Part 19

"Don't alarm yourself," said Beecher in a lofty, superior tone, and, believing every word, he added, "I'm quite able to take care of myself. I know how to amuse myself--and I know it is amusing myself, thank you. You think I don't know anything about women--well, I know better than some people how to keep my head straight."

"So you're going around?" said Gunther with a grin.

"I am."

"I thought you said you had never met any one who could make you so angry?"

"Come and get me at five o'clock," said Beecher, with a trifling wave of his hand.

"I begin to have my doubts," said Gunther slowly, with the air of one steeling himself against a great calamity.

Beecher had no such anticipation as he went lightly out of the club and took his way up the Avenue. For the last day he had thought much more of the possible feelings of Nan Charters toward his own receptive person than of analyzing the impregnability of his own position. He had not telephoned, desiring to effect a little surprise. But as he neared his destination he remembered that she might possibly be out.

"In that case I'll leave a little note--just a line with the check--as though it were a casual affair," he said to himself.

But Miss Charters was in. An automobile was at the curb which he thought he recognized.

Miss Charters herself answered the door, detaining him a moment in the anteroom.

"I am so glad you came," she said in a low voice, but one in which it was impossible to mistake the pleasure. "I wanted you to know that. A friend of yours is here--but he won't stay long," she added softly, with that gentle appeal in her voice against which he knew no defense. "You'll stay--I want you to."

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Mr. Lorraine." And as she saw the instant stiffening that went through him, she said quickly, with that subtle, merciless flattery of which only women have the command, "Shall I send him away--if you wish?"

"No."

The two men greeted each other boisterously, but underneath their heartiness was a sudden sense of invaded territory.

"Is he interested?" thought Lorraine, with an uneasy glance. "And why did she go out into the hall?"

"What's his right here? Was he here to lunch, I wonder?" thought Beecher, and for the first time he felt something hot surging inside of himself.

Each with an extra show of cordiality began to talk, addressing their remarks to the other. Only Lorraine, whose tenancy was thus threatened, continued to prolong his stay, anxiously watching the effect on the woman. At the end of half an hour, he no longer doubted, she was only waiting for him to go, uneasy and resentful at his delay.

He rose, heavy of heart, and shook hands with Beecher, whom he would have liked to throttle, and nodding to Miss Charters, went toward the hall, hoping that she would follow him. But women in love match the wordless surrender and tenderness they show to the man to whom they yield with an equal cruelty toward those whose misfortune is to have loved them. She did not move, waiting impatiently until she heard the tardy click of the door. Then she went to him directly, standing quite close, looking up at him like a penitent schoolgirl.

"I thought he'd never go," she said impatiently, and then with an uneasy, searching look in her eyes, she said contritely: "Do you think I am very terrible?"

He smiled and shook his head, but without profiting by the opportunity her attitude invited.

"You were engaged to Charlie once, weren't you?" he said, trying to give the question an accent of natural curiosity.

"No, never."

"Almost?"

She shook her head impatiently at the introduction of this topic.

"People said so."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"But he is in love with you," he said positively.

What she did not like was the quiet, inconsequential way he spoke, for in her own mood she did not detect the jealousy underneath.

"Please don't let us talk of Mr. Lorraine," she said quickly. "I have never been engaged to Mr. Lorraine and never could; first, because I don't intend to marry, and, second, because if I did, Mr. Lorraine could never appeal to me."

She broke off and going to the telephone said to him over her shoulder:

"You're not in a hurry?"

"No."

"Good--then we need not be interrupted."

She called the office and left word that she would not be at home. Then, rising, she came slowly back, very subdued, still alarmed at the undisturbed friendship in his look.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come to see such a little virago," she said softly.

"I came to see you on a matter of business," he said, without thinking of his words.

Her face fell.

"Oh, indeed."

He drew out his pocketbook and took out the check.

"Mr. Garraboy is leaving very suddenly for Europe," he said, turning over the bit of paper. "He has decided to wind up his affairs. He wished me to give you this check in settlement of your account," with him.

She stood quite still, her arms behind her back, but her eyes dangerously brilliant.

