CHAPTER III THE JUG AND MR. ARDMORE
Mr. Thomas Ardmore, of New York and Ardsley, having seen his friend Griswold depart, sought a book-shop where, as in many other book-shops throughout the United States, he kept a standing order for any works touching piracy, a subject, which, as already hinted, had long afforded him infinite diversion. He had several hours to wait for his train to New Orleans, and he was delighted to find that the bookseller, whom he had known only by correspondence, had just procured for him, through the dispersion of a Georgia planter's valuable library, that exceedingly rare narrative, The Golden Galleons of the Caribbean, by Dominguez y Pascual—a beautifully bound copy of the original Madrid edition.
With this volume under his arm Ardmore returned to the hotel where he was lodged and completed his arrangements for leaving. It should be known that Mr. Thomas Ardmore was a person of democratic tastes and habits. In his New York house were two servants whose sole business it was to keep himself and his wardrobe presentable; yet he preferred to travel unattended. He was, by nature, somewhat secretive, and his adventurous spirit rebelled at the thought of being followed about by a hired retainer. His very wealth was, in a way, a nuisance, for wherever he went the newspapers chronicled his movements, with speculations as to the object of his visit, and dark hints at large public gifts which the city honored by his presence at once imagined would be bestowed upon it forthwith. The American press constantly execrated his family, and as he was sensitive to criticism he kept very much to himself.
It was a matter of deep regret to Ardmore that his great-grandfather, whose name he bore, should have trifled with the morals of the red men, but he philosophized that it was not his fault, and if he had known how to squeeze the whisky from the Ardmore millions he would have been glad to do so. His own affairs were managed by the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, and Ardmore took little personal interest in any of his belongings except his estate in North Carolina, where he dreamed his dreams, and had, on the whole, a pretty good time.
When he had finished packing his trunk he went down to the dinner he had ordered to be in readiness at a certain hour, at a certain table, carefully chosen beforehand; for Ardmore was very exacting in such matters and had an eye to the comforts of life, as he understood them.
As he crossed the hotel lobby on his way to the restaurant he was accosted by a reporter for the Atlanta Palladium, who began to question him touching various Ardmores who were just then filling rather more than their usual amount of space in the newspapers. Ardmore's family, with the single exception of his sister, Mrs. Atchison, bored him immensely. His two brothers and another sister, the Duchess of Ballywinkle, kept the family name in display type a great deal of the time, and their performances had practically driven Thomas Ardmore from New York. He felt keenly his shame in being brother-in-law to a dissolute duke, and the threatened marriage of one of his brothers to a chorus girl had added, he felt, all too great a burden to a family tree whose roots, he could not forget it, were soaked in contraband rum. The reporter was a well-mannered youth and Ardmore shook his hand encouragingly. He was rather curious to see what new incident in the family history was to be the subject of inquisition, and the reporter immediately set his mind at rest.
"Pardon me, Mr. Ardmore, but is it true that your sister, the Duchess of Ballywinkle, has separated from the duke?"
"You may quote me as saying that while I am not quite sure, yet I sincerely hope the reports are true. To be frank with you, I do not like the duke; in fact, strictly between ourselves, I disliked him from the first," and Ardmore shook his head gravely, and meditatively jingled the little gold pieces that he always carried in his trousers pockets.
"Well, of course, I had heard that there was some trouble between you and your brother-in-law, but can't the Palladium have your own exact statement, Mr. Ardmore, of what caused the breach between you?"
Ardmore hesitated and turned his head cautiously.
"You understand, of course, that this discussion is painful to me, extremely painful. And yet, so much has been published about my sister's domestic affairs—"
"Exactly, Mr. Ardmore. What we want is to print your side of the story."
"Very decent of you, I'm sure. But the fact is—" and Ardmore glanced over his shoulder again to be sure he was not overheard—"the fact is—" and he paused, batting his eyes as though hesitating at the point of an important disclosure.
"Yes, Mr. Ardmore," encouraged the reporter.
"Well, I don't mind telling you, but don't print this. Let it be just between ourselves."
"Oh, of course, if you say not—"
"That's all right; I have every confidence in your discretion; but, if this will go no further, I don't mind telling you—"
"You may rely on me absolutely, Mr. Ardmore."
"Then, with the distinct understanding that this is sub rosa—now we do understand each other, don't we?" pleaded Ardmore.
"Perfectly, Mr. Ardmore," and the perspiration began to bead the reporter's forehead in his excitement over the impending revelation.
"Then you shall know why I feel so bitter about the duke. I assure you that nothing but the deepest chagrin over the matter causes me to tell you what I have never revealed before—not even to members of my family—not to my most intimate friend."
"I appreciate all that—"
"Well, the fact is—but please never mention it—the fact is that his Grace owes me four dollars. I gave it to him in two bills—I remember the incident perfectly—two crisp new bills I had just got at the bank. His Grace borrowed the money to pay a cabman—it was the very day before he married my sister. Now let me ask you this: Can an American citizen allow a duke to owe him four dollars? The villain never referred to the matter again, and from that day to this I have made it a rule never to lend money to a duke."
The reporter stared a moment, then laughed. He abandoned the idea of getting material for a sensational article and scented the possibilities of a character sketch of the whimsical young millionaire.
"How about that story that your brother, Samuel Ardmore, is going to marry the chorus girl he ran over in his automobile?"
"I hope it's true; I devoutly do. I'm very fond of music myself, and, strange to say, nobody in our family is musical. I think a chorus girl would be a real addition to our family. It would bring up the family dignity—you can see that."
"The wires brought a story this afternoon that your cousin, Wingate Siddall—he is your cousin, isn't he—?"
"I'm afraid so. What's Siddy's latest?"
"Why, it's reported that he's going to cross the Atlantic in a balloon. Can you tell us anything about that, from the inside?"
"Well, the ocean is only four miles deep; I'd take more interest in Cousin Siddy's ballooning if you could make it a couple of miles more to the dead men's chests. And now, much as I'd like to prolong this conversation, I've got to eat or I'll miss my train."
"If you don't mind saying where you are going, Mr. Ardmore?"
"I'd tell you in a minute, only I haven't fully decided yet; but I shall probably take the Sambo Flyer at 9:13, if you don't make me lose it."
"You have large interests in Arkansas, I believe, Mr. Ardmore?"
"Yes; important interests. I'm searching for the original fiddle of the Arkansaw Traveler. When I find it I'm going to give it to the British Museum. And now you really must excuse me."
