ears open to hear whatsoever William Leadbury might say to Eulalia
Bording, and it was so that she noted a strange little creaking above
them, and looking up, saw poised upon the edge of the balustrade in
the upper hall, impending over the head of William Leadbury and ready
to fall, the great barber chair! With a swift leap, she pushed him to
the wall, causing him to just escape the chair as it fell with a
dreadful crash. But she herself was not so fortunate, for with a
wicked tunk the cushioned back of the chair struck her a glancing blow
that felled her senseless upon the stairs.
Judge Bording flew after the dastardly barber, who swifter still, was
down the backstairs and out of the house into the darkness before the
Judge could lay hands upon him.
The judge, his daughter, and William Leadbury, bent over the
unconscious form of the page.
"He saved your life," said the judge. "The wood and iron part would
have hit your head."
"His breath is knocked out of him," said Miss Bording.
"He saved my life. I cannot understand his strange devotion. I cannot
understand it," said William Leadbury, the while opening the page's
vest, tearing away his collar, and straining at his shirt, that the
stunned lungs might have play and get to work again. The stiffly
starched shirt resisted his efforts and he reached in under it to
detach the fastenings of the studs that held the bosom together. Back
came his hand as if it had encountered a serpent beneath that shirt
front.
"I begin to understand," he exclaimed, and bending an enigmatical look
upon the startled judge and his daughter, he picked the page up in his
arms with the utmost tenderness, and bore him away.
* * * * *
The pains in Clarissa's body had left her. Indeed, they had all but
gone when on Sunday morning, after a night which had been one of
formless dreams where she had not known whether she slept or waked or
where she was, a frowsy maid had called her from the bed where she lay
beneath a blanket, fully dressed, and told her it was time she was
getting back to the city. Not a sign of William Leadbury as she passed
out of the great silent house. Not a word from him, no inquiry for the
welfare of the little page who had come so nigh dying for him.
Clarissa was too proud to do or say anything to let the frowsy maid
guess that she wondered at this or cared aught for the ungrateful
captain. She steeled her heart against him, but though as the days
went by she succeeded in ceasing to care for one who was so unworthy
of her regard, she could not stifle the poignant regret that he was
thus unworthy.
It had come Friday evening, almost closing time in the great store.
Slowly and heavily, Clarissa was setting her counter in order,
preparing to go to her lodgings and nurse her sick heart until slumber
should give respite from her pain, when there came a messenger from
the dress-making department asking her presence there.
"We've just got an order for a ready-made ball-dress for a lady that
is unexpectedly going to the Charity Ball to-night," said Mrs.
McGuffin, head of the department. "The message says the lady is just
your height and build and color--she noticed you sometime, it
seems--and that we are to fit one of the dresses to you, making such
alterations as would make it fit you, choosing one suitable to your
complexion. When it's done, to save time, you are to go right to the
person who ordered it, without stopping to change your clothes. You
can do that there. It will make her late to the ball, at best. A
carriage and a person to conduct you will be waiting."
It was a magnificent dress that was gradually built upon the figure of
Clarissa, and when at last it was completed and she stood before the
great pier glass flushed with the radiance of a pleasure she could not
but feel despite her late sorrow and the fact she was but the lay
figure for a more fortunate woman, one would have to search far to
find a more beautiful creature.
"Whyee!" exclaimed Mrs. McGuffin. "Why, I had no idea you had such a
figure. Why, I must have you in my department to show off dresses on.
You will work at the cutlery counter not a day after to-morrow. But
there, I am keeping you. The ball must almost have begun. Here's a bag
with your things in it. I was going to say, 'your other things.'" And
throwing a splendid cloak about the lovely shoulders of Miss Clarissa,
Mrs. McGuffin turned her over to the messenger.
There was already somebody in the carriage into which Clarissa
stepped, but as the curtain was drawn across the opposite window, she
was unable to even conjecture the sex of the individual who was to be
her conductor to her destination, and steeped in dreams which from
pleasant ones quickly passed to bitter, she speedily forgot all about
the person at her side. But presently she perceived their carriage had
come into the midst of a squadron of other carriages charging down
upon a brilliantly lighted entrance where men and women, brave in
evening dress, were moving in.
