Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 16

"I think," said Jenny, conscientiously, "there's figs."

"You do not wish any figs to-night, Jenny," declared Miss Carstairs, rather more severely than mere figs seemed to warrant.

"_No'm!_ I thought maybe he might want some."

"I doubt if I'll take any figs to-night, either," laughed Varney. "But mayn't I get something for you, Miss Carstairs? I'm happy to say that the chocolate is holding out better than we feared."

"Thank you," she said, apparently addressing the child, "I don't believe I wish anything."

Jenny here produced and handed around a small, rather dangerous-looking paper-bag, which proved, upon investigation, to contain marshmallows.

Miss Carstairs declined. Varney, to show how unimpeachable he considered his standing with the party, gratefully accepted.

"I'm afraid," he said, looking at Miss Carstairs, "that Mr. Hare's admirers are likely to detain him some time. If you don't care to wait so long, perhaps you would again give me the pleasure of supplanting him and taking you home--you and Miss--Miss Jenny?"

"No, thank you--I am sure he will be out soon ... You look awfully trampled on and--mashed, Jenny," she continued, twitching the child's hat on straight. "And _my dear! Don't_ eat so fast."

Despite himself, Varney felt his blood rising a little. "Miss Carstairs," he said slowly, "I must tell you that I came with Miss Jenny on purpose to see you. There is something that I wanted to say."

She raised her eyes then, and though their look was very young and embarra.s.sed, he felt himself lose something of his composure under it.

"You wanted to say something--to me?"

"A good deal. I have an explanation to make--"

"I'm afraid that I have not time to--listen--Mr. Hare--"

"You must listen--to be fair," he said slowly. "I have to blame myself for it, but you are doing me an injustice at this moment. I am not--that man."

She made no answer. Beside them, Miss Jenny ate ice-cream succulently.

All around them were people jostling this way and that, laughing, shouting: but they might have been alone on a mountain-top for all either was aware of them.

"Since I have been in Hunston--just a day," Varney said easily, "I seem to have done nothing but explain over and over that I am not Mr.

Stanhope. I got awfully tired of it, Miss Carstairs; it seemed so horribly useless. Like the others, you insisted that I was he. You candidly didn't believe me--"

"No," she said, "that is true."

"I shall make you believe me now," said Varney.

A great hullabaloo suddenly arose around them. Four or five men broke pellmell, and for the most part backwards, out of the swing-doors, evidently ejected from within. A lonely-looking policeman, on guard at the entrance, charged them. The lobby was already thronged; now people retreating before that violent infusion of arms and legs crowded them close.

Varney, standing in front of Miss Carstairs, s.h.i.+elded her from the press, her capable buffer. Soon he noticed that that part of the wall upon which she leaned was not a wall, but a door. He reached past her, turned the k.n.o.b, revealed a brilliantly-lit little room.

"Ah!... A haven, Miss Carstairs."

She stepped backward, into the tiny box-office where Ryan had stood two hours before and cynically waited for his sport to begin. It was empty now, offering a perfect refuge. Varney followed and stood with his hand on the k.n.o.b just inside the door.

"Thank you," said Miss Carstairs, breathing a little rapidly. "The meetings have never been as bad as this before. But--I must not lose sight of Jenny."

"I'm here, Miss Mary," gurgled an ice-creamy voice at the door.

"I think I had better wait outside after all," said Mary. "Mr. Hare will hardly know where to look for me."

"Miss Jenny will be his clew: he couldn't miss her," said Varney. "Let me go on, while I have time. Miss Carstairs, it is not fair to either of us to let matters stay like this. In the cottage last night, you forced me to let you think I was--another man--"

"That is absurd," she said. "How could I possibly force you to say what was not--the fact?"

"Did I really say anything that was not--the fact? I tried particularly not to. But I did let you deceive yourself about it: that is quite true and I'm sorry. I did it because--well, because if I hadn't done it, you were not going to let me walk home with you."

She leaned against the little desk at which the Academy man sat to sell tickets, and hesitated, almost imperceptibly. "Then why," she asked, "should you wish to _undeceive_ me now?"

"You know why," he answered. "If I don't, something tells me that you are not going to speak to me any more."

Her silence conceded the truth of this. It began to be evident how difficult he had made matters for himself.

Varney laughed. "I am determined to make you believe me, yet just how am I to go about it? It's rather an absurd position, when you come to think of it--this arguing with somebody as to who one is. Suppose I were that fellow, Miss Carstairs. How could I possibly hope to come back to my old hometown and persuade people to believe that I am somebody else?"

Her eyes had wandered out through the little grated window, and she made no reply.

"You see how preposterous that would be. A mere resemblance is not enough to condemn a man upon, Miss Carstairs."

She turned her head with a sudden gesture of annoyance. "What difference can it possibly make whether I speak to you or not, Mr. St--"

"_Don't!_" he interrupted swiftly. "You know my name. You shall not call me by that one."

Hare's neat pink face appeared at the ticket-window, for all the world like a belated theatre-goer, anxious for several in the orchestra.

"Ah, Mary! There you are! Whenever you are ready--"

"I have been waiting for you a long time," said Miss Carstairs. "It was so splendid, Mr. Hare! Is Jenny there? We'll go at once."

She turned to Varney, cool as a dewy rose, and came forward a short step. "I--I must say this before I go: has no one told you that you are in danger here?"

Under her tone and her look, his plan of being the easy master of the situation grew increasingly difficult. "Everybody has told me," he said rather shortly. "It's gotten to be a bore."

"Then--won't you--won't you please go away before--anything happens?"

"I am going on Thursday afternoon," he answered, stung by her beauty, which was so remote, and by the sudden compa.s.sion in her voice. "My engagements will keep me here till that day, you remember? I promise you, since you are so good as to interest yourself in the matter, that I shall leave Hunston directly after that--"

"Your engagements on Thursday?" she repeated, looking away. "Are--you speaking of--"

"The luncheon on my yacht. We are inviting Mr. Hare and his sister to meet you."

"I am sorry," began Miss Carstairs, not looking at him, "but--I--I find that I shall n--"

"Er--Mary?" said the candidate's voice through the window.

She turned toward the door at once, as though welcoming a summons which so opportunely relieved her from embarra.s.sing explanations: but Varney, who happened to have duties to her father to discharge, stood before her, not moving.