TWO LOVELY LADIES
I am trying to give you this story as it opened up step by step before
me and around me, not merely as I came to see it afterwards, looking
backward. But of course I shall have to select my scenes. The story
ran sometimes, like a cryptogram, through other events that seemed at
the time to mean something entirely different, and I also did some
living and working and thinking along other lines through those days.
But these matters I eliminate in telling the tale. They were equally
important to me at the time but now they are forgotten, and the links
of the story are the only things that stand out in my memory.
Mrs. Whyte's dinner was an important link, but before that there came
another incident most significant, as I saw afterwards,--or, rather,
two related incidents.
There was an old beggar on the street-corner right across from my
office for whom I had an especial affection. Of course he made a show
of being a merchant rather than a beggar, by having a tray of cut
flowers in summer and hot peanuts in winter and newspapers at all
seasons, on a tripod arrangement beside him; and the police knew
better than to see if he sometimes held up a wayfarer for more than
the price of his wares. I was fond of him because he was so
imperturbably cheerful, rain or shine, and so picturesque and
resourceful in flattery. He was an old soldier; and one leg that had
danced in days agone, and that had most heedlessly carried him to the
firing line in half a dozen battles of our own Civil War was buried at
Gettysburg. Barney seemed to regard this as a peculiarly fortunate
circumstance, since it had made it possible for him to use a crutch.
That crutch was a rare and wonderful possession, according to Barney.
Hearing him dilate on its convenience and comfortableness, you might
almost come to believe that he meant it all.
Well, you'll understand from this that I not only liked but
respected Barney, and I usually stopped to get a flower when I passed
his stand on leaving my office. On that Monday,--that eventful and
ever-to-be-remembered Monday,--I saw as I approached that Barney was
holding forth in the spell-binding manner I knew, to another
listener,--a young fellow, I thought at first. But as I came up, his
listener emptied a chatelaine purse upon Barney's tray, and my
surprised glance from the jingling shower of silver to the face of the
impetuous donor showed me that it was a young girl,--a gallant,
boyish-faced girl, whose eyes were shining into Barney's with the
enthusiasm of a hero-worshipper.
"I'll never forget that,--never!" she cried, in a voice thrilled with
emotion. "It was great." And on the instant she turned on her heel
like a boy and marched off down the street.
I looked at Barney with suspended disapproval, and for once, to do him
credit, he looked abashed.
"Faith, and who'd think the chit would have all that money about her
and her that reckless in shcattering it about!" he exclaimed. Then,
recovering himself, he thrust the coins carelessly in his pocket
(perhaps to get them out of my accusing sight) and ran on,
confidentially,--
"It's the Lord's own providince that she turned it over to me, instead
of carrying it about to the shops where temptation besets a young girl
on all sides. It's too full their pretty heads are of follolls and
such, for it's light-headed they are at that age, and that's the
Lord's truth."
"You worked on her sympathies," I said sternly. "You saw she was a
warm-hearted young girl, and you played up to her. You made yourself
out a hero, you rascal."
"You're the keen gentleman," said Barney admiringly. "Sure and you'd
make a good priest, saving your good looks, for you'd see the
confession in the heart before a poor lying penitent had time to think
of a saving twist to give it that might look like the truth and save
him a penance."
"Never mind me and my remarkable qualities," I said severely. "What
were you telling that girl?"
Barney bent over his flowers to shift the shades which protected them
from the sun, but after a moment's hesitation he answered, without
looking up.
"She has the way with her, that bit! When she looked me in the eye and
says 'Tell me what I ask,' I knew my commanding officer, and it's not
Barney that risks a court-martial for disobedience! No, sir! If she
didn't keep at me to tell her how I lost my leg, now! Your honor
couldn't have held out agin her, not to be the man you are."
I knew the story of that lost leg, and how shy Barney was of retailing
that heroic bit of his history, and I wondered less at the girl's
emotion than at her success in drawing the hidden tale from him. He
didn't tell it to many. While I marvelled he looked up with the
twinkle I couldn't help liking.
