The Project Gutenberg eBook of Seven Miles to Arden, by Ruth Sawyer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Seven Miles to Arden Author: Ruth Sawyer Release Date: March 7, 2009 [eBook #28271] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN*** E-text prepared by Janet Keller, D. Alexander, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN BY RUTH SAWYER AUTHOR OF The Primrose Ring ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK & LONDON SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN Copyright, 1915, 1916, by The Curtis Publishing Company Copyright, 1915, 1916, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published April, 1916 Books by RUTH SAWYER SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo THE PRIMROSE RING. Illustrated. Post 8vo HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK illustration1 (See page 220) “Where twin oaks rustle in the wind There waits a lad for Rosalind” to HIMSELF It leads away, at the ring o’ day, On to the beckoning hills; And the throstles sing by the holy spring Which the Blessed Virgin fills. White is the road and light is the load, For the burden we bear together. Our feet beat time on the upward climb That ends in the purpling heather. There is spring in the air and everywhere The throb of a life new-born, In mating thrush and blossoming brush, In the hush o’ the glowing morn. Our hearts bound free as the open sea; Where now is our dole o’ sorrow? The winds have swept the tears we’ve wept— And promise a braver morrow. But this I pray as we go our way: To find the Hills o’ Heather, And, at hush o’ night, in peace to light Our roadside fire together. P CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. The Way of It 1 II. A Sign-post Points to an Adventure 12 III. Patsy Plays a Part 25 IV. The Occupant of a Balmacaan Coat 39 V. A Tinker Points the Road 48 VI. At Day’s End 64 VII. The Tinker Plays a Part 85 VIII. When Two Were Not Company 106 IX. Patsy Acquires Some Information 121 X. Joseph Journeys To a Far Country 139 XI. And Chance Stages Melodrama Instead of Comedy 153 XII. A Change of Nationality 165 XIII. A Message and a Map 191 XIV. Enter King Midas 202 XV. Arden 216 XVI. The Road Begins All Over Again 231 SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN I THE WAY OF IT atsy O’Connell sat on the edge of her cot in the women’s free ward of the City Hospital. She was pulling on a vagabond pair of gloves while she mentally gathered up a somewhat doubtful, ragged lot of prospects and stood them in a row before her for contemplation, comparison, and a final choice. They strongly resembled the contents of her steamer trunk, held at a respectable boarding-house in University Square by a certain Miss Gibb for unpaid board, for these were made up of a jumble of priceless and worthless belongings, unmarketable because of their extremes. She had time a-plenty for contemplation; the staff wished to see her before she left, and the staff at that moment was consulting at the other end of the hospital. Properly speaking, Patsy was Patricia O’Connell, but no one had ever been known to refer to her in that cold-blooded manner, save on the programs of the Irish National Plays—and in the City Hospital’s register. What the City Hospital knew of Patsy was precisely what the American public and press knew, what the National Players knew, what the world at large knew—precisely what Patricia O’Connell had chosen to tell—nothing more, nothing less. They had accepted her on her own scanty terms and believed in her implicitly. There was one thing undeniably true about her— her reality. Having established this fact beyond a doubt, it was a simple matter to like her and trust her. No one had ever thought it necessary to question Patsy about her nationality; it was too obvious. Concerning her past and her family she answered every one alike: “Sure, I was born without either. I was found by accident, just, one morning hanging on to the thorn of a Killarney rose-bush that happened to be growing by the Brittany coast. They say I was found by the Physician to the King, who was traveling past, and that’s how it comes I can speak French and King’s English equally pure; although I’m not denying I prefer them both with a bit of brogue.” She always thought in Irish—straight, Donegal Irish—with a dropping of final g’s, a bur to the r’s, and a “ye” for a “you.” Invariably this was her manner of speech with those she loved, or toward whom she felt the kinship of sympathetic understanding. To those who pushed their inquisitiveness about ancestry to the breaking-point Patsy blinked a pair of steely-blue eyes while she wrinkled her forehead into a speculative frown: “Faith! I can hearken back to Adam the same as yourselves; but if it’s some one more modern you’re asking for—there’s that rascal, Dan O’Connell. He’s too long dead to deny any claim I might put on him, so devil a word will I be saying. Only—if ye should find by chance, any time, that I’d [Pg 1] [Pg 2] [Pg 3] rather fight with my wits than my fists, ye can lay that to Dan’s door; along with the stubbornness of a tinker’s ass.” People had been known to pry into her religion; and on these Patsy smiled indulgently as one does sometimes on overcurious children. “Sure, I believe in every one—and as for a church, there’s not a place that goes by the name— synagogue, meeting-house, or cathedral—that I can’t be finding a wee bit of God waiting inside for me. But I’ll own to it, honestly, that when I’m out seeking Him, I find Him easiest on some hilltop, with the wind blowing hard from the sea and never a human soul in sight.” This was approximately all the world and the press knew of Patsy O’Connell, barring the fact that she was neighboring in the twenties, was fresh, unspoiled, and charming, and that she had played the ingénue parts with the National Players, revealing an art that promised a good future, should luck bring the chance. Unfortunately this chance was not numbered among the prospects Patsy reviewed from the edge of her hospital cot that day. The interest of the press and the public approval of the National Irish Players had not proved sufficient to propitiate