An Idyll of All Fools' Day

by Josephine Daskam Bacon

THE RETURN

EVEN as he sank in the river, Antony perceived that he was in the grip of a terrible current. He struck out with all his strength against it for a moment, instinctively, before he realised that it was folly to combat it; and as he rose to the surface, staring eagerly along the course of its tugging compulsion, he saw, as he had hoped to see, a sleek small head several yards in advance of him. With a shout of encouragement he made for the small, floating dot, and swam as he had never swam before, marking its distance each second in order to be able to dive when it should disappear. But it did not disappear. To his delight it floated serenely along, and as he caught up with it, still yelling in his excitement, it turned towards him. 75

"Don't you think you might as well stop that noise, now?" said Nette calmly. "We seem to be saved. Is it far to the shore?"

Antony's jaw dropped and he swallowed more of the river water than was conducive to his comfort.

"I--I don't know, really," he gasped, "but it can't be, of course, if this beastly current will only let us land. Shall I hold you a little? Aren't you tired?"

"Not yet" she answered briefly. "I'll let you know. Of course my clothes make a dif----"

She paused abruptly and devoted her breath to keeping up with him. Antony was a strong and rapid swimmer and had had more than one occasion to practice the art when fully dressed. Rising on his stroke, he glanced about him and saw with joy that the current was sweeping them gradually, though not directly, to the left bank of the river. He could in fact discern their course in the different texture of the water as it sparkled in the sun.

"Just put your hand on my shoulder," he begged. "There's no use wasting your strength. I think we ought to be there in five minutes, at this rate. It must be awfully hard in those skirts." 76

Her breath came short and hard now; with a slight motion of her head she indicated her assent, and placed her hand on his shoulder, and they slid in silence through the water. The bank, which now loomed clearly over them, was quite high at this point, and Antony deliberately neglected more than one place where a brief effort would have got them out of the current, in order to make sure of an easy slope by which to land. Suddenly his eye lit on what he had been waiting for, a winding, easy path up through the cleared underbrush, with a rough, three-sided shanty near it.

"Here we are!" he cried encouragingly. "I think I can get you across--by Jove, it's taking us there!"

And this was so: the current, with a distinct twist, urged them in towards shore, and in a moment more Antony touched the bottom of the river and towed his companion, now hanging heavily on him, in to safety. They dragged themselves wearily up the little path, 77 soggy and dripping, Nette's skirts heavy with water, and sat down with one accord on a sunny rock in front of the decaying old building, evidently a deserted boathouse, from the coils of rope and broken oars that lay there. They looked dully at each other, and as they looked they shivered, for hot as was the sun, the river, not yet warmed by this specious early spring, had chilled them to the bone.

Antony shook himself and tried to overcome the lassitude that had crept on him.

"Well, here we are!" he said tentatively, pressing his teeth together to hide their chattering. "It is a mighty good thing you swim so well, isn't it? Now we must get out of this as soon as possible--your lips are blue. I suppose you really ought to run about a little, oughtn't you?"

"I suppose so," she assented wearily, "but I shall not do so, nevertheless. Is there no house near here?"

They gazed about them, but no chimney, no red barn, no white steeple, rewarded the inspection. Robinson upon his isle could have felt himself no more abandoned. Jutting headlands cut off their 78 view up and down the river; high pasture land broken with woods covered all they could see on the opposite bank, and the one upon which they found themselves appeared to consist entirely of sand pits, gnarled roots, and fallen trees, with what seemed a rather formidable forest behind.

"It seems idiotic," Antony began, "and of course we must be somewhere--this is a ridiculous sort of country; one would think we were in the middle of Africa--but just at the moment I cannot say that I see any signs of humanity but this old boathouse. I will take a run up beyond that little promontory and look about. Please jump up and down while I am gone, and could you not take that skirt off and dry it in the sun?"

She nodded.

"And by the way," she observed casually, "where is the motor-car, do you suppose?"

Antony sat down from sheer force of surprise. He had utterly forgotten the motor-car. Life to him had begun anew when he staggered up the bank. He looked piteously over the shining river.

"Well, we've done it, now!" he exclaimed, and as he sat in huddled misery a fit of senseless laughter shook him, nor was his dripping companion long in joining him. They laughed till the decayed 79 old boathouse echoed, and when, from very fatigue, they stopped, no trifles such as cold or wet or isolation or the justly merited terror of the Law could cloud their invincible youth after that baptism of mirth.

"Anyway," Antony began, his voice still shaking, "we are on the other side of the river, and there is no bridge for two miles, certainly, and we came through a pasture to get here and so the old car is pretty safe to be under the mud by the time she could be traced. They say the bottom is mostly quicksand all about here--if we are here--for heaven's sake, what is that?"

He pointed to a black rectangular object floating placidly on to shore, not ten feet from them.

