Patricia, Angel-at-Large/Part 1
A STORY IN THREE PARTS—I
IT is rather difficult to decide just where the thing really began. Perhaps none of it would have happened if the little Gayley boy had not chosen that particular Friday for his attempt to emulate Peter Pan and fly from his bedroom window with no other equipment than an unquestioning self-confidence and a set of swimming-wings. He not only suffered several painful concussions and contusions and broke a collar-bone, but he also broke up very effectually his mother's contemplated house-party in honor of the American minister to Uruguay and Paraguay, and altered the direction of several lives which were still turbidly seeking new and permanent channels long after his own had been restored to its normal course again.
When Gayley's telegram announcing his son's sad accident reached the minister, he was standing at the door of the club on his way to the Fall River boat. He had just met Ned Davenport, for the first time in years, and was explaining why he could not accept even one more invitation.
I'm sorry, Ned, but I haven't an hour left," he said. "I'm off to Magnolia now, for a week-end at the Gayleys'. Monday I go to Bar Harbor for a week's cruising on Senator Sherwood's yacht. I must be in Washington the following Monday, and shall have to hurry my business there to keep an appointment in Chicago Friday. I shall spend the rest of the summer with my people, somewhere on the Lakes, and not be back here until just before I sail for Montevideo in—"
"Telegram, Mr. Blaisdell," said a page at his elbow, and fifteen minutes later Davenport was triumphantly carrying the diplomat off to his Connecticut country place. They had almost reached it when it occurred to him to ask:
"By the way, Billy, did you ever know Patty Carlyle?"
"Patty Carlyle? Of Detroit? Major Carlyle's daughter? Well, rather! We used to be great pals. Angular kid," he added, smiling reminiscently, "all arms and legs and flying braids—and freckles."
"She's not much like that now," Davenport dryly commented.
"No, I suppose not. That was fifteen years ago. Piquant, fascinating little imp, she was!"
"She's that still. She's staying with us. Get out all your anchors to windward, Billy. You'll need 'em."
"Oh? Dangerous, is she? Well, I've weathered several gales." The minister laughed a little. "I guess I can hold together for forty-eight hours or so in deep water—with no reefs about."
"H'm! Don't be too sure of those old charts of yours. You may run aground where you least expect it."
"You're making me willing to take a chance, anyway. Is she pretty?"
"Yes, she's pretty, but it's not that entirely. She's witty, too—but it's not that, either. I suppose it's charm, and—Well, here we are! You'll see for yourself presently. There she goes now. Look who's here!" he called, and a girl who was crossing the terrace swerved in her course and approached them.
Among all the pictures of her that Blaisdell's mind afterward recorded, this was always one of the most vivid—her lithe figure clad in some filmy, floating white stuff, her bare head daintily yet proudly set, the sunlight reflecting in gold glints from the waves of her brown hair, her sensitive lips smiling a little, and her frank eyes looking straight into his. He sprang out of the car with an eager, "How do you do?"
"Why—!" She stopped short, shot an astonished glance past him at Davenport, and then gave him that clear, direct gaze again. "Why—Billy Blaisdell!"
"The Honorable William Blair Blaisdell now, if you please," announced Davenport, with a flourish. "Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the United States of America to—"
"Oh, dry up!" Blaisdell flung over his shoulder. By this time he was holding both Patricia's hands, and they were smiling delightedly at each other. "How did you know me?"
"How many years is it?" she counter-questioned.
"You were an imp in long braids."
"And you were that scornfulest of all created beings, a senior in college. How you did snub us smaller fry!"
"Never!" he declared. "Not you! You played the best game of tennis of any girl I ever saw."
"But you forgot it when that yellow-haired Vassar girl was available," she reminded him, disengaging her hands. "And you teased me mercilessly about my freckles—and everything else, for that matter!"
"I had to do something to draw your fire. You were a precocious and observant elf, with a disconcerting gift of expression. It was safer to be the attacking party."
"Even in those days you had mastered the first law of diplomacy."
