Madame le Claire appeared in the archway.
"Ah, Miss Scarlett," said she, "you are early. May I ask you to return, in——"
"No!" It was the voice of Miss Scarlett which replied. "No, I'm not going! And if 'Gene Brassfield is in there, Billy Cox has something to say to him. Here, Mr. Alvord, you come in, too; he's out there hunting for 'Gene. Billy, do your duty now!"
"Pardon me," said Mr. Cox, advancing into the next room, followed by Miss Scarlett. "Pardon me, Judge Blodgett, I have a few words for you and your client. Miss Scarlett has made me agree to apologize to Mr. Brassfield about that summons; and if 'Gene Brassfield thinks I owe him any apology for putting it on to him a little before his out-of-town friends, I'll make it. But here are the facts, and he knows it: for four years he's been rawhiding me at every chance with his practical jokes. He had me arrested and detained for a whole day on fake telegrams at Wilkesbarre, only last fall; and just before that he got everybody at the Springs to thinking I was Tascott, and induced a rural constable to take me into custody. Why, Alvord here in his worst estate hasn't been as bad as he's been. If he's lost any opportunity, I don't remember it; and, of course, I've got back once in a while, and may be about even. But everything has been good-natured and brotherly, as ought to be between members of the gang. And, of course, when the cannon-crackers began to go off that night, I knew he was doing it. I was over in Major Pumphrey's parlor, where Daisy had invited me, during the eruption, and I told her about these things, and wished for some way of getting even, and—and some one spoke of this breach of promise suit, and we—that is, I—got up the summons, and I told Ed Tootle to serve it on you at your orgy—you had no business to expect me to enter any free-for-all inebriates' competition—you know that, 'Gene! It may have been a little extreme as a joke; but if you'd laughed it off as you always do, nobody would have thought anything of it except to chaff you about it. But what do you do? You make as serious a thing of it as if you hadn't been trotting with our crowd for five years or so. You set this old—my learned friend from the West—briefing it up, and you make a fool of me. Worse than that, you place Daisy in a most objectionable position; and, by George, 'Gene, I claim the apology is due from you, to me and Daisy!"
That he, Florian Amidon, had ever been guilty of playing such pranks as the ones described by Mr. Cox, seemed incredible; but his sense of relief at the way his burden rolled away in the light of Cox's indignant apology overcame all other sensations. He sprang forward to offer his hand cordially to Mr. Cox.
"I agree with you!" said he. "I do owe you an apology, and I freely offer it. As for the offense I have given Miss Scarlett, I can only say that I have had a very strange mental experience lately, of which my friends here can tell you, or I should never have—never have taken the matter—as I did. I beg you both to forgive me!"
"'Gene," said Miss Scarlett, offering her hand, "I'm too game a sport to go mourning because I lost out, and you ought to have known—I declare, I believe you've been crazy! I told Billy—Billy and I are engaged, now, and are really going to be married—I told Billy how, when we were at the watering-place, I insisted that it seemed a shame not to be engaged, and how we fixed it to be engaged for a week, and it made him furious! But as good a fellow as I've been, the way you took our joke was shabby. You people may know some good excuse, but——"
Madame le Claire was not only a diplomat: she was a strategist. Now, she saw, was the supreme moment in which to complete for Florian the good work she had begun.
"Please excuse Mr. Brassfield," said sha. "He is wanted in the back parlor; come, Mr. Brassfield, give me your arm!"
Through the portière she swept, bearing Amidon as on wings. There sat Elizabeth, her face bowed down upon her arms, on the back of a sofa. She rose as they entered.