The members of the Sagamore Club heard the news next morning at a late
breakfast. Major Brent, who had been fishing early up-stream, bore the
news, and delivered it in an incoherent bellow.
"What d'ye mean by that?" demanded Colonel Hyssop, setting down his
cocktail with unsteady fingers.
"Mean?" roared the Major; "I mean that Munn and a lot o' women are
sitting on the river-bank and singing 'Home Again'!"
The news jarred everybody, but the effect of it upon the president,
Peyster Sprowl, appeared to be out of all proportion to its gravity.
That gentleman's face was white as death; and the Major noticed it.
"You'll have to rid us of this mob," said the Major, slowly.
Sprowl lifted his heavy, overfed face from his plate. "I'll attend to
it," he said, hoarsely, and swallowed a pint of claret.
"I think it is amusing," said Agatha Sprowl, looking across the table at
Coursay.
"Amusing, madam!" burst out the Major. "They'll be doing their laundry
in our river next!"
"Soapsuds in my favorite pools!" bawled the Colonel. "Damme if I'll
permit it!"
"Sprowl ought to settle them," said Lansing, good-naturedly. "It may
cost us a few thousands, but Sprowl will do the work this time as he did
it before."
Sprowl choked in his claret, turned a vivid beef-color, and wiped his
chin. His appetite was ruined. He hoped the ruin would stop there.
"What harm will they do?" asked Coursay, seriously--"beyond the
soapsuds?"
"They'll fish, they'll throw tin cans in the water, they'll keep us
awake with their fanatical powwows--confound it, haven't I seen that
sort of thing?" said the Major, passionately. "Yes, I have, at nigger
camp-meetings! And these people beat the niggers at that sort of thing!"
"Leave 'em to me," repeated Peyster Sprowl, thickly, and began on
another chop from force of habit.
"About fifteen years ago," said the Colonel, "there was some talk about
our title. You fixed that, didn't you, Sprowl?"
"Yes," said Sprowl, with parched lips.
"Of course," muttered the Major; "it cost us a cool hundred thousand to
perfect our title. Thank God it's settled."
Sprowl's immense body turned perfectly cold; he buried his face in his
glass and drained it. Then the shrimp-color returned to his neck and
ears, and deepened to scarlet. When the earth ceased reeling before his
apoplectic eyes, he looked around, furtively. Again the scene in
O'Hara's death-chamber came to him; the threat of Munn, who had got
wind of the true situation, and the bribing of Munn to silence.
But the club had given Sprowl one hundred thousand dollars to perfect
its title; and Sprowl had reported the title perfect, all proceedings
ended, and the payment of one hundred thousand dollars to Amasa Munn, as
guardian of the child of O'Hara, in full payment for the O'Hara claims
to the club property.
Sprowl's coolness began to return. If five thousand dollars had stopped
Munn's mouth once, it might stop it again. Besides, how could Munn know
that Sprowl had kept for his own uses ninety-five thousand dollars of
his club's money, and had founded upon it the House of Sprowl of many
millions? He was quite cool now--a trifle anxious to know what Munn
meant to ask for, but confident that his millions were a buckler and a
shield to the honored name of Sprowl.
"I'll see this fellow, Munn, after breakfast," he said, lighting an
expensive cigar.
"I'll go with you," volunteered Lansing, casually, strolling out towards
the veranda.
"No, no!" called out Sprowl; "you'll only hamper me." But Lansing did
not hear him outside in the sunshine.
Agatha Sprowl laid one fair, heavily ringed hand on the table and pushed
her chair back. The Major gallantly waddled to withdraw her chair; she
rose with a gesture of thanks, and a glance which shot the Major through
and through--a wound he never could accustom himself to receive with
stoicism.
Mrs. Sprowl turned carelessly away, followed by her two Great Danes--a
superb trio, woman and dogs beautifully built and groomed, and
expensive enough to please even such an amateur as Peyster Sprowl,
M.F.H.
"Gad, Sprowl!" sputtered the Major, "your wife grows handsomer every
minute--and you grow fatter."
Sprowl, midway in a glass of claret, said: "This simple backwoods regime
is what she and I need."
Agatha Sprowl was certainly handsome, but the Major's eyesight was none
of the best. She had not been growing younger; there were lines; also a
discreet employment of tints on a very silky skin, which was not quite
as fresh as it had once been.
Dr. Lansing, strolling on the veranda with his pipe, met her and her big
dogs turning the corner in full sunlight. Coursay was with her, his
eager, flushed face close to hers; but he fell back when he saw his
kinsman Lansing, and presently retired to the lawn to unreel and dry out
a couple of wet silk lines.
Agatha Sprowl sat down on the veranda railing, exchanging a gay smile
across the lawn with Coursay; then her dark eyes met Lansing's
steel-gray ones.
"Good-morning, once more," she said, mockingly.
He returned her greeting, and began to change his mist leader for a
white one.
"Will you kindly let Jack Coursay alone?" she said, in a low voice.
"No," he replied, in the same tone.
"Are you serious?" she asked, as though the idea amused her.
"Of course," he replied, pleasantly.
"Is it true that you came here because he came?" she inquired, with
faint sarcasm in her eyes.
"Yes," he answered, with perfect good-nature. "You see he's my own kin;
you see I'm the old-fashioned sort--a perfect fool, Mrs. Sprowl."
There was a silence; he unwound the glistening leader; she flicked at
shadows with her dog-whip; the Great Danes yawned and laid their heavy
heads against her knees.
