After dinner the two younger men contrived to rid themselves of Rosner's company temporarily on the plea that they wished to unpack their bags. Having accomplished this task, they drifted into the smoking-room, where the card players were already hard at it. Waiters were running here and there with tinkling glasses. The air was hazy with the smoke of many cigarettes and cigars.
A corpulent gentleman with the wine-ruddy face and expansive clothes and manners of a London theatrical producer, as indeed he was, approached the two friends as they stood surveying the scene. "Would you two gentlemen care to make up a table at bridge?" he asked.
Bridge was John's favorite diversion. He played a careful, serious-minded game for pleasure rather than for profit. He looked suggestively at Rodrigo, who shrugged affirmatively. The Italian would have been happier at baccarat or some other continental game which moved more quickly than bridge. But he was willing to please, and it occurred to him that his funds would not permit his participation in baccarat as played in this smoking-room, for a few moments' observation had shown him that the stakes were very high.
The red-faced Englishman guided them over to a table near the stairway. A gaunt, pale, long-haired man was already seated there, surrounded by three tipped-up chairs. He was idly shuffling the cards and dropped them to rise as his companion reappeared. The introductions revealed that the stout Englishman was Gilbert Christy, producer of the Christy Revues, which Rodrigo was familiar with as elaborate girl-and-music shows relying upon well-drilled choruses and trick stage effects rather than cleverness for their success. The lean Englishman was Clive Derrick, leading man in Christy's current show. The Christy Revue was transporting itself overseas, after a brief and rather unremunerative engagement at Rome and Naples, to try its luck on Broadway.
"André Chariot has been filling his pockets in America," boomed Christy, whose voice was as loud as his vest. "Why not I?"
Rodrigo agreed that the chances were excellent, being too polite to explain that Charlot's divertissements were clever, while Christy was about to offer America something which Ziegfeld and other native New York producers were already doing better than anybody else in the world.
Bridge at a shilling a point with the two theatrical men did not prove exciting. The close air in the room and the dullness of the game elicited yawns from Rodrigo after a while. He envied John his ability to enjoy close concentration upon the cards, and apparently not to notice the fact that his opponents were boastful bores, as well as bad bridge players. Due to John's good work, he and Rodrigo were soon so far ahead in the scoring that the eagerness of their partners, who were bad losers and had already begun to quarrel with each other, to find an excuse to abandon the play became pointed. The excuse finally arrived in the form of a dark, pop-eyed little Englishman, who twittered up to Christy like a hesitant robin and said in a low voice, "I'll have to ask your help, Mr. Christy. Binner's bags are missing, and she is raising the devil."
Christy turned upon him wrathfully. "Go find them then. What kind of a company manager are you anyway?"
"I've looked high and low, sir, and they're not to be found. She's storming about her cabin, threatening to return on the next boat, run amuck among the company's baggage in the hold, and all that. She's in a fearful rage."
"Let her rage. God, I've had nothing but trouble with that woman ever since we left London. I might better have left her in the chorus."
"I wish you'd come, sir," the company manager urged timidly. "The other passengers are complaining."
Christy sighed prodigiously, the sigh of a man upon whose shoulders rest the cares and responsibility of almost the entire world. "I'm sorry, gentlemen," he apologized, "but I'll really have to handle this situation personally. Please add up the scores and I'll settle later."
When he had left, Rodrigo, who had taken a sudden lively interest in the dialogue, asked the sad-faced Englishman who remained, "Is the lady's name Sophie Binner?" His tone was more eager than he had intended it.
"Yes," replied Derrick. "Do you know her?"
"Slightly. I met her while I was at Oxford. I spent my vacations in London. She was a chorus girl then."
"She has the ingenue role in this show. Rather a decent voice. And a right pretty girl. But a fearful temper. Thinks she should have everything Trevor—Emily Trevor—the star—gets. Always kicking up a row. I don't see how Christy puts up with her, really." A few minutes later he suggested that Christy might need his help and departed in the direction of the recalcitrant actress' stateroom.
Rodrigo had an impulse to accompany him. Fancy Sophie Binner here on the same ship with him! He discovered to his surprise, for he had thought that their final quarrel in her London apartment had killed whatever attraction she had had for him, that he was experiencing a pleasant thrill at the anticipation of meeting her again. Worldly, selfish, bad-tempered Sophie. But pretty, tender-eyed Sophie also. He glanced at John, who, engrossed in the mathematics of the scores, had not listened to the revelatory conversation with Derrick. John Dorning, of Dorning and Son, the impeccable old concern of high ideals that Rodrigo was about to enter. Rodrigo sighed. He would have to abandon his wasteful life from now on. No more Sophies. A few nice girls perhaps that Dorning might introduce him to and whom he would have to treat with irreproachable decorum.
He watched the angular back of Clive Derrick disappearing through the door leading to the deck. He would not seek out Sophie. Of course, if he should come upon her accidentally, as he undoubtedly would sooner or later, unless her tantrum or rough weather confined her to her cabin the rest of the voyage, he could not be held accountable for that.
When, a half hour later, John expressed his intention of going to bed, Rodrigo denied that he was sleepy and said he would take a turn or two around the deck. His turn led him to the ballroom, which he entered as casually as his rather guilty conscience permitted. Sophie, he tried to tell himself, was undoubtedly still in her stateroom battling with Christy. But he knew very well that if there was one thing she preferred to quarreling, it was dancing.
The Italian band was dispensing a not very well executed American jazz tune. The room was fairly crowded with dancers. Rodrigo, smoking in the doorway and surveying the dancers idly, tried to persuade himself that he was looking for no one in particular. In a few minutes he saw her. In a white, creamy costume that harmonized excellently with her fluffy yellow bobbed hair, she looked the picture of animation and content as she gilded by quite close to him in the arms of Gilbert Christy. Rodrigo smiled. It was so much like the Sophie he knew, one minute swearing at a man and the next dancing with him. Admiration was mingled with his smile. She was prettier, better dressed and had more of an air about her than she had possessed when he had known her in London.
When the music stopped, Rodrigo contrived, almost without being aware he was contriving it, to be near Sophie and her partner. He had some uneasiness as to how she would receive him. Their last meeting had been so stormy. Sophie, glancing his way and recognizing him at once, glided up to him and seized both of the hands he outstretched to her. "Rodrigo!" she cried with the smiling exuberance Christy Revue audiences knew so well. "Fancy meeting you here! Do you know Mr. Christy?"
Rodrigo admitted that he did, and the three walked over toward the seats at the side of the ballroom, Sophie retaining an intimate grip upon Rodrigo's arm.
"Now, dear boy, tell me all that has happened since I saw you last," she bubbled. "Where have you been keeping yourself? Why have you been hiding from all your old friends? Some of the girls we used to pal around with are in this show—Muriel Case, Betty Brewster—do you remember them? But please give me a cigarette, somebody, or I shall perish. Oh, thank you, Rodrigo." She took a second to inhale gratefully. "Has Gil—Mr. Christy told you that I have a featured part in this show? We're on our way to conquer Broadway now—that is, if some fool doesn't mislay my bags again." She flashed her small head at Christy an instant and glowered. Rodrigo wondered if there was some more intimate tie between Sophie and the producer than merely that of artiste and manager.
"But do tell me something about yourself—I'm all thrilled with interest, truly," she rattled on. He had hardly started to accept her invitation when the music shuffled on again, and without waiting for him to ask her, she popped up and held out her arms to him.
