Ainslee's Magazine/Downstairs

by Henry C. Rowland

DOWNSTAIRS

BY
HENRY C. ROWLAND

CHAPTER I.

MR. SAMUEL FELLOWES PAYNE, with mingled feelings of sadness and remorse, watched the departure of the steamer train from the St. Lazare station. As the end of the last car dwindled in a halo of smoke and steam, he sighed deeply, and turned away.

His parting with his fiancée had not been all that he could have wished. Because he could not see his way to leave his estate on the upper Seine and return with Aline and her mother at a three days' notice, she had bestowed upon him a farewell of which the frostiness was unseasonable upon a bright April morning.

“That's the American girl of it,” snapped Payne to himself. “No European young woman would have the consummate cheek to insist that her fiancé drop everything and follow her, when she could have waited another week herself, just as well as not. There is only one thing the matter with Aline, and that is she's spoiled as iced Burgundy. A man living too long in Europe gets out of training for American girls.” He stared into the swimming void left by the train. “And for two sous,” he added, “I'd go out and hop into the car, and beat that fool rapide to Cherbourg. It's only about three hundred and twenty-five kilometers over the road, and it takes that slug of an express six hours. If I couldn't tear it off in four, towns and all, I'd sell the car and buy a blind donkey to get about with. Hello, here's a chump missed his train.”

For there had come a sort of whirlpool outside the door leading from the ticket office, whence there emerged a furious traveler followed by an overloaded porter.

Thought Payne: “In thinking of the misfortunes of others, we learn to forget our own,” and drew near to enjoy the balm of bitter words which fell from the lips of the tardy one. It was a well-dressed man with a fluent command of speech, and Payne, accustomed to hearing only French, bathed in the warm flow of comment on the congested conditions of Paris streets and the absence of traffic order.

But this relaxation was but momentary. Another whirlpool at the gate, and here came hotfoot another victim, this time a young girl with very bright hair, teeth, eyes, and cheeks. No luggage followed in her wake; only a taxi driver clamoring words to the effect that the laborer was worthy of his hire.

“It's gone!” she cried, and the accent of the last word was enough to label her as English.

Her predecessor turned to her with the informality which comes of a common disaster.

“Yes, it's gone,” he snarled. “First time a French train was ever known to get away on time. Did you get caught in that jam, too?”

She nodded her bright head, and Payne saw that her blue eyes were rapidly filling.

Said the man: “I wouldn't miss that boat for five thousand dollars. I can't miss it. I've just got to be in New York this day week.”

“And my companion and all of my luggage have gone,” wailed the pretty one.

“Here,” said Payne to himself, “is a direct interposition of Fate. It is my plain duty to succor beauty in distress and to go to the assistance of an American and a brother.”

He was about to speak when the other man observed him.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but do you speak English?”

“Of a sort,” Payne answered.

The other man glanced at the heavy ulster and motor goggles of the millionaire expatriate.

“We're in the deuce of a fix,” he said. “Do you suppose it would be possible to buy a special?”

“No,” answered Payne. “That's been tried before by people in your mess. It's against the rules of this silly line. There's only one chance of getting your boat, and that's to make the run to Cherbourg in a fast car.” He was speaking to them both.

“But can that be done?”

“It has been done.” He glanced at the girl who was staring at him with a Jeanne d'Arc expression. “Come on,” he snapped. “I'll run you down myself. If anybody could do it, I can.”

“But—but——”

“Butt out through that door,” snapped Payne. “We've no time to argue if you want to catch your boat. There's always the chance of a blow-out. Permit me, madam.”

He picked up a large bundle marked with the name of a celebrated modiste, and led the way to the door. The other man glanced at the girl.

“The 'god from the machine,'” he gasped. “Come on. This is too Heaven sent.” And he motioned for her to precede him.

With dazed eyes and the step of a sleepwalker, the girl passed out of the station between the two men. Payne signaled, and there glided stealthily up to the curb a long, rakish torpilleur with a motor box like the boiler of a locomotive. Payne turned to his enervated guests.

“Don't look so worried,” said he crisply. “You are in safe hands. I am Samuel Payne, of Chicago and Paris.”

“Sam Payne!” echoed the other man, and then turned impressively to the girl. “I told you he was a god. We will get there or win our heavenly home. Mr. Payne is one of the pioneers of motoring. You will never die of hydrophobia in a country where he has lived a year, because there are no dogs.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked bewilderedly.

“Don't mind him,” said Payne, in his curt voice. “Put on this goat coat. It's cold on the road, if it is April. Also, you had better take off that inverted flowerpot, and wrap this scarf around your head, or the wind may blow off your hair. There are goggles in the pockets. There's a big ulster for you, Mr.——”

“Coutts, of New York and Heaven.”

“I am Miss Eykyn,” said the girl, a little shyly.

Both men lifted their caps.

“Now,” said Payne, “wedge yourselves in good and tight, or you might get spun out, and we don't want to have to stop on the road. There are rugs under your feet.”

He settled himself behind the wheel, and his French mechanician slipped in beside him. Payne reached for the lever, and flirted the monster out into the stream of traffic.

Coutts stole a look at the girl beside him.

“A top-notcher,” was his inward comment. “Didn't know they breed 'em so good to look at in perfidious Albion. Thought they were all beaky and flat. And just as good as she is pretty.”

Aloud, he said:

“Do you like motoring, Miss Eykyn?”

She turned to him, pouting at her veil.

“I don't know. This is the first time that I have ever been in a motor car.”

“Impossible! Have you lived in a convent?”

“Oh, no. In Dacre. Do you know where that is?” Her blue eyes were dancing, but demure.

“Alas, no. Our faulty American system of education.”

“It's in Norfolk. Motors come through Dacre sometimes, but they never stop. Only the people who live there stop in Dacre, and they stop there always.”

Coutts laughed.

“I'm very glad,” he said, “that all of them don't.”

The demure eyes were cast downward, yet Coutts, stealing another look at the pretty face, saw evidence that its “Oh-tell-me-gentle-stranger” look might be misleading.

“So you are going to America,” he observed. “That is a far cry from Dacre, isn't it? I hope that you will like the little place and her busy peoples!”

“I'm sure to,” she answered, and added naïvely: “You are the first American to whom I ever spoke. I thought that you were English.”

“Far from it. Three thousand miles from it.”

“But you speak like an Englishman.”

“Ah, I see you share in: the prevailing European idea that Americans talk through their noses. Many talk through their mouths, sometimes too much, I'll admit.” He leaned forward. “Payne, I insist on paying for all sheep and horned cattle, and on doing my share toward the widows' and orphans' fund, but that chap who just missed his harp and halo would come high.”

“I'm insured against 'em,” came the snappy answer. “The street is no corral for mules.”

“He goes through Paris as if he hated it,” commented Coutts.

“I do,” answered Payne. “You notice I'm leaving it about as fast as I can with safety.”

It struck the other two that he was getting out of the gay capital a little faster than that. But it was not until St. Germain was passed and the big car settled down with a droning hum for its race to the eastward that they began to think seriously on Everlasting Life. Payne, although a scant six feet, appeared to have shrunk into his heavy ulster like a turtle into his shell, his head barely showing above the high collar, and all of him, so far as the other two could observe, as motionless as a sack of flour. The modern car with its long-stroke, large-valve motor made it seldom necessary for him to come down from his high gear, while the tremendous power drove them up the long grades with a speed equal to their descents.

After passing Evereux, they struck the big, straight road again, and soared away like a meteorite. Miss Eykyn found herself clinging with the grip of despair to the arm of her companion. Mr. Coutts did not protest.

Another dizzying stretch, and they slowed down for Caen. Here Payne stopped in the middle of the town to take fuel. He slipped out of the car and into the little shop, presently to emerge with the best half of a roast chicken, bread, cheese, a bottle of red wine, and two glasses.

“Eat, drink, and be merry, my children,” said he, “for to-morrow we may be seasick. I know that I will.”

“That you will,” Coutts cried. “How is that?”

“I am going on that impatient packet with you,” answered Payne, pouring a glass of wine for Miss Eykyn.

The two left-behinds stared first at each other, then at their host. A light of understanding dawned in the face of Coutts.

“Upon my word,” he gasped. “So that is the secret of our rescue.”

Payne gave him a wintry smile.

“There was method in my madness,” said he. “I was wishing myself aboard that ill-named rapide when I sighted you two. It needed but that to crystallize my decision.”

“Won't she be surprised?” cried Coutts.

“But you've got no luggage,” exclaimed Miss Eykyn, her blue eyes very bright.

Payne grinned.

“Coutts has,” he answered, “and I noticed that we were about of a size.” He glanced inquiringly at his guest. “No doubt you have bought some nice new clothes over here. Americans generally do.”

“Eight suits,” admitted Mr. Coutts, “including dinner suit and full dress. Also much lingerie.”

“Good!” said Payne. “I can help you to get 'em through free of duty. Well, en route!”

He slipped into his place again. “Ugh! Ugh!” went the ill-sounding alarm, and the big car slipped through the town and out into the open country. To the English girl the remainder of the run was a chaotic incoherence of impressions both physical and mental. The inanimate figure ahead of her and the roaring fabric which he controlled seemed ridden by all the devils of furious speed.

Time and place lost all relation. Vaguely she felt that she was Prudence Eykyn, of Dacre, Norfolk, but with these two mad Americans nothing seemed to matter. When finally the big car slowed, then stopped, she felt that she would like to cry. It struck her as strange and unhallowed that these two men who had passed through the same terrific experience should be on the ground at her side, laughing, and chaffing, and telling the waiting porters to cheer up, that the train was coming, as they themselves had seen it leave the Gare St. Lazare.

Coutts started his usual banter, but Payne's keen eyes with the heavy “bumps” over their outer corners rested upon her with a short, searching gaze, when he said:

“Don't get out for a minute. Stop where you are, and I'll send you a glass of port and a madeleine. It makes you feel a bit upset when you're not used to it. Keep still and rest. The train will not be here for another half hour. It's no wonder that you find yourself giddy after the shaking up I gave you. Come on, Coutts; I need a drink.”

And the two went off, leaving her a very bewildered young lady from Dacre. But now one distinct impression had come to furnish her with something to fasten to. This was that Mr. Samuel Payne was really, as the exuberant Coutts had lightly said, some sort of a god.

CHAPTER II.

“This world,” observed Mr. Coutts, as he settled comfortably into his steamer chair, “is very small. But I am glad of it, because it brings one into frequent contact with the nice people in it. To think that the 'merry widow,' as we used to call you in the Piedmont Hunt Club, should be the sedate companion of the pretty English rose who yesterday met with the two great experiences of her life—meeting an American and being driven by Sam Payne.”

Lady Forrest rested a large heap of real chestnut hair against the back of her chair, and regarded him quizzically under her dark lashes.

“How did she strike you, Coutts?”

“Equal parts of saccharine and honey, with a dash of bitters. When she thanked Payne so prettily for bringing her down to Cherbourg, she entirely overlooked my efforts in keeping her in the car when we hit that military trench across the road. However, I am becoming accustomed to such neglect.”

Lady Forrest slightly turned her head, and her clear, gray eyes rested thoughtfully upon the flippant person at her side.

“You are a pampered cub, Coutts,” said she, and added reflectively: “I wonder how much real heart you have got underneath?”

“Try me.”

She slightly raised her eyebrows.

“I believe I will.”

“You have only to call my bluff to find out.”

“Then I'll call. Really, you could help me a lot if you would.”

Her serious tone impressed the lawyer, and he gave her a quick, curious glance. Lady Forrest was a pretty woman of the athletic, out-of-door English type. Coutts, a Virginian, had met her first at a house party in the Piedmont Valley. At this time she had been a dashing widow of perhaps thirty-four, and the two had enjoyed a spirited little flirtation duel which had resulted in a draw, neither of the contestants being injured. The pretty widow had been hugely entertained, and Coutts had added another human document to his already considerable knowledge of her sex.

Lady Forrest, when he had met her, had been the guest of an old friend who was the wife of an attaché of the British embassy. Coutts knew that she had been left penniless after the death of her husband, a hard-riding, hard-living Norfolk baronet, and it was the general opinion that the pretty widow would not have been averse to a second plunge into the mystic sea of matrimony. There had been no lack of opportunity, but for some reason she had escaped to England unattached, leaving several ardent swains to bay at the moon. What had been her subsequent fortune, he did not know, but rather fancied that life had not been for her “all beer and skittles.”

But under his habitual frivolity, Coutts had a kind nature, and was loyal to his friends, so at this direct appeal he stood his ground like a little man.

“My dear Lady Forrest,” said he, “you know quite well that you have only to command. If I can be of any service to you don't hesitate to call on me.”

She dropped her hand impulsively on his sleeve.

“You're a good sort, Coutts,” said she. “It isn't very much that I'm going to ask. Really, old chap, I'm in an awfully odd position. Perhaps I'd better tell you the whole story; you ought to have learned discretion by now.”

“If I had not I would be a disgrace to my teaching of four years ago,” he answered.

“Always the courtier. Well, then, I'll get on. It's about Prudence Eykyn.”

“Dear little girl!”

“Don't interrupt. You must know, my dear boy, that after I got back to England I found myself on pretty short commons. Then an old friend, Sue Patteson, came to the rescue, and offered me a position at Fox Crossing as housekeeper. Sue is a semi-invalid, but manages to entertain a good deal, so I went there to run the show. Lady Patteson's husband, Sir Henry, is an awful old reprobate, but he's not a bad sort, and every season he manages to have a string of poor relations for a week or so apiece. That was where I met Prudence, who is some sort of cousin of Sir Henry's. Prudence is quite alone in the world, and lived in Dacre with an elderly aunt. They had about one hundred and fifty pounds a year, left by Prue's father, who was a vicar.”

“My word! Can two women live on that?”

“Yes, in Dacre, and quite decently. England is full of places like Dacre. An old stone bridge, an inn with a cart in front of the door, a common with a donkey, a church, two or three shops, and a few little cottages nestling in vines, not a soul in sight. That is Dacre.”

“What a jolly place to die in.”

“Precisely. That's about all there is to do. It usually takes them anywhere from eighty to a hundred years. There are no men but the vicar, and I don't count vicars, and the local title. So you can judge of the splendid matrimonial opportunities afforded by Dacre, and thousands of English villages lite it. What chance has a girl?”

“I'll kiss her this very day.”

“Don't you dare. But, you see, our English girls are so sheeplike! Once in a while, though, one finds a daring soul who declines to accept this drifting into a mellow spinsterhood. Prue is one of these. When her aunt died a year ago, and she found that she had the one hundred and fifty pounds a year to herself, Prue got to thinking. Her entire fortune amounted to about four thousand pounds. So what does Prue decide but to turn this into cash, and go out into the world.”

“And find a husband? Bully for her!”

“That's rather a brutal way of puting it. Prue is a high-spirited girl, charming, pretty, and in a way accomplished. She is full-natured, and she wanted to live. She wants a husband, of course, if he is the right sort, and a home, and babies, and the few sweet, simple things that every woman is entitled to. She told me of her intention one day, and I took her in my arms and kissed her on both cheeks.”

“I'd like to do the very same thing.”

“Hush! I said to her: 'My dear, we will get you a husband, and a rich one at that, and we will get him in America.'”

Coutts stared at her speechlessly.

“Why not?” Lady Forrest demanded. “Your American girls come over in swarms, and raid England, and grab all the titled men. It's about time we Englishwomen sent a visiting team to collar some of your rich ones.”

Coutts slapped his thigh, and let out a roar that startled the circling gulls.

“Fine! Glorious! Good for you! And you want me to manage?”

“I want you to trot up some eligibles. Let me tell you that the man that gets Prue will get a prize. And I don't intend that Prue shall be wasted on the first trousered nincompoop that prances up, either. I know the ropes a bit over there. But I like America and Americans, and I believe them to be the coming people. You've got force over there.”

Coutts' look of levity vanished, and he became thoughtful.

“So as I understand it,” he said, “you are staking the whole thing on the one throw. By George, but I admire her pluck! Four thousand pounds—that's twenty thousand dollars.”

“There's less than that. Prue insisted on leaving an annuity for an old family servant. Then I took her to Paris, and got her fitted out. We have now about fifteen thousand dollars.”

“How long do you think that you can run on that?”

“About a year, as I figure it. You see, Coutts, it's no part of my scheme to go from a Dacre in England to a Dacre in America. As soon as we get to New York, I shall take Prue to Washington, where I know some people. Then this summer we shall go from one resort to another—the White Mountains, Bar Harbor, some place on the sea. I want Prue to meet some nice girls of her own age.”

Coutts pondered deeply.

“And when the money is gone, if Prue should happen to disdain our gilded youths?”

“Oh, after that the deluge!” Lady Forrest laughed. “We have considered that, of course. Prue is absolutely game. She says that she has scraped and stinted all of her life, and she means to have one good year, no matter what comes of it.”

Lady Forrest glanced down the deck.

“Here comes Prue. Not a word, mind you. She would take my head off if she knew that I'd peached.”

“Never fear. And I say, you can count on me to help. If we can't get the pretty thing safely moored in the arms of some good man before the year is up, I'll stake her myself for the next lap.”

Fresh and demure in a smart walking dress of Scotch tweed, with a little hat to match, and carrying a fur-lined coat, Prudence came swinging down the deck, smiling as the slight heave of the swell caused her to lurch a little in her gait. Coutts' critical eye rested upon her with fastidious approval. He noted also the admiring looks which were turned to the girl from certain ones of their shipmates.

Prudence gave him a nod and a bright smile as he rose from his chair. At the same moment, Mr. Payne, followed by a deck steward bearing an armful of chairs, rugs, and pillows, lurched from the cabin door, and swayed unsteadily in the middle of the deck. Payne's face was of a somewhat greenish pallor, the jauntily waxed tips of his thin mustache mocking the dejection of bearing and expression.

“Oh, Lor'!” he gasped. “I feel like a poisoned pup. Put 'em there,” he snapped at the steward, “and quick!”

Coutts regarded him with anxious disapproval.

“Please remember,” said he, “that you are in borrowed plumes.”

“Don't worry. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll buy 'em of you.”

He sank with a groan into the chair which the steward had arranged with the lightning dexterity which comes of long practice.

“You don't mean to say that you are ill?” said Lady Forrest, for the sea was like a lake.

“Do I impress you as bursting with health?” Payne retorted. “Barring the remorse, I feel like 'the morning after.' It makes me seasick to go across a bridge.”

Prudence looked at him wonderingly. Considering the wild gyrations of the car on the run to Cherbourg, there seemed no excuse for this unmanly weakness.

“Nonsense!” said she briskly. “It's all your imagination. Get up out of that chair, and we'll take a brisk walk. You will forget all about it.”

“Don't dare.”

“Oh, fudge!” She held out her firm, little hand.

Payne groaned, then allowed his own to fall limply into it. A hearty tug brought him tottering to his feet. Prudence linked her arm in his, and rushed him off down the deck. Coutts looked at Lady Forrest, and smiled.

“He looks like a dog being dragged to his bath,” he observed, and added: “I am inclined to place a large bet on your protégée's success.”

