PLAYS FOR POSITION
About three o'clock of the same day a smart electric _coupe_ whirled up
Lake Shore Drive under a rattling fusillade of sleet from over the
lake. At the entrance of the grounds of the Leslie mansion it curved
around and shot in under the _porte cochere._
A footman in the quiet dark green and black of the Leslie livery sprang
out to open the _coupe_ door, while the footman with the _coupe_, whose
livery was not so quiet, swung down to hand out the occupants. Before
the servant could offer his services, Dolores Gantry darted out past
him and in through the welcome doorway of the side entrance. Her mother
followed with stately leisure, regardless of a wind-flung dash of sleet
on her sealskins.
Having been relieved of their furs, the callers were shown to the
drawing-room. As the footman glided away to inform his mistress of
their arrival, Dolores danced across to the door of the rear
drawing-room and called in a clear, full-throated, contralto voice:
"Ho, Vievie! Vievie! You in here? Hurry up! There's something I do so
want to tell you."
Mrs. Gantry paused in the act of seating herself. "Dolores! Why must
you shriek out like a magpie? Will you never forget you're a tomboy?"
"I'm not, mamma. I'm simply acting as if I were one. You forget I'm a
full-blown _debutante_. Vievie has already promised me a ball."
"Behave yourself, if you wish to attend it."
Dolores jumped to a chair and sank into it with an air of elegant
languor. "Yes, mamma. This--ah--driving in moist weather is so
fatiguing, don't you find it?"
Mrs. Gantry disposed herself upon the comfortable seat that she had
selected, and raised her gold lorgnette. "Do not forget that the ball
Genevieve has so generously promised you is to be honored by the
presence--"
"Of a real live earl and a real hero, with Laffie Ashton thrown in for
good--I mean, bad--measure!" cut in Dolores with enthusiasm. "You know,
I asked Vievie to 'put him on her list, else he never may be kissed!'"
Again Mrs. Gantry raised her lorgnette to transfix her daughter with
her cold stare. "_You_ asked her to invite Lafayette Ashton? And you
know his reputation!"
"Of course. But you mustn't ask for the details, mamma," reproved the
girl. "It's best that you should not become aware of such things, my
dear. Only, you know, 'boys will be boys,' and we must not lose sight
of the fact that poor dear Laffie will be worth twenty millions some
day--if his papa doesn't make a will. Besides, he dances divinely. Of
course Earl Jimmy's mustache is simply too cute for anything, but,
alas! unless Vievie clings to her heroic Tommy--"
"Tommyrot!" sniffed Mrs. Gantry. "The presumption of that low fellow!
To think of his following her to America!"
"You should have forewarned the authorities at Ellis Island, and had
him excluded as dangerous--to your plans."
"No more of this frivolity! I've confided to you that that man is
dangerous to Genevieve's happiness. I'll not permit it. What a
fortunate chance that the earl came with him! I shall see to it that
Genevieve becomes a countess."
Dolores pulled a mock-tragic face. "Oh, mamma," she implored, "why
don't you root for me, instead? I'm sure a coronet would fit me to
perfection, and his mustache is _so_ cute!"
To judge by Mrs. Gantry's expression, it was fortunate for her daughter
that Genevieve came in upon them. Dolores divined this last from the
sudden mellowing of her mother's face. She whirled up out of her chair
and around, with a cry of joyous escape: "Oh, Vievie! You're just in
time to save me!"
"From what, dear?" asked Genevieve, smilingly permitting herself to be
crumpled in an impetuous embrace.
"Mamma was just going to run the steam-roller over me, simply because I
said Jimmy's mustache is cute. It _is_ cute, isn't it?"
"'Jimmy'?" inquired Genevieve, moving to a chair beside Mrs. Gantry.
"His honorable earlship, then--since mamma is with us."
"You may leave the room," said her mother.
"I may," repeated the girl. She pirouetted up the room and stopped to
look at a painting of a desolate tropical coast.
"It's such a dreadful day out, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve. "And you
can't be rested from the trip."
"Quite true, my dear," agreed Mrs. Gantry. "But I had to see you--to
talk matters over with you. I did not wish to break in on your
enjoyment of those delightful English house parties; and crossing over,
you know, I was too wretchedly ill to think of anything. Can I never
get accustomed to the sea!"
"It's so unfortunate," condoled Genevieve. "I believe I'm a born
sailor."
"You proved it, starting off with that globe-trotting Lady Bayrose."
"Poor Lady Bayrose! To think that she--" The girl pressed her hands to
her eyes. "The way that frightful breaker whirled the boat loose and
over and over!--and the water swarming with sharks!"
"Do not think of it, my dear! Really, you must not think of it!" urged
Mrs. Gantry. "Be thankful it happened before the sailors had time to
put you in the same boat. Better still, my dear, do not permit yourself
to think of it at all. Put all that dreadful experience out of your
mind."
