The Debtor. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
am sure this time he is shot,” moaned Mrs. Carroll.
“My dear Amy!”
“Now, Arthur, you can laugh,” said his sister, coming down the stairs, the embroidered ruffles of her white cambric skirt fluttering around her slender ankles in pink silk stockings, and her little feet thrust into French-heeled slippers, one of which had an enormous bow and buckle, the other nothing at all. “You may laugh,” said Anna Carroll, in a sweet, challenging voice, “but why is it so unlikely? Eddy Carroll has had everything but shooting happen to him.”
“Yes, he has been everything except shot,” moaned Mrs. Carroll.
“My dearest dear, don't worry over such a thing as that!”
“But, Arthur,” pleaded Mrs. Carroll, “what else is there left for us to worry about?”
Carroll's mouth twitched a little, but he looked and spoke quite gravely. “Well,” he said, “I am going now, and I shall find the boy and bring him home safe and sound, and—Amy, darling, have you eaten anything?”
“Oh, Arthur,” cried his wife, reproachfully, “do you think I could eat when Eddy did not come home to dinner, and always something dreadful has happened other times when he has not come? Eddy has never stayed away just for mischief, and then come home as good as ever. Something has always happened which has been the reason.”
“Well, perhaps he has stayed away for mischief alone, and that is what has happened now instead of the shooting,” said Carroll.
“Arthur, if—if he has, you surely will not—”
“Arthur, you will not punish that boy if he does come home again safe and sound?” cried his sister.
Carroll laughed. “Have either of you eaten anything?” he asked.
“Of course not,” replied his sister, indignantly.
“How could we, dear?” said his wife. “I had thought I was quite hungry, and when the butcher sent the roast, after all—”
“Perhaps I had better wait and not pay him until he does not send anything,” murmured Anna Carroll, as if to herself. “And when the roast did come, I was glad, but, after all, I could not touch it.”
“Well, you must both eat to-night to make up for it,” said Carroll.
“I had thought you would as soon have it cold for dinner to-night,” said Mrs. Carroll, in her soft, complaining voice. “We would not have planned it for our noon lunch, but we were afraid to ask the butcher for chops, too, and as long as there were no eggs for breakfast, we felt the need of something substantial; but, of course, when that darling boy did not come, and we had reason to think he was shot, we could not—” Mrs. Carroll leaned weepingly against her husband, but he put her from him gently.
“Now, Amy, dearest,” said he, “I am going to find Eddy and bring him home, and—you say Marie has gone to hunt for him?”
“Yes, she went in one direction, and Ina and Charlotte in others,” said Anna Carroll.
“Well,” said Carroll, “I will send Marie home at once, and I wish you would see that she prepares an early dinner, and then we can go for a drive afterwards.”
“Eddy can go, too,” said Mrs. Carroll, quite joyously.
“No, Amy,” said Carroll, “he will most certainly not go to drive with us. There are times when you girls must leave the boy to me, and this is one of them.” He stopped and kissed his wife's appealing face, and went out. Then the carriage rolled swiftly round the curve of drive.
“He will whip him,” said Anna to Mrs. Carroll, who looked at her with a certain defiance.
“Well,” said she, “if he does, I suppose it will be for his good. A man, of course, knows how to manage a boy better than a woman, because he has been a boy himself. You know you and I never were boys, Anna.”
“I know that, Amy,” said Anna, quite seriously, “and I am willing to admit that a man may know better how to deal with a boy than a woman does, but I must confess that when I think of Arthur punishing Eddy for the faults he may have—”
“May have what?” demanded Mrs. Carroll, quite sharply for her.
“May have inherited from Arthur,” declared Anna, boldly, with soft eyes of challenge upon her sister-in-law.
“Eddy has no faults worth mentioning,” responded Mrs. Carroll, seeming to enlarge with a sort of fluffy fury like an angry bird; “and the idea of your saying he inherits them from his father. You know as well as I do, Anna, what Arthur is.”
“I knew Arthur before you ever did,” said Anna, apologetically. “Don't get excited, dear.”
“I am not excited, but I do wonder at your speaking after such a fashion when we don't know what may have happened to the dear boy. Of course Arthur will not punish him if he is shot or anything.”
“Of course not.”
“And if he is not shot, and Arthur should punish him, of course it will be all right.”
“Yes, I suppose it will, Amy,” said Anna Carroll.
“Arthur feels so sure that nothing has happened to him that I begin to think so myself,” said Mrs. Carroll, beginning to ascend the stairs with a languid grace.
“Yes, he has encouraged me,” assented Anna. “I suppose we had better dress now.”
“Yes, if we are going to drive directly after dinner. I'll put on my cream foulard, it is so warm. I suppose we have, perhaps, worried a little more than was necessary.”
“I dare say,” said Anna, trailing her white frills and laces before her sister the length of the upper hall. “I think I'll wear my blue embroidered linen.”
“You said the bill for that came yesterday?”
“No, six weeks ago; certainly six weeks ago. You know I had it made very early. Oh yes, the second or third bill did come yesterday. I have had so many, I get mixed over those bills.”
“Well, it is a right pretty gown, and I would wear it if I were you,” said Mrs. Carroll.
Chapter VIII
Shortly after Captain Carroll started upon his search for his missing son, Randolph Anderson, sitting peacefully in his back office, by the riverward window, was rudely interrupted. He was mounting some new specimens. Before him the great tiger cat lay blissfully on his red cushion. He was not asleep, but was purring loudly in what resembled a human day-dream. His claws luxuriously pricked through the velvet of his paws, which were extended in such a way that he might have served as a model for a bas-relief of a cat running a race. Now and then the tip of his tail curled and uncurled with an indescribable effect of sensuousness. The green things in the window-box had grown luxuriantly, and now and then trailing vines tossed up past the window in the infrequent puffs of wind. The afternoon was very warm. The temperature had risen rapidly since noon. Down below the wide window ran the river, unseen except for a subtle, scarcely perceptible glow of the brilliant sunlight upon the water. It was a rather muddy stream, but at certain times it caught the sunlight and tossed it back as from the facets of brown jewels.
The murmur of the river was plainly audible in the room. It was very loud, for the stream's current was still high with the spring rains. The rustle of the trees which grew on the river-bank was also discernible, and might have been the rustle of the garments of nymphs tossed about their supple limbs by the warm breeze. In fact, a like fancy occurred to Anderson as he sat there mounting his butterflies.
“I don't wonder those old Greeks had their tales about nymphs closeted in trees,” he thought, for the rustle of the green boughs had suggested the rustle of women's draperies.
Then