Miss Elliott’s expression, when I turned to observe the effect of the intruder upon her, was found to be one of brilliant delight. With glowing eyes, her lips parted in a breathless ecstasy, she gazed upon the newcomer, evidently fearing to lose a syllable that fell from his lips. Moving closer to me she whispered urgently:
“Keep him. Oh, keep him!”
To detain him, for a time at least, was my intention, though my motive was not merely to afford her pleasure. The advent of the young man had produced a singularly disagreeable impression upon me, quite apart from any antagonism I might have felt toward him as a type. Strange suspicions leaped into my mind, formless—in the surprise of the moment—but rapidly groping toward definite outline; and following hard upon them crept a tingling apprehension. The reappearance of this rattish youth, casual as was the air with which he strove to invest it, began to assume, for me, the character of a theatrical entrance of unpleasant portent—a suggestion just now enhanced by an absurdly obvious notion of his own that he was enacting a part. This was written all over him, most legibly in his attitude of the knowing amateur, as he surveyed Miss Elliott’s painting patronisingly, his head on one side, his cane in the crook of his elbows behind his back, and his body teetering genteelly as he shifted his weight from his toes to his heels and back again, nodding meanwhile a slight but judicial approbation.
“Now, about how much,” he said slowly, “would you expec’ t’ git f’r a pitcher that size?”
“It isn’t mine,” I informed him.
“You don’t tell me it’s the little lady’s—what?” He bowed genially and favoured Miss Elliott with a stare of warm admiration. “Pretty a thing as I ever see,” he added.
“Oh,” she cried with an ardour that choked her slightly. “THANK you!”
“Oh, I meant the PITCHER!” he said hastily, evidently nonplussed by a gratitude so fervent.
The incorrigible damsel cast down her eyes in modesty. “And I had hoped,” she breathed, “something so different!”
I could not be certain whether or not he caught the whisper; I thought he did. At all events, the surface of his easy assurance appeared somewhat disarranged; and, perhaps to restore it by performing the rites of etiquette, he said:
“Well, I expec’ the smart thing now is to pass the cards, but mine’s in my grip an’ it ain’t unpacked yet. The name you’d see on ‘em is Oil Poicy.”
“Oil Poicy,” echoed Miss Elliott, turning to me in genuine astonishment.
“Mr. Earl Percy,” I translated.
“Oh, RAPTUROUS!” she cried, her face radiant. “And WON’T Mr. Percy give us his opinion of my Art?”
Mr. Percy was in doubt how to take her enthusiasm; he seemed on the point of turning surly, and hesitated, while a sharp vertical line appeared on his small forehead; but he evidently concluded, after a deep glance at her, that if she was making game of him it was in no ill-natured spirit—nay, I think that for a few moments he suspected her liveliness to be some method of her own for the incipient stages of a flirtation.
Finally he turned again to the easel, and as he examined the painting thereon at closer range, amazement overspread his features. However, pulling himself together, he found himself able to reply—and with great gallantry:
“Well, on’y t’ think them little hands cud ‘a’ done all that rough woik!”
The unintended viciousness of this retort produced an effect so marked, that, except for my growing uneasiness, I might have enjoyed her expression.
As it was, I saved her face by entering into the conversation with a question, which I put quickly:
“You intend pursuing your historical researches in the neighborhood?”
The facial contortion which served him for a laugh, and at the same time as a symbol of unfathomable reserve, was repeated, accompanied by a jocose manifestation, in the nature of a sharp and taunting cackle, which seemed to indicate a conviction that he was getting much the best of it in some conflict of wits.
“Them fairy tales I handed you about ole Jeanne d’Arc and William the Conker,” he said, “say, they must ‘a’ made you sore after-WOIDS!”
“On the contrary, I was much interested in everything pertaining to your too brief visit,” I returned; “I am even more so now.”
“Well, m’friend”—he shot me a sidelong, distrustful glance—“keep yer eyes open.”
“That is just the point!” I laughed, with intentional significance, for I meant to make Mr. Percy talk as much as I could. To this end, remembering that specimens of his kind are most indiscreet when carefully enraged, I added, simulating his own manner:
“Eyes open—and doors locked! What?”
At this I heard a gasp of astonishment from Miss Elliott, who must have been puzzled indeed; but I was intent upon the other. He proved perfectly capable of being insulted.
“I guess they ain’t much need o’ lockin’ YOUR door,” he retorted darkly; “not from what I saw when I was in your studio!” He should have stopped there, for the hit was palpable and justified; but in his resentment he overdid it. “You needn’t be scared of anybody’s cartin’ off THEM pitchers, young feller! WHOOSH! An’ f’m the luks of the CLO’ES I saw hangin’ on the wall,” he continued, growing more nettled as I smiled cheerfully upon him, “I don’ b’lieve you gut any worries comin’ about THEM, neither!”
