Patricia, Angel-at-Large/Part 2
A STORY IN THREE PARTS—II
MRS. YARNELL was playing a very astute game. She read clearly all Bob Chamberlain's boyish doubts and fears as to his worthiness, and knew that she had only to lower her walls a little to bring him leaping across to her. But she did not underestimate the strength of the forces that would be brought to bear upon him in that trying period between betrothal and marriage, and she wished to make sure of her power to hold him against any inducements to leap back over those lowered walls before escape should be impossible. To this end nothing could be more effective than a little active rivalry—and what rivalry more effective than that of a middle-aged and attractive diplomat?
On the other hand, Mrs. Fairweather, a pretty, faded, worldly woman, although cherishing no sentimental prejudices against marriage for revenue only, felt strongly that for a woman of Elise Yarnell's age to risk yoking herself with a boy of twenty-four would be too perilous a venture, even with the Chamberlain fortune to lubricate the wheels of their apple-cart. Therefore she hoped Blaisdell's eagerness to see her guest might augur the renewal of an early attachment, and an opportunity for Elise to make a more suitable marriage—an impression Mrs. Yarnell would have been the last to dispel, even had there been no undeclared suitor whose chains it might rivet.
Consequently, when the American Minister to Uruguay and Paraguay arrived at Fairweather Hill, he was received with timbrel and dances and high-sounding cymbals by his hostess, with coy cordiality by the engaging widow, and with a chastened and rapidly diminishing enthusiasm by young Chamberlain, who from the moment of the diplomat's arrival found himself inexplicably but quite definitely occupying the position of cup-bearer at the feast, a service for which he had less and less relish.
All that afternoon Blaisdell looked and listened in vain for any sign of the angel-at-large, and when Mrs. Fairweather tried at frequent intervals and by various means to win from him an assurance that he would remain with them at least a week, he temporized, pleading that official duties might call him away at any moment. As he said these things, however, he invariably looked at Mrs. Yarnell, who as invariably assumed an elaborately unconscious expression, whereupon the elder woman astutely told herself that those two thought they were being very artful, but they need not try to deceive her.
By night, when she gave an impromptu dinner dance in the minister's honor, Mrs. Fairweather was sufficiently sure of her conclusions to confide them to several friends. Before the evening was over her guests were smilingly intimating to one another that the widow had more than one string to her bow after all, and the men were laying bets as to whether maturity, moderate means, and a distinguished position would win out against callow youth and a large fortune, with odds in favor of the fortune. When, however, it was skeptically suggested to Mrs. Fairweather that Blaisdell might have no more serious intention than to renew his acquaintance with an old friend, she demolished doubt with logic.
"What else could have brought him flying out here in that precipitate fashion? It's an old affair—and there must be some good reason why so attractive a man is still a bachelor. He'd never heard that she was a widow until just before he telephoned yesterday afternoon, and he broke any number of important engagements to come out here this morning. No merely friendly interest accounts for that, you know—especially in a man of his position!"
Rumors of this even reached Mrs. Chamberlain by telephone, through interested friends, and she immediately called up Mrs. Fairweather, obtaining her promise to bring her guests over to High Haven for tennis and luncheon the following day. That night, for the first time since the beginning of Mrs, Yarnell's campaign, Bob's mother closed her eyes with something approaching thanksgiving and a glimmer of hope. Not so her son, who spent the evening vainly trying to extricate himself from the position in which he was placed and skilfully held by the diplomat's entirely courteous and friendly assumption that the younger man was very young indeed. Bob drove furiously home in the small hours, raging, sore at heart, and more than ever determined to prove his manhood in the eyes of his beloved.
