The Daredevil by Maria Thompson Daviess (page 2)

“Oh, I did like that Madam Whitworth, and I hope that it will be my pleasure to see her again soon,” I said with an ice in my voice as I caught my breath while Mr. Buzz Clendenning drove between two cars and a wagon with not so much as an inch to spare on all three sides of the car. It is as I like to drive when at the wheel, but sitting beside another–

“You’ll see her at the Governor’s dinner for you Tuesday, if not sooner, and just watch her and the General war dance with each other. He opens his eyes when Mrs. Pat attacks and he imagines he is the whole Harpeth Valley Militia defending His Excellency of Iceland from her wiles. Just watch him!” And this time it was three wagons that we slid between and beyond.

“Why is it that the great Gouverneur Faulkner has such a coldness for ladies?” I asked of that Mr. Buzz. “I did find him to be of such a beautiful kindness.”

“He’s been too much chased. He’s got his fingers crossed on them, they tell me. Just watch him in action at his dinner. He side-steps so gently that they never know it.”

“Why is it then that he gives to me this dinner of honor when he so dislikes all–that is, I mean to ask of you why is it that I am so honored by that very great Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth?” I asked, and I had a great fright that I had again so nearly betrayed Robert Carruthers to be one of the sex so hated by that noble gentleman, the Gouverneur Faulkner. “I must think of myself as a man in future,” I commanded myself.

“Didn’t the General tell you about it? It is to introduce you to the flower and chivalry of your native land. Believe me, it will be some dinner dance. The General wanted it to be a stag, but Sue fought to the last trench, which was tears, and he gave in. These days the Governor loses no chance to honor his Secretary of State for–for political reasons,” and as he spoke that good Mr. Clendenning looked at the wheel for steering, and I could see that there was deep concern in his eyes.

“Is it that–that trouble of mules, Monsieur Clendenning?” I asked of him softly in a woman’s way for administering sympathy for distress but without the masculine discretion that I was to learn swiftly thereafter to employ.

“Don’t talk about it, for I don’t know how much either of us knows or our chief wants us to know, but Governor Williamson Faulkner is a man of honor and I’d stake my life on that. He’s being pushed hard and–Gee! Here we are at the General’s and I can smell Kizzie’s cream gravy with my mind’s nose. I understand that your father was the last Henry Carruthers of five born up in the old mahogany bedstead that the General inhabits between the hours of one and five A.M. Some shack, this of the General’s, isn’t it? Nothing finer in the State.” And as he spoke that Mr. Buzz Clendenning stopped the car before the home of my Uncle, the General Robert, and we alighted from it together.

I do not know how it is that I can put into words the beautiful feeling that rose from the inwardness of me as I stood in front of the home of my fathers in this far-away America. The entire city of Hayesville is a city of old homes, I had noticed as I drove in the gray car so rapidly along with Mr. Buzz Clendenning while he was speaking to me, but no house had been so beautiful as was this one. It was old, with almost the vine-covered age of the Chateau de Grez, but instead of being of gray stone it was of a red brick that was as warm as the embers of an oak fire with the film of ashes crusting upon it. Thus it seemed to be both red and gray beneath the vines that were casting delicate green traceries over its walls. Great white pillars were to the front of it like at the Mansion of the Gouverneur, and many wide windows and doors opened out from it. Two old oak trees which give to it the name of Twin Oaks stood at each side of the old brick walk that led from the tall gate, and as I walked under them I felt that I had from a cruel world come home.

CHAPTER VII

THE GIRL BUNCH

And, if I felt in that manner as I entered the house, I felt it to a still greater degree when I was welcomed by that most lovely old black slave woman of the high temper and good cookery. She opened the door for us herself, though a nice boy the color of a chocolate bonbon stood in waiting to perform that office. She had a spoon in her hand and upon her head was a spotless white turban, as also was an apron of an equal spotlessness tied around her very large waist.

“You, Mas’ Robert, you done come home from the heathen land to keep my food waiting jest like yo’ father did from the minute I ontied him from my apron string. Come right into the dining room ‘fore my gravy curdles and the liver wing I done saved for you gits too brown in the skillet,” was all of the introduction or greeting that she gave to me as she waddled along behind Mr. Buzz Clendenning and myself, driving us down the hall and into the dining-room. “Mas’ Buzz, how is yo’ mother? I ‘lowed to git over to see her soon as this ruckus of young Mas’ coming home is over. Now, here’s the place fer you both and that no ‘count boy will bring in yo’ dinner proper to you or he’ll be skunt alive.” With which she departed through a door, from which came an aroma that led to madness of hunger, and left the bonbon servant to attend us.

“Gee, I hope Kizzie killed by the half dozen last night; if there aren’t three chickens apiece you’ll be hungry, L’Aiglon,” said Mr. Buzz Clendenning with a laugh as he seated himself beside me and unfolded his napkin.

“I wish that you might call me Robert, Mr. Clendenning,” I said with a great friendliness as I ate a food that I had not before tasted and that I did so much like that I was tempted to steal some to put in my pocket for fear I would come to believe that I had dreamed it to exist. It is called corn pone and is made of maize, and it will be found in some form at every meal upon my Uncle, the General Robert’s, table, good Kizzie assured me as I made her a compliment about it.

“Though the name of that son of our great Napoleon is very dear to me,” I added at his quick glance, fearing he might think me offended at what is called a nickname.

“Sure, Bobbie, and you’ll forget that I wouldn’t let you kiss me, won’t you?” he answered as he drew back from the table and lit a cigarette after passing me the case. “Everybody calls me Buzz the Bumble Bee because of a historic encounter of mine with a whole nest of bumblebees right out here in the General’s garden. It is a title of heroism and I’d like to have you use it as if we’d been kids together as we were slated to have been. Gee, I bet you could have beat the bees down some. You looked all soft to me when I first saw you but you are so quick and lithe and springy that you must be some steel. What do you weigh out, stripped?”

“Er–er, about one-thirty,” I answered, and I made a resolve not to blush or show anything of embarrassment, no matter what was to be said to me in my estate of a young gentleman.

And I make this note to myself that it is a great pleasure and interest to sit beside a nice young man with a cigarette in his mouth and one in my hand as if for smoking, which I do not like to do from its bitterness, and converse with him about matters of good sense without having in any way to use that coquetry which breaks into small sections the usual conversation between a man and a woman of enthusiastic youngness.

“I tip at one fifty-two, but I’m an inch and a half taller. Do you run? You’re good and deep chested,” he further inquired and it was with difficulty that I again controlled the blush.

“I fence and I’m large of lung,” I answered quickly.

“Ride?”

“Anything ever foaled,” I answered in words I had heard my father use about my horsemanship.

“Don’t smoke?”

“Don’t like it.”

“Golf?”

“Some–wild.”

“I play a hurry game myself,” he laughed. “Dance?”

“With a greatness of pleasure,” I answered.

After that for a time he puffed at his cigarette and I looked around the long dining room that was almost as large as the dining-hall at the Chateau de Grez and which was dark and rich and full of old silver on the sideboard and old portraits on the walls. Finally my Buzz put out the stub of his cigarette in his saucer and looked me keenly in the face as I raised my eyes to his.

“Booze?” he asked quietly.

“No!”

“That’s good, old top. Me neither! Say, let’s go call on Sue and you can get a nice little initiation into the girl bunch before the General stops you by locking you away from them.”

“I wish that I might, but I must unpack my bags and write the letters to small Pierre and my nurse Nannette; also be ready for translations for my Uncle, the General Robert, when he arrives. Will you persuade the lovely Mademoiselle Sue that she save one little dance for me on that evening of Tuesday?” I said as we rose and walked down the long hall towards the wide door under the budding rose vine.

“She’ll dead sure give you one–of mine,” he answered me with a laugh, “but come along with me now, L’Aiglon. The General won’t be home until night. I laid some letters on his desk that will hold him and Governor Bill until sunset. They’ll have pie and milk sent in and work it all out together. What’s the use of having them to watch the affairs of the State of Harpeth for us if we don’t use the time they are on watch in having some joy life? Come on!”

“I go,” I made answer with a great pleasure.

Then we descended to the gray car of much speed and did use that speed in turning many streets until we came to another very fine old house, where, I was informed by my Mr. Buzz Clendenning, resides that Mademoiselle Susan of so much loveliness.

And it is of a truth that I discovered that loveliness to be as great as was told to me by her true lover. When I raised my head from the kiss of presentation I gave to her hand I looked into very deep and very wonderful girl eyes that had in their depths tears that were for a sympathy for me, I knew. My heart of an exile beat very high in my own girl’s breast that ached for the refuge of her woman’s arms, and I must have partly betrayed my yearning to her, for I saw an expression of confused question come into her eyes that looked into mine; then the beautiful thing that had come into my Mr. Buzz Clendenning’s eyes for me came also into hers in place of the question. I saw then in those eyes a sister born to the boy Robert Carruthers of a great French strangeness.

“I’ve been thinking about you all morning, Mr. Carruthers, and hoping Buzz would bring you with him to see me first of all. I wanted to be the first one of the girls to say, ‘Welcome home’ to you.” And as she spoke those words of much tenderness I again bent over her hand in salutation because I could give forth no words from my throat.

“Sue, you are the real sweet thing–and now notice me a bit, will you?” said my fine Mr. Buzz Clendenning with both emotion and a teasing in his voice. “I know I haven’t got French manners and don’t look like L’Aiglon, but I’m an affectionate rough jewel.”

“Please don’t mind Buzz, Mr. Carruthers–he just can’t help buzzing. Isn’t it great about the dance Tuesday night? I fought hard to save you from a horrid long banquet with a lot of solemn men. I ought to be the belle of that ball and you and Buzz will be ungrateful if you neglect me,” and as she made these remarks for laughter, I liked still more this new friend.

“You are the good, thoughtful little missionary to the foreigner, Susan. I suppose you wanted to stay at home and tat socks while Bobbie and I dined and wined–not,” was the very unappreciative answer that was made to her by that Buzz.

“For always I will be your humble slave, Mademoiselle Susan,” was the answer I made into her laughing eyes. “All the evening I will wait in loneliness for the small crumbs of dance that you throw to me.”

“That will do, Robert; you don’t know how spoiled Susan is and you’re making trouble for me. Besides, you haven’t seen the baby Belle in war paint yet. Let’s go call on her now!” And that Mr. Buzz Clendenning was in a moment ready for making more new friends for me. “Come on, Susan, we can tie Prince Bob on the running board.”

