Chapter II: Part ONE: I (2)

The Poet expressed his gratitude for the suggestion good-naturedly. He was studying the man before him in the hope of determining just how far he had retrograded, if indeed there had been retrogression. Redfield was a trifle stouter than he had been in the days of their intimacy, and spoke with a confidence and assurance that the Redfield of old days had lacked. The interview had come about much easier than he had hoped, and Redfield’s warmth was making it easier. He was relieved to find on this closer inspection that Redfield had not changed greatly. Once or twice the broker’s brown eyes dimmed with a dreaminess that his visitor remembered. He was still a handsome fellow, not over thirty-five the Poet reckoned, and showing no traces of hard living. The coarse, unruly brown hair had not shared the general smoothing-out that was manifest in the man’s apparel. It was a fine head, set strongly on broad shoulders. The Poet, always minutely observant in such matters, noted the hands--slim, long, supple, that had once been deft with brush and graver. In spite of the changes of seven years, concretely expressed in the “Investment Securities” on the outer door, the Poet concluded that much remained of the Miles Redfield he had known. And this being true increased his difficulties in reconciling his friend with the haunting picture of Marjorie as she had stood plaintively aloof at the children’s party, or with the young wife whose cheery, hopeful letter he had read in the early hours of the morning.

“I passed your old house this afternoon,” the Poet observed casually. “I was out getting a breath of country air and came in through Marston. You were a pioneer when you went there and it’s surprising how that region has developed. I had a hard time finding the cottage, and shouldn’t have known it if it hadn’t been for some of the ineffaceable marks. The shack you built for a studio, chiefly with your own hands, seems to have been turned into a garage by the last tenant--Oh, profanest usurpation! But the house hasn’t been occupied for some time. That patch of shrubbery you set out against the studio has become a flourishing jungle. Let me see,--I seem to recall that I once did a pretty good sonnet in the studio, to the gentle whizz of the lawn-mower you were manipulating outside.”

“I remember that afternoon perfectly--and the sonnet, which is one of your best. I dare say a bronze tablet will be planted there in due course of time to mark a favorite haunt of the mighty bard.”

Redfield had found the note of reminiscence ungrateful, and he was endeavoring to keep the talk in a light key. He very much hoped that the Poet would make one of his characteristic tangential excursions into the realms of impersonal anecdote. It was rather remarkable that this man of all men had happened in just now, fresh from an inspection of the bungalow and the studio behind the lilacs that Elizabeth had planted. He began to feel uncomfortable. It was not so much the presence of the small, compact, dignified gentleman in the chair by the window that disturbed him as the aims, standards, teachings that were so inseparably associated with his visitor’s name. Redfield’s perplexity yielded suddenly to annoyance, and he remarked shortly, as though anticipating questions that were presumably in his friend’s mind:--

“Elizabeth and I have quit; you’ve probably heard that.” And then, as though to dispose of the matter quickly, he added: “It wouldn’t work--too much incompatibility; I’m willing to take the blame--guess I’ll have to, anyhow!” he ended grimly. “I suppose it’s rather a shock to a friend like you, who knew us at the beginning, when we were planting a garden to live in forever, to find that seven years wound it up. I confess that I was rather knocked out myself to find that I had lost my joy in trimming the hedge and sticking bulbs in the ground.”

“I noticed,” said the Poet musingly, “that the weeds are rioting deliriously in the garden.”

“Weeds!” Redfield caught him up harshly; “I dare say there are weeds! Our trouble was that we thought too much about the crocuses, and forgot to put in cabbages!”

“Well, you’re putting them in now!”

“Oh, don’t be hard on me! I’ll let most people jump on me and never talk back, but you with your fine perceptions ought to understand. Life isn’t what it used to be; the pace is quicker, changes come faster, and if a man and woman find that they’ve made a mistake, it’s better to cut it all out than to live under the same roof and scowl at each other across the table. I guess you can’t duck that!”

“I shan’t try to duck it,” replied the Poet calmly. “There’s never anything gained by evading a clean-cut issue. It’s you who are dodging. Remember,” he said, with a smile, “that I shouldn’t have broached the subject myself; but now that you’ve brought it up--”

He paused, in his habitual deliberate fashion, reflecting with grateful satisfaction upon the care with which he had hidden his tracks! He was now in Redfield’s office; and his old friend had instructed the clerks outside that he was not to be disturbed so long as this distinguished citizen chose to honor him. The Poet, for the first time in his life, took advantage of his reputation. Redfield, on his side, knew that it was impossible to evict the best-loved man in the Commonwealth, whose presence in his office had doubtless sent a thrill to the very core of the skyscraper.

