THE SISTER-IN-LAW
The Gare de l'Est was thronged with people when Brock appeared, fully
half an hour before departing time. In no little dismay, he found
himself wondering if the whole of Paris was going away or, on the other
hand, if the rest of the continent was arriving. He felt a fool in
Medcroft's unspeakable checked suit; and the eyeglass was a much more
obstinate, untractable thing than he had even suspected it could be. The
right side of his face was in a condition of semi-paralysis due to the
muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that
marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk
at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face.
If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the
feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come to
appreciate at least one of the trials which beset poor Brock.
Every one seemed to be staring at him. He heard more than one American
in the scurrying throng say to another, "English," and he felt relieved
until an Englishman or two upset his confidence by brutally alluding to
him as a "confounded American toady."
It was quite train time before Mrs. Medcroft was seen hurrying in from
the carriage way, pursued by a trio of _facteurs_, laden with bags and
boxes.
"Don't shake hands," she warned in a quick whisper, as they came
together. "I recognised you by the clothes."
"Thank God, it wasn't my face!" he cried. "Are your trunks checked?"
"Yes,--this afternoon. I have nothing but the bags. You have the
tickets? Then let us get aboard. I just couldn't get here earlier," she
whispered guiltily. "We had to say good-by, you know. Poor old Roxy! How
he hated it! I sent Burton and O'Brien on ahead of me. My sister brought
them here in her carriage, and I daresay they're aboard and abed by this
time. You didn't see them? But of course you wouldn't know my maids. How
stupid of me! Don't be alarmed. They have their instructions, Roxbury.
Doesn't it sound odd to you?"
Brock was icy-cold with apprehension as they walked down the line of
_wagon-lits_ in the wake of the bag-bearers. Mrs. Medcroft was as
self-possessed and as _dégagé_ as he was ill at ease and awkward. As
they ascended the steps of the carriage, she turned back to him and
said, with the most malicious twinkle in her eyes,--
"I'm not a bit nervous."
"But you've been married so much longer than I have," he responded.
Then came the disposition of the bags and parcels. She calmly directed
the porters to put the overflow into the upper berth. The _garde_ came
up to remonstrate in his most rapid French.
"But where is M'sieur to sleep if the bags go up there?" he argued.
Mrs. Medcroft dropped her toilet bag and turned to Brock with startled
eyes, her lips parted. He was standing in the passage, his two bags at
his feet, an aroused gleam in his eyes. A deep flush overspread her
face; an expression of utter rout succeeded the buoyancy of the moment
before.
"Really," she murmured and could go no farther. The loveliest pucker
came into her face. Brock waved the _garde_ aside.
"It's all right," he explained. "I shan't occupy the--I mean, I'll take
one of the other compartments." As the _garde_ opened his lips to
protest, she drew Brock inside the compartment and closed the door. Mrs.
Medcroft was agitated.
"Oh, what a wretched _contretemps_!" she cried in despair. "Roxy has
made a frightful mess of it, after all. He has _not_ taken a compartment
for you. I'm--I'm afraid you'll have to take this one and--and let me go
in with--"
"Nonsense!" he broke in. "Nothing of the sort! I'll find a bed, never
fear. I daresay there's plenty of room on the train. You shan't sleep
with the servants. And don't lie awake blaming poor old Rox. He's
lonesome and unhappy, and he--"
"But he has a place to sleep," she lamented. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Brock.
It's perfectly horrid, and I'm--I'm dreadfully afraid you won't be able
to get a berth. Roxbury tried yesterday for a lower for himself."
"And he--couldn't get one?"
"No, Mr. Brock. But I'll ask the maids to give up their--"
"Please, please don't worry--and please don't call me Mr. Brock. I hate
the name. Good night! Now don't think about me. I'll be all right.
You'll find me as gay as a lark in the morning."
He did not give her a chance for further protest, but darted out of the
compartment. As he closed the door he had the disquieting impression
that she was sitting upon the edge of her berth, giggling hysterically.
