Dauncey accepted his chief's invitation, one morning about a week
later, when things were slack, to sit in his room and have a chat.
"How goes the dancing?" he enquired, stretching out his hand for a
cigarette.
"Interesting developments may shortly be expected," Jacob replied
reflectively. "Up to the present, only two of the party have declared
themselves. Mr. Mason has made propositions to me with regard to
finding the money for starting a night club, and Mr. Hartwell has
offered me a share in some oil springs in Trinidad."
"A certain lack of imagination about Hartwell's offer," Dauncey
commented.
"On the contrary, I thought it rather subtle," Jacob observed. "You
see, I am supposed to know all about oil, although I really know no
more about it than the man in the moon. And there certainly is oil in
Trinidad."
"What about the others?"
"Lady Powers," Jacob confessed, "has shown a flattering desire for my
escort to dinner; in fact, I am afraid I am committed to next Sunday
night. It appears that she is in some slight financial trouble and
requires the advice of a man of the world."
"Hm!" Dauncey ejaculated. "What does Miss Bultiwell say to that?"
"I don't think she knows," Jacob admitted, "but I am afraid she
wouldn't care if she did. Grace Powers pretends to want to be very
secretive about it, but I fancy that's only to spare my feelings."
"Any other members of the gang?" Dauncey enquired.
"There's that young sprig of fashion, Lord Felixstowe," Jacob replied.
"I haven't heard from him yet. He is rather a nice boy. And there is
Miss Bultiwell herself."
"Have you had any conversation with her?"
"She is lunching with me to-day. I expect I shall get into trouble
about it, but I am going to speak to her plainly about her friends."
"How did she get mixed up with such a crew?"
"She was at school with Grace Powers," Jacob answered, "but I don't
know how they came together again. She will either tell me this
morning--or she won't."
"And Lord Felixstowe?"
There was a knock at the door. The office boy brought in a card. Jacob
glanced at it and smiled.
"His turn appears to have arrived," he said. "You can show Lord
Felixstowe in."
Dauncey departed, and the visitor entered and proceeded to make
himself at home. Notwithstanding a slightly receding chin and a
somewhat weedy frame, he was a personable being, and Jacob stifled a
sigh of envy as he realised that he would never be able to wear a
Guards' tie with his lounge suit. The young man accepted a cigarette.
His attitude was distinctly friendly.
"Thought I'd look you up, old thing," he said. "Not much chance of a
powwow at Russell Square. As soon as you and I get a word together,
that chap Hartwell comes butting in, or else Phil Mason has a bundle
of prospectuses to show you. What-ho the giddy night club! What-ho the
Trinidad Oil Wells!"
Jacob coughed.
"There is one thing about Russell Square which puzzles me," he
confided, "and that is, except for the people you have mentioned, I
seem to be the only pupil."
Lord Felixstowe smiled knowingly.
"They've got a few old crooks come later in the day," he said. "The
reason you don't meet any one else there is because they like to keep
you to themselves."
"I can't see what they gain by that," Jacob confessed, a little
mystified.
The young lordling assumed the patient air of one having to deal with
a person of inferior intelligence.
"Come, come," he remonstrated, "you must know that they're trying to
milk you for a bit. Hasn't Mason suggested your financing his night
club?"
"Some sort of a proposition was made," Jacob acknowledged. "I
declined."
"And Hartwell? Has he mentioned some oil wells in Trinidad?"
"He has," Jacob admitted. "I happen to be doing rather well in oils in
another direction."
"You haven't turned up early one day and found Grace in tears with a
dressmaker's bill on her knee, have you?"
"That, I presume, is to arrive. Lady Powers is dining with me next
Sunday."
"Mind your P's and Q's, then," the young philosopher advised. "She's a
fly little hussy. You see, Pratt, I know the world a bit. Seems to me
I might be rather useful to you--in fact that's why I came here this
morning."
"It is very kind of you," Jacob said. "In what way, may I ask?"
"You see," Lord Felixstowe proceeded, hitching up his trousers and
drawing his chair a little nearer, "I know the ropes, Pratt, and you
don't. You're a very decent fellow who's made a pot of money, and
naturally, just at first, you don't know where you are. You want to
get on, eh, to know the right sort of people, go to the right sort of
places, be seen about with the right sort? Between ourselves, old
thing, Hartwell and Mason aren't the right sort. Suits me to pick
their brains a bit, now and then, when the oof's coming along slowly,
but then I can do what I like--you can't."
