her head. “Martin,” he called to the groom, “you take the trap in. And
attend to that thong on the whiffletree--it doesn’t hold the trace.”
Thunderbolt went trotting off. Mr. England turned back to Missy.
“Hector seems a little quieter now,” he said.
Then I saw that Missy wasn’t going to let Mr. England come with her any
more than she had Martin. “There isn’t any reason for your coming,” she
said. “Hector’s like a lamb.”
For a second, I thought he hesitated. But I settled _that_. With a
little squeal and a shake of my head, I reared--just a trifle.
Quick as a fly, Mr. England had my reins. “He isn’t over his tantrum
yet, you see,” he said quietly, but very decidedly. “I can’t think of
letting you take him in alone.”
Well, Missy protested. But he was firm. And we started for the
entrance, with him at my bridle.
As soon as I saw he was really coming, I hung my head and went along
like a case of chest-founder. When we reached the street, he took to
the sidewalk, watching me every instant though, and watching poor
Missy. She was hanging her head, too.
At a corner, Mr. England turned north, expecting us to follow. For that
was the way to Hawley’s. Missy reined me up and called to him, and he
came back.
I could see her face was dreadfully pale. But she was just as straight
in her saddle as she could be. “Not that way, Mr. England,” she said.
He didn’t show the least surprise. (He is a thoroughbred, too.) “You
lead,” he said; “I’ll follow.”
And so we went on--to the wagon-yard, Mr. England looking at the
sidewalk, Missy looking straight ahead.
The gate was open. I went in, not stopping till I reached the door
of my shanty. There, Missy got down. She was standing beside me as
Mr. England came around the corner, and leaning a little upon me, one
gloved hand reached up to the saddle.
Mr. England strode close up to her, and they stood for a moment, her
face raised bravely to his, his eyes searching her.
“Oh, little woman!” he said, and his voice shook; “oh, little woman!”
She took her under lip in her teeth. “There’s--there’s no reason for me
to conceal anything,” she said. “Matters were a little tight at home,
and I had to be economical.”
He was looking at her as if he was bewildered. “Matters tight--at
home----” he repeated. Then, of a sudden, he seemed to know what it all
meant, and his face got as white as Missy’s. “Your father--then, your
father----?” he began, almost chokingly.
Missy looked straight back at him, and there was no more leaning
against me. “Yes. And now you know why I didn’t want you to come here.
It wasn’t because I was ashamed of this. It was because I knew you’d
find out. And then you might think--might think that I felt there was
something personal about it. You see, I realise there wasn’t. Father
made contracts to deliver. Afterward, wool went up----”
Mr. England groaned. “To think it reached you! That _you_ had to
suffer.”
“But I _haven’t_ suffered. Work was offered me here,--work in an art
line. I have felt no hardship from it. In fact, there is happiness
in earning a living. I am learning so much. The only disappointment
I’ve had was about Hector. He’s not been quite as comfortable----” She
stopped and caressed my shoulder tenderly.
Something got into my wind-pipe then, and I had to mouth my bits to
keep from coughing.
“And where do you live?” asked Mr. England. “Not where you did. I went
there--more than once.”
“Well,--no-o--. But in a very nice place. I take my meals across from
the store.”
“The store?”
“Yes. I am painting Christmas things--cards and so on. It’s pleasant
work. And my room looks out on the side of a church. And there’s a
stained-glass window there, and ivy all over the church wall.”
Mr. England began again, low and deep and earnestly. “Once in a
lifetime,” he said, “a man meets a girl like you--sweet and sensible
and good, that can take a blow like this without a word, find her feet
again, and begin her fight bravely, doing without things that are
second nature to her, and going without comforts for a friend, even
when that friend is only a horse!”
“But I couldn’t do without Hector,” Missy declared. “I love him too
much.”
(I rubbed my nose against her sleeve.)
“Sometimes I’ve had a terrible thought,” she said, half in a whisper.
