Part 5

"It's not so much Edward who likes him, is it?" the colonel blurted out. "The young man's pretty well smitten with you, if I'm any judge, and if I should see Elizabeth at your tricks I'd say that she was something more than flirting."

Judith was plentifully endowed with Westmore temper; the colonel was wont to say that there had never been a more imperious Westmore than his Cousin Judith; he grew uncomfortably warm during the perceptible pause that followed his hasty speech.

Then Judith's laugh rang clearly. "My dear Ridley! You are amusing!... Yes, that clever boy is scheming to take Edward's money, and I am helping him to it! Either that, or he is in love with me and I am forgetting that I am thirty-four and he twenty-six--a little romance snatched at in my old age!" She rippled into more subdued mirth as she rose. "You go on in and talk to Edward--he'll give you the best of reasons for _our_ countenancing Mr. Baird." She changed then suddenly to sternness. "I'd advise you, though, not to make any such remarks to him as you've just made to me, Cousin Ridley. Edward is head of our family, remember, and you're more Westmore than Dickenson--at least I've always thought so. I'm certainly Westmore enough to set the family interest before everything else--I've always done so in the past, and am likely to do so in the future."

The colonel had been entertaining a jumble of thoughts, among others, that women of thirty-four were sometimes emotionally erratic, particularly if they had had so barren an emotional existence as Judith; and also, that young fellows of twenty-six were apt to be dangerously impressionable. But at Judith's reproof he came up standing:

"I beg your pardon, Cousin Judith," he said, in his old-fashioned, florid manner. "Edward's hospitality has been a little too much fo' me--my tongue has run a little too loose. That happens to me sometimes, as you know. I beg yo' pardon. What I really think is that you are a woman in a million, Judith--a very splendid woman, my dear. Westmo' owes everything to you--we all know that, and I'm on my knees to you--I always have been."

Judith Westmore was not demonstrative, so her answer to his apology surprised and vastly pleased the colonel. She framed his tanned face with her hands and kissed his cheek. "You are a dear," she said brightly. "Now go in to Edward and be nice to him. He's worried over Garvin--and a number of things.... I'm going in now to talk to Cousin Mary, and after that I'll have to go up-stairs. If any one wants to see me, just say I'm busy."

The colonel did as he was bidden; Judith was usually obeyed. She had her own methods with each member of the clan, and it was a rare thing for one of them to venture upon criticism of Judith. The colonel had been, as he said, a little overcome by Edward's hospitality.

IX

A FEMININE PROCEDURE

But Judith did not go up-stairs.

After nearly an hour spent in the drawing-room, she left her elder cousins engrossed in whist, saying that she was going up until time for supper. She went to the foot of the stairs, then half-way up, to where the stairs made a turn, and stood for a time, listening. Everything was quiet above. In the dining-room the men were still talking, and the drawing-room was silent except for an occasional remark. Smothered by the intervening walls, the music and the stir in the ballroom seemed distant.

Judith listened to the conclusion of a waltz, then to the chatter on the veranda--until it was drawn back again into the ballroom by the less rhythmic measure of a square dance. Then she crept down, went quickly through the hall and out to the veranda.

Baird was there, waiting for her. He sprang up from a bench. "I hoped you'd come!" he said. "I didn't like to go in and ask for you."

They stood for a moment. "Have you been enjoying yourself?" Judith asked.

"No, you didn't come back."

Judith laughed softly. "You are not polite to my party, suh."

"Never mind." He touched her bare arm. "Where can I get something to put around you?"

"My cape is in the hall--behind the stairs--and my overshoes.... It is so warm--we might go down to the walk."

"Down to the terraces," Baird said with the quickness of the man alert to every advantage.

Possibly Judith had the terraces in mind, but she demurred. "Oh, no--the ground is too damp."

Baird's answer was to dive into the hall. When he came out he had Judith's cape on his arm and a pair of overshoes in each hand. He held up the larger pair. "I've jumped some one's claim!... Think any one will want these before we get back?"

