were speaking of me, I
believe?”
Drake stepped back, swore in his false beard, and
disappeared round the corner in a twinkling.
Columbine snapped like the shrew she masked:
“You little sneak!”
And Harlequin capped that with an easy laugh:
“Oh, do keep your temper, Adele. You’ve less tact
than any woman that ever breathed, I verily believe.
Cut along now; I’ll square matters for you with Miss
Manwaring—if it’s possible.”
With a stifled exclamation Columbine caught her
cloak round her and followed Drake.
The accent of the comic was not lost upon the
girl. She could not but laugh a little at Harlequin’s
undisguised discomfiture.
“So you’re nominated for the oflice of peace-
maker, Mr. Savage?”
“I’m afraid so.” He shuffled, nervously slapping
his well-turned calves with Harlequin’s lath-sword.
[256]


MARPLOT


“I swear,” he complained, “I do believe Adele is
crazier than most women most of the time. She’s
just been telling me what a fool she made of her-
self with you. I’m awfully glad you turned up
when you did.”
“I noticed that, believe me!”
“Oh, I mean it. Ever since dinner I’ve been look-
ing for an opportunity to explain things to you, but
until Adele told me your costume just now—”
“Well?” Sally inquired in a patient tone as he
broke off.
“We can’t talk here. It’s no good place——as
you’vejust proved. Besides, I’ve got an appoint-
ment with another lady.” He grinned gracelessly.
“No, not what you think—not philandering—but
in connection with this same business. I’ve got to
butter thick with diplomacy an awful lot of mistaken
apprehensions before I can set Don and Adele right,
after that confounded foolishness of theirs last night
—and this rotten robbery coming on top of it, to
make things look black! It’s a frightful, awful mix-
up, really, but as innocent as daylight if you only
understand it. Look here, won’t you give me a
show to explain?”
“Why, I’m here, and I can’t help listening.”
“No. I mean later. I can’t stop now, really.”
“How much later?”
“Let’s see. It’s nearly midnight, and all this has
[257]




CHAPTER XIV
M AG I C

OR several seconds after Savage had made off
Sally delayed there, alone on the empty lawn
in the westerly shadow of Gosnold House, doubting
what next to do, where next to turn in quest of Mrs.
Gosnold; questioning the motive for that furtive
meeting which she had surprised, wondering at Sav-
age’s insistence on a spot so remote and inconvenient
for their appointment, and why it must needs be
kept in so underhand a fashion, and whether she
had been wise to consent to it and would be wise to
keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in the time
until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the
lights and gaiety of the hall, the supper-room and
the veranda, and the romantic, love-sick peace of
moonlit lawns and gardens. Altogether she was
in a most complicated, distracted, uncertain and
unhappy frame of mind.
Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter
whined, and the startled young woman found her-
self staring up into the face of Mrs. Gosnold—a
[26o]


MAGIC


pallid oval against the dark background of an un-
lighted window not two feet above Sally’s head.
She gasped, but respected the admonition of a
finger pressed lightly upon the lady’s smiling lips.
“S-s-s-sh!” said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with
cautious glances right and left.
“There’s no one here,” Sally assured her in tones
appropriately guarded. “You’ve been listening—”
Mrs. Gosnold nodded with a mischievous twinkle:
“I have that!”
“You heard—?”
“Something—not much—not enough. If you
had only been a few minutes later . . .”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve been looking for you every-
where. Please, may I come in and tell you some-
thing?”
“Not now.”
“It’s very important—something you ought to
know at once.”
“Oh, my dear!” the woman sighed with genuine
regret: “I know already far more than I care to
know!”
“But this—”
“Not now, I say. I’ve been too frequently and
too long away from my guests as it is. I’ll have to
show myself for a little while. Then, come to my
room in half an hour.”
“At half past twelve?”
[261]


NOBODY


“Yes, and don’t be late. Now do run along and
have'a good time.”
The shutter was drawn gently to, and Sally, with
an embittered smile for the unconscious irony of that
parting injunction, moved slowly on toward the
front of the house.
But it was true that she felt a little less discon-
solate now than she had two minutes ago; after all,
it seemed, she wasn’t altogether friendless and for-
saken; and as for those doubts and questions which
so perplexed her, they would all be resolved and an-
swered once she had opportunity to lay them, to-
gether with the story of last night, before the judg-
ment of her benefactress. . . .
Still, if she reckoned confidently upon her hostess,
she reckoned not wisely without her host, whose
mask to-night was that of a sardonic destiny. And
when a tentative venture into the throngs on the
veranda had been discouraged by the spirited ad-
vances of a forward young Cavalier who chose to
consider his honour piqued, first by her demure Qua-
ker garb, then by her unresponsiveness, Sally was
glad enough to fall back upon the comparative quiet
and solitude of the moon-drenched gardens. Where-
upon her destiny grinned a heartless grin and ar-
ranged to throw her to the lions that, all unsus-
pected, raged in the maiden bosom of Mercedes
Pride.
ms, ,___ _,_ "A. ._,m 4.1%“ P-
[262]


MAGIC


The tireless ingenuity with which that rampant
spinster devised ways and means of rendering her—
self a peripatetic pest had long since won the un-
grudged admiration of Sally, who elected to be
amused more than annoyed by the impertinences, the
pretentiousness, the fawning adulation and the cor-
rosive jealousy of Mrs. Gosnold’s licensed pick-
thank. And when she had first divined the woman
beneath the disguise of the witch Sally had won-
dered what new method of making a sprightly nui-
sance of herself Miss Pride had invented to go with
her impersonation.
It proved, naturally enough, remembering the
limitations of a New England maiden’s imagina-
tion, to be compulsory fortune-telling with the aid
of cards, a crystal ball, the palm of the victim’s
hand, unlimited effrontery, and a “den” rigged up in
a corner of a hedge with a Navajo blanket for a
canopy and for properties two wooden stools, a small
folding table, a papier-maché skull, a jointed
wooden snake, an artificial pumpkin-head with a
candle in it, and a black cat tethered by a string to
a stake in the ground and wishing he had never been
born.
Within this noisome lair the sorceress squatted
and practised her unholy arts upon all comers with-
out mercy or distinction as to race, caste, sex, age,
colour, or previous condition of servitude. And when
[263]


NOBODY


trade slackened (as inevitably it did when “the
young people” for whose “amusement” this mum-
mery ostensibly was'staged asserted their ennui by
avoiding the neighbourhood) Ecstatica, nothing
daunted, would rise up and go forth and stalk her
prey among the more mature, dragging them off
forcibly by the hand, when needs must, to sit at her
table and sympathise with the unfortunate cat and
humour her nonsense.
Thus she inveigled Sally when: the latter un-
warily wandered her way.
Miss Pride knew her victim perfectly, but for the
sake of appearances kept up the semblance of mys-
tification.
“Sit you there, my pretty,” she grabbed viva-
ciously, two hands on Sally’s shoulders urging her to
rest on one of the stools. “Don’t be afraid of my
simple magic; the black art has nothing to do with
the lore of the wise old woman. Just show me your
rosy palm, and I will tell you your fortune. No, you
needn’t cross my palm with silver; I will ply my
mystic trade and tell your future all for the sake of
your pretty eyes.” 1
She peered, blinking with make-believe myopia,
into the hollow of Sally’s hand.
“Ah, yes, yes!” she-grunted, “you have an amiable
and affectionate disposition; you love pretty'things
to Wear and every sort of pleasure. There is your
[264]