"She didn't give me time to tell her that that bit story wasn't the
kind you pay to hear, but it would maybe have chilled the warm heart
of her to have me push her silver back, and I wouldn't do that even if
I had to keep the money to save her feelin's, the darlin'."
"Awfully hard on you, I know," I said, letting us both down with the
help of a little irony. "Where's my rosebud, you rascal?"
He lifted a slender vase from the covered box beneath his table and
brought out the flower he had reserved for me. It was a creamy white
bud, deepening into a richer shade that hinted at stores of gold at
the sealed-up heart. As he held it out silently, something in his
whimsical face told me his thought.
"Yes, you are right," I said casually, as I took the flower. "It
_does_ look like her."
Barney's eyes wrinkled appreciatively. "There was a mistake somewhere,
sir, when you were born outside of Eire. But you got it straight this
time."
I went home to dress for Mrs. Whyte's dinner, and when I was ready I
slipped into my pocket, to show my hostess, a little locket which held
a miniature of my mother. Mrs. Whyte and my mother had been
schoolmates,--that was why she was so much kinder to me than I could
ever have deserved on my own account,--and I knew she would like to
see the picture. I opened the case to look at it myself (my mother is
still living, thank Heaven, and unchangeably young) and I was struck
with the youthful modernity of it. Perhaps it was because the old
style of dressing the hair had come back that it looked so of the
present generation rather than of the past. It had been painted for my
father in the days of their courtship, and on his death I had begged
for the portrait, though my mother had refused to let me have the old
case he carried. I had therefore spent some time and care in selecting
a new case and had decided finally on one embellished with emeralds
set in the form of a heart. I thought it symbolical of my dear
mother's young-heartedness, but I found out afterwards that she
especially objected to emeralds! Such are the hazards run by a mere
man when he tries to deal with the Greater Mysteries. I have dwelt on
this locket because it played an important part in after affairs,--and
a very different part from what I designed for it when I slipped it
into my pocket to show it to Mrs. Whyte.
It is a good two miles from my lodgings to Mrs. Whyte's, but I was
early and I wanted exercise, so I walked. It was within a few minutes
of seven when I came to her highly respectable street. As I turned the
corner of her block my attention was caught by the sight of a young
girl in excited colloquy with the driver of a cab, which stood before
the house adjoining Mrs. Whyte's. I think I should have looked for a
chance to be of service in any case, but when I saw, as I did at once,
that the girl with so gallant a bearing was the same girl who had
impulsively emptied her purse among Barney's flowers, and that the
driver seemed to be bullying her, I felt that it was very distinctly
my affair.
"But I tell you that I _have_ no money," she was saying with dramatic
emphasis, "and there is nobody at home, and I can't get in, and if you
will come to-morrow--"
"Gammon," the man interrupted roughly. (She had not chosen her jehu
with discrimination.) "You can't work that game on me--"
"I can give you my watch as a pledge," she said eagerly.
By that time I was near enough to interfere. (I always was lucky. Here
I was ready if necessary to go through fire and water--a certain
amount of each, at any rate--to get a better knowledge of the
frank-hearted girl whose enthusiasm had so touched me in the
afternoon, and all that Fate asked was a cabman's fare and a few stern
words delivered with an air! Fate is no bargainer worthy the name.)
"It was most awfully good of you to come to the rescue," said the
girl, in the direct and gallant manner that I felt was a part of
herself. "I was just beginning to wonder what under the sun I _should_
do. You see, I--I spent all my money down town, and I took a cab up,
thinking I'd get the money here to pay the man, and now I find the
house locked up and not a soul at home,--and me on the doorstep like a
charity child without a penny!"
"That, was unlucky, certainly," I said. "I am more than glad that I
could be of service. But now that the cabman is disposed of, how are
you going to get into the house?"
She turned and looked at the house dubiously.
"I--don't--know. Unless I find an open window,--just a teeny one would
be big enough. But Gene is very particular about my not being
undignified. I think," she added, with a delightfully confidential
smile, "that Gene would rather have me be dignified and hungry than
undignified and comfortable. Under those circumstances would you
advise me to hunt for an open window?"