"What's that?"
"Never be caught napping, isn't it?"
"Do you play that game as well as you play tennis?" To the challenging spark in his eye there was an answering flash in hers, but she asked, demurely:
"What game?"
"H'm!" said the minister. "I see you do."
When they entered the house, Davenport was chuckling. An hour or so later he appeared in the doorway of his wife's dressing-room, remarking, as he tied his cravat:
"By the way, Nell, fire and tow have met, and the battle's on."
"What are you talking about?"
"Patty and the Honorable Billy. You never saw anything so sudden. One, two, three, and they were off! Alas, poor Yorick!"
"Don't you worry about Billy Blaisdell," she replied, laughing. "Unless he's greatly changed, he scatters his young affections about as recklessly as you do metaphors—with as little real damage. If he loses his heart in two days, it will come ambling comfortably home on the third, like Bo Peep's sheep."
"Other things come back sometimes," he mentioned. "Chickens—to roost—and boomerangs and things. Billy's too cock-sure he's immune. Some day he'll catch it."
"Not he! But what if he does? Could you ask a better match for either of them?"
"Match!" her husband exploded. "I never thought of that. She never marries 'em!"
"She will some day, goosie!"
"Yes, I suppose she will," he admitted, thoughtfully. "Looked at from that angle, we've shouldered some responsibility, haven't we?"
"Don't let it disturb your slumber, as long as it's only Billy Blaisdell," she advised. "He's a perfect dear! Of course, he is an incorrigible flirt, but he's so transparent about it that he wouldn't mislead a child, much less Patty Carlyle! Don't worry about them. They'll have a lovely time together, and nothing will happen to anybody." Which only goes to show how little any of us realize the dynamic force latent in the simplest situation.
The next contact setting the currents in motion occurred at dinner, when some one mentioned the unwillingness of many human parents to let their young fare forth on their own wings, and Davenport was reminded of a case in point.
"There's Bob Chamberlain, a distant cousin of mine," he said. "Attractive, energetic, ambitious kid, but he's an only child, and ever since his father's death he's been tied tight to his mother's apron-string. Last spring he was keen to go off into the wilds of Brazil somewhere with an engineering party, but when Cousin Julia found she couldn't be near him she made such a row that he finally gave it up. Guess she'll wish now that she'd let him go."
"Why, Ned?" asked his wife.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? She came in to see me to-day. Bob's fallen into the hands of a siren several years his senior, and is determined to marry her."
"Not really! Bob's such a dear, too!"
"How old is he?" Patricia inquired, and Davenport replied:
"Twenty-three. Just out of college."
"And the woman?"
"She's a widow. Owns up to twenty-seven, but is nearer thirty-five, according to his mother."
"Who's entirely unprejudiced, of course," murmured Blaisdell, whereat they all laughed a little.
"Cousin Julia," Davenport continued, "is a perfect specimen of the wealthy suburban type—with one chicken. Fortunately, Frederick Howard—the chap they call 'the water-power wizard'—owns the place next theirs down on Long Island, where they spend their summers, and for years he's been filling Bob up with ideals about the use of wealth in the development of natural resources. That's the reason the kid took the engineering course in college, and when Howard offered to send him to Brazil after he graduated, Bob was for it strong. But his mother wouldn't hear of it, and toted sonny off to Europe two days after Commencement."
"Where does the siren come in?" asked one of the men.
"Right here. They came back a couple of weeks ago to open High Haven, their Long Island place, and she was on the ship. Bob's worth half a million or so now, and will come in for a lot more some time, and the lady went right to it. It's the kid's first experience with that sort of thing, and he's hypnotized. Naturally, his mother's frantic."
"Then why doesn't she stop it?" Patricia inquired.
"My sweet child, she's moved heaven and earth to stop it. She came in to-day to get me into it. Wants me to talk to him like a brother."
"But—surely she isn't fighting it openly—visibly!" cried the girl.
"Sure she is! Tooth and nail! Began on the ship and still going strong."