M A G I c -\
gravest fault and greatest danger, pretty: love of
clothes and pleasure and—forgive the wise old
woman’s plain speaking—false ambitions. Beware
of the sin of vain ambition; only wrong and unhap-
piness can come of that. No, no; don’t draw your
hand away. I have not finished. Let me look closer.
There is much written here that you should know
and none but my wise old eyes can read, pretty.”
Effrontery battened on indulgence:
“The past has been unfortunate. The present is
bright with misleading glamour—beware of the
vanities of the flesh! The future—I see a shadow.
It is dark. It is difficult to read. I see a journey
before you—a long journey; you will cross water
and travel by the steam-cars. And there is a lover
waiting for you at the journey’s end—not here, but
far away. I cannot see him clearly, but he waits.
Perhaps later, when I consult my magic sphere of
crystal. But wait!”
She breathed hard for a moment, perhaps appre-
ciating her temerity ; but she was as little capable of
reading Sally’s character as her palm.
“I see danger in your path,” she resumed in ac-
cents of awe; “the shadow of something evil—and a
window barred with~iron. I cannot say what this
means, but you should know. Look into your heart,
my pretty; think. If perhaps you have done some-
thing you should not have done, and if you would
[26s]


MAGIC


peat your accusation before witnesses. I shall in-
form Mrs. Gosnold—”
“Oh, no, Miss Manwaring! I beg of you, no!
I didn’t mean what you think, indeed I didn’t!”
Sally made to speak, choked upon her indignation,
and gulped.
“That’s a lie!” she declared huskily; and rising
fled the place.
She went a few hasty paces blindly, then remem-
bering she mustn’t make an exhibition of herself,
however great the provocation, checked her steps
and went on at a less conspicuous and precipitate
rate.
But still her vision was dark with tears of rage
and mortification, and still her bosom heaved con-
vulsively. Now and again she stumbled.
Twice since nightfall the abominable accusation
had been flung into her face, the unthinkable thing
imputed to her, and this last time out of sheer, gra-
tuitous spleen, the jealous spite of a mean-minded
old maid. For Miss Pride had no such excuse as
Adele Standish had for thinking Sally capable of
infamy—unless, indeed, Mrs. Standish had proved
false to her pledge and had told people. But no;
she’d never do that; not, at least, while the set-
tlement of her insurance claim remained in abey-
ance.
The brutality of it!
[267]


MAGIC


mean to be rude. Only,” she gulped again, over-
come by the stinging memory of that woman’s inso-
lence, “I’d almost as lief you hadn’t stopped me—
and that wall wasn’t there!”
“Now, now!” he reminded her. “It can’t be as
bad as all that, you know.”
“Well, but think how you would feel if you’d
been twice accused of stealing Mrs. Gosnold’s jew-
els last night!”
“Once would be plenty,” he said gravely. “I
don’t reckon anybody would say that twice to my
bare face.”
“Yes—but you can resent insults like a man.”
“That’s right, too. But then it’s the only way
I know to resent ’em—with my fists. That’s where
you women put it all over us men; you know a hun-
dred different ways of sinking the poisoned barb
subtly. I wouldn’t like to be that Pride critter when
you get through with her.”
There was unquestionably a certain amount of
comfort to be gained by viewing the case from this
angle. Sally became calmer and brightened per-
ceptibly.
“Perhaps,” she murmured in an enigmatic man-
ner becoming in the putative mistress of unutterable
arts. '
“It’s just like that shrivelled old shrew. What
you might expect. If I had thought of it in time,
[269]


NOBODY


I’d’ve been willing to make a book on her laying it
to you.”
“But why?” Sally protested perplexedly.
“Sure, I don’t have to tell you why,” he said
diplomatically. “You know as well as I do she’s
plumb corroded with jealousy of you for winning
Out with her dear Abigail just when she thought
she had things fixed. I don’t suppose you know the
inside story of how your predecessor got the sack?
The Pride person was responsible. Miss Matring
was in her way, and a good deal of her own dispo-
sition to boot. It was a merry war, all right, while
it lasted—scheming and squabbling and backbiting
and tattling and corrupting servants to carry tales
—-all that sort of thing. To be honest about it, I
don’t just know which was the worse of the two;
they didn’t either of them stick at much of anything
noticeable. But, of course, Miss Matring was han-
dicapped, not being blood-kin, and the upshot was
she had to go—and until you showed up the old
maid was actually miserable for want of somebody
to hate. I noticed the light of battle in those beady
little eyes of hers the minute she laid ’em on you.
I’d have warned you, only . . .”
He stumbled. She encouraged him: “Why
didn’t you?”
She didn’t like Trego—that was understood—but
sympathy was very sweet to her just then, whatever
-» MQMA. a.
[270]


MAGIC


its source, and she had no real objection to dis-
paragement of her slanderer, either.
“Well, it wasn’t my fight. And I didn’t know
how you’d take interference. You looked pretty
well able to take care of yourself—in fact, you are.
And then—I don’t reckon it’s going to do me any
good to say this; but I might as well make a clean
breast of it--I was just selfish enough to have a
sneaking sort of hope, deep down, that maybe you’d
find it so unpleasant you’d quit.”
“Mr. Trego!” No more than that; he had taken
her breath away.
“I guess that does sound funny,” he admitted,
evading her indignant eye. “You can’t trust me,
ever. I always say things the wrong way; that’s
the best thing I do.”
“If it’s possible for you to explain . . .
“It’s possible, all right, but it’s anything but easy.
What I meant was . . . Well, any fool could see
that as long as you were so strong for this society
racket I didn’t stand much show.”
“Show?”
“Of making good with you. Oh, look here, what’s
the use of beating about the bush? I’m a rude, two-
fisted animal, and that’s all against me. I never
could flummux up my meariing successfully with a
lot of words like—well, name no names. All the
same, it’s pretty hard for a fellow who knows the
2,
[271]


MAGIC


membering, too, that it was barely two hours since
Sally herself had been ready, almost eager, to believe
him capable of committing the very crime of im-
plication in which he exonerated her without an in-
stant’s hesitation.
True, she had been quick to exonerate him in her
thoughts as soon as the suspicion was engendered in
them, but she had done so almost reluctantly, un-
generously, not because she wanted to believe him
innocent, but because the burden of the evidence, to-
gether with the counsel of instinct, had been too
strong in his favour to permit more than a moment’s
doubt. And she had repented; but that, it appeared,
was not enough; she must be punished in this unique
way, have her own unworthiness demonstrated by
this artless manifestation of his worth. And how-
ever much she might long to make amends to him,
she couldn’t.
The pain and the pity of it! He was a far bet-
ter man than she a woman, and he honoured her with
his love—and she couldn’t requite him, she couldn’t
love him; he was still too far from the mirage of her
. ideal. '
“Oh!” she sighed. “Why?”
He misconstrued. “I’ve told you heaps of times
—because you’re a woman, not a manikin. Mar-
riage would mean something more to you than
clothes, Europe, idleness, and flirting with other
[273]


NOBODY


women’s husbands, just as it would have to mean
more to me than hiring a woman to live with me
and entertain my friends.”
“How do you know? How can you tell? What
do you know about me?” she protested almost pas-
sionately, and answered herself. “You don’t know;
you can’t tell; you know nothing about me. You
assert things—I only wish they were true—”
“Oh, they’re true enough,” he interrupted uncere-
moniously. “It’s no use trying to run yourself
down to me. I couldn’t feel the way I do about
you if you were not at heart as sound as an apple,
no matter what nonsense you may have been guilty
of at one time or another, as every human being’s
got to be.”
“Has nobody told you anything about me? Mrs.
Gosnold—J?”
“Mrs. Gosnold ’tends to her own knitting. And
nobody has told me anything—except yourself.
More than that, I don’t go by other folks’ opinions
when I make up my mind about a matter as vital to
me as marrying a wife.”
“Then I must tell you—” ‘
“Not until you give me some legitimate title to
your confidence. You’ve got no right to confide
in me unless you mean to marry me—and you
haven’t said you would yet.”
“I can’t—I couldn’t without telling you—please
[274]