"It's a delicate point to decide. Who is Gene? That might have some
bearing on the question."
She looked surprised at my ignorance.
"Oh, he's my brother,--my twin. He lives in that house. So does Mr.
Ellison. He's my guardian. But it surely looks as though nobody were
at home!"
"Don't you live there, too?" I demanded in surprise.
"Oh, no. I'm at Miss Elwood's school at Dunstan. I don't mean I am
there this minute, because of course I am here; but I'm supposed
to be there. I just came down to surprise Gene because it is our
birthday--you see we have only one between us--and now I can't get
in!" And she threw out her hands dramatically.
(The worst part of trying to reproduce Miss Benbow's language
accurately is that it sounds silly in type, but it never sounded silly
when she was looking at you with her big, ambiguous eyes, and you were
waiting, always in affectionate amusement, for the next absurdity. I
sometimes wondered whether that frank air of hers was nature's
disguise for a maid's subtlety, or whether her subtle witchery lay
really in the fact that she was so transparent that you could see her
thoughts breathe.)
"I have always heard that it was wise," I said, with a grandfatherly
air, "to save out at least a street-car fare before flinging all one's
broad gold pieces to the beggar in the street."
She looked a little startled, then swiftly comprehending. I knew she
must have bit her inner lip to keep from smiling, but she spoke
sedately.
"A street-car fare wouldn't help me to get into the house, would it?
And that's the trouble now. Though of course if I had had a street-car
fare I shouldn't have had any trouble with the cabman and you wouldn't
have had to come to the rescue, so another time I'll be careful and
remember--"
"Heavens, and they say a woman isn't logical!" I cried. "I hadn't
thought out the sequence. I'm mighty glad that you were not wise when
you flung away your purse since I was going to so profit by it. But
now the question is, what are you going to do? I can't go off and
leave you, like a charity child on the doorstep without a penny, not
to mention a dinner. Haven't you any friends in the neighborhood?"
"Not what you would call _friends_, exactly, though I suppose they
wouldn't let me starve if they knew. There's a Mrs. Whyte,--"
"Of course! In that red brick house next door. What luck! I'm going
there for dinner."
She glanced at my evening garb and drew down the corners of her lips
comically. "She won't like having a charity child thrust upon her when
she is having a dinner party."
"Oh, that won't make the slightest difference in the world," I
protested eagerly. "Mrs. Whyte is the kindest woman,--and besides,
it's your birthday,--"
She looked at me under her lashes. "You're just a man. You
don't understand," she said, with large tolerance. "See how I am
dressed,--shirt-waist and linen collar! I didn't prepare for a party.
Oh, I believe Gene is having a birthday party somewhere,--that's why
everybody is away! And me supperless! Isn't it a shame?" She looked at
me with tragedy on her face,--and a delicious consciousness of its
effectiveness in the corner of her eye.
"Why didn't you come home earlier?" I asked, wondering (though it
really wasn't my business) what she had been doing since I saw her
leave Barney.
"You mean after I left that perfectly beautiful old soldier? How did
you know about him and me, by the way?"
"Oh, I'm a friend of his, too. I happened to be quite near. My name,
by the way, is Robert Hilton. I'll be much obliged if you'll remember
it."
"Why, of course I'll remember. My name is Jean Benbow, and it is so
nearly the same as Gene's because we are twins, but really his name is
Eugene, and when he does something to make himself famous I suppose
they will call him that. Well, after the soldier, and I wish I had
had fifty times as much to give him, though that makes a sum that I
simply can't do in my head,--not that it matters, because he didn't
get it,--I remembered that I was going to get a birthday present for
Gene, but I didn't remember, you see, that I hadn't any money. I don't
think money is a nice thing to have on your mind, anyway. So I went to
a bookstore and looked at some books and the first thing I knew they
were closing up, and I hadn't yet decided. Have you ever noticed how
time just _flies_ when you are doing something you are interested in,
and then if it is lessons or the day before a holiday or anything like
that, how it literally _drags?_"
"I have noticed that phenomenon,--and Time is giving an example of
flying this very minute. Really, I think you'd better come over to
Mrs. Whyte's--"
"Oh, there's Minnie coming back now! She'll let me in," Miss Benbow
interrupted me. A bareheaded young woman, from her dress evidently a
housemaid, was hurriedly crossing the service court toward the Ellison
back door, and without further words Miss Benbow started toward her
across the lawn.