"But that only fans the flame!"
"Up to date, that's all she's accomplished. You see, she thought that if she could prevent a crisis on board she could whisk Bob directly from the dock to High Haven and fence him in."
"Bob didn't whisk, I take it," Blaisdell remarked.
"Oh yes, he whisked. So did the widow. When she found Cousin Julia couldn't be induced to invite her to High Haven, she remembered that an old friend of hers lived in their vicinity, got herself invited by wireless to visit this Mrs. Fairweather, and they all whisked over on the same train. Fairweather Hill less than a mile from High Haven, siren apparently firmly intrenched there, Bob refusing to leave the neighborhood on any pretext and more deeply in her toils every day—wax in her hands now, his mother says—and there you are!"
"But why are you necessarily there?"
Patricia persisted. "Surely other people model in wax! Has the man no friends? Women friends?"
"Hosts of them! His mother's had them down there singly and in tribes, but he won't play with them at all."
"Of course he won't—thrown at him that way! But is there nobody to meet the woman on her own ground?"
"Apparently not. Anyway, it's too late now."
"She hasn't married him, has she?"
"N-no—he hasn't actually proposed to her yet. He's a modest kid, in his way, and he's afraid she'll refuse him. Says his mother's spoiling what little chance h e has, and all that sort of thing."
"Then of course it's not too late! The right woman could do it."
"Why don't you try it, Miss Carlyle?" a man suggested.
"Hear! Hear! Patricia to the rescue!" Davenport lifted his wineglass.
"Well, you may laugh"—she was laughing herself—"but that's a perfectly good idea! Somebody ought to found an order of women to look after the mis-managed sons of incompetent mothers."
"What's the matter with the younger brothers of well-meaning sisters?" some one asked, "And the husbands of unintelligent wives?"
"Or poor unattached males without any women-folk to guide their faltering footsteps," Blaisdell contributed, smiling into Patricia's eyes.
"Capital! It's a new career!" she cried. "An Order of Female Knights Errant, whose purpose it shall be to succor gentlemen in distress."
"Wouldn't Guardian Angel be a more suitable term to apply to a woman performing that noble mission?" submitted the diplomat, with grave lips and twinkling eyes.
"Better yet!" she returned, in the same tone. "But we must lift the term above its former narrow, circumscribed—er—individual application. Our service must be in accord with the modern awakened social consciousness. We shall be—well—angels-at-large, as it were."
"H'm," deliberated Blaisdell. "Don't you think the man would prefer to know that he was the sole charge of his particular angel?"
"Clip her wings, in other words? Yes, I suppose he would. But need we enlarge man's opportunities for indulging his preferences in that direction?" she deprecated. "You see, ours will be strictly an emergency service, and surely we shouldn't permit the monopolistic desires of one man to interfere with the otherwise wide usefulness of an angel-at-large! Just see what a field we should have," she elaborated, including the whole party in her sparkling glance. "We could settle family quarrels and prevent business disasters. We could supply inventors with capital, investors with opportunity, and artists with inspiration. We could reunite parted lovers and restore bereaved ones to a normal interest in life—and girls—again."
"Which brings us back," Davenport interrupted, "to my unfortunate young cousin. What could you do to save him?"
"Provide him at once with an interesting—and disinterested—woman friend, and never let him discover that she models in wax," she prescribed.
"That's all very well. But how?" retorted one of the men. "Ned says this youngster won't play with girls any more."
"There are ways," he was told.
"It should be done boldly, don't you think?" Blaisdell suggested. "He's completely under the spell of this lorelei. It' s no time for finesse. Explode a bomb under him."
"Perhaps," she admitted.
"I have it! He must save her life!"
"The diplomatic imagination is a trifle lurid, isn't it?" Her manner was politely deprecating. "A little—just a little—under the influence of fiction, perhaps?"
"Not at all!" he maintained. "I submit that no man born of woman can be indifferent to a pretty girl whose life he has saved."
"That's right!" affirmed several men, and he qualified:
"Unless she rubs in the hero-and-preserver business afterward."