NOBODY


and, perhaps, than anywhere else in America; and
I’d be the last to cry them down or pretend I’m not
glad and proud of their acquaintance and friend-
ship. The trouble is, they can’t in the nature of
things keep up their social order without attracting
a cloud of parasites, snobs, and toadies—and that’s
what makes me sick of the whole social game as
practised to-day.”
“And you can’t understand that I am precisely
what you’ve described—a parasite!”
“You couldn’t be if you wanted to. Maybe you
think you could, but you’re wrong; you haven’t got
it in y0u.”
Against such infatuation candour was powerless.
She retreated to the last ditch. “But you told me
your father’s heart was set on your marrying a so-
ciety woman!”
“Well, what of that? You don’t suppose I think
any of them have got anything on you, do you?
Besides, dad isn’t altogether an old idiot, and if the
kind of society woman he wants me to marry
wouldn’t look at me, and if my happiness is at
stake . . . Well, even if he did want to ruin my life
by hitching me up in d0uble harness to a clothes-
horse, I wouldn’t let him!”
“But if I want—”
“There isn’t anything you want that I can’t
get you. If you like this sort of thing, you
[276]


NOBODY


plained: “that, and the way you look. It isn’t a fair
combination to work on a fellow, you know. Please
don’t say anything; you’ve said enough. I know
very well what you mean, but I’d rather not hear it
in one word of two letters—not to-night. I’m just
foolish enough to prefer to go on hoping for a while,
believing there was a bare chance I had misunder-
stood you.”
He laughed half-heartedly, said “Good night”
with an admirable air of accepting his dismissal as
a matter of course, and marched off as abruptly as
if reminded of an overdue appointment.
No other manoeuvre could have been more
shrewdly calculated to advance his cause; nothing
makes so compelling an appeal to feminine sympa-
thies as a rejected suitor taking his punishment like
a man; the emotional affinity of pity has been estab-
lished ever since the invention of love.
Sally sank down mechanically upon a little mar-
ble seat near the spot where they had stood talking
and stared without conscious vision out over the sil-
vered sea.
Her thoughts were vastly unconcerned with the
mysterious behaviour of Mrs. Standish and her
brother, the inexplicable insolence of Mercedes
Pride, the shattered bubble of her affair with Donald
Lyttleton, the kindness of Mrs. Gosnold, or the
riddle of the vanished jewelry.
[278]


MAGIC


Now and again people passed her and gave her
curious glances. She paid them no heed. The fact
that they went in pairs, male and female after their
kind, failed to re-excite envy in her bosom.
There is deep satisfaction to be distilled from
consciousness of the love of even an unwelcome
lover.
She thought no longer unkindly but rather piti-
fully of poor, tactless, rough-shod Mr. Trego.
When at length she stirred and rose it was with a
regretful sigh that, matters being as they were with
her, she was unable to reward his devotion with
something warmer than friendship only.
Friendship, of course, she could no more deny
the poor man. . . .
[279-]


NOBODY


crowds at the main entrances, Sally uncovered an-
other facet of mystery.
On entering, she left the side door heedlessly ajar,
and there was enough air astir to shut it with a
bang as she turned up the staircase. Two seconds
later that bang was echoed by a door above, and a
quick patter of light footfalls followed. But by
the time Sally gained the landing there was no one
visible in the length of the corridor from end to end
of that wing.
Now the door of the room opposite her was wide
open on a dark interior. And the room adjoining
was untenanted, as she knew. It seemed impossible
that the second slam could have been caused by any
door other than that of her own bedchamber. Yet
why should any one have trespassed there but one of
the housemaids? And if the trespasser had been a
housemaid, why that sudden and furtive flight and
swift disappearance from the corridor?
Her speculations on this point were both indefi-
nite and short-lived. She thought her hearing must
have deceived her; a hasty look round the room dis-
covered nothing superficially out of place, and the
little gilt clock on her dressing-table told her that
she was already seven minutes behind time. She
delayed only for one hasty survey of the flushed face
with star-bright eyes that the mirror revealed, and
then with an inarticulate reflection that, after all,
[282]


FALSE WITNESS


one could hardly blame Mr. Trego very severely,
Sally caught up her long dark cloak and made off
down the corridor, past the head of the main stair-
case, to the door of Mrs. Gosnold’s boudoir.
A voice sharp with vexation answered her knock;
she entered to find its owner fuming, and not only
that, but surprisingly en de'shabz'llé. The dress of
Queen Elizabeth was gone, and Mrs. Gosnold
stood on the threshold of her bedchamber clothed
simply in undergarments and impatience.
“Why are you so late?” she demanded. "I was
beginning to be afraid . . . But thank Heaven
you’re here! You very nearly spoiled everything,
but there’s still time. Come in.”
She led the way into her bedchamber, and with-
out acknowledging Sally’s murmur of startled apol-
ogy, waved an impetuous hand at her.
“Quick!” she demanded. “Get out of that cos-
tume at once!”
Her maid was already at Sally’s side, fumbling
with pins and hooks, before the girl recovered from
her astonishment sufficiently to seek enlightenment.
“But what’s the matter? What have I done?
What—?”
“Nothing much—merely almost upset the apple-
cart for me!” Mrs. Gosnold laughed in grim hu-
mour, her own fingers busily aiding the maid’s.
“Come, step out of that skirt, please. If you’d been
[283]


NOBODY


two minutes later . . . I’m simply going to pretend
I’m you for ten minutes or so,” she explained, low-
ering the shimmering gray Quaker skirt over her own
shoulders. “I’m going to meet Walter Savage in
your stead.” '
“But—”
“But me no buts. I heard enough there at the
window, before you came on the scene, to make me
very suspicious of that young rascal, even more so
than I had every right to be from what you had told
me. Now I mean to learn the rest, find out precisely
what devilment he’s up to.”
“He only wants to tell me—”
“There’s nothing he can possibly have to say to
you that he couldn’t have said a hundred times to-
night in as many corners of the house and grounds
without a soul hearing a word or thinking it odd
that two young people should be exchanging con-
fidences—and both of you masked into the bar-
gain.”
Sally, now entirely divested of her masquerade,
resignedly shrugged herself into the black silk cloak
for lack of a better negligee.
“I don’t understand what you can suspect,” she
said dubiously.
“I don’t suspect anything; but I’m going to find
out everything.” .
“But aren’t you afraid—?”
[284]


FALSE WITNESS


“Of what, pray?” Mrs. Gosnold demanded with
appropriate asperity.
“I mean, don’t you think he’ll know?”
“Nothing in the shadow of those trees, with my
mask and that cape to disguise the fact that I’m a
bit more matronly than yourself—worse luck!”
“But your voice—”
“Haven’t you ever read about ‘guarded accents’
in novels? Those will be mine, precisely, when I
talk to my graceless nephew. I shan’t speak once
above a whisper—and I defy any man to tell my
whisper from yours or any other woman’s for that
matter. Don’t flatter yourself, my dear! I shall
fool him perfectly; there’s precious little to choose
between any two women in the dark!”
Already she was almost finished dressing, and as
yet Sally hadn’t had a chance to breathe a word
about her own information.
“But there’s something I must tell you,” she in-
sisted, suddenly reminded.
“About what?”
“Last night—things that happened after every-
body had gone to bed. You knew I was restless. I
saw several things I haven’t told you about. You
ought to know. They may clear up the mystery of
the theftf’
“I already know all about that,” Mrs. Gosnold
declared calmly.
[285] '


NOBODY


“About Mr. Lyttleton and the boat and the sig-
nals—”
Mrs. Gosnold turned sharply from her mirror.
“What’s this? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t know about the robbery, and I thought
it was none of my affair—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Mrs. Gosnold caught up her
cloak and threw it to the maid to adjust on her
shoulders. “Whatever you saw had nothing to do
with the robbery. Don Lyttleton’s a bad lot in more
ways than one, but he didn’t steal my jewels last
night—that I know.”
“But who did?”
“I hope you may never find out.”
“You know, then?”
“Positively.” The lady adjusted her mask and
caught her cloak about her. “Wait here till I come
back. Then you may tell me about Don Lyttleton
and the boat and the signals. I’ll be as quick as I
can.”
She darted hurriedly away.
The wonder excited by Mrs. Gosnold’s declara-
tion that she knew the identity of the thief—even
though, the girl told herself, she had all along sus-
pected as much—kept Sally quiet for the next sev-
eral minutes. She was sorely tempted to question
the maid, but one look at that quiet, impassive c0un-
tenance assured her that this would be wasted breath.
[286]


