She, with quick feminine instinct, recognised the vast social distance between "Mr. Gordon" and Bill Willing more poignantly than did Bill himself, who had now almost forgotten it in friendly association. But even so, to have sitting at one of her father's marble-topped tables, hungrily eating a breakfast on her invitation, a young man who could engage a cabin on theMauretaniaand a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, appeared like a brilliant dream. She had never before seen anyone quite so gallant and aristocratic-looking as Bill Willing's friend; no, not even when she walked Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday at the hour of Church parade; and she was distressed at the thought that she would soon lose the wondrous visitor forever. She longed desperately to attach him to herself in some way, but could not see the way.
Eagerly she began to plan a course of action, thrusting Bill's advice aside. What was Bill that he should give advice? she asked scornfully—for Bill had never looked into her languishing eyes, and he was to her a mere painting-machine, scarcely a man at all. What did Bill know of uptown, and the ways of swells? But, she intimated, she had some knowledge of smart life. She had friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenstein, who were rich (though indeed no richer than Pa) and sometimes she dined with them at their flat in One Hundred and Fifty-third Street, or went to an uptown theatre in their company. Therefore she was competent to advise and to say "what was what."
She offered to send a District Messenger to the Waldorf-Astoria for the telegram Mr. Gordon was expecting, and any letters which might have arrived. "He can bring you the lot," she arranged, "and then you can send him to your bank, unless they make you show up to be identified. Anyhow, you can wait here for news. You can go on sitting where you are, or you can come and stay by me at the desk, if the tables fill up with folks for breakfast."
Loveland's face slowly reddened, and his eyes grew troubled.
"You needn't mind about the money for the messenger," she said quickly. "You can pay me back afterwards, if you're so awful proud."
"Why, of course I'd pay you back," Val assured her. "But—er—the fact is——" he hesitated, trying to find a way out of the tangled web "Mr. Gordon" had woven—"the fact is, I"—(he wondered if he could bear to go to the hotel and thus escape the difficulty about the name; but pictured himself arriving in evening dress by broad daylight, and felt his gorge rise at the degradation). "The fact is, anything coming for me at the Waldorf will have on it the name of Loveland. 'The Marquis of Loveland' will be the address on my letters."
"My goodness! youdidfly high!" exclaimed Isidora, dimpling. "I guess it's no wonder they gave you a whole suite (she pronounced it 'soot') of rooms. But that's all right. You put on a card what you want the messenger boy should do, and you needn't be afraid to trust him. These little fellers are safe as banks."
With this, the first paying customer arrived, demanding beefsteak and apple pie for breakfast. Then, as if he had given the signal, others poured after him, all in a hurry, but all good-natured, and all bolting their meals (meals composed, it seemed to Val, of the most extraordinary dishes) with such incredible speed that the Englishman was startled. By the time he had finished writing his instructions, and a uniformed youth had darted off with them, almost the whole first contingent of breakfasters had gone, and given place to another.
Alexander the Great's clients consisted apparently of respectable employés of lower middle-class business houses. If they had not all been employed, Loveland reflected, they would not have been in such desperate haste; but then he had not yet studied the American temperament, north of "Dixie."
Bill Willing's habit was, when paid for his day's work, to find a seat in a small adjacent park and play with the children whose out-door nursery it was. There by witchcraft or wizardry his money was frequently wheedled from his pocket; and often by the time he returned to Alexander the Great's for early dinner, he was practically a pauper. It was after such conjuring tricks that he migrated at nightfall to his "country estate," as he called Central Park, and got through the hours as best he could, till half-past six next morning.
Today, however, he was encouraged to linger in the warm restaurant, Alexander's daughter being supreme in authority during her father's absence. Isidora saw that Bill had the food he liked best for breakfast; a steaming pile of buckwheat cakes trimmed round the edges with crisp brown lace, and oozing syrup at every pore. Also she sent him a copy of "New York Light" without having even glanced at the front page, although a "gentleman friend" who had paid her a great deal of attention last summer was at the beginning of his trial for a really exciting murder.
Isidora dreaded, yet longed, to see the messenger return, and at sight of the slim figure in blue bobbing past the big window she started so violently as to cover the floor with an avalanche of waiters' checks which had littered her father's desk.
The youth entered the restaurant and went straight to the table where "Mr. Gordon" still sat. Isidora could not hear a word of the conversation which ensued, but from under her eyelashes she contrived to see, without seeming to see, how the messenger shook his head in answer to questions, and how Mr. Gordon's face grew ever more blank until it hardened into an expression of hopelessness. She was sure that the boy had brought neither letter nor telegram, and that something had gone very wrong indeed with her mysterious guest's calculations.
An inspiration prompted her hastily to beckon Bill, who was earning the continued hospitality of the restaurant by trotting in with clean plates from the kitchen and trotting back with dirty ones.
"Here, take this, and pay the messenger," she whispered. "I guess your friend's had a disappointment."
Bill obeyed, but did not at once come back. When the youth had been paid, and had shot away up the street as if through a pneumatic tube, Bill lingered in consultation with the pale young man at the table.
"Something's up," Isidora said to herself, in an agony of curiosity. But what the "something" was, she could not find out till breakfast was over, and the room clear of customers.
It was by this time after nine, a late hour at Alexander the Great's restaurant, which the regular clients were deserting now for business; but others might drop in for a piece of pie at any moment, so Isidora caught at a propitiously quiet instant as she would have flown at a moving electric tram.
"The cable I expected hasn't arrived," explained P. Gordon. "It's all right, of course, when I come to think of it, and I'm not really worried, for I haven't paid enough attention to the difference of time between London and New York. I must send again later in the day, when there will be letters, too, perhaps, and people's visiting-cards. Meanwhile——"
"Meanwhile, stay where you are, and make yourself at home," cut in Isidora, hospitably. Nevertheless, she was anxious when she thought of her father, and the inevitable moment of his coming downstairs, heavy-footed with illness, and "cross as a bear with a sore head." Pa would want to have the beautiful young man in evening clothes satisfactorily explained, and it was borne in upon the girl that he would be rather difficult to explain. Non-paying people and things were always difficult to explain to Alexander, especially when he was under the weather. But—there was one way out of the scrape, and Isidora snatched at it suddenly with a leap of the heart. All might be well should she prevail upon Mr. Gordon to accept another loan from her—if he liked to call it a loan!
She had been saving up her allowance to buy a new ball-dress, and had already set her heart on the thing she would have. But she would deplete the sum by a third for Mr. Gordon's sake, if he would take the money and spend it as if it were his own, "for the good of the house." If he indulged in pickled clams or pumpkin-pie, or cold fried oysters, at intervals of, say every hour, under her father's eye, he would continue to be welcome to his place for an indefinite length of time, even though costume and conduct might appear open to curious criticism.
"Thank you, but Mr. Willing has given me a piece of good advice," said Val. "If it hadn't been for him, I shouldn't have thought of it, perhaps. He suggests my pawning a few things I have on me."
