Part 11

I roused myself to find the chief clerk regarding me impatiently, and I thanked him and hurried away.

At my own office my assistant pounced upon me wrathfully. He was half wild over the pressure of vexatious business, and had just been engaging in a long-distance conversation with a country gentleman at Lenox which had left him in bad temper. I was explaining to him the seriousness of my errands at Hopefield, rather unconvincingly I fear, and the fact that I must return at once, when the office-boy entered my private room to say that three gentlemen wished to see me immediately. They had submitted cards, but had refused to state the nature of their business. It was with a distinct sensation of surprise that I read the names respectively of Percival B. Shallenberger, Daniel P. Ormsby, and John Stewart Dick.

"Show the gentlemen in," I said promptly, greatly to the disgust of my assistant, who retired to deal with several clients whom I had passed in the reception-room fiercely walking the floor.

I had imagined all the suitors established at the Prescott Arms. As the three appeared clad in light automobiling coats, I could not forbear a smile at their grim appearance. Shallenberger, the novelist, and Ormsby, the knit-goods manufacturer, were big men; Dick was much shorter, though of compact and sturdy build. They growled surlily in response to my greeting, and Ormsby closed the door behind them. Dick seemed to be the designated spokesman, and he advanced to the desk behind which I sat, with a stride and manner that advertised his belligerent frame of mind.

"Mr. Ames," he began, "we have come here to speak for ourselves and certain other gentlemen who are staying for a time at the Prescott Arms."

"Gentlemen of the committee, welcome to our office," I replied, greatly amused by his ferocity.

My tone caused the others to draw in defensively behind him.

"We want you to understand that your conduct in accompanying a lady that I shall not name to the city is an act we cannot pass in silence. Your conduct in going to Hopefield Manor was in itself an affront to us, but your behavior this morning passes all bounds. We have come, sir, to demand an explanation!"

At a glance this was a situation I dare not take seriously. In any circumstances the fact that these men had followed me to my office to rebuke me for accompanying Cecilia Hollister to town was absurd. This young Mr. Dick was absurd in himself. His gray cap had twisted itself oddly to the side of his head, and a bang of black hair lay at a piratical angle across his forehead. Behind him Ormsby, the knit-goods man, tugged at a brown moustache; Shallenberger's blue eyes snapped wrathfully.

"Mr. Dick," I said soberly, "I have heard of you as the original pragmatist of Nebraska, and as I am a mere ignorant chimney-doctor, to whom the later philosophical meaning of that term is only so much punk, I must identify you with that more obvious meaning of the word which is within my grasp. Mr. Dick, and gentlemen of the committee, you are meddlesome persons!"

"Meddlesome!" cried Dick, heatedly, and leaning toward me across my desk, "do I correctly understand, sir, that you mean to insult us?"

"Nothing could be further from my purpose. But I cannot permit you to imagine that I'm going to allow you to beard me in my office and criticise my conduct in regard to Miss Cecilia Hollister or anybody else. As a philosopher from the fertile corn-lands of Nebraska, I salute you with admiration; as a critic of my ways and manners, I show you the door!"

This I did a bit jauntily, and I had a feeling that I was playing my part well. But the young man before me seemed to swell with the rage that surged within him. He broke out furiously, beating the air with his fist.

"You not only insult this committee, but you speak with intentional disrespect of my native state, and of the great philosophical school of which I am a disciple. Am I right?"

"You are eminently right, Mr. Dick. Neither the corn, the philosophical schools, nor the packing-house statistics of your native Omaha interest me a particle. So far as I am personally concerned you may go back to your wigwam on the tawny Missouri as soon as you please."

"Then," he broke forth explosively, "then, sir, by Minerva's pale brow, and by all the gods at once, I brand you"--

"Put the brand on hot, little one! Make it a good strong curse while you're about it!"

He choked with rage for a moment; then he controlled himself with painful effort.

"My personal grievances must wait," continued Dick, brokenly, "but speaking for the committee I wish to say that your attentions to the young lady whom you have dared, sir, to name, are obnoxious to us."

