MRS. KEITH GETS A SURPRISE
Harding was taking out a cigar in the vestibule when a man brushed past
him wearing big mittens and a loose black cloak such as old-fashioned
French-Canadians sometimes use.
"Why, Blake!" he cried. "What have you got on? Have you been
serenading somebody?"
"I can't stop," the other answered with a grin. "Open that door for
me, quick."
A porter held back the door, but as Blake slipped through Harding
seized his cloak.
"Hold on; I want a talk with you. I've been waiting all day."
Blake made an effort to break loose, and as he did so the bob-cat
dropped from beneath his arm and fell, spitting and snarling, to the
ground. Its fur was torn and matted, tufts were hanging loose, and the
creature had a singularly disreputable and ferocious appearance. Blake
made an attempt to recapture it, but, evading him easily, it ran along
the floor with a curious hopping gait and disappeared among the
pillars. Then he turned to his friend with a rueful laugh.
"You see what you've done! It's gone into the rotunda, where everybody
is."
Harding looked at him critically. "You seem sober. What made you get
yourself up like an Italian opera villain and go round the town with a
wild beast under your arm?"
"I'll tell you later. What we have to do now is to catch the thing."
"It's time," said Harding drily. "The circus is beginning."
Men's laughter and women's shrieks rose from the entrance hall, which,
in a Canadian hotel, serves as general meeting place and lounge.
Somebody shouted orders in French, there was a patter of running feet,
and then a crash as of chairs being overturned. Blake sprang in and
Harding, who followed, divided between amusement and impatience, looked
on at an animated scene. Two porters were chasing the bob-cat which
now and then turned upon them savagely, while several waiters, who kept
at a judicious distance, tried to frighten it into a corner by
flourishing their napkins. Women fled out of the creature's way, men
hastily moved chairs and tables to give the pursuers room, and some of
the more energetic joined in the chase. At one end of the room Mrs.
Keith stood angrily giving instructions which nobody attended to.
Millicent, who was close by, looked hot and unhappy, but for all that
her eyes twinkled when a waiter, colliding with a chair, went down with
a crash and the bobcat sped away from him in a series of awkward jumps.
At length, Blake managed to seize it with his mittened hands and after
rolling it in a cloth and giving it to a porter, advanced towards Mrs.
Keith, his face red with exertion but contrite, and the cloak, which
had come unhooked, hanging down from one shoulder. She glanced at him
in a puzzled, half-disturbed manner when he stopped.
"The cat is safe," he said. "The man I gave it to will put it with the
other animals. If he holds it firmly, I don't think it can bite him."
"As I'm told you dropped it in the vestibule, I feel I'm entitled to an
explanation," Mrs. Keith replied in a formal tone, looking hard at him.
"I gave the cat to my maid this morning, sending Miss Graham to see it
delivered to a man in the town, and it disappeared. How did it come
into your possession?"
"Through no fault of Miss Graham's. I happened to notice your maid
trying to carry an awkwardly shaped hamper and Miss Graham looking for
a cab. It struck me the thing was more of a man's errand and I
undertook it."
"It's curious that you knew what the errand was, unless Miss Graham
told you." Mrs. Keith looked sternly at Millicent, who blushed. "I
have been led to believe that you made her acquaintance, without my
knowledge, on board the steamer by which we came up."
"That," said Blake respectfully, "is not quite correct. I was formally
presented to Miss Graham in England some time ago. However, as I saw a
car coming along St. Catharine's while your maid was looking for a hack
and there was no time to explain, I scribbled a note on a bit of a
letter and gave it to a boy, and then took the cat to a taxidermist."
"To a taxidermist! Why?"
"It struck me that he ought to know something about the matter.
Anyhow, he was the nearest approach to a vet that I could find."
Mrs. Keith looked at him thoughtfully. "You seem to have a curious way
of reasoning. But what did the man say?"
