A Court of Inquiry Part 4

And he's cut his foot!--I'm going to run down to the barn, too, and see him."

And she hurried away after the Skeptic.

"I think I'll go in and sleep a while," said the Gay Lady to me. Her expressive lips had a curious little twist of scorn.

"I should, too, if I hadn't a new guest," said I.

We tried not to smile at each other, but we couldn't quite help it.

The Gay Lady went away to her room. I heard her close the blinds on the side that looked off toward the barn, and, glancing up, saw that she had turned down the slats tightly.

I think it must have been well on toward four in the afternoon when the white sunbonnet at last disappeared through the gap in the hedge. The Skeptic came back up the garden path at the pace of an escaping convict, and went tearing up the stairs to his room. I heard him splas.h.i.+ng like a seal in his bath. Presently he came out, freshly attired and went away down the road, in the opposite direction from that in which lay the house beyond the hedge.

Dahlia came over at twilight that evening--to bring me a great bunch of golden-glow. She was captivatingly arrayed in blue. She remained for an hour or so. When she went away the Skeptic walked home with her. He was forced to do it. The Philosopher had disappeared again, quite without warning, some twenty minutes earlier.

She came over the next afternoon. On the day following she practically took up her residence with us. I thought of inviting her to bring a trunk and occupy the white room. On the fourth night I accidentally overheard a brief but pregnant colloquy which took place just inside the library door, toward the last of the evening.

"You've got to take her home to-night, old man."

"I won't." It was the Philosopher.

"You've got to. It's your turn. No s.h.i.+rking."

"I'll be hanged if I will."

"I'll be hanged if _I_ will. There's a limit."

"I'd always supposed there was. There doesn't seem to be."

"Come along--stand up to it like a man. It's up to you to-night. She can't carry you off bodily."

"I'm not so sure of that." The Philosopher's tone was grim.

So far I had been transfixed. But now I hurried away. I was consumed with anxiety during the next ten minutes, lest they come to blows in settling it. But when they appeared I could tell that they had settled it somehow.

When Dahlia arose and said that she positively must go they both accompanied her. The transit occupied less time than it had done on any previous occasion.

From this time on there was concerted action on the part of our two men.

Where one was, the other was. The Gay Lady and I received less attention than we were accustomed to expect--the two men were too busy standing by each other to have much time for us.

"I'm so sorry," said Dahlia, coming over after dinner on the tenth evening, "but I'm going away to-morrow. I've an invitation that I'm simply not allowed to refuse."

The Philosopher's face lit up. He attempted to conceal it by burying his head in his handkerchief for a moment, in mock distress, but his satisfaction showed even behind his ears. The Skeptic bent down and elaborately tied his shoe-ribbon. The Gay Lady regarded Dahlia sweetly, and said, "That's surely very nice for you."

"I think," observed Dahlia, looking coyly from the Skeptic to the Philosopher, "that I shall have to let each of you take me for a farewell walk to-night. You first"--she indicated the Philosopher. "Or shall it be a row for one and a walk for the other?"

She and the Philosopher strolled away toward the river. There had been no way out for him.

"The Englishman, the Scotsman and the Irishman," began the Skeptic, in a conversational tone, "being about to be hanged, were given their choice of a tree. 'The oak for me,' says the Englishman. 'The Scotch elm for mine,' says the Scotsman. 'Faith,' says the Irishman, 'I'll be afther takin' a gooseberry bush.' 'That's too small,' says the hangman. 'I'll wait for it to grow,' says the Irishman contentedly."

Whereat he disappeared. When Dahlia and the Philosopher returned he had not come back. I was amazed at him, but my amazement did not produce him, and the Philosopher accompanied Dahlia home. When they were well away the Skeptic swung himself up over the side of the porch, from among some bushes.

"'All's fair in love and war,'" he grinned. "Besides, the campaign's over. Philo's gained experience. He's a veteran now. He'll never be such easy game again. Haven't we behaved well, on the whole?" he asked the Gay Lady, dropping upon a cus.h.i.+on at her feet.

"I don't think you have," said the Gay Lady gently.

"We haven't! Why not?"

She shook her head. "I refuse to discuss it," she said, as gently as before, but quite firmly.

The Skeptic sighed. "I'm sorry," he declared. "You really don't know----"

"I don't want to know," said the Gay Lady. "Isn't it a lovely, lovely evening?"

"Yes, it's a lovely evening," said the Skeptic, looking up at her. "It would be delightful on the river."

She shook her head again.

"Not nicer than here," she answered.

The Philosopher came back. When he was half-way across the lawn the Skeptic jumped up and rushed forward and offered his shoulder for the Philosopher to lean upon.

"Clear out," said the Philosopher shortly.

"I'm glad to hear it," rejoined the Skeptic. "I feared you might be clear in."

"It's not your fault that I'm not," grunted the Philosopher.

He dropped down upon the porch step in an exhausted way.

The Gay Lady rose.

"The air is making me sleepy," said she in her musically sweet voice.

"Good-night."

The Skeptic and the Philosopher looked after her retreating figure even after it ceased to be visible, drifting down the wide, central hall.

"The worst of it is," grumbled the Skeptic, "that an exhibition of that sort of thing always makes the other kind draw off, for fear we may possibly think they're in the same cla.s.s."

I, too, now said good-night, and went away to let them have it out between them.

IV