"You almost persuade me," she smiled.
His sister met them at the Grand Central Terminal.
"It"s now a quarter to five," said Barnes, after the greeting and presentation. "Drop me at the Fifth Avenue Bank, Edith. I want to leave something in my safety box downstairs. Sha"n"t be more than five minutes."
He got down from the automobile at 44th Street and shot across the sidewalk into the bank, casting quick, apprehensive glances through the five o"clock crowd on the avenue as he sprinted. In his hand he lugged the heavy, weatherbeaten pack. His sister and the Countess stared after him in amazement.
Presently he emerged from the bank, still carrying the bag. He was beaming. A certain worried, haggard expression had vanished from his face and for the first time in eight hours he treated his travelling wardrobe with scorn and indifference. He tossed it carelessly into the seat beside the chauffeur, and, springing nimbly into the car, sank back with a prodigious sigh of relief.
"Thank G.o.d, they"re off my mind at last," he cried. "That is the first good, long breath I"ve had in a week. No, not now. It"s a long story and I can"t tell it in Fifth Avenue. It would be extremely annoying to have both of you die of heart failure with all these people looking on."
He felt her hand on his arm, and knew that she was looking at him with wide, incredulous eyes, but he faced straight ahead. After a moment or two, she snuggled back in the seat and cried out tremulously:
"Oh, how wonderful--how wonderful!"
Mrs. Courtney, in utter ignorance, inquired politely:
"Isn"t it? Have you never been in New York before, Miss Cameron?
Strangers always find it quite wonderful at the--"
"How are all the kiddies, Edith, and old Bill?" broke in her brother hastily.
He was terribly afraid that the girl beside him was preparing to shed tears of joy and relief. He could feel her searching in her jacket pocket for a handkerchief.
Mrs. Courtney was not only curious but apprehensive. She hadn"t the faintest idea who Miss Cameron was, nor where her brother had picked her up. But she saw at a glance that she was lovely, and her soul was filled with strange misgivings. She was like all sisters who have pet bachelor brothers. She hoped that poor Tom hadn"t gone and made a fool of himself. The few minutes" conversation she had had with the stranger only served to increase her alarm. Miss Cameron"s voice and smile--and her eyes!--were positively alluring.
She had had a night letter from Tom that morning in which he said that he was bringing a young lady friend down from the north,--and would she meet them at the station and put her up for a couple of days? That was all she knew of the dazzling stranger up to the moment she saw her.
Immediately after that, she knew, by intuition, a great deal more about her than Tom could have told in volumes of correspondence. She knew, also, that Tom was lost forever!
"Now, tell me," said the Countess, the instant they entered the Courtney apartment. She gripped both of his arms with her firm little hands, and looked straight into his eyes, eagerly, hopefully. She had forgotten Mrs. Courtney"s presence, she had not taken the time to remove her hat or jacket.
"Let"s all sit down," said he. "My knees are unaccountably weak. Come along, Ede. Listen to the romance of my life."
And when the story was finished, the Countess took his hand in hers and held it to her cool cheek. The tears were still drowning her eyes.
"Oh, you poor dear! Was that why you grew so haggard, and pale, and hollow-eyed?"
"Partly," said he, with great significance.
"And you had them in your pack all the time? You--!"
"I had Sprouse"s most solemn word not to touch them for a week. He is the only man I feared. He is the only one who could have--"
"May I use your telephone, Mrs. Courtney?" cried she, suddenly. She sprang to her feet, quivering with excitement. "Pray forgive me for being so ill-mannered, but I--I must call up one or two people at once.
They are my friends. I have written them, but--but I know they are waiting to see me in the flesh or to hear my voice. You will understand, I am sure."
Barnes was pacing the floor nervously when his sister returned after conducting her new guest to the room prepared for her. The Countess was at the telephone before the door closed behind her hostess.
"I wish you had been a little more explicit in your telegram, Tom," she said peevishly. "If I had known who she is I wouldn"t have put her in that room. Now, I shall have to move Aunt Kate back into it to-morrow, and give Miss Cameron the big one at the end of the hall." Which goes to prove that Tom"s sister was a bit of a sn.o.b in her way. "Stop walking like that, and come here." She faced him accusingly. "Have you told me ALL there is to tell, sir?"
"Can"t you see for yourself, Ede, that I"m in love with her?
Desperately, horribly, madly in love with her. Don"t giggle like that!
I couldn"t have told you while she was present, could I?"
"That isn"t what I want to know. Is she in love with YOU? That"s what I"m after."
"Yes," said he, but frowned anxiously.
"She is perfectly adorable," said she, and was at once aware of a guilty, nagging impression that she would not have said it to him half an hour earlier for anything in the world.
The Countess was strangely white and subdued when she rejoined them later on. She had removed her hat. The other woman saw nothing but the wealth of sun-kissed hair that rippled. Barnes went forward to meet her, filled with a sudden apprehension.
"What is it? You are pale and--what have you heard?"
