In due time Sunny opened the upper door of the oven, withdrew two luscious looking pans of the crispest brown rice cakes, plentifully besprinkled with dates and nuts and over which she dusted powdered sugar, and passing by the really suffering Jinx she transferredthe pans to the window ledge, saying with a smile:
"When he are cool, I giving you one, Jinx."
Wiping her hands on the roller towel, she had Jinx pull the smock over her head, and revealed her small person in blue taffeta frock, which Jinx himself had had the honour of choosing for her. Unwillingly, and with one longing backward look at those cakes, Jinx followed Sunny into the studio. Here, removed from the intoxicating effects of that kitchen, Sunny having his full attention again, he came to the object of his call. Jinx sat forward on the edge of his chair, and his round, fat face looked so comically like the man in the moon's that Sunny could not forbear smiling at him affectionately.
"Ho! Jinx, how you are going to lig' those cake when he is getting cold."
Jinx liked them hot just as well. However, he was not such a gourmand that mere rice and date cakes could divert him from the purpose of his call. He sighed so deeply and his expression revealed such a condition of melancholy appeal that Sunny, alarmed, moved over and took his face up in her hand, examining it like a little doctor, head cocked on one side.
"Jinx, you are sick? What you are eat? Show me those tongue!"
"Aw, it's nothing, Sunny—nothing to do with my tongue. It's—it's—just a little heart trouble, Sunny."
"Heart! That are bad place be sick! You are ache on him, Mr. dear Jinx?"
"Ye-eh—some."
"I sawry! How I are sawry! You have see doctor."
"You're the only doctor I need."
Which was true enough. It was surprising the healing effects upon Jinx's aching heart of the solicitous and sympathetic hovering about him of Sunny.
"Oh, Jinx, I go at those telephone ride away, get him Mr. Doctor here come. I 'fraid mebbe you more sick than mebbe you know."
"No, no—never mind a doctor." Jinx held her back by force. "Look-a-here, Sunny, I'll tell you just what's the matter with my heart. I'm—I'm—in love!"
"Oh—love. I have hear those word bi-fore, but I have never feel him," said Sunny wistfully.
"You'll feel it some day all right," groaned Jinx. "And you'll know it too when you've got it."
"Ad Japan nobody—love. Thas not nize word speag ad Japan."
"Gosh! it's the nicest word in the language in America. You can't help speaking it. You can't help feeling it. When you're in love, Sunny, you think day and night and every hour and minute and second of the day of the same person. That's love, Sunny."
"Ah!" whispered Sunny, her eyes very bright and dewey, "I areknowhim then!" And she stood with that rapt look, scarcely hearing Jinx, and brought back to earth only when he took her hand, and clung to it with both his own somewhat flabby ones.
"Sunny, I'm head over heels in love with you. Put me out of my misery. Say you'll be Mrs. Crawford, and you'll see how quickly this old bunged up heart of mine will heal."
"Oh, Jinx, you are askmeto make marry wiz you?"
"You bet your life I am. Gosh! I've got an awful case on you, Sunny."
"Ho! I sawry I kinnod do thad to-day. I am not good ad my healt'. Axscuse me. Mebbe some odder day I do so."
"Any day will do. Any day that suits you, if you'll just give me your promise—if you'll just be engaged to me."
"Engaged?" Bobs had already explained to her what that meant, but she repeated it to gain time.
"Why, yes—don't they have engagements in Japan?"
"No. Marriage broker go ad girl's father and boy's father and make those marriage."
"Well, this is a civilised land. We do things right here. You're a lucky girl to have escaped from Japan. Here, in this land, we first get engaged, say for a week or month or even a year—only a short time will do for you and me, Sunny—and then, well, we marry. How about it?"
Sunny considered the question from several serious angles, very thoughtful, very much impressed.
"Jinx, I do nod like to make marriage, bi-cause thas tie me up wiz jos one frien' for hosban'."
"But you don't want more than one husband?"
Jinx remembered hearing somewhere that the Japanese were a polygamous nation, but he thought that only applied to the favoured males of the race.
"No—O thas very nize for Mormon man I am hear of, bud——"
"Not fit for a woman," warmly declared Jinx. "All I ask of you, Sunny, is that you'll promise to marry me. If you'll do that, you'll make me the happiest bug in these United States. I'll be all but looney, and that's a fact."
"I sawry, Jinx, but me? I kinnod do so."
Jinx relapsed into a state of the darkest gloom. Looking out from the depths of the big, soft overstuffed chair, he could see not a gleam of light, and presently groaned:
"I suppose if I weren't such a mass of flesh and fat, I might stand a show with you. It's hell to be fat, I'll tell the world."
"Jinx, I lig' those fat. It grow nize on you. Andpleassdo not loog so sad on you face. Wait, I go get you something thas goin' make you look smile again."
She disappeared into the kitchen, returning with the whole platter of cookies, still quite warm, and irresistibly odorous and toothsome looking. Jinx, endeavouring to refuse, had to close his eyes to steady him in his resolve, but he could not close his nose, nor his mouth either, when Sunny thrust one of the delicious pieces into his mouth. She wooed him back to a semi-normal condition by feeding him crisp morsels of his favourite confection, norwas it possible to resist something that pushed against one's mouth, and once having entered that orifice revealed qualities that appealed to the very best in one's nature.
Jinx was not made of the Spartan stuff of heroes, and who shall blame him if nature chose to endow him with a form of rich proportions that included "honourable insides" whose capacity was unlimited. So, till the very last cooky, and a sense of well being and fulness, the sad side of life pushed aside _pro tem_, Jinx was actually able to smile indulgently at the solicitous Sunny. She clapped her hands delightedly over her success. Jinx's fingers found their way to his vest pocket. He withdrew a small velvet box, and snapped back the lid. Silently he held it toward Sunny. Her eyes wide, she stared at it with excited rapture.
"Oh-h! Thas mos' beautifullest thing I are ever see."
Never, in fact, had her eyes beheld anything half so lovely as that shining platinum work of art with its immense diamond.
"Just think," said Jinx huskily, "if you say the word, you can have stones like that covering you all over."
"All over!" She made an expressive motionof her hands which took in all of her small person.
Melancholy again clouded Jinx's face. After all, he did not want Sunny to marry him for jewelry.
"I tell you what you do, Sunny. Wear this for me, will you? Wear it for a while, anyway, and then when you decide finally whether you'll have me or not, keep it or send it back, as you like."
He had slipped the ring onto the third finger of Sunny's left hand, and holding that had made him a bit bolder. Sunny, unsuspecting and sympathetic, let her hand rest in his, the ring up, where she could admire it to her heart's content.
"Look a here, Sunny, will you give me a kiss, then—just one. The ring's worth that, isn't it?"
