Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 22

Other arrivals facilitated their escape. As they pa.s.sed down the drawing-room the Governor directed Archie's attention to a portrait which he p.r.o.nounced a Copley, and insisted upon examining closely. It was with difficulty that Archie persuaded him to leave it, so enraptured was the Governor with the likeness of a stern old gentleman in powdered wig, who gazed down upon them with anything but a friendly eye.

As they stepped into the conservatory the music ceased and there was a flutter as the dancers sought seats, or stepped out upon the lawn.

Archie, acutely uncomfortable, heard the Governor stifle an exclamation.

"That is she! Stand by me now! That chap's just left her. This is our chance!"

A young woman was just seating herself in a chair at the farther corner of the conservatory and her partner had darted away toward a table where punch was offered. The Governor moved toward her quickly. Archie saw her lift her head suddenly and her lips parted as though she were about to make an outcry. Then the Governor bowed low over her hand, uttering explanations in a low tone. Her surprise had yielded to what Archie, loitering behind, thought an expression of relief and satisfaction. He moved forward as the Governor turned toward him.

"Miss Hastings, Mr. Comly."

The girl had risen, perhaps the better to hide her agitation, Archie thought. She absently accepted the cup of punch brought by her partner, who, seeing her preoccupied with two strangers, pledged her to another dance and left them.

"My name here," the Governor was saying, "is Saulsbury."

A slight shrug and a frown betrayed displeasure, but it was only for a moment and she smiled in spite of herself. The Governor's occasional references to the woman who had enchained his affections had not prepared Archie for this presentation to a Ruth who might have pa.s.sed for seventeen in a hasty scrutiny and upon whose graceful head it seemed a wickedness to add the five years the Governor had attributed to her.

She was below medium height, with brown hair and eyes. There was something wonderfully sweet and appealing in her eyes. Imagination had set its light in them and the Governor was a man to awaken romantic dreams in imaginative women. The tan of her cheeks emphasized her look of youth; she would have pa.s.sed for a school girl who lived in tennis courts and found keen delight on the links. How and where the Governor could have known her was a matter of speculation, but in his wanderings just such a charming gipsy might easily have captured his fancy. The Governor had never, not even in the presence of his sister, been so wholly the gentleman as now. He was enormously happy, but with a subdued happiness. He was upon his good behavior and Archie was satisfied that he would in no way abuse the hospitality of the house he had entered with so much effrontery. The girl would take care of that in any event.

The humor of the thing was appealing to her, and her eyes danced with excitement. How much she knew about the Governor was another baffling matter; but she knew enough at least to know that his appearance was an impudence and with all discretion she was enjoying her connivance in her lover's appearance. A wise, self-contained young person, capable of extricating herself from even more perilous situations. Archie liked Ruth. The Governor had said that she was a bishop's daughter but for all that she might have been the child of a race of swarthy kings.

"You couldn't have thought that I would wait when I knew that you were in a mood to tolerate me or that I might serve you!" said the Governor gravely. "If our presence is likely to prove embarra.s.sing--"

"Oh, Aunt Louise doesn't know the names of half the people here. She never goes out herself; she merely asked old friends and the children of old friends. I really didn't want this party for I'm here on business, and it's about that that I want to speak to you, please!"

"I think," said Archie, ill at ease, "that the moment has come for me to retire."

"We shall not turn you adrift!" cried Ruth. "I have a very dear friend I must introduce you to. Oh--" she hesitated and turned to the Governor, "is Mr. Comly a roamer? Has he a heart for high adventure?"

"He speaks without accent the language of all who love the long brown road."

"Then let him come with me!"

She laid her hand on Archie's arm, and walked toward the wide-flung doors. The orchestra was again summoning the dancers.

"Oh, Isabel!"

Following her gaze he was glad of the slight pressure of her hand on his arm. Here at least was something tangible in a world that tottered toward chaos. For it was Isabel Perry who turned at the sound of Ruth's voice. She was just at the point of gliding away with her partner.

