"But how any man can leave you----" cried Merriam, treading recklessly
on several kinds of dynamite.
"You haven't seen her," said Mollie June.
Merriam was silenced. It was true he had not seen her. And he
remembered with confusion that he had talked with her over a wire and,
as Rockwell put it, had not "needed much prompting."
He stole a glance at Mollie June. The purity of her white-clad figure,
its brave erectness, and the impassive sadness so out of place on her
young face caught at his heart.
"How can you stand it?" he cried, and would have put out his hand to her
had he not remembered that he was in bed and that his arm was clad only
in the sleeve of a suit of pajamas.
Mollie June looked at him.
"I don't know," she said. "What else can I do?"
Merriam lay still, now openly staring at her. Of all intolerable things
of which he had ever heard it seemed to him the worst that Mollie
June--"the prettiest girl,"--with all her loveliness and sweetness and
courage and youthful joy in life, should be so slighted and wronged and
saddened and degraded. It was like seeing a rose trampled under foot.
(Merriam's mental simile was not very original perhaps, but to him it
was intensely poignant.)
For a moment she met his gaze, then looked away. In the subdued light
Merriam could not be sure, but he thought there was a new brightness of
tears in her eyes, released perhaps by his very apparent though
inexpressive sympathy.
Presently the thought which had inevitably come to him forced itself
almost against his will to expression:
"You could divorce him."
"I've thought of that." (Somehow this shocked Merriam.) "But it would
be too horrible. Have you read the divorce trials in the papers? With
a Senator they would make the most of it. And Aunt Mary won't let me do
that. It would ruin him politically, she says."
"Well, what if it did? How about you?"
"Oh, she loves him, you know. She thinks he can be brought to change
his ways. She believes in him still."
"Do you?"
"No," said Mollie June, with the clear-eyed cruel simplicity of youth.
"He may die," was the thought in Merriam's mind, but this could not be
said.
Full of pity, he gazed at her again, and something in the profile of her
averted face overcame him. He started up on his elbow--all this time he
had lain with his head on his arm on the pillow.
"Mollie June!" he cried, his voice softly raised.
She did not look at him.
"Dear Mollie June! You must know I love you. I loved you three years
ago in Riceville. There's nothing wrong about that. When you're in
such trouble I must tell you. It can't do you any good. There's nothing
we can do. But--I do love you!"
She turned her eyes upon him.
"Why didn't you tell me that--in Riceville?"
"Oh!" he cried.
Mollie June rose and came to the bedside.
"I know," she said with womanly gentleness. "You couldn't, of course.
Because you were so poor. I ought to have waited--John!"
For a moment her hand hovered above his head as if she would have
stroked his ruffled hair. But it descended to her side again.
"We mustn't talk like this. I must go. I'll tell Alicia we
are--bored!"
There were tears not only in her eyes but on her cheeks now.
Undisguisedly she wiped them away and carefully dried her eyes with a
small handkerchief.
"I shall see you at dinner," she said with a brave smile, and, turning,
walked quickly out of the room.
*CHAPTER XV*
*COUNCIL OF WAR*
It was some time before Alicia, with something more, if possible, than
her usual aplomb, covering, let us hope, a guilty conscience, entered
the bedroom, presumably to "spell" Mollie June in amusing the supposed
invalid.
Alicia made some remark which hardly penetrated the invalid's
consciousness, but scarcely had she sat down in Mollie June's chair
before a quick knock sounded at the hall door of the sitting room,
almost immediately followed by the sound of the opening of that door,
and Alicia sprang up again and hurried away, to be before Mollie June in
receiving the newcomers. It began to irritate Merriam to perceive how
they all treated her as a little girl, when as he now thrillingly
realised she was very much a woman in spite of the youthfulness of her
face and figure.
The arrivals in the other room proved to be Rockwell and Aunt Mary
returned. Recognising their voices, Merriam glanced at his watch under
his pillow and was amazed to find that it was nearly four o'clock.
Rockwell appeared in the doorway.
"Come into this other room," he said. "We must hold a council of war."
"Shall I dress?" asked Merriam, gladly getting out of bed.