“Why, there’s Belle at the gate now and–yes–it’s Mrs. Whitworth with her. I wonder when she came from New York,” said Mademoiselle Susan as we went to meet the guests approaching, I on the one side of her and the Mr. Buzz on the other.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE DRESS OF MAGNIFICENCE

“The beautiful Madam Whitworth came down upon the same train which I occupied,” I said as I remembered to raise from my head my hat by that action on the part of my Mr. Buzz.

“Oh, then you have been presented to L’Aiglon?” said Mr. Buzz to that Madam Whitworth who stood smiling while I was presented to the very lovely girl of great blondness, who both blushed and what is called giggled as I kissed her hand, though in her eyes I found a nice friendliness to me.

“We are old friends who know all about each other, aren’t we, Mr. Robert Carruthers?” and in her gay answer to that Mr. Buzz I detected a challenge as her eyes of blue flowers in snow looked into mine with the keenness of a knife, to detect if I had yet been told aught of her by my Uncle. And in the answering look of friendliness I gave her was concealed also a knife of great keenness, which came from a brain with which I hoped to do to the death that enemy of France. And also I felt my heart spring to the protection of the honor of great Gouverneur Faulkner, who had given me a comrade’s salute within a few hours past; and also to the protection of the honor of my house in the person of my Uncle, the General Robert.

“Indeed, I have much joy that I was given the opportunity to know the very beautiful Madam Whitworth at so early a time in my life in America,” I made answer to her question in words as I bent also over her hand for a kiss of salutation.

And then I had a great amusement at the skill with which that Madam Whitworth brought it to pass that I walked with her from that gate and left the three new and lovely friends I had made looking after me with affection and regret at my departure.

“Of course, it was horrid of me to snatch you like that from those infants, but–I really had the claim to have you for a little time to hear your impressions of Hayesville, now, didn’t I?–you boy with eyes as beautiful as a girl’s!” she said to me as I walked down the wide street beside her.

“I hope you will always make such claims of me, Madam,” I made answer with the great sweetness with which I was determined for the time to keep covered the steel knife.

“I know how to claim–and also to reward,” she answered me with a warmth that gave me a great discomfort. “And how did you escape from the General into feminine society on your very first day? Wasn’t there work for you at the Capitol? I understand that they are expecting that French Commissioner very soon now.” She asked the question with an indifference that I knew to be false.

“I think it is that I am allowed to get my–what you say in English?–land legs,” I answered with much unconcern.

“Speaking of that Frenchman who is coming down for the mule contracts, of which by this time you have doubtless heard, I wonder why it is that the Count of Lasselles, your friend, is sending one of his lieutenants instead of coming himself. Did he say anything of coming down later? I wish he would, for to my mind he is one of your greatest soldiers and I would like to look into his face. That portrait in the _Review_ is one of the most interesting I have almost ever seen. Is there any chance of his coming down?” And I was of a great curiosity at the anxiety in her face about the movements of my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles.

“He told me only that he would go to the grain fields of English Canada, Madam,” I answered her by guardedly telling her no more than my words upon that train had revealed to her.

“If he writes to you, you must tell me about it,” she said with great friendliness. “I am interested in everything that happens to him.”

“I will do that, with thanks for your interest,” I answered to her with an air of great devotion. “And behold, is it not the Twin Oaks of my Uncle I see across the street?” I asked as I stopped in front of that fine old home that was now mine.

“Come on down the street to my home and I’ll give you a cup of tea,” she invited me with very evident desire for my company for more questioning.

“I give many thanks, but that is not possible to me, as I must write notes to my Pierre and old Nannette for the evening railroad. I bid you good day, beautiful Madam,” and again I bent over her hand in a salutation of departure.

“Then I’ll see you again soon,” she said and smiled at me as I stood with my hat in my hand as she went away from me down the street.

“_Vive la France_ and Harpeth America!” I said to myself as I ascended the steps, was admitted by the Bonbon and conducted up the stairway to my apartments by good Kizzie, whom I met in the wide hall.

And there ensued an hour of the greatest interest to me as the very good old slave woman led me from one of the rooms in the large house to another, with many stories of great interest. At last we came to that room in which had been deposited my bags and my other equipment for my journey and there we made a very long pause.

“This is your Grandma Carruthers’ room, the General’s grandma, and she was the high-headedest lady of the whole family. That am her portrait over the mantelshelf. You is jest like her as two peas in the pod and I reckin I’ll have to take a stick to you like I did to yo’ father when he was most growed up and stole all the fruitcake I had done baked in July fer Christmas,” she said with a wide smile of great affection upon her very large mouth.

“I beg that you put under a key that cake, beloved Madam Kizzie,” I made answer to her with also a laugh.

“Never was no key to nothing in this house, chile,” she answered to me. “I ‘lowed to the Gener’l that he had oughter git a lock and key fer this here flowered silk dress in the glass case on the wall dat de ole Mis’ wore at the ball where she met up with Mas’ Carruthers, but they do say that she comes back and walks as a ha’nt all dressed in it and these here slippers and stockings and folderols in the carved box on the table here under her picture. Is you ‘fraid of ha’nts, honey?”

“I will not be afraid of this beautiful Grandmamma in this dress of so great magnificence, my good Kizzie,” I made answer to her with more of courage than I at that moment felt.

“Well, it’s only in case of a death in the house that she–Lands alive, am that my cake burning?” With which exclamation the good Kizzie left me to the company of the beautiful Grandmamma.

After having unpacked and nicely put away all of the apparel from my two large bags, the fine Bonbon retired below to answer a summons from good Kizzie, and left me alone for the first time since I had opened my eyes that morning while being whirled in the railway train down into the State of Harpeth. I looked at the hunting watch strapped to my wrist, which I had worn while traveling, and saw that it was after five o’clock, and I felt that I must sleep before dining, if for only a moment.

Thereupon I immediately climbed slowly and awkwardly out of that gray tweed suit of clothes. I did so wonder what could be the best method of releasing one’s self from trousers. It is a feat of balance to stand on one foot and remove one portion of the two sides of the trousers, and yet it is an entanglement to drop the two portions upon the floor and attempt to step out of them with the shoes upon your feet. Having succeeded in getting out of them the last night when prone upon the sleeping shelf of the railroad train, without injury to them, I again prostrated myself upon the huge bed in my room and disentangled myself from them while in that position.

After having completely disrobed I took the bath of the temperature of milk that Nannette is accustomed to administer to me, inserted myself in the very lovely ‘wedding’ garments for sleeping that Mr. G. Slade had so admired, and sank into deep slumber upon the large bed with a silk covering beflowered like the skirt of a lady’s dress upon me.

“Well, well, you young sleepyhead, up and into your clothes, sir. We are late for the Capitol now,” were the words I heard in what seemed almost the first moment after I had closed my eyes. Behold, my Uncle, the General Robert, fully dressed, stood beside the bed and a morning sun was shining through the windows. I had slept through a long night like a small child upon the bosom of the bed of my beautiful Grandmamma who smiled down upon me.

“Oh, my Uncle Robert, how much time is it that I have to make my toilet?” I begged of him as I sat up and made a rubbing of my eyes.

“Less than an hour, sir, to get out of that heathenish toggery that the men of your generation have substituted for the honest nightshirt, into proper garments, and eat your breakfast. I’ll call you when I am ready to go.”

It was very little more than the hour my Uncle, the General Robert, had given to me, that I consumed in the accomplishment of a very difficult toilet in a suit of very beautiful brown cheviot which the good man in New York from whom I had procured it had said to be for very especial morning wear. To my good Kizzie I gave a great uneasiness that I did not consume the very elaborate meal that resembled a dinner, which she had ready for the Bonbon to serve to me, and desired only a cup of her coffee and two very small pieces of white bread called biscuits.

“All the Carruthers men folks is friends with their food, they is,” she admonished me.

“At luncheon, my Kizzie, just watch me,” I said to her in nice United States words as I departed with my Uncle, the General Robert, to the Capitol of the State of Harpeth, which is a tall building set on an equally tall hill.

I found much business awaiting me in the form of making a correct translation of all of the letters in a very large portfolio, all of which were pertaining to that very tiresome animal, the mule. But I made not very much progress, for a very large number of gentlemen came into the office of my Uncle, the General Robert, and to all of them I must be presented.

In fact, in all of what remained of that entire week, for most of my moments in the Capitol I was having very painful shakes of the hand given to me and receiving assurances of my great resemblance to my honored father.

All of which I did greatly enjoy, but nothing was of so much pleasure to me as the visits I accomplished into the office of that Gouverneur Faulkner with messages of importance from my Uncle, the General Robert.

It was with a very fine and cold smile of friendliness that he at first received me, as I stood with humble attention before his desk upon my first mission to him, but with each message I perceived that the stars in his eyes, so hid beneath his brows, shone upon me with a greater interest.

And in observing the many heavy burdens that pressed upon his strong shoulders until at the close of each day a whiteness was over his very beautiful face, I grew to desire that I could make some little things for him easier. I sought to so do and I discovered that it was possible to beguile many very heavy persons to tell to me what it was they wished to impose upon him.

I took upon a long ride in the car of my Uncle, the General Robert, that Road Commissioner, who was making a trouble for my Gouverneur Faulkner about taking much money from the sum that he desired to be voted for use on the roads of the State of Harpeth, thus making my Gouverneur Faulkner not beloved of the people in the country around the capital city, and when I returned him I had used many beguilements in the way of flattery about the superiority of the roads of America to the roads of all of the world, and had also jolted him to such an extent that he did write a nice letter to my Gouverneur Faulkner asking that that money be not voted less but even more, so as to “beat out the world with the roads of Harpeth.”

“Good boy,” was the reward that I got from my Gouverneur Faulkner for that feat, and a smile that was of such a loveliness that it lasted me all of the day.

Also I made a hard work for myself in saving that Gouverneur Faulkner by much flattery from a large lady who was anxious that he sign a paper by which all women might vote that no more whiskey for mint julep should exist. I very willingly put the name of Mr. Robert Carruthers to the paper, for I do not like those juleps, and I persuaded the nice large lady that she go in that car of my Uncle, the General Robert, with me away from the proximity to my chief, the Gouverneur Faulkner, to a place in the city where we could drink that ice cream soda water that I do so love.

That lady was very like many other persons who came to see my Gouverneur and whom I persuaded to make me much exhaustion instead of him. It was while telling him of the lady and the two very delicious soda ice creams that he very suddenly interrupted me with a nice smile that had in it a small warmth like the first glow of a fire, and said:

“Robert, I’m going to ask the General to lend you to me for a couple of weeks while I am so pressed. Buzz can do more for him than you do and–and, well, just looking at you and hearing you tell about the flies you brush from my wearied brow, rests me. Report to me to-morrow instead of to him. I know it will be all right, for he really needs Buzz. Now you run home and get ready for one great time at this party I’m giving to you to-night. And, Robert, remember to tell me everything the flies say, translated in your United States.”

