BLUE BONNET

“Here is the letter.”

George Delano squared his fine shoulders judicially as he presented a handful of thin, blue sheets to his brother-in-law.

Harold Redreeve frowned. He looked like a tired hawk, muscles relaxed, eyes dull, but muscles and eyes pre-eminently meant for speed and light.

“I left my glasses up-stairs. Would Mary mind reading it aloud? I don’t believe there’s anything in it. Millicent is always upsetting you.”

“I am not easily upset, Harry,” Delano answered reproachfully. “Your wife--Millicent--has all the family nerves. But I think you will agree with us that the letter is alarming. I have far too many important things on my mind to be perturbed over nothing. I think it extremely fortunate that your business called you in our direction. Frankly, I don’t know how to answer it, nor does Mary. It is a family matter, I should say; a delicate one. I am sorry to trouble you when you are so busy with your own big case, but troubles have a knack of falling in at the wrong time. You have to learn to meet a good many things at once in this world.”

He squared his shoulders again with the gesture of a hopeful Atlas. George Delano was the type of person to whom you must never suggest, in any given case, that he has had luck. Harold Redreeve knew him of old; was fond of him; sometimes wished that old George would come a mild cropper, so that he could know how it felt to hit the dust when you weren’t expecting to. Mary Delano murmured sympathetically in her corner as she unfolded the letter. She never doubted, when each big deal went through, that George had done it all himself, with the least possible aid from the Almighty. His pompousness was sweet to her; his wealthy and able associates were to her merely the inevitable parasites of a great man. George was solid; he was reckoned brilliant by people who had seen their own inheritances dwindle.

Then her sweet voice proceeded to the letter, emphasizing faithfully every underlined word. Harold Redreeve listened keenly to his wife’s letter, letting his cigarette go out. Delano, standing in front of the chimney-piece, rocked gently and safely to and fro, frowning judicially now and then, as one accustomed to weigh evidence. Harold had often felt that his brother-in-law, in marble, would symbolize democratic justice admirably on the façade of a courthouse. He didn’t look like a judge; but he was the platonic idea of the foreman of a jury.

* * * * *

“‘My dear George,’” began Mary, then: “I’ll skip all the first, about the garden and that girl’s camp she recommended to us for Violet. Here is the important part.

“‘I write surrounded by strange people--very strange. Harry doesn’t know about them. Two of them are men, gray-bearded men with eye-glasses, reading newspapers. Annette has a dreadful habit of letting them pile up on the tables. But there are one or two women; one is wearing a great many pearls. I think they must be imitation--the kind that are set with real diamonds in platinum--for no one could carry about so many real ones on a hot day in a stranger’s house. Also, there is the most dreadful little girl in a blue sunbonnet who goes about and hits the furniture with her hard little knuckles. The older people change, but the little girl almost always comes. I suppose they can’t lose her. She looks as if she would hang on behind, with her legs dangling, and then lean over the seat and crow horridly at them. But why she comes here!

“‘Indeed, why any of them come! I haven’t spoken to Harry about it. They have always arrived and left before he gets home from town. I haven’t even spoken to the maids. They are well-bred people, who just might come over from the club or stop in their motors on their way back to town. Once or twice Annette has looked a little surprised. You see, I can’t tell Annette I don’t know who they are. They are precisely the kind of people one does know--all except the little girl, and she may be the offspring of some family mésalliance. They come in and speak charmingly, then sit down and make themselves comfortable, and fan themselves, and admire the view, and talk about Maria. The first time I thought they must be friends of the Outamaros, and had come to call. We didn’t expect to have the house until the last moment. I thought they might think I was Mrs. Outamaro. You know he married again very suddenly last spring. But they never called me that. I went away for a fortnight, the day after their first visit, and forgot to tell Harold anything about it. When I came back, they arrived again, and said they had called once or twice meantime, but had been told I was away. I asked Annette who had been here in my absence, and she said no one had been except the Stacys and some men for Harold. I don’t like Annette, she’s so inaccurate and careless. Think of how I should like to know their names!

“‘It’s a killing situation in which to be. You see, they always come on fine days, when every approach to the house is wide open. They don’t ring any bells; they just camp on the porches or the terrace, and speak to me very charmingly, as if they were old friends. They rest and chat, or read, and then go on to the club or to Fawneck or in the direction of town. I nearly die of laughter; and sometime I shall burst out and say, “Who are you, anyway, and _who_ do you think I am?” I leave them quite to themselves, as if they were aunts and uncles and cousins who came so often they didn’t have to be bothered with. To-day, you see, I’m writing a letter at the wicker desk on the porch. One of the men--he really must be somebody, for he has a gray imperial, and a Legion of Honor ribbon in his buttonhole--has gone to sleep in the _chaise-longue_. Presently he’ll apologize, I know, for he’s Chesterfied to the life. Blue Bonnet isn’t here to-day, or I shouldn’t be writing. She would think it a beautiful joke to grab the ink and throw it from behind (she does all her tricks behind your back) over my new white serge.