The second round saw Payne's face visibly brightening. At the fourth it held a tinge of color. The fifth revealed him twisting the tip of his mustache, while the sixth had freshened him to a mood fit for conversation. The seventh, however, brought complications. As the two came opposite their friends, there emerged from the door of the cabin a stylishly dressed girl, whose vivid coloring and pretty, pettish face suggested the cover page of a Christmas illustrated magazine. At the sight of Prudence and Payne charging down upon her, she drew herself up with an expression of surprised resentment.

“Well, you're a nice one,” she exclaimed, in a very clear but rather toneless voice. “After sending me word that you meant to stay in your bunk.” She gave Prudence a little nod, and added, not too cordially: “Good morning, Miss Eykyn.”

“Good morning,” answered Prudence. “May I turn the patient over to you, Miss Doremus?”

“Oh, dear, no. Pray continue the treatment since it seems to be doing him so much good. Fancy being ill such weather as this.”

“Mr. Payne's not ill now,” said Prudence, and walked to her chair.

“Don't let me stop,” said Payne plaintively. “I'm in a critical condition.”

“Yes,” cried Coutts. “For Heaven's sake keep him going, Miss Doremus. He's got on my clothes.”

Miss Doremus did not appear amused at this pleasantry. Nevertheless she hooked her arm into Payne's, and the two moved sedately down the deck. Prudence's blue eyes followed them with disapproval.

“That's no way to walk,” said she.

“No,” Coutts agreed. “The first thing you know he'll be turning green again.” He looked curiously at Prudence. “How does Miss Doremus impress you?” he asked. “I am curious to know because you will see many like her. Too many,” he added under his breath.

“She is very pretty,” Prudence answered.

“And very clever,” said Coutts. “She is the perfect type of the American society girl. Observe that tall, stunning figure, broad shoulders, straight back, small waist and hips, and proud, aristocratic carriage. She is what we call an American queen, and her dominion is undisputed in our nominal republic. We have also a good many kings. But the queens are the actual rulers, because, you see, they boss the kings. Payne's father was a king of mines and railroads. Payne himself is what we call an expatriated American, and is regarded by the rest of us with cold contempt and disapproval. He might have been a king himself, but he chose to abdicate with about twenty millions of dollars. Now a queen is leading him back by the nose. No doubt she went over after a title, but, failing to find one at a bargain, may see fit to content herself with Payne.”

Prudence looked at him with disapproval.

“You are not very nice,” she said.

“The speaker of truth never is. Here they come again. Mark that regal stride, and Payne is getting green around the gills. Bet you what you like he flops into that chair on the next lap.”

This prophecy was fulfilled. As the two came up the deck, Payne's step was vacillating. Opposite his chair he tottered, then sank weakly into it. Miss Doremus surveyed him with disgust.

“You are too absurd,” said she.

“I'm worse than that,” murmured the sufferer.

The girl's eyes went to Coutts, then rested for an instant on Prudence. If she had said what was in her mind, it could not have been more plainly expressed to the others. She wanted to walk, but she disliked leaving Payne in the clutches of another girl.

Lady Forrest, accomplished strategist, turned to Prudence.

“Shall we walk a little, my dear?” she asked.

As they started briskly down the deck, the Englishwoman remarked:

“That girl is the sort that comes over and bags our men. There are two methods with men, my dear; one is to treat 'em like dogs; the other to knuckle under. English girls are brought up to fag for the men, and the result is that, when an American girl begins to snub 'em, the brutes rather fancy the change. Now watch; she'll be walking with Coutts directly.”

“Poor Mr. Payne!” said Prue. “I do wish you could have seen the way he handled his motor. He must really be awfully in love to have dashed off as he did.”

“Rubbish! He was homesick. There, what did I tell you?”

Miss Doremus, with the chattering Coutts, was approaching them as they turned. Many eyes turned to follow the tall, graceful American girl. Payne, muffled to the chin, stared at the sea with eyes as glassy as the bosom of that inspiring element. Lady Forrest looked at him, and laughed.

“Poor chap!” said she to Prudence. “Let's stop and cheer him up.”

CHAPTER III.

“Do you know,” said Payne, as usual snappily, “I really believe that you are the only friend I've got aboard this accursed ship?”

Prudence, her firm, round arm linked in his, slightly accelerated speed. The two were taking their matutinal walk, for, while no general engagement had ever been made, both were in the habit of breakfasting early and appearing on deck before their friends were out of bed. The weather had held fine and the sea smooth, and Payne was beginning to wonder if he were really going to perform the unlooked-for feat of crossing the Atlantic without active seasickness.

“Yes,” he continued, “you are the only friend I've got aboard. Mrs. Doremus despises me because I am merely an American 'mister,' and my name has a sad sound instead of parading with outriders, a hyphen or two, and a rear guard. Lady Forrest has for me the proper contempt of an Englishwoman for a man who is not beefy and stolid, but a mass of nerves and crankisms. Coutts regards me askance lest I lean against some fresh paint, or in other ways sully his raiment. You are my only friend, and these early walks of ours get me started right for the whole day. Fancy my getting more than halfway across unscathed. It makes me feel like an old sea dog; shiver me timbers, but it does, by Jove!”

“You left somebody from your list,” said Prue, looking at the deck seams.

“Aline?” This pretty name was not dwelt upon with a lover's caressing tone. Rather, it was barked out in the accent of a lady's pampered Pomeranian. “She's the worst of the lot; upon my word, she is. I can't help it if I'm not a good sailor. I always hated the sea, and everything about it, and I'll make you a bet that after we are married the first thing she'll want will be a yacht.”

“Did you ever take her for a fast run in your motor?”

“No. She doesn't like open cars,” Payne sighed. “That means that after we're married I'll have to give up driving.”

They paused by the rail. Prudence's blue eyes rested curiously on her companion. Payne was a type quite new to her, as for that matter were most types not to be found in Dacre. He was a man of a scant six feet, wiry of build, with a keen, nervous face already lined about the mouth and eyes, the eyes themselves of a cold, metallic blue, very piercing, clear, and with eyelids almost hidden under folds continuous with the fullness above. His mouth was firm, with straight, decisive lips and a lean, strong jaw. Payne's complexion was very clear, and his whole personality suggested exquisite finish. He wore a small mustache, the ends of which were waxed to fine points. The face as a whole was stern and alert, but showed at most times a sort of dry, mocking humor.

As he leaned on the rail looking at her with a slight flush in his clear, lean cheeks, Prudence was conscious of some subtle, inward emotion. It was nothing new. From the very first, his sharp, incisive voice, brisk and authoritative, his sudden, unexpected smile, half satirical, half kindly, had stirred certain deep-seated impulses which were new and strange to the English girl. Flashes of thoughtful kindliness on his part had almost startled her at times. When, on the second day out, he had quietly announced his engagement to Miss Doremus, Prudence had been the prey of a very savage little fury of resentment.

They resumed their walk. The day was foggy, for they were on the Grand Banks, and the deck underfoot was still slippery from its scrubbing. But they both, somehow, managed to keep their feet.

“You are really getting to be a very fair sailor,” said Prudence. “There is quite a roll this morning.”

“That's your doing—my improvement, I mean. I don't seem to feel the motion when I am with you. Perhaps I absorb some of your own high vitality.”

“You have plenty of your own.”

“Not at sea. Now, when Aline comes up, she will want me to read to her, and in ten minutes I'll be taking on the drab, elusive tint of the sea. Then she will walk with Coutts.”

A little flame of anger blazed in the girl's blue eyes.

“If she affects you like that, why do you want to marry her?”

He glanced at her in surprise.

“My goodness, I don't count. Besides, I am in love with her.”

“Oh,” said Prudence shortly, “I forgot about that.”

“If I were not,” said Payne, “do you think that I would have dashed off with no preparation, and come aboard this beastly ship, and be wearing Coutts' clothes, and leave my château to the tender mercies of a gang of French servants? Perhaps I have not been very chivalrous in my way of referring to my fiancée. That is because I invariably put on a grouch when I go aboard ship, and wear it until I walk ashore. Miss Doremus is really a thousand times too good for me. She is really an uncommon girl, and I shall be tremendously proud of her. I wish you could see her ride, and swim, and golf, and play tennis. Has me beaten to a finish. And think what a superb chatelaine she is bound to make. Really, I'm the luckiest dog alive. Just because I peeve, you mustn't think that I am not appreciative. I have really a beastly nature. But once I'm licked into shape, I hope to be a model husband.”

“And attain the unattainable?”

“Who knows? Think of the glory of being the first American to succeed.”

He gave one of the quick, startling smiles which so lighted his lean, handsome face.

“When do you expect to—to be married?” Prudence asked.

“In the autumn. Apparently it takes a long time to engineer a wedding, and, besides, Aline wants to be free for the summer gayeties.”

Coutts at this moment appearing, the conversation was interrupted.

“Change the watch,” said that young man. “Miss Doremus is organizing to come on deck. You had better go, and carry up her book.”

He possessed himself of Prudence, and led her down the deck. Coutts was, in fact, getting the Prudence habit. Others were conscious of this, none, however, more so than Coutts. Lady Forrest had observed it, and smiled quietly to herself. The only one who was quite unaware of any marked attention was Prudence herself, this because she was a very unsophisticated English girl, unused to attentions from men, and with her pretty head and virginal heart crowded to bursting with one Samuel Payne.

But Mr. Coutts himself had done some heavy thinking. Beneath his frivolous armor, this observing man had a vast amount of sound sense. Otherwise he would scarcely have been at thirty-seven years of age the head of an important New York law firm. Coutts' father was rich, and he himself in command of a good income. He was deeply interested in his profession, and devoted every scrap of his time to promoting his legal interests, but he had a strong domestic sense, and had begun to realize that he wanted a hearthstone of his own. Club life was beginning to bore him, and he had thought seriously and sensibly of marriage.

But the trouble had been the choice of a mate, and Coutts knew that he would never be satisfied or happy with anything less than a wife who should be a mate in all that the word implied.

Prudence, he believed, was this mate. When Lady Forrest had confided in him about the girl, Coutts had been first amused, then interested, then touched, and, last of all, filled with admiration. Later he had come to believe that there existed between Prudence and himself that strongest of all ties, a common want. They both wanted a home and the fullness of life. His interest in the girl, at first impersonal and friendly, had rapidly mellowed to a warmer sentiment. Prudence's physical attractiveness was probably the last consideration, but it promised to clinch the nail of his regard.

It was the last night out, and a glorious one, whereof the principal decorative feature was the moon, when Coutts, walking the deck with Prudence, came to a sudden resolution, and then and there took his fate in his hands.

“Now, listen, Prudence,” he said slowly. “I know your whole story. Lady Forrest told me. That was the first morning out, and since then I have come to know you, and to learn for myself your sweet, high-spirited nature. More than that, I have learned to love you very dearly, and to want you for my wife. Will you marry me, Prudence, and make me the happiest man in the world? Underneath all my flippancy, I am a serious sort of person, and I am sure that we would be very happy. At any rate, will you consider it, Prudence, dear?”

Prudence seemed to be fighting for her breath.

“But Lady Forrest should not have told you,” she cried.

“It would have made no difference. Of course you don't love me now. Why should you? But I am sure we would both be very, very happy. I'm nothing wonderful, but I'm not a bad sort—and you don't love anybody else.”

A sudden movement of Prudence brought him to a stop.

“But you don't, do you?” he asked.

Her head fell. Coutts, amazed at this unlooked-for complication, stared at her dumbly.

“Prudence,” he gasped, then lowered his voice, “have you gone and lost your heart to Sam Payne?”

Still no answer. Coutts' grip on her hand tightened.

“Have you?” he repeated.

Prudence choked back a sob.

“I don't know,” she answered, “but—but it all seems so different now. I—I don't think that I—could marry any man unless—I loved him very, very much. Oh, Mr. Coutts, I—I think I'm going to cry.”

Coutts drew her down beside him so that they sat on a chest of boat supplies.

“But, my dear girl, Payne's engaged to be married.”

“I—I know it. It's not that. Only——” She choked.

“Only now that you see what it is like to be in love, you can't think of marrying without that. I quite understand, my dear.”

Prudence covered her face with her hands.

“I don't know what is to become of me,” she said. “It seemed easy enough before.”

“But quite impossible now.” Coutts took her hand in his. “Will you let me advise you, dear?”

“Yes, of course I will. Don't you hate me?”

“No. Quite the reverse. Poor little girl! Now, what you must do is this: You can't have Payne, and you don't want anybody else. Go ahead, then, and have your little fling. Perhaps you may feel differently about it after a while. But remember, Prudence, you have got one good American friend, at least.”

Prudence squeezed his hand in a silence broken only by the distant throb of the engines.

CHAPTER IV.

“Dash it all, Coutts,” said Lady Forrest, as he tucked her into her steamer chair the following morning; “the fat's in the fire. Prudence has gone and made a silly mess of the whole business.”

“She has made a silly mess of me,” answered Coutts sadly. “I have just received the jolt of my life. Here was I stepping out of my chariot to play Prince Charming, only to be turned down. Fancy her getting a mash on Sammy Payne. And he unhappily engaged.”

Lady Forrest knit her handsome brows.

“It's rather more than a mash, old boy,” she said. “I'm horribly afraid it was a case of love at first sight. That race to Cherbourg did Prue's business.”

“I should have thought,” said Coutts, “that Aline Doremus might have undone it, then. It's too absurd. Don't you think that she'll come to her senses after she gets ashore?”

The Englishwoman shook her head.

“She's quite in her senses now, so far as Mr. Payne is concerned. The difficulty lies here; as long as Prudence was heart free, she was quite ready to make any suitable match which might have been offered, but now that her heart has been captured, she absolutely declines to consider marriage at all.”

“Yes, yes,” sighed Coutts, “that's the woman of it. And Payne has been unconsciously fermenting the sweet poison all the way across. Why the deuce couldn't he have been sick in his bunk, as usual? He has also kneed two pairs of my best trousers all out of shape.”

“Oh, gammon! What I want to know is, what's to be done. There's no sense in our going ahead and spending all of Prue's little fortune in husband hunting when she balks dead at marrying the most eligible bachelor on my list; namely, your fascinating self.”

“So I was on your list?”

“Of course you were. You see”—Lady Forrest raised her eyebrows—“I had reason to know of your weakness for us English.”

“Shame on you! Sentiment should have forbid.”

“It was a wrench. What is bothering me now is the course to be taken. When Prudence told me that she had declined your proposal, I begged, argued, wept, and prayed. I kept at her all night long, but the proverbial mule was a slave of the lamp compared to her. The worst of it is that time will not change her. It is not Payne; it is the taste of that form of insanity known as love. 'But, my dear,' I said, 'you have not come over here to fall in love; you have come to get married.' She did not even weep. She merely answered: 'I know it. But everything is changed now. I shall never marry.' And she means it, too, confound her!”

Coutts inhaled slowly his cigarette.

“In that case,” said he, “as you say, it would be foolish to let her go ahead and spend all of her money.”

“Naturally. There is nothing left but for us to find some sort of employment. Prue absolutely refuses to return to England, nor am I very keen about it myself. Don't you think that you could find something for us to do? My idea is that if Prue were to work for her living for a while, she might come to her senses, and get a different idea on the marriage proposition.”

Coutts looked doubtful.

“But what could she do?” he asked.

“She might fill a position as governess. Prue was educated at a very good school at Margate, and has a smattering of French, and German, and music.”

Coutts blew a cloud of smoke into the air.

“And you?” he asked.

“I might get a position as housekeeper.”

“Rather a come-down, isn't it, for the widow of Sir Harry Forrest, M. F.?”

“Not a bit. I was housekeeper for Sue Patteson. And between you and me, I'd a lot rather be with strangers than friends. To be quite frank, I was anxious to get out because that old reprobate, Sir Henry, was taking it into his head to maul me about.”

Coutts laughed.

“You see,” went on Lady Forrest, “if we could find employment at once, you might take the three thousand and odd pounds left of Prue's inheritance, and invest it. Then she'd have something put aside for a rainy day.”

Coutts nodded.

“That's not a bad idea,” he said. “If the opportunity arose, I might even turn it so as to get her a little income to live on.”

In this highly sensible way were matters therefore arranged. To be quite frank, Mr. Coutts was not altogether sorry. Freed from the demoralizing influences of moon and close propinquity, much of his deeply rooted cynicism in regard to womankind began to reassert itself.

 

A week of active business with the handling of an important case quite restored the lawyer from his attack of “sea love,” and he found himself wondering how he had managed to become infected. Lady Forrest and her protégée had gone to Washington, and afterward to Lakewood, and in the meantime, Coutts, true to his promise, was making inquiries which might result in some desirable form of employment for both.

One morning, in opening his mail, he came upon a letter which annoyed him. This was a communication from a very important Chicago client named Steers. Mr. Steers was a man of lowly origin who had amassed a fortune of two or more millions in promoting various industrial enterprises. At present he was largely interested in a gas-producer engine for the consumption of lignite, a company for the manufacture of an excellent infant's food, and a harmless beverage which should be a substitute for tea.

Mr. Steers was a widower of about fifty-two, whose immediate family consisted of two very pretty daughters—Sylvia, aged twenty-two, and Pauline, aged eighteen. Neither father nor daughters had enjoyed many opportunities for culture, Mr. Steers' fortune having been acquired in a few recent years. Although strongly desirous of social distinction, the Steers family was somewhat handicapped by an unfortunate employment of the English language, a startling taste in clothes, and a lack of the proper sort of acquaintance. A family council sitting on the subject of how best to attain that rarefied social atmosphere to which the possession of large wealth should entitle any honest citizen had resulted in a decision to take the initial step by a residence in New York City and a country place near Boston.

Mr. Coutts had done a large amount of legal work for Mr. Steers, and the big case which he had hurried home from Europe to conduct was pertaining to certain infringements which threatened the promoting of the gas-producing engine. Before going abroad, he had secured for Mr. Steers his properties in New York and Massachusetts, the latter a fine country house with spacious grounds near Manchester.

The communication now in hand from Mr. Steers was to announce his intention of occupying this residence during the summer, and to request that Mr. Coutts interest himself in the securing of a full corps of servants for the house, grounds, and garage.

Mr. Steers wrote:

We want a full outfit. I plan to fire the whole gang of holdups that have been getting fat off me here, and take on a new bunch. My cussed butler doesn't do a thing but guzzle my best wines, which I might put up with if he didn't get loaded. My housekeeper knocks down fares, and I caught her joy-riding with the chauffeur when I needed the car bad. The servant girls sass me to my face, or else make googoo eyes. What I want is a sensible woman to run the house, that ain't too proud to eat downstairs, a butler that won't graft over fifty per cent., a lady's maid who don't give herself airs and is willing to work two hours out of twenty-four, and a chauffeur who won't put cracked glass in the tires, and sell important pieces of the car to the junk shops. I'm ashamed to say what it's cost me to run my house for the last year, but even if I don't know the ropes like some people I am no sucker. Other folks seem to get on with their hired help, and I don't see why I can't make out if I y the right sort. Yours truly,

Wm. P. Steers.

