"And will you, Mr. Bennet," finished Jessie's champion imploringly, "will you go back and see that man with me and fix it so they won't do anything to Jessie?"

It might be better to fix things up now with Mr. Bennet's able a.s.sistance, than to wait until later on to speak to Ross.

"Certainly," said Mr. Bennet, kindly, "I'll be very glad to; if you think I can do any good."

Arethusa was absolutely sure of this. Was he not Mr. Bennet?

Mr. Platt, the floor-walker to whom Mrs. Bixby had complained of Jessie, was also an a.s.sistant manager, and he was very glad to have the facts in this particular case, he said, when Arethusa and Mr. Bennet had hunted him up; Arethusa to do most of the talking, and Mr. Bennet to smile and look on, and impress the one who had Jessie's sentence within his power to make either good or bad, by just the fact of his appearance and his air of being someone of importance, which was so decidedly Mr. Bennet's air. The other lady, added Mr. Platt to his speech apologetically, had slightly misrepresented things. She had accused the girl of impudence and inattention, which had sounded bad.

And in a store of this size.... But when a customer got excited, she was not always just accurate, yet they could not tell....

Mr. Bennet was most amused by this little dig at his aunt. Arethusa was vigorous in her defense of Jessie, and her denial that Jessie had been at all impudent. And her indignation had made her so pretty, with her flushed cheeks, that Mr. Platt smiled paternally and told her that it would be all right. Probably she herself might like to stop by and tell Jessie so? Nothing suited Arethusa better; so with Mr. Bennet in tow, this pleasant duty was performed, and then once more she sought the outside.

"Now come go to lunch with me," said Mr. Bennet, as they paused under the iron and gla.s.s porte-cochere for a moment. "It's lunch time," he added, "and maybe considerably after. I was on my way when I met you."

Arethusa's eyes sparkled at the thought. "But do girls go to lunch down-town with gentlemen?"

He a.s.sured her that they often did, and as Arethusa had no further scruples of any sort to add, he led the way across the street to the big Patterson Hotel; the shop where shawls and excitement had been found was exactly opposite.

Arethusa followed him on into the dining-room, her heart beating such an excited tattoo against her chest she was very glad that the band on the little balcony at one end of the room was playing so loudly just then, else she was quite certain that Mr. Bennet, and even the tall and imposing head waiter who was so courteously showing them to a table, would have heard that pounding heart.

It was certainly a Real Adventure.

They were piloted to a spot which Mr. Bennet, from the door-way when they had first stepped inside, had selected for its attractions, a little table for two far over in the corner, just enough removed from the band for the music to be a pleasant accompaniment to the business of luncheon, instead of an interruption, as it often was when closer to it. The table held a lighted candle lamp shaded with a soft rose-colored shade of fluted silk (and not all of the tables boasted little lamps) which seemed to add most delightfully to the intimacy of the occasion.

Arethusa leaned her elbows on the table, and looked happily at Mr.

Bennet, sitting so close to her on the other side of the white cloth, ordering a lunch for her to eat. There was a charming intimacy about the situation which could not help but appeal.

"Isn't this fun!" she exclaimed. "Just us!"

Mr. Bennet thought it was, indeed.

And he added instructions to the waiter, about the food which was to be prepared for Arethusa to eat, which further added to the Charm of things. The waiter hurried off with their order, as if he himself deemed it no ordinary order.

Then, while they waited, Arethusa unrolled her parcel and showed Mr.

Bennet the shawl and told him all about Miss Asenath.

"It would be wonderful to be loved the way your aunt has loved that man all these years," he said softly, when the Tale was ended, for Arethusa had crowded every single bit of Romance connected with it into her telling.

Her long eyelashes drooped suddenly over her eyes, and the little flush which always came so quickly spread over her face and neck. Her unruly heart beat even faster.

There was a soft, long silence, and Mr. Bennet, admiring the light of the candle lamp on Arethusa's ruddy hair, smiled to himself as he watched her. He had an idea that he knew just about what she was thinking.

Arethusa was thinking that Mr. Bennet was undoubtedly the sort of man that one would be sure to love just that way.

Now Mr. Bennet knew very well how Arethusa felt about him, and this without any real conceit on his part. Arethusa was a woefully transparent young person; she had never learned there are times when it might seem best to dissemble a little. Mr. Bennet knew, perhaps, better than she did herself, the exact state of her Feeling in regard to him.

There were some essential points on which they would not have agreed at all; but still.... His main idea as to just how Arethusa felt was pretty clear.