that iron-hearted monster, Financial Success. The company went into bankruptcy before they had played half their bookings. Their final curtain went down on a bit of serio-comic drama staged, impromptu, on a North River dock, with barely enough cash in hand to pay the company’s home passage. On this occasion Patsy had missed her cue for the first time. She had been left in the wings, so to speak; and that night she filled the only vacant bed in the women’s free ward of the City Hospital. It was pneumonia. Patsy had tossed about and moaned with the racking pain of it, raving deliriously through her score or more of rôles. She had gone dancing off with the Faery Child to the Land of Heart’s Desire; she had sat beside the bier in “The Riders to the Sea”; she had laughed through “The Full o’ Moon,” and played the Fool while the Wise Man died. The nurses and doctors had listened with open-eyed wonder and secret enjoyment; she had allowed them to peep into a new world too full of charm and lure to be denied; and then of a sudden she had settled down to a silent, grim tussle with the “Gray Brother.” This was all weeks past. It was early June now; the theatrical season was closed for two months, with no prospects in the booking agencies until August. In the mean time she had eight dollars, seventy-six cents, and a crooked sixpence as available collateral; and an unpaid board bill. Patsy felt sorry for Miss Gibb, but she felt no shame. Boarding-house keepers, dressmakers, bootmakers, and the like must take the risk along with the players themselves in the matter of getting paid for their services. If the public—who paid two dollars a seat for a performance—failed to appear, and box-office receipts failed to margin their salaries, it was their misfortune, not their fault; and others had to suffer along with them. But these debts of circumstance never troubled Patsy. She paid them when she could, and when she could not—there was always her trunk. The City Hospital happened to know the extent of Patsy’s property; it is their business to find out these little private matters concerning their free patients. They had also drawn certain conclusions from the facts that no one had come to see Patsy and that no communications had reached her from anywhere. It looked to them as if Patsy were down and out, to state it baldly. Now the Patsys that come to free wards of city hospitals are very rare; and the superintendent and staff and nurses were interested beyond the usual limits set by their time and work and the professional hardening of their cardiac region. “She’s not to leave here until we find out just who she’s got to look after her until she gets on her feet again, understand”—and the old doctor tapped the palm of his left hand with his right forefinger, a sign of important emphasis. Therefore the day nurse had gone to summon the staff while Patsy still sat obediently on the edge of her cot, pulling on her vagabond gloves, reviewing her prospects, and waiting. “My! but we’ll miss you!” came the voice from the woman in the next bed, who had been watching her regretfully for some time. “It’s my noise ye’ll be missing.” And Patsy smiled back at her a winning, comrade sort of smile. “You kind o’ got us all acquainted with one another and thinkin’ about somethin’ else but pains and troubles. It’ll seem awful lonesome with you gone,” and the woman beyond heaved a prodigious sigh. “Don’t ye believe it,” said Patsy, with conviction. “They’ll be fetching in some one a good bit better to fill my place—ye see, just.” “No, they won’t; ’twill be another dago, likely—” “Whist!” Patsy raised a silencing finger and looked fearsomely over her shoulder to the bed back of her. Its inmate lay covered to the cheek, but one could catch a glimpse of tangled black hair and a swarthy skin. Patsy rose and went softly over to the bed; her movement disturbed the woman, who opened dumb, reproachful eyes. “I’ll be gone in a minute, dear; I want just to tell you how sorry I am. But—sure—Mother Mary has it safe—and she’s keeping it for ye.” She stooped and brushed the forehead with her lips, as the staff and two of the nurses appeared. “Faith! is it a delegation or a constabulary?” And Patsy laughed the laugh that had made her famous from Dublin to [Pg 4] [Pg 5] [Pg 6] [Pg 7] M Duluth, where the bankruptcy had occurred. “It’s a self-appointed committee to find out just where you’re going after you leave here,” said the young doctor. Patsy eyed him quizzically. “That’s not manners to ask personal questions. But I don’t mind telling ye all, confidentially, that I haven’t my mind made yet between—a reception at the Vincent Wanderlusts’—or a musicale at the Ritz- Carlton.” “Look here, lassie”—the old doctor ruffled his beard and threw out his chest like a mammoth pouter pigeon—“you’ll have to give us a sensible answer before we let you go one step. You know you can’t expect to get very far with that— in this city,” and he tapped the bag on her wrist significantly. Patsy flushed crimson. For the first time in her life, to her knowledge, the world had discovered more about her than she had intended. Those humiliating eight dollars, seventy-six cents, and the crooked sixpence seemed to be scorching their way through the leather that held them. But she met the eyes looking into hers with a flinty resistance. “Sure, ’twould carry me a long way, I’m thinking, if I spent it by the ha’penny bit.” Then she laughed in spite of herself. “If ye don’t look for all the world like a parcel of old mother hens that have just hatched out a brood o’ wild turkeys!” She suddenly checked her Irish—it was apt to lead her into compromising situations with Anglo-Saxon folk, if she did not leash her tongue—and slid into English. “You see, I really know quite a number of people here—rather well—too.” “Why haven’t they come to see you, then?” asked the day nurse, bluntly. Patsy eyed her with admiration. “You’d never make a press agent—or a doctor, I’m afraid; you’re too truthful.” “You see,” explained the old doctor, “these friends of yours are what we professional people term hypothetical cases. We’d like to be sure of something real.” One of Patsy’s vagabond