Ardmore looked the reporter over carefully as they shook hands. He was an attractive young fellow, alert and good humored, and Ardmore liked him, as, in his shy way, he really liked almost every one who seemed to be a human being.
"I'll tell you what I'll do with you. If you'll forget this rot we've been talking and come up to Ardsley as soon as I get home, I'll see if I can't keep you amused for a couple of weeks. I don't offer that as a bribe; my family affairs are of interest to nobody but hostlers and kitchen maids. Wire me at Ardsley when you're ready, throw away your lead-pencil, then come on and I'll show you the finest collection of books on Captain Kidd in the known world. What did you say your name is? Collins, Frank Collins? I never forget anything, so don't disappoint me."
"That's mighty nice of you, but I don't have much time for vacations," replied the reporter, who was, however, clearly pleased.
"If the office won't give you a couple of weeks, wire me and I'll buy the paper."
The young man laughed outright.
"I'll remember; I really believe you mean for me to come."
"Of course I do. It's all settled; make it next week. Good-by!"
Ardmore ate his dinner oblivious of the fact that people at the neighboring tables turned to look at him. He overheard his name mentioned, and a woman just behind him let it be known to her companions and any one else who cared to hear that he was the brother-in-law of the Duke of Ballywinkle. Another voice in the neighborhood kindly remarked that Ardmore was the only decent member of the family, and that he was not the one whose wife had just left him, nor yet the one who was going to marry the chorus girl whose father kept a delicatessen shop in Hoboken. It is very sad to be unable to dine without having family skeletons joggle one's elbow, and Ardmore was annoyed. The head waiter hung officiously near; the man who served him was distressingly eager; and then the voice behind him rose insistently:
"—worth millions and yet he can't find anybody to eat with him."
This was almost true and a shadow passed across Ardmore's face and his eyes grew grave as he humbly reflected that he was indeed a pitiable object. He waved away his plate and called for coffee, and at that moment a middle-aged man appeared at the door, scanned the room for a moment and then threaded his way among the tables to Ardmore.
"I heard you were here and thought I'd look you up. How are you, Ardy?"
"Very well, thank you, Mr. Billings. Have you dined? Sorry; which way are you heading?"
The new-comer had the bearing of a gentleman used to consideration. He was, indeed, the secretary of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, whose business was chiefly the administration of the Ardmore estate, and Ardmore knew him very well. He was afraid that Billings had traced him to Atlanta for one of those business discussions which always vexed and perplexed him so grievously, and the thought of this further depressed his spirits. But the secretary at once eased his mind.
"I'm looking for a man, and I'm not good at the business. I've lost him and I don't understand it, I don't understand it," and the secretary seemed to be half-musing to himself as he sat down and rested his arms on the table.
"You might give me the job. I'm following a slight clue myself just at present."
The secretary, who had no great opinion of Ardmore's mental capacity, stared at the young man vacantly. Then it occurred to him that possibly Ardmore might be of service.
"Have you been at Ardsley recently?" he asked.
"Left there only a few days ago."
"You haven't seen your governor lately, have you?"
"My governor?" Ardmore stared blankly. "Why, Mr. Billings, don't you remember that father's dead?"
"I don't mean your father, Ardy," replied Billings with the exaggerated care of one who deals with extreme stupidity. "I mean the governor of North Carolina—one of the American states. Ardsley is still in North Carolina, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes; of course. But bless your soul, I don't know the governor. Why should one?"
"I don't know why, Ardy; but people sometimes do know governors and find it useful."
"I'm not in politics any more, Mr. Billings. What's this person's name?"
"Dangerfield. Don't you ever read the newspapers?" demanded the secretary, striving to control his inner rage. He was in trouble and Ardmore's opaqueness taxed his patience. And yet Tommy Ardmore had given him less trouble than any other member of the Ardmore family. The others galloped gaily through their incomes; Tommy was rapidly augmenting his inheritance from sheer neglect or inability to scatter his dividends.
"No; I quit reading newspapers after the noble Duke of Ballywinkle didn't break the bank at Monte Carlo that last time. I often wish, Mr. Billings, that the Mohawks had scalped my great-grandfather before they bought his whisky. That would have saved me the personal humiliation of being brother-in-law to a duke."
"You mustn't be so thin-skinned. You pay the penalty of belonging to one of the wealthiest families in America," and Billings' tone was paternal.
"So I've heard, but I'm not so terribly proud of it. What about this governor?"
"That's what troubles me—what of the governor?" Billings dropped his voice so that no one but Ardmore could hear. "He's missing—disappeared."
"That's the first interesting thing I ever heard of a governor doing," said Ardmore. "Tell me more."
"He's had a row with the governor of South Carolina at New Orleans. I was to have met him here on an important matter of business this afternoon, but he's cleared out and nobody knows what's become of him. His daughter, even, who was in New Orleans with him, doesn't know where he is."
"When was she in New Orleans with him?" asked Ardmore, looking at his watch.
"She—who?" asked Billings, annoyed.
"Why, the daughter!"
"I don't know anything about the daughter, but if I could find her father I'd give him a piece of my mind," and the secretary's face flushed angrily.
"Well, I suppose she isn't the one I'm looking for, anyhow," said Ardmore resignedly.
"I should hope not," blurted Billings, who had not really taken in what Ardmore said, but who assumed that it must necessarily be something idiotic.
"She had fluffy hair," persisted Ardmore to this serious-minded gentleman whose life was devoted to the multiplication of the Ardmore millions. Ardmore's tone was that of a child who persists in babbling inanities to a distracted parent.
"Better let girls alone, Tommy. Mrs. Atchison told me you were going to marry Daisy Waters, and I should heartily approve the match."
"Did Nellie tell you that? I wonder if she's told Daisy yet? You'll have to excuse me now, for I'm taking the Sambo Flyer. I'd like to find your governor for you; and if you'll tell me when he was seen last—"
"Right here, just before noon to-day, and a couple of hours before I reached town. His daughter either doesn't know where he went or she won't tell."
"Ah! the daughter! She remains behind to guard his retreat."
"The daughter is still here. She's a peppery little piece," and Billings looked guardedly around the room. "That's she, alone over there in the corner—the girl with the white feather in her hat who's just signing her check. There—she's getting up!"
Ardmore gazed across the room intently, then suddenly a slight smile played about his lips. To gain the door the girl must pass by his table, and he scrutinized her closely as she drew near and passed. She was a little girl, and her light fluffy hair swept out from under a small blue hat in a shell-like curve, and the short skirt of her tailor-made gown robbed her, it seemed, of years to which the calendar might entitle her.
