The Port of Missing Men Part 21

"Why?"

"Because I have a pledge to keep and a work to do, and if I were forced to defend myself from the charge of being the false Baron von Kissel, everything would be spoiled. You see, unfortunately--most unfortunately--I am not quite without responsibilities, and I have come down into the mountains, where I hope not to be shot and tossed over a precipice until I have had time to watch certain people and certain events a little while. I tried to say as much to Captain Claiborne, but I saw that my story did not impress him. And now I have said the same thing to you--"

He waited, gravely watching her, hat in hand.

"And I have stood here and listened to you, and done exactly what Captain Claiborne would not wish me to do under any circ.u.mstances," said s.h.i.+rley.

"You are infinitely kind and generous--"

"No. I do not wish you to think me either of those things--of course not!"

Her conclusion was abrupt and pointed.

"Then--"

"Then I will tell you--what I have not told any one else--that I know very well that you are not the person who appeared at Bar Harbor three years ago and palmed himself off as the Baron von Kissel."

"You know it--you are quite sure of it?" he asked blankly.

"Certainly. I saw that person--at Bar Harbor. I had gone up from Newport for a week--I was even at a tea where he was quite the lion, and I am sure you are not the same person."

Her direct manner of speech, her decisive tone, in which she placed the matter of his ident.i.ty on a purely practical and unsentimental plane, gave him a new impression of her character.

"But Captain Claiborne--"

He ceased suddenly and she antic.i.p.ated the question at which he had faltered, and answered, a little icily:

"I do not consider it any of my business to meddle in your affairs with my brother. He undoubtedly believes you are the impostor who palmed himself off at Bar Harbor as the Baron von Kissel. He was told so--"

"By Monsieur Chauvenet."

"So he said."

"And of course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet's entire credibility," declared Armitage, a little airily.

"I should say not," said s.h.i.+rley unresponsively. "I am quite as sure that he was not the false baron as I am that you were not."

Armitage laughed.

"That is a little pointed."

"It was meant to be," said s.h.i.+rley sternly. "It is"--she weighed the word--"ridiculous that both of you should be here."

"Thank you, for my half! I didn't know he was here! But I am not exactly _here_--I have a much, safer place,"--he swept the blue-hilled horizon with his hand. "Monsieur Chauvenet and I will not shoot at each other in the hotel dining-room. But I am really relieved that he has come. We have an interesting fas.h.i.+on of running into each other; it would positively grieve me to be obliged to wait long for him."

He smiled and thrust his hat under his arm. The sun was dropping behind the great western barricade, and a chill wind crept sharply over the valley.

He started to walk beside her as she turned away, but she paused abruptly.

"Oh, this won't do at all! I can't be seen with you, even in the shadow of my own house. I must trouble you to take the side gate,"--and she indicated it by a nod of her head.

"Not if I know myself! I am not a fraudulent member of the German n.o.bility--you have told me so yourself. Your conscience is clear--I a.s.sure you mine is equally so! And I am not a person, Miss Claiborne, to sneak out by side gates--particularly when I came over the fence! It's a long way around anyhow--and I have a horse over there somewhere by the inn."

"My brother--"

"Is at Fort Myer, of course. At about this hour they are having dress parade, and he is thoroughly occupied."

"But--there is Monsieur Chauvenet. He has nothing to do but amuse himself."

They had reached the veranda steps, and she ran to the top and turned for a moment to look at him. He still carried his hat and crop in one hand, and had dropped the other into the side pocket of his coat. He was wholly at ease, and the wind ruffled his hair and gave him a boyish look that s.h.i.+rley liked. But she had no wish to be found with him, and she instantly nodded his dismissal and half turned away to go into the house, when he detained her for a moment.

"I am perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached this charming valley before me; but--as a rule--I prefer to be a little ahead of him; it's a whim--the merest whim, I a.s.sure you."

He laughed, thinking little of what he said, but delighting in the picture she made, the tall pillars of the veranda framing her against the white wall of the house, and the architrave high above speaking, so he thought, for the amplitude, the breadth of her nature. Her green cloth gown afforded the happiest possible contrast with the white background; and her hat--(for a gown, let us remember, may express the dressmaker, but a hat expresses the woman who wears it)--her hat, Armitage was aware, was a trifle of black velvet caught up at one side with snowy plumes well calculated to shock the sensibilities of the Audubon Society. Yet the bird, if he knew, doubtless rejoiced in his fate! s.h.i.+rley's hand, thrice laid down, and there you have the length of that velvet cap, plume and all. Her profile, as she half turned away, must awaken regret that Reynolds and Gainsborough paint no more; yet let us be practical: Sargent, in this particular, could not serve us ill.

Her annoyance at finding herself lingering to listen to him was marked in an almost imperceptible gathering of her brows. It was all the matter of an instant. His heart beat fast in his joy at the sight of her, and the tongue that years of practice had skilled in reserve and evasion was possessed by a reckless spirit.

She nodded carelessly, but said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

"But when I wait for people they always come--even in a strange pergola!"

he added daringly. "Now, in Geneva, not long ago--"

He lost the profile and gained her face as he liked it best, though her head was lifted a little high in resentment against her own yielding curiosity. He was speaking rapidly, and the slight hint of some other tongue than his usually fluent English arrested her ear now, as it had at other times.

"In Geneva, when I told a young lady that I was waiting for a very wicked man to appear--it was really the oddest thing in the world that almost immediately Monsieur Jules Chauvenet arrived at mine own inn! It is inevitable; it is always sure to be my fate," he concluded mournfully.

He bowed low, restored the shabby hat to his head with the least bit of a flourish and strolled away through the garden by a broad walk that led to the front gate.

He would have been interested to know that when he was out of sight s.h.i.+rley walked to the veranda rail and bent forward, listening to his steps on the gravel, after the hedge and shrubbery had hidden him. And she stood thus until the faint click of the gate told her that he had gone.

She did not know that as the gate closed upon him he met Chauvenet face to face.

CHAPTER XIV

AN ENFORCED INTERVIEW

_En, garde, Messieurs_! And if my hand is hard, Remember I've been buffeting at will; I am a whit impatient, and 'tis ill To cross a hungry dog. _Messieurs, en garde_.

--W. Lindsey.

"Monsieur Chauvenet!"

Armitage uncovered smilingly. Chauvenet stared mutely as Armitage paused with his back to the Claiborne gate. Chauvenet was dressed with his usual care, and wore the latest carnation in the lapel of his top-coat. He struck the ground with his stick, his look of astonishment pa.s.sed, and he smiled pleasantly as he returned Armitage's salutation.

"My dear Armitage!" he murmured.