We were to have gone to the nearest hotel, as you know, for your telegram to me (just forwarded) and the proofs for Storm were both addressed there. P. S. had this invitation up his sleeve as a surprise for the crowd. His pal Moncourt knows the man to whom the place was left by young Stanislaws, or else he got the favour through the man's lawyer, which I think more likely. But no use troubling you with details of the affair, which can't interest you as it does me. Suffice it to say it's a very fine place, and there's something queer about the ownership which, as it happens, my detectives are at this very time trying to get at the root of. I've never ceased to feel that I have been defrauded. I suspect Storm heard something of the story from Moncourt, and put him up to arranging the "surprise" more to annoy me than to please any one else. Well, he scored, I can't deny. But the man laughs best who laughs last, you know, and it's my turn now. I got my chance at Piping Rock, as I expected; and as I shan't arrive at Kidd's Pines with the others, I am writing this to put you on to the situation; also to acknowledge your telegram. It was nice of you to send it like that, the minute you got my scolding letter from Easthampton. I'm sorry I was so severe, though I had some excuse to be cross. I forgive you freely, now things are turning out a little better, and I ask you to do the same with me.
I am writing, as before, in a hurry, for I have to go to New York on important business. My own car has been put to rights, and I am expecting it to turn up at any minute. I shall post this, express, on the way to town.
Well, the little lady played me a trick day before yesterday. Watch out for her, my friend! She looks as innocent as a Christmas card angel, but she's got something of the pussy cat in her composition. Not that I like her the less for that. It's more exciting. The only way is, to know what one may have to expect, and be ready for emergencies. She may try to make trouble for you in a certain direction, so hurry up and fix things! But so far as I'm concerned, it seems as if I'd got her in hand since last night.
The trick she played was to send me off, driving her beastly Grayles-Grice, and carting the Goodrich family round the country, while she and Peter Storm spooned in an imitation Italian garden. I hadn't a notion the girl meant to stay behind till I was in the car with the wheel in my hand. The Goodrich lot were in, too. One of them wanted to know what we were waiting for? I said, "For Miss Moore." "Oh, she isn't coming!" remarked the gigantic young female. "She's got letters to write."
Letters be blighted! It took all my noblesse oblige not to step out of the automobile and refuse to stir. But it would have looked rather too marked, and that little devil of a Mrs. Winston would have been too much tickled. Her car was close by at the time, and for once she'd stopped chattering, no doubt to see how I would bear the blow she probably knew was coming. My one satisfaction was to give her none! But I hoped for more later, and got it, as you are going to hear.
I had made a plan for the evening, in case Storm showed up for the dance. It was quite a simple one. I hadn't given him a special invitation, as I had the others, and if he took it for granted he was asked, it was his own fault. I knew that one of the most exclusive women in society was coming to the dance, Mrs. Sam de Silverley. You may have known she was on your ship, though it's unlikely you saw her, as she was badly sick all the way across, I've heard. She's been rather friendly with me since I came into my money; in fact, I helped to get her the house she's taken for the summer, not far from the Piping Rock Club. It belongs to a man I know, a great golfer, in France with the American Ambulance just now; and it was on my programme for the day to call and ask her to be nice to my party in the evening. I did call, while the crowd were having a picnic-lunch, ran the Grayles-Grice to her place, and stopped long enough for coffee. She's fond of a little gossip, and knew all about the debacle at Kidd's Pines of course. I gave her a few picturesque details of P. S. and his exploits on land. Mrs. Sam had already heard of those at sea. The stewardess and her maid had cheered the monotony of the voyage by describing the "Stormy Petrel," as it seems you all called him on shipboard. I let you down lightly; said that out of charity you'd employed the man to do secretarial work, to which he was entirely unsuited, but that he was thoroughly at home as chauffeur. I enlarged a little on his impudence, and remarked that I shouldn't be surprised if he had the cheek to turn up at the dance, pretending to be my guest.
"If he does, I have enough influence in the club to see that he is asked to go," Mrs. de Silverley assured me. And that was exactly what I wanted. It would be awkward for me, in the circumstances, to have him put out, I said, but if the club did it, understanding that he was not my guest, I should be grateful.
This was the whole of my original plan, and I carried it out as intended. But since beginning to work it up, I found I had Miss Patty to punish as well as P. S. I concentrated my whole mind on my objective while the Goodrich girls admired the scenery, during the afternoon run; and toward evening I thought I saw my way to something big.
You haven't seen the Piping Rock Club yet, I think. Well, it's absolutely it, and only the right people belong. There's fine golf, and tennis of course, and I've heard Englishmen say the lawns are more like the turf "at home" than any they've seen on this side. In fact, Winston said that very thing to-day: called the club an "American Ranelagh." Not that I set much value on his opinion! The clubhouse itself is just like some jolly old country house: white shingles and green blinds, green and white awnings, large open court with brick walks running all around, and a fountain playing in the middle, wicker chairs scattered about the court, and window boxes full of pink flowers, wide verandas or loggias, or whatever you call them, where you can have tea or most anything else you want; a lot of rooms with comfortable chintz-covered furniture, jolly chintz like the old patterns at Kidd's Pines, and a ballroom fit for Buckingham Palace. You'll love the place; but I'm not describing it to make you regret stopping at home. If things have gone right with you, it would take twenty Piping Rocks to do that—and then one! All I'm aiming at is to show you the swell sort of setting I had for my stage last night.
The big dances are in the fall and winter. This one was a special affair, very smart but not big, and that made every one there more conspicuous. Our crowd had about the only strangers in it. Pretty well all the rest knew each other, and most of them belonged to the same clique. I felt good all over, as if I had a chance of coming into my own, when I found Storm in the chauffeur's seat of the Grayles-Grice, ready to drive us to the dance. He was in evening clothes under his big coat: had worn them to dinner of course, pretty weird ones; ready made, I should say. I guessed that he meant to brave the business out, though I wasn't quite easy in my mind up to the last that he wouldn't make some excuse to go home when he'd got us to the clubhouse. But not a word of the sort did he utter. On the contrary, I heard him tell Miss Moore she "wasn't to forget their dance." That made me hot in the collar, and if I'd been inclined to wobble before, I nailed my colours to the mast then. Not only was I egged on by my anger against that fellow, who has deliberately put stumbling-blocks in my way from the first, but by my sincere desire for Miss Moore's welfare. Quite apart from my wishes where she is concerned, nothing could be worse for her than an entanglement with an adventurer like Storm—a man from the dark, you might call him, if you chose to say nothing worse. And already the Goodriches are talking—made jokes in the automobile yesterday about the two who had stayed at home to "write."