第30章

"You a farmer!" exclaimed Larry.

"A gentleman farmer," corrected Dick. "The difference between a farmer and a gentleman farmer, Captain Nemo, is that a gentleman farmer makes no profit on his crops. Now my friends say I'm losing an awful lot of money and am sowing an awfully big crop. And according to them, instead of practicing sensible crop rotation, I'm a foolish one-crop farmer--and my one crop is wild oats."

"I see," said Larry.

"Of course I do do a little something else on the side. Avocation. I'm in the brokerage business. But my chief business is looking after the Sherwood interests. You see, my mother--father died ten years before she did--my mother, being dotty about the innate superiority of the male, left me in control of practically everything, and I do as well by it as the more important occupation of farming will permit. Which completes the racy history of myself."

"I'm sorry I can't reciprocate."

"That's all right, Captain Nemo. There's plenty of time--and it doesn't make any difference, anyhow." For all his light manner and careless chatter, Larry had a sense that Dick had been sizing him up all this while; that, in fact, to do this was the real purpose of the present call. Dick slipped to his feet. "If you're just now a bit shy on duds, as I understand you are, why, we're about the same size. Tell Judkins what you want, and make him give you plenty. What time you got?"

"Just ten o'clock."

"By heck--time a farmer was pulling on his overalls and going forth to his dew-gemmed toil!"

"And time for me to be seeing your sister," said Larry, rising.

"Come on. I'm a good seneschal, or major domo, or what you like--and I'll usher you into her highness's presence."

A moment later Larry was pushed through the library door and Dick announced in solemn tone:

"Senorita--Mademoiselle--our serene, revered, and most high sister Isabel, permit us to present our newest and most charming friend, Captain Nemo."

"Dick," exclaimed Miss Sherwood, "get out of here and get yourself into some clothes!"

"Listen to that!" complained Dick. "She still talks to me as though I were her small brother. Next thing she'll be ordering me to wash behind my ears!"

"Get out, and shut the door after you!"

The reply was Dick's stately exit and the sharp closing of the door.

"Has Dick been talking to you about himself?" asked Miss Sherwood.

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

Larry gave the substance of the autobiography which Dick had volunteered.

"Part of that is more than the truth, part less than the truth," Miss Sherwood remarked. "But this morning we were to have a real talk about your affairs, and let's get to the subject."

She had motioned him to a chair beside the quaint old desk, and they were now sitting face to face. Isabel Sherwood looked as much the finished patrician as on the evening before, and with that easy, whimsical humor and the direct manner of the person who is sure of herself; and in the sober, disillusioning daylight she had no less of beauty than had seemed hers in the softer lighting of their first meeting. The clear, fresh face with its violet-blue eyes was gazing at him intently. Larry realized that she was looking into the very soul of him, and he sat silent during this estimate which he recognized she had the right to make.

"Mr. Hunt has written me the main facts about you, certainly the worst," she said finally. "You need tell me nothing further, if you prefer not to do so; but it might be helpful if I knew more of the details."

Larry felt that there was no information he was not willing to give this clear-eyed, charming woman; and so he told her all that had happened since his return from Sing Sing, including his falling in love with Maggie, the nature of their conflict, her departure into the ways of her ambition.

"You are certainly facing a lot of difficult propositions." Miss Sherwood checked them off on her fingers. "The police are after you--your old friends are after you--you do not dare be caught. You want to clear yourself--you want to make a business success--you want to eradicate Maggie's present ambitions and remove her from her present influences."

"That is the correct total," said Larry.

"Certainly a large total! Of them all, which is the most important item?"

Larry considered. "Maggie," he confessed. "But Maggie really includes all the others. To have any influence with her, I must get out of the power of the police, I must overcome her belief that I am a stool and a squealer, and I must prove to her that I can make a success by going straight."

"Just so. And all these things you must do while a fugitive in hiding."

"Exactly. Or else not do them."

"H'm! . . . The most pressing thing, I judge, is to have a safe and permanent place to hide, and to have work which may lead to an opportunity to prove yourself a success."

"Yes."

"Mr. Hunt's O.K. on you would be sufficient, in any event, and he has given that O.K.," Miss Sherwood said in her even voice. "Besides, my own judgment prompts me to believe in your truth and your sincerity. I have been thinking the matter over since I saw you last night. I therefore ask you to remain here, never leaving the apartment--"

"Miss Sherwood!" he ejaculated.