Sunny retreated hurriedly, almost panically?
"Oh, Jinx, please you excuse me to-day, bi-cause Ilig'do so, but Mr. Hatton he are stand ad those door and loog on you."
"Damn Hatty!" groaned Jinx bitterly, and with a sigh that heaved his big breast aloft, he picked up his hat and cane, and ponderously moved toward the door.
In the lower hall of the studio apartment, who should the crestfallen Jinx encounter but his old-time friend, Jerry Hammond, returning from his eight hours' work at the office. His friend's greeting was both curt and cold, and there was no mistaking that look of dislike and disapproval that the frowning face made no effort to disguise.
"Here again, Jinx. Better move in," was Jerry's greeting.
Jinx muttered something inarticulate and furious, and for a fat man he made quick time across the hall and out into the street, where he climbed with a heavy heart into the great roadster, which he had fondly hoped might also carry Sunny with him upon a prolonged honeymoon.
CHAPTER XII
Sunny poured Jerry's tea with a hand turned ostentatiously in a direction that revealed to his amazed and indignant eye that enormous stone of fire that blazed on the finger of Sunny's left hand. His appetite, always excellent, failed him entirely, and after conquering the first surge of impulses that were almost murderous, he lapsed into an ominous silence, which no guile nor question from the girl at the head of his table could break. A steady, a cold, a biting glare, a murmured monosyllabic reply was all the response she received to her amiable overtures. His ill temper, moreover, reached out to the inoffensive Hatton, whom he ordered to clear out, and stay out, and if it came down to that get out altogether, rather than hang around snickering in that way. Thus Jerry revealed a side to his character hitherto unsuspected by Sunny, though several rumblings and barks from the "dog in the manger" would have apprized one less innocent than she.
They finished that meal—or rather Sunnydid—in silence electric with coming strife. Then Jerry suddenly left the table, strode into the little hall, took down his hat and coat, and was about to go, heaven knows where, when Sunny, at his elbow, sought to restrain him by force. She took his sleeve and tenaciously held to it, saying:
"Jerry, do not go out these night. I are got some news I lig' tell to you."
"Let go my arm. I'm not interested in your news. I've a date of my own."
"But Jerry——"
"I say, let go my arm, will you?"
The last was said in a rising voice, as he reached the crest of irritation, and jerking his sleeve so roughly from her clasp, he accomplished the desired freedom, but the look on Sunny's face stayed with him all the way down those apartment stairs—he ignored the elevator—and to the door of the house. There he stopped short, and without more ado, retraced his steps, sprang up the stairs in a great hurry, and jerking open his door again, Jerry returned to his home. He discovered Sunny curled on the floor, with her head buried in the seat of his favourite chair—the one occupied that afternoon by the mischief-making Jinx.
"Sunny! I'm awfully sorry I was such a beast. Say, little girl, look here, I'm not myself. I don't know what I'm doing."
Sunny slowly lifted her face, revealing to the relieved but indignant Jerry a face on which it is true there were traces of a tear or two, but which nevertheless smiled at him quite shamelessly and even triumphantly. Jerry felt foolish, and he was divided between a notion to remain at home with the culprit—she had done nothing especially wrong, but he felt that she was to blame for something or other—or follow his first intention of going out for the night—just where, he didn't know—but anywhere would do to escape the thought that had come to him—the thought of Sunny's probable engagement to Jinx. However, Sunny gave him no time to debate the matter of his movements for the evening. She very calmly assisted him to remove his coat, hung up his hat, and when she had him comfortably ensconced in his favourite chair, had herself lit his pipe and handed it to him, she drew up a stool and sat down in front of his knees, just as if, in fact, she was entirely guiltless of an engagement of which Jerry positively did not intend to approve. Her audacity, moreover, was such that she did nothesitate to lay her left hand on Jerry's knee, where he might get the full benefit of the radiant light from that ring. He looked at it, set down his pipe on the stand at his elbow, and stirred in that restless way which portends hasty arising, when Sunny:
"Jerry, Jinx are come to-day to ask me make marriage with him."
"The big stiff. I pity any girl that has to go through life with that fathead."
"Ho! I are always lig' thad fat grow on Jinx. It look very good on him. I are told him so."
"Matter of taste of course," snarled Jerry, fascinated by the twinkling of that ring in spite of himself, and feeling at that moment an emotion that was dangerously like hatred for the girl he had done so much for.
"Monty and Bobs are also ask me marry wiz them." Sunny dimpled quite wickedly at this, but Jerry failed to see any humour in the matter. He said with assumed loftiness:
"Well, well, proposals raining down on you in every direction. Your janitor gentleman and landlord asked you too?"
"No-o, not yit, but those landlord are say he lig' take me for ride some nize days on his car ad those park."
"The hell he did!"
Jerry sat up with such a savage jerk at this that he succeeded in upsetting the innocent hand resting so confidingly upon his knee.
"Who asked him around here anyway?" demanded Jerry furiously. "Just because he owns this building doesn't mean he has a right to impose himself on the tenants, and I'll tell him so damn quick."
"But, Jerry,Iare ask him come up here. Itchy fall down on those fire escape, and he are making so much noise on this house when he cry, that everybody who live on this house open those windows on court, and I are run down quick on those fire escape and everybody also run out see what's all those trouble. Then I am cry so hard, bi-cause I are afraid Itchy are hurt himself too bad, bi-cause he also are cry very loud." Sunny lifted her nose sky-ward, illustrating how the dog's cries had emanated from him. "So then, everybodyverykind at me and Itchy, and the janitor gentleman carry him bag ad these room, and the landlord gentleman say thas all ride henceforth I have thad little dog live wiz me ad these room also. He say it is very hard for liddle girl come from country way off be 'lone all those day, and mebbe some day he take me andItchy for ride ad those park. So I are say, 'Thang you, I will like go vaery much, thang you.'"
"Well, make up your mind to it, you're not going, do you understand? I'll have no landlords taking you riding in any parks."
Having delivered this ultimatum as viciously as the circumstances called for, Jerry leaned back in pretended ease and awaited further revelations from Sunny.
"—but," went on Sunny, as if finishing a sentence, "that landlord gentleman are not also ask me marry wiz him, Jerry. He already got big wife. I are see her. She are so big as Jinx, and she smile on me very kind, and say she have hear of me from her hosban', that I am very lonely girl from Japan, and thas very sad for me, and she goin' to take those ride wiz me also."