"No, no," said Rockwell impatiently. "Just put on your bath robe and
slippers."
Having followed this instruction, Merriam stepped to the glass and with
a few quick strokes of the brush smoothed his hair, Rockwell watching
him without comment. Then they went into the sitting room.
Merriam blankly perceived that the sitting room was empty--of Mollie
June.
"She has a slight headache," said Alicia kindly--suffering still, we may
hope, from pangs of conscience.
Aunt Mary was sitting in the senatorial armchair, which had been turned
about to face the rest of the room. She looked long and hard at
Merriam--an intensification of that close scrutiny with which, it seemed
to him, she had always distinguished him. Merriam, in his bath robe,
sustained it awkwardly but manfully. Alicia and Rockwell were standing.
The silence was rather portentous.
"Sit down, all of you," said Aunt Mary suddenly.
The three younger persons present--even Rockwell seemed youthful beside
Aunt Mary in her dominant mood--rather hurriedly found seats.
"Is the door locked, Philip?"
Rockwell rose, went to the hall door, turned the key, and returned to
his chair.
"Tell him," said Aunt Mary.
Rockwell's budget of news was certainly considerable and important.
In the first place, George Norman was "better." Rockwell and Aunt Mary
had gone to see him at Jennie's after the Reform League luncheon. That
was why they were so late. He undoubtedly had a touch of bronchitis,
with some fever and a cough, but seemed to be improving. He could be
brought back to the hotel that evening. Aunt Mary had sat down by his
bed and told him briefly but plainly of the happenings at the hotel the
previous evening, and had extorted a feeble, amazed acquiescence in the
astonishing turn which had been given to his career--an acquiescence
which she had immediately communicated by telephone from Jennie's to
Mayor Black.
In the second place, the story of Norman's evening at Reiberg's was all
over the city--not among the populace, of course, but among the
politicians and business men and clubmen--the men who know things. Not
only the story in _Tidbits_, which everybody seemed to have read and to
have assigned unhesitatingly to Norman, but the further fact that from
Reiberg's he had gone in the taxi to "a certain little flat"--that
seemed to be the approved phrase,--and had spent the night there, and
was still there. The simple truth, in short, was known. Rockwell had
taken his cue perforce from Merriam's impulsive denial to Thompson and
had flatly contradicted the whole story. Senator Norman had spent the
evening, after his interviews with Mr. Crockett and with Mayor Black, at
the hotel with his wife, and was there now, slightly indisposed with a
severe cold which had threatened to turn into bronchitis. His downright
assertions had, Rockwell believed, shaken the confident rumours and
would probably delay any further publication of them for at least a day.
But it was necessary to produce evidence.
"We shall have to use you again to-night," he said to Merriam. "I have
invited the Mayor and Mr. Wayward to dine with you here at the
hotel--downstairs in the Peacock Cabaret."
"Shall I have to play the Senator there?" gasped Merriam--"in public!"
"Semi-public," said Rockwell. "I have reserved a table in an alcove.
We shall put you in the corner. All the rest of us will be between you
and the general gaze. Oh, we shall get away with it. It's much less
dangerous than trying to impose at close range in a private interview on
some one who really knows the Senator--as you did on Thompson this
morning."
"Does Mr. Wayward know?" asked Merriam.
"Of the impersonation? Not yet. But Alicia shall prepare him in
advance."
Alicia nodded. "That's all right," she said. "Daddy will enjoy it.
He'll think it's a huge joke."
"Moreover," continued Rockwell, with rather apprehensive eyes on
Merriam, "I have accepted an invitation for Senator Gorman to speak at
the Reform League luncheon to-morrow."
"Do they have luncheons and speeches every day?" asked Merriam, sparring
for time, for of course he saw what was coming.
"Not usually, but they've been having a series. To-morrow is the last
one. It's the perfect opportunity for Norman to come out openly for the
League. When the invitation came, I simply had to accept it."
"But if George Norman isn't able to speak?" queried Alicia, fearlessly
coming to the point.
"Then you'll have to make the speech!" said Rockwell bluntly to Merriam.
"But how can I?"
"You were a debater in college."