Now was Isidora's time to speak, and she offered her alternative suggestion, but with some stammering and confusion under the growing discouragement in Mr. Gordon's dark blue eyes. Nor did he let her stumble on very far. As soon as he gathered the drift of her faltering words, he broke in, thanking her sincerely, saying that she was most awfully kind, but he couldn't trespass any further upon her goodness. According to Willing, there was a pawnshop just round the corner. They two would go there immediately; and then, with money to pay his debt to her, as well as tide over unforeseen delays, he would be glad to come back for a time.
Not only had Isidora never seen a man like Mr. Gordon, but she had never heard any man talk as he did, unless perhaps on the stage. She could hardly believe yet that he was not an actor, and that the 'Marquis of Loveland' was not the name of some character he had played.
It needs hardihood to show oneself at nine o'clock of a cold, sunshiny morning in evening clothes. Loveland had not by any means got rid of his vanity with his other possessions, and he would rather have "run the gauntlet" at the risk of his life from cowboy bullets or Indian arrows, than face the grins and stares of a downtown New York crowd.
This time Bill did offer his overcoat, and press the offer, but to do Loveland justice, its shabbiness and inadequacy were not his principal reasons for refusing. Bill's "blazer" was not much warmer than tissue paper, its sole virtue, save on a hot day of summer, being the fact that it would cover a "dickey" and celluloid cuffs that had no visible means of support.
Luckily for Loveland's fortitude, however, the ordeal—or the out-of-doors part of it—was brief. He was whisked round the corner, and hurried mercifully into a dingy den which Bill Willing seemed to regard as a kind of "home from home," or, at the least, a cold-storage warehouse.
Loveland denuded his shirt of studs, took the gold links out of his cuffs, and produced his watch, asking almost humbly how much would be allowed for the lot.
The watch was of gun-metal; the sleeve links, the simplest he had owned, were destitute of precious stones; and the pawnbroker having examined the offered objects with an air of disparagement, mentioned the sum of nine dollars. When urged to make a higher bid, he remarked that he was "no Santa Claus," and at last showed himself so indifferent that Loveland was glad to exchange his despised belongings for one dollar less than the sum at first refused.
"I expect the old Curmudge will be on for his scene by the time we get back," said Bill, as they returned to Alexander the Great's after an absence of nearly an hour, during which time Loveland had provided his shirt-front with cheap celluloid studs.
But "Curmudge"—alias Mr. Solomon, alias Alexander—was still absent. His understudy, Izzie of the almond-eyes, continued to reign alone over a kingdom of marble-topped tables and empty red chairs awaiting their next occupants; but sixty minutes had changed her oddly. She looked up with a nervous start when Loveland came in with Bill, and hid in her lap the newspaper which had been lying before her on the desk.
"I shall be able to pay you for my breakfast and the messenger now," said Loveland. "And if you've a private room, I'd like to engage it till afternoon, when I can send to the hotel again, and find the cable telling me how and where to get the money on my letter of credit. It's rather awkward being here in these clothes, and——"
"We haven't got a private room," replied the girl, "except our own parlour. I wish we had, because—because I guess you're just about right. Yououghtn'tto be here, today, sitting around dressed that way. You might be noticed, and—and——" She hesitated, then began to speak again quickly, in a low voice. "See here, Mr.—Mr. Gordon. I don't know but I'd better tell you something. Bend down; I don't want the waiters to hear. Dutchy don't catch onto English much, but folks always understand when you don't want 'em to. Of course it's all right about Bill, as he's your friend. I suppose heknows?"
"Knows what?" enquired Val, bending down towards her as she had asked, his elbows on the counter, while Bill tactfully retired out of earshot.
"Why—it's—it's in the paper; this morning's 'Light.'"
"Oh!" The blood sprang to Val's face, his scar showing very white. No need, it seemed, for further questions. He thought he knew what Miss Isidora Alexander had been reading in the paper, and cursed himself for having uttered the name of Loveland. If he had not told her that enquiries must be made at the Waldorf for Lord Loveland's cablegram and letters, she would not associate Mr. Gordon, Bill Willing's friend, with the hero of "New York Light's" story.
That cad, Milton, had evidently made up some tale, on recovering his disgusting senses, a tale not too damaging to himself, and had named his assailant.
"Give me the paper, please," Val demanded.
"Not now," said the girl. "Dutchy's looking, and that, silly boy, Blinkey, has just come in. I don't know as Dutchy reads English, and 'tain't likely Blinkey bothers about the news, even when he gets time. But you never can tell. They may have read, and they may be putting things together already. Better not let 'em guess we're alludin' to anything in the paper."
"Is it about my knocking a man down?" asked Loveland.
"Yes, a swell, well known in s'ciety. I've seen his name often in 'Town Chat.' And it's about you at the hotel, too——"
Suddenly it seemed to Val that he would not have the heart to read that article about himself in the newspapers. His sensitive vanity sent a sharp twinge through his body, as if a nerve had been touched with the point of a knife. That scene of his humiliation in the Waldorf Restaurant, and afterwards in the hall! how could he bear to see it all set out in vulgar print, accompanied perhaps by an "interview" with the hotel employé who had turned him into the street? No, he could not look at the paper, could not see himself held up to public ridicule—probably by the pen of the man he had ordered from his door with Cadwallader Hunter yesterday in the morning.
Physically, Loveland was not a coward; but touch his vanity and he shrank as if with fear, and, mortified to the quick, as his imagination pictured the amusement his plight must be at this moment creating round thousands of breakfast tables, he broke in upon the girl's revelations, almost roughly. "Never mind—that part now," he said. "That's nothing. Has the man Milton set the police on me?"
"Nope. I guess not. There's a kind of interview with him in the paper, and he says he deserved what he got for havin' anything to do with a man of your sort. He says after he'd told you exactly what he thought of you, you hit him from behind; which I don't believe, because you ain't that kind, I'll bet——"
"Thank you," said Loveland, looking so handsome in the pallor of his anger that the Jewish girl could not take her eyes from his face. Her sensuous temperament made her adore beauty, of which she saw little in her everyday life. It was because she loved beauty and colour that she chose red and other vivid-hued dresses for herself. Because she loved beauty she studied fashion-plates, and pinched in her plump waist to what she considered perfect elegance of form. Because she loved beauty and thought she was attaining it, she covered her smooth polished skin with pearl powder, and tortured her hair with metal curling-pins. Because she loved beauty she was now ready to fling her soul at this stranger's feet. Having read the newspaper, she believed him to be a blackguard; but she had not been taught a high standard of virtue for men; and if she had, she would still have been fiercely ready to protect this splendid scoundrel.
"No, I'm not that kind of man," Val echoed her words. "Evidently the cowardly beast must have picked himself up before he was seen, otherwise, as he was lying flat on his fat back, his story about having been hit from behind would hardly have held water. Will the police do anything on their own responsibility, do you think?"
"Not unless somebody sends them lookin' for you, I hope," Isidora reassured him, flattered that she should be taken into consultation. "This Milton says in the interview, he don't want to be mussed up in a scandal, or called on as a witness against you in a police-court."
"It's his own scandal!" broke out Loveland. "He knows I could defend myself only too well. And being a cad himself, he doesn't know that I wouldn't bring in certain names."
"Still, the hotel people may try to make trouble," the girl suggested. "It was so early when the messenger got there, p'raps they hadn't read the papers, because if they had, they could have followed the boy here, if they wanted."
