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“Do you think I’d buy you off with an innocent child?” he said, lashing himself into a good imitation of an insulted gentleman.

Crawford looked out of the window, then rose and walked towards the door.

“Do you think you can bribe me?” shouted Garcide after him. Crawford hesitated.

“Come back here,” said Garcide, firmly; “I want you to explain yourself.”

“I can’t,” muttered Crawford.

“Well–try, anyway,” said Garcide, more amiably.

And now this was the result of that explanation, at least one of the results; and Miss Castle had promised to wed a gentleman in Ophir Steel named Crawford, at the convenience of the Hon. John Garcide.

The early morning sunshine fell across the rugs in the music-room, filling the gloom with golden lights. It touched a strand of hair on Miss Castle’s bent head.

“You’ll like him,” said Garcide, guiltily.

Her hand hung heavily on the piano keys.

“You have no other man in mind?” he asked.

“No, … no man.”

Garcide chewed the end of his cigar.

“Crawford’s a bashful man. Don’t make it hard for him,” he said.

She swung around on the gilded music-stool, one white hand lying among the ivory keys.

“I shall spare us both,” she said; “I shall tell him that it is settled.”

Garcide rose; she received his caress with composure. He made another grateful peck at her chin.

“Why don’t you take a quiet week or two in the country?” he suggested, cheerfully, “Go up to the Sagamore Club; Jane will go with you. You can have the whole place to yourselves. You always liked nature and–er–all that, eh?”

“Oh yes,” she said, indifferently.

That afternoon the Hon. John Garcide sent a messenger to James J. Crawford with the following letter:

“MY DEAR CRAWFORD,–Your manly and straightforward request
for permission to address my ward, Miss Castle, has
profoundly touched me.

“I have considered the matter, I may say earnestly
considered it.

“Honor and the sacred duties of guardianship forbid that I
should interfere in any way with my dear child’s happiness if
she desires to place it in your keeping. On the other hand,
honor and decency prevent me from attempting to influence her
to any decision which might prove acceptable to myself.

“I can therefore only grant you the permission you desire to
address my ward. The rest lies with a propitious Providence.

“Cordially yours,
JOHN GARCIDE.

“P.S.–My sister, Miss Garcide, and Miss Castle are going to
the Sagamore Club to-night. I’ll take you up there whenever
you can get away.”

To which came answer by messenger:

“Hon. John Garcide:

“MY DEAR GARCIDE,–Can’t go for two weeks. My fool nephew Jim is
on his vacation, and I don’t know where he is prowling.

Hastily yours,
“JAMES J. CRAWFORD.

“P. S.–There’s a director’s meeting at three. Come down and
we’ll settle all quarrels.”

To this the Hon. John Garcide telegraphed: “All right,” and hurriedly prepared to escort his sister and Miss Castle to the mid-day express for Sagamore Hills.

II

Miss Castle usually rose with the robins, when there were any in the neighborhood. There were plenty on the lawn around the Sagamore Club that dewy June morning, chirping, chirking, trilling, repeating their endless arias from tree and gate-post. And through the outcry of the robins, the dry cackle of the purple grackles, and the cat-bird’s whine floated earthward the melody of the golden orioles.

Miss Castle, fresh from the bath, breakfasted in her own rooms with an appetite that astonished her.

She was a wholesome, fresh-skinned girl, with a superb body, limbs a trifle heavy in the strict classical sense, straight-browed, blue-eyed, and very lovely and Greek.

Pensively she ate her toast, tossing a few crumbs at the robins; pensively she disposed of two eggs, a trout, and all the chocolate, and looked into the pitcher for more cream.

The swelling bird-music only intensified the deep, sweet country silence which brooded just beyond the lawn’s wet limits; she saw the flat river tumbling in the sunlight; she saw the sky over all, its blue mystery untroubled by a cloud.