FALSE WITNESS


Insensibly the tempo of a haunting waltz that
sang clear in the night beyond the open windows
wove itself into the texture of Sally’s thoughts and
set her blood tingling in response.
She recalled Trego with a recurrent glow of grati-
fication.
Poor fellow!
One foot began to tap the floor in time to the
music. She hadn’t danced once that night, had put-
posely avoided every chance of an invitation to
dance. And now, of a sudden, she wanted to, with-
out reason or excuse.
It was very curious. She wondered at herself.
What had worked this change? Was it really noth-
ing more nor less than a declaration of love on the
part of a man she—didn’t altogether like?
Though, of course, she hadn’t ever been quite fair
to him. He had admirable qualities. His honesty.
His scorn of pretence and subterfuge. His simple
faith in Sally Manvers, however misplaced.
If he were to beg a dance when Mrs. Gosnold had
returned and Sally, recostumed, had rejoined the
maskers, she hardly knew how she could in decency
refuse him now. . . . .
The clock on the mantelpiece struck a single stroke.
Sally started and looked up, to meet Marie’s ques-
tioning glance.
“One o’clock?”
[287]


NOBODY


“Yes, Miss Manwaring.”
“Then—why, she’s been gone over fifteen min-
utes.”
“Yes, miss.”
What could Savage have found to say to
Sally that her substitute need delay so long to
hear it?
Sally frowned.
At the end of another five minutes the maid volun-
teered uneasily: “It’s very odd. Mrs. Gosnold
didn’t expect to be away more than five or ten min-
utes, I know. She said as much before you came
in.”
Sally got up and went to a window which over-
looked the driveway and lawn. Parting the cur-
tains, she glanced out. The lawn was fair with
moonlight, the driveway silver-blue, the woods be-
hind dark and still. There was a closed car waiting
at one side of the porte-cochere. The others—all
those belonging to Gosnold House, as well as those
of guests for the fete-—were hidden among the trees
bordering the road or parked in the open spaces
around the garage and stables at a considerable re-
move from the house.
- There was no one to be seen on the lawn or drive,
no hurrying figure cloaked in Quaker grey.
After some minutes of fruitless watching Sally
ventured doubtfully: “What time is it?”
[288]


FALSE WITNESS


“Ten past one, miss.”
“Nearly half an hour—”
“Yes, miss.”
“Do you think Mrs. Gosnold would mind if you
went to make sure she was all right?”
“I don’t know, Miss Manwaring. She doesn’t
like interference, if I may make so bold as to say
so.”
A little later, however, the woman added tenta-
tively: “I wouldn’t care to take the responsibility,
myself, of going to see.”
“But if I order you to go--”
“Yes, miss,” Marie smiled.
“Then I do order you to go. But don’t be long.”
“No, miss.”
Sally waited in a mood of constantly increasing
anxiety. It was absurd to think that anything unto-
ward could have happened to Mrs. Gosnold on her
own grounds, meeting her own nephew for a clan-
destine talk. And of course she might have learned
something from Savage which had induced her, for
her own ends, to maintain her masquerade for a
longer time. She was quite possibly somewhere on
the terrace or in the formal garden.
Marie was back within five minutes, wearing an
apprehensive countenance.
“There’s nobody out back, miss, near the road,
where she said she was to meet Mr. Savage, and I
' [289]


NOBODY


asked Thomas and some of the waiters, and they all
said they hadn’t seen her.”
“But in my costume and masked . . .
“It’s past one, miss, already, and everybody has
unmasked.”
“To be sure. I’m going to my room and get into
another dress. Then I’ll look round for her my-
self.”
“If you’ll be so kind, miss—~without letting on—”
“Of course.”
“Mrs. Gosnold would be very indignant if any
mistake was made.” .
Sally caught her cloak tightly about her, and be-
cause of its unconventionality as a costume, resumed
her mask against the chance of meeting anybody in
her passage through the corridor to the far wing of
the building.
She fairly ran in her impatience, and through this
haste was brought to the head of the main staircase
at the precise moment when an unmasked Harlequin
was about to set foot upon the upper landing.
Mr. Savage was smiling quietly to himself and
slapping his calves lightly with his lath-sword;
nothing in his manner excused the suspicion that he
was not perfectly satisfied with himself and all his
circumstances.
Somewhat reassured by the vision of this amiable
countenance, Sally paused, and won a glance of
9,
a“ .ui“n--.M&m~. .-. ,. \ I. T
[290]


FALSE WITNESS


quizzical inquiry, with especial application to the
mask which she still wore in defiance of the rule.
But when she spoke in her natural voice that look
was erased from the features of Mr. Savage as chalk-
marks may be erased from a blackboard.
“Oh, Mr. Savage, if you please—”
“Wha-at!” the man ejaculated blankly, stopping
short and dropping his make-believe weapon.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Gosnold. Have you seen
her anywhere about?”
“Mrs. Gos—! Aunt Abby!” He choked and
gasped. “But you—who are you?”
“I thought you must know my voice.”
Sally removed her mask, and incontinently Sav-
age fell back against the banister-rail and grasped
it for support.
“Miss Manvers! But—what—how the devil did
you get back here?”
“I haven’t been out.”
She pulled up on the verge of frank explanation;
it was quite possible that Mrs. Gosnold might furi-
ously resent betrayal of her stratagem. And yet
Savage’s look of pure fright only augmented Sally’s
solicitude for her employer.
“You haven’t been out! But ten minutes ago-—
out there—-behind the trees-—”
She shook her head and tried to smile a superior
sort of a smile: “It wasn’t I who met you.”
[291]


FALSE WITNESS


selfsame marble seat commanding that same view of
silvered sea and bathed in the light of that same
heartless moon, Sally seemed to hear the echo of her
destiny’s sardonic laughter.
The gentleman was Mr. Trego, the lady Mrs. Ar-
temas; and they were ignorant of Sally’s observa-
tion for the simple reason that Mr. Trego’s back
was toward her and the head of Mrs. Artemas was
pillowed on his shoulder—her arms white bonds
around his neck.
And as if this were not enough, Sally’s discovery
of them anticipated by the barest moment the ap-
pearance of another couple around the farther end
of the clump of shrubbery—two people who hap-
pened to be husband and wife and known to Sally
as recent additions to the house-party.
These, too, stopped sharply and would have con-
siderately withdrawn but for the fact that, standing
as he did, Trego could not help seeing them. He
spoke a word, presumably, in the ear so near his lips.
The woman swung away in a twinkling, breaking
from his arms but retaining one of his hands,
and faced the two with a little excited laugh that
sounded almost hysterical; and Sally noted that her
eyes were bright with tears—of happiness, of course.
“Oh!” she cried, laughing and confused, “is it
you, Mrs. Warrenden? No, please don’t run. It’s
too late now—isn’t it?——when you’ve caught us in
[29s]


FALSE WITNESS


she had refused but none the less prized for the
comfort it gave her.
Nor was this all. In addition to the writhings of
an exacerbated vanity, she was conscious of a sense
of personal loss, as if a landmark had been razed in
the perspective of her life. In spite of those faults
and shortcomings, so unduly emphasised through
the man’s own deliberate intent and so inexcusable
in one who appreciated so well what was expected
of a man in his position, Sally had subconsciously
from the very first felt Trego to be one whose faith
and loyalty were as a rock, whose friendship might
be counted upon as an enduring tower of refuge.
And to have him go from her, protesting passion-
ate patience, leaving her exalted with the conscious-
ness that she was wanted—to have him go thus from
her and straightway fall into the trap which Mrs.
Artemas unaffectedly baited—the trap of which he
had not once but many times obliquely alluded to
in half-humorous, half-genuine terms of fear—it
was, or seemed to be, intolerable.
The waves of burning emotion that swept and
scorched her were alternately of rage and chagrin.
Granted the opportunity, she could easily conceive
herself as dealing very vigorously with the man-
trap.
Some one rattled the knob of her door. Startled,
Sally jumped up, and with her wadded handker-
[297]


