CHAPTER VALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN"Take another cigarette, won't you, Mr. Merriam?" said Alicia, as the curtain at the door fell behind Rockwell and Father Murray."Thank you," said Merriam.He was excited, of course. All the stimulations of his evening, including more coffee than he was used to and an unaccustomed taste of wine and mystery and intrigue, could not fail to tell on the blood of youth. But he felt extraordinarily calm, and he was not in the least afraid of Alicia. He had not fully made up his mind about the proposed adventure, but Alicia knew several things about the wantings of men."Let me light it for you," she pursued.She struck a match, which somehow she already had out of its box, put out a white hand and arm, took the cigarette from his fingers, put it to her own lips and lighted it, and handed it back to him."Thank you," said Merriam again, just a little confused. Hesitatingly, with an undeniable trace of thrill, he put the cigarette to his own lips. Poor boy! It was an uneven contest!Alicia deftly moved her chair to the corner of the table, bringing it not very close but much closer to Merriam's. Close enough for him to catch the faint, unfamiliar perfume. She put out her hand again and drew one of the yellow roses from their bowl. She rested both arms on the table and played with the rose, drawing it through her fingers and up and down one white, rounded forearm."Mr. Merriam," she said, "perhaps you have wondered why I am in this thing."As a matter of fact he had neglected to be curious on that point, but now he was."Yes," he said."Mr. Rockwell converted me. Oh, I can see you don't like him. You think he is hard and unscrupulous and self-seeking. Well, he is. All men are--at least, almost all men are"--she glanced at Merriam. "But he is a genuine reformer for all that. He is heart and soul for what he calls the People. He works tremendously for them all his time. And he is shrewd and fearless."Now it is probable that Alicia's little character sketch presented a very just picture of Philip Rockwell. But it did not appeal to Merriam as true, much less as likable. He was too young. He still wanted his heroes all heroic and his villains naught but black and red with almost visible horns and tail.He did not reply. He could not, however, remove his eyes from the felicitous meanderings of the yellow rose."Well," sighed Alicia, "I was going to tell you how Mr. Rockwell converted me. You see, my father--but you don't know who my father is, do you? The newspapers always refer to him us 'the billionaire brewer.' They like the alliteration, I suppose. He's very busy now converting all his plants for the manufacture of near-beer." (She laughed as if that were a good joke.) "His youngest sister, my Aunt Geraldine, was Senator Norman's first wife. So I know George Norman well. I was quite a favourite of his when he used to come to our house before poor Aunt Jerry died. So Philip wanted me to 'use my influence' with Mr. Norman about his precious Ordinance. I wasn't much interested at first. I hadn't ridden in a street car, of course, in years.""Hadn't you?" said Merriam, quite at a loss."No. When I go out I take either the limousine or the electric. So I really didn't know much about conditions, except, of course, from the cartoons about strap-hangers in the newspapers. Philip saw that that was why I was unsympathetic. So he dared me to go for a street-car ride with him. Of course I wouldn't take a dare."It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. We took the limousine down to Wabash and Madison. There Philip made me get out on the street corner. It was horrid weather--a cold, blowy spring rain. But Philip was hard as a rock. He told the chauffeur to drive to the corner of Cottage Grove and Thirty-Ninth Street and wait for us. Andwewaited for a car. It was terrible. We stood out in the street under the Elevated--by one of the posts, you know--for a little protection from the train. We hadn't any umbrella. The wind tore at my skirts and my hair. The trains going by overhead nearly burst your ears with noise. And automobiles and great motor trucks crashed past within a few inches of us and splashed mud and nearly stifled us with gasoline smells. And a crowd of other people got around us and knocked into us and walked on our feet and stuck umbrellas in our eyes. For a long time no car at all came. Then three or four came together, but they were all jammed full to the steps, so that we couldn't get on."I was ready to give up. I told Philip so."'Let's go into Mandel's,' I begged, 'and you can call a taxi.'"'No you don't,' he said. 'Here, we can get on this one.'"Another car had stopped about twenty feet from us. We joined a kind of football rush for the rear end. I tripped on my skirt when I tried to climb the steps, but Philip caught me by the arm and dragged me on, as though I had been a sack of flour."Then for a long time we couldn't get inside but had to stand on the platform wedged like olives in a bottle. It was so dark and cold and noisy, and everybody was so wet and crushed and smelly. A man beside me smelled so strong of tobacco and whiskey and of--not having had a bath for a long time, that I was nearly ill. And I thought a poor little shop girl on the other side of me was going to faint."After a long time some people got out at the other end of the car--at Twelfth Street, Philip says,--and some of us squeezed inside into the crowded aisle. Inside it was warm--hot, in fact,--but still smellier. Philip got me a strap, and I hung on to it. I don't care for strap-hanger jokes any more. It's terribly tiring, and it pulls your waist all out of shape."'Bet you won't get a seat,' grinned Philip."Of course I was bound then that I would. I looked about. Some of the men who were seated were reading papers the way they are in the cartoons. Others just sat and stared in front of them. I didn't blame them much. They looked tired, too. But I had to get a seat to spite Philip. The young man in the one before which I was standing, or hanging, looked rather nice. I made up my mind to get his seat. I had to look down inside his newspaper and crowd against his legs. At last, after looking up at me three or four times, he got up with a jerk as if he had just noticed me and took off his hat, and I smiled at him and at Philip and sat down. But he kept staring at me so that I wished I had let him alone."I made the poor little shop girl sit on my lap. Nobody gave her a seat. I suppose she wouldn't work for it the way I did. She was a pretty little thing, too. Just a tiny bit like Mollie June Norman. Not so pretty, of course, but the same type."Then there was nothing to do but wait till we got to Thirty-Ninth Street. Ages and ages. They ought to have been able to go to the South Pole and back."When we did get there I put the little girl in my seat--she was going to Eighty-First Street, poor little thing,--and Philip and I got out and went home in the limousine, and he told me all about how the Ordinance would better things, and I promised to help him if I could.""And you did?" said Merriam. He was touched--whether by Alicia's own sufferings in the course of her remarkable exploration or by those of the little shop girl who looked like Mollie June, does not, perhaps, matter. He now quite fully liked Alicia. He saw that, in spite of her extreme décolleté and her cigarettes, she had a generous heart."I tried to," replied Alicia. "I saw George Norman, and I did my best--my very best. But he wouldn't promise anything. He only laughed and tried to kiss me.""Tried to kiss you!" echoed Merriam, naïvely aghast."Yes," said Alicia, with her eyes demurely on the rose between her fingers.And John Merriam, looking at her, grasped clearly the possibility that a "boy senator" with whom Alicia had done her very best might try to kiss her."So that is one reason why I am in it to the death," Alicia went on, "because George Norman--wouldn't listen to me. And I don't want Philip to fail."She laid one hand quickly over one of Merriam's hands, startling him so that he nearly drew his away. "I love him," she said, and her eyes shone effulgently into Merriam's. "He hasn't much money, and he is hard and--and conceited, but he is courageous. He dares anything. He dared to take me on that street-car ride. He would dare to burst in on the Senator and Mayor Black to-night. He dares think up this plan. A woman loves a Man."There is no doubt that Alicia pronounced "man" with a capital letter, and she looked challengingly at Merriam."We are to be married next month," she added."Oh!" gasped Merriam, his eyes staring in spite of himself at her hand that lay on his.The hand flew away as quickly as it had alighted, but he still felt its soft coolness on his fingers as she said:"Of course all this is whyIam in it, not why you should be. You can't do