"It is a trunk," Nette replied excitedly, "a black, waterproof motor trunk! And a suit case behind it! And oh, see, do you see that hat box?"

They held their breath as the strange squadron sailed majestically along the guiding current into their tiny port, the trunk floating high, displaying its white stenciled monogram proudly, the suit case following, the absurd little chimney-pot ducking and bobbing in the rear. Suddenly, as the suit case seemed likely to drift 80 out again, they rushed to the bank, and while Nette dragged the trunk to shelter Antony strode into the water and gathered in the smaller craft.

They were all of wicker, with a lining of oiled silk and a covering of thick waterproof rubber material, and as Nette pulled at the fastenings of the trunk and flung back the lid it was at once evident that both these shielding materials had admirably performed their office: the contents were uninjured. They looked upon a shallow tray divided into two parts. In one lay what was apparently a small, fantastically shaped cloud of palest mauve. Upon one side of this cloud there was fastened with a sort of jewel a long, soft feather of a slightly deeper tint of mauve. This feather curled caressingly about the cloud and Antony's experience instructed him that the object was quite terrestrial--was, in fact, a hat. An 81 indistinguishable, fluffy, shimmering mass of mauve filled the other compartment, and in the cover a cunning artificer had set a fair-sized mirror, surrounded by numerous loops of leather which held brushes, combs, and other toilet accessories. As Antony regarded this collection of objects, he was aware of a long, soft sigh, and turning to his companion he beheld her bowing as in a trance before them, lost, like the persons in a well-known hymn, in wonder, love and praise.

"Oh! How perfect!" she breathed, and at the picture of her, dripping and draggled, shivering and ecstasied, he shook his head in thoughtful amazement. 82

"Now, Miss Nette," he said abruptly, "do you know what you are going to do. This is simply too extraordinary to be anything less than providential. You are going to follow me into this little shed and when I have taken the trunk there, you are going to put on everything you can find in it. If there's anything sensible enough there, please give yourself a good rub-down with it. Will you take cold with your hair wet?" he added masterfully.

Either moisture or the sight of the mauve glories had taught her meekness, for:

"Oh, no, my hair will dry in a few minutes--it dries very quickly," she assured him, adding timidly, "but ought I--they are so lovely-- have we any right----"

"I suppose you have a right to avoid pneumonia," he interrupted her rudely "and as far as the question of rights is concerned, this is rather late in the day to go into that, I think!"

He marched to the little shed, bearing the trunk, as it had been the crown regalia, on outstretched arms, and Nette, wringing her hair and murmurmg incoherent abnegations concerning her unworthiness of the mauve mysteries, followed nevertheless. 83

Repeating sternly his injunctions as to the value of thorough rub-downs, he left her, and falling upon the suit case, which he prophetically connected with the comforting masculine hat box, he carried it behind the shed, and at a chivalrous distance opened it Then in that deserted wood there was a silence, like that which fell in heaven, for the space of half an hour and, it may be, a little longer. At the end of this silence there appeared from behind a large oak a very dignified and handsome young gentleman attired, perhaps a thought impractically for his surroundings, in a fleckless frock coat with the appurtenances usually 84 thereto accredited by our leading metropolitan tailors, such as stiffly creased grey trousers, patent-leather shoes, and delicate gloves dangled in the hand. Walking somewhat mincingly, this gentleman, elaborately backing around the shed and apparently not observing it, sought a rubber-incased hat box lying on the ground, and stooping gingerly, unclasped it, drew from it a glossy, black hat, and after a few affectionate strokings, which, applied to its surface, could but recall to any student of literature the painting of the lily, placed the same upon his sleek head with an absorbed and even slightly terrified expression, which melted slowly into one of deep satisfaction. After this he coughed politely and prepared to back again around the little hut. In this operation he was, however, interrupted by a soft tug at one of his almost 85 too perfect coat tails.

"I look very well, too, I think," said a hesitating, sweet voice, and in an instant he was bareheaded before her.

Charming as Nette had appeared in her simple walking dress, Antony was utterly unprepared for the picture she now presented. In the absurd and yet wonderfully effective setting of the brown, budding trees, the broken and forbidding rocks, against the dull background of the dingy, decaying hut, her soft, pale tints of hat and gown gleamed like some one of the perfumed daintinesses Watteau traced upon his tricksy, tempting court fans. The whole costume, from the sweeping cavalier feather to the saucy, buckled slippers, recalled subtly that delightful pretense at Arcadia, that amusing pastoral figuring and posturing that broke under a sigh too ardent, a pressure too fiery, into the scented powder puff and the satin stays. One looked for a spinet, garlanded with golden cupids, for a white lamb smelling like Araby the blest, for a wreathed crook with a tiny mirror artfully set in its curve. To gaze upon that diabolically contrived simplicity was to produce in the susceptible breast, and most particularly in the susceptible masculine 86 breast, an odd tumult of sensations too conflicting in their nature for description.

