For a moment Merriam did not understand that steady, unsmiling look.

Then he thought he did understand. It had a questioning quality.

Mollie June's mind was at ease now about her husband, since he was back

and not supposed to be seriously ill, and she, like Simpson earlier, was

wondering--not that it concerned her, of course--how Merriam had spent

the night--so large a part of it--at Jennie's flat. She, too, knew

Jennie, to the extent at least of having seen and in a measure

comprehended her. Perhaps even in a Mollie June there is that which

enables her to understand a Jennie and her lure for a youthful male. He

remembered Mollie June's description of her and the cool detachment with

which it had been uttered: "She's pretty and sweet, and--warm."

For just an instant Merriam was slightly confused. He had verified that

description--all of it.

It is to be feared that his embarrassment, slight and merely

instantaneous though it was, did not escape Mollie June. She dropped

her eyes, still unsmiling.

Merriam's second sketch of his evening's adventures differed from the

one he had given Simpson in being fuller and in two particular points:

first, of course, in omitting reference to his missionary efforts in

Simpson's behalf, which, however laudable, were hardly for the ears of

Mollie June; and, second, in including mention of Jennie's change into

her ballet costume--because he realised as he talked that the pictures,

to be developed in the morning, would exhibit that detail most

unmistakably and that he would do well to prepare Mollie June's

mind--and Simpson's, for that matter--in advance. But he laid his

emphasis on the more dramatic episodes--the hurled revolver, the tying

up, the flash lights, and Crockett's angry exit. He told it humorously

and well, and was rewarded by Mollie June's interest. Her questioning

gravity disappeared, and she followed him with eager attention and with

a return of pretty colour to her cheeks.

Aunt Mary and Rockwell--not to mention Simpson--also listened

attentively. When Merriam had finished they looked at each other.

"Well," said Rockwell, "I'm not sure but that it would have been better

to let him go as soon as you had told him your yarn, but on the whole I

think you did mighty well. Those pictures may come in handy."

Aunt Mary rose. "You certainly are an enterprising young man, Mr.

Merriam," she said dryly. "Now go to bed and get some sleep. You make

your debut as an orator at noon, you know! Come, Mollie June."

"Good night, Miss Norman," said Merriam, and he advanced to Mollie June,

who had also risen.

"Good night, Mrs. Mollie June." He dropped his voice for the last three

words and held out his hand.

She took it with an unconscious happy smile.

"Good night--Mr. John," she said.

Whatever she may have feared or suspected his story had established an

alibi for him.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*THE REFORM LEAGUE*

"Quarter to ten," said Rockwell cheerily. "I've let you sleep to the

last possible moment. Here's your breakfast on the stand. Better eat it

and drink your coffee first. Then a shave and get at this." He

indicated a small pile of manuscript on the writing table. "Your

speech, Senator!" he grinned.

"Good Lord!" groaned Merriam, remembering everything. He perceived also

that he was to breakfast alone--no Mollie June. But the sight of the

manuscript fascinated and aroused him. He realised, as he had not done

before, that within a few hours he was to make a public address in a

great Chicago club before many of the city's most prominent men and

women--on what subject even he had no idea!

"Good Lord!" he said again and put his feet out. "How's Senator

Norman?" he asked.

"Sleeping now," said Rockwell. "Hobart thinks he can get him on his

feet by night. He's due to start for Cairo this evening, you know, on a

stumping trip." Then quickly: "You'll find these sliced oranges

refreshing. Have your bath first if you want to."

Merriam was in the midst of his breakfast when Rockwell returned. "By

the way," he said, "here are your pictures," and he took some unmounted

prints from an envelope.

Merriam reached for them with curiosity and something like trepidation.

They were not good flash lights--a little blurred,--but the faces and

attitudes were unmistakable. Jennie's foot and leg extending forward

across the table were very much in evidence in the first of them.

"Rather striking poses," commented Rockwell.

"Jennie's invention," said Merriam defensively.

"No doubt. Well, they could hardly be better for their purpose. I

think Crockett will go slow all right."

"Have--has Miss Norman seen them?"

"Yes. And Simpson, of course." For a moment Rockwell quizzically

regarded Merriam's face, in which a further unspoken question was

anxiously plain. Then he answered it: "No one else. Mrs. Norman is

still sleeping. I'm not sure Aunt Mary will consider them proper

pictures for her to see anyway. Come," he added briskly, "you've eaten

only one piece of toast. You must get outside of at least one more

piece. And then shave. I'll strop your razor for you. I'm your valet

this morning, Senator."

With a sigh Merriam glanced at the waiting speech and tackled a second

piece of toast, with the feeling that its mastication was a task of

almost impossible difficulty. He achieved it, however, to the rhythmic

accompaniment of Rockwell's stropping, consumed another cup of

coffee--his third, I regret to say,--and proceeded to shave.

At last Merriam was collared and tied and was slipping into his coat.

Rockwell rose and laid down the manuscript.

"Ready?" he said. "Very good. You can get to work. It's a quarter

past ten. The luncheon is at twelve-thirty. But we shan't appear at

the luncheon itself. Too dangerous. You'd have to meet a lot of men

who know the Senator--meet them face to face in cold daylight and talk

to them. We'd never get away with it. So I'll telephone that you've

been detained by important business but will be in for the speeches.

That way we'll come in by ourselves, with everybody else set and no

opportunity for personal confabulations. You'll have to run the

gauntlet of their eyes, of course. But you can do that."

Earnestly for a moment he scrutinised Merriam's face and figure, as if

to reassure himself that the astounding imposture had been and was still

really possible.

"Yes," he continued confidently, "that'll be all right. The speeches

are scheduled to begin at one-fifteen. We'll leave here at five or ten

minutes after one. That gives you nearly three hours to salt down the

speech. You can learn it verbatim or only master the outline and

substance and give it in your own words. Perhaps you'd better learn a

good deal of it just as it is. Aunt Mary has it chock-full of the

Senator's pet words and phrases. Your own style might be too different.

Do you commit easily?"

"Fairly so," said Merriam. As a matter of fact the speech itself

presented few terrors to him. He had done a good deal of debating and

declaiming in college, and of course in his capacity as principal of the

high school he was called upon for "a few words" on every conceivable

occasion in Riceville.

"Good. Go to it, then. I'll make myself scarce. Here are cigarettes.

You won't be disturbed. _Au revoir_, Senator! If you want anything,

knock on this door. Either Hobart or I will answer."

Grinning, Rockwell departed into the real, the sick Senator's, bedroom,

leaving Merriam with the typewritten manuscript.

He worked away for a couple of hours, sometimes sitting down, more often

walking back and forth, occasionally refreshing himself with a

cigarette, and faithfully learning by heart Aunt Mary's Senator Norman's

speech on "Municipal Reform."

By half past twelve he had mastered it to his satisfaction. He decided

to go through with it once more by the clock. It was designed, as he

knew from a pencil note at the top of the first page, to take thirty

minutes. He did so, and came out at the end by five minutes to one.

Evidently his delivery was a little more rapid than Senator Norman's.

He must remember to speak slowly.

He had just reached this conclusion when a knock sounded at the side

door and Rockwell entered.

"I've got it by heart," said Merriam.

"Good! Come into the sitting room, then. You're to have a cup of coffee

and a sandwich before you start."

"Fine. I am a bit hollow. How's the Senator?"

Rockwell looked worried, but answered, "Sleeping again now. Come along

if you're ready."

"In a minute."

Merriam bathed his face and hands, folded the speech and put it in his

pocket, and followed Rockwell across the Senator's bedroom, with just a

glance at the sick man in the bed and a nod to Dr. Hobart, who sat by

the window with a newspaper into the sitting room.

After his morning of intense, solitary labour he was somewhat nonplused

for a moment by the size of the company he found assembled there--Aunt

Mary and Mollie June, of course, Alicia, Mr. Wayward, and Father Murray.

He said good morning to each of them.

Alicia reminded him that it was really afternoon now.

"We shall meet Black in the car," said Rockwell. "Then the roll of the

conspirators will be complete!"

Mollie June, who had had no speech to learn, had slept late and was now

as blooming as ever.

"We're all going to hear you," she said as she gave Merriam her hand.

"Good Heavens!" he said, with a twinge of the stage fright which he had

thus far had no time to feel. "I shouldn't mind the others, but

you----"

He left that dangerous remark unfinished.

To Aunt Mary he said: "I've learned the speech by heart. I admire it

very much," and was pleased to note that even Aunt Mary had an author's

susceptibility to praise.

Meanwhile Simpson, who was in attendance, had poured out a cup of

coffee, and Mollie June brought it to him with a sandwich on a plate.

"Won't you sit down to eat it?" she asked, regarding him with a look of

awe which flattered him enormously and served to quiet his rising

nervousness.

(Mollie June had taken oratory of all degrees and on all possible

occasions on the part of Norman as a matter of course, but the thought

that John Merriam, who was only a little older than herself and had

taken her to "sociables" and had wanted to make love to her but had not

dared, was about to address the distinguished Urban Club of Chicago at

one of its formidable luncheons filled her with admiration.)

"Thank you," he said, taking the coffee and the sandwich. "No, I think

I'll eat it standing." But he smiled at her with the confidence which

her admiration had given him, thereby increasing the admiration--a

pleasing psychological circle.

But now Rockwell was at his side and barely gave him time to finish his

sandwich and gulp down the coffee.

"Miss Norman and the Senator and I go with Mayor Black in the Senator's

car," said that master of ceremonies and conspiracies. "The other four

of you are to follow in the Mayor's machine. Here's your coat and hat."

Along the hall--down in the elevator--through the lobby to the

pavement--Merriam had only a dazed sense of being part of an

irresistible, conspicuous procession which was carrying him whither he

had no strong desire to go.

A limousine was already drawn up at the curb, and the hotel starter was

deferentially holding the door.

Mayor Black was already within the car.

"Ah, Senator," the Mayor ejaculated, "I'm glad to see you up again, and

to have you--really you--coming to the Reform League!"

For an instant Merriam did not understand. Then he realised that the

Mayor thought he was addressing the real Senator Norman. It was a good

omen for the continued success of his impersonation.

He sank into the seat opposite the Mayor, who was facing forward with

Aunt Mary beside him. Rockwell climbed in and sat next to Merriam. The

door slammed, and the machine started.

Then, as the Mayor still beamed at him and as neither of the others

spoke, Merriam said gently:

"I'm still the impostor, I'm afraid, Mr. Mayor."

"Eh!"

The Mayor leaned forward to scrutinise his face and then turned as if

bewildered and still unconvinced to Rockwell.

"Yes," said Rockwell. "I tried to get you on the 'phone this morning,

but your line was busy, and I didn't have a chance to try again. The

Senator is still sick. Worse, in fact. Mr. Merriam is going to keep

the Senator's engagement at the Urban Club for him."

"My God!" cried the Mayor. "Speak before all those people! You never

can do it!"

"Yes, we can," said Rockwell, with smiling serenity. "You were fooled

again yourself just now," he pointed out.

The Mayor groaned. "Then we still don't know where Senator Norman

himself will stand when he's up," he said.

"I telephoned you yesterday that he had agreed to everything," said Aunt

Mary coldly. "That was true."

"While he was sick," said Black. "Will he stick to it when he's well

again?"

"He'll have to stick," said Rockwell. "Ten times more so after this

speech. He can't possibly go back on that."

"If this Mr.--Mr. Merriam," said the Mayor, eyeing him with profound

dislike, "is unmasked at the Urban Club, it would be the utter ruin of

us all."

"It undoubtedly would," replied Rockwell cheerfully. "All the more

reason why we should all keep a stiff upper lip and play up for him."

"No!" cried the Mayor. "It's insane! Stop the car! I'll step into the

nearest store and telephone that the Senator has fainted in the cab and

can't appear. Anything is better than this awful risk."

He put out his hand for the cord to signal to the chauffeur. But

Rockwell roughly struck his arm down.

"Sit still!" he commanded savagely. "Do you want us to choke you again?

This car goes on to the Urban Club. Senator Norman has a fine speech,

and he'll make it well. No one will suspect. The thing has the one

essential characteristic of successful imposture--boldness to the point

of impossibility. If any one notices any slight change in his

appearance or voice or manner, it will be put down to his illness. It

will cinch the whole thing as nothing else could. You've got to go

through with it, Mayor."

Mr. Black groaned again and relapsed into a dismal silence.

Fortunately he did not have long to brood, nor Merriam long to work up

the nervousness which this dialogue had naturally renewed in him. In a

couple of minutes after the Mayor's second and more lamentable groan the

limousine stopped before the imposing entrance of the Urban Club.

"Sit tight, Mayor!" Rockwell warned.

Then the doorman of the Club opened the car, and Rockwell descended and

helped Aunt Mary out and Merriam and the Mayor followed.

Inside their coats and the men's hats were quickly taken from them by

efficient checkroom boys, and they were guided immediately to the

elevator. The speeches had already begun upstairs, some one said.

They stepped out into the hallway outside the Club's big dining room.

From inside came the noise of clapping. Some one had just finished

speaking.

