CHAPTER XIX

_His Grace Still Hesitates_

I do not believe that Mrs. Radigan will marry again. Time was very recently when she had a fond eye on J. Madison Mudison, for he was undoubtedly the smartest bachelor in town, while she had risen no higher than to stand in the line of patronesses at subscription dances. Now with the new house, the costume-ball, and the completion of a traffic agreement between the Radigan and the Williegilt railroads, she has set herself on such a dizzy height that a match with Mr. Mudison would be a tumble, for Radigan to-day belongs to just as many clubs, and, besides, has millions that keep adding unto themselves. She just sighs when Mudison is mentioned, and perhaps she will blush a little and say there was really never anything in the reports that were abroad. So we regard the affair as history, and Mrs. Radigan never troubles about the past. Her concern is with the future, and to-day the future lies over the sea, among the beer-pots of England, among the leaky palaces of the great Duke of Nocastle, and in the court of his Majesty the King. I grow sad when she reveals her ambition, for to me it means the loss of Pearl Veal; for though at times there comes to me through the cloud of cigarette smoke that hovers around that lovely girl, comes with her smile and her monosyllabic utterances a gleam of hope, it seems really madness to think that when the crucial question is popped by his Grace's solicitor she will refuse. Mrs. Radigan says that her sister is not mad. Mrs. Radigan interprets the inscrutable smile as favorable. Mrs. Radigan goes on laying her plans for a great wedding, and has already hired a press agent.

"We can let him have an office in the little reception-room downstairs," she said to me over her teacup the other day. "He can have his type-writers and telephone there, and I am sure that the noise will not disturb us away off here."

"But my dear Mrs. Radigan," said I, "you must remember that I am still engaged to your sister, and that Ethel Bumpschus is in the field pitting her ten millions against Pearl's paltry four."

"Your engagement is a minor matter," replied Mrs. Radigan pleasantly; "you must remember that while it may seem important to you, it is Pearl's third or fourth, for before Plumstone Smith she had several devoted admirers in Kansas City. As for Ethel, I have plainly intimated to his Highness that if worst comes to worst, Radigan and I will make up a purse between us to quite bring Pearl's dot to Bumpschus proportions."

Truly, when Mrs. Radigan sets her mind on accomplishing anything, one might as well get out of her way. But I die hard myself.

"Has the Duke proposed?" I asked.

"Pearl tells me not," was the quiet reply. "But you know his Highness is waiting for his solicitor, and when Sir Charles Wigge arrives from London, we can look for doings, real doings. I tell you, any girl might well be proud of having a 'Sir' come to her to lay the hand of a duke at her feet."

"A ghastly ceremony," said I, thinking of one thing.

"You are not qualified to judge," said she smiling, and evidently misinterpreting my remark.

But how clever she is! Most women conducting such a campaign would seek to separate the Duke from the Bumpschuses and bring him entirely within their own sphere of influence. But Mrs. Radigan regards Ethel Bumpschus as her chief ally, though an unwitting one, and when she gets possession of his Grace she likes to have the great heiress around. She says Pearl shows so well against a plain background. The poor Duke is almost distracted. What with Pearl's beauty and my insidious remarks to him about the enormous wealth of the house of Bumpschus and the speculative character of the Radigan fortunes, he flutters about as aimlessly as a wounded butterfly and has about as much to say. When the dog-fancier is particularly pressing for a payment on the bull pups his Grace will concentrate his attentions on one heiress or the other for a day at a time, then he will go all to pieces again and aimlessly wander up and down the Park Mall or stand on the Battery wall watching the steamships come in.

Mrs. Radigan told him the other day that she could see by his face that he was working too hard, and insisted that the bracing air of Hempstead Plain could alone save him to his country. So we all went down to the Westbury place for a week-end, even Miss Bumpschus, with Constance Wherry and Williegilt Mint, a youngish chap, who is studying at Harvard, and so has not much to do except go about. Pearl took some of us down in her car in the afternoon, while the rest went by train, arriving in time for dinner. The Duke was in our party, but I doubt if ever again he will trust himself to the mercy of our fair chauffeuse, for Pearl is an expert with her car and can run as close to a hub without scraping it as can the Frenchman who looks after the Radigan machine-shop. We put the Duke and Miss Bumpschus behind, with Gascan as chaperone, and we should never have known they were there as we ran down the avenue to Thirty-fourth Street had not the Duke once remarked that it was "jolly." Then I gave Pearl a gentle nudge and she made a figure S around two rapidly approaching trolley cars. I expected a scream, but there was an ominous silence. Covertly I turned my head, first to look into the expressionless face of Gascan, his eye set along the track, then into the pale eyes of the great Englishman. He was terror-stricken, but to do him justice, I think he was not so much frightened by the smartness with which Pearl ran across the fender of the trolley car, as by Miss Bumpschus, who lay gasping in one of his arms. I could not help smiling, and in smiling I aroused him to action. With the bull-dog perseverance that is the characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon, he propped Ethel up in her corner.

