Mollie's Substitute Husband
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Title: Mollie's Substitute Husband
Creator: Max McConn
Release date: April 1, 2015 [eBook #48626]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48626
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Transcriber's note: The frontispiece was missing from
the source book]
*MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE
HUSBAND*
BY
MAX McCONN
_WITH FRONTISPIECE BY_
EDWARD C. CASWELL
THE RYERSON PRESS
TORONTO
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
I "The Professor" on a Spree
II The Prettiest Girl
III Friendly Strangers
IV An Unscrupulous Reformer
V Alicia and the Motives of Men
VI Stage-Setting
VII Boy and Girl
VIII Passages with Mayor Black
IX Aunt Mary
X A Senator Missing
XI Confessions of Waiter No. 73
XII Grapefruit and Telegrams
XIII A Change of Management
XIV Holding the Fort
XV Council of War
XVI The Senatorial Dinner
XVII A Devious Journey
XVIII Jennie
XIX A New Antagonist
XX An Eventful Supper Party
XXI Flash Lights
XXII Virtue Triumphant
XXIII Return
XXIV The Reform League
XXV Second Council of War
XXVI The Business of Being an Impostor
XXVII The Code Telegram
XXVIII Simpson as Detective
XXIX The Final Dilemma
XXX Mollie June
*MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND*
*CHAPTER I*
*"THE PROFESSOR" ON A SPREE*
John Merriam, Principal of the High School at Riceville,
Illinois--"Professor" Merriam, as he was universally called by the
citizens of Riceville--was wickedly, carnally, gloriously happy. He was
having an unwonted spree.
I fear the reader will be shocked. The principal of a high school, he
will say, has no right to a spree, even an occasional one. The
"Professor" has girl students in his classes--mostly girls, indeed, and
usually the prettiest ones in town--and women teachers under his
supervision. Every seventh day he teaches a young people's class in a
Sunday School. He makes addresses at meetings of the Y.P.S.C.E., the
Y.M.C.A., and other alphabetically designated societies that make for
righteousness and decorum. He should at all times and in all places be
a model, an exemplar, to the budding young men and women of the
community in general and his school in particular.
In this reasoning the reader is in strict accord with what the sentiment
of all Riceville would have been if it had known--if it could have
known.
Nevertheless, it is the regrettable and shocking fact that John Merriam
was sitting on that pleasant April evening in the Peacock Cabaret of the
Hotel De Soto in the wicked city of Chicago. He was attired in evening
clothes, a fact which, in itself would have seemed both odd and
reprehensible to Riceville, and he was alone at a tiny table with a
yellow-silk-shaded lamp. He had just been guided to that table, and
pending the arrival of a waiter, he was gazing eagerly, boyishly about
him at such delights as the somewhat garish Peacock Cabaret displayed.
For John Merriam, though a "professor," was young. He was only
twenty-eight. He was tall and blond and athletic, as young men who grow
up on farms in the Middle West and then go to college have a way of
being. And after his season of strenuous and highly virtuous labours at
Riceville he was really hungry, keen, for something--well, just a little
less virtuous.
A distinguished looking gentleman in a dinner jacket, conspicuously
labeled with a number, somewhat haughtily and negligently approached,
bearing a menu card.
About three paces away this gentleman, having glanced at young Merriam,
fairly stopped and stared at him. An odd expression showed upon his
face--an expression, one would almost have said, of intense animosity.
Then, as he still stared, one might have decided that his look betokened
perplexity. He winked his eyes several times and once more scrutinised
his waiting guest. At length--perhaps ten seconds had passed--his face
slowly, wonderingly cleared, his usual air of vacant indifference
returned, and he advanced and placed the menu card in Merriam's hands.
The latter, still drinking in the sights and sounds of his unaccustomed
environment, had noticed nothing.
Now it is always prudent to note a waiter's number when he first
presents himself, for in case he should decide to begin his summer
vacation immediately after taking your order you may need to mention his
number to the head waiter. In this case the number was 73.
The hauteur and negligence displayed were partly habitual--professional,
so to speak--but were intensified perhaps by the reaction from the
emotion, whatever it was, which he had apparently just
experienced--perhaps also by the look of alert and genuine pleasure on
Merriam's face. Such a look did not wholly commend itself or him to a
sophisticated metropolitan taste. What right had a patron of the
Peacock Cabaret to look really pleased? It was hardly decent--and
argued a small tip.
Inwardly Merriam, now aware of the waiter's presence, reacted acutely to
this clearly perceptible disdain. Which shows how young and how rural
he was. We maturer, urban folk are never, of course, in the least
nonplused by those contemptuous, blase silences of waiters who possess
the bearing and manner of a governor or a capitalist.
But John Merriam had been excellent in amateur dramatics at college, and
he now roused himself to a magnificent histrionic effort in the role of
"man of the world."
He pushed the menu card aside without looking at it.
"A clam cocktail, please, and a stein of beer," he murmured, low enough
to force the distinguished one to unbend slightly in order to catch the
words.
"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, with a tentative suggestion of respect
in his tone. A customer who did not bother to look at the menu might be
worth while after all.
"And then what?"
"I'll see how I feel then," said Merriam with a half yawn.
"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, almost courteously, and departed at a
pace slightly quickened over that of his approach, as a man strolling at
complete leisure will instinctively increase the tempo of his step if he
chances to recall a definite engagement on the day after to-morrow.
Merriam grinned delightedly. He had put it across--his little piece of
acting. He had measurably imposed his role on his audience of one; at
least he had shaken him.
And then--I shudder when I recall the views on nicotine of the Board of
Education at Riceville--he drew from his pocket a package of cigarettes,
and took a match from the table, and lit a cigarette, and sent a volume
of smoke out through his nostrils--proving, alas, that it was not his
first indulgence,--and, with a sigh that might almost be described as
ecstatic, turned his attention again to the scene about him.
That scene was piquant to him--after the ugly dining room of his
boarding house at Riceville and the barren assembly hall of the High
School--to a degree almost incredible to persons more habituated to the
Peacock Cabaret and similar resorts. Not being quite so fresh from
Riceville, nor yet the advertising manager of the Hotel De Soto, I
cannot, I fear, paint the prospect as Merriam saw it. I shall not be
able to conceal some mental reservations as to its charms. The purple
peacocks upon the walls and ceiling, from which the restaurant took its
name, were certainly a trifle over-gorgeous, just as the music which the
orchestra intermittently dispensed was too much syncopated. Again, the
scores of small tables, each with its silk-shaded lamp, its slim glass
vase for a single rosebud, its water bottle bearing the arms of the
Chevalier De Soto, and its ash receptacle--all alike as shoe boxes in a
shoe shop are alike,--might to a tired fancy suggest a certain monotony
of pleasure, a too-much-standardised, ready-made brand of bliss. The
small, skimped stage, with its undeniably banal curtain, and the crowded
dancing floor did not really promise unlimited delights. Some
perception of all this was apparent in the faces and bearing of many of
the white-shirt-fronted men who sat at the scores of tables and of the
women who were with them, however bird-of-paradise-like the raiment of
the latter might be. Not a few indeed displayed an air of languor and
ennui that might have won approval even from Waiter No. 73.
But in speaking thus of the Peacock Cabaret I am stepping outside my
story, violating unity of point of view--in short, committing a heinous
literary crime. For to Merriam at that moment the screaming purple
peacocks, the regiments of rosebuds, the musical comedy melodies, the
gay attire and bare shoulders of the women, and even the tired look of
his fellow-diners, which he interpreted as sophistication rather than
simple boredom, were thrillingly symbolical of all the delights which
the great world held and which were absent from Riceville. And when
Waiter No. 73 leisurely returned, to find him outwardly almost too near
asleep to keep his cigarette going, and deposited his clam cocktail and
the wicked stein before him, and at the same moment the orchestra became
more noisy than ever, and all the lights except those upon the tables
went out, and the stage curtain rose upon a short-skirted chorus, he was
really in a sort of Omar Khayyam paradise. It was lucky that Waiter No.
73 had again departed to those unknown regions where waiters spend the
bulk of their time, for Merriam could not have concealed the zest with
which he alternately ate and drank and surveyed the moderately comely
demoiselles upon the little stage.
Having finished his cocktail and drunk some of his beer and seen the
curtain descend on the first "act" of the cabaret's dramatic
entertainment, Merriam lit another cigarette, shifted his chair, and
settled himself to await the probable future return of his servitor.
His thoughts dwelt contentedly on the evening before him. For after his
meal he would have a stroll with a cigar in the spring twilight (it was
barely six-thirty then) through the noisy, brightly lighted streets of
the Loop, which never failed to thrill him with a sense of a somehow
wicked vastness, power, and riches in the great city of which they were
the center. And then he was going to the "Follies." He fingered the
small envelope in his pocket which held his ticket. And after the show
he would have a supper in another cabaret.
Beyond that he did not let his fancy wander. For after that there was
nothing for it but to catch the 2:00 A.M. train on the Illinois Central
that would carry him back to Riceville for the remaining six weeks of
the school year. He had come up to Chicago on this spring day--a
Tuesday it was--to attend a convention of high-school principals and to
engage a couple of new teachers for the next year, to replace two that
were to be married in June. And he had faithfully done these things.
And now he was giving himself just this one evening of amusement--two
cabaret meals and a "show," sauced, so to speak, with a little tobacco
and beer and the wearing of his evening clothes. Surely whatever
Riceville might have thought, he will not seem to most of us very
derelict from the austere ideals of his profession.
The only real point against him--most of us might argue--lies in the
fact that when, you touch even the outermost fringes of the night life
of a city, you are never quite certain what may come to you. For there
are things happening all about you, under the conventional, monotonous
surface--things amusing and things terrible--men and women playing with
the fire of every known human passion,--and if the finger of some
adventure reaches out for you you may not be able to resist its lure,
perhaps even to escape its clutch.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE PRETTIEST GIRL*
I have said that Merriam had shifted his chair a little as he lit his
second cigarette. A moment later he was looking very hard at a certain
pretty woman at a table half way across the room. His heart stopped.
At least that is the phrase a novelist seems to be required to use to
indicate the sudden pulse of amazement and pleasure and alarm which he
certainly felt.
The young woman at whom he was staring had a name which is very
important for this story and which I shall presently tell you, but in
John Merriam's mind her name was "the prettiest girl," and her other
name, which he seldom dared whisper to his heart, was "Mollie June."
She was from Riceville--hence the alarm with which his pleasure was
mixed,--and during his first four months of teaching, three years
before, she had been in his senior class in the High School--the
"prettiest girl" in the class and in the school and in the town--and in
the State and the United States and the world, if you had asked John
Merriam. Advanced algebra with Mollie June in the class had been the
most golden of sciences--pleasure squared, delight cubed, and bliss to
the _n_th power. I am not myself absolutely convinced of Mollie June's
proficiency in solving quadratic equations, yet the official records of
the Riceville High School show that she received the highest mark in the
class.
