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THE HUSBANDS OF EDITH

by

GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

With Illustrations by Harrison Fisher
and Decorations by Theodore B. Hapgood

New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.

1908






     *     *     *     *     *     *     *


     OTHER BOOKS BY MR. McCUTCHEON

        NEDRA
        BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK
        THE DAY OF THE DOG
        THE PURPLE PARASOL
        THE SHERRODS
        GRAUSTARK
        CASTLE CRANEYCROW
        BREWSTER'S MILLIONS
        JANE CABLE
        COWARDICE COURT
        THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW
        THE FLYERS


 *     *     *     *     *     *     *



  [Illustration: Motif]


  [Illustration: "'Don't you think Connie is a perfect
  dear?'" (page 54)]




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                         Page

     I HUSBANDS AND WIFE                            1

    II THE SISTER-IN-LAW                           17

   III THE DISTANT COUSINS                         37

    IV THE WOULD-BE BROTHER-IN-LAW                 51

     V THE FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY                   70

    VI OTHER RELATIONS                             87

   VII THE THREE GUARDIANS                        102

  VIII THE PRODIGAL HUSBAND                       116





ILLUSTRATIONS

  "'Don't you think Connie is a perfect
  dear?'" (page 54)                            Frontispiece

  Brock                                             24

  Katherine                                         44

  "She began to detect a decided
  falling off in his ardour"                        74

  "'I _do_ love you,' she said simply"              98





THE HUSBANDS OF EDITH




CHAPTER I

HUSBANDS AND WIFE


Brock was breakfasting out-of-doors in the cheerful little garden of the
Hôtel Chatham. The sun streamed warmly upon the concrete floor of the
court just beyond the row of palms and oleanders that fringed the rail
against which his _Herald_ rested, that he might read as he ran, so to
speak. He was the only person having _déjeuner_ on the "terrace," as he
named it to the obsequious waiter who always attended him. Charles was
the magnet that drew Brock to the Chatham (that excellent French hotel
with the excellent English name). It is beside the question to remark
that one is obliged to reverse the English when directing a _cocher_ to
the Chatham. The Paris cabman looks blank and more than usually
unintelligent when directed to drive to the Chatham, but his face
radiates with joy when his fare is inspired to substitute Sha-_t'am_,
with distinct emphasis on the final syllable. Then he cracks his whip
and lashes his sorry nag, with passive appreciation of his own
astuteness, all the way to the Rue Daunou. The street is so short that
he almost invariably takes one to _it_ instead of to the hotel itself.
But one must say Sha-_t'am_!

Charles was standing, alert but pensive, quite near at hand, ready to
replenish the bowl with honey (Brock was especially fond of it), but
with his eyes cocked inquiringly, even eagerly, in the direction of an
upstairs window across the court, beyond which a thoughtless guest of
the establishment was making her toilette in blissful ignorance of the
fact that the flimsy curtains were not tightly drawn. Brock had gone to
the Chatham for years just because Charles was a fixture there. Charles
spoke the most execrably picturesque English, served with a
punctiliousness that savoured almost of the overbearing, and boasted
that he had acquired the art of making American cocktails in the Waldorf
during a five weeks' residence in the United States.

It was a lazy morning. Brock was happy. He was even interested when a
porter came forth and unravelled a long roll of garden hose, with which
he abruptly began to splash water upon the concrete surface of the court
without regard for distance or direction. Moreover, he proceeded to
water the palms at Brock's elbow, operating from a spot no less than
twenty feet away. He likewise was casting inquiring glances at divers
windows--few if any at the plants--until the faithful Charles restored
him to earth by means of certain subdued injunctions and less moderate
gesticulations, from which it could be readily gathered that "M'sieur
was eating, not bathing." Whereupon the utterly uncrushed porter
splashed water at right angles, much to Brock's relief, while all his
fellow porters, free or engaged, took up the quarrel with rare disregard
for cause or justice. A _femme de chambre_, from a convenient window,
joined in the hubbub without in the least knowing what it was all
about. Monsieur's comfort must be preserved: that seemed to be the issue
in which, at once, all were united. "M'sieur will pardon the boy,"
apologised Charles in deepest humility, taking much for granted. "It
will be very warm to-day. Your _serviette_, M'sieur--it is damp.
Pardon!" He flew away and back with another napkin. "Of course, M'sieur,
the Chatham is not the Waldorf," he announced deprecatingly.
"_Parbleu_," beating himself on the forehead, "I forgot! M'sieur does
not like the Waldorf. _Eh, bien_, Paris is not New York, no." Having
sufficiently humbled Paris, he withdrew into the background, rubbing his
hands as if he were cleansing them of something unsightly. Brock spread
one of the buttered biscuits with honey and inwardly admitted that Paris
was _not_ New York.

He was a good-looking chap of thirty or thereabouts, an American to the
core,--bright-eyed, keen-witted, smooth-faced, virile. From boyhood's
earliest days he had spent a portion of his summers in Europe. Two or
three years of his life had been employed in the Beaux Arts,--fruitful
years, for Brock had not wasted his opportunities. He had gone in for
architecture and building. To-day he stood high among the younger men in
New York,--prosperous, successful, and a menace to the old cry that a
son of the rich cannot thrive in his father's domain. Nowadays he came
to the Old World for his breathing spells. He was able to combine
dawdling and development without sacrificing one for the other, wherein
lies the proof that his vacations were not akin to those taken by most
of us.

The fortnight in Paris was to be followed by a week in St. Petersburg
and a brief tour of Sweden and Norway. His stay in the gay city was
drawing to a close. That very morning he expected to book for St.
Petersburg, leaving in three days.

Suddenly his glance fell upon a name in the society column before him,
"Roxbury Medcroft." His face lighted up with genuine pleasure. An old
friend, a boon companion in bygone days, was this same Medcroft,--a
broad-minded, broad-gauged young Englishman who had profited by a stay
of some years in the States. They had studied together in Paris and they
had toiled together in New York. This is what he read: "Mr. and Mrs.
Roxbury Medcroft, of London, are stopping at the Ritz, _en route_ to
Vienna. Mr. Medcroft will attend the meeting of Austrian Architects, to
be held there next week, and, with his wife, will afterwards spend a
fortnight in the German Alps, the guests of the Alfred Rodneys, of
Seattle."

"Dear old Rox, I must look him up at once," mused Brock. "The Rodneys of
Seattle? Never heard of 'em." He looked at his watch, signed his check,
deposited the usual franc, acknowledged Charles's well-practised smile
of thanks, and pushed back his chair, his gaze travelling involuntarily
toward the portals of the American bar across the court, just beyond the
_concierge's_ quarters. Simultaneously a tall figure emerged from the
bar, casting eager glances in all directions,--a tall figure in a
checked suit, bowler hat, white reindeer gloves, high collar, and grey
spats. Brock came to his feet quickly. The monocle dropped from the
other's eye, and his long legs carried him eagerly toward the American.

"Medcroft! Bless your heart! I was just on the point of looking you up
at the Ritz. It's good to see you," Brock cried as they clasped hands.

"Of all the men and of all the times, Brock, you are the most
opportune," exclaimed the other. "I saw that you were here and bolted my
breakfast to catch you. These beastly telephones never work. Oh, I say,
old man, have you finished yours?"

"Quite--but luckily I didn't have to bolt it. You're off for Vienna, I
see. Sit down, Rox. Won't you have another egg and a cup of coffee? Do!"

"Thanks and no to everything you suggest. Wot you doing for the next
half-hour or so? I'm in a deuce of a dilemma and you've got to help me
out of it." The Englishman looked at his watch and fumbled it nervously
as he replaced it in his upper coat pocket. "That's a good fellow,
Brock. You _will_ be the ever present help in time of trouble, won't
you?"

"My letter of credit is at your disposal, old man," said Brock promptly.
He meant it. It readily may be seen from this that their friendship is
no small item to be considered in the development of this tale.

"My dear fellow, that's the very thing I'm eager to thrust upon you--my
letter of credit," exclaimed the other.

"What's that?" demanded Brock.

"I say, Brock, can't we go up to your rooms? Dead secret, you know.
Really, old chap, I mean it. No one must get a breath of it. That's why
I'm whispering. I'm not a lunatic, so don't stare like that. I'd do as
much for you if the conditions were reversed."

"I dare say you would, Rox, but what the devil is it you want me to do?"

"Do I appear to be agitated?"

"Well, I should say so."

"Well, I _am_. You know how I loathe asking a favour of anyone.
Besides, it's rather an extraordinary one I'm going to ask of you. Came
to me in a flash this morning when I saw your name in the paper. Sort of
inspiration, 'pon my word. I think Edith sees it the same as I, although
I haven't had time to go into it thoroughly with her. She's ripping, you
know; pluck to the very core."

Brock's face expressed bewilderment and perplexity.

"Won't you have another drink, old man?" he asked gently.

"Another? Hang it all, I haven't had one in a week. Come along. I must
talk it all over with you before I introduce you to her. You must be
prepared."

"Introduce me to whom?" demanded Brock, pricking up his ears. He was
following Medcroft to the elevator.

"To my wife--Edith," said Medcroft, annoyed by the other's obtuseness.

"Does it require preparation for an ordeal so charming?" laughed Brock.
He was recalling the fact that Medcroft had married a beautiful
Philadelphia girl some years ago in London, a young lady whom he had
never seen, so thoroughly expatriated had she become in consequence of
almost a lifetime residence in England. He remembered now that she was
rich and that he had sent her a ridiculously expensive present and a
congratulatory cablegram at the time of the wedding. Also, it occurred
to him that the Medcrofts had asked him to visit them at their
shooting-box for several seasons in succession, and that their town
house was always open to him. While he had not ignored the invitations,
he had never responded in person. He began to experience twinges of
remorse: Medcroft was such a good fellow!

The Londoner did not respond to the innocuous query. He merely stared
in a preoccupied, determined manner at the succeeding _étages_ as they
slipped downward. At the fourth floor they disembarked, and Brock led
the way to his rooms, overlooking the inner court. Once inside, with the
door closed, he turned upon the Englishman.

"Now, what's up, Rox? Are you in trouble?" he demanded.

"Are we quite alone?" Medcroft glanced significantly at the transom and
the half-closed bathroom door. With a laugh, Brock led him into the
bathroom and out, and then closed the transom.

"You're darned mysterious," he said, pointing to a chair near the
window. Medcroft drew another close up and seated himself.

"Brock," he said, lowering his voice and leaning forward impressively,
"I want you to go to Vienna in my place." Brock stared hard. "You are a
godsend, old man. You're just in time to do me the greatest of favours.
It's utterly impossible for me to go to Vienna as I had planned, and yet
it is equally unwise for me to give up the project. You see, I've just
got to be in London and Vienna at the same time."

"It will require something more than a stretch of the imagination to do
that, old man. But I'm game, and my plans are such that they can be
changed readily to oblige a friend. I shan't mind the trip in the least
and I'll be only too happy to help you out! 'Gad, I thought by your
manner that you were in some frightful difficulty. Have a cigaret."

"By Jove, Brock, you're a brick," cried Medcroft, shaking the other's
hand vigorously. At the same time his face expressed considerable
uncertainty and no little doubt as to the further welfare of his as yet
partially divulged proposition.

"It's easy to be a brick, my boy, if it involves no more than the
changing of a single letter in one's name. I'd like to attend the
convention, anyway," said Brock amiably.

"Well, you see, Brock," said Medcroft lamely, "I fear you don't quite
appreciate the situation. I want you to pose as Roxbury Medcroft."

"You--What do you mean?"

"I thought you'd find that a facer. That's just it: you are to go to
Vienna as Roxbury Medcroft, not as yourself. Ha, ha! Ripping, eh?"

"'Pon my soul, Rox, you are not in earnest?"

"Never more so."

"But, my dear fellow--"

"You won't do it? That's what your tone means," in despair.

"It isn't that, and you know it. I've got nothing to lose. It's you that
will have to suffer. You're known all over Europe. What will be said
when the trick is discovered? 'Gad, man!"

"Then you will go?" with beaming eyes. "I knew it would appeal to you,
as an American."

"What does it all mean?"

"It's all very simple, if one looks at it from the right angle, Brock.
Up to last night, I was blissfully committed to the most delightful of
outings, so to speak. At ten o'clock everything was changed. Mrs.
Medcroft and I sat up all night discussing the situation with the
messenger--my solicitor, by the way. The Vienna trip is out of the
question, so far as I am concerned. It is of vital importance that I
should return to London to-night, but is even more vitally important
that the world should say that I am in Vienna. See what I mean?"

"No, I'm hanged if I do."

"What I have just heard from London makes me shudder to think of the
consequences if I go on east to-night. I may as well tell you that there
is a plot on foot to perpetrate a gigantic fraud against the people. The
County Council is to be hoodwinked out and out into moving forward
certain building projects, involving millions of the people's money. Our
firm has opposed a certain band of grafters, and when I left England it
was pretty well settled that we had blocked their game. They have
learned of my proposed absence and intend to steal a march on us while I
am away. Without assuming too much credit to myself, I may say that I,
your old friend, Roxbury, I am the one man who has proved the real thorn
in the sides of these scoundrels. With me out of the way, they feel that
they can secure the adoption of all these infamous measures. My partners
and the leaders on our side have sent for me to return secretly. They
won't bring the matter to issue if they find that I've returned; it
would be suicidal. Therefore it is necessary that we steal a march on
'em. I know the inside workings of the scheme. If I can steal back and
keep under cover as an advisory chief, so to speak, we can well afford
to let 'em rush the matter through, for then we can spring the coup and
defeat them for good and all. But, don't you see, old man, unless they
_know_ that I've gone to Vienna they won't undertake the thing. That's
why I'm asking you to go on to Vienna and pose as Roxbury Medcroft
while I steal back to London and set the charge under these demmed
bloodsuckers. Really, you know, it's a terribly serious matter, Brock.
It means fortune and honour to me, as well as millions to the
rate-payers of Greater London. All you've got to do is to register at
the Bristol, get interviewed by the papers, attend one or two sessions
of the convention, which lasts three days, and then go off into the
mountains with the Rodneys,--the society reporters will do the rest."

"With the Rodneys? My dear fellow, suppose that they object to the
substitution! Really, you know, it's not to be thought of."

"Deuce take it, man, the Rodneys are not to know that there has been a
substitution. Perfectly simple, can't you see?"

"I'm damned if I do."

"What a stupid ass you are, Brock! The Rodneys have never laid eyes on
me. They know of me as Edith's husband, that's all. They are to take you
in as Medcroft, of course."

At this point Brock set up an emphatic remonstrance. He began by
laughing his friend to scorn; then, as Medcroft persisted, went so far
as to take him severely to task for the proposed imposition on the
unsuspecting Rodneys, to say nothing of the trick he would play upon the
convention of architects.

"I'd be recognised as an impostor," he said warmly, "and booted out of
the convention. I shudder to think of what Mr. Rodney will do to me when
he learns the truth. Why, Medcroft, you must be crazy. There will be
dozens of architects there who know you personally or by sight. You--"

"My dear boy, if they don't see me there, they can't very well
recognise me, can they? If necessary, you can affect an illness and stay
away from the sessions altogether. Give a statement to the press from
the privacy of the sickroom--regret your inability to take part in the
discussions, and all that, you know. Hire a nurse, if necessary. You
might venture to express an opinion or two on vital topics, in my name.
I don't care a hang what you say. I only want 'em to think I'm there. No
doubt our enemies will have a spy or two hanging about to see that I am
actually off for a jaunt with the Rodneys, but they will be Viennese and
they won't know me from Adam. What's the odds, so long as Edith is there
to stand by you? If she's willing to assume that you are her husband--"

"Good Lord!" half shouted Brock, leaping to his feet, wide-eyed. "You
don't mean to say that she is--is--is to go to Vienna with me?"

"Emphatically, yes. She's also invited. Of course, she's going."

"You mean that she's going just as you are going--by proxy?" murmured
Brock helplessly.

"Proxy, the devil! 'Pon my soul, Brock, you're downright stupid. She
can't have a proxy. They know her. The Rodneys are in some way
connections of hers, and all that--third cousins. If she isn't there to
vouch for you, how the deuce can you expect to--"

"Medcroft, you _are_ crazy! No one but an insane man would submit his
wife to--Why, good Lord, man, think of the scandal! She won't have a
shred left--"

"At the proper time the matter will be explained to the Rodneys,--not at
first, you know,--and I'll be in a position to step into your shoes
before the party returns to Paris. Afterwards the whole trick will be
exposed to the world, and she'll be a heroine."

"I'm absolutely paralysed!" mumbled Brock.

"Brace up, old chap. I'm going to take you around to the Ritz at once to
introduce you to my wife--to your wife, I might say. She'll be waiting
for us, and, take my word for it, she's in for the game. She appreciates
its importance. Come now, Brock, it means so little to you, and it means
everything to me. You will do this for me? For us?"

For ten minutes Brock protested, his argument growing weaker and weaker
as the true humour of the project developed in his mind. He came at last
to realise that Medcroft was in earnest, and that the situation was as
serious as he pictured it. The Englishman's plea was unusual, but it was
not as rattle-brained as it had seemed at the outset. Brock was
beginning to see the possibilities that the ruse contained; to say the
least, he would be running little or no risk in the event of its
miscarriage. In spite of possible unpleasant consequences, there were
the elements of a rare lark in the enterprise; he felt himself being
skilfully guided past the pitfalls and dangers.

"I shall insist upon talking it over thoroughly with Mrs. Medcroft
before consenting," he said in the end. "If she's being bluffed into the
game, I'll revoke like a flash. If she's keen for the adventure, I'll
go, Rox. But I've got to see her first and talk it all over--"

"'Pon my word, old chap, she's ripping, awfully good sort, even though I
say it myself. She's true blue, and she'll do anything for me. You see,
Brock," and his voice grew very tender, "she loves me. I'm sure of her.
There isn't a nobler wife in the world than mine. Nor a prettier one,
either," he concluded, with fine pride in his eyes. "You won't be
ashamed of her. You will be proud of the chance to point her out as your
wife, take my word for it." Then they set out for the Ritz.

"Roxbury," said Brock soberly, when they were in the Rue de la Paix,
after walking two blocks in contemplative silence, "my peace of mind is
poised at the brink of an abyss. I have a feeling that I am about to
chuck it over."

"Nonsense. You'll buck up when Edith has had a fling at you."

"I suppose I'm to call her Edith."

"Certainly, and I won't mind a 'dear' or two when it seems propitious.
It's rather customary, you know, even among the unhappily married. Of
course, I've always been opposed to kissing or caressing in public; it's
so middle-class."

"And I daresay Mrs. Medcroft will object to it in private," lamented
Brock good-naturedly.

"I daresay," said her husband cheerfully. "She's your wife in public
only. By the way, you'll have to get used to the name of Roxbury. Don't
look around as if you expected to find me standing behind your back when
she says, 'Roxbury, dear!' I shan't be there, you know. She'll mean you.
Don't forget that."

"Oh, I say," exclaimed Brock, halting abruptly, and staring in dismay at
the confident conspirator, "will I have to wear a suit of clothes like
that, and an eyeglass, and--and--good Lord! spats?"

"By Jove, you shall wear this very suit!" cried Medcroft, inspired.
"We're of a size, and it won't fit you any better than it does me. Our
clothes never fit us in London. Clever idea of yours, Brock, to think of
it. And, here! We'll stop at this shop and pick up a glass. You can
have all day for practice with it. And, I say, Brock, don't you think
you can cultivate a--er--little more of an English style of speech? That
twang of yours won't--"

"Heavens, man, I'm to be a low comedian, too," gasped Brock, as he was
fairly pushed onto the shop. Three minutes later they were on the
sidewalk, and Brock was in possession of an object he had scorned most
of all things in the world,--a monocle.

Arm in arm, they sauntered into the Ritz. Medcroft retained his clasp on
his friend's elbow as they went up in the lift, after the fashion of one
who fears that his victim is contemplating flight. As they entered the
comfortable little sitting-room of the suite, a young woman rose
gracefully from the desk at which she had been writing. With perfect
composure she smiled and extended her slim hand to the American as he
crossed the room with Medcroft's jerky introduction dinging in his ears.

"My old friend Brock, dear. He has consented to be your husband. You've
never met your wife, have you, old man?" A blush spread over her
exquisite face.

"Oh, Roxbury, how embarrassing! He hasn't even proposed to me. So glad
to meet you, Mr. Brock. I've been trying to picture what you would look
like, ever since Roxbury went out to find you. Sit here, please, near
me. Roxbury, has Mr. Brock really fallen into your terrible trap? Isn't
it the most ridiculous proceeding, Mr. Brock--"

"Call him Roxbury, my dear. He's fully prepared for it. And now let's
get down to business. He insists upon talking it over with you. You
don't mind me being present, do you, Brock? I daresay I can help you
out a bit. I've been married four years."

For an hour the trio discussed the situation from all sides and in all
its phases. When Brock arose to take his departure, he was irrevocably
committed to the enterprise; he was, moreover, completely enchanted by
the vista of harmless fun and sweet adventure that stretched before him.
He went away with his head full of the brilliant, quick-witted, loyal
young American who was entering so heartily into the plot to deceive her
own friends for the time being in order that her husband might profit in
high places.

"She _is_ ripping," he said to Medcroft in the hallway. All of the plans
had been made and all of them had been approved by the young wife. She
had shown wonderful perspicacity and foresight in the matter of details;
her capacity for selection and disposal was even more comprehensive than
that of the two men, both of whom were somewhat staggered by the
boldness of more than one suggestion which came from her fruitful
storehouse of romantic ideas. She had grasped the full humour of the
situation, from inception to _dénouement_, and, to all appearance, was
heart and soul deep in the venture, despising the risks because she knew
that succour was always at her elbow in the shape of her husband's loyal
support. There was no condition involved which could not be explained to
her credit; adequate compensation for the merry sacrifice was to be had
in the brief detachment from rigid English conventionality, in the
hazardous injection of quixotism into an otherwise overly healthful life
of platitudes. Society had become the sepulchre of youthful
inspirations; she welcomed the resurrection. The exquisite delicacy with
which she analysed the cost and computed the interest won for her the
warmest regard of her husband's friend, fellow conspirator in a plot
which involved the subtlest test of loyalty and honour.

