When first we met we did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master;
Of more than common friendliness
When first we met we did not guess—
Who could foretell this sore distress—
This irretrievable disaster
When first we met? We did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master.
—Robert Bridges.
Miss Pat asked me to dine at St. Agatha's that night. The message came unexpectedly—a line on one of those quaint visiting-cards of hers, brought by the gardener; and when I had penned my acceptance I at once sent the following message by Ijima to the boat-maker's house at Red Gate:
To Rosalind at Red Gate:
It is important for you to appear with me at the Port Annandale casino to-night, and to meet Reginald Gillespie there. He is pledged to refer in no way to family affairs. It he should attempt to, you need only remind him of his promise. He will imagine that you are some one else, so please be careful not to tax his imagination too far. There is much at stake which I will explain later. You are to refuse nothing that he may offer you. I shall come into the creek with the launch and call for you at Red Gate.
THE IRISHMAN AT GLENARM.
The casino dances are very informal. A plain white gown and a few ribbons. But don't omit your emerald.
I was not sure where this project would lead me, but I committed myself to it with a fair conscience. I reached St. Agatha's just as dinner was announced and we went out at once to the small dining-room used by the Sister in charge during vacation, where I faced Miss Pat, with Helen on one hand and Sister Margaret on the other. They were all in good humor, even Sister Margaret proving less austere than usual, and it is not too much to say that we were a merry party. Helen led me with a particular intention to talk of Irish affairs, and avowed her own unbelief in the capacity of the Irish for self-government.
"Now, Helen!" admonished Miss Pat, as our debate waxed warm.
"Oh, do not spare me! I could not be shot to pieces in a better cause!"
"The trouble with you people," declared Helen with finality, "is that you have no staying qualities. The smashing of a few heads occasionally satisfies your islanders, then down go the necks beneath the yoke. You are incapable of prolonged war. Now even the Cubans did better; you must admit that, Mr. Donovan!"
She met my eyes with a challenge. There was no question as to the animus of the discussion: she wished me to understand that there was war between us, and that with no great faith in my wit or powers of endurance she was setting herself confidently to the business of defeating my purposes. And I must confess that I liked it in her!
"If we had you for an advocate our flag would undoubtedly rule the seas, Miss Holbrook!"
"I dip my colors," she replied, "only to the long-enduring, not to the valiant alone!"
"A lady of high renown," I mused aloud, while Miss Pat poured the coffee, "a lady of your own name, was once more or less responsible for a little affair that lasted ten years about the walls of a six-gated city."
"I wasn't named for her! No sugar to-night, please, Aunt Pat!"
I stood with her presently by an open window of the parlor, looking out upon the night. Sister Margaret had vanished about her household duties; Miss Pat had taken up a book with the rather obvious intention of leaving us to ourselves. I expected to start at eight for my rendezvous at Red Gate, and my ear was alert to the chiming of the chapel clock. The gardener had begun his evening rounds, and paused in the walk beneath us.
"Don't you think," asked Helen, "that the guard is rather ridiculous?"
"Yes, but it pleases my medieval instincts to imagine that you need defenders. In the absence of a moat the gardener combines in himself all the apparatus of defense. Ijima is his Asiatic ally."
"And you, I suppose, are the grand strategist and field marshal."
"At least that!"
"After this morning I never expected to ask a favor of you; but if, in my humblest tone—"
"Certainly. Anything within reason."
"I want you to take me to the casino to-night to the dance. I'm tired of being cooped up here. I want to hear music and see new faces."
"Do pardon me for not having thought of it before! They dance over there every Wednesday and Saturday night. I'm sorry that to-night I have an engagement, but won't you allow me on Saturday?"
She was resting her arms on the high sill, gazing out upon the lake. I stood near, watching her, and as she sighed deeply my heart ached for her; but in a moment she turned her head swiftly with mischief laughing in her eyes.
"You have really refused! You have positively declined! You plead another engagement! This is a place where one's engagements are burdensome."
