About a week later, Rodrigo had a business conference that resulted
in an unexpected meeting and a pleasant adventure compensating in
some measure for his ill success in thwarting the clever Elise.
He had been conferring in the studio of a mural painter named
Washburn, who was doing some highly intricate work for Dorning and
Son, when he happened to look at his watch and discovered it was
after one o'clock in the afternoon. Neither had had lunch, and
Washburn invited Rodrigo to accompany him to a luncheon gathering of
the Dutch Treat Club, an organization of the most successful artists,
authors and other members of the intelligentsia in New York, at the
Hotel Martinique.
The luncheon was already in progress when they entered the crowded
room, but they managed to find two vacant chairs at a round table of
chattering men.
"Well--it's the Count himself!" came a booming voice from the chair
beside Rodrigo and he stared into the welcoming face of Bill Terhune.
They had little opportunity to talk during the luncheon and the
program of entertainment that followed, consisting of an
ex-heavyweight champion pugilist, who offered racy reminiscences of
his famous victory over John L. Sullivan, and a very ebullient
Russian soprano. But Washburn left them later, and Rodrigo enjoyed a
talk with his friend as they mingled with the crowds on sunshiny
Fifth Avenue.
"You look great, Bill," Rodrigo said sincerely.
"Haven't touched a drop since that night with Binner and her friend,"
Terhune declared solemnly. "You know, that party taught me a lesson.
I got home the next night and found my wife had been very seriously
ill--an attack of ptomaine or something that blamed near carried her
off. And I had lied to her and told her I was detained in town on
business. She was feeling rotten when I phoned the lie, but she told
me of course to stay. Well, it brought me to my senses, and I took
the pledge then and there. You know, a fellow don't know how lucky
he is to have a wife like mine till he darned near loses her. I'm
the model husband from now on, old boy. Swore off my class reunion
at Princeton and everything." Bill looked at his companion, a little
abashed at his long, intense confession. He tried to pass it off by
saying more lightly, "Say, you ought to meet my wife. Why don't you?"
"Why don't you let me then?" Rodrigo grinned in reply.
"By Jove, I will," Bill resolved. "Say--I tell you. I've got a
couple of extra tickets for the Princeton-Yale commencement baseball
game at Princeton Saturday. Why don't you get somebody and come
along with us? You'll like it. You've never seen anything like
it--all the Princeton grads parading in costume, plenty of color and
jazz and all that sort of thing. Have you got a girl or somebody to
take? Not Binner, of course."
So it happened that Rodrigo drove Mary Drake over to the Terhune home
in East Orange the next Saturday bright and early in the morning.
Bill's wife proved to be a very pretty, vivacious girl of about
Mary's own age. There was a three-year-old daughter who took to
Rodrigo and Mary at once and embarrassed them by asking innocently if
they were married.
They started off merrily, the girls in the back seat and the men in
front, and joined the long procession of blue and orange-and-black
bannered cars rolling along the road out of Newark and across the New
Jersey flats.
Princeton was jammed with gay throngs. All the vacant lots were
dotted with reunion tents, and old and young men in Scottish
Highlander costumes, sailor suits, clown suits, and all manner of
outlandish rigs mingled with the plain citizens and pretty girls on
Nassau Street. Having parked the car, they joined the mobs. Bill
had to stop every few feet, it seemed to Rodrigo, to greet friends of
his college days. Rodrigo judged that his companion must have been
the most popular man who ever went to Princeton.
Bill took them to lunch at his club down Prospect Street with its
close-cropped lawns and cool shade-trees. Afterward he left them
momentarily to parade with his class into the athletic field, Rodrigo
escorting the two girls to their seats in the crowded grandstand. It
was a gorgeous panorama of color, youth and vivacity. Never had Mary
Drake seemed so happy and carefree. Never had she smiled at him so
gayly and intimately, Rodrigo told himself.
To make the afternoon's pleasure complete, Princeton won the ball
game and the Terhune party stood up on the wooden boards and watched
the mad, whirling phantasmagoria of victory-crazed undergraduates and
graduates alike gyrating in dervish fashion in the age-old snake
dance down there on the scene of the triumph.
They motored back at a snail's pace, forced to throttle their speed
by the long lines of cars ahead of them. They stopped in Newark and
had dinner at a clean little restaurant on South Broad Street.
Later, Rodrigo secured his own car from Bill's garage and, with
sincere expressions of thanks and farewell, left the happy Terhune
family waving at them from the trim suburban lawn.
