CHAPTER IX
Promptly at ten o’clock the Casson limousine deposited Maisie in front of the Pritchard residence. Dan, watching for her appearance from behind the front window curtains, observed that two young women and a fussy, somewhat threadbare little man of undoubted Hebraic ancestry emerged from the limousine and followed her up the stairs.
Julia opened the door and Maisie led her followers into the living room. “Good morning, Dan,” she greeted him and gave him her hand. “I’ve brought half a dozen evening dresses which may or may not impress your ward; also a model to parade the dresses for Tamea’s inspection, and a fitter to note the necessary alterations. Of course, she’ll have to have some street clothes, so I’ve brought Rubenstein, my tailor, to take measurements.”
“By Jupiter, Maisie, you’re a marvel! You think of everything.” He pressed Maisie’s hand in his. “You may ask Miss Larrieau if she will be good enough to come down to the living room, Julia,” he directed.
“I will go up with Julia,” Maisie said, and followed the maid.
The Queen of Riva sat in a small, low chair before the window. She wore a dark silk dressing gown, which the democratic Julia had filched from Dan Pritchard’s clothes closet, and she was gazing down into the street, gray and wet with fog. Her elbows rested on her knees, her face reposed in her hands, and she was weeping, silently and without a quiver. Julia went to her, patted her wet cheek and said:
“Look up, Tammy darlin’. Here is Miss Morrison to see you. Miss Morrison is the kind leddy that sint over the nice dhress for you last night, an’ sure she has tailors an’ cloak models and dhressmakers an’ dhresses downshtairs waitin’ for you.”
Tamea dried her eyes, shook her wonderful hair back over her ivory brow, rose slowly and faced Maisie with a certain cool deliberation. Her eyes swept Maisie’s figure; she forced a smile of greeting.
“I am—happy to—meet—Miss Morrison. When one is—almost—alone and very unhappy—kindness from a stranger is like the sun that comes to dry the sails, following a storm.”
“Her greeting is as regal as her bearing,” was Maisie’s thought. She favored Tamea with a courteous little nod and her bright smile—then held out her hand. Tamea hesitated, then extended her own.
“You are Maisie?” she queried.
“Yes, I am Maisie. How did you know, Miss Larrieau?”
“I guessed,” Tamea answered simply. “You are a much nicer woman than I had expected to meet.”
Maisie flushed, partly with pleasure, partly with embarrassment. “I shall try to be nice to you, Miss Larrieau, always.”
“You may call me Tamea, if you please. I shall call you Maisie.”
“Will ye listen to that!” Julia declared happily. “Sure, Tammy’s no different from the rest of us. She’s in love wit’ you at sight, Miss Morrison, so she is.”
“I think with you, Tamea, that we should dispense with formality. I shall be happy to be your friend and to help you to adjust your life to new conditions.”
“I accept your friendship.” Tamea’s words came slowly, gravely. “You are not a woman of common blood.”
Maisie stepped close to her, removed from her fingers the sodden little ball of a handkerchief and replaced it with a fresh one of filmy lace from her handbag. “Tell my chauffeur to go back to the house and fetch Céleste, my maid,” she ordered Julia. “Between Céleste and me this wonderful hair shall be done exactly right. When you come upstairs again, Julia, bring up those boxes and the two girls in the living room. Rubenstein shall wait.”
“Monsieur Dan Pritchard told me at breakfast that Miss Morrison would call to help me select the clothing which it is fit that I should wear in this country,” said Tamea when they were alone.
“You are a brunette—one of the wonderful, olive-skinned type. With those great dark eyes and that wealth of jet-black hair you will look amazingly chic in something red and silvery or white. May I see your foot, Tamea?”
Tamea sat down and thrust out a brown foot. It was somewhat shorter and broader than Maisie had expected to see, but the arch was high and the toes perfect, with the great toe quite prehensile.
“You have gone barefoot a great deal, Tamea?”
“In Riva, always. In Tahiti I wore sandals.”
“You will have to wear shoes here, Tamea. I think a number five will do, but we must be very particular not to spoil that foot. It is the only natural foot I have ever seen except on a baby. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
Maisie could scarcely believe this statement. Physically Tamea was a fully developed woman, perhaps five feet seven inches tall, a creature of soft curves, yet lithe and graceful and falling just a trifle short of being slim. Her ears were delicately formed but of generous proportions, her neck, sturdy and muscular, swept in beautiful curves to meet a torso full-breasted and deep.
“Her form is perfect, and I believe she has a magnificent back,” thought Maisie. “Her neck and head are Junoesque.”
They were, indeed. Tamea’s head, in shape, resembled her father’s in that it was larger than that of most women, and of that width between the ears which denotes brain capacity and consequently intelligence. Her features were not small; indeed, they were almost large, but of patrician regularity and loveliness of line. Her brow was high and wide, her eyebrows fine, silken and thick, while her eyelashes were extraordinarily long, giving a slightly sleepy appearance to large, intelligent, beautiful eyes of a very dark brown shade—almost black. Her chin was well developed, firm; from behind full, red, healthy lips Maisie saw peeping fine, strong, white, regular teeth. Tamea’s skin was clear to the point of near-transparency and her hands were small with lovely tapered fingers.
