CHAPTER

I "The Professor" on a Spree

II The Prettiest Girl

III Friendly Strangers

IV An Unscrupulous Reformer

V Alicia and the Motives of Men

VI Stage-Setting

VII Boy and Girl

VIII Passages with Mayor Black

IX Aunt Mary

X A Senator Missing

XI Confessions of Waiter No. 73

XII Grapefruit and Telegrams

XIII A Change of Management

XIV Holding the Fort

XV Council of War

XVI The Senatorial Dinner

XVII A Devious Journey

XVIII Jennie

XIX A New Antagonist

XX An Eventful Supper Party

XXI Flash Lights

XXII Virtue Triumphant

XXIII Return

XXIV The Reform League

XXV Second Council of War

XXVI The Business of Being an Impostor

XXVII The Code Telegram

XXVIII Simpson as Detective

XXIX The Final Dilemma

XXX Mollie June

*MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND*

*CHAPTER I*

*"THE PROFESSOR" ON A SPREE*

John Merriam, Principal of the High School at Riceville,

Illinois--"Professor" Merriam, as he was universally called by the

citizens of Riceville--was wickedly, carnally, gloriously happy. He was

having an unwonted spree.

I fear the reader will be shocked. The principal of a high school, he

will say, has no right to a spree, even an occasional one. The

"Professor" has girl students in his classes--mostly girls, indeed, and

usually the prettiest ones in town--and women teachers under his

supervision. Every seventh day he teaches a young people's class in a

Sunday School. He makes addresses at meetings of the Y.P.S.C.E., the

Y.M.C.A., and other alphabetically designated societies that make for

righteousness and decorum. He should at all times and in all places be

a model, an exemplar, to the budding young men and women of the

community in general and his school in particular.

In this reasoning the reader is in strict accord with what the sentiment

of all Riceville would have been if it had known--if it could have

known.

Nevertheless, it is the regrettable and shocking fact that John Merriam

was sitting on that pleasant April evening in the Peacock Cabaret of the

Hotel De Soto in the wicked city of Chicago. He was attired in evening

clothes, a fact which, in itself would have seemed both odd and

reprehensible to Riceville, and he was alone at a tiny table with a

yellow-silk-shaded lamp. He had just been guided to that table, and

pending the arrival of a waiter, he was gazing eagerly, boyishly about

him at such delights as the somewhat garish Peacock Cabaret displayed.

For John Merriam, though a "professor," was young. He was only

twenty-eight. He was tall and blond and athletic, as young men who grow

up on farms in the Middle West and then go to college have a way of

being. And after his season of strenuous and highly virtuous labours at

Riceville he was really hungry, keen, for something--well, just a little

less virtuous.

A distinguished looking gentleman in a dinner jacket, conspicuously

labeled with a number, somewhat haughtily and negligently approached,

bearing a menu card.

About three paces away this gentleman, having glanced at young Merriam,

fairly stopped and stared at him. An odd expression showed upon his

face--an expression, one would almost have said, of intense animosity.

Then, as he still stared, one might have decided that his look betokened

perplexity. He winked his eyes several times and once more scrutinised

his waiting guest. At length--perhaps ten seconds had passed--his face

slowly, wonderingly cleared, his usual air of vacant indifference

returned, and he advanced and placed the menu card in Merriam's hands.

The latter, still drinking in the sights and sounds of his unaccustomed

environment, had noticed nothing.

Now it is always prudent to note a waiter's number when he first

presents himself, for in case he should decide to begin his summer

vacation immediately after taking your order you may need to mention his

number to the head waiter. In this case the number was 73.

The hauteur and negligence displayed were partly habitual--professional,

so to speak--but were intensified perhaps by the reaction from the

emotion, whatever it was, which he had apparently just

experienced--perhaps also by the look of alert and genuine pleasure on

Merriam's face. Such a look did not wholly commend itself or him to a

sophisticated metropolitan taste. What right had a patron of the

Peacock Cabaret to look really pleased? It was hardly decent--and

argued a small tip.

Inwardly Merriam, now aware of the waiter's presence, reacted acutely to

this clearly perceptible disdain. Which shows how young and how rural

he was. We maturer, urban folk are never, of course, in the least

nonplused by those contemptuous, blase silences of waiters who possess

the bearing and manner of a governor or a capitalist.

But John Merriam had been excellent in amateur dramatics at college, and

he now roused himself to a magnificent histrionic effort in the role of

"man of the world."

He pushed the menu card aside without looking at it.

"A clam cocktail, please, and a stein of beer," he murmured, low enough

to force the distinguished one to unbend slightly in order to catch the

words.

"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, with a tentative suggestion of respect

in his tone. A customer who did not bother to look at the menu might be

worth while after all.

"And then what?"

"I'll see how I feel then," said Merriam with a half yawn.

"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, almost courteously, and departed at a

pace slightly quickened over that of his approach, as a man strolling at

complete leisure will instinctively increase the tempo of his step if he

chances to recall a definite engagement on the day after to-morrow.

Merriam grinned delightedly. He had put it across--his little piece of

acting. He had measurably imposed his role on his audience of one; at

least he had shaken him.

And then--I shudder when I recall the views on nicotine of the Board of

Education at Riceville--he drew from his pocket a package of cigarettes,

and took a match from the table, and lit a cigarette, and sent a volume

of smoke out through his nostrils--proving, alas, that it was not his

first indulgence,--and, with a sigh that might almost be described as

ecstatic, turned his attention again to the scene about him.

That scene was piquant to him--after the ugly dining room of his

boarding house at Riceville and the barren assembly hall of the High

School--to a degree almost incredible to persons more habituated to the

Peacock Cabaret and similar resorts. Not being quite so fresh from

Riceville, nor yet the advertising manager of the Hotel De Soto, I

cannot, I fear, paint the prospect as Merriam saw it. I shall not be

able to conceal some mental reservations as to its charms. The purple

peacocks upon the walls and ceiling, from which the restaurant took its

name, were certainly a trifle over-gorgeous, just as the music which the

orchestra intermittently dispensed was too much syncopated. Again, the

scores of small tables, each with its silk-shaded lamp, its slim glass

vase for a single rosebud, its water bottle bearing the arms of the

Chevalier De Soto, and its ash receptacle--all alike as shoe boxes in a

shoe shop are alike,--might to a tired fancy suggest a certain monotony

of pleasure, a too-much-standardised, ready-made brand of bliss. The

small, skimped stage, with its undeniably banal curtain, and the crowded

dancing floor did not really promise unlimited delights. Some

perception of all this was apparent in the faces and bearing of many of

the white-shirt-fronted men who sat at the scores of tables and of the

women who were with them, however bird-of-paradise-like the raiment of

the latter might be. Not a few indeed displayed an air of languor and

ennui that might have won approval even from Waiter No. 73.

But in speaking thus of the Peacock Cabaret I am stepping outside my

story, violating unity of point of view--in short, committing a heinous

literary crime. For to Merriam at that moment the screaming purple

peacocks, the regiments of rosebuds, the musical comedy melodies, the

gay attire and bare shoulders of the women, and even the tired look of

his fellow-diners, which he interpreted as sophistication rather than

simple boredom, were thrillingly symbolical of all the delights which

the great world held and which were absent from Riceville. And when

Waiter No. 73 leisurely returned, to find him outwardly almost too near

asleep to keep his cigarette going, and deposited his clam cocktail and

the wicked stein before him, and at the same moment the orchestra became

more noisy than ever, and all the lights except those upon the tables

went out, and the stage curtain rose upon a short-skirted chorus, he was

really in a sort of Omar Khayyam paradise. It was lucky that Waiter No.

