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Kennedy Square

by Francis Hopkinson Smith · English · Gutenberg #4746 · 714,165 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Kennedy Square

Author: Francis Hopkinson Smith


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #4746]
                Most recently updated: March 8, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4746

Credits: Produced by Duncan Harrod, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENNEDY SQUARE ***




Produced by Duncan Harrod





KENNEDY SQUARE

By F. Hopkinson Smith




Author's Preface:

“Kennedy Square, in the late fifties, was a place of birds and trees and
flowers; of rude stone benches, sagging arbors smothered in vines, and
cool dirt paths bordered by sweet-smelling box. Giant magnolias filled
the air with their fragrance, and climbing roses played hide-and-seek
among the railings of the rotting fence. Along the shaded walks laughing
boys and girls romped all day, with hoop and ball, attended by old black
mammies in white aprons and gayly colored bandannas; while in the more
secluded corners, sheltered by protecting shrubs, happy lovers sat and
talked, tired wayfarers rested with hats off, and staid old gentlemen
read by the hour, their noses in their books.

“Outside of all this color, perfume, and old-time charm; outside the
grass-line and the rickety wooden fence that framed them in, ran an
uneven pavement splashed with cool shadows and stained with green mould.
Here, in summer, the watermelon man stopped his cart; and there, in
winter, upon its broken bricks, old Moses unhooked his bucket of oysters
and ceased for a moment his droning call.

“On the shady side of the square, and half hidden in ivy, was a Noah's
Ark church, topped by a quaint belfry holding a bell that had not rung
for years, and faced by a clock-dial all weather-stains and cracks,
around which travelled a single rusty hand. In its shadow to the right
lay the home of the archdeacon, a stately mansion with Corinthian
columns reaching to the roof and surrounded by a spacious garden filled
with damask roses and bushes of sweet syringa. To the left crouched
a row of dingy houses built of brick, their iron balconies hung in
flowering vines, the windows glistening with panes of wavy glass purpled
by age.

“On the sunny side of the square, opposite the church, were more houses,
high and low: one all garden, filled with broken-nosed statues hiding
behind still more magnolias; and another all veranda and honeysuckle,
big rocking-chairs and swinging hammocks; and still others with porticos
curtained by white jasmine or Virginia creeper.”--From “The Fortunes of
Oliver Horn.”





KENNEDY SQUARE




CHAPTER I



On the precise day on which this story opens--some sixty or more years
ago, to be exact--a bullet-headed, merry-eyed, mahogany-colored young
darky stood on the top step of an old-fashioned, high-stoop house,
craning his head up and down and across Kennedy Square in the effort to
get the first glimpse of his master, St. George Wilmot Temple, attorney
and counsellor-at-law, who was expected home from a ducking trip down
the bay.

Whether it was the need of this very diet, or whether St. George had
felt a sudden longing for the out-of-doors, is a matter of doubt, but
certain it is that some weeks before the very best shot in the county
had betaken himself to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, accompanied by
his guns, his four dogs, and two or three choice men of fashion--young
bloods of the time--men with whom we shall become better acquainted as
these chronicles go on--there to search for the toothsome and elusive
canvas-back for which his State was famous.

That the darky was without a hat and in his shirt-sleeves, and it
winter--the middle of January, really--the only warm thing about him
being the green baize apron tied about his waist, his customary livery
when attending to his morning duties--did not trouble him in the least.
Marse George might come any minute, and he wanted to be the first to
welcome him.

For the past few weeks Todd had had the house to himself. Coal-black
Aunt Jemima, with her knotted pig-tails, capacious bosom, and unconfined
waist, forty years his senior and ten shades darker in color, it is
true, looked after the pots and pans, to say nothing of a particular
spit on which her master's joints and game were roasted; but the upper
part of the house, which covered the drawing-room, dining-room, bedroom,
and dressing-room in the rear, as well as the outside of the dwelling,
including even the green-painted front door and the slant of white
marble steps that dropped to the brick sidewalk, were the especial
property of the chocolate-colored darky.

To these duties was added the exclusive care of the master himself--a
care which gave the boy the keenest delight, and which embraced every
service from the drawing off of St. George Wilmot Temple's boots to the
shortening of that gentleman's slightly gray hair; the supervision of
his linen, clothes, and table, with such side issues as the custody of
his well-stocked cellar, to say nothing of the compounding of various
combinations, sweet, sour, and strong, the betrayal of whose secrets
would have cost the darky his place.

“Place” is the word, for Todd was not St. George's slave, but the
property of a well-born, if slightly impoverished, gentleman who lived
on the Eastern Shore, and whose chief source of income was the hiring
out to his friends and acquaintances of just such likely young darkies
as Todd--a custom common to the impecunious of those days.

As Mr. Temple, however, did not come under either one of the
above-mentioned classes--the “slightly impoverished gentleman” never
having laid eyes on him in his life--the negotiations had to be
conducted with a certain formality. Todd had therefore, on his arrival,
unpinned from the inside of his jacket a portentous document signed
with his owner's name and sealed with a red wafer, which after such
felicitous phrases as--“I have the distinguished honor,” etc.--gave the
boy's age (21), weight (140 pounds), and height (5 feet 10 inches)--all
valuable data for identification in case the chattel conceived a notion
of moving further north (an unnecessary precaution in Todd's case).
To this was added the further information that the boy had been raised
under his master's heels, that he therefore knew his pedigree, and that
his sole and only reason for sparing him from his own immediate service
was his own poverty and the fact that while under St. George's care the
boy could learn how “to wait on quality.”

As to the house itself--the “Temple Mansion,” as it was called--that
was as much a part of Kennedy Square as the giant magnolias gracing the
park, or the Noah's Ark church, with its quaint belfry and cracked bell,
which faced its shady walks. Nobody, of course, remembered how long it
had been built--that is, nobody then alive--I mean the very date. Such
authorities as Major Clayton were positive that the bricks had been
brought from Holland; while Richard Horn, the rising young scientist,
was sure that all the iron and brass work outside were the product of
Sheffield; but in what year they had all been put together had always
been a disputed question.

That, however, which was certain and beyond doubt, was that St. George's
father, old General Dorsey Temple, had purchased the property near the
close of the preceding century; that he had, with his characteristic
vehemence, pushed up the roof, thrust in two dormer windows, and smashed
out the rear wall, thus enlarging the dining-room and giving increased
space for a glass-covered porch ending in a broad flight of wooden steps
descending to a rose-garden surrounded by a high brick wall; that thus
encouraged he had widened the fireplaces, wainscoted the hall, built a
new mahogany spider-web staircase leading to his library on the second
floor, and had otherwise disported himself after the manner of a man
who, having suddenly fallen heir to a big pot of money, had ever after
continued oblivious to the fact that the more holes he punched in
its bottom the less water would spill over its top. The alterations
complete, balls, routs, and dinners followed to such distinguished
people as Count Rochambeau, the Marquis de Castellux, Marquis de
Lafayette, and other high dignitaries, coming-of-age parties for the
young bloods--quite English in his tastes was the old gentleman--not
to mention many other extravagances which were still discussed by the
gossips of the day.

With the general's death--it had occurred some twenty years before--the
expected had happened. Not only was the pot nearly empty, but the
various drains which it had sustained had so undermined the family
rent-roll that an equally disastrous effect had been produced on the
mansion itself (one of the few pieces of property, by the way, that
the father had left to his only son and heir unencumbered, with the
exception of a suit in chancery from which nobody ever expected a
penny), the only dry spots in St. George's finances being the few ground
rents remaining from his grandmother's legacy and the little he could
pick up at the law.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that certain changes and
deteriorations had taken place inside and out of the historic
building--changes which never in the slightest degree affected the
even-tempered St. George, who had retained his own private apartments
regardless of the rest of the house--but changes which, in all justice
to the irascible old spendthrift, would have lifted that gentleman out
of his grave could he have realized their effect and extent. What a
shock, for instance, would the most punctilious man of his time have
received when he found his front basement rented for a law office, to
say nothing of a disreputable tin sign nailed to a shutter--where in
the olden time he and his cronies had toasted their shins before blazing
logs, the toddies kept hot on the hearth! And what a row would he have
raised had he known that the rose-garden was entirely neglected and
given over to the dogs and their kennels; the library in the second
story stripped of its books and turned into a guest-chamber, and the
books themselves consigned to the basement; the oak-panelled dining-room
transformed into a bedchamber for St. George, and the white-and-gold
drawing-room fronting the street reduced to a mere living-room where his
son and heir made merry with his friends! And then the shrinkages all
about! When a room could be dispensed with, it was locked up. When a
shingle broke loose, it stayed loose; and so did the bricks capping the
chimneys, and the leaky rain-spouts that spattered the dingy bricks, as
well as the cracks and crannies that marred the ceilings and walls.

And yet so great was Todd's care over the outside fittings of the
house--details which were necessarily in evidence, and which determined
at a glance the quality of the folks inside--that these several
crumblings, shake-downs, and shrinkages were seldom noticed by the
passer-by. The old adage that a well-brushed hat, a clean collar,
polished shoes, and immaculate gloves--all terminal details--make
the well-dressed man, no matter how shabby or how ill-fitting his
intermediate apparel, applied, according to Todd's standards, to houses
as well as Brummels. He it was who soused the windows of purple glass,
polished the brass knobs, rubbed bright the brass knocker and brass
balls at the top and bottom of the delightful iron railings, to say
nothing of the white marble steps, which he attacked with a slab of
sandstone and cake of fuller's-earth, bringing them to so high a state
of perfection that one wanted to apologize for stepping on them. Thus
it was that the weather-beaten rainspouts, stained bricks, sagging roof,
and blistered window-sashes were no longer in evidence. Indeed, their
very shabbiness so enhanced the brilliancy of Todd's handiwork that the
most casual passers-by were convinced at a glance that gentlefolk lived
within.


On this particular morning, then, Todd had spent most of the time since
daylight--it was now eight o'clock--in the effort to descry his master
making his way along the street, either afoot or by some conveyance, his
eyes dancing, his ears alert as a rabbit's, his restless feet marking
the limit of his eagerness. In his impatience he had practised every
step known to darkydom in single and double shuffle; had patted juba on
one and both knees, keeping time with his heels to the rhythm; had slid
down and climbed up the railings a dozen times, his eyes on the turn in
the street, and had otherwise conducted himself as would any other boy,
black or white, who was at his wits' end to know what to do with the
next second of his time.

Aunt Jemima had listened to the racket until she had lost all patience,
and at last threw up the basement window:

“Go in an' shet dat do'--'fo' I come up dar an' smack ye--'nough ter
make a body deef ter hear ye,” she called, her black shining face
dividing the curtains. “How you know he's a-comin'?”

Todd leaned over the railing and peered down: “Mister Harry Rutter done
tol' me--said dey all 's a-comin'--de jedge an' Doctor Teackle an'
Marse George an' de hull kit an' bilin'. Dey's been gone mos' two weeks
now,--dey's a-comin' I tell ye--be yere any minute.”

“I b'liebe dat when I sees it. Fool nigger like you b'liebe anything.
You better go inside 'fo' you catch yo' dea'f. I gin ye fair warnin'
right now dat I ain't gwineter nuss ye,--d'ye yere?--standin' out dar
like a tarr-pin wid yo' haid out. Go in I tell ye!” and she shut the
window with a bang and made her way to the kitchen.

Todd kept up his double shuffle with everything going--hands, feet,
and knees--thrashed his arms about his chest and back to keep up the
circulation and with a final grimace in the direction of the old cook
maintained his watch.

“I spec's it's de fog dat's kep' 'em,” he muttered anxiously, his feet
still in action. “Dat bay boat's mos' allus late,--can't tell when
she'll git in. Only las' week--Golly!--dar he is--DAT'S HIM!”

A mud-bespattered gig was swinging around the corner into the Square,
and with a swerve in its course was heading to where Todd stood.

The boy sprang down the steps:

“Yere he is, Aunt Jemima!” he shouted, as if the old cook could have
heard him through three brick walls.

The gig came to a stand-still and began to unload: first the dogs, who
had been stowed under their master's feet since they left the steamboat
wharf, and who with a clear bound to the sidewalk began scouring in mad
circles, one after another, up and down Todd's immaculate steps, the
four in full cry until the entire neighborhood was aroused, the late
sleepers turning over with the remark--“Temple's at home,” and the early
risers sticking their heads out of the windows to count the ducks as
they were passed out. Next the master: One shapely leg encased in
an English-made ducking boot, then its mate, until the whole of his
handsome, well-knit, perfectly healthy and perfectly delightful body was
clear of the cramped conveyance.

“Hello, Todd!” he burst out, his face aglow with his drive from the
boat-landing--“glad to see you! Here, take hold of these guns---easy
now, they won't hurt you; one at a time, you lunkhead! And now pull
those ducks from under the seat. How's Aunt Jemima?--Oh, is that
you aunty?” She had come on the run as soon as she heard the dogs.
“Everything all right, aunty--howdy--” and he shook her hand heartily.

The old woman had made a feint to pull her sleeves down over her plump
black arms and then, begrudging the delay, had grasped his outstretched
hand, her face in a broad grin.

“Yes, sah, dat's me. Clar' to goodness, Marse George, I's glad ter
git ye home. Lawd-a-massy, see dem ducks! Purty fat, ain't dey, sah?
My!--dat pair's jes' a-bustin'! G'long you fool nigger an' let me hab
'em! G'way f'om dere I tell ye!”

“No,--you pick them up, Todd--they're too heavy for you, aunty. You go
back to your kitchen and hurry up breakfast--waffles, remember,--and
some corn pone and a scallop shell or two--I'm as hungry as a bear.”

The whole party were mounting the steps now, St. George carrying the
guns, Todd loaded down with the game--ten brace of canvas-backs and
redheads strung together by their bills--the driver of the gig following
with the master's big ducking overcoat and smaller traps--the four dogs
crowding up trying to nose past for a dash into the wide hall as soon as
Todd opened the door.

“Anybody been here lately, Todd?” his master asked, stopping for a
moment to get a better grip of his heaviest duck gun.

“Ain't nobody been yere partic'ler 'cept Mister Harry Rutter. Dey alls
knowed you was away. Been yere mos' ev'ry day--come ag'in yisterday.”

“Mr. Rutter been here!--Well, what did he want?”

“Dunno, sah,--didn't say. Seemed consid'ble shook up when he foun' you
warn't to home. I done tol' him you might be back to-day an' den ag'in
you mightn't--'pended on de way de ducks was flyin'. Spec' he'll be
roun' ag'in purty soon--seemed ter hab sumpin' on his min'. I'll tu'n de
knob, sah. Yere--git down, you imp o' darkness,--you Floe!--you Dandy!
Drat dem dogs!--Yere, YERE!” but all four dogs were inside now, making
a sweepstakes of the living-room, the rugs and cushions flying in every
direction.

Although Todd had spent most of the minutes since daylight peering up
and down the Square, eager for the first sight of the man whom he loved
with an idolatry only to be found in the negro for a white man whom he
respects, and who is kind to him, he had not neglected any of his other
duties. There was a roaring wood fire behind brass andirons and fender.
There was a breakfast table set for two--St. George's invariable custom.
“Somebody might drop in, you know, Todd.” There was a big easy-chair
moved up within warming distance of the cheery blaze; there were pipes
and tobacco within reach of the master's hand; there was the
weekly newspaper folded neatly on the mantel, and a tray holding an
old-fashioned squat decanter and the necessary glasses--in fact, all
the comforts possible and necessary for a man who having at twenty-five
given up all hope of wedded life, found himself at fifty becoming
accustomed to its loss.

St. George seized the nearest dog by the collar, cuffed him into
obedience as an example to the others, ordered the four to the hearth
rug, ran his eye along the mantel to see what letters had arrived in his
absence, and disappeared into his bedroom. From thence he emerged
half an hour later attired in the costume of the day--a jaunty
brown velveteen jacket, loose red scarf, speckled white
waistcoat--single-breasted and of his own pattern and cut--dove-gray
trousers, and white gaiters. No town clothes for St. George as long as
his measure was in London and his friends were good enough to bring
him a trunk full every year or two. “Well-cut garments may not make
a gentleman,” he would often say to the youngsters about him, “but
slip-shod clothes can spoil one.”

He had drawn up to the table now, Todd in white jacket hovering about
him, bringing relays of waffles, hot coffee, and more particularly the
first of a series of great scallop-shells filled with oysters which he
had placed on the well-brushed hearth to keep hot while his master was
dressing.

Fifty he was by the almanac, and by the old family Bible as well, and
yet he did not look it. Six feet and an inch; straight, ruddy-checked,
broad-shouldered, well-rounded, but with his waist measure still under
control; slightly gray at the temples, with clean-shaven face, laughing
eyes, white teeth, and finely moulded nose, brow, and chin, he was
everything his friends claimed--the perfect embodiment of all that was
best in his class and station, and of all that his blood had bequeathed
him.

And fine old fellows they were if we can believe the historians of the
seventeenth century: “Wearing the falchion and the rapier, the cloth
coat lined with plush and embroidered belt, the gold hat-band and the
feathers, silk stockings and garters, besides signet rings and other
jewels; wainscoting the walls of their principal rooms in black oak and
loading their sideboards with a deal of rich and massive silver plate
upon which was carved the arms of their ancestors;--drinking, too,
strong punch and sack from 'silver sack-cups'--(sack being their
favorite)--and feasting upon oysters and the most delicious of all the
ducks of the world.”

And in none of their other distinguishing qualities was their descendant
lacking. In the very lift of his head and brace of his shoulders; in the
grace and ease with which he crossed the room, one could see at a glance
something of the dash and often the repose of the cavalier from whom
he had sprung. And the sympathy, kindness, and courtesy of the man
that showed in every glance of his eye and every movement of his
body--despite his occasional explosive temper--a sympathy that drifted
in to an ungovernable impulse to divide everything he owned into two
parts, and his own half into two once more if the other fellow needed
it; a kindness that made every man his friend, and a courtesy which,
even in a time when men lifted their hats to men, as well as to women,
had gained for him, the town over, the soubriquet of “Gentleman George”;
while to every young girl and youth under twenty he was just “dear Uncle
George”--the one man in all Kennedy Square who held their secrets.


But to our breakfast once more. All four dogs were on their feet now,
their tails wagging expectantly, their noses at each of his knees, where
they were regaled at regular intervals with choice bits from his plate,
the snapping of their solemn jaws expressing their thanks. A second
scallop-shell was next lifted from the hearth with the tongs, and
deposited sizzling hot on a plate beside the master, the aroma of the
oysters filling the room. These having disappeared, as had the former
one, together with the waffles and coffee, and the master's appetite
being now on the wane, general conversation became possible.

“Did Mr. Rutter look ill, Todd?” he continued, picking up the thread of
the talk where he had left it. “He wasn't very well when I left.”

“No, sah,--neber see him look better. Been up a li'l' late I
reckon,--Marse Harry mos' gen'ally is a li'l' mite late, sah--” Todd
chuckled. “But dat ain't nuthin' to dese gemmans. But he sho' do wanter
see ye. Maybe he stayed all night at Mister Seymour's. If he did an' he
yered de rumpus dese rapscallions kicked up--yes--dat's you I'm talkin'
to”--and he looked toward the dogs--“he'll be roun' yere 'fo' ye gits
fru yo' bre'kfus'. Dey do say as how Marse Harry's mighty sweet in dat
quarter. Mister Langdon Willits's snoopin' roun' too, but Miss Kate
ain't got no use fer him. He ain't quality dey say.”

His master let him run on; Aunt Jemima was Todd's only outlet during
his master's absence, and as this was sometimes clogged by an uplifted
broom, he made the best use he could of the opportunities when he
and his master were alone. When “comp'ny” were present he was as
close-mouthed as a clam and as noiseless as a crab.

“Who told you all this gossip, Todd?” exclaimed St. George with a smile,
laying down his knife and fork.

“Ain't nary one tol' me--ain't no use bein' tol'. All ye got to do is
to keep yo' eyes open. Be a weddin' dar 'fo' spring. Look out, sah--dat
shell's still a-sizzlin'. Mo' coffee, sah? Wait till I gits some hot
waffles--won't take a minute!” and he was out of the room and downstairs
before his master could answer.

Hardly had he slammed the kitchen door behind him when the clatter and
stamp of a horse's hoofs were heard Outside, followed by an impatient
rat-a-tat-tat on the knocker.

The boy dropped his dishes: “Fo' Gawd, dat's Mister Harry!” he cried as
he started on a run for the door. “Don't nobody bang de do' down like
dat but him.”

A slender, thoroughly graceful young fellow of twenty-one or two, booted
and spurred, his dark eyes flashing, his face tingling with the sting of
the early morning air, dashed past the obsequious darky and burst into
Temple's presence with the rush of a north-west breeze. He had ridden
ten miles since he vaulted into the saddle, had never drawn rein uphill
or down, and neither he nor the thoroughbred pawing the mud outside had
turned a hair.

“Hello, Uncle George!” Temple, as has been said, was Uncle George to
every girl and youth in Kennedy Square.

