"The hamper was unfortunately smashed. The car was not allowed to stop where I wished to get off and I had to jump. I miscalculated the speed and fell down, after which, as there was a good deal of traffic, a transfer wagon ran over the hamper, luckily without hurting the animal inside. I left it at a basket shop and that explains the cloak. My friend the taxidermist insisted on lending it and his winter gloves to me. One looks rather conspicuous walking through the streets with a bob-cat on one"s arm."
Then, to Blake"s astonishment, Mrs. Keith broke into a soft laugh.
"I understand it all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it"s a very long time since I saw you, you haven"t changed, d.i.c.k. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back and talk to me."
When Blake returned Millicent had gone and Mrs. Keith noticed the glance he cast about the room.
"I sent Miss Graham away," she said. "You have been here some days.
Why didn"t you tell me who you were?"
"I"ll confess that I knew you. You have changed much less than I have, but I wasn"t sure you would be willing to acknowledge me."
"Then you were very wrong. One may be forgiven a first offence and I never quite agreed with the popular opinion about what you were supposed to have done. It wasn"t like you; there must have been something that did not come out."
"Thank you," Blake said quietly.
She gave him a searching glance. "Can"t you say something for yourself?"
"I think not," he answered. "The least said, the soonest mended."
"But for the sake of others."
"So far as I know, only one person was much troubled about my disgrace.
I"m thankful my father died before it came."
"Your uncle felt it very keenly. He was furious when the first news arrived and refused to believe you were to blame. Then when Major Allardyce wrote he scarcely spoke for the rest of the day and it was a long time before he recovered from the blow; I was staying at Sandymere. He loved you, d.i.c.k, and I imagined he expected you to do even better than his son."
Blake mused for a few moments, and Mrs. Keith could not read his thoughts. Then he said, "Bertram is a very good fellow and has brains.
Why should his people think less of him because he likes to paint? But I"ve been sorry for the Colonel; more sorry than I"ve felt for myself."
There was a softness that appealed to Mrs. Keith in his dark-blue eyes.
She had been fond of d.i.c.k Blake in his younger days and firmly believed in him. Now she could not credit his being guilty of cowardice.
"Well," she said, "you have, I trust, a long life before you, and if you have been at fault, you must make amends. There are people who would be glad to see you reinstated."
He made a sign of grave dissent. "That can"t happen, in the way you mean. I closed the door of the old life against my return with my own hands, and you don"t gain distinction, as the Challoners think of it, in business."
"What business have you gone into?"
Blake"s eyes gleamed humorously. "At present I"m in the paint line."
"Paint!" Mrs. Keith exclaimed.
"Yes, but not common paint. We use the highest grade of lead and the purest linseed oil. Varnish also of unapproachable quality, guaranteed to stand exposure to any climate. There"s nothing to equal our products in North America."
"Do you seriously mean that you are going about selling these things?"
"Well," said Blake drily, "I"m trying to do so, and I booked an order for two kegs yesterday, but it isn"t to be paid for until arrival, when I shall not be here. Can"t I induce you to give us a trial? Your house must need painting now and then, and we"ll ship you the stuff to Liverpool in air-tight drums. Once you have tried it you"ll use nothing else."
Mrs. Keith laughed. "d.i.c.k, you"re a marvel and I"m glad adversity hasn"t soured you; but you won"t make enough to keep you in neckties at any business you take up. It"s ludicrous to think of your running about with paint samples, but there"s something pathetic in it that spoils my amus.e.m.e.nt." Her face softened and she changed her tone.
"I"m a rather rich old woman, d.i.c.k, and your mother was a very dear friend of mine. You must let me help you to something better."
"Thank you," he answered with a flush. "But you can"t give me money.
It"s curious that several of my friends have wanted to do so--first the Colonel, then Bertram, and now you. Not flattering, is it? Suggests that you doubt my talents, or that I look like a deserving object of charity."
"You"re incorrigible. It was the Blakes" misfortune that they could never be serious, but I admire your pluck."
