SIGNOR ANTONIO VALENTINO
As they reached the front of the house they heard the voice of the
announcer:
"Signor Antonio Valentino."
They saw Mary Wayne dexterously crowding her way forward; they saw her
look, gasp, utter a faint cry and freeze into an attitude of horror.
And then they saw Bill Marshall, wearing a whole-hearted grin of
delight, rush forward to greet his friend, the eminent artist from
Italy.
Signor Valentino was short and dark. He had a flattened nose that
drifted toward the left side of his face. He had a left ear that was of
a conformation strange to the world of exclusive social caste, an ear
that--well, to be frank, it was a tin ear. He had large, red hands that
were fitted with oversize knuckles. His shoulders rocked stiffly when he
walked. His eyes were glittering specks.
"H'lo, Bill, yo' old bum," said the signor.
"Kid, I'm glad to see you. You look like a million dollars."
And Bill seized Kid Whaley's hand, pumped his arm furiously and fetched
him a mighty wallop on the shoulder.
The signor did, indeed, look like a million dollars. He wore the finest
Tuxedo coat that could be hired on the East Side. His hair was greased
and smoothed until it adhered to his bullet head like the scalp
thereof. There was a gold-tipped cigarette between his lips. The bow
tie that girded his collar had a daring pattern of red. In a shirt front
that shone like a summer sea was imbedded a jewel whose candle-power was
beyond estimate, so disconcerting was it to the unshielded eye. A
matchless brilliant of like size illuminated a twisted finger. His
waistcoat was jauntily but somewhat sketchily figured in dark green, on
a background of black.
"I got everythin' but th' shoes, Bill," confided the signor in a public
whisper. "They gimme a pair that was too small an' I chucked 'em."
Thus it was that the signor wore his own shoes, which were yellow, and
knobby at the toes and had an air of sturdiness.
"You're great," said Bill, as he pounded him again on the shoulder.
"What made you so late?"
But the signor did not seem to hear. His glance was roving, flashing
here and there with a shiftiness and speed that bewildered.
"Some dump and some mob," was his ungrudging tribute. "What's th' price
of a layout like this, Bill? I'm gonna get me one when I lick the
champ."
The rigid pose of Mary Wayne suddenly relaxed. She appeared to deflate.
Her muscles flexed; her knees sagged. She backed weakly out of the crowd
and found support against the wall.
As for Pete Stearns, there was a rapt stare of amazed admiration on his
face. He turned and whispered to Nell, whose hand he still gripped:
"The son of a gun! He held out on me. He never tipped me a word. But,
oh, boy, won't he get his for this!"
As for Bill Marshall, he was presenting Signor Antonio Valentino to his
guests. Some of the bolder even shook hands, but the uncertain ones
bowed, while those of unconcealed timidity or ingrained conservatism
contented themselves with glances which might have been either
acknowledgments or a complete withdrawal of recognition.
The signor was unabashed. The days of his stage fright were long past;
to him a crowd was an old acquaintance. He turned to Bill with a bland
grin.
"Gee, Bill, ain't it funny how I'm a riot anywhere I go? Y' don't even
have to tell 'em I'm Kid Whaley."
Bill tucked the signor's arm under his and was leading him through the
reception-room. In his own mind there was a faint twinge of misgiving.
It was a great adventure, yes; it represented his defiance of Aunt
Caroline, of the social secretary, of the career that they were carving
for him. It was not open defiance, of course; Bill had intended that it
should be subtle. He was undermining the foundations, while at the same
time appearing to labor on the superstructure. Presently the whole false
edifice would crash and there would be no suspicion that he was the
author of disaster. That was the reasoning part of his plotting. The
remainder--perhaps the greater part--was sheer impulse. He was
cooperating with the devil that lurked within him.
Now the real test was coming. He summoned his moral reserves as he
leaned over and whispered:
"Kid, you're going to meet my aunt. Watch your step. Spread yourself,
but be careful. Do you remember what I told you?"
"Sure," said the Kid, easily. "I'll put it over. Watch me."
"If you fall down I'm gone."
"I ain't ever fell down yet. Ring the gong."
Aunt Caroline and the bishop were still in the backwater as Bill
arrived with the new bit of flotsam. The amiable old chatelaine glanced
up.
"Mercy!" she murmured.
"Signor Antonio Valentino," said Bill, with a bow.
Instantly Aunt Carolina smiled and extended her hand.
"Oh! Why, we had almost given you up. I'm so glad you did not fail us.