"Then you _are_ a fool," she concluded, serenely.
He was young enough to redden.
Three years ago she had thought it time to marry somebody, if she ever
intended to marry at all; so she threw over half a dozen young fellows
like Coursay, and married Sprowl. For two years her beauty, audacity,
and imprudence kept a metropolis and two capitals in food for scandal.
And now for a year gossip was coupling her name with Coursay's.
"I warned you at Palm Beach that I'd stop this," said Lansing, looking
directly into her eyes. "You see, I know his mother."
"Stop what?" she asked, coolly.
He went on: "Jack is a curiously decent boy; he views his danger without
panic, but with considerable surprise. But nobody can tell what he may
do. As for me, I'm indifferent, liberal, and reasonable in my views of
... other people's conduct. But Jack is not one of those 'other people,'
you see."
"And _I_ am?" she suggested, serenely.
"Exactly; I'm not your keeper."
"So you confine your attention to Jack and the Decalogue?"
"As for the Commandments," observed Lansing, "any ass can shatter them
with his hind heels, so why should he? If he _must_ be an ass, let him
be an original ass--not a cur."
"A cur," repeated Agatha Sprowl, unsteadily.
"An _affaire de coeur_ with a married woman is an affair do cur," said
Lansing, calmly--"Gallicize it as you wish, make it smart and
fashionable as you can. I told you I was old-fashioned.... And I mean
it, madam."
The leader had eluded him; he uncoiled it again; she mechanically took
it between her delicate fingers and held it steady while he measured and
shortened it by six inches.
"Do you think," she said, between her teeth, "that it is your mission to
padlock me to _that_--in there?"
Lansing turned, following her eyes. She was looking at her husband.
"No," replied Lansing, serenely; "but I shall see that you don't
transfer the padlock to ... _that_, out _there_"--glancing at Coursay on
the lawn.
"Try it," she breathed, and let go of the leader, which flew up in
silvery crinkles, the cast of brightly colored flies dancing in the
sunshine.
"Oh, let him alone," said Lansing, wearily; "all the men in Manhattan
are drivelling about you. Let him go; he's a sorry trophy--and there's
no natural treachery in him; ... it's not in our blood; ... it's too
cheap for us, and we can't help saying so when we're in our right
minds."
There was a little color left in her face when she stood up, her hands
resting on the spiked collars of her dogs. "The trouble with you," she
said, smiling adorably, "is your innate delicacy."
"I know I am brutal," he said, grimly; "let him alone."
She gave him a pretty salutation, crossed the lawn, passed her husband,
who had just ridden up on a powerful sorrel, and called brightly to
Coursay: "Take me fishing, Jack, or I'll yawn my head off my shoulders."
Before Lansing could recover his wits the audacious beauty had stepped
into the canoe at the edge of the lawn, and young Coursay, eager and
radiant, gave a flourish to his paddle, and drove it into the glittering
water.
If Sprowl found anything disturbing to his peace of mind in the
proceeding, he did not betray it. He sat hunched up on his big sorrel,
eyes fixed on the distant clearing, where the white gable-end of
O'Hara's house rose among the trees.
Suddenly he wheeled his mount and galloped off up the river road; the
sun glowed on his broad back, and struck fire on his spurs, then horse
and rider were gone into the green shadows of the woods.
To play spy was not included in Lansing's duties as he understood them.
He gave one disgusted glance after the canoe, shrugged, set fire to the
tobacco in his pipe, and started slowly along the river towards O'Hara's
with a vague idea of lending counsel, aid, and countenance to his
president during the expected interview with Munn.
At the turn of the road he met Major Brent and old Peter, the
head-keeper. The latter stood polishing the barrels of his shot-gun with
a red bandanna; the Major was fuming and wagging his head.
"Doctor!" he called out, when Lansing appeared; "Peter says they raised
the devil down at O'Hara's last night! This can't go on, d'ye see! No,
by Heaven!"
"What were they doing, Peter?" asked Lansing, coming up to where the old
man stood.
"Them Shinin' Banders? Waal, sir, they was kinder rigged out in white
night-gounds--robes o' Jordan they call 'em--an' they had rubbed some
kind o' shiny stuff--like matches--all over these there night-gounds,
an' then they sang a spell, an' then they all sot down on the edge o'
the river."
"Is that all?" asked Lansing, laughing.
"Wait!" growled the Major.
"Waal," continued old Peter, "the shinin' stuff on them night-gounds was
that bright that I seen the fishes swimmin' round kinder dazed like.
'Gosh!' sez I to m'self, it's like a Jack a-drawnin' them trout--yaas'r.
So I hollers out, 'Here! You Shinin' Band folk, you air a-drawin' the
trout. Quit it!' sez I, ha'sh an' pert-like. Then that there Munn, the
Prophet, he up an' hollers, 'Hark how the heathen rage!' he hollers. An'
with that, blamed if he didn't sling a big net into the river, an' all
them Shinin' Banders ketched holt an' they drawed it clean up-stream.
'Quit that!' I hollers, 'it's agin the game laws!' But the Prophet he
hollers back, 'Hark how the heathen rage!' Then they drawed that there
net out, an' it were full o' trout, big an' little--"
"Great Heaven!" roared the Major, black in the face.
"I think," said Lansing, quietly, "that I'll walk down to O'Hara's and
reason with our friend Munn. Sprowl may want a man to help him in this
matter."