The Adventures of a Modest Man

"In my car?"

"Why – er – yes," he explained; "you were sitting across the aisle, you know."

"Was I?" she asked with pleasant surprise; "across the aisle from you?"

He grew red; he had certainly supposed that she had noticed him enough to identify him again. Evidently she had not. Mistakes like that are annoying. Every man instinctively supposes himself enough of an entity to be noticed by a pretty woman.

"I had no end of trouble of finding out where Beverly was," he said after a minute.

"Oh! And how did you find out?"

"I didn't until I backed into Bailey, yonder… Do you know that I had a curious sort of presentiment that I should find you in this sleigh?"

"That is strange," she said. "When did you have it?"

"In the car – long before you got off."

She thought it most remarkable – rather listlessly.

"Those things happen, you know," he went on; "like thinking of a person you don't expect to see, and looking up and suddenly seeing that very person walking along."

"How does that resemble your case?" she asked.

It didn't. He realised it even before he began to try to explain the similarity. It really didn't matter one way or the other; it was nothing to turn red about, but he was turning. Somehow or other she managed to say things that never permitted that easy, graceful flow of language which characterised him in his normal state. Somehow or other, he felt that he was not doing himself justice. He could converse well enough with people as a rule. Something in that topsy-turvy and maddeningly foolish colloquy with those Germans must have twisted his tongue or unbalanced his logic.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "there's no similarity between the two cases except the basic idea of premonition."

She had been watching him disentangle himself with bright eyes in which something was sparkling – perhaps sympathy and perhaps not. It may have been the glimmer of malice. Perhaps she thought him just a trifle too ornamental – for he certainly was a very good-looking youth – perhaps something in the entire episode appealed to her sense of mischief. Probably even she herself could not explain just why she had thought it funny to see him running for his train, and later entangling himself in a futile word-fest with the conductor and the large mottled man.

"So," she said thoughtfully, "you were obsessed by a premonition."

"Not – er – exactly obsessed," he said suspiciously. Then his face cleared. How could anybody be suspicious of such sweetly inquiring frankness? "You see," he admitted, "that I – well, I rather hoped you would be going to the Austins'."

"The Austins'!" she repeated.

"Yes. I – I couldn't help speculating – "

"About me?" she asked. "Why should you?"

"I – there was no reason, of course, only I k-kept seeing you without trying to – "

"Me?"

"Certainly. I couldn't help seeing you, could I?"

"Not if you were looking at me," she murmured, pressing her muff to her face. Perhaps she was cold.

Again it occurred to him that there was something foolish in her reply. Certainly she was a little difficult to talk to. But then she was young – very young and – close enough to being a beauty to excuse herself from any overstrenuous claim to intellectuality.

"Yes," he said kindly and patiently, "I did see you, and I did hope that you were going to the Austins'. And then I bumped into somebody and there you were. I don't mean," as she raised her pretty eyebrows – "mean that you were Bailey. Good Lord, what is the matter with my tongue!" he said, flushing with annoyance. "I don't talk this way usually."

"Don't you?" she managed to whisper behind her muff.

"No, I don't. That conductor's jargon seems to have inoculated me. You will probably not believe it, but I can talk the English tongue sometimes – "

She was laughing now – a clear, delicious, irrepressible little peal that rang sweetly in the frosty air, harmonising with the chiming sleigh-bells. And he laughed, too, still uncomfortably flushed.

"Do you think it would help if we began all over again?" she asked, looking wickedly at him over her muff. "Let me see – you had an obsession which turned into a premonition that bumped Bailey and you found it wasn't Bailey at all, but a stranger in chinchillas who was going to —where did you say she was going? Oh, to the Austins'! That is clear, isn't it?"

"About as clear as anything that's happened to me to-night," he said.

"A snowy night does make a difference," she reflected.

"A – a difference?"

"Yes – doesn't it?" she asked innocently.

"I – in what?"

"In clearness. Things are clearer by daylight?"

"I don't see – I – exactly how – as a matter of fact I don't follow you at all," he said desperately. "You say things – and they sound all right – but somehow my answers seem queer. Do you suppose that German conversation has mentally twisted me?"

Her eyes above the fluffy fur of her muff were bright as stars, but she did not laugh.

