Mr. Terrill did find her. He came across the beach to her, his thin,
sensitive face bright with pleasure, and stood before her, hat in hand,
looking down at her.
She was not sorry to see him. She had had no letter from Barty for three
days. She had written to him every day--jolly, friendly little letters;
and not a word from him! Three days!
“I went into the hotel and asked for you, Miss Miles,” said Terrill,
“but they would have it that there was no Miss Miles stopping there.”
“How stupid!” murmured Jacqueline, with a smile; but at heart she was
ashamed and distressed. “He ought to know,” she thought. “It’s not
fair!”
But if he knew, what would he think of Barty?
“I came down in my car,” Terrill went on. “I thought perhaps you’d let
me take you for a ride.”
“He’s got to know!” she thought. “Poor thing! At least I can give him
some sort of hint.”
But he gave her no opportunity. He said nothing that could be seized
upon as an excuse for mentioning that there was a Barty in the offing.
It was his way of looking at her, the tone of his voice--intangible
things which, of course, he meant her to notice. He very well knew that
she did notice them, too.
It was a distressing situation, yet not without zest; for she was young
and pretty, and when Mr. Terrill looked at her she felt ten times
younger and prettier than when she sat on the sands alone and lonely.
She tried not to like this, but she could not help it.
“We could run along the Motor Parkway,” he was saying, “turn off at
Philipsville, and go--”
“Philipsville?”
“Yes. Do you know that route, Miss Miles?”
“No, Mr. Terrill,” said she.
He went on to describe the beauties of the trip he proposed. He need not
have troubled. Any road that passed through Philipsville was of peculiar
interest to Miss Miles. She accepted the invitation very graciously, and
off they went.
It was a bright, cool morning, early in September, still summer, with
summer’s green beauty all about; yet in the air there was an indefinable
hint that the end was coming. There was an invitation to haste, even to
recklessness--to live in joy while the roads were still open, before the
iron frost came.
Never had Mr. Terrill seen Miss Miles so charming. To be sure, she
responded with frank mockery to his sentimental glances, but he could
forgive that, because her mockery was so gay and so kindly. Indeed, he
liked everything she said and everything she did. She was willful,
lively, imperious, and he submitted gallantly to her least caprice. This
went to Jacqueline’s head a little; she found it only too agreeable to
be imperious.
She made him stop the car while she gathered goldenrod and purple
asters. She made him halt at the top of a hill and sit there for a long
time in silence, while she admired the view. His patience and meekness
encouraged her to further boldness. She insisted upon getting out of the
car in Philipsville, pretending that she found that very dull and
commonplace little village “quaint.”
With the obliging Mr. Terrill she strolled down the drowsy, tree-shaded
Main Street until she found what she was looking for--a sign reading
“Jordan Galloway, groceries and hardware.” Mr. Galloway’s store she also
acclaimed as “quaint.” She went in, and bought some wizened little
apples by way of excuse for lingering; and, behind the corner of a
calendar hanging on the wall, she saw a little sheaf of letters
addressed to Barty in her own handwriting. Then he hadn’t troubled to
come and get her letters!
She was glad that the store was so dim and shadowy, for she could not
keep back the tears. Terrill was talking affably with the proprietor,
and nobody was looking at her just then. She could struggle valiantly
against her pain and bitterness, and could master them.
She had turned toward Terrill, outwardly quite cool and self-possessed
again, and was about to suggest their going on, when a man came in--a
man so incongruous in Philipsville that she at once suspected his
identity. He was a tall, lean man, fastidiously dressed in a theatrical
sort of camper’s outfit--a gray flannel shirt, tweed knickerbockers, and
high boots, all fatally belied by his neat Vandyke beard, his delicate
hands, his toploftical air. What was more, he was smoking a cigarette in
a long ivory holder. It was scarcely necessary for Galloway to address
him as “Mr. Stafford.” She had felt sure enough of that already.
“Er--we want potatoes, Galloway,” he said; “and--er--bread and bacon and
coffee, and so on.”
