FOR the death, disappearance, or capture of Sir Montrose Veyze, of
Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, Darcy was duly prepared, in a
spirit of Christian fortitude and resignation. That fame might mark
him’ out, thus forcing the issue for her, was wholly unforeseen. It
took her completely aback. The Darcy of a year before would have
collapsed miserably under it. But this was a different Darcy. She faced
the accuser with a quiet smile, back of which her thoughts ran
desperately around in circles, like a bevy of little rabbits cut off
from cover.
“You’ve read what it says in the newspaper?” said Maud, in the accents
of a cross-examining counsel.
“Yes. Oh, certainly!”
“Then perhaps you can explain.”
Darcy shot a swift glance at the bogus Sir Montrose. He also was
smiling. Most illogically Darcy’s heart began to sing a little private
Hymn of Hate of its own. What did he mean by standing there with a
sickly grin on his silly face when the whole fabric of their mutual
pretense was being riddled?
(Herein she was ungrateful as well as illogical. The face was silly
because she had compelled him to make it so. As for the rest, the smile
was good enough of its kind. He was not smiling because he felt like
it, but to conceal the fact that he was doing some high-pressure
thinking of his own.)
From the smirking countenance of her ally, Darcy turned to the lowering
front of the enemy.
“Well, you see,” she said with an air of great candor, after
deliberately tearing out the paragraph, “it’s rather an involved
matter.”
“I don’t see anything involved about it,” returned the lofty and
determined Maud. “Who is this man?”
“Yes; who is he?” echoed Helen, coming mildly to her support.
From the corner of her eye the badgered girl could see the object of
the inquiry. Still smiling! It was too much. Then and there Darcy
committed that ignoble act known and reprehended in the higher sporting
circles, wherein Andy Dunne moves, as “passing the buck.”
“_You_ tell them, Monty,” she said sweetly.
Of a great statesman, now dead, it has been written:
Cheated by treachery and beguiled by Fate,
Once in his life we well may call him great.
Thus with Mr. Jacob Remsen _alias_ Sir Montrose Veyze. Out of conscious
nothing he had, in that precious moment’s respite, evoked an
instantaneous and full-fledged plan to meet the crisis.
Fixing upon Maud as the more formidable antagonist, he impaled her on
the beam of his monocle.
“Haw!” he ejaculated. “You’ve heard about the Veyze Succession, I
assume.”
“Never,” said Maud stoutly.
“_What?_ Nevah heard of the King’s Judgment? Why, my _deah_ lady, we’re
as well known as the Tower of London or the—the Crystal Palace.”
“In America, you see,” explained the more pacific Helen, “these things
don’t get to us.”
“But I assuah you,” cried the other, turning his glassy regard upon
her, “your atrocious American press has been quite full of it from time
to time. Come, now! You’re spoofing me. You must have read of the Veyze
divided title. What?”
Hypnotized by the glare of the monocle, Helen’s imagination inspired
her to confess that she did vaguely recall something about it, which
was the more gratifying to the representative of the Veyzes in that he
had introduced the press feature on the inspiration of the moment.
The less impressionable Maud was not to be diverted from the main
issue.
“Even if we knew all about your family, it would not explain Sir
Montrose Veyze being here in America at the same time that he is being
received by the King in London.”
“Wearing two swords. Doesn’t the press report mention that? It should,”
put in the Veyze representative conscientiously piling up picturesque
detail to embellish and fortify his case. “Don’t forget that, please.
It’s a Veyze prerogative.”
“Is it a Veyze prerogative to be in two places at once?” queried the
cross-examiner. “Or—there aren’t two of you, I suppose.”
“Of _cawse!_”
The accused delivered the answer in a tone of calm and wondering
contempt. Obviously he was incredulous that such ignorance as his
interrogator displayed could exist in a Christian country.
“_Two_ Sir Montrose Veyzes? Of the same name and title?” Maud was
glaring, now.
“Of _cawse!_ The famous Veyze twins. Though we’re not rahlly twins any
more, you understand.”
Under the calm and steady beam of the monocle, Maud weakened. “What are
you famous for?” she asked, more amenably.
“Because there are two of us to the divided title. Bally hard for an
American to understand, I’m afraid. It begins back in the early days of
the title, quite before Columbus landed the Puritans at Bunker Hill,
you know.”
“Columbus wasn’t a Puritan, dear,” corrected Darcy.
“No? Nevah heard anything against the man’s morals, that I can recall.”
“Never mind Columbus,” said the interested Helen. “Do tell us about the
Veyzes.”