"Yes, but the speech itself----"
"Oh, Aunt Mary will fix you up with a speech."
Merriam turned to that silent mistress of the situation, sitting calmly
in the senatorial armchair.
"George is so very busy that I often write his speeches for him," she
said, as if it were the most natural arrangement in the world. "I have
several sketched out now. We can make a choice among them. I will
write it out in full and you can learn it, or I will turn over the
outline to you and you can work it up in your own words--if you have to
make it."
"You probably won't," Rockwell hastened to say. "Norman is really much
better. After a comfortable night here at the hotel he will be all
right. If he's a little hoarse, we can't help it. But you must stay
over, you see," he added determinedly,--"to make sure. That speech must
be made."
"But my school!" cried Merriam.
"You'll have to send another telegram," said Aunt Mary.
"What's a day or two of school?" asked Rockwell impatiently, with a
layman's insensibility to the pedagogical dogmas of absolute regularity
and punctuality. "Besides, if you really were sick," he added more
tactfully, "they would have to get along without you, wouldn't they?"
"So much is at stake," said Aunt Mary. "George's future, and all that
that may mean to the State and Nation. If we can bring him to throw the
weight of his popularity and leadership on the right side!"
"You can't desert us now, Mr. Merriam," cried Alicia. "When it means so
much to Aunt Mary and Philip and Mollie June!"
Crafty Alicia! Her guile was, of course, clearly apparent to Merriam.
But it is perfectly possible to perceive that an influence is being
deliberately brought to bear on one without being able to resist that
influence.
"Very well. I'll telegraph again," he said.
"Better do it now," said Rockwell, promptly clinching this decision. He
rose, went to the writing table, got out a telegraph form, and sat down.
"What shall I write?"
Merriam collected himself as best he could under Alicia's admiring,
expectant eyes and Aunt Mary's steady regard.
"Better," he dictated, "but doctor won't let me leave to-night. Expect
to be down to-morrow night."
"That's good," said Aunt Mary, in a tone of quiet approval which
gratified Merriam more probably than he realised.
Rockwell finished writing and turned in his chair.
"I'll be going down in a few minutes. I'll send it then. Now you'll
need to dress for dinner--Senator! Pack up your things too. After
dinner you and I will leave the hotel together in a taxi. We shall drive
over to the University Club. There we shall simply go up to the Library
for a few minutes and then come down again, walk up Michigan Avenue for
a block or two and catch another taxi and drive to the Nestor House.
There you can register under your own name. Simpson will send your
things over. I shall go on and get Norman and bring him back here. You
see? Senator Norman leaves the hotel about nine o'clock with his new
manager--me. Within an hour or so he returns, still in my company, and
goes to his room. If he's all right, you can go down to Riceville on the
morning train if you like. I'll come to see you before you go."
"We'll _all_ go over to see you," said Alicia, with an unmistakable
emphasis on the "all." "We shall have so much to thank you for!"
Merriam did not reply to this cordial remark.
"Why do we go to the University Club?" he asked.
"And not directly to the other hotel?" said Rockwell. "Well, I'm afraid
we may be rather closely watched. To tell the truth, I suspect that the
driver of the taxi we take here may be questioned afterwards as to where
he set us down. The University Club will tell them nothing."
To Merriam's excited mood this explanation, with its hint of powerful
hidden enemies intently watching every move which he and his friends
could make, added a touch of piquancy to the situation that was nothing
short of delightful.
He could not well express this, however, and Rockwell, who was all
business with no such romantic nonsense in his head, immediately sent
them about their several parts. He himself was first to take Alicia to
her waiting limousine.
When Alicia and Rockwell had departed Merriam sought to return to
his--the Senator's--bedroom. But Aunt Mary detained him.
"Sit down, Mr. Merriam," she said, kindly enough but in a manner that
demanded unquestioning obedience.
Then she rose and entered Mollie June's bedroom but immediately
returned.
"Mollie June is dressing for dinner," she said. An instant's pause.
Then, looking hard at Merriam, "She's a lovely child."
Both the look and the final word provoked Merriam to a sort of
resentment.
