Chapter 10

When you come to think of it, John, we cannot take any great amount of credit for that. It is not startling, and I'm awfully afraid it is not original. Now, as I look at it, it would be much more remarkable if I--I beg your pardon, John Henry Smith--it would be much more remarkable if we were _not_ in love with Grace Harding. Did you ever think of that?

Falling in love with Grace Harding was the easiest thing we ever did, Smith, and you know it. We are entitled to no more credit for it than for admiring one of those glorious sunsets, when the eye is ravished by blended and ever-changing tints of cloud, sky, and enchanted landscape. We do not boast, Smith, that we love the songs of the birds, or the graceful bend of the willow as it yields to the summer's breeze; we do not call attention to our worship of the early morn, when the dew sparkles like swarming diamonds on grass and flower, and bridal veils of mist float over the breasts of the hills.

We loved her, Smith, from the moment she dawned upon us the day her father made that wonderful drive. We loved her while she was playing that first game of golf--and now we can talk frankly with each other, I will confess I never saw a woman play worse than she did that day. But the fact that our admiration grew during every moment of that weird and wonderful exhibition of how not to hit a ball, proves we were in love. You never denied it, you say? I know you didn't; and it's to your credit.

But does she love us, Smith? You don't know? Of course you don't know, but what do you think about it? You hope, she does, you say. Smith you're as stupid as I am! Certainly you hope she does, and so do I, but have you any reason to believe she does? Why don't you say something?

"She is pleasant to us, smiles at us, and seems to enjoy our society," you say. Well, what of it? What does that prove? I could say the same thing of Miss Ross, Miss Dangerfield, and even of Miss Lawrence. I am not so conceited as to imagine these charming girls are in love with us because they laugh, smile, and seem to be pleased at our attempts to entertain them.

Carter could make claim that Miss Harding was in love with him on the same plea. And speaking of Carter, I should like your opinion of him. I'll tell you frankly I don't like the way he acts.

Mind you, Smith, I'm not going to say anything against Carter, and I shall not permit you to. Carter has as much right to fall in love with Grace Harding as we have, and for that matter I'm afraid he has more claim in that direction. If you will recollect, it was Carter who introduced us to Miss Harding.

I have no idea when and where he met her. Carter is a chap who attends to his own affairs and who does not permit others to interfere in them. It is not likely he will tell us, and I shall never ask him.

Mr. Harding sometimes calls him "Jim." That goes to prove that Carter has known the Hardings for a long time. Harding once spoke of knowing Carter's father.

That is not what worries me. It is Carter's air and whole attitude which puts me on guard. Carter must know, John Henry Smith, that we pay an unusual amount of attention to Miss Harding, and sometimes I almost imagine he has surmised what I have confessed to you, but it does not seem to annoy or concern him in the least. It is as if he knew just how far we can go. It strikes me as the confidence bred of assured supremacy, but, of course, I may be in error, and sincerely hope I am, for your sake as well as mine.

Carter and Miss Harding are much together. They take long walks, and both seem very happy in one another's company.

I stumbled across them last evening while looking for a lost ball in the old graveyard. They were on a scat under a weeping willow tree, and were sitting very close together. Carter was reading something and she was looking over his shoulder. They were laughing when they looked up and saw me poking about in the grass with my club.

"Hello, Smith!" drawled Carter, looking at me through that monocle of his. "Lost your ball? How many times must I tell you that the proper way to play this hole is to drive over this sacred spot and not into it?"

Miss Harding drew slightly away from him when she saw me--at least I imagined so--and smiled and looked innocent as could be.

What I am getting at, John Henry Smith, is this: We would not dare ask Miss Harding to sit with us in such a lonely and secluded spot, and I think we would have been more embarrassed than was Carter at so unexpected an interruption. It simply goes to prove that--well, I don't know just what it does prove.

