Then with much more calmness I told the great news of the back of Pierre to my Uncle, the General Robert.
"That"s fine--now we can give her away without any trouble. I knew Burns could do the trick. It"s a bargain at two thousand dollars to get a girl in the shape to give away. She could give us no end of bother if we had to keep her. Go find that flea, Clendenning, and tell him to come to me immediately; I think he is buzzing in the telephone closet to that Susan. And you go get busy yourself to earn your salary from the State of Harpeth. Telegraph twenty dollars to that fool nurse to buy a doll for the girl. Now go!" That was the way that my Uncle, the General Robert, received my news of the improved health of the back of small Pierre, and with my two eyes I shed a few secret tears that did roll down into my mouth which was broad from a laugh as I went in search of my Buzz.
"Bully, old top," said my b.u.mble Bee as I imparted also my joy to him.
"Say, if that kid is eight years old and is going to walk all right, we must see to it that she starts in with a good dancing teacher as soon as she can spin around. We want to make a real winner out of her."
"I do love you, my Buzz," I answered to him as I clung with both my hands to his arm across my shoulder.
"That"s all right. Prince, but don"t talk about it," he answered me with a laugh and a shake.
"And, say, let"s get to work, because at about four o"clock I"ll have something that"ll give you a start."
"Oh, but, my Buzz, at four o"clock I must go for tea to the home of beautiful Madam Whitworth."
"Whe-ee-uh!" whistled my Buzz as he looked at me from the top of my head to the toe of my shoe.
"It would give me a much greater pleasure to be startled by you, my Buzz, but this is a promise I did make the last evening," I pleaded to him.
"Go ahead, sport, but accept it from me that Madam Pat is the genuine and original pump; so don"t let her empty you. Do you want me to come by and extract you at about fifteen to five? I"m sorry, but I really must have a business interview with you before six." And my Buzz"s eyes twinkled with something that was of a great pleasure to him I could observe.
"It would be of more pleasure to me if you came at the half of five, my Buzz," I made a hurry to a.s.sure him, for I had a great dread of all of the falsehoods I was to say to that Madam Whitworth that afternoon for the purpose of extracting perhaps a little wicked truth from her to help in the defense of my Gouverneur Faulkner.
"I"m on," answered my Buzz promptly. "Beat it! I hear the old boy growling." And he disappeared behind the door of my Uncle, the General Robert. I went to the duty of a.s.suring the nice gentleman in very rough clothing that the Gouverneur would in the morning read the paper on the subject of making a long road past his property in good condition by a vote, and I was of a very great success in my efforts, the good Cato a.s.sured me.
"You"s got a fine oiled tongue tied in the middle and loose at both ends, honey. Yo" father had the same," he a.s.sured me as he handed me my hat and walking cane at the hour of four, which ended my duties for the day. Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, did so long to go into that room of the Gouverneur Faulkner and receive upon her hand one nice kiss of good night from him, but Mr. Robert Carruthers walked down from the Capitol and only paused to lift for a little second his very handsome hat towards the window of His Excellency"s room high up above.
And the encounter with the beautiful Madam Whitworth was much worse than I had thought that it would be, though also it was of a very interesting excitement. She had made armaments for the encounter in the shape of a very lovely tea apparel of an increditable thinness to be used for covering, a little low fire in the golden grate, and curtains of rose to throw somewhat of glow over the situation.
Immediately I was seated beside her on a small divan upon which there was room for only one and a half persons, and my stupidity was called into vigorous action.
"I suppose you have spent the day in translating a lot of those long and tiresome French doc.u.ments for the General and the Governor. Thank goodness, that is no longer my task," she remarked as she tipped the cognac bottle over my tea and handed the cup to me.
"It is of a great fatigue to work upon a matter that one does not at all understand," I answered her as I sipped at that tea of a very disagreeable taste because of the cognac.
"Did they give you the two sets of specifications to compare?" she asked of me with not much of interest apparent in her manner, though her hand shook as she poured for herself a very small cup of tea, which was then filled complete with the cognac.
"_Helas_," I answered with a sigh. "And it is impossible for me to add more figures to each other than my fingers will allow. I cannot even use my toes."
"Then he didn"t get them ready for the conference this afternoon?" she demanded with a great illumination of joy in her face.
"Oh, indeed, I handed them back completed to His Excellency in a short s.p.a.ce of time. Is not one mule like to another exactly, and why should a paper make them different?" I questioned with deceit of stupidity.
"You are a dear boy," laughed that Madam Whitworth. "Of course those specifications agree, for I worked a whole day over them; and I"m glad you didn"t tire your eyes out with them. You know you are really a very beautiful creature and I think I"ll kiss you just once, purely for the pleasure of it." And I thereupon received a kiss upon my lips from the curled flower which was the mouth of that beautiful Madam Whitworth.