"Nothing less than that!" added Shallenberger.

"We will not stand for it," growled Ormsby's heavy bass.

"Mr. Shallenberger," I replied evenly, "as a member of the great Hoosier school of novelists I have the most profound respect for your talents. My office-boy is dead to the world for weeks after the appearance of a novel from your pen. But your interference in my private affairs is beyond all reason. And as for you, Mr. Ormsby, I dare say your knit-goods are worthy of the fame of the pent-up Utica from which you come. But to you and all of you, I bid defiance. I return to Hopefield Manor by the four-fourteen express."

I rose and bowed coldly in dismissal; but the trio stood their ground stubbornly.

"I tell you, sir, our organization is complete!" declared Dick. "We signed a gentleman's agreement only last night, for the express purpose of excluding you, and you cannot enter as a competitor. You are only an outsider, and we don't intend to have you interfering with our affairs."

"By the pink left ear of Venus!" I blurted, "is it a trust?"

"You put it coarsely, Mr. Ames, but"--

"A suitors' trust? Then if I read the newspapers correctly, your organization is against public policy and in contravention of the anti-trust law. But may I inquire why, if you have perfected a combination of Miss Hollister's suitors, I found Lord Arrowood this morning sitting on a stone by the roadside, evidently in the greatest dejection. Can it be possible that an insurgent has crept into your organization and incurred the displeasure of the regulars?"

"We ruled him out," Shallenberger burst forth, "because he was a foreigner and not entitled to a place among free-born Americans! That is one reason; and for another, the colors of his half-hose were an offense to me, personally."

"And for another reason," interposed Ormsby, "he had no money with which to pay his board at the Prescott Arms. For this just cause the landlord ejected him shortly after breakfast this morning."

"Then there is already a rift in the lute!" I returned. "No trust of suitors is stronger than its weakest link. By the bloody footprints of our forefathers on the snows of Valley Forge, I stand for the right of the American girl to choose where she will. You may perch on the hills about Hopefield Manor, and besiege Cecilia Hollister till the end of time, but my hand is raised against your unrighteous compact, and I am in the fight to stay! Go back to the Prescott Arms, gentlemen, and assure your associates in this hideous compact of my most distinguished consideration and tell them to go to the devil."

I had gone to the St. Parvenu Hotel to call upon a Washington lady who had been making life a burden to my assistant, and on coming out into Fifth Avenue shortly after one, bethought me of the Asolando Tea-Room. My interview with the committee of the suitors had driven from my mind practically every consideration and every interest not centred in Hopefield Manor. My thoughts turned gratefully to the Asolando, where only a few days ago I had been precipitated into the strangest adventures my eventless life had known.

A strange face was visible at the cashier's desk as I entered the tea-room. I passed on, finding the place quite full, but I took it as a good omen that the seventh table from the right was unoccupied, and I hastily appropriated it. A waitress appeared promptly, murmuring,--

"There are no birds in last year's nest,"--

and recommended a Locker-Lampson sandwich, whose contents the girl told me were secret, but it proved to be wholly palatable. As I drank my tea and ate the sandwich I surveyed the decorated menu card with interest, and found pleasurable excitement in discovering an item directing attention to "Pickles _a la_ Hezekiah, 15 cents."

The delightful Hezekiah must, then, have impressed herself upon the _deus ex machina_ of the Asolando on her brief day there, thus to have won this recognition. And further on I noted, among the desserts, _Peche Cecilie_, with even greater interest and satisfaction. Miss Hollister's nieces were among ten thousand young women, and it was quite believable that their brief tenure of office in the tea-room had fixed them permanently in the heart of the unknown proprietor.

The girl at the cash-desk was reading, her head bent as demurely as Hezekiah's had been on that memorable afternoon; but I did not care for the stranger's profile. I tried to fancy Cecilia in cap and apron serving these tables, but my imagination was not equal to the task.

