To adopt the vernacular of the stables, Nancy shied violently, for the
apparition was both unexpected and unwelcome. She rallied swiftly,
however, and, promptly resolving to make the best of a bad matter, she
gave a little nod and smile of recognition. The next instant, both nod
and smile went sliding away from the unresponsive countenance of Mr.
Cecil Barth and focussed themselves with an added touch of cordiality
upon M. St. Jacques, while the young Frenchman bowed low in surprised
pleasure at her friendly greeting.
Even in her instantaneous glance, Nancy saw that Barth looked worn and
ill; and, with unregenerate spite working in her heart, she told herself
that she was glad of it. She had no idea that, unable to supply himself
with new glasses before his return to the city, Barth had gained
absolutely no conception of the personal appearance of his quondam
nurse. Moreover, as Nancy had neglected to inform him in regard to her
normal pursuits and her future plans, he had spent the last week in
regretfully picturing her, still in cap and pinafore, ministering to the
needs of some invalid Yankee in that vast unknown which he vaguely
termed The States. Accordingly, it came about that the dinner, that
Sunday noon, was finished in hot rage by Nancy, in joyous anticipation
by Adolphe St. Jacques, and in stolid unconcern by Mr. Cecil Barth who
was aware neither of the existence of an emotional crisis, nor of the
fact that to him was due any share of its creation.
Nancy sat alone in the parlor, after dinner, waiting for her father to
join her, when Barth came into the room. He halted on the threshold long
enough to look her over in detail; then he limped past her and took
possession of the chair beyond her own. As they sat there silent, elbow
to elbow, Nancy was conscious of a wayward longing to remind him that it
was high time for his liniment. However, she refrained. Two could play
at that game of stolid disregard.
The Lady looked puzzled, as she followed Barth into the room, a few
moments later. Only a day or two before, Nancy, moved by a spirit of
iniquity, had confided to the Lady the whole tale of her connection with
Barth, and the Lady, who already adored Nancy and, moreover, was
discerning enough to see the inherent manliness of Barth, had held her
peace. A charming scene of recognition was bound to follow Barth’s
return to The Maple Leaf. No hint of a mystery to come should take from
the glamor of that pleasant surprise. Barth and Nancy both were
curiously alone; both were aliens, meeting upon neutral soil. Already in
her mind’s eye the Lady foresaw romance and international complications.
With her bodily eye the Lady saw the elements of her international
complications sitting in close juxtaposition, but with their backs
discreetly turned to an obtuse angle with each other. She made a swift,
but futile, effort to account for the situation. Then she gave Nancy a
merry nod of comprehension, if not of understanding, and passed on to
speak to Barth.
“You are better, to-day, I hope.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I hope you didn’t feel obliged to come over to dinner. It was no
trouble to send your meals to you.”
“Oh, no. I was tired of stopping in my room.”
“You look as if you had been having rather a hard time of it,” the Lady
said kindly.
“Yes. I never supposed an ankle could be so painful. Still, I hope it is
over now.”
“Then it doesn’t trouble you to walk?”
“Oh, rather! And, besides, it makes one such an object, you know, and
then people stare. It won’t be long, though, I dare say, before I can
walk without limping.”
A naughty impulse seized upon the Lady.
“You were at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré, you said? And could you get proper
care in so small a place?”
Over the unconscious head of Mr. Cecil Barth, Nancy shook her fist at
the Lady. Then she fled from the room; but not quickly enough to lose
Barth’s answer,—
“Oh, so-so; nothing extra, but still quite tolerable. The doctor was
clever; but the nurse, his daughter, was an American, a good-hearted
sort of girl, but rather rude and untrained.”
