CHAPTER XIV
BY THE BACKWATER POOL
The sun had set with a primrose glory of reflection upon the river andthe ridge. Over there in the west now there was a pale after-glow ofmarigold. It streamed across the dark, still waters of the backwaterpool by the river and faintly edged the drowsy petals of white andyellow lilies. Already distant outline and perspective were hazy,there was purple in the forest, and birds were winging swiftly to thewoods.
By the pool with a great mass of dripping lilies at his side to carryback to camp, Philip stared frowningly at the tangled float of foliageat his feet. Somehow that ugly flash of suspicion had persisted. Whyhad the Baron wished him to stay in the camp of Diane? . . . What wasthe portent of his peculiar interest anyway?
Philip sighed.
"Do you know, Nero," he confided suddenly, patting the dog's shaggyhead, "my life is developing certain elements of intrigue and mysteryexceedingly offensive to my spread-eagle tastes. There's a knife and abullet now, Johnny's two men and the auto, and a cuff and a mostmysterious link between our lady and the Baron. I'll be hanged if Ilike any of it. And why in thunder did Themar crib an aeroplane andbump his fool head?" He fell suddenly thoughtful.
"As for you, old top," he added presently, "you ought to go home. Dickwill be fussing."
Nero waggled ambiguously. Philip nodded.
"Right, old man," he admitted with sudden gravity. "I can alwaysdepend upon you to set me right. It's nothing like so essential foryou to go as it is for me. You did right to mention it. I ought todig out--all the more because the Baron wants me to stay--but I've beenthinking a bit this afternoon and unusual problems demand unusualsolutions. You'll grant that?" Nero politely routed an excursive bugfrom his path and lay down to listen.
"Mr. Poynter!" called a voice from the darkling trees behind him.
Mr. Poynter smiled and fell deliberately to filling the bowl of hiswildwood pipe. Gnarled and twisted and marvelously eccentric was thiswildwood pipe and therefore an object of undoubted interest. The bowlhad somehow eluded Philip's desperate effort to keep it of reasonabledimensions and required a Gargantuan supply of tobacco.
"Mr. Poynter!"
"My Lord!" murmured Philip, staring ruefully into the pipe-bowl, "theinfernal thing is bottomless! Exit another can of tobacco. I'll haveto ask Johnny to buy me a barrel." And Philip flung the empty can intothe pool whence a frog leaped with a frightened croak.
"Philip!"
"Mademoiselle!" said Philip pleasantly.
Darkly lovely, Diane's eyes met his with a glance of indignantreproach. Somehow her lips were like a scarlet wound in the gypsybrown skin and her cheeks were hot with color.
"A wildwood elf of scarlet and brown!" thought Philip and hospitablyflicked away a twig or so with his handkerchief that she might sit down.
"There's water plantain over there in the bog," he said lazily, "andswamp honeysuckle. And see," he turned out his pockets, "swamp apples.Queer, aren't they? Johnny says they're good to eat. The honeysucklewas full of them."
Diane bit daintily into the peculiar juicy pulp.
"A man of your pernicious good humor," she said greatly provoked, "is amenace to civilization. You sap all the wholesome fire of one's mostcherished resentment."
"I know," admitted Philip humbly. "I'll be hanged yet."
"I can't see what in the world you find so absorbing over here," shecommented with marked disapproval. "All the while I was getting supperI watched you. And you merely smoked and flipped pebbles in the pooland kept supper waiting."
"You're wrong there," said Philip. "I've been thinking, too."
"I'd like to know just why you've been thinking so deeply!"
"Honest Injun?"
"Honest Injun!"
"Well," said Philip slowly, "I've been reviewing the possible mishapsincident to a caravan trip to Florida."
"Mishaps!" Diane studied him in frank displeasure. "Are you a fussypessimist?"
"By no means. Merely--prudent." Philip's eyes narrowed thoughtfullyand he fell silent.
The iris shadows beyond the river deepened. A firefly or so flickeredbrightly above the fields of clover. In the soft clear twilight,fragrant with the smell of clover and water lily and rimmed now by therising moon, Philip found his resolution of the afternoon difficult toutter. The pool at his feet was a motionless mirror of summer stars.Surely there could be nothing but peace in this tranquil world of treeand grass and murmuring river. And yet--
"Do take that ridiculous pipe out of your mouth and say something!"exclaimed Diane restlessly. "You look as if you were smoking apumpkin! Besides, the supper's all packed up in hot stones and grassto keep it hot. Why moon so and shoot pebbles at the frogs?"