“A perfect woman,” thought Maisie. “She is more than beautiful. She is magnificent—and when she has been dressed properly——”
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Julia and the cloak model and fitter. Thereafter, for an hour, Tamea dwelt in paradise. Maisie’s taste, in the matter of dress, was undoubtedly exquisite, and when she discovered that this exotic islander could wear with dignity raiment which, on another woman, would be regarded as flamboyant, Maisie felt that quiet joy which comes to all women who discover beauty or help to create it. Tamea, too, developed all of the interest of her sex in the beautiful garments submitted for her selection; so engrossing was that interest that by the time Rubenstein had departed Tamea’s drooping spirits had been more than a little uplifted. She commanded Julia to summon Dan to admire such portions of her wardrobe as she had already selected.
“My dear, but you must wait until you are fully dressed,” Mrs. Pippy cautioned her. Tamea was barefooted and wearing the skirt of a ready-made tailored suit, but not the coat; neither was she wearing waist or brassiere.
“Why?” she demanded coolly. “Why should I demand of Monsieur Dan Pritchard that he wait upon my pleasure?”
“But you can’t receive him half dressed.”
Tamea, for answer, took from the dresser a large framed photograph of Maisie Morrison in evening dress. “Mademoiselle Maisie was but half dressed when she had this photograph made. Julia, call Monsieur Dan Pritchard.”
Mrs. Pippy’s cold blue eye warned Julia that the price of obedience might be prohibitive. Julia hesitated.
Tamea, Queen of Riva, stamped a bare foot. “Obey me!” she commanded.
“Och, sure now, Tammy, darlin’, listen to Mrs. Pippy, there’s a dear——”
“There will be no talk. Obey!”
“Julia,” said Mrs. Pippy firmly, “in this house you take your orders from me. When Miss Larrieau is properly dressed she may receive Mr. Pritchard, but not before.”
“Julia is my servant. She takes orders from no one but me,” Tamea warned Mrs. Pippy. “Dan Pritchard gave Julia to me.”
“Julia is not a slave, to be given away at will, Miss Larrieau. She must be consulted in such transactions.”
“Did you not accept me as your mistress, Julia?” There could be no evasion.
“I did that,” Julia confessed weakly.
“Summon Monsieur Dan Pritchard. Take no heed of this woman—this Pippy.”
“If you disobey me, Julia,” Mrs. Pippy warned, “I shall be forced to dismiss you without a reference.”
“If you disobeyme, Julia,” Tamea countered, “I shall dismiss you but not until you have been beaten. In my country that is how bad servants are treated.”
Julia appealed to Maisie. “What shall I do, Miss Morrison?”
Maisie sighed. “It is apparent, Julia,” she replied, “that Mrs. Pippy and Tamea have not hit it off very well together. Mrs. Pippy’s position in this house must not, she very properly feels, be questioned. Tamea, who has doubtless never heretofore had her authority questioned, has elected to make an issue of the seat of authority. We will seek a compromise.” She turned to Tamea and smiled upon her kindly. “Will you please me, Tamea, by declining to oppose Mrs. Pippy’s authority in this house?”
“I will not, Maisie, although I am sorry not to be kind to you. I am not one accustomed to taking orders and I will not have this Pippy thwart my desires. As you say, I have elected to force the issue. It is better thus. Why wait? Julia, for the last time, I order you to obey my command.”
“Heaven help me!” groaned Julia, and turned to open the door. Mrs. Pippy’s cool, firm voice halted her.
“Julia!”
“I’m thinkin’, Mrs. Pippy, ye’ll have a hard time queenin’ it over a rale queen,” said Julia. She made Mrs. Pippy a curious curtsy. “I quits yer service, ma’am,” she announced, thereby in the language of the sporting world beating the excellent Mrs. Pippy to the punch. The door closed behind her.
“You are dismissed. Pack and leave at once.” Thus the Pippy edict, shouted after the retiring maid.
Tamea smiled and watched the door until Dan Pritchard knocked on it.
“Come, Dan Pritchard,” Tamea called. She was standing in the center of the room, on parade as it were, when he entered and permitted his amazed glance to rest upon her. Maisie saw him recoil perceptibly, saw him as quickly become master of the situation.
“Well, well, what a marvelous apparition!” was all he said.
“You like these garments?”
“Indeed I do, Tamea. Put the coat on, please, until I see the fit of it. . . .” He sat down and waited until Tamea had finished. Then: “Stunning, by Jupiter! Maisie, I’m so grateful to you for helping Tamea and me. You’re the shadow of a rock in a weary land.”
He approached Tamea and fingered the material in her suit. “Do you think this is quite heavy enough, Maisie?” he queried anxiously. “Our climate is not quite so salubrious as our little queen is accustomed to.”
Tamea came close to him, grasping each lapel, gazing upward at him with frank approval and admiration.
“You would not care to have your Tamea die?” she queried.
“Indeed, my dear, I would not.”
“You would not care to have your Tamea put out of this warm house to suffer in the cold?”
“Certainly not.”
“You will never, never put Tamea away from you?”
“Great Scot, no! I promised your father I’d take care of you, child. What’s worrying you?”
Tamea sighed. “I have felt the necessity to leave this house,” she confessed, “unless assured that my orders to my servant will not be interfered with. Pippy grows very—well, what you call—fresh!”