"She gave me the steadiest eye I ever looked into when I asked her where her father had gone," remarked Billings grimly as the girl passed. "She said she thought he'd gone fishing for whales."
"So she's Miss Dangerfield, is she?" asked Ardmore indifferently; and he rose, leaving on the plate, by a sudden impulse of good feeling toward the world, exactly double the generous tip he had intended giving. Billings was glad to be rid of Ardmore and they parted in the hotel lobby without waste of words. The secretary of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company announced his intention of remaining another day in Atlanta in the hope of finding Governor Dangerfield, and he was so absorbed in his own affairs that he did not heed, if indeed he heard, Ardmore's promise to keep an eye out for the lost governor. Like most other people the secretary of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company did not understand Ardmore, but Thomas Ardmore, having long ago found himself ill-judged by the careless world, lived by standards of his own, and these would have meant nothing whatever to Billings.
Ardmore's effects had been brought down and were already piled on a carriage at the door. In his pocket was his passage to New Orleans and a state-room ticket. At the cashier's desk Miss Dangerfield paid her bill, just ahead of him.
"If any telegrams come for my father please forward them to Raleigh," said the girl. The manager came out personally to show her to her carriage, and having shut the door upon her, he wished Ardmore, who stood discreetly by, a safe journey.
"Off for New Orleans, are you, Mr. Ardmore?" asked the manager courteously.
"No," said Ardmore, "I'm going to Raleigh to look at the tall buildings," whereat the manager returned to his duties, gravely shaking his head.
At the station Ardmore caught sight of Miss Dangerfield, attended by two porters, hurrying toward the Tar Heel Express. He bought a ticket to Raleigh, and secured the last available berth from the conductor on the platform at the moment of departure.
Ardmore did not like to be hurried, and this sudden change of plans had been almost too much for him, but he was consoled by the reflection that after all these years of waiting for just such an adventure he had proved himself equal to an emergency that required quick thought and swift action. He had not only found the girl with the playful eye, but he had learned her identity without, as it were, turning over his hand. Not even Griswold, who was the greatest man he knew—Griswold with his acute legal mind and ability to carry through contests of wit with lawyers of highest repute—not even Griswold, Ardmore flattered himself, could have managed better.
The state-room door stood open, and from his seat at the farther end of the car Ardmore caught a fleeting glimpse of Miss Dangerfield as she threw off her jacket and hat; then she summoned the porter, gave him her tickets, bade him a smiling good night and the door closed upon her. The broad grin on the porter's face—a grin of delight as though he had spoken with some exalted deity—filled Ardmore with bitterest envy.
He went back to smoke and plan his future movements. For the first time in his life he faced to-morrow with eager anticipations, resolved that nothing should thwart his high resolves, though these, to be sure, were somewhat hazy. Then, from a feeling of great satisfaction, his spirit reacted and he regretted that he had been deprived of the joy of prolonged search. If he could only have followed her until, at the last moment, when about to give up forever and accept the frugal consolations of memory, he met her somewhere face to face! These reflections led him to wonder whether he might not have been mistaken about the wink after all. Griswold, with his wider knowledge of the world, had scouted the idea. Very likely if one of those blue eyes had actually winked at him it had been out of mere playfulness, and he would never in the world refer to it when they met. Billings had applied the term peppery to her, and he felt that he should always hate Billings for this; Billings was only a financial automaton anyhow, who bought at the lowest and sold at the highest, and bored one very often with strangely-worded papers which one was never expected to understand. He did not know why Billings was so anxious to find Miss Dangerfield's father, but as between a man of Billings' purely commercial instincts and the governor of a great state like North Carolina Ardmore resolved to stand by the Dangerfields to the end of the chapter. He was proud to remember his estate at Ardsley, which was in Governor Dangerfield's jurisdiction, and had been visited by the game warden, the state forester, and various other members of the governor's official household, though Ardmore could not remember their names. He had never in his life visited Raleigh, but far down some dim vista of memory he saw Sir Walter covering a mud-puddle with his cloak for Queen Elizabeth. It was a picture of this moving incident in an old history that rose before him, as he tried vainly to recall just how it was that Sir Walter had lost his head. He wondered whether Miss Dangerfield's name was Elizabeth, though he hoped not, as the name suggested a town in New Jersey where his motor had once broken down on a rainy evening when he was carrying Griswold to Princeton to deliver a lecture.
Ardmore smoked many pipes and did not turn in until after midnight. The car was hot and stuffy and he slept badly. At some hour of the morning, being again awake and restless, he fished his dressing-gown and slippers out of his bag and went out on the rear platform. His was the last car, and he found a camp-stool and crouched down upon it in a corner of the vestibule and stared out into the dark. The hum and click of the rails soothed him and he yielded himself to pleasant reveries. Griswold was well on his way back to Virginia, he remembered—"dear old Grissy!" he murmured; but he resolved to tell Griswold nothing of the prosperous course of his quest. Griswold would never, he knew, countenance so grave a performance as the following of a strange girl to her home; but this would be something for later justification.
Ardmore was half-dozing when the train stopped so abruptly that he was pitched from the camp-stool into a corner of the entry. He got himself together and leaned out into the cool moist air.
The porter came out and stared, for a gentleman in a blue silk wrapper who sat up all night in a vestibule was new to his experience.
"What place is this, porter?"
"Kildare, sah. This place is wha' we go from South C'lina into N'oth C'lina. Ain't yo' be'th comfor'ble, sah?"
"Perfectly; thank you."
Kildare was a familiar name, and the station, that lay at the outskirts of the town, and a long grim barracks-like building that he identified as a cotton mill, recalled the fact that he was not far from his own ample acres which lay off somewhere to westward. He had occasionally taken this route from the north in going to Ardsley, riding or driving from Kildare about ten miles to his house. In this way he was enabled to go or come without appearing at all in the little village of Ardsley.
The porter left him. He felt ready for sleep now, and resolved to go back to bed as soon as the train started. Just then a dark shadow appeared in the track and a man's voice asked cautiously:
"Air y'u the conductor?"
The questioner saw that he was not, before Ardmore could reply, and hesitated a moment.
"The porter's in the car; you can get aboard up forward," Ardmore suggested.
"Be Gov'nor Dangerfield on this train?" asked the man, whom Ardmore now saw dimly outlined in the track below.
"Certainly, my friend. The governor's asleep, but I'm his private secretary. What can I do for you?"
"Well, hyeh's somethin' fer 'im—it's confidential. Sure, air ye, th' gov'nor's in they?"