"This is our chance," said Rockwell, meaning doubtless that they could

best enter during the interlude between speeches. "Go ahead, Senator.

Take the Mayor's arm!"

In a moment they were passing through a group of tuxedoed servants at

the door. Merriam was conscious of a large room in pleasant tones of

brown with a low raftered ceiling and many windows of small leaded

panes. The tables were arranged in the form of a great horseshoe, with

the closed end--the speakers' table--opposite the door. The horseshoe

was lined inside and out with guests, perhaps two hundred in all--men

who looked either distinguished or intelligent, occasionally both, and

women who were either distinguished or intelligent or beautiful--from

some points of view the great city's best.

Then came the turning of many eyes to look at himself and Mayor Black,

and the toastmaster at the center of the speakers' table rose and called

to them:

"Senator! Mayor! This way."

He pointed to two empty chairs on either side of his own.

Merriam nodded, and, still propelling the semi-comatose Black, circled

one side of the horseshoe, giving the line of guests as wide a berth as

he could, to avoid possible contretemps from personal greetings to which

he might be unable to make suitable response.

Arrived at the speakers' table, he shook hands warmly with the

toastmaster--a bald, benevolent-looking man of much aplomb, whose name

he never learned--and with two or three other men from nearby

chairs--evidently personal acquaintances of Senator Norman's--who rose

to welcome him, making talk the while of apologies for being late.

Presently he found himself seated at the toastmaster's right, facing the

distinguished company. No one had betrayed any suspicion. The

imposture was, in fact, as Rockwell had said, so bold as to be

unthinkable.

Mayor Black had meanwhile been seated at the toastmaster's left, and

Rockwell and Aunt Mary had been guided to two vacant seats at the left

end of the speakers' table. The necessity of greeting friends had

somewhat roused the Mayor, who had found his tongue and managed to

respond, though for him haltingly.

The toastmaster leaned towards Merriam and whispered:

"You're to speak last, Senator. Colonel Edwards is next, then Mayor

Black, then you."

With that he rose and felicitated the company on the arrival of the two

distinguished servants of the City and the Nation between whom he now

had the honour to sit.

He then introduced Colonel Edwards, a stout, quite unmilitary-looking

gentleman, who was earnestly interested and mildly interesting on the

subject of good roads for the space of fifteen minutes.

Merriam's attention was distracted almost at the beginning of Colonel

Edwards' speech by the arrival at the entrance of the dining room, now

directly opposite him, of the second taxi-load from the hotel. Alicia

caught Merriam's eye and smiled at him mischievously. Evidently she was

enjoying the situation to the full. Mollie June, on the other hand,

though deliciously crowned with a small blossomy hat of obvious

expensiveness, was entirely grave, her eyes fixed almost too steadily

and too anxiously on our youthful hero, where he sat in the seats of the

mighty, outwardly at least as much at ease as if he had been accustomed

for thirty years to find himself at the speakers' table of historic

clubs.

Colonel Edwards suddenly sat down. He was one of those rare public

speakers who occasionally disconcert their audiences by stopping when

they are through.

The toastmaster gasped, but rose to his feet and the occasion and called

upon Mayor Black.

As the Mayor slowly rose Merriam was most uncomfortably

anxious--uncertain whether the city's chief executive was even yet

sufficiently master of himself to face an audience successfully. But

Mr. Black was one of those gentlemen, not uncommon in public life, who

are apparently more at ease before an audience than in any other

situation. His great mellow voice boomed forth, and Merriam relaxed.

That speech was hardly, perhaps, one of the Mayor's masterpieces. But

that mattered little, of course. He produced an admirably even flow of

head tones. It _sounded_ like a perfectly good speech.

Merriam, at any rate, was quite oblivious of any lack of strict logical

coherence in the Mayor's remarks. He was suddenly smitten by the

realisation that his own turn came next. For a moment he fought a panic

of blankness, then mentally grabbed at the opening sentences of what he

had so carefully committed during the morning. Outwardly serene and

attentive to the speaker, inwardly he hastily rehearsed his first half

dozen paragraphs, and, winking his eyes somewhat rapidly perhaps, fixed

the outline of the rest of it in his mind.

The Mayor rose to a climax of thunderous tone and eloquent gesture and

sat. Loud applause followed.

Across the clapping hands Merriam glanced at Mr. Wayward and Alicia and

Mollie June where they sat at one side of the horseshoe. The other two

were clapping, but Mollie June was not. He thought she looked pale, but

of course he was too far away to be sure. "She is afraid for me," he

thought, and gratitude for her interest mingled with a fine resolve to

show her that she had no cause for fear--that he would give a good

account of himself anywhere--for her.

The glow of that resolution carried him through the ordeal of the

toastmaster's introduction and brought him to his feet with smiling

alacrity at the proper moment.

The applause was hearty. There is magic still, strange as it may seem,

in the word "senator." He was forced to bow again and again.

Then he struck into his speech--Aunt Mary's speech. He found himself

letter-perfect. He had at least half his mind free to attend to his

delivery. He gave it slowly, impressively, grandly facing first one part

of his audience and then another. George Norman himself before packed

galleries in the Senate Chamber at Washington had never done better. And

it was a good speech, deftly conceived, clearly reasoned, aptly worded.

Merriam himself in all his morning's study of it had not realised how

perfectly it was adapted to the occasion and the audience. Down at the

far end of the speakers' table, the female author of it sat unnoticed,

watching with tight-pressed lips its effect; her only right to be there,

if any one had asked you, the accident of her relationship to the

wonderful Senator.

He reached the end. As he rounded out the last sentence his eyes rested

triumphantly for a second on Mollie June. Whether or not her cheeks had

been pale before, they were flushed now. He sat down.

The room rocked. The applause this time was no mechanical reaction. It

was an ovation. The toastmaster leaped to his feet with ponderous

agility and grabbed for Merriam's hand. The latter found himself

standing, the center of a group of excited men, all of whom he must

pretend to know, overwhelming him with congratulations.

Behind him he caught a remark that was doubtless not intended for his

ears: "How the devil does he keep his youthful looks and fire? He might

be twenty-five!"

Then Rockwell charged into the group, excited himself, but persistent

with the formula, "Pressing engagement," and got him out of the room,

and into the elevator, and through the hallway on the first floor, with

his hat and coat restored, and into the limousine, which darted away for

the hotel.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*SECOND COUNCIL OF WAR*

Merriam and Rockwell were alone in the Senator's car.

Merriam leaned back against the cushions and closed his eyes. He was at

once fatigued and excited. It almost seemed to him that he was still

addressing the Urban Club. Then he seemed to be talking still but to a

single auditor--a girl with flushed cheeks and eyes that shone with

excited pride.

He opened his eyes. Rockwell was regarding him steadily. "I don't

wonder you feel done up," he said. "It was splendid, my boy. You spoke

like a veteran. You ought to go into public life on your own. Perhaps

you will." He seemed to meditate. Then: "You saw Crockett, I suppose?"

"No!" exclaimed Merriam.

"Didn't you? He was seated six places to your right at the speakers'

table. Right in line with you, of course. Not strange you missed him.

Just as well, perhaps. It might have shaken even _your_ nerve."

The phrase "even _your_ nerve" was pleasant praise to Merriam. He had

never thought of himself as possessed of any exceptional _sang froid_.

But perhaps he had behaved with rather creditable composure in a trying

situation.

"_He_ was shaken, I can tell you," Rockwell was saying. "Lord, I was on

pins! I didn't know but what when you rose to speak he would jump up

and denounce you. But not he. He simply lay back and stared and kept

moistening his lips. I suppose he couldn't make up his mind for sure

whether you were the Senator or the double or whether he himself had

gone crazy or not. We'll hear from him, though," he added reflectively.

"I suppose so," said Merriam wearily. "I wish to Heaven we were clean

through the thing!" That feeling had come suddenly, and for the moment

he meant it, though he was having the time of his life.

"So do I," said Rockwell heartily. "But we're not. Not by a long shot.

So you must buck up. Here's the hotel. You shall have a real meal now.

That'll put heart into you again."

The machine stopped, and the door was opened.

"Quick time, now!" Rockwell whispered.

Senator Norman and his new political manager, Mr. Rockwell of the Reform

League, rushed almost precipitately into the lobby of the Hotel De Soto

and made a bee line for the nearest elevator. It was obvious that

important business urgently called them, for they merely nodded

hurriedly in response to several cordial salutations.

As the elevator shot up Rockwell leaned heavily against the side of the

car, took off his hat, though there was no one with them, drew a deep

breath, and comically winked both eyes at Merriam.

"What a life!" he ejaculated.

Stepping out at Floor Three, they were greeted by the spectacle of Dr.

Hobart bending over the floor clerk's desk and evidently having a

delightful tete-a-tete with the handsome young mistress of that sanctum,

whose eyes were coquettishly raised to his, though her head was slightly

bent--for she was smelling an American Beauty rose. A large vase of the

same expensive flowers adorned one corner of her desk.

Only a momentary glimpse did Merriam and Rockwell have of this pretty

tableau, for Dr. Hobart at once straightened up as if in some

embarrassment and came towards them.

"I was just thinking it was about time for you to be back," he said,

though he surely did not expect them to believe that he had just been

thinking anything of the sort.

The pretty floor clerk, no whit nonplused, bowed and smiled at Rockwell.

But she studiously failed to observe Senator Norman's presence.

Dr. Hobart walked down the hall with them.

"How's Norman?" Rockwell asked.

"No better, I'm afraid," said the physician apologetically. "He has a

high fever, and a while ago he was slightly delirious. I had to give

him more of the drug. He's sleeping again now. Simpson is with him, of

course."

"Damn!" said Rockwell, with a sort of deliberate earnestness.

They reached the sitting room and entered it. There was no one there.

Simpson was apparently in the Senator's bedroom. Merriam dropped into a

chair and closed his eyes again. Rockwell walked across to a window and

stood staring out. Dr. Hobart stopped uncertainly in the middle of the

room and fiddled with a cigarette without being able to make up his mind

to light it. For several moments none of them spoke.

But Rockwell was not the man to remain long in any apathy of inaction.

He turned suddenly, and Merriam, whom the prolonged unnatural silence

had caused to open his eyes, saw that he had made up his mind to

something.

"Hobart," he said, "I suppose Simpson isn't practically necessary in

there." He indicated the sick room.

"N-no," said Dr. Hobart, "I suppose not. He's just watching. Norman

will sleep soundly for some time."

"Then ask him to come here, will you?"

The physician disappeared into the bedroom and in a moment returned with

Simpson.

"Simpson," said Rockwell, "we're going to have a meal here, for nine

people. A luncheon, if you like. But make it hearty. Choose the stuff

yourself, and serve it as quickly as you can, please."

For a moment Simpson stared. Then, as if remembering a nearly forgotten

cue, he replied submissively, "Yes, sir," and turned to the door.

As that door closed behind Simpson, Merriam suddenly stood up.

"I must send a telegram to Riceville," he said, starting for the writing

table for a blank.

"Wait a bit," said Rockwell. "You can send it just as well an hour from

now."

Merriam was disposed to argue, but just then the rest of their party

trooped in, having returned to the hotel in Mayor Black's car.

Alicia walked straight up to Merriam, gay with enthusiasm, caught his

hand, and squeezed it.

"My dear boy," she cried, "it was perfectly splendid! I've half a mind

to kiss you!"

"Please do," said Merriam.

"I will," said Alicia promptly, and before the young man could realise

what was happening she had put her gloved hands on his shoulders and

kissed him on one cheek.

Merriam was vastly astonished. In the circles in which he had moved in

Riceville or even at college, his remark could have been taken only as a

daring pleasantry. But he undoubtedly had _sang froid_, for he

concealed his confusion, or most of it, and said:

"Let me turn the other cheek."

"Oh, I mustn't be a pig," said Alicia. "I'll leave the other cheek for

Mollie June."

At this Merriam's confusion became, I fear, perfectly apparent, for the

remainder of the party had followed Alicia into the room and were

grouped about him.

"Kiss him quick, Mollie dear," said the incorrigible Alicia, thereby

causing confusion in a second person present.

But Mayor Black, no longer to be restrained, saved the situation. He

seized Merriam's hand and pumped it.

"One of the best speeches I ever heard the Senator make!" he asserted,

in tones which Merriam feared might rouse the real Senator in the

adjoining room.

Mr. Wayward meanwhile was patting him on the back and murmuring, "Fine!

Excellent!"

Merriam turned to Aunt Mary:

"I tried to do it justice," he said.

"You gave it exceedingly well," said Aunt Mary, with less reserve than

he had ever seen her exhibit before.

"Indeed you did!" cried Mollie June earnestly, her eyes shining with

sincerity.

And that tribute, from the least qualified judge of them all, was, I

regret to state, the one which young Merriam treasured the most.

Simpson, who had worked with amazing alacrity, and even inspired his

assistants to celerity had completed his preparations and announced that

he was ready to serve the luncheon.

Rockwell delayed the meal for several minutes the sake of an apparently

important conference into which he had drawn Mr. Wayward and the Mayor

over by the window.

Presently, however, they all sat down, with Merriam beside Mollie June.

