Part 17 (1/2)
”What's the scheme, Sally?”
”I want to get these warring elements together, under one roof.”
”Whew! You've got more pluck than I thought you had, Sally.”
”Listen, Jack: When you go out this evening, find Roderick, and send him here, to me. I have written him not to come here, but that won't make any difference. He'll come if you give him my message. Afterward, you may look up d.i.c.k Morton, and the other two men you are to ask, and give them the invitation.”
”For when?”
”For to-morrow. Tell them all to be at Cedarcrest before dark, to-morrow. That is all. As I said before, I'll attend to the details.”
Jack Gardner left his chair, and, having kissed his wife, was on the point of departure when he paused a moment on the threshold, and, looking back over his shoulder, said, laughingly:
”Sally, I always gave you credit for having more sand than any three ordinary women I've ever known, but, I'll give you my word, I never supposed you had grit enough to undertake any such thing as this one.
Talk about me getting things into a mess! Great Scott! if you don't get into one, out at Cedarcrest, with that sort of a mix-up to take care of, I'm a sheep-herder. Maybe you haven't got on to the fact, my girl, but, as sure as you're the best little woman in all New York, d.i.c.k Morton is so dead stuck on Patricia Langdon that he can't forget it for a minute. If you bring all that bunch together, you'll have Rod Duncan and d.i.c.k at each other's throat, before you get through with it. And besides--”
Sally sprang to her feet, clapped her hands and laughed, to her husband's utter amazement.
”Splendid!” she exclaimed. ”No, I did not know that; but it simplifies matters, wonderfully, Jack.”
”Oh, does it?”
”a.s.suredly.”
”Huh! I'm glad you think so. It looks to me as if it were just the other way around. Take my word for it, my girl, there'll be a 'will'
in that drive of yours--maybe a tragedy, as well. Duncan is quite capable of committing one, in his present mood; and d.i.c.k Morton?--Well, you'll see.”
”I'm awfully glad you told me. It's perfectly splendid,” said Sally, unmindful of, or indifferent to, the warning. ”It's perfectly splendid!”
”Oh, it is, eh? Well, I'm glad you think so. To me, it looks a good deal like a mix-up, Sally. Rod is in love with Patricia; Beatrice is in love with him; Nesbit Farnham is so dead stuck on Beatrice that he doesn't know where he's at, more than half the time; and Patricia--Oh, well, I give it up. I'll do what you told me to, and leave the rest to you;” and Gardner laughed his way through the hall and out upon the street; and he continued chuckling to himself, all the way to his club. But Sally ran after him before he got quite away from her, and called to him from the bottom of the steps.
”One thing more, Jack,” she said.
”Well, my dear; what is it?”
”We will take Beatrice with us, in our car, and you may include one of the gentlemen I have given you permission to ask. When you ask d.i.c.k Morton, tell him that he is to bring Patricia and the two Houston girls. That's all.”
”How about the others, how are they going to get there?”
”The others may walk, for all I care,” said Sally, and she returned to the library.
CHAPTER XIV
PATRICIA'S WILD RIDE
It was a gay party that a.s.sembled around the dinner-table at Cedarcrest, shortly after eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, although, had one possessed the ability to a.n.a.lyze deeply, it would have been discovered that the gaiety was somewhat forced. Each person present at the gathering was burdened by the intuitive perception of something ominous in the atmosphere; there was a portentous quality about the environment that had more or less a depressing effect upon Sally Gardner's guests, and each one was conscious of a determined, but silent effort to overcome this feeling, in the belief that he or she was the only one who experienced it.
Two of the expected guests had not arrived. They were Patricia and Richard Morton; but, because no message of any sort had been received from Morton, it was the generally accepted idea, that something had happened on the road to delay his car, and they were expected to arrive at any moment. The serving of the dinner was delayed as long as possible in expectation of their coming, but at last the other guests seated themselves around the table to enjoy the feast so carefully prepared by Jack Gardner's high-salaried chef. Agnes and Frances Houston, who were to have come out in Richard Morton's car with Patricia, arrived on time, accompanied by an uninvited guest, although he was one who was on such terms of intimacy with the Gardners that he had not hesitated to attend this country party, when the idea was suggested to him. It was the lawyer, Melvin; and the suggestion that he should be present, and that he should take out the Houston girls, had, strangely enough, been made by Morton. The young ranchman had gone to the lawyer's office early in the day of that Tuesday, and the conversation he held with Melvin will give a good idea of the drift of his intentions, and of his. .h.i.therto latent talents for planning and scheming. And the shrewd old lawyer quite readily fell in with the suggestions that were made to him.