Part 14

"What I have said is very good--very good," repeated Emma Fornez, pleased. "It's all studied, very carefully studied out, but it takes with young simpletons, big geese, good-looking boys--don't I know? _Est-ce-que j'en ai joue de ces tours la_? Come, now, what did you fight about?"

Beecher had an inclination to take her into his confidence; but he resisted the impulse, and to turn the conversation said artfully:

"By Jove, you look stunning! You won't have to sing a note."

She was in a filmy peignoir, and, as his glance showed an amused admiration, she said, with a look of apology which she did not feel at all, gathering the peignoir closer with a perfectly simulated modesty:

"It's very bad--my receiving you like this. I am going through my costumes. They are dreams. Wait, you shall see--you wish to see them? Good!" All at once she stopped and, seizing his arm, cried: "Teddy, I am in a cold fright--I shiver all over whenever I think of it. New York audiences are terrible. It will be a big, big failure, won't it?"

"There, I'll give you my lucky piece," he said, patting her shoulder as he would a child's.

"Will you!" she cried, delighted; and; running into the bedroom, she called back: "I will show you the costume for the second act first. You will fall down and adore me. Keep me talking, Teddy--I shall go into hysterics. Oh, I am so frightened!"

She tried her voice, singing a scale, inquiring anxiously, her head peering around the door: "That sounds bad, _hein_?"

"Marvelous!" said Beecher, who did not know one note from another.

Reassured, she entered radiantly, took two or three steps forward, and, lifting the castanets on her fingers, flung herself into the pose of Carmen exulting in the return of her lover.

"Carmen, Teddy," she cried, with a toss of her head. "Carmen is different from all other roles. To succeed in Carmen, one must be a Carmen one's self--_enfant de la Boheme_. You like this? Wait--wait a moment."

Back in her bedroom, she continued, pausing from time to time to shriek at her maid: "Teddy, you do me so much good--you take my mind off.... Victorine, _tu m'assassine_! ... Teddy, they will think me beautiful, _hein_? You will stay--you will talk to me until I go?"

"Wish I could," said Beecher, to whom this peep behind the scenes was novel. "The deuce is, I'm dining with Mrs. Fontaine--going in her box."

"And Charters--she is going too?"

"I don't know."

"What--you don't know?" she said, emerging, a shawl of shaded luminous greens flung over the shoulder of a russet taffeta. She seized him by the chin with the savage gesture of the Bohemian. "You lie to me! You love her--and you know!" Then, slipping on the sofa beside him, half playful, half feline, she pleaded: "Tell me, Teddy--tell me just to distract me. Be a nice boy--you see how nervous I am--please!"

Beecher did not resist. He recounted lightly, making little of the few passages at arms between him and Nan Charters, ending with a droll reproduction of his laughing exit, cured and disillusionized.

"Ah, my poor Teddy!" said Emma Fornez, shaking her head. "Everything you say proves what I feared."

"What?"

"You are in love; you are beyond hope!

"What, after I've told you this?"

"Exactly. She asked you to telephone, you didn't. Why? Because you are in love--you are afraid."

"Emma, I will tell you the truth," he said, with an excusing shrug.

"Aha!"

"I was attracted--"

"Good!"

"But I saw what an idiot I would be."

"Very good!"

"I am completely cured, and if I didn't telephone, it is--"

"Because you are in love," said Emma promptly.

"Nonsense!"

"You will see her tomorrow; if not, day after tomorrow. And the longer you stay away, the worse for you."

The arrival of Spinetti, the conductor, to run over a last few points, broke in upon this interesting discussion. Beecher departed, after a promise to come behind after the second act with a budget of news. He returned to his rooms, undisturbed by the charges of Emma Fornez.

"I haven't thought of her the whole day," he said contentedly. "If I didn't telephone, it's because--well, because--what's the use? I have other things more interesting to do."

In his apartment he found McKenna waiting for him, in company with Gunther, who was already dressed for dinner at Mrs. Fontaine's.

"Hello, McKenna," he said, surprised. "What's up?"

The two had been discussing energetically, and the little difficult hesitation told him that he himself had been the subject of conversation.

"I'm called off on an important case," said McKenna. "Thought I'd better have an understanding with you first."