"Why, we are going to the ball-room itself," and as she said this and
realized that here on the very threshold of the entrancing gayeties
she was to put off her fine plumage and see the other woman pass out
of the dressing-room into the delights beyond, while she crept away in
her own simple garb amid the questioning, amused, and contemptuous
stares of the haughty dames who had witnessed the exchange, she broke
into a piteous sob.
"Why, of course to the ball-room, my darling," breathed a voice, which
low though it was, thrilled her more than the voice of an archangel,
and she felt herself strained to a man's heart and her bare shoulders,
which peeped from the cloak at the thrust of a pair of strong arms
beneath it, came in contact with the cool, smooth surface of the bosom
of a dress shirt. "Don't you remember that I engaged the second
two-step at the Charity Ball?"
Clarissa, almost swooning with joy as she reclined palpitating upon
the manly breast of Captain William Leadbury, said never a word, for
the power of speech was not in her; the power of song, of uttering
peans of joy, perhaps, but not the power of speech.
"Have I assumed too much," said Leadbury, gravely, relaxing somewhat
the tightness of his embrace. "Have I, arguing from the fact that you
both served me in the crisis of my career and saved my life, assumed
too much in believing you love me? If so, I beg your pardon for
arranging this surprise. I will release you. I----"
"Oh, no," crooned Clarissa, nestling against him with all the
quivering protest of a child about to be taken from its mother. "You
read my actions rightly. Oh, how I have suffered this week. No word
from you. I could not understand it. Of course you could not know I
was a girl. But I thought you ought to be grateful, even to a boy."
"But I did know you were a girl. When you fell, I began to open the
clothes about your chest. When I discovered your sex, I carried you
upstairs, placed you on a bed, threw a blanket over you and was about
to call Miss Bording to take charge of you----"
"I'm glad you didn't. I don't like Miss Bording," said Clarissa.
"I had left to call her, when that poltroon of an Anderson Walkley,
who had stolen back into the house after running from it, crept behind
me and struck me back of the ear with a shaving mug. I dropped
unconscious. In the resulting confusion, your very existence was as
forgotten as your whereabouts was unknown. You lay there as I had left
you until a maid found you in the morning and packed you off. It was
not until Wednesday that I was able to be out. I knew you came from
this store, and mousing about in there, I had no trouble in
identifying the nice young page with the beautiful young woman at the
cutlery counter. I could scarce wait two days, but as three had
already passed, I planned this surprise, remembering our banter when I
talked with you, disguised as a man of fifty, and now you are to go in
with me as my affianced bride. We'd better hurry, for the driver must
be wondering what we are thinking about."
It was worthy of remark that even the ladies passed many compliments
upon the beauty and grace of Miss Clarissa Dawson, the young woman who
came to the ball with William Leadbury, former captain in the army of
the Republique Francaise, heir to the millions of the late James
Leadbury, and a number of persons esteemed judges of all that pertains
to the Terpsichorean art, declared that when she appeared upon the
floor for the first time, which was to dance the second two-step with
the gallant soldier, that such was the surpassing grace with which she
revolved over the floor that one might well say she seemed to be
dancing upon air.
_What Befell Mr. Middleton Because of the Sixth Gift of the Emir._
"It is strange," said Mr. Middleton, "that after Clarissa had shown
her devotion to the extent of saving his life, Captain Leadbury could
have had, even for a moment, any misgivings that she loved him."
"One cannot always be sure," said the emir. "A lover, being in a
highly nervous state because of his emotion, is always more or less
unstrung and unable to form a sound judgment or behave rationally. It
is because of this, that there are so many lovers' quarrels. But one
need not be at sea as regards the question of the affection of the
object of his tender passion. It is only necessary for you to wear a
philter upon the forehead and you can obtain the love of any woman,"
and giving Mesrour some directions, the Nubian brought to his master a
minute bag of silk an inch square and of wafer thinness, which, both
from its appearance and the rare odor of musk which it exhaled,
resembled a sachet bag.