gloves closed over the doctor’s hand. “Bless you all for your goodness! but the people are more real than you think. Everybody believes I went back with the company and I never bothered them with the truth, you see. I’ve more than one good friend among the theatrical crowd right here; but—well, you know how it is; if you are a bit down on your luck you keep away from your own world, if you can. There is a girl—just about my own age— in society here. We did a lot for her in the way of giving her a good time when she was in Dublin, and I’ve seen her quite a bit over here. I’m going to her to get something to do before the season begins. She may need a secretary or a governess—or a—cook. Holy Saint Martin! but I can cook!” And Patsy clasped her hands in an ecstatic appreciation of her culinary art; it was the only one of which she was boastful. “I’ll tell you what,” said the old doctor, gruffly, “we will let you go if you will promise to come back if—if no one’s at home. It’s against rules, but I’ll see the superintendent keeps your bed for you to-night.” “Thank you,” said Patsy. She waved a farewell to the staff and the ward as she went through the door. “I don’t know where I’m going or what I shall be finding, but if it’s anything worth sharing I’ll send some back to you all.” The staff watched her down the corridor to the elevator. “Gee!” exclaimed the youngest doctor, his admiration working out to the surface. “When she’s made her name I’m going to marry her.” “Oh, are you?” The voice of the old doctor took on its habitual tartness. “Acute touch of philanthropy, what—eh?” Patricia O’Connell swung the hospital door behind her and stepped out into a blaze of June sunshine. “Holy Saint Patrick! but it feels good. Now if I could be an alley cat for two months I could get along fine.” She cast a backward look toward the granite front of the City Hospital and her eyes grew as blue and soft as the waters of Killarney. “Sure, cat or human, the world’s a grand place to be alive in.” II A SIGN-POST POINTS TO AN ADVENTURE arjorie Schuyler sat in her own snug little den, her toy ruby spaniel on a cushion at her feet, her lap full of samples of white, shimmering crêpes and satins. She fingered them absent-mindedly, her mind caught in a maze of wedding intricacies and dates, and whirled between an ultimate choice between October and June of the following year. The world knew all there was to know about Marjorie Schuyler. It could tell to a nicety who her paternal and maternal grandparents were, back to old Peter Schuyler’s time and the settling of the Virginian Berkeleys. It could figure her income down to a paltry hundred of the actual amount. It knew her age to the month and day. In fact, it had kept her calendar faithfully, from her coming-out party, through the periods of mourning for her parents and her subsequent [Pg 8] [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] [Pg 13] returns to society, through the rumors of her engagements to half a dozen young leaders at home and abroad, down to her latest conquest. The last date on her calendar was the authorized announcement of her engagement to young Burgeman. Hence the shimmering samples and the relative values of October and June for a wedding journey. And the world knew more than these things concerning Marjorie Schuyler. It knew that she was beautiful, of regal bearing and distinguished manner. An aunt lived with her, to lend dignity and chaperonage to her position; but she managed her own affairs, social and financial, for herself. If the world had been asked to choose a modern prototype for the young, independent American girl of the leisure class, it is reasonably safe to assume it would have named Marjorie Schuyler. As for young Burgeman, the world knew him as the Rich Man’s Son. That was the best and worst it could say of him. “I think, Toto,” said Marjorie Schuyler to her toy ruby spaniel, “it will be June. There is only one thing you can do with October—a church wedding, chrysanthemums, and oak leaves. But June offers so many possible variations. Besides, that gives us both one last, untrammeled season in town. Yes, June it is; and we’ll not have to think about these yet awhile.” Whereupon she dropped the shimmering samples into the waste-basket. A maid pushed aside the hangings that curtained her den from the great Schuyler library. “There’s a young person giving the name of O’Connell, asking to see you. Shall I say you are out?” “O’Connell?” Marjorie Schuyler raised a pair of interrogatory eyebrows. “Why—it can’t be. The entire company went back weeks ago. What is she like—small and brown, with very pink cheeks and very blue eyes?” The maid nodded ambiguously. “Bring her up. I know it can’t be, but—” But it was. The next moment Marjorie Schuyler was taking a firm grip of Patsy’s shoulders while she looked down with mock disapproval at the girl who reached barely to her shoulder. “Patsy O’Connell! Why didn’t you go home with the others—and what have you done to your cheeks?” Patsy attacked them with two merciless fists. “Sure, they’re after needing a pinch of north-of-Ireland wind, that’s all. How’s yourself?” Marjorie Schuyler pushed her gently into a great chair, while she herself took a carved baronial seat opposite. The nearness of anything so exquisitely perfect as Marjorie Schuyler, and the comparison it was bound to suggest, would have been a conscious ordeal for almost any other girl. But Patsy was oblivious of the comparison—oblivious of the fact that she looked like a wood-thrush neighboring with a bird of paradise. Her brown Norfolk suit was a shabby affair —positively clamoring for a successor; the boyish brown beaver—lacking feather or flower—was pulled down rakishly over her mass of brown curls, and the vagabond gloves gave a consistent finish to the picture. And yet there was that about Patsy which defied comparison even with Marjorie Schuyler; moreover—a thrush sings. “Now tell me,” said Marjorie Schuyler, “where have you been all these weeks?” Patsy considered. “Well—I’ve been taking up hospital training.” “Oh, how splendid! Are you going over with the new Red Cross supply?” Patsy shook her head. “You see, they