Lord Stranleigh Abroad by Robert Barr (best free novels .TXT) 📖

by informing him that Connie Maturin took a special trip over to England recently, in order to meet you."

"To meet me?" cried Stranleigh in astonishment.

"Yes, indeed, and an amazed girl she was to learn that you had sailed for America. She came right back by the next boat. She has a great plan in her mind which requires heavy financing. My brother here isn't rich enough, and I, of course, am much poorer than he is, so she thought if she could interest you, as the leading capitalist of England----"

"Good heavens, girl," interrupted Ned, the perspiration standing out on his brow, "do show some consideration for what you are saying! Why, you rattle on without a thought to your words. Lord Stranleigh just made it a proviso that----. Oh, hang it all, Sis; you've put your foot in it this time, sure enough."

The lady turned on him now with no laughter on her lips, or merriment in her tone.

"Why, Ned, you're actually scolding me. I promised Connie Maturin to help her, and my way of accomplishing anything is to go directly for it."

"Oh, heaven help me," murmured Ned, "the law courts have already taught me that."

"Mrs. Vanderveldt," said the Earl of Stranleigh, very quietly, "please turn to your champion, and ignore this wretched man, whose unnecessary reticence is finding him out."

The only person to be embarrassed by this tangle of concealments and revelations was Constance Maturin, who had indulged in neither the one nor the other. The Earl of Stranleigh found it difficult to become acquainted with her. She seemed always on her guard, and never even approached the subject which he had been given to understand chiefly occupied her thoughts.

On the day set for their automobile ride, Miss Maturin appeared at the wheel of the very latest thing in runabouts; a six-cylindered machine of extraordinary power, that ran as silently and smoothly as an American watch, and all merely for the purpose of carrying two persons. Stranleigh ran his eye over the graceful proportions of the new car with an expert's keen appreciation, walking round it slowly and critically, quite forgetting the girl who regarded him with an expression of amusement. Looking up at last, he saw a smile playing about her pretty lips.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"I'm not sure that I shall grant it," she replied, laughing. "To be ignored in this callous fashion for even the latest project of engineering, is not in the least flattering."

"Not ignored, Miss Maturin," said Stranleigh, "for I was thinking of you, although I may have appeared absorbed in the machine."

"Thinking of me!" she cried. "You surely can't expect me to believe that! The gaze of a man fascinated by a piece of machinery is quite different from that of a man fascinated by a woman. I know, because I have seen both."

"I am sure you have seen the latter, Miss Maturin. But what I have just been regarding is an omen."

"Really? How mysterious! I thought you saw only an automobile."

"No, I was looking through the automobile, and beyond, if I may put it that way. I am quite familiar with the plan of this car, although this is the first specimen that I have examined. The car is yours by purchase, I suppose, but it is mine by manufacture. Your money bought it, but mine made it, in conjunction with the genius of a young engineer in whom I became interested. Perhaps you begin to see the omen. Some time ago I was fortunate enough to be of assistance to a young man, and the result has been an unqualified success. To-day perhaps I may be permitted to aid a young woman with a success that will be equally gratifying."

Stranleigh gazed steadily into the clear, honest eyes of the girl, who returned his look with a half-amused smile. Now she seemed suddenly covered with confusion, and flushing slightly, turned her attention to the forest that surrounded them. Presently she said--

"Do you men worship only the god of success? You have used the word three or four times."

"Most men wish to be successful, I suppose, but we all worship a goddess, too."

"I'm sorry," said Miss Maturin, "that Mrs. Vanderveldt mentioned my search for a capitalist. I have abandoned the quest. I am now merely your guide to the lakes. Please take a seat in this automobile of yours, Lord Stranleigh, and I will be your conductor."

The young man stepped in beside her, and a few moments later they were gliding, rather than running over a perfect road, under the trees, in a machine as noiseless as the forest. The Earl of Stranleigh had seen many beautiful regions of this world, but never any landscape just like this. Its artificiality and its lack of artificiality interested him. Nothing could be more businesslike than the construction of the stout dams, and nothing more gently rural than the limpid lakes, with the grand old forest trees marshalled round their margins like a veteran army that had marched down to drink, only to be stricken motionless at the water's edge.

It seemed that the silence of the motor-car had enchanted into silence its occupants. The girl devoted her whole attention to the machine and its management. Stranleigh sat dumb, and gave himself up to the full enjoyment of the Vallombrosic tour.

For more than half an hour no word had been spoken; finally the competent chauffeur brought the auto to a standstill at a view-point near the head of the valley, which offered a prospect of the brawling main stream.

"We have now reached the last of the lakes in this direction," she said quietly. "I think your automobile is admirable, Lord Stranleigh."