He was also determined that he would so arrange matters the next morning that Elise should be his partner at tennis, leaving the minister to play with whomever else his mother might have invited. Great was his consternation, therefore, when he lounged down-stairs just before the hour set for the game, to learn that there would be only four players, the other being Janet Howard, the fifteen-year-old daughter of their neighbor, the "water-power wizard." He was still hotly accusing his mother of stacking the cards—assuring her that if Blaisdell chose to stand for that kid as a partner, well and good, but as for him, he wouldn't, and she needn't try to make him—when the arrival of the party from Fairweather Hill put an end to the discussion.
High Haven was remarkable for its many fine trees, and the tennis-courts had been laid out near one of the largest, beneath the spreading branches of which non-combatants took their ease in gaily cushioned chairs while watching the games. To this inviting spot the Chamberlains had escorted their guests when Janet exclaimed:
"Oh, Bob, did you see the monoplane?"
"Monoplane? Where? When?" Blaisdell demanded.
"This morning—about an hour ago. There were two people in it, and they circled around here quite awhile."
"Somebody from Mineola, I suppose," Chamberlain explained. "We often see them. Great sport! I'm going in for it."
"Now, Rob!" his mother fretted. "You know the one thing I ask of you is not to take up aviation! It's so dangerous!"
"Sorry, but I can't always be a perfect lady, even to please you, mums. Come on; let's get some action! Elise, shall we do up these people?"
But again Mrs. Chamberlain interposed. "Now, Rob! It's probably a long time since the minister's had Mrs. Yarnell as his partner, and you and Janet play together beautifully."
"That sounds like an excellent arrangement," the diplomat approved. "You're probably in practice, Chamberlain, but Mrs. Yarnell will be indulgent to me as an old friend. I can ask her to accept defeat with better grace than I can impose it on Miss Janet here. Do you remember the back-hand stroke I taught you once, Elise?"
She said she had thought of him every time she had used it since, whereat Bob sent a ball spinning across the court with a savage cut, and feigned not to hear when she asked him to fetch her racket from the table under the tree. After they had played two furious sets, in which Blaisdell gave no indication of needing indulgence, Mrs. Chamberlain insisted that they must rest and cool off before beginning the third. They were lounging under the tree and the minister was telling an amusing story, when he broke off, asking sharply:
"What's that?"
"Aeroplane," somebody said, and they all looked up.
"Jove!" shouted Chamberlain, springing to his feet. "It's right on us! Run! Run!" He pulled his mother and Mrs. Fairweather out of their chairs, and they scurried away as Blaisdell, making a megaphone of his hands, roared a warning to the occupants of the flying car.
"Look out there! Look out!"
Elise clasped appealing fingers on Bob's arm, and he ran with her down the path toward the house. Janet, shrieking, fled across the courts. But Blaisdell stood transfixed and staring, while the monoplane swept on toward the catastrophe he had so lightly planned.
The machine struck and settled in the broad top of the tree, which swayed and shivered, dropping a crackling shower of leaves and twigs about him. With an ejaculation he ran a few steps and held up his arms as a slender, khaki-clad figure broke through the leafy thatch, clinging for a moment to the yielding upper branches, apparently half-conscious and struggling for a foothold. Then it dropped into the crotch of one of the high limbs, where it lodged precariously, inert and limp.
"Patty! Oh, Patty!" he gasped, not realizing that he spoke. He dragged a chair under the lowest bough, swung himself into the tree, and climbed rapidly toward that relaxed figure, huskily reiterating: "Patty! Are you hurt? Patty!"
As this repetition of her name reached her, her drooping lids opened a little and then popped wide, disclosing very bright, alert, astonished eyes.
"Good heavens!" she ejaculated, looking down at him. "You go back!"
Instead, he found a firm footing on the branch beneath her, and reached up to lift her from the higher one over which she still hung lifelessly, exclaiming:
"How could you be so foolish? You're hurt!"
"I'm not, you idiot!" she wrathfully whispered. "Will you go back? Where's Bob?"
"Oh, Mr. Blaisdell!" called Janet, who had ventured near enough to see them indistinctly up among the leaves. At the first sound of her voice Patricia's eyes closed again. "Is he killed?"