“Of course, these things really concern only the parties immediately interested,” Redfield remarked, disturbed by his caller’s manner and anxious to hide behind generalizations. He swung himself round in his chair, hoping that this utterance would deflect the discussion into more comfortable channels; but the Poet waited patiently for Redfield to face him again.

“That is perfectly true,” he admitted; “and I should certainly resent the interference of outsiders if I were in your plight.”

Redfield was nodding his assent, feeling that here, after all, was a reasonable being, who would go far to avoid an unwelcome intrusion upon another’s affairs. He was still nodding complacently when the Poet remarked, with a neatness of delivery that he usually reserved for humorous effects,--

“But it happens, Miles, that I _am_ an interested party!”

The shock of this surprise shook Redfield’s composure. He glanced quickly at his caller and then at the door.

“You mean that Elizabeth has sent you!” he gasped. “If that’s the case--”

“No; I haven’t seen Elizabeth for some time--not since I heard of your troubles; and I’m not here to represent her--at least, not in the way you mean.”

Redfield’s face expressed relief; he had been about to refer his visitor to his lawyer, but he was still pretty much at sea.

“I represent not one person, but several millions of people,” the Poet proceeded to explain himself unsmilingly, in a tone that Redfield did not remember. “You see, Miles, your difficulties and your attitude toward your family and life in general are hurting my business; this may sound strange, but it’s quite true. And it’s of importance to me and to my clients, so to speak.”

Redfield stared at him frowningly.

“What on earth are you driving at?” he blurted, still hoping that this parley was only the introduction to a joke of some sort. There was, however, nothing in the Poet’s manner to sustain this hope--nor could he detect any trace of the furtive smile which, he recalled, sometimes gave warning of the launching of some absurdity by this man who so easily played upon laughter and tears.

“There’s no such thing as you and me in this world, Redfield,” pursued the Poet--and his smile reappeared now, fleetingly, and he was wholly at ease, confident, direct, business-like. “We’re all Us--you might say that mankind is a lot of Us-es. And when you let the weeds grow up in your garden they’re a menace to all the neighbors. And you can’t just go off and leave them; it isn’t fair or square. I see you don’t yet quite understand where I come in--how you’re embarrassing me, cheating me, hurting my business, to put it flatly. You’re making it appear that I’m a false prophet, a teacher of an outworn creed. Any reputation that you’re willing to concede I have doesn’t rest upon profound scholarship, which I don’t pretend to possess, but upon the feeble testimony I’ve borne to some very old ideals. You’ve known me a long time and you can’t say that I’ve ever bragged of myself--and if you knew how humbly I’ve taken such success as I’ve had you’d know that I’m not likely to be misled by the public’s generous kindness toward my work. But I owe something to the rest of Us; I can’t afford to stand by and see the little fringes I’ve tacked on to old fabrics torn off without making a protest. To put it another way, I’m not going to have it said that the gulf is so widening between poetry and life that another generation will be asking what our rhymed patter was all about--not without a protest. I hope you see what I’m driving at, and where I’m coming out--”

Redfield walked to the window and stared across the roofs, with his hands thrust into his pockets.

“It isn’t easy, you know, Miles, for me to be doing this: I shouldn’t be doing it if your affairs hadn’t been thrown in my face; if I didn’t feel that they were very much my business. Yesterday I saw Marjorie--it was at a children’s party at Mrs. Waring’s--and the sight of her was like a stab. I believe I wrote some verses for her second--maybe it was her third--birthday--pinned one of my little pink ribbons on her, so to speak, and made her one of my children. I tell you it hurt me to see her yesterday--and know that the weeds had sprung up in _her_ garden!”

Redfield flung round impatiently.

“But you’re applying the wrong tests;--you don’t know all the circumstances! You wouldn’t have a child brought up in a home of strife, would you? I’m willing for Elizabeth to have full charge of Marjorie--I’ve waived all my right to her. I’m not as callous as you think: I’d have you know that it’s a wrench to part with her.”