"I shall have to send again for the cablegram, no matter what happens," said Val. "I must get money."
"Sure youcanget it?" Isidora asked in a confidential, yet somewhat doubtful, tone.
"Of course I'm sure. I have my letter of credit—the one thing I did manage to keep."
"Yes, but——"
"There isn't any but," cut in Loveland, impatiently. "It's certain to be all right this afternoon, at latest. The cable will have come to the hotel, and then I shall know what to do. Even supposing the police should arrest me for that affair—well, at worst, the trouble ought to be over and done with in a day or two."
"Oh, indeed it wouldn't," exclaimed the pretty Jewess. "I don't know what mightn't happen to you. Youwillbe careful, won't you—if it's only to please me?" And her eyes were large and beseeching.
"You're very kind to take an interest," said Val, really grateful, though he had to restrain an impulse to draw back from her advances. "Of course I don't want to be let in for a scandal which might do others harm as well as me—and would, if that beast Milton could manage it. I'm not exactly pining to see the inside of a New York gaol—which you seem to think I'm in danger of doing. Things are bad enough, as it is." And his face darkened, for he thought that, after the loathesome publicity the newspapers were now giving the name of Loveland, he might have difficulty in bringing down such game as he had crossed the sea to seek. Also, he remembered with a pang Lesley Dearmer's prophecy that the Louisville journals would reprint New York gossip.
"Oh, I'm sorry you think things here are so bad," retorted Isidora, flushed and pouting.
"You know I don't mean things here," protested Val, with less truth than politeness. "You're too good to me, and I appreciate it all immensely."
"Do you?" she asked, her eyes liquid.
"Of course I do. I hope I shall be able to prove that before long."
She blushed. To her mind, there was only one way in which a young man could prove that he appreciated a girl's goodness to him: by making love to her. And she could almost have fainted with joy at the thought of what it would be to have this glorious hero—villain though he might be—as a lover. Already she had a dim yet intoxicating vision of herself a bride in white silk (or should it be cream satin?) and a wreath of artificial orange blossoms amid clouds of tulle. There would be difficulties—a hundred difficulties, of which the greatest was now upstairs enjoying a well-earned rest. But who cared for a love that ran smooth? And Isidora thrilled as her fancy held a spyglass up to the future.
"Well," she said, warmly, "I mean to go on being good—better—best to you; for I'm studying out a plan to get your things away from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and all the same to keep you out of trouble. You're a foreigner, and don't understand our ways yet, but I'll see you through all right."
"How are you going to do that, my guardian angel?" Val smiled at the pretty Jewess.
Isidora had the sensation of being bathed in perfumed cream. His "guardian angel"! She had been called a number of nice things, such as a "real beaut," a high-flyer and a Floradora; but no one had ever hailed her as his guardian angel before, and with all her heart she vowed that she would live up to the name.
"I don't know exactly yet how I'll do it," she admitted. "But you leave it to me, and it'll be done, you'll see. Only give me an order signed 'Loveland,' to bring away anything of yours from the hotel. Meantime, I've thought of one thing, which is, you'd better not be seen here till we're sure they ain't onto you, through that messenger boy. I tell you what; I've got a lady friend in this street, Mrs. Johnny Gernsbacher, who's lookin' after an empty house that's for rent."
"A caretaker?" asked Loveland.
"I guess that's right. Me and Mrs. Gernsbacher's good friends. She's a widow lady, quite old, 'most forty-five, so she'll do for a chaperon. Pa had her boy here once to wait, and then through me and friends of mine he got a better job outside. She'd be glad to do me a good turn. You can see to things here for five minutes till I run across and ask if she'll let you stay there in the house, as a friend of mine, till you have time to look around."
"I—see to things?" echoed Loveland, blankly.
"Yes. If anybody comes in, they'll take you for a swell waiter, in those clothes. They'll think Alexander the Great's startin' in for uptown style."
She laughed with amusement at the joke, and Loveland laughed, too, though not very heartily. He was not enchanted at the idea of being mistaken for a "swell waiter," but beggars must not be choosers, and he offered no objection to the plan.
Wrapping over her head a red crocheted scarf which she called a "fascinator," Isidora darted into the street, panting with haste lest the worst should happen in her absence, and her father take it into his head to come downstairs. But she had seen him last dozing over the Police News, in a quilted home-made dressing-gown, and that was such a short time ago that she hardly thought there was danger of a surprise.
Mrs. Gernsbacher must have been very accessible and easily persuaded, for in less than ten minutes the girl was back again, flushed with triumph. "It's all right," she announced. "Beccy G's standing in the basement door, waiting for you to pop in. Bill, you show him the way to Beccy's. Goodbye, Mr. Gordon. Don't stay here another minute. I'll be over as soon as I can, to tell you what's up—and I'll send Bill along at noon with something good for your dinner."
Carried off his feet by her enthusiasm, Loveland did not stop for further argument. Caught by an eddy in the tide of fate, he let himself be swept away.
Nothing had happened when Bill Willing came at half-past twelve, to find Loveland an inappropriately ornamental figure, keeping guard in Mrs. Gernsbacher's kitchen during that lady's absence on a shopping expedition: nothing had happened worth reporting, except that Alexander the Great was "around again."
Isidora had sent, wrapped in a Japanese paper napkin, a ham-sandwich, and a generous slice of pumpkin-pie, a delicacy strange to the Englishman's palate. Bill had brought food for himself, too (that part of his wage which he took out in kind), preferring a cold picnic meal with his friend to the hot meat and potatoes he might have had at the restaurant. He also was provided with pie and a sandwich, and though his portion was smaller than Isidora's surreptitious gift to "Mr. Gordon," he had smuggled in his pocket a bottle of ginger ale for both.
"Have you read the beastly newspaper article about me?" Val forced himself to enquire.
"No," answered Bill, "I ain't seen it. Miss Izzie offered me the paper, but I—well, I didn't care to read it. Seemed as if 'twould sorter be spying on you, behind your back."
"You're a good fellow," said Val. It was a new idea, only born to him last night, that a shabby waif like Bill—a mere autumn leaf, blown here and there by contrary winds of circumstance—could be a "good fellow," with the heart of a man. But here was such a one. And it seemed to Lord Loveland that the leaf was very like a gentleman.
"I don't see where the goodness comes in," protested Bill, modestly. "But I can run back and sneak the paper, if you've changed your mind and want a squint at it."
"No, thank you," said Val; though he half scorned himself for moral cowardice. "I've no wish to see how deep New York journalism has pushed me into the mud."
Bill, who did not wish to be overheard gossiping about his friend's affairs by the returning Mrs. Gernsbacher, pottered away after the meal, promising to run in later with a message from "Miss Izzie," if the young lady were prevented from coming in person. If Isidora had mapped out a definite plan, she had not confided it to Bill, but he had little doubt that her idea would "pan out all right, because she was a mighty smart girl when she set her wits to work."