“Why, Harry!” He had sprung from his seat, napkin in hand and had him
by both shoulders, looking into his eyes as if he wanted to hug him, and
would the first thing he knew. “Where are you from--Moorlands? What a
rollicking chap you are, and you look so well and handsome, you dog!
And now tell me of your dear mother and your father. But first down
with you--here--right opposite--always your place, my dear Harry. Todd,
another shell of oysters and more waffles and coffee--everything, Todd,
and blazing hot: two shells, Todd--the sight of you, Harry, makes me
ravenous again, and I could have eaten my boots, when I got home an hour
ago, I was so hungry. But the mare”--here he moved to the window--“is
she all right? Spitfire, I suppose--you'd kill anything else, you
rascal! But you haven't tied her!”

“No--never tie her--break her heart if I did. Todd, hang up this coat
and hat in the hall before you go.”

“That's what you said of that horse you bought of Hampson--ran away,
didn't he?” persisted his host, his eyes on the mare, which had now
become quiet.

“Yes, and broke his leg. But Spitfire's all right--she'll stand. Where
will I sit--here? And now what kind of a time did you have, and who were
with you?”

“Clayton, Doctor Teackle, and the judge.”

“And how many ducks did you get?” and he dropped into his chair.

“Twenty-one,” answered St. George, dry-washing his white shapely hands,
as he took his seat--a habit of his when greatly pleased.

“All canvas-backs?”

“No--five redheads and a mallard.”

“Where did you put up?” echoed Harry, loosening his riding-jacket to
give his knife and fork freer play.

“I spent a week at Tom Coston's and a week at Craddock. Another lump of
sugar, Todd.”

The boy laughed gently: “Lazy Tom's?”

“Lazy Tom's--and the best-hearted fellow in the world. They're going to
make him a judge, they say and--”

“--What of--peach brandy? No cream in mine, Todd.”

“No--you scurrilous dog--of the Common Court,” retorted St. George,
looking at him over the top of his cup. “Very good lawyer is Tom--got
horse sense and can speak the truth--make a very good judge.”

Again Harry laughed--rather a forced laugh this time, as if he were
trying to make himself agreeable but with so anxious a ring through it
that Todd busied himself about the table before going below for fresh
supplies, making excuse of collecting the used dishes. If there were to
be any revelations concerning the situation at the Seymour house, he did
not intend to miss any part of them.

“Better put Mrs. Coston on the bench and set Tom to rocking the cradle,”
 said the young man, reaching for the plate of corn pone. “She's a
thoroughbred if ever I saw one, and does credit to her blood. But go
on--tell me about the birds. Are they flying high?--and the duck blinds;
have they fixed them up? They were all going to pot when I was there
last.”

“Birds out of range, most of them--hard work getting what I did. As to
the blinds, they are still half full of water--got soaking wet trying to
use one. I shot most of mine from the boat just as the day broke,” and
then followed a full account of what the party had bagged, with details
of every day's adventures. This done, St. George pushed back his chair
and faced the young man.

“And now you take the witness-stand, sir--look me in the eyes, put your
hand on your fob-pocket and tell me the truth. Todd says you have
been here every day for a week looking as if you had lost your last
fip-penny-bit and wild to see me. What has happened?”

“Todd has a vivid imagination.” He turned in his seat, stretched out
his hand, and catching one of the dogs by the nose rubbed his head
vigorously.

“Go on--all of it--no dodging the king's counsellor. What's the matter?”

The young man glanced furtively at Todd, grabbed another dog, rubbed
their two ears together in play, and in a lowered voice, through which a
tinge of sadness was only too apparent, murmured:

“Miss Kate--we've had a falling out.”

St. George lowered his head suddenly and gave a low whistle:--“Falling
out?--what about?”

Again young Rutter glanced at Todd, whose back was turned, but whose
ears were stretched to splitting point. His host nodded understandingly.

“There, Todd--that will do; now go down and get your breakfast. No
more waffles, tell Aunt Jemima. Bring the pipes over here and throw on
another log... that's right.” A great sputtering of sparks followed--a
spider-legged, mahogany table was wheeled into place, and the dejected
darky left the room for the regions below.

“So you two have had a quarrel! Oh, Harry!--when will you learn to think
twice before you speak? Whose fault was it?” sighed St. George, filling
the bowl of his pipe with his slender fingers, slowly tucking in each
shred and grain.

“Mine.”

“What did you say?” (Puff-puff.)

“Nothing--I couldn't. She came in and saw it all.” The boy had his
elbows on the table now, his cheeks sunk in his hands.

St. George looked up: “Drunk, were you?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At Mrs. Cheston's ball last week.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“No--she won't let me come near her. Mr. Seymour passed me yesterday and
hardly spoke to me.”

St. George canted his chair and zigzagged it toward the blazing hearth;
then he said thoughtfully, without looking at the young man:

“Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish! Have you told your father?”

“No--he wouldn't understand.”

“And I know you didn't tell your mother.” This came with the tone of
positive conviction.

“No--and don't you. Mother is daft on the subject. If she had her way,
father would never put a drop of wine on the table. She says it is
ruining the county--but that's mother's way.”

St. George stooped over, fondled one of the dogs for a moment--two had
followed Todd out of the room--settled back in his chair again, and
still looking into the fire, said slowly:

“Bad business--bad business, Harry! Kate is as proud as Lucifer and
dislikes nothing on earth so much as being made conspicuous. Tell me
exactly what happened.”

“Well, there isn't anything to tell,” replied the young fellow, raising
his head and leaning back in his chair, his face the picture of despair.
“We were all in the library and the place was boiling-hot, and they had
two big bowls, one full of eggnog and the other full of apple-toddy: and
the next thing I knew I was out in the hall and met Kate on the stairs.
She gave a little smothered scream, and moaned--'Oh, Harry!--and you
promised me!'--and then she put her hands to her face, as if to shut me
out of her sight. That sobered me somewhat, and after I got out on the
porch into the night air and had pulled myself together, I tried to find
her and apologize, but she had gone home, although the ball wasn't half
over.

“Then this was not the first time?” He was still at the hot coals, both
hands outfanned, to screen his face from the blaze.

“No--I'm sorry to say it wasn't. I told her I would never fail her
again, and she forgave me, but I don't know what she'll do now. She
never forgives anybody who breaks his word--she's very queer about
it. That's what I came to see you about. I haven't slept much nights,
thinking it over, and so I had the mare saddled, as soon as it got
light, hoping you would be home. Todd thought you might be--he saw Dr.
Teackle's Joe, who said you were all coming to-day.”

Again there was a long pause, during which Temple continued to study the
coals through his open fingers, the young man sitting hunched up in
his chair, his handsome head dropped between his shoulders, his glossy
chestnut hair, a-frouze with his morning ride, fringing his collar
behind.

“Harry,” said St. George, knocking the ashes slowly from his pipe on
the edge of the fender, and turning his face for the first time toward
him,--“didn't I hear something before I went away about a ball at your
father's--or a dance--or something, when your engagement was to be
announced?”

The boy nodded.

“And was it not to be something out of the ordinary?” he continued,
looking at the boy from under his eyelids--“Teackle certainly told me
so--said that your mother had already begun to get the house in order--”

Again Harry nodded--as if he had been listening to an indictment, every
word of which he knew was true.

St. George roused himself and faced his guest: “And yet you took this
time, Harry, to--”

The boy threw up both hands in protest:

“Don't!--DON'T! Uncle George! It's the ball that makes it all the worse.
That's why I've got no time to lose; that's why I've haunted this place
waiting for you to get back. Mother will be heart-broken if she finds
out and I don't know what father would do.”

St. George laid his empty pipe on the table and straightened his body
in the chair until his broad shoulders filled the back. Then his brow
darkened; his indignation was getting the better of him.

“I don't know what has come over you young fellows, Harry!” he at last
broke out, his eyes searching the boy's. “You don't seem to know how
to live. You've got to pull a shoat out of a trough to keep it from
overeating itself, but you shouldn't be obliged to pull a gentleman away
from his glass. Good wine is good food and should be treated as such. My
cellar is stocked with old Madeira--some port--some fine sherries--so
is your father's. Have you ever seen him abuse them?--have you ever
seen Mr. Horn or Mr. Kennedy, or any of our gentlemen around here, abuse
them? It's scandalous, Harry! damnable! I love you, my son--love you
in a way you know nothing of, but you've got to stop this sort of thing
right off. And so have these young roysterers you associate with. It's
getting worse every day. I don't wonder your dear mother feels about it
as she does. But she's always been that way, and she's always been right
about it, too, although I didn't use to think so.” This last came with
a lowered voice and a deep, indrawn sigh, and for the moment checked the
flow of his wrath.

Harry hung his head still lower, but he did not attempt to defend
himself.

“Who else were making vulgarians of themselves at Mrs. Cheston's?” St.
George continued in a calmer tone, stretching his shapely legs until the
soles of his shoes touched the fender.

“Mark Gilbert, Tom Murdoch, Langdon Willits, and--”

“Willits, eh?--Well, I should expect it of Willits. He wasn't born a
gentleman--that is, his grandfather wasn't a gentleman--married his
overseer's daughter, if I remember right:--but you come of the
best blood in the State,--egad!--none better! You have something to
maintain--some standard to keep up. A Rutter should never be found
guilty of anything that would degrade his name. You seem to forget
that--you--damn me, Harry!--when I think of it all--and of Kate--my
sweet, lovely Kate,--and how you have made her suffer--for she loves
you--no question of that--I feel like wringing your neck! What the devil
do you mean, Sir?” He was up on his feet now, pacing the room, the dogs
following his every movement with their brown agate eyes, their soft,
silky ears straightening and falling.

So far the young fellow had not moved nor had he offered a word in
defence. He knew his Uncle George--better let him blow it all out, then
the two could come together. At last he said in a contrite tone--his
hands upraised:

“Don't scold me, Uncle George. I've scolded myself enough--just say
something to help me. I can't give Kate up--I'd sooner die. I've always
made a fool of myself--maybe I'll quit doing it after this. Tell me how
I can straighten this out. She won't see me--maybe her father won't.
He and my father--so Tom Warfield told me yesterday--had a talk at the
club. What they said I don't know, but Mr. Seymour was pretty mad--that
is, for him--so Tom thought from the way he spoke.”

“And he ought to be mad--raging mad! He's only got one daughter, and she
the proudest and loveliest thing on earth, and that one he intends to
give to you”--Harry looked up in surprise--“Yes--he told me so. And here
you are breaking her heart before he has announced it to the world. It's
worse than damnable, Harry--it's a CRIME!”

For some minutes he continued his walk, stopping to look out of the
window, his eyes on the mare who, with head up and restless eyes, was on
the watch for her master's return; then he picked up his pipe from the
table, threw himself into his chair again, and broke into one of his
ringing laughs.

“I reckon it's because you're twenty, Harry, I forgot that. Hot
blood--hot temper,--madcap dare-devil that you are--not a grain of
common-sense. But what can you expect?--I was just like you at your age.
Come, now, what shall we do first?”

The young fellow rose and a smile of intense relief crept over his face.
He had had many such overhaulings from his uncle, and always with this
ending. Whenever St. George let out one of those big, spontaneous,
bubbling laughs straight from his heart, the trouble, no matter how
serious, was over. What some men gained by anger and invective St.
George gained by good humor, ranging from the faint smile of toleration
to the roar of merriment. One reason why he had so few enemies--none,
practically--was that he could invariably disarm an adversary with a
laugh. It was a fine old blade that he wielded; only a few times in his
life had he been called upon to use any other--when some under-dog was
maltreated, or his own good name or that of a friend was traduced, or
some wrong had to be righted--then his face would become as hot steel
and there would belch out a flame of denunciation that would scorch
and blind in its intensity. None of these fiercer moods did the boy
know;--what he knew was his uncle's merry side--his sympathetic, loving
side,--and so, following up his advantage, he strode across the room,
settled down on the arm of his uncle's chair, and put his arm about his
shoulders.

“Won't you go and see her, please?” he pleaded, patting his back,
affectionately.

“What good will that do? Hand me a match, Harry.”

“Everything--that's what I came for.”

“Not with Kate! She isn't a child--she's a woman,” he echoed back
between the puffs, his indignation again on the rise. “And she is
different from the girls about here,” he added, tossing the burned match
in the fire. “When she once makes up her mind it stays made up.”

“Don't let her make it up! Go and see her and tell her how I love her
and how miserable I am. Tell her I'll never break another promise to
her as long as I live. Nobody ever holds out against you. Please, Uncle
George! I'll never come to you for anything else in the world if you'll
help me this time. And I won't drink another drop of anything you don't
want me to drink--I don't care what father or anybody else says. Oh,
you've GOT to go to her!--I can't stand it any longer! Every time I
think of Kate hidden away over there where I can't get at her, it drives
me wild. I wouldn't ask you to go if I could go myself and talk it out
with her--but she won't let me near her--I've tried, and tried; and Ben
says she isn't at home, and knows he lies when he says it! You will go,
won't you?”

The smoke from his uncle's pipe was coming freer now--most of it
escaping up the throat of the chimney with a gentle swoop.

“When do you want me to go?” He had already surrendered. When had he
ever held out when a love affair was to be patched up?

“Now, right away.”

“No,--I'll go to-night,--she will be at home then,” he said at last,
as if he had just made up his mind, the pipe having helped--“and do
you come in about nine and--let me know when you are there, or--better
still, wait in the hall until I come for you.”

“But couldn't I steal in while you are talking?”

“No--you do just as I tell you. Not a sound out of you, remember, until
I call you.”

“But how am I to know? She might go out the other door and--”

“You'll know when I come for you.”

“And you think it will be all right, don't you?” he pleaded. “You'll
tell her what an awful time I've had, won't you, Uncle George?”

“Yes, every word of it.”

“And that I haven't slept a wink since--”

“Yes--and that you are going to drown yourself and blow your head off
and swallow poison. Now off with you and let me think how I am to begin
straightening out this idiotic mess. Nine o'clock, remember, and in the
hall until I come for you.”

“Yes--nine o'clock! Oh!--you good Uncle George! I'll never forget you
for it,” and with a grasp of St. George's hand and another outpouring
of gratitude, the young fellow swung wide the door, clattered down the
steps, threw his leg over Spitfire, and dashed up the street.




CHAPTER II



If Kate's ancestors had wasted any part of their substance in too lavish
a hospitality, after the manner of the spendthrift whose extravagances
were recounted in the preceding chapter, there was nothing to indicate
it in the home of their descendants. No loose shutters, crumbling
chimneys, or blistered woodwork defaced the Seymour mansion:--the touch
of the restorer was too apparent. No sooner did a shutter sag or a hinge
give way than away it went to the carpenter or the blacksmith; no sooner
did a banister wabble, or a table crack, or an andiron lose a leg, than
up came somebody with a kit, or a bag, or a box of tools, and they were
as good as new before you could wink your eye. Indeed, so great was the
desire to keep things up that it was only necessary (so a wag said) to
scratch a match on old Seymour's front door to have its panels repainted
the next morning.

And then its seclusion:--while its neighbors--the Temple mansion among
them--had been placed boldly out to the full building line where they
could see and be seen, the Seymours, with that spirit of aloofness which
had marked the family for generations, had set their dwelling back ten
paces, thrown up a hedge of sweet-smelling box to screen the inmates
from the gaze of passers-by, planted three or four big trees as
protection for the upper windows, and, to insure still greater privacy,
had put up a swinging wooden gate, kept shut by a ball and chain, its
clang announcing the entrance of each and every visitor.

And this same spirit was manifest the moment you stepped into the wide
hall, glanced at the old family portraits marching steadily, one after
another, up the side of the spacious stairs (revarnished every other
year)--entered the great drawing-room hung with yellow satin
and decorated with quaint mirrors, and took a scat in one of the
all-embracing arm-chairs, there to await the arrival of either the
master of the house or his charming daughter.

If it were the master to whom you wished to pay your respects, one
glance at the Honorable Howard Douglass Seymour would have convinced you
that he was precisely the kind of man who should have had charge of
so well-ordered a home: so well brushed was he--so clean-shaven--so
immaculately upholstered--the two points of his collar pinching his
cheeks at the same precise angle; his faultless black stock fitting to
perfection, the lapels of his high-rolled coat matching exactly. And
then the correct parting of the thin gray hair and the two little gray
brush-tails of lovelocks that were combed in front of his ears, there
to become a part of the two little dabs of gray whiskers that stretched
from his temples to his bleached cheekbones. Yes--a most carefully
preserved, prim, and well-ordered person was Kate's father.

As to the great man's career, apart from his service in the legislature,
which won him his title, there was no other act of his life which
marked him apart from his fellows. Suffice it to say that he was born
a gentleman without a penny to his name; that he married Kate's mother
when she was twenty and he forty (and here is another story, and a sad
one)--she the belle of her time--and sole heir to the estate of her
grandfather, Captain Hugh Barkeley, the rich ship-owner--and that the
alliance had made him a gentleman of unlimited leisure, she, at her
death, having left all her property to her daughter Kate, with the
Honorable Prim as custodian.

And this trust, to his credit be it said--for Seymour was of Scotch
descent, a point in his favor with old Captain Barkeley, who was
Scotch on his mother's side, and, therefore, somewhat canny--was most
religiously kept, he living within his ample means--or Kate's, which was
the same thing--discharging the duties of father, citizen, and friend,
with the regularity of a clock--so many hours with his daughter, so many
hours at his club, so many hours at his office; the intermediate minutes
being given over to resting, dressing, breakfasting, dining, sleeping,
and no doubt praying; the precise moment that marked the beginning and
ending of each task having been fixed years in advance by this most
exemplary, highly respectable, and utterly colorless old gentleman of
sixty.

That this dry shell of a man could be the father of our spontaneous
lovely Kate was one of the things that none of the younger people around
Kennedy Square could understand--but then few of them had known her
beautiful mother with her proud step and flashing eyes.

But it is not the punctilious, methodical Prim whom St. George wishes to
see to-night; nor does he go through any of the formalities customary
to the house. There is no waiting until old Ben, the family butler in
snuff-colored coat and silver buttons, shuffles upstairs or into the
library, or wherever the inmates were to be found, there to announce
“Massa George Temple.” Nor did he send in his card, or wait until his
knock was answered. He simply swung back the gate until the old chain
and ball, shocked at his familiarity, rattled itself into a rage, strode
past the neatly trimmed, fragrant box, pushed open the door--no front
door was ever locked in the daytime in Kennedy Square, and few at
night--and halting at the bottom step, called up the silent stairs in a
voice that was a joyous greeting in itself:

“Kate, you darling! come down as quick as your dear little feet will
carry you! It's Uncle George, do you hear?--or shall I come up and bring
you down in my arms, you bunch of roses? It won't be the first time.”
 The first time was when she was a year old.

“Oh!--is that you, Uncle George? Yes,--just as soon as I do up my back
hair.” The voice came from the top of the stairs--a lark's voice singing
down from high up. “Father's out and--”

“Yes--I know he's out; I met him on his way to the club. Hurry now--I've
got the best news in the world for you.”

“Yes--in a minute.”

He knew her minutes, and how long they could be, and in his impatience
roamed about the wide hall examining the old English engravings and
colored prints decorating the panels until he heard her step overhead
and looking up watched her cross the upper hall, her well-poised,
aristocratic head high in air, her full, well-rounded, blossoming body
imaged in the loose embroidered scarf wound about her sloping shoulders.
Soon he caught the wealth of her blue-black hair in whose folds her
negro mammy had pinned a rose that matched the brilliancy of her cheeks,
two stray curls wandering over her neck; her broad forehead, with
clearly marked eyebrows, arching black lashes shading lustrous,
slumbering eyes; and as she drew nearer, her warm red lips, exquisite
teeth, and delicate chin, and last, the little feet that played hide and
seek beneath her quilted petticoat: a tall, dark, full-blooded, handsome
girl of eighteen with an air of command and distinction tempered by a
certain sweet dignity and delicious coquetry--a woman to be loved even
when she ruled and to be reverenced even when she trifled.

She had reached the floor now, and the two arm in arm, he patting her
hand, she laughing beside him, had entered the small library followed by
the old butler bringing another big candelabra newly lighted.

“It's so good of you to come,” she cried, her face alight with the joy
of seeing him--“and you look so happy and well--your trip down the bay
has done you a world of good. Ben says the ducks you sent father are the
best we have had this winter. Now tell me, dear Uncle George”--she had
him in one of the deep arm-chairs by this time, with a cushion behind
his shoulders--“I am dying to hear all about it.”

“Don't you 'dear Uncle George' me until you've heard what I've got to
say.”

“But you said you had the best news in the world for me,” she laughed,
looking at him from under her lashes.

“So I have.”

“What is it?”

“Harry.”

The girl's face clouded and her lips quivered. Then she sat bolt
upright.

“I won't hear a word about him. He's broken his promise to me and I will
never trust him again. If I thought you'd come to talk about Harry, I
wouldn't have come down.”