"This one happens to be important."
She turned round with her back to the window.
"We are eternal foes; we are fighting it out to a finish; and it is better that way. But, Mr. Donovan, I haven't played all my cards yet."
"I look upon you as a resourceful person and I shall be prepared for the worst. Shall we say Saturday night for the dance?"
"No!" she exclaimed, tossing her head. "And let me have the satisfaction of telling you that I could not have gone with you to-night anyhow. Good-by."
I found Ijima ready with the launch at Glenarm pier, and, after a swift flight to the Tippecanoe, knocked at the door of Red Gate. Arthur Holbrook admitted me, and led the way to the room where, as his captive, I had first talked with him.
"We have met before," he said, smiling. "I thought you were an enemy at that time. Now I believe I may count you a friend."
"Yes; I should like to prove myself your friend, Mr. Holbrook."
"Thank you," he said simply; and we shook hands. "You have taken an interest in my affairs, so my daughter tells me. She is very dear to me—she is all I have left; you can understand that I wish to avoid involving her in these family difficulties."
"I would cut off my right hand before I would risk injuring you or her, Mr. Holbrook," I replied earnestly. "You have a right to know why I wish her to visit the casino with me to-night. I know what she does not know, what only two other people know; I know why you are here."
"I am very sorry; I regret it very much," he said without surprise but with deep feeling. The jauntiness with which he carried off our first interview was gone; he seemed older, and there was no mistaking the trouble and anxiety in his eyes. He would have said more, but I interrupted him.
"As far as I am concerned no one else shall ever know. The persons who know the truth about you are your brother and yourself. Strangely enough, Reginald Gillespie does not know. Your sister has not the slightest idea of it. Your daughter, I assume, has no notion of it—"
"No! no!" he exclaimed eagerly. "She has not known; she has believed what I have told her; and now she must never know how stupid, how mad, I have been."
"To-night," I said, "your daughter and I will gain possession of the forged notes. Gillespie will give them to her; and I should like to hold them for a day or two."
He was pacing the floor and at this wheeled upon me with doubt and suspicion clearly written on his face.
"But I don't see how you can manage it!"
"Mr. Gillespie is infatuated with your niece."
"With Helen, who is with my sister at St. Agatha's."
"I have promised Gillespie that he shall see her to-night at the casino dance. Your sister is very bitter against him and he is mortally afraid of her."
"His father really acted very decently, when you know the truth. But I don't see how this is to be managed. I should like to possess myself of those papers, but not at too great a cost. More for Rosalind's sake than my own now, I should have them."
"You may not know that your daughter and her cousin are as like as two human beings can be. I am rather put to it myself to tell them apart."
"Their mothers were much alike, but they were distinguishable. If you are proposing a substitution of Rosalind for Helen, I should say to have a care of it. You may deceive a casual acquaintance, but hardly a lover."
"I have carried through worse adventures. Those documents must not get into—into—unfriendly hands! I have pledged myself that Miss Patricia shall be kept free from further trouble, and much trouble lies in those forged notes if your brother gets them. But I hope to do a little more than protect your sister; I want to get you all out of your difficulties. There is no reason for your remaining in exile. You owe it to your daughter to go back to civilization. And your sister needs you. You saved your brother once; you will pardon me for saying that you owe him no further mercy."
He thrust his hands into his pockets and paced the floor a moment, before he said:
"You are quite right. But I am sure you will be very careful of my little girl; she is all I have—quite all I have."
He went to the hall and called her and bowed with a graceful, old-fashioned courtesy that reminded me of Miss Pat as Rosalind came into the room.
"Will I do, gentlemen all?" she asked gaily. "Do I look the fraud I feel?"
She threw off a long scarlet cloak that fell to her heels and stood before us in white—it was as though she had stepped out of flame. She turned slowly round, with head bent, submitting herself for our inspection.
