Part 8

At this moment Uncas, the chipmunk, rushed screaming into the room and flung himself into Arthur's lap. Arthur comforted the little beast, and noticed that his nose and face bore fresh evidences of a fight. Uncas complained very bitterly; he was evidently trying to talk.

"Is Stripes hurt?" asked Mary.

"It's his feelings," said Arthur. "He's been made a victim of misplaced confidence. Some young woman has been encouraging him."

"Poor little man!" said Gay with sudden emotion. "Did ums want some nice vasy on ums poor sick nose?"

"He would only lick it off," regretted Arthur.

Mr. Langham's jolly face appeared in the open door.

"I've seen two depart," he said, "and thought maybe the meeting was over."

"It is," said Mary, and, after a moment's hesitation, she boldly joined Mr. Langham and walked off by his side. Even Arthur chuckled.

"And what was the meeting about?" asked Mr. Langham.

"Oh," said Mary, "they won't be serious--not any of them--not even Arthur. So we forgot what the meeting was for, and got into violent discussion about--about natural history."

"And what side did you take?"

"Oh," said Mary, "we were all on the same side--_really_, and that was what made the discussion so violent."

"The day," said Langham, "is young. I feel ripe for an adventure. And you?"

"What sort of an adventure?"

"I thought that if one--or rather if _two_ climbed to the top of a very little hill and sat down in the sunshine and admired the view----"

* * * * *

Far out on the lake they could see Lee, lolling in the stern of a guide boat. Young Renier was at the oars. But the boat was not being propelled. It was merely drifting.

"I wonder," said Langham, and he watched her face stealthily, "if by any chance those two are really engaged?"

Was there the least hardening of that lovely, gentle face, the least fleeting expression of that sort of panic which one experiences when arriving at the station in time to see the train pull out but not too late to get aboard by the exercise of swift and energetic manoeuvres?

"Don't say such things!" she said presently. "It's like jumping out from behind a tree and shouting, 'Boo!'"

Mr. Langham smiled complacently and changed the subject. But he said to himself: "That Maud is a clever girl!"

"I suppose," said Mary after a while, "that this is the last really peaceful day we'll have for a long time. To-morrow the place will be full of strange, critical faces. And it will be one long wrestle to make everything go smoothly all the time."

She sighed.

"There are only two ways to success," said Langham. "One is across the wrestling-mat, and one is through the pasture of old Bull Luck. But I'm convinced that The Inn is going to pay very handsomely. There is a fortune in it."

"There mightn't be," said Mary, "if--" and she broke into a peal of embarrassed laughter.

"If what?"

"I was thinking of that _dreadful_ picture."

"I often think of it," said Mr. Langham, "and of the first time I saw it."

Mary gave him a somewhat shy look.

"Of course it didn't influence you," she said.

"But it did. And that day I forgot to eat any lunch. I am looking forward," he said, "to warm weather--I enjoy a swim as much as anybody."

"Why is it," said Mary, "that a girl is ashamed when it is her money that attracts a man, and proud when it is her face? Both are equally fortuitous; both are assets in a way--but of the two, it is the money alone which is really useful."

"It sounds convincing to a girl," mused Mr. Langham, "when a man says to her: 'I love you because of your beautiful blue eyes!' But it wouldn't sound in the least convincing if he said: 'I love you because of your beautiful green money!' I don't attempt to explain this. I am merely stating what appears to me to be a fact. But, as you say, money is, or should be, an asset of attraction."

"I suppose beauty is held in greater esteem," said Mary, "because it is more democratically bestowed. Money seems to beget hatred because it isn't."

"The French people," said Langham, "hated the nobility because of their wealth and luxury. To-day a common mechanic has more real luxuries at his disposal than poor Louis XVI had, but he hates the rich people who have more than he has--and so it will go on to the end of time."

"Will there always be rich people and poor people?"

