Part 9

"And is that why she rang the gong?"

"She rang presumably because dinner was ready."

"There's another presumption that seems to me more probable."

"Burton, I shall not spend another night under your roof."

"I had reached the same conclusion."

Tucker turned with great dignity.

"The trouble is," he said, "that you have not the faintest idea of the conduct of a gentleman," and with this he walked slowly from the room.

The cook did not now seem so eager to get back to the kitchen. She stood twisting a napkin in her hands and looking at the floor, not unaware, however, that her employer was looking at her.

"The trouble really is, Jane-Ellen," he said gently, "that you are too intolerably lovely."

"Oh, sir."

"'Oh, sir, oh, sir!' You say that as if every man you knew had not been saying the same thing to you for the last five years."

Jane-Ellen had another of her attacks of dangerous candor.

"Well, a good many have said it, sir," she whispered, "but it never sounded to me as it did when you said it." And after this she had the grace to dart through the door and downstairs, so fast that he could hear her little heels clatter on each step as she went.

In the hall he found Tucker, standing under a lamp, studying a time-table, with glasses set very far down his nose. Opposite, Lefferts was leaning against the wall, his arms folded and the expression on his face of one who has happened unexpectedly upon a very good moving picture show.

Seeing Crane, Tucker folded up his time-table and removed his glasses.

"Your other guest has just arrived," he observed.

"Oh, is Reed here?"

"Yes," said Lefferts, "he's in your office taking off his coat."

"And you may be interested to know," added Tucker, with a biting simplicity that had impressed many juries in its time, "you may be interested to know that he is the man I found kissing Jane-Ellen last week."

"What, Reed!" cried Crane, with a gesture that might have been interpreted as ferocious.

Hearing his name called, Reed came hurrying out.

"Yes," he said, advancing with outstretched hand, "here I am. Sorry to be late, but I was ready before--"

"We'll go in to dinner," said Crane shortly. Tucker and Reed moved first toward the dining-room. Lefferts drew his host aside.

"Just one moment," he said. "You went off so quickly when that gong rang that I did not have any chance to tell you how I feel about your generosity. It makes--"

Crane grasped his hand.

"You have an opportunity this very moment," he replied, "to repay me for anything I ever have done or may do for you. Talk, my dear fellow, talk at dinner. Do nothing but talk. Otherwise, I shall knock those two men's heads together."

Lefferts smiled.

"I doubt if you'd get much sense into them even if you did," he murmured.

"No," answered Burton, "but I should have a great deal of enjoyment in doing it."

XI

THEY sat down at table, and, as Crane looked at his guests, he had little hope that even Lefferts' cheerful facility could save the situation. Circumstances would be too much against him. Even the poet himself could hardly be at his best, having just arrived in the hope of dining with his lady-love to find she had been spirited away by an irate mother. This in itself was enough to put a pall on most men; yet, of the three guests, Lefferts seemed by far the most hopeful. Tucker was already sullen and getting more sullen every moment. Crane knew the signs of his lawyer's bearing--the irritable eye that would meet no one's directly, the tapping fingers, the lips compressed but moving. Tucker was one of those people cursed by anger after the event. His nature, slow moving or overcontrolled, bore him past the real moment of offense without explosion; but with the crisis over, his resentment began to gain in strength and to grow more bitter as the opportunity for action receded more and more into the past. Crane knew now that Tucker was reviewing every phrase that had passed between them; every injury, real or fancied, that he had ever received at Crane's hands; these he was summoning like a sort of phantom army to fight on his side. No, Tucker was not a guest from whom any host could expect much genial interchange that evening.

Reed, on the other hand, was too unconscious. Placid, good-natured, confident in his own powers to arrange any little domestic difficulties that might have arisen, he sat down, unfolded his napkin, and turned to Lefferts in answer to the inquiry about real estate which Lefferts had just tactfully addressed to him.

"The great charm of this section of the country," he was saying, "is that from the time of its earliest settlement it has been in the hands of a small group of--" At this instant Jane-Ellen entered with the soup. Reed, who had expected to see Smithfield, stopped short, and stared at her with an astonishment he did not even attempt to disguise. Lefferts, following the direction of his eyes and seeing Jane-Ellen for the first time, mistook the subject of Reed's surprise.

