Pragmatic Patricia/Part 1
A STORY IN TWO PARTS—PART I
IN the beginning, Patricia herself would have been the last to believe that her jest could have serious consequences, for when she suggested at a dinner-party that some one ought to found an Order of Female Knights Errant to succor gentlemen in distress, she certainly had no intention of adopting chivalry as a career; and when she and the Honorable William Blair Blaisdell, American Minister to Uruguay and Paraguay, home on leave, further amused themselves by planning a spectacular campaign, whereby one of these hypothetical Guardian-Angels-at-Large should rescue young Bob Chamberlain from the snares a middle-aged and mercenary widow was weaving about him, neither of them remotely contemplated playing a leading part in such a comedy.
But so it fell out. For the next day a cousin of Chamberlain's begged Patricia to put her fantastic scheme into practice in his kinsman's behalf, and while she argued at first that the undertaking would be both preposterous and vain, Blaisdell's somewhat heated insistence that it would be unfeminine, as well, presented a challenge which she promptly accepted, departing forthwith on her quest. Thereupon, the perturbed diplomat broke any number of engagements, both social and official, and betook himself in hot haste to the field of operations, where, for reasons of his own, he persistently harried the angel-at-large in her efforts to disentangle the young millionaire.
Neither Patrician or Blaisdell ever revealed the other's secret purpose to any third person, however, riven when, at the last, she confessed her mission to an engineer named Frederick Howard, she still did not mention that the minister had known of her intention. She thought that the inference of his motives in deliberately planting himself as an impediment in her path would be obvious, and his whole connection with the affair seemed, at the moment, a personal detail, entirely irrelevant from the engineer's point of view as Chamberlain's friend. It was many days before the consequences of this reticence overtook her. Meanwhile, no sooner had the full significance of her achievement dawned upon Howard than he exclaimed:
"By George! Would you be willing to do it again?"
"Again?"
"Yes—for me? I've a young brother-in-law who's been terribly hard hit in a love-affair, and in consequence he's smashing up everything within reach—including his own life. Thus far nobody's been able to stop him, but—by George! I believe you could pull him out!"
"Oh no! No—I couldn't!" she protested. "If I'd dreamed what this Chamberlain affair would involve, I'd never have begun it! But at first it was just a joke—a sort of dare—"
"And in the end it has saved a youth from his folly," he reminded her. "You've snatched that boy out of the very jaws of Fate and given him back his future—which is really all a young man has. Now, Jack's future— Wait!" He combated the denial of her lifted hand. "Let me tell you that story. Jack's twenty-seven. Good-looking, good mind, good family, good habits—until recently, at least—and magnificent prospects. Like all the Ordways, he's a lawyer.
"Oh, is he? I'm not much interested in lawyers." Smiling, she shook her head. "They don't appeal to my imagination. You see, Bob's an engineer, and that's constructive! To harness great natural forces—to make them work instead of waste themselves—"
"But don't you see that's what I'm asking you to do?" the "water-power wizard" interposed, laughingly refusing to be diverted from his purpose by flattery. "What have you done here but engineering of a high type? Where one woman has used her natural equipment of wit and charm primally, to entrap a man to his undoing and the waste of his best energies, you've used your forces like an engineer. And you've made good! Where I handle currents of earth and air, you've handled human emotions, and turned them into channels of greater efficiency. Now, if you'll only build a few dams around Jack, and swing him back into his course again—"
"With a simple turn of the wrist?" Her amusement was obvious, but he saw that his figure had caught her imagination. "Sounds like a large order. Of course, it is a large order, but— You see, Jack's been in love with Dorothy Alexander ever since he was a kid in college. They were to have been married this summer—and three months ago she chucked him."
"Why?"
"Well, ostensibly because of her devotion to her family. Jack's done well up there at home, but he had a flattering opportunity to come to New York, and had practically accepted it when Dorothy balked. Said she couldn't live away from her people—especially Ada. Ada's an elder sister—pushing, ambitious woman, hard as—well, I've never liked her. But she's had a strong influence over Dorothy, which Jack has always resented. It isn't the first time they've quarreled about Ada. This time he made an issue of it, and as between him and the family Dorothy chose the family. At least, that's what she said, and none of us connected Stannard with it then. To be sure, he'd been hanging about the Alexanders for some time, but Ada was supposed to be the magnet."
"Stannard?"
"Dick Stannard. Millionaire, man-about-town, and—well, his reputation's not of the best. He's old enough to be Dorothy's father, but she began playing about with him a day or so after she chucked Jack, and now she's engaged to him—which is probably a truer explanation of poor Jack's downfall than her tribal ties."
"I should say 'poor Jack' had had a lucky escape," Patricia commented, with a little shrug.
"So should we—if he had escaped. He hasn't. He's merely let go. Apparently he's lost his grip on everything, and is going straight to the devil."