"There will always be rich people, but some time they will learn to spend their money more beneficently, and then there won't be any really poor people. If the attic of your house were infected with dirt and vermin you couldn't sleep until it had been cleaned and disinfected. So, some day, rich men will feel about their neighbors; cities about their slums; and nations about other nations. I can imagine a future Uncle Sam saying to a future John Bull"--and he sunk his voice to a comically confidential whisper: "'Say, old man, I hear you're pressed for ready cash; now't just so happens I'm well fixed at the moment, and--oh, just among friends! Bother the interest!' What a spectacle this world is--it's like the old English schools that Dickens wrote out of existence--just bullying and hazing all around! Why, if a country was run on the most elementary principles of honesty and efficiency, the citizens of that country would never have occasion to say: 'Our taxes are almost unbearable.' They would be nudging each other in the streets and saying: 'My, that was a big dividend we got!'"

Mr. Langham only stopped because he was out of breath. His face was red and shining. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.

Mary was almost perfectly happy. She loved to hear Langham run on and on. His voice was so pleasant, and his face beamed so with kindness. And from many things which he had from time to time let slip she was convinced that she needn't be an old maid unless she wanted to be. And so to climb a little hill with him, to sit in the sun, and to admire the view was really an exciting venture. For she never knew what he was going to let slip next. And equally exciting was the fact that if that slip should be in the nature of a leading question, she could only guess what her answer would be.

When a man is offered something that he very much wants--a trifling loan, for instance--his first instinct is to deny the need. And a girl, when the man she wants offers himself, usually refuses at the first time of asking. And some, especially rich in girl nature, which is experience of human nature and somewhat short of divine, will persist in refusing even unto the twentieth and thirtieth time.

Mary Darling was in a deep reverie. From this, his eyes twinkling behind their thick glasses, Mr. Langham roused her with the brisk utterance of one of his favorite quotations:

"'General Blank's compliments,'" said he, "'and he reports that the colored troops are turning black in the face.'"

Mary smiled her friendliest smile.

"I was wondering," she said, "what had become of Lee and Renier."

"I have noted," said Mr. Langham, "that she always calls him by his last name, sometimes with the prefix you--'You Renier' put like that. And I was wondering if he ever turns the trick on her."

"Why should he?" asked Mary innocently.

"You have forgotten," said he, "that her last name is Darling." His eyes twinkled with amazing and playful boldness. "You're _all_ Darlings," he exclaimed, "and"--a note of self-pity in his voice--"I'm just a fat old stuff!"

"That," said Mary primly, "is perfectly correct, but for three trifling errors--you're not fat, you're not old, and you're not a stuff!"

If she had told him that he was handsome as Apollo he could not have been more pleased.

And so their adventure progressed in the pleasant sunlight that warmed the top of the little hill. No very exciting adventure, you say? And of a shilly-shallying and even snail-like motion?

Oh, you can't be always riding to rescues, and falling over cliffs, and escaping from burning houses.

At that moment, by the purest accident, the tip of Mr. Langham's right forefinger just brushed against Mary's sleeve. And there went through him from head to foot a great thrill, as if trumpets had suddenly sounded.

"I suppose," said Mary, after a little while, "that we ought to be going."

"But I'd rather sit here than eat," said Mr. Langham.

"Honestly? So would I."

"Then," said Mr. Langham, "without exposing ourselves to any other danger than that of starvation, I propose that we lose ourselves--as _other people do_--in short, that we remain here until one or other of us would rather--eat."

"Good gracious," said Mary, "we might be here a week!"

Mr. Langham rose slowly to his feet. Far off he could see pale smoke flitting upward through the tree-tops. He turned and looked into Miss Darling's smiling, upturned face.

"I'll just run down and tell Arthur we're not _really_ lost," he said. "But I'll make him promise not to look for us. I'll be right back--almost before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"

She held out her hands. He took them and helped her to her feet. And then they both laughed aloud.

"Thank Heaven," said Mary, "that whatever else you and I may suffer from, it isn't from insanity--or slim appetites! As a matter of fact, I'm famished."

"Thank God!" said Mr. Langham; "so am I."

And they began to descend the hill. For to keep men and women and adventurers going, the essential thing is food. And there's many a promising romance that has come to nothing for want of a loaf of bread and a jug of wine.

