Rose Van Cortlandt was in her element. She had been spending her
husband’s money indefatigably these last few days over the final
preparations for her second musicale, which five hundred engraved
invitations by Tiffany announced for the evening of February 3, at nine
o’clock.
People as rich as the Van Cortlandts receive few regrets. The postman’s
earliest whistle at the area gate of their mansion on Park Avenue this
morning heralded his bag stuffed with acceptances in various hued and
monogramed envelopes, which he was glad to unload to the second man,
who handed them above stairs to the butler, who in turn shovelled
them over to the French maid, Marie, who spilled them off the dainty
breakfast tray and half-way down the palatial staircase of polished
walnut and ebony, on her way to her mistress’s bedroom.
None of Rose Van Cortlandt’s women friends knew her as well as her
maid. Marie had served her for eight years. There was no illusion
left to Marie about this dark, slender woman, whom Sam Van Cortlandt
spoiled, and whom half of New York society raved about--chattering
over her beauty, her gowns, her superb figure, her neck, her arms,
her shoulders, her jewels, her _savoir-faire_, the brilliancy of her
dark eyes, the poise with which she carried her small head proudly,
her smile, the clever way she managed Sam, the exquisite curve of her
throat and neck, her shapely ears, her nervous, small hands, the pink
nails polished like sea-shells--nothing escaped them. Marie knew more.
She knew Rose Van Cortlandt at close range; in illness and in health;
knew her adorned and unadorned, gay or sad, peevish, petulant, and
insolent, in a rage, or in tears; had cared for and handled all her
clothes, all her jewels, her hands, her hair; had listened and survived
through innumerable scenes--some with the servants, some with her
husband; had often amused herself in divining the real reason of her
mistress’s various moods, and, when in doubt, had carefully reread her
letters.
That which others raved about, failed to fascinate Marie. Deep down
in her Norman heart she pitied “monsieur.” He seemed to her like a
_bon garçon_, the best of whose good nature had been trampled upon and
stifled out of him by madame, and the weight and responsibility of
several million American dollars. Had she had the control of monsieur
and his money, she confided to herself, she would have saved them both.
She would have intrusted Sam Van Cortlandt’s money safely to the Bank
of France and not had it kicking around Wall Street, where the risk
of losing it was as great as at roulette or baccarat. Neither would
monsieur live in such an insane asylum as she served in--_Ah! non,
mon Dieu!_--where every one quarrelled, from her masters all the way
down to the furnaceman and the second parlor-maid. She would see that
monsieur had a comfortable apartment in Paris, and a modest château,
and some good shooting close to her own people in her rich, green land
of Normandy, where the cider was pure, and where she knew how to cook a
hare _à la chasseur_ to perfection, and where monsieur could have some
pleasure in life, and receive his friends and roar with laughter, and
kick off his muddy boots before the fire with his good comrades over
the incidents so amusing of the day’s shooting. They would go crabbing
at Longrune, and to the market at Dosulé to sell their spare heifers
and calves, and monsieur would lose that careworn, gray expression and
grow fat and healthy.
Marie dreamed of these things as she ran her mistress’s pink ribbons,
or pricked her strong Norman fingers while embroidering the initials of
Rose Van Cortlandt’s maiden name on the satin-damask towels.
There were moments, too, when the tears welled to Marie’s fine gray
eyes; moments when she regretted ever having seen America, its wages,
or its society; moments when she wondered what had become of Gaston
since he married the daughter of the Père Miron and set up a saddler
shop of his own in Lisseux. Gaston had given her a thin, silver ring;
she wore it still.
So much had happened since then. She had been maid of all work in
Paris to Mademoiselle Yvonne de St. Cyr, a popular actress at the
Folies Parisiennes, and had learned to keep her mouth shut and her
eyes open for fifty francs a month, wine included. Then the young
marquis died, and his noble family buried him, and Yvonne was turned
out for debt, and gave Marie her sick Caniche poodle in payment for
two months’ wages, together with her signed photograph and a note of
recommendation--a scribbled eulogy on highly scented paper, hastily
recommending Marie to the world at large, which Marie carried in her
portmonnaie from one intelligence office in Paris to another, until
it became so dirty, creased, and worn she was ashamed to show it to a
lady, and was finally perused and accepted by Mrs. Van Cortlandt, who
was at her wit’s end that sultry September day to find a maid, finish
with the dressmaker, and sail for America. _C’est la vie--quoi?_ Marie
often consoled herself by tearfully exclaiming, which many a French
girl had said before her under far worse circumstances.