only kept me until they had demonstrated all they knew about lung disorders— and fresh-air treatment, and then they dismissed me. I’m fearsome they were after finding out I hadn’t the making of a nurse.” “That’s too bad! What are you going to do now?” An amused little smile twitched at the corners of Patsy’s mouth; it acted as if it wanted to run loose all over her face. “Sure, I haven’t my mind made—quite. And yourself?” “Oh—I?” Marjorie Schuyler leaned forward a trifle. “Did you know I was engaged?” “Betrothed? Holy Saint Bridget bless ye!” And the vagabond gloves clasped the slender hands of the American prototype and gave them a hard little squeeze. “Who’s himself?” “It’s Billy Burgeman, son of the Burgeman.” “Old King Midas?” “That’s a new name for him.” “It has fitted him years enough.” Patsy’s face sobered. “Oh, why does money always have to mate with money? Why couldn’t you have married a poor great man—a poet, a painter, a thinker, a dreamer—some one who ought not to be bound down by his heels to the earth for bread-gathering or shelter-building? You could have cut the thongs and sent him soaring—given the world another ‘Prometheus Unbound.’ As for Billy Burgeman—he could have married—me,” [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] and Patsy spread her hands in mock petition. Marjorie Schuyler laughed. “You! That is too beautifully delicious! Why, Patsy O’Connell, William Burgeman is the most conventional young gentleman I have ever met in my life. You would shock him into a semi-comatose condition in an afternoon—and, pray, what would you do with him?” “Sure, I’d make a man of him, that’s what. His father’s son might need it, I’m thinking.” Marjorie Schuyler’s face became perfectly blank for a second, then she leaned against the baronial arms on the back of her seat, tilted her head, and mused aloud: “I wonder just what Billy Burgeman does lack? Sometimes I’ve wondered if it was not having a mother, or growing up without brothers or sisters, or living all alone with his father in that great, gloomy, walled-in, half-closed house. It is not a lack of manhood—I’m sure of that; and it’s not lack of caring, for he can care a lot about some things. But what is it? I would give a great deal to know.” “If the tales about old King Midas have a thruppence worth of truth in them, it might be his father’s meanness that’s ailing him.” Marjorie Schuyler shook her head. “No; Billy’s almost a prodigal. His father says he hasn’t the slightest idea of the value of money; it’s just so much beans or shells or knives or trading pelf with him; something to exchange for what he calls the real things of life. Why, when he was a boy—in fact, until he was almost grown—his father couldn’t trust Billy with a cent.” “Who said that—Billy or the king?” “His father, of course. That’s why he has never taken Billy into business with him. He is making Billy win his spurs—on his own merits; and he’s not going to let him into the firm until he’s worth at least five thousand a year to some other firm. Oh, Mr. Burgeman has excellent ideas about bringing up a son! Billy ought to amount to a great deal.” “Meaning money or character?” inquired Patsy. Marjorie Schuyler looked at her sharply. “Are you laughing?” “Faith, I’m closer to weeping; ’twould be a lonesome, hard rearing that would come to a son of King Midas, I’m thinking. I’d far rather be the son of his gooseherd, if I had the choosing.” She leaned forward impulsively and gathered up the hands of the girl opposite in the warm, friendly compass of those vagabond gloves. “Do ye really love him, cailin a’sthore?” And this time it was her look that was sharp. “Why, of course I love him! What a foolish question! Why should I be marrying him if I didn’t love him? Why do you ask?” “Because—the son of King Midas with no mother, with no one at all but the king, growing up all alone in a gloomy old castle, with no one trusting him, would need a great deal of love—a great, great deal—” “That’s all right, Ellen. I’ll find her for myself.” It was a man’s voice, pitched overhigh; it came from somewhere beyond and below the inclosing curtains and cut off the last of Patsy’s speech. “That’s funny,” said Marjorie Schuyler, rising. “There’s Billy now. I’ll bring him in and let you see for yourself that he’s not at all an object of sympathy—or pity.” She disappeared into the library, leaving Patsy speculating recklessly. They must have met just the other side of the closed hangings, for to Patsy their voices sounded very near and close together. “Hello, Billy!” “Listen, Marjorie; if a girl loves a man she ought to be willing to trust him over a dreadful bungle until he could straighten things out and make good again—that’s true, isn’t it?” “Billy Burgeman! What do you mean?” “Just answer my question. If a girl loves a man she’ll trust him, won’t she?” “I suppose so.” “You know she would, dear. What would the man do if she didn’t?” The voice sounded strained and unnatural in its intensity and appeal. Patsy rose, troubled in mind, and tiptoed to the only other door in the den. “’Tis a grand situation for a play,” she remarked, dryly, “but ’tis a mortial poor one in real life, and I’m best out of it.” She turned the knob with eager fingers and pulled the door toward her. It opened on a dumbwaiter shaft, empty and impressive. Patsy’s expression would have scored a hit in farce comedy. Unfortunately there was no audience present to appreciate it here, and the prompter forgot to ring down the curtain just then, so that Patsy stood helpless, forced to go on hearing all that Marjorie and her leading man wished to improvise in the way of lines. [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] “... I told you, forged—” Patsy was tempted to put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sound of his voice and what he was saying, but she knew even then she would go on hearing; his voice was too vibrant, too insistent, to be shut out. “... my father’s name for ten thousand. I took the check to the bank myself, and cashed it; father’s vice-president.... Of course the cashier knew me.... I tell you I can’t explain—not now. I’ve got to get away and stay away