Part 20

"You go with him, Aunt Mary," said Rockwell, again taking command. "You see her first," he continued. "Mr. Merriam can wait somewhere--in 'Mr. Wilson's' room. When you have explained the general situation you can call him in and leave them together and--give him his chance."

Even at this moment it was a slight shock to Merriam to realise that the state of feeling between himself and Mollie June, which they had supposed completely hidden, had been clearly perceived by the others--or at least, he thought swiftly, by Rockwell and Aunt Mary and Alicia. He smiled a little cynically to himself as he understood that they had been willing to use this interest of his as a motive in securing his easy acquiescence in their previous schemes. Evidently they were counting on it in Mollie June too. That gave him a thrill of hope which made him forget his cynicism.

Father Murray had put Aunt Mary's wrap about her, and Rockwell had got Merriam's hat and his own.

Merriam found Alicia by his side. She held out her hand, and when he took it she squeezed his fingers in the way she had and said significantly, with all of a woman's interest in a romance:

"Good luck!"

"Thank you," said Merriam, but his answering smile was again a little cynical.

Then he opened the door for Aunt Mary and waved his hand to the others, with some amusement at the anxious looks with which they were regarding him. Even Simpson's countenance was perturbed!

Rockwell and the Mayor went down to the street with them and put them in the limousine. The Mayor directed the chauffeur to drive them to the hotel and then to return for himself and the others. Rockwell spoke to Aunt Mary:

"You put the essential facts before her and then leave them--leave Mr. Merriam to do the rest!"

And again Merriam smiled with an acid amusement that is commonly supposed to belong to the middle-aged and old but is really most characteristic of those who are under thirty.

Rockwell glanced at Merriam as if about to give him too a parting exhortation, but hesitated, checked perhaps by the younger man's expression, and spoke to the driver instead: "All right!"

They had started, and Merriam tried to think. His whole life turned in a very peculiar sense on the events of the next hour--whether he should continue to be himself or take up the life of another man. He got that far. But what he should say to Mollie June--even what it was he wanted to say to her--he could not get on with it. The mood of youthful cynicism was by no means the right mood for the business in hand.

And then--too soon for him now--they were at the hotel.

So little had he been able to think clearly that it was not until he was helping Aunt Mary out of the machine that he realised that in entering the hotel with her again this way, in the character of the dead Senator, he was already in effect consenting to Rockwell's plan and binding its consequences upon himself and Mollie June.

He had a wild idea of getting back into the limousine and driving away and later entering the hotel via the fire escape again. But Aunt Mary was already on the pavement.

As they entered the lobby Merriam glanced about to see whether he was noticed and recognised as the Senator. He was. At least three men whom he did not know bowed and raised their hats, and one of them took a step forward as if to approach them. But Merriam looked away and guided Aunt Mary as rapidly as possible to the elevators.

When they emerged on Floor Three, Merriam asked for the key, explaining casually that "Mr. Wilson" was a friend.

In a couple of minutes he had escorted Aunt Mary to the door of her sitting room--Senator Norman's no longer--or was it still to be Senator Norman's?--and had himself entered "Mr. Wilson's" room.

His first act there was to call up the hotel florist--as he had done once before on this same telephone. But this time Merriam's order was for roses, to be sent up at once.

He hung up the receiver and walked nervously about the room.

Was it not time for him to go to Mollie June? Aunt Mary was being terribly long about her explanation. Had Mollie June broken down under her grief--grief for George Norman?--or merely from anxiety and conflicting emotions? Was she refusing to see him? Was she ill?

He jumped up and walked back and forth in his nervousness, watching the door to the other bedroom, at which he might expect to receive Aunt Mary's summons.

A knock at last! But it was at the wrong door, the hall door. In a sort of hesitating amazement he went to answer it. It was the boy with the roses. He had forgotten ordering them.