"Yes," said Medcroft simply. "You won't have reason to change your
opinion, Brock." He hesitated for a moment and then burst out, rather
plaintively: "She's an awfully good sort, demme, she is. And so are you,
Brock,--it's mighty decent of you. You're the only man in all the world
that I could or would have asked to do this for me. You are my best
friend, Brock,--you always have been." He seized the American's hand and
wrung it fervently. Their eyes met in a long look of understanding and
confidence.

"I'll take good care of her," said Brock quietly.

"I know you will. Good-by, then. I'll see you late this afternoon. You
leave this evening at seven-twenty by the Orient Express. I've had the
reservations booked and--and--" He hesitated, a wry smile on his lips,
"I daresay you won't mind making a pretence of looking after the luggage
a bit, will you?"

"I shall take this opportunity to put myself in training against the day
when I may be travelling away with a happy bride of my own. By the way,
how long am I expected to remain in this state of matrimonial bliss?
That's no small detail, you know, even though it escaped for the
moment."

"Three weeks."

"Three weeks?" He almost reeled.

"That's a long time in these days of speedy divorces," said Medcroft
blandly.




CHAPTER II

THE SISTER-IN-LAW


The Gare de l'Est was thronged with people when Brock appeared, fully
half an hour before departing time. In no little dismay, he found
himself wondering if the whole of Paris was going away or, on the other
hand, if the rest of the continent was arriving. He felt a fool in
Medcroft's unspeakable checked suit; and the eyeglass was a much more
obstinate, untractable thing than he had even suspected it could be. The
right side of his face was in a condition of semi-paralysis due to the
muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that
marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk
at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face.
If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the
feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come to
appreciate at least one of the trials which beset poor Brock.

Every one seemed to be staring at him. He heard more than one American
in the scurrying throng say to another, "English," and he felt relieved
until an Englishman or two upset his confidence by brutally alluding to
him as a "confounded American toady."

It was quite train time before Mrs. Medcroft was seen hurrying in from
the carriage way, pursued by a trio of _facteurs_, laden with bags and
boxes.

"Don't shake hands," she warned in a quick whisper, as they came
together. "I recognised you by the clothes."

"Thank God, it wasn't my face!" he cried. "Are your trunks checked?"

"Yes,--this afternoon. I have nothing but the bags. You have the
tickets? Then let us get aboard. I just couldn't get here earlier," she
whispered guiltily. "We had to say good-by, you know. Poor old Roxy! How
he hated it! I sent Burton and O'Brien on ahead of me. My sister brought
them here in her carriage, and I daresay they're aboard and abed by this
time. You didn't see them? But of course you wouldn't know my maids. How
stupid of me! Don't be alarmed. They have their instructions, Roxbury.
Doesn't it sound odd to you?"

Brock was icy-cold with apprehension as they walked down the line of
_wagon-lits_ in the wake of the bag-bearers. Mrs. Medcroft was as
self-possessed and as _dégagé_ as he was ill at ease and awkward. As
they ascended the steps of the carriage, she turned back to him and
said, with the most malicious twinkle in her eyes,--

"I'm not a bit nervous."

"But you've been married so much longer than I have," he responded.

Then came the disposition of the bags and parcels. She calmly directed
the porters to put the overflow into the upper berth. The _garde_ came
up to remonstrate in his most rapid French.

"But where is M'sieur to sleep if the bags go up there?" he argued.

Mrs. Medcroft dropped her toilet bag and turned to Brock with startled
eyes, her lips parted. He was standing in the passage, his two bags at
his feet, an aroused gleam in his eyes. A deep flush overspread her
face; an expression of utter rout succeeded the buoyancy of the moment
before.

"Really," she murmured and could go no farther. The loveliest pucker
came into her face. Brock waved the _garde_ aside.

"It's all right," he explained. "I shan't occupy the--I mean, I'll take
one of the other compartments." As the _garde_ opened his lips to
protest, she drew Brock inside the compartment and closed the door. Mrs.
Medcroft was agitated.

"Oh, what a wretched _contretemps_!" she cried in despair. "Roxy has
made a frightful mess of it, after all. He has _not_ taken a compartment
for you. I'm--I'm afraid you'll have to take this one and--and let me go
in with--"

"Nonsense!" he broke in. "Nothing of the sort! I'll find a bed, never
fear. I daresay there's plenty of room on the train. You shan't sleep
with the servants. And don't lie awake blaming poor old Rox. He's
lonesome and unhappy, and he--"

"But he has a place to sleep," she lamented. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Brock.
It's perfectly horrid, and I'm--I'm dreadfully afraid you won't be able
to get a berth. Roxbury tried yesterday for a lower for himself."

"And he--couldn't get one?"

"No, Mr. Brock. But I'll ask the maids to give up their--"

"Please, please don't worry--and please don't call me Mr. Brock. I hate
the name. Good night! Now don't think about me. I'll be all right.
You'll find me as gay as a lark in the morning."

He did not give her a chance for further protest, but darted out of the
compartment. As he closed the door he had the disquieting impression
that she was sitting upon the edge of her berth, giggling hysterically.

The _garde_ listened to his demand for a separate compartment with the
dejection of a capable French attendant who is ever ready with joint
commiseration and obduracy. No, he was compelled to inform Monsieur the
American (to the dismay of the pseudo-Englishman) it would be impossible
to arrange for another compartment. The train was crowded to its
capacity. Many had been turned away. No, a louis would not be of avail.
The deepest grief and anguish filled his soul to see the predicament of
Monsieur, but there was no relief.

Brock's miserable affectation of the English drawl soon gave way to
sharp, emphatic Americanisms. It was after eight o'clock and the train
was well under way. The street lamps were getting fewer and fewer, and
the soft, fresh air of the suburbs was rushing through the window.

"But, hang it all, I _can't_ sit up all night!" growled Brock in
exasperated finality.

"Monsieur forgets that he has a berth. It is not the fault of the
_compagnie_ that he is without a bed. Did not M'sieur book the
compartment himself? _Très bien!_"

As the result of strong persuasion, the _garde_ consented to make "the
grand tour" of the train de luxe in search of a berth. It goes without
saying that he was intensely mystified by Brock's incautious remark that
he would be satisfied with "an upper if he couldn't do any better." For
the life of him, Monsieur the _garde_ could not comprehend the
situation. He went away, shaking his head and looking at the tickets, as
much as to say that an American is never satisfied--not even with the
best.

Brock lowered a window-seat in the passage and sat down, staring blankly
and blackly out into the whizzing night. The predicament had come upon
him so suddenly that he had not until now found the opportunity to
analyse it in its entirety. The worst that could come of it, of course,
was the poor comfort of a night in a chair. He knew that it was a train
of sleeping-coaches--Ah! He suddenly remembered the luggage van! As a
last resort, he might find lodging among the trunks!

And then, too, there was something irritating in the suspicion that she
had laughed as if it were a huge joke--perhaps, even now, she was
doubled up in her narrow couch, stifling the giggle that would not be
suppressed.

When the _garde_ came back with the lugubrious information that nothing,
positively nothing, was to be had, it is painful to record that Brock
swore in a manner which won the deepest respect of the trainman.

"At four o'clock in the morning, M'sieur, an old gentleman and his wife
will get out at Strassburg, their destination. They are in this carriage
and you may take their compartment, if M'sieur will not object to
sleeping in a room just vacated by two mourners who to-day buried a
beloved son in Paris. They have kept all of the flowers in their--"

"Four o'clock! Good Lord, what am I to do till then?" groaned Brock,
glaring with unmanly hatred at the door of the Medcroft compartment.

"Perhaps Madame may be willing to take the upper--" ventured the guard
timorously, but Brock checked him with a peremptory gesture. He
proposed, instead, the luggage van, whereupon the guard burst into a
psalm of utter dejection. It was against the rules, irrevocably.

"Then I guess I'll have to sit here all night," said Brock faintly. He
was forgetting his English.

"If M'sieur will not occupy his own bed, yes," said the guard, shrugging
his shoulders and washing his hands of the whole incomprehensible
affair. "M'sieur will then be up to receive the Customs officers at the
frontier. Perhaps he will give me the keys to Madame's trunks, so that
she may not be disturbed."

"Ask her for 'em yourself," growled Brock, after one dazed moment of
dismay.

The hours crawled slowly by. He paced the length of the wriggling
corridor a hundred times, back and forth; he sat on every window-seat in
the carriage; he nodded and dozed and groaned, and laughed at himself in
the deepest derision all through the dismal night. Daylight came at
four; he saw the sun rise for the first time in his life. He neither
enjoyed nor appreciated the novelty. Never had he witnessed anything so
mournfully depressing as the first grey tints that crept up to mock him
in his vigil; never had he seen anything so ghastly as the soft red glow
that suffused the morning sky.

"I'll sleep all day if I ever get into that damned bed," he said to
himself, bitterly wistful.

The Customs officers had eyed him suspiciously at the border. They
evidently had been told of his strange madness in refusing to occupy the
berth he had paid for. Their examination of his effects was more
thorough than usual. It may have entered their heads that he was
standing guard over the repose of a fair accomplice. They asked so many
embarrassing and disconcerting questions that he was devoutly relieved
when they passed on, still suspicious.

The train was late, and at five o'clock he was desperately combating an
impulse to leave it at Strassburg, find lodging in a hotel, and then,
refreshed, set out for London to have it out with the malevolent
Medcroft. The disembarking of the venerable mourners, however, restored
him to a degree of his peace of mind. After all, he reviewed, it would
be cowardly and base to desert a trusting wife; he pictured her as
asleep and securely confident in his stanchness. No: he would have it
out with Medcroft at some later day.

He was congratulating himself on the acquisition of a bed--although it
might possess the odour of a bed of tuberoses--when all of his pleasant
calculations were upset by the appearance of a German burgher and his
family. It was then that he learned that these people had booked _le
compartement_ from Strassburg to Munich.

Brock resumed his window-seat and despondently awaited the call to
breakfast. He fell sound asleep with his monocle in position; nor did it
matter to him that his hat dropped through the window and went scuttling
off across the green Rhenish fields. When next he looked at his watch,
it was eight o'clock. A small boy was standing at the end of the
passage, staring wide-eyed at him. Two little girls came piling, half
dressed, from a compartment, evidently in response to the youngster's
whispered command to hurry out and see the funny man. Brock scowled
darkly, and the trio darted swiftly into the compartment.

He dragged his stiff legs into the dining-car at Stuttgart and shoved
them under a table. The car was quite empty. As he was staring blankly
at the menu, the _conducteur_ from his car hurried in with the word that
Madame would not breakfast until nine. She was still very sleepy. Would
Monsieur Medcroft be good enough to order her coffee and rolls brought
to her compartment at that hour? And would he mind seeing that the maid
saw to it that Raggles surely had his biscuit and a walk at the next
station?

"Raggles?" queried Brock, passing his hand over his brow. The other
shrugged his shoulders and looked askance. "Oh, yes,--I--understand,"
murmured the puzzled one, recovering himself. For the next ten minutes
he wondered who Raggles could be.

He had eaten his strawberries and was waiting for the eggs and coffee,
resentfully eying the early risers who were now coming in for their
coffee and rolls. They had slept--he could tell by the complacent manner
in which their hair was combed and by the interest they found in the
scenery which he had come, by tedious familiarity, to loathe and scorn.

The actions of two young women near the door attracted his attention.
From their actions he suddenly gathered that they were discussing
him,--and in a more or less facetious fashion, at that. They whispered
and looked shy and grinned in a most disconcerting manner. He turned red
about the ears and began to wonder, fiercely, why his eggs and coffee
were so slow in coming. Then, to his consternation, the young women,
plainly of the serving-class, bore down upon him with abashed smiles. He
noticed for the first time that one of them was carrying a very small
child in her arms; as she came alongside, grinning sheepishly, she
extended the small one toward the astounded Brock, and said in excellent
old English:

[Illustration: Brock]

"Good morning, Mr. Medcroft." Then, with a rare inspiration, "Baby,
kiss papa--come, now."

She pushed the infant almost into Brock's face. He did not observe that
it was a beautiful child and that it had a look of terror in its eyes;
he only knew that he was glaring wildly at the fiendish nurse, the truth
slowly beating its way into his be-addled brain. For a full minute he
stared as if petrified. Then, administering a sickly grin, he sought to
bring his wits up to the requirements of the extraordinary situation. He
lifted his hand and mumbled: "Come, Raggles! I haven't a biscuit, but
here, have a roll, do. Give me a--a kiss!" He added the last in most
heroic surrender.

The nurse and the maid stared hard at him; the baby turned in affright
to cling closely to the neck of the former.

"Good Lord, sir," whispered the nurse, with a nervous glance about her;
"this ain't Raggles, sir. _This_ is a baby."

"Do you think I'm blind, madam?" whispered he, savagely. "I can see it's
a baby, but I didn't know there was to be one. Its father didn't mention
it to me."

"It's a wise father that knows his own child," said the nurse, with
prompt sarcasm.

"I think they should have prepared me for this," growled he. "Is it
supposed to be mine? Does--does Mrs. Medcroft know about it?"

"You mean, about the baby, sir? Of course she does. It's hers. Please
don't look so odd, sir. My word, sir, I didn't know you didn't know it,
sir. I wasn't told, was I, O'Brien? There, sir, you see! Mrs. Medcroft
said as I was to bring Tootles in to you, sir. She said--"

"Tootles?" murmured Brock. "Tootles and Raggles. I daresay there's a
distinction without much of a difference. Are you Burton?"

"Yes, Mr. Medcroft. The nurse. Won't you take baby for a minute, sir?
Just to get acquainted, and for appearance's sake." She whispered the
well-meant entreaty. Brock, now well into the spirit of the situation,
obligingly extended his arms. The baby set up a lusty howl of aversion.

"For God's sake, take him back to his mother!" groaned Brock hastily.
"He doesn't like strangers! Take him away!"

"It isn't a he, sir," whispered the maid, as the nurse prepared to beat
a hasty retreat with the Medcroft offspring. "It's a her, sir."

Brock's face was a study in perplexity as they hurried from the car.

"By George," he muttered, "what next!"

That which did come next was even more amazing than the unexpected
advent of Tootles. He barely had recovered his equanimity--with his
coffee--when a young lady entered the car. That, of itself, was not much
to speak of, but what followed was something that not even he could have
dreamed of if he had been given the chance. He afterward recalled, in
some distress of mind, that his second quick glance at the newcomer
developed into little less than a rude stare of admiration. Small
wonder, let it be advanced in his defence.

She was astoundingly fair to look upon--dazzling, it might be said, with
some support to the adjective. Moreover, she was looking directly into
his eyes from her unstable position near the door; what was more, a shy,
even mischievous, smile crept into her face as her glance caught his.
Never had he seen a more exquisite face than hers; never had he looked
upon a more perfect picture of grace and loveliness and--aye, smartness.
She was smiling with unmistakable friendliness and recognition, and yet
he could have sworn he had not seen her before in his life. As if he
could have forgotten such a face! A sudden sense of enchantment swept
over him, indescribable, yet delicious.

She was coming toward him--still smiling shyly, her lips parted as if
she were breathing quickly from fear or another emotion. He set down his
coffee-cup without regard to taste or direction, his gaze fixed upon the
trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled
with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had
come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman
enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of
boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, amazement written in his face.

"Good morning, Roxbury," she said, in the most impersonal of greetings.
Her smile deepened as the blankness increased in his face. In the most
casual, matter-of-fact manner, she appropriated the chair across the
table from his. "Please sit down, Roxy."

He sat down abruptly. For a single, tense, abashed moment they looked
searchingly into each other's eyes.

"Are you Raggles?" he asked politely.

"You poor man!" she cried, aghast. "Raggles is Edith's French poodle.
Has no one told you of the poodle?" She half whispered this. He began to
adore her at that very moment,--a circumstance well worth remembering.

"No one has told me of _you_, for that matter," he apologised,
thrilling with a delight such as he had never known before. "Would you
mind whispering to me just who you are? Am I supposed to be your
father--or what?"

"It is all so delightfully casual, isn't it?" she said. "I daresay they
forgot to tell you that you are a man of family. Didn't they mention me
in any way at all?" She pouted very prettily.

"No, they ignored you and Raggles and Tootles. Are there any more in my
family that I haven't met?"

"You see, we got to the station quite a bit ahead of Edith. That's how
you happened to miss meeting us. We saw you there, however. I recognised
you by your clothes. You seemed very unhappy. Oh, I forgot. You wanted
to know who I am. Well, I am your sister-in-law." She ordered coffee and
toast while he sat there figuring it out. When the waiter departed, he
leaned forward and said quite frankly,--

"You'll pardon me, I'm sure, but I can't understand how I was so
short-sighted as to marry your sister."

"Well, you see, you didn't catch a glimpse of me until after you were
married," she railed. "I was in the Sacred Heart convent, you remember."

"Ah, that explains the oversight. I am considered an unusually
discriminating person. Let me see: I married a Miss Fowler, didn't I?"

"Yes, Roxbury. Four years ago, in London, at St. George's, in Hanover
Square, at four o'clock, on a Saturday. Didn't they tell you all that?"

"I don't think they said anything about it being four o'clock. I'm glad
to know the awful details, believe me. Thanks! Do you know I decided you
were an American the instant I saw you in the door," he went on, quite
irrelevantly.

"How clever of you, Roxbury!"

"Oh, I say, Miss Fowler, I'm not such an ass as I look, really I'm not.
I'm trying to look like--"

"'Sh! If you want me to believe you are not the ass you think you look,
be careful what you say. Remember I am _not_ Miss Fowler to you. I am
Constance--sometimes Connie. Can you remember that,--Roxbury?"

He drew a long breath. "Oh, I say, Connie, I'd much rather be plain
Brock to you."

"Please don't forget that I am doing this for my sister,--not for
myself, by any manner of means," she said stiffly. He flushed painfully,
conscious of the rebuke.

"Please overlook my faults for the time being," he said. "I'll do
better. You see, I've been rather overcome by the sense of my own
importance. I'm not used to being the head of an establishment. It has
dazed me. A great many things have happened to me since I left the Gare
de l'Est last night." He was considerate in not referring to his unhappy
mode of travelling. "For instance, I've completely lost my head." He
might have said hat, but that would have sounded commonplace and earthy.

"One does, you know, when he loses his identity," she said
sympathetically. "Edith says you are ripping, and all that sort of
thing," she went on hurriedly, in perfect mimicry. "You come very highly
recommended as a brother-in-law."

"Are you to be with us until the end of the play?"

"Yes. The Rodneys are my friends, not Edith's. Katherine Rodney was in
the convent with me. We see a great deal of each other. I'm sure you
will like her. Everybody falls dreadfully in love with her."

"How very amiable of you to permit it," he protested gallantly. "I'm
sure I shall enjoy falling in love. Which reminds me that I've never had
a sister-in-law. They're very nice, I'm told. It's odd that Medcroft
didn't tell me about you. Would you mind advancing a bit of general
information about yourself--and, I may say, about my family in general?
It may come handy."

"I feel as though I had known you for years," she said, frankly
returning his gaze. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her
chin in her hands. "I'm merely Edith's sister. We live in Paris,--that
is, father and I. I'm three years younger than Edith. Of course, you
know how old your wife is, so we won't dwell upon that. You don't? Then
I'd demand it of her. I haven't been in Philadelphia since I was
seven--and that's ages ago. I have no mother, and father is off in South
America on business. So, you see, little sister has to tag after big
sister. Oh!" She interrupted the recital with an abrupt change of
manner. "I'm so sorry you've finished your coffee. Now you'll have to
go. Roxbury always does."

"But I haven't finished," he exclaimed eagerly. "I'm going to have three
or four more pots. You have no idea how--"

"It's all right then," she said with her rarest and most confident
smile. "Well, Edith asked me to come to London for the season. The
Rodneys were in Paris at the time, however, and they had asked me to
join them for a fortnight in the Tyrol. When I said that I was off for a
visit with the--with you, I mean--they insisted that you all should come
too. They are connections, in a way, don't you see. So we accepted. And
here we are."

"You don't, by any chance, happen to be engaged to be married, or
anything of that sort," he ventured. "Don't crush me! It's only as a
safeguard, you know. People may ask questions."

"You are not obliged to answer them, Roxbury," she said. The flush had
deepened in her cheek. It convinced him that she _was_ in love--and
engaged. He experienced a queer sinking of the heart. "You can say that
you don't know, if anyone should be so rude as to ask." Suddenly she
caught her breath and stared at him in a sort of panic. "Heavens," she
whispered, the toast poised half-way to her lips, "_you_'re not, by any
chance, engaged, are you? Appalling thought!"

He laughed delightedly. "People won't ask about me, my dear Constance.
I'm already married, you know. But if anyone _should_ ask, you're not
obliged to answer."

She looked troubled and uncertain. "You may be really married, after
all," she speculated. "Who knows? Poor old Roxbury wouldn't have had the
tact to inquire."

"I am a henpecked bachelor, believe me."

For the next quarter of an hour they chatted in the liveliest, most
inconsequential fashion, getting on excellent terms with each other and
arriving at a fair sense of appreciation of what lay ahead of them in
the shape of peril and adventure.

