II
Late one afternoon, midway of September, Susie, who had just returned from a stroll, stood on the Logan portico watching the motors flit past, and thinking a little mournfully that in a few days she must go back to her boarding house and her place behind the library counter. It was then that she observed Mr. Webster G. Burgess on his doorstep adjoining, viewing the urban landscape reflectively. He was hatless and in his hand he held a bit of yellow paper that resembled a telegram. Noting Susie’s presence on the Logan veranda, he crossed the lawn in her direction. She knew from a personal item in the afternoon paper that Mr. Burgess had returned from his vacation, and that Mrs. Burgess was to follow at once, accompanied by her younger sister, Miss Wilkinson; and that she was to entertain immediately Mr. Brown Pendleton, a wealthy young American explorer and archæologist, who was coming to Indiana to deliver the dedicatory address at the opening of the new Historical Museum at the state university. Mrs. Burgess always entertained all the distinguished people who visited Indianapolis, and it had occurred to Susan that by the exercise of ordinary vigilance she might catch a glimpse of Brown Pendleton during his stay at the house next door. Webster Burgess was a banker who had inherited his bank, and he had always found life rather pleasant going. His wife diverted him a good deal, and the fact that she played at being a highbrow amused him almost more than anything else. He had kept his figure, and at forty-two was still able to dance without fear of apoplexy. He chose his haberdashery with taste, and sometimes he sent flowers to ladies without inclosing his wife’s card; but his wife said this was temperamental, which was a very good name for it.
Susie, holding her ground as Burgess advanced, composedly patted the head of one of the bronze lions that guarded the entrance to the Logan doors.
“Good evening! It’s mighty nice to see you back again,” said Burgess, smiling.
It was at this instant that Susan, hearing the god of adventure sounding the call to arms, became Susie again.
“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Burgess,” she replied; and ceasing to fondle the bronze lion’s left ear she gave the banker her hand. “Summer is hanging on,” observed Susie; “it’s quite warm this evening.”
“It is, indeed, and most of our neighbors seem to be staying away late; but I’m glad you’re back.”
Susie was glad he was back. Her superficial knowledge of Mr. Webster Burgess bore wholly upon his standing as a banker. In the year she had spent in his ancestral city she had never heard anything to justify a suspicion that he was a gentleman given to flirtations with strange young women. There was something quite cozy and neighborly in his fashion of addressing her. His attitude seemed paternal rather than otherwise. He undoubtedly mistook her for a member of the Logan household. It crossed her mind that he probably knew little of the Logan family, who had occupied the new house only to leave it; but she knew there were several Logan girls, for she was occupying the room designed for one of them.
“This is what I call downright good luck!” Burgess continued, glancing at his watch. “Mrs. Burgess reaches town at six, with her sister—and Brown Pendleton, the explorer, and so on. We met him at Little Boar’s Head, and you know how Mrs. Burgess is—she wanted to be sure he saw this town right. A mighty interesting chap—his father left him a small mint, and he spends his income digging. He’s dug up about all the Egyptians, Babylonians and Ninevites. He’s coming out to make a speech—thinks of prying into the mound-builders; though I don’t see why any one should. Do you?”
“On the whole I think the idea rather tickles me,” said Susie. “I always thought it would be fun to try a lid-lifter on the dead past.”
Mr. Burgess took note of her anew and chuckled.
“Open up kings like sardines! I like your way of putting it.”
“A few canned kings for domestic consumption,” added Susie, thinking that he was very easy to talk to. The fact that he did not know her from a daughter of the royal house of Rameses made not the slightest difference now that the adventurous spirit of the old Susie days possessed her.
Mr. Burgess was scrutinizing the telegram again.
“I want you to dine with us this evening—as a special favor, you know. It’s rather sudden, but Mrs. Burgess has a sudden way of doing things. Just as I left my office I got this wire ordering me to produce the most presentable girl I could find for dinner. Pendleton hates big functions, but I nailed Billy Merrill at the club on my way up, according to instructions—you can always get Billy; but I went through the telephone book without finding any unattached woman of suitable age I would dare take a shot at, knowing my wife’s prejudices. And then I looked over here and saw you.”
His manner conveyed, with the utmost circumspection, the idea that seeing her had brightened the world considerably.
“Certainly, Mr. Burgess,” replied Susie, without the slightest hesitation or qualm. “At seven, did you say?”