But she was the daughter of James P. Partridge, the owner of all
Riceville; that is to say, of the coal mines outside the town, of the
grain elevator, of the street car and electric light company, and of the
First National Bank. Who was John Merriam, the son of a poor farmer in
a southern county, who had worked his way through college and come out
with nothing but a B.S. degree, a football reputation that was quite
unnegotiable, and three hundred dollars of fraternity debts--an enormous
sum,--to mix anything warmer or livelier than a^2-b^2 in his thoughts of
a class to which Mollie June Partridge deigned to belong? Even if
Mollie June herself did come up to his desk in the assembly room two or
three times a week for help in her algebra and spend most of the time
asking him about college instead, and join his Young People's Class,
which she had previously refused to attend, and allow him to "see her
home" from church sociables, and compel that docile magnate, John P.
Partridge, her father, to invite the new "professor" to dinner twice
during the half year? As well almost might a humble tutor in the castle
of a feudal lord have raised his eyes to the baron's daughter.
Almost, but not quite. After all this is a free republic. Even a poor
pedagogue is a citizen with a vote and a potential candidate for the
presidency--which at least two poor pedagogues have attained. So John
Merriam permitted himself to be very happy during those four months and
was not in the least hopeless. Only he saw that he must bide his time.
But early in January Mollie June left school, and in a few days it came
out that she had left to be married--married to Senator Norman!
Senator Norman was the famous "boy senator" from Illinois--at the time
of his election the youngest man who had ever sat in the upper house of
Congress. The ruddiness of his cheeks, the abundance of his wavy blond
hair, and the athletic jauntiness of his carriage won votes whenever he
stumped the State. They went far to counteract malicious insinuations
as to the means by which he was rolling up a fortune and his solidity
with "interests" which the proletariat viewed with suspicion.
And now, having been a widower for eighteen months--his first wife was
older than he and had brought him money,--he had stayed for a week-end
during the Christmas holidays with James P. Partridge, who was a cousin
of the Senator's first wife and his political lieutenant for a certain
group of counties, and had seen Mollie June and wanted her and asked for
her and got her, as George Norman always asked for and got whatever he
wanted.
All this was, of course, in John Merriam's mind as he gazed across a
dozen tables in the Peacock Cabaret at the unchanged profile of the
prettiest girl--that is to say, Mrs. Senator Norman. And with it came
an acute revival of the desolation of that January and February at
Riceville, when he had perceived with the Hebrew sage that "in much
learning"--or in little, for that matter--"is much weariness," and that
algebra should have been buried with the medieval Arabians who invented
it--when even the State championship in basket ball, won by the
Riceville Five under his coaching, was only a trouble and a bore.
There is no doubt he stared rudely. At least it would have been rudely
if his eyes had held the look which eyes that stare at pretty women
commonly hold. But such a look as stood in Merriam's eyes can hardly be
rude, however intent and prolonged it may be.
He was merely entranced in the literal sense of that word. Her girlish
white shoulders--he had never seen her shoulders before--in Riceville
women no more have shoulders than they have legs--the soft brown hair
over her ears--even the mode of the day, which called for close net
effects and tight knobs, could not conceal its fine softness--the colour
in her cheeks, which unquestionably shamed all the neighbouring
rosebuds--the quite inexplicable deliciousness of those particular small
curves described by the lines of her nose and chin and throat as he saw
them in half profile--were more than he could draw his eyes away from
for an unconscionable number of seconds. Of her charmingly simple and
unquestionably very expensive frock as a separate fact, and of the thin,
pale, and elderly, but gorgeously arrayed woman who was her companion,
he had no clear perception, but undoubtedly they both contributed, along
with the lights and colours and music of the Peacock Cabaret, to the
deplorable confusion of his mind.
Out of that confusion there presently arose certain clear images and
tones and words, which made up his memory of the last time he had seen
and spoken with the present Mrs. Senator Norman.
It was at and after a miscellaneous kind of young people's entertainment
which occurred at the Methodist Church on the evening of that bitter day
on which the news of her engagement to Senator Norman had run like a
prairie fire through the streets and homes of Riceville, fiercely
incinerating all other topics of conversation, and consuming also the
joy in life, the ambition, the very youth, it seemed to him, of John
Merriam. He would not have gone to that entertainment if he could have
escaped. But there were to be charades, and he had arranged and coached
most of them and was to be in several. He "simply had to go," as
Ricevillians might have said.
She was there with her mother. When had she ever come just with her
mother, that is to say, without a male escort, before? That fact alone
was symbolical of the closing of the gates of matrimony upon her.
Naturally, in his pain he followed his primitive and childish instincts
and avoided her.
But he was aware--he was almost sure--of her eyes continually following
him throughout the evening, and during "refreshments" she deliberately
came up to him and said that her mother was obliged to leave early, and
would he see her home? Well, of course, if she asked him, he had to. I
am afraid that the tone if not the words of his reply said as much, and
Mollie June had turned away with quick tears in her eyes. Yet I
question whether she was really hurt by his rudeness. For why should he
be rude to-night when he had never been so before unless he--to use the
most expressive of Americanisms--"cared"?
For the rest of the evening, as a result of those tears, which he had
seen, it was his eyes that followed her, while hers avoided him. But he
did not speak with her again until "seeing-home" time arrived.
Mollie June lingered till the very end of everything. Perhaps the little
girl in her--for she was barely eighteen--clung to this last shred of
the familiar, homely social life of her girlhood before she should be
plunged into the frightful brilliance of real "society" in terrific
places known as Chicago and Washington--as a senator's wife!
But at last they were walking together towards her home.
"Take my arm, please," said Mollie June.
The boys in Riceville always take the girls' arms at night, though never
in the daytime. John ought to have taken her arm before. He took it.
"Have you heard that I am going to be married?" asked Mollie June--as if
she did not know that everybody in the county knew it by that time.
"Yes," said John, his tone as succinct as his monosyllable.
But girls learn early to deal with the conversational difficulties and
recalcitrances of males under stress of emotion.
"It means leaving school and Riceville and--everything," said Mollie
June.
John could not fail to catch the note of pitifulness in her sentence.
If the prospective marriage had been with any one less dazzling than
George Norman, he might have reacted more properly. As it was, he
replied with a stilted impersonality which might have been caught from
the bright stars shining through the bare branches under which they
walked.
"You will have a very rich and brilliant life," he said.
"I suppose so," said Mollie June.
They walked on, he still obediently clutching her arm, in silence;
conversation not accompaniable with laughter is so difficult an art for
youth.
Presently Mollie June tried again.
"Aren't you sorry I'm leaving the school--Mr. Merriam?"
"I'm very sorry indeed," responded "Professor" Merriam. "You ought to
have stayed to graduate."
"I don't care about graduating," said Mollie June.
Again their footsteps echoed in the cold January silence.
Then Mollie June made a third attempt:
"You look ever so much like Mr. Norman."
"I know it," said Merriam. "We're related."
"Oh, _are you_?"
"On my mother's side. We're second cousins. But the two branches of the
family have nothing to do with each other now."
"He has the same hair and the same shape of head and the same way of
sitting and moving," Mollie June declared with enthusiasm, "and almost
the same eyes and voice. Only his are----"
"Older!" said John Merriam rudely.
"Yes," said Mollie June.
Distances are not great in Riceville. For this reason the ceremony of
"seeing home" is usually termed by a circuitous route, sometimes
involving the entire circumference of the "nice" part of the town. But
on this occasion John and Mollie June had gone directly, as though their
object had been to arrive. They reached her home--a matter of two
blocks from the church-before another word had been said.
There Mollie June carefully extricated her arm from his mechanical grasp
and confronted him.
He looked at her face, peeping out of the fur collar of her coat in the
starlight, and for one instant into her eyes.
She was saying: "I am very grateful to you, Merriam, for all the help
you have given me--in--algebra."
He ought to have kissed her. She wanted him to. He half divined as
much--afterwards.
But the awkward, callow, Anglo-Saxon, rural, pedagogical cub in him
replied, "I am glad if I have been able to help you in anything."
That, I judge, was too much for Mollie June. She held out her little
gloved hand.
"Good-bye, Mr. Merriam!"
He took her hand. And now appears the advantage of a college education,
including amateur dramatics and courses in English poetry and romantic
fiction. He did what no other swain in Riceville could have done. He
raised her hand to his lips and kissed it! At least he kissed the glove
which tightly enclosed the hand.
"Good-bye, Mollie June!" he said, using that name for the first time.
Then he dropped her hand, somewhat suddenly, I fear, turned abruptly,
and walked rapidly away.
As to what Mollie June said or thought or felt, how should I know?
There was nothing for her to do but to go into the house, and that is
what she did.
*CHAPTER III*
*FRIENDLY STRANGERS*
John Merriam raised his eyes from the table-cloth on which they had
rested while these images from the distant past--two and one-half years
ago--moved across the screen of his memory. To his now mature
perceptions the stupidity and gaucherie of his own part in that
scene--save for the redeeming kissing of the glove--were clearly
apparent, and were for the moment almost as painful to him as the fact
that Mollie June was another man's wife.
He glanced around, avoiding only the table at which Mrs. Senator Norman
sat. The glory was gone from the Peacock Cabaret. The garishness of
the peacocks, the tin-panniness of the music, the futility of beer and
cigarettes and evening clothes, were desolatingly revealed to him. He
put his cigarette aside, to smoke itself up unregarded on the ash tray.
It had been his duty to "forget," and it is neither more nor less than
justice to say that after a fashion he had succeeded in doing so. His
winter and spring, three years ago, had been miserable; but he had
undeniably enjoyed his summer vacation, and had found interest in his
work again in the fall. To be sure, the edge was gone from his ambition.
He had stuck ploddingly at teaching, too indifferent to try to better
himself. Still he had not been actively unhappy. But now----
He was diverted by the return of Waiter No. 73. No need of play-acting
now to conceal any unsophisticated delight in his surroundings. But he
must pull himself together. He must not exhibit to the world, as
incarnated in Waiter No. 73, a depression as boyish as his previous
pleasure. He must still be the stoical, tranquil man of the world, who
knows women and tears them from his heart when need be. It was the same
role--with a difference!
"What next, sir?"
Merriam glanced hastily at the menu card and ordered a steak with French
fried potatoes and a lettuce-and-tomato salad. He was not up to an
attack on any unfamiliar viands.
As he gave his order he was aware of a party of three persons, seated a
little to his left--the opposite direction from the fateful spot
inhabited by Mollie June,--who seemed to be taking particular note of
him. And as he lit another cigarette after the waiter had left him he
noticed them again. Unquestionably they were furtively regarding him.