“You haven’t any right to part with her,” said the Poet. “You can’t turn her over to Elizabeth as though she were a piece of furniture that you don’t particularly care for! It isn’t fair to the child; it’s not fair to Elizabeth. Don’t try to imagine that there’s anything generous or magnanimous in waiving your claims to your own child. A man can’t throw off his responsibilities as easily as that. It’s contemptible; it won’t do!”

“I tell you,” said Redfield angrily, “the whole thing had grown intolerable. It didn’t begin yesterday; it dates back three years ago, and--”

“Just how did it begin?” the Poet interrupted.

“Well, it began with money--not debts, strange to say, but the other way around! My father died and left me about eight thousand dollars--more than I ever hoped to hold in my hand at once if I lived forever. It looked bigger than a million, I can tell you. I was a bank-teller, earning fifteen hundred dollars a year and playing at art on the side. We lived on the edge of nowhere and pinched along with no prospect of getting anywhere. When that money fell in my lap I saw the way out--it was like a dream come true, straight down from heaven. I’d picked up a good deal about the bond business in the bank--used to take a turn in that department occasionally; and it wasn’t like tackling something new. So I quit my bank job and jumped in for myself. After the third month I made expenses, and the second year I cleaned up five thousand dollars--and I’m not through yet,” he concluded with a note of triumph.

“And how does all that affect Elizabeth?” asked the Poet quietly.

“Well, Elizabeth is one of those timid creatures, who’d be content to sit on a suburban veranda all her days and wait for the milk wagon. She couldn’t realize that opportunity was knocking at the door. How do you think she wanted to invest that eight thousand--wanted me to go to New York to study in the League; figured out that we could do that and then go to Paris for a year. And if she hadn’t got to crying about it, I might have been fool enough to do it!”

He took a turn across the room and then paused before his caller with the air of one about to close a debate. The Poet was scrutinizing the handle of his umbrella fixedly, as though the rough wood presented a far more important problem than the matter under discussion.

“Elizabeth rather showed her faith in you there, didn’t she?” he asked, without looking up. “Eight thousand dollars had come into the family, quite unexpectedly, and she was willing to invest it in _you_, in a talent she highly valued; in what had been to her the fine thing in you--the quality that had drawn you together. There was a chance that it might all have been wasted--that you wouldn’t, as the saying is, have made good, and that at the end of a couple of years you would not only have been out the money, but out of a job. She was willing to take the chance. The fact that you ignored her wishes and are prospering in spite of her isn’t really the answer; a man who has shaken his wife and child--who has permitted them to be made the subjects of disagreeable gossip through his obstinate unreasonableness isn’t prospering. In fact, I’d call him a busted community.”

“Oh, there were other things!” exclaimed Redfield. “We made each other uncomfortable; it got to a point where every trifling thing had to be argued--constant contention and wrangle. When I started into this business I had to move into town. After I’d got the nicest flat I could hope to pay for that first year, Elizabeth insisted on being unhappy about _that_. It was important for me to cultivate people who would be of use to me; it’s a part of this game; but she didn’t like my new acquaintances--made it as hard for me as possible. She always had a way of carrying her chin a little high, you know. These people that have always lived in this town are the worst lot of snobs that ever breathed free air, and just because her great-grandfather happened to land here in time to say good-bye to the last Indian is no reason for snubbing the unfortunates who only arrived last summer. If her people hadn’t shown the deterioration you find in all old stock, and if her father hadn’t died broke, you might excuse her; but this thing of living on your ancestors is no good--it’s about as thin as starving your stomach on art and feeding your soul on sunsets. I tell you, my good brother,”--with an ironic grin on his face he clapped his hand familiarly on the Poet’s shoulder,--“there are more things in real life than are dreamed of in your poet’s philosophy!”

The Poet particularly disliked this sort of familiarity; his best friends never laid hands on him. He resented even more the leer that had written itself in Redfield’s face. Traces of a coarsening of fiber that he had looked for at the beginning of the interview were here apparent in tone and gesture, and did not contribute to the Poet’s peace of mind. The displeasure in his face seemed to remind Redfield that this was not a man one slapped on the back, or spoke to leeringly. He flushed and muttered an apology, which the Poet chose to ignore.

