HOTEL FRISBIE
The Frisbie being a commercial house in a crowded business centre, Miss
Lacey was glad of Dunham's safe conduct amid clanging bells and
interlacing traffic wagons. She followed him through the dark hall of
the hotel and into an elevator. Leaving this, they entered the
depressing stretches of a long parlor whose stiff furniture and
hangings clung drearily against a harassing wall paper as dingy as
themselves. Finding the room empty, Miss Lacey began to speak excitedly
as soon _as_ they were seated and Dunham had sent the bell-boy on his
errand.
"Exactly the sort of a hotel my brother Sam would have come to!" she
said. "I wondered why Sylvia chose it. Like as not he's brought her
here before."
Then her lips snapped together, for she remembered she was not going to
speak slightingly of her brother before a stranger.
"Too bad he was not the sort of man with whom you and Judge Trent could
have been in sympathy," replied Dunham civilly. "It would have made the
present situation easier."
"Then Calvin has told you about it," returned Miss Martha, with mingled
relief and resentment, "and you understand why we can't feel anything
except a painful duty in this matter. If Sylvia had stayed West like a
reasonable being, instead of rushing on to Boston without our
permission, we would have helped her what we could--at least the judge
would. It would have been a great deal simpler to send a little money
to Springfield, Illinois, than to have the worry of the girl right here
with us--neither of us wanting her,--we couldn't be expected to." Miss
Lacey's tongue was loosened now and all reserves broken down. "I'm not
in a position to assume the care of anybody, and as for Judge Trent,
you know how set and peculiar he is, and besides that, my brother
always made his wife perfectly miserable"--
"It's a lie!"
Miss Lacey sank back in her chair and Dunham sprang to his feet as the
girlish voice rang out, and a black-clothed figure stood before them.
She had been standing behind one of the heavy hangings watching the
passing in the seething street when the two entered the room, and until
now had listened tense and motionless.
For a silent moment the visitors faced the girl, whose crop of short,
curly hair vibrated, and whose eyes sent forth sparks of blue fire as
she stood there, indignation incarnate. Her glance roved from one to
the other, and Miss Martha pinched herself to make certain that she had
not fallen into a bad dream, while Dunham crimsoned under the burning
gaze.
"Syl--Sylvia, is that you!" exclaimed Miss Lacey unsteadily.
The girl scorned to reply. White and accusing she stood. Miss Martha
looked up at her companion appealingly. "Mr.--Mr.--Sir Walter--Oh, I
don't know your name!"
The young girl half closed her eyes and looked down on her aunt with a
strange expression.
"Do you," she asked slowly, "talk like that about your dead brother
even to persons whose names you haven't learned?"
"Great Scott!" thought Dunham, whose crimson was fast becoming prickly
heat. "What have I got into!"
"I know this gentleman--I do, Sylvia," returned Miss Martha earnestly.
"He is your Uncle Calvin's--yes, your Uncle Calvin's trusted friend."
"I should judge so," returned the girl, fixing the unhappy Dunham with
her gaze. "I should judge his position to be very nearly one of the
family. Does Uncle Calvin know his name?"
Dunham had for some years been aware that his height was six feet. Now
he appeared to himself to be shrinking together until he was twin to
his employer. It would be a fortunate moment to present his card to
these ladies! For the first time in his life he found his hands in his
way.
"The situation is very peculiar--very," stammered Miss Martha
nervously, "and I'm very sorry, very sorry indeed that you were
listening."
"Oh, so am I!" ejaculated the girl, the angry tenseness of her face
changing and her voice breaking as she threw up her hands in a
despairing gesture. The pathos of the black figure struck through
Dunham's mortification.
"I wouldn't have hurt your feelings for anything," pursued Miss Martha
earnestly.
"Wouldn't you?"
"No; and I wish you would believe it and not look at me so strangely. I
never had hysterics in my life, but I feel as if I might have them
right off, if you don't stop."
The young girl had regained her self-control. "It might be the best
ending to the interview," she said, "for I could leave you then to--to
the trusted friend. I don't know what to do now." She clasped her hands
over her face for a second, then dropped them.
"She's dreadfully theatrical, dreadfully," thought Miss Lacey.
