Meanwhile the other members of the dinnerparty were gathering with tender solicitude about their hostess in the ballroom beyond. Dick Minot, hopeless, glum, stalked moodily among them. Into the crowd drifted Jack Paddock, his sprightly air noticeably lacking, his eyes worried, dreadful.
"For the love of heaven," Minot asked, as they stepped together into a secluded corner, "what ails you?"
"Be gentle with me, boy," said Paddock unhappily. "I'm in a horrible mess. The graft, Dick—the good old graft. It's over and done with now."
"What do you mean?"
"It happened last night after our wild chase of Harrowby—I was fussed—excited I prepared two sets of repartee for my two customers to use to-night"
"Yes?"
"I always make carbon copies to refer to myself just before the stuff is to be used. A few minutes ago I took out my copies. Dick! I sent the same repartee to both of them!"
"Good lord!"
"Good lord is meek and futile. So is damn. Put on your little rubber coat, my boy. I predict a hurricane."
In spite of his own troubles, Minot laughed.
"Mirth, eh?" said Paddock grimly. "I can't see it that way. I'll be as popular as a Republican in Texas before this evening is over. Got a couple of hasty rapid-fire resignations all ready. Thought at first I wouldn't come—but that seemed cowardly. Anyway, this is my last appearance on any stage as a librettist. Kindly omit flowers."
And Mr. Paddock drifted gloomily away.
While the servants were passing cocktails on gleaming trays, Minot found the door to the balcony and stepped outside. A white wraith flitted from the shadows to his side.
"Mr. Minot," said a soft, scared little voice.
"Ah—Miss Meyrick," he cried.
Merciful fate this, that they met for the first time since that incident on the ramparts in kindly darkness.
"Miss Meyrick," began Minot hurriedly, "I'm very glad to have a moment alone with you. I want to apologize—for last night—I was mad— I did Harrowby a very palpable wrong. I'm very ashamed of myself as I look back. Can I hope that you will—forget—all I said?"
She did not reply, but stood looking down at the palms far below.
"Can I hope that you will forget—and forgive?"
She glanced up at him, and her eyes shone in the dusk.
"I can forgive," she said softly. "But I can't forget. Mr.—Mr. Minot"
"Yes?"
"What—what—is—woman's greatest privilege?"
Something in the tone of her voice sent a cold chill sweeping through Minot's very soul. He clutched the rail for support.
"If—if you'd answer," said the girl, "it would make it easier for"
Aunt Mary's generous form appeared in the doorway.
"Oh, there you are, Cynthia! You are keeping the duchess' dinner waiting."
Cynthia Meyrick joined her aunt. Minot stayed behind a moment. Below him Florida swam in the azure night. What had the girl been about to say?
Pulling himself together, he went inside and learned that he was to take in to dinner a glorious blond bridesmaid. When they were seated, he found that Miss Meyrick's face was hidden from him by a profusion of Florida blossoms. He was glad of that. He wanted to think—think.
'A few others were thinking at that table, Mrs. Bruce and the duchess among them. Mrs. Bruce was mentally rehearsing. The duchess glanced at her.
"The wittiest woman in San Marco," thought the hostess. "Bah!"
Mr. Paddock, meanwhile, was toying unhappily with his food. He had little to say. The attractive young lady he had taken in had already classified him as a bore. Most unjust of the attractive young lady.
"It's lamentable, really." Mrs. Bruce was speaking. "Even in our best society conversation has given way to the turkey trot. Our wits are in our feet. Where once people talked art, music, literature—now they tango madly. It really seems—"
"Everything you say is true," interrupted the duchess blandly. "I sometimes think the race of the future will be—a trotting race."
Mrs. Bruce started perceptibly. Her eyes lighted with fire. She had been working up to this line herself, and the coincidence was passing strange. She glared at the hostess. Mr. Paddock studied his plate intently.
"I for one," went on the Duchess of Lismore, "do not dance the tango or the turkey trot. Nor am I willing to take the necessary steps to learn them."
