International complications had arisen at the supper table. Confronted
by an English menu, the four elderly Frenchmen had held a hasty
consultation over a new item which had appeared thereon. Their minds
were strictly logical; they had come to the conclusion that sweetbreads
were a species of cake, and they had ordered accordingly.
“_Mais oui_,” one of them observed, as he gravely prodded the resultant
tidbit with his knife and fork. “Vat ees eet?”
“Them’s the sweetbreads,” responded the waitress, who was an Hibernian
and scanty of grammar.
There followed an anxious pause, while four prodding forks worked in
unison.
“_Huitres?_” suggested one Frenchman.
“_Côtelettes?_” added the second.
“_C’est bon_,” said the third, more daring than his companions.
But the fourth pushed aside his plate.
“_C’est dommage!_” he exclaimed, and Nancy, who shared his opinion, took
refuge in her napkin.
She emerged to find Brock just taking his place beside her, and she
looked up with a welcoming smile. After the too obvious devotion of the
Englishman, after the self-repressed, high-strung temperament of St.
Jacques, Nancy was always conscious of a certain sense of relief in the
society of the jovial Canadian. It is no slight gift to be always merry,
always thoughtful of the comfort of one’s companions, always at peace
with one’s self and with the world. This gift Brock possessed in its
entirety. Without him at her elbow, Nancy would have passed many a
lonely hour in Quebec. An own brother could not have been more
undemonstratively careful to heed her slightest wish. Best of all, Brock
had a trick of placing himself at her service, not at all as if he were
in love with her; but merely as if it were the one thing possible for
him to do.
Just once, their friendship had lacked little of coming to grief. On the
evening after the market episode, Nancy had gathered together her
courage and had read Brock a long lecture upon his sins. An hour later,
she had retired from the contest, worsted. With imperturbable good
nature, Brock had assented to her charges against him. Then, swiftly
turning the tables, he had summed up all of Barth’s vulnerable points
and had accused her of increasing their number by an injudicious system
of coddling. Nancy’s hair was red, her temper by no means imperturbable.
She had defended herself with vigor and clearness. Then, with snapping
eyes, she had stalked away out of the room, leaving Brock, serene and
smiling, in undisturbed possession of the field. The next morning, Brock
had been called out of town on business. When he returned, two days
later, Nancy had met him with whole-hearted smiles. Without Brock’s
genial presence, the atmosphere of The Maple Leaf became altogether too
fully charged with electricity for her liking. From that time onward,
Nancy remembered her hair, and fought shy of argument with the tall
Canadian whose very imperturbability only rendered him the more
maddening foe.
“You look as if you had heard some good news,” she assured him, even
while he was unfolding his napkin.
Brock smiled with conscious satisfaction.
“So I have.”
“Tell me.”
“Not now.”
“How long must I wait?”
“A week.”
“How unkind of you, when you know I am consumed with curiosity!”
With the butterknife in his hand, Brock turned. Nancy, as she looked far
into the depths of those clear gray eyes of his, was suddenly aware that
all was right with Brock’s world. Moreover, she was aware that he was as
eager as she herself for the week to pass away and give him the chance
to speak.
“Then I really must wait,” she assented to the look in his eyes. “A week
is a long time. Meanwhile, I have some news.”
“Good, I hope.”
“Certainly. We are expecting a guest, next Friday.”
“How unlucky for him!” Brock observed.
“Are you superstitious?”
“No; but you are.”
She raised her brows in question, and Brock answered the unspoken words.
“Otherwise, why do you carry a pocket edition of Sainte
Anne-de-Beaupré?”
“How do you know I do?”
“Because it fell out on the floor just now, when I upset your coat. It
is a very superior little Sainte Anne, made of silver.”
This time, Nancy had the grace to blush. Only the day before, she had
come into possession of the dainty toy.
“That’s not superstition,” she answered; “it is merely an effigy of my
patron saint.”
Brock nodded.
“For the name? I suspect I could tell who chose it.”
Again Nancy’s brows rose inquiringly.
“If you like,” she said composedly.
“Barth, of course.”