until I’ve squared the thing and paid father back.” “Billy Burgeman, did you forge that check yourself?” “What does that matter—whether I forged it or had it forged or saw it forged? I tell you I cashed it, knowing it was forged. Don’t you understand?” “Yes; but if you didn’t forge it, you could easily prove it; people wouldn’t have to know the rest—they are hushing up things of that kind every day.” A silence dropped on the three like a choking, blinding fog. The two outside the hangings must have been staring at each other, too bewildered or shocked to speak. The one inside clutched her throat, muttering, “If my heart keeps up this thumping, faith, he’ll think it’s the police and run.” At last the voice of the man came, hushed but strained almost to breaking. To Patsy it sounded as if he were staking his very soul in the words, uncertain of the balance. “Marjorie, you don’t understand! I cashed that check because— because I want to take the responsibility of it and whatever penalty comes along with it. I don’t believe father will ever tell. He’s too proud; it would strike back at him too hard. But you would have to know; he’d tell you; and I wanted to tell you first myself. I want to go away knowing you believe and trust me, no matter what father says about me, no matter what every one thinks about me. I want to hear you say it—that you will be waiting—just like this—for me to come back to when I’ve squared it all off and can explain.... Why, Marjorie—Marjorie!” Patsy waited in an agony of dread, hope, prayer—waited for the answer she, the girl he loved, would make. It came at last, slowly, deliberately, as if spoken, impersonally, by the foreman of a jury: “I don’t believe in you, Billy. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I could ever trust you again. Your father has always said you couldn’t take care of money; this simply means you have got yourself into some wretched hole, and forging your father’s name was the only way out of it. I suppose you think the circumstances, whatever they may be, have warranted the act; but that act puts a stigma on your name which makes it unfit for any woman to bear; and if you have any spark of manhood left, you’ll unwish the wish—you will unthink the thought—that I would wait—or even want you—ever— to come back.” A cry—a startled, frightened cry—rang through the rooms. It did not come from either Marjorie or her leading man. Patsy stood with a vagabond glove pressed hard over her mouth—quite unconscious that the cry had escaped and that there was no longer need of muzzling—then plunged headlong through the hangings into the library. Marjorie Schuyler was standing alone. “Where is he—your man?” “He’s gone—and please don’t call him—that!” “Go after him—hurry—don’t let him go! Don’t ye understand? He mustn’t go away with no one believing in him. Tell him it’s a mistake; tell him anything—only go!” While Patsy’s tongue burred out its Irish brogue she pushed at the tall figure in front of her—pushed with all her might. “Are ye nailed to the floor? What’s happened to your feet? For Heaven’s sake, lift them and let them take ye after him. Don’t ye hear? There’s the front door slamming behind him. He’ll be gone past your calling in another minute. Dear heart alive, ye can’t be meaning to let him go—this way!” But Marjorie Schuyler stood immovable and deaf to her pleading. Incredulity, bewilderment, pity, and despair swept over Patsy’s face like clouds scudding over the surface of a clear lake. Then scorn settled in her eyes. “I’m sorry for ye, sorry for any woman that fails the man who loves her. I don’t know this son of old King Midas; I never saw him in my life, and all I know about him is what ye told me this day and scraps of what he had to say for himself; but I believe in him. I know he never forged that check—or used the money for any mean use of his own. I’d wager he’s shielding some one, some one weaker than he, too afeared to step up and say so. Why, I’d trust him across the world and back again; and, holy Saint Patrick! I’m going after him to tell him so.” For the second time within a few seconds Marjorie Schuyler listened and heard the front door slam; then the goddess came to life. She walked slowly, regally, across the library and passed between the hangings which curtained her den. Her eyes, probably by pure chance, glanced over the shimmering contents of the waste-basket. A little cold smile crept to the corners of her mouth, while her chin stiffened. “I think, Toto,” she said, addressing the toy ruby spaniel, “that it will not be even a June wedding,” and she laughed a crisp, dry little laugh. [Pg 21] [Pg 22] [Pg 23] [Pg 24] P III PATSY PLAYS A PART atsy ran down the steps of the Schuyler house, jumping the last four. As her feet struck the pavement she looked up and down the street for what she sought. There it was—the back of a fast-retreating man in a Balmacaan coat of Scotch tweed and a round, plush hat, turning the corner to Madison Avenue. Patsy groaned inwardly when she saw the outlines of the figure; they were so conventional, so disappointing; they lacked simplicity and directness—two salient life principles with Patsy. “Pshaw! What’s in a back?” muttered Patsy. “He may be a man, for all his clothes;” and she took to her heels after him. As she reached the corner he jumped on a passing car going south. “Tracking for the railroad station,” was her mental comment, and she looked north for the next car following; there was none. As far as eye could see there was an unbroken stretch of track—fate seemed strangely averse to aiding and abetting her deed. “When in doubt, take a taxi,” suggested Patsy’s inner consciousness, and she accepted the advice without argument. She raced down two blocks and found one. “Grand Central—and drive—like the devil!” As the door clicked behind her her eye caught the jumping indicator, and she smiled a grim smile. “Faith, in two-shilling jumps like that I’ll be bankrupt afore I’ve my hand on the tails of that coat.” And with a tired little sigh she leaned back in the corner, closed her eyes, and relaxed her grip on mind and will and body. A series of jerks and a final stop shook her into a