"We have our failings, but I"m boring you and I"ll come back by and by if you"ll allow me. My American partner has been waiting for a word with me since this morning."
"And you kept him waiting? That was a true Blake. But go to the man and then tell the hotel people to give you places at my table. I want to see your friend."
"He"ll feel as honoured as I do," Blake said, and left her.
Harding was leaning back in his chair in the smoking-room with a frown on his face when Blake joined him. He had a nervous alert look and was dressed with fastidious neatness.
"You have come along at last," he remarked in an ironical tone. "Feel like getting down to business or shall we put it off again?"
"Sorry I couldn"t come earlier," Blake replied. "Somehow or other I couldn"t get away. Things kept turning up to occupy me."
"It"s a way they seem to have. Your trouble is that you"re too diffuse; you spread yourself out too much. You want to fix your mind on one thing and that will have to be business as soon as we leave here."
"I dare say you"re right. My interest"s apt to wander; but if you take advantage of every opportunity that offers, you get most out of life.
Concentration"s good, but if you concentrate on a thing and then don"t get it, you begin to think what a lot of other things you"ve missed."
Harding made a gesture of resignation. "Guess you must be humoured; I"ll wait until you"re through. That"s a nice girl you stole the bob-cat from, but if she were a sister of mine, I"d choke off that army man who"s been trotting round after her most of the day."
"What"s the matter with Captain Sedgwick?"
"He has a greedy eye. He"ll play any game he goes into for his own hand. Not an unusual plan, but there"s generally a code of rules and if it"s going to pay him, Sedgwick will break them. Anyhow, as it looks as if Mrs. Chudleigh had him earmarked, why can"t he let the girl alone?"
Blake, who had taken a protective interest in Millicent, was somewhat disturbed, but would not admit it.
"Oh!" he said, "our army men aren"t ascetics, but I dare say the fellow"s a harmless philanderer, and you"re a bit of a Puritan."
"I"m married and don"t forget it," snapped Harding. "Marianna--that"s Mrs. Harding--is living in a two-room tenement, making her own dresses and cooking on a gasoline stove, so"s to give me my chance of finding the gum. And I"m here in an expensive hotel, where I"ve made about five dollars commission in three days and written our people several folios about the iniquities of the Canadian tariff, which is all I"ve done. We have got to pull out as soon as possible. Did you get any information from the Hudson"s Bay man?"
"I learned something about our route through the timber-belt and the kind of camp outfit we"ll want; the temperature"s often fifty below in winter. Then I was in Revillons", looking at their cheaper furs, and in a store where they supply especially light hand-sledges, snowshoes, and patent cooking cans. We must have these things good, and I estimate they"ll cost six hundred dollars."
"Six hundred dollars will make a big hole in our capital."
"I"m afraid so, but we can"t run the risk of freezing to death, and we may have to spend all winter in the wilds."
"That"s true; I don"t go back until I find the gum."
Harding"s tone was resolute, and when he leaned forward, musing, with knitted brows, Blake, knowing his story, gave him a sympathetic glance.
He had entered the paint factory when a very young man and had studied chemistry in his scanty spare time with the object of understanding his business better. He found the composition of varnishes an interesting subject, and as the best gums employed came from the tropics and were expensive he began to experiment with the exudations from American trees. His employers hinted that he was wasting his time, since the limits to the use of these products were already known, but Harding continued, trying to test a theory that the texture and hardness of the gums might depend upon climatic temperature. By chance a resinous substance which had come from the far North fell into his hands, and he found that when combined with an African gum it gave astonishing results. Before this happened, however, his employers had sent him out on the road, and as they were sceptical about his discovery and he would not take them fully into his confidence, they merely promised to keep his place open for a time. Now he was going to search for the gum at his own expense.
"We"ll order the outfit in the morning," he said presently, glancing towards a man who sat across the room. "Do you think that fellow Clarke can hear? I"ve a notion that he"s been watching us."