It was a gay party that assembled around the dinner-table at Cedarcrest, shortly after eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, although, had one possessed the ability to analyze deeply, it would have been discovered that the gaiety was somewhat forced. Each person present at the gathering was burdened by the intuitive perception of something ominous in the atmosphere; there was a portentous quality about the environment that had more or less a depressing effect upon Sally Gardner's guests, and each one was conscious of a determined, but silent effort to overcome this feeling, in the belief that he or she was the only one who experienced it.
Two of the expected guests had not arrived. They were Patricia and Richard Morton; but, because no message of any sort had been received from Morton, it was the generally accepted idea, that something had happened on the road to delay his car, and they were expected to arrive at any moment. The serving of the dinner was delayed as long as possible in expectation of their coming, but at last the other guests seated themselves around the table to enjoy the feast so carefully prepared by Jack Gardner's high-salaried chef. Agnes and Frances Houston, who were to have come out in Richard Morton's car with Patricia, arrived on time, accompanied by an uninvited guest, although he was one who was on such terms of intimacy with the Gardners that he had not hesitated to attend this country party, when the idea was suggested to him. It was the lawyer, Melvin; and the suggestion that he should be present, and that he should take out the Houston girls, had, strangely enough, been made by Morton. The young ranchman had gone to the lawyer's office early in the day of that Tuesday, and the conversation he held with Melvin will give a good idea of the drift of his intentions, and of his hitherto latent talents for planning and scheming. And the shrewd old lawyer quite readily fell in with the suggestions that were made to him.
The invitation extended to Morton, the preceding evening, by Jack Gardner, and the directions given him at the time, as to whom he should take with him to the party, had suggested to him a novel plan, which he lost no time in taking measures to carry out. It is true, he was delighted on learning that he was expected to take Patricia to Cedarcrest, but he was just as greatly disappointed by the idea that Agnes and Frances Houston were to occupy the tonneau of his car, and therefore he planned to avoid the disturbing element. The presence of the lawyer at the club where Gardner and Morton held their conversation, suggested to the latter what he would do, for he knew of the intimate friendly relations existing between Melvin and the Gardners, and did not doubt that the great legal light would be an acceptable addition to the party which Sally had planned. Had he known all of Sally's reasons for the arrangements she had made, and had he realized exactly why the party had been got up, he might have hesitated to do what he did; possibly, he would have refused to attend at all--but developments will show how he took the information, when at last it was given to him. It must be remembered that Morton knew nothing at all of the real incidents of the preceding Saturday, and was aware only of the fact that something was wrong; that something had occurred to annoy and disturb Patricia Langdon out of her customary self-repose. Nevertheless, Morton was convinced, notwithstanding his interview with her and with Duncan, that she was somehow being forced into a position abhorrent to her. He had promised to be her friend, and Dick Morton knew of only one way to fulfill that promise. Whatever he undertook to do, he did thoroughly, and always his first impulse, whenever one of his friends needed aid of any sort, was to fight for that friend.