"No," was the curt response. "Tell somebody to bring a ladder."
"Have you got him? Is he hurt?"
"I don't know. Don't stand chattering! Get that ladder!"
Janet ran toward the house, crying:
"A ladder! He wants a ladder!" and Patricia opened her eyes, demanding, in a wrathful whisper:
"What are you doing here?"
"Saving your life." A glimmering smile relaxed his drawn features a little.
"You sha'n't!"
"But I have!"
"Mr. Blaisdell, is he badly hurt?" whimpered Mrs. Chamberlain, from the edge of the tennis-court where she and Mrs. Fairweather were clinging together and trembling.
"I think not; but you ladies had better keep back," he called. "You can't help at present, and this infernal thing overhead may come down any minute."
Whereupon the two women retired precipitately.
"Cheat!" breathed Patricia, hotly, trying to wriggle out of his firm clasp.
"Careful! They're all watching," he whispered. "How could you be so reckless? You might have killed yourself!"
"Stop that! Let me alone!" she protested, as he prepared to lift her. "Where is Bob Chamberlain?"
"Steady! You're getting pretty active, aren't you? Mustn't recover too rapidly from such a dead faint," he warned, with amusement.
"Hey, there!" Bob was heard shouting in the distance.
"Hullo!" the minister replied. Patricia, who was still resisting his efforts to change her position, promptly collapsed on his shoulder, to his huge enjoyment, and he seized the moment to lift her off her branch and wrap one arm firmly about her.
"Anybody hurt?" called Bob.
"Can't tell yet. Hope not. Just beginning to revive." Blaisdell stepped carefully down to a larger branch, upon which he seated his apparently unconscious charge, propped her firmly against the trunk of the tree, and sat beside her, supporting her with an encircling arm. "Keep everybody back, Chamberlain. I can manage all right." Without turning her head, Patricia treated him to a baleful glare, and he chuckled.
"Mother! For Pete's sake, somebody come here!" Bob entreated. "Elise has sprained her ankle."
Mrs. Chamberlain and her friend again approached, timorously, and again the minister warned them off.
"Better go around the other way, ladies. Give this thing a wide berth. It may slide off any time!"
"But you!" twittered Mrs. Fairweather. "You're in such danger!"
"We're pretty safe against the trunk here, but the rest of you keep away."
They were not slow to act upon this advice, and hurried off, Mrs. Fairweather ejaculating: "What heroism! What wonderful heroism!" When they were out of sight, Patricia backed up against the tree-trunk, withdrawing herself as far as possible from contact with her rescuer, and remarked:
"Well, my word!"
"All right, Miss Carlyle?" asked a cautious voice overhead.
"What? Oh yes—yes, Kate, all right."
"Who's that?" Blaisdell demanded, with startled eyes.
"My mechanic."
"But—but that's a woman!"
"Of course!" was the laconic retort. "All firm, Kate? No danger?"
"Sure! Safe as safe! Prettiest landing I ever saw!"
"Look here!" Blaisdell burst forth. "Haven't you a man with you?"
"A man?" Patricia repeated. "Why should I have a man with me?"
"Does Ned Davenport let you go out in that devilish thing without a man?"
"My good sir, would you have me travel for a week with one?" she inquired. "And in any event, what has Ned to do with it?" Even as she uttered the words she unexpectedly toppled against him, nearly tipping him off the branch.
"Patty! Patty, you are hurt!" he exclaimed, before he, too, caught sight of Bob running toward them under the trees. "Oh, I see!" he said, laughing. "You imp!"
"Can I help you, Blaisdell?" Bob called, as he drew near.
"Yes. Get some brandy," commanded the other. "Quickly, please."
Bob came under the tree and looked up, asking, "Think he's badly hurt?" Then he stared. "Jove! Is that a woman?"
