"In case you should condemn yourself in the thing you're going to allow."

"But what's it to be?"

"That's for you to settle with yourself."

He was silent a minute. When he spoke it was with some conviction. "I should like to do the right thing, by Jove!--the straight thing--if I only knew what it was."

"Oh, there'll be no trouble about that. In the Street called Straight, my son, there are lights to show the way."

"Rum old cove," was Ashley's comment to himself as he went back to Boston. "Got an answer to everything."

From the hotel he telephoned an excuse to Olivia for his unceremonious departure from Tory Hill. "Had an upset," was the phrase by which he conveyed his apologies, leaving it to her to guess the nature of his mischance. As she showed no curiosity on the point, he merely promised to come to luncheon in the morning.

During his dinner he set himself to think, though, amid the kaleidoscopic movement of the hotel dining-room, he got little beyond the stage of "mulling." Such symptoms of decision as showed themselves through the evening lay in his looking up the dates of sailing of the more important liners, and the situation of the Carral country on the map. He missed, however, the support of his principle to be Rupert Ashley at his best. That guiding motto seemed to have lost its force owing to the eccentricities of American methods of procedure. If he was still Rupert Ashley, he was Rupert Ashley sadly knocked about, buffeted, puzzled, grown incapable of the swift judgment and prompt action which had hitherto been his leading characteristics.

He was still beset by uncertainties when he went out to Waverton next morning. Impatient for some form of action, he made an early start. On the way he considered Rodney Temple's words of the previous afternoon, saying to himself: "In the Street called Straight there are lights to show the way, by Jove! Gad! I should like to know where they are."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ASHLEY GOT THE IMPRESSION THAT THEIR CONVERSATION WAS EARNEST, CONFIDENTIAL.]

Nevertheless, it had a clarifying effect on his vision to find, on walking into the drawing-room at Tory Hill, Miss Guion seated in conversation with Peter Davenant. As he had the advantage of seeing them a second before they noticed him, he got the impression that their conversation was earnest, confidential. Olivia was seated in a corner of the sofa, Davenant in a low chair that gave him the appearance of being at her feet.

It was exactly the stimulus Ashley needed to bring his faculties into action. He was at once in possession of all his powers. The feeling inspired by the sight of them together transformed him on the instant into the quick, shrewd, diplomatic officer in whom he recognized himself. It was a feeling too complicated to be called jealousy, though jealousy might have been in it as an ingredient pang. If so, it was entirely subordinate to his new sense--or rather his old sense--of being equal to the occasion. As he crossed the room he felt no misgiving, no hesitation. Neither did he need to forecast, however rapidly, his plan of speech or action, since he knew that in urgent cases it was always given him. If he had to define this sudden confidence he might have said that Rupert Ashley at his best had been restored to life again, but even that would not have expressed the fullness of his consciousness of power.

He nodded to Davenant before shaking hands with Miss Guion. "h.e.l.lo! Back again?"

Davenant got up from his low chair with some embarra.s.sment. Ashley bowed over Olivia's hand with unusual courtliness. He seated himself in the other corner of the sofa, as one who had a right to the place.

"I had to come East on business," Davenant explained, at once.

Olivia hastened to corroborate this statement. "Aunt Vic wanted Mr.

Davenant to come--to settle up all the things--"

"And I had another reason," Davenant interrupted, nervously. "I was just beginning to tell Miss Guion about it when you came in. I've a job out there--in my work--that would suit Mr. Guion. It would be quite in his line--legal adviser to a company--and would give him occupation. He'd be earning money, and wouldn't feel laid aside; and if he was ill I could look after him as well as any one. I--I'd like it."

Olivia looked inquiringly at Ashley. Her eyes were misty.

"Hadn't you better talk to _him_ about it?" Ashley said.

"I thought I'd better speak to you and Miss Guion first. I understand you've offered to--to take him--"

"I shouldn't interfere with what suited him better, in any case. By the way, how did you like the _Louisiana_?"

Davenant's jaw dropped. His blue eyes were wide with amazement. It was Olivia who undertook to speak, with a little air of surprise that Ashley should make such an odd mistake.