The _garde_ listened to his demand for a separate compartment with the
dejection of a capable French attendant who is ever ready with joint
commiseration and obduracy. No, he was compelled to inform Monsieur the
American (to the dismay of the pseudo-Englishman) it would be impossible
to arrange for another compartment. The train was crowded to its
capacity. Many had been turned away. No, a louis would not be of avail.
The deepest grief and anguish filled his soul to see the predicament of
Monsieur, but there was no relief.
Brock's miserable affectation of the English drawl soon gave way to
sharp, emphatic Americanisms. It was after eight o'clock and the train
was well under way. The street lamps were getting fewer and fewer, and
the soft, fresh air of the suburbs was rushing through the window.
"But, hang it all, I _can't_ sit up all night!" growled Brock in
exasperated finality.
"Monsieur forgets that he has a berth. It is not the fault of the
_compagnie_ that he is without a bed. Did not M'sieur book the
compartment himself? _Très bien!_"
As the result of strong persuasion, the _garde_ consented to make "the
grand tour" of the train de luxe in search of a berth. It goes without
saying that he was intensely mystified by Brock's incautious remark that
he would be satisfied with "an upper if he couldn't do any better." For
the life of him, Monsieur the _garde_ could not comprehend the
situation. He went away, shaking his head and looking at the tickets, as
much as to say that an American is never satisfied--not even with the
best.
Brock lowered a window-seat in the passage and sat down, staring blankly
and blackly out into the whizzing night. The predicament had come upon
him so suddenly that he had not until now found the opportunity to
analyse it in its entirety. The worst that could come of it, of course,
was the poor comfort of a night in a chair. He knew that it was a train
of sleeping-coaches--Ah! He suddenly remembered the luggage van! As a
last resort, he might find lodging among the trunks!
And then, too, there was something irritating in the suspicion that she
had laughed as if it were a huge joke--perhaps, even now, she was
doubled up in her narrow couch, stifling the giggle that would not be
suppressed.
When the _garde_ came back with the lugubrious information that nothing,
positively nothing, was to be had, it is painful to record that Brock
swore in a manner which won the deepest respect of the trainman.
"At four o'clock in the morning, M'sieur, an old gentleman and his wife
will get out at Strassburg, their destination. They are in this carriage
and you may take their compartment, if M'sieur will not object to
sleeping in a room just vacated by two mourners who to-day buried a
beloved son in Paris. They have kept all of the flowers in their--"
"Four o'clock! Good Lord, what am I to do till then?" groaned Brock,
glaring with unmanly hatred at the door of the Medcroft compartment.
"Perhaps Madame may be willing to take the upper--" ventured the guard
timorously, but Brock checked him with a peremptory gesture. He
proposed, instead, the luggage van, whereupon the guard burst into a
psalm of utter dejection. It was against the rules, irrevocably.
"Then I guess I'll have to sit here all night," said Brock faintly. He
was forgetting his English.
"If M'sieur will not occupy his own bed, yes," said the guard, shrugging
his shoulders and washing his hands of the whole incomprehensible
affair. "M'sieur will then be up to receive the Customs officers at the
frontier. Perhaps he will give me the keys to Madame's trunks, so that
she may not be disturbed."
"Ask her for 'em yourself," growled Brock, after one dazed moment of
dismay.
The hours crawled slowly by. He paced the length of the wriggling
corridor a hundred times, back and forth; he sat on every window-seat in
the carriage; he nodded and dozed and groaned, and laughed at himself in
the deepest derision all through the dismal night. Daylight came at
four; he saw the sun rise for the first time in his life. He neither
enjoyed nor appreciated the novelty. Never had he witnessed anything so
mournfully depressing as the first grey tints that crept up to mock him
in his vigil; never had he seen anything so ghastly as the soft red glow
that suffused the morning sky.
"I'll sleep all day if I ever get into that damned bed," he said to
himself, bitterly wistful.