Chilvers told me a year ago he had heard Carter was engaged to be married to a very pretty and immensely wealthy girl. I did not think much of it at the time, having only passing interest in whether Carter married or remained single. The other day I asked Chilvers if he had heard anything more about Carter's engagement, and he looked at me rather oddly and said he had not. He said his wife might know something about it, and advised me to ask her or Carter.

Suppose they were engaged, John Henry Smith? That would settle it, you say. You quit too easily. If you desert me in this extremity I shall go ahead on my own account. I love her; I must have her! Let Carter fall in love with someone else!

For some malignant reason this man Carter has persistently stood between me and the realisation of my cherished ambitions. He has won cup after cup and medal after medal which would have fallen to me were it not for his devilish combination of skill and luck. But he shall not thwart my love! He shall not; I swear it; he shall not! Smile, John Henry Smith, you do not love her as I do.

"Why should she fall in love with me, or wish to marry me? What have I done in the world, or what do I expect to do which will compel that admiration and respect which is the basis of true love?"

Those are harsh questions, John Henry Smith. I tell you I love her; is not that sufficient? She is not the woman to weigh a man in the same scales with his money, his miles of railroad track, and such material assets. I would love her if her father were still a section boss.

And I _am_ going to do something in this world. I propose to show you, John Henry Smith, that I can do something beside play golf. Am I not doing something now? Am I not risking practically every dollar I have in the world on my business judgment? Call it gambling if you will; if so, it is big gambling. The man who wins must take chances. Mr. Harding did not become a railway magnate by remaining a section boss. He is a commanding figure in Wall Street. I shall be that and more.

Laugh if you will, John Henry Smith; I mean every word of it!

What does Carter do? He has not done a stroke of work in five years. He says a man with an income of $100,000 a year has no right to work and strive to increase it. I claim a man should do something to make a name for himself, and leave a record of which his children and grand-children will be proud. You watch me, John Henry Smith! I'll show you and Miss Harding that I can do something beside play golf.

We have wandered from our subject. The question is this: what shall we do in order to ascertain if Miss Harding entertains toward us any sentiment stronger than friendship? Ask her, you say. Suppose _you_ ask her. No, my dear John Henry, that is not the proper step at this time.

I do not set myself up as an authority in matters of love, but I do hold that no wise man ever proposed to a good and true woman without knowing in advance that she would accept him. Love has its secret code, and Nature gives the key to its discerning votaries. I have that key, John Henry Smith.

One need not speak or write in order to send the first timid messages of love; and by the same token the recipient need not even frown in order to tenderly reject the proffered passion. There are as many words in this unwritten and unspoken vocabulary of love as may be found in lexicons. Did you know that, John Henry?

The man who fails to avail himself of this silent but eloquent language, and who stupidly assaults a woman with an avowal of an alleged love, deserves to be coldly rejected. It is as much of an insult or an indiscretion as to walk unheralded and unbidden into a private room. Never do it, John Henry!

If a man becomes convinced he loves a woman he should tell her by some message in the code which both understand. He will know if she receives it. It is not necessary that she answer, "yes." If she answer not at all he has achieved a notable victory, but if she promptly signals a decided "no" he has met with irreparable defeat. That settles it, my dear Smith.

A woman may refuse a man with words, and he be justified in declining to accept the implied rejection, but there is no appeal from the silent decision which leaps from the heart.

So long as no message comes back unopened keep on sending them. You are justified in assuming that they have been read and are being entertained. The time will come, John Henry, when you will get your answer. If it is against you, accept it with the best grace you can command. Do not be the fool to think her lips will veto her heart.

If, on the contrary, there comes the glad day when over the throbbing unseen wire there comes a telepagram sounding the letters "Y-E-S," proceed with the sweet formality of a verbal avowal of your love, and you will not be disappointed.

Smile if you will, John Henry Smith, you know I have told the truth.

We have sent a few of these messages to Miss Harding, and thus far none have been returned unopened. As you say, John Henry, they have been very timid ones, and possibly are so vague she does not think them worth even a decided negative. We will send more emphatic ones; not too emphatic, mind you, but couched in symbols which cannot be misunderstood.

