It was an amazing situation, but it called for calmness
and eternal vigilance. With every hour my resolution
grew to stand fast and fight it out on my own account
without outside help. A thousand times during
the afternoon I had heard the voice of the girl in gray
saying to me: "You are a man, and I have heard that
you have had some experience in taking care of yourself,
Mr. Glenarm."
It was both a warning and a challenge, and the memory
of the words was at once sobering and cheering.
Bates waited. Of him, certainly, I should ask no
questions touching Olivia Armstrong. To discuss her
with a blackguard servant even to gain answers to baffling
questions about her was not to my liking. And,
thank God! I taught myself one thing, if nothing
more, in those days at Glenarm House: I learned to
bide my time.
"I'll give you a note to Mr. Stoddard in the morning.
You may go now."
"Yes, sir."
The note was written and despatched. The chaplain
was not at his lodgings, and Bates reported that he had
left the message. The answer came presently by the
hand of the Scotch gardener, Ferguson, a short, wiry,
raw-boned specimen. I happened to open the door myself,
and brought him into the library until I could read
Stoddard's reply. Ferguson had, I thought, an uneasy
eye, and his hair, of an ugly carrot color, annoyed me.
Mr. Paul Stoddard presented his compliments and
would be delighted to dine with me. He wrote a large
even hand, as frank and open as himself.
"That is all, Ferguson." And the gardener took himself
off.
Thus it came about that Stoddard and I faced each
other across the table in the refectory that same evening
under the lights of a great candelabrum which
Bates had produced from the store-room below. And
I may say here, that while there was a slight hitch sometimes
in the delivery of supplies from the village;
while the fish which Bates caused to be shipped from
Chicago for delivery every Friday morning failed once
or twice, and while the grape-fruit for breakfast
was not always what it should have been,-the supply
of candles seemed inexhaustible. They were produced
in every shade and size. There were enormous
ones, such as I had never seen outside of a Russian
church,-and one of the rooms in the cellar was filled
with boxes of them. The House of a Thousand Candles
deserved and proved its name.
Bates had certainly risen to the occasion. Silver and
crystal of which I had not known before glistened on
the table, and on the sideboard two huge candelabra
added to the festival air of the little room.
Stoddard laughed as he glanced about.
"Here I have been feeling sorry for you, and yet you
are living like a prince. I didn't know there was so
much splendor in all Wabana County."