The Intriguers | Page 7

Canadian Pacific station prominent among
them, and the air was filled with the clanging of street-cars and the
tolling of locomotive bells. Once or twice, however, when the throb of
the traffic momentarily subsided, music rose faint and sweet from the
cathedral, and Mrs. Keith turned to listen. She had heard the uplifted
voices before, through her open window in the early morning when the
city was silent and its busy toilers slept, and now it seemed to her
appropriate that they could not be wholly drowned by its hoarse
commercial clamor.
The square served as a cool retreat for the inhabitants of crowded
tenements and those who had nowhere else to go, but Margaret Keith
was not fastidious about her company. She was interested in the
unkempt immigrants who, waiting for a west-bound train, lay upon the
grass, surrounded by their tired children; and she had sent Millicent
down the street to buy fruit to distribute among the travelers. She liked
to watch the French Canadian girls who slipped quietly up the broad
cathedral steps. They were the daughters of the rank and file, but their
movements were graceful and they were tastefully dressed. Then the
blue-shirted, sinewy men, who strolled past, smoking, roused her
curiosity. They had not acquired their free, springy stride in the cities;
these were adventurers who had met with strange experiences in the
frozen North and the lonely West. Some of them had hard faces and a

predatory air, but that added to their interest. Margaret Keith liked to
watch them all, and speculate about their mode of life; that pleasure
could still be enjoyed, though, as she sometimes told herself with
humorous resignation, she could no longer take a very active part in
things.
Presently, however, something that appealed to her in a more direct and
personal way occurred, for a man came down the steps of the Windsor
and crossed the well-lighted street with a very pretty English girl. He
carried himself well, and had the look of a soldier; his figure was finely
proportioned; but his handsome face suggested sensibility rather than
decision of character, and his eyes were dreamy. His companion, so far
as Mrs. Keith could judge by her smiling glance as she laid her hand
upon his arm when they left the sidewalk, was proud of him, and much
in love with him.
"Whom are you looking at so hard?" Mrs. Ashborne inquired.
"Bertram Challoner and his bride," said Mrs. Keith. "They're coming
toward us yonder."
Then a curious thing happened, for a man who was crossing the street
seemed to see the Challoners and, turning suddenly, stepped back
behind a passing cab. They had their backs to him when he went on,
but he looked around, as if to make sure he had not been observed,
before he entered the hotel.
"That was strange," said Mrs. Ashborne. "It looked as if the fellow
didn't want to meet our friends. Who can he be?"
"How can I tell?" Mrs. Keith answered. "I think I've seen him
somewhere, but that's all I know."
Looking around as Millicent joined them, she noticed the girl's puzzled
expression. Millicent had obviously seen the stranger's action, but Mrs.
Keith did not wish to pursue the subject then; and the next moment
Challoner came up and greeted her heartily, while his wife spoke to
Mrs. Ashborne.

"We arrived only this afternoon, and must have missed you at dinner,"
he said. "We may go West to-morrow, though we haven't decided yet.
I've no doubt we shall see you again to-night or at breakfast."
After a few pleasant words the Challoners passed on, and Mrs. Keith
looked after them thoughtfully.
"Bertram has changed in the last few years," she said. "I heard that he
had malaria in India, and that perhaps accounts for it, but he shows
signs of his mother's delicacy. She was not strong, and I always thought
he had her highly strung nervous temperament, though he must have
learned to control it in the army."
"He couldn't have got in unless the doctors were satisfied with him,"
Mrs. Ashborne pointed out.
"That's true; but both mental and physical traits have a way of lying
dormant while we're young, and developing later. Bertram has shown
himself a capable officer; but, to my mind, he looked more like a
soldier when he was at Sandhurst than he does now."
Mrs. Ashborne glanced toward Millicent, who was distributing a basket
of peaches among a group of untidy immigrant children. One toddling
baby clung to her skirt.
"What a charming picture! Miss Graham fits the part well. You can see
that she's sorry for the dirty little beggars. They don't look as if they'd
had a happy time; and a liner's crowded steerage isn't a luxurious
place."
Mrs. Keith