Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 18

The dinner was served with a deliberation befitting the end of a summer day. Julia was the most tranquil of the trio and it was in Archie's mind that she was capable of dominating even more difficult situations. She was studying him--he was conscious of that--and it was clear that she was not finding it easy to appraise and place him. The Governor had given him no hint of the possible trend of the table talk but the woman took the matter into her own hands. As though by prearrangement she touched upon wholly impersonal matters, recent movements in European affairs, a new novel, the industrial situation; things that could be broached without fear of embarra.s.sment were picked up and flung aside when they had served their purpose. The Governor was often inattentive, the most uncomfortable member of the trio. It seemed to Archie as he met a puzzled look in Julia's eyes from time to time that she was still trying to account for him, and her manner he thought slowly changed. Her first defensive hostility yielded to something much more amiable. It was as though she had reached a decision not wholly unflattering and might be a little sorry for her earlier att.i.tude.

The Governor roused himself presently at the mention of a new book of verse she had praised, and threw himself into the talk thereafter with characteristic spirit and humor.

"Mr. Comly shares my affection for the poets. He has been a great resource to me, Julia. I'm sure you'd be grateful to him if you knew the extent of his kindnesses. A new friend, but it's not always the old ones, you know--"

"My brother is hard to please," said Julia. "You score high in meeting his exacting requirements."

A slight smile dulled the irony of this, but the Governor, evidently concerned for the maintenance of amity, introduced the art of the Aztecs, to which he brought his usual enthusiasm.

The Aztecs carried them back to the drawing-room, where Archie, feeling that the Governor and his sister probably had personal affairs to talk about, lounged toward the door; but the Governor was quick to detect his purpose.

"Julia, if you brought those doc.u.ments with you I'll take them up to my room and look them over. It's only a matter of my signature, isn't it?

You and Mr. Comly can give the final twist to prehistoric art. I'll be down at once."

"Very well; you will find them in my bag in the hall. I must start home very soon, you know."

"I had hoped you would spend the night here," said the Governor; "but if you won't I'm grateful even for this little glimpse."

If Julia was displeased by the Governor's very evident intention not to be left alone with her she was at pains to conceal the feeling. Archie turned toward her inquiringly, but he met a look of acquiescence that carried also an appeal as though she wished him not to interfere.

The Governor left the room and reappeared with a small satchel, took out several bundles of legal papers and glanced at their superscriptions.

"Those are chiefly deeds and leases," Julia remarked carelessly.

"They're all ready to be signed by the trustees. There are forms for our approval attached to all of them and you'll find that I've signed."

The Governor shrugged his shoulders as though business matters were not to his taste and in a moment they heard his quick step on the stair.

The novelty of the situation that left Archie alone with a woman whose very name he did not know was enhanced by the sumptuousness of the background furnished by the house itself. It was the oddest possible place for such an adventure. Julia sat with one arm flung along the back of a low chair. She fell naturally into poses that suggested portraits; there were painters who would have jumped at the chance of sketching her as she sat there with the spot of red in the big hat and the shadowed face and the white of her throat and arms relieving the long black line.

"It is no doubt clear to you," she remarked without altering her position and with no lowering of the habitual tone of her speech, "that my brother prefers not to be alone with me."

"I rather surmised that," Archie replied with an ease he did not feel.

She might ask questions; it might be that she would cross-examine him as to the Governor's recent movements. He turned to drop his cigarette into the bra.s.s receiver at his elbow to avoid contact with her gaze, which was bent upon him disconcertingly.

"We have but a moment, and we must have a care not to seem to be confidential. He didn't close his door, I think."

The draperies at the end of the room swayed a little and Archie walked back and glanced into the dining-room. He nodded rea.s.suringly and she indicated a seat a little nearer than the one he had left.

"Please don't be alarmed, but it's a singular fact that I know you; we met once, pa.s.singly, at a tea in Cambridge; it's a good while ago and we exchanged only a word, so don't try to remember. I much prefer that you shouldn't." Archie didn't remember; he had attended many teas at Cambridge during commencement festivities and had always hated them. "It was not until we were at the table that I placed you tonight. I'm telling you this," she went on, "not to disturb you but to let you know that I'm relieved, infinitely relieved to know that you are with my brother. How it came about is none of my affair. But you are a gentleman; in the strange phase through which"--her lips formed to speak a name but she caught herself up sharply--"through which he is pa.s.sing I'm gratified that he has your companions.h.i.+p. I want you to promise to be kind to him, and to protect him so far as possible. I only know vaguely--I am afraid to surmise--how he spends his time; this is my first glimpse of him in a year, and for half a dozen years I have met him only in some such way as this. You have probably questioned his sanity; that would be only natural, but there is no such excuse for him.

Once something very cruel happened to him; something that greatly embittered him, a very cruel, hard thing, indeed; and after the first shock of it--" She turned her head slightly and her lips quivered.

"That is all," she said, and faced him again with her beautiful repose accentuated, her perfect self-control that touched him with an infinite pity. She was superb, and he had listened with a shame deepened by the consciousness that, remembering him from a chance meeting, she attributed to him an honor and decency he had relinquished, it seemed to him, in some state of existence before the dawn of time. What she knew or did not know about her brother was not of importance; it was the a.s.sumption that he was capable of exercising an influence upon the man, protecting and saving him from himself that hurt, hurt with all the poignancy of physical pain. She did not dream that she had got the whole thing upside-down; that if the Governor was a social pariah he himself was no whit better, and had thrown himself upon the Governor's mercy.

