A week passed, and Samuel did not see his divinity again. He lived upon the memory of their brief interview, and while he trimmed the hedges he was dreaming the most extravagant dreams of rescues and perilous escapes. For the first time he began to find that his work was tedious; it offered so few possibilities of romance! If only he had been her chauffeur, now! Or the guide who escorted her in her tramps about the wilderness! Or the man who ran the wonderful motor-boat that was shaped like a knife blade!
Samuel continued to ponder, and was greatly worried lest the commonplace should ingulf him. So little he dreamed how near was a change!
Bertie Lockman had been away for a few days, visiting some friends, and he came back unexpectedly one afternoon. Samuel knew that he had not been expected, for always there were great bunches of flowers to be placed in his room. The gardener happened to be away at the time the motor arrived, and so Samuel upon his own responsibility cut the flowers and took them into the house. He left them in the housekeeper's workroom and then set out to find that functionary, and tell her what he had done. So, in the entrance to the dining room, he stumbled upon his young master, giving some orders to Peters, the butler.
As an humble gardener's boy, Samuel should have stepped back and vanished. Instead he came forward, and Bertie smiled pleasantly and said, “Hello, Samuel.”
“Good afternoon, Master Albert,” said Samuel.
“And how do you like your work?” the other asked.
“I like it very well, sir,” he replied; and then added apologetically, “I was bringing some flowers.”
The master turned to speak to Peters again; and Samuel turned to retire. But at that instant there came the sound of a motor in front of the house.
“Hello,” said Bertie. “Who's that?” and turned to look through the entrance hall. Peters went forward to the door; and so Samuel was left standing and watching.
A big red touring car had drawn up in front of the piazza. It was filled with young people, waving their hands and shouting, “Bertie! Oh, Bertie!”
The other appeared to be startled. “Well, I'll be damned!” he muttered as he went to meet them.
Of course Samuel had no business whatever to stand there. He should have fled in trepidation. But he, as a privileged person, had not yet been drilled into a realization of his “place.” And they were such marvelous creatures—these people of the upper world—and he was so devoured with the desire to know about them.
There were two young men in the motor, of about his master's age, and nearly as goodly to look at. And there were four young women, of a quite extraordinary sort. They were beautiful, all of them—nearly as beautiful as Miss Gladys; and perhaps it was only the automobile costumes, but they struck one as even more alarmingly complex.
They were airy, ethereal creatures, with delicate peach blow complexions, and very small hands and feet. They seemed to favor all kinds of fluffy and flimsy things; they were explosions of all the colors of the springtime. There were leaves and flowers and fruits and birds in their hats; and there were elaborate filmy veils to hold the hats on. They descended from the motor, and Samuel had glimpses of ribbons and ruffles, of shapely ankles and daintily slippered feet. They came in the midst of a breeze of merriment, with laughter and bantering and little cries of all sorts.
“You don't seem very glad to see us, Bertie!” one said.
“Cheer up, old chap—nobody'll tell on us!” cried one of the young men.
“And we'll be good and go home early!” added another of the girls.
One of the party Samuel noticed particularly, because she looked more serious, and hung back a little. She was smaller than the others, a study in pink and white; her dress and hat were trimmed with pink ribbons, and she had the most marvelously pink cheeks and lips, and the most exquisite features Samuel had ever seen in his life.
Now suddenly she ran to young Lockman and flung her arms about his neck.
“Bertie,” she exclaimed, “it's my fault. I made them come! I wanted to see you so badly! You aren't mad with us, are you?”
“No,” said Bertie, “I'm not mad.”
“Well, then, be glad!” cried the girl, and kissed him again. “Be a good boy—do!”
“All right,” said Bertie feebly. “I'll be good, Belle.”
“We wanted to surprise you,” added one of the young fellows.
“You surprised me all right,” said Bertie—a reply which all of them seemed to find highly amusing, for they laughed uproariously.
“He doesn't ask us in,” said one of the girls. “Come on, Dolly—let's see this house of his.”
And so the party poured in. Samuel waited just long enough to catch the rustle of innumerable garments, and a medley of perfumes which might have been blown from all the gardens of the East. Then he turned and fled to the regions below.
One of the young men, he learned from the talk in the servants' hall, was Jack Holliday, the youngest son of the railroad magnate; it was his sister who was engaged to marry the English duke. The other boy was the heir of a great lumber king from the West, and though he was only twenty he had got himself involved in a divorce scandal with some actor people. Who the young ladies were no one seemed to know, but there were half-whispered remarks about them, the significance of which was quite lost upon Samuel.
Presently the word came that the party was to stay to dinner. And then instantly the whole household sprang into activity. Above stairs everything would move with the smoothness of clockwork; but downstairs in the servants' quarters it was a serious matter that an elaborate banquet for seven people had to be got ready in a couple of hours. Even Samuel was pressed into service at odd jobs—something for which he was very glad, as it gave him a chance to remain in the midst of events.
So it happened that he sa............