CHAPTER II
THE PLOT OF AN ELOPEMENT
Mr. Copewell crossed and stood tensely before Mr. Burrow. When he spoke it was with the hushed voice of a man who divulges an unthinkable conspiracy:
“They are going to send her to Europe!”
“You don’t tell me?” observed Mr. Burrow pleasantly. “Well, what’s the matter with Europe?”
Mr. Copewell looked as much astonished as though he had been suddenly called on for proof that Purgatory is not pleasant in August. His voice almost broke.
“They are sending her—so that she may forget me!”
“You can send a girl to Europe,” reassured his friend, “but you can’t make her—sane.”
“They don’t have to make her sane—she is perfectly sane now!” retorted Lewis with commendable heat.
“Then why,” inquired the lawyer logically, “should it be necessary to send her to Europe?”
“It’s not necessary. It’s hideous!” Emotion strangled Mr. Copewell. “They are packing her off—because she loves me!”
“Oh!” Mr. Burrow’s voice was apologetic. “I thought you said she was sane.”
Mr. Copewell’s reply may be omitted. In fact the Editor insists upon its being omitted. The following is an inadequate indication of its tenor: “——!——!!——!!!——!!!!——!!!!!”
“Going to send her to Europe,” mused Mr. Burrow as though he had not heard. Then he inquiringly raised his brows and added, “Who?”
“Who? What?” repeated Mr. Copewell, bewildered.
“Who are they going to send to Europe?”
“You are insufferable! That’s precisely what I’ve been telling you—the One Girl—Mary, of course—Mary Asheton.”
The Honorable Alexander Hamilton spoke soothingly: “You just said the only lady in the world. You didn’t say which only one. Statistics show that in America alone there are perhaps twenty millions.”
“Mary!” breathed Mr. Copewell with fervor.
“‘Mary is a grand old name,’” recitatively acknowledged Mr. Burrow. “Who objects to this match between you and this young person, Mary?”
“Her family—fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts—everybody like that.”
“Then I gather from your somewhat disjointed statement,” Mr. Burrow summarized with concise, court-room clarity, “that the situation is this: It is practically a unanimous verdict that the marriage is undesirable, ill-advised and impossible.”
“On the contrary, both Mary and I know——”
Mr. Burrow raised a deprecating hand and interrupted. “I said practically unanimous. I admit, of course, that you and the young woman hold dissenting opinions. There is always a minority report.”
“I’m not trying to marry the majority. I’m not a Turk.”
“How long have you known this particular Only One?”
“A year.”
“How long an interval elapsed between introduction and proposal?”
“A month.”
Mr. Burrow groaned.
“Abject surrender! No brave defense of your heart, no decently stern resistance! Why, Stoessel held Port Arthur a hundred days and more—though he was hungry!” After a momentary pause he inquired sternly, “If you proposed eleven months ago, why in thunder are you just now planning this abduction?”
Mr. Copewell blushed. “It took her some time to decide.”
“It didn’t take you long, poor creature!” Mr. Burrow studied a stick of sealing-wax with a judicially wrinkled brow. “Mind you,” he generously acceded, “I’m not censuring the young woman. It’s the female vocation to lure men. Can’t blame ’em. Can’t blame spiders for weaving filmy traps, but I am very, very sorry for flies and fools that rush in where angels fear the web.”
“I don’t need your sympathy. It’s merely crass ignorance,” snapped Mr. Copewell. “If you only knew her!”
“I don’t,” snapped Mr. Burrow back at him, “but I know her sex. I know that women differ from other birds of prey in only one particular and the distinction is in favor of the other birds of prey.”
“That’s a lie, of course, but I haven’t time to argue it.”
“The difference is,” calmly pursued Mr. Burrow, “that the others wear their own feathers. Women wear those of the others.”
The office door opened. The head of the young woman stenographer appeared. Her voice was chilling. “Alderman Grotz says——”
“Say to Mr. Grotz,” replied the Hon. Alexander Hamilton in a voice loud enough to carry, “that it is very good of him to wait. If he’ll indulge me—just ten minutes longer——” His voice trailed off ingratiatingly as the door closed, and he turned again on his visitor. “No woman in the world could reduce me to so maudlin a condition in a month! No, nor in a century. Now, having warned you in behalf of friendship, I’m entirely ready to help you ruin yourself. What’s the idea?”