P. S.—I congratulate you on the way you have handled that gas- burner engine case. Looks like they hadn't a show in.

P. P. S—The girls would like an English maid who would be a sort of companion, and put them right on this and that. Get a good-looker if possible. I don't like hatchet faces around the house. Money no object if the help is the right sort.

W. P. S.

Coutts flung the letter down on his desk

“Damn his cheek!” said he. “Does the yap think I run an intelligence office?”

He was glowering at the letter in a most unamiable state of mind when the doorboy brought a card, and laid it on his desk. The name was that of Mr. Cornelius C. D. Stuyvesant, a clubmate and client of Coutts.

“Show Mr. Stuyvesant in, snapped the lawyer.

The caller was, despite his aristocratic name, a rather heavy-looking young man of perhaps thirty-four or five, slightly inclined to corpulence, and wearing a brown Vandyke beard and long hair of artistic suggestion. He was exquisitely dressed, and his face, though not of a predominating intelligence, was attractive from its expression of easy-going good nature. His high color and rather pudgy hands suggested one fond of the fleshpots, but as an epicure rather than a glutton. His eyes were inoffensive, and of a diluted blue.

With a brief “Hello, Coutts,” he selected the largest and most comfortable chair, then took a cigar from a gold case marked with his coat of arms. Coutts leaned back, and surveyed him under thoughtful and somewhat troubled brows.

“Well, Mr. Stuyvesant,” said he, “it's all finished. The court has settled the bankruptcy claims, as I wrote you, and the creditors will have to like it or lump it, as they see fit.”

“Greedy beggars! Serves 'em jolly well right after the way they've been raggin' me,” replied Mr. Stuyvesant, in the very best English accent to be learned out of England,

“It's a shame,” said Coutts, “a beastly shame! I feel more sorry for you than I can say. If you had only come to me four years ago, when you began to have your first suspicions, I could at least have saved you the Twenty-second Street property, and that would have been enough for you to live on. But that's just the way with you confounded artists.”

Mr. Stuyvesant gave a philosophic shrug.

“Of course I was a silly ass,” said he, “but I really hadn't the heart to impeach such a respectable old hypocrite as Livingstone Van Schaick Doremus. Besides, he was my cousin, and what would I have said if I'd been wrong?”

“The question now is,” said Coutts, “what are you going to do? Mr. Doremus is dead, after embezzling your entire fortune, and kindly paying you your income out of what was left of the capital. The property of Mrs. Doremus and her daughter is their own, and can't be attached in any way for his liabilities. Mrs. Doremus even declines to settle her deceased husband's personal obligations. As for doing anything for yourself, she refuses to so much as hear your name spoken. She intimates that, if you were ill-advised enough to give her late husband power of attorney and carte blanche over the control of everything you possessed, it serves you right for putting temptation in his path.”

“Really, old chap, I'm inclined to agree with her,” Stuyvesant observed.

“Just the same,” said Coutts, “it's a bit rough on you. How do you expect to live? Have you any other resources?”

“Nary one. I never sold a picture in my life, and my friends scud away when they see me coming. Also, the bankruptcy court is injurious to credit.”

“Then what do you propose to do?”

Again Mr. Stuyvesant shrugged.

“I'm dashed if I know,” he answered. “That's what I came down to bother you about. I cannot dig, and to beg I would not be ashamed if I thought it would prove lucrative. But I've tried and failed.”

“What are you living on now?”

“My chauffeur.”

“Your what?”

“My chauffeur. He's an Italian nobleman—a real one. He might not like to have me mention his name, but his cousin is all that stands between him and one of the oldest titles in Italy. Got estates, too, but no money. About three years ago I picked up Alessandro starving in the street. First, I painted him; then, finding him a good sort, I took him on as chauffeur. Sent him to my garage to learn his job. He's been with me ever since. More of a friend than a hireling. Fact is, he's the only friend I've got left, barring only yourself. When the sheriff started in to seize everything, I sold the car to Alessandro 'for one dollar and other valuable considerations,' as you lawyers say. He's been doing taxi work, and every day he divvies up with me. But it can't last much longer as the car's about ready for the scrap heap. If Alessandro wasn't such a wizard of a mechanician, it would have dropped to pieces long ago.

Coutts' face softened.

“Case of 'bread on the waters,'” he remarked.

“Jus' so. Butt then, you see, Alessandro is really a swell. He's absolutely square, and a fine chap in all ways. Then he's a fine-looking fellow, and cheerful, and everybody likes him. I say, if you hear of anybody who wants a rattling good chauffeur, I wish you'd let me know.”

“I certainly shall. But about yourself?”

Mr. Stuyvesant sighed.

“I thought of jumping into the river,” said he, “but the water was so beastly dirty. There's really not a thing that I can do. If I were like some chaps that have come a cropper, I'd go out West or get a job as a clerk.” He gave the English pronunciation to this last word. “But I hate roughing it, and I have to add change on my fingers. Consequently I don't add it at all.”

Coutts leaned back in his chair, and stared at his client through narrowed lids. He noted with a lawyer's acumen the somewhat flaccid features, amiable expression, weak jaw, and general air of indulgent living.

“You've got to do something, you know,” said Coutts.

“I know it, but what the deuce am I to do? If I could write a decent letter, I might get a job as somebody's private secretary. I don't care anything about the stipend. After a chap's been living at the rate of twenty thousand dollars a year, it doesn't matter a great deal whether he gets fifty dollars a month or one hundred and fifty. But I would like a billet where I'd be sure of decent food and lodging.”

“Look here,” said Coutts briskly; “would you be too proud to take a situation as butler in a nouveau riche family?”

Stuyvesant stared. His jaw dropped, and he raised a rather pudgy hand to stroke his beard.

“'Pon my word. Butler? I say, are you chaffing me?”

“Not one bit. You've got to earn your living, and from what you have told me I'm inclined to think that, barring the social objections, the position of butler would suit you to the ground. You would get the best of food and clean, comfortable quarters. Shave your face, leaving only sideboards, and cut your hair, and your own brother wouldn't know you. Call yourself 'Dobbs' or 'Diggs' or any other old stage-butler name. If you will take it, I know of just the place for you. Listen to this.”

Slowly and distinctly he read to his astonished client the letter from Mr. Steers, of Chicago. Nearing its completion, he was conscious that Mr. Stuyvesant was squirming in his chair and making agonized efforts to control his mirth. But at the final postscript the artist burst into a roar of laughter which only extreme weakness was finally sufficient to check.

“Upon my word!” gasped Stuyvesant, as soon as he was able to speak. “The very thing.” He wiped his eyes on a scented and embroidered handkerchief. “Cornelius Dobbs, butler. That is me.”

Coutts surveyed him with a grin.

“But, mind you,” he said, “this is quite serious. You've really got to make good, you know.”

“Make good?” gurgled Stuyvesant. “Well, rather! Between you and me and the lamp-post, old chap, I have always thought that if ever I went a cropper it would be to turn butler. Don't worry. I will be a treasure. Really, dear boy, it's the only possible thing I'm fitted for.” And he went off into another convulsion.

Coutts eyed him rather doubtfully. For the lawyer the business had its serious side.

“Your ill-timed levity fills me with misgivings,” he remarked. “You see, Stuyvesant, it's not altogether a joke. This man Steers is an important client of mine, and, if he thought that I were trying to put up a job on him, it might cost me a legal business worth a good many thousands a year.”

With some effort, Stuyvesant pulled himself together.

“Don't worry, dear boy,” said he. “And, I say, don't begrudge me one good laugh. It's weeks and weeks since I've had one. I shall be a pearl among butlers. I always rather envied the smug rascals. This unseemly mirth springs from pure lightness of heart and the relief that comes of finding your proper level. And, look here. Why shouldn't Alessandro have the chauffeur's billet?”

“Of course he shall,” said Coutts. “I thought of that the minute you told me about him. Then that's all settled. Come and dine with me at eight at the Union Club, and we'll talk it over. And now you'll have to excuse me, as I'm up to my ears.”

On the departure of his client, Coutts sat for several moments deep in thought. Once or twice he smiled to himself. Then, having summoned his confidential stenographer, a sensible and discreet young person, he dictated the following letter to Lady Forrest:

“My Dear Lady Forrest: After considerable inquiry I have fallen quite by chance upon the very situations which you asked my aid in procuring. A wealthy client of mine from Chicago has decided to remove his residence to the East, and has accordingly purchased a house on upper Fifth Avenue and a most attractive country place near Manchester, in Massachusetts. My client has asked me to engage an entire household personnel, as he wishes to occupy his new country residence this summer.

“I have been so fortunate as to secure the services of a very desirable butler and chauffeur. My client, Mr. Steers, wishes me to secure him a competent housekeeper and a young woman, preferably English, who may serve either as lady's maid or companion to his two daughters, Miss Sylvia, age twenty-two, and Miss Pauline, age eighteen. These three individuals comprise the immediate family.

“I have had the pleasure of being a guest at Mr. Steers' home in Chicago. Mr. Steers is a type of the Western American self-made man, and has risen from the ranks of miner and prospector to that of wealthy promoter of large fortune. The daughters, who impressed me as most attractive, have had scarcely any advantages, the wealth of their father having come within the last few years. They impressed me as simple, kindly people, rich in human nature, and of excellent principles.

“The position of housekeeper would, I think, be most desirable. As for the other position, that of companion, I think that it would be far preferable for Miss E. than that of nursery governess. Even better, it seems to me, barring the social aspect, would be the position of lady's maid, as this would entail no social obligations. Moreover, it is understood that the housekeeper is to have her own table, which will consist of the upper servants—namely, housekeeper, butler, lady's maid, and chauffeur.

“I can assure you that these positions are quite exceptional. Mr. Steers has been badly treated by his household corps, and will appreciate good and honest service. It would be a good thing, I think, for Miss E. to consider the matter seriously, as the longer she remains unemployed the more she is consuming her slim capital. Also, it is possible that active employment may restore her to her former sensible point of view.

“Please let me hear from you in regard to the matter at your very earliest convenience.

“Faithfully yours.”

CHAPTER V.

It was less with the desire to please the client than to satisfy his own curiosity that Mr. Coutts decided, about a month later, to run down to Manchester for the official opening of the country house. Moreover, he wished to assure himself that all things were working together for good.

“With a titled Englishwoman as housekeeper,” said Coutts to himself, “a New York swell and dilettante artist as butler, an Italian nobleman as chauffeur, a sweet English ingénue as lady's maid, it will be interesting and piquant to watch the actions and reactions when the Steers arrive. But more amusing still should be the first meal at the housekeeper's table. It is a pity that my superior social position prevents my assisting at that.”

For the cream of the situation lay in the fact that each of the upper servants would be anxious to preserve an incognito which might deceive the others. Moreover, all were actuated by the same motive—cold necessity. It was not as though they had assumed their duties as a mere transient masquerade. Coutts doubted that Stuyvesant would ever again be aught but a butler. The artist seemed a man utterly without ambition, and, since he could no longer live in luxury, was quite content with a living which should secure him comfortable quarters and his three good meals a day.

“My only regret,” thought Coutts, as he boarded a Sunday train, for the Steers were to arrive the following day, “is that I could not have managed to secure a retired admiral in straightened circumstances as captain of the yacht, a Life Guardsman to run the stables, and a German baron to make the garden.”

He had sent a wire to “Mrs.” Forrest, announcing his proposed visit, and on arriving at Manchester was met on the platform by a smart-looking manservant in livery.

The motor—a new car selected by Coutts with the assistance of Alessandro—was drawn up at the steps. The chauffeur, a strikingly handsome, high-bred-appearing young man, touched his cap, then stepped forward to start the engine as the footman opened the door for Coutts. A moment later they were whirling off up the perfect road.

The Steers place was a fine old estate on Massachusetts Bay, comprising in all about twenty acres. The house, one of the older residences of the district, was of the colonial style of architecture, but had been thoroughly done over and modernized within by a late tenant. It was ample of space, dignified in appearance, and thoroughly comfortable throughout. At some distance to the side and rear were the stables and garage, the latter alone functionating at present, Mr. Steers being an authority on cattle and preferring to attend to this part of the establishment himself. From the stables the ground fell away under a grove of magnificent old trees to the shore, which was picturesquely rocky with a bathing beach and boat-house.

As the motor drew up under the porte-cochère, Mrs. Forrest, in a becoming dress of dark cloth with a bunch of keys at her girdle, appeared in the open doorway. Coutts stepped out of the motor, and raised his hat.

“How do you do, Mrs. Forrest?” said he.

If he had looked for any expression of amusement or mutual understanding, he would have been disappointed. As a matter of fact, he would have been displeased had it existed. But in a quietly dignified and respectful manner, she made him welcome, then showed him to the room allotted him, whither the footman had already preceded them with the luggage. Coutts tossed him his keys, and the man opened valise and dressing case, and quickly and deftly laid out his things.

“Anything you would like, sir?” he asked.

No, thanks. That is all,” answered Coutts crisply.

The man withdrew, and Coutts turned to Mrs. Forrest.

“Well?” he asked inquiringly.

“Everything is ready for the family,” she answered in a businesslike way. “This is a charming place. And, really, I must congratulate you on your selection of a household corps. Our meals belowstairs are intellectual feasts. Prudence and I feel shockingly common. Dobbs and Alessandro discuss Pre-Raphaelite periods—often in Italian. Dobbs tells me he was for some years with an American artist in Florence.”

“Yes, that is quite true.” It was, Mr. Stuyvesant having been with himself during this epoch of his idleness. “How does Prudence like it?”

“She will tell you for herself.” Mrs. Forrest stepped to the door. “Prudence!” she called.

Prudence arrived at the call. Coutts recognized her light step in the hall, and turned to see a charming picture framed in the old-fashioned, low-linteled doorway.

Prudence wore a simple muslin dress with a dainty, lace-trimmed apron of dotted Swiss. Her abundant golden hair was snugly coiffed in a fashion which Coutts had never seen her wear it before, and which accentuated her demure prettiness. With her bare, round forearms, little apron, short skirt just above her dainty ankles, and little shoes with rather high heels and neat bows, and, above all, the clear, pure English complexion, she reminded Coutts of an exquisite Greuze.

Prudence appeared a little embarrassed as she stood waiting to be addressed. But Coutts' manner quickly restored her poise. He had fully decided upon his attitude toward the household personnel which he had secured for his client. Whatever position these people might have occupied before, they were now in service, and Coutts detested the mixing of relations. Although a few weeks before he might have asked this pretty girl to marry him, she was now a lady's maid, and he would treat her as such.

“How do you do, Prudence?” said he kindly.

“Very well, thank you, Mr. Coutts,” answered Prudence evenly.

Coutts gave her a penetrating look. She was prettier than ever, he thought, but it struck him that her expression, while not precisely discontented, was yet lacking in the cheerfulness which he would have liked to see it wear.

“How do you like it here?” he asked. “Are you happy?”

“It is a lovely place,” she answered evasively, “more like England than anything that I have seen so far.”

“Then you like it?”

“I think it very beautiful,” she replied, dropping her blue eyes.

“That is not answering my question,” said Coutts. “Are you satisfied with your position, up to this point?”

“I think,” she answered slowly, “that I would have preferred to be a governess. But since Lady Forrest and you decide that this is preferable, I will try to do my best.”

Coutts nodded. “If at any time you wish to leave,” said he, “just let me know. That is all, Prudence.”

The color flamed into her face, and her blue eyes opened very wide. She turned quickly, and went out.

Coutts found the situation suddenly deprived of its sense of humor. This was, however, in some measure restored by the advent of Mr. Dobbs, alias Cornelius C. D. Stuyvesant, Esquire, of New York and Florence. With his long hair closely and neatly trimmed, smug “sideboards” in the place of his artistic Vandyke, a sober, black tail coat, white tie, and piqué waistcoat, Dobbs was, to all outward appearance, the perfect butler.

Coutts surveyed him, fighting hard for the mastery of his grin. Dobbs, for his part, appeared perfectly at ease. The pinched, worried look had left his rather heavy face, which had resumed the pink, comfortable expression habitual to it before the coming of his financial cares.

“Upon my word,” said Coutts, “you look satisfied.”

Dobbs smiled.

“Satisfied is scarcely the word, dear b—— H'm! Excuse me, Mr. Coutts. My soul is brimming over with a deep content. To tell the honest truth, old ch—h'm, Mr. Coutts, I am almost tempted to believe that the métier of butler was that to which the hand of Fate had fashioned me. The only care I have left is that I may perform my functions in a manner which may find favor in the eyes of my master.”

“And the others—your—your fellow servants?”

Dobbs smiled, then gently stroked the air an inch or two beneath his chin. He favored Coutts with a look dangerously full of intelligence.

“Mrs. Forrest is of course a lady. Look here—h'm, excuse me, sir—but what sort of a game are you putting up on this bronc—h'm, Mr. Steers?”

“Game?” Coutts snapped. “There is no game about it. I'm simply trying to get good service for my client.”

“Excuse me.”

“That's all right. And how does Alessandro like his place?”

“He is charmed. Says it reminds him of a French château where he once visited. He has made friends with the gardener, an Irish coreligionist, and is showing him how to lay out an Italian sunk garden. We are really a very happy family. The only one who appears a little out of her element is the lady's maid, Prudence. She is an unsophisticated English girl, and I suspect her of being unhappily in love. Alessandro threw her a few languishing glances, but they came back like the reflection of the summer sun on arctic ice.”

“Do you ever have any qualms about the social descensus Averni?” Coutts asked curiously.

Dobbs colored, then laughed.

“That is all rot,” said he. “A gentleman is always a gentleman, as long as he behaves like one. When I was in receipt of my rents, I did lots of things that I am a lot more ashamed of than anything I might ever do here. If a man has got to work for his living, what earthly difference does it make whether he digs another man's ditch or adds up his income or hands him his food, so long as he does it with credit and dignity? I tell you, Coutts, in this day and age and country, the busted swell ranks somewhere in the hobo class; a little below it, in fact, if his coat is not paid for. And so far as my particular job is concerned, a butler has a lot more dignity and independence than a clerk. I'm not ashamed of my job, by long odds. If Mr. Steers ever sees fit to give a banquet, he'll find things done as they should be. You might not believe it, old fel—h'm, Mr. Coutts, but I actually take a bit of pride in my work. I'm a butler, and I mean to be a good one, and I'm jolly proud of it. I'd rather be a good butler than a bum artist any day.”

“I'd like to shake hands with you,” said Coutts. “You are a little more than a butler; you are a philosopher.”

“Thanks, old chap. Is there anything now that you would like?”

“A whisky and soda.”

“Very good. I'll send it up. Thank you, sir.”

And Dobbs modestly withdrew.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. William P. Steers and his two blooming daughters descended from the train at Manchester to be met by Mr. Coutts.

Mr. Steers was a tall, muscular man, with a deep-lined face, a square jaw, and a black mustache with an upward twist. His features were fierce and aquiline, their severity modified by a pair of very clear blue eyes, penetrating in quality, but with the suggestion of a humorous twinkle. His thin hair was brushed back from a high forehead, and clustered in short curls behind his ears. He wore a black cheviot cutaway suit, a black felt hat, rather broad of brim, and very shiny shoes of the fashion known as “Congress.”