“‘Now, you see, they’ve come so often that it has almost gone beyond a joke. If Harry should come home early and notice all their little familiar ways, he couldn’t believe I didn’t know them. _I don’t believe they know I don’t know them._ It would be an awful moment when I was unable to introduce properly. They are the kind to think it quite immodest of me to be greeting them constantly when I didn’t know them. And I really couldn’t face Legion-of-Honor going sadly down the terrace to the car, thinking I wasn’t a lady. Isn’t it screaming, when you realize that the original mistake was all theirs? I’ve always known, from the first moment, that I had never laid eyes on them before.

“‘The first time it happened so naturally: I was on the porch when they got out of the car; Legion-of-Honor and Mock-Pearls-and-Platinum (she is his wife, I make out) came up and said: “We’ve been wanting to know you for so long, and now that we’re comparatively near, we can drop in often on our way to and fro.” They just took it for granted I knew all about them. I thought it was amusing, and would never happen again. I didn’t write to Harry (he was up in Canada with Jack Lee, and letters didn’t get to him much) for I thought it would be a good story to tell him after he got back. But they came twice again before he did get back, and by that time they were a habit. Yes, a habit. And now I’m so deep in, all on account of their mistake, that I dread to have Harry meet them.

“‘Annette has no manners at all. I rang for her one day when it looked thunder-showery, and I had begged them not to start off again, and told her to bring tea early. “Six cups,” I said; for I knew Blue Bonnet would make a fuss if she didn’t have some. While she and Lily were getting it inside, the clouds got blacker and blacker, and they suddenly said they thought they’d get home before the storm broke. I begged them to have some tea at least; but they were very pretty about it--said they couldn’t wait, for if they once began to drink my delicious tea they would never get off in time, and I might have to keep them until evening. So they piled off at top speed in the motor, and when Annette finally came out with the things, she had only one cup. Of course I reproved her. “Why, Annette, I told you six cups.” “Yes, ma’am, but I thought you wanted your tea right now, and I knew there wouldn’t be any one else.” Of course I shall get rid of Annette in the autumn. Even if she was wise enough to see they’d go before tea was ready, she should have obeyed orders, and been surprised, like any well-bred servant. I should have felt disgraced forever if they had been there when that small tray came. I only said: “When I tell you tea for six, Annette, bring tea for six. Lily can always help you to hurry it.” No one else did come, though, and I didn’t insist on her trotting out a lot more dishes in the middle of the thunder-storm. I had to run for cover, as it was, with my own tea-cup.

“‘This is an endless letter, and I don’t know what you and Mary will make of it, you think me so irresponsible anyway; but I really had to tell some one. I laugh and laugh over my predicament, and yet I dread telling Harry. These people were no bigger than a man’s hand at first, and now they overspread the heavens. I actually dress for them; I try to go out when I feel sure they won’t come--they never do when there’s a high wind; Pearls-and-Platinum won’t wear motoring things, and her bonnet goes askew if there’s a wind; she explained it to me in such a sweet old-lady fashion--and I ask people in bad weather if I ask them at all. Very few people do come, anyhow, except for dinner; the distances are such that we all meet at the club. And up to this time they have never run into any other guests. But I can’t be preserved forever. It’s too silly of me to mind telling Harry. Only he’d think me such an incompetent not to have found out all about them the first time! I quite dread being laughed at. And you know he’s fearfully worried and busy over that beast of a Tractions case. So I prolong the misunderstanding with them, and shall say nothing about it until events force it on me. They have certainly shown up Annette. She is perfect except when they’re here, and then she seems to lose her head. Point of pride: not to let Annette know they’re not my most intimate friends. She slipped and nearly knocked into Legion-of-Honor the other day, and only said “Oh!” not even “I beg your pardon.” Fortunately, he was staring through the field-glasses at the golf-links, and only backed away blindly with a little murmur. I must keep her until we leave, for it would be impossible to get any one else up here now; and except for these people, she’s a treasure. So I weakly ignore it.

“‘I’m so sorry you and Mary weren’t able to come to us this year. I keep pretty quiet and go out very little, as the doctor bade me, and am immensely better. It’s a little lonely sometimes, Harry is so busy--gets home so late and never takes a day off--and I’m positively _grateful_ for these people, if truth were told. All except Blue Bonnet. The other people they bring are just as nice as they are. But _who_ are they? Do you and Mary know any friends of the Outamaros who answer to my description? If so, do tell me privately, and then I can, by discreet allusions, straighten it all out before I tell Harry. The comfort it would give me, too, to be able to mention a name or two in a good firm voice to Annette!

“‘Your affectionate sister, “‘MILLICENT.’”

