Part 33 (2/2)

”He did, eh? Well, what did he say?”

”He merely commanded me to give you his compliments and to tell you to go to the devil. I told him that you would doubtless be at home a little later on and it would sound very much better if it came from him instead of from me. Whereupon he told me to accompany you, giving rather explicit directions. He appeared to be in a tremendous rage.”

I laughed heartily. ”I must have got under his confounded skin after all.”

”I was a little worried, so I came out with the lantern. One never can tell. Did you come to blows?”

”Blows? What puts that idea into your head?”

”The Countess was listening on the extension wire while he was speaking to me. She thought it was you calling up and was eager to hear what had happened. It was she who put it into my head. She said you must have given his nose a jolly good pulling or something of the sort. I am extremely sorry, but she heard every word he said, even to the mildest d.a.m.n.”

”It must have had a very familiar sound to her,” I said sourly.

”So she informed me.”

”Oh, you've seen her, eh?”

”She came down to the secret door a few minutes ago and urged me to set out to meet you. She says she can hardly wait for the news. I was to send you upstairs at once.”

Confound him, he took that very instant to hold the lantern up to my face again, and caught me grinning like a Ches.h.i.+re cat.

I hurried to my room and brushed myself up a bit. On my bureau, in a gla.s.s of water, there was a white boutonniere, rather clumsily constructed and all ready to be pinned in the lapel of my coat. I confess to a blush. I wish Britton would not be so infernally arduous in his efforts to please me.

The Countess gave a little sigh of relief when I dashed in upon her a few minutes later. She had it all out of me before I had quite recovered my breath after the climb upstairs.

”And so it was I who spent all the money,” she mused, with a far-away look in her eyes.

”In trying to be a countess,” said I boldly.

She smiled. ”Are you hungry?”

”Delightfully,” said I.

We sat down at the table. ”Now tell me everything all over again,” she said.

CHAPTER XII

I AM INFORMED THAT I AM IN LOVE

Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e began to develop a streak of romantic invention--in fact, tomfoolery--A day or two after my experience with Count Tarnowsy in the Rempf Hotel. He is the last person in the world of whom I--or any one else--would suspect silliness of a radical nature.

We were finding it rather difficult to get down to actual, serious work on the book. The plot and the synopsis, of course, were quite completely outlined; with ordinary intensity of purpose on my part the tale might have galloped through the introductory chapters with some clarity and decisiveness. But for some reason I lacked the power of concentration, or perhaps more properly speaking the power of initiative. I laid it to the hub-bub created by the final effort of the workmen to finish the job of repairing my castle before cold weather set in.

”That isn't it, Mr. Smart,” said my secretary darkly. We were in the study and my pad of paper was lying idly on my knees. For half an hour I had been trying to think of a handy sentence with which to open the story; the kind of sentence that catches the unwary reader's attention at a glance and makes for interest.

”What is it, then?” I demanded, at once resenting an opinion.

He smiled mysteriously. ”You were not thinking of the workmen just now, were you?”

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