“Why don’t you insist,” she demanded, “on Curtis Sinclair making a clean breast of it? You have a right to know.”
“One thing I’m certain of,” said Philip, “is that I don’t want to know more than I already know.”
“How much do you know?” she shot at him.
He was not to be taken off guard. “I am lending my house,” he said, “as a meeting place. That’s the sum total of it.”
“You’re maddening,” she cried. “I won’t be treated so! Am I to carry refreshments to these rough men and never be told why they are here?”
“Ask Lucy Sinclair,” he said. “She must know.”
“I have asked her. She tells me that she has sworn by all she holds sacred to divulge nothing.”
“You sound very theatrical,” said Philip.
Bareheaded she travelled the narrow path to Wilmott’s cottage. It was now August. Summer was past its most burning sun. Full-blown white clouds appeared from nowhere and cast their shadows on the green land. Sometimes the clouds darkened and sent down a shower. This had happened early that morning, so the path was now soggy wet under Adeline’s feet. Burrs caught on her long skirt and hung there.
The path lay close beside the river for a short distance before it discovered Wilmott’s small cottage. The river was the grey of a pigeon’s breast, though now and again when the sun pushed the clouds aside the gentle greyness blazed into gentian blue. At one of these moments Adeline stood on the river’s bank, lost in admiration of its blueness. But even while she admired, the canopy of cloud moved inexorably over the scene, not with the effect of gloom but rather as though in placid acceptance of the coming of fall. Those rushes called “cat tails” grew in a clump at the river’s edge. Adeline thought she would ask Tite to gather some of them for her. There was a certain tall Chinese vase in the drawing-room at home in which they would be as pretty as a picture.
Now she saw on the river the flat-bottomed boat belonging to Wilmott, its oars gently moving in the silent water. In the boat were Tite and the mulatto girl, Annabelle. She lounged in the stern trailing one hand in the water. “Like a lady of leisure,” thought Adeline.
She called out, “I see you two! And I warn you, Tite Sharrow, to be careful what you’re up to.”
Tite lifted the oars, from which a delicate rain of clear drops slid back into the river. He called, in his soft voice, “I’m only taking Annabelle for a little boat ride. She’d never been in a boat.”
“Does your mistress know you’re doing this, Belle?” called out Adeline.
The girl burst out laughing. “Ah’ll tell her, Miss Whiteoak. Don’ you worry. Ah’ll tell her.”
As Adeline stood there she felt the moisture from the wet earth rise between her toes. Her shoes were sodden wet. She did not mind. In curiosity her eyes followed the boat as it moved mysteriously up the river between the misty green banks. The half-breed and the mulatto. What was between them? She must warn Lucy Sinclair and James Wilmott of the danger to Annabelle. Yet how boldly Annabelle had spoken — and shown all her white teeth in laughter! Doubtless she was a hussy.
Adeline herself was laughing as she followed the path to Wilmott’s open door. She could glimpse him sitting at a table writing. He looked serene, absorbed in what he was doing. Yet he heard her laugh and raised his head. The sight of her, the sound of her laughter, made his pulse quicken.
“Good morning to you,” she said.
He sprang to his feet. “Mrs. Whiteoak,” he exclaimed.
“Am I not Adeline — James?”
“I try not to call you that,” he said, “or to think of you as that.”
“Yet,” she smiled, “I don’t feel in the least guilty when I think of you as James or call you James.”
“It’s different.”
“But why different?”
“I belong to no one.”
She considered this. Then — “I refuse to belong so completely to anyone that I cannot call a friend by his Christian name — especially such a solemn sweet name as James.” She came into the room.
“Dear James,” she said, “forgive me if I have interrupted your study. What is the book?”
“I have a habit,” he said, “of copying into this notebook extracts from what I have read — bits that have particularly impressed me.”
“How fascinating!” she cried. “May I see?” She bent over the page.
Wilmott tried not to look at her milk-white nape. No man could be expected to look at it and not desire to touch it. Adeline read, “‘The uttered part of a man’s life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small unknown proportion. He himself never knows it, much less do others.’”
“Thomas Carlyle,” said Wilmott.
Adeline raised her head to give him an admiring look. “How clever you are!” she breathed.
“Do you agree with Carlyle?” Wilmott asked.
“It’s quite beyond me.” She spoke humbly. “But if you agree, I do also, James.”
He gave an ironic chuckle. “That’s news to me,” he said.
Folding her arms across her chest she said, in the voice of a conspirator, “Things are coming to a head, James. Our plans are laid for a brilliant coup.”
Wilmott closed the door into the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about Tite,” she laughed. “He’s up the river with Annabelle.”
“That young woman,” said Wilmott, “has a good influence on Tite. He used to be something of a cynic in his superficial way. But now he studies the Scriptures. When they are together they speak only of religion, he tells me. In short, I think he has done some soul searching.”
“My dear James,” said Adeline. “You are so credulous.”
“Credulous!” He was affronted.
“What I mean is, it’s a good thing you have me to protect you.” She took a turn about the room, her mind brimming with the plans afoot. So eager she was that the Sinclairs had confided all to her.
“As for protecting,” said Wilmott, “I think it is you who need protection.”
“Oh, I am enjoying myself,” she said gaily. “I thrive on excitement. James, do you never get carried away by your feelings?”
“I’m afraid I do.”
“Ah, I should like to see that.”
“Adeline,” he said almost harshly, “don’t tempt me.”
He went to the open door and looked out at the placid misty scene. He saw two men coming along the path from the road. They were tall, angular, purposeful men who asked abruptly, “Just where are we, mister? We’ve lost our way.”
Wilmott directed them to the next village but they lingered, as though in curiosity.
“More of your friends from the South,” Wilmott said to Adeline.
“No friends of mine. They’re Yankees by their accent. They’re here to spy on us. I must warn Mr. Sinclair of this. I will interview them myself.” But when she went out they had disappeared. The wood, the lonely road had swallowed them. In spite of himself Wilmott felt perturbed. He accompanied Adeline a part of the way home. Nero, who had been occupied at the river’s edge, had taken no notice of the men.
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