Dan sensed the approach of a cyclone and hastily sought the cellar. “My dear Tamea,” he assured her, “it is conceivable that you may findmegrowing what you call fresh if you seek to impose your will on mine. Mrs. Pippy’s orders to the servants of this house must be obeyed by those servants. Meanwhile, try to be nice and—er—polite to Mrs. Pippy.”
“I think you ought to know what Tamea is driving at, Dan,” Maisie interposed. “Tamea is in open rebellion against Mrs. Pippy and the disaffection has spread to Julia.”
“Mr. Pritchard,” said Mrs. Pippy with great dignity, “I have found it necessary to dismiss Julia for insubordination.”
“Julia belongs to me. Pippy cannot dismiss my Julia, can she, dear Dan Pritchard?” Thus the unhappy man was caught between the cross-fire of the conflicting pair. Dan looked helplessly at Maisie, who eyed him sympathetically and humorously. “Let there be no weakness here,” Tamea warned. “I would have my answer.”
“Why, of course, you asked me for Julia and I said you could have her,” Dan began. At that moment Julia entered the room. “Julia,” Dan queried, “do you desire to remain in the service of Miss Larrieau?”
“Humph! Faith, I’ve never left her ser’rvice, sir.”
“Mrs. Pippy informs me she has dismissed you.”
“The back o’ me hand to Mrs. Pippy.” Julia had started running true to her racial instincts, which dictate a bold, offensive spirit in the face of disaster.
“Julia remains!” cried Tamea.
“Julia goes!”
Devoutly Dan wished that an old-fashioned magician were on hand to render him invisible.
“Dear Mrs. Pippy,” he pleaded, “I appeal to the undoubted wisdom of your years—to your innate sense of proportion—er—to your—why, dash it all, this difference of opinion about Julia has me in the very deuce of a box. Surely you must realize, Mrs. Pippy, the total lack of reason, of understanding, from our viewpoint, in this child!”
“Oh,” Tamea interrupted coldly, “you think I am a fool!” Suddenly she commenced to cry and cast herself, sobbing, upon the Pritchard breast.
He glanced over her heaving ivory shoulders to Mrs. Pippy, then to Maisie. “I’ve taken a big contract,” he complained.
“Julia goes,” said Mrs. Pippy firmly.
Tamea heard the edict and her round, wonderful arms clasped Dan Pritchard a trifle tighter—it seemed that her heart was just one notch closer to disintegration.
“Julia stays,” she sobbed. “You gave Julia to your Tamea—yes, you did—you did—you did!”
Suddenly, impelled by what cosmic force he knew not, Dan Pritchard made his decision and with it precipitated upon his defenseless head a swarm of troubles. “Excuse me, dear Mrs. Pippy,” he said gently. “I am sorry to have to veto your decision, which I trust is not an unalterable one. Julia—confound her Celtic skin—stays!”
Mrs. Pippy bowed her silvery head with the utmost composure and swept magnificently from the room; Tamea raised her tear-stained face from Dan’s breast, took a Pritchard ear in each hand, drew his face down to hers and rewarded him for his fearless stand with a somewhat moist and fervent kiss. Maisie, watching the tableau composedly, felt a sharp, sudden stab of resentment against Tamea—or was it jealousy?
“Well, that’s settled,” she remarked dryly, and Dan sensed the sting.
He looked at his watch. “Got to be going down to the office,” he mumbled, presenting the first excuse for escape that came to his mind. His anxious glance searched Maisie’s blue eyes in vain for that humorous glint that had marked them when he first entered the room. “Please help me, Maisie,” he murmured appealingly. “I’ve got my hands full.”
Maisie nodded. “I’ll try to undo the mischief, Dan. By the way, Uncle John told me something this morning that you ought to know. He’s up to his silly eyebrows in the rice market.”
“The double-crossing old idiot! I had begun to suspect he was up to some skull-duggery. I was on his trail and would have smoked him out in a day or two.”
“I imagine that is why he told Auntie and me about it. He wanted me to break the news to you, I think.”
Dan’s head hung low on his breast—the sad Abraham Lincoln look was in his face and in his troubled eyes. Tamea, looking up at him very soberly now, read the distress which, momentarily, he could not conceal; in a sudden burst of sympathy her arm started to curve around his neck.
“Oh, stop it, stop it, Tamea!” Maisie cried sharply. “Mr. Pritchard is not accustomed to such intimate personal attentions from comparative strangers.”
Tamea drew away from Dan quickly.
“Dress yourself!” Maisie commanded. “Julia, help her. Dan, run along and try not to worry.”
Tamea’s eyes flashed, but nevertheless she sat down and when Julia handed her a pair of black silken hose she commenced dutifully to draw them on.
“Much obliged for the tip, Maisie. I’ll start a riot in Casson and Pritchard’s office this very day. By the way, I think Mrs. Pippy is on her high horse. Please try to wheedle her down.”
“Mrs. Pippy has resigned, Dan.”
“The deuce she has; how do you know?”
“Why, any woman of spirit would.”
He pondered this.