"Hm!" Jerry felt ashamed of himself, but he did not propose to reveal it, especially when that little hand had crept back to its old place on his knee, and the diamond flaunted brazenly before his gaze. Nobody but a "fat-head" would buy a diamond of that size anyway, was Jerry's opinion. There was something extremely vulgar about diamonds. They were not nearly as pretty as rubies or emeraldsor even turquoise, and Jerry had never liked them. Of course, Miss Falconer, like every other girl, had to have her diamond, and Jerry recalled with irritation how, as a sophomore, he had purchased that first diamond. He neither enjoyed the expedition nor the memory of it. Jinx's brazen ring made him think of Miss Falconer's. However, the thought of Miss Falconer was, for some reason or other, distasteful to Jerry in these days, and, moreover, the girl before him called for his full attention as usual.
"So you decided on Jinx, did you? Bobs and Monty in the discard and the affluent fat and fair Jinx the winner."
"Jerry, I areprefermarry all my friends, but I say 'no' to each one of those."
"What are you wearing Jinx's ring for then?"
"Bi-cause it are loog nize on my hands, and heaskme wear it there."
New emotions were flooding over the contrite Jerry. Something was racing like champagne through his veins, and he suddenly realised how "damnably jolly" life was after all. Still, even though Sunny had admitted that no engagement existed between her and Jinx, there was that ring. Poor little girl! Afellow had to teach her all of the western conventions, she was that innocent and simple.
"Sunny, you don't want to wear a fellow's ring unless you intend to marry him, don't you understand that? The ring means that you are promised to him, do you get me?"
"No! But Iarepromise to Jinx. I are promise that I will consider marry him some day if I do not marry some other man Iwan'ask me also."
"Another man. Who——?"
Sunny's glance directed full upon him left nothing to the imagination. Jerry's heart began to thump in a manner that alarmed him.
"Jerry," said Sunny, "I going to wear Jinx's ringuntilthat man also asking me. Iwanhim do so, bi-cause I are lig' him mos' bes' of all my frien'. I think——" She had both of her hands on his knees now, and was leaning up looking so wistfully into his face that he tried to avert his own gaze. In spite of the lump that rose in his throat, in spite of the frantic beating of his heart, Jerry did not ask the question that the girl was waiting to hear. After a moment, she said gently:
"Jerry, Hatty are tell me that nex' year he are come a Leap. Then, he say, thas perlite for girl ask man make marriage wiz her.Jerry,Iare goin' to wait till those year of Leap are come, and then, me? I are goin' askyouthose question."
For one thrilling moment there was a great glow in the heart of Jerry Hammond, and then his face seemed suddenly to turn grey and old. His voice was husky and there was a mist before his eyes.
"Sunny, I must tell you—Sunny, I—I—am already engaged to be married to an American girl—a girl my people want me to marry. I've been engaged to her since my eighteenth year. I—don'tlook at me like that, Sunny, or——"
The girl's head dropped to the level of the floor, her hands slipping helplessly from his knees. She seemed all in a moment to become purely Japanese. There was that in her bowed head that was strangely reminiscent of some old and vanished custom of her race. She did not raise her head, even as she spoke:
"I wishin' you ten thousand year of joy. Sayonara for this night."
Sunny had left him alone. Jerry felt the inability to stir. He stared into the dying embers of his fire with the look of one who has seen a vision that has disappeared ere hecould sense its full significance. It seemed at that moment to Jerry as if everything desirable and precious in life were within reach, but he was unable to seize it. It was like his dream of beauty, ever above, but beyond man's power to completely touch. Sunny was like that, as fragile, as elusive as beauty itself. The thought of his having hurt Sunny tore his heart. She had aroused in him every impulse that was chivalrous. The longing to guard and cherish her was paramount to all other feelings. What was it Professor Barrowes had warned him of? That he should refrain from taking the bloom from the rose. Had he, then, all unwittingly, injured little Sunny?
Mechanically, Jerry went into the hall, slowly put his hat on his head and passed out into the street. He walked up and down 67th Street and along Central Park West to 59th Street, retracing his steps three times to the studio building, and turning back again. His mind was in a chaos, and he knew not what to do. Only one clear purpose seemed to push through the fog, the passionate determination to care for Sunny. She came first of all. Indeed she occupied the whole of histhought. The claim of the girl who had waited for him seven years seemed of minor importance when compared with the claim of the girl he loved. The disinclination to hurt another had kept him from breaking an engagement that had never been of his own desire, but now Jerry knew there could be no more evasions. The time had come when he must face the issue squarely. His sense of honour demanded that he make a clean breast of the entire matter to Miss Falconer. He reached this resolve while still walking on 59th Street. It gave him no more than time to catch the night train to Greenwich. As he stepped aboard the train that was bearing him from Sunny to Miss Falconer all of the fogs had cleared from Jerry's mind. He was conscious of an immense sense of relief. It seemed strange to him that he had never taken this step before. Judging the girl by himself, he felt that he knew exactly what she would say when with complete candour he should "lay his cards upon the table." He felt sure that she was a good sport. He did not delude himself with the idea that an engagement that had been irksome to himself had been of any joy to her. It was simply, so he told himself, amistake of their parents. They had planned and worked this scheme, and into it they had dumped these two young people at a psychological moment.
CHAPTER XIII
For two days Sunny waited for Jerry to return. She was lonely and most unhappy, but hers was a buoyant personality, and withal her hurt she kept up a bright face before her little world of that duplex studio. In spite of the two nights when no sleep at all came, and she lay through the long hours trying vainly not to think of the wife of Jerry Hammond, in the daytime she moved about the small concerns of the apartment with a smile of cheer and found a measure of comfort in her pets.
It was all very well, however, to hug Itchy passionately to her breast, and assure herself that she had in her arms one true and loving friend. Always she set the dog sadly down again, saying:
"Ah, liddle honourable dog, you are jos liddle dog, thas all. How you can know whas ache on my heart. I do nod lig' you more for to-day."
She fed Mr. and Mrs. Satsuma, and whistled and sang to them. After all, a canary is onlya canary. Its bright, hard eye is blank and cold. Even the goldfish, swimming to the top of the honourable bowl, and picking the crumb so cunningly from her finger, lost their charm for her. Miss Spring Morning had long since been vanished with severe Japanese reproaches for his inhuman treatment of Sunny's first friends, the honourable mice, several of whose little bodies Sunny had confided to a grave she herself had dug, with tears that aroused the janitor gentleman's sympathy, so that he permitted the interment in the back yard.
The victrola, working incessantly the first day, supplied merely noise. On the second morning she banged the top impulsively down, and cried at Caruso:
"Oh, I do not wan' hear your honourable voice to-day. Shut you up!"
Midway in an aria from "Rigoletto" the golden voice was quenched.
She hovered about the telephone, and several times lifted the receiver, with the idea of calling one of her friends, but always she rejected the impulse. Intuitively Sunny knew that until the first pang of her refusal had passed her friends were better away from her.