"Drink?"
"Y-yes. But only incidentally, I think. Gambling, chiefly—though he doesn't care what he does, as long as it's nothing he ever did before."
"Has he never done this before?"
"Never! Jack's been as fine a chap as I ever saw! Straight as a die! Of course, he was a lively kid, overcharged with energy and working the surplus off in mischief, but it was always clean mischief, and he took his medicine afterward without whimpering. But now—the whole family's desperate! That's the reason Mrs. Howard's gone up there. We've done everything we could think of—made every appeal—used every spur—to no effect. He neglects his work—"
"The New York position?"
"Turned it down. Probably couldn't have it now at any price."
"That's funny," she said, contemplatively. "A man usually takes that sort of thing out in hard work—unless he has some besetting vice."
"I know—and heretofore he's been a regular shark for work. But his practice is going to pot, he's lost some of his best clients, the rest—as well as his associates—are getting uneasy, and he doesn't care! Yet I'm perfectly sure the boy's sound fundamentally. It only needs the right incentive—some one to touch him in the right way—to set him straight again. Otherwise—" His keen, kind eyes clouded, and he hesitated a moment before concluding, with a sigh—"Otherwise—I don't know! But, as you say, it is a large order."
"Still—" She paused thoughtfully.
Illustration
Some hours later, her first mission definitely ended and victory assured, she telephoned a laughing farewell to the astounded Blaisdell, informing him that she had heard "a cry from Macedonia," which, as a conscientious angel-at-large she could not ignore, and even while he was shattering speed limits in an effort to reach High Haven before she should have departed, she spread her triumphant wings and soared away, leaving the crestfallen diplomat sitting in an automobile in a Long Island road, impotently gazing upward at her monoplane in flight.
About seven o'clock that night she was dressing for dinner when her telephone-bell rang, and she responded:
"Yes? This is Miss Carlyle."
"Thank the Lord!" was Blaisdell's fervent ejaculation. "I began to think you'd vanished into thin air! I've 'phoned every twenty minutes for three hours! Will you dine with me?"
"Dine with you!" she exclaimed. "Billy, where are you?"
"I'm in town. Came in on the first train after you left. Urgent official business." At this they both chuckled. "Will you?"
She replied that she could not. No, it was quite impossible. She was dining with some one else. She should be out late and leaving early the next morning. No, he could not take her to the station. Had she said that she was leaving by train? And when he demanded where she was going, she replied, "Away."
"Patty, do I deserve this?" His tone was reproachful, but she blithely returned:
"You do—and more!"
"Why won't you tell me where you're going?" he begged.
After a moment's hesitation, she asked, "If I do, will you give me your word not to come there?"
Illustration: LEAVING THE CRESTFALLEN DIPLOMAT IMPOTENTLY GAZING UPWARD AT HER MONOPLANE IN FLIGHT
"I will not! Why should I?" he retorted, and, when he got no reply, excitedly demanded: "Look here, you didn't mean that thing about Macedonia? You're not framing up another fool angel-at-large stunt!"
"I deplore your qualifying term," she laughed. "But I've heard of a poor youth who's in need—oh, very much in need of an angel, Billy. He needs one right away."
"Does he, indeed?" he growled. "What Gobble-un's goin' to git him?"
"All the powers of darkness, apparently. At any rate, he seems to have lost his way, and just now he's running rather wild."
"And you're attempting to reform him? Is that it? Now, see here, Patty, you've no brothers—"
"I've always wished I had. Do you want to be a brother to me, Billy?" she asked, wickedly, and he hotly retorted:
"You know very well what I want to be! But anybody would object to your trying to reform a dissipated young—"
"But I'm not!" Again she laughed. "He's not dissipated. He's just confused and hurt and desperate. The girl he expected to marry this summer threw him over for a millionaire, and he thinks his heart's broken and that nothing matters any more."
"Huh!" the minister commented, elegantly. "I guess you'll find the fragments will rebound all right!"
"Billy, you're perfectly outrageous! How can you be so callous? If you were suffering, wouldn't you want—"
"I am!" he cut in. "I'm suffering abominably! And you delight in it! Gloat over it!"
"No, I don't." Her laughing tone was still very soft. "But there's no reason for you to suffer."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just what I say. You're not suffering. You imagine it. Besides, I'm not personally interested in Jack. He's just a case—a project, as it were."
"H'mph! I'd like to know why you don't show a little interest in my case!" he grumbled. "How old's this chap?"
"Jack? Twenty-seven."
"How long have you known him?"
"Billy Blaisdell, can't you look at anything impersonally? I've never seen the man in my life. Good-night!" Laughing, she hung up the receiver and went out to spend the evening in consultation with Howard and one of Jack Ordway's sisters as to the best way to approach her new "project."
