"I hope," said Mrs. Atchison, putting down her cup and gazing dreamily into the west, "that you have not given Tommy any commission in which he is likely to fail. If it were a matter of finding a fan you had left behind somewhere, or even of producing an extinct flower from the Andes, he would undoubtedly be faithful to the trust imposed on him; but in anything that is really serious, really of importance one should never depend on Tommy."
This was, as the lady knew, almost vulgarly leading; but Jerry folded her arms, and spoke out with charming frankness.
"I have heard my father say," said Jerry, "that incapable men often rise to great opportunities when they are pushed. Mr. Ardmore has undertaken to perform for me a service of the greatest delicacy and not unattended with danger. You have been kind to me, Mrs. Atchison, and as you are my chaperon and entitled to my fullest confidence it is right for you to know just how I came here, and why your brother is absent in my service."
For once curiosity bound Mrs. Atchison in chains of steel.
"Tell me nothing, dear, unless you are quite free to do so," she murmured; but her heart skipped a beat as she waited.
"I should not think of doing so except of my own free will," declared Jerry, carelessly following the flight of a hawk that flapped close by toward the neighboring woods. "It may interest you to know that just now your brother, Mr. Thomas Ardmore, is the governor of North Carolina. He does not exactly know it, for at Raleigh I myself was governor of North Carolina at the time we met and I only made Mr. Ardmore my private secretary; but when it became necessary to take the field I placed him in full charge, and he is now not only governor of the Old North State, but also the commander-in-chief of her troops in the field."
With a nice feeling for climax Jerry paused, picked a lump of sugar from the silver bowl on the tea-table, bit the edge of it daintily, and tossed it to the robins that hopped on the lawn beneath.
Mrs. Atchison moved forward slightly, but evinced no other sign of surprise. The hour, the scene, the girl were all to her liking. She would even prolong the delight of hearing the further history of her brother's amazing elevation to supreme power in an American commonwealth—it was so foreign to all experience, so heavy with possibilities, so delicious in that it had happened to Tommy of all men in the world!
"I trust," she said, smiling a little, "that Tommy will not prove unworthy of the confidence you have reposed in him."