LAURIE SOLVES A PROBLEM
Laurie walked across the square to his own rooms. A sudden gloom had
fallen upon him. He saw himself sitting in his study, gazing remotely at
his shoes, until it was time to dress for the evening and his formal
call on Doris.
The prospect was not attractive. He hoped Bangs would be at home. If so,
perhaps he could goad him into one of the rages in which Bangs was so
picturesque; but he was not sure of even this mild diversion. Rodney had
been wonderfully sweet-tempered the past three days, though preoccupied,
as if in the early stages of creative art. Laurie half suspected that he
had begun work on his play. The suspicion aroused conflicting emotions
of relief and half-jealous regret. Why couldn't the fellow wait till
they could go at it together? He ignored the fact that already the
fellow had waited six weeks.
Bangs was not at home. The square, flat-topped mahogany desk at which
the two young men worked together blinked up at Laurie with the
undimmed luster of a fine piece of furniture on which the polisher
alone had labored that morning. Without taking the trouble to remove his
hat and coat, Laurie dropped into a chair and tried to think things out.
But the process of thinking eluded him, or, rather, his mind shied at it
as a skittish horse might shy if confronted on a dark road with shapes
vaguely familiar yet mysterious.
Frankly, he couldn't make head or tail of this mess Doris seemed to be
in. His memory reminded him that such "messes" existed. He had heard and
read of all sorts of plots and counter-plots, in which all types of
humans figured. His imagination underscored the memory. But, someway,
Doris--he loved to repeat the name even to himself--someway Doris was
not the type that figured in such plots.
Also, there were other things hard to understand. She had let herself
starve for four days, though she wore around her neck a chain that she
admitted represented a month's support. And this fellow, Herbert Ransome
Shaw--where the devil did he come in? A fellow with a name like that and
with snaky eyes like his was capable of anything. And yet--
Young Devon had the intolerance of American youth for the things outside
his personal experience. The sort of thing Doris was hinting at didn't
happen here; that was all there was to it. What _was_ happening seemed
pretty clear. The girl was, or fancied herself, in the power of an
unscrupulous scamp who was using that power for some purpose of his own.
If that was it--and this thing, Laurie handsomely admitted, really did
happen sometimes--it ought to be fairly easy for an athletic chap of
twenty-four to put an end to it. He recalled the look in Shaw's
projecting eyes, the snakelike forward thrust of his sleek head; and an
intense desire seized him to get his hands on the fellow's throat and
choke him till his eyes stuck out twice as far as they did now. If that
were duty, then duty would be a delight.
Having reached this edifying point in his reflections, he rose. Why
delay? Perhaps he could find the chap somewhere. Perhaps the waiter at
the restaurant where they had lunched knew where he lived. But, no, of
course not. It was not the kind of restaurant his sort patronized. Shaw
had simply followed him and Doris there; that was all there was to it.
He, Laurie, would have to wait for another encounter. Meantime he might
run around to the club and box for an hour. He had been getting a bit
out of condition this month. A bout with McDonald, the club trainer,
would do him good. Or, by Jove, he'd go and see Louise Ordway!
He had promised his new brother-in-law, Bob Warren, to keep an eye on
Bob's sister while Warren and Barbara were in Japan, and Laurie had kept
the promise with religious fidelity and very real pleasure. He immensely
liked and admired Mrs. Ordway, who seemed, strangely, to be always at
home of late. He had formed the habit of running in several times a
week. Louise not only talked, but, as Laurie expressed it, "she said
things." He had spent with her many of the afternoons and evenings Bangs
checked up to the cabarets.
He glanced at his watch. For an hour he had been impersonating a
gentleman engaged in profound meditation, with the sole result that he
had decided to go to see Louise. It was quite possible he could enlist
her interest in Doris. Now, that was an inspiration! Perhaps Mrs. Ordway
would understand Doris. Every woman, he vaguely believed, understood all
other women. He smoothed his hair, straightened his tie, and hurried
off.
He found Mrs. Ordway reclining on a _chaise longue_ before an open fire,
in the boudoir in which his sister Barbara had spent so many hours of
the past year, playing the invalid to sleep. She wore a superb Mandarin
coat, of soft and ravishing tints, and her love for rich colors was
reflected in the autumnal tones of her room and even in the vari-colored
flames of her driftwood fire. To Louise these colors were as definite
as mellow trumpet-tones. She had responded to them all her life. She was
responding to them still, now that she lay dying among them. Something
in their superb arrogance called forth an answering note from her own
arrogant soul.