Nette's hair ran vine-like under the melting, tender-coloured plume; her skin glowed softly rosy, and two faint violet shadows under her brilliant eyes toned sweetly with the colours of her misleading gown. Around her neck on a slender golden chain was hung a singularly perfect fresh-water pearl, large, with shifting colours, utterly unadorned by any jeweller's fancies; an odd and very elegant bauble that caught Antony's eye instantly.

"Mademoiselle," he began, "you are--you are----" he paused, for genuine lack of words. "You are absurdly charming," he concluded, not altogether lamely, after all, and she swept him a graceful courtesy, her long, pale sash-ends floating out against the rough bark behind her. Nor was Master Antony displeased at the satisfaction at his appearance which he surprised in her eyes. Intrinsically inartistic indeed is the garb of our modern male, and yet to our accustomed eye there is a fine air of fitness, a grave elegance, in his sombre bifurcation; an ordered poetry in his candid vest, his lustrous neck scarf; a twinkling luxuriousness 87 in his polished and costly footwear. All this appeared to perfection in Antony's dignified figure, just sufficiently above the middle height to allow of his being called tall.

"The sleeves," he informed her, "are a little short and I am not sure that I have not stretched the shoulder seams a little, but the shoes are exactly my own size. The underwear," he added absently, "was silk. Apricot colour----"

"My shoes," she began hastily, "are too large, but I think I can keep them on. The skirt is too long, of course, but I can hold it up. The hat," she concluded, with softened eyes, "I should like to be buried in."

"I should dislike to have you buried in it," he said briefly, "and now," he continued briskly, "the next thing is to get away. I have put all my things into the suit case and I will, with your permission, put yours there too. Then we will leave the suit case and the hat box under a pile of old boughs near where I dressed, and the trunk--is there anything in the trunk?" he broke off.

"No, I put them all on," she assured him, flushing delightfully. "There was just enough--of everything." 88

"I see. Well, I think we'll simply leave it here. Perhaps I might hide it a little," and he tossed a dusty roll of cocoa matting and a coil of rope over the receptacle, which being small became from that moment unnoticed.

"And now," said Antony, when he had conveyed the neat, damp roll she handed him to its hiding place, "let us get along. We can do no better than follow this path, which seems to grow broader, if anything, and it stands to reason we must come out somewhere. I may as well confess that I have a very poor idea of location, and I don't as yet find any landmarks. From the moment that we struck off into that field track I lost my bearings entirely. I should suppose we were opposite--or almost opposite--Brookdale; perhaps a bit lower down. We can get a rig and drive back probably--unless we die of hunger," he ended angrily. "I have only a little change with me --forgot it when I changed my clothes, of course, this morning. I suppose, though, I could get some money on this," and he fingered the scarf pin at his throat. It was a horseshoe of small diamonds of the purest water, and as Nette's eyes fastened on it she started suddenly. 89

"Was that what you had on this morning?" she asked.

"No," he answered, flushing a little. "I found it in a jeweller's box on the top of the things in the suit case, with a letter. I have the letter--it says only 'Amory' on it. I put the pin on," a trifle shamefacedly, "more or less to go with the whole rig, you know!"

Antony looked very boyish as he made this confession and Nette could but smile as he fingered the little horseshoe consciously. This smile was not lost upon the youth, and turning, he walked on in silence, advancing steadily if delicately along the path, which, though narrow enough to force them into single file, was sufficiently clear to afford a certain margin of safety to 90 Nette's billowy splendours. Antony occasionally held back a threatening bough, and she from time to time moaned apprehensively as some projecting stump detained her drapery for a terrifying second; but for this they exchanged no further conversation.

Antony's faculties, stretched to their utmost since morning, unfortified by food, absolutely refused to rally around him on this occasion, and though he cudgelled his brains for a solution of the probabilities of his conduct when they should emerge from the wood, it was a useless performance. He was capable of walking erectly through the trees, of keeping his shoes bright, of shielding his hat from indignity--and of nothing more. Thus oblivious to all but the sensations of the moment, he plodded steadily on, and it was with an expression of positive stupor that he burst all at once and without the slightest transition of the foliage out of the rude woods into a trim gravel road flanked by incredibly artificial Lombardy poplars. In front of him swept a terraced lawn; far across it rose a lordly Elizabethan mansion composed, apparently, of weathered oak and gay window boxes; a marvellously rolled 91 tennis court swam before his dazzled eyes. As he felt Nette at his side and opened his lips to speak, a loud, triumphant shout burst upon the air and a carriage and pair stationed at the end of the drive sprang into rapid motion towards them.