"Oh," he said, as the girl left the room, "is this 'the face that launched a thousand ships'?"

Tucker, who was perhaps not as familiar with the Elizabethan dramatists as he should have been, replied shortly that this was the cook.

"A very beautiful little person," said Lefferts, imagining, poor fellow, that he was now on safe ground.

"I own," said Tucker, "that I have never been able to take much interest in the personal appearance of servants."

"You sometimes behave as if you did, Tuck," remarked his host.

"If you are interested in beauty," observed Lefferts, "I don't see how you can eliminate any of its manifestations, particularly according to social classes."

"Such a preoccupation with beauty strikes me as decadent," answered Tucker crossly.

"Indeed, how delightful," Lefferts replied. "What, exactly, is your definition of 'decadent'?"

Now in Tucker's vocabulary the word "decadent" was a hate word. It signified nothing definite, except that he disliked the person to whose opinions he applied it. He had several others of the same sort--hysterical, half-baked and subversive-of-the-Constitution being those most often in use. This being so, he really couldn't define the word, and so he pretended not to hear and occupied himself flicking an imaginary crumb from the satin lapel of his coat.

Lefferts, who had no wish to be disagreeable, did not repeat the question, but contented himself by observing that he had never tasted such delicious soup. Reed shook his head in an ecstasy that seemed to transcend words. Only Tucker scowled.

As Jane-Ellen entered at this moment to take away the soup-plates, Crane, who was growing reckless, decided to let her share the compliment.

"The gentlemen enjoyed the soup, Jane-Ellen," he said, "at least, Mr. Lefferts and Mr. Reed did, but Mr. Tucker has not committed himself. Did you enjoy the soup, Tuck?"

Tucker rapped with his middle finger.

"I care very little for my food," he answered.

"Well," said Crane, "I've heard of hating the sin and loving the sinner; I suppose it is possible to hate the cooking and--and--" He paused.

"I did not say I hated the cooking," answered Tucker. "I only say I am not interested in talking about it all the time."

"All right," said Burton, "we'll talk about something else, and you shall have first choice of a topic, Tuck."

"One moment before we begin," exclaimed Reed, "I must ask, where is Smithfield?"

Crane turned to him.

"Smithfield," he said, "in common with my two guests, the housemaid Lily and the boy Brindlebury, have all left, or been ejected from my house within the last twenty-four hours."

"You mean," gasped Reed, "that you and Mr. Tucker and the cook are alone in the house!"

"I regret to say that Mr. Tucker also leaves me this evening."

"But--but--" began Reed, in a protest too earnest to find words on the instant.

"We won't discuss the matter now," said Crane. "I have several things to talk over with you, Mr. Reed, after dinner. In the meantime," he added, looking around on the dreary faces of all but Lefferts, "let us enjoy ourselves."

"Certainly, by all means," agreed Reed, "but I would just like to ask you, Mr. Crane--You can't mean, you don't intend, you don't contemplate--"

"Oh, I won't trouble you with my immediate plans," said Crane, and added, turning to Lefferts, "my experience is that no one is really interested in any one else's plans--their daily routine, I mean, and small domestic complications."

"Oh, come, I don't know about that," answered Lefferts, on whom the situation was beginning vaguely to dawn. "Mr. Reed struck me as being very genuinely interested in your intentions. You are genuinely interested, aren't you, Mr. Reed?"

Reed was interested beyond the point of being able to suspect malice.

"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, "I am, genuinely, sincerely. You see, I understand what would be said in a community like this,--what would be thought. You get my idea?"

"I own I don't," answered Burton suavely, "but I will say this much, that in deciding my conduct, I have usually considered my own opinion rather than that of others."

"Of course, exactly. I do, myself," said Reed, "but in this case, I really think you would agree with me if I could make myself clear."

"Doubtless, doubtless," answered Crane, and seeing that Jane-Ellen was again in the room, he went on: "What is it exactly that we are talking about? What is it that you fear?"

Reed cast an agonized look at the cook and remained speechless, but Tucker, with more experience in the befogging properties of language, rushed to his assistance.