That is our best plan, John Henry Smith, don't you think so? I am glad we agree at last. As yet nothing has happened of a character positively discouraging.

Carter? I wish you would not mention his name. From this on we will ignore Carter.

I intended to write of our automobile trip, but the hour is late and I must postpone it until some other time. Good night, John Henry Smith!

ENTRY NO. XV

THE AUTO AND THE BULL

I started to tear out what I wrote last night, but on second thought will let it remain. Its perusal in future years may amuse me. I will now resume the trail of Woodvale happenings.

The touring car won from her father by Miss Harding is a massive and beautiful machine. Luckily I am familiar with the mechanism of this particular make, and, as a consequence, am called in for advice when any trifling question arises. Harding scorns a professional chauffeur.

"Next to running one of these road engines," he declares, "the most fun is in pulling them apart to see how they are made. I would as soon hire a man to eat for me as to shawf one of these choo-choo cars."

Shortly after the big machine arrived Mr. Harding received a letter from a gentleman named Wilson, who is spending the summer at the Oak Cliff Golf and Country Club. Wilson challenged him to come to Oak Cliff and play golf, and to bring his family and a party of friends with him. Harding read the letter and laughed.

"Here's my chance to win a game," he declared. "I can't beat the Kid, but I'll put it all over Wilson, you see if I don't."

"Don't be too sure, papa," cautioned Miss Harding.

"Wilson only started golf this year, and the only game he can beat me at is hanging up pictures," insisted Harding. "He stands six-foot-four, and weighs about one hundred and fifty. He looks like a pair of compasses, but he's all right, and we must go up and see him. Do you know the road, Smith?"

"Every foot of it."

"How far is it?"

"About forty miles."

"Good!" declared the magnate. "I'll wire Wilson we'll be there to-morrow. We'll fill up the buzz wagon, take an early start, and put in a whole day at it. Smith shall be chief shawfer, and the Kid and I will take turns when he gets tired."

And we did. We started at seven o'clock with a party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Harding, Miss Harding, Chilvers and his wife, Miss Dangerfield, Carter, and myself.

There are many hills intervening and some stretches of indifferent road, but we figured we should make the run in two hours or less--but we didn't.

The few early risers gave us a cheer as we rolled away from the club house and careened along the winding path which leads to the main road. The dew yet lay on the grass, and little lakes of fog hung over the fair green. It was a perfect spring morning, and the ozone-charged air had an exhilarating effect as we cleaved through it.

Miss Harding was in the seat with me. I don't imagine this exactly pleased Carter, but it suited me to a dot. My lovely companion was in splendid spirits.

"Now, Jacques Henri," she said to me in French, pretending that I was a professional chauffeur, "you are on trial. Unless you show marked proficiency we shall dispense with your services."

"And if I do?" I inquired.

"Then you may consider yourself retained," she laughed.

"For life?" I boldly asked.

I was so rattled at this rather broad insinuation that I swung out of the road and struck a rut, which gave the car a thorough shaking.

"If that's the way you drive you will be lucky if you're not discharged before we reach Oak Cliff," Miss Harding declared, and I did not dare look in her eyes to see if she were offended or not.

For the following minutes I attended strictly to business. The steering gear and other operating parts were a bit stiff on account of newness, but I soon acquired the "feel" of them, and we ate up the first ten miles in seventeen minutes.

We were following a sinuous brook toward its source, now skirting its quiet depths along the edge of reedy meadows, and then chasing it into the hills where it boiled and complained as it dashed and spumed amid rocks and boulders.

"Hold on there, Smith!" shouted Harding from the rear seat in the tonneau.

"Stop, Jacques Henri!" ordered my fair employer, and then I dared look into her smiling eyes.

"I want to cut some of those willow switches," explained Harding, as the car stopped.

"What do you want of willow switches, John?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"Going to make whistles out of them," he said, cutting several which sprouted out from the edge of a spring. "Besides they're good things to keep the flies from biting the tonneau. Smith runs so slow that they are stealing a ride."