"Oh, I have loved every minute of it!" Mary exclaimed when they were
alone. "Thank you a thousand times for inviting me along."
"Its been wonderful to have you," he replied. "You've added a lot to
my pleasure. We'll have lots of nice little parties this summer,
Mary--at the beach and other places."
Later she said, as if she had been reflecting upon it for some time,
"I did not know you were acquainted with and liked quiet, homey
people like the Terhunes."
And he was very glad that Bill had changed.
The summer droned by, with the requisite number of heat waves, during
which the newspapers screamed in black headlines of prostrations and
of hundreds of thousands sleeping on Coney Island's sands; and the
compensating number of comfortable periods in between too. John
Dorning showed an ever-growing inclination to spend these hot spells
away from the office, idling under the willows at Millbank. In many
weeks, he did not appear on Fifth Avenue more than two or three days.
John was making up for the long years he had kept clerk's hours,
winter and summer. For the first time in his life, he had learned
how to play. He had found in Elise an interest even more confining
than Dorning and Son. He was hardly happy away from her.
Rodrigo rather enjoyed the added responsibility placed upon his own
shoulders. And he did not particularly mind the heat. Frequently he
would bundle himself and Mary Drake, who had taken over some of the
recreant John's duties and was working harder than ever, into his
recently purchased roadster, late in the afternoon, and dash out of
the city's glare to Long Beach for a cooling swim. They would have
supper at a shore roadhouse on the return, and he would deliver her
to her Brooklyn home while it was still early in the evening,
remaining for a chat with Mary and her mother or going back to New
York for a theatre or other engagement. Rodrigo was quite sure that
Mrs. Drake, who was keen-witted in spite of her wan face and
mouselike quietness, liked him and approved of his interest in Mary.
Late in August, a museum project upon which John Dorning had been
working for nearly a year, abruptly came up for decision and the
committee in charge requested him to come out and meet with them.
Rodrigo offered himself as a substitute, but John's conscience
asserted itself at last and he declared he must really make the trip
in person. It was the first time Elise and he had been separated,
and he did not fancy it in the least, though it would be for only
three days. Nevertheless, he superintended the packing of the models
of the pieces Dorning and Son had submitted, saw them shipped off,
and followed them two days later.
The morning after he left, Rodrigo's telephone rang. Elise was on
the wire inviting him to take her to lunch. She was at Grand
Central, she said, and would meet him at twelve-thirty. Rodrigo was
filled with a curious mixture of annoyance and pleasure. She had
promised frankly in the presence of her husband to do this very
thing. There could be no harm in it. And yet he knew that there
would always be danger to him in being alone anywhere with this
woman, and the danger, he had to admit, was what gave the thing its
interest. He finally issued the desired invitation and met her in
the lobby of the Biltmore.
She was the soul of cool loveliness and discretion as they chatted
over the salad and iced tea. Her friendliness lulled to sleep the
resentment he now unconsciously always erected against her.
"I called you up one afternoon lately," she offered innocently,
stirring the tall, iced glass with the long glass spoon, "and they
told me at the office that you had gone to Long Beach swimming. It's
so stiflingly hot this afternoon. Wouldn't it be jolly to be out
there?"
He admitted that it would.
"You're thinking that I am frightfully bold," she admitted. "And I
_am_. Frightfully warm too. Won't you, for John's sake, prevent
John's wife from perishing by taking her swimming? Or did your
mother once warn you not to go near the water?"
She could have followed no surer course of goading him to comply with
her wishes. Rodrigo flushed. His dark eyes shone. No woman had
ever before told him thus bluntly that he was afraid of her. He
accepted the dare. "I keep my car in a garage near here," he said
rather curtly. "If you will wait a few moments in the lobby, I will
pick you up, and we will spend the afternoon as you suggest."
They hardly spoke as he whipped the car in and out through the
closely packed traffic of the uptown streets and the Queensboro
Bridge. Once out beyond Long Island City, he pressed upon the
accelerator and conversation became almost impossible. Long Beach
was nearly as crowded as upon a Saturday or Sunday. It was by no
means an exclusive resort. The children of the proletariat mingled
with paunchy stock brokers and with actresses looking strangely old,
with the artificial coloring washed off their faces by the relentless
salt water.
Elsie and Rodrigo changed into rented bathing suits. Even in the
makeshift outfit, she looked amazingly well, and he was quick to tell
her so. She acknowledged the compliment with her slow, languid
smile. "You are quite an Adonis yourself, as you probably know," she
drawled, and raced him into the surf. They alternately swam and
rested side by side upon the sand until dusk. Elise seemed to be
content to act the witty, cheerful companion and Rodrigo dropped his
guard and enjoyed himself. He had not known she could be so
impersonally charming. This was the side of her varied personality
that she had shown to John, that had enthralled him. Rodrigo could
understand the attraction which she had for his friend now.