"'Ere you are, sir! 'Ere! Just in time, sir, jump in! All right, sir--I knew by the lady's dress--could you h'open the door yourself, sir? Mr. Richard said he knew you'd try the old road-- 'owever did you get over the old bridge, sir? I doubt we can make it this late, but we'll try. Excuse me, sir, but there's no time for talk--in you go, sir!"

Under the piercing eye of the garrulous old servant Nette slipped into the brougham and Antony after her, as one in a dream. The fat bays literally galloped along the crushed stone, whirled through an elaborate iron gateway, and devoured the stretch of country road whose scattered houses Antony tried in vain to identify.

"Where are we going?" Nette asked fearfully, but he could only shake his head.

"Somewhere near a railroad station, I hope," he answered; "we couldn't very well walk along the road dressed like this. 92 Evidently this old idiot knows your dress--that's very unfortunate."

"He cannot know it," she insisted, "for it has never been worn. I am sure of it."

"Nonsense," said Antony brutally, and at her incredulous displeasure he softened only so far as to demand:

"Then how did he know you?"

"I don't know," she admitted, and they drew up suddenly among a crowd of carriages and motor-cars gathered around a quaint stone church.

"Now we'll slip out," Antony began, when all at once a slender young man sprang to the door of the brougham, wrenched it open, seized Antony's hand, and burst into a torrent of language.

"Well, you took your time, didn't you? At last! Ritchie was sick 93 with rage--till we got the telegram. How's Auguste? Car gave out, of course. Poor Emily felt dreadfully. Miss---excuse me, but all I can think of is Gertrude, you can just get in--dash over to the cloister and they've left a place, So glad to have met you-- yes, indeed. This is Williamson. Please ask for mother's carriage directly the ceremony is over--we're going to form an arch or something at the house. Hurry up, old man--I had all your work. The rest are in by this time, but I have to attend to the carriages and you are to take in the late ones. Family on left of white ribbons-- for heaven's sake, Miss Gertrude--run!"

He dragged Nette from the step and raced her toward the church; she lifted her skirts and skimmed like a swallow beside him. Antony stumbled to the puffing old coachman, pulled all the silver out of his pocket and handed it to him mechanically.

"Thank you kindly, sir--I did my best. So many not knowing either you or the young lady, sir, it was 'ard for us, but I did my best. She looks beautiful, they tell me--h'isn't that some one waving for you, sir?" 94

Antony ran wildly towards the church door, whence issued a pompous and familiar peal from the organ; a strongly accented march, to whose measures, he reflected dizzily, no one whom he had yet encountered had ever been able to adapt his steps. He peered up the little, crowded aisle. Half-way along it paced a solemn party of young men; four visions of mauve and feathers followed them, and even as he removed his hat four more hurried past him and entered the door. They were in couples, each bearing a great armful of white and purple sweet peas, and the maiden nearest him in the last couple, flushed and panting, with one bare arm, was none other than poor Uncle Julius's godmother's own daughter's stepdaughter! She moved demurely, her eyes downcast, the great pearl rising with her quick breath, and Antony wiped the troubled sweat from his brow. A stir behind him, a murmured, sighing tribute, and the bride was passing by. White as the lilies in her hands, a frostlike veil falling over her glistening train, she glided beside her portly father, and the crowded little church turned to mark her passage as a hedge of sunflowers seeks the sun.

Antony sighed and turned to confront a massive lady swathed in 95 rose-coloured satin and variously adorned with precious stones of all colours. She fixed him with a protruding grey eye and directed toward him a hissing whisper.

"I am the bride's Aunt!" she declared. Antony stared vaguely at her.

"And I hope there is a seat well to the front," she continued severely, if hoarsely.

With a shock of comprehension Antony thrust forward his arm.

"I am sure that there is, madam," he said politely, "pray come with me."

And so it happened that he led the massive satin creature up the aisle in the wake of that mystic procession, outwardly a mask of courtly solicitude, but within him the premonitions of whirling mania. He was literally faint with hunger; the strong 96 sweetness of the lilies and other aromatic plants disposed about the church for its decoration affected him almost unpleasantly with their cloying odours, and the menacing fear that with every step he was involving himself further in a list of crimes so confused as to be, perhaps, yet uncatalogued in the annals of the law, shadowed his soul.

"I, Emily Hildegarde, take thee, Richard----"

the tones of the frost-like bride were as clear and silvery as her veil. Richard would encounter a certain amount of self-possession, it appeared. But perhaps young women were all self-possessed, now. Antony could not recall a bride that had trembled in his experience.

The solemn service hastened to its conclusion. Suppose the marriage should prove to have been invalid because of a fraudulent and criminal usher? It might be possible. . . .

"I am sorry, but the church is filled," he murmured suavely to a beseeching violet-scented pair, marvelling at his own self-command.