"She won't," Patty said, dryly. "Once his interest is really aroused, she'll begin building barriers."
"No, no!" he protested. "You've no time to fool with impediments! Remember, the widow's waiting."
"That's the reason. No properly constituted male ever saw a high stone wall without wanting to climb it. I read that in a book, so it must be true." She twinkled a glance at the diplomat. "A man wrote it."
"H'm. Well—anyway, we have her on the field. She falls on. Now what's the most engaging form of peril? Drowning's always effective, but rather messy. Runaway horses are out of date. I suppose a train wreck would be difficult to arrange, even for angels? How about an automobile collision?"
"An aeroplane smash would be newer," Davenport suggested, with an amused glance at Patricia, while a ripple of laughter ran around the table, "and would be sure to interest Bob."
"The very thing!" cried Blaisdell. "There you are—all done with a simple turn of the wrist! Beautiful maiden literally tumbles out of sky into hero's arms—nice bit of symbolism there, don't you think?—he falls in love with her, and they live happily ever after!"
"His Excellency seems to forget that we contemplate organizing a corps for relief work, not a matrimonial agency," dryly remarked Patricia, adding, with a gleam in Blaisdell's direction: "However, your Excellency's point of view is most refreshing. Pray go on—and don't let any possible danger to the operator curb your fancy!"
"But what chivalrous lady could hesitate at a little personal risk, when the whole future happiness of a noble youth is at stake?" he argued. "No actress would stick at a part like that. And what is this but a clever actress playing to an audience of one? Anyway, it must be a sadly crippled angel for whom aviation holds terrors." Misunderstanding the burst of laughter greeting this sally, he added, "Or do you intend to clip their wings when you enlist them for this service?"
"Not she!" the hostess exclaimed, as they arose from the table. "I wonder whether you know, Billy, that Patty's a particularly skilful and adventurous aviator?"
"No, I hadn't heard that," he admitted; "but having been long conversant with her capacity for sustained flight in other mediums, I'm not surprised that she's added conquest of the air to her many accomplishments." He made a formal little bow to the young woman in question, who swept him an exaggerated courtesy as she replied:
"Your Excellency is too kind! But your Excellency is master of one accomplishment I've never been able to acquire."
"Indeed?" He eyed her warily.
"When I attempt to speak at length with my tongue in my cheek, I invariably end by biting it. Has your Excellency ever had that painful experience?"
"I've had some years in the diplomatic service," he mentioned. "It has its jolts. And before that there was a period when I was privileged to spend more or less time in your society." A privilege, it soon became evident, of which he intended to avail himself still, at every possible opportunity.
In the beginning, it occurred to nobody—least of all to Patricia herself—that her suggestion for a new Order of Chivalry was to have serious consequences. Sunday afternoon, however, Davenport caught sight of her passing through the hall, and called her into the library.
"Look here, Patty," he began; "you intimated the other night that a woman would know how to break up that affair between Bob Chamberlain and the widow. How would you go about it?"
"Are you going to try it?" she asked, smiling.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," he answered, with a puzzled frown. "I've been talking to Cousin Julia on the 'phone, and she's frantic. I advised her the other day to get Howard to renew his Brazilian offer, but she couldn't quite face it. Yesterday she got so desperate she gave in. Howard did his best, and that young fool won't go! Says they're all trying to wreck his life—part him from the only woman—all that rot! He must have a bad case when even Brazil doesn't tempt him! And I—well, I'm fond of the boy. Look here, Patty; would you be willing to go down there and see if you can get him interested in you? Temporarily, of course."
"I? Interested in me!" The amazed look she gave him brought the color to his face, and he explained, clumsily:
"Well, you said the right woman could do it, and—hang it, the kid's got fine stuff in him! Breaks me all up to think of his spoiling his life this way, at the start! I thought if there was any way—and if anybody on earth could out-siren a siren, it would be you!"
