Part 22

"The Atlantic Trust is stronger than ever. Of course, technically, Majendie did things he had no right to do, but do you know, every investment he made has turned out enormously profitable! Queer how one man drops out and another pops up."

"I wonder how much of it was business, and how much was..." Beecher broke off and a second time gestured in the direction of the box.

"Who knows?" said Gunther, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Beecher glanced down the corridor to assure himself there was yet time, and opened the door.

In the front row of the box Mrs. Bloodgood was laughing gaily with three or four young men who were bending flatteringly over her. In the back Bloodgood was seated, dozing in a corner. Beecher hardly recognized him. Of the once rugged physique nothing remained but a senile fluttering. Some mysterious disease had struck him down and marked his hours. At this moment Mrs. Bloodgood, aware of a shadow in the doorway, turned and met the profound and memory-troubled gaze of the young man. She recognized him and in the same moment divined his thoughts. By a movement which she could not control, she brought her fan, which had been extended in a tantalizing gesture under the eyes of one of her satellites, into a protective barrier, as though to shield herself from the too frank melancholy of this disturbing gaze. Their eyes met. Beecher inclined his head. It was at the same time a salutation and an adieu.

He found Gunther outside their box.

"The old fellow's in a pretty bad way," said his friend, noticing his disturbed look.

"It wasn't that!..."

"Yes,--she's taking her revenge!" said Gunther with a laugh.

To shake off this impression Beecher touched his friend on the arm, and forcing a smile, said, with a nod towards the box where Miss Fanning was waiting:

"So it's serious, Bruce?"

"But not for publication..." said Gunther with a nod.

Beecher would have liked to put a further question, one which had presented itself already at the thought of Louise Fontaine; but he refrained, for he was aware in his friend of a certain new grimness and implacability of purpose which, as in his father, had the effect of withdrawing him from the ordinary club familiarity.

After the second act he went behind the scenes to greet Emma Fornez, who had just received an ovation.

The diva, with the same cry of delight in which she recognized him, asked him what he thought of her success.

"You have reached the top.... Every new _Carmen_ must now be advertised as greater than Emma Fornez!" he answered with a bow.

"Ah, you have learned how to make compliments! ... Bravo!" she exclaimed. She advanced her head, pointing to a little spot under her jeweled ear. "There! ... your recompense! ... You look as big a boy as ever! ... Tell me everything--all at once! ... Victorine, close the door. I see no one--_tu m'entends_? ... I am too red tonight, _hein_?"

"Not from the boxes!"

"_Si, si_! ... I must be more pale ... Sit down, sit down!" She enveloped her shoulders in a shawl, and studied her face in the flashing mirror, pulling her make-up box towards her. "You have come back ... for good, Teddy?"

"Yes!"

"You are always married?"

"Yes!"

"That's a pity--_enfin_! ... Happy?"

"Very!"

"Too bad! ... And you have come _pour tirer la langue a Emma Fornez_ ... who tried to frighten you!"

"Exactly!" said Beecher, laughing.

"Oh, you needn't be so conceited about it! If you are still living together--it is because ..." she stopped a moment to correct the beady fringe of the eyes, "because your wife is a very, very clever woman!"

"What?"

"Oh, just that! ... and because she finds she can lead you around conveniently by the nose ... just so!" She leaned over and illustrated her meaning with a little tweak before he could defend himself.

"I see, you are quite furious that we are not divorced!"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"How many months is it?..."

"Three years ... Three and a half!"

"Bah! there is still hope!"

To tease her for this, he drew back, grinning with elation.

"Oh, you are having a beautiful time of it!" she said, watching him in the mirror. "It amuses you very much! ... But just you wait!" She raised her hand, counting the fingers. "Three, four, five--five years! That is the worst bridge of all! ... Even my old Jacquot--poor soul--stood me for five years! ... Just wait!" Then, struck by a sudden reflection, she proceeded to revenge herself. "If you are happy, I was right, after all! You remember ... first time I saw Charters ... I said 'it is not an actress, it is a woman!' ..." She emphasized the point with a satisfied shrug. "I was right, and there you are!"