“Right-o! Two brothers were born—twins, d’ you see? There was some
natural confusion. Which was the heir—born first, you know? Nobody
could tell. The King was stayin’ at Veyze Holdings then for the
shootin’; very famous shootin’. The family referred it to him. Would he
play the part of Solomon and decide? His Majesty graciously acceded to
the request. He decreed that the title should thenceforth be a dual
one. It’s remained so ever since. We don’t produce twins any more, but
the two eldest sons of the line inherit title and property jointly, and
each carries two swords at court. There’s Sir Montrose and Sir Montrose
II. I’m II.”
[Illustration: “There are two of us to the divided title”]
“How romantic!” breathed Helen.
“Rah-ther. We pride ourselves on that sort of thing, we Veyzes.”
As the glory of his performance developed before her enraptured mind,
the Hymn of Hate died out within Darcy, to be succeeded by a Pæan of
Praise.
“And now,” said she severely, “I should think you girls might have the
decency to apologize to Sir Montrose.”
“Rah-ther!” confirmed her ally.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Helen contritely. “I’ll apologize when I’m
proved wrong,” returned Mrs. Lee dubiously. “We’ll know soon enough.”
“Yes? And how?”
“Mr. Wood is trying to get the British Embassy on long-distance’phone.”
“My respects to Lord Wyncombe,” said the undisturbed suspect. “But why
go to so much trouble? Surely there’s a simpler way.”
“How?” asked Darcy, wondering what fresh audacity was developing in
that fertile brain.
“Don’t you have—er—public libraries in your American towns?”
“Certainly.”
“Then perhaps there is one at Center Harbor.”
“There is,” answered Helen, so promptly that Darcy shot a glance of
suspicion at her.
“What more easy than to drive over there at once,” observed the suspect
blandly, “and consult their Burke.”
“Burke’s Peerage, you mean?” said Darcy. “Perhaps they haven’t one.”
“They haven’t,” blurted Maud, and stopped, reddening.
“Apparently you’ve tried,” remarked Darcy witheringly. “We appreciate
your interest.” But Sir Montrose II was painfully shocked. “Not got a
Burke!” he exclaimed. “Unbelievable! What a country! I’ll send for one,
at once.”
Impressed, despite herself, Maud Lee hesitated, looking from Darcy to
her fiancé.
“It may be all right,” she admitted. “I don’t say that it isn’t. But
until it is cleared up beyond a doubt, don’t you think, Darcy, you
ought to come and stay with us?”
“I think not,” put in Darcy’s escort quietly. “I’m taking Miss Cole
back to the Farm. If you’ve nothing further to add—”
“Nothing—now,” answered the baffled Mrs. Lee.
“Then we’ll bid you good-day.”
Safely around the curve they stopped and faced each other.
“You wonderful person!” giggled Darcy hysterically. “How did you ever
think of it!” Assuming a grandiose pose he declaimed:
You may break, you may shatter, the Veyze if you will,
But the scent of the Montrose will cling to it still.
“To get down to prose, how long will it cling?” she asked thoughtfully.
“Allowing for inevitable official red tape, I should say anywhere from
twenty-four hours to a month.”
“Paul Wood has a cousin in the State Department.”
“In that case, nearer the twenty-four hours than the month.”
Darcy seated herself on a boulder and took her chin into her cupped
hands. “Let me think,” she murmured.
Remsen watched her as she considered and would have given much to be
able to read her mind. Presently she looked up.
“Do you mind leaving me here?” she inquired.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?”
“I always mind leaving you. It gives me a lost feeling.”
She nodded. “Yes; I know what you mean. I feel it, too.”
“Do you?” he cried eagerly.
“You’ve been so wonderfully good to me all through this queer mess,”
she supplemented, a little hurriedly.
He disregarded this. “Besides,” he said, “I’m afraid this is going to
be our last walk.” She looked her startled question.
“What I’d like, of course,” he pursued, “is to stay here and face it
through with you. But that’s going to be worse for you than if I went,
isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Then it’s up to me to leave.”
“But what if they find you and take you back to New York?”
“I’ve got to take the risk. They’re pretty likely to find out about me
here if they undertake a _Veyze_ investigation.”
“That’s true,” she cried. “I’ve made this place impossible for you as a
refuge.”
“Not you. I did it myself. I’d do it again—a thousand times—for these
last four days.”
“When would you go?”
“To-night. Eleven o’clock. Meredith.”
“Wait till to-morrow.”
His heart leaped. “We’re to have this evening together?”
“No,” she said gently. “I want this evening to myself. I have to
think.”
“I’m a marvelous stimulus to thought,” he pleaded.
She shook an obstinate head.
“Might I walk back to the Farm with you?”
“No; please. I’d rather you didn’t.” She rose and laid her hand in his.
“You’ve been a very parfait, gentil knight,” she said.
“Darcy!”
But she was already swinging up the hill with that free, lithe,
rhythmic pace of hers. At the summit she turned and waved. For one
brief second he saw her sweet, flushed profile clear against the sweet,
flushed sky. It disappeared leaving earth and heaven dim and void.
Remsen turned blindly homeward. He knew, at last, what had happened to
him.