Part 15

Knowing the disappointment it would be to them if they were denied the pleasure of attending the wedding, she had declined the coachman's offer to remain with her, allowing his wife and daughter to go, and laughingly assured him that with her father's gun for company she feared nothing.

Miss Gwynne retired at an early hour, having locked up the house.

She lay for some time gazing through the window at the twinkling stars, lost in quiet retrospection.

I will let Miss Gwynne tell the rest of the story in her own way, repeating as well as I can from memory the words as I heard them from her lips ten years ago.

*****

I cannot tell if I dozed or not, but I was conscious of the moon shining dimly through the clouds, and I wondered how long I had lain there. Reaching out for my watch, which lay on the table, I was horrified to feel my wrist grasped and held by a firm hand.

To say I was frightened would be less correct than to say I was astounded, for I have always been a woman of steady nerve, and the present occasion called for its use.

The moon had retired behind a heavy curtain of clouds, and the room was in complete darkness, but from the drapery at my bedside issued a voice, and at the same time the python-like grasp on my wrist relaxed.

“I beg to apologize, madam,” said this voice; “I have chosen a bungling manner of awakening you--foreign to my custom. Pardon me, and do not be alarmed. I merely wish to relieve you of any superfluous silver, jewelry or bank notes you do not absolutely need. But as the vandalism of breaking locks is out of my line, I will request you to arise and show me where such things are kept.”

By the time he had finished this speech I was myself again.

“Very well,” I said, “I'll get up and show you; but, as it is embarrassing to dress in your presence, will you step out into the hall and close the door while I put on my clothing?”

There was a soft rustling of the curtains at the bedside, and the sound of footsteps on the carpet, and immediately afterward the door closed.

“Five minutes, madam, is all I can give you,” remarked the burglar, as he disappeared.

It took me (after lighting the candle) two minutes to slip on a warm skirt, and a blue flannel wrapper over it; then, sticking my feet into a pair of down slippers, I had still time to snatch a roll of bills amounting to one hundred pounds, and pin them deftly to the lining of the canopy above my four-post bed.

Then throwing open the door I stood on the sill facing my visitor, and threw the glare of the lighted candle full upon him, as he lolled in a careless, easy attitude against the bannisters.

I had been prepared for a burglar--but I had looked for one attired according to the traditions of my ancestors. But here was a gentlemanly, mild-featured individual, such as I should have expected to find filling the position of a professor of Latin--perhaps of theology--in Oxford University.

There was no appearance of a jimmy, or tools of any kind. Evidently here was a type of criminal with which history was unacquainted.

“Madam!” he exclaimed, bowing with the grace of a French courtier, “you are punctuality itself. And how charming!--no hysterics--no distressing scenes. Allow me.” He took the candle from my hand, and holding it aloft preceded me down the great oaken stairs, talking fluently all the while, but pausing at every other step to glance over his shoulder at me with coquettish politeness.

“I wish to assure you,” he remarked, “that I am no ordinary house-breaker. Burglary is with me a _profession_, though not the one (I confess) chosen for me by my parents. I saw, at an early age, that I must either descend to the level of the burglar, or raise him to the level of an artist. Behold, my dear lady, the result.”

He stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up at me.

“Shall we proceed to the diningroom?” he asked airily; “and, as I wish to give you no unnecessary trouble, let me say that I do not dabble in _plated_ spoons; nothing but solid silver.”

I opened the old mahogany sideboard, in which Griffiths had, for years, placed the family heirlooms at night, and beheld my gentlemanly burglar stow them, one after another, in a capacious felt sack, which he carried in his hand.

“Charming!” he cried. “I am a connoisseur, I assure you, and I know silver from plate. These articles are really worth the risk of the enterprise.”

You ask me if I was not alarmed. No, I was _not_. Personal violence was not in his professional line, unless opposed. I summoned all my energies to outwit him. I thought much and said little, for I had no intention of allowing him to carry off my mother's silver.

After having rifled all the rooms of the most valuable articles, he returned to the dining-room.

On the table the remains of supper still stood, consisting of a fowl, hardly touched, some delicately cut bread and butter, cake, and a glass jar containing some fancy crackers.