She was the most delightful person he had ever met, as well as being the
most beautiful. There was a sprightly, ever-growing air of self-reliance
about her that charmed and reassured him. She possessed the capacity for
divining the sane and the ridiculous with splendid discrimination.
Moreover, she could jest and be serious with an impartial intelligence
that gratified his vanity without in the least inspiring the suspicion
that she was merely clever. He became blissfully imbued with the idea
that she had surprised herself by the discovery that he was really quite
attractive. In fact, he was quite sincerely pleased with himself--for
which he may be pardoned if one stops to think how resourceful a woman
of tact may be if she is very, very pretty.

And, by way of further analogy, Brock was a thoroughly likable chap,
beside being handsome and a thoroughbred to the core. It's not betraying
a secret to affirm, cold-bloodedly, that Miss Fowler had not allied
herself with the enterprise until after she had pinned Roxbury down to
facts concerning Brock's antecedents. She was properly relieved to find
that he came of a fine old family and that he had led more than one
cotillion in New York.

He experienced a remarkable change of front in respect to Roxbury
Medcroft before the breakfast was over. It may have been due to the
spell of her eyes or to the call of her voice, but it remains an
unchallenged fact that he no longer thought of Medcroft as a stupid
bungler; instead, he had come to regard him as a good and irreproachable
Samaritan. All of which goes to prove that a divinity shapes our ends,
rough hew them how we may.

"I'm sure we shall get on famously," he said, as she signified her
desire to return to the compartment. "I've always longed for a nice,
agreeable sister-in-law."

"Her mission in life, up to a certain stage, is to make the man
appreciate the fact that he has, after all, been snapped up by a small
but deserving family," she said blithely. "It is also her duty to pour
oil on troubled waters and strew flowers along the connubial highway,
so long as her kind offices are not resented. By the way, Roxbury, I am
now about to preserve you from bitter reproaches. You have forgotten to
order coffee and rolls for your wife."

"Great Scott! So I have! It's nine o'clock." He ordered the coffee and
rolls to be sent in at once. "I hope she hasn't starved to death."

"My dear Roxbury," she said sternly, "I must take you under my wing. You
have much to accomplish in the next twenty-four hours, not the least of
your duties being the subjugation of Tootles and Raggles. Tootles is
fifteen months old, it may interest you to know. We can't afford to have
Tootles scream with terror every time she sees you, and it would be most
unfortunate if Raggles should growl and snap at you as he does at all
suspicious strangers. Once in a while he bites too. Do you like babies?"

"Yes, I--I think I do," he said doubtingly. "I daresay I could cultivate
a taste for 'em. But, I say," with eager enthusiasm, "I love dogs!"

"It may be distinctly in your favour that Raggles loathes the real
Roxbury. He growls every time that Roxy kisses Edith."

"Has he ever bitten Roxy for it?"

"No," dubiously, "but Roxy has had to kick him on several occasions."

"How very tiresome,--to kick and kiss at the same time."

"Raggles is very jealous, you understand."

"That's more than I can say for dear old Roxy. But I'll try to
anticipate Raggles by compelling Edith to keep her distance," he said,
scowling darkly. "Has it not occurred to you that Tootles will be
pretty--er--much of a nuisance when it comes to mountain climbing?" He
felt his way carefully in saying this.

"Oh, dear me, Roxbury, would you have left the poor little darling at
home--in all that dreadful heat?"

"I'm sure I couldn't have been blamed for leaving her at home," he
protested. "She didn't exist until half an hour ago. Heavens! how they
do spring up!"

The remainder of Brock's day was spent in getting acquainted with his
family--or, rather, his _ménage_. There were habits and foibles, demands
and restrictions, that he had to adapt himself to with unvarying
benignity. He made a friend of Raggles without half trying; dogs always
took to him, he admitted modestly. Tootles was less vulnerable. She
howled consistently at each of his first half-dozen advances; his
courage began to wane with shocking rapidity; his next half-hearted
advances were in reality inglorious retreats. Spurred on by the
sustaining Constance, he stood by his guns and at last was gratified to
see faint signs of surrender. By midday he had conquered. Tootles
permitted him to carry her up and down the station platform (she was too
young to realise the risk she ran). Edith and Constance, with the
beaming nurse and O'Brien, applauded warmly when he returned from his
first promenade, bearing Tootles and proudly heeled by Raggles. Fond
mothers in the crowd of hurrying travellers found time to look upon him
and smile as if to say, "What a nice man!" He could almost hear them
saying it. Which, no doubt, accounted for the intense ruddiness of his
cheeks.

"Do you ever spank her?" he demanded once of Mrs. Medcroft, after
Tootles had brought tears to his eyes with a potent attack upon his
nose. She caught the light of danger in his grey eyes and hastily
snatched the offending Tootles from his arms.

Miss Fowler kept him constantly at work with his eyeglass and his
English, neither of which he was managing well enough to please her
critical estimate. In fact, he laboured all day with the persistence, if
not the sullenness, of a hard-driven slave. He did not have time to
become tired. There was always something new to be done or learned or
unlearned: his day was full to overflowing. He was a man of family!

The wife of his bosom was tranquillity itself. She was enjoying herself.
When not amusing herself by watching Brock's misfortunes, she was
napping or reading or sending out for cool drinks. With all the
selfishness of a dutiful wife, she was content to shift responsibilities
upon that ever convenient and useful creature--a detached sister.

Brock sent telegrams for her from cities along the way,--Ulm, Munich,
Salzburg, and others,--all meant for the real Roxbury in London, but
sent to a fictitious being in Great Russell Street, the same having been
agreed upon by at least two of the conspirators. It mattered little that
she repeated herself monotonously in regard to the state of health of
herself and Tootles. Roxbury would doubtless enjoy the protracted
happiness brought on by these despatches, even though they got him out
of bed or missed him altogether until they reached him in a bunch the
next day. He may also have been gratified to hear from Munich that
Roxbury was perfectly lovely. She said, in the course of her longest
despatch, that she was so glad that the baby was getting to like her
father more and more as the day wore on.

At one station Brock narrowly escaped missing the train. He swung
himself aboard as the cars were rolling out of the sheds. As he sank,
hot and exhausted, into the seat opposite his wife and her sister, the
former looked up from her book, yawning ever so faintly, and asked:

"Are you enjoying your honeymoon, Roxbury?"

"Immensely!" he exclaimed, but not until he had searched for and caught
Connie's truant gaze. "Aren't we?" he asked of Miss Fowler, his eyes
dancing. She smiled encouragingly.

"I think you are such a nice man to have about," commented Mrs.
Medcroft, this time yawning freely and stretching her fine young arms in
the luxury of home contentment.

Brock went to bed early, in Vienna that night--tired but happy, caring
not what the morrow brought forth so long as it continued to provide him
with a sister-in-law and a wife who was devoted--to another man.




CHAPTER III

THE DISTANT COUSINS


The end of the week found Brock quite thoroughly domesticated--to use an
expression supplied by his new sister-in-law. True, he had gone through
some trying ordeals and had lost not a little of his sense of locality,
but he was rapidly recovering it as the pathway became easier and less
obscure. At first he was irritatingly remiss in answering to the name of
Medcroft; but, to justify the stupidity, it is only necessary to say
that he had fallen into a condition which scarcely permitted him to know
his own name, much less that of another. He was under the spell!
Wherefore it did not matter at all what name he went by: he would have
answered as readily to one as the other.

He blandly ignored telegrams and letters addressed to Roxbury Medcroft,
and once he sat like a lump, with everyone staring at him, when the
chairman of the architects' convention asked if Mr. Medcroft had
anything to say on the subject under discussion. He was forced, in some
confusion, to attribute his heedlessness to a life-long defect in
hearing. Thereafter it was his punishment to have his name and fragments
of conversation hurled about in tones so stentorian that he blushed for
very shame. In the Bristol, in the Kärntner-Ring, in the Lichtenstein
Gallery, in the Gardens--no matter where he went--if he were to be
accosted by any of the genial architects it was always in a voice that
attracted attention; he could have heard them if they had been a block
away. It became a habit with him to instinctively lift his hand to his
ear when one of them hove in sight, having seen him first.

"That's what I get for being a liar," he lamented dolefully. Constance
had just whispered her condolences. "Do you think they'll consider it
odd that you don't shout at me too?"

"You might explain that you can tell what I am saying by looking at my
lips," she said. He was immensely relieved.

Considerable difficulty had to be overcome at the Bristol in the matter
of rooms. Without going into details, Brock resignedly took the only
room left in the crowded hotel--a six by ten cubby-hole on the top floor
overlooking the air-shaft. He had to go down one flight for his morning
tub, and he never got it because he refused to stand in line and await
his turn. Mrs. Medcroft had the choicest room in the hotel, looking down
upon the beautiful Kärntner-Ring. Constance proposed, in the goodness of
her heart, to give up to Brock her own room, adjoining that of her
sister, provided Edith would take her in to sleep with her. Edith was
perfectly willing, but interposed the sage conclusion that gossiping
menials might not appreciate a preference so unique.

Mr. Roxbury Medcroft's sky parlour adjoined the elevator shaft. The head
of his bed was in close proximity to the upper mechanism of the lift, a
thin wall intervening. A French architect, who had a room hard by, met
Brock in the hall, hollow-eyed and haggard, on the morning after their
first night. He shouted lugubrious congratulations in Brock's ear, just
as if Brock's ear had not been harassed a whole night long by shrieking
wheels and rasping cables.

"Monsieur is very fortunate in being so afflicted," he boomed. "A
thousand times in the night have I wished that I might be deaf also. Ah,
even an affliction such as yours, monsieur, has its benedictions!"

Matters drifted along smoothly, even merrily, for several days. They
were all young and full of the joy of living. They laughed in secret
over the mishaps and perils; they whiffed and enjoyed the spice that
filled the atmosphere in which they lived. They visited the gardens and
the Hofs, the Chateau at Schönbrunn, the Imperial stables, the gay
"Venice in Vienna"; they attended the opera and the concerts, ever in a
most circumspect "trinity," as Brock had come to classify their parties.
Like a dutiful husband, he always included his wife in the expeditions.

"You are not only a most exemplary wife, Mrs. Medcroft," he declared,
"but an unusually agreeable chaperon. I don't know how Constance and I
could get on without you."

But the day of severest trial was now at hand. The Rodneys were arriving
on the fifth day from Berlin. Despite the fact that the Seattle
"connections" had never seen the illustrious Medcroft, husband to their
distant cousin, there still remained the disturbing fear that they would
recognise--or rather fail to recognise him!--from chance pictures that
might have come to their notice. Besides, there was always the
possibility that they had seen or even met Brock in New York. He
lugubriously admitted that he had met unfortunate thousands whom he had
promptly forgotten but who seldom failed to remember him. It is not
surprising, then, that the Medcrofts, _ex parte_, were in a state of
perturbation,--a condition which did not relax in the least as the time
drew near for the arrival of the five o'clock train from the north.
Constance strove faithfully, even valiantly, to inject confidence into
the souls of the prime conspirators.

"You have done so beautifully up to this time," she protested to the
dolorous Brock, "why should you be afraid? I once read of an Indian
chief whose name was Young-Man-Afraid-of-his-Wife! He was a very brave
fellow in spite of all that. You are afraid of Edith, but can't you be
like the Indian? He--"

"That's all very nice," mourned Brock, "but he could cover his confusion
with war paint. Don't forget that, my dear. Think of the difference in
our disguises! War paint in daubs versus spats and an eyeglass. Besides,
he didn't have to talk West End English. And, moreover, he lived in a
wigwam, and didn't have to explain a sky bedroom to strangers who
happened along."

"That is a bit awkward," she confessed thoughtfully. "But can't you say
that you have insomnia, and can't sleep unless you are above the noise
of the street?"

He looked at her with an expression that made a verbal reply to this
suggestion altogether unnecessary.

"Nurse says that Tootles has forgotten the real Roxbury," she went on,
after a moment. "See how cleverly you have played the part."

Still he stared moodily, unconvinced, at the roadway ahead. They were
driving in the Haupt Allee.

"I hope I haven't got Roxbury into trouble by that interview I gave out
concerning the new method of fire-proofing woodwork in office buildings
and hotels. It occurred to me afterward that he is violently opposed to
the system. I advocated it. He'll have a--I might say, a devil of a time
explaining his change of front."

As a matter of fact, when Medcroft, hiding in London, saw the reproduced
interview in the "Times," together with editorial comments upon the
extraordinary attitude of a supposedly conservative Englishman of
recognised ability, he was tried almost beyond endurance. For the next
two or three days the newspapers printed caustic contributions from
fellow architects and builders, in each of which the luckless Medcroft
was taken to task for advocating an impractical and fatuous New York
hobby in the way of construction,--something that staid old London would
not even tolerate or discuss. The social chroniclings of the Medcrofts
in Vienna, as despatched by the correspondents, offset this unhappy
"bull" to some extent, in so far as Medcroft's peace of mind was
concerned, but nothing could have drawn attention to the fact that he
was not in London at that particular time so decisively as the Vienna
interview and its undefended front. Even his shrewdest enemy could not
have suspected Medcroft of a patience which would permit him to sit
quiet in London while the attacks were going on. He found some small
solace in the reflection that he could make the end justify the means.

On their return to the Bristol, Brock and Miss Fowler found the fair
Edith in a pitiful state of collapse. She declared over and over again
that she could not face the Rodneys; it was more than should be expected
of her; she was sure that something would go wrong; why, oh, why was it
necessary to deceive the Rodneys? Why should they be kept in the dark?
Why wasn't Roxbury there to counsel wisely--and more, _ad infinitum_,
until the distracted pair were on the point of deserting the cause. She
finally dissolved into tears, and would not listen to reason,
expostulation, or persuasion. It was then that Brock cruelly but
effectively declared his intention to abdicate, as he also had a
reputation to preserve. Whereupon, with a fine sense of distinction, she
flared up and accused him of treachery to his best friend, Roxbury
Medcroft, who was reposing the utmost confidence in his friendship and
loyalty. How could she be expected to go on with the play if he, the man
upon whom everything depended, was to turn tail in a critical hour like
this?

"How can you have the heart to spoil everything?" she cried indignantly.
He looked at her in fresh amazement. "Roxbury would never forgive you.
We have both placed the utmost confidence in you, Mr. Brock, and--"

"'Sh! Say 'Roxbury, dear'!" interposed the practical Constance. "The
walls may have ears, my dears."

Then Mrs. Medcroft plaintively implored his forgiveness, and said that
she was miserable and ashamed and very unappreciative. Brock, in deep
humility, begged her pardon for his unnecessary harshness, and promised
not to offend again.

"The first quarrel," cried Constance delightedly. "How nicely you've
made it up. And you've been married less than a week!"

"Roxbury and I didn't have our first quarrel until we'd been married a
year," said Edith reflectively.

"Oh, I say, Edith," exclaimed Brock, with a dark frown, "I'd rather you
wouldn't be forever extolling the good qualities of my predecessor. It's
very bad taste. Very much like the pies mother used to make."

"Silly!" cried Medcroft's wife, now in fine humour.

"Besides, Rox is an Englishman. It would take him a year to produce a
quarrel. The American husband is not so confounded slow. I won't live up
to Roxbury in everything."

It was decided that Constance should greet the Rodneys upon their
arrival; the Medcrofts were not to appear until dinner time. Afterwards
the entire party would attend the opera, which was then in the closing
week. Brock, with splendid prodigality, had taken a box for the final
performance of "Tristan and Isolde." It is not out of place to remark
that Brock loathed the Wagnerian opera; he was of "The Mikado" cult. He
took the seats with a definite purpose in mind to cast the burden of
responsibility upon his wife, who would be forced to extend herself in
the capacity of hostess, giving him the much-needed opportunity to
secure safe footing in the dark area of uncertainty. He believed himself
capable of diverting the youthful Miss Rodney and his discreet
sister-in-law, but he was consumed by an unholy dread of Rodney _père_;
something told him that this shrewd American business man was not the
kind who would have the wool pulled over his eyes by anyone. Brock felt
that the support of Constance was of greater value than that of Edith at
any stage or in any emergency.

Besides, he was now quite palpably in love with her! "I've got it bad!"
he reflected in sober consideration of his plight. "But," came the
ironic justification, "I'm able to confine it to the immediate family.
That's more than most husbands can say."

The Rodneys descended upon the Bristol at five o'clock, rushing down
from the Nord-Bahnhof as if there was not a minute to spare. Constance
pursued Katherine to her room, where they revelled in the delights of a
reunion, gradually coming out of its throes as the hour for dressing
approached.

"We dine early, dear," said Constance, "with supper after the opera. I
must be off to dress."

"I am so eager to meet Mr. Medcroft. Is he nice?"

"He's the dearest thing in the world," cried the other, her cheeks
aglow.

"I'm so glad, on Edith's account. Most of these English matches turn out
abominably," commented Miss Rodney, who was twenty, very pretty, and
very worldly. "Oh, did I tell you that Freddie Ulstervelt is with us?"

"No!"

"We came across him in Berlin, and dad asked him to join us, if he had
nothing better to do, so he said he would. He was with us in Dresden and
Prague and--don't you think he's awfully jolly?"

"Ripping!" said Constance with deplorable fervour.

"How awfully English! He said he'd seen you in Paris this spring."

"Yes," said Miss Fowler, her cheeks going red suddenly. "I told him
you'd asked me to be with you in June." She could have cut out her
tongue for saying this, but it was too late. Katherine laughed a trifle
hardly after a stiff moment; then a queer light flitted into her
eyes,--the light of awakened opposition. Constance was saying to
herself, "She's in love with Freddie. I might have known it." Back in
her brain lay the memory of Freddie's violent protestations of love,
uttered during those recent days in Paris. He had threatened to throw
himself into the Seine; she remembered that quite well--and also the
fact that he did nothing of the sort, but had a very jolly time at
Maxim's and sent her flowers by way of repentance. Knowing Freddie so
well, it would not have surprised her in the least to find that he had
become engaged to Katherine. His heart was a very flexible organ.

[Illustration: Katherine]

"Oh," said Katherine, "I believe he did say that you had mentioned us."
Of herself she was asking: "I wonder if she is in love with him!"

And thus it transpired that Freddie Ulstervelt--addlepated,
good-looking, inconstant Freddie, just out of college--was transformed
into a bone of contention, whether he would or no.

He was of the kind who love or make love to every new girl they meet,
seriously enough at the time, but easily passed over if need be. Rebuffs
may have puzzled him, but they left no jagged scar. He belonged to that
class which upsets the tranquillity of inexperienced maidens by
whispering intensely, "God, it's grand!" And he means it at the moment.

Katherine Rodney was in love with him. He belonged to a fashionable New
York family of wealth, and he had been a young lion at Pasadena during
the winter just past. He owned automobiles and a yacht and--an extensive
wardrobe. These notable assets had much to do with the conquest of Mrs.
Rodney: she looked with favour upon the transitory Mr. Ulstervelt, and
believed in her heart that he had something to do with the location of
the shining sun. But of this affair more anon, as the novelists say.

Brock was presented to the Rodneys just before the party went in to
dinner. He managed his eyeglass and his drawl bravely, and got on
swimmingly with the elder Rodneys, until Constance appeared with
Katherine and Freddie Ulstervelt. It was not until then that it occurred
to Miss Fowler that Freddie, being from New York, was almost certain to
know Brock either personally or by sight. She experienced a cold chill,
the distinct approach of catastrophe. Brock had just been told that
young Ulstervelt of New York was to be of the party. His blood ran cold.
He had never seen the young man, but he knew his father well; he had
even dined at the mansion in Madison Avenue. There was every reason,
however, to suspect that Freddie knew him by sight. Even as he was
planning a mode of defence in case of recognition, the young man was
presented. Brock's drawl was something wonderful.

"I--aw--knew your family, I'm sure--aw, quite sure," he said. "You know,
of course, that I lived in your--aw--delightful city for some years.
Strange we never met, 'pon my soul."

"Oh, New York's a pretty big place, Mr. Medcroft," said Freddie
good-naturedly. He was a slight young fellow with a fresh, inquisitive
face. "It's bigger than London in some ways. It's bigger upwards. Say,
do you know, you remind me of a fellow I knew in New York!"

"Haw, haw!" laughed Brock, without grace or reason. Miss Fowler caught
her breath sharply.

"Fellow named Brock. Stupid sort of chap, my mother says. I--"

"Oh, dear me, Mr. Ulstervelt," cried Edith, breaking in, "you shan't say
anything mean about Mr. Brock. He's my husband's best friend."

"I didn't say it, Mrs. Medcroft. It was my mother." Brock was hiding a
smile behind his hand. "She knows him better than I. To tell the truth,
I've never met him, but I've seen him on the Fifth Avenue stages. You
_do_ look like him, though, by Jove."

"It's extraordinary how many people think I look like dear old Brock,"
said the false Roxbury. "But, on the other hand, most people think that
Brock looks like me, so what's the odds? Haw, haw! Ripping! Eh, Mr.
Rodney?"

"Ripping? Ripping what? Good God, am I ripping anything?" gasped Mr.
Rodney, who was fussy and fat and generally futile. He seemed to grow
suddenly uncomfortable, as if ripping was a habit with him.

Dinner was a success. Brock shone with a refulgence that bedimmed all
expectations. His wife was delighted; in all of the four years of
married life, Roxbury had never been so brilliant, so deliciously
English (to use her own expression). Constance tingled with pride. Of
late, she had experienced unusual difficulty in diverting her gaze from
the handsome impostor, and her thoughts were ever of him--in
justification of a platonic interest, of course, no more than that.
To-night her eyes and thoughts were for him alone,--a circumstance
which, could he have felt sure, would have made him wildly happy,
instead of inordinately furious in his complete misunderstanding of her
manner toward Freddie Ulstervelt, who had no compunction about making
love to two girls at the same time. She was never so beautiful, never so
vivacious, never so resourceful. Brock was under the spell; he was
fascinated; he had to look to himself carefully in order to keep his
wits in the prescribed channel.

