“Pardon me,” murmured Habersham; but he asked: “What was Governor Osborne doing when you left Columbia?”
“When I left Columbia,” remarked Griswold, and it was he that smiled now, “to the best of my knowledge and belief the governor of South Carolina was deeply absorbed in knitting a necktie, the colour of which was, I think, the orange of a Blue Ridge autumn sunset. And now, if you will kindly give me pen and paper, I will communicate the Appleweight situation and our prospects to my honoured chief.”
CHAPTER XI.
TWO LADIES ON A BALCONY.
The outer aspect of Ardsley is, frankly, feudal. The idea of a North Carolina estate had grown out of Ardmore’s love of privacy and his wish to get away from New York, where his family was all too frequently struck by the spot light. The great tract of land once secured he had not concerned himself about a house, but had thrown together a comfortable bungalow which satisfied him for a year. But Ardmore’s gentle heart, inaccessible to demands of many sorts, was a defenceless citadel when appeals were made to his generosity. A poor young architect, lately home from the Ecole des Beaux Arts, with many honours but few friends, fell under Ardmore’s eyes. The towers and battlements that soon thereafter crowned the terraced slopes at Ardsley, etching a noble line against the lovely panorama of North Carolina hills, testified at once to the architect’s talent for adaptation and Ardmore’s diminished balances at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company.
On a balcony that commanded the sunset—a balcony bright with geraniums that hung daringly over a ravine on the west—Mrs. Atchison and Miss Jerry Dangerfield were cosily taking their tea. Their white gowns, the snowy awning stirring slightly in the hill air, the bright trifles of the tea-table mingled in a picture of charm and contentment.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Atchison abruptly, “where Tommy is.”
“I have no definite idea,” said Jerry, pouring cream, “but let us hope that he is earning his salary.”
“His salary?” and Mrs. Atchison’s brows contracted. “Do you mean that my brother is taking pay for this mysterious work he is doing?”
“He shall be paid in money,” replied Jerry with decision. “As I have only the barest acquaintance with Mr. Ardmore, never, in fact, having seen him until a few days ago, it would be very improper for me to permit him to serve me except under the rules that govern the relations of employer and employee.”
Mrs. Atchison smiled with the wise tolerance of a woman of the world; and she was a lady, it must be said, who had a keen perception of that sane and ample philosophy of life which proceeds, we may say, for the sake of convenience, from the sense of humour. She did not like to be puzzled; and she had never in her life been surprised, least of all by any word or deed of her singular brother Tommy. She liked and even cultivated with daring the inadvertent turns in a day’s affairs. The cool fashion in which her brother had placed the daughter of the governor of North Carolina in her hands on board her car at Raleigh had amused her. She had learned nothing from Jerry of the beginnings of that young woman’s acquaintance with the master of Ardsley—an acquaintance which seemed to be intimate in certain aspects but amazingly distant and opaque in others. Miss Geraldine Dangerfield, like Mrs. Atchison herself, was difficult to surprise, and Tommy Ardmore’s sister admired this in any one, and she particularly admired it in Jerry, who was so charming in so many other ways. Mrs. Atchison imagined that Jerry’s social experience had been meagre, and yet the girl accepted the conditions of life at Ardsley as a matter of course, and in the gatherings of the house party Jerry—there was no denying it—held the centre of the stage.