"They'll certainly not guess where to look for them.... You know how to surmount a difficulty, don't you?" She had planned for this adventure, and her cheeks were warm.

"By helping myself to some one else's belongings--if there is no other way.... Sit down and let me make sure you will be dry."

Baird had also planned for an hour on the terraces, and was elated. He knelt and put on Judith's overshoes with much care, a caressing clasp for each foot before he planted it on the floor. "They are so small," he said. "There are not many women whose feet are kissable." Then dashed by his temerity, he added quickly, "You must descend on me if I talk--nonsense. I am apt to be forward--I need training badly. I'm in your hands, you know."

Judith thought, as she looked down at his massive jaw with its suggestion of animal force, that undoubtedly he spoke from much predatory experience; his air of deference sat oddly on him; he was most attractive when presumptuous. Her reflections caused her a pang. Retrospective jealousy over affairs that were none of her concern? She shrugged mentally. She was foolish! For the first time in her life she was deliberately tampering with forces which she knew were dangerous.

She thought it best to say gravely, "You are a little--assured, Mr. Baird."

"I'm afraid I am," he assented ruefully; then added with native shrewdness and candor combined, "I suppose because I've usually found it paid."

"I suppose it does--with some people," Judith returned with instant hauteur. She was glad he could not see her flush.

Baird got to his feet. "May I help you with your cape?" he asked so humbly that the prick of his previous remark ceased to smart. Why take offense at his candor; his respect for her was apparent enough.

She regained her usual manner as Baird helped her down the steps and, on reaching the walk, dropped her arm, and vented his discomfort by criticizing the moon. "The stars are doing their best--why doesn't the silly thing choose the end of the month to be full in?" he complained. "I'm afraid you will stumble."

Judith did stumble a few moments afterward, and, as a matter of course, Baird took possession of her arm. Judith judged that he had been sufficiently rebuked and also that she had proved that she needed guidance and yet was not eager to accept it, a truly feminine procedure.

And Baird was evidently bent upon gaining the terraces without offending her by too much urgency. They had come to the verge of the first terrace, and he tested the ground. "It's not muddy," he announced. "The sod is too heavy.... Shan't we go down?"

"I ought not to go so far away--some one will be wanting me," Judith objected.

"That is one reason you should go," Baird said decidedly. "You've been on duty all evening. Come, shunt it all for a few minutes." Baird had regained his assurance; it never deserted him for long.

"I should like to," Judith confessed, and her sigh was genuine enough.

"Of course you would. Isn't there a bench down there--somewhere?"

"On the edge of the last terrace--under those two cedars."

"Let's go to it--please, Wonder-woman! They'll all be out after that dance and I won't have a moment with you. Come!"

He pleaded a little masterfully, Judith thought, but as long as he did not suspect that it was his forcefulness that attracted her, all was well. "I suppose I can hear down there, if any one called," she said doubtfully.

"Certainly you can."

They went down to where the two cedars loomed, a dark mass, and groped their way to the bench. It was dark beneath the trees and quite dry. Below them was a hollow and beyond it a steep slope crowned by a group of trees, their outlines distinct against the sky. In every direction but this the country dropped away from the house, affording views for miles. Except for the music in the house behind them and the occasional snort or stamp of a horse in the stables, it was very still.

"This is splendid," Baird said, "but are you warm enough? You have nothing on your head--there's a hood to your cape ... may I?"

He drew it up over her hair, restraining his impulse to touch her cheek as he did so. The cape reminded him of Ann Penniman and his afternoon's adventure, and he smiled a little to himself. That had been so natural a performance, and this enforced deference was so entirely a new experience. He was enjoying it; he liked the way in which Judith kept the distance between them. She sat well against her corner of the bench. He could see her face now, black and white and rounded into girlishness by the encircling hood, again reminding him of Ann.