The Customs officers had eyed him suspiciously at the border. They
evidently had been told of his strange madness in refusing to occupy the
berth he had paid for. Their examination of his effects was more
thorough than usual. It may have entered their heads that he was
standing guard over the repose of a fair accomplice. They asked so many
embarrassing and disconcerting questions that he was devoutly relieved
when they passed on, still suspicious.
The train was late, and at five o'clock he was desperately combating an
impulse to leave it at Strassburg, find lodging in a hotel, and then,
refreshed, set out for London to have it out with the malevolent
Medcroft. The disembarking of the venerable mourners, however, restored
him to a degree of his peace of mind. After all, he reviewed, it would
be cowardly and base to desert a trusting wife; he pictured her as
asleep and securely confident in his stanchness. No: he would have it
out with Medcroft at some later day.
He was congratulating himself on the acquisition of a bed--although it
might possess the odour of a bed of tuberoses--when all of his pleasant
calculations were upset by the appearance of a German burgher and his
family. It was then that he learned that these people had booked _le
compartement_ from Strassburg to Munich.
Brock resumed his window-seat and despondently awaited the call to
breakfast. He fell sound asleep with his monocle in position; nor did it
matter to him that his hat dropped through the window and went scuttling
off across the green Rhenish fields. When next he looked at his watch,
it was eight o'clock. A small boy was standing at the end of the
passage, staring wide-eyed at him. Two little girls came piling, half
dressed, from a compartment, evidently in response to the youngster's
whispered command to hurry out and see the funny man. Brock scowled
darkly, and the trio darted swiftly into the compartment.
He dragged his stiff legs into the dining-car at Stuttgart and shoved
them under a table. The car was quite empty. As he was staring blankly
at the menu, the _conducteur_ from his car hurried in with the word that
Madame would not breakfast until nine. She was still very sleepy. Would
Monsieur Medcroft be good enough to order her coffee and rolls brought
to her compartment at that hour? And would he mind seeing that the maid
saw to it that Raggles surely had his biscuit and a walk at the next
station?
"Raggles?" queried Brock, passing his hand over his brow. The other
shrugged his shoulders and looked askance. "Oh, yes,--I--understand,"
murmured the puzzled one, recovering himself. For the next ten minutes
he wondered who Raggles could be.
He had eaten his strawberries and was waiting for the eggs and coffee,
resentfully eying the early risers who were now coming in for their
coffee and rolls. They had slept--he could tell by the complacent manner
in which their hair was combed and by the interest they found in the
scenery which he had come, by tedious familiarity, to loathe and scorn.
The actions of two young women near the door attracted his attention.
From their actions he suddenly gathered that they were discussing
him,--and in a more or less facetious fashion, at that. They whispered
and looked shy and grinned in a most disconcerting manner. He turned red
about the ears and began to wonder, fiercely, why his eggs and coffee
were so slow in coming. Then, to his consternation, the young women,
plainly of the serving-class, bore down upon him with abashed smiles. He
noticed for the first time that one of them was carrying a very small
child in her arms; as she came alongside, grinning sheepishly, she
extended the small one toward the astounded Brock, and said in excellent
old English:
[Illustration: Brock]
"Good morning, Mr. Medcroft." Then, with a rare inspiration, "Baby,
kiss papa--come, now."
She pushed the infant almost into Brock's face. He did not observe that
it was a beautiful child and that it had a look of terror in its eyes;
he only knew that he was glaring wildly at the fiendish nurse, the truth
slowly beating its way into his be-addled brain. For a full minute he
stared as if petrified. Then, administering a sickly grin, he sought to
bring his wits up to the requirements of the extraordinary situation. He
lifted his hand and mumbled: "Come, Raggles! I haven't a biscuit, but
here, have a roll, do. Give me a--a kiss!" He added the last in most
heroic surrender.
The nurse and the maid stared hard at him; the baby turned in affright
to cling closely to the neck of the former.
