CHAPTER x.x.xII

It was business of serious importance which was to bring Captain Palliser"s visit to a close. He explained it perfectly to Miss Alicia a day or so after Lady Mallowe and her daughter left them. He had lately been most amiable in his manner toward Miss Alicia, and had given her much valuable information about companies and stocks. He rather unexpectedly found it imperative that he should go to London and Berlin to "see people"--dealers in great financial schemes who were deeply interested in solid business speculations, such as his own, which were fundamentally different from all others in the impeccable firmness of their foundations.

"I suppose he will be very rich some day," Miss Alicia remarked the first morning she and T. Tembarom took their breakfast alone together after his departure. "It would frighten me to think of having as much money as he seems likely to have quite soon."

"It would scare me to death," said Tembarom. She knew he was making a sort of joke, but she thought the point of it was her tremor at the thought of great fortune.

"He seemed to think that it would be an excellent thing for you to invest in--I"m not sure whether it was the India Rubber Tree Company, or the mahogany forests or the copper mines that have so much gold and silver mixed in them that it will pay for the expense of the digging-- " she went on.

"I guess it was the whole lot," put in Tembarom.

"Perhaps it was. They are all going to make everybody so rich that it is quite bewildering. He is very clever in business matters. And so kind. He even said that if I really wished it he might be able to invest my income for me and actually treble it in a year. But of course I told him that my income was your generous gift to me, and that it was far more than sufficient for my needs."

Tembarom put down his coffee-cup so suddenly to look at her that she was fearful that she had appeared to do Captain Palliser some vague injustice.

"I am sure he meant to be most obliging, dear," she explained. "I was really quite touched. He said most sympathetically and delicately that when women were unmarried, and unaccustomed to investment, sometimes a business man could be of use to them. He forgot"--affectionately-- "that I had you."

Tembarom regarded her with tender curiosity. She often opened up vistas for him as he himself opened them for the Duke of Stone.

"If you hadn"t had me, would you have let him treble your income in a year?" he asked.

Her expression was that of a soft, woodland rabbit or a trusting spinster dove.

"Well, of course, if one were quite alone in the world and had only a small income, it would be nice to have it wonderfully added to in such a short time," she answered. "But it was his friendly solicitude which touched me. I have not been accustomed to such interested delicacy on the part of--of gentlemen." Her hesitance before the last word being the result of training, which had made her feel that it was a little bold for "ladies" to refer quite openly to "gentlemen."

"You sometimes read in the newspapers," said Tembarom, b.u.t.tering his toast, "about ladies who are all alone in the world with a little income, but they"re not often left alone with it long. It"s like you said--you"ve got me; but if the time ever comes when you haven"t got me just you make a dead-sure thing of it that you don"t let any solicitous business gentleman treble your income in a year. If it"s an income that comes to more than five cents, don"t you hand it over to be made into fifteen. Five cents is a heap better--just plain five."

"Temple!" gasped Miss Alicia. "You--you surely cannot mean that you do not think Captain Palliser is--sincere!"

Tembarom laughed outright, his most hilarious and comforting laugh. He had no intention of enlightening her in such a manner as would lead her at once to behold pictures of him as the possible victim of appalling catastrophes. He liked her too well as she was.

"Sincere?" he said. "He"s sincere down to the ground --in what he"s reaching after. But he"s not going to treble your income, nor mine. If he ever makes that offer again, you just tell him I"m interested, and that I"ll talk it over with him."

"I could not help saying to him that I didn"t think you could want any more money when you had so much," she added, "but he said one never knew what might happen. He was greatly interested when I told him you had once said the very same thing yourself."

Their breakfast was at an end, and he got up, laughing again, as he came to her end of the table and put his arm around her shoulders in the unconventional young caress she adored him for.

"It"s nice to be by ourselves again for a while," he said. "Let us go for a walk together. Put on the little bonnet and dress that are the color of a mouse. Those little duds just get me. You look so pretty in them."

The sixteen-year-old blush ran up to the roots of her gray side- ringlets. Just imagine his remembering the color of her dress and bonnet, and thinking that anything could make her look pretty! She was overwhelmed with innocent and grateful confusion. There really was no one else in the least like him.

"You do look well, ma"am," Rose said, when she helped her to dress.

"You"ve got such a nice color, and that tiny bit of old rose Mrs.

Mellish put in the bonnet does bring it out."

"I wonder if it is wrong of me to be so pleased," Miss Alicia thought.

"I must make it a subject of prayer, and ask to be aided to conquer a haughty and vain-glorious spirit."

She was pathetically serious, having been trained to a view of the Great First Cause as figuratively embodied in the image of a gigantic, irascible, omnipotent old gentleman, especially wrought to fury by feminine follies connected with becoming headgear.

"It has sometimes even seemed to me that our Heavenly Father has a special objection to ladies," she had once timorously confessed to Tembarom. "I suppose it is because we are so much weaker than men, and so much more given to vanity and petty vices."

He had caught her in his arms and actually hugged her that time. Their intimacy had reached the point where the affectionate outburst did not alarm her.