"I don't believe she's as much of a child as you think," he said boldly.
"It depends on the point of view, no doubt," said Aunt Mary drily.
Then she began to ask him about himself, his family, his own life, on
the farm of his boyhood, at college, and at Riceville--all those facts
which Alicia had so much more tactfully elicited in the private dining
room off the Peacock Cabaret the night before and some others in which
Alicia had not been interested. Merriam had nothing to be ashamed of
and spoke up promptly and manfully in his replies, wondering in the back
of his mind the while what inscrutable thought or purpose prompted Aunt
Mary in her catechising. He little dreamt that the whole course and
happiness of his life turned on the showing he was able to make in this
odd examination.
There is no doubt that Aunt Mary--whatever her idea may have been--was
satisfied. When at length she had no more questions to ask the
expression of her eyes, though they still rested on him, was almost one
of absence. She drew a deeper breath than was her wont--suggestive, at
least, of a sigh.
"You give a good account of yourself," she said. "You are worthy of the
Norman blood."
Greater praise than that no man could have from Aunt Mary, as Merriam
dimly realised.
"I wish George were more like you."
Immediately she added, with a conscious return to dominating briskness:
"You must dress. So must I."
And she rose and without looking again at Merriam went into Mollie
June's bedroom.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE SENATORIAL DINNER*
At last, at twenty-five minutes after six, Merriam sank, exhausted but
immaculate, into an easy chair and lit a cigarette, in an effort to
compose his nerves and regain the _sang froid_ he needed for his
imminent role of a particularly debonair senator of the United States
acting as host to a brilliant dinner party.
At half past six precisely, Aunt Mary knocked on his door and he opened
that door and announced himself ready.
Aunt Mary wore another black evening gown, very similar, in masculine
eyes, to the one in which she had appeared the night before, except that
it was less conspicuously burdened with jet. Tall and erect, with her
gray hair plainly but carefully dressed, she looked every inch a
senator's sister and--this would have pleased her--a Norman.
Advancing into the sitting room, Merriam encountered Mollie June,
standing again beside the bowl of roses. She was in pink--tulle over
satin, though Merriam could not have described it so. But the vivid
colour and the dainty softness of the fabric he could appreciate quite
well enough, at least in their contiguity to the slender figure, white
throat and shoulders, and charming complexion of Mollie June. There is
no doubt that he looked a moment longer than he should. The debonair
senatorial outside of him was moved to say, "How lovely you are!" But
the Ricevillian pedagogue underneath blocked the utterance. Perhaps his
eyes said it plainly enough to satisfy Mollie June, for she evinced no
disappointment.
"We must go right down, mustn't we?" she said, raising her eyes from the
roses.
"Yes," said Aunt Mary, in a tone of jarring briskness.
A male figure which Merriam had not perceived stepped out of the
background, moved to the hall door, and opened it. Merriam saw that it
was Dr. Hobart, quite as point-device as himself and rather more at ease
but not nearly so handsome (though of this, I assure you, Merriam never
thought at all).
Aunt Mary and Mollie June passed through the door.
"Come along, Senator," said Dr. Hobart, in excellent spirits, and
Merriam mechanically followed and mechanically paused and waited while
the physician closed and locked the door.
"This must be great fun for you," said Dr. Hobart as they went down the
hall towards the elevators.
"Yes," returned Merriam without conviction, his eyes on a girlish figure
in pink that moved ahead of him. "Fun" did not strike him as exactly
the word.
Fortunately at this point a small incident occurred which served to
bring Merriam out of the brown study--or perhaps we may say the roseate
study--into which he had fallen.
As they approached the elevator lobby he became aware of the pretty
floor clerk who on the previous evening had been wearing Senator
Norman's violets. He was, of course, entirely unmindful of the fact
that on his way to Norman's rooms that morning he had passed her rudely
by without a glance, but he did notice that this evening she wore no
flowers and that she studiously avoided seeing him and smiled her best
smile upon Dr. Hobart instead. That gentleman, with a shade too much
alacrity, stepped aside so as to pass close to her desk and, leaning
down, spoke to her. The pretty floor clerk, from the toss of her head
and the pleased smile on Hobart's face, had said something saucy in
reply.