thinking, acting consciousness again; she was out of the taxi in a twinkling—with the man paid and her eyes on the back of a Balmacaan coat and plush hat disappearing through a doorway. She could not follow it as fast as she had reckoned. She balanced corners with a stout, indeterminate old gentleman who blocked her way and insisted on wavering in her direction each time she tried to dodge him. In her haste to make up for those precious lost seconds she upset a pair of twins belonging to an already overburdened mother. These she righted and went dashing on her way. Groups waylaid her; people with time to kill sauntered in front of her; wandering, indecisive people tried to stop her for information; and she reached the gate just as it was closing. Through it she could see—down a discouraging length of platform—a Balmacaaned figure disappearing into a car. “Too late, lady; train’s leaving.” It was well for Patsy that she was ignorant of the law governing closing gates and departing trains, for the foolish and the ignorant can sometimes achieve the impossible. She confronted the guard with a look of unconquerable determination. “No, ’tisn’t; the train guard is still on the platform. You’ve got to let me through.” She emphasized the importance of it with two tight fists placed not overgently in the center of the guard’s rotundity, and accompanied by a shove. In some miraculous fashion this accomplished it. The gate clanged at Patsy’s back instead of in her face, as she had expected. A bell rang, a whistle tooted, and Patsy’s feet clattered like mad down the platform. A good-natured brakeman picked her up and lifted her to the rear platform of the last car as it drew out. That saved the day for Patsy, for her strength and breath had gone past summoning. “Thank you,” she said, feebly, with a vagabond glove held out in proffered fellowship. “That’s the kindest thing any one has done for me since I came over.” “Are ye—” “Irish—same as yourself.” “How did ye know?” “Sure, who but an Irishman would have had his wits and his heart working at the same time?” And with a laugh Patsy left him and went inside. Her eye ran systematically down the rows of seats. Billy Burgeman was not there. She passed through to the next car, and a second, and a third. Still there was no back she could identify as belonging to the man she was pursuing. She was crossing a fourth platform when she ran into the conductor, who barred her way. “Smoking-car ahead, lady; this is the last of the passenger-coaches.” Patsy had it on the end of her tongue to say she preferred smoking-cars, intending to duck simultaneously under the conductor’s arm and enter, willy-nilly. But the words rolled no farther than the tongue’s edge. She turned obediently back, re-entering the car and taking the first seat by the door. For this her memory was responsible. It had spun the day’s events before her like a roulette wheel, stopping precisely at the remark of Marjorie Schuyler’s concerning William Burgeman: “He’s the most conventional young gentleman I ever saw in my life. Why, you would shock—” [Pg 25] [Pg 26] [Pg 27] [Pg 28] [Pg 29] A strange young woman doling out consolation to him in a smoking-car would be anything but a dramatic success; Patsy felt this all too keenly. He was decidedly not of her world or the men and women she knew, who gave help when the need came regardless of time, place, acquaintanceship, or sex. “Faith, he’s the kind that will expect an introduction first, and a month or two of tangoing, tea-drinking, and tennis- playing; after which, if I ask his permission, he might consider it proper—” Patsy groaned. “Oh, I hate the man already!” “Ticket!” “Ticket? What for?” “What for? Do you think this is a joy ride?” The conductor radiated sarcasm. Patsy crimsoned. “I haven’t mine. I—I was to—meet my—aunt—who had the ticket—and—she must have missed the train.” “Where are you going?” “I—I—Why, I was telling—My aunt had the tickets. How would I know where I was going without the tickets?” The conductor snorted. Patsy looked hard at him and knew the time had come for wits—good, sharp O’Connell wits. She smiled coaxingly. “It sounds so stupid, but, you see, I haven’t an idea where I am going. I was to meet my aunt and go down with her to her summer place. I—I can’t remember the name.” Her mouth drooped for the fraction of a second, then she brightened all over. “I know what I can do—very probably she missed the train because she expects to be at the station to meet me —I can look out each time the train stops, and when I see her I can get off. That makes it all right, doesn’t it?” And she smiled in open confidence as a sacrificial maiden might have propitiated the dragon. But it was not reciprocated. He eyed her scornfully. “And who pays for the ticket?” “Oh!” Patsy caught her breath; then she sent it bubbling forth in a contagious laugh. “I do—of course. I’ll take a ticket to—just name over the stations, please?” The conductor growled them forth: “Hampden, Forestview, Hainsville, Dartmouth, Hudson, Arden, Brambleside, Mayberry, Greyfriars—” “What’s that last—Greyfriars? I’ll take a ticket to Greyfriars.” She said it after the same fashion she might have used in ordering a mutton chop at a restaurant, and handed the conductor a bill. When he had given her the change and passed on, still disgruntled, Patsy allowed herself what she called a “temporary attack of private prostration.” “Idiot!” she groaned in self-address. “Ye are the biggest fool in two continents; and the Lord knows what Dan would be thinking of ye if he were topside o’ green earth to hear.” Whereupon she gripped one vagabond glove with the other —in fellow misery; and for the second time that afternoon her eyes closed with sheer exhaustion. The train rumbled on. Each time it stopped Patsy watched the doorway and the window beside her for sight of her quarry; each time it started again she sighed inwardly with relief, glad of another furlough from a mission which was fast growing appalling. She had long since ceased to be interested in Billy Burgeman as an individual. He had shrunk into an abstract sense of duty, and as such failed to appeal or convince. But as her