Barbara slept little, but lay late, and Glenowen was away about
business ere she appeared. By the time her caller arrived she was
fairly herself, only subdued in spirit, sorrowful, and homesick. She
had taken pains, however, that her morning toilet should be becoming;
and Jerry Waite thought her pallor, the shadows about her great grave
eyes, the wistfulness of her scarlet mouth, even more enchanting than
her radiance and sparkle of the night before.
"This is most gracious of you, fair lady, to let me come so soon!" he
murmured ecstatically, over the rosy brown tips of her slim fingers.
"Did the other men but know of it, I should have feared for my life to
come without a guard!"
Barbara smiled faintly, willing to appreciate his flatteries, but in no
mood for badinage and quip.
"Nay, sir!" she answered, "do not lay it to my graciousness, which is
scant to even so charming a gentleman as Mr. Waite, but to my
curiosity, which I acknowledge to be great and insistent. Tell me this
wonderful thing you promised to tell me!"
Jerry Waite assumed an air of mock supplication.
"I implore you, dear lady, suffer me for one moment to delude myself
with the ravishing dream that 'twas for my company, no less than for my
story, that you permitted me to come.-- What, no, not for one moment
the sweet delusion?"
Barbara shook her head resolutely.
"No, first deserve favour, before you presume to claim it, sir!" she
retorted. "Earn my grace by a story as interesting as you have led me
to expect. Then, perhaps, I may like you well enough to let you stay
awhile, for the sake of your company!"
"So be it, if so the queen decrees!" said Waite. "My little story is
about a duel, of which, as I gathered last night, the fairest
but--pardon me--not always the most gracious of her sex knows a little,
but not the most interesting details!"
"I have heard too much already of this duel!" interrupted Barbara. "I
do not understand how it concerns me!"
"Oh, lady, this impatience of yours!" said Waite, watching her keenly.
"How can you expect to understand the manner in which it concerns you,
if you will not let any one tell you the story? I stand pledged to
make the story interesting on pain of forfeiting your good will!"
"Well," agreed Barbara, with seeming reluctance. In very truth she was
trembling with eagerness for him to go on. "But, I pray you, be as
brief as is consistent with justice to your claim as a narrator!"
"I will be most brief!" said Waite. "For the merit lies in the story
itself, not in the fashion of the telling. Yesterday, a little after
the noon hour, some half-score gentlemen were gathered by chance in
Pym's Ordinary, where many of us frequent for the latest bit of gossip.
There was talk of this, that, and the other, but most of the charms of
a lady whom we know and reverence--"
"Who was she?" asked Barbara.
But Waite, intent upon his story, paid no heed.
"The praises, the compliments, the eulogiums," he went on, "that were
heaped upon this magical name seemed to show that every man was at her
feet. All but Carberry. Captain Carberry is a chill-souled, carping,
sarcastical fellow, and arrogant withal, by reason of the unmatched
agility of his blade. It had pleased him to be displeased by certain
sweet, if a trifle pungent, sprightlinesses of the lady in question;
and now his comments ran sharply counter to those of the rest of the
company. He did not admire her at all,--which was, of course, within
his undoubted rights, however it discredited his taste. But presently
his criticisms became a trifle harsher than was fitting; and there was
a moment of uneasy silence. Then, clear upon the silence, Gault
spoke,--Gault, who had hitherto been listening without a word.
"'Carberry,' said he, quietly, 'you have said just enough. One word
more will be too much!'
"Every one held his breath. There was an ugly look about Gault's
mouth, and we trembled for him. He is liked, you know; while Carberry,
a man ten years older, is feared. Carberry looked Bob over, with a
supercilious smile, which meant mischief, as we knew, and then drawled
slowly:
"'I shall say whatever it may please me to say about that damned
little--' But no one was to hear the sentence finished. We can never
have our curiosity certainly satisfied as to that word, which just then
got smashed beyond recognition behind Carberry's teeth. It was
probably not so very bad a word, if the truth were known. Bob was
taking no risks on that score. His blow was straight as a bullet; and
Carberry went sprawling over two chairs and a table.