He went over to the calendar, took down the letters, and put them into
his pocket. Then he saw Jacqueline. His hand went involuntarily to his
hat, but he was wearing none, so he bowed gravely instead.
“Er--Galloway!” he said. “I’m in no hurry. Attend to the lady first.”
“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, “but I’ve finished. I was only going to
ask if any one here would be kind enough to tell me where the old Veagh
house is. I wanted to see that doorway.”
“No! Really?” cried Stafford. “Upon my word, that’s very interesting!
You’ll pardon me, but do you mind telling me where you heard of that
doorway?”
“I read about it,” said Jacqueline simply, “in a book by Luther
Stafford, ‘Vistas of Enchantment.’”
“No!” he cried, his dark face all alight. “Please allow me to introduce
myself--Luther Stafford, the writer of that little book.”
So it came about that Mr. Terrill and Mr. Stafford were presented to
each other. When the enthusiastic Stafford suggested it, Terrill drove
them all in the car to see the doorway of the old Veagh house; but he
was singularly lukewarm about that architectural relic, and he did not
even pretend to share in Miss Miles’s hitherto unsuspected passion for
old doorways.
No--he simply drove the car, and Miss Miles and Stafford sat on the back
seat. He heard them talking. Miss Miles was not imperious now. She was
so sweet, so gentle, so serious, so humbly anxious to be instructed. She
seemed to possess such a surprising acquaintance with architectural
terms!
And all the time Jacqueline was praying in her heart:
“Oh, let me make him like me! Oh, please, let me make him like me!”
If she could only win Stafford’s unqualified approval, think what it
might mean to Barty and herself! She had never wanted anything so much
in her life before.
Barty had often told her that Stafford was the most thoroughly likable
fellow he had ever met; but, hearing of the famous architect’s
high-strung nerves, his squeamishness, his minor affectations, she had
privately doubted the soundness of this estimate. Now she understood,
however. His fine enthusiasm for his art, his eagerness to share it, his
spontaneous courtesy, and, above all, something generous and frank and
indisputably great that was obvious in all that he said and did, won her
immediate respect and liking. And, oh, how she wanted him to like her!
As they drove away from the abandoned farmhouse, it occurred to Stafford
that the sun was going down the sky.
“By George!” he cried, alarmed. “I _am_ an idiot! It ’ll be dark now,
and I have all that stuff to carry back! The young chap who’s with me is
laid up--”
“Laid up?” cried Jacqueline.
“Yes, or he’d have come with me; but now--”
“What’s the matter with him?” Jacqueline demanded fiercely.
Her tone made Stafford turn toward her, and Terrill threw a startled
glance over his shoulder.
“Why, it’s nothing much,” replied Stafford, puzzled. “He caught his foot
in an old trap that was buried under some leaves.”
“Is it serious?”
“No, it isn’t--not if it’s properly looked after.”
“What are you doing for it?”
He looked at her with a faint frown, and her eyes met his steadily.
“I want to know,” she said bluntly, “because I’m Barty Leadenhall’s
wife.”
There was a long silence. The sun had vanished now, and the dusty road
before them was somber under the deepening shadow of the trees. The sky
was pallid, the world was without light or color, and a terrible
oppression had suddenly descended upon Jacqueline.
She no longer saw this episode as a gay little comedy. It was very close
to tragedy. Her high spirits of the afternoon seemed to her now only
heartless flippancy, tarnishing the dignity of her wifehood.
“Then you’re the friend he went away with?” asked Stafford.
“Yes,” she answered.
“And--did you send him back to me?”
Her face flushed.
“He didn’t need sending,” she said. “He wanted to go. He--”
“I see!” said Stafford, and again he was silent for a long time. “I
think you’d better come back with me,” he said at last.
“But--you mean--now?” cried Jacqueline. “I don’t see how--”
Terrill turned his head, only for an instant, just long enough for her
to see on his face a smile she never forgot.
“I would if I were you, Mrs. Leadenhall,” he said. “Set your mind at
rest about--your husband.”
There was nothing in his voice but honest, chivalrous kindness. He did
not resent her trickery, he did not despise her. He was only kind--so
kind that in the dusk she wept a little to herself.