"Say!" he had laughed. "It"s not the men who are going to have the biggest pull with the authorities when folks try to get into the place where things are evened up. What I"m going to work my pa.s.sage with is a list of the few "ladies" I"ve known. You and Ann will be at the head of it. I shall just slide it in at the box-office window and say, "Just look over this, will you? These were friends of mine, and they were mighty good to me. I guess if they didn"t turn me down, you needn"t. I know they"re in here. Reserved seats. I"m not expecting to be put with them but if I"m allowed to hang around where they are that"ll be heaven enough for me.""

"I know you don"t mean to be irreverent, dear Temple," she gasped. "I am quite sure you don"t! It is--it is only your American way of expressing your kind thoughts. And of course"--quite hastily--"the Almighty must understand Americans--as he made so many." And half frightened though she was, she patted his arm with the warmth of comfort in her soul and moisture in her eyes. Somehow or other, he was always so comforting.

He held her arm as they took their walk. She had become used to that also, and no longer thought it odd. It was only one of the ways he had of making her feel that she was being taken care of. They had not been able to have many walks together since the arrival of the visitors, and this occasion was at once a cause of relief and inward rejoicing.

The entire truth was that she had not been altogether happy about him of late. Sometimes, when he was not talking and saying amusing New York things which made people laugh, he seemed almost to forget where he was and to be thinking of something which baffled and tried him.

The way in which he pulled himself together when he realized that any one was looking at him was, to her mind, the most disturbing feature of his fits of abstraction. It suggested that if he really had a trouble it was a private one on which he would not like her to intrude. Naturally, her adoring eyes watched him oftener than he knew, and she tried to find plausible and not too painful reasons for his mood. He always made light of his unaccustomedness to his new life; but perhaps it made him feel more unrestful than he would admit.

As they walked through the park and the village, her heart was greatly warmed by the way in which each person they met greeted him. They greeted no one else in the same way, and yet it was difficult to explain what the difference was. They liked him-- really liked him, though how he had overcome their natural distrust of his newsboy and bootblack record no one but himself knew. In fact, she had reason to believe that even he himself did not know--had indeed never asked himself. They had gradually begun to like him, though none of them had ever accused him of being a gentleman according to their own acceptance of the word. Every man touched his cap or forehead with a friendly grin which spread itself the instant he caught sight of him.

Grin and salute were synchronous. It was as if there were some extremely human joke between them. Miss Alicia had delightedly remembered a remark the Duke of Stone had made to her on his return from one of their long drives.

"He is the most popular man in the county," he had chuckled. "If war broke out and he were in the army, he could raise a regiment at his own gates which would follow him wheresoever he chose to lead it--if it were into hottest Hades."

Tembarom was rather silent during the first part of their walk, and when he spoke it was of Captain Palliser.

"He"s a fellow that"s got lots of curiosity. I guess he"s asked you more questions than he"s asked me," he began at last, and he looked at her interestedly, though she was not aware of it.

"I thought--" she hesitated slightly because she did not wish to be critical--"I sometimes thought he asked me too many."

"What was he trying to get on to mostly?"

"He asked so many things about you and your life in New York--but more, I think, about you and Mr. Strangeways. He was really quite persistent once or twice about poor Mr. Strangeways."

"What did he ask?"

"He asked if I had seen him, and if you had preferred that I should not. He calls him your Mystery, and thinks your keeping him here is so extraordinary."

"I guess it is--the way he"d look at it," Tembarom dropped in.

"He was so anxious to find out what he looked like. He asked how old he was and how tall, and whether he was quite mad or only a little, and where you picked him up, and when, and what reason you gave for not putting him in some respectable asylum. I could only say that I really knew nothing about him, and that I hadn"t seen him because he had a dread of strangers and I was a little timid."

She hesitated again.

"I wonder," she said, still hesitating even after her pause, "I wonder if I ought to mention a rather rude thing I saw him do twice?"

"Yes, you ought," Tembarom answered promptly; "I"ve a reason for wanting to know."

"It was such a singular thing to do--in the circ.u.mstances," she went on obediently. "He knew, as we all know, that Mr. Strangeways must not be disturbed. One afternoon I saw him walk slowly backward and forward before the west room window. He had something in his hand and kept looking up. That was what first attracted my attention--his queer way of looking up. Quite suddenly he threw something which rattled on the panes of gla.s.s--it sounded like gravel or small pebbles. I couldn"t help believing he thought Mr. Strangeways would be startled into coming to the window."

Tembarom cleared his throat.

"He did that twice," he said. "Pearson caught him at it, though Palliser didn"t know he did. He"d have done it three times, or more than that, perhaps, but I casually mentioned in the smoking-room one night that some curious fool of a gardener boy had thrown some stones and frightened Strangeways, and that Pearson and I were watching for him, and that if I caught him I was going to knock his block off-- bing! He didn"t do it again. Darned fool! What does he think he"s after?"

"I am afraid he is rather--I hope it is not wrong to say so --but he is rather given to gossip. And I dare say that the temptation to find something quite new to talk about was a great one. So few new things happen in the neighborhood, and, as the duke says, people are so bored--and he is bored himself."