It seemed this morning, the day before the smart event, that the
postman had brought the last of the acceptances. As Marie entered her
mistress’s bedroom Rose Van Cortlandt sat propped up in bed among the
lace pillows, the glistening folds of her dark hair falling about her
fine shoulders, contrasting charmingly with a pale-pink peignoir. She
received the breakfast tray piled with notes which Marie slid deftly
across her knees, with the eager delight of a child, and began to open
the notes hastily--one after the other. One she reread twice, Marie
noticed, as she busied herself laying out her mistress’s things, read
it again, her black eyes merry with delight, a smile playing about the
corners of her lips.
“You’re a dear!” she heard her mistress exclaim. She thrust the note
aside from the rest, quickly finished her coffee and toast, scanned
the remainder of the notes, ordered her bath and her coupé at the
same time, and before three-quarters of an hour had elapsed was
dressed and out of the house. First down to Park & Tilford’s, then up
to Delmonico’s, to be sure they understood about the terrapin. Then
on to see for herself about the palms, the roses, the awning, and a
wagon-load of gilded chairs. So it was not until her mistress was well
out of the house that Marie could read the note her lady had lingered
over.
Marie turned up the lace pillows. It was not there. She opened one
drawer after another, and finally discovered it tucked between her
mistress’s evening gloves.
It ran as follows:
MY DEAR LADY,
Of course I’ll come. Who could ever refuse you anything? You’re
a _dear_ to want me. I fear I made a wretched botch of my
accompaniments the other afternoon for your little protégée. If so,
forgive me. Gladys has gone to Saratoga with the Verniers for two
weeks at least. You know how I hate travelling, besides New York is
amusing enough. Thank you again, dear friend. _Au revoir--à bientôt_,
and my kindest regards to your good husband.
Your ever devoted,
PIERRE LAMONT.
Marie tucked it back among the gloves in the precise position it had
lain, and closed the drawer. “_Quel numéro! ce Monsieur Lamont!_” she
smiled to herself as she emptied her lady’s bath.
As for Sam Van Cortlandt, he too had left his house this morning after
an early breakfast, which Griggs, his butler, served him in silence
in the gloomy, sumptuous dining-room, and which his master barely
touched. As Griggs handed him his coat, hat, and stick in the brighter
light of the hall, the butler noticed a marked change in his master’s
manner. His short, wiry body moved in jerks. He was intensely nervous.
His firm, smug, clean-shaven face wore an expression little short of
haggard. He drove his short arms impatiently into the sleeves of the
light-gray overcoat Griggs held for him, grasped his proffered stick
and derby, briskly shot out of the door to his waiting coupé, and
sprang into it. His coachman, noticing his haste, drove him at a faster
pace than usual down to his office in William Street.
Griggs watched the bay mare rouse herself into a smart trot and turn
the corner of 34th Street. Then he went back and closed the heavy
grilled door of the vestibule, wondering what had happened. He stood
meditating for some moments, gazing out through the steel spindles of
the grille.
“Perhaps it’s the madam,” he concluded, and returned to his pantry,
though still wondering over the change in him, and its reason.
Sam Van Cortlandt could have enlightened him in four words had he
chosen. That he was long in wheat. That he had plunged and lost
disastrously. How much he dared not confess, even to himself. He had
not dared tell Rose. He was in no condition to stand a scene, and
besides he knew her of old. The one thing she detested was a serious
discussion over the question of money; any hint on his part over
the lack of it he knew she would receive in a tantrum. She abhorred
any mention of economy. She had a disregard, a positive disdain for
economy, which was past all reasoning. She had gone through several big
sums since their marriage--fortunes in themselves--which he had put at
her disposal, as easily as a schoolgirl empties a box of bonbons. The
musicale to a man of his wealth was only a detail of their winter’s
entertaining, but as he felt this morning, it was an extravagance that,
in view of the present critical situation, he could ill afford. What
it would cost he had only a vague idea of. Rose had attended to that;
moreover, he knew she had not left a luxury unordered. Last month’s
account at Park & Tilford’s stood out conspicuously on their books as a
record. Even the clerk who figured it up opened his eyes. Then dinner
after dinner; luncheon after luncheon. Gowns from Paris, hats from
Fifth Avenue, and a necklace from Tiffany’s whose cost alone would have
ruined many a man considered comfortably off; a peace-offering to make
life worth living again after their tiff over the Huntley dinner, an
occasion when the faithful Griggs had let him in at daylight, that hour
when the cheerful sparrows who have slept well, chirp their virtues
to you mockingly, and the rattle of the milk-cans shivers your nerves.