"When he picked himself up he was quite cool,--collected and
businesslike. That we knew to be his deadly way, and we trembled for
Bob. Bob, however, seemed as easy in his mind as Carberry. The two of
them, indeed, were so deuced civil you might have thought they were
arranging to marry each other's sisters. There was no time lost, you
may be sure. Seconds were chosen, terms agreed upon, a doctor sent
for, and we promptly made up a little pleasure party to the woods.
"As for the fight, dear lady, I spare your gentle soul the details. It
lacked just one element of interest to the connoisseur,--both
combatants fought in one fashion. There was no contrast, such as one
might have expected between a boy of twenty-three and a veteran of
thirty-six. At the very first Carberry had attacked with fury,--but
when he felt the quality of Bob's wrist he saw it was not a case for
bluster, and settled down to business. Both fought smiling, alike
cool, wary, dangerous, sure of the result. Where and when Bob learned
it, we none of us knew. He is a queer, reticent chap in some ways.
But learned it he had,--and I, who like to study faces, saw the tinge
of surprise in Carberry's face pass to admiration. His rage was
forgotten in the exhilaration of his favourite game. I never again
expect to see two blades so nicely matched. The excitement to us
watchers grew intense, till our knees felt weak. But they two seemed
as fresh as when they started.
"At last--'a touch!" said Carberry,--and then, by the slight hissing of
the words between his teeth I realised the strain.
"'Not at all!' answered Robert,--and his words, too, came hissingly,
for all the easy smile upon his lips. Then both grew white. And for a
few minutes there was no change. And it seemed to us that our eyes
could follow the blades no longer. And then--for the life of me I
could not see how it happened--a red stain came on the shoulder of
Bob's shirt; and in the next second Carberry, letting his sword fall,
dropped in a heap.
"Before we could recover our astonishment, Robert and the doctor
together were bending over the wounded man, and had his shirt ripped
open. 'I've got it, eh?' said Carberry, faintly. 'A fair, clean
thrust, an' served me damn well right!' And he held out his hand to
Bob,--who grasped it with both his, and looked now, all of a sudden,
like a boy ready to cry.
"'Stuff and nonsense, Captain!' exclaimed the doctor. 'You've not got
your quietus with _this_ bare bodkin. You'll be all right, sound as
ever, in a month, a fortnight maybe!'
"'Thank God!' cried Robert.
"'My sentiments exactly!' said Carberry, his voice stronger with the
knowledge that he was not dying. 'Gault, my compliments, with my best
apologies! Great sword, my boy, great--' and with that he swooned from
the pain and loss of blood. And we, very happy that all had ended so
happily, got him to the coach, and so home. And the rest, dear
Mistress Ladd, you know!"
"A mighty interesting story, I admit!" said Barbara. "But still I ask,
of what especial, immediate interest to me?"
Waite looked at her curiously. Was it possible she could be so blind?
But her wide eyes were innocent of all comprehension. It suddenly
occurred to him that, new come to town as she was, she found it
impossible to imagine _her_ name the theme of tongues. He began to
understand.
"You know the lady," said he, and paused.
"Well, sir, 'tis possible. I have met many in the few days that I have
been in New York. What is her name--since you seem to hold it an
important matter."
"Her name, dear lady--her name is one that stirs a thrill of admiring
homage in all our hearts. It is--_Mistress Barbara Ladd_!"
Barbara caught her breath, and her eyes dilated.
"What?" she cried, though she had heard quite clearly.
"Her name is Mistress Barbara Ladd!" repeated Jerry Waite.
"Oh, Mr. Waite. No! No! Don't tell me it was on my account that
Robert fought. Impossible! He might have been killed! And I
thought--" but she stopped herself in time, without saying what it was
she had thought.
Jerry Waite became serious.
"It seems to me, dear lady, that your thought, whatever it was, did
Gault an injustice," said he, gently. "And that is my explanation. Am
I forgiven?"