Now and then they exchanged remarks of which he was sure he was the
subject.
The three persons included a square-jawed man of about forty-five, a
pale, benevolent-looking priest and a very beautiful woman. The woman
had not only shoulders and arms but also a great deal of bosom and back,
all dazzlingly, powderedly fair and ideally plump. She had black hair
and eyes--brilliantly, even aggressively, black. Her gown was a
lavender silk net with spangles. Her age--well, she was certainly older
than Mollie June and certainly within, safely within, "the age at which
women cease to be interesting to men," whatever that age may be.
Our youthful man of the world was a little embarrassed at first by the
scrutiny of this gorgeous trio. He glanced quickly down at his own
attire, as a girl might have done. But there could be nothing wrong
with his evening clothes. (A man is so safe in that respect.) They
were only five years old, having been acquired, in a heroic burst of
extravagance, during his senior year in college. He wanted to put his
hand up to his white bow to make sure it was not askew, but restrained
himself.
Presently Merriam began to enjoy the attention he was receiving. If one
must play a part, it is pleasant to have an audience. It helped him to
keep his eyes off Mollie June. He began to give attention to the
smoking of his cigarette. He handled it with nonchalant grace. He
exhaled smoke through his nostrils. He recalled an envied
accomplishment of his college days and carefully blew a couple of
tolerably perfect smoke rings. And he wished that Mollie June would
turn and see him in his evening clothes.
Presently the clerical gentleman, after an earnest colloquy with the
square-jawed one, rose and came across to Merriam's table, while the
other two now openly watched.
The priest rested two white hands on the edge of the table and bent over
him with a friendly smile.
"Will you pardon a frank question from a stranger?" he asked.
"I guess a question won't hurt me," said Merriam.
At this simple reply the cleric straightened up quickly as if startled
and looked at Merriam closely and curiously. Then he said:
"Are you by any chance related to Senator Norman?"
"Yes, I am," said Merriam.
"May I ask what the relationship is?"
Merriam told him.
"Thank you," said the priest. "The resemblance is really remarkable.
And we saw you looking at Mrs. Norman. Do you know her?"
"Yes. I knew her before--before she--was married."
"I see. Thank you so much."
The inquisitive priest returned to his friends, who appeared to listen
intently to his report.
At the same time Waiter No. 73 arrived with Merriam's steak and salad.
He ate self-consciously, feeling himself still under observation from
the other table. But when he was half way through his salad his
attention was effectually distracted from those watchers. For Mollie
June and her companion had risen to go.
Merriam put down his fork and looked at her. She was really beautiful to
any eyes--so fresh and young and alive amid the tawdry ennui of her
surroundings, a human girl among the labouring ghosts of a _danse
macabre_. To Merriam she was--what you will--radiant, divine. He
wished he had not lost a moment from looking at her since he first saw
her.
A waiter had brought a fur cloak and now held it for her. As she
adjusted it about her shoulders she glanced around and saw Merriam.
For a moment she looked straight at him. Merriam would have sworn that
her colour heightened ever so little and then paled. She smiled a
mechanical little smile, bowed slightly, spoke to her companion, and
threaded her way quickly among tables to an exit.
"I beg your pardon!"
Merriam started and looked up--to find the black-eyed, white-bosomed
woman from the other table standing beside him. He was conscious of a
faint fragrance, which a more sophisticated person would have recognised
as that of an extremely expensive perfume, widely advertised under the
name of a famous opera singer.
He rose mechanically, dropping his napkin.
"No, no," she smiled. "Won't you sit down--and let me sit down a
moment, too?"
She took the chair opposite him.
"My name is Alicia Wayward," she said. There was a kind of deliberate
sweetness in her tone.
John Merriam got back somehow into his chair and looked at her, but did
not reply. His eyes saw the face of Mollie June, peeping out of her
furs, as on that last night at Riceville, her changing colour, her
mechanical smile, and the hurrying away without giving him a chance to
go to her for a single word.
"Won't you tell me your name?" said Alicia, with the barest suggestion
in her voice of sharpness in the midst of sweet.
"John Merriam."
"And you are a second cousin of Senator Norman?"
"Yes."
"I am an old friend of Senator Norman's," said Alicia. "We are all
friends of his." She nodded towards the other table. "And we should
very much like to have a little private talk with you about a very
important matter.--How do you do, Simpson?"
Merriam looked up again. Waiter No. 73 was standing over them. But he
was a transformed being. The ramrod had somehow been extracted from his
spine, and his stern features were transfigured in an expression of
happy and ingratiating servility.
"Very well, Miss Alicia," he said.
"Simpson used to be my father's butler," explained Miss Wayward. "We've
never had so a butler since."
"Thank you, Miss Alicia," said Simpson fervently.
"Send me the head waiter," said Miss Wayward.
"Yes, Miss Alicia," and Simpson departed almost with alacrity.
"You are just ready for your dessert, I see," said Alicia. "I am going
to ask the head waiter to change us both to one of the private rooms and
give us Simpson to wait on us. Then I can present you to my friends,
and we can have the private talk I spoke of. You don't mind, do you?"
Merriam thought of the "Follies." But the idea of the "Follies" bored
him after seeing Mollie June. And one cannot refuse a lady. He
recaptured some fraction of his manners.
"I shall be pleased," he said.
"Thank you," said Alicia, with augmented sweetness.
*CHAPTER IV*
*AN UNSCRUPULOUS REFORMER*
The head waiter arrived. Could they be removed to a private
dining-room? Most certainly they could. Yes, Simpson should serve
them. Obviously anything that Miss Alicia Wayward desired could be done,
must be done, and it was done.
They ordered ices and _cafe noir_.
"And a liqueur?" suggested Alicia.
Merriam assented.
"What should you prefer?"
Now Merriam knew the name of just one liqueur. He made prompt use of
that solitary scrap of information.
"Benedictine, perhaps," he suggested, as who should say, "Out of all the
world's vintages my mature choice among liqueurs is Benedictine."
"Good," smiled Alicia. (I am afraid she was not effectually deceived.)
Merriam was introduced first to Father Murray.
"He isn't a real Father," said Alicia. "He's not a Romanist. Only a
paltry Anglican. But he's so very, very High Church that a layman can
hardly tell the difference."
Father Murray was deprecatory but unruffled. A Christian priest must
forgive all things.
"This is Mr. Philip Rockwell of the Reform League," said Alicia. "His
fame has doubtless reached you. 'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.'"
His fame had not reached Merriam, but the latter bowed and shook hands
as though it had, instinctively meeting the stare in the other man's
eyes with an unblinking steadiness of his own.
After the introductions Merriam glanced about him with perhaps
insufficiently concealed curiosity. He had never been in a private
dining-room before, and this adventure was beginning to interest him. It
was better than spending his evening--his one evening--in sad thoughts
of Mollie June.
The room was just large enough to afford comfortable space for a table
for four persons, with a small sideboard to serve from. It was really
rather pretty. Subdued purple hangings at the door and windows and a
frieze of small peacocks above the plate rail indicated its affiliation,
so to speak, with the Peacock Cabaret. There were attractive French
prints in garland frames on the walls. The table was charmingly laid,
with a bowl of yellow roses in the center, and the ices were already
served. On the sideboard the coffee in a silver pot was bubbling over
an alcohol flame, and there was a long bottle which Merriam correctly
interpreted as the container of his choice among liqueurs.
"This is much cosier, isn't it?" said Alicia.
She took the head of the table.
"Father Murray shall sit opposite me," she said, "to see that I behave.
You, Mr. Merriman, shall sit on my right, as the guest of honour. That
leaves this place for you, Philip. Reformers must be content with what
they can get."
Merriam mustered the gallantry to hold Alicia's chair for her, and was
warmed by the approving smile with which she thanked him. He had not
especially liked Alicia at first, but she grew upon him.
They consumed ices, and Alicia conversed, in the sprightly fashion she
affected, with Merriam. The other two men hardly participated at all.
In the course of that conversation Alicia artlessly, tactfully, but
efficiently pumped Merriam. By the time Simpson was pouring the
sweet-scented wine into thimble-like glasses she--and her
companions--were in possession of all the substantial facts of his brief
biography and had guessed the secret of his heart. They knew of his
boyhood on the farm, of his father's death, and his mother's a few years
later, of his college days, with something of their athletic, dramatic,
and fraternity incidents, of his teaching at Riceville, of the Riceville
football and basket-ball teams, of the occasion for this trip to
Chicago--and of Mollie June.
At length the sherbet glasses were removed and some of the coffees,
including Merriam's, refilled, and they all lit cigarettes. Merriam was
pleasantly startled when Alicia too took a cigarette. He had read, of
course, of women smoking, but he had never seen it, or expected to see
it with his own eyes, except on the stage. It was more shocking to his
secret soul than any amount of bosom and back.
"You need not wait, Simpson," said Alicia. "We'll ring if we need you
again."
When the waiter had withdrawn Philip Rockwell took the center of the
stage. He tilted back in his chair and abruptly began to talk. Part of
the time he looked straight ahead of him as if addressing an audience,
but now and again he turned his head and aimed his discourse straight at
Merriam. He made only a pretence of smoking.
"Mr. Merriam," he said, "by a curious chance--a freak of nature, as it
were--you, who have thus far taken no part in the politics of the State
and Nation, are in a position to render a great service this very night
to the cause of Reform and incidentally to Senator and Mrs. Norman."
"How so?" said Merriam. He was rather on his guard against Mr. Philip
Rockwell.
"It is a long story, perhaps," said that gentleman. "I gathered when we
were introduced that you had heard of me. But I was not sure how much
you have heard. I am at the present time the President of the Reform
League of this city and its guiding and moving spirit."
"And endowed with the superb modesty so characteristic of reformers,"
interjected Alicia.
The reformer paid no attention to this frivolous parenthesis.
"Miss Wayward," he continued, "alluded earlier to my
sobriquet--'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.' The epithet was first
applied to me derisively by opposition newspapers. But it is a true
description. Indeed it was derived from my frequent use of the phrase
in my own speeches. I believe that to be successful, practically
successful, Reform must center its efforts on one thing at a time--not
waste its energies, its munitions, so to speak, by bombarding the whole
entrenched line of evil and privilege at once, but concentrate its fire
on one exposed position after another--take that one
position--accomplish finally one definite thing--and then go on to some
other one definite thing. Do you get me?"
Merriam signified that he comprehended.
Father Murray was more enthusiastic. "It is a truly splendid idea," he
volunteered. "Since we have adopted it, under the leadership of Mr.
Rockwell, the Reform League has really begun to do things. _To do
things!_" he repeated, with an almost mysterious emphasis.
"At the present time," Rockwell resumed, "the one thing which the Reform
League is undertaking to _do_ is to secure decent traction conditions in
this city--adequate service. We have so far succeeded that we have
forced an unfriendly city council to pass the new Traction Ordinance.