"Good Lord, sir," whispered the nurse, with a nervous glance about her;
"this ain't Raggles, sir. _This_ is a baby."
"Do you think I'm blind, madam?" whispered he, savagely. "I can see it's
a baby, but I didn't know there was to be one. Its father didn't mention
it to me."
"It's a wise father that knows his own child," said the nurse, with
prompt sarcasm.
"I think they should have prepared me for this," growled he. "Is it
supposed to be mine? Does--does Mrs. Medcroft know about it?"
"You mean, about the baby, sir? Of course she does. It's hers. Please
don't look so odd, sir. My word, sir, I didn't know you didn't know it,
sir. I wasn't told, was I, O'Brien? There, sir, you see! Mrs. Medcroft
said as I was to bring Tootles in to you, sir. She said--"
"Tootles?" murmured Brock. "Tootles and Raggles. I daresay there's a
distinction without much of a difference. Are you Burton?"
"Yes, Mr. Medcroft. The nurse. Won't you take baby for a minute, sir?
Just to get acquainted, and for appearance's sake." She whispered the
well-meant entreaty. Brock, now well into the spirit of the situation,
obligingly extended his arms. The baby set up a lusty howl of aversion.
"For God's sake, take him back to his mother!" groaned Brock hastily.
"He doesn't like strangers! Take him away!"
"It isn't a he, sir," whispered the maid, as the nurse prepared to beat
a hasty retreat with the Medcroft offspring. "It's a her, sir."
Brock's face was a study in perplexity as they hurried from the car.
"By George," he muttered, "what next!"
That which did come next was even more amazing than the unexpected
advent of Tootles. He barely had recovered his equanimity--with his
coffee--when a young lady entered the car. That, of itself, was not much
to speak of, but what followed was something that not even he could have
dreamed of if he had been given the chance. He afterward recalled, in
some distress of mind, that his second quick glance at the newcomer
developed into little less than a rude stare of admiration. Small
wonder, let it be advanced in his defence.
She was astoundingly fair to look upon--dazzling, it might be said, with
some support to the adjective. Moreover, she was looking directly into
his eyes from her unstable position near the door; what was more, a shy,
even mischievous, smile crept into her face as her glance caught his.
Never had he seen a more exquisite face than hers; never had he looked
upon a more perfect picture of grace and loveliness and--aye, smartness.
She was smiling with unmistakable friendliness and recognition, and yet
he could have sworn he had not seen her before in his life. As if he
could have forgotten such a face! A sudden sense of enchantment swept
over him, indescribable, yet delicious.
She was coming toward him--still smiling shyly, her lips parted as if
she were breathing quickly from fear or another emotion. He set down his
coffee-cup without regard to taste or direction, his gaze fixed upon the
trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled
with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had
come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman
enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of
boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, amazement written in his face.
"Good morning, Roxbury," she said, in the most impersonal of greetings.
Her smile deepened as the blankness increased in his face. In the most
casual, matter-of-fact manner, she appropriated the chair across the
table from his. "Please sit down, Roxy."
He sat down abruptly. For a single, tense, abashed moment they looked
searchingly into each other's eyes.
"Are you Raggles?" he asked politely.
"You poor man!" she cried, aghast. "Raggles is Edith's French poodle.
Has no one told you of the poodle?" She half whispered this. He began to
adore her at that very moment,--a circumstance well worth remembering.
"No one has told me of _you_, for that matter," he apologised,
thrilling with a delight such as he had never known before. "Would you
mind whispering to me just who you are? Am I supposed to be your
father--or what?"
"It is all so delightfully casual, isn't it?" she said. "I daresay they
forgot to tell you that you are a man of family. Didn't they mention me
in any way at all?" She pouted very prettily.
"No, they ignored you and Raggles and Tootles. Are there any more in my
family that I haven't met?"