The man—a tall bearded countryman in a slouch hat, handed up to Ardmore a jug—a plain, brown, old-fashioned American gallon jug.
"It's a present fer Gov'nor Dangerfield. He'll understand," and the man vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared, leaving Ardmore holding the jug by its handle, and feeling a little dazed by the transaction.
The train lingered, and Ardmore was speculating as to which one of the Carolina commonwealths was beneath him, when another figure appeared below in the track—that of a bareheaded, tousled boy this time. He stared up at Ardmore sleepily, having apparently been roused on the arrival of the train.
"Air y'u the gov'nor?" he piped.
"Yes, my lad; in what way can I serve you?" and Ardmore put down his jug and leaned over the guard rail. It was just as easy to be the governor as the governor's private secretary, and his vanity was touched by the readiness with which the boy accepted him in his new rôle. His costume, vaguely discernible in the vestibule light, evidently struck the lad as being some amazing robe of state affected by governors. The youngster was lifting something, and he now held up to Ardmore a jug, as like the other as one pea resembles another.
"Pa ain't home and ma says hyeh's yer jug o' buttermilk."
"Thank you, my lad. While I regret missing your worthy father, yet I beg to present my compliments to your kind and thoughtful mother."
He had transferred his money to his dressing-gown pocket on leaving his berth, and he now tossed a silver dollar to the boy, who caught it with a yell of delight and scampered off into the night.
Ardmore had dropped the jugs carelessly into the vestibule, and he was surveying them critically when the train started. The wheels were beginning to grind reluctantly when a cry down the track arrested his attention. A man was flying after the train, shouting at the top of his lungs. He ran, caught hold of the rail and howled:
"The gov'nor ain't on they! Gimme back my jug."
"Indian-giver!" yelled Ardmore. He stooped down, picked up the first jug that came to hand, and dropped it into the man's outstretched arms.
The porter, having heard voices, rushed out upon Ardmore, who held the remaining jug to the light, scrutinizing it carefully.
"Please put this away for me, porter. It's a little gift from an old army friend."
Then Mr. Ardmore returned to his berth, fully pleased with his adventures, and slept until the porter gave warning of Raleigh.
CHAPTER IV DUTY AND THE JUG
Mr. Thomas Ardmore, one trunk, two bags, and a little brown jug reached the Guilford House, Raleigh, at eight o'clock in the morning. Ardmore had never felt better in his life, he assured himself, as he chose a room with care and intimated to the landlord his intention of remaining a week. But for the ill luck of having his baggage marked he should have registered himself falsely on the books of the inn; but feeling that this was not quite respectable he assured the landlord, in response to the usual question, that he was not Ardmore of New York and Ardsley but an entirely different person.
"Well, I don't blame you for not wanting to be taken for any of that set," remarked the landlord sympathetically.
"I should think not!" returned Ardmore in a tone of deep disgust.
The Guilford House coffee was not just what he was used to, but he was in an amiable humor and enjoyed hugely the conversation of the commercial travelers with whom he took his breakfast. He did not often escape from himself or the burden of his family reputation, and these strangers were profoundly entertaining. It had never occurred to Ardmore that man could be so amiable so early in the day and his own spirits rallied as he passed the sugar, abused the hot bread and nodded his approval of bitter flings at the inns of other southern towns of whose existence he only vaguely knew. They spoke of the president of the United States and of various old world monarchs in a familiar tone that was decidedly novel and refreshing; and he felt that it was a great privilege to sit at meat with these blithe spirits. Commercial travelers, he now realized, were more like the strolling players, the wandering knights, the cloaked riders approaching lonely inns at night, than any other beings he had met out of books. It was with the severest self-denial that he resisted an impulse to invite them all to visit him at Ardsley or to use his house in Fifth Avenue whenever they pleased. When the man nearest him, who was having a second plate of corn cakes and syrup, casually inquired his "line," Ardmore experienced a moment of real shame, but remembering the jug he had acquired in the night he replied:
"Crockery."
"Mine's drugs. Do you know Billy Gallop?—he's in your line."
"Should say I did," replied Ardmore unhesitatingly. "I took supper with him in Philadelphia Sunday night."
"How's trade?"
"Bully," replied Ardmore, reaching for the syrup, "I broke my record yesterday."
The drug man turned to listen to a discussion of the row between Governors Osborne and Dangerfield precipitated by one of the company who had fortified himself with a newspaper, and Ardmore also gave ear.
"Whatever did happen at New Orleans," declared a Maiden Lane jewelry representative, "you can be quite sure that Dangerfield won't get the hot end of the poker. I've seen him, right here at Raleigh, and he has all the marks of a fighting man. He'd strip at two hundred, and he's six in his socks."
"Pshaw! Those big fellows are all meat and no muscle," retorted the drug man. "I doubt if there's any fight in him. Now Osborne's a different product—a tall lean cuss, but active as a cat. A man to be governor of South Carolina has got to have the real stuff in him. If it comes to a show-down you'll see Dangerfield duck and run."
This discussion was continued at length, greatly to Ardmore's delight, for he felt that in this way he was being brought at once into touch with Miss Dangerfield, now domiciled somewhere in this town, and to whom he expected to be properly introduced just as soon as he could devise some means to that end. As he had not read the newspapers he did not know what the row was all about, but he instinctively aligned himself on the Dangerfield side. The Osbornes were, he felt, an inferior race, and he inwardly resented the imputations upon Governor Dangerfield's courage.
"I wonder if the governor's back yet?" asked one man.
"The morning paper says not, but he's expected to-day," replied the man with the newspaper.
"About the first thing he'll have to do will be to face the question of arresting Appleweight. I was in Columbia the other day and everybody was talking of the case. They say"—and the speaker waited for the fullest attention of his hearers—"they say Osborne ain't none too anxious to have Appleweight arrested on his side of the line."
"Why not?" demanded Ardmore.
"Well, you hear all kinds of things. It was only whispered down there, but they say Osborne was a little too thick with the Appleweight crowd before he was elected governor. He was their attorney, and they were a bad lot for any man to be attorney for. But they haven't caught Appleweight yet."
"Where's he hiding; don't the authorities know?"
"Oh, he's up there in the hills on the state line. His home is as much on one side as the other. He spends a good deal of time in Kildare."
"Kildare?" asked Ardmore, startled at the word.
"Yes, it's the county seat, what there is of it. I hope you never make that town!" and the inquirer bent a commiserating glance upon Ardmore.
"Well, they use jugs there, I know that!" declared Ardmore; whereat the table roared. The unanimity of their applause warmed his heart, though he did not know why they laughed.
