Part 39

"What made him go then?"

Aileen laughed out. "That's just what I'd like to know myself."

"What do you think of him?"

"Who?--Rag or Mr. Googe?"

She was always herself with Mrs. Champney, and her daring spirit of mischief rarely gave offence to the mistress of Champ-au-Haut. But by the tone of voice in which she answered, Aileen knew that, without intention, she had irritated her.

"You know perfectly well whom I mean--my nephew, Mr. Googe."

Aileen was silent for a moment. Her young secret was her own to guard from all eyes, and especially from all unfriendly ones. She was standing on the hearth, in front of Mrs. Champney. Turning her head slightly she looked up at the portrait of the man above her--looked upon almost the very lineaments of him whom at that very moment her young heart was adoring: the fine features, the blue eyes, the level brows, the firm curving lips, the abundant brown hair. It was as if Champney Googe himself were smiling down upon her. As she continued to look, the lovely light in the girl's face--a light reflected from no sunset fires over the Flamsted Hills, but from the sunrise of girlhood's first love--betrayed her to the faded watchful eyes beside her.

"He looks just like your husband;" she spoke slowly; her voice seemed to linger on the last word; "when Tave saw him he said he thought it was Mr. Champney come to life, and I think--"

Mrs. Champney interrupted her. "Octavius Buzzby is a fool." Sudden anger hardened her voice; a slight flush came into her wasted cheeks. "Tell Hannah I want my supper now, let Ann bring it in here to me. I don't need you; I'm tired."

Aileen turned without another word--she knew too well that tone of voice and what it portended; she was thankful to hear it rarely now--and left the room to do as she was bidden.

"Little fool!" Almeda Champney muttered between set teeth when the door closed upon the girl. She placed both hands on the arms of her chair to raise herself; walked feebly to the hearth where a moment before Aileen had stood, and raising her eyes to the smiling ones looking down into hers, confessed her woman's weakness in bitter words that mingled with a half-sob:

"And I, too, was a fool--all women are with such as you."

Although Mrs. Champney remained the only one who read Aileen Armagh's secret, yet even she asked herself as the summer sped if she read aright.

During the three weeks in which her nephew was making himself familiar with all the inner and outer workings of the business at The Gore and in the sheds, she came to anticipate his daily coming to Champ-au-Haut, for he brought with him the ozone of success. His laugh was so unaffectedly hearty; his interest in the future of Flamsted and of himself as a factor in its prosperity so unfeigned; his enjoyment of his own importance so infectious, his account of the people and things he had seen during his absence from home so entertaining that, in his presence, his aunt breathed a new atmosphere, the life-giving qualities of which were felt as beneficial to every member of the household at The Bow.

Mrs. Champney took note that he never asked for Aileen. If the girl were there when he ran in for afternoon tea on the terrace or an hour's chat in the evening,--sometimes it happened that the day saw him three times at Champ-au-Haut--her presence to all appearance afforded him only an opportunity to tease her goodnaturedly; he delighted in her repartee. Mrs. Champney, keenly observant, failed to detect in the girl's frank joyousness the least self-consciousness; she was just her own merry self with him, and the "give and take" between them afforded Mrs. Champney a fund of amusement.

On the evening of his departure for New York, she was witness to their merry leave-taking. Afterwards she summoned Octavius to the library.

"You may bring all the mail for the house hereafter to me, Octavius; now that I am feeling so much stronger, I shall gradually resume my customary duties in the household. You need not give any of the mail to Aileen to distribute--I'll do it after to-night."

"What the devil is she up to now!" Octavius said to himself as he left the room.

But no letter from New York came for Aileen. Mrs. Champney tried another tack: the next time her nephew came to Flamsted, later on in the autumn, she asked him to write her in detail concerning his intimacy with her cousins, the Van Ostends, and of their courtesies to him. Champney, nothing loath--always keeping in mind the fact that it was well to keep on the right side of Aunt Meda--wrote her all she desired to know. What he wrote was retailed faithfully to Aileen; but the frequent dinners at the Van Ostends', and the prospective coming-out reception and ball to be given for Alice and scheduled for the late winter, called forth from the eagerly listening girl only ejaculations of delight and pleasant reminiscence of the first time she had seen the little girl dressed for a party. If, inwardly she asked herself the question why Alice Van Ostend had dropped all her childish interest in her whom she had been the means of sending to Flamsted, why she no longer inquired for her, her common sense was apt to answer the question satisfactorily. Aileen Armagh was keen-eyed and quick-witted, possessing, without actual experience in the so-called other world of society, a wonderful intuition as to the relative value of people and circumstances in this ordinary world which already, during her short life, had presented various interesting phases for her inspection; consequently she recognized the abyss of circumstance between her and the heiress of Henry Van Ostend. But, with an intensity proportioned to her open-minded recognition of the first material differences, her innate womanliness and pride refused to acknowledge any abyss as to their respective personalities. Hence she kept silence in regard to certain things; laughed and made merry over the letters filled with the Van Ostends' doings--and held on her own way, sure of her own status with herself.

Aileen kept her secret, and all the more closely because she was realizing that Champney Googe was far from indifferent to her. At first, the knowledge of the miracle of love, that was wrought so suddenly as she thought, sufficed to fill her heart with continual joy. But, shortly, that was modified by the awakening longing that Champney should return her love. She felt she charmed him; she knew that he timed his coming and going that he might encounter her in the house or about the grounds, whenever and wherever he could--sometimes alone in her boat on the long arm of the lake, that makes up to the west and is known as "lily-pad reach"; and afterwards, during the autumn, in the quarry woods above The Gore where with her satellites, Dulcie and Doosie Caukins, she went to pick checkerberries.