"I shall do what I can," he said. "You can see that I am very fond of him; he has been enormously kind to me."

She gave little heed to this, though she nodded her head slowly as though she had counted upon his promise.

"You probably know that with all his oddities and whimsicalities he has some theory of life that doesn't belong to our day. It may help you to know that there's a crisis approaching in his affairs. He has hinted at it for several years; it's a part of the mystery in which he wraps himself; but I never know quite how to take him. He wears a smiling mask. Please understand that it is because I love him so much that I am saying these things to you; that and because I know I can trust you. You are remaining with him, I hope--"

"Yes; we plan to be together for some time."

"If anything should happen to him I should like to know." She paused a moment. "It was distinctly understood between us when he called me by telephone this morning that I was not to hint in any way as to his ident.i.ty, or mine for that matter, and I shall not break faith with him.

He would be greatly displeased if he knew what I have said to you; but I resolved after I had been in the house half an hour that I could count on your aid. We have but a moment more."

She mused a moment and then with quick decision stepped to a writing table, s.n.a.t.c.hed a sheet of paper and wrote rapidly, while he filled in the interval by talking of irrelevant things to guard against the chance that the Governor might be on his way down and would note their silence.

She thrust the sheet into an envelope and sealed it.

"I trust you completely," she said, lingering with, a smile upon the last word. "I shall be at that address until the first of October. You can wire me in any emergency."

When the Governor reappeared they were seemingly in the midst of a leisurely discussion of the drama.

"Back into the bag they go," said the Governor. "Everything's all right, Julia. I checked up the items with my inventory and am entirely satisfied. I'm delighted that you two get on so well together; but I knew you would hit it off. Mr. Comly has been most kind and considerate, Julia. In my long pilgrimage I have never before met a man so much to my taste. The Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman had no such luck. Sweet it is to wander with a good comrade, taking no care for the morrow, but letting every day suffice unto itself."

He walked to a grand piano at the end of the room, sat down and began to play.

Surprise was dead in Archie where the Governor was concerned; he could only marvel at the ease and finish with which the man made the room vibrate with the most exquisite melodies of Schumann, Chopin, MacDowell.

He played for half an hour without airs or affectations, things that bruised and hurt the spirit by their very tenderness and wistfulness.

"It's as though some one had been flinging handfuls of rose leaves into the room," said Julia softly when the last chords had died away.

The music had at least served the purpose of dispersing any unhappy hovering ghosts, and she was quick to seize the moment as a propitious one for her departure. The Governor did not demur when she asked him to see if her car was waiting.

"You are not afraid to drive out alone? I should be glad, you know, to make the run with you."

"Not in the least afraid," she answered lightly.

Fear, Archie thought, was not a thing one would a.s.sociate with her. The Governor brought her coat, a long garment that covered her completely.

She produced from the bag a cap which she subst.i.tuted for the hat and Archie had thus his first view of her handsome head and abundant dark hair and her face freed of the baffling shadow.

In carrying her wrap into the room the Governor had frustrated any hope she may have had for a private word with him; but she betrayed no resentment.

"It's really much nicer changing indoors," she laughed, standing before a mirror to adjust the cap. "Coming in I s.h.i.+fted my headgear just before we reached town. Behold me now, a woman transformed!"

The Governor plucked Archie's sleeve as a sign that he was not to drop back and she walked to the car between them.

With a smile and a wave of the hand she was gone and they stood at the curb looking after her until the limousine was out of sight.

"Thank you, lad," said the Governor quietly.

They went up to his den, where they smoked for some time in silence. The Governor seemed to be gathering himself together after the strain of the three difficult hours and when he spoke finally it was with a deep sigh.

"Well, Archie, we must bear ourselves as men in all our perplexities. We are put into this world for a purpose, every chick of us, and there's no use kicking the s.h.i.+ns of the high G.o.ds. I feel a leading; there's something pulling us both; unseen powers knocking us about. Tomorrow I shall be engaged most of the day; there are some of the brotherhood to meet and it must be managed with caution. I suggest that you stretch your legs in the park and feed the swans as a tranquilizer. Soon we shall be abroad on the eternal quest. The quest for what, I see written in your eyes! For peace, Archie; for happiness! It may be nearer than we think--there's always that to tie our hopes to!"

"It would be possible, I suppose," said Archie slowly, "for us to cut it all out, settle back into our old places--"

"Never!" cried the Governor., "I tell you we've got to complete the circle! If we stop now we're ruined, both of us! We've got to go right on. I know what's the matter with you; it's that dear sister of mine who has wakened in you all manner of regrets and yearnings for your old life. Ah, she couldn't fail to affect you that way; she's so wholly the real thing! Seeing her probably made you homesick for your Isabel.

There! I thought you would jump! And maybe you think I haven't been troubled in the same way about my little affair! There would be something fundamentally wrong with us, lad, if we didn't feel, when we stood before a beautiful n.o.ble woman, as though we were in a divine presence. That's the test, Archie; so long as we are sensible of that feeling there's some hope for us in this world and the next."