"It's perfectly clear what he means," he said. "Mr. Reed's idea is that in a small community like this the conduct of every individual is watched, scrutinized and discussed, however humble a sphere he or she may occupy; and that if any young woman should find herself in a position which has been considered a compromising one by every author and dramatist in the language, she would not be saved from the inevitable criticism that would follow by the mere fact that--"

But here something very unfortunate happened. The lip of the ice-water pitcher, which Jane-Ellen was approaching to Tucker's glass, suddenly touched his shoulder, and a small quantity of the chilling liquid trickled between his collar and his neck. It was not enough to be called a stream, and yet it was distinctly more than a drop; it was sufficient to cut short his sentence.

"Oh, sir, I'm so sorry," she cried, and she added, with a sort of wail, looking at Crane, "You see how it is, sir, I'm not used to waiting on table."

"I think she waits admirably," murmured Lefferts aside to his host.

"Extremely competent, I call it," said Crane clearly. "Don't give it another thought, Jane-Ellen. See," he added, glancing at Tucker's face which was distorted with anger, "Mr. Tucker has forgotten it already."

"Oh, sir, how kind you are to me!" cried the cook and ran hastily into the pantry, from which a sound which might have been a cough was instantly heard.

"Yours is a strange but delightful home, Crane," observed Lefferts. "I don't really recall ever having experienced anything quite like it."

"You refer, I fancy," replied Crane, "to the simple peace, the assured confidence that--"

"That something unexpected is going to happen within the next ten seconds."

Tucker and Reed, both absorbed in their private wrongs, were for an instant like deaf men, but the latter having now dried his neck and as much of his collar as was possible, showed signs of coming to, so that Crane included both in the conversation.

"Lefferts and I were speaking," he said, slightly raising his voice, "of the peculiar atmosphere that makes for the enjoyment of a home. What, Mr. Reed, do you think is most essential?"

"Just one moment, Mr. Crane," said Reed. "I want to say a word more of that other subject we were speaking of."

Crane's seat allowed him to see the pantry door before any one else could. On it his eyes were fixed as he answered thoughtfully:

"Our last subject. Now, let me see, what was that?"

"It was the question of the propriety of--"

"Fish, sir?" said a gentle voice in Reed's ear. He groaned and helped himself largely and in silence.

Lefferts, who was really kind-hearted, pitied his distress and decided to change the topic.

"What a fine old house this is," he said, glancing around the high-ceilinged room. "Who does it belong to?"

"It belongs," answered Tucker, "to a family named Revelly--a family who held a highly honored position in the history of our country until they took the wrong side in war."

"In this part of the country, sir," cried Reed, "we are not accustomed to thinking it the wrong side."

Tucker bowed slightly.

"I believe that I am voicing the verdict of history and time," he answered.

It was in remorse, perhaps, for having stirred up this new subject of dispute that Lefferts now went on rapidly, too rapidly to feel his way.

"Well, this present generation seems to be an amusing lot. Eliot was telling me about them last night. He says one of the girls is a perfect beauty. Now, what was her name--such a pretty one. Oh, yes," he added, slightly raising his voice, as his memory gave it to him, "Claudia."

"What?" said the cook.

"Nobody spoke to you, Jane-Ellen," said Crane, but his eyes remained fixed on her long and meditatively as she handed the sauce for the fish.

Lefferts continued:

"Eliot said that she was a most indiscriminating fascinator--engaged to three men last summer, to his knowledge. Our Northern girls are infants compared--"

Reed suddenly sprang up from the table.

"I'd be obliged, sir," he said, "if you'd tell Mr. Eliot, with my compliments, that that story of his is untrue, and if he doesn't know it, he ought to. I don't blame you, sir, a stranger, for repeating all you hear about one of the loveliest young ladies in the country, but I do blame him--"

At this the cook approached him and said with a stern civility:

"Do sit down and eat your fish, sir, before it gets cold." They exchanged a long and bitter glance, but Reed sat down.

"I'm sure you'll believe," said Lefferts, "that I'm sorry to have said anything I ought not, particularly about any friend of yours, Mr. Reed, but the truth is, I thought of it only as being immensely to the credit of the young lady, in a neighborhood which must be, you'll forgive my saying, rather dull if you're not fond of hunting."