The luncheon passed, as luncheons do, in small talk and anecdote.

At last Rockwell, having finished the last morsel of a piece of French

pastry, laid down his fork and fixed his eyes significantly on Mr.

Wayward, who was in mid-career with something like his fifteenth

anecdote. Mr. Wayward faltered but rallied and finished his story. It

was the best one he had told, but there was only perfunctory laughter.

Every one about the table was looking at Rockwell, realising that at

last the great question that was in all their minds, "What are we to do

next?" was to be discussed and decided. Simpson, it should be added,

had dismissed his assistants as soon as the dessert course was served,

so that only the initiated were present.

Three times during the meal Dr. Hobart had left the table to enter the

sick room. On the second occasion he had remained away some minutes.

Rockwell now turned to him.

"Give us your report, Doctor," he said abruptly.

"Well," replied the physician, "he is better. Half an hour ago he was

awake for perhaps five minutes. His temperature is lower, though he

still has some fever. He is sleeping again now, more quietly than at

any time since he returned to the hotel. In short, he is doing as well

as could be expected. But it is out of the question for him to start on

that speech-making tour this evening."

"Undoubtedly," said Aunt Mary, with much decision.

"Just so," said Rockwell. "That being the case, two alternatives

present themselves: to announce his illness and call off the trip, or to

go on playing the game as we have begun, with Mr. Merriam's help."

Merriam gasped and opened his mouth to protest, but Rockwell waved him

down.

"The Mayor and Mr. Wayward and I have been discussing the matter. At

first blush, there may seem to be little question as to which of these

two courses we should pursue. Having come safely--so far as we know at

least--through all the perils of discovery thus far, it may seem that we

should tempt fortune no further, but let Mr. Merriam return to his

school, publish the fact of the Senator's illness, and cancel the

speaking engagements."

"Surely yes," interjected Merriam, and Aunt Mary and Father Murray and

Mollie June and even Alicia seemed to assent.

"On further consideration," Rockwell continued imperturbably, "I think

you will all see that the thing is not so clear. The course I have just

suggested may be--doubtless is--the more prudent one, if prudence were

all, but it is decidedly unfair to George Norman."

At this Aunt Mary almost visibly pricked up her ears.

"In his name," Rockwell went on, "we have thrown over the conservative

wing of the party, with whom he has always stood and who have supported

him--have 'betrayed' them, as they will put it, in this traction matter

and in aligning him with the Reform League. We did so on the theory

that he was to appeal to the people and to come back stronger than ever

as the leader of the new and growing progressive element, which is sure

to be dominant in the next election if only they can find such a leader

as Norman could be. But if we cancel this trip and let him drop out of

the campaign, if we stop now, where will he be? He will have lost his

old backers and will not have made new ones. He will be politically

dead. We shall have played absolutely into the hands of Crockett and

Thompson and the rest of the gang, and shall have accomplished nothing

but the political ruin of George Norman."

All the persons about the table except Mayor Black and Mr. Wayward

stared hard at Rockwell as this new view of their predicament sank into

their minds. The Mayor and Mr. Wayward smiled and nodded and watched

the effect on the others. Particularly they watched Merriam, who sat

dumfounded and vaguely alarmed. What new entanglements was Rockwell

devising for him? He must get back to Riceville. Involuntarily--he

could not have said why--he cast a quick glance at Mollie June, and

encountered a similar glance from her. They both looked away in

confusion.

Aunt Mary spoke:

"Tell us your plan."

It was like her--that masterful acceptance, without comment, of the

situation.

"My plan, as you call it," said Rockwell, fixing his eyes not on Aunt

Mary but on Merriam, "is simply that we should go on for another day or

two as we have begun--play the game for George until he can take the

cards in his own hands. This is Thursday. He is scheduled to leave

this evening for Cairo, to speak there at nine o'clock to-morrow

morning, to go on to East St. Louis for a talk before the Rotary Club at

noon, and then up to Springfield for an address in the evening. Is that

correct?"

"Yes," said Aunt Mary. "And he was to speak in Bloomington and Peoria

on Saturday and in Moline and Freeport on Sunday."

"The speeches are all ready, I believe?"

"Yes. George and I outlined them together some time ago, and I have

them written and typed."

"Exactly. Turn the manuscripts over to Mr. Merriam as you did this

morning. He will have time on the train on the way to each place to

master the speech to be given at that point. We shall take a special

car. Mr. Wayward and I will go with him. You"--he was addressing Aunt

Mary--"and the Mayor and Dr. Hobart--and Simpson," he added, glancing up

at the waiter, who stood listening in the background,--"and the rest of

you will stay here to guard George. That will be easy when the

newspapers are full of his speeches out in the State."

"Mr. Crockett will know," said Father Murray timidly.

"He may suspect," said Rockwell with a grin. "But if you keep every one

away from George--conceal his presence here,--he can't be sure whether

it's George himself or his double who is speech-making over the State.

And if he were sure, he wouldn't dare denounce him. Thanks to Mr.

Merriam's clever trick last night, he has a particularly strong reason

for keeping his mouth shut. If on the other hand we give up and lie

down--cancel the trip,--he can easily start all manner of nasty stories

about his escapades. I'm sorry to say it, but George has a pretty

widespread sporting reputation." Rockwell glanced apologetically at

Mollie June, but continued. "When a man with such a character is laid

up, people are ready to believe anything except that he is really

legitimately sick. Things will be safer here than they would be if we

abandoned our trick. And our part out in the State will be 'nuts,'

compared to what it was at the Urban Club this noon, for instance. Very

few people out there know Norman well. There is no question at all that

Mr. Merriam will get by. And we know from this noon that he will make

the speeches in fine shape."

"The speeches will need to be altered a bit," said Aunt Mary, "if they

are to appeal to the progressives."

"Mr. Merriam can attend to that on the train," said Rockwell. "Soften

the standpattism and throw in some progressive dope. Can't you?" He

appealed to Merriam.

"I suppose I could," said Merriam, "but--my school."

"I know," said Rockwell, "but it will be only a day or two longer.

We'll telegraph again, of course. If you were really sick, as we've

been telling them, they'd have to get along, wouldn't they? You've got

to see us through. We must keep the ball rolling. It will probably be

only one more day. George will be able to travel to-morrow, I presume?"

he asked of Dr. Hobart. "By noon, anyway?"

"By noon, I hope," said the physician with cheerful optimism.

"You see?" said Rockwell. "George can catch the noon train for

Springfield and get there in time to take on the evening speech. Mr.

Merriam will have made the two at Cairo and East St. Louis. He can go

back to Riceville from Springfield."

Just then the telephone rang, and I believe every person in the room

jumped.

Rockwell rose to answer it.

"Senator Norman? Yes, he is here. But he is engaged. This is Mr.

Rockwell, his manager. You can give the message to me."

A moment later he put his hand over the receiver and turned to Merriam.

"He insists on speaking to the Senator. You'll have to answer. I think

it's Crockett. For Heaven's sake, be careful!"

Merriam took the receiver:

"Hello!"

A voice which he remembered only too well from the night before at

Jennie's replied:

"This is Mr. Crockett, I have the honour, I believe, of speaking to Mr.

Merriam."

"You have the wrong number!" said Merriam and hung up.

But before he had had time to explain to the others or even to wonder

whether he had done wisely, the bell jangled again. He turned back to

the instrument. Rockwell came quickly to his side, and Merriam, taking

down the receiver, held it so that his "manager" too should be able to

hear what came over the wire.

"Hello!"

"Ah! Senator Norman, by your voice," said Crockett in tones of

elaborate irony. "I wish to congratulate you, Senator, on your speech

this noon. It was a magnificent effort. So full of progressive ideas

and youthful virility!"

"Thank you," said Merriam.

"And, Senator, I really must see you right away. I am calling from the

lobby. I will come up to your rooms at once, if I may. Or meet you

anywhere else you say. It is of the utmost importance to you, Mr.

Mer----" (he pretended to correct himself) "to you, Senator, as well as

to me."

"Wait a minute," said Merriam. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and

looked at Rockwell.

"Tell him you will see him at eight o'clock this evening, here."

Merriam repeated this message.

"At _eight_?" said Crockett, with significant emphasis on the hour.

"Very good, Senator. Thank you." He hung up.

Rockwell and Merriam turned to the others. Aunt Mary and the rest had

risen. They were standing by their places about the table, looking

rather scared.

"_Eight_ o'clock?" questioned Aunt Mary, with an emphasis similar to

Crockett's.

"Yes," said Rockwell doggedly. "Because"--he addressed Merriam--"your

train goes at seven. At seven-thirty Miss Norman shall telephone

Crockett, expressing your regret that you overlooked the fact that you

would have to be gone by that time. Man alive!" he cried. "Don't you

see? The Senator can't be sick now--after your public appearance this

noon. Half the people who count in Chicago saw you--him, there--right

as a trivet--obviously perfectly well. And we can't keep _you_ here,

with Crockett and Thompson continually nosing 'round. There's nothing

for it but for you to start on that trip. The trip's a godsend. Write

your telegram to Riceville!"

Merriam glanced around the circle of faces. Mad as the thing was, they

all seemed to agree with Rockwell. Mayor Black and Mr. Wayward and even

Simpson seemed to be asking him, as man to man, to stand by them.

Father Murray was timidly expectant. Dr. Hobart, he noticed, was

staring down at the table as if in thought. Aunt Mary, looking him full

in the eyes, gave an affirmative nod. Alicia's eyes and shoulders

registered appeal as conspicuously as if she had been a movie actress.

And Mollie June seemed to be begging him not to desert her.

With a gesture of resignation he went over to the writing table and sat

down to compose his third mendacious telegram to Riceville.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*THE BUSINESS OF BEING AN IMPOSTOR*

The writing of that telegram occupied Merriam for several minutes. He

was distracted by scruples. He did not like lying, and he felt, truly

enough, that he was cheating his employers, the Board of Education of

Riceville, and the patrons of the school, and his boys and girls, by

staying away from the work he was paid to do.

When, after a last momentary hesitation, he wrote his name and looked

up, he found Simpson standing by him, ready to take the message. He

noticed the man's new air of cheerfulness.

But he had no time to reflect on this phenomenon, for the party was

breaking up.

There were four of them left--Merriam and Rockwell, Aunt Mary and Mollie

June.

"Well," said Rockwell, with a sigh, "we're off again. You'd better go

to your own room--Mr. Wilson's room. I promised the reporters to see

them at half past four, and it's nearly that now. You'll need to pack.

Take these speeches with you. I'll let you know when the taxi comes."

In a moment Merriam was crossing the Senator's room. Involuntarily he

cast a glance at the sick man in the bed. In a small chair by the head

of the bed Mollie June was sitting, her eyes on her husband. She looked

up as Merriam traversed the room, met his gaze soberly for an instant,

and then looked back at Norman.

Merriam passed through the door on the other side into his own room. He

closed the door softly behind him, set the portfolio on a chair, and put

his hand to his forehead. The tiny connubial tableau of which he had

just had a glimpse had brought home to him, as nothing before had done,

the fact that Mollie June really was another man's wife. The acute

realisation left him blank. He crossed over, sank into a chair by the

window, and stared out across the fire escape. Another man's wife! And

he loved her. Of course he loved her, just as he had always done. And

she loved him, a little at least. That such a thing should happen to

him--and her! Because he had been a coward three years ago in

Riceville!

How long he sat dully revolving such thoughts as these he had no idea.

He was startled by the opening of the door from the Senator's bedroom.

He sprang to his feet with the involuntary thought that it might be

Mollie June--though of course she would have knocked. It was Simpson.

"Shall I pack your things, sir?"

"Why--yes," said Merriam.

He knew from novels that the valet of the hero always packs his bag.

Evidently Simpson had come in this capacity. To Merriam's American

self-sufficiency it seemed an absurd practice. Why shouldn't any man

put his own things into a grip for himself? But he was glad of company.

"You can help," he added, and took a couple of steps in the direction of

the bureau, with the idea of taking things out of drawers.

"Oh, don't bother, sir!" said Simpson quickly. In his tone there was

something subtly patronising. For he who has been a butler and a waiter

and a valet among the real elite feels even himself to be socially

superior to the unbutlered and unvaleted.

"Simpson," said Merriam suddenly, "you've seen Jennie!"

Simpson stopped absolutely still for a moment with a couple of folded

shirts in his hands. Then he placed the shirts in the suit case,

straightened up, and looked at Merriam.

"Yes, Mr."--he hesitated and decided to use the real name--"yes, Mr.

Merriam, I have. I went out there this morning, as you suggested."

"She let you in?"

"Yes she did. She let me sit down on the sofa with her, and we had a

long talk. I ended by asking her again to marry me--and she said she

would."

"And she kissed you!" Merriam cried gaily. He had for the moment

forgotten his own troubles in Simpson's happiness, for which he rightly

felt he might claim some credit, and in an appreciative recollection of

Jennie's temperament. Within a dozen hours she had also kissed Crockett

and himself. But Jennie was born to kiss.

Simpson looked quickly at the younger man and returned to his packing.

"Yes," he said, "she did."

Merriam regretted his exclamation, which had, in fact, told too much.