This was the moment for which Mr. Copewell had waited. He began with promptness.
“Mary has telephoned me. She lives in Perryville, two hundred and fifty miles away. They won’t let me see her.”
“They won’t let him see her!” commiserated Mr. Burrow with melancholy.
“This trip to Europe was planned on the spur of the moment. It was meant to surprise us. It did. She starts to-morrow, unless——”
“Unless you interfere to-day,” prompted Mr. Burrow. Mr. Copewell became intense. “She slipped away from home when she learned it, and we planned it all by ’phone. I can’t go to Perryville—they would watch us both. I must stay here till the last minute and establish an alibi. Mary leaves there this evening on the train that reaches here about midnight, which makes no regular stops between. She starts unaccompanied, but is to be met at the station here in Mercerville by her aunt, Mrs. Stone, who is to chaperone the European trip. It is to be strictly and personally conducted.”
“I know Mrs. Stone,” grinned Mr. Burrow. “I can recommend her as a reliable duenna.”
“But I leave here on a train that starts west at the same time hers starts east. Those trains pass each other about half-way. Both are through expresses and neither makes any regular stop between Mercerville and Perryville.”
“I am following you.” Once the plan involved action, the Hon. Alexander Hamilton Burrow became interested.
“I have got, quite secretly of course, an order from the train-despatcher’s office. In pursuance, my train stops at Jaffa Junction, which it reaches at ten o’clock to-night. Her train also stops at Jaffa Junction, forty minutes later. We both disembark. When aunty goes to the Mercerville station there will be no Mary there!”
“Almost you had persuaded me,” said Mr. Burrow sadly, “but if any additional shred of evidence were necessary to establish the lunacy of this enterprise, it is the selection of Jaffa Junction as an objective point for elopement. Were you ever in Jaffa Junction? A tank, a post-office and a streak of mud!”
“It may lack certain advantages,” defended Mr. Copewell, “but it is a strategic position. You don’t seem to grasp the strenuousness of this undertaking—or the peril. Mary is sent across the ocean on twenty-four hours’ notice. She is put on the train at Perryville by her family. The train does not, so it is presumed, stop till it reaches here. Here a grim relentless aunt catches her on the fly and keeps her bouncing! Good Heavens, man, the only chance I have is train-robbery in between—and Jaffa Junction is gloriously in between!”
“What part do I play in this praiseworthy enterprise? Do you want my police to lock aunty up, so that she can’t telephone to mama?”
“Worse than that. When we drop off that train at Jaffa Junction, unless we have some way to beat it quick, our last predicament will be worse than our first. We will need an automobile and a trustworthy chauffeur. He can also be best man, and officiate at swearing to things when we get the license. You and your six-cylinder car have been elected.”
“Are you quite sure,” inquired Mr. Burrow in a chastened voice, “that you don’t overestimate my merits?”
“I am willing to give you a try,” was the generous response. “It would be nice and considerate if we could get it all finished up in time to wire aunty that we are perfectly well married before she grows hysterical about Mary. Mary is very fond of her family and would appreciate a little attention like that.”
“And have you considered the time it takes to drive one hundred and twenty miles over those infernal, hog-backed roads?” queried Mr. Burrow with suspicious politeness.
“Really, I can’t say, but it’s only ten o’clock now. You can start as soon as you’re ready, you know. You have about thirteen hours.”
“I salaam before your unparalleled nerve! Do you realize that I have public duties to perform?”
Mr. Copewell shrugged his shoulders.
The stenographer’s brown head was thrust into the door.
“Alderman Grotz says——” she began.
“Send him right in,” exclaimed Mr. Burrow energetically. “Ah, Mr. Grotz, I’m very sorry indeed to have kept you waiting! Miss Farrish, tell the other gentlemen I have just received urgent news that will call me out of town until to-morrow. ’Phone over to the City Hall and make my apologies to the Mayor. Call up the garage and have my car ready for a long trip in a half-hour; telephone to my rooms and have my man pack a suit-case and rush it over to the garage. Let’s see—yes, I believe that’s all, thank you.”