St. George lay back in his chair, shrugged his shoulders, stole a
look at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said with an assumed
dignity, a smile playing about his lips:

“All right, off goes his head--exit the scoundrel. Much as I could do
to keep him out of Jones Falls this morning, but of course now it's
all over we can let Spitfire break his neck. That's the way a gentleman
should die of love--and not be fished out of a dirty stream with his
clothes all bespattered with mud.”

“But he won't die for love. He doesn't know what love means or he
wouldn't behave as he does. Do you know what really happened, Uncle
George?” Her brown eyes were flashing, her cheeks aflame with her
indignation.

“Oh, I know exactly what happened. Harry told me with the tears running
down his cheeks. It was dreadful--INEXCUSABLE--BARBAROUS! I've been that
way myself--tumbled half-way down these same stairs before you were born
and had to be put to bed, which accounts for the miserable scapegrace I
am to-day.” His face was in a broad smile, but his voice never wavered.

Kate looked at him and put out her hand. “You never did--I won't believe
a word of it.”

“Ask your father, my dear. He helped carry me upstairs, and Ben pulled
off my boots. Oh, it was most disgraceful! I'm just beginning to live it
down,” and he reached over and patted the girl's cheek, his hearty laugh
ringing through the room.

Kate was smiling now--her Uncle George was always irresistible when he
was like this.

“But Harry isn't you,” she pouted.

“ISN'T ME!--why I was ten times worse! He's only twenty-one and I was
twenty-five. He's got four years the better of me in which to reform.”

“He'll NEVER be like you--you never broke a promise in your life. He
gave me his word of honor he would never get--yes--I'm just going to
say it--drunk--again: yes--that's the very word--DRUNK! I don't care--I
won't have it! I won't have anything to do with anybody who breaks his
promise, and who can't keep sober. My father was never so in his life,
and Harry shall never come near me again if he--”

“Hold on!--HOLD ON! Oh, what an unforgiving minx! You Seymours are all
like tinder boxes--your mother was just like you and so was--”

“Well, not father,” she bridled, with a toss of her head.

St. George smiled queerly--Prim was one of his jokes. “Your father, my
dear Kate, has the milk of human kindness in his veins, not red fighting
blood. That makes a whole lot of difference. Now listen to me:--you love
Harry--”

“No! I DESPISE him! I told him so!” She had risen from her seat and had
moved to the mantel, where she stood looking into the fire, her back
toward him.

“Don't you interrupt me, you blessed girl--just you listen to Uncle
George for a minute. You DO love Harry--you can't help it--nobody can.
If you had seen him this morning you would have thrown your arms around
him in a minute--I came near doing it myself. Of course he's wild,
reckless, and hot-headed like all the Rutters and does no end of foolish
things, but you wouldn't love him if he was different. He's just like
Spitfire--never keeps still a minute--restless, pawing the ground, or
all four feet in the air--then away she goes! You can't reason with
her--you don't wish to; you get impatient when she chafes at the bit
because you are determined she shall keep still, but if you wanted her
to go like the wind and she couldn't, you'd be more dissatisfied than
ever. The pawing and chafing is of no matter; it is her temperament
that counts. So it is with Harry. He wouldn't be the lovable, dashing,
high-spirited young fellow he is if he didn't kick over the traces once
in a while and break everything to pieces--his promises among them. And
it isn't his fault--it's the Spanish and Dutch blood in his veins--the
blood of that old hidalgo and his Dutch ancestor, De Ruyter--that crops
out once in a while. Harry would be a pirate and sweep the Spanish main
if he had lived in those days, instead of being a gentleman who values
nothing in life so much as the woman he loves.”

He had been speaking to her back all this time, the girl never moving,
the outlines of her graceful body in silhouette against the blaze.

“Then why doesn't he prove it?” she sighed. She liked old hidalgos and
had no aversion to pirates if they were manly and brave about their
work.

“He does--and he lives up to his standard except in this one failing
for which I am truly sorry. Abominable I grant you--but there are many
things which are worse.”

“I can't think of anything worse,” she echoed with a deep sigh, walking
slowly toward him and regaining her chair, all her anger gone, only the
pain in her heart left. “I don't want Harry to be like the others, and
he can't live their lives if he's going to be my husband. I want him
to be different,--to be big and fine and strong,--like the men who have
made the world better for their having lived in it--that old De Ruyter,
for instance, that his father is always bragging about--not a weak,
foolish boy whom everybody can turn around their fingers. Some of my
girl friends don't mind what the young men do, or how often they break
their word to them so that they are sure of their love. I do, and I
won't have it, and I have told Harry so over and over again. It's such
a cowardly thing--not to be man enough to stand up and say 'No--I won't
drink with you!' That's why I say I can't think of his doing anything
worse.”

St. George fixed his eyes upon her. He had thought he knew the girl's
heart, but this was a revelation to him. Perhaps her sorrow, like that
of her mother, was making a well-rounded woman of her.

“Oh, I can think of a dozen things worse,” he rejoined with some
positiveness. “Harry might lie; Harry might be a coward; Harry might
stand by and hear a friend defamed; Harry might be discourteous to a
woman, or allow another man to be--a thing he'd rather die than permit.
None of these things could he be or do. I'd shut my door in his face if
he did any one of them, and so should you. And then he is so penitent
when he has done anything wrong. 'It was my fault--I would rather hang
myself than lose Kate. I haven't slept a wink, Uncle George.' And he was
so handsome when he came in this morning--his big black eyes flashing,
his cheeks like two roses--so straight and strong, and so graceful and
wholesome and lovable. I wouldn't care, if I were you, if he did slip
once in a while--not any more than I would if Spitfire stumbled. And
then again”--here he moved his chair close to her own so he could get
his hand on hers the easier--“if Spitfire does stumble, there is the
bridle to pull her up, but for this she might break her neck. That's
where you come in, Kate. Harry's in your hands--has been since the hour
he loved you. Don't let him go headlong to the devil--and he will if you
turn him loose without a bridle.”

“I can't do him any good--he won't mind anything I say. And what
dependence can I place on him after this?” her voice sank to a tone
of helpless tenderness. “It isn't his being drunk altogether; he will
outgrow that, perhaps, as you say you did, and be man enough to say no
next time; but it's because he broke his promise to me. That he will
never outgrow! Oh, it's wicked!--wicked for him to treat me so. I have
never done anything he didn't want me to do! and he has no right to--Oh,
Uncle George, it's--”

St. George leaned nearer and covered her limp fingers with his own
tender grasp.

“Try him once more, Kate. Let me send him to you. It will be all over
in a minute and you will be so happy--both of you! Nothing like making
up--it really pays for the pain of a quarrel.”

The outside door shut gently and there was a slight movement in the hall
behind them, but neither of them noticed it. Kate sat with her head up,
her mind at work, her eyes watching the firelight. It was her future she
was looking into. She had positive, fixed ideas of what her station in
life as a married woman should be;--not what her own or Harry's birth
and position could bring her. With that will-o'-the-wisp she had no
sympathy. Her grandfather in his early days had been a plain, seafaring
man even if his ancestry did go back to the time of James I, and her
mother had been a lady, and that too without the admixture of a single
drop of the blood of any Kennedy Square aristocrat. That Harry was
well born and well bred was as it should be, but there was something
more;--the man himself. That was why she hesitated. Yes--it WOULD “all
be over in a minute,” just as Uncle George said, but when would the
next break come? And then again there was her mother's life with all the
misery that a broken promise had caused her. Uncle George was not the
only young gallant who had been put to bed in her grandfather's house.
Her mother had loved too--just as much as she loved Harry--loved with
her whole soul--until grandpa Barkeley put his foot down.

St. George waited in silence as he read her mind. Breaches between
most of the boys and girls were easily patched up--a hearty cry, an
outstretched hand--“I am so sorry,” and they were in each other's arms.
Not so with Kate. Her reason, as well as her heart, had to be satisfied.
This was one of the things that made her different from all the other
girls about her, and this too was what had given her first place in
the affections and respect of all who knew her. Her heart he saw was
uppermost to-night, but reason still lurked in the background.

“What do you think made him do it again?” she murmured at last in a
voice barely audible, her fingers tightening in his palm. “He knows how
I suffer and he knows too WHY I suffer. Oh, Uncle George!--won't you
please talk to him! I love him so, and I can't marry him if he's like
this. I can't!--_I_ CAN'T!”

A restrained smile played over St. George's face. The tide was setting
his way.

“It won't do a bit of good,” he said calmly, smothering his joy. “I've
talked to him until I'm tired, and the longer I talk the more wild he
is to see you. Now it's your turn and there's no time to lose. I'll have
him here in five minutes,” and he glanced at the clock. She raised her
hand in alarm:

“I don't want him yet. You must see him first--you must--”

“No, I won't see him first, and I'm not going to wait a minute. Talk to
him yourself; put your arms around him and tell him everything you have
told me--now--to-night. I'm going for him,” and he sprang to his feet.

“No!--you must not! You SHALL not!” she cried, clutching nervously at
his arm, but he was out of the room before she could stop him.

In the silent hall, hat in hand, his whole body tense with expectancy,
stood Harry. He had killed time by walking up and down the long strip of
carpet between the front door and the staircase, measuring his nervous
steps to the length of the pattern, his mind distracted by his fears
for the outcome--his heart thumping away at his throat, a dull fright
gripping him when he thought of losing her altogether.

St. George's quick step, followed by his firm clutch of the inside knob,
awoke him to consciousness. He sprang forward to catch his first word.

“Can I go in?” he stammered.

St. George grabbed him by the shoulder, wheeled him around, and faced
him.

“Yes, you reprobate, and when you get in go down on your knees and beg
her pardon, and if I ever catch you causing her another heartache I'll
break your damned neck!--do you hear?”


With the shutting of the swinging gate the wily old diplomat regained
his normal good-humored poise, his face beaming, his whole body tingling
at his success. He knew what was going on behind the closed curtains,
and just how contrite and humble the boy would be, and how Kate would
scold and draw herself up--proud duchess that she was--and how Harry
would swear by the nine gods, and an extra one if need be--and
then there would come a long, long silence, broken by meaningless,
half-spoken words--and then another silence--so deep and absorbing that
a full choir of angels might have started an anthem above their heads
and neither of them would have heard a word or note.

And so he kept on his way, picking his steps between the moist places
in the path to avoid soiling his freshly varnished boots; tightening the
lower button of his snug-fitting plum-colored coat as a bracing to his
waist-line; throwing open the collar of his overcoat the wider to
give his shoulders the more room--very happy--very well satisfied with
himself, with the world, and with everybody who lived in it.




CHAPTER III



Moorlands was ablaze!

From the great entrance gate flanked by moss-stained brick posts capped
with stone balls, along the avenue of oaks to the wide portico leading
to the great hall and spacious rooms, there flared one continuous burst
of light. On either side of the oak-bordered driveway, between the
tree-trunks, crackled torches of pine knots, the glow of their curling
flames bringing into high relief the black faces of innumerable
field-hands from the Rutter and neighboring plantations, lined up
on either side of the gravel road--teeth and eyeballs flashing white
against the blackness of the night. Under the porches hung festoons
of lanterns of every conceivable form and color, while inside the wide
baronial hall, and in the great drawing-room with the apartments
beyond, the light of countless candles, clustered together in silver
candelabras, shed a soft glow over the groups of waiting guests.

To-night Colonel Talbot Rutter of Moorlands, direct descendant of
the house of De Ruyter, with an ancestry dating back to the Spanish
Invasion, was to bid official welcome to a daughter of the house of
Seymour, equally distinguished by flood and field in the service of
its king. These two--God be thanked--loved each other, and now that the
young heir to Moorlands was to bring home his affianced bride, soon
to become his wedded wife, no honor could be too great, no expense too
lavish, no welcome too joyful.

Moreover, that this young princess of the blood might be accorded
all the honors due her birth, lineage, and rank, the colonel's own
coach-and-four, with two postilions and old Matthew on the box--twenty
years in the service--his whip tied with forget-me-nots, the horses'
ears streaming with white ribbons--each flank as smooth as satin and
each panel bright as a mirror--had been trundled off to Kennedy Square,
there to receive the fairest of all her daughters, together with such
other members of her royal suite--including His Supreme Excellency
the Honorable Prim--not forgetting, of course, Kate's old black mammy,
Henny, who was as much a part of the fair lady's belongings when she
went afield as her ostrich-plume fan, her white gloves, or the wee
slippers that covered her enchanting feet.

Every detail of harness, wheel, and brake--even the horn itself--had
passed under the colonel's personal supervision; Matthew on the box
straight as a hitching-post and bursting with pride, reins gathered,
whip balanced, the leaders steady and the wheel horses in line. Then the
word had been given, and away they had swept round the circle and so on
down the long driveway to the outer gate and Kennedy Square. Ten miles
an hour were the colonel's orders and ten miles an hour must Matthew
make, including the loading and unloading of his fair passenger and her
companions, or there would be the devil to pay on his return.

And the inside of the house offered no less a welcome. Drawn up in the
wide hall, under the direct command of old Alec, the head butler, were
the house servants;--mulatto maids in caps, snuff-colored second butlers
in livery, jet-black mammies in new bandannas and white aprons--all in a
flutter of excitement, and each one determined to get the first glimpse
of Marse Harry's young lady, no matter at what risk.

Alec himself was a joy to look upon--eyeballs and teeth gleaming, his
face one wide, encircling smile. Marse Harry was the apple of his eye,
and had been ever since the day of his birth. He had carried him on his
back when a boy; had taught him to fish and hunt and to ride to hounds;
had nursed him when he fell ill at the University in his college days,
and would gladly have laid down his life for him had any such necessity
arisen. To-night, in honor of the occasion, he was rigged out in a
new bottle-green coat with shiny brass buttons, white waistcoat, white
gloves three sizes too big for him, and a huge white cravat flaring out
almost to the tips of his ears. Nothing was too good for Alec--so his
mistress thought--and for the best of reasons. Not only was he the
ideal servant of the old school, but he was the pivot on which the whole
establishment moved. If a particular brand or vintage was needed, or a
key was missing, or did a hair trunk, or a pair of spurs, or last
week's Miscellany, go astray--or even were his mistress's spectacles
mislaid--Alec could put his hand upon each and every item in so short a
space of time that the loser was convinced the old man had hidden them
on purpose, to enjoy their refinding. Moorlands without old Alec would
hive been a wheel without a hub.

As a distinct feature of all these preparations--and this was the
best part of the programme--Harry was to meet Kate at the outer gate
supported by half a dozen of his young friends and hers--Dr. Teackle,
Mark Gilbert, Langdon Willits, and one or two others--while Mrs. Rutter,
Mrs. Cheston, Mrs. Richard Horn, and a bevy of younger women and girls
were to welcome her with open arms the moment her dainty feet cleared
the coach's step. This was the way princesses of the blood had been
welcomed from time immemorial to palaces and castles high, and this was
the way their beloved Kate was to make entry into the home of her lord.

Soon the flash of the coach lamps was seen outside the far gate. Then
there came the wind of a horn--a rollicking, rolling, gladsome sound,
and in the wink of an eyelid every one was out on the portico straining
their eyes, listening eagerly. A joyous shout now went up from the
negroes lining the fences; from the groups about the steps and along the
driveway.

“Here she comes!”

The leaders with a swing pranced into view as they cleared the gate
posts. There came a moment's halt at the end of the driveway; a
postilion vaulted down, threw wide the coach door and a young man sprang
in. It was Harry!... Snap!! Crack!! Toot--toot!!--and they were off
again, heading straight for the waiting group. Another prolonged,
winding note--louder--nearer--one of triumph this time!--a galloping,
circling dash toward the porch crowded with guests--the reining in of
panting leaders--the sudden gathering up of the wheel horses, back on
their haunches--the coach door flung wide and out stepped Kate--Harry's
hand in hers, her old mammy behind, her father last of all.

“Oh, such a lovely drive! and it was so kind of you, dear colonel, to
send for me! Oh, it was splendid! And Matthew galloped most all the
way.” She had come as a royal princess, but she was still our Kate. “And
you are all out here to meet me!” Here she kissed Harry's mother--“and
you too, Uncle George--and Sue--Oh, how fine you all look!”--and with a
curtsy and a joyous laugh and a hand-clasp here and there, she bent her
head and stepped into the wide hall under the blaze of the clustered
candles.

It was then that they caught their breaths, for no such vision of beauty
had ever before stood in the wide hall of Moorlands, her eyes shining
like two stars above the rosy hue of her cheek; her skin like a shell,
her throat and neck a lily in color and curves. And her poise; her
gladsomeness; her joy at being alive and at finding everybody else
alive; the way she moved and laughed and bent her pretty head; the
ripples of gay laughter and the low-pitched tone of the warm greetings
that fell from her lips!

No wonder Harry was bursting with pride; no wonder Langdon Willits
heaved a deep sigh when he caught the glance that Kate flashed at Harry
and went out on the porch to get a breath of fresh air; no wonder St.
George's heart throbbed as he watched them both and thought how near all
this happiness had come to being wrecked; no wonder the servants tumbled
over each other in their eagerness to get a view of her face and gown,
and no wonder, too, that the proud, old colonel who ruled his house with
a rod of iron, determined for the first time in his life to lay down
the sceptre and give Kate and Harry full sway to do whatever popped into
their two silly heads.

And our young Lochinvar was fully her match in bearing, dress, and
manners,--every inch a prince and every inch a Rutter,--and with such
grace of movement as he stepped beside her, that even punctilious,
outspoken old Mrs. Cheston--who had forgiven him his escapade, and who
was always laughing at what she called the pump-handle shakes of some
of the underdone aristocrats about her, had to whisper to the nearest
guest--“Watch Harry, my dear, if you would see how a thoroughbred
manages his legs and arms when he wishes to do honor to a woman.
Admirable!--charming! No young man of my time ever did better.” And Mrs.
Cheston knew, for she had hobnobbed with kings and queens, her husband
having represented his government at the Court of St. James--which fact,
however, never prevented her from calling a spade a spade; nor was she
ever very particular as to what the spade unearthed.

Yes--a very gallant and handsome young man was our prince as he handed
Kate up the stairs on her way to the dressing-room, and looked it in his
pearl-gray coat with buttons of silver, fluffy white silk scarf, high
dog-eared collar, ivory-white waistcoat, and tight-fitting trousers of
nankeen yellow, held close to the pumps with invisible straps. And a
very gallant and handsome young fellow he felt himself to be on this
night of his triumph, and so thought Kate--in fact she had fallen in
love with him over again--and so too did every one of the young girls
who crowded about them, as well as the dominating, erect aristocrat of
a father, and the anxious gentle mother, who worshipped the ground on
which he walked.

Kate had noted every expression that crossed his face, absorbing him in
one comprehensive glance as he stood in the full blaze of the candles,
her gaze lingering on his mouth and laughing eyes and the soft sheen of
his brown hair, its curved-in ends brushing the high velvet collar of
his coat--and so on down his shapely body to his shapely feet. Never had
she seen him so adorable--and he was all her own, and for life!

As for our dear St. George Temple, who had never taken his eyes off
them, he thought they were the goodliest pair the stars ever shone upon,
and this his happiest night. There would be no more stumbling after
this. Kate had the bridle well in hand now; all she needed was a clear
road, and that was ahead of both horse and rider.

“Makes your blood jump in your veins, just to look at them, doesn't
it, Talbot?” cried St. George to Harry's father when Kate
disappeared--laying his hand as he spoke on the shoulder of the man with
whom he had grown up from a boy. “Is there anything so good as the love
of a good woman?--the wise old prophet places her beyond the price of
rubies.”

“Only one thing, St. George--the love of a good man--one like yourself,
you dear old fellow. And why the devil you haven't found that out years
ago is more than I can understand. Here you are my age, and you might
have had a Kate and Harry of your own by this time, and yet you live a
stupid old--”

“No, I won't hear you talk so, colonel!” cried a bride of a year. “Uncle
George is never stupid, and he couldn't be old. What would all these
young girls do--what would I have done” (another love affair with St.
George as healer and mender!)--“what would anybody have done without
him? Come, Miss Lavinia--do you hear the colonel abusing Uncle George
because he isn't married? Speak up for him--it's wicked of you, colonel,
to talk so.”

Miss Lavinia Clendenning, who was one of St. George's very own, in spite
of her forty-odd years, threw back her head until the feathers in her
slightly gray hair shook defiantly:

“No--I won't say a word for him, Sue. I've given him up forever. He's a
disgrace to everybody who knows him.”

“Oh, you renegade!” exclaimed St. George in mock alarm.

“Yes,--a positive disgrace! He'll never marry anybody, Sue, until he
marries me. I've begged him on my knees until I'm tired, to name the
day, and he won't! Just like all you shiftless Marylanders, sir--never
know when to make up your minds.”

“But you threw me over, Lavinia, and broke my heart,” laughed Temple
with a low bow, his palms flattened against his waistcoat in assumed
humility.

“When?”

“Oh, twenty years ago.”

“Oh, my goodness gracious! Of course I threw you over then;--you were
just a baby in arms and I was old enough to be your mother--but now it's
different. I'm dying to get married and nobody wants me. If you were a
Virginian instead of a doubting Marylander, you would have asked me a
hundred times and kept on asking until I gave in. Now it's too late.
I always intended to give in, but you were so stupid you couldn't or
wouldn't understand.”