“I will and I go, my Gouverneur Faulkner,” I made an answer to him with a laugh in which I did not show entirely all of the pleasure I experienced when I discovered I was to be in the place of his secretary, that fine Buzz Clendenning.

And with much haste I took my departure from the Capitol of the State of Harpeth to Twin Oaks in the car of my Uncle, the General Robert, for I knew that upon this evening I must make a new and terrible toilet and I would require much time thereto.

The good old Nannette and my Governess Madam Fournet have always taught me that the art of a lovely woman’s toilet could not be performed in less than two hours, and I felt that I had better begin in the way to which I was accustomed and go as far as I could in that direction, then finish in the manly manner which would now be of a necessity to me.

The good Bonbon, whom I now know is called Sam, had laid out my evening apparel, from the queer dancing shoes with flat heels to a very stiff and high collar, upon a couch in the huge room, and after my bath I began to put them upon me with as much rapidity as was possible to me. For a few moments all went well, even up to having tucked the fine and very stiff white linen shirt garment into the silky black cloth trousers, but a trouble arose when I put upon myself the beautiful long coat that is in the shape of a raven, which the American gentleman wears for evening toilet. My shoulders were sufficiently broad to hold it nicely in place and it fell with a gracefulness upon my hips, but at my waist it collapsed on account of a slimness in that locality. The fit of the tweed, which had been like to that of a bag, had been very correct and had not revealed the curve of waist, but now it was manifest.

“What is it that you must do, Roberta, to disguise your roundness of a young woman? All is lost!” I said to myself in despair. Then a thought came to me. I had never been habited in a corset in my life on account of a prejudice entertained to that garment by my Nannette, but I bethought me to remove that shirt and also the silk one underneath and swath about me one of the heavy towels of the bath. Immediately I did so and fastened it in place with a needle and thread from the gentleman’s traveling case that I found in the pocket of my bag. Over it I then drew the silk undershirt and then that of fine linen, before again putting myself into the black raven’s dress. Behold, all roundness and slimness had disappeared and when the collar was added I could see that I was as beautifully habited as either Mr. Peter Scudder or that Mr. Saint Louis of the boat.

“Roberta of Grez and Bye,” I said to myself as I looked into the tall mirror, “it is indeed a sorrow to you that you cannot make your courtesy to that Gouverneur Faulkner habited in the white lace and tulle garment that is in those trunks which you have lost in that New York, with your throat that your Russian Cossack has said was like a lily at the blush of dawn, bare to his eyes, but you are a nice, clean, upstanding American boy who can be his friend. You must be and you must play the game.”

And in the language of that Mr. Willie Saint Louis, it was “some game.”

CHAPTER IX

“O’ER THE LAND OF THE FREE–“

I have a desire to know if it is into the life of every person there comes one night which he is never to forget until death and perhaps even after. I do not know; but I am sure that I shall always keep the memory of the night upon which Mr. Robert Carruthers of Grez and Bye was introduced to the friends of his ancestors. It is my jewel that seems a drop of heart’s blood that I will wear forever hid in my breast.

At dinner I sat beside the Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner and tears came into my eyes as he rose from beside me at the head of the table and said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to drink to the homecoming of Robert Carruthers, my friend, your friend, and everybody his friends.”

And from that long table there came to me such beautiful and loving smiles over the glasses of champagne that they went to my head instead of the wine I could not even sip because of the tears in my throat. It was as that day upon the great ship when I saw fulfilled before my eyes my vow to my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles: “Friends for France.” I sat still for a long minute; then I rose to my feet with my glass in my hand.

“I cannot make to you a speech, but I beg that I may say to you words that were of the first taught to my infant tongue and which I last repeated in an old convent close to the trenches in France.”

Then in the rich voice which has come to me from the deep singing of my mother I repeated very quietly:

“Oh–say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there–“

through to the last words which had fallen from my lips as I had taken my father’s dying kiss:

“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Though I had not told them of it, I do believe there was not a heart among those kind people which did not know of that last moment in the old convent and I could see it in tears dashed aside as they all rose and sang the last strain of the American song, with the musicians in the anteroom leading them.

And as they sang that most wonderful song, Gouverneur Faulkner laid his arm across my shoulder, and the comfort of its strength gave to me the courage to send back all the smiles that were sent to me, as that funny Mr. Buzz Clendenning said while they seated themselves:

“Gee, but L’Aiglon is the real un-hyphenated brand of old Uncle Sam, Jr.”

“Thank God that firebrand isn’t a girl,” I heard my Uncle, the General Robert, say to most lovely Mademoiselle Susan, in a corn-colored gown of fine line, who sat at his side.

“I’m so grateful to you, General, that he is a boy,” I heard her say in the deepest respect and regard for my Uncle, the General Robert.

“I don’t doubt at all, Madam, that you will succeed in making me wish that he had been born a girl or not at all,” was the kind reply that he made to her nicely spoken gratitude as we laughed into each other’s eyes across the table.

“I hope so,” was the answer with which Mademoiselle Sue comforted him.

“And now what have you to say to me, boy, the oldest friend you’ve got in America, who hasn’t seen you for days–that have been too long,” said that Madam Whitworth, who was seated at my side, and as she spoke she turned one lovely bare shoulder in the direction of my Uncle, the General Robert, and the beautiful Mademoiselle Sue and also Buzz, as if to shut them away from her and me in a little space of world just for two people.

“I can say with truth, Madam, that your loveliness to-night is but the flowering of my suspicions of it that morning upon the railroad train,” I answered her in words that were a very nice translation of what that fine young Cossack had once said to me at the Chateau de Grez of my own flowering into rose chiffon after an afternoon’s hunting with him in corduroys. And in truth I spoke no falsehood to that Madam Whitworth, for she was of a very great beauty of body, very much of which was in view from a scantiness of bodice that I had never seen excelled in any ballroom in France.

“I knew you for a poet from that adorable black mop which I see you have very nicely plastered in an exact imitation of Buzz Clendenning’s red one,” she answered me with a laugh. “Follow me from the ballroom just after supper at midnight for a half hour’s chat alone in a place I know; and don’t let either the General or the Governor see you,” she then said in an undertone as the Gouverneur Faulkner bent forward and began a laughing conversation with her.

“I will,” I answered her under my breath, and I leaned back in my chair so that the Gouverneur Faulkner could more conveniently converse with her. And to that end he placed his arm across the back of my chair, and thus I sat in his embrace with my shoulder pressed into his.

I do not know exactly what it was that happened in the depths of me, but suddenly the daredevil rose from those depths and knew herself for a very strong woman filled to the brim with a primitive, savage cunning with which to fight the beautiful woman at my side for the honor of the man whose strong heart I could feel beating against my woman’s breast strapped down under its garment of man’s attire. And that cunning showed me that I would have a hundredfold better opportunity to do her and her schemes against him and against France to the death in my garments and character of a man, than I could have had if I had come into his and her world as the beautiful young Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye. Then for those hated garments of a raven my heart beat so high with gratitude that I moved again forward from the arm of His Excellency for fear that he might feel the tumult even through that strong towel of the bath which I had sewed above it, and be in wonderment as to its cause.

“Here’s to your first duel with a woman in which you use a man’s weapons, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, and see that you score–for him–and for France!” I said to myself as we rose from the table and with the other men I bowed the ladies from the room.

“At midnight,” I whispered while I bent for a second to kiss the hand of the beautiful Madam Whitworth as she left the room. As I raised my head from the salutation I encountered the eyes of the Gouverneur Faulkner, which looked into mine with an expression of calm question. And for a moment I let the woman rise superior to the raven attire and I looked back into those eyes, in which I saw the mystery of the dawn star, as would have gazed Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, had she been attired in the white tulle and lace abandoned in that New York; then I beat her back down into my heart and gave him the smile of fealty that was his due from Robert Carruthers, his friend, along with one similar, to the fine young Buzz Clendenning, who at that moment came to my side and claimed my attention.

“You score with Sue. I’m to be the gracious little home city host and give up any dances your Marquisity may choose with her. Sue foxes like she was born in a fox hole under a hollow log, but she tangoes like the original Emperor Tang himself, so go ahead and suit yourself. Don’t mind me. I’m the loving little playmate.”

“That Mademoiselle Sue is so much of a peach that I am inclined to request the receptacle of cream that I may devour her,” I then made answer to him in as many of the words of enthusiasm over a nice lady as I could remember that Mr. George Slade of Detroit to have used over the “skirt” in Louisville in the Country of Kentucky.

“Good, Bobby! I’ll have to go tell Sue that before she is two minutes older. I wouldn’t want her to live five minutes longer without having heard it. Sue’s dead sure to tell the rest of the girl bunch, so I hope you have a supply where that came from, for they’ll all cry for ’em. There’s the Governor making towards the door and Mrs. Pat, who is always waiting at the gate for him, so come, let me lead you to the dance.” With which my nice Buzz and I followed the Gouverneur Faulkner and the other gentlemen across the hall into the long salon of the Mansion, whose floors were polished like unto a lake of ice, for dancing.

In Touraine it is said that a nice lady fairy comes for a visit of inspection at the _berceau_–in America it is cradle–of each small human that is born, and gives to it a beautiful gift if propitiations are made for it to please her. To that end sweetmeats and nice presents are placed beside the small infant with which to beguile the good opinion of that fairy. I would I could be that exalted person and able to visit every small infant born a female in all of the world. And the gift I would give to her, there in her sleep, would be to one time in her life attend a ball in the raven attire of a man in the city of Hayesville of America. I could bestow no greater gift.

The hours that followed my entry into the ballroom in the Mansion of the exalted Gouverneur Faulkner were like minutes of time that dropped from a golden clock of joy. I danced on feet that were strong wings to glide over a floor that was a many colored cloud from the reflection of the soft lights and the silken skirts which ruffled over it. And, what was most enjoyable to me in this case, I glided in whatever direction pleased me and took with me the armful of cloud, which was the girl with whom I was dancing, on long swoops of my own will, instead of being led in my flights by another as had always before been the case with my dancing. It was the most of a joy that I had ever experienced. And as I so enjoyed that freedom I did not know how it was that I should have such a feeling of dissatisfaction when I beheld that beautiful Madam Whitworth dancing within the arms of the Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner. I blushed that I should be so unworthy, with such an unreasonable fury in my heart, and I looked away so that I seemed not to see the smile that he sent to me over the head of the very sweet Belle girl in blue ruffles and silver slippers I was guiding past him in the trot of a fox.