“Oh, well, let her go if she wants to. She’s scarcely human at times. Well, if she insists upon leaving I’ll give her a year’s salary in advance. . . . Damnation. . . . Good morning, Maisie, dear. Please try to reason with—the sundry females about this house. . . . Tamea, I go to my office. Be a good girl.”
“You are my father and my mother,” she replied humbly. “I will kiss you farewell.” And she did it.
“This primitive young witch has been in this house less than twenty-four hours and already she has kissed that defenseless man twice in my presence. I have known Dan all my life—and I have kissed him but once,” Maisie thought.
The stab of resentment, of jealousy, perhaps, was more poignant this time; in addition Maisie was just a little bit peeved at the ease with which Tamea had achieved her victory.
Maisie had sufficient imagination to understand why Tamea, daughter of a thousand despots, with the instinct to rule complicated by the desire, must be excused for precipitating the clash with Mrs. Pippy. But what Maisie could also understand very clearly, since she too was a woman, was that Tamea, by the grace of her sex and her shameless effrontery in using every wile of that sex, was likely to become absolute master of Dan Pritchard’s establishment. The man was helpless before her. Maisie permitted a challenging gleam in the glance which she now bent upon Tamea.
Tamea intercepted that glance and interpreted it correctly. It was as if Maisie had heliographed to her: “Young lady, you’ve got a fight on your hands.” Without an instant’s hesitation Tamea’s smoky orbs acknowledged the message and flashed back the reply: “Very well. I accept the challenge.”
Then Maisie smiled, and Tamea, with hot resentment in her heart, smiled back.
CHAPTER X
Dan left his home with the alacrity of one who seeks escape from a most uncomfortable situation. As a bachelor he was conscious of the fact that this morning there had been four women too many in his life. He cringed from the prospect of having Mrs. Pippy resign his service in a huff. He hoped she would, under Maisie’s cogent reasoning, consent to make allowances for Tamea until Maisie should have impressed upon the latter the fact that in a white democracy a South Sea Island queen was expected to be seen and not heard.
“Tamea is such a child,” Dan told himself. “And a spoiled child at that. Old Gaston has permitted her to do exactly as she pleased, and now the task of correcting that mistake is mine. It isn’t going to be an easy task, and what’s more I haven’t the slightest idea where to commence and where to stop. . . . What fragrant hair she has. . . such an appealing creature. When she weeps she’s just a broken-hearted little girl . . . makes me want to take her on my knee and soothe her. . . .
“Maisie’s nose went up a trifle the first time the child kissed me, and there was steel in her voice when she reproved Tamea. Fine state of affairs if she and Tamea fail to hit it off together and Tamea elects to use me as a club to hurt Maisie. I have a feeling it would be like her to try! Come to think of it, most women would! As soon as Tamea has adjusted herself to her new life, I’ll pack her off to some select school.”
He picked up the annunciator and ordered Graves to halt alongside the first newsstand he could find. Thus presently he found himself with half a dozen magazines, skimming through their advertising pages in search of some hint of the most advantageous school for girls of Tamea’s sort. Preferably the school should be situated in the center of a boundless prairie; as an additional safeguard, it should be surrounded by a very tall barbed-wire fence or a cactus hedge and sans communication with the outside world.
By the time Graves had deposited him on the sidewalk before his office building the problem of the right school was as far from solution as ever, and a growing resentment against Gaston of the Beard was rising in Dan’s heart. Down under the Southern Cross the problem of living was an easy one. Why, then, had Gaston transplanted this girl to a land where the problem was so complicated—where she was so certain to add to the complications?
“I feel tremendous events portending,” Dan soliloquized. “The very foundations of my life are tottering.”
On his desk he found a memorandum from his secretary to the effect that he was to call Miss Morrison at his home the moment he came in.
“Hello, Dan’l!” Maisie’s voice carried a triumphant note that cheered him wonderfully. “I merely wanted to relieve your mind of your domestic worries before you crossed swords with Uncle John. I have had a talk with Mrs. Pippy and she will remain—for the present at least.”
“I’ll raise her monthly stipend very materially,” he answered gratefully. “Have you talked to Tamea?”
“No, but I shall, Dan. I realize the precise proportions of the predicament your generous acceptance of a white man’s burden has placed you in. So, my dear, I dare say I shall have to stand at thy right hand and hold the bridge with thee.”
“God bless you for that, Maisie. I think Tamea is a wonderfully affectionate girl—fiery, but generous, loyal and grateful, but hard to handle. She must be appealed to through her heart rather than her head.”
“You don’t know anything about it, Dan.” Maisie rather bit that sentence off short. “That’s her plan for ruling you—via your soft heart and your softer head. The girl Tamea has brains, she can reason and she can understand, and the instant she realizes that your words of wisdom are about to undermine her opposition to your desires, she will make a flying leap for your manly breast——”
“Do you really think she might develop such a habit?”
“Dan, she’s a fully developed woman——”
“Don’t build me a mare’s nest, Maisie. She’s just a little girl.”
“Have it your way. But I warn you she’s the sort of little girl that a respectable bachelor cannot afford to have around his house a day longer than is quite necessary. That sounds catty, Dan, but I know whereof I speak.”
“Yes, I suppose I’ll have to do something radical and do it quickly,” he agreed. “Thank you, Maisie—a million thanks.”
