"But, Elizabeth!" cried Miss Sally, appalled. "Wait! How--"
"How?" echoed Elizabeth, turning near the door. "By hook or crook! You must think of a way! I have other things on my mind. Only keep him till I come back. If you let him go, I"ll never speak to you again!
And not a word to him of what I"ve told you! I sha"n"t be long."
"But what are you going to do?" asked the aunt, despairingly.
"Going to arm myself for conquest! To put on my war-paint!" And the girl hastened through the doorway, crossed the hall, called Molly, and ran up-stairs to her room.
Miss Sally stood in the parlor, a prey to mingled feelings. She did not dare refuse the task thrown on her by her imperative niece. Not only her niece"s anger would be incurred by the refusal, but also the niece"s insinuations that the aunt was not sufficiently clever for the task. However difficult, the thing must be attempted. And, which made matters worse, even if the attempt should succeed, it would be a rewardless one to Miss Sally. If she might detain the captain for herself, the effort would be worth making. The aunt sighed deeply, shook her head distressfully, and then, reverting to a keen sense of Elizabeth"s rage and ridicule in the event of failure, looked wildly around for some suggestion of means to hold the officer. Her eye alighted on the hat.
"He won"t go without his hat, a night like this!" she thought. "I"ll hide his hat."
She forthwith possessed herself of it, and explored the room for a hiding-place. She decided on one of the little narrow closets in either side of the doorway to the east hall, and started towards it, holding the hat at her right side. Before she had come within four feet of the chosen place, she heard the door from the south hall being thrown open, and, casting a swift glance over her left shoulder, saw the captain step across the threshold. She choked back her sensations, and gave inward thanks that the hat was hidden from his sight by herself. Peyton walked briskly towards the table.
Suddenly he stopped short, and turned his eyes from the table to Miss Sally, whose back was towards him.
"Ah, Miss Williams," said he, politely but hastily, "I left my hat here somewhere."
"Indeed?" said Miss Sally, amazed at her own unconsciousness, while she tried to moderate the beating of her heart. At the same moment, she turned and faced him, bringing the hat around behind her so that it should remain unseen.
Peyton looked from her to the spinet, thence to the sofa, thence back to the table.
"Yes, on the table, I thought. Perhaps--" He broke off here, and went to look on the mantel.
Miss Sally, who had never thought the captain handsomer, and who smarted under the sense of being deterred, by her niece"s purpose, from employing this opportunity to fascinate him on her own account, continued to turn so as to face him in his every change of place.
"I don"t see it anywhere," she said, with childlike innocence.
Peyton searched the mantel, then looked at the chairs, and again brought his eyes to bear on Miss Sally. She blinked once or twice, but did not quail.
""Tis strange!" he said. "I"m sure I left it in this room."
And he went again over all the ground he had already examined. Miss Sally utilized the times when his back was turned, in making a search of her own, the object of which was a safe place where she could quickly deposit the hat without attracting his attention.
Peyton was doubly annoyed at this enforced delay in his departure, since Elizabeth might come into the parlor at any time, and the meeting occur which he had, for a moment, hoped to avoid.
"Would you mind helping me look for it?" said he. "I"m in great haste to be gone. Do me the kindness, madam, will you not?"
"Why, yes, with pleasure," she answered, thinking bitterly how transported she would be, in other circ.u.mstances, at such an opportunity of showing her readiness to oblige him.
Her aid consisted in following him about, looking in each place where he had looked the moment before, and keeping the sought-for object close behind her.
Suddenly he turned about, with such swiftness that she almost came into collision with him.
"It must have fallen to the floor," said he.
"Why, yes, we never thought of looking there, did we?" And she followed him through another tour of the room, turning her averted head from side to side in pretendedly ranging the floor with her eyes.
"I know," he said, with the elation of a new conjecture. "It must be behind something!"
Miss Sally gasped, but in an instant recovered herself sufficiently to say:
"Of course. It surely _must_ be--behind something."
Harry went and looked behind the spinet, then examined the small s.p.a.ces between other objects and the wall. This search was longer than any he had made before, as some of the pieces of furniture had to be moved slightly out of position.
Miss Sally felt her proximity to the object of this search becoming unendurable. She therefore profited by Peyton"s present occupation to conduct pretended endeavors towards the closet west of the fireplace.
She noiselessly opened one of the narrow doors, quickly tossed the hat inside, closed the door, and turned with ineffable relief towards Peyton.
To her consternation she found him looking at her.
"What are you doing there?" he asked.
"Why,--looking in this closet," she stammered, guiltily.
"Oh, no, it couldn"t be in there," said Peyton, lightly. "But, yes.
One of the servants might have laid it on the shelf." And he made for the closet.
"Oh, no!"
Miss Sally stood against the closet doors and held out her hands to ward him off.
"No harm to look," said he, pa.s.sing around her and putting his hand on the door.
Miss Sally felt that, by remaining in the position of a physical obstacle to his opening the closet, she would betray all. Acting on the inspiration of the instant, she ran to the centre of the room, and cried:
"Oh, come away! Come here!" and essayed a well-meant, but feeble and abortive, scream.
"What"s the matter?" asked Peyton, astonished.
"Oh, I"m going to faint!" she said, feigning a sinkiness of the knees and a floppiness of the head.
"Oh, pray don"t faint!" cried Peyton, running to support her. "I haven"t time. Let me call some one. Let me help you to the sofa."
By this time he held her in his arms, and was thinking her another sort of burden than Tom Jones found Sophia, or Clarissa was to Roderick Random.
The lady shrank with becoming and genuine modesty from the contact, gently repelled him with her hands, saying, "No, I"m better now,--but come," and took him by the arm to lead him further from the fatal closet.
But Peyton immediately released his arm.
"Ah, thank you for not fainting!" he said, with complete sincerity, and stalked directly back to the closet. Before she could think of a new device, he had opened the door, beheld the hat, and seized it in triumph. "By George, I was right! I bid you farewell, Miss Williams!"
He very civilly saluted her with the hat, and turned towards the west door of the parlor.
Must, then, all her previous ingenuity be wasted? After having so far exerted herself, must she suffer the ignominious consequences of failure?
She ran to intercept him. Desperation gave her speed, and she reached the west door before he did. She closed it with a bang, and stood with her back against it. "No, no!" she cried. "You mustn"t!"
"Mustn"t what?" asked Peyton, surprised as much by her distracted eyes, panting nostrils, and heaving bosom, as by her act itself.