"Yes. Hurry up that brandy," snapped the minister, feigning great solicitude for the girl in his arms, who immediately developed symptoms of returning consciousness. "And water. Pitcher of water."
But Patty, her head still on Blaisdell's shoulder, chose this moment to unveil her lovely eyes and regard the big, good-looking young fellow staring up at her.
"Jove!" he said again, "She's coming to!"
"Is she? Well, you hustle along for that brandy," advised the elder man, whereat she lifted her head and turned her slow gaze upon him.
"Oh!" she faltered. "I—I fell, didn't I? So sorry! Is this your tree?"
"You bet it isn't!" Bob informed her. "It's my tree."
"Is it?" She smiled down at him faintly. "It's a very nice tree. So—so hospitable!" She stretched out her hands to Chamberlain, asking, "Could you take me down, please?"
"Sure!" Straightway he swung himself up to the lower bough, but Blaisdell tightened his arm about the girl and drew her back, as he counseled, soothingly:
"Better not. Not just yet. Hurry that brandy, Chamberlain. She'll faint again in a minute."
"No, I won't! I want to get down!" she insisted, more imperiously, and Bob, holding up ready arms to take her, echoed:
"She wants to get down!"
"Steady! Steady!"—still that soothing tone, in the possessive authority of which Bob vaguely heard a challenge, but which to Patricia was full of smooth mockery. "She's revived several times and gone clear off again when she moved. Better be quiet a little longer."
"No; give her to me." Bob was imperious now. "We can get her down all right, and she may be hurt."
"She doesn't seem to be—in pain, exactly." Blaisdell smiled down at her quizzically, adding, with enjoyment: "All she needs is a stimulant. Oh, by the way," he suggested, as Bob dropped to the ground, "there's another woman up there. You might come back and help get her down. Janet's gone for a ladder."
"All right." Bob ran toward the house, angrily muttering: "Just my darn luck! He's gone and hogged the whole show again! I never even had a look-in! Heroism! Huh! Anybody could have done that!"
After one eloquent glance at Blaisdell, whose eyes alone betrayed his humor, Patricia commanded, "Kate!"
"Yes, Miss Carlyle?"
"Come down."
"No, no!" countermanded Blaisdell. "Stay where you are. The ladder will be here presently."
"You hear, Kate? Come down."
"Coming, Miss Carlyle."
"Then let me help you." The minister scrambled to his feet and began to climb toward the figure already rustling the upper branches.
"Me?" The girl laughed, descending rapidly and surely. "Thank you, sir; don't trouble. I'm just as near a monkey as any man—when I'm dressed for it."
Patricia had seized the opportunity, while his attention was diverted, to swing herself out of the tree, and now stood, erect and trim in her khaki costume, watching his vain attempts to help her nimble maid.
Somewhat discomfited, he finally dropped beside her, twitching his clothes into shape and remonstrating: "You'd have let Chamberlain help you. Why won't you let me?"
"Why should I pretend helplessness to flatter your vanity?" she asked, lightly. "Offer me help I really need, Billy, and I'll accept it very gratefully. Any damage, Kate?" When she learned that the only visible injury to the monoplane consisted of a hole or two punched in the canvas, and that the machine could probably be brought down without much difficulty, she despatched the woman for ropes and assistance, and then turned a searching eye upon Blaisdell, suggesting: "Now perhaps you'll be good enough to explain this?"
"With pleasure. Mrs. Fairweather kindly invited me down to meet my old friend Mrs. Yarnell—and I came."
"You deliberately blocked my scheme!"
"I had an impression that this life-saving business was my scheme," he reminded her, "and a fool scheme it was, too!"
"Is this your idea of fair play? Of loyalty?"
"Why not? I'm willing to admit, in confidence—to you," with an air of engaging candor, "that the visit to Elise was more or less a ruse."
"Are you, indeed!"
"More or less. Of course, I'm very fond of Elise. You'll find her charming. But if the whole truth were known, I suppose I really came to be a barrier."
