Polly waited to gain her self-control.
"I'd have taken the hat away from him," she declared.
Constance sailed once more.
"I didn't think of that," she admitted.
"No, and instead here's what you've done," Polly pointed out to her: "You turned Johnny loose to look after himself, and he isn't capable of it since he fell in love; so for the last two weeks he's been as savage as any ordinary business man. That's one thing. For another, you've made yourself sick just pining and grieving for a sight of Johnny Gamble."
"I haven't!" indignantly denied Constance, and to prove that assertion her eyes filled with tears. She covered them with her handkerchief and Polly petted her, and they both felt better. "I think I'll dress," declared Constance after she had been thus refreshed. "My headache's much improved and I think I'd like to go somewhere." She hesitated a moment.
"You know everybody was to have gathered here to join Courtney's Decoration Day party this afternoon," she added.
"Yes, I remember that," retorted Polly, "but I didn't like to rub it in. Shall I call up everybody and tell them it's on again?"
"Please," implored Constance, "and, Polly—"
"Yes?"
"Tell Johnny to bring his Baltimore straw hat."
While Polly was trying to get his number, Johnny Gamble sat face to face with his old partner.
"You have your nerve to come to me," he said, as the eyebrowless young man sat himself comfortably in Johnny's favorite leather arm- chair.
"There's nobody else to go to," explained Collaton, with an attempt at jauntiness. "I'm dead broke, and if I don't have two thousand dollars to-morrow I'll quite likely be pinched."
"I'm jealous," stated Johnny. "I had intended to do it myself."
"I've been expecting you to," acknowledged Collaton. "That's one of the reasons I came to you."
"I admire you," observed Johnny dryly. "You bled me for two years, and yet you have the ingrowing gall to come and tell me you're broke."
"Well, it's the truth," defended Collaton. "Look here, Johnny; I've heard that you made a lot of money in the last few weeks, but you haven't had any more attachments against you, have you?"
"You bet I haven't," returned Johnny savagely. "I've been waiting for just one more attempt, and then I intended—"
"I know," interrupted Collaton. "You intended to beat Gresham and Jacobs and me to a pulp; and then have us pinched for disorderly conduct, and try to dig up the evidence at the trial."
"Well, something like that," admitted Johnny with a grin.
"I knew it," corroborated Collaton. "I told them when to stop."
"I guess you'll be a good witness," surmised Johnny. "How deep were you in on this Birchard deal? How much did you get?"
"Did Gresham and Birchard pull something?" inquired Collaton with such acute interest that Johnny felt sure he had taken no part in that swindle.
"Well, yes," agreed Johnny with a wince, as he thought of his lost million. "They did pull a little trick. Did you know Birchard very well?"
"I wouldn't say what I know about Birchard except on a witness- stand," chuckled Collaton, "but I can tell you this much: if he got anything, throw it a good-by kiss; for he can rub himself out better than any man I ever saw. He's practised hiding till he doesn't know himself where he is half of the time."
"I've passed him up," stated Johnny. "The only people I'm after are Gresham and Jacobs and you."
"I wonder if you wouldn't pin a medal on one of us if he'd give you the other two," conjectured Collaton, smoothing his freckled cheek and studying Johnny with his head on one side.
"We're not coining medals this year," declared Johnny, "but if it's you you're talking about, and you'll give me Gresham and Jacobs, I'll promise you a chance to stand outside the bars and look in at them."
"It's a bet," decided Collaton promptly. "I split up with Gresham two or three weeks ago at Coney Island, when he wanted me to go in on a big scheme against you, and I suppose it was this Birchard stunt. I told him I'd had enough. Your money began to look troublesome to me. That was the day you were down there with the girl."
"There's no girl in this," warned Johnny. "Now tell me just what you can do."
"Will you wipe me off the slate?"
"Clean as a whistle," promised Johnny. "If my lawyer lets you be convicted I'll go to jail in your place."
"It's like getting over-change by mistake," gratefully returned Collaton. "I'm tired of the game, Johnny, and if I can get out of this I'll stay straight the balance of my life."
