"You're just wore out, dearie," her mother said, comfortingly, and Briskow agreed. He a.s.sured her that all would be well.

All was not well, however. The next morning when Gus Briskow was about to leave the hotel as usual--Professor Delamater having departed hurriedly the evening before with fully four minutes of his twenty to spare--he was stopped by the manager, who requested him to give up his rooms. The Texan was bewildered; he could not understand the reason for such a request.

"'Ain't I paid my bills?" he queried.

The manager a.s.sured him that he had; he was profoundly regretful, as a matter of fact; but it so happened that the Briskow suite had been reserved early in the season, and the party who had made the reservation had just wired that he was arriving that day. He was a gentleman of importance--it was indeed unfortunate--the management appreciated Mr. Briskow's patronage--they hoped he and his family would return to the Notch sometime.

"Mebbe you got some other rooms that would do us," Gus ventured.

It was too bad, but the hotel was overcrowded. Later, perhaps--Now at that very moment the lobby was filled with tournament golfers who were leaving on the morning train, and Briskow knew it. He studied the speaker with an expression that caused the latter extreme discomfort; it was much the same expression he had worn the night before when he had served warning upon Delamater.

"Lemme get this right," he said. "You can talk straight to me. Bein'

ignerunt, I 'ain't got the same feelin's as these other folks got. I got a sh.e.l.l like a land turtle."

"It is quite customary, I a.s.sure you. No offense, my dear sir."

"That's how I figgered! Just bouncin' a low-down var mint ain't offense enough to be throwed out about, when you pay your bills--"

"You quite misapprehend--"

"Fired, eh? It 'll go hard with Ma. She's gainin' here, and she likes it. That's why I never told her you was chargin' us about double what you charge these rich folks."

The manager stiffened. "I regret exceedingly, sir, that you take it this way. But there is nothing more to be said, is there?"

It was with a heavy heart and a heavy tread that Briskow returned to his room. Ma took the announcement like a death blow, for it meant the end of all her dreams, all her joyous games of "pretend." Her mountains--those clean, green, friendly mountains that she loved with a pa.s.sion so intense that she fairly ached--those and her caves, her waterfalls, her gypsy band, were to be taken from her. She was to be banished, exiled.

She did not weep a great deal, but she seemed suddenly to grow older and more bent. Listlessly, laboriously she began to pack, and her husband noticed with a pang that her hands shook wretchedly.

As for Allie, she told herself that this was the end. She had tried to make something of herself and had failed. She had crucified herself; she had bled her body and scourged her soul only to gain ridicule and disgrace. There was no use of trying further; Gray had been mistaken in her, and her misery, her shame at the realization was intolerable.

There was no facing him, after this.

Allie decided to do away with herself.

CHAPTER XV

Gus Briskow was waiting at the cashier's desk for his bill when the bustle of incoming guests told him that the morning train had arrived.

Probably it had brought that "gentleman of importance" to whom the manager had referred. "To h.e.l.l with people like that manager!" the Texan muttered. He would take his family back home and chance no more humiliations like this. And to think that he had allowed that dancing monkey to escape when he could have shot him as well as not!

Briskow's chain of thought was broken by a slap on the back that nearly drove him through the cashier's window; then by a loud, cheery greeting. The next moment he found himself actually embraced by--Gus could not believe his eyes--by Calvin Gray!

The latter's affectionate greeting, his frank delight at seeing the Texan, caused people in the lobby to center amused attention upon them, and induced those behind the desk to regard Briskow with new respect.

"Gus! You precious pirate! My, but I'm glad to see you! Ma and Allie are well, I know; they couldn't be otherwise here. Great place, isn't it? Nothing in this country or Europe that compares with it, and I've sent dozens of my friends here. I came north on business and couldn't bear to go back without seeing you. Come! Give me a welcome, for I've traveled across three states to get here."

The two stood hand in hand. Gray beamed approvingly. Gus, too, was smiling, but earnestly he said, "I'm right glad to see you, Mr. Gray, for we're in trouble."

"Trouble? What sort? Not illness?"

"No. We're leavin'--been throwed out."

The younger man's face sobered. "Don't joke!" he cried, sharply.

"I ain't joking. Feller insulted Allie and she throwed him out of a window--"

"Exactly! It's in the morning paper."

"They don't seem to think it was reefined, so they--throwed _us_ out."

