wonderment. His chief might have qualities that were not endearing, and
his manner might at times be rough, but where was there a man who rode
through obstacles with the same fine disregard as Daniel Taylor?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mrs. Harrington admitted freely that she had been very far-seeing in
asking Denby to travel on the Mauretania with her and Monty. She was one
of those modern women who count days damaging to their looks if there
comes an hour of boredom in them, and her new acquaintance was always
amusing.
One day when they were all three sitting on deck she asked him: “What
are you going to do when you get home?”
“Nothing particular,” he replied, “except that I want to run down to
Washington some time during the month.”
“You see,” Monty explained, “Steve is a great authority on the tariff.
The Secretary of the Treasury does nothing without consulting him. He
has to go down and help the cabinet out.”
“That’s hardly true,” Denby said mildly, “but I have friends in
Washington nevertheless.” It was obvious Monty was not taken in by this.
He only regarded his friend as a superb actor who refused to be
frightened by the hourly alarms his faithful assistant took to him with
fast-beating heart. Young Vaughan told himself a dozen times a day that
this excitement, this suspicion of the motives of all strangers, was
undermining his health. He had complained of the dull evenness of his
existence before meeting Denby in Paris, but he felt such a lament could
never again be justified. He found himself unable to sit still for long.
He marvelled to see that Denby could sit for hours in a deck-chair
talking to Alice without seeming to care whether mysterious strangers
were eyeing him or not.
“I asked you,” Mrs. Harrington went on, “because, if you’ve nothing
better to do, will you spend a week with us at Westbury? Michael will
like you, and if you don’t like Michael, there’s something seriously
wrong with you.”
“I’d love to come,” he said eagerly. “Thank you very much.”
“Hooray,” said Monty. “Alice, you’re a sweet soul to ask him. Of course
he’ll like Michael. Who doesn’t?”
“Everybody ought to,” she said happily. “Do you know, Mr. Denby, I’m one
of the only three women in our set who still love their husbands. I
wouldn’t tell you that except for the reason you’ll find out. He’s the
most generous soul in the world and when I go to him with a bank-book
that won’t balance, he adds it up and says I’ve made a mistake and that
I’m on the right side. How many husbands would do that?”
“I might,” Monty asserted, “because I can’t add up long columns, but
Michael’s a demon at statistics, or used to be.”
“He’s such an old dear,” Mrs. Harrington went on. “His one peculiar
talent is the invention of new and strange drinks. I never come back
from any long absence but he shows me something violently colored which
is built in my honor. And Monty will tell you,” she added laughing,
“that I have never been seen to shudder while he was looking. Have I,
Monty?”
“You’re a good sport,” said Monty, “and if ever I kill a man, it will be
Michael, and my motive will be jealousy.”
“Well, you needn’t look so unhappy about it,” she cried, as a frown
passed over his face and he sank back in his chair, all his good-humor
gone.
Monty had in that careless phrase, “If ever I kill a man,” reminded
himself vividly of the dangers that he felt beset him and his friend
Steven Denby. He had been trying to forget it and now it was with him to
stay. And another and a dreadful thought occurred. Would Denby take
those accursed pearls with him to the Harrington mansion on Long
Island? It was so disquieting that he rose abruptly and went into a
secluded corner of the upper smoking-room and called for a cigar and a
pony of brandy.
His attention was presently attracted to a stout comfortable-looking man
who was staring at him as though to encourage a bow of recognition. He
had noticed the stout and affable gentleman before and always in the
same seat, but never before had he sought acquaintance in this manner.
There was no doubt in Monty’s mind that the man was one of those suave
gamblers who reap their richest harvests on the big fast liners. No
doubt he knew that Monty was a Vaughan and had occasionally fallen for
such professionals and inveigled into a quiet little game. But Monty
felt himself of a different sort now.
There was no doubt that the affable gentleman had fully made up his mind
as to his plan of action. He rose from his comfortable chair and made
his way to the younger man with his hand held out in welcome.
“I thought it was you,” he said, and wrung Monty’s reluctant hand, “but
you are not quite the same as when I saw you last.”
“No doubt,” Monty said coldly; “I am older and _I_ am not the fool I
used to be.”
“That’s good,” said the affable gentleman pressing the button that was
to summon a steward. “Your father will be glad to hear that.”
“Have the kindness to leave my father alone,” the younger commanded.
Never in his life had Monty found himself able to be so unpleasant.
There was, he discovered, a certain joy in it.
“Why, certainly,” said the other a trifle startled, “if you wish it.
