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For a few brief hours strange figures had replaced the unromantic Quimby in its rooms, they had come to talk of money and of love, to plot and scheme, and as they came in the dark and moved most swiftly in the dark, so in the dark they went away, and Baldpate's startling winter drama took reluctantly its final curtain. Down the snowy road the five followed Quimby's lead; Mr.
He stood docilely in the middle of the floor, and blinked at the group around him. Mr. Magee waited to hear no more. It was quite apparent that this wise little man carried no package wildly sought by Baldpate's winter guests. Quietly and quickly Magee disappeared up the broad stair, and tried the professor's door. It was locked. Inside he could hear a window banging back and forth in the storm.
He heard the rustle of skirts on the stair landing, and looked up. Down the broad stairway, so well designed to serve as a show-window for the sartorial triumphs of Baldpate's gay summer people, came the tall handsome girl who had the night before set all his plans awry. In the swift-moving atmosphere of the inn she had hitherto been to Mr.
The wind roared lustily at the windows. The firelight flickered redly on the faces of Mr. Magee's prisoners. In Upper Asquewan Falls the clock on the old town hall struck nine. Mr. Magee, on guard in Baldpate's dreary office, counted the strokes. She must be half-way down the mountain now perhaps at this very moment she heard Quimby's ancient gate creaking in the wind.
"A very fancy figure," laughed she. "But storms aren't nice." "There are a few of us," replied Magee, "who can be merry through the worst of them because of the rainbow to come." For answer, she flattened her finely-modeled nose into shapelessness against the cold pane. Back of them in the candle-lighted room, the motley crew of Baldpate's winter guests stood about in various attitudes of waiting.
There are, aside from his own, but seven keys in all to the various doors of Baldpate Inn. Four are here represented. It is hardly likely that the other three will send delegates, and if they should, you have but a slim chance for kings and poets. Even Baldpate's capacity for excitement, you see, is limited by the number of little steel keys which open its portals to exiles from the outside world.
He crossed the floor hastily, and put one foot on the lower step of Baldpate's grand stairway. He kept it there. For from the shadows of the landing Professor Bolton emerged, his blasted derby once more on his head, his overcoat buttoned tight, his ear-muffs in place, his traveling-bag and green umbrella in tow. "What, Professor," cried Magee, "you're leaving?"
She smiled a friendly smile at Magee, and took the chair he offered. One small slipper beat a discreet tattoo on the polished floor of Baldpate's office.
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