* * * * *

Harold Redreeve had not moved since she began. Except for a faint, occasional motion of the lips, even his features had not stirred. When Mary’s voice had quite died away, George Delano spoke:

“I think you will agree with me, Harry, that this is something you ought to know about. You see how clear it is that no one sees these people except my sister. Annette is, I suppose, a perfectly normal creature--and well recommended?”

“Oh, yes, admirably recommended. Quite normal, I should say. Millicent has always seemed to like her. Though, really, I’ve been at home so little, and so busy, that I haven’t noticed her much.”

“Yes, of course, the Tractions case. It’s a big thing, and we all wish you luck. If you pull that off, Conway says you’re made.” Perhaps he noticed how tired the hawk-face before him was; for he went on: “We did a good deal of consulting together before we decided to tell you of this just now. Indeed, I asked Boyce about it--putting it, of course, as a hypothetical case, but quoting the letter largely; I have an excellent verbal memory--and he thought it an interesting and probably serious case. The whole point in these matters is to take the person at the start, before the delusions go too far. Boyce says--do you know Boyce?”

“Not personally.”

“He has been called in by the district attorney so often I thought you might have run across him. I shall be delighted to introduce you, and you could ask him to run down. He is very busy, but he would do it for us. Quite the best alienist in the state and, I think, one of the best in the country. They are teaching us nowadays to be very hopeful about insanity--treat it just like any other illness, with large chances of cure. I’ve dipped into it a good deal, talking with Boyce and reading his books, and I know something about it myself.”

“Well?” The weariness had an odd likeness to patience.

“I should say, if it weren’t my poor sister who is concerned, that it was a very interesting case. You notice the--ah--the cunning shown in not reproving the maid Annette. Depend upon it, she has a suspicion that she’s going off the track. Also the desire to tell somebody, which is why Mary and I get the letter. She still thinks there’s something odd in it; the delusions aren’t complete. She hasn’t reached the point of telling every one; tries not to have people meet them, and so forth. But she herself is perfectly convinced, _for_ herself. The violent aversion to the little girl she calls--ah--Blue Bonnet, is also characteristic. And she has gone so far that all the circumstantial evidence of their unreality--the maid Annette bumping into an invisible old gentleman, and not bringing tea-cups for non-existent people--ceases to be evidence for her at all: it is merely a ground for annoyance. Her endeavor to rationalize the situation by hypotheses as to their origin, their possible relation to the owners of the house, is also interesting. It is a complicated case, as Boyce at once saw. Of course I could not be expected to find it interesting when it was in reality my poor sister who was suffering from this mental lesion; but I was glad for her sake that it interested him. I think you had better have him down as soon as you can manage it. This week-end, perhaps? I am sure Boyce would make sacrifices if I explained to him. He could come as a friend; and if the delusions came on while he was there, it would be singularly fortunate.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll try to arrange it. But hadn’t I better see Millicent first and have it all out with her?”

“She’ll be furious that we’ve shown you the letter, won’t she?” This was Mary, sweet-voiced and sympathetic.

“This is not a moment for such considerations. I am willing to shoulder that with poor Millicent. She may be permitted to think that we were worried about the character of her callers, and thought you should know. Millicent has often, in her youth, called me officious.” George Delano smiled with perfect good humor.

“I am afraid I must let you take that on yourselves. Millicent won’t be angry for long. She hasn’t a trace of bad temper in her, you know. And she’s perfectly normal with me, a little tired of late, but nothing else. After all, remember that I’ve been living with my wife all summer, even if, in the course of things, we have had to be separated more or less.”

“I take that as most encouraging,” Delano commented judicially. “They are apt to make their scenes with the people they care for most. The fact that she hasn’t turned on you in any way shows that she hasn’t gone beyond the point of recapture. Of course there _is_ a slight hint in her concealing from you a thing that she would normally tell you at once.”

“Yes”--Harold Redreeve frowned painfully--“that is quite true. I dare say if she had known I was to spend the night here, she wouldn’t have written. Poor child! I must get back at once, though I ought to go on to-morrow and see Stephenson. But I can’t leave her another day. I shall have to write him.” He sighed. The strain of the Tractions case had been great. He had staked a good deal on it, and it seemed to his wearied imagination that he would stand or fall by it. But Millicent--he couldn’t leave her another day with her delusions. Thank heaven! they weren’t horrible ones yet. He must get back and question Annette discreetly; and Boyce--yes, Boyce had better come down, if he would.

“Do you know Boyce well enough to make a point, for me, of his coming to us? Could you run up to town and manage for me to meet him at luncheon? Could you somehow arrange it all? That is, if, after I’ve been home, it seems best.”

“Certainly. Leave it to me. Wire me what day. Boyce is near town this summer. Oughtn’t you to see Stephenson, anyhow? Surely one day more couldn’t matter.”

“What I should say to Stephenson, if I saw him in my present state of mind, would matter. Do you suppose I should be sitting here now if I didn’t know it was too late to get home to-night? Perhaps you think this is gay for me.”