Some hours passed, and Loveland became as restless as a caged lion lately imported from his native desert. It was only his horror of vague atrocities which might be perpetrated by the New York police—horrors such as he had read or heard of—which restrained him from rushing out of his dreary hiding place, even at the price of being hooted in his evening clothes, in the full glare of noonday. After all, he said to himself, bitterly, those who might see him perambulating Twelfth Street, thus unsuitably clad, would only do as Isidora had suggested—"take him for a swell waiter." But he did not like that dark, haunting vision of the police, and constrained himself to patience.
Rebecca Gernsbacher returned from her morning's shopping to ask almost as many questions as she drew breaths, freezing into a cold statue of suspicion as her mysterious guest froze into reticence. Not having heard the name of Loveland, she did not associate any sensational headlines in the morning paper with Isidora's "swell mash," but there was no crime between pocket picking and murder of which she did not believe the handsome, sulky fugitive easily capable.
Loveland had parted with his watch, but there was a battered "one day Bee" clock in Mrs. Gernsbacher's untidy kitchen, and he had begun to tell himself gloomily, that it would soon be too late to draw money from any bank, when Isidora appeared in great splendour at the basement door. She had on a large picture hat of red velvet, nodding with cheap ostrich plumes which shaded from palest pink to deepest magenta; and in her "electric seal" coat she looked as little like a lady as a beautiful girl could possibly look. But she was enchanted with herself—and evidently expected to impress Loveland by her taste and elegance.
"Well!" she panted, having kissed her friend Beccy, and dusted off a chair with the big muff which matched her cloak. "Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Gordon. Guess what it is."
Val was in no mood for graceful badinage, but he forced himself to reply smilingly that he could not guess, and was anxious to hear. "I began to think you were never coming," he added; which remark was more flattering to Isidora than to Mrs. Gernsbacher.
The girl, pleased at his impatience, which made her conscious of her own importance, gaily plunged into her narrative: what she had done, and why she had been so long in doing it.
In the first place, Pa had been cross, and hadn't wanted her to go out; but when she had teased, he had only grumbled a little, and directly after dinner—before Bill came back—she had taken an "L" train downtown, to consult the husband of a great friend of hers. This gentleman she had persuaded to leave business—he being a tobacco merchant—and to drop in at the Waldorf-Astoria, with the object of making certain enquiries. She had not, she said, confided any secrets to her friend, though she was sure she might have done so safely, but had merely pleaded a passionate yearning for further details of the "story" in "New York Light." What were the hotel people going to do? Were they searching for the Englishman, and if so, had they got upon his track?
Mr. Rosenstein being an occasional customer of the Waldorf bar, when he "had on his gladdest rags and was out to do himself well," did not hesitate to undertake the mission. He went to the hotel and asked questions without arousing any suspicion that he was actuated by a deeper motive than idle curiosity, and he learned that the staff of the Waldorf-Astoria took but little interest in the gentleman calling himself Lord Loveland. The Englishman had gone away without paying for his rooms, as the newspapers had said, the hotel people admitted, but goods worth about the amount owing had been left behind. Possibly the owner would redeem the things; and if not, it was a matter of no great importance to the hotel, which was full of other clients and of other business. Anything that might have happened, anything of which the Englishman might be accused, did not concern the Waldorf-Astoria, now that he was no longer a resident of the hotel, and employés had been instructed not to gossip either in his favour or disfavour. Besides, a good deal of water had run through the mill since his eviction, and the late Lord Loveland was now shelved as a "Back Number."
Having got this information, passed on from Mr. Rosenstein, Isidora had felt safe in attempting hercoup d'état. Bidding her obliging friend goodbye with thanks, she went herself to the Waldorf-Astoria. Assuming the air of a Duchess (as she conceived it) she showed to a clerk the paper given her by Loveland, and signed by him. At the same time she mentioned haughtily that she was a friend of the gentleman's, and had dropped in for his mail.
There was no mail, had come the laconic answer; no cablegram; no letters; no visiting cards; and nobody had called with the exception of two or three newspaper men.
Loveland's heart was cold as iron, and as heavy, when Isidora's story had reached this climax. Difference in time could no longer account for the London bank's failure in replying to his wire of yesterday. There was some other reason for silence—some strange, sinister reason connected, no doubt, with the attitude of the New York cashier twenty-four hours ago. Val asked himself insistently what that reason might be, and could get no answer, although various disturbing conjectures flitted through his brain. He thought of the debts he had left behind in London, and wondered if any of his creditors could possibly be responsible for the mysterious trouble which had attacked him simultaneously from both sides of the world.
And nobody had called or written! This lack of courtesy showed, to his mind, that Jim's and Betty's friends had all read the newspapers, and had taken his affair with Milton in bad part. The man Milton was to blame for the scandal, which had doubtless been spread by Cadwallader Hunter's journalist friend, in revenge for a snub. Cadwallader Hunter's malice, too, must have been another match to light the fire of mischief; and taking everything together, Loveland began to fear that the game in America was up. He hated to fail, hated to be thwarted—pushed back with brutal violence from the very threshold of success; but it was all too sordid, too humiliating for a gentleman to contend against. He began to tell himself that the dignified course was to turn his back on America and march homeward with flags flying as if he had suffered no defeat. Yes, that was what he would do. It would be disgracing himself and his name, to go down and wrestle in the arena with enemies who did not pretend to fight fair. Yet—to leave this country for ever, with no hope of seeing Lesley Dearmer again! She had not even given him her address, and had only laughed elusively when he suggested "calling on her some day, after everything was comfortably settled." He knew no more than that she lived "near Louisville," therefore he could not write to beg that she would not believe any hateful tales the newspapers might invent. Oh, yes, it was all over—that, little episode, which had been so sweet, which had taught him that he had heart enough to love and long for a woman, because of what she was, not because of what she had.
"You needn't look so broken up," said Isidora. "Wait till I come to the end of the story. I've got a messenger waitin' in the street with something for you. I wouldn't let him in, till we'd had our talk. Now I'm going to call him down, to cheer you up a bit."
She bounced off her chair, ran to the door, and shouted up from the level of the basement to the street. In another moment a uniformed youth walked in and deposited a large paper-wrapped bundle; but it was not until he had been sent away that Isidora began to open the parcel.
"I wanted to get the lot," she said, "but my, the bill was high!—way above me. I'd twenty-five dollars I'd been savin' up—oh, for something; but you needn't care. I'd a heap rather do this than buy any old thing for myself. And here's what they give me after a lot of fuss."
She tore off the brown paper with a dramatic gesture, and triumphantly displayed the suit of tweed clothing which Loveland had taken off the evening before in dressing for dinner. Then her face fell, as she saw that his expressed no pleasure.
"I thought you'd like these better than anything, as I couldn't run to all," the girl went on disappointedly.
"You paid my hotel bill!" exclaimed Loveland.
"Only a little, weeny part," Isidora broke in. "Wisht I could have done more."
"I don't," said Val, hastily. "Oh, you're very kind—too kind. I don't know what to say. But—your money, that you were saving—why, I—Jove! it's horrible. And I mayn't be able to pay you back for days."
"I don't want you to pay me back," the girl said proudly. "It's been a pleasure."
Loveland's heart reproached him. He had shuddered a little at the thought that this gaudy young beauty in flaunting feathers and cheap finery had gone to the Waldorf claiming him as her "gentleman friend." But it was a thought far less palatable that she should spend her savings for him. He was grateful—more grateful than he would have known how to be yesterday, to a person not of his own class—yet gratitude was not now his strongest emotion.