"She is broken-hearted," thought Dunham; and pulling himself together
he found his voice.
"My name is Dunham, Miss Lacey," he said, meeting the blue eyes where
the fire had burned out, showing the face so white, so young. "This is
in the day's work for me, and I'm sorry. I am in Judge Trent's office,
and he sent me here with your aunt to represent him."
"My aunt saved a lot of time," rejoined the girl slowly, speaking low.
"She represented them both while I stood there behind the curtain." Her
hands pressed together, and she looked again from one to the other.
"There isn't anything for you to stay for now, is there?" she added,
after a painful silence.
"Why, of course there is!" exclaimed Miss Martha. "We haven't made any
plan at all."
"What plan had you thought of making?"
Miss Martha cleared her throat and looked up at Dunham.
"I--we--wanted to ask what your plans were."
"They're nothing to you, I'm sure," returned the girl.
"Why, they're a great deal to us. You mustn't think Judge Trent and I
don't feel any responsibility of you. We _do_."
The girl's lips quivered into something that tried to be a smile.
"How did you intend to show it before--before you came in here this
morning?"
"Why, we"--Miss Martha cleared her throat again, "we--feel sure, of
course, that--unless your father left you money you--you will want to
find something to do, and we intend to help you find it."
Sylvia looked like a pale flower as she stood there. There rose in
Dunham the involuntary desire to protect that any man who saw her would
have felt.
"And to pay your expenses until you do find it," he added hastily.
"That is Judge Trent's idea," he declared, in a recklessly encouraging
tone. "To pay your expenses so long as you need it."
The girl's quivering smile grew steadier. Her pride stiffened under
this man's regard.
"Where?" she asked, with self-possession. "Not at the Touraine,
probably."
It was like a downward jerk on a balloon. Dunham suddenly remembered
the memoranda and his employer's shaggy gaze.
"At the Young Women's Christian Association," he replied
apologetically.
The girl laughed. "I don't like the sound of it," she said. "Is it some
sort of reformatory?"
"It is not," replied Miss Martha warmly. "That is a very good idea of
your uncle's. I hadn't heard of it. It is a very generous and proper
arrangement," with growing conviction. "Boston is dreadfully
overcrowded, and you'd have probably done better in Springfield,
whatever it's like; but I'll stay with you now,"--Miss Martha began
taking off her gloves nervously,--"and help you pack up and take you
over to the Association, and see you settled. The superintendent can no
doubt help you to find something to do, and perhaps everything will be
all right, after all."
Sylvia Lacey stretched out her hand. "Put those gloves on again, Aunt
Martha. Your duty to me is done. You and Mr. Dunham can go home now."
Miss Martha's eyes snapped behind her glasses. "What do you mean? What
are you going to do, then?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Any one of half a dozen
things. Get married, probably."
Miss Martha stared. "Are you engaged all this time and we worrying
ourselves like this?"
"No, but a man, an actor, wants me to marry him. He believes I would do
well on the stage."
"Sylvia Lacey, you _mustn't_ marry an actor. You mustn't consider such
a thing!" The speaker sprang to her feet and took a step forward.
"I haven't until now,"--Sylvia's white cheeks gave the lie to her
nonchalant tone,--"but father said he believed Nat would be good to me.
I thought it very strange at the time, but he seemed much more certain
that Nat would be kind than that you and Uncle Calvin would."
"Sylvia, you mustn't be willful. You're a young girl. You must let your
uncle and me think for you. I am going to remain with you until I see
you moved. You can't stay in this hotel alone, not a day." Miss Martha
glanced about as if she expected to see some of her brother's
disreputable friends leap up from behind the stuffy old armchairs.
"Go at once, please," returned the girl. "Won't you take her?" suddenly
turning to Dunham appealingly. "I'm very tired."
He did not need to be convinced of it. The white face showed the
nervous strain. He believed the short curls meant some recent illness.
He wished himself a thousand miles away, and took a final grip on the
hat he was holding.
"We're unwilling to leave you in such uncertainty," he said lamely.
Sylvia's eyes rested on his.
"Tell Uncle Calvin"--she paused, for her throat filled--"no," she added
with difficulty, "just go, please."
"Sylvia, I beg of you," Miss Lacey came forward, face and voice
perturbed, and attempted to take her niece's hand.