"Defend me," I said to my employer.

"Jacques Henri is doing as he is told," declared Miss Harding.

The spring was so inviting that we sampled its clear, cold water. Harding in the meantime whittling industriously on his willow switch. When he found that his whistle would "blow" he was as pleased as if he had designed a new type of locomotive.

A mile farther on we passed sedately through a country village and aroused the fleeting interest of the loungers in front of the combined post-office and news store. Then we entered a fine farming country, and from it plunged into a forest so dense that the overhanging boughs almost spanned our pathway.

Moss-covered stone walls lined both sides of the road. Everywhere was a profusion of wild flowers, their petals brushing against our tires, and their flaunting reds, yellows, and blues brightening the gloom of the encompassing wood. A gray squirrel scampered across our path and impudent chipmunks chattered to right and left. And then we came to a small clearing filled with the wagons, tents and litter of a gipsy camp.

"Let's stop and have our fortunes told!" cried Miss Dangerfield, but my employer vetoed that proposition. It was a vivid flash of colour. The brightly painted wagons with their canvas tops, the red-shirted men, black of hair and eyes, olive of skin, and graceful in their laziness; the older women bare-headed, bent of shoulder, and brilliantly shrouded in shawls; the younger women straight as arrows, bold and keen of glance, and decked in ribbons and jewelry, and on every hand swarms of gipsy children, more or less clothed. The blue smoke of their camp-fires twisted through the dark green of the fir trees in the background.

Again the forest closed upon us. The grade became steeper, and in places our road had been blasted through solid rock. And then we reached the summit of this ridge, and like a flash the superb panorama of the Hudson burst upon us. At our feet lay the broad bosom of the Tappan Zee, its waters glistening in the sunlight, the spires of a village in the foreground, and the distance blue-girt with cliffs, hills, and mountains.

I have seen it a thousand times, but it is ever new.

"Stop; Jacques Henri!" commanded Miss Harding, and I stopped.

"What's the matter?" asked Harding. "Something busted?"

"We're going to sit right here a minute or more and admire this," declared Miss Harding.

"Great; isn't it?" admitted Harding. "Who owns it, Smith? Does it cost anything to look at it?"

"Not a penny," I said.

"First time I've got something for nothing since I struck New York," was the comment of that gentleman.

Four or five miles across the Tappan Zee the blue of the mountain was splattered with the white of straggling houses. To the left was a checker-board of farms, an area hundreds of square miles in extent basking in the rays of a cloudless sun. Yet beyond, the Orange mountains lifted their rounded slopes. To the south was the grim line of the Palisades, blue-black save where trees clung to their steep sides. On the north Hook Mountain dipped its feet into the Hudson, and to our ears came the dull boom of explosions where vandals are blasting away its sides and ruining its beauty.

"Right over there," said Carter, pointing toward Piermont, "is where André landed when he crossed the river on the mission to Benedict Arnold which ended in his capture and death. Beyond the mountain is the monument which marks the spot where he met with what our school books term 'an untimely fate.'"

"A short distance to the south," I added, "is the old house where Washington made his headquarters during the most discouraging years of the Revolution, and in which he and Rochambeau planned the campaign which ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. And not far away is 'Sleepy Hollow,' where Washington Irving lived, wrote, and died."

"Yes, yes," contributed Chilvers, "and on this sacred soil there now is bunched a cluster of millionaires, any one of whom could pay the entire expense of the War of the Revolution as easily as I can settle for a gas bill."

We had not noticed Harding, who suddenly appeared in front of the machine with his driver and a handful of golf balls.

"The future historian will record," he declared, "that from this spot Robert L. Harding drove a golf ball into that pond below!"

"Suppose you can, Robert," observed his wife, "what earthly good will it do you, and what will it prove?"

"It will prove that I can drive one of these blamed things into that pond," he grinned. "I've got to break into history some way."

On the fifth trial he had the satisfaction of driving a ball into that pond. It was not much of a drive, but it pleased him immensely.