{[dhr]} The next night found her in a small town in western New York, not far from the city in which the Ordways lived, where her mechanician had already arrived with her plane, and where she remained until the following afternoon, when a telephone message from Mrs. Howard, on the scene of action, gave her the signal to advance.
Half an hour later, young Ordway, driving furiously along a country road, was startled to see a monoplane dart ahead, far above him, precede him for some distance, and finally swoop to earth directly in his path, its broad wings obstructing his progress. He would have stopped, in any event, as even his painful preoccupation was not proof against the curiosity aroused by the first aeroplane he had ever seen at close range, but his present temper was such that anything presenting itself as an obstacle seemed intolerable, and he called, irritably:
"Hey, there! Isn't there room enough in the world for you fellows without blocking the highway?" Whereupon, to his amazement, one of the "fellows," half concealed behind the flying-machine, lifted a piquant, smiling girl's face, and nodded affably.
"Sorry," she apologized. "But the world is a small place, you know, and a lot of it's marked 'No trespassing.'"
"What's that to you?" he retorted, laughing shortly, his acrimony somewhat tempered by an astonishment which was not lessened when Patricia's mechanician moved at that moment into full view, disclosing the supple figure of a young woman in khaki dress. "If it happened to suit you to land in somebody's private park, you wouldn't let a little thing like a trespass sign deter you, would you?"
"Why not?" Patricia's pleasant gray eyes scrutinized him amusedly. "Isn't that one of the rules of the game?"
"A woman can always claim that she didn't see the sign—and generally she succeeds in putting it over," was his cynical reminder.
Illustration: MRS. HOWARD PLAYING WELL HER PART OF SURPRISED DELIGHT
"I suppose some of us do try to take advantage occasionally," she admitted. "But that sort of thing's not quite cricket, is it? Besides, it's unintelligent. The game loses interest if one ignores the rules."
"You surprise me." His tone was dry. "A woman's interest in any game seems to consist in finding to what extent she can evade the rules without incurring the penalty."
"Oh? Still—if that were an exclusively feminine characteristic, what would become of the lawyers?" she inquired.
He shot a quick glance at her, but her attention seemed to be chiefly concentrated upon the activities of her busy mechanician, and he decided that sin must have spoken at random, though he suggested, tentatively, "I infer that you don't admire the practice of law."
"Say, rather, the practices of lawyers," she prodded, with a detached manner. But she waited in vain for the defense of his profession to which she had intended to pique him.
He merely shrugged a shoulder as he returned: "Oh, well, nothing's what it's cracked up to be. Respectability's only a cloak nowadays—at best, a tradition—and sincerity's as extinct as imperial Cæsar. Money's all that really counts, and never a 'successful' doctor or parson or college president of 'em all but will turn every little ethic he has wrong side out and stand it on its silly head, if thereby he can enter into the kingdom of Midas! So why rub it into us lawyers, even if some of us do choose to evade the rules—at a price—rather than to interpret them?"
"Oh! Are you a lawyer?" Surprise at the nature of his reply lent convincing color to her tone. "I beg your pardon! But you remember the Frenchman—I've forgotten his name—who said: 'No generalization was ever true—not even this one.' The very fact that you don't defend your profession indicates that you uphold its best ideals."
"More fool I, then!" he conceded, with another shrug and a mirthless laugh. "I happen to be heir, professionally, to one of those traditions of respectability I mentioned, and though I may not honor it especially, as yet I've not fallen quite low enough to sell it. Sentimental weakness, I'm quite aware, but at any rate it hasn't obscured my perceptions. I know what's what, even if I don't fully practise it."
"Then sincerity lifts its head here and there, after all," she lightly pointed out, but to herself she was saying: "He makes no defense. I wonder why?" Aloud, to her mechanician, she added, "Try that other valve, Kate."
"Perhaps I can be of service?" Ordway now offered, leaving his car.
But Patricia pleasantly declined. "Thank you. Kate will have this straightened out in a minute. I'm sorry to detain you so long."
"I'm in no haste. Unusual, isn't it?—having a woman mechanician?"
"Possibly. But isn't everything unusual until it's commonplace? Perhaps I'm not fair to the things of tradition and precedent." It was her turn to shrug and smile. "I believe in playing the game—any game—according to its rules, but I confess that the games I like best are those not yet rigidly defined. Engineering, for example." Her glance seemed entirely candid. "That's an almost limitless field. If I were a man, I'd be an engineer."
"I have a brother-in-law who's rather big in that line," he mentioned, without enthusiasm. "In fact, he's called 'the water-power wizard.'"
"Why—you must mean Frederick Howard! I know him—a little!"
"Really?" He turned startled, turbulent eyes upon her, and for the first time she realized how extremely good-looking he was. "Do you know my sister, too?"
"Yes, but even less well than I know him. I've been visiting near their Long Island place, but Mrs. Howard has been away most of the time."
