"For years I've believed you were merely stupid," P.S. explained
patiently. "Now you develop a famous, if fatuous, gift of imagination.
I'm sorry. I apologise twice."
"Imag'nation hell!" Mr. Bross exploded. "Where's your own? It's
plain's daylight what I say is so. When did Miss Lessing come here?
Five weeks ago, to a day--March foist, or close onto it--just when the
_Joinal_ says she did her disappearin' stunt. How you goin' to get
around that?"
"You forget that the _Journal_ simply reports a rumour. It doesn't
claim it's true. In fact, the story is contradicted by the very person
that ought to know--Miss Blessington's guardian."
"Well, if she sailed for Europe on the _Mauretania_, like he
says--how's it come her name wasn't on the passenger list?"
"It's quite possible that a young woman as much sought after and
annoyed by fortune hunters, may have elected to sail incognita. It can
be done, you know. In fact, it _has_ been done."
George digested this in profound gloom.
"Then you don't believe what I'm tellin' you?"
"Not one-tenth of one iota of a belief."
George betrayed in a rude, choleric grunt, his disgust to see his
splendid fabrication, so painfully concocted for the delusion and
discomfiture of P. Sybarite, threatening to collapse of sheer
intrinsic flimsiness. He had counted so confidently on the credulity
of the little bookkeeper! And Violet had supported his confidence with
so much assurance! Disgusting wasn't the word for George's emotions.
In desperation he grasped at one final, fugitive hope.
"All right," he said sullenly: "_all_ right! You don't gotta believe
me if you don't wanta. Only wait--that's all I ask--_wait_! You'll see
I'm right when she turns down your invite to-night."
P. Sybarite smiled sunnily. "So that is why you thought she wouldn't
go with us, is it?"
"You got me."
"You thought she, if Marian Blessington, must necessarily be such a
snob that she wouldn't associate with poor devils like us, did you?"
"Wait. You'll see."
"Well, it's none of your business, George; but I don't mind telling
you, you're wrong. Quite wrong. In the head, too, George. I've already
asked Miss Lessing, and she has accepted."
George's eyes, protruding, glistened with poignant surprise.
"You ast her already?"
"That's why I left you down the street. I dropped into Blessington's
for the sole purpose of asking her."
"And she fell for it?"
"She accepted my invitation--yes."
After a long pause George ground his cigarette beneath his heel, and
rose.
"In wrong, as usual," he admitted with winning simplicity. "I never
did guess _any_thin' right the first time. Only--you just grab this
from me: maybe she's willin' to run the risk of bein' seen with us,
but that ain't sayin' she's anybody but Marian Blessington."
"You really think it likely that Miss Blessington, hiding from her
guardian and anxious to escape detection, would take a job at the
glove counter of her own store, where everybody must know her by
sight--where her guardian, Shaynon himself, couldn't fail to see her
at least twice a day, as he enters and leaves the building?"
Staggered, Bross recovered quickly.
"That's just her cuteness. She doped it out the safest place for her
would be the last place he'd look for her!"
"And you really think that she, accustomed to every luxury that money
can buy, would voluntarily come down to living here, at six dollars a
week, and clerking in a department store--simply because, according to
the papers, she's opposed to a marriage that she can't be forced to
contract in a free country like this?"
"Wel-l...." George floundered helplessly for a moment; and fell back
again upon an imagination for the time being stimulated to an abnormal
degree of inventiveness:
"P'raps old Shaynon's double-crossed her somehow we don't know nothin'
about. He ain't above it, if all they tell of him's true. Maybe he's
got her coin away from her, and she had to go to work for a livin'.
Stranger things have happened in this burg, P.S."
It was the turn of P.S. to hesitate in doubt; or at all events, so
George Bross inferred from a sudden change in the expression of the
little man's eyes. Momentarily they seemed to cloud, as if in
introspection. But he rallied quickly enough.
"All things are possible, George," he admitted with his quizzical
grin. "But this time you're mistaken. I'm not arguing with you,
George; I'm _telling_ you: you're hopelessly mistaken."
"You think so--huh?" growled George. "Well, I got eight iron bucks
that says Marian Blessington to any five of your money."
He made a bold show of his pay envelope.
"It'd be a shame to rob you, George," said P. Sybarite. "Besides,
you're bad-tempered when broke."
"Never you mind about that. Here's my eight, if you've got five that
makes a noise like Molly Lessing."
P. Sybarite laughed softly and produced the little wad of bills that
represented his weekly wage. At this, George involuntarily drew back.
"And how would you settle the bet?"
"Leave it to her," insisted George in an expiring gasp of bravado.
"You'd ask her yourself?"
"Ye-es--"
"And let it stand on her answer?"
"Wel-l--"
"Here she comes now," added P. Sybarite, glancing up the street.
"Quick, now; you've only a minute to decide. Is it a bet?"
With a gesture of brave decision, George returned his money to his
pocket.
"You're an easy mark," he observed in accents of deep pity. "I knew
you'd think I meant it."
"But didn't you, George?"
"Nah--nothin' like that! I was just kiddin' you along, to see how much
you'd swallow."
"It's all right then," agreed P. Sybarite. "Only--George!"
"Huh?"
"Don't you breathe a word of this to Miss Lessing?"
"Why not?"
"Because I tell you not to--because," said P. Sybarite firmly, "I
forbid you."
"You--you forbid me? Holy Mike! And what--"
"Sssh!" P. Sybarite warned him sibilantly. "Miss Lessing might hear
you.... What will happen if you disobey me," he added as the shop girl
turned in at the gateway, lowering his own voice and fixing the
shipping clerk with a steely stare, "will be another accident, much
resembling that of this afternoon--if you haven't forgotten. Now mind
what I tell you, and be good."
Mr. Bross swelled with resentment; exhibited a distorted and empurpled
visage; but kept silence.
V