"If it's only on business you came," she said, breathing deep, "you can keep your check."

"But--"

"Is it only on business you go to see other women?"

He extended the check, and the jealousy Lorraine's presence had brought him made him seek to hurt her a little more.

"Don't be unreasonable," he said.

"If you don't answer," she said, stamping her foot, "I will tear it into pieces!"

A quick, impulsive joy went through him at this revealing anger.

"I came because I wanted to see you," he said with a provoking delight in his eyes. "This is of no importance."

She took the check, still looking at him, became calmer, smiled, and then with a determined bob of her head, went to place it on her writing-desk. All at once she turned quickly:

"But this is signed McKenna!"

"That's a detail."

"Your friend McKenna, the detective? Then you forced this out of him?"

"It wasn't very hard."

She let the check flutter from her fingers to the desk, thoughtfully considering it, divining slowly what it meant.

"I am unreasonable," she said quietly, returning and holding out her hand. "Thank you. Why did you bother--after the way I acted?"

"Well, just because," he answered, looking down into her eyes.

"So, Garraboy is a defaulter," she said slowly.

"I cannot tell you any more."

All at once a thought came to her and an anxious frown passed over her forehead.

"None of this is your money?" she said quickly.

"No."

"On your honor?"

"Yes."

"It is a great thing you have done for me," she said solemnly. "I am very grateful."

"Nonsense," he said lightly. "It was no trouble. I would have done it for any one."

They were near the great dormer-windows, high above the threaded smoke and gray roofs of the city, now blending into fuzzy masses with the closing of the day.

"Well, now that your business is over," she said, but with a new lightness, "I suppose you must be going?"

"What do you want me to say?" he said, smiling with a growing feeling of well-being.

"Why did you come?" she repeated maliciously, and, half-laughing, half-determined, she took the lapel of his coat in a gesture which, in her fingers, was almost a caress. She stood looking up at him, so happy, so brimming with the satisfaction of having him back, of regaining what she had feared to lose, that he could not resist the desire in her eyes.

"Because I like you," he said.

"Despite my tantrums and my moods?"

"On account of them."

"And would you have done what you did--for any one?"

"Come to think of it--no."

She was not content. She would rather that he had answered more sentimentally. She felt that he was stronger than she was, more controlled.

"Are you interested in Emma Fornez?" she said, looking away from him.

"Oh,--interested."

"You like her?"

"Yes, very much."

"I shouldn't like to have you talked about."

He did not answer.

"What have I done that displeases you, Teddy?" she said all at once.

But before he could answer, the room behind them dropped suddenly back into darkness.

"The light's gone out," she said, startled, her hand on his arm.

"The current's cut--that's all," he answered.

"I'll light a lamp."

"No. It's good here. Wait. It'll only be a moment."

They remained in the dark, turning their glances out of the window, suddenly conscious of the panorama of the evening, the stir of departing multitudes, the end of labor and the evening of rest.

"How plainly you can see," he said. "That's Brooklyn Bridge, isn't it?"

"Yes."

At the east three giant spans stood out across the unreal gray view that had neither banks nor green approaches, that cut its way like an invading flood through the cities. Innumerable, cottony puffs of steam, busy, hurrying, restless, rose from unseen hulls across the fading silhouettes of tangled spans. High to the south from a cyclopean tower a single ball of fire was shining. Below, in the long, straight avenues, the city was putting on its necklaces of brilliants; and from the black dotted masses that must be there somewhere in the growing obscurity, rushing home over the backs of the waters, high above housetops or deep through the bowels of the city, a great sigh seemed to rise with the sudden freshening of the twilight breeze, and the two human beings who looked down, as God looks down on this spectacle of a moving world, found nothing to express the sudden melancholy that troubled them, awakening vague desires, stirring them with the feeling of their own littleness.

"Come," she said, turning away the first, and, lingering, looking back, placed a hand on his arm, repeating, "Come."

