"I have, indeed! He's taken to lonely horseback rides; he's off somewhere now. He has n't the stamina for a contest like this. One by one the autumn leaves are falling," he added, with special intention, "and I have given you your chance."

"Thanks, light-bringing Socrates from the lands of the Ogalallas! For so much courtesy I shall take pleasure in reading all your posthumous works. Let us cease being absurd."

He laid his hand on my arm and lowered his tone.

"Don't be an a.s.s. If you and I both know what's underneath all this mystery we might come to an understanding."

"I don't follow you. Please make a light, like a man about to have an idea."

"You mean that you don't understand?" He eyed me doubtfully, uncertain whether I knew or not.

"You have implied that I am incapable of understanding; suppose we let it go at that."

With this I left him and entered the low-raftered office--it was really a pleasant lounging-room, unspoiled by the usual hotel-office paraphernalia. d.i.c.k had followed close behind, and as I paused, hearing voices raised angrily in the dining-room beyond, I turned to him for an explanation. As the suitors had been the only guests of the inn since their advent, having stipulated that the proprietor should exclude other applicants for meals or lodging, I attributed the commotion to strife in their own ranks. d.i.c.k nodded sullenly and bade me keep on.

"You 'd better take a look at those fellows. I 've quit them--quite out of it; remember that."

The dining-room door was slightly ajar, and I flung it open.

Ormsby, Shallenberger, Henderson, Hume, Gorse, and Arbuthnot had been engaged with cards at a round table in an alcove, but some dispute having apparently risen, they stood in their places engaged in acrimonious debate. As near as I could determine, some one of them--I think it was Ormsby--wished to abandon the game, which had been undertaken to determine in what order they should be permitted to pay visits to Hopefield in future, the calls _en ma.s.se_ having grown intolerable. They were so absorbed in their argument that they failed to note my appearance, and I stood un.o.bserved within the door. The dialogue between the card-players was swift and hot.

"It's no good, I tell you!" cried Ormsby. "There's no fairness in this unless all take their chances together!"

"You ought to have thought of that before we began. This was your scheme, but because the cards are running against you, you want to quit. I say we'll go on!" This from Henderson, who struck the table sharply as he concluded.

"You knew Wiggins and d.i.c.k were n't going in when we started, and you are not likely to get them in now. Your anxiety to cut the rest of us out by any means seems to have unsettled your mind," shouted Gorse. "I say let's drop this and stand to our original agreement that no man speak till the end of the fortnight."

"After that whole scheme has been torn to pieces like paper! There's been nothing fair in this business from the start! We ought to have kept Arrowood here and held together. And we ought to have got rid of that Ames fellow--he did n't belong in this at all; and instead of protecting ourselves against outsiders we have sat here like a lot of fools while he's been making himself agreeable there in the house--right there in the house!"

Ormsby's voice rose to a disagreeable squeak as he closed with this indictment of me. Hume fidgeted uneasily, and met my eye so warily that I wondered whether he suspected that I knew of his breach of faith with the other suitors. Much dallying with Scandinavian literature had not lightened his heart, and there was nothing in Ibsen to which he could refer his present plight. Shallenberger seemed to be the only one of the group who had not lost his senses. He was in the farther corner of the alcove, out of sight from the door, but I heard him distinctly as he addressed the other suitors with rising anger.

"We're acting like cads, and cads of the most contemptible sort! I only agreed to this game to satisfy Ormsby. The idea of our sitting here to draw cards to determine the order in which we shall offer ourselves to the n.o.blest and most beautiful woman in the world would be coa.r.s.e and vulgar if it were not so ridiculous! The men who had their chance on the steamer or after we came here--and I don't pretend to know who they are--ought in decency to have left the field. We seem to have forgotten that we pretend to be gentlemen; or, far less pardonable, that we pay court to a lady. d.a.m.n you all! I refuse to have anything more to do with you, and if you try to interfere with my affairs in any way I'll smash your heads collectively or separately as you prefer!"

My interest in this colloquy had led me further into the room, and hearing my step they all turned and faced me. d.i.c.k had continued at my side, but the black looks they sent our way were intended, I thought, rather for me. Shallenberger, having taken himself out of the tangle, leaned against the wall and filled his pipe with unconcern. My appearance roused Ormsby to a fresh outburst.

"You're responsible! If you had n't forced yourself upon the ladies at Hopefield there would n't have been any of this trouble!"

"You're only an impostor anyhow. You went to the house to fix a chimney, and seem to think you 're engaged to spend the rest of your natural life there!" protested Henderson, twisting the ends of his moustache.

Then they dropped me and a.s.sailed d.i.c.k.

"We'd like to know what you expect to gain by dropping out! You got cold feet mighty sudden!" bellowed Ormsby.

Gorse and Henderson paid similar tributes to the apostate, whose melancholy grin only deepened. Shallenberger was pacing the floor slowly and puffing his pipe. Hume and Arbuthnot growled occasionally, but shared, I thought, Shallenberger's changed feeling.

My silence had been effective up to this time, but I was afraid to risk it longer. d.i.c.k, I imagined, had kept close to me for fear of missing any part of the altercation he knew my appearance would provoke. The more vociferous suitors had howled themselves hoa.r.s.e and glared at me while I considered the situation. Henderson rallied for a final shot.