it just to please me. But you really ought to think of all those poor people, like the little shop girl--all the tired men and women--millions of them, Philip says--who have to endure that torture every night after long days of hard work. It's truly awful, and it might all be so much better if we only got the Ordinance. You could get it for them in one little half hour!"She looked hopefully at Merriam. He was in fact hesitant. To have the fun of the thing, to gratify this strange, attractive Alicia, and to render an important service to the population of a great city--it was tempting."There's another thing," Alicia hurried on. "You knew Mollie June Norman. She was one of your students. I think you ought to do it for her sake.""Why so?" Merriam's question came swift and sharp."Because if Senator Norman kills the Ordinance it will be his ruin. It will cost him Chicago's vote in the next election, and he can't win on the Down-State vote alone.""I thought Rockwell said the League would collapse."Possibly Alicia had forgotten this. But she only shrugged her shoulders."It may or it mayn't. But either way the people are aroused. Philip swears they will beat Norman if he betrays them now. He is sure they can and will. And if the 'boy senator' were unseated and had to retire to private life it would be terrible for Mollie June. He's bad enough to live with as it is."At this point Merriam was visited by a sudden and splendid idea. Since he did not disclose it to Alicia, I feel in honour bound to conceal it for the present from the reader.Alicia detected its presence in his eyes and judiciously kept silent.It took about ten seconds for that idea to grow from nothingness into full flower. For perhaps five seconds longer Merriam inwardly contemplated its unique beauty. Then he said:"I'll do it!"CHAPTER VISTAGE-SETTINGAlicia gave him no time for reconsideration or after-thoughts."Good!" she cried, "I was sure you would."She was on her feet in an instant, and as he got to his she held out her hand. Merriam took it--to shake hands on their bargain was his thought. But Alicia never exactly shook hands. She touched or pressed or squeezed according to circumstances. On this occasion it was a warm, clinging squeeze. Her other hand patted Merriam's shoulder."I was sure you would," she repeated. "No Man"--again the capital letter was unmistakable--"could have resisted--the--the opportunity."The curtain at the door was lifted, and Philip Rockwell's voice said: "May I come in? The twenty minutes are up."They were. Just up. Alicia had done her part in exactly the fraction of an hour she had given herself. No vaudeville act could have been more precisely timed."Yes. Come in, dear," said Alicia. "Mr. Merriam will do it. We were just shaking hands on it."Rockwell crossed the room in a rush and caught Merriam's hand as Alicia relinquished it. He pumped vigorously. In his eyes shone the unmistakable light of that genuine enthusiasm which Alicia had described to her skeptical auditor."You're the right sort," he cried. "You are doing a great thing, Mr. Merriam. You will never regret it. But I can't thank you now," he added, dropping Merriam's hand in mid-air, so to speak. "It's ten minutes of eight. That money-bag, Crockett, came out of the elevator just before I came back. I have a car at the Ladies' Entrance.""With Simpson?" asked Alicia."Yes. I had to get things ready. The time was so short. I fixed the head waiter. Simpson seemed ready enough. Has some old grudge against Norman, I think.""Yes," said Alicia, "he has. I'm a little afraid--I wish I could have seen him. Never mind. It can't be helped. Where's Father Murray?""Watching to buttonhole the Mayor if he should come too soon."He looked critically for a moment at Merriam, seemed satisfied, and crossed to the telephone on the sideboard."I'll ring up the curtain," he said.He laughed boyishly in his excitement and new hope. He seemed very different now from the hard-eyed, middle-aged fellow of an hour ago. Merriam saw how Alicia might admire him."Give me Room Three-Two-Three," he said into the telephone, his eyes smiling at them.A moment later a harsh, dry old man's voice was saying:"Is this Senator Norman?--This is Mr. Schubert, private secretary to Mayor Black. The Mayor is sick.--I can't help it, sir. He's sick all right. He's out here at his house.--Yes, he can veto the Ordinance all right if it's necessary. But he won't do it without seeing you first. He wants you to come out. He's sent a car for you. It ought to be down there at the Ladies' Entrance by now.--No, it won't do any good to call him up. I'm here at his house now. He's in bed. And he won't veto unless he sees you. Really, sir, if you'll pardon me, you'd better come.--Thank you, sir!"Rockwell clicked the receiver triumphantly into its hook."That's done," he said. "Alicia, dear, go up to the lobby on the women's side and watch the hallway leading to the Ladies' Entrance. Norman should pass out that way within five minutes. Follow him far enough to make sure that Simpson gets him. And then let us know. Meanwhile I'll coach Mr. Merriam a little.""Right," said Alicia.She moved to the door. The eyes of both men followed her. When Alicia moved the eyes of men did follow. And she knew it. At the doorway she turned and blew a kiss, which might be said to fall with gracious impartiality between her lover and the younger man. It was a pretty exit."She's a splendid girl," said Rockwell, his eyes lingering on the curtain that had cut her off from them."Yes," said Merriam.Rockwell, still by the sideboard, reached for the long bottle."Have another glass of this?""I don't mind," said Merriam. The fact is, a bit of stage fright had come in for him when Alicia went out."There's not much I can tell you," Rockwell said, as he poured out the yellow fluid. "You'll have to depend mostly on the inspiration of the moment. You look the part all right. Your voice is all right, too. Act as grumpy as you like. Damn him about a bit.--You can swear?" he asked hastily. A sudden horrible doubt of pedagogical capabilities had crossed his mind.Now Merriam was not a profane man, but some of his fraternity brethren had been. Also he remembered the vituperative exploits of his football coach between halves when the game was going badly."Swear?" he cried, as harshly as possible. "Of course I can swear, you damn fool!"For three seconds Rockwell was startled. Then he laughed."Fine!" he cried. "You'll do it! All there is to it, really, is to tell him to sign the Ordinance and to get out. He may ask about Crockett. If he wants to know why he's changed his mind, tell him it's none of his damn business. If he refers to a Madame Couteau, you must look pleased. She's the pretty little manicurist whom Norman will be on his way to visit. Black knows of that affair, and he knows Norman likes to talk about it. So he may drag it in with the idea of getting on your blind side. You can tell him to shut up, of course, but you must act gratified.""Yes," said Merriam in a noncommittal tone.But Rockwell did not notice. He was sipping the Benedictine, with his mind on his problem."That's all I can think of," he said in a moment. "I'll be in the next room--the bedroom of the suite, you know,--and if you should get into deep water, I'll burst in, just as I meant to on the real Senator, and pull you out. We ought to get it over in fifteen minutes at the outside and get you off. There's just the least chance in the world, of course, that Senator Norman might get away from Simpson and come back. And there's Mrs. Norman.""Where will she be?" asked Merriam as he took a rather large sip of his cordial."She's in the lobby now with Miss Norman--the Senator's sister, you know,--listening to the orchestra." (Merriam vaguely recalled the elderly woman whom he had seen with Mollie June in the Cabaret.) "The Senator was going to take them to the theater after he had finished with Black.""What will they do when he doesn't show up?" Merriam inquired; but to all appearances he was chiefly interested at the moment in the best of liqueurs."Probably go without him. She's used to George Norman's broken engagements by now.""I see," said Merriam without expression."Alicia and Murray will keep an eye on them, of course," Rockwell added.And then both men jumped. It was only the telephone, but conspiracy makes neurasthenics of us all.Rockwell answered it."Yes.--Good.--That's all right.--Oh!--Yes, we'll go at once."He turned excitedly to Merriam."It's Alicia. Norman has come down and got into Simpson's car. Mrs. Norman is still in the lobby. And the Mayor has come in. Murray's got him, but he won't be able to hold him long. We must go right up to the room. Come--Senator!"Merriam followed out of the private dining-room and down the corridor at a great pace into a main hallway and to an elevator.Several people looked hard at Merriam. One important-looking elderly man stopped and held out his hand:"How are you, Senator?"But Rockwell crowded rudely between them."Excuse me, Colonel, but we must catch this car.