For several minutes he watched in silence the deft, efficient work of

his companion. Then he asked:

"When is it to be?"

"The wedding, sir?"

"Yes."

"As soon as you and Mr. Rockwell can spare me, sir."

Simpson closed the hand bag, closed the suit case and strapped it.

"Is there anything else I can do, sir?"

"I believe not."

The waiter hesitated. Then he decided to speak what was in his heart:

"I am very greatly indebted to you, sir," he said, with an admirable

combination of dignity and feeling. "You have made a happy man of a

very wretched one and have--saved a young girl who was on a very wrong

track. If ever I can render you any service, you can always command me,

sir."

Merriam sprang up and advanced, holding out his hand.

"I'm tremendously glad," he said. "I have accomplished one thing anyway

with all this miserable imposture."

Simpson shook his hand heartily. Then:

"Shall I leave you now, sir?"

"Why, yes, please," said Merriam. He was loth, to be left alone, but

there was clearly nothing more to be said between him and Simpson.

In a moment the waiter had withdrawn through the door into the Senator's

bedroom. Merriam's thoughts followed him into that room, where Mollie

June doubtless still sat by her husband's bed.

But just then a knock sounded at the hall door. He looked up startled.

He was not expecting any one to approach from that direction. Who could

have any business with "Mr. Wilson"?

Another knock. Merriam hesitated. Should he go to the door, or simply

sit tight till the knocker became convinced that there was no one within

and went away? He decided upon the latter course. Any one whom he ought

to see Rockwell would bring to him.

A third time the knock sounded, discreet but persistent. Then suddenly

a key was inserted in the lock and turned, the door opened, and in

stepped--Crockett!

Merriam sprang to his feet but did not speak.

"Thank you," said Crockett over his shoulder--to whom Merriam could not

see.

He closed the door and advanced:

"Is it Mr. Wilson?" he asked ironically, "or Mr. Merriam--or Senator

Norman?"

"Is it Mr. Crockett, the financier, or a house-breaker?" Merriam

retorted.

Mr. Crockett laughed, but it was an unpleasant, forced laugh.

"Since you do not answer my question," he said, "I don't see that I need

answer yours. See here," he continued, with a change of tone, "how much

is it worth to you to turn over to me those pictures you took last

night--films and all, of course--and get out of this?"

"You won't accomplish anything by insulting me!" cried Merriam, a flare

of youthful anger somewhat impairing his dignity.

"Insulting you!" echoed Crockett sneeringly. "My dear sir, as a complete

impostor you can hardly expect to get away with that pose. I'll admit

you're good at it. That impersonation of the Senator before the Urban

Club this noon was a masterpiece. But what's the game? Does Rockwell

really suppose he can swing Senator Norman over permanently to the

so-called Reformers? Let me tell you that as soon as the real Norman is

on his feet again Thompson and I and the rest of us will get hold of him

and bring him around in no time. We know too many things about your

handsome Boy Senator. He can't shake us now. So what's the use?

Unless," he added suddenly, "the plan is to kill him off and substitute

you permanently!"

"Hardly so desperate as that," said Merriam, smiling. The other man's

long speech had given him time to recover himself.

"Well, then, why not make a good thing out of it for yourself and get

away while you can? It isn't as if no one had suspected you. _I_ not

only suspect but know. I haven't told any one else yet, but you can

hardly expect me to keep your secret indefinitely."

"You forget the pictures," said Merriam, as sweetly as he could.

Crockett obviously mastered a "damn" and chased the expression that rose

to accompany it from his face.

"Let's keep to business," he said. "How much is Rockwell paying you for

this job?"

"No monetary consideration has been mentioned between us," said Merriam.

It was the truth, of course, but perhaps he need not have been so

stilted about it.

"You surely don't expect me to believe that. Come! Whatever the amount

is, I'll double it. All I ask of you is, first, to hand over to me the

pictures, and, second, to pick up your bags, which I see are already

packed, and walk out of that door with me. We'll step across the street

to my bank, I'll pay you the sum in cash, and you can skidoo. No

exposure is involved, you see--of you or your friends. I'm not

revengeful. I don't need to be. All I have to do is to wait until I can

get hold of Norman. In the meantime you get clear of a situation that

otherwise is likely to prove very nasty for you personally and very

nasty likewise for your Reformer associates. You will note that I trust

to your honour to give me all the copies of the pictures and not to

sting me on the amount I am to pay you."

"Honour among thieves?" queried Merriam.

"Who's insulting now?" Crockett demanded.

"I am," said Merriam. "At least, I'm trying my best to be. Mr.

Crockett, you spoke of walking out of that door. I'll thank you to do

that very thing--at once! If you don't, I'll call in Mr. Rockwell, and

we'll put you out. I'm tempted to try it by myself, but I don't care to

risk any noisy scuffling."

"Prudent young man!" sneered Crockett, retreating nevertheless in the

direction of the hall door. "I understand that you reject my offer?"

"I certainly do."

"Very good. I hereby serve notice on you that I shall immediately

expose the whole of your atrocious masquerade! It will be the ruin of

you and Rockwell and Norman and Mayor Black and every other person who

has been mixed up in it. Oh, you'll be a nine days' wonder in the city,

but no one of you will ever have a scrap of public credit again!"

"And on the following day," retorted Merriam, "those pretty pictures we

know of will be published in _Tidbits_. They'll be running sketches

called 'A Financier in a Flat' in every music hall in town."

"You blackmailer!"

"On the contrary you've tried to get me to take blackmail and I've

refused it."

With a sound remarkably like the snarling "bah" which regularly

accompanies the retreat of the foiled villain of melodrama, Crockett

turned towards the door through which he had been invited to depart.

But in the course of the three or four steps which he had to take to

reach, that exit he recovered something of his dignity and finesse.

Having opened the door, he turned and bowed ironically.

"Good evening, Senator," he said. "I'm afraid I shall be prevented from

keeping my appointment with you at eight. If you should change your

mind within the next half hour, you can reach me by 'phone at the Union

League. Otherwise, look out!"

On this warning note he closed the door behind him.

Merriam found himself with a whirling brain. As a quiet pedagogue he was

not accustomed to scenes of battle such as he had just passed through.

He walked up and down and mechanically lit a cigarette.

As he did so, his mind seized upon one question. Who had unlocked the

door for Crockett? Some chambermaid or bell boy? Or the floor clerk?

At any rate it must have been done with her connivance and by her

authority, for she was the commanding general of Floor Three. Why had

she done or permitted this outrageous thing? Suddenly Merriam recalled

her studied ignoring of him on the last two occasions of his passing her

desk, and compared it with her whispered "The violets are lovely" when

he first asked for Senator Norman's key. There had been something

between her and Norman. He, Merriam, in taking on the Senator's role

had dropped out that part of it, and she was offended. How seriously he

could not tell.

He concluded that he must attempt to reinstate himself--Norman--in the

pretty floor clerk's good graces, and rather hastily decided upon a

plan, He went to the telephone and asked for the hotel florist. How

much were violets? Well, they had some lovely large bunches for five

dollars. This figure rather staggered the rural pedagogue, but he

promptly asked to have one of those bunches sent up at once to "Mr.

Wilson," giving his room number, 325. He would present his peace

offering in person. "I am sure these flowers will look lovely on your

desk--or if you will wear them at your waist?" he would say, or

something of the sort. This was probably not the way Senator Norman

would have done--he would have run no such open risk,--but we must make

allowances for Merriam's inexperience.

But he never carried out his ill-conceived plan. For he had barely left

the telephone when he was arrested by a light knock on the door leading

into the Senator's bedroom. This time he was sure it was Mollie June,

and he was right.

When he opened the door she stood there with a finger at her lips.

"Aunt Mary has taken my place with George," she said in a low tone.

"She says I may give you some tea. It will be late before you can get

your dinner on the train. Would you like it?"

"Tremendously," said Merriam sincerely.

"Come into the sitting room, then."

She crossed the sick room to the door at the other side which led to the

sitting room, and he followed, with a nod to Aunt Mary, who now sat by

the sleeping Senator's bed.

Arrived in the sitting room, he was further delighted to find that

neither Rockwell nor Simpson was present. It was to be a genuine

tete-a-tete. By one of the windows stood a small table with the tea

things upon it, the kettle already singing over an alcohol flame.

Beside the table stood a large armchair and a small rocker.

"The big chair is for you," said Mollie June, seating herself in the

rocker and adjusting the flame.

"Thank you," he said and sat. Then a mingling of pleasure and

embarrassment held him awkwardly silent.

Mollie June was apparently quite composed.

"George is ever so much better," she said. "He was awake a few minutes

ago, and he seemed almost well. He has only a very little fever left."

She smiled brightly at Merriam, who dimly realised that it was to the

fact that her mind was now at ease about her husband that he owed this

treat.

Mollie June set a brightly flowered cup on a saucer to match and placed

a small spoon beside it. Then she took up the sugar tongs, and her hand

hovered over the bowl.

"One lump or two?"

"Two, please," said Merriam, noting the slenderness and whiteness of the

fingers that held the tongs and the pinkness of the small nails. (Why

else except to display charming fingers and nails were sugar tongs

invented?)

"Lemon or cream?"

Merriam was sophisticated enough to know that the right answer was

"Lemon," but he preferred cream, and an admirable instinct of honesty

led him to say so.

Through the open window came the pleasant air of the spring afternoon.

The canyon-like street without, being an east-and-west street, was

flooded with sunlight. With the breeze there entered also the

stimulating roar of the city's lively traffic. The breeze stirred

Mollie June's soft wavy hair. It also caused the alcohol flame under

the brass kettle to flutter and sputter, and Mollie June leaned forward

to regulate it. The youthful firmness of her cheeks and chin showed

like a lovely cameo in the bright light, which would have been unkind to

an older face. Having adjusted the flame, she suddenly looked up at

Merriam and smiled.

"Mollie June," he cried, "there is nothing lovelier in the world than

your eyes when you look up and smile like that!"

He had not meant to say anything of that sort, but it was forced out of

him.

Mollie June's smile lingered, and the cameo became faintly, charmingly

tinted. But she evidently felt that some rebuke was needed.

"_Mrs._ Mollie June, you must remember," she said gently.

Then, taking up her cup and leaning back in her small rocker, she asked:

"How did you get along with the speeches?"

"Not very well," said Merriam. He hesitated in his mind whether to tell

her of Crockett's interruption but decided not to. It would take too

long--he could not waste the precious minutes so. "I'll have the dickens

of a time with them," he added.

"Oh, no, you won't!" she cried, as if shocked at the idea. "You were

wonderful this noon. I was so proud of you."

"You had a right to be," said Merriam. "It was because you were there

that I could do well." Which was perhaps partially true.

"Why don't you go into it yourself?" asked Mollie June.

"Public life? Perhaps I will. I may go back to the University for a

law course and then try to get into politics."

This plan had just occurred to Merriam, but he did not disclose that

fact. In uttering one's inspirations to a pretty woman one usually

presents them as though they were the fruit of mature consideration.

"That would be fine," said Mollie June without much enthusiasm. "But

you'll be at Riceville next year?"

"I suppose so. I'll have to save up a bit more."

"I may be at home for Christmas," she said. "I'll see you then."

Merriam considered this painfully.

"No," he said at last slowly. "I shan't be there. I shall be away for

the holidays."

"You could stay over," said Mollie June, wonderingly reproachful.

"I suppose I could. But I mustn't. Just to see you--publicly, is too

hard on me. And if I see you alone like this,--I say things I oughtn't

to--make love to you."

Mollie June sat drooping, with downcast eyes, her cup in her lap.

Suddenly he was on his knees beside her. He put his arms about her, to

the great peril of flowered china.

"Mollie June!" he whispered. He softly kissed her cheek.

She raised her eyes and looked deep into his.

"John!" she whispered back, though she seemed to struggle not to do so.

After a moment he smiled sadly and got to his feet.

"I mustn't have any more tea," he said, as if that beverage was too

intoxicating, as indeed under the circumstances it was.

Fortunately--since of all things what they needed was a

diversion,--Merriam at that moment became conscious of a portentous

knocking on a distant door. He realised that it was on the door to "Mr.

Wilson's" room and remembered. The flowers--for the floor clerk!

He hurried to the hall and called the boy from the second door down the

corridor, where he was about to pound again.

In a moment he reentered the room, bearing a lovely great bunch of

fragrant English violets--and thinking hard. But he was equal to the

emergency.

He advanced to Mollie June, who stood now with her back to the window,

her slender form outlined against the light, her face in shadow.

"I've never given you anything, Mollie June," he said. "These are for

you--and the sick room." He held them for her to smell.

She took them from him, barely touching his hand as she did so, and

buried her face in them for a long minute. Then she raised her eyes to

him over them.

"Thank you, Mr. John," she said with a sad smile.

And just then Aunt Mary entered from the Senator's bedroom.

"See what Mr. Merriam has ordered for George!" said Mollie June. "Isn't

he thoughtful?"

"Very," said Aunt Mary, in her customary dry tone.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*THE CODE TELEGRAM*

Rockwell had returned with Alicia. He briskly declared that it was time

to start for the train. Mayor Black, it appeared, was below in his car

and was going to the station with them.