Cecilia occupied my mind now. The visit of the furious suitors to my office had stirred in me thoughts and aspirations that had never known harborage in my breast before. The presumption of those fellows had exceeded anything I had known in my contact with human kind, and instead of frightening me away from Hopefield Manor, they had called my own attention to the strategic importance of my present position as a guest in Miss Octavia's house. Here was a siege of suitors indeed; but I was resolved to make the most of my position within the barricade.

As these thoughts ran through my mind, I was finishing my _Peche Cecilie_ (I spurn all sweets ordinarily), when I became interested in the unusual conduct of a young woman who had entered the front door briskly and walked with a business-like air to the cashier's desk. The girl within the wicket rose promptly, opened the screen, and without parley of any sort, emptied the contents of her till into the visitor's reticule. With a nod and a smile and a moment's careless survey of the room, the girl departed, swinging the reticule in her hand. A long roll she carried under her arm confirmed my identification. It was Miss Octavia Hollister's Swedish maid; and the roll, beyond peradventure, contained the plans she had obtained at Pepperton's office.

The girl was well-featured, neat of figure, and becomingly gowned, and as I watched her leave the shop the lightness of her step, something smooth and flowing in her movements, interested me. I did not know what business she had to be robbing the Asolando money-drawer, but it was altogether possible that she was the Hopefield ghost!

On the whole, when I had finally torn myself away from my assistant,--who made no attempt to conceal his doubts as to my sanity,--and had settled myself in the four-fourteen express with the afternoon papers, I was fully satisfied with the day's adventures.

XII

THE RIDDLE OF THE SIBYL'S LEAVES

I had told the coachman in the morning not to trouble to meet me on my return, and I engaged the village liveryman to drive me to the house for hire. As we approached Hopefield I saw the Napoleonic figure of John Stewart Dick in the roadway. He had evidently been waiting for me. He held up his hand with the superb, impersonal scorn of a Fifth Avenue policeman, and the driver checked his horse.

"I gave you warning," he said impressively. "If you return to the house the consequences will be upon your own head."

"Thank you," I replied courteously. "You lay yourself open to the severest penalties of the law in attempting to intimidate me. I have enlisted for the whole campaign. Sick chimneys require my immediate professional attention. If my bark sink, 't is to another sea. Be good, dear child, let those who will be clever; and kindly omit flowers."

As the driver slapped his reins, Dick sprang out of the way, muttering words that proved the shallowness of his philosophic temper. The liveryman expressed his disapproval of the pragmatist in profane terms as we entered the grounds.

"There's a heap o' talk in the village," he observed. "They do say the old lady 's cracked, if I may so speak of her; and that there's ghosts in the house. And the conduct of the gentlemen at the Prescott is most remarkable. The word 's passed that they're all dippy about the young Miss Hollister that lives with her aunt. I reckon all rich people are a bit cracked. It appears to go with the money. Mr. Bassford Hollister,--he's the old lady's brother,--he's just as bad as any of 'em. I've drove in these parts fifteen year, and I 've worked a heap for the rich, but I never seen nothin' like the Hollisters. They say Mr. Bassford is about broke now. Had his share of the baby-wagon money and blew it in, and now the old lady's marryin' off the girls and he gets no money out of her if he takes a hand in that game. She's doin' it to suit herself. That Bassford is always up to somethin' queer. Yesterday he sat in the village street countin' the number of people he saw chewin' gum. Hung around the school-house watchin' the children to see how many had their jaws goin'. Takin' notes just like the census man and tax assessor. Told our doctor in the village he was figurin' the amount of horse-power the American people put into gum-chewing every year, and expects to find some way of usin' it to run machinery. It's harmless, Doc says. He calls it just the Hollister idiosyncrasy, if that's the word. But I reckon it's idiotsyncrasy all right. I wish you good luck of your place, sir."

He evidently believed me to be some sort of upper servant, and this added to my joy of the day. With my good humor augmented by the interview, I entered the house. A strange footman admitted me, and I went to my room at once without meeting any one else.