"What understanding?" he said. His eye was attracted by the heaped-up mail on a side table, and he moved over to examine it, with a curiosity, utterly illogical, to see if Miss Charters had written him.

"Mr. Beecher, I have a request to make of you," said McKenna quickly.

"What's that?"

"Don't open any letters or answer the telephone until I am gone."

"Why, yes; but--" He cut off with a look of interrogation.

"Pump it into him, Mac," said Gunther, throwing himself back and puffing forth great volumes of smoke.

"The truth is, Mr. Beecher," said McKenna, smiling, "Mrs. Kildair played us both to the queen's fashion."

"What was I to do?" said Beecher warmly. "Whom does the ring belong to, anyway? Is there any reason I should do what she doesn't want me to?"

"No--no," said McKenna slowly.

"Could I have refused a direct demand from her like that? And what reason could I give if I had?"

"You couldn't," said McKenna, eying the end of his cigar. "She did the job neatly. I admire that woman--don't know when I've met one of that sex who's caught my fancy so."

"I suppose you're sick of the case and want to get out," said Beecher, believing he had divined the errand. "Don't know as I blame you."

"No, I don't want to quit," said McKenna slowly, while Gunther smiled to himself. "I should say, rather, there are things in this case that make me particularly interested--interested for my own curiosity to go a little deeper. Only, I want to be sure we understand things the same way. You don't understand from anything Mrs. Kildair said, do you, that I am prevented from going on working on my own hook?"

"Why, no; of course not," said Beecher, reflecting. "I understand two things: one, that Mrs. Kildair wishes to keep in confidence what she said to you, which I should say was the explanation of certain facts connected with her having the ring."

"Second?" said McKenna.

"Second, that she believes the ring will be returned, and until she is sure it is she doesn't wish to give us certain suspicions or knowledge that she has."

"First rate--just right," said McKenna, rising quickly, showing satisfaction in the instant alertness of his movements. "That's what I understand; we understand each other." As he spoke, the telephone rang. He made a quick gesture of opposition as Beecher started, saying: "Not now, sir; I'd rather you wouldn't answer--not just now."

Beecher looked at Gunther, who nodded and said:

"McKenna's got a good reason. You'll understand later."

"Now, Mr. Beecher, I've just one thing to say before I go," said McKenna, while the insistent bell continued its querulous summons. "I'd prefer you wouldn't mention to any one that you saw me. At any rate, as Mrs. Kildair evidently isn't anxious for quick results, there's nothing to be done now. Perhaps by tomorrow there may be a different turn to the case."

"What do you mean?" said Beecher. "Why don't you tell me what you know?"

"You forget, Mr. Beecher; you yourself have stopped me there," said McKenna, with a slightly malicious smile. "However, there's going to be a little meeting tonight that may have a whole lot to do with the fortunes of a good many people; and when it's over it may, or may not, throw a new light on this case."

"They're going to put Slade through the same initiation they gave Majendie," said Gunther, at a look from Beecher. "There's a meeting of the big fellows at the governor's tonight--a sort of sheep-shearing--though Slade's not much of a lamb."

"And his wool grows close to the hide," said McKenna, with one of his rare laughs. "However, I can tell you this much: whatever happens I don't believe there'll be any exit by the bullet route--not if I know John G. Slade. Now, sir, I've got to disappear for a while on my own troubles."

"Where can I get you?" asked Beecher.

"You can't get me," said McKenna, with one of his sudden contractions of the eyelids. "That's the whole point--not till I get you. I'm off, and you don't know where," he added, offering his hand. "Maybe two days; maybe a week."

"I don't understand," said Beecher, with a puzzled expression.

"I do," said Gunther, pulling his sleeve.

"Now, there are two little points may interest you gentlemen as expert deducers," said McKenna, with his hat on his head. "One is, I've found out who those detectives were that night--they're crooks. Second--and don't forget this--I share Mrs. Kildair's opinion that the ring is going to be returned."

"Then you know who took it!" exclaimed Beecher, while Gunther looked up suddenly.

"I don't know a single thing," said McKenna, "but I'm getting to the suspicious stage. So long."

The telephone had stopped. Beecher, left open-mouthed by the exit of McKenna, turned to Gunther, who had resumed his easy lounge.

