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CHAPTER IV
THE TURN OF THE WHEEL

A week later St. Quentin dropped in at Mrs. Lee's for a cup of tea. He would have preferred to have Carol brew it, for she had not only learned how in Russia, but had brought with her a brand of tea which, to St. Quentin's mind, was not to be ignored for mere conversation, and once drunk, was not to be forgotten. When Mrs. Lee was out, Carol dispensed this tea, but when Addie was in her own house, she was mistress of it in more ways than tea-drinking.

St. Quentin found several people there for whom he had little use, so he sat silent until they had gone and no one except Kate, Adelaide, and Carol were left.

Carol was wearing a pale blue velvet gown trimmed with sable and a picture hat with a long white ostrich plume which swept her shoulder. Both St. Quentin and Kate plied her with admiring comments until Addie could bear it no longer, and excused herself with unnatural abruptness.

"There are more ways than one of killing a cat," murmured St. Quentin, stooping for Kate's immense ermine muff, which she had dropped for the third time, "than by choking it to death with cream."

Kate laughed delightedly.

Carolina turned from the doorway.

"Don't go, either of you," she said. "I am only going for some tea. Noel, ring for some more hot water, will you?"

"I wonder how it would be," said Kate, dreamily, "to be born without any relations at all! Could one manage to be happy, do you think?"

"Carol couldn't. She is very fond of Sherman."

"I wouldn't be fond of any brother who had lost all his own fortune and mine and was millions in debt besides. One couldn't love a fool, you know."

"I know. But do you remember what Carol said about wanting to be poor?"

"Of course I remember!" said Kate, "but I d-didn't believe her then and I d-don't believe her now. Carol was s-simply lying-that's the answer to that!"

"Lying about what?" asked Carolina, reëntering, with a square box in her hand. The box was of old silver, heavily carved and set with turquoise.

"Lying about being g-glad Sherman has lost all your money. Of course you were lying, w-weren't you? No-nobody but a raving maniac could be glad to be p-poor."

"Then I am a raving maniac," said Carolina, pouring the delicately brewed tea carefully into the tall, slender glasses. "Lemon or rum, Kate?"

"W-which will I like best? I-I've had four cups already to-day."

"Then you'd better have rum. It makes you sleep when you have had too much tea."

"Lemon for me, please," said St. Quentin.

"I remembered that," said Carolina, smiling. "And three lumps."

"P-put in some m-more rum, Carol. I can't taste it."

"What a Philistine!" cried St. Quentin. "To insult such tea with rum."

"It's quite g-good," murmured Kate, with her glass to her lips. "When y-you have enough of it."

"So you really think I can't mean it when I tell you I am glad that Sherman has lost all our money?" said Carolina. "Of course I am sorry on Addie's account-she cares a great deal and is quite miserable over her future prospects. But she has ten thousand a year from her own estate, so she can still educate the children and get along in some degree of comfort. But as for me" – she leaned forward in her chair with the whimsical idea of testing their calibre kindling in her eyes-"if you will believe me and will not scoff, I will tell you what my plan is."

"Promise," said Kate, briefly.

"If Sherman can manage it, I want," said Carolina, slowly, but with an odd gleam in her eye, "to buy an abandoned farm in New England and raise chickens."

In spite of her promise, Kate looked at the beautiful face and figure of the girl in blue velvet and sables who said this, and burst into a shriek of laughter, which St. Quentin, after a moment's decorous struggle, joined.

"I know," said Carolina, leaning back, still with that curious look in her eyes. "I know it sounds absurd. I know you are thinking of me out feeding chickens in these clothes. But oh, if you only knew how tired I am of-of everything that my life has held hitherto. If you only knew how unhappy I am! If you only knew how I want a farm with pigs and chickens and cows and horses. If you only knew how I long to plant things and see them grow. But above everything else in the world, if you only knew how I want a dark blue print dress! I saw a country girl in one once when I was a child in England, and I've never been really happy since."

She joined in the burst of laughter which followed.

"But do things grow on farms in New England?" asked Kate. "And isn't that just why so many are abandoned?"

"I suppose so," answered Carolina, "but those are the only ones which are cheap, and chickens don't need a rich soil. All you've got to do is to-"

"I'd go South," interrupted Kate, "or to California, where the c-climate would help some. I've read in the papers how farmers suffer when their crops fail. I-I'd hate to think of you suffering if your turnips didn't sprout properly, Carol!"

"Laugh if you want to, but I'll get my farm in some way."

"How about the old Lee estate in South Carolina?" asked St. Quentin.