"You'll die in the top tier, with the pentitentiary chaplain writing your farewell letters," prophesied Johnny. "What did you say you could do?"
"Well, I can incriminate not only Jacobs but Gresham in those phoney attachments, and I can hand you the Gamble-Collaton books," set forth Collaton. "Gresham got them away from me to take care of and then held them over me as a threat; but I got them back yesterday by offering to pound his head off. He's a bigger coward than I am."
"How much money did you say you wanted?" inquired Johnny.
"Five thousand," returned Collaton cheerfully.
"You said two."
"I have to have two and I need the rest. I thought maybe I could sell you my interest in The Gamble-Collaton Irrigation Company. There's several thousand acres of land out there, you know."
"I haven't laid a finger on you yet," Johnny reminded him, "but if you make another offer to sell me that land I don't know how I'll stand the strain."
"Well, say you give me the money for fun then," amended Collaton. "I didn't know anything about this Birchard deal, but since you've mentioned it I can piece together a lot of things that mean something now. I'll help you chase that down, and you can afford to spare me five thousand. Why, Johnny, I'm a poor sucker that has made the unfortunate financial mistake of being crooked; and you're the luckiest cuss in the world. To begin with, you're square; and that's the biggest stroke of luck that can happen. Everybody likes you, you're a swift money-maker, and you've got a girl—now don't get chesty—that would make any man go out and chew bulldogs."
Johnny reflected over that statement and turned a trifle bitter. He had no million dollars; he had no friends; he had no girl! He contemplated calling the police.
The telephone bell rang.
"Hello, Polly," he said vigorously into the interrupting instrument, and then Collaton, watching him anxiously, saw his face light up like a Mardi Gras illumination. "Bring my Baltimore straw hat!" jubilated Johnny. "Polly, I'll bring one if I have to go to Baltimore to get it." He paused, and the transmitter in front of his face almost glistened with reflected high-lights. "Engagements! For to-day?" exulted Johnny. "I'm at liberty right now. How soon may I come over?" He listened again with a wide-spread grin. Collaton rolled a cigarette with black tobacco and brown paper, lighted it and smiled comfortably. "Can't I talk to Constance a minute?" implored Johnny, trying to push in the troublous tremolo stop. "Oh, is she? All right; I'll be over in about twenty minutes. No, I won't make it an hour, I said twenty minutes;" and still smiling with imbecile delight he hung up the receiver and turned to Collaton with a frown.
"I think I can raise that two thousand for you," he decided. "Now tell me just what you know about Gresham and Birchard."
CHAPTER XXII. IN WHICH PAUL GRESHAM PROPOSES A VERY PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENT
"Mr. Gresham is calling," announced Aunt Pattie Boyden with some trepidation; for Constance, besides being ill, had not been in the best of humor during the last two weeks.
"Paul?" commented Constance with a pleased smile, which both delighted and surprised Aunt Pattie. "I didn't expect him for half an hour," and she completed her toilet by adorning herself with a choice collection of Johnny Gamble's roses.
"You are looking your best, I must say," admired Aunt Pattie after a critical survey, for she was particularly anxious about this visit of Paul Gresham's.
"She ought to," interjected Polly, busy at the telephone; "that's the thi
rd gown she's tried on. She's expecting particular company."
"Any one besides Paul?" inquired Aunt Pattie, elevating her eyebrows.
"Lots of people," returned Constance with a gaiety she had not exhibited for many days. "Mr. Gamble for one."
Aunt Pattie's countenance underwent an instant change, and it was not a change for the better.
"Mr. Gamble!" she exclaimed, quite properly shocked. "I shouldn't think he'd feel in the humor for social calls just now. He's lost all his money."
"You wouldn't believe it if you had heard him laugh over the 'phone just now when I told him to bring his straw hat," declared Polly.
"Who told you the news?" asked Constance, feeling sure of the answer.
"Mr. Gresham," hesitated Aunt Pattie.