The young man indulged in a deep sigh of satisfaction.

"As a landscape gardener on a marvellous scale, you are without a competitor, Miss Maturin."

The girl laughed very sweetly.

"That is a compliment to nature rather than to me. I have merely let the wilderness alone, so far as road-making and dam-building would allow me."

"In that very moderation lies genius--the leaving alone. Will you forgive the inquisitiveness of a mere man whom you suspected at our outset of success-worship, if he asks what practical object you have in view?"

"Oh, I should have thought that was self-evident to an observant person like yourself," she said airily. "These lakes conserve the water, storing it in time of flood for use in time of scarcity. By means of sluices we obtain partial control of the main stream."

"You flatter me by saying I am observant. I fear that I am rather the reverse, except where my interest is aroused, as is the case this morning. Is conservation your sole object, then?"

"Is not that enough?"

"I suppose it is. I know little of civil engineering, absorbing craft though it is. I have seen its marvels along your own lines in America, Egypt, India, and elsewhere. As we progressed I could not help noticing that the dams built to restrain these lakes seemed unnecessarily strong."

A slight shadow of annoyance flitted across the expressive countenance of Constance Maturin, but was gone before he saw it.

"You are shrewder than you admit, Lord Stranleigh, but you forget what I said about freshets. The lakes are placid enough now, but you should see them after a cloud-burst back in the mountains."

"Nevertheless, the dams look bulky enough to hold back the Nile."

"Appearances are often deceitful. They are simply strong enough for the work they have to do. American engineering practice does not go in for useless encumbrance. Each dam serves two purposes. It holds back the water and it contains a power-house. In some of these power-houses turbines and dynamoes are already placed."

"Ah, now I understand. You must perceive that I am a very stupid individual."

"You are a very persistent person," said the young woman decisively.

Stranleigh laughed.

"Allow me to take advantage of that reputation by asking you what you intend to do with the electricity when you have produced it?"

"We have no plans."

"Oh, I say!"

"_What_ do you say?"

"That was merely an Anglicised expression of astonishment."

"Don't you believe me?"

"No."

They were sitting together on the automobile seat, deep in the shade of the foliage above them, but when he caught sight of the indignant face which she turned towards him, it almost appeared as if the sun shone upon it. She seemed about to speak, thought better of it, and reached forward to the little lever that controlled the self-starting apparatus. She found his hand there before she could carry out her intention.

"I am returning, Lord Stranleigh," she said icily.

"Not yet."

She leaned back in the seat.

"Mr. Trenton told me that you were the most polite man he had ever met. I have seldom found him so mistaken in an impression."

"Was it a polite man you set out to find in your recent trip to Europe?"

As the girl made no reply, Stranleigh went on--

"My politeness is something like the dams we have been considering. It contains more than appears on the surface. There is concealed power within it. You may meet myriads of men well qualified to teach me courtesy, but when this veneer of social observance is broken, you come to pretty much the same material underneath. I seldom permit myself the luxury of an escape from the conventions, but on rare occasions I break through. For that I ask your pardon. Impressed by your sincerity, I forgot for the moment everything but your own need in the present crisis."

"What crisis?" she asked indignantly.

"The financial crisis caused by your spending every available resource on this so-called conservation policy. To all intents and purposes you are now a bankrupt. Mrs. Vanderveldt has contributed all she can, and both you and she are afraid to tell her brother the true state of the case. You fear you will get little sympathy from him, for he is absorbed in coal-mines and railways, and both of you have already felt his annoyance at the law-suit in which you have involved him. Hence your desperate need of a capitalist. A really polite man would be a more pleasant companion than I, but he is not worth that, Miss Maturin!"

Stranleigh removed his hand from the lever long enough to snap fingers and thumb, but he instantly replaced it when he saw her determination to start the machine.

"The man of the moment, Miss Maturin, is a large and reckless capitalist. I am that capitalist."

He released his hold of the lever, and sat upright. The sternness of his face relaxed.

"Now, Miss Maturin, turn on the power; take me where you like; dump me into any of those lakes you choose; the water is crystal clear, and I'm a good swimmer," and with this Stranleigh indulged in a hearty laugh, his own genial self once more.

"You are laughing at me," she said resentfully.

"Indeed I am not. Another contradiction, you see! I am laughing at myself. There's nothing I loathe so much as strenuousness, and here I have fallen into the vice. It is the influence of that brawling river below us, I think. But the river becomes still enough, and useful enough, when it reaches the great lake at Powerville, which is big enough to swallow all these little ponds."

The girl made no motion towards the lever, but sat very still, lost in