All that Sunday afternoon, Nancy cherished her hopes of vengeance. Plan
after plan suggested itself to her fertile brain, was weighed and found
wanting. Planned hostility was totally inadequate; she would leave
everything to chance. Nevertheless, Nancy tarried long at her mirror,
that night; and she went down to supper with her head held high and a
brilliant spot of color in either cheek. As she passed the parlor door,
she saw Barth, book in hand, seated exactly where she had left him, and
she suddenly realized that, rather than endure the short walk to his
room, he had chosen to spend his afternoon in the dreary solitude of a
public sitting-room. For an instant, her heart smote her, and her step
lagged a little; then she remembered the guinea, and recalled Barth’s
words, that noon, and her step quickened once more.
Brock followed her back to the parlor.
“Oh, let the Basilica go, to-night,” he urged.
“But you told me it was a part of my itinerary.”
“No matter. You haven’t kept up your round, to-day, anyway. Did you do
the Ursulines, this afternoon?”
“No. I was all ready to go; but something happened that put me in an
unchurchly frame of mind,” Nancy said vindictively.
“Just as well. It makes people suspicious of your past habits, if you
rush too violently into church-going.”
“But twice isn’t too violently.”
“Two is too,” he retorted. “Besides, St. Jacques asked me to ask you if
he might be formally introduced, to-night.”
Nancy’s face brightened, and her voice lost the little sharp edge it had
taken on with her reference to her encounter with Barth.
“Of course. Both on account of his courtesy to me, and of your
characterization of him, I shall be delighted to meet him. Where is he?”
Over in his corner by the window, Barth glanced up from his book. Voices
rarely made any impression upon him; but something in Nancy’s tone
caught his fancy, reminded him, too, of an indefinite something in his
past. With calm deliberation, he fumbled about for the string of his
glasses, put them on and favored Nancy with a second scrutiny, critical
and prolonged. The girl’s cheeks reddened under his gaze, and
instinctively she turned to Brock for protection; but Brock had gone in
search of his friend. From across the room, one rose from a group of
women and came to Nancy’s rescue.
“Mr. Barth?” she said interrogatively, in her pretty broken French. “I
think it is Mr. Cecil Barth; is it not? My friend, Mrs. Vivian, has
written to me about you. I believe you brought a letter, introducing
yourself to her.”
Instantly, though a little stiffly, Barth rose to his feet. This
acquaintance, at least, could show its proper credentials.
“And have you met Miss Howard?” she continued, after a moment’s talk.
“Miss Howard, like yourself, is a stranger among us. Perhaps she will
allow me to introduce Mr. Cecil Barth.”
“Howard appears to be rather a common name, here in Canada,” Barth
observed.
“Really? I’ve not met any one else by the name,” Nancy answered rashly.
“Yes. It was the name of my nurse.”
“Your—nurse?”
“Yes. I don’t mean the nurse who took care of me when I was a little
chap,” Barth explained elaborately. “I’ve just been ill, you know,
sprained my ankle out here at Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré and was laid up for
two weeks. My nurse out there was a Miss Howard, Miss Nancy Howard; but
she was an American.”
Something in the cadence of the final word was displeasing to Nancy, and
the edge came back into her voice.
“What a coincidence!” she observed quietly. “I am an American, myself,
Mr. Barth.”
Barth’s answer was refreshingly naïve.
“Oh, really? But nobody would ever think it, I am sure.”
It was two days before Nancy met Barth again. From her window, she
watched with pitiless eyes as he hobbled to and from his meals, and her
strategic position enabled her to avoid the dining-room while he was in
it. Meanwhile, her acquaintance with the Lady and St. Jacques had made
rapid strides and, together with Brock, omnipresent and always jovial,
they formed a merry group in the tiny office where the Lady mothered
them all by turns. Nancy shunned the parlor in these latter days. Dr.
Howard was increasingly absorbed in his studies; and Nancy felt the
increasing need of a duenna, as it dawned upon her more and more clearly
that, wherever she went, there Brock and St. Jacques were sure to
follow. Nancy looked at life simply; these healthy-minded boys were only
a pair of excellent playmates. Nevertheless, all things considered,
Nancy preferred to play in the society of an older person. Furthermore,
for long hours at a time, Mr. Cecil Barth sat enthroned in the parlor;
and, by this time, Nancy was resolved to avoid Mr. Cecil Barth at any
cost.
