Mr. Ingram

“ She treated Ingram to a brisk curiosity. “So you're a wanderer, I hear—like the Gay Cavalier of my childhood. Your mother may have heard the song. Mine sang it. I believe that that kind of thing was considered heroic in her day; in ours, heroism is more difficult, and much more dull. You might try heroism, Mr. Ingram.”
“I might, no doubt,” Ingram said. “Hitherto, I've preferred to travel. But I'm home for good now, so far as I can see.”
“We all hope so,” said Lady Maria. “But that remains to be seen.”
“Of course it does,” said Ingram blandly, and turned to Sanchia. ”

“ There are very few gentlemen whom one meets who would do as much.”
Ingram could say nothing, and was a little impatient with himself. Was he to be first reproved, and then treated with an indulgent kindness by a mere girl?
“Mamma,” said Mrs. Lorraine, as an elderly lady entered the room, “let me introduce you to Mr. Ingram, whom you must already know. He proposes we should join in some conspiracy to inveigle Mrs. Lavender into society, and make the poor little thing amuse herself.”
“Little!” said Mrs. Kavanagh, with a smile; “she is a good deal taller than you are, my dear. ”

“ Ingram; “I should call it weak-minded to give way in such a case.”
“My daughter does not like her at all,” continued Mr. Damer.
“Nor would she be a nice companion for Miss Damer; not according to my way of thinking,” said Mr. Ingram.
“And as to my having asked her, or Mrs. Damer having asked her! Why, God bless my soul, it is pure invention on the woman’s part!”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mr. Ingrain; “I must say she plays her game well; but then she is an old soldier, and has the benefit of experience.” What would Miss Dawkins have said had she known that Mr. Ingram called her an old soldier? ”

“ Ingram’s face.
“And young lady berry good, too; she give backsheish to poor Arab.”
“Yes,” said a fourth, preparing to take a similar liberty with Miss Damer.
This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used very positive language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors that they would not get a piastre from him. But this only changed their soft persuasions into threats. Upon hearing which, and upon seeing what the man attempted to do in his endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he raised his stick, and struck first one and then the other as violently as he could upon their heads. ”

“ Ingram. But the associations of such names, and the presence of the stupendous works with which they are connected, fill the soul with awe. Such, at least, is the effect with mine.”
“I fear that my tendencies, Miss Dawkins, are more realistic than your own.”{153}
“You belong to a young country, Mr. Ingram, and are naturally prone to think of material life. The necessity of living looms large before you.” ”

“ But we must make haste, Mr. Ingram, for the wind will fall when the sun gets stronger, and then your friend will have no more of the fishing.”
So they set out, and Ingram put Sheila’s hand on his arm, and took her along with him in that fashion, while the tall gillie walked behind with Lavender, who was or was not pleased with the arrangement. The young man, indeed, was a trifle silent, but Duncan was in an amiable and communicative mood, and passed the time in telling him stories of the salmon he had caught, and of the people who had tried to catch them and failed. ”

“ No, sir, whatever he looked like, Corrie Rose had to plough a straight furrow."
"Straight furrows lead home," said Allan Gerard, not sententiously, but musingly.
He also looked toward Mr. Rose, and the senior nodded slow agreement.
"They do, Gerard. And we get more, sometimes, than we've any right to expect from anything we give. Where we spent this summer, Flavia and I liked the people. What we did for them didn't cost us much; we were not looking for any returns. But the news of it got out, somehow, and was cabled to New York days before we arrived here. ”

“ And Ingram had not a word to say in reply to that piteous entreaty.
“I do not ask him to stop in Borva; no, it iss a small place for one that hass lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is quite different; and there iss very good houses in Stornoway.”
“But, surely, sir,” said Ingram, “you need not consider all this just yet. I am sure neither of them has thought any such thing.”
“No,” said Mackenzie, recovering himself, “perhaps not. But we hef our duties to look at the future of young folks. And you will say that Mr. Lavender hass only expectations of money?” ”