His self-esteem received a severe shock at the opera. Mrs. Medcroft,
with malice aforethought, insisted that Ulstervelt should take her
husband's seat. As the box held but six persons, the unfortunate Brock
was compelled to shift more or less for himself. Inwardly raging, he
suavely assured the party--Freddie in particular--that he would find a
seat in the body of the house and would join them during the
_Entr'acte_. Then he went out and sat in the foyer. It was fortunate
that he hated Wagner. Before the end of the act he was joined by Mr.
Rodney, horribly bored and eager for relief. In a near-by _café_ they
had a whiskey and soda apiece, and, feeling comfortably reinforced,
returned to the opera house arm-in-arm, long and short, thin and fat,
liberally discoursing upon the intellectuality of Herr Wagner.

"Say, you're not at all like an Englishman," exclaimed Mr. Rodney
impulsively, even gratefully.

"Eh, what?" gasped Brock, replacing his eyeglass. "Oh, I say, now, 'pon
my word, haw, haw!"

"You've got an American sense of humour, Medcroft, that's what you have.
You recognise the joke that Wagner played on the world. Pardon me for
saying it, sir, but I didn't think it was in an Englishman."

"Haw, haw! Ripping, by Jove! No, no! Not you. I mean the joke. But then,
you see, it's been so long since Wagner played it that even an
Englishman has had time to see the point. Besides, I've lived a bit of
my life in America."

"That accounts for it," said the tactless but sincere Mr. Rodney.

Brock glared so venomously at the intrusive Mr. Ulstervelt upon the
occasion of his next visit to his own box, that Mrs. Medcroft smiled
softly to herself as she turned her face away. A few minutes later she
seized the opportunity to whisper in his ear. Her eyes were sparkling,
and something in her manner bespoke the bated breath.

"You are in love with my sister," was what she said to him. He blushed
convincingly.

"Nonsense!" he managed to reply, but without much persuasiveness.

"But you are. I'm not blind. Anyone can see it. _She_ sees it. Haven't
you sense enough to hide it from her? How do you expect to win?"

"My dear Mrs.--my dear Edith, you amaze me. I'm confusion itself. But,"
he went on eagerly, illogically, "do you think I _could_ win her?"

"That is not for one's wife to say," she said demurely.

"I'd be tremendously proud of you as a sister-in-law. And I'd be much
obliged if you'd help me. But look at that confounded Ulstervelt! He's
making love to her with the whole house looking on."

"I think it might be polite if you were to ask him out for a drink," she
suggested.

"But I've had one and I never take two."

"Model husband! Then take the girls into the foyer for a stroll and a
chat after the act. Don't mind me. I'm your friend."

"Do you think I've got a chance with her?" he asked with a brave effort.

"You've had one wife thrust upon you; why should you expect another
without a struggle? I'm afraid you'll have to work for Constance."

"But I have your--I can count on your approval?" he whispered eagerly.

"Don't, Roxbury! People will think you are making love to _me_!" she
protested, wilfully ignoring his question.

He returned to the box after the second act and proposed a turn in the
foyer. To his disgust, Ulstervelt appropriated Constance and left him
to follow with Mrs. Rodney and Katherine. He almost hated Edith for the
tantalising smile she shot after him as he moved away, defeated.

If he was glaring luridly at the irrepressible Freddie, he was not alone
in his gloom. Katherine Rodney, green with jealousy, was sending
spiteful glances after her dearest friend, while Mrs. Rodney was
sniffing the air as if it was laden with frost.

"Don't you think Connie is a perfect dear? I'm so fond of her," said
Miss Rodney, so sweetly that he should have detected the nether-flow.

He started and pulled himself together. "Aw, yes,--ripping!" He
consciously adjusted his eyeglass for a hasty glance about in search of
the easily disturbed Mr. Rodney. Then, to Mrs. Rodney, his mind a blank
after a passing glimpse of Constance and her escort: "Aw--er--a
perfectly jolly opera, isn't it?"




CHAPTER IV

THE WOULD-BE BROTHER-IN-LAW


The next morning, bright and early, Mr. Alfred Rodney, a telegram in his
hand, charged down the hall to Mrs. Medcroft's door. With characteristic
Far West impulsiveness he banged on the door. A sleepy voice asked who
was there.

"It's me--Rodney. Get up. I want to see Medcroft. Say, Roxbury, wake
up!"

"Roxbury?" came in shrill tones from within. "He--Isn't he upstairs?
Good heaven, Mr. Rodney, what has happened? What _has_ happened?"

"Upstairs? What the deuce is he doing upstairs?"'

"He's--he's sleeping! Do tell me what's the matter?"

"Isn't this Mr. Medcroft's room?"

"Ye-es--but he isn't in. He objects to the noise. Oh, has anything
happened to Roxbury?" She was standing just inside the door, and her
voice betrayed agitation.

"My dear Edith, don't get excited. I have a telegram from--"

She uttered a shriek.

"He's been assassinated! Oh, Roxbury!"

"What the dev--Are you crazy? It's a telegram from ----"

"Oh, heavens! I knew they'd kill him--I knew something dreadful would
happen if I left--" Here she stopped suddenly. He distinctly heard her
catch her breath. After a moment she went on warily: "Is it from a man
named Hobart?"

"No! It's from Odell-Carney. Hobart? I don't know anybody named Hobart."
(How was he to know that Hobart was the name that Medcroft had chosen
for correspondence purposes?) "We're to meet the Odell-Carneys to-day in
Munich. No time to be lost. We've got to catch the nine o'clock train."

"Oh!" came in great relief from the other side of the door. Then, in
sudden dismay: "But I can't do it! The idea of getting up at an hour
like this!"

"What room is Roxbury in?"

"I--_don't_ KNOW!!" in very decided tones. "Inquire at the
office!"

Alfred Rodney was a persevering man. It is barely possible that he
occupied a lower social plane than that attained by his wife, but he was
a man of accomplishment, if not accomplishments. He always did what he
set out to do. Be it said in defence of this assertion, he not only
routed out his entire protesting flock, but had them at the West-Bahnhof
in time to catch the Orient Express--luggage, accessories, and all. Be
it also said that he was the only one in the party, save Constance and
Tootles, who took to the situation amiably.

"Damn the Odell-Carneys," was what Freddie Ulstervelt said as the train
drew out of the station. Brock looked up approvingly.

"That's the first sensible thing I've heard him say," he muttered loud
enough to be heard by Miss Fowler. "I say, who are the Odell-Carneys?
First I've heard of 'em."

"The Odell-Carneys? Oh, dear, have you never heard of them?" she cried
in surprise. He felt properly rebuked. "They are very swell Londoners.
It is said--"

"Then, good heavens, they'll know I'm not Medcroft," he whispered in
alarm.

"Not at all, my dear Roxbury. That's just where you're wrong. They don't
know Roxbury the first. I've gone over it all with Edith. She's just
crazy to get into the Odell-Carney set. I regret to say that they have
failed to notice the Medcrofts up to this time. Secretly, Edith has
ambitions. She has gone to the Lord Mayor's dinners and to the Royal
Antiquarians and to Sir John Rodney's and a lot of other functions on
the outer rim, but she's never been able to break through the crust and
taste the real sweets of London society. My dear Roxbury, the
Odell-Carneys entertain the nobility without compunction, and they've
been known to hobnob with royalty. Mrs. Odell-Carney was a Lady
Somebody-or-other before she married the second time. She's terribly
smart, Roxbury."

"How, in the name of heaven, do they happen to be hobnobbing, as you
call it, with the Rodneys, may I ask?"

"Well, it seems that Odell-Carney is promoting a new South African
mining venture. I have it from Freddie Ulstervelt that he's trying to
sell something like a million shares to Mr. Rodney, who has loads of
money that came from real mines in the Far West. He'd never be such a
fool as to sink a million in South Africa, you know, but he's just
clever enough to see the advantage of keeping Odell-Carney in tow, as it
were. It means a great deal to Mrs. Rodney, don't you know, Roxbury, to
be able to say that she toured with the Odell-Carneys. Freddie says
that Cousin Alfred is talking in a very diplomatic manner of going on to
London in August to look fully into the master. It is understood that
the Rodneys are to be the guests of the Odell-Carneys while in London.
It won't be the season, of course, so there won't be much of a commotion
in the smart set. It is our dear Edith's desire to slip into the charmed
circle through the rift that the Rodneys make. Do you comprehend?"

They were seated side by side in the corner of the compartment, his
broad back screening her as much as possible from the persistent glances
of Freddie Ulstervelt, who was nobly striving to confine his attentions
to Katherine. Brock's eyes were devouring her exquisite face with a
greediness that might have caused her some uneasiness if there had not
been something pleasantly agreeable in his way of doing it.

"Yes--faintly," he replied, after an almost imperceptible conflict
between the senses of sight and hearing. "But how does she intend to
explain me away? I'll be a dreadful skeleton in her closet if it comes
to that. When she is obliged to produce the real Roxbury, what then?"

"She's thought it all out, Roxbury," said Constance severely but almost
inaudibly. "I'm sure Freddie heard part of what you said. Do be careful.
She's going to reveal the whole plot to Mrs. Odell-Carney just as soon
as Roxbury gives the word--treating it as a very clever and necessary
ruse, don't you see. Mrs. Odell-Carney will be implored to aid in the
deception for a few days, and she'll consent, because she's really quite
a bit of a sport. At the psychological moment the Rodneys will be told.
That places Mrs. Odell-Carney in the position of being an abettor or
accomplice: she's had the distinction of being a sharer in a most
glorious piece of strategy. Don't you see how charmingly it will all
work in the end?"

"What are you two whispering about?" demanded Freddie Ulstervelt
noisily, patience coming to an end.

"Wha--what the devil is that to--" began Brock furiously. Constance
brought him up sharp with a warning kick on the ankle. He vowed
afterward that he would carry the mark to his grave.

"He's telling me what a nice chap you are, Freddie," said she sweetly.
Brock glared out of the window. Freddie sniffed scornfully.

"I'm getting sick of this job," growled Brock under his breath. "I
didn't calculate on--"

"Now, Roxbury dear, don't be a bear," she pleaded so gently, her eyes so
full of appeal, that he flushed with sudden shame and contrition.

"Forgive me," he said, the old light coming back into his eyes so
strongly that she quivered for an instant before lowering her own. "I
hate that confounded puppy," he explained lamely, guarding his voice
with a new care. "If you felt as I do, you would too."

She laughed in the old way, but she was not soon to forget that moment
when panic was so imminent.

"I--I don't see how anyone can help liking Freddie," she said, without
actually knowing why. He stared hard at the Danube below. After a long
silence he said,--

"It's all tommy-rot about it being blue, isn't it?"

She was also looking at the dark brown, swollen river that has been
immortalised in song.

"It's never blue. It's always a yellow-ochre, it seems to me."

He waited a long time before venturing to express the thought that of
late had been troubling him seriously.

"I wonder if you truly realise the difficulty Edith will have in
satisfying an incredulous world with her absolutely truthful story.
She'll have to explain, you know. There's bound to be a sceptic or two,
my dear Constance."

"But there's Roxbury," she protested, her face clouding nevertheless.
"_He_ will set everything right."

"The world will say he is a gullible fool," said he gently. "And the
world always laughs at, not with, a fool. Alas, my dear sister, it's a
very deep pool we're in." He leaned closer and allowed a quaint,
half-bantering, wholly diffident smile to cross his face. "I--I'm afraid
that you are the only being on earth who can make the story thoroughly
plausible."

"I?" she demanded quickly. Their eyes met, and the wonder suddenly left
hers. She blushed furiously. "Nonsense!" she said, and abruptly left him
to take a seat beside Katherine Rodney. He found small comfort in the
whisperings and titterings that came, willy-nilly, to his burning ears
from the corner of the compartment. He had a disquieting impression that
they were discussing him; it was forced in upon him that being a
brother-in-law is not an enviable occupation.

"Wot?" he asked, almost fiercely, after the insistent Freddie had thrice
repeated a question.

"I say, will you have a cigaret?" half shouted Freddie, exasperated.

"Oh! No, thanks. The train makes such a beastly racket, don't you know."

"They told me at the Bristol you were deaf, but--Oh, I say, old man, I'm
sorry. Which ear is it?"

"The one next to you," replied Brock, recovering from his confusion. "I
hear perfectly well with the other one."

"Yes," drawled Freddie, with a wink, "so I've observed." After a
reflective silence the young man ventured the interesting conclusion,
"She's a stunning girl, all right." Brock looked polite askance. "By
Jove, I'm glad she isn't _my_ sister-in-law."

"I suppose I'm expected to ask why," frigidly.

"Certainly. Because, if she was, I _couldn't_. Do you get the point?" He
crossed his legs and looked insupportably sure of himself.

They reached Munich late in the afternoon and went at once to the Hotel
Vier Jahretzeiten, where they were to find the Odell-Carneys.

Mr. Odell-Carney was a middle-aged Englishman of the extremely
uninitiative type. He was tall and narrow and distant, far beyond what
is commonly accepted as _blasé_; indeed, he was especially slow of
speech, even for an Englishman, quite as if it were an everlasting
question with him whether it was worth while to speak at all. One had
the feeling when listening to Mr. Odell-Carney that he was being
favoured beyond words; it took him so long to say anything, that, if one
were but moderately bright, he could finish the sentence mentally some
little time in advance of the speaker, and thus be prepared to properly
appreciate that which otherwise might have puzzled him considerably. It
could not be said, however, that Mr. Odell-Carney was ponderous; he was
merely the effectual result of delay. Perhaps it is safe to agree with
those who knew him best; they maintained that Odell-Carney was a pose,
nothing more.

His wife was quite the opposite in nearly every particular, except
height and angularity. She was bony and red-faced and opinionated. A few
sallow years with a rapid, profligate nobleman had brought her, in
widowhood, to a fine sense of appreciation of the slow-going though
tiresomely unpractical men of the Odell-Carney type. It mattered little
that he made poor investment of the money she had sequestered from his
lordship; he had kept her in the foreground by associating himself with
every big venture that interested the financial smart set.
Notwithstanding the fact that he never was known to have any money, he
was looked upon as a financier of the highest order. Which is saying a
great deal in these unfeeling days of pounds and shillings.

Of course Mrs. Odell-Carney was dressed as all rangy, long-limbed
Englishwomen are prone to dress,--after a model peculiarly not her own.
She looked ridiculously ungraceful alongside the smart, chic American
women, and yet not one of them but would have given her boots to be able
to array herself as one of these. There was no denying the fact that
Mrs. Odell-Carney was a "regular tip-topper," as Mr. Rodney was only too
eager to say. She had the air of a born leader; that is to say, she
could be gracious when occasion demanded, without being patronising.

In due course of time the Medcrofts and Miss Fowler were presented to
the distinguished couple. This function was necessarily delayed until
Odell-Carney had time to go into the details of a particularly annoying
episode of the afternoon. He was telling the story to his friend Rodney,
and of course everything was at a standstill until he got through.

It seems that Mr. Odell-Carney felt the need of a nap at three o'clock.
He gave strict injunctions that there was to be no noise in the halls
while he slept, and then went into his room and stretched out. Anyone
who has stopped at the Hotel Four Seasons will have no difficulty in
recalling the electric hall-bells which serve to attract the
chambermaids to given spots. If one needs the chambermaid, he presses
the button in his room and a little bell in the hall tinkles furiously
until she responds and shuts it off. In that way one is sure that she
has heard and is coming, a most admirable bit of German ingenuity. If
she happens to be taking her lunch at the time, the bell goes on ringing
until she returns; it is a faithful bell. Coming back to Odell-Carney:
the maid on his floor was making up a room in close proximity when a
most annoying thing happened to her. A porter who had reason to dislike
her came along and turned her key from the outside, locking her in the
room. She couldn't get out, and she had been warned against making a
sound that might disturb the English guest. With rare intelligence, she
did not scream or make an outcry, but wisely proceeded to press the
button for a chambermaid. Then she evidently sat down to wait. To make
the story short, she rang her own call-bell for two hours, no other maid
condescending to notice the call, which speaks volumes for the almost
martial system of the hotel. The bell was opposite the narrator's door.
Is it, therefore, surprising that he required a great deal of time to
tell all that he felt? It was not so much of what he did that he spoke
at such great length, but of what he felt.

"'Pon me soul," he exploded in the end, twisting his mustache with
nervous energy, "it was the demdest nap I ever had. I didn't close my
eyes, c'nfend me if I did."

While Odell-Carney was studiously adjusting his eyeglass for a final
glare at an unoffending 'bus boy who almost dropped his tray of plates
in consequence, Mr. Rodney fussily intervened and introduced the
Medcrofts. Mrs. Odell-Carney was delightfully gracious; she was sure
that no nicer party could have been "got together." Her husband may have
been excessively slow in most things, but he was quick to recognise and
appreciate feminine beauty of face and figure. He unbent at once in the
presence of the unmistakably handsome Fowler sisters; his expressive
"chawmed" was in direct contrast to his ordinary manner of acknowledging
an introduction.

"Mr. Medcroft is the famous architect, you know," explained the anxious
Mrs. Rodney.

"Oh, yes, I know," drawled Mr. Odell-Carney. "You American architects
are doing great things, 'pon my soul," he added luminously. Brock stuck
his eyeglass in tighter and hemmed with raucous precision. Mrs. Medcroft
stiffened perceptibly.

"Oh, but he's Mr. Roxbury Medcroft, the great English architect," cried
Mrs. Rodney, in some little confusion. Odell-Carney suddenly remembered.
He glared hard at Brock; the Rodneys saw signs of disaster.

"Oh, by Jove, are _you_ the fellow who put those new windows in the
Chaucer Memorial Hall? 'Pon me soul! Are you the man who did that?"
There was no mistaking his manner; he was distinctly annoyed.

Brock faced the storm coolly, for his friend Medcroft's sake. "I am
Roxbury Medcroft, if that's what you mean, Mr. Odell-Carney."

"I know you're Medcroft, but, hang it all, wot I asked was, did you
design those windows? 'Gad, sir, they're the laughing sensation of the
age. Where the devil did you get such ideas--eh, wot?" His wife had
calmly, diplomatically intervened.

"I hate that man," said Mrs. Medcroft to her supposed husband a few
minutes later. There was a dangerous red in her cheeks, and she was
breathing quickly. Brock gave an embarrassed laugh and mentioned
something audibly about a "stupid ass."

The entire party left on the following day for Innsbruck, where Mr.
Rodney already had reserved the better part of a whole floor for himself
and guests. Mr. Odell-Carney, before they left Munich, brought himself
to the point of apologising to Brock for his peppery remarks. He was
sorry and all that, and he hoped they'd be friends; but the windows were
atrocious, there was no getting around that. His wife smoothed it over
with Edith by confiding to her the lamentable truth that poor
Odell-Carney hadn't the remotest idea what he was talking about half of
the time. After carefully looking Edith over and finding her valuably
bright and attractive, she cordially expressed the hope that she would
come to see her in London.

"We must know each other better, my dear Mrs. Medcroft," she had said
amiably. Edith thought of the famous drawing-rooms in Mayfair and
exulted vastly. "And Mr. Medcroft, too. I am so interested in men who
have a craft. They always are worth while, really, don't you know. How
like an American Mr. Medcroft is. I daresay he gets that from having
lived so long with an American wife. And what a darling baby! She's
wonderfully like Mr. Medcroft, don't you think? No one could mistake
that child's father--never! And, my dear," leaning close with a
whimsical air of confidence, "that's more than can be said of certain
children I know of in very good families."

Edith may have gasped and looked wildly about in quest of help, but her
agitation went unnoticed by the new friend. From that momentous hour
Mrs. Medcroft encouraged an inordinate regard for the circumspect. She
decided that it was best never to be alone with her husband; the future
was now too precious to go unguarded for a single moment that might be
unexplainable when the triumphal hour of revelation came to hand. She
impressed this fact upon her sister, with the result that while Brock
was never alone with his prudent wife, he was seldom far from the side
of the adorable lieutenant. As if precociously providing for an ultimate
alibi, the fickle Tootles began to show unmistakable signs of aversion
for her temporary parent. Mrs. Rodney, being an old-fashioned mother,
could not reconcile herself to this unfilial attitude, and gravely
confided to her husband that she feared Medcroft was mistreating his
child behind their backs.

"Well, the poodle likes him, anyway," protested Mr. Rodney, who liked
Brock; "and if a dog likes a man he's not altogether a bad lot. If I
were you, I wouldn't spread the report."

"Spread it!" she sniffed indignantly. "Are they not my own cousins?
Twice removed," she concluded as an after-thought. "Do you imagine that
_I_ would spread it? He may be an unnatural father, but I shall not be
the one to say so. Please bear that in mind, Alfred."

"Well, let's not argue about it," said Mr. Rodney, departing before she
could disobey the injunction.

Of course, there was no little confusion at the Hotel Tyrol when it came
to establishing the Medcrofts. For a while it looked as though Brock
would have to share a room with Tootles, relegating Burton to an alcove
and a couch; but Constance, in a strictly family conclave, was seized by
an inspiration which saved the day--or the night, more properly
speaking.

"I have it, Roxbury," she cried, her eyes dancing. "You can sleep on the
balcony. A great many invalids do, you know."

"But, good heaven, I'm not an invalid," he remonstrated feebly.

"Of course, you're not, but can't you _say_ you are? It's quite simple.
You sleep in the open air because it does your lungs so much good. Oh, I
know! It isn't necessary to expand your chest like that. They're
perfectly sound, I daresay. I should think you'd rather enjoy the fresh
air. Besides, there isn't a room to be had in the hotel."

"But suppose it should rain!" he protested, knowing full well he was
doomed.

