"I"m afraid she"s gone home," said Juliet.
"I"ll run down and see," proposed Lockwood instantly, and was suiting the action to the word when Cathcart got off ahead of him.
"I"ll have her back presently," he called as he dashed down the road. "You people go on--we"ll catch you."
"We"ll wait for you," Lockwood shouted after him.
"Why should we wait?" demurred Marie, beginning to walk away toward the river.
"If we don"t he"s liable not to find it convenient to catch up with us,"
Lockwood retorted.
"If they prefer their own company why not let them have it?" she said over her shoulder.
"Run along, Louis," murmured Doctor Barnes. "One girl at a time."
He turned to Juliet. "Shall we go?" he said.
Anthony caught his glance, and, laughing, turned to Suzanne. "Will you console an old married man, Miss Gerard?" he inquired.
But when Cathcart reappeared, which he did very soon, Rachel was not with him. "She said she had to stay with her mother," he explained in a tone which so closely resembled a growl that everybody laughed.
"Bear up, Stevie, boy," chaffed Wayne Carey. "I"m confident she likes you, but she may not like you all the time, you know. They seldom do."
XVII.--RACHEL CAUSES ANXIETY
In spite of all Juliet"s efforts to bring about Rachel"s presence as one of her guests she found herself unable to accomplish it. Whenever she was needed for help Rachel was never absent, but the moment she was free the girl was off, and that quite without the appearance of running away. The men of the party followed her, but they were not allowed to remain. The girls, confident that her disappearances were part of a very deep game, begged her to stay; it was useless. Rachel"s excuses were ready, her manner charmingly regretful in a quiet way, but stay she would not.
Dr. Roger Barnes waylaid her one evening as she was vanishing down the willow-bordered path by the brook, leading to her own home.
"Here you go again," he began discontentedly. "I wish I knew why."
Rachel paused. It was difficult to do otherwise with a large and determined figure blocking a very narrow path.
"I have ever so many things waiting at home for me to do."
"At nine o"clock in the evening?"
"At whatever hour I am through at Mrs. Robeson"s."
"I wish I could imagine something of what they are. It might relieve my mind a little."
"Why, I will tell you," said Rachel with great appearance of frankness. "I have to do some mending for mother, read the evening paper for father, and set the bread. Then the clothes must be sprinkled for ironing in the morning."
The doctor studied her face in the dimming light. "Who washed the clothes?" he asked bluntly.
"Do you think you ought to ask?" said Rachel.
"Yes. I"m in the habit of asking questions."
"Of patients----"
"Of everybody I care for. You don"t have to answer, but if you don"t I shall know who did the washing."
"Yes, I did it," said Rachel steadily. "It is easily done."
"And then you came over here and got breakfast?"
"Not at all. I helped Mrs. Robeson and Mary McKaim get it. Doctor Barnes, do you know that you are standing directly in my path?"
"Certainly," said the doctor. "It"s what I"m here for."
"Then I shall have to go back and take the road home."
"If you do you will evade me only to encounter another man. Lockwood"s keeping a ferret"s eye on the Robeson house door; and I think Cathcart is already patrolling the road in front of your house."
The girl turned. "You are making me feel very absurd," she said. "I want to go home, Doctor Barnes. Please let me pa.s.s you."
"May I go with you?"
"I would rather not."
"Well, that"s frank," he said, amus.e.m.e.nt and chagrin struggling for the uppermost. "I wonder I don"t stalk angrily away----"
"I wish you would."
Roger Barnes threw back his head and laughed. "I wish you would give some other girls a leaf out of your book," he said. "The more you turn me down the more ardently I long to be with you; while the opposite sort of thing--I"ll tell you, Miss Redding, if you want to be rid of me try these tactics: Say with a languishing smile, "Oh, Doctor Barnes, won"t you take me a little way down this lovely path?" Perhaps that will accomplish your ends. I"ve often felt an instant desire not to do the thing I"m begged to."
""Oh, Doctor Barnes,"" said Rachel Redding--and he caught the mischief in her tone--even Rachel could be mischievous, as Juliet had said--""won"t you take me a little way down this lovely path?""
"With the greatest pleasure in the world," replied the doctor promptly, and stood aside to let her pa.s.s him. Whereupon she slipped by him, and before he could realise that she had gone was running fleetly away in the twilight down the winding, willow-hung path. With an exclamation he was off after her, but though he dashed at the pace of a hunter through the intricacies of the way he presently discovered that he was following nothing but the summer breeze rustling the willow leaves and wafting into his face the breath of new-cut hay, the aftermath of late July. He stopped at length and stared about him, baffled and half angry.
"There never was a girl like you," he muttered. "If you are deliberately trying to make men mad to get you you are succeeding infuriatingly well.
If I catch you to-night it will be your fault if I tell you what I think of you. I"ll tell you now, for I suppose you are hiding somewhere in this undergrowth till I give it up and you can get away home. You shall listen to me if you are here, for you can"t help yourself."
He was speaking in a low, even tone, walking slowly along the path and peering sharply into the bushes on both sides. Suddenly he stood still. He had detected a spot beside a low-hanging willow which showed nearly white in the deepening darkness. Rachel was wearing white to-night, he remembered. His heart quickened its paces and he paused an instant to get past a certain tightening in his throat.
Then he bent forward and whispered: "If that"s not you there I can say what I like, and there"ll be some satisfaction in that. If you"ll speak now you may save yourself, but if you don"t I"ve no reason to think it"s you, and so I can say----"
There was a sharply perceptible noise farther down the path toward the Redding home. Barnes turned quickly and stood up straight, waiting.
Footsteps came rapidly along the path--no footsteps of hers, evidently. A man"s voice humming a tune grew momentarily plainer--then the voice stopped humming and began to sing in a subdued but clear and fine barytone:
"Down through the lane Come I again Seeking, my love, for you; Run to me, dear, Losing all fear, Love and----"