The next few weeks were probably the most tranquil Rodrigo Torriani
had ever known. To his own surprise, he enjoyed them. His liking
for John Dorning deepened as he saw in what general admiration for
his character and respect for his business ability his friend was
held. In their private lives together, John displayed a simple
unselfishness, a personal attractiveness, and an even temper that
bound Rodrigo, who was used to far different associates, ever closer
to him.
The Italian was given the center office, the one formerly occupied by
John Dorning's father. To John's concealed amusement, Rodrigo
thereupon hired the homeliest and oldest stenographer who answered
his advertisement for an assistant. As the new executive's
familiarity with the routine of Dorning and Son increased, he was
given more and more important duties. At the end of the third week,
he was dispatched to Philadelphia to conclude the sale of some pieces
of Italian pottery to a rich private collector. It was in the nature
of a try-out. Rodrigo's success there was rapid and complete. He
was as elated as a schoolboy upon his return, and John no less so.
Even Mary Drake, who was present when Rodrigo invaded Dorning's
office and related the news, smiled with genuine pleasure and
congratulated him.
Mary was gradually changing her mind about the newcomer. If the
truth be known, her coldness at first meeting him had had an element
of the defensive about it. He was far different from the men she
usually encountered in the bustling world she had created for
herself. In spite of herself, he, from the start, stirred something
warm and vibrant within her. She did not like it, was afraid. She
wanted to be free from everything of a personal nature that
interfered with her making a living for herself and her mother, whom
she loved passionately. Now that Rodrigo was attending strictly to
business and avoiding any mention of the personal in his necessary
daily dealings with her, she was more friendly with him. She was not
sure but that, if he would ask her to go to the theatre with him now,
she would accept.
Rodrigo was keeping strictly the good resolution he had made the day
he landed in America. He was determined to reward John Dorning for
the kindness he had shown him in pulling him out of a bad hole and
setting him on the way to a business success by going straight,
blinding himself to the lure of Broadway, only two blocks away, and
the life of pleasure. Rodrigo did not deceive himself. He had not
been suddenly transformed into a hermit. The tug of the old life was
with him constantly. There were moments when he wanted to smash
everything connected with Dorning and Son and run.
This would not be difficult, he knew. He had only to call up the
Hotel Biltmore, for instance, and ask for Miss Sophie Binner. True,
this attraction was removed after the first week. He read in the
theatrical section of the paper that Christy's Revue had departed
from New York for a preliminary seasoning on the road before opening
on Broadway. Once, at least, during that week Sophie had called him
at the office. At least his secretary had said that "a Miss Skinner
caller," and he was sure the correct name had been "Binner." He had
ignored the overture. With Sophie braving the March winds in
Bridgeport and Stamford, gayety still had a local representative in
the person of William Courtney Terhune, Rodrigo's Oxford classmate
and his companion upon his other riotous sojourn in America. Bill
Terhune always had time for the spending of large sums of time and
money on pleasure. Rodrigo knew he had but to call him on the
telephone, if he desired at any moment to shake off the austerity of
Dorning and Son. He even looked up Bill's number in a weak moment
and discovered the former Rhodes scholar had his office within five
blocks of him.
John Dorning had generously installed Rodrigo in the comfortable
bachelor apartment which he maintained on Park Avenue, almost
directly east from his place of business. It was a roomy,
immaculately kept establishment, furnished with Dorning's favorite
pieces, picked up on many journeys to the art shrines of the world.
A housekeeper came in once a day to lend the place the benefit of a
feminine hand.
Rodrigo quickly discovered that John's private life was the direct
antithesis of what his own had hitherto been. The man seemed to be
unconscious that Broadway existed. On the occasions when he took
Rodrigo out to his friends' houses for tea, the people present were
the intensely refined sons and daughters of the house or colorless
mutual acquaintances and their equally colorless wives.
He attended concerts and exhibitions with John. He talked gravely
with the members of John's exclusive clubs, older men with their
heads full of business and their thin, white lips full of black
cigars, when John took him to dinner at these rather depressing
places.
On two or three occasions John invited Rodrigo to luncheon at a small
eating club located upon the second floor of a wooden structure which
for some unknown reason had been left standing between two
skyscrapers on Forty-Fifth street, just off Fifth Avenue. The
club-rooms were skimpily furnished, draughty as a barn, and cried for
the vacuum cleaner. The food was execrable. But the members made up
for all that. They were authors and artists for the most part, most
of them bearing well known names. They were colorful, interesting
people, and among them was an informal camaraderie that intrigued
Rodrigo at once. It was a rule at this club that guests must make
speeches after luncheon. Rodrigo, who somehow felt almost
immediately at home amid this witty talk, foolery, and, at times
rather Rabelaisian repartee, obliged with a rapid, nonsense monologue
regarding his impressions of America, that took at once. Later, the
other guest, a famous pianist, protested in broken English that a
speech was impossible. "Bang the box then!" shouted a raucous,
good-natured, voice. The meaning was explained to him, and he
allowed himself to be propelled gently to the battered piano. Deftly
produced melody filled the ancient rooms. The company was silent,
drinking it in. Eyes were half closed. Concentrated here was the
finest audience in America for this sort of thing. The musician
played an encore. Then he rose, bobbing his long hair back and forth
to the clapping and shouts of applause, and waved away requests for
more.