"Oh yes. She was summoned to the family council. She's still here," he said, grimly. "Possibly you've heard of me, then. My name's Ordway—Jack Ordway." Defiantly the stormy eyes questioned her, but her shake of the head was deprecatingly vague.
"You see, I know them so slightly," she temporized. "I knew Mrs. Howard had sisters— And you're her brother?"
"I am. I'm the black sheep—the fly in the ointment—the as yet uncloseted skeleton—the prodigal Esau, wallowing in pottage!"
"I'm very sure I couldn't have forgotten anything as picturesque as that, if I'd ever heard of it," she declared, laughing. "But as Mr. Howard's brother-in-law, what an opportunity you'd have had as an engineer! How could you resist it?"
"I hate mathematics."
"So do I. My word! I never thought of that! Engineering is a mathematical science, isn't it? I'm afraid I'm chiefly attracted by adventure."
"This thing must give you plenty of that," he suggested, enviously eying her machine. "You don't live in this vicinity, do you? I've never seen your plane before."
"No; I live—as much as I live anywhere—in New York. But I'm easily bored by the conventional. I wanted a thrill. So Kate and I flew away to lose ourselves for a few days in the Back of Beyond."
"Cæsar!" he exclaimed, as his perceptions of the possibilities of new sensations grew. "You must get thrills, all right! Have you ever looped the loop?"
"I have not!"
"Why don't you? I would! How does it feel to fly?"
"Why—like flying. Would you like to go up? I'll promise not to take you too high. And no loops!"
"Explore Mars, if you like," he returned, recklessly. "I don't care!"
"Apropos of Mars, to get the full joy of flying, you must do it by moonlight," was her next light suggestion. "If you're looking for thrills—that's magical! By the way, shall we thrill Mrs. Howard by a call? That is, if there's an open space where we can land. Oh!"—he was obviously hesitating—"perhaps you haven't time?"
"Well—I'm supposed to be dining out," he explained, confirming his sister's report that he was on his way to that country house of which Patricia had heard, where play was practically unceasing and stakes ruinously high. "But—I say! There's a moon to-night! If you'll stay over and teach me to run this thing, I'll break my engagement!"
"Aviation in all its branches taught in one lesson. Satisfaction guaranteed or money back," she laughed. "You flatter me! Besides—"
"No 'besides' about it!" he urged. "Grace will be tickled to death to see you—and so will mother."
"But your engagement?" The protest was not too vigorous.
"Oh, hang my engagement! It's just a lot of fellows. I'll 'phone. And we've a big lawn—plenty of room to land! I'll go right back and be there to meet you." He turned hastily toward his car, but she inquired:
"How am I to know your house? By a strawberry mark on the roof? Why don't you fly back with me and let Kate drive your car? It will be perfectly safe. She can drive anything that goes by on gasolene."
So, after giving the mechanician directions, he clambered into the place beside Patricia, and in another minute they were off.
"Gee!" he gasped, as they left the earth, and again as they skimmed over a forest-clad hill, "Gee!" Later he pointed out his mother's house, and when finally they alighted, after a breath-taking dip, and ran smoothly along the wide lawn, he exclaimed: "Well, that settles it! I'm going to have one of these things! How soon can I get it?"
Mrs. Howard, playing well her part of surprised delight, insisted that the girl must spend a few days with her—an invitation seconded by stately Mrs. Ordway, although, not having been taken into the conspiracy, the mother was utterly at a loss to understand her daughter's enthusiasm for this extraordinary and unconventional young person—and in the end Patricia seemed to yield to persuasion, telephoned for her luggage, and was shown to the room already secretly prepared for her.
During dinner Jack would talk of nothing but aeroplanes, and at the earliest possible moment he claimed Patricia's promise to take him for a flight in the moonlight, though she insisted upon postponing until the next day his first lesson in handling the machine. When they had been flying for some time, she called, "Had enough?"
Illustration: THE NEXT MORNING SHE GAVE ORDWAY HIS FIRST LESSON IN AVIATION
"No. Please! Do you mind?"
Her only reply was to lift the machine into a higher stratum of air, and when eventually she dropped down into the rolling expanse of a golf-course, they were more miles from their starting-point than at first he could believe. She said she was tired, and wanted to be still awhile, so they found a bench where they sat for an hour or more, in an isolation almost as complete, at that hour, as if they had perched on a star. In the beginning their talk was entirely technical, and she patiently answered questions until his ingenuity in framing them was exhausted, when they fell into a silence so protracted that at length he turned to look at her, curiously.
"Well?" she asked, with a little smile.
"You're the only woman I ever saw who'd let a fellow be quiet."
"That's one of the things I have my plane for—to get away. An automobile's too social. I hate to talk my passage."
"Jove!" he ejaculated. "I didn't suppose any woman felt like that!"