“Happy to be of service to you, old boy.”
“Maisie! Will you accord me another favor?”
“Certainly. What is it?”
“Consider yourself duly and affectionately kissed.”
“Oh! Dan, you’re developing a habit. But don’t you think two kisses are quite sufficient to start the day with?”
“That was a little mean feminine jab, Maisie. Good-by. I’m going to hang up.”
He did, albeit smiling and much relieved. He could now turn to the task of standing old John Casson on the latter’s snowy head, so to speak, and see how much rice would run out of his pockets.
Experience had taught Dan that the best way to handle his partner was to rough him from the start, for, like all weak and pompous men, Casson was not superabundantly endowed with courage or the ability to think fast and clearly under fire. He would fight defensively but never offensively, and Dan had discovered the great fundamental truth that the offensive generally wins, the defensive never.
He summoned his secretary. “Miss Mather, please inform Mr. Casson that I desire to confer with him—in my office—immediately.”
As he had anticipated, old Casson obeyed him without question.
“Well, boy, what have you got on your mind this morning?” he began genially.
“Rice,” Dan answered curtly. “Sit down.”
Casson walked to the window, looked out over the vista of bay and commenced thinking as rapidly as he could under the circumstances.
“I told you to sit down,” Dan reminded him crisply. “I mean it. Sit down and face me. I want to look into your face and smoke the deception out of it.”
“By the gods of war, I’ll not stand such talk from any man!” Old Casson had decided to bluster.
Dan glowered at him. “You’ll stand it from me. You’ve got some rice deals on in this crazy market and you’ve kept the news of your operations from me. Have you speculated any in coffee or sugar?”
“No, no, Dan. Nothing but rice.”
“What sort of rice have you committed us to—California or Oriental?”
“Both.”
“Playing alone or in a pool?”
“Alone.”
“How much California rice have you purchased?”
“One million sacks.”
“Paid for any of it?”
“Half of it. Balance in sixty days.”
“Where is the rice?”
“Scattered in various warehouses throughout the upper Sacramento valley.”
“I didn’t notice that our bank account had been particularly depleted during the month I was in Hawaii. You bought the rice on open credit, hypothecated the warehouse receipts with various banks, paid for half the rice with the proceeds and used the remainder of the loan to pyramid with. I suppose you sunk that in a little jag of Philippine rice.”
“I did,” Casson admitted, flushed and anxious. He had seated himself, facing Dan.
“Holding your warehoused rice for a rising market, eh?”
“Exactly.”
“Suppose the bottom drops out?”
Casson shrugged and for the first time smiled. “I think, Pritchard, you’ll have to admit that I’ve put one over on you this time, and what’s more, you’re going to like it. I bought that California rice at prices ranging from nine and a quarter to ten and a half cents per pound, and today it is worth twenty. We stand to clean up a hundred thousand dollars on that lot alone.”
“We are engaged in legitimate business, not food profiteering. Can you dispose of that million sacks readily?”
“Had an offer of twenty cents for it this morning.”
“Reliable people?”
“Rated up to five million, A-A-A-one.”
“Cash?”
“No, ninety days.”
“Suspicious. Don’t like ninety-day paper. The banks are beginning to discriminate in their loans. All over the country there has been a wide expansion of credit in all lines, due to war-time prosperity, and my guess is that the demand for credit will soon result in the usual banking situation. The banks will discover that their loans have so increased as to be out of proportion to their reserves and deposits; and if the banks once get frightened, business will be crippled overnight.”
“Pooh, no danger of that for a couple of years yet, Pritchard.”
“On that subject I prefer sounder advice than yours, Mr. Casson. Call up the people who want that rice and tell them we’re willing to cut our price considerably if they will pay cash.”
“Sorry, but it can’t be done, my boy. I’ve already traded on a ninety-day basis. Don’t worry. We’re perfectly safe.”
“With you, the wish is father to the thought. How much Oriental rice have you bought?”
“We’ve got the British steamer Malayan loading a cargo of eight thousand tons in Manila, for Havana, Cuba. On or about the middle of next month the steamer Chinook will load four thousand tons at Shanghai, for delivery at Havana.”
“Our specialty, of which we have a good, safe, working knowledge, is South Sea products—mostly copra, and the operation of ships. The shoemaker should stick to his last. Now, then, listen to my ultimatum. If the sun sets today and leaves Casson and Pritchard the proprietors of rice stored anywhere except in our respective kitchens, you and I are going to dissolve partnership about an hour after the sun rises tomorrow. And, whether you realize it or not, the moment our partnership is dissolved, that moment you start tobogganing to ruin.”
Casson rose and stretched himself carelessly. “Oh, well, boy,” he replied, the patronizing quality of his words driving Dan into a silent fury, “suppose we leave the crossing of our bridges until we come to them.”
Dan’s fist smashed down on his desk with a thud that caused old Casson and the inkwell to jump simultaneously. “We’ll cross our bridges today,” he roared, “and we’ll start now. Sit down, you consummate old jackass!”
Casson trembled, paled and sat down very abruptly. “My dear Dan, control yourself,” he stammered.
“I’ll control myself, never fear. My chief job is controlling you. How dare you commit me to ruin without consulting me?”