At this she laughed a little, but shook her head. "Thanks! The contest doesn't appeal to me. Besides, that isn't the way to go about it."
"What is, then?"
"Don't you know why clerks in candy-shops don't eat candy?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"If they could be thrown together constantly— In other words, if your boy should be fed exclusively on candy for several days—don't you see?"
"By Jupiter!" He looked at her thoughtfully. "I wonder if that's the answer?"
"It's one answer, anyway. If his mother, instead of opposing and antagonizing him, had pretended to be on his side, and had thrown him with that woman morning, noon, and night—made it impossible for him not to be with her—probably it would all be over by this time.
"But she didn't. She couldn't, either. Cousin Julia's not that sort."
"Evidently. That's why I asked if he had a friend—a woman friend."
"He hasn't—unless I have! Patty, won't you go and try it?"
"My dear Ned, don't be absurd! How could I?"
"Why couldn't you?"
"In the first place, I don't know him. And he's not interested in girls, now, anyway."
"He'd be interested in you, all right—especially if you took your monoplane down there. I'd arrange the introductions, and you'd do the rest. Won't you? Please—for my sake?"
"But—I can't deliberately undertake to break up a love-affair, Ned! She may really care for him, even if she is older. Such things happen."
"If you find she does, you can always quit, can't you? And if she doesn't—if it's the money she's after— It's a man's whole future, Patty, and everything else has failed. It's up to you."
"What are you two so absorbed in?" Blaisdell, coming in search of Patricia, smiled at them from the doorway.
"Bob Chamberlain," replied his host. "Come in, Billy. Cousin Julia's played her last card and lost, and she's sounding the S.O.S."
"I suppose you'll complete your metaphor by hot-footing to the rescue," laughed the diplomat as he joined them, and Davenport daringly ventured:
"No. Patty says it's her job."
"Yours? Why yours?" Blaisdell looked at her.
"Have you forgotten the angel-at-large?" she asked, dimpling.
"Oh, I see!" He began to laugh, but a glance at Davenport's face checked him. "Look here! You two aren't— Oh, pshaw! Of course you're not."
"Not what?" Something in Patricia's manner gave her host hope.
"Taking this seriously. I admit you got a rise out of me!"
"The boy's whole life is involved. Doesn't that strike you as serious?" Davenport inquired, an eye on Patty.
"Oh, undoubtedly his situation's serious enough."
"Well, then?" queried the girl, and Blaisdell laughed again.
"No. I may have bitten once, but at least I don't take the same bait twice. Try another worm."
"Can't you see that if ever there was a situation appealing to a woman's sympathies and calling for her help, this is it?" The warmth of her tone brought the diplomat's glance to her face in startled inquiry, and what he saw there puzzled him.
"Need angels, therefore, rush in?" he asked, lightly, and as lightly she answered his implication:
"'Fool' is frequently only another name for a hero who has failed. Anyway, there's nothing angelic about a coward."
"True. But even an angel must stop short of the ridiculous."
"Oh? You think this ridiculous?" The sparkle reappeared in her eye.
"You were so helpful in working out the idea."
"It has humorous possibilities," he granted.
"I'm afraid Bob won't see the humor of the situation if he marries this woman," commented Davenport. "What shall I tell Cousin Julia?"
"Tell her you're writing, and she's to do nothing and say nothing until she receives your letter. That will give us time to think what we'd better tell her," Patricia replied, and again her tone caused Blaisdell to look searchingly at her.
"Are you going to take 'Cousin Julia' into your confidence?" he asked, drawing her into the deep embrasure of a window as Davenport went to the telephone. "Or is she to entertain an angel unaware?"
"I'm afraid she has hardly enough discretion to be trusted with anything as dangerous as the truth," she returned. "Besides, I rather want to do the deed alone, and earn my—what shall I say? Not spurs, I suppose. Halo?"
"Take care it isn't a cap and bells," he warned, laughing. "I dare say you're also contemplating that aeroplane stunt?"
