Mary Minds Her Business Part 40

"Talking about worrying people," she said. "What's the matter with Burdon down at the office lately? What have you been doing to him?"

"Helen! What a thing to say!"

"Well, that's how it started, if you want to know! I was trying to cheer him up a little ... and Wally thought he saw more than he did...."

For a feverish minute she resumed Delibes' dance, but couldn't finish it.

She rose, half stumbling, blinded by her tears and Mary comforted her.

"Now, go and get your bag, dear," she said at last, "and I'll go home with you, and stay all night if you like."

But Helen wouldn't have that.

"No," she said, "I'm going to stay here a few days. I told my maid where she could find me--but I made her promise not to tell Wally till morning--and I'm not going back till he comes for me."

"I wonder what he saw..." Mary kept thinking. "Poor Wally!" And then more gently, "Poor Helen! ... It's just as I've always said."

Mary was a long time going to sleep that night, thinking of Helen, and Wally and Burdon.

Yes, Helen was right about Burdon. Something was evidently worrying him.

For the last few days she had noticed how irritable he was, how drawn he looked.

"I do believe he's in trouble of some sort," she sighed. "And he looks so reckless, too. I'm glad that Wally did speak to Helen. He isn't safe."

And again the thought recurring, "I wonder what Wally saw...."

A sound from the lawn beneath her window stopped her. At first she thought she was dreaming--but no, it was a mandolin being played on muted strings. She stole to the window. In the shadow stood a figure and at the first subdued note of his song, Mary knew who it was.

"Soft o'er the fountain Ling'ring falls the southern moon--"

"If that isn't Wally all over," thought Mary. "He thinks Helen's here, and he wants to make up."

But how did he know Helen was there? And why was he singing so sadly, so plaintively just underneath Mary's window? Another possibility came to her mind and she was still wondering what to do when Helen came in, even as she had come in that night so long ago when Wally had sung Juanita before.

"Wait till morning! He'll hear from me!" said Helen in indignation.

Wally's song was growing fainter. He had evidently turned and was walking toward the driveway. A minute later the rumble of a car was heard.

"If he thinks he can talk to me the way he did," said Helen, more indignant than before, "and then come around here like that--serenading you--!"

"Oh, Helen, don't," said Mary, trembling. "...I think he was saying good-bye.... Wait till I put the light on...."

The distress in her voice cheeked Helen's anger, and a moment later the two cousins were staring at each other, two tragic figures suddenly uncovered from the mantle of light.

"I won't go back to my room; I'll stay here," whispered Helen at last.

"Don't fret, Mary; he won't do anything."

It was a long time, though, before Mary could stop trembling, but an hour later when the telephone bell began ringing downstairs, she found that her old habit of calmness had fallen on her again.

"I'll answer it," she said to Helen. "Don't cry now. I'm sure it's nothing."

But when she returned in a few minutes, Helen only needed one glance to tell her how far it was from being nothing.

"Your maid," said Mary, hurrying to her dresser. "Wally's car ran into the Bar Harbor express at the crossing near the club.... He's terribly hurt, but the doctor says there's just a chance.... You run and dress now, as quickly as you can.... I have a key to the garage...."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

The first east-bound express that left New York the following morning carried in one of its Pullmans a famous surgeon and his a.s.sistant, bound for New Bethel. In the murk of the smoker ahead was a third pa.s.senger whose ticket bore the name of the same city--a bearded man with rounded shoulders and tired eyes, whose clothes betrayed a foreign origin.

This was Paul Spencer on the last stage of his journey home.

Until the train drew out of the station, the seat by his side was unoccupied. But then another foreign looking pa.s.senger entered and made his way up the aisle.

You have probably noticed how some instinctive law of selection seems to guide us in choosing our companion in a car where all the window seats are taken. The newcomer pa.s.sed a number of empty places and sat down by the side of Paul. He was tall, blonde, with dusty looking eyebrows and a beard that was nearly the colour of dead gra.s.s.

"Russian, I guess," thought Paul, "and probably thinks I am something of the same."

The reflection pleased him.

"If that's the way I look to him, n.o.body else is going to guess."

When the conductor came, Paul's seat-mate tried to ask if he would have to change cars before reaching his destination, but his language was so broken that he couldn't make himself understood.

"I thought he was Russian," Paul nodded to himself, catching a word here and there; and, aloud, he quietly added in his mother's tongue, "It's all right, batuchka; you don't have to change."

The other gave him a grateful glance, and soon they were talking together.

"A Bolshevist," thought Paul, recognizing now and then a phrase or an argument which he had heard from some of his friends in Rio, "but what's he going to New Bethel for?"

As the train drew nearer the place of his birth, Paul grew quieter. Old landmarks, nearly forgotten, began to appear and remind him of the past.

"What time do we get there?" he asked a pa.s.sing brakeman.

"Eleven-thirty-four."

Paul's companion gave him a look of envy.

"You speak English well," said he.

Paul didn't like that, and took refuge behind one of those Slavonic indirections which are typical of the Russian mind--an indirection hinting at mysterious purpose and power.

"There are times in a life," said he, "when it becomes necessary to speak a foreign language well."

They looked at each other then, and simultaneously they nodded.

"You are right, batuchka," said the blonde giant at last, matching indirection with indirection. "For myself, I cannot speak English well--ah, no--but I have a language that all men understand--and fear--and when I speak, the houses fall and the mountains shake their heads."