"What the deuce is going on, Bruce? What's all this mystery?"

"Look over your mail," said Gunther irrelevantly.

Beecher obeyed the suggestion. At the end of a moment he exclaimed:

"Hello! Why, here's a note from Mrs. Kildair--sent by messenger, evidently."

"Read it."

Beecher glanced at it hurriedly.

DEAR TEDDY:

Have been trying all day to get hold of McKenna, but they tell me at his office he's out of town. I want to see him very much. If you know where he is, please have him call me up. Shall see you at Mrs. Fontaine's tonight.

RITA.

P.S. Please find McKenna if you possibly can.

"By Jove--McKenna!" he exclaimed, and hastened toward the door, only to be stopped by Gunther.

"Ted, you blockhead, what are you doing?"

"Going after McKenna."

"Just what he doesn't want."

Beecher stopped short, suddenly comprehending.

"That's it, is it?" he said, returning. "He wants to keep clear of Mrs. Kildair's, then?"

"You see," said Gunther, "it is not often that McKenna gets double-crossed. When he does, he doesn't particularly relish it. Mrs. Kildair may be perfectly right in bottling up the whole affair; but, after what happened yesterday, Mac isn't going to stop until he gets to the bottom."

"But why disappear?"

"Because, you little white fluffy toy donkey, the last thing in the world Mrs. Kildair wants is to have him do anything at all, and, as you are putty in the hands of any pretty woman, he doesn't intend to have you call him off."

"I'll see Mrs. Kildair at Louise's. What am I to say?"

Gunther shrugged his shoulders.

"Wonder if she's really playing to be Mrs. Slade," he said grimly. "If she is, she'll give that up after tonight."

"What's going to happen to him, Bruce?"

"He'll come out with so little left that a Committee on Virtue will arrest him for indecent exposure--and the country will be saved."

Beecher stopped before the telephone.

"Wonder if Mrs. Kildair really was on the 'phone?" he said meditatively. The thought recalled Miss Charters, but without disturbing his equanimity.

"Bruce," he said joyfully, rushing to dress, "Tilton's crazy to have me go to Africa with him. By Jove, I've half made up my mind! Give me a man's life; a life with men, out in the open--dogs and horses, and nothing but a few lions and fat elephants to bother you!"

When they arrived at Mrs. Fontaine's, they found, to their surprise, that Mrs. Kildair had been delayed by an automobile breaking down, and would only join them later at the opera.

Not one of them had the faintest suspicion, when later Mrs. Kildair calmly entered the box, that she had passed through two hours of supreme agitation that had left her torn between hope and dread--her whole future staked on one turn. Slade, face to face with the crisis that would determine whether he would survive as one of the figures of the financial world, or return staggering into the oblivion of the commonplace, had gone to see her in the afternoon.

Confronted, too, by the imminent outcome of a gamble that had absorbed all her ambitions and her hopes, she had recklessly thrown aside all the restraints which she had interposed between them; and by an impulse of daring which makes such women irresistible to men, having invented an excuse for Mrs. Fontaine, had kept him to dinner, trusting to his protection, insisting on his confidence.

Afterward she had driven him to the gray, prison-like structure which Gunther called a home, and seen him, defiant with a defiance she had breathed into him, with the scorn of the gambler who comes at length to the ultimate stake walk up the steps past the group of newspaper men, who, suddenly ceasing their chatter, huddled together and watched him with a unanimous craning of their heads.

*CHAPTER XVII*

Mrs. Craig Fontaine's box was in the lower grand tier in that favored circle which, in the present struggle for social supremacy, is the ultimate battlefield. Her entrance was one of the six important arrivals of the night which affected the immense audience with a curiosity only less intense than the entrance of the prima donna. Mrs. Fontaine, approaching the curtain that shut out the swimming vision of faces, took a preparatory glance, and as the row of boxes still showed a profusion of gaps, she delayed their entrance on the pretext of waiting for Mrs. Kildair. Besides Gunther and Beecher, there were in the party Lady Fitzhugh Mowbray, a young woman of the striking English blonde type, and the Duke de Taleza-Corti, of the royal house of Italy, a cosmopolite, dry, frail in body, affecting the English monocle, with a perpetual introspective smile on his keen lips.