"I am." As a matter of fact, up to that instant she had been only playing with the idea, but all at once she found herself resolved. Davenport's pleading might have won her fully in the end, but Blaisdell's manner piqued her, crystallizing her sympathetic interest into definite purpose, and it was as much to herself as to him that she said so positively, "I am."
"What?" He was still incredulous.
"Aeroplane stunts are my particular delight, and this offers unusual opportunities. I'll think of you gratefully when he saves my life."
"What if he fails to rise to the emergency?"
"There's a risk, of course." She shrugged her shoulders. "But 'what woman could hesitate when the whole future happiness of a noble youth is at stake'?" At this they both laughed softly.
"Your sense of humor always gives you away," he said, concealing his relief. "If it weren't for that, you might almost have fooled me."
"Kind sir, I'm not trying to fool you," she retorted. "You're deceived by your own super-sagacity. For once I'm entirely serious." Again he looked intently at her and encountered a gaze of convincing candor.
"You're joking!" Her only reply was a shrug. "Confess you don't mean it!" Another shrug. "Anyway, not that crazy life-saving stunt! Why, child, think of the danger!"
"All in the day's work! Girls in the movies take that sort of risk constantly, and I shall be 'only an actress, playing to an audience of one.'"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" he began, impatiently, but she stopped him with uplifted fingers, as voices were heard in the hall.
"'Sh! Here come the others! Remember, this is confidential."
As soon as the minister could get his host alone for a moment, he said: "See here, Ned; you don't realize it, but that girl's in earnest! She thinks she's going to do this fool thing!"
"Sure she's going to do it," Davenport calmly assented.
"And you intend to stand for it?"
"Why not? The situation's desperate, and she's worked out an ingenious scheme for handling it. I believe she can pull it off. Anyhow, it will do no harm to try. Things couldn't be worse."
"Oh, couldn't they!" snorted Blaisdell. "Evidently you don't know! She's going to attempt that idiotic aeroplane stunt!"
"Is she?" His friend laughed easily, not in the least believing it. "Well, if she does, it 'll be all right."
"All right! Man alive, she may kill herself!"
"You don't know Patty! She loves her young life. But she'll make Master Bob sit up and take notice, or I miss my guess!
"That's another thing you don't seem to have thought of. Suppose she marries him!"
"She won't."
"How do you know she won't? She's a lovely, fascinating, piquant creature—and you say yourself he's attractive. You throw them into intimate daily intercourse—he falls desperately in love with her—"
"You forget the other woman."
"If Patty Carlyle deliberately sets out to fascinate that kid, there won't be any other woman!"
"You encourage me," said Davenport, laughing. "Evidently you think it will work."
"Work? Of course it will work! But, good Lord, Ned, have you no regard for the girl? Think what it will mean to her if she marries a cub! She's one of the most charming women I ever met! She ought to marry a man of maturity—experience—distinction—"
"I see." His host looked at him with a grin. "Any particular man in mind, Billy?"
"What? No! Don't be a donkey! But I'm in some sense party to this thing, since I helped plan it, and I don't care to be responsible for that girl's tying herself for life to a clumsy, half-baked cub, even if he is your cousin!"
"Well, she won't, Billy; so be ca'm, be ca'm! Bob's a year or so younger than she is—and she's not going to lose her head, anyhow."
"What's her head got to do with it?" growled the other. "A woman's dominated by her heart, not her head—unless she's one of those modern monstrosities whose emotions are atrophied!"
"Patty's emotions are in perfectly good working order," the other assured him, still laughing. "But her head's tight on her shoulders, and it's going to be some cataclysm that shakes it loose!"
"Propinquity—and wealth—and youth—only one answer to that!" gloomily prophesied Blaisdell. Then a new thought occurred to him, and he demanded, "See here; who's responsible for her?"
"Responsible?" Davenport was honestly puzzled.
"Yes. She must have some family somewhere."
"Not a soul except a little old maiden aunt—Miss Chetwoode."
"Can't she prevent this thing?"
"She wouldn't even try, if Patty wanted to do it. She's hypnotized."