"We're only human—'fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, healed by the same means, as a Christian is,'" she quoted, whimsically.
"Plausible theory," he dryly returned, "but it's based on externals. Doesn't pan out."
"Think not? Well, I'm a pragmatist," she told him, pleasantly. "In the words of the immortal Mr. Dooley: 'Av it worrks, it's thrue.' Equally, if it doesn't, it isn't. But to apply that test one must be absolutely fair—"
"Which no woman ever was!" he broke in, and she laughed outright.
"Is that speech indicative of your own position? Because I've heard it said that no man ever willingly gave a woman a fair chance. I've never believed it—but I'm always open to conviction," she added, mischievously.
"A woman doesn't need any chance!" was his bitter retort. "She always has the advantage—and no scruples about using it!"
"That's what a lot of women say about men," she observed, dispassionately. "Personally, I think we're much of a muchness. Some women are rotters—but so are some men. Tot them all up, and I fancy the averages are about the same."
"And none of 'em very high."
"Well"—she kept her tone of philosophical amusement—"that depends on your angle of vision, doesn't it? Of course, you can poke yourself up on stilts and pretend to look down upon your fellow-man. Or you can squirm around in the dust and look up at him. Or you can stand on your two feet and look him in the eye. Also your fellow-woman. It all depends upon the angle you choose."
For a moment he stared at her in the moonlight before commenting: "H'mph! You're a funny girl!"
"It's a funny world, if you see it that way," she imperturbably returned. "Shall we be getting on?"
Late that night Mrs. Howard stole into Patricia's room, intending to discuss the situation at length, but at the first mention of Jack's name the girl lifted a restraining hand, exclaiming:
"No, please! It will never occur to him that I knew about this before I came, and I want to be able to tell him honestly that I've heard nothing about it here. I want him to tell me himself."
"He'll never do that! You've no idea how he resents the least allusion to it!"
"That's the reason. He's bruised and sore at every point. Of course he shrinks from having anybody else touch it. But he can't let it alone himself. He's talked all around it already. And some day he'll tell me—but he must trust me first."
"You don't know him! He'd rather be flayed alive!"
"He's being flayed alive now," said Patricia, "but if he can only talk about it, he'll feel better. Anyway, it's worth trying."
The next morning she gave Ordway his first lesson in aviation, and for the greater part of two days they were together almost constantly, the new sport apparently absorbing all his thought. From time to time, however, she led him into discussions of one sort or another, when the bitterness of his spirit found vent in reckless cynicisms, which she met with a quizzical humor that generally left him laughing, albeit sardonically. But try as she would, she could neither lure nor pique him into any expression of his own ideals, whether personal or professional, nor could she discover a spark of normal interest in any serious pursuit.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, after a particularly exhilarating flight, they had dropped down into a field beside a country road, and were sitting on a stone wall, talking about a biplane belonging to a man she knew, which she thought Ordway might possibly buy, when her attention was attracted by the approach of a large and obviously very expensive touring-car, its metals a-glitter and its attendants resplendent in light liveries.
"My word!" she commented. "Who belongs to all that gorgeousness?"
Receiving no reply, she turned, to discover that he had stiffened into rigidity, his hands gripping the edge of the wall, his face colorless, and his miserable, despairing eyes watching the passing car, in the tonneau of which sat a middle-aged man and two women, evidently sisters, the younger of whom even that passing glimpse showed to be beautiful. Patricia was conscious of an abrupt movement of her companion's hand toward his cap, and saw the man nod, but in the scornful faces of the women there was not the slightest sign of recognition, although they made no pretense of not seeing Ordway. In another instant they were gone, and Patricia was continuing her quiet description of Tom Keeler's biplane, but she knew that her words conveyed no meaning to the man beside her, whose color gradually returned, but whose eyes were still the eyes of a creature in torment. Presently, hoping to divert him by motion, she slipped off the wall and suggested resuming their flight, but he brusquely insisted upon going home, after which he disappeared for forty-eight hours, during which even his mother and sister were scarcely more anxious than was the girl who had undertaken to restore the life of this stranger to its normal course again.
Illustration: "I SUPPOSE YOU KNOW ALL ABOUT IT NOW?" HE CHALLENGED, GRUFFLY
She persisted, however, in her determination to hear no further discussion of details by members of the Ordway family, and intimated to Mrs. Howard that their wisest course would be to proceed as if she were in reality the casual guest she was believed to be. Therefore, the engineer's wife gathered together a group of young people for the weekly informal dinner dance at the country club, when Patricia met, among others, the trio of the touring-car—Dorothy Alexander, exquisite, radiant, a vivid, restless flame of a girl, never in repose; Ada, her elder sister, whose brilliant dark eyes failed, somehow, to illumine a face as delicate and as inflexible as a cameo; and "Dick" Stannard, Dorothy's gray-haired suitor, upon whom many reckless and unrepented years had stamped their ineffaceable hall-mark. There, too, Patricia overheard occasional fragments of gossip, from which she gathered that although society regarded Dorothy as a heartless minx, wholly mercenary in her encouragement of Stannard's suit, it was still felt that her break with Ordway had been little less than a providential deliverance. One woman epitomized it when she said, "Of course, we all know what Dick Stannard is, but at least if she marries him she'll have something to show for it." Whereupon the angel-at-large compressed her soft lips and wagged her brown head, the more determined that the wanderer should be restored to his legitimate place among them.