A little ripple ran round the table—the ripple that up to now had been the exclusive privilege of Mrs. Bruce. That lady paled visibly. She realized that there was no coincidence here.
"It seems too bad, too," she said, fixing th« hostess firmly with an angry eye. "Because women could have the world at their feet—if they'd only keep their feet still long enough."
It was the turn of the duchess to start, and start she did. As one who could not believe her ears, she stared at Mrs. Bruce. The "wittiest hostess in San Marco" was militantly under way.
"Women are not what they used to be," she continued. "Either they are mad about clothes, or they go to the other extreme and harbor strange ideas about the vote, eugenics, what not. In fact, the sex reminds me of the type of shop that abounds in a small town—its specialty is drygoods and notions."
The duchess pushed away a plate which had only that moment been set before her. She regarded Mrs. Bruce with the eye of Mrs. Pankhurst face to face with a prime minister.
"We are hardly kind to our sex," she said, "but I must say I agree with you. And the extravagance of women! Half the women of my acquaintance wear gorgeous rings on their fingers —while their husbands wear blue rings about their eyes."
Mrs. Brace's face was livid.
"Madam!" she said through her teeth".
"What is it?" asked the duchess sweetly.
They sat glaring at each other. Then with one accord they turned—to glare at Mr. Jack Paddock.
Mr. Paddock, prince of assurance, was blushing furiously. He stood the combined glare as long as he could—then he looked up into the night.
"How—how close the stars seem," he murmured faintly.
It was noted afterward that Mrs. Bruce maintained a vivid silence during the remainder of that dinner. The duchess, on the contrary, wrung from her purchased lines every possibility they held.
And in that embattled setting Mr. Minot sat, deaf to the delicous lisp of the debutante at his side. What was woman's greatest privilege? Wasn't it
His forehead grew damp. His knees trembled beneath the table. "Jephson—Thacker, Jephson —Thacker," he said over and over to himself.
After dinner, when the added guests invited by the duchess for the dance crowded the ballroom, Minot encountered Jack Paddock. Mr. Paddock was limp and pitiable.
"Ever apologize to an angry woman?" he asked. "Ever try to expostulate with a storm at sea? I've had it out with Mrs. Bruce—offered to do anything to atone—she said the best thing I could do would be to disappear from San Marco. She's right. I'm going. This is my exit from the butterfly life. And I don't intend to say good-by to the duchess, either."
"I wish I could go with you," said Minot sadly.
"Well—come along"
"No. I—I'll stick it out. See you later."
Mr. Paddock slipped unostentatiously away in the direction of the elevator. On a dais hidden by palms the orchestra began to play softly.
"You haven't asked to see my card," said Cynthia Meyrick at Minot's side.
He smiled a wan smile, and wrote his name opposite number five. She drifted away. The music became louder, rising to the bright stars themselves. The dances that had furnished so much bitter conversation at table began to break out. Minot hunted up the balcony and stood gazing miserably down at fairy-land below.
There Miss Meyrick found him when the fifth dance was imminent.
"Is it customary for girls to pursue their partners?" she inquired.
"I'm sorry," he said weakly. "Shall we go in?"
"It's so—so glorious out here."
He sighed—a sigh of resignation. He t
urned to her.
"You asked me—what is woman's greatest privilege," he said. "Yes."
"Is it—to change her mind?" She looked timidly into his eyes. "It—is," she whispered faintly. The most miserably happy man in history, he gasped.
"Cynthia! It's too late—you're to be married to-morrow. Do you mean—you'd call it all off now—at the last minute?"
She nodded her head, her eyes on the ground.
"My God!" he moaned, and turned away.
"It would be all wrong—to marry Harrowby," she said faintly. "Because I've come to—I—oh, Dick, can't you see?"
"See! Of course I see!" He clenched his fists. "Cynthia, my dearest"
Below him stretched six stories of open space. In his agony he thought of leaping over the rail— of letting that be his answer. But no—it would disarrange things so—it might even postpone the wedding!
