"I don't think that has anything to do with it," replied the Imp. "I'm certain it's something else. He's staying on because things haven't gone the way he'd planned. If they had, he'd have gone right home. I've figured that much out about him."
We didn't have any more time for talk just then, for Mother came in to say that dinner was ready. But I've been thinking and thinking ever since about what the Imp told me. She was never so communicative with me before. It's worth while to have a damaged arm, but I wonder how long it will last. I wish Carol were over here right now, so that I could tell her. But she has a cold, and I haven't seen her for two days.
It has seemed rather curious to me, right along, that we young folks were the only ones who seemed interested in Louis's affair and the new visitor. I wondered why. But something that was said at table last night made me realize that we are, after all, the only ones who know much of the inside of that affair. For instance, Mother said to Father:
"Who is that queer old gentleman visiting across the Green? He seems like a foreigner."
"Monsieur something-or-other," Father answered. "I didn't catch his name, though Louis tried to introduce us the other day, when they were passing where I was working in the north pasture. I've never quite understood the Meadows' household, anyway. They seem queer and foreign—all but Louis. He is a true American boy. I've often wondered where John Meadows hailed from. He brought Louis here as a small baby, and I never knew where he came from. He would never say much about it. By the way, Simpson wrote that we could have that new fertilizer next month."
And that's all they thought or cared about it. But, at any rate, their conversation had given me one bit of news—about Louis having been brought here as a little baby, and that folks didn't know the Meadows' people before. I'd always supposed that they had lived here all along, too. I wonder if Louis knows this? I wonder if I had better tell him? I don't know. Somehow that, and the news the Imp brought to-day, has made me feel about as mixed up as possible. I can't make head or tail of anything. I wish Carol were here.
I've just been looking over this journal from the beginning, noticing all the queer things that have come up about Louis since I began it. I think I'll put them down in order and see if it will help me to make anything out of the strange situation.
First, the queer way that Louis's folks have always treated him and the fact that he isn't any real relation. That looks to me very much as if his antecedents or his forefathers or whatever you call them must have been of some different station of life from the Meadows people. And yet Louis says their families have always been old friends. At any rate, they must feel, for some reason, responsible for him to some one, or they wouldn't be so careful about him. By the way, that some one must be "Monsieur"; who else could it be?
Next there were those mysterious cablegrams. Of course they were from "Monsieur," but what did he mean by saying, "The time is ripe"? Sounds as if some sort of plot was being hatched. And then about those papers. What are they, and where are they? Have they anything to do with Louis? I suppose they must. Does Louis himself know anything about them? He has never said a word to us.
Besides, there was that queer performance when Miss Yvonne had Louis dig in the cellar at night. I'm simply positive she must have been hunting for the papers then, and also on New Year's Eve in the attic. I believe they must be documents to prove that Louis is to come into a great fortune, perhaps one that his ancestors left him. Yes, that's a brand new idea, and I'm certain it's nearer the truth than anything we've thought of yet. "Monsieur" is probably the family lawyer in France, and has come to straighten everything out. Hurrah! I do wish Carol was here, so that we could talk this over. It's a much more sensible idea than the one that Louis is the descendant of some titled person. It would explain a number of things,—why "Monsieur" doesn't like Louis to do any work, and that sort of thing. And probably, too, that's why they would like him to go back to France and be a statesman, since he can't be a duke or a marquis and flourish around with the nobility. I suppose it's the next best thing, in their estimation.