interest waned, her determination waxed; she would get him and tell him what she had come for, if it took a year and a day and shocked him into complete oblivion. She was saying this to herself for the hundredth time, adding for spice—and artistic finish—“After that—the devil take him!” when the train pulled away from another station. She had already satisfied herself that he was not among the leaving passengers. But suddenly something familiar in a solitary figure standing at the far end of the gravel embankment caught her eye; it was back toward her, and in the quick passing and the gathering dusk she could make out dim outlines only. But those outlines were unmistakable, unforgetable. “A million curses on the house of Burgeman!” quoth Patsy. “Well, there’s naught for it but to get off at the next station and go back.” The conductor watched her get off with a distinct feeling of relief. He had very much feared she was not a responsible person and in no mental position to be traveling alone. Her departure cleared him of all uneasiness and obligation and he settled down to his business with an unburdened mind. Not so Patsy. She blinked at the vanishing train and then at her empty hands, with the nearest she had ever come in her life to utter, abject despair. She had left her bag in the car! When articulate thinking was possible she remarked, acridly, “Ye need a baby nurse to mind ye, Patricia O’Connell; [Pg 30] [Pg 31] [Pg 32] and I’m not sure but ye need a perambulator as well.” She gave a tired little stretch to her body and rubbed her eyes. “I feel as if this was all a silly play and I was cast for the part of an Irish simpleton; a low-comedy burlesque—that ye’d swear never happened in real life outside of the county asylums.” A headlight raced down the track toward her and the city, and she gathered up what was left of her scattered wits. As the train slowed up she stepped into the shadows, and her eye fell on the open baggage-car. She smiled grimly. “Faith! I have a notion I like brakemen and baggagemen better than conductors.” And so it came to pass as the train started that the baggageman, who happened to be standing in the doorway, was somewhat startled to see a small figure come racing toward it out of the dusk and land sprawling on the floor beside him. “A girl tramp!” he ejaculated in amazement and disgust, and then, as he helped her to her feet, “Don’t you know you’re breaking the law?” She laughed. “From the feelings, I thought it was something else.” She sobered and turned on him fiercely. “I want ye to understand I’ve paid my fare on the train out, which entitled me to one continuous passage—with my trunk. Well, I’m returning—as my trunk, I’ll take up no more room and I’ll ask no more privileges.” “That may sound sensible, but it’s not law,” and the man grinned broadly. “I’m sorry, miss, but off you go at the next station.” “All right,” agreed Patsy; “only please don’t argue. Sure, I’m sick entirely of arguing.” She dropped down on a trunk and buried her face in her hands. The baggageman watched her, hypnotized with curiosity and wonder. At the next station he helped her to drop through the opening she had entered, and called a shamefaced “good-by” after her in the dusk. She hunted up the station-agent and received scanty encouragement: Very likely he had seen such a man; there were many of that description getting off every day. They generally went to the Inn—Brambleside Inn. The season was just open and society people were beginning to come. No, there was no conveyance. The Inn’s ’buses did not meet any train after the six-thirty from town, unless ordered especially by guests. Was she expected? Patsy was about to shake her head when a roadster swung around the corner of the station and came to a dead stop in front of where she and the station-master were standing. The driver peered at her through his goggles in a questioning, hesitating manner. “Is this—are you Miss St. Regis?” he finally asked. “Miriam St. Regis?” Patsy intended it for a question, realizing even as she spoke the absurdity of inquiring the name of an English actress at such a place. But the driver took it for a statement of identity. “Yes, of course, Miss Miriam St. Regis. Mr. Blake made a mistake and thought because your box came from town you’d be coming that way. It wasn’t until your manager, Mr. Travis, telephoned half an hour ago that he realized you’d be on that southbound train. Awfully sorry to have kept you waiting. Step right in, please.” Whereupon the driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted her to a seat, covered her with a rug—for early June evenings can be rather sharp—and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down a stretch of country road with the purr of a motor as music to her ears. “Sure, I don’t know who wrote the play and starred me in it,” she mused, dreamily, “but he certainly knows how to handle situations.” For the space of a few breaths she gave herself over completely to the luxury of bodily comfort and mental inertia. It seemed as if she would have been content to keep on whirling into an eternity of darkness—with a destination so remote, and a mission so obscure, as not to be of the slightest disturbance to her immediate consciousness. All she asked of fate that moment was the blessedness of nothing; and for answer—her mind was jerked back ruthlessly to the curse of more complexities. The lights of a large building in the distance reminded her there was more work for her wits before her and no time to lose. “I must think—think—think, and it grows harder every minute. If Miriam St. Regis is coming here, it means, like as not, she’s filling in between seasons, entertaining. Well, until she comes, they’re all hearty welcome to the mistake they’ve made. And afterward—troth! there’ll be a corner in her room for me the night, or Saint Michael’s a sinner; either way, ’tis all right.” The driver unbundled her and helped her out as courteously as he had helped her in. He led the way across a broad veranda to the main entrance, and there she fell behind him as he pushed open the great swinging door. “Oh, that you, Masters? Did Miss St. Regis come?” “Sure