T the door of the Brookeses' house, my balance of resolution was thrown out of adjustment by old Mason, who turned the knob. Butlers should be changed every decade; deliver me, for one, from the ancient family servant. Mason grinned respectfully.
"Mr. Robert," he purred, as if I were in college.
"I have not seen you for a long time, Mason," I said, stiffly. "Is Miss Agatha at?"
Now, I had carefully schemed to use her last name.
"If you will wait in the drawing-room, Mr. Rob." And Mason was gone.
So I crossed the threshold with my plan of campaign ruffled. Even the butler had done his best to set me at once on the old and dangerous plane of intimacy.
In the drawing-room, the Brookes penates served the same disturbing purpose. I recognized, for example, a porcelain shepherd and his shepherdess, about whom Agatha and I joked the Winter before she came out. I caught myself hunting for friends and finding them—a twisted candelabrum, a miniature of Aunt Juliana, a carved chair with ingenious spikes to stick into your spine. Really, how absurd it was that, after so prolonged a residence in Europe, the Brookeses should return to New York with this painfully familiar bric-à-brac!
The clock on the mantel began to sound five. It used to catch on the third tinkle, and was invariably a quarter fast—at least, so Agatha claimed whenever she was late for an appointment with me, which was often. One, two, and now the third stroke jangled. I sighed, and consulted my watch. The clock was fifteen minutes ahead of time.
However, I carry a portrait of Susan inside my watch-case. The habit is commonplace, but comforting. Accordingly, I looked at Susan and was comforted. The thing had to be done, somehow. There was a flurry of the portières.
"Rob!" Agatha gave me her hands, and, naturally, I took them—both of them. She has extremely nice hands. We sat down. I secured the chair with the spikes.
"You see, I lost no time in coming, Agatha. I took you at your word."
"Of course."
"Of course?" Already, I was clutching at the conventional straw of reminiscence. "You once hated people who took you at your word—'duff-muffs,' I think you called them."
Agatha laughed, crinkling her eyes. "I do still; but in this case, it's different."
A man is sensible to be on guard when Agatha crinkles her eyes.
"In this case," she went on, "you knew that I am quite as anxious to see you as you are to see me—and more so, probably."
"Did you like Mentone?" I demanded, sternly.
"Not in the least," said Agatha. "But Mentone liked me, which was more important, on the whole."
"Mentone is human." This would not do; it was necessary, at any cost, to play the brother. "Mentone liked you because you are clever," I explained, pompously, "and good."
"One must be clever to stay good in Mentone. Then there were St. Petersburg and Buda-Pesth and the Isle of Wight, We yote from Gib to Alexandria."
"Yote?"
"Past tense of verb, 'to yacht.' And I think you might have written me.
"Quite true," I assented. "But if I had, I would have nothing to tell you now."
"Well!" Agatha's scorn was as charming as ever. "You are telling me absolutely nothing, as it is."
"True again." And I thought desperately of Susan.
"Why don't you recite some of those unwritten letters?"
"That's a fine scheme," said I, meditating. It was an excellent scheme, but the trouble was that I had rehearsed an entirely different method of imparting the news. However, "'Dear Agatha—'" I began, and balked.
"Expressive," she commented, encouragingly, "but brief. I presume you would have cabled it. What was the date of that letter?"
"I haven't finished. The date is a year ago."
"We were in Derbyshire with three dukes. Proceed, sir."
"'Dear Agatha: I am sure you are not changed a bit.'"
"You can be positive," she interpolated, dropping her delightful, brown eyelashes.
My heart also dropped for the fraction of a trifle. Could it be possible that she still imagined that she?
"Don't interrupt," I advised. "To continue: 'I am sure you are not changed a bit. I am not changed, either.'"
"What on earth could change us?" asked Agatha.
"Well, an auto accident," I suggested, boorishly.
"I'm serious. Rob, we have always been such reliable chums!"
She reached out an impulsive hand. My backbone became panicky, or was it the carving on the chair? At all events, I shifted to the divan beside her.
"Dear Agatha!" I exclaimed.
"Another letter?" said she, innocently.
"Chums is the very word I want to talk about. Suppose something should happen to make a difference in that?"