Sylvia fell back a step. "You said everything a few minutes ago, Aunt
Martha. Nothing could make any difference now. Good-by. Go, or else I
must."
"Why, it's impossible, it's unheard of!" Tears sprang to Miss Martha's
eyes, but Dunham took her arm and led her to the door, and while a sob
of anxiety struggled in her breast he hurried her to the elevator and
out upon the street, and at once hailed an approaching car.
"Do you wish to go right to the station, or to do errands?" he asked.
"Oh, _errands_!" exclaimed Miss Lacey wildly. "Who could think of
errands!"
"Well, this car will take you to the station. I have some business to
attend to, but shall probably catch the same train you do."
The car stopped. Dunham helped his bewildered companion to enter, and
stepping back to the sidewalk, walked half a block in the opposite
direction with business-like haste. Then he turned on his heel,
observed that no stoppage in the street had detained Miss Martha's
noisy conveyance, and striding back to the hotel, he reëntered the
dingy elevator.
He knew that there could scarcely be a more deserted, isolated spot at
this hour of the day than the parlor of the old hotel; and it was as he
hoped. The girl had not left it. He descried the slender black figure
at once. She was clinging hopelessly with both hands to one of the
sodden hangings and sobbing into its heavy folds.
He went up to her. "Pardon me. I've come back. Please don't do that."
She lifted her swollen eyes in surprise for a moment and then hid them.
"What right have you!" she murmured.
"None, but I couldn't do anything else, of course. You can see that.
Come over here and sit down, please. Somebody might come in."
The girl controlled her sobs; but kept her face hidden. "I don't want
to talk to you," she gasped.
"I know you don't. It makes it rather awkward. Is there any one else in
Boston--any one I could go and bring to you?"
She rubbed her soft little curls into the aged hangings in a hopeless
negative.
"Say!" said Dunham, in acute protest, "would you mind taking your head
out of that curtain? Why, it might give you typhoid fever."
"I've just had it," replied the girl chokingly. "That's why I'm so weak
and--and--Oh, if I could just telegraph to Nat!"
"If you'll come out of the curtain I'll wire Nat," responded Dunham
eagerly,--"that is, if it's the best thing," he added doubtfully.
"You can't wire him. He's one-nighting. I don't know where to catch
him, and he couldn't come anyway."
John continued to regard her as she left her hold on the curtain and
pressed a wet handkerchief to her eyes. "Come over here and sit down
one minute, please. I won't stay long."
She followed reluctantly to the chair he placed. "You shouldn't stay at
all," she returned. "I don't wish to trouble a perfect stranger with my
woes, and except for Uncle Calvin you have no reason to be here,
and--and I haven't any uncle any more."
It was pitiful to see her effort to control the pretty, grieving lips.
Her soul was smarting with the shock of her discovery, and the
mortification of this stranger's knowledge of it. She wished to send
him out of her sight at once; but her voice failed.
"Now, I'm neither Aunt Martha nor Uncle Calvin," said John, "and I
refuse to be treated as if I were. If you haven't any friends in Boston
I'm sure you can make one of me for five minutes. The situation is
awkward enough, and you might feel for me a bit, eh?"
"No, not if you have come to try to persuade me to do anything.
Nat--Mr. Forsyth, says he is sure I could get a chance on the stage,
and--and he says it would make everything easier if I married him; but
my friends at home urged me so much, and said the stage was a dog's
life, and persuaded me that my own people were the ones to help me now.
My own people!" the speaker pressed the handkerchief to her unsteady
lips again, and her eyes swam afresh.
Dunham regarded her. Of course she could get a position on the stage.
Any creature so pretty always could. He pictured her in some chorus,
these quivering lips reddened and the swimming eyes laughing in the
shade of an outrageous hat.
"I should say the stage last myself," he returned. "Your own people
_are_ the ones. Your Uncle Calvin"--
"I haven't any."
"Well, Judge Trent, then, is what is popularly described as a dried-up
old bachelor. It never occurred to him that happiness might be--that he
might find a daughter in you; but he wants to do his duty by
you--indeed he does," for the girl's face was discouraging, "and, by
George, you ought to let him do it."
