THE COTE IN THE CLOUDS
As Eveley had prophesied, what her carpenters lacked in experience and
skill was more than compensated by their ambition and their eagerness to
please. On Saturday afternoon her back yard was a veritable bee-hive of
industry. The foundation was in readiness for the handiwork of love, for
Burton Raines, feeling that he could not concentrate on business in such
sentimental environs, explained patiently that he was only an ordinary
married man and that love rhapsodies to the tune of temperamental
hammering upset him. So he had taken the morning off from his own
business, to lay the foundation for the rustic stairway.
Nolan Inglish, listed first because he was always listed first with
Eveley, appeared at eleven o'clock, having explained to the lofty members
of the law firm of which he was a junior assistant, that serious family
matters required his attention. This enabled him to have the two
bottom-most steps of the stairway, comprising his portion, erected and
ready for inspection by the time Eveley arrived home from her work. He
said he had felt it would be lonely for her to sit around by herself
while everybody else worked for her, and having provided against that
exigency by doing his labor in advance, he claimed the privilege of
officiating as entertainer-in-chief for the entire afternoon.
Arnold Bender appeared next, accompanied by Kitty Lampton, one of
Eveley's pet and particular friends. Although Kitty was extremely
generous in proffering the services of her friend in behalf of Eveley's
stairway, she frankly stated that she was not willing to expose any
innocent young man of her possession to the wiles and smiles of her
attractive friend, without herself on hand to counteract any untoward
influence.
Captain Hardin and Lieutenant Ames came together with striking military
éclat, accompanied, as became their rank, by two alert enlisted men.
After introducing their enlisted men in the curt official manner of the
army and having set them grandly to work on the rustic stairway, Captain
Hardin and Lieutenant Ames immediately took up a social position in the
tiny rose-bowered pergola, with Eveley and Kitty and Nolan and the
lemonade.
A little later, Jimmy Weaver rattled up in his small striped gaudy car,
followed presently by Dick Fairwether on a noisy motorcycle. They took
out their personal sets of tools from private recesses of their machines
and plunged eagerly into the contest.
So the afternoon started most auspiciously and all would doubtless have
gone well and peacefully, had not Captain Hardin most unfortunately
selected an exceptionally good-looking young soldier for his service,--a
tall, slender, dark-skinned youth, with merry melting eyes. Eveley never
attempted to deny that she could not resist merry melting eyes. So she
left the young officers and Kitty and Nolan and the lemonade in the
rose-bowered pergola on the edge of the canyon which sloped down abruptly
on the east side, and herself went up to superintend the building of her
stairway.
The handsome one required an inordinate amount of superintending. The
other soldier detailed by Lieutenant Ames, an ordinary young man with a
sensible face and eyes that saw only hammer and nails, got along very
well by himself. But the handsome youth, called Buddy Gillian, required
supervision on every point. He first consulted Eveley about the design of
the two steps entrusted to him for construction. He could think of as
many as two dozen different styles of rustic steps, and he explained and
illustrated them all to Eveley in great detail, drawing plans in the
gravel path. It took the two of them nearly an hour to make a selection,
and then it seemed the style they had chosen was the most difficult of
the entire assortment, and was practically impossible for any one to
construct alone. So Eveley perforce assisted, holding the rustic boughs
while he hammered, carrying the saw, and carefully picking out the proper
size of nails as he required them.
"Didn't you have more sense than to bring a good-looker?" Nolan asked
Captain Hardin in a fretful voice. "Don't you know that Eveley can't
resist good looks?"
"I told him he had no business to bring Gillian," put in the lieutenant.
"Look at Muggs, whom I brought. Nobody notices that Muggs needs any help.
See there now, he has finished and is ready to go. Can't you do something
to stop this, Miss Lampton?" he pleaded, turning to Kitty.
"As long as she leaves my Arnold alone, I shall mind my own business,"
said Kitty decidedly. "If I cut in on her affair with your Buddy, she
will try her hand on Arnold to get even. Captain Hardin got you into
this, it is up to him to get you out."