“It's never too late to mend, Lavinia,” he prayed with hands extended.

“It's too late to mend you, St. George! You are cracked all over, and as
for me--I'm ready to fall to pieces any minute. I'm all tied up now with
corset laces and stays and goodness knows what else. No--I'm done with
you.”

While this merry badinage was going on, the young people crowding the
closer so as not to lose a word, or making room for the constant stream
of fresh arrivals on their way toward the dressing-rooms above, their
eyes now and then searching the top of the stairs in the hope of getting
the first glimpse of Kate, our heroine was receiving the final touches
from her old black mammy. It took many minutes. The curl must be
adjusted, the full skirts pulled out or shaken loose, the rare jewels
arranged before she was dismissed with--“Dah, honey chile, now go-long.
Ain't nary one on 'em ain't pizen hongry for ye--any mos' on 'em 'll
drown derselves 'fo' mawnin' becos dey can't git ye.”

She is ready now, Harry beside her, her lace scarf embroidered with pink
rosebuds floating from her lovely shoulders, her satin skirt held firmly
in both hands that she might step the freer, her dainty silk stockings
with the ribbons crossed about her ankles showing below its edge.

But it was the colonel who took possession of her when she reached the
floor of the great hall, and not her father nor her lover.

“No, Harry--stand aside, sir. Out with you! Kate goes in with me!
Seymour, please give your arm to Mrs. Rutter.” And with the manner of a
courtier leading a princess into the presence of her sovereign, the
Lord of Moorlands swept our Lady of Kennedy Square into the brilliant
drawing-room crowded with guests.


It was a great ball and it was a great ballroom--in spaciousness, color,
and appointments. No one had ever dreamed of its possibilities before,
although everybody knew it was the largest in the county. The gentle
hostess, with old Alec as head of the pulling-out-and-moving-off
department, had wrought the change. All the chairs, tables, sofas, and
screens, little and big, had either been spirited away or pushed back
against the wall for tired dancers. Over the wide floor was stretched
a linen crash; from the ceiling and bracketed against the white walls,
relieved here and there by long silken curtains of gold-yellow, blazed
clusters of candles, looking for all the world like so many bursting
sky-rockets, while at one end, behind a mass of flowering plants, sat a
quartette of musicians, led by an old darky with a cotton-batting head,
who had come all the way from Philadelphia a-purpose.

Nor had the inner man been forgotten: bowls of hot apple toddy steamed
away in the dining-room; bowls of eggnog frothed away in the library;
ladlings of punch, and the contents of several old cut-glass decanters,
flanked by companies of pipe-stem glasses, were being served in the
dressing-rooms; while relays of hot terrapin, canvas-back duck, sizzling
hot; olio, cold joints; together with every conceivable treatment and
condition of oysters--in scallop shells, on silver platters and
in wooden plates--raw, roasted, fried, broiled, baked, and
stewed--everything in fact that could carry out the colonel's watchword,
“Eat, drink, and be merry,” were within the beck and call of each and
every guest.

And there were to be no interludes of hunger and thirst if the host
could help it. No dull pauses nor recesses, but one continued round,
lasting until midnight, at which hour the final banquet in the
dining-room was to be served, and the great surprise of the evening
reached--the formal announcement of Harry and Kate's engagement,
followed by the opening of the celebrated bottle of the Jefferson 1800
Monticello Madeira, recorked at our young hero's birth.

And it goes without saying that there were no interludes. The fun began
at once, a long line of merry talk and laughter following the wake of
the procession, led by the host and Kate, the colonel signalling at last
to the cotton-batting with the goggle spectacles, who at once struck up
a polka and away they all went, Harry and Kate in the lead, the whole
room in a whirl.

This over and the dancers out of breath, Goggles announced a
quadrille--the colonel and St. George helping to form the sets. Then
followed the schottische, then another polka until everybody was tired
out, and then with one accord the young couples rushed from the hot
room, hazy with the dust of lint from the linen crash, and stampeded for
the cool wide stairs that led from the great hall. For while in summer
the shadows on some vine-covered porch swallowed the lovers, in winter
the stairs were generally the trysting-place--and the top step the one
most sought--because there was nobody behind to see. This was the roost
for which Kate and Harry scampered, and there they intended to sit until
the music struck up again.

“Oh, Kate, you precious darling, how lovely you look!” burst out Harry
for the hundredth time when she had nestled down beside him--“and what a
wonderful gown! I never saw that one before, did I?”

“No--you never have,” she panted, her breath gone from her dance and the
dash for the staircase. “It's my dear mother's dress, and her scarf too.
I had very little done to it--only the skirt made wider. Isn't it soft
and rich? Grandpa used to bring these satins from China.”

“And the pearls--are they the ones you told me about?” He was adjusting
them to her throat as he spoke--somehow he could not keep his hands from
her.

“Yes--mother's jewels. Father got them out of his strong-box for me this
morning. He wanted me to wear them to-night. He says I can have them all
now. She must have been very beautiful, Harry--and just think, dear--she
was only a few years older than I am when she died. Sometimes when I
wear her things and get to thinking about her, and remember how young
and beautiful she was and how unhappy her life, it seems as if I must
be unhappy myself--somehow as if it were not right to have all this
happiness when she had none.” There was a note of infinite pathos in her
voice--a note one always heard when she spoke of her mother. Had Harry
looked deeper into her eyes he might have found the edges of two tears
trembling on their lids.

“She never was as beautiful as you, my darling--nobody ever was--nobody
ever could be!” he cried, ignoring all allusion to her mother. Nothing
else counted with the young fellow to-night--all he knew and cared for
was that Kate was his very own, and that all the world would soon know
it.

“That's because you love me, Harry. You have only to look at her
portrait in father's room to see how exquisite she was. I can never be
like her--never so gracious, so patient, no matter how hard I try.”

He put his fingers on her lips: “I won't have you say it. I won't let
anybody say it. I could hardly speak when I saw you in the full light of
the hall. It was so dark in the coach I didn't know how you looked, and
I didn't care; I was so glad to get hold of you. But when your cloak
slipped from your shoulders and you--Oh!--you darling Kate!” His eye
caught the round of her throat and the taper of her lovely arm--“I am
going to kiss you right here--I will--I don't care who--”

She threw up her hands with a little laugh. She liked him the better for
daring, although she was afraid to yield.

“No--NO--Harry! They will see us--don't--you mustn't!”

“Mustn't what! I tell you, Kate, I am going to kiss you--I don't care
what you say or who sees me. It's been a year since I kissed you in
the coach--forty years--now, you precious Kate, what difference does it
make? I will, I tell you--no--don't turn your head away.”

She was struggling feebly, her elbow across her face as a shield,
meaning all the time to raise her lips to his, when her eyes fell on
the figure of a young man making his way toward them. Instantly her back
straightened.

“There's Langdon Willits at the bottom of the stairs talking to Mark
Gilbert,” she whispered in dismay. “See--he is coming up. I wonder what
he wants.”

Harry gathered himself together and his face clouded. “I wish he was at
the bottom of the sea. I don't like Willits--I never did. Neither does
Uncle George. Besides, he's in love with you, and he always has been.”

“What nonsense, Harry,” she answered, opening her fan and waving it
slowly. She knew her lover was right--knew more indeed than her lover
could ever know: she had used all the arts of which she was mistress to
keep Willits from proposing.

“But he IS in love with you,” Harry insisted stiffly. “Won't he be
fighting mad, though, when he hears father announce our engagement at
supper?” Then some tone in her voice recalled that night on the sofa
when she still held out against his pleading, and with it came the
thought that while she could be persuaded she could never be driven.
Instantly his voice changed to its most coaxing tones: “You won't dance
with him, will you, Kate darling? I can't bear to see you in anybody
else's arms but my own.”

Her hand grasped his wrist with a certain meaning in the pressure.

“Now don't be a goose, Harry. I must be polite to everybody, especially
to-night--and you wouldn't have me otherwise.”

“Yes, but not to him.”

“But what difference does it make? You are too sensible not to
understand, and I am too happy, anyway, to want to be rude to anybody.
And then you should never be jealous of Langdon Willits.”

“Well, then, not a round dance, please, Kate.” He dare not oppose her
further. “I couldn't stand a round dance. I won't have his arm touch
you, my darling.” And he bent his cheek close to hers.

She looked at him from under her shadowed lids as she had looked at
St. George when she greeted him at the foot of the stairs; a gleam
of coquetry, of allurement, of joy shining through her glances like
delicate antennae searching to feel where her power lay. Should she
venture, as her Uncle George had suggested, to take the reins in her
own hands and guide this restive, mettlesome thoroughbred, or should
she surrender to him? Then a certain mischievous coquetry possessed her.
With a light, bubbling laugh she drew her cheek away.

“Yes, any kind of a dance that he or anybody else wants that I can
give him,” she burst out with a coquettish twist of her head, her eyes
brimming with fun.

“But I'm on your card for every single dance,” he demanded, his eyes
again flashing. “Look at it--I filled it up myself,” and he held up his
own bit of paste-board so she could read the list. “I tell you I won't
have his arm around you!”

“Well, then, he sha'n't touch even the tips of my fingers, you dreadful
Mr. Bluebeard.” She had surrendered now. He was never so compelling as
when determined to have his own way. Again her whole manner changed;
she was once more the sweetheart: “Don't let us bother about cards, my
darling, or dances, or anything. Let us talk of how lovely it is to be
together again. Don't you think so, Harry?” and she snuggled the closer
to his arm, her soft cheek against his coat.

Before Harry could answer, young Willits, who had been edging his way
up the stairs two steps at a time, avoiding the skirts of the girls,
reaching over the knees of the men as he clung to the hand-rail, stood
on the step below them.

“It's my next dance, Miss Kate, isn't it?” he asked eagerly, scanning
her face--wondering why she looked so happy.

“What is it to be, Mr. Willits?” she rejoined in perfunctory tones,
glancing at her own blank card hanging to her wrist: he was the last man
in the world she wanted to see at this moment.

“The schottische, I think--yes, the schottische,” he replied nervously,
noticing her lack of warmth and not understanding the cause.

“Oh, I'm all out of breath--if you don't mind,” she continued evasively;
“we'll wait for the next one.” She dared not invite him to sit down,
knowing it would make Harry furious--and then again she couldn't stand
one discordant note to-night--she was too blissfully happy.

“But the next one is mine,” exclaimed Harry suddenly, examining his own
dancing-card. He had not shifted his position a hair's breadth, nor did
he intend to--although he had been outwardly polite to the intruder.

“Yes--they'd all be yours, Harry, if you had your way,” this in a thin,
dry tone--“but you mustn't forget that Miss Kate's free, white, and
twenty-one, and can do as she pleases.”

Harry's lips straightened. He did not like Willits's manner and he was
somewhat shocked at his expression; it seemed to smack more of the
cabin than of the boudoir--especially the boudoir of a princess like his
precious Kate. He noticed, too, that the young man's face was flushed
and his utterance unusually rapid, and he knew what had caused it.

“They will be just what Miss Seymour wants them to be, Willits.” The
words came in hard, gritting tones through half-closed lips, and the
tightening of his throat muscles. This phase of the Rutter blood was
dangerous.

Kate was startled. Harry must not lose his self-control. There must be
no misunderstandings on this the happiest night of her life.

“Yes,” she said sweetly, with a gracious bend of her head--“but I do
want to dance with Mr. Willits, only I don't know which one to give
him.”

“Then give me the Virginia reel, Miss Kate, the one that comes just
before supper, and we can go all in together--you too, Harry,” Willits
insisted eagerly. “See, Miss Kate--your card is still empty,” and he
turned toward her the face of the one hanging to her wrist.

“No, never the reel, Kate, that is mine!” burst out Harry determinedly,
as a final dismissal to Willits. He lowered his voice, and in a
beseeching tone said--“Father's set his heart on our dancing the reel
together--please don't give him the reel!”

Kate, intent on restoring harmony, arched her neck coyly, and said in
her most bewitching tones--the notes of a robin after a shower: “Well,
I can't tell yet, Mr. Willits, but you shall have one or the other; just
leave it to me--either the reel or the schottische. We will talk it over
when I come down.”

“Then it's the reel, Miss Kate, is it not?” he cried, ignoring Harry
completely, backing away as he retraced his steps, a look of triumph on
his face.

She shook her head at him, but she did not answer. She wanted to get rid
of him as quickly as possible. Willits had spoiled everything. She was
so happy before he came, and Harry was so adorable. She wished now she
had not drawn away her cheek when he tried to kiss her.

“Don't be angry, Harry, dear,” she pleaded coaxingly, determined to get
her lover back once more. “He didn't mean anything--he only wanted to be
polite.”

“He didn't want to be polite,” the angry lover retorted. “He meant to
force himself in between us; that is what he meant, and he's always at
it, every chance he gets. He tried it at Mrs. Cheston's the other night
until I put a stop to it, but there's one thing certain--he'll stop it
when our engagement is announced after supper or I'll know the reason
why.”

Kate caught her breath. A new disturbing thought entered her mind.
It was at Mrs. Cheston's that both Willits and Harry had misbehaved
themselves, and it was Harry's part in the sequel which she had
forgiven. The least said about that night the better.

“But he is your guest, Harry,” she urged at last, still determined to
divert his thoughts from Willits and the loss of the dance--“OUR guest,”
 she went on--“so is everybody else here to-night, and we must do what
everybody wants us to, not be selfish about it. Now, my darling--you
couldn't be impolite to anybody--don't you know you couldn't? Mrs.
Cheston calls you 'My Lord Chesterfield'--I heard her say so to-night.”

“Yes, I know, Kate”--he softened--“that's what father said about my
being polite to him--but all the same I didn't want Willits invited, and
it's only because father insisted that he's here. Of course, I'm
going to be just as polite to him as I can, but even father would feel
differently about him if he had heard what he said to you a minute ago.”

“What did he say?” She knew, but she loved to hear him defend her. This,
too, was a way out--in a minute he would be her old Harry again.

“I won't even repeat it,” he answered doggedly.

“You mean about my being twenty-one? That was rather ungallant, wasn't
it?”

Again that long look from under her eyelids--he would have succumbed at
once could he have seen it.

“No, the other part of it. That's not the way to speak to a lady.
That's what I dislike him for. He never was born a gentleman. He isn't a
gentleman and never can be a gentleman.”

Kate drew herself up--the unreasonableness of the objection jarred
upon her. He had touched one of her tender spots--pride of birth was
something she detested.

“Don't talk nonsense, Harry,” she replied in a slightly impatient voice.
Moods changed with our Kate as unexpectedly as April showers. “What
difference should it make to you or anybody else whether Langdon
Willits's grandmother was a countess or a country girl, so she was
honest and a lady?” Her head went up with a toss as she spoke, for this
was one of Kate's pet theories.

“But he's not of my class, Kate, and he shouldn't be here. I told father
so.”

“Then make him one,” she answered stoutly, “if only for to-night, by
being extra polite and courteous to him and never letting him feel that
he is outside of what you call 'your class.' I like Mr. Willits, and
have always liked him. He is invariably polite to me, and he can be very
kind and sympathetic at times. Listen! they are calling us, and there
goes the music--come along, darling--it's a schottische and we'll dance
it together.”

Harry sprang up, slipped his arm around Kate's waist, lifted her to her
feet, held her close, and kissed her squarely on the mouth.

“There, you darling! and another one--two--three! Oh, you precious! What
do I care about Willits or any other red-headed lower county man that
ever lived? He can have fifty grandmothers if he pleases and I won't say
a word--kiss me--kiss me again. Quick now or we'll lose the dance,” and,
utterly oblivious as to whether any one had seen them or not, the two
raced down the wide stairs.




CHAPTER IV



While all this gayety was going on in the ballroom another and equally
joyous gathering was besieging the serving tables in the colonel's
private den--a room leading out of the larger supper room, where he kept
his guns and shooting togs, and which had been pressed into service for
this one night.

These thirsty gentlemen were of all ages and tastes, from the young
men just entering society to the few wrinkled bald-pates whose legs
had given out and who, therefore, preferred the colonel's Madeira and
terrapin to the lighter pleasures of the dance.

In and out of the groups, his ruddy, handsome face radiant with the joy
that welled up in his heart, moved St. George Temple. Never had he been
in finer form or feather--never had he looked so well--(not all the
clothes that Poole of London cut came to Moorlands). Something of the
same glow filtered through him that he had felt on the night when the
two lovers had settled their difficulties, and he had swung back through
the park at peace with all the world.

All this could be seen in the way he threw back his head, smiling right
and left; the way he moved his hands--using them as some men do words or
their eyebrows--now uplifting them in surprise at the first glimpse
of some unexpected face, his long delicate fingers outspread in
exclamations of delight; now closing them tight when he had those of the
new arrival in his grasp--now curving them, palms up, as he lifted to
his lips the fingers of a grande dame. “Keep your eyes on St. George,”
 whispered Mrs. Cheston, who never missed a point in friend or foe and
whose fun at a festivity often lay in commenting on her neighbors,
praise or blame being impartially mixed as her fancy was touched. “And
by all means watch his hands, my dear. They are like the baton of an
orchestra leader and tell the whole story. Only men whose blood and
lineage have earned them freedom from toil, or men whose brains throb
clear to their finger-tips, have such hands. Yes! St. George is very
happy to-night, and I know why. He has something on his mind that he
means to tell us later on.”

Mrs. Cheston was right: she generally was--St. George did have something
on his mind--something very particular on his mind--a little speech
really which was a dead secret to everybody except prying Mrs.
Cheston--one which was to precede the uncorking of that wonderful old
Madeira, and the final announcement of the engagement--a little speech
in which he meant to refer to their two dear mothers when they were
girls, recalling traits and episodes forgotten by most, but which from
their very loveliness had always lingered in his heart and memory.

Before this important event took place, however, there were some matters
which he intended to look after himself, one of them being the bowl of
punch and its contiguous beverages in the colonel's den. This seemed to
be the storm centre to-night, and here he determined, even at the risk
of offending his host, to set up danger-signals at the first puff of
wind. The old fellows, if they chose, might empty innumerable ladles
full of apple toddy or compounds of Santa Cruz rum and pineapples into
their own persons, but not the younger bloods! His beloved Kate had
suffered enough because of these roysterers. There should be one ball
around Kennedy Square in which everybody would behave themselves, and he
did not intend to mince his words when the time came. He had
discussed the matter with the colonel when the ball opened, but little
encouragement came from that quarter.

“So far as these young sprigs are concerned, St. George,” Rutter had
flashed back, “they must look out for themselves. I can't curtail my
hospitality to suit their babyships. As for Harry, you're only wasting
your time. He is made of different stuff--it's not in his blood and
couldn't be. Whatever else he may become he will never be a sot. Let him
have his fling: once a Rutter, always a Rutter,” and then, with a ring
in his voice, “when my son ceases to be a gentleman, St. George, I will
show him the door, but drink will never do it.”

Dr. Teackle had also been on the alert. He was a young physician just
coming into practice, many of the younger set being his patients, and
he often acted as a curb when they broke loose. He, with St. George's
whispered caution in his ears, had also tried to frame a word of protest
to the colonel, suggesting in the mildest way that that particular
bowl of apple toddy be not replenished--but the Lord of the Manor
had silenced him with a withering glance before he had completed his
sentence. In this dilemma he had again sought out St. George.

“Look out for Willits, Uncle George. He'll be staggering in among the
ladies if he gets another crack at that toddy. It's an infernal shame to
bring these relays of punch in here. I tried to warn the colonel, but he
came near eating me up. Willits has had very little experience in this
sort of thing and is mixing his eggnog with everything within his reach.
That will split his head wide open in the morning.”

“Go and find him, Teackle, and bring him to me,” cried St. George; “I'll
stay here until you get him. Tell him I want to see him--and Alec”--this
to the old butler who was skimming past, his hands laden with
dishes--“don't you bring another drop of punch into this room until you
see me.”

“But de colonel say dat--”

“--I don't care what the colonel says; if he wants to know why, tell him
I ordered it. I'm not going to have this night spoiled by any tomfoolery
of Talbot's, I don't care what he says. You hear me, Alec? Not a drop.
Take out those half-empty bowls and don't you serve another thimbleful
of anything until I say so.” Here he turned to the young doctor, who
seemed rather surprised at St. George's dictatorial air--one rarely
seen in him. “Yes--brutal, I know, Teackle, and perhaps a little
ill-mannered, this interfering with another man's hospitality, but if
you knew how Kate has suffered over this same stupidity you would say I
was right. Talbot never thinks--never cares. Because he's got a head as
steady as a town clock and can put away a bottle of port without winking
an eyelid, he believes anybody else can do the same. I tell you this
sort of thing has got to stop or sooner or later these young bloods
will break the hearts of half the girls in town.... Careful! here comes
Willits--not another word.... Oh, Mr. Willits, here you are! I was
just going to send for you. I want to talk to you about that mare of
yours--is she still for sale?” His nonchalance was delightful.