"I bet he couldn't keep his face straight," Polly vindictively charged.
"You do Mr. Gresham an injustice, Polly," protested Aunt Pattie severely.
"It isn't possible," insisted Polly. "If it were not giving him too much credit for brains I'd swear he'd helped break Johnny."
"I'm afraid you don't give him quite enough credit for brains," said Constance, and giving her roses a deft parting turn she went down- stairs to meet Paul Gresham.
If Aunt Pattie had been pleased by the change in Constance, Gresham was delighted. This was the first time she had really beamed on him since she had met Johnny Gamble.
"You are always charming," he observed, taking pleasure in his own gallantry, "but to-day you seem unusually so."
"That's pretty," dimpled Constance. "I wanted to look nice to-day."
Mr. Gresham's self-esteem arose several degrees. He smiled his thanks of her compliment to the appointment he had made with her.
"My call to-day is rather a formal one," he told her, smiling, and approaching the important subject-matter in hand directly but quite easily, he thought. "It is in relation to the will of your Aunt Gertrude, which has been the cause of some embarrassment to us both, and to you particularly, I fear."
"Naturally," she assented, still smiling, however.
This was easy sailing. Gresham walked over and took the chair nearest her.
"It is, of course, unnecessary to discuss the provisions made by your Aunt Gertrude," he stated. "Even had such a will never been written, I am quite sure that the result would have been the same, and that to-day, after the long friendship which I have enjoyed with you, I should be asking you, as I am now, to become my wife," and taking her hand in his, he very gracefully kissed it.
Constance as gracefully drew it away.
"You have done your duty very nicely, Mr. Gresham," she said. "It must have been as awkward for you to be compelled to make this proposal as it is for me to be compelled to refuse it. It would be wicked for us to marry."
"You are very harsh," he managed to protest. "I am sure that I should not feel wicked in marrying you."
"Perhaps you haven't my sort of conscience," answered Constance, laughing to conceal her intense hatred and contempt of him.
Gresham, adopting also the light manner of small talk, laughed with her.
"Really it wouldn't be so bad," he urged. "We would make a very fair couple when we were averaged. You are beautiful and accomplished enough to make up for all the deficiencies I may have."
"You do say nice things to me," acknowledged Constance, "but there is one deficiency you have overlooked. We do not love each other, and that is fatal to Aunt Gertrude's rather impertinent plans. It renders even a discussion of the matter impossible. I can not marry you ever."
Gresham's lips turned dry.
"I believe you really mean that," he stumbled, unable quite to comprehend it.
"Certainly I do," she assured him.
"But you don't understand," he protested. "You can't understand or you would at least take time for more serious consideration. You are relinquishing your entire fortune!"
"Making myself a penniless pauper," she mocked with a light-hearted feeling that some one—description mentally evaded—would make a fortune unnecessary.
"It is a million dollars," he insisted.
"A million—that sounds familiar!" and she laughed in remembrance of her tilt with Polly.
Gresham swallowed three separate and very distinct times.
"A half-interest in that million is mine," he complained. "You can not turn over your share to an absurd charity without also throwing mine away. It is not fair."
"Fair?" repeated Constance. For an instant she felt her temper surging, then caught herself and took refuge in burlesque. "The only fair thing about it is that my Aunt Gertrude's will gave her orphaned niece the choice between a title with riches and poverty with freedom," and raising her eyes and hand toward heaven she started to sweep from the room with queenly grace, stifling a giggle as she went.
"Wait just a minute," begged Gresham, suppressing his anger. "We should arrange in some way to keep the money. We can, at least, be practical."
Constance, whose faculties were not so concentrated as his, heard a rustle on the stairs and glancing out through the portieres into the hall, saw Polly, without her hat, hurrying to the front door. The bell had not rung, and she divined that Polly, out of the boudoir window, had seen some particular company approaching.
"It seems impossible," she returned, and waited.
"Not quite," Gresham assured her with a smile. "There is one way we could carry out the provisions of your aunt's will and still force no repugnant companionship upon you."