"To be a what?"
"I'm Bill the Barrier." He nodded at her, reassuringly. "You said you expected to erect a few barricades, and I thought I'd save you that trouble. I came to be one."
"Well, you succeeded!"
"I feel that I've not entirely failed," he modestly acknowledged. "And if that youngster attempts to climb over me, I'm prepared to give him some lively exercise."
"You don't mean—" she broke off in amazement. "You're not planning to stay here!"
"Well, that depends. I hope not, but—it depends."
"On what?"
"On the length of the game," he told her, slowly. "I'm going to see it through."
At this moment Bob appeared in the distance, carrying a water-bottle in one hand and a decanter of brandy in the other. A servant behind brought glasses and various restoratives, and Mrs. Chamberlain hurried in the rear.
Patricia spoke quickly, under her breath: "You find this very humorous, don't you? Amusing!"
"Do I?" He regarded her steadily. "Are you sure I do?"
"You think it's all absurd and ridiculous," she continued, not heeding him. "But please try to understand that I'm serious about it. I laughed, of course, when we planned it, but underneath I'm quite serious. I promised Ned—and it's worth doing. It appeals to me."
"My dear girl, it may be a sweet, generous, lofty ideal you're following, but it's utterly fantastic. It can't be realized."
"It can be realized!" she retorted. "In any case, there's no occasion for you to interfere."
"I was protecting you to the best of my ability," he offered, with specious meekness.
"Protecting me from what, pray?"
"From yourself, my dear child, and your own ill-considered impulses."
"If you'd protected me from yourself and your wholly unconsidered impulses, it would have been more to the point! Anyway, what is it to you? Keep out of it!"
"That's impossible, you see," he murmured, "because I'm already in it. And I feel a growing conviction that I'm in it to stay." To this she vouchsafed only a withering glance before she turned, an indignant flush still tingeing her cheeks, and called to Bob, now quite near:
"I'm so sorry to have made so much trouble!"
"You're better, then? Bully!" he exclaimed. "You're looking fine!"
"I'm quite all right now, thanks. I'm afraid I frightened you terribly!" she added, glancing toward his mother, who now joined them, panting.
"Indeed you did! I'm all upset yet. But I wouldn't have gone away and left you if I'd known you weren't a man." Mrs. Chamberlain gazed with obvious disapproval at Patricia and her costume. "It never occurred to me any woman would be flying around like that! Weren't you hurt at all?" Her manner indicated that if this adventurous young person had escaped physical injury, justice had miscarried, and Bob made haste to interpose with conventional phrases.
"This is my mother, Mrs. Chamberlain, Miss—er—"
"Miss Carlyle," Blaisdell supplied.
"I'm awfully sorry to have given you such a shock, Mrs. Chamberlain," the girl deplored, her manner a winning admixture of grace and penitence. "It was stupid of me! Do please forgive me!"
"You had the worst of it," said Bob. "I suppose it's too late to present Mr. Blaisdell? He's probably introduced himself."
"I have," the diplomat admitted; whereupon Miss Carlyle fixed upon him a clear glance, calmly stating:
"He didn't need to. We're old friends."
"What? Really?" Chamberlain was puzzled. "But—you didn't seem to know him!"
"Well, he was the last person in the world I expected to see," she explained, truthfully, "and just at first I was a bit dazed. Besides, it was years ago that we knew each other—when we both lived in Detroit."
Mrs. Chamberlain took the bait at once. "In Detroit!" she cried. "Are you from Detroit? I wonder whether you ever knew my cousin, Ned Davenport, there?" She spoke to Blaisdell, but it was Patricia who replied:
"Oh yes! Is he your cousin? I know the Davenports rather well."
"Indeed?" The response was uncertain. Bob's mother had already classified the girl in her own mind as a questionable person of spectacular tastes, and this nonchalant claim of acquaintance with perfectly reputable, conventional members of her own family was disconcerting. "Do you know him, too, Mr. Blaisdell?"
