"We will do it in twenty minutes, then," laughed Bartlett, who saw another way to create a delay that might be used with advantage. The Parkers scorned to accept the few dollars Henrietta still had in the dark recesses of her bag.
"You can send it to us," said they, and the farmer added, heaping coals of fire on the general's unfortunate head, "We trust you perfectly."
The Watermelon looked sharply at Bartlett and wondered if he were up to any tricks. The Watermelon had only ten more miles of Billy and he didn't want to shorten the precious time by a confession if there were no need for one.
"Let's hurry," said he. There was no need of prolonging the misery in the thought of the parting.
"Worrying over his affairs," thought Bartlett. "He has come to at last."
The general insisted upon driving, and as it was his car, Bartlett perforce had to be content. He protested, however, that he knew the road thoroughly, and could direct the general with no instructions at all from the farmer, waving them all good-naturedly aside.
They were all quiet as they started down the road. Henrietta was depressed thinking about Alphonse. She had always stood in awe of his superlative virtues, and the fact that he lacked several was a bit of a shock. The general also was grieved. He had trusted Alphonse and Alphonse had failed him. Billy was silent, for she wanted to think, and all her thoughts were of the youth beside her, tall, slim, good-looking, with his merry eyes and devil-may-care indifference.
They could all go to New York together, she planned, and later, when her father and herself went to their summer place on the coast of Maine, they would get him to visit them there in their own home. And in the winter—and Billy's thoughts lost themselves in the hazy rosy glow of the future, with its possibilities and pleasures.
It was after three. The day was intensely warm, even in the shady wooded road on which they found themselves. They had been running through the woods for nearly an hour, and apparently had not reached the end of it. The last abandoned farm-house, gray, weather-beaten, forlorn, had long ago been passed. The birds chattered shrilly in the leafy profusion overhead; somewhere out of sight in the underbrush a brook gurgled refreshingly over its stony bed, and once, far away and very faintly, they heard the wild loon's dismal cry.
The general stopped the car and turned sidewise to face those on the back seat. "We are lost," said he. "Look at the odometer. We have come twenty miles since we left Stoneham and we are no nearer Harrison than when we started."