"Who are her closest friends, then? Patty's, I mean."
"I suppose we are."
"Then you stand in the position of her brother, and it's up to you to take care of her. She's carried away by her enthusiasm—woman-like, swayed by her emotions—and it's up to you! Tell her she can't!"
"Good Lord, man! Haven't you grasped the fact that Patricia Carlyle's an eminently modern young woman—a free moral agent, 'even as you and I'? It would take more than a near-brother to exercise authority over her. Even a real one couldn't do it."
"Well, by gad! if she were my sister I'd do it! Angel-at-large! Heh! Who's this precious cousin of yours, anyhow, that he can't take his medicine, along with a lot of better men? What business have you interfering in his affairs?"
"If you saw a puppy lapping up poison, you'd take it away from him, wouldn't you?" mildly inquired Davenport, with twinkling eyes.
"Well, I wouldn't send a woman to do it! That's sure! Where's Nell? Perhaps she's sufficiently removed from your family connections to get a perspective on this!" With that, leaving Ned still chuckling, Blaisdell hurried off in search of his hostess, but caught sight of Patricia ascending the stairs and gave chase, overtaking her in the upper hall.
"Patty, don't do this thing!" he begged. "Promise me you won't!"
"But why?"
"Because it's not the sort of thing for you to do."
"Oh?"
"No! Why should you compromise your dignity—your sweet womanliness—"
"O-oh, I see!" She looked up at him with dancing eyes and lips demurely drawn. "If I'll promise to be a good little girl and not step outside the pretty flower-garden, will uncle give me a lollipop?" Blaisdell dropped her hands with a sharp ejaculation. "Really, isn't your Excellency a little absurd?"
"I'm not an Excellency!" he informed her, savagely.
"No?" she teased. "What a pity! It sounds so impressive."
"Why don't you call me Billy? You used to."
"Did I? Well, then—Billy—you're an idiot! I'm enchanted with this plan. It's an adventure."
"You don't want adventures!" he declared. "You don't realize what you're saying. You ought to be protected—sheltered—cherished!"
"All same Chinese little-foot lady?" Her eyes were riotous with suppressed mirth. "No, thank you! Even at the risk of enlarging them, I prefer to use my feet. But I'll promise one thing. No one—not any one at all—shall clip my wings!" And with that dubious comfort he had to be content.
Patricia spent most of the remainder of the day in planning with her host and hostess the details of her arrival at High Haven, and late in the afternoon Blaisdell came upon them composing a letter to "dear Cousin Julia," in which, after promising to think the matter over carefully, Davenport was to urge his kinswoman to keep a tight rein on her emotions, to avoid at any cost further antagonizing her son, and above all not to worry, as everything would come out right—an optimistic confidence for which "dear Cousin Julia" could perceive no adequate reason when she received the letter.
"Shall we advise her at all about her attitude toward Mrs. Yarnell?" Ned asked, and Blaisdell turned toward him with a start, demanding:
"Toward whom? What was that name:
"Yarnell. That's the widow. Elise Yarnell. Ever hear of her?"
"Well, rather! I used to know her very well—but I didn't know she was a widow."
"Where? When?" they chorused.
"Oh, some years ago—before her marriage." Blaisdell's smile was non-committal. "Must be the same girl. Yarnell's not a common name."
"Another of his faded early loves!" sighed Mrs. Davenport. "You might at least wrap them up decently and put them away in lavender, Billy."
"I have no reason to think I departed in any way from the normal course of youth," he returned, laughing. "Dad used to say I was afraid the girl crop would run out. By Jove! Elise Talcott, rediviva!"
"Immortelle, perhaps?" Patricia suggested, observantly, and smiled as his lips twitched. "What's she like, Billy?"
"Very attractive. At least, she used to be."
"How long ago?"
"Oh—perhaps five years."
"You said you were in China five years ago, and hadn't been home for three years before that," she reminded him.
"Did I? Then it must have been before—or perhaps afterward—that I knew Mrs. Yarnell."