“Ruin? Ridiculous! Only a fool would have neglected this golden opportunity—and I’m the senior member of this firm and a sixty percent owner in it.” Simulating righteous indignation, Casson too commenced to pound Dan’s desk.
“No bluffs!” Dan ordered, and took down the intercommunicating office telephone. The chief clerk responded. “Bring to me immediately all of the data pertaining to Mr. Casson’s rice operations,” he ordered. He hung up and faced Casson. “That will be all, Mr. Casson. From this moment you are out of the rice market and I’m in it. I’ll attend to the marketing of more rice than this firm is worth.”
“Pritchard, I forbid this!”
“Very well.” Dan reached for his hat. “I’m going up to our banker and tell him all about your rice deals. A business man should be as frank with his banker as with his lawyer. You’ll get your orders from the man higher up. If a loss threatens us, I prefer to have the blow fall now.”
The battle was over. “Oh, have it your own way, my boy!” Casson cried disgustedly and with a wave of his plump hand absolved himself from any and all disasters that might overtake the firm.
Half an hour later a well-known rice broker appeared in Dan’s office in response to the latter’s telephoned request.
“This firm,” Dan announced, “owns eight thousand tons of rice now loading for Havana, in Manila. It owns four thousand tons due to be loaded in thirty days at Shanghai. Is that rice quickly salable?”
“How soon do you want it sold?”
“Immediately.”
“Can do—at a price.”
“Do it!” Dan Pritchard commanded. “And if you can dig me up a cash customer—at a cent or two under the market—I’ll pay you an extra quarter of one per cent commission.”
“Cash, eh? Well, that’s a bit doubtful. However, that extra commission will make me work. I’ll report when I have something you can get your teeth into.”
“May I hope to hear from you today?”
“Scarcely. The market’s a bit off—somewhat sluggish. Trading has been pretty rapid of late, and the opinion prevails in some quarters that the market has about reached the point of saturation.”
“Many traders unloading?”
“Oh, no! Everybody is still holding on for a further rise in price, which I personally believe will come. We’re all optimists in the rice market.”
“Well, I’m a pessimist, but only because I do not care for rice. I have never dealt in it before and I don’t know anything about the rice market. Frankly, I’m closing out some trades of Mr. Casson’s under his protest. My instructions to you are practically to throw Casson’s trades overboard in order to get us out of the rice market.”
The broker eyed him keenly. “No necessity for getting stampeded and breaking the market,” he suggested.
The remainder of that day Dan devoted to Tamea’s business. First he went to the Appraisers’ Building and declared the pearls which Gaston had smuggled in on the Moorea. Having paid the duty on them, he called on the leading jewelers and had them appraised again, after which he added ten per cent to the appraisal value and sold the entire lot to a wholesale jeweler for cash. He reasoned, very wisely, that at the height of a period of such prosperity as the country had not hitherto known, the selected pearls of Gaston of the Beard would never bring a better price. He then deposited all of her funds to the credit of “Daniel Pritchard, guardian of Tamea Oluolu Larrieau, a minor,” in a number of savings banks. He next called upon his attorney, who drew up, at his request a formal petition to the Superior Court for letters of guardianship for Tamea.
Yes, Dan was a practical business man, a slave to the accepted forms. He was taking his office as Tamea’s guardian so very seriously that his position was analogous to that of the man who failed to see the woods because of the trees. It did not occur to him that the administration of an estate for a minor who knew nothing of the value of money and cared less, who had never known discipline and who yielded instantly to every elemental human desire and instinct, might be provocative of much distress and loss of sleep to him. On the contrary, what he did do was to return to his office hugely satisfied with the world as at that moment constituted.
CHAPTER XI
At four o’clock Dan telephoned his home and ascertained from Sooey Wan that Tamea and Maisie had gone out together.
He decided, therefore, to return to his office and look over the mail; perchance he might find there some comforting light on the rice situation.
As he came into the general office his secretary called to him that Mr. Mellenger was in his office, waiting to see him; that he had been waiting there since one o’clock.
Dan nodded comprehendingly and walked into the ambuscade. Mellenger was seated in Dan’s chair. He had his feet up on the window sill and in his left hand he held a cigar.
“Well, old horse thief,” he murmured with lazy cordiality, “you’ve given me quite a wait. Have you told the story to any other newspaper?”
“What story, you fat parasite?”
“Romantic skipper, leprosy, suicide, lovely half-caste daughter of royal blood, to be adopted by well-known young business man of highest social standing. Where is her photograph, and if no photo be available, where is she?” He touched with his toe a camera on the floor beside him. “Great story,” he continued. “Front page stuff. Got to give it a spread.”
“I could spread your nose for news all over your impudent countenance,” Dan retorted irritably. “There must be no publicity on this matter, Mel!”
“Got to be, my son. The doctor of the public health service who examined your shipmaster yesterday boarded the Moorea this morning to remove the man to quarantine, and was informed by the mate that the leprous one had gone over the rail and failed to come up. That doctor suspects Larrieau has escaped—and you know they can’t afford to have a leper running around on the loose. All the water front reporters have part of the story from the doctor and part from old Casson and they’re satisfied with that, but I’m here to get the facts.”
“I understand you’ve been here since one o’clock.”