“No, Mr. Temple; I had thought of keeping her, sir,” the young man
rejoined blandly, greatly flattered at having been specially singled out
by the distinguished Mr. Temple. “But if you are thinking of buying
my mare, I should be most delighted to consider it. If you will permit
me--I will call upon you in the morning.” This last came with elaborate
effusiveness. “But you haven't a drop of anything to drink, Mr. Temple,
nor you either, doctor! Egad! What am I thinking of! Come, won't you
join me? The colonel's mixtures are--”

“Better wait, Mr. Willits,” interrupted St. George calmly and with the
air of one conversant with the resources of the house. “Alec has just
taken out a half-emptied bowl of toddy.” He had seen at a glance that
Teackle's diagnosis of the young man's condition was correct.

“Then let us have a swig at the colonel's port--it's the best in the
county.”

“No, hold on till the punch comes. You young fellows don't know how to
take care of your stomachs. You ought to stick to your tipple as you do
to your sweetheart--you should only have one.”

“--At a time,” laughed Teackle.

“No, one ALL the time, you dog! When I was your age, Mr. Willits, if
I drank Madeira I continued to drink Madeira, not to mix it up with
everything on the table.”

“By Jove, you're right, Mr. Temple! I'm sticking to one girl--Miss
Kate's my girl to-night. I'm going to dance the Virginia reel with her.”

St. George eyed him steadily. He saw that the liquor had already reached
his head or he would not have spoken of Kate as he did. “Your choice is
most admirable, Mr. Willits,” he said suavely, “but let Harry have Miss
Kate to-night,” adding, as he laid his hand confidingly on the young
man's shoulder--“they were made to step that dance together.”

“But she said she would dance it with me!” he flung back--he did not
mean to be defrauded.

“Really?” It was wonderful how soft St. George's voice could be. Teackle
could not have handled a refractory patient the better.

“Well, that is,” rejoined Willits, modified by Temple's tone--“she is to
let me know--that was the bargain.”

Still another soft cadence crept into St. George's voice: “Well, even
if she did say she would let you know, do be a little generous. Miss
Seymour is always so obliging; but she ought really to dance the reel
with Harry to-night.” He used Kate's full name, but Willits's head was
buzzing too loudly for him to notice the delicately suggested rebuke.

“Well, I don't see that, and I'm not going to see it, either. Harry's
always coming in between us; he tried to get Miss Kate away from me a
little while ago, but he didn't succeed.”

“Noblesse oblige, my dear Mr. Willits,” rejoined St. George in a more
positive tone. “He is host, you know, and the ball is given to Miss
Seymour, and Harry can do nothing else but be attentive.” He felt like
strangling the cub, but it was neither the time nor place--nothing
should disturb Kate's triumph if he could help it. One way was to keep
Willits sober, and this he intended to do whether the young man liked it
or not--if he talked to him all night.

“But it is my dance,” Willits broke out. “You ask him if it isn't my
dance--he heard what Miss Kate said. Here comes Harry now.”

Like a breath of west wind our young prince blew in, his face radiant,
his eyes sparkling. He had entirely forgotten the incident on the stairs
in the rapture of Kate's kisses, and Willits was once more one of the
many guests he was ready to serve and be courteous to.

“Ah, gentlemen--I hope you have everything you want!” he cried with
a joyous wave of his hand. “Where will I get an ice for Kate, Uncle
George? We are just about beginning the Virginia reel and she is so
warm. Oh, we have had such a lovely waltz! Why are you fellows not
dancing? Send them in, Uncle George.” He was brimming over with
happiness.

Willits moved closer: “What did you say? The Virginia reel? Has it
begun?” His head was too muddled for quick thinking.

“Not yet, Willits, but it will right away--everybody is on the floor
now,” returned Harry, his eyes in search of something to hold Kate's
refreshment.

“Then it is my dance, Harry. I thought the reel was to be just before
supper or I would have hunted Miss Kate up.”

“So it is,” laughed Harry, catching up an empty plate from the serving
table and moving to where the ices were spread. “You ought to know,
for you told her yourself. It is about to begin. They were taking their
partners when I left.”

“Then that's MY reel,” Willits insisted. “You heard what Miss Kate said,
Harry--that's what I told you too, Mr. Temple,” and he turned to St.
George for confirmation.

“Oh, but you are mistaken, Langdon,” continued Harry, bending over the
dish. “She said she would decide later on whether to give you the reel
or a schottische--and she has. Miss Kate dances this reel with me.”
 There was a flash in his eye as he spoke, but he was still the host.

“And I suppose you will want the one after supper too,” snapped Willits.
He had edged closer and was now speaking to Harry's bent back.

“Why, certainly, if Miss Kate is willing and wishes it,” rejoined Harry
simply, still too intent on having the ice reach his sweetheart at the
earliest possible moment to notice either Willits's condition or his
tone of voice.

Willits sprang forward just as Harry regained his erect position. “No
you won't, sir!” he cried angrily. “I've got some rights here and I'm
going to protect them. I'll ask Miss Kate myself and find out whether I
am to be made a fool of like this,” and before St. George could prevent
started for the door.

Harry dropped the plate on the table and blocked the enraged man's exit
with his outstretched arm. He was awake now--wide awake--and to the
cause.

“You'll do nothing of the kind, Langdon--not in your present state. Pull
yourself together, man! Miss Seymour is not accustomed to be spoken of
in that way and you know it. Now don't be foolish--stay here with Uncle
George and the doctor until you cool down. There are the best of reasons
why I should dance the reel with Miss Kate, but I can't explain them
now.”

“Neither am I, Mr. Harry Rutter, accustomed to be spoken to in that way
by you or anybody else. I don't care a rap for your explanations. Get
out of my way, or you'll be sorry,” and he sprang one side and flung
himself out of the room before Harry could realize the full meaning of
his words.

St. George saw the flash in the boy's eyes, and stretching out his hand
laid it on Harry's arm.

“Steady, my boy! Let him go--Kate will take care of him.”

“No! I'll take care of him!--and now!” He was out of the room and the
door shut behind him before Temple could frame a reply.

St. George shot an anxious, inquiring look at Teackle, who nodded his
head in assent, and the two hurried from the room and across the expanse
of white crash, Willits striding ahead, Harry at his heels, St. George
and the doctor following close behind.

Kate stood near the far door, her radiant eyes fixed on Harry's
approaching figure--the others she did not see. Willits reached her
first:

“Miss Kate, isn't this my dance?” he burst out--“didn't you promise me?”

Kate started and for a moment her face flushed. If she had forgotten
any promise she had made it certainly was not intentional. Then her mind
acted. There must be no bad blood here--certainly not between Harry and
Willits.

“No, not quite that, Mr. Willits,” she answered in her sweetest voice,
a certain roguish coquetry in its tones. “I said I'd think it over, and
you never came near me, and so Harry and I are--”

“But you DID promise me.” His voice could be heard all over the
room--even the colonel, who was talking to a group of ladies, raised
his head to listen, his companions thinking the commotion was due to the
proper arranging of the dance.

Harry's eyes flashed; angry blood was mounting to his cheeks. He was
amazed at Willits's outburst.

“You mean to contradict Miss Kate! Are you crazy, Willits?”

“No, I am entirely sane,” he retorted, an ugly ring in his voice.

Everybody had ceased talking now. Good-natured disputes over the young
girls were not uncommon among the young men, but this one seemed to have
an ominous sound. Colonel Rutter evidently thought so, for he had now
risen from his seat and was crossing the room to where Harry and the
group stood.

“Well, you neither act nor talk as if you were sane,” rejoined Harry
in cold, incisive tones, inching his way nearer Kate, as if to be the
better prepared to defend her.

Willits's lip curled. “I am not beholden to you, sir, for my conduct,
although I can be later on for my words. Let me see your dancing-card,
Miss Kate,” and he caught it from her unresisting hand. “There--what did
I tell you!” This came with a flare of indignation. “It was a blank when
I saw it last and you've filled it in, sir, of your own accord!” Here he
faced Harry. “That's your handwriting--I'll leave it to you, Mr. Temple,
if it isn't his handwriting.”

Harry flushed scarlet and his eyes blazed as he stepped toward the
speaker. Kate shrank back in alarm--she had read Harry's face and knew
what was behind it.

“Take that back, Langdon--quick! You are my guest, but you mustn't say
things like that here. I put my name on the card because Miss Kate asked
me to. Take it back, sir--NOW!--and then make an humble apology to Miss
Seymour.

“I'll take back nothing! I've been cheated out of a dance. Here--take
her--and take this with her!” and he tore Kate's card in half and threw
the pieces in his host's face.

With the spring of a cat, Harry lunged forward and raised his arm as
if to strike Willits in the face: Willits drew himself up to his full
height and confronted him: Kate shrivelled within herself, all the color
gone from her cheeks. Whether to call out for help or withdraw quietly,
was what puzzled her. Both would concentrate the attention of the whole
room on the dispute.

St. George, who was boiling with indignation and disgust, but still cool
and himself, pushed his way into the middle of the group.

“Not a word, Harry,” he whispered in low, frigid tones. “This can be
settled in another way.” Then in his kindest voice, so loud that all
could hear--“Teackle, will you and Mr. Willits please meet me in the
colonel's den--that, perhaps, is the best place after all to straighten
out these tangles. I'll join you there as soon as I have Miss Kate
safely settled.” He bent over her: “Kate, dear, perhaps you had better
sit alongside of Mrs. Rutter until I can get these young fellows
cooled off”--and in a still lower key--“you behaved admirably, my
girl--admirably. I'm proud of you. Mr. Willits has had too much to
drink--that is what is the matter with him, but it will be all over in a
minute--and, Harry, my boy, suppose you help me look up Teackle,” and he
laid his hand with an authoritative pressure on the boy's arm.

The colonel had by this time reached the group and stood trying to catch
the cue. He had heard the closing sentence of St. George's instructions,
but he had missed the provocation, although he had seen Harry's uplifted
fist.

“What's the matter, St. George?” he inquired nervously.

“Just a little misunderstanding, Talbot, as to who was to dance with our
precious Kate,” St. George answered with a laugh, as he gripped Harry's
arm the tighter. “She is such a darling that it is as much as I can do
to keep these young Romeos from running each other through the body,
they are so madly in love with her. I am thinking of making off with her
myself as the only way to keep the peace. Yes, you dear girl, I'll
come back. Hold the music up for a little while, Talbot, until I can
straighten them all out,” and with his arm still tight through Harry's,
the two walked the length of the room and closed the far door behind
them.

Kate looked after them and her heart sank all the lower. She knew the
feeling between the two men, and she knew Harry's hot, ungovernable
temper--the temper of the Rutters. Patient as he often was, and
tender-hearted as he could be, there flashed into his eyes now and then
something that frightened her--something that recalled an incident
in the history of his house. He had learned from his gentle mother
to forgive affronts to himself; she had seen him do it many times,
overlooking what another man would have resented, but an affront to
herself or any other woman was a different matter: that he would never
forgive. She knew, too, that he had just cause to be offended, for in
all her life no one had ever been so rude to her. That she herself was
partly to blame only intensified her anxiety. Willits loved her, for he
had told her so, not once, but several times, although she had answered
him only with laughter. She should have been honest and not played the
coquette: and yet, although the fault was partly her own, never had she
been more astonished than at his outburst. In all her acquaintance with
him he had never lost his temper. Harry, of course, would lay it to
Willits's lack of breeding--to the taint in his blood. But she knew
better--it was the insanity produced by drink, combined with his
jealousy of Harry, which had caused the gross outrage. If she had only
told Willits herself of her betrothal and not waited to surprise him
before the assembled guests, it would have been fairer and spared every
one this scene.

All these thoughts coursed through her mind as with head still proudly
erect she crossed the room on the colonel's arm, to a seat beside
her future mother-in-law, who had noticed nothing, and to whom not a
syllable of the affair would have been mentioned, all such matters being
invariably concealed from the dear lady.

Old Mrs. Cheston, however, was more alert; not only had she caught the
anger in Harry's eyes, but she had followed the flight of the torn
card as its pieces fell to the floor. She had once been present at a
reception given by a prime minister when a similar fracas had occurred.
Then it was a lady's glove and not a dancing-card which was thrown in a
rival's face, and it was a rapier that flashed and not a clenched fist.

“What was the matter over there, Talbot?” she demanded, speaking from
behind her fan when the colonel came within hearing.

“Nothing! Some little disagreement about who should lead the Virginia
reel with Kate. I have stopped the music until they fix it up.”

“Don't talk nonsense, Talbot Rutter, not to me. There was bad blood over
there--you better look after them. There'll be trouble if you don't.”

The colonel tucked the edge of a rebellious ruffle inside his
embroidered waistcoat and with a quiet laugh said: “St. George is
attending to them.”

“St. George is as big a fool as you are about such things. Go, I tell
you, and see what they are doing in there with the door shut.”

“But, my dear Mrs. Cheston,” echoed her host with a deprecating wave of
his hand--“my Harry would no more attack a man under his own roof than
you would cut off your right hand. He's not born that way--none of us
are.”

“You talk like a perfect idiot, Talbot!” she retorted angrily. “You seem
to have forgotten everything you knew. These young fellows here are so
many tinder boxes. There will be trouble I tell you--go out there and
find out what is going on,” she reiterated, her voice increasing
in intensity. “They've had time enough to fix up a dozen Virginia
reels--and besides, Kate is waiting, and they know it. Look! there's
some one coming out--it's that young Teackle. Call him over here and
find out!”

The doctor, who had halted at the door, was now scrutinizing the faces
of the guests as if in search of some one. Then he moved swiftly to
the far side of the room, touched Mark Gilbert, Harry's most intimate
friend, on the shoulder, and the two left the floor.

Kate sat silent, a fixed smile on her face that ill concealed her
anxiety. She had heard every word of the talk between Mrs. Cheston and
the colonel, but she did not share the old lady's alarm as to any actual
conflict. She would trust Uncle George to avoid that. But what kept
Harry? Why leave her thus abruptly and send no word back? In her dilemma
she leaned forward and touched the colonel's arm.

“You don't think anything is the matter, dear colonel, do you?”

“With whom, Kate?”

“Between Harry and Mr. Willits. Harry might resent it--he was very
angry.” Her lips were quivering, her eyes strained. She could hide
her anxiety from her immediate companions, but the colonel was Harry's
father.

The colonel turned quickly: “Resent it here! under his own roof, and the
man his guest? That is one thing, my dear, a Rutter never violates,
no matter what the provocation. I have made a special exception in
Mr. Willits's favor to-night and Harry knows it. It was at your dear
father's request that I invited the young fellow. And then again, I hear
the most delightful things about his own father, who though a plain man
is of great service to his county--one of Mr. Clay's warmest adherents.
All this, you see, makes it all the more incumbent that both my son and
myself should treat him with the utmost consideration, and, as I have
said, Harry understands this perfectly. You don't know my boy; I would
disown him, Kate, if he laid a hand on Mr. Willits--and so should you.”




CHAPTER V



When Dr. Teackle shut the door of the ballroom upon himself and Mark
Gilbert the two did not tarry long in the colonel's den, which was still
occupied by half a dozen of the older men, who were being beguiled by a
relay of hot terrapin that Alec had just served. On the contrary, they
continued on past the serving tables, past old Cobden Dorsey, who was
steeped to the eyes in Santa Cruz rum punch; past John Purviance, and
Gatchell and Murdoch, smacking their lips over the colonel's Madeira,
dived through a door leading first to a dark passage, mounted to a short
flight of steps leading to another dark passage, and so on through a
second door until they reached a small room level with the ground. This
was the colonel's business office, where he conducted the affairs of the
estate--a room remote from the great house and never entered except
on the colonel's special invitation and only then when business of
importance necessitated its use.

That business of the very highest importance--not in any way connected
with the colonel, though of the very gravest moment--was being enacted
here to-night, could be seen the instant Teackle, with Gilbert at
his heels, threw open the door. St. George and Harry were in one
corner--Harry backed against the wall. The boy was pale, but perfectly
calm and silent. On his face was the look of a man who had a duty to
perform and who intended to go through with it come what might. On the
opposite side of the room stood Willits with two young men, his most
intimate friends. They had followed him out of the ballroom to learn the
cause of his sudden outburst, and so far had only heard Willits's
side of the affair. He was now perfectly sober and seemed to feel
his position, but he showed no fear. On the desk lay a mahogany case
containing the colonel's duelling pistols. Harry had taken them from his
father's closet as he passed through the colonel's den.

St. George turned to the young doctor. His face was calm and thoughtful,
and he seemed to realize fully the gravity of the situation.

“It's no use, Teackle,” St. George said with an expressive lift of his
fingers. “I have done everything a man could, but there is only one
way out of it. I have tried my best to save Kate from every unhappiness
to-night, but this is something much more important than woman's tears,
and that is her lover's honor.”

“You mean to tell me, Uncle George, that you can't stop this!” Teackle
whispered with some heat, his eyes strained, his lips twitching. Here
he faced Harry. “You sha'n't go on with this affair, I tell you, Harry.
What will Kate say? Do you think she wants you murdered for a foolish
thing like this!--and that's about what will happen.”

The boy made no reply, except to shake his head. He knew what Kate would
say--knew what she would do, and knew what she would command him to do,
could she have heard Willits's continued insults in this very room but
a moment before while St. George was trying to make him apologize to his
host and so end the disgraceful incident.

“Then I'll go and bring in the colonel and see what he can do!” burst
out Teackle, starting for the door. “It's an outrage that--”

“You'll stay here, Teackle,” commanded St. George--“right where you
stand! This is no place for a father. Harry is of age.”

“But what an ending to a night like this!”

“I know it--horrible!--frightful!--but I would rather see the boy lying
dead at my feet than not defend the woman he loves.” This came in a
decisive tone, as if he had long since made up his mind to this phase of
the situation.

“But Langdon is Harry's guest,” Teackle pleaded, dropping his voice
still lower to escape being heard by the group at the opposite end
of the room--“and he is still under his roof. It is never done--it is
against the code. Besides”--and his voice became a whisper--“Harry never
levelled a pistol at a man in his life, and this is not Langdon's first
meeting. We can fix it in the morning. I tell you we must fix it.”

Harry, who had been listening quietly, reached across the table, picked
up the case of pistols, handed it to Gilbert, whom he had chosen as his
second, and in a calm, clear, staccato tone--each word a bullet rammed
home--said:

“No--Teackle, there will be no delay until to-morrow. Mr. Willits has
forfeited every claim to being my guest and I will fight him here and
now. I could never look Kate in the face, nor would she ever speak to
me again, if I took any other course. You forget that he virtually told
Kate she lied,” and he gazed steadily at Willits as if waiting for the
effect of his shot.

St. George's eyes kindled. There was the ring of a man in the boy's
words. He had seen the same look on the elder Rutter's face in a similar
situation twenty years before. As a last resort he walked toward where
Willits stood conferring with his second.

“I ask you once more, Mr. Willits”--he spoke in his most courteous
tones (Willits's pluck had greatly raised him in his estimation)--“to
apologize like a man and a gentleman. There is no question in my mind
that you have insulted your host in his own house and been discourteous
to the woman he expects to marry, and that the amende honorable should
come from you. I am twice your age and have had many experiences of this
kind, and I would neither ask you to do a dishonorable thing nor would I
permit you to do it if I could prevent it. Make a square, manly apology
to Harry.”

Willits gazed at him with a certain ill-concealed contempt on his face.
He was at the time loosening the white silk scarf about his throat in
preparation for the expected encounter. He evidently did not believe a
word of that part of the statement which referred to Harry's engagement.
If Kate had been engaged to Harry she would have told him so.

“You are only wasting your time, Mr. Temple,” he answered with an
impatient lift of his chin as he stripped his coat from his broad
shoulders. “You have just said there is only one way to settle this--I
am ready--so are my friends. You will please meet me outside--there is
plenty of firelight under the trees, and the sooner we get through this
the better. The apology should not come from me, and will not. Come,
gentlemen,” and he stepped out into the now drizzling night, the glare
of the torches falling on his determined face and white shirt as he
strode down the path followed by his seconds.

Seven gentlemen hurriedly gathered together, one a doctor and another in
full possession of a mahogany case containing two duelling pistols with
their accompanying ammunition, G. D. gun caps, powder-horn, swabs and
rammers, and it past eleven o'clock at night, would have excited but
little interest to the average darky--especially one unaccustomed to the
portents and outcomes of such proceedings.

Not so Alec, who had absorbed the situation at a glance. He had
accompanied his master on two such occasions--one at Bladensburg and the
other on a neighboring estate, when the same suggestive tokens had been
visible, except that those fights took place at daybreak, and after
every requirement of the code had been complied with, instead of under
the flare of smoking pine torches and within a step of the contestant's
front door. He had, besides, a most intimate knowledge of the contents
of the mahogany case, it being part of his duty to see that these
defenders of the honor of all the Rutters--and they had been in frequent
use--were kept constantly oiled and cleaned. He had even cast some
bullets the month before under the colonel's direction. That he was
present to-night was entirely due to the fact that having made a short
cut to the kitchen door in order to hurry some dishes, he had by the
merest chance, and at the precise psychological moment, run bump up
against the warlike party just before they had reached the duelling
ground. This was a well-lighted path but a stone's throw from the porch,
and sufficiently hidden by shrubbery to be out of sight of the ballroom
windows.