"You poor boy, haven't you an umbrella?" she cried with such a perfectly
entrancing laugh that he would have slept out in a hailstorm to provide
recompense. And so it was settled that he was to sleep in the small
balcony just off the baby's luxurious room, the hotel people agreeing to
place a cot there at night in order to oblige the unfortunate guest with
the affected lung.

"You are so dear and so agreeable, Roxbury," purred Mrs. Medcroft, very
much relieved. "If ever I hear of a girl looking for a nice husband,
I'll recommend you."

"It's all very nice," said he with a wry grin, "but I'm hanged if I
ought to be expected to remember all of my accomplishments." They were
sitting in her room, attended by the faithful duenna, Constance.
"First, the eyeglass; then the English language, with which I find I'm
most unfamiliar; then a deafness in one of my ears--I can't remember
which until it's too late; and now I'm to be a tubercular. You've no
idea how hard it is for me to speak English against Odell-Carney. I'm an
out-and-out amateur beside him. And it's horribly annoying to have
Ulstervelt shouting in my ear loud enough for everybody in the
dining-room to hear. It's rich, I tell you, and if I didn't love you so
devotedly, Edith, I'd be on my way at this very instant. There! I feel
better. 'On my way' is the first American line I've had in the farce
since we left Stuttgart. By the way, Edith, I'm afraid I'll have to
punch Odell-Carney's confounded head before long. He's getting to be so
friendly to me as Roxbury Medcroft that I can't endure him as Brock."

"I--I don't understand," murmured Edith plaintively. Constance looked up
with a new interest in her ever sprightly face.

"Well, you see, he's working so hard to square himself with Medcroft for
the break he made about the windows, that he's taking his spite out on
all American architects. Confound him, he persists in saying I'm all
right, but God deliver him from those demmed rotters, the American
builders. He says he wouldn't let one of us build a hencoop for him,
much less a dog kennel. Oh, I say, Connie, don't laugh! How would you
like it if--" But both of them were laughing at him so merrily that he
joined them at once. Burton and O'Brien, who had come in, were smiling
discreetly.

"Come, Roxbury, what do you say to a good long walk?" cried Constance.
"I must talk to you seriously about a great many things, beginning with
egotism." He set forth with alacrity, rejoicing in spite of his
limitations.

Upon their return from the delightful stroll along the mountain side,
she went at once to her room to dress for dinner. Brock, more deeply in
love than ever before, lighted a cigar and seated himself in the
gallery, dubiously retrospective in his meditations. He was sorely
disturbed by her almost constant allusion to Freddie Ulstervelt and his
"amazingly attractive ways." Was it possible that she could be really in
love with that insignificant little whipper-snapper? He seemed to be
propounding this doleful question to the lofty, sphinx-like
Waldraster-Spitze, looming dark in the path of the south.

"Hello!" exclaimed a voice close to his ear,--the fresh, confident voice
that he knew so well. "I've been looking for you everywhere." Freddie
drew up a chair and sat down at his "good side." The young man appeared
to have something weighty on his mind. Brock shifted uneasily. "I want
to put it up to you, Mr. Medcroft, as man to man. You are Connie's
brother-in-law and you ought to be able to set me straight."

"Ah, I see," said Brock vaguely.

"You do?" queried the other, surprise and doubt in his face.

"No, I should say I don't, don't you see," substituted Brock.

"I was wondering how you _could_ have seen. It's a matter I haven't
discussed with anyone. I've come to have a liking for you, Roxbury.
You're my sort; you have a sort of New York feeling about you. I'm sure
you're enough of a sport to give me unprejudiced advice. Hands across
the sea, see? Well, to get right down to the point, old man,--you'll
pardon my plain speech,--I think Constance ought to marry an American."

Brock sat up very straight. "I think that's--that's a matter for Miss
Fowler to determine," he said coldly.

"You don't quite get my meaning," persisted Freddie, crossing his legs
comfortably. "I was trying to make it easy for myself."

"You mean, you think she ought to marry you?"

"That's it, precisely. How clever you are."

"But you are said to be engaged to Miss Rodney," ventured Brock, feeling
his way.

"That's just the point, Mr. Medcroft. We're not really engaged--but
almost. As a matter of fact, we've got to the point where it's really up
to me to speak to her father about it, don't you know. Luckily, I
haven't."

"Luckily?"

"Yes. That would have committed me, don't you see. I've been tentatively
engaged more than a dozen times, but never quite up to the girl's
father. Now, I don't mind telling you that I've changed my mind about
Katherine. She's a jolly good sort, but she's not just _my_ sort. I
thought she was, but--well, you know how it is yourself. The heart's a
damned queer organ. Mine has gone back to Constance in the last two
days. You are her brother-in-law, and you're a good fellow, through and
through. I want your help. I've got money to burn, and the family's got
position in the States. I can take care of her as she should be taken
care of. No little old six-room flat for her. But, of course, you
understand, I can't quite carry the thing through with Katherine still
feeling herself attached, as it were. The thing to decide is this: how
best can I let Katherine down easily and take on Connie without putting
myself in a rather hazardous position? I'm a gentleman, you see, and I
can't do anything downright rotten. It wouldn't do. I'm sure, in her
heart, Connie cares for me. I could make her understand me better if I
had half the chance. But a fellow can't get near her nowadays. Don't you
think you are carrying the family link too far? Now, what I want to ask
of you, as a friend, is this: will you put in a good word for me every
chance you get? I'll square myself with Katherine all right. Of course,
you'll understand, I don't want to actually break with Katherine until
I'm reasonably sure of Constance. I'm a guest of the Rodney family, you
see. It would be downright indecent of me. No, sir! I'm not that sort. I
shouldn't think of ending it all with Katherine so long as we are both
guests of her father. I'd wait until the end of next week."

Brock had listened in utter amazement to the opening portion of this
ingenuous proposal. As the flexile youth progressed, amazement gave
place to indignation and then to disgust. Brock's brow grew dark; the
impulse to pull his countryman's nose was hard to overcome. Never in all
his life had he listened to such a frankly cold-blooded argument as that
put forth by the insufferable Knicker-bocker. In the end the big New
Yorker saw only the laughable side of the little New Yorker's plight.
After all, he was a harmless egoist, from whom no girl could expect much
in the way of recompense. It mattered little who the girl of the moment
might be, she could not hope to or even seek to hold his perambulatory
affections. "He's a single example of a great New York class," reflected
Brock. "The futile, priggish rich! There are thousands like him in my
dear New York--conscienceless, invertebrate, sybaritic sons of
idleness, college-bred and under-bred little beasts who can buy and then
cast off at their pleasure. They have no means of knowing how to fall in
love with a good girl. They have not been trained to it. It is not for
their scrambled intellects to discriminate between the chorus-girl brand
of attack and the subtle wooing of a gentlewoman. They can't
analyse--they can't feel! And this insipid, egotistical little bounder
is actually sitting there and asking me to help him with the girl I
love! Good Lord, what next?" He surveyed the eager Ulstervelt in the
most irritating manner, finally laughing outright in his face. The very
thought of him as Connie's accepted lover! She, the adorable, the
splendid, the unapproachable! It was excruciatingly funny!

"Oh, I say, old man," cried Freddie, when the disconcerting laugh came,
"don't laugh! It's no damned joke."

"'Pon my soul, Ulstervelt," apologised Brock, with a magnanimous smile,
"I haven't said it was a joke. You--"

"Then, what are you laughing at? Something you heard yesterday?" with
fine scorn. Brock stared hard at the flushed, boyish face of the other;
it was weak and yet as hard as brass, hard with the overbearing
confidence of the spoiled child of wealth.

"See here, Ulstervelt," he said with sudden coldness, "you're asking my
help. That's no way to get it."

"I beg pardon! I don't mean to be rude," apologised Freddie. "But, I
say, old man, I'll make it worth your while. My father's got stacks of
coin, and he's a power in New York. Odell-Carney's right. American
architects can't design good hencoops. What we want in New York is a
rattling good, up-to-date Englishman or two to show 'em a few things.
They're a lot of muckers over there, take it from me. By Jove, Roxbury,
you don't know how I'd appreciate your friendship in this matter. It
will simplify things immensely. You'll speak a good word for me when the
time comes, now, won't you?"

"You want me to do you a good turn," said Brock slowly. He found himself
grinning with a malicious joy. "All right, I'll see to it that Miss
Rodney doesn't marry you, my boy. I'll attend to her."

"Just a minute," interrupted Freddie quickly. "Don't be too hasty about
that. I want to be sure of Constance first."

"I see. I was just about to add that I'll give Constance a strong hint
that one of the most gallant young sparks in New York is likely to
propose to her before the end of the week. That will--"

"Heavens!" exclaimed Freddie, in disgust. "You needn't do that. I've
already proposed to her five or six times."

"And she--she is undecided?" cried Brock, his eyes darkening.

"No, hang it all, she's _not_ undecided. She's said _no_ every time.
That's why I'm up a tree, so to speak."

"Oh?" was all that Brock said. Of course she couldn't love a creature of
Freddie's stamp! He gloated!

"'Gad, you're a lucky dog, Roxbury," went on Freddie enviously. "Money
isn't everything. You're married to one of the prettiest and most
fascinating women in the world. She's a wonder. You can't blame me for
wanting your wife as a sister-in-law. Now, can you? And that kid! You
lucky dog!"




CHAPTER V

THE FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY


Brock discovered in due time that he was living in a lofty but uncertain
place, among the clouds of exaltation. It was not until the close of the
succeeding day that he began to lower himself grudgingly from the height
to which Freddie's ill-mannered confession had led him. By that time he
satisfactorily had convinced himself that no one but a fool could have
suspected Constance of being in love with Ulstervelt; and yet, on the
other hand, was he any better off for this cheerful argument? There was
nothing to prove that she cared for him, notwithstanding this agreeable
conclusion by contrast. As a matter of fact, he came earthward with a
rush, weighted down by the conviction that she did not care a rap for
him except as a conveniently moral brother-in-law. He was further
distressed by Edith's comfortless, though perhaps well-qualified,
announcement that she believed her sister to be in love; she could not
imagine with whom; she only knew she "acted as if she were."

"Besides, Roxbury," she said warningly, "it's a most degenerate husband
who falls in love with his wife's sister."

They were walking in one of the mountain paths, some distance behind the
others. They did not know that Mrs. Odell-Carney had stopped to rest in
the leafy niche above the path. She was lazily fanning herself on the
stone seat that man had provided as an improvement to nature. Being a
sharp-eared person with a London drawing-room instinct, she plainly
could hear what they were saying as they approached. These were the
first words she fully grasped, and they caused her to prick up her ears:

"I don't give a hang, Edith. I'm tired of being her brother-in-law."

"You're tired of me, Roxbury, that's what it is," in plaintive tones.

"You're happy, you love and are loved, so please don't put it that way.
It's not fair. Think of the pitiable position I'm in."

"My dear Roxbury," quite severely, "if there's nothing else that will
influence you, just stop to consider the che-ild! There's Tootles, dear
Tootles, to think of."

Of course Mrs. Odell-Carney could not be expected to know that Edith was
blithely jesting.

"My dear Edith," he said, just as firmly "Tootles has nothing to do with
the case. You know, and Constance knows, and I know, and the whole world
will soon know that I'm not even related to her, poor little beggar. I
don't see why she should come between me and happiness just because she
happens to bear a social resemblance to a man who isn't her father.
Come, now, let's talk over the situation sensibly."

Just then they passed beyond the hearing of the astonished eavesdropper.
Good heaven, what was this? Not his child? Two minutes later Mrs.
Odell-Carney was back at the spring where they had left her somnolent
husband, who had refused to climb a hill because all of his breath was
required to smoke a cigaret.

"Carney," she said sternly, her lips rigid, her eyes set hard upon his
face, "how long have the Medcrofts been married?"

He blinked heavily. "How the devil should I know? 'Pon me word, it's--"

"Four years, I think Mrs. Rodney told me. How old is that baby?"

"'Pon me soul, Agatha, I'm as much in the dark as you. I don't know."

"A little over a year, I'd say. Well, I just heard Medcroft say that she
wasn't his child. Whose is it?" She stood there like an accusing angel.
He started violently, and his jaw dropped; an expression of alarmed
protest leaped into his listless eyes.

"'Pon me word, Agatha, how the devil should I know? Don't look at me
like that. Give you my word of honour, I don't know the woman. 'Pon me
soul, I don't, my dear."

He was very much in earnest, thoroughly aroused by what seemed to be a
direct insinuation.

"Oh, don't be stupid," she cried. "Good heavens, can there be a scandal
in that lovely woman's life?"

"There's never any scandal in a woman's life unless she's reasonably
lovely," remarked he.

"Whose child is she, if she isn't Medcroft's?" she pursued with a
perplexed frown.

"Demme, Agatha, don't ask me," he said irritably, passing his hand over
his brow. "I've told you that twice. Ask them; I daresay they know."

She looked at him in disgust. "As if I could do such a thing as that!
Dear me, I don't understand it at all. Four years married. Yes, I'm sure
that's it. Carney, you don't suppose--" She hesitated. It was not
necessary to complete the obvious question.

"Agatha," said he, weighing his remark carefully, "I've said all along
that Medcroft is a fool. Take those windows, for instance. If he--"

"Oh, rubbish! What have the windows to do with it? You are positively
stupid. And I'd come to like her too. Yes, I'd even asked her to come
and see me." She was really distressed.

"And why not?" he demanded. "Hang it all, Agatha, it's nothing unusual.
She's a jolly good sort and a sight too good for Medcroft. He's a stupid
ass. I've said so all along. How the devil she ever married him, I can't
see. But, by Jove, Agatha, I can readily see how she might have loved
the father of this child, no matter who he is. Take my advice, my dear,
and don't be harsh in your judgment. Don't say a word about what you've
heard. If they are reconciled to the--er--the situation, why the devil
should we give a hang? And, above all, don't let these Rodneys suspect."
Here he lowered his voice gradually. "They're a pack of rotters and they
couldn't understand. They'd cut her, even if she is a cousin or whatever
it is. I've give a year or two of my life to know positively whether
Rodney intends taking those shares or not." He said it in contemplative
delight in what he would do if it were definitely settled. "I can't
stand them much longer."

"What great variety of Americans there are," she reflected. "Mrs.
Medcroft and her sister are Americans. Compare them with the Rodneys and
Mr. Ulstervelt. No, Carney, I'll not start a scandal. The Rodneys would
not understand, as you say. They'd tear her to shreds and gloat over
the mutilation. No; we'll have her to see us in London. I like her."

"And, by Jove, Agatha, I like her sister."

"My dear, the baby is a darling."

"But what an ass Medcroft is!"

And thus is it proved that Mrs. Odell-Carney was not only a dutiful wife
in taking her husband into her confidence, but also that jointly they
enjoyed a peculiarly rational outlook upon the world as they had come to
know it and to feel for the people thereof. It is of small consequence
that they could not find it in their power to be in tune with the
virtuous Rodneys: the Rodneys were conditions, not effects.

However that may be, it was Katherine Rodney, pretty, plump, and
spoiled, who pulled the first stone from the foundation of Medcroft's
house of cards. Katherine had convinced herself that she was deeply
enamoured of the volatile Freddie; the more she thought that she loved
him, the greater became the conviction that he did not care as much for
her as he professed. She began to detect a decided falling off in his
ardour; it was no use trying to hide the fact from herself that
Constance was the most disturbing symptom in evidence. Jealousy
succeeded speculation. Katherine decided to be hateful; she could not
have helped it if she had tried.

It was very evident, to her at least, that Freddie was not to blame; he
was being led on by the artful Miss Fowler. There could be no doubt of
it--none in the least, declared Miss Rodney in the privacy of her own
miserable reflections.

Just as she was on the point of carrying her woes to her mother, an
astounding revelation came to her out of a clear sky; an entirely new
condition came into the problem. It dawned upon her suddenly, without
warning, that Roxbury Medcroft was in love with his sister-in-law!

[Illustration: "She began to detect a decided falling off in his
ardour."]

When she burst in upon her mother, half an hour later, that excellent
lady started up from her couch, alarmed by the excitement in her
daughter's face. Mrs. Rodney, good soul, was one of the kind who always
think the world is coming to an end, or the house is on fire, or the
king has been assassinated, if any one approaches with a look of
distress in his face.

"My dear, my dear!" she cried, as Katherine stopped tragically in the
doorway. "What has happened to your father? Speak!"

"Mamma, it's worse than that! I--"

"Merciful heaven!" The good lady blindly reached for her smelling salts.

"I've made a dreadful discovery," went on Katherine in suppressed tones.
"It came to me like a flash. I couldn't believe my own brain. So I
watched them from my window. There's no doubt about it, mamma. It's as
plain as the nose on your face. He--"

"My darling, what are you talking about? Is my nose--what is the matter
with my nose?" She vaguely felt of her nose in horror.

"He's in love with her. There's no mistake. And, will you believe me,
mamma, she is _encouraging_ him! Positively! Why--why, it's utterly
contemptible! Oh, dear, what are we to do?"

Mrs. Rodney looked blankly at her daughter, who had thrown herself in a
chair. She gasped and then gave vent to a tremulous squeak.

"In love! Your father? With whom--who is she?"

"Father? Oh, Lord, mother, I didn't say anything about father. Don't
cry! It's another man altogether."

"Not Freddie Ulstervelt?" quavered Mrs. Rodney, pulling herself
together. "After all he has said to you--"

"No, no, mamma," cried her daughter irritably. "Freddie may be in love
with her, but he's not the only one. Mamma!" She straightened up and
looked at her mother with wide, horror-struck eyes, "Roxbury Medcroft is
madly in love with Constance Fowler!"

Mrs. Rodney did not utter a sound for fully a minute and a half. She
never took her eyes from her daughter's distressed face. The colour was
coming back into her own, and her lips were setting themselves into thin
red lines above her rigid chin.

"I'm sorry, Katherine, that you have seen it too. I have suspected it
for several days. But I have not dared to speak--it seemed too
improbable. What are we to do?" She sat down suddenly, even weakly.

"She's not only leading Freddie on, but she's flirting with her own
brother-in-law--her own sister's husband--her--her--"

"Her own niece's father! It's atrocious!"

"She's a horrid beast! And I _thought_ I loved her. Oh, mamma, it's just
dreadful!"

"Katherine, control yourself. I will not have you upsetting yourself
like this. You'll have another of those awful headaches. Leave it all to
me, dear. Something _must_ be done. We can't stand by and see dear Edith
betrayed. She's so happy and so trusting. And, besides all that, we'd be
dragged into the scandal. I--"

"And the Odell-Carneys too. Heavens!"

"It _must_ be stopped! I shall go at once to Mrs. Odell-Carney and tell
her what we have discovered. It will prepare her. She is the best friend
I have, and I know she will suggest a way to put a stop to this thing
before it is too late. We must--"

"Why don't you speak to father about it first?"

"Your father! My dear, what would be the use? He wouldn't believe it. He
never does. I wonder if dear Mrs. Odell-Carney is in her room." The
estimable lady fluttered loosely toward the door. Her daughter called to
her.

"If I were you, I'd wait a day or two, mamma." She was quite cool and
very calculating now. "It may adjust itself, and--and if we can just
drop a hint that we suspect, they won't be so--so--well, so public about
it. I _know_--I just _know_ that Freddie will be disgusted with her if
he sees how she's carrying on." Katherine suddenly had realised that
good might spring from evil, after all.

In the mean time, young Mr. Ulstervelt was having troubles and
disappointments of his own. Persistent effort to make love to Miss
Fowler had finally resulted in an almost peremptory command to desist.
An unlucky impulse to hold her hand during one of his attempts to "try
her out" met with disaster. Miss Fowler snatched her hand away and, with
a look he never forgot, abruptly left him. "It's all off with her,"
ruminated Freddie, shivering slightly as an after effect of the icy
stare she had given him. "She's got it in for me, for some reason or
other. Wow! That was a frost! I feel it yet. Medcroft has played the
deuce helping me. I wonder if-- Hello! There's Katherine."

Freddie did some rapid-fire thinking in the next half-minute, with the
result that Constance Fowler was banished forever from his calculations
and Katherine Rodney restored to her own. So long as he could not
possibly win Constance he figured that he might just as well devote
himself to the girl he was virtually engaged to marry. Freddie's was a
convenient and adaptable constancy. Miss Fowler out of sight was also
out of mind; he descended upon Katherine with all of the old ardour
shining in his eyes. It was soon after Miss Rodney's conference with her
mother, and the young lady was off for a walk in the town.

"Hello, Katherine," called he, coming up from behind. "Shopping? Take me
along to carry the bundles. I want to begin now."

It was Miss Rodney's fancy to receive his advances with disdain. She
assumed a most unfriendly manner.

"Indeed?" with chilling irony. "And why, may I ask?"

Freddie was taken aback. This was most unexpected.

"Practice makes perfect," he said glibly. "Don't you want me to carry
'em, Kitty?" He said it almost tearfully.

Katherine exulted inwardly. Outwardly she was very cool and very
baffling. "Please don't call me Kitty. I hate it."

"It's a dear little name. That's what I'm going to call you when we
are--well, you know."

"I _don't_ know. What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come now, Miss Rodney. Don't be so icy. What's up? Never
mind--don't tell me. I know. You're jealous of Connie." It was a bold
stroke and it had an immediate effect.

"Jealous!" she scoffed, but her cheeks went red. "Not I, Freddie." She
considered for a second and then went on: "She's not in love with you.
You must be blind. She's crazy about Mr. Medcroft."

"By Jove," exclaimed Freddie, stopping short, his eyes bulging. He
looked at her for a minute in silence, realisation sifting into his
face. "You're right! She _is_ in love with him. I see it now. Well, what
do you think of that! Her brother-in-law!"

"And he is in love with her too. Now you may go back to her and see if
you can't win her away from him. I shan't interfere, my dear Freddie.
Don't have me on your conscience. Good-by."