Her gown was perfectly simple, high at the throat and with sleeves that clasped her wrists. To my masculine eyes it was of the same piece and pattern as the gown in which I had left Helen at St. Agatha's an hour before.
"I think I read doubt in your mind," she laughed. "You must not tell me now that you have backed out; I shall try it myself, if you are weakening. I am anxious for the curtain to rise."
"There is only one thing: I suggest that you omit that locket. I dined with her to-night, so my memory is fresh."
She unclasped the tiny locket that hung from a slight band of velvet at her throat, and threw it aside; and her father, who was not, I saw, wholly reconciled to my undertaking, held the cloak for her and led the way with a lantern through the garden and down to the waterside and along the creek to the launch where Ijima was in readiness. We quickly embarked, and the launch stole away through the narrow shores, Holbrook swinging his lantern back and forth in good-by. I had lingered longer at the boat-maker's than I intended, and as we neared the upper lake and the creek broadened Ijima sent the launch forward at full speed. When we approached Battle Orchard I bade him stop, and hiding our lantern I took an oar and guided the launch quietly by. Then we went on into the upper lake at a lively clip. Rosalind sat quietly in the bow, the hood of her cloak gathered about her head.
I was taking steering directions from Ijima, but as we neared Port Annandale I glanced over my shoulder to mark the casino pier lights when Rosalind sang out:
"Hard aport—hard!"
I obeyed, and we passed within oar's length of a sailboat, which, showing no light, but with mainsail set, was loafing leisurely before the light west wind. As we veered away I saw a man's figure at the wheel; another figure showed darkly against the cuddy.
"Hang out your lights!" I shouted angrily. But there was no reply.
"The Stiletto," muttered Ijima, starting the engine again.
"We must look out for her going back," I said, as we watched the sloop merge into shadow.
The lights of the casino blazed cheerily as we drew up to the pier, and Rosalind stepped out in good spirits, catching up and humming the waltz that rang down upon us from the club-house.
"Lady," I said, "let us see what lands we shall discover."
"I ought to feel terribly wicked, but I really never felt cheerfuller in my life," she averred. "But I have one embarrassment!"
"Well?"—and we paused, while she dropped the hood upon her shoulders.
"What shall I call this gentleman?"
"What does she call him? I'm blest if I know! I call him Buttons usually; Knight of the Rueful Countenance might serve; but very likely she calls him Reggie."
"I will try them all," she said. "I think we used to call him Reggie on Strawberry Hill. Very likely he will detect the fraud at once and I shan't get very far with him."
"You shall get as far as you please. Leave it to me. He shall see you first on the veranda overlooking the water where there are shadows in plenty, and you had better keep your cloak about you until the first shock of meeting has passed. Then if he wants you to dance, I will hold the cloak, like a faithful chaperon, and you may muffle yourself in it the instant you come out; so even if he has his suspicions he will have no time to indulge them. He is undoubtedly patrolling the veranda, looking for us even now. He's a faithful knight!"
As we passed the open door the dance ceased and a throng of young people came gaily out to take the air. We joined the procession, and were accepted without remark. Several men whom I had seen in the village or met in the highway nodded amiably. Gillespie, I knew, was waiting somewhere; and I gave Rosalind final admonitions.
"Now be cheerful! Be cordial! In case of doubt grow moody, and look out upon the water, as though seeking an answer in the stars. Though I seem to disappear I shall be hanging about with an eye for danger-signals. Ah! He approaches! He comes!"
Gillespie advanced eagerly, with happiness alight in his face.
"Helen!" he cried, taking her hand; and to me: "You are not so great a liar after all, Irishman."
"Oh, Mr. Donovan is the kindest person imaginable," she replied and turned her head daringly so that the light from a window fell full upon her, and he gazed at her with frank, boyish admiration. Then she drew her wrap about her shoulders and sat down on a bench with her face in shadow, and as I walked away her laughter followed me cheerily.
