Читать книгу The Maxwell Mystery - Carolyn Wells - Страница 5

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Clarence, Earl of Clarendon, was arriving. Wherefore, the feminine guests at Maxwell Chimneys were peeping with careful discretion through curtains and window blinds, in their impatience to comment upon the appearance of the distinguished visitor.

But from their vantage ground they could see only a big, heavy-coated figure emerging from a motor-car, followed by a quantity of foreign-looking luggage.

"He's gone to his rooms," announced Milly, after a skirmishing peep into the hall, "and of course we won't see him until dinner time. Come on, Irene, let's go and put on our very bestest frocks. I wish I had a tiara or a coronet! Do you think I'd better wear feathers in my hair or just a wreath of roses?"

"I'm sure I don't know about earls," I put in, "but I'm sure, Miss Leslie, that most men prefer natural flowers to those fanciful confections that you young ladies sometimes perch on your heads."

"You tell us, Mr. Maxwell," said Irene Gardiner, as our host entered the room, "do you suppose earls prefer made-up hair ornaments or natural flowers?"

"Bless my soul! I'm sure I don't know," declared the bewildered old gentleman; "I never was an earl!"

"You ought to be," said Mildred, smiling at him; "your manners are courtly enough to grace any,—any—what do earls grace, anyway?"

"Well, as one will grace our dinner table pretty soon, it would be wise for you girls to run away and get ready to do your part of the gracing," said Miss Maxwell, smiling at pretty Milly, who was in her most roguish mood.

"I simply can't dress, Miss Miranda, until I decide between my silver filigree headdress and a wreath of pink roses."

"Nor I," said Edith; "I believe I'll wear a single rosebud."

"Yes, do," said Mildred; "do wear the simple little blossom, dear; it will make you look younger!" As Edith was only two years older than her sister this could not be called an unkind sarcasm.

"Baby-face!" she retorted; "nothing could make you look younger, unless, perhaps, you carry a Teddy Bear in your arm."

"I've a notion to do just that!" said Mildred, laughing. "I must shock that English prig, somehow."

"How do you know he's a prig?"

"All Englishmen are. I've never met any, but I'm sure they're snippy and critical, and not a bit like our own brave lads. I've lost interest in him anyhow. You may have him, Irene, if you want to."

"That's all very well, now, but as soon as you see him, you'll appropriate him."

"No, I won't, honest; I hereby make over to you whatever interest I may have had in the noble Earl of Clarendon, and promise not to interfere with your game, if you choose to add his very likely bald scalp to your other trophies of the chase."

"Oh, pshaw, that won't do a scrap of good if you even talk to him or look at him at all," said Irene, putting on a rueful look. "Just as Mr. Crane said, if you sweep your eyelashes round once, he'll be done for."

"All right," said Mildred; "then, furthermore, I promise not to talk or converse with the abovementioned Clarence beyond the ordinary civilities of the house; never to smile at him voluntarily and never to wave my eyelashes at him across the table. And now," she rattled on, "I know I'll be late for dinner!" and then she ran away to her own room. Presumably, she took great pains with her toilette, for it happened that she was the latest to enter the drawing-room. She had elected to wear a gown of palest blue organdy, which, though of simple effect, was in reality a marvelous confection, born of art and science. Her hair was massed in a curly top-knot, secured by shining combs, and on her soft fair neck rested a string of wax beads, which she chose to call "The Leslie Pearls."

Her cheeks were a little flushed with the exertion of her hasty dressing, and fear of tardiness lent her an apologetic air, half timid and half cajoling, as she crossed the room to her hostess.

Miss Maxwell stood near the fireplace and smiled indulgently at the pretty dismay of her young guest. Mildred smiled, too, and then, raising her eyes, suddenly discovered that at Miss Maxwell's side stood six feet two of man, with the broadest shoulders she had ever seen!

"Oh," she almost gasped; "I thought—" and then she seemed to realize that a formal introduction was being made.

She dropped a slight and very dainty curtsey, and as she was about to raise her eyes to the face which she naturally assumed surmounted this column of humanity, she remembered she had promised not to wave her eyelashes at him.

Convulsed with the ridiculousness of the situation, she stammered a greeting which meant nothing, and resolutely turned her face away.

"What's the matter, Mildred; are you ill?" said Miss Maxwell solicitously.

"Oh, no, indeed," said Mildred, raising her blue eyes to meet the elder lady's glance, and just giving the Earl a three-quarter view of her really wonderful lashes. "No—I—I, that is, I was afraid I would be late for dinner, you know."

"Nonsense, child; don't be foolish. Talk to Lord Clarence for a few minutes, before we go to the dining-room."

So Mildred dutifully talked, but, in a moment dinner was announced, and it fell to her lot to be escorted to the dining-room by my humble self.