73 had again departed to those unknown regions where waiters spend the

bulk of their time, for Merriam could not have concealed the zest with

which he alternately ate and drank and surveyed the moderately comely

demoiselles upon the little stage.

Having finished his cocktail and drunk some of his beer and seen the

curtain descend on the first "act" of the cabaret's dramatic

entertainment, Merriam lit another cigarette, shifted his chair, and

settled himself to await the probable future return of his servitor.

His thoughts dwelt contentedly on the evening before him. For after his

meal he would have a stroll with a cigar in the spring twilight (it was

barely six-thirty then) through the noisy, brightly lighted streets of

the Loop, which never failed to thrill him with a sense of a somehow

wicked vastness, power, and riches in the great city of which they were

the center. And then he was going to the "Follies." He fingered the

small envelope in his pocket which held his ticket. And after the show

he would have a supper in another cabaret.

Beyond that he did not let his fancy wander. For after that there was

nothing for it but to catch the 2:00 A.M. train on the Illinois Central

that would carry him back to Riceville for the remaining six weeks of

the school year. He had come up to Chicago on this spring day--a

Tuesday it was--to attend a convention of high-school principals and to

engage a couple of new teachers for the next year, to replace two that

were to be married in June. And he had faithfully done these things.

And now he was giving himself just this one evening of amusement--two

cabaret meals and a "show," sauced, so to speak, with a little tobacco

and beer and the wearing of his evening clothes. Surely whatever

Riceville might have thought, he will not seem to most of us very

derelict from the austere ideals of his profession.

The only real point against him--most of us might argue--lies in the

fact that when, you touch even the outermost fringes of the night life

of a city, you are never quite certain what may come to you. For there

are things happening all about you, under the conventional, monotonous

surface--things amusing and things terrible--men and women playing with

the fire of every known human passion,--and if the finger of some

adventure reaches out for you you may not be able to resist its lure,

perhaps even to escape its clutch.

*CHAPTER II*

*THE PRETTIEST GIRL*

I have said that Merriam had shifted his chair a little as he lit his

second cigarette. A moment later he was looking very hard at a certain

pretty woman at a table half way across the room. His heart stopped.

At least that is the phrase a novelist seems to be required to use to

indicate the sudden pulse of amazement and pleasure and alarm which he

certainly felt.

The young woman at whom he was staring had a name which is very

important for this story and which I shall presently tell you, but in

John Merriam's mind her name was "the prettiest girl," and her other

name, which he seldom dared whisper to his heart, was "Mollie June."

She was from Riceville--hence the alarm with which his pleasure was

mixed,--and during his first four months of teaching, three years

before, she had been in his senior class in the High School--the

"prettiest girl" in the class and in the school and in the town--and in

the State and the United States and the world, if you had asked John

Merriam. Advanced algebra with Mollie June in the class had been the

most golden of sciences--pleasure squared, delight cubed, and bliss to

the _n_th power. I am not myself absolutely convinced of Mollie June's

proficiency in solving quadratic equations, yet the official records of

the Riceville High School show that she received the highest mark in the

class.

But she was the daughter of James P. Partridge, the owner of all

Riceville; that is to say, of the coal mines outside the town, of the

grain elevator, of the street car and electric light company, and of the

First National Bank. Who was John Merriam, the son of a poor farmer in

a southern county, who had worked his way through college and come out

with nothing but a B.S. degree, a football reputation that was quite

unnegotiable, and three hundred dollars of fraternity debts--an enormous

sum,--to mix anything warmer or livelier than a^2-b^2 in his thoughts of

a class to which Mollie June Partridge deigned to belong? Even if

Mollie June herself did come up to his desk in the assembly room two or

three times a week for help in her algebra and spend most of the time

asking him about college instead, and join his Young People's Class,

which she had previously refused to attend, and allow him to "see her

home" from church sociables, and compel that docile magnate, John P.

Partridge, her father, to invite the new "professor" to dinner twice

during the half year? As well almost might a humble tutor in the castle

of a feudal lord have raised his eyes to the baron's daughter.

Almost, but not quite. After all this is a free republic. Even a poor

pedagogue is a citizen with a vote and a potential candidate for the

presidency--which at least two poor pedagogues have attained. So John

Merriam permitted himself to be very happy during those four months and

was not in the least hopeless. Only he saw that he must bide his time.

But early in January Mollie June left school, and in a few days it came

out that she had left to be married--married to Senator Norman!

Senator Norman was the famous "boy senator" from Illinois--at the time

of his election the youngest man who had ever sat in the upper house of

Congress. The ruddiness of his cheeks, the abundance of his wavy blond

hair, and the athletic jauntiness of his carriage won votes whenever he

stumped the State. They went far to counteract malicious insinuations

as to the means by which he was rolling up a fortune and his solidity

with "interests" which the proletariat viewed with suspicion.

And now, having been a widower for eighteen months--his first wife was

older than he and had brought him money,--he had stayed for a week-end

during the Christmas holidays with James P. Partridge, who was a cousin

of the Senator's first wife and his political lieutenant for a certain

group of counties, and had seen Mollie June and wanted her and asked for

her and got her, as George Norman always asked for and got whatever he

wanted.

All this was, of course, in John Merriam's mind as he gazed across a

dozen tables in the Peacock Cabaret at the unchanged profile of the

prettiest girl--that is to say, Mrs. Senator Norman. And with it came

an acute revival of the desolation of that January and February at

Riceville, when he had perceived with the Hebrew sage that "in much

learning"--or in little, for that matter--"is much weariness," and that

algebra should have been buried with the medieval Arabians who invented

it--when even the State championship in basket ball, won by the

Riceville Five under his coaching, was only a trouble and a bore.

There is no doubt he stared rudely. At least it would have been rudely

if his eyes had held the look which eyes that stare at pretty women

commonly hold. But such a look as stood in Merriam's eyes can hardly be

rude, however intent and prolonged it may be.

He was merely entranced in the literal sense of that word. Her girlish

white shoulders--he had never seen her shoulders before--in Riceville

women no more have shoulders than they have legs--the soft brown hair

over her ears--even the mode of the day, which called for close net

effects and tight knobs, could not conceal its fine softness--the colour

in her cheeks, which unquestionably shamed all the neighbouring

rosebuds--the quite inexplicable deliciousness of those particular small

curves described by the lines of her nose and chin and throat as he saw

them in half profile--were more than he could draw his eyes away from

for an unconscionable number of seconds. Of her charmingly simple and

unquestionably very expensive frock as a separate fact, and of the thin,

pale, and elderly, but gorgeously arrayed woman who was her companion,

he had no clear perception, but undoubtedly they both contributed, along

with the lights and colours and music of the Peacock Cabaret, to the

deplorable confusion of his mind.