"You see, we got to the station quite a bit ahead of Edith. That's how
you happened to miss meeting us. We saw you there, however. I recognised
you by your clothes. You seemed very unhappy. Oh, I forgot. You wanted
to know who I am. Well, I am your sister-in-law." She ordered coffee and
toast while he sat there figuring it out. When the waiter departed, he
leaned forward and said quite frankly,--
"You'll pardon me, I'm sure, but I can't understand how I was so
short-sighted as to marry your sister."
"Well, you see, you didn't catch a glimpse of me until after you were
married," she railed. "I was in the Sacred Heart convent, you remember."
"Ah, that explains the oversight. I am considered an unusually
discriminating person. Let me see: I married a Miss Fowler, didn't I?"
"Yes, Roxbury. Four years ago, in London, at St. George's, in Hanover
Square, at four o'clock, on a Saturday. Didn't they tell you all that?"
"I don't think they said anything about it being four o'clock. I'm glad
to know the awful details, believe me. Thanks! Do you know I decided you
were an American the instant I saw you in the door," he went on, quite
irrelevantly.
"How clever of you, Roxbury!"
"Oh, I say, Miss Fowler, I'm not such an ass as I look, really I'm not.
I'm trying to look like--"
"'Sh! If you want me to believe you are not the ass you think you look,
be careful what you say. Remember I am _not_ Miss Fowler to you. I am
Constance--sometimes Connie. Can you remember that,--Roxbury?"
He drew a long breath. "Oh, I say, Connie, I'd much rather be plain
Brock to you."
"Please don't forget that I am doing this for my sister,--not for
myself, by any manner of means," she said stiffly. He flushed painfully,
conscious of the rebuke.
"Please overlook my faults for the time being," he said. "I'll do
better. You see, I've been rather overcome by the sense of my own
importance. I'm not used to being the head of an establishment. It has
dazed me. A great many things have happened to me since I left the Gare
de l'Est last night." He was considerate in not referring to his unhappy
mode of travelling. "For instance, I've completely lost my head." He
might have said hat, but that would have sounded commonplace and earthy.
"One does, you know, when he loses his identity," she said
sympathetically. "Edith says you are ripping, and all that sort of
thing," she went on hurriedly, in perfect mimicry. "You come very highly
recommended as a brother-in-law."
"Are you to be with us until the end of the play?"
"Yes. The Rodneys are my friends, not Edith's. Katherine Rodney was in
the convent with me. We see a great deal of each other. I'm sure you
will like her. Everybody falls dreadfully in love with her."
"How very amiable of you to permit it," he protested gallantly. "I'm
sure I shall enjoy falling in love. Which reminds me that I've never had
a sister-in-law. They're very nice, I'm told. It's odd that Medcroft
didn't tell me about you. Would you mind advancing a bit of general
information about yourself--and, I may say, about my family in general?
It may come handy."
"I feel as though I had known you for years," she said, frankly
returning his gaze. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her
chin in her hands. "I'm merely Edith's sister. We live in Paris,--that
is, father and I. I'm three years younger than Edith. Of course, you
know how old your wife is, so we won't dwell upon that. You don't? Then
I'd demand it of her. I haven't been in Philadelphia since I was
seven--and that's ages ago. I have no mother, and father is off in South
America on business. So, you see, little sister has to tag after big
sister. Oh!" She interrupted the recital with an abrupt change of
manner. "I'm so sorry you've finished your coffee. Now you'll have to
go. Roxbury always does."
"But I haven't finished," he exclaimed eagerly. "I'm going to have three
or four more pots. You have no idea how--"
"It's all right then," she said with her rarest and most confident
smile. "Well, Edith asked me to come to London for the season. The
Rodneys were in Paris at the time, however, and they had asked me to
join them for a fortnight in the Tyrol. When I said that I was off for a
visit with the--with you, I mean--they insisted that you all should come
too. They are connections, in a way, don't you see. So we accepted. And
here we are."
"You don't, by any chance, happen to be engaged to be married, or
anything of that sort," he ventured. "Don't crush me! It's only as a
safeguard, you know. People may ask questions."
