Part 9 (2/2)
Asbury Fuller looked at her in surprise. Carried away by her feelings and in the state of mental exaltation which the romance and mystery of the adventure had induced, she had made a half movement to kneel as she thus almost swore her fealty in solemn tones.
”Why are you attached to my interests?” asked Asbury Fuller, somewhat dryly.
Alas, Clarissa could not take advantage of the protection her a.s.sumed character gave her to tell the real reason. Only as a woman could she do that, only as a woman could she say and be believed, ”Because I love you.”
”Why, some people are naturally leaders, naturally draw others to them----”
”You cannot be a spy upon me, since no one knows who I am.”
”A spy!” cried Clarissa, in a voice whose sorrowful reproach gave convincing evidence of her ingenuousness.
”I wrong you, I wrong you,” said Asbury Fuller. ”I will trust you. I will tell you what you are to do----”
”Butler,” said a maid, poking her head in at the door, ”it is time to come and give the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the table. It is almost time for the dinner to be served,” and without ado, Asbury Fuller sprang out of the room.
A butler! A butler! Clarissa sat stunned. It was thus that her hero had turned out. Could she tell the other girls in the store with any degree of pride that she was keeping company with a butler? She had received a good literary education in the high school at Muncie, Indiana, and was a young woman of taste and refinement. Could she marry a butler? To be near her hero, she herself had just now been willing to undertake a menial position. But she had then imagined him to be a person of importance. This stage in her cogitations led her to the reflection that her feelings were unworthy of her. Had her regard for Asbury Fuller been all due to the belief that he was a person of importance, merely the wors.h.i.+p of position, the selfish desire and hope--however faint--of rising to affluence and social dignity through him? Butler or no butler, Asbury Fuller was handsome, he was distinguished, his manner of speech was superior to that of any person she had ever known. Butler or no butler, she loved him. Just now she had hoped that he, rich and well placed, would overlook her poverty, and take her, friendless and obscure, for his bride. Could she give less than she had hoped he would give? And then as butler, her chances of winning him were so greatly increased.
In a short time, he returned. He told her she was to wait on the table and instructed her how to serve the courses.
”The master will look surprised when he sees you instead of me. If he asks who you are, say the new page. But he will be too much afraid of exciting the wonder of his guests to ask you any questions. I feel certain that he will accept your presence without question, being desirous his guests shall not think him a tyro in the management of an establishment like this. I feel certain that after dinner, his guests will ask to see his collection of arms. Indeed, Miss Bording told him in my hearing last Monday that she accepted his invitation here on condition that she be allowed to see the famous collection. You are to follow them into the drawing-room after dinner. The master will not know whether that is usual or not. If they do start to go to look at the arms, you are to say, 'The collection of your former weapons, sir, has been placed in the first room to the left at the head of the stairs. The paper-hangers and decorators have been busy.' Then you are to lead the way into that room, which you will find dimly lighted.
After that, I will attend to everything myself.”
Although Clarissa could not but wonder at the strangeness of her instructions and to be somewhat alarmed at the evidences of a plot in which she was to be an agent, she agreed, for though her regard for Asbury Fuller would have been sufficient to cause such acquiescence, so great was her curiosity to have solved the mysteries which surrounded that individual, that this alone would have gained her consent.
There were but two guests at the table of Mr. William Leadbury--Judge Volney Bording, and his daughter, Eulalia Bording. Mr. Leadbury cast a look of surprise and displeasure as he saw Clarissa serving the first course, but he quickly concealed these emotions and proceeded to plunge into an animated conversation with his guests. Indeed, it a.s.sumed the character of a monologue in which he frequently adverted to the weather, to be off on a tangent the next moment on a discussion of finance, politics, sociology, on which subjects, however, he was far from showing the positiveness and fixed opinion that he did while descanting upon the weather. In all the subjects he touched upon, he exhibited a certain skill in so framing his remarks that they would not run counter to any prejudices or opposite opinions of his auditors, but the feelings of the auditors having been elicited, served as a preamble from which he could go on, warmly agreeing with their views in the further and more complete unfolding of his own. He was between twenty-seven and thirty years of age, of a somewhat spare figure, and in the well-proportioned features of his face there was no one that would attract attention beyond the others and easily remain fixed in memory. He was not without an appearance of intelligence and his chest was thrown out and the small of his back drawn in after the manner of the Prussian ex-sergeants who give instruction in athletics and the cultivation of a proper carriage to the elite of this city, and withal he had the appearance of a person of substance and of consequence in his community. In the midst of a pause where he was occupied in putting his soup-spoon into his mouth, Miss Bording remarked:
”Please do not talk about commonplace American subjects, Mr. Leadbury.
