The _salons_ of Mrs. Marteen's elaborate apartment were gay with flowers
and palms, sweet with perfumes and throbbing with music. Dorothy, an
airy, dazzling figure in white, her face radiant with innocent
excitement, stood by her mother, whose marble beauty had warmed with
happiness as Galatea may have thrilled to life. Everyone who was anybody
crowded the rooms, laughing, gossiping, congratulating, nibbling at
dainties and sipping beverages. The throng ebbed, renewed, passed from
room to room, to return again for a final look at the lovely débutante
and a final word with her no less attractive mother. A dozen
distinguished men, both young and old, sought to ingratiate themselves,
but Dorothy's joyous heart beat only for the day itself--her coming out,
the launching of her little ship upon the bright waters frequented by
Sirens, Argonauts and other delightful and adventurous people hitherto
but shadow fictions. It was as exciting and wonderful as Christmas. She
had been showered with presents, buried in roses. Everyone was filled
with friendly thoughts of which she was the center. There was no envy,
hatred or malice in all the world.
Marcus Gard advanced into the drawing room, the sound of his name,
announced at the door, causing sudden and free passage to the center of
attraction. He beamed upon Mrs. Marteen with real pleasure in her
stately loveliness, and turned to Dorothy, who, her face alight with
greeting, came frankly toward him. From the moment of their first
meeting there had been instant understanding and liking. Gard took her
outstretched hands with an almost fatherly thrill.
"You are undoubtedly a pleasing sight, Miss Marteen," he smiled; "and a
long life and a merry one to you. Your daughter does you credit, dear
lady," he added, turning to his hostess.
Dorothy, bubbling over with enthusiasm, claimed his hand again. "It was
so sweet of you to send me that necklace in those wonderful flowers.
See--I'm wearing it." She fondled a slender seed pearl rope at her
throat. "Mother told me it was far too beautiful and I must send it
back. But I was most undutiful. I said I wouldn't--just wouldn't. I know
you picked it out for me yourself--now, didn't you?" He nodded somewhat
whimsically. "There! I told mother so; and it would be rude, most rude,
not to accept it--wouldn't it?"
He laughed gruffly. "It certainly would--and, really, you know your
mother has a mania for refusing things. Why, I owe her--never mind, I
won't tell you now--but I would have felt very much hurt, Miss
Debutante, if you'd thrown back my little present. I'm sure I selected
something quite modest and inconspicuous.... Dear me, I'm blocking the
whole doorway. Pardon me."
He stepped back, nodding here and there to an acquaintance. Finally
catching sight of his sister in the dining room, he joined her, and
stood for a moment gazing at the commonplace comedy of presentations.
Miss Gard yawned. "My dear Marcus, who ever heard of you attending a
tea? Really, I didn't know you knew these people so well."
Gard was glad of this opportunity. His sister had a praiseworthy manner
of distributing his slightest word--of which he not infrequently took
advantage.
"Well, you see, I was indebted to Marteen for a number of kindnesses in
the early days, though we'd rather drifted apart before he died--had
some slight business differences, in fact. But I'd like to do all I can
for his widow and that really sweet child of theirs. I have a small nest
egg in trust for her--some investments I advised Mrs. Marteen to make.
Who is that chap who's so devoted?" he asked suddenly, switching the
subject, as his quick eye noted the change of Dorothy's expression under
the admiring glances of a tall young man of athletic proportions, whose
face seemed strangely familiar.
Miss Gard lorgnetted. "That? Oh, that's only Teddy Mahr, Victor Mahr's
son. He was a famous 'whaleback'--I think that's what they call it--on
the Yale football team. They say that he's the one thing, besides
himself, that the old cormorant really cares about."
Marcus Gard stiffened, and his jaw protruded with a peculiar bunching of
the cheek muscles, characteristic of him in his moments of irritation.
He looked again at Dorothy, absorbed in the conversation of the
"whaleback" from Yale, recognized the visitor at the Denning box, and,
with an untranslatable grunt, abruptly took his departure, leaving his
sister to wonder over the strangeness of his actions.
Once out of the house, his anger blazed freely, and his chauffeur
received a lecture on the driving and care of machines that was as
undeserved as it was vigorous and emphatic.
Moved by a strange mingling of anger, curiosity and jealousy, Gard's
first act on entering his library was to telephone to a well known
detective agency--no surprising thing on his part, for not infrequently
he made use of their services to obtain sundry details as to the
movements of his opponents, and when, as often happened, cranks
threatened the thorny path of wealth and prominence, he had found
protection with the plain clothes men.
"Jordan," he growled over the wire, "I want Brencherly up here right
away. Is he there?....All right. I want some information he may be able
to give me offhand. If not--well, send him now."
He hung up the receiver and paced the room, his eyes on the rug, his
hands behind his back, disgusted and angry with his own anger and
disgust.
Half an hour had passed, when a young man of dapper appearance was
ushered in. Gard looked up, frowning, into the mild blue eyes of the
detective.
"Hello, Brencherly. Know Victor Mahr?"
"Yes," said the youth.
"Tell me about him," snapped Gard. "Sit down."
Brencherly sat. "Well, he's the head of the lumber people. Rated at six
millions. Got one son, named Theodore; went to Yale. Wife was Mary
Theobald, of Cincinnati--"
Gard interrupted. "I don't want the 'who's who,' Brencherly, or I
wouldn't have sent for you. I want to know the worst about him. Cut
loose."
"Well, his deals haven't been square, you know. He's had two or three
nasty suits against him; he's got more enemies than you can shake a
stick at. His confidential lawyer is Twickenbaur, the biggest scoundrel
unhung. Of course nobody knows that; Twickenbaur's reputation is too
bad--Mahr goes to _your_ lawyers, apparently."
"There isn't any blackmail in any of _that_," the older man snarled.
"Oh!" cried the youth, his blue eyes lighting. "Oh, it's blackmail you
want! Well, the only thing that looks that way is a story that nobody
has been able to substantiate. We heard it as we hear lots of things
that don't get out; but there was a yarn that Mahr was a bigamist; that
his first wife was living when he married Miss Theobald. She died when
the boy was born, and in that case she was never his legal wife, and of
course now never can be. The other woman's dead, too, they say; but
who's to prove it? That would be a fine tale for the coin, if anyone had
the goods to show."
"I suppose the office looked that up when they got it, didn't they? Good
for the coin, eh? What did you find?"