CHAPTER XVII
INTRIGUE
"Hi!--Mr. Kendrick!--I say, Mr. Kendrick! Wait a minute!"
The car, about to leave the curb in front of one of Kendrick & Company'sgreat city stores, halted. Its driver turned to see young Ted Graytearing across the sidewalk in hot pursuit.
"Well, well--glad to see you, Ted, boy. Jump in and I'll take youalong."
Ted jumped in. He gave Richard Kendrick's welcoming hand a hard squeeze."I haven't seen you for an awful while," said he reproachfully. "Aren'tyou ever coming to our house any more?"
"I hope so, Ted. But, you see," explained Richard carefully, "I'm a manof business now and I can't have much time for calls. I'm in Eastmanmost of the time. How are you, Ted? Tell me all about it. Can you go fora spin with me? I had to come into town in a hurry, but there's no greathurry about getting back. I'll take you out into the country and showyou the prettiest lot of apple trees in full bloom you ever saw in May."
"I'd like to first-rate, but could you take me home first? I have to letmother know where I am after school."
"All right." And away they flew. But Richard turned off the avenue threeblocks below the corner upon which stood Ted's home and ran up thestreet behind it. "Run in the back way, will you, Ted?" he requested. "Iwant to do a bit of work on the car while you're in."
So while Ted dashed up through the garden to the back of the houseRichard got out and unscrewed a nut or two, which he screwed again intoplace without having accomplished anything visible to the eye, and wasreplacing his wrench when the boy returned.
"This is jolly," Ted declared. "I'll bet Rob envies me. This is herWednesday off from teaching, and she was just going for a walk. Shewanted me to go with her, but of course she let me go with you instead.I--I suppose I could ride on the running board and let you take her ifyou want to," he proposed with some reluctance.
"I'd like nothing better, but she wouldn't go."
"Maybe not. Perhaps Mr. Westcott is coming for her. They walk a lottogether."
"I thought Mr. Westcott practised law with consuming zeal."
"With what? Anyhow, he's here a lot this spring. About every Wednesday,I think. I say, this is a bully car! If I were Rob I'd a lot rather ridewith you than go walking with old Westcott--especially when it's sowarm."
"I'm afraid," said Richard soberly, "that walking in the woods in Mayhas its advantages over bowling along the main highway in any kind of acar."
Nevertheless he managed to make the drive a fascinating experience toTed and a diverting one to himself. And on the way home they stopped atthe West Wood marshes to gather a great bunch of trilliums as big asTed's head.
"I'll take 'em to Rob," said her younger brother. "She likes 'em betterthan any spring flower."
"Take my bunch to Mrs. Stephen Gray then. And be sure you don't get themmixed."
"What if I did? They're exactly the same size." Ted held up the twonosegays side by side as the car sped on toward home.
"I know, but it's of the greatest importance that you keep themstraight. That left-hand one is yours; be sure and remember that."
Ted looked piercingly at his friend, but Richard's face was perfectlygrave.
"Must be you don't like Rob, if you're so afraid your flowers will getto her," he reflected. "Or else you think so much of Rosy you can't bearto let anybody else have the flowers you picked for her. I'll have totell Steve that."
"Do, by all means. Mere words could never express my admiration for Mrs.Stephen."
"She is pretty nice," agreed Ted. "I like her myself. But she isn't init with Rob. Why, Rosy's afraid of lots of things, regularly afraid, youknow, so Steve has to laugh her out of them. But Rob--she isn't afraidof a thing in the world."
"Except one."
"One?" Ted pricked up his ears. "What's that? I'll bet she isn't reallyafraid of it--just shamming. She does that sometimes. What is it? Tellme, and I'll tell you if she's shamming."
"I'd give a good deal to know, but I'm afraid I can't tell you what itis."
"Why not? If she isn't really afraid of it she won't mind my knowing.And if she is maybe I can laugh her out of it, the way Steve does Rosy."
"I don't believe you're competent to treat the case, Ted. It's not athing to be laughed out of, you see. The thing for you to remember iswhich bunch of trilliums you are to give Mrs. Stephen Gray from me."
"This one." Ted waved his left arm.
"Not a bit of it. The left one is yours."
"No, because mine was a little the biggest, and you see this right oneis."
"You are mistaken," Richard assured him positively. "You give Mrs.Stephen the right one, and I'll take the consequences."
