XI

By a sort of mutual consent the three men left the apartment in

Twenty-eighth Street early. They did not desire to finish the evening at

any cabaret or club. They called the first passing taxicab and drove

home. By mutual consent also they never once referred to Ita Strabosck,

but discussed everything else under the sun. Kenyon had never been so

useful. With consummate tact--but all the while with the picture in his

mind of the cunning little actress whom they had just left--he led the

conversation from dancing to baseball and from country clubs to women's

clothes. Whenever the cab passed a strong light Graham made a quick,

examining glance at Peter's face. He knew old Peter as well as Peter

knew his piano, and he was quite well aware of the fact that although

his brother laughed a good deal at Kenyon's quaint turn of phrase he was

upset at what he had seen.

It was just after eleven o'clock when they went into the smoking-room of

the house in Fifty-second Street. Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel had gone to

bed. Belle had not returned from a theatre party. The Doctor was at work

in his laboratory. He heard the boys come in. The sound of their voices

made him raise his head eagerly. He even half-rose from his chair in a

desire to join them and hear them talk, and laugh with them and get from

them some of that sense of youth which they exuded so pleasantly, but

his terrible shyness got the better of him once more and he returned to

his experiments. How ironical it was that with complete unconsciousness

he was leaving it to such a man as Nicholas Kenyon to play father to his

second son, who had never in his short life needed a real father so

badly.

For some little time--smoking a good cigar with complete

appreciation--Kenyon continued to give forth his impressions of New

York so far as he knew it. He was especially amusing in his description

of the effect upon him of the first sight of the Great White Way. Then,

all of a sudden, there came one of those strange pauses. It was Peter

who broke the silence. "Graham, old boy," he said, "tell us about it.

What does it all mean? Good Lord! you're only twenty-four. Are you

married?"

Before Graham could reply, Kenyon sent out a scoffing laugh. "Married!

Is he married?" he cried. "My good old grandfather's ghost, Peter! But

how indescribably green you are. Hang me if you're not like a sort of

Peter Pan! You've passed through Harvard and Oxford with a skin over

your eyes. It's all very beautiful, very commendable--and what Belle

would call 'very dear' of you--and all that sort of thing, but somehow

you make me feel that I've got to go through life with you in the

capacity of the sort of guide one hires in Paris--the human Baedeker."

"But if Graham hasn't married that poor girl," said Peter, bluntly,

"what's he doing with her?"

Graham sprang to his feet and began to walk about the room. All about

his tall, slight, well-built figure there was a curious nervousness and

excitement. Even in the carefully subdued light of the room it was plain

to see that his face was rather haggard and drawn. The boy looked years

older than Peter. "I'll start off," he said, "by giving you fellows my

word of honor that what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I have to

begin like this because if either of you were to tell me this story I

don't think I should be able to believe it. Some time ago I was taken--I

forget by whom--to a pestilential but rather amusing place in Fortieth

Street. It's a huge studio run by a woman who calls herself Papowsky.

It's what you, Nick, would call the last word in supereffeteness. Ita

Strabosck was one of the girls. I liked her at once. I didn't fall in

love with her, but she appealed to me and it was simply to see her that

I went there several times. I knew the place was pretty rotten and I

didn't cotton on to the people who were there or the things they did. I

even knew that the police had their eyes on it, but I liked it all the

more because of that. It gave it a sort of zest, like absinthe in

whiskey."

"Quite!" said Kenyon. "Fire away!"

"The last time I went there, Ita took me into a corner, told me that she

was never allowed out of the place and was a sort of White Slave, and

begged me to take her away. I don't think I shall ever forget the sight

of that poor little wretch trembling and shaking. It was pretty bad.

Well, I took her away. I got her out by a fire-escape when nobody was

watching us. Dodged through a window of a restaurant on the first floor,

and so out into the street. It was very tricky work. The day after I

took the apartment that you came to to-night, furnished it, and there

Ita has been ever since. I go there nearly every night until the small

hours. She's happy now and safe and I don't regret it. She hated the

place and the things she had been forced to do and nothing will make me

believe that she was bad. She was just a victim--that's all. And if I

have to go without things I don't care so long as she has all she needs.

That's the story. What d'you think of it?"

Peter got up, went over to his brother and held out his hand silently.

With a rather pathetic expression of gratitude in his eyes, Graham took

it and held it tight. "That's like you, Peter," he said, a little

huskily.