"His first remark was, 'Nom d'une pipe!' and he added something more
which I couldn't catch, but when we became friends he promised to
engage the services of a dog-fancier friend of his."
"You imagined that a dog-fancier would specialize in cats?"
Millicent's eyes twinkled, but Mrs. Keith's face was serious and
Blake's perfectly grave.
"I don't know that I argued the matter out. To tell the truth, I
undertook the thing on impulse."
"So it seems. You considered it necessary to make friends with the
French-Canadian taxidermist?"
"Not necessary, perhaps." Blake appeared to reflect. "Still, it's a
way of mine, and the fellow interested me by the tragic manner in which
he broke his pipe when I first showed him the cat. His indignation was
superb."
Mrs. Keith gave him a look of rather grim amusement. "I see, but you
haven't told me what became of my hamper."
"The hamper was unfortunately smashed. The car was not allowed to stop
where I wished to get off and I had to jump. I miscalculated the speed
and fell down, after which, as there was a good deal of traffic, a
transfer wagon ran over the hamper, luckily without hurting the animal
inside. I left it at a basket shop and that explains the cloak. My
friend the taxidermist insisted on lending it and his winter gloves to
me. One looks rather conspicuous walking through the streets with a
bob-cat on one's arm."
Then, to Blake's astonishment, Mrs. Keith broke into a soft laugh.
"I understand it all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you
to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't
changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back and
talk to me."
When Blake returned Millicent had gone and Mrs. Keith noticed the
glance he cast about the room.
"I sent Miss Graham away," she said. "You have been here some days.
Why didn't you tell me who you were?"
"I'll confess that I knew you. You have changed much less than I have,
but I wasn't sure you would be willing to acknowledge me."
"Then you were very wrong. One may be forgiven a first offence and I
never quite agreed with the popular opinion about what you were
supposed to have done. It wasn't like you; there must have been
something that did not come out."
"Thank you," Blake said quietly.
She gave him a searching glance. "Can't you say something for
yourself?"
"I think not," he answered. "The least said, the soonest mended."
"But for the sake of others."
"So far as I know, only one person was much troubled about my disgrace.
I'm thankful my father died before it came."
"Your uncle felt it very keenly. He was furious when the first news
arrived and refused to believe you were to blame. Then when Major
Allardyce wrote he scarcely spoke for the rest of the day and it was a
long time before he recovered from the blow; I was staying at
Sandymere. He loved you, Dick, and I imagined he expected you to do
even better than his son."
Blake mused for a few moments, and Mrs. Keith could not read his
thoughts. Then he said, "Bertram is a very good fellow and has brains.
Why should his people think less of him because he likes to paint? But
I've been sorry for the Colonel; more sorry than I've felt for myself."
There was a softness that appealed to Mrs. Keith in his dark-blue eyes.
She had been fond of Dick Blake in his younger days and firmly believed
in him. Now she could not credit his being guilty of cowardice.
"Well," she said, "you have, I trust, a long life before you, and if
you have been at fault, you must make amends. There are people who
would be glad to see you reinstated."
He made a sign of grave dissent. "That can't happen, in the way you
mean. I closed the door of the old life against my return with my own
hands, and you don't gain distinction, as the Challoners think of it,
in business."
"What business have you gone into?"
Blake's eyes gleamed humorously. "At present I'm in the paint line."
"Paint!" Mrs. Keith exclaimed.
"Yes, but not common paint. We use the highest grade of lead and the
purest linseed oil. Varnish also of unapproachable quality, guaranteed
to stand exposure to any climate. There's nothing to equal our
products in North America."
"Do you seriously mean that you are going about selling these things?"
"Well," said Blake drily, "I'm trying to do so, and I booked an order
for two kegs yesterday, but it isn't to be paid for until arrival, when
I shall not be here. Can't I induce you to give us a trial? Your
house must need painting now and then, and we'll ship you the stuff to
Liverpool in air-tight drums. Once you have tried it you'll use
nothing else."
