More days passed and Mr. Heatherbloom continued to linger in his last position. It promised to be a record-making situation from the standpoint of longevity; he had never "lasted" at any one task so long before. Miss Van Rolsen, to his consternation, seemed to unbend somewhat before him, as if she were beginning—actually!—to be more prepossessed in his favor. These evidences that he was rising in the stern lady's good graces filled Mr. Heatherbloom with new dismay; destiny certainly seemed to be making a mock of him.
A week went by; two weeks—three, and still twice a day he continued to march to and from the park with his charges. The faces of all the nurse-maids and others who frequented the big parallelogram of green became familiar to him; he learned to know by sight the people who rode in the park and had a distant acquaintance with the squirrels.
He became, for the first time, aware one day, from the perusal of a certain newspaper he always purchased now, that the prince had returned to Russia. Although Miss Dalrymple refused to be interviewed, or to confirm or deny any statement, it was generally understood (convenient phrase!) that the wedding would take place in the fall at the old Van Rolsen home. The prince had left America in his yacht—theNevski—for St. Petersburg, announced the society editor. After a special interview with the czar and a few necessary business arrangements, the nobleman would return at once for his bride. And, perhaps, he—Mr. Heatherbloom—would still be at his post of duty at the Van Rolsen house!
Since the day the prince had been with Miss Dalrymple in the conservatory, Mr. Heatherbloom had not seen, or rather heard, that gentleman at the house. But then he—Mr. Heatherbloom—belonged in the rear, and, no doubt, the prince had continued to be a daily, or twice, or three-times-a-day visitor to Miss Van Rolsen's elegant, if somewhat stiff, reception rooms. Now, however, he would come no more until he came finally to "take with him the bride—"
The thought was in Horatio's mind when for a third time he encountered her, face to face, on a landing, near a stair, or somewhere in the house, he couldn't afterward just exactly recall where, only that she looked through him, without recognition, speech or movement of an eyelash, as if he had been a thing of thin air! But a thing that became suddenly imbued with real life; inspired with purpose! She had permitted him to remain in the house, knowing his professed helplessness in the matter—shemusthave divined that—playing with him as a tigress with a victim (yes; a tigress! Mr. Heatherbloom wildly, on the spur of the moment, compared her in his mind to that fierce beautiful creature). He would force her to tell him to go; she would certainly not suffer him to remain there another day if he told her—
"Miss Dalrymple, there is something I ought to say. I could not help overhearing you and the prince, one day, several weeks ago, in the conservatory."
After he said it, he asked himself what excuse he had for saying it. If he had stopped to analyze the impulse, he would have seen how absurd, unreasonable and uncalled for his words were. But he had no time to analyze; like a diver who plunges suddenly, on some mad impulse, into a whirlpool, he had cast himself into the vortex.
She looked at him and there was nothingin nubibusto her about his presence now. The violet eyes saw a substance—such as it was; recognized a reality—of its kind! Before the clouds gathering in their depths, Mr. Heatherbloom felt inclined to excuse himself and go on; but instead, he waited. There was even a furtive smile on his lips that belied a quick throbbing in his breast; he thrust one hand as debonairly as possible into his trousers pocket. His attitude might have been interpreted to express indifference, recklessness, or one or more of the synonymous feelings. She thought so badly of him already that she couldn't think much worse, and—
"So,"—had she been paler than her wont, or had excess of passion sent the color from her face?—"you are a spy aswell!"
His head shot back a little at the accent on the "well", but he thrust his hand yet deeper into the pocket and strove not to lose that assumed expression of ease.
"I—a spy? I did not intend to—you—" He paused; if he wished to set himself right in her eyes, why should he have spoken at all? Mr. Heatherbloom saw he had not quite argued out this matter as he should have done; his bearing became less assured.
"Is there"—her voice low and tense—"anything despicable, mean, paltry enough that you are not?"
Mr. Heatherbloom moistened his lips; he strove to think of a reply, sufficiently comprehensive to cover all the features of the case, but not finding one at once apologetic and yet not so, remained silent. He made, however, a little gesture with his hand—the one that wasn't in the pocket. That seemed to imply something; he didn't quite know what.
She came slightly closer and his heart began to pound harder. A breath of perfume seemed to ascend between them; the arrows in her eyes darted into his. "How much—whatdid you hear?" she demanded.
"I—am really not sure—" Was it the orchids which perfumed the air? He had always heard they were odorless. The question intruded; his brain seemed capable of a dual capacity, or of a general incapacity of simultaneous considerations. He might possibly have stepped back a little now but there was a wall, the broad blank wall behind him. He wished he were that void she had first seemed to see—or not to see—in him. "I didn't hear very much—the first part, I imagine—"
"The first part?" Roses of anger burned on her cheek. "And afterward?—spy!" Her little hands were tight against her side.
He hesitated; her foot moved; all that was passionate, vibrant in her nature seemed concentrated on him.
"I don't think I caught much; but I heard him say something about fate, or destiny, and men coming into their own—that old Greek kind of talk, don't you know—" He spoke lightly. Why not? There was no need of being melodramatic. What had to be must be. He couldn't alter her, or what she would think. "Then—then I was too busy to catch more—that is, if I had wanted to—which I didn't!" He was forced to add the last; it burst from his lips with sudden passion; then they curved a little as if to ask excuse for a superfluity.
She continued to look at him, and he looked at her now, squarely; a strange calm descended upon him.
"And that," he said, "is all I heard, or knew, until this morning, whenI saw in the paper," dreamily, "he was coming back in the fall for—"
The color concentrated with sudden swift brightness in her cheeks. "You saw that—any one—every one saw—Oh—"
She started to speak further, then bit her lip, while the lace stirred beneath the white throat. Mr. Heatherbloom had not followed what she said, was cognizant only of her anger. Her eyes were fastened on something beyond him, but returned soon, very soon.
"Oh," she said, "I might have known—if I let you stay, through pity, you would—"
"Pity!" said Mr. Heatherbloom.
"Because I did not want to turn you out into the street—"
She spoke the words fiercely. Mr. Heatherbloom seemed now quite impervious to stab or thrust.
