The Moonlit Way Part 52

He patted her hand, laughed, and released it. She couldn't speak just then--she tried to as she stood there, head averted and grey eyes brilliant with tears--but she could not utter a sound.

Perhaps aware that her overcharged heart was meddling with her voice, he merely smiled as he watched her moving slowly back to Thessalie's room, where the magic trunk was being packed. Then he turned to his letters again. One was from his mother:

"Garry darling, anybody you bring to Foreland is always welcome, as you know. Your family never inquires of its members concerning any guests they may see fit to invite. Bring Miss Dunois and Dulcie Soane, your little model, if you like. There's a world of room here; n.o.body ever interferes with anybody else. You and your guests have two thousand acres to roam about in, ride over, fish over, paint over. There's plenty for everybody to do, alone or in company.

"Your father is well. He looks little older than you. He's fis.h.i.+ng most of the time, or busy reforesting that sandy region beyond the Foreland hills.

"Your sister and I ride as usual and continue to improve the breeds of the various domestic creatures in which we are interested and you are not.

"The pheasants are doing well this year, and we're beginning to turn them out with their foster-mothers.

"Your father wishes me to tell you and Jim Westmore that the trout fis.h.i.+ng is still fairly good, although it was better, of course, in May and June.

"The usual parties and social amenities continue in Northbrook.

Everybody included in that colony seems to have arrived, also the usual influx of guests, and there is much entertaining, tennis, golf, dances--the invariable card always offered there.

"Claire and I go enough to keep from being too completely forgotten. Your father seldom bothers himself.

"Also, the war in Europe has made us, at Foreland, disinclined to frivolity. Others, too, of the older society in Northbrook are more subdued than usual, devote themselves to quieter pursuits.

And those among us who have sons of military age are p.r.o.ne to take life soberly in these strange, oppressive days when even under sunny skies in this land aloof from war, all are conscious of the tension, the vague foreboding, the brooding stillness that sometimes heralds storms.

"But all north-country folk do not feel this way. The Gerhardts, for example, are very gay with a house full of guests and overflowing week-ends. The German Emba.s.sy, as always, is well represented at Hohenlinden. Your father won't go there at all now.

As for Claire and myself, we await political ruptures before we indulge in social ones. And it doesn't look like war, now that Von Tirpitz has been sent to Coventry.

"This, Garry darling, is my budget of news. Bring your guests whenever you please. You wouldn't bring anybody you oughtn't to; your family is liberal, informal, pleasantly indifferent, and always delightfully busy with its individual manias and fads; so come as soon as you please--sooner, please--because, strange as it may seem, your mother would like to see you."

The letter was what he had expected. But, as always, it made him very grateful.

"Wonderful mother I have," he murmured, opening another letter from his father:

"DEAR GARRET:

"Why the devil don't you come up? You've missed the cream of the fis.h.i.+ng. There's nothing doing in the streams now, but at sunrise and toward evening they're breaking nicely in the lake.

"I've put in sixty thousand three-year transplants this year on that sandy stretch. They are white, Scotch and Austrian. Your children will enjoy them.

"The dogs are doing well. There's one youngster, the litter-tyrant of Goldenrod's brood, who ought to make a field winner. But there's no telling. You and I'll have 'em out on native woodc.o.c.k.

"There are some grouse, but we ought to let them alone for the next few years. As for the pheasants, they're everywhere now, in the brake, silver-gra.s.s, and weeds, peeping, scurrying, creeping--cunning little beggars and growing wild as quail.

"The horses are all right. The crops promise well. Labour is devilish scarce, and unsatisfactory when induced to accept preposterous wages. What we need are coolies, if these lazy, native slackers continue to handicap the farmers who have to employ them. The American 'hired man'! He makes me sick. With few exceptions, he is incredibly stupid, ignorant, unwilling, lazy.

"He's sometimes a crook, too; he takes pay for what he doesn't do; he steals your time; he cares absolutely nothing about your interests or convenience; he will leave you stranded in harvest time, without any notice at all; decent treatment he does not appreciate; he'll go without a warning even, leaving your horses unfed, your cattle unwatered, your crops rotting!

"He's a degenerate relic of those real men who broke up the primaeval wilderness. He is the reason for high prices, the cause of agricultural and industrial distress, the inert, sodden, fermenting, indigestible ma.s.s in the belly of the body-politic!

"The American hired man! If the country doesn't spew him up, he'll kill it!

"Perhaps you've heard me before on this subject, Garret. I'm likely to air my views, you know.

"Well, my son, I look forward to your arrival. I am glad that Westmore is coming with you. As for your other guests, they are welcome, of course.

"Your father,

"REGINALD BARRES."

He laughed; this letter so perfectly revealed his father.

"Dad and his trout and his birds and his pines and his eternally accursed hired help," he said to himself, "Dad and his monocle and his immaculate attire--the finest man who ever fussed!" And he laughed tenderly to himself as he broke the seal of his sister's brief note:

"Garry dear, I've been so busy schooling horses and dancing that I've had no time for letter writing. So glad you're coming at last. Bring along any good novels you see. My best to Jim. Your guests can be well mounted, if they ride. Father is wild because there are more foxes than usual, but he's promised not to treat them as vermin, and the Northbrook pack is to hunt our territory this season, after all. Poor Dad! He is a brick, isn't he?"

"Affectionately,

"LEE."

Barres pocketed his sheaf of letters and began to stroll about the studio, whistling the air of some recent musical atrocity.

Westmore, in his own room, composing verses--a secret vice unsuspected by Barres--bade him "Shut up!"--the whistling no doubt ruining his metre.

But Barres, with politest intentions, forgot himself so many times that the other man locked up his "Lines to Thessalie when she was sewing on a b.u.t.ton for me," and came into the studio.

"Where is she?" he inquired navely.

"Where's who?" demanded Barres, still sensitive over the increasing intimacy of this headlong young man and Thessalie Dunois.

"Thessa."

"In there fussing with Dulcie's togs. Go ahead in, if you care to."

"Is your stuff packed up?"

Barres nodded:

"Is yours?"

"Most of it. How many trunks is Thessa taking?"

"How do I know?" said Barres, with a trace of irritation. "She's at liberty to take as many as she likes."

Westmore didn't notice the irritation; his mind was entirely occupied by Thessalie--an intellectual condition which had recently become rather painfully apparent to Barres, and, doubtless, equally if not painfully apparent to Thessalie herself.

Probably Dulcie noticed it, too, but gave no sign, except when the serious grey eyes stole toward Barres at times, as though vaguely apprehensive that he might not be entirely in sympathy with Westmore's enchanted state of mind.

As for Thessalie, though Westmore's nave and increasing devotion could scarcely escape her notice, it was utterly impossible to tell how it affected her--whether, indeed, it made any impression at all.

For there seemed to be no difference in her att.i.tude toward these two men; it was plain enough that she liked them both--that she believed in them implicitly, was happy with them, tranquil now in her new security, and deeply penetrated with grat.i.tude for their kindness to her in her hour of need.