I was promptly seized by a young man, who feigned to have met me in some former incarnation, and introduced to a girl from Detroit whose name I shall never know in this world. I remember that she danced well, and that she asked me whether I knew people in Duluth, Pond du Lac, Paducah and a number of other towns which she recited like a geographical index. She formed, I think, a high opinion of my sense of humor, for I laughed at everything she said in my general joy of the situation. After our third dance I got her an ice and found another cavalier for her. I did not feel at all as contrite as I should have felt as I strolled round the veranda toward Rosalind and Gillespie. They were talking in low tones and did not heed me until I spoke to them.
"Oh, it's you, is it?"—and Gillespie looked up at me resentfully.
"I have been gone two years! It seems to me I am doing pretty well, all things considered! What have you been talking about?"
"'—'Bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves,
An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers therselves!'"
Rosalind quoted. "I hope you have been enjoying yourself."
"After a dull fashion, yes."
"I should like to tell her that! We saw you through the window. She struck us as very pretty, didn't she, Reggie?"
"I didn't notice her," Gillespie replied with so little interest that we both laughed.
"It's too bad," remarked Rosalind, "that Aunt Pat couldn't have come with us. It would have been a relief for her to get away from that dreary school-house."
"I might go and fetch her," I suggested.
"If you do," said Gillespie, grinning, "you will not find us here when you get back."
Rosalind sighed, as though at the remembrance of her aunt's forlorn exile; then the music broke out in a two-step.
"Come! We must have this dance!" she exclaimed, and Gillespie rose obediently. I followed, exchanging chaff with Rosalind until we came to the door, where she threw off her cloak for the first time.
"Lord and Protector, will you do me the honor?"
It all happened in a moment. I tossed the cloak across my arm carelessly and she turned to Gillespie without looking at me. He hesitated—some word faltered on his lips. I think it must have been the quick transition of her appearance effected by the change from the rich color of the cloak to the white of her dress that startled him. She realized the danger of the moment, and put her arm on his arm.
"We mustn't miss a note of it! Good-by,"—and with a nod to me I next saw her far away amid the throng of dancers.
As I caught up the cloak under my arm something crackled under my fingers, and hurrying to a dark corner of the veranda I found the pocket and drew forth an envelope. My conscience, I confess, was agreeably quiescent. You may, if you wish, pronounce my conduct at several points of this narrative wholly indefensible; but I was engaged in a sincere effort to straighten out the Holbrook tangle, and Helen had openly challenged me. If I could carry this deception through successfully I believed that within a few hours I might bring Henry Holbrook to terms. As for Gillespie he was far safer with Rosalind than with Helen. I thrust the envelope into my breast pocket and settled myself by the veranda rail, where I could look out upon the lake, and at the same time keep an eye on the ball-room. And, to be frank about it, I felt rather pleased with myself! It would do Helen no great harm to wait for Gillespie on St. Agatha's pier: the discipline of disappointment would be good for her. Vigorous hand-clapping demanded a repetition of the popular two-step of the hour, and I saw Rosalind and Gillespie swing into the dance as the music struck up again.
Somewhere beneath I heard the rumble and bang of a bowling-alley above the music. Then my eyes, roaming the lake, fell upon the casino pier below. Some one was coming toward me—a girl wrapped in a long cloak who had apparently just landed from a boat. She moved swiftly toward the casino. I saw her and lost her again as she passed in and out of the light of the pier lamps. A dozen times the shadows caught her away; a dozen times the pier lights flashed upon her; and at last I was aware that it was Helen Holbrook, walking swiftly, as though upon an urgent errand. I ran down the steps and met her luckily on a deserted stretch of board walk. I was prepared for an angry outburst, but hardly for the sword-like glitter of her first words.
"This is infamous! It is outrageous! I did not believe that even you would be guilty of this!"
The two-step was swinging on to its conclusion, and I knew that the casino entrance was not the place for a scene with an angry girl.
"I am anything you like; but please come to a place where we can talk quietly."