"I permitted you to remain for"—she stopped—"remembering what you once were; who your people were! What"—flinging the words at him—"you might have been. Instead—of what you are!"
Mr. Heatherbloom gazed now without wincing; an unnatural absence of feeling seemed to have passed over his features, making them almost mask-like. It was as if he stood in some new pellucid atmosphere of his own.
"Of course," he said, as half speaking to himself, "I must have earned my salary, or Miss Van Rolsen wouldn't have retained me. So I am not a recipient of charity. Therefore,"—did the word suggest far-away school-boy lessons on syllogisms and sophistries—"I have no right to feel offended in that you let me remain, you say, 'through pity', when as a matter of fact it was impossible for me to tender my resignation, in view of—" He finished the rest of a rather involved logical conclusion to himself, taking his hand out of his pocket now and passing it lightly, in a somewhat dragging fashion, over his eyes. Then he gazed momentarily beyond, as if he saw something appertaining to the "auld lang syne", but recalled himself with a start to the beautiful face, the threads of gold, the violet eyes.
"You will see to it now, of course"—his manner became brisk, almost businesslike—"that I, as a factor, am eliminated here? That, I may conclude, is your intention?"
"Perhaps," said the girl, a sibyl for intentness now, "you would prefer to go? To be asked to! You would find the streets"—with swift discerning contempt—"more profitable for your purpose than here, where you are known."
"Perhaps," assented Mr. Heatherbloom. He spoke quite airily; then suddenly stiffened.
At his words, the sight of him as he uttered them, she came abruptly yet nearer; her breath swept and seemed to scorch his cheek.
"I should think," she said, "you would be ashamed to live!"
"Ashamed?" he began; then stopped. There was no need of speaking further for she had gone.
Mr. Heatherbloom drifted; not "looking for a way", one was forced upon him. It came to him unexpectedly; chance served him. He would have thrust it from him but could not. During his more or less eccentric peregrinations in Central Park he had formed visual acquaintances with sundry folk; pictures of some of them were very dimly impressed on his consciousness, others—and the major part—on his subconsciousness.
Flat faces, big faces, red faces, pale faces! One countenance in the last class made itself a trifle more insistent than the others. Its possessor had watched with interest his progress, interrupted with entanglements, and had listened to the music of his march, the canine fantasia, staccato, affettuoso! Mr. Heatherbloom's halting footsteps in the park generally led him to the heights; it wasn't a very high point, but it was the highest he could find, and he could look off on something—a lake, or reservoir of water, he didn't know just which, and a jagged sky-line.
The person that exhibited casual curiosity in his movements and his coming thither was a woman. She seemed slight and sinuous, sitting there against the stone parapet, and deep dark eyes accentuated the pallor of her face. He did not think it strange she should always be at this spot when he came; in fact, it was quite a while before he noticed the almost daily coincidence of their mutual presence at the same place, at about the same time. After her first half-sly, half-sedulous regard of him, she would look away; her face then wore a soft and melancholy expression; she appeared very sad.
It took quite a while for this fact to be communicated to Mr. Heatherbloom. Though she shifted her figure often, as if to call attention to the pale profile of her face against a leaden sky, his thoughts remained introspective. Only the sky-line seemed to interest him. But one day something white came dancing in the breeze to his feet. Absorbed in deep neutral tones afar, he did not see it; his four-footed charges, however, were quick to perceive the object.
"Oh!" said the lady.
Mr. Heatherbloom looked. "Is—is it yours?" he asked.
"It—was," she remarked with a slight accent on the last word.
He got up; there seemed little use endeavoring to rescue the handkerchief now.
"I'm afraid I've been rather slow," he remarked. "Quite stupid, I'm sure."
She may have had her own opinion but maintained a discreet silence. Mr. Heatherbloom stooped and gathered in the remnants. "You will permit me," he observed, "to replace it, of course."
"But it was not your fault."
"It was that of my charges, then."
"No; the wind. Let's blame it on the wind." She laughed, her dark eyes full on his, though Mr. Heatherbloom seemed hardly to see them.
After that when they met on this little elevation, she bowed to him and sometimes ventured a remark or two. He did not seem over-anxious to talk but he met her troubled face with calm and unvarying, though somewhat absent-minded courtesy. He replied to her questions perfunctorily, told her whom he served, betraying, however, in turn, no inquisitiveness concerning her. For him she was just some one who came and went, and incidentally interfered with his study of the sky-line.
By degrees she confided in him; as one so alone she was glad of almost any one to confide in. She wanted, indeed, needed badly, a situation as lady's maid or second maid. She had tried and tried for a position; unfortunately her recommendations were mostly foreign—from Milan, Moscow, Paris. People either scrutinized them suspiciously, ormon Dieu! couldn't read them. It was hard on her; she had had such a time! She, a Viennese, with all her experience in France, Italy, Russia, found herself at her wits' end in this golden America. Wasn't it odd,très drôle?She had laughed and laughed when she hadn't cried about it.
She had even tried singing in a little music-hall, a horribly common place, but her voice had failed her. Perhaps there was a vacancy at Miss Van—what was her name? Therewasa place vacant; the maid with the saucy nose, Mr. Heatherbloom indifferently vouchsafed, had just left to marry out of service.
"How fortunate!" the fair questioner cried; then sighed. Miss Van Rolsen, being a maiden lady, would probably be most particular about recommendations; that they should be of the home-made, intelligible brand, from people you could call up by telephone and interrogate. Had she been very particular in his case? Mr. Heatherbloom said "no"—not joyfully, and explained. Though she drew words from him, he talked to the sky-line. She listened; seemed thinking deeply.
"You are not pleased to be there?" Keenly.
"I?—Oh, of course!" Quickly.
She did not appear to note his changed manner. "This MissVan Rolsen,—isn't she the one whose niece—Miss ElizabethDalrymple—recently refused the hand and heart of a Russian prince?" shesaid musingly.
"Refused?" he cried suddenly. "You mean—" He stopped; the words had been surprised from him.
"Accepted?" She looked at him closer. "Of course; I remember now seeing it in the paper; I was thinking of some one else. One of the other lords, dukes, or noblemen the town is so full of just now."