Rose had not only thanked him; she had impulsively kissed him for it
on the top of his gray head, once for every pearl, and with so much
semblance of forgiveness that he had gone down-town the next day in the
best of good-humor.
His wealth!
His plunge in wheat this time was serious. Other men as rich as
he had played the same game and been completely ruined. There was
Dick Thomson, for instance, who in three days’ speculating became a
pauper, was kept afloat for a time by the grace of two of his biggest
creditors, and was finally swept off his feet in the tide-way of
financial ruin, and sank out of sight and memory.
As the bay mare sped on down Fifth Avenue Van Cortlandt looked at
himself in the narrow mirror panelled between the coupé windows. What
he saw was a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but he stiffened
up his clean-shaven chin, rubbed his haggard eyes, and laid most of his
condition to late dinners.
It never occurred to him that he was getting what he deserved; that
the unscrupulous methods he had so successfully pursued in the past,
as Enoch had truthfully declared, “from New Orleans to San Francisco,”
were retaliating; that in some measure the ruin and misery he had
swept broadcast, was being avenged. For years success had gone along
with him, arm in arm, like a boon companion, unfailing. Everything he
had wished for, fought for, success had given him: wealth, position,
a rich harvest from big deals that flattered him and surprised Wall
Street--his immunity from conviction at the hands of the Supreme Court.
Defeated in his scheme for nomination as governor, success had handed
him new riches in compensation. Success had stood by him, protected
him, saved him through a hundred reckless ventures. To-day the ghost of
success sat beside him as helpless as a skeleton. He reached his office
with quivering nerves. The slump in wheat continued. Wall Street was in
a panic, the Produce Exchange a frenzied bedlam.
The Stock Exchange opened in an uproar. Its floor a bawling, shouting,
frantic mass of members. From the gallery they resembled a black mass
of humanity drowning in a whirlpool, their white hands stretched
desperately above their heads as they signalled to sell. Some managed
to be seen by their rescuers and were saved in the nick of time by a
put or call. Others continued to gesticulate and shout hopelessly;
others elbowed, shoved, swayed back, recovered, and fought their way
through to buy. Men made decisions with that nerve and lightning
rapidity born of their trade. The man who hesitated was lost. Every
fresh minute the rise and fall of stocks flashed on the announcement
boards spelled safety or defeat. Wheat continued to drop; what had been
yours was now another’s. Wealth appeared, reappeared, and vanished.
Losses in cold figures appeared and remained. Men with blanched faces
stared grimly at each other in passing. Wheat dropped five points and
a fraction. Those who had won yelled out of sheer exuberance. Fortune,
the mother of all gambling--looked down on them with a smile; she was
used to such scenes as these. It was a common sight to her to see her
children ruined--or in luck.
In the centre of this howling mob--his battered derby hat on the back
of his head, dazed, white, and trembling--stood Sam Van Cortlandt. He
was slowly tearing to bits a scrap of paper upon which he had jotted
down an order that, had it been carried out, would have got him into
worse difficulties. A moment before he had braced every nerve in him
and decided to risk it, but his nerve had failed him. He was done for,
and he knew it. A few moments later he found himself on the fringe of
the howling mob. Outcasts frequent the borders. The noise in the great
room had been deafening. He found a certain relief and comparative
quiet in the corridor. Men stalked about it, some in silence. Jonas
Fair & Co. had gone down with the crash. Sims & Jenkins, too. The list
was long. Where was his friend Success who had played him false? Dead.