"Well, Emma, don't let's fight," he said, hugely amused. "I'm glad to see you again!"

"I, too," she said, tapping his arm, and turning her darkened face towards him for better inspection. "Better so, _hein_? ... So you are rich now, Teddy ... An uncle was good enough to die?"

"Two!..."

"Ah! ... what a pity! ... And now you are spoiled!" She began to soften the shadows of the eyes. "Tell me one thing..."

"Yes?..."

"You ... you did not tell her--the wife--about our little conspiracy?--the night of the cowboy party, _hein_?..." As he hesitated she caught the accusatory look in his eyes, and she wheeled about. "_Comment_! ... You were so stupid! ... _Dieu! que les hommes sont sots_!"

"Nonsense! ... she laughed over it!" he said, recovering himself. "Besides, she had guessed it already!"

"My dear Teddy," she said, in very bad humor, "I take back all I said ... You were born a husband--typical! ideal!--You would be content with any one! ... with Victorine, even!"

She flung the rabbit's foot furiously among the pigments.

"_Allons_, we might just as well say adieu!"

"Why?"

"She does not know you have come?"

"No, but..."

"Well, well ... don't be fool enough to tell her! ... Go right back now. Make a call in some box where she can see you, and escape a good..." She stopped, shaking her hand in the direction of his ear.

"You are mistaken!" he began, flushing. "You don't know her..."

"Mistaken ... tra-la-la! ... and I know her! ... All I have to do is to see you, my poor Teddy, to understand ... absolutely ... in every little detail ... the woman who makes you so ... So--adieu!"

"It is not as tragic as all that," he said, laughing, but giving his hand.

"Adieu! ... adieu!"

"I may come back ... when I am divorced?"

"That will never happen!" she persisted, vindictively. "She has tamed you ... you are a domestic animal ... a house pet ... like the cat and the poodle dog!"

"_Au revoir_, Emma," he said, refusing to be irritated.

"Not good-by!" She took up a thread, broke it with a vicious jerk, and let the ends float away. "Victorine, _depeche-toi donc_!"

Beecher, who had started with the intention of extracting a legitimate revenge, had received little satisfaction from his two interviews. Nevertheless, he was not so naive as to reject Emma Fornez's advice. He went directly to Mrs. Craig Fontaine's box. Louise, as though she had waited impatiently his coming, started at once from her chair, meeting him in the privacy of the antechamber. He was struck at once by the constrained tensity of her glance.

"You are in the Gunthers' box," she said, directly the first greetings were over. "Where is Bruce? Why didn't he come with you?"

"We separated. I went behind to see Madame Fornez..." he said lamely.

She was not deceived by his answer, made a rapid calculation and said abruptly:

"Teddy, tell me the truth. Don't refuse me! ... You may be doing me a favor ... the greatest! ... Is Bruce engaged? That little girl in the box?"

Between them there had been the fullest loyalty, and a confidence since school days. He was not ignorant, therefore, of her infatuation for his friend, though what dramatic turn it might have taken in the years of his absence, he could only speculate.

"Yes, it is true," he said. "It is not to be known ... With you, Louise, it is different: you ought to know!"

She sat down, and he was frightened by the swift, ashen pallor that rushed into her face. Alarmed, he made a movement towards her.

"Wait!" she said, faintly. "There are two questions I must ask ... Did he, Bruce, send you to tell me this?"

"No...." He hesitated, surprised at the question, adding: "That is, I think not...."

"Is it to be public--immediately?"

"No, not at once ... I am sure of that!"

She nodded her head with a little relief, and, incapable of speech, raised her hand weakly as though to excuse herself, then laid it over her heart. He rose, turning his back, steadying himself. At the end of a long moment she touched him on the shoulder.

"I will come ... tomorrow ... and call on your wife," she said, quietly. "Give her my very best wishes, will you? ... And ... thank you! ... You have done me a great service!..."

When he reached his box Bruce was waiting for him.

"You saw Louise?" he said directly.