Sophie was an adorable dancer, and Rodrigo was quite as expert as she. If her pliant body clung rather closer to his than was necessary, he was surely not the one to protest. He stopped talking and gave himself over to the rhythm of the dance. For the time being there was nothing in his head except the tom-tom beat of the jazz orchestra and the intoxicating presence of this white, satiny girl. It mattered not that she was shallow, selfish, mascaroed, rouged. She had the power of, for the moment, setting his senses aglow, of banishing the workaday world into oblivion. She had suddenly become a sparkling fountain of pleasure. His mind grasped at length that the music had stopped, they had stopped dancing. As he released Sophie, too hurriedly, she tilted her head and shot a significant little smile up at him. The smile said: "You are still the same old Rodrigo." Was he? The thought disturbed him, because he knew it was almost true. And he did not wish it to be true any longer. He was leaving his old life behind. It had been waste—pleasurable perhaps, but still waste. John Dorning was hereafter to be his ideal.
He led Sophie decorously back to their chair and discovered, to his secret dismay, that Gilbert Christy had departed.
"Oh, thank heaven he's gone," Sophie approved heartily, spreading out her creamy skirts and slipping over very close to Rodrigo when he sat down. "I had a terrible row with him over my bags, you know. He found them under my bunk, after I'd sent the company manager for him, and he got very sarcastic about my helplessness. I made him apologize good and proper, you can bet, before I'd come up and dance with him, and it isn't over yet. I'm not in the chorus any more. I don't have to get down and grovel." Her wide blue eyes were snapping.
"Aren't you and Christy very close friends then?" asked Rodrigo. She glanced inquiringly at him, as if to detect in his expression what it was he suspicioned. But Rodrigo's face was a mask of innocence.
"One has to keep on the right side of the cove who is paying the bills," said Sophie carelessly. Then, lowering her voice and injecting into it a soft note that was disturbing to him, she asked, "But, Rodrigo, haven't you missed me at all?"
"Many times," he answered.
"We used to have some wonderful hours together."
He moved a little away from her. He started to rise. "I really must be going," he said. "I have something to tell the man I'm traveling with before he goes to bed. You didn't know, did you, Sophie, that I'm entering business in America? With Dorning and Son, the art dealers. John Dorning, the head of the concern, is traveling with me."
This seemed to strike her as funny and she burst into a rather vulgar and throaty laugh. He straightened a bit. "Oh, fancy you in business, Rodrigo," she bubbled. "Will you wear a long linen coat and sit upon a high stool? And this Mr. Dorning—is he nice?"
"He is a fine chap—my best friend."
"You must introduce me. And if you're going to his cabin, you might be a gentleman and escort me to mine."
"I had intended to," he said stiffly. He did not like her laughing at him, as if the thought were ridiculous that he should be a success in business.
She took his arm as they walked out into the darkness of the deck, snuggling close to him as the cool, damp air of the sea struck them. They sauntered back toward the stern of the great ship. She was making a special effort to be nice to him, chattering reminiscences of the old days in a low voice, looking up brightly at him in that laughing way of hers. He hardly answered her. When they had reached the taffrail, with the tall canvas-covered hand steering wheel cutting off the view in front and nothing but the creamy wake churned up by the propeller and the darkness in back of them, they stopped as if by mutual consent. She came close to him. Without a word he took her into his arms.
She did not mind that, a moment later, he released her convulsively and seemed almost angry at her. Her flushed face smiled into the darkness. She still had the power to sway him, and she was well pleased with herself.
"You are still the same," she whispered, "But you must be very proper with me the rest of this voyage. Christy thinks he is in love with me, and he is very jealous. I have no intention of losing my job. But in New York we can have good times together. I will give you my address. At first I shall live in a hotel and later, if the show is a success, in an apartment, where I can entertain my friends."
Rodrigo was already moving away, and she followed him. He was silent, rather chagrined at himself and her. He left her at the door of her stateroom without offering to kiss her again.
Yet the next day at breakfast he was on the lookout for her, in spite of himself. She did not appear, having breakfasted in her stateroom. Later in the morning, walking the deck with John, they were hailed by a gay feminine voice from a steamer chair. They turned, and Rodrigo saw that it was Sophie and sitting next to her was the ruddy Christy. John was introduced. She muttered something to Christy, who shook his head. She sprang up lightly and seized Rodrigo's arm, crying gayly, "I will walk with you, if you don't mind. I need the exercise. There being no taxis to take him, Gilbert says he will, as usual, remain seated." She flipped back her small head in a mock gesture of scorn at the moody Christy.
Though she locked a friendly hand in John's as well as Rodrigo's arm, it was to the latter that she addressed the bulk of her animated chatter. She had sized John up in a flash as a serious-minded young man who would not be interested in her charms, though he looked quite formidably rich and had a pleasant enough face. Rodrigo strove manfully to include his friend in the conversation and forestalled several attempts on the diplomatic John's part to desert them. Rodrigo did not intend to be left alone with this creature again if he could help it, even in broad daylight.
During the rest of the voyage he really made a determined effort to avoid her. Since the sea soon turned rough and she was a poor sailor, this was not so difficult. To aid him, Gilbert Christy very quickly became aware that Sophie and this too handsome Italian were old friends, and being too wise to send her flying into his rival's arms by quarreling with her about him, the really infatuated Englishman contrived to keep constantly by his ingenue's slim shoulder.
It was not until a day out of New York that, somewhat pale and listless from her indisposition, she established herself in her steamer chair again, Christy sitting in the next chair and guarding her like a very red-faced Cerberus. When the ship docked on a typically blustery New York March morning, she found an opportunity at last to give Rodrigo an important message. Count Torriani and John Dorning, having landed, were standing impatiently beside their luggage in the huge barn-like shed on the dock when, seizing the moment when Christy had stopped some twenty feet away to bark instructions at the nervous little company manager, Sophie came gliding swiftly between the luggage littering the place.
"I've ducked over a second to say good-bye," she greeted them, though she was looking at Rodrigo. "I'm stopping at the Biltmore, and for goodness' sake, call me up as soon as you get the chance. I'm just a poor English girl all alone in a strange, big city, you know." She looked around, shrugged impatiently. "Oh, dear, the great Christy is beckoning. So long, old dears, and please give me a ring." She blew them a kiss and fled.
Like most of its neighbors in the gold-plated Fifth Avenue shopping district intersected by the Fifties, Dorning and Son resembled, from the pavement, more a monastery than a business establishment. Its austere concrete and marble exterior quietly bespoke class and dignity. The graceful little Chinese vase standing chastely alone in exactly the correct spot in the show window seemed a warning to the passers-by on the other side of the highly polished glass that only true lovers of art were wanted within. The reputation of Dorning and Son for integrity and quality was as high as their prices. The original John Dorning, who founded the business in a tiny showroom on Fourteenth Street, had been resting quietly under the sod for twenty years. He had had no impulses in that time to turn over in his grave. He had inculcated in his son the ideals upon which the delicately contrived wedding of art and commerce that was Dorning and Son had been based. The son had later sown the seeds of the same ideals in the character of the third John Dorning. In his keeping, the ideals flourished as never before.
Rodrigo, who had the true aristocrat's respect and liking for the things of the spirit, caught something of this atmosphere immediately he stepped from John Dorning's roadster and walked beside his friend across the broad sidewalk toward the plain bronze entrance door of Dorning and Son.
The uniformed elderly doorman's face lit up as he recognized young Dorning. John shook hands with him with unaffected pleasure.