“A woman who has had half an acre of Mother Earth to play in for seven years and has fashioned it into an expression of her own soul, and has swung her baby in a hammock under cherry trees in bloom, must be pardoned if she doesn’t like being cooped up in a flat and asked to be polite to people her husband expects to make money out of. I understand that you have left the flat for a room at the club.”

“I mean to take care of them--you must give me credit for that!” said Redfield, angry that he was not managing his case more effectively. “But Elizabeth is riding the high horse and refuses to accept anything from me!”

“I should think she would! She would be the woman I’ve admired all these years if she’d let you throw crumbs to her from your club window!”

“She thinks she’s going to rub it into me by going to work! She’s going to teach a kindergarten, in the hope, I suppose, of humiliating me!”

“It would be too bad if some of the humiliation landed on your door!”

“I’ve been as decent as I could; I’ve done everything I could to protect her.”

“I suppose,” observed the Poet carelessly, “there’s another woman somewhere--”

“That’s a lie!” Redfield flared. “I’ve always been square with Elizabeth, and you know it! If there’s any scandalous gossip of that kind afloat it’s damnably unjust! I hoped you had a better idea of me than that!”

“I’m sorry,” said the Poet, with sincere contrition. “We’ll consider, then, that there’s no such bar to a reconciliation.”

He let his last word fall quietly as though it were a pebble he had dropped into a pool for the pleasure of watching the resulting ripples.

“If that’s what’s in your mind, the sooner you get it out the better!” snapped Redfield. “We’ve gone beyond all that!”

“The spring was unusually fine,” the Poet hastened to remark with cheerful irrelevance, as though all that had gone before had merely led up to the weather; “June is justifying Lowell’s admiration. Your view off there is splendid. It just occurs to me that these tall buildings are not bad approximations of ivory towers; a good place for dreams--nice horizons--edges of green away off there, and unless my sight is failing that’s a glimpse of the river you get beyond those heaven-kissing chimneys.”

Redfield mopped his brow and sighed his relief. Clearly the Poet, realizing the futility of the discussion, was glad to close it; and Redfield had no intention of allowing him to return to it.

He opened the door with an eagerness at which the Poet smiled as he walked deliberately through the outer room, exposing himself once more to the admiring smiles of the girls at the typewriters. He paused and told them a story, to which Redfield, from the threshold of his sanctum, listened perforce.

At the street entrance the Poet met Fulton hurrying into the building.

“I was just thinking of you!” cried the young man. “Half a minute ago I dropped a little packet with your name on it into the box at the corner, and was feeling like a criminal to think of what I was inflicting!”

“It occurs to me,” mused the Poet, leaning on his umbrella, quite indifferent to the hurrying crowd that swept through the entrance, “that the mail-box might be a good subject for a cheerful jingle--the repository of hopes, ambitions, abuse, threats, love letters, and duns. It’s by treating such subjects attractively that we may hope to reach the tired business man and persuade him that not weak-winged is song! Apollo leaning against a letter-box and twanging his lyre divine for the muses to dance a light fantastic round--a very pretty thought, Mr. Fulton!”

The Poet, obviously on excellent terms with the world, indulged himself further in whimsical comment on possible subjects for verse, even improvising a few lines of doggerel for the reporter’s amusement.

And then, after he had turned away, he called the young man back, as though by an afterthought.

“As to Redfield, you haven’t done anything yet?”

“No; I’m on my way to see him now.”

“Well, don’t be in a hurry about making the change. You’d better go up to the lake Sunday and sit on the shore all day and let June soak in. You will find that it helps. I’ll meet those verses you’re sending me at the outer wicket; I’m sure I’ll like them!”

IV

When Saturday proved to be the fairest of June days, the Poet decided that it was a pity to remain in city pent when three hours on the train would carry him to Waupegan, a spot whose charms had been brought freshly to his attention by the sheaf of verses Fulton had sent him. He had hoped to find Fulton on the train; but when the young man did not appear, he found compensation in the presence of Mrs. Waring, who was bound for Waupegan to take possession of her house.

“Marian took Marjorie up yesterday. It occurred to me, after I’d posted Elizabeth off with a servant to straighten up my house, that I’d done the crudest thing imaginable, for Elizabeth went honeymooning to Waupegan--I gave her and Miles my house for a fortnight, as you may remember. I wanted to get her out of town and I never thought of that until she’d gone.”

“Isn’t it a good sign that Elizabeth would go? It shows that the associations of the lake still mean something to her.”