Mrs. Keith laughed. "Dick, you're a marvel and I'm glad adversity
hasn't soured you; but you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at
any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running
about with paint samples, but there's something pathetic in it that
spoils my amusement." Her face softened and she changed her tone.
"I'm a rather rich old woman, Dick, and your mother was a very dear
friend of mine. You must let me help you to something better."
"Thank you," he answered with a flush. "But you can't give me money.
It's curious that several of my friends have wanted to do so--first the
Colonel, then Bertram, and now you. Not flattering, is it? Suggests
that you doubt my talents, or that I look like a deserving object of
charity."
"You're incorrigible. It was the Blakes' misfortune that they could
never be serious, but I admire your pluck."
"We have our failings, but I'm boring you and I'll come back by and by
if you'll allow me. My American partner has been waiting for a word
with me since this morning."
"And you kept him waiting? That was a true Blake. But go to the man
and then tell the hotel people to give you places at my table. I want
to see your friend."
"He'll feel as honoured as I do," Blake said, and left her.
Harding was leaning back in his chair in the smoking-room with a frown
on his face when Blake joined him. He had a nervous alert look and was
dressed with fastidious neatness.
"You have come along at last," he remarked in an ironical tone. "Feel
like getting down to business or shall we put it off again?"
"Sorry I couldn't come earlier," Blake replied. "Somehow or other I
couldn't get away. Things kept turning up to occupy me."
"It's a way they seem to have. Your trouble is that you're too
diffuse; you spread yourself out too much. You want to fix your mind
on one thing and that will have to be business as soon as we leave
here."
"I dare say you're right. My interest's apt to wander; but if you take
advantage of every opportunity that offers, you get most out of life.
Concentration's good, but if you concentrate on a thing and then don't
get it, you begin to think what a lot of other things you've missed."
Harding made a gesture of resignation. "Guess you must be humoured;
I'll wait until you're through. That's a nice girl you stole the
bob-cat from, but if she were a sister of mine, I'd choke off that army
man who's been trotting round after her most of the day."
"What's the matter with Captain Sedgwick?"
"He has a greedy eye. He'll play any game he goes into for his own
hand. Not an unusual plan, but there's generally a code of rules and
if it's going to pay him, Sedgwick will break them. Anyhow, as it
looks as if Mrs. Chudleigh had him earmarked, why can't he let the girl
alone?"
Blake, who had taken a protective interest in Millicent, was somewhat
disturbed, but would not admit it.
"Oh!" he said, "our army men aren't ascetics, but I dare say the
fellow's a harmless philanderer, and you're a bit of a Puritan."
"I'm married and don't forget it," snapped Harding. "Marianna--that's
Mrs. Harding--is living in a two-room tenement, making her own dresses
and cooking on a gasoline stove, so's to give me my chance of finding
the gum. And I'm here in an expensive hotel, where I've made about
five dollars commission in three days and written our people several
folios about the iniquities of the Canadian tariff, which is all I've
done. We have got to pull out as soon as possible. Did you get any
information from the Hudson's Bay man?"
"I learned something about our route through the timber-belt and the
kind of camp outfit we'll want; the temperature's often fifty below in
winter. Then I was in Revillons', looking at their cheaper furs, and
in a store where they supply especially light hand-sledges, snowshoes,
and patent cooking cans. We must have these things good, and I
estimate they'll cost six hundred dollars."
"Six hundred dollars will make a big hole in our capital."
"I'm afraid so, but we can't run the risk of freezing to death, and we
may have to spend all winter in the wilds."
"That's true; I don't go back until I find the gum."
Harding's tone was resolute, and when he leaned forward, musing, with
knitted brows, Blake, knowing his story, gave him a sympathetic glance.
