The Agony Column | Page 9

me, for the
first time, the tread of his military boots. Now again my courage began
to fail. I should have preferred to leave Archie's letter lying in my desk
and know my neighbor only by his tread above me. I felt that perhaps I
had been presumptuous in coming to live in the same house with him.
But I had represented myself to Walters as an acquaintance of the
captain's and the caretaker had lost no time in telling me that "my
friend" was safely home.
So one night, a week ago, I got up my nerve and went to the captain's
rooms. I knocked. He called to me to enter and I stood in his study,
facing him. He was a tall handsome man, fair-haired, mustached--the
very figure that you, my lady, in your boarding-school days, would
have wished him to be. His manner, I am bound to admit, was not
cordial.
"Captain," I began, "I am very sorry to intrude--" It wasn't the thing to

say, of course, but I was fussed. "However, I happen to be a neighbor
of yours, and I have here a letter of introduction from your cousin,
Archibald Enwright. I met him in Interlaken and we became very good
friends."
"Indeed!" said the captain.
He held out his hand for the letter, as though it were evidence at a
court-martial. I passed it over, wishing I hadn't come. He read it
through. It was a long letter, considering its nature. While I waited,
standing by his desk--he hadn't asked me to sit down--I looked about
the room. It was much like my own study, only I think a little dustier.
Being on the third floor it was farther from the garden, consequently
Walters reached there seldom.
The captain turned back and began to read the letter again. This was
decidedly embarrassing. Glancing down, I happened to see on his desk
an odd knife, which I fancy he had brought from India. The blade was
of steel, dangerously sharp, the hilt of gold, carved to represent some
heathen figure.
Then the captain looked up from Archie's letter and his cold gaze fell
full upon me.
"My dear fellow," he said, "to the best of my knowledge, I have no
cousin named Archibald Enwright."
A pleasant situation, you must admit! It's bad enough when you come
to them with a letter from their mother, but here was I in this
Englishman's rooms, boldly flaunting in his face a warm note of
commendation from a cousin who did not exist!
"I owe you an apology," I said. I tried to be as haughty as he, and fell
short by about two miles. "I brought the letter in good faith."
"No doubt of that," he answered.
"Evidently it was given me by some adventurer for purposes of his

own," I went on; "though I am at a loss to guess what they could have
been."
"I'm frightfully sorry--really," said he. But he said it with the London
inflection, which plainly implies: "I'm nothing of the sort."
A painful pause. I felt that he ought to give me back the letter; but he
made no move to do so. And, of course, I didn't ask for it.
"Ah--er--good night," said I and hurried toward the door.
"Good night," he answered, and I left him standing there with Archie's
accursed letter in his hand.
That is the story of how I came to this house in Adelphi Terrace. There
is mystery in it, you must admit, my lady. Once or twice since that
uncomfortable call I have passed the captain on the stairs; but the halls
are very dark, and for that I am grateful. I hear him often above me; in
fact, I hear him as I write this.
Who was Archie? What was the idea? I wonder.
Ah, well, I have my garden, and for that I am indebted to Archie the
garrulous. It is nearly midnight now. The roar of London has died away
to a fretful murmur, and somehow across this baking town a breeze has
found its way. It whispers over the green grass, in the ivy that climbs
my wall, in the soft murky folds of my curtains. Whispers--what?
Whispers, perhaps, the dreams that go with this, the first of my letters
to you. They are dreams that even I dare not whisper yet.
And so--good night.
THE STRAWBERRY MAN.

CHAPTER III
With a smile that betrayed unusual interest, the daughter of the Texas
statesman read that letter on Thursday morning in her room at the
Carlton. There was no question about it--the first epistle from the
strawberry-mad one had caught and held her attention. All day, as she
dragged her father through picture galleries, she found herself looking
forward to another morning, wondering, eager.