“Where?” he demanded. Bob shook his head:
“I dunno, sah; somewhars up No’th. The Colonel he al’ays goes No’th in
summer.”
“The Colonel?”
“Yessah, Colonel Barrett. Wasn’t you askin’ about----”
“_Barrett!_” Burton seized Bob by the arm and dragged him to the
casement. “Look here,” he said desperately, “do you mean to tell me
that Colonel Barrett lives in that house, the one with the rose-garden
behind it?”
“Y-yessah, I surely does, sah.”
“You’re not mistaken?”
“No, sah; why, I knows the Colonel well!”
“Then why didn’t you tell me this before, you fool nigger? Why didn’t
you tell me Colonel Barrett lived there?”
“Yo’ didn’t ask me!”
[Illustration]
“Oh, get out of here!” groaned Burton. “Hold on, though. Has the
Colonel a daughter?”
[Illustration]
“No, sah, he ain’ never got mahied.”
“Then----” cried Burton in sudden hope.
“He got a niece, though.”
“Oh! So she’s his niece? What’s her name?”
“Name’s Miss Kitty.”
“I know that,” said the other impatiently. “What’s the rest of it?”
“Ah ain’ never heard no mo’.”
“Do you mean to tell me that she has no last name?”
“Oh, _las’_ name! I didn’t know you meant _las’_ name, sah. Las’ name’s
Fletcher, o’ co’se!”
“That’s all. Get out!”
Bob departed to tell the cook that “Mister Burton he done wen’ crazy,”
and the subject of the announcement remained for many minutes sitting
on the bed in his pajamas gazing out into the Enchanted Garden and
mentally heaping maledictions upon himself. The thought of the letter
of introduction in his trunk was maddening. It was all very plain now;
no wonder she had smiled when he had asked about the Colonel!
“Oh Kitty, Kitty!” he muttered, “you’re the cruel one!”
[Illustration]
After breakfast he packed his trunk hurriedly and then, armed with the
letter, sallied forth. Down King’s Street he went to the first corner;
here a half-obliterated sign, nailed against the trunk of a giant oak,
bore the legend “Mary Street;” he counted the houses and chose the
third one. Emptiness was written all over its sleepy, red-brick front.
Nevertheless he knocked, and waited. After many minutes the door was
opened cautiously and an aged negress--he was certain it was Aunt
Amanda--stuck her head through the narrow aperture.
[Illustration]
“Is Colonel Barrett at home?” asked Burton.
“No, sah, he gone up No’th.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Burton, simulating intense surprise and dismay.
“I have a letter of introduction to him. Can you tell me where he has
gone?”
“New Yo’k.”
“And the address there?”
[Illustration]
“Can’ tell yo’ that, sah; reckon, though, jes’ ‘New Yo’k’ will fin’
him.”
“But isn’t there anyone here in town that can give me his address?”
“Don’ reckon so.”
“But his mail, where does that go?”
“Folkses at the pos’-office lookin’ arter that, sah.”
“Oh! And is Miss Fletcher with him?”
“Yessah.”
“Thank you. I think I will leave my card. Will you kindly see that he
gets it when he returns?”
Burton tried the post-office without, however, much hope of success.
And, as he had expected, the post-mistress, an elderly lady with an
extremely suspicious expression about her thin lips, refused to divulge
any information.
[Illustration]
“It’s a rule of the Department,” she explained severely.
That evening Burton returned to New York without having obtained any
more explicit directions than those given by Aunt Amanda. But he was
not hopeless. Surely, he assured himself, it would not be difficult to
discover the whereabouts of the Colonel and his niece so long as hotel
registers were open to public inspection.
But at the end of two days he had changed his mind. At the end of the
third he gave up the search. New York had swallowed the Princess and
the Ogre! Burton returned to his affairs, which had begun to suffer,
and strove, for their good, to banish thoughts of Belle Harbour and the
Enchanted Garden and Kitty of the Roses from his mind. But the task he
had set himself was a difficult one; and just when it seemed that he
was arriving at some degree of success, lo! a prankish Fate interposed.
It was well into July. New York had been sweltering all day under hot,
cloudless skies, and even the darkness brought no relief. To stay
indoors was out of the question, and so Burton dragged himself from an
already deserted club after a late dinner and hailed a hansom.