“I will make myself entirely at home,” he remarked, sitting down to the table, and helping himself to a wing of the chicken.

“Really,” he proceeded, “I have thoroughly enjoyed this evening. Not only have I met a most charming lady, but I have been able to prove to her that the terms gentleman and burglar may be synonomous.”

He now began on the cake. I pushed the cracker jar toward him. “Try them,” I observed.

Still smiling indulgently, and talking, he took out one of the crackers and began to nibble on it. It was _very dry_.

I rose, and in an absent-minded manner placed on the table the remains of a bottle of rare old Burgundy, which had been opened the day before.

“Now, really,” he prattled, “I'm a very harmless man five months out of six--I never steal unless other means fail, or a tailor's bill comes due. I'm a respectable citizen and--a church member in good standing when I'm not on one of my professional tours. I took up burglary more as a resource than from necessity. Candidly speaking, now, _am_ I a ruffian?”

“No!” I replied, looking directly at him. “On the contrary, you are a very fine-looking man.”

A glow of vanity spread over his face. I poured out a glass of the Burgundy and pushed it toward him.

“England to Wales!” he cried with gallantry. “I don't generally drink,” he added, “but these crackers make me thirsty.”

“If I could only find a wife suited to my tastes,” he mused, “such a woman as _you_ are, by George! I'd give up aesthetic burglary and settle down to quiet domestic bliss.” He looked questioningly at me. “If”--he hesitated--“you could be sure I would abandon my profession--would you--do you think you could--condone my past and--marry me?”

“That is a matter for consideration,” I replied.

He helped himself to another cracker.

“Your proposal is so startlingly unique,” I continued, “to marry one's burglar! Really it is quite a joke.”

“Isn't it?” he chuckled, evidently enjoying the idea of the oddity. “We are kindred spirits!” he exclaimed, convivially, but was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing.

Seizing the bottle of Burgundy, he drained the only drop or two left.

“I think, maybe, there's another bottle down in the cellar,” I cried, artlessly. “I'll go down and see--I feel thirsty myself.”

“We will descend together,” exclaimed my burglar, gallantly taking the candle from my hand and following me to the door leading to the cellar steps.

We descended the steps chatting pleasantly--he discoursing on matrimony, I answering rather vaguely, but measuring the distance to the wine bins by my eye. They were at the far end of the cellar, and were five in number, each large enough to hold a quarter of a ton of coal. Before the furthest one I paused.

“Here,” I said, “is the brand we are looking for.” I raised the heavy lid and looked in. “I will hold the candle,” I observed; “will you get the bottle? I can hardly reach it.”

He handed me the candle and bent low over the bin. Ha! ha! Quicker than a flash of lightning I tipped up his heels (he was easily overbalanced), and into the bin he fell headlong. Down came the heavy lid. But there was no padlock on it. I must hurry! Blowing out the candle, I ran, for I knew the way, straight to the cellar steps and up them--like a cat. Then with a locked door between myself and my burglar, I could breathe.

I heard the man kicking about down below, for of course he got out of the bin at once. But our cellar is a labyrinth. Seizing father's old gun from its resting-place in the hall, I sat down near the door at the head of the stairs, waiting for the worst.

The door was fairly strong--that I knew; but he was a powerful man. So I dragged a heavy table from the sitting-room and placed it against it.

Suddenly I became conscious that he had found his way to the stairs and was rapidly approaching the door, which was all that lay between me and his revengeful fury.

Bracing myself against the opposite wall, I raised the old gun, and, deliberately aiming it, waited.

He began by pounding with both fists on the door, but, not receiving any answer, he tried threats. An instinct seemed to tell him I would remain on guard.

His language, I must confess, while threatening, was not abusive. It was, in fact, incredibly elegant for a burglar, and strictly grammatical.

All at once there came a crash, followed by the creaking of heavy timber, and the door fell. Down he came on top of it, sprawling at my feet on the floor. I raised my gun and fired.

“Hit him?” I interrupted.

“No,” replied Miss Gwynne; “here in the wall of the dining-room the bullet lodged, and is still there.”

