Nobody

FRAUD

At Gosnold House that day, in an airy dining-room from which sunlight was jealously excluded by Venetian blinds at every long, wide window, creating an oasis of cool twilight in the arid heart of day, ten persons sat at luncheon-a meal of few and simple courses, but admirably ordered and served upon a clothless expanse of dark mahogany, relieved at each place by little squares of lace and fine linen, and in the center by a great, brazen bowl of vivid roses.

In this strange atmosphere the outsider maintained a covertly watchful silence (which, if rarely interrupted, was altogether of her own election) and was happily guiltless of any positive fault; long proscription to the social hinterland of dingy boarding-houses, smug quick-lunch rooms, and casual studio feeding had not affected her nice feeling for the sensible thing at table. She possessed, furthermore, in full measure that amazing adaptability which seems to be innate with most American women of any walk in life; whatever she might lack to her detriment or embarrassment she was quick to mark, learn, assimilate, and make as much her own as if she had never been without it.

And then-for in spite of reassurances persistently iterated by Mrs. Standish, the news from New York troubled her profoundly-preoccupation largely counteracted self-consciousness through those first few dreaded moments of Sally's modest social debut.

The men on either side of her she found severally, if quite amiably, agreeable to indulge her reticence. Savage, for one, was secretly, she guessed, quite as much disconcerted by the reported contretemps in town; but he dissembled well, with a show of whimsical exasperation because of this emergency that tore him so soon away from both Gosnold House and his other neighbour at table, a Mrs. Artemas-a spirited, mercurial creature, not over-handsome of face, but wonderfully smart in dress and gesture, superbly stayed and well aware of it; a dark, fine woman who recognised the rivalry latent in Sally's dark looks without dismay-as Sally conceded she might well.

On her other hand sat a handsome, well-bred boy of eighteen or so, one of the tennis four, answering to the name of Bob-evidently a cheerful soul, but at ease in the persuasion that comparative children should be seen and so forth. His partner of the courts sat next him-name, Babs-a frank-eyed, wholesome girl, perhaps a year his senior. Their surnames did not transpire, but they impressed Sally, and correctly, as unrelated save in community of unsentimental interests. The other players were not present.

Aside from these, the faces strange to her were those of a Miss Pride and Messrs. Lyttleton and Trego.

The last-named impressed her as a trifle ill at ease, possibly because of the blandishments of Mrs. Artemas, who had openly singled him out to be her special prey, and discovered an attitude of proprietorship to which he could not be said to respond with the ardour of a passionate, impulsive nature. A youngish man, with a heavy body, a bit ungainly in carriage, Mr. Trego had a square-jawed face with heavy-lidded, tranquil eyes. When circumstances demanded, he seemed capable of expressing himself simply and to the point, with a sure-footed if crushing wit. In white flannels his broad-shouldered bulk dwarfed the other men to insignificance.

Mr. Lyttleton-assigned to entertain his hostess, and (or Mrs. Gosnold flattered him) scoring heavily in that office-was as slenderly elegant and extreme a gallant as one may hope to encounter between magazine covers. He had an indisputable air, a way with him, the eye of a killer; if he perhaps fancied himself a trace too fervently, something subtle in his bearing toward Mrs. Standish fostered the suspicion that he was almost fearfully sensible of the charms of that lady.

Miss Pride, on Mrs. Gosnold's other hand, was a wiry roan virgin who talked too much but seldom stupidly, exhibited a powerful virtuosity in strange gestures, and pointedly designated herself as a "spin" (diminutive for spinster) apparently deriving from this conceit an amusement esoteric to her audience. Similarly, she indulged a mettlesome fancy for referring to her hostess as "dear Abigail." Her own maiden name was eventually disclosed as Mercedes-pronounced, by request, Mar-say-daze.

From her alone Sally was conscious at the very outset of their acquaintance of a certain frigidity-as one may who approaches an open window in the winter unawares. And it was some time before she discovered that Miss Pride accounted her a rival, thanks to a cherished delusion, wholly of independent inspiration, that dear Abigail was a forlorn widow-woman in sore want of some thoroughly unselfish friend-somebody whose devotion could not possibly be thought mercenary-somebody very much like Mercedes Pride, Spin.

The table talk was so much concerned with the sensation of the hour, the burglary, that Sally grew quickly indifferent to the topic, and thus was able to appreciate Savage's mental dexterity in discussing it with apparent candour, but without once verging upon any statement or admission that might count against the interests of his sister. He seemed wholly unconstrained, but the truth was not in him. Or, if it were, it was in on a life sentence.

The consensus pronounced Mrs. Standish a very fortunate woman to be so thoroughly protected by insurance, and this the lucky victim indorsed with outspoken complacence, even to the extent of a semiserious admission that she almost hoped the police would fail to recover the plunder. For while many items of the stolen property, of course, were priceless, things not to be duplicated, things (with a pensive sigh) inexpressibly endeared to one through associations, she couldn't deny (more brightly again) it would be rather a lark to get all that money and go shopping to replenish her treasure-chests from the most famous jewellers of the three capitals.

This aspect of the case made Mrs. Artemas frankly envious. "How perfectly ripping!" she declared. "I'm almost tempted to hire a burglar of my own!"

"And then," Lyttleton observed profoundly, "if one isn't in too great a hurry-there's no telling-one may run across the lost things in odd corners and buy them back for a song or so. Anne Warridge did, when they looted her Southampton place, some time ago. Remember the year 'motor-car pirates' terrorized Long Island? Well, long after everything was settled and the insurance people had paid up, Anne unearthed several of her best pieces in the shops of bogus Parisian antiquaries, and bought them back at bargain rates."

"It sounds like a sin to me," Savage commented.