“I don’t. Indeed, I don’t,” Delano hastened to assure him. “I think it’s the devil and all. If Mary and I hadn’t felt it so serious, I should have waited until the Tractions case came off before saying anything to you. But the great thing is to take it in time.”

“Oh, I know that; I may not be a friend of Boyce’s, but I read magazine articles occasionally--on the train. I’ve heard of psychiatry myself, George.” He could not keep bitterness out of his tone, before the spectacle of his brother-in-law’s interested immunity.

“It’s very hard, having it come just now. If Mary could go down; but there are the Vincents coming on from the West next week, and a hundred things. Of course she would go if she could do any real _good_. I know all about it. Didn’t Violet have pneumonia last winter just when we were putting the screws on Singer and all the C. & O. gang? But life is like that.”

“I didn’t tell you about Violet until you had got your screws on.” Mary spoke mildly, in the interests of literal truth.

“I hope you don’t mean, Mary”--Delano turned to his wife--“that you think we shouldn’t have told Harry. Last night you said--”

But Mary was already in a flutter of compunction.

“Oh, my dearest George, how could you think so? We talked it all over for an hour before you decided. Only I am sorry Harry doesn’t feel he can see Stephenson.”

“I think myself he might as well. Twenty-four hours could make no difference. Millicent is quite happy. All the first part of the letter was about the garden. See.” He picked up the letter Mary had left on the table, and handed it to Redreeve.

“I haven’t my glasses,” Redreeve muttered as he took up the thin sheets in the familiar hand--the hand that might have been his own, so intimately for years had it written of his deepest concerns. “May I take it?”

Delano pursed his lips.

“Why--yes, I suppose so. Hadn’t you better see Stephenson to-morrow? You have an appointment, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I’ll telegraph.”

“Will it look well?”

“I don’t care a damn how it looks. He’ll get a letter explaining. I’d like an early breakfast, Mary, if it isn’t too much trouble. I must take the six forty-five. Thank you both--very much. Good-night.” He marched away, clutching the letter in his hand.

When Harold Redreeve reached his summer home after a hot, broken journey, the westering sun was falling in long, level streaks across his wide lawn; the porches were empty; the big doors stood restfully open; and only a bird-call was to be heard. He felt a slovenly creature, thirsty, tired, and unsuccessful, to be coming into such a peaceful haunt. For a moment his obsession seemed a thing to be washed off presently with the dirt of travel; the only things he could conceivably need were a shower and iced tea. He rang to give warning of his presence, then stepped into the wide tiled hall. Millicent was not in sight, but Annette appeared at once, surprised, obviously, to see him.

“Where is Mrs. Redreeve?”

“At the club, sir. She usually goes there for tea. She wasn’t expecting you.”

“No, I know.” He started to the stairs. “Have the Stacys been here this week?” He had to approach the matter as awkwardly as that.

“No one has been here, sir, since you went away, except Mr. and Mrs. Carle to dinner last night. Mrs. Redreeve plays bridge most afternoons now with the other ladies at the club.”

“What time do you expect her back?”

“Just in time to dress, sir. Nobody is here to-night.”

“Have some tea for me, will you, Annette, in about twenty minutes? I’ll be down on the porch for it.” He went up to his dressing-room for his bath.

Redreeve had time for thought before Millicent returned. His letter to Stephenson, following up his telegram, he had had just time to dictate from his office in town between trains. He had hated the look of concern that came over the face of his stenographer when he announced, in the letter, that he had been suddenly called home by his wife’s illness. It seemed as if, so long as they could keep the trouble secret, it need hardly be a trouble at all. But, after all, what could be more public than George Delano, with his perpetual air of speaking for a cowed group, behind him, of eleven good men and true? The whole house was so peaceful, Annette so little seemed to want her opportunity of speaking to him privately, Millicent seemed by inference so happy and harmless over at the club yonder, he felt almost a fool not to have seen Stephenson. And yet, could he have done otherwise? He took the letter from his pocket and read it through once more. No; George had been right. It _was_ alarming; and, more probably than not, Annette was simply frightened and puzzled, or else silently laying plans to take another place. Every element for apprehension that George had mentioned was certainly there. Probably he never should see Stephenson; probably he would simply have to turn over the Tractions case to Welby and miss his chance. If anything went wrong with Millicent, it would go wrong with him. George might be the kind to put a big deal through with a thing like that going on at home. Harry Redreeve knew he himself wasn’t.

Then he turned with a start, for Millicent was before him.

“You here? Why did you come? Anything wrong?” She smothered him for an instant in her frills.

“No, nothing wrong. I just came.”

“But didn’t you see Stephenson?”

“No. To-day’s interview was called off. I hope to see him in a few days.”

The letter had still not attracted her attention. If she was aware of it, she probably thought it a letter of hers to him. He must study her, he thought wearily; must note every detail as if he were a doctor. And indeed she did seem a little nervous, a little thin. But that was positively all. She glanced at the letter once or twice, uneasily, he thought. Of course, they hadn’t been apart enough for her to have written him recently so many pages. He laid his arm over the thin, blue sheets.