"Wave your hand if it is all right. I'll wait," I called after her.
The maid halted when she saw that fleet figure crossing the grass,
they conferred a moment, then Miss Benbow waved a decisive hand to me,
and they disappeared together in the rear of the house. Something ran
through my brain about the ceasing of exquisite music,--I wished I
could remember the exact words, because they seemed so to fit the
occasion. Miss Benbow certainly had a way of keeping your attention on
the _qui vive_.
Even after I had made my bow before Mrs. Whyte and had been presented
to the beautiful Miss Thurston, I had intervals of absent-mindedness
during which I wondered what Miss Benbow could be doing all alone in
that big house. This was all the more complimentary to her memory,
because Miss Thurston was a young woman to occupy the whole of any
man's attention under ordinary or even moderately extraordinary
circumstances. I had to admit that this time Mrs. Whyte had played a
masterstroke. And that does not spell overweening conceit on my part,
either! It required no special astuteness to read the concealed
cryptogram in Mrs. Whyte's plans. I had had experience! So, unless I
made a wild guess, had Miss Thurston. There could be no other
explanation, consistent with my self-respect, of the cold dignity, the
pointed iciness, that marked her manner toward me. She was a stately
young woman by nature, but mere stateliness does not lead a young
woman to fling out signs of "Keep off the grass" when a young man is
introduced. I guessed at once that she had experienced Mrs. Whyte's
friendly interest in the same (occasionally embarrassing) way that I
had, and that she wished me to understand from the beginning that she
was not to be regarded as _particeps criminis_ in any schemes which
Mrs. Whyte might be entertaining regarding my life, liberty, and
happiness. Her intent was so clear that it amused as well as piqued
me, and I set myself to being as good company as my limited gifts made
possible. I knew that it was good policy, in such a case, to give Mrs.
Whyte no reason for shaking her lovely locks at me afterwards; but
partly I exerted myself to do my prettiest because Miss Thurston
attracted me to an extraordinary degree. That does not indicate any
special susceptibility on my part, either. She was (and is, I am happy
to say,) one of the most charming women I have ever met. No, that is
not the word. She made no effort to charm. She merely was. She wrapped
herself in a veil of aloofness, sweet and cool, and looked out at you
with a wistful, absent air that made you long to go into that chill
chamber where she dwelt and kiss some warmth and tenderness upon her
lips and a flash into her dreamy eye. I'm afraid that, in spite of my
disclaimer, you will think me susceptible. Well, you may, then. I
admit that I determined, within five minutes after my first bow, that
I was not going to lose the advantage of knowing Miss Thurston, or
permit her to forget me. (I cemented this determination before the
evening was over with an act which had consequences I could never have
anticipated.)
I am not going to dwell in detail upon the incidents of that dinner,
because I want to get to the extraordinary events that followed it;
but there were one or two matters that I must mention, because of the
bearing they had on after events.
"I hear," said Mr. Whyte at a pause in the chatter, "that they are
talking of nominating Clyde for mayor."
I happened to be looking at Miss Thurston when he spoke, and I saw a
sort of _breathless_ look come over her, as though every nerve were
listening.
"Do you think he would take it?" Mrs. Whyte asked.
"That's the rub, confound the man. I don't understand Clyde. If ever
there was a man fitted for public life, it is he. His father was
governor, his grandfather was a United States senator, and he has all
the qualities and faculties that made them distinguished. Yet here he
buries himself in a private office and barricades himself against all
public honors and preferment. I don't understand it."