Mellenger nodded. “My day off, Dan, but the city editor knew how close you and I have always been, so he called me up at my hotel and asked me to get the story.”
“Call him up and tell him that I decline to be interviewed.”
“Sorry, but I must interview you. I’ve already interviewed by telephone old Casson, Miss Morrison, Mrs. Pippy, Julia, Sooey Wan and Graves. The crew of the Moorea I have seen personally. I’ve got a crackerjack story but I want a better one. Sooey Wan said he thought you’d marry the queen about a week from tomorrow.”
“That Chink is absolutely out of control.”
“You leave him alone. He’s a friend of mine. And you’ll be interviewed!” He puffed at his cigar and looked sorrowfully out over the roofs of the city. “Only one way to handle a newspaper man,” he ruminated. “Receive him, ignore him or kill him. Ah, to be rich and beloved by a queen—to dwell in marble halls, with vassals and serfs rendering snappy service!”
“Mel, don’t be an ass. Don’t insist upon injecting a romantic note into this story.”
“Sooey Wan says he’ll back her against the field at a hundred to one, and any time Sooey has a celestial hunch I’ll play it.”
“Mel, you shouldn’t discuss my private affairs with my servants——”
The knight of the pad and pencil waved him into silence. “Sooey Wan isn’t a servant, Dan. He’s an institution who accepts a hundred and fifty dollars a month from you just to please you and perpetuate the institution. Why shouldn’t the old idol discuss you with me? Haven’t I been dining at your house every Thursday night for ten years? Sooey Wan knows I think almost as much of you as he does. Come, I’m listening.”
In five minutes the tale was told.
“Her photograph,” Mellenger insisted.
“You cannot have it.”
“One of the crew—by name Kahanaha—found this one for me in the late skipper’s desk,” the imperturbable Mellenger informed him, and produced a photograph of Tamea, hibiscus-crowned, barefooted, garbed in a dotted calico Mother Hubbard.
“Hideous as death,” Dan growled and snatched at it.
But Mellenger whisked it away. “It is, as you say, hideous, but if no other photograph is available we shall be forced regretfully to use it. Woodley, of the Chronicle, has one like it, but I know I can prevail upon him to hand it back for something more recent and not so colorful.”
“He shall have it.”
“You understood I couldn’t permit Woodley to scoop me on the photograph.”
There was a knock at the door and Miss Mather entered. “Miss Morrison and Miss Larrieau are in the general office, asking to see you, Mr. Pritchard.”
“God is good and the devil not half bad,” murmured Mellenger and picked up his camera. “Certainly, Miss Mather. Admit the ladies, by all means.”
To Dan he said: “I’ve always wished I might live to see a queen enter a room. Tall, stately, majestic, coldly beautiful, they sweep through the door with a long undulating stride—Judas priest!”
“Chéri!Look at me, Dan.” From the door, violently flung open, Tamea’s golden voice challenged his admiration. For one breathless instant she stood, alert, seemingly poised for flight, a glorious creature gloriously garbed, her arms held toward him, beseeching his approval; the next she was rushing to him, to fling those arms around his neck and implant a chaste salute upon each cheek.
She thrust him from her, ignored Mellenger and struck a pose.
“There, dear one,” she pleaded, “is your Tamea, then, so much uglier than the women of your own race?”
“You are perfectly glorious, Tamea.”
“As the aurora borealis,” Mellenger spoke up.
Tamea, seemingly not aware of his presence until now, turned upon him eyes which frankly sought a confirmation of the enthusiasm and pride she read in Dan’s. “You like me, too?”
“Queen, you’re adorable.”
He glanced past her to Maisie Morrison, standing, flushed and faintly smiling, in the doorway. Maisie was gazing with an eager intensity at Dan Pritchard, who saw her not. Mellenger twitched the tail of Dan’s coat, and the latter, as if summoned out of a trance, turned and gazed at him inquiringly.
“Introduce me, fool, introduce me!” Mellenger suggested, and Dan complied.
Maisie acknowledged the introduction with a cordial nod and a weary little smile, but Tamea thrust out her long, beautiful hand. “How do you do, Mr. Mel. How are all your people? Very well, I hope.” She swung around to give him a view of her from the back.
“Marvelous,” he declared. “Your Majesty is so beautiful I must make a picture of you at once.”
With the adroitness of his profession he set his camera up on the telephone stand, posed Tamea where the late afternoon sun shone through the window and photographed her half a dozen times; then, with a promise to Tamea to send her prints, he bowed himself out to have the films developed and write his story.
Dan in the meantime had provided seats for both his visitors.
“So that’s Mark Mellenger,” said Maisie. “I wish he had stayed longer. I have a curiosity to know anybody who loves you, Dan.”
“Old Mel is the salt of the earth,” he declared warmly. “When we were in college together he was editor of the college daily and I was by way of being a cartoonist. In those days we were the heroes of the campus, and thoughtless enthusiasts used to predict for each of us the prompt acquisition of a niche in the Hall of Fame. Mel was to write the great American novel and I was to create riots among millionaires anxious to buy my pictures.” He shrugged ruefully, nor did he note Maisie’s wistful smile as he turned to the radiant Tamea. “I’ll paint you, you tropical goddess,” he soliloquized audibly. “You’ve had a fine time in the shops today, eh, my dear?”