“It was that I might be forced to part with him. And--and I’ve
wondered--oh, you’ll forgive me, I hope--if I have to, you’ll take him,
Mr. England? He’s a perfect lady’s saddler.”
“You mean,--I may need a lady’s saddler?”
“Well, you--you might.”
“I shall--if I have _my_ way about it.”
Dear Missy turned to me again, and put her arms about my neck. “I’m
not brave about this,” she whispered, and hid her face in my mane.
All of a sudden he pulled her hands free and turned her toward him.
“You love him,” he said. “I wonder if there’s room in your heart for
anyone else, _dear_ little woman?”
And just at that moment that ragamuffin of a stable-boy popped into
sight. Of course, I was led away.
I don’t know how I ever lived through the next few days. No Missy, no
dainties, nothing but a short airing each morning to take me out of
that terrible shanty. Ah, I knew what had happened to me _this_ time. I
was out of the Sanborn family. I was somebody else’s lady’s saddler!
Then, one morning, when the boy led me out through the gate, he started
off south along the Boulevard. I had on my dress-blanket and hood.
Behind me came another boy, carrying my saddle and bridle and the rest
of my clothes. This was going somewhere.
“They can’t find any place in New York worse than that shanty,” I
said to myself. And for the first time since leaving California, I
completely lost heart. I put my head down and just stumbled long.
And then--I suddenly found that we had passed the Circle, turned east,
and were in front of Hart’s! We mounted the runway. And _there it
was_--the roomy box-stall across from Thunderbolt’s, deep with sweet
bedding, and matted in Peter’s best style. And there was Missy, looking
so pink and pretty! And there was Mr. England, smiling so hard he
couldn’t talk!
“Dear Hector!” cried Missy. “Oh, Martin, be very good to him while
we’re away!”
“Yes, mum,” said Martin.
“And to Thunderbolt, too,” said Missy.
Martin bobbed, and tugged at his cap.
Then Missy reached up and pulled my head down close to her. “Darling
Hector!” she whispered. “We’re home to stay!” And she kissed the star
in my forehead.
THE GENEVIEVE EPIDEMIC
“I’m homely,” said Sue, smiling and pulling the grey pony down to a
walk; “I’m the homeliest girl to be found at the Brampton Country
Club. Why, even plain young married women ask me to their houses on
protracted visits.”
As he reined his own horse, Philip Rawson turned upon her a look of
reproof. “Ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “The first time a fellow meets
you, maybe he only _does_ remember your hair or your eyes. You’ve got
awfully attractive eyes, Sue. But the _second_ time he sees how nice
you are. And the third time he’s sure to look forward to meeting you
again. But by the fourth or fifth time! Well, by gad! by the fourth or
fifth time there’s no half-way about it--he thinks you’re a dandy!”
Sue laughed teasingly. “You’ve grown up with those ideas,” she
declared. “Do you remember that once--you were twelve, Phil,--you gave
Len Hammond the nosebleed because he called me ‘cotton-top’?”
“Your hair is stunning,” said Phil defensively. “And _no_ girl could
look better than you do on a horse.”
“But imagine riding a horse to a dance,” said Sue.
“Who wants to go to dances?” demanded Phil. “The idea of wasting
hours getting togged for a confounded silly affair and then more hours
attending it--when there’s all outdoors to enjoy!”
“Don’t scold,” said Sue. “It’s been ages since I’ve ‘wasted hours’ at a
dance. And yesterday I wore out two horses.”
Phil suddenly brightened. “Let’s go to Wheaton Hill some afternoon,”
he suggested. “And up to Hadbury another day. I want to see the
polo-field. Brampton’s going to play Hadbury soon. And there’s a new
litter of collies at the St. Ives kennels. We’ll canter over and see
’em.”
“How I’ve missed you these two years!” said Sue. “I’ve ridden a lot,
of course. But my tennis has suffered. And not a single fish have I
caught. The other men--even Bob and Courtney and Len, too--all wait on
me when I ride with them or fish. I hate that: I hate being treated
like a drawing-room ornament. Now, you, Phil,----”
“Can be pretty nearly as rude and selfish as a brother,” broke in Phil.