They entered an austere region that resembled the art gallery of a very well cared for and sumptuous private residence. Soft, deep carpets covered the floor. Painted masterpieces adorned the walls. Exquisite furniture andobjets d'art, placed with the unostentatious grace of the expert, harmonized into a paradise for the artist and collector. A railed balcony ran around three sides of the large, rectangular shaped room. Under the balcony were located the offices of John Dorning, the manager, Henry Madison, and John Dorning's father.
Rodrigo wondered if the white-haired, dignified gentleman who stood just inside the door as they entered and who now advanced smilingly to greet John was Madison, the man who disliked foreigners. He was rather sorry to hear John address him by another name, for he seemed a pleasant, if slightly gone-to-seed sort. Other clerks became aware of John's return and gathered about to welcome him. There was about them none of the fawning, artificial pleasantry which subordinates in many establishments lavish upon those in authority over them. These men were more than salesmen, and they were attached to John Dorning both by a personal liking for him and by the common bond of a genuine love for the beautiful.
Attracted by the buzz of conversation and sallies of laughter outside, a tall, gray man opened the door of one of the offices and looked out. Then his rather severe face softened into a smile and he came forward to take both of Dorning's hands in his.
"It's good to see you, John," he said. "We've missed you."
"Thanks, Mr. Madison," John replied. He loved this old friend of his father's. His boyish respect for the man's honesty and uncanny knowledge had not lessened with his own growth of experience. The manager would always be "Mr. Madison" to John Dorning.
"I want you to meet Count Rodrigo Torriani, about whom I cabled and wrote you," said John. Rodrigo bowed and took Madison's outstretched hand. He felt the elderly man's sharp, scrutinizing glance upon him and he returned the glance with a disarming smile.
"I understand from John that you are to be associated with us," said Henry Madison, and the clerks looking on showed a renewed interest in the newcomer. "You can rest assured I shall do all I can to make things pleasant for you." Behind this perfunctory promise the manager seemed to be warning that whether or not things were made pleasant depended largely upon Rodrigo. This, the Italian said to himself, was fair enough. Madison turned to John and said in a lower voice, "When you have a moment, if I could talk with you privately—there are some matters——"
"I HAD NO IDEA I WAS TO MEET A GIRL LIKE YOU SO QUICKLY," RODRIGO SMILED."I HAD NO IDEA I WAS TO MEET A GIRL LIKE YOU SO QUICKLY," RODRIGO SMILED.
But John had turned away and was shaking hands with the girl who, coming out of Madison's office with a sheaf of papers, had diverted her course at the sight of Dorning and invaded the group about him. Rodrigo, who had stepped politely aside to let her pass to his friend, was struck at once with her. In spite of the pallor with which office work had bleached her fair complexion, she was beautiful. Silken blond hair arranged skillfully around her well-shaped head, large, expressive blue eyes, lips that were innocent of rouge—all this feminine daintiness contrasted with the brisk, business-like manner in which she walked and the crisp tones of her voice.
"Has anyone told you how wonderful you're looking, John?" she asked. "Your trip has done you good."
"Do you really think so, Mary?" he replied. "I suppose you've got work a mile high piled upon my desk." This last was to tease her, for he knew she would have his desk as clear as the glass in the show-window outside. Then he remembered Rodrigo and said, "This is my very efficient secretary and assistant, Miss Mary Drake."
She was so thoroughly a creature of business that, in a spirit of mischief, Rodrigo took her hand and kissed it in the continental fashion. She gave him such a searching look for his pains as he straightened up that he actually flushed a little. The blue eyes had gone cold for an instant. They resumed their warmth as she seemed to have satisfied herself that his action had been simply his natural mannerism. John, whom the by-play had secretly amused, continued, "Count Torriani is an expert on Italian art, ancient and modern. He is also a very good friend of mine. He is to join us here and help us out." John was anxious that his two friends should get along well together. Knowing Mary, he had no fears that Rodrigo's good looks would impair her efficiency in the slightest. Indeed it would be better for Mary, John had sometimes thought, if something did come into her life to divert her mind a bit from the hard, monotonous business pace she set herself. Dorning added, "If you'll show Count Torriani into my office, Mary, and answer questions for him, I'll talk with Mr. Madison."
On the way to the polished mahogany door under the balcony, Rodrigo ventured a perfunctory remark to her about the attractiveness of the establishment. Intent upon rearranging the papers in her hand, Mary gave no indications of hearing him. The Italian shrugged his shoulders, a trifle annoyed. He took advantage of her preoccupation to examine the soft profile of her neck as it disappeared under her fluffy light brown tresses. It was perfect, he decided. What was this America anyway, where girls as potentially beautiful as this were allowed to bury themselves in offices and cultivate a brisk twang in their speech and suspicion of every man who looked at them as if they were human? He gravely held the door open for her. She sat down in the big arm-chair in front of the massive glass-topped desk. He took the visitor's chair beside the desk, crossing his carefully creased trouser-legs and foraging in his silver case for a cigarette.
"Pardon," he said, "may I smoke?"
She looked up from the papers to ask colorlessly, "Why not?"
He inhaled deeply, blew the smoke toward the ceiling, and, leaning slightly toward her, offered, "You know, I was rather afraid I was going to be lonely in America. I had no idea I was to meet a girl like you so quickly."
She colored a little and said, with affected innocence, "I don't understand. Mr. Dorning said he was your friend. You will not be lonesome. He will introduce you to many nice people, I'm sure. Besides, you have been in America before, haven't you? You must know people here."
"What makes you think so?"
"You are an Italian and you speak English without the trace of an accent."
"Thank you, but one does not have to come to America to learn to speak English. In fact, quite the reverse, many say. It happens that my mother was English, and I am an Oxford man. However, you are right. I have been in America once before."
She had resumed checking the papers, placing them one by one, after a close scrutiny, into the box marked "Outgoing Mail." Rodrigo tried his luck once more on the intimate tack, "Are you fond of the theatre, Miss Drake?"
The look she gave him could not have been construed as friendly. "Yes," she replied. "I go quite often—with my mother." And she returned to her paper with renewed concentration.
After a few moments of silence, Rodrigo rose and pretended a sudden interest in the pictures adorning the office wall. Every now and then he stole a glance back at her bent head. He did not like to admit to himself that he had made no more impression upon this pretty girl than as if he were the chair upon which he had been sitting.
He had hardly resumed his seat when John Dorning and Madison appeared at the door of the office, still talking earnestly together. Madison eyed the scene within, showing the well groomed and handsome Italian edging his chair nearer to Mary Drake and evidently trying to become better acquainted with her. The manager glanced significantly at Dorning. What met his eye seemed to confirm his belief as to the demoralizing effect of foreigners. John laughed and patted Madison's shoulder, terminating their interview, and Madison walked off.
"Well, have you told Rodrigo all about our business?" Dorning asked his secretary, smiling.
"Count Torriani did not ask me about the business," she replied, rising and making a movement to retire to her own little private office that adjoined Dorning's at the rear. Rodrigo grinned. The girl had a tongue.
Mary walked briskly over to her own sanctum and closed the door behind her.
"Rodrigo, I want you to be good friends with Miss Drake," John said gravely in a confidential voice. "She has this whole business at her finger tips—a remarkable girl in every way. Good as gold. She can smooth the way for you here better than anyone else can. Everybody likes and respects her and will be strong for anybody she sponsors. There is no nonsense about Mary Drake. She is all business."
