IV

The colonel burned the malefic letters that afternoon. Indeed, the episode set him to ransacking the desk in which Patricia had found them--a desk which, as you have heard, was heaped with the miscellaneous correspondence of the colonel's father dating back a half-century and more. Much curious matter the colonel discovered there, for "Wild Will"

Musgrave's had been a full-blooded career. And over one packet of letters, in particular, the colonel sat for a long while with an unwontedly troubled face.

PART SIX - BYWAYS

"Cry _Kismet!_ and take heart. Eros is gone, Nor may we follow to that loftier air Olympians breathe. Take heart, and enter where A lighter Love, vine-crowned, laughs i' the sun, Oblivious of tangled webs ill-spun By ancient wearied weavers, for it may be His guidance leads to lovers of such as we And hearts so credulous as to be won.

"Cry _Kismet!_ Put away vain memories Of all old sorrows and of all old joys, And learn that life is never quite amiss So long as unreflective girls and boys Remember that young lips were meant to kiss, And hold that laughter is a seemly noise."

PAUL VANDERHOFFEN. _Egeria Answers._

I

Patricia sat in the great maple-grove that stands behind Matocton, and pondered over a note from her husband, who was in Lichfield superintending the appearance of the July number of the _Lichfield Historical a.s.sociation's Quarterly Magazine_. Mr. Charteris lay at her feet, glancing rapidly over a lengthy letter, which was from his wife, in Richmond.

The morning mail was just in, and Patricia had despatched Charteris for her letters, on the plea that the woods were too beautiful to leave, and that Matocton, in the unsettled state which marks the end of the week in a house-party, was intolerable.

She, undoubtedly, was partial to the grove, having spent the last ten mornings there. Mr. Charteris had overrated her modest literary abilities so far as to ask her advice in certain details of his new book, which was to appear in the autumn, and they had found a vernal solitude, besides being extremely picturesque, to be conducive to the forming of really matured opinions. Moreover, she was a.s.sured that none of the members of the house-party would misunderstand her motives; people were so much less censorious in the country; there was something in the pastoral purity of Nature, seen face to face, which brought out one's n.o.blest instincts, and put an end to all horrid gossip and scandal-mongering.

Didn't Mrs. Barry-Smith think so? And what was her real opinion of that rumor about the Hardresses, and was the woman as bad as people said she was? Thus had Patricia spoken in the privacy of her chamber, at that hour when ladies do up their hair for the night, and discourse of mysteries. It is at this time they are said to babble out their hearts to one another; and so, beyond doubt, this must have been the real state of the case.

As Patricia admitted, she had given up bridge and taken to literature only during the past year. She might more honestly have said within the last two weeks. In any event, she now conversed of authors with a fitful persistence like that of an ill-regulated machine. Her comments were delightfully frank and original, as she had an unusually good memory. Of two books she was apt to prefer the one with the wider margin, and she was becoming sufficiently familiar with a number of poets to quote them inaccurately.

We have all seen John Charteris's portraits, and most of us have read his books--or at least, the volume ent.i.tled _In Old Lichfield_, which caused the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_ to apostrophize its author as a "Child of Genius! whose ardent soul has sounded the mysteries of life, whose inner vision sweeps over ever widening fields of thought, and whose chiseled phrases continue patriotically to perpetuate the beauty of Lichfield's past." But for present purposes it is sufficient to say that this jewelsmith of words was slight and dark and hook-nosed, and that his hair was thin, and that he was not ill-favored. It may be of interest to his admirers--a growing cult--to add that his reason for wearing a mustache in a period of clean-shaven faces was that, without it, his mouth was not pleasant to look upon.

"Heigho!" Patricia said, at length, with a little laugh; "it is very strange that both of our enc.u.mbrances should arrive on the same day!"

"It is unfortunate," Mr. Charteris admitted, lazily; "but the blessed state of matrimony is liable to these mishaps. Let us be thankful that my wife's whim to visit her aunt has given us, at least, two perfect, golden weeks. Husbands are like bad pennies; and wives resemble the cat whose adventures have been commemorated by one of our really popular poets. They always come back."

Patricia communed with herself, and to Charteris seemed, as she sat in the chequered sunlight, far more desirable than a married woman has any right to be.

"I wish--" she began, slowly. "Oh, but, you know, it was positively criminal negligence not to have included a dozen fairies among my sponsors."

"I too have desiderated this sensible precaution," said Charteris, and laughed his utter comprehension. "But, after all," he said, and snapped his fingers gaily, "we still have twenty-four hours, Patricia! Let us forget the crudities of life, and say foolish things to each other. For I am pastorally inclined this morning, Patricia; I wish to lie at your feet and pipe amorous ditties upon an oaten reed. Have you such an article about you, Patricia?"