"Good enough," thought Merriam, as they all stepped into the elevator.
"I'm glad she has more interests than one," and thought no more of the
incident at the time.
In a moment or two more they had reached the basement floor, which was
their destination.
Opposite the elevators on this floor was a small reception room or
parlour, and here Senator Norman's other guests were awaiting
him--Rockwell, Murray, Mayor Black, Alicia, and Alicia's father.
To the last-named gentleman Merriam was immediately presented. He was a
stoutish, jovial man of fifty or so, bald of pate and humorous of eye,
and the amused particularity with which he surveyed Merriam and the
gusto with which he addressed him as "Senator" showed both that Alicia
had performed her task of enlightening him and that she had been right
as to the attitude he would take.
"Splendid!" he whispered to Merriam. "You would have fooled me all
right," and he beamed delightedly.
Alicia gave him only a minute. "They are ready," she said. "We are to
go right in. You are to walk with me." (This last to Merriam.)
In a moment, therefore, Merriam found himself escorting Alicia down a
sort of central aisle among the tables of the Peacock Cabaret, behind an
excessively urbane head waiter, conscious that the rest of his guests
were making a more or less imposing procession after them, and intensely
conscious of suspended conversation throughout the great restaurant and
of countless curious eyes staring across rosebuds and water bottles at
himself.
"Say something to me," whispered Alicia. "You mustn't look
self-conscious."
Merriam glanced at her and realised for the first time that evening her
vivid, vigorous, peony-like beauty.
"What can I say," he asked smiling, "except 'How lovely you are'?" and
he wondered why it was so easy to say this to Alicia when he had been
unable to say it to Mollie June.
"Bravo, Boy Senator!" applauded Alicia, and then they reached the haven
of that alcove which Rockwell had promised.
It was really a small square room quite separate from the main part of
the Peacock Cabaret except that there was no wall between. The head
waiter guided Merriam to the seat at the far end of the table. Thus
when he sat down he would be facing the main dining room, visible to all
its occupants, yet screened from them by the table and his own guests
about that table. It was really an excellent device for displaying him
in public and still protecting him from close inspection.
In a moment the whole party had arrived and been seated.
A canape was being served, and Alicia at his end of the table and her
father at the other end were starting conversation. Merriam glanced
across the board at Mollie June. For some reason a charming girl never
looks more lovely than at table. She looked up and caught his gaze.
Her face was grave. He thought she looked wistful. For a moment only he
met her eyes, then turned to reply to a remark of Alicia's. Somehow his
spirits soared. He plunged into the conversation with a zest which he
had hardly known since his fraternity days. Mollie June said little,
but she laughed at the stories and seemed to become excited and happy.
She was content, perhaps, to enact the role of the gallery to which
Merriam was playing with such excellent effect. As for Rockwell and
Aunt Mary, they sat by in serene content: the affair was going well; as
long as that was the case they need not exert themselves.
The mildly uproarious party undoubtedly attracted the desired amount of
attention from the main dining room. Eyes were turned and necks craned,
and couples and groups that passed the alcove almost invariably slowed
their steps to stare. Some dozens of men who had heard the stories of
the real Norman's whereabouts were convinced that these were false, at
least in part; by the witness of their own eyes they knew that the
Senator was that evening at any rate in the bosom of his family at the
hotel. They could be relied upon to assert as much in all parts of the
city on the following day.
Only one outsider ventured to intrude upon the party and submit Merriam
to the ordeal of closer inspection, and he got no nearer than the length
of the table. This was the Colonel Abbott whom Merriam had so
perilously encountered at the very beginning of his play-acting the
night before. Merriam remembered him vividly, called him by name, and
replied cordially to his expressions of pleasure at finding him
recovered from his threatened indisposition. So that danger passed, and
the table, after a brief exchanging of relieved glances, recovered its
gayety, perhaps with some accentuation.
A little later came a reporter. Merriam professed that he had "nothing
to say." Asked if it was true that he was to speak at the Reform League
luncheon on the morrow, he replied, with an inner quailing but with
outward composure, that he was.