"Miss Perry, Mr. Comly!"

The eyes that had haunted him in his wanderings flashed upon him, then narrowed questioningly.

"Oh, Mr. Comly!" There was the slightest stress on the a.s.sumed name.

"After this dance--"

She slipped away leaving him staring.

"Please take me back to Mr. Saulsbury," said Ruth. "I've got to cut this dance. I will introduce you to some other girls."

But as no other girls were immediately available he protested that he would do very well and guided her to the Governor.

"Isabel is very busy, as usual," said Ruth, "but if Mr. Comly is a good strategist, he will not fail to find her again. Isabel, you know--"

"Isabel!" exclaimed the Governor. "Not really--"

"Yes, really," Archie answered, his voice hoa.r.s.e as he raised it above the music.

The Governor struck his gloved hands together smartly. Ruth, turning from a youth to whom she had excused herself, asked quickly:

"What has happened? You both look as though you had seen a ghost."

"It's more mysterious than ghosts. Come; we must make the most of these minutes. Your next partner won't give you up as meekly as that last one did."

Archie saw them a moment later pacing back and forth in one of the walks a little distance from the house. He stationed himself at the door with some other unattached men, and followed Isabel's course over the floor with intent, eager eyes. The dance, to a new and enchanting air, was prolonged and he died many deaths as he watched her, catching tantalizing glimpses of her face only to lose it again.

No one in the happy throng seemed gayer than she; and once as she tripped by he a.s.sured himself that there was no hostility in the swift glance she gave him. Seeing her again rilled him with a great happiness untinged with bitterness. Among all the women of the bright company she alone was superb, and not less regal for his remembrance of her anger, the anger that had brought tears to her lovely eyes.

At the conclusion of the number, she remained, to his discomfiture, at the farther end of the platform, and when he hurried forward in the hope of detaching her from the group that surrounded her she did not see him at all, which was wholly discouraging. A partner sought her for the next dance and as the music struck up he made bold to accost her.

"I am not to be eluded!" he said. "I must have at least one dance!"

"My card is filled--but I am reserving a boon for you! You shall have the intermission," and added as by an afterthought, "Mr. Comly," with a delicious mockery.

He pa.s.sed Ruth, returning to put herself in the path of her next partner.

"This is your punishment for coming late!" laughed the girl. There was happiness in her eyes. "How perfectly ridiculous you two men are!"

"Suppose we talk a bit," said the Governor when they had found a bench on the lawn. He was silent for several minutes, sitting erect with arms folded.

"It's nearing the end!" he said solemnly; "there are other changes and chances perhaps, but the end is in sight. The whole thing was unalterable from the beginning; it makes little difference what we do now. And it's you--it's you that have brought it all about. We are bound together by ties not of earthly making."

He laughed softly, turned and placed his hand on Archie's shoulder.

"You are beginning to believe at last?"

"I don't know what to believe," Archie answered slowly. "There's something uncanny in all this. Just how much do you understand of it?"

"Precious little! Your Isabel and my Ruth are friends; quite intimate friends indeed. In college together, I'd have you know, but I never knew it till now. That's news to you, isn't it?"

"Most astonis.h.i.+ng news!"

"And this is the very Isabel who shattered your equanimity; told you to shoot up the world and then treated you like a pick-pocket the next time you met! But as old William said 'Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.'"

"Don't jump at conclusions! I was just bragging when I gave you the idea that there was anything between us. The love's all on my side! She twitted me about my worthlessness that night in Was.h.i.+ngton; bade me tear down the heavens. And it oddly happened that from that hour I have never been a free man; I have done things I believed myself incapable of doing."

"You did them rather cheerfully, I must say! But on the whole, nothing very naughty. And I'll prepare you a little for what I prefer you should hear from Isabel--I got it from Ruth--you're not quite finished yet with that pistol shot in the Congdon house. It seems to be echoing round the world!"