Fessenden turned to the right on the main road. At a little distance he
paused to glance back at White Cottage.
There was nothing of the colonial manor-house in its lines. Clearly, it
had always been the home of humble folk. He fancied that good Aunty
Landis--whose husband supplied Sandywood "with eggs and milk and
butter"--would be the last to lay claim to gentility.
It was a little disappointing to be compelled to abandon his dream of a
Confederate colonel and of a decayed "first family."
"But the little girl is perfectly charming," he mused, and strode up the
road humming:
"Oh, she smashed all the hearts
Of the swains in them parts,
Did Mistress Biddy O'Toole."
The directions given him by the station-master at Sandywood Station had
been so clear that, although a stranger to this part of the country,
Fessenden had found his way thus far easily enough.
Now, as he topped the rise, his eyes fell at once upon Sandywood House:
a buff-and-white structure, with the pillared expansiveness of a true
colonial mansion. It was set upon a knoll, across an intervale, the wide
expanse of the Chesapeake shimmering in front of it. Ardent Marylanders
had been known to maintain that it was fully the equal of Mount Vernon
itself.
The avenue leading up toward the back of the house from the main road
wound a couple of hundred yards through a garden of box and lilac, then
swept the pedestrian about an ell to the steps of a demilune porch, and
almost vis-à-vis with half a dozen men and women drinking tea.
A plump, neutral-tinted woman, a trifle over-gowned, hurried forward to
greet him.
"Why, Tom Fessenden!" she exclaimed. "So here you are at last! You bad
man, you didn't come on the right train. Your things arrived this
morning, but when the car came back from the station without you, I
thought you'd backed out. The next thing I was expecting was a letter
from you, saying you couldn't come at all, you irresponsible man!"
"I _would_ have been a loser."
"Ve-ry pretty. Really, though, we _have_ a jolly crowd here. All
complete except for Roland Cary. If Roland Cary hadn't notions!"
"Is any man foolish enough to decline an invitation from you?"
"Any man? Oh, Roland Cary's a cousin."
"Lucky man! Madam, may I ask if he is so attractive that you wish he had
come instead of me?"
"I wanted--wanted him to be here with you, silly. He--he is perfectly
charming. You know, I'm half afraid of _you_. You're such a superior old
Yankee that I dare say you despise us Marylanders, and were as late in
getting here as you _dared_ to be." The perennial challenge of the
Southern belle was in her tones.
Fessenden laughed. "I ran across Danton in Baltimore. Blame it all on
him."
"Charlie Danton? Oh, isn't he most exasperating! Now, come up and meet
everybody. Boys and girls, this is Mr. Fessenden--Mrs. Randall and Dick
Randall, over there. And Pinckney--Pinck, do get out of that chair long
enough to be polite!--my lord and master, Tom. That's my cousin, May
Belle--May Belle Cresap--and Harry Cleborne; and _this_ is Miss Yarnell,
the celebrated Miss Madge Yarnell; and--and that's all. How funny! I do
believe I'm the only one of us you've ever met before."
"That proves how benighted I've been," he returned. "But what can you
expect of a man who's never been on the Eastern Shore?"
Detecting something proprietary in the manner of the young man who hung
over the back of Miss May Belle Cresap's chair, he abandoned his thought
of taking a seat next that languid lady, and instead inserted himself
deftly between Pinckney Cresap and Miss Madge Yarnell.
Cresap shook hands heartily. "Glad to see you, Fessenden. I've heard a
lot of you from Polly ever since she knew you in New York--before she
did me the honor to marry me. Glad you've got down to see us on our
native heath at last." He poked a rather shaky finger at the stranded
mint-leaf in the empty glass before him. "A julep? No? You mentioned
Charlie Danton just now. You've heard about his high doings, I suppose.
Perhaps you're in his confidence?"
"Not at all. He's in mine, to the extent of persuading me to buy a small
yacht of his this morning--sight unseen. He promised to telegraph over
this way somewhere and have it sent around to your boat-landing--if
you'll allow me."
"Of course. My man will take care of it when it turns up. Danton's a
queer one." He rattled his empty glass suggestively at his wife.
"He seemed as cynical as ever," commented Fessenden.
"He ought to be. They say that if it were befo' de wah' he'd have to
meet a certain Baltimore man on the field of honor--a married man, you
understand. Coffee and pistols for two!"
Fessenden was willing to elude the foreshadowed gossip. "We're shocking
Miss Yarnell, I'm afraid."
The girl was, indeed, sitting with averted head, her face set rather
sternly.
"Eh! Oh, I beg your pardon, Madge," said Cresap, with real concern.