William has told me----"
"Wotever Bill says is right," interrupted the signor. "He's a white guy.
Pleased t' meetcha."
Aunt Caroline's hand crumpled under the attack, but she suffered without
wincing and turned to the bishop.
"Bishop, this is the sculptor of whom I spoke."
The bishop was staring. His eyebrows were rising. For an instant only he
was studying Bill Marshall.
"Pleased t' meetcha, bish."
It was a greeting not according to diocesan precedents, nor was the
shaking of hands that followed it, yet the bishop survived. "It is very
interesting to know you, sir," he murmured, non-committally.
Aunt Caroline was devoting her moment of respite to a study of Signor
Valentino. She knew, of course, that it was not polite to stare at a
man's ear, or at his nose, but these objects held her in a sort of
wondering fascination. In advance she had formed no clear picture of
what a sculptor should be; he was the first she had met. Yet, despite
her inexperience and lack of imagination, she was conscious that this
sculptor did not match very closely even the hazy ideal that was in her
mind.
Bill nudged the signor, and the signor suddenly remembered. He was
expected to explain, which he could do readily. It was merely a matter
of feinting for an opening. Ah--he had it.
"It's cert'nly a grand little thing t' break trainin', lady. This here
sculptor game is a hard life. Y' been pipin' me ear, ain't y'?"
Aunt Caroline lifted a hand in embarrassed protest and tried to murmur a
disclaimer.
"W'y, it's all right, lady," said the signor, with generous reassurance.
"It's one o' me trade-marks. Say, y'd never guess how I got it. Listen:
I landed on it when I did a Brodie off a scaffold in th' sixteenth
chapel. Uhuh; down in Rome."
"Sistine!" It was a violent whisper from Bill.
"Sistine," repeated the signor. "That's wot hung it on me, lady. I was
up there a coupla hundred feet--easy that--copyin' off one o' them
statues of Mike th' Angelus. You know th' guy; one o' th' old champs.
All of a sudden, off I goes an' down on me ear. Gee, lady, it had me
down f'r nine all right; but I wasn't out. Ain't never been out yet. So
I goes up again an' finishes th' job in th' next round. That's th' kind
of a bird I am, lady."
Aunt Caroline nodded dumbly. So did the bishop.
"I got th' twisted beezer in th' same mixup," added the signor, as he
scratched his nose reflectively. "First I lit on me ear an' then I
rolled over on me nose. But, gee; that's nothin'. Guys in my game gotta
have noive."
"It would appear to require much courage," ventured the bishop.
"You said it," advised the signor. "But y' gotta have noive in any game,
bish. Yes, ma'am; y' gotta have guts."
Aunt Caroline steadied herself against the bishop's arm.
"The signor," explained Bill, "unconsciously slips into the
vernacular."
"Slippin' it in on th' vernacular is one o' me best tricks," assented
the signor. "Lady, I remember once I caught a guy on th' vernacular----"
Bill was pinching him. The signor remembered and shifted his attack.
"See them mitts?" he asked, as he held forth a pair of knotted hands.
"All in the same game, lady. Y' see, I got a studio in Naples, just like
th' one I got over on th' East Side. This is th' way I get from handlin'
them big hunks of Carranza marble."
Again Bill pinched the sculptor, who inclined his tin ear for counsel.
"Cheese it, Kid; you're in Mexico. Get it right--Carrara."
"Sure," observed the signor, undisturbed. "This here Carrara marble,
lady, is all heavyweight stuff. It's like goin' outa y'r class t' handle
it. I don't take it on regular."
"I--I've heard so much of the Carrara marble," said Aunt Caroline.
"There ain't nothin' better f'r hitchin' blocks, pavin' stones an'
tombstones," declared the signor. Then, with an inspiration: "An'
holy-stones, too. Get that, bish? Holy-stones. Ain't that a hot one?
Hey, Bill, did you get it? I'm tellin' the bish they take this here
Carranza marble----"
Bill interrupted firmly.
"I doubt if the bishop would be interested in the details, signor," he
said. "Your work speaks for itself. You see"--to the bishop--"while the
signor fully understands all the purposes for which Carrara marble may
be used, he is really a specialist on heads and busts."
"Portrait work," suggested the bishop, still a trifle dazed.
"Exactly. The expression that he can put into a face is often
marvelous."
"Do you think," inquired Aunt Caroline, hesitating as though she were
asking the impossible, "that he would consent to show some of his work
here?"
