Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Part 23

CHAPTER FIVE

I

"In spite of my warnings you continue to follow me!" said Isabel when they were established in the supper room.

"Are we to have another row? I don't believe I can go through with it."

"No; for rows haven't got us anywhere. And Ruth whispered to me a moment ago to be very nice to you. While the gentleman on the other side of me is occupied we might clear up matters a little."

"It's not in my theory of life to explain things; I tried explaining myself at Portsmouth and again at Bennington but you were singularly unsympathetic. Please be generous and tell me why you were skipping over New England, darting through trains and searching hotel registers and manifesting uneasiness when policemen appeared. You recommended a life of lawlessness to me but I didn't know you meant to go in for that sort of thing yourself."

"It occurred to me after the Bennington interview that I might have been unjust, but I was in a humor to suspect every one. When you said you'd shot Putney Congdon you frightened me to death. Of course you did nothing of the kind!"

"This is wonderful chicken salad," he said, hastily. "I beg you to do it full justice. The people about us mustn't get the idea that we're discussing homicide. Now, to answer your question, I _had_ shot Mr.

Putney Congdon and in edging away from the scene of my bloodshed I was guilty of other indiscretions that made me chatter like a maniac when I saw you. It was such a joke that you should turn up when I was doing just what you prescribed for me as a cure for my ills. I am quite calm now, and my health is so good that when the waiter brings those little pocket rolls this way I shall take a second and perhaps a third."

"My own nerves had gone to pieces or I shouldn't have flared as I did at Portsmouth and I was even more irresponsible when I saw you in that parlor car at Bennington."

"You saw me kiss a girl on the train. Miss Perry, I will not deceive you about that. She was all but a stranger, and I had a.s.sisted her to elope.

Her husband was hiding in the baggage car."

"He would have thrown himself under the wheels if he had witnessed that ardent kissing! I confess that I hadn't done justice to your fascinations. And you were not her guardian, or anything like that?"

"Certainly not. She's a dairy maid I married to a diamond thief by mistake. My ignorance of women is complete. Sally Walker's duplicity wasn't necessary to convince me of that but your own conduct completely crushed my vanity."

"The crus.h.i.+ng has improved you, I think. Please don't think that because I am showing you so much tolerance I am wholly satisfied that you weren't trying to thwart my own criminal adventures. When we met at Portsmouth I was trying to meet poor Mrs. Congdon somewhere to help kidnap her little girl!"

"Edith--a lovely child," Archie remarked, and picked up the napkin that slipped from her knees. He enjoyed her surprise. "Please don't scorn the ice cream; you will find it very refres.h.i.+ng. As you were saying--"

"If I hadn't been warned by Ruth that you were to be trusted in this business I should begin screaming. How did you know the child's name?

What do you know about the Congdons?"

"Volumes! Let my imagination play on your confession. You were trying to find Mrs. Congdon and whisk the child away to your camp, when I ran into you. You had missed connections with the mother and thought I was trying to embarra.s.s or frustrate you? I had troubles of my own and you couldn't have done me a greater wrong!"

"Mrs. Congdon was in a panic, skipping about with the children to avoid her husband; but it was really her father-in-law who was pursuing her.

He's a miserly, disagreeable wretch! I came here to meet Ruth, who is an old friend of hers, hoping she might be able to deliver the little girl to me undetected. I met both Mr. and Mrs. Congdon once, several years ago, at a dinner in Chicago, but I can hardly say that I know them.

Ruth's to be the chief councilor of my camp--so interested in my scheme that she insisted on going up there to help me. And Mrs. Congdon thought that would be a fine place to hide her Edith while the family rumpus was on. I was to run with Edith as hard as I could for Heart o' Dreams, my girls' camp, you know, up in Michigan."

"How stupid I am! With a word you might have made unnecessary our two altercations!"

"The matter, as you can see, is very delicate, even hazardous. I had never been a kidnaper and when you saw me on those two occasions I was terribly alarmed, not finding Mrs. Congdon where she expected to be. And I must say that you added nothing to my peace of mind."

"Please note that I am drinking coffee at midnight! I shouldn't have dared do that before your cheering advice in Was.h.i.+ngton. We have but a moment more, and I shall give you in tabloid form my adventures to date."

It was the Isabel of the Was.h.i.+ngton dinner party who listened. She was deeply interested and amused, and at times he had the satisfaction of reading in her face what he hopefully interpreted as solicitude for his safety. He confined himself to essentials so rigidly that she protested constantly that he was not doing his story justice. Of the Governor he spoke guardedly, finding that Isabel knew nothing about him beyond a shadowy impression she had derived from Ruth that he was a wanderer who had charmed her fancy.