“Yes, Sue Tomlinson _is_ as lovely as a ripe peach, isn’t she?” asked Mademoiselle Blue Cloud of me as I lowered her almost to the floor over my arm, slid her four steps to the left then trotted her two back and two forward; and her tone had a very sweet demand of wistfulness in it as she looked up into my eyes and pressed very close to that protecting towel of the bath.

For an instant I could not think of one single bonbon of compliment to offer the lady and I wished I had sat up all of the night to talk to that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit in the railroad train and had had my nice gray lady friend in the Ritz-Carlton there with her notebook to transcribe the many pleasing things he reported himself to have said to the ladies whom he called “skirts.” Then nice Lord Chisholm came all the way from England into my memory to assist me in my difficulty. I translated from him freely in this manner:

“Aw, on me word, you _are_ a ripping good sort and I could take you on for the whole evening if you’d let me. What?”

“I wish I could,” she answered and by that time I had thought out a nice little squeeze for her very pretty waist in its silver girdle under my arm. Then I had to put her into the arms of a nice young man named Miles Menefee. To get my breath and to think up some more of the compliments that had been given to me for my pleasure in the past, I made my retreat behind a very large palm that was in the corner of the room, and out upon a wide balcony which hung over a moonlit garden across which I could see dim hills in the moonlight.

“Girls of all nations are granddaughters of the same Monsieur Satan, I suspect,” I made remark to myself as I inhaled the perfume of the flower garments of the spring garden below. “I must take a great care that I do not–“

“And then, boy, you’ll slip on the thin ice when you least expect it,” came in the deep voice of the Gouverneur Faulkner from a shadow at my elbow. “I sometimes think that they love us just to double-cross our life’s ambitions, but don’t you begin to suspect that for years to come.”

“A man’s life must be rooted in the heart of a woman if it would bear fruit, Monsieur le Gouverneur,” I found myself saying as in the person of the Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, I drew myself to my full height with pride in defense of my own sex. “A man doubts that to his own dishonor.”

“Yes, but it must be a pure heart that nourishes a man to his full fruitage–and, boy, don’t you take even a sip–until you are sure there are such founts of refreshment.”

“I would that you could look into my heart, my Gouverneur Faulkner,” I said as I raised my hand and laid it against the raven garment that covered my soft breast that was rent with pain at the sadness of his voice and his deep eyes. “There you would see the heart of one–” Suddenly I stopped in the deepest dismay and the daredevil quaked in her trousers.

“I would probably see the heart of–shall I say, Galahad Junior? God bless you, boy, you are refreshing.” And he laughed as he laid his strong hands on my shoulder and gave to me a good shake.

“Are you my comrade Launcelot?” I asked him with a sudden fierce pain again in my breast under the raven coat at the thought of what that Queen of the yellow hair had done to that brave Knight of the Round Table of King Arthur.

“I don’t think I’ll answer your–your impertinence, boy. Just keep foxing with Sue and Belle and the rest of the posy girls and–and keep away from the pools–of–of other eyes.” And after another shaking he turned me towards the door of that ballroom of lights and music.

At the command of the Gouverneur Faulkner there was nothing I could do but go back to the ballroom and to float for more minutes in the land of cloud with the “girl bunch,” as my friend that Buzz has named them; but at supper I took my seat at the table with that beautiful Madam Whitworth and her husband of the very drooping black mustache and eyes that looked at all places except into those of the person addressing him. And at that moment I made this resolve to myself: “That Gouverneur Launcelot may ride far out of the white road, but I intend to run at his stirrup.” And I found that it required swift running, for the road led–shall I say–into “tall timbers.”

It is with a burning of countenance that arises from a hot shame, which I do not even to this moment exactly understand, that I recall to my mind that half hour which Mr. Robert Carruthers of Grez and Bye spent with the beautiful Madam Patricia Whitworth in one of the deep windows that looked from the private study of His Excellency of the State of Harpeth, over into the great hills that surround the city. Things happened in this wise: That Madam Whitworth made the commencement of our duel of intelligences by assuming that I was a simple French infant before whom she could dangle the very sweet bonbon of affection and take away from it a treasure that it held in the hollow of its hand as a sacred trust. That Madam Whitworth did not realize that instead of a very small young boy from gay Paris, whose eyes were closed like those of a very young cat, she was dealing with the very wicked girl who placed the word “devil” behind the word “dare,” speaking in the language of that Mr. Willie Saint Louis when he informed me that he was the man who had so placed the “go” behind Chicago while on a visit to that city. I was that girl.

CHAPTER X

VITRIOL AND THE HOODOO

“I suppose it is absurd for a staid old matron like myself to be jealous, really jealous, at seeing a child like you being consumed alive by a lot of simpering misses in pink and blue chiffon pinafores, who ought to be in their nursery cots asleep, but I have been and am, boy. Did you forget that I was your oldest friend while Sue Tomlinson fed you sweets out of her hand?” And as she spoke she seated herself in the exact center of the window seat and motioned me to place myself in the portion of the left side that remained. I inserted myself into the space that was so indicated and laid my arm along the window ledge behind her very much undressed back, so that I might give to my lungs space to expand for air. I think that arrangement made very much for the comfort of the beautiful Madam Patricia, for she immediately appropriated that arm as a cushion for her undraped shoulders. We being thus comfortably wedged, the warfare began.

“All week I’ve been thinking about you, you wonderful boy, and wondering just what you have been doing and what has been doing to you. The General is so–so incomprehensible in his attitude towards you and yours. All these years he has been”–and as she spoke she looked up into my eyes and pressed slightly towards me–“uncompromising, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, Madam, I do find my Uncle, the General Robert, to be, as you say, uncompromising,” I answered as I looked down at her with a smile. “But you are not like that, are you, beautiful Madam Whitworth? You will compromise yourself, will you not?”

“Don’t use English words so carelessly, my dear, until you are less ignorant of their meaning,” she reproved me as she sat erect and gave to my lungs an inch more breathing space. I had heard that large lady of the State of Cincinnati on the ship say that a nice lady from a place called Kansas, and whom everyone gave the title of Mrs. Grass because of a disagreeable husband who was not dead, “compromised” herself with a very much drinking gentleman from Boston because she sat in a small space with him behind the chimney for smoke from the engine, and I thought it was a nice word to fit into the conversation with Madam Whitworth at that time. And I think it did fit better than I had quite intended that it should. I saw offense and I hastened to make a peace so that I should learn all that I wanted to know from her while letting her learn all that I did not know from me.

“I beg that you pardon me, beautiful Madam, and teach me the English words to say that will express all of–of the most wonderful things that I think of you. What is the one word that expresses the beauty of the blue flowers in crystal that I said your eyes to be, to myself, the first time I looked into them upon that railroad train when you rescued me from the black taffeta lady?” And as I was at that moment speaking the exact truth I spoke with a great ardor.

“I rather think that offsets Sue Tomlinson’s ‘cream jug’ compliment–and you _are_ a dear,” she answered as she again diminished the space for my lung action. “I hear the dear General has turned you over to the Governor completely. What do you think of him?” she asked as if to manufacture conversation.

“Yes, I was made a gift to him last week, and I do not think very much of that Gouverneur,” I made answer with excellent falseness, because I had had no thoughts since my presentation to that Gouverneur Faulkner that were not of him. I had obtained the uncomplimentary remark upon the ship, from the lady of Cincinnati, who said it about the doctor of the seasickness from which she suffered.

“Between you and me, boy–if anything, even an opinion, can be wedged between us–I think the Governor is a great, overrated stupid, encouraged in his denseness by the dear General whose ideas have–have–er–rather solidified with age. I rather pity you for having to have all of your opinions and policies of life moulded by them. Yes, it is a pity.” And she sighed very near to my cheek.

“Will you not mould me to some extent yourself, beautiful flower-eyed Madam?” I asked of her with great gentleness, and did administer a nice little pressure to her shoulders like I had adventured upon the waist of the beautiful Belle in blue and silver dress which Madam Whitworth had named a pinafore.

“You are a perfect dear, and I will help you all I can. Just come and tell me all of your difficulties and I’ll try and smooth them away for you. I suppose you will find it easy to translate their French documents for them about this very boring mule deal. I have had to do it and I am glad to turn the burden of it all over to you. You may have some trouble with the English technicalities and perhaps you had best bring them in to me and I’ll run over them to see that you get them straight. Only don’t let the General know that I am helping you, for I verily believe the old dear thinks I am a nihilist ready to blow the Governor or any of his other old mules into a thousand bits.”

“I thank you, beautiful Madam Whitworth, for your offer of assistance, and I will avail myself of it at the first opportunity. Is it at your house that we can be alone?” I questioned with a daring smile that would serve both for a purpose of coquetry and also to ascertain if I would encounter in a call upon her that very disagreeable appearing gentleman, Mr. Jefferson Whitworth, who is the husband to his very beautiful wife.

“Come any afternoon at four o’clock and telephone me before you come so that I can get rid of anybody who happens to be around. And be sure to bring any work you have for me to help you with. That’s the only way I can excuse an ancient matron like myself for keeping you even for a few minutes away from the pinafores.” And she looked into my eyes with a sigh for her antiquity. In the language of that Mr. Willie Saint Louis I knew it was “up to me,” and I “handed the dame one.”

“In my country, beautiful Madam, the fruit is much more regarded than the bud,” is what I presented to her.

“You are delicious,” she laughed as she again diminished my breathing space. “I cannot see why the dear General has been so violent in his prejudice against all things from France. You must try to win him over, especially as he is letting his prejudice to France, if you can call downright hatred that, stand in the way of lending his aid in doing a great service to your poor, struggling, brave army, while at the same time reaping a profit to his own State. Has he told you anything of this mule deal he is forcing Governor Faulkner to hold up on some others who want to do a service to France?” As she questioned me, the beautiful Madam’s eyes became much narrower and I could observe that she watched me with intentness for any sign of intelligence. I gave her none.

“Will you not tell me, my Madam of the blue flower eyes, about all of the matter? It will be of great benefit to me to understand it all from you, for my Uncle the General Robert is a man of few words and I am not a man of much business intelligence.” And as I spoke I regarded her with a great and beseeching humility.

And there, in the Mansion of the Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth himself, that lovely woman did unfold to me the most wonderful plan for the most enormous robbery of both her own government and mine–or should I say of both of my governments?–that it could be in the power of mortal mind to conceive. It was a beautiful, reasonable, generous, patriotic, sympathetic drama of the gigantic war mule and it had only one tiny, hidden obscure line in one of its verses, but in that line lay all of dishonor that could come to a man and a State who should allow a smaller nation fighting for its life and its honor to be defrauded of one of the supplies which were of a deadly necessity for its success. I think I even saw the dastardly scheme more plainly than did my Uncle, the General Robert, for I had listened with more than one ear while my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, explained to wee Pierre some of the details of supplying the army of the Republique. I think he had talked of things that the little one could not understand just to make an ease of the pressure of all of his business upon his troubled mind and breaking heart. And as Madam Whitworth talked I could hear my Pierre’s brave voice as he always gave assurances to his sad idol.