He thanked her as best he could for all she had done, and talked down her objections to being repaid. Now, he said, owing to her kindness he could walk the streets without being stared at, and would lose no time in cabling to his mother. Oh, he had plenty of money for that! and smiling as if it were part of a huge joke, he showed what the payment of his small debt to the restaurant had left of his eight dollars.
Seven dollars and a bit-nearly thirty shillings! Why, he was rich. All he asked now, was a room in which to change his clothes.
As there was a houseful of empty rooms, this request was easily granted; and presently Loveland came back to the kitchen suitably clad for daylight—except for the detail of his necktie. He would have given a good deal for a change of linen; but there was no use in crying for the moon. And Isidora saw no fault in his appearance as she walked proudly at his side, on the way to send a cablegram to Scotland.
Secretly, Loveland would have been glad to dispense with her company, but she assured him that she had "more time than anything else," and that she would be delighted to guide him. Only, they "mustn't go past home, for if Pa saw her with a strange gentleman, there'd be trouble."
Isidora peered over her companion's shoulder, as he wrote out his message to his mother, and was much interested in the address. To save expense, he put only "Loveland, Dorloch, North Britain," therefore the girl's curiosity was not greatly rewarded. All she could say to herself was that, apparently, he had some right to the name of Loveland, and that he really did seem to expect that "somebody over there" might send him a remittance. Otherwise why should he waste good money on a cablegram, and without a code, too?
Loveland had not written to his mother since his change of plan about the ships. But after all, he said to himself, it did not matter. He was always a bad correspondent—always had been—and the mater just put up with it, poor dear. She wouldn't be worrying anyway, as she must suppose him to be on the high seas at this moment, a passenger on theBaltic—unless she had heard from Betty or Jim—an improbable contingency. Even if he had sent off a letter directly after landing, she would not get it for days yet, so his negligence had done no harm. As for the Marconigram Jim had suggested—why, as things had turned out, it was as well he hadn't wasted money on it.
Unfortunately, to make his need of money clear, Val was obliged to write a long message, even though he attempted no elaborate explanation, beyond saying: "Don't believe newspaper canards." When he had finished, and did not see his way to striking out a single word, he was vexed to find that he would have to pay six dollars and fifty cents. Still, his mother would instantly send the fifty pounds he asked for, even if she had to borrow, and in a few hours this hideous situation would be ended. He could pay all he owed; and then, if there were no hope of anything good in America, he would take passage on the first homeward bound ship.
Isidora advised him to give as an address the house where Mrs. Gernsbacher was caretaker, as embarrassing questions might be asked by Pa if an answer came to the restaurant. She was afraid that Mr. Gordon would have to "chum up" with Bill again for the night, if he were determined not to accept a little loan from her; and she was grieved to think of the boring evening he would have to spend.
It would be fun, she thought, if he would "just drop in at the restaurant like a stranger," and have some supper, which would cost him as little there as anywhere, since he was bent on paying. But Loveland made an excuse which pleased her so much that she relinquished the plan almost without a pang. It would be difficult, he said, after all her goodness, to treat her like an entire stranger. He said this carelessly, but to her it meant a great deal—so much, that she went straight home almost as happy as if he had been by her side.
With his evening clothes under his arm (the first time in his life, perhaps, that he had carried a parcel larger than a letter), Loveland found his way back to the Bowery, back to the Bat Hotel, back to his friend Bill, who was already in the reading room. And once again the name of "P. Gordon" figured humbly among the hundred and fifty lodgers for that night.
There came no cablegram from Scotland next day. Loveland's mother did not answer his appeal. But Val tried to persuade himself that this was not strange. Perhaps she could not get together such a sum as he had asked for, without a little delay, but she would send as soon as possible. He was sure of that as he was sure that his present address ought to be First Circle, Hades.
The dollar which remained to him after sending his expensive cry across the sea, was gone. He borrowed of Bill Willing, who offered and was delighted to lend. In a day or two at most, Loveland said, he would repay, and planned to give Bill a handsome present as well. Meanwhile Loveland passed his time miserably between Alexander the Great's and the Bat Hotel, or walking the streets in the desperate hope of seeing some English face he knew. He saw many pleasant faces, to whom no appeal of sorrow would be made in vain. But they were strangers' faces, and he was not a beggar yet.
He had bought with Bill's money—an advance from Alexander—two or three collars, a change of linen, and a dark necktie, therefore he looked smart and prosperous enough in his tweed suit to pass muster in a crowd, the absence of an overcoat seeming a mere eccentricity. Perhaps there were men who envied the handsome young Englishman who strolled past them with a jaunty, leisured air, while they were forced to hurry. But he would have given a good deal for the need of hurry.
Four days dragged by, including one ghastly Sunday; and when there was still no word from Lady Loveland, Val began to feel the heavy conviction that none would ever come. Some awful spell had fallen upon him, it seemed, a curse which made him a pariah even for those who loved him best. It had begun with Foxham's treachery; and now it had come to his mother's neglect. What might follow, he could not guess; he would rather not try to guess.
He thought over his past, and realised that he had been selfish; but he did not feel that he had ever done anything which deserved such a punishment as this, if punishment it were—if there were a God who watched the children of the earth, and punished, or rewarded, their deeds. Never before had it occurred to him to pity others, beyond a "poor old chap, so sorry, don't you know," and a quick forgetting; but now he was filled with a dumb sympathy for everyone who suffered. Above this bright, gay city—the gayest and brightest Val had ever known—it seemed that his eyes had gained a magic keenness to see the smoke of human suffering rise like incense, to the clear remoteness of the sky.
Loveland did not always take his meals at Alexander's. Sometimes he let a meal-time pass, too deeply depressed to be hungry; or if Bill Willing insisted on food for both, there were places where it could be obtained even more cheaply than at Alexander the Great's—when Alexander himself, and not Isidora, was behind the counter.
Val had met the "Boss" now, though not officially. While he had a few dimes and nickels in his pocket, he patronised the restaurant, glad to have a glimpse of Isidora's friendly, pretty face, and a chance to warm himself at the glowing stove. The "Boss" regarded him as a client—a "queer cuss," down on his luck, but worth being civil to, for in New York you never knew how men's fortunes might change.
Nevertheless, Loveland realised that Alexander had as much real kindness of heart for the world in general as Shylock, or a tiger. He had his friends, perhaps—for tigers may have friends, in their native jungle, if there be no question of a carcass to divide; but when most sleek and smiling, there was something vaguely terrible about the fat Jew. Wake the tiger in him from its sleep of purring prosperity, and it would spring, tearing and rending with unsheathed claws the creature who had roused it.
Isidora, thought Loveland, must resemble her mother, who, it appeared, was long ago dead; and maybe that was one reason why the fierce-eyed Jew loved the girl so jealously, as a tiger loves its young, or as Shylock loved Jessica. She had something of his Hebraic cast of feature, although he had taken a Christian wife; but nothing could be less like the hawk-eye, with its fierce glance suddenly unveiled, the cruel nose, and the big rapacious mouth of the gross, elderly man, than the langourous beauty of the young girl.