He made his way back to his office, scarcely conscious of the street
corners he turned. When he reached it he locked himself in his private
room, lighted a cigar, and for all of half an hour paced the floor.
The conclusion he came to was, that he would not announce the failure
of Samuel Van Cortlandt until the day after to-morrow--the day after
the musicale. Rose should know nothing until then. Like a man in grave
danger, he had thought of a thousand things in those agonizing moments
in which wheat dropped, point by point, relentlessly, without mercy.
The roar and clamor of the Stock Exchange still rang in his ears. He
had tried to recuperate his loss in wheat there. He was practically
ruined, and yet he could not realize it. He went out, bought a new
derby hat, entered a bar in Nassau Street, and ordered a stiff brandy
cocktail--over it he came to another conclusion: to sell his house on
Park Avenue and all it contained.
* * * * *
At a little before nine the following evening a long line of coupés
and broughams, hired or owned, moved slowly toward the Van Cortlandt
awning. As each equipage halted before it the street crowd of the
poorer class, who had gathered together for a glimpse of the rich,
caught hurried visions of dainty, satin-slippered feet, sleek silk
ankles, and soft evening wraps. They stood craning their necks at fair
women, in whose clean, well-kept hair glittered jewels, whose white
throats were circled in pearls and brilliants, and who neither glanced
to the right nor left, but followed their escorts up the carpeted
steps, through the steel-grilled vestibule, and past Griggs, into the
brilliantly lighted hall beyond, which was as far as the crowd, could
see. The night was starry, crisp, and clear. The faint odor of a dozen
perfumes hung in the cool air under the awning. This vapor of riches
was all these fine ladies left in their wake to the poor curiously
watching them.
Rose Van Cortlandt never looked more seductively beautiful than she
did to-night--stunning in a gown of black jet, her bare neck and arms
ivory white, a wreath of diamonds sparkling in her dark, undulated
hair--thorough mistress of herself, and clean as a cat.
She stood receiving her guests in the big ball-room filled with the
gilded chairs, a celebrated room by Marcotte, gay and fragrant to-night
in American beauty roses, its extreme end screened by a forest of
palms, leading out to the conservatory. Before this mass of palms
stood a low platform, holding a long, black, polished concert grand,
fresh from Steinway. The entire front of this platform was hedged with
orchids and violets.
Rose had left nothing unordered. The neatly engraved programme
announced no less an extravagance than the Mozart stringed sextet--six
solemn-looking gentlemen, skilled in chamber music, who knew nobody
present, and whose business it was to dispense symphonies and sonatas
that no one understood, at the highest price attainable. Moreover,
Madame Pavia Visconti, late of the Royal Opera of Milan (how late,
that motherly looking, fat, and florid contralto did not confess),
was to sing twice, relieved by Mr. Gwyn-Jones, basso, whose deep and
formidable ballads had rumbled through New York successfully for two
seasons. It was not until the second part, after the terrapin and
champagne, that Sue Preston’s name appeared.
Never had the task that lay before her seemed harder to Sue than it
did to-night. She had steeled herself to the coming ordeal for days,
too brave to back out, and wholly in ignorance of the magnificence
of the affair or the importance of the artists engaged. She had sung
at the tea as she supposed for nothing; the next morning’s mail had
brought a check from Rose Van Cortlandt for fifty dollars and a sweet
note of appreciation. Mrs. Ford beamed with pride when she read it.
Ebner Ford’s satisfaction was marked. To-night Rose Van Cortlandt had
insisted on Sue accepting one hundred dollars.
“Really, Mrs. Van Cortlandt, I’m not worth it,” Sue had said in her
embarrassment.
“Hush, dear,” Mrs. Van Cortlandt had returned, giving her a sound hug
and a kiss. “I’m the better judge of that.”
At that moment up-stairs in her hostess’s bedroom where the young girl
had left her wraps, lay a surprise beside her evening coat--a tiny
green-leather box from Tiffany’s, containing a small brooch of pearls
and diamonds and a check for a hundred dollars.
Rose Van Cortlandt had taken her under her wing the moment she had
arrived and had kept her beside her, presenting her to dozens of people
she had never heard of and who thought her lovely enough to hover
around her, dressed as she was to-night in a simple white gown, without
a jewel, a bunch of moss-roses held in a pale-blue sash at her waist.
