Tears filled her eyes; truly they were kindly and thoughtful, these old
friends of her husband.
And all night long she slept in the room of her late husband, the
president of the Sagamore Angling Club, and dreamed till daybreak of ...
Langham.
V
Langham, clad in tweeds from head to foot, sat on the edge of his bed.
He had been sitting there since daybreak, and the expression on his
ornamental face had varied between the blank and the idiotic. That the
only woman in the world had miraculously appeared at Sagamore Lodge he
had heard from Colonel Hyssop and Major Brent at dinner the evening
before.
That she already knew of his presence there he could not doubt. That
she did not desire his presence he was fearsomely persuaded.
Clearly he must go--not at once, of course, to leave behind him a
possibility for gossip at his abrupt departure. From the tongues of
infants and well-fed club-men, good Lord deliver us!
He must go. Meanwhile he could easily avoid her.
And as he sat there, savoring all the pent-up bitterness poured out for
him by destiny, there came a patter of padded feet in the hallway, the
scrape of nails, a sniff at the door-sill, a whine, a frantic
scratching. He leaned forward and opened the door. His Highness landed
on the bed with one hysterical yelp and fell upon Langham, paw and
muzzle.
When their affection had been temporarily satiated, the dog lay down on
the bed, eyes riveted on his late master, and the man went over to his
desk, drew a sheet of club paper towards him, found a pen, and wrote:
"Of course it is an unhappy coincidence, and I will go when I can do so
decently--to-morrow morning. Meanwhile I shall be away all day fishing
the West Branch, and shall return too late to dine at the club table.
"I wish you a happy sojourn here--"
This he reread and scratched out.
"I am glad you kept His Highness."
This he also scratched out.
After a while he signed his name to the note, sealed it, and stepped
into the hallway.
At the farther end of the passage the door of her room was ajar; a
sunlit-scarlet curtain hung inside.
"Come here!" said Langham to the dog.
His Highness came with a single leap.
"Take it to ... her," said the man, under his breath. Then he turned
sharply, picked up rod and creel, and descended the stairs.
Meanwhile His Highness entered his mistress's chamber, with a polite
scratch as a "by your leave!" and trotted up to her, holding out the
note in his pink mouth.
She looked at the dog in astonishment. Then the handwriting on the
envelope caught her eye.
As she did not offer to touch the missive, His Highness presently sat
down and crowded up against her knees. Then he laid the letter in her
lap.
Her expression became inscrutable as she picked up the letter; while she
was reading it there was color in her cheeks; after she had read it
there was less.
"I see no necessity," she said to His Highness--"I see no necessity for
his going. I think I ought to tell him so.... He overestimates the
importance of a matter which does not concern him.... He is sublimely
self-conscious, ... a typical man. And if he presumes to believe that
the hazard of our encounter is of the slightest moment ... to me ..."
The dog dropped his head in her lap.
"I wish you wouldn't do that!" she said, almost sharply, but there was a
dry catch in her throat when she spoke, and she laid one fair hand on
the head of His Highness.
A few moments later she went down-stairs to the great hall, where she
found Colonel Hyssop and Major Brent just finishing their morning
cocktails.
When they could at last comprehend that she never began her breakfast
with a cocktail, they conducted her solemnly to the breakfast-room,
seated her with _empressement_, and the coffee was served.
It was a delicious, old-fashioned, country breakfast--crisp trout,
bacon, eggs, and mounds of fragrant flapjacks.
"Langham's gone off to the West Branch; left duty's compliments and all
that sort of thing for you," observed the Colonel, testing his coffee
with an air.
His Highness, who had sniffed the bacon, got up on a chair where he
could sit and view the table. Moisture gathered on his jet-black nose;
he licked his jowl.
"You poor darling!" cried his mistress, rising impulsively, with her
plate in her hand. She set the plate on the floor. It was cleaned with a
snap, then carefully polished.
"You are fond of your dog, madam," said the Major, much interested.