Rodrigo clasped his hands under his head, sprawled at full length
upon the white sand and allowed thoughts of Dorning and Son and even
of Mary to slip from his mind. He was oblivious of the world as he
looked idly out into the tumbling surf, oblivious of Elise until she
addressed a trivial, bantering remark to him. He turned lazily to
face her and said, "You are a wonderful sport when you want to be,
aren't you, Elise?"
"I should arise and make you a pretty courtesy if it weren't so
warm," she replied with equal unconcern. And, after an interval, she
added dryly, "You really fancy this stenographer-and-employer style
of spending an afternoon in the great open spaces?"
He looked at her quickly, but he decided that she alluded not to Mary
Drake in particular, but to the crowd in general that shared the sand
with them, and he had to admit that there were many couples among
them that seemed to answer her description.
"My tastes are simple," he said lightly. "The proletarian ideas of
pleasures seem to appeal to me."
"I didn't know the European nobility had turned so democratic," she
jibed.
"The Prince of Wales is our mentor. When on Long Island, do as the
Prince does. But really, my title means very little, you know. And
I am three-quarters an American by this time. I took out my first
citizenship papers last week."
She protested at once, "You shouldn't have done that. It means that
you renounce your title, doesn't it? Rodrigo, you shouldn't. Now I
suppose you will marry some simple American girl, have a house in
Westchester, and raise a brood of ruddy-faced little American
urchins."
"That would be great stuff," he admitted.
"Fancy the immaculately attired Count Torriani hoeing a garden," she
laughed. "But I can't fancy it--it requires too much imagination for
such a warm day. Moreover, I am hungry, kind sir. Could you
possibly give me a lobster dinner somewhere about here? I should
love it."
He sprang up at once with an exclamation of assent. They dressed in
their respective bath-houses. Later they dined slowly and
satisfactorily at the Hotel Nassau and started back for New York in
the sultry dusk of the summer evening. The salt tang was heavy in
the air. A slight breeze was making fitful efforts to blow in toward
them from the sea. Most of the day-time sojourners at Long Beach had
already departed for apartment house dinners and engagements in town;
the night crowd had not yet arrived. The roads were, in consequence,
comparatively deserted.
They spun along in silence for half an hour or more. Then she said
quietly, "You have not tried to make love to me at all, have you?"
His hand trembled slightly on the wheel and he pretended not to have
heard her.
"Do you then find me less attractive than you once did, Rodrigo?" she
asked.
"You are very beautiful," he said gravely, without looking at her.
"But you happen now to be the wife of my best friend."
"In the suburban community in which we reside, it is considered quite
_au fait_ to flirt with one's friends' wives," she offered with
simulated innocence.
"Really?" he countered. "But I am just a conventional New Yorker."
She had edged closer to him and the attraction of her presence was
undeniable. But when, after several minutes, he showed no
inclination to pursue the theme, she slumped into the seat away from
him and said coolly, "You may drop me at my aunt's. I have an
engagement with her to attend some fearful concert or other. Unless
you would care to drive me all the way to Greenwich."
"I too unfortunately have an engagement," he prevaricated so quickly
that she recognized it as a prevarication.
Soon they were in the congested, sprawly, factory-studded Long Island
City and had joined the slow-moving line of cars headed across the
Fifty-ninth Street bridge for the metropolis.
He parted with her at the residence of Mrs. Porter Palmer, saying in
adieu, "I have truly enjoyed our little jaunt very much, Elise." She
smiled and left him non-committedly. He thoughtfully piloted the car
back to the garage.
After putting the car away, he walked back through the still
sweltering streets to his apartment. A telegram rested upon the
center table. It was from John Dorning and stated that unforeseen
developments would keep him in Philadelphia over the week-end.
Rodrigo smiled at John's probable whole-hearted annoyance at fate for
forcing him to remain at the home of the pompous chairman of the
library committee.
A special delivery letter, pink and delicately scented, arrived at
Rodrigo's office the next afternoon.
DEAR RODRIGO:
Please come out with us for the week-end. John and I will be so
delighted. Telephone me when to meet you.
ELISE.
He frowned and tore the note into bits. Undoubtedly she too had
received word from John that he would not be home. Why was she still
trying to involve him? He tried in vain to excuse her, to convince
himself that she did not know of her husband's intended absence. He
decided to ignore the invitation entirely.
