The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors Part 18

"Do you dislike the Germans so much?" he asked.

"Not the German people----" she stammered. "Just the Imperial Government!"

"But aren't the people the Government?"

"I hope not."

"Ah, so Miss Carter has opened fire on you, too, has she?" laughed de Lestis. "If there were more fighters like her among the Allies, poor Germany would have her banners trailing in the dust by now."

"I did not mean to be rude to Mr. Herz," said Douglas. "I am too prejudiced in favor of France and England to remember my manners. If I have injured you, I beg your pardon," and she gave the secretary her hand in good-by.

He blushed like a schoolgirl and stammered out some unintelligible something.

De Lestis renewed his attentions to Helen just as though he had not been hovering over her sister with tender nothings.

"He is a flirt!" thought Helen. "I think I can give him as good as he sends, but I am beginning to hate him." She dimpled to his remarks, however, and as she bade him good-by at the door she smiled saucily into his eyes.

"To think of that man's being willing to ruin his roof line," sighed Mr.

Carter as he and his daughters started on their homeward walk. "Just look how beautiful it is," pointing to the old chimneys where the roof melted into the sky.

"It is a shame," cried Helen. "But how cold it is! There now, I left my gloves on the library table."

"Run back and get them, honey; Douglas and I will wait for you here by the stile."

Helen ran back. Once more she glanced into the library where on their arrival they had caught a glimpse of the two men bending over the papers. Now what was her astonishment to see the secretary actually shaking the count, who was laughing heartily. The secretary's eyes were flas.h.i.+ng as he blurted out the words:

"Fool! Fool!"

The count opened the door quickly this time at her knock.

"Your gloves! I found them and almost hoped you would leave them with me, but the little hands would have been so cold. Indeed, they are so cold," and he gallantly kissed them.

Helen seized her gloves and with glowing cheeks raced back to her father and sister. She gave her hands a vigorous rubbing on her grey corduroy skirt before she put on her gloves as though she might rub off the kiss.

In the excitement over the denouement of the visit she forgot for the time being that she had caught the secretary shaking his employer and calling him a fool.

CHAPTER XIII

GOOSE STEPPING

The winter wore on. Our warriors were fighting the good fight and each night as they gathered round the cheerful fire in the great chimney in the living-room at Valhalla they had tales to tell of difficulties overcome. Of course there were failures, many of them, but each failure meant a lesson learned and better luck next time.

Douglas had days when the little ideas refused to shoot and her pupils seemed to be just so many wooden dolls, but she learned the rare lesson, that teachers must learn if they are to be successful: when a cla.s.s won't learn, and can't learn, and doesn't want to learn, there is something the matter with the teacher. When she came to this realization she took herself to task, and the dark days came farther and farther apart.

The letter she had written Dr. Wright had had a most salutary effect on Bobby. That young physician had taken the naughty boy for a long ride and had given him a man to man talk, first temporarily dismissing him from his employ and sternly forbidding him to hold out his hand when they were going around corners. He was not allowed to blow the horn at dangerous curves and all of his honors were stripped from him.

"It nearly killed me to do it," George Wright confessed to Helen. "I couldn't look him in the eye for fear of weakening, but he took it like the little man he is. I fancy Douglas will have no more trouble with him for a while. I am glad she asked me to help her out. It is no joke to teach your own flesh and blood. Bobby says he thought that Douglas was just playing school and he didn't know he was really bothering her. He knows now and is even prepared to lick any boy not twice his size who disturbs his sister."

Count de Lestis seemed to have much business that took him away from Weston. Sometimes he was gone for several weeks at a time, but when he returned he would drop in at Valhalla as though he had not been away at all. He was always a welcome visitor. Mrs. Carter greeted him as a long lost friend. He seemed to be the incarnation of the social world to the poor little lady, destined to spend her days out of her element. Mr.

Carter had almost forgiven him the pigeon house, but not quite.

"There is something lacking, somehow, in a man who would do such a thing," he had declared to Helen.

The pigeon house was built by the secretary, according to his own plans and specifications, and placed on the roof, where it loomed an eyesore to the artistic. Truly they seemed to be going into pigeon raising in good earnest. It was a huge affair, large enough to accommodate many pigeons; and then, with the careless expenditure of money that seemed to characterize the master of Weston, crates of pigeons arrived and were installed in their new quarters.

"The carrier pigeons have not come, but when they do I'll bring one to you," the count said to Douglas, "and you must promise to send me a message." The girl laughingly promised.

The count was still doing what Helen called "browsing." He flitted from sister to sister, whispering his tender nothings and for the moment seeming all devotion to the one with whom he happened to be.

"Thank goodness, I found out in time what a flirt he is!" Helen whispered to her inmost self. "Once, for just a fraction of a second, I was jealous of Douglas and of Nan, too. His house is so lovely and he is so rich and handsome and so fascinating, and I do so hate to be poor!

But I can't abide a male flirt!"

Nevertheless, Helen was very glad to see the count when he called at Valhalla and she was very successful in hiding her real feelings from that gentleman, who twirled his saucy moustache in masculine satisfaction when he thought of the attractive girl who so courteously received his attentions. Douglas's indifference rather piqued him and he was constantly trying to break through it, but no matter what flattering remarks he made to her she never seemed to know they were intended for her, Douglas Carter.

"That young soldier is at the bottom of it!" he would exclaim to himself after trying his best to get an answering spark from this girl who appeared so altogether lovely in his eyes, more lovely and desirable because of her indifference, and then, too, because he knew instinctively that Herz was hopelessly in love with her; and many men are like sheep and go where others lead.

The secretary was becoming a real nuisance to Douglas, who in a way liked him, but who never got over his very German name and his red, red mouth. He so often seemed to know exactly the moment when she was to dismiss school and would appear as she locked the schoolhouse door and quietly join her on the walk home. He was very interesting and Douglas much preferred him to the count, who could not be with any female for more than a few moments without bordering on love-making of some kind.

Herz had a great deal of information and this he would impart to Douglas in quite the manner of a professor as he walked stiffly by her side.

Bobby was not at all in favor of sharing the walks home with this tall, stiff stranger. Ever since Dr. Wright's talk with him he had considered himself Douglas's protector, and he liked to pretend that as they went along the lonesome road and skirted the dark pine woods he was going to shoot imaginary bandits who infested their path. He couldn't play any such game with this matter-of-fact man stalking along by their side, explaining to Douglas some intricate point in philosophy.

"Say, kin you goose step?" he asked one day when Herz was especially irritating to him. Bobby had a "bowanarrow" hid in the bushes by the branch, with which he had intended to kill many Indians on their homeward walk.

"Yes, of course!" came rather impatiently from Herz, who thought children should be seen and not heard and that this especial child would be well neither seen nor heard.

"Well, do it!"

"Bobby, don't bother Mr. Herz," Douglas admonished.

"He kin talk an' goose step at the same time," Bobby insisted.

Herz began solemnly to goose step, expounding his philosophy as he went.

Bobby shrieked with delight. This wasn't such a bad companion, after all. It was so ridiculous that Douglas could hardly refrain from shouting as loud as Bobby.

"Is that the way the German soldiers really walk?" asked Bobby.

"So I am told."

"Where did you learn to do it?" asked Douglas.

"I--I--at a school where I was educated."

"Oh, but you are an American, so the count told me."

"I am an American." This was uttered in a very dead tone. The man suddenly turned on his heel and with a muttered good-by disappeared.