"I hardly heard what you were saying," she rejoined. "I was thinking of
something else."
Her voice was unusually deep and mellow, and Fessenden's sensitive ear
thrilled pleasurably. He glanced toward her.
She was a decided brunette. Her eyes as they met his had a certain
defiant challenge, a challenge at once bold and baffling. The distance
between her eyes was a trifle too great for perfect beauty, but her
complexion was transparently pale, and her teeth were wonderfully white
and even. The poise of her head was almost regal, and she had a trick of
coming very close to one as she talked, that was very disconcerting.
On the whole, Miss Yarnell was a charming person of twenty-three or
four, and he began to have a decided appreciation of the adjective Polly
Cresap had applied to her. Moreover, the sombre challenge in her dark
eyes impelled him to further investigation, under the clatter of teacups
and small talk about them.
"Why 'celebrated,' Miss Yarnell?" he began. "Why 'celebrated' rather
than 'beautiful' or 'stunning' or downright 'handsome'?"
"Polly's rather silly," said Miss Yarnell.
"Are you dodging?"
"I never dodge. But Polly _is_ silly--yes, she's unkind, although she'd
be in tears if she dreamed I thought so. She ought not to have called me
_that_. No, I don't dodge, but I suppose I can refuse to answer."
He declined to notice the ungraciousness of her response. "Oh, of
course, but I'm certain to learn the reason you're 'celebrated' from
some one--badly garbled, too," he laughed.
Contrary to the spirit of his badinage, she seemed resolved to take
him seriously. "That's true. I may as well tell you. I'm
celebrated--'notorious' would be a better word--because of that affair
in Baltimore last year. I was an idiot."
"Hard words for yourself. I think I don't understand."
"You don't know Baltimore, then?"
"Very little. The Club is about all, and that not more than once or
twice a year."
"The Club! If you've been there once this winter, I'm afraid you've
heard of _me_. I'm Madge Yarnell, _the_ Madge Yarnell, the girl who tore
down the flag at the cotillion."
"O-oh!" He gave her a long stare. "It was _you_."
She winced before the contempt in his tone, and her eyes glistened
suddenly. "I'm confessing to you," she reminded him with a humility that
he knew instinctively was wholly unwonted. "I'm not proud of what I did,
although some of my friends"--her glance swept over Polly Cresap--"are
still foolish enough to tease me about it."
Compelled by his eyes and the light touch of his hand on her arm, she
rose with him, and they sauntered together to the isolation of a pillar
on the porch-edge.
The great bay, now purpling with the first hint of sunset, stretched
from the foot of the knoll to the hazy hills of the western shore.
Little red glints flashed from the surface of the water and seemed to be
reflected in the depths of Miss Yarnell's sombre eyes.
She stood with her hands behind her, her head turned a little from him,
but held very proudly. A strong woman, evidently; a passionate one,
perhaps; a devoted one, if the right man were found. Fessenden, studying
her covertly, realized that for the second time that day he had
encountered a girl who stirred in him an interest novel and delightful.
"Tell me about it, Miss Yarnell," he said at last. "I've only heard that
you refused to enter the cotillion room so long as the Stars and Stripes
decorated the doorway, and that finally you took down the flag with your
own hands. I remember the _Evening Post_ had a solemn editorial on the
sinister significance of your alleged performance. It couldn't have been
true--I realize that now that I know you. No one could accuse you--you
of--that is----"
"Of vulgarity. Thank you for being too kind to say it. But I'm afraid
most of it's true."
"I can't believe it."
She turned a grateful glance upon him. His steady, reassuring smile
seemed to give her a long-needed sense of comfort and protection. In
spite of herself, her eyes fell before his, and her cheeks reddened a
little.
"I'll tell you all about it," she said. "I did it on a dare. A year ago
I was unbelievably silly--I've learned a great deal in a year. A man
dared me--and I did it."
"I don't acquit you--quite; but what an egregious cad the man must have
been!"
"No, no, don't think that. He never dreamed I would really dare. But I
was determined to show him I wasn't afraid--wasn't afraid of
anything--not even of him."
"Of him?"
"Yes."
"O-oh!" he said slowly. "I see. Well, _were_ you afraid--afterward?"
She swung her hands from behind her back and struck them together with a
sudden gesture of anger.
"No, but I hated him. I hate him! Not that he wasn't game. When I turned
to him with that dear flag dangling in my hand, he swept me off in a
two-step, flag and all. But he smiled. Oh, how he smiled!" She drew a
long breath. "D---- his smile!" Her desperate little oath was only
pathetic. "I can see that triumphant twist about the corner of his mouth
now, like a crooked scar."
"Good Lord! Charlie Danton!"