Where There's a Will Part 19

"Handsome!" she said. "My dear, he's beautiful! He has a duel scar on his left cheek--all the n.o.bility have them over there. I've a cousin living in Berlin--she's the wittiest person--and she says the German child of the future will be born with a scarred left cheek!"

Well, I was sick enough of hearing of Mr. von Inwald before the day was over. All morning in the spring-house they talked Mr. von Inwald. They pretended to play cards, but they were really playing European royalty.

Every time somebody laid down a queen, he'd say, "Is the queen still living, or didn't she die a few years ago?" And when they played the knave, they'd start off about the prince again. They'd all decided that Mr. von Inwald was n.o.ble--somebody said that the "von" was a sort of t.i.tle. The women were planning to make the evenings more cheerful, too.

They couldn't have a dance with the men using canes or forbidden to exercise, but Miss Cobb had a lot of what she called "parlor games" that she wanted to try out. "Introducing the Jones family" was one of them.

In the afternoon Mr. von Inwald came out to the spring-house and sat around, very affable and friendly, drinking the water. He and the bishop grew quite chummy. Miss Patty was not there, but about four o'clock Mr.

Pierce came out. He did not sit down, but wandered around the room, not talking to anybody, but staring, whenever he could, at the prince. Once I caught Mr. von Inwald's eyes fixed on him, as if he might have seen him before. After a while Mr. Pierce sat down in a corner like a sulky child and filled his pipe, and as n.o.body noticed him except to complain about the pipe, which he didn't even hear, he sat there for a half-hour, bent forward, with his pipe clenched in his teeth, and never took his eyes off Mr. von Inwald's face.

Senator Biggs was the one who really caused the trouble. He spent a good deal of time in the spring-house trying to fool his stomach by keeping it filled up all the time with water. He had got past the cranky stage, being too weak for it; his face was folded up in wrinkles like an accordion and his double chin was so flabby you could have tucked it away inside his collar.

"What do you think of American women, Mr. von Inwald?" he asked, and everybody stopped playing cards and listened for the answer. As Mr.

von Inwald represented the prince, wouldn't he be likely to voice the prince's opinion of American women?

It's my belief Mr. von Inwald was going to say something nice. He smiled as if he meant to, but just then he saw Mr. Pierce in his corner sneering behind his pipe. They looked at each other steadily, and n.o.body could mistake the hate in Mr. Pierce's face or his sneer. After a minute the prince looked away and shrugged his shoulders, but he didn't make his pretty speech.

"American women!" he said, turning his gla.s.s of spring water around on the table before him, "they are very lovely, of course." He looked around and there were Mrs. Moody and Mrs. Biggs and Miss Cobb, and he even glanced at me in the spring. Then he looked again at Mr. Pierce and kept his eyes there. "But they are spoiled, fearfully spoiled. They rule their parents and they expect to rule their husbands. In Europe we do things better; we are not--what is the English?--hag-ridden?"

There was a sort of murmur among the men, but the women all nodded as if they thought Europe was entirely right. They'd have agreed with him if he'd advocated sixteen wives sitting cross-legged on a mat, like the Turks. Mr. Pierce was still staring at the prince.

"What I don't quite understand, Mr. von Inwald," the bishop put in in his nice way, "is your custom of expecting a girl to bring her husband a certain definite sum of money and to place it under the husband's control. Our wealthy American girls control their own money," He was thinking of Miss Patty, and everybody knew it.

The prince turned red and glared at the bishop. Then I think he remembered that they didn't know who he was, and he smiled and started to turning the gla.s.s again.

"Pardon!" he said. "Is it not better? What do women know of money? They throw it away on trifles, dress, jewels--American women are extravagant.

It is one result of their--of their spoiling."

Mr. Pierce got up and emptied his pipe into the fire. Then he turned.