Only as he and I were old friends, I saw no harm in it.”
“Old friends?” sneered Monty. “Let me see, you were the same year at
Yale, weren’t you?”
“Of course,” the affable stranger said, and turned to see the advancing
steward. “What will you have?” he asked.
“I don’t drink with strangers,” Monty said rising.
“Strangers!” cried the other with the rising intonation of indignation.
“Well, I like that!”
“Then I shall leave you with a pleasant memory,” Monty said. “Good day.”
“Stop a moment,” the stranger asked after a pause in which rage and
astonishment chased themselves across his well-nourished countenance.
“Who do you think I am, anyway?”
“Your name and number don’t interest me,” Monty said loftily. He noted
that the steward was enjoying it after the quiet inexpressive manner of
the English servant. “But I’ve no doubt at some time or another I lost
money to you--your old college friend’s money of course--in some quiet
game with your confederates.”
“Now, what do you think of that!” the red-faced man exclaimed as he
watched Monty’s retreating figure. But the steward was non-committal. He
was not paid to give up his inner thoughts but to bring drinks on a
tray.
The stout and affable gentleman was a member of the Stock Exchanges of
London and New York and made frequent journeys between these cities. He
held the ocean record of having crossed more times and seen the waves
less than any stock-broker living. He had passed more hours in a
favorite chair in the Mauretania’s smoking-room than any man had done
since time began. He was raconteur of ability and had been a close
friend of the elder Vaughan’s years before at Yale. And he burned with
fierce indignation when he remembered that he had held the infant Monty
years ago and prophesied to a proud mother that he would be her joy and
pride. Joy and pride! He snorted and fell away from his true form so far
as to seek the deck and suck in fresh air.
There he happened upon Mrs. Harrington talking to Denby. She knew
Godfrey Hazen. He had often been to Westbury, and Michael esteemed him
for his great knowledge of the proper beverage to take for every
emergency that may arise upon an ocean voyage.
“What makes you look so angry?” she exclaimed.
He calmed down when he saw her. “I’ve just been taken for a professional
gambler,” he cried.
“I thought all stock-brokers were that,” she said smiling.
“I mean a different sort,” he explained, “the kind that work the big
liners. I just asked him to have a drink when he said he didn’t drink
with strangers and hinted I had my picture in the rogues’ gallery.”
“Who was it?” she inquired.
“That ne’er-do-well, Monty Vaughan,” he answered.
“Monty?” she said. “Impossible!”
“Is it?” he said grimly. “We’ll see. Here comes the young gentleman.”
Monty sauntered up without noticing him at first. When he did, he
stopped short and was in no whit abashed. “Trying a new game?” he
inquired.
“Monty, don’t you remember Mr. Hazen?” Alice said reproachfully.
“Have I made an ass of myself?” he asked miserably.
“I wouldn’t label any four-footed beast by the name I’d call you,” said
Mr. Hazen firmly.
“Why didn’t you tell me your name?” Monty asked.
“You ought to have remembered me,” the implacable Hazen retorted. “Why,
I held you in my arms when you were only three months old.”
“Then I wish you had dropped me and broken me,” Monty exclaimed, “and I
should have been spared a lot of worry.” Things were piling up to make
him more than ever nervous. He had overheard two passengers saying they
understood the Mauretania’s voyagers were to have a special examination
at the Customs on account of diamond smuggling. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hazen,”
he said more graciously, “but I’ve things on my mind and you must accept
that as the reason.”
When he had gone Mr. Hazen was introduced to Denby and prevailed upon to
occupy Monty’s seat.
“I don’t like the look of it,” Mr. Hazen said, shaking his head. “At his
age he oughtn’t to have any worries. I didn’t.”
“If you can keep a secret,” Mrs. Harrington confided, “I think I can
tell you exactly what is the matter with Monty and I’m sure you’ll make
excuses for him, Mr. Hazen.”
“Maybe,” he returned dubiously, “but you should have heard how he called
me down before a steward!”
“Monty’s in love,” Mrs. Harrington declared, “and after almost two
years’ absence he is going to meet her again; and the dread of not
daring to propose is sapping his brain. You’re not the first. He’s been
out of sorts the whole time and I’ve had to smooth things over with
other people. Come, now,” she said coaxingly, “when you were young I’m
sure you had some episodes of that sort yourself, now didn’t you?”
Mr. Hazen tried not to let her see the proud memories that came surging
back through a quarter of a century. “Well,” he admitted, “if you put it
that way, Mrs. Harrington, I’ve got to forgive the boy.”