"I will not! I will not be tricked by you again."
"You will come along with me, at once and quietly," I said; and to my surprise she walked up the steps beside me. As we passed the ball-room door the music climbed to its climax and ended.
"Come, let us go to the farther end of the veranda."
When we had reached a quiet corner she broke out upon me again.
"If you have done what I think you have done, what I might have known you would do, I shall punish you terribly—you and her!"
"You may punish me all you like, but you shall not punish her!" I said with her own emphasis.
"Reginald promised me some papers to-night—my father had asked me to get them for him. She does not know, this cousin of mine, what they are, what her father is! It is left for you to bring the shame upon her."
"It had better be I than you, in your present frame of mind!"—and the pity welled in my heart. I must save her from the heartache that lay in the truth. If I failed in this I should fail indeed.
"Do you want her to know that her father is a forger—a felon? That is what you are telling her, if you trick Reginald into giving her those papers he was to give me for my father!"
"She hasn't those papers. I have them. They are in my pocket, quite safe from all of you. You are altogether too vindictive, you Holbrooks! I have no intention of trusting you with such high explosives."
"Reginald shall take them away from you. He is not a child to be played with—duped in this fashion."
"Reginald is a good fellow. He will always love me for this—"
"For cheating him? Don't you suppose he will resent it? Don't you think he knows me from every other girl in the world?"
"No, I do not. In fact I have proved that he doesn't. You see, Miss Holbrook, he gave her the documents in the case without a question."
"And she dutifully passed them on to you!"
"Nothing of the kind, my dear Miss Holbrook! I took them out of her cloak pocket."
"That is quite in keeping!"
"I'm not done yet! Pardon me, but I want you to exchange cloaks with me. You shall have Reginald in a moment, and we will make sure that he is deceived by letting him take you home. You are as like as two peas—in everything except temper, humor and such trifles; but your cloaks are quite different. Please!"
"I will not!"
"Please!"
"You are despicable, despicable!"
"I am really the best friend you have in the world. Again, will you kindly exchange cloaks with me? Yours is blue, isn't it? I think Reginald knows blue from red. Ah, thank you! Now, I want you to promise to say nothing as he takes you home about papers, your father, your uncle or your aunt. You will talk to him of times when you were children at Stamford, and things like that, in a dreamy reminiscential key. If he speaks of things that you don't exactly understand, refers to what he has said to your cousin here to-night, you need only fend him off; tell him the incident is closed. When I bring him to you in ten minutes it will be with the understanding that he is to take you back to St. Agatha's at once. He has his launch at the casino pier; you needn't say anything to him when you land, only that you must get home quietly, so Miss Pat shan't know you have been out. Your exits and your entrances are your own affair. Now I hope you see the wisdom of obeying me, absolutely."
"I didn't know that I could hate you so much!" she said quietly. "But I shall not forget this. I shall let you see before I am a day older that you are not quite the master you think you are: suppose I tell him how you have played with him.”
"Then before you are three hours older I shall precipitate a crisis that you will not like, Miss Holbrook. I advise you, as your best friend, to do what I ask."
She shrugged her shoulders, drew the scarlet cloak more closely about her, and I left her gazing off into the strip of wood that lay close upon the inland side of the club-house. I was by no means sure of her, but there was no time for further parley. I dropped the blue cloak on a chair in a corner and hurried round to the door of the ball-room, meeting Rosalind and Gillespie coming out flushed with their dance.
"The hour of enchantment is almost past. I must have one turn before the princess goes back to her castle!"—and Rosalind took my arm.
"Meet me at the landing in two minutes, Gillespie! As a special favor—as a particular kindness—I shall allow you to take the princess home!" And I hurried Rosalind away, regained the blue cloak, and flung it about her.
"Well," she said, drawing the hood over her head, "who am I, anyhow!"
"Don't ask me such questions! I'm afraid to say."
"I like your air of business. You are undoubtedly a man of action!"
