I almost flung myself into Dick Vandeleur's arms when he entered my
library that evening.
"Can you imagine why I sent for you in such a deuce of a hurry?" I
blurted out, embracing him effusively in my pleasure at seeing him.
"Well, I did think there might have been a woman in the case," he
drawled, in his deliberate way, stopping to adjust his neck-tie, which
had worked its way over his ear during the struggle. "But then, as I
happened to have acted as your best man only two months ago, when you
married the most charming of women, why, b'Jove, I--"
"Well, it is a woman," I groaned, cutting his speech short.
"The devil!"
"Yes, and the very worst kind, I fancy, if thoroughly aroused."
"But, my deah boy, with such a wife it's--it's--it's--"
"Yes, it's all that and a good deal more," I growled, gloomily. "Don't
add to my misery with your ill-timed reproaches. Richard, a back
number of my unsavory career has turned up to deprive me of my
appetite and blight my being. You remember Bella Bracebridge, of the
nimble toes, at whose shrine I worshipped so long and so idiotically?
Well, I received a letter from her only yesterday."
"No!"--incredulously.
"Yes."
"What!--little Bella who used to caper around in such airy garments at
the Alhambra?"
"The very same. I only wish I could be mistaken," with a despairing
groan. "It seems she married money and retired from the stage. By some
means she disposed of her husband, and is now a rich and probably
good-looking widow. She has purchased an estate within half a mile of
here, and is going in heavy for style. She wants to make me the
stepping-stone to social success; she sighs for the purple penetralia
of the plutocracy. See what a predicament I am in! To introduce her in
this house would plant the most unjust suspicions in Ethel's
Vassarian mind, while her mother, Mrs. McGoozle, might institute
awkward inquiries into the dear, dead past"--with a shiver of
anticipation. "Now, my dear Vandeleur, that woman means mischief. She
has got about a hundred of my letters breathing the most devoted love:
if dear Ethel got a glimpse of a line she would go into hysterics.
Bella has hinted, even politely threatened, that unless I show her
some attention, which means introducing her to my wife's circle of
friends, she will publish those letters to the world or send them to
the dramatic papers. Now you must help me out of this scrape."
"Delighted to be of any service, I'm sure," tapping his boots
impatiently with a jaunty little cane. "But, really, you know, I don't
see--"
"Why, it's easy enough. Don't you remember we were once the pride of
the school because we robbed watermelon patches so skilfully? What a
narrow shave that was in the apple orchard the night before
commencement, when you--"
"Yes, yes, I remember, deah boy; but what have those childish pranks
got to do with the present case? We don't want to rob an apple
orchard"--by way of mild protest.
"It is another kind of fruit that we are after--the fruit of youthful
follies. Here," opening a cupboard and throwing out two pairs of
overalls somewhat the worse for paint, two jumpers ditto, and several
muddy overshoes, "Vandeleur, if you love me put these things on."
I fancy I can see him now adjust his glass and survey me with bulging
eyes. I certainly did have nerve to ask that famous clubman, so
irreproachable in his dress, to assume such inartistic and plebeian
garments.
It took a great deal of palavering before I could persuade him that I
was lost unless he consented. How he grunted as he reluctantly laid
aside his silk-lined white kersey coat and evening dress, and tried to
put on the overalls with one hand while he held his aristocratic
aquiline nose with the other.
"Really, I hope I shan't be found dead in these togs," he remarked
ruefully, as he surveyed himself in the glass. "What would Flossy say?
and how the chaps at the Argentine would wonder what I'd been up to!"
I cut short his speculations by thrusting a soft slouched hat on his
head and dragging it down over his eyes.
"There now!" I said, standing off and contemplating him critically
and admiringly; "you have no idea, my boy, how becoming this costume
is. One might imagine you had been born a stevedore."
He looked rather sour at this doubtful compliment, and hitching up his
baggy trousers, asked, "Well, what is the next misery?"
"It is twelve o'clock," I said, referring to my watch. "My wife has
gone to bed. Like Claude Duval, we will take to the road."
After a stiff libation of brandy and soda we stole softly downstairs
and found ourselves in front of the house. Only one light glimmered in
the black pile, where Ethel was going to bed.
"Where away?" asked Vandeleur, as I turned the path.
"To storm Bella's bureau," I cried, leading the way through the dark.