NOBODY


chief dabbed hastily and superfluously at her eyes,
which were quite dry as yet.
She did not answer, but eyed apprehensively the
dark recess in which the door was set at the end of
her unlighted room.
A knock followed the noise of the knob. Still
she hesitated to reply. Uncertainly she moved
toward the nearest wall-sconce and lifted her hand
to the switch. She was sadly confused and unstrung,
her thoughts awhirl and nerves ajangle. The last
thing she wished just then was to meet and talk to
anybody.
Still it might be Mrs. Gosnold or her messenger.
And that lady was Sally’s one remaining friend on
earth. She swallowed hard, took herself firmly in
hand, and when the knock was repeated was able to
answer in a tolerably even voice:
“Well? Who is it?”
“Miss Manwaring, are you there?” Heartfelt re-
lief informed the voice of Mrs. Standish. “Please
let me in. I must speak with you immediately.”
Sullenly, without replying, Sally turned on the
light, moved to the door, unlocked and opened
It.
“Come in,” she said ungraciously.
Mrs. Standish swept in, gay crimson domino
over fluffy skirts and slim, pink legs assorting oddly
with the agitation betrayed by her unsmiling eyes,
. 2...-‘-—-8.1-_p“— 8-...“
[298]


FALSE WITNESS


her pallor accentuating the rouge on her cheeks
like rose-petals against snow.
“Thank God!” she whispered, “I’ve found you at
last. I’ve looked everywhere for the last half-hour.
This is the second time I’ve been here. You just
got in, of course. Where have you been?”
“Does it matter?” Sally fenced, maintaining a
stony countenance. “I mean, I don’t think it does,
now you’ve run me to earth at last. What’s the
trouble?”
“You haven’t seen Walter? He hasn’t told
you?”
“No; I tried to speak to him half an hour ago,
but he ran from me as if I were a ghost!”
“You know why!” The woman’s voice trembled
with restrained rage. “You impossible girl! Why,
why did you let Aunt Abby go to meet him instead
of you? It was fatal, it was criminal. Of course,
he gave the whole show away to her, never guessing.
Now it’s all up with us; we’ll never be asked here
again; and the chances are she’ll cut us out of her
will as well. Why did you do it? Oh, I could
shake you!”
“I know well you would if you could,” Sally ad-
mitted calmly. “Only—better not try.”
“But why—?”
“Well, if you must know, Mrs. Gosnold over-
heard you three plotting together out there just be-
[299]


NOBODY


fore I came on the scene. She was at the window
overhead, listening through the shutters. I don’t
know what you were talking about—she didn’t tell
me—but it was enough to make her insist on my
giving her my costume so that she might go and
hear the rest of it.”
Mrs. Standish hit her lip. And her eyes shifted
uneasily from Sally’s face.
“You haven’t seen her since-—-?”
“No,” Sally answered bluntly. “Have you?”
“No. Walter and I have both been looking for
her as well as you. That’s why he ran when he knew
about this terrible mistake; he wanted to find her
and set things straight if he could. But she”—the
woman stumbled and her eyes shifted again—“she’s
gone and hidden herself—plotting our humiliation
and punishment, I dare say. I only wish I knew.
Walter is still hunting everywhere for her. See
here: I presume you understand you’ve got to go
now?”
“Why?”
“For one good reason—if what has happened isn’t
enough to persuade you—because there will be a
man here from New York by the first boat—seven
o’clock to-morrow morning—with a warrant for the
arrest of Sarah Manvers.”
“Are you telling the truth, Mrs. Standish?”
“How dare you! No, I won’t let you make me
[300]


FALSE WITNESS


lose my temper with your insolence. The matter
is too serious, and I’ve no wish to see you suffer,
even if you have ruined everything for us. You
must listen to me, Miss Manvers: be advised and
go. I don’t know what put them on your trail,
what made them suspect you were here, but the bur-
glary-insurance people had the warrant sworn out
yesterday afternoon and started a man up by the
evening boat. Walter got a telegram to that effect
about ten o’clock. That’s what he wanted to say
to you—that, and to give you some money and di-
rections for getting away.”
“But why should I leave?”
“Do you want to go to jail?”
“Not much. But I don’t see why I need. You
can easily explain that my things in the bath-room
were left there with your knowledge at the time
when you took pity on me and gave me a change of
clothing to travel in.”
“It’s too late. If we had explained it that way,
to begin with, it would have been all right. But
neither of us thought. And Walter bungled things
frightfully in New York. Now if we come forward
with any such story they’ll think we’re all in a con-
spiracy to defraud the company.”
“Oh!” Sally exclaimed abruptly, with an accent
of enlightenment that discountenanced the older
woman.
[391]


NOBODY


With an effort, recovering, she sought to distract
the girl.
“Surely you must see now, you have got to go!
There’s a boat to the mainland at six thirty. If you
catch that, you’ll have three hours’ start; for the de-
tective won’t be able to get off the island before half
past nine. And you ought to be able to lose your-
self in that time somehow. Hurry; I’ll help you
pack a satchel. You’d better wear that blue serge;
everybody wears blue serge, so it’s inconspicuous.
And here’s some money for travelling expenses.”
Sally ignored the little fold of bills held out to
her.
“I’m not going,” she declared firmly.
“Are you mad?”
“I would be to go with the situation what it is
here. Don’t you see that, unless those jewels are
returned to Mrs. Gosnold to-night—yes, I mean- the
jewels you were so ready to accuse me of stealing a
little while ago; but you seem to have forgotten that
now—”
“I wish you would,” Mrs. Standish replied, school-
ing her voice to accents of dulcet entreaty. “I was
beside myself with anxiety—”
“Wait. If I go before those jewels are recov-
ered—disappear, as you want me to—it will be
equivalent to a confession that I myself stole them.
And suppose I did.”
[302]
f
I, ..4 *_m.'-_M-§-kfllu--Ll


FALSE WITNESS


“What!”
“I say, suppose I did, for the sake of argument.
What right have you to assume that I didn’t com-
mit the theft? No more than you had to accuse me
as you did. And until the theft is made good, what
right have you to let me go and, possibly, get away
with my loot? No!” Sally shook her head.
“You’re not logical, you’re not honest with me.
There’s something behind all this. I’m not going to
be made a scapegoat for you. I’m not going to run
away now and hide simply to further your plans
for swindling the burglary-insurance company. I’ll
see Mrs. Gosnold and advise with her before I stir
a step.”
“Oh, you are insufferable!” Mrs. Standish cried.
In a flash she lost control of her temper altogether.
Her face grew ghastly with the pallor of her rage.
And she trembled visibly.
But what else she might have said to the de-
fiant girl was cut short by the sudden and uncere-
monious opening of the door to admit three persons.
The first and last of these were Mercedes Pride
and Mr. Lyttleton. Between them entered a man
unknown to Sally—a hard-featured citizen in very
ordinary business clothing, cold of eye, uncompro-
mising of manner.
J ubilation glowed in the witch’s glance; anticipa-
tive relish of the flavour of triumph lent her voice
[393]