"That was a jolly close call," he said, speaking, we supposed, of the delightful way Pearl handled the car.

"Another like that and you lose the Duke," I whispered. I could see just a bit of pink cheek turn pinker, just the full mouth curling at the corners, for all the rest was hidden from me by fur and goggles.

We shot between a vegetable truck and an elevated post, at top speed, and came to a standstill within an inch of the ferry-gate; and when on the other side of the river, we whirled away again at the legal speed, going like the wind. The keen air put the mischief in Pearl's veins, and she ran with a recklessness that at times even disturbed my equanimity, though, of course, I did not dare show it, for I have noticed that these silent women set more store by nerve than by brains. We turned corners on one tire; we ran up to trolley cars at a forty-mile clip, then circled around them with a wild scream of the horn; over crossings we bowled with a succession of shocks that were likely to hurl his Grace off into the sky, but he clung to the hem of the silent Gascan's cow-skin coat. Just once the noble Englishman spoke. The mud, gentle harbinger of spring, was rising around us in clouds, and the engine, called on for double exertion, was roaring demoniacally.

"Jolly!" he cried. "Je-je-je-olly!"

Miss Bumpschus said nothing. I fear that the cynical expression of Gascan, the chauffeur, had for the time blighted her hope that in their mutual peril she and the Duke would find a tie to bind them. But such peril had to have its end; such a journey could not long continue, for in all the world there were not enough thousands of miles for speed like that to cover. We chipped the paint off the iron gate of the Westbury place as Jamaica lay hallowed in the gold of the setting sun, and the groans of the resting engine brought the whole house to the veranda. Gascan handed down the frozen Duke and Ethel Bumpschus, and in the warm smile of Sally Radigan they were thawed out.

"Of course my little sister brought your Highness down quietly," said Mrs. Radigan, when she had fixed him before the library fire and despatched a man for hot Scotch.

"It was jolly," replied the great Englishman. "I'm used to fast going--jolly fast going."

But I think that had the Duke the power at that moment he would have fled home to his leaky castles, leaving behind wealth and loveliness, broken hearts and full purses. Pearl had shown a phase of her character that made him fear for his ducal rights, and as for Miss Bumpschus, his man told my man that--but these are kitchen secrets.

Night came, bringing with it Constance Wherry, large and good-natured as ever, with Williegilt Mint and Radigan. Dinner came, bringing the Duke down in a coat that fitted over his shoulders as on a wire hanger; bringing Pearl Veal in simple black that set off her rounded shoulders to perfection, and Ethel Bumpschus in a spangly pink creation, with eye-glasses, and a black patch on her chin; bringing Constance Wherry with her neck squeezed into one of the finest pearl collarettes I have ever seen, though it was not tight enough to prevent her talking as volubly as ever. Mrs. Radigan was in splendid tune with her surroundings. As one of the men pushed the Duke into his place at her side, I heard her remark: "We are all so glad your Highness has come. You will enjoy it here, I am sure. To-night we have bridge. To-morrow there are a lot of things to see: the Cathedral at Garden City, and the beautiful view of the plains from the hill behind the stables. I'm sure it's as fine as anything you have in Europe. It reminds me of Bar-beyzun, the place Mil-let painted, you know."

His Grace said it would be jolly.

Then she said that Sir Charles Wigge must see it when he came. She would insist on the Duke bringing him down for a few days. When Sir Charles did come, all would be over with me, I thought. There was plenty of time to ponder on the situation, for Constance Wherry was giving me in detail the plot of a play she had seen the night before, and by leaning interestedly toward her I was able to get an occasional glance around the monstrous jardinière, and see Pearl, as she covered his Grace with smiles. The Duke quite warmed up and smiled, too, and made several remarks, after he had had some champagne. There was little consolation for me there, except the meagre possibility in Pearl's promise to take Sir Charles out in her car--the roads would be better then, she said, and they would be able to go.

"It would be jolly," Nocastle stammered, twirling his glass.

After dinner we had bridge, but it was rather tame at our table, his Grace declining to play for more than a ha'penny a point, as he had to carry Miss Bumpschus, who never gambles. It was rather a bore, but I found some pleasure in the polite row we had at the end, over the question as to whether we were playing on the American or English coinage basis. His Grace said English, of course, as he never could understand our American money. It was folly to be wise, indeed, as he had won three rubbers; but as the amount involved was only $5, I settled in English and let it go at that, but Miss Wherry stuck to cents, paid, and went to bed in a towering rage. She lacks humor. Now, when I told Pearl about it she blew a smoke ring and said simply, "He's a jolly duke."