Miss Sylvia, the elder daughter, plainly inherited from her father in personal type. She was a tall girl of a bold, handsome type with blue eyes, coal-black hair, high coloring, and a strong, lithe, well-rounded figure. Her sister, Pauline, although but eighteen years of age, was already a large woman, and of strikingly different type from father and sister, her somewhat abundant charms being the legacy of her mother, who had been the daughter of a Swedish colonizer of the Middle West. Pauline's eyes were also blue, but of a lighter and more limpid quality; her hair was the color of yellow corn, and, although small of waist and tapering of limb, she already weighed in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty-five pounds. The two girls were an imposing couple, each admirably contrasting the charms of the other, the somewhat striking effect produced rather heightened by the richness of their costumes and a leaning toward pearls of undoubted price.

As Mr. Steers' keen glance fell upon Coutts, his hard face lightened.

“Well, well,” said he, in a very bass, but not unpleasing voice, which carried a slight drawl of the Southwest. “This is mighty good of you, Mr. Coutts.” He turned to his daughters. “Girls, here's Mr. Coutts come up to help us break ground.”

Coutts shook hands all around.

“I wanted to be the first to welcome you,” said he, “and to assure myself that everything was in good running order.”

Coutts led the way to the car, where there were fresh exclamations of pleasure.

“This is Alessandro, the chauffeur,” said Coutts.

“How-de-do—how-de-do,” said Mr. Steers affably, while the eyes of the two girls rested in admiring approval upon the handsome, smartly uniformed young Italian.

Alessandro saluted with his flashing and extremely pleasing smile, then stepped to open the door of the tonneau. The Steers stepped in, when Pauline decided that she would like to take her dressing case with her, and Alessandro was accordingly sent to fetch it.

“I-talian, ain't he?” asked Mr. Steers.

“Yes,” answered Coutts. “He comes most highly recommended by a personal friend of mine, who has had him in his employ for over three years. My friend gave up his car this spring, and until I secured him for you Alessandro was driving a taxi. He's a good man, and I am sure that you will like him.”

“He is very good-looking,” said Sylvia. “So distinguished.”

“Perhaps he's a nobleman in disguise,” Pauline suggested.

“Well,” said her father, “so long as he does his work and don't go in for joy rides and graft, I don't know as that's against him. For my part, I sorta believe in good blood. Always like to have it in dogs and horses, and I don't see why it shouldn't help in folks.”

Alessandro returning at this moment with the dressing case, the motor was started, and the run to Greyside, as the place had always been known, was quickly made. Just before they reached the place, Mr. Steers observed:

“We reckon to have some guests pretty soon. I met a young fellow in Chicago whose father I used to know—name of Payne.”

“Sam Payne?” asked Coutts quickly.

“That's the man. You know him?”

“Yes. We came over on the same ship.”

“He's all right,” said Steers. “Reg'lar high roller, and no frills about him. He's taken some of our gas-producer-engine stock.”

“He is going to marry a girl we went to school with in the East,” said Pauline, “Miss Doremus. We thought she and her mother might like to visit us at the same time.”

Coutts swore softly to himself.

“The Doremuses are pretty high-toned, too, ain't they?” asked Mr. Steers.

“They come of an old New York family,” answered Coutts.

The conversation was cut short by the motor drawing up under the spacious porte-cochère. The Steers, father and daughters, had of course already inspected Greyside, but their visit had been in the late autumn, when the house was empty and the grounds were stripped of verdure.

Mrs. Forrest and Dobbs, both smiling their welcome, were waiting on the steps. Dobbs opened the door of the tonneau, and possessed himself of their wraps and light hand luggage, which he set inside the door, then waited in the background.

“Mr. Steers,” said Coutts, “this is Mrs. Forrest.”

“How-de-do,” said Mr. Steers genially, and shook hands with the smiling housekeeper.

“And this is Dobbs, the butler,” said Coutts.

Mr. Steers showed a disposition to shake hands with Dobbs, also, but the butler bowed, and did not appear to see the movement on the part of his master. The Misses Steers shook hands with Mrs. Forrest, and returned the respectful salutation of Dobbs. When the housekeeper led them upstairs, Coutts waited for them on the veranda. Mr. Steers was the first to appear.

“Well, well,” said he, “I declare, this is more like comin' home than movin' into a new house. Everything just as nice and cozy as it can be. Flowers in the bedrooms, and everything neat as wax. You've certainly looked after us handsomely, Mr. Coutts, and I'm sure we appreciate it.”

“It's all Mrs. Forrest's doing,” said Coutts. “She is a very capable woman.”

“She looks it—and just as nice and pretty as she can be.” He glanced shrewdly at the lawyer. “I reckon she's a woman that's seen better times.”

“She is a lady,” Coutts answered. “Is there anything you would like before luncheon?”

“I don't know. I'm not in the habit of drinkin' liquor during the day, but this is a sorta unusual occasion. Wonder if Dobbs has got the stuff for a cocktail.”

“Oh, yes. He makes a very good one, too.”

Coutts arose and touched the bell, ordering a couple of cocktails. They were enjoying these when the Misses Steers came down.

“It's perfectly lovely,” cried Pauline, “and Prudence is too sweet for words. I wanted to kiss her.”

“She's a dear,” said Sylvia, “and such a lovely accent. So English. And Mrs. Forrest is too nice for anything.”

Steers twirled his black, rakish mustache.

“Since I've seen Mrs. Forrest,” said he, “I'm kinda sorry I said anything about her eatin' downstairs.”

“She would have done so in any case,” said Coutts. “That is really the housekeeper's place.”

“I s'pose it is,” said Steers reflectively.

“Dobbs is a very good-looking man,” said Sylvia. “If it weren't for those little side whiskers, he would be quite the gentleman. He has such nice eyes and teeth.”

“He's not as handsome as Alessandro,” said Pauline.

Coutts returned to New York by a night train. One of the first things which he did on his arrival was to write to Mr. Payne, taking that gentleman to some extent into his confidence in regard to the altered circumstances of Lady Forrest and Prudence Eykyn. He said:

Owing to certain financial difficulties it has been necessary for them both to find some occupation for their support. Lady Forrest was very glad to accept the position of housekeeper for Mr. Steers, she being above any silly snobbery about going into service. Miss Eykyn was less satisfied, but finally consented on the assurances of Lady Forrest and myself that she would be much better off as lady's maid in a nice family than as a nursery governess. We also argued that there was not the remotest possibility of her being confronted by any of her acquaintances while performing her duties. As you and the Doremuses are almost the only people in America whom she knows, it seems like a peculiar trick of Fate that there should be the prospect of your visiting at the house where she is in service. If you decide to go there, I wish that you would first write to Lady Forrest to say that you know of their position, and think that they have acted wisely and courageously. This will make it easier for Miss Eykyn, for Lady Forrest has no false pride in the matter. I wish, also, that you would explain the situation to Miss Doremus and her mother, when they will, I am sure, make it as easy as possible for our English friends, should they decide to visit at the Steers.

Payne immediately complied with this request. In fact, he did better, for he wrote to Lady Forrest, expressing his sympathy, and delicately intimating that if he could be of any material assistance in helping to tide over present difficulties, he hoped that she would do him the honor to call upon him without hesitation. Payne, a man of strong and not always reasonable likes and dislikes, had conceived a very warm sentiment for the two Englishwomen.

More than that, he realized that he had never felt the same restful content in the society of any other girl as that with which Prudence had imbued him. Although far from being a snob, the idea of this sweet, companionable girl occupying a position as lady's maid was exceedingly disagreeable, and he decided that when he visited the Steers in the late summer he would contrive to have a confidential talk with her to see if something might be done to improve her circumstances.

During the summer, Coutts heard occasionally from Mrs. Forrest and Dobbs, these letters brimful of content. Dobbs' epistles were filled with a cheerful philosophy not lacking in humor. But a passage in Mrs. Forrest's latest letter caused Coutts, one day, to grow a bit pensive.

She wrote:

The Steers girls, beneath their Western “breeziness,” inherit richly their father's kindliness and generosity. They are thoughtful and considerate, and both are devotedly attached to Prudence, and if she were the usual lady's maid would quite succeed in spoiling her. They are forever loading her with presents, which I have told them they must not do. Prudence is giving Pauline lessons in French, and Pauline now converses quite well in that tongue with Alessandro, who is teaching her to drive. In fact, I fancy that she is learning more rapidly from Alessandro than from Prudence. Neither of the Misses Steers appears quite to understand the proper relations between masters and servants, and Sylvia talks more to Dobbs than I quite approve.

The Steers seem actually to be getting on socially, and have made some nice acquaintances through the Country Club to which you got Mr. Steers made a member.

Mr. Steers has bought three ripping hunters. He rides like a centaur, and is very handsome and distinguished-looking when mounted. We went out the other morning to watch him try the new gees on the garden hedge, and one of them turned a bit rank, but it made no more impression on Mr. Steers than if it had been a hobbyhorse. Dobbs, who certainly knows the ropes, has rather taken Mr. Steers in hand regarding his clothes, and he is now awfully well turned out.

While trying the hunters, Mr. Steers desired to watch the action of the beany one, and told James, the groom, to take him over the hedge. Poor James was scarcely up when he came a cropper, hurting his shoulder. Upon this Alessandro, who was watching, asked if he might try. Mr. Steers consented, with that dry smile of his, and upon my word, Alessandro rode nearly, if not quite, as well as his master. It appears that he was once in the Italian cavalry. Mr. Steers was tremendously pleased.

Dobbs is giving Sylvia a course in the higher possibilities of the chafing dish, but he is such a steady fellow that I scarcely see fit to object to these lessons. In fact, we are a very happy household, and I do hope that we may not be upset by the visit of Mr. Payne and Mrs. and Miss Doremus, who are coming next week.. I wrote you of Mr. Payne's letter. Poor Prudence seems vey upset, but pluckily tries to conceal it.

Mr. Steers is going away for a few days. No doubt he has written you. He has seemed a little nervous lately, and I do hope that it has nothing to do with his affairs. If ever a man deserved the best the world had to give it is he, for certainly there was never a person more kindly and considerate of everybody about him.

A few days after the receipt of this interesting communication, Mr. Steers himself came into the office. Coutts was quickly conscious of the change in his client. Mr. Steers was faultlessly dressed in stylish blue serge with a Panama hat, and tie and socks perfectly in accord. His black hair, streaked with gray about the temples, was still full behind the ears, but neatly trimmed, and his formerly farouche mustache no longer suggested the faro dealer, but was crisp and waxed at the tips. But aside from the general well-groomed appearance, there were other changes. His manner was more brisk, his back straighter, and he carried his fifty years as though they were but twoscore. It struck Coutts with a shock of surprise that Mr. Steers really did not need to be astride a hunter to present an appearance that was “very handsome and distinguished-looking.” With his strong, sinewy figure, full chest, small waist, bronzed skin, and keen, aquiline features, the ex-miner and cowboy made in his new guise a very admirable figure of a man.

“Upon my word,” said Coutts, after he had shaken hands, “you look pretty snappy.”

Mr. Steers looked at him with his dry smile.

“Thanks to you,” he answered, “I'm like a new man, Mr. Coutts. It's gettin' rid of that Chicawgo plant, I reckon. I tell you, sir, a man can stand a thunderin' lot of work, and worry, and business care if he's comf'table in his home. Why, do you know, in that Chicawgo barn I called a home, I've been more upset by my drunken fool of a butler than I would be buckin' a panic on the Board of Trade.”

“There's nothing more annoying than the wrong sort of servant,” said Coutts. “As you say, it poisons one's life.”

“It sure does. Seems to me, when a man's holdin' down a job, he owes it to his own self-respect to see that it's done well, if it's no more than feedin' pigs. When they get too good for their work, they ought to go in for bein' bank presidents and the like. What I like about the help—er—servants I've got now is that each one seems to take a personal pride in the runnin' of the whole ranch. And as for Mrs. Forrest——” A swarthy blush suffused his lean face. “Say, Mr. Coutts; do you think a nice, refined lady like her ought to eat downstairs?”

“Certainly,” answered Coutts, lighting a cigarette, to hide his grin.

“Well, I don't,” said Mr. Steers rebelliously. “Mrs. Forrest is a lady, and there ain't any place too good for her.”

“You're rather going back on your theory, are you not?” Coutts asked. “You just said that nobody ought to be too good for his or her work.”

“Well, it's a mite different with Mrs. Forrest. She sort o' keeps the whole lot of us up to the scratch. And as for running the house—say, my friend, it's wonderful. You never hear an order given, and the whole thing moves like clockwork. And the first time we came to settle up, I nigh fainted. Why, do you know, it costs less to run that big place for a month than it did to run the Chicawgo house a week? I can't understand it. Everybody says things cost more in the East.”

“It's merely a question of good management and honest service,” observed Coutts.

“I guess you're right. Look here; why don't you come out for a spell while Mr. Payne and the Doremuses are there? You're looking sort o' peaked, and the sea air would do you a lot of good.”

“Thanks,” answered Coutts, “I am very much inclined to take you up. By the way, how do you like Alessandro?”

Mr. Steers' face knit in multitudinous lines.

“I declare,” said he, “I don't just know what to make o' that fella. It seems like he was working for nothing. You naturally expect your chauffeur to get his little rake-off here and there, but Alessandro, after gettin' his, credits me with it on his book. Look here, Mr. Coutts; what d'you reckon his game is, anyhow?”

“I don't think there's any game about it,” answered Coutts. “I think that he merely happens to be an honest man. They do exist, even among chauffeurs.”

“Guess you're right,” said Mr. Steers. “Well, you cert'n'y rounded up a high-toned lot o' help—servants. Funny, I can't seem to get used to that word. Accordin' to my raising, it was a sorta insult. You might speak of the 'hired girl' or 'hired man,' and it went, but if you spoke of one of 'em as a 'servant,' the job would ha' been empty on the spot.” He arose. “Well, I must be going. Got to run down to Cedarhurst for the night to see Mr. Collingwood, the lignite man. He's a high roller, too. Worth about fifty million and got a big place. Say, how do you think I look?”

“You look very distinguished,” said Coutts. “Nobody could be turned out better, and I'd give you about forty years of age.”

Mr. Steers' face flushed with pleasure.

“Sure enough?” he asked. “You ain't joshin' me?”

“Not a bit of it.”

“That man Dobbs is making a reg'lar dude of me,” said Steers. “You ought to see my riding costoom. I'd got shot for wearin' it in Arizona twenty year ago. Spend most of my time now front of the lookin'-glass. Well, I must be trottin' along. We'll look for you right soon, then.”

Coutts thanked him, and Mr. Steers departed with the springy and elastic step which the knowledge of being thoroughly well groomed is apt to give the human animal.

CHAPTER VII.

Mrs. Doremus leaned back against the plush cushions of the Pullman, and fanned herself vigorously.

“Fancy that little chit of a Miss Eickert, or whatever her name is, giving herself such airs on the ship when she was coming over to go into service.”

“It only goes to prove,” said Aline, “that one can't be too careful with whom one associates when traveling.”

Mrs. Doremus nodded her approval, but Payne, who was sitting beside Aline, impatiently twisted the tip of his mustache.

“That's not quite fair,” said he. “Neither she nor Lady Forrest had any such idea on the ship.”

“Don't tell me,” said Mrs. Doremus sharply. “I have had some experience of these foreign adventuresses. This little Miss Thing's attitude toward yourself, Samuel, was too outrageous.”

“Nonsense!” snapped Payne. “If it hadn't been for her, I'd have been seasick all the way across. She is simply a nice English girl who has met with hard luck and has had to go to work. The chances are that she and Lady Forrest may have had a little money to invest, and went and lost it.”

There was a cut to Payne's incisive voice which silenced the prospective mother-in-law, who had already sampled his somewhat nervous temperament, and found that it could be very bitter when served without sugar or cream. Payne detested hearing disagreeable things said of anybody, even though it might be some person whom he did not like. But to run down those with whom he was in sympathy never failed to rouse him to a high pitch of irritation. Aline and her mother were quite aware of this, but whereas Mrs Doremus stood in some awe of her son-in-law-elect, Aline considered that she owed it to herself not to humor the arbitrary ideas of her fiancé.

“This Lady Forrest impressed me from the first as something of an adventuress,” said she, in her clear, well-modulated voice. “She was evidently making a dead set for Mr. Coutts.”

“Rubbish!” said Payne. “They are old friends.”

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Doremus, “that she has poor Mr. Steers quite dominated by this time. It looks to me very like a put-up job between Mr. Coutts and herself.”

Payne squirmed uneasily. The conversation was extremely distasteful to him.

“Coutts wouldn't lend himself to anything of that sort,” he protested. “In the first place, he is a gentleman, and in the second, he is far too busy a man to enter into any such silly conspiracy.”

Aline's color heightened. She was not accustomed to being spoken to in this way. Moreover, from her point of view, it was exceedingly poor discipline. She was about to say something sharp when her mother, who scented a possible quarrel, deftly changed the subject.

“At any rate,” said she, “Mr. Steers is far too clever a man to be drawn into any entanglement with a fortune-hunting Englishwoman. He is a man of very strong personality, and clear, sound sense. Quite a diamond in the rough. Do you really think, Samuel, that he is on the verge of making such an enormous fortune?”

“Don't see how he can help it,” answered Payne. “I consider myself very lucky to be let in on the ground floor. We've got a proposition there which ought to revolutionize mechanical power. I've looked into it very carefully. Since Coutts won our lawsuit, everything appears to be clear sailing.”

Mrs. Doremus fanned herself more vigorously. The prospect of financial aggrandizement never failed to excite her. She was not an extravagant woman, but a physiognomist would have read acquisitiveness in her rather long, though shapely, nose and the thin, precise lips. Mrs. Doremus had been a belle in her day, and was still handsome and of undoubted charm for the people whom she saw fit to please. She was but little on the wrong side of forty, with a girlish figure which was always exquisitely clothed and an abundant chevelure of hair, Titian red in color and naturally ondulé. Her teeth were beautiful, and this fact led frequently to her gracious smile. Extreme care had kept her patrician face clear of lines, and it was only when frightened or angry that a certain hardness of expression made itself apparent about the corners of her mouth and blue-gray eyes. Mrs. Doremus' motto might have been: “Sufficient money makes the whole world kin.”

“I have once or twice considered,” said Mrs. Doremus, “what a nice thing it would be if we could make a match between one of the Steers girls and Neely Stuyvesant. You know”—she looked at Payne—“Neely has lost everything he had, every penny. He and poor Livingstone went into something together, and but for Livingstone's sudden death might have made a pot of money. As it was, I understand that Neely has had to go through bankruptcy. Such a blot on the family, though of course Neely was my husband's cousin, not mine. Still, I would like to help him in some way, if it could be managed. He is absolutely worthless, but such a gentleman.”

“If he's a gentleman,” observed Payne dryly, “I should not call him altogether worthless. They are so few nowadays.”

“I wonder what he is doing,” said Aline. “I have not seen him for years.”