"I think I see," replied Constance—"you mean that we part at the altar," and in spite of all her efforts to keep her face straight she finally laughed.
"Well, I didn't intend to put it quite in that melodramatic way," resented Gresham.
"Polly wins," declared Constance. "She bet me a five-pound box of chocolates that you would make that proposal, but I didn't really think you would do it."
"This is too serious a matter for flippancy," and Gresham bit his lip. "The plan I suggest is thoroughly sensible."
"That's why I reject it," stated Constance.
Gresham bent his frowning brows on the floor. Constance, through the portieres, saw Polly and Johnny Gamble.
"I think we shall consider the incident as closed," she added hastily, with a wicked desire to have him go out and meet Johnny in the hall.
"You are making a horrible mistake," Gresham told her, losing his restraint and raising his voice. "I think I know the reason for your relinquishing your Aunt Gertrude's million so lightly. You expect to share the million Mr. Gamble is supposed to have made!"
Constance paled and froze. Despite her low opinion of Gresham she had not expected this crudity.
"You may as well dismiss that hope," he roughly continued—"Mr. Gamble has no million to give you!"
Mr. Gamble at that moment bulged through the portieres, with Polly Parsons hanging to his coat tails. He laid an extremely heavy hand on Gresham's shoulder and turned him round.
"I want to see you outside!" declared Johnny, husky with rage.
Polly, at the risk of life and limb, placed her ample weight between them. "Don't, Johnny!" she implored. "Don't! Constance doesn't want any door-step drama, with all the neighbors for audience. Wait till you get him down an alley and then give him an extra one for me!"
Gresham had retired behind a chair.
"This is no place for a personal encounter," he urged.
Johnny turned to Constance, pitifully afraid that he should be denied his rights.
"Can't I put him out?" he begged.
Constance had been panic-stricken, but on this she smiled easily.
"Only gently, Johnny," she granted.
"Remember there are ladies present," urged Polly.
"I won't hurt Paul," promised Johnny, responding to her smile with a suddenly relieved grin, and, taking Gresham daintily by the coat sleeve with his thumb and forefinger, he led the unresisting cousin of Lord Yawpingham to the front door. Polly opened it for him, and, grabbing Gresham's silk hat, put it ha
stily askew and hindside before upon his bewildered head.
Johnny did not strike him or shove him, but the graceful and self- possessed Gresham, attempting desperately to recover those qualities and to leave with dignity, stumbled over the door-mat and scrambled wildly down the stone steps, struggling to retain his balance.
Colonel Bouncer, just starting up the steps with Loring, Sammy Chirp, Winnie, Val Russel and Mrs. Follison, hastily and automatically gave him a helping shove on the shoulder which sent him sprawling to the walk, where he completed his interesting exhibition by turning a back somersault.
"Glimmering gosh, Colonel!" protested Val, as he hurried to pick up Gresham, laughing, however, as did the others, on account of the neighbors. "Why did you do that?"
"I thought Johnny Gamble pushed him," humbly apologized the colonel.
Bruce Townley and the Courtney girls arrived, and in the gay scramble for wraps Johnny had a moment with Constance.
"Well, I lose," he said regretfully. "There isn't much chance to make that million between now and four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."
"What's the difference?" inquired Constance, smiling contentedly into his eyes.
Only the presence of so many people prevented her fichu from being mussed.
"There's a lot of difference," he asserted with a suddenly renewed impulse, the world being greatly changed since she had refused Gresham. "I set out to get it, and I won't give it up until four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."
"If you want it so very badly I hope that you get it then," she gently assured him.
Her shoulder happened to touch his arm and he pressed against it as hard as he could. She resisted him.
"Ready, Constance?" called Polly.
"In just a minute," Johnny took it on himself to reply. "How does the score board look by this time?"
Constance hesitated, then she blushed and drew from a drawer of the library table the score board. The neatly ruled pasteboard had been roughly torn into seven pieces—but it had been carefully pasted together again!
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