Out of that confusion there presently arose certain clear images and

tones and words, which made up his memory of the last time he had seen

and spoken with the present Mrs. Senator Norman.

It was at and after a miscellaneous kind of young people's entertainment

which occurred at the Methodist Church on the evening of that bitter day

on which the news of her engagement to Senator Norman had run like a

prairie fire through the streets and homes of Riceville, fiercely

incinerating all other topics of conversation, and consuming also the

joy in life, the ambition, the very youth, it seemed to him, of John

Merriam. He would not have gone to that entertainment if he could have

escaped. But there were to be charades, and he had arranged and coached

most of them and was to be in several. He "simply had to go," as

Ricevillians might have said.

She was there with her mother. When had she ever come just with her

mother, that is to say, without a male escort, before? That fact alone

was symbolical of the closing of the gates of matrimony upon her.

Naturally, in his pain he followed his primitive and childish instincts

and avoided her.

But he was aware--he was almost sure--of her eyes continually following

him throughout the evening, and during "refreshments" she deliberately

came up to him and said that her mother was obliged to leave early, and

would he see her home? Well, of course, if she asked him, he had to. I

am afraid that the tone if not the words of his reply said as much, and

Mollie June had turned away with quick tears in her eyes. Yet I

question whether she was really hurt by his rudeness. For why should he

be rude to-night when he had never been so before unless he--to use the

most expressive of Americanisms--"cared"?

For the rest of the evening, as a result of those tears, which he had

seen, it was his eyes that followed her, while hers avoided him. But he

did not speak with her again until "seeing-home" time arrived.

Mollie June lingered till the very end of everything. Perhaps the little

girl in her--for she was barely eighteen--clung to this last shred of

the familiar, homely social life of her girlhood before she should be

plunged into the frightful brilliance of real "society" in terrific

places known as Chicago and Washington--as a senator's wife!

But at last they were walking together towards her home.

"Take my arm, please," said Mollie June.

The boys in Riceville always take the girls' arms at night, though never

in the daytime. John ought to have taken her arm before. He took it.

"Have you heard that I am going to be married?" asked Mollie June--as if

she did not know that everybody in the county knew it by that time.

"Yes," said John, his tone as succinct as his monosyllable.

But girls learn early to deal with the conversational difficulties and

recalcitrances of males under stress of emotion.

"It means leaving school and Riceville and--everything," said Mollie

June.

John could not fail to catch the note of pitifulness in her sentence.

If the prospective marriage had been with any one less dazzling than

George Norman, he might have reacted more properly. As it was, he

replied with a stilted impersonality which might have been caught from

the bright stars shining through the bare branches under which they

walked.

"You will have a very rich and brilliant life," he said.

"I suppose so," said Mollie June.

They walked on, he still obediently clutching her arm, in silence;

conversation not accompaniable with laughter is so difficult an art for

youth.

Presently Mollie June tried again.

"Aren't you sorry I'm leaving the school--Mr. Merriam?"

"I'm very sorry indeed," responded "Professor" Merriam. "You ought to

have stayed to graduate."

"I don't care about graduating," said Mollie June.

Again their footsteps echoed in the cold January silence.

Then Mollie June made a third attempt:

"You look ever so much like Mr. Norman."

"I know it," said Merriam. "We're related."

"Oh, _are you_?"

"On my mother's side. We're second cousins. But the two branches of the

family have nothing to do with each other now."

"He has the same hair and the same shape of head and the same way of

sitting and moving," Mollie June declared with enthusiasm, "and almost

the same eyes and voice. Only his are----"

"Older!" said John Merriam rudely.

"Yes," said Mollie June.

Distances are not great in Riceville. For this reason the ceremony of

"seeing home" is usually termed by a circuitous route, sometimes

involving the entire circumference of the "nice" part of the town. But

on this occasion John and Mollie June had gone directly, as though their

object had been to arrive. They reached her home--a matter of two

blocks from the church-before another word had been said.

There Mollie June carefully extricated her arm from his mechanical grasp

and confronted him.

He looked at her face, peeping out of the fur collar of her coat in the

starlight, and for one instant into her eyes.

She was saying: "I am very grateful to you, Merriam, for all the help

you have given me--in--algebra."

He ought to have kissed her. She wanted him to. He half divined as

much--afterwards.

But the awkward, callow, Anglo-Saxon, rural, pedagogical cub in him

replied, "I am glad if I have been able to help you in anything."

That, I judge, was too much for Mollie June. She held out her little

gloved hand.

"Good-bye, Mr. Merriam!"

He took her hand. And now appears the advantage of a college education,

including amateur dramatics and courses in English poetry and romantic

fiction. He did what no other swain in Riceville could have done. He

raised her hand to his lips and kissed it! At least he kissed the glove

which tightly enclosed the hand.

"Good-bye, Mollie June!" he said, using that name for the first time.

Then he dropped her hand, somewhat suddenly, I fear, turned abruptly,

and walked rapidly away.

As to what Mollie June said or thought or felt, how should I know?

There was nothing for her to do but to go into the house, and that is

what she did.

*CHAPTER III*

*FRIENDLY STRANGERS*

John Merriam raised his eyes from the table-cloth on which they had

rested while these images from the distant past--two and one-half years

ago--moved across the screen of his memory. To his now mature

perceptions the stupidity and gaucherie of his own part in that

scene--save for the redeeming kissing of the glove--were clearly

apparent, and were for the moment almost as painful to him as the fact

that Mollie June was another man's wife.

He glanced around, avoiding only the table at which Mrs. Senator Norman

sat. The glory was gone from the Peacock Cabaret. The garishness of

the peacocks, the tin-panniness of the music, the futility of beer and

cigarettes and evening clothes, were desolatingly revealed to him. He

put his cigarette aside, to smoke itself up unregarded on the ash tray.

It had been his duty to "forget," and it is neither more nor less than

justice to say that after a fashion he had succeeded in doing so. His

winter and spring, three years ago, had been miserable; but he had

undeniably enjoyed his summer vacation, and had found interest in his

work again in the fall. To be sure, the edge was gone from his ambition.

He had stuck ploddingly at teaching, too indifferent to try to better

himself. Still he had not been actively unhappy. But now----

He was diverted by the return of Waiter No. 73. No need of play-acting

now to conceal any unsophisticated delight in his surroundings. But he

must pull himself together. He must not exhibit to the world, as

incarnated in Waiter No. 73, a depression as boyish as his previous

pleasure. He must still be the stoical, tranquil man of the world, who

knows women and tears them from his heart when need be. It was the same

role--with a difference!

"What next, sir?"

Merriam glanced hastily at the menu card and ordered a steak with French

fried potatoes and a lettuce-and-tomato salad. He was not up to an

attack on any unfamiliar viands.

As he gave his order he was aware of a party of three persons, seated a

little to his left--the opposite direction from the fateful spot

inhabited by Mollie June,--who seemed to be taking particular note of

him. And as he lit another cigarette after the waiter had left him he

noticed them again. Unquestionably they were furtively regarding him.

Now and then they exchanged remarks of which he was sure he was the

subject.