(I did. I had wondered myself, but now I understood.)
"Perhaps he doesn't care for the sort of thing that other men value,"
said Miss Thurston. I fancied a trace of bitterness under her sweet
indifference.
"It isn't that," said Mr. Whyte, frowningly. "He is thoroughly alive.
And he doesn't keep out of public matters so long as he can work
behind a committee. Everybody knows what he has done for the city
without letting his name get into the papers. I think it's a crank
notion he's got."
"It probably goes back to some disappointing love affair," said Mrs.
Whyte, impressively. "That sort of thing will take the ambition out of
a man like--like poison."
"But wouldn't we have heard of it?" asked Miss Thurston, lifting her
penciled eyebrows. "We have known Kenneth Clyde all his life, you and
I, and there never has been anything talked of--"
"There wouldn't be," interrupted Mrs. Whyte. "He wouldn't talk. But
what else, I ask you, could change the reckless, ambitious, arrogant
boy that he was,--you know he was, Katherine,--into the abnormally
modest man he has become,--"
"I don't think he is abnormally modest," Miss Thurston interrupted in
her turn. "He merely doesn't care for newspaper fame,--and who does?
He has grown into a finer man than his early promise. If Saintsbury
can get him for mayor,--"
"He won't take it," Mr. Whyte said pessimistically. "You'd have to
hypnotize him to make him accept."
"Do you believe in hypnotism, Mr. Hilton?" Mrs. Whyte turned to me,
evidently fearing that I would feel "out" of this intimate
conversation.
"Believe that it can be exercised? Why, yes, I suppose there is no
doubt of that. But I don't believe I should care to let anyone
experiment on me.
"Fake. That's what it is," said Mr. Whyte. "Superstition."
"Now, Carroll, I know you're terribly wise, but you don't know
_everything_," said Mrs. Whyte. "I'm sure I sometimes know what you
are thinking--"
"That's telepathy, my angel, not hypnotism. Only you don't. You think
you do, but I'll bet I could fool you nine times out of--nineteen!"
"I once saw a girl who was hypnotized, and it was horrible," said Miss
Thurston. "She was lying in a show window of a shop, home in
Blankville. She had been put to sleep, I learned, by some hypnotist
who was exhibiting on the vaudeville stage, and who invited people to
come up from the audience. I could just imagine how the pretty, silly,
ignorant girl had been dared to go up. Then he was to awaken her
publicly on the stage after forty-eight hours, and in the meantime she
was exhibited on a cot in the window of a shop as an advertisement. I
can't make you understand how unspeakably _horrible_ it seemed to me."
"Where do you suppose her soul was?" asked Mrs. Whyte curiously.
"I don't know. But I know that there is something wicked about
separating the soul and body. It is a partial murder."
"Bet you she was shamming," said Mr. Whyte, cynically.
"Oh, no, it was real,--terribly real," she cried. I had no opinions on
the subject, but I thought Miss Thurston's earnestness very becoming,
it brought such a spark into her dark eyes and broke up her rather
severe tranquillity by a touch of undeniable feeling. But Mr. Whyte
was unmoved.
"My dear Katherine, if there were any secret means by which one person
could control the will of another and make him do what the controlling
will commanded, the trusts would have bought it up long ago. A
knowledge of how to do that would be worth millions,--and the millions
would be ready for the man who could teach the trick."
"There are some things that money cannot buy," said Miss Thurston
quietly.
"I never happened to run across them," said the cynical Whyte.
"I have happened to run across things enough that money _wouldn't_
buy," said Mrs. Whyte, significantly.
But Miss Thurston took up his challenge (which I guessed was flung out
for that purpose) with a fervor that transformed her.
"Money cannot buy knowledge," she cried. "To know how to control
another's soul may be wicked knowledge,--I believe it is,--but it is
knowledge nevertheless, and it is not at the command of your
millionaires. Money cannot buy any of the best things in the world. It
cannot buy love or loyalty or faith--or knowledge."
