THE LOOKOUT
IN the comings and goings through the halls and veranda of the charming
inn, Irving Bruce managed to lose his stepmother and find Betsy Foster,
greatly to the latter’s confusion; for it was time for the evening
performance of the geyser.
Irving took his old friend by the arm. “You’re going out there with me,
Betsy,” he said.
“Not without Mrs. Bruce, I ain’t.”
“Yes, you are. We’re going to stray in the moonlight together.”
“If you ever had another guess comin’ you’ve got it now, Mr. Irving,”
declared Betsy firmly. “You find Mrs. Bruce right off.”
Irving sighed and succumbed. Finding his adorer was an easy matter, and
he did so without more ado. They joined the throng that moved toward
the geyser, and as good fortune would have it, were in time to find one
seat on the benches where Mrs. Bruce and Mrs. Nixon could sit together.
Then Irving unostentatiously withdrew, and again catching Betsy by
the arm took her a few paces away. The silvery light of the clear moon
bathed the cool mountain night.
“What have you decided to do, Betsy?” he asked.
“I suppose you mean Rosalie.”
Irving gave the thin arm an impatient shake.
“Well,” said Betsy coolly, “I haven’t decided.”
“If you don’t do something, I shall.”
“You ain’t qualified,” remarked Betsy curtly.
“Are you?” retorted her companion. “That thing mustn’t be allowed to go
on. That waitress business! That lovely flower subjected to orders and
winks and tips. I won’t stand it.”
“Well now, you can’t do a thing!” declared Betsy firmly.
“Are you going to?”
“I am, in my own time and way.”
“Does your own time and way include letting Rosalie work the rest of
the season?”
“Perhaps,” said Betsy tersely. “You mustn’t interfere, Mr. Irving.
You’ll only do harm.”
Irving gave an exclamation. “There is one thing I can do: go away
to-morrow. I’m not going to stay here and watch it.”
“But Mrs. Bruce—” began Betsy, troubled.
“Can do as she pleases,” put in Irving. “I’ll go to Yellowstone Lake
and fish till she gets ready to follow.”
“Oh, oh, oh! Mr. Irving!”
The exclamation was of joy, for in the earnestness of their talk Betsy
had not noticed the preliminary spurts of water, and now the splendid
captive stream burst its bonds and gushed skyward in the moonlight. Its
banners of spray hung and floated cloud-like in the breeze; and while
they gazed, all at once the pure white flushed to rose, then changed to
violet, and presently a gauzy rainbow hung between earth and heaven, a
thing of supernatural beauty.
“Do you suppose _she_ is seeing this?” murmured Irving.
“Not a doubt of it,” Betsy replied promptly. She feared that any other
answer would send her companion to the commissary department of the inn.
Helen Maynard and Mr. Derwent were together watching the lovely sight
when Robert Nixon came upon them. His hands were in his pockets and
he was whistling softly, as was his wont when the performance was not
cheerfully piercing.
“May I come and stand by the rich lady?” he asked.
The geyser was just disappearing.
“How cold and blank the night seems to have turned!” said Helen
pensively.
Robert struck his breast with his doubled fist.
“Cruel maiden!” he ejaculated, “why flout me thus? Say, Miss Maynard,”
he continued, in a voice changed to interest, “do you know you can make
Uncle Henry hear better than anybody?”
“I have made a study of it,” returned the girl composedly.
Robert gazed at her admiringly. “I think it was downright fine and
heroic for Uncle Henry to crush those conspirators and get your shekels
for you. He’s going to miss you like his right hand.”
“I hope he will miss me a little.” As she spoke Helen looked up at the
fine head set so well on Mr. Derwent’s broad shoulders; at the white
mustache, and gray hair, and all the features she knew so well.
“I’ll bet she admires him,” thought Robert, following her gaze to the
impassive face. “He’s a winner. If he only had his hearing he’d make us
all take notice.”
Robert shook his head with the fleeting sympathy of prosperous youth.
The sightseers began to gravitate toward the hotel, and this trio moved
with them.