"Mr. Davenant wasn't on the _Louisiana_. It was Aunt Vic. Mr. Davenant has just come from the West. You do that by train."

"Of course he was on the _Louisiana_. Landed on the--let me see!--she sailed again yesterday!--landed on the 20th, didn't you?"

"No, no," Olivia corrected again, smiling. "That was the day Aunt Vic landed. You're getting every one mixed."

"But they came together," Ashley persisted. "He brought her. Didn't you?"

The look on Olivia's face frightened Davenant. He got up and stood apologetically behind his chair. "You'll have to forgive me, Miss Guion," he stammered. "I--I deceived you. I couldn't think of anything else to do."

She leaned forward, looking up at him. "But I don't know what you did, as it is. I can't understand--what--what any one is saying."

"Then I'll tell you, by Jove! All the time you thought he was out there at Michigan he was over in France, following up the Marquise. Tracked her like a bloodhound, what? Told her the whole story--how we'd got to a deadlock--and everything. Made her think that unless she came and bailed us out we'd be caught there for the rest of our lives."

Olivia's eyes were still lifted to Davenant's. "Is that true?"

"It's true, by Jove!--true as you live. What's more, he cracked me up as though I was the only man alive--said that when it came to a question of who was worthy--worthy to marry you--he wasn't fit to black my boots."

"No," Davenant cried, fiercely. "There was no question of me."

"Bosh! Bosh, my good fellow! When a man does what you've done there's no question of any one but him."

The color was hot in Davenant's cheeks, but he himself could not have told whether it came from astonishment or anger. "Since Colonel Ashley knows so well what happened, I shall leave him to tell it."

He was about to make his escape, when Olivia stopped him. "No, no.

Wait--please wait. Tell me why you did it."

"I'll tell you," Ashley broke in. He spoke with a kind of nervous jauntiness. "I'll tell you, by Jove! We had a row. I called him a cad. I called him a d.a.m.ned cad. There _was_ a d.a.m.ned cad present on that occasion--only--I didn't hit the right nail on the head. But that's not what I'm coming to. He struck me. He struck me right in the teeth, by Jove! And when a man strikes you, it's an insult that can only be wiped out by blood. Very well; he's offered it--his blood. He didn't wait for me to draw it. I suppose he thought I wouldn't go in for the heroic. So of his own accord he went over there to France and shed his heart's blood, in the hope that I might overlook his offence. All right, old chap; I overlook it."

With a laugh Ashley held his hand up toward Davenant, who ignored it.

"Miss Guion," Davenant said, huskily, "Colonel Ashley is pleased to put his own interpretation on what was in itself a very simple thing. You mayn't think it a very creditable thing, but I'll tell you just what happened, and you can draw your own conclusions. I went over to France, and saw your aunt, the Marquise, and asked her to let me have my money back. That's the plain truth of it. She'll tell you so herself. I'd heard she was very fond of you--devoted to you--and that she was very rich and generous--and so I thought, if I told her exactly how matters stood, it would be a good chance to--to--recoup myself for--the loan."

Ashley sprang up with another laugh. "He does that well, doesn't he?" he said to Olivia. "Come along, old boy," he added, slipping his arm through Davenant's. "If I let you stay here you'll perjure your very soul."

Davenant allowed himself to be escorted to the door. Over his shoulder Ashley called back to Olivia: "Fellows are never good friends till after they've had a fight."

XXIV

When Ashley, after pushing Davenant gently out into the hall, returned to Olivia, she was standing by the mantelpiece, where the five K'ang-hsi vases had been restored to their place in honor of the Marquise.

"Rum chap, isn't he?" Ashley observed. "So awfully queer and American.

No Englishman would ever have taken a jaunt like that--after the old lady--on another chap's behalf. It wouldn't go down, you know."

Olivia, leaning on the mantelpiece, with face partially turned from him, made no reply.

He allowed some minutes to pa.s.s before saying: "When I asked him how he liked the _Louisiana_ I wanted to know. I'm thinking of taking her on her next trip home."