You are familiar with the new Ordinance, Mr. Merriam?"
"Yes," said Merriam. By which we must suppose he meant that he had read
headlines about it in the Chicago papers.
"Those rascals," continued Rockwell, "never would have passed it--the
men who own them would never have permitted them to pass it, no matter
how unmistakable the demand of the people might be,--if they had not
counted on one thing."
Merriam perceived that an interrogation was demanded of him and took his
cue.
"What is that?" he asked.
"They are counting," said Rockwell impressively, "they are counting on
Mayor Black. They have believed the whole time that he can be depended
on to veto it. And they are right! The scoundrels usually are. The
Mayor, as every one knows, is a mere puppet. He will do as he is told.
Only, the League has made such a stir, the people are so tremendously
aroused, that he is frightened. And so, before acting, before writing
the veto, which he has sense enough to see is likely to mean political
suicide, he is coming here to-night to see Senator Norman, to get his
instructions. That's what it amounts to. Norman holds the State
machine in the hollow of his hand. If Norman tells him to veto, Black
will veto. It may be bad for him with the voters if he does it, but it
would be certain political death for a man like him to cross Norman.
_And Norman will say, 'Veto!'_"
"I see," said Merriam.
Which was hardly true; he did not as yet see an inch ahead of his nose
into this thing, but he thought it sounded well.
"Where do I come in, though?" he added, belying his assumption of
sagacity.
"That's my very next point," said Rockwell.
His chair came down on all fours. He squared it to the table, laid his
neglected cigarette aside, put his arms on the cloth, and looked very
straight at Merriam.
"Are you aware, Mr. Merriam, that you bear a most striking physical
resemblance to Senator Norman?"
"I have been told so," said Merriam. "My mother often spoke of it.
And--Mrs. Norman mentioned it to me before she was married. I have seen
his pictures, of course, in the papers. I have never seen him in
person." (This was true, for John Merriam had, quite inexcusably,
stayed away from Mollie June's wedding.)
"He has never seen you, then?"
"He probably doesn't know of my existence."
"So much the better," said Rockwell. "The only difficulty then is Mrs.
Norman. And she can be eliminated."
This facile elimination of Mollie June did not make an irresistible
appeal to Merriam, but he held his tongue.
Alicia Wayward saw the reformer's mistake.
"Mr. Rockwell means," she threw in, "that Mrs. Norman can be shielded
from the difficulties of the situation."
"Exactly," said Rockwell quickly. "Mr. Merriam," he continued, "if you
have never seen the Senator with your own eyes, you can have no
realisation of the closeness of your resemblance to him. Hair, eyes,
nose, mouth, size, carriage, manner, movement--it is truly wonderful.
And it is the same with your voice. Father Murray here says he fairly
jumped when you first spoke to him out in the Cabaret when he went over
to question you."
"He also says," interrupted Alicia, as if mischievously, "that it is
Providential."
"Please do not be irreverent, Miss Alicia," said the priest. "It does
surely seem Providential--on this night of all nights. It surely seems
so."
"Well," said Merriam, a trifle bluntly perhaps, "I don't know what you
mean by that. If my cousin and I look so much alike as you say, no
doubt it's quite remarkable. Still such things happen often enough in
families. What of it?"
"I have explained," said Rockwell, with an air of much patience, "that
Mayor Black is coming here, to this hotel, to-night, to see Senator
Norman about the Ordinance, and that Norman will order him to veto it.
We thought we had Norman fixed, but he has gone over to the magnates--as
he always does in the end! Black will do as he is bid, and it will be a
death blow. We can never pass it over his veto. It means the total
ruin of five years of work, involving the expenditure of tens of
thousands of dollars. And the cause of Reform in this city will be dead
for years to come. The League will never survive, if we fail at this
last ditch. It will collapse."
"In short," said Alicia sweetly, "Mr. Rockwell himself will collapse."
Rockwell took no heed of her.
"Half an hour ago," he said, "I was sitting yonder in the Cabaret,
dining with Miss Wayward and Father Murray. I was eating turtle soup
and olives"--he laughed theatrically,--"but I was a desperate man. I
had no hope, no interest left in life. Then I looked up and saw you.
At first I mistook you for Senator Norman--even I, who have known the
old hypocrite for a dozen years. I stared at you, wondering whether I
should go over and make one last personal appeal to you--to him. And
then I realised that you could not be he. For I knew positively that he
was dining in his room. I looked closer. I saw that you were really a
younger man--not that massaged, laced old roue. I stared on in my
amazement, till Miss Wayward and Father Murray looked too, and Miss
Wayward said, 'Why, there's Senator Norman now.' 'By God!' said I,
'perhaps it is!' Do you see, Mr. Merriam?"
"No," said Merriam, "I don't."
"Ah, but you will, you must," said Rockwell. "Listen!" He looked at his
watch. "It is now twenty minutes past seven. Norman is dining in his
room. There is a man with him, a Mr. Crockett--one of the dozen men who
own Chicago. He is as much interested in the Ordinance as I am--on the
other side. He is giving Norman his instructions, for the Senator is
Crockett's puppet, of course, as much as the Mayor is Norman's.
Crockett will leave promptly at a quarter to eight. Mayor Black is due
at eight."
"How do you know these things?" interrupted Merriam.
"It is my business to know things," said Rockwell. "The fact is," he
added, "I planned to burst in on Norman and Black at their conference
and threaten them in the name of the Reform League. It would have done
no good, but I owed that much to the League."
"And to yourself," said Alicia softly.
"And to myself, yes!" said Rockwell, infinitesimally pricked at last.
But he hurried on:
"At ten minutes to eight, Mr. Merriam, I will telephone Norman. I will
pretend to be old Schubert, the Mayor's private secretary. He has a
dry, clipped voice that is easy to imitate. I will say that the Mayor
is sick at his house. I will imply that he is drunk. He often is. I
will say he is not too sick to veto the Ordinance before the Council
meets at nine, but that he insists on seeing Senator Norman before he
does it and asks that Norman come out to his house. I will say that I
am sending a car for him. Norman will curse, but he will go. He is
under orders, too, you see. At five minutes to eight we will send up
word that Mayor Black's car is waiting for Senator Norman. There will
be a car waiting. The driver will be Simpson."
"I can fix it with the hotel people to get him off," said Alicia in
response to a look from Merriam. "He was a chauffeur once for a
while.--And he will do anything I ask him to," she added.
"Norman will go down and get into that car. He will be driven, not to
the Mayor's house, of course, but to--a certain flat, where he will be
detained for several hours--very possibly all night."
"By force?" asked Merriam, rather sternly.
"Only by force of the affections," said Rockwell suavely. "The flat
belongs, for the time being, to a certain young woman, a manicurist by
profession, who is undoubtedly very pretty and in whom Norman--takes an
interest. I happen to know that he pays the rent of the flat."
Rockwell paused, but Merriam made no reply. He blushed, subcutaneously
at any rate, for Alicia and Father Murray. The latter indeed affected
inattention to this portion of Mr. Rockwell's discourse. But Alicia
Wayward made no pretence of either misunderstanding or horror.
In Merriam's mind a slight embarrassment quickly gave place to anger.
That George Norman after three years--how much sooner who could
tell?--should leave Mollie June for a--his mind paused before a word too
ancient and too frank for professorial sensibilities.
Rockwell quickly resumed:
"As soon as Norman has gone I will take you to his room. We will put
his famous crimson smoking jacket on you and establish you in his big
armchair with a cigar and some whiskey and soda beside you. When Black
comes he will find Senator Norman--you. All you will have to do is to
be curt and sulky, damn him a bit, and tell him to sign the Ordinance.
He'll never suspect you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't know the
Senator well--never spoke with him privately above three times in his
life. We'll have only side lights on. He won't stay. He'll be
mightily relieved about the Ordinance and in a hurry to get away. Then
you yourself can get away and catch your train for--for----"
"Riceville," supplied Alicia.
"That will be a real adventure for you, young man, and you will have
saved the cause of Reform in the city of Chicago!"
John Merriam smiled, frostily.
"The reasons, then, Mr. Rockwell, why I should fraudulently impersonate
a Senator of the United States, who happens to be my cousin, and in his
name act in an important matter directly contrary to his own wishes are
for the fun of the adventure and to save your Reform League from a
setback. Is that correct?"
"Philip," said Alicia quickly, "you and Father Murray go for a walk. I
want to have a little talk with Mr. Merriam alone. Come back in twenty
minutes."
The implication of her last phrase was distinctly flattering to Merriam
if he had understood it. Alicia Wayward would not have asked for more
than ten minutes with most men.
Rockwell smiled with lowered eyelids--a smile which it was certainly a
mistake for him to permit himself, for it could not and did not fail to
put Merriam on his guard--against Alicia.
"Come, Murray," said Rockwell rising, "I should like a breath of real
air, shouldn't you? And when Miss Wayward commands----" He waved his
hand grandly. "Au revoir!"
And he and the priest hastily departed.
*CHAPTER V*
*ALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN*
"Take another cigarette, won't you, Mr. Merriam?" said Alicia, as the
curtain at the door fell behind Rockwell and Father Murray.
"Thank you," said Merriam.
He was excited, of course. All the stimulations of his evening,
including more coffee than he was used to and an unaccustomed taste of
wine and mystery and intrigue, could not fail to tell on the blood of
youth. But he felt extraordinarily calm, and he was not in the least
afraid of Alicia. He had not fully made up his mind about the proposed
adventure, but Alicia knew several things about the wantings of men.
"Let me light it for you," she pursued.
She struck a match, which somehow she already had out of its box, put
out a white hand and arm, took the cigarette from his fingers, put it to
her own lips and lighted it, and handed it back to him.
"Thank you," said Merriam again, just a little confused. Hesitatingly,
with an undeniable trace of thrill, he put the cigarette to his own
lips. Poor boy! It was an uneven contest!
Alicia deftly moved her chair to the corner of the table, bringing it
not very close but much closer to Merriam's. Close enough for him to
catch the faint, unfamiliar perfume. She put out her hand again and
drew one of the yellow roses from their bowl. She rested both arms on
the table and played with the rose, drawing it through her fingers and
up and down one white, rounded forearm.
"Mr. Merriam," she said, "perhaps you have wondered why I am in this
thing."
As a matter of fact he had neglected to be curious on that point, but
now he was.
"Yes," he said.
"Mr. Rockwell converted me. Oh, I can see you don't like him. You
think he is hard and unscrupulous and self-seeking. Well, he is. All
men are--at least, almost all men are"--she glanced at Merriam. "But he
is a genuine reformer for all that. He is heart and soul for what he
calls the People. He works tremendously for them all his time. And he
is shrewd and fearless."