John Dorning did not appear at his office until Tuesday morning.
Yes, he said, he had concluded his mission satisfactorily, though he
would probably have to return to Philadelphia a few weeks later to
supervise the installation of the paintings and statuary involved in
the deal. He discussed the matter lugubriously in Rodrigo's office.
"Of course you, being a confirmed old bachelor, can't appreciate what
it means being away from your home and wife," he said half-seriously,
while Rodrigo smiled indulgently. "I never was so glad to see Elise
in my life." His face sobered a bit. "But tell me, Rodrigo, there
is no--er--constraint of any kind between Elise and you, is there?
You are the same old friends, aren't you?"
Rodrigo was on his guard instantly. "Of course. Why?"
"Nothing--only she tells me she wrote you a letter, before she got my
wire that I wouldn't be home for the week-end, inviting you up, and
you never even acknowledged it."
"It was caddish of me," Rodrigo replied. "I'm sorry. I'll apologize
very humbly to Elise the first time I see her."
John put up a deprecating hand. "Oh, that's all right, old boy.
Only I'm so anxious for you and Elise to be close friends. You don't
know what a wonderful girl she really is. You know, I'm so
incredibly happy that I want to share the cause of my
happiness--Elise--with you as much as I can. I feel you're being
cheated, sort of, because you haven't found the right girl too."
Rodrigo regarded him thoughtfully. "You are happy, aren't you? I
don't believe I deserve that kind of happiness. If I did, I'd go
after it. Because I really believe that I have found the right girl.
Next to you, she's been the biggest help in the world to me."
"Rodrigo! That's great." John's eyes were wide with pleasure. "Who
is she?"
"Mary Drake," Rodrigo said with quick intensity. "But I don't
deserve a fine girl like her. I haven't the nerve to--"
John walked over, his back to the door, and put his arm upon his
friend's shoulder. "Don't you think she would be the best judge of
that? Have you told her that you love her?"
Rodrigo shook his head.
John continued. "But is that fair to her? Suppose she loves
you--and--you know, if I'm any judge, I think probably she does."
"How could she?" Rodrigo suddenly cried emotionally. "A girl like
her--all soul and sweetness. I know that love doesn't demand
perfections. If I told her I loved her, I couldn't lie to her--I
would have to tell her the whole truth about my past, about Rosa and
Sophie and the rest. She might forgive--but she might despise me
too. And I couldn't stand that, John. When I first knew I cared for
her, I made up my mind to attend strictly to business and to make
myself worthy of Mary. And I have. With the exception of that
harmless little episode with Sophie Binner, I haven't taken my nose
from the grindstone a minute. And yet I'm not the man for a girl
like Mary."
"That's just egotism, Rodrigo," John said sternly. "You're setting
yourself up as a sort of God over Mary's destiny as well as your own.
You haven't looked at the matter from her point of view at all. You
think you could be happy with her?"
"I know it--I dream of nothing else!"
"Then why don't you give her the chance to say whether or not she
could be happy with you? Perhaps she dreams of nothing else too.
None of us are angels. None of us are privileged to ignore any
chances of happiness. It's up to each one of us, man or woman, to
accept humbly, gratefully, every bit of real happiness and beauty
that life sends our way."
"You're right, John," Rodrigo replied simply. He tried to turn the
conversation to a lighter vein, to conceal how deeply he was moved.
"You're quite a philosopher, aren't you, old man? God bless you for
it. I know you think a lot of Mary, and of me, and I'm grateful."
His eyes suddenly turned toward the door as he realized that a third
person had stepped into the room.
A clerk was standing uneasily just over the threshold, and now said
in considerable agitation, "A Mr. Rosner is here to see Mr. Dorning."
"Damn!" exclaimed John. "Send him away and tell him to come back
to-morrow. I'm frightfully busy."
The clerk hesitated. "He said it was very urgent."
Dorning had turned his back toward the door and was facing Rodrigo.
To his surprise, he saw the latter suddenly stare, grow tense and
excited. John wheeled around as Rodrigo took a quick stride toward
the door.
Rosner, without waiting for the clerk's answer, had slipped past him
and into the office. And what a Rosner! Putty-pale, gaunt-cheeked,
unshaven, wild-eyed!
"Thought you'd send me away, eh?" he almost screamed. "See me
to-morrow, eh? Well, you'll see me now, John Dorning!"
Rodrigo quickly slammed the door shut and, turning to Rosner, whipped
out, "Don't yell like a madman, Rosner. Sit down and tell us what
it's all about."