“All of plenty is in America, and she will give to France.”

And here sat great strong Roberta, the Marquise of Grez and Bye, holding in the hollow of her arm a beautiful American woman who had herself contrived a monstrous plan to let a quantity of the lifeblood of France to turn into gold for her own vain uses. If to throttle her then and there with my bare strong hands had insured the great big needful mules to France, and saved the honor of my Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth, and my Uncle, the General Robert, I think I might have had a great temptation to administer that death to her; but instead I held her now closer in my arm and I began to plot her to death in any other way I could discover, so that her intrigue should die with her.

“Of a truth, beautiful Madam, the poor old Uncle, the General Robert, must not be allowed to interfere with such a beautiful plan as you have for supplying those very fine strong mules from the State of Harpeth to poor struggling France, and I will join with you in convincing the stupid Gouverneur Faulkner that such must not be the case. You will direct me, will you not? I am very young and I have but so lately come to this land that I do not know–I do not feel exactly what you call at home.” And I spoke again with beseeching humility.

“We’ll do it for France together, boy,” she whispered as she turned in my arm and pressed herself against my raven attire above my heart held in restraint by that towel of the bath. “And then you can claim from me any–reward–you–“

Just at this lovely moment, when the beautiful Madam Whitworth had thrown herself into my arms and I had been obliged by my cunning to hold her there instead of flinging her to the floor as I naturally desired, there arrived at the door of the room which we were occupying with our plotting, my tall and awful Uncle, the General Robert, and looked down upon us with the lightnings of a storm in his eyes. Then, before I could make exclamation and betray his presence to the lady in my arms, whose back was turned in his direction, he had disappeared. Did I betray that presence to the lady? I did not. I decided that it would be much to the advantage of the affair to have the lady in ignorance of his knowledge.

“You must go now, boy,” she said at about the moment in which I could no longer keep my dissembling alive. “Send the Governor in here to me, for it is about the time I had promised to dance with him. I want to talk with him and try to make him see some at least of this matter in the right light. Go; and come to me to-morrow at four–for–for France.”

I went and it was with much joy in the going. I stopped at a tall window to get into my lungs a very deep supply of atmosphere and also to take counsel with myself.

“Mr. Robert Carruthers,” I said to myself, “you are in what that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit said to be a ‘hell of a fix’ when the nice aunt of that beautiful and refined ‘skirt’ of Saint Joseph, Missouri, discovered her to be in his embrace of farewell. I cannot tell to my Uncle, the General Robert, that it is that I, a woman of honor, have planned for myself, a man of dishonor, to betray a woman into his hands, and I shall receive from him what that Buzz Clendenning calls to be a ‘dressing down.’ But I must go to send to Madam Delilah now the great Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth and for what she does to him that is unholy she will answer to Robert Carruthers or–or Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye.” And then immediately I went to deliver the summons of Madam Whitworth to the Gouverneur Faulkner and I did not look into his face as I spoke the words, but waited with my eyes cast down to the floor until he dismissed me.

Then after that very painful hour of intrigue I allowed to Mr. Robert Carruthers another of very delightful gayety with all of the “chiffon pinafore” ladies upon the ballroom floor. I have in my blood that gayety which led some of my ancestors to laugh and compliment each other and play piquet up even to the edge of the guillotine, and I refused to see the countenance of my Uncle, the General Robert, regarding me from the door in the end of the ballroom. I considered that an hour of pleasure was a sacred thing not to be interfered with, and I danced with that sweet Sue Tomlinson right past the edge of his toes while I could feel the delicious giggle within her, which was answering that within me, at his fierce regard of us both.

“He’ll eat you up before daylight, Mr. Carruthers,” she said as she cast a sweet and loving glance at my Uncle, the General Robert, which, I could see as I lowered her over my arm and slid away from him, was giving to him much nice fury.

“I will request that Madam black Kizzie to make a good cream gravy to me,” I made answer to her with merriment. “I am very tender,” I added with audacity that I was learning with such a rapidity that I trembled for the reputation of Mr. Robert Carruthers, and as I spoke the words I gave to her a little embrace in a turn of the dance. It should not have been done, but if that sweet Sue had known that a very lonely girl danced in that raven garb of a man, who wanted to hold her close for her comforting, she would have forgiven it, I feel sure. That Sue is a young woman of such a good sense that I must forever cherish her.

“Don’t do that again, Bobby Carruthers,” she said, looking up at me with a lovely seriousness in her honest young eyes. “I know you are French, and queer, but–but don’t–” After a little she added: “We are going to be grand friends, aren’t we?” “Yes, lovely Sue, and I beg of you pardon,” I answered her with all of the friendliness of Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, in my eyes and voice, which seemed to give to her a beautiful satisfaction.

“Good! I’ll tell you what let’s do. You come by for me to-morrow afternoon and I’ll go with you to the Capitol and I’ll beard the General Lion in his den and ask him to let us be friends, and then we’ll take him out to the Confederate Soldiers’ Home for ‘flags down’–it mellowed him so once, when I was about ten, that he let me trot home beside him holding his hand, though he didn’t speak to me for a week after. Want to?” I did enjoy the mischief in those merry eyes that I laughed into.

“I’ll steal his big car and come and help you–what do you say?–kidnap my Uncle, the General Robert,” I answered her with delight as I released her into the arms of that Buzz Clendenning before the fox had been more than half trotted.

“Go pick roses out of your own garden, L’Aiglon,” he said as he slid her away from me.

And for the reason that I was very slightly fatigued and also slightly warm from being obliged to dance in the very heavy swathings of a gentleman, when I had been accustomed to the coolness of chiffon and tulle and thin lace of a lady, I went again into the broad hall and to the wide window that looked away to those comforting blue hills. Below me the garden was coming out of a veil of mist as the moon, which was now very old, came slowly up from behind the dim ridge of hills that my Uncle the General Robert had told me to be called Paradise Ridge. All the spring flowers below me seemed to be sending up to me greetings of perfumes and the tall purple and white lilac flowers waved plumes of friendliness at me, while large round pink blossoms that I think are called peonies, nodded and beckoned to me with sweet countenances. I felt that they were flower friends who in their turn were saying messages of welcome to the lonely girl who had come across the dark waters to them and in my throat I began to hum that “Say can you see–” Star Spangled hymn to them, and was just preparing to step from the window onto a balcony and descend to them, when a movement of human beings caught my eye upon the side of that balcony and I paused in the darkness of the window curtain. What did I see?

A man stood at the rail of the balcony in the dim moonlight and he was speaking to a woman whom his broad shoulders hid from me. The man was the Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth and in a moment I discovered the identity of the lady with him.

“And now, can’t you see, you great big stupid man, what an opportunity I have procured for all of you?” was the question that came in the soft voice of the beautiful Madam Patricia Whitworth. “All my life I have worked just to get a little ease and comfort, carrying the burden of Jeff in his incompetency strapped to my shoulders, and now you, who know how I’ve suffered and slaved, are going to take it all from me when it is just within my reach, and all from no earthly reason than a fancied scruple of honor which that old doddering woman-hater imposes on you. I cannot believe that you would so treat me.” And there were sobs in her words that were wooing and compelling.

“I cannot do a thing that my Secretary of State and his lawyers declare unconstitutional, Patricia,” answered the voice of the Gouverneur Faulkner, in which were notes of pain. “You know how it pains me–my God, don’t tempt me to–” His voice shook as I saw the beautiful, bare white arms of Madam Whitworth raise themselves and go about his neck like great white grappling hooks from which he was unable to defend himself.

“Am I to have nothing from life–no ease or luxury and no–love or–” Her voice ended in sobs as she pressed her head down into his shoulder as his arm folded about her to prevent that she should fall.

“Patricia–” the deep voice of the strong man was beginning to say as I was starting to spring forward in his defense and to do–I do not know what–when a firm grasp was laid upon my shoulder and I was turned away from the window into the light of the wide hall and found my Uncle, the General Robert, looking down into my flashing eyes with a great and very cool calmness.

“Young man,” he said as he gave to me a very powerful shake, “all women are poison but some are vitriol and others just–Oh, well, paregoric. Go out there and take another dose of that soothing syrup labeled Susan Tomlinson, before I take you home, and you–keep–away–from–vitriol–or–I’ll–break–your–hot–young– head. Vitriol, mind you!” With which command my Uncle, the General Robert, strode down the hall in the direction of the smoking room and left me blinking in the lights of the wide hall.

“Little Mas’ Robert,” came in a soft voice at my elbow as I stood tottering, “is you got a picture of yo’ mudder you could show Cato some day when the General ain’t lookin’. ‘Fore I dies I wants to set my eyes on de woman dat drawed little Mas’ Henry away from us all. Dey _is_ such a thing in dis hard old world as love what you goes ‘crost many waters’ to git, and he shorely got it.” And I looked into the eyes of that old black man to find a truth that all the white humans about me, myself included, were acting in the terms of a lie.

Before I could answer the old man, in through the window came the Gouverneur Faulkner and the beautiful Madam Whitworth, and from his white face set in sternness and hers with its smile of the opening rose upon its red mouth I could not tell whether his honor had been slain or had been spared for another round.

“I’ll want you in my office at the Capitol at eleven to-morrow, Robert,” he said to me, and there was a cold sternness in his glance as they passed by me and the old Cato into the ballroom.

“At four,” murmured the beautiful Madam Whitworth as she swept past me with a soft smile but in a tone of voice too low for any ears save my own and I think of the old Cato’s.

For a very short moment the old black man detained me as he searched one of the pockets of his long gray coat and then he handed to me a tiny flat parcel apparently folded in some kind of thin red cloth.

“Wear that in your left shoe, honey, day and night. You’ll need it if she’s got her eye on you,” he said as he hurried away from me into the smoking room.

After disrobing that night, or rather in the early morning of the following day, I investigated the contents of that package. In it were a gray feather off of an apparently very nice chicken, a very old and rusty pin bent in two places and a flat little black seed I had never before beheld.

I gazed at the package for several long moments, then I put back upon my left foot the silk sock I had removed, placed the token of old Cato within it under my heel, dived into that large bed of my ancestors and in the darkness covered up my head tightly with the silk comforter.

