THE SECOND ENCOUNTER
Booth trudged rapidly homeward after leaving Hetty at the lodge. He
was throbbing all over with the love of her. The thrill of conquest
was in his blood. She had raised a mysterious barrier; all the more
zest to the inevitable victory that would be his. He would delight
in overcoming obstacles--the bigger the better,--for his heart
was valiant and the prize no smaller than those which the ancient
knights went out to battle for in the lists of love. He had held
her in his arms, he had kissed her, he had breathed of her fragrant
hair, he had felt the beating of her frightened heart against his
body. With the memory of all this to lift him to the heights of
divine exaltation, he was unable to conjure up a finer triumph than
the winning of her after the manner of the knights of old, to whom
opposition was life, denial a boon.
It was enough for the present to know that she loved him.
What if she were Hetty Glynn? What if she had been an artist's
model? The look he had had into the soul of her through those pure
blue eyes was all-convincing. She was worthy of the noblest love.
After luncheon--served with some exasperation by Patrick an hour
and a half later than usual--he smoked his pipe on the porch and
stared reminiscently at the shifting clouds above the tree-tops,
and with a tenderness about the lips that must have surprised and
gratified the stubby, ill-used brier, inanimate confederate in many
a lofty plot. He recalled all she had said to him in that sylvan
confessional, and was content. His family? Pooh! He had a soul of
his own. It needed its mate.
He did not see the Wrandall motor at his garden gate until a lusty
voice brought him down from the clouds into the range of earthly
sounds. Then he dashed out to the gate, bareheaded and coatless,
forgetting that he had been sitting in the obscurity of trailing
vines and purple blossoms the while he thought of her.
Leslie was sitting on the wide seat between his mother and sister.
"Glad to see you back, old man," said Booth, reaching in to shake
hands with him. "Day early, aren't you? Good-afternoon, Mrs.
Wrandall. Won't you come in?"
He looked at Vivian as he gave the invitation.
"No, thanks," she replied. "Won't you come to dinner this evening?"
He hesitated. "I'm not quite sure whether I can, Vivian. I've got
a half-way sort of--"
"Oh, do, old chap," cut in Leslie, more as a command than an
entreaty. "Sorry I can't be there myself, but you'll fare quite as
well without me. I'm dining at Sara's. Wants my private ear about
one thing and another--see what I mean?"
"We shall expect you, Brandon," said Mrs. Wrandall, fixing him with
her lorgnette.
"I'll come, thank you," said he.
He felt disgustingly transparent under that inquisitive glass.
Wrandall stepped out of the car. "I'll stop off for a chat with
Brandy, mother."
"Shall I send the car back, dear?"
"Never mind. I'll walk down."
The two men turned in at the gate as the car sped away.
"Well," said Booth, "it's good to see you. Pat!" He called through
a basement window. "Come up and take the gentleman's order."
"No drink for me, Brandy. I've been in the temperance State of Maine
for two weeks. One week more of it and I'd have been completely
pickled. I shall always remember Maine." He dropped into a broad
wicker chair and felt tenderly of his nose. "'Gad, I'm not quite
sure that the sun did it, old man. It was dreadful."
Booth grinned. "Do any fishing?"
"Yes. The first day. Oh, you needn't look at me like that. I'm
back in the narrow path." After a moment of painful reflection, he
added, "We didn't see water after the first day. I'm just beginning
to get used to the taste of it again."
"Never mind, Pat," said Booth, as the servant appeared in the
doorway. "Mr. Wrandall is not suffering."
"You know I'm not a drinking man," declared Leslie, a pathetic note
of appeal in his voice. "I hate the stuff."
"It is a good thing to let alone."
"And don't I let it alone? You never saw me tight in your life."
Booth sat down on the porch rail, hooked his toes in the supports
and proceeded to fill his pipe. Then he struck a match and applied
it, Leslie watching him with moody eyes.
"How do you like the portrait, old man?" he inquired between
punctuating puffs.
"It's bully. Sargent never did anything finer. Ripping."
"I owe it all to you, Les."
"To me?"
"You induced her to sit to me."
"So I did," said Leslie sourly. "I was Mr. Fix-it sure enough."
He allowed a short interval to elapse before taking the plunge. "I
suppose, old chap, if I should happen to need your valuable services
as best man in the near future, you'd not disappoint me?"
Booth eyed him quizzically. "I trust you're not throwing yourself
away, Les," he said drily. "I mean to say, on some one--well, some
one not quite up to the mark."
Leslie regarded him with some severity. "Of course not, old chap.
What the devil put that into your head?"
"I thought that possibly you'd been making a chump of yourself up
in the Maine woods."
"Piffle! Don't be an ass. What's the sense pretending you don't
know who she is?"
