INTRODUCTORY

In the year 19 – a legend adorned with gold and bearing the significant words, “The Securities Investment Association, Mr. Philip Rutley, President, Mr. Jack Shore, Secretary-Treasurer,” appeared on the glass panel of a certain office door on Third street, in the city of Portland, Oregon.

These two men were middle-aged bachelors, and moved in select society. Through their social standing they had persuaded two wealthy men of the city to lend their names as stockholders and directors in the company; but the Investment Company’s business failed to meet the expenses which the social living of the two promoters felt were demanded of them, and the inevitable happened, viz., a resort to dishonest manipulations of sundry bond transactions by which the two wealthy directors had to “make good.”

It resulted, on discovery, in the immediate closing of the office and prosecution of the offenders was ordered; but because of their social standing and promise to leave the city at once, criminal proceedings were suspended.

Three years elapsed. In the medium-sized room of a plainly furnished flat, in a genteel suburb of the “Bay City,” a man sat brooding over the ill luck which had pursued him for the past few years. This man, as he sat with elbows on his knees and chin resting on his hands, was looking through the open window and out over the bay, out over that far off rugged ridge of purple and gray and white that projected up in the clear ethereal blue, northward, gazing with eyes fixed into nothingness, for he was deeply absorbed in a review of his past career and of the sunny time he had enjoyed while living in Portland.

His straw colored hair, verging to a sandy hue, framed a smooth shaven face of marked strength and intelligence. His eyes of a bluish gray, were bright when shielded by spectacles, worn more from fashion than necessity, glittered with keenness and energy.

Jack Shore rarely allowed his naturally aggressive and buoyant spirits to remain for long depressed by a gloomy retrospect; but the purpose of his prolonged stare at vacancy on this occasion was attributable to the necessity of another visit to Mr. Loan-on-personal-property.

His reverie was ended by the abrupt entry of his companion, Philip Rutley, who drawled out in quiet tones: “Jack – Aw – I beg pardon. I see you are engaged.”

Jack looked at his visitor, noted his dignified bearing and unwonted coolness as he removed his gloves; noted the smile of cunning pleasure that played about his mouth and, from experience, concluded that some deep scheme had been thought out and a line of action forming.

“Well, Phil,” he replied, “what game is on now?”

“A well dressed lady and gentleman, strangers,” began Phil, “halted me on Market Street and addressed me as ‘My Lord Beauchamp.’ They warmly shook my hand and gushingly insisted that I promise them the pleasure of presenting our very dear friends, – Mr. and Mrs. Orthodox – to Lord Beauchamp at the Palace tonight.”

“Of course, you consented!” quietly laughed Jack.

“Ahem! Unfortunately I had instructed my secretary to ‘clear’ the yacht for the north this evening, and as all arrangements were complete, must beg, with profound regrets” (and he bent low with courtly grace) “to decline the pleasure. Should you be visiting England next summer, my cordial invitation to rest a month or so at – a – Beauchamp, Isle of Wight.”

“And you – ”

“Beckoned a passing cab; bade them ‘adieu’ and drove on a few blocks.”

“I congratulate you on your iron-clad nerve,” laughingly remarked Jack. “And you withdrew with your new title, – a – me Lord Beauchamp, sitting jauntily, like a chip on your shoulder, – undisturbed.”

“How could I do otherwise? You know I am opposed to shocks, but seriously, Jack, the incident has suggested a way out of our embarrassment.”

“How?”

“By carrying the thing on and be a lord in fact, with you as my secretary.”

Jack laughed, low and yet with a heartiness that was rollicking in its abandon, and then added by way of parenthesis:

“I shall announce ‘Your Grace’s’ intention to visit Portland.”

“Precisely! You are well aware of the great esteem in which Me Lord Beauchamp is likely to be held there, particularly by our friends, The Thorpes, Harrises, et al.”

“A proper entry will create quite a stir among the fashionable set,” remarked Jack reflectively.

“And give us opportunities to ‘work’ them some.”

“Are you agreed?”

“Yes,” responded Jack. “It will be a damn good joke, anyway,” and again he laughed, for as the horn of plenty flitted before his vision his spirits soared once more, above the measly depths of want and anxiety. “As an American,” he continued, “you have as much right to play the role of Lord, General or Judge as any other name by which your friends may be pleased to ‘dub’ you.”

CHAPTER I

Within the perimeter of a great semi-circle window in a large luxuriously furnished room of a fashionable residence not far from 6666 Hill, in the city of Portland, two women sat reading.

It was an autumn afternoon, just after a light shower, a little warm but rarely matched for the unusual splendor of its soft, dreamy atmosphere – calm and clear as infinite space.

The incessant roar of the city’s commerce floated up and through the screened windows in muffled echoes, but the readers being accustomed to the sound, were undisturbed.

At length one of the readers, a girl who had not seen more than twenty summers, closed the book she had just finished reading and broke the silence with the remark: “Most interesting! A great story!”