CHAPTER XI

BUSINESS AND PIE

That Mr. Buzz Clendenning has in the composition of his nature a very large portion of nice foolishness which makes the heart of a lonely person most comfortable. He decided, upon that very first day of our introduction, that I was to be as a small brother to him who was much loved but also to be much joked about a quaintness which he chose to call “French greenness,” and for which I was most grateful because with that excuse I could cover all mistakes that arose from my being a girl who was ignorant of the exact methods of being a man. And, also, that nice attitude towards me was of quite a contagion, for all of the young ladies and gentlemen of the city of Hayesville became the same to me and all of the time my heart was warm and rejoiced at their affection shown in banter and jokes.

The morning after that very much enjoyed dinner dance, with which the Governor Faulkner complimented my Uncle, the General Robert, through me, I was standing in front of the mirror in my room without my coat or my collar, endeavoring to reduce the wave in my black hair to the sleekness of that of my beloved Buzz, which had a difficulty because of one lock over my temple whose waywardness I had for the last few years trained to fall upon my cheek for purposes of coquetry and which would persist in trying still to fulfill that unworthy function. And right in the center of my punishment of that lovelock with the stiff brush without a handle, which was twins with another that had come with the gentleman’s traveling bag which I had purchased in New York of the nice fat gentleman in the store of clothing for men, into my room came that Buzz without any ceremony save a rap upon my door which did not allow sufficient time for any response from me. I blushed with alarm at the thought that his entrance might have come at a much earlier stage of my toilet and I made a resolve to lock the door tight in future, at the same time turning to greet him with a fine and great composure.

“Say, Bobby, are you in for side-stepping the chiefs at eleven-thirty and going with me to take a nice bunch of calicoes out to the Country Club for a little midday sandwich dance? You can eat a thin ham and fox trot at the same time. Sue and Belle and Kate Keith all want to get on to that long slide you’ve brought over direct from Paree. It stuck in their systems last evening and they want more. Want to go?”

“With a greatness of pleasure, but His Excellency has commanded me at eleven o’clock and will I be through the tasks at the hour for escorting those calicoes out to your Club for a dance?” I asked with great delight as I continued my operations with the brush upon the rebellious lock.

“You’ll have time if you stop that primping and hustle into your collar and coat. Here, let me show you how to doctor that place where the cow licked you. Why don’t you take both brushes to it? Like this!” With which Mr. Buzz took from my hand the one brush and from the high dressing table the other, for which my ignorance had discovered no use, and did then commence a vigorous assault on my enemy the curl.

“What was it you said of a cow, my Buzz?” I questioned him as I made a squirming under the vigor of his attack upon my hair.

“When hair acts up like this we call it a cowlick in United States language. See here, L’Aiglon, old boy, this hair looks as if it had at one time been curled. Did you wear it that way in Paris?” And as he asked the question he gave that side of my hair one more vigorous sweep and stood off to admire his work.

“No, my Buzz, I assure you that it was the cruelty of that cow you mention, while I was at a very tender age,” I answered with a laugh into his eyes that covered nicely the blush that rose to my cheek at his accusation concerning the lovelock.

“Well, knot that tie now in a jiffy and climb into your coat. Let’s get to the Capitol and give the old boys as little of our attention as they’ll stand for, and then beat it for the girls. Bet my chief growls blue blazes at me over the way Sue ragged him about you last night. He’ll issue a command at the point of the bayonet to me to keep you away from the bunch, and I’ll agree just so as to make the slide from under easy. Come on.” And while he spoke to me, that Buzz raced me down the hall of my ancestors and out into his very slim, fast car before I could get breath for speaking.

“But suppose His Excellency the Gouverneur Faulkner requires my presence beyond that half hour after eleven o’clock, my Buzz, is it that you will await me for a few short minutes?” I asked of him as we ascended the steps of the Capitol of the State of Harpeth.

“Oh, Bill won’t keep you any longer than that. He’ll have twenty other interviews on the string for to-day. Fifteen minutes will be about right for you; you wait for me in the General’s anteroom. I’ll have to get heroics before instructions. I always do. Now beat it.” With which words my Buzz left me in the wide hall of the great Capitol before a door marked: “Office of the Governor.”

Upon that door I knocked and it was immediately opened to me by fine black Cato, whose eyes shone in recognition of me.

“Got it in yo’ shoe?” he demanded in a whisper.

“Yes, my good Cato,” I responded also in a low tone of voice.

“Den pass on in to de Governor; he am waitin’ fer you. You’s safe, chile.” And he escorted me past several gentlemen seated and standing in groups, to another door, which he opened for me and through which he motioned me to pass.

“Mr. Robert Carruthers,” he announced me with the greatest ceremony. “Go in, honey,” he said softly and I passed into the room whose door he closed quietly behind me.

“Good morning, Robert,” said the Gouverneur Faulkner to me as I came and stood opposite him at the edge of his wide desk. And he smiled at me with a great gentleness that had also humor playing into it from the corners of his eyes and mouth. “I’m afraid that you’ve landed in the midst of a genuine case of American hustle this ‘morning after.’ Here are two lists of specifications, one in English weights and measurements and the other in French. I want you to compare them carefully, checking them as you go and then re-checking them. I want to be sure they are the same. Also make a good literal translation of any notes that may be in French and compare them with the notes in English. Do you think it can be done for me by three o’clock, in time for a conference I have at that hour?” With which request he, the Gouverneur Faulkner, handed me two large sheets of paper down which were many long columns of figures.

“_Mon Dieu_,” I said to myself under my breath, for always I have had to count out the pieces of money necessary to give to Nannette for the washer of the linen at the Chateau de Grez, upon the fingers of my hands, which often seemed too few to furnish me sufficient aid. But in a small instant I had recovered my courage, which brought with it a determination to do that task if it meant my death.

“Yes, Your Excellency,” I answered him with a great composure in the face of the tragedy.

“You’ll find the small office between my office and that of General Carruthers empty. A ring of the bell under the desk means for you to come to me. I’ll try not to interrupt you. Two rings means to go to the General. That is about all.” With a wave of his hand the Gouverneur Faulkner dismissed me to my death.

With my head up in the air I turned from him and prepared to retire to my prison from which I could see no release, when again I heard his summons. He had risen and was standing beside his desk and as I turned he held out his hand into which I laid mine as he drew me near to him.

“Youngster,” he said and the smile which all persons call cold was all of gentleness into my eyes, “these are going to be some hard days for us all, these next ten, and if I drive you too hard, balk, will you?”

“To the death for you I’ll go, my Gouverneur Faulkner,” I answered him, looking straight into his tired eyes that were so deep under the black, silver-tipped wings of his brows. I did not mean that death I had threatened myself from the mathematics in the paper, but in my heart there was something that rose and answered the sadness in his eyes with again all that savageness of a barbarian.

“Then I’ll take you to the point of demise–almost–if I need you,” he answered me with a laugh that hid a quiver of emotion in his voice as something that was like unto a spark shot from the depths of his eyes into the depths of mine. “Go get the papers verified and let me know when you have finished.” And this time I was in reality dismissed. I went; but in my heart was a strange smoulder that the spark had kindled.

In the small room that opened off of that of the Gouverneur Faulkner, with a door that I knew to lead into the room of my Uncle, the General Robert, I seated myself at a table by a window which looked down upon the city spread at the foot of the Capitol hill lying shimmering in the young spring mists that drifted across its housetops. I laid down the papers, took a pencil from a tray close beside my hand and then faced the most dreadful of any situation that I had ever brought down upon my own head. I also faced at the same time the smiling countenance of my Buzz, who looked into the door from the room of my Uncle, the General Robert, slipped through that door and closed it gently behind him.

“Safe on first base! The old boy of the bayonets has been called to the Governor and he’ll not be back before they both have luncheon sent in to them. I have taken his letters and now I’m off. What did Bill hand you?”

“Death and also destruction,” I answered in an expletive often used by my father in times of a catastrophe, and with those words I showed to my Buzz the two long papers.

“Shoo, that’s no big job. I looked over and verified this one myself yesterday in ten minutes. Hello, this other one is in French. Just run it through and if it is to tally, call it; and I’ll hold this one. We can do it in fifteen minutes. Go ahead from the top line across.” And my Buzz held the paper in his hand as he seated himself in readiness upon the corner of my desk beside me.

“Oh, my Buzz, I have such a mortification that I cannot add one to another of these long figures. When I place one number to another I must use my fingers, and in this case you see that it is impossible.” Tears I did not allow in my eyes, but they were in my voice, and I looked into the eyes of my Buzz with a great terror. “What is it that I shall do? I am in disgrace.”

“You complete edition of a kid, you, don’t you know I can do it for you? That is, if you know what all these kilo things stand for in English. Do you?” As he spoke, that kind Buzz put his hand on my shoulder with a nice rough shake.

“I do know from my governess, Madam Fournet, and I will write it all down for you, my Buzz, for whom I feel so much gratitude for help,” I answered with quickness.

“Stow the gratitude and write ’em all out. It will take us about an hour but it is good to keep calicoes waiting occasionally,” he said, and did thereupon seat himself beside the table and draw to himself the two sheets of paper, while I quickly wrote out the table of French weights and measurements translated into English.

I did very much enjoy that hour in which my Buzz labored with a pencil and a great industry while I called to him the list of long figures and then verified as he showed me the units upon the page in the French language. He made jokes at me between workings while he attended his cigarette and we, together, had much laughter.

“There are just three places where these figures disagree and I have marked them carefully, L’Aiglon,” he said as at last he laid down both pieces of the paper. “These French specifications and figures that floored you, represent the ideal mule in bulk and these United States figures promise the same multitude in scrub. I thought as much. You just run in there to Bill with them and then forget you ever saw them, and we’ll be on our way to the girls in ten minutes. Bobby, I mean it when I say that men in your and my positions of trust just forget facts and figures the minute we get out of sight of our chiefs. And we forget the chiefs too, believe me. Now run along and come out to the car on the same trot.”

“Is it of honor not to tell to the Gouverneur Faulkner that you assisted me in this task, my Buzz?” I asked of him with anxiety.

“No need to tell him–it’s all in the same office and will come to me for filing. Don’t say anything that will bring on talk that keeps us from Sue and the gang. Just run!” With which advice my kind Buzz disappeared through the door into the office of my Uncle, the General Robert, as I softly opened the door of the room of the Gouverneur Faulkner and entered into his presence. And in that presence I found also my Uncle, the General Robert, in a very grave consultation with the Gouverneur Faulkner.

“The papers completed, Your Excellency,” I said in a very low and meek tone of my voice as I laid the papers beside him on the table and prepared to take the running departure that my Buzz had commanded of me.