"You handle crockery?" asked a man from the end of the table. "Well, I guess Dilwell County consumes a few gross of jugs all right. But you'd better be careful not to whisper jugs too loud here. There's usually a couple of revenue men around town."
They all went together to the office, where they picked up their sample cases and sallied forth for a descent upon the Raleigh merchants; and Ardmore, thus reminded that he was in the crockery business, and that he had a sample in his room, sat down under a tree on the sidewalk at the inn door to consider what he should do with his little brown jug. It had undoubtedly been intended for Governor Dangerfield, who was supposed to be on the train he had himself taken from Atlanta to Raleigh. There had been, in fact, two jugs, but one of them he had tossed back into the hands of the man who had pursued the train at Kildare. Ardmore smoked his pipe and meditated, trying to determine which jug he had tossed back; and after long deliberation, he slapped his knee, and said aloud:
"I gave him the wrong one, by jing!"
The boy had said that his offering contained buttermilk, a beverage which Ardmore knew was affected by eccentric people for their stomach's sake. He had sniffed the other jug and it contained, undeniably, an alcoholic liquid of some sort.
Jugs had not figured prominently in Ardmore's domestic experiences; but as he sat under the tree on the curb before the Guilford House he wondered, as many other philosophers have wondered, why a jug is so incapable of innocency! A bottle, while suggestive, is not inherently wicked; but a jug is the symbol of joyous sin. Even the soberest souls, who frown at the mention of a bottle, smile tolerantly when a jug is suggested. Jugs of many centuries are assembled in museums, and round them the ethnologist reconstructs extinct races of men; and yet, even science and history, strive they never so sadly, can not wholly relieve the jug of its cheery insouciance. A bottle of inferior liquor may be dressed forth enticingly, and alluringly named; but there's no disguising the jug; its genial shame can not be hidden. There are pleasant places in America where, if one deposit a half-dollar and a little brown jug behind a certain stone, or on the shady side of a blackberry bush, jug and coin will together disappear between sunset and sunrise; but lo! the jug, filled and plugged with a corn-cob, will return alone mysteriously, in contravention of the statutes in such cases made and provided. Too rare for glass, this fluid, which bubbles out of the southern hills with as little guilt in its soul as the brooks beside which it comes into being! But, lest he be accused of aiding and abetting crime against the majesty of the law, this chronicler hastens to say that on a hot day in the harvest field, honest water, hidden away in a little brown jug in the fence corner, acquires a quality and imparts a delight that no mug of crystal or of gold can yield.
As Mr. Ardmore pondered duty and the jug a tall man in shabby corduroy halted near by and inspected him carefully. Mr. Ardmore, hard upon his pipe, had not noticed him, somewhat, it seemed, to the stranger's vexation. He patrolled the sidewalk before the inn, hoping to attract Ardmore's attention, but finding that the young man's absorption continued he presently dropped into a neighboring chair under the maple tree.
"Good morning," said Ardmore pleasantly.
The man nodded, but did not speak. He was examining Ardmore with a pair of small, shrewd, gray eyes. In his hands he held a crumpled bit of brown paper that looked like a telegram.
"Well, I reckon you jest got to town this mornin', young fella."
"Yes, certainly;" Ardmore replied promptly. He had never been addressed in quite this fashion before, but it was all in keeping with his new destiny and he was immediately interested in the stranger, who was well on in middle age, with a rough grizzled beard, and a soft hat, once black, that now struggled for a compromise tint between yellow and green.
"Ever been hyeh befo'?"
"Never; but I'm crazy about the place and I'll be seen here a good deal hereafter."
Ardmore produced his cigar-case and extended it to the stranger. The man, awed by the splendor of the case, accepted a cigar a little gingerly.
"Drummer, I reckon?"
"Commercial traveler, we prefer to be designated," replied Ardmore with dignity.
"I guess drummer's good enough down hyeh. What y'u carry?"
"Jugs. I'm in the jug business. Never had any business but jugs."
The man paused in lighting his cigar, stared at Ardmore over the flaming match, drew the fire into the cigar several times, then settled back with his hands in his pockets.
"Full 'r empty?"
"The jugs? Oh, empty jugs; but it's no affair of mine what becomes of the jugs afterwards."
"Y'u likely got samples with y'u?"
"Well, not many. You see my line is so well known I don't have to carry samples any more. The trade knows our goods."
"Stop at Kildare on the way up?" and the stranger looked about guardedly.
"Certainly, my friend, I always 'make' Kildare," replied Ardmore, using a phrase he had acquired at breakfast.
"Train runs through the' pretty late at night?"
"Beastly. But I hardly ever sleep, anyhow. A man in my splendid health doesn't need sleep. It's a rotten waste of time."
Silence for several minutes; then the stranger leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, and said in a low tone:
"I got a telegram hyeh says y'u got a jug thet y'u ain't no right t' last night at Kildare. I want thet jug, young fella."
"Now that's very unfortunate. Ordinarily I should be delighted, but I really couldn't give away my Kildare jug. Now if it was one of my other jugs—even my Omaha jug, or my dear old Louisville jug—I shouldn't hesitate a minute, but that old Kildare jug! My dear man, you don't know what you ask!"
"Y'll give me thet jug or it'll be the worse for y'u. Y'u ain't in thet game, young fella."
"Not in it! You don't know whom you are addressing. I'm not only in the game, but I'm in to the finish," declared Ardmore, sitting upright in his chair. "You've got the wrong idea, my friend, if you think you can intimidate me. That jug was given me by a friend, a very old and dear friend—"
"A friend of yourn!"
The keen little gray eyes were blinking rapidly.
"One of the best friends I ever had in this world," and Ardmore's face showed feeling. "He and I charged side by side through the bloodiest battles of our Civil War. I will cheerfully give you my watch, or money in any sum, but the jug—I will part with my life first! And now," concluded Ardmore, "while I should be glad to continue this conversation, my duties call me elsewhere."
As he rose, the man stood quickly at his side, menacingly.
"Give me thet jug or I'll shoot y'u right hyeh in the street."
"No, you wouldn't do that, Old Corduroy. I can see that you are kind and good and you wouldn't shoot down an unarmed man. Besides it would muss up the street."
"Y'u took thet jug from my brother by lyin' to 'im. He's telegraphed me to git it, and I'm a-goin' to do it."
"Your brother sent you? It was nice of him to ask you to call on me. Why, I've known your brother intimately for years."
"Knowed my brother?" and for the first time the man really seemed to doubt himself. "Wheh did y'u know Bill?"