It was over. Mendelssohn announced it and his echoes shook the windows. Two more hopeful voyagers had launched out upon life, 97 arm in arm down the smiling, tearful aisle; two more combatants with armour scarcely buckled smiled boastfully on entering the field, nor noted that it was strewn with the breakage of their predecessors!

Thus cynically did Antony muse as the glowing pair swept by, when all at once a soft voice murmured close to his ear:

"Ask for Mrs. Williamson's carriage!"

She was gone. They were all gone, in a perfumed cloud of mauve, and with a bound he cleared the three entrance steps and ran to the crowd of vehicles that began to move about.

"Is Mrs. Williamson's carriage here?" he called loudly, and, as a one-horse coupe drew up to him, the odour of sweet peas was wafted across his nostrils and she swept in beside him, jealously guarding her skirts from harmful contacts. Obedient to her imperative 98 gesture, he took his seat beside her, and feeling unable to combine into any intelligible sentence his emotions and apprehensions, gazed questioningly into her flushed and sparkling countenance. She pressed the sweet peas to her breast, and as the carriage moved off at a rapid pace she looked deep into his eyes and spoke.

"Wasn't she lovely?" she said dreamily.

Antony opened his mouth and closed it, opened it again and again closed it. For a moment it seemed to him that his mind was reeling from its foundations; that perhaps, after all, he was the legitimate usher of Emily's wedding and that this lustrous-eyed creature with him was Gertrude . . . and then a wholesome rage came to his assistance.

"For heaven's sake," he cried, "talk reasonably! Where are we going? What town is this? Do you realise the awful situation we are in? I shall go raving mad if this thing keeps up much longer!"

She laid a small gloved hand on his knee and spoke calmly to the quivering youth.

"Listen," she said, "I do not see that we can do better than 99 go on to the house. It is a very big wedding and we can mix very easily in the crowd if only I can get another dress--or a long coat, somewhere. Perhaps I can. Especially now, when hardly any one is here yet. Then you can get hold of a carriage and we can drive to the station. We can at least get something to eat, for I know how hungry you are. Nobody knows who half the people are at a wedding--it is the safest place in the world for--for----"

"For escaping criminals," he concluded bitterly, yet with an unreasonable lightening of heart. "It is true, nobody will know me. And perhaps I can find out where we are."

"And who we are," she reminded him, smiling kindly.

He was amazed at the almost maternal gentleness, the sweet poise of her manner. She might have been the very bridesmaid she simulated.

"Did any one speak to you?" he asked curiously.

She shook her head.

"I was so late. I think I am her friend, and they don't seem to know each other so very well. The first four are friends, but 100 my four, no. Still, I can't very well see them again, for she will ask about me--oh, who can this be?"

They had turned in at a different gate from the one by which they had left and were following a driveway that led along a series of stables and offices. From one of these a house-maid ran out, stopping the carriage with a gesture. At her embarrassed request Antony opened the carriage door.

"I was to ask the first one that came by this way, if you please-- you are an usher, aren't you, sir?"--Antony nodded grimly--"to go to the laundry, right here, sir, and pick out the best arches. They're in the tubs. The other gentlemen will help carry them in. Mr. Richard thought the ladies would know best about the arches," she added shyly, Smiling graciously, Nette stepped lightly from the coupe, and as Antony followed her she nodded to the coachman,

"You may go back now," she said, "we will walk up to the 101 house in a few moments."

He touched his hat and drove on, the house-maid hastened in the same direction, and Nette, followed by her companion, stepped into the laundry. There indeed were the arches, twined with purple and white sweet peas; the dim, damp room reeked and bloomed with them. As they confronted each other uncertainly, a high, excited voice floated toward them, evidently nearing rapidly.

"We must have every carriage guarded and the trains watched, that's all. They must be in the house, and they had no luggage, so how can they change their clothes? That dress will mark the woman absolutely. They will try for a motor, of course."

Steps were at the laundry door. In an agony of terror Antony dragged the girl into a back room, and hardly knowing what he did, beckoned her up a narrow, dingy stair. Like shadows they fled up it, and crouched at its head listening to the tramping feet of what was evidently a group of men: young men from their tone and manner.

"It's perfectly clear," began the unmistakable voice of Williamson, "they are, of course, that same couple that got off with 102 three big touring cars last season. It's their specialty. The man drives like a demon, and the woman is the coolest little devil that ever walked. They have Amory's car, they got the clothes, and by coming so late they actually put the thing through. I hope no jewelry is gone, but we mustn't alarm the guests at any cost--Emily would never forgive us."

"The woman is marked--I know all the bridesmaids now, and I shall make it my business to locate the eighth. Harvey, will you stay with the presents? Ritch, like a fool, refused to have a detective."