He got up rather suddenly, bowed and went. With narrowing eyes she watched him walk away, but when he had gone all melancholy disappeared from her face; she stretched herself and laughed. "Voila!Sonia Turgeinov, comédienne!"
Mr. Heatherbloom did not repair to the point of elevation the next day, nor the day after; but she met him the third day near the Seventy-second Street entrance. More than that, she insinuated herself at his side; at first rather to his discomfort. Later he forgot the constraint her presence occasioned him, when something she said caused him to look upon her with new favor. Beauty had momentarily escaped his vigilance and enjoyed a mad romp after a squirrel before she was captured.
What, his companion laughingly suggested, would have happened if Beauty had really escaped, and he, Mr. Heatherbloom, had been forced to return to the house without her? What? Mr. Heatherbloom started. He might lose his position,n'est-cepas?He did not answer.
The idea was born; whynotlose Beauty? No, better still, Naughty; the prime favorite, Naughty. He looked into Naughty's eyes, and they seemed full of liquid reproach. Naughty had been his friend—supposititiously, and to abandon him now to the world, a cold place devoid of French lamb chops? A hard place for homeless dogs and men, alike! About to waive the temptation, Mr. Heatherbloom paused; the idea was capable of modification or expansion. Most ideas are.
But he shortly afterward dismissed the entire matter from his mind; it would, at best, be but a compromise, an evasion of the pact he had made with himself. It was not to be thought of. At this moment his companion swayed and Mr. Heatherbloom had just time to put out his arm; then helped her to a bench.
She partly recovered; it was nothing, she remarked bravely. One gets sometimes a little faint when—it was the old, old story of privation and want that now fell with seeming reluctance from her lips. Mr. Heatherbloom had become all attention. More than that he seemed greatly distressed. A woman actually in need, starving—no use mincing words!—in Central Park, the playground of the most opulent metropolis of the world. It was monstrous; he tendered her his purse, with several weeks' pay in it. Her reply had a spirited ring; he felt abashed and returned the money to his pocket. She sat back with eyes half-closed; he saw now that her face looked drawn and paler than usual.
He, thought and thought; had he not himself found out how difficult it was to get a position, to procure employment without friends and helpers? He, a man, had walked in search of it, day after day and felt the griping pangs of hunger; had wished for night, and, later, wished for the morn, only to find both equally barren.
Suddenly he spoke—slowly, like a man stating a proposition he has argued carefully in his own mind. She listened, approved, while hope already transfigured her face. She would have thanked him profusely but he did not remain to hear her. In fact, he seemed hardly to see her now; his features had become once more reserved and introspective.
He reappeared at the Van Rolsen house that day without Naughty. Miss VanRolsen, when she heard the news, burst into tears; then became furious.She was sure he had sold Naughty, winner of three blue ribbons, and "outof the contest" no end of times because superior to all competition!
A broken leash! Fiddlesticks! She penned advertisements wildly and summoned her niece. That young lady responded to protestations and questions with a slightly indifferent expression on her proud languid features. What did she think of it? She didn't really know; her manner said she really didn't care.
Mr. Heatherbloom, standing with the light of the window falling pensively upon him, she didn't seem to see at all; he had once more become a nullity. He rather preferred that rôle, however; perhaps he felt it was easier to impersonate annihilation, in the inception, than to have it, or a wish for it, thrust later too strongly upon him.
"I adhere to my opinion that he sold Naughty. I should never have employed this man," asserted Miss Van Rolsen, fastening her fiery eyes on Mr. Heatherbloom. "Why don't you speak, my dear, and give me your opinion?" To her niece.
"I haven't any, Aunt."
"You are discerning; you have judgment." Miss Van Rolsen spoke almost hysterically. "Remember he"—pointing a finger—"came without our knowing anything about him."
Miss Dalrymple did not stir; a bunch of bizarre-looking orchids on her gown moved to her even rhythmical breathing. "What was he? Who was he? Maybe, nothing more than—" She paused for want of breath, not of words, to characterize her opinion of Mr. Heatherbloom.
He readjusted his posture. It was very bright outdoors; people went by briskly, full of life and importance; children whirled along on roller skates.
"When I asked your opinion, my dear, as to the wisdom of having employed this person in the first place, under the circumstances, why did you keep silent?" Was Miss Van Rolsen still talking, or rambling on to the impervious beautiful girl? "You should have called me foolish, eccentric; yes, that's what I was, to have taken him in as I did."
Miss Dalrymple raised her brows and moved to a piano to adjust the flowers in a vase; she smiled at them with soft enigmatic lips.
"If I may venture an opinion, Madam," observed Mr. Heatherbloom in a far-away voice, "I should say Naughty will surely return, or be returned."
"You venture an opinion!" said Miss Van Rolsen. "You!"
Miss Dalrymple breathed the fragrance of the flowers; she apparently liked it.
"You are discharged!" said Miss Van Rolsen violently to Mr.Heatherbloom. "I give you the two-weeks' notice agreed upon."
"I'll waive the notice," suggested the young man at the window quickly.
"You'll do nothing of the sort." Sharply. "It'll take me that time to find another incompetent keeper for them. And, meanwhile, you may be sure," grimly, "you will be very well watched."
"Under the circumstances, I should prefer—since youhavedischarged me—to leave at once."
"Your preferences are a matter of utter indifference. You were employed with a definite understanding in this regard."
Mr. Heatherbloom gazed rather wildly out of the window; two weeks.—that much longer! He was about to say he would not be well watched; he would take himself off—that she couldn't keep him; but paused. A contract was a contract, though orally made; she could hold him yet a little. But why did she wish to? He had not calculated upon this; he tried to think but could not. He looked from the elder to the younger woman. The latter did not look at him.
Miss Dalrymple had seated herself at the piano; her fingers—light as spirit touches—now swept the keys; a Debussey fantasy, almost as pianissimo as one could play it, vibrated around them. Outside the whir! whir! of the skates went on. A little girl tumbled. Mr. Heatherbloom regarded her; ribbons awry; fat legs in the air. The music continued.
"You may go," said a severe voice.
