Alice, far from being disturbed by my declaration, nodded her head approvingly.
"Oh, we had expected that! But you needn"t be in a hurry. In a story like this one, that runs right on from day to day, we must leave a lot to chance. And there are ever so many chances----"
"Not all on the side of failure, I hope?"
"We _must_ be going." She laughed. I wished she hadn"t that characteristic little turn of the head that was so beguiling!
Folly rode with us all the way to Barton. If anything sensible was uttered on the drive, I can"t recall it. Our talk, chiefly of knights and ladies, and wild flights from imaginary enemies, had the effect of spurring Flynn to perilous spurts of speed.
"Flynn has caught the spirit!" cried Alice exultingly. "Haven"t you, Flynn?"
Flynn, turning to confirm this, caused the car to swerve and graze a truck piled high with household goods.
"We may elude the pursuing knights," I suggested, "but some village constable may take it into his head to pinch us."
"Oh, that would be lovely," cried Alice. "And we"d telegraph dear Mr.
Torrence to come and bail us out."
We reached Barton at nine o"clock and after an informal supper I listened to Antoine"s solemn reports as I walked to the garage. The prisoner had made no sign, he said, and nothing had occurred during the day.
"But there"s this, Mr. Singleton, which you ought to know, sir. The old Tyringham people don"t like the goings on here. You"ll admit it"s all mighty queer. I don"t complain, sir, but some of the boys threatens to leave, sir. And I look at it this way, that n.o.body understanding what the spying and bribes offered and taking prisoners is all about, is most peculiar. We got to know where we stand, that"s what it"s come to, sir.
And the widow being flighty-like and Flynn coming home and saying nothing, but shaking his head when we ask him where he"s been--You see for yourself, sir, how it looks to us."
What he said as to the general aspect of things was true, but I didn"t admit that it was true. Alice had converted me to the notion that I was a character in a story, a plaything of fate, and I lightly brushed aside Antoine"s melancholy plaint.
"Any man of you," I said, "who leaves this property will be brought back and shot. Tell that to the boys!"
Nevertheless, the perfect equanimity of the gentleman in the tool-house when I visited him the next morning shook my faith a trifle in the story-book features of life at Barton. He was an exemplary prisoner, the guards reported, and he had maintained the strictest silence in my absence. He ate, smoked, and read, courteously thanking the men for their attentions, and that was all. When I showed myself at the window he rose and threw down the magazine he was reading and replied good-naturedly to my inquiry as to how he was getting along.
"I have no complaint except that the guards snore outrageously. The poor old chaps will sleep, you know."
"If you"re so badly guarded, why don"t you escape?" I asked tartly.
"It would relieve your mind a lot if I should disappear?" he asked insinuatingly.
"You are impertinent," I replied, irritated that he should have surmised that his presence was causing me uneasiness. "If you will come to your senses and tell me the meaning of your visits here, we may agree upon terms. As it stands, you"re a trespa.s.ser; you tried to bribe a servant to rob the house. If you"re at all familiar with criminal law in this country, you can estimate the number of years" imprisonment that will be handed you for these little indiscretions."
"If it"s all so plain, why don"t you hand me over to the authorities?"
he asked, provokingly cool.
"I"m giving you a chance to confess and tell who"s back of all this.
Tell me just why your confederate Montani is annoying Mrs. Bashford, and I"ll turn you loose."
"Perhaps, my dear sir, the motive that impels you to detain me unlawfully is the same that enjoins silence upon me! Please consider that a little."
I replied that I would consider nothing short of a confession. In a match of wits he was fully my equal, and in the mastery of his temper he certainly had the best of me.
"If you wait for me to confess anything, you will wait forever," he replied. "I repeat that we are impelled by the same motives, you and I.
I think I needn"t enlighten you as to what they are."
"I shall be glad to hear your idea of my motives," I answered feebly.