"What did he look like, Williamson?" some one demanded.

"Kick me, if you want to, Harvey, I couldn't tell to save my 103 life I--I was so excited, and he was so decent about it--he's just like anybody else. And I'm the only one that said a word to him-- it's maddening! We'll have to let him go--we can't grab every man we see, and nobody knows who half these people are. But watch the dining-room. Amory ought to be here any minute. He's nearly crazy, I suppose."

"Oh, I don't know," drawled a third voice. "If his precious Gertrude is with him, what's a scarf pin more or less to Ammy?"

"Nevertheless, I'm sorry for the man that took that car," said Williamson curtly, and Antony bit his lip nervously on the stairs as he listened to the low murmur of assent that followed.

"Well, don't let us stay here all night," Williamson began again fussily. "Grab some of these damned wreaths, you fellows, and see if we can get them up to the house without sitting down in them!"

They bustled out, arguing over the best methods of tracking down their victims, who cowered miserably above them. Fear, insensate, reasonless fear, had laid his quivering, livid fingers on their shoulders, and chilled the blood in their veins. To get away-- 104 to get away, at any cost!

Antony, stooping over the crouching figure by his side, whispered in her ear:

"I'll step down and look about a bit. There must be some way--I'll get you a coat somewhere and we can slip out. Wait here."

All was empty and silent in the laundry, but as he stopped a moment behind the door before peering out, a hand knocked gently on it and a boy's voice questioned softly.

"Are ye' there, then? Are ye, sir?" Instinctively and before he could catch back the word, Antony whispered hoarsely:

"Yes!"

"I'll be puttin' this in the durway, then, and Miss Delia Nolan said for me to say for ye to please wait an hour for her, an' she'd surely come. She does be needed in the bedrooms upstairs to watch the ladies' clothes f'r fear they'd be stolen, she says. But if ye'll wait the hour, she'll be with you, with more, maybe, if she can get it. Trust me for the horses, sir!"

There was a rattle and a thud as of some heavy object deposited on the floor in the open door, and the messenger scurried away. 105 Antony looked cautiously around the door, and as he looked his eyes grew large and round, for there before him lay a mammoth tray filled with dainties to wake an appetite in one far less famished than poor Antony. Two half-emptied bottles reared their grateful promise high in the middle, and the jellied fowl vied with the crusted croquet, the rich pâté gleamed among the feathery wheaten rolls, the lobster nestled coyly in his luscious mayonnaise, seeming indeed to blush under the young man's ardent and 106 devouring gaze. Breathlessly he lifted it, eagerly he bore it to that musty upper room, and there, with soft little cries of surprise from her and long-drawn sighs of satisfaction from him, they fell upon it. With every morsel of the food, with every throatful of the heartening, still beaded wine, courage, nay, audacity, crept softly over their jaded spirits, as the gentle but inevitable tide creeps up the beach.

"To Miss Delia Nolan!" he cried lightly, raising high his glass; "long life to her and her coachman!"

And "long life to her and her coachman!" Nette echoed, smiling from the broken chair she sat upon at Antony, who knelt before the tray. Through the chinks of the closed, dusty blinds vivid pencils of light streaked her delicate dress: she gleamed like a modish crocus in the bare lumber room. The rich viands before her, the dainty opalescence of the frozen sweet she held in a tinted, flower-shaped glass, the very dusk of the closed chamber, making her youth and loveliness more jewel-like, all enhanced the piquancy of the picture she presented. Antony's resolution flamed high in him: should such pluck, such beauty, such resource, be captured 107 now, now after all they had gone through?

Never! He swore it.

As he registered this oath she rose lightly from her chair, and still jealously protecting her billowy skirts, began to peer about the room. Of a sudden she stopped and stood like a pointer dog, one finger raised to command his attention.

"What is in that basket?" she whispered excitedly.

There was no need to whisper, for not only the laundry but all the ground about it was absolutely deserted. But secrecy and flight have but one language and must conspire in whispers at the Pole itself. The basket in question, which lay in the darkest corner of the room, was of the description commonly in use among laundresses when they would return the purified objects of their toil. Bending over this, Nette fumbled a moment among its contents, and with a triumphant exclamation held up to Antony's bewildered vision a fresh, creased garment striped alternately with blue and white.

"And here is the apron! And here is the cap!" she murmured exultantly, "now I defy that horrid Mr. Williamson to find 108 me! 'A marked woman,' indeed!"

Instantly the feasibility of the plan struck him, and he congratulated her warmly.

"Now all we need is to know where we are," he assured her, "and enough money to get away from it, wherever it is, and we are safe! I will step out and look about a bit while you change your dress; I feel confident that we shall find some means--luck would not have the heart to desert us now!"