CHAPTER XVI
THE PLANT

HE very sharpness of the attack shocked Sally
into such apparent calm as she might not
have been able even to simulate had she been given
more time to prepare herself.
After that first involuntary start of surprise and
indignation she stood quite still, but with a defiant
chin well elevated and her shoulders back, and if she
had in her turn grown pale, it was less with fright
than with the contained exasperation that lighted
the fires in her eyes as they ranged from face to face
of the four.
Lyttleton, she noticed, lingered uneasily near the
door, hanging his head, avoiding her glance, almost
frankly shamefaced.
The spinster posed herself with arms akirnbo and
smirked superciliously at the badgered girl, mali-
cious spite agleam in her little black eyes.
Mrs. Standish had fallen back on the interruption
and now half stood, half rested against the dress-
ing-table, her passion of a moment ago sedulously
[305]


NOBODY


dissembled. She arched an inquiring eyebrow and
smiled an inscrutable smile, questioning the pro-
ceedings without altogether disapproving them.
Nearer Sally than any of these, the strange man
confronted the girl squarely, appraising her with an
unprejudiced gaze.
“If you please—” she appealed directly to
him.
“Miss Manwaring, I believe?” he responded with
a slight, semi-diffident nod.
Silently Sally inclined her head.
“That’s the name she gave when she came here,
at least,” Mercedes commented.
Sally addressed Lyttleton. “Please shut the
door,” she said quietly, and as he obliged her, looked
back to the stranger.
“Mason’s my name, miss,” he went on: “operative
from Webb’s Private Investigation Agency, Boston.
Mrs. Gosnold sent for me by long-distance telephone
this morning. I’ve been here all evening, working
up this case on the quiet. The understanding was
that I wasn’t to take any steps without her per-
mission; but she left it to me to use my best judg-
ment in case her little plan for getting-a confession
didn’t work. So I thought I’d better not wait any
longer, seeing how late it is and how long after the
time limit she set—and all.” '
“Do I understand Mrs. Gosnold gave you per-
.l. .._ . , ___... "tidal-tat 24-.r__.__.__~
[306]


NOBODY


“No, ma’am—no confession. All but two of the
cards were blank. The two had something written
on them—anonymous information, so to speak. I
brought them along so that Miss Manwaring would
understand, in case there was any mistake, it wasn’t
my fault.”
He fumbled in a pocket, brought forth the cards,
and with some hesitation handed them over to
Sally.
Both bore messages laboriously printed in pencil,
of much the same tenor:
“Suggest you look into Miss Manwaring’s antecedents—
also her actions between one and three o’clock last night."
“Ask Miss Manwaring what she was doing out of bed
after one last night—search of her room might prove help-
ful.”
Silently Sally returned the cards.
“You see,” the detective apologised heavily, “af-
ter that, there wasn’t anything for it but to ask you
to explain.”
“There is nothing to explain; the charge is pre-
posterous.”
“Yes, miss—that is, I hope so, for your sake. All
the same, I had to ask you. Most of the gentlemen
present when I opened the envelopes seemed to think
I ought to do something at once. Personally, I’d
__ ._. I-_.__._L_._.L. .
[308]


NOBODY


came to get your job as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold.”
True to her word, Sally kept her lips tight shut.
At this, Miss Pride felt called upon to volunteer:
“Mrs. Standish ought to be able to tell you that,
Mr. Mason. She brought Miss—Manwaring here.”
> “I’m sure,” Mrs. Standish said with an elaborate
air of indifference, “I know little or nothing about
Miss Manwaring.” But Sally’s regard was omi-
nous. She hesitated, apparently revising what she
had at first intended to say. “She came to me last
week—the day we left New York—with a letter
of recommendation purporting to be from Mrs.
English —- Mrs. Cornwallis English, the social
worker, who is now in Italy.”
“Purporting?” iterated the detective.
“Oh, I have no reason to believe it wasn’t genu-
ine, I’m sure.”
“Have you the letter handy?”
“I don’t think I have,” Mrs. Standish replied du-
biously. “Perhaps. I can’t say. I’ll have to look.
I’m careless about such matters.”
“That’s all you know about her?”
“Practically. She seemed pleasant-spoken and
intelligent. I took a fancy to her, gave her an
outfit of clothing, brought her here and introduced
her to my aunt, who personally engaged her, under-
standing all the circumstances. That is the limit
of my responsibility for Miss Manwaring.”
.' _' I:__""HJ_I-a_~
4.. “4‘ *. ‘
' [31°]


THE PLANT


“There!” Miss Pride interpolated with sour sat-
isfaction. “If she has nothing to fear, why should
she object?”
“Do be quiet, Mercedes,” Mrs. Standish advised
sweetly. “Miss Manwaring is quite right to ob-
ject, even if innocent.”
“You see, miss,” Mason persisted, “I have Mrs.
Gosnold’s authority to make such investigation as
I see fit.”
“I forbid you to touch anything in this room.”
“I’m sorry. I’d rather not. But it looks to me
like my duty.”
She perceived at length that he was stubbornly
bent on this outrageous thing. For a breath she
contemplated dashing madly from the place, seeking
Trego, and demanding his protection.
But immediately, with a sharp pang, she was 're-
minded that she might no longer depend even on
Trego.
As the detective tentatively approached her dress-
ing-table the girl swung a wicker armchair about
so that it faced a corner of the room and threw
herself angrily into it, her back to the four.
Immediately, as if nothing but her eye had pre-
vented it theretofore, the search was instituted.
She heard drawers opened and closed, sounds of
rummaging. She trembled violently with impotent
exasperation. It was intolerable, yet it must be en-
[3131


NOBODY


dured. There was one satisfaction: they would find
nothing, and presently Mrs. Gosnold would reap-
pear and their insolence be properly punished.
She could not believe that Mrs. Gosnold would
let it pass unrebuked. And yet . . .
Of a sudden it was borne in upon the girl that
she had found this little island world a heartless,
selfish place, that she had yet to meet one of its in-
habitants by whom her faith and affection had not
been betrayed, deceived and despised.
Remembering this, dared she count upon even
Mrs. Gosnold in this hour of greatest need?
Had that lady not, indeed, already failed her
protégée by indulging in the whim of this unac-
countable disappearance?
Must one believe what had been suggested, that
she, believing her confidence misplaced in Sally,
was merely keeping out of the way until the un-
happy business had been accomplished and the puta-
tive cause of it all removed from Gosnold House?
Behind her back the futile business of searching
her room, so inevitably predestined to failure and
confusion, was being vigorously prosecuted, to judge
by the sounds that marked its progress. And from
the shifting play of shadows upon the walls she
had every reason to/believe that Miss Pride was
lending the detective a willing hand. If so, it was
well in character; nothing could be more consistent
[3 I4]


THE PLANT


with the spinster’s disposition than this eagerness to
believe the worst of the woman she chose to consider
her rival in the affections of Mrs. Gosnold. A piti-
ful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sally was
almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of
the woman when her hopes proved fruitless, her
fawning overtures toward forgiveness and reconcili-
ation. Possibly she had been one of the two to ac-
cuse Sally on the cards.
The other? Not Mrs. Standish. She would
hardly direct suspicion against the girl she despised
when by so doing she would imperil her own
schemes. She was too keenly selfish to cut off her
nose to spite her face. Sally could imagine Mrs.
Standish as remaining all this while conspicuously
aloof, overseeing the search with her habitual man-
ner of weary toleration, but inwardly more than a
little tremulous with fear lest the detective or Mer-
cedes chance upon that jewel-case and so upset her
claim against the burglary-insurance concern.
Lyttleton, too, would in all likelihood be stand-
ing aside, posing with a nonchalant shoulder
against the wall, his slender, nicely manicured fin-
gers stroking his scrubby moustache (now that he
had discarded the beard of Sir Francis, together with
his mask) and not quite hiding the smirk of his
contemptible satisfaction—the satisfaction of one
who had lied needlessly, meanly, out of sheer spite,
[31s]