The next thing I was conscious of was Mrs. Griffiths bending over me, and her husband's voice exclaiming:

“He'd never have escaped if we had not left that door open when we came in. You see we got home just in time to hear you fire the gun, and as we ran in he ran out. Drat him!”

I raised myself on my elbow and looked eagerly about.

“He had no time to carry off a thing,” said Mrs. Griffiths.

* * * * *

“I would like to set my eyes on him,” I remarked, when Miss Gwynne had concluded her story. “You are a distinguished woman and are--I believe--the very first one who ever received an offer of marriage from a burglar.”

The lady smiled. “Do you not remember reading about the capture of a notorious bank robber, several years ago? The case created quite a sensation, owing partly to the difficulty in tracing the thief, who was clever enough to puzzle the most expert detectives and evade the police, and also to the respectability of his position. No one could believe him guilty.”

“Indeed I do remember it,” I answered. “Not only that, but I _saw_ the man after he was in prison. I happened to be going through Chester Jail at the time and J------ was pointed out to me. He was quite distinguished looking. In fact, I did not believe him guilty.”

“Nor would I,” said Miss Gwynne, “if I had not known.”

“You mean,” I said, “that he----

“I mean that you saw _my burglar_.”

THE LADY IN ROUGE, By W. E. P. French

“Pretty woman! That's just like a man. Pretty chromo, you mean, Tom.”

“Well,” in a hearty, pleasant voice, “maybe you are the better judge; but I don't believe she's 'made up,' and if I wasn't the most henpecked man on earth I'd say she was the loveliest creature I ever saw. As for her hair, it's----”

“Blondined! And so utterly impossible in color that it couldn't for a moment fool anybody but a man,” interrupted the first speaker, with deliciously spiteful emphasis on the very common noun man.

“Eyebrows stencilled, eyelashes darkened; lips, ears and finger tips tinged with carmine--don't you know? Complexion enamel, vinegar rouge and brunette powder--pshaw! The way the men go on about her makes me positively ill. If you fall in love with her, Harry, you are no brother of mine. I don't care to be sister-in-law to a lithograph in _fast_ colors.”

“You make me curious to see her, Nell, dear. By Jove, she must be either a monster or a paragon! Have the spirit of a man, Tom, and tell me which.”

“Don't try to extract any more information from me, old man; my teeth are positively chattering with terror. You can decide for yourself this evening, if your ferocious sister will allow you to leave your room. By the way,” with an amused laugh, “what do you suppose Nell and the rest of her charitable sex up here have dubbed the poor girl? 'The lady in rouge!'”

“Yes, and she ought to have a sign, 'Paint, don't touch.' I believe she is a divorcée or a widow, and I know she's thirty in spite of her sickening affectation of youth.”

“Oh, come, Nell, you are absolutely vicious. She is not a day over twenty, and she has the prettiest name I ever heard, Violante Solander; accent on the second syllable, Harry, not on the first, to rhyme with Hollander, as the bride of my bosom insists on pronouncing it.”

“Sounds like a combination of Spanish and Scandinavian,” the younger man answers.

“It is,” returns his brother-in-law. “I have met her father several times at the Cosmos Club in Washington. He is a Norwegian, a wonderfully handsome man, of the purest blonde type, with charming old-time manners and a voice as deep and sonorous as a fine bell. Jack Kendricks, who knows him quite well, told me something of his history. As a young man he traveled pretty much all over the world, and in South America met and married Miss Viola's mother. She was an Ecuadorean of Spanish descent, and so beautiful that she was called, in reference to her name, which was the same as her daughter's, 'The Violet of Quito.' It is really a case of the Arctic zone wedding the Equator.”

“Or of a walrus committing matrimony with a llama. No wonder she is neither fish, flesh nor fowl,” added madame, with a malicious emphasis that made both men laugh.

This conversation floated up to me as I sat smoking my cigar on the forward edge of the hurricane deck of the little steamer that carried passengers from the railroad station at the foot of a beautiful and well-known lake in the Adirondacks to the village at the head of it, whither we were all bound.