"Suppose," she said, demurely, "that you choose a subject of conversation and try to make sense of it. If you are mentally twisted it will be good practice."

"And you will – you won't say things – I mean things not germane to the subject?"

"Did you say German?"

"No, germane."

"Oh! Have I been irrelevant, too?"

"Well, you mixed up mental clarity with snowy nights. Of course it was a little joke – I saw that soon enough; I'd have seen it at once, only I am rather upset and nervous after that German experience."

CHAPTER X

CHANCE

She considered him with guileless eyes. He was too good-looking, too attractive, too young, and far too much pleased with himself. That was the impression he gave her. And, as he was, in addition, plainly one of her own sort, a man she was likely to meet anywhere – a well-bred, well-mannered and agreeable young fellow, probably a recent undergraduate, which might account for his really inoffensive breeziness – she felt perfectly at ease with him and safe enough to continue imprudently her mischief.

"If you are going to begin at the beginning," she said, "perhaps it might steady your nerves to repeat your own name very slowly and distinctly. Physicians recommend it sometimes," she added seriously.

"My name is John Seabury," he said, laughing. "Am I lucid?"

"Lucid so far," she said gravely. "I knew a Lily Seabury – "

"My sister. She's in Paris."

"Yes, I knew that, too," mused the girl, looking at him in a different light – different in this way that his credentials were now unquestionable, and she could be as mischievous as she pleased with the minimum of imprudence.

"Do you ever take the advice of physicians," he asked naïvely, "about repeating names?"

"Seldom," she said. "I don't require the treatment."

"I was only wondering – "

"You were wondering what C. G. stood for on my satchel? I will be very glad to tell you, Mr. Seabury. C stands for Cecil, and G for Gay; Cecil Gay. Is that lucid?"

"Cecil!" he said; "that's a man's name."

"How rude! It is my name. Now, do you think your mental calibre requires any more re-boring?"

"Oh, you know about calibres and things. Do you shoot? I can talk about dogs and guns. Listen to me, Miss Gay." The subject shifted from shooting to fishing, and from hunting to driving four-in-hand, and eventually came back to the horses and the quaint depot-sleigh which was whirling them so swiftly toward their destination.

"Jack Austin and I were in Paris," he observed.

"Oh – recently?"

"Last year."

"I thought so."

"Why?" he asked.

"Oh, I suppose it was one of those obsessed premonitions – "

"You are laughing at me, Miss Gay."

"Am I? Why?"

"Why? How on earth is a man to know why? I don't know why you do it, but you do – all the time."

"Not all the time, Mr. Seabury, because I don't know you well enough."

"But you know my sister!"

"Yes. She is a dear."

"Won't that introduce me? And, besides, you know Jack Austin – "

"No, I don't."

"Isn't that odd?" he said. "You don't know Jack Austin and I don't know Mrs. Austin. It was nice of her to ask me. They say she is one of the best ever."

"It was certainly nice of her to ask you," said the girl, eyes brightening over her muff.

"I was in Europe when they were married," he said. "I suppose you were there."

"No, I wasn't. That sounds rather strange, doesn't it?"

"Why, yes, rather!" he replied, looking up at her in his boyish, perplexed way. And for a moment her heart failed her; he was nice, but also he was a living temptation. Never before in all her brief life had she been tempted to do to anybody what she was doing to him. She had often been imprudent in a circumspect way – conventionally unconventional at times – even a little daring. At sheer audacity she had drawn the line, and now the impulse to cross that line had been too much for her. But even she did not know exactly why temptation had overcome her.

There was something that she ought to tell him – and tell him at once. Yet, after all, it was really already too late to tell him – had been too late from the first. Fate, Chance and Destiny, the Mystic Three, disguised, as usual, one as a German conductor; one as a large mottled man; the other as a furry footman had been bumped by Seabury and jeered at by a girl wearing dark blue eyes and chinchillas. And now the affronted Three were taking exclusive charge of John Seabury and Cecil Gay. She was partly aware of this; she did not feel inclined to interfere where interference could do no good. And that being the case, why not extract amusement from matters as they stood? Alas, it is not well to laugh at the Mystic Three! But Cecil Gay didn't know that. You see, even she didn't know everything.