"Let me have your concrete proposition, Lord Felixstowe," Jacob
suggested, with a faint smile at the corner of his lips.
"Righto! Tell you what I'm prepared to do. I'll pal you up, take you
to lunch and dinner at the smart places, take you to the Opera right
nights, and the mater shall ask you to dine once in Belgrave Square
and send you cards for her big shows. Then the governor shall ask you
to lunch at his club one day, and if there's anything doing, you
tumble, there are a couple of his clubs I think he could put you up
for. You'll be seen about with me. People will ask who you are. I
shall lay it on thick, of course, about the millions, and before you
know where you are, old bean, you'll be hobnobbing with all the dukes
and duchesses of the land."
"I see," Jacob murmured. "And what are your terms?"
"A thousand down, and two hundred and fifty a month," the young man
replied. "You pay all the expenses, of course."
"Does that include the luncheon with your father and the dinner with
your mother?" Jacob asked.
"It includes everything. Of course, if the governor has a word or two
to say on his own, that's neither here nor there. I want to see you a
bit more ambitious, Pratt," the young man declared, throwing one leg
over the other and lighting a fresh cigarette. "It's the millions that
count, nowadays. Why, there's no reason why you shouldn't marry one of
our set, if you play your cards properly and drop that other rabble.
And look here, old dear, I'll give you a straight tip. You chuck 100,
Russell Square. They're too fly, those chaps. I'm looking around for
anything there may be to pick up myself, but they're too hot for me."
Jacob glanced at his watch.
"Well," he said, "I'm very much obliged to you, Lord Felixstowe, for
your visit, and I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I shall
certainly remember your warning, and as for your offer--well, I'll
think about it."
The visitor rose reluctantly to his feet.
"It's an offer I wouldn't make to every one, Pratt," he concluded.
"Just happens I'm rather at a loose end--had a nasty week at
Newmarket. I might even get you a few days down at our place in
Norfolk, if you know how to handle a gun."
"I'll consider it," Jacob promised once more. "You'll have to excuse
me just now. I'm lunching with a young lady--Miss Bultiwell, in fact."
Lord Felixstowe picked up his hat.
"See you later, then," he concluded. "Old friend of yours, Miss
Bultiwell, eh?"
"An acquaintance of some years' standing," Jacob admitted.
"Give her the straight tip," Lord Felixstowe advised earnestly. "Don't
know what she's doing with that crew, anyhow. She seems a different
sort of person altogether. Tell her to cut it out. By-by!"
* * * * *
Jacob found his luncheon companion cold but amiable. He waited until
they were halfway through the meal, and then took his courage in both
hands.
"Miss Bultiwell," he began, "I don't like your friends."
"Really?" she said. "I thought you were a great success with them."
"My popularity," he assured her drily, "is waning. I have annoyed Mr.
Mason by refusing to find the money for him to start a night club, Mr.
Hartwell by not buying some oil wells in Trinidad, and, in a lesser
degree, Lord Felixstowe by not jumping at the chance of engaging him
as my social mentor at a somewhat exorbitant salary."
"And Grace?"
"Lady Powers is dining with me on Sunday night," Jacob announced. "Her
schemes seem to need a little further formulation."
Sybil bit her lip.
"You are very rude about my friends."
"I am not rude at all, and they are not your friends."
"Surely I know best about that?" she demanded haughtily.
"You do," he admitted, "and you know perfectly well that in your heart
you agree with me and they are not your friends. Every one of them is
more or less an adventurer, and how you found your way into such
company I can't imagine."
"When did Grace ask you to take her out to dinner?" she enquired
irrelevantly.
"Lady Powers has been kind enough to suggest it several times," he
replied. "She thinks that it would give me confidence to dance in
public."
"You have quite enough confidence," Sybil declared, with some
asperity, "and as a matter of fact you dance too well to need any more
lessons."
"Are you giving up teaching?" he asked.
"That depends."
"You really mean to continue your association with these people? Mind,
I am speaking advisedly concerning them. Mason and Hartwell are both
well-known about town. They are adventurers pure and simple and
absolutely improper associates for you."