The reporter turned to Mr. Wayward. Was it true that he intended to
make a contribution to the campaign fund of the Reform League? Mr.
Wayward's joviality suffered an eclipse. His eyes fell. But on raising
them he encountered a glance from his daughter that can only be
described as stern, and promptly admitted that it was true.
The reporter tried Rockwell, but the latter shook his head so
indomitably that the interviewer at once abandoned him and passed to
Mayor Black. That gentleman promptly and as it were automatically gave
utterance to several eloquent phrases, too meaningless to be recorded.
Even the reporter neglected to make notes of them, and looked about the
table for other prey. Finding none, he excused himself with the remark,
"I am making note of the names, of course," and disappeared.
Once more the conspiratorial table drew a long breath and endeavoured to
recover its festive mood, but before much progress had been made in that
direction a bell boy came with a note addressed to Senator Norman and
asking that he and Mr. Rockwell come to Room D, one of the private
dining rooms.
Merriam passed the note to Rockwell and then to Aunt Mary, and the three
prime conspirators stared at one another. None of them knew the
handwriting, which was poor and hurried and in pencil.
"I'll go," said Rockwell. "You stay here."
The rest of the party did not know what had happened, but in their
situation the most trivial incident was, of course, sufficient to cause
uneasiness. The conversation during Rockwell's absence was forced and
fragmentary. In fact, it was almost a solo performance on Alicia's
part. Merriam caught Mollie June's eyes upon him, and was grateful for
their expression of self-unconscious solicitude.
Presently the boy returned again with the same note, at the bottom of
which was scribbled: "Come--Room D. Rockwell."
Merriam showed it to Aunt Mary.
"Is that his handwriting?"
"Yes, it is."
"Then I suppose I must go."
He rose, murmured an "excuse me" to the table at large, and made his way
towards the open end of the alcove. As he did so he glanced at Mollie
June. Alarm stood in her eyes. Coming opposite her chair, he bent down
and said gently:
"It's all right. I probably shan't be long."
It was perhaps a little too much in the tone and manner that Mollie
June's real husband might properly have used. Mollie June herself did
not seem to notice this; she appeared duly comforted. But Mr. Wayward,
at her left, undoubtedly stared after Merriam with an odd expression in
his genial eyes.
Following the bell boy, Merriam tried hard to think what might be in
store for him. "Thompson" and "Crockett" were the only ideas his blank
mind could muster. Had they discovered the trick and come to threaten
him with exposure? Well, Rockwell would be present. He leaned heavily
on Rockwell.
The boy stopped before a curtained door.
"This is it, sir," he said and waited expectantly.
Merriam fumblingly produced a dime, and the boy departed. Drawing a
deep breath, he pushed aside the curtain and entered Room D.
To his great relief the only persons present were Rockwell and Simpson.
They were both standing, beside a bare table. Merriam vaguely
remembered that Simpson had not appeared in connection with the serving
of the last two or three courses.
"Now tell it again," said Rockwell promptly.
The waiter looked steadily at Merriam.
"It's this way, sir," he said. "Mr. Thompson, as was the Senator's
manager until this morning, has found out where the Senator really is,
at----" the man looked away. "Jennie's," he finished, without
expression in his tone. "There's a girl she lives with, Margery Milton,
who's a milliner's assistant at one of the department stores. He got it
from her. Straight from her he came here to have dinner with Mr.
Crockett, out in the Cabaret. When I saw them come in, I turned your
party over to another man and served them myself. I managed to hear a
lot of what they said. Mr. Crockett had learned of your dinner party,
of course. Putting that together with what Mr. Thompson had got from
Margery, they saw the game. Mr. Crockett would hardly believe it at
first. But Mr. Thompson means to make sure. He's going to Jennie's
himself about ten o'clock to-night--they have some kind of a committee
first,--and force his way in, if necessary, and see the Senator himself.
Then they'll have proof, you see. I thought I'd better let you and Mr.
Rockwell know."
"You did just right," said Rockwell warmly, "and we'll make it worth
your while."
He turned abruptly to the younger man.
"Merriam! You're the only one who can save us in this fix."