"Wear this on your forehead," said the emir, presenting it to Mr.
Middleton.
"But I would look ridiculous doing that, and excite comment,"
expostulated the student of law.
"Not at all," said the emir. "Put it inside the sweat-band of the
front of your hat and no one will perceive it and yet it will have all
its potency."
Which, accordingly, Mr. Middleton did, and having thanked the emir for
his entertainment and instruction and the gift, he departed.
The close of the relation of the adventure of Miss Clarissa Dawson
left Mr. Middleton in a most amorous mood. His mind was full of soft
dreams of the delight William Leadbury must have experienced as he sat
in the hack with Clarissa's cheek against his, pouring forth his love
into her surprised ear. Before retiring for the night, he sat for some
time ciphering on the back of an envelope and kept putting down
"$1,000, $500, $560; $560, $500, $1,000; $500, $560, $1,000; $500,
$1,000, $560," but as the result of the addition was never over
$2,060, whatever way he put it, and as the stipend he received for his
labors in the law offices of Brockelsby and Brockman was but $26 a
month, he did not feel that he had any business to snatch the young
lady of Englewood to his breast and tell her of his love and his bank
account.
He went to see her on the following night. The exquisite beauty of
this peerless young woman had never so impressed him as upon this
night and he was gnawed by the most intense longing to call her his
own. As he thought of the fortunate William Leadbury with his rich
uncle, he fairly hated him, and anon he cursed Brockelsby and Brockman
for refusing to raise his salary to a point commensurate with the
value of his services. Surely, the young lady of Englewood, even were
he to believe her gifted with only ordinary penetration, instead of
being the highly intelligent and perspicacious person he knew her to
be, could see how he felt and must know that it was only a question of
time and more money, and assuredly, one so gracious could not, in view
of the circumstances, begrudge him the advance of one kiss and one
embrace pending the formal offer of himself and his fortunes. So as he
stood in the doorway, bidding her good-night, right in the midst of an
irrelevant remark concerning the weather, he suddenly and without
warning, threw his arms about her and essayed to kiss her. But the
young lady of Englewood, with a cry commingled of surprise and horror,
sprang away.
"How dare you sir? What made you do that? What sort of a girl do you
think I am?" she said in freezing tones.
Mr. Middleton replied, stuttering weakly in a very husky voice, "I
think you are a nice girl."
"A nice girl!" quoth the young lady of Englewood fiercely. "You know
no nice girl would allow it. Nice girl, indeed. You think so. You know
no nice girl would let you do such a thing," and she slammed the door
in his face.
Away went Mr. Middleton with his heart full of bitterness because she
would not let him do such a thing, and in the hallway stood the young
lady of Englewood with her heart full of bitterness because he had
tried to do such a thing and because she could not let him do such a
thing.
"Much good was the philter," said Mr. Middleton, remembering the
emir's gift, but almost at the same time, he recalled that the philter
had not been on his forehead when he attempted to embrace the young
lady of Englewood, for he had held his hat in his hand.
The farther he departed from her, the more his resentment grew, and he
declared to himself that he would never have anything more to do with
her. She was ungrateful, cold, haughty, not at all the kind of girl he
could wish as his partner for life. He would proceed to let her see
that he could do without her. He would cast her image from the temple
of his heart and never go near her again. For a moment, he was
disturbed by the thought that perhaps she would decline to receive
him, even if he should call, but he quickly banished this unpleasant
reflection and fell to devising means by which he might make it
clearly apparent to the young lady of Englewood that he did not care.
"I'll make her sorry. I'll show her I don't care, I'll show her I
don't care."
There is a restaurant under the basement of one of the larger and more
celebrated saloons of the city, where a genial Gaul provides, for the
modest sum of fifty cents, a course dinner, with wine. The wine is but
ordinary California claret, but the viands are excellently cooked and
of themselves sufficient inducement for a wight to part with half a
dollar without consideration of the wine. There are those who, in the
melancholy state that follows a disappointment in love, go without
food and drink, while others turn to undue indulgence in drink. There
are yet others, though few observers seem to have noted them, who turn
toward greater indulgence in food, seeking surcease and forgetfulness
of the pains of the heart in benefactions to the stomach.
