"Two o'clock, Thursday. I didn't have the nerve," Varney explained, "to ask Miss Carstairs for to-day—rather lucky I didn't—and she was engaged for Thursday."
"Right. I'll arrange it all. Well, for the Lord's sake take care of yourself to-night, Larry, and trust me to keep out of trouble. So long."
Varney looked after Peter's disappearing back, and envied him all the fun he was having. His own lot was certainly far less entertaining. However, it was his own; and here he resembled his friend in one respect at least. His thoughts, like Peter's, had a way just now of reverting at short notice to the matters in which he himself was most closely concerned.
He lay back idly among the cushions, and let his mind once more run over the unexpected problems of his situation.
The new graveness of what he was pledged to do had, of course, been strongly present in his mind from the first moment of revelation. Kidnapping a nineteen-year-old girl was certainly, as Peter had pointed out, a pretty serious business. He perceived that it would not look well in the papers in the least. Also if she cared to raise a row afterwards, there might be an aftermath which would not be wholly a laughing matter.
Nevertheless, this side of the question seemed remote and of minor interest to him just now. The problem appeared to be a personal one, not a question of statutes and judges. In his talk with Miss Carstairs before he knew her by name, he had failed to notice anything that suggested the spoiled and wilful child he had come to find. He could remember nothing she had said or done that helped him at all to think of her as his enemy. The fact was that it was all quite the other way. And this helped him to understand now, as he had not understood before, why Uncle Elbert had begged a solemn oath from him with such a piteous look on his handsome, haggard old face.
CHAPTER IX
VARNEY MEETS WITH A GALLING REBUFF, WHILE PETER GOES MARCHING ON
Peter's pronounced views as to Mr. Stanhope were not, it appeared, purely of the stuff that dreams are made of. Testimony to the author's lack of popularity in his native town came to Varney with unexpected promptness.
In the corner of the square, as he swung along toward the Academy Theatre that evening, he found himself suddenly confronted by a man who, lounging against the fence of a shabby dwelling, straightened dramatically at his approach and bent a sharp gaze upon him. He was a tall, shambling fellow with a white cloth swathed about the top of his head; and Varney, in the act of passing, suddenly recognized him as the dog man, whom Peter had knocked out the night before. His gaze was a wanton challenge for the young man to stop, and Varney cheerfully accepted it.