"I've told Simpson to take your bags down. Except the portfolio. You'd

better keep that in your own hands. What progress with the speeches?"

"Not much," said Merriam. "But I shall have the whole evening on the

train. I'll get them."

He crossed the sick room, where Dr. Hobart was now bending over the

Senator, apparently making an examination. He thrust the pile of

manuscripts back into the portfolio. Then, after a glance about the

room, reminiscent of his burglarious entry the night before, he caught

up his coat and hat and returned to the sitting room again.

"Are we ready?" he asked of Rockwell.

"Waiting for Hobart--for a final report on the Senator's condition."

"Aren't you coming to the station with us, Mollie June?" Alicia was

saying.

"No," said Mollie June, her eyes on a large bunch of violets which she

was arranging in a bowl. "I must stay with my husband."

"But Aunt Mary will be here. I think she owes it to you to come with

us, don't you, Mr. Merriam?"

"No," said Merriam, "I think she is right in staying."

Alicia looked from him to Mollie June, then shrugged her shoulders and

turned to Rockwell, who was cautioning Aunt Mary--as if Aunt Mary ever

needed cautioning!--about maintaining the closest possible guard on the

Senator's rooms in their absence.

Merriam moved to Mollie June's side.

"I shan't see you again," he said.

"No," said Mollie June.

For a single moment she looked up from the flowers into his face. Her

eyes held tears, and she blushed slightly. In her look he read

unwilling love and shame.

He would have moved away, impotently miserable, but her hand, which had

dropped to her side between them, suddenly touched his, closed in his

for an instant, and was withdrawn, leaving something--something very

small, cool, and fragile--a single violet.

He understood, of course, that it was to be his souvenir of her, all he

could have of her, through the long years to come while she played out

her loathsome role as the wife of the dissipated Boy Senator and he

taught school at Riceville or--what did it matter what he did?

His hand closed quickly on the violet, and he turned to face Dr. Hobart,

who was just entering from the sick room.

The physician was highly reassuring. The Senator was doing very well

indeed.

"He'll be able to meet us in Springfield, then, to-morrow night?"

demanded Rockwell.

"I think he'll be well enough to do that," returned Hobart, with a

slight evasiveness which Rockwell and Merriam had occasion a few hours

later to recall with some vividness. But at the moment they scarcely

noticed it.

"Good!" cried Rockwell. "We're off. No! Wait."

He drew a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Aunt Mary.

"This paper describes a simple form of code telegram. Use it in your

messages to us in regard to the Senator's progress and when and where he

is to join us. You'll wire at least once a day, of course."

"Yes," said Aunt Mary, accepting the paper.

Merriam shook hands with Aunt Mary.

"I hope," she said, "that some day, after all this is over, we may be

able to have you visit us, when George can thank you for the inestimable

service you have rendered him."

"I should be delighted," Merriam murmured, though he had no great mind

to be thanked by George Norman.

Then he shook hands with Mollie June and met her eyes for a moment, but,

under the gaze of Aunt Mary and Rockwell and Alicia, "Good-bye," was all

he could say.

"Good-bye. Thank you for--everything," she replied, and her eyes

followed his figure as Rockwell swept him from the room.

The closing of the door of the Senator's sitting room upon Merriam

marked the beginning of a period of a dozen hours or more that was

utterly phantasmal and unreal to him both at the time and in his

recollection afterwards. He seemed to move and speak and act without

volition and without any clear realisation of what he was doing or why

he was doing it.

After dinner with Rockwell and Mr. Wayward--an excellent meal served in

the private car by an amiable gentleman of colour, Merriam read the

speech which he was to deliver at Cairo in the morning, and then had to

pull himself together and commit that speech, but he did even this

mechanically. And finally to bed in his compartment, at first to a long,

uneasy dream, in which he appeared to be making an interminable speech

to an audience consisting of Mollie June, Jennie, an inattentive floor

clerk, Aunt Mary, and Simpson, and then to a heavy slumber, from which

he was roused with difficulty the next morning.

In the morning it was the same way with him--everything dully unreal.

Breakfast. Going over the speech again. Then it was nine o'clock, and

the train was running into Cairo. A crowd at the station. A cheer or

two. He was being assisted into an automobile. A sort of procession

with a band through several blocks of streets to a small park.

Merriam found himself sitting with Rockwell and Mr. Wayward and several

local notables in a band stand, with a considerable concourse of people

sitting and standing about on the grass below. Some native orator made a

short speech. A number by the band. Then the Mayor of Cairo was

effusively introducing Senator Norman. The Mayor sat down amid

applause.

Merriam rose, advanced to the rail, and began on his speech. He felt

himself to be a sort of animated phonograph. The words which he had

learned the night before and reviewed that morning ran trippingly off

his tongue. His collegiate training and subsequent experience in public

speaking came to the aid of his subconscious self, which seemed to be

functioning with practically no direction from his higher centers. He

turned pleasantly as he spoke to face now one part of his circle of

auditors and now another. He suited his tone to the words in different

parts of the speech. He even achieved an occasional appropriate

gesture.

At last he came to the end of what he had learned and stopped as the

phonograph stops when the end of a record is reached. And for a moment

he stood there by the rail, blank, at a loss--as a phonograph would have

stood. He had to rouse himself with a jerk of conscious attention

before he perceived that what he had to do next was to step back and sit

down.

The applause was fairly satisfactory. The Mayor of Cairo leaned across

Rockwell to shake hands and congratulate him, and Mr. Wayward, on the

other side, patted his shoulder and said, "Good enough!" And the band

struck into a patriotic air.

Merriam awoke. It was as if lights had been turned on and doors opened.

He realised that it was a bright, sunny morning, that a band was

playing, that he, John Merriam, was alive and young, and that he was

having a whimsically glorious adventure which he could not afford to

miss the joy of even if Mollie June was Senator Norman's wife.

In this rejuvenated mood he joyously descended with the others from the

band stand and climbed into the automobile and lay back happily, between

Rockwell and the Cairo Mayor, to relish the slow processional

drive--still preceded by the band--back to the station.

"Feeling better?" asked Rockwell, who had not failed to note his

previous lethargy.

"Feeling fine!" he replied, and gave his attention to the scenery of

Cairo's Main Street and the crowds therein, waiting eagerly for a

glimpse of the remarkable Boy Senator.

As the automobile passed close to the curb on turning a corner, Merriam

caught one remark:

"He does look just like a young man!"

The speaker was a decidedly pretty girl in a boldish sort of way.

Merriam sensed and seized upon the privileges of age. He leaned

forward:

"Thank you, my dear," he said. "At least I'm young enough to know a

pretty girl when I see one."

Which incident will serve to show that Merriam was really awake again.

Also, it probably won more votes for Senator Norman's party at the next

election than the whole of Aunt Mary's able speech as delivered by the

human phonograph a few minutes earlier.

They reached the station and regained the private car. Merriam sank

into a wonderful armchair in the sitting room compartment, glanced about

him at the luxurious appointments, and lit a cigarette with gusto.

"I shouldn't mind this riches-and-fame business for quite a while," he

thought. (Mollie June was for the time forgotten; thus it is with the

fickle male.)

Rockwell had sat down in the next chair. Merriam made an effort of

memory.

"East St. Louis next?" he asked.

"Yes," said Rockwell. "We'll have to get at the speech as soon as the

train starts."

Just then a small but vociferous urchin appeared in the door of the car.

His cap proclaimed him a telegraph messenger.

"Telegram for Mr. Rockwell!" he shouted, as though Mr. Rockwell were

probably in the next county.

Rockwell signed the book, and the lad slowly withdrew himself, taking

generous eyefuls of Rockwell, "Senator Norman," and the private car. As

he lingered with a last backward stare in the doorway, Merriam winked at

him, and the boy grinned and generously, democratically winked back.

Turning from that wink to Rockwell, Merriam was startled. The man sat

limp with the telegram on his knee and a pencil in his hand. I will not

say he was pale, but certainly he was haggard.

He handed the telegram to Merriam.

Merriam tried to read it, but could make no sense at all. It was very

long but apparently a mere string of words with little intelligible

meaning.

"What----?" he began.

"It's code," said Rockwell. "I've underlined the words that count."

Picking out the significant words by means of Rockwell's underlining,

Merriam read:

George kidnapped from rooms whereabouts unknown doctor disappeared

cancel trip return Mary.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*SIMPSON AS DETECTIVE*

A moment later Mr. Wayward, who had stopped at the station cigar stand

to replenish his stock of nicotine, rejoined them and was shown the

telegram.

His first comment was profane.

"We've got to go back," said Rockwell. "Now that they have Norman in

their power--for Crockett is behind this, of course,--they may denounce

us--may make Norman himself denounce us--any minute. They have no end

of a grip on him, and he has no great love for the role of Reformer

himself--nor for me. Our only hope is to get back to Chicago and find

him and get hold of him again." He jumped to his feet, "I must see the

station master at once."

"Yes," said Mr. Wayward, "there's nothing else for it."

Rockwell hastily departed to announce their changed plans to the station

master, and Merriam and Mr. Wayward looked at each other. The latter's

face had assumed the humorous smile which had been his expression

towards the whole affair from the beginning.

"It's been a damn fool business all along," he said.

"I suppose it has," said Merriam.

"Good fun for you, though." Mr. Wayward lit a cigar.

"Yes," Merriam assented. But he was thinking of something else. Back

to Chicago! The young rascal was realising that that meant he should

see Mollie June again.

Mr. Wayward puffed meditatively.

"'Doctor disappeared,'" he quoted from the telegram. "That means Hobart

was in it. Probably he was the chief agent. Crockett's bribed him."

Merriam suddenly remembered the tableau which Rockwell and he had

surprised as they stepped out of the elevator at the Hotel De Soto on

the previous afternoon: Dr. Hobart in confidential conference with the

floor clerk.

"Probably they bribed the floor clerk, too," he said. "Hobart seemed to

be sweet on her."

"So?" said Mr. Wayward. And after a minutes consideration: "Very

likely. They could hardly have managed without the floor clerk in

fact."

Presently he added:

"We've got to go back all right. But I don't what we can do except to

surrender."

"We still have my pictures of Crockett at Jennie's."

"Well, I hope so. Unless they've bribed Simpson, too. Those pictures

are one of the things that may make them give us a chance to surrender."

The two men smoked in silence for several minutes--until Rockwell

returned.

"Well, that's fixed," he announced. "There's a north-bound express due

in half an hour and reported on time that will take us into Chicago by

nine o'clock to-night. You're sick, of course, Senator," he added to

Merriam. "Bronchitis again!"

They continued to talk until the north-bound train arrived and picked up

their car, and they were started on their return trip.

At Carbondale Rockwell sent off telegrams to the several cities which

Merriam was to have visited, cancelling Senator Norman's speaking tour

on account of a renewed attack of bronchitis. He also sent a message in

code to Aunt Mary, giving the hour when they were due to arrive.

The three men talked, of course, but they had so few facts to go on that

they could only formulate gloomy speculations, with nothing really in

the way of definite conclusion beyond what Mr. Wayward and Merriam had

reached in their first few minutes of chat immediately after the arrival

of Aunt Mary's message. How the kidnapping had been managed or where

Norman might be, they simply could not tell.

They had one practical point to decide, namely, their first procedure on

reaching the city. It was obviously not safe for "Senator Norman" to go

directly to the Hotel De Soto. They could not tell what the situation

there might be since the kidnapping. It was finally agreed that

Rockwell and Merriam should leave the train at Fifty-Third Street and

take a taxicab to Rockwell's bachelor apartment on Drexel Boulevard,

while Mr. Wayward should go on to the Twelfth Street Station and thence

to the hotel to see Aunt Mary. Their next step was to depend on what he

learned there. Rockwell was afraid even to telephone from his apartment,

for fear the wire to the Senator's suite might be tapped. Merriam was

not keen on this arrangement because it evidently postponed his seeing

Mollie June and might even prevent his doing so altogether. But this

was not an objection which he could raise in the discussion.

At last they were running into the City. Fifty-Third Street was

reached, and Rockwell and Merriam shook hands with Mr. Wayward and

descended from the private car.

Rockwell's first act in the station was to buy an evening paper. He

scanned the sheet anxiously, with Merriam looking over his shoulder.

The first page carried a paragraph reporting the abandonment of Senator

Norman's down-State speaking tour "on account of a return of his

bronchitis." Rockwell had sent no word to this effect to any one in

Chicago, but evidently the news had come in from some one or more of the

towns to which he had wired cancellations. There were, however, no

headlines in regard to the kidnapping of a United States Senator from

one of the city's leading hotels and no expose of their imposture.

"They're still keeping it dark," said Rockwell, with a flash of renewed

hope on his haggard face. "We're going to have a chance to make terms."

A moment later they were in a taxicab bound for his apartment. They

rode in silence. Merriam wondered if he should see Mollie June

again--though just what good that would do him or what he should say to

her he could not have told.

"I shall see her once--alone," he said to himself, "whatever happens.

I've done enough for them to have a right to demand that."