Little comfort was to be extracted from Hatton, who was acting in a manner that had Sunny not been so absorbed by her own personal trouble would have caused her concern. Hatton talked incessantly and feverishly and with tears about his Missus, and what she had driven him to, and of how a poor man tries to do his duty in life, but women were ever trouble makers, and it was only "yuman nature" for a man to want a little pleasure, and he, Hatton, had made this perfectly clear to Mr. Hammond when he had taken service with him.
"A yuman being, miss," said Hatton, "is yuman, and that's all there is to it. Yuman nature 'as certain 'ankerings and its against yuman nature to gainsay them 'ankerings, if you'll pardon me saying so, miss."
However, he assured Sunny most earnestly that he was fighting the Devil and all his works, which was just what "them 'ankerings" was, and he audibly muttered for her especial hearing in proof of his assertion several times through the day: "Get thee be'ind me, Satan." Satan being "them 'ankerings, miss."
In normal times Sunny's fun and cheer would have been of invaluable assistance anddiversion to Hatton. Indeed, his long abstention was quite remarkable since she had been there; but Sunny, affect cheer as she might, could not hide from the sympathetic Hatton's gaze the fact that she was most unhappy. In fact, Sunny's sadness affected the impressionable Hatton so that the second morning he could stand it no longer, and disappeared for several hours, to return, hiccoughing cravenly, and explaining:
"I couldn't 'elp it, miss. My 'eart haches for you, and it ain't yuman nature to gainsay the yuman 'eart."
"Hatton," said Sunny severely, "I are smell you on my nose. You are not smell good."
"Pardon me, miss," said Hatton, beginning to weep. "Hi'm sadly ashamed of myself, miss. If you'll pardon me, miss, I'll betake myself to less 'appy regions than Mr. 'Ammond's studio, miss, 'as it's my desire not to 'urt your sense of smell, miss. So if you'll pardon me, I'll say good-bye, miss, 'oping you'll be in a 'appier mood when next we meet."
For the rest of that day there was no further sign from Hatton. Left thus alone in the apartment, Sunny was sore put to find something to distract her, for all the old diversions,without Jerry, began to pall. She wished wistfully that Jerry had not forbidden her to make friends with other tenants in the house. She felt the strange need of a friend at this hour. There was one woman especially whom Sunny would have liked to know better. She always waved to Sunny in such a friendly way across the court, and once she called across to her: "Do come over and see me. I want you to see some of the sketches I have made of you at the window." Sunny pointed the lady out to Jerry, and that young man's face became surprisingly inflamed and he ordered Sunny so angrily not to continue an acquaintance with her unknown friend, that the poor child avoided going near the window for fear of giving offence.
Also, there was a gentleman who came and went periodically in the studio building, and whose admiring looks had all but embraced Sunny even before she scraped an acquaintance with him. He did not live in this building, but came very frequently to call upon certain of the artists, including the lady across the court. Like Jinx, he always wore a flower in his buttonhole, but, unlike Jinx, his clothes had a certain distinction that to the unsophisticated Sunny seemed to spell the last wordin style. She was especially fascinated by his tan-coloured spats, and once, examining them with earnest curiosity while waiting for the elevator, her glance arose to his face, and she met his all embracing smile with one of her own engaging ones. This man was in fact a well known dilettante and man about town, a dabbler a bit himself in the arts, but a monument of egotism. He had diligently built up a reputation as a patron and connoisseur of art.
One Sunday morning Sunny came in from a little walk as far as the park, with Itchy. In spite of an unexpectedly hard shower that had fallen soon after she had left, she returned smiling and perfectly dry; excited and delighted moreover over the fortune that had befallen her.
"Jerry!" she cried as soon as she entered, "I are git jost to those corner, when down him come those rain. So much blow! Futen (the wind god) get very angery and blow me quick up street, but the rain fall down jos' lig' cloud are burst. Streets flow lig' grade river. Me? I are run quick and come up on steps of house, and there are five, ten other people also stand on those step and keep him dry. One gentleman he got beeg umberella.I feel sure that umberella it keep me dry. So I smile on those mans——"
"Youwhat?"
"I make a smile on him. Like these——" Sunny illustrated innocently.
"Don't you know better than to smile at any man on the street?"
Sunny was taken aback. The Japanese are a smiling nation, and the interchange of smiles among the sexes is not considered reprehensible; certainly not in the class from which Sunny had come.
"Smile are not bad. He are kind thing, Jerry. It make people feel happy, and it do lots good on those worl'. When I smile on thad gentlemen, he are smile ride bag on me ad once, and he take me by those arm, and say he bring me home all nize and dry. And, Jerry, he say, he thing I am too nize piece—er—brick-brack—" bric-a-brac was a new word for Sunny, but Jerry recognised what she was trying to say—"to git wet. So he give me all those umberella. He bring me ride up ad these door, and he say he come see me very soon now as he lig' make sure I got good healt'. He are a very kind gentleman, Jerry. Here are his card."
Jerry took the card, glared at it, and beganpanically walking up and down the apartment, raging and roaring like an "angery tiger," as Sunny eloquently described him to herself, and then flung around on her and read her such a scorching lecture that the girl turned pale with fright, and, as usual, the man was obliged to swallow his steam before it was all exploded.
In parenthesis, it may be here added, that the orders given by Jerry to that black boy at the telephone desk, embraced such a diabolical description of the injury that was destined to befall him should the personage in question ever step his foot across Jerry's threshold, that Sambo, his eyes rolling, never failed to assure the caller, who came very persistently thereafter, that "Dat young lady she am move away, sah. Yes, sah, she am left this department."
It will be seen, therefore, that Sunny, a stranger in a strange land, shut in alone in a studio, religiously following the instructions of Jerry to refrain from making acquaintances with anyone about her, was in a truly sad state. She started to houseclean, but stopped midway in panic, recalling the Japanese superstition that to clean or sweep a house when one of the family is absent is to precipitate bad fortune upon the house. So she got down all ofJerry's clothes and piously pressed and sponged them, as she had seen Hatton do, being very careful this time to avoid her first mistake in ironing. So earnestly had she applied herself to ironing the crease in the front of one of Jerry's trousers that first time that a most disastrous accident was the result. Jerry, wearing the pressed trousers especially to please her, found himself on the street the cynosure of all eyes as he manfully strode along with a complete split down the front of one of the legs, which the too ardent iron of Sunny had scorched. Having brushed and cleaned all of Jerry's clothes on this day, she prepared her solitary lunch; but this she could not eat. Thoughts of Jerry sharing with her the accustomed meals was too much for the imaginative Sunny, and pushing the rice away from her, she said:
"Oh, I do nod lig' put food any more ad my insides. I givin you to my friends."