It was very seldom that Mr. Middleton spent so much as fifty cents
upon a meal, but the conduct of the young lady of Englewood having
deprived him of any present object for laying up money, and, moreover,
the pains of the heart before alluded to demanding the vicarious
offices of the stomach, he went to the little French restaurant the
next evening.
It was somewhat late when he arrived and there were in the room but
two diners beside himself. These were a man and a woman, who by many
little obvious evidences made manifest that they were not husband and
wife. They had arrived at the dessert and were eating ice cream with
genteel slowness, conversing the while with great decorum. Both were
tall and fair, singularly well matched as to height and the ample and
shapely proportions of their figures, and both were well, though
quietly and even simply, dressed. They were nearly of an age, too, he
being apparently forty, and she thirty-five. Their years sat lightly
upon them, however, and if upon her face there were traces left by the
longing for the lover who had not yet come into her life, that was all
which upon either countenance betrayed that their lives had been other
than care-free and happy. Assuredly, any one would have called them a
fine looking man and woman. All this Mr. Middleton observed in a
glance or two and then addressed himself to the comestibles that were
set before him and doubtless would not have given the couple thought
again, had not the waitress at the close of the meal fluttered at his
elbows, placing the vinegar cruet and Worcestershire sauce bottle
within easy reach, which services caused Mr. Middleton to look up in
some wonder, as he was engaged with custard pie and he had never heard
of any race of men, however savage, who used vinegar and
Worcestershire sauce upon custard pie. The waitress, who was a young
woman of a pleasant and intelligent countenance, met this glance with
another compounded of mystery and communicativeness, and bending low
while she removed the vinegar and Worcestershire sauce to a new
station, murmured:
"That man over there has been here seven nights running, with a
different woman every time."
Mr. Middleton sitting quiet in the surprise this information caused
him, she repeated what she had said, adding, "and once he was here at
noon besides, different woman every time."
Eight women in seven days! Certainly this was quite a curious thing.
"Do you know who he is? Have you ever seen any of the women before?"
"Nop. Don't know anything about him except what I have seen of him
here. Never saw any of the women before--nor since."
Nor since. Mr. Middleton found himself asking himself if anybody had
seen any of the women since. Had the girl in this chance remark
unwittingly hit upon a terrible mystery? Nor since, nor since.
The man who had so suddenly assumed an interest in Mr. Middleton's
eyes, arose, and going to the window, looked out at the street above,
which was spattered with a sudden shower. He began to lament that he
had not brought an umbrella and said he would go after one, when the
storm so increased in violence that even a person provided with an
umbrella--as was Mr. Middleton--would not care to venture into it, for
such was the might of the wind now filling the air with its shrieks,
that the rain swept in great lateral sheets which made an umbrella a
futile protection. Yet notwithstanding this fury of the elements, the
man of many women went out.
A half hour went by. An hour, and the storm did not abate and the man
did not return. The good-looking waitress invited Mr. Middleton to sit
at ease by a table in a rear part of the room, where lolling on the
opposite side, with charming unconsciousness she let her hand lie
stretched more than half across the board, a rampart of crumpled
newspapers concealing it from the view of the eighth guest of the
mulierose man. But whatever Mr. Middleton had done on previous
occasions and might do on occasions yet to come, he now wished to
avoid all appearances that might cause the eighth woman to regard him
as at all inclined to other than discreet and modest conduct, for he
was resolved to find out what he could about the man and eight women.
So affecting not to note the hand temptingly disposed, he discoursed
in a voice which was plainly audible in every corner of the room, not
so much because of its loudness--for he had but little raised it--as
because of a distinct and precise enunciation. This very precision,
which always implies a regard for the rules, proprieties and amenities
of life, seemed to stamp him as a man worthy of confidence, even had
not his sentiments been of the most high-minded character. He
described the great flood of 1882, which wrought such havoc in
Missouri, in which cataclysm his Uncle Henry Perkins had suffered
great loss. He extolled the commendable conduct of his uncle in
sacrificing valuable property that he might save a woman; letting a
flatboat loaded with twenty-five hogs whirl away in the raging flood,
in order to rescue a woman from Booneville, Missouri, the wife of a
county judge, who was floating in the waste of waters upon a small red
barn. The dullest could infer from the approval he gave this act of
his Uncle Henry, unwisely chivalrous as it might seem in view of the
fact that whoever rescued the judge's wife farther down stream, would
return her to the judge, while no one would return the hogs to Mr.
