When Walters came back to tell me that his wife was uncertain as to the
exact date when the captain would return, I began to rave about that
courtyard. At once he was my friend. I had been looking for quiet
lodgings away from the hotel, and I was delighted to find that on the
second floor, directly under the captain's rooms, there was a suite to
be sublet.
Walters gave me the address of the agents; and, after submitting to an
examination that could not have been more severe if I had asked for the
hand of the senior partner's daughter, they let me come here to live.
The garden was mine!
And the captain? Three days after I arrived I heard above me, for the
first time, the tread of his military boots. Now again my courage began
to fail. I should have preferred to leave Archie's letter lying in
my desk and know my neighbor only by his tread above me. I felt that
perhaps I had been presumptuous in coming to live in the same house with
him. But I had represented myself to Walters as an acquaintance of the
captain's and the caretaker had lost no time in telling me that "my
friend" was safely home.
So one night, a week ago, I got up my nerve and went to the captain's
rooms. I knocked. He called to me to enter and I stood in his study,
facing him. He was a tall handsome man, fair-haired, mustached--the
very figure that you, my lady, in your boarding-school days, would have
wished him to be. His manner, I am bound to admit, was not cordial.
"Captain," I began, "I am very sorry to intrude--" It wasn't the thing
to say, of course, but I was fussed. "However, I happen to be a neighbor
of yours, and I have here a letter of introduction from your cousin,
Archibald Enwright. I met him in Interlaken and we became very good
friends."
"Indeed!" said the captain.
He held out his hand for the letter, as though it were evidence at
a court-martial. I passed it over, wishing I hadn't come. He read it
through. It was a long letter, considering its nature. While I waited,
standing by his desk--he hadn't asked me to sit down--I looked about
the room. It was much like my own study, only I think a little dustier.
Being on the third floor it was farther from the garden, consequently
Walters reached there seldom.
The captain turned back and began to read the letter again. This was
decidedly embarrassing. Glancing down, I happened to see on his desk
an odd knife, which I fancy he had brought from India. The blade was
of steel, dangerously sharp, the hilt of gold, carved to represent some
heathen figure.