Part 19 (1/2)

”So they dared you?”

”So they dared me. And I took the dare.”

”Why?”

Her eyes met mine gravely, but behind her pretty _moue_ a smile lurked delightfully.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Her eyes met mine gravely.]

”If I should tell you now it would be flirting, which is a sin.”

”I had imagined, Mr. Ames, that that sort of thing came easy to you.

But if it's sinful, of course”--

”But you do not rule me out! You will give me a chance”--

My earnestness caused her manner to change suddenly. Her beautiful gravity came like a swift falling of starlit twilight. I had never been so happy as at this moment. Preposterous as were the circ.u.mstances of my presence in the house, the juxtaposition of Cecilia Hollister gave me unalloyed delight. The animosity of the gentlemen at the Prescott Arms--an animosity which the interview in my office had doubtless intensified--quickened my satisfaction in thus being within the walls that guarded the lady of their adoration. She had not answered me, and I felt my heart pounding in the silence.

”I want to serve you, now, hereafter, and always,” I added. ”These men can have no claim upon you greater than that of any other man who dares!”

”No, none whatever,” she replied firmly.

”And the mystery, the whole story, is in the little silver book!”

She started, flushed, and then laughter visited her lips and eyes. The book was not in her hands nor in sight anywhere, but I felt that I was on the right track, and that the little trinket had to do with her plight and her compact with her aunt. Best of all, the fact that I had chanced upon this clue gave her happiness. There was no debating that.

”You had best have a care, Mr. Ames. You have spoken words that would be treasonable if they came from me, and I must not countenance them.”

”But you will tolerate from me words that you would not permit another to speak? Do I go too far?”

She bent her head to one side,--with the slightest inclination, as of a rose touched by a vagrant wind.

”If I could only half believe in you,” she said, ”you might really serve me. So those gentlemen warned you away! Their presumption is certainly astounding.”

”They know nothing of the silver book!”

”They know less than you do,--and you have a good deal to learn, you know.”

”I am dull enough, but I have no ambition but to read the riddle of the sibyl's leaves. That and the laying of the ghost are my immediate business. As for the gentlemen at the Prescott, including my old friend Hartley Wiggins, I am not in the least afraid of them. My hand is raised against them. If it's a case of the test of Ulysses over again, I 'm as likely as any of them to bend the bow.”

I thought this well spoken, but she seemed amused, though without unkindness, by the earnestness of my speech.

”If your wit is equal to your valor, you may go far. But”--and she turned her eyes full upon me--”we must play the game according to the rules.”

”And as for Hartley Wiggins”--

She sat up very straight, and the sudden disdain in her face startled me. I had forgotten my eavesdropping in the clump of raspberries on the day of my arrival. Certainly Wiggins had been decidedly in the race then, and my heart thumped in resentment as I recalled her own message, all compact of encouragement, which I had borne to Wiggins at the Prescott Arms.

”I will tell you something, Mr. Ames. This afternoon, as I drove from the station, I came round by the lake, merely to cool my eyes on the water, and I saw Mr. Wiggins and my sister seated on a wall in an old orchard. They were so busily engaged that they did not see me. At least he did not; but I think Hezekiah did.”

”Hezekiah,” I answered, relieved by the nature of her disclosure, which could not but prejudice Wiggins' case, ”Hezekiah is fond of orchards.