His father had been a German Jew, but he—once Isaac Solomon, now Alexander the Great—had been born in the slums of New York, and had fought his way up, biting, clawing, or fawning, whichever seemed the wisest course. Now he was growing rich. He was proud of his own portrait on the walls, in the battle-paintings, proud of the queer pictorial menus and smart advertising cards which helped to make the success of the venture in which he had risked his capital; but he acknowledged no debt of gratitude to Bill Willing's ingenuity, and would have sacked the artist the moment he ceased to be useful. He decried the value of Bill's work; he bullied his two black cooks and his ill-paid waiters; nor had his prosperity given him any fellow feeling for others, who, like himself, were struggling to reach the top.
If you deserved to get on, you got on, and devil take the hindmost, was Alexander's motto. But he loved and admired Isidora, and though he grumbled when she asked for money, secretly his chief joy in piling up a fortune was for her future, that she might marry well and hand his name on, for posthumous honours. He had already picked out the bridegroom, a young Jew with goggle eyes, a turned up moustache, and glittering black hair; a fondness for celluloid collars and red neckties; a smooth manner with his prospective father-in-law, and a truculent front for his inferiors. The young man was making "good money" as a "drummer" for a firm of Jewish tobacco merchants, but there was a slight "tache" upon his parentage, and he would be willing to take Alexander's name, on marrying Alexander's daughter. Bye-and-bye, when years from now Alexander might wish to retire on his pies and fried oysters, as other heroes had retired on their laurels, Leo Cohen would, with Isidora, carry on the restaurant and its glory from generation to generation.
This was Alexander's dream, and woe unto him who should try to interfere with its fulfilment! But he had no fear of any such dangerous person, even when Leo was away drumming up interest for a certain firm in the West, and a tall, handsome, sulky-looking young Englishman was dropping in every day for cheap food and a smile from Isidora.
If Loveland had had money, he would have sent off other cablegrams, but he soon came down to his last copper; and Bill, though willing by nature as by name, seldom had in his best days more to lend him than fifteen cents at a time.
On the fifth day the situation passed beyond bearing. Not only was Loveland penniless, but he could not bring himself to borrow more of Bill's pitiful nickels and hard-earned dimes. Each one of those coins was more to Bill than a sovereign (usually someone else's sovereign) had been to Lord Loveland in his palmy days. The thing couldn't go on; and so Val was saying to Bill as the two drank hot coffee (at Bill's expense) standing up before the counter at Alexander the Great's on the fifth morning after Loveland's arrival in New York.
It was not quite seven o'clock, but Bill had finished his work on the "meenoos," and had invited P. Gordon to "stoke his furnace" at an expenditure of two cents.
Alexander, who had presided at a political ward meeting the night before, had not yet come down to growl at his man-servant, his maid-servant, and all within his gates. "Dutchy" had been discharged with violence the night before, because he had drowned his vast homesickness in unlimited beer, and "Blinkey" was the only member of the household on view except the black cook Dick and Dick's assistant.
"Bill, I can't stand this any longer. I shall have to work or steal—anything but borrow more—until I can touch my money," Loveland broke out, when Blinkey had disappeared behind the red curtain and was being harangued in the distance by big Dick.
"It ain't easy to do either in New York," said Bill, mildly.
"To think of my being practically reduced to starvation and nakedness, with a letter of credit for a hundred and fifty pounds in my pocket!" groaned Val. "Do you think old Alexander would advance me anything if I told him my whole story?"
"Oh, I guess I wouldn't tell him the story," Bill advised, hastily.
"Why not?"
"Well, he's got a sharp tongue, Alexander has."
"In England such a fellow could only get at me at all through my servants."
"I—suppose so," agreed Bill, gently. "But this ain't England."
"I should think it wasn't, worse luck."
"You do have bad luck," said Bill. "But 'twouldn't change it if you asked Alexander for a loan on that letter of credit. If he said anything fit for publication, he'd only say, if the bank wouldn't accommodate you, he wouldn't; and what the dickens did you take him for? When I want a quarter before it's due, it's like gettin' milk out of a corkscrew; and the one thing he thinks of, is whether I shall get run over by an automobile before I work out the money next morning. Oh, I know Alexander."
"What's Pa been up to now?" pertly demanded the voice of Pa's fair daughter.
Isidora had come in while the two were so deeply occupied in conversation and the dregs in their coffee cups, that they had not seen her lift the curtain.
Since the day of her first introduction to P. Gordon, she had not appeared at this early hour of the morning. Her father was generally at his post, and when he was there, Isidora was supposed to exist not for use, but for ornament. However, she knew that Alexander was now reposing after last night's eloquence, and she had taken advantage of his absence. This time she was not in wrapper and curling pins. She had dressed herself with great care for the day, having learned from the "hired girl" that Bill Willing's "swell friend" had come in with him.
"What's Pa been up to now, I say?" she asked again, before the startled and mortified Bill could answer.
"Oh, nothing," replied the artist, apologetically. "We was just talkin'."
"I was wondering if he would advance me anything, enough to get back to England with—on my letter of credit?" Loveland frankly explained.
Isidora's eyes dilated at Val's suggestion of going back to England. It had not occurred to her, facts being as stated in the newspapers, that he would wish to return to his own country; and as fortunately, after the first sensational paragraphs, his affairs had been crowded out of public interest by various startling events of far greater importance, she had thought that he would be thankful to "worry along" as he was.
"Get back to England!" she echoed, blankly.
"It seems the one thing to do now, if I weren't kept here by the lack of a few wretched sovereigns," said Loveland. "If your father would trust me——"
"Oh, he wouldn't!" Isidora hastened to put that idea out of P. Gordon's mind, once and for ever. "He never trusted anybody yet, and he wouldn't begin with you. Why, he says his success in life comes from never believin' anybody but himself. If a man tells him it's a nice day, he goes to the window and peeks out before takin' a walk without his umbrella. And he'd think 'twas like takin' a walk in his best clothes when it rained cats and dogs, to lend a furriner money."
"On a letter of credit?"
"Pa perfectly despises that word 'credit.'"
Loveland gave up hope of winning confidence and obtaining dollars from Alexander the Great. "This state of things is enough to make a man blow his brains out!" he exclaimed.
"I guess you need your brains now more than you ever did," suggested Bill. "And you couldn't git 'em put back where they belonged, if everything come right directly they was out. What I think of, when them ideas get to workin' in my head, is the awful long time you have tostaydead, whether you're suited or not. It's a lot easier to pawn your dress clothes, and see what turns up."
Before Loveland could answer Isidora clapped her pretty hands, which were much cleaner than usual since P. Gordon had come into her daily life.
"Don't pawn 'em!" she cried. "That's made me think of something. Pa's always talkin' about visible assets, or somethin' like that. Well, your dress suit might be a visible asset if—if you're really sick of life when you can't pay your way. But are you dead sure you are sick of it?"
"Dead sure!" echoed Loveland. "What have you thought of for me to do?"
"You won't be mad if I tell you?"