"A good horsewhipping is what you deserve," he cried, leveling his finger at me.

"Gentlemen," I began, not without inward quaking, "you have spoken loud naughty words to me, and in reply I must say that your vocal efforts suggest only the melodies of the braying jacka.s.s, and that your manners, to speak mildly, are susceptible of considerable improvement."

"You leave this neighborhood within an hour!" boomed Ormsby; and in his efforts to free himself from his chair it fell backward with a crash that echoed through the long room.

"Then summon the coroner by telephone, for I shall not be taken alive,"

I answered quietly, trying to recall my youthful delight in Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. "I should dislike to change the mild color-scheme of this pleasant dining-room, but as sure as you lay hands on me, these walls will become a playground for any corpuscles you carry in your loathsome persons."

"Come along, let us put him out," Henderson was saying in an aside to Ormsby.

"You were playing a game here for a stake not yours for the winning," I continued. "Now I suggest that you shuffle the pack,--you three, who are so full of valor,--shuffle the pack, I say, and draw for the jack of clubs. Whoever is the fortunate man I shall take pleasure in pitching through yonder very charming cas.e.m.e.nt."

"Agreed!" cried Henderson, and the three flung themselves into their chairs.

The alacrity of their consent had unnerved me for a moment.

D'Artagnan, I was sure, would have fought them all, but I consoled myself, as the cards rattled on the bare table, with the reflection that, considering the fact that I had never in my life laid violent hands on a fellow-being, I was conducting myself with admirable a.s.surance. My weight has always hung well within one hundred and thirty, and physicians have told me that I was incapable of taking on flesh or muscle. Any one of these men could easily toss me through the window I had indicated as a means of their own exit.

Shallenberger caught my eye and indicated with a slight jerk of the head that I had better run before it was too late. The painstaking care with which Henderson had fallen upon the cards was disquieting, to put it mildly. d.i.c.k nudged me in the ribs and offered to hold my coat.

"It will not be necessary," I replied carelessly. "Tender your services to the other gentlemen."

I felt the cold sweat gathering on my brow. The three had begun to draw cards, and I heard them slap the bits of pasteboard smartly upon the table as they lifted them from the deck and, finding the jack of clubs still undrawn, waited the next turn. I had no idea that a pack of cards would dissolve so readily by the drawing process, and my memory ceased trying to recall the adventures of D'Artagnan and hovered with ominous persistence about the mad don of La Mancha. I cannot say now whether I stood my ground out of sheer physical inability to run or from an accession of courage due to the remembrance of my success in detecting the Hopefield ghost. In any case I affected coolness as I waited, even throwing out my arms to "shoot" my cuffs once or twice, and yawning.

"Come, gentlemen, hurry: let us not waste time here," I exclaimed impatiently.

"If Ormsby turns up the card you're a dead man," d.i.c.k was muttering gloomily.

"They're all alike to me," I replied loudly. "Mr. Ormsby is very beautiful; I shall hope not to disfigure him permanently;" but as I spoke my tongue was a wobbly dry clapper in my mouth.

I was bending over now, watching the three men pick up the cards, and once, when I misread the jack of spades for the jack of clubs, a shudder pa.s.sed over me. They were down to the last card, and Ormsby's hand was on it. I recall that a group of steins on a shelf over Henderson's head seemed to be dancing wildly. Then I looked at the floor to steady myself, and hope leaped within me, for there, by Ormsby's foot,--a large and heavy one,--lay an upturned card, the jack of clubs, whose lone symbol magnified itself enormously in my amazed eyes.

At this moment, I became conscious that something had occurred to distract the attention of the other men, who were staring at some one who had entered noiselessly.

"Gentlemen, you seem immensely interested in the turn of those cards.

I am glad to have arrived at the critical moment. Mr. Ormsby, will you kindly lift the remaining card from the table?"

Miss Octavia stood beside me. She was dressed in a dark brown riding-habit; the feather in her fedora hat emphasized her usual brisk air. She swung her riding-crop lightly in her hand, and bent over the table with the deepest interest.

Ormsby turned up the card. It was the ten of diamonds.

"Gentlemen," I cried, pointing to the card, "what trick is this? Can it be possible that you have been trifling with me in a fashion for which men have died the world over by sword and pistol!"

"Kindly explain, Arnold, the nature of this difficulty," Miss Octavia commanded.

"Simply this, Miss Hollister, if I must answer; I had offered to fight these three gentlemen in order. It was agreed that the man who drew the jack of clubs from the pack with which they had been playing should be my first victim. They have shuffled their own cards and have drawn the whole pack and there is no jack of clubs in the pack! The only possible explanation is one to which I hesitate to apply the obvious plain Saxon terms."

"It dropped out, that's all! You don't dare pretend that we threw out the jack to avoid drawing it!" protested Ormsby, though I saw from the glances the trio exchanged that they suspected one another. Ormsby and Gorse bent down to look for the missing card, but before they found it I stepped forward and drove my fist upon the table with all the power I could put into the blow.

"Stop!" I cried. "I gave you every opportunity to stand up and take a trouncing, but I need hardly say that after this contemptible knavery I refuse to soil my hands on you!"

"Do you insinuate"--began Henderson, jumping to his feet.