"We roomed together at Harvard, that's how I know him, if you force me to it! We're both Hasty Pudding men. Now if you try to bulldoze me further, I'll slap your wrists. So there!"
Ardmore entered the hotel deliberately, climbed to his room and locked the door. Then he seized the little brown jug, drew the stopper and poured out a tumblerful of clear white fluid. He took a swallow and shuddered as the fiery liquid seemed instantly to cause every part of his being to tingle. He wiped the tears from his eyes and sat down. The corn-cob stopper had fallen to the floor, and he picked it up and examined it carefully. It had been fitted tightly into the mouth of the jug by the addition of a bit of calico, and he fingered it for a moment with a grin on his face. He was, considering his tranquil past, making history rapidly, and he wished that Griswold, whom he imagined safely away on his law business at Richmond, could see him now, embarked upon a serious adventure, that had already brought him into collision with a seemingly sane man who had threatened him with death. Griswold had been quite right about their woeful incapacity for rising to emergencies, but the episode of the jugs at Kildare was exactly the sort of thing they had discussed time and time again, and it promised well. His throat was raw, as though burned with acid, and it occurred to him for an anxious moment that perhaps he had imbibed a poison intended for the governor.
He was about to replace the cob stopper when, to his astonishment, it broke in his fingers, and out fell a carefully folded slip of paper. He carried it to the window and opened it, finding that it was an ordinary telegraph blank on which was written in clear round characters these words:
The Appleweight crowd never done you harm. If you have any of them arrested you will be shot down on your own doorstep.
When Mr. Thomas Ardmore had read this message half a dozen times with increasing satisfaction he folded it carefully and put it away in his pocket-book.
Taking half a sheet of note paper he wrote as follows:
Appleweight and his gang are cowards. Within ten days those that have not been hanged will be in jail at Kildare.
He studied the phraseology critically and then placed the paper in the cob stopper whose halves he tied together with a bit of twine. As the jug stood on the table it was, to all appearances, exactly as it had been when delivered to Ardmore on the rear of the train at Kildare, and he was thoroughly well pleased with himself. He changed the blue scarf with which he had begun the day for one of purple with gold bars, and walked up the street toward the state house.
This venerable edifice, meekly reposing amid noble trees, struck agreeably upon Ardmore's fancy. Here was government enthroned in quiet dignity, as becomes a venerable commonwealth, wearing its years like a veteran who has known war and tumult, but finds at last tranquillity and peace. He experienced a feeling of awe, without quite knowing it, as he strolled up the walk, climbed the steps to the portico and turned to look back from the shadow of the pillars. He had never but once before visited an American public building—the New York city hall—and he felt that now, indeed, he had turned a corner and entered upon a new and strange world. He had watched army maneuvers abroad with about the same attention that he gave to a ballet, and with a like feeling of beholding a show contrived for the amusement of spectators; but there was not even a policeman here to represent arsenals and bayonets. The only minion of government in sight was the languid operator of a lawn-mower, which rattled and hummed cheerily in the shadow of the soldiers' monument. There was something fine about a people, who, as he learned from the custodian, would not shake down these historic walls obedient to the demands of prosperity and growth, but sent increased business to find lodgment elsewhere. He ascended to the toy-like legislative chambers, where flags of nation and state hung side by side, and where the very seats and desks of the law-makers spoke of other times and manners.
Mr. Ardmore, feeling that he should now be about his business, sought the governor's office, where a secretary, who seemed harassed by the cares of his position, confirmed Ardmore's knowledge of the governor's absence.
"I didn't wish to see the governor on business," explained Ardmore pleasantly, leaning upon his stick with an air of leisure. "He and my father were old friends, and I always promised my father that I would never pass through Raleigh without calling on Governor Dangerfield."
"That is too bad," remarked the young man sympathetically, though with a preoccupation that was eloquent of larger affairs.
"Could you tell me whether any members of the governor's family are at home?"
"Oh, yes; Mrs. Dangerfield and Miss Jerry are at the mansion."
"Miss Jerry?"
"Miss Geraldine. We all call her Miss Jerry in North Carolina."
"Oh, yes; to be sure. Let me see; it's over this way to the mansion, isn't it?" inquired Ardmore.
"No; out the other end of the building—and turn to your right. You can't miss it."
The room was quiet, the secretary a young man of address and intelligence. Here, without question, was the place for Ardmore to discharge his business and be quit of it; but having at last snatched a commission from fleeting opportunity it was not for him to throw it to another man. As he opened the door to leave, the secretary arrested him.
"Oh, Mr.—pardon me, but did you come in from the south this morning?"
"Yes; I came up on the Tar Heel Express from Atlanta."
"To be sure. Of course you didn't sit up all night? There's some trouble brewing around Kildare. I thought you might have heard something, but of course you couldn't have been awake at two o'clock in the morning?"
The secretary was so anxious to acquit him of any knowledge of the situation at Kildare that it seemed kindest to tell him nothing. The secretary's face lost its anxiety for a moment, and he smiled.
"The governor has an old friend and admirer up there who always puts a jug of fresh buttermilk on board when he passes through. The governor was expected home this morning, and I thought maybe—"
"You're positive it's always buttermilk, are you?" asked Ardmore with a grin.
"Certainly," replied the secretary with dignity. "Governor Dangerfield's sentiments as to the liquor traffic are well known."
"Of course, all the world knows that. But I'm afraid all jugs look alike to me; but then, the fact is I'm in the jug business myself. Good morning."
The governor's mansion was easily found, and having walked about the neighborhood until his watch marked eleven Ardmore entered the grounds and rang the bell at the front door.
Once within, the air of domestic peace, the pictures on the walls, a whip and a felt hat with a blue band, on the hall table, and a book on a chair in the drawing-room, turned down to mark the absent reader's place, rebuked him for his impudence. If he had known just how to escape he would have done so; but the maid who admitted him had said that Miss Dangerfield was at home, and had gone in search of her with Ardmore's card. He deserved to be sent to jail for entering a gentleman's house in this way. He realized now, when it was too late, that he ought to have brought letters to one of the banks and been introduced to the Dangerfields by some gentleman of standing, if he wished to know them. The very portraits on the walls, the photographs on the mantel and table frowned coldly upon him. The foundations of his character were set in sand; he knew that, because he had found it so easy to lie, and he had been told in his youth that one sin paved the way for another. He would take the earliest train for Ardsley and bury himself there for the remainder of his days. He had hardly formed this resolution when a light step sounded in the hall, and Miss Geraldine Dangerfield stood at the threshold. His good resolutions went down like a house of cards.
