“Prove it,” Nancy said defensively. “I will.”
“Now.”
“Give me time.”
“Time is something one seizes, not takes as a free gift.”
Brock laughed.
“Your utterances make superb epigrams, Miss Howard. The only objection to them arises when one stops to find out what they really mean.”
“I mean that you can never prove to me that the French are really outclassed by the English,” she retorted, bringing the discussion back to its point of departure.
Brock looked down at her quizzically.
“Shall St. Jacques and I fight it out in three rounds?” he inquired.
“That’s no test. You’re not English.”
“Not in the real sense of it. But neither is he French. We’re both of us relative terms.”
“And so useless for the sake of argument,” she replied.
“For the sake of nothing else, I trust,” Brock said lightly.
She looked up at him with a smile.
“Mr. Brock, I am not an ingrate. Without you and M. St. Jacques, I should have been a good deal more lonely, this past month. My father is an old man, and not strong. He has appreciated your courtesy to him, too.”
Brock shifted his stick to his left hand.
“Shall we shake hands on it?” he said jovially. “The month has been rather jolly for us, as Barth would say. The Maple Leaf is a mighty good sort of place; but the atmosphere there is sometimes a little more mature than one cares for. St. Jacques and I haven’t given all the good times. But about the argument: when can you take time to be convinced?”
“By a walk to the Wolfe monument?” she queried mockingly.
“No; by two hours of eloquent pleading on my part. I propose to do it by sheer weight of intellect and statistics. How about to-morrow afternoon at three?”
“Very well,” she assented.
“I’ll cut the office for the afternoon. Shall we choose the Saint Foye Road for the scene of the fray?”
“As you like,” she answered merrily. “But remember that you are to do no monologues. I reserve the right to interrupt, whenever I choose.”
Then they fell silent, as they tramped briskly up and down the terrace. The lights from the Frontenac beside them glowed in the purple dusk and mingled with the glare that lingered in the west. At their feet, the streets of the Lower Town were crowded in the last mad scurry of the dying day, and the river beyond was dotted here and there with the moving lights of an occasional ferry. Then a bugle call rang down from the Citadel, and Nancy roused herself abruptly.
“I suppose we really ought to go to supper,” she said regretfully.
“It isn’t late.”
“No; but my father will be waiting.”
Reluctantly Brock faced about.
“Well, I suppose there are more days to come,” he observed philosophically.
“Especially to-morrow,” she reminded him.
Barth was at the table, when they entered the dining-room. Eager, flushed with her swift exercise in the crisp night air and daintily trim from top to toe, Nancy seemed to him a most attractive picture as she came towards him. Brock was close behind; together, they were laughing over some jest of which he was in ignorance. Nevertheless, Nancy paused beside his chair long enough to give him a friendly word of greeting, and Barth smiled back at her blissfully. For an instant, it occurred to him that it was rather pleasant to be no longer on the outer edge of The Maple Leaf. At a first glance, he had resented the supremacy of this American girl in an English house. The shorter grew his radius, however, the surer grew his allegiance to the focal point. American or no American, Nancy was undeniably pretty, her gowns threw the gowns of his own sisters into disrepute, and, moreover, that afternoon, she had shown herself altogether friendly and womanly and winning. Accordingly, he sowed the seeds of incipient indigestion by bolting his supper at a most unseemly speed, in order to gain possession of a chair near the parlor door. Close study of the situation, during many previous evenings, had informed him that this chair held a position of strategic importance. As a rule, St. Jacques had occupied it, while Barth had rested on his dignity in remote corners. With the tail of his eye, Barth had assured himself that the Frenchman was at the final stage of the meal, when he himself reached the table. However, the Frenchman was munching toast and marmalade in a most leisurely fashion, turning now and then for a word with Brock and Nancy; and Barth felt sure that he could overtake him. His surety increased as St. Jacques, abandoning his toast, took possession of a mammoth bun and a fresh supply of marmalade. Barth, who scorned all things of the jammy persuasion, finished his meat with the greed of a half-grown puppy, scalded his throat with the tea which had obstinately resisted his efforts to cool it, and, with a brief nod to St. Jacques, left the table and betook himself to the parlor.
“Monsieur has a haste upon himself, to-night,” St. Jacques observed dryly.
His early training had been potent, and St. Jacques no longer wasted upon Barth any conversational efforts whatsoever. In Nancy’s presence, he treated the Englishman with distant courtesy. In the face of Brock’s teasing, he gave him an occasional grudging word of moral support; but, at the table, he ignored him completely. According to the creed of Adolphe St. Jacques, a man should never allow himself to be snubbed twice by the same person. He carried his creed so far that, waitresses failing, he chose to rise and march completely around the table rather than ask for a stray pepper-pot lodged at Barth’s other hand.
By the time Barth had gone twice through the diminutive evening paper, advertisements and all, he came to the tardy conclusion that the race was not always to the swift. He knew that Brock had left the house. Hat in hand, the tall Canadian had come into the parlor for a book. The next minute, the front door had slammed, and Brock’s measured stride had passed the parlor windows. Brock gone, Barth wondered what could be keeping Nancy. Not even a healthy American appetite could linger for an hour and a half over a meal of cold beef and marmalade.
He started upon a third tour of the paper, in true British fashion beginning with the editorials, and finally losing himself in an enthusiastic account of a recent opening of fall hats. By the time he realized that he was mentally trying each of the hats upon Nancy Howard’s auburn hair, he also realized that it was time he roused himself to action. Letting the newspaper slide to the floor, he rose and walked out into the hall. From the office beyond, there came the low, continuous buzz of earnest voices. Rising on his toes, Barth peered cautiously around the corner. Then he seized his hat and stick and, stamping out of the house, banged the street door behind him. The Lady was temporarily absent. In her place, the office chair was occupied by Nancy and comfortably settled opposite to Nancy was M. Adolphe St. Jacques.
Laval had a banquet at the St. Louis, that night. It began late and ended early. From certain random words he had overheard, Barth knew that St. Jacques was not only to be present, but was to be one of the speakers. Accordingly, a personal animosity mingled with his annoyance at the sounds from next door which broke in upon his dreams. The singing was off the key; the cheering was harsh and unduly loud, and when at last God Save the King was followed by a rush into the quiet street, Barth crawled out of bed and stood shivering at the window, as the tri-colored banner and its accompanying crowd marched past his ducal residence. In his present mood, it would have been a consolation to have seen that St. Jacques was the worse for his revel. However, that consolation was denied him. In the sturdy color-bearer heading the line, he failed to recognize his table companion; the other revellers tramped along as steadily as did the soldiers going home from ch............