"Yes!"

"You told her?"

"Yes, I told her."

"That was right!"

They hesitated a moment, one whether to question, the other whether to explain.

"I admire her as much as any woman," said Gunther, at last. "She made only one blunder ... At that, Fate was against her."

This answer, and the way it was delivered, was all that Beecher was permitted to understand of an episode which deserves a novel to itself. Nevertheless, he felt that there must have been something far out of the ordinary to have brought forth from Gunther this eulogy, which sounded at the moment like an epitaph.

When Beecher entered the lights were up on the act. During the time in which he had been absent, his wife, too, had been a prey to dramatic moods. The stage and the world had been before her eyes as the choices of her own life. She comprehended what Beecher did not, all the advantages of her first appearance in New York under the patronage of the Gunthers, that was in itself a social cachet. Mrs. Slade's flattering visit, as well as the accented cordiality of acquaintances who had bowed to her from their boxes, made her feel how easy would be her way in this world, so easy of access by one entrance and so hostile by a thousand others. She was satisfied. Her doubts, if she had yielded to them a moment, were gone. She had talked to Gunther of what she wanted for her husband, and made of him a friend, not insensible to the reason of the charm which she had exerted. But in the moment in which the social world presented itself to her as the endless stretching Pacific flashed upon the dazzled eyes of Balboa, she felt a sudden sense of loneliness and the need of support. She rested her hand on the strong-muscled arm of her husband, and designating with a smile the young girl who was so artlessly and artfully conveying her impatient delight at Bruce's return, she sent her husband one of those looks which only a perfectly happy woman has the power to retain ... that first fugitive, timid offering in the eyes of lovers.

The next day Mrs. Craig Fontaine's engagement was announced in all the papers. It was a romance of long standing ... the engagement now made public for the first time was supposed to have lasted several months, etc.

Mrs. Slade had more than fulfilled her promise towards McKenna. Through her active friendship not only had he secured the entire patronage of her husband, but had finally acquired the coveted field of the Bankers' Association of America. His agency had tripled in its ramifications and its power. This man, who perceived clearly all the relative, often confusing, shades of morality, was at the bottom an idealist. He undertook two great campaigns: one which resulted in the exposing of the mysterious suzerainty over corrupt politics of a group of outwardly respectable capitalists; and the other in the purification of a great labor union from a band of terrorists, who were betraying their ideals and selling their sympathies. He had still one ambition, which he had confided alone to Mrs. Slade, to whom he was able to render in this period two invaluable services--he wished one day to become Police Commissioner of New York City, and create, in that cemetery of reputations, a great police system that would vie with the systems of Paris and London.

Often Bruce Gunther would run into his office at the close of the afternoon. He appreciated the integrity of the detective, and he used him as he was learning to use many men ... as so many windows through which to look out on life. Gunther had not been entirely the dupe of Rita Kildair's explanation as to the theft of the ring. Above the mantelpiece in the inner office of McKenna, framed in simple passe-partout, hung the two clippings of the same date: one the bare statement of the bank's support of the Associated Trust, and underneath the engagement of Rita Kildair and John G. Slade.

These dramatically aligned scraps of information for the public, never ceased to intrigue him. Many a time he considered a direct question, but refrained from respect. One day, however, pushed to the verge by his curiosity, he said abruptly:

"McKenna, are you going to write your memoirs, some day?"

"Perhaps--some day!"

"You ought to--Publication fifty years from now."

"May be ... may be!"

"And that affair of the ring," said Gunther, pointing to the notices. "Will you tell the truth about that?"

"What! Write down my mistakes?"

"Was it a mistake?"

McKenna nodded, gazing at the mantelpiece meditatively, with an expression that was indecipherable.

"Bad mistake!"

"But I should say one of those failures that are sometimes rather fortunate?" persisted Gunther.

"Well, it's a good thing to know how to turn a failure to account. That's why a few of us get ahead," said McKenna in a matter-of-fact way, but for a moment Gunther seemed to perceive the faintest trace of a smile, lurking maliciously in the corners of his eyes.