"You are not obliged to answer them, Roxbury," she said. The flush had
deepened in her cheek. It convinced him that she _was_ in love--and
engaged. He experienced a queer sinking of the heart. "You can say that
you don't know, if anyone should be so rude as to ask." Suddenly she
caught her breath and stared at him in a sort of panic. "Heavens," she
whispered, the toast poised half-way to her lips, "_you_'re not, by any
chance, engaged, are you? Appalling thought!"
He laughed delightedly. "People won't ask about me, my dear Constance.
I'm already married, you know. But if anyone _should_ ask, you're not
obliged to answer."
She looked troubled and uncertain. "You may be really married, after
all," she speculated. "Who knows? Poor old Roxbury wouldn't have had the
tact to inquire."
"I am a henpecked bachelor, believe me."
For the next quarter of an hour they chatted in the liveliest, most
inconsequential fashion, getting on excellent terms with each other and
arriving at a fair sense of appreciation of what lay ahead of them in
the shape of peril and adventure.
She was the most delightful person he had ever met, as well as being the
most beautiful. There was a sprightly, ever-growing air of self-reliance
about her that charmed and reassured him. She possessed the capacity for
divining the sane and the ridiculous with splendid discrimination.
Moreover, she could jest and be serious with an impartial intelligence
that gratified his vanity without in the least inspiring the suspicion
that she was merely clever. He became blissfully imbued with the idea
that she had surprised herself by the discovery that he was really quite
attractive. In fact, he was quite sincerely pleased with himself--for
which he may be pardoned if one stops to think how resourceful a woman
of tact may be if she is very, very pretty.
And, by way of further analogy, Brock was a thoroughly likable chap,
beside being handsome and a thoroughbred to the core. It's not betraying
a secret to affirm, cold-bloodedly, that Miss Fowler had not allied
herself with the enterprise until after she had pinned Roxbury down to
facts concerning Brock's antecedents. She was properly relieved to find
that he came of a fine old family and that he had led more than one
cotillion in New York.
He experienced a remarkable change of front in respect to Roxbury
Medcroft before the breakfast was over. It may have been due to the
spell of her eyes or to the call of her voice, but it remains an
unchallenged fact that he no longer thought of Medcroft as a stupid
bungler; instead, he had come to regard him as a good and irreproachable
Samaritan. All of which goes to prove that a divinity shapes our ends,
rough hew them how we may.
"I'm sure we shall get on famously," he said, as she signified her
desire to return to the compartment. "I've always longed for a nice,
agreeable sister-in-law."
"Her mission in life, up to a certain stage, is to make the man
appreciate the fact that he has, after all, been snapped up by a small
but deserving family," she said blithely. "It is also her duty to pour
oil on troubled waters and strew flowers along the connubial highway,
so long as her kind offices are not resented. By the way, Roxbury, I am
now about to preserve you from bitter reproaches. You have forgotten to
order coffee and rolls for your wife."
"Great Scott! So I have! It's nine o'clock." He ordered the coffee and
rolls to be sent in at once. "I hope she hasn't starved to death."
"My dear Roxbury," she said sternly, "I must take you under my wing. You
have much to accomplish in the next twenty-four hours, not the least of
your duties being the subjugation of Tootles and Raggles. Tootles is
fifteen months old, it may interest you to know. We can't afford to have
Tootles scream with terror every time she sees you, and it would be most
unfortunate if Raggles should growl and snap at you as he does at all
suspicious strangers. Once in a while he bites too. Do you like babies?"
"Yes, I--I think I do," he said doubtingly. "I daresay I could cultivate
a taste for 'em. But, I say," with eager enthusiasm, "I love dogs!"
"It may be distinctly in your favour that Raggles loathes the real
Roxbury. He growls every time that Roxy kisses Edith."
"Has he ever bitten Roxy for it?"
"No," dubiously, "but Roxy has had to kick him on several occasions."
"How very tiresome,--to kick and kiss at the same time."