"How?" said Merriam, to whom it seemed that all was lost.
"Listen, man. You go back to our table and excuse yourself and me.
'Important business.' Don't tell them anything more. Not even Aunt
Mary. We haven't time. Better bring Murray. We may need an extra man,
and we can trust him best. We three will take a taxi at once. We shall
have to circle about a bit, to throw off possible trailers. But in less
than an hour we'll be at Jennie's. You shall take Norman's place there,
and we'll take Norman and bring him back to the hotel, to his room.
Just as we planned, only a bit sooner. When Thompson arrives, Jennie
shall let him in. He'll insist on seeing you. Let him. You're not
Senator Norman. Tell him so. Jennie shall tell him so, too. He'll see
it himself, of course, as soon as he looks close with his eyes open. You
and Jennie must make him think you played off the resemblance on this
Margery Milton for a joke. We'll fix her, too, of course. You'd better
tell him your real name, so he can look you up if he wants to. He won't
expose you in Riceville. He'll have no motive to. And he won't think
anything of your little escapade in itself. You came to Chicago on
school business--went out to see the sights--got a little more liquor
than you were used to. Your taxi driver took you to some dance hall.
He'll interpret 'Reiberg's.' You stayed there a while--don't know what
you did--met Jennie there--and she brought you home. You were pretty
sick in the morning and stayed over all day: You see? It all hangs
together, and relieves Norman entirely of the Reiberg incident and
Jennie, and cinches his blameless presence at the hotel all last night
and all to-day. It'll save everything! Better than we planned.
Couldn't be better!"
Rockwell had worked himself up to exultant enthusiasm.
Merriam's emotions while this new plot was unfolded were sufficiently
complex. There was an opaque background of sheer bewilderment. There
was also a sharp sense of alarm at the thought of having his own name
appear in this business. But other sentiments, less acute individually,
but of some potency none the less, joined their voices with Rockwell's
to silence that alarm. There was the mere love of adventure, of playing
a dangerous game, which is strong in any healthy young man. Then there
was the thought of Mollie June: he would be doing it for her--making a
real sacrifice, of his reputation, possibly of his position, his
pedagogical career, for her sake. And, oddly enough, quite
simultaneously with this thought of Mollie June, there was a
recollection of "Jennie's" voice over the telephone. He was not
conscious that he was curious to see "Jennie," but I am afraid he was.
Scarcely half a minute had passed when Rockwell, eagerly scanning his
face, cried, "You'll go!"
"Yes," said Merriam, looking at Simpson's impassive countenance and
surprised at his own words, "I suppose I will."
*CHAPTER XVII*
*A DEVIOUS JOURNEY*
Rockwell, as usual, gave Merriam no time for reconsideration.
"Go and make your excuses at the table then."
But Merriam was still looking at Simpson. He had perceived that the
impassivity of the waiter's countenance covered a blank misery.
"Simpson," he said, "we'll try to see that this works out to your
advantage--at Jennie's. Shake on that." And, in violation of all codes
on which the social system rests, he held out his hand as one man to
another.
Simpson, much more rigorously trained in those codes than Merriam had
been, hesitated, glanced at Rockwell. But a light came into his eyes.
He seized the hand, gripped it, gave one spasmodic shake.
"Thank you, sir!" he said.
He dropped the hand and as quickly as possible regained his servitorial
manner.
Merriam smiled at him and then spoke to Rockwell:
"Where shall I join you--Murray and I?"
"At the Ladies' Entrance," Rockwell replied. "It's less likely to be
watched than the other."
Merriam turned and passed through the curtained doorway, down the hall,
and along one side of the Peacock Cabaret. The curtain being up on the
small stage and the moderately comely demoiselles of the chorus
executing a dance which involved a liberal display of white tights, he
reached his alcove comparatively unnoticed.
He stopped beside Mollie June's chair, which was nearest the open side
of the alcove. All the members of the dinner party regarded him
anxiously; Aunt Mary's face was more than usually grim. Carefully
pitching his voice so that it should be audible to all at the table yet
should not carry to the main dining room without, he said:
"I am tremendously sorry to have to desert this pleasant company, but
Mr. Rockwell and I are called away on important business. We should be
very glad if you will come too, Father Murray.--Can you come at once?"
he added as the priest stared.