He signed for the flowers and brought them into the room and took them out of their box and tissue paper. They were lovely--the most exquisite colour, between pink and red, that has no name but that of the flower itself--pink and red harmonised in soft coolness and fragrance--Mollie June's flowers without a doubt.

But had he done well in ordering them? Was this a time for lover-like gifts? Should he not have got white roses, such as one sends to a funeral?

And then, as he stood in this anxiety, came Aunt Mary's knock at the bedroom door.

He started as if caught in a guilty action and thrust the flowers back into their box before he went to open to her.

"How is she?"

But Aunt Mary herself looked so broken that he led her to a chair.

Then, "How is she?" he repeated. He could not wait.

"She is very quiet."

"You told her the--the plan?"

"Yes."

"She understood it?"

"I think so."

"Am I to go to her?"

"I suppose so," said Aunt Mary with a sigh. "Mr. Rockwell said----" She stopped.

Merriam showed her the roses.

"Should I take these to her?"

Aunt Mary looked at him and at the flowers.

"I think perhaps you might," she said, and then sat staring out across the fire escape.

She looked so very miserable that Merriam impulsively patted her shoulder. She glanced up quickly at that, then turned her eyes to the window again. He could not read her look, but he was not sorry he had betrayed his affectionate sympathy. If he was to be her brother for the rest of their lives----

After a moment more of hesitation he picked up the flowers and passed through the former sick room to the sitting room.

Mollie June was sitting in a small straight-backed chair by the window, looking out. But Merriam was sure at the first glance that she saw nothing. She had merely turned automatically towards the light, as all but the old or the self-conscious tend to do. As Aunt Mary had said she was very quiet. Her back was of course towards the room and Merriam.

He waited for a moment just inside the door, looking at her, forgetting the flowers in his hands. He was sorry for her and very uncertain what he ought to do. Then he became a little frightened, because she sat so still. She gave no sign of having heard him.

With conscious effort, because he must do something, he crossed the room till he stood beside her. Still she did not turn her eyes from the window.

He stood looking down at her. She was a pathetic figure as she sat there--the more pathetic, to the eyes of youth at least, because she was so lovely, so young and fresh really, although a little pale and heavy-eyed. He saw dark shadows under her eyes which must have come from tears.

The sight of these unlocked him, drowned all his hesitations in pitying love. He dropped on his knees beside her chair, laying the long-stemmed roses regardlessly on the floor and putting one hand on the back of her chair.

"Mollie June!" he said.

She did not start. Evidently she had known he was there. She looked first at the flowers on the floor and then at his face.

"I am so sorry," he cried.

"Are you sorry or glad?" she asked.

"I am terribly sorry for you," he answered. Her hands lay together in her lap, and he attempted to take one of them.

But she moved them slightly.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't make me strange to you, Mollie June," he cried.

"How can I help it?" she answered. "I am strange to myself too. You see, I am glad! I am sorry for George," she went on quickly. "It is terrible to me that he is dead. But I am so glad I do not have to be his wife any more!"

Once more, as on a former occasion, some dim notion came to Merriam of what it must mean to a girl to be connubially in the power of a man she does not love. He pitied and loved her greatly. Also he marvelled. How had she come through it all so fresh and unchanged? The answer, of course, was youth. But youth could not know the answer.

"I am glad too," he said.

Her eyes, which as she dropped them had rested on the roses on the floor, came back to his face.

"You are glad I have to marry you."

"But you don't!"

"You know I do."

Instantly he saw that Aunt Mary had not put the thing fairly before her. In Aunt Mary's mind it was settled. The course of action which promised to save the precious Norman name from scandal was the only possible course of action. She had so represented it to Mollie June.

"No, no!" Merriam cried. "You shall not be forced into this. You shall never be forced in anything again if I can help it. I will not be forced myself--even to marry you."

"What else can we do?" asked Mollie June, searching his face.