“Oh, but they don’t mean anything to him--that’s the trouble! If there ever was a brute--”

“There are worse men--or brutes,” the Poet mildly suggested.

“I can’t imagine it!” Mrs. Waring replied tartly.

“I’m going fishing,” the Poet explained, when Mrs. Waring demanded to know what errand was carrying him lakeward. His dislike of railway journeys was well known to all his friends; and no one had ever heard of his going fishing.

“I have asked you to the lake scores of times to visit me, and you have scorned all my invitations. Now that I’ve caught you in the act of going up alone, I demand that you make me the visit you’ve been promising for twenty years.”

“Fishing,” observed the Poet soberly, “is a business that requires the closest attention and strictest privacy. I should be delighted to make that visit at this time, but when I fish I’m an intolerable person--unsociable and churlish; you’d always hate me if I accepted your hospitable shelter when I would a-fishing go.”

“You’ll not find the hotel a particularly tranquil place for literary labor, and the food at my house couldn’t be worse than you’ll get there. I’ve warned you!”

She was frankly curious as to the nature of his errand, and continued to chaff him about his piscatorial ambitions. He gave his humor full rein in adding to her mystification.

“Perhaps,” he finally confessed, “I shall hire a boy to do the fishing for me, while I sit under a tree and boss him.”

“No boy with any spirit would fish for anybody else--no respectable, well-brought-up boy would!”

“There’s where you’re quite mistaken! I expect to find a boy--and a pretty likely young fellow he is, reared on a farm, and all that--I expect to find him ready for business in the morning. Mind you, he didn’t promise to come, but if he’s the youngster I think he is, he’ll be there right side up with care to-morrow morning.”

“I don’t believe I like you so well when you play at being mysterious. This idea, that if you serenely fold your hands and wait--John Burroughs, isn’t it?--your own will come to you, never worked for me. I should never have got anywhere in my life if I had folded my hands and waited.”

“There must always be one who journeys to meet him who waits, and with your superb energy you have done the traveling. I’m playing both parts in this affair just as an experiment. To-day I travel; to-morrow I shall sit on the dock and wait for that boy who’s to do my fishing for me. I’m not prepared for disappointment; I have every confidence that he will arrive in due season. Particularly now that you tell me Marian is already illuminating the landscape!”

Mrs. Waring was giving him only half attention, but she pricked up her ears at this statement.

“Marian! What on earth has she to do with this fishing-trip?”

“Nothing, except that I have a message for her from the cool slopes of Parnassus. It’s almost like something you read of in books--her being here waiting for the sacred papyri.”

He tapped his pocket and smiled.

“I hadn’t the slightest idea she was up there waiting,” he continued. “You must confess that it’s rather remarkable! Folding her hands, utterly unconscious of what Fate has in store for her; and poems being written to her, and my fisher-boy on the trail looking for me--and her!”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re driving at, but you’d better keep your verses for somebody else. Marian’s a much more practical girl than Elizabeth; I don’t quite see her receiving messages from the Muses with more than chilly politeness. You may be sure she will profit by Elizabeth’s experience. Elizabeth married a man with an artistic temperament and she’s paid dearly for it. A blow like that falling so close to Marian is bound to have its effect. If you want to win her smiles, don’t appeal to her through poetry. As I was saying the other day, poetry is charming, and sometimes it’s uplifting; but we’re getting away from it. These are changing times, and pretty soon it won’t be respectable to be decent!”

“You said something to the same effect the other day when your garden was full of children. I was greatly disappointed in you; it wasn’t fair to the children to talk that way--even if they didn’t hear you. I was all broken up after that party; I haven’t been the same man since!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to reflect on you or your work; you know that!”

“I know nothing of the kind,” returned the Poet amiably. “You have said it twice, though the first time was enough. I’m a different person; you’ve changed the whole current of my life! I’m making a journey, on a very hot afternoon, that I should never have thought of making if it hadn’t been for your cynical remarks. I’ve taken employment as an agent of Providence, just to prove to you that my little preachments in rhyme are not altogether what our young people call piffle. I’ve come down out of the pulpit, so to speak, to put my sermons into effect--a pretty good thing for all parsons to do. Or, to go back to the starting-point, I’ve hung my harp on the willows that I may fish the more conveniently.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself to make sport of a woman of my years! You had better tell me a funny story,” said Mrs. Waring, fearing that he was laughing at her.