"The point is not whether it is to her credit or not," returned Reed, who was by no means placated, "the point is that it is not true."

"Probably not," Lefferts agreed, "only," he added, after a second's thought, "I don't see how any one can say that except the young lady herself."

"Miss Claudia Revelly," answered Reed, "is one of the most respected and admired young ladies in the State, I may say in the whole South. I have known her and her family since she was a child, and I should have been informed if anything of the kind had taken place."

As he said this, the glance that the cook cast at him was indescribable. It was mingled pity and wonder, as much as to say, "What hope is there, after all, for a man who can talk like that?"

"Undoubtedly you're right, Mr. Reed," said Lefferts, "and yet I have never heard of a girl's announcing more than one engagement at a time, although it has come within my experience to know--"

"But, after all, why not?" said Crane. "Perhaps that will be the coming fashion. We shall in future get letters from our friends, which will begin: 'I want you to know of the three great happinesses that have come into my life. I am engaged to John Jones, Peter Smith and Paul Robinson, and I feel almost sure that one of these three, early next June--'"

Seeing that Reed was really growing angry, Lefferts hastened to interrupt his host.

"I think you might tell us, Mr. Reed," he said, "what the great beauty of the county looks like?"

"I can't think that this is the time or place for retailing the charms of a young lady as if it were a slave market," answered Reed; and it seemed to Crane that the cook, who had come in to change the plates, looked a little bit disappointed.

"No, not as if it were a slave market," said Lefferts, "because, of course, it isn't."

"I can see no reason, Reed," said Crane, "why you shouldn't give us a hint as to whether Miss Revelly is blond or brunette, tall or short."

"Perhaps I see reasons that you do not, sir," answered the wretched real estate man.

"Well," said Crane, "I tell you what, Jane-Ellen must have seen her often,--Jane-Ellen," he added, "you've seen Miss Revelly. What does she look like?"

Jane-Ellen advanced into the room thoughtfully.

"Well, sir," she said, "it isn't for me to criticize my superiors, nor to say a word against a young lady whom Mr. Reed admires so much, but I have my own reasons, sir, for thinking that there was more in those stories of her engagement than perhaps Mr. Reed himself knows. Servants hear a good deal, you know, sir, and they do say that Miss Revelly--"

"Claudia!" burst from Reed.

"Miss Claudia Revelly, I should say," the cook corrected herself. "Well, sir, as for looks--let me see--she's a tall, commanding looking lady--"

"With flashing black eyes?" asked Crane.

"And masses of blue-black hair."

"A noble brow?"

"A mouth too large for perfect beauty."

"A queenly bearing?"

"An irresistible dignity of manner."

"Jane-Ellen," said Crane, "I feel almost as if Miss Claudia Revelly were standing before me."

"Oh, indeed, sir, if it were she, it's you who would be standing," said the cook.

"For my part," said Crane, turning again to the table, "I had imagined her to myself as quite different. I had supposed her small, soft-eyed, with tiny hands and feet and a mouth--" He was looking at Jane-Ellen's mouth, as if that might give him an inspiration, when Reed interrupted.

"I regret to say, Mr. Crane," he said, "that if this conversation continues to deal disrespectfully with the appearance of a young lady for whom--"

"Disrespectfully!" cried Crane. "I assure you, I had no such intention. I leave it to you, Jane-Ellen, whether anything disrespectful was said about this young lady."

"It did not seem so to me, sir," answered the cook, with all her gentlest manner. "But," she added, glancing humbly at Reed, "of course, it would never do for a servant like me to be setting up my opinion on such a matter against a gentleman like Mr. Reed."

"What I mean is, if Miss Revelly were here, do you think she would object to anything we have said?"

"Indeed, I'm sure she would actually have enjoyed it, sir."

"Well, then, she ought not," shouted Reed sternly.

Jane-Ellen shook her head sadly.

"Ah, sir," she said, "young ladies like Miss Revelly don't always do what they ought to, if report speaks true."

"May I ask, without impertinence, Burton," said Tucker, at this point, "whether it is your intention to give us nothing whatsoever to drink with our dinner?"

"No, certainly not," cried Crane. "Jane-Ellen, why haven't you served the champagne?"