“I do hope that he has not turned to anything which could bring discredit on the family,” said her mother. “Coutts wrote me that he was very hard up, but of course there was nothing that we could do for him. We have little enough as it is. He pretended to paint, but his pictures looked like these signboard things that we are passing.”

“Maybe he painted 'em,” suggested Payne.

Mrs. Doremus gave a little shriek.

“Don't suggest anything so dreadful,” she cried, tapping him playfully with her fan. “Fancy meeting Neely with a ladder under one arm and a bucket of paint on the other. But——”

“There's no danger,” said Aline. “He couldn't paint well enough for that.”

Mrs. Doremus glanced at her watch.

“We are nearly there,” she observed. “Now, don't forget, my dear, to call Lady Forrest Mrs., and that little what's-her-name Prudence. After all, if the poor things are forced into entering service, we ought to make it as easy for them as possible. One should always try to be kind to others. Don't you agree with me, Samuel?”

“Absolutely,” answered Payne, in a dry voice. He reached forward to ring for the porter. “Especially,” he added, “when it doesn't cost anything to do so.”

 

Mr. Steers and his two pretty daughters were waiting to welcome their guests when they arrived. At the foot of the steps stood Dobbs, his usually ruddy face a little pale and a peculiar light in his eyes. Coutts, who had run down the night before, was lingering in the cool, spacious hall, an expression of annoyance on his forensic features. He was thinking what a nasty little trick Destiny had played in bringing these people of all others to that particular place.

At the head of the stairs were Mrs. Forrest and Prudence. The features of the pretty housekeeper held something of the expression which they had been wont to wear in earlier days when she had put her hunter at an Irish hedge without quite knowing what was on the other side. There was no more hint of faltering now than there had been then, and it was only when she glanced surreptitiously at Prudence that her steady, gray eyes showed any hint of misgiving.

When the gravel crunched on the drive and the vaulted porte-cochère amplified sonorously the whir of the motor, the eyes of the two Englishwomen met—and Mrs. Forrest felt a swift, warm-hearted thrill of pride in her protégée. Prudence's face was pale, and her square little jaw firmly set, but mouth and eyes were steady and undismayed. A man could scarcely appreciate the cruelty of the ordeal which the girl was called upon to face, but any woman would be able to do so. Prudence had just turned twenty years of age; until her meeting with Payne, no man had ever stirred her girlish heart. She had met him as a social equal, had been his guest. Worse than that, she had met, under the same conditions, his affianced. Now, she was called upon to meet them both, herself a servant.

Subconsciously she felt that the encounter with Payne would be far less trying than that with Miss Doremus. This was natural enough. There is always to be considered the natural chivalry of the male toward the female in distress.

Yet the moment when it came was not so bad. There were a few gracious words spoken to Mrs. Forrest and herself, to which both women replied with dignity and respect. So far as the other servants or the Misses Steers, who had come up with their guests, might ascertain, the Doremuses were merely greeting with kindness and civility the housekeeper and lady's maid.

A few minutes later, Mrs. Doremus rang her bell, and Prudence knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said a clear voice, and Prudence entered.

She found Mrs. Forrest talking with Mrs. Doremus. Aline, her blouse open at the back, was standing by the window, looking out pensively across the lawn.

“Prudence,” said Mrs. Forrest, “will you hook up Miss Doremus?”

Prudence, her cheeks rather red, stepped over to comply. Aline turned her small, aristocratic head, and surveyed her with cool curiosity.

“How nice you look in your little apron,” she said. “What have you done with all the pretty frocks you had on the boat?”

“I still have them, miss,” answered Prudence steadily, and proceeded deftly to hook up the blouse.

Mrs. Doremus was vigorously “pumping” Mrs. Forrest in regard to her change of circumstances.

“And you lost your money in some unfortunate investment?” she asked. “What a pity! It must have been terribly hard for you to take a position of this sort. Was your money invested over here?”

“There wasn't a great deal, to begin with,” answered Mrs. Forrest, “and as for my position as housekeeper, I have been doing precisely the same thing for the last two years in England. The only difference was that there I was with relatives, and had a much harder time of it. I had expected to do the same thing over here, sooner or later. I had hoped that Prudence might get a position as governess. But rather than be separated from me, she chose to come here as lady's maid, and I am sure that she is far better off than she would be elsewhere as a governess.”

“But that means that she takes her meals downstairs, does it not?” asked Mrs. Doremus sharply.

“Oh, naturally. But so do I, for that matter.”

“Really?” exclaimed Mrs. Doremus, whose surprise at this information was genuine.

She had taken it for granted that Coutts would have explained to the Steers enough regarding Mrs. Forrest's claims to gentility to have enabled her to sit at the family table.

“Quite so,” answered Mrs. Forrest. “It is much better. No good ever comes of things and people out of their places. And now, if you will excuse me, Mrs. Doremus, I will go and hurry luncheon. The family came by your train, and was quite starved on arriving. Prudence will see to having your things brushed and aired.”

She left the room, and Mrs. Doremus turned to Prudence.

“You poor child,” she said patronizingly, “what a comedown! Don't you find it very disagreeable to take your meals with the butler and chauffeur?”

“Not at all, ma'am,” Prudence answered. “They are very respectable men, and, as Mrs. Forrest says, much more decent than the people with whom I would come in contact if I were to work in a shop or an office.”

“But how do you know how to do your work?” asked Miss Doremus.

Prudence smiled faintly.

“I have always done my own work,” she answered. “My aunt and I lived in Dacre on barely enough to support us, and I had to do for her.”

“Then, as a matter of fact,” said Mrs. Doremus, “it is not such a comedown, after all.”

“I do not find it humiliating in the least, ma'am,” Prudence answered. “And it is no end more interesting than my life was before.”

Aline slightly raised her chin, but her mother looked thoughtful. She had been struck by the fact that here were two women of the upper class who were “in service,” yet apparently quite happy, and in no way suffering from loss of self-respect. She also reflected that her own mother, the wife of a Connecticut farmer, had frequently cooked for “the hands.” She could not help wondering if she herself would ever have been able to fill a “menial” position with as much dignity as these two Englishwomen whom she had rather expected to patronize.

“Who are your people in England, Prudence—if you don't mind my asking?” said she.

“My father was vicar of the church at Dacre, ma'am. My mother was born in India. She was the daughter of Colonel Sir Robert Elton, who was killed in a border war when mother was quite young.”

Mrs. Doremus looked rather upset.

“Well,” said she, “it certainly does not seem quite right that the granddaughter of a colonel in the British army should be out in service. But this is, after all, a topsy-turvy world. It would not surprise me in the least to learn that the chauffeur was of noble birth. Did you notice him, Aline?”

“Yes. He's very good-looking. And I'm sure I've seen Dobbs before.”

“I was similarly impressed,” said her mother. “There was a note in his voice—some place where we have visited, no doubt. Butlers drift about so. Are you ready, my dear?”

There was a discreet rap at the door, and the voice of Dobbs was heard, saying:

“Luncheon is served, madam.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Perhaps it was due to the increased nervousness with which he had been afflicted since quitting the shores of France, or perhaps it was merely Fate which led Payne to arise early the morning after his arrival at Greyside. It is also possible that without realizing it, he may have desired an hour of uninterrupted peace before the appearance of his fiancée.

At any rate, it was a little after seven when he strayed out into the fresh and fragrant morning, and, being a man of strong mechanical bent, he decided to visit the garage, Mr. Steers having told him the night before that he had installed a lathe, forge, and other machinery for doing his own repair work.

The path to the garage led through the new Italian garden, and as Payne passed down under the pergola, he was filled with admiration for the skill of the landscape gardener who had laid out the different architectural features. Payne would have been greatly interested to know that this artist was none other than Alessandro, the chauffeur, and that the gardens were exactly reproduced in miniature from those upon the ancestral home of this gentleman.

From beneath the pergola one obtained only a vista of the sunk garden which appeared between the two trim cypress trees at the head of the terrace steps. But as Payne passed between these dark-green sentinels, a charming picture presented itself.

In the middle of one of the multicolored flower plats, a girl in white was gathering a basketful of late roses. Payne, a connoisseur in artistic and charming effects, could find absolutely no fault with the way in which the sun shimmered on her bright hair and bathed her round forearms in its creamy light. He also observed that she was singing softly to herself.

“Prudence,” thought Payne. “Now is a good chance to say a few words to her. How nice she looks, down there among the roses.”

His memory flashed back to the early-morning promenades aboard the ship, and he gave a little sigh at the recollection of the peaceful happiness which he had felt during those brisk walks on the breezy deck. He had often thought of those meetings, marveling greatly at their content, the more remarkable for the unsympathetic element which surrounded them. He sighed again as he started down the steps.

Prudence had not discovered him. She was turned slightly away, her skirt pinned up in such manner as to prettily reveal a pair of ankles which Watteau would have liked to paint. Busy with her roses, she did not hear Payne's approach until he was within two or three paces. Then she turned quickly, straightening her supple young figure with a gesture full of grace.

“Oh!” she gasped, and her blue eyes seemed to darken. The rich color faded from her cheeks. The little fancywork basket slipped from her bare elbow and fell to the ground, scattering its floral contents. The scissors dropped from her fingers, and for a moment she stared, eyes wide, a little frightened and her breath coming quickly.

“Mr. Payne,” she murmured, and the color flooded her face again. Her eyes grew humid, and she looked as if she were going to cry.

Payne stepped to her side.

“I'm sorry I startled you,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could walk up to you without your discovering me. You'll forgive me?”

“I—of course. I felt that you—that somebody was near, even before I heard your step.” Her eyes were turned to the ground. “You made me spill my roses.”

Payne stooped to gather up the flowers. Prudence did the same, and Payne would scarcely have been human had he failed to appreciate the dainty wrists and pretty, pink-tipped fingers. The roses recovered, Payne straightened up and surveyed her with a smile.

“You look like a Watteau shepherdess,” said he, and there was in his keen eyes a certain quality of admiration which those of a young man engaged to another girl had absolutely no right to contain.

Prudence's color heightened. She suddenly became conscious that her shapely limbs were visible halfway between knee and ankle, and hastily proceeded to remedy this by plucking out the pins which held her skirt.

“I—I didn't expect to see anybody so early,” said she, and added: “Do you think that I am too dressy for my part? Miss Sylvia and Miss Pauline like me to wear pretty things.”

“I think that you are quite perfect,” said Payne, and added quite unnecessarily: “I have thought so since first I met you.”

Prudence had quite recovered her self-possession.

“You must not say things like that to me, Mr. Payne. And you must not stand here talking to me, either. Remember, I am a lady's maid now. Besides, Miss Doremus would not like it.”

“That would not be so odd,” said Payne, “considering how few of my acts meet with her approval. What did she say to you yesterday?”

“She was very nice. She asked me if I did not find it humiliating to be a servant.”

“Do you call that nice? I don't.” Payne's voice had the snappish quality which for some reason Prudence loved. “What did Mrs. Doremus say?”

“She asked me who my people were in England. When I told her, she seemed rather sorry for me.”

“Are you sorry for yourself?”

“Not one bit. At first it was a little hard, but Lady Forrest kept up my courage by her own example. Then, after I got to know the Steers, I really began to like it here. They are so nice; even when something goes wrong they are always sweet to me. And Mr. Steers is so good and kind. He treats me as if I were one of his family. Really, I'm not the least to be pitied, Mr. Payne.”

Payne surveyed her thoughtfully.

“I don't pity you,” he said slowly. “I admire you. But what is to be the outcome of it? You are too fine to keep on indefinitely as a lady's maid.”

“There is not much else for me to do.”

Payne looked rather disturbed.

“No doubt Coutts is right,” said he, “in claiming that you are better off here than you would be as a stenographer or teacher or in a shop or anything of the sort. At the same time, it's pretty rough. However, I want you to promise me one thing, and that is that if you ever should want to fit yourself for something more profitable, should want to study or anything of the sort, you will let me help you. I don't like to think of my little shipmate as being at the beck and call of people like—well, Mrs. Doremus, for instance. Will you promise me that—Prudence?”

Prudence dropped her hands to her sides. Her eyes were lowered also. She looked rather like a pretty little girl being scolded.

“Yes, Mr. Payne, and thank you so much,” said she.

Her eyes were brimming, and to hide her emotion she stooped to clip a rose which was brushing invitingly against her knee. Perhaps her vision was a trifle clouded, for the first thing which she gathered was a very large and vicious thorn.

“Ouch!” cried Prudence, snatching away her hand.

“What's the matter? A thorn?”

“Yes.”

She showed him a finger with the thorn still imbedded. Payne reached for her hand. Prudence drew it away.

“Let me see,” snapped Payne, and captured the soft, round wrist.

A tremor rippled up Prudence's arm, then went down through her to the very ground, shouting alarms as it went. Payne deftly drew out the thorn, and a drop of crimson followed it. Prudence put the finger in her pink mouth, looked at Payne, and laughed. Her face was like the roses in her basket. There was a tinge of red in Payne's patrician face and a sparkle in his granite-colored eyes.

“You pretty thing,” said he involuntarily. “I'd like——” He checked himself abruptly.

“You'd better go away now, Mr. Payne,” said Prudence.

“I think I had.”

He gave a short laugh, but showed no sign of moving until there came from the direction of the pergola the sound of a clear and musical voice, which called: “Oh, Sammy!”

Both of the culprits started violently. Prudence stooped to gather another rose. Payne, glancing over his shoulder, saw Aline standing at the head of the terrace steps.

“They all have thorns,” he muttered sadly, and turned away.

Aline's pretty face was flying storm signals as he approached.

“Pray don't let me interrupt if you are busy,” said she, in her very clear, carefully modulated voice, and Payne felt as though all the glory of the midsummer morning had faded.

“Don't be sarcastic, my dear,” said he. “I was on my way to the garage, and merely stopped to say a few words to Miss Eykyn.” Payne's face had suddenly assumed the nervous look which of late had become an habitual expression. “You told me that you were going to sleep late, this morning, to rest up after your journey.”

“Oh! So you thought that it would be quite safe to resume the early morning tête-à-têtes begun on the ship? I thought that you might.” She checked herself, biting her red lip.

“Don't be silly, Aline.”

Payne's voice was quiet, but he was smarting, within. Aline, then, had got up early with the express purpose of keeping her eye upon him. Payne's ire rose, but he was learning self-control.

“Silly!” echoed Aline. “Do you call it silly, when a girl is engaged, for her to resent playing second fiddle to a maidservant?”

Aline had lost her temper. She had observed the incident of the thorn, and was not pleased at the gallantry of her fiancé.

“Don't talk like that,” said Payne wearily. “It was natural enough that I should speak to the girl.”

“Also, that you should hold her hand. Yes, I believe it was—quite natural.”

“I was not holding her hand. She got a thorn in her finger, and I pulled it out.”

“How nice of you! I am surprised that you did not kiss the spot to make it well. How nice of you! I never knew that you were so gallant, but I suppose that it comes of your French associations. Still, I did hope that you were rather better bred than to keep a morning rendezvous with a servant.”

Aline was working herself into a nice little rage. Spoiled and pampered like so many of her class, she could not endure the slightest criticism of her perfect self. Moreover, Payne's previous submission had rather deceived her. What was merely self-control, Aline took for doglike devotion. She considered her power over him as absolute.

She decided to read the riot act.

“Perhaps,” said she, “you would prefer that we were not even engaged. I am sure my patience is nearly at an end. I object, and very seriously, to a rival in the shape of a maidservant who no doubt is no better than she ought to be.”

“Aline! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I did not think that you could be so cattish as to——”

“Oh!” Her voice was becoming shrill. “So I am a cat, am I? That is a nice, gentlemanly thing to have said to you by your fiancé. However, we can soon remedy that part of it.”

She walked swiftly to the house, entering by one of the open French windows of the library. Payne followed, angry and dejected. Inside the house, Aline dropped into a chair before a little writing table. It was in her mind to make Payne's punishment and subjugation complete.

“My dear girl——” Payne began nervously, but Aline interrupted him.

“One minute, please,” said she in her very clearest voice, and began to write hastily.

“There,” said she, springing up from her chair and handing her communication to Payne. “This makes it quite official, does it not?” She dropped him a sweeping curtsy. “So glad to have had the pleasure of knowing you, Mr. Payne!” she cried in a mocking voice, and swept out of the room and up the broad stairway.

With trembling fingers, Payne raised the note handed him, and read as follows:

My Dear Mr. Payne: After what has just occurred, I feel that it would be most inadvisable for us to enter together the bonds of holy matrimony. It appears that we are quite unsuited to one another, both temperamentally and in our relative points of view

I therefore take pleasure in releasing you absolutely from the engagement into which we have entered, and request that you will be as chivalrous as you are gallant, and accord me my liberty also.

Yours very truly,

Aline Calvert Doremus.

Payne read slowly the note, then folded it carefully between his fingers. He was standing with a somnambulistic expression on his usually alert features when he heard behind him a crisp “Good morning, Payne,” and turned to see Coutts as he entered the room.

“Ah—good morning,” said Payne vacantly.

He stared for a moment at Coutts. Then, as one who acts on sudden impulse, he handed him Aline's note.

“Read that, old chap,” said Payne.

Coutts' trained eye raced through the note.

“When did you receive this?” he asked.

“About two minutes ago—or it may have been twenty. My fiancée came on me while I had stopped for a moment in the sunk garden to speak to our little friend, Prudence. I was on my way to the garage. Prudence was picking roses, and got a thorn in her finger. I was picking it out.” He gave his dry smile. “Miss Doremus would accept no explanation. She expressed herself more vindictively than reasonably in regard to Prudence, whom I felt bound to defend. Then she came here and wrote me this billet-doux.”

Coutts did not smile. His eyes were watching Payne with their cynically, thoughtful expression.

“I suppose that you are horribly cut up about it,” said he.

Coutts' forensic eye had observed that Payne's expression was something like that of the man who has just fallen from a balloon, and feels himself over with the view of estimating the damage before adopting any befitting line of conduct and appearance.

“Yes—naturally,” Payne answered vaguely, “though to tell the truth, Coutts, I'm more dazed than anything else. I feel as if I'd——”

“Left the road when doing about ninety in your car and landed gently in a heap of new-mown hay,” suggested Coutts. “What are you going to do about it, now that you find there's nothing broken?”

“Hanged if I know!” said Payne, who appeared still dazed.

“Will you be advised by me?”

“In what way?”

“In all ways. Payne”—Coutts' voice was very serious—“you have just had a miraculous escape from a matrimonial tragedy. Now, listen to me, my dear fellow; I am acting quite disinterestedly, because, as sure as I am standing here, if you and Miss Doremus were to marry, I'd have you in my office within a year's time to arrange the terms for divorce. Or, if I did not, some one else would. You two people are about as well fitted to live quietly together as a handful of gunpowder and a lighted match. Honestly, now, don't you think so?”

“Hanged if I'm not inclined to agree with you—but——”

“But you don't quite like to admit it. I understand. The eternal American sucker.”

“Oh, come!” said Payne sharply. “I know that I've got a beastly, irritable disposition.”