For the first time in his life St. Quentin was actually conscious that Carolina was mocking him. The thought was startling. Why should she dissemble? Carolina's face fell, and a trace of bitterness crept into her voice. This seemed so natural that he forgot his curious suspicion.

"I suppose that went, too. I haven't questioned Sherman, but he told me everything was gone. That, although the house was burned during the war, and only the land itself remained, is the only thing I regret about our loss. I did love Guildford."

"But you never saw it!" exclaimed Kate.

Carolina's eye flashed with enthusiasm.

"I know that! Nevertheless, I love it as I love no spot on earth to-day."

There was a little pause, full of awkwardness for the two who had accidentally brought Carolina's loss home to her. To Carolina it brought home a sense of real guilt. If she had believed that Guildford was lost she would have screamed aloud and gone mad before their very eyes. She was almost afraid to juggle with the truth even to protect her sacred enthusiasm from their profane eyes.

It was St. Quentin who spoke first.

"I can understand wanting a farm or country estate in England," he began. "I myself enjoy the thought of thatched roofs and cattle standing knee-deep in waving, grassy meadows; of tired farm horses; of mugs of ale and thick slices of bread and the sweat of honest toil-"

"On another person's brow!" interrupted Carolina. "You want your farm finished. I want to make mine. I want to see it grow. I almost believe when it was complete, that I would want to leave it."

"You'd want to leave it long before that," cried Kate.

"Oh, can't you understand my idea?" cried Carolina, with sudden passion. "I want to get back to Nature and sit in the lap of my mother earth!"

St. Quentin nodded his head.

"I do understand," he said, "and apropos of your idea, I have a piece of news for you."

Carolina looked at him distrustfully.

"You will take that look back when you hear," he said, with a trifle of reproach in his tone. "I know you expect no help from any of us-discouragements, rather-but I have only to-day heard of business which calls me to Maine, and as I expect to be obliged to wait there a fortnight, I will devote that time to looking up a farm for your purpose."

"You will?" cried Carolina, in a faint voice. Her deception was already tripping her up.

Kate looked at him with undisguised amazement, mingled with a little reluctant contempt.

St. Quentin's eyes dilated when he saw the flash of personal interest in Carolina's demeanour. Her eyes and voice and manner all underwent a subtle but delightful change. For the first time, although he was distantly related to her family and had known her since childhood, she seemed to approach him of her own accord. Hitherto her fine sense of pride had kept her individuality inviolate. She was not a girl to permit familiarity even from an intimate. She seemed to hold aloof even from Kate's verbal impertinences, but this was largely due to the fact that Kate's own nature was such that she never attempted to break down the barriers in deeds. There was always a dignified reserve between them-a respect for each other's privacy, which was the foundation for their friendship. One of the greatest proofs of this was that neither had ever thought of suggesting that they spend the night together, with the result that they had never exchanged indiscreet secrets.

Of the relations in which St. Quentin stood to the two; neither had given any particular thought until that moment. Kate surprised the look in St. Quentin's eyes and the response in Carolina's attitude. Carolina had never appeared to her friend "so nearly human," as she expressed it to herself, as at that moment. It gave her two distinct shocks of surprise. One, that Carolina was, for the first time in her life, really interested in something, and therefore she was honest in wishing to be poor and left free to pursue her idea. The other, and a far more disquieting one, was the fact that St. Quentin's glance at Carolina had brought a distinct pang to Kate's heart.

She regarded both emotions with dismay. They threatened an upheaval in her life.

She dropped her muff, and, as St. Quentin did not even see it, she stooped hastily for it herself, murmuring:

"That let's me down hard!" But with characteristic energy she wasted no time in repining nor even in analyzing her emotions. She was not yet sure whether she was experiencing wounded vanity or the first pangs of a love-affair. She was extraordinarily healthy-minded and instinctively loyal.

It was this latter feeling which prompted her to leave herself out of the matter, for the present, at least, and to be sure wherein lay her friend's happiness before she proceeded further.

As she and St. Quentin left the house together, they met Sherman Lee just coming up the steps, looking pale and anxious.

"Is Carol at home?" he inquired, eagerly, and before they could reply, added, "and alone?"

"Yes, she is," answered Kate, "and if you hurry, you will be in time to get a cup of tea."

He thanked them and ran hastily up the steps.

"How I admire a woman's tact," said St. Quentin, giving her a grateful glance.

"How do you mean?" asked Kate to gain time, though the quick colour flew to her face.

"My man's first idea would have been to ask Sherman what the matter was-he was plainly distraught-"

"And to offer to help him!" said Kate.