XVIII

In a certain part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice, Colonel Melville Meredith stood beside the charred foundations of a house and nursed his chin with his hand. With the exception of a sword which the King of Greece had given him, all those possessions which he had considered of value had gone up in smoke with the house of his ancestors. The family portraits were gone, the silver Lamarie, and Lesage, and all the Domingan satinwood. If Colonel Meredith had been an older man, he must almost have wept. But the grip upon his chin was not of one mourning. It was the grip of consideration. He was wondering what sort of a new house he should build upon the foundations of the old.

He must, of course, build upon the old site. There were other good sites among his thousands of acres, but none which was so well planted. A good architect could copy the Taj Mahal for you. But the Pemaque oak is one hundred and seven feet, or less, in circumference, and the avenue of oaks leading from the turnpike, two miles away, was planted in 1653. There were also divers jungles of rhododendrons, laurel, and azalea in the river garden that it had taken no less than a great-grandmother to plant.

"It can't be the first conflagration in the family," he thought. "Everybody's ancestors, at one time or another, must have lost by fire and built again. As for Pemaque--it _was_ a lovely old house, but a new house could be just as lovely, and it could have bathrooms and be made rat-proof. And I wouldn't mind if people scratched the floors."

I have said that Colonel Meredith had lost all the possessions which he valued. But of course the land remained, the trees, the duck ponds, the alligator sloughs, and so forth. There remained, also, a robust youth, crowded with experiences and memories of wars and statesmen and of delightful people who live for pleasure. There remained, also--least valuable of all to a man of action and sentiment--a perfectly safe income, derived from bonds, of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Colonel Meredith was by all odds the richest man in that part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice.

It was piping hot among the foundations of the old house; the sticky, ticky season had descended upon the Carolina seacoast. The snakes and the lizards were saying among themselves, "Now this is really something like," and were behaving accordingly. Every few minutes a new and ambitious generation of mosquitoes was hatched. The magnolias were going to seed. Colonel Meredith's Gordon setter, a determined expression upon his face, had been scratching himself with almost supercanine speed for the last twenty minutes.

Colonel Meredith scorned ticks, trod with indifference upon snakes, and was not poisoned or even pained by mosquitoes, but he had travelled all over the world and was not averse to being cooler and more comfortable.

"We've got the grandest climate in the world," he thought loyally, "for eight months in the year--but when it comes to summer give me Vera Cruz, Singapore, or even hell. I'll build a home for autumn, winter, and spring, but when it gets to be summer, I'll go away and shoot polar bears."

He whistled his dog and walked thoughtfully to where his automobile was waiting in the shade. His driver, an Irish boy from New York, was in a state of wilt.

"I have determined," said Colonel Meredith, "not to begin building until cool weather. We shall go North to-night. I hope the thought will refresh you. Now we will go back to Mr. Jonstone's. Do you feel able to drive, or shall I?"

It was typical of the region that the Mr. Jonstone with whom Meredith was stopping should own the best bed of mint south of Washington, and could make the best mint-juleps. The mint-bed was about all he did own. Everything else was heavily mortgaged. Everything, that is, except the family silver and jewels. These Jonstone's grandmother had buried when Sherman came marching through, and had almost immediately forgotten where she had buried them. Jonstone employed one trustworthy negro whose year-around business was to dig for the treasure. There existed a list of the objects buried, which was enough to make even a rich man's palm itch.

"Nothing to-day," said Jonstone as his guest drove up. "And it's about time for a julep."

"I'm going North to-night," said Meredith, "and you're going with me."

They were cousins, second or third, of about the same age. They even looked alike, but whereas Meredith had travelled all over the world, Jonstone had never been south of Savannah or north of Washington.

He began with an ivory toddy-stick to convert sugar and Bourbon into sirup.

"How's that, Mel?" he asked. "And why?"

"Between us two, Bob," said Meredith, "this is one hell of a climate in summer. The brighter we are the quicker we'll get out of it."

"I'd like to go you on that, but aside from the family silver I haven't a penny in the world."

