"Not a bit of it! I enjoy a sound appet.i.te; I can carry a canoe like a Canadian guide; I am as good a fencer as my father; and I'm not afraid of the dark. You see, in the long vacations up there in Canada I lived out of doors and I shouldn't mind staying on here always. I like to paddle a canoe, and I know how to cast a fly, and I've shot ducks from a blind. You see how very highly accomplished I am! Now, my cousin Helen--"

"Well--?" and I was glad to hear her happy laugh. Sorrow and loneliness had not stifled the spirit of mischief in her, and she enjoyed vexing me with references to her cousin.

I walked the length of the room and looked out upon the creek that ran singing through the little vale. They were a strange family, these Holbrooks, and the perplexities of their affairs multiplied. How to prevent further injury and heartache and disaster; how to restore this girl and her exiled father to the life from which they had vanished; and how to save Miss Pat and Helen,--these things possessed my mind and heart. I sat down and faced Rosalind across the table. She had taken up a bright bit of ribbon from the work-basket and was slipping it back and forth through her fingers.

"The name Gillespie was mentioned here last night. Can you tell me just how he was concerned in your father's affairs?" I asked.

"He was the largest creditor of the Holbrook bank. He lived at Stamford, where we all used to live."

"This Gillespie had a son. I suppose he inherits his father's claims."

She laughed outright.

"I have heard of him. He is a remarkable character, it seems, who does ridiculous things. He did as a child: I remember him very well as a droll boy at Stamford, who was always in mischief. I had forgotten all about him until I saw an amusing account of him in a newspaper a few months ago. He had been arrested for fast driving in Central Park; and the next day he went back to the park with a boy's toy wagon and team of goats, as a joke on the policeman."

"I can well believe it! The fellow's here, staying at the inn at Annandale."

"So I understand. To be frank, I have seen him and talked with him.

We have had, in fact, several interesting interviews,"--and she laughed merrily.

"Where did all this happen?"

"Once, out on the lake, when we were both prowling about in canoes. I talked to him, but made him keep his distance. I dared him to race me, and finally paddled off and left him. Then another time, on the sh.o.r.e near St. Agatha's. I was taking an observation of the school garden from the bluff, and Mr. Gillespie came walking through the woods and made love to me. He came so suddenly that I couldn't run, but I saw that he took me for Helen, in broad daylight, and I--I--"

"Well, of course you scorned him--you told him to be gone. You did that much for her."

"No, I didn't. I liked his love-making; it was unaffected and simple."

"Oh, yes! It would naturally be simple!"

"That is brutal. He's clever, and earnest, and amusing. But--" and her brow contracted, "but if he is seeking my father--"

"Rest a.s.sured he is not. He is in love with your cousin--that's the reason for his being here."

"But that does not help my father's case any."

"We will see about that. You are right about him; he's really a most amusing person, and not a fool, except for his own amus.e.m.e.nt. He is shrewd enough to keep clear of Miss Pat, who dislikes him intensely on his father's account. She feels that the senior Gillespie was the cause of all her troubles, but I don't know just why. She's strongly prejudiced against the young man, and his whimsicalities do not appeal to her."

"I suppose Helen cares nothing for him; he acted toward me as though he'd been crushed, and I--I tried to be nice to him to make up for it."

"That was nice of you, very nice of you, Rosalind. I hope you will keep right on the way you've begun. Now I must ask you not to leave here, and not to allow your father to leave unless I know it."

"But you have your hands full without us. Your first obligation is to Aunt Pat and Helen. My father and I have merely stumbled in where we were not invited. You and I had better say good-by now."

"I am not anxious to say good-by," I answered lamely, and she laughed at me.

Helen, I reflected, did not laugh so readily. Rosalind was beautiful, she was charming; and yet her likeness to Helen failed in baffling particulars. Even as she came through the daisy meadow there had been a difference--at least I seemed to realize it now. The white b.u.t.terflies symbolized her Ariel-like quality; for the life of me I could not a.s.sociate those pale, fluttering vagrants with Helen Holbrook.