And on that scene of unhappy farewell--for what else could it be?--his

thoughts halted. His mind would go no farther.

The taxicab stopped, and they got out, and Merriam found himself in

front of a decidedly imposing apartment building. Rockwell hurried him

through a sumptuous entry and into an elevator. They shot up three

flights. Then in a hallway Rockwell unlocked a door, and they entered

the sitting room of his apartment--a large room in quiet tones,

furnished somewhat in the taste of a good men's club.

Merriam sank into a chair.

"Played out?" asked Rockwell, standing over him and speaking in his old

manner of matter-of-fact good humour, which had deserted him during that

trying day.

"Yes," said Merriam. He felt, in fact, quite exhausted, although he had

done nothing since ten o'clock that morning except smoke and eat two

meals and wait.

"So am I," said Rockwell, "and we must get fit again. We may have a

busy night ahead. Suppose we have a shower and then coffee? That'll

brace us up."

Three quarters of an hour later, the two men, much refreshed by the

shock of cold water and the odd stimulation which always follows

re-dressing in fresh clothes, were sitting on opposite sides of

Rockwell's writing table, waiting for an electric percolator to "perk,"

when the doorbell rang. They looked at each other.

"Curtain up for the last act," said Rockwell as he went to answer it.

It was Mr. Wayward with Aunt Mary and Father Murray and Mayor Black.

Mollie June, Merriam saw, was not with them.

"Come in," said Rockwell, oddly formal.

Merriam, as he rose, noticed the change in Aunt Mary. Always before she

had seemed a creature of no age at all; now she was obviously a quite

elderly woman. The Mayor's plump face was gray and drawn with anxiety.

Even Mr. Wayward looked more worried than he had seemed all day.

For a moment the four of them stood together just inside the room,

staring at Merriam, accusingly as it were, as if he had been the cause

of their trouble.

But Rockwell, having closed the door, turned and after one glance at the

group spoke loudly, with exaggerated briskness:

"Sit down, all of you--and tell me. You'll find this a comfortable

chair, Aunt Mary. Over there, Mayor. You're at home here, Wayward."

Father Murray took Aunt Mary's arm and led her to the chair Rockwell had

indicated. Solemnly they all sat down.

Rockwell was both daunted and impatient. After another look at Aunt

Mary, he turned to the Mayor:

"When did it happen?"

But before the Mayor could reply, Aunt Mary spoke up. She was not so

far gone as she looked.

"Between five minutes after eight and half past nine this morning," she

said. "Mollie June and I had gone downstairs for breakfast in the

Wedgewood Room and then for a short walk--over to Michigan Avenue and

back. Dr. Hobart suggested both. He said we ought to get out that much

before we settled down for the day in the rooms, and that he would stay

with George till we returned. He said that George was much better, and

he looked better. When we got back--it was exactly half past

nine,--both he and George were gone."

Aunt Mary paused for an instant on this disastrous climax.

"We were terribly upset," she continued. "We could hardly believe our

senses. Mollie June cried, and at first I could not think what I ought

to do. But presently I had mind enough to telephone for Mayor Black and

Father Murray, and by the time they came I was calm enough to think

quietly and join them in making plans."

"You were wonderful," said Father Murray.

"We could make no kind of announcement or complaint. George was not

supposed to be there. You"--she looked at Merriam---"were probably at

that very moment making a speech in his name at Cairo. We could say

nothing to anybody. We figured out that you were either still at Cairo

or on your way to East St. Louis, and we sent messages to Mr. Rockwell

at both places. We had to stop that insane speaking tour and get you

both back here as soon as possible. We telephoned to the hotel office

for Dr. Hobart, but they said he had resigned as house physician the

night before. Then we sent for Simpson. He didn't seem greatly

surprised. In fact, he said that Dr. Hobart had offered him money early

that morning 'to help in restoring Senator Norman to his real friends.'

That seems to have been the way Hobart put it. Simpson refused the

money, he said, and didn't learn what the plan was. He said that he had

meant to tell me of the offer but hadn't been able to get away from his

work. It was still only a couple of hours since Dr. Hobart had talked

with him. He said he would try to find Hobart and learn where George

was, and then he went away, and we haven't heard from him since.

Finally, I went out to see the floor clerk, thinking she must have seen

when George was taken out, but there was a new girl. The former one had

quit, she said, at nine o'clock--simply telephoned the office that she

was leaving and hung up and slipped away."

"Have you tried to see Crockett?" Rockwell asked.

"I have," said the Mayor. "Been trying all day. But both at his office

and at his house they say he isn't in and they don't know where he is or

when he will be back. And he wasn't at any of his clubs."

"It's a pretty clean get-away," said Rockwell.

Merriam spoke up. "I have some hopes of Simpson," he said. "His

continued absence may mean that he is following some sort of trail."

"Maybe," said Rockwell. "Meanwhile this coffee"--he drew attention to

the percolator--"is getting pretty black, and black coffee is what we

all need. After that we'll see."

"Where is Mrs. Norman?" Merriam asked timidly while Rockwell was pouring

and passing the coffee.

"We left her at the hotel with Alicia," said Mr. Wayward. "We had to

leave some one there, in case some message should come from Simpson or

from Crockett or from George himself."

The coffee was drunk in a dismal silence. Mr. Wayward attempted one or

two semi-cheerful remarks, but they fell flat.

"The first question," said Rockwell when the cups had been emptied, "is:

where is George Norman? Crockett may have taken him to his own house.

But that is unlikely. Or to some other hotel. Or to one of his clubs.

Or, if he is still really sick, to a hospital. I think myself a hotel

is the most probable. That could have been managed with a minimum of

explanations. In any case we have got to find him. But this is no case

for amateurs. I propose to engage a professional private detective and

commission him to find George. Also Hobart. It oughtn't to take him

more than twenty-four hours. Then we can make further plans. If Norman

is still sick, we may have to re-kidnap him. If he is up and himself

again, it will be a matter of parleying with him and Crockett and making

such terms as we can. Has any one a better suggestion?"

It appeared that no one had, and Rockwell was looking up the detective

agency, when the doorbell rang again.

Father Murray sprang to his feet.

"Yes, you answer it," said Rockwell.

Before the priest could reach the door an impatient rat-a-tat-tat

sounded on the panel.

He opened to Alicia and Simpson.

"Good heavens, you're slow!" cried Alicia. "And glum as the grave," she

added, glancing about the circle of faces. "Simpson has found George."

There were exclamations.

Rockwell put down the telephone book and went to Alicia.

"Dear!" he said.

And Alicia, turning, put her arms about his neck and kissed him. "You

poor fellow!" she cried.

Then Rockwell turned to Simpson.

"Sit down here, Simpson," he said. "Have some coffee? You look

fagged."

"Thank you, sir. I _am_ pretty much all in."

Rockwell drew a cup of coffee and took it to him, and the waiter gulped

it down.

"Thank you, sir," he said again. "Now I can tell you. I owe a good

deal to that young gentleman"--he indicated Merriam,--"and when I saw

the trouble you were all in I decided to do what I could. Of course we

knew Mr. Crockett was at the bottom of the thing, and I decided he was

the most findable person in it. I figured that he wouldn't appear at

his office and wouldn't go home, but that sooner or later he would show

up at one of his clubs. You remember I asked you this morning what

clubs he belonged to." This to Mayor Black.

The Mayor assented.

"You mentioned five. That was a pretty large order, but I got some of

my pals who are taxicab drivers to help me, and between us we kept a

pretty close watch on all of them. He didn't come near the one I was

watching myself, and I didn't hear anything from the others till five

o'clock. Then one of the boys sent word to me that he had entered the

Grill Club on Monroe Street. I went right over and hung around there

for nearly three hours. It was a quarter to eight when he came out. He

took a taxi, and I followed in another. He drove to St. John's Hospital

over on the West Side. I was right after him and followed him into the

building. He doesn't know me, of course, and paid no attention to me.

He spoke to the nurse at the desk and then stepped into a waiting room.

The nurse looked hard at me, but I said, 'I'm with him,' and stepped

back towards the door. She thought I was his man and took no further

notice of me. Pretty soon Dr. Hobart came down. He didn't see me, but

I saw him plainly. He looked pretty much worried--scared, I thought.

He and Mr. Crockett talked for a while in the waiting room, but I

couldn't hear anything they said. Then Mr. Crockett left, and Dr.

Hobart went back upstairs. I could have spoken to him after Mr. Crockett

had gone out, but I thought I had better not let them know that any one

was on their trail--for fear they would move him again. Then I had an

idea. I went up to the desk again. I said to the nurse: 'How is Mr.

Merriam?' She looked at me. 'He's pretty sick,' she said, and turned

away. I didn't see what more I could do, so I took my taxi back to the

De Soto and went up to the Senator's suite and found Miss Wayward and

Mrs. Norman, and Miss Wayward brought me here."

For a moment Rockwell seemed sunk in thought. Then he roused himself,

glanced around the circle of faces, and spoke:

"First of all, Mr. Simpson, I want to say that you have done a very

clever bit of work. We were about to engage a private detective to

undertake what you have already accomplished. I think I can safely say

that we will see that you are suitably rewarded."

"You can," said Mr. Wayward emphatically--which was satisfactory since

he was the person present from whom any substantial monetary reward must

come.

"Thank you, sir," said Simpson.

The Mayor broke in:

"It's pretty clear what has happened. They got Norman downstairs while

Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman were at breakfast, put him in a taxi, drove

to the hospital, and entered him under the name of Merriam. And Dr.

Hobart has stayed in attendance."

"And he's still sick--perhaps worse," said Aunt Mary anxiously.

"Why did they enter him as Merriam?" asked Rockwell, thinking aloud.

"It must mean that Crockett doesn't dare denounce us or doesn't wish to

do so, that he means to make terms with us and preserve the secrecy of

the whole affair. As I see it, there will have to be one more

substitution"--he addressed the real owner of the name of Merriam,--"of

you for Norman--at the hospital. You have reported yourself to your

Riceville people as sick. Very well, you have gone to a hospital. From

the hospital you return to your work. It will strengthen your alibi.

And Norman will be restored to us--on Crockett's conditions, of course.

But we shall escape the worst. We shall come off safe yet. But it must

happen at once," he continued, with a note of new anxiety. "The whole

State knows that Norman's speaking tour has been abandoned, that he came

back to Chicago to-day, that he is in the City now. We must get hold of

Crockett some way to-night. The final substitution must be made before

morning."

Mr. Wayward was looking at his watch. "It's eleven o'clock now," he

said. "But you'd better try telephoning. His clubs, I think."

"Yes," said Rockwell. "The Grill Club! That's where you found him,

Simpson? He may have gone back there for the night. I'll try that

first."

He went quickly to the telephone.

While Rockwell was looking up the number and the rest waiting in painful

expectancy, the doorbell for the third time startled them.

"I'll go, sir," said Simpson.

In a moment he had opened the door.

On the threshold stood Crockett--a pale, hesitant, almost seedy

Crockett, very different from the serene, confident, well-groomed

financier whom Merriam had first encountered forty-eight hours before at

Jennie's.

Rockwell dropped the book:

"Come in, Mr. Crockett. I was just going to 'phone to you."

Crockett advanced a couple of steps into the room. Then he stopped.

There was something portentous in his air of mournful gravity. His eyes

travelled from face to face. For a moment they rested on Merriam. Then

they came to a full stop on Aunt Mary.

The whole roomful remained silent, fascinated by his look, which seemed

to speak, not of threat, which they might have expected, but of some

disaster beyond threat.

At last with an effort he turned his eyes from Aunt Mary to Rockwell.

"I have to tell you," he said, "that George Norman is dead."

*CHAPTER XXIX*

*THE FINAL DILEMMA*

I do not suppose Mr. Crockett desired to be unnecessarily cruel.

Doubtless he would have preferred to break his devastating news more

gently. But he was himself in a state of nervous exhaustion from

fatigue, worry, and perhaps remorse, and the circle of anxious faces had

proved too much for his self-control.

Realising too late the brutal bluntness of his announcement, he broke

into a hurried flow of words:

"We took him from the hotel this morning to St. John's Hospital. We

thought he would be just as well off there--even better off. Dr. Hobart

thought he was nearly well anyway. But the ride and the effort of

listening to Hobart's explanations apparently fatigued him. By the time

they got to the hospital he was very sick again. His bronchitis--if it

ever was bronchitis--turned into pneumonia--double acute pneumonia. He

got worse and worse all day. Dr. Hobart and the physicians and nurses

at the hospital did everything possible for him. But it was no use. He

died at nine o'clock."

All eyes turned suddenly to Aunt Mary, who had risen, holding on to the

back of her chair.

Father Murray was at her side in an instant, and Alicia hurried to her.

"No," said Aunt Mary, brokenly, "I'm not going--to faint--or anything.

But I want--to be alone."

Rockwell sprang to his feet. "My bedroom," he said, and led the way to

the door of his chamber, which opened off the sitting room.

In a moment Aunt Mary, walking between Father Murray and Alicia, had

passed into the bedroom.

Mr. Wayward's voice broke the stillness.

"Poor fellow!" he said.

For a minute or two they all paid the tribute of silence to the dead.