“I suppose our tastes are different,” I said, letting my smile broaden. “There might be protection in that.”
His stare at me was protracted to an unseemly length before the sting of this remark reached him; it penetrated finally, however, and in his sharp change of posture there was a lightning flicker of the experienced boxer; but he checked the impulse, and took up the task of obliterating me in another way.
“As I tell the little dame here,” he said, pitching his voice higher and affecting the plaintive, “I make no passes at a friend o’ her—not in front o’ her, anyways. But when it comes to these here ole, ancient curiosities”—he cackled again, loudly—“well, I guess them clo’es I see, that day, kin hand it out t’ anything they got in the museums! 'Look here,’ I says to the waiter, ‘THESE must be’n left over f’m ole Jeanne d’Arc herself,’ I says. ‘Talk about yer relics,’ I says. Whoosh! I’d like t’ died!” He laughed violently, and concluded by turning upon me with a contemptuous flourish of his stick. “You think I d’know what makes YOU so raw?”
The form of repartee necessary to augment his ill humour was, of course, a matter of simple mechanism for one who had not entirely forgotten his student days in the Quarter; and I delivered it airily, though I shivered inwardly that Miss Elliott should hear.
“Everything will be all right if, when you dine at the inn, you’ll sit with your back toward me.”
To my shamed surprise, this roustabout wit drew a nervous, silvery giggle from her; and that completed the work with Mr. Percy, whose face grew scarlet with anger.
“You’re a hot one, you are!” he sneered, with shocking bitterness. “You’re quite the teaser, ain’t ye, s’long’s yer lady-friend is lukkin’ on! I guess they’ll be a few surprises comin’ YOUR way, before long. P’raps I cudn’t give ye one now ‘f I had a mind to.”
“Pshaw,” I laughed, and, venturing at hazard, said, “I know all YOU know!”
“Oh, you do!” he cried scornfully. “I reckon you might set up an’ take a little notice, though, if you knowed ‘at I know all YOU know!”
“Not a bit of it!”
“No? Maybe you think I don’t know what makes you so raw with ME? Maybe you think I don’t know who ye’ve got so thick with at this here Pigeon House; maybe you think I don’t know who them people ARE!”
“No, you don’t. You have learned,” I said, trying to control my excitement, “nothing! Whoever hired YOU for a spy lost the money. YOU don’t know ANY-thing!”
“I DON’T!” And with that his voice went to a half-shriek. “Maybe you think I’m down here f’r my health; maybe you think I come out f’r a pleasant walk in the woods right now; maybe you think I ain’t seen no other lady-friend o’ yours besides this’n to-day, and maybe I didn’t see who was with her—yes, an’ maybe you think I d’know no other times he’s be’n with her. Maybe you think I ain’t be’n layin’ low over at Dives! Maybe I don’t know a few real NAMES in this neighbourhood! Oh, no, MAYBE not!”
“You know what the maitre d’hotel told you; nothing more.”
“How about the name—OLIVER SAFFREN?” he cried fiercely, and at last, though I had expected it, I uttered an involuntary exclamation.
“How about it?” he shouted, advancing toward me triumphantly, shaking his forefinger in my face. “Hey? THAT stings some, does it? Sounds kind o’ like a FALSE name, does it? Got ye where the hair is short, that time, didn’t I?”
“Speaking of names,” I retorted, “‘Oil Poicy’ doesn’t seem to ring particularly true to me!”
“It’ll be gud enough fer you, young feller,” he responded angrily. “It may belong t’ me, an’ then again, it maybe don’t. It ain’ gunna git me in no trouble; I’ll luk out f’r that. YOUR side’s where the trouble is; that’s what’s eatin’ into you. An’ I’ll tell you flat-foot, your gittin’ rough ‘ith me and playin’ Charley the Show-Off in front o’ yer lady-friends’ll all go down in the bill. These people ye’ve got so chummy with—THEY’LL pay f’r it all right, don’t you shed no tears over that!”
“You couldn’t by any possibility,” I said deliberately, with as much satire as I could command, “you couldn’t possibly mean that any sum of mere money might be a salve for the injuries my unkind words have inflicted?”
Once more he seemed upon the point of destroying me physically, but, with a slight shudder, controlled himself. Stepping close to me, he thrust his head forward and measured the emphases of his speech by his right forefinger upon my shoulder, as he said:
“You paint THIS in yer pitchers, m’ dear friend; they’s jest as much law in this country as they is on the corner o’ Twenty-thoid Street an’ Fif’ Avenoo! You keep out the way of it, or you’ll git runned over!”