The three persons included a square-jawed man of about forty-five, a

pale, benevolent-looking priest and a very beautiful woman. The woman

had not only shoulders and arms but also a great deal of bosom and back,

all dazzlingly, powderedly fair and ideally plump. She had black hair

and eyes--brilliantly, even aggressively, black. Her gown was a

lavender silk net with spangles. Her age--well, she was certainly older

than Mollie June and certainly within, safely within, "the age at which

women cease to be interesting to men," whatever that age may be.

Our youthful man of the world was a little embarrassed at first by the

scrutiny of this gorgeous trio. He glanced quickly down at his own

attire, as a girl might have done. But there could be nothing wrong

with his evening clothes. (A man is so safe in that respect.) They

were only five years old, having been acquired, in a heroic burst of

extravagance, during his senior year in college. He wanted to put his

hand up to his white bow to make sure it was not askew, but restrained

himself.

Presently Merriam began to enjoy the attention he was receiving. If one

must play a part, it is pleasant to have an audience. It helped him to

keep his eyes off Mollie June. He began to give attention to the

smoking of his cigarette. He handled it with nonchalant grace. He

exhaled smoke through his nostrils. He recalled an envied

accomplishment of his college days and carefully blew a couple of

tolerably perfect smoke rings. And he wished that Mollie June would

turn and see him in his evening clothes.

Presently the clerical gentleman, after an earnest colloquy with the

square-jawed one, rose and came across to Merriam's table, while the

other two now openly watched.

The priest rested two white hands on the edge of the table and bent over

him with a friendly smile.

"Will you pardon a frank question from a stranger?" he asked.

"I guess a question won't hurt me," said Merriam.

At this simple reply the cleric straightened up quickly as if startled

and looked at Merriam closely and curiously. Then he said:

"Are you by any chance related to Senator Norman?"

"Yes, I am," said Merriam.

"May I ask what the relationship is?"

Merriam told him.

"Thank you," said the priest. "The resemblance is really remarkable.

And we saw you looking at Mrs. Norman. Do you know her?"

"Yes. I knew her before--before she--was married."

"I see. Thank you so much."

The inquisitive priest returned to his friends, who appeared to listen

intently to his report.

At the same time Waiter No. 73 arrived with Merriam's steak and salad.

He ate self-consciously, feeling himself still under observation from

the other table. But when he was half way through his salad his

attention was effectually distracted from those watchers. For Mollie

June and her companion had risen to go.

Merriam put down his fork and looked at her. She was really beautiful to

any eyes--so fresh and young and alive amid the tawdry ennui of her

surroundings, a human girl among the labouring ghosts of a _danse

macabre_. To Merriam she was--what you will--radiant, divine. He

wished he had not lost a moment from looking at her since he first saw

her.

A waiter had brought a fur cloak and now held it for her. As she

adjusted it about her shoulders she glanced around and saw Merriam.

For a moment she looked straight at him. Merriam would have sworn that

her colour heightened ever so little and then paled. She smiled a

mechanical little smile, bowed slightly, spoke to her companion, and

threaded her way quickly among tables to an exit.

"I beg your pardon!"

Merriam started and looked up--to find the black-eyed, white-bosomed

woman from the other table standing beside him. He was conscious of a

faint fragrance, which a more sophisticated person would have recognised

as that of an extremely expensive perfume, widely advertised under the

name of a famous opera singer.

He rose mechanically, dropping his napkin.

"No, no," she smiled. "Won't you sit down--and let me sit down a

moment, too?"

She took the chair opposite him.

"My name is Alicia Wayward," she said. There was a kind of deliberate

sweetness in her tone.

John Merriam got back somehow into his chair and looked at her, but did

not reply. His eyes saw the face of Mollie June, peeping out of her

furs, as on that last night at Riceville, her changing colour, her

mechanical smile, and the hurrying away without giving him a chance to

go to her for a single word.

"Won't you tell me your name?" said Alicia, with the barest suggestion

in her voice of sharpness in the midst of sweet.

"John Merriam."

"And you are a second cousin of Senator Norman?"

"Yes."

"I am an old friend of Senator Norman's," said Alicia. "We are all

friends of his." She nodded towards the other table. "And we should

very much like to have a little private talk with you about a very

important matter.--How do you do, Simpson?"

Merriam looked up again. Waiter No. 73 was standing over them. But he

was a transformed being. The ramrod had somehow been extracted from his

spine, and his stern features were transfigured in an expression of

happy and ingratiating servility.

"Very well, Miss Alicia," he said.

"Simpson used to be my father's butler," explained Miss Wayward. "We've

never had so a butler since."

"Thank you, Miss Alicia," said Simpson fervently.

"Send me the head waiter," said Miss Wayward.

"Yes, Miss Alicia," and Simpson departed almost with alacrity.

"You are just ready for your dessert, I see," said Alicia. "I am going

to ask the head waiter to change us both to one of the private rooms and

give us Simpson to wait on us. Then I can present you to my friends,

and we can have the private talk I spoke of. You don't mind, do you?"

Merriam thought of the "Follies." But the idea of the "Follies" bored

him after seeing Mollie June. And one cannot refuse a lady. He

recaptured some fraction of his manners.

"I shall be pleased," he said.

"Thank you," said Alicia, with augmented sweetness.

*CHAPTER IV*

*AN UNSCRUPULOUS REFORMER*

The head waiter arrived. Could they be removed to a private

dining-room? Most certainly they could. Yes, Simpson should serve

them. Obviously anything that Miss Alicia Wayward desired could be done,

must be done, and it was done.

They ordered ices and _cafe noir_.

"And a liqueur?" suggested Alicia.

Merriam assented.

"What should you prefer?"

Now Merriam knew the name of just one liqueur. He made prompt use of

that solitary scrap of information.

"Benedictine, perhaps," he suggested, as who should say, "Out of all the

world's vintages my mature choice among liqueurs is Benedictine."

"Good," smiled Alicia. (I am afraid she was not effectually deceived.)

Merriam was introduced first to Father Murray.

"He isn't a real Father," said Alicia. "He's not a Romanist. Only a

paltry Anglican. But he's so very, very High Church that a layman can

hardly tell the difference."

Father Murray was deprecatory but unruffled. A Christian priest must

forgive all things.

"This is Mr. Philip Rockwell of the Reform League," said Alicia. "His

fame has doubtless reached you. 'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.'"

His fame had not reached Merriam, but the latter bowed and shook hands

as though it had, instinctively meeting the stare in the other man's

eyes with an unblinking steadiness of his own.

After the introductions Merriam glanced about him with perhaps

insufficiently concealed curiosity. He had never been in a private

dining-room before, and this adventure was beginning to interest him. It

was better than spending his evening--his one evening--in sad thoughts

of Mollie June.

The room was just large enough to afford comfortable space for a table

for four persons, with a small sideboard to serve from. It was really

rather pretty. Subdued purple hangings at the door and windows and a

frieze of small peacocks above the plate rail indicated its affiliation,

so to speak, with the Peacock Cabaret. There were attractive French

prints in garland frames on the walls. The table was charmingly laid,

with a bowl of yellow roses in the center, and the ices were already

served. On the sideboard the coffee in a silver pot was bubbling over

an alcohol flame, and there was a long bottle which Merriam correctly

interpreted as the container of his choice among liqueurs.

"This is much cosier, isn't it?" said Alicia.

She took the head of the table.

"Father Murray shall sit opposite me," she said, "to see that I behave.