The sun was rising on the second morning after his disappearance when she heard the hum of his car on the driveway under her window, shortly followed by his step in the hall; but all day he kept to his room, and the shadows were long again before he lounged across the lawn, heavy-eyed, to find her curled up in his Gloucester hammock under the trees, reading.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, surprised. "You still here?"
"Still here," she cheerfully returned. "Have a pillow?"
He caught the one she tossed him, but sat holding it by the edge, swinging it to and fro between his knees. "Well—I suppose you know all about it now?" he challenged, gruffly.
"All about what?"
"Oh, don't dodge!" He moved impatiently. "Grace has told you the whole story by this time—my immaculate past and my iniquitous present!"
"Not a word."
"What?" For an instant he looked at her, adding, with a short laugh: "Well, don't worry! She will."
"Not if you'd rather she wouldn't."
"What do you mean by that?"
"If there's anything you'd rather not have discussed, tell me what it is and I won't let anybody talk about it—to me, at least."
"No, you won't!" he scoffed.
"I suppose you'll take my word for it, won't you?" she asked, in a tone that compelled him to meet her steady, friendly glance.
After a moment he said, rather huskily: "Thanks. You're a good little pal."
"I could be," was her soft response, and presently she began talking about the book she was reading.
Half an hour later he looked at his watch and grunted: "H'mph! Forty minutes. Lord! how I hate dinner!"
"Do you? Why?"
"Can't you tell now just exactly how it will be? Correct, staring white linen—correct flowers precisely in the center—correct, shiny little tools and things all over the place—Murdoch pussy-footing around with correct food—lights low, voices low, gowns low, spirits low— Gad, how I hate it all!"
"Why not invite me to dine out, then?" she suggested. "Can't we go to some quiet little inn—miles away, where nobody knows either of us—and fly home by the light o' the moon?"
"Would you?" he asked, uncertainly, and his haggard eyes brightened a little when she agreed, but he dropped back with a dejected: "Oh, what's the use? It will only be worse to-morrow night!"
"Maybe not. Let me tell you, sir, not everybody's invited to ride the witch's broomstick! And if you make friends with her—and if, perchance, her black cat doesn't growl at you—she may work a magic. You never can tell! Besides, you asked me and I accepted. You're not a quitter, are you?"
"Oh, all right! Come along, then," he said, managing to smile as he added, "You're a brick!"
While they skimmed over miles of uneven green checkerboard, she saw his tense muscles gradually relax, and noticed, when their destination was reached, that the hand with which he helped her out of the machine was steadier than it had been earlier. After some delay he found a man to guard the plane, and they strolled on half a mile or so to the inn where they were to dine.
"The black cat liked you to-day," she observed, with a smiling upward glance. "Did you notice how nicely it purred?"
"That's no sign it won't spit and scratch next time."
"Apropos of engines, I wrote to Tom Keeler yesterday, and asked whether he still wants to sell his biplane."
"Sorry you troubled. I sha'n't take it," he said, shortly.
"No?"
"No. What do I want of a biplane? Money! That's what counts! When I get enough of that, I'll buy all the aeroplanes in the world and smash 'em—and build more—just to prove I can! That's all that really counts—money! You can buy everything else."
"No, you can't, Jack. Do you mind if I call you Jack? My name's Patricia. Patty, for short."
"Pat's shorter. More like a pal."
"All right, Pat, then—and pal, too, if you like." She gave him her hand in a quick, firm clasp. "I'll agree that you have to pay, in one way or another, for all you get—but you can't always pay with money. Some things you have to pay for with—yourself."
"That's right!"
"Then it stands to reason that there must be some things that money won't buy, don't you think?"
"'Either it rains or it does not rain,'" he gibed. "'If it does not rain, it rains.' It doesn't seem to occur to you that a man may pay and pay and pay—with his life, by Gad—and get nothing!"
"But that's taxation without representation, isn't it? Then the next move is a revolution, to 'throw off the yoke of oppression,'" she lightly rejoined. "Because, any way you look at it, it's unintelligent not to get, one way or another, what you pay for."
"Especially if it's a pound of flesh," he mentioned, dryly.
"Well—She seemed to deliberate. "I've never hankered for a pound of flesh, that I remember."