"Perhaps. But your woman's quickness leaped ahead of my blundering intentions with the instinctive knowledge that any cognizance of his manner, no matter how friendly, would be unwelcome. Therefore you sent him away with the comforting assurance in his mind that we had noticed nothing amiss. Thus, in an instant, you saved the feelings and kept intact the amour propre of two men."

"That's what women are for!" said Kate, bluntly.

CHAPTER V
BROTHER AND SISTER

Carolina had left the drawing-room before Sherman sought her there, but on receipt of a message from him that he wished to see her immediately in the library, she once more descended the stairs to wait for him.

An anxious look swept over her face as she passed the door of his room, for she heard Addie's voice raised in shrill accents, and to hear it thus was growing to be an every-day affair. She knew her brother's sensitive, yet proud and gentle nature, and she knew how difficult his wife's loud reproaches were to endure.

Suddenly the door opened and his rapid footsteps were heard running down the stairs and hurrying to the library. She rose to meet him with her anxiety to make up to him for his wife's conduct written in her face. He saw the look and misunderstood it.

"Don't look at me like that, Carol!" he cried, raising his hands as if to ward off a blow. "If you, too, feel the loss of the money as Addie does and you reproach me, I shall go mad."

"Sherman!" cried his sister. "Don't insult me by the suggestion of my reproaching you! Haven't you lost all your money as well as mine? And would you have done either if you could have helped it?"

Her brother turned uneasily.

"You don't know how it came about?" he asked.

Carolina shook her head.

"Ah," he breathed, "then I must wait until you have heard before I dare trust such generous statements." He hesitated, then burst out. "But at least you shall know the truth. We are absolute beggars, you and I, and Cousin Lois, and wholly dependent upon Adelaide's bounty until I can pull myself together."

Carolina recoiled as if he had struck her. A sudden sickening fear clutched her heart. Sherman said "everything." Did he include Guildford? She could not clear her eyes and voice sufficiently to mention that beloved name. Sherman went on, not heeding her silence.

"I know what you mean, but it's the truth. She acknowledges it as well as I. Her money is intact, and she will keep it so. She cannot spare any of it to start me again. I must trust in strangers."

"Why strangers?" asked Carolina. "Have you no friends?"

"Friends!" sneered her brother. "What do friends do for a man when he is down? Give him good advice, offer to lend him a few hundreds for living expenses, but trust him to make a second success after one failure? Never! Not even St. Quentin, one of the best fellows who ever lived, would do that!"

"I think you do Noel an injustice," said Carolina, quietly. "He has offered to help me!"

Sherman looked quizzically at his sister and laughed a little.

"Has he, indeed?" he said, with a lift of his eyebrows.

Carolina noticed his manner with a slight inward start of surprise. What could he be thinking of? She had known Noel all her life, and not once had the idea Sherman's tone suggested entered her mind. Noel St. Quentin? She dismissed the thought with impatience. Sherman did not know what he was talking about.

"I have not yet told you," he broke out suddenly, "how the money was lost. Have you no idea? You ought to know. You warned me against the man, but I refused to believe you."

Carolina leaned forward and her eyes blazed.

"Not Colonel Yancey?" she half-whispered.

Her brother nodded.

"Tell me," she said, with white lips.

"There is very little to tell. The whole thing was an elaborate lie-a swindle from one end to the other. I don't believe there ever was any oil on the lands he sold us. He swore there was, and bought outright the man I sent down to Texas to investigate. I could put him in jail, I suppose, but what good would that do me? Yancey says he has used all the money in speculation and lost it, so even to prosecute him would not get a penny back. Now he has disappeared-Algiers, I believe they say. It makes no difference where. He was so plausible, and his enthusiasm was so contagious, we kept handing over the money like born fools. I wonder that he did not laugh in our faces. But he deceived well. He planned from the ground up, and was ready with letters and witnesses of all sorts whenever we began to show signs of weakening. I can see it all now with fatal clearness. But then he had me thoroughly blinded by his own artful proceedings. He has wrecked two others besides myself. The other three men in the syndicate suspected him and sold out to Brainard and me. We continued to believe in him and he has ruined us."

Carolina listened in silence, dreading, yet waiting, for the next blow.

"He could be the most charming man in the world when he wanted to," Sherman continued. "I will admit that I felt his spell, but all the time there was something in his face which I distrusted. First I thought it was his shifty eyes, and then, as if he had read my thoughts, he would meet my glance with perfect candour and frankness and the craft would go to his lips, and when I looked again for it, I would be disarmed by the sincerity of his smile, so I was left to fall back on my Doctor Fell dislike of him, which always attacked me most strongly when I was not in his magnetic presence."

