A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 19

"Do you think you can bribe me?" shouted Garcide after him. Crawford hesitated.

"Come back here," said Garcide, firmly; "I want you to explain yourself."

"I can't," muttered Crawford.

"Well--try, anyway," said Garcide, more amiably.

And now this was the result of that explanation, at least one of the results; and Miss Castle had promised to wed a gentleman in Ophir Steel named Crawford, at the convenience of the Hon. John Garcide.

The early morning suns.h.i.+ne fell across the rugs in the music-room, filling the gloom with golden lights. It touched a strand of hair on Miss Castle's bent head.

"You'll like him," said Garcide, guiltily.

Her hand hung heavily on the piano keys.

"You have no other man in mind?" he asked.

"No, ... no man."

Garcide chewed the end of his cigar.

"Crawford's a bashful man. Don't make it hard for him," he said.

She swung around on the gilded music-stool, one white hand lying among the ivory keys.

"I shall spare us both," she said; "I shall tell him that it is settled."

Garcide rose; she received his caress with composure. He made another grateful peck at her chin.

"Why don't you take a quiet week or two in the country?" he suggested, cheerfully, "Go up to the Sagamore Club; Jane will go with you. You can have the whole place to yourselves. You always liked nature and--er--all that, eh?"

"Oh yes," she said, indifferently.

That afternoon the Hon. John Garcide sent a messenger to James J.

Crawford with the following letter:

"MY DEAR CRAWFORD,--Your manly and straightforward request for permission to address my ward, Miss Castle, has profoundly touched me.

"I have considered the matter, I may say earnestly considered it.

"Honor and the sacred duties of guardians.h.i.+p forbid that I should interfere in any way with my dear child's happiness if she desires to place it in your keeping. On the other hand, honor and decency prevent me from attempting to influence her to any decision which might prove acceptable to myself.

"I can therefore only grant you the permission you desire to address my ward. The rest lies with a propitious Providence.

"Cordially yours, JOHN GARCIDE.

"P.S.--My sister, Miss Garcide, and Miss Castle are going to the Sagamore Club to-night. I'll take you up there whenever you can get away."

To which came answer by messenger:

"_Hon. John Garcide_:

"MY DEAR GARCIDE,--Can't go for two weeks. My fool nephew Jim is on his vacation, and I don't know where he is prowling.

Hastily yours, "JAMES J. CRAWFORD.

"P. S.--There's a director's meeting at three. Come down and we'll settle all quarrels."

To this the Hon. John Garcide telegraphed: "All right," and hurriedly prepared to escort his sister and Miss Castle to the mid-day express for Sagamore Hills.

II

Miss Castle usually rose with the robins, when there were any in the neighborhood. There were plenty on the lawn around the Sagamore Club that dewy June morning, chirping, chirking, trilling, repeating their endless arias from tree and gate-post. And through the outcry of the robins, the dry cackle of the purple grackles, and the cat-bird's whine floated earthward the melody of the golden orioles.

Miss Castle, fresh from the bath, breakfasted in her own rooms with an appet.i.te that astonished her.

She was a wholesome, fresh-skinned girl, with a superb body, limbs a trifle heavy in the strict cla.s.sical sense, straight-browed, blue-eyed, and very lovely and Greek.

Pensively she ate her toast, tossing a few crumbs at the robins; pensively she disposed of two eggs, a trout, and all the chocolate, and looked into the pitcher for more cream.

The swelling bird-music only intensified the deep, sweet country silence which brooded just beyond the lawn's wet limits; she saw the flat river tumbling in the sunlight; she saw the sky over all, its blue mystery untroubled by a cloud.

"I love all that," she said, dreamily, to her maid behind her. "Never mind my hair now; I want the wind to blow it."

The happy little winds of June, loitering among the lilacs, heard; and they came and blew her bright hair across her eyes, puff after puff of perfumed balm, and stirred the delicate stuff that clung to her, and she felt their caress on her bare feet.

"I mean to go and wade in that river," she said to her maid. "Dress me very quickly."

But when she was dressed the desire for childish things had pa.s.sed away, and she raised her grave eyes to the reflected eyes in the mirror, studying them in silence.

"After all," she said, aloud, "I am young enough to have found happiness--if they had let me.... The suns.h.i.+ne is full of it, out-doors.... I could have found it.... I was not meant for men....

Still ... it is all in the future yet. I will learn not to be afraid."

She made a little effort to smile at herself in the mirror, but her courage could not carry her as far as that. So, with a quick, quaint gesture of adieu, she turned and walked rapidly out into the hallway.

Miss Garcide was in bed, sneezing patiently. "I won't be out for weeks,"

said the poor lady, "so you will have to amuse yourself alone."

Miss Castle kissed her and went away lightly down the polished stairs to the great hall.

The steward came up to wish her good-morning, and to place the resources of the club at her disposal.

"I don't know," she said, hesitating at the veranda door; "I think a sun-bath is all I care for. You may hang a hammock under the maples, if you will. I suppose," she added, "that I am quite alone at the club?"

"One gentleman arrived this morning," said the steward--"Mr. Crawford."

She looked back, poised lightly in the doorway through which the morning suns.h.i.+ne poured. All the color had left her face. "Mr. Crawford," she said, in a dull voice.

"He has gone out after trout," continued the steward, briskly; "he is a rare rod, ma'am, is Mr. Crawford. He caught the eight-pound fish--perhaps you noticed it on the panel in the billiard-room."