"Are we all here?" asked Mary.
She had summoned her sisters and Arthur to the office for a conference.
"All except Sam Langham," said Gay.
"I didn't know that he was one of the family," said Mary.
"Of course, you _know_," said Gay; "you would. _I_ was just guessing."
"Well, he isn't," said Mary, trying not to change color or to enjoy
being teased about Mr. Langham.
The triplets sat in a row upon a bench made of little birch logs with
the bark on. It was not soft sitting, as Lee whispered, but one had
one's back to the light, and in case one had done something wrong
without knowing it and was in for a scolding, that would prove an
immense advantage.
"What I wanted to say," said Mary, "is just this----"
She stood up and looked rather more at the triplets than any one else,
so that Lee exclaimed, "Votes for women," and Gay echoed her with,
"Yes, but none for poor little girls in their teens."
"Hitherto," continued the orator, "The Inn has been only informally
open. It's been more like having a few friends stopping with us. We had
to see more or less of them. But after to-day there will be a crowd, and
I think it would be more dignified and pleasanter for them if _some_ of
us kept ourselves a little more to ourselves. What do _you_ think,
Arthur?"
Arthur looked up sweetly. It was evident that he had not been listening.
"Why, Mary," he said, "I think it might be managed with infinite
patience."
The triplets giggled; Maud and Eve exchanged amused looks.
"Arthur," said Mary, "you can make one contribution to this discussion
if you want to. You can tell us what you are really thinking about, so
that we needn't waste time trying to guess."
"Why," said he gently, "you know I have quite a knack with animals,
taming them and training them, and I was wondering if it would be
possible to train a snail. _That's_ what I was thinking about. I have a
couple in my pocket at the moment, and----"
"Never mind _now_," said Mary hurriedly, and she turned to the
triplets. "What do _you_ think of what I said?"
"I think it was tortuous and involved," said Lee, "and that it would
hardly bear repetition."
"It smacked of paternalism," said Gay. And even Phyllis, her mind upon
the convalescing Herring, was moved to speak.
"You said it would be more dignified for some of us to keep to
ourselves. Perhaps it would. You said it would be pleasanter for the
people who are coming here to stay. I doubt it!"
"Bully for you, old girl," shouted Lee and Gay; "sick her!"
Mary moaned. She was proof against their hostilities, but the language
in which they were couched pierced her to the marrow.
"I am sure," she said, "that Maud and Eve will agree with me."
"Of course," said Eve.
"Naturally," said Maud.
"There!" exclaimed Mary, with evident triumph.
"We agree," said Eve, "that _some_ of us should keep ourselves more to
ourselves."
And she looked sternly at the triplets. But then she turned and looked
sternly at Mary and rose to her feet.
"We think," she said with a _j'accuse_ intonation, "that those who
haven't kept themselves to themselves should, and that those who
have--shouldn't. Maud and I, for instance, haven't the slightest
objection to being fetched for and carried for by attractive young men.
Have we, Maud? But hitherto, as must have been obvious to the veriest
nincompoop, we have done our own fetching and carrying."
There was a short silence. Mary blushed. Arthur fidgeted. He was
wondering if snails preferred the human voice or whistling.
"I'm quite sure," said Maud, "that I haven't been wandering over the
hills with future earls, or lost in swamps with interesting invalids, or
basked morning after morning in the sunny smile of a gourmet----"
Mary paled under this attack.
"Mr. Langham is altogether different," she said.
"Oh, quite!" cried Lee.
"Utterly, absolutely different!" cried Gay. "To begin with, he's richer;
and to end with, he's fatter."
"I shouldn't have said 'fat,'" said Lee. "I should have said
'well-larded,' but then I am something of a stylist."
"Sam Langham," said Mary, "is everybody's friend. And he's an immense
help in lots of ways; and then he has a certain definite interest in The
Inn. Because, if we need it, he's going to lend us money to carry our
accounts."
Gay whispered to Lee behind her hand. Lee giggled.
"What was that?" asked Mary sharply.
"Only a quotation."
"What quotation?"
"Oh, Gay just said something about 'Bought and Paid For.'"
Here Arthur interrupted.
"They're like snails," said he to Mary. "You can only train 'em with
infinite patience."
Phyllis rose suddenly and became the cynosure of all eyes except her
own, whose particular cynosure at the moment was the floor. She moved
toward the door.
"Where are you off to?" asked Mary.
"I'm just going to speak to Chef."
"What about?"
"About some chicken broth."
"For yourself?"
The gentle Phyllis was being goaded beyond endurance. At the door she
turned and lifted her great eyes to Mary's.
"No," she said bitterly; "it's for Arthur's snails."
There was a silence.
"If there's any voting," said Phyllis, "I give my proxy to Gay." And she
vanished through the door.