"Nor paid one, either," was his harsh return. "I have."
"I've thought—from some things you've said—that things had gone wrong with you." Her tone was very gentle, and when he made no reply she added, even more gently: "I'm sorry, Jack. Is it—a girl?"
"Yes."
"I'm so sorry! Tell me about her sometime."
"Nothing to tell," he said, after a long pause. "It's all over—except—"
"I know. And—the girl?"
"Oh, she's happy!" Patricia winced at his tone, and was grateful, for his sake, for the deepening dusk. "She's getting what she wants!"
"Anyway, you must be glad of that," she commented after a moment, and saw him start as he echoed:
^Glad!"
"Because that's the only way you can get what you're paying for, isn't it?"
His response was long delayed, and her heart sank under the sickening conviction that in her eagerness she had pressed too hard upon the wound, before he asked, his voice grating in his throat:
"What? What's that you said?"
"A pound of flesh is a high price," she made slow reply, struggling to keep her own voice steady. "Only the finest—highest—things are worth it. Yet—if you were not willing to bear anything to give her the happiness she wants, you wouldn't really love her, would you? It must be wonderful to love anybody like that! I never have."
"Evidently! You don't know what you're talking about!" He essayed his short, bitter laugh, but it was a husky effort, and, having planted another seed, she permitted the subject to drop.
By this time she was convinced that Howard's description of his brother-in-law as "fundamentally sound" was correct, and while she was still puzzled to account for the erratic orbit into which Ordway had flung himself, she was beginning to get her bearings and to form certain definite—if plastic—theories in the matter, one of which she presently tested.
Illustration: "YOU'RE NOT STRONG FOR CONVENTIONS, ARE YOU?" SHE LAUGHED
They had dined simply and none too well, but little by little she had coaxed him back to momentary forgetfulness, and as he lighted his cigar he made acknowledgment, saying:
"This may have bored you, but it's saved me from the electric chair. I think I'd have killed Murdoch if I'd had to dine according to rule to-night."
"You're not strong for conventions, are you?" she laughed.
"Hate 'em."
"You know, you're not a bit like a lawyer," she ventured next, in a carefully casual tone. "You're much more like an out-of-door man. I should think you'd have gone in for that sort of thing—something active—constructive—productive. How did you ever happen to study law?"
"I've told you. Family tradition. Four generations of John Ordways at the bar. I'm the last."
"I see. Still—if you didn't like it—"
"I liked it well enough," he said, indifferently, whereupon she demanded:
"Then why don't you stick to it and do something with it?"
"Why do you assume that I haven't?" he countered, sharply.
"Well—you certainly haven't been conspicuous for industry since I've been here, have you?"
At this the pain shot up in his eyes again, but he shrugged his shoulders as he arose. "Oh, what's the use?"
After a little, strolling back to the plane, she resumed her investigations, but obliquely, commenting at length on the use of flying-machines in the army before she inquired, "Haven't you ever wanted to go into the service?"
"No."
"You know my father was an officer," she went on, conversationally, "and when I was little I was perfectly sure I'd grow up into a man and be an officer, too. It nearly killed me when they convinced me I'd have to be a woman. I was eight then."
"When I was eight, I ran away with a circus," he confided.
"Did you? What was the attraction? Clowns or menagerie?"
"Neither. Horses."
"How long did that last?" she asked, still searching for a clue.
"It was a delirium of joy. But so far as ultimate effect was concerned, it lasted no longer than the licking I got."
"Anyway, you got what you paid for, didn't you?" she laughed. "But that wasn't what I meant. I meant the horse craze. I had it, too. Have yet, for that matter. Do you ride much?"
"Not at all, now," he replied, listlessly. "Anyhow, there's no real riding here in the East."
"That's true enough—though I know an Eastern man who goes out to the Pendleton round-up every year. He holds the amateur world's record for riding bucking bulls."
"Really?" There was a new vibration in his tone. "That takes nerve!"
"He's done all sorts of exciting things—that man," she experimented. "He's crossed the Atlantic in a fishing-schooner, and explored South-American jungles in a canoe." This struck no spark. "He's done stunts in the desert, too—and he can ride anything that can be saddled."
"Cattle man?"
"No. Scientist. But he has lots of friends in the cattle country."
"That was my ambition as a kid," he confessed. "I was crazy to leave college and go out West on a cattle-ranch."
"Why didn't you?" Her heart was pounding with the joy of discovery.
"Aforesaid family tradition. It was up to me, as John Ordway. Took 'em two years to make me see it, though. Perhaps I wouldn't, even then, if it hadn't been for—other things." His voice hardened again, and she remembered that he had been still an undergraduate when he fell in love with Dorothy Alexander. Believing that she had found what she sought, however, she probed a little deeper.
"Then you never really wanted to be a lawyer, after all."