"Is it that the stupid Gouverneur Faulkner must very soon sign that paper that sends the many strong mules to carry food to the soldiers of France fighting in the trenches?" I asked of her as I made her comfortable in the hollow of my arm.
"If he doesn"t sign them in a very few days the deal is all off," she answered me. "Jeff has got his capital to put up from some Northern men who are--are restless and--and suspicious. It must go through and immediately."
"Then it must be accomplished immediately," I answered her with decision.
"The agent of the French Government will be here on Tuesday and all of these preliminary papers must be signed before he can close the matter up finally. I hope that the conference over those specifications this afternoon will be the last. Are you sure you discovered no flaw over which the old General or the big stupid Governor can haggle?"
"I discovered not a flaw," I answered her with a great positiveness.
"Do you say that it is soon that those representatives of my government come to make a last signing of the papers about the excellent mules to be sent from the great State of Harpeth to France who is at a war of death? I had not heard of the nearness of the visit at the Capitol."
"They don"t know it--that is, Governor Faulkner does, but has told only me. He sees things my way but of--of course, he has to keep his councils from his Secretary of State for the time being. And I"m telling you all about it, because--because it is for France we plot and because I--this is the way to say it." And with those wicked words, which involved the honor of the great Gouverneur Faulkner, she pressed her body close to mine and her lips upon my mouth.
For that caress of that wicked woman I had not sufficient endurance and I pushed her from me with roughness and sprang to my feet.
"It is not true, Madam Whitworth, that--" I was exclaiming when I caught myself in the midst of my own betrayal, just as I was about to be shown into a plot which it was of much value to know. And as my words ceased I stood and trembled before her wickedness.
"Do you know, Mr. Robert Carruthers, I do not entirely understand you," she said with a great and beautiful calmness as she lighted a cigarette and looked at me trembling before her. "You are a very bold young cavalier but you have the shrinking nature of--shall I say?--a French--_girl_!"
As she spoke those words, which began in sarcasm but ended in a queer uncertain tone of suspicion, as if she had blundered on a reason to soothe her vanity for the recoil of my lips from hers, an ugly gleam shot from under her lowered lashes.
"I am the son of the house of Carruthers as well as of Grez and Bye, beautiful Madam, and I cannot endure that you put upon my very good Uncle, the General Carruthers, an unfriendliness to France," I exclaimed with a quickness of my brain that I had not before discovered. "On points of honor I have that sensitiveness that you say to be--be of a woman."
"Oh, my darling boy, I didn"t mean to hurt you about that absurd old feud of--" And as she spoke the beautiful Madam Patricia rose and came upon me with outstretched arms for another abhorred embrace, which it was to my good fortune to have interrupted. But I had a fear of that suspicion I had seen flashed into her mind even though lulled by my fine a.s.sumption of the att.i.tude of a man of honor.
"Lovely and beautiful Madam," I made a beginning to say, when--
"Oh, yes, Mr. Carruthers is here, for I have an appointment to call for him," an interruption came in the voice of my Buzz in remonstrance with the black maid of Madam Whitworth in the hall of her house.
"Come in, Buzz, dear," called that beautiful Madam Whitworth as in one small instant she changed both her position with arms on my shoulder and her countenance of anger and anxiety. She was a very wise and beautiful and much experienced woman, was that Madam Whitworth, but she had given to me, unlessoned as I was in the art of politics, the fact that I most wanted: that the two papers containing the specifications concerning the mules had been mistranslated by her.
"Put a shawl around you, Madam Pat, and come out here to the street a minute to see what is going to happen to the Prince of Carruthers,"
said my rescuer as he inserted his head into the room for one little minute and beckoned us to follow him.
And what did I find out there upon that street?
CHAPTER XIII
BROTHERS BY BLOODSHED
I then experienced a surprise that gave to me a very great pleasure and which made my heart to expand until it almost burst the restraint of that towel of the bath under the bag of my brown cheviot coat.
Before the door of the house of the beautiful Madam Whitworth stood the gray racing car of my Buzz, and before it stood a slim car of a similar make, only it was of the darkest amethyst that seemed to be almost a black, while behind it stood one of equal if not superior elegance of shape which had the beautiful blackness of jet. That was not all! Across the street stood also a car of a golden brown and to the front of it one of the red of a very dark cherry.
"There you are," said my Buzz with a wave of his hand. "Pick one, with the compliments of the General. I think the amethyst is a jewel."
"Oh, it is not possible to me to accept a present of such delight from my good Uncle, the General Robert. I must go to him and say that I am not worthy!" I exclaimed with a large faltering in my voice.
"All right; just jump into the one you like best and drive on down to the Old Hickory Club and say it to him. Sorry that you can"t come along, Mrs. Pat, but that glad rag you"ve got on is too great a beauty with which to appear in public. Better take it into the house before you catch a cold in this breeze."
"Yes, I must run in," answered Madam Whitworth with a slight shivering in her gown of great thinness. "They are perfectly wonderful, boy, and I say choose the brown darling."