“ He held a position of trust under the Clarke administration in Manitoba, and was one of the sheriff’s posse who arrested Andrew Nault and others for complicity in the murder of Thomas Scott. Although returned to parliament as a Liberal-Conservative, Mr. Ingram has ever in view and will support any measure brought forward that will advance the true interests of the toiling masses, who in him have an able and conscientious advocate, and who from actual experience is conversant with the disadvantages under which they labor. ”

“ I'll leave you to start."
"Leave us?" exclaimed Flavia.
"You'll make a line for that limousine right now, Corwin B.," pronounced Mr. Rose, with the familiar easy mastery that was a caress.
His son laughingly shook his fair head.
"No, thanks, sir. I'm going to drive the Mercury Titan home and put it in the garage. Unless," he looked over his shoulder, "unless Rupert is afraid to trust himself to ride with a punk chauffeuse and a no-class fake?"
"I ain't real nervous to-day," drawled the mechanician graciously. "Nor I ain't supposing but what you're entitled to a chauffeur's license, Rose." ”

“ Mr. Rose pronounced with decision. "It's not fit and I won't have it. And I'm tired of hearing you sulk at Corrie and Gerard because they've got the sense to say no. You'll keep out of the racing cars and off the race track, my girl. Flavia, if you don't make your brother stop eating nuts, he'll be ashamed to meet a squirrel in the woods."
There was open mutiny in the glance Isabel darted at her uncle, but she said nothing. Mr. Rose was not contradicted in his own house by anyone. ”

“ But what a bad smell there is. What can it be?”
“I suppose it is the bilge-water, Sir,” replied Ingram. “People who are ill and weak always are annoyed by it; but I think, Sir, if you would take a little gruel, and then go to sleep again, it would be better.”
“Well, I fear I am not very strong, and talking so much has done me no good. I think I could take a little gruel.”
“Then, Sir, I’ll go and get some made, and be back very soon.”
“Do, Ingram, and tell Mr. Olivarez, the second mate, that I would speak to him.” ”

“ Some of his florid color had come back, he walked more firmly and his face had relaxed to naturalness. On the narrow porch the referee from the racing association held out his hand with frank congratulation.
"Glad poor Gerard set matters right before they got any further, Mr. Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country, crazy as a loon, after [Pg 136] being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank. They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up to-morrow sane as ever. ”

“ The price of debate is too high to argue with some things; Gerard temporized.
"I don't want to take you out feeling like that. Give yourself a day off," he suggested. "I'll find one of the factory men to go out with me for the morning's practice."
"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician acidly, and flung himself back in his narrow seat.
The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding drives, plunged into the sandy Long Island road, and sped lurching toward the course.
There was nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the Motor Parkway. ”

“ Won't you come, Gerard?"
"If rain is the meanest thing there is, it shows real sense to go out in it," Isabel commented, from the window-seat opposite. "That is just like you, Corrie Rose. When I ask you to take me out on a perfectly fair day, you won't do it."
"I?" stunned. "I ever refused——"
"Yes. Yesterday, when I asked you to take me just once around the race course, while the cars were out practising. You know you would not. If it is safe for you, it is safe for me. But never mind; your old pink car won't win, anyhow. He hasn't a chance with the professional drivers, has he, Mr. Gerard?" ”

“ Flavia lifted vaguely startled eyes to her father.
"I don't believe you need to worry about that," reassured Gerard smiling. The echo of Corrie's fresh young tones was in their ears, as he disputed with his cousin, outside the windows at the end of the room.
"I guess not. He's too much like his mother." Mr. Rose dropped his hand on Flavia's, as she sat in her low chair beside him. "And she was what they call an aristocrat, nowadays, but I called a lady when I married her. Old family, gentle breeding, the society end, and good looks like my little girl's that seem too fine to touch ”

“ Mr. Rose said briefly. "I want Gerard taken there instead of to your places. You can have all the money you like."
The man looked at the card presented, his professional impassivity flickering, but shook his head. ”

