Vingie, stroking on a glove with ecstatic fingers, gazed round the
best bedroom of Leonie Falsecastle's flat with much the same
expression as stout Cortez displayed when he stared at the Pacific,
silent upon a peak in Darien.
"You don't look happy, Mary!" she observed. "Hasn't our independence
any charm for you? Have you realized we can do exactly as we like
regardless of consequences?"
The pretty maid ran her hand mechanically into the foot of a silk
stocking and sighed.
"I always had a great deal of liberty at Wynwood, miss," she answered
sorrowfully. "More charming people than the servants' hall there I
never wish to meet, particularly the second chauffeur, and here
there's nobody at all except that there image of a cook."
"Friends will rally round you," promised Vingie. "This isn't the
only flat in the block and the hall porter's frightfully
good-looking. Bear up! I shall be back early after lunch, unless
anything exciting happens."
She sank to the ground floor in a gilded cage, bringing back into the
lift-boy's soul all he had ever beheld of Theda Bara, Mae Murray,
Bebe Daniels, and other Helens of that modern Troy situated in
California. The hall porter swept a taxi to the curb rather than
summoned it. Vingie stood a moment lost in thought.
"The Savoy!" she commanded at last.
"I'm alone!" she crooned dreamily as they breasted the surge of the
traffic. "Nobody knows where I am, what I'm going to eat, when I
shall go home. I can do exactly as I please. How wonderful the
world looks sometimes!"
It is the business of all good _maîtres d'hôtel_ to know every one;
they stand before kings, princes, and governors and deal out justice
tempered with mercy. The face of the Honorable Virginia Lauriston is
not strange to fame; she smiled kindly at the ambassadorial presence
who greeted her and shook her head. "I'm waiting for somebody.
Probably he's got a table," she explained, and turned aside to a
superlative chair.
For Vingie who had never done anything of the kind before, it seemed
the very breath of adventure to sit in the vestibule of the great
restaurant, the guest of no one, unexpected of any, and watch the
come and go of all the sundry. She presented an aloof alluring
figure, with the straight lines of the modern girl, very
self-sufficing, and played at being alone in the world, penniless,
hungry, seeking some man whom she could trust sufficiently to ask in
the language of eyes for her lunch. It seemed so real that a little
thrill of faintness passed through her; there emanated a distinct
wave of brutality from the average well-fed male.
"He'll have to be very young; they're kind and sympathetic when
they're young--before too many of us have sponged on them," reflected
Vingie.
As if in answer to her prayers, at that very moment there passed
toward her through the door a quite young man, pale and dark, upon
whose slight shoulders care, the Black Horseman, rode without remorse.
She watched the young man pause, remove his hat and pass a
handkerchief across his damp brow. His sensitive nostrils dilated,
and his troubled blue eyes sought in vain a friendly face amid this
throng of strangers. His clothes, his manner and the cut of his hair
suggested the unspiritual wealth of the suburbs rather than the
insolvent charm of the West End. His glance met Vingie's and he made
a perceptible movement toward her even as a child turns to its
mother; then with a flush of embarrassment he moved irresolutely in
the opposite direction.
With all the hauteur of an abandoned woman Vingie rose and stalked
frigidly across his path. As she did so a bunch of artificial
violets at her breast detached itself and fell almost at his feet.
Remotely elegant, Vingie pursued her path. A hand plucked at her
sleeve; she turned haughtily to perceive the blue-eyed stranger.
"Pardon me--your flowers," explained the young man, licking his dry
lips.
He stood offering them, intolerably plaintive, and if he had had a
tail he would have wagged it. His entire being announced dumbly she
was not that sort of girl, and even if she had been he was not that
kind of man.
Vingie, with a pretty smile, took the violets from his hand and said:
"Thank you so much. Have you a pin?"
The young man passed moist, imploring hands over his body in search
of pins he knew to be nonexistent. Finally he announced in
despairing tones that he had no pin but would obtain one if it cost
him his life, or words to that effect. She let him go on a wild
piece of knight-errantry, watched him appeal to a uniformed man who
sent little boys dashing hither and thither. Finally he returned
with assorted spoil and offered it. Vingie secured the violets in
leisurely fashion while the young man watched as in a dream.
"I've given you a great deal of trouble," she said in a gentle voice.
"I'm ever so grateful, particularly as you look dreadfully worried.
You see, I rather value these violets, as it happens."
"They come out at three pounds the dozen bunches wholesale, but I
dare say you paid ten shillings for them," he replied absently, and
then blushed scarlet.
"What on earth----?" began Vingie.
Omnipotence descended on them, wrapped in a smile.
"This way, Madame," exclaimed Omnipotence, and swooped forward into
the restaurant. He revealed his carefully wrought miracle, a table
decently secluded, not too near the band and not too far away.
Vingie seated herself; the young man collapsed into the chair on her
right. A waiter commenced the ritual of luncheon.
"Of course, it's all a mistake and you aren't to pay for my lunch,"
said Vingie, with a happy sigh, "though now we are here you may as
well tell me what's on your mind. But, my dear man, for heaven's
sake pretend to look after me, and order some food and put a brave
face on things or they'll think I'm a nurse in plain clothes and
you're my patient."
The young man, turning to the waiter, rapped out a sequence of
commands in the most hard-hearted fashion. Then he became his mild
distracted self.
"My name is Anthony Brooks," he began, "and, as you suggest, I am in
sad trouble. But you would hardly understand, for I don't suppose
business ever comes into your life. I hope it never will, Miss 'Er."
"I'm Virginia Lauriston. Go on!" commanded Vingie.
He smiled as one humoring a woman, or a lunatic.