Now it is probable that Alicia's little character sketch presented a
very just picture of Philip Rockwell. But it did not appeal to Merriam
as true, much less as likable. He was too young. He still wanted his
heroes all heroic and his villains naught but black and red with almost
visible horns and tail.
He did not reply. He could not, however, remove his eyes from the
felicitous meanderings of the yellow rose.
"Well," sighed Alicia, "I was going to tell you how Mr. Rockwell
converted me. You see, my father--but you don't know who my father is,
do you? The newspapers always refer to him us 'the billionaire brewer.'
They like the alliteration, I suppose. He's very busy now converting
all his plants for the manufacture of near-beer." (She laughed as if
that were a good joke.) "His youngest sister, my Aunt Geraldine, was
Senator Norman's first wife. So I know George Norman well. I was quite
a favourite of his when he used to come to our house before poor Aunt
Jerry died. So Philip wanted me to 'use my influence' with Mr. Norman
about his precious Ordinance. I wasn't much interested at first. I
hadn't ridden in a street car, of course, in years."
"Hadn't you?" said Merriam, quite at a loss.
"No. When I go out I take either the limousine or the electric. So I
really didn't know much about conditions, except, of course, from the
cartoons about strap-hangers in the newspapers. Philip saw that that
was why I was unsympathetic. So he dared me to go for a street-car ride
with him. Of course I wouldn't take a dare.
"It was about five o'clock in the afternoon. We took the limousine down
to Wabash and Madison. There Philip made me get out on the street
corner. It was horrid weather--a cold, blowy spring rain. But Philip was
hard as a rock. He told the chauffeur to drive to the corner of Cottage
Grove and Thirty-Ninth Street and wait for us. And _we_ waited for a
car. It was terrible. We stood out in the street under the
Elevated--by one of the posts, you know--for a little protection from
the train. We hadn't any umbrella. The wind tore at my skirts and my
hair. The trains going by overhead nearly burst your ears with noise.
And automobiles and great motor trucks crashed past within a few inches
of us and splashed mud and nearly stifled us with gasoline smells. And
a crowd of other people got around us and knocked into us and walked on
our feet and stuck umbrellas in our eyes. For a long time no car at all
came. Then three or four came together, but they were all jammed full
to the steps, so that we couldn't get on.
"I was ready to give up. I told Philip so.
"'Let's go into Mandel's,' I begged, 'and you can call a taxi.'
"'No you don't,' he said. 'Here, we can get on this one.'
"Another car had stopped about twenty feet from us. We joined a kind of
football rush for the rear end. I tripped on my skirt when I tried to
climb the steps, but Philip caught me by the arm and dragged me on, as
though I had been a sack of flour.
"Then for a long time we couldn't get inside but had to stand on the
platform wedged like olives in a bottle. It was so dark and cold and
noisy, and everybody was so wet and crushed and smelly. A man beside me
smelled so strong of tobacco and whiskey and of--not having had a bath
for a long time, that I was nearly ill. And I thought a poor little
shop girl on the other side of me was going to faint.
"After a long time some people got out at the other end of the car--at
Twelfth Street, Philip says,--and some of us squeezed inside into the
crowded aisle. Inside it was warm--hot, in fact,--but still smellier.
Philip got me a strap, and I hung on to it. I don't care for
strap-hanger jokes any more. It's terribly tiring, and it pulls your
waist all out of shape.
"'Bet you won't get a seat,' grinned Philip.
"Of course I was bound then that I would. I looked about. Some of the
men who were seated were reading papers the way they are in the
cartoons. Others just sat and stared in front of them. I didn't blame
them much. They looked tired, too. But I had to get a seat to spite
Philip. The young man in the one before which I was standing, or
hanging, looked rather nice. I made up my mind to get his seat. I had
to look down inside his newspaper and crowd against his legs. At last,
after looking up at me three or four times, he got up with a jerk as if
he had just noticed me and took off his hat, and I smiled at him and at
Philip and sat down. But he kept staring at me so that I wished I had
let him alone.
"I made the poor little shop girl sit on my lap. Nobody gave her a seat.
I suppose she wouldn't work for it the way I did. She was a pretty
little thing, too. Just a tiny bit like Mollie June Norman. Not so
pretty, of course, but the same type.
"Then there was nothing to do but wait till we got to Thirty-Ninth
Street. Ages and ages. They ought to have been able to go to the South
Pole and back.
"When we did get there I put the little girl in my seat--she was going
to Eighty-First Street, poor little thing,--and Philip and I got out and
went home in the limousine, and he told me all about how the Ordinance
would better things, and I promised to help him if I could."
"And you did?" said Merriam. He was touched--whether by Alicia's own
sufferings in the course of her remarkable exploration or by those of
the little shop girl who looked like Mollie June, does not, perhaps,
matter. He now quite fully liked Alicia. He saw that, in spite of her
extreme decollete and her cigarettes, she had a generous heart.
"I tried to," replied Alicia. "I saw George Norman, and I did my
best--my very best. But he wouldn't promise anything. He only laughed
and tried to kiss me."
"Tried to kiss you!" echoed Merriam, naively aghast.
"Yes," said Alicia, with her eyes demurely on the rose between her
fingers.
And John Merriam, looking at her, grasped clearly the possibility that a
"boy senator" with whom Alicia had done her very best might try to kiss
her.
"So that is one reason why I am in it to the death," Alicia went on,
"because George Norman--wouldn't listen to me. And I don't want Philip
to fail."
She laid one hand quickly over one of Merriam's hands, startling him so
that he nearly drew his away. "I love him," she said, and her eyes
shone effulgently into Merriam's. "He hasn't much money, and he is hard
and--and conceited, but he is courageous. He dares anything. He dared
to take me on that street-car ride. He would dare to burst in on the
Senator and Mayor Black to-night. He dares think up this plan. A woman
loves a Man."
There is no doubt that Alicia pronounced "man" with a capital letter,
and she looked challengingly at Merriam.
"We are to be married next month," she added.
"Oh!" gasped Merriam, his eyes staring in spite of himself at her hand
that lay on his.
The hand flew away as quickly as it had alighted, but he still felt its
soft coolness on his fingers as she said:
"Of course all this is why _I_ am in it, not why you should be. You
can't do it just to please me. But you really ought to think of all
those poor people, like the little shop girl--all the tired men and
women--millions of them, Philip says--who have to endure that torture
every night after long days of hard work. It's truly awful, and it
might all be so much better if we only got the Ordinance. You could get
it for them in one little half hour!"
She looked hopefully at Merriam. He was in fact hesitant. To have the
fun of the thing, to gratify this strange, attractive Alicia, and to
render an important service to the population of a great city--it was
tempting.
"There's another thing," Alicia hurried on. "You knew Mollie June
Norman. She was one of your students. I think you ought to do it for
her sake."
"Why so?" Merriam's question came swift and sharp.
"Because if Senator Norman kills the Ordinance it will be his ruin. It
will cost him Chicago's vote in the next election, and he can't win on
the Down-State vote alone."
"I thought Rockwell said the League would collapse."
Possibly Alicia had forgotten this. But she only shrugged her
shoulders.
"It may or it mayn't. But either way the people are aroused. Philip
swears they will beat Norman if he betrays them now. He is sure they
can and will. And if the 'boy senator' were unseated and had to retire
to private life it would be terrible for Mollie June. He's bad enough
to live with as it is."
At this point Merriam was visited by a sudden and splendid idea. Since
he did not disclose it to Alicia, I feel in honour bound to conceal it
for the present from the reader.
Alicia detected its presence in his eyes and judiciously kept silent.
It took about ten seconds for that idea to grow from nothingness into
full flower. For perhaps five seconds longer Merriam inwardly
contemplated its unique beauty. Then he said:
"I'll do it!"
*CHAPTER VI*
*STAGE-SETTING*
Alicia gave him no time for reconsideration or after-thoughts.
"Good!" she cried, "I was sure you would."
She was on her feet in an instant, and as he got to his she held out her
hand. Merriam took it--to shake hands on their bargain was his thought.
But Alicia never exactly shook hands. She touched or pressed or
squeezed according to circumstances. On this occasion it was a warm,
clinging squeeze. Her other hand patted Merriam's shoulder.
"I was sure you would," she repeated. "No Man"--again the capital
letter was unmistakable--"could have resisted--the--the opportunity."
The curtain at the door was lifted, and Philip Rockwell's voice said:
"May I come in? The twenty minutes are up."
They were. Just up. Alicia had done her part in exactly the fraction
of an hour she had given herself. No vaudeville act could have been
more precisely timed.
"Yes. Come in, dear," said Alicia. "Mr. Merriam will do it. We were
just shaking hands on it."
Rockwell crossed the room in a rush and caught Merriam's hand as Alicia
relinquished it. He pumped vigorously. In his eyes shone the
unmistakable light of that genuine enthusiasm which Alicia had described
to her skeptical auditor.
"You're the right sort," he cried. "You are doing a great thing, Mr.
Merriam. You will never regret it. But I can't thank you now," he
added, dropping Merriam's hand in mid-air, so to speak. "It's ten
minutes of eight. That money-bag, Crockett, came out of the elevator
just before I came back. I have a car at the Ladies' Entrance."
"With Simpson?" asked Alicia.
"Yes. I had to get things ready. The time was so short. I fixed the
head waiter. Simpson seemed ready enough. Has some old grudge against
Norman, I think."
"Yes," said Alicia, "he has. I'm a little afraid--I wish I could have
seen him. Never mind. It can't be helped. Where's Father Murray?"
"Watching to buttonhole the Mayor if he should come too soon."
He looked critically for a moment at Merriam, seemed satisfied, and
crossed to the telephone on the sideboard.
"I'll ring up the curtain," he said.
He laughed boyishly in his excitement and new hope. He seemed very
different now from the hard-eyed, middle-aged fellow of an hour ago.
Merriam saw how Alicia might admire him.
"Give me Room Three-Two-Three," he said into the telephone, his eyes
smiling at them.
A moment later a harsh, dry old man's voice was saying:
"Is this Senator Norman?--This is Mr. Schubert, private secretary to
Mayor Black. The Mayor is sick.--I can't help it, sir. He's sick all
right. He's out here at his house.--Yes, he can veto the Ordinance all
right if it's necessary. But he won't do it without seeing you first.
He wants you to come out. He's sent a car for you. It ought to be down
there at the Ladies' Entrance by now.--No, it won't do any good to call
him up. I'm here at his house now. He's in bed. And he won't veto
unless he sees you. Really, sir, if you'll pardon me, you'd better
come.--Thank you, sir!"
Rockwell clicked the receiver triumphantly into its hook.
"That's done," he said. "Alicia, dear, go up to the lobby on the
women's side and watch the hallway leading to the Ladies' Entrance.