He aroused himself to belated action, but at the door he looked back. "I'm sure it will be all right," he repeated to Miss Van Rolsen. "On my word"—more impetuously.
At the piano some one laughed, and Mr. Heatherbloom went.
"Why on earth, Aunt, did you want to keep him two weeks longer?" he heard the girl's now passionate tones ask as he walked away.
"For a number of reasons, my dear," came the response. "One, because he wanted to leave me in the lurch. Another—it will be easier to keep an eye on him until Naughty is returned, or"—her voice had the vindictive ring of a Roman matron's—"this person's culpability is proven. Naughty is a valuable dog and—"
Mr. Heatherbloom's footsteps hastened; he had caught quite enough, but as he disappeared to the rear, the dream chords on the piano, now louder, continued to follow him.
That night, as if his rest were not already sufficiently disturbed, a disconcerting possibility occurred abruptly to Mr. Heatherbloom. It was born in the darkness of the hour; he could not dispel it. What if the person in whom he had confided in the park were not all she seemed? He hated the insinuating suggestion but it insisted on creeping into his brain. He had once, not so long ago, in his search for cheap lodgings, stumbled upon a roomful of alleged cripples and maimed disreputables who made mendicancy a profession; their jibes and jests on the credulity of the public yet rang in his ears. What if she—his casual acquaintance of the day before—belonged to that yet greater class of dissemblers who ply their arts and simulations with more individualism and intelligence?
Mr. Heatherbloom sat up in bed. Naughty might be worth five or even ten thousand dollars. He remembered having read at some previous time about a certain canine whose proud mistress and owner was alleged to have refused twenty thousand for him. The perspiration broke out on Mr. Heatherbloom's face. Was Naughty of this category? He looked very "classy," as if there couldn't be another beast quite like him in the world. What had been the twenty-thousand-dollar mistress' name; not Van—impossible!
But the more he told himself "impossible", the more positive grew a certain perverse inner asseveration that it was quite possible. And what if the person in the park had known it? He reviewed the circumstances of their different meetings; details that had not impressed themselves upon him at the time—that had almost escaped his notice, now stood out clearer—too clear, in his mind. He remembered how she had brightened astonishingly after the brief fainting spell when he had made his ill-advised proposal. It had been as elixir to her. He recalled how she had met him every day. Had it been mere chance? Or—disconcerting suspicion!—had she deliberately planned—
For Mr. Heatherbloom there was no sleep that night. At the first signs of dawn he was up and out, directing his steps toward the park, as a criminal returns to the haunts of his crime. No faces of any kind now greeted him there; only trees confronted him, gaunt, ghostlike in the early morning mists. Even the squirrels were yet abed in their miniature Swiss chalets in the air. The sun rose at last, red and threatening. He now met a policeman who looked at him questioningly. Mr. Heatherbloom greeted him with a blitheness at variance with his mood. Officialdom only growled and gazed after the young man as if to say: "We'll gather you in, yet."
It was past nine o'clock before Mr. Heatherbloom ventured to approach the house; as he did so, the front door closed; some one had been admitted. He himself went in through the area way; from above came joyous barks, a woman's voice; pandemonium. Mr. Heatherbloom listened. Later he learned what had happened; a young woman had brought back Naughty; a very honest young woman who refused all reward.
"Sure," said the cook, who had the story from the butler, "and she spoke loike a quane. 'I can take nothing for returning what doesn't belong to me, ma'am. I am but doing my jooty. But if ye plaze, would ye be lookin' over these recommends av mine—they're from furriners—and if yez be havin' ony friends who be wanting a maid and yez might be so good as to recommind me, I'd be thankin' of yez, for it's wurrk I wants.' Think av that now. Only wurrk! Who says there arn't honest servin' gurrls, nowadays? The mistress was that pleased with her morals an' her manners—so loidy-loike!—she gave her the job that shlip av a Jane had; wid an advance av salary on the sphot."
"You mean Miss Van Rolsen has actually engaged her?" Mr. Heatherbloom, face abeam, repeated.
"Phawt have I been saying just now?" Scornfully. "Sure, an' is it ears you have on your head?"
Mr. Heatherbloom, a weight lifted from his shoulders, departed from the kitchen. He had wronged her—this poor girl, or young woman, who, in her dire distress, had appealed to him. How he despised now the uncharitable dark thoughts of the night! How he could congratulate himself he had obeyed impulse, and not stopped to reason too closely, or to question too suspiciously, when he had decided to act the day before!
All is well that ends well. All he had to do now was to complete as unostentatiously as possible his term of service—But perhaps he would be released at once?
No; not at once! Those anxious to supersede him began to dribble in, it is true; but they faded away, one by one, after interviews with Miss Van Rolsen, and returned no more. They were a mournful lot, these would-be, ten-dollar-a-week custodians; Mr. Heatherbloom wondered if his own physiognomy in a general way would merge nicely in a composite photograph of them?
His duties he performed now as quietly as he could. Two weeks more, ten days, nine, eight! Then? Ah, then!
He did not see Miss Van Rolsen again nor Miss Dalrymple. He encountered the fair unknown, though, his acquaintance of the park, occasionally, as she in demure cap and white ruffled apron glided softly her allotted way. Sometimes he nodded to her in distant fashion, sometimes she got by before he actually realized he had passed her. She seemed to move so quickly and with such little ado; or, it may be, he was not very observant. He didn't feel very keen on mere minor details these days; he experienced principally the sensation of one who was now merely "marking time", as it were—figuratively performing a variety of goose-step, the way the German soldiers do.
But one day she—Marie, they called her—stopped him.
"I understand from one of the servants that it cost you your position to—do what you did. You know what I mean—"
He looked alarmed. "Don't worry about that."
"But shouldn't I?" Steady dark eyes upon him.
"On the contrary!" Vigorously.
"I don't understand—unless.—"
"The salary—it is nothing here"—Mr. Heatherbloom gestured airily. "I should do much better—one of my ability, you understand!—elsewhere."
"Could you?" She regarded him doubtfully. "But, perhaps, they—It was not very pleasant for you here, anyway. Miss Van Rolsen—her niece, Miss Dalrymple—does not like you." He started. "It was easy to see that; when I mentioned regretfully that the good fortune that brought me where there is plenty; to eat should have been the cause of your being in disfavor, she stopped me short." Mr. Heatherbloom studied the distance. "'The person you speak of intended leaving anyhow,' she said, and her voice was—mon Dieu!—ice."