“Much doing down here?”

“Nothing. That’s why I have to go over to the club every blessed afternoon and play auction. We make it a kind of half-way house--go there instead of going to each other.”

“Do you like this place?”

“Do you?”

“I haven’t been here a great deal so far. It seems restful.”

“Oh, restful, yes. Sometimes”--her brow knotted; she seemed to hesitate--“sometimes I do get a little bored. You aren’t here, you see, to share the restfulness.”

“Doesn’t anything happen to interest you all the long days?”

She looked at him with wide, honest blue eyes.

“Not anything, Harry, except the bridge, which doesn’t really interest me. No; I haven’t seen an intriguing human being all summer.”

“You know we chose it particularly for quiet.”

“Oh, yes; and I’m sure it’s the right thing. Only, next year, I hope I shall be strong enough, and you will be free enough, for us to do something amusing. I’m perfectly happy, but no one could say the place is riotous. But, by the way, Harry, who called off the Stephenson interview? Does that mean he will make trouble?”

Harry Redreeve lifted both hands and pushed his hair back from his forehead. His sudden gesture loosened the pages of the letter at his elbow. Millicent leaned over and looked at them. One glance was enough, for, without listening to her husband’s explanation, she clutched it.

“Harry Redreeve, where did you get this?”

“I spent last night at George’s.”

“And he gave you this? The beast!”

Redreeve looked his wife gravely in the eyes, bracing himself for a scene of some unknown kind. “I don’t know why he’s a beast. He couldn’t well do other.”

“But I particularly told him I wasn’t telling you.”

“Yes; but you can see that, if George thought the thing serious, he would feel I must know sooner or later.”

“Did you call off the interview with Stephenson?” She rose and stood, very flushed, before him.

“I did.”

“Because of _this_?”

“Yes, dear. I was worried.”

“Oh, my poor darling, my poor darling! I wouldn’t have had it happen for anything. What a pompous fool George is! I’ll never forgive him. And Mary sat in a corner and said how wonderful George was. _I_ know. Oh, you poor darling! But when can you see Stephenson?”

“I don’t know. Later in the week, I hope.”

“And you let George make you come home straight, and cut the interview?”

“Certainly not, my dear. I didn’t need any advice to make me come home as straight as I could.”

“You don’t mean that that wretched letter worried you?”

“Why shouldn’t it?”

“How could it? George is capable of any idiocy, but you mustn’t tell me that you believed those people in there were real.”

“No; and neither did George.”

“Oh, George deserves to be steeped to the lips in a saturated solution of himself. But you! I never meant you to see the thing--naturally. I shall never get over your having called off the Stephenson interview on my account. I’ll owe George one for that to the end of time. But you don’t mean to say that _you_ didn’t see?”

“See what?” He was bewildered. He felt as if he himself were perhaps a little mad. Certainly Millicent looked the acme of sanity, with her eyes shining and all that delicate color in her face.

“Why, that it was a gigantic hoax on George, of course! If I had ever dreamed of your seeing the letter at all, I should have expected you to rock with delight over my cleverness. I got so tired of his encyclopaedic ways, I thought I’d give him a _stoss_. I meant George to think I was going off my head. Though I thought he might be dull enough to stop at wondering if I wasn’t doing something unconventional. But you--I should have thought you would see it the first minute. You _must_ have been tired, if you thought your old Millikins would spend her afternoons with a lot of spooks and, on top of that, write to George about it! It must have been a good rag, if it could take you in. I’m rather proud of it. Why, I was afraid even George would see through that little girl in the blue sunbonnet.” She lay back in her chair and laughed consumingly. “Forgive me; I’ll put my mind on the serious things of life in a moment. But it is funny!”

If it had not been for the accident with the Stephenson interview, Harry Redreeve would have been tempted to laugh himself. As it was, there was the practical worry at the heart of his great relief.

“I nearly didn’t post the letter, you know. I just started out to see what I could do, and then it grew so beautifully under my hand that I thought George ought to have it. So I posted it, after all, and it has led to this! It comes of being bored. I always used to startle George when I was bored. But if I had dreamed of your going up there--”

“I didn’t expect to; but it turned out to be convenient, and I telephoned them yesterday afternoon that I would come for the night.”

“What did you say to Stephenson?”

“Wired him that my wife was ill.”

“And you haven’t written him?”

“Yes, to-day, from the office, before I took the train up here.”

“What did you say?”

“That I hoped for a later appointment.”

“Very well; you can telegraph him from here to-night. Say that I’m out of danger, and fix another day. He will forgive you if he knows you telegraphed him as soon as I _was_ out of danger. I’m sorry about the fibbing, but this is a good deal truer than the lie George got you into. Don’t send until after dinner. That will be more plausible. Now I must dress.”