"Bob, I'm sick of offering to lend you money. I'm sick of offering to give you money. There's only one chance left."

Jonstone made a gentle clashing sound with fine ice.

"As you know, my family silver has all gone up in smoke. Now yours hasn't. Suppose you sell me yours. What's it worth?"

"With or without the diamonds?"

"If I should ever marry, it would be advisable to have the diamonds."

"Well," said Jonstone, beginning to turn over a bundle of straws, with the object of selecting four which should be flawless, "I don't want to stick you. We have a complete list of the pieces, with their weights and dates. Some of the New York dealers could tell us what the collection would be worth in the open market. Double that sum in the name of sentiment, and I'll go you."

"I must have a free hand to hunt for the stuff in my own way-- It's perfection--you never, never made a better one--now, how about the diamonds?"

"I have the weights. And you know the Jonstones were always particular about water."

"That's why they are all dead but you. Then you'll come?"

Bob Jonstone nodded.

"You'll have to lend me a suit of clothes--but, look here, Mel: suppose the silver and stuff has been lifted--doesn't exist any more? Wouldn't I, in selling it to you, be guilty of sharp practice?"

"Our great-great-grandfather, the Signer, doesn't exist any more, Bob. That silver is somewhere--in some form or other. I pay for it, and it's mine. Does it matter if I never see it or handle it? I shall always be able to allude to it--isn't that enough? As for you, you'll be able to pay all your mortgages, to fix the front door so's it won't have to be kept shut with a keg of nails, and to spend what is necessary on your fields."

"Of course," said Jonstone, who had finished his julep. "It afflicts me to part with what has been in the family so long."

"But you ought to be afflicted."

"Why?"

"Didn't you vote for Wilson?"

Jonstone nodded solemnly.

"Come, then," said Meredith, as if he were pardoning an erring child; "there's just time for one julep and to pack up our things. You'll just love New York. And when we get there we'll make up our minds whether we'll go to Newport or Bar Harbor. Bob, did it ever occur to you that you and I ought to get married? That looks as if it was going to be better than the other, though darker-- What's the use of having ancestors if you're not going to be one?"

"Show me a girl as handsome as Sully's portrait of Great-grandmother Pringle, and I'll take notice."

"Why, every other girl in a Broadway chorus has got the old lady skinned to death, Bob!"

"You may be worldly-wiser than me, Mel, but you've lost your reverence. It's always been agreed in the family that Great-grandmother Pringle was the most beautiful woman in the South. And when a man says 'the South,' and refers at the same time to female charms, he has as good as said the whole world."

"Bob, among ourselves, do you really think Jefferson Davis was a greater man than Abraham Lincoln?"

"Ssssh!" said Jonstone.

"Do you really think the Southern armies wiped up the map with the Northern armies every time they met? And do you really think that wooden-faced doll that Sully painted has no equal for beauty north of the Mason and Dixon line? What you need is travel and experience."

"What's the matter with _you_ getting married?--My God, don't spill that, Mel!"

"There's nothing the matter with it. And I'll tell you what I'll do: I will if you will."

"They ought to be sisters, seeing as how you and I have always been like brothers and voted the Democratic ticket and fought chickens."

"And fed the same ticks and mosquitoes."

"We'll have a double wedding. We'll each be the other's best man, and they'll each be the other's best girl."

"No--no; they are each to be our best girls."

"What I mean is----"

"I know what you mean, but you've made this julep too strong."

"That's _one_ thing they can't do in the North."

"What's that?"

"Make a julep."

Meredith considered this at some length. "No, Bob," he said at length, "they can't. But I once met a statesman from Maine who made a thing that looked like a julep, tasted like a julep, and that--I'd say it if it was my dying statement--had the same effect."

"She must be better-looking than Great-grandmother Pringle," said Jonstone. "She must be able to make a julep, and she must have a sister just like her. Can you lend me a suit of clothes till we get to New York?"

"I can lend you anything from a yachting suit to a Bulgarian uniform."

"And you're sure I'm not imposing on you in the matter of the silver?"

"Sure. I just want to know it's mine."

