Amazing Grace Part 37

I was decidedly uncomfortable.

"Will you please explain how you knew all this?" I asked.

His smile died away.

"Mrs. Hiram Walker wrote her son to call on me while I was in New York," he explained in his serious lawyer-like manner, "and he happened to leave a copy of _The Oldburgh Herald_ in my rooms."

"Oh! That was quite simple, wasn't it?"

"Quite!"

It occurred to me then that there was no use trying to keep fate's name out of this conversation--and also it came to me that the orchids were no longer a mystery--but before I could make up my mind to mention this he turned to me ferociously.

"You _did_ make a fool of me!" he accused.

My heart began thumping again.

"What do you mean?" I began, but he cut me short.

"It is this that I can not get over! The thought has come to me that perhaps if I might hear you acknowledge it, I might be able to forgive you better."

"Forgive me?"

He leaned toward me.

"If you don't mind, I should like to hear you say: 'Maitland Tait, I did make a fool of you!'"

"But I didn't!" I denied stoutly, while my face flushed, and all the fighting blood in me seemed to send forth a challenge from my cheeks.

"I'll say what I _do_ think, however, if you wish to hear it!"

"And that is----?"

"Maitland Tait, you made a fool of yourself!"

He looked disappointed.

"Oh, I know that!" he replied.

"You do? Since when, please?"

"Why, I knew it before I crossed the Ohio River!" he acknowledged, seeming to take some pride in the fact. "I--I intended to apologize--or something--when I got to Pittsburgh, but when I reached New York, on my way here, I saw that you were coming to England, too----"

"So you thought the matter could easily wait--I see!" I observed, then, to change the subject, I asked: "Have you been here long?"

"Two weeks! I knew that I should get news of you in _this_ neighborhood, sooner or later."

I instantly smiled.

"I have come here for my first Sunday, you see, but----"

"But you haven't been to the abbey yet, have you?" he asked.

The boyish anxiety in his tone gave me a thrill. Something in the thought of his remembering my romantic whim touched me.

"No. I have just come from there--the lodge--but the old woman at the gates wouldn't let me in."

He looked interested.

"No? But why not?"

"The master of the house has just died," I explained. "It would be a terrible breach of etiquette to go sight-seeing over the mourning acres."

His lips closed firmly.

"Nonsense! I'll venture that's just a servant's whim." He slipped out his watch. "Shall I go over and try to beg or bribe permission for you? I'm not easily daunted by their refusals, and--I'll have a little time to spare this morning, if you'd care to put your marooned period to such a use."

"I _am_ marooned," I told him, wondering for a moment what the Montgomerys would think of my delay, "and I should like this, of course, above anything else that England has to offer, but----"

Then, after his precipitate fas.h.i.+on, he waited for no more. He paused at the edge of the platform for a low-toned colloquy with Collins--I could easily distinguish now that the liveried creature was Collins--and the two disappeared down the car track. After the briefest delay he returned.

"What can't be cured must be ignored," he said with a shrug, as he came up. "The poor old devil evidently regards us as very impious and--American, but I made everything all right with her."

"But how----?" I started to inquire, also at the same moment starting down the track toward the lodge house, when he stopped both my question and my progress.

"Let us wait here--I have sent Collins to get a car for us from the garage not far away."

He led the way out to a drive, sheltered with trees, on the other side of the track, and we awaited the coming of Collins--neither showing any disposition to talk.

"Is this _your_ car?" I presently asked, as the servant driving a gleaming black machine drew up in front of us. "I hadn't imagined that you would have your own car down in the country with you."

"I've had experience with these trains," he explained briefly, then he looked the car over with a masterful eye. "Yes, it's mine."

"I really shouldn't have needed to ask--there's so strong a family resemblance to the other one--the limousine you had in Oldburgh."

He looked pleased.

"I hope you'll like this one--it's a Blanton Six, you see," he explained with a pat of affectionate pride upon the door-handle as he helped me in.

Collins climbed to his place at the wheel, and without another word--without one backward look--I was whirled away into the Land of Long Ago--the period where I had always belonged.

At the second lodge--the grand one--I pinched myself. I had to, to see whether I was awake--or dreaming a Jane Austen dream. Maitland Tait, watching me closely, saw the act.

"You're quite awake," he a.s.sured me gravely.

"But--what are you?" I inquired. "Are you yourself--or Aladdin, or----"