She left him standing there in the street. With well-practised tact he
darted into a tobacconist's shop.

"Another shake-down," he reflected ruefully. "They're all passing me up
to-day. But, great hooks, what's all this about Medcroft and Constance?"
He bought some cigarets and started off for a walk, mildly excited by
this new turn of affairs. It occurred to him, as he turned it all over
in his mind, that Mrs. Medcroft was amazingly resigned to the situation.
Of course, she was not blind to her husband's infatuation for her
sister. Therefore, if she were so cheerful and indifferent about it, it
followed that she was not especially distressed; in fact, it suddenly
dawned upon him she was not only reconciled but relieved. She had ceased
to love her husband! She could be a freelance in Love's lists,
notwithstanding the inconvenience of a legal attachment. "She's ripping,
too," concluded Freddie, with a certain buoyancy of spirit. "If she
doesn't love Medcroft, she at least ought to love someone else instead.
It's customary. I wonder--" Here he reflected deeply for an instant, his
spirits floating high. Then he turned abruptly and made his way to the
Tirol.

It came to pass, in the course of the evening, that Mr. Ulstervelt,
supremely confident from the effect of past achievements, drew the
unsuspecting Mrs. Medcroft into a secluded tête-à-tête. It is not of
record that he was ever a diplomatic wooer; one in haste never is.
Suffice it to say, Mrs. Medcroft, her cheeks flaming, her eyes wide with
indignation, suddenly left the side of the indomitable Freddie and
joined the party at the other end of the _entresol_, but not before she
had said to him with unmistakable clearness and decision,--

"You little wretch! How dare you say such silly things to me!"

The rebuff decisive! And he had only meant to be comforting, not to say
self-sacrificing. He'd be hanged if he could understand women nowadays.
Not these women, at least. In high dudgeon he stalked from the room. In
the door he met Brock.

"For two cents," he declared savagely, as if Brock were to blame, "I'd
take the next train for Paris."

Brock watched him down the hall. He drew a handful of small coins from
his pocket, ruefully looking them over. "Two cents," he said. "Hang it
all, I've nothing here but pfennigs and hellers and centimes."

In the course of his wanderings the disconsolate Freddie came upon Mrs.
Odell-Carney and pudgy Mr. Rodney. They were sitting in a quiet corner
of the reading-room. Mr. Rodney had had a hard day. He had climbed a
mountain--or, more accurately speaking, he had climbed half-way up and
then the same half down. He was very tired. Freddie observed from his
lonely station that Mr. Rodney was fast dropping to sleep,
notwithstanding his companion's rapid flow of small talk. It did not
take Freddie long to decide. He was an outcast and a pariah and he was
very lonely. He must have someone to talk to. Without more ado he bore
down upon the couple, and a moment later was tactfully advising the
sleepy Mr. Rodney to take himself off to bed,--advice which that
gentleman gladly accepted. And so it came about that Freddie sat face to
face with the last resort, at the foot of the _chaise-longue_, gazing
with serene adulation into the eyes of a woman who might have had a son
as old as he--if she had had one at all. She had been a coquette in her
salad days; there was no doubt of it. She had encountered fervid
gallants in all parts of the world and in all stations of life. But it
remained for the gallant Freddie Ulstervelt to bowl her over with
surprise for the first time in her long and varied career. At the end of
half an hour she pulled herself together and tapped him on the shoulder
with her fan, a quizzical smile on her lips.

"My dear Mr. Ulstervelt, are you trying to make love to me? You nice
Americans! How gallant you can be. I am quite old enough to be your
mother. Believe me, I thank you for the compliment. I can't tell you how
I appreciate this delicate flattery. You are very delicious. But," as
she arose graciously, "I'd follow Mr. Rodney's example if I were you.
I'd go to bed." Then, with a rare smile which could not have been more
chilling, she left him standing there.

"By Jove," he muttered, passing his hand across his eyes, as if
bewildered, "what was I saying to her? Good Lord, has it got to be a
habit with me? Was I making love to--_her_?" He departed for the
American bar.

Mrs. Rodney had but little sleep that night. She went to bed in a state
of worry and uncertainty, oppressed by the shadows which threatened
eternal darkness to the fair name of the family--however distantly
removed. Katherine's secret had in reality been news to her; she had
not paid enough attention to the Medcrofts to notice anything that they
did, so long as they did not do it in conjunction with the
Odell-Carneys. The Odell-Carneys were her horizon,--morning, noon, and
night. And now there was likelihood of that glorious horizon being
obscured by a sickening scandal in the vulgar foreground. Inspired by
Katherine's dreadful conclusions, the excellent lady set about to
observe for herself. During the entire evening she flitted about the
hotel and grounds with all the snooping instincts of a Sherlock Holmes.
She lurked, if that is not putting it too theatrically. From unexpected
nooks she emerged to view the landscape o'er; by devious paths she led
her doubts to the gates of absolute certainty, and then sat down to
shudder to her heart's content. It was all true! For four hours she had
been trying to get to the spot where she could see with her own eyes,
and at last she had come to it. Of course, she had to admit to herself
that she did not actually hear Mr. Medcroft tell Constance that he loved
her, but it was enough for her that he sat with her in the semi-darkness
for two unbroken hours, speaking in tones so low that they might just as
well have been whispering so far as her taut ears were concerned.

Moreover, other persons than herself had smilingly nudged each other and
referred to the couple as lovers; no one seemed to doubt it--nor to
resent it, which is proof that the world loves a lover when it
recognises him as one.

Mrs. Rodney also discovered that Mrs. Medcroft went to her room at nine
o'clock, at least three hours before the subdued tête-à-tête came to an
end. The poor thing doubtless was crying her eyes out, decided Mrs.
Rodney.

And now, after all this, is it to be considered surprising that the
distressed mother of Katherine did not sleep well that night? Nor should
her wakefulness be laid at the door of the tired Mr. Rodney, who was
ever a firm and stentorian sleeper.

Morning came, and with it a horseback ride for Brock and Miss Fowler.
That was enough for Mrs. Rodney; she would hold in no longer. Mrs.
Odell-Carney must be told; she, at least, must have the chance to escape
before the storm of scandal broke to muddy her immaculate skirts.
Forthwith the considerate hostess appeared before her guest with a
headful of disclosures. She had decided in advance that it would not do
to beat about the bush, so to speak; she would come directly to the
obnoxious point.

They were in Mrs. Odell-Carney's sitting-room. Mr. Odell-Carney was
smoking a cigaret on the balcony, just outside the window. Mrs. Rodney
did not know that he was there. It is only natural that he held himself
inhospitably aloof: Mrs. Rodney bored him to death. He did not hear all
that was poured out between them, but he heard quite enough to cause him
something of a pang. He distinctly heard his wife say things to Mrs.
Rodney that she had solemnly avowed she would not say,--things about the
Medcroft baby.

It goes without saying that Mrs. Odell-Carney refused to be surprised by
the disclosures. She calmly admitted that she had suspected Medcroft of
being too fond of his sister-in-law, but, she went on cheerfully, why
not? His wife didn't care a rap for him--she _said_ rap and nothing
else; Mrs. Medcroft had an affair of her own, dear child; she was not so
slow as Mrs. Rodney thought, oh, no. Mrs. Odell-Carney warmed up
considerably in defending the not-to-be-pitied Edith. She said she had
liked her from the beginning, and more than ever, now that she had
really come to the conclusion that her husband was the kind who sets his
wife an example by being a bit divaricating himself.

Mrs. Rodney fairly screeched with horror when she heard that Tootles was
"a poor little beggar," and "all that sort of thing, you know."

"My dear," said Mrs. Odell-Carney, hating herself all the time for
engaging in the spread of gossip, but femininely unable to withstand the
test, "your excellent cousin, Mrs. Medcroft, receives two letters a day
from London,--great, fat letters which take fifteen minutes to read in
spite of the fact that they are written in a perfectly huge hand by a
man--a man, d'ye hear? They're not from her husband. He's here. He
cannot have written them in London, don't you see? He--"

"I see," inserted Mrs. Rodney, who was afraid that Mrs. Odell-Carney
might think she didn't see.

"Mind your Mrs. Rodney, I'm terribly cut up about all this. She has--"

"Oh, I knew you would be," mourned Mrs. Rodney, her heart in her boots.
"You must just hate me for exposing you to--"

"Rubbish!" scoffed the other. "It isn't that. I've been through a dozen
affairs in which my best friends were frightfully--er--complicated. I
meant to say that I'm terribly cut up over poor Mrs. Medcroft. She's a
dear. Believe me, she's a most delicious sinner. Even Carney says that,
and he's very fastidious--and very loyal."

"They are married in name only," said Mrs. Rodney, beginning to sniffle.
She looked up and smiled wanly through her tears. "You know what I
mean. My grammar is terrible when I'm nervous." She pulled at her
handkerchief for a wavering moment. "Do you think I'd better speak to
Edith? We may be able to prevent the divorce."

"Divorce, my dear," gasped Mrs. Odell-Carney incredulously.

At this juncture Mr. Odell-Carney emerged from his shell, so to speak.
He stalked through the window and confronted the two ladies, one of
whom, at least, was vastly dismayed by his sudden appearance.

"Now, see here," he began without preliminary apology, "I won't hear of
a divorce. That's all rubbish--perfect rot, 'pon my soul. Wot's the use?
Hang it all, Mrs. Rodney, wot's the odds, so long as all parties are
contented? We can stand it, by Jove, if they can, don't you know. We
can't regulate the love affairs of the universe. Besides, I'm not going
to stand by and see a friend dragged into a thing of this sort--"

"A friend, Carney," exclaimed his wife.

"Well, it's possible, my dear, that he may be a friend. I know so many
chaps in London who might be doing this sort of thing, don't you know.
Who knows but the chap who's writing her these letters may be one of my
best friends? It doesn't pay to take a chance on it. I won't hear to it.
If Medcroft knows and his wife knows and Miss Fowler knows, why the
deuce should we bother our heads about it? Last night I heard the
Medcroft infant bawling its lungs out--teething, I daresay--but did I go
in and take a hand in straightening out the poor little beggar? Not I.
By the same token, why should I or anybody else presume to step in and
try to straighten out the troubles of its parents? It's useless
interference, either way you take it."

"I think it's all very entertaining and diverting," said Mrs.
Odell-Carney carelessly. She yawned.

"Do you really think so?" asked the doubting Mrs. Rodney. "I was so
afraid you'd mind. Your position in society, my dear Mrs.--"

"My position in society, Mrs. Rodney, can weather the tempest you
predict," said Mrs. Odell-Carney with a smile that went to Mrs. Rodney's
marrow.

"Oh, if--if you really don't mind--" she mumbled apologetically.

"Not at all, my dear madam," remarked Odell-Carney, carefully adjusting
his eyeglass. "It's quite immaterial, I assure you."




CHAPTER VI

OTHER RELATIONS


It is but natural to presume, after the foregoing, that the affairs of
the Medcrofts were under close and careful scrutiny from that
confidential hour. The Odell-Carneys were conspicuously nice and
agreeable to the Medcrofts and Miss Fowler. It may be said, indeed, that
Mr. Odell-Carney went considerably out of his way to be agreeable to
Mrs. Medcroft; so much so, in fact, that she made it a point to have
someone else with her whenever she seemed likely to be left alone with
him. The Rodneys struggled bravely and no doubt conscientiously to
emulate the example set by the Odell-Carneys, but it was hardly to be
expected that they could see new things through old-world eyes. They
grew very stiff and ceremonious,--that is, the Rodney ladies did. It was
their prerogative, of course: were they not cousins of the diseased?

Four or five days of uneasy pretence passed with a swiftness that
irritated certain members of the party and a slowness that distressed
the others. Days never were so short as those which the now recklessly
infatuated Brock was spending. He was valiantly earning his way into the
heart of Constance,--a process that tried his patience exceedingly, for
she was blithely unimpressionable, if one were to judge by the calmness
with which she fended off the inevitable though tardy assault. She kept
him at arm's length; appearances demanded a discreetness, no matter how
she may secretly have felt toward the good-looking husband of her
sister. To say that she was enjoying herself would be putting it much
too tamely; she was revelling in the fun of the thing. It mattered
little to her that people--her own cousins in particular--were looking
upon her with cold and critical eyes; she knew, down in her heart, that
she could throw a bomb among them at any time by the mere utterance of a
single word. It mattered as little that Edith was beginning to chafe
miserably under the strain of waiting and deception; the novelty had
worn off for the wife of Roxbury; she was despairingly in love, and she
was pining for the day to come when she could laugh again with real
instead of simulated joyousness.

"Connie, dear," she would lament a dozen times a day, "it's growing
unbearable. Oh, how I wish the three weeks were ended. Then I could have
my Roxbury, and you could have my other Roxbury, and everybody wouldn't
be pitying me and cavilling at you because I'm unhappily married."

"Why do you say I could have your other Roxbury?" demanded her sister on
one occasion. "You forget that father expects me to marry the viscount.
I--"

"You are so tiresome, Connie. Don't worry me with your love affairs--I
don't want to hear them. There's Mr. Brock waiting for you in the
garden."

"I know it, my dear. He's been waiting for an hour. I think it is good
for him to wait," said the other, with airy confidence. "What does Roxy
say in his letter this morning?"

"He says it will all be over in a day or two. Dear me, how I wish it
were over now! I can't endure Cousin Mary's snippishness much longer,
and as for Katherine! My dear, I hate that girl!"

"She's been very nice lately, Edith--ever since Freddie dropped me so
completely. By the way, Burton was telling me to-day that Odell-Carney
had been asking her some very curious and staggering questions about
Tootles and your most private affairs."

"I know, my dear," groaned Edith. "He very politely remarked to me last
night that Tootles made him think very strangely of a friend of his in
London. He wouldn't mention the fellow's name. He only smiled and said,
'Nevah mind, my dear, he's a c'nfended handsome dog.' I daresay he meant
that as a compliment for Tootles. She _is_ pretty, don't you think so,
dear?"

"She's just like you, Edith," said Constance, who understood things
quite clearly.

"Then, in heaven's name, Connie, why are they staring at her so
impolitely--all of them?"

"It's because she is so pretty. Goodness, Edith, don't let every little
thing worry you. You'll have wrinkles and grey hairs soon enough."

"It's all very nice for you to talk," grumbled Edith. "I'm going mad
with loneliness. You have a lover near you all the time--he's mad about
you. What have I? I'm utterly alone. No one loves me--no, not a soul--"

"You won't let them love you, Edith," said Constance jauntily. "They all
want to love you--all of them."

"I hate men," announced Mrs. Medcroft, retrospectively.

Developments of a most refractory character swooped down upon them at
the very end of the sojourn in Innsbruck. Every one had begun to
rejoice in the fact that the fortnight was almost over, and that they
could go their different ways without having anything really regrettable
to carry away with them. The Rodneys were going to Paris, the Medcrofts
to London, the Odell-Carneys (after finding out where the others were
bent) to Ostend. Freddie Ulstervelt suddenly announced his determination
to remain at the Tirol for a week or two longer. That very day he had
been introduced to a Mademoiselle Le Brun, a fascinating young Parisian,
stopping at the Tirol with her mother.

All might have ended well had it not been for the unfortunate
circumstance of Odell-Carney's making a purchase of the London
_Standard_ instead of the _Times_, as was his custom. His lamentations
over this piece of stupidity were cut short by the discovery of an
astonishing article upon the editorial page of the paper--an article
which created within him a sense of grave perplexity. He read the
headlines thrice and glanced through the text twice, neither time with
any very definite idea of what he was reading. His fingers shook as he
held the sheet nearer the window for a final effort to untangle the
incredible thing that lay before him in simple, unimpeachable black and
white.

"'Pon me word," he kept repeating to himself feebly. Then he got up and
went off in extreme haste to find his wife.

"My dear," he said to her in the carriage-way, "I must speak with you
alone." She was just starting off for a drive with Mrs. Rodney.

"Bad news, Carney?" she demanded, struck by his expression. She was
following him toward a remote corner of the approach. He did not reply
until they were seated, much nearer to each other than was their wont.

"Read that," he said, slipping the _Standard_ into her hands. "Wot do
you think of it?"

"My dear Carney, I don't know. Would you mind telling me what I am to
read?"

"The Medcroft thing. Right there."

She read the article, her husband watching her face the while. Surprise,
incredulity, dismay, succeeded each other in rapid changes. She was
reading in sheer amazement of the doings of Roxbury Medcroft in
connection with the County Council's sub-committee--_in London_! The
story went on to relate how Medcroft, implacable leader of the
opposition to the "grafters," suddenly had appeared before the committee
with the most astounding figures and facts to support his charges of
rottenness on the part of the "clique"; his unexpected descent upon the
scene had thrown the opposing leaders into a panic; every one had been
led to believe that he was sojourning in the east. As a matter of fact,
it was soon revealed, he had been in London, secretly working on the
problem, for nearly three weeks, keeping discreetly under cover in order
that his influence might not be thwarted. His array of facts, his bitter
arraignment of the men who were trying to force the building bill
through the Council, staggered the whole city of London. At that writing
it looked as though the bill would be overthrown, its promoters had been
so completely put to rout. The committee would be compelled to take
cognisance of the startling exposure--the people would demand a full
threshing out of the obnoxious deal. Roxbury Medcroft's name was on
every one's lips. The _Standard_ had profited by securing a great
"beat."

The Odell-Carneys looked at each other in wonder and perplexity. "What
does it mean?" asked the lady, her eyes narrowing.

"Look here, Agatha, this paper's at least two days old. Now, how the
devil can Medcroft be in London and Innsbruck at the same time. He _was_
here day before yesterday, wasn't he? I'm so c'nfended unobserving--"

"Yes, yes, he was here. And this paper--" She paused irresolutely.

"Says he was _there_. 'Pon my word, it's most uncanny. There's some
mystery here."

"I've got it, Carney! This is not Roxbury Medcroft."

"Good Gawd!"

"This explains everything. Heavens, Carney! This fellow is--is her
lover! She's running about the country with him. She's--"

"Her lover? 'Gad, my dear, he may have been so at one time, but he's the
other one's lover now, take my word for it. I say, 'pon my soul, this is
a charming game your friends the Rodneys have let us into. They--"

"My friends! Yours, you mean!" she retorted.

"Oh, come now! But let it go at that. They know, of course, that this
fellow isn't her husband, and yet, by Gad, Agatha, they've gone about
deliberately palming him off on us as the real article. They are
actually sanctioning the whole bloody--"

"Stop a moment, Carney," interrupted his wife. "The London chap may be
the fraud. Let us go slow, my dear."

"Slow? How the devil can we go slow in such fast company? No! This
fellow is the fraud. And they knew it too. They all know it. They--"

"Rubbish! You forget that the whole Rodney tribe is up in arms because
Medcroft is making love to his wife's sister. They're not assuming
anything there, let me tell you. And he's not Edith's lover. If he's not
her husband, he's playing a part that she understands and approves. And
this--this, my dear Carney, may account for the imaginary orphanage of
Tootles. Dear me, it's quite a tangle."

"I shall telegraph my solicitors at once for definite news. They'll know
whether the real Medcroft is in London, and then--well, by Jove, Agatha,
I can't tell just wot steps I'll take in regard to these Rodneys."

He went into a long tirade against the unfortunate Seattle-ites, as he
called them. "Understand me, Agatha, I don't blame Mrs. Medcroft. If
she's having an affair with this chap and can pull the wool--"

"But she isn't having an affair with this chap," cried Mrs.
Odell-Carney, her patience exhausted. "She's having an affair with a
chap in London--the one who writes--Good gracious! Of course! Why, what
fools we are. The real Medcroft is in London, and it is he who is
writing the letters. How stupid of me!"

"Aha!" exclaimed he triumphantly. "Of course, she's getting letters from
her husband. Why not? That's to be expected. But, by the everlasting
shagpat, do you suppose that her husband knows she's off here with
another fellow who masquerades as her husband? No!" He almost shouted
it. "I've never heard of anything so brazen. 'Gad, what nerve these
Americans have. Just to think of it!"

"I don't believe she is anything of the sort," declared his wife. "She's
as good as gold. You can't fool me, Carney. I know women."

"Deuce take it, Agatha, so do I. And wot's more, I know men."

"They're a poor lot, the kind you know. This pseudo Medcroft is not your
kind. He's a very clever chap and a gentleman."

"Now, look here, Agatha, don't imagine that I'm going to be such a cad
as to turn against 'em in their hour of trial. Not I. I'm more their
friend than ever. I'll help 'em to get away from here, and I'll bulldose
these Rodneys into holding their peace forever after. It's the Rodney
duplicity that I can't stand."

"Shall we stay here or shall we find an excuse to leave?" she asked
pointedly.

"We'll stay long enough for me to tell the Rodneys wot I think of 'em,
I'll have an answer to my despatch by night. Then, I should advise you
to have a talk with Mrs. Medcroft. You've invited her to the house, you
know. Tell her there can't be two Medcrofts. See wot I mean? We'll see
'em through this, but--well, you understand."

Meantime a telegram had preceded a lengthy letter into the department of
the police, both directed to Herr Bauer, who in reality was James
Githens, of Scotland Yard. The telegram had said: "Why do you say M. is
there? He is in London. Explain. Letter to-morrow." The letter had come,
and Mr. Githens, as well as the local police office, was "bowled over,"
to express it in Scotland Yard English. He had wired his employers that
"M. is still in Innsbruck. Cannot be in London." It was very clearly set
forth in the letter that Roxbury Medcroft was in London, and that Mr.
Githens, of Scotland Yard, had betrayed his trust. He was virtually
charged with playing into the hands of the enemy,--"selling out," as it
were. It readily may be expected that Mr. Githens was accused of being
in the employ of the "opposition." Moreover, it is but reasonable to
assume that he took vigorous steps at once to vindicate himself: which
accounts for the woe that lurked close behind the heels of a man named
Brock.

