BARON TREGAR
Lilac and wistaria flowered royally. Carpenter, wheelwright and painter
departed. The trim green wagon, picked out gayly in white, windowed and
curtained and splendidly equipped for the fortunes of the road, creaked
briskly away upon its pilgrimage, behind a pair of big-boned piebald
horses from the Westfall stables, with Johnny at the reins. On the seat
beside him Diane radiantly waved adieu to her aunt, who promptly
collapsed in a chair on the porch and dabbed violently at her eyes.
"I shall never get over it," sniffed Aunt Agatha tragically. "Carl may
say what he will, I never shall. But now that I've come up here to see
her off, I've done my duty, I have indeed. And I do hope Carl hasn't any
wild ideas for the summer--I couldn't stand it. Allan, as long as Miss
Diane is camping within reasonable distance of the farm, you'd better
take the run-about each night and find her and see if she's all
right--and brush the snakes and bugs and things out of camp. If
everything wild in the forest collected around the camp fire, like as not
she wouldn't see them until they bit her."
The boy shifted a slim, bare leg and sniggered.
"Miss Westfall," he said, "Miss Diane she says she's a-goin' to a spot by
the river and camp a week an'--an' if she finds anybody a-follerin' or
spyin' on her from the farm, she'll skin him alive an'--an' them black
eyes o' her'n snapped fire when she said it. An' Johnny, he's got
weepons 'nough with him to fight pirutes."
Aunt Agatha groaned and rocking dolorously back and forth upon the porch
reviewed the calamitous possibilities of the journey.
But the restless young nomad on the road ahead, sniffing the rare, sweet
air of early summer, had already relegated the memory of her
long-suffering aunt to the forgotten things of civilization. For the
summer world, sweet with the scent of wild flowers, was very young, with
young leaves, young grass and flowering, sun-warm hedges, and beyond the
Sherrill place on the wooded hill, the sun flamed yellow through the
hemlocks.
"Oh, Johnny Jutes! Oh, Johnny Jutes!" sang the girl happily, with the
color of the wild rose in her sun-brown cheeks. "It's good--it's good to
be alive!"
With a chuckle of enthusiasm Johnny cracked his whip and opined that it
was.
Now even as the great green van rolled forth upon the country roads,
bound for an idyllic spot by the river where Diane had planned to camp a
week, two men appeared upon the wide, white-pillared Sherrill porch,
smoking and idly admiring the bluish hills and the rolling meadowlands
below bright with morning sunlight. To the east lay the silver glimmer
of a tree-fringed lake; beyond, a church spire among the trees and a
winding country road traveled by the solitary van of green and white.
"A singular conveyance, is it not, Poynter?" inquired the older man, his
careful articulation blurred by a pronounced foreign accent. Staring
intently at the sunlit road, he added: "Is it a common mode of
travel--here in America?"
The younger man, a lean, sinewy chap with singularly fine eyes of blue
above lean, tanned cheeks, frowned thoughtfully.
"By no means," said he pleasantly. "Indeed it's quite new to me. Seems
to have blowy white things at the sides like window curtains, doesn't it?"
"A nomadic young woman, I am told," shrugged the older man carelessly.
He stood watching the dusty trail of the nomad with narrowed, thoughtful
eyes, unaware that his companion's eyes had wandered somewhat expectantly
to the Westfall lake.
"Baron Tregar!" whispered Ann Sherrill in a remote corner of the veranda
to a girl she had brought up to the farm with her late the night before.
"Has a _real_ air of distinction, hasn't he, Susanne? And such deep,
dark, _compelling_ eyes. Rather Arabic, I think, but mother says Magyar.
Dick says he's immensely interested in the war possibilities of
aeroplanes and fearfully patriotic. Touring the States, I believe. Dad
picked him up in Washington. Philip's teaching him to fly. Philip was
up once before, you know, in the spring and Dad urged him to come up
again and bring the Baron along to learn aeroplaning. Philip _Poynter_,
of course, the Baron's secretary!" in scandalized italics. "Didn't you
know, _really_? . . . _The_ Philip Poynter. . . . And I say it's
absolutely _sinful_ for a man to be so good-looking as long as the
world's monogamous."
"Quarreled with his father or something, didn't he?" asked Susanne
vaguely.
