Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 11

IN WHICH MARY CARSTAIRS IS INVITED TO THE YACHT "CYPRIANI"

But he recovered in a flash, aware of the criticalness of that moment, and met her bewildered gaze steadily.

"Terrible? Certainly not. Your name surprised me a little. That was all.

I thought, you see, that you were somebody else."

"Yes? Who?"

"I really--do not know exactly. Do forgive my stupidity, won't you? As I say, I was just a little surprised."

"You would explain to a man," she said, "and don't you think you ought to to me? If you did not know exactly who you thought I was, why should my name surprise you so?"

He picked up a hideous china swan from a smart little oak stand and examined it with excessive interest.

"It was merely that I happen to know some one in New York who had mentioned you--and done it in a way to make me think you were not--very old. In fact, I had supposed that Miss Mary Carstairs wore short dresses and a plait down her back. You see," he said, with a well-planned smile, "how absurdly wrong I was. And then, just now, somebody pointed out your house to me. There was a girl standing in the doorway--a small, dark girl, with--"

A peal like chimes cut him short. "Dear Jenny Thurston! Our seamstress's little girl. She is spending the day with my mother, while I've been spending most of the day with _her_ mother! Turn about! But I wish you'd tell me," she said, "who it is that could have spoken of me--to you. How interesting that we have a friend in common!"

"Not a friend," he said grimly, at the window. "Only a former-- acquaintance of yours--somebody that I imagine you have pretty well forgotten. I'll tell you--another time. But I see it has stopped raining, Miss--Miss--Miss Carstairs. Perhaps we had better take advantage of the lull to start?--for I hope you are going to let me act for Mr. Hare, and walk home wih you."

"Oh--would you! Then indeed we had!" she said rising at once. "I am horribly late now: I know my mother is frantic. I don't mind your not telling me that, really! But--it is odd that you should have spoken of my age twice to-night. Shall I tell you something, Mr. Stanhope--to show you why I have had to give up pigtails? This is my birthday: I am nineteen to-day!"

She raised her eyes, s.h.i.+ning, heavy-fringed, deep as the sea and bluer, and looked at him. His own fell instantly. A shade of annoyance flitted across his still face.

"It is a delightful surprise," he said, mechanically. "But you must not call me Mr. Stanhope, please, Miss Carstairs."

"Why--mayn't I call you by your name?"

"My name," said Varney, "in fairly legible print, is on the card which you hold in your hand."

She raised her eyes and looked at him, perplexed, hesitating, a little mortified, like one who has encountered an unlooked-for rebuff. "Forgive me," she ventured rather shyly, "but do you think it would be possible for you to--to keep an incog here--where you must have so many friends?

If you want to do that--to try it--of course I'll not tell a soul. But I'd like it very much if you could trust--_me_, who have known you through your books for so long."

"I should be quite willing to trust you, Miss Carstairs, but there is nothing to trust you about. I am not incog. I am not the author. I have written no books whatever--"

"Ah! Then good-bye," she said with a swift change of manner, starting at once for the door. "I shall not trouble you to walk home with me. Thank you again for giving me shelter and light during the storm."

"Will you be good enough to wait one minute?"

She paused with one gloved hand on the k.n.o.b, cool, resolute, a little angry, the blue battery of her eyes fixing him across her white embroidered shoulder. But he had turned away, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat, brow rumpled into a frown, jaw set to anathema of the plight in which a needless fortune had plunged him.

If he let Uncle Elbert's daughter go like this, he might as well put the _Cypriani_ about at once for New York, for he knew that he would never have the chance to talk with her again. With engaging young friendliness which overrode reserve, she had been moved to ask his confidence, and he had angered her, even hurt her feelings, it seemed, by appearing to withhold it. In return she had thrown down the issue before him, immediate and final. Abstract questions of morals, and there were new ones of great seriousness now, would have to wait. Should he allow her to think that he was another man, or should he bid her good-bye and abandon his errand?

There was no alternative: she had made that unmistakable. His oath to her father came suddenly into his mind. After all, was it not a little absurd to boggle over one small deception when the whole enterprise, as now suddenly revealed, was to be nothing but one continuous and colossal one?

"Miss--Miss Carstairs," said Varney, "with _you_ I shall not argue this.

I am going to let you think I am whoever you want. We needn't say anything more about it, need we? Only--I'll ask you to call me by the name I gave you, please, and, so far as you can, to regard me that way.

Is that--a bargain?"

Mary Carstairs stood at the threshold of the lighted room, looking at him from under her wide white hat, eyes s.h.i.+ning, lips smiling, cheeks faintly flushed with a sense of the triumph she had won.

