“Ach, you are onfair,” exclaimed the Baron. “Really?” said Eva, with a
sarcastic intonation he had not believed possible in so sweet a voice.
It was the day following the luncheon at Lincoln Lodge, and they were
once more seated in the shady arbor: this time the Count had guaranteed
not only to leave them uninterrupted by his own presence, but to protect
the garden from all other intruders. Everything, in fact, had presaged
the pleasantest of tete-a-tetes. But, alas! the Baron was learning that
if Amaryllis pouts, the shadiest corner may prove too warm. Why, he was
asking himself, should she exhibit this incomprehensible annoyance? What
had he done? How to awake her smiles again?
“I do not forget my old friends so quickly,” he protested. “No, I do
assure you! I do not onderstand vy you should say so.”
“Oh, we don't profess to be old FRIENDS, Lord Tulliwuddle! After all,
there is no reason why you shouldn't turn your back on us as soon as you
see a newer--and more amusing--ACQUAINTANCE.”
“But I have not turned my back!”
“We saw nothing else all yesterday.”
“Ah, Mees Gallosh, zat is not true! Often did I look at you!”
“Did you? I had forgotten. One doesn't treasure every glance, you know.”
The Baron tugged at his mustache and frowned.
“She vill not do for Tollyvoddle,” he said to himself.
But the next instant a glance from Eva's brilliant eyes--a glance
so reproachful, so appealing, and so stimulating, that there was no
resisting it--diverted his reflections into quite another channel.
“Vat can I do to prove zat I am so friendly as ever?” he exclaimed.
“So FRIENDLY?” she repeated, with an innocently meditative air.
“So vary parteecularly friendly!”
Her air relented a little--just enough, in fact, to make him ardently
desire to see it relent still further.
“You promise things to me, and then do them for other people's benefit.”
The Baron eagerly demanded a fuller statement of this abominable charge.
“Well,” she said, “you told me twenty times you would show me something
really Highland--that you'd kill a deer by torchlight, or hold a
gathering of the clans upon the castle lawn. All sorts of things you
offered to do for me, and the only thing you have done has been for the
sake of your NEW friends! You gave THEM a procession and a dance.”
“But you did see it too!” he interrupted eagerly.
“As part of your procession,” she retorted scornfully. “We felt much
obliged to you--especially as you were so attentive to us afterwards!”
“I did not mean to leave you,” exclaimed the Baron weakly. “It was jost
zat Miss Maddison----”
“I am not interested in Miss Maddison. No doubt she is very charming;
but, really, she doesn't interest me at all. You were unavoidably
prevented from talking to us--that is quite sufficient for me. I excuse
you, Lord Tulliwuddle. Only, please, don't make me any more promises.”
“Eva! Ach, I most say 'Eva' jost vunce more! I am going to leave my
castle, to leave you, and say good-by.”
She started and looked quickly at him.
“Bot before I go I shall keep my promise! Ve shall have ze pipers, and
ze kilts, and ze dancing, and toss ze caber, and fling ze hammer, and it
shall be on ze castle lawn, and all for your sake! Vill you not forgive
me and be friends?”
“Will it really be all for my sake?”
She spoke incredulously, yet looked as if she were willing to be
convinced.
“I swear it vill!”
The latter part of this interview was so much more agreeable than the
beginning that when the distant rumble of the luncheon gong brought
it to an end at last they sighed, and for fully half a minute lingered
still in silence. If one may dare to express in crude language a
maiden's unspoken, formless thought, Eva's might be read--“There is yet
a moment left for him to say the three short words that seem to hang
upon his tongue!” While on his part he was reflecting that he had
another duologue arranged for that very afternoon, and that, for
the simultaneous suitor of two ladies, an open mind was almost
indispensable.
“Then you are going for a drive with the Count Bunker this afternoon?”
she asked, as they strolled slowly towards the house.
“For a leetle tour in my estate,” he answered easily.
“On business, I suppose?”
“Yes, vorse luck!”
He knew not whether to feel more relieved or embarrassed to find that he
evidently rose in her estimation as a conscientious landlord.
. . . . . .
“You are having a capital day's sport, Baron,” said the Count gaily, as
they drew near Lincoln Lodge.
During their drive the Baron had remained unusually silent. He now
roused himself and said in a guarded whisper--
“Bonker, vill you please to give ze coachman some money not to say jost
vere he did drive us.”
“I have done so,” smiled the Count.
His friend gratefully grasped his hand and curled his mustache with an
emboldened air.
A similar display of address on the part of Count Bunker resulted in the
Baron's finding himself some ten minutes later alone with Miss Maddison
in her sanctuary. But, to his great surprise, he was greeted with none
of the encouraging cordiality that had so charmed him yesterday. The
lady was brief in her responses, critical in her tone, and evidently
disposed to quarrel with her admirer on some ground at present
entirely mysterious. Indeed, so discouraging was she that at length he
exclaimed--
“Tell me, Miss Maddison--I should not have gom to-day? You did not vish
to see me. Eh?”