In the morning, soon after this precious pair had breakfasted, a boy went through the train with newspapers and magazines. He proclaimed in the sweetest Virginian voice that his magazines were just out, but a copy of _The Four Seasons_ which Colonel Meredith bought proved not only to be of an ancient date but to have had coffee spilled upon it.

At the moment when this discovery was made, the youthful paper-monger had just swung from the crawling train to the platform of a way station, so there was no redress. The cousins agreed, laughing, that if a Yankee had played them such a trick they would have wished to cut his heart out, but that, turned upon them by a fellow countryman, it was merely a proof of smartness and push.

"Between you and me, Bob," said Colonel Meredith, "an accurate count of our Southern population would proclaim a villain or two here and there. I was brought up to believe that to be born in a certain region was all that was necessary. But that's not so. I tell you this because I am afraid that when you are meeting people in New York and having a good time you will be wanting to lay down the law, to wit, that one Southerner can whip five Yankees. Don't do it. I will tell you a horrid truth. I was once whipped by a small-sized Frenchman within an inch of my life. He had studied _le boxe_ under Carpentier and I hadn't. Did you ever study _le boxe_? No? An Anglo-Saxon imagines that he was born boxing. And it takes a licking by a man of Latin blood to prove to him that he wasn't. Just because people make funny noises and monkey cries when they fight doesn't prove that they are afraid. There is nothing so ridiculous as a baboon going into action and nothing more terrible when he gets there."

"The more you travel, Mel, the more you show a deplorable tendency to foul your own nest."

"_I_ run down the South? I like that! But, my dear Bob, there is only one chosen people. And it isn't us." Here he made a significant gesture with his hands, turning the palms up, and they both laughed. "A Jew," he went on, "is what he is because he is a Jew. His good points and his bad are racial. But between two men of our race there is no material resemblance. One is mean, the other generous; one broad, one narrow; one brave, the other not. Do you know why hornless cows give less milk than horned cows? Because there are fewer of them. Do you know why there are more honest men in the North, and pretty girls, than there are in the South? Simply because there are more men and more girls. It also follows that there are more dishonest men and ugly girls; more of everything, in fact."

He was slowly turning over the pages of _The Four Seasons_, looking always, with Pemaque in mind, at pictures of country houses. Suddenly he closed the magazine, looked pensively out of the window, and began to whistle with piercing sweetness. He once more opened the magazine, but this time with great caution as if he was half afraid that something disagreeable would jump out at him. Nothing did, however. He folded the magazine back upon itself and held it close to his eyes, then far off, then at mid-distance.

"What's the matter with you?" said Bob Jonstone.

"Nothing," said Meredith, "only I'm thinking there ought to be six of us instead of only two. Look at that page and tell me where we're going to spend the summer."

Jonstone took the magazine and saw the six Darling sisters sitting on the float in their bathing-dresses. Presently he smiled and said: "You've just won an argument, Mel."

"How's that?"

"Why, in the South there wouldn't be so many of them--but maybe they are not always there. Maybe they were only there last summer."

"Well, we can find out where they've gone, can't we?"

"It doesn't seem in strict good breeding to pursue ladies one doesn't know."

"Why, bless you, I chased all over Europe after a face I saw in _The Sketch_, only to find out that she was willing to marry anybody with money and had a voice like a guinea-hen. And after I'd found that out, she chased _me_ all over Europe and as far East as Cairo."

"I've never been chased by a woman," said Jonstone a little wistfully. "What happened in the end?"

"I left Cairo between two days, fled away into the desert with some people just stepped out of the Bible, and never came back."

"Suppose she hadn't been willing to marry you and had had a voice like a dove?"

"Don't suppose. We are on a new quest."

"What is the Adirondacks?"

"We wouldn't think much of it in the South. It's a place where you are always cool and clean and can drink the nearest water. The trout don't eat mud and haven't got long white whiskers, and the deer are bigger than dogs, and you don't go to sleep at night. The night just comes and puts you to sleep. It's just like Bar Harbor--only a little more so in some ways and a little less so in others."

Jonstone spread _The Four Seasons_ wide open upon his knees.