He had entered the paint factory when a very young man and had studied
chemistry in his scanty spare time with the object of understanding his
business better. He found the composition of varnishes an interesting
subject, and as the best gums employed came from the tropics and were
expensive he began to experiment with the exudations from American
trees. His employers hinted that he was wasting his time, since the
limits to the use of these products were already known, but Harding
continued, trying to test a theory that the texture and hardness of the
gums might depend upon climatic temperature. By chance a resinous
substance which had come from the far North fell into his hands, and he
found that when combined with an African gum it gave astonishing
results. Before this happened, however, his employers had sent him out
on the road, and as they were sceptical about his discovery and he
would not take them fully into his confidence, they merely promised to
keep his place open for a time. Now he was going to search for the gum
at his own expense.
"We'll order the outfit in the morning," he said presently, glancing
towards a man who sat across the room. "Do you think that fellow
Clarke can hear? I've a notion that he's been watching us."
"Does it matter?"
"You must bear in mind that we have a valuable secret, and I understand
he lives somewhere in the country we are going through."
As he spoke the Hudson's Bay agent came in with the sawmiller, who said
to the man whom Harding suspected of listening, "That was good stuff
you gave me a dose of. It fixed my ague, though I had the shakes bad
last night."
Clarke rose and strolled with them to a seat nearer where Blake and
Harding sat. "It's a powerful drug and must be used with discretion.
If you feel you need it, I'll give you another dose. It's an Indian
remedy and I learned the secret up in the timber-belt, but I spent some
time experimenting before I was satisfied about its properties."
Sedgwick, who was passing, stopped and lighted a cigar. "Then you get
on with Indians?"
"I do," Clarke said shortly. "It isn't difficult when you grasp their
point of view."
"Then your experience doesn't tally with mine and I know something
about the primitive races. Their point of view is generally elusive."
"I can credit it." Clarke's tone was sneering. "You people don't try
to understand them; you can't come down to it. Standing firm on your
colour prejudice and official traditions, you expect the others to
agree with you. It's an indefensible policy." He turned to the
Hudson's Bay agent. "You ought to know something about the matter. On
the whole, the Hudson's Bay treat the Indians well; there was a
starving lad you picked up suffering from snow-blindness near Jack-pine
river and sent back safely to his tribe."
"That's so, but I can't tell how you knew. I don't remember having
talked about the thing; and my clerk has never left the factory. There
wasn't another white man within a week's journey."
"I heard, all the same. You had afterwards some better furs than usual
brought in."
The agent looked surprised. "Some of these people are grateful, but
although I've been in the country twelve years I don't pretend to
understand them."
"They understand you. The proof of it is that you can keep your
factory open in a district where furs are rather scarce and have had
very few mishaps. You can take that as a compliment."
There was something significant in Clarke's tone which Blake remarked,
while Sedgwick, feeling that he was being left out, strolled on.
"Then you know the Jack-pine?" the agent asked.
"Pretty well, though it's not easy to reach. I came down it one winter
from the Wild-goose hills. I'd put in the winter with a band of
Stonies."
"The Northern Stonies? Did you find them easy to get on with?"
"They knew some interesting things," Clarke answered drily. "I went
there to study."
"Ah!" said the agent. "What plain folk, for want of a better name,
call the occult. But it's fortunate there's a barred door between
white men and the Indian's mysticism."
"It has been opened to a white man once or twice."
"Just so. He stepped through into the darkness and never came out
again. There was an instance I could mention."
"Civilized folk would have no use for him afterwards," Harding broke
in. "We want sane, normal men on this continent. Neurotics, hoodoos
and fakirs are worse than a plague; there's contagion in their fooling."
"How would you define them? Those who don't fit in with your ideas of
the normal?"
"I know a clean, straight man when I meet him and that's enough for me."
"I imagine that cleverer people are now and then deceived," said
Clarke, who moved away.
"That's a man I want to keep clear of," Harding remarked to Blake.
"There's something wrong about him; he's not wholesome." He rose.
"It's a fine night; let's walk up the mountain."