"Cynthia," he groaned, "you can't understand. It mustn't be—I've given my word. I can't explain. I can never explain. But— Cynthia—Cynthia"
Back in the shadow the girl pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.
"A strange love—yours," she said. "A love that blows hot and cold."
"Cynthia—that isn't true—I do love you"
"Please! Please let us—forget." She stepped into the moonlight, fine, brave, smiling. "Do we —dance?"
"Cynthia!" he cried unhappily. "If you only understood"
"I think I do. The music has stopped. Harrowby has the next dance—he'd hardly think of looking for me here."
She was gone! Minot stood alone on the balcony. He was dazed, blind, trembling. He had refused the girl without whom life could never be worth while! Refused her, to keep the faith!
He entered upon the bright scene inside, slipped unnoticed to the elevator and, still dazed, descended to the lobby. He would walk in the moonlight until his senses were regained. Near the main door of the De la Pax he ran into Henry Trimmer. Mr. Trimmer had a newspaper in his hand.
"What's the matter with the women nowadays?" he demanded indignantly. Minot tried in vain to push by him. "Seen what those London suffragettes have done now?" And Trimmer pointed to a head-line.
"What have they done?" asked Minot.
"Done? They put dynamite under the statue of Lord Nelson ill Trafalgar Square and blew it sky-high. It fell over into the Strand"
"Good 1" cried Minot wildly. "Good! I hope to hell it smashed the whole of London!" And, brushing aside the startled Trimmer, he went out into the night.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when Mr. Minot, somewhat calmer of mind, returned to the De la Pax. As he stepped into the courtyard he was surprised to see a crowd gathered before the hotel. Then he noticed that from a second-floor window poured smoke and flame, and that the town fire department was wildly getting into action.
He stopped—his heart almost ceased beating. That was her window! The window to which he had called her on that night that seemed so far away—last night! Breathlessly he ran forward.
And he ran straight into a group just descended from the ballroom. Of that group Cynthia Meyrick was a member. For a moment they stood gazing at each other. Then the girl turned to her aunt.
"My wedding dress!" she cried. "L left it lying on my bed. Oh, I can't possibly be married to-morrow if that is burned!"
There was a challenge in that last sentence, and the young man for whom it was intended did not miss it. Mad with the injustice of life, he swooped down on a fireman struggling with a wabbly ladder. Snatching away the ladder, he placed it against the window from which the smoke and flame poured. He ran up it.
"Here!" shouted the chief of the fire department, laying angry hands on the ladder's base. "Wot you doing? You can't go in there."
"Why the devil can't I?" bellowed Minot. "Let go of that ladder!"
He plunged into the room. The smoke filled his nostrils and choked him. His eyes burned. He staggered through the smoky dusk into another room. His hands met the brass bars of a bed—then closed over something soft and filmy that lay upon it. He seized the something close, and hurried back into the other room.
'A fireman at another window sought to turn a stream of water on him. Water—on that gown!
"Cut that out, you fool!" Minot shouted. The fireman, who had suspected himself of saving a human life, looked hurt. Minot regained his window. Disheveled, smoky, but victorious, he half fell, half climbed, to the ground. The fire chief faced him.
"Who was you trying to rescue?" the chief demanded. His eyes grew wide. "You idiot," he roared, "they ain't nobody in that dress."
"Damn it, I know that," Minot cried.
He ran across the lawn and stood, a panting, limp, battered, ludicrous figure before Cynthia Meyrick.
"I—I hope it's the right one," he said, and held out the gown.
She took his offering, and came very close to him.
"I hate you!" she said in a low tone. "I hate you!"
"I—I was afraid you would," he muttered.
A shout from the firemen announced that the blaze was under control. To his dismay, Minot saw that an admiring crowd was surrounding him. He broke away and hurried to his room.
Cynthia Meyrick's final words to him rang in his ears. Savagely he tore at his ruined collar.
Was this ridiculous farce never to end?
As if in answer, a distant clock struck twelve. He shuddered.
To-morrow, at high noon!