"Yes, I did! I'd have been a good one, too! I worked like a Turk—as long as it was worth while." He finished through set teeth.
"Because you played the game for the game's sake? Or just because you wanted to win?"
"To win, of course! I had to win!" he flashed, and stared when she retorted:
"Then you never really liked the game. Look here, Jack, why don't you chuck the whole thing now, and do what—down in your heart—you've always wanted to do? You're not a bit interested in law. Why don't you go West and hunt up a cattle-ranch?"
"Don't want to—now."
^Why?"
"Oh, what's the use?" he flung out, savagely. "Who cares? I'm going to chuck this—but I'm not going West. I'm going to Monte Carlo. And if I don't break the bank, the bank will break me. In either case, I'll get something!"
"What, for example?" was her dry query. "In either case, what is there in it for you?"
"Well—anyhow, now you know. That's what I'm going to do," he told her, and once more she surprised him by laughing, but in her tone was a warm friendliness as she returned:
"You may feel like that now—everybody does, sometimes—but you won't do it, because it isn't really in you, Jack, to be a quitter."
"A quitter!"
"That's what it would amount to, isn't it? You've evidently been hard hit and you're still a bit groggy," she said, using a parlance as far as possible removed from any suggestion of sentimental appeal. "But you're not going to quit as long as there's any come-back left in you. You couldn't. You're not that sort."
"What's the use of coming back?"
"That's not the point. The point is that you're not going to lie down and be counted out—licked—as long as you can stand up. Incidentally, nothing you've lost is worth what you're trying to throw after it, Jack. If it were, your respect for it would pull you together."
"Oh, you don't know what you're talking about!" he declared again.
And she quietly replied: "Maybe not. But I know a man when I see him."
They exchanged no more words until they had dipped to the Ordway lawn and were stepping out of the machine. Then he asked, "What do you think Keeler would take for that biplane?"
"I don't know. Perhaps a couple of thousand." She tried to make her tone sound careless, but her breath caught in her throat.
"If I should take it— Oh, what's the use! Of course you wouldn't stay and teach me to run it!"
"I might." It was difficult to conceal her eagerness. "I have a lot of other engagements—but still—it would be rather fun. I might. Who's that?"
In the moonlight, they saw two figures approaching, and a familiar masculine voice called:
"You must have put a girdle clear around the earth this time, Titania!"
"Billy Blaisdell!" Astonishment, pleasure, amusement, and exasperation were curiously blended in Patricia's greeting. "Where did you come from?"
"Washington. I was called here suddenly—and unexpectedly—by business."
"Oh? Official business, I suppose! How did that happen?"
"The ways of the State Department are past finding out," he gravely informed her, but she knew how his eyes were dancing. "Luckily, just before I started—indeed, before I knew I was coming—I ran across Howard at Chevy Chase, and he mentioned that Mrs. Howard was still here. So, naturally, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon her as soon as possible after my arrival. But what a happy coincidence to find you here, too!"
"Yes, isn't it?" she dryly returned, realizing that the consequences of her reticence were upon her.
Mrs. Howard introduced the men to each other, and followed with her brother as Patricia and Blaisdell led the way to the house. At the first opportunity, the girl inquired in an undertone which she tried to make biting:
"Just what do you expect to accomplish by this?"
"Uplift!" he said. "Reform! I have a passion for reform. It's my vice."
"Charity's not the only vice that might better begin at home," she mentioned. "In any case, there's no food for your fever here."
"So much the better! I can devote my attention entirely to you—which I should much prefer."
"Billy, please be good!" she begged. "If you'll just keep out of this, I'll have that fellow on his feet in ten days."
"H'm—yes. From what I've been able to learn, I should call that a conservative estimate. Those pathetic fragments you mentioned seem to exhibit a truly remarkable resilience."
"Oh, don't be an idiot!"
"I am as God made me," he piously affirmed.
At that moment they arrived at the foot of the steps, and in the glow from the light over the doorway she could see the humorous gleam of his eyes and the determined angle of his chin.
"Billy," she demanded, "will you listen to reason—just once?"
"Twice—or even thrice," was his prompt assurance. "I'll listen to anything from you—even reason, if you insist."
"That boy's not the least little scrap in love with me now."
"No?" The minister was skeptical.
"No. But we're all human. And if you're going to keep on meddling, as you did at High Haven—interfering with everything—"
"Butting in," he suggested.
"Precisely! Creating opposition, in other words—I won't answer for the consequences."
"To him?" he asked, with a keen glance.
"To—anybody," said Patricia, dangerously.
"Well"—Blaisdell paused to compress his lips a moment—"if all I have is a fighting chance—then I'll fight! Anyhow, I'm not going to be bluffed out!"
"Oh, you are an idiot!" She laughed in spite of herself, and he smiled a little grimly as he replied:
"That may be. I'm in love!"