“Quite so. All the more reason for you to be chivalrous and save Miss Doremus from the terrible consequences.” Coutts' voice was very urbane. “Only,” he continued, “if you want to do so you have got to act quickly. Once the old—h'm, once Mrs. Doremus learns what has happened, you will be led back to the sacrifice by one badly stretched ear. Now, look here; will you put yourself in my hands in this unfortunate matter?”

“Yes, old chap. Oh, this is awful!”

“Sit down at that desk,” Coutts interrupted, “and write as I tell you.” He glanced at the clock. “We've mighty little time to spare.”

Payne nervously seated himself, when Coutts dictated the following:

“My Dear Miss Doremus: In answer to your letter requesting that our engagement to be married be herewith annuled, I feel that I am bound to accede. You are no doubt right in saying that our action was unwise from the start, and I deeply regret having been the cause of your unfortunate choice in the matter.

“Since you have expressed the desire that all should be over between us, I feel that my presence here can give you only annoyance and inconvenience. I am therefore leaving the house at once and will sail for Europe——”

“What's that?” Payne cried.

“You are off for France to-morrow, my dear fellow,” said Coutts. “The Atlantic Ocean is all too narrow to promise you absolute safety, but it is the best that we can do. Besides, there's your château, and the chasse opens next month. You can wire to have your new car meet you at Cherbourg or Havre. The run back will brace you up.”

“Oh, well,” said Payne helplessly, “since I'm in the hands of my lawyer, what's the use? Go on.”

Coutts continued to dictate:

“To-morrow morning. My respects to Mrs. Doremus, and with all best wishes for the future happiness in which I am unfortunately not destined to share.

“Always sincerely your friend,

“Samuel Fellowes Payne.”

“Put that into an envelope, and address it,” said Coutts brusquely.

He touched the bell. Dobbs appeared on the threshold.

“Dobbs,” said Mr. Coutts, “drop whatever you are doing and go at once to Mr. Payne's room, pack up his things as quickly as you can, and take the luggage at once to the garage. Telephone to Alessandro to be ready to leave at once for Manchester. Don't say a word to a soul. I do not want anybody to know that Mr. Payne is leaving.”

“Very good, sir,” said Dobbs, and went out.

“Now,” said Coutts, giving Payne no time to speak, “write another letter—to Mr. Steers. Say that you and Miss Doremus have had a disagreement, and that she has broken your engagement. Say that, under the circumstances, it would be very trying for you both to be in the same house, and that you have decided to return at once to Europe. You might add, if you like, that, since he expects to go abroad with his daughters this autumn, you are counting on their spending some time at your château. Write that as quickly as you can.”

Payne, whom Coutts had managed to imbue with the sensations of an escaping convict, complied. Coutts took the note.

“I will attend to the delivery of these two,” said he. “I will keep Miss Doremus' communication for possible reference. Now, come—quick. There is somebody coming down.”

He rushed the dazed young man through the hall, barely giving him time to snatch his hat, then out of the door and down to the garage, where they found Alessandro getting into his livery. A few moments later, Dobbs appeared with Payne's luggage, which was quickly put aboard the car. Coutts and the still-bewildered Payne stepped into the car, and Alessandro started the motor.

“Upon my word,” snapped Payne, “you are certainly rushing me off.”

“It is my fault,” said Coutts, “that you ever should have rushed into this mess, and I've been uneasy in my mind ever since. The very least that I can do is to rush you out of it at the very earliest opportunity which presents itself.” He leaned forward. “Go out the side entrance,' he said to Alessandro, “and hurry.”

Two seconds later, Mr. Samuel Payne was en route for his château in the province of Seine et Marne.

CHAPTER IX.

Miss Pauline Steers, standing in the open door of the garage, watched the approach of the car with a flushed and angry face.

Alessandro had taken the abrupt curve with skill and due consideration of the border, and was going into his second speed when he caught sight of Pauline. The result was a somewhat rough transmission both of cog gears and psychic waves. He rolled into the garage, threw his lever into the dead point, cut off the current, and descended with haste.

Pauline was regarding him with an expression upon her pretty face in which anger struggled against admiration and some more tender emotion. Alessandro, as he stood before her in his well-fitting costume of deep maroon with visored cap and neat gaiters, was a very admirable figure of a man. There was a rich flush on his clean-cut, high-bred face, a glow in his dark eyes, and his white, even teeth flashed as he gave her his pleasing smile. But Pauline was not to be so easily propitiated.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, trying to put an unnatural sharpness in her soft voice. “I must say, Alessandro, when you make the rather unusual request that I should come down to the garage early, I should think that at least you would have more respect than to keep me waiting.”

“Ah, Mees Pauline,” cried Alessandro, “I am desolated. It is not my fault. I was obliged to take Meester Payne to ze station.”

“To the station?” Pauline exclaimed. “What for?”

“Zat I do not know. He has departed wiz his luggage.”

“Mr. Payne has gone!” cried the girl. “What in the world do you mean?”

Alessandro threw out both hands with a gesture of ignorance.

“I do not know, Mees Pauline. Mr. Coutts will explain. He went wiz Meester Payne to ze station, and I have just left him at ze house.”

Pauline knit her pretty brows.

“I wonder,” she said slowly, more to herself than to Alessandro, “if he and Miss Doremus could have quarreled?”

Alessandro smiled cheerfully.

“I tink so, Mees Pauline,” said he; “I could not help but hear some of ze conversation. Meester Coutts will tell you.”

Pauline glanced at him sharply. Alessandro's face was radiant, and as the blue eyes of the girl met his brown ones Pauline received a glance so warm and caressing that her heart gave a sudden bound. But she was angry and mystified, less at the extraordinary departure of Payne than at the joyous demeanor of her chauffeur, who appeared to be having a hard struggle to contain some sort of exuberant emotion.

“What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “Why did you ask me to come down here at this hour, and what makes you look so happy?”

“Ah, Mees Pauline,” cried Alessandro, apparently no longer able to control his feelings, “my cousin is dead.”

Pauline's blue eyes opened very wide. As an explanation of consuming joy, this circumstance seemed hardly adequate.

“Your cousin is dead,” she repeated. “And is that the reason for your being so happy and excited? Why don't you stand still?” For Alessandro showed a strong disposition to pirouette about the floor of the garage.

“I can hardly explain to you, Mees Pauline. Yesterday I saw in ze paper zat he was dead of an inflammation. I sent some cables, and zis morning I have ze answer. It is true.” And Alessandro did a little pas seul before the astonished eyes of the girl.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be so happy because your cousin is dead,” said Pauline severely. “I suppose he left you some money?”

“Not much, Mees Pauline. But he has left me more zan zat. He has left me ze old estates of my family, where we have lived for many hundreds of years, and now”—his eyes glowed at her—“I am ze Conte Alessandro di Monterubbiano.” He gave a little skip, then paused, and glowed at the astonished girl. “Eet is one of ze oldest titles in Italy, and zere is a great castle which looks out on ze Adriatic. Most of eet is in ruins. I mean ze castle. And zere are great properties. Most of zem are mortgaged.” He beamed upon her. “But zere is not'ing ze matter wiz ze title.”

“What are you?” cried Pauline. “Say it again.”

Alessandro placed his well-shaped hand upon his chest.

“I am ze Conte, or, as you say in English, ze Count Alessandro di Monterubbiano”—he leaned forward, and laid one finger on his lips—“and ze lady I may marry will be ze Contessa—Countess——”

“Di Monterubbiano!” cried Pauline breathlessly. “Oh, Alessandro, I am so glad for you. I was sure that you were a disguised nobleman. I am—so—glad for you.” She dropped her eyes.

Alessandro stepped to her side. The flush had left his cheeks, and he was slightly pale.

“Ah, Mees Pauline,” he cried, “but it ees not for myself zat I am so glad. Listen, Mees Pauline.” His rich Italian voice had dropped in pitch, and held a deep, caressing quality. “From ze moment when my eyes have rested on you, I have loved. Never before have I seen a woman for whom my soul has been so hungry. You are to me my life, and my heart, and my hope of heaven. You are a lovely flower; a great rose wiz ze petals just beginning to open from ze heat of ze sun, and my only wish is to wear you always on my heart. I love you, Mees Pauline, I adore you. And sometimes I have needed all of my strength zat I should not tell you so. Because I was chauffeur. But now, I am ze Count di Monterubbiano, and I may tell you, as I do, and ask you to be my lovely contessa.” He dropped gracefully on one knee, took the girl's unresisting hand, and raised it to his lips. “Will you marry me, my Pauline?” he said, and rose to his feet.

Pauline's eyes were brimming over and her face was indeed like the rose which Alessandro's Italian eloquence had described. With a rapturous little cry, she turned and flung her arms about his neck.

“Alessandro,” she cried, “I adore you. I have loved you from the first. I would have married you as chauffeur, if you had asked me.”

but the rest of her maiden confession was smothered in the tropical caresses of the Conte di Monterubbiano.

 

While these agreeable events were taking place in the garage, others, less joyful, were transpiring in the house.

To describe the emotions of Mrs. Doremus when Aline, in a scared but sulky manner, handed her the note from Payne, which Coutts had just sent up, would be to dwell upon a subject so extremely disagreeable that it had far better be left to the imagination.

For Mrs. Doremus, during the space of several minutes, had been left utterly speechless by chagrin. This brief lull before the storm was followed by a devastating anger, during which Aline received an insight into her mother's deeper nature by which she ought to have profited, considering that much which she observed was not lacking in her own charming personality.

Mrs. Doremus' outburst was followed, however, by a calmer and more practical attitude. She knew the world and its people, and she was quick to recognize the hand of an enemy in that which had occurred.

“It's all this wretched Coutts' doing,” said she to Aline. “Samuel would never have acted in such a dastardly and caddish manner on his own initiative. He would never have dared.”

“I'm sure I don't care,” said Aline petulantly. “Sam was always utterly impossible. We hadn't a thing in common, and he wasn't man enough to learn to like the things that I liked.”

“What can you expect from an idle, pampered creature of his kind?” demanded her mother. “But now you have acted like a silly little fool, and gone and spoiled it all. It is all the doing of that scoundrelly lawyer, Coutts. When I got his letter, threatening to attack my claim to the property made over to me by your unfortunate father, I knew that he was a dangerous and unscrupulous man.”

“Do you think that Sam actually will sail to-morrow?” asked Aline.

For all her pique, the girl was badly scared. And in spite of her youth, her head was better than that of her mother. Although she had acted in a spirit of resentment in writing and handing to Payne the note breaking her engagement, there had still been a certain amount of method in her madness. She had thought that this cold and official manner of breaking her engagement would strike to his heart a chill of terror which would prove far more effective than any spoken words. She had expected that he would wilt, crumble, and dissolve into a pasty mass of abject apology and remorse. And this, she thought, would furnish him with a salubrious lesson, and result in the final fixing of their respective relations, assuring her a supremacy compared to which her former dominion over him would be that of an insecurely throned empress.

In all of this she had not been very far wrong. Payne had for womankind in general, and his fiancée in particular, an inherited reverence. It was more than possible that but for the timely interference of that cynic, Coutts, he would have made the miserable finish anticipated by Aline, and of which the best that can be said is that he would have been in good company. But due to Coutts, Payne had made good his escape, and the question now was: How to hale him back?

“He will undoubtedly be sailing by the Mauretania,” said Mrs. Doremus. “You know, he never makes the voyage except on the fastest ship, and the Mauretania sails to-morrow. I shall send him two wires, one to the Union Club and the other to the ship. I shall say something of this sort: 'Aline in dangerous condition, prostrated by grief and remorse. Doctor urges your immediate return.' This will be quite true. You look very badly, my dear. I think that you had better go to bed at once, and I will send for the local practitioner.”

This excellent advice was promptly acted on. Aline took to her bed, refusing all nourishment but iced champagne, sweetbreads, and poulet au riz. Pauline having a plentiful supply of French novels, she managed to survive the next twenty-four hours, with the added assistance of nougat and chocolates.

Payne duly received the dispatch, and would undoubtedly have returned but for the fact that Coutts had offered to bet him five dollars to one hundred that he would receive a wire couched in almost the precise terms as that sent by Mrs. Doremus. Payne had not seen fit to take the bet, but when the telegram was received his face was not pleasant to see. He tore the tragic message in two, called a cab, and went aboard the ship, vaguely wishing that there was a certain girl with blue eyes and bright hair to see him safely through the coming ordeal.

CHAPTER X.

When noon of the following day was reached, with no news of the departed one, Mrs. Doremus found herself the prey of a number of very disagreeable reflections. By no means the mildest of these was the desire to be revenged on Coutts, whom she rightly regarded as the principal cause of the calamity.

Aline, alternating sulks and temper, was still in bed, where she was tenderly compassionated by Sylvia and Pauline, the latter too full of her own secret happiness to prove a very effective consolatrice, while Sylvia appeared worried and preoccupied about some matter in which she had not consulted her sister. Alessandro had sent more cables, and was awaiting their reply before announcing either to Coutts or his employer his change of circumstance. Mr. Steers had been made cognizant by Coutts of the circumstances of Payne's escape, the captions of the lawyer on the wisdom of the act providing Mr. Steers with considerable secret amusement.

Neither Mrs. Doremus nor Aline had so far made any revelations in regard to the part played by Prudence in the tragedy. Neither kindliness nor a sense of justice had any part in this reticence, but it had occurred to Mrs. Doremus that, if the Steers were to be informed of the true stations of their housekeeper and lady's maid, it was very possible that instead of resenting Coutts' act in guarding the secret of their antecedents, the kind and simple-hearted Steers might find their sympathies aroused for two ladies forced by circumstance to enter menial service.

But Mrs. Doremus was convinced that the lawyer's duplicity was not limited to the finding of their situations for the housekeeper and lady's maid. Alessandro's high-bred manner and appearance had not escaped her argus eye, and she was sure that the chauffeur was a man above his station. More than this, she had that very morning intercepted a look of tender intelligence which had passed between Pauline and the chauffeur when the car had come to take them for a spin, and she strongly suspected a secret understanding between the two. She was further puzzled by some familiar quality in the voice and expression of Dobbs. Mrs. Doremus was a woman of the world and accustomed to the best of service, but she told herself that in all of her experience she had never encountered domestics of the class of those in the Steers' household, and her host had told her that these had been obtained for him by Mr. Coutts.

Mrs. Doremus suspected conspiracy. In fact, to some extent, she suspected the truth. Coutts she thought, had for reasons best known to himself palmed off as servants a group of people who were decidedly above their stations, though what his object might be in doing so, Mrs. Doremus was unable to guess. The personality of Alessandro interested her the most, merely because she felt sure that there existed some understanding between this gentleman and Pauline, and Mrs. Doremus decided that she must know a little more about the handsome Italian.

Wherefore, shortly after luncheon, when Mr. Steers and Coutts were in the office of the former discussing some business affair, and Sylvia and Pauline were upstairs with Aline, Mrs. Doremus, who had been writing a letter, decided to stroll casually past the garage and have a few pleasant words with Alessandro. She was about to go out, when, glancing through the library window, she saw Pauline herself walking across the lawn in the direction of the Italian garden.

Mrs. Doremus' suspicions were aroused. There was something in Pauline's manner that held her attention, and as Mrs. Doremus watched her she saw the girl glance back over her shoulder as though to ascertain if anybody was about.

“Now, what is she up to?” said Mrs. Doremus to herself, for it was very hot, and not the hour which one would select for a stroll.

Pauline disappeared over the edge of the terrace, when Mrs. Doremus stepped out of the long French window, and followed her. She crossed the lawn, and as she reached the top of the terrace steps she saw Pauline leaving the other end of the garden and walking in the direction of the garage.

Mrs. Doremus' eyes narrowed. She felt that as a possible future stepmother she was acting quite within her duty to find out what Pauline was doing in the garage. She could easily explain her own errand by saying that she wished to consult Alessandro in regard to a small electric coupé which she thought of purchasing for use in town. This would be, in fact, the truth, as she and Aline had spoken of such a project.

Wherefore the good lady went assuredly ahead, and was almost to the open doors when she was brought up “all standing,” as sailors say, by a succession of sibilant sounds much in vogue between young people of opposite sex who find mere words an inadequate method of expressing their high, mutual esteem.

Mrs. Doremus' face grew wild. Shades of Venus and Vulcan! Pauline was being kissed! And by the Italian chauffeur! Worse that that, unless her ears deceived her, Pauline was kissing back. Horror of horrors! Pauline was also murmuring soft sounds, which suggested the ecstatic purring of a pussy cat. And then, to the scandalized ears of the listener came Alessandro's rich, Italian voice, murmuring: “Ah, my Pauline, I love you. I love you so.” This utterance was followed by certain rustlings, such as starched muslin might emit if crumpled by a pair of athletic arms. Followed more of the aforesaid sibilant sounds, which are not expressive of dislike.

Mrs. Doremus, her aristocratic features very red, turned and fled. She felt as though she had assisted at a medieval court of love. What might subsequently happen to Pauline was shrouded in the rosy mist of ardent vows, and impossible to predicate, but Mrs. Doremus thought that she could form a good idea of what would happen to Alessandro as soon as she discharged her unpleasant duty to Mr. Steers. Coutts, also, might share indirectly in the holocaust, for with all of his kindness of heart the paternal examiner and cowboy was not the man to temper mercy with justice when his daughter was being crumpled in the arms of his Italian chauffeur.

Mrs. Doremus could hardly wait. She had left the doors of the library open, and she softly entered the house and walked across the room, and through the hall to the door of the “office,” where she had left her host closeted with Coutts. The little room was empty, and the self-elected duenna turned her steps toward the dining room,

The table had been cleared and the room darkened, but as she was about to return she heard a rustle from the spacious pantry, before the open door of which there stood a handsome screen. The next instant there came to her startled ears the sound of Sylvia's dulcet voice as it said tremulously:

“Oh, my darling, why will you be so obstinate?”

Mrs. Doremus' aristocratic head went up like that of a war horse which smells gunpowder. Her sensitive ears pricked forward. Then, from the pantry, came a little rustle, a tremulous sigh, and the exact duplicate of the abominable, osculatory sounds which had assailed her senses a few minutes earlier as she stood outside the garage.

Mrs. Doremus wished that she had her salts. Stifled little sounds, in no way expressive of discontent, came from the pantry, and traversed the ample dining room as though it had been a whispering gallery. There was the slightest scuffle of feet, then: “No! No! Not here!” said Sylvia's voice.

“Then you must be careful how you come into my lair,” came in the pleasant tones of Dobbs. “It's subjecting frail mortal clay to too great a strain.” And there followed another of the compromising sounds and stifled laughter.

Mrs. Doremus turned, and slipped noiselessly from the room. Shocked and startled as she was at the discoveries of the morning, yet deeper still was the glow of triumph. For with the knowledge which Heaven, or some other agency had sent her, she felt that her enemy lay within her power.

But the manner in which she might best wield to her full advantage the weapons now in her hands required careful consideration. Realizing that when it came to making trouble, two heads were better than one, she hurried up to her room, where she found Aline, who had tired of bed, sitting fully dressed by the open window.

Aline looked up as her mother entered, and her pretty, petulant face lighted at the triumphant expression of her parent.

“You've heard from him?” she cried.

