“Miss Osborne’s presence is not only agreeable to me, Mrs. Atchison,” responded Jerry, “but I shall join you in welcoming her. I have heard that the ancestor through whom Barbara Osborne derives membership in the Daughters of the Seminole War was afterward convicted of robbing an orphan of whose estate he was the trusted executor, and such being the case I feel that the commonest Christian charity demands that I should treat her with the most kindly consideration. I shall gather some roses, with your permission, and have them waiting in her room when she arrives, with my card and compliments.”
Ardmore had rarely been so busy as during the afternoon. Several more newspaper correspondents were found prowling about the estate, and they were added to the howling mob in the Ardsley cellars. Collins searched them and read their instructions with interest. They were all commissioned to find the lost governors of North and South Carolina; and a number were instructed to investigate a rumour that North Carolina was about to default her bonds through malfeasance of the state treasurer. It was clear from the fact that practically every newspaper in New York had sent its best man to the field that the world waited anxiously for news from the border.
“It has all happened very handily for us,” said Collins; “we’ve got the highest-priced newspaper talent in the world right under our hands, and before we turn them loose we’ll dictate exactly what history is to know of these dark proceedings. Those fellows couldn’t get anything out of either Kildare or Turner’s for some time, as Paul’s men have cut the wires and Cooke has operators at the railway stations to see that nothing is sent out.”
“When we’ve settled with Griswold and proved to him that he’s lost out and that the real Mr. Appleweight is in his jail, not ours, we’ll have to find Governor Dangerfield and be mighty quick about it,” replied Ardmore. “Paul says there’s a battery of South Carolina artillery guarding the Dilwell County jail, and that they’ve fooled the people into thinking they’re North Carolina troops, and nobody can get within four blocks of the jail. They must have somebody in jail at Kildare. I don’t like the looks of it. I hope those men we left guarding old Appleweight in the Mingo jail know their business. It would be nasty to lose that old chap after all the trouble he’s given us.”
“They’ll keep him or eat him, if I know old Cookie.”
Jerry—a pleasing figure to contemplate in white lawn and blue ribbons—suggested that the meeting take place in the library, as more like an imperial council chamber; but Ardmore warmly dissented from this. A peace should never be signed, he maintained, in so large a house as Ardsley. At Appomattox and in many other cases that he recalled, the opponents met in humble farmhouses. It would be well, however, to have the meeting on the estate, for the property would thus become historic, but it would never do to have it take place in the Ardsley library.
“There should be great difficulty in securing pens and paper,” Ardmore continued, “and we must decline to accept the swords of our fallen foes.”
They finally agreed on the red bungalow as convenient and sufficiently modest for the purpose. And so it was arranged.
A few minutes before five the flag of North Carolina was hung from the wide veranda of the bungalow. At the door stood an armed militiaman. Colonel Daubenspeck had been invited to be present, and he appeared accompanied by several other officers in full uniform. Word of the meeting-place had been sent through the lines to the enemy, and the messenger rode back with Griswold, who was followed quickly by the adjutant-general of South Carolina and half a dozen other officers. The guard saluted as Griswold ran up the steps of the veranda, and at the door Ardmore met him and greeted him formally.
At the end of a long table Jerry Dangerfield sat with her arms folded. She wore, as befitting the occasion, a gray riding-dress and a gray felt hat perched a trifle to one side.