--Very urgent!" he called as the door clicked.And Merriam had the presence of mind to add, "Look you up later!""Good----" Rockwell began as they stopped at the main floor, but he paused on the first word with his mouth open.A very large man, large every way, in evening clothes, with a fine head of white hair and an air of conscious distinction, was stepping into the car. He saw Merriam and Rockwell. Then instantly he appeared not to have observed them, hesitated, backed gracefully out of the little group that was entering the elevator, and was gone.The car smoothly ascended."Three!" said Rockwell to the elevator man. Then to Merriam he whispered, "That was the Mayor! He's got away from Murray.""Ask for your key," whispered Rockwell, as they stepped out.For five protracted steps Merriam's mind struggled frantically after the room number. He had just grasped it (3-2-3!) when he perceived that his perturbation had been unnecessary.For the floor clerk--a pretty blonde of about thirty--was looking at him with her sunniest smile."Your key, Senator?""Yes, please," he managed to say.As she handed him the key her fingers lightly touched his for a second, and she said in a low tone, "The violets are lovely."He saw that she was wearing a large bunch of those expensively modest flowers at her waist and understood that his cousin's extra-marital interests might not be limited to Madame Couteau.He lingered just a moment and replied in a tone as low as her own, "They look lovely where they are now."But an appalling difficulty loomed over him even as he murmured. For he did not know whether Room 323 lay to the right or the left, and if he should start in the wrong direction----But Rockwell knew and was already moving to the left. Merriam followed. In his relief he smiled brightly back at the floor clerk.At the corner where the hall turned Rockwell stopped, and Merriam, coming up with him, read "323" on the door before them. Both men looked up at the transom. It was dark."In!" said Rockwell.Merriam inserted the key, turned it, and cautiously opened the door a couple of inches, becoming, as he did so, thrillingly conscious of the burglarious quality of their enterprise.No light or sound came from within.For only three or four seconds Rockwell listened. Then he pushed the door wide, stepped past Merriam, and felt for the switch."You haven't invited me in, Senator," he said as the room went alight, "but I'm a forward sort of fellow.--Come inside, and close the door," he added.Merriam pushed the door shut behind him and stared about. The apartment was probably the most gorgeous he had ever seen. The walls were a soft cream colour, the woodwork white, the carpet and hangings and lampshades rose. Most of the furniture was mahogany, some of it upholstered in rose-coloured tapestry. On a table half way down one side of the room stood a bowl of red roses. In the wall opposite Merriam, between the windows, was a fireplace of white marble, containing a gas log, with a large mirror above the mantel in a frame of white and gold. Before this fireplace stood a huge upholstered easy chair, with a pink-shaded floor lamp on one side of it and a small mahogany tabaret on the other.While Merriam was endeavouring to appreciate this magnificence, Rockwell quickly crossed the sitting room and passed through a door at one side. After a moment he returned, crossed the room again, and disappeared through a second door. Reëmerging, he announced triumphantly, "No one in the bedrooms!"But Merriam's eyes rested, fascinated, on a garment which Rockwell had brought back with him from the second bedroom--a luxurious smoking jacket of a most lurid crimson colour, which clashed outrageously with the rose and pinks of the senatorial sitting room.Rockwell grinned at the look on Merriam's face."A historic garment, sir," he declared. "The Boy Senator's crimson smoking jacket is a household word with most of the six million souls of this commonwealth of Illinois. Off with your tails, sir, and into it!""Hurry!" he cried, as Merriam hesitated. "The Mayor will be here any minute.""Why didn't he come up in the elevator with us?" Merriam asked while changing."All because of me, sir," replied Rockwell, in excellent spirits. "The Mayor abhors me and all my works so sincerely that I feel I have not lived in vain.--Now, then, sit in that big chair before the fireplace. Here, light this cigar. I'll start the gas log going and bring in the tray with the siphon and glasses and rye that I saw in the other room.--Ah!"The telephone had rung, and Merriam had leapt out of his chair."Answer it," said Rockwell.Merriam stepped to the telephone, which was on the wall, laid down his cigar, gripped his nerve hard, and put the receiver to his ear:"Hello!"A deep voice, boomingly suave, replied:"Senator Norman?""Yes.""This is Mr. Black. Have you got rid of Rockwell yet?""No, not yet.""Well, can't you throw him out? I am due at the Council meeting at nine, of course. And I don't care to discuss--matters--with you in his presence, naturally. When shall I come up?"Now the Mayor's rather long speech had given Merriam time to think. He recalled his great idea, and a new inspiration, as to ways and means, came to him."Eight-thirty," he replied curtly."But, good God!" cried the Mayor, "that gives us so little time. Can't you----""I said eight-thirty, damn you!"And Merriam hung up and turned to face Rockwell at his elbow."But why eight-thirty?" demanded the latter as soon as he understood that it had been the Mayor. "Man alive, we ought to be gone by then! What are we to do with the next twenty minutes? You must have lost your head. Call him again. Call the desk and have him paged and told to come right up."Without a word Merriam turned to the telephone again and asked for the desk.But a moment later he gave Philip Rockwell one of the major surprises of the latter's life. For what he said was:"Please page Mrs. George Norman, with the message that Senator Norman would like to see her right away in their rooms. Repeat that, please.--That's right. Thank you!""What in hell!" cried Rockwell, belatedly released by the click of the receiver from a paralysis of astonishment.Merriam picked up his cigar, walked back to the easy chair, and seated himself comfortably. He was excited now to the point of a quite theatrical composure."Nothing in hell," he said. "Quite the contrary, in fact. I want to have a few minutes' conversation with Mrs. Norman. That's all.""See here!" said Rockwell. "What funny business is this? I won't have----""Won't you? All right. Just as you say. If you don't like the way I'm playing my part, I'll drop it and walk right out of that door. I have a ticket for the theater to-night. I can still be in time."The other man stared and gulped. It was hard for him to realise that this young cub was master of the situation, and not he, Rockwell."But this is serious!" he cried. "The Ordinance! The Reform League! The whole city of Chicago! You can't risk these for----"He stopped. Then:"Do you realise, you young fool, that if we're caught in this room, it will mean jail for both of us?"But Merriam in his present mood was incapable of realising anything of the sort. In his mind's eye he saw Mollie June stepping into the elevator and saving in a voice of heavenly sweetness to the happy elevator man, "Three, please!"An outer crust of his consciousness made pert reply to Rockwell:"That would be bad for the Reform League, wouldn't it?" and added, "But you're willing to risk it for the Ordinance?""Yes, I am," began Rockwell, "but----""Would you risk it for Alicia?" Merriam interrupted."What has Alicia got to do with it?"But he understood, and knew that argument was useless, and stared in helpless anger and alarm while the younger man carefully, grandly blew a beautifully perfect smoke ring into the air.It was the youngster who spoke, still theatrically calm:"You'd better go into the bedroom. She'll be here in a moment. Shut the door, please. And keep away from it!"It was one of the secrets of Philip Rockwell's success in politics that, masterful as he was, he knew when to yield. He took a step towards one of the bedrooms."Make it short," he pleaded."Eight-thirty!" said Merriam.A gentle knocking sounded at the door.Merriam was on his feet without volition of his own, while Rockwell, almost as instinctively, slipped into the bedroom.Then the younger man recovered himself, sat down, his feet to the gas log and his back to the door, and called, "Come in!"CHAPTER VIIBOY AND GIRLThe door was opened and closed. John Merriam's straining ears could catch no definite sound of footsteps or skirts, and he did not dare to look around. Yet by some sixth sense, it seemed, he was aware