Norman should pass out that way within five minutes. Follow him far
enough to make sure that Simpson gets him. And then let us know.
Meanwhile I'll coach Mr. Merriam a little."
"Right," said Alicia.
She moved to the door. The eyes of both men followed her. When Alicia
moved the eyes of men did follow. And she knew it. At the doorway she
turned and blew a kiss, which might be said to fall with gracious
impartiality between her lover and the younger man. It was a pretty
exit.
"She's a splendid girl," said Rockwell, his eyes lingering on the
curtain that had cut her off from them.
"Yes," said Merriam.
Rockwell, still by the sideboard, reached for the long bottle.
"Have another glass of this?"
"I don't mind," said Merriam. The fact is, a bit of stage fright had
come in for him when Alicia went out.
"There's not much I can tell you," Rockwell said, as he poured out the
yellow fluid. "You'll have to depend mostly on the inspiration of the
moment. You look the part all right. Your voice is all right, too. Act
as grumpy as you like. Damn him about a bit.--You can swear?" he asked
hastily. A sudden horrible doubt of pedagogical capabilities had
crossed his mind.
Now Merriam was not a profane man, but some of his fraternity brethren
had been. Also he remembered the vituperative exploits of his football
coach between halves when the game was going badly.
"Swear?" he cried, as harshly as possible. "Of course I can swear, you
damn fool!"
For three seconds Rockwell was startled. Then he laughed.
"Fine!" he cried. "You'll do it! All there is to it, really, is to
tell him to sign the Ordinance and to get out. He may ask about
Crockett. If he wants to know why he's changed his mind, tell him it's
none of his damn business. If he refers to a Madame Couteau, you must
look pleased. She's the pretty little manicurist whom Norman will be on
his way to visit. Black knows of that affair, and he knows Norman likes
to talk about it. So he may drag it in with the idea of getting on your
blind side. You can tell him to shut up, of course, but you must act
gratified."
"Yes," said Merriam in a noncommittal tone.
But Rockwell did not notice. He was sipping the Benedictine, with his
mind on his problem.
"That's all I can think of," he said in a moment. "I'll be in the next
room--the bedroom of the suite, you know,--and if you should get into
deep water, I'll burst in, just as I meant to on the real Senator, and
pull you out. We ought to get it over in fifteen minutes at the outside
and get you off. There's just the least chance in the world, of course,
that Senator Norman might get away from Simpson and come back. And
there's Mrs. Norman."
"Where will she be?" asked Merriam as he took a rather large sip of his
cordial.
"She's in the lobby now with Miss Norman--the Senator's sister, you
know,--listening to the orchestra." (Merriam vaguely recalled the
elderly woman whom he had seen with Mollie June in the Cabaret.) "The
Senator was going to take them to the theater after he had finished with
Black."
"What will they do when he doesn't show up?" Merriam inquired; but to
all appearances he was chiefly interested at the moment in the best of
liqueurs.
"Probably go without him. She's used to George Norman's broken
engagements by now."
"I see," said Merriam without expression.
"Alicia and Murray will keep an eye on them, of course," Rockwell added.
And then both men jumped. It was only the telephone, but conspiracy
makes neurasthenics of us all.
Rockwell answered it.
"Yes.--Good.--That's all right.--Oh!--Yes, we'll go at once."
He turned excitedly to Merriam.
"It's Alicia. Norman has come down and got into Simpson's car. Mrs.
Norman is still in the lobby. And the Mayor has come in. Murray's got
him, but he won't be able to hold him long. We must go right up to the
room. Come--Senator!"
Merriam followed out of the private dining-room and down the corridor at
a great pace into a main hallway and to an elevator.
Several people looked hard at Merriam. One important-looking elderly
man stopped and held out his hand:
"How are you, Senator?"
But Rockwell crowded rudely between them.
"Excuse me, Colonel, but we must catch this car.--Very urgent!" he
called as the door clicked.
And Merriam had the presence of mind to add, "Look you up later!"
"Good----" Rockwell began as they stopped at the main floor, but he
paused on the first word with his mouth open.
A very large man, large every way, in evening clothes, with a fine head
of white hair and an air of conscious distinction, was stepping into the
car. He saw Merriam and Rockwell. Then instantly he appeared not to
have observed them, hesitated, backed gracefully out of the little group
that was entering the elevator, and was gone.
The car smoothly ascended.
"Three!" said Rockwell to the elevator man. Then to Merriam he
whispered, "That was the Mayor! He's got away from Murray."
"Ask for your key," whispered Rockwell, as they stepped out.
For five protracted steps Merriam's mind struggled frantically after the
room number. He had just grasped it (3-2-3!) when he perceived that his
perturbation had been unnecessary.
For the floor clerk--a pretty blonde of about thirty--was looking at him
with her sunniest smile.
"Your key, Senator?"
"Yes, please," he managed to say.
As she handed him the key her fingers lightly touched his for a second,
and she said in a low tone, "The violets are lovely."
He saw that she was wearing a large bunch of those expensively modest
flowers at her waist and understood that his cousin's extra-marital
interests might not be limited to Madame Couteau.
He lingered just a moment and replied in a tone as low as her own, "They
look lovely where they are now."
But an appalling difficulty loomed over him even as he murmured. For he
did not know whether Room 323 lay to the right or the left, and if he
should start in the wrong direction----
But Rockwell knew and was already moving to the left. Merriam followed.
In his relief he smiled brightly back at the floor clerk.
At the corner where the hall turned Rockwell stopped, and Merriam,
coming up with him, read "323" on the door before them. Both men looked
up at the transom. It was dark.
"In!" said Rockwell.
Merriam inserted the key, turned it, and cautiously opened the door a
couple of inches, becoming, as he did so, thrillingly conscious of the
burglarious quality of their enterprise.
No light or sound came from within.
For only three or four seconds Rockwell listened. Then he pushed the
door wide, stepped past Merriam, and felt for the switch.
"You haven't invited me in, Senator," he said as the room went alight,
"but I'm a forward sort of fellow.--Come inside, and close the door," he
added.
Merriam pushed the door shut behind him and stared about. The apartment
was probably the most gorgeous he had ever seen. The walls were a soft
cream colour, the woodwork white, the carpet and hangings and lampshades
rose. Most of the furniture was mahogany, some of it upholstered in
rose-coloured tapestry. On a table half way down one side of the room
stood a bowl of red roses. In the wall opposite Merriam, between the
windows, was a fireplace of white marble, containing a gas log, with a
large mirror above the mantel in a frame of white and gold. Before this
fireplace stood a huge upholstered easy chair, with a pink-shaded floor
lamp on one side of it and a small mahogany tabaret on the other.
While Merriam was endeavouring to appreciate this magnificence, Rockwell
quickly crossed the sitting room and passed through a door at one side.
After a moment he returned, crossed the room again, and disappeared
through a second door. Reemerging, he announced triumphantly, "No one in
the bedrooms!"
But Merriam's eyes rested, fascinated, on a garment which Rockwell had
brought back with him from the second bedroom--a luxurious smoking
jacket of a most lurid crimson colour, which clashed outrageously with
the rose and pinks of the senatorial sitting room.
Rockwell grinned at the look on Merriam's face.
"A historic garment, sir," he declared. "The Boy Senator's crimson
smoking jacket is a household word with most of the six million souls of
this commonwealth of Illinois. Off with your tails, sir, and into it!"
"Hurry!" he cried, as Merriam hesitated. "The Mayor will be here any
minute."
"Why didn't he come up in the elevator with us?" Merriam asked while
changing.
"All because of me, sir," replied Rockwell, in excellent spirits. "The
Mayor abhors me and all my works so sincerely that I feel I have not
lived in vain.--Now, then, sit in that big chair before the fireplace.
Here, light this cigar. I'll start the gas log going and bring in the
tray with the siphon and glasses and rye that I saw in the other
room.--Ah!"
The telephone had rung, and Merriam had leapt out of his chair.
"Answer it," said Rockwell.
Merriam stepped to the telephone, which was on the wall, laid down his
cigar, gripped his nerve hard, and put the receiver to his ear:
"Hello!"
A deep voice, boomingly suave, replied:
"Senator Norman?"
"Yes."
"This is Mr. Black. Have you got rid of Rockwell yet?"
"No, not yet."
"Well, can't you throw him out? I am due at the Council meeting at
nine, of course. And I don't care to discuss--matters--with you in his
presence, naturally. When shall I come up?"
Now the Mayor's rather long speech had given Merriam time to think. He
recalled his great idea, and a new inspiration, as to ways and means,
came to him.
"Eight-thirty," he replied curtly.
"But, good God!" cried the Mayor, "that gives us so little time. Can't
you----"
"I said eight-thirty, damn you!"
And Merriam hung up and turned to face Rockwell at his elbow.
"But why eight-thirty?" demanded the latter as soon as he understood
that it had been the Mayor. "Man alive, we ought to be gone by then!
What are we to do with the next twenty minutes? You must have lost your
head. Call him again. Call the desk and have him paged and told to
come right up."
Without a word Merriam turned to the telephone again and asked for the
desk.
But a moment later he gave Philip Rockwell one of the major surprises of
the latter's life. For what he said was:
"Please page Mrs. George Norman, with the message that Senator Norman
would like to see her right away in their rooms. Repeat that,
please.--That's right. Thank you!"
"What in hell!" cried Rockwell, belatedly released by the click of the
receiver from a paralysis of astonishment.
Merriam picked up his cigar, walked back to the easy chair, and seated
himself comfortably. He was excited now to the point of a quite
theatrical composure.
"Nothing in hell," he said. "Quite the contrary, in fact. I want to
have a few minutes' conversation with Mrs. Norman. That's all."
"See here!" said Rockwell. "What funny business is this? I won't
have----"
"Won't you? All right. Just as you say. If you don't like the way I'm
playing my part, I'll drop it and walk right out of that door. I have a
ticket for the theater to-night. I can still be in time."
The other man stared and gulped. It was hard for him to realise that
this young cub was master of the situation, and not he, Rockwell.
"But this is serious!" he cried. "The Ordinance! The Reform League!
The whole city of Chicago! You can't risk these for----"
He stopped. Then:
"Do you realise, you young fool, that if we're caught in this room, it
will mean jail for both of us?"
But Merriam in his present mood was incapable of realising anything of
the sort. In his mind's eye he saw Mollie June stepping into the
elevator and saving in a voice of heavenly sweetness to the happy
elevator man, "Three, please!"
An outer crust of his consciousness made pert reply to Rockwell:
"That would be bad for the Reform League, wouldn't it?" and added, "But
you're willing to risk it for the Ordinance?"
"Yes, I am," began Rockwell, "but----"
"Would you risk it for Alicia?" Merriam interrupted.
"What has Alicia got to do with it?"