The next moment the old man was in full cry to the house. He had heard
the beginning of the trouble while he was carrying out St. George's
orders regarding the two half-emptied bowls of punch and understood
exactly what was going to happen, and why.

“Got de colonel's pistols!” he choked as he sped along the gravel walk
toward the front door the quicker to reach the ballroom--“and Marse
Harry nothin' but a baby! Gor-a-Mighty! Gor-a-Mighty!” Had they all been
grown-ups he might not have minded--but his “Marse Harry,” the child he
brought up, his idol--his chum!--“Fo' Gawd, dey sha'n't kill 'im--dey
sha'n't!--DEY SHA'N'T!!”

He had reached the porch now, swung back the door, and with a sudden
spring--it was wonderful how quick he moved--had dashed into the
ballroom, now a maze of whirling figures--a polka having struck up to
keep everybody occupied until the reel was finally made up.

“Marse Talbot!--Marse Talbot!” All domestic training was cast aside, not
a moment could be lost--“All on ye!--dey's murder outside--somebody go
git de colonel!--Oh, Gawd!--somebody git 'im quick!”

Few heard him and nobody paid any attention to his entreaties; nor
could anybody, when they did listen, understand what he wanted--the men
swearing under their breath, the girls indignant that he had blocked
their way. Mrs. Rutter, who had seen his in-rush, sat aghast. Had Alec,
too, given way, she wondered--old Alec who had had full charge of the
wine cellar for years! But the old man pressed on, still shouting, his
voice almost gone, his eyes bursting from his head.

“Dey's gwineter murder Marse Harry--I seen 'em! Oh!--whar's de colonel!
Won't somebody please--Oh, my Gawd!--dis is awful! Don't I tell ye dey's
gwineter kill Marse Harry!”

Mrs. Cheston, sitting beside Kate, was the only one who seemed to
understand.

“Alec!” she called in her imperious voice--“Alec!--come to me at once!
What is the matter?”

The old butler shambled forward and stood trembling, the tears streaming
down his cheeks.

“Yes, mum--I'm yere! Oh, can't ye git de colonel--ain't nobody else'll
do--”

“Is it a duel?”

“Yes, mum! I jes' done see 'em! Dey's gwineter kill my Marse Harry!”

Kate sprang up. “Where are they?” she cried, shivering with fear. The
old man's face had told the story.

“Out by de greenhouse--dey was measurin' off de groun'--dey's got de
colonel's pistols--you kin see 'em from de winder!”

In an instant she had parted the heavy silk curtains and lifted the
sash. She would have thrown herself from it if Mrs. Cheston had not held
her, although it was but a few feet from the ground.

“Harry!” she shrieked--an agonizing shriek that reverberated through
the ballroom, bringing everybody and everything to a stand-still. The
dancers looked at each other in astonishment. What had happened? Who had
fainted?

The colonel now passed through the room. He had been looking after the
proper handling of the famous Madeira, and had just heard that Alec
wanted him, and was uncertain as to the cause of the disturbance. A
woman's scream had reached his ears, but he did not know it was Kate's
or he would have quickened his steps.

Again Kate's voice pierced the room:

“Harry! HARRY!”--this time in helpless agony. She had peered into the
darkness made denser by the light rain, and had caught a glimpse of a
man standing erect without his coat, the light of the torches bringing
his figure into high relief--whose she could not tell, the bushes were
so thick.

The colonel brushed everybody aside and pulled Kate, half fainting, into
the room. Then he faced Mrs. Cheston.

“What has happened?” he asked sharply. “What is going on outside?”

“Just what I told you. Those fools are out there trying to murder each
other!”

Two shots in rapid succession rang clear on the night air.

The colonel stood perfectly still. No need to tell him now what had
happened, and worse yet, no need to tell him what WOULD happen if
he showed the slightest agitation. He was a cool man, accustomed to
critical situations, and one who never lost his head in an emergency.
Only a few years before he had stopped a runaway hunter, with a girl
clinging to a stirrup, by springing straight at the horse's head and
bringing them both to the ground unhurt. It only required the same
instantaneous concentration of all his forces, he said to himself, as
he gazed into old Alec's terror-stricken face framed by the open window.
Once let the truth be known and the house would be in a panic--women
fainting, men rushing out, taking sides with the combatants, with
perhaps other duels to follow--Mrs. Rutter frantic, the ball suddenly
broken up, and this, too, near midnight, with most of his guests ten
miles and more from home.

Murmurs of alarm were already reaching his ears: What was it?--who had
fainted?--did the scream come from inside or outside the room?--what was
the firing about?

He turned to allay Kate's anxiety, but she had cleared the open window
at a bound and was already speeding toward where she had seen the
light on the man's shirt. For an instant he peered after her into the
darkness, and then, his mind made up, closed the sash with a quick
movement, flung together the silk curtains and raised his hand to
command attention.

“Keep on with the dance, my friends; I'll go and find out what has
happened--but it's nothing that need worry anybody--only a little burnt
powder. Alec, go and tell Mr. Grant, the overseer, to keep better order
outside. In the meantime let everybody get ready for the Virginia reel;
supper will be served in a few minutes. Will you young gentlemen please
choose your partners, and will some one of you kindly ask the music to
start up?”

Slowly, and quite as if he had been called to the front door to welcome
some belated guest, he walked the length of the room preceded by Alec,
who, agonized at his master's measured delay, had forged ahead to open
the door. This closed and they out of sight, the two hurried down the
path.

Willits lay flat on the ground, one arm stretched above his head. He
had measured his full length, the weight of his shoulder breaking some
flower-pots as he fell. Over his right eye gaped an ugly wound from
which oozed a stream of blood that stained his cheek and throat. Dr.
Teackle, on one knee, was searching the patient's heart, while Kate, her
pretty frock soiled with mud, her hair dishevelled, sat crouched in the
dirt rubbing his hands--sobbing bitterly--crying out whenever Harry,
who was kneeling beside her, tried to soothe her:--“No!--No!--My heart's
broken--don't speak to me--go away!”

The colonel, towering above them, looked the scene over, then he
confronted Harry, who had straightened to his feet on seeing his father.

“A pretty piece of work--and on a night like this! A damnable piece of
work, I should say, sir!... Has he killed him, Teackle?”

The young doctor shook his head ominously.

“I cannot tell yet--his heart is still beating.”

St. George now joined the group. He and Gilbert and the other seconds
had, in order to maintain secrecy, been rounding up the few negroes who
had seen the encounter, or who had been attracted to the spot by the
firing.

“Harry had my full consent, Talbot--there was really nothing else to do.
Only an ounce of cold lead will do in some cases, and this was one of
them.” He was grave and deliberate in manner, but there was an infinite
sadness in his voice.

“He did--did he?” retorted the colonel bitterly. “YOUR full consent!
YOURS! and I in the next room!” Here he beckoned to one of the negroes
who, with staring eyeballs, stood gazing from one to the other. “Come
closer, Eph--not a whisper, remember, or I'll cut the hide off your back
in strips. Tell the others what I say--if a word of this gets into the
big house or around the cabins I'll know who to punish. Now two or three
of you go into the greenhouse, pick up one of those wide planks, and
lift this gentleman onto it so we can carry him. Take him into my
office, doctor, and lay him on my lounge. He'd better die there than
here. Come, Kate--do you go with me. Not a syllable of this, remember,
Kate, to Mrs. Rutter, or anybody else. As for you, sir”--and he looked
Harry squarely in the face--“you will hear from me later on.”

With the same calm determination, he entered the ballroom, walked to the
group forming the reel, and, with a set smile on this face indicating
how idle had been everybody's fears, said loud enough to be heard by
every one about him:

“Only one of the men, my dear young people, who has been hurt in the
too careless use of some firearms. As to dear Kate--she has been
so upset--she happened unfortunately to see the affair from the
window--that she has gone to her room and so you must excuse her for a
little while. Now everybody keep on with the dance.”

With his wife he was even more at ease. “The same old root of all evil,
my dear,” he said with a dry laugh--“too much peach brandy, and this
time down the wrong throats--and so in their joy they must celebrate by
firing off pistols and wasting my good ammunition,” an explanation
which completely satisfied the dear lady--peach brandy being capable of
producing any calamity, great or small.

But this would not do for Mrs. Cheston. She was a woman who could be
trusted and who never, on any occasion, lost her nerve. He saw from the
way she lifted her eyebrows in inquiry, instead of framing her question
in words, that she fully realized the gravity of the situation. The
colonel looked at her significantly, made excuse to step in front of
her, his back to the room, and with his forefinger tapping his forehead,
whispered:

“Willits.”

The old lady paled, but she did not change her expression.

“And Harry?” she murmured in return.

The colonel kept his eyes upon her, but he made no answer. A hard, cold
look settled on his face--one she knew--one his negroes feared when he
grew angry.

Again she repeated Harry's name, this time in alarm:

“Quick!--tell me--not killed?”

“No--I wish to God he were!”




CHAPTER VI



The wounded man lay on a lounge in the office room, which was dimly
lighted by the dying glow of the outside torches and an oil lamp
hurriedly brought in. No one was present except St. George, Harry, the
doctor, and a negro woman who had brought in some pillows and hot water.
All that could be done for him had been done; he was unconscious and his
life hung by a thread. Harry, now that the mysterious thing called his
“honor” had been satisfied, was helping Teackle wash the wound prior to
an attempt to probe for the ball.

The boy was crying quietly--the tears streaming unbidden down his
cheeks--it was his first experience at this sort of thing. He had been
brought up to know that some day it might come and that he must then
face it, but he had never before realized the horror of what might
follow. And yet he had not reached the stage of regret; he was sorry for
the wounded man and for his suffering, but he was not sorry for his own
share in causing it. He had only done his duty, and but for a stroke of
good luck he and Willits might have exchanged places. Uncle George had
expressed his feelings exactly when he said that only a bit of cold lead
could settle some insults, and what insult could have been greater than
the one for which he had shot Willits? What was a gentleman to do? Go
around meeting his antagonist every day?--the two ignoring each other?
Or was he to turn stable boy, and pound him with his fists?--or, more
ridiculous still, have him bound over to keep the peace, or bring an
action for--Bah!--for what?--Yes--for what? Willits hadn't struck
him, or wounded him, or robbed him. It had been his life or Willits's.
No--there was no other way--couldn't be any other way. Willits knew
it when he tore up Kate's card--knew what would follow. There was no
deception--nothing underhand. And he had got precisely what he deserved,
sorry as he felt for his sufferings.

Then Kate's face rose before him--haunted him. Why hadn't she seen
it this way? Why had she refused to look at him--refused to answer
him--driven him away from her side, in fact?--he who had risked his life
to save her from insult! Why wouldn't she allow him to even touch
her hand? Why did she treat Willits--drunken vulgarian as he
was--differently from the way she had treated him? She had broken off
her engagement with him because he was drunk at Mrs. Cheston's ball,
where nobody had been hurt but himself, and here she was sympathizing
with another drunken man who had not only outraged all sense of decency
toward her, but had jeopardized the life of her affianced husband who
defended her against his insults; none of which would have happened had
the man been sober. All this staggered him.

More astounding still was her indifference. She had not even asked if he
had escaped unhurt, but had concentrated all her interest upon the
man who had insulted her. As to his own father's wrath--that he had
expected. It was his way to break out, and this he knew would continue
until he realized the enormity of the insult to Kate and heard how he
and St. George had tried to ward off the catastrophe. Then he would not
only change his opinion, but would commend him for his courage.

Outside the sick-room such guests as could be trusted were gathered
together in the colonel's den, where they talked in whispers. All agreed
that the ladies and the older men must be sent home as soon as possible,
and in complete ignorance of what had occurred. If Willits lived--of
which there was little hope--his home would be at the colonel's until
he fully recovered, the colonel having declared that neither expense nor
care would be spared to hasten his recovery. If he died, the body would
be sent to his father's house later on.

With this object in view the dance was adroitly shortened, the supper
hurried through, and within an hour after midnight the last carriage and
carryall of those kept in ignorance of the duel had departed, the only
change in the programme being the non-opening of the rare old bottle
of Madeira and the announcement of Harry's and Kate's engagement--an
omission which provoked little comment, as it had been known to but few.

Kate remained. She had tottered upstairs holding on to the hand-rail
and had thrown herself on a bed in the room leading out of the
dressing-room, where she lay in her mud-stained dress, the silken
petticoat torn and bedraggled in her leap from the window. She was
weeping bitterly, her old black mammy sitting beside her trying to
comfort her as best she could.

With the departure of the last guest--Mr. Seymour among them; the
colonel doing the honors; standing bare-headed on the porch, his face
all smiles as he bade them good-by--the head of the house of Rutter
turned quickly on his heel, passed down the corridor, made his way along
the long narrow hall, and entered his office, where the wounded man lay.
Harry, the negro woman, and Dr. Teackle alone were with him.

“Is there any change?” he asked in a perfectly even voice. Every vestige
of the set smile of the host had left his face. Harry he did not even
notice.

“Not much--he is still alive,” replied the doctor.

“Have you found the ball?”

“No--I have not looked for it--I will presently.”

The colonel moved out a chair and sat down beside the dying man, his
eyes fixed on the lifeless face. Some wave of feeling must have swept
through him, for after a half-stifled sigh, he said in a low voice, as
if to himself:

“This will be a fine story to tell his father, won't it?--and here
too--under my roof. My God!--was there ever anything more disgraceful!”
 He paused for a moment, his eyes still on the sufferer, and then went
on--this time to the doctor--“His living so long gives me some hope--am
I right, Teackle?”

The doctor nodded, but he made no audible reply. He had bent closer to
the man's chest and was at the moment listening intently to the labored
breathing, which seemed to have increased.

Harry edged nearer to the patient, his eyes seeking for some move of
life. All his anger had faded. Willits, his face ablaze with drink and
rage, his eyes flashing, his strident voice ringing out--even Kate's
shocked, dazed face, no longer filled his mind. It was the suffering
man--trembling on the verge of eternity, shot to death by his own
ball--that appealed to him. And then the suddenness of it all--less than
an hour had passed since this tall, robust young fellow stood before him
on the stairs, hanging upon every word that fell from Kate's lips--and
here he lay weltering in his own blood.

Suddenly his father's hopeful word to the doctor sounded in his ears.
Suppose, after all, Willits SHOULD get well! Then Kate would understand
and forgive him! As this thought developed in his mind his spirits
rose. He scanned the sufferer the more intently, straining his neck,
persuading himself that a slight twitching had crossed the dying man's
face. Almost instantaneously the doctor rose to his feet.

“Quick, Harry!--hand me that brandy! It's just as I hoped--the ball has
ploughed outside the skull--the brain is untouched. It was the shock
that stunned him. Leave the room everybody--you too, colonel--he'll come
to in a minute and must not be excited.”

Harry sprang from his chair, a great surge of thankfulness rising in
his heart, caught up the decanter, filled a glass and pressed it to the
sufferer's lips. The colonel sat silent and unmoved. He had seen too
many wounded men revive and then die to be unduly excited. That Willets
still breathed was the only feature of his case that gave him any hope.

Harry shot an inquiring glance at his father, and receiving only a cold
stare in return, hurried from the room, his steps growing lighter as he
ran. Kate must hear the good news and with the least possible delay. He
would not send a message--he would go himself; then he could explain and
relieve her mind. She would listen to his pleading. It was natural she
should have been shocked. He himself had been moved to sympathy by the
sufferer's condition--how much more dreadful, then, must have been the
sight of the wounded man lying there among the flower-pots to a woman
nurtured so carefully and one so sensitive in spirit! But it was all
over--Willits would live--there would be a reconciliation--everything
would be forgiven and everything forgotten.

All these thoughts crowded close in his mind as he rushed up the stairs
two steps at a time to where his sweetheart lay moaning out her heart.
He tapped lightly and her old black mammy opened the door on a crack.

“It's Marse Harry, mistis,” she called back over her shoulder--“shall I
let him come in?”

“No!--no!--I don't want to see him; I don't want to see anybody--my
heart is broken!” came the reply in half-stifled sobs.

Harry, held at bay, rested his forehead against the edge of the door so
his voice could reach her the better.

“But Willits isn't going to die, Kate dear. I have just left him; it's
only a scalp wound. Dr. Teackle says he's all right. The shock stunned
him into unconsciousness.”

“Oh, I don't care what Dr. Teackle says! It's you, Harry!--You! You
never once thought of me--Oh, why did you do it?”

“I did think of you, Kate! I never thought of anything else--I am not
thinking of anything else now.”

“Oh, to think you tried to murder him! You, Harry--whom I loved so!” she
sobbed.

“It was for you, Kate! You heard what he said--you saw it all. It was
for you--for nobody else--for you, my darling! Let me come in--let me
hold you close to me and tell you.”

“No!--NO--NO! My heart is broken! Come to me, mammy!”

The door shut gently and left him on the outside, dazed at the outcry,
his heart throbbing with tenderness and an intense, almost ungovernable
impulse to force his way into the room, take her in his arms, and
comfort her.

The closed door brought him to his senses. To-morrow, after all, would
be better, he confessed to himself humbly. Nothing more could be done
to-night. Yes--to-morrow he would tell her all. He turned to descend the
stairs and ran almost into Alec's arms. The old man was trembling with
excitement and seemed hardly able to control himself. He had come in
search of him, and had waited patiently at Kate's door for the outcome
of the interview, every word of which he had overheard.

“Marse Talbot done sont me fer ye, Marse Harry,” he said in a low voice;
“he wants ye in his li'l' room. Don't ye take no notice what de young
mistis says; she ain't griebin' fer dat man. Dat Willits blood ain't no
'count, nohow; dey's po' white trash, dey is--eve'ybody knows dat. Let
Miss Kate cry herse'f out; dat's de on'y help now. Mammy Henny'll look
arter her till de mawnin'”--to none of which did Harry make answer.

When they reached the bottom step leading to the long hall the old man
stopped and laid his hand on his young master's shoulder. His voice was
barely audible and two tears stood in his eyes.

“Don't you take no notice ob what happens to-night, son,” he whispered.
“'Member ye kin count on ol' Alec. Ain't neber gwineter be nothin' come
'twixt me an' you, son. I ain't neber gwineter git tired lovin' ye--you
won't fergit dat, will ye?”

“No, Alec, but Mr. Willits will recover. Dr. Teackle has just said so.”

“Oh, dat ain't it, son--it's you, Marse Harry. Don't let 'em down
ye--stand up an' fight 'em back.”

Harry patted the old servant tenderly on the arm to calm his fears. His
words had made but little impression on him. If he had heard them at all
he certainly did not grasp their import. What he was wanted for he could
not surmise--nor did he much care. Now that Kate had refused to see him
he almost wished that Willits's bullet had found its target.

“Where did you say my father was, Alec?” he asked in a listless voice.

“In his li'l' room, son; dey's all in dar, Marse George Temple, Mister
Gilbert--dem two gemmans who stood up wid Mister Willits--dey's all
dar. Don't mind what dey say, honey--jes' you fall back on ol' Alec. I
dassent go in; maybe I'll be yere in de pantry so ye kin git hold o' me.
I'se mos' crazy, Marse Harry--let me git hold oh yo' hand once mo', son.
Oh, my Gawd!--dey sha'n't do nothin' to ye!”

The boy took the old man's hand in his, patted it gently and resumed his
walk. The least said the better when Alec felt like this. It was Kate's
voice that pierced his ears--Kate's sobs that wrenched his heart: “You
never thought of me!” Nothing else counted.

Harry turned the handle of the door and stepped boldly in, his head
erect, his eyes searching the room. It was filled with gentlemen, some
sitting, some standing; not only those who had taken part in the duel,
but three or four others who were in possession of the secret that lay
heavy on everybody's mind.

He looked about him: most of the candles had burned low in the socket;
some had gone out. The few that still flickered cast a dim, ghostly
light. The remains of the night's revel lay on the larger table and the
serving tables:--a half empty silver dish of terrapin, caked over with
cold grease; portion of a ham with the bone showing; empty and partly
filled glasses and china cups from which the toddies and eggnog had
been drunk. The smell of rum and lemons intermingled with the smoke of
snuffed-out candle wicks greeted his nostrils--a smell he remembered for
years and always with a shudder.

There had evidently been a heated discussion, for his father was walking
up and down the room, his face flushed, his black eyes blazing with
suppressed anger, his plum-colored coat unbuttoned as if to give him
more breathing space, his silk scarf slightly awry. St. George Temple
must have been the cause of his wrath, for the latter's voice was
reverberating through the room as Harry stepped in.

“I tell you, Talbot, you shall not--you DARE not!” St. George was
exclaiming, his voice rising in the intensity of his indignation. His
face was set, his eyes blazing; all his muscles taut. He stood like an
avenging knight guarding some pathway. Harry looked on in amazement--he
had never seen his uncle like this before.

The colonel wheeled about suddenly and raised his clenched hand. He
seemed to be nervously unstrung and for a moment to have lost his
self-control.