Kenyon made no movement. He looked with a pitying smile at the two boys

as they stood eye to eye. The whole thing sounded to him like a fairy

tale and for a moment he wondered whether Graham was not endeavoring to

obtain their sympathy under false pretences. Then he made up his mind

that Graham--like the man with whom he had lived at Oxford--was green

also, for all that he had knocked about in New York for two years. Not

from any kindness of heart, but simply because he wanted to use Graham

as a means of introducing him to the young male wealthy set of the city,

he determined to get him out somehow or other of this disastrous

entanglement. He would however go to work tactfully without allowing

Graham to think that he had made a complete fool of himself. He knew

that if he wounded this boy's vanity and brought him down from his

heroic pedestal he would set his teeth, put his back to the wall and

refuse to be assisted. With keen insight he could see that this incident

was likely to injure the usefulness of his visit to America.

"Um!" he said. "It's a pitiful story, Graham. You behaved devilish well,

old boy. Not many men would have acted so quickly and so unselfishly.

Now, sit down and tell me a few things."

Gladly enough Graham did so, heaving a great sigh. He was glad that he

had made a clear breast of all this. He was too young to keep it a

secret. He wanted sympathy urgently and a little human help. Peter

loaded and lit a pipe and drew his chair into the group.

"This girl Ita What's-her-name loves you, of course?"

Graham nodded.

"Anyone could see that," said Peter.

"But she'd been in that studio some time before you came along, I take

it,--I mean she'd been anybody's property for the asking?"

Graham shuddered. "I hate to think so," he said.

Peter kicked the leg of the nearest chair.

"How d'you feel?" asked Kenyon.

"Awfully sorry for her," said Graham.

"Yes, of course. What I mean is, are you all right?"

Graham looked puzzled. "I find it rather difficult to pay for

everything," he said, "especially as I've been damned unlucky lately."

The man of the world involuntarily raised his eyebrows. "Good Lord!" he

said to himself. "And this boy is the son of a specialist.

Blind--blind!" Then he spoke aloud, passing on to another point. "How

long do you think it is incumbent upon you to make yourself the guardian

of this girl?"

Graham shrugged his shoulders. "She comes from Poland. Her father and

mother are dead and she has no one to look after her."

"I'll help you," said Peter.

That was exactly what Kenyon didn't want. He got up, went over to the

table and mixed a drink. "Potter off to bed, Graham, old boy," he said.

"Get a good night's rest. You need it. We'll go further into the matter

in a day or two. It requires serious consideration. Anyway, I

congratulate you. You're a bit of a knight, and you've my complete

admiration." He led the boy to the door, patted him on the shoulder and

got rid of him. Then he returned to Peter, whose face showed that he was

laboring under many conflicting emotions.

"Nick," he said, "he's only twenty-four--just making a beginning. He did

the only thing he could do under the circumstances, but,--but what would

father say?"

"I don't think it's a question as to what your father would say," said

Kenyon. "If I know anything, the way to put it is what can your father

do? Of all men in the city he's the one who could be most useful in this

peculiar mess-up--Peter, you and I have got to get that boy out of this,

otherwise----"

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise--quite shortly--the police are likely to fish out of the

river the dead body of a promising lad of twenty-four, and there'll be

great grief in this house."

"What d'you mean?"

"Exactly what I say. That girl's a liar, a cheat and a fraud."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not. She's rotten from head to

foot. She's as easy to read as an advertisement. She's taking advantage

of a fellow who's as unsuspicious as you are. You're both green,--green,

I tell you,--as green as grass."

"I'd rather be green," cried Peter, hotly, "than go through life with

your rotten skepticism."

"Would you? You talk like an infant. Graham will want to marry some

day,--and then what? Good Heavens! Hasn't anybody taken the trouble to

tell you two any of the facts of life? You are neither of you fit to be

allowed out in the streets without a nurse. It's appalling. Skeptical,

you call me. You're blind, I tell you. Blind! So's the old man in the

next room. There's an ugly shadow over this house, Peter, as sure as

you're alive. Don't stand there glaring at me. I'm talking facts. If

you've got any regard for your brother and his health and his future; if

you want to save your mother from unutterable suffering and your father

from a hideous awakening, don't talk any further drivel to me, but make

up your mind that the girl, Ita Strasbosck, has it in her power to turn

Graham into a suicide. She's a liar--a liar and a trickster and a

menace--and I'll make it my business to prove it to you and Graham."

"You can't."

"Can't I? We'll see about that. And you've got to help me. We've got to

make Graham see that he must shake her off at once,--at once, I tell

you. The alternative you know."

Peter got up and strode about the room. He was worried and anxious. He

didn't, unfortunately, fully appreciate the gravity of this affair,

because, as Kenyon had said so tauntingly, he was a child in such

matters. But what he did appreciate was that his only brother had done

something, however sympathetic the motive, which might have far-reaching

consequences and which did away with the possibility of his going, as it

was Peter's determination to go, clean and straight to a good girl.

He turned to Kenyon, who had made himself comfortable. "I'll help you

for all I'm worth, Nick," he said.

"Right," said Kenyon. "I'll think out a line of action and let you know

to-morrow. There's no time to be lost."