Aunt Mary's lips opened.
"I'll explain later," said Merriam hurriedly.
As he spoke, however, he realised that no opportunity to "explain later"
would probably be afforded him. Alicia had said they "all" would go to
see him in the morning at the Nestor House. They could not "all" come to
Jennie's.
He looked down at Mollie June. She was looking up at him. His view of
her from above--the contour of her face and throat, the recalcitrant
wave of her soft hair, the brightness of her lifted eyes--might have
moved older and colder blood than Merriam's. He was close enough to
catch a faint, warm sense of her in the air. He desired to envelop her
in love. What he might do he could not resist. He laid his hand gently
over one of hers that rested on the edge of the table and bent to her
ear.
"Mr. Rockwell will tell you to-morrow what I have done," he whispered.
"It is for your sake, Mollie--June."
He straightened up. He was not flushed outwardly. He looked almost
cold. Father Murray was making his way down the side of the table.
"Good night, all," said Merriam. "This way, Father Murray."
He glanced once more at Mollie June--his last sight of her, he thought.
Her face was rosy and her eyes glistened. It was a picture for which a
man--a very young man, at least--might do anything, even sacrifice his
love. He smiled at her almost gaily, turned, and passed out of the
alcove, Father Murray following.
They skirted the sides of the Peacock Cabaret in an effort to reach the
exit as little observed as possible. Unfortunately, before they
attained that goal, the curtain of the small stage descended, the white
legs of the chorus, kicking at it as it fell, were hidden from the
attentive eyes of the male diners, and not a few of these observed the
famous senator's escape. This probably mattered little, however,
because of Father Murray. The well-known High Churchman was enough to
shield the name of Norman. He could hardly be bound for Reiberg's, or
even, it would be argued, for "a certain little flat," in Father
Murray's company.
They got their coats from the checkroom, went up the stairs to the first
floor, and made a detour through passages to the Ladies' Entrance.
Rockwell was already there with a taxicab. He motioned to them to enter
it.
Merriam was a little surprised, and Father Murray probably more so, to
find Simpson already within. Father Murray greeted him with clerical
suavity. Merriam said nothing. He was listening to Rockwell's colloquy
with the chauffeur:
"This cab will probably be followed. Your first job is to shake off
pursuit. Circle around through the Loop--twist and turn--until you're
absolutely sure you've lost anybody who is after us. Then make for the
Eighteenth Street Station of the Alley L. If there's no one behind us
when you get there, it will be worth twenty-five dollars to you above
the fare."
"Right, sir," said the man. "Jump in, sir."
Rockwell stepped in and slammed the door, seating himself with Simpson,
his back to the driver. In a moment he was staring intently through the
peephole window in the back of the taxi.
"See!" he said.
Merriam, turning to look over his shoulder, perceived a yellow cab about
sixty feet behind them, also starting, at about the same pace as their
own.
They went west to Fifth Avenue and turned north along the car tracks
under the Elevated. A moment later the yellow cab also turned north on
the car tracks.
They swerved east on Randolph Street. For a minute or two the yellow
cab did not appear. It must have been caught behind some car or truck.
But presently it rounded the corner and sprinted till it was again
within about thirty yards of them, when it slowed down to their own
pace.
Rockwell spoke through the tube to the chauffeur:
"That yellow cab!"
"I'll lose 'em!" the man replied, with reassuring confidence.
At the second corner he turned north again and sped across the Clark
Street Bridge. The yellow cab also had business north of the river.
Their subsequent maneuvers were at first decidedly puzzling to Merriam
and his fellow passengers, with the possible exception of Simpson. They
sped around and around a rectangle of streets enclosing half a dozen
squares, with one of its sides only one block from the River. On the
shorter sides they sometimes lost the yellow cab, but on the longer
stretches it always appeared in full and open chase behind them.
"What the devil!" cried Rockwell as their driver turned west for the
fourth time on the southern, side of the rectangle--the street nearest
the River.