And Kitty heartlessly left the pergola and went up to the rustic steps to
hold the hammer for Arnold.
Then Captain Hardin, after rapidly drinking three glasses of iced
lemonade to drown his chagrin and to strengthen his flagging courage,
left the cozy pergola which had no attraction for any of them with Eveley
out at work on the rustic stairway, and went up to the corner where she
and Buddy Gillian were carefully and conscientiously matching bits of
rustic lumber.
"I do not think I should keep you any longer, Gillian, since Muggs is
ready to go," he said kindly. "I can finish this myself now, thank you."
"Yes, sir," said Buddy Gillian courteously, and stood up. Then to Eveley,
"Shall I gather up the scraps, Miss Ainsworth, and tidy the lawn for you?
It is pretty badly littered. Only too glad to be of service, if I may."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Gillian, that is sweet of you," said Eveley
gratefully. "Suppose we begin down in that corner by the rose pergola,
and gather up the scraps as we come this way. I'll carry this basket, and
you can do the picking."
But even this humble field of usefulness was denied Private Gillian, for
Lieutenant Ames came out from the pergola and said with official
briskness, "Oh, never mind that, Gillian. I can help Miss Ainsworth with
it. You'd better run along with Muggs and enjoy your liberty period. Much
obliged to you, I am sure."
So the handsome Buddy looked deep into Eveley's eyes, and sighed. Eveley
held out her hand.
"You have done just beautifully," she said, "and helped me so much. And
when are you coming to tell me the rest of that thrilling story of your
life in the trenches?"
"The question is, when may I?"
"Well, Tuesday evening? Or can you get off on Tuesday?"
"Oh, yes, since the war is over we can get off any night. Tuesday will
suit me fine."
"Sorry, Gillian," put in Captain Hardin grimly. "But unfortunately I have
arranged for a company school on Tuesday night--to be conducted by
Lieutenant Carston."
Gillian turned his beautiful eyes on Eveley, eyes no longer merry but sad
and wistful.
"Let me see," puzzled Eveley promptly. "Could you come to-morrow night
then, Mr. Gillian? Captain won't mind changing with you, I know, and he
can come on Tuesday. Captains can always get away, can't they? Is that
all right?--Then to-morrow evening, about eight. And I will have a little
evening supper all ready for you. Good-by."
After he had gone she said to the captain apologetically, "Hasn't he
wonderful eyes? And I knew he must be quite all right for me to know, or
you would never have introduced him."
Taken all in all, only Kitty Lampton and Eveley considered the raising of
the rustic stairway an entire success, although there was much light talk
and laughter as they ate the dainty supper the girls had prepared for
them in the Cloud Cote, as Eveley had already christened her home above
the earth. But the men, with the exception of Nolan, were doomed to
disappointment.
When Dick Fairwether asked her to go to a movie with him in the evening,
and when Jimmy Weaver invited her to go for a night drive with him along
the beach, and when Captain Hardin suggested that she accompany him to
the Columbine dance at the San Diego, and when Lieutenant Ames wanted to
make a foursome with Kitty and Arnold to go boating, she said most
regretfully to each,--"Isn't it a shame? But my sister is having some
kind of a silly club there to-night, and I promised to go."
But to Nolan, very secretly she whispered: "Now you trot along to the
office and work and when I am ready to come home I will phone you to come
and get me. And we will initiate the Cloud Cote all by ourselves."
So the little party broke up almost immediately after supper, with deep
avowals of gratitude on the part of Eveley, and equally deep assurances
of pleasure and good will on the part of the others. After they had gone,
as Eveley inspected her stairway alone, she was comforted by the thought
that she could fairly smother it with vines and all sorts of creeping and
climbing things, and the casual comer would not notice how funny and
wabbly it was. But as she went gingerly down, clinging desperately to the
rail on both sides, she determined to take out an accident policy
immediately, with a special clause governing rustic stairways.