“Ach, you are onfair,” exclaimed the Baron. “Really?” said Eva, with a sarcastic intonation he had not believed possible in so sweet a voice.
It was the day following the luncheon at Lincoln Lodge, and they were once more seated in the shady arbor: this time the Count had guaranteed not only to leave them uninterrupted by his own presence, but to protect the garden from all other intruders. Everything, in fact, had presaged the pleasantest of tete-a-tetes. But, alas! the Baron was learning that if Amaryllis pouts, the shadiest corner may prove too warm. Why, he was asking himself, should she exhibit this incomprehensible annoyance? What had he done? How to awake her smiles again?
“I do not forget my old friends so quickly,” he protested. “No, I do assure you! I do not onderstand vy you should say so.”
“Oh, we don't profess to be old FRIENDS, Lord Tulliwuddle! After all, there is no reason why you shouldn't turn your back on us as soon as you see a newer—and more amusing—ACQUAINTANCE.”
“But I have not turned my back!”
“We saw nothing else all yesterday.”
“Ah, Mees Gallosh, zat is not true! Often did I look at you!”
“Did you? I had forgotten. One doesn't treasure every glance, you know.”
The Baron tugged at his mustache and frowned.
“She vill not do for Tollyvoddle,” he said to himself.
But the next instant a glance from Eva's brilliant eyes—a glance so reproachful, so appealing, and so stimulating, that there was no resisting it—diverted his reflections into quite another channel.
“Vat can I do to prove zat I am so friendly as ever?” he exclaimed.
“So FRIENDLY?” she repeated, with an innocently meditative air.
“So vary parteecularly friendly!”
Her air relented a little—just enough, in fact, to make him ardently desire to see it relent still further.
“You promise things to me, and then do them for other people's benefit.”
The Baron eagerly demanded a fuller statement of this abominable charge.
“Well,” she said, “you told me twenty times you would show me something really Highland—that you'd kill a deer by torchlight, or hold a gathering of the clans upon the castle lawn. All sorts of things you offered to do for me, and the only thing you have done has been for the sake of your NEW friends! You gave THEM a procession and a dance.”
“But you did see it too!” he interrupted eagerly.
“As part of your procession,” she retorted scornfully. “We felt much obliged to you—especially as you were so attentive to us afterwards!”
“I did not mean to leave you,” exclaimed the Baron weakly. “It was jost zat Miss Maddison——”
“I am not interested in Miss Maddison. No doubt she is very charming; but, really, she doesn't interest me at all. You were unavoidably prevented from talking to us—that is quite sufficient for me. I excuse you, Lord Tulliwuddle. Only, please, don't make me any more promises.”
“Eva! Ach, I most say 'Eva' jost vunce more! I am going to leave my castle, to leave you, and say good-by.”
She started and looked quickly at him.
“Bot before I go I shall keep my promise! Ve shall have ze pipers, and ze kilts, and ze dancing, and toss ze caber, and fling ze hammer, and it shall be on ze castle lawn, and all for your sake! Vill you not forgive me and be friends?”
“Will it really be all for my sake?”
She spoke incredulously, yet looked as if she were willing to be convinced.
“I swear it vill!”
The latter part of this interview was so much more agreeable than the beginning that when the distant rumble of the luncheon gong brought it to an end at last they sighed, and for fully half a minute lingered still in silence. If one may dare to express in crude language a maiden's unspoken, formless thought, Eva's might be read—“There is yet a moment left for him to say the three short words that seem to hang upon his tongue!” While on his part he was reflecting that he had another duologue arranged for that very afternoon, and that, for the simultaneous suitor of two ladies, an open mind was almost indispensable.
“Then you are going for a drive with the Count Bunker this afternoon?” she asked, as they strolled slowly towards the house.
“For a leetle tour in my estate,” he answered easily.
“On business, I suppose?”
“Yes, vorse luck!”
He knew not whether to feel more relieved or embarrassed to find that he evidently rose in her estimation as a conscientious landlord.
. . . . . .
“You are having a capital day's sport, Baron,” said the Count gaily, as they drew near Lincoln Lodge.
During their drive the Baron had remained unusually silent. He now roused himself and said in a guarded whisper—
“Bonker, vill you please to give ze coachman some money not to say jost vere he did drive us.”
“I have done so,” smiled the Count.
His friend gratefully grasped his hand and curled his mustache with an emboldened air.
A similar display of address on the part of Count Bunker resulted in the Baron's finding himself some ten minutes later alone with Miss Maddison in her sanctuary. But, to his great surprise, he was greeted with none of the encouraging cordiality that had so charmed him yesterday. The lady was brief in her responses, critical in her tone, and evidently disposed to quarrel with her admirer on some ground at present entirely mysterious. Indeed, so discouraging was she that at length he exclaimed—
“Tell me, Miss Maddison—I should not have gom to-day? You did not vish to see me. Eh?”