The party of three had crossed from the other side of the boat and Were leaning against the guards immediately under me. Later on I came to know them all well. The lady was a delightful little bundle of inconsistencies, sharp of tongue, quick of temper and jealous of all that belonged to her, but as generous as an Arab, very warm hearted, perfectly fearless and honest and a loyal friend when won. She was born Miss Eleanor Van Zandt, a family with a tree and traditions, pride, possessions and position; but the fact that she belonged in the top layer of the Four Hundred did not prevent her, some ten years before, refusing a scion of the English nobility (a very wealthy one, too, if you'll believe me), to her mother's Infinite disgust, and giving her dimpled little hand, where she had already given her heart, to big, kindly, genial Thomas Northrup, who was every inch a man and a gentleman, but who was third in direct descent (and gloried in it, too) from old John Northrup, saddle and harness maker, of whom I have heard it told by one that saw it that he died on his sixtieth birthday in the battle of Gettysburg, from some twenty bullet wounds received while carrying the colors of his regiment, and that his last words were: “Don't let the Johnnies get the flag!”

I feel it to be my painful duty to relate that Madame Nell, when remonstrated with by her family upon the plebeian nature of the match she was about to make, flew into a violent rage and said she would gladly trade a baker's dozen of her eminently high and wellborn Knickerbocker ancestors for “that grand old saddler.” The Van Zandt crest is a lion rampant gardant, and shortly after the wedding an aunt, who had declined to be present, received a spirited sketch of the family beast, leaning upon a musket in the position of parade rest, carrying a flag in his mouth and bearing upon his lordly back a monstrous saddle, the motto in the surrounding heraldic belt being, “Don't let the Johnnies get the flag!” This cheerful device was accompanied by a very deferential and affectionate note from the bride, asking her aunt if she did not think it a pretty way of combining the Northrup family (saddle) tree with the crest of the Van Zandts, or if she thought the “dear old lion” would appear to better advantage under a saddle that would conceal him entirely from the gaze of the vulgar herd.

The old lady declined to receive Mrs. Northrup from that time until the day of her death, about four years later, but when her will was opened it was found that she had left $200,000 to her niece, Eleanor Van Zandt, “as a mark of respect for her truth, courage and _artistic ability_,” and $10,000 for a monument “to that gallant soldier and true gentleman, John Northrup, who died on the field of Gettysburg in the defense of his country's flag.” Nell designed the monument, and every Decoration Day she puts a saddle made of flowers on the old lady's grave. But to my tale.

Harry Van Zandt, at the time of which I write, was about twenty-six, tall, broad shouldered, athletic, brown as to eyes, hair, skin and pointed beard, an engineer and architect by profession, an advanced and liberal thinker for so young a man, full of high spirits, though with a depth and earnestness of purpose very refreshing in these days when selfish indifference is the rule, and altogether a manly, honorable, self reliant and energetic young fellow. He had charming manners, reverenced all women, rich or poor, proud or humble, and treated old people with an affectionate deference that won him many friends.

The steamer had changed her course to the left rather sharply, heading for her wharf, when a Long Lake boat, with a woman at the sculls and a young man holding the tiller ropes, crossed our bow and floated by within fifteen feet of us. I did not need the quick, “There she is! Look, Harry!” from Mr. Northrup to know that it was Miss Solander. She had turned her head slightly toward them to bow, and the setting sun shone squarely in her face, making the wonderful amber hair seem a nimbus of golden light against the dark background of her huge Gainsborough hat.

A more perfectly, harmoniously, radiantly beautiful girl I have never seen. Her coloring was simply marvelous, and I inclined to Mrs. Northrup's opinion that it must be artificial. It is impossible to give an adequate description of her--the wonderful child-woman. A face of rounded and exquisite contours, the skin of that warmest, richest, brunette type that is almost dusky; cheeks that had the soft, tender, velvety bloom of a sun-kissed peach; a charming mouth, scarlet as a flower, ripe, luscious, sensitive, ready to curve with sweet, swift laughter or to droop with grief. Her eyes, in the glimpse I had of her, I took to be black or a very dark brown, but later I found they were of that rare deep blue that becomes violet by an artificial light, and, indeed, owing to the length and thickness of the dark lashes, it was not easy at any time to determine their exact color, much less shade. Well, she was more nearly perfect than any other human thing I ever hope to see.