Tell us of your foreign life. Tell us of Algeria. What sort of a country is Algeria?”
Turning his eyes toward the chandelier about him and with an elegance of enunciation that did much to relieve the undeniably monotonous evenness of his discourse, he began:
”Algeria, the largest and most important of the French colonial possessions, is a country of northern Africa, bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, west by Morocco, south by the desert of Sahara, and east by Tunis. It extends for about five hundred and fifty miles along the coast and inland from three hundred to four hundred miles.
Physiographically it may be roughly divided into three zones,” and so on for a considerable length until by an accident which Clarissa could attribute to nothing but inconceivable awkwardness, Judge Bording dropped a gla.s.s of water, cras.h.!.+ Having ceased his disquisition at this accident, so disconcerting to the judge, Miss Bording very prettily and promptly thanked him for his information and saying that she now had a clear understanding of the princ.i.p.al facts pertaining to Algeria, abruptly changed the subject by asking him if he had heard anything more concerning his second cousin, the barber.
”There is nothing more to be heard. He is dead. You know he came here about a week before I did. By the terms of my uncle's will, the five years to be allowed to elapse before I was to be considered dead or disappeared would have come to an end in a week after the time of my arrival, and the property have pa.s.sed to him, my uncle's cousin. By the greatest luck in the world, I had become homesick and throwing up my commission in the Foreign Legion, or Battalion D'Etranger, as we have it in French, which is, as you may know, a corps of foreigners serving under the French flag, mainly in Algeria, but occasionally in other French possessions--throwing up my commission, I came home, bringing with me my famous collection of weapons and the fauteuil of Ab del Kader, the armchair, you understand, of the great Arab prince who led the last revolt against France. It was not all homesickness, either. Among the men of all nationalities serving in the Foreign Legion, are many adventurous Americans, and a young Chicagoan, remarking my name, apprised me of the fact that perhaps I was heir to a fortune in Chicago. I came,” continued Leadbury, looking down toward his lap, where Clarissa saw he held a clipping from a newspaper, ”and took apartments at the Bennington Hotel, where, when seen by the representatives of the 'Commercial Advertiser,' the following interesting facts were brought out in the interview: 'William Leadbury'--your humble servant--” he interjected, ”'is the only son of the late Charles Leadbury, only brother of the late millionaire iron merchant, James Leadbury. Upon his death, James Leadbury left his entire property'--but,” said Leadbury, looking up, ”I have previously covered that point.”
”But tell us of your weapons,” interposed Miss Bording.
”Oh, yes, that seems to interest you,” and deftly sliding the clipping along in his fingers, he resumed: ”'The collection of weapons is one of the most interesting and remarkable collections in the United States, for, though not large, its owner can say, with pardonable pride, ”every bit of steel in that collection has been used by me in my trade.”'”
”Ah, how proud you must be,” mused Miss Bording. ”I read something like that in the papers, myself. Just to think of it! Every bit of steel in that collection has been used by you in your trade. What a strange affectation you military men have in calling your profession a trade! But, Captain Leadbury, tell me of your cousin, who disappeared two days after your arrival, and why you shaved your moustache which the papers described you as having.”
”A moustache is a bother,” said Leadbury. ”As to my cousin, why, overcome by disappointment, he took to drink. He disappeared from his lodgings on Rush Street two days after my arrival, at the close of a twenty-four hours' debauch. It was found he had s.h.i.+pped as a sailor on the Ingar Gulbrandson, lumber hooker for Marinette, and the Gulbrandson was found sunk up by Death's Door, at the entrance to Green Bay, her masts sticking above water. Her crew had utterly disappeared. That was three months ago and neither hide nor hair of any of them has been seen since. Poor Anderson Walkley is dead! Were he alive, I would be glad to a.s.sist him. But he was a rover, never long in one place--a few months here, a few months there--and now he is at rest and I believe he is glad, I believe he is glad.”
The second course consisted of turkey, and Clarissa was astounded, as she deposited the dishes of the course, to see Asbury Fuller swiftly enter the door upon all-fours and with extreme celerity and cat-like lightness, flit across the room and esconce himself behind a huge armchair upholstered in velvet, and her astonishment increased and was tinged with no small degree of terror, as she observed the chair, noiselessly and almost imperceptibly, progress across the floor, propelled by some hidden force, until it reached a station behind the master of the house. Captain Leadbury began to carve the turkey and Clarissa was astonished more than ever to hear, in the Captain's voice, though she was sure his lips were shut,
”Would you like a close shave, Miss Bording?”
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