She greeted her brother's young brother-in-law with the almost
disdainful smile she now turned on everything, but which was softened a
little for him. Ignorant of the malady that was eating her life away, as
indeed all her friends were ignorant of it, save Barbara and her
doctors, Laurie delighted in the picture she made. He showed his delight
as he dropped into a chair by her side. They fell at once into the
casual banter that characterized their intercourse.
"I wonder why I ever leave here?" he mused aloud, as the clock struck
six. He had been studying with a slight shock the changes that had taken
place in the few days since he had seen her. For the first time the
suspicion crossed his mind that she might be seriously ill. Throughout
their talk he had observed things, trifles, perhaps, but significant,
which, if they had occurred before, had escaped him.
Susanne, Mrs. Ordway's maid, though modestly in the background, was
rarely out of sight; and a white-capped nurse, till now an occasional
and illusive vision in the halls, blew in and out of the sick-room like
a breeze, bringing liquids in glasses, which the patient obediently
swallowed. Laurie, his attention once caught, took it all in. But his
face gave no hint of his new knowledge, and the eyes of Louise still met
his with the challenge they turned on every one these days--a challenge
that definitely forbade either understanding or sympathy.
"The real problem is why you ever come." She spoke lightly, but looked
at him with genuine affection. Laurie was one of her favorites, her
prime favorite, indeed, next to Bob and Barbara. He smiled at her with
tender significance.
"You know why I come."
"I do," she agreed, "perfectly. I know you're quite capable of flirting
with me, too, if I'd let you, you absurd boy. Laurie,"--for a moment or
two she was almost serious--"why don't you fall in love?"
"And this from you?"
"Don't be foolish. You know I like your ties," she interpolated kindly.
"But, really, isn't there some one?"
Laurie turned his profile to her, pulled a lock of hair over his brow,
clasped his hands between his knees, and posed esthetically.
"Do you know," he sighed, "I begin to think that, just possibly,
perhaps, there's a slight chance--that there is!"
"Be serious. Tell me about her."
"Well, she's a girl." He produced this confidence with ponderous
solemnity. "She lives across the square from me," he added.
"Things brighten," commented Louise, drily. "Go on."
"She's mysterious. I don't know who she is, or anything about her. But I
know that she's in trouble."
"Of course she is! I have never known a mysterious maiden that wasn't,"
commented the woman of the world. "What's her particular variety of
trouble?"
Laurie reflected.
"That's hard to say," he brought out at last. "But it appears to be
mixed up with an offensive person in a crumpled blue suit who answers to
the name of Herbert Ransome Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?"
Louise wrinkled her fastidious nose.
"Never, I'm happy to say. But he doesn't sound attractive. However, tell
me all about them. There seems a good chance that they may get you into
trouble."
"That's what she said."
"It's the one gleam of intelligence I see in the situation," commented
his candid friend. "Is she pretty?"
"As lovely in her way as you are. Think you could help her any?"
wheedled Laurie.
"I doubt it. I'm too selfish to be bothered with girls who are in
trouble. I'll tell you who _can_ help her--Sonya Orleneff."
"Of course!" Laurie beamed at her. "Wonder why I didn't think of that."
"Probably because it was so obvious. Sonya is in town, as it happens,
stopping at the Warwick. She has brought the Infant Samuel to New York
to have his adenoids cut out. Samuel made a devastating visit here this
morning. He's getting as fat as a little pig, and when he walks he puffs
like a worn-out automobile going up a steep grade. He came up my stairs
on 'low,' and I'm sure they heard him on the avenue. I almost offered
him a glass of gasolene. But he is a lamb," she added reflectively.
Oddly enough, Samuel, late of New York's tenements, was another of her
favorites.
Laurie was following his own thoughts. Sonya was in town! Then, however
complicated his problem, it was already as good as solved.
"My dinner will be up soon," suggested Louise. "Are you dining with me?"
He glanced at his watch, reproachfully shook his head at it, and rose.
"Three hours of me are all you can have this time. But I'll probably
drop around about dawn to-morrow."
"Nice boy!" Her hot hand caught his and held it. "Laurie, if--if--I
should send for you suddenly sometime--you'd come and--stand by?"
All the gaiety was wiped from his face. His brilliant black eyes, oddly
softened, looked into her haughty blue ones with sudden understanding.