“ Mr. Ffrench slowly stiffened.
"We do not require lessons in ethics [87] from this Lestrange," was the cold rebuke. "I shall telephone Bailey to send up your car at once."
Rupert brought the sixty-horse-power roadster to the door, three hours later. And Emily appreciated that Lestrange was discreet as well as compelling, when she found the black-eyed young mechanician was detailed to accompany Dick's maiden trips; which duty was fulfilled, incidentally, with the fine tact of a Richelieu.
In May there was a still greater accession of work at the factory. ”

“ I have tried three times to rear one of my name to fitness to bear it, and each one has failed [29] except you. I wish you were a man, Emily; there is work for a Ffrench to do."
"When you say that, I wish I were. But—I'm not, I'm not." She flung out her slender, round arms in a gesture of helpless resignation. "I'm not even a strong-minded woman who might do instead. Uncle Ethan, may I ask—it was Mr. Bailey who made me think—my cousin whom I never saw, will he never come home?" ”

“ Corrie held aside the curtain for the girls to pass out. His blue eyes were dancing in pure mischief and relief. All the household understood Isabel's propensity for flirtation—and its utter lack of significance. If she had detained Gerard, [Pg 90] not Gerard her, her lover-cousin had no ground for especial apprehension.
"Punk weather," he commented, coming back.
"Dullest I ever experienced," supplemented his guest decidedly.
Mr. Rose set a paper-weight on the letter open before him, and lit a cigar.
"We were discussing the buying of another automobile, Gerard, when you came in," he imparted. ”

“ In you go! Come up behind, [Pg 72] Rupert; there is more room here than on the other machine."
"I think Mr. Rupert would rather ride with us, anyhow," Flavia declared, her laughing eyes questioning the mechanician. "I fancied, once or twice on the way over, that he would have preferred to have you or Mr. Gerard driving."
"I ain't making any scornful denials," admitted Rupert, as he stepped in front to crank the motor for Corrie. "I've always looked forward to being killed in a larger machine, myself."
Isabel did not at once enter her own car. ”

“ She read the lines aloud.
"'We walk upon the shadows of hills, across a level thrown, and pant like climbers.'"
"They do write, people say, with ouija boards and mediums," she murmured.
I looked at Vere with despair of sustaining this [Pg 226] argument. He stood up as if my appeal had been spoken, drawing her with him.
"Now that it's a decent hour, don't you think Cristina might give us some breakfast?" he suggested. "I guess bacon and eggs would be sort of restoring. If you feel up to taking my arm as far as the porch, Mr. Locke, the fresh air might be good medicine, too." ”

“ Mr. Ffrench put on his pince-nez, preserving the dignity of outward composure. Emily saw and heard nothing; she was following Lestrange around the [170] far sides of the course, around until again he flashed past her, repeating his former feat with appalling exactitude.
It was hardly more than five minutes before Dick came hurrying toward them; cross, tired, dust-streaked and gasolene-scented.
"I don't see why you wanted to come," he began, before he reached them. "I'm busy enough now. We're leading; if Lestrange holds out we'll win. But he's driving alone ”

“ Have the car ready. You and Phillida will be prepared, of course. We will waste no time in getting away as far as possible."
"And if that Thing comes before she does, Mr. Locke?"
"Is there any other way?"
"I guess you haven't considered that you're inviting me to stand by while you get yourself killed," he said stiffly. "I'm not an educated man. I never heard the names you mentioned this morning of people who used to study out things like this. I never heard of any worlds except earth and heaven [Pg 235] and hell. But then I couldn't explain how an electric car runs. I know the car does run ”

“ I want you to stand somethin' for me to live on, Mr. Rose, you bein' a millionaire. I was on the spot after the smash an' heard the talk an' saw your wrench picked up. You'd treated me right, so I just lifted a bunch of tools from one of the machines standin' empty, an' sprinkled them around that twelve-mile race track. The newspaper fellows found the things, too, an' kind of thought less of findin' the one where you smashed Mr. Gerard. One fellow help another, eh? ”