The Captain's Toll-Gate Part 13

"It is like making love," said Locker as he picked up the flowers, "charming, but p.r.i.c.kly." At this moment he started. "Who is that?" he exclaimed.

Mrs. Easterfield turned. "Oh, that is Monsieur Emile Du Brant. He is one of the secretaries of the Austrian legation. He is to spend a week with us. Suppose you take my flowers into the house and I will go to meet him."

Claude Locker, his arms folded around a ma.s.s of th.o.r.n.y roses, and a pair of scissors dangling from one finger, stood and gazed with savage intensity at the dapper little man--black eyes, waxed mustache, dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on--who, with one hand outstretched, while the other held his hat, advanced with smiles and bows to meet the lady of the house. Locker had seen him before; he had met him in Was.h.i.+ngton; and he had received forty dollars for a poem of which this Austrian young person was the subject.

He allowed the lady and her guest to enter the house before him, and then, like a male Flora, he followed, grinding his teeth, and indulging in imprecations.

"He will have to put on some other kind of clothes," he muttered, "and perhaps he may shave and curl his hair. That will give me a chance to see her before lunch. I do not know that she expected me to begin to-day, but I am going to do it. I have a clear field so far, and n.o.body knows what may happen to-morrow."

As Locker stood in the hallway waiting for some one to come and take his flowers, or to tell him where to put them, he glanced out of the back door. There, to his horror, he saw that Mrs. Easterfield had conducted her guest through the house, and that they were now approaching the tennis ground, where Professor Lancaster and Miss Asher were standing with their rackets in their hands, while Mr. and Mrs. Fox were playing chess under the shade of a tree.

"Field open!" he exclaimed, dropping the roses and the scissors. "Field clear! What a double-dyed a.s.s am I!" And with this he rushed out to the tennis ground; Mrs. Easterfield did not play.

Before Mrs. Easterfield returned to the house she stood for a moment and looked at the tennis players.

"Olive and three young men," she said to herself; "that will do very well."

A little before luncheon Claude Locker became very uneasy, and even agitated. He hovered around Olive, but found no opportunity to speak to her, for she was always talking to somebody else, mostly to the newcomer. But she was a little late in entering the dining-room, and Locker stepped up to her in the doorway.

"Is this your handkerchief?" he asked.

"No," said she, stopping; "isn't it yours?"

"Yes," he replied, "but I had to have some way of attracting your attention. I love you so much that I can scarcely see the table and the people."

"Thank you," she said, "and that is all for the next twenty-four hours."

_CHAPTER XII_

_Mr. Rupert Hemphill._

That afternoon it rained, so that the Broadstone people were obliged to stay indoors. d.i.c.k Lancaster found Mr. Fox a very agreeable and well-informed man, and Mrs. Fox was also an excellent conversationalist.

Mrs. Easterfield, who, after the confidences of the morning, could not help looking at him as something more than an acquaintance, talked to him a good deal, and tried to make the time pa.s.s pleasantly, at which business she was an adept. All this was very pleasant to d.i.c.k, but it did not compensate him for the almost entire loss of the society of Olive, who seemed to devote herself to the entertainment of the Austrian secretary. Mrs. Easterfield was very sorry that the young foreigner had come at this time, but he had been invited the winter before; the time had been appointed; and the visit had to be endured.

When the rain had ceased, and d.i.c.k was about to take his leave, his hostess declared she would not let him walk back through the mud.

"You shall have a horse," she said, "and that will insure an early visit from you, for, of course, you will not trust the animal to other hands than your own. I would ask you to stay, but that would not be treating the captain kindly."

As d.i.c.k was mounting Mr. Du Brant was standing at the front door, a smile on his swarthy countenance. This smile said as plainly as words could have done so that it was very amusing to this foreign young man to see a person with rolled-up trousers and a straw hat mount upon a horse.