Perkins--the dullest could infer from his praise that he was himself a
chivalrous and tender young man whom any woman could trust.
The hour was become an hour and a half and both the pretty waitress
and the eighth woman had grown very fidgetty. The waitress saw she was
to beguile the tedious period of emprisonment by the tempest with no
dalliance with Mr. Middleton. The eighth woman was worried by the
absence of her escort. Mr. Middleton stepped to her side, where she
stood staring out at the wind-swept street, and addressed her.
"Madame, it would almost seem as if some accident had detained your
escort. May I not offer to call a cab and see you home? I have an
umbrella with me."
The lady thanked him almost eagerly, saying that she would wait
fifteen minutes more and at the elapse of that time, her escort not
appearing, would gladly avail herself of his kind offer.
Twenty minutes later, they were whirling away northward. Crossing the
Wells Street bridge, they turned eastward only a few blocks from the
river. The rain had suddenly ceased. The wind having relaxed nothing
of its fierceness, it occasionally parted the scudding clouds high
over head to let glimpses of the moon escape from their wrack, and Mr.
Middleton saw he was in a region whence the invasion of factories and
warehouses had driven the major portion of the inhabitants forth,
leaving their dwellings untenanted, white for rent signs staring out
of the empty casements like so many ghosts. The lady signaling the
driver to stop, Mr. Middleton assisted her to alight, and glanced
about him. Here the work of exile had been very thorough. Not yet had
the factories come into this immediate neighborhood, but the residents
had retreated before the smoke of their advancing lines, leaving a
wide unoccupied space behind the rear guard. Up and down the street,
in no house could he perceive a light. The moon shining forth clear
and resplendent, its face unobstructed by clouds for a moment, he saw
stretching away house after house with white signs that grimly told
their loneliness. Indeed, quite deserted did appear the very house to
whose door they splashed through the pools in the depressions of the
tall flight of stone steps. The lady threw open the door and stepped
briskly in, and her footfalls rang sharply upon a bare floor and
resounded in a hollow echo that told it was an empty house!
An empty house! An empty house! What danger might lurk here and how
easy might losels lure victims to their door! Mr. Middleton paused on
the threshold, staring into the gloom, but whatever irresolute
thoughts he had entertained of retreat were dispelled by the sound of
a wail from the lady, and the sight of her face, white in the
moonlight, as she rushed out to him.
"Oh, oh," she moaned, gibbering a gush of words which, despite their
incoherence of form, in their tone proclaimed fear, consternation, and
despair.
Lighting a match, Mr. Middleton stepped into the house. Standing in
the little circle of dull yellow light, he saw beneath his feet
windrows of dust and layers of newspapers that had rested beneath a
carpet but lately removed, and beyond, dusk emptiness, and silence. He
advanced, looking for a chandelier, but though he found two, the
incandescent globes had been removed from them. Throwing a mass of the
papers from the floor into the grate and lighting them, a bright glare
brought out every corner of the room. There was nothing but the four
bare walls.
"They have taken everything, everything!" cried the poor lady.
"Who?" asked Mr. Middleton, after the manner of his profession.
"Who? Would that I knew!--Thieves."
Mr. Middleton then realized she had been the victim of a form of
robbery far too common, where the scoundrels come with drays and carry
off the whole household equipment, in the householder's absence. That
which had been done in comparatively well-populated quarters was easy
of accomplishment on this deserted street.
Penetrated with compassion, he moved toward the unfortunate woman, who
with an abandonment he had not expected of one so stately and
reserved, threw herself upon his breast, weeping as though her heart
would break.
"They have taken everything. How can I get along now! My piano is gone
and how can I give lessons without it! I will have to go back to
Peoria!"