The contents of her bowl were emptied into the pail under the sink, which she kept always so clean, for she still was under the delusion that said pail helped to feed the janitor gentleman and his family.
All of that afternoon hung heavily on her hands, and she vainly sought something tointerest her and divert her mind from the thought of Jerry. She found herself unconsciously listening for the bell, but, curiously enough, all of that day neither the buzzer, the telephone nor even the dumbwaiter rang. She made a tour of exploration to Jerry's sacred room, lovingly arranging his pieces on his chiffonier, and washing her hands in some toilet water that especially appealed to her. Then she found the bottle of hair tonic. Sniffing it, she decided it was very good, and, painfully, Sunny deciphered the legend printed on the outside, assuring a confiding hair world that the miraculous contents had the power to remove dandruff, invigorate, strengthen, force growth on bald heads, cause to curl and in every way improve and cause to shine the hair of the fortunate user of the same.
"Thas very good stuff," said Sunny. "He do grade miracle on top those head."
She decided to put the shampoo-tonic to the test, and accordingly washed her hair in Jerry's basin, making an excellent job of it. Descending to the studio, she lit the fireplace, and curled up on a big Navaho by the fire. Wrapped in a gorgeous bathrobe belonging to Jerry, Sunny proceeded to dry her hair.
While she was in the midst of this process,the telephone rang. Sambo at the desk announced that visitors were ascending. Sunny had no time to dress or even to put up her hair, and when in response to the sharp bang upon the knocker she opened the door she revealed to the callers a vision that justified their worst fears. Her hair unbound, shining and springing out in lovely curling disorder about her, wrapped about in the bright embroidered bathrobe which the younger woman recognised at once as her Christmas gift to her fiancé, the work, in fact, of her own hands, Sunny was a spectacle to rob a rival of complete hope and peace of mind. The cool fury of unrequited love and jealousy in the breast of the younger woman and the indignant anger in that of the older was whipped at the sight of Sunny into active and violent eruption.
"What are you doing in my son's apartment?" demanded the mother of Jerry, raising to her eyes what looked to Sunny like a gold stick on which grew a pair of glasses, and surveying with pronounced disapproval the politely bowing though somewhat flurried Sunny.
"I are live ad those house," said Sunny, simply. "This are my home."
"You live here, do you? Well, I would haveyou know that I am the mother of the young man whose life you are ruining, and this young girl is his fiancée."
"Ho! I am very glad make you 'quaintance," said Sunny, seeking to hide behind a politeness her shock at the discovery of the palpable rudeness of these most barbarian ladies. It was hard for her to admit that the ladies of Jerry's household were not models of fine manners, as she had fondly supposed, but on the contrary bore faces that showed no trace of the kind hearts which the girl from Japan had been taught by her mother to associate always with true gentility. The two women's eyes met with that exclamatory expression which says plainer than words:
"Of all the unbounded impudence, this is the worst!"
"I have been told," went on Mrs. Hammond haughtily, "that you are a foreigner—a Japanese." She pronounced the word as if speaking of something extremely repellent.
Sunny bowed, with an attempted smile, that faded away as Jerry's mother continued ruthlessly:
"You do not look like a Japanese to me, unless you have been peroxiding your hair. Inmy opinion you are just an ordinary everyday bad girl."
Sunny said very faintly:
"Aexcuse me!"
She turned like a hurt thing unjustly punished to the other woman, as if seeking help there. It had been arranged between the two women that Mrs. Hammond was to do the talking. Miss Falconer was having her full of that curious satisfaction some women take in seeing in person one's rival. Her expression far more moved Sunny than that of the angry older woman.
"No one but a bad woman," went on Mrs. Hammond, "would live like this in a young man's apartment, or allow him to support her, or take money from him. Decent girls don't do that sort of thing in America. You are old enough to get out and earn for yourself an honest living. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Or are you devoid of shame, you bad creature?"
"Yes," said Sunny, with such a look that Jerry's mother's frown relaxed somewhat: "I are ashame. I are sawry thad I are bad—woman. Aexcuse me this time. I try do better. I sawry I are—bad!"
This was plainly a full and complete confessionof wrong and its effect on the older woman was to arouse a measure of the Hammond compunction which always followed a hasty judgment. For a moment Mrs. Hammond considered the advisability of reading to this girl a lecture that she had recently prepared to deliver before an institution for the welfare of such girls as she deemed Sunny to be. However, her benevolent intention was frustrated by Miss Falconer.
There is a Japanese proverb which says that the tongue three inches long can kill a man six feet tall, but the tongue of one's enemy is not the worst thing to fear. The cold smile of the young woman staring so steadily at her had power to wound Sunny far more than the lacerating tongue of the woman whom she realised believed she was fighting in her son's behalf. Very silken and soft was the manner of Miss Falconer as insinuatingly she brought Mrs. Hammond back to the object of their call. She had used considerable tact and strategy in arranging this call upon Sunny, having in fact induced Jerry to remain for at least a day or two in Greenwich, "to think matters over," and see "whether absence would not prove to him that what he imagined to be love was nothing but one ofthose common aberrations to which men who lived in the east were said to be addicted." Jerry, feeling that he should at least do this for her, waited at Greenwich. Miss Falconer had called in the able and belligerent aid of his mother.
"Mother, dear——" She already called Mrs. Hammond "mother." "Suppose—er—we make a quick end to the matter. You know what we are here for. Do let us finish and get away. You know, dear, that I am not used to this sort of thing, and really I'm beginning to get a nervous headache."
Stiffened and upheld by the young woman whom she had chosen as wife for her son, Mrs. Hammond delivered the ultimatum.
"Young woman, I want you to pack your things and clear out from my son's apartment at once. No argument! No excuses! If you do not realise the shamelessness of the life you are leading, I have nothing further to say; but I insist, insist most emphatically, on your leaving my boy's apartment this instant."
A key turned in the lock. Hatton, dusty and bedraggled, his hat on one side of his head and a cigarette twisting dejectedly in the corner of his mouth, stumbled in at the door.He stood swaying and smiling at the ladies, stuttering incoherent words of greeting and apology.
"La-adiesh, beggin' y'r pardon, it's a pleasure shee thish bright shpring day."
Mrs. Hammond, overwhelmed with shame and grief over the revelation of the disreputable inmates of her son's apartment, turned her broad back upon Hatton. She recognised that man. He was the man she and Jerry's father had on more than one occasion begged their son to be rid of. Oh! if only Jeremy Hammond senior were here now!
Sunny, having heard the verdict of banishment, stood helplessly, like one who has received a death sentence, knowing not which way to turn. Hatton staggered up the stairs, felt an uncertain course along the gallery toward his room, and fell in a muddled heap midway of the gallery.