They asked her all about herself, her voice, the fascinating career she
had entered. Smartly dressed men bent over her, swept their blasé gaze
over her lithe, girlish figure, looked greedily into her frank, blue
eyes, and paid her naïve little compliments out of ear-shot of their
wives.
Sentences not at all meant for her small, rosy ears reached her, such
as “Where’s the little girl? I must have a look at her again, old
chap.” This from a tall, young Englishman to another of his race, who
had already been presented to Sue three consecutive times--her simple
answer, “I think we’ve met before,” and his “Rather,” not deterring him
from a fourth opportunity. Women confided to each other: “Isn’t she a
sweet little thing--and what a skin, my dear!” and agreed that Rose Van
Cortlandt’s protégée was “simply fascinating--she earns her living, I’m
told.”
To the young girl, frightened at first, flushed and sensitive, the
glamour of all this had its effect. Little by little the fear in her
heart subsided, the subtle intoxication of all this beauty, wealth, and
luxury was even stronger. Her old courage came back to her. She felt
that it was the opportunity of her life. She would do her best. She
adored Rose Van Cortlandt. She had been kindness itself to her. Somehow
she felt a strange happiness tingling through her veins. She _felt_
like singing.
“Ah! I’ve a bone to pick with you, Rose,” laughed Lamont, striding up
to his hostess, smiling and immaculate as usual.
“How dear of you to come, Pierre,” said she, grasping his hand.
“Think of it, Miss Preston,” continued Lamont, turning disconsolately
to Sue, “this dear lady here absolutely forbade me to send the coupé
for you to-night--wasn’t it selfish of her? There’s the coupé doing
absolutely nothing--oh! I’m not discouraged. You’ll let me try again,
won’t you?”
“Now, Pierre, don’t get peevish,” laughed his hostess. “What a spoiled
infant you are. I sent for this little girl myself--didn’t I, deary?”
“It _was_ so kind of you, Mrs. Van Cortlandt,” Sue replied. “You know I
could just as well have taken the car.”
“No, you couldn’t have,” declared Lamont. “Not in that pretty dress of
yours. What a filthy vehicle a street-car is, anyway. Have you ever
stopped to think of the people you are obliged to sit next to--ugh!--or
where they came from?--people who step all over you, and never think of
begging your pardon. Do you realize that in America the middle classes
have no manners whatever? It’s a fact. I assure you in France and Italy
it is quite different. Even the most wretchedly poor are polite. It
is as inborn as their religion. Then those untouchable nickels the
conductor hands you in change.” His quick, black eyes noticed that Rose
had turned to welcome the Jimmy Browns, and his voice sank almost to a
pathetic whisper as he added hurriedly to Sue: “Do let me take you home
to-night--please--won’t you?”
He looked at her tenderly, full into her blue eyes, his old skilful
smile pleading for that hurried whispered “Yes,” which so many other
women, failing to resist, had recklessly granted him.
“Why, I--why--I’m afraid I can’t--really I can’t, Mr. Lamont,”
stammered Sue. “You see, I’ve already promised Mrs. Van Cortlandt.”
“Then arrange it,” he begged softly, taking advantage of these few
words alone with her. “Please, won’t you? Say you’ll try. You’ll make
me so happy if you will. I’m so terribly lonely.”
“Lonely!” She flushed slightly, and added with a forced little laugh:
“But you don’t look lonely, Mr. Lamont.”
“I am, nevertheless. I’m wretchedly lonely,” he declared.
He was on the point of playing his trump-card, but feared he would
have to play it too hastily to bring any satisfactory result--liable
as they were at any instant to be interrupted. Lamont’s trump-card
consisted in confiding to a woman his domestic unhappiness. The trick
is not new, by any means; of convincing her of his unhappy marriage;
that of all the women in the world his wife least understood him and
his sensitive nature; that, although he was too loyal a fellow to say
anything that might be misconstrued against her, he felt _she_ (to whom
he was speaking) would understand how much he suffered. He was not like
other men; he had a heart that needed affection, craved affection. His
married life had been a hollow mockery, devoid of that love which
he craved, which as a boy he had founded his ideals upon. Cupid had
treated him like a tyrant. He had held out everything to him, and given
him nothing but an empty, aching heart, a life of loneliness such as
few men had known. Where would it all end? Often he omitted this last
phrase and ceased speaking until she saw the tears welling to his eyes;
then his quick: “Forgive me. Life’s a hard game, isn’t it? There are
moments when we all break down--even the bravest of us.”