thing, sir; she’s right here.” [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] [Pg 36] S The next moment Patsy stood in a blaze of lights between a personally conducting chauffeur and a pompous hotel manager, who looked down upon her with distrustful scrutiny. She was wholly aware of every inch of her appearance —the shabbiness of her brown Norfolk suit, the rakishness of her boyish brown beaver hat, and the vagabond gloves. But of what value is the precedent of having been found hanging on the thorn of a Killarney rose-bush by the Physician to the King, of what value is the knowledge of past kinship with a certain Dan O’Connell, if one allows a little matter of clothes to spoil one’s entrance and murder one’s lines? The blood came flushing back into Patsy’s cheeks, turning them the color of thorn bloom, and her eyes deepened to the blue of Killarney, sparkling as when the sun goes a-dancing. She smiled—a fresh, radiant, witching smile upon that clay lump of commercialism—until she saw his appraisement of her treble its original figure. Then she said, sweetly: “I have had rather a hard time getting here, Mr. Blake; making connections in your country is not always as simple as one might expect. My room, please.” And with an air of a grand duchess Patsy O’Connell, late of the Irish National Players, Dublin, and later of the women’s free ward of the City Hospital, led the way across one of the most brilliant summer hotel foyers in America. As she entered the elevator a young man stepped out—a young man with a small, blond, persevering mustache, a rather thin, esthetic, melancholy face, and a myopic squint. He wore a Balmacaan of Scotch tweed and carried a round, plush hat. Patsy turned to the bell-boy. “Did that man arrive to-night?” “Yes, miss; I took him up.” “What is his name—do you know?” “Can’t say, miss. I’ll find out, if you like.” “There is no need. I rather think I know it myself.” And under her breath she ejaculated, “Saint Peter deliver us!” IV THE OCCUPANT OF A BALMACAAN COAT afe in her room, with the door closed and locked, Patsy stood transfixed before a trunk—likewise closed and locked. “Thank Heaven for many blessings!” she said, fervently. “Thank Heaven Miriam St. Regis has worn wigs of every conceivable color and style on the stage, so there is small chance of any one here knowing the real color of her hair. Thank Heaven she’s given to missing her engagements and not wiring about it until the next day. Thank Heaven I’ve played with her long enough to imitate her mannerisms, and know her well enough to explain away the night, if the need ever comes. Thank Heaven that George Travis is an old friend and can help out, if I fail. Thank Heaven for all of these! But, holy Saint Patrick! how will I ever be getting inside that box?” On the heels of her fervor came an inspiration. Off came her gloves and hat, off came coat and skirt, blouse and shoes, and into the closet they all went. For, whereas Patsy could carry off her shabbiness before masculine eyes, she had neither the desire nor the fortitude to brave the keener, more critical gaze of her own sex. It was always for the women that Patsy dressed, and above all else did she stand in awe of the opinion of the hotel chambermaid, going down in tottering submission before it. Unlocking her door, she rang the bell; then crept in between the covers of her bed, drawing them up about her. The chambermaid came and Patsy ordered the housekeeper. The housekeeper came and Patsy explained to her the loss of her bag—the loss of the keys was only implied; it was a part of Patsy’s creed of life never to lie unless cornered. She further implied that she was entertaining no worry, as a well-appointed hotel always carried a bunch of skeleton trunk keys for the convenience of their guests. Patsy’s inspiration worked to perfection. In a few minutes the Inn had proved itself a well-appointed hostelry, and the trunk stood open before her. Alone again, she slipped out of bed—to lock the door and investigate. A wistaria lounging-robe was on in a twinkling, with quilted slippers to match. Then Patsy’s eager fingers drew forth a dark emerald velvet, with bodice and panniers of gold lace, and she clasped it ecstatically in her arms. “Miriam always had divine taste, but the faeries must have guided her hand for the choosing of this. Sure, I’d be feeling like a king’s daughter if I wasn’t so weak and heartsick. I feel more like a young gosling that some one has coaxed out of its shell a day too soon. Is it the effect of Billy Burgeman, I wonder, or the left-overs from the City Hospital, or an overdose of foolishness—or hunger, just?” “Miss St. Regis” dined in her own room, and she dined like a king’s daughter, with an appetite whetted by weeks of convalescing, charity fare. Even the possible appearance at any minute of her original self offered no terrors for her in [Pg 37] [Pg 38] [Pg 39] [Pg 40] [Pg 41] the presence of such a soul-satisfying, hunger-appeasing feast. At nine-thirty that evening, when the manager sent the hall-boy to call her, she looked every inch the king’s daughter she had dined. The hall-boy, accustomed to “creations,” gave her a frank stare of admiration, which Patsy noted out of the tail of her eye. She was ravishing. The green and gold brought out the tawny red glint of her hair, which was bound with two gold bands about the head, ending in tiny emerald clasps over the barely discoverable tips of her ears; little gold shoes twinkled in and out of the clinging green as she walked. “Faith! I feel like a whiff of Old Ireland herself,” was Patsy O’Connell’s subconscious comment as “Miss St. Regis” crossed the stage; and something of the feeling must have been wafted across the footlights to the audience, for it drew in its breath with a little gasp of genuine appreciation. She heard it and was grateful for the few seconds it gave her to look at the program the manager had handed her as she was entering. It had never occurred to her that Miss St. Regis might arrange her program beforehand, that the audience might be expecting something definite and desired in the form of entertainment. It took all the control of a well-ord...