"If he hasn't told you of the beginning of their acquaintance, I must have a care," said Isabel. "He and Ruth met oddly enough in a settlement house--I needn't say where it was--where Ruth was a volunteer worker.

Your friend turned up there as a tramp and she didn't know at once that he was masquerading. Afterward he threw himself in her path, most ingeniously, in his proper role of a gentleman, in a summer place where she was visiting, and that added to the charm of the mystery. I can see that he's very unusual. You've told me more than she knows about him, but even that leaves a good deal to be desired. In all the world there's no girl like Ruth; there must be no question of her happiness!"

"You needn't be afraid. In spite of his singular ways I'd trust him round the world. We can't stay here longer, I suppose; there's a young blade at the door looking for you now. Is there any way I can serve you?"

"Ruth has explained all that to Mr. Saulsbury by now. She felt sure that he would help; and, believe me, I have confidence in you."

"The first thing is to find Edith Congdon and you may trust us for that.

I will seize this moment to say," he added quietly, "that you are even lovelier than I remembered you!"

"You are very bold, sir! You wouldn't have said that a very little while ago."

"You complained once that I wasn't bold enough! Now that I come to you red handed and for all you know with stolen silver in my pocket, you can't complain of my forwardness. I am a rascal of high degree, as you would have me be. And I now declare myself your most relentless suitor!

I trust my frankness pleases you?"

"Your adventures in rascality have added to your plausibility. I almost believe you--but not quite. You seem to be extremely vulnerable to feminine blandishments. There's Sally, the milkmaid. Remember that I saw you kiss her with rather more than brotherly warmth. Still, I suppose you'd earned some reward for your daring."

"A bluff old man-at-arms ought to be forgiven for pausing in his wild career to kiss a pretty la.s.s at the wayside!" he growled.

His mock-heroic att.i.tude toward his exploits kept her laughing, until she said, quite soberly:

"Please don't think I'm so awfully frivolous, for I really am not. And to be sitting in a place like this among all these highly proper people talking of the dreadful things you've done is simply ridiculous. When I undertook to hide Edith Congdon from her father I couldn't see that there would be anything wrong in it! And yet I would have been a kidnaper, I suppose."

"And you've cheerfully turned the job over to me," he said, finding it now his turn to be amused. "When you gave me your warrant to destroy all the kingdoms of the world you forgot that there might be unpleasant consequences. But I a.s.sure you that after a few days you don't care much!"

"It's so deliciously dreadful! And only the other day you were in mortal terror of sudden death."

"I've forgotten I ever had a nerve. To be sure our little misunderstandings nearly broke my heart, but now that you've smiled again I'm ready for anything. I might say further that in the end I shall expect my reward. If there are other men who love you they will do well to keep out of my path. We shall meet somewhere or other soon, I hope!"

"From what you say of your friend's faith in the stars there's no use planning. I shall remain here a day or two in the hope of hearing from Mrs. Congdon. She loves her husband and from what Ruth says he's really devoted to her, but the father-in-law is a malicious mischief maker."

"If I shot the wrong man I shall always deplore the error. I hope you take into consideration the fact that he might have shot me! He thought he had a man at the end of his gun when he popped away at the mirror."

"I'm ashamed that I find it all so funny. Shooting any one can't really be a pleasant performance for a gentleman of your up-bringing; and yet you speak of it now as though it were only a trifling incident of the day's work. The Marquis of Montrose would certainly be vastly tickled if he knew what his little rhyme has done for you."

"The Marquis isn't in the sketch at all; it's far more important that you should approve of me in every particular. You spoke of buried treasure at that never-to-be-forgotten dinner at my sister's. I've kept that in mind as rather a pretty prospect."

"That cousin of mine is a great nuisance. He's not only bent upon finding my grandfather's buried money, but he thinks he is in love with me."

"I have a rival then?" asked Archie, with a sinking of the heart.

"You may call him that," she laughed. "A girl always likes to think there are others."

"Your camp--you haven't yet told me how to find it?" he said eagerly.

"It's a girls' camp, you know, and the male species is rigidly excluded.

But Ruth will give Mr. Saulsbury full particulars."

"Crusoe found a footprint in the sand! By the way, did my sister May ever find a summer cottage?"

"She found a house at Cape May, which is much more accessible from Was.h.i.+ngton than Bailey Harbor. Do you imagine you can ever tell her all you've just told me?"