"I like those hooded capes," he remarked. "I don't know that I ever saw one till I came here."

"Haven't you? Almost every woman here has one--they are so convenient. Do you know what sun-bonnets are? If you're here in the summer you'll become acquainted with them, too. But I suppose you will be off befo' then." She spoke more lazily than usual, slurred her words more, another reminder of Ann.

"I shan't be able to get away when I go--if you continue to be kind to me."

Judith laughed. "Do you happen to be Irish?"

"Of course I'm Irish! Haven't you noticed my long upper lip? My father was a pretty successful Chicago ward politician and I have the gift of gab and manipulation too. I can talk money out of a man--any hour of the day. Now that I have had enough of adventure, I mean to settle down to handling people and making money. I was born to it.... But that sort of thing is contrary to all your traditions, isn't it?" he added.

Judith thought that he judged himself rightly; his voice alone would accomplish for him; it had both a persuasive and a compelling quality. "It is, but I admire it," she returned decidedly. He had offered her the opportunity she wanted.

"You do?" Baird said, surprised. Then his shrewdness added, "No, you only think you do. I don't believe there is a man in your family who would thrill over making money. I mean, thrill at the fight one must make in order to gain power over men and circumstances, for that is really the thing that buoys the money-maker, sheer joy in the tussle. There is the miser, of course, but he's rarely a genius. Any one can be a miser, if so inclined."

"You are right--the men of my family have very little business ability," Judith answered. "Garvin is the only one who has. He would be a success, if given the opportunity. He is tremendously interested in anything he undertakes and is capable of concentration--and he wants to make money."

It was not Baird's reading of Garvin Westmore, but he answered promptly: "He seems to be an energetic, wide-awake sort." Baird's alertness warned him that there was purpose in Judith's remarks.

Judith continued. "Yes, and I should like Garvin to have his chance.... You see, ever since he was a child he has been tied down to this place. They will tell you about here that I have run the farm--for it is that now--the days of tobacco growing were over long ago--but it is Garvin, really, who has done all the buying and selling. He has made quite an income from his horses, simply because he has been interested in it. He would be just as interested in manufacturing automobiles, for instance--if he could get a position in some promising company."

Baird understood now. He had thought swiftly while Judith talked. So that was the reason he had been welcome at Westmore! That was the favor Judith meant to ask--he was to find a place for Garvin.

It did not trouble Baird in the least that he was expected to make a return for what he received--his experience had taught him that life was run largely on that basis--but he was stung by the thought that Judith had smiled on him for a purpose. He had mentioned his plans to no one; it spoke well for her keenness that she had divined the industry he had selected for his own advancement. But if she expected to gain more from a bargain than he did, she was mistaken.

It was perhaps as well that Judith did not see his expression. His voice did not lose its pleasing quality, however. "Garvin has some capital, I suppose?"

"Very little, I am afraid," Judith said regretfully.

Baird did not say, "But his brother has." He looked down at her, studying her clear-cut features closely. Evidently he had been right when he had decided that she was cold; she had simply unbent for a purpose. Aloud he said, "The manufacture of automobiles is going to be a tremendous industry. I have some automobile connections--I'll talk to Garvin a little."

It was not his voice that acquainted Judith with the chill he felt; she simply sensed it. She looked up at him. "That was the favor I was going to ask of you," she said softly. "Just to talk to Garvin a little and interest him in some plan that will get him away from all this." She indicated their surroundings by a gesture. "The family traditions have very little hold on Garvin--they make him impatient and dissatisfied. You see, I am older than my brother and I have had a great deal of responsibility. I feel more like a mother than a sister to him. His dissatisfaction worries me terribly. It would be doing me a very great favor if you would interest yourself a little in Garvin.... We Westmores rarely ask favors, Mr. Baird, and only of those whom we really like. I have so much confidence in you." Judith's voice was sweet and pleading at the end; her hand stole out from her cape and touched his arm.