Sunny, half blindly, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, had moved with mechanical obedience toward the door, when Mrs. Hammond haughtily recalled her.
"You cannot go out on the street in that outrageous fashion. Get your things, and do your hair up decently. We will wait here till you are ready."
"And suppose you take that bathrobe off. It doesn't belong to you," said Miss Falconer cuttingly.
"Take only what belongs to you," said Mrs. Hammond.
Sunny slowly climbed up to her room. Everything appeared now strange and like a queer dream to her. She could scarcely believe that she was the same girl who but a few days before had joyously flitted about the pretty room, which showed evidence of her intensely artistic and feminine hands. She changed from the bathrobe to the blue suit she had worn on the night she had arrived at Jerry's studio. From a drawer she drew forth the small package containing the last treasures that her mother had placed in her hand. Though she knew that Mrs. Hammond and Miss Falconer were impatiently awaiting her departure, she sat down at her desk and painfully wrote her first letter to Jerry.
"Jerry sama: How I thank you three and four time for your kindness to me. I am sorry I are not got money to pay you back for all that same, but I will take nothing with me but those clothes on my body. Only bad girls take money from gentleman at this America. I have hear that to-day, but I never knowthat before, or I would not do so. I have pray to Amaterasu-oho-mikami, making happy sunshine of your life. May you live ten thousand year. Sayonara. Sunny."
She came out along the gallery, bearing her mother's little package. Kneeling by the half-awake but helpless Hatton she thrust the letter into his hand.
"Good-bye, kind Hatton," said Sunny. "I sawry I not see your face no more. I sawry I are make all those trobble for you wiz those gas stove an' those honourable mice. I never do those ting again. I hope mebbe you missus come home agin some day ad you. Sayonara."
"Wh-wheer y're goin', Shunny. Whatsh matter?" Hatton tried vainly to raise himself. He managed to pull himself a few paces along, by holding to the gallery rails, but sprawled heavily down on the floor. The indignant voice of his master's mother ascended from the stairs:
"If you do not control yourself, my good man, I will be forced to call in outside aid and have you incarcerated."
Downstairs, Sunny, unmindful of the waiting women, ran by them into the kitchen. From goldfish to canaries she turned, whisperingsoftly: "Sayonara my friends. I sawry leaving you."
She was opening the window onto the fire-escape, and Itchy with a howl of joy had leaped into her arms, when Mrs. Hammond and Miss Falconer, suspicious of something underhand, appeared at the door.
"What are you doing, miss? What is that you are taking?" demanded Mrs. Hammond.
Sunny turned, with her dog hugged up close to her breast.
"I are say good-bye to my liddle dog," she said. "Sayonara Itchy. The gods be good unto you."
She set the dog hastily back in the box, against his most violent protests, and Itchy immediately set up such a woeful howling and baying as only a small mongrel dog who possesses psychic qualities and senses the departure of an adored one could be capable of. Windows were thrown up and ejaculations and protests emanated from tenants in the court, but Sunny had clapped both hands over her ears, and without a look back at her little friend, and ignoring the two women, she ran through the studio, and out of the front door.
After her departure a silence fell between Miss Falconer and Mrs. Hammond. Thelatter's face suddenly worked spasmodically, and the strain of the day overtook Jerry's mother. She sobbed unrestrainedly, mopping up the tears that coursed down her face. Miss Falconer fanned herself slowly, and with an absence of her usual solicitude for her prospective mother-in-law, she refrained from offering sympathy to the older woman, who presently said in a muffled voice:
"Oh, Stella, I am afraid that we may have done a wrong act. It's possible that we have made a mistake about this girl. She seemed so very young, and her face—it was not a bad face, Stella—quite the contrary, now I think of it."
"Well, I suppose that's the way you look at it. Personally you can't expect me to feel any sort of sympathy for a bad woman like that."
"Stella, I've been thinking that a girl who would say good-bye to her dog like that cannot be wholly bad."
"I have heard of murderers who trained fleas," said Miss Falconer. Then, with a pretended yawn, she added, "But really we must be going now? It's getting very dark out, and I'm dining with the Westmores at seven. I told Matthews we'd be through shortly. He's at the curb now."
She had picked up her gloves and was drawing them smoothly on, when Mrs. Hammond noticed the left hand was ringless.
"Why, my dear, where is your ring?"
"Why, you didn't suppose, did you, that I was going to continue my engagement to Jerry Hammond after what he told me?"
"But our purpose in coming here——"
"Mypurpose was to make sure that ifIwere not to have Jerry neither should she—that Japanese doll!" All the bottled-up venom of the girl's nature came forth in that single utterance. "Do let us get away. Really I'm bored to extinction."
"You may go any time you choose, Miss Falconer," said Jerry Hammond's mother. "I shall stay here till my son returns."
It was less than half an hour later that Jerry burst into the studio. He came in with a rush, hurrying across the big room toward the kitchen and calling aloud:
"Sunny! Hi! Sunny! I'm back!"
So intent was he in discovering Sunny that he did not see his mother, sitting in the darkened room by the window. Through dim eyes Mrs. Hammond had been staring into the street, and listening to the nearby rumble ofthe Sixth Avenue elevated trains. Somehow the roar of the elevated spelled to the woman the cruelty and the power of the mighty city, out into which she had driven the young girl, whose eyes had entreated her like a little wounded creature. The club woman thought of her admonitions and speeches to the girls she had professionally befriended, yet here, put to a personal test, she had failed signally.
Her son was coming through the studio again, calling up toward the gallery above:
"Hi! Sunny, old scout, where are you?"
He turned, with a start, as his mother called his name. His first impulse of welcome halted as he saw her face, and electrically there flashed through Jerry a realisation of the truth. His mother's presence there was connected with Sunny's absence.
"Mother, where is Sunny? What are you doing here? Where is Sunny, I say?"
He shot the questions at her frantically. Mrs. Hammond began to whimper, dabbing at her face with her handkerchief.
"For heaven's sake, answer me. What have you done with Sunny?"
"Jerry, how can I tell you? Jerry—Miss Falcon-er and I—we—we thought it was for your good. I didn't realise that youc-cared so much about her, and I—and we——Oh-h-h," she broke down, crying uncontrolledly, "we have driven that poor little girl out—into the street."
"You what? What is that you say?"
He stared at his mother with a look of loathing.
"Jerry, I thought—we thought her bad and we——"
"Bad!Sunny!Bad! She didn't know what the word meant. MyGod!"