"You will like Jack Austin," he asserted.

"Really?"

"I'm willing to bet – "

"Oh, wait till we know one another officially before we begin to make wagers… Still, I might, perhaps safely wager that I shall not find your friend Jack Austin very agreeable to-night."

So they settled the terms of the wager; cigarettes versus the inevitable bonbons.

"Everybody likes Jack Austin on sight," he said triumphantly, "so you may as well send the cigarettes when you are ready;" and he mentioned the brand.

"You will never smoke those cigarettes," she mused aloud, looking dreamily at him, her muff pressed alongside of her pretty cheek. "Tell me, Mr. Seabury, are you vindictive?"

"Not very."

"Revengeful?"

"Well – no, I don't think so," he replied. "Why?"

"I'm much relieved," she said, simply.

"Why?"

"Because I've done a dreadful thing – perfectly dreadful."

"To me?"

She nodded.

Perplexed and curious, he attempted to learn what she meant, but she parried everything smiling. And now, the faster the horses sped, the faster her pulses beat, and the more uncertain and repentant she became until her uncertainty increased to a miniature panic, and, thoroughly scared, she relapsed into a silence from which he found it beyond his powers to lure her.

For already a bright light was streaming out toward them from somewhere ahead. In its rays the falling snow turned golden, every separate flake distinct as they passed a great gate with the lodge beside it and went spinning away along a splendid wooded avenue and then straight up toward a great house, every window ablaze with light.

John Seabury jumped out and offered his aid to Cecil Gay as several servants appeared under the porte-cochère.

"I had no idea that Jack Austin lived so splendidly," he whispered to Miss Gay, as they entered the big hall.

But she was past speech now – a thoroughly scared girl; and she lost no time in following a maid into the elevator, whither Seabury presently followed her in tow of a man-servant.

"Luxury! Great Scott," thought Seabury. "This dubbing a palace a cottage is the worse sort of affectation, and I'll tell Jack Austin so, too."

The elevator stopped; the doors clicked open; Seabury turned smilingly to Cecil Gay, but she hurried past him, crimson-cheeked, head bent, and he followed his pilot to his room.

"Dinner is hannounced at 'awf awfter height, sir," announced the man with dignity.

"Thank you," said Seabury, watching a valet do sleight-of-hand tricks with the contents of his suit-case. And when he was alone he hopped nimbly out of his apparel and into a bath and out again in a high state of excitement, talking to himself all the while he was dressing.

"Good old Jack! The Mrs. must have had the means to do this sort of thing so well. I'm delighted! – de – lighted!.. If ever a man deserved affluence, it's Jack Austin! It suits him. It will do him good. It becomes him… Plucky fellow to go on grinding at the law!.. Only thing to do, of course – decent thing to do – self-respect and all that… But, by jingo!" – he looked about him as he stood buttoning his collar. "Hah!" stepping to the wall and examining a picture – "Great Jenkins! – why, here's a real Fortuny – in a bedroom!"

He cared for good pictures, and he stood before the exquisite aquarelle as long as he dared. Then, glancing at his watch, he completed his toilet, opened his door, and, scorning the lift, fled blithely down the great staircase on pleasing bent – and on being pleased.

A big drawing-room, charmingly lighted, and gay already with the chatter and laughter of a very jolly throng – this is what confronted him as a servant offered him a tray containing cards.

"I don't see my name here," he said, examining the slim envelopes.

"Beg pardon, sir – what name, sir?"

"Mr. Seabury."

The servant looked and Seabury looked in vain.

"An oversight," commented the young fellow, coolly. "I'll ask Mrs. Austin about it." And he walked in, and, singling out the hostess, advanced with smiling confidence, thinking to himself: "She is pretty; Jack's right. But – but, by George! – she looks like Cecil Gay!"