"I suppose it's Hetty Castleton," said Booth, puffing away at his
pipe.
"Who else?"
"Think she'll have you, old man?" asked Booth, after a moment.
"I don't know," replied the other, a bit dashed. "You might wish
me luck, though."
Booth knocked the burnt tobacco from the bowl of his pipe. A serious
line appeared between his eyes. He was a fair-minded fellow, without
guile, without a single treacherous instinct.
"I can't wish you luck, Les," he said slowly. "You see I'm--I'm in
love with her myself."
"The devil!" Leslie sat bolt upright and glared at him. "I might
have known! And--and is SHE in love with you?"
"My dear fellow, you reveal considerable lack of tact in asking
that question."
"What I want to know is this," exclaimed Wrandall, very pale but
very hot: "is she going to marry you?"
Booth smiled. "I'll be perfectly frank with you. She says she
won't."
Leslie gulped. "So you've asked her?"
"Obviously."
"And she said she wouldn't? She refused you? Turned you down?"
His little moustache shot up at the ends and a joyous, triumphant
laugh broke from his lips. "Oh, this is rich! Ha, ha! Turned you
down, eh? Poor old Brandy! You're my best friend, and dammit I'm
sorry. I mean to say," he went on in some embarrassment, "I'm sorry
for you. Of course, you can hardly expect me to--er--"
"Certainly not," accepted Booth amiably. "I quite understand."
"Then, since she's refused you, you might wish ME better luck."
"That would mean giving up hope."
"Hope?" exclaimed Leslie quickly. "You don't mean to say you'll
annoy her with your--"
"No, I shall not annoy her," replied his friend, shaking his head.
"Well, I should hope not," said Leslie with a scowl. "Turned you
down, eh? 'Pon my soul!" He appeared to be relishing the idea of
it. "Sorry, old chap, but I suppose you understand just what that
means."
Booth's lips hardened for an instant, then relaxed into a queer,
almost pitying smile.
"And you want me to be your best man?" he said reflectively.
Leslie arose. His chest seemed to swell a little; assuredly he was
breathing much easier. He assumed an air of compassion.
"I shan't insist, old fellow, if you feel you'd rather not--er--See
what I mean?" It then occurred to him to utter a word or two of
kindly advice. "I shouldn't go on hoping if I were you, Brandy.
'Pon my soul, I shouldn't. Take it like a man. I know it hurts
but--Pooh! What's the use aggravating the pain by butting against
a stone wall?"
His companion looked out over the tree-tops, his hands in his
trouser pockets, and it must be confessed that his manner was not
that of one who is oppressed by despair.
"I think I'm taking it like a man, Les," he said. "I only hope
you'll take it as nicely if she says nay to you."
An uneasy look leaped into Leslie's face. He seemed noticeably
less corpulent about the chest. He wondered if Booth knew anything
about his initial venture. A question rose to his lips, but he
thought quickly and held it back. Instead, he glanced at his watch.
"I must be off. See you to-morrow, I hope."
"So long," said Booth, stopping at the top of the steps while his
visitor skipped down to the gate with a nimbleness that suggested
the formation of a sudden resolve.
Leslie did not waste time in parting inanities; he strode off briskly
in the direction of home, but not without a furtive glance out of
the tail of his eye as he disappeared beyond the hedge-row at the
end of Booth's garden. That gentleman was standing where he had
left him, and was filling his pipe once more.
The day was warm, and Leslie was in a dripping perspiration when
he reached home. He did not enter the house but made his way direct
to the garage.
"Get out the car at once, Brown," was his order.
Three minutes later he was being driven over the lower road toward
Southlook, taking good care to avoid Booth's place by the matter
of a mile or more. He was in a fever of hope and eagerness. It was
very plain to him why she had refused to marry Booth. The iron was
hot. He didn't intend to lose any time in striking.
And now we know why he came again to Sara's in the middle of
a blazing afternoon, instead of waiting until the more seductive
shades of night had fallen, when the moon sat serene in the seat
of the Mighty.
He didn't have to wait long for Hetty. Up to the instant of
her appearance in the door, he had revelled in the thought that
the way was now paved with roses. But with her entrance, he felt
his confidence and courage slipping. Perhaps that may explain the
abruptness with which he proceeded to go about the business in
hand.
"I couldn't wait till to-night," he explained as she came slowly
across the room toward him. She was half way to him before he awoke
to the fact that he was standing perfectly still. Then he started
forward, somehow impelled to meet her at least half-way. "You'll
forgive me, Hetty, if I have disturbed you."
"I was not lying down, Mr. Wrandall," she said quietly. There was
nothing ominous in the words, but he experienced a sudden sensation
of cold. "Won't you sit down? Or would you rather go out to the
terrace?"