"You play--and the Count will sing!" was a loud-voiced happy thought
from somewhere in the back of the room. Others took it up. They
fairly pushed Rodrigo to the piano. John Dorning, who was a little
out of place in the extremely informal turn the entertainment had
taken, looked worried. He did not think Rodrigo could sing. But the
latter was unruffled. He was thoroughly agreeable. He whispered to
the dark man at the piano, who was himself an Italian. The pianist
struck the opening chords of a Sicilian love song.
Rodrigo's voice was not strong, but it was a clear and pleasing
baritone. He was extremely fond of the song, and he put into it a
true Latin fervor. For the time being he seemed transported out of
this shabby room in the teeming heart of New York. He was back
beside the shining waters of the Bay of Naples. He was singing of
moonlight and a warm, dark-eyed girl in his arms. All the repression
of the past weeks was in his voice. He sang as one inspired. The
song died away finally to clamorous applause. But he would not sing
again. He resumed his seat beside John Dorning. John looked at him,
a queer expression of mingled surprise and pride in his friend's
achievement in his pale face. Rodrigo was flushed, a little excited,
a little frightened that this simple little love song such as the
Sicilian peasants sing could stir him so.
The following week-end, Rodrigo accepted John's invitation to journey
to Greenwich and visit Dorning's father. They were met at the
station by the Dorning limousine, containing a chauffeur and a
pleasant-faced woman some five or six years older than John and
looking very much like him. This was Alice Pritchard, John's married
sister, who, with her husband, a Wall Street man, made their home
with Henry Dorning. The latter was a widower, John's mother having
died when the son was a boy of twelve. The same even disposition and
reserve that were so integral a part of John's character were also
possessed by his sister. She was almost the exact feminine
counterpart of her brother in more than looks, Rodrigo decided during
the brief ride to the Dorning home.
They drew up at a large rambling field-stone house set in several
acres of well-kept lawn facing Long Island Sound. The elderly man
seated in a rocking-chair on the broad front piazza, a steamer rug
spread out upon his knees, did not rise as the trio from the car
approached him. Henry Dorning was a semi-invalid. The Dornings were
not a very robust family, committed as they were to the æsthetic
rather than to the athletic life. Too close application to carrying
on the tradition of his strong-willed father had done for Henry
Dorning. He had quit five years too late.
John Dorning greeted his father cheerily and introduced Rodrigo. The
latter had evidently been well heralded in advance. Henry Dorning
welcomed him warmly. A three-cornered conversation upon an art
subject engaged them almost immediately, Alice maintaining an
interested silence and soon slipping into the house to supervise the
preparation of dinner. Just before the meal, Warren Pritchard,
Alice's husband, was driven up in the same car that had brought John
and Rodrigo from the station. He was a breezy, square-jawed American
type, a graduate of Yale who was already well established as one of
the minor powers in the financial district. He swept up upon the
porch like a gust of wind, kissed his wife, shook hands lustily with
John, and had a cheery word with his father-in-law. Upon being
introduced to Rodrigo, he shot a keen glance at the Italian and
raised his dark bushy eyebrows slightly at the mention of the title.
But was evidently ready to accept Rodrigo upon the Dorning's say-so,
and was cordial enough.
Pritchard's aggressive materialism seemed at first incongruous in the
midst of the Dornings. But Rodrigo quickly corrected his first
surmise that the fellow had married Alice Dorning for her money.
Pritchard had too evident a deep and abiding love for his wife, and
respect for her family for that. Rodrigo liked him.
After dinner the men smoked and later adjourned to the softly lighted
billiard room on the top floor of the house. Warren Pritchard
assisted his fragile father-in-law up the stairs, and the latter was
an interested spectator of the spirited game in which Alice and
Rodrigo were partners against John and Pritchard. The family retired
early. Rodrigo was assigned to a spacious bedroom in the front of
the house. He closed his eyes in an almost rural stillness that was
disturbed only by the April wind rustling gently through the leafing
elm tree outside his window and the waters of the Sound plopping
against the dock.
Following breakfast the next morning, Warren Pritchard who looked
fresh and husky in a tweedy knickerbocker suit, asked briskly, "Well,
who's for golf? How about you, Count Torriani?"
Rodrigo looked questioningly at John. He was himself very fond of
the game and, having enjoyed a very restful sleep, was eager for the
exercise.
