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THE next morning Brunt went off to the tennis court with some fellows he knew, while I started up Pike's Peak Avenue on a shopping expedition in search of a birthday present for my sister May. If I were the hero of this story I should not confess how fond I am of shopping, but, as it is, there can be no harm in owning that I spent a good two hours among the Chinese bric-a-brac and Indian and Mexican curiosities displayed in the shops. I soon lighted upon a pretty trifle for May, but meanwhile I had come across a couple of Navajo blankets and some skins that were not to be so easily disposed of. Not that I had any hundred-dollar bills to squander on such things, and it was the hundred-dollar ones which invariably took my fancy; but they were spread out invitingly and one could enjoy them without incommoding anybody. What took my eye most of all was a royal Bengal tiger skin, with head and paws finely mounted, which an enterprising furrier had imported on speculation. He was a splendid fellow—the tiger, I mean,—magnificently striped. He must have been the lord of his jungle, and the more I looked at him, the more I wanted him to belong to John. I could not conveniently purchase him with my unaided resources, but it struck me that if ever an occasion should arise for the Pow-wow to make John a present, this would be the fellow to choose.
Finding it was getting on toward noon, I took leave of his feline majesty, and strolled up the avenue toward the tennis ground. Though the thermometer had spent the night burrowing down well below zero, it had arrived at less inhuman regions early in the morning, and now, at noon, the sun was so strong, that I was not surprised to see Mrs. Ellerton, well wrapped up, sitting in a steamer chair on her south piazza. It looked very pleasant there, and thinking that the tennis would be about over, I took the opportunity to make my party call.
"This is very good of you, Mr. Dickson," said the lady, coming forward, with a pleasant air of welcome, which reminded me of her niece. There is a strong family resemblance, in spite of their unlikeness.
"Lilian has not come in from riding, and I am quite too lazy to do anything but sit in the sun and be glad of pleasant company."
"Thanks," I said, taking a chair. "How surprisingly warm the sun is."
I should not report such very commonplace observations, only I fancy they give an air of naturalness to the story, and besides, if I were to confine myself exclusively to picked conversations, it would be making us out more brilliant than we were.
"Your niece is very fond of riding?" I went on, in the same vein.
"Oh, very! I was, myself, at her age, though I never had her fancy for riding alone. She says she does not often find any one who is as good company as Tiger."
"Ah ha," thought I to myself. "Your niece is communing with the Muse, O unsuspecting aunt!"
"Hasn't she a dog?" I asked—audibly.
"No, and it is a great pity, for she is fond of dogs. She lost a beautiful Irish setter last year—poor Cop! (short for Copper). He was kicked by a vicious horse. It was a most distressing thing. We had just come in from driving, when the accident occurred. It was beginning to rain a little. Dear old Cop had been so happy, running on ahead of us, and scampering about the fields after prairie-dogs which he never caught. I remember that very day, Lilian said that she did believe that Cop knew as much as grown folks! It was a passing horse that did it. Poor Cop was flung to one side of the road, in a dreadful condition, and there he lay, moaning like a child. Lilian was beside him in an instant. We saw that he must die, and she would not have him moved. We laid the carriage rug over him to keep the rain off, and then she sat down beside him, in all the mud, and put her hand under his head, and he stopped moaning and licked her hand. Poor fellow! he died licking her hand."
I looked out upon the scene of the tragedy with much sympathy as Mrs. Ellerton rambled on.
"She won't have another dog, which is a pity. I wanted to give her one on her birthday, soon after, but she suspected my intention and begged me not to do so. He was a setter and quite as handsome as Cop—with even a better pedigree,—but Lilian declared she did not want a dog as handsome as Cop. I told her how fond she would get of him, and she said that was just the trouble. She knew Cop would never have loved another mistress, and she did not wish to love another dog, for the present at least. It would be too cold-blooded. Afterward she relented so far as to beg me to buy him for myself. She said she would steel her heart against him. Of course I didn't want him. What should I do with a dog? They are a great care."
"Don't you think she would have got fond of him?" I asked. For this was truly interesting. A girl who would not have another dog would be just the girl to cherish a hopeless affection. Besides which, here was more circumstantial evidence in the case. I remembered a particularly taking poem "To Cop."
Mrs. Ellerton was saying: "Why, no! She wouldn't have allowed herself to grow fond of the new dog. She said she wouldn't."
"Has she such a strong will?"
It began to seem as though the two Lilians might be a good deal alike.
"Yes, she has a strong will, but she says she isn't stubborn, and I don't know that she is. Only she wont drive a horse with a check-rein on. She does not approve of the overhead checks they use here. Itis rather a trial to me. I like to see a horse's head held up."
"She doesn't seem morbid, either," I ventured to remark, feeling somewhat like a detective.