But he understood, and knew that argument was useless, and stared in
helpless anger and alarm while the younger man carefully, grandly blew a
beautifully perfect smoke ring into the air.
It was the youngster who spoke, still theatrically calm:
"You'd better go into the bedroom. She'll be here in a moment. Shut
the door, please. And keep away from it!"
It was one of the secrets of Philip Rockwell's success in politics that,
masterful as he was, he knew when to yield. He took a step towards one
of the bedrooms.
"Make it short," he pleaded.
"Eight-thirty!" said Merriam.
A gentle knocking sounded at the door.
Merriam was on his feet without volition of his own, while Rockwell,
almost as instinctively, slipped into the bedroom.
Then the younger man recovered himself, sat down, his feet to the gas
log and his back to the door, and called, "Come in!"
*CHAPTER VII*
*BOY AND GIRL*
The door was opened and closed. John Merriam's straining ears could
catch no definite sound of footsteps or skirts, and he did not dare to
look around. Yet by some sixth sense, it seemed, he was aware of Mollie
June's progress half way across the room and aware that she had stopped,
some feet away from him.
"What is it--George?" she asked.
It was only too clear that Mollie June's lord and master was not in the
habit of sending for her.
"Where is--Miss Norman?"
Merriam was conscious that Senator Norman probably did not refer to his
sister in that fashion, but he did not know her given name.
"Aunt Mary? I left her in the lobby. Did you want her too?"
There was a note of eagerness in the question.
"No!"
Silence. Mollie June stood waiting in the center of the room. The
significance of her failure to approach her husband was unmistakable.
Then he said: "Would you very much mind if you should miss the theater
to-night?"
"Why--no. Is there anything the matter, George?"
"Not for me," said Merriam, and he rose and faced her.
"I was afraid--" She stopped, looked hard.
"George, you look--oh!"
She passed her hand across her eyes. It was a stage gesture, but when
stage situations occur in real life the conventional "business" of the
boards is often justified.
She looked again.
"Mr. Merriam!"
John Merriam stepped quickly forward. It occurred to him that she might
faint. He had read many novels.
But Mollie June did nothing of the sort.
"Mr. Merriam!" she cried again. "How do you come here? Where is--Mr.
Norman? How did you get in _that_?"
She pointed to the famous smoking jacket. Her bewilderment was
increasing. She looked nervously about, as if suspecting that Merriam,
for the sake of the crimson garment, had murdered her husband and
concealed his body.
Merriam had stopped. Almost he might have wished that she had fainted.
It would have been delicious to carry her in his arms and place her in
the Senator's easy chair and bring water and when her eyes opened
wonderingly upon him softly whisper her name. As it was he could only
say formally:
"Let me take your cloak--Mrs. Norman--won't you? And sit down."
Mechanically she let him take the opera cloak from her shoulders, and
when he caught hold of the senatorial chair and swung it around and
pushed it towards her she sat tremblingly erect on the edge of it. Her
eyes dwelt upon his face as if fascinated.
"Isn't it funny you look so _much_ alike? I never realised it--so much.
But--where is _he_? Why----?"
Merriam caught up a small chair, placed it in front of hers, and sat
down.
"Listen, Mollie June," he said pleadingly, using unconsciously the name
that ran in his thoughts.
His plan, as it had taken shape while he talked with Mayor Black on the
telephone, was to tell her in advance of Rockwell's plot and to carry it
through only with her approval or consent--for was not his first loyalty
to her? His original idea, and his real motive, of course, had been
only to see her. And now that he had her there he found he hated to
waste time on explanations. But there was nothing for it. She could
not be at ease or clear in her mind until she understood. So, rapidly
and candidly, he related how at the instance of Mr. Rockwell the Senator
had been decoyed away, while he was there to impersonate him with Mayor
Black, so that the latter should sign instead of vetoing the Traction
Ordinance. Then he waited for he knew not what--amazement, fright,
anger, dissuasion.
But Mollie June did not seem much interested in traction ordinances.
Presumably Senator Norman had not cared to educate his young wife about
political matters.
"Why did you send for _me_?" she asked.
Her question was almost too direct for him. He could not say, to ask
her approval of the plan against her husband.
"I had to see you," was all he could reply.
"Why?"
But she knew the real reason. The turning of her eyes away from him
confessed it.
It was his chance to say, "Because I love you." An older man might have
said it. But the young are timid and conventional--not bold and
reckless, as is alleged. He remembered that she was another man's wife
and only spoke her name:
"Mollie June!"
Perhaps that did as well. In fact it was, in the reticent dialect of
youth, the same thing.
She looked at him a moment, then quickly away again.
"You never called me that but once before--to-night," she said.
At first he found no answer. His mind scarcely sought one. He was
absorbed in merely looking at her. She was indeed girlishly perfect as
she sat there, almost primly upright, in her white frock, her slender
figure framed in the rose-coloured tapestry of the big chair's back and
arms, which gave an effect as of a blush to her cheeks and to the white
shoulders which he had never seen before except across the spaces of the
Peacock Cabaret. To the eyes of middle age she would have been,
perhaps, merely "charming." In his she shone with the divine radiance
of Aphrodite. And his were right, of course.
He was almost trembling when at length he said:
"That was on--that last night."
"Yes," said Aphrodite, who is always chary of speech.
Suddenly he saw that her averted face was wistful, sad.
"Are you happy, Mollie June?" he cried.
Though she turned only partly to him he saw that her eyes were more a
woman's eyes than he had known them and were full of tears.
"Not--very," she said.
He sat dumbly on his chair, full of pain for her, yet not altogether
saddened that she should not be entirely happy with another man.
But now her face was fully towards him, and her eyes had become dry and
looked past him.
"Oh, Mr. Merriam--you don't know! I can't tell you----"
He was filled with horror--almost boyishly terrified--by such dim
visions as a man may have of what her lot might be.
"If I could only help you!" he cried, as earnestly as all the other
separated lovers in the world have said those very words.
The eyes that looked beyond him came back to his face. The Mollie June
whom he had known had had her girlish poise, and this more tragic Mollie
June did not lose her self-control for long.
"You _have_ helped me--Mr. Merriam. Oh, I am glad you brought me here!
When I saw you in--the Cabaret, I just ran away from you. I couldn't
even let you speak to me. Afterwards I waited upstairs in the lobby. I
thought--I might see you there. But you didn't come. Then I thought
George had sent for me!"
She stopped as if that was a climax.
Merriam leaned forward. He wanted to put his hand over one of hers that
lay on the arm of her chair, but did not dare to. His tongue, however,
was released at last.
"If ever I can help you in any way, Mollie June, you must let me know.
I would do anything for you. I will always be ready."
He paused abruptly, though only for a second. A dark thought had crossed
his mind: after all the "Boy Senator" was an old man (from the
standpoint of twenty-eight), and leading a life unhealthy for old men.
He hurried on:
"I will wait for you always. Perhaps some day----"
Did she comprehend his meaning? He could not tell, and he did not know
whether to hope she did or did not. But stress of conflicting emotions
made him venturesome. He did put his hand over hers.
Hers did not move.
His fingers slipped under hers, ready to raise her hand.
"That last night in Riceville, Mollie June, I kissed your--glove.
To-night I want to kiss your hand--to make me yours--if you should need
me."
She did not draw her hand away, but she said:
"You oughtn't to--now--Mr. Merriam."
The formal name by which she had continually addressed him pricked.
"Won't you call me 'John,' Mollie June, just for this quarter of an hour
before the Mayor comes?"
"Oh, the Mayor!" she cried in alarmed remembrance.
"Call me 'John,' dear--for fifteen minutes!"
In his voice and eyes were both entreaty and command, and Mollie June
could not resist them.
"John!" she whispered.
And he raised her hand and bent quickly forward, and his lips pressed
her fingers. A bare second. Yet it was in his mind a solemn, a
sacramental kiss. He straightened up triumphant, happy. Youth asks so
little.
"Now you know you have a right to me!" he cried. "To send for me. To
use me any way, any time!"
There came a loud knocking at the door.
Mollie June started half way out of the chair and then sank back.
Merriam, on his feet and part way across the floor, stopped confused.
He perceived that he ought to get Mollie June out of the room.
The knocking resounded again. And immediately the door was tried and
opened, and a man stepped in. It was the large man with the white hair
who had started to enter the elevator--Mayor Black.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*PASSAGES WITH MAYOR BLACK*
Mayor of the great city of Chicago was hurriedly apologetic:
"I beg your pardon, Senator. You said eight-thirty, you know, and it's
that now. I came up and knocked. Evidently you did not hear. A man I
met in the lobby told me that you had left the hotel in a taxi half an
hour ago. He said he saw you go. So I tried the door and when it opened
stepped in, just to make sure. I am sorry to have intruded."
Apparently, however, he did not intend to withdraw.
Mollie June crouched frightened in her chair, but Merriam was rapidly
pulling himself together.
"It is I who should apologise for keeping you waiting, Mayor Black," he
said. "I will ask Mrs. Norman to excuse us. Will you step into the
next room for a few minutes, Mollie June? We shall not be long."
He went back to her chair and held out his hand.
She took it and rose. Her spirit, too, was reasserting itself. She
faced the Mayor with a smile:
"Good evening, Mr. Black."
"Good evening, Mrs. Norman." He bowed gallantly. "I am very sorry----"
"Oh," she cried lightly, one would have said happily, "business is
business, I know." Then to Merriam: "You won't belong?"
"Only a minute--dear."
(Perhaps we can hardly blame him for profiting by the license his role
gave him to address her so.)
He moved to the door opposite to that through which Rockwell had slipped
away fifteen minutes earlier and opened it for her. She passed through
into the darkness of the other room. He felt for the switch and pushed
it.
As the light went on she turned and smiled at him:
"Thank you."
For an instant it seemed to him--perhaps to both of them--that she was
really his wife, who was leaving him for a few minutes only, whom he
would soon rejoin.
Then he turned to face Mayor Black.
"I need stay only a minute, Senator," the Mayor was saying. "If I had
known you were engaged with Mrs. Norman, I shouldn't have bothered you.
It wasn't really necessary. I met Mr. Crockett downstairs while I was
waiting. He told me the answer. But since I had the engagement with
you I came up. If I may, I'll write the veto right here, and then I can
go on to the Council meeting."
As he spoke he drew a thick roll of paper from his overcoat pocket,
unfolded it, opened it at the last sheet, and laid it on a small writing
table.
"I shan't give any reasons," he added, sitting down and picking up a
pen. "Least said, soonest mended--eh, Senator?"
"But you're not to veto! You're to sign!" cried Merriam.
Perhaps if he had more fully grasped the significance of the other's
statement about Mr. Crockett he would have been less abrupt; but that
mighty financier was only a dim name to his mind.
"What?" said Black, turning in his chair.