"You talk like Ellison," said Whyte, with good-humored contempt. "He
goes on about knowledge of hidden forces, and I believe he is ready to
believe in every charlatan that comes along and claims to know about
the mysteries of nature or how to extract gold from sea-water, or to
use the sun's rays to run his automobile."
"I'm glad he cares about something," said Mrs. Whyte, impatiently.
"Certainly he doesn't care about anything human. He is a cold-blooded
machine."
"Well," said Whyte, judicially, "he has done pretty well by the Benbow
children."
"How has he done well by them? Eugene has grown up in his house, to be
sure, but he has grown up without much help from his uncle, I can tell
you that. And Jean has been poked off at school when she ought to have
been coming out in society."
"Miss Benbow is at home this evening," I contributed. "I happened to
meet her on my way here. She said she had come down from school to
celebrate her birthday with her brother."
"Oh, is that so? Well, I'll warrant her uncle didn't know she was
coming, nor will he know that she has been here when she is gone."
"She strikes me as a young lady who would make her presence noticed,"
I suggested.
"She is a dear child," said Miss Thurston, warmly. "I must look her up
to-morrow. I haven't seen much of her, but I know Gene, and I am
devoted to him."
Now do you wonder that I liked Miss Thurston? I liked her so much that
I renewed my vow that she should not slip off into the outer circle of
bowing acquaintanceship; and if she was afraid to be nice to me
because she regarded me as in sympathy with Mrs. Whyte's matchmaking
schemes, I would clear her mind of that apprehension without delay. I
seized the opportunity immediately we were alone together.
"It is more than kind of Mrs. Whyte to give me such a chance to know
her friends," I said. We were supposed to be looking at Mr. Whyte's
books,--which were worth seeing. "Just because a man is engaged is no
sign that he doesn't enjoy pleasant society."
"Oh!" she breathed.
"Mrs. Whyte doesn't know," I said, looking at her steadily.
She laughed softly, and a color and kindness came into her face that
made her deliciously human.
"I see! But there _is_ someone--?"
"There certainly is," I said, and drew the little miniature of my
mother from my pocket. "Don't let Mrs. Whyte see it." (She would have
recognized it!)
"How sweet she is!" she exclaimed. "I don't wonder!"
"The sweetest woman I ever knew," I said, and took the locket back
jealously. My jest somewhat irked me now, with those candid eyes
looking surprise at me from the picture. "And now will you be friends
with me, instead of treating me as though I probably needed a snubbing
to keep me on my good behavior?"
"The very best of friends," she cried, and laughed so merrily that Mr.
Whyte, from the other side of the room, called out with interest,--
"You young people seem to be having a very good time. What's the
joke?"
"Carroll!" Mrs. Whyte checked him in a warning undertone,--at which
Miss Thurston and I looked at each other and laughed silently. I have
no doubt the poor dear lady thought her plot was brewing beautifully.
It was a shame to plot against her, but then it made her happy for the
time. And it did most completely break down the icy barrier thrown out
by Miss Thurston, so I tried to stifle the protests of my conscience.
My judgment came later,--judgment, sentence, and execution. But I had
a very good time that evening.
I had ordered a taxicab at a quarter before ten, so that I might waste
no time getting down to the Ph[oe]nix building for the appointment
with Alfred Barker. As I went down the walk to the street, I glanced
at the silent house in the next lot. There was no light in any window.
I indulged in a moment's conjecture as to where Miss Benbow could be,
but even as the thought went through my mind, I saw a light flare up
in the corner room downstairs. Miss Benbow was exploring, then. Or the
rest of the family had come home. Certainly I must manage somehow to
see her again.
But I confess I completely forgot both Miss Benbow and Miss Thurston
as my cab whirled me down to the business part of town. I concentrated
my mind on the question of how to deal with the blackmailer, and tried
to prepare myself beforehand for his probable lines of attack or
defense. At the same time I told myself judicially that the situation
might develop in some unexpected way.
It did. Most completely unexpected. I shall have to tell it in detail.