He did not reply, looking beyond, deeply penetrated by all this humanity that each moment receded farther from them, isolating them, lifting them above the world into the loneliness of the skies. Her hand remained on his arm unconsciously, but this weight so soft but yet so imperious recalled him to himself. He thought no longer of what lay without. He looked at her. She was trembling. He too felt the subtle, disturbing restlessness of this dark that closed in about them, shutting out the peopled world--this mood of the day that exerts over human beings such a compelling desire.

She turned and looked at him. He could not see her face distinctly, only the eyes--that seemed incapable of seeing all but this. Then abruptly, brusquely, by the same mutual impulse, they were in each other's arms, straining to each other, their lips irresistibly closed over each other, feeling themselves more and more wrapped around by this soft darkness that had cast them up, enfolding their loneliness in the great protective instinct of human love.

The room flared up brilliantly. She recovered herself the first, drawing herself out of his arms, covering her face with fingers that still throbbed with the agony of their embrace.

They could not look at each other, bewildered by the suddenness of what had happened. She went past him hurriedly to the fireplace, sitting down. He followed irresolutely, feeling his feet unsteady beneath him, all the intellectual forces within him submerged, drunk, overthrown by the sudden, delirious awakening of his senses, suddenly aroused by this revelation of woman.

"What have we done? What was it?" she said breathlessly, without facing him. "We are crazy, Teddy,--crazy!"

He came heavily to the other end of the fireplace, leaning on the mantel, looking down at the woman who was no longer an indefinite mystery of silks and colors, but a moving, living body that had stirred in his arms.

"Teddy, we are crazy," she repeated. "What possessed us?"

"It is you who are crazy now," he said abruptly. "What is the use of arguing? Those things are beyond us. It is over--it is settled. We had nothing to do with it."

"No, no," she cried vigorously, jumping up. "It is not right. It isn't fair to you. We were swept off our feet."

"Thank Heaven, yes."

"But it's impossible, it's crazy--it's senseless. I don't want to marry, I don't want to fall in love. I want to be free--I must be free--I know that--you know that. So what then?"

"What's the use of arguing? It's been settled for us."

"But it isn't settled. I lost my head--you lost your head. We didn't know what we were doing. Marriage is impossible, absurd. I'm not a woman to marry--you would be unhappy--don't you see how ridiculous it is? I think only of myself--my career--"

"What's all that amount to--you love me and I love you. It's always been so--we've been fools and I didn't know it."

"But I don't know it," she cried; but at the same breath she knew that it was so. But this knowledge only roused in her the spirit to combat, to remit, to put away from her the threatening obstacle.

"Nonsense. Why didn't you let me go? You wouldn't; you brought me back; you couldn't help it--and I came. I would have come if you had called me. I've said all that you say myself--what good did it do me? Here I am!"

"Well, then--yes, we may love each other," she said desperately. "I don't know. I cannot reason it out--it may be so, perhaps--but even then? Teddy, it can't go on. Don't you see how wicked it would be--how wrong? Your wife can't be on the stage, and I can't give it up. It's everything--it's been my whole life. We must be strong--we must stop it. It's absurd--it's wrong."

She came to him, seized with the two contrary impulses: an instinctive revolt, a desire to force him from her life, and something just as instinctive and irresistible that drew her back to him; and at the moment she said the most firmly, "No, no, it's absurd, it's wrong," she put out her hand and caught her fingers in his coat collar, just behind his ear, under the masses of his hair.

He caught her to him, wrapping his arms around her; she continued to protest but, without resisting, her head dropped on his shoulder, her eyes closed, her lips breathlessly open.

All at once from the hall came the sound of a key in the latch. They disengaged themselves hurriedly, arranging their disordered hair, standing ridiculously apart.

From the antechamber came the voice of Miss Tilbury, the chaperon, discreetly remaining without:

"Nan, dear, Mr. Hargrave is below. He has come for his manuscript."

"But I'm not at home," she said in a muffled voice.

"You ought to send it down to him, really."

"Mr. Beecher is here--aren't you coming in?"

"In a moment."

