The Intriguers | Page 7

a west-bound train, lay upon the grass, surrounded by their tired children; and she had sent Millicent down the street to buy fruit to distribute among the travelers. She liked to watch the French Canadian girls who slipped quietly up the broad cathedral steps. They were the daughters of the rank and file, but their movements were graceful and they were tastefully dressed. Then the blue-shirted, sinewy men, who strolled past, smoking, roused her curiosity. They had not acquired their free, springy stride in the cities; these were adventurers who had met with strange experiences in the frozen North and the lonely West. Some of them had hard faces and a predatory air, but that added to their interest. Margaret Keith liked to watch them all, and speculate about their mode of life; that pleasure could still be enjoyed, though, as she sometimes told herself with humorous resignation, she could no longer take a very active part in things.
Presently, however, something that appealed to her in a more direct and personal way occurred, for a man came down the steps of the Windsor and crossed the well-lighted street with a very pretty English girl. He carried himself well, and had the look of a soldier; his figure was finely proportioned; but his handsome face suggested sensibility rather than decision of character, and his eyes were dreamy. His companion, so far as Mrs. Keith could judge by her smiling glance as she laid her hand upon his arm when they left the sidewalk, was proud of him, and much in love with him.
"Whom are you looking at so hard?" Mrs. Ashborne inquired.
"Bertram Challoner and his bride," said Mrs. Keith. "They're coming toward us yonder."
Then a curious thing happened, for a man who was crossing the street seemed to see the Challoners and, turning suddenly, stepped back behind a passing cab. They had their backs to him when he went on, but he looked around, as if to make sure he had not been observed, before he entered the hotel.
"That was strange," said Mrs. Ashborne. "It looked as if the fellow didn't want to meet our friends. Who can he be?"
"How can I tell?" Mrs. Keith answered. "I think I've seen him somewhere, but that's all I know."
Looking around as Millicent joined them, she noticed the girl's puzzled expression. Millicent had obviously seen the stranger's action, but Mrs. Keith did not wish to pursue the subject then; and the next moment Challoner came up and greeted her heartily, while his wife spoke to Mrs. Ashborne.
"We arrived only this afternoon, and must have missed you at dinner," he said. "We may go West to-morrow, though we haven't decided yet. I've no doubt we shall see you again to-night or at breakfast."
After a few pleasant words the Challoners passed on, and Mrs. Keith looked after them thoughtfully.
"Bertram has changed in the last few years," she said. "I heard that he had malaria in India, and that perhaps accounts for it, but he shows signs of his mother's delicacy. She was not strong, and I always thought he had her highly strung nervous temperament, though he must have learned to control it in the army."
"He couldn't have got in unless the doctors were satisfied with him," Mrs. Ashborne pointed out.
"That's true; but both mental and physical traits have a way of lying dormant while we're young, and developing later. Bertram has shown himself a capable officer; but, to my mind, he looked more like a soldier when he was at Sandhurst than he does now."
Mrs. Ashborne glanced toward Millicent, who was distributing a basket of peaches among a group of untidy immigrant children. One toddling baby clung to her skirt.
"What a charming picture! Miss Graham fits the part well. You can see that she's sorry for the dirty little beggars. They don't look as if they'd had a happy time; and a liner's crowded steerage isn't a luxurious place."
Mrs. Keith smiled as Millicent came toward her with a few of the small children clustered round her.
"I have some English letters to write," she said; "and I think we'll go in."
The Challoners did not leave for the West the next day. About an hour before sunset they leaned upon the rails of a wooden gallery built out from the rock on the summit of the green mountain that rises close behind Montreal. It is a view-point that visitors frequent, and they gazed with appreciation at the wide landscape. Wooded slopes led steeply down to the stately college buildings of McGill and the rows of picturesque houses along Sherbrook Avenue; lower yet, the city, shining in the clear evening light, spread across the plain, dominated by its cathedral dome and the towers of Notre Dame. Green squares with trees in them checkered the blocks of buildings; along