As Mrs. Redreeve went through the door, she turned to look at her husband and laughed again.

“I can’t help it, dear. I know I was a beast to do it just because I was bored. When I think of Blue Bonnet, I feel like Mrs. Piper or Palladino or ‘Sally.’ But I shan’t laugh about it again. You see, the cream of the joke is gone forever if you were taken in, too. I’m glad I didn’t ‘register’ delirium tremens for George. He would have had an ambulance and a strait-jacket down here on the afternoon train.”

At last Harry Redreeve grinned.

“He nearly did have Dr. Boyce. He’s expecting to send him down over Sunday.”

Millicent leaned against the lintel of the door, and closed her eyes in mock-consternation.

“An alienist? For me? Oh, George Delano, you have _such_ an unclean mind! It isn’t decent to be so up to date as George is. He gave me Freud to read last winter, you remember, and for a week I dreamed things that didn’t need any interpreting. And you were going to let the man into the house?”

Redreeve looked at her very gravely.

“Yes, I was going to let him in.”

Mrs. Redreeve dashed back to the porch and picked up the letter. Then she tore it viciously, scattering the pieces over the porch-floor.

“There! I’m sorry to make a mess, but Annette’s a saint. She won’t mind. I must have been inspired by the devil to write stuff that would affect you like that. It’s pretty bad, you know, that you could have thought me off my head.”

Her husband leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“Yes, dear, it is pretty bad. But I’m awfully tired, and George considers he has a gift for presenting evidence. He isn’t easy to interrupt. I’m very sorry; but you must take it as a compliment. It was damnably well done--to the lay mind, at least.”

By the time that Redreeve had had a chance to communicate with Delano, Delano’s zeal had outstripped their original plan. He himself had run in on Boyce, and disclosed his fears. Dr. Boyce promised to hold himself in readiness to go to the Redreeves should he be summed, and Delano then set himself frantically to recover the lost letter from Millicent’s husband. He naturally wished to submit it to Boyce. Redreeve was, however, far too busy with the Tractions case to inform Delano that the letter, in a thousand pieces, had been swept into the dust-bin by “the maid Annette.” He had to arrange to see Stephenson and a dozen other men. He was caught in the big machine and had to keep time to the engines. Beyond once reassuring Delano in a cryptic telegram, he had done nothing. George’s letters he had no time to answer. Millicent promised to attend to the matter.

The crisis drew nearer, and sometimes Redreeve felt as if the days lengthened in arithmetical progression. By late September, when the case was actually called, it seemed to him that the sun took fifty hours for its diurnal course. Yet he could not have spared one of the fifty, if he was to go fully armed, with not an inch of unprotected skin, into court. There was excitement in it, a kind of fury of astuteness, a Pythian rage of foresight, that lifted him above the crowd he directed. It divorced him from country peace, and he saw little of Millicent in the fervid autumn weeks. Sometimes she went up to town for a few days in order to lunch and dine with him; but after the case was actually on, she found that such jaunts tired her, and she went back to the country to rest and wait for her husband to be free. It had been decided that they should keep the house until November, and try for a quiet holiday there together in the late autumn when the case was over. Harry now came home, unless he gained a brief respite from the law’s delays, only at the week-end. On the long Sundays, before he took the evening train, they sat, almost silent, on the wide porch, in the subdued autumn warmth. He was too tired even for her chatter; too tired to dare to relax, when his nerves would have to be taut as a singing rope on the morrow. And when at last the case was over, and Redreeve’s clients had got their verdict, he was almost too tired to be glad.

Still, she pushed him off for a little golf now and then on a fine day; and occasionally they had friends, belated birds like themselves, to dinner. It marked one of the long stages of Harry Redreeve’s relief when he asked her one night:

“Did George ever answer your letter? I positively forgot to ask.”

“What letter?”

“Your letter explaining about the hoax.”

“I never wrote it.” She flushed.

“Never wrote it? Oh, my dear girl, you said you would. That’s why he has never congratulated me on my luck.”

“I’m sorry,” she faltered. “I will write to-morrow, honor bright. If I hadn’t thought so much about just what to write him, I dare say I could have done it long since. When I haven’t been thinking of the case, I’ve been thinking of George. I wish you could have got a verdict against _him_.”

“Well, I suppose I can write now. Perhaps it will be easier for me. Only you must give me carte blanche to say all sorts of things for you. George had a right to be cut up, I think, dear.”

“He’d take every right of the sort he had, you may be sure.” But her tone was listless.

“Yes, George is not an easy-going person. However, we’d best not quarrel with them. Have they asked us up there next month?”

“Not yet. We didn’t intend to go, in any case.”

“No; but it’s odd they haven’t asked us. They always do. I think I’d better write to-night.”

“Won’t it do as well to-morrow?”

“I dare say. But why not to-night?”

“Because I want to talk to you.” They rose from the table at this point, and she put her arm through his. “Coffee on the porch, Annette, please.”