This seldom, if ever, failed to land them.
He cut this to-night, and contented himself by continuing to persist
about his coupé. He would tell Mrs. Van Cortlandt himself, he declared.
“It would be all right. I want you to feel the coupé is at your
disposal whenever you wish it. There, you see I’m frank--I can’t bear
to think of you travelling in those wretched cars.”
“But, Mr. Lamont!” exclaimed Sue, at a loss for a better reply.
“Whenever you wish it--and as often,” he added, and turned graciously
to his hostess, satisfied that he had ended his little tête-à-tête at
precisely the right moment. Another word, he felt, would have ruined
his chances, considering her age.
“Where’s Sam?” he asked. “I’ve been hunting all over for him.”
“My dear Pierre, Sam’s quite wretched,” confessed Rose.
“Really? Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“Nothing serious. Just one of his old attacks of neuralgia,” she
explained. “He came home early and went to bed. I told him he was
better off there than trying to buoy himself up with all these people.
You know how Sam loathes big parties.” She bent close to him. “Tell me,
is the room pretty?”
“Simply stunning. Rose, you’re wonderful. Do you know that before I
came up to you to-night, I stood for a long moment watching you. Is
there anything lovelier than a beautiful woman? How well Marie does
your hair.”
“Hush, Pierre! I implore you.”
“You’re gorgeously beautiful, Rose.”
“Pierre--do be careful.”
“You dear,” he added. The two words spoken just audibly enough to reach
her heart unnoticed. Then with a bow that would have done honor to a
diplomat, he raised her small hand to his lips, and disappeared in the
throng to find a vacant gilded chair.
He found it close to the stage, next to pretty little Mrs.
Selwyn-Rivers, who had been anxiously keeping it for him, and whose
husband, Colonel Selwyn-Rivers, had granted her a snug fortune and a
separation, and made no bones about either. She was in pink to-night,
and now that Pierre was seated, in a good-humor, and while the six
wise men drew their bows through the first and second part of a Mozart
symphony, kept up a whispered conversation to Lamont over the care and
breeding of Scotch terriers; neither the operatic arias of Madame Pavia
Visconti, nor the heroic souls that Mr. Gwyn-Jones, basso, confined to
the depths of the deep sea, the blacksmith’s forge, or the dark forest,
could shake this exquisite little blonde with her retroussé nose, who
flirted as easily as she lied, from declaring, as she babbled on, that
her Belle of Dinmont II was a better dog than Lucie Vernier’s Scotch
Lassie, and if the judges had not seen it, it was due to that lady in
question’s absurd attentions to Jack Farrell, who, Lamont agreed, was
as clever a judge of terriers as existed.
And so the musicale proceeded. Warmed and wakened up by the terrapin
and champagne, they actually listened to Sue’s fresh young voice, and
applauded her vociferously. It was not until her first encore that she
caught sight of Mr. Joseph Grimsby standing by the door. Joe, who at
parties was usually irrepressible and in a rollicking good-humor, two
qualities that made him a favorite with the débutantes wherever he
went, stood listening attentively. Indeed, that young gentleman was
drinking in every note; notes that reached Joe’s heart to-night--more
than that, he realized that Sue was an artist, whether she was
conscious of it or not.
One of the six wise men who accompanied her--a pale, sandy-haired,
studious-looking man, with long, vibrant hands, kept his eyes
constantly upon her as she sang, with a curious dreamy expression of
surprise and admiration. This man was a marvellous accompanist. He
seemed to have understood Sue instantly, as quickly as he had memorized
her accompaniments, scarcely glancing at her music before him. He
steadied her from the first; made her sure of herself. When Lamont
had played for her it had been a far different feeling. Light and
inconsequent as was his nature, he had expressed its shallowness on the
piano. Enoch’s words flashed back to her. The man at the piano, who was
no other than the violinist Ivan Palowsky, had made her feel. It was as
if he had taken her firmly by the hand and led her through an ordeal
over whose coming she had worked and suffered for days, and which, now
that it was successfully over, made her eyes sparkle and her heart
light with sheer joy. She thanked him warmly as she left the stage.
