ethan drank the last drop of excellent black coffee in the tiny cup and swung his chair about so that he faced the cheerfully crackling logs in the library fire-place. he had enjoyed his dinner, and he began to feel delightfully restful and drowsy. the day spent in the open air, with the wind rushing past him, the hearty repast and now the dancing flames were all having their natural effect. he reached lazily for his cigarette case, his gaze travelling idly over the high mantel above him. then his hand had dropped from his pocket and he was on his feet, peering intently at a small photograph tucked half out of sight behind one of the old liverpool[176] pitchers which flanked the clock. a moment after he had it in his hands and was bending over it in the glare of the light from the chandelier.
brass candlestick
it was evidently an amateur production, but it was good for all that. and ethan was troubling his head not at all as to its origin or its merits or defects. it was sufficient for him that it showed a small, graceful figure in white against a background of foliage, and that the eyes which looked straight into his from under the waving hair with its golden fillet were hers. it was clytie. one hand rested softly on a flower-clustered spray of azalea, one bare sandaled foot gleamed forth from under the straight white folds of the peplum and the lips were parted in a little startled smile. ethan devoured it eagerly while his heart glowed and ached at[177] once. he remembered telling her that he would like to see those pictures, and remembered her laughing response: “i’m afraid you never will!” and now he was looking at one of them after all! and he was still looking when the gardener entered with the replenished wood-basket.
“where did this come from, billings?” ethan asked carelessly.
billings set down his burden and crossed to the table. he was a small man, well toward sixty, with his weather-beaten face shrivelled into innumerable tiny, kindly wrinkles. in spite of his years, however, he showed no signs of the mental degeneration which his wife had feared. he came and looked near-sightedly at the card which ethan held out.
“why, sir, lizzie came across that in one of the upstair rooms when she[178] was cleaning up after the folks went away and she put it on the mantel here, thinking maybe it was valuable and they’d send back for it.”
“i see.” ethan laid it on the table, his eyes still upon it. “i don’t think they’ll want it. doubtless miss devereux has plenty more.”
“yes, sir; they took a good many, sir, between them.”
“they? oh, she had a friend with her?”
“yes, sir. miss hoyt. i remember when they was taking those, sir. it was early in the summer, soon after they came. the young ladies they dressed themselves up in those queer things—sort o’ like sheets, they was, sir—” the gardener’s voice became faintly apologetic, as though he had not quite approved of such doings—“and went out on the lawn one forenoon.[179] they got me to cut away a bit of the branches, sir, right here.” billings indicated the upper left-hand corner of the picture. “she said she had to have more light. it wasn’t much, sir; just a few old twigs; no harm done, sir.”
“of course not. it was—miss devereux asked you?”
“yes, sir; miss laura they called her. a very pleasant young lady, sir.”
“very pleasant, billings,” assented ethan with a sigh.
“you know her, then, sir?”
“i—hardly that; i’ve met her.”
“yes, sir.” billings turned toward the fire. “shall i drop another log on, sir?”
“no, i shall be going to bed very shortly.”
“very well, sir.” billings mended[180] the fire, replaced the tongs and stood carefully erect again, chuckling reminiscently. then finding ethan’s eyes on him questioningly he said: “she took me, sir, too, with her camery.”
“really? i should like to see the picture.”
“thank you, sir. it’s in the kitchen. shall i fetch it? lizzie says it’s a very speakin’ likeness, sir, excepting that i was sort o’ took by surprise, so to say, and had no time to spruce up.”
“yes, bring it in by all means.”
the gardener hurried away and ethan turned again to the picture. when billings returned ethan said carelessly:
“by the way, if your wife asks about this you can tell her i have—er—taken charge of it. ah, this is the picture, eh? why, i’d call that excellent,[181] billings, excellent! truly, a very speaking likeness. you say miss devereux took this?”
billings
“yes, sir, the same day they was taking the others, sir. i had lopped off the branches and was standin’ by watching, sir, and after she had taken that one there, sir, she said to me: ‘billings, would you mind if i took’——”
“not after she’d taken this, billings,” interrupted ethan, in the interests of accuracy. “she didn’t take this one, of course.”
“i beg pardon, mr. ethan?”
“never mind. i only said you didn’t mean that it was after she had taken this one; it was another one you meant.”
“oh, no, sir, it was that very one, sir. i had just lopped off the branches——”
[182]
“you don’t mean that she took her own picture, surely?” asked ethan with a smile.
“no, sir.”
“exactly.”
“it was that one you have there, sir, she took.”
“this one? now, look here, billings, let’s get this straightened out while we’re at it. do you mean that miss devereux—mind, i’m talking of miss devereux—do you mean that miss devereux took this photograph i have in my hands?”
“yes, sir, that’s the one. i had just lopped——”
“never mind the lopping,” interrupted ethan with smiling impatience. “but tell me how she did it.”