He leaped up the stairs, calling the girl's name aloud, as if to satisfy himself that his mother's story was false, but her empty room told its own tale, and half way across the gallery he came upon Hatton. He kicked the valet awake, and the latter raised up, stuttering and blubbering, and extending with shaking hand the letter Sunny had left. The words leaped up at him and smote him to the soul. He did not see his mother. He did not hear her cries, imploring him not to go out like that. Blindly, his heart on fire, Jerry Hammond dashed out from his studio, and plunged into the darkening street, to begin his search for the lost Sunny, who had disappeared into that maelstrom that is New York.
CHAPTER XIV
Despite all that money and influence could do to aid in the search of the missing girl, no trace of Sunny had been found since the day she passed through the door of the studio apartment and disappeared into the seething throngs under the Sixth Avenue elevated.
Every policeman in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx; every private detective in the country, and the police and authorities throughout the country, aided in that search, keen to earn the enormous rewards offered by her friends. Jerry's entire fortune was at the disposal of the department. Jinx had instructed them to "go the limit" as far as he was concerned. Bobs, his newspaper instinct keyed up to the highest tension, saw in every clue a promise of a solution, and "covered" the disappearance day and night. Young Monty, changed from the cheeriest interne at Bellevue to the most pessimistic and gloomy, developed a weird passion for the morgue, and spent hours hovering about that ghastly part of the hospital.
The four young men met each night at Jerry's studio and cast up their barren results. Jinx unashamedly and even noisily wept, the big tears splashing down his no longer ruddy cheeks. Jinx had honestly loved Sunny, and her loss was the first serious grief of his life.
Monty hugged his head and ruminated over the darkest possibilities. He had suggested to the police that they drag certain parts of the Hudson River, and was indignant when they pointed out the impracticability of such a thing. In the spring the great river was swollen to its highest, and flowing along at a great speed, it would have been impossible to find what Monty suggested.
Jerry, of all her friends, had himself the least under command. He was still nearly crazed by the catastrophe, and unable to sleep or rest, taking little or no nourishment, frantically going from place to place, he returned to his studio to pace up and down, as if half demented.
Despite the fact that her son seemed scarcely conscious of her existence, and practically ignored her, Mrs. Hammond continued to remain in the apartment. Overwhelmed by remorse and anxiety for her son's health and sanity she could not bring herself to leave,even though she knew at this time her act had driven her son far away from her. A great change was visible in the mother of Jerry. For the first time, possibly, she acquired a vague idea of what her son's work and life meant to him, and her conscience smote her when she realised how he had gone ahead with no encouragement or sympathy from home. On the contrary, she and his father had thrown every obstacle in his way. Like many self-made men, Jerry's father cherished the ambition to perpetuate the business he had successfully built up from what he always called "a shoestring." "I started with just a shoestring," Jerry's father was wont to say, "and what's more,Ididn't have any education to speak of, yet I beat in the race most of the college bred bunch." However, his parents had had great faith in the change that would come to Jerry after matrimony, and Miss Falconer, being a daughter of Hammond, Sr.'s, partner, the prospects up to this time had not been without hope.
Now, Jerry's mother, away from the somewhat overpowering influence of his father, was seeing a new light. Many a tear she dropped upon Jerry's sketch books, and she suffered the pang of one who has had theopportunity to help one she loved, and who has withheld that sorely needed sympathy. For the first time, too, Jerry's mother appreciated his right to choose his own love. In their anxiety to select for their son a suitable wife, they had overlooked his own wishes in the matter. Now Mrs. Hammond became poignantly aware of his deep love for this strange girl from Japan. She began to feel an unconscious tenderness toward the absent Sunny, and gradually became acquainted with the girl's nature through the medium of the left behind treasures and friends. Sunny's little mongrel dog, the canaries, the gold fish, the nailed up hole where she had fed the mice, her friend the "janitor gentleman," the black elevator boy, the butcher gentleman, the policeman on the beat who had never failed to return Sunny's smiling greeting with a cheery "Top o' the morning to yourself, miss," Hatton—all these revealed more plainly than words could have told that hers was a sensitive and rare nature. In Hatton's case, Mrs. Hammond found a problem upon her hands. The unfortunate valet blamed himself bitterly for Sunny's going. He claimed that he had given his solemn word of honour to Sunny, and had broken that word, when he should have beenthere: "Like a man, ma'am, hin the place of Mr. 'Ammond, ma'am, to take care of Miss Sunny."
Far from reproving the man, the conscience-stricken Mrs. Hammond wept with him, and asked timid questions about the absent one.
"Miss Sunny was not an hordinary young lady, begging your pardon, ma'am. She was what the French would call distankey. She was sweet and hinnercent as a baby lamb, hutterly hunconscious of her hown beauty hand charm. You wouldn't 'ave believed such hinnocence possible in the present day, ma'am, but Miss Sunny come from a race that's a bit hignorant, ma'am, hand it wasn't her fault that she didn't hunderstan' many of the proper conventions of life. But she was perfectly hinnocent and pure as a lily. Hanyone who looked or spoke to 'er once would've seen that, ma'am. It shone right hout of Miss Sunny's heyes."
"I saw it myself," said Mrs. Hammond, in a low voice.
After a long, sniffling pause, Hatton said:
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, I'm thinking that I don't deserve to work for Mr. 'Ammond any longer, but I 'avent the 'eart to speak to 'im at this time, and if you'll be sokind to hexplain things to 'im, I'll betake myself to some hother abode."
"My good man, I am sure that even Mr. Jerry would not blame you. I am the sole one at fault. I take the full blame. I acknowledge it. I would not have you or anyone else share my guilt, and, Hatton, Iwantto be punished. Your conscience, I am sure, is clear, but it would make us all very happy, and I am sure it would make—Sunny." She spoke the word hesitatingly—"happy, too, if—if—well, if, my good Hatton, you were to turn over a new leaf, and sign the pledge. Drink, I feel sure, is your worst enemy. You must overcome it, Hatton, or it will overcome you."
"Hi will, ma'am. Hi'll do that. If you'll pardon me now, Hi'll step right out and sign the pledge. I know just where to go, if you'll pardon me."
Hatton did know just where to go. He crossed the park to the east side and came to the brightly lighted Salvation Army barracks. A meeting was in progress, and a fiery tongued young woman was exhorting all the sinners of the world to come to glory. Hatton was fascinated by the groans and loud Amens that came from that chorus of human wreckage.Pushing nearer to the front, he came under the penetrating eye of the Salvation captain. She hailed him as a "brother," and there was something so unswervingly pure in her direct gaze that it had the effect of magnetising Hatton.
"Brother," said the Salvation captain, "are you saved?"
"No, ma'am," said the unhappy Hatton, "but begging your pardon, if it haren't hout of horder, Hi'd like to be taking the pledge, ma'am."
"Nothing is out of order where a human soul is at stake," said the woman, smiling in an exalted way. "Lift up your hand, my brother."