The listener swallowed. "Quite so," he said jauntily. "Miss Dalrymple is absolutely correct."
She regarded him an instant with sudden, very mature gaze. "I can't quite make you out."
"No one ever can. Don't try. It isn't worth while. Which reminds me"—he rattled on—"I did you an injury; an injustice—"
"Ah?" she said quickly.
"In my mind! You will excuse me, but do you know that night after I had consigned him to your care in the park, I afterward felt quite anxious—"
"For what?" She came closer.
"Wondering if you—Ha! ha!" Mr. Heatherbloom stopped; in his confusion, his endeavor to turn the conversation from himself and Miss Dalrymple, he seemed to be getting into deep waters.
"You wondered what?" In a low tone.
Since he now felt obliged to speak, he did, coolly enough. "If you had some ulterior motive!" he said with a quiet smile.
She it was who now started back, and her face paled slightly."Why?—what ulterior motive? What do you mean?"
He told her in plain words. She breathed more evenly; then smiled sweetly. She had a strange face sometimes. "Thank you," she said. "You are very frank,mon ami. I like you none the less for it. Though you did so injure me—in your thoughts!" Her eyes had an enigmatic light. "Well, I must go now to Miss Dalrymple. She is beginning to be so fond of me." She drawled the last words as if she liked to linger on them. "You see I, too, have a little Russian blood in me." Mr. Heatherbloom looked down. "And I think she loves to hear me tell of that wonderful country—the white nights of St. Petersburg—the splendid steppes—the grandeur of our Venice of the north. Of course, she is immensely interested in Russia now." Significantly. "Its ostentation, its splendor, its barbaric picturesqueness! But tell me, what is her prince like? He is very handsome, naturally! Or she would not so dote on him!"
Mr. Heatherbloom's features had hardened; he did not answer directly."She likes to talk about Russia?" he said, half to himself.
Marie shrugged. "Is it not to be her country some day?"
"No, it isn't!" The words seemed forced from his lips; he spoke almost fiercely. "She may live there with him, but it will never be her country. This is her country. She is its product; an American to her finger-tips. And all the grand dukes and princes of the Winter Palace can't change her. She belongs to old California; she grew up among the orange trees and the flowers, and her heart will ever yearn for them in your frozen land of tyranny!"
"Oh! oh! oh!" said Mademoiselle Marie. "How eloquent monsieur can be! Quite an orator! One would say he, too, has known this land of orange trees and flowers!"
"I?" Mr. Heatherbloom bit his lip.
But she only shook a finger. "Oh! oh!" Altogether like a different person from his casual acquaintance of the park! He gazed at her closer; how quickly the marks of trouble, anxiety, had faded from her face; as if they had never existed.
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking into eyes now full of a new and peculiar understanding.
"Nothing," she said and vanished.
He gazed where she had been; he could not account for a sudden strange emotion, as if some one had trailed a shadow over him. A premonition of something going to happen; that could not be foreseen, or averted! Something worse than anything that had gone before! What nonsense! He pressed his lips tightly and went about his duties like an automaton.
Eight days—seven days—six days more!—only six—
The blow fell, a thunderbolt from the clear sky. It dazed certain people at first; it was difficult to realize what had happened, or if anythinghadreally happened. For might not what seemed a deep and dire mystery turn out to be nothing so very mysterious after all? A message would soon come; everything would then be "cleared up" and those most concerned would laugh at their apprehensions. But the hours went by, and the affair remained inexplicable; no word was heard concerning Miss Dalrymple's whereabouts; she seemed to have disappeared as completely as if she had vanished on the Persian magic carpet. What could it mean? The circumstances briefly were:
Miss Dalrymple, four or five days before Mr. Heatherbloom's term of service came to an end, had expressed a desire to revisit her old home and friends in the West. One of a party made up mostly of other Californians—now residents of New York city—the girl had failed to appear on the private car at the appointed time, and the train had pulled out, leaving her behind. At the first important stop a telegram had been handed to a gentleman of the party from Miss Dalrymple; it expressed her regret at having reached the station too late owing to circumstances she would explain later, and announced her intention of coming on, with her maid, in a few days. They were not to wait anywhere for her but to go right along.
The party did; it was sorry to have lost one of its most popular members but no one thought anything more of the matter until at Denver, after a telegram had been forwarded to the Van Rolsen house, in New York, asking just when Miss Dalrymple would arrive, as camping preparations for a joyous pilgrimage in the mountains were in progress.
Miss Van Rolsen gasped when this message reached her. Miss Dalrymple and her maid—a young woman newly engaged by Miss Van Rolsen—had left the house for the train to which the private car was attached; neither had been heard from since. The aunt had, of course, presumed her niece had gone as planned; she had received no word from her, but supposing she was of a light-hearted, heedless company thought nothing of that. It was possible Miss Dalrymple had actually missed her train; but if so, why had she not returned to her aunt's house?
Where had she gone? What had become of her? No trace of her could be found. Certain forces in the central railroad office at New York could not discover any evidence that the young girl had taken a subsequent train. There was no record of her name at any ticket office; no state-room had been reserved by, or for her; in fact, telegrams to officials in Chicago and other points west failed to elicit satisfactory information of any kind.
Miss Van Rolsen found herself with something real to worry about; she rose to the occasion; her niece, after all, was everything to her. The Van Rolsen millions were ultimately for her, and the old lady's every ambition was centered in the girl. She had been proud of her beauty, her social triumphs.
With great determination she set herself to solve the puzzling problem. Could people thus completely disappear nowadays? It seemed impossible, she asserted, sitting behind closed doors in her library, to the private agent of the secret-service bureau whom she had just "called in."
He begged to differ from her and pointed to a number of cases which had seemed just as strange and mysterious in the beginning. Ransom—the "Black Hand"—Who could say what secret influences had been at work in this case? It was a very important one; Miss Dalrymple had money of her own; she was known to be her aunt's heiress. The conclusion?—But this was not Morocco, or Turkey, Miss Van Rolsen somewhat vehemently returned.