"Any time, lady; any time," said the signor heartily. "Only I ain't
brung me workin' clothes an'----"
He broke off as his glance enveloped a figure standing in a doorway that
led to the hall.
"My Gawd! It's Pete!"
And Signor Valentino was gone in a rush of enthusiastic greeting.
"Why, he knows your valet, William," said Aunt Caroline.
"I have had Peter over at his studio; he's interested in ecclesiastical
art, you know."
"Of course; I might have known." Aunt Caroline hesitated for an instant,
then: "William, does he always talk in that curious manner?"
Bill nodded and sighed.
"It's due to his spirit of democracy," he explained. "He chooses to live
among the lowly. He loves the people. He falls into their way of speech.
I'll admit that it may sound strange, Aunt Caroline----"
"Oh, I wasn't objecting," she said, hastily. "I know so little about the
foreign artists that I am ignorant; that's all."
"Some time, Aunt Caroline, I should like to have the signor bring some
of his fellow-artists here. At a small affair, I mean."
"And you certainly shall, William. By all means."
Now, Bill was not wholly satisfied with this. He had been relying upon
the Kid to do him a certain service. He was using him in the hope of
destroying Aunt Caroline's illusions concerning art, society and other
higher things. He had no idea that the Kid would score anything that
resembled a triumph. But now it was evident to him that in certain
phases of life he had never sufficiently plumbed the innocence of his
maiden aunt.
"He seems to interest you," he ventured, with a view to exploration.
"Strength and endurance are qualities always to be admired in a man,"
said Aunt Caroline, as glibly as if it came out of a book. "I had never
dreamed that art developed them. Bishop, were you aware of it?"
The bishop was staring pointedly at Bill.
"I--er--no. That is--well, it is probable that I have never given
sufficient attention to certain of the arts."
He continued to stare at Bill, until that gentleman began to feel that
the bishop was not so unsophisticated as he seemed.
"If you'll excuse me, Aunt Caroline, I'll hunt up the signor. I wouldn't
have him feel that I am neglecting him."
But the signor was no longer standing in the doorway, talking to Pete
Stearns. Nor was he out in the hall, where Bill immediately searched. A
hasty exploration of the dining-room did not discover him.
"Now, where in blazes did he go?" muttered Bill, in an anxious tone.
He started on a run toward the front of the house and barely managed to
avert a collision with his social secretary.
"Say, have you seen----"
She checked him with a stabbing glance.
"Do you know what you've done?" she demanded.
"Why, I----"
"Are you sane enough to realize?"
Bill had never seen quite such an expression in her eyes. They
fascinated him; almost they inspired him with awe. He even forgot the
freckles.
"But I'm looking for the signor."
"Signor!" she echoed. "Well, never mind him. He's gone. Just for the
moment, there's something else----"
"Gone? But he just came!"
Mary's jaw had developed an angle of grimness.
"I had him put out of the house," she said. "Yes, and I helped! I had
him thrown out by servants. Do you know what he did?"
Bill experienced a sudden shrinking of the skin at his throat and down
the sides of his neck.
"He met my friend--Miss Wayne--and----" Mary beat a clenched fist into
her palm. "Because she spoke pleasantly to him he--he seized her! And he
kissed her! And--now do you see what you've done?"
"I'm sorry," said Bill, in a stumbling whisper.
"Sorry!" Mary's face was aflame. "Sorry! But never mind that now. She
has fainted. She was just recovering from an illness. It will probably
kill her. Do you understand? I'll have to send for an ambulance.
I'll----"
Bill led the way at a run and reached the second floor.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
"You mean the sick lady?" asked the up-stairs maid. "Peter has taken her
home, sir. He asked me to tell you that he would use your car."
"Better, was she?"
"A little hysterical, sir; but she could walk."
Bill breathed more comfortably. He turned to Mary Wayne.
"Everything's all right, I guess," he said.
"You think so?" she inquired icily. "You are easily reassured, Mr.
Marshall."
Bill shrugged.
"Oh, well; I'm sorry it happened, of course. I guess I'd better go back
to the party, perhaps."
Not that he wanted to go back to the party; he simply wanted to get away
from those awful eyes of Mary Wayne.
"There will be no need for you to do that," she said. "Everybody is
going. Everything is ruined! Everything--oh, how could you?"
"I'll take a look around, anyhow," he said.
She reached forth a hand and seized him by the sleeve.
"You will not!" she said, hotly. "You won't look around anywhere. You'll
come straight into the office and talk to me!"
"But----"
"At once!"
So he followed her.