From her gold-flax curls' most marvelous shine,

Down to her lithe and delicate feet,

There was not a curve nor a waving line

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet.

As she passed from view I looked down at the trio below me. Mrs. Northrup was regarding her brother curiously, and I don't think either she or I was at all surprised when he turned, his face aglow with enthusiasm, and said: “What a lovely girl!” Then, with quick change of tone, “Who is that man with her?”

“Lovely as a Prang,” remarked my lady, dryly. “The man is your hated rival, of whom you are already madly jealous. He is young, beautiful and rich, dances divinely, speaks _real_ English and has very nearly a tablespoonful of brains--not that he needs such a preponderance of brain, for he has enough money to make a social success of a jibbering idiot. His name is Francis Floyd-Jones, but we speak of him affectionately as 'Fluggeon,' and those that know him best sometimes lovingly refer to him as 'Balaam's Ass'--but you'll like him, Harry.”

Van Zandt's reply I did not hear, as I discreetly moved away; but I heard both men laugh, and I joined them heartily when at a safe distance.

When we landed I found we were all bound for the same hotel, a capital one, named for and kept by one of a famous hotel-keeping family. The Northrups' little girl, a madcap child of six, was on the lawn waiting the return of her parents and the arrival of her uncle, of whom she was evidently very fond, although she abandoned him speedily in order to hug and kiss his superb Irish setter, Blarney, who licked the small imp's face calmly and appeared in his grave dog's way genuinely glad to see her.

Ethel, as I found out in a day or two, had taken one of those intense fancies that children do occasionally to almost entire strangers to “the lady in rouge,” and would escape to her whenever chance permitted. Poor Mrs. Northrup! Her ranks were deserters to the enemy. Her husband openly admired the gorgeously-tinted girl, her child simply worshipped her, her brother had palpably fallen in love at first sight, and, when we came out from dinner, it was found that Blarney had dumbly sworn allegiance to the violet of two zones and could with difficulty be induced to leave her. The dog's infatuation was put to-practical service by his master during the next few weeks, for that astute young gentleman, when unable to discover the whereabouts of his idol by peering and prowling, would take one of Blarney's silky ears in his hand and whisper, “Go, find her, boy,” which the clever animal promptly proceeded to do, usually successfully, though often the search would receive a check on the edge of the lake and be resumed after a run of a mile on the island.

Madame Nell and I soon discovered that we had a host of common friends in New York and Washington, and that an uncle on her mother's side (poor Dick Whitney, who was lost on the _Ville de Havre_) had been a classmate of mine at Harvard forty odd years before. These kindly young people were as good and affectionate to me as though I had been a relative, and the heart of a lonely old man went out to them gratefully and lovingly.

By the way, I am tempted to repeat a compliment that I overheard toward the end of the summer, because it was the pleasantest and heartiest I ever had paid to me, or rather about me. Charge it to the garrulity of age or simple conceit, but here it is:

I came up behind them one dark night on the piazza, just as Mrs. Northrop turned to her husband and said: “Do you know, Tom, dear, I think Dr. Zobel is the very nicest old man I ever knew; he has the head of a sage and the fresh, pure heart of a little child.”

There was a hop that first evening in the large drawing room of the hotel, and a little while before the music began I wandered in to find three or four small groups talking and laughing, among them Van Zandt and his sister. She made room for me on the sofa, and said I should be her attendant cavalier, as she did not intend to dance. We chatted a bit and then madame began a running commentary on the people as they entered.

“The Robinsons--papa, mamma and daughter. Papa looketh upon the wine when it is red. Mamma is a devout Catholic. Daughter openly defies both parents and, I am convinced, hath a devil. I have ventured to rename them 'Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.'”

“What De Quincy would call 'an overt act of alliteration,' Nell,” said Van Zandt, and added: “Who is the imposing-looking old girl leading the small, meek man?”