"I used to know him very well indeed, but I've been away too much to see him often of late years. As a matter of fact, Patty, I think the last time we met was at the Davenports'. Wasn't it?"
"Was it?" she returned, thoughtfully.
All this put rather a different face upon the situation from Mrs. Chamberlain's point of view, and she invited Patricia to join her informal luncheon party with less reluctance than she would otherwise have felt. The girl's laughing protest that she was not dressed for the drawing-room was overruled by the men, who argued that her aviating costume was quite as formal as their tennis flannels, and eventually they all strolled over to the house, where Patricia was presented to the assembled guests, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Howard and several other neighbors. Mrs. Yarnell was missing, but it was explained that her ankle had proved to be only slightly strained, after all, and that she would join them presently.
"And you really came through that awful accident quite unscathed?" Mrs. Fairweather marveled.
"Quite," Patricia assured her, smiling.
"Thanks, I'm sure, to Mr. Blaisdell! A hero's wreath, Mr. Minister, in addition to the laurels you already wear!"
"You give me too much honor. I really did nothing," he deprecated, while Bob glowered.
"Oh, listen to the man! He was wonderful—standing there so calmly waiting for the crash, while we cowards all ran away! I thought he'd be killed!"
"It must have seemed much worse than it was," Patricia said, with her candid smile. "There really wasn't the least danger. I stupidly lost my bearings, and the big tennis-courts here looked as if this might be the Country Club. There's no very good place to land—we can't always be perfectly exact in volplaning—and when I found I wasn't going to make that little patch of lawn out there, I took the tree. Rather nicely, if I may say so."
"Intentionally?" asked Bob, astounded.
"Why, surely! I didn't want to risk colliding with something and smashing my plane. But when I stepped out, I missed my footing, somehow. Perhaps a branch broke. Anyway, I fell, and I suppose I must have struck something that stunned me for a moment. That's all. I'm sorry to deprive you of that wreath," she smiled in friendly fashion at Blaisdell, across the veranda, "but I cannot tell a lie."
"Sincerity was always your crowning virtue," he mentioned, laughing a little.
"As generosity was yours," she returned.
At this point Mrs. Yarnell made her appearance on the veranda, exquisitely coifed and tailored, and limping ever so slightly. Several of the party moved toward her with sympathetic questions, among them Blaisdell. Bob, leaning against the rail on the opposite side of the group; straightened up alertly, but before he could take a step Patricia exclaimed, softly:
"Oh, what a good-looking woman! Who is she?"
"Elise Yarnell?" His assumption of carelessness by no means disguised the quick glow in his eyes. "She's a widow, staying at Fairweather Hill. She is good-looking, isn't she?"
"I should think you'd all be crazy about her," she declared, youthfully, and he, laughing and flushing slightly, acknowledged:
"Well—some people are—rather. I haven't known her very long, but she and your friend the minister are old pals," he added, his face darkening a little. "He plays a corking game of tennis."
"He always did. We used to play together a lot. I wonder whether he goes in at all for aviation?" was her next move. "You do?"
"N-no, I haven't—yet. I'm going to take it up, though."
"Oh, you must! It's wonderful sport! I'm sorry my plane's temporarily out of commission, but perhaps my mechanic will get it in shape so I can take you up this afternoon before I leave. That is—would you trust my driving?"
"Try me! Gee! I wish you lived near here. Oh, by Jove!" A germinating idea suddenly took form, and he perceived it to be of Machiavellian subtlety. "I say, you don't have to go back right away, do you? Why can't you stay down a few days?"
"I?"
"Sure! Why not? There'd be four of us then—you and Blaisdell, and—oh, bully scheme! Hey, mums!" he called, heedless of Patricia's laughing dissent.