True; we have had, however, our "civilized" Ransuilis, answered the agent and mentioned a number of names in support of his theory. No doubt, after an interval, Miss Van Rolsen would have news of her niece—through those who had perpetrated the outrage; or she might even receive a few written words from the girl herself. After that it was a question of negotiating, or, while professing to deal with the perpetrators, to ferret them out if one could. The latter course was dangerous, for those who stoop to this particular crime are usually of a desperate type; he and Miss Van Rolsen could consider that question later. Meanwhile she must avoid worry as much as possible. The young girl would, no doubt, be well treated.
Had the speaker looked around at this moment, he might have observed that the heavy curtains, drawn before the door leading into the hall and closed by Miss Van Rolsen, moved suddenly, but neither the agent nor Miss Van Rolsen, engrossed at the far end of the room, noticed. The drapery wavered a moment; then settled once more into its folds.
The telegram purporting to be from Miss Dalrymple to one of the party on the train, could—the agent went on—very easily have been sent by some one else; no doubt, had been. The miscreants had seized upon a lucky combination of circumstances; for two or three days, while Miss Dalrymple was supposed to be speeding across the continent, they, unsuspected and unmolested, would be afforded every opportunity to convey her to some remote and, for them, safe refuge. It was a cleverly planned coup, and could not have been conceived and consummated without—here he spoke slowly—inside assistance.
The curtain at the doorway again stirred.
"And now, Madam, we come to your servants," said the police agent. "I should like to know something about them."
"My servants, sir, are, for the most part, old and trusted."
"'For the most part'!" He caught at the phrase. "We will deal first with those who donotcome in that category."
"There's a young man recently employed that I have not been at all pleased with. He leaves to-morrow."
"Ah!" said the visitor. "Not the person I met going out of the area way, with the dogs as I came in?"
She answered affirmatively.
"H—mn!" He paused. "But tell me why you have not been pleased with him, and, in brief, all the circumstances of his coming here."
Miss Van Rolsen did so in a voice she strove to make patient although she could not disguise its tremulousness, or the feverish anxiety that consumed her. She related the most trivial details, seeming irrelevances, but the visitor did not interrupt her. Instead, he studied carefully her face, pinched and worn; the angular figure, slightly bent; the fingers, nervously clasping and unclasping as she spoke. He watched her through habit; and still forbore speaking, even when she referred to the escape of her canine favorite from his caretaker and how the dog had later been returned, though the listener's eyes had, at this point, dilated slightly.
"After his carelessness in this matter, he seemed to want to get away from the house at once," observed Miss Van Rolsen, "without availing himself of the two-weeks' notice I had agreed to give him."
The visitor relapsed into his chair; an ironical light appeared in his eyes.
"Perhaps," added Miss Van Rolsen, "you attach no significance to the fact?"
"On the contrary, I attach every importance to it. Has it not occurred to you there was a little collusion in this matter of the lost dog?"
"Collusion?" Miss Van Rolsen's accents expressed incredulity. "You must be wrong. Why, the young woman wouldn't even accept the reward. And it was not a small one!"
"Two hundred or so dollars, ma'am! Not her stake!" he murmured satirically. "I am afraid two hundred thousand dollars would be nearer the mark these people have set for themselves!"
"But she didn't ask for a place here; only for me to look over her references—one was from a lady I knew in Paris—and to recommend her to my friends—"
"She knew your other maid had left; this confederate had, of course, told her. It was all arranged that she should come here. Rest assured of that. And having accomplished her purpose—clever that she is!—she at once started to ingratiate herself with your niece, to make herself useful. As a mistress of languages shewasuseful, in fact more so than any ordinary maid. Where did she come from? Find out whom she represents, and—we'll have the key to the mystery. But she, too, has disappeared; after turning the game over to the others, perhaps. I would suggest cabling those foreign references this young woman gave you. They will, of course, including your Paris friend, know nothing of her; the name she gave you was not her own."
"But by what unfortunate combination of circumstances"—Miss Van Rolsen spoke somewhat incoherently—"should these people have been led to settle on my niece as the victim of their cowardly designs? There are so many others—"
"You forget the publicity concerning this prince your niece is to marry." The old lady stiffened. "Pardon my mentioning it, but Miss Dalrymple has in this connection been very much before the public gaze."
"Against her wish, sir, and mine!" snapped Miss Van Rolsen. "She—I—have both lamented the fact. But what can one do? The journalists settled on the prince as a fruitful source for speculation. He is of noble family, very wealthy, no fortune-hunter; which has made it all the more distressing for him and us." She seemed about to say something further; then her lips suddenly tightened. "As I say, it has been very distressing," she ended, after a pause. "I expect it was one of the reasons my niece wanted to get away from New York for a time."
"No doubt!" The caller's voice was courtesy itself although he probably but half-credited Miss Van Rolsen's protestations in the matter. People liked to complain of the press and newspaper notoriety, when in their hearts, perhaps, they were not so displeased to be in that terrible lime-light; especially when the person associated with them happened to be a count, or a duke, or a prince. "Unfortunately, one has to put up with these things," he now added. "But you are positive you have told me everything?"
An instant she seemed to hesitate. "I am positive you know everything relative to the subject."
He arose. "In that event"—his manner indicated a sudden resolution—"there is one little preliminary to be attended to."
"Which is—"
"To arrest this fellow, Heatherbloom!"
"Arrest? When?"
"At once! There is no time to be lost. Already—" He gave a sudden exclamation.
"What is it?" she asked.
He stepped toward the curtain; it moved perceptibly.
"Some one has been listening," exclaimed Miss Van Rolsen excitedly.
"Yes, some one." Significantly. As he spoke he threw back the curtain and revealed the door partly ajar.
"It must have been—Not one of my old servants—- They would not have—"
He stopped her. "There's the front way out of this house and the area way below," he said rapidly. "Is there any other way of escaping to the street?"
"No."
He darted out of the room to the front door. She followed.
"Quite in time!" he said, casting a quick look both ways along the avenue and then letting his glance fall to the servants' entrance below.