“I knew you would,” she said, and talked nicely to him for reward.
Then the romance which he had resurrected faded; and the sight of so
much salt in the waves--the unaccustomed waves--induced a provoking
thirst and he rose and after a conventional lie retired to the
smoking-room.
“All the same,” Mrs. Harrington remarked to Denby, “I am worried about
the boy.”
“He’ll get over it,” said Steven.
“I hope so,” she returned. “His nerves are all wrong. I thought he had
the absinthe habit at first, but he’s really quite temperate, and it’s
mental, I suspect. It may be Nora; I hope it is. She’s a dear girl and
Monty’s really a big catch.”
“Didn’t you say you had bought her a present, some valuable piece of
jewelry?”
“Which I have sworn to smuggle,” she returned brightly, “despite your
warning.”
“For your sake I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, “but if your mind’s made
up, what will my words avail?”
“I’m not stubborn,” she cried, “even Michael admits that. I am always
open to conviction.”
“If you smuggle, you are,” he said meaningly. “Really, Mrs. Harrington,
you’ve no idea how strict these examinations are becoming, and this
vessel seems specially marked out for extra strict inspections. The
popular journals have harped on the fact that the rich, influential
women who use this and boats of this class, are exempt, while the woman
who saves up for a few weeks’ jaunt and brings little inexpensive
presents back, is caught.”
“Are you sure of that?” she demanded.
“Why, yes,” he returned. “It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” he
demanded, looking at her keenly. “It doesn’t seem playing the game for
the first cabin on the Mauretania to get in free while the second cabin
gets caught.”
“Have you ever smuggled?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said, “but if I have, it has not been a habit with me as
with some rich people I know, who could so easily afford to pay.”
“Suppose I do smuggle and get caught, I can pay without any further
trouble, can’t I?” she queried.
“You’re just as likely to be detained,” he told her. “To all intents and
purposes, it’s like being under arrest.”
“Oh, Lord!” she cried. “And I shouldn’t be able to get back to Michael?”
“Probably not,” he said. “You see, Mrs. Harrington, you’d be a splendid
tribute to the impartiality of the service. The publicity the Customs
people would get from your case would be worth a lot to them.
Indirectly, you’d possibly promote hard-working inspectors.”
“But I don’t want to be a case,” she exclaimed, “I’m not anxious to be
put in a cell and promote hard-working inspectors. And think of poor
Michael all ready with a crimson newly-devised drink pacing the floor
while I’m undergoing the third degree! Mr. Denby, I still think the laws
are absurd, but I shall declare everything I’ve got. I wonder if they
would let Michael hand me his crimson drink through the bars.”
Just then Monty made for them and dropped into his deck-chair.
“I’m going to be an honest woman,” she declared, “and smuggle no more.
Mr. Denby is the miracle-worker. I shall probably have to borrow money
to pay the duty, so be at hand, Monty.”
He looked across at Denby and sighed. His friend’s serene countenance
and absence of nerves was always a source of wonderment to him.
Hereafter, he swore, a life in consonance with his country’s laws. And
if the first few days of the voyage had made him nervous, it was small
comfort to think that the really risky part had yet to be gone through.
In eliminating Alice Harrington as a fellow smuggler Monty saw
extraordinary cunning. “Well,” he thought, “if anyone can carry it
through it will be old Steve,” and rose obediently at Alice’s behest and
brought back a wireless form on which he indited a message to the absent
Michael.
Monty Vaughan had crossed the ocean often, and each time had been
cheered to see in the distance the long flat coast-line of his native
land. There had always been a sense of pleasurable excitement in the
halt at Quarantine and the taking on board the harbor and other
officials.
But this time they clambered aboard--the most vindictive set of mortals
he had ever laid eyes on--and each one of them seemed to look at Monty
as though he recognized a law breaker and a desperado. Incontinently he
fled to the smoking-room and ran into the arms of Godfrey Hazen.
“Never mind, my boy,” said that genial broker, “you’ll soon be out of
your misery. Brace up and have a drink. I know how you feel. I’ve felt
like that myself.”
“Did you get caught?” Monty gasped.
“No,” he said, for he was a bachelor, “but I’ve had some mighty narrow
squeaks and once I thought I was gone.”
He watched Monty gulp down his drink with unaccustomed rapidity. “That’s
right,” he said commendingly. “Have another?”
“It would choke me,” the younger answered, and fled.
Hazen shook his head pityingly. He had never been as afflicted as the
heir to his old friend Vaughan. Poets might understand love and its
symptoms but such manifestations were beyond him.