Brock and Constance had ridden off that afternoon to visit the historic
Schloss Ambras. The great castle had been saved for the very last of
their explorations; he had just been able to secure permission to visit
that part of the Duke's residence open on certain occasions to the
curious public. Edith had declined to accompany them. In the first
place, she was expecting the all-important message from her husband--she
was "on nettles," to quote her plaintive eagerness; in the second place,
she realised that as the crisis was at hand in the affairs of Brock and
Constance, her presence was not a necessary adjunct. Not only was she
expecting a message from Roxbury, but eagerly anticipating an outburst
of joyous news from the two who had, it seemed, very gladly left her
behind.

The young couple, returning by the lower road from the Schloss, came to
a resting place at a little eating-house and garden on the hillside
overlooking the river Inn. It is a quiet, demure, unfrequented place
among the crags, standing in from the white roadway a hundred feet or
more, clouded by gorgeous trees and sombre cliffs. It was to this
charming, romantic retreat that Brock led his fair, now tremulous
inamorata. She, too, knew that the hour for decision had come; it was in
the air, in the glint of his eyes, in the leaping of her heart. And she
knew what she would say to him, and what they would say to the world a
few hours hence. The mountains seemed to have lost their splendid frown;
they were beaming down upon her, tenderly caressing instead of bleak
and foreboding as they always had been before.

A rosy-cheeked girl came into the garden to serve them. Swift, cool
breezes were scurrying down the valley, bearing in their wake the soft
rain clouds that were soon to drench the earth and then radiantly pass
on. They were quite alone, seated in the shelter of a wide, overhanging
portico. A soft, green darkness was creeping over the mountainside,
pregnant with smell of the shower.

Constance ordered tea and a bite of something to eat for both. Brock's
gaze never left her exquisite face while she was engaged in the pretty
but rather self-conscious occupation of instructing the waitress. After
the girl had departed, he leaned forward across the little table and
said, a trifle hoarsely and disjointedly,--

"It was most appetising to watch you do that. I could live forever on
nothing but tea and sandwiches if you were to order them."

"You've said a great many silly things to me this afternoon."

"I wonder--" he stopped and lowered his voice--"I wonder if you would
call it silly if I were to tell you that I love you, very, very much."
His gloved hand dropped upon hers as she fumbled aimlessly with the menu
card; something in the very helplessness of that long slim hand drew the
strength of all his love toward it--all of this confident, arrogant love
that had come to be so sure of itself in these last days. His grey eyes,
dark with the purpose of his passion, took on a new and impelling glow;
she looked into them for an instant, the wavering smile of last resort
on her parted lips; then her lids dropped quickly and her lip trembled.

"I should still think you very silly," she said in a very low voice,
"unless--unless you _do_ love me."

His fingers closed so tightly upon hers that she looked up, her eyes
swimming with tenderness. Neither spoke for a long minute, but words
were not needed to tell what the soul was saying through the eyes.

"I _do_ love you--you know I do, Connie. I've loved you from the first
day. I cannot live without you, Connie, darling, you won't keep me
waiting? You will be my wife--you will marry me at once? You _do_ love
me, I know--I've known it for days and days--"

She whimsically broke in upon his passionate declaration, saying with a
pretty petulance: "Oh, you have? What insufferable conceit! I--"

He laughed joyously. "I never was so sure of anything in my life," he
said. "You couldn't help loving me, Constance; I've loved you so. You
don't have to tell me, dear; I know. Still, I'd like to hear you say,
with those dear lips as well as with your eyes, that you love me."

She put her hand upon the back of the broad one which held the other
imprisoned; there was a proud, earnest light in her eyes. "I _do_ love
you," she said simply.

"God, but I'm a happy man," he exulted. Forgetful of the time and the
place, he half arose and, leaning forward, kissed her full upon the
upturned lips.

There was a rattling of chinaware behind them. In no little confusion
both came tumbling down from Paradise, and found themselves under the
abashed scrutiny of a very red-faced young serving-woman.

"Oh, never mind," stammered Gretchen quite amiably. "I am used to that,
madame. A great many ladies and gentlemen come here to--to--what you
call it?" She placed the tea and sandwiches before them, her fingers
all thumbs, her cheeks aglow.

Brock pulled himself together. Very sternly he said: "This young lady is
to be my wife."

"Ach," said Gretchen, with a friendly smile and the utmost deference,
"that is what they all say, mein Herr." Then, giggling approvingly, she
bustled away.

Brock waited until she was out of sight. "She seems to be onto us, as
Freddie would say. But what do we care? I'd like to stand on top of the
Bandjoch and shout the news to the world. Wouldn't you, dearest?"

"The world wouldn't hear us, dear," she said coolly. "Besides, it's
raining up there. Just look at it sweeping down upon us! Goodness!"

He laughed hilariously, amused by her attempt to be casual and
indifferent. "You can't turn it off so easily as that, dearest," he
cried. "Come! While it rains we may plan. You will marry me--to-morrow?"

"No!" she cried, aghast. "How utterly ridiculous!"

"Well, then, day after to-morrow?"

"No, no--nor week after next. I--"

"See here, Connie, we've got some one else to consider as well as
ourselves. In order to square it all up for Edith, we must be able to
say to these people that we haven't been frivolling--that we are going
to be married at once. That will let Edith out of the difficulty, and
everything will look rosy at the outset. If we put it off, the world
will have said things in its ignorance that she can never refute, simply
because the world doesn't stop long enough to hear two sides of a story
unless they are given pretty closely together. Now Edith is counting on
us to put the peeping-Tom Rodneys and the charitable Carneys to rout
with our own little bombshell. They're saying nasty things about all
of us. They're calling you a vile thing for stealing your sister's
husband, and they're calling me a dog for what I'm doing. No telling
what they'll be saying if we don't step into the breach as soon as it is
opened. We can't afford to wait, no matter what Roxbury says when he
comes. We've just got to be able to forestall even dear old Roxbury.
Come! Don't you see? We must be married at once."

[Illustration: "'I _do_ love you,' she said simply."]

"Dear me," she murmured softly, "what will papa say?"

"My dear Constance, I will explain it all to your father when he gets
back from South America next winter."

It was now raining in torrents. They moved back into the darkest recess
of their shelter, and blissfully looked out upon the drenched universe
with eyes that saw nothing but sweet sunshine and fair weather.

The clattering of horses' hoofs upon the hard mountain road sounded
suddenly above the hiss of the rain-storm. It was quite dark by this
time, night having been hurried on by the lowering skies. A moment
later, three horsemen, drenched to the skin, drew up in front of the
inn, threw their reins over the posts, and dashed for shelter. They came
noisily into the arbour, growling and stamping their soggy feet.

"What, ho!" called one of the newcomers, sticking his head through a
window of the house. Brock and Miss Fowler looked on, amused by the
plight of the riders. Two of them were unquestionably officers of the
police; the third seemed to be an Englishman. They were gruff, burly
fellows, all of them. For a few minutes they stormed and growled about
their miserable luck in being caught in the downpour, ordering schnapps
and brandy in large and instant quantities. At last the Englishman, a
heavy, sour-faced man, turned his gaze in the direction of the lovers,
who sat quite close together in the dark corner. His gaze developed into
a stare, then a look of triumph. A moment later he was pointing out the
couple to his companions, all three peering at them with excited eyes.

Brock's face went red under the rude stare; he was on the point of
resenting it when the Englishman stepped forward. The American arose at
once.

"I've been looking for you, Mr. Medcroft--if that is your name," said
the stranger, halting in front of the table. "My name is Githens,
Scotland Yard. These men have an order for your arrest. I'd advise you
to go with them peaceably. The young woman will not be bothered. She is
free to go."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Brock angrily. Suddenly he felt a
chill of misgiving. What had Roxbury Medcroft been doing that he should
be subject to arrest?

"You are masquerading here as Roxbury Medcroft the architect. You are
not Medcroft. I have watched you for weeks. To-day we have learned that
Medcroft is in London. Your linen is marked with a letter B. You've
drawn money on a letter of credit together with a woman who signs
herself as Edith F. Medcroft. There is something wrong with you, Mr. B.,
and these officers, acting for the hotel and the State Bank, have been
instructed to detain you pending an investigation."

Mr. Githens was vindicating himself. He may have been a trifle
disconcerted by Miss Fowler's musical laugh and Brock's plain guffaw,
but he managed to preserve a stiff dignity. "It's no laughing matter.
Officers, this is your man. Take him in charge. Madam, as I understand
it, you are the alleged sister of the woman who is working herself off
as Mrs. Medcroft. It may interest you to know that your sister--if she
is your sister--has locked herself in her room and was in hysterics when
I left the hotel. She will be carefully guarded, however. She cannot
escape. As for you, madam, there is as yet no complaint against you, but
I wish to notify you that you may consider yourself under surveillance
until after your friends have had a hearing before the magistrate
to-morrow. As soon as it has ceased raining we will ask you to ride with
us to the city. As for Mr. B., he is in charge of these officers."

At eight o'clock that evening a solemn cavalcade rode into Innsbruck.
There were tears of expostulation in the eyes of the lone young woman,
flashes of indignation in those of the tall young man who rode beside
her.

The tall young man was going to gaol!




CHAPTER VII

THE THREE GUARDIANS


The anti-climax had struck the Hotel Tirol some hours before it came
upon Brock and Miss Fowler. It seems that Githens had gone first to the
big hostelry in quest of light on the very puzzling dilemma in which he
found himself involved. Inquiries at the office only served to stir up a
grave commotion among the clerks and managers, all of whom vociferously
maintained that the hotel was entirely blameless if any deception had
been practised. The Tirol did not tolerate anything that savoured of the
scandalous; the Tirol was a respectable house; the Tirol was ever
careful, always rigid in the protection of its good name; and so on and
so forth at great length and with great precision. But Mr. Githens had
two officers with him, and he demanded the person of the man calling
himself Roxbury Medcroft. The principal bank in the city was also
represented in the company of investigators. Likewise there was a
laconic gentleman from the British office.

Mr. Medcroft was out. Then, they agreed, it was necessary to see Mrs.
Medcroft, or the lady representing herself to be such. Mr. Githens was
permitted to go to her rooms in company with the manager of the hotel.
What transpired in those rooms during the next fifteen minutes would be
quite impossible to narrate short of an entire volume. Edith promptly
collapsed. Subsequently she became hysterical. She begged for time, and,
getting it, proceeded to threaten every one with prosecution.

"I _am_ Mrs. Medcroft!" she declared piteously. "Where is the American
consul? I demand the American consul!"

"What has the American government to do with it?" gruffly demanded Mr.
Githens.

"Mr.--Mr.--the gentleman whom you accuse is an American citizen!" she
stammered.

"Oho! Then he is not an Englishman?"

"I refuse to answer your questions. You are impertinent. I ask you, sir,
as the manager of this hotel, to eject this man from my rooms." The
manager smiled blandly and did not eject the man.

"But, madam," he said, "we have a right to know who and what you are. If
Mr. Medcroft is in London, this gentleman surely cannot be he, the real
Mr. Medcroft. We must have an explanation."

"I'll--I will explain everything to-morrow. Oh, by the way, is there a
telegram for me in the office? There must be. I've been expecting it all
day. I telegraphed to London for it."

"There is no telegram down there, madam."

At this juncture Mr. Odell-Carney appeared on the scene, uninvited but
welcome.

"Wot's all this?" he demanded sternly. Everybody proceeded at once to
tell him. Somehow he got the drift of the story. "Get out--all of you!"
he said. "I stand sponsor for Mrs. Medcroft. She _is_ Mrs. Medcroft,
hang you, sir. If you come around here bothering her again, I'll have
the law upon you. The Medcrofts are English citizens and--"

"Oh, they are, are they?" sneered Mr. Githens, with a sinister chuckle.

"Who the devil are you, sir?"

"I'm from Scotland Yard."

"I thought so. You've proved it, 'pon my soul. I am Odell-Carney.
Daresay you've heard of me."

"I know you by sight, sir. But that--"

"Clever chap, by Jove! And there's no but about it. Mr.--Mr.--never mind
what it is. I don't want to know your name. Mrs. Medcroft, will you
permit me to send my wife up to you? Mr. Manager, I insist that you take
this c'nfended rabble down to the office and tell them to go to the
devil? Don't do it up here; do it down there."

After some further discussion and protest, the Scotland Yard man and his
party left the room to its distracted mistress. It may be well to
remark, for the sake of local colour, that Tootles was crying lustily,
while Raggles barked in spite of all that O'Brien could do to stop him.

Odell-Carney sent his wife to Edith. A few minutes later, as he was
making his way to the office, he came upon Mrs. Rodney and Katherine,
hurrying, white-faced, to their rooms.

"Oh, isn't it dreadful?" wailed the former, putting her clenched hands
to her temples.

"Isn't wot dreadful?" demanded he brutally.

"About Edith! They're going to arrest her."

"Not if I can help it, madam. Where is Mr. Rodney?"

"He hasn't anything to do with it! We're as innocent as children unborn.
It's all shocking to us. Mr. Rodney shouldn't be arrested. His
rectitude is without a flaw. For heaven's sake, don't implicate him.
He's--"

"Madam, I am not a policeman," said Odell-Carney with scathing dignity.
"I want your husband to aid me in hushing this c'nfended thing."

"He shan't do it! I won't permit him to be mixed up in it," almost
screamed Mrs. Rodney. "I've just heard that he isn't a husband at all.
It's atrocious!"

"Bless me, Mrs. Rodney," roared Odell-Carney, "then you oughtn't to be
living with him if he isn't your husband. You're as bad as-- Hi, look
out, there! Don't do that!" Mrs. Rodney had collapsed into her
daughter's arms, gasping for breath.

"She's all upset, Mr. Odell-Carney," said Katherine, shaking her mother
soundly. "It's just nerves. If you see papa, send him to us. We must
take the _first_ train for--for anywhere. Will you tell Mrs.
Odell-Carney that if she'll get ready at once, papa will see to the
tickets."

"Tickets? But, my dear young lady, we're not going anywhere. We're going
to stay here and see your cousin out of her troubles. My wife is with
her now."

He started away as Mr. Rodney came puffing up the stairs. Odell-Carney
changed his mind and waited.

"Where's Edith?" panted Mr. Rodney.

"Good heavens!" groaned his wife, lowering her voice because three
chambermaids were looking on from a near-by turn. "Don't mention that
creature's name. Just think what she's got us into. He isn't her
husband. Alfred, telephone for tickets on to-night's train. To-morrow
will be too late. I won't stay here another minute. Everybody in the
hotel is talking. We'll all be arrested."

But Mr. Rodney, for once, was the head of the family. He faced her
sternly.

"Go to your rooms, both of you. We'll stay here until this thing is
ended. I don't give a hang what she's done, I'm not going to desert
her."

"But--but he isn't her husband," gasped Mrs. Rodney, struck dumb by this
amazing rebellion.

"But she's your cousin, isn't she, madam?" he retorted with fierce
irony.

"I disown her!" wailed his wife, _sans raison_.

"Go to your rooms!" stormed pudgy Mr. Rodney. Then, as they slunk away,
he turned to the approving Odell-Carney, sticking out his chest a trifle
in his new-found authority. "I say, Carney, what's to be done next?"

The other looked at him for a moment as if in doubt. Then his face
cleared, and he took the little man's arm in his.

"We'll have a drink first and then see," he said.

As they were entering the buffet, a cheery voice accosted them from
behind. Freddie Ulstervelt came up, real distress in his face.

"I say, count me in on this. I'll buy, if I may. I've just heard the
news from the door porter. Bloody shame, isn't it? I had Mademoiselle Le
Brun over to hear the band concert--she is related to that painter
woman, by the way; I told Katherine she was. Say, gentlemen, we'll stand
by Mrs. Medcroft, won't we? Count me in. If it's anything that money can
square, I'm here with a letter of credit six figures long."

"Join us," said Odell-Carney warmly. "You're a good sort, after all."

They sat down at a table. Freddie stood between them, a hand on the
shoulder of each. Very seriously he was saying:

"I say, gentlemen, we can't abandon a woman at a time like this. We must
stand together. All true sports and black sheep _should_ stand together,
don't you know."

It is possible that Odell-Carney appreciated the subtlety of this
compliment. Not so Mr. Rodney.

"Sports? Black sheep? Upon my soul, sir, I don't understand you," he
mumbled. Mr. Rodney, although he hailed from Seattle, had never known
anything but a clean and unrumpled conscience.

Freddie clapped him jovially on the shoulder. "It's all right, Mr.
Rodney. I'll take your word for it. But if we are black sheep we shan't
be blackguards. We'll stand by the ship. What's to be done? Bail 'em
out?"

It is of record that the three gentlemen were closeted with the officers
and managers for an hour or more, but it is not clear that they
transacted anything that could seriously affect the situation.

Mrs. Medcroft, despite Mrs. Odell-Carney's friendly offices, refused
point blank to discuss the situation. She did not dare to do or say
anything as yet. Her husband had not telegraphed the word releasing her
from the sorry compact. She loyally decided to stand by the agreement,
no matter what the cost, until she received word from London that he had
triumphed or failed in his brave fight against the "bloodsuckers."

"I will explain to-morrow, dear Mrs. Odell-Carney," she pleaded. "Don't
press me now. Everything shall be all right. Oh, how I wish Constance
were here! She understands. But she's off listening to silly love talk
and doesn't even care what happens to me. Burton, will you be good
enough to spank Tootles if she doesn't stop that screaming?"

By nine o'clock that night every one was discussing the significant
disappearance of Constance Fowler and the fraudulent husband of Mrs.
Medcroft. Just as Mr. Odell-Carney was preparing to announce to the
unfortunate wife that the couple had eloped in the most cowardly
fashion, Miss Fowler herself appeared on the scene, dishevelled,
mud-spattered, and hot, but with a look of firm determination in her
face. She strode defiantly through the main hall, ignoring the curious
gaze of the loungers, whisking the skirt of her habit with disdainful
abandon as she passed on to the lift. A few moments later she burst in
upon her sister, a very angry young person indeed. The Odell-Carneys
were down the hall discussing her strange defection; it was with no
little relief that they saw her enter the room.

"Are we alone?" demanded Miss Fowler, not giving Edith time to proclaim
her joy at seeing her. "Well, I've arranged a way to get him out," she
went on, her lips set.

"Out?" murmured Mrs. Medcroft.

"Of course. We can't let him stay in there all night, Edith. How much
money have you? Hurry up, please! Don't stare!"

"In where? Who's in where?"

"He's in gaol!" with supreme scorn. "Haven't you heard?"

Mrs. Medcroft began to cry. "Mr. Brock in gaol? Good heavens, what shall
I do? I--I was depending on him so much. He ought to be here at this
very instant. What has he been doing?"

"Edith Medcroft, stop sniffling, and don't think of yourself for a
while. It will do you a great deal of good. Where's your money?"

Ruthlessly she began to rummage Edith's treasure trunk. The other came
to her assistance after a dazed interval. The family purse came to
light.

"I have a little over four thousand crowns," she murmured helplessly.

"Give it me, quick. There's no time to waste. I have about five
thousand. It's all in notes, thank heaven. It isn't quite enough, but
I'll try to make it do. Don't stop me, Edith. I haven't time to answer
questions. He's in gaol, didn't you hear me say? And I love him!"

"But the--the money? Is it to bail him out with?"

"Bail? No, my dear, it's to _buy_ him out with. 'Sh! Is there any one in
that room? Well, then, I'll tell you something." The heads of the two
sisters were quite close together. "He's in a cell at the--the
prison-hof, or whatever you call it in German. It's gaol in English. I
have arranged to bribe one of the gaolers--his guard. He will let him
escape for ten thousand crowns--we must do it, Edith! Then Mr. Brock
will ride over the Brenner Pass and catch a train somewhere, before his
escape is discovered. I expect to meet him in Paris day after to-morrow.
Have you heard from Roxbury?"

"No!" wailed Roxbury's wife.

"He's a brute!" stormed Miss Fowler.

"Constance!" flared Mrs. Medcroft, aghast at this sign of lese-majesty.

"Don't tell anybody," called Constance, as she banged the door behind
her.

Soon after midnight a closely veiled lady drove up to a street corner
adjacent to the city prison, a dolorous-looking building which loomed up
still and menacing just ahead. She alighted and, dismissing the cab,
strode off quickly into the side street. At a distant corner, in front
of a crowded eating-house, two spirited horses, saddled and in charge of
a grumbling stable-boy, champed noisily at their bits. The young woman
exchanged a few rapid sentences with the boy, and then returned in the
direction from which she came. A man stepped out of a doorway as she
neared the corner, accosting her with a stealthy deference that
proclaimed him to be anything but an unwelcome marauder.

The conversation which passed between the slender, nervous young woman
and this burly individual was carried on in very cautious tones,
accompanied by many quick and furtive glances in all directions, as if
both were in fear of observers. At last, after eager pleading on one
side and stolid expostulation on the other, a small package passed from
the hand of the young woman into the huge paw of the man. The latter
gave her a quick, cautious salute and hurried back toward the gaol.

The veiled young woman, very nervous and strangely agitated, made her
way back to the spot where the horses were standing. Making her way
through the cluster of small tables which lined the inner side of the
sidewalk, she found one unoccupied at the extreme end, a position which
commanded a view of the street down which she had just come.

Half an hour passed. Midnight revellers at the surrounding tables began
to take notice of this tall, elegant, nervous young woman with the
veiled face. It was plain to all of them that she was expecting someone;
naturally it would be a man, therefore a lover. Her nervousness grew as
the minutes lengthened into the hour. A clock in a tower near by struck
one. She was now staring with wide, eager eyes down the street, alertly
watching the approach of anyone who came from that direction. Twice she
half arose and started forward with a quick sigh of relief, only to sink
back again dejectedly upon discovering that she had been mistaken in the
identity of a newcomer.