"I've got nothing to do with _you_," Rosner cried fiercely. "It's
him I got to reckon with." He pointed at John. The man was shaking
all over, his eyes blazing with a strange light. "He knows! He sold
me that black and ruby Huin Tsin vase--five thousand dollars. He
knew I had to buy it. I had to replace it for a customer, or go out
of business. He knew that."
"It was less than it was worth," John tried to explain. "And I took
your note."
"I know damned well you did, damned well!" cried the hysterical
Rosner. "And your father took a mortgage."
"Mr. Dorning's lawyer, Mr. Bates--Emerson Bates--is the man to see
about that. Mr. Dorning doesn't handle those matters at all."
Rodrigo tried to soothe the ranting Rosner. The man was ill, beside
himself.
"Lawyers are paid to do as they're told!" Rosner yelled hoarsely,
gasping as if his emotions would not allow him to talk. "I've been
in the hospital--three months--out of my head most of the time.
Yesterday they took me home. Mortgage foreclosed. Everything going
at auction! My wife is sick. They--say she may die. I'm out of
business, do you hear! Down and out! That's what you big men try to
do, push us little fellows out, crush us, kill us! You big concerns
with all your money. Cornering all the valuable stock, making us pay
the price for it!" A sudden look of cruel cunning crept into his mad
eyes. "But there's something your dollars can't get you now--and
that's the chance to do it again!"
With a quick clutch at the pocket of his ragged coat he brought out a
revolver and pointed it, with a snarl, at John. His hand held it
unsteadily. He groped crazily for the trigger.
John Dorning let out an exclamation of terror. He cried, "Rodrigo!"
"Shut up!" Rodrigo cut in savagely, at the same time walking quickly,
boldly up to Rosner, staring steadily into the madman's eyes.
"Stand still," cried Rosner, but his hand and his voice were
wavering. He looked almost pleadingly at Rodrigo. "If you m--move
again, I'll shoot."
"No, you won't," said Rodrigo calmly, clearly. "Rosner, if you pull
that trigger, what will become of your wife and children?" With a
stealthy, quick movement he pushed John Dorning behind him. Rosner
made a half-hearted effort to resist as Rodrigo seized his wrist in a
clutch of steel and knocked the gun out of the man's weak fingers.
Rodrigo put the revolver in his own pocket and, the tension over,
stood regarding Rosner with a look of infinite pity. Then the
reaction hit the broken man with full force and, suddenly crumpling
into a chair, he covered his face with his hands and his thin body
was shaken with hacking, convulsive sobs.
John and Rodrigo stood looking at him in silence for a moment, and
then Rodrigo said quietly, "You'd better speak to him, John."
Rosner had quieted a little now, and John put his hand upon his bent
shoulder. "Don't worry, old man," he said. "I'm terribly sorry.
It's a mistake all around. Dad and I would never have let this
happen for the world, had we been told anything about it. Forget the
vase and the mortgage--and I'll lend you anything you want to see you
through."
Rosner raised a haggard, tear-swollen face. "My wife," he whispered
huskily, "is sick. And they told her I--I was out of my head."
John patted Rosner's shoulder. "Well, you're all right now, aren't
you? Sure--fine."
"I'll telephone Bates, and Madison can see Rosner home and do
anything necessary for his wife," Rodrigo suggested in an undertone
to John.
"No, I'll go myself," John said. He helped the broken man to his
feet and located his hat for him.
Dazed, but strangely sane again and hopeful, Rosner turned to John
and said in an awed, puzzled voice, "I meant--to shoot." And,
indicating Rodrigo, "It was him that stopped me. Oh, thank
God!--thank God!"
He allowed John to lead him out of the office and stood waiting
calmly outside for a moment while John went for his own hat. Dorning
darted back, a moment later, to Rodrigo. Still flushed with
excitement, he held out his hand, his eyes expressing his full heart.
"Rodrigo!"
Rodrigo took his hand. "We think we've got our problems, but they
don't amount to a thing, do they?--not a thing," he said thoughtfully.
"It's my life--that I owe--" John began.
But Rodrigo stopped him. "Forget it," he advised. "Nobody knows
what happened, and nobody needs to. There's just one thing I want
you to promise--I want you to agree that we give Rosner a job here
when he's fit to work again."
John smiled. "I was thinking of the same thing myself. I'll tell
him about it on the way to his home."
[Illustration: "I DARE YOU TO KISS ME--AND LET ME GO?" ELISE
BREATHED.]