"But, John," Rodrigo asked, genuinely puzzled, "you called her 'Mary' out there. Is that the custom with employers and their secretaries over here?"
"Mary isn't merely my secretary," Dorning explained. "Her family and ours were old friends in the days when—well, when her father had his money. He lost it in Wall Street just before he died, and Mary had to go to work to support herself and her mother. It was pretty tough. She was seventeen at the time and had always had everything. Dad gave her a job here after she got out of business school. She was an art student before she studied stenography. I believe she keeps up her art lessons at night still. She has a natural aptitude for this line of work, and she is invaluable to me here. If anything happened to Mary, I don't know what I'd do."
Rodrigo wondered if Dorning was in love with this girl.
The entrance of a somewhat distraught clerk, bearing in his hand a slender porcelain vase, interrupted the conversation. The clerk approached Dorning diffidently and, somewhat embarrassed, said, "Mrs. Porter Palmer is out there, Mr. Dorning. She is interested in this vase, but she has some doubts that it is a genuine Menotto. I have assured her that it is, and she, of course, knows the reputation of our house. But she has learned that you have returned, and she says she must see you in person about the vase."
Dorning restrained, in front of the clerk, his real feelings at this news and replied, "Tell Mrs. Palmer I'll be with her directly." To Rodrigo, when the clerk had departed with the dignified unobtrusiveness characteristic of Dorning and Son clerks, John exclaimed, "Oh, bother Mrs. Porter Palmer! She's a fussy society dowager with more money and time than she knows what to do with. She is a good customer of ours, but a frightful nuisance. She knows my father socially, and she thinks that puts us all under obligations to her. Come along out with me, Rodrigo—perhaps you can impress her with your knowledge of Italian art. You'll have to meet her sooner or later anyway."
The ample and elaborately gowned form of Mrs. Porter Palmer was draped upon a chair that seemed rather too fragile to support the weight imposed upon it. She was tapping her expensively shod foot impatiently and answering the polite clerk in irritated monosyllables as John and Rodrigo came up to her.
"Ah, Mrs. Palmer, I'm glad to see you again." John smiled and shook hands. "May I present my friend, Count Torriani, who is to be associated with us here?"
Mrs. Porter Palmer's face brightened at once. The title had made a decided impression, as did the aristocratic appearance of Rodrigo and the suave manner in which he kissed her hand. Her tone was almost apologetic as she said to John, "I didn't intend to make a fuss about this vase. But it is such a little thing and you are asking such a tremendous price. I want to make sure it is genuine."
Without a word Dorning took the vase from the clerk's hand and transferred it to Rodrigo's. "Count Torriani knows Italian antiques perfectly," he explained.
Rodrigo could see at a glance the worth of the gracefully moulded porcelain, But he went through the motions of examining it critically. "I can assure you it is the work of the elder Menotto, and very rare," he gave his verdict. "I have the exact companion piece to this one at home in Italy."
"Really?" beamed Mrs. Palmer. She would have taken his word for anything at that moment. She was a fussy oldgrande damewho made a specialty of collecting young men and old art treasures.
"Then I shall have to take it, of course. Send it to my home, young man," she shrilled to the clerk. "You know the address."
Having concluded the business of the vase, she seemed loathe to depart from this very interesting-looking new find—an Italian Count, no less! John had moved away, and she kept chattering on to Rodrigo in her peculiarly irritating, metallic voice, bent upon leading the conversation into more personal channels. Rodrigo, who didn't mind for that moment being bored, led her on gently. It was fifteen minutes before she glanced at the large diamond-and-platinum watch upon her ample wrist and exclaimed in shocked surprise. "My goodness, I'm due at Pierre's for lunch this instant. I hope I may have the pleasure of entertaining you soon at my home, Count Torriani. I have one of the finest art collections in New York, and I think you'll be interested in seeing it."
He accompanied her politely to the door and assured her that he looked forward with eager anticipation to any invitations she might be kind enough to extend to him.
John congratulated him dryly when they were together again. "You have made your first sale, Rodrigo," he rallied his friend, "and to one of our best and most difficult customers. I feel that you are going to be a great success."
Rodrigo, happening to look in the direction of John's office, saw Mary Drake, having donned a plain but attractive hat and severely cut tailored coat over her navy blue business suit, advance toward the door on her way to luncheon. She smiled at John. For Rodrigo she had a friendly but reserved nod. He wondered if he really was going to prove a great success with the particular part of Dorning and Son that was Mary Drake.
The next few weeks were probably the most tranquil Rodrigo Torriani had ever known. To his own surprise, he enjoyed them. His liking for John Dorning deepened as he saw in what general admiration for his character and respect for his business ability his friend was held. In their private lives together, John displayed a simple unselfishness, a personal attractiveness, and an even temper that bound Rodrigo, who was used to far different associates, ever closer to him.
The Italian was given the center office, the one formerly occupied by John Dorning's father. To John's concealed amusement, Rodrigo thereupon hired the homeliest and oldest stenographer who answered his advertisement for an assistant. As the new executive's familiarity with the routine of Dorning and Son increased, he was given more and more important duties. At the end of the third week, he was dispatched to Philadelphia to conclude the sale of some pieces of Italian pottery to a rich private collector. It was in the nature of a try-out. Rodrigo's success there was rapid and complete. He was as elated as a schoolboy upon his return, and John no less so. Even Mary Drake, who was present when Rodrigo invaded Dorning's office and related the news, smiled with genuine pleasure and congratulated him.
Mary was gradually changing her mind about the newcomer. If the truth be known, her coldness at first meeting him had had an element of the defensive about it. He was far different from the men she usually encountered in the bustling world she had created for herself. In spite of herself, he, from the start, stirred something warm and vibrant within her. She did not like it, was afraid. She wanted to be free from everything of a personal nature that interfered with her making a living for herself and her mother, whom she loved passionately. Now that Rodrigo was attending strictly to business and avoiding any mention of the personal in his necessary daily dealings with her, she was more friendly with him. She was not sure but that, if he would ask her to go to the theatre with him now, she would accept.
Rodrigo was keeping strictly the good resolution he had made the day he landed in America. He was determined to reward John Dorning for the kindness he had shown him in pulling him out of a bad hole and setting him on the way to a business success by going straight, blinding himself to the lure of Broadway, only two blocks away, and the life of pleasure. Rodrigo did not deceive himself. He had not been suddenly transformed into a hermit. The tug of the old life was with him constantly. There were moments when he wanted to smash everything connected with Dorning and Son and run.
This would not be difficult, he knew. He had only to call up the Hotel Biltmore, for instance, and ask for Miss Sophie Binner. True, this attraction was removed after the first week. He read in the theatrical section of the paper that Christy's Revue had departed from New York for a preliminary seasoning on the road before opening on Broadway. Once, at least, during that week Sophie had called him at the office. At least his secretary had said that "a Miss Skinner caller," and he was sure the correct name had been "Binner." He had ignored the overture. With Sophie braving the March winds in Bridgeport and Stamford, gayety still had a local representative in the person of William Courtney Terhune, Rodrigo's Oxford classmate and his companion upon his other riotous sojourn in America. Bill Terhune always had time for the spending of large sums of time and money on pleasure. Rodrigo knew he had but to call him on the telephone, if he desired at any moment to shake off the austerity of Dorning and Son. He even looked up Bill's number in a weak moment and discovered the former Rhodes scholar had his office within five blocks of him.