NOBODY


terror; her mouth dropped witlessly ajar; there was
no more colour in her face than in this paper; never
a countenance spelled guilt more damningly than
hers.
“Yes!” Miss Pride chimed in triumphantly.
“What have you to say to this, young woman?”
Sally heard, as if remotely, her own voice ask
hoarsely: “What—what is it?”
“A diamond ring,” Mason responded obviously.
“Aunt Abby’s,” Mrs. Standish repeated.
Mason glanced at this last: “You recognise
it?”
The woman nodded.
“Where did you find the thing?” Sally demanded.
“Rolled up inside this pair of stockings.” Ma-
son indicated the limp, black silk affairs which he
had taken from a dresser-drawer. “Well, how about
it?” .
“I don’t know anything about it. I tell you I
never saw it before.”
The detective grinned incredulously. “Not even
on Mrs. Gosnold’s finger?”
“No—never anywhere.”
“Mrs. Gosnold seldom wears the ring,” Mrs.
Standish put in; “but it is none the less hers.”
“Well, where’s the rest of the stuff?” Mason in-
sisted. -
“I don’t know. I tell you, I know nothing about
L __. _ wit--s._.-_..._._._-.__
[318]


THE PLANT


that ring. I have no idea how it got where you
found it. Somebody must have put it there.” Sally
caught her distracted head between her hands and
tried her best to compose herself. But it was use-
less; the evidence was too frightfully clear against
her; hysteria threatened. ‘
“Mrs. Standish gave me the stockings,” she stam-
mered wildly, “rolled up as you found them. Ask
her.”
“Oh, come, Miss Manwaring; you go too far!”
Mrs. Standish told her coldly. “If you are pos-
sibly innocent, compose yourself and prove it. If
you are guilty, you may as well confess and not
strain our patience any longer. But don’t try to
drag me into the affair; I won’t have it.”
“I guess there isn’t much question of innocence
or guilt,” Mason commented. “Here’s evidence
enough. It only remains to locate the rest of the
loot. It’ll be easier for you,” he addressed Sally
directly, “if you own up—come through with a
straight story and save Mrs. Gosnold trouble and
expense.”
He paused encouragingly, but Sally shook her
head. .
“I can’t tell you anything,” she protested. “I
don’t know anything. It’s some horrible mistake.
Or else—it’s a plant to throw suspicion on me and
divert it from the real thief.”
[319]


THE PLANT


“Well . . .” The detective shuflied with em-
barrassment. “Of course,” he said with brilliant
inspiration, “if these ladies will undertake the
job . . .”
Miss Pride stirred smartly. “It’s not what I want
to do,” she insisted, “but if you insist, and on dear
Abigail’s account . . .”
With a tremendous effort Sally whipped her
faculties together and temporarily reasserted the
normal outward aspect of her forceful self.
“I will not be searched,” she said with deter-
mination. “With Mrs. Gosnold present—yes, any-
thing. Find her, and I’ll submit to any indignity
you can think of. But if Mrs. Standish and Miss
Pride think I will permit them to search me in her
absence . . .”
She laughed shortly. “They’d better not try it
—that’s all!” and on this vague threat turned
away and threw herself back into the chain.
“I’m sure,” Miss Pride agreed, “I’d much rather
not, for my part. And dear Abigail is so peculiar.
Perhaps it would be best to wait till she gets back.”
“Or hunt her up,” Lyttleton amended.
“I guess you’re right,” Mason agreed, a trace
dubiously.
“But what will you do with the girl in the mean-
time? Take her to jail?”
“No; I guess not yet——-not until we see what
[321]


NOBODY


if she had to limp down to the beach, there were
boats to be found there-—rowboats drawn up on
the sand—and there was the bare possibility that
she might be able to row across the strait to the
mainland before her flight was discovered.
And even if overtaken, she could be no worse
off than she was. Every one believed her guilty;
there was no way for her to prove her innocence.
She might better chance the adventure.
On frantic impulse, without giving herself time
to weigh the dangers, Sally switched off her light,
sat down on the window-sill, swung her legs over,
and let herself down until she hung by both hands
from the sill.
And then she repented. She was of a sudden ter-
ribly afraid. Remembering too late the high heels
of her slippers, she discounted the certainty of a
turned ankle—which would hurt frightfully even
if it failed to incapacitate her totally. For the life
of her she could not release her grasp, though al-
ready the drag of her weight was beginning to
cause most perceptible aches in the muscles of her
arms.
She panted with fright—and caught her breath
on a sob to hear herself called softly from below.
“Miss Manwaring! For the love of Mike—!”
Trego!
She looked down and confirmed recognition of
[326].


NOBODY


while most of her was spinning giddily down
through a bottomless pit, saw the grinning moon reel
dizzily in the blue vault of heaven—and with a
little shock landed squarely in the arms of Mr.
Trego. _
He staggered widely, for she was a solidly con-
structed young person, but he recovered cleverly—
and had the impudence to seem amused. Sally’s
first impression on regaining grasp of her wits was
of his smiling face, bent over hers, of a low chuckle,
and then—to her complete stupefaction—that she
was being kissed.
He went about that business, having committed
himself to it, in a most business-like fashion; he
kissed (as he would have said) for keeps, kissed
her lips hungrily, ardently, and most thoroughly;
he had been wanting to for a long time, and
now that his time was come he made the most
of it.
She was at first too stunned and shocked to re-
sist. And for another moment a curious medley of
emotions kept her inert in his arms, of which the
most coherent was a lunatic notion that she, too, had
been wanting just this to happen, just this way,
for the longest time. And when at length she re-
membered and felt her anger mounting and was
ready to struggle, he disappointingly set her down
upon her feet.
[328]?


THE PLANT


“There!” he said with satisfaction. “Now that’s
settled—and a good job, too!”
She turned on him furiously.
“How dared you—!”
“Didn’t I deserve it, catching you the way I
did?” he asked, opening his eyes in mock wonder.
“And didn’t you deserve it for being so silly as to
try anything like that?” He jerked his head to-
ward that window. “What on earth possessed
you—?”
“Don’t you know? Don’t you understand?” she
stormed. “I’m accused of stealing Mrs. Gosnold’s
jewels—locked up. You knew that surely!”
“What an infernal outrage!” he cried indig-
nantly. “No, I didn’t know it. How would I?
I”—he faltered—“I’ve been having troubles of
my own.”
That drove in like a knife-thrust the memory of
the scene in the garden with Mrs. Artemas. The
girl recoiled from him as from something inde-
scribably loathsome.
“Oh!” she cried in disgust, “you are too con-
- temptible!”
A third voice cut short his retort, a hail from
above. “Hello, down there!”
With a start Sally looked up. Her window was
alight again, and somebody was leaning head and
shoulders out.
[329]


NOBODY


“Hello, I say! Is that the Manwaring woman?
Stop her; she’s escaping arrest!”
Trego barred the way to the gardens; and that
was as well (she thought in a flash) for now the
only hope for her was to lose herself temporarily
in the shadows of the shrubbery.
The thought of the trees that stood between the
grounds and the highway was vaguely in her mind
with its invitation to shelter when she turned and
darted like a hunted rabbit around the comer of the
house. I
Before Trego regained sight of her she was on
the lawns. Crossing them like the shadow of a
wind-sped cloud, she darted into the obscurity
of the trees and vanished. And Mr. Trego, observ-
ing Mr. Lyttleton emerge from under the porte-
cochere and start in pursuit, paused long enough
deftly to trip up that gentleman with all the good
will imaginable and sent him sprawling.
Frantic with fright, her being wholly obsessed by
the one thought of escape, Sally flew on down the
drive until, on the point of leaving the grounds
by the gate to the highway, she pulled up perforce
and jumped back in the nick of time to avoid
disaster beneath the wheels of a motor-car swinging
inward at a reckless pace.
Involuntarily she threw a forearm across her eyes
to shield them from the blinding glare of the head-
[330]


