"Oh, how do you do? Good-evening. Happy to see you. Pleasant, to-night. Walk in. Ye-as!"
This was the monosyllable with which he finished every sentence, and was the affirmation to the thought in his mind that he, too, would some day go down those stairs and into those parlors as a guest, while some other boy in the upper hall bade the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that.
It was after nine when Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire arrived, with Squire Harrington, from Collingwood. Harold had been looking for them, anxious to see the crimson satin trimmed with ermine of which Dick had told him. Many of the guests he had mentally criticised unsparingly, but Mrs. St. Clair, he knew, was genuine, and his face beamed when in passing him she smiled upon him with her sweet, gracious manner, and said, pleasantly:
"Good-evening, Harold. I knew you were to be here. Dick told me, and he wanted to come and help you, but I thought he'd better stay home with Nina."
Up to this time no one had spoken to Harold, and he had spoken to no one except to tell them where to go, but had, as far as possible, followed Mrs. Tracy's injunction to be a machine. But the machine was getting a little tired. It was hard work to stand for two hours or more, and Mrs. Tracy had impressed it upon him that he was not to sit down. But when Mrs. St. Claire came from the dressing-room and stood before him a moment, he forgot his weariness, and forgot that he was not to talk, and said to her, involuntarily:
"Oh, Mrs. St. Claire, how handsome you look! Handsomer than anybody yet, and different, too, somehow."
Edith knew the compliment was genuine, and she replied:
"Thank you, Harold;" then, laying her hand on his head and parting his soft, brown hair, she said, as she noticed a look of fatigue in his eyes, "Are you not tired, standing so long? Why don't you bring a chair from one of the rooms and sit when you can?"
"She told me to stand," Harold replied, nodding toward the parlors, from which a strain of music just then issued.
The dancing had commenced, and Harold's feet and hands beat time to the lively strains of the piano and violin, until he could contain himself no longer. The dancing he must see at all hazards, and know what it was like, and when the last guests came up the stairs, there was no hall boy there to tell them, "Ladies this way and gentlemen that," for Harold was in the thickest of the crowd, standing on a chair so as to look over the heads of those in front of him, and see the dancers. But, alas for poor Harold! He was soon discovered by Mrs. Tracy, who, asking him if he did not know his place better than that, ordered him back to his post, where he was told to stay until the party was over.
Wholly unconscious of the nature of his offense, but very sorry that he had offended, Harold went up the stairs, wondering why he could not see the dancing, and how long the party would last. His head was beginning to ache with the glare and gas; his little legs were tired, and he was growing sleepy. Surely he might sit down now, particularly as Mrs. St. Claire had suggested it, and bringing a chair from one of the rooms he sat down in a corner of the hall, and was soon in a sound sleep, from which he was roused by the sound of Mr. Tracy's voice, as he came up the stairs, followed by a tall, distinguished-looking man, who wore a Spanish cloak wrapped gracefully around him, and a large, broad-brimmed hat drawn down so closely as to hide his features from view.
As he reached the upper landing he raised his head, and Harold, who was now wide awake and standing up, caught a glimpse of a thin, pale face, and a pair of keen, black eyes, which seemed for an instant to take everything in; then the head was dropped, and the two men disappeared in a room at the far end of the hall.
"I'll bet that's Mr. Arthur. How grand he is! looks just like a pirate in that cloak and hat," was Harold's mental comment.
Before he had time for further thought, Frank Tracy came from the room, and hurried down the stairs to rejoin his guests.
Five minutes later and the door at the end of the long hall which communicated with the back staircase and the rear of the house, opened, and a man whom Harold recognized as the expressman from the station appeared with a huge trunk on his shoulder, and a large valise in his hand. These he deposited in the stranger's room, and then went back for more, until four had been carried in. But when he came with the fifth and largest of all, a hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was thrust from the door-way with an imperative gesture, and a voice with a decided foreign accent exclaimed:
"For Heaven's sake, don't bring any more boxes in here. Why, I am positively stumbling over them now. Surely there must be some place in the house for my luggage, besides my private apartment."
Then the door was shut with a bang, and Harold heard the sliding of the bolt as Arthur Tracy fastened himself into his room.
CHAPTER VIII.
ARTHUR.
ALL the time that Frank Tracy had been receiving his guests and trying to seem happy and at his ease, his thoughts had been dwelling upon his brother's telegram and the ominous words, "Send some one to meet us." How slowly the minutes dragged until it was ten o'clock, and he knew that John had started for the station to meet the dreaded "us." He had told everybody that he was expecting his brother, and had tried to seem glad on account of it.
"You and he were great friends, I believe," he said to Squire Harrington.
"Yes, we were friends," the latter replied; "but when he lived here my health was such that I did not mingle much in society. I met him, however, in Paris five years ago, and found him very companionable and quite Europeanized in his manner and tastes. He spoke French or German altogether, and might easily have passed for a foreigner. I shall be glad to see him."
"And so shall I," chimed in Peterkin, whose voice was like a trumpet and could be heard everywhere. "A fust-rate chap, though we didn't used to hitch very well together. He was all-fired big-feelin', and them days Peterkin was nowhere; but circumstances alter cases. He'll be glad to see me now, no doubt;" and with a most satisfied air the millionaire put his hand, as if by accident, on his immense diamond pin, and pulling down his swallow-tail, walked away.
Frank saw the faint smile of contempt which showed itself in Squire Harrington's face, and his own grew red with shame, but paled almost instantly as the outer door was opened by some one who did not seem to think it necessary to ring; and a stranger, in Spanish cloak and broad-brimmed hat, stepped into the hall.
Arthur had come, and was alone. The train had been on time, and at just half-past ten the long line of cars stopped before the Shannondale station, where John, the coachman from Tracy Park, was waiting. The night was dark, but by the light from the engine and the office John saw the foreign-looking stranger, who sprang upon the platform, and felt sure it was his man. But there was no one with him, though it seemed as if he were expecting some one to follow him from the car, for he stood for a moment waiting. Then, as the train moved on, he turned with a puzzled look upon his face to meet John, who said to him respectfully:
"Are you Mr. Arthur Tracy?"
"Yes; who are you?" was the response.
"Mr. Frank Tracy sent me from the park to fetch you," John replied. "I think he expected some one with you. Are you alone?"
"Yes—no, no!" and Arthur's voice indicated growing alarm and uneasiness as he looked around him. "Where is she? Didn't you see her? She was with me all the way. Surely she got off when I did. Where can she have gone?"
He was greatly excited, and kept peering through the darkness as he talked; while John, a good deal puzzled, looked curiously at him, as if uncertain whether he were in his right mind or not.
"Was there some one with you in the car?" he asked.
"Yes, in the car, and in New York, and on the ship. She was with me all the way," Mr. Tracy replied. "It is strange where she is now.