The steps died out going to the back. Beecher, who had looked at the clock, uttered an exclamation. She came to him quickly, with the motions of the alert feline, and seizing his wrist said quickly:

"Listen, Teddy, I will not hold you to what has happened. We are out of our senses, you and I. We are crazy--crazy. You must not see me for a while--two days at least--until we know what we are doing. Go, now, please--"

Then, suddenly remembering that the same Hargrave had been the innocent cause of a little pain to him, she went quickly to the table and took up the offending play, and with that fine instinct of a woman to give even the smallest revenge to the man she loves, said:

"Take this. Give it to Hargrave yourself. Say I cannot see him."

"I shall see you tomorrow."

"No, no; but telephone tonight."

She listened a moment, her ear toward the hall like a child, and then sprang into his arms, and this time it seemed to him that it was she, not he, who dominated the embrace.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

At half-past five, Beecher, his brain in a whirl, arrived breathlessly at the office of McKenna. As luck would have it, only Gunther and the detective were there.

"My friend is a little late," said McKenna, with a quick, jerky glance at the clock.

"Where's Garraboy?"

"Twirling his thumbs in another room," said Gunther, laughing. "In a cussing bad humor, too."

For the second time, McKenna glanced nervously at the clock. Beecher was struck with the mood of restlessness that obsessed him. He passed aimlessly from desk to window and back again, apparently oblivious to their presence, immersed in some calculation that left its outward mark in a deep furrow between the eyebrows, while the cigar between his lips had gone out unperceived.

"Mr. Beecher," he said suddenly, stopping short, "I'm not sure but what I've gone off on a ridiculous tangent--it may be--it may be. Have you still got that envelope I gave you?"

"Yes, in my pocket--here," said Beecher, surprised, laying his hand on his coat.

"It was a ridiculous thing for me to do," said McKenna quickly. He made a movement of his hand as though to take it, but repressed it, saying: "All I ask is, don't open it until I ask you." Then, still ruffled, he turned away, saying to himself: "Guessing--humph! I'd fire a man for doing that."

The telephone rang with a message from the outer office and a moment later, to the amazement of both young men, Mapleson, of the firm of Sontag & Company, came in smiling and businesslike.

"How are you, McKenna?" he said affably, shaking hands. "Sorry to keep you waiting. What can I do for you?"

He was a slender, dark young man of forty-two or three, very graceful, pleasant in voice and fluent in manner, with a sure instinct for ingratiating himself where it best could serve.

"How do you do, Mr. Beecher," he said on being introduced. "I am very glad to know you, Mr. Gunther. I have the pleasure of knowing your father slightly. The country owes him a great debt for what he's done in this panic. Well, is there any mystery I can clear up for you?"

He accepted a chair, crossed his legs easily, brought out a gold cigarette-case, offered it with a wave and smiled at their declinations.

"Why, yes, Mr. Mapleson, you can give us a little information," said McKenna.

"Anything I can do for you, McKenna, glad to do it," said Mapleson.

"You may remember a ring that was sold by your firm a few months ago to Mr. John G. Slade," said McKenna directly; "a single ruby, valued, I believe, around thirty thousand dollars."

Mapleson did not avert his eyes from the glance of the detective, yet without a movement of his body an instant change came in his manner. He drew in a puff of smoke, let it out, nodded carefully and said:

"Yes, known as the Bogota ruby. I remember perfectly."

"I understand that that ring was brought back within the last ten days and pledged for a considerable amount."

"Indeed?" said Mapleson. He flung away the half smoked cigarette, and busied himself with selecting another. "Well, what do you want to know?"

"I want to know the name of the person--man or woman--who pledged it."

Mapleson changed his mind, shut the cigarette-case with a snap, clasped his hands in front of him, thumbs up and pressed against his teeth.

"Can you tell me a little more?" he said at last.

"No, I cannot," McKenna said frankly.

The eyes of the jeweler wandered from the detective and settled on the face of Beecher. The look made the young man flush. It was as though the smiling, affable confidant of feminine mysteries and intrigues was asking himself what part in all this he were playing.

"Can you tell me for whom you are acting, Mr. Beecher?" he said suddenly.

McKenna made a gesture of warning, interrupting:

"I'm sorry--we cannot."

"Have you a warrant?" continued Mapleson seriously. "In other words, is this a friendly meeting, or a legal procedure?"

