Part 27 (1/2)

”Oh, Winifred, behave!” Willie sniffed.

But Winifred would not behave. She drummed up her scheme until she raised the others to a kind of amused interest in the venture. It would be a novelty at least.

”We can always cut and run at a moment's notice,” Winifred explained, for a clincher. ”A couple of hours in a car and we're back in town.”

”But there are no servants there, I tell you,” Willie reiterated. ”You don't seriously expect us to go up there and do our own work?”

”Why not?” said Winifred. ”It's time you learned to use your lazy hands before they drop off from neglect.”

”No thank you!” Willie demurred. ”If we've got to go, we'll take along some deck-hands. What do you say, Persis?”

”The only thing I like about it,” said Persis, ”is the absence of the servants. I can't remember a time when they haven't been standing round staring or listening through the doors. Oh, Lord, how good it would be to be out from under their thumbs for a few days!”

”We can't afford the scandal,” said Willie. ”Servants are the best chaperons there are. If we went up without them there'd be a sensation in the papers.”

”You and your fear of the newspapers!” Winifred retorted. ”They need never know.”

”You can't go up to my place without some chaperon!” Willie snapped, with a pettish firmness. ”I don't run a road-house, you know.”

”If you've got to have a chaperon, maybe you'd take me,” said Mrs. Neff.

”You!” Willie laughed cynically. ”And who'll chaperon the chaperon?

You'll make more mischief than anybody. Your affair with Mr. Lord--er, pardon me, Mr. Ward--is the talk of the town already.”

Mrs. Neff's laugh was a mixture of ridicule at the possibility and yearning that it might not be impossible. Her comment was in the spirit of burlesque.

”But if I marry him afterward it will put a stop to the scandal.”

”Mother, you are simply indecent!” her daughter piped up, with a kind of militant innocence.

The luxury of such a reproof was too dear to Mrs. Neff's unwithered heart to be neglected. She added her vote to those of Winifred and Persis.

Forbes dared not speak, but he was aglow with the vision of a few days with Persis in the country. As he crossed the continent he had seen the traces of spring everywhere; everywhere the mad incendiary had been kindling fires in tree and shrub and sward. From the train window he had watched the splendors unroll like a moving film. He had wished to leap from the car and wander with somebody--with a vague somebody. And now he had found her, and the golden opportunity tapped on the window.

Willie fenced with Winifred till the luncheon was finished. Then they retired to the lounge for coffee. Here women had the franchise for public smoking, and they puffed like small boys. Winifred renewed the battle for the picnic.

Ten Eyck had watched the contest with a grin. At last he spoke: ”It's a pretty little war. Reluctant host trying to convince guests that they are not invited. Guests saying, 'We'll come anyway.' Better give in peacefully, Willie, or they'll take possession and lock you outside.”

Then Willie gave in, but on the ground that Persis wanted it. He attempted a sheepish gallantry and a veiled romantic reference. He, too, had a touch of April in his frosty little heart. Forbes winced at the rivalry; but at any price he wanted to be with Persis where the spring was.

Willie, yielding to the role of _hote malgre lui_, announced that since they were determined to invade his respectable ancestral home, the sooner they got it over with the better. Persis and the rest were creatures of impulse, glad to have an impulse, and they agreed to the flight as quickly as a flock of birds. What engagements they had they dismissed. Their maids could send telegrams of ”regret that, owing to unexpected absence from town,” etc.

Willie went to call up his gardener and have the house thrown open to the air and fresh provisions ordered in.

He had just gone when a page came to Persis with the word that her father wanted to speak to her on the telephone.

She gave a start and looked afraid as she rose. Forbes watched her go, and his heart prayed that no bad news might await her. She was so beautiful as she moved, and so plucky. He knew that she was frightened, but she spoke to various people she pa.s.sed with all the light-hearted graciousness imaginable. She came back speedily with a look of anxiety vainly resisted. She explained that her father was leaving for Chicago on the Twentieth Century, and wanted to tell her good-by. She would barely have time to reach the house before he left.