She stopped and looked searchingly into his eyes. A warm flush rose to her cheeks; her own eyes grew soft and tender and wistful.
"They all believe that the war will last two or three years longer,"
she said huskily. "I cannot go back to my own country till it is all over. They implore me to remain here with them until--until my fortunes are mended." She turned to Mrs. Courtney and went on without the slightest trace of indecision or embarra.s.sment in her manner. "You see, Mrs. Courtney, I am very, very poor. They have taken everything. I--I fear I shall have to accept the kind, the generous proffer of a--" her voice shook slightly--"of a home with my friends until the Huns are driven out."
Barnes"s silence was more eloquent than words. Her eyes fell. Mrs.
Courtney"s words of sympathy pa.s.sed unheard; her bitter excoriation of the Teutons and Turks was but dimly registered on the inattentive mind of the victim of their ruthless greed; not until she expressed the hope that Miss Cameron would condescend to accept the hospitality of her home until plans for the future were definitely fixed was there a sign that the object of her concern had given a thought to what she was saying.
"You are so very kind," stammered the Countess. "But I cannot think of imposing upon--"
"Leave it to me, Ede," said Barnes gently, and, laying his hand upon his sister"s arm, he led her from the room. Then he came swiftly back to the outstretched arms of the exile.
"A very brief New York engagement," he whispered in her ear, he knew not how long afterward. Her head was pressed against his shoulder, her eyes were closed, her lips parted in the ecstasy of pa.s.sion.
"Yes," she breathed, so faintly that he barely heard the strongest word ever put into the language of man.
Half-an-hour later he was speeding down the avenue in a taxi. His blood was singing, his heart was bursting with joy,--his head was light, for the feel of her was still in his arms, the voice of her in his enraptured ears.
He was hurrying homeward to the "diggings" he was soon to desert forever. Poor, wretched, little old "diggings"! As he pa.s.sed the Plaza, the St. Regis and the Gotham, he favoured the great hostelries with contemplative, calculating eyes; he even looked with speculative envy upon the mansions of the Astors, the Vanderbilts and the Huntingtons.
She was born and reared in a house of vast dimensions. Even the Vanderbilt places were puny in comparison. His reflections carried him back to the Plaza. There, at least, was something comparable in size.
At any rate, it would do until he could look around for something larger! He laughed at his conceit,--and pinched himself again.
He was to spend the night at his sister"s apartment. When he issued forth from his "diggings" at half-past seven, he was attired in evening clothes, and there was not a woman in all New York, young or old, who would have denied him a second glance.
Later on in the evening three of the Countess"s friends arrived at the Courtney home to pay their respects to their fair compatriot, and to discuss the crown jewels. They came and brought with them the consoling information that arrangements were practically completed for the delivery of the jewels into the custody of the French Emba.s.sy at Washington, through whose intervention they were to be allowed to leave the United States without the formalities usually observed in cases of suspected smuggling. Upon the arrival in America of trusted messengers from Paris, headed by no less a personage than the amba.s.sador himself, the imperial treasure was to pa.s.s into hands that would carry it safely to France. Prince Sebastian, still in Halifax, had been apprised by telegraph of the recovery of the jewels, and was expected to sail for England by the earliest steamer.
And while the visitors at the Courtney house were lifting their gla.s.ses to toast the prince they loved, and, in turn, the beautiful cousin who had braved so much and fared so luckily, and the tall wayfarer who had come into her life, a small man was stooping over a rifled knapsack in a room far down-town, glumly regarding the result of an unusually hazardous undertaking, even for one who could perform, such miracles as he. Scratching his chin, he grinned,--for he was the kind who bears disappointment with a grin,--and sat himself down at the big library table in the centre of the room. Carefully selecting a pen-point, he wrote:
"It will be quite obvious to you that I called unexpectedly to-night.
The week was up, you see. I take the liberty of leaving under the paperweight at my elbow a two dollar bill. It ought to be ample payment for the damage done to your faithful traveling companion. Have the necessary st.i.tches taken in the gash, and you will find the kit as good as new. I was more or less certain not to find what I was after, but as I have done no irreparable injury, I am sure you will forgive my love of adventure and excitement. It was really quite difficult to get from the fire escape to your window, but it was a delightful experience. Try crawling along that ten inch ledge yourself some day, and see if it isn"t productive of a pleasant thrill. I shall not forget your promise to return good for evil some day. G.o.d knows I hope I may never be in a position to test your sincerity. We may meet again, and I hope under agreeable circ.u.mstances. Kindly pay my deepest respects to the Countess Ted, and believe me to be,
"Yours VERY respectfully, "Sprouse.
"P.S.--I saw O"Dowd to-day. He left a message for you and the Countess.
Tell them, said he, that I ask G.o.d"s blessing for them forever. He is off to-morrow for Brazil. He was very much relieved when he heard that I did not get the jewels the first time I went after them, and immensely entertained by my jolly description of how I went after them the second. By the way, you will be interested to learn that he has cut loose from the crowd he was trailing with. Mostly nuts, he says.