"Miss Dangerfield," he began, "I had the pleasure of meeting your father in New Orleans the other day, and as I was passing through town unexpectedly, I thought I should give myself the pleasure of calling on him. He said that in case I found him absent I might call upon you. In fact, he wrote a line on a card for me to present, but I stupidly left it at my hotel."
They faced each other in the dim, cool room for what seemed to him endless centuries. She was much younger than he had imagined; but her eyes were blue, just as he remembered them, and her abundant light hair curled away from her forehead in pretty waves, and was tied to-day with a large bow of blue ribbon. For an instant she seemed puzzled or mystified, but her blue eyes regarded him steadily. The very helplessness of her youth, the simplicity of her blue linen gown, the girlish ribbon in her hair, proclaimed him blackguard.
"Won't you please sit down, Mr. Ardmore?"
And when they were seated there was another pause, during which the blue eyes continued to take account of him, and he fingered his tie, feeling sure that there was something wrong with it.
"It's warm, isn't it?"
"I suppose it is. It's a way summer has, of being mostly warm."
He was quite sure that she was laughing at him; there was a tinge of irony in the very way in which she pronounced "wa'm," lingeringly, as though to prolong her contempt for his stupidity in not finding anything better to say.
She had taken the largest chair in the room, and it seemed to hide her away in its shadows, so that she could examine him at her leisure as he sat under a window in the full glare of its light.
"I enjoyed meeting your father so much, Miss Dangerfield. I think we are always likely to be afraid of great men, but your father made me feel at home at once. And he tells such capital stories—I've been laughing over them ever since I left New Orleans."
"Father has quite a reputation for his stories. When did you leave New Orleans, Mr. Ardmore?"
"Sunday night. I stopped in Atlanta a few hours and came on through. What a fine old town Atlanta is; don't you think so?"
"I certainly do not, Mr. Ardmore. It's so dreadfully northernized."
When she said "no'thenized" her intonation gave the word a fine cutting edge.
"I suppose, Mr. Ardmore, that you saw papa at the luncheon at the Pharos Club in New Orleans?"
"Why, yes, Miss Dangerfield. It was there I met the governor!"
"Are you sure it was there, Mr. Ardmore?"
"Why, I think that was the place. I don't know my New Orleans as I should, but—"
Ardmore was suddenly conscious that Miss Dangerfield had risen and that she stood before him, with her fair face the least bit flushed, her blue eyes alight with anger, and that the hands at her sides were clenched nervously.
"My father was not at luncheon at the Pharos Club, Mr. Ardmore. You never saw my father in your life. I know why it is you came here, and if you are not out of that door in one second I shall call the servants and have them throw you out."
She ceased abruptly and turned to look into the hall where steps sounded.
"Is that you, Jerry?"
"Yes, mama; I'll be up in just a minute. Please don't wait for me. It's only the man to see about the plumbing."
The lady who had appeared for an instant at the door went on slowly up the stairs, and the girl held Ardmore silent with her steady eyes until the step died away above.
"I know what you want my father for. Mr. Billings and you are both pursuing him—it's infamous, outrageous! And it isn't his fault. I would have you know that my father is an honorable man!"
The bayonets were at his breast: he would ask for mercy.
"Miss Dangerfield, you are quite mistaken about me. I shall leave Raleigh at once, but I don't want you to think I came here on any errand to injure or annoy your father."
"You are one of those Ardmores, and Mr. Billings represents you. You thought you could come here and trick me into telling where my father is. But I am not so easily caught. My mother is ill because of all this trouble, and I must go to her. But first I want to see that you leave this house!"
"Oh, I'm sorry you are in trouble. On my honor, Miss Dangerfield, I know nothing of Billings and his business with your father."
"I suppose you will deny that you saw Mr. Billings in Atlanta yesterday?"
"Why, no. I can't exactly—"
"You'd better not! I saw you there talking to him; and I suppose he sent you here to see what you could find out."
The room whirled a moment as she dealt this staggering blow. Billings, of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, had said that Miss Dangerfield was peppery, but his employment of this trifling term only illustrated his weak command of the English language. It is not pleasant to be pilloried for undreamed-of crimes, and Ardmore's ears tingled. He must plunge deeper and trust to the gods of chance to save him. He brought himself together with an effort, and spoke so earnestly that the words rang oddly in his own ears.
"Miss Dangerfield, you may call me anything you please, but I am not quite the scoundrel you think me. It's true that I was not in New Orleans, and I never saw your father in my life. I came to Raleigh on a mission that has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Billings; he did not know I was coming. On the way here a message intended for your father came into my hands. It was thrown on the train at Kildare last night. I had gone out on the platform because the sleeper was hot, and a warning to your father to keep his hands off of Appleweight was given to me. Here it is. It seems to me that there is immediate danger in this, and I want to help you. I want to do anything I can for you. I didn't come here to pry into your family secrets, Miss Dangerfield, honestly I didn't!"
She took the piece of paper into her slim little hands and read it, slowly nodding her head, as if the words only confirmed some earlier knowledge of the threat they contained. Then she lifted her head, and her eyes were bright with mirth as Ardmore's wondering gaze met them.
"Did you get the jug?"
"I got two jugs, to tell the truth; but when they seemed dissatisfied and howled for me to give one back, I threw off the buttermilk."
"You threw back father's buttermilk to the man who gave you the applejack? Oh! oh!"
Miss Jerry Dangerfield sat down and laughed; and Ardmore, glad of an opportunity to escape, found his hat and rushed from the house.
CHAPTER V MR. ARDMORE OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED
"She never did it; she never, never did!"
Mr. Ardmore, from a bench in the State House park, thus concluded a long reverie. It was late afternoon, and he had forgotten luncheon in his absorption. There was no manner of use in recurring again to that episode of the lonely siding. He had found the girl—(indubitably the girl)—but not the wink! Miss Jerry Dangerfield was not the winking sort; he was well satisfied on that point, and so thoroughly ashamed into the bargain that he resolved to lead a different life and be very heedful of the cry of the poor in the future. His emotions had never been taxed as to-day, and he hoped that he might never again suffer the torture he had experienced as he waited in the governor's drawing-room for Miss Dangerfield to appear. After that agony it had been a positive relief to be ordered out of the house. Her anger when she caught him lying about having met her father in New Orleans was superior to any simulated rage he had ever seen on the stage, and no girl with a winking eye would be capable of it. He was not clever; he knew that; but if he had had the brains of a monkey he would not have risked his foolish wits against those of a girl like Geraldine Dangerfield, who had led him into an ambush and then shot him to pieces.