"Raggles is very jealous, you understand."
"That's more than I can say for dear old Roxy. But I'll try to
anticipate Raggles by compelling Edith to keep her distance," he said,
scowling darkly. "Has it not occurred to you that Tootles will be
pretty--er--much of a nuisance when it comes to mountain climbing?" He
felt his way carefully in saying this.
"Oh, dear me, Roxbury, would you have left the poor little darling at
home--in all that dreadful heat?"
"I'm sure I couldn't have been blamed for leaving her at home," he
protested. "She didn't exist until half an hour ago. Heavens! how they
do spring up!"
The remainder of Brock's day was spent in getting acquainted with his
family--or, rather, his _ménage_. There were habits and foibles, demands
and restrictions, that he had to adapt himself to with unvarying
benignity. He made a friend of Raggles without half trying; dogs always
took to him, he admitted modestly. Tootles was less vulnerable. She
howled consistently at each of his first half-dozen advances; his
courage began to wane with shocking rapidity; his next half-hearted
advances were in reality inglorious retreats. Spurred on by the
sustaining Constance, he stood by his guns and at last was gratified to
see faint signs of surrender. By midday he had conquered. Tootles
permitted him to carry her up and down the station platform (she was too
young to realise the risk she ran). Edith and Constance, with the
beaming nurse and O'Brien, applauded warmly when he returned from his
first promenade, bearing Tootles and proudly heeled by Raggles. Fond
mothers in the crowd of hurrying travellers found time to look upon him
and smile as if to say, "What a nice man!" He could almost hear them
saying it. Which, no doubt, accounted for the intense ruddiness of his
cheeks.
"Do you ever spank her?" he demanded once of Mrs. Medcroft, after
Tootles had brought tears to his eyes with a potent attack upon his
nose. She caught the light of danger in his grey eyes and hastily
snatched the offending Tootles from his arms.
Miss Fowler kept him constantly at work with his eyeglass and his
English, neither of which he was managing well enough to please her
critical estimate. In fact, he laboured all day with the persistence, if
not the sullenness, of a hard-driven slave. He did not have time to
become tired. There was always something new to be done or learned or
unlearned: his day was full to overflowing. He was a man of family!
The wife of his bosom was tranquillity itself. She was enjoying herself.
When not amusing herself by watching Brock's misfortunes, she was
napping or reading or sending out for cool drinks. With all the
selfishness of a dutiful wife, she was content to shift responsibilities
upon that ever convenient and useful creature--a detached sister.
Brock sent telegrams for her from cities along the way,--Ulm, Munich,
Salzburg, and others,--all meant for the real Roxbury in London, but
sent to a fictitious being in Great Russell Street, the same having been
agreed upon by at least two of the conspirators. It mattered little that
she repeated herself monotonously in regard to the state of health of
herself and Tootles. Roxbury would doubtless enjoy the protracted
happiness brought on by these despatches, even though they got him out
of bed or missed him altogether until they reached him in a bunch the
next day. He may also have been gratified to hear from Munich that
Roxbury was perfectly lovely. She said, in the course of her longest
despatch, that she was so glad that the baby was getting to like her
father more and more as the day wore on.
At one station Brock narrowly escaped missing the train. He swung
himself aboard as the cars were rolling out of the sheds. As he sank,
hot and exhausted, into the seat opposite his wife and her sister, the
former looked up from her book, yawning ever so faintly, and asked:
"Are you enjoying your honeymoon, Roxbury?"
"Immensely!" he exclaimed, but not until he had searched for and caught
Connie's truant gaze. "Aren't we?" he asked of Miss Fowler, his eyes
dancing. She smiled encouragingly.
"I think you are such a nice man to have about," commented Mrs.
Medcroft, this time yawning freely and stretching her fine young arms in
the luxury of home contentment.
Brock went to bed early, in Vienna that night--tired but happy, caring
not what the morrow brought forth so long as it continued to provide him
with a sister-in-law and a wife who was devoted--to another man.