He drew a key-ring from his pocket, and pondered over it.

"Or would you prefer that I whistle into the opening of this door-key, to the effect that we must gather our rose-buds while we may, for Time is still a-flying, fa-la, and that a drear old age, not to mention our spouses, will soon descend upon us, fa-la-di-leero? A door-key is not Arcadian, Patricia, but it makes a very creditable noise."

"Don't be foolish, _mon ami_!" she protested, with an indulgent smile.

"I am unhappy."

"Unhappy that I have chanced to fall in love with you, Patricia? It is an accident which might befall any really intelligent person."

She shrugged her shoulders, ruefully.

"I have done wrong to let you talk to me as you have done of late.

I--oh, Jack, I am afraid!"

Mr. Charteris meditated. Somewhere in a neighboring thicket a bird trilled out his song--a contented, half-hushed song that called his mate to witness how infinitely blest above all other birds was he. Mr.

Charteris heard him to the end, and languidly made as to applaud; then Mr. Charteris raised his eyebrows.

"Of your husband, Patricia?" he queried.

"I--Rudolph doesn't bother about me nowadays sufficiently to--notice anything."

Mr. Charteris smiled. "Of my wife, Patricia?"

"Good gracious, no! I have not the least doubt you will explain matters satisfactorily to your wife, for I have always heard that practise makes perfect."

Mr. Charteris laughed--a low and very musical laugh.

"Of me, then, Patricia?"

"I--I think it is rather of myself I am afraid. Oh, I hate you when you smile like that! You have evil eyes, Jack! Stop it! Quit hounding me with your illicit fascinations." The hand she had raised in threatening fashion fell back into her lap, and she shrugged her shoulders once more. "My nerves are somewhat upset by the approaching prospect of connubial felicity, I suppose. Really, though, _mon ami_, your conceit is appalling."

Charteris gave vent to a chuckle, and raised the door-key to his lips.

"When you are quite through your histrionic efforts," he suggested, apologetically, "I will proceed with my amorous pipings. Really, Patricia, one might fancy you the heroine of a society drama, working up the sympathies of the audience before taking to evil ways. Surely, you are not about to leave your dear, good, patient husband, Patricia?

Heroines only do that on dark and stormy nights, and in an opera toilette; wearing her best gown seems always to affect a heroine in that way."

Mr. Charteris, at this point, dropped the key-ring, and drew nearer to her; his voice sank to a pleading cadence.

"We are in Arcadia, Patricia; virtue and vice are contraband in this charming country, and must be left at the frontier. Let us be adorably foolish and happy, my lady, and forget for a little the evil days that approach. Can you not fancy this to be Arcadia, Patricia?--it requires the merest trifle of imagination. Listen very carefully, and you will hear the hoofs of fauns rustling among the fallen leaves; they are watching us, Patricia, from behind every tree-bole. They think you a dryad--the queen of all the dryads, with the most glorious eyes and hair and the most tempting lips in all the forest. After a little, s.h.a.ggy, big-thewed ventripotent Pan will grow jealous, and ravish you away from me, as he stole Syrinx from her lover. You are very beautiful, Patricia; you are quite incredibly beautiful. I adore you, Patricia. Would you mind if I held your hand? It is a foolish thing to do, but it is preeminently Arcadian."

She heard him with downcast eyes; and her cheeks flushed a pink color that was agreeable to contemplation.

"Do--do you really care for me, Jack?" she asked, softly; then cried, "No, no, you needn't answer--because, of course, you worship me madly, unboundedly, distractedly. They all do, but you do it more convincingly.

You have been taking lessons at night-school, I dare say, at all sorts of murky inst.i.tutions. And, Jack, really, cross my heart, I always stopped the others when they talked this way. I tried to stop you, too.

You know I did?"

She raised her lashes, a trifle uncertainly, and withdrew her hand from his, a trifle slowly. "It is wrong--all horribly wrong. I wonder at myself, I can't understand how in the world I can be such a fool about you. I must not be alone with you again. I must tell my husband--everything," she concluded, and manifestly not meaning a word of what she said.

"By all means," a.s.sented Mr. Charteris, readily. "Let's tell my wife, too. It will make things so very interesting."

"Rudolph would be terribly unhappy," she reflected.

"He would probably never smile again," said Mr. Charteris. "And my wife--oh, it would upset Anne, quite frightfully! It is our altruistic, nay, our bounden duty to save them from such misery."

"I--I don't know what to do!" she wailed.