His hostess received him very charmingly, saying that it was so good of him to come; and he said it was so good of her to have asked him, and then they said several similar things. He spoke of Jack – mentioning him and continuing to another subject; and she smiled a trifle uncertainly. Her smile was still more vague and uncertain when he laughingly mentioned the dinner-cards; and she said it was a vexing oversight and would be immediately arranged – glancing rather sharply at an amiable gentleman standing near her. And this amiable gentleman came up to Seabury and shook hands very cordially, and said several agreeable things to which Seabury responded, until new arrivals separated him from his hostess and the amiable gentleman, and he fell back and glanced about him. And, after a little while an odd expression came into his eyes; he stood very still; a slight flush slowly spread over his face which had grown firmer. In a few moments the color went as it had come, slowly; the faint glitter died out in his eyes.

There were several people he knew among the guests; he nodded quietly to young Van Guilder, to Brimwell and others, then crossed to speak to Catherine Hyland and Dorothy Minster. He was very agreeable, but a little distrait. He seemed to have something on his mind.

Meanwhile his hostess was saying to her husband: "Who is that, Jim?" And her husband said: "You can search me. Didn't you ask him?" And his wife responded: "He's talking to nearly everybody. It's curious, isn't it?" Here she was interrupted by the flushed entrance of her unmarried sister, Cecil Gay.

Meanwhile, Seabury was saying coolly: "I haven't seen Jack yet."

"Jack?" repeated Dorothy Minster. "Which Jack?"

"Jack Austin."

"Oh," said Miss Minster, who did not know him; "is he to be here?"

But Seabury only smiled vaguely. His mind, his eyes, his attention were fixed upon a vision of loveliness in the foreground – a charmingly flushed young girl who knew everybody and was evidently a tremendous favorite, judging from the gay greetings, the little volleys of laughter, and the animated stirring of groups among which she passed.

Watching her, quite oblivious to his surroundings, the servant at his elbow was obliged to cough discreetly half a dozen times and repeat "Beg pardon, sir," before he turned to notice the silver salver extended.

"Oh – thank you," he said, picking up an envelope directed, "Mr. Seabury," and opening it. Then a trifle surprised but smiling, he turned to find the girl whose name was written on the card. She was speaking to the hostess and the amiable man who had first greeted him. And this is what he didn't hear as he watched her, waiting grimly for a chance at her:

"Cecil! Who is that very young man?"

"Betty, how should I know – "

"Look here, Cis," from the amiable gentleman; "this is some of your deviltry – "

"Oh, thank you, Jim!"

"Yes, it is. Who is he and where did you rope him?"

"Jim!"

"Cecil! What nonsense is this?" demanded her hostess and elder sister. "How did he get here and who is he?"

"I did not bring him, Betty. He simply came?"

"How?"

"In the depot-sleigh, of course – "

"With you?"

"Certainly. He wanted to come. He would come! I couldn't turn him out, could I – after he climbed in?"

Host and hostess glared at their flushed and defiant relative, who tried to look saucy, but only looked scared. "He doesn't know he's made a mistake," she faltered; "and there's no need to tell him yet – is there?.. I put my name down on his card; he'll take me in… Jim, don't, for Heaven's sake, say anything if he calls Betty Mrs. Austin. Oh, Jim, be decent, please! I was a fool to do it; I don't know what possessed me! Wait until to-morrow before you say anything! Besides, he may be furious! Please wait until I'm out of the house. He'll breakfast late, I hope; and I promise you I'll be up early and off by the seven o'clock train – "

"In Heaven's name, who is he?" broke in the amiable man so fiercely that Cecil jumped.

"He's only Lily Seabury's brother," she said, meekly, "and he thinks he's at the Austins' – and he might as well be, because he knows half the people here, and I've simply got to keep him out of their way so that nobody can tell him where he is. Oh, Betty – I've spoiled my own Christmas fun, and his, too! Is there any way to get him to the Austins' now?'

"The Jack Austins' of Beverly!" exclaimed her sister, incredulously. "Of course not!"

"And you let him think he was on his way there?" demanded her brother-in-law. "Well – you – are – the – limit!"

"So is he," murmured the abashed maid, slinking back to give place to a new and last arrival. Then she turned her guilty face in a sort of panic of premonition. She was a true prophetess; Seabury had seen his chance and was coming. And that's what comes of mocking the Mystic Three and cutting capers before High Heaven.

CHAPTER XI

DESTINY

He had taken her in and was apparently climbing rapidly through the seven Heavens of rapture – having arrived as far as the third unchecked and without mishap. It is not probable that she kept pace with him: she had other things to think of.