“Stop, St. George!” he thundered. “Stop instantly! Not another word, do
you hear me? Don't strain a friendship that has lasted from boyhood or
I may forget myself as you have done. No man can tell me what I shall
or shall not do when my honor is at stake. Never before has a Rutter
disgraced himself and his blood. I am done with him, I tell you!”

“But the man will get well!” hissed St. George, striding forward and
confronting him. “Teackle has just said so--you heard him; we all heard
him!”

“That makes no difference; that does not relieve my son.”

Rutter had now become aware of Harry's presence. So had the others, who
turned their heads in the boy's direction, but no one spoke. They had
not the lifelong friendship that made St. George immune, and few of them
would have dared to disagree with Talbot Rutter in anything.

“And now, sir”--here the colonel made a step towards where Harry stood,
the words falling as drops of water fall on a bared head--“I have
sent for you to tell you just what I have told these gentlemen. I have
informed them openly because I do not wish either my sense of honor or
my motives to be misunderstood. Your performances to-night have been so
dastardly and so ill-bred as to make it impossible for me ever to live
under the same roof with you again.” Harry started and his lips parted
as if to speak, but he made no sound. “You have disgraced your blood and
violated every law of hospitality. Mr. Willits should have been as safe
here as you would have been under his father's roof. If he misbehaved
himself you could have ordered his carriage and settled the affair next
day, as any gentleman of your standing would have done. I have sent for
a conveyance to take you wherever you may wish to go.” Then, turning to
St. George, “I must ask you, Temple, to fill my place and see that these
gentlemen get their proper carriages, as I must join Mrs. Rutter, who
has sent for me. Good-night,” and he strode from the room.

Harry stared blankly into the faces of the men about him: first at St.
George and then at the others--one after another--as if trying to read
what was passing in their minds. No one spoke or moved. His father's
intentions had evidently been discussed before the boy's arrival and
the final denunciation had, therefore, been received with less of the
deadening effect than it had produced on himself. Nor was it a surprise
to old Alec, who despite his fears had followed Harry noiselessly into
the room, and who had also overheard the colonel's previous outbreak as
to his intended disposition of his young master.

St. George, who during the outburst had stood leaning against the
mantel, his eyes riveted on Harry, broke the silence.

“That, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, straightening to his feet, one hand
held high above his head, “is the most idiotic and unjust utterance that
ever fell from Talbot Rutter's lips! and one he will regret to his dying
day. This boy you all know--most of you have known him from childhood,
and you know him, as I do, to be the embodiment of all that is brave
and truthful. He is just of age--without knowledge of the world, his
engagement to Kate Seymour, as some of you are aware, was to be made
known to-night. Willits was drunk or he would not have acted as he did.
I saw it coming and tried to stop him. That he was drunk was Rutter's
own fault, with his damned notions of drowning everybody in drink
every minute of the day and night. I saw the whole affair and heard the
insult, and it was wholly unprovoked. Harry did just what was right, and
if he hadn't I'd either have made Willits apologize or I would have shot
him myself the moment the affair could have been arranged, no
matter where we were. I know perfectly well”--here he swept his eyes
around--“that there is not a man in this room who does not feel as I do
about Rutter's treatment of this boy, and so I shall not comment further
upon it.” He dropped his clenched hand and turned to Harry, his voice
still clear and distinct but with a note of tenderness through it. “And
now, that pronunciamentos are in order, my boy, here is one which has
less of the Bombastes Furioso in it than the one you have just listened
to--but it's a damned sight more humane and a damned sight more
fatherly, and it is this:--hereafter you belong to me--you are my son,
my comrade, and, if I ever have a dollar to give to any one, my heir.
And now one thing more, and I don't want any one of you gentlemen within
sound of my voice ever to forget it: When hereafter any one of you
reckon with Harry you will please remember that you reckon with me.”

He turned suddenly. “Excuse me one moment, gentlemen, and I will then
see that you get your several carriages. Alec!--where's Alec?”

The old darky stepped out of the shadow. “I'm yere, sah.”

“Alec, go and tell Matthew to bring my gig to the front porch--and be
sure you see that your young master's heavy driving-coat is put inside.
Mr. Harry spends the night with me.”




CHAPTER VII



The secrecy enjoined upon everybody conversant with the happenings at
Moorlands did not last many hours. At the club, across dinner tables, at
tea, on the street, and in the libraries of Kennedy Square, each
detail was gone over, each motive discussed. None of the facts were
exaggerated, nor was the gravity of the situation lightly dismissed.
Duels were not so common as to blunt the sensibilities. On the contrary,
they had begun to be generally deplored and condemned, a fact largely
due to the bitterness resulting from a famous encounter which had taken
place a year or so before between young Mr. Cocheran, the son of a rich
landowner, and Mr. May--the circumstances being somewhat similar, the
misunderstanding having arisen at a ball in Washington over a reigning
belle, during which Mr. May had thrown his card in Cocheran's face. In
this instance all the requirements of the code were complied with.
The duel was fought in an open space behind Nelson's Hotel, near the
Capitol, Mr. Cocheran arriving at half-past five in the morning in a
magnificent coach drawn by four white horses, his antagonist reaching
the grounds in an ordinary conveyance, the seconds and the two surgeons
on horseback. Both fired simultaneously, with the result that May
escaped unhurt, while Cocheran was shot through the head and instantly
killed.

Public opinion, indeed, around Kennedy Square, was, if the truth be
told, undergoing many and serious changes. For not only the duel but
some other of the traditional customs dear to the old regime were
falling into disrepute--especially the open sideboards, synonymous
with the lavish hospitality of the best houses. While most of the older
heads, brought up on the finer and rarer wines, knew to a glass the
limit of their endurance, the younger bloods were constantly losing
control of themselves, a fact which was causing the greatest anxiety
among the mothers of Kennedy Square.

This growing antipathy had been hastened and solidified by another
tragedy quite as widely discussed as the Cocheran and May duel--more so,
in fact, since this particular victim of too many toddies had been the
heir of one of the oldest residents about Kennedy Square--a brilliant
young surgeon, self-exiled because of his habits, who had been thrown
from his horse on the Indian frontier--an Iowa town, really--shattering
his leg and making its amputation necessary. There being but one other
man in the rough camp who had ever seen a knife used--and he but a
student--the wounded surgeon had directed the amputation himself, even
to the tying of the arteries and the bandages and splints. Only then did
he collapse. The hero--and he was a hero to every one who knew of his
coolness and pluck, in spite of his recognized weakness--had returned to
his father's house on Kennedy Square on crutches, there to consult some
specialists, the leg still troubling him. As the cripple's bedroom was
at the top of the first flight of stairs, the steps of which--it being
summer--were covered with China matting, he was obliged to drag himself
up its incline whenever he was in want of something he must fetch
himself. One of these necessities was a certain squat bottle like those
which had graced the old sideboards. Half a dozen times a day would he
adjust his crutches, their steel points preventing his slipping, and
mount the stairs to his room, one step at a time.

Some months after, when the matting was taken up, the mother took her
youngest boy--he was then fifteen--to the steps:

“Do you see the dents of your brother's crutches?--count them. Every one
was a nail in his coffin.” They were--for the invalid died that winter.

These marked changes in public opinion, imperceptible as they had been
at first, were gradually paving the way, it may be said, for the dawn
of that new order of things which only the wiser and more farsighted
men--men like Richard Horn--were able to discern. While many of the old
regime were willing to admit that the patriarchal life, with the negro
as the worker and the master as the spender, had seen its best days, but
few of them, at the period of these chronicles, realized that the genius
of Morse, Hoe, and McCormick, and a dozen others, whose inventions were
just beginning to be criticised, and often condemned, were really the
chief factors in the making of a new and greater democracy: that the
cog, the drill, the grate-bar, and the flying shuttle would ere long
supplant the hoe and the scythe; and that when the full flood of this
new era was reached their old-time standards of family pride, reckless
hospitality, and even their old-fashioned courtesy would well-nigh be
swept into space. The storm raised over this and the preceding duel had
they but known it, was but a notch in the tide-gauge of this flood.

“I understand, St. George, that you could have stopped that disgraceful
affair the other night if you had raised your hand,” Judge Pancoast
had blurted out in an angry tone at the club the week following. “I did
raise it, judge,” replied St. George, calmly drawing off his gloves.

“They don't say so--they say you stood by and encouraged it.”

“Quite true,” he answered in his dryest voice. “When I raised my hand it
was to drop my handkerchief. They fired as it fell.”

“And a barbarous and altogether foolish piece of business, Temple.
There is no justification for that sort of thing, and if Rutter wasn't
a feudal king up in his own county there would be trouble over it. It's
God's mercy the poor fellow wasn't killed. Fine beginning, isn't it, for
a happy married life?”

“Better not have any wife at all, judge, than wed a woman whose good
name you are afraid to defend with your life. There are some of us who
can stand anything but that, and Harry is built along the same lines. A
fine, noble, young fellow--did just right and has my entire confidence
and my love. Think it over, judge,” and he strolled into the card-room,
picked up the morning paper, and buried his face in its columns, his
teeth set, his face aflame with suppressed disgust at the kind of blood
running in the judge's veins.

The colonel's treatment of his son also came in for heated discussion.
Mrs. Cheston was particularly outspoken. Such quixotic action on the
ground of safeguarding the rights of a young drunkard like Willits,
who didn't know when he had had enough, might very well do for a
self-appointed autocrat like Rutter, she maintained, but some equally
respectable people would have him know that they disagreed with him.

“Just like Talbot Rutter,” she exclaimed in her outspoken, decided
way--“no sense of proportion. High-tempered, obstinate as a mule, and
a hundred years--yes, five hundred years behind his time. And he--could
have stopped it all too if he had listened to me. Did you ever hear
anything so stupid as his turning Harry--the sweetest boy who ever
lived--out of doors, and in a pouring rain, for doing what he would have
done himself! Oh, this is too ridiculous--too farcical. Why, you can't
conceive of the absurdity of it all--nobody can! Gilbert was there and
told me every word of it. You would have thought he was a grand duke or
a pasha punishing a slave--and the funniest thing about it is that he
believes he is a pasha. Oh--I have no patience with such contemptible
family pride, and that's what is at the bottom of it.”

Some of the back county aristocrats, on the other hand--men who lived by
themselves, who took their cue from Alexander Hamilton, Lee, and Webb,
and believed in the code as the only means of arbitrating a difficulty
of any kind between gentlemen--stoutly defended the Lord of Moorlands.

“Rutter did perfectly right to chuck the young whelp out of doors.
Outrageous, sir--never is done--nothing less than murder. Ought to be
prosecuted for challenging a man under his own roof--and at night too.
No toss-up for position, no seconds except a parcel of boys. Vulgar,
sir--infernally vulgar, sir. I haven't the honor of Colonel Rutter's
acquaintance--but if I had I'd tell him so--served the brat right--damn
him!”

Richard Horn was equally emphatic, but in a far different way. Indeed he
could hardly restrain himself when discussing it.

“I can think of nothing my young boy Oliver would or could do when he
grows up,” he exclaimed fiercely--his eyes flashing, “which would shut
him out of his home and his dear mother's care. The duel is a relic of
barbarism and should be no longer tolerated; it is mob law, really,
and indefensible, with two persons defying the statutes instead of a
thousand. But Rutter is the last man in the world to take the stand he
has, and I sincerely regret his action. There are many bitter days ahead
of him.”

Nor were the present conditions, aspirations, and future welfare of the
two combatants, and of the lovely girl over whom they had quarrelled,
neglected by the gossipers. No day passed without an extended discussion
of their affairs. Bearers of fresh news were eagerly welcomed both to
toddy and tea tables.

Old Morris Murdoch, who knew Willits's father intimately, being a strong
Clay man himself, arrived at one of these functions with the astounding
information that Willits had called on Miss Seymour, wearing his hat in
her presence to conceal his much-beplastered head. That he had then
and there not only made her a most humble apology for his ill-tempered
outbreak, which he explained was due entirely to a combination of
egg-and-brandy, with a dash of apple-toddy thrown in, but had declared
upon his honor as a gentleman that he would never again touch
the flowing bowl. Whereupon--(and this excited still greater
astonishment)--the delighted young lady had not only expressed her
sympathy for his misfortunes, but had blamed herself for what had
occurred!

Tom Tilghman, a famous cross-country rider, who had ridden in post haste
from his country seat near Moorlands to tell the tale--as could be seen
from his boots, which were still covered with mud--boldly asserted of
his own knowledge that the wounded man, instead of seeking his native
shore, as was generally believed, would betake himself to the Red
Sulphur Springs (where Kate always spent the summer)--accompanied by
three saddle horses, two servants, some extra bandages, and his devoted
sister, there to regain what was left of his health and strength. At
which Judge Pancoast had retorted--and with some heat--that Willits
might take a dozen saddle horses and an equal number of sisters, and
a bale of bandages if he were so minded, to the Springs, or any other
place, but he would save time and money if he stayed at home and looked
after his addled head, as no woman of Miss Seymour's blood and breeding
could possibly marry a man whose family escutcheon needed polishing as
badly as did his manners. That the fact--the plain, bold fact--and here
the judge's voice rose to a high pitch--was that Willits was boiling
drunk until Harry's challenge sobered him, and that Kate hated
drunkenness as much as did Harry's mother and the other women who had
started out to revolutionize society.

What that young lady herself thought of it all not even the best-posted
gossip in the club dared to venture an opinion. Moreover, such was
the respect and reverence in which she was held, and so great was the
sympathy felt for her situation, that she was seldom referred to in
connection with Harry or the affair except with a sigh, followed by
a “Too bad, isn't it?--enough to break your heart,” and such like
expressions.

What the Honorable Prim thought of it all was apparent the next day at
the club when he sputtered out with:

“Here's a nice mess for a man of my position to find himself in! Do you
know that I am now pointed out as the prospective father-in-law of a
young jackanapes who goes about with a glass of grog in one hand and a
pistol in the other. I am not accustomed to having my name bandied about
and I won't have it--I live a life of great simplicity, minding my own
business, and I want everybody else to mind theirs. The whole affair
is most contemptible and ridiculous and smacks of the tin-armor age.
Willits should have been led quietly out of the room and put to bed
and young Rutter should have been reprimanded publicly by his father.
Disgraceful on a night like that when my daughter's name was on
everybody's lips.”

After which outburst he had shut himself up in his house, where, so he
told one of his intimates, he intended to remain until he left for the
Red Sulphur Springs, which he would do several weeks earlier than was
his custom--a piece of news which not only confirmed Tom Tilghman's
gossip, but lifted several eyebrows in astonishment and set one or two
loose tongues to wagging.

Out at Moorlands, the point of view varied as the aftermath of the
tragedy developed, the colonel alone pursuing his daily life without
comment, although deep down in his heart a very maelstrom was boiling
and seething.

Mrs. Rutter, as fate would have it, on hearing that Kate was too ill
to go back to town, had gone the next morning to her bedside, where she
learned for the first time not only of the duel--which greatly shocked
her, leaving her at first perfectly limp and helpless--but of Harry's
expulsion from his father's house--(Alec owned the private wire)--a
piece of news which at first terrified and then keyed her up as tight as
an overstrung violin. Like many another Southern woman, she might shrink
from a cut on a child's finger and only regain her mental poise by
a liberal application of smelling salts, but once touch that boy of
hers--the child she had nourished and lived for--and all the rage of the
she-wolf fighting for her cub was aroused. What took place behind the
closed doors of her bedroom when she faced the colonel and flamed out,
no one but themselves knew. That the colonel was dumfounded--never
having seen her in any such state of mind--goes without saying. That he
was proud of her and liked her the better for it, is also true--nothing
delighted him so much as courage;--but nothing of all this, impressive
as it was, either weakened or altered his resolve.

Nor did he change front to his friends and acquaintances: his
honorable name, he maintained, had been trailed in the mud; his boasted
hospitality betrayed; his house turned into a common shamble. That his
own son was the culprit made the pain and mortification the greater, but
it did not lessen his responsibility to his blood. Had not Foscari, to
save his honor, in the days of the great republic, condemned his own son
Jacopo to exile and death? Had not Virginius slain his daughter? Should
he not protect his own honor as well? Furthermore, was not the young
man's father a gentleman of standing--a prominent man in the State--a
friend not only of his own friend, Henry Clay, but of the governor as
well? He, of course, would not have Harry marry into the family had
there been a marriageable daughter, but that was no reason why Mr.
Willits's only son should not be treated with every consideration. He,
Talbot Rutter, was alone responsible for the honor of his house. When
your right hand offends you cut it off. His right hand HAD offended him,
and he HAD cut it off. Away, then, with the spinning of fine phrases!

And so he let the hornets buzz--and they did swarm and buzz and sting.
As long as his wrath lasted he was proof against their assaults--in fact
their attacks only confirmed him in his position. It was when all this
ceased, for few continued to remonstrate with him after they had heard
his final: “I decline to discuss it with you, madame,” or the more
significant: “How dare you, sir, refer to my private affairs without my
permission?”--it was, I say, when all this ceased, and when neither his
wife, who after her first savage outbreak had purposely held her
peace, nor any of the servants--not even old Alec, who went about
with streaming eyes and a great lump in his throat--dared renew their
entreaties for Marse Harry's return, that he began to reflect on his
course.

Soon the great silences overawed him--periods of loneliness when he
sat confronting his soul, his conscience on the bench as judge; his
affections a special attorney:--silences of the night, in which he would
listen for the strong, quick, manly footstep and the closing of the door
in the corridor beyond:--silences of the dawn, when no clatter of
hoofs followed by a cheery call rang out for some one to take
Spitfire:--silences of the breakfast table, when he drank his coffee
alone, Alec tip-toeing about like a lost spirit. Sometimes his heart
would triumph and he begin to think out ways and means by which the past
could be effaced. Then again the flag of his pride would be raised aloft
so that he and all the people could see, and the old hard look would
once more settle in his face, the lips straighten and the thin fingers
tighten. No--NO! No assassins for him--no vulgar brawlers--and it was
at best a vulgar brawl--and this too within the confines of Moorlands,
where, for five generations, only gentlemen had been bred!

And yet, product as he was of a regime that worshipped no ideals but
its own; hide-bound by the traditions of his ancestry; holding in secret
disdain men and women who could not boast of equal wealth and lineage;
dictatorial, uncontradictable; stickler for obsolete forms and
ceremonies--there still lay deep under the crust of his pride the heart
of a father, and, by his standards, the soul of a gentleman.

What this renegade son of his thought of it all; this disturber of his
father's sleeping and waking hours, was far easier to discover. Dazed as
Harry had been at the parental verdict and heart-broken as he still was
over the dire results, he could not, though he tried, see what else he
could have done. His father, he argued to himself, had shot and killed
a man when he was but little older than himself, and for an offence much
less grave than Willits's insult to Kate: he had frequently boasted of
it, showing him the big brass button that had deflected the bullet and
saved his life. So had his Uncle George, five years before--not a dead
man that time, but a lame one--who was still limping around the club and
very good friends the two, so far as he knew. Why then blame HIM? As
for the law of hospitality being violated, that was but one of the
idiosyncrasies of his father, who was daft on hospitality. How could
Willits be his guest when he was his enemy? St. George had begged the
wounded man to apologize; if he had done so he would have extended
his hand and taken him to Kate, who, upon a second apology, would have
extended her hand, and the incident would have been closed. It was
Willits's stubbornness and bad breeding, then, that had caused the
catastrophe--not his own bullet.

Besides no real harm had been done--that is, nothing very serious.
Willits had gained strength rapidly--so much so that he had sat up the
third day. Moreover, he had the next morning been carried to one of the
downstairs bedrooms, where, he understood, Kate had sent her black mammy
for news of him, and where, later on, he had been visited by both Mrs.
Rutter and Kate--a most extraordinary condescension on the young girl's
part, and one for which Willits should be profoundly grateful all the
days of his life.

Nor had Willits's people made any complaint; nor, so far as he could
ascertain, had any one connected with either the town or county
government started an investigation. It was outside the precincts of
Kennedy Square, and, therefore, the town prosecuting attorney (who
had heard every detail at the Chesapeake from St. George) had not been
called upon to act, and it was well known that no minion of the law in
and about Moorlands would ever dare face the Lord of the Manor in any
official capacity.

Why, then, had he been so severely punished?




CHAPTER VIII



While all this talk filled the air it is worthy of comment that after
his denunciation of Pancoast's views at the club, St. George never
again discussed the duel and its outcome. His mind was filled with more
important things:--one in particular--a burning desire to bring the
lovers together, no matter at what cost nor how great the barriers. He
had not, despite his silence, altered a hair-line of the opinion he had
held on the night he ordered the gig, fastened Harry's heavy coat around
the young man's shoulders, and started back with him through the rain
to his house on Kennedy Square; nor did he intend to. This, summed up,
meant that the colonel was a tyrant, Willits a vulgarian, and Harry a
hot-headed young knight, who, having been forced into a position where
he could neither breathe nor move, had gallantly fought his way out.

