OHN CHESTER had begun the conversation by addressing the sleek black cat upon the porch at his feet. Miss Puss had looked at him with her big, coldly unsympathetic eyes, and had gone out among the petunias and heliotrope, perhaps only because the sun had deserted the porch. At any rate, John Chester had finished the conversation by taking his brier into the circle of his confidence.
“Because a man is thirty, has an income that is sufficient, and is neither a cripple nor an imbecile, is that any reason that he should be hunted down by thoughtful mammas who have dutiful daughters, for all the world as if he were a beast in a jungle?”
Thus far had the consultation progressed when Miss Puss showed the warm, scarlet lining of her throat in a languid yawn, thrust her delicate finger nails for a brief, contented examination, and, dreaming dreams with her wide yellow eyes, went out into the tangle of the garden.
“Because a man is an old bachelor belonging to that class in which he is labeled 'desirable' without even being considered as an individual, is that any reason why he should allow himself to he bagged by an old woman with a thin nose, and cold hands, and a dutiful daughter?”
And then the brier pipe went out. John Chester emptied the ashes upon the floor; there is such a pleasure in homelike untidiness. Then he stood up, yawned luxuriously, and stretched his slender, clean-cut body very much as the velvety Miss Puss had done, and strolled out into the sunshine.
“We shall see,” he told the little green spider who was dancing upon a sprig of honeysuckle, “what we have caught in our trap.”
The little green spider danced over the edge of a leaf and hid his frail body behind the petal of a flower. And John Chester, feeling a faint twinge of something that he was afraid was loneliness, loitered down the narrow, winding walk to the Trap.
He passed slowly down a driveway over which the drooping branches of big elm trees interlaced. Then he turned to the left under a grapevine arbor, where a rustic sign said, “Visitors are welcome.” And the entered the mouth of the Trap.
It didn't look like a trap at all. Instead, it appeared to be merely a lazy, winding path with a thick hedge of Japanese cedar upon each side. The path twisted to right and left, branched here and there, and gradually the walls of Japanese cedar grew denser and higher. Somewhere ahead there was the plash and gurgle of a fountain. There would be rare water lilies there, a tiny emerald of lawn, a white statue with ivy clinging to it, a strip of blue sky through waving branches above. And ever and always the paths grew more numerous, twisting like green snakes in torment, leading by crooked ways to the fountain. And only slowly would it dawn upon the stranger here that he was in a labyrinth, a maze that led easily enough to the fountain, but refused to lead again to the street a hundred yards away.
But one would be content to rest for a while in the heart of the Trap before thinking of worming a way out. For the fountain was ringed about with white marble, and the statue was not the atrocity that is prone to flaunt its nudity in summer gardens. And the birds nested here, unafraid. The lilies had golden hearts, and nodded at each other sunnily.
Upon the tiny lawn, at the door of the little summerhouse, John Chester came upon the thing that he had trapped. It was like a cluster of scarlet and gold autumn leaves. It stirred as John Chester's foot fell upon the marble rim of the fountain. And as it stirred, the scarlet resolved itself into a cloak, the gold into tousled curls.
“Good morning,” said John Chester courteously.
Very big brown eyes were turned upon him.
“Good morning,” answered the thing he had trapped.
“May I sit down?” asked John Chester.
“Yes, sir.”
Whereupon he sat down upon the rustic seat and refilled his pipe.
“May I smoke?” he asked, smiling into the big brown eyes.
The tangled curls nodded, the dainty red lips pursed knowingly.
“Yes, sir. I don't smoke, though. I did once; father let me. Did you ever smoke a cigar?”
John Chester nodded.
“They make a man awful sick, don't they?”
Again he nodded.
“How old are you?” he demanded thoughtfully.
“Me? Oh, I'm five going on six. Or seven. I never can remember 'rithmetic. That's why I can't go to the theater. Cousin Billy said so.”
“What did Cousin Billy say about it?”
“He said I couldn't go 'cause I didn't have a good head for figures. My name's John Gordon, junior. What's your name?”
“John Chester,” replied John Chester. “We ought to be friends, don't you think?”
“Are you a junior, too?”