“No, Aline. I am afraid that your faint-hearted fiancé has played the cad. Coutts' influence has been too strong for his faint sense of decency. I think, however, that I have an efficient checkmate for Mr. Coutts. It is precisely as I thought. He has filled this house with creatures intended to prey on our poor, unsophisticated friends.” And she straightway put Aline in full possession of the results of her stalk.

“What are you going to do?” asked Aline.

“First of all, I am going to talk to Dobbs, and ask him a few questions in regard to his designs on Sylvia. The chances are that he will become frightened, and let out something which may incriminate Coutts. I shall try to learn something about Alessandro. No doubt, on my threatening to tell Mr. Steers what I have discovered, he will make a clean breast of it.”

Aline nodded.

“Have him come here,” she said. “I'd like to hear what he says, and I'm so beastly bored. That Prudence was in here a few minutes ago. She looked as if she had been crying.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I said that it might gratify her to know that she had been the direct cause of my having had to break my engagement.”

“What did she say?”

“Merely that she was very sorry. I couldn't get a thing out of her. She was too clever to try to defend herself or say anything which might give me the chance to put her in her place. I think that she is sly.”

“They are all sly,” said her mother, with delightful unconsciousness of her own maneuvers of the past hour, sly as cats. But there is going to be a number of changes in this house before long, or I am very much mistaken.”

In which the good lady was perfectly correct.

CHAPTER XI.

Dobbs closed the door behind him, and stood respectfully waiting to be addressed. Mrs. Doremus, sitting very straight in her chair, surveyed him through her pince-nez. Her eyes were hard as adamant, her mouth compressed, and she rather suggested a chief inquisitor. Aline, by the window, was studying Dobbs curiously, through half-lidded eyes.

“Dobbs,” said Mrs. Doremus, “I wish to speak to you on a very serious matter.”

“Yes, madam.”

Dobbs' voice was smooth, as a butler's should be, yet it seemed to Aline that there were a peculiar light in his pale-blue eyes and a certain rigidity to his features. Also, the usual pink flush of his clear skin was missing. Dobbs, the butler, was a good-looking man of the comfortable, well-fed type. His features were high and regular, amiable in expression, and his general appearance was the acme of neatness. At the present moment he had about him an unwonted air of alertness.

Mrs. Doremus, observing him closely, was again disturbed by the elusive impression of some previous association with the man. This emotion was doubtless more psychic than physical in source. She had not seen Cornelius Stuyvesant for about five years, he having carefully avoided her propinquity. Also, he had put on considerable weight since that time, while no disguise could be no more effective than that produced by the change from hair of artistic length and a spiked beard to his present tonsure and trim “sideboards.”

“Dobbs,” said Mrs. Doremus, “I have, this morning, made quite by accident two most shocking and disagreeable discoveries. The first is that of the reprehensible relations existing between Miss Pauline and the Italian chauffeur.”

She paused, much surprised at the unmistakable genuine astonishment on the face of the butler.

“What, madam?” he cried involuntarily.

“Yes. In going to the garage to consult with Alessandro in regard to an electric car which I think of purchasing, I actually discovered him presuming to make love to Miss Pauline.”

To the indignation of Mrs. Doremus, Dobbs' immobile face lighted with pleasure and a hint of amusement. But he quickly controlled his features.

“You look pleased, Dobbs,” observed Mrs. Doremus acidly. “Perhaps, however, you may be less gratified when I tell you that later on, when going into the dining room for a glass of water, I was scandalized to overhear certain expressions of endearment between Miss Sylvia and yourself.”

This time Dobbs fulfilled her anticipations in his expression of utter dismay. Then the blood poured into his face, and a dangerous gleam appeared in his light-colored eyes. He did not speak, but glanced quickly from mother to daughter, and Mrs. Doremus was reminded of the proverb: “Beware the fury of the sheep.”

“Now, Dobbs,” said she, “can you tell me of any reason why I should not put Mr. Steers in immediate possession of the unfortunate facts which I have learned?'

Dobbs appeared to reflect for an instant. The high color faded, and his amiable face grew stern.

“Yes, Mrs. Doremus,” said he. “There are quite a number of very good reasons. But the one which will commend itself the most to you and your daughter”—he glanced at Aline—“is that if you were to make such a disclosure, you would bring to light the embarrassing fact that a close connection of your own is a servant in this house.”

He stepped forward so that the light from the window struck full upon his face.

“Don't you recognize me, Cousin Elsa?” he asked dryly.

Mrs. Doremus sprang forward in her chair. Even Aline started upright, spilling her chocolates on the floor. The exclamation that burst from the lips of both women was almost simultaneous.

“Cornelius Stuyvesant!” they cried.

Dobbs bowed. “Alias Dobbs,” said he dryly.

Mrs. Doremus sank back in her chair, her arms falling limply at her sides. Her face was for the moment that of a person who unmasks. Ugly little lines of spite, and cruelty, and fear came out around her mouth, and her eyes looked sunken and baleful. She was, beneath her grande-dame exterior, a snobbish woman, who had married rather above her station and into one of the first families of America, but she had accepted the fortune which brought her luxury and social authority as the mere payment of a debt which society owed to one of her charm, intelligence, and dominant personality, rendering no thanks for what she felt to be due her.

Now she felt her anger rise to a boiling point. She reached for her salts, then straightened up, pale with emotion.

“You wretch!” said she bitterly. “Whatever led you to do so degrading a thing? Was it merely to be revenged on your family?”

But if Mrs. Doremus had laid aside her mask, so also had Dobbs. The obsequiousness of the butler had fallen from his shoulders, and he stood forth in his true character, easy, insouciant, and politely indifferent.

“Not a bit of it, Cousin Elsa,” said he. “Quite the reverse, in fact. I had to do something, and this was apparently all that I was fitted for. I've done it rather well, don't you think?”

Aline here entered the fray.

“Then Coutts got you this place in order that you might marry one of the Steers girls,” said she. “They are just the sort to fall in love with butlers and chauffeurs.”

Stuyvesant's face darkened. He bit his lip.

“That was no part of the plan,” said he. “You see, Aline, I couldn't really starve, just because your father had stolen all of my money. I came here to earn a living. Sylvia learned of my identity quite by accident.”

Mrs. Doremus' anger was slowly gaining in force and volume.

“Why didn't you come to me if you were so destitute?” she demanded. “I would have given you alms rather than have this disgrace on the family name.”

“It was the family name that I was trying to protect, Cousin Elsa,” said Stuyvesant. “Although I never told Coutts, I had a form of acknowledgment from Cousin Livingstone for the Twenty-second Street property. This antedated the values which he made over to you and Aline. If I had turned it over to Coutts, it would have cut your income by about ten thousand dollars a year. But you see, I knew that you hadn't much besides, and that you would probably have fought the matter. This would have meant that Cousin Livingstone's affairs would all have come out in court. Then the family would have got a black eye. Really, it was a case of noblesse oblige. It seemed to me much better that one of the family should be an obscure butler than a branded thief.”

Aline's face flamed, but Stuyvesant's statement acted as a decided curb on the demeanor of her mother.

“That was rather decent of you, I will say, Neely,” she observed. “Where is this paper of which you speak?”

Stuyvesant looked at her with a faint smile of contempt.

“Pray don't be uneasy, my dear cousin,” said he. “When the sheriff began to grab all of my pretty Italian things, I got a bit frightened lest I yield to temptation—like your poor husband. So I tore the paper up, and threw it in the fire.”

Mrs. Doremus took a long breath of relief, and a tinge of color returned to her waxen cheeks.

“Nonsense!” said she. “I don't believe that there ever was such a paper. If there had been you would have come around and tried to blackmail me.”

Stuyvesant's eyes narrowed.

“Permit me to observe,” said he, “that blackmail would not have been necessary. Even if I were starving, I would not have asked anything of you—even if there had been the slightest chance of getting it. But as I have already pointed out, I knew that you would have contested the case, and those of us who happen to have been gentlefolk for several centuries have an intense dislike to washing our soiled family linen in public.”

“You are insulting, sir,” cried Mrs. Doremus.

“If you feel yourself insulted,” said Stuyvesant, “it is apparent that the shoe fits.”

Mrs. Doremus fell back in her chair, pale and speechless.

“You were always a worthless fellow, Cornelius,” she said, “and your masquerading here as a butler shows how lacking you are in any self-respect. We will not bandy words. Now that I know your identity, it makes my duty all the more plain, humiliating though it will be to Aline and myself.”

For it had occurred to the worthy lady that, inasmuch as Sylvia Steers knew already the true identity of Dobbs, it was hardly worth while to lend herself longer to the deception. Like a flash, she saw her open course, which was promptly to denounce Dobbs, Alessandro, Mrs. Forrest, and Prudence as impostors introduced to the household by the designing Coutts, with the idea of some such result as had already befallen.

“This Alessandro,” said she icily. “Who and what is he, pray tell?

“Alessandro,” said Stuyvesant, “was my chauffeur before I lost my fortune.”

Mrs. Doremus nodded.

“Very well,” said she. “That will do. You may go.”

Stuyvesant hesitated.

“I hope, Cousin Elsa,” said he, “that in consideration of the personal sacrifice that I have made, to avoid all scandal, you will be so good as to preserve my incognito.”

“And why, pray? Do you want to make me a party to your shameful behavior in deceiving Mr. Steers?”

Stuyvesant colored.

“I am deeply in love with Miss Steers,” he announced, “and she has said that she cares for me. I intend to give up my situation here at once, and find some better employment. Then, in time, if I am successful, I mean to ask Mr. Steers for the hand of his daughter in marriage.”

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Doremus sneeringly. “But you have just admitted that you are fit for nothing better than a butler.”

Aline spoke up pertly.

“If you were able to do anything else,” she asked, “why did you take this position with the Steers?” She gave a frosty smile. “It is really plain enough. It was all a put-up job between Coutts and yourself that you were to come here as butler. Then, after managing to interest Sylvia, to coyly allow her to discover that you are really a tremendous swell, in circumstances romantically destitute. No doubt you picked out Alessandro to secure Pauline, or it may have been the other way about, while Lady Forrest——”

“Lady who?” cried Dobbs sharply.

“Lady Forrest,” snapped Mrs. Doremus. “Now, don't pretend that you didn't know who she was. I never knew of a straighter case of conspiracy. It is all quite plain to me, and I am sure that it will be plain to Mr. Steers, also.”

Her last words appeared to have been lost on Stuyvesant.

“Lady Forrest,” he muttered. “So that's who she is.”

“As I remarked before,” said Mrs. Doremus, “that is all. You may go.”

With a slight bow, Stuyvesant moved to the door, and went out. Mrs. Doremus touched the bell, which was immediately answered by Prudence.

“Find Mr. Steers,” said Mrs. Doremus, “and tell him that I would like to see him at once, on a matter of the most pressing importance.”

“Yes, Mrs. Doremus,” answered Prudence, and went out.

Mr. Steers was in the lower hall, and came up immediately in response to Mrs. Doremus' message, which the genial host took to have some bearing on the delinquent Payne.

“Well, well,” said he, as his eye rested on Aline. “Glad to see you chirpin' up a bit, Miss Aline. After all, there's as good fish in the sea as ever was caught, and I'll bet that Sam is the one who is doin' the mopin' just now.” He glanced at Mrs. Doremus, and at the sight of this lady his brows knit. “What's up?” he asked. “Nothin' very bad, I hope.”

For Mrs. Doremus had taken advantage of the few preceding moments to apply with haste, and rather less than her usual skill, sundry dabs of artificial youth, the effect of which her agitated condition, rendered particularly ghastly.

“My dear Mr. Steers,” said she, “I have sent for you not in regard to this wretched Payne, but for a matter much more vital to yourself.”

“What's that? What's that?” Steers exclaimed.

“The trouble which has come to my daughter,” said Mrs. Doremus, “and certain unhappiness which threatens your own two charming girls are, it appears, all the result of the dishonorable behavior of one man. Tell me, Mr. Steers, how long have you known this lawyer, Coutts?”

“Oh, I've had dealin's of a business sort with him for some years,” replied the mystified Steers. “I never knew him personally till last autumn, when I came to get this place. Why so?”

“Because,” said Mrs. Doremus, speaking slowly and with care, “I have just discovered that he has perpetrated upon you a vile and contemptible conspiracy.

“Sho!” cried Steers. “What do you mean?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Doremus, “you cannot be aware of the fact, but it seems that the domestic servants secured for you by Coutts are not at all what you think them. They are a band of impostors, who have taken their positions here for reasons best known to themselves and this intriguing Coutts.”

Mr. Steers stared at her for a brief instant.

“What?” he said; then added almost soothingly: “There, there, Mrs. Doremus. Who's been rilin' you now?”

Mrs. Doremus waved her hand.

“Let me tell you who these people really are,” said she, “and then you may verify the matter for yourself. To begin with, Mrs. Forrest is none other than Lady Forrest, the widow of a rake of an English baronet, who was killed in a hunting accident some years ago and left her quite penniless. She has been over here before, and is rather better known for her gayety than for her discretion. I have heard it said that she was an old flame of Coutts, and I believe that there was some scandal, but of that I know nothing.”

Steers' indulgent expression had faded. His stern face was set like a rock, and his eyes were like gimlets of blued steel.

“Prudence,” continued Mrs. Doremus, “is an English country girl, picked up somewhere by Lady Forrest, and brought over here to find her fortune, which is more apt to be made, I fancy, by her face and figure than by her attainments. We crossed on the same steamer, but before we came here we were requested by Coutts, through Mr. Payne, to say nothing about the identity of these two women.”

Steers' black eyebrows drew a heavy, straight line over his piercing eyes. He did not interrupt.

“Dobbs,” continued Mrs. Doremus, warming to her work, “is a scapegrace distant connection of our own, who has been all of his life an idler and ne'er-do-weel, and finally lost his fortune in some silly venture with my poor late husband, who was anything but a man of affairs. It was through recognizing him that I have been convinced of the truth of my previous suspicions. Alessandro is some Italian adventurer, doubtless a renegade or deserter from the Italian army. He was my relative's chauffeur before he frittered away his fortune.”

She paused, and Steers regarded her grimly. He was a man who owed most of his success in life to a quick and accurate judgment of human nature, and this faculty had seldom failed him. In his later life he had trained himself to think quickly and finally before committing himself to any speech or action.

“Well,” said he, and his genial voice, while still holding its drawl, had assumed a certain metallic quality. “That may be all true.”

“Surely,” cried Mrs. Doremus, who was getting the pleasure of a veteran player in the contemplation of the high cards held back in her hand, “you don't doubt my word, Mr. Steers?”

“Not at all, not at all. Only, it strikes me that while all this may be quite true, at the same time I can't see where there's been any real harm done.”

Mr. Doremus leaned forward with a gleam in her eye and an actual flush fighting hard to distribute itself according to the same color scheme which had been already applied.

“Perhaps,” said she, “you may think differently when I tell you that this afternoon, on going down to the garage to consult your chauffeur about a motor which I think of purchasing, I narrowly escaped intruding upon a very heated love passage between this rascally Italian and your daughter Pauline.”

“What?” Steers' voice was like the snarl of a grizzly, and he started forward with such violence that his chair gave a protesting whine. “What's that? Do you mean to say that this ornery dago has been making love to my Pauline?”

His face, at this moment, if seen anywhere but in a lady's boudoir, would have inspired the observer to reach for some weapon of defense. But Mrs. Doremus stood valiantly to her guns.

“I heard him kissing her,” said she.

Steers' face was homicidal. A pale fury streamed from his blue eyes, and deep gashes cut themselves the length of his lean cheeks. With a tremendous effort, he restrained himself.

“Go on,” said he; “what then?”

“I did not interrupt,” said Mrs. Doremus, “as I wished first to refer the matter to you. I returned to the house, when, on going into the dining room to get a glass of water, I was again shocked to overhear, from the pantry, another love passage between your daughter Sylvia and my worthless kinsman.”

“Jee-rusalem!” snarled Steers, and sprang to his feet.

His face was wild, and the whole, tense figure breathed death and destruction. But halfway to the door he got himself in hand. He paused. There was nothing irresolute in this action. Rather, it told of a tremendous self-control. He glanced quickly from Mrs. Doremus to the door.

“What are you thinking of doing?” asked Mrs. Doremus.

Steers gave a bleak smile.

“I was goin' to start right in and clean house,” said he, “but I guess I can wait a few minutes. This ain't Texas. I reckon I'll have a talk with Coutts before gettin' on my war paint. P'r'aps you'd like to have him come here?”

Mrs. Doremus reflected a moment. She had no intention that there should be any interview in which she should not participate. She had hoped that Steers would be guided by her own advice in dealing with the situation, but the merest glance at his face showed that there was not the slightest chance of his being influenced by any counsel but his own. Mrs. Doremus' trim figure stiffened.

“Since you insist on talking with Coutts,” said she, “I would much prefer that you do so in my presence. He will at once know by whom these accusations are made, and, as I have accused him of duplicity, I am quite ready to repeat these charges to his face.”

“Oh, just as you like, just as you like,” said Steers. “There ain't goin' to be any hair lost. I don't really believe that Coutts meant anythin' tricky. These people might have been friends of his in hard luck, or somethin'.” He glanced at Aline. “Perhaps your daughter might want to go in the other room,” said he.

Aline acted on this hint. She was by this time thoroughly scared at the tempest stirred up, and had no wish to be further involved, wherefore she departed silently and with less than her usual haughty manner. Steers touched the bell, and the door was opened by Prudence.

“Ask Mr. Coutts to come up here,” said Steers. “You'll find him in the office.”

A moment later Coutts entered. His first observing glance told him in a measure what was afoot, but if Mrs. Doremus looked for any evidence of conscious guilt she was disappointed. As for Steers, his first outburst over, he had gained that complete control of face and manner which many years of the game had taught him. For all that one could see, he might have been tranquilly presiding at the trial by lynch law of a murderer or horse thief.

“Mr. Coutts,” said he, “I want to ask you a few questions about the help if you don't mind. Now, to begin with, what do you know about that I-talian chaffure, Alessandro?”

Coutts smiled.

“When I engaged him for you,” said he, “Alessandro was a gentleman of good family but no fortune, who had come to this country to earn his living. He was for three years the chauffeur of Mrs. Doremus' cousin. But in the last few days, owing to the death of a cousin of Alessandro's, his circumstances have undergone a change. At the present moment, he is the titled head of one of the oldest and noblest of Italian families. Alessandro is the Count Alessandro di Monterubbiano, heir to the title, palace, and estates, and has the entrée to every court in Europe.”

Mrs. Doremus fell back in her chair. Steers leaned forward, breathing hard through his nose.

“The Count di Monterubbiano,” said Coutts, “came to me this morning, and told me of his change of estate, but he asked me to say nothing about it to his employer. He wished to make the announcement himself, and at the same time to ask for the hand of Miss Pauline in marriage.”

Steers' lean jaw dropped. He swallowed once or twice, then tugged viciously at his black, wiry mustache.

“So far, so good,” said he dryly. “Now, then, who and what is this man Dobbs?”

“Dobbs' real name,” said Coutts, “is Cornelius Calvert Doremus Stuyvesant.”

“Gosh!” muttered Steers.