“Bless my soul, are you here and at work, young man? I thought you were asleep after all that gallivanting, and was just preparing to blow you up out of bed over the telephone,” exclaimed my Uncle, the General Robert, with great fierceness of manner but also a great pleasure of eyes at the sight of me in the character of such a nice Secretary to the Gouverneur of Harpeth.

“Robert arrived five minutes after I did and ten minutes before you came into the building, General,” said that Gouverneur Faulkner, with a twinkle of great enjoyment in his eyes. “He’s done a day’s work before we have begun. Will you have your luncheon sent up from the restaurant with ours, Robert? Just order the usual things for us and any kind of frills you care for. Shall I say snails?”

“I thank Your Excellency deeply but I am engaged that I luncheon and dance with Mr. Buzz Clendenning in his club in the country if I may be given permission to go,” I answered as I laid my fingers with affection on the arm of my Uncle, the General Robert, as I stood beside him.

“Nonsense, sir! You’ll not join those jackanapes in their gambols during business hours. Order yourself up a slice of pie and a glass of buttermilk along with mine and sit down here to listen to matters of business by which you can profit. Luncheon and dancing! No, pie and business, I say, pie and business!” And the fierceness of my Uncle, the General Robert, made me retire several feet away from him in astonishment and in the direction of the Gouverneur Faulkner.

“Now, General, don’t tie the boy down to pie and the company of two musty old gentlemen like ourselves. He’s earned a dance. You may go, Robert, and I wish–I wish my heels were light enough to go with yours,” that kind Gouverneur said in my behalf.

“Light heels, light head! And I say he shall–” And another explosion of fierceness was about to arrive from my Uncle, the General Robert, when I said with great and real humility:

“It will be my great pleasure to sit at the feet of you and His Excellency, which are not light for dancing, my Uncle Robert, and eat a large piece of pie and also milk.” I spoke with a sincerity, for suddenly I knew that there would be nothing at that dance of girls in the club of my Buzz that I would so desire as to sit near to that Gouverneur Faulkner, in whose eyes came that sadness when he spoke of the dance for which he had not the light feet, and eat with him and my Uncle, the General Robert, a piece of that American pie of which I had heard my father speak many times.

“Why, he means it, General,” said the Gouverneur Faulkner with a great softness in his eyes that answered the affection that was in mine that pleaded for the pie and a place at his side. “Run, youngster, run, before the General says another word. You are dismissed. Go!” And with a great laugh the Gouverneur Faulkner rose, put his arm around my shoulder and put me out of that room before my Uncle, the General Robert, could begin any more words of remonstrance. And I ran away from that door to my Buzz in the waiting car with both light and reluctant feet.

The two hours that I spent with my Buzz at his club in the country with what he called in front of their very faces, bunches of calico, passed with such a rapidity that I felt I must grasp each minute and remonstrate with them for their fleetness. That Mademoiselle Sue was even much more lovely in her gray costume of golf with a tie the color of the one worn by my Buzz, than she had been in her chiffon of the dinner dance, and the beautiful Belle was much the same, with an added gayety and charm, while I discovered a very sweet Kate Keith and a Mildred Summers who was not of a great beauty but of many interesting remarks which induced much laughing. With them were that Miles Menefee whom my Buzz had recommended to me, and also several young gentlemen of America whom I liked exceedingly. One Mr. Phillips Taylor took me by my heart with a great force when, as we were all seated on the steps of the wide porch eating the promised sandwich and consuming breath for another dance in a very few minutes, he said to me:

“Say, Mr. Robert Carruthers, my mater wants to see you over in the east card room directly. She says she had it on with your father in their dancing school days and it was only by the intervention of some sort of love ruckus that you and I are not brothers or maybe what would be worse, brother and sister. If that had happened you would have had to be it. I wouldn’t. But that’s not our quarrel.”

“You couldn’t have been a woman unless you had received a much better finishing polish before being sent to bless the earth, Phil, dear,” said that funny Mademoiselle Mildred Summers, and that Mr. Phillips Taylor returned the insult by lifting her off of her feet and gliding her halfway across the porch verandah in the beginning of one tango dance to the music that was again to be heard from the hall within the building.

“Mildred and Phil fight like aborigines, and their love for combat will lead to matrimony in their early youth if they are not reconciled to each other soon,” said lovely Sue as she fitted herself into my arms for our tango.

“After this dance with you will you lead me to that Madam Taylor, the friend of my father, beautiful Sue?” I asked of her. “It makes happy my heart to see one who loved him.” And as I spoke, the longing for my father that will ever be in my heart made a sadness in my voice and a dimness in my eyes.

“I think everybody loved him just as we are all beginning to–to like you, Bobby dear,” said that sweet girl as she smiled up at me in a way that sent the dimness in my eyes back to my heart.

“I am very grateful that you like me, lovely Sue,” I said with great humility. “I will endeavor to win and deserve more and more of that liking, until it is with me as if I had been born in a house near to yours, as is the case with my dear Buzz and also that funny Mildred.”

“I couldn’t like you any better, Bobby, if you had torn the hair off of my doll’s head or broken my slate a dozen times,” she laughed at me again as we slid together the last slide in the dance. “Now come over and be introduced to Mrs. Taylor. You have only a few minutes, for you and Buzz must both be back at the Capitol at two. I feel in honor bound to the State to send you both back on time.” And while she spoke she led me across the hall of the clubhouse and into a room full of ladies, who sat at card tables consuming very beautiful food while also preparing to resume playing the cards.

CHAPTER XII

THE BEAUTIFUL MADAM WHITWORTH

Sue then made for me many introductions and all of those lovely _grande dames_ gave to me affectionate welcomes. Some of them I had encountered at the dance of the Gouverneur Faulkner and all of them had smiles for me.

“Why, boy, you are Henry’s very self come back to us after all these years–only with a lot of added deviltry in the way of French beauty,” said that Madam Taylor, who was very stately, with white hair and a very young countenance of sweetness. “The daredevil–it was like him to send you back to us as–as revenge,” she added with something that almost seemed like anger under the sweetness of her voice.

“It is what my father always named me, Madam, the ‘daredevil,’ and will you not accept me for your cherishing?” I spoke those words to her from an impulse that I could not understand but I saw them soothe a hurt in her eyes as she laughed and kissed my cheek as I raised my head from kissing her jeweled hand.

“Yes,” she answered me softly.

“Come on, L’Aiglon; it’s time to beat it. We are late and Sue is beginning to shoo,” called my Buzz from the door of the card room. “We are coming home with Phil for supper to-night, Mrs. Taylor, and the Prince wants an introduction to your custard pie. Yes’m, seven sharp! Come on, Bob!”

“My Buzz,” I said to that Mr. Buzz Clendenning as he raced the slim car through the country and the city up to the Capitol hill, “you give to me a life of much joy in only a few days. I would that it could so continue.”

“It just will until we are jolly old boys with long white beards and canes, Bobby,” he answered me with an affectionate grin as we rounded a corner on two wheels of the car. “Say, let’s get out of this politics soon, go in for selling timber lands, marry two of the calicoes and found families. We’ll call the firm Carruthers and Clendenning and I choose Sue. You can decide about your dame later.”

Suddenly something very cold and dead was there in place of my heart that had danced with happiness. What should I do at that time of disclosing myself as one large lie to all of these kind friends who were giving me affection on the account of my honored father and Uncle, the General Robert? That daredevil in me had led me into this dishonor, with the excuse, it is true, of fear that the wicked Uncle would not have mended the hip of small Pierre if I did not obey his summons as a nephew. And now I must stay to be of service to him and to the Gouverneur Faulkner but also to be more involved in that lie and to accept more confidence and affection with thievery.

“I cannot sell the lands of timber with you, my Buzz,” I made answer to him quickly and with fierceness. “As soon as this business of the mules is settled and my Uncle, the General Robert, no longer requires my services, I must return and go into the trenches of France.” And I felt as I spoke that my fate was decided, and a great calmness came over me. “Then I’ll go with you,” answered me that Buzz with a look of the steadfast affection which might have grown with years of comradeship. “I’ll go and fight for France with you if you’ll come back and build an American family alongside of mine. Jump out–we are fifteen minutes late–and watch the General scalp me. Come in through his office and take a part of it, will you?”

Even in the very short time which I had known my Uncle, the General Robert, I had discovered that the times at which could be anticipated explosions, none came, and also the reverse of that fact. When my Buzz and I entered his office he very hastily concealed a book that had some variety of richly colored pictures in it in his desk and smiled with a wink of the eye at my Buzz. Later I should know about that book to my great joy.

“Here’s a letter for you, Robert, and go get to your knitting with Governor Bill,” he said to me with kindness in his smile as he handed me a large letter and motioned me from the room into the small anteroom that I now knew to be the place assigned to my Buzz and me when not wanted in the offices of my Uncle, the General Robert, or the Gouverneur Faulkner. I made a low bow to my Uncle, the General Robert, and also to Monsieur the Bumble Bee and departed thence.

On seating myself at my table to await the bell of the Gouverneur Faulkner, without which ringing my Buzz had instructed me I must never on pain of extinction as a secretary enter His Excellency’s office, I opened that letter and began to read with difficulty a letter of a few words from my wee Pierre, now in the hospital of that kind Doctor Burns. I read not more than one sentence when I leaped to my feet with a cry of joy and my heart beat very high with happiness. To whom should I turn to tell of that happiness? I did not pause to answer that question in my heart but I quickly opened the door of the august Gouverneur of Harpeth and presented myself to him in a disobedience of strict orders. And then what befell me?

Seated at his desk was that great and good man, with his head bowed upon his hands; and at my entrance he raised that head with an alarm. I could see that his face was heavy and sad with deep pondering and I was instantly thrown into mortification that I had so interrupted him. I faltered there beside him and found halting words to exclaim:

“Oh, it is a pardon I ask Your Excellency for intruding into your door, but it is that my small Pierre has stood upon two feet for perhaps a whole minute in the hospital of that good Dr. Burns and I must run to tell you of my joy. Is it quite possible now that Pierre will no longer be for life crooked in the back?” And as I spoke I held out to him the letter upon which tears were dripping and one of my hands I clasped trembling at my breast that shook under that stylish cheviot bag of a coat I had that morning put upon me for the first time. And did that great Gouverneur Faulkner repulse his wicked secretary? He did not.

“God bless you, youngster! Of course you run right to tell me when a big thing like that happens. Sure that back will be all straight in no time and we’ll have the little maid down, running in and out at her will in just a few months,” and as he spoke that Gouverneur Faulkner came to my side and took the hand that held the tear-besprinkled letter and also drew the one from my breast into his own two large and warm ones. “I’ve been hearing people’s troubles for what seems like an eternity, boy, but not a single son-of-a-gun has run to me with his joy until you have. Here, use one corner of my handkerchief while I use the other,” and as he spoke that very large and broad-shouldered man released one of my hands, dabbed his own eyes that were sparkling with perhaps a tear, and then handed that handkerchief to me.