But it was impossible to be really very sorry for George Norman. He had

had an easy, pleasure-filled life--wealth, luxury, fame, and a good

time, according to his own conception of a good time, up to the very

beginning of his brief illness. That his last few, largely unconscious

hours had been passed in a hospital away from his friends had certainly

been almost no grief to him. The only sorrow genuinely possible was

over the common folly, and the universal final tragedy, of humankind.

In a few moments the thoughts of the entire group that remained in

Rockwell's sitting room were irresistibly drawn back to the strange and

somewhat dangerous situation in which the unexpected death had left

them.

Presently Rockwell spoke:

"Technically, Mr. Crockett, I suppose it is not Senator Norman but Mr.

Merriam who died at St. John's Hospital."

(Merriam was somewhat startled at this turn of thought; this phase of

the matter had not yet occurred to him.)

"You have made no announcement?" Rockwell asked.

"No," said Crockett. "I have done nothing. When Hobart telephoned me

that--what had happened, I rushed out to the hospital again--I don't

know why. I couldn't believe it. Then I telephoned from the hospital

to the De Soto and got Mrs. Norman, and she told me you were all here,

so I came here. I have done nothing."

While he was speaking Alicia and Father Murray returned from the

bedroom.

"She is all right," said Alicia. "She asked us to leave her alone for a

few minutes. Did you tell Mrs. Norman?" she added, addressing Crockett.

"What had happened? Yes," said Crockett.

Merriam's thoughts flew to Mollie June, alone in the vast, heartless

hotel with the news of her husband's death.

"Ought not some one to go to her?" he asked.

"Presently," said Rockwell. "We must first consider the situation a

little--hers as well as ours."

Mayor Black spoke up:

"It will be pretty awkward for her--aside from natural grief and all

that--that her husband should have died in a hospital under another name

without her being present, while the man to whom the other name belongs

was impersonating him in public. And awkward for Miss Norman. For the

rest of us, too. Damned awkward!"

"It is a hard thing to have to close the career of George Norman with

such a story," said Mr. Wayward.

"It must never happen!" said a voice behind them.

They all turned. Aunt Mary was standing in the door of the bedroom.

She already looked more like herself. She was one of those souls who

may sink under passive anxiety and suspense but find themselves again

immediately when a call for action comes. She had scarcely been left

alone, apparently, when the same thought which the Mayor and Mr. Wayward

had expressed had occurred to her--the peril to the name of Norman,

which was perhaps even more dear to her than her brother himself had

been. And instantly, by some powerful effort of will, she had put grief

behind her and turned to face this new danger.

"It must never happen," she repeated, advancing into the room, where

Alicia, and the men too, unmindful of the etiquette which should have

brought them to their feet, sat staring at her. "The secret must be

kept. It is more important now than ever. With George alive, it would

not have mattered so much. He would have lived it down triumphantly.

Only the rest of us would have suffered--not he, nor the Name. But

now--_it must be kept_!"

"But how _can_ it be kept?" said Crockett, in a tone of desperation.

For a moment no one spoke.

Then Rockwell, looking from face to face, drew a deep breath.

"There is just one way," he said. "It was John Merriam who died.

Senator Norman is alive." He waved his hand at Merriam. "He must go on

living!"

"But that is impossible," said Mayor Black and Merriam together.

"Face the alternative first," said Rockwell. "George--the real

George--was admitted to the hospital about nine o'clock this morning.

At that same hour Senator Norman was making a speech at Cairo before an

audience representing the entire county. That is known all over the

State. He took the next train back to Chicago. But that train did not

reach Chicago until after--after the death."

"We could have the hour of the death changed on the records," proposed

Mr. Wayward. "It is already announced all over the State that Senator

Norman is ill again. He could be rushed from the train to the hospital

and die there during the night."

"Then we should have two deaths on our hands," said Rockwell, "and only

one body. Unless we bring Merriam to life again. How are we to do

that? It is pretty hard to get hospital authorities to falsify their

records. And dozens of people must know the supposed facts--nurses,

doctors, clerks at the hospital. We could never keep them all from

talking. The reporters would get hold of it within twenty-four hours.

No, Senator Norman cannot have died at the hospital. He is alive. He

must go on living!"

"Can't he die at the hotel--to-night or to-morrow?" said Merriam.

"Then what becomes of you?" asked Rockwell.

"Why, I should go back to Riceville."

"You can't. You're dead! And how can Senator Norman die at the hotel

when we should not be able to produce his body there?"

"We could get the body," said Mr. Wayward, speaking in a lowered tone.

"As Mr. Merriam's friends we would take his body away from the hospital

to be buried and bring it to the hotel."

"We shall have to send for the real Merriam's friends," said Rockwell.

"From Riceville and--wherever your people live." He looked at Merriam.

"We should have no body to show them. We could bury a loaded casket.

But why should we, who must be strangers to him from their point of

view, have been in such a hurry when they could get here in a few hours?

Probably they would want to take his body elsewhere for burial. Very

likely they would have the coffin we had buried raised and opened. And

how could we get a dead body into the Hotel De Soto? Up a fire escape?"

In the earnestness of his argument Rockwell evidently did not realise

the gruesomeness of his language.

Aunt Mary shuddered.

"No!" she said. "I will not have George's body smuggled about the

city."

She paused, looking strangely at Merriam. None of the others, not even

Rockwell, ventured to speak.

"Alicia told me, I believe, that you have no near relatives?" she said

presently.

"None nearer than cousins," Merriam replied.

For a long minute more Aunt Mary stared at him. She closed her eyes,

opened them, and looked again. Then her lips shut tight for a moment in

an expression of momentous decision. She leaned forward.

"You have the Norman blood in you," she said to Merriam, "on your

mother's side. You are fine stuff. We have all seen that. We will

make a Norman of you, if you will. You shall take George's place--to

save his name!"

"But----" Merriam began.

But Rockwell cut in:

"It's absolutely the only way," he cried. "The only other alternative

is to let the whole story come out."

"Then that's what we have to do," said Mr. Wayward. "Make a clean breast

of it."

"No!" said Aunt Mary.

"No!" echoed Rockwell. "Think what that means--to George's memory,

first of all. That in his last hours his relatives and friends were

conspiring against him, with the help of a stranger double, to force him

to abandon the kind of life he was leading and the disreputable

interests with which he was associated.--I beg your pardon, Mr.

Crockett!"

Crockett waved a feeble hand to indicate forgiveness or indifference.

"And then to Mollie June," Rockwell continued. "That she had connived at

the impersonation of her husband during his last illness by another man.

How far did that other man take her husband's place, will be the

question every man and woman in the State will ask. And all the rest of

us. Aunt Mary. And Mr. Merriam, who will lose his job and his

professional standing. And the Mayor and myself, who will be ruined

politically and every other way. Even you, Mr. Wayward, would find

yourself in an exceedingly unpleasant situation. And Mr. Crockett, on

the other side, would be no better off. For the story of the kidnapping

must come out."

The wilted financier uttered a sort of groan.

"But can the other thing be done?" asked the Mayor, the perspiration of

mental anguish showing on his forehead.

"Certainly it can," said, Rockwell eagerly. "Senator Norman has come

back to Chicago. Here he is. Presently he will arrive at the hotel. He

will be pretty sick. You and I"--he looked at Mr. Wayward--"will

support him to the elevator and to his rooms. He will be ill for

several days. We must get hold of Hobart again to attend him. Then we

will announce that he is threatened with tuberculosis and is to retire

from public life. He must resign his seat in the Senate. We daren't go

ahead with that. It would be too dangerous--and too serious a fraud

besides." (Evidently there was some limit to a Reformer's

unscrupulousness.) "He will go to his ranch in Colorado to recuperate.

You will actually go." He was addressing Merriam now. "You must live

there for a year or so. During that time only a few of Norman's private

friends will visit you. We will coach you up on these a few at a time.

If any of them notice any slight changes in you, they will lay it to

your illness. You will easily take your place in the whole circle of

his private life."

"But the property," said Mr. Wayward. "The Norman fortune."

"Reverts to me and Mollie June," said Aunt Mary, who was evidently heart

and soul with Rockwell. "If we are satisfied----"

She stopped. The mention of Mollie June had recalled a phase of the

situation which Rockwell and the Mayor and even Mr. Wayward had

apparently forgotten--so little are men accustomed to consider their

women folk when the real game of business or politics is on. Merriam

and Alicia had not forgotten it, but had not been able so far to get a

word in. As for Aunt Mary I cannot say--she was so near to being a man

herself.

"Mollie June!" repeated Rockwell aghast.

"Exactly," said Merriam, somewhat bitterly. Him, too, Rockwell had been

treating pretty much as a lifeless pawn in the game.

But Aunt Mary, when roused, was equal to anything.

"We shall manage that," she said. "I will go to Colorado with Mr.

Merriam. Mollie June can return to her father for a time. We can

arrange a separation--or----"

Even Aunt Mary hesitated. But Alicia took the cue.

"Or they can be married--or remarried," she said, fixing her bright

eyes, with a gleam of mischievous understanding in them, on Merriam.

The argument had come to a full stop. The whole roomful sat looking at

Merriam, who tried to think and found he could not, except that he

realised that all the rest had tacitly accepted Rockwell's plan.

"Come!" said Alicia vivaciously. "It isn't so bad, is it? The Norman

fortune and--Mollie June!"

Bad! The prospect was so dazzling to Merriam that he could not take his

mind off it in order to think calmly. To die to his old self--to his

poverty and loneliness, to his teaching with which he had long been

bored,--and to step as if by magic into a new life with wealth,

leisure--and Mollie June! For surely she loved him, and she had not

loved George Norman. She would marry him--after an interval, of course.

"I must think," he said, weakly, in response to Alicia's exhortation.

"Of course you must," said Rockwell. "You must accustom your mind to

it. But it will all be perfectly easy. You were brought up on a farm,

weren't you? You will take to the ranch life like anything. It's

mostly stock-raising. You can go in for scientific farming. After a

few months it would probably be a good thing for you to travel, perhaps

for a year or two--especially if you and Mollie June should marry. Get

out of the country, so as to leave Norman's old life entirely behind you

for a while. You might take a trip around the world."

Merriam's youthful heart bounded in spite of himself. A trip around the

world with Mollie June!

"As to your old self," Rockwell continued, "that's quite simple, too.

Norman was entered at the hospital under your name. A death certificate

must have been given by now." He looked at Crockett.

"I don't know," said Crockett. "Hobart may have held off on that."

"At any rate it can be. In fact, it will have to be. Hobart shall

telegraph to Riceville and to your cousins, wherever they are. He was

the house physician at the De Soto where you took sick. That was how he

came to be attending you. When you got bad he took you to the hospital.

Nothing more natural. The rest of us will not need to appear at all."

"Aunt Mary will have to appear," said Alicia. "She will want to attend

the funeral."

"She became acquainted with you at the hotel, then," said Rockwell.

"Took an interest in a young man who was alone and ill. When your

relatives and friends come Hobart will have the body already laid out in

a casket. He can advise immediate burial here in the city. Aunt Mary

can offer a lot in the Norman plot at Lakewood. Would your cousins

probably consent to that?"

"Very likely," said Merriam, rather in a daze. It was confusing to be

discussing the details of one's own interment.

"Then everything will follow in regular course," said Rockwell, speaking

as if all difficulties were solved. "George will be buried with his

family, and you can start for Colorado."

For a second time the talk came to a full stop. The new plan was

outlined in full. It remained only to decide upon it or to reject it

and face the alternative of a public confession. All of them except

Merriam had already accepted the scheme, apparently, gruesome and

bizarre as it was. It was for all the rest so much the easiest way and

the most advantageous. But it did not require any of them to die--to

die to his own self, his friends, his very name. On the other hand it

did not offer them any such positive rewards as were proffered to

Merriam--a fortune and love. We can hardly wonder that he was somewhat

stupefied by the alternatives that beat upon his mind. The loss of all

that up to this point in his life had been his identity versus Mollie

June--that was the essence of the struggle within him.

He sat beside Rockwell's table, staring at the now silent percolator,

trying to think but able only to feel. The others were looking uneasily

at him and at one another. Aunt Mary's eyes and Alicia's demanded of

Rockwell, who had always managed everything, that he should manage this

too. Once he started to speak, but gave it up and looked appealingly at

Alicia instead. Indeed he might justifiably feel that this was Alicia's

job. She acknowledged as much in her own mind and was trying to decide

what to do or say, when the one person present who had not spoken

throughout the entire scene came to the rescue.

Through all their long discussion Simpson had stood unobtrusive and

unnoticed in the background, but he had followed every word. For his

fortunes too, humble, indeed, but sufficiently important to him, were

bound up in this decision. If the deception was to be continued, his

assistance, in the matter of silence at least, would be necessary, and

he could expect a large--honorarium; if it came to a public confession,

he could still expect something, but probably a good deal less; and to

win and hold Jennie he needed a considerable sum of money.

So now he advanced a step and spoke:

"Shall I call a taxi for you, Mr. Merriam, to take you to the hotel?"

"Of course!" cried Alicia, jumping up. "You must go and see Mollie

June. It all depends now upon her."