"Oh, come across, Billy, come across!" urged Davenport. "When was it?"
"I make it a point never to remember more than five years back where a woman is concerned," the minister imperturbably returned. "And she was very young at the time."
"Did she try to marry you, Billy?" Nell asked.
"Obviously not, since I'm still unfortunate enough to be a bachelor."
"What are her tastes?" Patty questioned. "Literary? Athletic?"
"Philanthropic, I should say." A shadowy smile flickered across his features. "She obeyed very literally the injunction of the Apostle Paul to be all things to all men."
"How she would have graced the diplomatic service! Why weren't you more persistent?"
Blaisdell, having dressed betimes, slipped down to the library while all the others were changing for dinner, and, after some study of the telephone directory, called up a number on Long Island. A few minutes later he was saying:
"Hello. Is that Fairweather Hill? … Is Mrs. Yarnell there? … Yes, please. Tell her an old friend is on the wire.… That you, Elise? Yes, of course it is! You haven't changed at all! I'd have known you anywhere! What? … Why haven't I called you up before?" Here he grinned appreciatively. "Why haven't you sent me your address, so I could? … Oh, didn't you know where to reach me?" Here he laughed outright. "You're the same tactful Elise and you're putting up a good bluff, but it's quite evident, my sweet child, that you've not the faintest notion whom you're talking to! … Oh, it does sound familiar, does it? That speaks well for your memory, for it's a voice from the far-away.… Oh, very far. I've forgotten just how far"—here he grinned again—"but it must be almost five years, I should think. You were about eighteen.… Well, let's stop sparring and get down to brass tacks. Do you, by any chance, remember one B. Blaisdell, who used to worship at your— What? … Billy Blaisdell. No other! … No, not ambassador yet; just minister. Good little Elise! Keep track of your old friends, don't you? … I've been playing around New York for a couple of months, but only heard to-day that you were here.… Oh, just happened to, indirectly, through somebody you never heard of. Very roundabout. Look here, Elise. I want to see you.… Well, I'm supposed to leave for Maine to-morrow, but I'll stay over if you and your friend Mrs. Fairweather will run into town for dinner and the theater to-morrow night. Will you? … Ask her to stretch a point in my favor. I've just got to see you! I'll hold the wire.… What? Guests to dinner? Oh, thunder! Can't she— What? … For the night? … I don't hear. For the day? … Oh, for as long as I can stay? … That's mighty sweet of her! … Yes, I am pretty well tied up, but—I think I can arrange it. I'm prepared to do almost anything to see you.… That's very kind of her. You're sure I won't be in the way? … Then I'll come, with great pleasure. I can't say just how long I can stay, but I'll try to make it two or three days, anyway.… Thanks. What's the station? … Oh, all right. To-morrow atone, then… By!"
He replaced the receiver on the hook, absorbedly regarded it for a moment, and then threw back his head in silent laughter. When the others came down to dinner they found him serenely smoking on the veranda.
The next morning Patricia motored into town with Davenport and Blaisdell, and they left her at the entrance to a woman's club.
"Good-by, Billy," she said, giving him her hand. "It's been like a breath from home to see you again. Good-by—and good hunting!"
"Thank you for that! Hasta la vista!"
"What does that mean?"
"It's the Spanish equivalent of 'See you later,'" he explained, smiling. "Until we meet again."
"Ah, that's a far cry, I'm afraid! You're off to Bar Harbor to-day, and have all your summer full. I'm going to Long Island for an indefinite stay, and after that—" She shrugged her shoulders, and he supplied:
"After that—quien sabe?"
"Ouien sabe?" she echoed. "Let's hope, anyway, that it won't be another fifteen years before we meet."
"It won't. I can positively assure you of that, "he asserted. "Hasta la vista!"
She nodded to Davenport and turned away. At the top of the step, however, she paused and looked back at the men in the car, smiling as she called:
"Hasta la vista. Is that right?"
"That's right!" Blaisdell affirmed. Then he chuckled.