"It's fairly simple," he said, a little bitterly. "Not easy, but simple. I will write a brief, plain account of the whole affair--the impersonation--from beginning to end, and send for a reporter and give it to him. That will end everything. I will sit down now at that desk and write it and call for a man and give it to him while Aunt Mary thinks we are still talking--unless you tell me not to."

"Would you do that?"

"Indeed I will!"

He rose to his feet. He meant it, and she saw that he meant it. To be forced in this thing was, in fact, even less to his liking perhaps than to hers.

Standing, he saw the roses at his feet. He stooped and picked them up and handed them to her.

"You'll let me give you these?" he said, his manner more determined than lover-like. "I saw them from the elevator as I was coming up here with Aunt Mary. They were so like you that I could not help buying them and bringing them to you."

She accepted them passively, looking up at him. Perhaps she liked him determined rather than lover-like.

"I am not giving you up," he went on gravely. "But you will go away somewhere with Aunt Mary, and I will go back to Riceville. I have my contract for the rest of this year at least. And if you will wait a few years--you will want to wait and rest a while,--I will come back and win you in my own right."

She did not answer but looked up at him, still searching his face.

For a moment he stood regarding her. That image of her as she sat there with the flowers in her lap and her uplifted face and questioning eyes, more lovely than ever in their intense gravity in spite of their trace of tears, remained one of the permanent treasures of his memory.

He turned away and walked over to the writing table and sat down. It was a moment or two before he could think why he was there. Then he remembered and drew towards him several sheets of the hotel stationery and took up a pen. He realised that he was in a very poor frame of mind for literary composition, but he mastered his attention and wrote:

_Statement by John Merriam regarding His Impersonation of Senator Norman_

He underlined those words and resisted an impulse to turn and look at Mollie June. He wanted to know whether she was looking at him or looking out at the window again. He wanted, too, merely to see her. But he would not look. With a heroic effort he brought his mind back to the paper before him. How to begin? Where to begin? It was a long story, he realised. He must make it as brief as possible. He could omit much. But he must introduce himself. The public did not know him from Adam. He seized at this straw.

"My name is John Merriam," he wrote. "I am the principal of the high school at Riceville, Illinois. On my mother's side I am related to----"

He stopped abruptly. It was the fragrance of roses that interrupted him. Mollie June had risen and come over beside him. His effort of concentration had been so great that he had not heard her. She carried the flowers pressed against the bosom of her dress. The action was probably mechanical; she was too much engrossed to think to put them down. She did not look at him but over his shoulder at his writing. She read it.

Apparently his opening statement caught her attention. She looked at him and smiled slightly, more with her mouth than her eyes, which were still grave.

"You wouldn't like to change your name, would you?" she said.

"Mollie June!" He was on his feet.

She backed away from him, pressing her flowers tight.

"Would you?" she demanded.

"It's not that," he said, not daring to advance towards her lest she should retreat farther.

"A woman always has to change her name when she marries. Why shouldn't a man do it for once?"

He started forward now and caught her arm and led her back to her chair and dropped on his knees again beside her.

"Dearest Mollie June," he said, "I'll change my name to yours so gladly, if you will let me. So as to have you sooner than I could the other way. But not unless you want me to!" he added fiercely. "For yourself!"

She looked at him, shyly now.

"I would rather have it the other way myself," she said, tears standing in her eyes at last, "and wait and change my name to yours. But I think we ought to do it this way for George."

"For George!"

"Yes, and Aunt Mary. She has been very good to me. George was good to me too in his way. And he was my husband, and he's dead. If we can save his name and save her--this way,--don't you think we ought to?"

Then of course he put his arms about her.

"I won't call you George, though!" she said presently, very emphatically.

"What will you call me, dearest?"

She smiled at him through her tears and with a gesture that ravished him lifted his hand and kissed it.

"Mr. John!" she whispered.

He would have kissed her again, but she hurried on.

"We'll pretend to people that it's a nickname left over from some game or play."

"It _is_ left over from a sort of--play," he answered, and then she was ready for another kiss.

THE END