"But I call you all to witness that, if anything like that happens in this family, I hereby declare in on the profits. It's worth something, this trip to town-and nobody sorry to see me go!"

After luncheon the party dispersed without formality. Mrs. Artemas vanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see him off; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappeared forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego was snapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally being elected to fourth place as one whose defective education must be promptly remedied, lest the roof fall in.

She found it very pleasant, playing on a breeze-fanned veranda that overlooked the terrace and harbour, and proved a tolerably apt pupil. A very little practice evoked helpful memories of whist-lore that she had thought completely atrophied by long disuse, and she was aided besides by a strong infusion in her mentality of that mysterious faculty we call card-sense. Before the end of the second rubber she was playing a game that won the outspoken approval of Trego and Mrs. Gosnold, and certainly compared well with Miss Pride's, in spite of the undying infatuation for auction professed by dear Abigail's one true friend.

It was noteworthy that dear Abigail seemed to have no interests of any character that were not passionately indorsed by her faithful Mercedes.

Pondering this matter, Sally found time to wonder that Mercedes had not been deemed a sufficiently vigilant protector for the poor rich widow; it was her notion that Mercedes missed few bets.

A circumstance which Sally herself had overlooked turned out to be the tacit understanding on which the game had been made up; and when, at the conclusion of the third rubber, Mr. Trego summed up the score, then calmly presented her with a twenty-dollar bill and some loose silver-Mercedes with stoic countenance performing the same painful operation on her own purse in favour of dear Abigail-the girl was overcome with consternation.

"But-no!" she protested, and blushed. "We weren't playing for money, surely!"

"Of course we were!" Miss Pride snapped, with the more spirit since Sally's stupidity supplied an unexpected outlet. "I never could see the amusement in playing cards without a trifling stake-though I always do say five cents a point is too much for a friendly game."

"It's our custom," Mrs. Gosnold smiled serenely. "You haven't conscientious scruples about playing for money, I hope?"

"Oh, no; but" – Sally couldn't, simply couldn't confess her penniless condition before Miss Pride and Mr. Trego-"but I didn't understand."

"That's all right," Trego insisted. "You won it fairly, and it wasn't all beginners' luck, either. It was good playing; some of your inferences were as sound as any I ever noticed."

"It really doesn't seem right," Sally demurred.

None the less she could not well refuse the money.

"I must have my revenge!" Miss Pride announced briskly, that expression being sanctioned by convention. "To-night, dear Abigail? Or would you like another rubber now?"

Mrs. Gosnold shook her head and laughed. "No, thank you; I've had enough for one afternoon, and I'm sleepy besides." She thrust back her chair and rose. "If you haven't tried the view from the terrace, Miss Manwaring, I'm sure you'll find it worth while. And let your ill-gotten gains rest lightly on your conscience; put them in the war-chest against the rainy day that's sure to dawn for even the best players. I myself play a rather conservative game, you'll find, but there are times when for days on end I can't seem to get a hand much better than a yarborough."

"Do you," Sally faltered, timidly appreciating the impertinence, "do you lose very much?"

"I? No fear!" Mrs. Gosnold laughed again. "It amuses me to keep a bridge account, and there's seldom a year when it fails to show a credit balance of at least a thousand."

If Sally's bewilderment was only the deeper for this information, she was sensible enough to hold her tongue.

Why need Mrs. Standish deliberately have uttered so monumental a falsehood about the losses of her aunt at cards? She might, of course, be simply and sincerely mistaken, misled by over-solicitude for a well-beloved kinswoman.

On the other hand, the gesture of Adele Standish was not that of a woman easily deceived.

Thus the puzzle swung full circle.

"Mind if I show you the way, Miss Manwaring?"

"Oh, no!" Sally started from her abstraction to find Trego had lingered, and, smiling, turned to the steps that led down to the terrace. "I'll be very glad."

But the truth was that she was not glad of this unsolicited company; she wanted uninterrupted opportunity to think things over; furthermore, she thought the sheer weight and masculine force of Trego's personality less ingratiating than another's-Savage's, for instance, however shallow, was all ways amusing-or Lyttleton's, with his flashing insouciant smile, his easy grace and utter repose of manner.

But this Mr. Trego, swinging ponderously by her side down the terrace walks, maintaining what was doubtless intended as a civil silence but what achieved only oppressiveness, of a sudden inspired a sharp impression that he would prove a man easy to dislike intensely-the sort of man who is capable of inspiring fear and makes enemies without any perceptible difficulty.

And if that were so-if, as it seemed, she had already, intuitively, acquired a distaste for Mr. Trego-how could she at once retain her self-respect and his money-money which she had won in defiance of the rules of fair play?

It stuck in her fist, a hard little wad of silver wrapped in the bill; nearly twenty-one dollars, the equivalent of three weeks' pay for drudgery, the winnings of an idle hour, the increment of false pretences.

"There's your view," Trego's voice broke upon the reverie. "Pretty fine, isn't it?"

They paused in a corner of the terrace, where a low stone wall, grey, weathered and lichened, fenced the brow of the cliff; and Sally's glance compassed a panorama of sea and sky and rocky headlands, with little appreciation of its wild, exquisite beauty.

She uttered an absent-minded "Yes," hesitated, plunged boldly: "Mr. Trego, I do wish you'd let me give back this money!"

His slowness in replying moved her to seek an answer in his face. He was unquestionably sifting his surprise for some excuse for her extraordinary request; a deep gravity informed his heavy-lidded eyes that were keen with an intelligence far more alert than she had previously credited.

He said deliberately: "Why?"

"I'd rather not say." She offered the money in her open hand. "But I'd feel-well, easier, if you'd take it back."

He clasped his hands behind him and shook his head. "Not without good reason. I don't understand, and what I don't understand I can't be party to."