"I have thought it over, Mr. Smart," she went on in a business-like manner, "and I believe we will get along much better together if we stay apart."
Ambiguous remarks ordinarily reach my intelligence, but I was so stunned by preceding admissions that I could only gasp:
"Do you mean to say you"ve been subsisting all this time on _my_ food?"
"Oh, dear me, no! How can you think that of me? Gretel merely cooks the food I buy. She keeps a distinct and separate account of everything, poor thing. I am sure you will not find anything wrong with your bills, Mr. Smart. But did you hear what I said a moment ago?"
"I"m not quite sure that I did."
"I prefer to let matters stand just as they are. Why should we discommode each other? We are perfectly satisfied as we--"
"I will not have my new cook giving notice, madam. You surely can"t expect her--or him--to prepare meals for two separate--"
"I hadn"t thought of that," she interrupted ruefully. "Perhaps if I were to pay her--or him--extra wages it would be all right," she added, quickly. "We do not require much, you know."
I laughed rather shortly,--meanly, I fear.
"This is most extraordinary, madam!"
"I--I quite agree with you. I"m awfully sorry it had to turn out as it has. Who would have dreamed of your buying the place and coming here to upset everything?"
I resolved to be firm with her. She seemed to be taking too much for granted. "Much as I regret it, madam, I am compelled to ask you to evacuate--to get out, in fact. This sort of thing can"t go on."
She was silent for so long that I experienced a slow growth of compunction. Just as I was on the point of slightly receding from my position, she gave me another shock.
"Don"t you think it would be awfully convenient if you had a telephone put in, Mr. Smart?" she said. "It is such a nuisance to send Max or Rudolph over to town every whip-st.i.tch on errands when a telephone--in your name, of course--would be so much more satisfactory."
"A telephone!" I gasped.
"Circ.u.mstances make it quite unwise for me to have a telephone in my own name, but you could have one in yours without creating the least suspicion. You are--"
"Madam," I cried, and got no farther.
"--perfectly free to have a telephone if you want one," she continued.
"The doctor came this evening and it really wasn"t necessary. Don"t you see you could have telephoned for me and saved him the trip?"
It was due to the most stupendous exertion of self-restraint on my part that I said: "Well, I"ll be--jiggered," instead of something a little less unique. Her audacity staggered me. (I was not prepared at that time to speak of it as superciliousness.)
"Madam," I exploded, "will you be good enough to listen to me? I am not to be trifled with. To-morrow sometime I shall enter the east wing of this building if I have to knock down all the doors on the place.
Do you understand, madam?"
"I do hope, Mr. Smart, you can arrange to break in about five o"clock.
It will afford me a great deal of pleasure to give you some tea. May I expect you at five--or thereabouts?"
Her calmness exasperated me. I struck the stone bal.u.s.trade an emphatic blow with my fist, sorely peeling the knuckles, and ground out:
"For two cents I"d do it to-night!"
"Oh, dear,--oh, dear!" she cried mockingly.
"You must be a dreadful woman," I cried out. "First, you make yourself at home in my house; then you succeed in stopping my workmen, steal my cook and men-servants, keep us all awake with a barking dog, defying me to my very face--"
"How awfully stern you are!"
"I don"t believe a word you say about a sick baby,--or a doctor! It"s all poppy-c.o.c.k. To-morrow you will find yourself, bag and baggage, sitting at the bottom of this hill, waiting for--"
"Wait!" she cried. "Are you really, truly in earnest?"
"Most emphatically!"
"Then I--I shall surrender," she said, very slowly,--and seriously, I was glad to observe.
"That"s more like it," I cried, enthusiastically.
"On one condition," she said. "You must agree in advance to let me stay on here for a month or two. It--it is most imperative, Mr. Smart."
"I shall be the sole judge of that, madam," I retorted, with some dignity. "By the way," I went on, knitting my brows, "how am I to get into your side of the castle? Schmick says he"s lost the keys."
A good deal depended on her answer.
"They shall be delivered to you to-morrow morning, Mr. Smart," she said, soberly. "Good night."
The little window closed with a snap and I was left alone in the smiling moonlight. I was vastly excited, even thrilled by the prospect of a sleepless night. Something told me I wouldn"t sleep a wink, and yet I, who bitterly resent having my sleep curtailed in the slightest degree, held no brief against circ.u.mstances. In fact, I rather revelled in the promise of nocturnal distraction. Fearing, however, that I might drop off to sleep at three or four o"clock and thereby run the risk of over sleeping, I dashed off to the head of the stairs and shouted for Britton.
"Britton," I said. "I want to be called at seven o"clock sharp in the morning." Noting his polite struggle to conceal his astonishment, I told him of my second encounter with the lady across the way.
"She won"t be expecting you at seven, sir," he remarked. "And, as for that, she may be expecting to call on you, instead of the other way round."
"Right!" said I, considerably dashed.
"Besides, sir, would it not be safer to wait till the tourist party has come and gone?"
"No tourists enter this place to-morrow or any other day," I declared, firmly.
"Well, I"d suggest waiting just the same, sir," said he, evidently inspired.
"Confound them," I growled, somehow absorbing his presentiment.
He hesitated for a moment near the door.
"Will you put in the telephone, sir?" he asked, respectfully.
Very curiously, I was thinking of it at that instant.
"It really wouldn"t be a bad idea, Britton," I said, startled into committing myself. "Save us a great deal of legging it over town and all that sort of thing, eh?"
"Yes, sir. What I was about to suggest, sir, is that while we"re about it we might as well have a system of electric bells put in. That is to say, sir, in both wings of the castle. Very convenient, sir, you see, for all parties concerned."
"I see," said I, impressed. And then repeated it, a little more impressed after reflection. "I see. You are a very resourceful fellow, Britton. I am inclined to bounce all of the Schmicks. They have known about this from the start and have lied like thieves. By Jove, she must have an extraordinary power over them,--or claim,--or something equally potent. Now I think of it, she mentioned a grandfather. That would go to prove she"s related in some way to some one, wouldn"t it?"