You, Mr. Merriman, shall sit on my right, as the guest of honour. That

leaves this place for you, Philip. Reformers must be content with what

they can get."

Merriam mustered the gallantry to hold Alicia's chair for her, and was

warmed by the approving smile with which she thanked him. He had not

especially liked Alicia at first, but she grew upon him.

They consumed ices, and Alicia conversed, in the sprightly fashion she

affected, with Merriam. The other two men hardly participated at all.

In the course of that conversation Alicia artlessly, tactfully, but

efficiently pumped Merriam. By the time Simpson was pouring the

sweet-scented wine into thimble-like glasses she--and her

companions--were in possession of all the substantial facts of his brief

biography and had guessed the secret of his heart. They knew of his

boyhood on the farm, of his father's death, and his mother's a few years

later, of his college days, with something of their athletic, dramatic,

and fraternity incidents, of his teaching at Riceville, of the Riceville

football and basket-ball teams, of the occasion for this trip to

Chicago--and of Mollie June.

At length the sherbet glasses were removed and some of the coffees,

including Merriam's, refilled, and they all lit cigarettes. Merriam was

pleasantly startled when Alicia too took a cigarette. He had read, of

course, of women smoking, but he had never seen it, or expected to see

it with his own eyes, except on the stage. It was more shocking to his

secret soul than any amount of bosom and back.

"You need not wait, Simpson," said Alicia. "We'll ring if we need you

again."

When the waiter had withdrawn Philip Rockwell took the center of the

stage. He tilted back in his chair and abruptly began to talk. Part of

the time he looked straight ahead of him as if addressing an audience,

but now and again he turned his head and aimed his discourse straight at

Merriam. He made only a pretence of smoking.

"Mr. Merriam," he said, "by a curious chance--a freak of nature, as it

were--you, who have thus far taken no part in the politics of the State

and Nation, are in a position to render a great service this very night

to the cause of Reform and incidentally to Senator and Mrs. Norman."

"How so?" said Merriam. He was rather on his guard against Mr. Philip

Rockwell.

"It is a long story, perhaps," said that gentleman. "I gathered when we

were introduced that you had heard of me. But I was not sure how much

you have heard. I am at the present time the President of the Reform

League of this city and its guiding and moving spirit."

"And endowed with the superb modesty so characteristic of reformers,"

interjected Alicia.

The reformer paid no attention to this frivolous parenthesis.

"Miss Wayward," he continued, "alluded earlier to my

sobriquet--'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.' The epithet was first

applied to me derisively by opposition newspapers. But it is a true

description. Indeed it was derived from my frequent use of the phrase

in my own speeches. I believe that to be successful, practically

successful, Reform must center its efforts on one thing at a time--not

waste its energies, its munitions, so to speak, by bombarding the whole

entrenched line of evil and privilege at once, but concentrate its fire

on one exposed position after another--take that one

position--accomplish finally one definite thing--and then go on to some

other one definite thing. Do you get me?"

Merriam signified that he comprehended.

Father Murray was more enthusiastic. "It is a truly splendid idea," he

volunteered. "Since we have adopted it, under the leadership of Mr.

Rockwell, the Reform League has really begun to do things. _To do

things!_" he repeated, with an almost mysterious emphasis.

"At the present time," Rockwell resumed, "the one thing which the Reform

League is undertaking to _do_ is to secure decent traction conditions in

this city--adequate service. We have so far succeeded that we have

forced an unfriendly city council to pass the new Traction Ordinance.

You are familiar with the new Ordinance, Mr. Merriam?"

"Yes," said Merriam. By which we must suppose he meant that he had read

headlines about it in the Chicago papers.

"Those rascals," continued Rockwell, "never would have passed it--the

men who own them would never have permitted them to pass it, no matter

how unmistakable the demand of the people might be,--if they had not

counted on one thing."

Merriam perceived that an interrogation was demanded of him and took his

cue.

"What is that?" he asked.

"They are counting," said Rockwell impressively, "they are counting on

Mayor Black. They have believed the whole time that he can be depended

on to veto it. And they are right! The scoundrels usually are. The

Mayor, as every one knows, is a mere puppet. He will do as he is told.

Only, the League has made such a stir, the people are so tremendously

aroused, that he is frightened. And so, before acting, before writing

the veto, which he has sense enough to see is likely to mean political

suicide, he is coming here to-night to see Senator Norman, to get his

instructions. That's what it amounts to. Norman holds the State

machine in the hollow of his hand. If Norman tells him to veto, Black

will veto. It may be bad for him with the voters if he does it, but it

would be certain political death for a man like him to cross Norman.

_And Norman will say, 'Veto!'_"

"I see," said Merriam.

Which was hardly true; he did not as yet see an inch ahead of his nose

into this thing, but he thought it sounded well.

"Where do I come in, though?" he added, belying his assumption of

sagacity.

"That's my very next point," said Rockwell.

His chair came down on all fours. He squared it to the table, laid his

neglected cigarette aside, put his arms on the cloth, and looked very

straight at Merriam.

"Are you aware, Mr. Merriam, that you bear a most striking physical

resemblance to Senator Norman?"

"I have been told so," said Merriam. "My mother often spoke of it.

And--Mrs. Norman mentioned it to me before she was married. I have seen

his pictures, of course, in the papers. I have never seen him in

person." (This was true, for John Merriam had, quite inexcusably,

stayed away from Mollie June's wedding.)

"He has never seen you, then?"

"He probably doesn't know of my existence."

"So much the better," said Rockwell. "The only difficulty then is Mrs.

Norman. And she can be eliminated."

This facile elimination of Mollie June did not make an irresistible

appeal to Merriam, but he held his tongue.

Alicia Wayward saw the reformer's mistake.

"Mr. Rockwell means," she threw in, "that Mrs. Norman can be shielded

from the difficulties of the situation."

"Exactly," said Rockwell quickly. "Mr. Merriam," he continued, "if you

have never seen the Senator with your own eyes, you can have no

realisation of the closeness of your resemblance to him. Hair, eyes,

nose, mouth, size, carriage, manner, movement--it is truly wonderful.

And it is the same with your voice. Father Murray here says he fairly

jumped when you first spoke to him out in the Cabaret when he went over

to question you."

"He also says," interrupted Alicia, as if mischievously, "that it is

Providential."

"Please do not be irreverent, Miss Alicia," said the priest. "It does

surely seem Providential--on this night of all nights. It surely seems

so."

"Well," said Merriam, a trifle bluntly perhaps, "I don't know what you

mean by that. If my cousin and I look so much alike as you say, no

doubt it's quite remarkable. Still such things happen often enough in

families. What of it?"

"I have explained," said Rockwell, with an air of much patience, "that

Mayor Black is coming here, to this hotel, to-night, to see Senator

Norman about the Ordinance, and that Norman will order him to veto it.

We thought we had Norman fixed, but he has gone over to the magnates--as

he always does in the end! Black will do as he is bid, and it will be a

death blow. We can never pass it over his veto. It means the total

ruin of five years of work, involving the expenditure of tens of

thousands of dollars. And the cause of Reform in this city will be dead

for years to come. The League will never survive, if we fail at this

last ditch. It will collapse."