"But you do not understand, Aunt Amice. I fear you never will. Except
for that--for poor Lady Bayrose--I've told you, I do not wish to forget
it."
"My dear!" protested Mrs. Gantry, "cannot you realize how very
improper--? That man! What if he should talk?"
"Is there anything to be concealed?" asked Genevieve, with quiet
dignity.
"You know how people misconstrue things," insisted her aunt. "That
newspaper notoriety was quite sufficiently--It's most fortunate that
Lord Avondale is not affected. I must admit, his attitude towards that
man puzzles me."
"I can understand it very well," replied Genevieve, firmly.
"You both insist that the fellow is--is not absolutely unspeakable! I
should never have thought it of you, Genevieve, nor of such a thorough
gentleman as Lord Avondale--gentleman in _our_ sense of the
term,--refined, cultured, and _clean_. Were he one of the gentry who
have reasons for leaving England,--who go West and consort with
ruffians--remittance men--But no. Lady Chetwynd assured me he has been
presented at Court, and you know the strictness of Queen Mary."
"You admit that Lord Avondale is, shall I say--perfect. Yet--"
"He is irreproachable, my dear, except as regards his extraordinary
insistence upon an intimate friendship with that man."
"That is what confirms my good opinion of him, Aunt Amice."
"That!"
"It proves he is himself manly and sincere."
Mrs. Gantry raised a plump hand, palm outward. "Between the two of
you--"
"We know Mr. Blake--the real man. You do not."
"I never shall. I will not receive him--never. He is impossible!"
"What! never?--the man who saved me from starvation, fever, wild
beasts, from all the horrors of that savage coast?--the intimate friend
of the Earl of Avondale?"
"Does he paint, Vievie?" called Dolores. "Is this a picture of your
Crusoe coast?"
"No, dear. I bought that in New York. But it is very like the place
where Tom--"
"'Tom'!" reproached Mrs. Gantry. She looked around at her daughter.
"Dolores, I presumed you left us when I ordered you."
"Oh, no, not 'ordered,' mamma. You said 'may,' not 'must.'"
"Leave the room!"
The girl sauntered down towards the arched opening into the rear
drawing-room. As she passed the others, she paused to pat her cousin's
soft brown hair.
"I do believe the sun has burnt it a shade lighter, Vievie," she
remarked. "What fun it must have been! When _are_ you going to show me
that leopard-skin gown?"
"Leave the room this instant!" commanded Mrs. Gantry.
Dolores crossed her hands on her bosom and crept out with an air of
martyred innocence. Her mother turned to Genevieve for sympathy. "That
girl! I don't know what ever I shall do with her--absolutely
irrepressible! These titled Englishmen are so particular--she is your
cousin."
Genevieve colored slightly. "You should know Lord Avondale better. If
he is at all interested--"
"He is, most decidedly. He dined with us last evening. Laffie Ashton
called; so I succeeded in getting the earl away from Dolores. We had a
most satisfying little _tete-a-tete_. I led him into explaining
everything."
"Everything?" queried Genevieve.
"Yes, everything, my dear. His aloofness since you reached Aden has
been due merely to his high sense of honor,--to an absurd but
chivalrous agreement with that fellow to not press his suit until after
your arrival home. At Aden he had given the man his word--"
"At Aden?" interrupted Genevieve. "How could that be, when Tom left the
ship at Port Mozambique?"
"He didn't. It seems that the fellow was aboard all the time, hiding in
the steerage or stoke-hole, or somewhere--no doubt to spy on you and
Lord Avondale."
Genevieve averted her head and murmured in a half whisper: "He was
aboard all that time, and never came up for a breath of air all those
smothering days! I remember Lord James speaking of how hot and vile it
was down in the forecastle. This explains why he went forward so much!"
"It explains why he did not book passage with you from Aden--why he did
not hasten to you at Lady Chetwynd's--all because of his chivalrous but
mistaken sense of loyalty to that low fellow."
"If you please, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve, in a tone as incisive as
it was quiet, "you will remember that I esteem Mr. Blake."
Mrs. Gantry stared over her half-raised lorgnette. She had never before
known her niece to be other than the very pattern of docility.
"Well!" she remarked, and, after a little pause; "Fortunately, that
absurd agreement is now at an end. The earl intimated that he would
call on you this afternoon. I am sure, my dear--"
Of what the lady was sure was left to conjecture. The footman appeared
in the hall entrance and announced: "Mr. Brice-Ashton."
Ashton came in, effusive and eager. "My dear Miss Genevieve! I--ah,
Mrs. Gantry! Didn't expect to meet you here, such a day as this. Most
unexpected--ah--pleasure! _N'est-ce pas?_--No, no! my dear Miss Leslie;
keep your seat!"