"Nonsense! Why, it is a corking story, and Allie was splendid--she gave the championship to Herring, who deserved it, thereby delighting every golfer on this side of the Atlantic. Jove! that girl is developing and I'm going to hug her--if there's no window handy! Throw you out? Why, there's some mistake, surely!"

Briskow shook his head; in greater detail he made known the facts. When he had finished his halting recital Calvin Gray's face was flushed with anger, there was a dark frown between his eyes.

"We'll see!" he muttered. "Wait here--or go back and tell Ma to commence unpacking." Then he was gone.

For perhaps ten minutes Gus waited nervously; he was amazed finally to see Gray approaching arm in arm with the manager; both were laughing, the hotel man's face was radiant with good humor. To the departing guest he said, genially:

"You are not going to leave us, after all, Mr. Briskow. On the contrary, we are going to keep you at the Notch as long as you'll stay.

Stupid misunderstanding on my part, and I apologize. I'm going to ask you to move, but into a better suite--the very best one we have. And the rate will be the same. Come! What do you say?" When he was met by a stammered protest, he insisted forcefully: "I sha'n't take 'no' for an answer, my dear sir; we simply refuse to let you leave. The best we have is yours, and I guarantee that you will be made comfortable."

"He offered to extend you the courtesies of the house--make you guests of the hotel," Gray added, "but I knew you wouldn't accept."

"Dunno's I want to stay at all," Gus murmured, angrily. "We ain't no better'n we was a half hour ago."

"To be sure, but I've made you better known. You are too shy; you didn't afford my friend here the pleasure of making your acquaintance, and I had to tell him the sort of person you really are. Serves you right, Gus, for being so exclusive. Gad! I think I'll give you a few lessons in democracy. Now then, come along! I'm dying to see Ma."

As the father trotted down the hall beside his swiftly striding deliverer, he gasped, "How'd you do it?"

"Nothing simpler. I merely showed Mr. What's-his-name that he was making an a.s.s of himself. I've spent a fortune here; know the owners, too. Nice chap, that manager, but he has no business running a hotel, and I so informed him. He'll probably annoy you to death with his attentions. He'll let you play 'shinny' in the halls if you want to.

Now--wait!" The speaker laid a finger upon his lips; his eyes were dancing. He knocked sharply at the Briskow door and cried, "Baggage ready, ma'am?"

There was a stir from within, the door was slowly opened by a bent, pathetic figure of grief.

"Ma!" Gray cried, and he held out his arms.

Perhaps it was his virile personality radiating confidence, security, or perhaps it was Gus Briskow's shining face that told the story; whatever the fact, Ma Briskow uttered a thin, broken wail, then walked into those open arms and laid her head upon Gray's breast. She clung to him eagerly and the tears she had been blinking so hard to restrain flowed silently.

"Oh-n-h! We ain't goin'away!" she said. "We ain't--goin' away!"

"Of course not. Gus misunderstood. The manager merely wanted you to move--into a larger, finer suite, and he is positively distressed at the thought of your leaving. The poor man is dashing about collecting an armful of roses for you and Allie. He wants to come in person and apologize."

There was another sound and Gray looked up to see Allie standing in the doorway to her bedroom; with one hand she clutched the jamb, the other was pressed to her bosom; she was staring at him as at an apparition.

The girl was quite colorless, there was a look almost of fright in her eyes, and when he came toward her she swayed weakly. Her hands, when he took them, were icy; it shocked him to see how worn, how weary she had grown.

It was several hours later. In the parlor of the new suite, a s.p.a.cious, sunny room, fragrant with flowers and cheerful with brilliant cretonnes, Gray and Briskow were talking. Allie and her mother could be seen in their bedrooms putting away the last of their belongings.

Gray's eyes had been drawn, at frequent intervals, to the younger woman, for the change in her became the more amazing the more he observed her, and he was still striving to reconcile this creature to the picture he had held in his mind. In a few months Allie had become almost a stranger to him. It was a marked and yet a subtle change that had come over her; she was anything but a polished young woman, of course; nevertheless she had been modified, toned down, vastly improved, and not until her first queer emotion at seeing him had disappeared was the full extent of that improvement manifest to the newcomer. He wondered why she had acted so oddly at first; surely she did not fear him. No, Allie's face at this moment was alight with supreme joy and satisfaction; she appeared to be quite as happily at her ease as Ma, who was singing steadily in a thin, rusty voice.