Delivering a final tap on my shoulder as a last warning, he wheeled deftly upon his heel, addressed Miss Elliott briefly, “Glad t’ know YOU, lady,” and striking into the by-path by which he had approached us, was soon lost to sight.
The girl faced me excitedly. “What IS it?” she cried. “It seemed to me you insulted him deliberately—”
“I did.”
“You wanted to make him angry?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! I thought so!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I knew there was something serious underneath. It’s about Mr. Saffren?”
“It is serious indeed, I fear,” I said, and turning to my own easel, began to get my traps together. “I’ll tell you the little I know, because I want you to tell Mrs. Harman what has just happened, and you’ll be able to do it better if you understand what is understandable about the rest of it.”
“You mean you wouldn’t tell me so that I could understand for myself?” There was a note of genuine grieved reproach in her voice. “Ah, then I’ve made you think me altogether a hare-brain!”
“I haven’t time to tell you what I think of you,” I said brusquely, and, strangely enough, it seemed to please her. But I paid little attention to that, continuing quickly: “When Professor Keredec and Mr. Saffren came to Les Trois Pigeons, they were so careful to keep out of everybody’s sight that one might have suspected that they were in hiding—and, in fact, I’m sure that they were—though, as time passed and nothing alarming happened, they’ve felt reassured and allowed themselves more liberty. It struck me that Keredec at first dreaded that they might be traced to the inn, and I’m afraid his fear was justified, for one night, before I came to know them, I met Mr. ‘Percy’ on the road; he’d visited Madame Brossard’s and pumped Amedee dry, but clumsily tried to pretend to me that he had not been there at all. At the time, I did not connect him even remotely with Professor Keredec’s anxieties. I imagined he might have an eye to the spoons; but it’s as ridiculous to think him a burglar as it would be to take him for a detective. What he is, or what he has to do with Mr. Saffren, I can guess no more than I can guess the cause of Keredec’s fears, but the moment I saw him to-day, saw that he’d come back, I knew it was THAT, and tried to draw him out. You heard what he said; there’s no doubt that Saffren stands in danger of some kind. It may be inconsiderable, or even absurd, but it’s evidently imminent, and no matter what it is, Mrs. Harman must be kept out of it. I want you to see her as soon as you can and ask her from me—no, persuade her yourself—not to leave Quesnay for a day or two. I mean, that she absolutely MUST NOT meet Mr. Saffren again until we know what all this means. Will you do it?”
“That I will!” And she began hastily to get her belongings in marching order. “I’ll do anything in the world you’ll let me—and oh, I hope they can’t do anything to poor, poor Mr. Saffren!”
“Our sporting friend had evidently seen him with Mrs. Harman to-day,” I said. “Do you know if they went to the beach again?”
“I only know she meant to meet him—but she told me she’d be back at the chateau by four. If I start now—”
“Wasn’t the phaeton to be sent to the inn for you?”
“Not until six,” she returned briskly, folding her easel and strapping it to her camp-stool with precision. “Isn’t it shorter by the woods?”
“You’ve only to follow this path to the second crossing and then turn to the right,” I responded. “I shall hurry back to Madame Brossard’s to see Keredec—and here”—I extended my hand toward her traps, of which, in a neatly practical fashion, she had made one close pack—“let me have your things, and I’ll take care of them at the inn for you. They’re heavy, and it’s a long trudge.”
“You have your own to carry,” she answered, swinging the strap over her shoulder. “It’s something of a walk for you, too.”
“No, no, let me have them,” I protested, for the walk before her WAS long and the things would be heavy indeed before it ended.
“Go your ways,” she laughed, and as my hand still remained extended she grasped it with her own and gave it a warm and friendly shake. “Hurry!” And with an optimism which took my breath, she said, “I know YOU can make it come out all right! Besides, I’ll help you!”
With that she turned and started manfully upon her journey. I stared after her for a moment or more, watching the pretty brown dress flashing in and out of shadow among the ragged greeneries, shafts of sunshine now and then flashing upon her hair. Then I picked up my own pack and set out for the inn.
Every one knows that the more serious and urgent the errand a man may be upon, the more incongruous are apt to be the thoughts that skip into his mind. As I went through the woods that day, breathless with haste and curious fears, my brain became suddenly, unaccountably busy with a dream I had had, two nights before. I had not recalled this dream on waking: the recollection of it came to me now for the first time. It was a usual enough dream, wandering and unlifelike, not worth the telling; and I had been thinking so constantly of Mrs. Harman that there was nothing extraordinary in her worthless ex-husband’s being part of it.
And yet, looking back upon that last, hurried walk of mine through the forest, I see how strange it was that I could not quit remembering how in my dream I had gone motoring up Mount Pilatus with the man I had seen so Harman.
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