[Illustration]
“Drive around,” he directed,--“any old place so long as it’s cool.”
[Illustration]
Cabby turned the horse’s head up-town and it trotted listlessly along
over the still heated asphalt. Burton leaned forward to catch what
air there was and smoked and meditated. For some reason--perhaps it
was a glimpse of a florist’s window that did it--his thoughts flew
southward to a garden of roses and to a small, graceful figure that
walked therein. Fagged by the heat of the long day, he had no strength
left with which to combat temptation, and he yielded. It came back to
him very vividly; closing his eyes he saw the garden and the blank,
drowsy old house; he saw the door beside the rose-vines open and a
white-gowned figure trip down the steps. She came nearer and nearer,
smiling, happy-eyed, the broad brim of her hat lifting in the breeze
and chasing the edge of the mellow shadow over her cheek. Never before
had her face come back to him so clearly. In the length of eight blocks
he lived over those precious mornings minute by minute. In the middle
of the ninth he was suffering all the torments of a despairing lover
of twenty. He hurled the dead cigar from his lips to the pavement and
thrust up the trap with his cane.
[Illustration]
“This won’t do,” he muttered savagely; and aloud, “Stop here; I’ve had
enough.”
[Illustration]
On the curb he found himself bathed in the bright glare of many
lights; he had landed at the entrance of an uptown theatre. With a
shrug of his shoulders he went in. “As well here as anywhere,” he
thought. Of the entertainment he recalled but little the next day.
But the theatre was fairly cool and the music bright and eminently
cheerful. When the final curtain had descended he joined the pushing
throng at the right of the house. Half-way towards the entrance his
eyes, ranging carelessly over the scene, were suddenly arrested and
his heart leaped. Across the rows of empty seats, at the far side of
the theatre, a man and a girl were slowly making their way towards
the door. The man was tall, thin, with grizzled hair and moustache,
Southern-looking from head to heel, and about fifty years of age. The
girl was slight and rather small, with brown hair and warm skin hued
like the inner petals of a rose. She was plainly dressed in a street
skirt of gray and a white shirt-waist against which three or four pink
roses drooped. In short, it was Kitty--and the Ogre!
[Illustration]
Burton looked about him desperately. The only course open was to
remain in the aisle where he was and trust to reaching the lobby in
time to intercept them. He took advantage of every cranny and crevice
in the throng and pushed his way through with slight regard for toes
or skirts. It seemed hours before he reached the entrance. Now and
then he was able to catch sight of his quarry over the shoulders of
the throng. It was while so engaged that he heard an eloquent sound of
rending silk and felt himself seized roughly by the arm. He turned to
face an indignant cavalier.
[Illustration]
“Sir, you are very awkward! You should look where you are going! You
have torn this lady’s dress!”
“I am very sorry,” replied Burton, striving to wrest himself from the
other’s clutch. “Believe me, Madam, I am deeply grieved and--er---- I
beg of you, sir, don’t detain me; I am trying to reach some friends
who----”
“Deuce take your friends, sir! Your clumsiness----”
But Burton wrenched himself free and plunged into the lobby, followed
by muttered execrations from those whom he unceremoniously thrust from
his path. But the delay had cost him dear. The Princess and the Ogre
were not to be seen. He rushed to the street door just in time to catch
a fleeting glimpse of a gray skirt disappearing into a brougham.
“Kitty!” he called, and struggled across the sidewalk.
The door closed, the driver snapped his lash, and the carriage rolled
away. And yet for an instant he was certain a face had looked from the
window and a hand had rested upon the sill. He hailed a hansom.
[Illustration]
“Keep that brougham in sight,” he said hurriedly. “There’s a
five-dollar bill in it if you do!” With one foot on the step he paused,
stooped, and lifted something from the asphalt.
It was a pink rose.
[Illustration]
The driver’s task was not a hard one. The brougham went northward
slowly for a few blocks and then turned to the west down a quiet side
street. Presently Burton’s conveyance stopped.
[Illustration]
“All right, sir,” said the driver.