Barbara conquered her distress. This was the easier--after the first
pang of remorse--because the fact that Robert had not failed her soon
overtopped in her mind the fact that she had failed Robert. That
unknown woman--the hateful vision vanished in a burst of light. The
ache of loss was healed in her heart. She was reinstated, too, in her
self-esteem. New York grew bright again. Her conquests were once more
worth while. Robert should behold them all,--and be one of them,--the
most subjugated of them all. At last her face grew radiant,--her eyes
dancing, her teeth flashing, her mouth the reddest rose, her clear
brown cheeks softly aflush.
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Waite," she cried, holding out her hand. "It is a
beautiful story, and wins you a very high place in my regard. You may
stay and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then my uncle
will be glad to have you dine with us!"
The first part of the invitation Waite accepted with alacrity, and
cursed himself bitterly that he had an engagement to prevent him
staying for dinner. In the conversation that followed Barbara gained
him and chained him fast, not as a mad, intoxicated lover, but as one
of the best and most loyal of her friends. But the moment he was gone
she rushed to her scrutoir and in fierce haste scribbled a note. It
ran:
"DEAR ROBERT:--I did not understand at all. I thought something quite
different from the truth. I have just found out about things. Please
come and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then let me tell
you how perfectly horrid I think myself.
"BARBARA."
This she sealed with a care that contrasted curiously with the haste
with which she had written it. Then she called her maid and sent it
around to the stately-doorwayed office on Bowling Green.
The answer that came was merely a bunch of dark red roses, with never a
written word; but Barbara found it quite satisfactory. To Robert it
would have seemed superfluous to have said he would come. Barbara made
her toilet with especial care, selecting everything with a view to
making herself look as nearly as possible like the Barbara of the old
Second Westings days. As she surveyed herself in the glass, she was
astonished at the result. Had she really put the hands of time back
five years? As she remembered, she had looked just so on the afternoon
when Robert came, and found her in the apple-tree reading "Clarissa."
It was three o'clock already,--and Robert had been waiting already half
an hour in the drawing-room below,--but she took yet a few minutes more
for a finishing touch. She basted up a deep tuck in her
petticoat,--about half an inch off for each year blotted from her
calendar,--and then, with flaming eyes and mouth wreathed in laughter,
she ran down to receive her guest. It was the direct obverse of the
meeting she had planned.
"Did you ride over, Robert? Or did you come in the canoe?" she asked,
as if she had but that moment jumped down out of the apple-tree.
"Barbara!" he cried, and seized and kissed both hands.
"I was beginning to fear that you had forgotten the way to Second
Westings!" she went on, in gay reproach. "Why, it is _weeks_ since you
were over; and the young catbirds in the currant bush have grown their
wings and flown; and the goldenrod's in flower; and the 'Early
Harvests' are beginning to turn red on the old apple-tree over by the
gate; and how will you explain your long absence, sir, to Aunt Hitty,
and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim, I'd like to know!"
Robert was devouring her with his eyes as she spoke. "Oh, you do
indeed look just as you did that day I found you in the apple-tree!" he
cried, at last. "So weary long ago,--yet now, sweet lady, it seems but
now!"
"Let us play it is but now," laughed Barbara.
"Yes," said Robert,--"but _please_ don't send me right away to Doctor
Jim, as you did that morning! I will try not to incur your
displeasure. And don't be in such a hurry to get back to 'Clarissa' as
you were then!"
So all the afternoon they talked the language and the themes of Second
Westings, with the difference that Barbara was all graciousness,
instead of her old mixture of acid and sweet. And when Glenowen came
in to supper he was admitted to the game, and played it with a relish.
And when, after supper, the three went riding, they took what they
swore to be the Westings Landing Road,--though certain of the
landmarks, as they could not but agree, looked unfamiliar. Almost they
persuaded themselves that on their return they might entreat Mistress
Mehitable to brew them a sack posset.
It was not till three days later, when Robert was begging more than his
share of dances for a ball to be given that night at Government House,
that Barbara explained--lightly and laughingly, but in a way that
suffered Robert to understand--her quite inadequate reasons for having
treated him so cavalierly on the evening after his duel.