"Never! And I always bade his picture good-night. Mother loved him so,
and she taught me." The last word was inaudible.
Dunham leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "Now would you mind
telling me, since you haven't any one else to tell, how much money you
have?"
A little determined shake of the curls. "I shouldn't think of telling
you."
"Then you're a very foolish girl. You ought to have more head and not
so much heart in this affair. Judge Trent is a man whom any one might
be proud to claim, and if you won't behave childishly we can bring him
around all right."
"Do you think I'd stoop to bring him around?" she asked, with a moist
flash of the eyes.
"You wouldn't be the first who stooped to conquer. If you were clever
you would."
"Father thought I was clever, and so does Nat," she said, with feeble
resentment.
"They wouldn't if they knew what you are doing now. Just because a busy
old bachelor of a lawyer, immersed in hard-headed affairs, doesn't
throw all aside and come here to welcome you and behave like a family
man, you repudiate him altogether."
"She said they didn't either of them want me." The voice was a wail.
"But you weren't anything to them but a name."
"I'm their own flesh and blood."
"Yes, and see that you don't forget it. You have a claim upon them. Now
at best it must be some days before you can communicate with
your--friend, perhaps I ought to say your lover."
"Oh, no, don't," with faint dissent. "He's father's friend, really, and
he's--poor thing, he's so fat I don't think he'd call himself anybody's
lover; but he's so kind. He was so good to father."
This time the speaker did not vanish into the handkerchief, but caught
her lip between her little teeth, and looking away, struggled for
composure in a way that drew on John's heartstrings.
This slender creature, not yet strong from the illness that had crowned
her head with those silky tendrils, and with no supporting arm save
that of a barn-storming actor, mediocre in his middle age, what was
Judge Trent's representative to do or say to prevent her from taking
some foolish and desperate course!
"Now you simply must have money to tide you over," he announced. "Let's
not have any nonsense. You can't knock about this hotel. Judge Trent
knew what he was doing when he said the Young Women's Christian
Association. He wanted you guarded, and he wasn't--he didn't--he
couldn't very well guard you himself." Dunham stammered, but collected
himself with praiseworthy dignity. He had recalled his six feet of
height, and rising, began to make the most of the last inch, and to try
the effect of a frown down on the flower face whose eyes, looking a
little startled, encouraged him. He frowned more heavily as he took a
bill book from his pocket and counted out five five-dollar bills.
"Now take that money and put it away in some safe place," he said
briefly. "I'll take you over to the Association myself. No, indeed, I'm
not Aunt Martha, and you're going with me."
The girl let the bills drop into her lap while she drew her hands away
from them.
"I'd rather go and jump into the water!" she began passionately.
"Don't--be--_silly_!" returned Dunham, in a biting, big-brother tone
which seemed to have an effect.
"Is this Uncle Calvin's money?"
"Of course it is. What would your mother say if she were here? Of
course I understand you're not going to be dependent upon Judge Trent.
You've made up your mind to that, and I'm not going to try to shake
you; but I suppose you're not so childish as to refuse a small gift
from your mother's brother, just because you're disappointed in him, or
angry with him--or whatever you choose to call it. I'm rather pressed
for time," continued John, after a short pause, assuming the tone he
reserved for a book agent on his busy day, and taking out his watch he
gave it a sweeping glance. "It would oblige me very much if you could
hurry a little. You can't stay here, you know, and I'll have a carriage
ready."
Sylvia rose undecidedly. "You take a great deal for granted," she said.
"I--there's only one condition on which I'll go, and that is that you
don't tell either my uncle or my aunt where I am. I will not see them.
I'll have no more of their sense of duty! I won't have Aunt Martha come
back there."
"Oh, very well," Dunham gave a hasty and rather bored nod.
"But do you promise?" The blue eyes began to dry and to sparkle again.
"Well, yes, of course. I promise."
She left the room; and the various shades of dignity, sarcasm, and
boredom gradually vanished from the young man's countenance. He smiled
and shrugged his big shoulders with the gesture of a ten-year-old
schoolboy, and moving over to a hoary mirror with a freckled gilt
frame, he executed a brief and silent clog before it.
"I'm not so bad," he commented to his reflection. "Nat isn't the only
star in the profession."