"She threatened to have the servants throw me out!" he groaned. And her slight, tense figure rose before him, and her voice, still the voice of young girlhood, rang in his ears. As she read the threatening message from Kildare he had noted the fineness of her hands, the curve of her fair cheek, the wayward curls on her forehead, and he remembered all these things now, but more than anything else her wrath, the tiny fists, the flashing eyes as she confronted him. As he sat dejectedly on his park bench he was unaware that Miss Geraldine Dangerfield, walking hurriedly through the park on her way from the governor's mansion to the state house, passed directly behind him. His attitude was so eloquent of despair that it could not have failed to move a much harder heart than that of Miss Dangerfield, yet she made no sign; but a few minutes later the private secretary came out on the steps of the state house, and after a brief survey of the landscape crossed the lawn and called Ardmore by name.
"I beg your pardon, but Miss Dangerfield wished me to say that she'd like to see you for a minute. She's at the governor's office."
A prisoner, sentenced to death, and unexpectedly reprieved with the rope already on his neck, could not experience greater relief than that which brought Mr. Thomas Ardmore to his feet.
"You are sure of it—that there's no mistake?"
"Certainly not. Miss Dangerfield told me I was to bring you back."
Enthroned at the secretary's desk, a mass of papers before her, Miss Geraldine Dangerfield awaited him. He was ready to place his head on the block in sheer contrition for his conduct, but she herself took the initiative, and her tone was wholly amiable.
"This morning, Mr. Ardmore—"
"Oh, please forget this morning!" he pleaded.
"But I was rude to you; I threatened to have you thrown out of the house; and you had come to do us a favor."
"Miss Dangerfield, I can not lie to you. You are one of the most difficult persons to lie to that I have ever met. I didn't come to Raleigh just to warn your father that his life was threatened. I can't lie to you about that—"
"Then you are a spy?" and Miss Dangerfield started forward in her chair so suddenly that Ardmore dropped his hat.
"No! I am not a spy! I don't care anything about your father. I never heard of him until yesterday."
"Well, I like that!" ejaculated Miss Dangerfield.
"Oh, I mean that I wasn't interested in him—why should I be? I don't know anything about politics."
"Neither does father. That's why he's governor. If he were a politician he'd be a senator. But"—and she folded her hands and eyed him searchingly—"here's a lot of telegrams from the sheriff of Dilwell County about that jug. How on earth did you come to get it?"
"Lied, of course. I allowed them to think I was intimately associated in business with the governor, and they began passing me jugs. Then the man who gave the jug with that message in the cork got suspicious, and I dropped the buttermilk jug back to him."
"You traded buttermilk for moonshine?"
"I shouldn't exactly call it moonshine. It's more like dynamite than anything else. I've written a reply to the note and put it back in the cork, and I'm going to return it to Kildare."
"What answer did you make to that infamous effort to intimidate my father?" demanded Miss Dangerfield.
"I told the Appleweight gang that they are a lot of cowards, and that the governor will have them all in jail or hanged within ten days."
"Splendid! Perfectly splendid! Did you really say that?"
"What else could I do? I knew that that's what the governor would say—he'd have to say it—so I thought I'd save him the trouble."
"Where's the jug now, Mr. Ardmore?"
"In my room at the hotel. The gang must have somebody on guard here. A gentleman who seemed to be one of them called on me this morning, demanding the jug; and if he's the man I think he is, he's stolen the little brown jug from my room in the hotel by this time."
Miss Dangerfield had picked up a spool of red tape and was unwinding it slowly in her fingers and rewinding it. They were such nice little hands, and so peaceful in their aimless trifling with the tape that he was sure his eyes had betrayed him into imagining she had clenched them in the quiet drawing-room at the mansion. This office, now that its atmosphere enveloped him, was almost as domestic as the house in which she lived. The secretary had vanished, and a Sabbath quiet was on the place. The white inner shutters swung open, affording a charming prospect of the trees, the lawn and the monument in the park outside. And, pleasantest of all, and most soothing to his weary senses, she was tolerating him now; she had even expressed approval of something he had done, and he had never hoped for this. She had not even pressed him to disclose his real purpose in visiting Raleigh, and he prayed that she would not return to this subject, for he had utterly lost the conceit of his own lying gift. Miss Dangerfield threw down the spool of tape and bent toward him gravely.
"Mr. Ardmore, can you keep a secret?"
"Nobody ever tried me with one, but I think I can, Miss Dangerfield," he murmured humbly.
"Then please stand up."
And Ardmore rose, a little sheepishly, like a schoolboy who fears blame and praise alike. Miss Dangerfield lifted one of the adorable hands solemnly.
"I, acting governor of North Carolina, hereby appoint you my private secretary, and may God have mercy on your soul. You may now sit down, Mr. Secretary."
"But I thought there was a secretary already. And besides, I don't write a very good hand," Ardmore stammered.
"I am just sending Mr. Bassford to Atlanta to find papa. He's already gone, or will be pretty soon."
"But I thought your father would be home to-night."
Miss Dangerfield looked out of the open window upon the park, then into the silent outer hall, to be sure she was not overheard.
"Papa will not be at home to-night, or probably to-morrow night, or the night afterward. I'm not sure we'll wait next Christmas dinner for papa."
"But of course you know where he is! It isn't possible—" and Ardmore stared in astonishment into Miss Dangerfield's tranquil blue eyes.
"It is possible. Papa is ducking his official responsibilities. That's what's the matter with papa! And I guess they're enough to drive any man into the woods. Just look at all this!"
Miss Dangerfield rested one of those diminutive hands of hers on the pile of documents, letters and telegrams the secretary had left behind him; with a nod of the head she indicated the governor's desk in the inner room, and it, too, was piled high with documents.
"I supposed," faltered Ardmore, "that in the absence of the governor the lieutenant-governor would act. I think I read that once."
"You must have read it wrong, Mr. Ardmore. In North Carolina, in the absence of the governor, I am governor! Don't look so shocked; when I say I, I mean I—me! Do you understand what I said?"
"I heard what you said, Miss Dangerfield."
"I mean what I said, Mr. Ardmore. I have taken you into my confidence because I don't know you. I don't know anything about you. I don't want to know anything about you. I'd be ashamed to ask anybody I know to help me. The people of North Carolina must never know that the governor is absent during times of great public peril. And if you are afraid, Mr. Ardmore, you had better not accept the position."