Sherman looked at his sister expectantly. He noticed for the first time how pale she was. Her own recollections of Colonel Yancey, his ceaseless pursuit of her, his intimacy with her father in Paris, her fear that he knew of the Lees' great wish to restore Guildford were all gathering themselves together into a horrible certainty. She was obliged to listen with an effort to her brother's next words.

"I've always thought that he tried to make love to you, Carol. Did he?"

"I believe there was something of the sort suggested," answered his sister, carelessly. She did not choose to admit that Colonel Yancey had proposed to her regularly ever since his wife died, and that he had pursued her with letters as far as India itself.

A silence fell between them. It struck Sherman Lee as most extraordinary that his sister should evince no more curiosity or even interest in the loss of her fortune than she had hitherto expressed. He felt that possibly she was only holding herself in check.

"You said a moment ago," she began so suddenly and in such a different tone that her brother nerved himself for the explosion he felt sure was at hand, "that we were both-you and I-dependent upon Addie. Just what did you mean?"

"Simply that neither of us has a dollar of ready money."

"That is all very well for you," pursued Carolina, in a low voice, "but for me to be Adelaide's guest for even a day would be intolerable. I shall sell my jewels and accept Kate Howard's invitation to spend a few weeks with her until I find something to do. I made Cousin Lois go to Boston to see her niece. I feel that I ought to tell you how glad-how more than glad I am that the money is gone. I never wanted it! I never liked it! But Cousin Lois! What will she do? Oh, Sherman! If only I had been a man, too!"

"If only you had been a man instead of me," he cried, "you never would have lost it. I always made money when I took your advice. I always lost it when I went against you."

Carolina's face glowed. She felt equal now to putting the question.

"What has become of Guildford?" she asked, in a low tone.

"Guildford?" he repeated, to gain time.

At the mere mention of that beloved name Carolina's face was aflame. Her great blue eyes flashed and she seemed illumined from within. Her brother stared at her with astonishment and a growing uneasiness.

"Yes, Guildford!" she whispered. "Oh, Sherman! I have been so afraid to ask. Tell me, is that lost, too?"

The man's eyes fell before her accusing gaze.

"Not-not entirely," he stammered. "I-I raised money on it-I forget just how much-I will investigate-I had no idea you cared-it is deserted-the house burned, you know-"

He broke off, as he realized his sister's gathering anger.

"Stop!" she said. "I have not uttered one complaint because you lost our money, nor would I complain at the loss of Guildford. You could not know how I cared for the place, because no one knew it. I never even told Cousin Lois. But don't, if you love me, belittle the place or try to excuse your having mortgaged it because it had no value in your eyes! I know the house is gone, but the ground is there, and we Lees have owned it since we bought it from the Indians. That same ground that the Cherokees used to tread with moccasined feet has been in our family ever since they owned it, and the dream of my life has been to restore the house and to live there-to marry from Guildford and to give my children recollections that you and I were denied, and of which nothing can take the place. Oh, Sherman, doesn't it fairly break your heart to think that we are the only generation that Guildford skipped? Father remembered it and loved it beyond words to express."

"And you are like him," said her brother, gloomily. "I am like my mother. She never cared for Guildford, and refused to let father restore it. It was she who urged him into diplomacy-"

"Where he distinguished himself," cried Carolina, loyally.

"Yes, where he distinguished himself, as all the Lees have done except me!" he said, bitterly.

"It's your name!" cried Carolina, passionately. "What could you expect with those two names pulling you in opposite directions! Why did they ever name you, a Southern man, Sherman?"

"Father named you, and mother named me," answered her brother. "I have heard them say that it was all planned before either of us was born. Then, too, you must remember that-well, that I am not as enthusiastic over the traditions of the Lee family as you are. I think that my leanings are all toward the de Cliffords, if anything."

"It's only fair," said Carolina, with justice, "that you should be like mother and love her family best. Only-only I am glad my name is Carolina!"

Her brother bent down and kissed her flushed face.

"And I am glad, too, little sister, for you are a veritable Lee, and one to be proud of."

Carolina felt herself grow warm in every fibre of her being over the first compliment which had ever reached her heart.

Sherman was still holding her hand, and she pressed his fingers gratefully.

"I will look up the papers to-morrow, and let you know the moment I discover anything. I can easily guess what your plan is, but-without money?"

Carolina laughed strangely.

"Thank you, brother. And in the meantime I shall go to stay with Kate."

Again the slight lift to Sherman's eyebrows.

"You will doubtless be happier there," he said, quietly.