John Dorning had generously installed Rodrigo in the comfortable bachelor apartment which he maintained on Park Avenue, almost directly east from his place of business. It was a roomy, immaculately kept establishment, furnished with Dorning's favorite pieces, picked up on many journeys to the art shrines of the world. A housekeeper came in once a day to lend the place the benefit of a feminine hand.
Rodrigo quickly discovered that John's private life was the direct antithesis of what his own had hitherto been. The man seemed to be unconscious that Broadway existed. On the occasions when he took Rodrigo out to his friends' houses for tea, the people present were the intensely refined sons and daughters of the house or colorless mutual acquaintances and their equally colorless wives.
He attended concerts and exhibitions with John. He talked gravely with the members of John's exclusive clubs, older men with their heads full of business and their thin, white lips full of black cigars, when John took him to dinner at these rather depressing places.
On two or three occasions John invited Rodrigo to luncheon at a small eating club located upon the second floor of a wooden structure which for some unknown reason had been left standing between two skyscrapers on Forty-Fifth street, just off Fifth Avenue. The club-rooms were skimpily furnished, draughty as a barn, and cried for the vacuum cleaner. The food was execrable. But the members made up for all that. They were authors and artists for the most part, most of them bearing well known names. They were colorful, interesting people, and among them was an informal camaraderie that intrigued Rodrigo at once. It was a rule at this club that guests must make speeches after luncheon. Rodrigo, who somehow felt almost immediately at home amid this witty talk, foolery, and, at times rather Rabelaisian repartee, obliged with a rapid, nonsense monologue regarding his impressions of America, that took at once. Later, the other guest, a famous pianist, protested in broken English that a speech was impossible. "Bang the box then!" shouted a raucous, good-natured, voice. The meaning was explained to him, and he allowed himself to be propelled gently to the battered piano. Deftly produced melody filled the ancient rooms. The company was silent, drinking it in. Eyes were half closed. Concentrated here was the finest audience in America for this sort of thing. The musician played an encore. Then he rose, bobbing his long hair back and forth to the clapping and shouts of applause, and waved away requests for more.
"You play—and the Count will sing!" was a loud-voiced happy thought from somewhere in the back of the room. Others took it up. They fairly pushed Rodrigo to the piano. John Dorning, who was a little out of place in the extremely informal turn the entertainment had taken, looked worried. He did not think Rodrigo could sing. But the latter was unruffled. He was thoroughly agreeable. He whispered to the dark man at the piano, who was himself an Italian. The pianist struck the opening chords of a Sicilian love song.
Rodrigo's voice was not strong, but it was a clear and pleasing baritone. He was extremely fond of the song, and he put into it a true Latin fervor. For the time being he seemed transported out of this shabby room in the teeming heart of New York. He was back beside the shining waters of the Bay of Naples. He was singing of moonlight and a warm, dark-eyed girl in his arms. All the repression of the past weeks was in his voice. He sang as one inspired. The song died away finally to clamorous applause. But he would not sing again. He resumed his seat beside John Dorning. John looked at him, a queer expression of mingled surprise and pride in his friend's achievement in his pale face. Rodrigo was flushed, a little excited, a little frightened that this simple little love song such as the Sicilian peasants sing could stir him so.
The following week-end, Rodrigo accepted John's invitation to journey to Greenwich and visit Dorning's father. They were met at the station by the Dorning limousine, containing a chauffeur and a pleasant-faced woman some five or six years older than John and looking very much like him. This was Alice Pritchard, John's married sister, who, with her husband, a Wall Street man, made their home with Henry Dorning. The latter was a widower, John's mother having died when the son was a boy of twelve. The same even disposition and reserve that were so integral a part of John's character were also possessed by his sister. She was almost the exact feminine counterpart of her brother in more than looks, Rodrigo decided during the brief ride to the Dorning home.
They drew up at a large rambling field-stone house set in several acres of well-kept lawn facing Long Island Sound. The elderly man seated in a rocking-chair on the broad front piazza, a steamer rug spread out upon his knees, did not rise as the trio from the car approached him. Henry Dorning was a semi-invalid. The Dornings were not a very robust family, committed as they were to the æsthetic rather than to the athletic life. Too close application to carrying on the tradition of his strong-willed father had done for Henry Dorning. He had quit five years too late.
John Dorning greeted his father cheerily and introduced Rodrigo. The latter had evidently been well heralded in advance. Henry Dorning welcomed him warmly. A three-cornered conversation upon an art subject engaged them almost immediately, Alice maintaining an interested silence and soon slipping into the house to supervise the preparation of dinner. Just before the meal, Warren Pritchard, Alice's husband, was driven up in the same car that had brought John and Rodrigo from the station. He was a breezy, square-jawed American type, a graduate of Yale who was already well established as one of the minor powers in the financial district. He swept up upon the porch like a gust of wind, kissed his wife, shook hands lustily with John, and had a cheery word with his father-in-law. Upon being introduced to Rodrigo, he shot a keen glance at the Italian and raised his dark bushy eyebrows slightly at the mention of the title. But was evidently ready to accept Rodrigo upon the Dorning's say-so, and was cordial enough.
Pritchard's aggressive materialism seemed at first incongruous in the midst of the Dornings. But Rodrigo quickly corrected his first surmise that the fellow had married Alice Dorning for her money. Pritchard had too evident a deep and abiding love for his wife, and respect for her family for that. Rodrigo liked him.
After dinner the men smoked and later adjourned to the softly lighted billiard room on the top floor of the house. Warren Pritchard assisted his fragile father-in-law up the stairs, and the latter was an interested spectator of the spirited game in which Alice and Rodrigo were partners against John and Pritchard. The family retired early. Rodrigo was assigned to a spacious bedroom in the front of the house. He closed his eyes in an almost rural stillness that was disturbed only by the April wind rustling gently through the leafing elm tree outside his window and the waters of the Sound plopping against the dock.
Following breakfast the next morning, Warren Pritchard who looked fresh and husky in a tweedy knickerbocker suit, asked briskly, "Well, who's for golf? How about you, Count Torriani?"
Rodrigo looked questioningly at John. He was himself very fond of the game and, having enjoyed a very restful sleep, was eager for the exercise.
"Rodrigo will go with you, Warren," suggested John. "He can use my clubs. I promised Ted Fernald I'd run over this morning to that house he's building in the Millbank section and look over his interior decoration plans with him."
Rodrigo offered at once, "I'll go along with you, John, if you like. Perhaps I can help."
Henry Dorning, who had been listening, put in to John, "Why don't you forget business for this morning, John, and play golf? You look a bit drawn. Fernald can wait."
"I'm sorry, Dad. I'd really like to play. But I promised Fernald over a week ago, and he'll be waiting for me. But you go ahead with Warren, Rodrigo. I can take care of Fernald all right, and there's no use spoiling your fun."
Rodrigo consented to be persuaded. Changing into his golf suit, which he had slipped into his bag at the last moment on the chance of getting an opportunity to play, and equipped with John's clubs, which looked very new and shiny, he slid into the seat of the roadster beside Pritchard.
"I'm sorry John couldn't come with us," Pritchard commented between puffs of his pipe as he swung the car rapidly from the bluestone drive onto the macadam road. "He sticks too close to the grind. A chap needs some sport over the week-end. I'd pass out cold if I didn't get in my eighteen holes Sundays."
