Concerning Belinda Part 6

Monsieur de Puys, clever in his own fas.h.i.+on, was deferential and diplomatic.

Miss Emmeline quite overlooked his _beaux yeux_ and the havoc they might work in girlish hearts. She made arrangements for the lessons, settled the details, and reported to Miss Lucilla that everything was satisfactory and that the envoy was "a very pleasant person."

So the girls rode, and the teachers chaperoned, and the fathers paid, and on the surface all went well.

Belinda was elected, more often than any of her fellow-teachers, to take the girls to the riding-school; and, on the whole, she liked the task, for it gave her a quiet hour with a book while the young equestriennes tore up the tanbark or were out and away in the Park. She merely represented the conventions, and her position was more or less of a sinecure. Occasionally she watched the girls who took their lessons indoors, and she conceived a violent dislike for one of the masters--a Frenchman with an all-conquering manner and an impertinent smile; but she never thought of taking the manner and smile seriously. If it occurred to her that the swaggering Frenchman devoted himself to Eva May more persistently than to any of the other pupils, she set the thing down to Gallic spirit and admired the instructor's bravery.

Mounted upon a st.u.r.dy horse built more for strength than for speed, Evangeline Marie was an impressive sight, but she brought to the exercise an energy and a devotion that surprised everyone who knew her.

"She'll not make the effort more than once," Miss Lucilla had said; but the weeks went by and still Eva May went to her riding-lessons with alacrity and regularity. She said that she was riding to reduce her flesh and had lost six pounds, and the cause seemed so worthy that the phenomenon soon ceased to excite wonder.

In course of time the other schoolgirls who belonged to the riding contingent dropped the fad, but still Evangeline Marie was faithful. All through April and into the fragrant Maytime she went religiously to the riding-school twice a week, but all of her lessons were taken outdoors now, and Belinda waited upon a bench near the Park entrance, thankful to be out in the spring world.

A good-looking young man, wearing his riding clothes and sitting his horse in a fas.h.i.+on that bespoke long acquaintance with both, pa.s.sed the bench with surprising frequency, and in course of time it was borne in upon the Youngest Teacher that his unfailing appearance during Eva May's lessons was too methodical to be a mere coincidence. But, beyond a smile in his eyes, the horseman gave no sign of interest in the lonely figure upon the bench, so there was no reason for resentment, and Belinda learned to look for the bay horse and its boyish rider and for the smiling eyes with a certain pleasant expectation that relieved her chaperoning duty of dullness.

One morning she sat upon her own particular bench with a book open in her lap and a listless content written large upon her. Green turf and leafy boughs and tufts of blossoms stretched away before her. There were lilac scents in the warm spring air and the birds were twittering jubilates. The man on the bay horse had ridden past once, and the smile in his eyes had seemed more boyish than ever. She wondered when he would come by again--and then, looking down the shaded drive, she saw him coming.

Even at a distance she recognised something odd in the fas.h.i.+on of his approach. He was bending forward and riding rapidly--too rapidly for compliance with Park rules. She watched to see him slow down and walk his horse past the bench in the usual lingering way; but, instead, he came on at a run, pulled his horse up abruptly, dismounted and came toward her with his hat in his hand.

Belinda drew a quick breath of surprise and embarra.s.sment, but there was no smile in the eyes that met hers, and she realised in an instant that the stranger was in earnest--too much in earnest for thought of flirtation.

"I beg your pardon," he was saying. "Maybe I'm making an a.s.s of myself, but I couldn't feel as if it were all quite right. I've seen you here so often, you know, and I knew you were chaperoning those schoolgirls, and I didn't believe you'd allow that fat one to go off in a hansom with that beast of a Frenchman."

"Wh-w-what?" she asked breathlessly.

"You didn't know? I thought not. You see, I was riding past one of the Fifth Avenue gates in the upper end of the Park, and Peggy here--my horse--went lame for a minute, so I got off to see what was wrong. Just then up came the Frenchman and your fat friend, and he climbed off his horse and helped her down. Anybody could see she was excited and ripe for hysterics, and De Puys looked more like a wax Mephistopheles than usual, so I just fooled with Peg's foot and watched to see what was up.

There was a boy on hand and a cab was standing outside the gate. Frenchy gave the horses to the boy and boosted the girl into the cab, and I heard him say, 'Grand Central, and hurry.' They went off at a run, and I mounted and was starting up the drive when all of a sudden it struck me that the thing was deuced queer and that maybe you didn't know anything about it. So I piked off to tell you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I heard him say, "Grand Central, and hurry"'"]

Belinda looked at him helplessly.

"She's eloped with him. It's her money, I suppose. What can I do?"

The stranger sprang into his saddle.

"Head them off, of course. You wait at the gate until I lose Peggy and get a cab. Perhaps we can catch them at the station."

He was gone, and Belinda did as she was told. It was a comfort to have a man take things in hand, and she didn't stop to think that the man was a stranger.

In three minutes he was at the gate with a cab, helped her into it and climbed in himself.

"There's an extra dollar in it if you break the record," he said cheerfully to the cabby, and off they clattered.

Not a word was spoken on the way to the station, but as the stranger paid the extra dollar Belinda fumbled in her purse.

"Never mind; we'll settle up afterward. Let's see if they are here."

No sign of the runaway couple. Belinda collapsed weakly into a seat and there were tears in her eyes.

"Don't, please don't," begged the man beside her. "You sit here and I'll try the gatemen. Anybody'd be likely to spot a freak couple like that.

Perhaps their train hasn't gone yet."

A few minutes later Belinda saw him bolt into the waiting-room and stop at a ticket window.

"Come on," he said, as he rushed up to her. "They've gone to Albany--train left fifteen minutes ago. Gateman thought they were funny, and noticed their tickets. He says the girl was crying. We'll have to step lively."

"B-b-but what are we going to do?" stammered Belinda, as he hurried her through the gate and down the long platform.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. We're going to Albany on the Chicago Express."

He helped her on the train, deposited her in a seat on the shady side of a Pullman car, sat down beside her and fanned his flushed face with his cap.

Belinda strove for speech, but no words came. Things appeared to be altogether out of her hands.

"They took a local express," explained the stranger by whom she was being personally conducted. "Afraid to wait in the station, I suppose.

Our train pa.s.ses theirs up the road, and we'll wait for them in Albany."

"But perhaps they'll get off before they reach Albany," replied Belinda.

"Well, their tickets were for Albany, and we'll have to gamble on that.

It's a fair chance. Probably they want to lose themselves somewhere until the storm blows over and papa makes terms."

"But why should you go to Albany? You've been awfully good and I'm so much obliged to you, but now I'll just go on by myself."

He looked down at the independent young woman, and the familiar smile came back into his eyes.

"That would be a nice proposition. I can see a life-size picture of myself letting you go up to Albany alone to handle De Puys. A chap like that needs a man. You can get the girl. I wouldn't attempt to handle her without a derrick, but I'll just make a few well-chosen remarks to that rascally Frenchman myself."

"But it is an imposition upon----"

"Nothing of the sort. It's an interposition--of Providence. I've spent weeks wondering how it could ever be done."

Belinda looked puzzled. "You knew they were going to elope?"

"No, that wasn't what I meant."

"It's dreadful, isn't it?" wailed Belinda.

He shook his head. "It's heavenly," he said.

She tried to look puzzled again, but broke down, blushed, and became absorbed in the landscape.

"My name is Morgan Hamilton."

She shot a swift look at him, then turned to the window again.

"I'm Miss Carewe, one of Miss Ryder's teachers."