When Steven Denby opened his trunks to a somewhat uninterested inspector
and answered his casual questions without hesitation, Monty stood at his
side. It cost him something to do so but underneath his apparent
timorous nature was a strength and loyalty which would not fail at need.
And when the jaded Customs official made chalk hieroglyphics and stamped
the trunks as free from further examination Monty felt a relief such as
he had never known. As a poet has happily phrased it, “he chortled in
his joy.”
“What’s the matter?” he demanded of Denby when he observed that his own
hilarity was not shared by his companion in danger. “Why not celebrate?”
“We’re not off the dock yet,” Denby said in a low voice. “They’ve been
too easy for my liking.”
“A lot we care,” Monty returned, “so long as they’re finished with us.”
“That’s just it,” he was warned, “I don’t believe they have. It’s a bit
suspicious to me. Better attend to your own things now, old man.”
Monty opened his trunks in a lordly manner. So elaborate was his gesture
that an inspector was distrustful and explored every crevice of his
baggage with pertinacity. He unearthed with glee a pair of military
hair-brushes with backs of sterling silver that Monty had bought in Bond
street for Michael Harrington as he passed through London and forgotten
in his alarm for bigger things.
“It pays to be honest,” said Mrs. Harrington, who had declared her
dutiable importations and felt more than ordinarily virtuous. “Monty,
you bring suspicion on us all. I’m surprised at you. Just a pair of
brushes, too. If you had smuggled in a diamond necklace for Nora there
would be some excuse!”
The word necklace made him tremble and he did not trust himself to say a
word.
“He’s too ashamed for utterance,” Denby commented, helping him to repack
his trunk.
There were two Harrington motors waiting, both big cars that would carry
a lot of baggage. When they were ready it was plain that only two
passengers could be carried in one and the third in the second car.
“How shall we manage it?” Mrs. Harrington asked.
“If you don’t mind I’ll let you two go on,” Denby suggested, “and when
I’ve sent off a telegram to my mother, I’ll follow.”
“I see,” she laughed, “you want the stage set for your entrance. Very
well. Au revoir.”
Monty surprised her by shaking his friend’s hand. “Good-by, old man,”
said Monty sorrowfully. He was not sure that he would ever see Steven
again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Michael Harrington walked up and down the big hall of his Long Island
home looking at the clock and his own watch as if to detect them in the
act of refusing to register the correct time of day. Although it was
probable his wife, Monty and the guest of whose coming a wireless
message had apprised him, would not be home for another hour, he was
always anxious at such a moment.
He was a man of fifty-eight, exceedingly good-tempered, and very much in
love with his wife. When Alice had married a man twenty-four years her
senior there had been prophecies that it would not last long. But the
two Harringtons had confounded such dismal predictions and lived--to
their own vast amusement--to be held up as exemplars of matrimonial
felicity in a set where such a state was not too frequent.
His perambulations were interrupted by the entrance of Lambart, a butler
with a genius for his service, who bore on a silver tray a siphon of
seltzer water, a decanter of Scotch whiskey and a pint bottle of fine
champagne.
Lambart had, previously to his importation, valeted the late lamented
Marquis of St. Mervyn, an eccentric peer who had broken his noble neck
in a steeplechase. Like most English house-servants he was profoundly
conservative; and after two positions which he had left because his
employers treated him almost as an equal, he had come to the Harringtons
and taken a warm but perfectly respectful liking to his millionaire
employer. Lambart was a remarkably useful person and it was his proud
boast that none had ever beheld him slumbering. Certain it was that a
bell summoned him at any hour of the day or night, and he had never
grumbled at such calls.
Harrington looked at the refreshment inquiringly. “Did I order this?” he
demanded.
“No, sir,” Lambart answered, “but my late employer Lord St. Mervyn
always said that when he was waiting like you are, sir, it steadied his
nerves to have a little refreshment.”
“I should have liked the Marquis if I’d known him,” Michael Harrington
observed when his thirst was quenched. “I think I could have paid him no
prettier compliment than to have named a Rocksand colt after him,
Lambart. The colt won at Deauville last week, by the way.”
“Yes, sir,” Lambart returned, “I took the liberty of putting a bit on
him; I won, too.”
“Good,” said his employer, “I’m glad. He ought to have a good season in
France. I like France for two things--racing and what they call the
_heure de l’aperitif_. When I go to Rome I do as the Romans do, and I
have the pleasantest recollections of my afternoons in France.”