"He's a fine one," added the Colonel. "Gad! I took him for Langham's
champion at first."
She bent her head over the dog's plate.
Later she walked to the porch, followed by His Highness.
A lovely little path invited them on--a path made springy by trodden
leaves; and the dog and his mistress strolled forth among clumps of
hazel and silver-birches, past ranks of alders and Indian-willows, on
across log bridges spanning tiny threads of streams which poured into
the stony river.
The unceasing chorus of the birds freshened like wind in her ears.
Spring echoes sounded from blue distances; the solemn congress of the
forest trees in session murmured of summers past and summers to come.
How could her soul sink in the presence of the young world's uplifting?
Her dog came back and looked up into her eyes. With a cry, which was
half laughter, she raced with him along the path, scattering the wild
birds into flight from bush and thicket.
Breathless, rosy, she halted at the river's shallow edge.
Flung full length on the grass, she dipped her white fingers in the
river, and dropped wind-flowers on the ripples to watch them dance away.
She listened to the world around her; it had much to say to her if she
would only believe it. But she forced her mind back to her husband and
lay brooding.
An old man in leggings and corduroys came stumping along the path; His
Highness heard him coming and turned his keen head. Then he went and
stood in front of his mistress, calm, inquisitive, dangerous.
"Mornin', miss," said the keeper; "I guess you must be one of our
folks."
"I am staying at the club-house," she said, smiling, and sitting up on
the grass.
"I'm old Peter, one o' the guards," he said. "Fine mornin', miss, but a
leetle bright for the fish--though I ain't denyin' that a small dark
fly'd raise 'em; no'm. If I was sot on ketchin' a mess o' fish, I guess
a hare's-ear would do the business; yes'm. I jest passed Mr. Langham
down to the forks, and I seed he was a-chuckin' a hare's-ear; an' he riz
'em, too; yes'm."
"How long have you been a keeper here?" she asked.
"How long, 'm? Waal, I was the fustest guard they had; yes'm. I live
down here a piece. They bought my water rights; yes'm. An' they give me
the job. The president he sez to me, 'Peter,' he sez, jest like
that--'Peter, you was raised here; you know all them brooks an' rivers
like a mink; you stay right here an' watch 'em, an' I'll do the squar'
by ye,' he sez, jest like that. An' he done it; yes'm."
"So you knew the president, then?" she asked, in a low voice.
"Knew him?--_him_? Yes'm."
The old man laughed a hollow, toothless laugh, and squinted out across
the dazzling river.
"Knew him twenty year, I did. A good man, and fair at that. Why, I've
seen him a-settin' jest where you're settin' this minute--seen him a
hundred times a-settin' there."
"Fishing?" she said, in an awed voice.
"Sometimes. Sometimes he was a-drinkin' out o' that silver pocket-pistol
o' his'n. He got drunk a lot up here; but he didn't drink alone; no'm.
There wasn't a stingy hair in his head; he--"
"Do you mean the president?" she said, incredulously, almost angrily.
"Him? Yes'm. Him an' Colonel Hyssop an' Major Brent; they had good times
in them days."
"You knew the president _before_ his marriage," she observed, coldly.
"Him? He wasn't never married, miss!" said the old man, scornfully.
"Are you sure?" she asked, with a troubled smile.
"Sure? Yes'm. Why, the last time he was up here, three year come July
Fourth, I seen him a-kissin' an' a-huggin' of old man Dawson's
darter--"
She was on her feet in a flash. The old man stood there smiling his
senile smile and squinting out across the water, absorbed in his
garrulous reminiscence.
"Yes'm; all the folks down to the village was fond o' the president, he
was that jolly and free, an' no stuck-up city airs; no'm; jest free and
easy, an' a-sparkin' the gals with the best o' them--"
The old man laughed and crossed his arms under the barrel of his
shot-gun.
"Folks said he might o' married old man Dawson's darter if he'd lived. I
dun'no'. I guess it was all fun. But I hear the gal took on awful when
they told her he was dead; yes'm."