Dinner was served at small tables; and it required all her will, all her limited experience, every atom of her intelligence, to keep him from talking about things that meant exposure for her. Never apparently had he been so flattered by any individual girl's attention; she was gay, witty, audacious, charming, leading and carrying every theme to a scintillating conclusion.

The other four people at their table he had not before met – she had seen to that – and it proved to be a very jolly group, and there was a steady, gay tumult of voices around it, swept by little gusts of laughter; and he knew perfectly well that he had never had such a good time as he was having – had never been so clever, so interesting, so quick with his wit, so amusing. He had never seen such a girl as had been allotted to him – never! Besides, something else had nerved him to do his best. And he was doing it.

"It's a curious thing," he said, with that odd new smile of his, "what a resemblance there is between you and Mrs. Austin."

"What Mrs. Austin?" began the girl opposite; but got no further, for Cecil Gay was appealing to him to act as arbiter in a disputed Bridge question; and he did so with nice discrimination and a logical explanation which tided matters over that time. But it was a close call; and the color had not all returned to Cecil's cheeks when he finished, with great credit to his own reputation as a Bridge expert.

But the very deuce seemed to possess him to talk on subjects from which she strove to lead him.

These are the other breaks he made, and as far as he got with each break – stopped neatly every time in time:

"Curious I haven't seen Jack Aus – "

"Mrs. Austin does resemble – "

"This is the first time I have ever been in Bev – "

And each time she managed to repair the break unnoticed. But it was telling on her; she couldn't last another round – she knew that. Only the figurative bell could save her now. And she could almost hear it as her sister rose.

Saved! But – but —what might some of these men say to him if he lingered here for coffee and cigarettes?

"You won't, will you?" she said desperately, as all rose.

"Won't – what?" he asked.

"Stay —long."

He rapidly made his way from the third into the fourth Heaven. She watched him.

"No, indeed," he said under his breath.

She lingered, fascinated by her own peril. Could she get him away at once?

"I – I wonder, Mr. Seabury, what you would think if I – if I suggested that you smoke – smoke – on the stairs – now – with me?"

He hastily scrambled out of the fourth Heaven into the fifth. She saw him do it.

"I'd rather smoke there than anywhere in the world – "

"Quick, then! Saunter over to the door – stroll about a little first – no, don't do even that! – I – I mean – you'd better hurry. Please!" She cast a rapid look about her; she could not linger another moment. Then, concentrating all the sweetness and audacity in her, and turning to him, she gave him one last look. It was sufficient to send him in one wild, flying leap from the fifth Heaven plump into the sixth. The sixth Heaven was on the stairs; and his legs carried him thither at a slow and indifferent saunter, though it required every scrap of his self-control to prevent his legs from breaking into a triumphant trot. Yet all the while that odd smile flickered, went out, and flickered in his eyes.

She was there, very fluffy, very brilliant, and flustered and adorable, the light from the sconces playing over her bare arms and shoulders and spinning all sorts of aureoles around her bright hair. Hah! She had him alone now. She was safe; she could breathe again. And he might harp on the Austins all he chose. Let him!

"No, I can't have cigarettes," she explained, "because it isn't good for my voice. I'm supposed to possess a voice, you know."

"It's about the sweetest voice I ever heard," he said so sincerely that the bright tint in her cheeks deepened.

"That is nicer than a compliment," she said, looking at him with a little laugh of pleasure. He nodded, watching the smoke rings drifting through the hall.

"Do you know something?" he said.

"Not very much. What?"

"If I were a great matrimonial prize – "

"You are, aren't you?"

"If I was," he continued, ignoring her, "like a king or a grand duke – "

"Exactly."

"I'd invite a grand competition for my hand and heart – "

"We'd all go, Mr. Seabury – "

" – And then I'd stroll about among them all – "

"Certainly – among the competing millions."

"Among the millions – blindfolded – "

"Blinfo – "

"Yes."

"Why?"

" – Blindfolded!" he repeated with emphasis. "I would choose a voice! – before everything else in the world."

"Oh," she said, rather faintly.

"A voice," he mused, looking hard at the end of his cigarette which had gone out: and the odd smile began to flicker in his eyes again.