Genevieve had seemed about to rise, but he quite deftly drew a chair
around and sat down close before her. "I simply couldn't wait any
longer. I felt I must call to congratulate you over that marvellous
escape. It must have been terrible--terrible!"
Genevieve replied with perceptible coldness: "Thank you, Mr. Ashton. I
had not expected a call from you."
"'Mr.' Ashton!" he echoed. "Has it come to that?--when we used to make
mudpies together! Dolores said that you--"
"Not so fast, Laffie!" called the girl, as she came dancing into the
room in her most animated manner. "Don't forget I'm Miss Gantry now."
Ashton continued to address Genevieve, without turning: "I came all the
way down from Michamac just to congratulate you--left my bridge!"
"You're too sudden with your congratulations, Laffie," mocked Dolores.
"Genevieve hasn't yet decided whether it's to be the hero or the earl."
"Dolores," admonished her mother. "I told you to leave the room."
"Yes, and forgot to tell me to stay out. It's no use now, is it? Unless
you wish me to drag out Laffie for a little _tete-a-tete_ in the
conservatory."
"Sit down, dear," said Genevieve.
Mrs. Gantry turned to Ashton with a sudden unbending from hauteur. "My
dear Lafayette, I observed your manner yesterday towards that--towards
Mr. Blake. Am I right in surmising that you know something with regard
to his past?"
"About Blake?" replied Ashton, his usually wide and ardent eyes
shifting their glance uneasily from his questioner to Genevieve and
towards the outer door.
"About my friend Mr. Blake," said Genevieve.
"You call him a friend?--a fellow like that!" Ashton rashly exclaimed.
"He has proved himself a disinterested friend,--which I cannot say of
all with whom I am acquainted."
"Oh, of course, if you feel that way."
"My other friends will remember that he saved my life."
"If only he had been a gentleman!" sighed Mrs. Gantry.
"Yes, Vievie," added Dolores. "Next time any one goes to save you, shoo
him off unless he first offers his card."
"Mr. Blake is what many a seeming gentleman is not," said Genevieve,
her levelled glance fixed upon Ashton. "Tom Blake is a man, a strong,
courageous man!"
"We quite agree with you," ventured Ashton. "He is a man of the type
one so frequently sees among firemen and the police."
Mrs. Gantry intervened with quick tact: "Mr. Blake is quite an eminent
civil engineer, we understand. As a fellow engineer, you have met him,
I dare say--have had dealings with him."
"I?--with him? No--that is--" Ashton stammered and shifted about
uneasily under Genevieve's level gaze. "It was only when I was acting
as Mr. Leslie's secretary. Blake handed me the bridge plans that he
afterwards claimed were lost. I tell you, I had nothing to do with
them--nothing! I merely received them from him. That was all. I went
away the very next day--resigned my position. I don't know what became
of his plans,--nothing whatever! I tell you, the Michamac Bridge--"
"Why, Lame!" giggled Dolores. "What makes you squirm so? You're
twitching all over. I thought you'd had enough of the simple life at
Michamac to recover from the effects of that corner in oats. You
haven't started another corner already, have you?"
"No, I have--I mean, yes--just a few cocktails at the club--yes, that's
it. So bitter cold, this sleet! You'll understand, Mrs. Gantry--perhaps
one too much. Haven't had any since I went back to the bridge last
time."
"Then up at Michamac you take it straight?" asked Dolores.
Ashton forced a nervous laugh. "Keep it up, Dodie! You'll make a wit
yet." He bent towards Genevieve. "You'll pardon me, won't you,
Genevieve?"
The girl raised her fine brows ever so slightly. "'Miss Leslie,' if you
please."
"Of course--of course! Just another slip--that last cocktail and the
sleet. Wet cold always sends it to my head. That about Blake, too--I
oughtn't to 've spoken of it after you said he was your friend. It's,
of course, your father's affair."
"Then you need say no more about it," said Genevieve with ironical
graciousness. He shifted about in his chair, and she caught him deftly.
"Must you be going?--really! Good-day."
He rose uncertainly to his feet, his handsome face flushed, and his
full red lower lip twitching.
"I--I had not intended--" he began.
"Good-day!" said Mrs. Gantry with significant emphasis.
"So sorry you must rush off so soon, Laffie," mocked Dolores.
Social training has its value. Ashton pulled himself together, bowed
gracefully, and started up the room with easy assurance.
As he neared the doorway, the footman appeared and announced with
unction: "The Right Honorable, the Earl of Avondale."
Ashton stopped short, and when the Englishman entered, met him with an
effusive greeting: "_Mon Dieu!_ Such a fortunate chance, your lordship!
So glad to meet you again,--and here, of all places! Don't forget to
look me up at my clubs."
"Hearts are trumps, Laffie--not clubs," called Dolores, as Lord James
passed him by with a vague nod.