“It is I who thank you,” said he, hesitated, and with a look that Sue
did not forget, added: “You sing like my little girl, Anna. It is now
this year that I go back to Russia to see her. Ah! yes, you made me
feel that I again hear her sing--so young, so sweet, so pure. Some
day you let me play for you again, eh? Yes--yes, I come.” His sad
face brightened, and with an awkward bow he turned away to join his
companions in the final number. They had genially condescended to close
the performance with a gay tarantella.
Sue was now the centre of admiration. They showered her with
compliments. Lamont, who had skilfully gotten rid of Mrs. Selwyn-Rivers
and her kennel of prize breeds, was again beside her, pleading to take
her home. He called her “his little playmate,” ran off for a glass of
champagne which she barely touched, and an ice which she devoured.
Sue had been showered with so many compliments this exciting evening
that one more did not matter. This came from Joe, who made his way
through the group about her, and thanked her heartily in his breezy way.
Sue looked up in his genial, boyish face for the second time, conscious
of how good-looking he was, and how frankly and sincerely he expressed
himself. Joe’s was a pleasant, healthy countenance for any young
girl to look upon. His eyes twinkled to-night in his exuberance, and
his big, strong hand grasped hers with boyish sincerity. In fact, he
brought with him to that overheated artificial ball-room, a breath of
wholesome air.
Lamont continued in opportune moments to insist on taking her home,
half turning his back on Joe, who had interrupted him just as he felt
that his persuasion had succeeded.
“Mr. Lamont, I can’t,” declared Sue firmly. “I’ve promised Mrs. Van
Cortlandt.” Something in his manner worried her. Something she did not
like, and which might have been traced to Sam Van Cortlandt’s vintage
brut.
“Oh! come along,” exclaimed Lamont finally, his eyes sparkling like
black diamonds.
Joe took his leave. “Good night, and thank you again,” he said
heartily. “Hope I’ll see you soon,” he laughed. “You know we share the
same stairs,” and with that he was gone. At that instant, too, a quiet
personage touched Sue lightly on the arm.
It was Enoch.
“Why, Mr. Crane!” she exclaimed, her young face alight.
Lamont straightened; instantly his whole manner changed. The elder man
paid not the slightest attention to him.
“I thought I’d take you home, my child,” said Enoch.
“But--Mr. Crane,” faltered Sue, “I’ve promised Mrs. Van Cortlandt----”
“I’ve seen to that,” said Enoch pleasantly, as he gave her his arm.
With a rapidity that amazed her, Pierre Lamont bid her good night.
Enoch had known the Van Cortlandts for years, and though for a long
while he had persistently declined their hospitality, the fact that
Sue was to sing, and his anxiety over Lamont’s attentions to her, had
brought him to the musicale.
He had known Sam even before his unscrupulous business deals, a fact
to which was due their later estrangement--even before his runaway
match with Rose Dickson, who was then considered the prettiest girl
in Troy, an orphan who at sixteen went to live with her Uncle Jim, in
Plattsburg, and who availed herself of that old sport’s trotting stock
and a buggy of her own whenever it pleased her. Her Uncle Jim had
spoiled her. Who had not spoiled Rose? She was too devilish pretty, and
had a will of her own equal to a two-year-old in harness on her first
week’s rations of oats.
At eighteen Sam Van Cortlandt had met her. He never said where, but it
is presumed at a picnic. With a high-school graduation as proof of her
education, and two years at a fashionable girls’ college, cut short by
her marriage, Rose had entered society--a polishing school in which
with her woman’s adaptability and Sam’s money, she quickly acquired
that varnish of refinement and good breeding which so often passes as
being to the manner born.
At a quarter past eight the next morning Griggs rapped at the double
door of his master’s bedroom. Getting no response, he entered. Before
him, face down on the Turkish rug by the bed, one arm doubled under
him, his right hand outstretched, clutching a pearl-handled revolver,
lay Sam Van Cortlandt--a bullet-hole through his brain. He had been
dead several hours.