“I shall do nothing of the kind! I am heavily armed with magazines and I shall read the rest of the way to Waupegan. Besides, I need time for planning my work to-morrow. It will be my busiest day!”

* * * * *

It was dark when the train paused at the lake station, and Mrs. Redfield was waiting, having come over in a launch to meet Mrs. Waring. She was wrapped in a long coat and carried a lantern, which she held up laughingly to verify her identification of the Poet.

“Marian and I have just been talking of you! She and Marjorie have told me all about the garden-party, and of the beautiful time you gave the children.”

“If she didn’t mention the beautiful time they gave me, she didn’t tell the whole story. And if I hadn’t gone to Mrs. Waring’s party, I shouldn’t be here!”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” interposed Mrs. Waring, counting her trunks as they were transferred to the miniature steamer that plied the lake. “There’s some joke about his coming here; he’s told you one story and an hour ago he was assuring me that he had come up to fish!”

She turned away for a moment to speak to some old friends among the cottagers, leaving Mrs. Redfield and the Poet alone.

“I’m glad you are here,” said the Poet, “for I shall stay a few days and I hope we can have some talks.”

“I hope so; but I must go very soon. I’ve only been waiting for Mrs. Waring to come. It was like her to make a chance for me to get away; you know Waupegan is like home; my father used to have a cottage here and we children were brought up on the lake.”

She was a small, dark-eyed woman, a marked contrast to her tall, fair sister. Her sense of fun had always been a delight to her friends; she was a capital mimic and had been a star in amateur theatricals. The troubles of the past year--or of the years, to accept Redfield’s complaint at its full value--had not destroyed her vivacity. She was of that happy company who carry into middle life and beyond the freshness of youth. She had been married at twenty, and to the Poet’s eyes she seemed little older now.

He had been wondering since his interview with Redfield how he had ever dared go as far in meddling with other people’s affairs. Face to face with Redfield’s wife, he was more self-conscious than was comfortable. It would not be easy to talk to Elizabeth of her difficulties, for the Poet was not a man whom women took into their confidence over a teacup. He abused himself for leaving his proper orbit for foolish adventures in obscure, unmapped corners of the heavens.

He said that the stars were fine, and having failed to amplify this with anything like the grace that might be expected of a poet, he glanced at her and found her eyes bright with tears. This was altogether disconcerting, but it illustrated the embarrassments of the situation into which he had projected himself. Clearly the ambition to harmonize poetry and life was not without peril; he felt that as the ambassador from the court of Poesy it might be necessary to learn a new language to make himself understood at the portals of Life. Instead of promoting peace, he might, by the least tactless remark, prolong the war, and the thought was dismaying.

As she turned her head to hide treasonable tears he saw her draw herself up, and lift her head as though to prove to him that there was still courage in her heart, no matter if her eyes did betray the citadel.

“You see, we hung up a new moon in honor of your coming. It’s like a little feather, just as Rossetti says.”

“Too suggestive of a feather duster,” he remarked lightly; and seeing Mrs. Waring walking toward them he added, gravely:--

“I’ve lied like the most miserable of sinners about this trip; I came in answer to your letter. I find that most letters will answer themselves if you wait long enough. Yours is just seven years old!”

“Oh,” she cried, with a quick catch of the breath; “you don’t mean that you kept _that_!”

“I most certainly did! It was a very beautiful letter. I happened to be re-reading it the other night and decided that it deserved an answer; so here I am!”

“I’m both sorry and glad you came. It’s immensely good of you; it’s just like you! But it’s no use; of course you know that!”

“Oh, I should never have come on my own hook! I’m only the humble representative of thousands and thousands of people, and the stars--maybe--and that frugal slice of melon up there we call the moon. Nobody else wanted the job, so I took it.”

He laughed at the puzzled look in the dark eyes, which was like the wondering gaze of a child, half-fearful, half-confiding.

“Elizabeth, are you going to stand there all night talking to any poet that comes along!” demanded Mrs. Waring; and as she joined them the Poet began talking amusingly to allay suspicion.

He again declined to accompany her home, protesting that he must not disappoint the boy who would certainly be on hand in the morning to fish for him. He waved his hand as the launch swung off, called the man who was guarding his suit-case and followed him to the inn.