"I'm sure," said Mary, "I don't know what the modern young girl is
coming to!"
"I know where _that_ one is going to," said Gay; "spilling the chicken
broth in her unseemly haste."
Then Arthur spoke.
"The modern young girl," he said, "is coming to just where her
grandmother came, and by the same road. Girls will be girls. So let's be
thankful that the men who have come here so far have been--men. And
hopeful that those who are to come will be also. I've lived too much
with nature not to know what's natural--when I see it."
"Do you think," said Gay sweetly, "that it's natural for a man to eat as
much as Sam Langham does?"
"As natural under the peculiar circumstances," said Arthur, "as it is
for you to tease."
Lee rose.
"And you?" said Mary, smiling at last.
"Oh," said Lee witheringly, "I have an engagement to carve initials
surrounded by a heart on a birch-tree."
And when Lee had gone Gay spoke up.
"I shouldn't wonder," said she, "if, by way of a blind, the baggage had
told the truth."
"We should never have called it The Inn," said Mary; "we should have
called it The Matrimonial Agency."
"Every pretty girl," said Arthur, "is a matrimonial agency."
At this moment Uncas, the chipmunk, rushed screaming into the room and
flung himself into Arthur's lap. Arthur comforted the little beast, and
noticed that his nose and face bore fresh evidences of a fight. Uncas
complained very bitterly; he was evidently trying to talk.
"Is Stripes hurt?" asked Mary.
"It's his feelings," said Arthur. "He's been made a victim of misplaced
confidence. Some young woman has been encouraging him."
"Poor little man!" said Gay with sudden emotion. "Did ums want some nice
vasy on ums poor sick nose?"
"He would only lick it off," regretted Arthur.
Mr. Langham's jolly face appeared in the open door.
"I've seen two depart," he said, "and thought maybe the meeting was
over."
"It is," said Mary, and, after a moment's hesitation, she boldly joined
Mr. Langham and walked off by his side. Even Arthur chuckled.
"And what was the meeting about?" asked Mr. Langham.
"Oh," said Mary, "they won't be serious--not any of them--not even
Arthur. So we forgot what the meeting was for, and got into violent
discussion about--about natural history."
"And what side did you take?"
"Oh," said Mary, "we were all on the same side--_really_, and that was
what made the discussion so violent."
"The day," said Langham, "is young. I feel ripe for an adventure. And
you?"
"What sort of an adventure?"
"I thought that if one--or rather if _two_ climbed to the top of a very
little hill and sat down in the sunshine and admired the view----"
* * * * *
Far out on the lake they could see Lee, lolling in the stern of a guide
boat. Young Renier was at the oars. But the boat was not being
propelled. It was merely drifting.
"I wonder," said Langham, and he watched her face stealthily, "if by any
chance those two are really engaged?"
Was there the least hardening of that lovely, gentle face, the least
fleeting expression of that sort of panic which one experiences when
arriving at the station in time to see the train pull out but not too
late to get aboard by the exercise of swift and energetic manoeuvres?
"Don't say such things!" she said presently. "It's like jumping out from
behind a tree and shouting, 'Boo!'"
Mr. Langham smiled complacently and changed the subject. But he said to
himself: "That Maud is a clever girl!"
"I suppose," said Mary after a while, "that this is the last really
peaceful day we'll have for a long time. To-morrow the place will be
full of strange, critical faces. And it will be one long wrestle to make
everything go smoothly all the time."
She sighed.
"There are only two ways to success," said Langham. "One is across the
wrestling-mat, and one is through the pasture of old Bull Luck. But I'm
convinced that The Inn is going to pay very handsomely. There is a
fortune in it."
"There mightn't be," said Mary, "if--" and she broke into a peal of
embarrassed laughter.
"If what?"
"I was thinking of that _dreadful_ picture."
"I often think of it," said Mr. Langham, "and of the first time I saw
it."
Mary gave him a somewhat shy look.
"Of course it didn't influence you," she said.
"But it did. And that day I forgot to eat any lunch. I am looking
forward," he said, "to warm weather--I enjoy a swim as much as anybody."
"Why is it," said Mary, "that a girl is ashamed when it is her money
that attracts a man, and proud when it is her face? Both are equally
fortuitous; both are assets in a way--but of the two, it is the money
alone which is really useful."
"It sounds convincing to a girl," mused Mr. Langham, "when a man says to
her: 'I love you because of your beautiful blue eyes!' But it wouldn't
sound in the least convincing if he said: 'I love you because of your
beautiful green money!' I don't attempt to explain this. I am merely
stating what appears to me to be a fact. But, as you say, money is, or
should be, an asset of attraction."
"I suppose beauty is held in greater esteem," said Mary, "because it is
more democratically bestowed. Money seems to beget hatred because it
isn't."