The brougham had paused some dozen doors beyond and its passengers were
alighting. Burton descended, dismissed his cab, and keeping the house
into which the Princess and the Ogre had disappeared in sight, walked
leisurely towards it. It proved to be a small, unpretentious, but
attractive hotel. When he entered the hall was empty save for a clerk,
behind the tiny desk, and a negro elevator boy.
“Is Colonel Barrett, of Virginia, staying here?” Burton asked.
“Yes, sir. Will you send up your card?”
Burton hesitated; then shook his head.
“No, I think I’ll wait until morning; I presume they have retired?”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“Did Colonel Barrett and the young lady go to their room, Billy?” the
clerk inquired. The elevator boy nodded sleepily. Burton turned away
and walked homeward through the breathless streets with a triumphant
joy and a fragrant pink rose for companions. To-morrow he would see
Kitty, his Kitty, Kitty of the Roses!
He went to his office early the following morning, and at ten o’clock,
summoning a hansom, had himself driven to a florist’s. There he
purchased two dozen and one roses and personally superintended the
packing and dispatching of them. His selection may have struck the
attendant as somewhat unique, consisting, as it did, of a dozen
white blossoms, a dozen pink ones, and a single half-blown bud of
deep crimson; but Burton, remembering Kitty’s wont, thought she would
understand. After the flowers had been sent he hesitated a moment on
the curb. In the end he sent the cab away. He did not want to present
himself at the hotel before eleven; the thought of sitting inactive
in a club window was distasteful; he would walk slowly uptown. So he
crossed to the Avenue and, lighting a fresh cigarette, idled from
window to window in a desperate attempt to kill time. He allowed no
display on the shady side of the street to pass unexamined, and by the
time he had reached his northerly goal his brain was a kaleidoscope
of sporting prints, French landscapes, jewelry, silk stockings,
bric-à-brac, lingerie, and smokers’ articles. But it was eleven o’clock!
[Illustration]
This time there was no premonition of disappointment. He sought the
desk and produced his card.
“Sorry, but Colonel Barrett and his niece left ten minutes ago for the
steamer,” said the clerk.
“Steamer!” gasped Burton. “What steamer?”
“I’ll find out for you in a minute from the porter.” He disappeared,
leaving Burton leaning against the desk staring blankly out onto the
sun-smitten pavement. In a moment he returned.
“Trunks went to the American Line pier, sir.”
“Thank you,” Burton muttered. Then, turning suddenly at the doorway,
“What time is the sailing?”
[Illustration]
“Half after twelve, sir, I believe.”
Burton glanced at his watch, compared it with the smug-faced clock over
the desk, and strode to the steps. But again he turned:
“I sent a box of flowers here for the young lady this morning; did she
get them?”
“No, sir, they came just after she’d left. They’re here; I was going to
send them back to the florist’s.”
That was a wild race against time! With the long box of roses between
his knees, one hand on his watch, and a cigarette hanging unlighted
from his lips, Burton sat like a stern-faced Fate and was whirled from
the hotel to the wharf in what was practically one long bump. When the
horse was pulled back on his haunches before the pier entrance there
was no need to ask questions: a stream of persons whose handkerchiefs
still hung from their hands was emerging into the hot sunlight.
With a groan Burton threw himself back against the cushions.
“Never before in the history of ocean travel has a steamship left on
time,” he muttered.
[Illustration]
“But to-day--oh, damn!”
“Where to, sir?” asked the driver, his red, perspiring face glowing
above the opened trap. Burton gulped, and then gave his office
address. The wearied horse and creaking hansom crept dejectedly uptown
again through close, furnace-like streets and over pavements that threw
the heat upward with intolerable intensity. Burton thought of the open,
wind-swept ocean and cursed weakly. When the hansom came to a stop in
front of the narrow, white-marble monstrosity on the tenth floor of
which was his office, he paid three prices to the driver and strode
towards the entrance. The cabman called after him,--
“Hi, sir, you’ve forgotten your flowers!”
Burton turned and scowled ferociously.
[Illustration]
“I don’t want them,” he said. “Throw them away--take them home--eat
them--_anything_!”
But cabby, being a person of business principles, did none of these
things: he sold them at the next corner to a sidewalk vender for fifty
cents.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]