The one problem that gave him serious trouble was the selection of the
precise moment when he should make a strategic move on Kate's heart;
lesser problems were his manner of approaching her and the excuses
he would offer for Harry's behavior. These not only kept him awake at
night, but pursued him like an avenging spirit when he sought the quiet
paths of the old square, the dogs at his heels. The greatest of all
barriers, he felt assured, would be Kate herself. He had seen enough of
her in that last interview, when his tender pleading had restored the
harmonies between herself and Harry, to know that she was no longer the
child whose sweetness he loved, or the girl whose beauty he was proud
of--but the woman whose judgment he must satisfy. Nor could he see that
any immediate change in her mental attitude was likely to occur. Some
time had now passed since Harry's arrival at his house, and every day
the boy had begged for admission at Kate's door, only to be denied by
Ben, the old butler. His mother, who had visited her exiled son almost
daily, had then called on her, bearing two important pieces of news--one
being that after hours of pleading Harry had consented to return to
Moorlands and beg his father's pardon, provided that irate gentleman
should send for him, and the other the recounting of a message of
condolence and sympathy which Willits had sent Harry from his sick-bed,
in which he admitted that he had been greatly to blame. (An admission
which fairly bubbled out of him when he learned that Harry had assisted
Teackle in dressing his wound.)

And yet with all this pressure the young girl had held her own. To every
one outside the Rutter clan she had insisted that she was sorry for
Harry, but that she could never marry a man whose temper she could
not trust. She never put this into words in answering the well-meant
inquiries of such girl friends as Nellie Murdoch, Sue Dorsey, and the
others; then her eyes would only fill with tears as she begged them not
to question her further. Nor had she said as much to her father, who on
one occasion had asked her the plump question--“Do you still intend to
marry that hot-head?”--to which she had returned the equally positive
answer--“No, I never shall!” She reserved her full meaning for St.
George when he should again entreat her--as she knew he would at the
first opportunity--to forget the past and begin the old life once more.

At the end of the second week St. George had made up his mind as to
his course; and at the end of the third the old diplomat, who had dared
defeat before, boldly mounted the Seymour steps. He would appeal to
Harry's love for her, and all would be well. He had done so before,
picturing the misery the boy was suffering, and he would try it again.
If he could only reach her heart through the armor of her reserve she
would yield.

She answered his cheery call up the stairway in person, greeting him
silently, but with arms extended, leading him to a seat beside her,
where she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“Harry has tried to see you every day, Kate,” he began, patting her
shoulders lovingly in the effort to calm her. “I found him under your
window the other night; he walks the streets by the hour, then he
comes home exhausted, throws himself on his bed, and lies awake till
daylight.”

The girl raised her head and looked at him for a moment. She knew
what he had come for--she knew, too, how sorry he felt for her--for
Harry--for everybody who had suffered because of this horror.

“Uncle George,” she answered, choking back her tears, speaking slowly,
weighing each word--“you've known me from a little girl--ever since my
dear mother died. You have been a big brother to me many, many times and
I love you for it. If I were determined to do anything that would
hurt me, and you found it out in time, you would come and tell me so,
wouldn't you?”

St. George nodded his head in answer, but he did not interrupt. Her
heart was being slowly unrolled before him, and he would wait until it
was all bare.

“Now,” she continued, “the case is reversed, and you want me to do
something which I know will hurt me.”

“But you love him, Kate?”

“Yes--that is the worst part of it all,” she answered with a stifled
sob--“yes, I love him.” She lifted herself higher on the cushions and
put her beautiful arms above her head, her eyes looking into space as
if she was trying to solve the problem of what her present resolve would
mean to both herself and Harry.

St. George began again: “And you remember how--”

She turned impatiently and dropped one hand until it rested on his own.
He thought he had never seen her look so lovely and never so unhappy.
Then she said in pleading tones--her eyes blinded by half-restrained
tears:

“Don't ask me to REMEMBER, dear Uncle George--help me to forget! You can
do no kinder thing for both of us.”

“But think of your whole future happiness, Kate--think how important it
is to you--to Harry--to everybody--that you should not shut him out of
your life.”

“I have thought! God knows I have thought until sometimes I think I
shall go mad. He first breaks his promise about drinking and I forgive
him; then he yields to a sudden impulse and behaves like a mad-man and
you ask me to forgive him again. He never once thinks of me, nor of my
humiliation!” Her lips were quivering, but her voice rang clear.

“He thinks of nothing else BUT you,” he pleaded. “Let your heart
work--don't throw him into the street as his father has done. He loves
you so.”

“_I_--throw HIM in the street! He has thrown ME--mortified me before
everybody--behaved like a--No,--I can't--I won't discuss it!”

“May I--”

“No--not another word. I love you too much to let this come between us.
Let us talk of something else--anything--ANYTHING.”

The whole chart of her heart had been unrolled. Her head and not her
heart was dominant. He felt, moreover, that no argument of his would
be of any use. Time might work out the solution, but this he could not
hasten. Nor, if the truth be told, did he blame her. It was, from
the girl's point of view, most unfortunate, of course, that the two
calamities of Harry's drunkenness and the duel had come so close
together. Perhaps--and for the first time in his life he weakened before
her tears--perhaps if he had thrown the case of pistols out of the
window, sent one man to his father and the other back to Kennedy Square,
it might all have been different--but then again, could this have been
done, and if it had been, would not all have to be done over again the
next day? At last he asked hopelessly:

“Have you no message for Harry?”

“None,” she answered resolutely.

“And you will not see him?”

“No--we can never heal wounds by keeping them open.” This came calmly,
and as if she had made up her mind, and in so determined a tone that he
saw it meant an end to the interview.

He rose from his seat and without another word turned toward the door.
She gained her feet slowly, as if the very movement caused her pain; put
her arms around his neck, kissed him on the cheek, followed him to the
door, waved her hand to him as she watched him pick his way across the
square, and threw herself on her lounge in an agony of tears.


That night St. George and Harry sat by the smouldering wood fire; the
early spring days were warm and joyous, but the nights were still cool.
The boy sat hunched up in his chair, his face drawn into lines from the
anxiety of the past week; his mind absorbed in the story that St. George
had brought from the Seymour house. As in all ardent temperaments, these
differences with Kate, which had started as a spark, had now developed
into a conflagration which was burning out his heart. His love for Kate
was not a part of his life--it was ALL of his life. He was ready now for
any sacrifice, no matter how humiliating. He would go down on his knees
to his father if she wished it. He would beg Willits's pardon--he would
abase himself in any way St. George should suggest. He had done what
he thought was right, and he would do it over again under like
circumstances, but he would grovel at Kate's feet and kiss the ground
she stepped on if she required it of him.

St. George, who had sat quiet, examining closely the backs of his finely
modelled hands as if to find some solution of the difficulty written in
their delicate articulated curves, heard his outburst in silence.
Now and then he would call to Todd, who was never out of reach of his
voice--no matter what the hour--to replenish the fire or snuff the
candles, but he answered only in nods and monosyllables to Harry. One
suggestion only of the heart-broken lover seemed to promise any
result, and that was his making it up with his father as his mother
had suggested. This wall being broken down, and Willits no longer
an invalid, perhaps Kate would see matters in a different and more
favorable light.

“But suppose father doesn't send for me, Uncle George, what will I do
then?”

“Well, he is your father, Harry.”

“And you think then I had better go home and have it out with him?”

St. George hesitated. He himself would have seen Rutter in Hades before
he would have apologized to him. In fact his anger choked him so every
time he thought of the brutal and disgraceful scene he had witnessed
when the boy had been ordered from his home, that he could hardly get
his breath. But then Kate was not his sweetheart, much as he loved her.

“I don't know, Harry. I am not his son,” he answered in an undecided
way. Then something the boy's mother had said rose in his mind: “Didn't
your mother say that your father's loneliness without you was having its
effect?--and wasn't her advice to wait until he should send for you?”

“Yes--that was about it.”

“Well, your mother would know best. Put that question to her next time
she comes in--I'm not competent to answer it. And now let us go to
bed--you are tired out, and so am I.”




CHAPTER IX



Mysterious things are happening in Kennedy Square. Only the very wisest
men know what it is all about--black Moses for one, who tramps the brick
walks and makes short cuts through the dirt paths, carrying his tin
buckets and shouting: “Po' ole Moses--po' ole fellah! O-Y-S-T-E-R-S!
O-Y-STERS!” And Bobbins, the gardener, who raked up last year's autumn
leaves and either burned them in piles or spread them on the flower-beds
as winter blankets. And, of course, Mockburn, the night watchman:
nothing ever happens in and around Kennedy Square that Mockburn doesn't
know of. Many a time has he helped various unsteady gentlemen up the
steps of their houses and stowed them carefully and noiselessly away
inside, only to begin his rounds again, stopping at every corner to
drone out his “All's we-l-l!” a welcome cry, no doubt, to the stowaways,
but a totally unnecessary piece of information to the inhabitants,
nothing worse than a tippler's tumble having happened in the forty years
of the old watchman's service.

I, of course, am in the secret of the mysterious happenings and have
been for more years than I care to admit, but then I go ten better than
Mockburn. And so would you be in the secret had you watched the process
as closely as I have done.

It is always the same!

First the crocuses peep out--dozens of crocuses. Then a spread of tulips
makes a crazy-quilt of a flowerbed; next the baby buds, their delicate
green toes tickled by the south wind, break into laughter. Then the
stately magnolias step free of their pods, their satin leaves falling
from their alabaster shoulders--grandes dames these magnolias! And then
there is no stopping it: everything is let loose; blossoms of peach,
cherry, and pear; flowers of syringa--bloom of jasmine, honeysuckle,
and Virginia creeper; bridal wreath in flowers of white and wistaria in
festoons of purple.

Then come the roses--millions of roses; on single stalks; in clusters,
in mobs; rushing over summer-houses, scaling fences, swarming up
trellises--a riotous, unruly, irresistible, and altogether lovable lot
these roses when they break loose!

And the birds! What a time they are having--thrush, bobolinks,
blackbirds, nightingales, woodpeckers, little pee-wees, all fluttering,
skimming, chirping; bursting their tiny throats for the very joy of
living. And they are all welcome--and it wouldn't make any difference to
them if they hadn't been; they would have risked it anyway, so tempting
are the shady paths and tangled arbors and wide-spreading elms and
butternuts of Kennedy Square.

Soon the skies get over weeping for the lost winter and dry their eyes,
and the big, warm, happy sun sails over the tree-tops or drops to sleep,
tired out, behind the old Seymour house, and the girls come out in their
white dresses and silk sashes and the gallants in their nankeens and
pumps and the old life of out-of-doors begins once more.


And these are not the only changes that the coming of spring has
wrought. What has been going on deep down in the tender, expectant
hearts of root and bulb, eager for expression, had been at work in
Harry's own temperament. The sunshine of St. George's companionship has
already had its effect; the boy is thawing out; his shrinking shyness,
born of his recent trouble, is disappearing like a morning frost. He is
again seen at the club, going first under St. George's lee and then on
his own personal footing.

The Chesapeake, so St. George had urged upon him, was the centre of
news--the headquarters, really, of the town, where not only the current
happenings and gossip of Kennedy Square were discussed, but that of the
country at large. While the bald-heads, of course, would be canvassing
the news from Mexico, which was just beginning to have an ugly look, or
having it out, hammer and tongs, over the defeat of Henry Clay, to
which some rabid politicians had never become reconciled, the younger
gentry--men of Harry's own tastes--would be deploring the poor showing
the ducks were making, owing to the up-river freshets which had spoiled
the wild celery; or recounting the doings at Mrs. Cheston's last ball;
or the terrapin supper at Mr. Kennedy's, the famous writer; or perhaps
bemoaning the calamity which had befallen some fellow member who had
just found seven bottles out of ten of his most precious port corked
and worthless. But whatever the topics, or whoever took sides in their
discussion, none of it, so St. George argued, could fail to interest a
young fellow just entering upon the wider life of a man of the world,
and one, of all others, who needed constant companionship. Then again,
by showing himself frequently within its walls, Harry would become
better known and better liked.

That he was ineligible for membership, being years too young, and that
his continued presence, even as a guest, was against the rules, did not
count in his case, or if it did count, no member, in view of what the
lad had suffered, was willing to raise the question. Indeed, St. George,
in first introducing him, had referred to “my friend, Mr. Rutter,” as
an “out of town guest,” laughing as he did so, everybody laughing in
return, and so it had gone at that.

At first Harry had dreaded meeting his father's and his uncle's friends,
most of whom, he fancied, might be disposed to judge him too harshly.
But St. George had shut his ears to every objection, insisting that the
club was a place where a man could be as independent as he pleased, and
that as his guest he would be entitled to every consideration.

The boy need not have been worried. Almost every member, young and
old, showed by his manner or some little act of attention that their
sympathies were with the exile. While a few strait-laced old Quakers
maintained that it was criminal to blaze away at your fellow-man with
the firm intention of blowing the top of his head off, and that
Harry should have been hung had Willits died, there were others more
discerning--and they were largely in the majority--who stood up for the
lad however much they deplored the cause of his banishment. Harry, they
argued, had in his brief career been an unbroken colt, and more or less
dissipated, but he at least had not shown the white feather. Boy as he
was, he had faced his antagonist with the coolness of a duellist of a
score of encounters, letting Willits fire straight at him without so
much as the wink of an eyelid; and, when it was all over, had been man
enough to nurse his victim back to consciousness. Moreover--and this
counted much in his favor--he had refused to quarrel with his irate
father, or even answer him. “Behaved himself like a thoroughbred, as he
is,” Dorsey Sullivan, a famous duellist, had remarked in recounting the
occurrence to a non-witness. “And I must say, sir, that Talbot
served him a scurvy trick, and I don't care who hears me say it.”
 Furthermore--and this made a great impression--that rather than
humiliate himself, the boy had abandoned the comforts of his palatial
home at Moorlands and was at the moment occupying a small, second-story
back room (all, it is true, Gentleman George could give him), where he
was to be found any hour of the day or night that his uncle needed him
in attendance upon that prince of good fellows.

One other thing that counted in his favor, and this was conclusive with
the Quakers--and the club held not a few--was that no drop of liquor
of any kind had passed the boy's lips since the eventful night when St.
George prepared the way for their first reconciliation.

Summed up, then, whatever Harry had been in the past, the verdict at
the present speaking was that he was a brave, tender-hearted, truthful
fellow who, in the face of every temptation, had kept his word.
Moreover, it was never forgotten that he was Colonel Talbot Rutter's
only son and heir, so that no matter what the boy did, or how angry the
old autocrat might be, it could only be a question of time before his
father must send for him and everything at Moorlands go on as before.


It was on one of these glorious never-to-be-forgotten spring days, then,
a week or more after St. George had given up the fight with Kate--a day
which Harry remembered all the rest of his life--that he and his uncle
left the house to spend the afternoon, as was now their custom, at the
Chesapeake. The two had passed the early hours of the day at the Relay
House fishing for gudgeons, the dogs scampering the hills, and having
changed their clothes for something cooler, had entered the park by the
gate opposite the Temple Mansion, as being nearest to the club; a path
Harry loved, for he and Kate had often stepped it together--and then
again, it was the shortest cut to her house.

As the beauty and quiet of the place with its mottling of light and
shade took possession of him he slackened his pace, lagging a little
behind his uncle, and began to look about him, drinking in the
loveliness of the season. The very air breathed tenderness, peace, and
comfort. Certainly his father's heart must be softening toward him;
surely his bitterness could not last. No word, it is true, had yet come
to him from Moorlands, though only the week before his mother had
been in to see him, bringing him news of his father and what her son's
absence had meant to every one, old Alec especially. She had not, she
said, revived the subject of the boy's apology; she had thought it
better to wait for the proper opportunity, which might come any day,
but certain it was that his father was most unhappy, for he would shut
himself up hours at a time in his library, locking the door and refusing
to open it, no matter who knocked, except to old John Gorsuch, his man
of business. She had also heard him tossing on his bed at night, or
walking about his room muttering to himself.

Did these things, he wondered on this bright spring morning, mean a
final reconciliation, or was he, after all, to be doomed to further
disappointment? Days had passed since his mother had assured him of this
change in his father, and still no word had come from him. Had he at
last altered his mind, or, worse still, had his old obstinacy again
taken possession of him, hardening his heart so that he would never
relent? And so, with his mind as checkered as the shadow-flecked path on
which they stepped, he pursued his way beneath the wide-spreading trees.

When the two had crossed the street St. George's eye rested upon a group
on the sidewalk of the club. The summer weather generally emptied
the coffee-room of most of its habitues, sending many of them to the
easy-chairs on the sprinkled pavement, one or two tipped back against
the trees, or to the balconies and front steps. With his arm in Harry's
he passed from one coterie to another in the hope that he might catch
some word which would be interesting enough to induce him to fill one
of the chairs, even for a brief half-hour, but nothing reached his
ears except politics and crops, and he cared for neither. Harding--the
pessimist of the club--a man who always had a grievance (and this time
with reason, for the money stringency was becoming more acute every
day), tried to beguile him into a seat beside him, but he shook
his head. He knew all about Harding, and wanted none of his kind of
talk--certainly not to-day.

“Think of it!” he had heard the growler say to Judge Pancoast as he was
about to pass his chair--“the Patapsco won't give me a cent to move my
crops, and I hear all the others are in the same fix. You can't get a
dollar on a house and lot except at a frightful rate of interest. I tell
you everything is going to ruin. How the devil do you get on without
money, Temple?” He was spread out in his seat, his legs apart, his fat
face turned up, his small fox eyes fixed on St. George.

“I don't get on,” remarked St. George with a dry smile. He was still
standing. “Why do you ask?” Money rarely troubled St. George; such small
sums as he possessed were hived in this same Patapsco Bank, but the
cashier had never refused to honor one of his checks as long as he had
any money in their vaults, and he didn't think they would begin now.
“Queer question for you to ask, Harding” (and a trifle underbred, he
thought, one's private affairs not being generally discussed at a club).
“Why does it interest you?”

“Well, you always say you despise money and yet you seem happy and
contented, well dressed, well groomed”--here he wheeled St.
George around to look at his back--“yes, got on one of your London
coats--Hello, Harry!--glad to see you,” and he held out his hand to
the boy. “But really, St. George, aren't you a little worried over the
financial outlook? John Gorsuch says we are going to have trouble, and
John knows.”

“No”--drawled St. George--“I'm not worried.”

“And you don't think we're going to have another smash-up?” puffed
Harding.

“No,” said St. George, edging his way toward the steps of the club as
he spoke. He was now entirely through with Harding; his financial
forebodings were as distasteful to him as his comments on his clothes
and bank account.

“But you'll have a julep, won't you? I've just sent John for them. Don't
go--sit down. Here, John, take Mr. Temple's order for--”

“No, Harding, thank you.” The crushed ice in the glass was no cooler nor
crisper than St. George's tone. “Harry and I have been broiling in the
sun all the morning and we are going to go where it is cool.”

“But it's cool here,” Harding called after him, struggling to his feet
in the effort to detain him. There was really no one in the club he
liked better than St. George.

“No--we'll try it inside,” and with a courteous wave of his hand and a
feeling of relief in his heart, he and Harry kept on their way.

He turned to mount the steps when the sudden pushing back of all the
chairs on the sidewalk attracted his attention. Two ladies were picking
their way across the street in the direction of the club. These, on
closer inspection, proved to be Miss Lavinia Clendenning and her niece,
Sue Dorsey, who had been descried in the offing a few minutes before by
the gallants on the curbstone, and who at first had been supposed to be
heading for Mrs. Pancoast's front steps some distance away, until the
pair, turning sharply, had borne down upon the outside chairs with all
sails set--(Miss Clendenning's skirts were of the widest)--a shift of
canvas which sent every man to his feet with a spring.

Before St. George could reach the group, which he did in advance of
Harry, who held back--both ladies being intimate friends of Kate's--old
Captain Warfield, the first man to gain his feet--very round and fat was
the captain and very red in the face (1812 Port)--was saying with his
most courteous bow:

“But, my dear Miss Lavinia, you have not as yet told us to what we are
indebted for this mark of your graciousness; and Sue, my dear, you grow
more like your dear mother every day. Why are you two angels abroad at
this hour, and what can we do for you?”

“To the simple fact, my dear captain,” retorted the irresistible
spinster, spreading her skirts the wider, both arms akimbo--her thin
fingers acting as clothespins, “that Sue is to take her dancing lesson
next door, and as I can't fly in the second-story window, having mislaid
my wings, I must use my feet and disturb everybody. No, gentlemen--don't
move--I can pass.”

The captain made so profound a salaam in reply that his hat grazed the
bricks of the sidewalk.

“Let me hunt for them, Miss Lavinia. I know where they are!” he
exclaimed, with his hand on his heart.

“Where?” she asked roguishly, twisting her head on one side with the
movement of a listening bird.

“In heaven, my lady, where they are waiting your arrival,” he answered,
with another profound sweep of his hand and dip of his back, his bald
head glistening in the sunlight as he stooped before her.

“Then you will never get near them,” she returned with an equally low
curtsy and a laugh that nearly shook her side curls loose.

St. George was about to step th

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