“No. I knew you would say so. Now you have forfeited your one guess,”
she responded smilingly, yet with an odd little tugging at her heart, as
she recalled the face of St. Jacques, as he had laid the little silver
image into her outstretched palm.
“Make her your patron saint as well,” he had said briefly. “The time may
come when I shall need the prayers of her name-child to help me at her
shrine.”
And Nancy, looking straight into his dark eyes, had given the promise
that he asked.
But now, with full intention, she was seeking to drive St. Jacques from
her mind.
“You don’t ask about our guest,” she added.
“No.” Brock buttered his bread with calm deliberation. “I knew you would
tell me, when you were ready.”
She fell into the trap laid by his apparent indifference.
“I am ready now. It is an old friend of ours from New York, Mr. Joseph
Churchill.”
“So glad he is an old friend,” Brock responded coolly.
“Why?”
“Because he won’t complicate things, as a young man would do.”
“Mr. Churchill is twenty-five,” Nancy remarked a little severely.
“We call that rather young up here. Will he stop long?”
“A day or two.”
Brock helped himself to marmalade.
“And he comes, next Friday?”
“Yes.”
“Right, oh! See that he gets out of the way by Monday. The Maple Leaf is
quite full enough, as it is.”
“But he is going to the Chateau,” Nancy explained.
“Lucky fellow to have money enough! In his place, I should probably have
to seek the Lower Town. What are you going to do with him?”
Nancy smiled ingratiatingly.
“Just what I was meaning to ask you, Mr. Brock.”
Brock’s answering laugh sent Barth’s fingers in search of the string of
his eyeglasses.
“There’s a snug little cell empty up at the Citadel,” he suggested.
“Take him up there and let him see how he likes military hospitality. He
could put in a very instructive two days, studying the position of the
Bunker Hill cannon.”
Two days later, Nancy stood in the extreme bow of the Lévis ferry.
Beside her, blond and big and altogether bonny, stood Mr. Joseph
Churchill, obviously an American, equally obviously from New York. At
the stern, in the lee of the deck house, Dr. Howard was doing his best
to shelter himself from the cutting wind.
Nancy and the New Yorker were in full tide of conversation. No hint of
regret had marked Nancy’s manner, as she had stood scanning the doors of
the sleeping-cars. Before Lévis was a river-breadth behind, she had
gathered from her companion a detailed account of the early gayeties of
the season, had filled his ears with the more sober charms of quaint
Quebec, and had drawn a vivid outline of the more salient
characteristics of Mr. Reginald Brock. Of Barth and St. Jacques, she had
omitted to make any mention.
Upon one point, the doctor was rigid. Churchill might register at the
Chateau, if he insisted. He must take his meals with them at The Maple
Leaf. And so it came about that Barth’s first intimation that a guest
was expected, occurred when he looked up from his tea, that night, to
greet Nancy as she came into the room, and discovered the huge, sleek
American at Nancy’s side.
“Oh, by George!” remarked Mr. Cecil Barth, and promptly dropped his
bread, butter-side down, into the starched recesses of his immaculate
white waistcoat.
Later, he sought the parlor. Over his shoulder, he had heard the gay
voices of Brock and Nancy, and the deeper chest tones of the burly
American. He felt an acute longing to put on his glasses and, screwing
himself about in his chair, to take a prolonged stare at the intruder.
His hurried glance had given him the impression of vast stature combined
with the workmanship of an unexceptionable tailor. But where did the
fellow come from? What was the fellow doing there? And what, oh, by
George, what was the fellow’s connection with Nancy?
“I’d like to punch him,” Mr. Cecil Barth muttered vengefully to himself.
“Oh, rather!”
He found the parlor quite deserted. St. Jacques, who had met Churchill
earlier in the afternoon, had betaken himself to his room. Brock and the
Howards, with their guest, were still at the table. Accordingly, Barth
pulled a book from his pocket and sat himself down to wait. He waited
long. When at last Nancy led the way into the parlor, Barth was
surprised to miss Brock from her train. Under such conditions, it was
inconceivable to him that the Canadian should not have stood his ground.
The parlor was common property. He himself would sit there forever,
rather than let himself be ousted by any American, least of all an
American who would bedeck himself with jewelry as uncouth as the
hymnbook of blue and gold that dangled from this American’s fob. Barth
had always heard that Americans were stiffed-necked dissenters.