“I certainly was perfectly comfortable without you, Lord Tulliwuddle,” said the heiress tartly.
“Shall I go avay?”
“You have come here entirely for your own pleasure; and the moment you begin to feel tired there is nothing to hinder you going home again.”
“You vere more kind to me yesterday,” said the Baron sadly.
“I did not learn till after you had gone how much I was to blame for keeping you so long away from your friends. Please do not think I shall repeat the offence.”
There was an accent on the word “friends” that enlightened the bewildered nobleman, even though quickness in taking a hint was not his most conspicuous attribute. That the voice of gossip had reached the fair American was only too evident; but though considerably annoyed, he could not help feeling at the same time flattered to see the concern he was able to inspire.
“My friends!” said he with amorous artfulness.
“Do you mean Count Bunker? He is ze only FRIEND I have here mit me.”
“The ONLY friend? Indeed!”
“Zat is since I see you vill not treat me as soch.”
Upon these lines a pretty little passage-of-arms ensued, the Baron employing with considerable effect the various blandishments of which he was admitted a past master; the heiress modifying her resentment by degrees under their insidious influence. Still she would not entirely quit her troublesome position, till at last a happy inspiration came to reinforce his assaults. Why, he reflected, should an entertainment that would require a considerable outlay of money and trouble serve to win the affections of only one girl? With the same expenditure of ammunition it might be possible to double the bag.
“Miss Maddison,” he said with a regretful air, “I did come here to-day in ze hope——But ach!”
So happily had he succeeded in whetting her curiosity that she begged—nay, insisted—that he should finish his sentence.
“If you had been kind I did hope zat you vould allow me to give in your honor an entertainment at my castle.”
“An entertainment!” she cried, with a marked increase of interest.
“Jost a leetle EXPOSITION of ze Highland sport, mit bagpipes and caber and so forth; unvorthy of your notice perhaps, bot ze best I can do.”
Eleanor clapped her hands enthusiastically.
“I should just love it!”
The triumphant diplomatist smiled complacently.
“Bonker vill arrange it all nicely,” he said to himself.
And there rose in his fancy such a pleasing and gorgeous picture of himself in the panoply of the North, hurling a hammer skywards amidst the plaudits of his clan and the ravished murmurs of the ladies, that he could not but congratulate himself upon this last master-stroke of policy. For if instead of ladies there were only one lady, exactly half the pleasure would be lacking. So generous were this nobleman's instincts!
During their drive to Lincoln Lodge the Baron had hesitated to broach his new project to his friend for the very reason that, after the glow of his first enthusiastic proposal to Eva was over, it seemed to him a vast undertaking for a limited object; but driving home he lost no time in confiding his scheme to the Count.
“The deuce!” cried Bunker. “That will mean three more days here at least!”
“Vat is tree days, mine Bonker?”
“My dear Baron, I am the last man in the world to drop an unpleasant hint; yet I can't help thinking we have been so unconscionably lucky up till now that it would be wise to retire before an accident befalls us.”
“Vat kind of accident?”
“The kind that may happen to the best regulated adventurer.”
The Baron pondered. When Bunker suggested caution it indeed seemed time to beat a retreat; yet—those two charming ladies, and that alluring tartan tableau!
“Ach, let ze devil take ze man zat is afraid!” he exclaimed at last. “Bonker, it vill be soch fun!”
“Watching you complete two conquests?”
“Be not impatient, good Bonker!”
“My dear fellow, if you could find me one girl—even one would content me—who would condescend to turn her eyes from the dazzling spectacle of Baron Tulliwuddle, and cast them for so much as half an hour a day upon his obscure companion, I might see some fun in it too.”
The Baron, with an air of patronizing kindness that made his fellow-adventurer's lot none the easier to bear, answered reassuringly—
“Bot I shall leave all ze preparations to be made by you; you vill not have time zen to feel lonely.”
“Thank you, Baron; you have the knack of conferring the most princely favors.”
“Ach, I am used to do so,” said the Baron simply, and then burst out eagerly, “Some feat you must design for me at ze sports so zat I can show zem my strength, eh?”
“With the caber, for instance?”
The Baron had seen the caber tossed, and he shook his head.
“He is too big.”
“I might fit a strong spring in one end.”
But the Baron still seemed disinclined. His friend reflected, and then suddenly exclaimed—
“The village doctor keeps some chemical apparatus, I believe! You'll throw the hammer, Baron. I can manage it.”
The Baron appeared mystified by the juxtaposition of ideas, but serenely expressed himself as ready to entrust this and all other arrangements for the Hechnahoul Gathering to the ingenious Count, as some small compensation for so conspicuously outshining him.
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