Hatton lifted his shaking hand, and, word for word, he repeated the pledge after the Salvation captain. Nor was there one in that room who found aught to laugh at in the words of Hatton.
"Hi promise, with God's 'elp," said Hatton, "to habstain from the use of halcoholic liquors as a beverage, from chewing tobaccer or speaking profane and himpure languidge."
Having thus spoken, Hatton felt a glow of relief and a sense of transfiguration. He experienced, in fact, that hysterical exhilaration that "converts" feel, as if suddenly he were reborn,and had come out of the mud into the clean air. At such moments martyrs, heroes and saints are made. Hatton, the automaton-like valet of the duplex studio, with his "yuman 'ankerings" was afire with a true spiritual fervour. We leave him then marching forth from the barracks with the Salvation Army, his head thrown up, and singing loudly of glory.
On the third day after the disappearance of Sunny, Professor Timothy Barrowes arrived in New York City with the dinornis skeleton of the quaternary period, dug up from the clay of the Red Deer cliffs of Canada. This precious find was duly transported to the Museum of Natural History, where it was set up by the skilled hands of college workmen, who were zealots even as the little man who nagged and adjured them as he had the excavators on the Red Deer River. So absorbed, in fact, was Professor Barrowes by his fascinating employment, that he left his beloved fossil only when the pressing necessity of further funds from his friend and financial agent (Jerry had raised the money to finance the dinornis) necessitated his calling upon JerryHammond, who had made no response to his latter telegrams and letters.
Accordingly Professor Barrowes wended his way from the museum to Jerry's studio. Here, enthused and happy over the success of his trip, he failed to notice the abnormal condition of Jerry, whose listless hot hand dropped from his, and whose eye went roving absently above the head of his volubly chattering friend. It was only after the restless and continued pacing of the miserable Jerry and the failure to respond to questions put to him continued for some time, that Professor Barrowes was suddenly apprized that all was not well with his friend. He stopped midway in a long speech in which words like Mesozoic, Triassic and Jurassic prevailed and snapped his glasses suddenly upon his nose. Through these he scrutinised the perturbed and oblivious Jerry scientifically. The glasses were blinked off. Professor Barrowes seized the young man by the arm and stopped him as he started to cross the room for possibly the fiftieth time.
"Come! Come! What is it? What is the trouble, lad?"
Jerry turned his bloodshot eyes upon his old teacher. His unshaven, haggard face, twitchingfrom the effects of his acute nearness to nervous prostration, startled Professor Barrowes. Lack of sleep, refusal of nourishment, the ceaseless search, the agonising fear and anguished longing took their full toll from the unhappy Jerry, but as his glance met the firm one of his friend, a tortured cry broke from his lips.
"Oh, for God's sake, Professor Barrowes, why did you not come when I asked you to? Sunny—Oh, my God!"
Professor Barrowes had Jerry's hand gripped closely in his own, and the disjointed story came out at last.
Sunny had come! Sunny had gone! He loved Sunny! He could not live without Sunny—but Sunny had gone! They had turned her out into the streets—his own mother and Miss Falconer.
For the first time, it may be said, since his discovery of the famous fossil of the Red Deer River, Professor Barrowes's mind left his beloved dinornis. He came back solidly to earth, shot back by the calling need of Jerry. Now the man of science was wide awake, and an upheaval was taking place within him. The words of his first telegram to Jerry rattled through his head just then: "The dinornismore important than Sunny." Now as he looked down on the bowed head of the boy for whom he cherished almost a father's love, Professor Barrowes knew that all the dried-up fossils of all the ages were as a handful of worthless dust as compared with this single living girl.
By main force Professor Barrowes made Jerry lie down on that couch, and himself served him the food humbly prepared by his heartbroken mother, who told Jerry's friend with a quivering lip that she felt sure he would not wish to take it from his mother's hands.
There was no going out for Jerry on that night. His protestations fell on deaf ears, and as a further precaution, Professor Barrowes secured possession of the key of the apartment. Only when the professor pointed out to him the fact that a breakdown on his part would mean the cessation of his search would Jerry finally submit to the older man taking his place temporarily. And so, at the telephone, which rang constantly all of that evening, Professor Barrowes took command. A thousand clues were everlastingly turning up. These were turned over to Jinx and Bobs, the former flying from one part of the city and country to another in his big car, and thelatter, with an army of newspaper men helping him, and given full license by his paper, influenced by the elder Hammond and Potter. Finally, Professor Barrowes, having given certain instructions to turn telephone calls over to Monty in Bobs' apartment, sat down to Jerry's disordered work table, and, glasses perched on the end of his nose, he sorted out the mail. The afternoon letters still lay unopened, tossed down in despair by Jerry, when he failed to find that characteristic writing that he knew was Sunny's.
But now Professor Barrowes' head had suddenly jerked forward. His chin came out curiously, and his eyes blinked in amazement behind his glasses. He set them on firmer, fiercely, and slowly reread that two-line epistle. The hand holding the paper shook, but the eyes behind the glasses were bright.
"Jerry—come hither, young man!" he growled, his dry old face quivering up with something that looked comically like a smile glaring through threatened tears. "Read that."
Across the table Jerry reached over and took the letter from the famous steel magnate of New York. He read it slowly, dully, and then with a sense as of something breaking inhis head and heart. Every word of those two lines sank like balm into his comprehension and consciousness. Then it seemed that a surge of blood rushed through his being, blinding him. The world rocked for Jerry Hammond. He saw a single star gleaming in a firmament that was all black. Down into immeasurable depths of space sank Jerry Hammond.
CHAPTER XV
Sunny, after she left Jerry's apartment, might be likened to a little wounded wild thing, who has trailed off with broken wing. She had never consciously committed a wrong act. Motherless, worse than fatherless, young, innocent, lovely, how should she fare in a land whose ways were as foreign to that from which she had come as if she had been transplanted to a new planet.
As she turned into Sixth Avenue, under the roaring elevated structure, with its overloaded trains, crammed with the home-going workers of New York, she had no sense of direction and no clear purpose in mind. All she felt was that numb sense of pain at her heart and the impulse to get as far away as possible from the man she loved. Swept along by a moving, seething throng that pressed and pushed and shoved and elbowed by her, Sunny had a sick sense of home longing, an inexpressible yearning to escape from all this turmoil and noise, this mad rushing and pushing and panting through life that seemed to spell America.She sensed the fact that she was in the Land of Barbarians, where everyone was racing and leaping and screaming in an hysteria of speed. Noise, noise, incessant noise and movement—that was America! No one stopped to think; no polite words were uttered to the stranger. It was all a chaos, a madhouse, wherein dark figures rushed by like shadows in the night and little children played in the mud of the streets.