The Celebrity Part 7

She was plainly embarra.s.sed.

"I suppose I might account for it, Mr. Crocker," she replied. Then she added, with something of an impulse, "After all, it is foolish of me not to tell you. You probably know the Celebrity well enough to have learned that he takes idiotic fancies to young women."

"Not always idiotic," I protested.

"You mean that the young women are not always idiotic, I suppose. No, not always, but nearly always. I imagine he got the idea of coming to Asquith," she went on with a change of manner, "because I chanced to mention that I was coming out here on a visit."

"Oh," I remarked, and there words failed me.

Her mouth was twitching with merriment.

"I am afraid you will have to solve the rest of it for yourself, Mr.

Crocker," said she; "that is all of my contribution. My uncle tells me you are the best lawyer in the country, and I am surprised that you are so slow in getting at motives."

And I did attempt to solve it on my way back to Asquith. The conclusion I settled to, everything weighed, was this: that the Celebrity had become infatuated with Miss Thorn (I was far from blaming him for that) and had followed her first to Epsom and now to Asquith. And he had chosen to come West incognito partly through the conceit which he admitted and gloried in, and partly because he believed his prominence sufficient to obtain for him an unpleasant notoriety if he continued long enough to track the same young lady about the country. Hence he had taken the trouble to advertise a trip abroad to account for his absence.

Undoubtedly his previous conquests had been made more easily, for my second talk with Miss Thorn had put my mind at rest as to her having fallen a victim to his fascinations. Her arrival at Mohair being delayed, the Celebrity had come nearly a month too soon, and in the interval that tendency of which he was the dupe still led him by the nose; he must needs make violent love to the most attractive girl on the ground,--Miss Trevor. Now that one still more attractive had arrived I was curious to see how he would steer between the two, for I made no doubt that matters had progressed rather far with Miss Trevor. And in this I was not mistaken.

But his choice of the name of Charles Wrexell Allen bothered me considerably. I finally decided that he had taken it because convenient, and because he believed Asquith to be more remote from the East than the Sandwich Islands.

Reaching the inn grounds, I climbed the hillside to a favorite haunt of mine, a huge boulder having a sloping back covered with soft turf. Hence I could watch indifferently both lake and sky. Presently, however, I was aroused by voices at the foot of the rock, and peering over the edge I discovered a kind of sewing-circle gathered there. The foliage hid me completely. I perceived the Celebrity perched upon the low branch of an apple-tree, and Miss Trevor below him, with two other girls, doing fancy-work. I shall not attempt to defend the morality of my action, but I could not get away without discovery, and the knowledge that I had heard a part of their conversation might prove disquieting to them.

The Celebrity had just published a book, under the t.i.tle of 'The Sybarites', which was being everywhere discussed; and Asquith, where summer reading was general, came in for its share of the debate. Why it was called The Sybarites I have never discovered. I did not read the book because I was sick and tired of the author and his nonsense, but I imbibed, in spite of myself, something of the story and its moral from hearing it talked about. The Celebrity himself had listened to arguments on the subject with great serenity, and was nothing loth to give his opinion when appealed to. I realized at once that 'The Sybarites' was the present topic.

"Yes, it is rather an uncommon book," he was saying languidly, "but there is no use writing a story unless it is uncommon."

"Dear, how I should like to meet the author!" exclaimed a voice. "He must be a charming man, and so young, too! I believe you said you knew him, Mr. Allen."

"An old acquaintance," he answered, "and I am always reminding him that his work is overestimated."

"How can you say he is overestimated!" said a voice.

"You men are all jealous of him," said another.

"Is he handsome? I have heard he is."

"He would scarcely be called so," said the Celebrity, doubtfully.

"He is, girls," Miss Trevor interposed; "I have seen his photograph."

"What does he look like, Irene?" they chorused. "Men are no judges."

"He is tall, and dark, and broad-shouldered," Miss Trevor enumerated, as though counting her st.i.tches, "and he has a very firm chin, and a straight nose, and--"

"Perfect!" they cried. "I had an idea he was just like that. I should go wild about him. Does he talk as well as he writes, Mr. Allen?"

"That is admitting that he writes well."

"Admitting?" they shouted scornfully, "and don't you admit it?"

"Some people like his writing, I have to confess," said the Celebrity, with becoming calmness; "certainly his personality could not sell an edition of thirty thousand in a month. I think 'The Sybarites' the best of his works."

"Upon my word, Mr. Allen, I am disgusted with you," said the second voice; "I have not found a man yet who would speak a good word for him.

But I did not think it of you."

A woman's tongue, like a firearm, is a dangerous weapon, and often strikes where it is least expected. I saw with a wicked delight that the shot had told, for the Celebrity blushed to the roots of his hair, while Miss Trevor dropped three or four st.i.tches.

"I do not see how you can expect men to like 'The Sybarites'," she said, with some heat; "very few men realize or care to realize what a small chance the average woman has. I know marriage isn't a necessary goal, but most women, as well as most men, look forward to it at some time of life, and, as a rule, a woman is forced to take her choice of the two or three men that offer themselves, no matter what they are. I admire a man who takes up the cudgels for women, as he has done."

"Of course we admire him," they cried, as soon as Miss Trevor had stopped for breath.

"And can you expect a man to like a book which admits that women are the more constant?" she went on.

"Why, Irene, you are quite rabid on the subject," said the second voice; "I did not say I expected it. I only said I had hoped to find Mr. Allen, at least, broad enough to agree with the book."

"Doesn't Mr. Allen remind you a little of Desmond?" asked the first voice, evidently anxious to avoid trouble.

"Do you know whom he took for Desmond, Mr. Allen? I have an idea it was himself."

Mr. Allen, had now recovered some of his composure.

"If so, it was done unconsciously," he said. "I suppose an author must put his best thoughts in the mouth of his hero."

"But it is like him?" she insisted.

"Yes, he holds the same views."

"Which you do not agree with."

"I have not said I did not agree with them," he replied, taking up his own defence; "the point is not that men are more inconstant than women, but that women have more excuse for inconstancy. If I remember correctly, Desmond, in a letter to Rosamond, says: 'Inconstancy in a woman, because of the present social conditions, is often pardonable. In a man, nothing is more despicable.' I think that is so. I believe that a man should stick by the woman to whom he has given his word as closely as he sticks by his friends."

"Ah!" exclaimed the aggressive second voice, "that is all very well. But how about the woman to whom he has not given his word? Unfortunately, the present social conditions allow a man to go pretty far without a definite statement."

At this I could not refrain from looking at Miss Trevor. She was bending over her knitting and had broken her thread.

"It is presumption for a man to speak without some foundation," said the Celebrity, "and wrong unless he is sure of himself."

"But you must admit," the second voice continued, "that a man has no right to amuse himself with a woman, and give her every reason to believe he is going to marry her save the only manly and substantial one. And yet that is something which happens every day. What do you think of a man who deserts a woman under those conditions?"

"He is a detestable dog, of course," declared the Celebrity.

And the c.o.c.k in the inn yard was silent.

"I should love to be able to quote from a book at will," said the quieting voice, for the sake of putting an end to an argument which bid fair to become disagreeable. "How do you manage to do it?"

"It was simply a pa.s.sage that stuck in my mind," he answered modestly; "when I read a book I pick them up just as a roller picks up a sod here and there as it moves over the lawn."

"I should think you might write, Mr. Allen, you have such an original way of putting things!"