"It's much more comfortable here, if you don't mind. I--I suppose
you know what it is I want to say to you. You--"
"Yes," she interrupted wearily; "and knowing as much, Mr. Wrandall,
it would not be fair of me to let you go on."
"Not fair?" he said, in honest amazement. "But, my dear, I--"
"Please, Mr. Wrandall," she exclaimed, with a pleading little smile
that would have touched the heart of any one but Leslie. "Please
don't go on. It is quite as impossible now as it was before. I have
not changed."
He could only say, mechanically: "You haven't?"
"No. I am sorry if you have thought that I might come to--"
"Think, for heaven's sake, think what you are doing!" he cried,
feeling for the edge of the table with a support-seeking hand.
"I--I had Sara's word that you were not--"
"Unfortunately Sara cannot speak for me in a matter of this kind.
Thank you for the honour you would--"
"Honour be hanged!" he blurted out, losing his temper. "I love you!
It's a purely selfish thing with me, and I'm blowed if I consider
it an honour to be refused by any woman. I--"
"Mr. Wrandall!" she cried, fixing him with her flashing, indignant
eyes. "You are forgetting yourself." She was standing very straight
and slim and imperious before him.
He quailed. "I--I beg your pardon. I--I--"
"There is nothing more to be said," she went on icily. "Good-bye."
"Would you mind telling me whether there is any one else?" he asked,
as he turned toward the door.
"Do you really feel that you have the right to ask that question,
Mr. Wrandall?"
He wet his lips with his tongue. "Then, there IS some one!"
he cried, rapping the table with his knuckles. He didn't realise
till afterward how vigorously he rapped. "Some confounded English
nobody, I suppose."
She smiled, not unkindly. "There is no English nobody, if that
answers your question."
"Then, will you be kind enough to offer a reason for not giving me
a fair chance in a clear field? I think it's due--"
"Can't you see how you are distressing me? Must I again go through
that horrid scene in the garden? Can't you take a plain no for an
answer?"
"Good Lord!" he gasped, and in those two words he revealed the
complete overturning of a life-long estimate of himself. It seemed
to take more than his breath away.
"Good-bye," she said with finality.
He stared at the door through which she disappeared, his hopes,
his conceit, his self-regard trailing after her with shameless
disloyalty to the standards he had set for them, and then, with a
rather ghastly smile of self-commiseration on his lips, he slipped
out of the house, jumped into the motor car, and gave a brief but
explicit command to the chauffeur, who lost no time in assisting
his master to turn tail in ignominious flight.
Hetty was gloomily but resolutely employed in laying out certain of
her personal belongings, preparatory to packing them for departure,
when Sara entered her room.
They regarded each other steadily, questioningly for a short space
of time.
"Leslie has just called up to ask 'what the devil' I meant by
letting him make a fool of himself," said Sara, with a peculiar
little twisted smile on her lips.
Hetty offered no comment, but after a moment gravely and rather
wistfully called attention to her present occupation by a significant
flaunt of her hand and a saddened smile.
"I see," said Sara, without emotion. "If you choose to go, Hetty,
I shall not oppose you."
"My position here is a false one, Sara. I prefer to go."
"This morning I should have held a sword over your head."
"It is very difficult for me to realise all that has happened."
"You are free to depart. You are free in every sense of the word.
Your future rests with yourself, my dear."
"It hurts me more than I can tell to feel that you have been hating
me all these months."
"It hurts me--now."
Hetty walked to the window and looked out.
"What are your plans?" Sara inquired, after an interval.
"I shall seek employment--and wait for you to act."
"I? You mean?"
"I shall not run away, Sara. Nor do I intend to reveal myself to
the authorities. I am not morally guilty of crime. A year ago I
feared the consequences of my deed, but I have learned much since
then. I was a stranger in a new world. In England we have been led
to believe that you lynch women here as readily as you lynch men.
I now know better than that. From you alone I learned my greatest
lesson. You revealed to me the true meaning of human kindness.
You shielded me who should not. Even now I believe that your first
impulse was a tender one. I shall not forget it, Sara. You will
live to regret the baser thought that came later on. I have loved
you--yes, almost as a good dog loves his master. It is not for me
to tell the story of that night and all these months to the world.
I would not be betraying myself, but you. You would be called upon
to explain, not I. And you would be the one to suffer. When you met
me on the road that night I was on my way back to the inn to give
myself into custody. You have made it impossible for me to do so
now. My lips are sealed. It rests with you, Sara."
Sara joined her in the broad window. There was a strangely exalted
look in her face. A gilded bird-cage hung suspended in the casement.
Without a word, she threw open the window screen. The gay little
canary in the gilded cage cocked his head and watched her with
alert eyes. Then she reached up and gently removed the cage from
its fastenings. Putting it down upon the window sill, she opened
the tiny door. The bird hopped about his prison in a state of great
excitement.