Claude Locker, whose soul had been chafing all the afternoon under his banishment from the society of the angel of his life, was also at the front door, and saw the contemptuous smile. Instantly a new and powerful emotion swept over his being in the shape of a strong feeling of fellows.h.i.+p for Lancaster. It made his soul boil with indignation to see the sneer which the Austrian directed toward the young man, a thoroughly fine young man, who, by said foreigner's monkeyful impudence, and another's mistaken favor, had been made a brother-in-misfortune of himself, Claude Locker.

"I will make common cause with him against the enemy," thought Locker.

"If I should fail to get her I will help him to." And although d.i.c.k's brown socks were plainly visible as he cantered away, Mr. Locker looked after him as a gallant and honored brother-in-arms.

That evening Claude Locker fought for himself and his comrade. He persisted in talking French with Mr. Du Brant; and his remarkable management of that language, in which ignorance and a subtle facility in intentional misapprehension were so adroitly blended that it was impossible to tell one from the other, amused Olive, and so provoked the Austrian that at last he turned away and began to talk American politics with Mr. Fox, which so elated the poet that the ladies of the party pa.s.sed a merry evening.

"Would you like me to take him out rowing to-morrow?" asked Claude apart to his hostess.

"With you at the oars?" she asked.

"Of course," said Locker.

"I am amazed," said she, "that you should suspect me of such cold-blooded cruelty."

"You know you don't want him here," said Claude. "His salary can not be large, and he must spend the greater part of it on clothes--and oil."

"Is it possible," she asked, "that you look upon that young man as a rival?"

"By no means," he replied; "such persons never marry. They only prevent other people from marrying anybody. Therefore it is that I remember what sort of a boatman I am."

"My dear," said Mr. Fox, when he and his wife had retired to their room, "after hearing what that Austrian has to say of the American people, I almost revere Mr. Locker."

"I heard some of his remarks," she said, "and I imagined they would have an effect of that kind upon you."

When the Broadstone surrey came from the train the next morning it brought a gentleman.

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Fox, when from the other side of the lawn she saw him alight. "Another young man with a valise! It seems to me that this is an overdose!"

"Overdoses," remarked Mr. Fox, "are often less dangerous than just enough poison."

Mrs. Easterfield received this visitor at the door. She had been waiting for him, and did not wish him to meet anybody when she was not present.

After offering his respectful salutations, Mr. Hemphill, Mr.

Easterfield's secretary in the central office of the D. and J., delivered without delay a package of which he was the bearer, and apologized for his valise, stating that Mr. Easterfield had told him he must spend the night at Broadstone.

"Most a.s.suredly you would do that," said she, and to herself she added, "If I want you longer I will let you know."

Mr. Rupert Hemphill was a very handsome man; his nose was fine; his eyes were dark and expressive; he wore silky side-whiskers, which, however, did not entirely conceal the bloom upon his cheeks; his teeth were very good; he was well shaped; and his clothes fitted him admirably.

As has been said before, Mrs. Easterfield was exceedingly interested; she was even a little agitated, which was not common with her. She had Mr. Hemphill conducted to his room, and then she waited for him to come down; this also was not common with her.

"Mr. Locker," she called from the open door, "do you know where Miss Asher is?"

The poet stopped in his stride across the lawn, and approached the lady.

"Oh, she is with the Du Brant," said he. "I have been trying to get in some of my French, but neither of them will rise to the fly. However, I am content; it is now three hours before luncheon, and if she has him to herself for that length of time, I think she will be thoroughly disgusted. Then it will be my time, as per agreement."

Mrs. Easterfield was a little disappointed. She wanted Olive by herself, but she did not want to make a point of sending for her. But fortune favored her.

"There she is," exclaimed Locker; "she is just going into the library.

Let me go tell her you want her."

"Not at all," said Mrs. Easterfield. "Don't put yourself into danger of breaking your word by seeing her alone before luncheon. I'll go to her."

Mr. Locker continued his melancholy stroll, and Mrs. Easterfield entered the library. Olive must not be allowed to go away until the moment arrived which had been awaited with so much interest.

"I am looking for a copy of _Tartarin sur les Alps_. I am sure I saw it among these French books," said Olive, on her knees before a low bookcase. "Would you believe it, Mr. Du Brant has never read it, and he seems to think so much of education."