"I can take care of myself," Sybil assured him indifferently.
"But you ought not to be seen with such a crowd," he objected.
"Why not? I haven't the slightest objection to being called an
adventuress. I want to make money, and so far as money is concerned,
I have no conscience. I am a hopelessly incompetent clerk or
secretary, and I am keeping the chorus for a last resource."
"Why should you be an incompetent secretary?" he demanded.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose I haven't the temperament for service. I was dismissed from
my first two situations for what they called impertinence, and I had
to leave the third because all three partners tried to kiss me. I
didn't mind one," she went on reflectively, "but with all three it
grew monotonous."
"Brutes!" Jacob exclaimed fiercely.
"Oh, no, they were quite nice about it," she declared. "It isn't that
I mind being kissed particularly, but I hate it to come into the two
pounds a week arrangement. Besides, there is another fatal objection
to my being able to keep any post as a typist."
"What is it?" he asked.
"I simply cannot wear the clothes," she confessed.
He looked puzzled.
"I don't quite understand. You don't have to wear a uniform or
anything."
She looked at him pityingly.
"Look at me," she directed. "Now what would you say if I walked into
your office and asked for a post as typist at two or three pounds a
week?"
"Take you on like a shot," he assured her enthusiastically.
"Don't be silly. I don't mean personally. I am looking upon you as a
type. Well, supposing you did take me on, your wife would call down at
the office in a few days, look at me and call you to one side. I can
hear her whispering in your ear--'You must get rid of that girl.'"
"And just why?" he asked.
"I suppose you think that I am very plainly dressed?"
"You look very nice," he declared, glancing at her neat black and
white check tailormade suit, the smart hat, and remembering his
glimpse of her silk stockings and shapely black patent shoes as she
had come down the stairs; "very nice indeed, but you are dressed quite
plainly."
"The ignorance of men!" she sighed. "This costume I have on cost forty
guineas and came from one of the best places in London. My hat cost
twelve, and everything else I have on is in proportion. These are the
last remnants of my glory. Well, when I went down to the city, I had
to wear a blue serge costume I had bought ready-made, sort of hybrid
stockings which I hated, a hat of the neat variety, which means no
shape and no style, fabric gloves, and shoes from a ready-made shop. I
felt, day by day, just as though I were trying to play a hopeless part
in some private theatricals. I couldn't breathe. You see, I am not in
the least a heroine. I want the things I've been used to, somehow or
other."
"There is another alternative," Jacob ventured.
"You refer, I suppose, to marriage or its equivalent? As it happens,
however, I have peculiar views about sacrificing my liberty. I would
sooner give everything I have to a person I cared for than sell myself
to a person whom I disliked. Isn't that your bill?"
Jacob's fingers trembled a little as he drew out a note and laid it
upon the plate.
"I wonder why you dislike me so much," he speculated, as they waited
for his change.
She contemplated him indifferently.
"Does one discuss those things? Are you coming to Russell Square for
your lesson this afternoon?"
"It scarcely seems worth while," he sighed.
"I think you had better," she said, frowning. "They are expecting
you."
"They?" he repeated.
A little spot of colour burned in her cheeks. She looked away hastily.
"The lady with whom you are going to dine on Sunday night, for one,"
she reminded him.
There was a moment's silence. Jacob was perplexed.
"Are you going to be there?" he enquired.
"Yes!"
He glanced at his watch.
"We may as well go together, then," he suggested.
They walked up the stairs to the street, and he handed her into his
car, which was waiting. On their way to Russell Square she was
unusually silent. At the top of Shaftesbury Avenue she turned to him
abruptly.
"Perhaps you had better not come, after all," she said. "I will make
your excuses to Grace."
"I can take care of myself," Jacob replied.
Her eyes mocked him.
"You are quite sure?"
"Perfectly."
She shrugged her shoulders and made no other remark until they drew up
in front of the house in Russell Square. When he would have assisted
her to alight, she hesitated once more.
"Listen," she said, speaking with a curious jerkiness. "You were quite
right about Hartwell and Mason. They are adventurers--and they are
both waiting for you inside. They want your money very badly. We all
want it. Now don't you think you had better postpone your lesson?"
Jacob smiled confidently.
"What I have is yours for the asking," he declared. "It will be theirs
only if they can take it."
She suffered him to follow her into the house.