“Seven-thirty we’d better say. There’s my machine and I’ve got to go to the station to meet them.”
As Susan, the thing would have been impossible; as Susie, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Burgess was backing down the steps. Every instant reduced the possibility of retreat; but the fact was, that she exulted in her sin. She was an impostor and she rejoiced shamelessly in being an impostor. And yet it did not seem altogether square to accept Mr. Burgess’s invitation to dinner when it would undoubtedly involve him in difficulties with his wife, whom she had never seen in her life.
Burgess paused and wheeled round abruptly.
Her Susiness experienced a shock—the incident, in her hasty conjecture, was already closed—for he said:
“By-the-way, what is your name anyhow?”
“Susie,” she said, lifting her chin Susily.
Mr. Burgess laughed, as though it were perfectly obvious that she was a Susie—as though any one at a glance ought to know that this young person in the white flannel skirt and blue shirt-waist was a Susie, ordained to be so called from the very first hour of creation.
“Just for fun, what’s the rest of it?” he asked.
“Parker, please. I’m not even a poor relation of the Logans.”
“I didn’t suppose you were; quite and distinctly not!” he declared as though the Logans were wholly obnoxious. “I never saw you before in my life—did I?”
“Never,” said Susie, giving him the benefit of her blue eyes.
Burgess rubbed his ear reflectively.
“I think I’m in for a row,” he remarked in an agreeable tone, as though rows of the sort he had in mind were not distasteful to him.
“Of course,” said Susie with an air of making concessions, “if you really didn’t mean to ask me to dinner, or have changed your mind now that you find I’m a stranger and a person your wife would never invite to her house, we’ll call the party off.”
“Heavens, no! You can’t send regrets to a dinner at the last minute. And if you don’t show up I’m going to be in mighty bad. You see——” He gazed at Susie with the keen scrutiny he reserved for customers when they asked to have their lines of credit extended, and he carefully weighed the moral risk. “We seem to be on amazingly intimate terms, considering our short acquaintance. There’s something about you that inspires confidence.”
“I’m much uplifted by this tribute,” said Susie with a Susesque touch that escaped her so naturally, so easily, that she marveled at herself.
Burgess smiled broadly.
“I’m afraid,” he remarked, “that you don’t quite fill the bill; but you’ll do—you’ve got to do!”
He handed her the telegram he had retained in his hand and watched her face as she read:
P. is greatly taken with Floy, and we must give her every chance. Pick up an uninteresting young man and one of the least attractive of the older girls for dinner tonight. This is important Make no mistake.
“Those are my instructions. Can you ever forgive me?”
“With my hair brushed straight back, they say I’m quite homely,” observed Susie sighing.
“I shouldn’t do my worst,” said the banker, “where Nature has been so generous.”
“It seems,” observed Susie meditatively, “that I’m your deliberate choice as a foil for your sister-in-law, by sheer force of my unattractiveness.”
“I’m slightly nearsighted,” replied the banker. “It’s a frightful handicap.”
“I can see that glasses would be unbecoming to you.”
“The matter of eyes,” said the banker, stroking a lion, “is not one I should trust myself to discuss with you. Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”
“Cutting the leaves in the books and making a card catalogue. I use the typewriter with a dexterity that has been admired.”
“A person of education, clearly.”
“French and German were required by my college; and I speak English with only a slight Onondaga accent, as you observe.”
Her essential Susiness seemed to be communicating itself to the banker. His chauffeur loosened a raucous blast of the horn warningly.
“I fear your time is wasted. The Logans will never read those books. It’s possible that the hand of Fate guided me across the lawn to deliver you from the lions. The thought pleases me. To continue our confidences, I will say that, noble woman though my wife is, her sister has at times annoyed me. And when I left Little Boar’s Head I saw that Pendleton suspected that we were trying to kidnap him.”
“And I take it that the natural fellow-feeling of man for man would mitigate your sorrow if the gentleman whom your wife is carrying home in a birdcage should not, in fact, become your brother-in-law.”
“It would be indelicate for me to go so far as that; but Floy has always had a snippy way with me. I should like to see her have to work for the prize.”
“My dinner frock is three years old, but I’ll see what I can do to become a natural hazard. You’d better move upon the station—the blasts of that horn are not soothing to the nerves.”