He tiptoed, needlessly, it is true, down to the laundry, and in the very act of opening the door stumbled upon a plump old gentleman-- the very gentleman upon whose doubtless paternal arm the frost-like bride had preceded Antony to the altar. Ere the youth had time to catch his breath the portly one addressed him querulously.

"Oh! how d'ye do? So dark in here--senseless place to send a man! No more sweet peas, that I can see--can you? Pack-horse, too, I suppose like the rest of us? Fine business for my guests!"

"There is not a sweet pea left, sir," said Antony respectfully, "and if there were any I should certainly not allow you to undertake the transportation of them. You have enough on your 109 mind, I should say." With a long drawn sigh the portly gentleman sank upon an inverted wash tub and wrung his hands miserably.

"Never in my life!" he mourned, "never in all my entire life!"

Antony uttered a soothing sound, of vague but apparently satisfactory import.

"Not that we mind the loss of the car at all," continued the old gentleman, more collectedly now, "only this morning his mother told me with tears in her eyes that she had offered him the price of it to give it up; so far as that goes, she is, as she only just now informed me, thanking her Creator on her bended knees and begging Him never to let us see or hear of that horrible machine again. Ammy promised her on his honour that if anything happened to 110 this one, he would never buy another. It was his seventh."

Antony's heart leaped up, but he spoke decorously.

"It seems to me, sir," he said, "that you will, in all human probability, never see that car again."

"Thank God!" said his host fervently. "What is a stickpin to Richard?" he demanded explosively, "what, in heaven's name, do I care for a paltry fresh water pearl? It is the disgrace, the publicity; the laughing stock--in my house they tell me, these scoundrels are! At my daughter's wedding. Eating my food at this moment, perhaps, Mr. Williamson warns me!"

"This Mr. Williamson," said Antony gently, "seems to be a very keen person."

"The keenest," replied the old gentleman eagerly, "he is hunting for the woman now. It is unfortunate that he is the only one of the ushers who did not know Ammy, you see."

"I see. It was certainly unfortunate," said Antony suavely.

"Ammy is due in a few minutes," said the old gentleman, pulling out a wealthy gold watch, "and here I am sitting here! I am so overcome, you must excuse me. The five:three. I was to send 111 someone."

"Can I not go, sir?" Antony asked feverishly, "just get me somebody's trap--anybody's--and let me go to get him and save you any further trouble."

"Why, that is very kind, I am sure," said Gertrude's father, "I will call the first one I see."

There was a scurrying down the narrow stair and as the old gentleman turned to go, a neat and very pretty housemaid rushed towards him.

"O sir, excuse me, sir," she cried, blushing delightfully, "but Miss Gertrude said I was to ask you for five dollars, sir, to pay for the C. O. D, at the station, sir. She wants it immediately. If some one is going down, sir, could he take me?"

With a practiced hand the father of the bride reached into his pocket, lifted from it a thick, green bundle, and placed a bill in the pink trembling hand held out for it.

"This gentleman here will take you down directly, Mary--Delia--er, my dear," he said kindly, "I don't recall his name at the moment, but we are all very informal to-day, and I'm sure he won't object.-- Here, boy, call me a carriage--anybody's! I'll see you later, 112 my dear boy, and I am much obliged."

"Don't mention it, sir," Antony replied, and leaped nimbly into a gorgeous station-waggon, taking his seat beside the driver. The housemaid, displaying, as she mounted to the back seat, remarkable hosiery and footgear for one in her humble walk of life, followed quickly, and forth they drove.

The blood was tingling in his fingertips, his head reeled with a strange mixture of terror and delight--the intoxication of the artist in dangerous adventure--but Antony's voice was level as he inquired of the driver beside him:

"And what's the next station up the road, do you know?"

"Brookdale, sir, and there you can get the other road if you want it."

"I see. And is this the up train?"

"Yes, sir. I suppose Mr. Amory had to go out of his way to make any connection--the trains are poor here, sir. Mr. Ashley had to have two specials put on for to-day. You see, Cliffwood is a small place, sir."

Cliffwood! Antony could have kicked himself for not 113 recognising in all this pomp of iron-gated villas, the scattered collection of estates thus poetically christened.

"That's a bad business about them murdering thieves, isn't it, sir?" pursued the driver confidentially.

Antony's heart sank like lead. "Murdering?" he gasped, "did the Frenchman die, then?"

"Oh, him!" returned the driver scornfully, "no, he didn't, the foreign pup. How could he--that old snake hasn't a fang in his head!"

Antony grasped the seat beneath him and drew a long, deep breath.

"I--I am glad to hear it," he said concisely, and as he spoke the incoming train whistled--a mellow, pleasing note that sang of freedom (yea, and guiltless freedom!) to wedding guest and housemaid alike.