"In short," said Alicia sweetly, "Mr. Rockwell himself will collapse."

Rockwell took no heed of her.

"Half an hour ago," he said, "I was sitting yonder in the Cabaret,

dining with Miss Wayward and Father Murray. I was eating turtle soup

and olives"--he laughed theatrically,--"but I was a desperate man. I

had no hope, no interest left in life. Then I looked up and saw you.

At first I mistook you for Senator Norman--even I, who have known the

old hypocrite for a dozen years. I stared at you, wondering whether I

should go over and make one last personal appeal to you--to him. And

then I realised that you could not be he. For I knew positively that he

was dining in his room. I looked closer. I saw that you were really a

younger man--not that massaged, laced old roue. I stared on in my

amazement, till Miss Wayward and Father Murray looked too, and Miss

Wayward said, 'Why, there's Senator Norman now.' 'By God!' said I,

'perhaps it is!' Do you see, Mr. Merriam?"

"No," said Merriam, "I don't."

"Ah, but you will, you must," said Rockwell. "Listen!" He looked at his

watch. "It is now twenty minutes past seven. Norman is dining in his

room. There is a man with him, a Mr. Crockett--one of the dozen men who

own Chicago. He is as much interested in the Ordinance as I am--on the

other side. He is giving Norman his instructions, for the Senator is

Crockett's puppet, of course, as much as the Mayor is Norman's.

Crockett will leave promptly at a quarter to eight. Mayor Black is due

at eight."

"How do you know these things?" interrupted Merriam.

"It is my business to know things," said Rockwell. "The fact is," he

added, "I planned to burst in on Norman and Black at their conference

and threaten them in the name of the Reform League. It would have done

no good, but I owed that much to the League."

"And to yourself," said Alicia softly.

"And to myself, yes!" said Rockwell, infinitesimally pricked at last.

But he hurried on:

"At ten minutes to eight, Mr. Merriam, I will telephone Norman. I will

pretend to be old Schubert, the Mayor's private secretary. He has a

dry, clipped voice that is easy to imitate. I will say that the Mayor

is sick at his house. I will imply that he is drunk. He often is. I

will say he is not too sick to veto the Ordinance before the Council

meets at nine, but that he insists on seeing Senator Norman before he

does it and asks that Norman come out to his house. I will say that I

am sending a car for him. Norman will curse, but he will go. He is

under orders, too, you see. At five minutes to eight we will send up

word that Mayor Black's car is waiting for Senator Norman. There will

be a car waiting. The driver will be Simpson."

"I can fix it with the hotel people to get him off," said Alicia in

response to a look from Merriam. "He was a chauffeur once for a

while.--And he will do anything I ask him to," she added.

"Norman will go down and get into that car. He will be driven, not to

the Mayor's house, of course, but to--a certain flat, where he will be

detained for several hours--very possibly all night."

"By force?" asked Merriam, rather sternly.

"Only by force of the affections," said Rockwell suavely. "The flat

belongs, for the time being, to a certain young woman, a manicurist by

profession, who is undoubtedly very pretty and in whom Norman--takes an

interest. I happen to know that he pays the rent of the flat."

Rockwell paused, but Merriam made no reply. He blushed, subcutaneously

at any rate, for Alicia and Father Murray. The latter indeed affected

inattention to this portion of Mr. Rockwell's discourse. But Alicia

Wayward made no pretence of either misunderstanding or horror.

In Merriam's mind a slight embarrassment quickly gave place to anger.

That George Norman after three years--how much sooner who could

tell?--should leave Mollie June for a--his mind paused before a word too

ancient and too frank for professorial sensibilities.

Rockwell quickly resumed:

"As soon as Norman has gone I will take you to his room. We will put

his famous crimson smoking jacket on you and establish you in his big

armchair with a cigar and some whiskey and soda beside you. When Black

comes he will find Senator Norman--you. All you will have to do is to

be curt and sulky, damn him a bit, and tell him to sign the Ordinance.

He'll never suspect you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't know the

Senator well--never spoke with him privately above three times in his

life. We'll have only side lights on. He won't stay. He'll be

mightily relieved about the Ordinance and in a hurry to get away. Then

you yourself can get away and catch your train for--for----"

"Riceville," supplied Alicia.

"That will be a real adventure for you, young man, and you will have

saved the cause of Reform in the city of Chicago!"

John Merriam smiled, frostily.

"The reasons, then, Mr. Rockwell, why I should fraudulently impersonate

a Senator of the United States, who happens to be my cousin, and in his

name act in an important matter directly contrary to his own wishes are

for the fun of the adventure and to save your Reform League from a

setback. Is that correct?"

"Philip," said Alicia quickly, "you and Father Murray go for a walk. I

want to have a little talk with Mr. Merriam alone. Come back in twenty

minutes."

The implication of her last phrase was distinctly flattering to Merriam

if he had understood it. Alicia Wayward would not have asked for more

than ten minutes with most men.

Rockwell smiled with lowered eyelids--a smile which it was certainly a

mistake for him to permit himself, for it could not and did not fail to

put Merriam on his guard--against Alicia.

"Come, Murray," said Rockwell rising, "I should like a breath of real

air, shouldn't you? And when Miss Wayward commands----" He waved his

hand grandly. "Au revoir!"

And he and the priest hastily departed.

*CHAPTER V*

*ALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN*

"Take another cigarette, won't you, Mr. Merriam?" said Alicia, as the

curtain at the door fell behind Rockwell and Father Murray.

"Thank you," said Merriam.

He was excited, of course. All the stimulations of his evening,

including more coffee than he was used to and an unaccustomed taste of

wine and mystery and intrigue, could not fail to tell on the blood of

youth. But he felt extraordinarily calm, and he was not in the least

afraid of Alicia. He had not fully made up his mind about the proposed

adventure, but Alicia knew several things about the wantings of men.

"Let me light it for you," she pursued.

She struck a match, which somehow she already had out of its box, put

out a white hand and arm, took the cigarette from his fingers, put it to

her own lips and lighted it, and handed it back to him.

"Thank you," said Merriam again, just a little confused. Hesitatingly,

with an undeniable trace of thrill, he put the cigarette to his own

lips. Poor boy! It was an uneven contest!

Alicia deftly moved her chair to the corner of the table, bringing it

not very close but much closer to Merriam's. Close enough for him to

catch the faint, unfamiliar perfume. She put out her hand again and

drew one of the yellow roses from their bowl. She rested both arms on

the table and played with the rose, drawing it through her fingers and

up and down one white, rounded forearm.

"Mr. Merriam," she said, "perhaps you have wondered why I am in this

thing."

As a matter of fact he had neglected to be curious on that point, but

now he was.

"Yes," he said.

"Mr. Rockwell converted me. Oh, I can see you don't like him. You

think he is hard and unscrupulous and self-seeking. Well, he is. All

men are--at least, almost all men are"--she glanced at Merriam. "But he

is a genuine reformer for all that. He is heart and soul for what he

calls the People. He works tremendously for them all his time. And he

is shrewd and fearless."

Now it is probable that Alicia's little character sketch presented a

very just picture of Philip Rockwell. But it did not appeal to Merriam

as true, much less as likable. He was too young. He still wanted his

heroes all heroic and his villains naught but black and red with almost

visible horns and tail.

