As long as a man can see his goal shining, however faint and distant, he
will steer his craft with tolerable reason and patience; but let the
beacon-light be extinguished, and he promptly abandons reason and rashly
trusts to instinct to guide him.
Quin, who had resolutely kept his course as long as he had been sure of
his steady progress toward success, lost his head completely at this
sudden collapse of his hopes, and took the first train for New York. A
sudden mad necessity was upon him to see Eleanor at once. One look of
encouragement, one word of hope from her, and he would rush back to port
and gladly begin the voyage all over again.
He arrived at the Eighty-second Street apartment about six o'clock in the
evening, and, after studying the dingy name-plates, took the five flights
of stairs with uncommendable speed, and presented himself at the rear
door on the sixth floor.
As he waited for an answer to his ring, he wondered if he had not made a
mistake about the name on the door-plate. The narrow dark hall, permeated
with a smell of onions and cabbage, was all too familiar to him, but it
was not at all the proper setting for Eleanor. His bewilderment increased
when the door was opened by a white-aproned figure, who after a moment of
blank amazement seized his hand in both of hers and pressed it
rapturously.
At least, that was what Quin imagined took place; but when, a moment
later, he sat opposite a composed young lady who had removed her impulse
with her apron, he knew that he must have been mistaken. She was still
his adored Miss Nell, but with a difference that carried her leagues away
from him. He knew how to cope with the hot-headed, rebellious Miss Nell;
with the teasing, indifferent, provocative Miss Nell; and even with the
disconsolate little Miss Nell who had wept against his shoulder coming
home from Chicago. But in the presence of this beautiful, grown-up,
self-contained young lady he felt thoroughly awkward and ill at ease. Had
it not been for the warmth of her smile and the eagerness with which she
plied him with questions, his courage would have failed him utterly.
"Now tell me all about everything!" she urged. "You are the first human
being I've seen from home for four mortal months. How's everybody at
grandmother's? Has Aunt Enid come home? How are Rose and the children?"
"One at a time!" protested Quin. "Tell me first about yourself. What sort
of a place is this you are living in?"
"You mustn't criticize our suite!" she said gaily. "This is a combination
bedroom, dining-room, and kitchen. I am the cook and housemaid, and Papa
Claude is the butler. You ought to see the way I've learned to cook on
the chafing-dish!"
Quin was not in the least interested in her culinary accomplishments. It
offended his sense of the proprieties to see his divinity reduced to such
necessities, and he did not at all approve of her surroundings.
"When are you coming home?" he asked abruptly.
Eleanor's eyes dropped.
"That depends. I may be here all summer. I've had an engagement offered
me."
Quin's hands grew cold. "You don't mean that you're going to act for
_pay_?"
"Of course. Why not? That's what I've been working for."
"But I thought when you tried it out that you would change your
mind--that you wouldn't like it as much as you thought you would."
"But I _do_. I adore it! Nothing on earth can ever make me give it up!"
Quin's heart sank. "But I thought you'd had enough," he said. "I thought
you were homesick and lonesome."
"Who wouldn't have been? Look at the way they have treated me at home? Do
you know, none of them ever write to me any more?"
Quin tried not to look guilty, but the fact that he had counseled this
course of discipline weighed upon him.
"Haven't I written enough for the family?" he asked.
But she was not to be put off.
"They treat me as if I had done something disgraceful!" she said
indignantly. "My allowance is just half what it used to be, and yet I
have to pay all my own expenses. As for clothes, I never was so shabby in
my life. But I can stand that. It's grandmother's silence that I resent.
How can she pretend to care for me when she ignores my letters and treats
me with perfect indifference?"
Hurt pride quivered through the anger in her voice, and she looked at
Quin appealingly. Stung by his silence, she burst out afresh:
"Doesn't she ever ask about me? Has she let me go for good and all?"
"Wasn't that what you wanted?"
"You _know_ it wasn't! I did everything to get her consent. I'd--I'd give
anything now if she would look at things differently. Do you think, when
she finds out that I am actually on the stage, that she will ever forgive
me--that she will ever want me to come home again?"
That was the moment when Quin should have delivered Madam's ultimatum;
but, before he had the chance, a key was turned in the lock, and the next
instant Claude Martel's effulgent presence filled the room.
For a moment he stood poised lightly, consciously, his cane and gloves in
one hand, and his soft felt hat turned gracefully across the other. On
his ankles were immaculate white spats, and in his buttonhole blossomed
the inevitable rose.
"Quinby Graham!" he cried in accents of rapture. "My Cassius's beloved
Quin! _My_ beloved Quin! What happy fortune blew you hither? But no
matter. You are here--you are ours. Eleanor and I are going out to a
studio party at a dear, dear friend's. You shall accompany us!"
"Oh, no, Papa Claude," protested Eleanor. "Quin doesn't want to go to
Miss Linton's messy old party. Neither do I. You go and leave us here.
There are a million things I want to ask him."