EXPosE


Mason was exceedingly dubious; Mr. Trego was,
for him, almost abnormally grave.
This last, bringing up the rear of the proces-
sion, closed the hall door at a sign from Mrs.
Gosnold. The company found seats conspicuously
apart, with the exception of Mrs. Standish and
Savage, likewise Mercedes, who stuck to her dear
Abigail as per invariable custom. Sally, on her
part, found an aloof corner where she could observe
without being conspicuous.
“So,” said Mrs. Gosnold, taking her place beside
the desk and raking the gathering with a forbidding
eye. “Now if you will all be good enough to
humour me without interruption, I have some an-
nouncements to make, some news to impart, and
perhaps a question or two to ask. It’s late, and
I’m tired and short of temper, so you needn’t be
afraid I won’t make the proceedings as brief as
possible. But there are certain matters that must
be settled before we go to bed to-night.”
She managed a dramatic pause very effectively,
and then: “I’ve been kidnapped,” she announced.
Murmurs of astonishment rewarding her, she
smiled grimly.
“Kidnapped,” she iterated with a sort of ferocious
relish. “At my age, too. I don’t wonder you’re
surprised. I was. So were my kidnappers, when
they found out who they were making off with.
[333]


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tables, ran away. So far, good; Walter booted the
burglar out of the house, loaded up with the jewels,
and left to rejoin Adele. But fate would have it
that he should meet Miss Manwaring again in the
Grand Central Station.”
She paused for breath, then summed up with an
amused smile: “There was a most embarrassing
contretemps: a broken desk and empty safe at home
to be accounted for, whether or not they attempted
to swindle the insurance company; and if they did
make the attempt—and remember, they were des-
perate for money—a witness to be taken care of.
They couldn’t let Miss Manwaring go and tell the
story of her adventure promiscuously, as she had
every right to if she chose, for if it got to the ears
of the insurance people their plot would fail, and
they were none too sure that they were not liable
to be sent to jail for conspiracyiwith intent to de-
fraud. So they cooked up a story to account for
Miss Manwaring and brought her here, knowing
that I had recently dismissed Miss Matring. And
immediately, as was quite right and proper, every-
thing began to go wrong.
“To begin with, the insurance people proved
sceptical, largely through Walter’s stupidity. It
seems that certain evidences had been left in the
house of Miss Manwaring’s presence there with
what we may call, I presume, Walter’s permission,
_‘u p. _|..,__.",,,;
[336]




CHAPTER xvrrr
BREAKING JAIL

ITHIN five minutes Sally was back behind
the locked door of her bedchamber, alone
with the glowing exaltation of complete exoneration
and triumph over the machinations of her ill-wish-
ers, alone with what should naturally have been
tingling satisfaction in consciousness of having ad-
ministered yet another and (it was to be hoped) a
final stinging snub to that animal of a Trego.
Yet her gratification in the memory of the latter
event was singularly vapid, flat, and savourless.
They had been the last to leave the boudoir
where, with the help of her maid, Mrs. Gosnold
was preoccupied with effort to restore her kinsWoman
—that hapless victim of her own malevolence.
The others had been only too glad to disperse,
following that diversion which freed them from the
open contempt of their hostess, Sally and Trego.
Lyttleton, indeed, had not hesitated to show his
spirit by taking to his heels down the corridor to his
quarters when Trego betrayed an inclination to fol-
[342]
~ s
n. t. W_...__-_-_..-_.\‘_ 1


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRAR


Aaron, LENOX
T|LDEN FOUNOAHONS


BREAKING JAIL


low him. And it was this circumstance which had
led to the discomfiture of Trego.
“A fine young specimen!” Trego commented with
some disappointment, louring after the i'apidly re-
treating figure. “But wait,” he suggested ominously,
“just wait till I catch him outside the house. I
knew I did wrong to let him off so easy last night.
But I’ll make up for it, all right. Leave him to
me!”
“I am not interested in your personal quarrels
with Mr. Lyttleton,” Sally told him frigidly.
“Mine, if you please, I will settle for myself in my
own way. When I desire your interference, I shall'
notify you. Till then-'"—whatever the circumstances
—I hope you will be good enough not to speak to me
under any circumstances whatever.”
With this she had left him dashed and staring.
Now, in retrospection, she was alternately sorry
that she had said as much and that she had not said
more. He had deserved either the cut direct and
absolute, or he had deserved a thoroughgoing, whole-
hearted exposition of his own despicable perfidy.
She could never forgive him—and, what was
worse, she could never forgive herself for the smart
of her wounded pride, when she recalled that shame-
ful scene in the garden. She could not forgive her-
self for caring one way or the other. She could
not forgive herself for admitting that she cared.
[343]


BREAKING JAIL


in the rack on her desk; more was not obtainable
without a trip to the living-room. Then in des-
peration she appended, under the sign of the vener-
able P. S., a prayer that this might prove acceptable
in lieu of more gracious leave-taking, addressed
.‘the envelope to Mrs. Gosnold, and left it stick-
ing conspicuously in the frame of her dressing-
mirror.
Studiously she reduced her travelling gear to the
simplest requisites; the hand-bag she took because
she had a use for it, nothing less than to serve as a
cover for the return of everything she wore.
She was determined to go out of this Island world,
whose ether was too rare for her vulgar lungs, with
no more than she had brought into it.
At length the laggard hands of the clock were
close together on the figure 6.
She rose, let herself out of the room, and by way
of that memorable side door issued forth into a
morning as rarely beautiful as ever that blessed
Island knew. It made renunciation doubly difficult.
Yet Sally did not falter or once look back.
Her way to the village wharf was shortest by
the beach. None saw her steal through the formal
garden (with eyes averted from that one marble seat
which was forever distinguished from all others in
the world) and vanish over the lip of the cliff by
way of its long, zigzag stairway. Few noticed her
[345]


NOBODY


as she debouched from the beach into the village
streets; her dress was inconspicuous, her demeanour
even more than retiring.
Her hope was favoured in that on this earlier trip
of the boat there were few passengers other than
natives of the Island.
On the mainland she caught an accommodation
train which wound a halting way through the mom-
ing and set her down in Providence late in the fore-
noon. Then ignorance of railroad travel made her
choose another accommodation instead of an express
which would have cost no more and landed her in
New York an hour earlier.
Her flight was financed by a few dollars left
over from her bridge winnings of the first day at
Gosnold House after subsequent losses had been
paid. Their sum no more than sufficed; when she
had purchased a meagre lunch at the station counter
in New Haven she was penniless again; but for the
clothes she wore she landed in New York even as
she had left it.
The city received her with a deafening roar that
seemed of exultation that its prey had been delivered
unto it again.
The heat was even more oppressive than that of
the day on which she had left—or perhaps seemed
so by contrast with the radiant coolness of the Island
air.,
[346]


NOBODY


rate columns on the page folded outermost two items
were encircled with rings of crimson water-colour.
One, under the caption “News of Plays and
Players,” noted the departure for an opening in At-
lantic City of the musical comedy company of whose
chorus Mary Warden was a member.
The other, in the column headed “Marriages,” an-
nounced tersely the nuptials of Lucy Spode and
Samuel W. Meyerick. No details were given.
Forlornly Sally wandered to' the windows and
opened them to exchange the hot air of the studio
for the hotter air of the back yards.
Then slowly she set about picking up the threads
of her life. ‘
Such clothing as she owned offered little variety
for choice. She selected the least disreputable of
two heavy, black winter skirts, a shirt-waist badly
torn at the collar-band, her severely plain under-
clothing, coarse black stockings, and shoes that had
been discarded as not worth another visit to the
cobbler’s.
When these had been exchanged for the gifts of
Mrs. Standish, Sally grimly packed the latter into
the hand-bag and shut the latch upon them with a
snap of despair.
Come evening, when it was dark enough, she
would leave them at the door of the residence up
the street, ring the bell, and run.
[348]


NOBODY


A little smile broke through her tears.
“Why must you go to such extremes?” she
laughed brokenly. “Aren’t there any more apart-
ments to be had on Riverside Drive?”
THE END 13'
‘\
.\:'
[352]
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