“Yes,” exclaimed her companion, looking up, “particularly in its treatment of the bogus Count. Indeed, it is realistic enough to be true.”

“So it appears!” replied the maid, “but just imagine such a thing to happen – as for instance a tramp to impersonate successfully Lord Beauchamp!”

“My Lord is a gentleman ‘to the manor born,’ and impossible of counterfeit.”

“I understand the reception by Mrs. Harris is to be given in his honor?”

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Thorpe, and smiling she went on: “He has promised to take tea with us today.”

“And do you know,” said Hazel in an awed tone, “he’s a Knight of the Order of the Garter? It is reported that he is to be married to a beautiful San Francisco girl.”

“I have heard it mentioned, but I hardly think his Lordship seeks a wife in America, because he is very wealthy.”

“But, Constance, – love is sometimes eccentric!”

“Quite true, when its underlying motive is mercenary. You remember Philip Rutley.”

“Constance!” exclaimed the girl, with a stamp of her foot. “You know the wise proverb, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’”

It was then that Philip Rutley, impersonating Lord Beauchamp, was ushered in, accompanied by Mr. Joseph Corway.

“Ah! My Lord,” greeted Constance arising from her seat. “This delightful corner has lured us to forget to welcome you at the portal of our home. Allow me the pleasure of introducing Miss Hazel Brooke, and you, Mr. Corway, – well you know we are always ‘at home’ to you.”

As Rutley deliberately placed a monocle to his eye, he said, “A corner with such an entrancing vista,” carelessly waving his hand toward the open, “is a pardonable lure to dreamy forgetfulness.”

Then he stared at the girl and, as he supposed, conveyed the desired impression, muttered: “Charming!” and that word, uttered with quiet and apparently involuntary emphasis, at once made Hazel Brooke his friend, and, to add to the favorable impression which Rutley perceived he had created, he bowed low and said suavely: “Miss Brooke will permit me to say, I rejoice in her acquaintance.”

“Your Lordship may find me a deceiver.”

“I shall not believe so winsome a flower can be unreal.” And he again fixed the monocle to his eye and stared at her in pleased assurance.

“Art simulates many charming things of nature,” remarked Mrs. Thorpe, and she slyly glanced at Hazel.

The girl almost laughed; but her gentle breeding came to the rescue, and she bore Rutley’s stare with admirable nonchalance, until Mr. Corway, feeling a little amused at Lord Beauchamp’s monopoly of the girl’s attention answered Mrs. Thorpe: “Yet nature cannot be excelled in anything that is beautiful in art.”

For which he received from the girl a smile that thrilled him with a conviction that no lord, no croesus, nor commoner, could dethrone him from her heart.

The ordeal in which Hazel found herself under Rutley’s disconcerting stare, was terminated by Mrs. Thorpe.

“Your Lordship must be familiar with many beautiful things of nature. By the way, I want you to visit our conservatory. We have some choice exotics there from the Orinoco.”

Rutley removed his monocle, and turned to Mrs. Thorpe. “My secretary obtained some rare specimens in Bogota, nevertheless I shall consider it a pleasure to visit your collection, for indeed it must be superb, judging from such natural beauty already in evidence.”

“You are coming, too,” said Mrs. Thorpe, turning to Hazel and Mr. Corway.

“Thanks! – that is, – we shall join you presently,” stammered Mr. Corway, looking at Hazel with a half smile.

Mrs. Thorpe looked amused as she said: “Oh, very well,” and then, halting on the threshold, turned again and added: “Hazel, dear, don’t forget the conservatory.”

Rutley and Mrs. Thorpe had scarcely gone when Hazel exclaimed: “Well! I’m waiting for you.”

“Of course,” Corway replied haltingly; then, after a pause, “Hazel!”

“Miss Brooke – please,” she corrected, with a tantalizing smile.

“Oh – confound it. Hazel” – he began again.

“Are you coming?” she interrupted, moving away, but with an aggravating smile playing fitfully about her face.

Whereupon he bowed low, with mock formality, approached her offering his arm. “I crave the honor.”

The girl placed her hand in his arm with a promptness that flushed his face, but immediately blanched it with the teasing remark: “It’s to be only as far as the conservatory, you know.”

“And from there around the grounds,” he replied tenderly.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You insist on going the rounds with me? Oh, very well!” and they laughed together.

Shortly after they had gone, the portieres of an entrance to the left were cautiously parted and a young girl peeped in, then entered the room. She was the embodiment of youth, happiness and expectancy.

She was dressed in the whitest of white muslin. A narrow band of magenta-colored silk encircled her slender waist, the long, loose ends of the bow flowing almost to her feet, while her mass of raven black hair drawn back from her fair white forehead, and coiled at the back of her shapely head lent a queenly grace to a divinely moulded form.

The suppleness of her carriage, intensified by the simplicity of her soft, faultless dress, was a poem of delight which needed no skill of adornment to beautify; no touch of art to dignify.

Across the room she stole, as lightly as though her feet were winged, and listened at the door.