The gray October noon was cool and sweet, two days later, when Nancy
came tramping down the Grand Allée. The exhilaration of a long walk was
upon her, and her step was as energetic as when she had left The Maple
Leaf, early that morning. Starting at random by way of the Chien d’Or
and the ramparts, she had skirted the Upper Town and come out by Saint
John’s Gate to the Saint Foye Road which she had followed until the
monument _Aux Braves_ was left far behind and the glimpses of the dark
blue Laurentides were lost in the nearer trees. Then, turning sharply to
the eastward, she came into the Grand Allée not far from the shady
entrance to Mount Hermon. A glance at her watch assured her that the
morning was nearly over, and she sped along the interminable plank
sidewalk at a pace which should bring her back to the tollgate in time
for the short detour to the Wolfe monument. Once in sight of that
inscription, grand in its simple brevity, Nancy invariably forgot the
present, forgot the gray wall of the jail close by, forgot even the
insistent voices that hailed her from the cab-stand at the gate. For the
moment, she stood alone in the presence of the past and of that daring
leader whose destiny forbade his entering the stronghold he had
conquered.
Her breath coming quickly and her lower lip caught between her teeth,
Nancy stood leaning against the rail, looking out across the Plains. So
absorbed was she in her day-dream of the past that she paid no heed to a
cab which halted at her side.
“Oh, Miss Howard?”
Starting abruptly, she turned to face Barth. Tired of his solitary
drive, the young fellow’s eyes were smiling down into the familiar face
as, hat in hand, he bent forward in eager greeting.
Nancy’s day-dream vanished like a broken Prince Rupert’s drop.
“Good morning, Mr. Barth,” she said grimly.
“It is a jolly sort of morning; isn’t it? You are paying homage to my
countryman?” he inquired.
The allusion was unfortunate. It recalled his last words to Nancy, and
she grew yet more grim.
“Brave gentlemen belong to no country,” she answered, with what seemed
to her a swift burst of eloquence.
Barth laughed.
“Poor beggars! Must they all be expatriated? If that’s the case, it’s
better to be whimpering over a sprained ankle than to die victorious on
the Plains of Abraham.”
“That wasn’t what I meant at all,” Nancy interposed hastily. Then she
took out her watch and looked at it a little ostentatiously. “It is a
glorious day, Mr. Barth, and I wish you a pleasant drive. It is nearly
dinner time, and I must hurry on.”
“Why not let me take you in?” he urged. “I am going directly back to The
Maple Leaf.”
But Nancy’s answer permitted no argument.
“Thank you, no. I am out for the exercise, and you are going on farther.
It is impossible for me to interfere with your drive.” And, with a curt
bow, she turned away and stalked off in the direction of the Grand
Allée.
The light died out of Barth’s eyes and the friendly smile fled from his
lips, as he realized that, for the first time in his life, he had had
his overtures rejected. Worst of all, the rejection was by an American
and, from his point of view, totally without cause. Mr. Cecil Barth
dropped back in his seat, stretched out his lame foot into a position of
comparative comfort, and then said Things to himself.
He passed Nancy just outside the Saint Louis Gate. Head up, shoulders
thrown back, she was swinging along with the free step of perfect health
and equally perfect content. From the solitary dignity of his cab, Barth
eyed her askance.
“Wait a bit, though,” he apostrophized her, with a sudden burst of
prophecy. “The time will come, Miss Howard, when you don’t rush off and
leave me alone like this.”
But Nancy, rosy and flushed with exercise, entered the dining-room, that
noon, without a glance in his direction. Barth kept his own eyes glued
to his plate; but, from over his right shoulder, he could hear every
word of her merry talk with Reginald Brock. As he listened, Barth began
to question whether England might not have allowed too great a share of
independence to certain of her western colonies.