Prichard was evidently well known and well liked at the Greenwich Country Club. He had no difficulty in making up a foursome from among the crowd clustered about the first tee. Rodrigo was introduced to a Mr. Bryon and a Mr. Sisson, men of about Pritchard's own age and standing. The latter and his guest teamed against the two other men at a dollar a hole. Rodrigo was quite aware that the eyes of the other three players were critically upon him as he mounted the tee. He made a special effort to drive his first ball as well as possible. He had learned golf at Oxford and was a good player. But he had not hit a ball for months and was uncertain how the lay-off and the strange clubs he was using would affect his game. However, he got off a very respectable drive straight down the fairway and was rewarded by the approbation of his mates.
After the first few holes, in which Rodrigo more than held his own, the other developed a more friendly and natural attitude toward the titled foreigner. Rodrigo, due to his English training, his predilection for Americans like Terhune at Oxford, and his previous visit to the States, together with his unaffectedness and adaptability, had few of the marked unfamiliar characteristics of the Latin. Soon he was accepted on a free and easy footing with the others. He laughed and chaffed with them and had a very good time indeed.
Warren Pritchard took golf too seriously to derive much diversion out of it. The money involved did not mean anything to him, but he was the sort of intensely ambitious young American who always strove his utmost to do even the most trivial things well. He whooped with childish joy at extraordinary good shots by either himself or Rodrigo. At the end of the match, which the Dorning representatives won by a substantial margin, he congratulated the Italian heartily and uttered an enthusiastic tribute to his game. Pritchard seemed more at home with average, go-getting Americans like Bryon and Sisson than he had with the Dornings, Rodrigo thought. On the way back from the links, they post-mortemed the match gayly. Warren Pritchard, who had been inclined to look a little askance at first at his brother-in-law's rather exotic acquaintance, was now ready to concede Rodrigo was very much all right.
Having taken a shower and changed his clothes, Rodrigo came down and pulled up a chair beside Henry Dorning on the front piazza. Alice had at the last moment joined John in his ride over to the Fernalds, it seemed, and Warren was down at the stables talking with the caretaker of the estate.
Henry Dorning remarked pleasantly that John and Alice had not returned as yet but would doubtless be back any moment. "I am somewhat worried about John," the elderly man continued. "He is not so very strong, you know, and he applies himself altogether too steadily to business. He tells me that you are rapidly taking hold and are of great assistance to him already." He looked intently at Rodrigo, as if debating with himself whether or not to make a confidant of him. Then he asked quietly, "You like my son very much, do you not?"
"Very much," Rodrigo said promptly.
"He is a young man of honor and of considerable artistic and business ability besides," said John's father. "Sometimes though, I wonder if he is not missing something in life. For a man of his age, he is singularly ignorant of some things. Of the world outside of his own business and family, for instance. I feel that I can speak freely to you, Rodrigo—if you will permit me to call you that upon such short acquaintance. He admires you very much, and I think you are destined to be even closer friends than you are now."
"I hope so," acknowledged Rodrigo.
"You are a man of the world. You can see for yourself that John's development has been—well, rather one-sided. It is largely my own fault, I admit. He has been reared upon Dorning and Son from the cradle. But there are other things in life. He has no predilection whatever, for instance, for feminine society. Oh, he adores his sister and he mingles with women and girls we know. But he takes no especial interest in any of them except Alice. That is wrong. Women can do a lot toward developing a man. They can do a lot of harm to a man, too, but that has to be risked. A man has not reached real maturity until he has been violently in love at least once. He does not acquire the ability to look upon life as a whole until he has been through that. Of that I am quite convinced."
Had John told his father of Rodrigo's former career of philandering? The Italian wondered. Then he decided that John was no tale-bearer. Henry Dorning must have deduced from his guest's general air of sophistication and his aristocratic extraction that he was worldly wise.
The elder Dorning went on, "I have sometimes wondered what will happen to John when he has his first love affair. Because sooner or later it will happen, and it will be all the more violent because of its long postponement. And the girl is quite likely to be of the wrong sort. I can imagine an unscrupulous, clever woman setting out deliberately to ensnare my son for his money and succeeding very handily. He is utterly inexperienced with that type of woman. He believes they are all angels. That's how much he knows about them. He is so much the soul of honor himself that, though he has developed a certain shrewdness in business matters, in the affairs of the heart he is an amateur.
"John is such a sensitive, high-strung boy. It is quite conceivable that an unfortunate love affair would ruin his whole life. He would be without the emotional resiliency to recover from such a catastrophe that the average man possesses. I am boring you with all this, Rodrigo, because I believe you can help him. Without in any way appointing yourself either his chaperon or his guide to worldly things, I think you can gradually draw him a little out of his present narrow way of life. You are a very attractive man, and John is not exactly unpleasing to the feminine eye. Together you could meet people who are engaged upon the lighter things of life. Frivolous, pleasure-loving people. People of Broadway. Enter into New York's night life. Go to Greenwich Village, Palm Beach, Newport. Loaf and play. It will do you both good.
"Of course I am very selfish in this as far as you are concerned. I am thinking primarily of my son and his future. As soon as he told me about you, I secretly rejoiced that he had made such a friend—a cosmopolitan, a man who presumably knew the world. I had hoped that my son-in-law, Warren, might prove such a companion for John. But Warren is too much in love with his wife and too engrossed in his business. In the matter of taking time to play, he is almost as bad as John."
Rodrigo smiled rather dourly to himself. He appreciated that Henry Dorning's diagnosis of John was correct. He was sensible of the honor paid him by the elderly man's confidence and request. But it impressed him as ironical that he should now be urged by John's father to resume his former mode of life, and to resume it to aid the very man for whom he had forsaken it.
Nevertheless, he was about to indicate his willingness to conspire with Mr. Dorning for the education of his son when the object of their discussion, accompanied by Alice, was whirled up the drive in the limousine. John joined the two men on the porch and Alice, with the object of speeding dinner, disappeared into the house.
With a significant and quite unnecessary glance at Rodrigo, Mr. Dorning changed the subject. John offered some laughing comment upon the eccentric ideas of his friend, Edward Fernard, as to interior decoration and inquired about Rodrigo's golf. The conversation lulled a bit and then Henry Dorning, as if recalling something that had for the time being escaped his mind, said, "Mark Rosner is back from Europe. He was up to see me the other day."
"Yes, I told you he crossed with us," John replied. "I understand he has bought a building on Forty-Seventh Street, a converted brown-stone front and intends opening up an antique shop very soon."
"That's what he came to see me about," Mr. Dorning commented dryly. "He wanted me to take a mortgage on the property, so that he could buy it."
"Did you do it?"
"Yes. Fifteen thousand dollars."
John frowned. "I wish he hadn't bothered you about that. He is such a nervous, irritating little man. He could just as well have come to me, and you wouldn't have been annoyed."
"I didn't mind. And you needn't either, John. I got in touch with Bates and he is taking care of the whole matter. We can both dismiss it from our minds." Emerson Bates was the Dornings' very efficient and very expensive lawyer. Mr. Dorning smiled reminiscently. "Rosner was always such a fretty, worried type, as you say. I tried diplomatically to dissuade him from attempting a big undertaking such as he is in for. He hasn't the temperament or the business ability to swing it. If anything goes wrong, he is liable to suffer a nervous breakdown or worse. This failure in London nearly did for him for a while, I understand. And he tells me he married over there, and they have two small children. Such men should be kept out of large business undertakings. They aren't built for it."
"And yet you advanced him fifteen thousand dollars," John smiled affectionately at his father. He knew this white-haired man's weakness for helping others. He had inherited it himself.