Half-past one, then two o'clock. The merry-makers were thinning out; she
was quite alone at her end of the place. By this time a close observer
might have noticed that she was trembling violently; there was an air of
abject fear and despair in her manner.

Why did he not come? What had happened? Had the plot failed? Was he even
now lying wounded unto death as the result of his effort to escape
captivity? A hundred horrid thoughts raced through her throbbing,
overwrought brain. He should have been with her two hours ago--he should
now be far on his way to freedom. Alas, something appalling had
happened, she was sure of it.

At last there hove in sight, coming from the direction in which lay the
prison, a group of three men. It was a jaunty party, evidently under the
influence of many libations. They came with arms linked, with dignified
but unsteady gait, their hats well back on their heads. In the middle
was a very tall man, flanked on one side by a very short fat one, on the
other by a slender youth who wanted to sing.

She recognised them and would have drawn back to a less exposed spot,
but the slender youth saw her before she could do so. He shouted to his
companions as if they were two blocks away.

"There she is! Hooray!"

They bore down upon her. The next instant they were solemnly shaking
hands with her, much to her dismay.

"Cons'ance, we've been lookin' f-fer you ever'-where in town. W-where on
earth 've you been?" asked Mr. Rodney thickly, with a laudable attempt
at severity.

"Ever sinch 'leven o'clock, Conshance," supplemented Freddie, trying to
frown.

"My dear Miss F-Fowler," began Odell-Carney in, his most suave manner,
"it is after two o'clock. In--in the morning at that. You--you shouldn't
be sittin' here all 'lone thish--this hour in the morning. Please come
home with us. Your mother hash--has ask us to fetch you--I mean your
sister. Beg pardon."

"I--I cannot go, gentlemen," she stammered. "Please don't insist--please
don't ask why. I cannot go--"

"I shay, Conshance, by Jove, the joke's on you," exclaimed Freddie. "I
know who 't ish you're waitin' f-for. Well, he can't come. He's locked
in."

"Freddie, you are drunk!" in deep scorn.

"I know it," he admitted cheerfully. "We've looked ever'where for you.
We're your frien's. He said it was at 'n eatin'-house. We've been ever'
eatin'-house in Inchbrook. Was here first of all. Leave it to Rodney.
Wassen we, Rodney? You bet we was. You wassen here at 'leven o'clock.
Come on home, Conshance. 'S all right. He's safe. He can't come."

"But he will come, unless something terrible has happened to him," she
almost sobbed in her desperation. "Cousin Alfred, _won't_ you go to the
gaol and see what has happened?"

Mr. Rodney took off his hat gallantly and would have gone to do her
bidding had not Mr. Odell-Carney laid a restraining grip upon his
shoulder.

"Let me explain, Miss F-Fowler. You shee--see, he told us you'd be here,
but, hang it all, you wassen here wh-when we came. Never give up, says I
to my frien's. We'll search till doomshday. I knew we'd find you if we
kep' on searching. Thash jus' wot I said to Roddy, didn' I, Roddy? We
mush have overlokked yo' when we were here at 'leven."

"I was not here at eleven," she cried breathlessly.

"Thash jus' what I tol' 'em," insisted Freddie triumphantly. "I saysh:
'What's use lookin' here? She--she isn't on top of any these tables,'
an' I--I knew you wassen unner 'em. You ain't--"

"Permit me," interrupted Odell-Carney with grave dignity. "Your friend,
Miss Fowler, is not in gaol. He is out--"

"Not in gaol!" she almost shrieked. "I knew it! I knew it could not go
wrong. But where is he?"

"He's out on bail. We bailed him out at half-past ten--Wot!" She had
leaped to her feet with a short scream and was clutching his arm
frantically.

"On bail? At half-past ten? Good heavens, then--then--oh, are you sure?"

"Poshtive, abs'lutely."

"Then what has become of my nine thousand crowns?"

"You c'n search me, Conshance," murmured Freddie.

"I don' know what you 're talkin' 'bout, Cons'ance," said Mr. Rodney in
a very hurt tone. "We--we put up security f'r five thous'n dollars,
that's what we did. This is all the thanks we getsh for it. Ungrachful!"

Constance had been thinking very hard, paying no heed to his maudlin
defence. It rapidly was dawning upon her that these men had secured her
lover's release on bail at half-past ten o'clock, an hour and a half
before she had given her bribe of nine thousand crowns to the gaoler.
That being the case, it was becoming clear to her that the wretch
deliberately had taken the money, knowing that Brock was not in the
prison, and with the plain design to rob her of the amount. It was a
transaction in which he could be perfectly secure; bribing of public
officials is a solemn offence in Austria and Germany. She could have no
recourse, could make no complaint. Her money was gone!

"Where is Mr. Br--Mr. Medcroft?" she demanded, her voice full of
anxiety. If he were out of gaol, why had he failed to come to the
meeting-place?

"He's locked in," persisted Freddie.

"That's just it, Miss Fowler," explained Odell-Carney glibly. "You
shee--see, it was this way: we got him out on bail on condition he'd
'pear to-morrow morning 'fore the magistrate. Affer we'd got him out, he
insisted on coming 'round here so's he could run away with you. That
wassen a gennelmanly thing to do, affer we'd put up our money. We
coul'n' afford have him runnin' away with you. So we had him locked in a
room on top floor of the hotel, where he can't get out 'n' leave us to
hold the bag, don't you see. He almos' cried an' said you'd be waitin'
at the church or--or something like that bally song, don't you know, an'
as a lash reshort, to keep him quiet like a good ferrer--feller, we said
we'd come an' get you an' 'splain everything saffis--sasfac--ahem!
sassisfac'rly."

She looked at then with burning eyes. Slow rage was coming to the
flaming point; And for this she had sat and suffered for hours in a
street restaurant! For this! Her eyes fell upon the limp horses and the
dejected stable-boy. Two hours!

"You will release him at once!" she stormed. "Do you hear? It is
outrageous!"

Without another word to the dazed trio, she rushed to the curb and
commanded the boy to assist her into the saddle. He did so, in stupid
amazement. Then she instructed him to mount and follow her to the Tirol
as fast as he could ride. The horses were tearing off in the darkness a
moment later.

The three guardians stood speechless until the clatter died away in the
distance. Then Mr. Rodney pulled himself together with an effort and
groaned in abject horror.

"By thunner, the damn girl is stealin' somebody's horshes!"




CHAPTER VIII

THE PRODIGAL HUSBAND


The unlucky Brock, wild with rage and chagrin, had paced his temporary
prison in the top storey of the Tirol from eleven o'clock till two,
bitterly cursing the fools who were keeping him in durance more vile
than that from which they had generously released him. He realised that
it would be unwise to create a disturbance in the house by clamouring
for freedom, because, in the first place, there already had been scandal
enough, and in the second place, his distrustful bondsmen had promised
faithfully to seek out the devoted Connie and apprise her of his
release. He had no thought, of course, that in the mean time she might
be duped into paying a bribe to the guard.

Not only was he direfully cursing the trio, but also the addlepated
Medcroft and his own addlepated self. It is to be feared that he had
harsh thoughts of all the Medcrofts, as far down as Raggles. His dream
of love and happiness had turned into a nightmare; the comedy had become
a tragic snarl of all the effects known to melodrama. Bitterly he
lamented the fact that now he could not go before the assembled critics
in the morning and proclaim to them that Constance was his wife. From
this, it readily may be judged that Brock was not familiar with all the
details of the vigorous Miss Fowler's plan. As a matter of fact, he did
not know that he was expected to fly the country like a fugitive. She
had known in her heart that he would never agree to a plan of that sort;
it was, therefore, necessary for her to deceive him in more ways than
one. Plainly speaking, Brock had laboured under the delusion that she
merely proposed to bribe the gaoler into letting him off for the night,
in order that by some hook or crook they could be married early in the
morning--provided her conception of the State marriage laws as they
applied to aliens was absolutely correct. (It was not correct, it may be
well to state, although that has nothing to do with the case at this
moment.) If he had but known that she contemplated paying ten thousand
crowns for his surreptitious release, making herself criminally liable,
and that he was expected to catch a night train across the border, it is
only just to his manhood to say that he should have balked, even though
the act were to cost him years of prison servitude--which, of course,
was unlikely in the face of the explanation that would be made in proper
time by the real Medcroft. It thus may be seen that Brock not only had
been vilely imprisoned twice in the same night, but that he was very
much in the dark, notwithstanding his attempt to make light of the
situation.

It occurred to him, at two o'clock, that pacing the floor in the agony
of suspense was a very useless occupation. He would go to bed. Morning
would bring relief and surcease to his troubled mind. Constance was
doubtless sound asleep in her room. Everything would have been explained
to her long before this hour; she would understand. So, with the return
of his old sophistry, he undressed and crawled into the strange bed.
Somehow he did not like it as well as the cot in the balcony below.

Just as he was dropping off into the long-delayed slumber, he heard a
light tapping at his door. He sat up in bed like a flash, thoroughly
wide awake. The rapping was repeated. He called out in cautious tones,
asking who was there, at the same time slipping from bed to fumble in
the darkness for his clothes.

"'Sh!" came from the hallway. He rushed over and put his ear to the
door. "It is I. Are you awake? I can't stay here. It's wrong. Listen:
here is a note--under the door. Good night, darling! I'm heartbroken."

"Thank God, it's you!" he cried softly. "How I love you, Constance!"

"'Sh! Edith is with me! Oh, I wish it were morning and I could see you.
I have so much to say."

Another querulous voice broke in: "For heaven's sake, Connie, don't
stand here any longer. Our reputations are bad enough as it is. Good
night--Roxbury!" He distinctly heard the heartless Edith giggle. Then
came the soft, quick swish of garments and the nocturnal visitors were
gone. He picked up the envelope and, waiting until they were safely down
the hall, turned on the light.

"Dearest," he read, "it was not my fault and I know it was not yours.
But, oh, you don't know how I suffered all through those hours of
waiting at the café. They did not find me until after two. They were
drunk. They tried to explain. What do you think the authorities will do
to me if they find that I gave that horrid man bribe money? Really, I'm
terribly nervous. But he won't dare say anything, will he? He is as
guilty as I, for he took it. He took it knowing that you were free at
the time. But we will talk it over to-morrow. I've just got back to the
hotel. I wouldn't go to bed until Edith brought me up to hear your dear
voice. I am so glad you are not dead. It is impossible to release you
to-night. Those wretches have the key. How I loathe them! Edith says the
hotel is wild with gossip about _everything_ and _everybody_. It's just
awful. Be of good heart, my beloved. I will be your faithful slave until
death. With love and adoration and kisses. Your own Constance.

"P.S. Roxbury has not made a sign, Edith is frantic."

Several floors below the relieved and ecstatic Brock, Mrs. Medcroft was
soon urging her sister to go to bed and let the story go until daylight.
She persisted in telling all that she had done and all that she had
endured.

"We must never let him know that we actually gave that wretch nearly
twenty-five hundred dollars, Edith. He would never forgive us. I admit
that I was a fool and a ninny, so don't tell me I am. I can see by the
way you are looking that you're just crazy to. It's all Roxbury's fault,
anyway. Why should he get up and make a speech in London without letting
us know? Just see how it has placed us! I think Mr. Brock is an angel to
do what he has done for you and Roxbury. Yes, my dear, you will have to
confess that Roxbury is a brute--a perfect brute. I'm sure, if you have
a spark of fairness in you, you must hate him. No, no! Don't say
anything, Edith. You _know_ I'm right."

"I'm not going to say anything," declared Edith angrily. "I'm going to
bed."

"Edith, if you don't mind, dear, I think I'll sleep with you." After a
moment of deep reflection she added plaintively: "There is so much that
I just have to tell you, deary. It--it won't keep till daylight."

Bright and early in the morning, the tired, harassed night-farers were
routed from their rooms by a demand from the management of the hotel
that they appear forthwith in the private office. This order included
every member of Mr. Rodney's party, excepting the Medcroft baby.
Considerably distressed and very much concerned over the probable
outcome of the conference, the Rodney forces made their way to the
offices--not altogether in an open fashion, but by humiliatingly unusual
avenues. The Rodney family came down the back stairs. Brock was solemnly
ushered through the public office by Mr. Odell-Carney and Freddie
Ulstervelt. It is not stretching the truth to say that they were sour
and sullen, but, as may be suspected, from peculiarly different causes.
At last all were congregated in the stuffy office, very much subdued and
very much at odds with each other. Mr. Githens was there. Likewise the
gentleman from the bank and a prominent person from the department of
police.

Miss Fowler glanced about uneasily, and was relieved to discover that
her treacherous gaoler was not there to confront her with charges. It
had occurred to her that he might, after all, have tricked her into
committing a crime against the government.

It was quite noticeable that Mrs. Rodney and Katherine did not speak to
the Medcroft contingent--in fact, they ignored them quite completely.
Mrs. Rodney was very pale and very deeply distressed. She cast many
glances at the red-eyed and sheepish Mr. Rodney,--glances that meant
much to the further torture of his soul.

"I am sorry to inform you, Herr Rodney, that the rooms which you now
occupy, and those of your friends, are no longer at your disposal. They
have been engaged for from sometime this day by a--"

"Look here," interrupted Odell-Carney bluntly, "if you mean that we are
not wanted here any longer, why not say so? Don't lie about it. We are
leaving to-day, in any event, so wot's the odds? Now, come down to
facts: why are we summoned here like a crowd of school children?"

The manager looked at Mr. Githens and then at the police officer.

"Ahem! It seems that Herr Grabetz of the police department desires to
ask some questions of your party in my presence. You will understand,
sir, that the hotel has been imposed upon by--by these people. It seems,
also, that the bank insists upon having some light thrown upon the
methods by which Mrs. Medcroft secures money on her letter of credit."

"You are welcome to all that, sir," declared Mr. Odell-Carney, "but I am
interested to know just why my wife and I are brought into this affair."

"Because you are guests of Mr. Rodney, sir, I regret to state. We have
no complaint against you, sir. _You_ are well known here. The--the
others are not. They are--what you call it? Humbugs! It may be that they
also have swindled you!"

Mr. Rodney, at this point, leaped to his feet and rushed over to shake
his fist in the face of the insulting hotel man. But Edith Medcroft
arose suddenly, like a tragedy queen, and spoke, her clear, determined
voice stilling the turbulent spirit of her outraged host.

"One moment, please," she said. "This all can be satisfactorily
explained. No wrong has been done. It will all be cleared up in time.
We--"

"In time?" interrupted the manager. "Madam, _this_ is the time. You are
here with a man who is not your husband, yet who purports to be such."

"It may throw some light on the matter if I announce that the gentleman
in question is _my_ affianced husband." It was Miss Fowler who spoke.
Every one stared at her as she moved over to Brock's side.

"If you will look in the office, you will find a telegram there for me,"
went on Mrs. Medcroft, pale but absolutely confident. The manager called
out through the door. Absolute silence reigned while the reply was
awaited.

"No telegram for Mrs. Medcroft last night or to-day," announced the
manager sternly, as he glanced through the slim bunch of blue envelopes.
"There are four here for a Mr. Brock, who has not yet arrived in--"

"Brock!" shouted three voices in one.

A tall man, forgetting his English and his eyeglass, sprang forward and
grabbed the telegrams from the manager's hand. "Holy mackerel! Give 'em
here!" he shouted. Two eager, beautiful young women were hanging to his
elbows as he ruthlessly broke one of the seals. "The chump! It's from
Rox! They're all from Rox--and they are two or three days old!"

Just then the unexpected happened.

The office door opened with a bang, and the real Roxbury Medcroft
stepped into the room. He halted just inside the door and looked about
in momentary bewilderment.

"This is a private--" began the manager, stepping forward. A flying
figure sped past him; a delighted little shriek rang in his ears. He saw
Edith Medcroft hurl herself into the arms of her own husband. At the
same moment Brock bounded across the room and pounced eagerly upon the
welcome intruder.

"Good Gawd!" gasped Odell-Carney. "Wot's all this?" His wife suddenly
began fanning herself, searching for breath.

"_This_ is my husband!" cried Edith, triumph in her voice, tears in her
eyes, as she faced the astonished observers. "Now, what have you to
say?"

It was a perfectly natural but not an especially obvious question. The
little manager threw up his hands and cried out in a sad mixture of
French, English and Helvetian,--

"What? Another husband? Madam, how many more do you propose to inflict
us with? We cannot allow it! The management will not permit you to
change husbands the instant a new guest arrives in the house. It is not
to be heard of--no, no!"

"Are you afraid that the books won't balance?" asked Brock with a joyous
grin, a great load off his heart. "Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to
introduce Mr. Roxbury Medcroft, my friend and fellow conspirator. He is
the husband of this lady, not I. I am to be the husband of _this_ lady,
thank God."

There was a moment of absolute silence--it may have been stupor. The two
audiences faced each other with emotions widely at variance. It was Mrs.
Rodney who spoke first.

"Is this true, Edith?" she quavered.

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Edith, her eyes dancing.

"Then, what are you doing here with a man who isn't your husband?"
demanded Mrs. Rodney, suddenly aflame.

"I can explain everything to you later on, Mrs. Rodney," interposed Mrs.
Odell-Carney calmly. She had divined at least a portion of the truth,
and she was clever enough to put herself on the right side. Edith cast
an involuntary look of surprise at the Englishwoman. "I have known
everything from the first. Mrs. Medcroft and I are closer friends than
you may have thought." She gave Edith a meaning look, and a moment later
was whispering to her in a private corner of the private office: "My
dear, I don't know what it means, but you must tell me everything as
soon as possible. I am your friend. Whatever it all is, it's ripping!"

There was a great deal of pow-wowing and chatter, charges and
refutations, excuses and explanations. Mr. Medcroft finally waved every
one aside in the most _dégagé_ manner imaginable.

"Don't crowd me! Hang it all, I'm not a curiosity. There isn't anything
to go crazy about. My friend, Mr. Brock, has just done me a trifling
favour. That's all. The whole story will be in the London papers this
morning. Buy 'em. I'm going up to my wife's room to see my baby. I'll
come down and explain everything when I've had a bit of a breathing
spell. It's annoying to have had this fuss about a simple little matter
of generosity on the part of my friend, who, I've no doubt, has been a
most exemplary husband. I'll see to it, by Gad, that he receives the
proper apologies. And, for that matter, my wife may have something to
say about the outrage that has been perpetrated."

He took it all very much as if the world owed him an explanation and not
_vice versa_. As he was stalking from the room, Brock bethought himself
to ask,--

"When did you arrive, old man?"

"Last night on the 12.10. I registered as Smith. It was so late that I
decided not to disturb Edith. They said in the office that you'd gone to
bed, Brock. Now that I recall it, they said it in a very odd way too.
In fact, one of the clerks asked if I had it in for you too."

"You were here all night?" murmured Constance in plaintive misery.

"Well, not precisely all night, Connie. Half of it," replied Roxbury.
"Brock, you ass, I telegraphed you I was coming and asked you to meet me
at the station. I telegraphed twice from London and--"

"Don't call me an ass," grated Brock. "Why didn't you send 'em to me as
Medcroft? I haven't been Brock until this very morning."

"'Pon my soul, Brock, it was rather stupid of me," he confessed
sheepishly. "But, you see," with an inspired smile, "one of 'em was to
congratulate you on winning Connie. By Jove, you know, I _couldn't_ very
well address that one to myself."

"But--but he hadn't won me," stammered Constance Fowler.

"Edith," said Roxbury, deep reproach in his voice, "you wrote me that a
week ago!" Edith merely squeezed his arm.

Odell-Carney came forward and extended his hand. "Permit me to introduce
myself, sir. I am George Odell-Carney. It has given me great pleasure to
serve you without knowing you. In my catalogue of personalities you have
posed intermittently as a demmed bounder, a deceived husband, a betrayed
lover, a successful lover, and a lot of other things I can't just now
recall. Acting on the presumption that you might have been a friend in
distress, I worked hard in your interest. Now I discover, to my
gratification, you are a perfect stranger whom I am proud to meet.
Permit me to offer my warmest felicitations and to assure you that Mr.
Brock will make a splendid brother-in-law." He hesitated a moment and
then went on: "So _you_ are the chap that really put in those c'nfended
memorial windows. 'Pon me word, sir, they are the rottenest--"

"Carney!" came the sharp reminder from his wife.

"I should have said," revised Mr. Odell-Carney, "you are the chap who
played the deuce with the building grafters in the County Council.
Remarkable!"

"Yes," said Roxbury, striving to grasp something of the situation as it
appeared to the other. "We beat them. The bill is lost. It will never go
to the Council. The sub-committee will not recommend it. Thanks, Brock,
old man; you have saved London a good many millions, I daresay. It was
you who did it, after all."

Before noon the hotel was agog with the full details of the remarkable
story. Cabled despatches in the newspapers gave the gist of the clever
trick played by the Medcrofts, and the whole of England was to ring with
the stories of Mrs. Medcroft's pluck and devotion. Everybody was buying
the papers and staring with admiration at Mrs. Medcroft.

The management of the Tirol implored the Medcrofts to remain--forever!
The bank and the police were profuse in apologies and explanations, and
Mr. Githens departed by the first train.

Freddie Ulstervelt, killing two birds with one stone, arranged a
splendid dinner for that night in honour of the prodigal husband of
Edith and also in open compliment to the vivacious Mademoiselle Le Brun.

Later in the day, it occurred to him that he might just as well kill
three birds as two, so he planned to announce the betrothal of Miss
Fowler and Mr. Brock, the wedding to take place a fortnight hence in
Mayfair. The Rodneys were invited to "stop over" for the spread. It is
left for the reader to supply the answer to this simple question,--

Did they stop over?