The Moonlit Way Part 81

"Your father is still fis.h.i.+ng, I suppose, so in spite of his admonition to me by letter this morning, I sent over one of the men with some thermos bottles and a very nice supper. He grumbles, but he always likes it."

"I wonder what Mr. Barres will think of me," ventured Dulcie. "He left such a pretty little rod for me. Thessa and I have been examining it.

I'd like to go, only--" she added with a wistful smile, "I have never been to a real party."

"Of course you're going to the Gerhardts'," insisted Lee, laughing.

"Dad is absurd about his fis.h.i.+ng. I don't believe any girl ever lived who'd prefer fis.h.i.+ng on that foggy lake at night to dancing at such a party as you are going to to-night."

"Aren't you going?" asked Thessalie, but Lee shook her head, still smiling.

"We have two young setters down with distemper, and mother and I always sit up with our dogs under such circ.u.mstances."

Personal devotion of this sort was new to Thessalie. Mrs. Barres and Lee told her all about the dreaded contagion and how very dreadful an epidemic might be in a kennel of such finely bred dogs as was the well-known Foreland Kennels.

Dog talk absorbed everybody during dinner. Mrs. Barres and Lee were intensely interested in Thessalie's description of the Grand Duke Cyril's Russian wolfhounds, with which she had coursed and hunted as a child.

Once she spoke, also, of those strange, pathetic, melancholy Ishmaelites, pitiable outcasts of their race--the pariah dogs of Constantinople. For, somehow, while dressing that evening, the distant complaint of a tethered beagle had made her think of Stamboul. And she remembered that night so long ago on the moonlit deck of the _Mirage_, where she had stood with Ferez Bey while, from the unseen, monstrous city close at hand, arose the endless wailing of homeless dogs.

How strange it was, too, to think that the owner of the _Mirage_ should this night be her host here in the Western World, yet remain unconscious that he had ever before entertained her.

Before coffee had been served in the entrance hall, the kennel master sent in word that one of the pups, a promising Blue Belton, had turned very sick indeed, and would Mrs. Barres come to the kennels as soon as convenient.

It was enough for Mrs. Barres and for Lee; they both excused themselves without further ceremony and went away together to the kennels, apparently quite oblivious of their delicate dinner gowns and slippers.

"I've seen my mother ruin many a gown on such errands," remarked Garry, smiling. "No use offering yourself as subst.i.tute; my mother would as soon abandon her own sick baby to strangers as turn over an ailing pup to anybody except Lee and herself."

"I think that is very splendid," murmured Dulcie, relinquis.h.i.+ng her coffee cup to Garry and suffering a maid to invest her with a scarf and light silk wrap.

"My mother _is_ splendid," said Garry in a low voice. "You will see her prove it some day, I hope."

The girl turned her lovely head, curiously, not understanding. Garry laughed, but his voice was not quite steady when he said:

"But it all depends on you, Dulcie, how splendid my mother may prove herself."

"On _me_!"

"On your--kindness."

"My--_kindness_!"

Thessalie came up in her pretty carnation-rose cloak, esquired by the enraptured Westmore, expressing admiration for the clothing adorning the very obvious object of his devotion:

"All girls can't wear a thing like that cloak," he was explaining proudly; "now it would look like the devil on you, Dulcie, with your coppery hair and----"

"What exquisite tact!" shrugged Thessalie, already a trifle restive under his constant attendance and unremitting admiration. "Can't you, out of your richly redundant vocabulary, find something civil to say to Dulcie?"

But Dulcie, still preoccupied with what Barres had said, merely gave her an absent-minded smile and walked slowly out beside her to the porch, where the headlights of a touring car threw two broad beams of gold across the lawn.

It was a swift, short run through the valley northward among the hills, and very soon the yellow lights of Northbrook summer homes dotted the darkness ahead, and cars were speeding in from every direction--from Ilderness, Wythem, East and South Gorloch--carrying guests for the Gerhardts' moonlight spectacle and dance.

Apropos of the promised spectacle, Barres observed to Dulcie that there happened to be no moon, and consequently no moonlight, but the girl, now delightfully excited by glimpses of Hohenlinden festooned with electricity, gaily reproached him for being literal.

"If one is happy," she said, "a word is enough to satisfy one's imagination. If they call it a moonlight spectacle, I shall certainly see moonlight whether it's there or not!"

"They may call it heaven, too, if they like," he said, "and I'll believe it--if you are there."

At that she blushed furiously:

"Oh, Garry! You don't mean it, and it's silly to say it!"

"I mean it all right," he muttered, as the car swung in through the great ornamental gates of Hohenlinden. "The trouble is that I mean so much--and _you_ mean so much to me--that I don't know how to express it."

The girl, her face charmingly aglow, looked straight in front of her out of enchanted eyes, but her heart's soft violence in her breast left her breathless and mute; and when the car stopped she scarcely dared rest her hand on the arm which Barres presented to guide her in her descent to earth.

It may have been partly the magnificence of Hohenlinden that so thrillingly overwhelmed her as she seated herself with Garry on the marble terrace of an amphitheatre among brilliant throngs already gathered to witness the eagerly discussed spectacle.

And it really was a bewilderingly beautiful scene, there under the summer stars, where a thousand rosy lanterns hung tinting the still waters of the little stream that wound through the clipped greensward which was the stage.

The foliage of a young woodland walled in this vernal scene; the auditorium was a semi-circle of amber marble--rows of low benches, tier on tier, rising to a level with the lawn above.

The lantern light glowed on pretty shoulders and bare arms, on laces and silks and splendid jewels, and stained the sombre black of the men with vague warm hues of rose.

Westmore, leaning over to address Barres, said with an amused air:

"You know, Garry, it's Corot Mandel who is putting on this thing for the Gerhardts."

"Certainly I know it," nodded Barres. "Didn't he try to get Thessa for it?"

Thessalie, whose colour was high and whose dark eyes, roaming, had grown very brilliant, suddenly held out her hand to one of two men who, traversing the inclined aisle beside her, halted to salute her.

"Your name was on our lips," she said gaily. "How do you do, Mr.

Mandel! How do you do, Mr. Trenor! Are you going to amaze us with a miracle in this enchanting place?"

The two men paid their respects to her, and, with unfeigned astonishment and admiration, to Dulcie, whom they recognised only when Thessalie named her with delighted malice.

"Oh, I say, Miss Soane," began Mandel, leaning on the back of the marble seat, "you and Miss Dunois might have helped me a lot if I'd known you were to be in this neighbourhood."

Esme Trenor bent over Barres, dropping his voice:

"We had to use a couple of Broadway hacks--you'll recognise 'em through their paint--you understand?--the two that New York screams for. It's too bad. Corot wanted something unfamiliarly beautiful and young and fresh. But these Northbrook amateurs are incredibly amateurish."

Thessalie was chattering away with Corot Mandel and Westmore; Esme Trenor gazed upon Dulcie in wonder not unmixed with chagrin:

"You've never forgiven me, Dulcie, have you?"

"For what?" she inquired indifferently.

"For not discovering you when I should have."