Diane of the Green Van

  CHAPTER XLIII

  THE RIVAL CAMPERS

  Northward by lazy canal and shadowy hummock, northward by a riverfreckled with sand bars, Diane came in time to a quiet lake wherepurple martins winged ceaselessly over a tangled float of lilies--wherenow and then an otter swam and dipped with a noiseless ripple ofwater--where ground doves fluttered fearlessly about the camp as Johnnypitched the tents at noonday.

  But for all the whir and flash of brilliant birdlife above the placidwater--for all the screams of the fish hawks and the noise of crows andgrackle in the cypress--for all the presence of another camper amongthe trees to the west, the days were quiet and undisturbed. And atnight when the birds were winging to the woods now black against theyellow west, and the lonely lake began to purple, the fires of therival camps were the single spots of color in the heavy darkness alongthe shore.

  Diane wrote of it, with disastrous results, to Aunt Agatha.

  At sunset, one day, a carriage produced an aggrieved rustle of silk, avoice and a hand bag. Each fluttered a little as the driver acceptedhis fare and rolled away. The hand bag, in accordance with asensational and ill-conditioned habit which had roused more than oneunpopular commotion in crowded department stores and thoroughfares,leaped unexpectedly from a gloved and fluttering hand.

  Aunt Agatha possessed herself of the bag with a sniff and rustledheedlessly into the nearest camp.

  It was, of course, Mr. Poynter's.

  Utterly confounded by the unexpected sight of a tall young man who wascooking a fish over the fire, Aunt Agatha gurgled fearfully and backedprecipitately into the nearest tree, whence the ill-natured hand bagforcibly opened a grinning mouth, leaped into space and disgorged aflying shower of nickels and dimes, smelling salts and hairpins and avariety of fussy contrivances of sentimental value.

  "God bless my soul!" bleated Aunt Agatha with round, affrighted eyes,"there's a dime in the fish! And I do beg your pardon, young man, butwill you be so good as to poke the smelling salts out of the firebefore they explode."

  There was little likelihood of the final catastrophe, but Mr. Poynterobeyed. Laughing a little as he collected the scattered cargo, hegood-humoredly suggested that he was not nearly so dangerous as AuntAgatha's petrified gaze suggested, and that possibly she might rememberhim--his name was Poynter--and that Miss Westfall's camp lay a littlefarther to the east.

  Aunt Agatha departed, greatly impressed by his gallantry and commonsense. Arriving in the camp of her niece, she roused an alarmingcommotion by halting unobserved among the trees, staring hard at herniece's back-hair, dropping her hand bag, and bursting into tears thatbrought the startled campers to her side in a twinkling.

  "Great Scott, Johnny!" exclaimed Diane, aghast. "It's Aunt Agatha!"

  Aunt Agatha dangerously motioned them away with the hand bag Johnny hadreturned.

  "I'll be all right in a minute!" she sniffed tearfully. "Mamma wasthat way, too--mamma was. Tears would burst right out of her,especially when she grew so stout. I can't help it! When I think ofall I've gone through with you off in the Green-glades or theNever-glades or whatever they are--and worrying all the time about yourscalp and alligators--and you sitting there so peaceful, Diane, withyour hair still on--I've got to cry--I just have and I will. AndCarl's mysteriously disappeared--Heaven knows where! I've not seen himfor weeks. Nor did he condescend to write me--as I must say youdid--and very good of you too!" Whether Aunt Agatha was crying becauseher mother was stout and eruptively lachrymose, or because Diane's hairwas still where it belonged, or because Carl was missing, Diane couldnot be sure.

  Aunt Agatha puffed presently to a seat by the fire, with hair and hatawry, and dropped her hand bag.

  "Johnny," she said severely, "don't stare so. I'm sorry of course thatI made you drop the kettle when I came, I am indeed, but I'm here andthere's the kettle--and that's all there is to it."

  "Of course it is!" exclaimed Diane, kissing her heartily. "And I'mmighty glad to see you, Aunt Agatha, tears and all!"

  There was some little difficulty in persuading Aunt Agatha of the truthof this, but she presently removed her hat, narrowly escaped droppingit into the fire, and consigned it, along with the athletic hand bag,to Johnny.

  Now Diane with a furtive glance at Philip's camp, had been hostilelyconsidering the discouraging effect of Aunt Agatha's presence upon therival camper. That Aunt Agatha would presently discern degenerativetraces of criminality in his face by reason of his reprehensibleproximity to her niece's camp, Diane did not doubt. That the aggrievedlady would call upon him within a day or so and air her rigid notionsof propriety and convention, was well within the range of probability.Wherefore--

  Aunt Agatha broke plaintively in upon her thoughts.

  "If you would only listen, Diane!" she complained. "I've spoken threetimes of your grandfather's old estate and dear knows you ought toremember it--"

  "I beg your pardon, Aunt!" stammered the girl sincerely.

  "Certainly," said Aunt Agatha with dignity, "I deserve some attention.What with the dark, gloomy rooms of the house and the cobwebs andcranky spiders--and the people of St. Augustine believing it to behaunted--so that I could scarcely keep a servant--and green mould inthe cellar--and a croquet set--and waiting down South when I distinctlypromised to go back with the Sherrills in March--I take it very hard ofyou, Diane, to be so absent-minded. Ugh! How dark the lake has grownand the wind and the noise of the water. There's hardly a star.Diane, I do wonder how you stand it. The shore looks like bands ofmourning crepe. And in the midst of it all, Diane, there in St.Augustine, the Baron aeroplaned the top off the Carroll's orchard--"

  "Aunt Agatha!" begged the girl helplessly. "What in the world is itall about?"

  Aunt Agatha flushed guiltily.

  "Why is it," she demanded, "that no one ever seems to understand whatI'm saying? Dear knows I haven't a harelip or even a lisp. Why, BaronTregar, my dear. He's been staying in St. Augustine, too. It almostseemed as if he had deliberately followed me there--though of coursethat couldn't be. And the Prince too. And the Baron bought anaeroplane to amuse himself and annoy the Carrolls--"

  Aunt Agatha flushed again, cleared her throat and looked away. WhyRonador was in St. Augustine she knew well enough. He had waited nearher, successfully, for news of Diane. And though the Baron had beenvery quiet, he had kept his eye upon the Prince. Aunt Agatha had foronce been the startled hub of intrigue.

  "And what with the driver mumbling to himself this afternoon because Ilost my umbrella and made him go back, and the horse having ribs," shecomplained, shying from a topic which contained dangerous possibilitiesof revealing a certain indiscretion, "I do wonder I'm here at all. Andthe young man was very decent about the dime in his fish--though I'msure he burned his fingers digging for the smelling salts--for they'dalready begun to sizzle--but dear me! Diane, you can't imagine how Ijarred my spine and my switch--I did think for a minute it would tumbleoff--and he was so quick and pleasant to collect the nickels andhairpins. Such a pleasant, comfortable sort of chap. I remember nowhe was at the Sherrill's and very good-looking, too, I must say, andvery lonely too, I'll wager, camping about for his health. He didn'tsay anything about his health, but one can see by his eyes that he'stroubled about it."

  "Aunt Agatha!" begged Diane helplessly in a flash of foreboding, "whatin creation are you trying to say?"

  "Why, Mr. Poynter, of course!" exclaimed Aunt Agatha. "The hand bagshot into his camp and spilled nickels, and I bumped into a tree andjarred my switch. And a very fine fellow he is, to be sure!"

  Diane stared.

  It was like Aunt Agatha to blunder into the wrong camp. And surely itwas like Philip to win her favor by chance.