The man followed me with a penciled note, signed with Cecilia's initials, requesting my presence below as soon as possible, as she wished to see me before dinner. The thought that she wished to see me at any time filled me with elation; and her few lines scratched on a correspondence card were a pleasing addendum to our conversation of the morning. I only wondered whether I should find her the sober, reserved young woman of our earlier acquaintance, or whether she would choose to renew the good comradeship of our talk on the train. The finding of my assistant's telegraphed resignation on my dressing-table, to take effect in January, had not the slightest effect upon the lofty minarets in which my fancy now found lodgment. It pleased me to believe that fighting blood still pulsed in the last of the house of Ames, and that I had hurled defiance at the organized band of suitors that guarded the Hopefield gates and picketed the surrounding hills.

My question as to which Cecilia I should find in the library was quickly answered. Her frank smile, the candor of her eyes, confessed a new tie between us; we were becoming conspirators within the main conspiracy, whatever its character might be.

"As to Providence and the cook--what luck?" I asked.

"Oh, I managed that very easily. I ran into some friends who were going abroad for the winter. They have a staff of unusual servants, and were anxious to keep them together until their return. I promptly engaged them all, and they are even now installed. I came up on the train with them, and as they are unusually intelligent and biddable, they agreed to stray in in a casual and desultory way through the afternoon. Aunt Octavia really believed, or pretended she did, which is just as good, that Providence had sent them, and was delighted. The laundress--the last to appear--has just arrived, and Aunt Octavia is in fine humor. She did n't even ask me how I came off in my encounter at the dentist's. She had filled the pie-pantry and had a good time while I was gone."

"Well, I have had an adventure of my own," I remarked, after expressing my relief that she had solved the servant difficulty with so much ease. "A committee of gentlemen waited on me in my office on a matter of grave importance."

She lifted her brows, and folded her hands upon her knees--it was a pretty way she had.

"Was it the freedom of the city, or some high recognition of your professional ability, Mr. Ames?"

"Oh, far more exciting! Three gentlemen, representing the suitors' trust now maintaining headquarters at the Prescott Arms, warned me solemnly to keep off the grass. In other words, I am not to interfere with their designs upon the heart of Miss Cecilia Hollister."

She flung open a fan, held it at arm's length, and scrutinized the daffodils that were traced upon it.

"So they dared you?"

"So they dared me. And I took the dare."

"Why?"

Her eyes met mine gravely, but behind her pretty _moue_ a smile lurked delightfully.

"If I should tell you now it would be flirting, which is a sin."

"I had imagined, Mr. Ames, that that sort of thing came easy to you. But if it's sinful, of course"--

"But you do not rule me out! You will give me a chance"--

My earnestness caused her manner to change suddenly. Her beautiful gravity came like a swift falling of starlit twilight. I had never been so happy as at this moment. Preposterous as were the circumstances of my presence in the house, the juxtaposition of Cecilia Hollister gave me unalloyed delight. The animosity of the gentlemen at the Prescott Arms--an animosity which the interview in my office had doubtless intensified--quickened my satisfaction in thus being within the walls that guarded the lady of their adoration. She had not answered me, and I felt my heart pounding in the silence.

"I want to serve you, now, hereafter, and always," I added. "These men can have no claim upon you greater than that of any other man who dares!"

"No, none whatever," she replied firmly.

"And the mystery, the whole story, is in the little silver book!"

She started, flushed, and then laughter visited her lips and eyes. The book was not in her hands nor in sight anywhere, but I felt that I was on the right track, and that the little trinket had to do with her plight and her compact with her aunt. Best of all, the fact that I had chanced upon this clue gave her happiness. There was no debating that.

"You had best have a care, Mr. Ames. You have spoken words that would be treasonable if they came from me, and I must not countenance them."

"But you will tolerate from me words that you would not permit another to speak? Do I go too far?"

She bent her head to one side,--with the slightest inclination, as of a rose touched by a vagrant wind.

"If I could only half believe in you," she said, "you might really serve me. So those gentlemen warned you away! Their presumption is certainly astounding."