“You’re more like a--a chum,” said Sue. “And so I’m awfully glad to get
you back, not a _bit_ spoiled, and not--married.”
Phil stared. “Married!” he repeated. “_Me?_”
“Hillcrest needs a mistress, Phil.”
“Suppose I were to pull a long face and say: ‘Sue, Arbor Lodge needs
a master’?” He drew off his cap and stuffed it into the front of his
shirt, shook his head vigorously, so that the morning wind could catch
at his hair, and rolled his sleeves up to his elbow, showing two stout
arms as brown as the pony under him.
“I’m so homely,” said Sue, “that I’m marriage-proof.”
“Sue,”--very earnestly--“I didn’t see a single girl on the other side
that I could fall in love with. I guess it’ll have to be an American
that takes my mother’s place.”
Sue waved her whip. “Down with foreign alliances!”
“Oh, there wasn’t anything patriotic about it,” said Phil. “I just
didn’t see the girl.”
“You’re calloused,” asserted Sue. “You’ve played polo so long that
you’ve got a basswood ball for a heart. Here you are, twenty-six,
handsome----”
“Loyalty, thy name is Sue Townsend!”
“And wholesome and good and awfully popular; and rich, too, with such a
place, such woods and streams!”
“And such a blarney of a little friend,” added Phil.
“It’s not blarney,” Sue declared. “No; I leave all that for Larry.
Phil, where _did_ you pick him up?”
Phil gave a quick glance round at the red-cheeked, red-haired groom
riding at the prescribed distance behind. “He was born in Dublin,” said
he, grinning, “and I got him in Hongkong. He hasn’t been twenty feet
away from me since. The fellows call him my ‘shadow.’”
“But, of course, you’re sure to meet your fate some day,” went on Sue.
“And your kind, when they _do_ fall in love, get fearfully hard hit.”
“Huh!”
Sue nodded wisely. “I don’t believe you’ll even survive what’s in store
for you this very week,” she declared.
“No? What is it?”
“She’s coming to The Lilacs to-day to stay a month--Mrs. Vander Laan
knew her mother. Last year she visited me. She’s tall and slender,
and has the most beautiful eyes, and hair, and nose, and mouth, and
complexion----”
“Hold! Hold!” cried Phil, in mock alarm.
“She’s perfect, in fact. Let’s take this dapply road.”
“Haven’t time--the fellows expect me at practice. Go on about the
goddess.”
“She _is_ a goddess. And everybody worships at her shrine. You’ve heard
of faces that haunt?”
“Creditors?” suggested Phil.
“I met her first at Miss Pendleton’s. She ruled the school, she was so
beautiful. No man’s _ever_ seen her without capitulating.”
“Number one,” announced Phil, pointing at his chest. “What’s her name?”
“Genevieve.”
“I never cared for it.” He looked at his watch. “If I get to the field
in time I’ll have to turn now. Want to come along?”
“I’m afraid I can’t.” Sue wheeled the grey. “Grandmamma hasn’t been
well lately. I shall stay with her to-day. Let’s race home.”
Galloping level, the grey and the brown made back along the shaded
road, with the wind tugging harder than ever at Phil’s hair, and
blowing out wisps against Sue’s pink cheeks. At the wide, stone gate
of Arbor Lodge they drew rein.
“See you to-morrow?” he asked.
“Telephone me,” said Sue. “Meanwhile, you _may_ meet Genevieve. And I
warn you----”
“Rubbish!” said Phil.
* * * * *
The polo enthusiasts of the Brampton Country Club were in despair; in
particular, three members of the team reserved for the Hadbury game
were pulling their hair wildly. But the fourth member was apparently
indifferent to the awfulness of the situation--a situation of which
he was himself the cause. And the reason for his indifference was not
far to seek. The majority of the club knew it quite as well as if he
had put up blue-and-white enameled signs beside the advertisements of
automobile tires on every fence in that part of the country, and on the
signs one line: _The Brampton’s Captain is_---- But wait.