Within the inn all was warmth and light. A Brobdingnagian corn-popper
was produced, and one of the open fires being reduced to the proper
condition, a cheerful crackling began as the corn bounded high in its
ample prison.
“We’re in the land of bigness, Mrs. Nixon,” said Mrs. Bruce, as they
sat at a comfortable distance from the heat.
“Indeed, yes,” returned that lady. “I was just saying to Miss Maynard
that apparently the mountains set the pace here.”
As she spoke, Mrs. Nixon looked graciously at her companion, who
occupied a neighboring chair.
“Were you, indeed!” thought Mrs. Bruce, amused. “I’m glad you’ve found
out you can say something to the girl!”
“Irving,” she said aloud, looking up at her son as he stood, tall and
abstracted, staring into the mammoth fire, “why don’t you take Miss
Maynard up to the Lookout. There must be a glorious view from there
to-night.”
Without moving, Helen lifted her eyes to Irving and met his gloomy
regard.
“I doubt if Miss Maynard cares to ascend a perpendicular corduroy
road,” he answered. “I’m told it is eight stories up.”
“You might ask her,” remarked the girl herself, with composure.
“Surely,” laughed Mrs. Bruce. “It would be such a simple way of finding
out.”
Irving had not the grace to smile. He continued to regard the humble
companion of yesterday, the heiress of to-day, without moving.
“Would you?” he asked sententiously.
“Yes,” she replied promptly, and rose.
The proposition was so foreign to Bruce’s mood that it required a
noticeable moment for him to pull himself together sufficiently to join
the young lady with tolerable grace.
She gave him a comprehending glance as they moved toward the staircase.
“Probably all your life,” she said slowly, “you have done just what
you liked. I have never done anything I liked. I am beginning to-night.”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Yes, I know you don’t want to do this, but I do,” she added, “and
that’s all I’m going to think of. It’s my turn.”
Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Bruce followed them with their eyes.
“What a little thing Miss Maynard is,” remarked the latter. “See, she
barely reaches Irving’s shoulder. I’ve always said he’d marry some mite
of a creature. That’s the way tall men always do, and then giraffes of
women have to mate with short ones.”
“I’m sorry Robert wasn’t here,” said Mrs. Nixon coldly. “He would
certainly have obliged Miss Maynard with a better grace.”
“Irving _is_ terribly indifferent,” returned Mrs. Bruce complacently.
“If _I_ want anything, he’s all alive at once; but when it’s a question
of any other woman—” She finished with a significant gesture.
“I have endeavored,” said Mrs. Nixon, with stateliness, “to inculcate
in Robert unvarying courtesy to all women.”
Mrs. Bruce began to grow warm under her ruching. “Yes, dear, I know,”
she replied, with a well-done sigh. “It’s so much easier when a man
hasn’t distinguished himself especially at college. These football
heroes—” she shook her head regretfully—“they do get spoiled, I admit,
and grow careless. Then they reflect very little credit on their
bringing-up. Excuse me a moment, Mrs. Nixon, I must speak to Betsy.”
And Mrs. Bruce rose gracefully and departed on her fictitious errand
rather than sustain her friend’s possible rejoinder.
“For if,” she reflected, “the woman should say anything really
_against_ Irving it would spoil the rest of the trip. The idea! He
might have treated Miss Maynard outrageously yesterday and Mrs. Nixon
wouldn’t ever have noticed it; but to-night she begrudges them a
moonlight excursion.”
Mrs. Nixon leaned back in her chair, breathing a little fast as her son
and heir approached her.
“Where were you, Robert?” she asked rebukingly.
“Pacing the deck outside. I’ve no ambition to take the leading rôle in
a barbecue.”
“It’s not so hot.”
“Well, it’s better now. Where’s Brute?”
Mrs. Nixon’s nostrils dilated. “Your very well-named friend has taken
Miss Maynard up to the Lookout,” she returned suavely. “He made it very
evident that he went under compulsion. I wished that you had been here.”
“Led him _to_ it, did she?” Robert laughed. “Good for her. I like to
see Brute coerced. And girls like to do it. She’s having the time of
her life, never fear.”