"I am at the parting of the ways," he declared. "Either I continue
and risk everything, or I get out and remain with a pittance. If
only I knew a little about women I could make up my mind more easily."
Vingie looked at him pitifully.
"You don't mean you're going to get married?" she asked.
Anthony Brooks blushed, put down his soup spoon and looked her
squarely in the face.
"Before the war my father was comparatively a wealthy man," he
explained. "We lived in some luxury at Surbiton, and I never
imagined I should need to work. However, he has just died and I find
myself with a few thousand pounds and a dress-making business in Bond
Street, which father owned. He was a widower and at one time I
believe there may have been something between him and the manageress
of those days. However, she left when the business began to lose
money. It's been losing money ever since. What I must settle is
whether to try to make it pay, or sell it for what it will fetch. My
capital isn't large enough to divide. If I stick to the business all
the money will have to go into it."
Vingie shook her head gravely.
"I want grilled sole, please," she said. "There's not the faintest
use you trying to run this dress-making show alone. My dear man, you
were born a victim for women. Any woman could do what she pleased
with you. Look where you've landed this morning for instance--at
lunch with me, a complete stranger, just because I meant you to."
"Women," retorted Anthony Brooks with the bigoted assurance of the
entirely ignorant, "are just like anybody else. Treat them fairly
and they will respond fairly. Attempt to browbeat them and they will
burst into tears and break their hearts."
"My dear," said Vingie very sincerely, "take your few thousands and
buy an annuity, or War Loan, or hire a piano organ and grind it in
the streets, but give up this idea of a dressmaking business. You'll
be bullied by your staff and find yourself dressing a lot of
customers free of charge, simply because they've told you some
hard-luck story."
"I raised the wages of the staff only this morning," confessed
Anthony Brooks defiantly. "They have as much right to the money as I
have. After all they produce it--that is, they would produce it if
the place wasn't being run at a loss."
"I would like _pêche Melba_, please," murmured Vingie in a far-away
voice. Her eyes saw visions of splendor; she molded costly fabrics
on the supple forms of beautiful girls; the fame of her name
ricochetted from boudoir to baronial hall; she created costumes for
musical comedies and remedied the dry respectability of clothes worn
in court circles. She intrigued with charmeuse and dreamed in cloth
of gold.
"On the other hand," she went on, "if you were to take me into
partnership I could raise a little capital and save you from this
fatal softness of yours where women are concerned. A great many
useful people would come to us for their clothes out of sheer
curiosity. I could get a little work out of the blonde enchantress
whose wages you've just raised. The _maître d'hôtel_ can tell you
all about me, and if you care to ring up the Foreign Minister, he's
an old friend of mine. Besides, I know a man in the _Daily Tale_
who'd give us some very useful publicity. It's always rather a stunt
if a society girl tries to do a job of work."
Anthony Brooks looked doubtfully across the small table. He had
heard of sirens without ever meeting one, and although her clothes,
her appurtenances, and a certain expectation of being obeyed
commended Vingie to him, he had not the remotest idea who had paid
for her belongings, and her name meant nothing in Surbiton.
"What is your real reason for suggesting a partnership?" he asked
with dreadful cunning.
Vingie exhaled a little cloud of scented smoke.
"Adventure, the fight for a business that's going down-hill, and an
opportunity to run a show of my own," she answered. "You'll never
get so good an offer from anybody else. I'll put up a thousand
pounds capital and not take a penny out till the place is paying.
Harden your heart, Mr. Brooks, and take the plunge!"
"Who are your solicitors, please?" inquired Mr. Brooks, still darkly.
"Scrymgeour, Scrymgeour & Fortescue, 1002 St. James Street," she
answered, giving the name of Sir Charles' men of business without a
second's hesitation.
"Mine are Abrahams & Abrahams, 4914 Chancery Lane."
Vingie crushed out her cigarette-end and drew money from her
wrist-bag.
"Let's go and pick up one of the chosen people in a taxi and take him
round to Scrymgeour and fix it," she suggested.
"I insist on paying for lunch," began Mr. Brooks turning rather red,
but she raised a protesting hand.
"This is a Dutch treat, partner. When the business is paying you can
take me out and celebrate. Till then we'll settle our own expenses."
It is certain that the chiseled, aristocratic profile of Mr.
Scrymgeour expressed all, if not more than he felt when the ward of
his distinguished client, Sir Charles Gillespie, came with alien
solicitors and an entire stranger to enter into a deal of
partnership. The very furniture in the room--and nothing had been
touched since 1721--cried fie upon this outrage. Nevertheless the
influence of a pretty girl is such that no open quarrel ensued,
although the whole affair ruined Mr. Scrymgeour's golf for several
weeks. They delved in balance sheets and audits, hereunto and
thereunto they set their seals, and the deed was done.
Vingie entering number ten Criteria Mansions toward the hour of
dinner clung in exhaustion to Mary and then sank on to a divan, a
black satin divan bestrewn with cushions.
"Mary," she gasped, "I'm quite dead, but I've taken a quarter share
in a frock shop. For heaven's sake tear my things off and get me the
hottest bath and half fill it with bath-salts. I want to wallow and
gloat."
"Really, miss!" responded Mary politely, answering the first part of
the remark. She coaxed off shoes and stockings, removed a frock and
loosened masses of wavy hair. A small private smile played about her
mouth.
"Give me a cigarette and tell me what you're grinning at!" demanded
Vingie.
The smile widened, and Mary glanced down coyly.
"It's the hall-porter, miss," she confessed. "As you said, he _is_
rather good-looking, and such a gentlemanly young fellow."