"I thank you for the word. I'm breathing hard. I have seen ghosts and communed with dragons. She's here! your alter ego is on this very veranda more angry than it is well for a woman to be."
"Oh," she faltered, "she found out and followed?"
"She did; she undoubtedly did!"
As we paused under one of the veranda lamps she looked down at the cloak and laughed.
"So this is hers! I thought it didn't feel quite right. But that pair of gloves!"
"It's in my pocket. I have stolen it!" I led the way to the lower veranda of the casino, which was now de-a sorted. "Stay right here and appear deeply interested in the heavens above and the waters under the earth until I get back."
I ran up the stairs again and found Helen where I had left her.
"And now," I said, giving her my arm, "you will not forget the rules of the game! Your fortunes, and your father's are brighter to-night than they have ever been. You hate me to the point of desperation, but remember I am your friend after all."
She stopped abruptly, hesitating. I felt indecision in the lessening touch upon my arm, and I saw it in her eyes as the light from the ball-room door flooded us.
"You have taken everything away from me! You are playing Reginald against me."
"Possibly—who knows! I supposed you had more faith in your powers than that!"
"I have no faith in anything," she said dejectedly.
"Oh, yes, you have! You have an immense amount of faith in yourself. And you know you care nothing at all about Reginald Gillespie; he's a nice boy, but that's all."
"You are contemptible and wicked!" she flared. "Let us go."
Gillespie's launch was ready when we reached the pier, and after he had handed her into it he plucked my sleeve, and held me for an instant.
"Don't you see how wrong you are! She is superb! She is not only the most beautiful girl in the world, but the dearest, the sweetest, the kindest and best. You have served me better than you know, old man, and I'm grateful!"
In a moment they were well under way and I ran back to the club-house and found Rosalind where I had left her.
"We must go at once," she said. "Father will be very anxious to know how it all came out."
"But what did you think of Buttons?"
"He's very nice," she said.
"Is that all? It doesn't seem conclusive, some way!"
"Oh, he's very kind and gentle, and anxious to please. But I felt like a criminal all the time."
"You seemed to be a very cheerful criminal. I suppose it was only the excitement that kept you going."
"Of course that was it! I was wondering what to call it. I'm afraid the Sisters at the convent would have a less pleasant word for it."
"Well, you are not in school now; and I think we have done a good night's work for everybody concerned. But tell me, did he make love acceptably?"
"I suppose that was what he was doing, sir," she replied demurely, averting her head.
"Suppose?" I laughed.
"Yes; you see, it was my first experience. And he is really very nice, and so honest and kind and gentle that I felt sorry for him."
"Ah! You were sorry for him! Then it's all over, I'm clear out of it. When a woman is sorry for a man—tchk! But tell me, how did his advances compare with mine on those occasions when we met over there by St. Agatha's? I did my best to be entertaining."
"Oh, he is much more earnest than you ever could be. I never had any illusions about you, Mr. Donovan. You just amuse yourself with the nearest girl, and, besides, for a long time you thought I was Helen. Mr. Gillespie is terribly in earnest. When he was talking to me back there in the corner I didn't remember at all that it was he who drove a goat-team in Central Park to rebuke the policeman!"
"No; I suppose with the stage properly set,—with the music and the stars and the water,—one might forget Mr. Gillespie's mild idiosyncrasies."
"But you haven't told me about Helen. Of course she saw through the trick at once."
"She did," I answered, in a tone that caused Rosalind to laugh.
"Well, you wouldn't hurt poor little me if she scolded you!"
We were on the pier, and I whistled to Ijima to bring up the launch. In a moment we were skimming over the lake toward the Tippecanoe.
Arthur Holbrook was waiting for us in the creek.
"It is all right," I said. "I shall keep the papers for the present, if you don't mind, but your troubles are nearly over." And I left Rosalind laughingly explaining to her father how it came about that she had gone to the casino in a scarlet cloak but had returned in a blue one.