In their anxiety, the trio who were to go against Hadbury called
in solemn conclave upon Sue Townsend. Not that Sue was in any way
implicated--Sue had never been concerned in an affair of this
particular sort. The three players wished to state the case to her and
ask her immediate aid.
“We shan’t keep you a minute,” began Leonard Hammond, when Sue greeted
her visitors in the library at Arbor Lodge, “I see you’re going out.
But”--his tone was mournful--“it’s something horribly serious.” (Mr.
Hammond had constituted himself the first spokesman because, playing
Number One in the team, he realised his Captain’s value.)
Sue was very smart in a linen habit, and she gave the three glum faces
an encouraging and hospitable smile. “Oh, it won’t matter in the least
if you keep me a few minutes,” she declared, shaking hands warmly. “Do
sit down.” She indicated the library couch. “You see, I’m only going
for a ride, and Phil hasn’t come yet.” She took a plump chair which
was in front of the couch and leaned back to recover breath after her
tripping rush down the stairs.
“Phil!” repeated the three in chorus, and dropped rather precipitately
upon the couch. Then: “We are just in time!”--this from Mr. Hammond.
Sue leaned forward suddenly. Her eyes were dark-blue and heavy-lashed,
and now they looked her solicitude. “Is something--wrong with Phil?”
she asked.
Mr. Courtney Graves, Second Forward of the team, almost stared at her.
“Wrong?” he repeated. “Haven’t you heard?”
“No.” She looked from one to another, the colour going from her cheeks.
“Bob! What is it?”
Mr. Robert St. Ives, Half-back, began: “It’s a mess, Sue, hanged if it
isn’t!--a confounded mess. Phil was to play against the Hadbury team,
you know, and reserved us for the game.”
“Yes.” With one hand Sue smoothed a round gold locket that hung between
the lapels of her coat.
“Now,” continued Mr. St. Ives, biting each word short to give it full
significance, “--now, all at once, he’s dropped off in his practice,
says he doesn’t want to go to Hadbury, wants _me_ to be captain--rot!
And he spends his time in his car, while his ponies hammer their legs
to pieces in their boxes. We got _that_ much from Larry.”
She leaned back once more, relieved and smiling. “Why has Phil
changed?” she inquired in mild surprise.
“Because he wants to stay at Brampton,” answered Mr. St. Ives forcibly,
“and motor when he can, or hang out on the club veranda when she won’t
motor. That’s why.”
“She?” said Sue, under her breath. “Who?”
Mr. Courtney Graves stood up and pointed, first to the fireplace, then
to a writing-desk, last of all to a panel between two bookcases. Above
the fireplace, on the carved mantel, was the full-length portrait of a
beautiful girl--a dark, imperious, queenly girl in ball dress. On the
writing-desk, in delicate frames of hand-wrought silver, were two other
photographs of the same girl. One of these showed her in a trailing
carriage-coat, with furs; the other was a lake scene, and she was
seated in a drifting boat, with a ruffled parasol shading her lovely
face. In the panel between the bookcase was a fourth picture of the
selfsame subject--an etching done with great skill and effectiveness.
The dark girl, gowned in clinging white, was shown against a massed
background. A flowered hat rested upon her poised head; one hand was
outstretched to feed a fawn.
“He has it!” announced Mr. Graves portentously; “he’s another added
to the epidemic. Sue, Phil Rawson’s in love with Genevieve Unger.”
Whereupon he sank between his companions.
Sue did not speak, but sat regarding them from the depths of her chair.
“It’s a particularly bad case,” said Mr. Hammond, “and we fear the
worst.”
“The worst?” questioned Sue in a low voice.
“You know Miss Unger. Is she going to let Hillcrest slip through her
fingers? Hang these visiting girls, anyhow! They always create trouble.”