And those tears of both of us ended in a large laugh.

“It is my habit that I shed tears when in joy,” I said with apology, as I returned that large white handkerchief to that Gouverneur Faulkner.

“Mind you don’t tell anybody that Governor Bill Faulkner does the same thing,” he answered with a laugh.

“I have a feeling that is of longing to rush to small Pierre and to prostrate myself at the feet of that good Doctor,” I said as again the great joy of that news rushed upon me.

“No, boy, not right now,” answered that great Gouverneur Faulkner as he turned and laid a large warm hand on each of my shoulders. “The crisis is at hand and I need you here for a little time. I can’t explain it, but–but you seem to feed–feed my faith in myself. In just a few days I’ve grown to depend on you to–to–. You ridiculous boy, you, with your storms and joy sunbursts, get out of here and tell Cato to send Mr. Whitworth and Mr. Brown into my office immediately.” And with a laugh and a shake of me away from his side, the Gouverneur Faulkner picked up the two long sheets of paper which had been of so much labor to my Buzz and me and began to scowl back of his black, white-tipped eyebrows over them. I departed with great rapidity.

Then with much more calmness I told the great news of the back of Pierre to my Uncle, the General Robert.

“That’s fine–now we can give her away without any trouble. I knew Burns could do the trick. It’s a bargain at two thousand dollars to get a girl in the shape to give away. She could give us no end of bother if we had to keep her. Go find that flea, Clendenning, and tell him to come to me immediately; I think he is buzzing in the telephone closet to that Susan. And you go get busy yourself to earn your salary from the State of Harpeth. Telegraph twenty dollars to that fool nurse to buy a doll for the girl. Now go!” That was the way that my Uncle, the General Robert, received my news of the improved health of the back of small Pierre, and with my two eyes I shed a few secret tears that did roll down into my mouth which was broad from a laugh as I went in search of my Buzz.

“Bully, old top,” said my Bumble Bee as I imparted also my joy to him. “Say, if that kid is eight years old and is going to walk all right, we must see to it that she starts in with a good dancing teacher as soon as she can spin around. We want to make a real winner out of her.”

“I do love you, my Buzz,” I answered to him as I clung with both my hands to his arm across my shoulder.

“That’s all right. Prince, but don’t talk about it,” he answered me with a laugh and a shake.

“And, say, let’s get to work, because at about four o’clock I’ll have something that’ll give you a start.”

“Oh, but, my Buzz, at four o’clock I must go for tea to the home of beautiful Madam Whitworth.”

“Whe-ee-uh!” whistled my Buzz as he looked at me from the top of my head to the toe of my shoe.

“It would give me a much greater pleasure to be startled by you, my Buzz, but this is a promise I did make the last evening,” I pleaded to him.

“Go ahead, sport, but accept it from me that Madam Pat is the genuine and original pump; so don’t let her empty you. Do you want me to come by and extract you at about fifteen to five? I’m sorry, but I really must have a business interview with you before six.” And my Buzz’s eyes twinkled with something that was of a great pleasure to him I could observe.

“It would be of more pleasure to me if you came at the half of five, my Buzz,” I made a hurry to assure him, for I had a great dread of all of the falsehoods I was to say to that Madam Whitworth that afternoon for the purpose of extracting perhaps a little wicked truth from her to help in the defense of my Gouverneur Faulkner.

“I’m on,” answered my Buzz promptly. “Beat it! I hear the old boy growling.” And he disappeared behind the door of my Uncle, the General Robert. I went to the duty of assuring the nice gentleman in very rough clothing that the Gouverneur would in the morning read the paper on the subject of making a long road past his property in good condition by a vote, and I was of a very great success in my efforts, the good Cato assured me.

“You’s got a fine oiled tongue tied in the middle and loose at both ends, honey. Yo’ father had the same,” he assured me as he handed me my hat and walking cane at the hour of four, which ended my duties for the day. Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, did so long to go into that room of the Gouverneur Faulkner and receive upon her hand one nice kiss of good night from him, but Mr. Robert Carruthers walked down from the Capitol and only paused to lift for a little second his very handsome hat towards the window of His Excellency’s room high up above.

And the encounter with the beautiful Madam Whitworth was much worse than I had thought that it would be, though also it was of a very interesting excitement. She had made armaments for the encounter in the shape of a very lovely tea apparel of an increditable thinness to be used for covering, a little low fire in the golden grate, and curtains of rose to throw somewhat of glow over the situation. Immediately I was seated beside her on a small divan upon which there was room for only one and a half persons, and my stupidity was called into vigorous action.

“I suppose you have spent the day in translating a lot of those long and tiresome French documents for the General and the Governor. Thank goodness, that is no longer my task,” she remarked as she tipped the cognac bottle over my tea and handed the cup to me.

“It is of a great fatigue to work upon a matter that one does not at all understand,” I answered her as I sipped at that tea of a very disagreeable taste because of the cognac.

“Did they give you the two sets of specifications to compare?” she asked of me with not much of interest apparent in her manner, though her hand shook as she poured for herself a very small cup of tea, which was then filled complete with the cognac.

“_Helas_,” I answered with a sigh. “And it is impossible for me to add more figures to each other than my fingers will allow. I cannot even use my toes.”

“Then he didn’t get them ready for the conference this afternoon?” she demanded with a great illumination of joy in her face.

“Oh, indeed, I handed them back completed to His Excellency in a short space of time. Is not one mule like to another exactly, and why should a paper make them different?” I questioned with deceit of stupidity.

“You are a dear boy,” laughed that Madam Whitworth. “Of course those specifications agree, for I worked a whole day over them; and I’m glad you didn’t tire your eyes out with them. You know you are really a very beautiful creature and I think I’ll kiss you just once, purely for the pleasure of it.” And I thereupon received a kiss upon my lips from the curled flower which was the mouth of that beautiful Madam Whitworth.

“Is it that the stupid Gouverneur Faulkner must very soon sign that paper that sends the many strong mules to carry food to the soldiers of France fighting in the trenches?” I asked of her as I made her comfortable in the hollow of my arm.

“If he doesn’t sign them in a very few days the deal is all off,” she answered me. “Jeff has got his capital to put up from some Northern men who are–are restless and–and suspicious. It must go through and immediately.”

“Then it must be accomplished immediately,” I answered her with decision.

“The agent of the French Government will be here on Tuesday and all of these preliminary papers must be signed before he can close the matter up finally. I hope that the conference over those specifications this afternoon will be the last. Are you sure you discovered no flaw over which the old General or the big stupid Governor can haggle?”

“I discovered not a flaw,” I answered her with a great positiveness. “Do you say that it is soon that those representatives of my government come to make a last signing of the papers about the excellent mules to be sent from the great State of Harpeth to France who is at a war of death? I had not heard of the nearness of the visit at the Capitol.”

“They don’t know it–that is, Governor Faulkner does, but has told only me. He sees things my way but of–of course, he has to keep his councils from his Secretary of State for the time being. And I’m telling you all about it, because–because it is for France we plot and because I–this is the way to say it.” And with those wicked words, which involved the honor of the great Gouverneur Faulkner, she pressed her body close to mine and her lips upon my mouth.

For that caress of that wicked woman I had not sufficient endurance and I pushed her from me with roughness and sprang to my feet.

“It is not true, Madam Whitworth, that–” I was exclaiming when I caught myself in the midst of my own betrayal, just as I was about to be shown into a plot which it was of much value to know. And as my words ceased I stood and trembled before her wickedness.

“Do you know, Mr. Robert Carruthers, I do not entirely understand you,” she said with a great and beautiful calmness as she lighted a cigarette and looked at me trembling before her. “You are a very bold young cavalier but you have the shrinking nature of–shall I say?–a French–_girl_!”

As she spoke those words, which began in sarcasm but ended in a queer uncertain tone of suspicion, as if she had blundered on a reason to soothe her vanity for the recoil of my lips from hers, an ugly gleam shot from under her lowered lashes.

“I am the son of the house of Carruthers as well as of Grez and Bye, beautiful Madam, and I cannot endure that you put upon my very good Uncle, the General Carruthers, an unfriendliness to France,” I exclaimed with a quickness of my brain that I had not before discovered. “On points of honor I have that sensitiveness that you say to be–be of a woman.”

“Oh, my darling boy, I didn’t mean to hurt you about that absurd old feud of–” And as she spoke the beautiful Madam Patricia rose and came upon me with outstretched arms for another abhorred embrace, which it was to my good fortune to have interrupted. But I had a fear of that suspicion I had seen flashed into her mind even though lulled by my fine assumption of the attitude of a man of honor.

“Lovely and beautiful Madam,” I made a beginning to say, when–

“Oh, yes, Mr. Carruthers is here, for I have an appointment to call for him,” an interruption came in the voice of my Buzz in remonstrance with the black maid of Madam Whitworth in the hall of her house.

“Come in, Buzz, dear,” called that beautiful Madam Whitworth as in one small instant she changed both her position with arms on my shoulder and her countenance of anger and anxiety. She was a very wise and beautiful and much experienced woman, was that Madam Whitworth, but she had given to me, unlessoned as I was in the art of politics, the fact that I most wanted: that the two papers containing the specifications concerning the mules had been mistranslated by her.

“Put a shawl around you, Madam Pat, and come out here to the street a minute to see what is going to happen to the Prince of Carruthers,” said my rescuer as he inserted his head into the room for one little minute and beckoned us to follow him.

And what did I find out there upon that street?

CHAPTER XIII

BROTHERS BY BLOODSHED

I then experienced a surprise that gave to me a very great pleasure and which made my heart to expand until it almost burst the restraint of that towel of the bath under the bag of my brown cheviot coat. Before the door of the house of the beautiful Madam Whitworth stood the gray racing car of my Buzz, and before it stood a slim car of a similar make, only it was of the darkest amethyst that seemed to be almost a black, while behind it stood one of equal if not superior elegance of shape which had the beautiful blackness of jet. That was not all! Across the street stood also a car of a golden brown and to the front of it one of the red of a very dark cherry.

“There you are,” said my Buzz with a wave of his hand. “Pick one, with the compliments of the General. I think the amethyst is a jewel.”

“Oh, it is not possible to me to accept a present of such delight from my good Uncle, the General Robert. I must go to him and say that I am not worthy!” I exclaimed with a large faltering in my voice.

“All right; just jump into the one you like best and drive on down to the Old Hickory Club and say it to him. Sorry that you can’t come