of Mollie June's progress half way across the room and aware that she had stopped, some feet away from him."What is it--George?" she asked.It was only too clear that Mollie June's lord and master was not in the habit of sending for her."Where is--Miss Norman?"Merriam was conscious that Senator Norman probably did not refer to his sister in that fashion, but he did not know her given name."Aunt Mary? I left her in the lobby. Did you want her too?"There was a note of eagerness in the question."No!"Silence. Mollie June stood waiting in the center of the room. The significance of her failure to approach her husband was unmistakable.Then he said: "Would you very much mind if you should miss the theater to-night?""Why--no. Is there anything the matter, George?""Not for me," said Merriam, and he rose and faced her."I was afraid--" She stopped, looked hard."George, you look--oh!"She passed her hand across her eyes. It was a stage gesture, but when stage situations occur in real life the conventional "business" of the boards is often justified.She looked again."Mr. Merriam!"John Merriam stepped quickly forward. It occurred to him that she might faint. He had read many novels.But Mollie June did nothing of the sort."Mr. Merriam!" she cried again. "How do you come here? Where is--Mr. Norman? How did you get inthat?"She pointed to the famous smoking jacket. Her bewilderment was increasing. She looked nervously about, as if suspecting that Merriam, for the sake of the crimson garment, had murdered her husband and concealed his body.Merriam had stopped. Almost he might have wished that she had fainted. It would have been delicious to carry her in his arms and place her in the Senator's easy chair and bring water and when her eyes opened wonderingly upon him softly whisper her name. As it was he could only say formally:"Let me take your cloak--Mrs. Norman--won't you? And sit down."Mechanically she let him take the opera cloak from her shoulders, and when he caught hold of the senatorial chair and swung it around and pushed it towards her she sat tremblingly erect on the edge of it. Her eyes dwelt upon his face as if fascinated."Isn't it funny you look somuchalike? I never realised it--so much. But--where ishe? Why----?"Merriam caught up a small chair, placed it in front of hers, and sat down."Listen, Mollie June," he said pleadingly, using unconsciously the name that ran in his thoughts.His plan, as it had taken shape while he talked with Mayor Black on the telephone, was to tell her in advance of Rockwell's plot and to carry it through only with her approval or consent--for was not his first loyalty to her? His original idea, and his real motive, of course, had been only to see her. And now that he had her there he found he hated to waste time on explanations. But there was nothing for it. She could not be at ease or clear in her mind until she understood. So, rapidly and candidly, he related how at the instance of Mr. Rockwell the Senator had been decoyed away, while he was there to impersonate him with Mayor Black, so that the latter should sign instead of vetoing the Traction Ordinance. Then he waited for he knew not what--amazement, fright, anger, dissuasion.But Mollie June did not seem much interested in traction ordinances. Presumably Senator Norman had not cared to educate his young wife about political matters."Why did you send forme?" she asked.Her question was almost too direct for him. He could not say, to ask her approval of the plan against her husband."I had to see you," was all he could reply."Why?"But she knew the real reason. The turning of her eyes away from him confessed it.It was his chance to say, "Because I love you." An older man might have said it. But the young are timid and conventional--not bold and reckless, as is alleged. He remembered that she was another man's wife and only spoke her name:"Mollie June!"Perhaps that did as well. In fact it was, in the reticent dialect of youth, the same thing.She looked at him a moment, then quickly away again."You never called me that but once before--to-night," she said.At first he found no answer. His mind scarcely sought one. He was absorbed in merely looking at her. She was indeed girlishly perfect as she sat there, almost primly upright, in her white frock, her slender figure framed in the rose-coloured tapestry of the big chair's back and arms, which gave an effect as of a blush to her cheeks and to the white shoulders which he had never seen before except across the spaces of the Peacock Cabaret. To the eyes of middle age she would have been, perhaps, merely "charming." In his she shone with the divine radiance of Aphrodite. And his were right, of course.He was almost trembling when at length he said:"That was on--that last night.""Yes," said Aphrodite, who is always chary of speech.Suddenly he saw that her averted face was wistful, sad."Are you happy, Mollie June?" he cried.Though she turned only partly to him he saw that her eyes were more a woman's eyes than he had known them and were full of tears."Not--very," she said.He sat dumbly on his chair, full of pain for her, yet not altogether saddened that she should not be entirely happy with another man.But now her face was fully towards him, and her eyes had become dry and looked past him."Oh, Mr. Merriam--you don't know! I can't tell you----"He was filled with horror--almost boyishly terrified--by such dim visions as a man may have of what her lot might be."If I could only help you!" he cried, as earnestly as all the other separated lovers in the world have said those very words.The eyes that looked beyond him came back to his face. The Mollie June whom he had known had had her girlish poise, and this more tragic Mollie June did not lose her self-control for long."Youhavehelped me--Mr. Merriam. Oh, I am glad you brought me here! When I saw you in--the Cabaret, I just ran away from you. I couldn't even let you speak to me. Afterwards I waited upstairs in the lobby. I thought--I might see you there. But you didn't come. Then I thought George had sent for me!"She stopped as if that was a climax.Merriam leaned forward. He wanted to put his hand over one of hers that lay on the arm of her chair, but did not dare to. His tongue, however, was released at last."If ever I can help you in any way, Mollie June, you must let me know. I would do anything for you. I will always be ready."He paused abruptly, though only for a second. A dark thought had crossed his mind: after all the "Boy Senator" was an old man (from the standpoint of twenty-eight), and leading a life unhealthy for old men. He hurried on:"I will wait for you always. Perhaps some day----"Did she comprehend his meaning? He could not tell, and he did not know whether to hope she did or did not. But stress of conflicting emotions made him venturesome. He did put his hand over hers.Hers did not move.His fingers slipped under hers, ready to raise her hand."That last night in Riceville, Mollie June, I kissed your--glove. To-night I want to kiss your hand--to make me yours--if you should need me."She did not draw her hand away, but she said:"You oughtn't to--now--Mr. Merriam."The formal name by which she had continually addressed him pricked."Won't you call me 'John,' Mollie June, just for this quarter of an hour before the Mayor comes?""Oh, the Mayor!" she cried in alarmed remembrance."Call me 'John,' dear--for fifteen minutes!"In his voice and eyes were both entreaty and command, and Mollie June could not resist them."John!" she whispered.And he raised her hand and bent quickly forward, and his lips pressed her fingers. A bare second. Yet it was in his mind a solemn, a sacramental kiss. He straightened up triumphant, happy. Youth asks so little."Now you know you have a right to me!" he cried. "To send for me. To use me any way, any time!"There came a loud knocking at the door.Mollie June started half way out of the chair and then sank back. Merriam, on his feet and part way across the floor, stopped confused. He perceived that he ought to get Mollie June out of the room.The knocking resounded again. And immediately the door was tried and opened, and a man stepped in. It was the large man with the white hair who had started to enter the elevator--Mayor Black.
CHAPTER V
ALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN
"Take another cigarette, won't you, Mr. Merriam?" said Alicia, as the curtain at the door fell behind Rockwell and Father Murray.
"Thank you," said Merriam.
He was excited, of course. All the stimulations of his evening, including more coffee than he was used to and an unaccustomed taste of wine and mystery and intrigue, could not fail to tell on the blood of youth. But he felt extraordinarily calm, and he was not in the least afraid of Alicia. He had not fully made up his mind about the proposed adventure, but Alicia knew several things about the wantings of men.
"Let me light it for you," she pursued.
She struck a match, which somehow she already had out of its box, put out a white hand and arm, took the cigarette from his fingers, put it to her own lips and lighted it, and handed it back to him.
"Thank you," said Merriam again, just a little confused. Hesitatingly, with an undeniable trace of thrill, he put the cigarette to his own lips. Poor boy! It was an uneven contest!
Alicia deftly moved her chair to the corner of the table, bringing it not very close but much closer to Merriam's. Close enough for him to catch the faint, unfamiliar perfume. She put out her hand again and drew one of the yellow roses from their bowl. She rested both arms on the table and played with the rose, drawing it through her fingers and up and down one white, rounded forearm.
"Mr. Merriam," she said, "perhaps you have wondered why I am in this thing."
As a matter of fact he had neglected to be curious on that point, but now he was.
"Yes," he said.
"Mr. Rockwell converted me. Oh, I can see you don't like him. You think he is hard and unscrupulous and self-seeking. Well, he is. All men are--at least, almost all men are"--she glanced at Merriam. "But he is a genuine reformer for all that. He is heart and soul for what he calls the People. He works tremendously for them all his time. And he is shrewd and fearless."
Now it is probable that Alicia's little character sketch presented a very just picture of Philip Rockwell. But it did not appeal to Merriam as true, much less as likable. He was too young. He still wanted his heroes all heroic and his villains naught but black and red with almost visible horns and tail.
He did not reply. He could not, however, remove his eyes from the felicitous meanderings of the yellow rose.
"Well," sighed Alicia, "I was going to tell you how Mr. Rockwell converted me. You see, my father--but you don't know who my father is, do you? The newspapers always refer to him us 'the billionaire brewer.' They like the alliteration, I suppose. He's very busy now converting all his plants for the manufacture of near-beer." (She laughed as if that were a good joke.) "His youngest sister, my Aunt Geraldine, was Senator Norman's first wife. So I know George Norman well. I was quite a favourite of his when he used to come to our house before poor Aunt Jerry died. So Philip wanted me to 'use my influence' with Mr. Norman about his precious Ordinance. I wasn't much interested at first. I hadn't ridden in a street car, of course, in years."
"Hadn't you?" said Merriam, quite at a loss.
"No. When I go out I take either the limousine or the electric. So I really didn't know much about conditions, except, of course, from the cartoons about strap-hangers in the newspapers. Philip saw that that was why I was unsympathetic. So he dared me to go for a street-car ride with him. Of course I wouldn't take a dare.
"It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. We took the limousine down to Wabash and Madison. There Philip made me get out on the street corner. It was horrid weather--a cold, blowy spring rain. But Philip was hard as a rock. He told the chauffeur to drive to the corner of Cottage Grove and Thirty-Ninth Street and wait for us. Andwewaited for a car. It was terrible. We stood out in the street under the Elevated--by one of the posts, you know--for a little protection from the train. We hadn't any umbrella. The wind tore at my skirts and my hair. The trains going by overhead nearly burst your ears with noise. And automobiles and great motor trucks crashed past within a few inches of us and splashed mud and nearly stifled us with gasoline smells. And a crowd of other people got around us and knocked into us and walked on our feet and stuck umbrellas in our eyes. For a long time no car at all came. Then three or four came together, but they were all jammed full to the steps, so that we couldn't get on.
"I was ready to give up. I told Philip so.
"'Let's go into Mandel's,' I begged, 'and you can call a taxi.'
"'No you don't,' he said. 'Here, we can get on this one.'
"Another car had stopped about twenty feet from us. We joined a kind of football rush for the rear end. I tripped on my skirt when I tried to climb the steps, but Philip caught me by the arm and dragged me on, as though I had been a sack of flour.
"Then for a long time we couldn't get inside but had to stand on the platform wedged like olives in a bottle. It was so dark and cold and noisy, and everybody was so wet and crushed and smelly. A man beside me smelled so strong of tobacco and whiskey and of--not having had a bath for a long time, that I was nearly ill. And I thought a poor little shop girl on the other side of me was going to faint.
"After a long time some people got out at the other end of the car--at Twelfth Street, Philip says,--and some of us squeezed inside into the crowded aisle. Inside it was warm--hot, in fact,--but still smellier. Philip got me a strap, and I hung on to it. I don't care for strap-hanger jokes any more. It's terribly tiring, and it pulls your waist all out of shape.
"'Bet you won't get a seat,' grinned Philip.
"Of course I was bound then that I would. I looked about. Some of the men who were seated were reading papers the way they are in the cartoons. Others just sat and stared in front of them. I didn't blame them much. They looked tired, too. But I had to get a seat to spite Philip. The young man in the one before which I was standing, or hanging, looked rather nice. I made up my mind to get his seat. I had to look down inside his newspaper and crowd against his legs. At last, after looking up at me three or four times, he got up with a jerk as if he had just noticed me and took off his hat, and I smiled at him and at Philip and sat down. But he kept staring at me so that I wished I had let him alone.
"I made the poor little shop girl sit on my lap. Nobody gave her a seat. I suppose she wouldn't work for it the way I did. She was a pretty little thing, too. Just a tiny bit like Mollie June Norman. Not so pretty, of course, but the same type.
"Then there was nothing to do but wait till we got to Thirty-Ninth Street. Ages and ages. They ought to have been able to go to the South Pole and back.
"When we did get there I put the little girl in my seat--she was going to Eighty-First Street, poor little thing,--and Philip and I got out and went home in the limousine, and he told me all about how the Ordinance would better things, and I promised to help him if I could."
"And you did?" said Merriam. He was touched--whether by Alicia's own sufferings in the course of her remarkable exploration or by those of the little shop girl who looked like Mollie June, does not, perhaps, matter. He now quite fully liked Alicia. He saw that, in spite of her extreme décolleté and her cigarettes, she had a generous heart.
"I tried to," replied Alicia. "I saw George Norman, and I did my best--my very best. But he wouldn't promise anything. He only laughed and tried to kiss me."
"Tried to kiss you!" echoed Merriam, naïvely aghast.
"Yes," said Alicia, with her eyes demurely on the rose between her fingers.
And John Merriam, looking at her, grasped clearly the possibility that a "boy senator" with whom Alicia had done her very best might try to kiss her.
"So that is one reason why I am in it to the death," Alicia went on, "because George Norman--wouldn't listen to me. And I don't want Philip to fail."
She laid one hand quickly over one of Merriam's hands, startling him so that he nearly drew his away. "I love him," she said, and her eyes shone effulgently into Merriam's. "He hasn't much money, and he is hard and--and conceited, but he is courageous. He dares anything. He dared to take me on that street-car ride. He would dare to burst in on the Senator and Mayor Black to-night. He dares think up this plan. A woman loves a Man."
There is no doubt that Alicia pronounced "man" with a capital letter, and she looked challengingly at Merriam.
"We are to be married next month," she added.
"Oh!" gasped Merriam, his eyes staring in spite of himself at her hand that lay on his.
The hand flew away as quickly as it had alighted, but he still felt its soft coolness on his fingers as she said:
"Of course all this is whyIam in it, not why you should be. You can't do it just to please me. But you really ought to think of all those poor people, like the little shop girl--all the tired men and women--millions of them, Philip says--who have to endure that torture every night after long days of hard work. It's truly awful, and it might all be so much better if we only got the Ordinance. You could get it for them in one little half hour!"
She looked hopefully at Merriam. He was in fact hesitant. To have the fun of the thing, to gratify this strange, attractive Alicia, and to render an important service to the population of a great city--it was tempting.
"There's another thing," Alicia hurried on. "You knew Mollie June Norman. She was one of your students. I think you ought to do it for her sake."
"Why so?" Merriam's question came swift and sharp.
"Because if Senator Norman kills the Ordinance it will be his ruin. It will cost him Chicago's vote in the next election, and he can't win on the Down-State vote alone."
"I thought Rockwell said the League would collapse."
Possibly Alicia had forgotten this. But she only shrugged her shoulders.
"It may or it mayn't. But either way the people are aroused. Philip swears they will beat Norman if he betrays them now. He is sure they can and will. And if the 'boy senator' were unseated and had to retire to private life it would be terrible for Mollie June. He's bad enough to live with as it is."
At this point Merriam was visited by a sudden and splendid idea. Since he did not disclose it to Alicia, I feel in honour bound to conceal it for the present from the reader.
Alicia detected its presence in his eyes and judiciously kept silent.
It took about ten seconds for that idea to grow from nothingness into full flower. For perhaps five seconds longer Merriam inwardly contemplated its unique beauty. Then he said:
"I'll do it!"
CHAPTER VI
STAGE-SETTING
Alicia gave him no time for reconsideration or after-thoughts.
"Good!" she cried, "I was sure you would."
She was on her feet in an instant, and as he got to his she held out her hand. Merriam took it--to shake hands on their bargain was his thought. But Alicia never exactly shook hands. She touched or pressed or squeezed according to circumstances. On this occasion it was a warm, clinging squeeze. Her other hand patted Merriam's shoulder.
"I was sure you would," she repeated. "No Man"--again the capital letter was unmistakable--"could have resisted--the--the opportunity."
The curtain at the door was lifted, and Philip Rockwell's voice said: "May I come in? The twenty minutes are up."
They were. Just up. Alicia had done her part in exactly the fraction of an hour she had given herself. No vaudeville act could have been more precisely timed.
"Yes. Come in, dear," said Alicia. "Mr. Merriam will do it. We were just shaking hands on it."
Rockwell crossed the room in a rush and caught Merriam's hand as Alicia relinquished it. He pumped vigorously. In his eyes shone the unmistakable light of that genuine enthusiasm which Alicia had described to her skeptical auditor.
"You're the right sort," he cried. "You are doing a great thing, Mr. Merriam. You will never regret it. But I can't thank you now," he added, dropping Merriam's hand in mid-air, so to speak. "It's ten minutes of eight. That money-bag, Crockett, came out of the elevator just before I came back. I have a car at the Ladies' Entrance."
"With Simpson?" asked Alicia.
"Yes. I had to get things ready. The time was so short. I fixed the head waiter. Simpson seemed ready enough. Has some old grudge against Norman, I think."
"Yes," said Alicia, "he has. I'm a little afraid--I wish I could have seen him. Never mind. It can't be helped. Where's Father Murray?"
"Watching to buttonhole the Mayor if he should come too soon."
He looked critically for a moment at Merriam, seemed satisfied, and crossed to the telephone on the sideboard.
"I'll ring up the curtain," he said.
He laughed boyishly in his excitement and new hope. He seemed very different now from the hard-eyed, middle-aged fellow of an hour ago. Merriam saw how Alicia might admire him.
"Give me Room Three-Two-Three," he said into the telephone, his eyes smiling at them.
A moment later a harsh, dry old man's voice was saying:
"Is this Senator Norman?--This is Mr. Schubert, private secretary to Mayor Black. The Mayor is sick.--I can't help it, sir. He's sick all right. He's out here at his house.--Yes, he can veto the Ordinance all right if it's necessary. But he won't do it without seeing you first. He wants you to come out. He's sent a car for you. It ought to be down there at the Ladies' Entrance by now.--No, it won't do any good to call him up. I'm here at his house now. He's in bed. And he won't veto unless he sees you. Really, sir, if you'll pardon me, you'd better come.--Thank you, sir!"
Rockwell clicked the receiver triumphantly into its hook.
"That's done," he said. "Alicia, dear, go up to the lobby on the women's side and watch the hallway leading to the Ladies' Entrance. Norman should pass out that way within five minutes. Follow him far enough to make sure that Simpson gets him. And then let us know. Meanwhile I'll coach Mr. Merriam a little."
"Right," said Alicia.
She moved to the door. The eyes of both men followed her. When Alicia moved the eyes of men did follow. And she knew it. At the doorway she turned and blew a kiss, which might be said to fall with gracious impartiality between her lover and the younger man. It was a pretty exit.
"She's a splendid girl," said Rockwell, his eyes lingering on the curtain that had cut her off from them.
"Yes," said Merriam.
Rockwell, still by the sideboard, reached for the long bottle.
"Have another glass of this?"
"I don't mind," said Merriam. The fact is, a bit of stage fright had come in for him when Alicia went out.
"There's not much I can tell you," Rockwell said, as he poured out the yellow fluid. "You'll have to depend mostly on the inspiration of the moment. You look the part all right. Your voice is all right, too. Act as grumpy as you like. Damn him about a bit.--You can swear?" he asked hastily. A sudden horrible doubt of pedagogical capabilities had crossed his mind.
Now Merriam was not a profane man, but some of his fraternity brethren had been. Also he remembered the vituperative exploits of his football coach between halves when the game was going badly.
"Swear?" he cried, as harshly as possible. "Of course I can swear, you damn fool!"
For three seconds Rockwell was startled. Then he laughed.
"Fine!" he cried. "You'll do it! All there is to it, really, is to tell him to sign the Ordinance and to get out. He may ask about Crockett. If he wants to know why he's changed his mind, tell him it's none of his damn business. If he refers to a Madame Couteau, you must look pleased. She's the pretty little manicurist whom Norman will be on his way to visit. Black knows of that affair, and he knows Norman likes to talk about it. So he may drag it in with the idea of getting on your blind side. You can tell him to shut up, of course, but you must act gratified."
"Yes," said Merriam in a noncommittal tone.
But Rockwell did not notice. He was sipping the Benedictine, with his mind on his problem.
"That's all I can think of," he said in a moment. "I'll be in the next room--the bedroom of the suite, you know,--and if you should get into deep water, I'll burst in, just as I meant to on the real Senator, and pull you out. We ought to get it over in fifteen minutes at the outside and get you off. There's just the least chance in the world, of course, that Senator Norman might get away from Simpson and come back. And there's Mrs. Norman."
"Where will she be?" asked Merriam as he took a rather large sip of his cordial.
"She's in the lobby now with Miss Norman--the Senator's sister, you know,--listening to the orchestra." (Merriam vaguely recalled the elderly woman whom he had seen with Mollie June in the Cabaret.) "The Senator was going to take them to the theater after he had finished with Black."
"What will they do when he doesn't show up?" Merriam inquired; but to all appearances he was chiefly interested at the moment in the best of liqueurs.
"Probably go without him. She's used to George Norman's broken engagements by now."
"I see," said Merriam without expression.
"Alicia and Murray will keep an eye on them, of course," Rockwell added.
And then both men jumped. It was only the telephone, but conspiracy makes neurasthenics of us all.
Rockwell answered it.
"Yes.--Good.--That's all right.--Oh!--Yes, we'll go at once."
He turned excitedly to Merriam.
"It's Alicia. Norman has come down and got into Simpson's car. Mrs. Norman is still in the lobby. And the Mayor has come in. Murray's got him, but he won't be able to hold him long. We must go right up to the room. Come--Senator!"
Merriam followed out of the private dining-room and down the corridor at a great pace into a main hallway and to an elevator.
Several people looked hard at Merriam. One important-looking elderly man stopped and held out his hand:
"How are you, Senator?"
But Rockwell crowded rudely between them.
"Excuse me, Colonel, but we must catch this car.--Very urgent!" he called as the door clicked.
And Merriam had the presence of mind to add, "Look you up later!"
"Good----" Rockwell began as they stopped at the main floor, but he paused on the first word with his mouth open.
A very large man, large every way, in evening clothes, with a fine head of white hair and an air of conscious distinction, was stepping into the car. He saw Merriam and Rockwell. Then instantly he appeared not to have observed them, hesitated, backed gracefully out of the little group that was entering the elevator, and was gone.
The car smoothly ascended.
"Three!" said Rockwell to the elevator man. Then to Merriam he whispered, "That was the Mayor! He's got away from Murray."
"Ask for your key," whispered Rockwell, as they stepped out.
For five protracted steps Merriam's mind struggled frantically after the room number. He had just grasped it (3-2-3!) when he perceived that his perturbation had been unnecessary.
For the floor clerk--a pretty blonde of about thirty--was looking at him with her sunniest smile.
"Your key, Senator?"
"Yes, please," he managed to say.
As she handed him the key her fingers lightly touched his for a second, and she said in a low tone, "The violets are lovely."
He saw that she was wearing a large bunch of those expensively modest flowers at her waist and understood that his cousin's extra-marital interests might not be limited to Madame Couteau.
He lingered just a moment and replied in a tone as low as her own, "They look lovely where they are now."
But an appalling difficulty loomed over him even as he murmured. For he did not know whether Room 323 lay to the right or the left, and if he should start in the wrong direction----
But Rockwell knew and was already moving to the left. Merriam followed. In his relief he smiled brightly back at the floor clerk.
At the corner where the hall turned Rockwell stopped, and Merriam, coming up with him, read "323" on the door before them. Both men looked up at the transom. It was dark.
"In!" said Rockwell.
Merriam inserted the key, turned it, and cautiously opened the door a couple of inches, becoming, as he did so, thrillingly conscious of the burglarious quality of their enterprise.
No light or sound came from within.
For only three or four seconds Rockwell listened. Then he pushed the door wide, stepped past Merriam, and felt for the switch.
"You haven't invited me in, Senator," he said as the room went alight, "but I'm a forward sort of fellow.--Come inside, and close the door," he added.
Merriam pushed the door shut behind him and stared about. The apartment was probably the most gorgeous he had ever seen. The walls were a soft cream colour, the woodwork white, the carpet and hangings and lampshades rose. Most of the furniture was mahogany, some of it upholstered in rose-coloured tapestry. On a table half way down one side of the room stood a bowl of red roses. In the wall opposite Merriam, between the windows, was a fireplace of white marble, containing a gas log, with a large mirror above the mantel in a frame of white and gold. Before this fireplace stood a huge upholstered easy chair, with a pink-shaded floor lamp on one side of it and a small mahogany tabaret on the other.
While Merriam was endeavouring to appreciate this magnificence, Rockwell quickly crossed the sitting room and passed through a door at one side. After a moment he returned, crossed the room again, and disappeared through a second door. Reëmerging, he announced triumphantly, "No one in the bedrooms!"
But Merriam's eyes rested, fascinated, on a garment which Rockwell had brought back with him from the second bedroom--a luxurious smoking jacket of a most lurid crimson colour, which clashed outrageously with the rose and pinks of the senatorial sitting room.
Rockwell grinned at the look on Merriam's face.
"A historic garment, sir," he declared. "The Boy Senator's crimson smoking jacket is a household word with most of the six million souls of this commonwealth of Illinois. Off with your tails, sir, and into it!"
"Hurry!" he cried, as Merriam hesitated. "The Mayor will be here any minute."
"Why didn't he come up in the elevator with us?" Merriam asked while changing.
"All because of me, sir," replied Rockwell, in excellent spirits. "The Mayor abhors me and all my works so sincerely that I feel I have not lived in vain.--Now, then, sit in that big chair before the fireplace. Here, light this cigar. I'll start the gas log going and bring in the tray with the siphon and glasses and rye that I saw in the other room.--Ah!"
The telephone had rung, and Merriam had leapt out of his chair.
"Answer it," said Rockwell.
Merriam stepped to the telephone, which was on the wall, laid down his cigar, gripped his nerve hard, and put the receiver to his ear:
"Hello!"
A deep voice, boomingly suave, replied:
"Senator Norman?"
"Yes."
"This is Mr. Black. Have you got rid of Rockwell yet?"
"No, not yet."
"Well, can't you throw him out? I am due at the Council meeting at nine, of course. And I don't care to discuss--matters--with you in his presence, naturally. When shall I come up?"
Now the Mayor's rather long speech had given Merriam time to think. He recalled his great idea, and a new inspiration, as to ways and means, came to him.
"Eight-thirty," he replied curtly.
"But, good God!" cried the Mayor, "that gives us so little time. Can't you----"
"I said eight-thirty, damn you!"
And Merriam hung up and turned to face Rockwell at his elbow.
"But why eight-thirty?" demanded the latter as soon as he understood that it had been the Mayor. "Man alive, we ought to be gone by then! What are we to do with the next twenty minutes? You must have lost your head. Call him again. Call the desk and have him paged and told to come right up."
Without a word Merriam turned to the telephone again and asked for the desk.
But a moment later he gave Philip Rockwell one of the major surprises of the latter's life. For what he said was:
"Please page Mrs. George Norman, with the message that Senator Norman would like to see her right away in their rooms. Repeat that, please.--That's right. Thank you!"
"What in hell!" cried Rockwell, belatedly released by the click of the receiver from a paralysis of astonishment.
Merriam picked up his cigar, walked back to the easy chair, and seated himself comfortably. He was excited now to the point of a quite theatrical composure.
"Nothing in hell," he said. "Quite the contrary, in fact. I want to have a few minutes' conversation with Mrs. Norman. That's all."
"See here!" said Rockwell. "What funny business is this? I won't have----"
"Won't you? All right. Just as you say. If you don't like the way I'm playing my part, I'll drop it and walk right out of that door. I have a ticket for the theater to-night. I can still be in time."
The other man stared and gulped. It was hard for him to realise that this young cub was master of the situation, and not he, Rockwell.
"But this is serious!" he cried. "The Ordinance! The Reform League! The whole city of Chicago! You can't risk these for----"
He stopped. Then:
"Do you realise, you young fool, that if we're caught in this room, it will mean jail for both of us?"
But Merriam in his present mood was incapable of realising anything of the sort. In his mind's eye he saw Mollie June stepping into the elevator and saving in a voice of heavenly sweetness to the happy elevator man, "Three, please!"
An outer crust of his consciousness made pert reply to Rockwell:
"That would be bad for the Reform League, wouldn't it?" and added, "But you're willing to risk it for the Ordinance?"
"Yes, I am," began Rockwell, "but----"
"Would you risk it for Alicia?" Merriam interrupted.
"What has Alicia got to do with it?"
But he understood, and knew that argument was useless, and stared in helpless anger and alarm while the younger man carefully, grandly blew a beautifully perfect smoke ring into the air.
It was the youngster who spoke, still theatrically calm:
"You'd better go into the bedroom. She'll be here in a moment. Shut the door, please. And keep away from it!"
It was one of the secrets of Philip Rockwell's success in politics that, masterful as he was, he knew when to yield. He took a step towards one of the bedrooms.
"Make it short," he pleaded.
"Eight-thirty!" said Merriam.