“I certainly was perfectly comfortable without you, Lord Tulliwuddle,”
said the heiress tartly.
“Shall I go avay?”
“You have come here entirely for your own pleasure; and the moment you
begin to feel tired there is nothing to hinder you going home again.”
“You vere more kind to me yesterday,” said the Baron sadly.
“I did not learn till after you had gone how much I was to blame for
keeping you so long away from your friends. Please do not think I shall
repeat the offence.”
There was an accent on the word “friends” that enlightened the
bewildered nobleman, even though quickness in taking a hint was not his
most conspicuous attribute. That the voice of gossip had reached the
fair American was only too evident; but though considerably annoyed, he
could not help feeling at the same time flattered to see the concern he
was able to inspire.
“My friends!” said he with amorous artfulness.
“Do you mean Count Bunker? He is ze only FRIEND I have here mit me.”
“The ONLY friend? Indeed!”
“Zat is since I see you vill not treat me as soch.”
Upon these lines a pretty little passage-of-arms ensued, the Baron
employing with considerable effect the various blandishments of which
he was admitted a past master; the heiress modifying her resentment by
degrees under their insidious influence. Still she would not entirely
quit her troublesome position, till at last a happy inspiration came to
reinforce his assaults. Why, he reflected, should an entertainment that
would require a considerable outlay of money and trouble serve to win
the affections of only one girl? With the same expenditure of ammunition
it might be possible to double the bag.
“Miss Maddison,” he said with a regretful air, “I did come here to-day
in ze hope----But ach!”
So happily had he succeeded in whetting her curiosity that she
begged--nay, insisted--that he should finish his sentence.
“If you had been kind I did hope zat you vould allow me to give in your
honor an entertainment at my castle.”
“An entertainment!” she cried, with a marked increase of interest.
“Jost a leetle EXPOSITION of ze Highland sport, mit bagpipes and caber
and so forth; unvorthy of your notice perhaps, bot ze best I can do.”
Eleanor clapped her hands enthusiastically.
“I should just love it!”
The triumphant diplomatist smiled complacently.
“Bonker vill arrange it all nicely,” he said to himself.
And there rose in his fancy such a pleasing and gorgeous picture of
himself in the panoply of the North, hurling a hammer skywards amidst
the plaudits of his clan and the ravished murmurs of the ladies, that
he could not but congratulate himself upon this last master-stroke of
policy. For if instead of ladies there were only one lady, exactly
half the pleasure would be lacking. So generous were this nobleman's
instincts!
During their drive to Lincoln Lodge the Baron had hesitated to broach
his new project to his friend for the very reason that, after the glow
of his first enthusiastic proposal to Eva was over, it seemed to him a
vast undertaking for a limited object; but driving home he lost no time
in confiding his scheme to the Count.
“The deuce!” cried Bunker. “That will mean three more days here at
least!”
“Vat is tree days, mine Bonker?”
“My dear Baron, I am the last man in the world to drop an unpleasant
hint; yet I can't help thinking we have been so unconscionably lucky up
till now that it would be wise to retire before an accident befalls us.”
“Vat kind of accident?”
“The kind that may happen to the best regulated adventurer.”
The Baron pondered. When Bunker suggested caution it indeed seemed time
to beat a retreat; yet--those two charming ladies, and that alluring
tartan tableau!
“Ach, let ze devil take ze man zat is afraid!” he exclaimed at last.
“Bonker, it vill be soch fun!”
“Watching you complete two conquests?”
“Be not impatient, good Bonker!”
“My dear fellow, if you could find me one girl--even one would content
me--who would condescend to turn her eyes from the dazzling spectacle of
Baron Tulliwuddle, and cast them for so much as half an hour a day upon
his obscure companion, I might see some fun in it too.”
The Baron, with an air of patronizing kindness that made his
fellow-adventurer's lot none the easier to bear, answered reassuringly--
“Bot I shall leave all ze preparations to be made by you; you vill not
have time zen to feel lonely.”
“Thank you, Baron; you have the knack of conferring the most princely
favors.”
“Ach, I am used to do so,” said the Baron simply, and then burst out
eagerly, “Some feat you must design for me at ze sports so zat I can
show zem my strength, eh?”
“With the caber, for instance?”
The Baron had seen the caber tossed, and he shook his head.
“He is too big.”
“I might fit a strong spring in one end.”
But the Baron still seemed disinclined. His friend reflected, and then
suddenly exclaimed--
“The village doctor keeps some chemical apparatus, I believe! You'll
throw the hammer, Baron. I can manage it.”
The Baron appeared mystified by the juxtaposition of ideas, but serenely
expressed himself as ready to entrust this and all other arrangements
for the Hechnahoul Gathering to the ingenious Count, as some small
compensation for so conspicuously outshining him.