He did not reply. He could not, however, remove his eyes from the

felicitous meanderings of the yellow rose.

"Well," sighed Alicia, "I was going to tell you how Mr. Rockwell

converted me. You see, my father--but you don't know who my father is,

do you? The newspapers always refer to him us 'the billionaire brewer.'

They like the alliteration, I suppose. He's very busy now converting

all his plants for the manufacture of near-beer." (She laughed as if

that were a good joke.) "His youngest sister, my Aunt Geraldine, was

Senator Norman's first wife. So I know George Norman well. I was quite

a favourite of his when he used to come to our house before poor Aunt

Jerry died. So Philip wanted me to 'use my influence' with Mr. Norman

about his precious Ordinance. I wasn't much interested at first. I

hadn't ridden in a street car, of course, in years."

"Hadn't you?" said Merriam, quite at a loss.

"No. When I go out I take either the limousine or the electric. So I

really didn't know much about conditions, except, of course, from the

cartoons about strap-hangers in the newspapers. Philip saw that that

was why I was unsympathetic. So he dared me to go for a street-car ride

with him. Of course I wouldn't take a dare.

"It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. We took the limousine down

to Wabash and Madison. There Philip made me get out on the street

corner. It was horrid weather--a cold, blowy spring rain. But Philip was

hard as a rock. He told the chauffeur to drive to the corner of Cottage

Grove and Thirty-Ninth Street and wait for us. And _we_ waited for a

car. It was terrible. We stood out in the street under the

Elevated--by one of the posts, you know--for a little protection from

the train. We hadn't any umbrella. The wind tore at my skirts and my

hair. The trains going by overhead nearly burst your ears with noise.

And automobiles and great motor trucks crashed past within a few inches

of us and splashed mud and nearly stifled us with gasoline smells. And

a crowd of other people got around us and knocked into us and walked on

our feet and stuck umbrellas in our eyes. For a long time no car at all

came. Then three or four came together, but they were all jammed full

to the steps, so that we couldn't get on.

"I was ready to give up. I told Philip so.

"'Let's go into Mandel's,' I begged, 'and you can call a taxi.'

"'No you don't,' he said. 'Here, we can get on this one.'

"Another car had stopped about twenty feet from us. We joined a kind of

football rush for the rear end. I tripped on my skirt when I tried to

climb the steps, but Philip caught me by the arm and dragged me on, as

though I had been a sack of flour.

"Then for a long time we couldn't get inside but had to stand on the

platform wedged like olives in a bottle. It was so dark and cold and

noisy, and everybody was so wet and crushed and smelly. A man beside me

smelled so strong of tobacco and whiskey and of--not having had a bath

for a long time, that I was nearly ill. And I thought a poor little

shop girl on the other side of me was going to faint.

"After a long time some people got out at the other end of the car--at

Twelfth Street, Philip says,--and some of us squeezed inside into the

crowded aisle. Inside it was warm--hot, in fact,--but still smellier.

Philip got me a strap, and I hung on to it. I don't care for

strap-hanger jokes any more. It's terribly tiring, and it pulls your

waist all out of shape.

"'Bet you won't get a seat,' grinned Philip.

"Of course I was bound then that I would. I looked about. Some of the

men who were seated were reading papers the way they are in the

cartoons. Others just sat and stared in front of them. I didn't blame

them much. They looked tired, too. But I had to get a seat to spite

Philip. The young man in the one before which I was standing, or

hanging, looked rather nice. I made up my mind to get his seat. I had

to look down inside his newspaper and crowd against his legs. At last,

after looking up at me three or four times, he got up with a jerk as if

he had just noticed me and took off his hat, and I smiled at him and at

Philip and sat down. But he kept staring at me so that I wished I had

let him alone.

"I made the poor little shop girl sit on my lap. Nobody gave her a seat.

I suppose she wouldn't work for it the way I did. She was a pretty

little thing, too. Just a tiny bit like Mollie June Norman. Not so

pretty, of course, but the same type.

"Then there was nothing to do but wait till we got to Thirty-Ninth

Street. Ages and ages. They ought to have been able to go to the South

Pole and back.

"When we did get there I put the little girl in my seat--she was going

to Eighty-First Street, poor little thing,--and Philip and I got out and

went home in the limousine, and he told me all about how the Ordinance

would better things, and I promised to help him if I could."

"And you did?" said Merriam. He was touched--whether by Alicia's own

sufferings in the course of her remarkable exploration or by those of

the little shop girl who looked like Mollie June, does not, perhaps,

matter. He now quite fully liked Alicia. He saw that, in spite of her

extreme decollete and her cigarettes, she had a generous heart.

"I tried to," replied Alicia. "I saw George Norman, and I did my

best--my very best. But he wouldn't promise anything. He only laughed

and tried to kiss me."

"Tried to kiss you!" echoed Merriam, naively aghast.

"Yes," said Alicia, with her eyes demurely on the rose between her

fingers.

And John Merriam, looking at her, grasped clearly the possibility that a

"boy senator" with whom Alicia had done her very best might try to kiss

her.

"So that is one reason why I am in it to the death," Alicia went on,

"because George Norman--wouldn't listen to me. And I don't want Philip

to fail."

She laid one hand quickly over one of Merriam's hands, startling him so

that he nearly drew his away. "I love him," she said, and her eyes

shone effulgently into Merriam's. "He hasn't much money, and he is hard

and--and conceited, but he is courageous. He dares anything. He dared

to take me on that street-car ride. He would dare to burst in on the

Senator and Mayor Black to-night. He dares think up this plan. A woman

loves a Man."

There is no doubt that Alicia pronounced "man" with a capital letter,

and she looked challengingly at Merriam.

"We are to be married next month," she added.

"Oh!" gasped Merriam, his eyes staring in spite of himself at her hand

that lay on his.

The hand flew away as quickly as it had alighted, but he still felt its

soft coolness on his fingers as she said:

"Of course all this is why _I_ am in it, not why you should be. You

can't do it just to please me. But you really ought to think of all

those poor people, like the little shop girl--all the tired men and

women--millions of them, Philip says--who have to endure that torture

every night after long days of hard work. It's truly awful, and it

might all be so much better if we only got the Ordinance. You could get

it for them in one little half hour!"

She looked hopefully at Merriam. He was in fact hesitant. To have the

fun of the thing, to gratify this strange, attractive Alicia, and to

render an important service to the population of a great city--it was

tempting.

"There's another thing," Alicia hurried on. "You knew Mollie June

Norman. She was one of your students. I think you ought to do it for

her sake."

"Why so?" Merriam's question came swift and sharp.

"Because if Senator Norman kills the Ordinance it will be his ruin. It

will cost him Chicago's vote in the next election, and he can't win on

the Down-State vote alone."

"I thought Rockwell said the League would collapse."

Possibly Alicia had forgotten this. But she only shrugged her

shoulders.

"It may or it mayn't. But either way the people are aroused. Philip

swears they will beat Norman if he betrays them now. He is sure they

can and will. And if the 'boy senator' were unseated and had to retire

to private life it would be terrible for Mollie June. He's bad enough

to live with as it is."

At this point Merriam was visited by a sudden and splendid idea. Since

he did not disclose it to Alicia, I feel in honour bound to conceal it

for the present from the reader.