"What's the matter?" I asked after we were seated at the dinner table. "Why did you turn down his Noble Nibs so soon? You scarcely spoke to him."

"Too English for me," said Mildred briefly, not wishing to discuss his lordship.

"He's a handsome chap," I went on. "And he's a good, all-round fellow, too. I've been talking with him, and he's broad-minded and fair, with a keen sense of humor. Go in and win, Milly; I'll give you my blessing."

"No, thank you," said Mildred, turning her eyes resolutely away from the stranger. "Columbia is the 'Gem of the Ocean,' for me."

"Why don't you announce your engagement to Philip, and have done with it?" I said audaciously.

"One reason is, that I'm not engaged to him," said Mildred calmly.

"But you will be. He has every chance in the world."

"That's where you're wrong. There's only one chance in the world that I shall marry Philip Maxwell." She smiled as she remembered Philip's emphatic assurance that he should ask her once more only. "But I'm not going to marry anybody for years yet. Let's talk about something more interesting. Look at Phil, now! He's devotedly reciting poetry to Irene."

"Oho, that's your more interesting topic, is it? But, wait, the noble Britisher is making good. Just listen to that yarn he's telling. He's a ripping good story-teller." And Mildred, listening, was forced to agree.

On the terrace, after dinner, the party broke up into small groups of two or three, and Mildred, quite unintentionally, found herself talking to Lord Clarendon, or rather he was talking to her.

"Don't run away," he said, as she tried to edge off toward another group; "stay and talk to me."

"I can't talk to you," she said, stammering a little, "because—because—" and as he smiled at her, she continued, in sheer desperation, "because— because I don't know what to call you!"

"Don't you know my name?"

"Yes; but I don't know whether to address you as 'my lord' or 'your lordship.'"

She knew she was talking nonsense, but she was honestly trying to get away, and so said anything at random.

The Earl stood looking down at her, with his half-mocking smile.

"Either would succeed in attracting my attention, if I heard you; but why not call me Clarence?"

"It's a stunning name," said Mildred, "but I couldn't use it so soon. Indeed I never can."

With a sudden determination she turned abruptly and walked away, leaving him standing there.

"By Jove!" said his lordship to me as he looked after her; "I can't make her out at all; but she's a dear little enigma."

The evening wore away, and it was quite late when Mildred and I, again together for a moment, saw someone coming near. Then a kind voice over her shoulder said, "Is it possible that this little lady's afraid of me?"

There was a laughing note in the voice, an amused, yet self-assured tone that seemed joyously confident and contradictory to the words.

I wondered what reply she would make, for the terrace in the moonlight was a dangerous place. Acting on a sudden impulse, whether courage or cowardice I didn't know, she whispered in a broken voice, "yes, I am afraid of you," and turned swiftly and suddenly away from him.

Philip was never very far away from Mildred's side, and though he was glad to notice her apparent lack of interest in the Earl, he was at a loss to understand her persistent rejection of the nobleman's advances.

"What's the matter with the Belted One, Milly?" he asked; "I'm sure I don't want you to chum with him, but why treat him with such desperate scor-r-r-m?"

"I don't scorn him, but he doesn't interest me," said Mildred, a little impatiently, for she was beginning to be tired of her own game.

But Philip was not entirely unversed in the whims and ways of the Eternal Feminine, and he responded, "Oho! piqued, are you?"

"Indeed I'm not, and, pray, why should I be?"

"Oh, for many reasons. Perhaps because Clarence is so devoted to Irene. She'd look well wearing a coronet, wouldn't she? It would suit her tall stateliness a lot better than it would your petite effects."

"Don't talk any more about that horrid Earl. I'm tired of the thought of him."

"That's your attitude toward everything," said I.

"Oh, no, it isn't," she responded saucily. "I never get tired of myself, and I'm not yet tired of you."

"Don't think of him, then," said Philip. "I'm truly glad, if you don't like him. But your overdoing it so made me a bit suspicious. You see, I know your tricks and your manners!"

"Am I very bad, Philip?" said Mildred, a little wistfully.

"You are indeed. You're a heartless little witch, and you'd not only flirt with a wooden Indian, but you'd know just the best way to go about it."

"Thank you for the subtle compliment. And yet—with all my faults, you—?"

"Of course I do, and always shall! Does it please you to know it?"

"Not especially," said Mildred, her mocking eyes smiling gaily into Philip's handsome, earnest face. "And I sha'n't talk to you any more now, for you seem to have only two subjects of conversation—yourself and the Earl of Clarendon. And I don't care a straw for either."

Philip only smiled, for though Mildred's words sounded indifferent, the glance that reached him from beneath the long lashes belied the words, and, I am sure, strengthened his conviction that the butterfly heart was really his.

I left the pair then, and strolled away in the direction of Irene Gardiner.