“A very odd thing has happened,” she went on a few moments later, as they faced the harvest moon. “You remember those people I wrote about? Those people I made up to bother George with?”

“Yes.”

“Well”--she turned her head away, and he saw her pure profile in the moonlight--“I saw them this afternoon.”

“At the club?”

“No, here on the porch, where I told George they used to come. Blue Bonnet and all. They sat in the chairs. They went away in the motor. They did all the things I said they did. Only this time they _did_ them.”

“Millicent!”

“Harry, dear, I’m not such a fool as to play the same game twice. Besides, I never meant to play it on you. Of course it’s a hallucination. It must be. It”--her voice broke a little--“it takes some courage to say it, because every sense I have could swear that they were real. If I hadn’t made them up in the first place, I should say now, to you, that they _were_ real. I don’t dare to, having invented them once. Life doesn’t give you coincidences like that. But, as far as I am concerned, I _would_ believe in them. I took the little girl’s blue sunbonnet off and felt of it--crumpled the stiff edge in my hand. It’s gingham, starched. For your sake, I didn’t ask Annette to bring them tea.” She stopped.

“You’re very tired,” began Redreeve in a shaking voice.

“No, I’m not tired that way. I’m horribly--yes, horribly, that’s the word--rested. I wish I were tired. But I’ll do anything you say.”

“Then go to the club to-morrow while I’m in town. I’ll come back right after luncheon, and pick you up there. I’m afraid I have to go, dear. I’ve promised to see the district attorney. Do you want to come?”

“Oh, no, I’d rather stay here. Must I go to the club? There won’t be any one there except a few golfing men. No one goes any more.”

“I’d rather you would. I wish we had a motor: I’d send you over to the Stacys’ for the day.”

“I’m quite all right here, dearest; but I’ll telephone and ask Kate Stacy to come over and lunch and take me for a drive.”

“Good. And don’t worry about it. We’ll consult a nerve-man; and if you have to go to Europe on a bat, off you go. You’ve never seen them before, have you?”

“Never.”

“You’ll do, dear. That was a brick to tell me. And I’ll write to George to-morrow. I think if you put him and the damned apology quite out of your mind, you’ll pull through with no further trouble. Don’t worry about it: that’s the thing I beg of you.”

“I won’t.” And she turned her face to him again.

When Redreeve came home late the next afternoon, he did not see his wife in her accustomed chair. “Hardly time yet for Kate Stacy to bring her back,” he muttered to himself. Just then Annette, the maid came through the door of the service wing, very quietly, into the hall where he stood.

“What time did Mrs. Redreeve say she would be back?” he asked.

“She didn’t go out at all, sir. Mrs. Stacy was in town, she found when she telephoned.”

“Where is she?”

“Up-stairs in her room, I think, sir.”

“Well, tell her I’m here. And you might bring me something to drink, Annette. I’m frightfully thirsty.”

“Yes, sir. Would you mind stepping on the porch a moment--just a moment, sir?”

He followed her. There was the tea-tray still uncleared. Six cups stood on it, and all had been used.

“I left them for you to see, sir. Now I must clear them, or Mrs. Redreeve will be displeased.”

“What is the matter?” The six cups seemed somehow reassuring.

The maid looked behind her furtively into the empty hall, then bent and whispered quickly:

“There was no one here to-day, sir. And from inside I saw Mrs. Redreeve wet the spoons, and drink a little sip out of each cup.”

Redreeve turned on her angrily, but the maid’s eyes were full of tears. He pushed past her and went up-stairs, while she began quietly clearing the tea-things away.

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry! I’ve been asleep. I meant to be down to meet you.” Millicent raised a flushed face from her pillows. “And the Carles are coming to dinner to-night. I telephoned them this afternoon. Kate Stacy was in town to-day, so I couldn’t get her to lunch or motor or anything.”

He felt a wild impulse to sneak down and ask Annette or some other maid if the Carles really were coming, but he forbore.

“Good! What sort of day have you had?”

“All right, dear. Only”--she roused herself to a sitting position, and began patting his knee softly with her hand--“they came again to-day--and took tea. They’ve never done that before. I had to ask Annette to bring tea for them, Blue Bonnet and all. I wasn’t sure even this afternoon, you see, that they were real, though I think they are. And Annette brought the tea perfectly. She didn’t stumble over any of them.”

“Did they drink the tea?”

Mrs. Redreeve flushed.

“You can ask Annette if she didn’t find every cup used!”

A great wave of pity swept over him, bringing a kind of choking relief with it. She wouldn’t lie to him, poor darling, so long as she could keep truth on her lips. But how real they must have been to her, for her to adopt that subterfuge--to try to prove to Annette, in Annette’s own crude terms, that they were there. She must have a hideous, baffled sense of being the only person with eyes in a blind world--so much worse than being blind in a world of those who see. He bent and kissed her.

“I must dress if the Carles are coming. So must you. Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll work it all out. I’ll stay and see them to-morrow. They never come in the morning, do they?”