"Of course," she said. "And I don't think you'll need ever be sorry for having trusted me--_Mr. Varney!"_

He bowed stiffly. "If you will kindly open the door, I will blow out the lamp and give myself the pleasure of taking you home."

They left the hospitable cottage of Ferris Stanhope, and went out into the night, side by side, Varney and Mary Carstairs. The young man's manner was deceptively calm, but his head was in a whirl. However, the one vital fact about the situation stood out in his mind like a tower set on a hill. This was that Uncle Elbert's daughter was walking at his elbow, on terms of acquaintances.h.i.+p and understanding. The thing had happened with stunning unexpectedness, but it had happened, and the game was on. The next move was his own, and what better moment for making it would he ever have?

The road was dark and wet. Rain-drops from the trees fell upon them as they walked, gathered pools splashed shallowly under their feet.

Suddenly Varney said:

"Do you happen to be interested in yachts, Miss Carstairs? Mine is anch.o.r.ed just opposite your house, I believe, and it would be a pleasure to show her to you sometime."

CHAPTER VIII

CONCERNING MR. FERRIS STANHOPE, THE POPULAR NOVELIST; ALSO PETER, THE QUIET ONLOOKER

Peter had not yet returned to the yacht when Varney went to bed that night. Like the Finnegan of song, he was gone again when Varney rose next morning. Indeed, it was only too clear that his Celtic interests had been suddenly engrossed by matters much nearer his heart than the prospect, as he saw the thing, of spanking a naughty child.

"He was off by half-past eight, sir," the steward, McTosh, told Varney at breakfast. "He said to tell you to give yourself no uneasiness, sir; that he was only going to Mr. Hare's--I think was the name--for a short call, and would return by ten o'clock."

"What else did he say?"

"Well, sir, he was saying how the poltix of the village is not all they might be, but he seemed very cheerful, sir, and took three times to the chops."

At dinner-time last night such extraordinary behavior from his fellow-conspirator would have both disturbed and angered Varney. At breakfast-time this morning it hardly interested him. He had employed his walk from the cottage of refuge to the Carstairs front gate to unbelievable advantage. In fact, his mission in Hunston seemed to be all over but the shouting, and until the moment of final action arrived, there appeared no reason why Peter should not employ his time in any way he saw fit.

The heavy storm had scoured the air, and the world was bright as a new pin. In the shaded solitude of the after-deck, Mr. Carstairs's agent sat in an easy-chair with a cigarette, and thought over the remarkable happenings of his first night in Hunston. In retrospect young Editor Smith seemed to be but the ordered instrument of fate, dispatched in a rowboat to draw him against his will from the yacht to the town, where all his business was neatly arranged for his doing. Certainly it appeared as if the hand of intelligent destiny must have been in it somewhere. No mere blind luck could have driven him half a mile into the country to the one spot in all Hunston--impossibly unlikely as it was--where he could become acquainted with Uncle Elbert's daughter without the formality of an introduction.

Uncle Elbert! How desperately the old man must desire his daughter to have planned a mad scheme like this with a subterfuge at the expense of his best friend cunningly hidden away in the heart of it. Yet, after the first staggering flash, Varney had found it impossible to be angry with Mr. Carstairs. He only felt sorry for him, sorrier than he had ever felt for anybody in his life. The old man's madness and his deceit were but the measure of his desire for his daughter. And the more he desired her, so it seemed to Varney, the more he was ent.i.tled to have her.

Interrupting his meditations, the steward approached on silent feet, bearing a flat brown-paper package in his hand. It appeared that the under-steward had just returned from a marketing tour in Hunston, had met Mr. Maginnis on the street, and been ordered to take back the parcel to Mr. Varney.

"All right, McTosh," said Varney.

He broke the string with some curiosity and pulled off the wrappers.

Within was nothing but a copy of a current literary monthly.

A present of a magazine from Peter! This was a delicate apology for his remissness, indeed. "He will be sending me chocolates next," thought Varney, not a little puzzled.

He turned the pages curiously. Soon, observing a bit of brown wrapping-paper sticking out between the leaves, he opened the magazine at that point and found himself looking at a picture; and he sat still and stared at it for a long time.

It was the full-page portrait of a young man of some thirty years: a rather thin young man with a high forehead, a straight nose, and a smallish chin. The face was good-looking, but somehow not quite attractive. About the eyes was an expression faintly unpleasant, which the neat gla.s.ses did not hide. On the somewhat slack lip was a slight twist, not agreeable, which the well-kept mustache could not conceal.

Still it was an interesting face, clever, a.s.sured, half-insolent. To Varney, it was exceptionally interesting; for removing the mustache and eye-gla.s.ses, it might have pa.s.sed anywhere for his own.

Below the portrait was printed this legend: