The Project Gutenberg eBook ofMollie's Substitute HusbandThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Mollie's Substitute HusbandCreator: Max McConnRelease date: April 1, 2015 [eBook #48626]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND ***[Transcriber's note: The frontispiece was missing fromthe source book]MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTEHUSBANDBYMAX McCONNWITH FRONTISPIECE BYEDWARD C. CASWELLTHE RYERSON PRESSTORONTO1920COPYRIGHT, 1920BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.PRINTED IN U. S. A.CONTENTSCHAPTERI"The Professor" on a SpreeIIThe Prettiest GirlIIIFriendly StrangersIVAn Unscrupulous ReformerVAlicia and the Motives of MenVIStage-SettingVIIBoy and GirlVIIIPassages with Mayor BlackIXAunt MaryXA Senator MissingXIConfessions of Waiter No. 73XIIGrapefruit and TelegramsXIIIA Change of ManagementXIVHolding the FortXVCouncil of WarXVIThe Senatorial DinnerXVIIA Devious JourneyXVIIIJennieXIXA New AntagonistXXAn Eventful Supper PartyXXIFlash LightsXXIIVirtue TriumphantXXIIIReturnXXIVThe Reform LeagueXXVSecond Council of WarXXVIThe Business of Being an ImpostorXXVIIThe Code TelegramXXVIIISimpson as DetectiveXXIXThe Final DilemmaXXXMollie JuneMOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBANDCHAPTER I"THE PROFESSOR" ON A SPREEJohn Merriam, Principal of the High School at Riceville, Illinois--"Professor" Merriam, as he was universally called by the citizens of Riceville--was wickedly, carnally, gloriously happy. He was having an unwonted spree.I fear the reader will be shocked. The principal of a high school, he will say, has no right to a spree, even an occasional one. The "Professor" has girl students in his classes--mostly girls, indeed, and usually the prettiest ones in town--and women teachers under his supervision. Every seventh day he teaches a young people's class in a Sunday School. He makes addresses at meetings of the Y.P.S.C.E., the Y.M.C.A., and other alphabetically designated societies that make for righteousness and decorum. He should at all times and in all places be a model, an exemplar, to the budding young men and women of the community in general and his school in particular.In this reasoning the reader is in strict accord with what the sentiment of all Riceville would have been if it had known--if it could have known.Nevertheless, it is the regrettable and shocking fact that John Merriam was sitting on that pleasant April evening in the Peacock Cabaret of the Hotel De Soto in the wicked city of Chicago. He was attired in evening clothes, a fact which, in itself would have seemed both odd and reprehensible to Riceville, and he was alone at a tiny table with a yellow-silk-shaded lamp. He had just been guided to that table, and pending the arrival of a waiter, he was gazing eagerly, boyishly about him at such delights as the somewhat garish Peacock Cabaret displayed.For John Merriam, though a "professor," was young. He was only twenty-eight. He was tall and blond and athletic, as young men who grow up on farms in the Middle West and then go to college have a way of being. And after his season of strenuous and highly virtuous labours at Riceville he was really hungry, keen, for something--well, just a little less virtuous.A distinguished looking gentleman in a dinner jacket, conspicuously labeled with a number, somewhat haughtily and negligently approached, bearing a menu card.About three paces away this gentleman, having glanced at young Merriam, fairly stopped and stared at him. An odd expression showed upon his face--an expression, one would almost have said, of intense animosity. Then, as he still stared, one might have decided that his look betokened perplexity. He winked his eyes several times and once more scrutinised his waiting guest. At length--perhaps ten seconds had passed--his face slowly, wonderingly cleared, his usual air of vacant indifference returned, and he advanced and placed the menu card in Merriam's hands. The latter, still drinking in the sights and sounds of his unaccustomed environment, had noticed nothing.Now it is always prudent to note a waiter's number when he first presents himself, for in case he should decide to begin his summer vacation immediately after taking your order you may need to mention his number to the head waiter. In this case the number was 73.The hauteur and negligence displayed were partly habitual--professional, so to speak--but were intensified perhaps by the reaction from the emotion, whatever it was, which he had apparently just experienced--perhaps also by the look of alert and genuine pleasure on Merriam's face. Such a look did not wholly commend itself or him to a sophisticated metropolitan taste. What right had a patron of the Peacock Cabaret to look really pleased? It was hardly decent--and argued a small tip.Inwardly Merriam, now aware of the waiter's presence, reacted acutely to this clearly perceptible disdain. Which shows how young and how rural he was. We maturer, urban folk are never, of course, in the least nonplused by those contemptuous, blasé silences of waiters who possess the bearing and manner of a governor or a capitalist.But John Merriam had been excellent in amateur dramatics at college, and he now roused himself to a magnificent histrionic effort in the rôle of "man of the world."He pushed the menu card aside without looking at it."A clam cocktail, please, and a stein of beer," he murmured, low enough to force the distinguished one to unbend slightly in order to catch the words."Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, with a tentative suggestion of respect in his tone. A customer who did not bother to look at the menu might be worth while after all."And then what?""I'll see how I feel then," said Merriam with a half yawn."Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, almost courteously, and departed at a pace slightly quickened over that of his approach, as a man strolling at complete leisure will instinctively increase the tempo of his step if he chances to recall a definite engagement on the day after to-morrow.Merriam grinned delightedly. He had put it across--his little piece of acting. He had measurably imposed his rôle on his audience of one; at least he had shaken him.And then--I shudder when I recall the views on nicotine of the Board of Education at Riceville--he drew from his pocket a package of cigarettes, and took a match from the table, and lit a cigarette, and sent a volume of smoke out through his nostrils--proving, alas, that it was not his first indulgence,--and, with a sigh that might almost be described as ecstatic, turned his attention again to the scene about him.That scene was piquant to him--after the ugly dining room of his boarding house at Riceville and the barren assembly hall of the High School--to a degree almost incredible to persons more habituated to the Peacock Cabaret and similar resorts. Not being quite so fresh from Riceville, nor yet the advertising manager of the Hotel De Soto, I cannot, I fear, paint the prospect as Merriam saw it. I shall not be able to conceal some mental reservations as to its charms. The purple peacocks upon the walls and ceiling, from which the restaurant took its name, were certainly a trifle over-gorgeous, just as the music which the orchestra intermittently dispensed was too much syncopated. Again, the scores of small tables, each with its silk-shaded lamp, its slim glass vase for a single rosebud, its water bottle bearing the arms of the Chevalier De Soto, and its ash receptacle--all alike as shoe boxes in a shoe shop are alike,--might to a tired fancy suggest a certain monotony of pleasure, a too-much-standardised, ready-made brand of bliss. The small, skimped stage, with its undeniably banal curtain, and the crowded dancing floor did not really promise unlimited delights. Some perception of all this was apparent in the faces and bearing of many of the white-shirt-fronted men who sat at the scores of tables and of the women who were with them, however bird-of-paradise-like the raiment of the latter might be. Not a few indeed displayed an air of languor and ennui that might have won approval even from Waiter No. 73.But in speaking thus of the Peacock Cabaret I am stepping outside my story, violating unity of point of view--in short, committing a heinous literary crime. For to Merriam at that moment the screaming purple peacocks, the regiments of rosebuds, the musical comedy melodies, the gay attire and bare shoulders of the women, and even the tired look of his fellow-diners, which he interpreted as sophistication rather than simple boredom, were thrillingly symbolical of all the delights which the great world held and which were absent from Riceville. And when Waiter No. 73 leisurely returned, to find him outwardly almost too near asleep to keep his cigarette going, and deposited his clam cocktail and the wicked stein before him, and at the same moment the orchestra became more noisy than ever, and all the lights except those upon the tables went out, and the stage curtain rose upon a short-skirted chorus, he was really in a sort of Omar Khayyam paradise. It was lucky that Waiter No. 73 had again departed to those unknown regions where waiters spend the bulk of their time, for Merriam could not have concealed the zest with which he alternately ate and drank and surveyed the moderately comely demoiselles upon the little stage.Having finished his cocktail and drunk some of his beer and seen the curtain descend on the first "act" of the cabaret's dramatic entertainment, Merriam lit another cigarette, shifted his chair, and settled himself to await the probable future return of his servitor. His thoughts dwelt contentedly on the evening before him. For after his meal he would have a stroll with a cigar in the spring twilight (it was barely six-thirty then) through the noisy, brightly lighted streets of the Loop, which never failed to thrill him with a sense of a somehow wicked vastness, power, and riches in the great city of which they were the center. And then he was going to the "Follies." He fingered the small envelope in his pocket which held his ticket. And after the show he would have a supper in another cabaret.Beyond that he did not let his fancy wander. For after that there was nothing for it but to catch the 2:00 A.M. train on the Illinois Central that would carry him back to Riceville for the remaining six weeks of the school year. He had come up to Chicago on this spring day--a Tuesday it was--to attend a convention of high-school principals and to engage a couple of new teachers for the next year, to replace two that were to be married in June. And he had faithfully done these things. And now he was giving himself just this one evening of amusement--two cabaret meals and a "show," sauced, so to speak, with a little tobacco and beer and the wearing of his evening clothes. Surely whatever Riceville might have thought, he will not seem to most of us very derelict from the austere ideals of his profession.The only real point against him--most of us might argue--lies in the fact that when, you touch even the outermost fringes of the night life of a city, you are never quite certain what may come to you. For there are things happening all about you, under the conventional, monotonous surface--things amusing and things terrible--men and women playing with the fire of every known human passion,--and if the finger of some adventure reaches out for you you may not be able to resist its lure, perhaps even to escape its clutch.CHAPTER IITHE PRETTIEST GIRLI have said that Merriam had shifted his chair a little as he lit his second cigarette. A moment later he was looking very hard at a certain pretty woman at a table half way across the room. His heart stopped. At least that is the phrase a novelist seems to be required to use to indicate the sudden pulse of amazement and pleasure and alarm which he certainly felt.The young woman at whom he was staring had a name which is very important for this story and which I shall presently tell you, but in John Merriam's mind her name was "the prettiest girl," and her other name, which he seldom dared whisper to his heart, was "Mollie June." She was from Riceville--hence the alarm with which his pleasure was mixed,--and during his first four months of teaching, three years before, she had been in his senior class in the High School--the "prettiest girl" in the class and in the school and in the town--and in the State and the United States and the world, if you had asked John Merriam. Advanced algebra with Mollie June in the class had been the most golden of sciences--pleasure squared, delight cubed, and bliss to thenth power. I am not myself absolutely convinced of Mollie June's proficiency in solving quadratic equations, yet the official records of the Riceville High School show that she received the highest mark in the class.But she was the daughter of James P. Partridge, the owner of all Riceville; that is to say, of the coal mines outside the town, of the grain elevator, of the street car and electric light company, and of the First National Bank. Who was John Merriam, the son of a poor farmer in a southern county, who had worked his way through college and come out with nothing but a B.S. degree, a football reputation that was quite unnegotiable, and three hundred dollars of fraternity debts--an enormous sum,--to mix anything warmer or livelier than a^2-b^2 in his thoughts of a class to which Mollie June Partridge deigned to belong? Even if Mollie June herself did come up to his desk in the assembly room two or three times a week for help in her algebra and spend most of the time asking him about college instead, and join his Young People's Class, which she had previously refused to attend, and allow him to "see her home" from church sociables, and compel that docile magnate, John P. Partridge, her father, to invite the new "professor" to dinner twice during the half year? As well almost might a humble tutor in the castle of a feudal lord have raised his eyes to the baron's daughter.Almost, but not quite. After all this is a free republic. Even a poor pedagogue is a citizen with a vote and a potential candidate for the presidency--which at least two poor pedagogues have attained. So John Merriam permitted himself to be very happy during those four months and was not in the least hopeless. Only he saw that he must bide his time.But early in January Mollie June left school, and in a few days it came out that she had left to be married--married to Senator Norman!Senator Norman was the famous "boy senator" from Illinois--at the time of his election the youngest man who had ever sat in the upper house of Congress. The ruddiness of his cheeks, the abundance of his wavy blond hair, and the athletic jauntiness of his carriage won votes whenever he stumped the State. They went far to counteract malicious insinuations as to the means by which he was rolling up a fortune and his solidity with "interests" which the proletariat viewed with suspicion.And now, having been a widower for eighteen months--his first wife was older than he and had brought him money,--he had stayed for a week-end during the Christmas holidays with James P. Partridge, who was a cousin of the Senator's first wife and his political lieutenant for a certain group of counties, and had seen Mollie June and wanted her and asked for her and got her, as George Norman always asked for and got whatever he wanted.All this was, of course, in John Merriam's mind as he gazed across a dozen tables in the Peacock Cabaret at the unchanged profile of the prettiest girl--that is to say, Mrs. Senator Norman. And with it came an acute revival of the desolation of that January and February at Riceville, when he had perceived with the Hebrew sage that "in much learning"--or in little, for that matter--"is much weariness," and that algebra should have been buried with the medieval Arabians who invented it--when even the State championship in basket ball, won by the Riceville Five under his coaching, was only a trouble and a bore.There is no doubt he stared rudely. At least it would have been rudely if his eyes had held the look which eyes that stare at pretty women commonly hold. But such a look as stood in Merriam's eyes can hardly be rude, however intent and prolonged it may be.He was merely entranced in the literal sense of that word. Her girlish white shoulders--he had never seen her shoulders before--in Riceville women no more have shoulders than they have legs--the soft brown hair over her ears--even the mode of the day, which called for close net effects and tight knobs, could not conceal its fine softness--the colour in her cheeks, which unquestionably shamed all the neighbouring rosebuds--the quite inexplicable deliciousness of those particular small curves described by the lines of her nose and chin and throat as he saw them in half profile--were more than he could draw his eyes away from for an unconscionable number of seconds. Of her charmingly simple and unquestionably very expensive frock as a separate fact, and of the thin, pale, and elderly, but gorgeously arrayed woman who was her companion, he had no clear perception, but undoubtedly they both contributed, along with the lights and colours and music of the Peacock Cabaret, to the deplorable confusion of his mind.Out of that confusion there presently arose certain clear images and tones and words, which made up his memory of the last time he had seen and spoken with the present Mrs. Senator Norman.It was at and after a miscellaneous kind of young people's entertainment which occurred at the Methodist Church on the evening of that bitter day on which the news of her engagement to Senator Norman had run like a prairie fire through the streets and homes of Riceville, fiercely incinerating all other topics of conversation, and consuming also the joy in life, the ambition, the very youth, it seemed to him, of John Merriam. He would not have gone to that entertainment if he could have escaped. But there were to be charades, and he had arranged and coached most of them and was to be in several. He "simply had to go," as Ricevillians might have said.She was there with her mother. When had she ever come just with her mother, that is to say, without a male escort, before? That fact alone was symbolical of the closing of the gates of matrimony upon her. Naturally, in his pain he followed his primitive and childish instincts and avoided her.But he was aware--he was almost sure--of her eyes continually following him throughout the evening, and during "refreshments" she deliberately came up to him and said that her mother was obliged to leave early, and would he see her home? Well, of course, if she asked him, he had to. I am afraid that the tone if not the words of his reply said as much, and Mollie June had turned away with quick tears in her eyes. Yet I question whether she was really hurt by his rudeness. For why should he be rude to-night when he had never been so before unless he--to use the most expressive of Americanisms--"cared"?For the rest of the evening, as a result of those tears, which he had seen, it was his eyes that followed her, while hers avoided him. But he did not speak with her again until "seeing-home" time arrived.Mollie June lingered till the very end of everything. Perhaps the little girl in her--for she was barely eighteen--clung to this last shred of the familiar, homely social life of her girlhood before she should be plunged into the frightful brilliance of real "society" in terrific places known as Chicago and Washington--as a senator's wife!But at last they were walking together towards her home."Take my arm, please," said Mollie June.The boys in Riceville always take the girls' arms at night, though never in the daytime. John ought to have taken her arm before. He took it."Have you heard that I am going to be married?" asked Mollie June--as if she did not know that everybody in the county knew it by that time."Yes," said John, his tone as succinct as his monosyllable.But girls learn early to deal with the conversational difficulties and recalcitrances of males under stress of emotion."It means leaving school and Riceville and--everything," said Mollie June.John could not fail to catch the note of pitifulness in her sentence. If the prospective marriage had been with any one less dazzling than George Norman, he might have reacted more properly. As it was, he replied with a stilted impersonality which might have been caught from the bright stars shining through the bare branches under which they walked."You will have a very rich and brilliant life," he said."I suppose so," said Mollie June.They walked on, he still obediently clutching her arm, in silence; conversation not accompaniable with laughter is so difficult an art for youth.Presently Mollie June tried again."Aren't you sorry I'm leaving the school--Mr. Merriam?""I'm very sorry indeed," responded "Professor" Merriam. "You ought to have stayed to graduate.""I don't care about graduating," said Mollie June.Again their footsteps echoed in the cold January silence.Then Mollie June made a third attempt:"You look ever so much like Mr. Norman.""I know it," said Merriam. "We're related.""Oh,are you?""On my mother's side. We're second cousins. But the two branches of the family have nothing to do with each other now.""He has the same hair and the same shape of head and the same way of sitting and moving," Mollie June declared with enthusiasm, "and almost the same eyes and voice. Only his are----""Older!" said John Merriam rudely."Yes," said Mollie June.Distances are not great in Riceville. For this reason the ceremony of "seeing home" is usually termed by a circuitous route, sometimes involving the entire circumference of the "nice" part of the town. But on this occasion John and Mollie June had gone directly, as though their object had been to arrive. They reached her home--a matter of two blocks from the church-before another word had been said.There Mollie June carefully extricated her arm from his mechanical grasp and confronted him.He looked at her face, peeping out of the fur collar of her coat in the starlight, and for one instant into her eyes.She was saying: "I am very grateful to you, Merriam, for all the help you have given me--in--algebra."He ought to have kissed her. She wanted him to. He half divined as much--afterwards.But the awkward, callow, Anglo-Saxon, rural, pedagogical cub in him replied, "I am glad if I have been able to help you in anything."That, I judge, was too much for Mollie June. She held out her little gloved hand."Good-bye, Mr. Merriam!"He took her hand. And now appears the advantage of a college education, including amateur dramatics and courses in English poetry and romantic fiction. He did what no other swain in Riceville could have done. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it! At least he kissed the glove which tightly enclosed the hand."Good-bye, Mollie June!" he said, using that name for the first time.Then he dropped her hand, somewhat suddenly, I fear, turned abruptly, and walked rapidly away.As to what Mollie June said or thought or felt, how should I know? There was nothing for her to do but to go into the house, and that is what she did.CHAPTER IIIFRIENDLY STRANGERSJohn Merriam raised his eyes from the table-cloth on which they had rested while these images from the distant past--two and one-half years ago--moved across the screen of his memory. To his now mature perceptions the stupidity and gaucherie of his own part in that scene--save for the redeeming kissing of the glove--were clearly apparent, and were for the moment almost as painful to him as the fact that Mollie June was another man's wife.He glanced around, avoiding only the table at which Mrs. Senator Norman sat. The glory was gone from the Peacock Cabaret. The garishness of the peacocks, the tin-panniness of the music, the futility of beer and cigarettes and evening clothes, were desolatingly revealed to him. He put his cigarette aside, to smoke itself up unregarded on the ash tray.It had been his duty to "forget," and it is neither more nor less than justice to say that after a fashion he had succeeded in doing so. His winter and spring, three years ago, had been miserable; but he had undeniably enjoyed his summer vacation, and had found interest in his work again in the fall. To be sure, the edge was gone from his ambition. He had stuck ploddingly at teaching, too indifferent to try to better himself. Still he had not been actively unhappy. But now----He was diverted by the return of Waiter No. 73. No need of play-acting now to conceal any unsophisticated delight in his surroundings. But he must pull himself together. He must not exhibit to the world, as incarnated in Waiter No. 73, a depression as boyish as his previous pleasure. He must still be the stoical, tranquil man of the world, who knows women and tears them from his heart when need be. It was the same rôle--with a difference!"What next, sir?"Merriam glanced hastily at the menu card and ordered a steak with French fried potatoes and a lettuce-and-tomato salad. He was not up to an attack on any unfamiliar viands.As he gave his order he was aware of a party of three persons, seated a little to his left--the opposite direction from the fateful spot inhabited by Mollie June,--who seemed to be taking particular note of him. And as he lit another cigarette after the waiter had left him he noticed them again. Unquestionably they were furtively regarding him. Now and then they exchanged remarks of which he was sure he was the subject.The three persons included a square-jawed man of about forty-five, a pale, benevolent-looking priest and a very beautiful woman. The woman had not only shoulders and arms but also a great deal of bosom and back, all dazzlingly, powderedly fair and ideally plump. She had black hair and eyes--brilliantly, even aggressively, black. Her gown was a lavender silk net with spangles. Her age--well, she was certainly older than Mollie June and certainly within, safely within, "the age at which women cease to be interesting to men," whatever that age may be.Our youthful man of the world was a little embarrassed at first by the scrutiny of this gorgeous trio. He glanced quickly down at his own attire, as a girl might have done. But there could be nothing wrong with his evening clothes. (A man is so safe in that respect.) They were only five years old, having been acquired, in a heroic burst of extravagance, during his senior year in college. He wanted to put his hand up to his white bow to make sure it was not askew, but restrained himself.Presently Merriam began to enjoy the attention he was receiving. If one must play a part, it is pleasant to have an audience. It helped him to keep his eyes off Mollie June. He began to give attention to the smoking of his cigarette. He handled it with nonchalant grace. He exhaled smoke through his nostrils. He recalled an envied accomplishment of his college days and carefully blew a couple of tolerably perfect smoke rings. And he wished that Mollie June would turn and see him in his evening clothes.Presently the clerical gentleman, after an earnest colloquy with the square-jawed one, rose and came across to Merriam's table, while the other two now openly watched.The priest rested two white hands on the edge of the table and bent over him with a friendly smile."Will you pardon a frank question from a stranger?" he asked."I guess a question won't hurt me," said Merriam.At this simple reply the cleric straightened up quickly as if startled and looked at Merriam closely and curiously. Then he said:"Are you by any chance related to Senator Norman?""Yes, I am," said Merriam."May I ask what the relationship is?"Merriam told him."Thank you," said the priest. "The resemblance is really remarkable. And we saw you looking at Mrs. Norman. Do you know her?""Yes. I knew her before--before she--was married.""I see. Thank you so much."The inquisitive priest returned to his friends, who appeared to listen intently to his report.At the same time Waiter No. 73 arrived with Merriam's steak and salad.He ate self-consciously, feeling himself still under observation from the other table. But when he was half way through his salad his attention was effectually distracted from those watchers. For Mollie June and her companion had risen to go.Merriam put down his fork and looked at her. She was really beautiful to any eyes--so fresh and young and alive amid the tawdry ennui of her surroundings, a human girl among the labouring ghosts of adanse macabre. To Merriam she was--what you will--radiant, divine. He wished he had not lost a moment from looking at her since he first saw her.A waiter had brought a fur cloak and now held it for her. As she adjusted it about her shoulders she glanced around and saw Merriam.For a moment she looked straight at him. Merriam would have sworn that her colour heightened ever so little and then paled. She smiled a mechanical little smile, bowed slightly, spoke to her companion, and threaded her way quickly among tables to an exit."I beg your pardon!"Merriam started and looked up--to find the black-eyed, white-bosomed woman from the other table standing beside him. He was conscious of a faint fragrance, which a more sophisticated person would have recognised as that of an extremely expensive perfume, widely advertised under the name of a famous opera singer.He rose mechanically, dropping his napkin."No, no," she smiled. "Won't you sit down--and let me sit down a moment, too?"She took the chair opposite him."My name is Alicia Wayward," she said. There was a kind of deliberate sweetness in her tone.John Merriam got back somehow into his chair and looked at her, but did not reply. His eyes saw the face of Mollie June, peeping out of her furs, as on that last night at Riceville, her changing colour, her mechanical smile, and the hurrying away without giving him a chance to go to her for a single word."Won't you tell me your name?" said Alicia, with the barest suggestion in her voice of sharpness in the midst of sweet."John Merriam.""And you are a second cousin of Senator Norman?""Yes.""I am an old friend of Senator Norman's," said Alicia. "We are all friends of his." She nodded towards the other table. "And we should very much like to have a little private talk with you about a very important matter.--How do you do, Simpson?"Merriam looked up again. Waiter No. 73 was standing over them. But he was a transformed being. The ramrod had somehow been extracted from his spine, and his stern features were transfigured in an expression of happy and ingratiating servility."Very well, Miss Alicia," he said."Simpson used to be my father's butler," explained Miss Wayward. "We've never had so a butler since.""Thank you, Miss Alicia," said Simpson fervently."Send me the head waiter," said Miss Wayward."Yes, Miss Alicia," and Simpson departed almost with alacrity."You are just ready for your dessert, I see," said Alicia. "I am going to ask the head waiter to change us both to one of the private rooms and give us Simpson to wait on us. Then I can present you to my friends, and we can have the private talk I spoke of. You don't mind, do you?"Merriam thought of the "Follies." But the idea of the "Follies" bored him after seeing Mollie June. And one cannot refuse a lady. He recaptured some fraction of his manners."I shall be pleased," he said."Thank you," said Alicia, with augmented sweetness.CHAPTER IVAN UNSCRUPULOUS REFORMERThe head waiter arrived. Could they be removed to a private dining-room? Most certainly they could. Yes, Simpson should serve them. Obviously anything that Miss Alicia Wayward desired could be done, must be done, and it was done.They ordered ices andcafé noir."And a liqueur?" suggested Alicia.Merriam assented."What should you prefer?"Now Merriam knew the name of just one liqueur. He made prompt use of that solitary scrap of information."Benedictine, perhaps," he suggested, as who should say, "Out of all the world's vintages my mature choice among liqueurs is Benedictine.""Good," smiled Alicia. (I am afraid she was not effectually deceived.)Merriam was introduced first to Father Murray."He isn't a real Father," said Alicia. "He's not a Romanist. Only a paltry Anglican. But he's so very, very High Church that a layman can hardly tell the difference."Father Murray was deprecatory but unruffled. A Christian priest must forgive all things."This is Mr. Philip Rockwell of the Reform League," said Alicia. "His fame has doubtless reached you. 'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.'"His fame had not reached Merriam, but the latter bowed and shook hands as though it had, instinctively meeting the stare in the other man's eyes with an unblinking steadiness of his own.After the introductions Merriam glanced about him with perhaps insufficiently concealed curiosity. He had never been in a private dining-room before, and this adventure was beginning to interest him. It was better than spending his evening--his one evening--in sad thoughts of Mollie June.The room was just large enough to afford comfortable space for a table for four persons, with a small sideboard to serve from. It was really rather pretty. Subdued purple hangings at the door and windows and a frieze of small peacocks above the plate rail indicated its affiliation, so to speak, with the Peacock Cabaret. There were attractive French prints in garland frames on the walls. The table was charmingly laid, with a bowl of yellow roses in the center, and the ices were already served. On the sideboard the coffee in a silver pot was bubbling over an alcohol flame, and there was a long bottle which Merriam correctly interpreted as the container of his choice among liqueurs."This is much cosier, isn't it?" said Alicia.She took the head of the table."Father Murray shall sit opposite me," she said, "to see that I behave. You, Mr. Merriman, shall sit on my right, as the guest of honour. That leaves this place for you, Philip. Reformers must be content with what they can get."Merriam mustered the gallantry to hold Alicia's chair for her, and was warmed by the approving smile with which she thanked him. He had not especially liked Alicia at first, but she grew upon him.They consumed ices, and Alicia conversed, in the sprightly fashion she affected, with Merriam. The other two men hardly participated at all.In the course of that conversation Alicia artlessly, tactfully, but efficiently pumped Merriam. By the time Simpson was pouring the sweet-scented wine into thimble-like glasses she--and her companions--were in possession of all the substantial facts of his brief biography and had guessed the secret of his heart. They knew of his boyhood on the farm, of his father's death, and his mother's a few years later, of his college days, with something of their athletic, dramatic, and fraternity incidents, of his teaching at Riceville, of the Riceville football and basket-ball teams, of the occasion for this trip to Chicago--and of Mollie June.At length the sherbet glasses were removed and some of the coffees, including Merriam's, refilled, and they all lit cigarettes. Merriam was pleasantly startled when Alicia too took a cigarette. He had read, of course, of women smoking, but he had never seen it, or expected to see it with his own eyes, except on the stage. It was more shocking to his secret soul than any amount of bosom and back."You need not wait, Simpson," said Alicia. "We'll ring if we need you again."When the waiter had withdrawn Philip Rockwell took the center of the stage. He tilted back in his chair and abruptly began to talk. Part of the time he looked straight ahead of him as if addressing an audience, but now and again he turned his head and aimed his discourse straight at Merriam. He made only a pretence of smoking."Mr. Merriam," he said, "by a curious chance--a freak of nature, as it were--you, who have thus far taken no part in the politics of the State and Nation, are in a position to render a great service this very night to the cause of Reform and incidentally to Senator and Mrs. Norman.""How so?" said Merriam. He was rather on his guard against Mr. Philip Rockwell."It is a long story, perhaps," said that gentleman. "I gathered when we were introduced that you had heard of me. But I was not sure how much you have heard. I am at the present time the President of the Reform League of this city and its guiding and moving spirit.""And endowed with the superb modesty so characteristic of reformers," interjected Alicia.The reformer paid no attention to this frivolous parenthesis."Miss Wayward," he continued, "alluded earlier to my sobriquet--'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.' The epithet was first applied to me derisively by opposition newspapers. But it is a true description. Indeed it was derived from my frequent use of the phrase in my own speeches. I believe that to be successful, practically successful, Reform must center its efforts on one thing at a time--not waste its energies, its munitions, so to speak, by bombarding the whole entrenched line of evil and privilege at once, but concentrate its fire on one exposed position after another--take that one position--accomplish finally one definite thing--and then go on to some other one definite thing. Do you get me?"Merriam signified that he comprehended.Father Murray was more enthusiastic. "It is a truly splendid idea," he volunteered. "Since we have adopted it, under the leadership of Mr. Rockwell, the Reform League has really begun to do things.To do things!" he repeated, with an almost mysterious emphasis."At the present time," Rockwell resumed, "the one thing which the Reform League is undertaking todois to secure decent traction conditions in this city--adequate service. We have so far succeeded that we have forced an unfriendly city council to pass the new Traction Ordinance. You are familiar with the new Ordinance, Mr. Merriam?""Yes," said Merriam. By which we must suppose he meant that he had read headlines about it in the Chicago papers."Those rascals," continued Rockwell, "never would have passed it--the men who own them would never have permitted them to pass it, no matter how unmistakable the demand of the people might be,--if they had not counted on one thing."Merriam perceived that an interrogation was demanded of him and took his cue."What is that?" he asked."They are counting," said Rockwell impressively, "they are counting on Mayor Black. They have believed the whole time that he can be depended on to veto it. And they are right! The scoundrels usually are. The Mayor, as every one knows, is a mere puppet. He will do as he is told. Only, the League has made such a stir, the people are so tremendously aroused, that he is frightened. And so, before acting, before writing the veto, which he has sense enough to see is likely to mean political suicide, he is coming here to-night to see Senator Norman, to get his instructions. That's what it amounts to. Norman holds the State machine in the hollow of his hand. If Norman tells him to veto, Black will veto. It may be bad for him with the voters if he does it, but it would be certain political death for a man like him to cross Norman.And Norman will say, 'Veto!'""I see," said Merriam.Which was hardly true; he did not as yet see an inch ahead of his nose into this thing, but he thought it sounded well."Where do I come in, though?" he added, belying his assumption of sagacity."That's my very next point," said Rockwell.His chair came down on all fours. He squared it to the table, laid his neglected cigarette aside, put his arms on the cloth, and looked very straight at Merriam."Are you aware, Mr. Merriam, that you bear a most striking physical resemblance to Senator Norman?""I have been told so," said Merriam. "My mother often spoke of it. And--Mrs. Norman mentioned it to me before she was married. I have seen his pictures, of course, in the papers. I have never seen him in person." (This was true, for John Merriam had, quite inexcusably, stayed away from Mollie June's wedding.)"He has never seen you, then?""He probably doesn't know of my existence.""So much the better," said Rockwell. "The only difficulty then is Mrs. Norman. And she can be eliminated."This facile elimination of Mollie June did not make an irresistible appeal to Merriam, but he held his tongue.Alicia Wayward saw the reformer's mistake."Mr. Rockwell means," she threw in, "that Mrs. Norman can be shielded from the difficulties of the situation.""Exactly," said Rockwell quickly. "Mr. Merriam," he continued, "if you have never seen the Senator with your own eyes, you can have no realisation of the closeness of your resemblance to him. Hair, eyes, nose, mouth, size, carriage, manner, movement--it is truly wonderful. And it is the same with your voice. Father Murray here says he fairly jumped when you first spoke to him out in the Cabaret when he went over to question you.""He also says," interrupted Alicia, as if mischievously, "that it is Providential.""Please do not be irreverent, Miss Alicia," said the priest. "It does surely seem Providential--on this night of all nights. It surely seems so.""Well," said Merriam, a trifle bluntly perhaps, "I don't know what you mean by that. If my cousin and I look so much alike as you say, no doubt it's quite remarkable. Still such things happen often enough in families. What of it?""I have explained," said Rockwell, with an air of much patience, "that Mayor Black is coming here, to this hotel, to-night, to see Senator Norman about the Ordinance, and that Norman will order him to veto it. We thought we had Norman fixed, but he has gone over to the magnates--as he always does in the end! Black will do as he is bid, and it will be a death blow. We can never pass it over his veto. It means the total ruin of five years of work, involving the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars. And the cause of Reform in this city will be dead for years to come. The League will never survive, if we fail at this last ditch. It will collapse.""In short," said Alicia sweetly, "Mr. Rockwell himself will collapse."Rockwell took no heed of her."Half an hour ago," he said, "I was sitting yonder in the Cabaret, dining with Miss Wayward and Father Murray. I was eating turtle soup and olives"--he laughed theatrically,--"but I was a desperate man. I had no hope, no interest left in life. Then I looked up and saw you. At first I mistook you for Senator Norman--even I, who have known the old hypocrite for a dozen years. I stared at you, wondering whether I should go over and make one last personal appeal to you--to him. And then I realised that you could not be he. For I knew positively that he was dining in his room. I looked closer. I saw that you were really a younger man--not that massaged, laced old roué. I stared on in my amazement, till Miss Wayward and Father Murray looked too, and Miss Wayward said, 'Why, there's Senator Norman now.' 'By God!' said I, 'perhaps it is!' Do you see, Mr. Merriam?""No," said Merriam, "I don't.""Ah, but you will, you must," said Rockwell. "Listen!" He looked at his watch. "It is now twenty minutes past seven. Norman is dining in his room. There is a man with him, a Mr. Crockett--one of the dozen men who own Chicago. He is as much interested in the Ordinance as I am--on the other side. He is giving Norman his instructions, for the Senator is Crockett's puppet, of course, as much as the Mayor is Norman's. Crockett will leave promptly at a quarter to eight. Mayor Black is due at eight.""How do you know these things?" interrupted Merriam."It is my business to know things," said Rockwell. "The fact is," he added, "I planned to burst in on Norman and Black at their conference and threaten them in the name of the Reform League. It would have done no good, but I owed that much to the League.""And to yourself," said Alicia softly."And to myself, yes!" said Rockwell, infinitesimally pricked at last. But he hurried on:"At ten minutes to eight, Mr. Merriam, I will telephone Norman. I will pretend to be old Schubert, the Mayor's private secretary. He has a dry, clipped voice that is easy to imitate. I will say that the Mayor is sick at his house. I will imply that he is drunk. He often is. I will say he is not too sick to veto the Ordinance before the Council meets at nine, but that he insists on seeing Senator Norman before he does it and asks that Norman come out to his house. I will say that I am sending a car for him. Norman will curse, but he will go. He is under orders, too, you see. At five minutes to eight we will send up word that Mayor Black's car is waiting for Senator Norman. There will be a car waiting. The driver will be Simpson.""I can fix it with the hotel people to get him off," said Alicia in response to a look from Merriam. "He was a chauffeur once for a while.--And he will do anything I ask him to," she added."Norman will go down and get into that car. He will be driven, not to the Mayor's house, of course, but to--a certain flat, where he will be detained for several hours--very possibly all night.""By force?" asked Merriam, rather sternly."Only by force of the affections," said Rockwell suavely. "The flat belongs, for the time being, to a certain young woman, a manicurist by profession, who is undoubtedly very pretty and in whom Norman--takes an interest. I happen to know that he pays the rent of the flat."Rockwell paused, but Merriam made no reply. He blushed, subcutaneously at any rate, for Alicia and Father Murray. The latter indeed affected inattention to this portion of Mr. Rockwell's discourse. But Alicia Wayward made no pretence of either misunderstanding or horror.In Merriam's mind a slight embarrassment quickly gave place to anger. That George Norman after three years--how much sooner who could tell?--should leave Mollie June for a--his mind paused before a word too ancient and too frank for professorial sensibilities.Rockwell quickly resumed:"As soon as Norman has gone I will take you to his room. We will put his famous crimson smoking jacket on you and establish you in his big armchair with a cigar and some whiskey and soda beside you. When Black comes he will find Senator Norman--you. All you will have to do is to be curt and sulky, damn him a bit, and tell him to sign the Ordinance. He'll never suspect you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't know the Senator well--never spoke with him privately above three times in his life. We'll have only side lights on. He won't stay. He'll be mightily relieved about the Ordinance and in a hurry to get away. Then you yourself can get away and catch your train for--for----""Riceville," supplied Alicia."That will be a real adventure for you, young man, and you will have saved the cause of Reform in the city of Chicago!"John Merriam smiled, frostily."The reasons, then, Mr. Rockwell, why I should fraudulently impersonate a Senator of the United States, who happens to be my cousin, and in his name act in an important matter directly contrary to his own wishes are for the fun of the adventure and to save your Reform League from a setback. Is that correct?""Philip," said Alicia quickly, "you and Father Murray go for a walk. I want to have a little talk with Mr. Merriam alone. Come back in twenty minutes."The implication of her last phrase was distinctly flattering to Merriam if he had understood it. Alicia Wayward would not have asked for more than ten minutes with most men.Rockwell smiled with lowered eyelids--a smile which it was certainly a mistake for him to permit himself, for it could not and did not fail to put Merriam on his guard--against Alicia."Come, Murray," said Rockwell rising, "I should like a breath of real air, shouldn't you? And when Miss Wayward commands----" He waved his hand grandly. "Au revoir!"And he and the priest hastily departed.
The Project Gutenberg eBook ofMollie's Substitute HusbandThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Mollie's Substitute HusbandCreator: Max McConnRelease date: April 1, 2015 [eBook #48626]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Mollie's Substitute HusbandCreator: Max McConnRelease date: April 1, 2015 [eBook #48626]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: Mollie's Substitute Husband
Creator: Max McConn
Creator: Max McConn
Release date: April 1, 2015 [eBook #48626]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND ***
[Transcriber's note: The frontispiece was missing fromthe source book]MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTEHUSBANDBYMAX McCONNWITH FRONTISPIECE BYEDWARD C. CASWELLTHE RYERSON PRESSTORONTO1920
[Transcriber's note: The frontispiece was missing fromthe source book]
[Transcriber's note: The frontispiece was missing fromthe source book]
MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTEHUSBAND
BY
MAX McCONN
WITH FRONTISPIECE BYEDWARD C. CASWELL
THE RYERSON PRESSTORONTO1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.PRINTED IN U. S. A.
COPYRIGHT, 1920BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I"The Professor" on a SpreeIIThe Prettiest GirlIIIFriendly StrangersIVAn Unscrupulous ReformerVAlicia and the Motives of MenVIStage-SettingVIIBoy and GirlVIIIPassages with Mayor BlackIXAunt MaryXA Senator MissingXIConfessions of Waiter No. 73XIIGrapefruit and TelegramsXIIIA Change of ManagementXIVHolding the FortXVCouncil of WarXVIThe Senatorial DinnerXVIIA Devious JourneyXVIIIJennieXIXA New AntagonistXXAn Eventful Supper PartyXXIFlash LightsXXIIVirtue TriumphantXXIIIReturnXXIVThe Reform LeagueXXVSecond Council of WarXXVIThe Business of Being an ImpostorXXVIIThe Code TelegramXXVIIISimpson as DetectiveXXIXThe Final DilemmaXXXMollie June
MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND
CHAPTER I
"THE PROFESSOR" ON A SPREE
John Merriam, Principal of the High School at Riceville, Illinois--"Professor" Merriam, as he was universally called by the citizens of Riceville--was wickedly, carnally, gloriously happy. He was having an unwonted spree.
I fear the reader will be shocked. The principal of a high school, he will say, has no right to a spree, even an occasional one. The "Professor" has girl students in his classes--mostly girls, indeed, and usually the prettiest ones in town--and women teachers under his supervision. Every seventh day he teaches a young people's class in a Sunday School. He makes addresses at meetings of the Y.P.S.C.E., the Y.M.C.A., and other alphabetically designated societies that make for righteousness and decorum. He should at all times and in all places be a model, an exemplar, to the budding young men and women of the community in general and his school in particular.
In this reasoning the reader is in strict accord with what the sentiment of all Riceville would have been if it had known--if it could have known.
Nevertheless, it is the regrettable and shocking fact that John Merriam was sitting on that pleasant April evening in the Peacock Cabaret of the Hotel De Soto in the wicked city of Chicago. He was attired in evening clothes, a fact which, in itself would have seemed both odd and reprehensible to Riceville, and he was alone at a tiny table with a yellow-silk-shaded lamp. He had just been guided to that table, and pending the arrival of a waiter, he was gazing eagerly, boyishly about him at such delights as the somewhat garish Peacock Cabaret displayed.
For John Merriam, though a "professor," was young. He was only twenty-eight. He was tall and blond and athletic, as young men who grow up on farms in the Middle West and then go to college have a way of being. And after his season of strenuous and highly virtuous labours at Riceville he was really hungry, keen, for something--well, just a little less virtuous.
A distinguished looking gentleman in a dinner jacket, conspicuously labeled with a number, somewhat haughtily and negligently approached, bearing a menu card.
About three paces away this gentleman, having glanced at young Merriam, fairly stopped and stared at him. An odd expression showed upon his face--an expression, one would almost have said, of intense animosity. Then, as he still stared, one might have decided that his look betokened perplexity. He winked his eyes several times and once more scrutinised his waiting guest. At length--perhaps ten seconds had passed--his face slowly, wonderingly cleared, his usual air of vacant indifference returned, and he advanced and placed the menu card in Merriam's hands. The latter, still drinking in the sights and sounds of his unaccustomed environment, had noticed nothing.
Now it is always prudent to note a waiter's number when he first presents himself, for in case he should decide to begin his summer vacation immediately after taking your order you may need to mention his number to the head waiter. In this case the number was 73.
The hauteur and negligence displayed were partly habitual--professional, so to speak--but were intensified perhaps by the reaction from the emotion, whatever it was, which he had apparently just experienced--perhaps also by the look of alert and genuine pleasure on Merriam's face. Such a look did not wholly commend itself or him to a sophisticated metropolitan taste. What right had a patron of the Peacock Cabaret to look really pleased? It was hardly decent--and argued a small tip.
Inwardly Merriam, now aware of the waiter's presence, reacted acutely to this clearly perceptible disdain. Which shows how young and how rural he was. We maturer, urban folk are never, of course, in the least nonplused by those contemptuous, blasé silences of waiters who possess the bearing and manner of a governor or a capitalist.
But John Merriam had been excellent in amateur dramatics at college, and he now roused himself to a magnificent histrionic effort in the rôle of "man of the world."
He pushed the menu card aside without looking at it.
"A clam cocktail, please, and a stein of beer," he murmured, low enough to force the distinguished one to unbend slightly in order to catch the words.
"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, with a tentative suggestion of respect in his tone. A customer who did not bother to look at the menu might be worth while after all.
"And then what?"
"I'll see how I feel then," said Merriam with a half yawn.
"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, almost courteously, and departed at a pace slightly quickened over that of his approach, as a man strolling at complete leisure will instinctively increase the tempo of his step if he chances to recall a definite engagement on the day after to-morrow.
Merriam grinned delightedly. He had put it across--his little piece of acting. He had measurably imposed his rôle on his audience of one; at least he had shaken him.
And then--I shudder when I recall the views on nicotine of the Board of Education at Riceville--he drew from his pocket a package of cigarettes, and took a match from the table, and lit a cigarette, and sent a volume of smoke out through his nostrils--proving, alas, that it was not his first indulgence,--and, with a sigh that might almost be described as ecstatic, turned his attention again to the scene about him.
That scene was piquant to him--after the ugly dining room of his boarding house at Riceville and the barren assembly hall of the High School--to a degree almost incredible to persons more habituated to the Peacock Cabaret and similar resorts. Not being quite so fresh from Riceville, nor yet the advertising manager of the Hotel De Soto, I cannot, I fear, paint the prospect as Merriam saw it. I shall not be able to conceal some mental reservations as to its charms. The purple peacocks upon the walls and ceiling, from which the restaurant took its name, were certainly a trifle over-gorgeous, just as the music which the orchestra intermittently dispensed was too much syncopated. Again, the scores of small tables, each with its silk-shaded lamp, its slim glass vase for a single rosebud, its water bottle bearing the arms of the Chevalier De Soto, and its ash receptacle--all alike as shoe boxes in a shoe shop are alike,--might to a tired fancy suggest a certain monotony of pleasure, a too-much-standardised, ready-made brand of bliss. The small, skimped stage, with its undeniably banal curtain, and the crowded dancing floor did not really promise unlimited delights. Some perception of all this was apparent in the faces and bearing of many of the white-shirt-fronted men who sat at the scores of tables and of the women who were with them, however bird-of-paradise-like the raiment of the latter might be. Not a few indeed displayed an air of languor and ennui that might have won approval even from Waiter No. 73.
But in speaking thus of the Peacock Cabaret I am stepping outside my story, violating unity of point of view--in short, committing a heinous literary crime. For to Merriam at that moment the screaming purple peacocks, the regiments of rosebuds, the musical comedy melodies, the gay attire and bare shoulders of the women, and even the tired look of his fellow-diners, which he interpreted as sophistication rather than simple boredom, were thrillingly symbolical of all the delights which the great world held and which were absent from Riceville. And when Waiter No. 73 leisurely returned, to find him outwardly almost too near asleep to keep his cigarette going, and deposited his clam cocktail and the wicked stein before him, and at the same moment the orchestra became more noisy than ever, and all the lights except those upon the tables went out, and the stage curtain rose upon a short-skirted chorus, he was really in a sort of Omar Khayyam paradise. It was lucky that Waiter No. 73 had again departed to those unknown regions where waiters spend the bulk of their time, for Merriam could not have concealed the zest with which he alternately ate and drank and surveyed the moderately comely demoiselles upon the little stage.
Having finished his cocktail and drunk some of his beer and seen the curtain descend on the first "act" of the cabaret's dramatic entertainment, Merriam lit another cigarette, shifted his chair, and settled himself to await the probable future return of his servitor. His thoughts dwelt contentedly on the evening before him. For after his meal he would have a stroll with a cigar in the spring twilight (it was barely six-thirty then) through the noisy, brightly lighted streets of the Loop, which never failed to thrill him with a sense of a somehow wicked vastness, power, and riches in the great city of which they were the center. And then he was going to the "Follies." He fingered the small envelope in his pocket which held his ticket. And after the show he would have a supper in another cabaret.
Beyond that he did not let his fancy wander. For after that there was nothing for it but to catch the 2:00 A.M. train on the Illinois Central that would carry him back to Riceville for the remaining six weeks of the school year. He had come up to Chicago on this spring day--a Tuesday it was--to attend a convention of high-school principals and to engage a couple of new teachers for the next year, to replace two that were to be married in June. And he had faithfully done these things. And now he was giving himself just this one evening of amusement--two cabaret meals and a "show," sauced, so to speak, with a little tobacco and beer and the wearing of his evening clothes. Surely whatever Riceville might have thought, he will not seem to most of us very derelict from the austere ideals of his profession.
The only real point against him--most of us might argue--lies in the fact that when, you touch even the outermost fringes of the night life of a city, you are never quite certain what may come to you. For there are things happening all about you, under the conventional, monotonous surface--things amusing and things terrible--men and women playing with the fire of every known human passion,--and if the finger of some adventure reaches out for you you may not be able to resist its lure, perhaps even to escape its clutch.
CHAPTER II
THE PRETTIEST GIRL
I have said that Merriam had shifted his chair a little as he lit his second cigarette. A moment later he was looking very hard at a certain pretty woman at a table half way across the room. His heart stopped. At least that is the phrase a novelist seems to be required to use to indicate the sudden pulse of amazement and pleasure and alarm which he certainly felt.
The young woman at whom he was staring had a name which is very important for this story and which I shall presently tell you, but in John Merriam's mind her name was "the prettiest girl," and her other name, which he seldom dared whisper to his heart, was "Mollie June." She was from Riceville--hence the alarm with which his pleasure was mixed,--and during his first four months of teaching, three years before, she had been in his senior class in the High School--the "prettiest girl" in the class and in the school and in the town--and in the State and the United States and the world, if you had asked John Merriam. Advanced algebra with Mollie June in the class had been the most golden of sciences--pleasure squared, delight cubed, and bliss to thenth power. I am not myself absolutely convinced of Mollie June's proficiency in solving quadratic equations, yet the official records of the Riceville High School show that she received the highest mark in the class.
But she was the daughter of James P. Partridge, the owner of all Riceville; that is to say, of the coal mines outside the town, of the grain elevator, of the street car and electric light company, and of the First National Bank. Who was John Merriam, the son of a poor farmer in a southern county, who had worked his way through college and come out with nothing but a B.S. degree, a football reputation that was quite unnegotiable, and three hundred dollars of fraternity debts--an enormous sum,--to mix anything warmer or livelier than a^2-b^2 in his thoughts of a class to which Mollie June Partridge deigned to belong? Even if Mollie June herself did come up to his desk in the assembly room two or three times a week for help in her algebra and spend most of the time asking him about college instead, and join his Young People's Class, which she had previously refused to attend, and allow him to "see her home" from church sociables, and compel that docile magnate, John P. Partridge, her father, to invite the new "professor" to dinner twice during the half year? As well almost might a humble tutor in the castle of a feudal lord have raised his eyes to the baron's daughter.
Almost, but not quite. After all this is a free republic. Even a poor pedagogue is a citizen with a vote and a potential candidate for the presidency--which at least two poor pedagogues have attained. So John Merriam permitted himself to be very happy during those four months and was not in the least hopeless. Only he saw that he must bide his time.
But early in January Mollie June left school, and in a few days it came out that she had left to be married--married to Senator Norman!
Senator Norman was the famous "boy senator" from Illinois--at the time of his election the youngest man who had ever sat in the upper house of Congress. The ruddiness of his cheeks, the abundance of his wavy blond hair, and the athletic jauntiness of his carriage won votes whenever he stumped the State. They went far to counteract malicious insinuations as to the means by which he was rolling up a fortune and his solidity with "interests" which the proletariat viewed with suspicion.
And now, having been a widower for eighteen months--his first wife was older than he and had brought him money,--he had stayed for a week-end during the Christmas holidays with James P. Partridge, who was a cousin of the Senator's first wife and his political lieutenant for a certain group of counties, and had seen Mollie June and wanted her and asked for her and got her, as George Norman always asked for and got whatever he wanted.
All this was, of course, in John Merriam's mind as he gazed across a dozen tables in the Peacock Cabaret at the unchanged profile of the prettiest girl--that is to say, Mrs. Senator Norman. And with it came an acute revival of the desolation of that January and February at Riceville, when he had perceived with the Hebrew sage that "in much learning"--or in little, for that matter--"is much weariness," and that algebra should have been buried with the medieval Arabians who invented it--when even the State championship in basket ball, won by the Riceville Five under his coaching, was only a trouble and a bore.
There is no doubt he stared rudely. At least it would have been rudely if his eyes had held the look which eyes that stare at pretty women commonly hold. But such a look as stood in Merriam's eyes can hardly be rude, however intent and prolonged it may be.
He was merely entranced in the literal sense of that word. Her girlish white shoulders--he had never seen her shoulders before--in Riceville women no more have shoulders than they have legs--the soft brown hair over her ears--even the mode of the day, which called for close net effects and tight knobs, could not conceal its fine softness--the colour in her cheeks, which unquestionably shamed all the neighbouring rosebuds--the quite inexplicable deliciousness of those particular small curves described by the lines of her nose and chin and throat as he saw them in half profile--were more than he could draw his eyes away from for an unconscionable number of seconds. Of her charmingly simple and unquestionably very expensive frock as a separate fact, and of the thin, pale, and elderly, but gorgeously arrayed woman who was her companion, he had no clear perception, but undoubtedly they both contributed, along with the lights and colours and music of the Peacock Cabaret, to the deplorable confusion of his mind.
Out of that confusion there presently arose certain clear images and tones and words, which made up his memory of the last time he had seen and spoken with the present Mrs. Senator Norman.
It was at and after a miscellaneous kind of young people's entertainment which occurred at the Methodist Church on the evening of that bitter day on which the news of her engagement to Senator Norman had run like a prairie fire through the streets and homes of Riceville, fiercely incinerating all other topics of conversation, and consuming also the joy in life, the ambition, the very youth, it seemed to him, of John Merriam. He would not have gone to that entertainment if he could have escaped. But there were to be charades, and he had arranged and coached most of them and was to be in several. He "simply had to go," as Ricevillians might have said.
She was there with her mother. When had she ever come just with her mother, that is to say, without a male escort, before? That fact alone was symbolical of the closing of the gates of matrimony upon her. Naturally, in his pain he followed his primitive and childish instincts and avoided her.
But he was aware--he was almost sure--of her eyes continually following him throughout the evening, and during "refreshments" she deliberately came up to him and said that her mother was obliged to leave early, and would he see her home? Well, of course, if she asked him, he had to. I am afraid that the tone if not the words of his reply said as much, and Mollie June had turned away with quick tears in her eyes. Yet I question whether she was really hurt by his rudeness. For why should he be rude to-night when he had never been so before unless he--to use the most expressive of Americanisms--"cared"?
For the rest of the evening, as a result of those tears, which he had seen, it was his eyes that followed her, while hers avoided him. But he did not speak with her again until "seeing-home" time arrived.
Mollie June lingered till the very end of everything. Perhaps the little girl in her--for she was barely eighteen--clung to this last shred of the familiar, homely social life of her girlhood before she should be plunged into the frightful brilliance of real "society" in terrific places known as Chicago and Washington--as a senator's wife!
But at last they were walking together towards her home.
"Take my arm, please," said Mollie June.
The boys in Riceville always take the girls' arms at night, though never in the daytime. John ought to have taken her arm before. He took it.
"Have you heard that I am going to be married?" asked Mollie June--as if she did not know that everybody in the county knew it by that time.
"Yes," said John, his tone as succinct as his monosyllable.
But girls learn early to deal with the conversational difficulties and recalcitrances of males under stress of emotion.
"It means leaving school and Riceville and--everything," said Mollie June.
John could not fail to catch the note of pitifulness in her sentence. If the prospective marriage had been with any one less dazzling than George Norman, he might have reacted more properly. As it was, he replied with a stilted impersonality which might have been caught from the bright stars shining through the bare branches under which they walked.
"You will have a very rich and brilliant life," he said.
"I suppose so," said Mollie June.
They walked on, he still obediently clutching her arm, in silence; conversation not accompaniable with laughter is so difficult an art for youth.
Presently Mollie June tried again.
"Aren't you sorry I'm leaving the school--Mr. Merriam?"
"I'm very sorry indeed," responded "Professor" Merriam. "You ought to have stayed to graduate."
"I don't care about graduating," said Mollie June.
Again their footsteps echoed in the cold January silence.
Then Mollie June made a third attempt:
"You look ever so much like Mr. Norman."
"I know it," said Merriam. "We're related."
"Oh,are you?"
"On my mother's side. We're second cousins. But the two branches of the family have nothing to do with each other now."
"He has the same hair and the same shape of head and the same way of sitting and moving," Mollie June declared with enthusiasm, "and almost the same eyes and voice. Only his are----"
"Older!" said John Merriam rudely.
"Yes," said Mollie June.
Distances are not great in Riceville. For this reason the ceremony of "seeing home" is usually termed by a circuitous route, sometimes involving the entire circumference of the "nice" part of the town. But on this occasion John and Mollie June had gone directly, as though their object had been to arrive. They reached her home--a matter of two blocks from the church-before another word had been said.
There Mollie June carefully extricated her arm from his mechanical grasp and confronted him.
He looked at her face, peeping out of the fur collar of her coat in the starlight, and for one instant into her eyes.
She was saying: "I am very grateful to you, Merriam, for all the help you have given me--in--algebra."
He ought to have kissed her. She wanted him to. He half divined as much--afterwards.
But the awkward, callow, Anglo-Saxon, rural, pedagogical cub in him replied, "I am glad if I have been able to help you in anything."
That, I judge, was too much for Mollie June. She held out her little gloved hand.
"Good-bye, Mr. Merriam!"
He took her hand. And now appears the advantage of a college education, including amateur dramatics and courses in English poetry and romantic fiction. He did what no other swain in Riceville could have done. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it! At least he kissed the glove which tightly enclosed the hand.
"Good-bye, Mollie June!" he said, using that name for the first time.
Then he dropped her hand, somewhat suddenly, I fear, turned abruptly, and walked rapidly away.
As to what Mollie June said or thought or felt, how should I know? There was nothing for her to do but to go into the house, and that is what she did.
CHAPTER III
FRIENDLY STRANGERS
John Merriam raised his eyes from the table-cloth on which they had rested while these images from the distant past--two and one-half years ago--moved across the screen of his memory. To his now mature perceptions the stupidity and gaucherie of his own part in that scene--save for the redeeming kissing of the glove--were clearly apparent, and were for the moment almost as painful to him as the fact that Mollie June was another man's wife.
He glanced around, avoiding only the table at which Mrs. Senator Norman sat. The glory was gone from the Peacock Cabaret. The garishness of the peacocks, the tin-panniness of the music, the futility of beer and cigarettes and evening clothes, were desolatingly revealed to him. He put his cigarette aside, to smoke itself up unregarded on the ash tray.
It had been his duty to "forget," and it is neither more nor less than justice to say that after a fashion he had succeeded in doing so. His winter and spring, three years ago, had been miserable; but he had undeniably enjoyed his summer vacation, and had found interest in his work again in the fall. To be sure, the edge was gone from his ambition. He had stuck ploddingly at teaching, too indifferent to try to better himself. Still he had not been actively unhappy. But now----
He was diverted by the return of Waiter No. 73. No need of play-acting now to conceal any unsophisticated delight in his surroundings. But he must pull himself together. He must not exhibit to the world, as incarnated in Waiter No. 73, a depression as boyish as his previous pleasure. He must still be the stoical, tranquil man of the world, who knows women and tears them from his heart when need be. It was the same rôle--with a difference!
"What next, sir?"
Merriam glanced hastily at the menu card and ordered a steak with French fried potatoes and a lettuce-and-tomato salad. He was not up to an attack on any unfamiliar viands.
As he gave his order he was aware of a party of three persons, seated a little to his left--the opposite direction from the fateful spot inhabited by Mollie June,--who seemed to be taking particular note of him. And as he lit another cigarette after the waiter had left him he noticed them again. Unquestionably they were furtively regarding him. Now and then they exchanged remarks of which he was sure he was the subject.
The three persons included a square-jawed man of about forty-five, a pale, benevolent-looking priest and a very beautiful woman. The woman had not only shoulders and arms but also a great deal of bosom and back, all dazzlingly, powderedly fair and ideally plump. She had black hair and eyes--brilliantly, even aggressively, black. Her gown was a lavender silk net with spangles. Her age--well, she was certainly older than Mollie June and certainly within, safely within, "the age at which women cease to be interesting to men," whatever that age may be.
Our youthful man of the world was a little embarrassed at first by the scrutiny of this gorgeous trio. He glanced quickly down at his own attire, as a girl might have done. But there could be nothing wrong with his evening clothes. (A man is so safe in that respect.) They were only five years old, having been acquired, in a heroic burst of extravagance, during his senior year in college. He wanted to put his hand up to his white bow to make sure it was not askew, but restrained himself.
Presently Merriam began to enjoy the attention he was receiving. If one must play a part, it is pleasant to have an audience. It helped him to keep his eyes off Mollie June. He began to give attention to the smoking of his cigarette. He handled it with nonchalant grace. He exhaled smoke through his nostrils. He recalled an envied accomplishment of his college days and carefully blew a couple of tolerably perfect smoke rings. And he wished that Mollie June would turn and see him in his evening clothes.
Presently the clerical gentleman, after an earnest colloquy with the square-jawed one, rose and came across to Merriam's table, while the other two now openly watched.
The priest rested two white hands on the edge of the table and bent over him with a friendly smile.
"Will you pardon a frank question from a stranger?" he asked.
"I guess a question won't hurt me," said Merriam.
At this simple reply the cleric straightened up quickly as if startled and looked at Merriam closely and curiously. Then he said:
"Are you by any chance related to Senator Norman?"
"Yes, I am," said Merriam.
"May I ask what the relationship is?"
Merriam told him.
"Thank you," said the priest. "The resemblance is really remarkable. And we saw you looking at Mrs. Norman. Do you know her?"
"Yes. I knew her before--before she--was married."
"I see. Thank you so much."
The inquisitive priest returned to his friends, who appeared to listen intently to his report.
At the same time Waiter No. 73 arrived with Merriam's steak and salad.
He ate self-consciously, feeling himself still under observation from the other table. But when he was half way through his salad his attention was effectually distracted from those watchers. For Mollie June and her companion had risen to go.
Merriam put down his fork and looked at her. She was really beautiful to any eyes--so fresh and young and alive amid the tawdry ennui of her surroundings, a human girl among the labouring ghosts of adanse macabre. To Merriam she was--what you will--radiant, divine. He wished he had not lost a moment from looking at her since he first saw her.
A waiter had brought a fur cloak and now held it for her. As she adjusted it about her shoulders she glanced around and saw Merriam.
For a moment she looked straight at him. Merriam would have sworn that her colour heightened ever so little and then paled. She smiled a mechanical little smile, bowed slightly, spoke to her companion, and threaded her way quickly among tables to an exit.
"I beg your pardon!"
Merriam started and looked up--to find the black-eyed, white-bosomed woman from the other table standing beside him. He was conscious of a faint fragrance, which a more sophisticated person would have recognised as that of an extremely expensive perfume, widely advertised under the name of a famous opera singer.
He rose mechanically, dropping his napkin.
"No, no," she smiled. "Won't you sit down--and let me sit down a moment, too?"
She took the chair opposite him.
"My name is Alicia Wayward," she said. There was a kind of deliberate sweetness in her tone.
John Merriam got back somehow into his chair and looked at her, but did not reply. His eyes saw the face of Mollie June, peeping out of her furs, as on that last night at Riceville, her changing colour, her mechanical smile, and the hurrying away without giving him a chance to go to her for a single word.
"Won't you tell me your name?" said Alicia, with the barest suggestion in her voice of sharpness in the midst of sweet.
"John Merriam."
"And you are a second cousin of Senator Norman?"
"Yes."
"I am an old friend of Senator Norman's," said Alicia. "We are all friends of his." She nodded towards the other table. "And we should very much like to have a little private talk with you about a very important matter.--How do you do, Simpson?"
Merriam looked up again. Waiter No. 73 was standing over them. But he was a transformed being. The ramrod had somehow been extracted from his spine, and his stern features were transfigured in an expression of happy and ingratiating servility.
"Very well, Miss Alicia," he said.
"Simpson used to be my father's butler," explained Miss Wayward. "We've never had so a butler since."
"Thank you, Miss Alicia," said Simpson fervently.
"Send me the head waiter," said Miss Wayward.
"Yes, Miss Alicia," and Simpson departed almost with alacrity.
"You are just ready for your dessert, I see," said Alicia. "I am going to ask the head waiter to change us both to one of the private rooms and give us Simpson to wait on us. Then I can present you to my friends, and we can have the private talk I spoke of. You don't mind, do you?"
Merriam thought of the "Follies." But the idea of the "Follies" bored him after seeing Mollie June. And one cannot refuse a lady. He recaptured some fraction of his manners.
"I shall be pleased," he said.
"Thank you," said Alicia, with augmented sweetness.
CHAPTER IV
AN UNSCRUPULOUS REFORMER
The head waiter arrived. Could they be removed to a private dining-room? Most certainly they could. Yes, Simpson should serve them. Obviously anything that Miss Alicia Wayward desired could be done, must be done, and it was done.
They ordered ices andcafé noir.
"And a liqueur?" suggested Alicia.
Merriam assented.
"What should you prefer?"
Now Merriam knew the name of just one liqueur. He made prompt use of that solitary scrap of information.
"Benedictine, perhaps," he suggested, as who should say, "Out of all the world's vintages my mature choice among liqueurs is Benedictine."
"Good," smiled Alicia. (I am afraid she was not effectually deceived.)
Merriam was introduced first to Father Murray.
"He isn't a real Father," said Alicia. "He's not a Romanist. Only a paltry Anglican. But he's so very, very High Church that a layman can hardly tell the difference."
Father Murray was deprecatory but unruffled. A Christian priest must forgive all things.
"This is Mr. Philip Rockwell of the Reform League," said Alicia. "His fame has doubtless reached you. 'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.'"
His fame had not reached Merriam, but the latter bowed and shook hands as though it had, instinctively meeting the stare in the other man's eyes with an unblinking steadiness of his own.
After the introductions Merriam glanced about him with perhaps insufficiently concealed curiosity. He had never been in a private dining-room before, and this adventure was beginning to interest him. It was better than spending his evening--his one evening--in sad thoughts of Mollie June.
The room was just large enough to afford comfortable space for a table for four persons, with a small sideboard to serve from. It was really rather pretty. Subdued purple hangings at the door and windows and a frieze of small peacocks above the plate rail indicated its affiliation, so to speak, with the Peacock Cabaret. There were attractive French prints in garland frames on the walls. The table was charmingly laid, with a bowl of yellow roses in the center, and the ices were already served. On the sideboard the coffee in a silver pot was bubbling over an alcohol flame, and there was a long bottle which Merriam correctly interpreted as the container of his choice among liqueurs.
"This is much cosier, isn't it?" said Alicia.
She took the head of the table.
"Father Murray shall sit opposite me," she said, "to see that I behave. You, Mr. Merriman, shall sit on my right, as the guest of honour. That leaves this place for you, Philip. Reformers must be content with what they can get."
Merriam mustered the gallantry to hold Alicia's chair for her, and was warmed by the approving smile with which she thanked him. He had not especially liked Alicia at first, but she grew upon him.
They consumed ices, and Alicia conversed, in the sprightly fashion she affected, with Merriam. The other two men hardly participated at all.
In the course of that conversation Alicia artlessly, tactfully, but efficiently pumped Merriam. By the time Simpson was pouring the sweet-scented wine into thimble-like glasses she--and her companions--were in possession of all the substantial facts of his brief biography and had guessed the secret of his heart. They knew of his boyhood on the farm, of his father's death, and his mother's a few years later, of his college days, with something of their athletic, dramatic, and fraternity incidents, of his teaching at Riceville, of the Riceville football and basket-ball teams, of the occasion for this trip to Chicago--and of Mollie June.
At length the sherbet glasses were removed and some of the coffees, including Merriam's, refilled, and they all lit cigarettes. Merriam was pleasantly startled when Alicia too took a cigarette. He had read, of course, of women smoking, but he had never seen it, or expected to see it with his own eyes, except on the stage. It was more shocking to his secret soul than any amount of bosom and back.
"You need not wait, Simpson," said Alicia. "We'll ring if we need you again."
When the waiter had withdrawn Philip Rockwell took the center of the stage. He tilted back in his chair and abruptly began to talk. Part of the time he looked straight ahead of him as if addressing an audience, but now and again he turned his head and aimed his discourse straight at Merriam. He made only a pretence of smoking.
"Mr. Merriam," he said, "by a curious chance--a freak of nature, as it were--you, who have thus far taken no part in the politics of the State and Nation, are in a position to render a great service this very night to the cause of Reform and incidentally to Senator and Mrs. Norman."
"How so?" said Merriam. He was rather on his guard against Mr. Philip Rockwell.
"It is a long story, perhaps," said that gentleman. "I gathered when we were introduced that you had heard of me. But I was not sure how much you have heard. I am at the present time the President of the Reform League of this city and its guiding and moving spirit."
"And endowed with the superb modesty so characteristic of reformers," interjected Alicia.
The reformer paid no attention to this frivolous parenthesis.
"Miss Wayward," he continued, "alluded earlier to my sobriquet--'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.' The epithet was first applied to me derisively by opposition newspapers. But it is a true description. Indeed it was derived from my frequent use of the phrase in my own speeches. I believe that to be successful, practically successful, Reform must center its efforts on one thing at a time--not waste its energies, its munitions, so to speak, by bombarding the whole entrenched line of evil and privilege at once, but concentrate its fire on one exposed position after another--take that one position--accomplish finally one definite thing--and then go on to some other one definite thing. Do you get me?"
Merriam signified that he comprehended.
Father Murray was more enthusiastic. "It is a truly splendid idea," he volunteered. "Since we have adopted it, under the leadership of Mr. Rockwell, the Reform League has really begun to do things.To do things!" he repeated, with an almost mysterious emphasis.
"At the present time," Rockwell resumed, "the one thing which the Reform League is undertaking todois to secure decent traction conditions in this city--adequate service. We have so far succeeded that we have forced an unfriendly city council to pass the new Traction Ordinance. You are familiar with the new Ordinance, Mr. Merriam?"
"Yes," said Merriam. By which we must suppose he meant that he had read headlines about it in the Chicago papers.
"Those rascals," continued Rockwell, "never would have passed it--the men who own them would never have permitted them to pass it, no matter how unmistakable the demand of the people might be,--if they had not counted on one thing."
Merriam perceived that an interrogation was demanded of him and took his cue.
"What is that?" he asked.
"They are counting," said Rockwell impressively, "they are counting on Mayor Black. They have believed the whole time that he can be depended on to veto it. And they are right! The scoundrels usually are. The Mayor, as every one knows, is a mere puppet. He will do as he is told. Only, the League has made such a stir, the people are so tremendously aroused, that he is frightened. And so, before acting, before writing the veto, which he has sense enough to see is likely to mean political suicide, he is coming here to-night to see Senator Norman, to get his instructions. That's what it amounts to. Norman holds the State machine in the hollow of his hand. If Norman tells him to veto, Black will veto. It may be bad for him with the voters if he does it, but it would be certain political death for a man like him to cross Norman.And Norman will say, 'Veto!'"
"I see," said Merriam.
Which was hardly true; he did not as yet see an inch ahead of his nose into this thing, but he thought it sounded well.
"Where do I come in, though?" he added, belying his assumption of sagacity.
"That's my very next point," said Rockwell.
His chair came down on all fours. He squared it to the table, laid his neglected cigarette aside, put his arms on the cloth, and looked very straight at Merriam.
"Are you aware, Mr. Merriam, that you bear a most striking physical resemblance to Senator Norman?"
"I have been told so," said Merriam. "My mother often spoke of it. And--Mrs. Norman mentioned it to me before she was married. I have seen his pictures, of course, in the papers. I have never seen him in person." (This was true, for John Merriam had, quite inexcusably, stayed away from Mollie June's wedding.)
"He has never seen you, then?"
"He probably doesn't know of my existence."
"So much the better," said Rockwell. "The only difficulty then is Mrs. Norman. And she can be eliminated."
This facile elimination of Mollie June did not make an irresistible appeal to Merriam, but he held his tongue.
Alicia Wayward saw the reformer's mistake.
"Mr. Rockwell means," she threw in, "that Mrs. Norman can be shielded from the difficulties of the situation."
"Exactly," said Rockwell quickly. "Mr. Merriam," he continued, "if you have never seen the Senator with your own eyes, you can have no realisation of the closeness of your resemblance to him. Hair, eyes, nose, mouth, size, carriage, manner, movement--it is truly wonderful. And it is the same with your voice. Father Murray here says he fairly jumped when you first spoke to him out in the Cabaret when he went over to question you."
"He also says," interrupted Alicia, as if mischievously, "that it is Providential."
"Please do not be irreverent, Miss Alicia," said the priest. "It does surely seem Providential--on this night of all nights. It surely seems so."
"Well," said Merriam, a trifle bluntly perhaps, "I don't know what you mean by that. If my cousin and I look so much alike as you say, no doubt it's quite remarkable. Still such things happen often enough in families. What of it?"
"I have explained," said Rockwell, with an air of much patience, "that Mayor Black is coming here, to this hotel, to-night, to see Senator Norman about the Ordinance, and that Norman will order him to veto it. We thought we had Norman fixed, but he has gone over to the magnates--as he always does in the end! Black will do as he is bid, and it will be a death blow. We can never pass it over his veto. It means the total ruin of five years of work, involving the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars. And the cause of Reform in this city will be dead for years to come. The League will never survive, if we fail at this last ditch. It will collapse."
"In short," said Alicia sweetly, "Mr. Rockwell himself will collapse."
Rockwell took no heed of her.
"Half an hour ago," he said, "I was sitting yonder in the Cabaret, dining with Miss Wayward and Father Murray. I was eating turtle soup and olives"--he laughed theatrically,--"but I was a desperate man. I had no hope, no interest left in life. Then I looked up and saw you. At first I mistook you for Senator Norman--even I, who have known the old hypocrite for a dozen years. I stared at you, wondering whether I should go over and make one last personal appeal to you--to him. And then I realised that you could not be he. For I knew positively that he was dining in his room. I looked closer. I saw that you were really a younger man--not that massaged, laced old roué. I stared on in my amazement, till Miss Wayward and Father Murray looked too, and Miss Wayward said, 'Why, there's Senator Norman now.' 'By God!' said I, 'perhaps it is!' Do you see, Mr. Merriam?"
"No," said Merriam, "I don't."
"Ah, but you will, you must," said Rockwell. "Listen!" He looked at his watch. "It is now twenty minutes past seven. Norman is dining in his room. There is a man with him, a Mr. Crockett--one of the dozen men who own Chicago. He is as much interested in the Ordinance as I am--on the other side. He is giving Norman his instructions, for the Senator is Crockett's puppet, of course, as much as the Mayor is Norman's. Crockett will leave promptly at a quarter to eight. Mayor Black is due at eight."
"How do you know these things?" interrupted Merriam.
"It is my business to know things," said Rockwell. "The fact is," he added, "I planned to burst in on Norman and Black at their conference and threaten them in the name of the Reform League. It would have done no good, but I owed that much to the League."
"And to yourself," said Alicia softly.
"And to myself, yes!" said Rockwell, infinitesimally pricked at last. But he hurried on:
"At ten minutes to eight, Mr. Merriam, I will telephone Norman. I will pretend to be old Schubert, the Mayor's private secretary. He has a dry, clipped voice that is easy to imitate. I will say that the Mayor is sick at his house. I will imply that he is drunk. He often is. I will say he is not too sick to veto the Ordinance before the Council meets at nine, but that he insists on seeing Senator Norman before he does it and asks that Norman come out to his house. I will say that I am sending a car for him. Norman will curse, but he will go. He is under orders, too, you see. At five minutes to eight we will send up word that Mayor Black's car is waiting for Senator Norman. There will be a car waiting. The driver will be Simpson."
"I can fix it with the hotel people to get him off," said Alicia in response to a look from Merriam. "He was a chauffeur once for a while.--And he will do anything I ask him to," she added.
"Norman will go down and get into that car. He will be driven, not to the Mayor's house, of course, but to--a certain flat, where he will be detained for several hours--very possibly all night."
"By force?" asked Merriam, rather sternly.
"Only by force of the affections," said Rockwell suavely. "The flat belongs, for the time being, to a certain young woman, a manicurist by profession, who is undoubtedly very pretty and in whom Norman--takes an interest. I happen to know that he pays the rent of the flat."
Rockwell paused, but Merriam made no reply. He blushed, subcutaneously at any rate, for Alicia and Father Murray. The latter indeed affected inattention to this portion of Mr. Rockwell's discourse. But Alicia Wayward made no pretence of either misunderstanding or horror.
In Merriam's mind a slight embarrassment quickly gave place to anger. That George Norman after three years--how much sooner who could tell?--should leave Mollie June for a--his mind paused before a word too ancient and too frank for professorial sensibilities.
Rockwell quickly resumed:
"As soon as Norman has gone I will take you to his room. We will put his famous crimson smoking jacket on you and establish you in his big armchair with a cigar and some whiskey and soda beside you. When Black comes he will find Senator Norman--you. All you will have to do is to be curt and sulky, damn him a bit, and tell him to sign the Ordinance. He'll never suspect you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't know the Senator well--never spoke with him privately above three times in his life. We'll have only side lights on. He won't stay. He'll be mightily relieved about the Ordinance and in a hurry to get away. Then you yourself can get away and catch your train for--for----"
"Riceville," supplied Alicia.
"That will be a real adventure for you, young man, and you will have saved the cause of Reform in the city of Chicago!"
John Merriam smiled, frostily.
"The reasons, then, Mr. Rockwell, why I should fraudulently impersonate a Senator of the United States, who happens to be my cousin, and in his name act in an important matter directly contrary to his own wishes are for the fun of the adventure and to save your Reform League from a setback. Is that correct?"
"Philip," said Alicia quickly, "you and Father Murray go for a walk. I want to have a little talk with Mr. Merriam alone. Come back in twenty minutes."
The implication of her last phrase was distinctly flattering to Merriam if he had understood it. Alicia Wayward would not have asked for more than ten minutes with most men.
Rockwell smiled with lowered eyelids--a smile which it was certainly a mistake for him to permit himself, for it could not and did not fail to put Merriam on his guard--against Alicia.
"Come, Murray," said Rockwell rising, "I should like a breath of real air, shouldn't you? And when Miss Wayward commands----" He waved his hand grandly. "Au revoir!"
And he and the priest hastily departed.