“Never.”

“Well, then, it’s all right. I have to go round the links with Stacy in the morning, but I’ll be on deck all the afternoon.”

The next morning Redreeve went to the club. He was glad Stacy was a scratch man; he might have had to try to beat him if he had been in his own class. It would have been pretty hard to try to beat any one that day. The links were all hazards and bunkers, and on the fifth green--his ball had got to within a few inches of the hole, he couldn’t remember how--he swung his cleek mechanically as if for a tremendous drive.

“Good Lord!” murmured Stacy.

“Good Lord, indeed,” echoed Redreeve. Fact is,”--he pulled himself together quickly--“my mind is anywhere, and my general game is too poor to go on by itself. Sorry to have played tennis all the morning. A man telegraphed he was coming down this afternoon for an important conference. I’m wool-gathering. I think I’ll pull out.”

Stacy nodded good-humoredly.

“I’m just out for the fun of the thing. I’ll finish and see what I can do with Bogey. You have a right to be off your feed. So long!”

Redreeve went home, dully thankful that he had won his big case, and the consideration of men with it. He had tried deliberately to keep life in the normal round, thinking that, until he could decide, that was the safest thing to do for Millicent. Whatever happened or didn’t, in these few crucial days, he would make her take everything sanely. He wouldn’t deviate; he wouldn’t turn the house into a psychopathic ward. People should come and go, and the business of life should be pursued, until he knew. She was still quite perfect with outsiders: she had been delightful with the Carles the night before; she would be charming with the district attorney if he got there in time for luncheon. And never again, during this little period of suspense, would he leave her alone in the afternoon. Everything should go by the board rather than that. If he could once be present when the “people” came! He thought it unlikely that he ever should; yet he hoped once at least to watch her with the hallucination full upon her. Perhaps he could hold her tight to his side, make her see with his eyes, force her to stare until the chairs were empty, even for her. He built great hopes on the fact that she hadn’t lied to him; that she had kept, poor dear, the mirror of her consciousness as clear for him as she could. Some little spring that still worked in her brain had clicked out, at his direct question, an evasion instead of a lie. But he wouldn’t play golf again until it was over. He should have to see Boyce sooner or later, he supposed.

Mrs. Redreeve met him on the porch. Though Annette was beside her, pulling chairs into place, his wife spoke at once:

“Harry, I told you they never came except in the afternoon. But they did come this morning--to say good-bye. They’re going back to town. Isn’t it extraordinary that I don’t know their names yet?”

“Come in, dear, come in.” He tried to draw her into the house.

“No, wait a minute. The old gentleman looked at his watch and said they would be late for luncheon if they didn’t hurry. And his wife said how unfortunate it was, and how odd, they had never met you. You don’t have to worry about me any more, darling, for this time I _know_ they were real. See?” She pulled out a blue sunbonnet from behind her back.

He had his arm about her and was leading her into the house. But she detained him.

“Tell Mr. Redreeve where you found it, Annette.”

“On the long chair, under the cushion.” The maid’s eyes were lowered.

“She’s such a madcap! They’ll hardly send back for it; it’s perfectly worthless. Throw it away, Annette. But you see they _are_ real.”

Redreeve stopped in the hall. “Hadn’t you better put on something else? The district attorney may be here to luncheon.”

“Of course. I was just going to dress. You’d better hurry, yourself. Don’t you want a shower first? It’s extraordinarily hot for October. Bye-bye.” She ran up the stairs, but leaned over the rail and spoke again:

“I’m glad Blue Bonnet left it, so you could see. Tell Annette to throw it away. It’s a horror. No, you can call to her. Come up at once, dear. You’ll be late, and he’ll be here.”

But Redreeve went back to the porch. The maid, as white as wax, was holding the blue sunbonnet in a shaking hand. When she saw Redreeve emerge from the house alone, she burst into tears.

“Oh, Mr. Redreeve, I can’t stand it any longer!”

“Who was here, Annette?” He took the sunbonnet from her and held it with numb fingers.

“No one, sir, no one.”

“Where did this come from, then?”

“She bought the gingham in the village this morning, Mr. Redreeve, just after you went over to the club. I saw the package under her arm when she came back. And she sewed it in her room. I didn’t dream, sir--I wouldn’t spy on a lady--but I saw her when I was tidying the dressing-room. Look at it, sir--how gobbled the stitches are. It don’t hardly hold together. And an hour after, I found it on this chair, with the pillows all throwed round. She made it herself, Mr. Redreeve, so as you’d think somebody left it here. Do you understand it, sir?”

Harry Redreeve was very white.

“No, Annette, I don’t. But you had better throw it away, as she told you. And, for heaven’s sake, stop crying!”

He went into the house to dress, but before he went up-stairs, he entered the telephone-closet and shut the door. Watch in hand, he telephoned the telegram. He had to spell “Delano” three times.