Nevertheless, he had never supposed they would find it needful to
advertise their dissent by means of enamelled trinkets. He wrapped
himself in his Britishism, and sat tight in his chair, waiting to see
what would occur.
Nothing occurred. Nancy gave him her usual friendly smile and nod. Then,
crossing the room, she settled herself on a sofa and, making room for
Churchill at her side, dropped into animated talk of places and persons
who were totally remote from Barth’s previous knowledge. Now and then,
she glanced across at him carelessly. Now and then, her huge companion
turned and bestowed upon him a rebuking stare which said, plainly as
words could have done, that his further presence there was needless.
Regardless of the fact that he knew Nancy was fully aware he never read
through his glasses, Barth remained stolidly on guard, glasses on nose
and nose apparently in his book. Now and then, however, he lowered his
book and refreshed himself with a smile at Nancy, or a scowl at the
unconscious back of Nancy’s companion.
At length, Nancy could endure the situation no longer. Much as she liked
Barth, she could willingly have dispensed with his society, just then.
After their weeks of separation, she and Churchill had much to talk
over, and she found the presence of an outsider a check upon the freedom
of their dialogue. So sure had she been of Barth’s prompt and tactful
withdrawal that she had made no effort to introduce him, when they had
first entered the room. Her plans for the next day were formed to
include the young Englishman. For that one evening, she had intended to
give her attention entirely to her guest. Now, however, she saw that an
introduction was fast becoming a matter of social necessity, and she
tried to prepare the way for it.
During the space of a minute, she permitted the talk with Churchill to
lapse. Then, meeting Barth’s eyes above the deckled edges of his book,
she smiled across at him in the friendly, informal fashion he had
learned to know and to like so well.
“I thought you were bound for the theatre, this evening, Mr. Barth,” she
said.
It was a wholly random bullet; but it met its billet. Barth reddened. In
his interest in Nancy’s companion, he had entirely forgotten his
explicit announcement of his evening’s plan.
“Oh, no,” he answered nonchalantly.
“Then men do occasionally change their minds. Isn’t it a good play?”
“Oh, yes,” he answered again, still more nonchalantly.
Turning slightly, Churchill looked across at the slender, boyish figure
at the farther side of the room. His glance was disrespectful, and Barth
was keenly conscious of the disrespect. He made a manful effort to
assert himself.
“Jolly sort of night, Miss Howard,” was the only bubble that effervesced
from his mind.
Nancy felt a wave of petulant sympathy sweeping over her. Long
experience of her guest had taught her the meaning of that swift motion
of his head and shoulders, and she feared what might follow, both for
Barth’s sake and her own. She dreaded any possible injury to the
feelings of the young Englishman; she dreaded still more the hearing
Churchill’s irreverent comments upon a man whom she had grown proud to
number among her loyal friends. Never had Barth appeared more
impenetrably dull, never more obdurately British! It was the mockery of
fate. Just when she was praying that he might be at his best, he turned
monosyllabic, and then completed his disgrace by talking about the
weather. Meanwhile her annoyance was forcing all ideas from her own
brain, and her answering question was equally banal.
“Is it cold, to-night?”
Barth was not impenetrable, by any means. He felt Nancy’s embarrassment,
was keenly alive to her efforts in his behalf. The knowledge only
rendered him more tongue-tied than ever; but his blue eyes smiled
eagerly back at her, as he responded, with admirable brevity,—
“Oh, rather!”
“Joe, what is it?” Nancy demanded, as she followed her strangling guest
out into the hall.
Churchill was walking to and fro, coughing and teary.
“Nancy Howard,” he said, as soon as he could speak; “will you kindly
tell me what manner of thing that is?”
Then Nancy asserted herself. Erect and gracious in her dainty evening
gown, she turned back and stood on the threshold.
“Mr. Barth,” she said, in a quiet tone of command; “will you please come
here and be introduced to my cousin? Mr. Churchill, I want you to meet
my friend,” an almost imperceptible pause added emphasis to the word;
“my friend, Mr. Cecil Barth.”