Sue put up a gloved hand quickly. “Please don’t criticise Genevieve to
me, Len,” she said. “She’s my friend.”
“Just the same, you know what she’ll do,” persisted Mr. Hammond.
“She’ll keep Phil dangling as long as she can--perhaps one month,
perhaps two--then she’ll haughtily accept him. Meanwhile, what’ll he be
good for? Polo? And the Hadbury game comes off in just ten days. We’ll
lose it without him.” He nursed a knee disconsolately.
“We thought,” began Mr. Graves, taking up the matter where Mr. Hammond
had left off, “that you might be able to shorten the period of
agony--the dangling period, I mean. If Miss Unger imagined there was
the least danger that she’d lose him, why, she’d grab him.”
“Yes, she would,” declared Mr. St. Ives. “Her visit at The Lilacs is up
pretty soon. Where’ll she go next?”
“Here,” said Sue quietly, “--if anyone is speaking unkindly of her.”
“That’s lucky for _her_,” went on Mr. Graves. “Your hospitality isn’t
to be sneezed at by a girl who likes to spend all of her income on her
duds.”
Sue rose. “Really,” she said, “I can’t listen any longer. Genevieve is
the handsomest girl in the State of New York. She’s a darling to boot.
And you gentlemen”--this with studied candor--“would have _less_ to
say if each and every one of you had not been given your--your----”
“Mitten?” suggested Mr. St. Ives politely.
“--Last year,” concluded Sue. “I’m sorry I’ve listened to a single
unkind thing about her. I insist that you talk of something else while
you remain.”
“We’d better go, then,” said Mr. Hammond, his face eloquent of woe. “We
came to talk about just that, you see. There isn’t a dashier player, or
a stronger hitter, or a better shot at goal in Westchester County. Of
course, there’s Tommy Watts. He could sub. But none of us want Tommy,
he’s so wild with that whippy stick of his. Oh, why--_why_----”
“I haven’t seen Phil for nearly two weeks,” said Sue. “Grandmamma has
been quite ill.”
“How is Mrs. Townsend?” inquired Mr. St. Ives. “Pardon our forgetting
to ask. We’re so confounded worried----”
“Phil’s happiness must come before polo,” went on Sue very decidedly.
“Surely you didn’t think that I would conspire against him.”
“Oh, nothing of the sort!” cried Mr. Graves. “Our hope wasn’t that you
would butt in--that is, interfere unpleasantly--and break things up. On
the contrary, we wanted you to--er--well, to sort of stampede Genevieve
so that she’d say ‘Yes’ at once, or maybe elope. Oh, if Phil _only_ had
an old cat of a mother who would oppose the match!”
Sue looked down at her boots. Then, after a moment’s thought: “If you
like Phil, and think so badly of Genevieve,” she argued, “why should
you wish to see them marry? I refuse to be the cat.”
“The Hadbury game!” cried Mr. Hammond. “Sue, we want to win that game!”
“Well,” she said, “if Phil really loves Genevieve, and if Genevieve
loves Phil, I’ll try my best to--to--but I make you no promise. I shall
think only of their happiness, of course.”
The three filed to the door. There they turned. “Point out to
Genevieve,” suggested Mr. St. Ives, “that Hillcrest is an ideal place
for entertaining.”
“And mention,” added Mr. Graves, “that Phil’s income is in the first
flight--oh, don’t omit that.”
“But, above all things, cut down the dangling,”--this from Mr. Hammond.
They shook hands with her impressively and filed out into the hall.
Sue returned to the plump chair and sat down. Directly before her was
the writing-desk with its pair of silver-bordered photographs. She
studied the pictures earnestly for a while. And when she turned from
them it was to go to a mirror and look at her own reflection--long and
keenly and with honest eyes. There were her horseback freckles, dotting
her nose as the stars dot the sky, and her square, little, undimpled
chin, and her sunburned cheeks, roughened by all the winds of spring.
