Suddenly he sat up in bed in his room at the Magnifique, gazing upon a
disconsolate Cooley in gray tweeds who sat heaped in a chair at the foot
of the bed with his head in his hands.
Mellin's first sensation was of utter mystification; his second was more
corporeal: the consciousness of physical misery, of consuming fever, of
aches that ran over his whole body, converging to a dreadful climax in
his head, of a throat so immoderately partched it seemed to crackle, and
a thirst so avid it was a passion. His eye fell upon a carafe of water
on a chair at his bedside; he seized upon it with a shaking hand and
drank half its contents before he set it down. The action attracted
his companion's attention and he looked up, showing a pale and haggard
countenance.
“How do you feel?” inquired Cooley with a wan smile.
Mellin's head dropped back upon the pillow and he made one or two
painful efforts to speak before he succeeded in finding a ghastly
semblance of his voice.
“I thought I was at Madame de Vaurigard's.”
“You were,” said the other, adding grimly: “We both were.”
“But that was only a minute ago.”
“It was six hours ago. It's goin' on ten o'clock in the morning.”
“I don't understand how that can be. How did I get here?”
“I brought you. I was pretty bad, but you--I never saw anything like
you! From the time you kissed Lady Mount-Rhyswicke--”
Mellin sat bolt upright in bed, staring wildly. He began to tremble
violently.
“Don't you remember that?” asked Cooley.
Suddenly he did. The memory of it came with inexorable clarity, he
crossed forearms over his horror-stricken face and fell back upon his
pillow.
“Oh,” he gasped. “Un-speakable! Un-speakable!”
“Lord! Don't worry about that! I don't think she minded.”
“It's the thought of Madame de Vaurigard--it kills me! The horror of
it--that I should do such a thing in her house! She'll never speak to
me again, she oughtn't to; she ought to send her groom to beat me! You
can't think what I've lost--”
“Can't I!” Mr. Cooley rose from his chair and began to pace up and down
the chamber. “I can guess to within a thousand francs of what _I_'ve
lost! I had to get the hotel to cash a check on New York for me this
morning. I've a habit of carrying all my money in bills, and a fool
trick, too. Well, I'm cured of it!”
“Oh, if it were only a little _money_ and nothing else that I'd lost!
The money means nothing.” Mellin choked.
“I suppose you're pretty well fixed. Well, so am I,” Cooley shook his
head, “but money certainly means something to me!”
“It wouldn't if you'd thrown away the most precious friendship of your
life.”
“See here,” said Cooley, halting at the foot of the bed and looking at
his stricken companion from beneath frowning brows, “I guess I can see
how it is with you, and I'll tell you frankly it's been the same with
me. I never met such a fascinating woman in my life: she throws a
reg'ler ole-fashioned _spell_ over you! Now I hate to say it, but I
can't help it, because it plain hits me in the face every time I think
of it; the truth is--well, sir, I'm afraid you and me have had little
red soldier-coats and caps put on us and strings tied to our belts while
we turned somersets for the children.”
“I don't understand. I don't know what you're talking about.”
“No? It seems to get more and more simple to me. I've been thinking it
all over and over again. I can't _help_ it! See here: I met Sneyd on the
steamer, without any introduction. He sort of warmed into the game in
the smoking-room, and he won straight along the trip. He called on me in
London and took me to meet the Countess at her hotel. We three went
to the theatre and lunch and so forth a few times; and when I left for
Paris she turned up on the way: that's when you met her. Couple of days
later, Sneyd came over, and he and the Countess introduced me to dear
ole friend Pedlow. So you see, I don't rightly even know who any of 'em
really _are_: just took 'em for granted, as it were. We had lots of fun,
I admit that, honkin' about in my car. We only played cards once, and
that was in her apartment the last night before I left Paris, but that
one time Pedlow won fifteen thousand francs from me. When I told them my
plans, how I was goin' to motor down to Rome, she said _she_ would be in
Rome--and, I tell you, I was happy as a poodle-pup about it. Sneyd said
he might be in Rome along about then, and open-hearted ole Pedlow said
not to be surprised if _he_ turned up, too. Well, he did, almost to the
minute, and in the meantime she'd got _you_ hooked on, fine and tight.”
“I don't understand you,” Mellin lifted himself painfully on an elbow.
“I don't know what you're getting at, but it seems to me that you're
speaking disrespectfully of an angel that I've insulted, and I--”
“Now see here, Mellin, I'll tell you something.” The boy's white face
showed sudden color and there was a catch in his voice. “I was--I've
been mighty near in _love_ with that woman! But I've had a kind of a
shock; I've got my common-sense back, and I'm _not_, any more. I don't
know exactly how much money I had, but it was between thirty-five and
thirty-eight thousand francs, and Sneyd won it all after we took off the
limit--over seven thousand dollars--at her table last night. Putting two
and two together, honestly it looks bad. It looks _mighty_ bad! Now, I'm
pretty well fixed, and yesterday I didn't care whether school kept or
not, but seven thousand dollars is real money to anybody! My old man
worked pretty hard for his first seven thousand, I guess, and”--he
gulped--“he'd think a lot of me for lettin' go of it the way I did last
night, _wouldn't_ he? You never _see_ things like this till the next
morning! And you remember that other woman sat where she could see every
hand _you_ drew, and the Countess--”
“Stop!” Mellin flung one arm up violently, striking the headboard with
his knuckles. “I won't hear a syllable against Madame de Vaurigard!”
Young Cooley regarded him steadily for a moment. “Have you remembered
yet,” he said slowly, “how much _you_ lost last night?”
“I only remember that I behaved like an unspeakable boor in the presence
of the divinest creature that ever--”
Cooley disregarded the outburst, and said:
“When we settled, you had a pad of express company checks worth six
hundred dollars. You signed all of 'em and turned 'em over to Sneyd with
three one-hundred-lire bills, which was all the cash you had with you.
Then you gave him your note for twelve thousand francs to be paid within
three days. You made a great deal of fuss about its being a 'debt of
honor.'” He paused. “You hadn't remembered that, had you?”
Mellin had closed his eyes. He lay quite still and made no answer.
“No, I'll bet you hadn't,” said Cooley, correctly deducing the fact.
“You're well off, or you wouldn't be at this hotel, and, for all I know,
you may be fixed so you won't mind your loss as much as I do mine; but
it ought to make you kind of charitable toward my suspicions of Madame
de Vaurigard's friends.”
The six hundred dollars in express company checks and the three
hundred-lire bills were all the money the unhappy Mellin had in the
world, and until he could return to Cranston and go back to work in the
real-estate office again, he had no prospect of any more. He had not
even his steamer ticket. In the shock of horror and despair he whispered
brokenly:
“I don't care if they 're the worst people in the world, they're better
than I am!”
The other's gloom cleared a little at this. “Well, you _have_ got it!”
he exclaimed briskly. “You don't know how different you'll feel after a
long walk in the open air.” He looked at his watch. “I've got to go and
see what that newspaper-man, Cornish, wants; it's ten o'clock. I'll be
back after a while; I want to reason this out with you. I don't deny but
it's possible I'm wrong; anyway, you think it over while I'm gone. You
take a good hard think, will you?”
As he closed the door, Mellin slowly drew the coverlet over his head. It
was as if he covered the face of some one who had just died.