"No, she doesn't seem morbid; and there she is," Mrs. Ellerton added, as the sound of a horse's hoofs caused her to look up.
I ruminated a good deal on that answer of Mrs. Ellerton's. Was it purposely evasive? Did she know about the "worm i' the bud"? If not, why did she merely echo my words, instead of frankly saying "She is not morbid."
For the moment I had only time to get to the block and help the young lady dismount. She accepted my help with a delicious lightness, as though it might amuse me, and couldn't hurt her.
"I have been watching Mr. Brunt at tennis," she said, as she stroked the tiger-eye neck, which arched itself in grateful response.
"How did you like his playing?"
"Like it?" she cried, with mock solemnity. "I regarded it with fear and respect."
"He does play well, doesn't he?" I asked, for lam immensely proud of John's tennis. So different from what you would expect of a literary man.
"He plays to win!" she said, and then, laughing: "I trust I may never be called upon to play against him."
"He does serve like a streak of lightning," I admitted, "and it is not easy to surprise him."
Miss Lamb disappeared within the house, returning in a moment with a letter in her hand.
"I suppose," she said, with a slight hesitation, "I suppose Miss Lamb's letters are forwarded from your office, but it seems rather a round-about way of approaching her, when you are on the spot. Would it be asking too much of you, to forward this to her?"
"Not in the least," I said. "It shall go this very day."
"Thank you."
She handed me the letter and then stood striking her habit lightly with her riding whip.
"Is Miss Lamb at home?" she asked, with an odd look which I have since recalled. "Will she be likely to get my letter without delay?"
"She is away from home just now, but I know her address. There shall be no delay."
"I am glad of that." Then, after a slight pause: "I was wondering how soon I was likely to have an answer."
I made a grave calculation.
"I think," said I, "that you might have an answer a little sooner than usual, say in six days, if she replies immediately, as she doubtless will do if the letter is important,"—this with a diplomatic inflection which might be taken as interrogatory or not.
"It is not exactly that," she said, thoughtfully. Then, looking up with a deprecating smile, and a pretty motion of her head: "Oh no! It is not in the least important. She may not answer it at all, though I hope she will. Don't you think she will?"
"I am sure of it!" I cried, with effusion. "I know how much she values your letters."
She looked at me with the same odd smile.
"How well you and Mr. Brunt know Miss Lamb!" she said. "But I must go now and dress for luncheon. Perhaps you will stay. No? Some other time, then."
"Be sure you don't forget my letter," she called, over her shoulder, as—she stood in the doorway.
A riding habit is extremely becoming to some women.
I do not know why it had not occurred to me that I should be asked to forward that letter, for of course nothing could be more natural. But the possibility had not entered my head, and as I walked back to the hotel with the thing in my pocket I did not feel at all easy in my mind. Somehow when the letters were coming in due course of mail, addressed to that well-known personage, Lilian Leslie Lamb, I had handed them over to John without the least compunction—even the occasional ones from Miss Lamb. To all intents and purposes he was Miss Lamb, for the letters were intended for the author of Spoils.
Now, however, the case was quite different, as anybody must see. As I thought of it I grew hot and cold, and cursed my own idiocy for deliberately setting such a trap for myself. I was in such a muddle over the whole thing by the time I got to the hotel that I decided not to say anything to Brunt about it till I had got my own ideas straightened out a little. However, by the time luncheon was over, and we were sitting, the sole occupants of the smoking-room, I had decided that, though I had got Jack into the scrape, he would have to get himself out of it. So with as indifferent an air as I could muster, I said:
"By the way, John, here's a letter for the author of Spoils." He took it and glanced at the superscription.
"The Devil!" said he, with a very red face.
"The writer would be flattered if she could hear you," said I.
"I wonder how she would feel if she could see us both," John retorted, and he looked from the back of the letter to me in a very fierce manner Then, tossing the letter across the table, he said: "Well, it is your affair this time and not mine, I'm thankful to say. What are you going to do with the thing?"
"Do with it? I've done with it," said I.
"You wont leave it there on the table, I suppose."
"I have delivered it to the person to whom it is addressed."
"Is it addressed to me?"
"It is addressed to the author of Spoils. If the author of Spoils is not the dream of beauty you described to her namesake that is your look-out not mine. Seriously, Jack, I don't see but that you've got to read the letter. She evidently expects an answer toit. Either that," I added, "or make a clean breast of it."
The "either, or" is usually John's method, but this time it did not seem to appeal to him. It must be confessed, too, that his adviser was rather half-hearted in his counsel. So we beat about the bush in an unsatisfactory manner, till suddenly John seized a pen and cut the gordian knot, so to speak, by filling out the address:
"Care F. Dickson, Esq., etc.,
"New York."
And he marched forth to post it with his own hand.
That was after all the best solution for the time being, and we both felt that a weight had been lifted from our minds.