“Well,” said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim silence which followed this outburst, “if you will give me your cheque, Brewster, I think I will be going.  Two thousand three hundred dollars.  Make it open, if you will, and then I can run round the corner and cash it before lunch.  That will be capital!”

CHAPTER XII

BRIGHT EYES—­AND A FLY

The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster, proprietor) was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of the mountains, built by Archie’s father-in-law shortly after he assumed control of the Cosmopolis.  Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there, preferring to concentrate his attention on his New York establishment; and Archie and Lucille, breakfasting in the airy dining-room some ten days after the incidents recorded in the last chapter, had consequently to be content with two out of the three advertised attractions of the place.  Through the window at their side quite a slab of the unrivalled scenery was visible; some of the superb cuisine was already on the table; and the fact that the eye searched in vain for Daniel Brewster, proprietor, filled Archie, at any rate, with no sense of aching loss.  He bore it with equanimity and even with positive enthusiasm.  In Archie’s opinion, practically all a place needed to make it an earthly Paradise was for Mr. Daniel Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away from it.

It was at Lucille’s suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage.  Never a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to the world, and particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following the Pongo incident, that Lucille had thought that he and Archie would for a time at least be better apart—­a view with which her husband cordially agreed.  He had enjoyed his stay at the Hermitage, and now he regarded the eternal hills with the comfortable affection of a healthy man who is breakfasting well.

“It’s going to be another perfectly topping day,” he observed, eyeing the shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were swiftly shredding away like faint puffs of smoke.  “Just the day you ought to have been here.”

“Yes, it’s too bad I’ve got to go.  New York will be like an oven.”

“Put it off.”

“I can’t, I’m afraid.  I’ve a fitting.”

Archie argued no further.  He was a married man of old enough standing to know the importance of fittings.

“Besides,” said Lucille, “I want to see father.”  Archie repressed an exclamation of astonishment.  “I’ll be back to-morrow evening.  You will be perfectly happy.”

“Queen of my soul, you know I can’t be happy with you away.  You know—­”

“Yes?” murmured Lucille, appreciatively.  She never tired of hearing Archie say this sort of thing.

Archie’s voice had trailed off.  He was looking across the room.