"You think he will try to—"
He regarded her swiftly. "While I stand guard here, would you mind getting some one to 'phone my office and ask two or three of my men to step over at once? Not that I doubt my own ability to cope with the case"—fingering the handle of a weapon on his pocket—"only it is always well to take no chances. Especially now!"
"Now?"
"Since he has practically convicted himself and confirmed my theory. We shall get at the truth through him. We're nearer the solution of the matter than I dared hope for."
"I'll telephone myself!" she cried. And started back to do so when an excited face confronted her.
"If ye plase, ma'am!" It was the cook.
"What is it?" Miss Van Rolsen spoke sharply.
"If ye plase, I think, ma'am, this Mr. Heatherbloom has taken lave av his senses."
"Why, what has he been doing?"
"He has, faith, just jumped over the fence into our neighbor's yard on the corner, and—"
The man on the steps did not wait to hear more; with something that sounded like an imprecation he sprang quickly down to the sidewalk and ran toward the corner.
As Mr. Heatherbloom prepared to issue from his neighbor's gate opening on the side street, the feminine voice of one of the servants in the rear of the corner house called out in alarm at sight of the strange figure speeding across their metropolitan imitation of a back yard. If anything were needed to stimulate the fugitive's footsteps, it was the sound of that voice. He stayed not on the order of his going, but pushing back the heavy bolt—fortunately his egress was not barred by a locked door—he tore open the gate and sprang to the sidewalk. Then without stopping, he ran on, away from the fashionable avenue. The street he traversed like many thoroughfares of its kind was comparatively deserted most of the time; nobody impeded his progress, though one or two people gazed after him from their windows.
He had gone about three-quarters of a block when the window spectators discerned a heavier built figure come lumbering around the corner, apparently in hot pursuit. Mr. Heatherbloom, glancing over his shoulder, also observed this person; his capture and subsequent incarceration seemed inevitable. Already the fugitive was drawing near to busier Fourth Avenue; there he would be obliged to relax his pace; he could not sprint down that thoroughfare without attracting undue attention. Behind, the pursuer called out; he was, however, too short of breath for compelling vocal effect.
Mr. Heatherbloom, on the contrary, had good control of his breathing and was, moreover, yet fresh and physically capable. Which fact made it the more difficult for him to settle down to a forced, albeit sharp walk as he approached the corner, when his gait suddenly accelerated once more.
A street-car had just started not very far from him and Mr. Heatherbloom ran after it. A fine pretext for speed was offered him; as he "let himself go" in the way he had once gone somewhere in the past in a hundred-yards' dash, he felt joyously conscious both of covering space quickly and that he did so without making himself particularly prominent. Fools who ran after street-cars were born every moment; he was happy to be relegated to that idiotic class by any onlookers. He caught the car while it was going; he didn't want it to stop for him.
Neither did it stop to pick up any one else for several blocks; there was a space before it unobstructed by traffic. The motorman turned on more power and Mr. Heatherbloom listened gratefully to the humming wheels. At the same time he looked back; at the corner where he had turned into Fourth avenue he fancied a number of people were gathering. He could surmise the cause; the stockily-built man—his pursuer—was asking questions; he had learned what had become of the fugitive and was presumably looking around for a "taxi." In vain. At least, Mr. Heatherbloom so concluded, because one did not appear in hot chase behind them.
The motorman still gave "rapid service"; the conductor looked at his watch, by which Mr. Heatherbloom imagined they had time to make up. He hoped so, then resented a pause at a corner for an old lady. How he wished she had not been afflicted with rheumatism, and could have got on without help! But at length the light-weight conductor did manage to pull the heavy-weight passenger aboard. Time lost, thirty seconds! The motorman manipulated the lever more deliberately now and they gathered headway slowly. Mr. Heatherbloom dared not remain longer where he was; as the car approached a corner near an elevated station, he got off. He was obliged to walk now a short distance but he did so hastily. Drawing near the iron steps, leading upward, he once more looked back; a "taxi"waswhirling after him and he had no doubt as to its occupant. The street-car could easily have been kept in sight and his leaving it been noted.
Mr. Heatherbloom now threw discretion to the winds; dashing toward the stairway he ran up. Just as he reached the ticket window, the pursuing vehicle stopped below. Some one sprang out, did not pause to pay the chauffeur, but calling out to him his name, started after Mr. Heatherbloom. That gentleman had by this time boarded the train waiting above; he stood on the rear platform. Any moment the pursuer would appear. He did appear as the gates of the train were closed and the cars had started on their way.
Yet he did not give up for running alongside the last car he called out to the guard:
"Fugitive from justice! Criminal—on this train! Open the gate for me!"
An instant the guard hesitated; rules, however, were rules.
"Five hundred dollars if you let me on!" the voice panted.
The guard in his own mind decided he would let the other on—too late; the last car dashed past the end of the platform. A faint sigh of relief from Mr. Heatherbloom was drowned in the tumult of the wheels; then he endeavored to appear indifferent, apathetic. It was not easy to do so; the secret-service agent had been heard by many others.
A "fugitive from justice" on the train! Mr. Heatherbloom tried to look as little the part as possible, to simulate by his expression a preoccupied young business man of heavy responsibilities. Fortunately the train was crowded; nevertheless he fancied people glanced especially at him. He wished now he were better dressed; good clothes may cover a multitude of sins. Still there was no reason why he should be suspected more than sundry other indifferently-dressed people. He would dismiss the thought, tell himself he was going down town on some little errand; he even devised what that errand should be—to procure theater tickets. But his brain did not seem quite capable of concentrating itself solely on desirable orchestra chairs; it constantly and perversely reverted to that other disagreeable subject—a "fugitive from—"
Whoever could the fellow be? He endeavored by a mental process to eliminate himself and see but a mythical some one else in a mythical background. A short person; a tall one? What kind of person would the imaginary individual be, anyhow? And what had he done, what crime committed? Mr. Heatherbloom tried to think with the minds of all these other people on the train, to put himself figuratively in their shoes.