"We met under the star-r-rs, Mr. Donovan" (this was impudent; my own _r's_ trill, they say), "at the stone seat and by the boat-house, and we talked Shakespeare and had a beautiful time,--all because you thought I was Helen. In your anxiety to be with her you couldn't see that I haven't quite her n.o.ble height,--I'm an inch shorter. I gave you every chance there at the boat-house, to see your mistake; but you wouldn't have it so. And you let me leave you there while I went back alone across the lake to Red Gate, right by Battle Orchard, which is haunted by Indian ghosts. You are a most gallant gentleman!"

"When you are quite done, Rosalind!"

"I don't know when I shall have a chance again, Mr. Donovan," she went on provokingly. "I learned a good deal from you in those interviews, but I did have to do a lot of guessing. That was a real inspiration of mine, to insist on playing that Helen by night and Helen by day were different personalities, and that you must not speak to the one of the other. That saved complications, because you did keep to the compact, didn't you?"

I a.s.sented, a little grudgingly; and my thoughts went back with reluctant step to those early affairs of mine, which I have already frankly disclosed in this chronicle, and I wondered, with her counterpart before me, how much Helen really meant to me. Rosalind studied me with her frank, merry eyes; then she bent forward and addressed me with something of that prescient air with which my sisters used to lecture me.

"Mr. Donovan, I fear you are a little mixed in your mind this morning, and I propose to set you straight."

"About what, if you please?"

The conceit in man always rises and struts at the approach of a woman's sympathy. My body ached, the knife slash across my ribs burnt, and I felt myself a sadly abused person as Rosalind addressed me.

"I understand all about you, Mr. Donovan."

My plumage fell; I did not want to be understood, I told myself; but I said:

"Please go on."

"I can tell you exactly why it is that Helen has taken so strong hold of your imagination,--why, in fact, you are in love with her."

"Not that--not that."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the foil from the table and cut the air with it several times as I started toward her. Then she stamped her foot and saluted me.

"Stand where you are, sir! Your race, Mr. Donovan, has a bad reputation in matters of the heart. For a moment you thought you were in love with me; but you are not, and you are not going to be. You see, I understand you perfectly."

"That's what my sisters used to tell me."

"Precisely! And I'm another one of your sisters--you must have scores of them!--and I expect you to be increasingly proud of me."

"Of course I admire Helen--" I began, I fear, a little sheepishly.

"And you admire most what you don't understand about her! Now that you examine me in the light of day you see what a tremendous difference there is between us. I am altogether obvious; I am not the least bit subtle. But Helen puzzles and thwarts you. She finds keen delight in antagonizing you; and she as much as says to you, 'Mr. Donovan, you are a frightfully conceited person, and you have had many adventures by sea and sh.o.r.e, and you think you know all about human nature and women, but I--_I_--am quite as wise and resourceful as you are, and whether I am right or wrong I'm going to fight you, fight you, fight you!' There, Mr. Laurance Donovan, is the whole matter in a nut-sh.e.l.l, and I should like you to know that I am not at all deceived by you. You did me a great service last night, and you would serve me again, I am confident of it; and I hope, when all these troubles are over, that we shall continue--my father, and you and I--the best friends in the world."

I can not deny that I was a good deal abashed by this declaration spoken without coquetry, and with a sincerity of tone and manner that seemed conclusive.

I began stammering some reply, but she recurred abruptly to the serious business that hung over us.

"I know you will do what you can for Aunt Pat. I wish you would tell her, if you think it wise, that father is here. They should understand each other. And Helen, my splendid, courageous, beautiful cousin,--you see I don't grudge her even her better looks, or that intrepid heart that makes us so different. I am sure you can manage all these things in the best possible way. And now I must find my father, and tell him that you are going to arrange a meeting with Aunt Pat, and talk to him of our future."

She led the way up to the garden, and as I struck off into the road she waved her hand to me, standing under the overhanging sign that proclaimed Hartridge, the canoe-maker, at Red Gate.

CHAPTER XIX

HELEN TAKES ME TO TASK