They put to and were off, but the order was changed, as usual, and Pussie Duval rode with Derwent on the box. Caryl Wemyss would not drive, for he never did anything that he thought he did not well; so he and Mrs. Gower and Birmingham sat on the back seat, with Arthur, Van Kull, Mrs. Hay, and Kitty Farnum on in front. The drive to Poughkeepsie was straight and uneventful. The long hours were only diversified by Mrs. Wilton Hay’s uncertain efforts on the coaching horn.
Poughkeepsie is a brick-built city, with horse-car lines, an opera-house, and a court of justice all its own. Here they had a suite of rooms, with long lace curtains, black-walnut furniture, and Brussels carpets, equipped “before the dawn of taste, in poor imitation of a poorer thing,” said Wemyss; “how different from an English inn!” The rest of the adornment consisted, in each room, of a steam-heater and a pitcher of ice-water! “I believe they even bathe in ice-water!” said he. “Dear me!” said Birmingham, simply. “I rang and could not get a tub at all.”
They had dinner in Mrs. Gower’s parlor, and a telegram was brought in to her during the dessert. “Oh, I am very glad,” said she, as she laid it down. “It is from Mr. Haviland; and he says he can join us to-morrow.” Arthur looked at her, and then at Derwent; but that gentleman made no sign; only, Lord Birmingham looked disgusted. The others expressed a polite gratification, and then the question came up what they were to do in the evening. Already a great intimacy had sprung up among the party, and a certain feeling of youth, born of much outdoor air and freedom from care. Some proposed ghost-stories, others, games. “I bar kissing games,” said Pussie Duval, with much aplomb, “in the absence of Mr. De Witt.” Kisses were debarred, being, as Van Kull expressed it, too serious things to be made game of; but forfeits, twenty questions, even dancing, was indulged in. When all these failed to satisfy their souls, it was rumored that Mr. Derwent was “up” in palmistry. “Oh, do tell us our fortunes!” was the cry. “We must have a regular gypsy tent.”
“Now,” said Mrs. Hay, “it’s no fun unless we all tell. Agree all of you to tell us what he says!”
“Girls, girls” (the women of Mrs. Gower’s set had a way of still addressing each other joyously as “girls”)—“suppose he reveals the secrets of your hearts?”
“’Pon my soul!” cried Mrs. Hay, “I’ve quite forgotten what they are! Who’ll go in first?”
A shawl had been hung across an open door, behind which Derwent took up his position. No one seemed anxious to make the first try; and at last the voice of the company fell upon Arthur Holyoke, “as having,” said Mrs. Gower, “the most future before him.”
Arthur went in and came out laughing. “I have had,” said he, “a very terrible horoscope, as Derwent says. Everything that I really wish for is to happen to me!”
“I don’t see what there is so very terrible about that,” said they all; and the others were emboldened. Mrs. Gower went in next. “Speak aloud, Mr. Derwent,” cried Mrs. Hay, “so we all can hear—we can’t trust the garbled statements of the culprits.”
Derwent’s voice was heard, in sepulchral tones, from behind the screen. “I see the hand of a woman who has done whatever she has meant to do——”