"Well, Rosner was with me quite a while at the shop. He is getting along in years now, and he is fearfully anxious to make a success. We old chaps have to stick together, you know."
As Alice appeared in the broad doorway, announcing dinner, John Dorning put a tender arm about his father to assist him from his chair. There was something touching and ennobling in the scene to Rodrigo, watching them, and something a little pathetic too.
When Rodrigo reached his office the next morning, his exasperatingly efficient spinster secretary had long since opened his mail and had the letters, neatly denuded of their envelopes, upon his desk. That is, all but one. She had evidently decided that this one was of too private a nature for her to tamper with. The envelope was pale pink and exuded a faint feminine scent. It was addressed in the scrawly, infantile hand of Sophie Binner and was postmarked Montreal. Rodrigo fished it out of the pile of business communications, among which it stood out like a chorus girl at a Quaker meeting, and, breaking the seal, read it:
Dearest Rod,
Why the elusiveness, dear boy? I called you up three times. I hope it was accidental that I couldn't reach you, though it looks bad for poor Sophie, since you never tried to get in touch with me as you promised. Or did you?
Well, I'm here with the show in Montreal. They decided to get us ready up here among our own land before springing us upon the Yankees. But it's so lonesome. Christy is such a bore.
We open in New York a week from to-night. Times Square Theatre. How about a party after the show? I can get some of the other girls if you like. But would prefer just us two. You know—like the good old days in London. I miss you dreadfully, dear boy. Do drive my blues away as soon as I get back to the U.S.A. Be nice to me. And write.
Your lovingSOPHIE.
Rodrigo smiled wryly as he folded up the letter and slipped it into his pocket. He had received scores of such communications from Sophie. He had been used to replying to them in kind. He had seldom been temperate in his letters to her. He rather prided himself upon the amount of nonsense he was able to inject into plain black ink. That had been the trouble in the case of hisbillets douxto Rosa Minardi.
But he was not thinking of Rosa at the present moment. It had occurred to him that some use might be made of the invitation in the pink letter in connection with the promise he had made to Henry Dorning to broaden John's horizon. By Jove, he would take up Sophie's suggestion for a party on the night of the New York opening of the Christy Revue. He would invite John and another of Sophie's kind to accompany them. Pretty, thrill-seeking Sophie—she was certainly a great little horizon-broadener. And he would leave it to her to pick from the Christy company another coryphee of similar lightsomeness.
He resolved to set the ball rolling at once and, the rest of his mail unread, rose and started into the neighboring office. Opening the door of John's sanctum, he stopped for a moment to view the tableau inside.
Two blond heads were bent absorbedly over a letter on John's desk, a man's and a woman's. They were talking in low voices, and Mary Drake's pencil was rapidly underscoring certain lines in the letter. She was advancing an argument in her soft, rapid voice, evidently as to how the letter should be answered. John was frowning and shaking his head.
Rodrigo, standing watching them, wondered why they were not in love with each other. Here was the sort of woman John needed for a wife. Though he could not catch her exact words, he gathered that she was trying to influence him to answer this letter in much more decided fashion than he had intended. That was Mary Drake all over. Thoroughly business-like, aggressive, looking after John's interests, bucking him up at every turn. That was the trouble as far as love was concerned. John regarded her as a very efficient cog in the office machinery rather than as a woman. And yet she was very much of a woman. Underneath the veneer of almost brusqueness, there was a tender stratum, as Rodrigo thought he had discovered in her unguarded moments. Love could be awakened in Mary Drake by the right man, and it would be a very wonderful sort of love.
Rodrigo asked himself if he really wanted John Dorning to be the awakener. Something in his own heart seemed to protest. Watching her, a feeling of tenderness for her swept over him. He had never again sought jauntily to flirt with her as he had attempted to do that first day he met her. A deeper feeling for her, such as he had never experienced before for any woman, was being slowly kindled within him. And this feeling was steadily growing deeper as she began admitting him to her friendship on much the same status that John Dorning enjoyed.
She glanced up and saw Rodrigo. Smiling good-morning to him and quickly gathering up John's letters, including the one under debate, and her stenographic notebook, she made a movement to retire to her own office.
"Don't let me drive you away, Mary," Rodrigo said in a genial voice.
"You're not. I was just going anyway." She turned to Dorning. "Then I'll write Mr. Cunningham we cannot take care of him until he pays for the other consignment?"
John hesitated, then he nodded affirmatively. "You're absolutely ruthless, Mary," he protested ruefully, "and you may lose us a good customer, as well as the money he owes us. But perhaps you know best. Go ahead—write him as you like."
She enjoyed her little triumph. "Don't worry, John. I know Mr. Cunningham, and he's no person to be treated with silk gloves on." And she hurried into her office and closed the door behind her. In an instant they heard the hurried clack of her typewriter.
"John, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed that little visit with your folks," Rodrigo began sincerely.
John beamed. "That's fine. And I can tell you they liked you too."
Rodrigo continued, "Maybe I'm to have the chance soon to repay you in some small measure. Do you remember Sophie Binner, the English actress we met on the ship coming over? The pretty blonde we walked around the deck with?" After a slight pause, John concluded he did.
Rodrigo produced the little pink missive from his pocket and flourished it. "Well, Sophie has invited you and me to a party the night her show opens here in town. A week from to-night. It will be a nice, lively time. You'll like it. Shall I answer her it's a date?"
John shot a questioning glance at Rodrigo. The latter wondered uneasily if his friend was interpreting the invitation as a sign Rodrigo was back-sliding a bit. "She particularly wants to see you," Rodrigo hastened to lie. Then, impulsively, "Oh, let's go, John. We both need a change, a little tonic. I know you don't care for Sophie's kind of people or entertainment usually. Neither do I—any more. But, for one night, I think it would be a lot of fun. We could go to some night club, see the sights, dance around a little, leave them at their hotels, and go on home. What do you say?"
Perhaps John agreed with him. Perhaps it was merely the eagerness in Rodrigo's voice that swung him. At least he finally concluded, "You're right. We have been sticking pretty close. I'll be glad to come along, though the girls will probably find me a bit slow."
"Nonsense," cried Rodrigo, and slapped his friend lustily on the back. "That's fine," he added. "I'll write Sophie directly."
Falling into an old habit, he started the letter "Dearest Sophie" almost subconsciously and he used rather intimate language, without paying much heed to what he was doing. He would rather like to see Sophie again and bask in her effulgence for a few hours. But as she would be merely the means of carrying out his and Henry Dorning's purpose, he excused himself. There would be none of the old thrill in flattering her in ink, he feared, as he sat down to write her. Yet he surprised himself with the warmth he worked up in the letter to her.
"COME ON OUTSIDE AND I'LL SHOW YOU HOW MUCH OF A SHEIK YOU ARE," SNARLED HIS ANTAGONIST."COME ON OUTSIDE AND I'LL SHOW YOU HOW MUCH OF A SHEIK YOU ARE," SNARLED HIS ANTAGONIST.
He received an immediate reply from her. She was tickled as pink as her note-paper, he gathered. He wrote her two more notes, even more affectionate than the first—one had to pretend to be mad over Sophie or she would lose interest at once—and was rewarded with many long, scrawled pages telling of joy over their coming meeting, the selection of one Betty Brewster as "a great sport and a neat little trick" as the fourth member of the party, complaints about Christy and the neutral reception the show had received in Canada.