"Rodrigo will go with you, Warren," suggested John. "He can use my
clubs. I promised Ted Fernald I'd run over this morning to that
house he's building in the Millbank section and look over his
interior decoration plans with him."
Rodrigo offered at once, "I'll go along with you, John, if you like.
Perhaps I can help."
Henry Dorning, who had been listening, put in to John, "Why don't you
forget business for this morning, John, and play golf? You look a
bit drawn. Fernald can wait."
"I'm sorry, Dad. I'd really like to play. But I promised Fernald
over a week ago, and he'll be waiting for me. But you go ahead with
Warren, Rodrigo. I can take care of Fernald all right, and there's
no use spoiling your fun."
Rodrigo consented to be persuaded. Changing into his golf suit,
which he had slipped into his bag at the last moment on the chance of
getting an opportunity to play, and equipped with John's clubs, which
looked very new and shiny, he slid into the seat of the roadster
beside Pritchard.
"I'm sorry John couldn't come with us," Pritchard commented between
puffs of his pipe as he swung the car rapidly from the bluestone
drive onto the macadam road. "He sticks too close to the grind. A
chap needs some sport over the week-end. I'd pass out cold if I
didn't get in my eighteen holes Sundays."
Prichard was evidently well known and well liked at the Greenwich
Country Club. He had no difficulty in making up a foursome from
among the crowd clustered about the first tee. Rodrigo was
introduced to a Mr. Bryon and a Mr. Sisson, men of about Pritchard's
own age and standing. The latter and his guest teamed against the
two other men at a dollar a hole. Rodrigo was quite aware that the
eyes of the other three players were critically upon him as he
mounted the tee. He made a special effort to drive his first ball as
well as possible. He had learned golf at Oxford and was a good
player. But he had not hit a ball for months and was uncertain how
the lay-off and the strange clubs he was using would affect his game.
However, he got off a very respectable drive straight down the
fairway and was rewarded by the approbation of his mates.
After the first few holes, in which Rodrigo more than held his own,
the other developed a more friendly and natural attitude toward the
titled foreigner. Rodrigo, due to his English training, his
predilection for Americans like Terhune at Oxford, and his previous
visit to the States, together with his unaffectedness and
adaptability, had few of the marked unfamiliar characteristics of the
Latin. Soon he was accepted on a free and easy footing with the
others. He laughed and chaffed with them and had a very good time
indeed.
Warren Pritchard took golf too seriously to derive much diversion out
of it. The money involved did not mean anything to him, but he was
the sort of intensely ambitious young American who always strove his
utmost to do even the most trivial things well. He whooped with
childish joy at extraordinary good shots by either himself or
Rodrigo. At the end of the match, which the Dorning representatives
won by a substantial margin, he congratulated the Italian heartily
and uttered an enthusiastic tribute to his game. Pritchard seemed
more at home with average, go-getting Americans like Bryon and Sisson
than he had with the Dornings, Rodrigo thought. On the way back from
the links, they post-mortemed the match gayly. Warren Pritchard, who
had been inclined to look a little askance at first at his
brother-in-law's rather exotic acquaintance, was now ready to concede
Rodrigo was very much all right.
Having taken a shower and changed his clothes, Rodrigo came down and
pulled up a chair beside Henry Dorning on the front piazza. Alice
had at the last moment joined John in his ride over to the Fernalds,
it seemed, and Warren was down at the stables talking with the
caretaker of the estate.
Henry Dorning remarked pleasantly that John and Alice had not
returned as yet but would doubtless be back any moment. "I am
somewhat worried about John," the elderly man continued. "He is not
so very strong, you know, and he applies himself altogether too
steadily to business. He tells me that you are rapidly taking hold
and are of great assistance to him already." He looked intently at
Rodrigo, as if debating with himself whether or not to make a
confidant of him. Then he asked quietly, "You like my son very much,
do you not?"
"Very much," Rodrigo said promptly.
"He is a young man of honor and of considerable artistic and business
ability besides," said John's father. "Sometimes though, I wonder if
he is not missing something in life. For a man of his age, he is
singularly ignorant of some things. Of the world outside of his own
business and family, for instance. I feel that I can speak freely to
you, Rodrigo--if you will permit me to call you that upon such short
acquaintance. He admires you very much, and I think you are destined
to be even closer friends than you are now."
"I hope so," acknowledged Rodrigo.
"You are a man of the world. You can see for yourself that John's
development has been--well, rather one-sided. It is largely my own
fault, I admit. He has been reared upon Dorning and Son from the
cradle. But there are other things in life. He has no predilection
whatever, for instance, for feminine society. Oh, he adores his
sister and he mingles with women and girls we know. But he takes no
especial interest in any of them except Alice. That is wrong. Women
can do a lot toward developing a man. They can do a lot of harm to a
man, too, but that has to be risked. A man has not reached real
maturity until he has been violently in love at least once. He does
not acquire the ability to look upon life as a whole until he has
been through that. Of that I am quite convinced."
