Part 6 (1/2)

But will you please account for the phenomenon of the utter absence of Polydores at the present period? Has Huldah at last carried out her oft-repeated threat of exterminating the Polydore race?”

”Pythagoras,” explained Silvia dejectedly, ”has gone to the doctor's.

He broke his wrist this morning. Diogenes is lost and Emerald has gone to look for him--”

”Oh, why hunt him up?” I remonstrated. ”Maybe Emerald, too, will get lost or strayed or stolen.”

”Huldah,” continued Silvia, ”has locked Demetrius in the cellar. I am unable to report on Ptolemy. Huldah is half sick, but she won't go to bed. She said no beds in Bedlamite for her. But I have a wonderful plan to suggest. There is relief in sight if you will consent.”

”I will consent to any committable crime on the calendar,” I a.s.sured her, ”that will lead to the parting of the Polydore path from ours.

Divulge.”

”We both need a change and rest. Today I heard of a most alluring, inexpensive, unfrequented resort called Hope Haven. Unfas.h.i.+onable, fine fis.h.i.+ng, beautiful scenery, twelve miles from a railroad, and a stage stops there but once a day.”

”If there is such a place, we'll go there at once, though why such an enticing spot should be unfrequented is beyond me. Do we leave the Polydores to their fate, or as a town charge?”

”We'll leave them to Huldah. She offered to keep them here if we'd take the outing. She said she'd either give them free rein or beat their brains out.”

”Then I see where the Polydores land in a juvenile jail, or else I return to defend Huldah for a charge of murder. We'll take our departure by night--tomorrow night--and like the Arabs, or the Polydore parents, silently steal away.”

”Lucien,” said Silvia constrainedly, when we had arranged the details of our plan, ”if you wouldn't object too much, I should like to take Diogenes with us. He hasn't missed his mother, but I really believe he'd be homesick without me.”

”Take him, of course,” I said. ”He's manageable away from the others.

I plainly see you've formed the Polydore habit, and maybe a partial parting from the Polydores would be wiser, but we'll take Diogenes as an antidote against too perfect a time. But I forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Rob today. He plans to come and make his visit now and will arrive next Monday. I'll write him to join us at Hope Haven. You must write down again for me the route we take to get there.”

Silvia laughed hopelessly.

”It never rains but it pours. I had a letter from Beth this afternoon, and she says she would like to come to us now. She arrives Monday.

Here is her letter.”

”Great minds! It is quite a coincidence,” I declared.

”I thought it would be so nice to have Beth go with us to this resort.”

”It can't be done,” I said. ”That is, they can't both go. I am not going to let even Rob Rossiter slight my sister.”

”Still it would be a triumph to have her change his mind--or his heart. You know a woman-hater always succ.u.mbs to the right girl.”

”In books, yes!”

I had been scanning Beth's letter and I laughed derisively as I read aloud: ”'I am so curious to see those next-door children. When you first wrote of the ”Polydores” I never once thought of them as children.'”

”She thought exactly right,” I told Silvia, and then continued reading: ”'I supposed them to be something like tadpoles or polliwogs.

I really think I shall enjoy them.'”

”It would serve her right,” I said, ”to let her come and stay with them here in our absence. She'd get the cure for enjoyment all right.

Rob wrote of them in the same strain and says he, too, is curious to meet the missing links.”

”Does she know,” asked Silvia, ”how Rob regards women?”