"There is no warrant as yet. It is a case we particularly desire to keep out of court," said McKenna.

"It is very embarrassing," said Mapleson frankly, "very. I don't know quite how to act. Of course, McKenna, considering your relations with our firm, I should always be glad to assist you in any way--you understand that. The present case is different. The ring was not pledged with Sontag & Company, but with me personally. It is a personal matter and a very delicate one."

"I understand that," said McKenna, frowning. "And yet I must inform you that I shall probably have to proceed in the usual manner."

"Of course, if I'm brought into court on a summons," said Mapleson thoughtfully, "that is different. If I am faced by the fact that a theft has taken place, I can do nothing else but aid the law."

"But now--"

"At present? No, McKenna, I cannot give you the name of the person that pledged the ring with me. The case seems very complex to me--much more than you may believe; and as nothing is legally charged I prefer to keep my relations confidential."

"Mr. Mapleson, can you answer this?"

"What?"

"Is your refusal because you believe the intention of the person who pledged it is to restore it to its owner?"

Mapleson turned the question over a long time, whistling softly to himself. Finally he said:

"I don't know. I know nothing."

"Can you tell me the amount you advanced on the ring?"

"Yes; I think I can tell you that," he said, after a moment's thought. "I advanced twenty-eight thousand dollars."

"Twenty-eight?" said McKenna, lifting his eyebrows. "Twenty-eight on a ring worth only thirty thousand?"

"It was not a business transaction--entirely," said Mapleson stiffly.

"Then Sontag & Company knew nothing about it?"

"No."

"Was the ring pledged the day before Majendie committed suicide?"

"Yes."

"In the morning?"

"Early in the morning."

"One final question. The ring is still in your possession?"

"No."

"It is not in your possession?" said McKenna, with a sudden clearing of his forehead. "Mr. Mapleson, you are answering this because you feel bound--"

"Not at all," said Mapleson quickly. "The ring was redeemed this morning. I know nothing more about it."

The speculations which were occasioned by this disclosure were suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come!" said McKenna sharply.

An assistant entered the room with two letters. McKenna looked at the first and nodded, and then seeing the address on the second looked up quickly, saying:

"How did this come--this letter for Mr. Beecher?"

"It was sent down from his apartment, I believe, sir. Mr. Beecher's man brought it, I think."

"Very well."

McKenna dismissed him with a gesture, but instead of opening his letter thrust both of them into his pocket.

"That's all, Mr. Mapleson," he said with incisiveness. "I'm sorry to have troubled you. It's quite possible, as you perhaps believe, this case will be settled out of court."

"Let's hope so," said Mapleson non-committally. "I'm always at your service, you know. It's I who should apologize. Mr. Gunther, remember me to your father. Mr. Beecher, I hope to meet you soon again."

He shook hands warmly with Beecher, as though the young man had acquired a new value in his eyes, and went out.

The moment the door had shut, McKenna had the two letters out of his pocket.

"Two letters from the same lady," he said, tossing one to Beecher. "Both messages the same, too, I'll bet. Of course!"

He laughed and extended the letter to Gunther, who read:

DEAR MR. MCKENNA:

The ring has just been returned. Can I see you at once? Take no further measures.

RITA KILDAIR.

McKenna was a changed man. All the indecision had left him. His eyes were sparkling with pleasure and he was laughing to himself, as he took up the telephone.

"Here, give me Clancy," he cried impatiently. "Hello. What's the matter with Brady; hasn't he come back with that information yet? He has? Well, why the devil--send in the figures! Quick!"

A moment later a slip was in his hand and he was gazing at it eagerly.

"Mr. Beecher, give me half an hour's start--no, better, three quarters of an hour. Wait--have you got a car? Good. Drive me up to Mrs. Kildair's as fast as you can get me there."

"What about Garraboy?" said Gunther. "Is he to go free?"

"Not by a damn sight!" said McKenna joyfully rushing them down the hall. In the office he stopped to say hurriedly: "Clancy, stick by Garraboy--feed him--but keep him close until I telephone you!"

*CHAPTER XXIV*