"And, if you don't mind, old fellow, will you bring over the guns
yourself?"
That had been Tony Rennert's parting charge as he bolted from the
breakfast table at the Agawan Club for the dogcart which was scheduled
to make connections with the eight-forty-five for the city. Two days
before, after eighteen months of leisurely travel abroad, I had been
met on landing with Tony's urgent message to join him in bachelor
quarters at the Agawan, and with an alacrity born of the wish to get
close again to one of the "old crowd," I had straightway come down to
the club in the twenty-horse-power car which had carried me faithfully
for six weeks over the French roads. Come down to find myself among a
lot of men I did not know and for whom, to be entirely frank, I did
not care.
Agawan had changed since last I was there. Then it was a big,
comfortable shooting box, with a good cook, an old-fashioned barn,
and, behind it, kennels for half a dozen clever dogs. Now it was
triple its former size, rebuilt and modernized, with many bedrooms, a
double-deck piazza and a dancing floor. The barn was gone, a fine
stable had taken its place, and tennis courts and golf links occupied
a large part of its one-time brush-grown pasturage and sloping
meadows. In short, it was a country club, glaring in its fresh paint
and with all the abominations which the name of that institution
suggests to a man to whom knickerbockers and loose coats, a gun, a
dog, a pipe and never the flutter of a petticoat the whole day long
give selfish but complete satisfaction.
Tony had fallen into evil ways. I suspected as much as soon as I saw
the manner of his living; I was sure of it when he informed me, with
detestable glee, that there was to be a big house-warming dance the
following evening, at which--well, Morleton, three miles away, had
undergone a boom in my absence, and from the houses there and from the
city, too, were to come--girls. Privately I made up my mind that the
dance was a thing I would miss, and Tony must have read disapproval on
my face, for he said no more about the festivities, and a little later
proposed the shooting. There were woodcock left in the marshes; he had
seen them--by accident, I guessed. He would send to the city for the
guns, and we would put in a good day together. That sounded better,
and I acquiesced promptly.
But before we had arisen from the table a waiter brought a telegram,
and Tony's face fell into glum lines. It was an important business
message and called him to the city over the next night. There was no
help for it, he explained; but, as I had my car, he hoped I would
worry it out alone till he got back. He would send down the guns by
express against a further delay, and--there a lingering spark of his
former affection for the twelve-bores glowed into life--would I
personally see that they came over from the railroad station safely?
So it was that, a little after nine o'clock the following evening, in
accordance with a wire from Tony, I drew up at the station platform
just as the last train pulled in. A vibrator spring on the car was
badly out of tune; I was bent over, testing it, when a voice
exclaimed, joyfully, almost at my elbow: "Oh, there you are! What a
scare I have had!"
I started and looked up. The impression I got was of a modish and very
much up-tilted hat and of a veil which hid everything beneath its brim
and the collar of a long, loose coat. These and nothing much besides;
for the single post-lamp left the platform in semi-darkness. But I
realized that this was a lady who addressed me, and that there was a
mistake which I could not too speedily correct.
"I beg your pardon," I said, "but you see----"
"Of course I do," the voice interrupted. "If I had not, I dare say I
would have sat on the station platform until--until you had finished
fussing with that old machine of yours. Oh! I have heard all about
your pet weakness. It was by the car I identified you. But I forgive
you. You have waited a whole train for me. Go on with your tinkering.
Only let me have a seat in the car, and tell the agent to bring over
my trunk."
"Trunk!" I echoed.
"Yes, trunk! But not a very large one--you see, it is only for a few
days. It will go nicely in the--now, what do you call the back part of
your car?"
"The tonneau? But, really----"
The hat tilted just a shade more, and I was silenced by the command:
"Not another word! Positively, you would keep me standing here
forever. I had no idea you were so--contentious. _Please_ help me in,
and _please_ have my trunk brought over. Here is my check. Then, if
you insist, we can discuss the propriety of trunks on our way to the
clubhouse."
I hesitated; but I gave her my arm, and, when she had settled herself
in the seat beside the driver's, I walked over to where the agent
stood beside the guns and a steamer trunk of modest size. I picked up
the guns and told him to bring over the trunk. Together we put it into
the tonneau, the while I debated with myself what to do and what to
say. As a matter of fact, there seemed to be small choice. The lady
was plainly determined to listen to no explanations. Moreover, to
attempt to make her mistake clear to her just now was to place her in
an embarrassing predicament; for whoever was to have met her had
failed to appear, and already the station master had began to
extinguish the lights. I caught at her words "the clubhouse." That
could be none other than the Agawan. Well, I would take her there; the
trip should be quickly made, and I would do my best to keep her in
ignorance of my identity, at least until she was among friends.
"Now, this is very nice," she said, as I threw in the high gear and we
shot into the darkness. "I've never been in an automobile before; we
have very few of them in"--she named a little town in the South. "You
must explain everything to me."
I welcomed the invitation, and promised myself to keep the topic alive
as long as there was need for conversation. But I had hardly begun an
enthusiastic exposition of the principles of a four-cylinder,
gear-driven, twenty-horse-power, French touring car, when she checked
me. "I forgot," she said. "We have never met before. We must start
fair. You are to call me 'Margery'; I hate 'Miss Gans' from one who is
really an old friend. And I shall call you--let me see?--yes, for the
present, I shall call you 'Mr. Page.'"
I started. Who would not have started? "Page" is my Christian name.
And I was to call her "Margery"? For just the briefest moment I
wondered if my first impression of my companion could have been amiss.
But I rallied my self-command and such shreds of gallantry as my life
and my convictions had left. Undeniably she was a pretty girl, despite
the disguising veil.
"It is a bargain," I said. "I shall hold you to it. But why the
'_Mister_ Page'?"
"Toll to convention," she answered. "Besides, what would Edith say?"
That was a poser. Who in thunder was Edith? But I felt that I was on
the right track. "As for Edith," I returned, "I don't believe she
would object."
She shook her head wisely. "Well, _per_-haps not. But even ten years'
friendship has its breaking point. And a wife----" She stopped there.
She seemed to be considering the question.
"Doesn't it depend upon who is the wife?" I interpolated. Now I should
learn if it was really I who was married.
"Yes," she admitted. "But _yours_! Oh, I know Edith! Better even than
you do. I knew her long before you had even heard of her, and I could
have told you things which would have been--useful to you--if only you
had come to me first."
The thought was alluring. "I wish I had," I said, with more fervor
than discretion.
She turned upon me quickly, and her face was very close to my own for
an instant. Through the veil I managed to get a glimpse of her eyes.
They pleased me immensely. "Why? Why? What do you mean?" she asked.
There was a soft little lift to her voice which affected me queerly. I
made sure that some part of me had made a short circuit with one of
the battery wires. Then she lifted her chin. "But--nonsense!" she
said. "How could you? I was in a convent school when you met and
married Edith."
"And you haven't seen her since?"
"Since she was married? You know I haven't, you goose! Why, it is
tonight I make my _entree_ into the world of fashion?"
"At Agawan," I hazarded.
She nodded. "Where else? And _you_ are to dance with me many times.
Remember, I know none of the men there."
For the first time in my life I ceased to feel scorn for an
accomplishment which I did not possess. But dancing, I reflected, was
of the future, and the future must provide against itself. "Margery"
was very much of the present. Then abruptly it occurred to me that the
present would soon be of the past if we continued to travel as we were
now moving; and I promptly cut down our speed by one-half. I explained
that the rest of the road to the club was dangerous at night.