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His object in calling had been to request Miss Belinda's assistance in a parochial matter. His natural timorousness of nature had indeed led him to put off making the visit for as long a time as possible. The reports he had heard of Miss Octavia Bassett had inspired him with great dread. Consequently he had presented himself at Miss Belinda's front door with secret anguish.
I hardly know how to begin, sir, in explaining our business with you, but I guess we'll try your pockets first. "Bill Bassett felt in all of them, and looked disgusted. "'Not even a watch, he says. 'Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you whited sculpture? Going about dressed like a head-waiter, and financed like a Count! You haven't even got carfare. What did you do with your transfer?
"Here are my instructions from Lady Bassett; short, but to the point." "May I keep that?" "Why, of course." Sir Charles kissed his wife's line, and put the note in his breast. "The first step," said Rolfe, "is to cut you in two. That is soon done. You must copy in your own hand, and then sign, this writing." And he handed him a paper.
It was snapping cold weather, but the sun had been bright this day and for three hours or more the friends had enjoyed themselves on the ice. "Surely Hiram Bassett hasn't turned his cows out in this weather," laughed Helen. "But maybe he has turned out his bull," said Ruth. "You know how ugly that creature is. And there's the sign."
And the shadow of the Morton Bassett she knew crept into the picture. She recalled their early meetings, that first brief contact on the shore of the lake; their talk on the day following the convention when she had laughed at him; that wet evening when they met in the street and he had expressed his interest in Harwood and the hope that she might care for the young lawyer.
Bassett you're always fooling no ? Well, maybe I'll marry you some day three, four and sixty-five is five . . . Kindly keep them remarks to yourself, if you please . . . Ten cents? 'scuse me; the check calls for seventy well, maybe it is a one instead of a seven . . . Oh, do you like it that way, Mr.
"Indeed, Lady Bassett, I think your feminine weakness does you credit," was the kind response this elicited. "We must all of us sympathise most deeply with the poor little wanderer, who, I am well assured, could not be in better hands than she is at the present moment. Your protecting care must, I am convinced, atone to her in a very great measure for all that she has been called upon to undergo."
"I've fished with Bassett," said the minister. "A good fisherman ought to make a good politician; there's a lot, I guess, in knowing just how to bait the hook, or where to drop the fly, and how to play your fish. And Bassett is a man of surprising tastes. He's a book collector, rare editions and fine bindings and that sort of thing." "Is it possible!
But I won't budge an inch. I'd never breathed a word of that story before and I shouldn't have told it that night. It was so far back that I thought it was safe. But your idea that Bassett had anything to do with that is preposterous. Your hatred of him has got the better of you, my friend. Drop it: forget it. If you can't whip him fair, let him win."
"It may be very wicked," she said deliberately, "but I hate Lady Bassett." Grange looked astonished, even mildly shocked. But Muriel returned to the letter before he could reply. It went on to express regret that the writer could not herself return to England for the summer to assist her in the purchase of her trousseau and to chaperon her back to India in the autumn; but her sister, Mrs.
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