“Stuyvesant was a cousin of the late Livingstone Doremus,” Coutts continued blandly. “Stuyvesant recently lost his entire fortune of about half a million through improper administration of his estate, and was obliged to go through bankruptcy. Mr. Stuyvesant comes of one of the best and oldest of American families, and preferred to take his loss rather than take the matter into court. He came to me quite destitute. All that stood between him and starvation was the little which his former chauffeur, Alessandro, managed to make as a taxi driver, and which he insisted on sharing with his late employer.”

Steers tugged a few bristles from the other end of his mustache.

“Stuyvesant had to do something,” Coutts continued, “and in his crushed and hopeless condition was quite indifferent as to the character of his employment, as long as it was clean and honest. For the sake of his family, he took a different name when he came here to serve as butler, also making certain changes in his personal appearance.”

Steers was silent for a moment. As for Mrs. Doremus, the revelations regarding Alessandro had left her pale and speechless.

“Why didn't you tell me all this?” at last asked Steers slowly.

“For the simple reason,” said Coutts, “that you never asked me. You were content with my assurance that your servants were honest, respectable, and efficient. The count and Stuyvesant naturally preferred that their true identities should not be known if it could be avoided. Now, as for Mrs. Forrest——”

But Steers rose to his feet, and stood, severe and grim.

“I guess we'll leave Mrs. Forrest out of the round-up,” said he, in his most metallic voice. “Anybody can see, first shot, that there ain't a sweeter and more honest woman in the world.”

CHAPTER XII.

The accomplished grace with which Mrs. Doremus and her fair daughter Aline made their departure from Greyside shortly after the “exposure” of the domestic corps would have furnished an object lesson for a Japanese diplomat. Pauline and Sylvia had been kept in ignorance of Mrs. Doremus' part in the affair, nor had any other members of the household been enlightened in regard to what had come to pass.

Alessandro had presented himself to Mr. Steers, respectfully informed him of his change of condition, and requested the hand of Pauline, all with a frankness and simplicity which quite overcame any lingering antipathy which the millionaire might have cherished from his Texas days for the Latin race.

“I guess you hit the nail on the head, Coutts,” said Steers, “'when you stated that a gentleman is a gentleman, whether he's greaser, Yank, dago, or Chink Alessandro is the real thing. He's off for Washington to-night to see his ambassador, and the wedding's fixed for next month. You see, he's got to get back to Italy, and Pauline won't wait.”

Mr. Stuyvesant found his position a little more difficult. Immediately after the interview with Mrs. Doremus, Steers led Coutts into his private office, lighted a huge, black cigar, and rang for his butler.

Mr. Stuyvesant entered with a quiet but respectful dignity which commended itself at once to the generous-minded Steers.

“Mr. Stuyvesant,” said he, “there's been a general show-down in this house. Mr. Coutts has told me of the circumstances which led you to take your position as butler in my house. There's nothin' in all that to count against you, so far as I know. But what I want you to tell me now, as man to man, is how far this foolishness with my daughter has gone. Shut the door and sit down, and let's have a plain, honest talk.”

Stuyvesant, rather embarrassed, did as he was told.

“Miss Steers suspected me from the first as a person who had not always been a butler,” said he. “I think that she pumped Prudence a bit, and heard about some of our discussions downstairs. You see, very often Mrs. Forrest and Alessandro and I used to get a bit lofty in our arguments: comparative beauty of French and Italian renaissance, or the different furniture periods, and what defined 'em.”

Steers looked rather dazed. “M'h'm!” he grunted, puffing at his cigar.

“Some of this got to Miss Steers, I fancy,” said Stuyvesant. “Havin' been an artist and made a study of all this kind of rot, I may have got to lecturin' a bit. Then, a few days ago, I left an old bill lying on a shelf in the pantry, and Miss Steers found it, and wanted to know all about it. You see, it was from a poor devil of a paint dealer who couldn't afford to be stung, so I wanted to pay him.”

“H'm,” grunted Steers, rolling his cigar; “then if he'd been a mite better off, he might ha' got stung?”

Stuyvesant colored.

“Most of those old accounts were settled by the bankruptcy court,” he said, “but I knew this man was hard up, so I meant to pay him out of my wages here. Miss Sylvia asked me point-blank if I were Stuyvesant. I owned up—and——”

“Go ahead,” said Steers encouragingly.

“She—was very sympathetic. Then, the first thing I knew, I found that I was—er——”

“Keeping the dinner waiting,” said Steers. “Then what?”

“Then I asked her if she would wait for me if I cleared out and made good at something worth while. She said that she would.”

Stuyvesant paused, much embarrassed. Steers smoked, and regarded the young man thoughtfully.

“Why didn't you tackle something worth while to begin with, instead of butlerizing?” he asked.

Stuyvesant met the keen blue eyes steadily.

“To tell the truth,” said he, “I didn't care. I was too much knocked in a heap for it to matter two sous what I did.”

Steers nodded.

“Well,” said he, “for a man to bog down from half a million to a bunch of old debts might make him feel a mite indifferent. Especially if he'd never hit a lick of work in all his life. But do you think that you could make good, now?”

“Yes,” said Stuyvesant. “I could.”

“How so?”

“Because,” said 'Stuyvesant slowly, “in the first place, this butler job has taught me that I actually could do something well. I never would have guessed it before. But it's my idea that, if a chap can do anything really well, there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do something else equally well, or even better. But the chief reason is, that now, for the first time in my life, I've got a real incentive. I love your daughter, Mr. Steers, and I appreciate her, too. I never knew a woman of her sort before.”

Steers bent his black brows upon the young man.

“Look here,” said he, “leavin' my daughter Sylvia out of the question, haven't there been times when you've been sorta 'shamed of bein' a flunky like?”

Stuyvesant made a strongly negative gesture.

“No, sir,” said he, “there have not. There have been moments, though, when I've been rather proud to have done the work as it should be done—such as the dinner you gave a month or so ago, and the lawn party for Miss Steers' birthday. Let me tell you something; whenever you find a servant who does grudgingly what he could do well, it's because the fellow thinks himself too good for his job, and only keeps it because he hasn't it in him to do something better. He's a lower-class snob, which is just as bad as an upper-class one, and his conceit of himself is in excess of his ability. On the other hand, when you find a servant that really is a good servant, then, perhaps, he is too good for his job. So long as a man respects himself, he's entitled to the respect of everybody else. No, sir; I'm not ashamed of having been a butler. It's done me a lot of good.”

Steers surveyed him critically.

“I reckon it has,” said he, in his dry voice; then, as though to change the subject, added: “How did you come to lose your money, Stuyvesant?”

The younger man shrugged.

“It was unfortunately invested by a relative,” he said. “I was so careless as to let things slide, and have got only myself to blame. I have no kick coming.”

For several moments Mr. Steers smoked in silence. But his mind was not inactive. His shrewd judgment told him that here was a gentleman, if ever he had known one, and more than that a man of courage, principle, and self-respect. The little incident of the bill to be settled with the poor paint dealer touched and pleased him.

“Well,” he drawled finally, “I guess you're right. As you said a minute or two ago, a man that can do any one thing well ain't altogether worthless. I guess”—he turned to Coutts—“with all the interests we got, we can find something for Stuyvesant to do which ought to give him a fair start.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Coutts, who, as a student of human nature, was deeply enjoying himself.

Steers turned abruptly to Stuyvesant.

“Now, look-a-here,” said he. “I'll stake you myself, and start you goin'. If in a year or so from now you have managed to make good, then come around and we'll have another talk about my little girl. Meanwhile, you'd better chuck this job, right off. I reckon there'll be a few changes in this house durin' the next twenty-four hours. Coutts says he's got to go to New York to-morrow, and you'd best go with him. I've got to run in myself in a couple of days, and then we'll meet and see what we can do. And now, seein' as you're still on the job, suppose you go out and mix us up a good Martini. Three of 'em,” he added, with his dry smile.

 

A large harvest moon, absolutely round and apparently filled to bursting with a rich and mellow substance whereof the texture suggested honey, was lifting itself toward a fathomless dome in which the stars were being suppressed. The remote sea was sleeping peacefully, and her soft breathing could be heard along the shore.

Mr. Steers, with the assistance of Lady Forrest, was appreciating the calm beauty of the night from the end of the long veranda. Yet it is doubtful if the mind of this gentleman reflected the restful environment of moon, and sky, and sea.

“Do you think,” he asked, in a voice unwontedly timid for one of his strenuous past, “that it takes three generations to make a gentleman?”

“Many more than that have failed in some cases,” she answered gently, “while in others the fraction of a generation has been enough.”

“Well,” sighed Steers, “I reckon I'll have to take a chance with the others. So far as I've been able to study it out, most of my ancestors were more at home in buckskin, moccasins, and astride a horse than in a rig like this.” He glanced down at his perfectly well-fitting dinner costume. “My father's father crossed the mountains from Virginia with a rifle across his shoulder, and most of us have packed guns of some sort ever since.” He gave his short laugh. “Twenty years ago when I was a shoutin' maverick, I'd have let daylight through any man that allowed I wasn't a gentleman, horns, hoofs, and hide. But now,” he added reflectively, “I'm inclined to think that any such act on my part would ha' been unjustifiable homicide.”

“If to be a gentleman,” said Mrs. Forrest softly, “is to be generous and true-hearted, 'without fear and without reproach,' then you have no cause to complain.”

“Oh, it ain't that I'm kicking. Only, sometimes I get a mite discouraged about myself. It don't seem to me, here in the East, as if I was quite up to my station in life.” He looked thoughtfully at her winsome face, pale in the moonlight, with its dark fringe of hair. “I feel it most when I'm talkin' to you,” said he shortly.

Mrs. Forrest looked up at him questioningly.

“That does not sound very kind,” said she.

“I don't mean it like that. Only you have got so much style and finish that alongside you I'm like a Duluth ore boat by the side of a lovely, trim yacht.”

His voice held a note of pathos. Some sympathetic quality in the strong, masterful personality helped this wistful tone on its way to Mrs. Forrest's heart. Steers' splendid profile was against the moonlit sky, the half of his face toward her in the shadow. Yet the dejection in mouth and eyes was quite apparent.

“I'm sort o' blue to-night,” he confessed, “the thought of my little girl leavin' me, I reckon. Pauline will be married and away in another six weeks, and Sylvia is fightin' like a good un to get me to cut down that two years to two months. She'll win out, like as not. If she don't, it'll be the first time she ever missed havin' her own way with her dad. Then I'll be all alone. But it's all right. I like that man, Stuyvesant. He's the real thing—an A-one, simon-pure gentleman, and more than three generations to the makin' of him.”

“Why do you lay such stress on that?” asked Mrs. Forrest.

Steers turned to her with his eager, intent scrutiny.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

Mrs. Forrest's heart whirred off like a frightened partridge. For the moment she felt like a girl of eighteen, fencing to parry the speech which she longed, yet feared, to hear. Vaguely she felt it coming, and the poise which was her second nature suddenly forsook her. Confused, she turned away her head.

“Does it really interest you?” asked Steers, in his deep, vibrant voice.

“I—of course. I am deeply interested in what concerns you,” she managed to say.

“Then I'll tell you,” Steers answered quietly. “It is because I want you so much. No man living could want a woman more. I want you to marry me, but when I come to look at the difference between us, it seems somehow wrong.”

Mrs. Forrest laid her hand upon his sleeve.

“It is not wrong if you really love me,” she said, “for I love you.”

 

Mr. Samuel Payne was entertaining a party of guests; Mr. and Mrs. William P. Steers, the Count and Countess di Monterubbiano, and Miss Prudence Eykyn.

Payne, despite his wholesome country life, was again in danger of becoming the victim of his nerves, this deplorable condition in large measure due to the propinquity of two couples who found it absolutely necessary to be always in the closest touch. Even the well-trained French servants, accustomed to, and like all of their race, highly approving, the demonstrations of affection which we Anglo-Saxons see fit to hide, found it necessary to do an unwonted amount of coughing and scuffling on their entrance to a room, while the housemaids wore sympathetic smiles which absolutely refused to come off.

Mindful of their dignity, Mrs. Steers and her handsome and distinguished-looking husband were more discreet in their expressions of mutual regard. But the Conte and Contessa di Monterubbiano were less considerate of others.

“Alessandro,” said Payne snappishly, “you are positively revolting. Your bride does not act as though she wanted to get away. Can't you let go of her hand long enough to drink your coffee? That's right! Spill it all over her trousseau.” He sighed, and turned to Prudence. “You and I had better wear blinders and a bell,” said he.

“I cannot help it,” sighed Alessandro. “Wait until it happens to you.”

“The trouble was,” said Payne dryly, “I did not wait. Thank Heaven,” he said to Steers, “that Stuyvesant and his wife are not here. I would have to go out, and bite large chunks from the tires of the car. What do you hear from them?” he added.

“They are radiantly happy,” said Mrs. Steers.

“Cornele is all right,” said Mr. Steers, taking a cigar. “I've put him in charge of our new infant food company. He told me that he liked food and liked infants, so he ought to make out all right. Besides, Sylvia's just the girl to keep him hustling. Says she won't take a cent that Stuyvesant doesn't earn.” He winked at Payne “I'll fix that when they've licked a little of the paint off,” said he.

“He ees a fine chap, Meester Stuyvesant,” said Alessandro eagerly. “When I was starving, he treats me like a brother. Next to my wife, I love him more than any person in zis world. And he is proud. When he was bankrupted, he would take from nobody but me. I have seen his friends try to give him money. Nevaire! He talks bad of himself, but it is not so. He has the heart of pure gold, like my sweetheart.”

“Come,” snapped Payne to Prudence. “Let's get out of this. Come into the garden and work the pump while I hold my head under the spout.”

Prudence laughed, and the two made good their escape from the salon and out of the front door, where they were greeted by squeals of rapture from a brace of cocker spaniels, sunning themselves on the stone steps. It was late in October, unusually mild for the season, and the charming French landscape was bathed in a soft, delicious haze. From the wooded chasse which encircled the house on three sides came autumn odors of leaf and mold with the fragrance of spicy smoke where the gardeners were burning the leaves raked from the lawns, still vividly green. In front of the château the ground fell gently away to the river valley, and in the distance one caught the golden gleam of the river, and the soft grays and reds of a little hamlet, conspicuous for its stone-arched bridge and an ancient mill.

Payne's château, which was really no more than a comfortable French country house, receiving its stately designation because it happened to be the largest place in the immediate neighborhood, had been thoroughly modernized by its late owner, a wealthy manufacturer of chocolate. The house was situated on the higher ground above a tributary of the Seine, and it was toward this little stream that Payne directed their steps.

“Would you like to row?” he asked the girl. “I've got a skiff down here in the boathouse.”

“That would be nice,” cried Prudence. “I'm dying for some good, brisk exercise.”

“Being English,” said Payne, “that is to be expected. I will steer.”

“You won't get seasick?”

“Not with you. You are my antidote for that evil.”

He sighed. It was in his mind that this pretty, wholesome English girl would be an effective antidote for most of the ills to which he had recently been subject, the most oppressive of these being the strong but vague desire for some lacking quality in his existence impossible to define. This unfilled want had been giving the young man many oppressive hours, and on reflection he discovered that it had had its source at about the time of his leaving France for America.

At first he had thought that Aline might be responsible, but a careful analysis of his emotions convinced him that of all persons whom he wished the least to see or hear about, his late fiancée ranked first on the list—excepting always her mother. But there was surely something wrong when he was no longer able to content himself with shooting, motoring, his dogs and horses, and the administration of his country place.

Payne had about come to the conclusion that his taste for the peace and quiet of French provincial life had been disordered by his recent glimpse of the strenuous conditions of his native land.

But, as he and Prudence strolled down the winding path which led to the river, Payne was suddenly conscious of a deep and encompassing content. It was not, however, until they had stepped aboard the skiff, the spaniels tumbling in after them, and Prudence had slipped off her jacket, rolled the sleeves back from her dimpled elbows, and picked up the light oars, that Payne's vague and abstract desires began to gather concrete form.

He gathered up the yoke lines, leaned back against the stern transom, and watched her. Prudence pulled along with strong and balanced strokes. Her eyes met his, and she flashed him a bright smile, but did not speak. Scarcely any words had been said since they had reached the stream, nor was there any need of speech. Both were happy in their companionship and surroundings.

There was no occasion to chatter. The little shallop glided smoothly and swiftly on the pale-green water which is characteristic of the streams in France. The spaniels sighted a poule d'eau under the rushes, and splashed overboard in chase, thereafter spattering along the reedy banks.

Payne and Prudence looked at each other, and smiled.

Some distance downstream, Payne glanced at his watch, and sighed.

“We must be turning back,” said he regretfully. “I told Steers that we would try the partridges this afternoon.”

Prudence nodded, then backed vigorously with one oar, pulling on the other. Her face was deliciously flushed, her red lips were parted, and her bright hair seemed to have gathered the reflected tints of the autumn foliage. She had loosened her collar, and her round throat was like cream.

“You don't mind if I make no effort to entertain you?” asked Payne.

“How absurd! I am always happy when—on the river,” she finished, in a slightly breathless tone, which might, or might not, have been the result of exercise.

But the telltale color heightened the rich tint of her cheeks. Payne's keen eyes observed it, and suddenly their deeper vision cleared. The hour had struck. The rosy but invisible little god who is wont to chaperon such parties whispered something in his ear. His heart raced off tumultuously, and the glow on the girl's face was reflected in his own. In that instant, Payne awoke to a knowledge of what he really wanted. And he wanted it so badly that for the moment he was in grave danger of upsetting the boat. But with a herculean effort he managed to sit still, waiting until he should feel the solid ground beneath his feet.

Perhaps Prudence understood, for her stroke became a little faltering, the high color fled, and there was an almost frightened look in her eyes. She glanced from bank to bank as though looking instinctively for the avenue of escape which there was not the slightest chance of her finding. This is the primitive emotion of the maid at the first glimpse of masterful design in the eyes of the conquering male. Payne saw it, and his usually cold eyes were lit by hot fires. Each knew, in that moment, that the other knew. There was not the slightest need for spoken words.

Nevertheless, when they reached the landing, and Payne, pale and silent, helped her out, words came, and in a flood that swept away the last, lingering hold that Prudence had upon her conscious actions. Before she realized it, her bare arms were about the neck of the man whom she had loved, almost at first sight, and for whom she had suffered hopelessly her life “downstairs.” Words that she had never dreamed she could utter rushed joyously from her quivering lips, while the boat drifted off unheeded to be caught by the swaying reeds, and the spaniels barked joyously and chased water hens up and down the stream.

“The true secret of happiness,” said Payne, as an epilogue to certain exercises, which, although the same in all civilized languages, have never yet been properly interpreted upon the printed page, “is, first, to know what one wants.”

“And the second?” asked Prudence, demure as only an English girl can be.

“The second,” said Payne, “is to get it. There is also a third.”

Prudence blushed furiously, then gathered courage to ask what that might be.

“The third,” said Payne, “is to keep on getting it.”

And he proceeded to prove, to the satisfaction of two people, that this view was no sophistry.

[[Category:romance]