Give me a staff of honour for mine age.
—Titus Andronicus.
I was meditating my course over a cheerless luncheon when Gillespie was announced. He lounged into the dining-room, drew his chair to the table and covered a biscuit with camembert with his usual inscrutable air.
"I think it is better," he said deliberatingly, "to be an ass than a fool. Have you any views on the subject?"
"None, my dear Buttons. I have been called both by shrewd men."
"So have I, if the worst were known, and they offered proof! Ah, more and more I see that we were born for each other, Donovan. I was once so impressed with the notion that to be a fool was to be distinguished that I conceived the idea of forming a Noble Order of Serene and Incurable Fools. I elected myself The Grand and Most Worthy Master, feeling safe from competition. News of the matter having gone forth, many persons of the highest standing wrote to me, recommending their friends for membership. My correspondence soon engaged three type-writers, and I was obliged to get the post-office department to help me break the chain. A few humble souls applied on their own hook for consideration. These I elected and placed in the first class. You would be surprised to know how many people who are chronic joiners wrote in absent-mindedly for application blanks, fearing to be left out of a good thing. United States senators were rather common on the list, and there were three governors; a bishop wrote to propose a brother bishop, of whose merits he spoke in the warmest terms. Many newspapers declared that the society filled a long-felt want. I received invitations to speak on the uses and benefits of the order from many learned bodies. The thing began to bore me, and when my official stationery was exhausted I issued a farewell address to my troops and dissolved the society. But it's a great gratification to me, my dear Donovan, that we quit with a waiting-list."
"There are times, Buttons, when you cease to divert me. I'm likely to be very busy for a few days. Just what can I do for you this afternoon?"
"Look here, old man, you're not angry?"
"No; I'm rarely angry; but I'm often bored."
"Then your brutal insinuation shall not go unrewarded. Let me proceed. But first, how are your ribs?"
"Sore and a trifle stiff, but I'm comfortable, thanks."
"As I understand matters, Irishman, there is no real difference between you and me except in the matter of a certain lady. Otherwise we might combine our forces in the interest of these unhappy Holbrooks."
"You are quite right. You came here to say something; go on and be done with it."
He deftly covered another biscuit with the cheese, of whose antiquity he complained sadly.
"I say, Donovan, between old soldier friends, what were you doing up there on the creek last night?"
"Studying the landscape effects by starlight. It's a habit of mine. Your own presence there might need accounting for, if you don't mind."
"I will be square about it. I met Helen quite accidentally as I left this house, and she wanted to see her father. I took her over there, and we found Henry. He was up to some mischief—you may know what it was. Something had gone wrong with him, and he was in all kinds of a bad humor. Unfortunately, you got the benefit of some of it."
"I will supply you a link in the night's affairs. Henry had been to see his brother Arthur."
Gillespie's face fell, and I saw that he was greatly surprised.
"Humph! Helen didn't tell me that."
"The reason Henry came here was to look for his brother. That's how he reached this place ahead of Miss Pat and Helen. And I have learned something—it makes no difference how, but it was not from the ladies at St. Agatha's—I learned last night that the key of this whole situation is in your own hands, Gillespie. Your father was swindled by the Holbrooks; which Holbrook?"
He was at once sane and serious, and replied soberly:
"I never doubted that it was Arthur. If he wasn't guilty, why did he run away? It was a queer business, and father never mentioned it. Henry gave out the impression that my father had taken advantage of Holbrook Brothers and forced their failure; but father shut up and never told me anything."
"But you have the notes—"
"Yes, but I'm not to open them, yet. I can't tell you about that now." He grew red and played with his cravat.
"Where are they?" I asked.
"I've just had them sent to me; they're in the bank at Annandale. There's another thing you may not know. Old man Holbrook, who lived to be older than the hills, left a provision in his will that adds to the complications. Miss Pat may have mentioned that stuff in her father's will about the honor of the brothers—?"
"She just mentioned it. Please tell me what you know of it."
He took out his pocket-book and read me this paragraph from a newspaper cutting:
"And the said one million dollars hereinbefore specifically provided for shall, after the lapse of ten years, be divided between my said sons Henry and Arthur Holbrook, share and share alike; but if either of my said sons shall have been touched by dishonor through his own act, as honor is accounted, reckoned and valued among men, my said daughter Patricia to be the sole judge thereof, then he shall forfeit his share of said amount thus withheld, and the whole of said sum of one million dollars shall be adjudged to belong to the other son."
Gillespie lighted a cigarette and smoked quietly for several minutes, and when he spoke it was with deep feeling.
"I love that girl, Donovan. I believe she cares for me, or would if she could get out of all these entanglements. I'm almost ready to burn that packet and tell Miss Pat she's got to settle with Henry and be done with it. Let him spend his money and die in disgrace and go to the devil; anything is better than all this secrecy and mystery that enmeshes Helen. I'm going to end it; I'm going to end it!"
We had gone to the library, and he threw himself down in the chair from which she had spoken of him so short a time before that I seemed still to feel her presence in the room.
He was of that youthful, blond type which still sunburns after much tanning. His short hair was brushed smooth on his well-formed head. The checks and stripes and hideous color combinations in his raiment, which Miss Pat had mentioned at our first interview, were, I imagined, peculiar to his strange humor—a denotement of his willingness to sacrifice himself to mystify or annoy others. He seemed younger to-day than I had thought him before; he was a kind, generous, amusing boy, whose physical strength seemed an anomaly in one so gentle. He did not understand Helen; and as I reflected that I was not sure I understood her myself, the heads of the dragon multiplied, and my task at Annandale grew on my hands. But I wanted to help this boy if it was in me to do it, and I clapped him on the shoulder.