But Papa Claude would not consider it. "You can ask them to-morrow," he
said. "To-night I claim you both. We will introduce Quinby as one of the
gallant heroes of the Great War. I shall tell his story--no--he shall
tell it! Come, put on your hat, Eleanor; we must start at once."
"But here! Hold on!" protested Quin, laughing and freeing himself from
Papa Claude's encircling arm, "I'm not fixed to go to a party, and I
haven't got any story to tell. I'll clear out and come back to-morrow."
"No, no!" protested Eleanor and Papa Claude in a breath, and after a
brief struggle for supremacy the latter triumphantly continued:
"I promise you shall say nothing, if you prefer it. Modesty is gallantry's
crowning grace. But you _must_ accompany us. My heart is set upon it.
Eleanor darling, here's your wrap. Come, Quinby, my boy!" And the dynamic
little gentleman hooked an arm through each of theirs and, in spite of
their protests, bore them triumphantly down the stairs and off to the
party.
It was not until they had boarded a crowded downtown car and found
themselves wedged in the aisle that Quin and Eleanor managed to have
another word alone.
"It's a shame we had to come!" she pouted, looking up at him from under a
tilted hat-brim that supported three dangling cherries.
"Where are we going?" he asked, thrilled by the discovery that her lips
and the cherries matched.
"To a studio party down in Washington Square. Papa Claude is trying to
get Estelle Linton to play the lead in 'Phantom Love.' You always meet
all sorts of freaks at her parties."
"I didn't come to New York to meet freaks."
"What did you come for?"
"Shall I tell you?"
"Of course--why not?"
"You want to know? Right now?"
He was looking at her with an expression that was never intended to be
worn in a public conveyance, and the thin-faced Polish woman on whose
toes they were all but standing looked at them with such lively
comprehension that Eleanor felt called upon to assume her most haughty
and dignified manner for the rest of the way.
Miss Linton's party was in full swing when they arrived. It was an
extremely hilarious party, the interest centering about a fat man in a
dress-suit, with a bath towel around his waist, who was attempting to
distil a forbidden elixir from an ingenious condenser of his own
invention.
The studio, under a grimy skylight, was cluttered with bric-à-brac,
animate and inanimate. A Daibutsu in a gilded shrine dominated one
corner, and a handsome woman in a Manchu coat and swinging ear-rings of
jade held court in another. At sight of the Martel group she laid down
the small silver pipe she was smoking, and swam toward them through a
cloud of incense and tobacco smoke.
"Dear old C. M.! Bless his heart!" she cried, kissing Papa Claude
effusively. Then she nodded good-naturedly to Eleanor, and held out a
welcoming hand to Quin.
"Who is this nice boy?" she asked, her languid black eyes sweeping his
face.
"Allow me to present ex-Sergeant Quinby Graham," said Papa Claude
impressively--"a soldier of whom his friends and his country have every
reason to be proud."
Then, to Quin's utter chagrin, he was conscious of the fact that Papa
Claude was giving, in an audible aside, an account of his prowess that
placed him second only to another sergeant whom the world acclaimed its
chief hero.
"For the Lord's sake, head him off!" he whispered in an agony of
embarrassment to Eleanor. "I didn't do half those things he's telling
about, and besides----"
But it was too late to interfere. Papa Claude, the center of one animated
group after another, was kissing his way through the crowd, whispering
the news as he went--that the guest of the evening was no other than the
distinguished young Graham whom they all doubtless remembered, etc.
Within fifteen minutes Quin found himself the lion of the evening. Even
the fat man and his improvised still were eclipsed by the
counter-attraction. His very earnestness in disclaiming the honors thrust
upon him added enormously to his popularity. The more clumsy and awkward
he was, and the more furiously he blushed and protested, the more
attention he received.
"So naïf!" "So perfectly natural!" "Nothing but a boy, and yet think what
he has done!" were phrases heard on every side.
Papa Claude corralled him in the corner with the Daibutsu and pompously
presented each guest in turn. Quin felt smothered by the incense and the
flattery. His collar grew tight, perspiration beaded his brow, and he
began to cough.
"Effects of mustard-gas," Papa Claude explained in a stage whisper.
For seeming hours the agony endured, until the advent of refreshments
caused a momentary diversion, and he made a hasty bolt for Eleanor and
freedom.
He found her sitting on the divan, looking rather bored by the attentions
of a stout elderly person with small porcine eyes and a drooping black
mustache. Without troubling to apologize, Quin interrupted the
conversation to say abruptly:
"Miss Nell, I am going."
Eleanor started to rise, but the red-faced one lifted a protesting voice.
"See here, young man," he blustered. "You can't run off with this little
girl just when I've got my first chance at her this evening. She's going
to stay right here and let me make love to her--isn't she?"
He turned a confident eye upon Eleanor, and even ventured to lay a plump
detaining finger on her cool, slim wrist.
Eleanor rose instantly.
"I thought you were never coming!" she said impatiently over the stout
man's head, "I've been ready to go for an hour!"