Martin couldn't settle down after his solitary dinner that night.
Several times he had jumped out of his father's reading chair and stood listening at the window.It seemed to him that some one had called his name.But the only sounds that broke the exquisite quietude of the night were the distant barking of a dog, the whirl of an automobile on the road or the pompous crowing of a master of a barnyard, taken up and answered by others near and far.
Each time the boy had stood at the open window and peered out eagerly and wistfully, but nothing had moved across the moon-bathed lawn or disturbed the sleeping flowers.Under the cold light of the stars the earth appeared to be more than usually peaceful and drowsy.All was well.
But the boy's blood tingled, and he was filled with an unexplainable sense of excitement.Some one needed him, and he wanted urgently to be needed.He turned from the window and ran his eyes over the long, wide, low-ceilinged masculine room, every single thing in which spelled Father to him; then he went back to the chair the right to sit in which had been given to him by death, persuaded that over the unseen wires that stretch from heart to heart a signal had been sent, certain that he was to hold himself in readiness to do something for Joan.
He had written out the words, "We count it death to falter, not to die" on a long strip of card in big bold letters.They faced him as he sat and read over and over again what he regarded as his father's message.It was a call to service, an inspiration to activity, and it had already filled him with the determination to fall into step with the movement of the world, to put the money of which he was now the most reluctant owner to some use as soon as the necessary legal steps of proving his father's Will had been taken.He had made up his mind to leave the countryside at the end of the week and meet his father's lawyers and take advice as to how he could hitch himself to some vigorous and operative pursuit.He was going, please God, to build up a workmanlike monument to the memory of his father.
Ten o'clock struck, and uninterested in his book, he would have gone to bed but for the growing feeling that he was not his own master, that he might be required at any moment.The feeling became so strong that finally he got up and went into the hall.He couldn't wait any longer.He must go out, slip into the garden of the Ludlow house and search the windows for a sight of Joan.
He unbolted the front door, gave a little gasp and found himself face to face with the girl who was in his thoughts.
There was a ripple of excited laughter; a bag was thrust into his hand, and like a bird escaped from a cage, Joan darted past him into the hall.
"I've done it," she cried, "I've done it!" And she broke into a dance.
Martin shut the door, put the bulging suit-case on a chair and watched the girl as she whirled about the hall, as graceful as a water sprite, with eyes alight with mischief and animation.The sight of her was so bewitching, the fact that she had come to him for help so good, that his curiosity to know what it was that she had done fell away.
Suddenly she came to a breathless stop and caught hold of his arm.
"Bolt the door, Marty," she said, "quickly, quickly! They may send after me when they find I've got away.I'll never go back, never, never!"All the spirit of romance in the boy's nature flamed.This was a great adventure.He had become a knight errant, the rescuer of a damsel in distress.He shot the bolts back, turned out the lights, took Joan's hand and led her into his father's room.
"Turn these lights out too," she said."Make it look as if everybody had gone to bed."He did so, with a sort of solemn sense of responsibility; and it was in a room lighted only by a shaft of pale moonlight that fell in a pool upon the polished floor that these two utterly inexperienced children sat knee to knee, the one to pour out her story, the other to listen and hold his breath.
"I was right about Gleave.He was spying.It turns out that he's been watching us for two or three days.When I went back this afternoon, I got a look from Mrs.Nye that told me there was a row in the air.I was later than usual and rushed up to my room to change for dinner.The whole house seemed awfully quiet and ominous, like the air before a thunderstorm.I expected to be sent for at once to stand like a criminal before Grandfather and Grandmother--but nothing happened.All through dinner, while Gleave tottered about, they sat facing each other at the long table, conducting,--that's the only word to describe it,--a polite conversation.Neither of them took any notice of me or even once looked my way.Even Gleave put things in front of me as though he didn't see me, and when I caught the watery eyes of the old dogs, they both seemed to make faces and go 'Yah!'""It was weird, and would have been frightfully funny if I hadn't known that sooner or later I should have to stand up and take my dose.Phew, it was a ghastly meal.I'm certain I shall dream it all over again every time I eat something that doesn't agree with me! It was a great relief when at last Grandmother turned at the door and looking at my feet as though they were curiosities, said: 'Joan, you will follow us to the drawing-room.' Her voice was cold enough to freeze the sea.""Then she went out, her stick rapping the floor, Grandfather after her with his shoulders bent and a piece of bread on the back of his dinner jacket.The two dogs followed, and I made up the tail of that queer procession.I hate that stiff, cheerless drawing room anyhow, with all its shiny cases of china and a collection of all the uncomfortable chairs ever designed since Adam.I wanted to laugh and cry, and when I saw myself in the glass, I couldn't believe that Iwasn't a little shivering girl with a ribbon in my hair and white socks."Some one whistled outside.The girl seized the boy's arm in a sudden panic of fright.