“Ah,” she said at last, “she is _so_ beautiful. _I_ love her for her
beauty, too. I don’t blame _any_body for loving her.” Then she left the
mirror and went back to the chair before the couch.
Many another person had contrasted the two. And not a few of the
Country Club members openly asserted--and with wrath--that Genevieve
Unger’s desire for Sue Townsend’s society lay in the fact that Sue,
with her wisp of a figure and her irregular little face, served as a
contrast to the other girl’s stateliness and radiant beauty. But there
were other striking contrasts between the girls, apart from the one
of looks. As one club wag put it, a mere comparison of their footwear
accounts for the year presented the essential difference between them.
During the season, Sue wore out two pairs of riding-boots, tan; one
pair of riding-boots, black; one pair of boots for climbing; three
pairs of stout shoes for morning wear; six pairs of sandals suitable
for use in the surf; ten pairs of tennis shoes, and two pairs of
slippers; while Genevieve’s list for the same length of time included
six pairs of boudoir slippers; six pairs of carriage shoes--to match as
many gowns; one pair of high-heeled shoes unsuitable for street wear;
and twenty-two pairs of slippers in velvet, satin and kid.
But to Sue, ready for her ride forty minutes ahead of the appointed
time, only one contrast appeared. And when Mr. Rawson was announced she
sprang from her chair, bade the servant tell him that she would be down
in one moment, and fled up the stairs to her dressing-room, where she
dabbed a bit of powder upon the offending nose, fluffed out her hair at
either temple, and donned a white chiffon veil.
But Phil barely glanced at her as she came out to her horse. His eyes,
blue like her own, had a far-away expression in them, and he answered
her greeting absent-mindedly. When he had put her up and mounted his
own pony he rode away beside her at a walk, his look fixed ahead of
him eagerly but unseeing; his lips parted in a faint smile. Behind
them, at the prescribed distance, followed the red-cheeked, red-haired
groom.
Sue said nothing, letting her companion have all his thoughts for
himself. Every now and then she gave him a quick, inquiring glance.
When he broke silence at last he spoke musingly--almost as if to
himself. “What a day to be at the dentist’s,” he said. “I hope he won’t
hurt her.”
“Dentist’s?” inquired Sue. “Who’s gone?”
“Why--Miss Unger.” He coloured self-consciously.
“Oh, has she?” went on Sue, surprised. “Are you sure? I thought this
was the date for that lawn fête at the Fanshaws’--Greenwich, you
know--for the benefit of something or other. Genevieve telephoned me
she’d promised to go and sell fudge.”
“But she went to town instead,”--this with finality.
At this point, Sue thought of Messrs. Hammond, Graves and St. Ives, and
of the oncoming contest at Hadbury. “Did you play this morning?” she
asked. “I suppose the team is getting splendidly drilled.”
“I suppose so,” he answered vaguely. He was looking far ahead once more.
“I think I’ll ask Genevieve to drive to Hadbury with me the day of the
game,” resumed Sue.
He turned toward her, then, undisguised pleasure brightening his face:
“How you always think of doing nice things for others!” he said. “Go,
Sue. It’ll be a corking match.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything. And, of course, I’d take Genevieve.
One can’t help doing nice things for _her_. Isn’t she beautiful, Phil!”
She said it earnestly.
“So beautiful that most of the girls aren’t especially kind to her,”
Phil answered. “Just this morning Elizabeth Carlton had to throw out
something--a nasty hint, you understand. It was about Valentine, that
English chap who’s been at the club so much lately.”
“I really don’t know him,” returned Sue. “But I’ve heard----”
“Yes, and I’ll wager it’s all true,” went on Phil hotly. “He isn’t the
sort of a man you’d like to see her marry.”
“Phil, you’ve fallen a victim, too,” said Sue gently.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Well, I told you you would.”
After that the conversation was still of Genevieve, until the gates of
Arbor Lodge were passed again--of Genevieve, the queenly; Genevieve,
the faultless; and (with a little embarrassment on Phil’s part) of
Genevieve, the trampler of hearts.