Chapter 20
"PLEASE KILL"
EARLY Tuesday morning, while Mr. Minot still slept and mercifully forgot, two very wide awake gentlemen sat alone together in the office of the San Marco Mail. One was Manuel Gonzale, proprietor of that paper, as immaculate as the morn; the other was that broad and breezy gentleman known in his present incarnation as Mr. Martin Wall.
"Very neat. Very neat indeed," said Mr. Wall, gazing with evident approval at an inky smelling sheet that lay before him. "It ought to do the work. If it does, it will be the first stroke of luck I've had in San Marco."
Gonzale smiled, revealing two even rows of very white teeth.
"You do not like San Marco?" he ventured.
Mr. Wall snorted angrily.
"Like it? Does a beheaded man like the ax? In a long and golden professional career, I've never struck anything like this town before for hard luck. I'm not in it twenty-four hours when I'm left alone, my hands tied, with stuff enough to make your eyes pop out of your head. That's pleasant! Then, after spending two months and a lot of money trailing Lord Harrowby for the family jools, I finally cop them. I give the crew of my borrowed boat orders to steam far, far away, and run to my cabin to gloat. Do I gloat? Ask me. I do not gloat. I find the famous Chain Lightning's Collar is a very superior collection of glass, worth about twenty-three cents. I send back the glass, and stick around, hoping for better days. And the best I get is a calL from the owner of my yacht, with orders to vacate at once. When I first came here I swore I'd visit that jewelry store again—alone. But—there's a jinx after me in this town. What's the use? I'm going to get out."
"But before you go," smiled Manuel, "one stroke of luck you shall have."
"Maybe. I leave that to you. This kind of thing"—he motioned toward the damp paper—"is not in my line." He bent over a picture on the front page. "That cut came out pretty well, didn't it? Lucky we got the photograph before big brother George arrived."
"I have always found San Marco lucky," replied Gonzale. "Always—with one trifling exception." He drummed reminiscently on his desk.
"I say—who's this?" Mr. Wall pointed to a line just beneath the name of the paper. "Robert O'Neill, Editor and Proprietor," he read.
Manuel Gonzale gurgled softly somewhere within, which was his cunning, non-committal way of indicating mirth.
"Ah—my very virtuous managing editor," he said. "One of those dogs who dealt so vilely with me—I have told you of that. Manuel Gonzale does not forget." He leaned closer. "This morning at two, after O'Neill and Howe had sent to-day's paper to press
as usual, Luypas, my circulation manager, and I arrived. My virtuous editors had departed to their rest. Luypas and I stopped the presses, we substituted a new firstpage form. O'Neill and Howe—they will not know. Always they sleep until noon. In this balmly climate, it is easy to lie abed."
Again Manuel Gonzale gurgled.
"May their sleep be dreamless," he said. "And should our work of the morning fail, may the name of O'Neill be the first to concern the police."
Wall laughed.
"A good idea," he remarked. He looked at his watch. "Nine-fifteen. The banks ought to be open now."
Gonzale got to his feet. Carefully he folded the page that had been lying on his desk.
"The moment for action has come," he said. "Shall we go down to the street?"
"I'm in strange waters," responded Martin Wall uneasily. "The first dip I've ever taken out of my line. Don't believe in it either—a man should have his specialty and stick to it. However, I need the money. Am I letter perfect in my part, I wonder?"
The door of the Mail office opened, and a sly little Cuban with an evil face stepped in.
"Ah, Luypas," Gonzale said, "you are here at last? Do you understand? Your boys they are to be in the next room—yes? You are to sit near that telephone. At a word from my friend, Mr. Martin Wall, to-day's edition of the Mail is to flood the streets—the news-stands. Instantly. Delay might be fatal. Is that clear?"
"I know," said Luypas.
"Very good," said Gonzale. He turned to Martin Wall. "Now is the time," he added.
The two descended to the street. Opposite the Hotel de la Pax they parted. The sleek little Spaniard went on alone and mounted boldy those pretentious steps. At the desk he informed the clerk on duty that he must see Mr. Spencer Meyrick at once.
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