“It was very wonderful, Dan Pritchard.”
Dan turned to Maisie. “You’re so good and kind, Maisie, and your taste is always so exquisite. In this instance it is more than exquisite. It is exotic.”
“I cannot claim credit for it, Dan. All I did was bring Tamea to the best shops. What she is wearing is entirely of her own selection.”
“But, Maisie, how could she?”
“You forget that Tamea is half French. She has been born with a positive genius for artistic adornment.”
He and Tamea exchanged approving smiles. “And is our Tamea an extravagant girl?” he queried.
“Tamea,” said Maisie bluntly, “would bankrupt Midas.”
“For money,” quoth Tamea, “I care not that much!” She snapped her fingers. “But why should I love money? Is money not to be used to make men happy and women beautiful in the eyes of their men, that they may hold them against other women?”
“I suppressed your ward’s spending frenzy as well as I could, Dan, but nevertheless we spent nearly two thousand dollars.”
Dan came close to Maisie. He had noticed for the first time how tired she looked; in her weariness he detected a wistfulness and a repression that told him Maisie’s patience had been sorely tried. “I suspect your work today has required all that you had of fortitude and courage, Maisie.” He pinched her pale cheek and then patted the spot he had pinched. “You’re a great comfort to me, Maisie.”
“Well, that helps, Dan. I think if Tamea had not been permitted to dash home with her purchases, array herself in fine raiment and return here to dazzle you, the day would have been quite spoiled for her. The excitement has been good for her, I think. She has not had time to grieve for her father.”
“My father dwells happily in Paliuli with my mother. I will not grieve for him again. I will live now to be happy.”
“And make others happy, too, dear?” Maisie suggested.
“Certainement!But first I must know others and learn how to make them happy.”
“We will be patient and teach you, Tamea. By the way, Dan, it’s time to close down your desk, isn’t it? I’ll leave Tamea to you now until you need me again.”
She gave him her hand and he noticed it was very cold.
“Poor old dear,” he whispered as he escorted her into the hall. “I’ve an idea you’ve had the very devil of a day.”
“Naturally. I went shopping with an imp, didn’t I?”
He raised his extra high eyebrow a trifle higher. “Is she very hard to manage?”
“She is.”
“Any hope at all?”
“I’m afraid I’m not a fair judge, Dan. Every little while she grows impulsively angelic. She doesn’t like me a bit, yet today, after my maid Céleste had come over and done the imp’s hair, Tamea assured me I was very sweet and kissed me. She has a perfect passion for having her own way.”
“I’ll have to be firm with her, Maisie.”
“Don’t be humorous, Dan. In her hands you are as clay.”
“Nonsense! She’s just a simple child of nature. With tactful handling——”
Maisie was suddenly furious. “Oh, you’re such a helpless, lovable booby! You are the one man in this world whom Providence has selected as the rightful receiver of gold bricks. Why did you take on this frightful responsibility? Wouldn’t it have been far simpler and less expensive to have urged upon her father the wisdom of sending her back to her outlandish island to queen it over the cannibals instead of——”
“Instead of whom, Maisie?”
“Instead of setting your little world by the ears? You just cannot begin to imagine the terrific time I had inducing Mrs. Pippy to remain.”
“Deuce take Mrs. Pippy!” he protested. “She ought to thank her lucky stars for the chance to remain. The first time she met Tamea she looked down her nose at the child——”
“What you do not seem to comprehend, Dan, is that Tamea isnota child.”
“Well, Maisie, all I’ve got to say is that whether Tamea be a child or a woman, an imp or an angel, I promised her father I’d look after her, and I’m going to do it. If she refuses to be directed, if she declines to be obedient, I’ll——”
“Yes, you’ll——”
“You do not like her, Maisie?”
“Oh, I do not dislike her. She merely startles me. She is such a flashy, exotic, alien sort of person, voicing whatever thoughts pop into her head, and with the most extraordinary ideas and outlook on life. She told me all about an Englishman in Riva who was madly in love with her. He was a drunken profligate, and she would have none of him because he was dull and stupid, not because he was such an out-and-out scoundrel. She speaks of sinful people as impersonally as we would of some unfortunate who has measles or tuberculosis.” He laughed. “I suppose you realize, Dan, that to keep Tamea in your home hereafter will be to invite gossip and criticism from those who do not know you so well as we do.”
“But what shall I do with the girl?”
“Send her to a hotel or a convent,” was Maisie’s suggestion.
“Very well, Maisie. You spoke of a convent. That’s a splendid idea. A convent’s the very place for Tamea. I wonder where I might find a good one.”
Maisie brightened perceptibly. “I’ll look one up for you.”
She gave him her hand and he pressed it tenderly. “You’re mighty sweet,” he murmured. “I do appreciate you tremendously. Good night, dear.”
Instantly there was in her face a flash of the Maisie of yesterday, the light he had seen there when he kissed her. “Good night, booby,” she whispered. “Think of me once in a while.”
“I think of you more frequently than that.”
“I’m glad.”
“You nuisance! You interfere with my conduct of business.”
“I rejoice in my mendacity. You might walk to the elevator with me, Dan.”
He did, and they talked there five minutes longer before Maisie finally left him.