"What nonsense! Am I in a position to be 'mad'?—in the sense you mean—though it's a wonder I'm not mad in another sense. I'd sweep crossings if I could get the job—or break stones—if anyone wanted them broken. But I suppose you're not going to suggest one of these employments, as evening clothes wouldn't be suitable to either."
"I was thinking," said Isidora, "that—I might tease Pa to take you in—in Dutchy's place, if—you'd care about it?"
"Good Heavens! Be a waiter?" stammered Loveland. He had felt ready for any ignominious, if paying, work when in the abstract; but as soon as it took definite form—and such a form as this——
"Oh! I knew you'd be cross!" Isidora pouted.
Loveland was silent; and as his dark eyebrows—so like his cousin Betty's—were drawn together in a frown, the girl supposed that he was sulking.
"I only thought it'd be better than nothing," she explained hurriedly, "if Pa'd let you; but perhaps he wouldn't. He'd think he was doin' a favour—see? He wouldn't understand how you felt about it. I'd have to explain you was temp'rily embarrassed; and my, what a howling swell of a waiter you'd look. You'd get two dollars fifty a week, to begin, and your food. That's what Dutchy did. And now and then folks give a nickel to the waiter, even in a place like this, which I suppose you turn your nose up at, after the Waldorf-Astoria. But I shan't say any more, you needn't be afraid——"
"I beg your pardon," said Loveland. "If your father'll take me, I'll do it. When he comes——"
"Oh, you mustn't ask him yourself! You'd spoil the whole thing," Isidora broke in. "You must let me get at him. Two or three raw Germans and Swedes are bein' sent round this mornin' to look at; but while Pa's dressin' I'll talk you up, and you can be on hand when he gets downstairs. I'll go this minute, and Blinkey can see to anybody that comes in. You call him, Bill."
She darted off, all excitement; and Loveland sat waiting for the great man's verdict, feeling as if he had laid down his soul for sale with the pumpkin-pie and pork and beans.
Bill tried to cheer him. He would have practically no expenses, and being such a "good looker" would be sure to pick up a lot of nickels and even dimes. Why, he might save three dollars a week, and as for that trifling debt to him—Bill—they would wipe it off the slate and consider it paid; or, if Gordon wouldn't consent to do that, he might send the money from England when he'd got home—if he really did think it best to go home. At three dollars a week it wouldn't be long before a chap could lay up enough to cross in the steerage, the way those big ships were fighting each other for rates. For fifteen dollars you could do it, on some boats; and at three dollars a week——
But before Bill could finish his calculation—a rather intricate one for him—Isidora had flown in, her cheeks as red as her poppy-coloured blouse.
"Pa's in one of his funny moods," she whispered. "Won't give me any satisfaction. But I know he'd take you if you'd let me tell him who you are. I mean, if you're willing, I'll say you're the man all that stuff was in the papers about, how you was at the Waldorf as the Markis of Loveland, and how it was you knocked that swell Mr. Milton down. Nobody appreciates the value of advertising better than Pa (Bill can tell you that), and amatoor or no amatoor, you can be gettin' not only your two-fifty a week but twice that, and maybe more, out of Alexander the Great."
"I'd rather starve or drown myself," said Loveland, turning red, and then white.
"It's nasty, starving," ventured Bill. "And folks are that interfering, they're always fishing you out of the water and puttin' you into the newspapers as a Case. Besides, what's the odds? If you've got any swagger friends, they ain't likely to come nosin' round here. Alexander's is 'great,' but it ain't swell."
Loveland had shuddered at the thought of the steerage, when Bill suggested it a few moments ago, but now it seemed to him that the "horrors of the middle passage" would be heaven to the humiliations he endured. For fifteen dollars, Bill said, he could get back to England. If Alexander would give him five dollars a week, in three weeks he could be off—or say, four, having paid Bill what he owed. But, no, that was an eternity—not to be endured. At bay and desperate Val determined to strike high.
"Tell your father who I am, then," he exclaimed, "but say he can't have me for any beggarly two-fifty, or even five dollars a week. I'll have ten, or nothing."
Isidora looked at him with respect, and dashed away behind the curtain. Neither man spoke. The sound of her little high-heeled slippers, clicking on the uncarpeted stairs, was sharp in their ears. In three minutes—before Loveland had had time to repent—she was down again.
"Pa says 'Done,'" she panted. "He's going to use you for all you're worth."
"I bet he will," murmured Bill,sotto voce. But neither he nor Loveland guessed in what way Alexander the Great meant to make the "swell waiter" worth his wage.
"Lesley, wasn't Loveland the name of that Lord you knew on the boat?" asked Lesley's Aunt Barbara, peering at her niece from behind an immense newspaper which hid all the upper part of her body as if with a screen.
Lesley was curled up on a sofa at the other end of the room, which had for some reason or other, more or less appropriate, been called "the library" for several generations. The girl was writing a story, which was promised for a certain time, but her heart was not in her work, and she welcomed interruptions, instead of discouraging them, as usual.
If it had been her habit to shut herself up alone for several hours a day, or if she had sat bolt upright at a desk, Mrs. Loveland would have taken Lesley's work more seriously; but when a pretty girl, looking scarcely more than a child—a girl you have seen grow up from babyhood—nestles cosily in a bank of ruffly silk cushions, with a frivolous "scribbling pad" on her knee, and a pencil in her hand, how can one realise that she is gravely pursuing literature as a profession, and must not be addressed even if one has the most exciting things to say?
Lesley did not answer at first, for she was composing her voice, that Aunt Barbara might not guess she had been taken by surprise; therefore Mrs. Loveland asked the same question over again in a louder tone.
"Yes," said Lesley. "Don't you remember my telling you his name was the same as yours?"
"There! I thought so!" exclaimed the little dovelike lady. "Only I wasn't quite sure whether you said the name was exactly the same, orratherlike mine. You didn't talk as if you took much interest in him, and it seemed as though you would, if we'd been namesakes. I don't think you spoke of him more than once, did you?"
"I don't remember, I'm sure," replied Lesley, beginning to scrawl the name of "Loveland" aimlessly across the top of the page which ought by this time to have been covered with brilliant conversation between her hero and heroine. She answered in an indifferent tone, almost as if she were thinking of something else; but if her mind had indeed been properly bent on the story, she would have said: "Auntie, darling, I'm a thousand miles away, please, with Dick and Susanne. Don't bring me back, there's a dear!"
"Well, I'm glad you didn't take much interest in him," went on Mrs. Loveland, in a tone pregnant with mystery and importance. "I know I oughtn't to be talking to you when you're at work, and I don't often, do I?"
"Notveryoften," smiled Lesley, her dimples softening the gentle little reproach, if it were a reproach. But she didn't look up at her aunt. She pretended to be writing on; and so she was. But it was only one word, over and over again, that she wrote: "Loveland—Loveland." And her heart had begun to beat in a hurried, warning way, as often it had on shipboard when she heard Loveland's voice, and wondered if he were coming to talk to her—or to some other girl.
"But this is something really very special," Aunt Barbara apologised. "It's quite exciting. Only fancy having known him! I almost wish you'd pointed him out to me that last morning on board, when I was up on deck. It would be interesting to remember what he was like."
"Is there something about him in the paper?" asked Lesley, who had been expecting news, but would have preferred to read it herself, if she could have chosen.