“I am sure I heard his voice!” Then with a smile of joy, she tripped to the open window overlooking the piazza, and looked out, murmuring – “how I long to see him. My Joe! Handsome, manly Joe, I adore you. And these, his flowers – his favorite flower, our beautiful rose,” drawing from her hair two red roses, which she kissed again and again.

“I hurried home because I could not remain away from you, and now – oh, the joy of a glad surprise – I hear footsteps!” and she listened expectantly, then turned to behold Mrs. Harris, an elderly lady of portly bearing and elegantly dressed, who was at that moment entering from the piazza.

“Why, Virginia, I am delighted. You look the happiest girl in the land,” taking her hand and kissing her. “Oregon peach-bloom on your cheeks, too; I’ll wager you are just in from the farm, you hayseed.”

“Yes, and I’ve had the most delightful time,” replied the girl softly. “Romped over the fields of sweet-smelling clover, and through the orchards, and helped in the hay-field, too,” she laughed joyously.

“Hands up! I mean the palms,” said Mrs. Harris, in mock severity. “It must have been a silver rake you handled in the hay-field,” she resumed, after scrutinizing the palms of Virginia’s outstretched hands, “for there isn’t even a callous.”

“It is harvest time,” replied the girl, laughing, “and the harvest moon is death to callouses, you know.”

“We’ve missed you, dear, at Seaside,” said Mrs. Harris. “But still you look just as charming as though you had been there the entire season.”

“You rude flatterer. The seaside is nice, but I love our dear old farm home in the valley, best. Yet” – Virginia continued, demurely, with downcast eyes, “it seemed a little dull this year, and, you see, I have a reason for coming in before the harvest is over.”

As the girl stood with downcast eyes, her countenance appeared exquisitely regular, dignified and very beautiful.

“Ah, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Harris, with admiration. “An affair of the heart – a man in it, eh, dear? – I know him. He will be here in a few moments – lucky fellow!”

“Will he? – are you sure?”

“Dear me! How joyful you are!” said Mrs. Harris, staring kindly at her.

“Oh, if you had been away from your sweetheart for so long a time as I have been from mine” —

“Ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed Mrs. Harris. “Why, Virginia dear, only two weeks! Really you carry me back to my own girlish days, just after I met James – I remember well – my heart nearly fluttered out of its place.”

“My heart fluttered out of its place weeks and weeks ago, and will not flutter back, unless” —

“Unless what, dear?”

“Unless he despises it,” she said, with a sigh.

“Well, the dear boy is pining to see you. That I know, so there is a pair of you.”

“Is he getting thin?” questioned Virginia, eagerly.

“Not exactly, but – listen!” And Mrs. Harris held up a warning finger as she looked out over the piazza.

“He is coming!”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Virginia, in an ecstacy of joy. “I shall hide and surprise him. Oh! his favorites have wilted. I will pluck fresh ones in the conservatory, and hasten back – don’t tell!” and with that she flew out of the room through the portieres.

As Mrs. Harris stood alone in a contemplative mood, she said aloud to herself: “Oh, dear! These hearts of ours! How foolish they make us at times – I have often thought our Sam was a ‘lady killer,’ now I am sure of it.”

Just then Sam Harris stepped across the piazza and entered the room.

Sam was a young man just having passed his twenty-fourth birthday. His strong chin was indicative of fidelity to his friends, and his mass of reddish, curly hair lent expression to a jovial expression of countenance.

Sam was particularly joyous in anticipation of meeting Virginia Thorpe. “Have you seen her, Auntie?” and he straightway opened a door leading to the library and looked in; then he closed it.

Mrs. Harris quietly watched him and became disturbed with misgivings, lest his zeal in his present frame of mind would impair the dignity she considered so essential to his enterprise as well as to the position the Harrises held in society.

It was therefore necessary to impress on him the importance of “proper” form, which she immediately undertook, and addressed him with calm stateliness.

“Now, Sam, I warn you to be careful how you greet Virginia. Remember, though but twenty-two, she is an accomplished young lady.”

“Don’t I know it!” he replied, with a satisfied smile.

“Don’t touch the portieres, Sam! Sam!” she exclaimed in alarm, but her command was unheeded, and Sam spread them wide apart, much to his aunt’s consternation.

No one being behind the portiere, she appeared amazed, but quickly recovering her composure, continued:

“Dear me! How very strange! Oh, yes, I forgot. She has gone to the conservatory.” Then she muttered in low tones:

“Now I have said it, and she told me not to tell.”

“Well, I’m off to the conservatory, too – eh, Auntie! Don’t follow me,” and he strode toward the piazza.

“Sam! Sam! Remain here. I have something to say to you.”

“Well, be quick, Auntie. You know I am crazy to see her. Eh! I guess so.”

“‘Crazy!’ Well, remember the least display of rudeness or unseemly eagerness will be promptly met with a frown of displeasure.”

“Auntie, she’s finer than the petals of a rose.”