The absence of Mrs. Kildair had left Mrs. Fontaine in very bad humor. Not only did she consider an invitation to her box as a sort of royal command that should take precedence over all calamities, and render accidents impossible, but she felt that she would miss the effect which her well-balanced party had promised. Fortunately, at that moment the door opened and Mrs. Kildair entered.

"My dear Mrs. Fontaine," she said immediately, in a voice that could not be heard by the rest, "the explanation I sent you is not true. It was not a question of a break-down. There are crises in our lives that cannot be put off. I can tell you no more than this, but I know you will understand that nothing except a matter of supreme importance would ever make me miss an invitation of yours."

Mrs. Fontaine looked at her and, seeing beyond the surface calm the fires of a profound agitation, was pleased that Mrs. Kildair had not sought an easy excuse, but had thrown herself on her woman's generosity. Also she perceived that she was strikingly dressed in a robe of that luminous, elusive green that breaks forth in the flickering driftwood, subdued and given distance by a network of black lace. It was exactly the contrast that she would have chosen as a foil to her own costume. She smiled, pressed her guest's hand sympathetically and signaled to Gunther, who removed her wrap.

Mrs. Kildair murmured an involuntary tribute while the Duke de Taleza-Corti, with the over-frank admiration which the Latin permits, said point blank:

"If I am to sit behind you, Madame, you must bandage my eyes."

Mrs. Fontaine had chosen the one color which, above all others, seemed to have been created to frame her dark imperious beauty--a warm purple, the tone of autumn itself, which gave to her shoulders and throat the softness of ivory. About her neck was a double string of pearls which were worth ten times the receipts of the house.

"Let's go in," she said, glancing at Gunther with a hope that she might find his eyes a little troubled. She signed to him to take the seat behind hers, placing Beecher back of Mrs. Kildair, and while the rest of her party immediately swept the house with their opera-glasses, she remained quiet, conscious of the sudden focus, unwilling to show herself curious of other women.

"Look," said Mrs. Kildair to Beecher in a low aside; "Mrs. Bloodgood is in her box. What daring!" she added after a moment's examination. "She has dressed herself in black."

Beecher, following her directions, beheld Mrs. Bloodgood, without a single jewel or a relieving touch of color, sitting proudly, looking fixedly at the stage, disdainful of the stir and gossip which her dramatic appearance occasioned. Behind in the crowded box Mr. Bloodgood was standing, smiling and contented, showing himself with a malicious enjoyment.

"How can she do it?" he said.

"After the first act," said Mrs. Kildair, with a sudden impulse of generosity, "go and see her. Take Mr. Gunther. It will give her strength."

"It is decidedly brilliant," said Lady Mowbray. "The parterre is much more effective than Covent Garden."

"There should be a guide to tell us all the histories of these boxes," said Taleza-Corti, with his keen perception of values. "The opera is the record of society. The history of America for the next twenty years will be written here by those who descend from the galleries into the orchestra, and those who force their way from the orchestra into the boxes. I like to think of your millionaires who might have begun up there under the roof. Fonda, our great novelist, says that the opera is the city reduced to the terms of the village. It always impresses me. Magnificent!"

No one listened to him. The women nodded from time to time as their glasses encountered those of acquaintances; Beecher, troubled at a figure which he had half perceived in the orchestra and which he sought to distinguish, fancied a resemblance to Nan Charters; Gunther, bored by a spectacle which had no novelty for him, watched Mrs. Kildair, noting the nervous hands and the occasional quickly taken breaths, asking himself what had been the real cause of her absence, half divining in a confused way the truth.

Mrs. Fontaine was languidly curious of those who had a right to her interest. She was in her element--jealous of this multitude as an actress, pleased at the fine effect she had produced. And in her triumph she was recalled to the one thing she desired to complete her ambition, to give her that command of this assemblage which she was forced to acknowledge to another. Her glance went to the box in the middle of the horseshoe, as it did covetously each night.

"Your father isn't here tonight," she said to Bruce Gunther with a little surprise.

"No. There is some big pow-wow on," he answered.

Mrs. Kildair took up her glasses suddenly, turning them haphazard. The remark revived in her all the agitation of the afternoon.