"Quarreled!" exclaimed Ann righteously. "Well, I should say he did. My
dear, the young man's temper simply splintered into a million pieces and
he hasn't found them yet. Flatly refused to take a _cent_ of his
father's money because he'd discovered it was made dishonestly. _Think_
of it! And Dad says it's true. Old Poynter is a pirate, an
unscrupulous, money-mad, villainous old pirate and he did something or
other most unpleasant to Dad in Wall Street. And would you _believe_ it,
Susanne, Philip went fuming off huffily to some ridiculous little
mountain kingdom in Europe that he was awfully keen about--Houdania--and
rented himself out as a secretary to Baron Tregar. Just _imagine_! Dick
says he organized an aviation department there and won some kind of a
prize for an improved model and in the midst of it all, Susanne, Philip's
grandfather up and died, after quarreling for years and _years_ with the
whole family, and left Philip _all_ his money! _I_ think Philip's
quarrel with his father pleased him. But the very queerest part is that
Philip actually _likes_ to work and dabble in foreign politics and he
flatly refused to give up his job! Isn't it romantic? Philip was
_always_ keen for adventure. Dick says you never could put your finger
on a spot on the map and say comfortably, 'Philip Poynter's here!' for
most likely Philip Poynter was bolting furiously somewhere else!"
Unaware of Susanne's furtive interest in his career, Philip scanned the
calm, unruffled waters of the Westfall lake and sighing turned back to
his chief. There was a tempting drone of motors back among the hangars.
"We fly this morning?" he inquired smiling.
"Unfortunately not," regretted the Baron, and led the way indoors to a
room which Mrs. Sherrill had hospitably insisted upon regarding as a
private den of work and consultation for the Baron and his secretary.
"There is a mission of exceeding delicacy," began Baron Tregar slowly,
"which I feel I must inflict upon you." His deep, penetrating eyes
lingered intently upon Philip's face. "It concerns the singular
conveyance of green and white and the lady within it."
Philip looked frankly astonished.
"I take it then," he suggested, "that you know the nomadic lady, Baron
Tregar?"
"No," said the Baron.
Philip stared.
"Your Excellency is pleased to jest," he said politely.
"On the contrary," said the Baron, "I am at a loss for suitable words in
which to express my singular request. I am assured of your interest,
Poynter?"
"Of my interest, assuredly!" admitted Philip. "My compliance," he added
fairly, "depends, of course, upon the nature of the mission."
"It is absurdly simple," said the Houdanian suavely. "Merely to discover
whether or not the nomadic lady feels any exceptional interest--in
Houdania. For the information to be acquired in a careless,
disinterested manner without arousing undue interest, requires, I think,
an American of brains and breeding, a compatriot of the nomad. It has
occurred to me that you are equipped by a habit of courtesy and tact
to--arrive accidentally in the path of the caravan--"
"I thank you!" said Philip dryly. "I prefer," he added stiffly, "to
confine my diplomatic activities to more conventional channels."
"When I assure you," purred the Baron with his maddening precision of
speech, "that this information is of peculiar value to me and without
immediate significance to the lady herself, I am sure that you will not
feel bound to withhold your--hum--your coöperation in so slight a
personal inconvenience, singular as it may all seem to you, I am right?"
Philip reddened uncomfortably.
"I am to understand that I would undertake this peculiar mission equipped
with no further information than you have offered?"
"Exactly so," said the Baron. "I must beg of you to undertake it without
question."
"Pray believe," flashed Philip, "that I am not inclined to question.
That fact," he added coldly, "is in itself a handicap."
"The lady's name," explained the Baron quietly, "is Westfall--Diane
Westfall."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Philip and savagely bit his lip.
"Ah, then you know the lady!" said the Baron softly.
"I regret," said Philip formally, "that I have not had the honor of
meeting Miss Westfall." But he saw vividly again a girl straight and
slender as a silver birch, with firm, wind-bright skin and dark, mocking
eyes. There were hemlocks and a dog--and Dick Sherrill had been
talkative over billiards the night before.
"Miss Westfall," added Philip guilelessly, "is the owner of the Glade
Farm below here in the valley."
"Ah, yes," nodded Tregar. "It is so I have heard." His glance lingered
still upon Philip's face in subtle inquiry. Bending its Circean head,
Temptation laughed lightly in Philip Poynter's eyes. The girl in the
caravan was winding away by dusty roads--out of his life perhaps. And
singular as the mission was, its aim was harmless.
"Our lady," said the Baron smoothly, "camps by night. From an aeroplane
one may see much--a camp--a curl of smoke--a caravan. Later one may walk
and, walking, one may lose his way--to find it again with perfect ease by
means of a forest camp fire."
Somehow on the Baron's tongue the escapade became insidious duplicity.
Philip flushed, acutely conscious of a significant stirring of his
conscience.
"I may fly with Sherrill this afternoon," he said with marked reluctance.
"And at sunset?"
"I may walk," said Philip, shrugging.
"Permit me," said the Baron gratefully as he rose, "to thank you. The
service is--ah--invaluable."
Uncomfortably Philip accepted his release and went lightly up the stairs.
"I am a fool," said Philip. "But surely Walt Whitman must have
understood for he said it all in verse. 'I am to wait, I do not doubt, I
am to meet you again,'" quoted Philip under his breath; "'I am to see to
it that I do not lose you!'"