She had lifted him quickly out of coldness into something warmer than admiration. His doubts had melted like a fog under sunshine. He took her hand and kissed it. "There are few things I would not do for you, Wonder-woman.... Thank you, dear."

He would have kept her hand, but she drew it away, and Baird was almost instantly glad that she did. He was forgetting himself. The thing he liked best in her was her aloofness. "I've often wanted to thank you for the way you have taken me in and made me feel at home," he declared. "I've never had much of that sort of kindness shown me--I appreciate it."

"I want you to feel at home at Westmore," she answered. "You must come often--and always be nice to me." She had regained her usual graceful vivacity. "Some day we will ride all over the place and you shall become really acquainted with it.... Do you see that group of trees beyond there, against the sky? That is our family burying-ground--generations of Westmores. There are several quaint tombstones up there."

"You keep even your dead to yourselves, don't you? In a way, I like the clannishness of it. You keep everything to yourselves, birth and marriage and death.... I think there's too much fuss and ceremony over all three. The first is generally a misfortune, the second is apt to be no cause for rejoicing, and the end of it all no real reason for mourning."

It was the first time Judith had heard this note from him. "Mr. Baird! How unlike you!... It might be Garvin talking."

Baird did not want to talk about Garvin, so he made no reply. There was silence for a time. For some unaccountable reason Baird was touched by depression. This family with their close interests reminded him that no one would care particularly how he lived or when he died.

He was aroused by Judith's sudden movement. She was sitting taut, her hood flung back. "What is it?" he asked.

Her hand caught his arm, a grip of steel. "Hush!" she said sharply. "Listen!... There are voices at the barn--and don't you hear galloping--on the road? Don't you hear it?"

Baird could hear it distinctly, furious galloping, now a thud on soft ground, then the click of hoofs against stones, and several men's voices at the barn.

"Yes, I hear it--what has happened?"

But Judith was off and away, running up the terraces, and her exclamation of distress reached him indistinctly, "Oh, _why_ didn't I stay at the house!"

X

THE INFINITELY PAINFUL THING

Judith was not running to the house; she cut across the terraces to the stables, and Baird followed her with all the speed possible to him. And yet he did not catch up with her until after she had reached the group of men and horses. When he came up they had just parted, four horsemen off at a gallop down the road in the direction of the Post-Road, two men and Judith left standing beneath the stable lantern.

Baird recognized Edward and the colonel as he came up, and he was near enough to hear Edward's more distinct answer to Judith's indistinct question: "Yes--Garvin--to the Mine Banks.... My _God_!"

"What has happened?" Baird asked breathlessly.

All three turned on him, and Baird saw Judith's white hand grip Edward's arm. He was answered by a curious silence, a portentous silence that conveyed a sense of tragedy. It was Judith who spoke finally:

"They are after Garvin's horse, Mr. Baird," she said evenly and clearly.

Garvin's horse? Baird looked from one to the other, three white faces carven into sudden and violent self-control. There was something in the way in which they faced him that affected Baird queerly. They stood together as if they hid something infinitely painful from him that the light of the lantern failed to reveal; something that hurt and shamed them, and yet about which they rallied determinedly--as Judith had lied, clearly and resolutely; as if they stood guard over a painful secret, and appealed to him to respect it.

Baird heard himself say in a voice that was robbed of everything but assumed relief: "That was what we heard then--the horse making off. Can I help?"

"I think not, Mr. Baird--thank you--Copeley and the others--have gone," Edward answered, his pauses marking the steadiness of each word.

Judith's clear voice followed her brother's effort instantly. "We may as well go in, I think, Edward. There is nothing we can do." She still had her hand on his arm, and she turned with him, as if guiding him, and kept by his side, leaving Baird to follow with the colonel.

The colonel spoke for the first time. "That's true. There's no good of our standin' about--not a bit.... It's a pleasant enough evenin' to be out in, though, Mr. Baird--like May, suh. You'll not know Westmo' by the middle of next week--the trees and the lilacs setting out green. It takes only a few days fo' spring to come here, on the Ridge, and this is an early year--a very early year, suh."