Alicia detected its presence in his eyes and judiciously kept silent.

It took about ten seconds for that idea to grow from nothingness into

full flower. For perhaps five seconds longer Merriam inwardly

contemplated its unique beauty. Then he said:

"I'll do it!"

*CHAPTER VI*

*STAGE-SETTING*

Alicia gave him no time for reconsideration or after-thoughts.

"Good!" she cried, "I was sure you would."

She was on her feet in an instant, and as he got to his she held out her

hand. Merriam took it--to shake hands on their bargain was his thought.

But Alicia never exactly shook hands. She touched or pressed or

squeezed according to circumstances. On this occasion it was a warm,

clinging squeeze. Her other hand patted Merriam's shoulder.

"I was sure you would," she repeated. "No Man"--again the capital

letter was unmistakable--"could have resisted--the--the opportunity."

The curtain at the door was lifted, and Philip Rockwell's voice said:

"May I come in? The twenty minutes are up."

They were. Just up. Alicia had done her part in exactly the fraction

of an hour she had given herself. No vaudeville act could have been

more precisely timed.

"Yes. Come in, dear," said Alicia. "Mr. Merriam will do it. We were

just shaking hands on it."

Rockwell crossed the room in a rush and caught Merriam's hand as Alicia

relinquished it. He pumped vigorously. In his eyes shone the

unmistakable light of that genuine enthusiasm which Alicia had described

to her skeptical auditor.

"You're the right sort," he cried. "You are doing a great thing, Mr.

Merriam. You will never regret it. But I can't thank you now," he

added, dropping Merriam's hand in mid-air, so to speak. "It's ten

minutes of eight. That money-bag, Crockett, came out of the elevator

just before I came back. I have a car at the Ladies' Entrance."

"With Simpson?" asked Alicia.

"Yes. I had to get things ready. The time was so short. I fixed the

head waiter. Simpson seemed ready enough. Has some old grudge against

Norman, I think."

"Yes," said Alicia, "he has. I'm a little afraid--I wish I could have

seen him. Never mind. It can't be helped. Where's Father Murray?"

"Watching to buttonhole the Mayor if he should come too soon."

He looked critically for a moment at Merriam, seemed satisfied, and

crossed to the telephone on the sideboard.

"I'll ring up the curtain," he said.

He laughed boyishly in his excitement and new hope. He seemed very

different now from the hard-eyed, middle-aged fellow of an hour ago.

Merriam saw how Alicia might admire him.

"Give me Room Three-Two-Three," he said into the telephone, his eyes

smiling at them.

A moment later a harsh, dry old man's voice was saying:

"Is this Senator Norman?--This is Mr. Schubert, private secretary to

Mayor Black. The Mayor is sick.--I can't help it, sir. He's sick all

right. He's out here at his house.--Yes, he can veto the Ordinance all

right if it's necessary. But he won't do it without seeing you first.

He wants you to come out. He's sent a car for you. It ought to be down

there at the Ladies' Entrance by now.--No, it won't do any good to call

him up. I'm here at his house now. He's in bed. And he won't veto

unless he sees you. Really, sir, if you'll pardon me, you'd better

come.--Thank you, sir!"

Rockwell clicked the receiver triumphantly into its hook.

"That's done," he said. "Alicia, dear, go up to the lobby on the

women's side and watch the hallway leading to the Ladies' Entrance.

Norman should pass out that way within five minutes. Follow him far

enough to make sure that Simpson gets him. And then let us know.

Meanwhile I'll coach Mr. Merriam a little."

"Right," said Alicia.

She moved to the door. The eyes of both men followed her. When Alicia

moved the eyes of men did follow. And she knew it. At the doorway she

turned and blew a kiss, which might be said to fall with gracious

impartiality between her lover and the younger man. It was a pretty

exit.

"She's a splendid girl," said Rockwell, his eyes lingering on the

curtain that had cut her off from them.

"Yes," said Merriam.

Rockwell, still by the sideboard, reached for the long bottle.

"Have another glass of this?"

"I don't mind," said Merriam. The fact is, a bit of stage fright had

come in for him when Alicia went out.

"There's not much I can tell you," Rockwell said, as he poured out the

yellow fluid. "You'll have to depend mostly on the inspiration of the

moment. You look the part all right. Your voice is all right, too. Act

as grumpy as you like. Damn him about a bit.--You can swear?" he asked

hastily. A sudden horrible doubt of pedagogical capabilities had

crossed his mind.

Now Merriam was not a profane man, but some of his fraternity brethren

had been. Also he remembered the vituperative exploits of his football

coach between halves when the game was going badly.

"Swear?" he cried, as harshly as possible. "Of course I can swear, you

damn fool!"

For three seconds Rockwell was startled. Then he laughed.

"Fine!" he cried. "You'll do it! All there is to it, really, is to

tell him to sign the Ordinance and to get out. He may ask about

Crockett. If he wants to know why he's changed his mind, tell him it's

none of his damn business. If he refers to a Madame Couteau, you must

look pleased. She's the pretty little manicurist whom Norman will be on

his way to visit. Black knows of that affair, and he knows Norman likes

to talk about it. So he may drag it in with the idea of getting on your

blind side. You can tell him to shut up, of course, but you must act

gratified."

"Yes," said Merriam in a noncommittal tone.

But Rockwell did not notice. He was sipping the Benedictine, with his

mind on his problem.

"That's all I can think of," he said in a moment. "I'll be in the next

room--the bedroom of the suite, you know,--and if you should get into

deep water, I'll burst in, just as I meant to on the real Senator, and

pull you out. We ought to get it over in fifteen minutes at the outside

and get you off. There's just the least chance in the world, of course,

that Senator Norman might get away from Simpson and come back. And

there's Mrs. Norman."

"Where will she be?" asked Merriam as he took a rather large sip of his

cordial.

"She's in the lobby now with Miss Norman--the Senator's sister, you

know,--listening to the orchestra." (Merriam vaguely recalled the

elderly woman whom he had seen with Mollie June in the Cabaret.) "The

Senator was going to take them to the theater after he had finished with

Black."

"What will they do when he doesn't show up?" Merriam inquired; but to

all appearances he was chiefly interested at the moment in the best of

liqueurs.

"Probably go without him. She's used to George Norman's broken

engagements by now."

"I see," said Merriam without expression.

"Alicia and Murray will keep an eye on them, of course," Rockwell added.

And then both men jumped. It was only the telephone, but conspiracy

makes neurasthenics of us all.

Rockwell answered it.

"Yes.--Good.--That's all right.--Oh!--Yes, we'll go at once."

He turned excitedly to Merriam.

"It's Alicia. Norman has come down and got into Simpson's car. Mrs.

Norman is still in the lobby. And the Mayor has come in. Murray's got

him, but he won't be able to hold him long. We must go right up to the

room. Come--Senator!"

Merriam followed out of the private dining-room and down the corridor at

a great pace into a main hallway and to an elevator.

Several people looked hard at Merriam. One important-looking elderly

man stopped and held out his hand:

"How are you, Senator?"

But Rockwell crowded rudely between them.

"Excuse me, Colonel, but we must catch this car.--Very urgent!" he

called as the door clicked.