He leaned back in his chair, and continued to watch her. He could almost have laughed aloud at her pretty confusion. Arethusa's nervous fingers crumbled up a perfectly good slice of bread until it could be of no use of any kind to anybody, her head still bent. If the Situation had such charm, it had not lost altogether the power to embarra.s.s, when Words that could cause such Thoughts were softly spoken by a rich and drawling Voice.

The waiter helped matters considerably by bringing in the soup.

Soup has never been regarded as much in the way of a reliever of embarra.s.sment, but it proved to be something of the kind in this particular case. Arethusa's tongue was loosened again, and she chattered of inconsequential topics of variety, but none of them brought such moments as the one just past. There was much to be said to Mr. Bennet, for they had grown to be great friends in the last few weeks and had many interests in common.

It was an unusually nice little luncheon that Mr. Bennet had ordered; and it was perfect eaten so, just the two of them, thought Arethusa. It was prolonged quite beyond the time generally allotted for luncheons, for it was almost half-past three when they emerged from the Hotel.

"Well, what shall we do now?" asked Mr. Bennet. He glanced at his watch and then shut it with a snap. "I don't believe I'll go back to the office again this afternoon; that is.... How about you? Are you free?

What do you say to a moving-picture show?"

Arethusa was delighted. She had nothing whatever to do, and she adored the movies. She had seen a few with Ross and Elinor.

So Mr. Bennet stepped back into the Hotel to telephone Miss Ford that he would not be back that afternoon; and then they strolled side by side up the street, he and Arethusa, hunting for the picture show which seemed to have the most to offer.

The one they finally chose to attend proved to be so exciting that Arethusa scarcely breathed a word to him until it was all over, and the film had gone around and started to go around again, so that she could be perfectly sure she had seen every bit of it. There was a great deal of honest realism about the acting done on the screen for Arethusa, photography though it might be. A smothered scream had attested to Mr.

Bennet the genuineness of her fear for her own safety during a portion of this picture's running, and her sudden jump when the evil-looking Indian had shot the handsome cowboy, and the little sound of distress she had made, told him that although movie guns were said to fire blank cartridges, they inflicted actual damage for Arethusa.

It was dark when they left the moving-picture theatre, and well after five. Winter days seem woefully short.

"Well, what shall we do now?" asked Mr. Bennet, for the second time. "I suppose, though, it will be home. It's so late."

Arethusa stopped short in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, full of folks who were plainly impatient to get somewhere, and very probably it was home, flowing past her on either side, all unregarded. She grabbed Mr. Bennet frantically by one arm.

"Oh, Mr. Bennet!"

"What's the matter? Did you leave something in the theater?"

"No! But I've left Clay waiting in the machine for me all this time in front of that store, and I never thought of him once until you said, 'home!'"

The last part of this information was wafted on the breeze to Mr.

Bennet, for Arethusa had started off down the street with the swiftness of the wind itself. He followed her immediately, but considerably more slowly as to locomotion (he was no sprinter and Mr. Bennet rarely forgot his dignity) and with the parcel containing Miss Asenath's birthday gift in one hand. Arethusa had dropped it directly at his feet in her excitement. When he caught up with her, she was standing in front of the shop gazing wildly up and down the street, for no Clay and no automobile were to be discovered anywhere.

The door attendant, when questioned by Mr. Bennet, said that he remembered the chauffeur referred to very well. He had seemed to be very worried about the young lady, and had left his car several times to ask him if he had seen her come out. But he had driven off some time ago, about three hours ago, the door attendant thought it was, to be as exact as he could.

Mr. Bennet took Arethusa home in a taxicab to an excited and distraught household.

When Clay had come back without her, with his strange story of having waited for her, and that she had never returned to the machine, Ross had been perfectly sure that she had been kidnapped, and he had gone impetuously to the police station to start an immediate search. Elinor was prostrate in her room, visioning all sorts of dreadful things that might have happened to an Arethusa always too p.r.o.ne to make chance acquaintances, when Arethusa herself, as repentant and contrite a cause of it all as it was possible for her to be, walked in.

Elinor would not allow Ross to scold her after she heard Arethusa's sobbing explanation, that she was having such a good time she forgot everything else; for she said that he was really more to blame for that than anyone concerned.

Which rather cryptic statement, if Arethusa failed of comprehension, seemed to be quite clear to her father.

CHAPTER XX

The winter sped away until Christmas, on wings of fleetness that made the days seem as if they had only been hours since Arethusa had come to Lewisburg. Life was crowded so full of new experiences and happenings that she had absolutely no smallest room or time for any moments of home-sickness for the Farm. And then.... There was Mr. Bennet.