"You bet I will! Any time, anything! You'll remember that? Send for me
as if I were Bob. Perhaps you've forgotten it," he added, more lightly,
"but I happen to be your younger brother."
For a moment her face twisted. The mask of her arrogance fell from it.
"Bob didn't know," she said. "If he had felt the least suspicion he
wouldn't have gone so far, or for so long. I thought I had three or four
months--"
Laurie bent and kissed her cheek.
"I'm coming in every day," he said, and abruptly left the room.
In the lower hall he stopped to take in the full real realization of
what he had discovered. Louise, superb, arrogant, beautiful Louise, was
really ill, desperately ill. A feeling of remorse mingled with his sense
of shock. He had believed her a sort of nervous hypochondriac. He had so
resented her excessive demands on Barbara that it was only since he had
seen much of her in this last month that he had been able
whole-heartedly to like and admire her.
As he stood silent, he became conscious of another presence--an august,
impressive one, familiar in the past but veiled now, as it were, in a
midst of human emotion. It was Jepson, the butler. He coughed humbly.
"Hexcuse me, sir," he faltered. "But Mrs. Hordway h'ain't quite so well
lately, sir. 'Ave you hobserved that?"
Laurie nodded. "I noticed it to-day," he admitted.
"She's losin' strength very fast, sir. Hall of us 'as seen it. Cook says
she don't eat nothink. And Susanne and the nurse says it's 'ard work to
get 'er from the bed to 'er chair--"
Laurie checked these revelations.
"Has the doctor been here to-day?"
"Yessir, two of 'em 'ave been 'ere. Doctor Speyer comes hevery day. This
morning 'e brought Doctor Hames again. Hit's very hupsetting, sir, with
'er brother away and hall."
The man was genuinely anxious. Laurie tried to reassure him.
"She may be better in a day or two," he said, more buoyantly than he
felt. "But I'll come in every day. And here's my telephone number. If
anything goes wrong, call me up immediately. Leave a message if I'm not
there."
"Yessir. Thank you, sir." Jepson was pathetically grateful and relieved.
He had the English servant's characteristic need of sanction and
authority.
When Laurie reached his rooms, he called Sonya on the telephone. Like
Jepson, he was feeling rather overwhelmed by his responsibilities. It
was a relief to hear Sonya's deep, colorful voice.
"Didn't know you were here till just now," he told her. "I'm coming to
see you in the morning. I want to talk to you about a lot of things."
"Including Mrs. Ordway?" suggested Sonya.
"Yes. You saw her to-day. You noticed--"
"Of course. Samuel is to be operated on to-morrow. I'll send him back to
Devon House with his mother in a few days, as soon as he can safely
travel, and I shall stay right here."
"That's splendid of you!"
"It's what Barbara and Mr. Warren would wish. And Mrs. Ordway, too, I
think, though she would never suggest it."
"I'm sure it is."
Laurie hung up the receiver with a nervous hand. To a youth of
twenty-four it is a somewhat overpowering experience to discover that
destiny is especially busy over the affairs of two women for whom he
has assumed a definite responsibility. As he turned from the instrument
its bell again compelled his attention. He took up the receiver, and the
voice of a girl came to his ear. A week or two ago he had rather liked
that voice and its owner, a gay, irresponsible, good-hearted little
creature who pranced in the front row of an up-town pony ballet. Now he
listened to it with keen distaste.
"Hello, Laurie," it twittered. "Is that you? This is Billie. Listen. I
gotta plan. A bunch of us is goin' out to Gedney to supper to-night.
We're goin' to leave right after the show. Are you on?"
Laurie got rid of the fair Billie. He did it courteously but very
firmly. A rather unusual degree of firmness was necessary, for Miss
Billie was not used to having her invitations refused. She accepted the
phenomenon with acute unwillingness and very lingeringly.
Bangs was not at home, to divert his chum's mind with his robust
conversation. As he dressed for his call on Doris, the sharp contrasts
of life struck Laurie with the peculiar force with which they hit the
young and the inexperienced.
But were they really contrasts? On the one side were Louise, dying, and
Doris, seemingly eager to die. On the other were Billie and her
friends--foolish little butterflies, enjoying their brief hour in the
secret garden of life, eternally chattering about "good times," playing
they were happy, perhaps even thinking they were happy, but infinitely
more tragic figures than Louise and Doris. Yet a week ago he had thought
they amused him!
Pondering on these and other large problems, he absently removed the
bloom from three fresh white ties.