A gentle knocking sounded at the door.
Merriam was on his feet without volition of his own, while Rockwell, almost as instinctively, slipped into the bedroom.
Then the younger man recovered himself, sat down, his feet to the gas log and his back to the door, and called, "Come in!"
CHAPTER VII
BOY AND GIRL
The door was opened and closed. John Merriam's straining ears could catch no definite sound of footsteps or skirts, and he did not dare to look around. Yet by some sixth sense, it seemed, he was aware of Mollie June's progress half way across the room and aware that she had stopped, some feet away from him.
"What is it--George?" she asked.
It was only too clear that Mollie June's lord and master was not in the habit of sending for her.
"Where is--Miss Norman?"
Merriam was conscious that Senator Norman probably did not refer to his sister in that fashion, but he did not know her given name.
"Aunt Mary? I left her in the lobby. Did you want her too?"
There was a note of eagerness in the question.
"No!"
Silence. Mollie June stood waiting in the center of the room. The significance of her failure to approach her husband was unmistakable.
Then he said: "Would you very much mind if you should miss the theater to-night?"
"Why--no. Is there anything the matter, George?"
"Not for me," said Merriam, and he rose and faced her.
"I was afraid--" She stopped, looked hard.
"George, you look--oh!"
She passed her hand across her eyes. It was a stage gesture, but when stage situations occur in real life the conventional "business" of the boards is often justified.
She looked again.
"Mr. Merriam!"
John Merriam stepped quickly forward. It occurred to him that she might faint. He had read many novels.
But Mollie June did nothing of the sort.
"Mr. Merriam!" she cried again. "How do you come here? Where is--Mr. Norman? How did you get inthat?"
She pointed to the famous smoking jacket. Her bewilderment was increasing. She looked nervously about, as if suspecting that Merriam, for the sake of the crimson garment, had murdered her husband and concealed his body.
Merriam had stopped. Almost he might have wished that she had fainted. It would have been delicious to carry her in his arms and place her in the Senator's easy chair and bring water and when her eyes opened wonderingly upon him softly whisper her name. As it was he could only say formally:
"Let me take your cloak--Mrs. Norman--won't you? And sit down."
Mechanically she let him take the opera cloak from her shoulders, and when he caught hold of the senatorial chair and swung it around and pushed it towards her she sat tremblingly erect on the edge of it. Her eyes dwelt upon his face as if fascinated.
"Isn't it funny you look somuchalike? I never realised it--so much. But--where ishe? Why----?"
Merriam caught up a small chair, placed it in front of hers, and sat down.
"Listen, Mollie June," he said pleadingly, using unconsciously the name that ran in his thoughts.
His plan, as it had taken shape while he talked with Mayor Black on the telephone, was to tell her in advance of Rockwell's plot and to carry it through only with her approval or consent--for was not his first loyalty to her? His original idea, and his real motive, of course, had been only to see her. And now that he had her there he found he hated to waste time on explanations. But there was nothing for it. She could not be at ease or clear in her mind until she understood. So, rapidly and candidly, he related how at the instance of Mr. Rockwell the Senator had been decoyed away, while he was there to impersonate him with Mayor Black, so that the latter should sign instead of vetoing the Traction Ordinance. Then he waited for he knew not what--amazement, fright, anger, dissuasion.
But Mollie June did not seem much interested in traction ordinances. Presumably Senator Norman had not cared to educate his young wife about political matters.
"Why did you send forme?" she asked.
Her question was almost too direct for him. He could not say, to ask her approval of the plan against her husband.
"I had to see you," was all he could reply.
"Why?"
But she knew the real reason. The turning of her eyes away from him confessed it.
It was his chance to say, "Because I love you." An older man might have said it. But the young are timid and conventional--not bold and reckless, as is alleged. He remembered that she was another man's wife and only spoke her name:
"Mollie June!"
Perhaps that did as well. In fact it was, in the reticent dialect of youth, the same thing.
She looked at him a moment, then quickly away again.
"You never called me that but once before--to-night," she said.
At first he found no answer. His mind scarcely sought one. He was absorbed in merely looking at her. She was indeed girlishly perfect as she sat there, almost primly upright, in her white frock, her slender figure framed in the rose-coloured tapestry of the big chair's back and arms, which gave an effect as of a blush to her cheeks and to the white shoulders which he had never seen before except across the spaces of the Peacock Cabaret. To the eyes of middle age she would have been, perhaps, merely "charming." In his she shone with the divine radiance of Aphrodite. And his were right, of course.
He was almost trembling when at length he said:
"That was on--that last night."
"Yes," said Aphrodite, who is always chary of speech.
Suddenly he saw that her averted face was wistful, sad.
"Are you happy, Mollie June?" he cried.
Though she turned only partly to him he saw that her eyes were more a woman's eyes than he had known them and were full of tears.
"Not--very," she said.
He sat dumbly on his chair, full of pain for her, yet not altogether saddened that she should not be entirely happy with another man.
But now her face was fully towards him, and her eyes had become dry and looked past him.
"Oh, Mr. Merriam--you don't know! I can't tell you----"
He was filled with horror--almost boyishly terrified--by such dim visions as a man may have of what her lot might be.
"If I could only help you!" he cried, as earnestly as all the other separated lovers in the world have said those very words.
The eyes that looked beyond him came back to his face. The Mollie June whom he had known had had her girlish poise, and this more tragic Mollie June did not lose her self-control for long.
"Youhavehelped me--Mr. Merriam. Oh, I am glad you brought me here! When I saw you in--the Cabaret, I just ran away from you. I couldn't even let you speak to me. Afterwards I waited upstairs in the lobby. I thought--I might see you there. But you didn't come. Then I thought George had sent for me!"
She stopped as if that was a climax.
Merriam leaned forward. He wanted to put his hand over one of hers that lay on the arm of her chair, but did not dare to. His tongue, however, was released at last.
"If ever I can help you in any way, Mollie June, you must let me know. I would do anything for you. I will always be ready."
He paused abruptly, though only for a second. A dark thought had crossed his mind: after all the "Boy Senator" was an old man (from the standpoint of twenty-eight), and leading a life unhealthy for old men. He hurried on:
"I will wait for you always. Perhaps some day----"
Did she comprehend his meaning? He could not tell, and he did not know whether to hope she did or did not. But stress of conflicting emotions made him venturesome. He did put his hand over hers.
Hers did not move.
His fingers slipped under hers, ready to raise her hand.
"That last night in Riceville, Mollie June, I kissed your--glove. To-night I want to kiss your hand--to make me yours--if you should need me."
She did not draw her hand away, but she said:
"You oughtn't to--now--Mr. Merriam."
The formal name by which she had continually addressed him pricked.
"Won't you call me 'John,' Mollie June, just for this quarter of an hour before the Mayor comes?"
"Oh, the Mayor!" she cried in alarmed remembrance.
"Call me 'John,' dear--for fifteen minutes!"
In his voice and eyes were both entreaty and command, and Mollie June could not resist them.
"John!" she whispered.
And he raised her hand and bent quickly forward, and his lips pressed her fingers. A bare second. Yet it was in his mind a solemn, a sacramental kiss. He straightened up triumphant, happy. Youth asks so little.
"Now you know you have a right to me!" he cried. "To send for me. To use me any way, any time!"
There came a loud knocking at the door.
Mollie June started half way out of the chair and then sank back. Merriam, on his feet and part way across the floor, stopped confused. He perceived that he ought to get Mollie June out of the room.
The knocking resounded again. And immediately the door was tried and opened, and a man stepped in. It was the large man with the white hair who had started to enter the elevator--Mayor Black.