"Did yours have a red one in?"
"Has that right one?"
"No, the left one has. I remember seeing you pick it."
"But afterward I threw it out. You picked one and left it in. The rightis mine."
"You've got me all mixed up," vowed Ted discontentedly, at which hiscompanion laughed, delight in his eye. The left-hand bunch wasunquestionably his own, but if he could only convince Ted of thecontrary he should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that theflowers he had plucked had reached his lady, though they would have nosignificance to her. When the lad jumped out of the car at his own reargate he had agreed that the bunch with the one deep red trillium was togo to Roberta.
Ted turned to wave both white clusters at his friend as the car went on,then he proceeded straight to his sister's room. Finding her absent, helaid one great white-and-green mass in a heap upon her bed and went hisway with the other to Mrs. Stephen's room. Here he found both Robertaand Rosamond playing with little Gordon and Dorothy, whom their nursehad just brought in from an airing.
"Here's some trilliums for you, Rosy," announced Ted. "Mr. Kendrick sent'em to you. I left yours on your bed, Rob. I picked yours; at least Ithink I did. He was awfully particular that his went to Rosy, but we gotsort of mixed up about which picked which, so I can't be sure. I don'tsee any use of making such a fuss about a lot of trilliums, anyhow."
Roberta and Rosamond looked at each other. "I think you are decidedlymixed, Ted," said Rosamond. "It was Rob Mr. Kendrick meant to send histo."
Ted shook his head positively. "No, it wasn't. He said something aboutyou that I told him I was going to tell Steve, only--I don't know as Ican remember it. Something about his admiring you a whole lot."
"Delightful! And he didn't say anything about Rob?"
"Not very much. Said she was afraid of something. I said she wasn'tafraid of anything, and he said she was--of one thing. I tried to makehim say what it was, because I knew he was all off about that, but hewouldn't tell."
"Evidently you and Mr. Kendrick talked a good deal of nonsense," wasRoberta's comment, on her way from the room.
She found the mass of green and white upon her bed and stoodcontemplating it for a moment. The one deep red trillium glowed richlyagainst its snowy brethren, and she picked it out and examined itthoughtfully, as if she expected it to tell her whereof Richard Kendrickthought she was afraid. But as it vouchsafed no information she gatheredup the whole mass and disposed it in a big crystal bowl which she setupon a small table by an open window.
"If I thought that really was the bunch he picked," said she to herself,"I should consider he had broken his promise and I should feel obligedto throw it away. Perhaps I'd better do it anyhow. Yet--it seems a pityto throw away such a beautiful bowlful of white and green, and--verylikely they were of Ted's picking after all. But I don't like that onered one against all the white."
She laid fingers upon it to draw it out. But she did not draw it out. "Iwonder if that represents the one thing I'm afraid of?" she consideredwhimsically. "What does his majesty mean--himself? Or--myself?Or--of--of--Yes, I suppose that's it! Am I afraid of it?"
She stood staring down at the one deep red flower, the biggest, finestbloom of them all. It really did not belong there with the others intheir cool, chaste whiteness. Quite suddenly she drew it ou
t. She madethe motion of throwing it out the window, but it seemed to cling to herfingers.
"Poor little flower," said she softly, "why should you have to go?Perhaps you're sorry because you're not white like the rest. But youcan't help it; you were made that way."
If Richard Kendrick could have seen her standing there, staring down atthe flower he had picked, he would have found it harder than ever to goon his appointed course. For this was what she was thinking:
"I ought--I ought--to like best the white flowers of intellect--andability--and training--and every sort of fitness. I try and try to likethem best. But, oh!--they are so white--compared with this red, red one.I like the white ones; they are pure and cool and beautiful. But--thered one is warm, warm! Oh, I don't know--I don't know. And how am Igoing to know? Tell me that, red flower. Did he pick you? Shall I keepyou--on the doubt? Well--but not where you will show. Yes, I'll keepyou, but away down in the middle, where no one will see you, and whereyou won't distract my attention from the beautiful white flowers thatare so different from you."
She bent over the bowlful of snowy spring blossoms, drew them apart, andsunk the red flower deep among them, drawing them together again so thatnot a hint of their alien brother should show against their whiteness.
"There," said she, turning away with a little laugh, but speaking overher shoulder, "you ought to be satisfied with that. That's certainlymuch better than being thrown out of the window, to wilt in the sun!"