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It was Jem who had made up the yarn about one of them saving Reuben S. Vanderpoel's life. There had been no life-saving, but the thing had come true. "But, if it hadn't been for Lord Mount Dunstan," he said, thinking it over excitedly, "I should never have seen Miss Vanderpoel, and, if it hadn't been for Miss Vanderpoel, I should never have got next to Reuben S. in my life.
Such a country lives by leaps and bounds, and the ten years which followed the marriage of Reuben Vanderpoel's eldest daughter made many such bounds and leaps. They were years which initiated and established international social relations in a manner which caused them to incorporate themselves with the history of both countries. As America discovered Europe, that continent discovered America.
Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter laughed as spontaneously as any girl might have done. G. Selden laughed with her. At any rate, she hadn't got mad, so far. "That was what did it," he went on. "When I rode away on my bike I got thinking about it and could not get it out of my head.
Vanderpoel's kind, maternal face fell. "And you were not sure you recognised her? Well, I suppose twelve years does make a difference," her voice dragging a little. Milly saw that she had made a blunder. The fact was she had not even guessed at Rosy's identity until long after the carriage had passed her.
Eve has always struck me as being the kind of woman who, if she lived to-day, would run up stupid bills at her dressmakers and be afraid to tell her husband. That wonderful black head of Miss Vanderpoel's looks very nice poised near Mount Dunstan's dark red one." "I am glad to be dancing with him," Betty was thinking. "I am glad to be near him."
He had seen the effect she had produced when she had been at home, and also an unexpected letter to his wife from Milly Bowen had revealed many things. Milly, having noted Mrs. Vanderpoel's eager anxiety to hear direct news of Lady Anstruthers, was not the person to let fall from her hand a useful thread of connection.
At this point, it was he who leaned forward upon the table his climax being a thing to concentrate upon. "Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter Miss Bettina! And, boys, she gave me a letter to Reuben S., himself, and here it is." He produced a flat leather pocketbook and took an envelope from an inner flap, laying it before them on the tablecloth.
She had never denied to herself her interest in Mount Dunstan, and she had looked for him. Lord Dunholm hesitated a second, as his son had done at Miss Vanderpoel's mention of the tabooed name. But, being an older man, he felt more at liberty to speak, and gave her a rather long kind look. "My dear young lady," he said, "did you expect to see him here?"
She was in certain ways a silent child, and no one but herself knew how little she had forgotten Rosy, how often she pondered over her, how sometimes she had lain awake in the night and puzzled out lines of argument concerning her and things which might be true. The one grief of poor Mrs. Vanderpoel's life had been the apparent estrangement of her eldest child.
"Let us go to your study and plan how it shall be done," Mount Dunstan said. As they walked towards the vicarage, he went on talking. "When I lie awake at night, there is one thread which always winds itself through my thoughts whatsoever they are. I don't find that I can disentangle it. It connects itself with Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter. You would know that without my telling you.
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