"They know nothing of the silver book!"

"They know less than you do,--and you have a good deal to learn, you know."

"I am dull enough, but I have no ambition but to read the riddle of the sibyl's leaves. That and the laying of the ghost are my immediate business. As for the gentlemen at the Prescott, including my old friend Hartley Wiggins, I am not in the least afraid of them. My hand is raised against them. If it's a case of the test of Ulysses over again, I 'm as likely as any of them to bend the bow."

I thought this well spoken, but she seemed amused, though without unkindness, by the earnestness of my speech.

"If your wit is equal to your valor, you may go far. But"--and she turned her eyes full upon me--"we must play the game according to the rules."

"And as for Hartley Wiggins"--

She sat up very straight, and the sudden disdain in her face startled me. I had forgotten my eavesdropping in the clump of raspberries on the day of my arrival. Certainly Wiggins had been decidedly in the race then, and my heart thumped in resentment as I recalled her own message, all compact of encouragement, which I had borne to Wiggins at the Prescott Arms.

"I will tell you something, Mr. Ames. This afternoon, as I drove from the station, I came round by the lake, merely to cool my eyes on the water, and I saw Mr. Wiggins and my sister seated on a wall in an old orchard. They were so busily engaged that they did not see me. At least he did not; but I think Hezekiah did."

"Hezekiah," I answered, relieved by the nature of her disclosure, which could not but prejudice Wiggins' case, "Hezekiah is fond of orchards. I dare say this was the same one in which I had a charming talk with her myself. Doubtless she was amusing herself with Wiggins just as she did with me. She finds the genus homo entertaining."

"She is the dearest girl in the world,--the sweetest, the loveliest, the brightest. Mr. Wiggins has treated her outrageously. He has taken advantage of her youth and susceptible nature."

"His punishment is sure," I answered complacently. "Hezekiah laughed when I mentioned his name. And you frown to-day at the thought of him."

"Aunt Octavia is coming," she remarked, feigning at once a careless air; but I was content that she let my remark pass unchallenged.

Miss Octavia's entrances were always effective. She appeared to-night charmingly gowned, but the bright twinkle in her eyes made it clear that no matter of dress could affect her humor or spirit. She greeted me, as she always did, as though our acquaintance were a matter of years rather than of days. I even imagined that she seemed pleased to find me back again. She asked no questions as to my day's occupations, but as we went in to dinner sallied forth cheerfully upon a description of her own activities.

"After I had baked my required quota of pies this morning, I sought recreation at the traps. The stable-boy who has been pulling the string for me having struck-work, it most providentially happened that I espied Lord Arrowood hanging on the edge of the maple tangle beyond the barn. I summoned him at once and put him to work managing the traps for me, finding him most efficient. He seemed extremely despondent, and after I had satisfied myself that two out of three was not an impossible record for one of my years, I brought him to the house and made tea for him. I left the room for a moment--I had taken him into the kitchen where, during the incumbency of the regular cook I hardly dare venture myself, and he made himself comfortable quite near the range. The pies on which I had been engaged all morning lay cooling near him. I had composed twenty-nine pies,--I am an excellent mathematician, and I could not have been mistaken in the count. What was my amazement to find, after his lordship's departure, that one pie was missing! The pan in which it was baked I discerned later, jammed into a barrel of excellent Minnesota flour. My absence from the room was the briefest; his lordship must indeed be a prestidigitateur to have made way with the pie so expeditiously."

"His lordship was doubtless hungry," I suggested. "Even nobility must eat. I passed Lord Arrowood in the highway early this morning, sitting upon a stone, with sundry items of hand-baggage reposing beside him. I have rarely seen any one so depressed."

"He belongs to an ancient house," remarked Miss Octavia. "He is descended from either Hengist or Horsa,--I forget which, but it does not greatly matter. The missing pie, I may add, was an effect in Westchester pippin; and as our American experiment in self-government bores him, I take it as significant that he chanced upon food that is the veritable sacrament of democracy."