Elnora caught a brush from the table and began softly stroking the creature's sides and wings. Delighted with the sensation the butterfly opened and closed its wings, clinging to Polly's soft little fingers, while every one cried out in surprise. Elnora laid aside the brush, and the butterfly sailed away.
“Why, you are a wizard! You charm them!” marvelled Levering.
“I learned that from the Bird Woman,” said Elnora. “She takes soft brushes and coaxes butterflies and moths into the positions she wants for the illustrations of a book she is writing. I have helped her often. Most of the rare ones I find go to her.”
“Then you don't keep all you take?” questioned Levering.
“Oh, dear, no!” cried Elnora. “Not a tenth! For myself, a pair of each kind to use in illustrating the lectures I give in the city schools in the winter, and one pair for each collection I make. One might as well keep the big night moths of June, for they only live four or five days anyway. For the Bird Woman, I only save rare ones she has not yet secured. Sometimes I think it is cruel to take such creatures from freedom, even for an hour, but it is the only way to teach the masses of people how to distinguish the pests they should destroy, from the harmless ones of great beauty. Here comes mother with something cool to drink.”
Mrs. Comstock came deliberately, talking to Philip as she approached. Elnora gave her one searching look, but could discover only an extreme brightness of eye to denote any unusual feeling. She wore one of her lavender dresses, while her snowy hair was high piled. She had taken care of her complexion, and her face had grown fuller during the winter. She might have been any one's mother with pride, and she was perfectly at ease.
Polly instantly went to her and held up her face to be kissed. Mrs. Comstock's eyes twinkled and she made the greeting hearty.
The drink was compounded of the juices of oranges and berries from the garden. It was cool enough to frost glasses and pitcher and delicious to dusty tired travellers. Soon the pitcher was empty, and Elnora picked it up and went to refill it. While she was gone Henderson asked Philip about some trouble he was having with his car. They went to the woods and began a minute examination to find a defect which did not exist. Polly and Levering were having an animated conversation with Mrs. Comstock. Henderson saw Edith arise, follow the garden path next the woods and stand waiting under the willow which Elnora would pass on her return. It was for that meeting he had made the trip. He got down on the ground, tore up the car, worked, asked for help, and kept Philip busy screwing bolts and applying the oil can. All the time Henderson kept an eye on Edith and Elnora under the willow. But he took pains to lay the work he asked Philip to do where that scene would be out of his sight. When Elnora came around the corner with the pitcher, she found herself facing Edith Carr.
“I want a minute with you,” said Miss Carr.
“Very well,” replied Elnora, walking on.
“Set the pitcher on the bench there,” commanded Edith Carr, as if speaking to a servant.
“I prefer not to offer my visitors a warm drink,” said Elnora. “I'll come back if you really wish to speak with me.”
“I came solely for that,” said Edith Carr.
“It would be a pity to travel so far in this dust and heat for nothing. I'll only be gone a second.”
Elnora placed the pitcher before her mother. “Please serve this,” she said. “Miss Carr wishes to speak with me.”
“Don't you pay the least attention to anything she says,” cried Polly. “Tom and I didn't come here because we wanted to. We only came to checkmate her. I hoped I'd get the opportunity to say a word to you, and now she has given it to me. I just want to tell you that she threw Phil over in perfectly horrid way. She hasn't any right to lay the ghost of a claim to him, has she, Tom?”
“Nary a claim,” said Tom Levering earnestly. “Why, even you, Polly, couldn't serve me as she did Phil, and ever get me back again. If I were you, Miss Comstock, I'd send my mother to talk with her and I'd stay here.”
Tom had gauged Mrs. Comstock rightly. Polly put her arms around Elnora. “Let me go with you, dear,” she begged.
“I promised I would speak with her alone,” said Elnora, “and she must be considered. But thank you, very much.”
“How I shall love you!” exulted Polly, giving Elnora a parting hug.
The girl slowly and gravely walked back to the willow. She could not imagine what was coming, but she was promising herself that she would be very patient and control her temper.
“Will you be seated?” she asked politely.
Edith Carr glanced at the bench, while a shudder shook her.
“No. I prefer to stand,” she said. “Did Mr. Ammon give you the ring you are wearing, and do you consider yourself engaged to him?”
“By what right do you ask such personal questions as those?” inquired Elnora.
“By the right of a betrothed wife. I have been promised to Philip Ammon ever since I wore short skirts. All our lives we have expected to marry. An agreement of years cannot be broken in one insane moment. Always he has loved me devotedly. Give me ten minutes with him and he will be mine for all time.”
“I seriously doubt that,” said Elnora. “But I am willing that you should make the test. I will call him.”
“Stop!” commanded Edith Carr. “I told you that it was you I came to see.”
“I remember,” said Elnora.
“Mr. Ammon is my betrothed,” continued Edith Carr. “I expect to take him back to Chicago with me.”
“You expect considerable,” murmured Elnora. “I will raise no objection to your taking him, if you can—but, I tell you frankly, I don't think it possible.”
“You are so sure of yourself as that,” scoffed Edith Carr. “One hour in my presence will bring back the old spell, full force. We belong to each other. I will not give him up.”
“Then it is untrue that you twice rejected his ring, repeatedly insulted him, and publicly renounced him?”
“That was through you!” cried Edith Carr. “Phil and I never had been so near and so happy as we were on that night. It was your clinging to him for things that caused him to desert me among his guests, while he tried to make me await your pleasure. I realize the spell of this place, for a summer season. I understand what you and your mother have done to inveigle him. I know that your hold on him is quite real. I can see just how you have worked to ensnare him!”
“Men would call that lying,” said Elnora calmly. “The second time I met Philip Ammon he told me of his engagement to you, and I respected it. I did by you as I would want you to do by me. He was here parts of each day, almost daily last summer. The Almighty is my witness that never once, by word or look, did I ever make the slightest attempt to interest him in my person or personality. He wrote you frequently in my presence. He forgot the violets for which he asked to send you. I gathered them and carried them to him. I sent him back to you in unswerving devotion, and the Almighty is also my witness that I could have changed his heart last summer, if I had tried. I wisely left that work for you. All my life I shall be glad that I lived and worked on the square. That he ever would come back to me free, by your act, I never dreamed. When he left me I did not hope or expect to see him again,” Elnora's voice fell soft and low, “and, behold! You sent him—and free!”
“You exult in that!” cried Edith Carr. “Let me tell you he is not free! We have belonged for years. We always shall. If you cling to him, and hold him to rash things he has said and done, because he thought me still angry and unforgiving with him, you will ruin all our lives. If he married you, before a month you would read heart-hunger for me in his eyes. He could not love me as he has