One young sprig of a girl, about fourteen, with sallow complexion and bead-like black eyes, kept regarding him. He conceived a profound dislike for her, shifted a foot; then straightened and banished her peremptorily from his environment. His principal interest lay now in casual glimpses of windows and speculation as to what was behind them. He varied this employment in a passing endeavor to decipher sundry signs that obtruded incidentally within range of vision.
He had made out only a few when the, train slackened and came to a standstill. Mr. Heatherbloom told himself he would get off as quickly as possible; then changed his mind and remained. People would, of course, argue that, under the circumstances, the unknown criminal would be among those to leave the train at the first opportunity.
A number got out; Mr. Heatherbloom noted the passengers who remained aboard and watched closely the departing ones. A few of the latter seemed slightly self-conscious, notably, an elderly spinster who, having never done anything wrong, was possessed of an unusual sensitiveness.
"See that slouchy chap—By jove, I believe—"
"Does look like a tough customer—"
"On the contrary, he just looks poor." Mr. Heatherbloom turned upon the two speakers warmly.
Why could he not have kept silent; why was he obliged to obtrude his opinion into their conversation?
They stared and he half turned as the train banged itself along once more. Where should he go? Reaching for a paper that some one had discarded, he sank into a vacant seat and opened the sheet with misgiving.
What would the big types say? Nothing! Miss Van Rolsen had managed to keep the strange affair of her niece's disappearance out of the columns of the papers. They knew nothing about it as yet—Only a single little item in the shipping news, in fine print, which suddenly caught his gaze bore in any way, and that a remote one, upon her niece and her affairs. Mr. Heatherbloom regarded it with dull glance. The few lines meant nothing to him—then; later he had cause to turn to them with abrupt wondering avidity. Now his eyes swept with simulated interest the general news of the day; he professed to read cable dispatches.
But an odd reaction seemed to have settled on him; the excitement of the chase became, for the moment, forgotten. The scope of his mental visuality no longer included the figure of the agent from the private detective bureau. An anxiety more poignant moved him; his thoughts centered on that other matter—the cause of Miss Van Rolsen's apprehensions—the while those emotions that had held him a listener behind the curtain in her library again stirred in his breast. He had not played the eavesdropper for any selfish purpose or through a sense of personal apprehension. The sudden realization of his own danger, had, perforce, awakened in him the need for quick action if he would save himself.
If? What chance had he? But for one compelling reason, one consuming purpose, he would not have fled at all; he would have faced them, instead! But he had work to do—he! A fugitive, a logical candidate for the prison cell! Ironical situation! Even now he heard a voice at his elbow.
"Mr. Heatherbloom!" Some one spoke suddenly to him and he wheeled with abrupt swift fierceness.
"Well, are you going to eat me up?" the voice laughed.
He looked into the pert face of Jane—the maid with the provoking nose—who had been at Miss Van Rolsen's. She had got on at the other end of the car at the last station, and after waiting a few moments for him to see her, had moved toward him, or a seat at his side just then vacated by some one preparing to leave. Mr. Heatherbloom's face cleared; he banished the belligerent expression.
"You look edible enough!" he said with forced jocularity.
"Indeed?" she retorted, surprised at such gallantry from one who had heretofore not deigned to pay her compliments. "I'll have to tell my husband about you." Playfully. "But how are things at Miss Van Rolsen's? Anything new?"
Mr. Heatherbloom murmured something about the customary routine; then, even as he spoke, became conscious of a sudden new disconcerting circumstance. The tracks for the up and the down trains on the elevated had widely separated and ran now on the extreme sides of the broad thoroughfare. From his side of the car the young man was afforded a view of the pavement below, between the two sustaining iron structures. A chill shot through him and his smile became set. Gazing down he discerned, on the street beneath and a little to one side of them, a motor-car, speeding fast, apparently bent on keeping up with them.
"How—how's your husband?" he said irrelevantly. The carwaskeeping up with them.
"Very well, thank you." (Woulditreach the next station before them?)
"You—you have a pleasant home?" he asked. (A slight blockade below impeded, momentarily, the "taxi". Mr. Heatherbloom raised his handkerchief to his moist brow.)
"Lovely," she answered. "Are you going far?"
"Brooklyn," he said at random. Whatwerethey talking about? (The car was once more under way; fortunately their progress overhead would not be impeded by a press of vehicles.)
"That's where we live—Brooklyn," she said.
"Is it? Got a nice house?" He had practically asked this question before; but he hardly knew what he was saying. A policeman had stopped the "taxi" and was shaking his head, as at a rather "fishy" story. Mr. Heatherbloom by a species of telepathy, seemed to overhear the excited talk waging below.
"Oh, yes; lovely!" Jane's accents were but parenthetical to something else. The "taxi" had been allowed to proceed, in spite of the detaining thought-waves Mr. Heatherbloom had launched toward the officer of the law. The occupant had probably showed a badge; Mr. Heatherbloom stretched his neck out of the window.
"You can come around and see, sometime, if you want to." Pride in her voice. "And meet my husband." Husband was a very substantial baker.
"Charmed, I'm sure! Ha! ha!" He suddenly laughed.
"What is it?" She looked startled.
"Funniest accident!" He waved his hat, as at some one, out of the window. "See that taxi! Bumped into a dray. Ha! ha!"
"I don't see anything so funny in that." Straightening.
"No? You should have seen the expression on his face—"
"His? Whose?"
"The—ah, drayman's, of course! He—looked so mad."
"I should have thought," she observed, "the man in the car would have been the maddest It couldn't have hurt the dray much."
"No? Perhaps that's what made it seem so funny to me."
"Well," she said, "I never noticed before that you had a great sense of humor."
"You never knew me." Jauntily.
They got off at Brooklyn Bridge together. As they made their way through the crowd, Mr. Heatherbloom appeared most care-free and very sedulous of his companion's welfare, especially when they passed one or two loiterers who seemed eying the passengers rather closely.
"Two for Brooklyn." Mr. Heatherbloom laid down a dime at the ticket office.
Soon, unmolested, he sped on once more; but as they crossed the busy river all his light-heartedness seemed suddenly to desert him; the questions he had been vainly asking himself earlier that day were reiterated in his brain. Where was she? What had become of her? His hands clasped closely. A red spot burned on his cheek.