“I don’t think so. It is a very disagreeable position for a young girl
to be put in; and his manner was atrocious.”
“Mother,” Robert shook a sapient finger in her direction, “mother,
there won’t be any disagreeable positions for that young lady.”
Mrs. Nixon regarded the speaker attentively.
“She strikes me as a person who has been biding her time,” declared
Robert. “At present she has arrived; and although she doesn’t make
any fuss about it, that little hand of hers, with no rings on it, is
closing around the tail of this giddy old world, and if it doesn’t turn
to suit her, I think you’ll find her giving it a twist in the other
direction.”
“I’m certainly at a loss to know what you mean, Robert. She has always
displayed excellent taste in her position. She has been entirely quiet
and docile.”
“Quiet, yes,” replied Robert with a laugh, “but docile! That’s all you
know about it. My dear parent, mark my words. Don’t you ever imagine
that this is any _jeune fille_ case, needing protection. Miss Helen
Maynard is composed of two thirds sand and the other third grit.”
The speaker closed his eyes and nodded his head slowly in a manner to
express conviction.
“Well! I had no idea you were such a student of character.”
“Not a bit of it,” returned her son prosaically. “Never see anything
till it hits me in the nose.”
“Then I’m very dull,” returned the other with some hauteur, “for no
such thing has ever been obvious to me.”
“She’s fetching, oh, yes,” allowed Robert, “and she’ll make other
people fetch, too. It cheers me to think she’s making Brute toil up
seven flights of log-stairs to look at the moon with her.”
“She will be a success, just because she has herself so well in hand,”
declared Mrs. Nixon, unwilling to view this subject lightly. “She is
not a beauty, but well-gowned and with her self-possession she will
pass for one.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Robert lightly.
He had thrown himself into Mrs. Bruce’s vacated chair, and there was
silence for a span while the two gazed at the fire; then the lady spoke
again, tentatively.
“However independent Miss Maynard may be, she will require a chaperon
now.”
“Yes, one well trained to follow at heel.”
“Robert, I wish you wouldn’t exaggerate so.”
“Dear me, mamma mia,” looking up in surprise at the impatient tone.
“Why should it make _you_ peevish?”
Mrs. Nixon’s reply was dignified. “Because the duty may devolve upon
me.”
“Heavens! Why?”
“Well, your uncle Henry is very much attached to the girl. He has a
natural interest in her welfare.”
“Has he asked you to look after her?”
“He has suggested that we extend the hospitality of our home to her.”
“Oh, come now!” ejaculated Robert. “When I’m to have a sister, please
select a nice pussy one with appealing eyes like—like Hebe the Heaver,
for instance.”
“There will be no sister about it,” returned Mrs. Nixon sharply.
“Mamma, mamma!” Her son turned lazily accusing eyes upon her. “Have you
ulterior motives? Are you laying any traps for your little Robbie?”
Mrs. Nixon gave a faint laugh in spite of herself.
“My dear, I wish you weren’t quite such a goose. Is it likely that I
should expect you to be interested in a combination of sand and grit?”
Robert looked back at the fire. “There’s no telling what a solicitous
mother will expect when there are shekels in the balance. It would be
a dangerous clash under the same roof, for you know I’m two thirds
brass and the other third pure affection, and that’s a mixture akin to
dynamite.”
Silence again for a space.
“What are you going to do when we get back to the Hub?” inquired Robert
at last.
“We haven’t quite decided, your uncle and I.”
“I’m going to Fairport to sail with Brute.”
“You are? Well then, we shall be tempted to follow. Is it a possible
place outside the cottages?”
“Quite so, Brute says. Getting more so every year, because there’s a
river flowing into the sea that gives the variety of canoeing. He says
the Fairport Inn is getting to be quite dressy.”
“Why shouldn’t we all try it, then?” asked Mrs. Nixon.
“All?”
“Yes, all. It would be the best of ways for us to test Miss Maynard’s
suitability. I shall not ask her to live with us without your consent,
Robert,” finished Mrs. Nixon solemnly. “The home-circle is sacred.”