Had John told his father of Rodrigo's former career of philandering?
The Italian wondered. Then he decided that John was no tale-bearer.
Henry Dorning must have deduced from his guest's general air of
sophistication and his aristocratic extraction that he was worldly
wise.
The elder Dorning went on, "I have sometimes wondered what will
happen to John when he has his first love affair. Because sooner or
later it will happen, and it will be all the more violent because of
its long postponement. And the girl is quite likely to be of the
wrong sort. I can imagine an unscrupulous, clever woman setting out
deliberately to ensnare my son for his money and succeeding very
handily. He is utterly inexperienced with that type of woman. He
believes they are all angels. That's how much he knows about them.
He is so much the soul of honor himself that, though he has developed
a certain shrewdness in business matters, in the affairs of the heart
he is an amateur.
"John is such a sensitive, high-strung boy. It is quite conceivable
that an unfortunate love affair would ruin his whole life. He would
be without the emotional resiliency to recover from such a
catastrophe that the average man possesses. I am boring you with all
this, Rodrigo, because I believe you can help him. Without in any
way appointing yourself either his chaperon or his guide to worldly
things, I think you can gradually draw him a little out of his
present narrow way of life. You are a very attractive man, and John
is not exactly unpleasing to the feminine eye. Together you could
meet people who are engaged upon the lighter things of life.
Frivolous, pleasure-loving people. People of Broadway. Enter into
New York's night life. Go to Greenwich Village, Palm Beach, Newport.
Loaf and play. It will do you both good.
"Of course I am very selfish in this as far as you are concerned. I
am thinking primarily of my son and his future. As soon as he told
me about you, I secretly rejoiced that he had made such a friend--a
cosmopolitan, a man who presumably knew the world. I had hoped that
my son-in-law, Warren, might prove such a companion for John. But
Warren is too much in love with his wife and too engrossed in his
business. In the matter of taking time to play, he is almost as bad
as John."
Rodrigo smiled rather dourly to himself. He appreciated that Henry
Dorning's diagnosis of John was correct. He was sensible of the
honor paid him by the elderly man's confidence and request. But it
impressed him as ironical that he should now be urged by John's
father to resume his former mode of life, and to resume it to aid the
very man for whom he had forsaken it.
Nevertheless, he was about to indicate his willingness to conspire
with Mr. Dorning for the education of his son when the object of
their discussion, accompanied by Alice, was whirled up the drive in
the limousine. John joined the two men on the porch and Alice, with
the object of speeding dinner, disappeared into the house.
With a significant and quite unnecessary glance at Rodrigo, Mr.
Dorning changed the subject. John offered some laughing comment upon
the eccentric ideas of his friend, Edward Fernard, as to interior
decoration and inquired about Rodrigo's golf. The conversation
lulled a bit and then Henry Dorning, as if recalling something that
had for the time being escaped his mind, said, "Mark Rosner is back
from Europe. He was up to see me the other day."
"Yes, I told you he crossed with us," John replied. "I understand he
has bought a building on Forty-Seventh Street, a converted
brown-stone front and intends opening up an antique shop very soon."
"That's what he came to see me about," Mr. Dorning commented dryly.
"He wanted me to take a mortgage on the property, so that he could
buy it."
"Did you do it?"
"Yes. Fifteen thousand dollars."
John frowned. "I wish he hadn't bothered you about that. He is such
a nervous, irritating little man. He could just as well have come to
me, and you wouldn't have been annoyed."
"I didn't mind. And you needn't either, John. I got in touch with
Bates and he is taking care of the whole matter. We can both dismiss
it from our minds." Emerson Bates was the Dornings' very efficient
and very expensive lawyer. Mr. Dorning smiled reminiscently.
"Rosner was always such a fretty, worried type, as you say. I tried
diplomatically to dissuade him from attempting a big undertaking such
as he is in for. He hasn't the temperament or the business ability
to swing it. If anything goes wrong, he is liable to suffer a
nervous breakdown or worse. This failure in London nearly did for
him for a while, I understand. And he tells me he married over
there, and they have two small children. Such men should be kept out
of large business undertakings. They aren't built for it."
"And yet you advanced him fifteen thousand dollars," John smiled
affectionately at his father. He knew this white-haired man's
weakness for helping others. He had inherited it himself.
"Well, Rosner was with me quite a while at the shop. He is getting
along in years now, and he is fearfully anxious to make a success.
We old chaps have to stick together, you know."
As Alice appeared in the broad doorway, announcing dinner, John
Dorning put a tender arm about his father to assist him from his
chair. There was something touching and ennobling in the scene to
Rodrigo, watching them, and something a little pathetic too.