Haxon's face fell, so strong a hold had his now unsought plans taken upon him.
"Besides," Lloyd argued, rising from his chair, "our grounds of suspicion ain't firm underfoot; even the authorities ain't sure enough to venture to arrest the Pinnotts. They don't even molest the drunken men that were fairly sprawling all over the town this morning. They'll point the way they have travelled before long. The authorities are waiting for bigger game—laying for the moonshiners."
The terrors of the situation seized Haxon again: The suspicion that the street fair had at least some knowledge of this popular adjunct to its attractions; the obvious fact that it must profit immeasurably by the lures offered a dry town to draw a crowd; the unlucky publicity of the intimacy that the manager of the show had struck up with the old moonshiner and the several members of his family; the incongruity that his daughter had become a temporary member of the company, and had a place on the daily programme, doing a "stunt" that had no value whatever in the public eye, and might thus seem a tribute of flattery to a powerful coadjutor; the certainty that without this recruiting of the moonshine whisky-drinking element in the scantily populated region the fair could hardly have lived through the first day's performance—all were close meshes in such a net that the acrobat could hardly hope to escape thence.
"Oh, Hil'ry—we have worked so hard. I don't see no sense nor justice in our gettin' tangled up this fashion." He bowed his head on the chair back and groaned aloud.
"Now you look here," said Lloyd—he summoned a mental attention and was not disconcerted when Haxon did not lift his head. "You listen to me. I'm going to see this thing through. You just keep your tongue between your teeth and don't bat your eye, and watch me, and you'll see something doing!"
His confidence revived Haxon's hopes, though he retained his despondent attitude after he heard the tread of Lloyd's feet slowly descending the stairs. Perhaps it was well for the preservation of his composure that he did not see the deep depression the manager's face expressed while in the solitary transit down the flight, nor hear the half-smothered groan that dropped from his lips. He had wasted much time for naught in hanging his hopes on this futile interview. He was now exactly at the point whence he had started. Time meant money—the increase of the expenses of the show in a ratio with which the gate receipts by no means kept pace. Time meant danger, the continual challenge of disastrous possibilities, and that these were formulating somewhere, somehow, he did not doubt for a moment. He paused when he reached the bottom of the flight and glanced through a window of a side hall that had an outlook in the direction of the sylvan nook where Shadrach Pinnott had planted his staff. He had a vague, indeterminate disposition to make a tour of discovery thither, to satisfy himself—to see, perchance—wild hope—if his suspicions were not merely the result of his over-anxious facile fears. All the world knows that dry towns are only dry in spots, and perhaps the fact that the populace had been so called into the streets by the presence of the show made the pervasive evidences of liquor more obvious. Alack, his first glance from the window proved the tenuity of this reasoning. The farthest man he could see along the street coming from that direction was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; then amidst a file of ordinary pedestrians two came affectionately clasping each other around the waist, under the firm conviction that four legs can better compass locomotion than two, when all are so unsteady, on the theory of strength in numbers, perhaps. No one took notice, apparently, of the aberrations of this method of progression, but he reflected it would be only the gratification of a morbid anxiety to visit the spot, and his presence there might add an element of curiosity and speculation to a circumstance already unduly suspicious. As he came out into the square he noticed with a sort of melancholy satisfaction how well the show was running in all its various departments, how orderly it was, how mindful of its best possibilities, how cheerful and brisk the performers and spielers, all unprescient, poor souls! It was like a well-oiled piece of machinery, automatic, scarcely needing the eye of the manager. He cast a glance upward at the town clock—it was already time for the afternoon concert; at that moment he heard the tuning of the violins and a booming note from the bassoon. As he entered the tent he remarked that the light within was tempered, mellow, and his artistic taste was refreshed by this—it would aid the effect of the lime-light on the stage which should simulate sunshine amongst the dappling shadows of the peach-tree leaves.
The audience crowded the tent, to his surprise, for this "stunt" had proved no favourite performance with the public, and, since already seen, it had no claims to novelty. Then he realised the cause of this accumulation of spectators; in the best seats in the centre of the place was Mr. Jardine, his jaded, slightly disdainful, thin, grave, thoughtful face easily discriminated among the many that seemed turned out of a mould, custom made, so commonplace they were. The fresh, bright, candid countenance of the young collegian was near at hand, and between the two, radiant in their white dresses and hats, and with their flower-like faces, exquisitely fair and dainty, looking expectantly toward the stage, half amused at their own readiness to be entertained with these slight trifles, were the two belated summer birds of New Helvetia. The entrance of so distinguished a party had already made the "high-class concert" the fashion; the best element of the town was present, and this had been reinforced by the profanum vulgus of the street, for whatever the town folks found acceptable the rural wight cautiously sampled, often decrying and ridiculing while secretly approving and imitating. There were many sunbonnets, and snuff-brushes, and big wool hats, and bushy beards, but the dapper townsmen were in greater numbers than heretofore and the Misses Laniston did not wear the only be-frilled millinery that the tent displayed. It was an audience of no mean intelligence, and poor Lloyd realised that were he free from the gnawing wild beasts of secret anxiety and harrowing doubt and actual fear, his showman's heart would have beat high with the determination to stretch every nerve and do his best devoir. Even as it was there was no use in permitting the second violin to enter upon the fugues of the little overture very distinctly sharp to his acute and accurate ear. He had taken a seat near the orchestra, and he suddenly stood up and signed with a wave of the hand to catch the performer's attention. The man turned the screw slightly, and twanged the string. While Hilary Lloyd stood, his head slightly bent, with a face of motionless, intent interest, his hat in his hand, he heard distinctly, besides the violin's keen vibration, the sudden snap of the shutter of a camera. He nodded approval to the violinist, but his eyes followed the camera's sound. Ruth's flower-like face was pink with smiles and Lucia's long, romantic eyes were bright with triumphant daring. The two cavaliers were distinctly disconcerted as their eyes met Lloyd's. It was only for a moment; the manager affected to look over the house, then turning, resumed his seat, and the overture broke briskly forth.
"Lucia," her cousin Frank growled under cover of the music, "you had better mind. You will be led out by the ear, if you don't look out."
"I should be delighted to have my ear distinguished in any way, here, where a fine ear is made so conspicuous," she twittered in response.
"But the violins are all in accord now, and that second one was out of tune before," said Ruth.