John Dorning's coming-out party was assuming the proportions of a festive affair.
John himself made no further mention of it. Rodrigo did not remind him, having a feeling that his friend might shy off if he gave the matter much thought. Then, on the morning of the Christy Revue opening, Rodrigo as off-handedly as possible spoke of their engagement that evening. And John, looking blankly, and then confusedly, said, "Why, Rodrigo, I thought I told you. I'm leaving for Philadelphia this afternoon to attend the dinner of the Rand Library trustees. You knew we'd put in a bid to furnish the fresco work for the new building."
Rodrigo's face fell. But his first feeling of irritation and disappointment passed quickly. John was so frankly mortified. Hehadso completely forgotten all about Sophie. It was almost funny. Rodrigo said, "Can't you put off your trip? Sophie will be very much disappointed."
"You know I can't postpone it," John faltered. "The dinner at Philadelphia was arranged especially for me. I'll have to go."
Rodrigo shrugged. "Well, I dare say I can patch it up with Sophie. We'll make it some other time. I'll give her a ring later and call it off for to-night."
"Rodrigo, I hope I haven't caused you any inconvenience. I'll be glad to go out with your friends any other time you say," John pleaded.
"Oh, don't worry, old boy. I'll fix it up. You just go right ahead down to Philadelphia, and bring home that contract. Business before pleasure, you know."
But, around six o'clock, Rodrigo wondered if that were such an excellent motto after all. He had been too busy all day to call Sophie. Dorning and Son closed at five o'clock, and he was all alone there now in the deserted quasi-mausoleum. Mary Drake, who was usually a late worker, had left in the middle of the afternoon, because her mother was not feeling well. Now that the party with Sophie was definitely off and he had nothing but a long lonesome evening to look forward to, Rodrigo had a feeling of disappointment. He had been working hard and faithfully for three months, and he had been looking forward to this evening of pleasure. He deserved it, by Jove.
On an impulse, he located Bill Terhune's telephone number and picked up the instrument. Waiting while the bell buzzed, he told himself that Terhune had probably long since left his office. He half guiltily hoped the former Oxonian had. But Terhune's familiar voice smote his ear with a bull-like "Hullo!"
This was followed by a roar of joyous surprise as Rodrigo identified himself. Agitated questions and replies. Rodrigo broached the proposition of appointing his delighted listener a substitute for John Dorning on the Sophie Binner junket.
"Fine! Great!" fairly shouted Terhune. "I'll call my wife up and tell her I've dropped dead or something."
"Bill—you're married?" questioned Rodrigo.
"Sure. All architects have to get married. It gives them the necessary standing of respectability that gets the business. I even live in Jersey. Think of that, eh? Don't worry about my wife. I can fix it up. She's used to having me stay in town over-night, and has gotten tired of asking questions. I'll bring the liquor, too. What's that? Oh, sure—we need liquor. This Binner baby's a regular blotter, if I remember her rightly. I've got a stock right here in the office. Good stuff too. I'll meet you in the lobby of the Envoy. I'll take a room there for the night. What's that? Oh, no—couldn't think of staying at your place. You know me, Rod—what would your cultured neighbors say, eh? Don't forget now—lobby of the Envoy at six-thirty. I'll dash right around there now and book a room."
Bill Terhune had already registered at the plush-lined Hotel Envoy and was waiting at the desk, key in one hand and a suitcase in the other, when Rodrigo walked in. Terhune was bigger, especially around the waistline, and more red-faced than ever, Rodrigo saw at a glance. The waiting man greeting the Italian with a lusty roar, bred on the broad Dakota prairies, that could be heard all around the decorous, palm-decorated lobby.
"Well, well," Bill rumbled, "who would have thought the Count would have come to this, eh? But say, boy, I'm sure glad to see you. Come up and have a drink. Hey, bellboy! Grab that bag, will you, and be very careful with it too. It contains valuable glassware."
Up in the twelfth floor room which Bill had hired for the night at a fabulous stipend, the American at once dispatched the bellboy for ice, glasses, and White Rock. Then he disrobed, sputtered in the shower-bath for a few minutes, rubbed himself a healthy pink and dressed in his dinner clothes, which he had brought along in his bag.
"Always keep them at the office," he chuckled. "I can't tell when I might have an emergency call." He poured bootleg Scotch into the glasses and rocked the ice around with a spoon.
"How do you get away with it, Bill?" Rodrigo asked, smiling. "I thought American wives were regular tyrants."
"That's how much you foreigners know," scoffed Bill. "All women love my type. You can always keep their love by keeping them wondering. That's my system—I keep my wife wondering whether I'm coming home or not." He handed Rodrigo a full glass with a flourish. "To good old Oxford," he toasted with mock reverence. Rodrigo echoed the toast.
The Italian refused another drink a few minutes later, though his action did not discourage Terhune from tossing off another. In fact, the genial Bill had three more before he agreed that they had better eat dinner if they wished to make the Christy Revue by the time the curtain rose. Rodrigo did not fancy Bill's taking on an alcoholic cargo that early in the evening. Bill was a nice fellow, but he was the sort of chronic drinker who, though long habit should have made him almost impervious to the effects of liquor, nevertheless always developed a mad desire to fight the whole world after about the fifth imbibing.
They descended in the elevator, Bill chattering all the while about his pleasure at seeing his old friend again and about the extreme hazards of the architect business in New York. A small concern like his didn't have a chance, according to Bill. The business was all in the hands of large organizations who specialized in specific branches of construction, like hotels, residences, restaurants and churches, and made money by starving their help.
After dinner the two men made jerky, halting taxicab progress through the maelstrom of theatre-bound traffic and reached their seats at the Times Square Theatre over half an hour late. The house was filled with the usual first-night audience of friends of the company, critics, movie stars, society people, chronic first-nighters, men and women about town, and stenographers admitted on complimentary tickets given them by their bosses. It was a well-dressed, lively crowd, and one that was anxious to be very kind to the show. In spite of this, Rodrigo was quite sure by the middle of the first act that the revue wouldn't do. It was doomed to the storehouse, he feared. The girls were of the colorless English type, comparing not at all with the hilariously healthy specimens one found in the American musical comedies. Christy had skimped on the costumes and scenery, both of which items were decidedly second rate. The humor had too Londonish a flavor, and the ideas behind the sketches were banal in the extreme.
However, when Sophie Binner came on quite late in the act, Rodrigo sat up and admitted that the sight of her again gave him decided exhilaration. She was alluring in her costume of pale blue and gold, a costume which exposed the famous Binner legs to full advantage and without the encumbrance of stockings. The audience liked her also. She was the prettiest woman the footlights had revealed thus far, and she had a pleasing, though not robust voice. Coupled with this was an intimate, sprightly personality that caught on at once. She responded to two encores and finally disappeared amid enthusiastic applause.
Rodrigo turned to comment upon her success to Bill Terhune, and discovered that the Dakotan had fallen fast asleep.
During the intermission, Rodrigo left his somnolent seat-mate and, buttonholing an usher, sent him back-stage with his card. In a few minutes, he followed the card to the dressing room of Sophie, where, in contrast to the noisy confusion outside, he was permitted to gaze upon her gold-and-tinsel liveliness at close range. She was sitting at her dressing-table, a filmy wrap thrown carelessly about the costume she has worn in the first act. Her slim, white body looked very girlish. Her wise, laughing blue eyes welcomed him. With a swift look at the closed door, she invited, "Kiss me, Rodrigo, and say you're glad to see me."