"Cheer up, lad! If we can't untie the knot we'll lose no time cutting the string. There may be some fun in this business before we get through with it."
I began telling him of some of my own experiences, and won him to a cheerier mood. When we came round to the Holbrooks again his depression had passed, and we were on the best of terms.
"But there's one thing we can't get away from, Donovan. I've got to protect Helen; don't you see? I've got to take care of her, whatever comes."
"But you can't take care of her father. He's hopeless."
"I could give him this money myself, couldn't I? I can do it, and I've about concluded that I ought to do it."
"But that would be a waste. It would be like giving whisky to a drunkard. Money has been at the bottom of all this trouble."
Gillespie threw up his hands with a gesture of helplessness.
"I shall undoubtedly lose such wits as I have if we don't get somewhere in this business pretty soon. But, Donovan, there's something I want to ask you. I don't like to speak of it, but when we were coming away from that infernal island, after our scrap with the dago, there were two people walking on the bluff—a man and a woman, and the woman was nearest us. She seemed to be purposely putting herself in the man's way so we couldn't see him. It didn't seem possible that Helen could be there—but?"
He clearly wished to be assured, and I answered at once:
"I saw them; it couldn't have been Helen. It was merely a similarity of figure. I couldn't distinguish her face at all. Very likely they were Port Annandale cottagers."
"I thought so myself," he replied, evidently relieved. It did not seem necessary to tell him of Rosalind at Red Gate; that was my secret, and I was not yet ready to share it.
"I've got to talk to somebody, and I want to tell you something, Donovan. I can't deny that there are times when Helen doesn't seem—well, all that I have thought her at other times. Sometimes she seems selfish and hard, and all that. And I know she hasn't treated Miss Pat right; it isn't square for her to take Miss Pat's bounty and then work against her. But I make allowances, Donovan."
"Of course," I acquiesced, wishing to cheer him. "So do I. She has been hard put in this business. And a man's love can't always be at par—or a woman's either! The only thing a man ought to exact of the woman he marries is that she put up a cheerful breakfast-table. Nothing else counts very much. Start the day right, hand him his gloves and a kind word at the front door as he sallies forth to the day's battle, and constancy and devotion will be her reward. I have spoken words of wisdom. Harken, O Chief Button-maker of the World!"
The chiming of the bells beyond the Glenarm wall caused him to lift his head defiantly. I knew what was in his mind. He was in love—or thought he was, which has been said to be the same thing—and he wanted to see the girl he loved; and I resolved to aid him in the matter. I have done some mischief in my life, but real evil I have, I hope, never done. It occurred to me now that I might do a little good. And for justification I reasoned that I was already so deep in the affairs of other people that a little further plunge could do no particular harm.
"You think her rarely beautiful, don't you, Buttons?"
"She is the most beautiful woman in the world!" he exclaimed.
"The type is not without charm. Every man has his ideal in the way of a type. I will admit that her type is rare," I remarked with condescension.
"Rare!" he shouted. "Rare! You speak of her, Irishman, as though she were a mummy or a gargoyle or—or—"
"No; I should hardly say that. But there are always others."
"There are no others—not another one to compare with her! You are positively brutal when you speak of that girl. You should at least be just to her; a blind man could feel her beauty even if he couldn't see!"
"I repeat that it's the type! Propinquity, another pair of dark eyes, the drooping lash, those slim fingers resting meditatively against a similar oval olive cheek, and the mischief's done."
"I don't understand you," he declared blankly, and then the color flooded his face. "I believe you are in love with her yourself!" And then, ironically: "Or maybe it's just the type you fancy. Any other girl, with the same dark eyes, the drooping lash—"
"You'd never be happy with Helen Holbrook if she married you, Gillespie. What you need is a clinging vine. Helen isn't that."
"That is your opinion, is it, Mr. Donovan? You want me to seek my faith in the arboretum, do you? You mustn't think yourself the permanent manager of all the Holbrooks and of me, too! I have never understood just how you broke into this. And I can't see that you have done much to help anybody, if you must know my opinion."
"I have every intention of helping you, Buttons. I like you. You have to me all the marks of a good fellow. My heart goes out to you in this matter. I want to see you happily married to a woman who will appreciate you. If you're not careful some girl will marry you for your money."
Good humor mastered him again, and he grinned his delightful boyish grin.
"I can't for the life of me imagine a girl's marrying me for anything else," he said. "Can you?"
"I'll tell you what I'll do for you, my lad," I said. "I'll arrange for you to see Helen to-night! You shall meet and talk and dance with her at Port Annandale casino, in the most conventional way in the world, with me for chaperon. By reason of being Mr. Glenarm's guest here, I'm ex officio a member of the club. I'll manage everything. Miss Pat shall know nothing—all on one condition only."
"Well, name your price."
"That you shall not mention family affairs to her at all."
"God knows I shall be delighted to escape them!" His eyes brightened and he clapped his hands together. "I owe her a pair of gloves on an old wager. I have them in the village and will bring them over to-night," he said; but deception was not an easy game for him. I grinned and he colored.
"It's not money, Donovan," he said, as hurt as a misjudged child. "I won't lie to you. I was to meet her at St. Agatha's pier to-night to give her the gloves."
"You shall have your opportunity, but those meetings on piers won't do. I will hand her over to you at the casino at nine o'clock. I suppose I may have a dance or two?"
"I suppose so," he said, so grudgingly that I laughed aloud.
"Remember the compact; try to have a good time and don't talk of trouble," I enjoined, as we parted.