Part 25 (1/2)

”Do I know this individual?” asked Archie.

”Yes. You brought him to the house and introduced him to her.”

The man gave a slight cry, in spite of himself.

”Not Roseleaf!”

Hannibal bowed impressively; and at the moment Mr. Fern's footsteps were heard in the entry.

Mr. Weil did not know, when he tried to think about it afterwards, whether the wool merchant noticed particularly that he and Hannibal had been talking together, or suspected that they might have confidences.

His head was too full of the startling statement he had heard, and when he was again upon the street he wandered aimlessly for an hour trying to reconcile this view with the facts as they had presented themselves to his mind previously.

Millicent in love with Roseleaf! She had said very little to the young man, so far as he had observed. Her younger sister--sweet little Daisy--had monopolized his attention. If it were true, what an instance it was of the odd qualities in the feminine mind, that leave men to wonder more and more of what material it is constructed. But _was_ it true? Was Hannibal a better judge, a closer student, than the rest of them? He did not like Millicent, any better than she liked him. Was he trying a game of mischief, with some ulterior purpose that was not apparent on the surface?

Out of it all, Archie Weil emerged, sure of but one thing. He must use his eyes. If Millicent loved Roseleaf, she could not hide it successfully from him, now that he had this clue.

The girl's novel was selling fairly well. Weil had made a bargain with Cutt & Slashem that was very favorable. It gave him an excuse to talk with the auth.o.r.ess as much as he pleased, and he used his advantage. He brought her the comments of the press--not that they amounted to anything, for it was evident that most of the critics had merely skimmed through the pages. He came to tell her the latest things that Gouger had said, what proportion of cloth and paper covers were being ordered, and the other gossip of the printing house. And now he talked about the work that s.h.i.+rley was engaged on, and grew enthusiastic, declaring that the young man would yet make a place for himself beside the Stevensons and Weymans.

Millicent struck him as caring much more for news of her own production than that of the young man who had been represented as the object of her adoration. If she was half as fond of Roseleaf as Hannibal intimated, she was certainly successful in concealing her sentiments from the shrewd observer. The result of a fortnight's investigation convinced Weil that the negro had made a complete mistake, and all the hypotheses that had arisen were allowed to dissipate into thin air and fly away.

Another two weeks pa.s.sed and Hannibal still remained with the Ferns. An inquiry of Daisy produced the answer that he thought of remaining in America till spring. The girl tried to act as if it made not the slightest consequence to her whether he went or stayed, but she did not succeed. Mr. Weil knew that she wished most heartily for the time when the negro would take his departure. She was bound up in her father, and Hannibal was worrying him to death--from whatever cause. She wanted the tie between him and this black man broken, and hated every day that stood between them and his hour of sailing.

Roseleaf was almost as uneasy as Daisy over the delay. He had given her the money she asked for, though no allusion to its purpose had been made.

She still had it, somewhere, unless she had given it to the one for whom it was intended. When she took the package from his hand she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him with the most affectionate of gestures. It was the second occasion on which he had been permitted to touch her lips, and he appreciated it fully. He realized from her action how deeply she felt his kindness in providing her with the funds that were to relieve her father of an incubus that was sapping his very life.

”You don't find much use for our black Adonis yet, I see,” said Weil, as he laid down the latest page of the slowly building novel. ”I had hoped you would penetrate the secret of his power over your heroine's father, by this time.”

”No, I cannot understand it at all,” replied Roseleaf. ”And if you, with your superior quickness of perception, have found nothing, I don't see how you could expect me to.”

”You have greater opportunities,” said Weil, with a smile that was not quite natural. ”You have the ear of the fair Miss Daisy, remember,” he explained, in reply to the inquiring look that was raised to him.

”Ah, but she knows nothing, either,” exclaimed Roseleaf. ”I am sure of that.”

Mr. Weil was silent for some moments.

”Well, if you cannot find the true cause,” he said, ”you will have to invent a hypothetical one. Your novel cannot stand still forever.

Imagine something--a crime, for instance, of which this black fellow is cognizant. A murder--that he peeped in at a keyhole and saw. How would that do?”

Roseleaf turned pale.

”You know,” he said, ”that you are talking of impossibilities.”

”On the contrary, nothing is impossible,” responded the other, impatiently. ”College professors, delicate ladies, children not yet in their teens, have committed homicide, why not this handsome gentleman in the wool business? Or if you _won't_ have murder--and I agree that blood is rather tiresome, it has been overdone so much--bring a woman into the case. Let us have a betrayal, a wronged virgin, and that sort of thing.”

The color did not return to the young man's cheek.

”Which is still more incredible in the present case,” he said. ”Do you think Wilton Fern could do evil to a woman? Look in his face once and dismiss that libel within the second.”