The others too stirred and expressed more or less audible acquiescence,

and Simpson had his reward in the shape of approving glances from

Rockwell and Mr. Wayward.

Merriam got to his feet with the other men because Alicia had risen. He

was not so obtuse nor so much dazed that he did not see what they were

doing. They were trying to rush him. They calculated that though

Mollie June in the abstract might contend indecisively with other

abstract considerations, Mollie June in the flesh would decide him in

the twinkling of an eye. He saw that plainly enough. Nevertheless, for

his part it did now depend altogether upon Mollie June. If he was to do

this thing--to abandon his old self and enter upon what must be in some

degree a lifelong career of deception,--it would be for her sake--not

only in order to win her sooner, years sooner, than he could otherwise

have the slightest hope of doing, but to save her from scandal, and

because she loved him and wanted him too at once (comparatively

speaking) as he wanted her.

So his decision was made almost as soon as he was on his feet. He

looked with some dignity from one waiting face to another about the

circle.

"Yes," he said quietly, "it does depend on her. You may call a taxi,

Simpson."

*CHAPTER XXX*

*MOLLIE JUNE*

Almost before Merriam's brief sentence was out of his mouth Simpson had

started for the telephone. But Mayor Black spoke up:

"My car and chauffeur are below. We came up from the hotel in it. You

can use it."

"You go with him, Aunt Mary," said Rockwell, again taking command. "You

see her first," he continued. "Mr. Merriam can wait somewhere--in 'Mr.

Wilson's' room. When you have explained the general situation you can

call him in and leave them together and--give him his chance."

Even at this moment it was a slight shock to Merriam to realise that the

state of feeling between himself and Mollie June, which they had

supposed completely hidden, had been clearly perceived by the others--or

at least, he thought swiftly, by Rockwell and Aunt Mary and Alicia. He

smiled a little cynically to himself as he understood that they had been

willing to use this interest of his as a motive in securing his easy

acquiescence in their previous schemes. Evidently they were counting on

it in Mollie June too. That gave him a thrill of hope which made him

forget his cynicism.

Father Murray had put Aunt Mary's wrap about her, and Rockwell had got

Merriam's hat and his own.

Merriam found Alicia by his side. She held out her hand, and when he

took it she squeezed his fingers in the way she had and said

significantly, with all of a woman's interest in a romance:

"Good luck!"

"Thank you," said Merriam, but his answering smile was again a little

cynical.

Then he opened the door for Aunt Mary and waved his hand to the others,

with some amusement at the anxious looks with which they were regarding

him. Even Simpson's countenance was perturbed!

Rockwell and the Mayor went down to the street with them and put them in

the limousine. The Mayor directed the chauffeur to drive them to the

hotel and then to return for himself and the others. Rockwell spoke to

Aunt Mary:

"You put the essential facts before her and then leave them--leave Mr.

Merriam to do the rest!"

And again Merriam smiled with an acid amusement that is commonly

supposed to belong to the middle-aged and old but is really most

characteristic of those who are under thirty.

Rockwell glanced at Merriam as if about to give him too a parting

exhortation, but hesitated, checked perhaps by the younger man's

expression, and spoke to the driver instead: "All right!"

They had started, and Merriam tried to think. His whole life turned in a

very peculiar sense on the events of the next hour--whether he should

continue to be himself or take up the life of another man. He got that

far. But what he should say to Mollie June--even what it was he wanted

to say to her--he could not get on with it. The mood of youthful

cynicism was by no means the right mood for the business in hand.

And then--too soon for him now--they were at the hotel.

So little had he been able to think clearly that it was not until he was

helping Aunt Mary out of the machine that he realised that in entering

the hotel with her again this way, in the character of the dead Senator,

he was already in effect consenting to Rockwell's plan and binding its

consequences upon himself and Mollie June.

He had a wild idea of getting back into the limousine and driving away

and later entering the hotel via the fire escape again. But Aunt Mary

was already on the pavement.

As they entered the lobby Merriam glanced about to see whether he was

noticed and recognised as the Senator. He was. At least three men whom

he did not know bowed and raised their hats, and one of them took a step

forward as if to approach them. But Merriam looked away and guided Aunt

Mary as rapidly as possible to the elevators.

When they emerged on Floor Three, Merriam asked for the key, explaining

casually that "Mr. Wilson" was a friend.

In a couple of minutes he had escorted Aunt Mary to the door of her

sitting room--Senator Norman's no longer--or was it still to be Senator

Norman's?--and had himself entered "Mr. Wilson's" room.

His first act there was to call up the hotel florist--as he had done

once before on this same telephone. But this time Merriam's order was

for roses, to be sent up at once.

He hung up the receiver and walked nervously about the room.

Was it not time for him to go to Mollie June? Aunt Mary was being

terribly long about her explanation. Had Mollie June broken down under

her grief--grief for George Norman?--or merely from anxiety and

conflicting emotions? Was she refusing to see him? Was she ill?

He jumped up and walked back and forth in his nervousness, watching the

door to the other bedroom, at which he might expect to receive Aunt

Mary's summons.

A knock at last! But it was at the wrong door, the hall door. In a

sort of hesitating amazement he went to answer it. It was the boy with

the roses. He had forgotten ordering them.

He signed for the flowers and brought them into the room and took them

out of their box and tissue paper. They were lovely--the most exquisite

colour, between pink and red, that has no name but that of the flower

itself--pink and red harmonised in soft coolness and fragrance--Mollie

June's flowers without a doubt.

But had he done well in ordering them? Was this a time for lover-like

gifts? Should he not have got white roses, such as one sends to a

funeral?

And then, as he stood in this anxiety, came Aunt Mary's knock at the

bedroom door.

He started as if caught in a guilty action and thrust the flowers back

into their box before he went to open to her.

"How is she?"

But Aunt Mary herself looked so broken that he led her to a chair.

Then, "How is she?" he repeated. He could not wait.

"She is very quiet."

"You told her the--the plan?"

"Yes."

"She understood it?"

"I think so."

"Am I to go to her?"

"I suppose so," said Aunt Mary with a sigh. "Mr. Rockwell said----" She

stopped.

Merriam showed her the roses.

"Should I take these to her?"

Aunt Mary looked at him and at the flowers.

"I think perhaps you might," she said, and then sat staring out across

the fire escape.

She looked so very miserable that Merriam impulsively patted her

shoulder. She glanced up quickly at that, then turned her eyes to the

window again. He could not read her look, but he was not sorry he had

betrayed his affectionate sympathy. If he was to be her brother for the

rest of their lives----

After a moment more of hesitation he picked up the flowers and passed

through the former sick room to the sitting room.

Mollie June was sitting in a small straight-backed chair by the window,

looking out. But Merriam was sure at the first glance that she saw

nothing. She had merely turned automatically towards the light, as all

but the old or the self-conscious tend to do. As Aunt Mary had said she

was very quiet. Her back was of course towards the room and Merriam.

He waited for a moment just inside the door, looking at her, forgetting

the flowers in his hands. He was sorry for her and very uncertain what

he ought to do. Then he became a little frightened, because she sat so

still. She gave no sign of having heard him.

With conscious effort, because he must do something, he crossed the room

till he stood beside her. Still she did not turn her eyes from the

window.

He stood looking down at her. She was a pathetic figure as she sat

there--the more pathetic, to the eyes of youth at least, because she was

so lovely, so young and fresh really, although a little pale and

heavy-eyed. He saw dark shadows under her eyes which must have come

from tears.

The sight of these unlocked him, drowned all his hesitations in pitying

love. He dropped on his knees beside her chair, laying the long-stemmed

roses regardlessly on the floor and putting one hand on the back of her

chair.

"Mollie June!" he said.

She did not start. Evidently she had known he was there. She looked

first at the flowers on the floor and then at his face.

"I am so sorry," he cried.

"Are you sorry or glad?" she asked.

"I am terribly sorry for you," he answered. Her hands lay together in

her lap, and he attempted to take one of them.

But she moved them slightly.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't make me strange to you, Mollie June," he cried.

"How can I help it?" she answered. "I am strange to myself too. You

see, I am glad! I am sorry for George," she went on quickly. "It is

terrible to me that he is dead. But I am so glad I do not have to be

his wife any more!"

Once more, as on a former occasion, some dim notion came to Merriam of

what it must mean to a girl to be connubially in the power of a man she

does not love. He pitied and loved her greatly. Also he marvelled. How

had she come through it all so fresh and unchanged? The answer, of

course, was youth. But youth could not know the answer.

"I am glad too," he said.

Her eyes, which as she dropped them had rested on the roses on the

floor, came back to his face.

"You are glad I have to marry you."

"But you don't!"

"You know I do."

Instantly he saw that Aunt Mary had not put the thing fairly before her.

In Aunt Mary's mind it was settled. The course of action which promised

to save the precious Norman name from scandal was the only possible

course of action. She had so represented it to Mollie June.

"No, no!" Merriam cried. "You shall not be forced into this. You shall

never be forced in anything again if I can help it. I will not be

forced myself--even to marry you."

"What else can we do?" asked Mollie June, searching his face.

"It's fairly simple," he said, a little bitterly. "Not easy, but simple.

I will write a brief, plain account of the whole affair--the

impersonation--from beginning to end, and send for a reporter and give

it to him. That will end everything. I will sit down now at that desk

and write it and call for a man and give it to him while Aunt Mary

thinks we are still talking--unless you tell me not to."

"Would you do that?"

"Indeed I will!"

He rose to his feet. He meant it, and she saw that he meant it. To be

forced in this thing was, in fact, even less to his liking perhaps than

to hers.

Standing, he saw the roses at his feet. He stooped and picked them up

and handed them to her.

"You'll let me give you these?" he said, his manner more determined than

lover-like. "I saw them from the elevator as I was coming up here with

Aunt Mary. They were so like you that I could not help buying them and

bringing them to you."

She accepted them passively, looking up at him. Perhaps she liked him

determined rather than lover-like.

"I am not giving you up," he went on gravely. "But you will go away

somewhere with Aunt Mary, and I will go back to Riceville. I have my

contract for the rest of this year at least. And if you will wait a few

years--you will want to wait and rest a while,--I will come back and win

you in my own right."

She did not answer but looked up at him, still searching his face.

For a moment he stood regarding her. That image of her as she sat there

with the flowers in her lap and her uplifted face and questioning eyes,

more lovely than ever in their intense gravity in spite of their trace

of tears, remained one of the permanent treasures of his memory.

He turned away and walked over to the writing table and sat down. It

was a moment or two before he could think why he was there. Then he

remembered and drew towards him several sheets of the hotel stationery

and took up a pen. He realised that he was in a very poor frame of mind

for literary composition, but he mastered his attention and wrote:

_Statement by John Merriam regarding His

Impersonation of Senator Norman_

He underlined those words and resisted an impulse to turn and look at

Mollie June. He wanted to know whether she was looking at him or

looking out at the window again. He wanted, too, merely to see her.

But he would not look. With a heroic effort he brought his mind back to

the paper before him. How to begin? Where to begin? It was a long

story, he realised. He must make it as brief as possible. He could

omit much. But he must introduce himself. The public did not know him

from Adam. He seized at this straw.

"My name is John Merriam," he wrote. "I am the principal of the high

school at Riceville, Illinois. On my mother's side I am related to----"

He stopped abruptly. It was the fragrance of roses that interrupted

him. Mollie June had risen and come over beside him. His effort of

concentration had been so great that he had not heard her. She carried

the flowers pressed against the bosom of her dress. The action was

probably mechanical; she was too much engrossed to think to put them

down. She did not look at him but over his shoulder at his writing.

She read it.

Apparently his opening statement caught her attention. She looked at

him and smiled slightly, more with her mouth than her eyes, which were

still grave.

"You wouldn't like to change your name, would you?" she said.

"Mollie June!" He was on his feet.

She backed away from him, pressing her flowers tight.

"Would you?" she demanded.

"It's not that," he said, not daring to advance towards her lest she

should retreat farther.

"A woman always has to change her name when she marries. Why shouldn't

a man do it for once?"

He started forward now and caught her arm and led her back to her chair

and dropped on his knees again beside her.

"Dearest Mollie June," he said, "I'll change my name to yours so gladly,

if you will let me. So as to have you sooner than I could the other

way. But not unless you want me to!" he added fiercely. "For yourself!"

She looked at him, shyly now.

"I would rather have it the other way myself," she said, tears standing

in her eyes at last, "and wait and change my name to yours. But I think

we ought to do it this way for George."

"For George!"

"Yes, and Aunt Mary. She has been very good to me. George was good to

me too in his way. And he was my husband, and he's dead. If we can save

his name and save her--this way,--don't you think we ought to?"

Then of course he put his arms about her.

"I won't call you George, though!" she said presently, very

emphatically.

"What will you call me, dearest?"

She smiled at him through her tears and with a gesture that ravished him

lifted his hand and kissed it.

"Mr. John!" she whispered.

He would have kissed her again, but she hurried on.

"We'll pretend to people that it's a nickname left over from some game

or play."

"It _is_ left over from a sort of--play," he answered, and then she was

ready for another kiss.