Hetty looked on, fascinated.
At last a yellow streak shot out through the open door and an instant
later resolved itself into the bobbing, fluttering dicky-bird that
had lived in a cage all its life without an hour of freedom. For
a few seconds it circled over the tree-tops and then alighted on
one of the branches. One might well have imagined that he could
hear its tiny heart beating with terror. Its wings were half-raised
and fluttering, its head jerking from side to side in wild
perturbation. Taking courage, Master Dicky hopped timorously to a
nearby twig, and then ventured a flight to a tree-top nearer the
window casement. Perched in its topmost branches he cheeped shrilly,
as if there was fear in his little breast.
In silence the two women in the window watched the agitated movements
of the bird. The same thought was in the mind of each, the same
question, the same intense wish.
A brown thrush sped through the air, close by the timid canary. Like
a flash it dropped to the twigs lower down, its wings palpitating
in violent alarm.
"Dicky!" called Sara Wrandall, and then cheeped between her teeth.
A moment later Dicky was fluttering about the eaves; his circles
grew smaller, his winging less rhythmic, till at last with a nervous
little flutter he perched on the top of the window shutter, so
near that they might have reached to him with their hands. He sat
there with his head cocked to one side.
"Dicky!" called Sara again. This time she held out her finger. For
some time he regarded it with indifference, not to say disfavour.
Then he took one more flight, but much shorter than the first,
bringing up again at the shutter-top. A second later he hopped down
and his little talons gripped Sara's finger with an earnestness
that left no room for doubt.
She lowered her hand until it was even with the open door of the
gilded cage. He shot inside with a whir that suggested a scramble.
With his wings folded, he sat on his little trapeze and cheeped.
She closed and fastened the door, and then turned to Hetty.
"My symbol," she said softly.
There were tears in Hetty's eyes.
Leslie did not turn up at his father's place in the High Street
that night until Booth was safely out of the way. He spent a dismal
evening at the boat club.
His father and mother were in the library when he came in at
half-past ten. From a dark corner of the garden he had witnessed
Booth's early departure. Vivian had gone down to the gate in the
low-lying hedge with her visitor. She came in a moment after Leslie's
entrance.
"Hello, Les," she said, bending an inquiring eye upon him. "Isn't
this early for you?"
Her brother was standing near the fireplace.
"There's a heavy dew falling, Mater," he said gruffly. "Shan't I
touch a match to the kindling?"
His mother came over to him quickly, and laid her hand on his arm.
"Your coat is damp," she said anxiously. "Yes, light the fire."
"It's very warm in this room," said Mr. Wrandall, looking up from
his book. They were always doing something for Leslie's comfort.
No one seemed to notice him. Leslie knelt and struck a match.
"Well?" said Vivian.
"Well what?" he demanded without looking up.
His sister took a moment for thought. "Is Hetty coming to stay with
us in July?"
He stood erect, first rubbing his knee to dislodge the dust,--then
his palms.
"No, she isn't coming," he said. He drew a very long breath--the
first in several hours--and then expelled it vocally. "She has
refused to marry me."
Mr. Wrandall turned a leaf in his book; it sounded like the crack
of doom, so still had the room become.
Vivian had the forethought to push a chair toward her mother. It
was a most timely act on her part, for Mrs. Wrandall sat down very
abruptly and very limply.
"She--WHAT?" gasped Leslie's mother.
"Turned me down--cold," said Leslie briefly.
Mr. Wrandall laid his book on the table without thinking to put the
bookmark in place. Then he arose and removed his glasses, fumbling
for the case.
"She--she--WHAT?" he demanded.
"Sacked me," replied his son.
"Please do not jest with me, Leslie," said his mother, trying to
smile.
"He isn't joking, mother," said Vivian, with a shrug of her fine
shoulders.
"He--he MUST be," cried Mrs. Wrandall impatiently. "What did she
REALLY say, Leslie?"
"The only thing I remember was 'good-bye,'" said he, and then blew
his nose violently.
"Poor old Les!" said Vivian, with real feeling.
"It was Sara Gooch's doing!" exclaimed Mrs. Wrandall, getting her
breath at last.
"Nonsense," said Mr. Wrandall, picking up his book once more and
turning to the place where the bookmark lay, after which he proceeded
to re-read four or five pages before discovering his error.
No one spoke for a matter of five minutes or more. Then Mrs. Wrandall
got up, went over to the library table and closed with a snap the
bulky blue book with the limp leather cover, saying as she held
it up to let him see that it was the privately printed history of
the Murgatroyd family:
"It came by post this evening from London. She is merely a fourth
cousin, my son."
He looked up with a gleam of interest in his eye.