"The French people," said Langham, "hated the nobility because of their
wealth and luxury. To-day a common mechanic has more real luxuries at
his disposal than poor Louis XVI had, but he hates the rich people who
have more than he has--and so it will go on to the end of time."
"Will there always be rich people and poor people?"
"There will always be rich people, but some time they will learn to
spend their money more beneficently, and then there won't be any really
poor people. If the attic of your house were infected with dirt and
vermin you couldn't sleep until it had been cleaned and disinfected. So,
some day, rich men will feel about their neighbors; cities about their
slums; and nations about other nations. I can imagine a future Uncle Sam
saying to a future John Bull"--and he sunk his voice to a comically
confidential whisper: "'Say, old man, I hear you're pressed for ready
cash; now't just so happens I'm well fixed at the moment, and--oh, just
among friends! Bother the interest!' What a spectacle this world
is--it's like the old English schools that Dickens wrote out of
existence--just bullying and hazing all around! Why, if a country was
run on the most elementary principles of honesty and efficiency, the
citizens of that country would never have occasion to say: 'Our taxes
are almost unbearable.' They would be nudging each other in the streets
and saying: 'My, that was a big dividend we got!'"
Mr. Langham only stopped because he was out of breath. His face was red
and shining. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.
Mary was almost perfectly happy. She loved to hear Langham run on and
on. His voice was so pleasant, and his face beamed so with kindness. And
from many things which he had from time to time let slip she was
convinced that she needn't be an old maid unless she wanted to be. And
so to climb a little hill with him, to sit in the sun, and to admire the
view was really an exciting venture. For she never knew what he was
going to let slip next. And equally exciting was the fact that if that
slip should be in the nature of a leading question, she could only guess
what her answer would be.
When a man is offered something that he very much wants--a trifling
loan, for instance--his first instinct is to deny the need. And a girl,
when the man she wants offers himself, usually refuses at the first
time of asking. And some, especially rich in girl nature, which is
experience of human nature and somewhat short of divine, will persist in
refusing even unto the twentieth and thirtieth time.
Mary Darling was in a deep reverie. From this, his eyes twinkling behind
their thick glasses, Mr. Langham roused her with the brisk utterance of
one of his favorite quotations:
"'General Blank's compliments,'" said he, "'and he reports that the
colored troops are turning black in the face.'"
Mary smiled her friendliest smile.
"I was wondering," she said, "what had become of Lee and Renier."
"I have noted," said Mr. Langham, "that she always calls him by his last
name, sometimes with the prefix you--'You Renier' put like that. And I
was wondering if he ever turns the trick on her."
"Why should he?" asked Mary innocently.
"You have forgotten," said he, "that her last name is Darling." His eyes
twinkled with amazing and playful boldness. "You're _all_ Darlings," he
exclaimed, "and"--a note of self-pity in his voice--"I'm just a fat old
stuff!"
"That," said Mary primly, "is perfectly correct, but for three trifling
errors--you're not fat, you're not old, and you're not a stuff!"
If she had told him that he was handsome as Apollo he could not have
been more pleased.
And so their adventure progressed in the pleasant sunlight that warmed
the top of the little hill. No very exciting adventure, you say? And of
a shilly-shallying and even snail-like motion?
Oh, you can't be always riding to rescues, and falling over cliffs, and
escaping from burning houses.
At that moment, by the purest accident, the tip of Mr. Langham's right
forefinger just brushed against Mary's sleeve. And there went through
him from head to foot a great thrill, as if trumpets had suddenly
sounded.
"I suppose," said Mary, after a little while, "that we ought to be
going."
"But I'd rather sit here than eat," said Mr. Langham.
"Honestly? So would I."
"Then," said Mr. Langham, "without exposing ourselves to any other
danger than that of starvation, I propose that we lose ourselves--as
_other people do_--in short, that we remain here until one or other of
us would rather--eat."
"Good gracious," said Mary, "we might be here a week!"
Mr. Langham rose slowly to his feet. Far off he could see pale smoke
flitting upward through the tree-tops. He turned and looked into Miss
Darling's smiling, upturned face.
"I'll just run down and tell Arthur we're not _really_ lost," he said.
"But I'll make him promise not to look for us. I'll be right
back--almost before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"
She held out her hands. He took them and helped her to her feet. And
then they both laughed aloud.
"Thank Heaven," said Mary, "that whatever else you and I may suffer
from, it isn't from insanity--or slim appetites! As a matter of fact,
I'm famished."
"Thank God!" said Mr. Langham; "so am I."
And they began to descend the hill. For to keep men and women and
adventurers going, the essential thing is food. And there's many a
promising romance that has come to nothing for want of a loaf of bread
and a jug of wine.