He noticed that Lambart, bringing over to him a box of cigars, turned
his head as though to listen. “I believe, sir,” said the butler, “that
the car is coming up the drive.”
He hurried to the open French window and looked out. “Yes, sir,” he
cried, “it is one of our cars and Mrs. Harrington is in it.”
Michael Harrington rose hastily to his feet. “Great Scott, my wife! The
boat must have docked early.” He pointed to the whiskey and champagne.
“Get rid of these; and not a word, Lambart, not a word.”
“Certainly not, sir,” Lambart answered; “I couldn’t make a mistake of
that sort after being with the Marquis of St. Mervyn for seven years.”
He took up the tray quickly and carried it off as Nora Rutledge--the
girl for whose sake poor Monty had passed hours of alternate misery and
hope--came in to tell her host the news.
“Alice is here,” she cried, “and Monty Vaughan with her.”
Nora was a pretty, clever girl of two and twenty with the up-to-date
habit of slangy smartness fully developed and the customary lack of
reticence over her love-affairs or those of anyone else in whom she was
interested. But for all her pert sayings few girls were more generally
liked than she, for the reason that she was genuine and wholesome.
“Fine,” Michael said heartily. “Where are they? How is she? Was it a
good voyage?”
A moment later his wife had rushed into his arms.
“You dear old thing,” she exclaimed affectionately.
“By George! I’m glad to see you,” he said, “you’ve been away for ages.”
“You seem to have survived it well enough,” she laughed.
“Tell me everything you’ve done,” he insisted.
While she tried to satisfy this comprehensive order, Monty was assuring
Nora how delighted he was to see her.
“It’s bully to find you here,” he said, shaking her hand. “I nearly
hugged you.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” she retorted.
“I’ve half a mind to,” he said, stretching out his arms; but she drew
back.
“No. Not now. It’s cold. Hugs must be spontaneous.”
“Where’s Ethel?” Mrs. Harrington called to her.
“Upstairs, changing. You see we didn’t think you could get in so early
and you weren’t expected for another half-hour. She ought to be down in
a minute or so.”
“Why didn’t you come down and meet us, old man?” Monty asked of his
host.
“Wife’s orders,” Harrington responded promptly.
“It’s such a nuisance to have people meet one at the pier,” Alice
explained. “I’m sure Monty was glad you weren’t there to witness his
humiliation. He was held up for smuggling and narrowly escaped
deportation.”
“Oh, Monty,” Nora cried, “how lovely! Was it something for me? Don’t
scowl when I ask a perfectly reasonable question.”
“It wasn’t,” Monty said wretchedly. He had in his joy at meeting her
forgotten all about smuggling and now the whole thing loomed up again.
“I’ve got half Long Island in my eyes, and if you don’t mind, Alice,
I’ll go and wash up.”
“And you won’t tell me anything about your crime?” Nora pouted.
“Meet me in the Pagoda in five minutes,” he whispered, “and I will. It’s
mighty nice to see a pretty girl again who can talk American.”
“As if men cared what girls say,” she observed sagely. “It’s the way
they look that counts.”
When Monty was gone she strolled back to where Alice was sitting.
“Did you have a good trip?” she demanded.
“Bully,” Alice answered her. “Steven Denby’s most attractive and
mysterious.”
“Denby!” Harrington repeated. “Why, I’d clean forgotten about Denby.
Where is he?”
“The limousine was so full of Monty and me and my hand-baggage that we
sent him on in the other car. He had to send some telegrams, so he
didn’t overtake us till we were this side of Jamaica, where they
promptly had a blow-out. He won’t be long.”
“What Mr. Denby is he?” Nora asked with interest.
“Yes,” Michael asked, “do I know him? I don’t think I ever heard of
him.”
“Nor did I,” his wife told him. “Perhaps that’s what makes him so
mysterious.”
“Then why on earth have him down here?” her husband asked mildly.
“Because Monty’s devoted to him. They were at school together. And also,
Michael dear, because I like him and you’ll like him. Even if I am
married, love has not made me blind to other charming men.”
“But, shall I like him?” Nora wanted to know.
“I did the minute I met him,” Alice confessed. “He has a sort of ’come
hither’ in his eyes and the kind of hair I always want to run my hand
through. You will, too, Nora.”
“But you see I’m not a married woman,” Nora retorted, “so I mayn’t have
your privileges.”
Alice laughed. “Don’t be absurd. I haven’t done it yet--but I may.”
“I don’t doubt it in the least,” said Michael, contentedly caressing her
hand.