"I shall never be able to sit through this," she said to herself, leaning forward. "If I only knew--"

Mrs. Fontaine, could she have known the thoughts that were galloping through the brain of her guest, would have been astounded at their similarity. Mrs. Kildair, too, had her ambitions, ambitions as passionately held and nourished on one hope. The interview that afternoon with Slade, an interview in which for the first time she had made him feel the need of her, had all at once brought the prize within her grasp. If he could but emerge from this one supreme danger, she said to herself that she had at last the opportunity to rate herself here among the leaders of this society which she coveted, had always coveted and would never cease to covet.

"Give me Slade and twenty millions even," she said to herself with a great intaking of breath, "and I can do anything. I will dominate this in five years." But the more violently burned the fire of her desire, the more weak and faltering was her hope. "Ah, will he win out--can he--how is it possible?" she said bitterly. "Oh, what a gamble it all is--and I must sit here--continue to sit here like a stone--while in an hour it may all be decided!"

"You've seen Fornez in _Carmen_?" said Taleza-Corti to Gunther. "Very fine."

"First appearance here," said Gunther briefly. He touched Beecher on the arm. "Friends of yours over there, Ted."

"Who?"

"The Cheevers--little to your right--row above. Hello," he added suddenly. "See who's with them?"

"Who?" said Beecher, who did not recognize the rest of the party.

Gunther placed his finger on his lips, with a warning glance at Mrs. Kildair, and then, bending forward, said:

"I say, Mrs. Kildair, who is that tall, rather black chap in the box with the Stanley Cheevers? He's looking this way now."

Mrs. Kildair raised her glasses.

"Mr. Mapleson," she said directly.

"He's the head of Sontag & Company, the jewelers, isn't he?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"Queer looking chap--ever know him?"

"Yes. Why?"

She turned, looking at the questioner with a fixity that told him she was not entirely ignorant of his real interest.

"He must have been in Paris when you were," he said quickly. "I hear he had quite a career there."

She turned away with indifference, gazed once more through her glasses and said:

"Yes, there were quite a number of stories about his rise. He is a man with a genius for friendships."

"Rather attentive to Mrs. Cheever, isn't he?" persisted Gunther.

"I didn't know it."

Beecher did not then seize the drift of the inquiry, still absorbed as he was in the attempt to gain a clearer view of the profile in the orchestra which reminded him of Nan Charters. Lady Mowbray continued silent, busy as a true Briton in the search for the ridiculous in this assemblage which at first glance had impressed her.

All at once the lights went out and the first act was on. The entrance of Emma Fornez was eagerly awaited as a new sensation to an audience which yearly must be served with the novel and startling. It had been rumored that her impersonation was even a bit shocking, and the house, stirred by the expectation, waited hopefully. At the end of the act opinions were divided: the galleries applauded frantically, moved by the sure magnetism of a great artist, but the boxes and most of the orchestra waited undecided, each afraid to be the leader.

"But I don't see anything shocking at all," said the voice of a young woman in the next box, a note of complaint in her voice.

"Wait--it's in the second act," answered the sarcastic note of a man.

"Ah, the love scene," said the woman mollified.

The two young men rose, giving their places to arriving visitors, and went into the corridors on their rounds. Beecher was thoughtful. He had at last assured himself that he had not been mistaken--Miss Charters was present. He had detected her with her glasses on his box, but he had not succeeded in seeing who was her companion.

"I'd give a good deal to know how well Mrs. Cheever knows Mapleson," said Gunther eagerly.

"I say, what do you mean by poking me?" asked Beecher suddenly.

"Didn't you get on? Mapleson is the head of Sontag & Company; Sontag & Company sold the ring to Slade. Now if Mapleson and Mrs. Cheever are intimate it's possible--just a chance--Mrs. Cheever may have known the facts. See?"

Beecher shrugged his shoulders.

"It's a long shot."

"But a chance. I'll pick up some one here in five minutes who can tell me."

Beecher entered the Bloodgood box and, making his way to the front, gave his hand to Mrs. Bloodgood. Four or five men, impelled by curiosity, were before him, mentally registering their reports to add to the fund of gossip. Mrs. Bloodgood, glad to avail herself of the opportunity, had turned her back on the audience and was holding her head against these social scouts, who discussed Slade, which was a manner of discussing Majendie.