"Well," said Philip abruptly, "do you mind if I say that your tripseems a most imprudent venture?"
"By no means!" replied Diane with maddening composure. "But it's onlyfair to warn you that my aunt's already said all there is to say on thesubject. The horses may drop dead," she reviewed swiftly on her slimbrown fingers, "Johnny may fall heir to an apoplectic fit and fall on ahorse thereby inducing him to run away into a swamp and sink inquicksand. I may be kidnapped and held for ransom in the wilds ofConnecticut and the van may burn up some night when I'm asleep in it.Then I may eat poison berries in a fit of absent-mindedness, I may fallinto a river while I'm fishing, forget how to swim, and drown, Johnnymay gather amanitas and kill us both, and something or other may biteme. There are one or two other little things like forest fires, floodsand brigands--"
"Help!" murmured Philip.
"Can you add anything to that?" demanded Diane politely.
Philip laughed. Diane, delicately sarcastic, was irresistible.
"There is the bullet--" he reminded gravely.
"_Please_!" begged Diane faintly.
Philip flushed with a sense of guilt.
"Well," he owned, "I have bothered you a lot about it, that's a fact!But it sticks so in my mind. There's something else--"
"Yes?" said Diane discouragingly.
"Didn't you tell me yesterday that you'd had a feeling some one hadbeen spying on your camp?"
"Yes," said Diane in serious disapproval. "I did. I get seizures ofconfidential lunacy once in a while. Are you going to fuss about that?"
"No," said Philip gently. "But the knife and the bullet and that havemade me wonder--a lot. After all," he regretted sincerely, "my notionsare very vague and formless, but I feel so strongly about themthat--urging my friendship for Carl as my sole excuse for unaskedadvice to his cousin--"
"Yes?"
Philip laid aside his pipe with a sigh. The crisp music of his lady'svoice was not encouraging.
"I do hope you'll forgive me," he said quietly, "but I'm going to urgeyou to abandon your trip to Florida!"
"Mr. Poynter!" flashed Diane indignantly. "The bump on your head hashad a relapse. Better let Johnny go for the doctor again."
"I know I'm infernally presumptuous," acknowledged Philip flushing,"but I'm terribly in earnest."
Diane's eyes, wide, black, rebuking, scanned his troubled face askance.
"I ought to be exceedingly angry," she said slowly, "and if it wasn'tfor the bump, like as not I would be--but I'm not."
"I'm truly grateful," said Philip with a sigh of relief. And added tohimself, "Philip, old top, you're in for it."
"Why," exclaimed Diane, "I've never been so happy in my life as I havebeen here by this beautiful river!"
"Nor I!" said Philip truthfully.
Diane did not hear.
"Every wild thing calls," she went on, impetuously. "It always has.Fish--bird--wild flower--the smell of clover--the hum of bees--I can'tpretend to tell you what they all mean to me. Even as a youngster Ifrightened my aunt half to death by running away to sleep in theforest. I'm sorry I'll ever have to go back to civilization!"
"And yet," insisted Philip inexorably, "to me it seems that you shouldgo back--to-morrow!"
"I do seem to feel a stir of temper!" said Diane reflectively. "MaybeI'd better go back and look at supper. You can come after you'rethrough pelting that frog."
"There's still another reason," said Philip humbly, "which I can't tellyou. Indeed, I ought not mention it. I can only beg you to take it ontrust and believe that it's another forcible argument against yourtrip. Somehow, everything in my mind weaves into a gigantic warning.So disturbing is the notion," added Philip unquietly, "that--"
"Yes?" queried Diane politely.
"That after much thought, I have decided to stay here in camp until youabandon your nomadic scheme and break camp for home. There'll come atime, I'm sure, when you'll think as I do to get rid of me."
Diane rose with suspicious mildness.
"I'm hungry," she said, "and Johnny's yodeling."
"Well," said Philip provokingly, "I don't believe I want any supperafter all. The atmosphere's too chilly."