"I'm afraid you have not known the best type of American women," he said, looking hard at the prince. "Our representative women are our middle-cla.s.s women. They do not contract European alliances, not having sufficient money to attract the attention of the n.o.bility, or enough to buy t.i.tles, as they do pearls, for the purpose of adornment."

Mr. von Inwald got up, and his face was red. Mr. Pierce was white and sneering.

"Also," he went on, "when they marry they wish to control their own money, and not see it spent in--ways with which you are doubtless familiar."

We were all paralyzed. n.o.body moved. Mr. Pierce put his pipe in his pocket and stalked out, slamming the door. Then Mr. von Inwald shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

"I see I shall have to talk to our young friend," he said and picked up his gla.s.s. "I'm afraid I've given a wrong impression. I like the American women very much; too well," he went on with a flash of his teeth, looking around the room, and brought the gla.s.s to the spring for me to fill. But as I've said before, I can tell a good bit about a man from the way he gives me his gla.s.s, and he was in a perfect frenzy of rage. When I reached it back to him he gripped it until his nails were white.

My joint ached all the rest of the afternoon. About five o'clock Mr.

Thoburn stopped in long enough to say: "What's this I hear about Carter making an a.s.s of himself to-day?"

"I haven't heard it," I answered. "What is it?"

But he only laughed and turned up his collar to go.

"Jove, Minnie," he said, "why do women of your spirit always champion the losing side? Be a good girl; give me a hand now and then with this thing, and I'll see you don't lose by it."

"We're not going to lose," I retorted angrily. "n.o.body has left yet. We are still ahead on the books."

He came over and shook a finger in my face.

"n.o.body has left--and why? Because they're all taking a series of baths.

Wait until they've had their fifteen, or twenty-one, or whatever the cure is, and then see them run!"

It was true enough; I knew it.

CHAPTER XV

THE PRINCE, WITH APOLOGIES

Tillie brought the supper basket for the shelter-house about six o'clock and sat down for a minute by the fire. She said Mr. Pierce (Carter to her) had started out with a gun about five o'clock. It was foolish, but it made me uneasy.

"They've gone plumb crazy over that Mr. von Inwald," she declared. "It makes me tired. How do they know he's anything but what he says he is?

He may be a messenger from the emperor of Austria, and he may be selling flannel chest protectors. Miss Cobb's all set up; she's talking about getting up an entertainment and asking that Miss Summers to recite."

She got up, leaving the basket on the hearth.

"And say," she said, "you ought to see that dog now. It's been soakin'

in peroxide all day!"

She went out with the peroxide, but a moment later she opened the door and stuck her head in, nodding toward the basket.

"Say," she said, "the chef's getting fussy about the stuff I'm using in the diet kitchen. You've got to cut it out soon, Minnie. If I was you I'd let him starve."

"What!" I screeched, and grasped the rail of the spring.

"Let him starve!" she repeated.

"Wha--what are you talking about?" I demanded when I got my voice.

She winked at me from the doorway.

"Oh, I'm on all right, Minnie!" she a.s.sured me, "although heaven only knows where he puts it all! He's sagged in like a chair with broken springs."

I saw then that she thought I was feeding Senator Biggs on the sly, and I breathed again. But my nerves were nearly gone, and when just then I heard a shot from the direction of the deer park, even Tillie noticed how pale I got.

"I don't know what's come over you, Minnie," she said. "That's only Mr.

Carter shooting rabbits. I saw him go out as I started down the path."

I was still nervous when I put on my shawl and picked up the basket.

But there was a puddle on the floor and the soup had spilled. There was nothing for it but to go back for more soup, and I got it from the kitchen without the chef seeing me. When I opened the spring-house door again Mr. Pierce was by the fire, and in front of him, where I'd left the basket, lay a dead rabbit. He was sitting there with his chin in his hands looking at the poor thing, and there was no basket in sight.

"Well," I asked, "did you change my basket into a dead rabbit?"

"Basket!" he said, looking up. "What basket?"