Forth from the train, ere hardly it had stopped, leaped an eager pair, a man and a maid, not too precisely attired, for their garments were rumpled and not such as the critical in these matters assume when bound for a wedding festival. Yet they did not seem unhappy, these two, but rather lenient and tender in their judgments upon all the world, for they smiled sweetly upon 114 the empty platform, and sweetly, if a little vaguely, upon Antony, who advanced to meet them, hat in hand.

"Mr. Amory, I presume?" he said airily. "I came down to get you, but I find I must send a telegram, on account of the trains running so poorly here, and so I will not detain you a second, as I am sure you cannot see Mrs.--Mrs. Richard too soon. They will send back for me."

"Thanks, old man--are they caught?" cried the lately arrived, making for the station-waggon, and staring at the diamond horseshoe in Antony's pearl grey tie, Antony touched it knowingly and smiled.

"No. They are not caught yet," he said, "but we're on the scent!"

"Good!" exclaimed the other, "now jump in, dear," and as the last bit of baggage left the train and the waggon turned, Antony fled through the station and raced up the steps of the moving car, hand in hand with the pretty housemaid.

They seated themselves amid curious and friendly smiles.

"I will speak when the wheels are well started," thought Antony, and then, "when she gets her breath, I will say something," 115 but with each minute overwhelming embarrassment wrapped him, more deeply, and he sat, with averted eyes, in silence. Just as they slackened pace to pause at Brookdale and he motioned her to rise, she spoke, huskily and with an evident effort.

"What will you do with the chain and the pin?"

"Put them, with all these clothes and five dollars, in the trunk, row the three pieces across the river, meet them with a cart and express them to Mr. Ashley from Turnersville," he answered, promptly and with a rapid lucidity which astonished himself.

"They will be surprised," she remarked indifferently, as she descended the steps of the train, and:

"It is probable that they will," he agreed.

* * * * * * * * * *

It was some three hours later that a vehicle conducted by one horse moved solitary under a rich and rising moon along the fair 116 white road that leads to one of the most venerable if not the largest of our colleges. Dogged by its own black shadow, whose wheels, smaller but no less symmetrical, rolled silently beside it, this vehicle would inevitably have stirred romantic interest in the breast of any imaginative spectator of its progress. And this with reason, for one of its two occupants was a girl, who slept, white-faced beneath the moon, her head, on which was perched askew a housemaid's cap, drooped forward on her breast, her lips slightly parted. The other, a well-dressed young man, allowed the easy-going beast to pick its own way, the while he gazed at the sleeping face, compassionately, it would seem, for all at once, with a pitying exclamation, he slipped his arm behind her, and gently guided her head to his shoulder. With a sigh of relief she nestled against him and her face relaxed with the comfort of her new attitude, while still she slept. Thus they drove on for many minutes, nor did his eyes once leave that white, appealing face. So small she seemed, so helpless--could this slender creature have stood by him so gallantly, have matched her wits so triumphantly against the incredible crises of the past day? Day? Antony felt that the 117 ordinary partitions of time had henceforth no meaning for him and that the philosopher who questioned the validity of time itself knew well whereof he had written.

What a spirit the girl had! How beautiful she had looked in the wood! He sighed, and at that or some other slight sound she opened her eyes and gazed in terror at him. And as she gazed the terror slowly melted and disappeared, a lovely child-like confidence grew in its place, and she spoke softly.

"It is you!" she said, and half awake, she smiled deliciously, straight into his bending eyes, "you are here?"

A great wave seemed to break in Antony's breast.

"Here?" he cried, deep voiced, "where could I be but here--with you? Who could be here--but me?"

Fully awakened now, she started from him, a flood of red sweeping her pale face as she saw where she had been resting.

"No--no!" she stammered, "you are--we are--I was only dreaming that----" 118

With his eyes he entreated her, for their steed, spying the lights of home, had started forward and Antony's hands were busy.

"Ah, Nette, dearest Nette," he begged her, and something in his voice shook her so that she trembled beside him, "if waking makes you hate me again, then dream! For when you dream, I am sure you love me."

"I do not! I do not!" she cried, covering her face with her hands.

The eager horse tugged at the bit: Antony forced her by his mere will to meet his eyes.

"Not?" he said, low and clearly, "Not? Not after to-day, Nette?"

She bit her lip, and then, as the old college bell rang out nine sharp strokes she laid her arms swiftly about his neck and his cheek quivered under her warm soft hair.

"You are right," she whispered, "after to-day--everything!"

The streets were no longer empty. They sat, separate, with whirling hearts, trembling under the mounting moon. They were in the familiar street. . . .

"After to-day--after to-day!" he muttered dizzily, when 119 suddenly she laughed out beside him, sobbed brokenly, then laughed again.

"To-day is the first of April!" she cried.

And once again the polished moon threw her needless glory over youth and love and laughter.