Mrs. Champney was baffled; she determined to await developments, taking refuge from her defeat in the old saying "Love and a cough can't be hidden." Still, she could but wonder when four months of the late spring and early summer passed, and Champney made no further appearance in Flamsted. This hiatus was noticeable, and she would have found it inexplicable, had not Mr. Van Ostend written her a letter which satisfied her in regard to many things of which she had previously been in doubt; it decided her once for all to speak to Aileen and warn her against any passing infatuation for her nephew. For this she determined to bide her time, especially as Champney's unusual length of absence from Flamsted seemed to have no effect on the girl's joyous spirits. In July, however, she had again an opportunity to see the two together at Champ-au-Haut. Champney was in Flamsted on business for two days only, and so far as she knew there was no opportunity for Aileen to see her nephew more than once and in her presence. She managed matters in such a way that Aileen's services were in continual demand during Champney's two days' stay in his native town.

But after that visit in July, the singing voice was heard ringing joyfully at all times of the day in the house and about the grounds of The Bow. Sometimes the breeze brought it to Octavius from across the lake waters--Luigi's was no longer with it--and he pitied the girl sincerely because the desire of her heart, the cultivation of such a voice, was denied her. Mrs. Champney, also, heard the clear voice, which, in this the girl's twentieth year, was increasing in volume and sweetness, carolling the many songs in Irish, English, French and Italian. She marvelled at the light-heartedness and, at the same time, wondered if, now that Romanzo Caukins could no longer hope, Aileen would show enough common sense to accept Luigi Poggi in due time, and through him make for herself an established place in Flamsted. Not that she was yet ready to part with her--far from it. She was too useful a member of the Champ-au-Haut household. Still, if it were to be Poggi in the end, she felt she could control matters to the benefit of all concerned, herself primarily. She was pleasing herself with the idea of such prospective control of Aileen's matrimonial interests one afternoon, just after Champney's flying visit in July, when she rose from her chair beneath the awning and, to try her strength, made her way slowly along the terrace to the library windows; they were French casements and one of them had swung outwards noiselessly in the breeze. She was about to step through, when she saw Aileen standing on the hearth before the portrait of Louis Champney. She was gazing up at it, her face illumined by the same lovely light that, a year before, had betrayed her secret to the faded but observant eyes of Louis Champney's widow.

This was enough; the mistress of Champ-au-Haut was again on her guard--and well she might be, for Aileen Armagh was in possession of the knowledge that Champney Googe loved her. In joyful anticipation she was waiting for the word which, spoken by him when he should be again in Flamsted, was to make her future both fair and blest.

In entering on his business life in New York, Champney Googe, like many another man, failed to take into account the "minus quantities" in his personal equation. These he possessed in common with other men because he, too, was human: passions in common, ambitions in common, weaknesses in common, and last, but not least, the pursuance of a common end--the accumulation of riches.

The sum of these minus quantities added to the total of temperamental characteristics and inherited traits left, unfortunately, in balancing the personal equation a minus quantity. Not that he had any realization of such a result--what man has? On the contrary, he firmly believed that his inherited obstinate perseverance, his buoyant temperament, his fortunate business connection with the great financier, his position as the meeting-point of the hitherto divided family interests in Flamsted, his intimacy with the Van Ostends--the distant tie of blood confirming this at all points--plus his college education and cosmopolitan business training in the financial capitals of Europe, were potent factors in finding the value of x--this representing to him an, as yet, unknown quantity of accumulated wealth.

He had not yet asked himself how large a sum he wished to amass, but he said to himself almost daily, "I have shown my power along certain lines to-day," these lines converging in his consciousness always to monetary increment.

He worked with a will. His energy was tireless. He learned constantly and much from other men powerful in the world of affairs--of their methods of speculation, some legitimate, others quite the contrary; of their manipulation of stocks, weak and strong; of their strengthening the market when the strengthening was necessary to fill a threatened deficit in their treasury and of their weakening a line of investment to prevent over-loading and consequent depletion of the same. He was thoroughly interested in all he heard and saw of the development of mines and industries for the benefit of certain banking cliques and land syndicates. If now and then a mine proved to have no bottom and the small investor's insignificant sums dropped out of sight in this bottomless pit, that did not concern him--it was all in the game, and the game was an enticing one to be played to the end. The two facts that nothing is certain at all times, and that everything is uncertain at some time, added the excitement of chance to his business interest.

At times, for instance when walking up the Avenue on a bracing October day, he felt as if he owned all in sight--a condition of mind which those who know from experience the powerful electro-magnetic current generated by the rushing life of the New York metropolis can well understand. He struck out into the stream with the rest, and with overweening confidence in himself--in himself as master of circumstances which he intended to control in his own interests, in himself as the pivotal point of Flamsted affairs. The rapidity of the current acted as a continual stimulus to exertion. Like all bold swimmers, he knew in a general way that the channel might prove tortuous, the current threaten at times to overpower him; but, carried rapidly out into mid-stream with that gigantic propulsive force that is the resultant of the diverse onward-pressure of the metropolitan millions, he suddenly found himself one day in that mid-stream without its ever having occurred to him that he might not be able to breast it. Even had he thought enough about the matter to admit that certain untoward conditions might have to be met, he would have failed to realize that the shore towards which he was struggling might prove in the end a quicksand.