If Baird had not been sobered by a sense of tragedy, he might have been amused by the colonel's attempt to follow Judith's lead. But the old gentleman's determinedly hearty voice failed him sadly, and Baird hoped that he had played the part he had instinctively chosen better than the colonel was playing his. And at the same time Baird's quick brain was trying to solve Edward's agonized, "My _God_!" What had Garvin done? Baird saw the man as he had looked that morning, with pistol raised.

He was answering the colonel. "I have been looking forward to spring here. I suppose you don't hunt after the crops are up."

"No, suh--we do have a little consideration fo' others, though we are not given credit for it. Now at Fair Field--"

The colonel had stopped abruptly. They had come to the veranda and from its lowest step a huddled heap had got to its feet, a big negress whose black hands were torturing her white apron. "Miss Judith--?" she said whimperingly.

Judith stopped dead. "What are you doing here?" Her voice was as sharp as the lash of a whip.

"Miss Judith--I didn't go fo' to do it--" the woman begged humbly.

Judith cut her off. "Go up-stairs and stay there!... Go!"

The woman slunk by them and around the corner of the house like a whipped dog, and Judith went on, her head high, her hand still on Edward's arm. As they went up the steps and the light from the hall shone on her, Baird saw her face distinctly, immobile as a death-mask, but with restless eyes glancing at the ballroom, which was lighted but silent, then searching the hall. The front door stood wide, and on the portico the family were gathered, all except Mrs. Dickenson and her daughter, who were in the drawing-room.

If Baird had needed confirmation of his fears, he had it in Mrs. Dickenson's face. She was clinging to her daughter, her face chalk-white and her eyes terror-stricken. The truth might escape from her at any moment; she looked on the verge of hysteria.

But Judith had noticed more quickly than Baird, and she spoke to the colonel in the same clear way in which she had spoken from the beginning. "Take her up-stairs, Ridley. She's frightened at all this galloping about, and no wonder." Then dropping Edward's arm she went straight on to the front door, her voice raised somewhat more, like an officer giving his orders, and at the same time conveying a warning:

"Come on in, all of you, and get ready for supper. I dare say Mr. Baird is hungry--I am--and we can't get Garvin's horse back by staring after it.... Aunt Carlotta Morrison, come help me get every one together. Come!"

It was all for him, Baird knew it--all this bravery. He was the stranger among them; the one person from whom the painful thing, whatever it was, must be kept. They could not gather together in grief or sympathy or council--he was there. And it devolved upon him to play his part; to see nothing; understand nothing; and escape as soon as he could.

Baird would have given much to be able to get his horse and disappear. But that was not possible. He was experiencing the painful embarrassment of a guest whose absence was earnestly, even tragically desired, but whose departure would cause more pain than his presence--so long as he could successfully maintain an air of unconsciousness.

He must stay, but it occurred to Baird that he could give them a few moments in which to remove their masks, in which to consult together. "I'll go wash up," he said to Edward.

Edward stood with hand on the stair-rail, erect but deadly pale. He answered steadily and courteously, "Very well, Baird--it's what I must do in a moment. If you need anything, ring. I suppose some of the servants are about."

"Thanks," Baird said, and escaped.

He washed his hands and smoothed his hair mechanically. He was generally cool when excited, but he muttered to himself, "What in hell can it be? It's serious, whatever it is." His brain had already traversed several possibilities. Had Garvin suddenly gone mad? Or committed murder?... Or had his own brain gone back on him, registered an entirely erroneous set of impressions?... Of course it hadn't. Those people were both terrified and ashamed.

But he must go on with it. He had answered to the spur of Judith's voice. He was a poor sort if he couldn't play his part also.... Baird judged that he had given them time enough in which to consult, and not too much time in which to suspect him. He must go down.