"I shall be frank," he replied readily. "The reason you don"t turn me over to the police is the very simple one that you don"t want to embarra.s.s the mistress of the house yonder by causing the light of publicity to beat upon her very charming head. You wish to save her annoyance, and possibly something much graver. I can see that you are impressed; but it ought to please you to know that I share your feeling of delicacy where she is concerned. And let me add that the Count Montani is animated by like feeling. So there we are, exactly on the same ground!"
"You haven"t answered my questions!" I bl.u.s.tered to hide my annoyance at being thrust further into the dark. "You don"t understand Mrs.
Bashford," I went on hurriedly. "It is inconceivable that any one should wish to injure her or that she could have committed any act that would cause her to be spied upon. She"s tremendously imaginative; she indulges in little fancies that are a part of her charm!"
"Little fancies!" he repeated, hiding a yawn. "It"s deplorable for a pretty woman to have an imagination; there"s danger there!"
"Your philosophy bores me," I said, and left him. He had lied about the snoring of the guards--Antoine satisfied me of that--but I gave instructions to double the watch.
CHAPTER V
ALICE
I wanted to be alone and struck off for a wood that lay on the northern end of the estate. This was the most picturesque spot on the property, a wild confusion of trees and boulders. On a summit in the midst of it Uncle Bash had built a platform round a majestic pine from which to view the Sound. I mounted the ladder and was brushing the dead leaves from the bench when, somewhere below me and farther on, I heard voices.
I flattened myself on the platform, listening intently. A stiff breeze from the Sound flung the voices clearly to my hiding-place, and I became aware that Alice and Mrs. Farnsworth were holding a colloquy in what seemed to be the vein of their whimsical make-believe. That they should be doing this in the depth of the woodland merely for their own amus.e.m.e.nt did not surprise me--nothing they could have done would have astonished me--but the tone of their talk changed abruptly.
"Try it from that boulder there, Alice," said Mrs. Farnsworth. "It"s an ideal place, created for the very purpose."
I could see them moving about and hear the swish of shrubbery and the sc.r.a.ping of their feet on the rough slope.
"How will that do?" asked Alice.
"Beautifully," replied Mrs. Farnsworth. "Now go ahead from the beginning of the scene."
Cautiously drawing back the branches, I espied Alice striking a pose on a mammoth rock. She bent forward, clasping her knees, and with an occasional glance at what appeared to be an open book beside her, she began:
"You ask me who I am, my lord? It matters not at all who or what I am; let it suffice that berries are my food and the brook that sings behind me gives me drink. To be one thing or another is a weariness. Would you ask yonder oak for a name, or trouble the wind with like foolish questions? No; it is enough that a tree is strong and fine to look upon and that a wind has healing in its wings."
With her head to one side and an arresting gesture, and throwing into her voice all its charm and a new compelling innocence and sweetness, she continued:
"But you would have a name? Then, O foolish one, so much I will tell you: Yesterday I was Helen, who launched a thousand ships and shook the topless towers of Ilium. To-day I am Rosalind in the forest of Arden, and to-morrow I may be Antigone, or Ariel or Viola, or what you will. I am what I make myself or choose to be. I pray you, let that suffice."
My face was wet with perspiration, and my heart thumped wildly. For either I was stark, staring mad, or these were lines from Searles"s "Lady Larkspur," the ma.n.u.script of which was carefully locked in my trunk.
"That should be spoken a trifle more slowly, and with the best air of unpremeditatedness you can put into it," Mrs. Farnsworth was saying.
"You can work it out better when you"ve memorized the lines. It"s immensely effective having the last scene come back to the big boulder on the mountainside. Let me look at that a minute."
She took up the ma.n.u.script--there was no question of the blue cover of my copy of "Lady Larkspur"--and turned to the pa.s.sage she sought.
"Let me read this over," Mrs. Farnsworth continued: ""I have played, my lord, at hide-and-seek with the stars, and I have run races with the brooks. You alone of all that have sought me are equally fleet of foot and heart! If you but touch my hand, I am lost forever. And this hand--I beg you look at it--is as brown as a berry and as rough as hickory bark.
A wild little hand and not lightly to be yielded at any man"s behest.