"I should think there was!" exclaimed her aunt, screened behind the great printed sheets again.
"Is he engaged already?" Lesley enquired, making a sketch of Lord Loveland's profile in the midst of a speech of Dick's, though Dick was a very different sort of young man from Loveland, a very different sort indeed. How many times she had caught herself tracing the outline of those features—so clear, so straight, so perfect an outline, that it was as easy to draw as to copy a Greek statue. She knew every line, and often the little profile-portrait was there before her eyes on the paper before she knew what she had been doing. She was almost perfectly certain what Aunt Barbara's answer to her question would be. Of course he was engaged. He had hardly had time to make the acquaintance of any new girls in New York, and propose marriage, so it must be Elinor Coolidge—or Fanny Milton.
"Engaged!" echoed the elder. "No, indeed. What a mercy he's been found out before some nice girl was mixed up in the scandal. Of course he wanted——"
"A scandal!" Now at last Lesley did lift her head, quickly, and the last profile-sketch looked as if it had been struck by lightning.
"Shocking," answered Mrs. Loveland. "What a dreadful thing that our country should be looked upon as a sort of gold mine by these foreign birds of prey."
Lesley's little ears burned pink as if her aunt had boxed them. Her eyes sent out a spark, but its fire was quenched in a sudden trickle of nervous laughter. "Dear Aunt Barb! Would 'birds of prey' make successful miners?"
Aunt Barbara laughed, too. "You're always catching me up for my similes," she said. "But luckily I don't write stories, so it doesn't matter. And anyway that's what theyare; birds of prey. As for what they do, they marry our girls, who find them out too late, and then try to get divorces. What an escape for some poor little heiress, that this creature is hoist with his own petard in the very midst of baiting his wicked trap! You needn't look at me like that, child. I don't carehowmixed up I am. Did this man look like a gentleman?"
"Yes," said Lesley. "Naturally, because he is a gentleman."
"My dear! he must have been clever to hoodwink an observant little thing like you, who can see right down into people's hearts, even when you hardly seem to be noticing how they do their hair, or the colour of their neckties. This man is nothing but his own valet."
"So am I my own maid," said Lesley. "He never said he was rich, or——"
"I mean he isn't a Marquis."
The soft outline of the girl's figure stiffened, and she sat up very straight on the sofa.
"Who says he isn't a Marquis?" she asked sharply.
"Everybody. The newspaper."
"Oh—the newspaper!"
"But it's true. He's been turned out of his hotel. I'll read you the——"
"Please, I think I'll read it myself, if you don't mind, dear," said Lesley. "That is—when you've finished. I can wait."
"I have finished, all I care about reading," Mrs. Loveland hastened to assure her, for she invariably discovered that she has ceased to want anything which Lesley could even be suspected of wishing for.
"Take the paper, dear. Don't get up. I'll bring it to you."
But Lesley did get up, and stood with her back to her aunt as she read the Louisville version of Tony Kidd's sensational "story." She took a long time to read it, and when she had come to the end, she laid the paper on her aunt's lap without saying a word.
"Well—has it struck you dumb?" exclaimed Mrs. Loveland, disappointed: for if she spoiled Lesley with petting, Lesley spoiled her with responsiveness.
"I am rather horrified," said the girl.
"No wonder. You actually knew him—or thought you did."
"I think so still."
"Why—did you suspect at all?"
"Nothing that I don't suspect now. Poor fellow!"
"'Poor!' Dearest, that's carrying soft-heartedness too far. Think—if he'd married some girl."
"I have often thought of it."
"What must Mrs. Milton and Fanny be feeling?" went on Mrs. Loveland. "Friends on the ship—and now he knocks down the husband and father in the street, because——"
"Ah, yes, because of what?" echoed Lesley.
"Mr. Milton says——"
"I read what he said. But his photograph is in the paper."
"What has that got to do with it?"
"Nothing, unless one's interested in physiognomy."
"I don't know anything about physiognomy," said Mrs. Loveland.
"Neither do I," said Lesley, "except what I was born knowing."
"Well, dear, I don't think I'd talk to any of our friends about having met this dreadful impostor," Aunt Barbara suggested, gently. "People might fancy, if you did, that there'd been—oh, some little shipboard flirtation, perhaps, nothing serious, of course, but——"
"So they might," admitted the girl. "I didn't think at the time, myself, that it was anything serious."
"I should hope not!" breathed Aunt Barbara. "A valet!"
"Marquis or Valet?" murmured Lesley, with a quaint little smile. "It sounds like the title of an old-fashioned story."
"For goodness' sake don't use it," begged her aunt. "The material isn't worthy of you."
"Oh, my stories are always new-fashioned," said Lesley. "You know, the critics reproach me for running ahead of the times in my ideas."
"You certainly are rather unexpected," replied Mrs. Loveland. "Sometimes I almost wish you were a tiny—just a tiny bit more conventional."
"You wished it when I said 'poor fellow.'"
"Oh, but you didn't really mean that."
"I did," persisted Lesley. "I should be disappointed in myself if I thought I could fail to recognise a valet when I saw one. And I hate being disappointed—in anyone."
"Itmustbe disappointing to an author—one who has to be a student of character," assented Aunt Barbara, soothingly.
"Even when she's forgotten all about that part of herself for awhile, owing to—interruptions."
The dovelike little lady looked hurt. "Oh, my dear, I do beg your pardon!" she cried. "Of course I know, at this time of day—I'm only in the library on sufferance."
"I didn't mean you, Auntie," said Lesley, kissing her.
"Not me? Who, then——"
"But I really ought to write."
"I do hope I haven't taken your inspiration away, dearest."
"No. You've given me one."
"I'm so glad. Well, I'll run away now. I've lots of things to see to. Forget all about the Marquis of Loveland—I mean the valet. Put him out of your mind."
"Don't worry, Auntie. It's quite easy to put a valet out of a tidy, well-regulated little mind like mine."
"Think of Dick," said Mrs. Loveland. "He's going to be a splendid fellow."
"Dick's a paper doll," said Lesley.
Perhaps it was because she was not in a mood to play dolls that, when Aunt Barbara was gone, Lesley did not go back to her sofa and her story writing. She picked up the paper which Mrs. Loveland had left lying on the table, but she did not read. She merely looked at Mr. Milton's photograph. Then she went to the desk where she kept papers, and took a cheque-book from a drawer.
"No, that won't do," she said to herself, after thinking for a minute. She put the cheque-book back in its place, and opened another drawer, not locked, for neither drawers nor cupboards nor hearts were ever locked in this old-fashioned Kentucky house.
The second drawer was full of greenbacks. Perhaps it was a kind of savings bank for the young author; but, poor or rich, authors are proverbially easy about parting with their earnings, and Southern-born Lesley was no exception to the rule.
She counted out a number of bills—(more than half)—folded them up in a blank sheet of paper, torn off the writing pad, that there might be no address upon it, and pressed the flattened parcel into a large, stout envelope. This she sealed with blue sealing wax, and after a moment or two of puzzled reflection, began to print, in big black letters:
"The Marquis of LovelandWaldorf-Astoria HotelNew YorkTo be sent immediately to present address."