第17章

"I see," he said, with sarcasm."I knew there was something beside public spirit.You think, by hanging off and playing me against this other sucker, you can get a higher price.Well, if that's the game, I'll keep him busy."He took out his watch, glanced at it, and thrust it back into his pocket.

"I've wasted time enough over this fool thing," he declared."Now that I know what the game is we'll talk to the point.It's highway robbery, but I might have expected to be robbed.I'll give you six hundred for that land."I did not answer.I was holding my temper by main strength and Icould not trust myself to speak.

"Well?" he sneered."That shakes your public spirit some, hey?

What do you say?"

"No," I answered, and started for the door.

"What!" he could hardly believe his ears."By the Lord Harry! the fellow is crazy.Six hundred and fifty then, you infernal robber.""No."

"NO! Say, what in thunder do you mean?"

"I mean that you may go to the devil," I retorted, and reached for the door knob.

But before my fingers touched it there was the sound of laughter and voices in the hall.The knob was turned from without.Istepped back and to one side involuntarily, as the door opened and into the library came, not the butler, but a young lady, a girl in an automobile coat and bonnet.And, following her, a young man.

"Father," said the young lady, "Johnson says you've bought that horrid road.I'm so glad! When did you do it?""Congratulations, Mr.Colton," said the young man."We just passed a cart full of something--seaweed, I believe it was--as we came along with the car.Oscar had to slow down to squeeze by, and we certainly were swept by ocean breezes.By Jove! I can smell them yet.I--"The young lady interrupted him.

"Hush, Victor," she said."I beg your pardon, Father.I thought you were alone.Victor, we're intruding."The open door had partially screened me from the newcomers.But Colton, red and wrathful, had not ceased to glare in my direction and she, following his gaze, saw me.She did not recognize me, Ithink--probably I had not made sufficient impression upon her mind even for casual remembrance--but I recognized her.She was the girl with the dark eyes, whose look of contemptuous indifference had so withered my self-esteem.And her companion was the young chap who, from the tonneau of the automobile that morning, had inquired the way to Bayport.

The young man turned lazily."Are we?" he said."I-- What! Why, Mabel, it's the humorist!"Then she recognized me.I could feel the blood climbing from my toes to the roots of my hair.I was too astonished and chagrined to speak or even move, though I wanted to move very much indeed.

She looked at me and I at her.Then she turned coldly away.

"Come, Victor," she said.

But Victor was his own blase self.It took more than a trifle to shake his calm.He laughed.

"It's the humorist," he repeated."Reuben, how are you?"Colton regarded the three of us with amazement.

"What?" he began."Mabel, do you--"

But I had recovered my powers of locomotion.I was on my way out of that library.

"Here!" shouted Colton."Stop!"

I did not stop.Feeling as I did at that moment it would have been distinctly unpleasant for the person who tried to stop me.The girl was in my way and, as I approached, she drew her skirts aside.

No doubt it was my imagination which made her manner of doing it seem like an insult, but, imagination or reality, it was the one thing necessary to clench my resolution.Now when she looked at me I returned the look with interest.I strode through the doorway and across the hall.The butler would have opened the outer door for me, but I opened it myself to the imminent danger of his dignified nose.As I stepped from the portico I heard behind me a roar from Big Jim Colton and a shout of laughter from Victor.

I walked home at top speed.Only once did I look back.That was just as I was about to enter the grove on the other side of the Shore Lane.Then I turned and saw, at the big window at the end of the "Newport villa," a group of three staring in my direction:

Colton, his daughter and that cub Victor.The distance was too great to see the expression of their faces, but I knew that two of them, at least, were laughing--laughing at me.

I did not laugh.

Lute was waiting for me by the gate and ran to meet me.He was wild with excitement.

"He came after you, didn't he?" he cried, grabbing at my coat sleeve."You went over to his house with him, didn't you! I see you and at fust I couldn't scurcely believe it.What did he want?

What did he say?"

I did not answer.He ran along beside me, still clinging to my sleeve.

"What did he want?" he repeated."What did he say to you? What did you say to him? Tell a feller, can't you?""I told him to go to the devil," I answered, savagely.

Lute let go of my sleeve.

"You--you-- By time, you're stark loony!" he gasped; and collapsed against the gate post.

I went into the house, up the back stairs to my room, and shut the door.