Mrs. Chamberlain had been summoned to the telephone, but by the time her son allowed her to take up the receiver, she was, if possible, more perturbed than ever, and it seemed to her little less than providential that Davenport should have chosen that particular moment to call her up, ostensibly to inquire whether the situation between Bob and the widow had improved at all. Fortunately she could not see the grin with which he listened to her disjointed account of Patricia's amazing exploit, and his expressions of surprise sounded entirely sincere. At the first mention of Blaisdell's name, however, he uttered a sharp ejaculation, followed by rapid questions concerning the diplomat, the time of his arrival, and his plans. When she told him, as a crowning calamity, of Bob's insistence that she must invite Patty to stay at High Haven, he returned:
"Well, that's a perfectly good scheme! You do it!"
"But—Ned!"
"No buts about it! If the kid's that much interested in Patty already, you keep her there as long as she'll stay!"
"But suppose she tries to marry him?"
"She won't! Don't worry."
"But if she should? A girl of that sort!"
"Of what sort?" The wire vibrated to a warning note. "Don't make any mistake about Patricia Carlyle, Cousin Julia. Bob may be a lucky kid, but he's not that lucky! She won't marry him. And you can't be too cordial to her. She's all right in every way—and a brick, besides!"
"But—Ned!" wailed Bob's distracted parent. "She'll be sure to get him interested in aviation!"
"All right! Let him marry the Yarnell woman, then."
"No, no! But Mr. Blaisdell's so devoted to her—and he's a diplomat and all— Oh, Ned, don't you think she'll marry him?"
"Give it up," said Davenport. "I don't know what Billy's up to, but it's probably just pure deviltry. I'll try to find out. But whatever you do, don't you let Patty Carlyle get away from you! She's your best card!"
Meanwhile, having been established in the most comfortable chair on the veranda, Mrs. Yarnell prettily declared that she must meet "the heroine of this wonderful adventure," and Blaisdell duly took Patricia to her. In the moment that the two women sat chatting together, most of the observers became aware that Elise seemed suddenly to have lost freshness. Notwithstanding the widow's white simplicity, something about the frank khaki-clad girl made her seem a little artificial and over-groomed. Nobody phrased it, but everybody felt it more or less consciously.
Presently Bob joined them, and a few moments later, his mother—still beset by doubts and misgivings, but habitually submissive to the dominant male—came out to proffer her invitation, which Patricia at first declared she could not accept. One by one, however, she permitted her objections to be overruled, and in the end Mrs. Chamberlain hurried away to order a room prepared for her.
"Three cheers!" Bob rejoiced. "Now we're all set!"
"How delightful! But what of your poor steed? Or does it require neither food nor stable?" The widow's smile was sweetness itself. "Perhaps it habitually browses about on people's tree-tops?"
"My steed, as you may have noticed, is winged, and moves rather rapidly," was the light reply. "It's never necessary—though it is sometimes convenient—that it should roost on the premises." Mrs. Yarnell still smiled, but she shot a sharp, appraising glance at the girl, who turned with a pleasantly casual air to Bob, adding, "Before I send it over to Mineola this afternoon, perhaps you'd like to try a flight?"
"Rather!" he agreed, and in the same breath Blaisdell objected:
"No, no! You mustn't attempt that!"
"Mustn't I?" There was a warning gleam in Patricia's eye. "Why mustn't I?"
"Not until it's been overhauled by a competent mechanic, anyway."
"My mechanic is entirely competent."
"That woman?" he scoffed. Then, to the others, "She has only a woman mechanic!" There were exclamations and questions, as the group gathered closer, and an alert-looking man, whom Patricia afterward learned to be Frederick Howard, commented:
"Excellent! That's up to date! I hope she's making good, Miss Carlyle."
"She is."
"Do you mean to say," Blaisdell demanded, "that you think running an engine is a job for a woman?"
"Anything she wants to do is a job for a woman, provided she can do it successfully," Howard replied. "That's the proof of the pudding."