"I got my money's worth out of those five balls," he declared as he climbed back into the car.

"See how the sun strikes the sail of that schooner!" exclaimed Miss Harding. "And how it glances from the brass work of those yachts at anchor! There goes an auto boat darting through a swarm of sail boats like a bird through fluttering butterflies. It is a glorious view from here!"

"It makes the Rhine look like counterfeit money," asserted Chilvers, whose similes usually are grotesque. "Any time you hear an American raving over the wonderful scenery of Europe you can place a bet that he has never seen that of his own country."

"That's right, Chilvers," said Harding. "We have all kinds of scenery out West that has never been used. It's a drug in the market, laying around out-of-doors for the first one that comes along."

We made the next ten miles at a rapid gait through one of the finest country-residence sections in this fair land of ours. Then we entered a sparsely settled agricultural district. We were opposite a meadow which recently had been mowed. It was a gentle slope with picturesque rocks flanking its sides, and near the road was a pond.

"Whoa there, Smith!" shouted Harding. I jammed on brakes and turned to see what was the matter.

"What is it, papa?" asked Miss Harding.

"This is just the place I've been looking for," he said, standing and surveying the meadow with the eye of an expert.

"What for?"

"To paste a ball in," he asserted, reaching for his clubs.

"Drive ahead, Jacques Henri!" ordered my charming employer. "Papa Harding, we're not going to stop every time you see a place where you wish to drive a ball!"

"Just this once, Kid," pleaded her father. "Let me soak a few balls out there, and I won't say another word until we get to Oak Cliff. Be good, Grace, we've got lots of time."

"Very well," she consented, looking at her watch. "We'll wait ten minutes for you."

"Here's where I get some real practice," he said, arming himself with a driver and a box of balls. "Come on, Chilvers, you and Carter help me chase 'em."

"Robert Harding, you are hopeless!" declared his good wife. "You have become a perfect golf crank."

"Let me alone," he grinned, as he climbed the fence. "I'm on my vacation. Keep your eyes on this one, boys!"

Before we started from Woodvale he declared that it was all nonsense to take along a change of clothes, and he was dressed in that wonderful costume, plaids, red coat and all.

We lay back in our seats and smilingly watched his efforts. He has shown signs of improvement recently, and is imbued with the enthusiasm of the novice who realises that his practice has counted for something.

He drove the first half-dozen balls indifferently, but the next one was really a good one.

"There was a beaut!" he exclaimed, turning to us as the ball disappeared with a bound over the crest of the slope. "What's the matter with you folks? Why don't you applaud when a man makes a good shot?"

"That's balls enough, papa, dear," said Miss Harding. "By the time you have found them your time will be up."

"Right you are, Kid," he admitted. "I'm proud of that last one, and I'm going to pace it. Help me pick 'cm up, boys, I'll drive 'em back, and then we'll go on."

He started to pace the distance of the longer ball, counting as he strode along. When he reached the crest of the slope we could hear him droning, "one hundred twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three," etc. Carter was hunting for the balls to the right and Chilvers for those to the left.

The red coat and plaid cap disappeared over the hill. Miss Dangerfield was chattering about something, I know not what. I was looking at Miss Harding, and did not hear her.

I did hear some sound which resembled distant thunder. A moment later I saw the top of that plaid cap bob above the hill. Then I saw the shoulders of that red coat, and the huge figure of the railroad magnate fairly shot into view.

He was running as fast as his stout legs would carry him, waving his club and occasionally looking quickly to his rear.

I knew in an instant what was the matter.

"What is papa running for?" exclaimed Miss Harding. That question was speedily answered.

"Run! Run, boys!" he yelled as he plowed down that slope. "Run like hell; he's after us!"

Carter and Chilvers took one glance and the three of them came tearing down that hill.

There came into view the lowered head and humped shoulders of a Holstein bull close on the trail of the lumbering millionaire. The women screamed.

"He will be killed; he will be killed!" moaned Mrs. Harding. "Oh, do something to save him, Mr. Smith; please do something!"