“why, sir, she stood her camery up a little ways off, sir; it had three little legs onto it, sir; and she pressed[183] a little rubber ball, and the camery went ‘click,’ sir, like that, sir,—‘click!’ and——”
“yes, yes, but—now look here, how far off was the camera from—from this place, where you had lopped the branches?”
“about twenty feet, sir, maybe.”
“well, will you kindly, tell me how miss devereux managed to squeeze the little rubber ball and get into the picture at the same time?”
“sir?”
“what i mean is,” answered ethan patiently, “how could she have been here—” tapping the photograph he held—“and at the camera the same instant?”
that was evidently a poser. billings scratched the back of his head dubiously. finally,
[184]
“but she wasn’t there, sir!” he explained.
“wasn’t where? at the camera?”
“yes, sir; i mean no, sir. she wasn’t there!” he pointed at the picture.
“wasn’t here!” exclaimed ethan. “then how—hang it, man, but here’s her picture!”
“beg pardon, mr. ethan?” billings looked both pained and puzzled, and shot a quick look of inquiry at the dinner table.
“i say here’s her picture, you idiot!” repeated ethan.
“whose picture, sir?”
“why, miss devereux’s!”
“no, sir.”
“what do you mean by ‘no, sir?’ i say——”
a light broke upon mr. billings.
“i beg your pardon, mr. ethan,”[185] he explained hurriedly. “i see your mistake, sir, but you said as how you’d met the young lady, and i thought you understood as how that wasn’t her, sir.”
“what? who?”
“wasn’t miss devereux, sir.”
“do you mean that this isn’t miss devereux here in this picture?” cried ethan.
“yes, sir; that is, no, sir. that isn’t her, mr. ethan.”
“isn’t—! then who is it?”
“miss hoyt, sir. i thought you under——”
ethan took billings by the arms and forced him into a chair.
“you sit there and answer my questions, billings,” he commanded excitedly. he held the photograph before the gardener’s alarmed face.
“who is this in the picture?”
[186]
“miss hoyt, sir, as i was telling you——”
“nonsense! you’re mistaken, man! look close; take it in your hands! don’t answer until you’ve looked at it well. where are your spectacles?”
“i don’t wear any, sir,” was the dignified reply. “my eyes, mr. ethan, are just as clear as ever they were, sir. why, i can see——”
“yes, yes, i beg your pardon, billings, but i have most particular reasons for wanting to be certain about this! now—take a good look at it!—now who is she?”
“miss hoyt, sir, and if you was to put me in jail the next minute, sir, i wouldn’t say different! no, sir, not if my life was depending on it, sir!”
clytie—miss hoyt
“and it’s not miss devereux?”
[187]
“no, sir, nor never was! why, mr. ethan, miss devereux, as you must recall, sir, is quite tall and slim, like—like a young birch, sir,—with very dark hair. and miss hoyt, sir, as you can see——”
ethan planted himself with his back to the fire and lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers.
“billings,” he said softly, “i’ve been a damned fool!”
“yes—that is, i can’t believe it, sir,” was the respectful answer. but billings’ expression said otherwise.
“now i want you to tell me all you know about miss hoyt,” said ethan. “by the way, what was her first name?”
“cicely, sir; miss cicely hoyt.”
“cicely,” repeated ethan softly. “it just suits her!”
“beg pardon, sir?”
[188]
“oh, never mind. where does she live?”
billings thought in silence a moment.
“ellington, sir,” he answered triumphantly, evidently pleased at his powers of memory.
“where the deuce is that, though?”
“about the centre of the state, sir, i think.”
“this state, do you mean? massachusetts?”
“yes, sir, massachusetts.”
“and she was a friend of miss devereux’s?”
“yes, sir. i gathered as how they went to school together. and miss hoyt’s father, sir, died a while back and left her and her mother very poorly off, sir. and the young lady is employed in a library at ellington, as i understand it, sir, and her mother is there, too, sir.”
[189]
“in the library?”
“no, sir, in ellington. they used to live in ohio, i believe.”
ethan was silent a moment, smoking furiously. then,
“tell farrell to come in here at once, billings. and i’m much obliged for what you’ve told me. oh, wait, billings! throw another log on the fire first. i don’t want it to go out; you and i have got lots to talk about to-night!”
farrell came speedily.
“do you know where ellington, massachusetts, is?” asked ethan.
“yes, sir.”
“how long a run is it?”
farrell produced a road map from his coat pocket and bent over it under the light.
“well, mr. parmley, i don’t know how the roads are now, sir, but supposing[190] they’re in fair condition we’d ought to do it in about two and half hours.”
“then if we left here at seven in the morning we’d get to ellington by noon?”
“couldn’t help it, sir, barring accidents.”
“there mustn’t be any accidents,” answered ethan, a bit unreasonably.
“i’ll do my best, sir.”
“be ready to leave, then, promptly at seven!”
“very well, sir.”
farrell went out and as the door closed softly behind him ethan, the photograph in his hands, threw himself into the chair before the fire and beamed blissfully at the flames.