"Hear! Hear!" cried two or three of the guests, laughing; but Mrs. Yarnell arched delicate eyebrows and shrugged dainty shoulders as she smiled up at Bob, perceiving which, Patty promptly flung him a challenge.
"Are you afraid?"
"Afraid nothing!" he flouted. "I'm for it if you are!"
"Good! Sensible man! Now will somebody please take me to a telephone, so I can send for some clothes? I really can't dine in these!"
Bob escorted her to an instrument in the library, and called up her number, but it was Blaisdell whom she found awaiting her when she turned, after hanging up the receiver.
"Look here!" he began at once, warmly, "you don't really intend to use that machine to-day? It's a bluff, isn't it?"
"Call it, and see," she suggested.
"All right. Unless you withdraw from that arrangement before coffee is served at luncheon, I shall gently explain to you, in the presence of several people, that flying-machines of all sorts terrify Mrs. Chamberlain inexpressibly, and that it would subject her to the most acute suffering if her son should go up in one."
"My word! That's a nice, catty trick!" she observed. "May I ask how long you intend to keep this up?"
"I don't know," he said. "How long do you?"
"I suppose by this time you've persuaded yourself that the whole scheme was yours, and that blocking it is legitimate amusement!"
"Amusement has not been my dominant emotion this morning," he told her.
"No? Then what are you doing it for? You must have some object!"
"That cub's more than half in love with you already!"
"He's nothing of the sort," she contradicted. "But even if he were, what of it?"
"You're not going to fall in love with him if I can prevent it," he asserted, doggedly, and she declared:
"Oh, there's no more danger of my falling in love with him than if I were his nurse!"
"That's all right. Lots of men have married their nurses."
"Very well. Suppose I do marry him. What business is it of yours?"
"Well—this isn't just the moment I should have chosen to tell you, but if you must have it—I want to marry you myself."
She met his steady gaze with an astonished stare, and then laughed shortly. "Oh, you're too absurd!"
"It may seem absurd," he quietly conceded. "The deepest emotions frequently do—to other people."
"The depth of your emotions is about equal to their duration, I fancy," she said, turning away, but he stopped her.
"Don't make that mistake! My emotions are not transient. But I'm accustomed to make quick decisions, and I knew before we left Davenport's house Monday morning that you're the only woman in the world I want for my wife!"
"Still afraid the girl crop will run out?" she inquired, lightly.
"More than that," he went on with increasing ardor, not heeding her; "I knew it had been the unconscious, unrecognized memory of you that had kept me all these years from ever wanting any other woman for my wife! I know now that it's you I've been hungering and thirsting for all these lonely, blind years—just you! And when I've found you at last, do you think I'm going to give you up without a struggle? Do you think I'm going away and leave that young jackanapes yonder making love to you? Do you think it's fair that I should have no chance at all?"
"Is diplomacy always as precipitate as this?" she asked, dimpling.
"But remember, I've no time to lose! In two months J must sail for South America—and I'm going to take you with me!"
"Does it occur to you," she suggested, with an amused little grimace, "that your method of—attack is the word, I think—savors somewhat strongly of the cave-man and his club?"
"I can't help that," he retorted. "You're forcing this situation—not I."
"I!"
"Do you think I choose to come at it this way—hands down? Don't you think I'd have preferred to approach you more gently—more subtly? Give up this outlandish thing and go home, and I'll woo you as conventionally as you please. But, by the Lord Harry! I will not go away and leave you here!"
"Then, by the Lord Harry! you'd better! Do you think I'm going to submit tamely to this sort of thing?"
"N-no; that's too much to hope." He smiled a little. "What are you going to do?"
"Do you suppose for one moment that you can gain anything yourself by the sort of thing you've been doing this morning?"
"Well—as between the frying-pan and the fire"—a dancing gleam lit in his eye—"I've decided to throw myself on the mercy of the cook."
"Well, I'll cook you!" she promised.
"You'll marry me!" he asserted, under his breath.