The reason for this omission was presently only too clear. Jane-Ellen had not the faintest idea of how to open the bottle. Crane, listening with one ear to his guests, watched her wrestling with it in a corner, holding it as if it were a venomous reptile.

"For my part," Tucker was saying, "I have a great deal of sympathy with the stand Mr. Reed has taken. Any discussion of a woman behind her back runs at least the risk--"

Suddenly Crane shouted:

"Look out! Don't do that!" He was speaking not to Tucker, but to the cook. His warning, however, came too late. There was the sound of breaking glass and a deep cherry-colored stain dyed the napkin in Jane-Ellen's hand.

All four chairs were pushed back, all four men sprang to her side.

"Let me see your hand."

"Is it badly cut?"

"An artery runs near there."

"Is there any glass in it?"

They crowded around her, nor did any one of them seem to be averse to taking the case entirely into his own control.

"There are antiseptics and bandages upstairs," said Crane.

"Better let me wash it well at the tap in the pantry," urged Reed.

"Does it hurt horribly?" asked Lefferts.

Tucker, putting on his glasses, observed:

"I have had some experience in surgery, and if you will let me examine the wound by a good light--"

"Oh, gentlemen," said Jane-Ellen, "this is absurd. It's nothing but a scratch. Do sit down and finish your dinner, and let me get through my work."

As the injury did not, after a closer observation, seem to be serious, the four men obeyed. But they did so in silence; not even Lefferts and Crane could banter any more. Tucker had never made any pretense of recovering his temper, and Reed seemed to be revolving thoughts of deep import.

As they rose from table, Crane touched the arm of Reed.

"Come into the office, will you? I have something I want to say to you."

"And I to you," said Reed, with feeling.

XII

ONCE in the little office, Crane did not immediately speak. He drew up two chairs, put a log on the fire, turned up the lamp, and in short made it evident that he intended to do that cruel deed sometimes perpetrated by parents, guardians and schoolmasters in interviews of this sort--he was going to leave it to the culprit to make a beginning.

Reed, fidgeting in a nearby chair, did not at once yield to this compulsion, but finally the calm with which Crane was balancing a pen on a pencil broke down his resolution and he said crossly:

"I understood you had something to say to me, Mr. Crane."

Crane threw aside pencil and pen. "I thought it might be the other way," he answered. "But, yes, if you like. I have something to say to you. I have decided to break my lease and leave this house to-morrow."

"You don't mean to go without paying the second instalment of the rent?"

"Why not? The Revellys have broken, or rather have never fulfilled their part of the contract. I took the house on the written understanding that servants were to be supplied, and you are my witness, Mr. Reed, that to-night I have no one left but a cook."

"Oh, come, Mr. Crane! We only agreed to provide the servants. We could not guarantee that you would not dismiss them. You must own they showed no inclination to leave the house."

"No, I'll not deny that," returned Burton grimly.

"No sane man," continued Reed eagerly, "would allow the payment of his rent to depend on whether or not you chose to keep a staff of servants in many ways above the average. You'll not deny, I think, sir, that the cooking has been above the average?"

Crane had reached a state of mind in which it was impossible for him to discuss even the culinary powers of Jane-Ellen, particularly with Reed, and so he slightly shifted the ground.

"Let us," he said, "run over the reasons for which I dismissed them: The housemaid, for calling one of my guests an old harridan; the boy, for habitually smoking my cigarettes, for attempting to strike Mr. Tucker, and finally, for stealing a valuable miniature belonging to the house; the butler, for again introducing this same larcenous boy into the house disguised as a lame old man. The question is not whether I should have kept them, but whether I should not stay on here and have them all arrested."

Reed's face changed. "Oh! I hope you won't do that, Mr. Crane," he said.

Burton saw his advantage. "I should not care," he answered, "to go through life feeling I had been responsible for turning a dangerous gang loose upon the countryside."

"They are not that, sir. I pledge my word they are not that."

"There is a good deal of evidence against that pledge."

"You doubt my word, sir?"

"I feel there is much more to be explained than you seem willing to admit. For instance, how comes it that you are a--I will not say welcome--but at least assured visitor in my kitchen?"

Reed felt himself coloring. "I do not feel called upon," he replied, "to explain my conduct to any one."