The Mayor's tone gave Merriam some realisation of the seriousness of the
new situation. But he could only stand to his guns.
"You're to _sign_! I don't care what Crockett said. I don't care a
damn what he said," he corrected himself. "You do what I say, damn
you!"
"But how is this?" exclaimed the Mayor. "Crockett said you fully agreed
that the best interests----"
He stopped, looking intently at Merriam.
In the excitement of the dialogue which had followed Merriam's sending
for Mollie June Rockwell had neglected the precaution he had had in mind
of having only side lights on. Rockwell had planned, also, that Merriam
should sit facing the gas log with his back to the room and look at the
Mayor as little as possible. Now the boy stood where the full glare of
the chandelier shone on his face. Perhaps, too, the emotions of a
youthful love scene, such as he had just passed through, were not the
best preparation in the world for counterfeiting the slightly worn
cheeks and slightly tired eyes of an elderly if well-preserved
politician.
"Who in hell are you?" gasped the Mayor.
Merriam was certainly startled. Perhaps he showed it just a little.
But he stood up bravely.
"You know damn well who I am. And you do as I say or get out of Chicago
politics. I'll attend to Crockett," he added. "That's my affair."
"Is that so? Well, I guess it's my affair who makes a monkey of me!
I----"
Again the Mayor stopped abruptly and stared. Then suddenly he rose.
"I was told the Senator had left the hotel. I think I was correctly
informed. What sort of a trick is this? Who _are_ you?"
"Damn you----" Merriam began, with realistic sincerity, but with the
vaguest ideas as to what more substantial statement should follow.
At this moment, however, Rockwell opened his door and stepped into the
room.
"Aha!" cried the Mayor. No stage villain could have said it better.
"Mr. Rockwell! Of the Reform League, I believe!" He bowed
sardonically. "'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell!' Well, one thing at a
time like this"--he pointed at Merriam--"ought to be enough for a
reformer!"
"Good evening, Mayor Black," said Rockwell. "I believe you were about to
sign the Ordinance."
"I was _not_. In spite of the _Senator_ here. I don't get a chance to
defy Senator Norman every day. I rather enjoy it!--And let me tell
you," he added, "if you and your friends in that damned League make any
more trouble for me or Senator Norman or the Ordinance or anything else
after this--if you don't shut up and lie low and keep pretty damn quiet,
we'll show you up, my boy. This would make a pretty little story for the
newspapers--and for the State's Attorney, too! We might call it 'The
Ethics of Reform!' Oh, we have you where we want you now, Mr. Reformer!
As for this young impostor here, we'll have to look him up a bit. A
very promising young gentleman!"
The Mayor evidently enjoyed the center of the stage. He towered tall
and imposing and righteous, and looked triumphantly from Rockwell to
Merriam and back again.
"I really think you'd better sign it," said Rockwell. He spoke rather
low.
"What do you mean?" cried the Mayor.
Then he thought he saw.
"Oh, it's strong-arm work next, is it?"
There was a note of alarm mingled with his irony, and the magnificence
of his pose weakened a little. Rockwell was a determined-looking
fellow, and there was Merriam to help him, and the Mayor was not really
a very brave man. But he went on talking to save his face:
"You certainly are a jewel of a reformer, Rockwell!"
Then he saw a point and quickly recovered his full grandeur.
"I don't quite see how you're going to manage, though. Of course, if it
were a case of _preventing_ me from signing, you might do it--the two of
you! But signing's rather different, isn't it? You can lead a horse to
water---- Of course, you can club me or hold a revolver to my head.
But, you see, I know you wouldn't dare to fire a revolver here in this
room. So just how will you force my fingers to form the letters? Or
perhaps you will try forgery? Is forgery the next act, Mr. Reformer?"
Rockwell smiled. He was in no hurry to reply. Merriam still stood, as
he had throughout this unforeseen dialogue, a rigid spectator.
Then, in the moment's silence, very inopportunely, a clock, somewhere
outside, struck the hour--a quarter to nine.
Rockwell tried to drown it, saying, "I'm hardly so versatile as that."
But the Mayor had heard and understood.
"Oh, that's it!" he cried.
"Yes, that's it!" said Rockwell, and the center of the stage
automatically shifted to him. "If that Ordinance is not returned to the
Council with your veto by nine o'clock to-night, it becomes a law
whether you sign it or not! You're a bit slow, Mr. Mayor, but you've
got it at last!"
The Mayor did not answer. He shifted slightly on his feet. His hand
shot out. He grabbed the Ordinance from the waiting table and rushed
for the door.
"Catch him!" shouted Rockwell. "Hold him!"
Merriam had been a football player. As if released from a spring he
darted after the Mayor. From habit he tackled low. They went down with
something of a crash, knocking over an ash stand as they fell, and the
Mayor gave a groan. If he had ever known how to fall properly, he had
forgotten. Merriam hoped there were no bones broken.
But Rockwell was wasting no thoughts on commiseration. He was kneeling
over the fallen ruler of the city with his hands clapped over his
mouth--to prevent further groans or other outcry.
"Get the paper!" he said.
Merriam scrambled forward and tried to pull the Ordinance from the hand
at the end of the outstretched arm. It was held tight. He was afraid
of tearing it.
"Twist his arm," said Rockwell.
A very little twist sufficed. The Mayor gave up. Merriam rose to his
feet with the document.
"Will you be quiet?" Rockwell demanded in the Mayor's ear, and released
his mouth enough to enable him to answer.
"Yes," said the Mayor feebly. "Let me up."
"All right. That's better. If you make any rumpus we'll down you
again, you know, and tie you up and gag you.--Give me the paper," he
added to Merriam, "and help him up, will you?"
He stood watching while the younger man assisted the Mayor in the
ponderous job of getting on his feet.
"I hope you aren't hurt, sir," said Merriam.
The Mayor looked sourly at him. "Thanks!" He felt of his arms and
passed his hands up and down over his ribs. "I guess I'm all
right--except my clothes."
In fact his white shirt front was crumpled and his broadcloth coat and
trousers were dusty with cigar ash from the fallen stand. Merriam was
in little better condition. They were not dressed for football
practice. Rockwell only was still immaculate.
"I'll get a brush," said Merriam. No longer a Senator, he felt very
boyish and anxious to be useful.
As he spoke he turned to the room--the fall had occurred near the door
into the hall--and stopped nonplused. For in her bedroom door stood
Mollie June, her eyes full at once of eagerness and of apprehension.
How much she had heard I do not pretend to know. Perhaps some of
Merriam's unprofessorial profanity, possibly the Mayor's triumphant
irony, certainly Rockwell's shout, "Catch him!" and the fall. Doubtless
the silence after that thud had been too much for her self-control.
The Mayor's rueful gaze travelling past Merriam also rested on Mollie
June. A light came into his eyes. He drew himself up.
"Come in, Mrs. Norman," he said. "Your _husband_"--with a significant
emphasis on the word--"has been giving a demonstration of his athletic
prowess. He is indeed the Boy Senator and a suitable mate for a woman
as young and pretty as yourself."
He paid no attention to Merriam's angry and threatening glance but
turned to Rockwell.
"Mr. Rockwell," he said, "I think you'd better give me that Ordinance
after all."
Rockwell spoke in a low tone to Merriam:
"Get her out!"
The Mayor had no objection to that. The older men watched while Merriam
walked rapidly across the room to Mollie June.
"You'd better go into the other room again, dear," he said.
But Mollie June's eyes were bright and her colour high and her white
shoulders very straight.
"No!" she said.
"You really will oblige us greatly, Mrs. Norman," said the Mayor, "if
you will withdraw for a moment longer."
"No!" said Mollie June. "This is my room. I have a right to be here.
And I don't like scuffling."
She cast a disdainful glance at their crumpled shirts and dusty
trousers. And, womanlike, she sought a diversion.
"What a mess you are in!" she cried. "Mr.--George,--get the whisk broom
from the bedroom there!"
It was an almost haughty command. And Merriam rejoiced to obey this new
mistress of the situation. He darted into the bedroom.
The two older men looked at each other. Rockwell was content: time was
passing. When the Mayor started to speak he forestalled him.
"She's really right," he said. "You can't leave like this. And some
one might come in."
Merriam was back with the whisk broom.
"Come under the light," ordered Mollie June, addressing the Mayor.
That dignitary reluctantly advanced.
"Turn around. Now, George, brush him."
Merriam sought diligently to remove the ashes from the Mayor's garments.
It required vigorous work, for the dust was rubbed deeply into the
cloth. Mollie June superintended closely. The Mayor had to turn about
several times and raise an arm and then the other arm. He could not
make much progress in the regaining of his dignity; and he, no less than
Rockwell, was conscious of the fleeing moments. But, glancing again and
again at Mollie June, girlishly imperious and intent, he could not as
yet muster his brutality for what he saw the next move in his game must
be. Rockwell waited serenely in the background, the Ordinance in his
hand.
At last the Mayor's broadcloth was fairly presentable. Nothing could be
done, of course, with his shirt front.
"Now, George," said Mollie June, "it's your turn. Give me the broom."
"No, no!"
"_Give me the broom!_" She took it from his hand. "Turn around!"
And with her own hands and in the manner of wifely solicitude she began
to dust his collar and lapels.
This was not unpleasant for Merriam, but it prompted the Mayor to take
his cue. As he watched his eyes hardened, and in a moment he said:
"You take good care of your _husband_, don't you, Mrs. Norman?"
"I try to," said Mollie June rather pertly, dusting away. Evidently she
had not heard enough to know that Merriam had been found out.
"It must be pleasant," said the Mayor, "to have such a nice _young_
husband."
Mollie June stopped her work and looked at him in sudden alarm.
"What do you mean?" she said.
Rockwell stepped forward and caught her arm:
"Let me lead you into the next room, Mrs. Norman. You must let us talk
with the Mayor."
"No!" she cried, snatching her arm away, and turning eyes of angry
innocence on Mayor Black, "What do you mean?"
"I mean," he said, with smiling suavity--he was not to be daunted now,
and, short of violence there was no way of stopping him,--"that you are
a young woman. This gentleman--whose name I do not have the honour of
knowing--is also young, and rather handsome. The Senator, of course, is
getting old. I find you two alone in your husband's rooms, your husband
having been tricked away. You can hardly expect me to believe that you
mistook him for your husband. You display no dislike for his person. I
draw my own conclusions. Every one in Chicago will draw the same
conclusions if this interesting situation, quite worthy of Boccaccio,
should become known. That's why I think"--he turned suddenly to
Rockwell--"that you'd better give me the Ordinance after all."
Mollie June's cheeks were blazing. Merriam's also; he could not look at
her. But Rockwell pulled his watch from his pocket.
"It is now two minutes past nine," he said. "The Ordinance has become
law. You can have it now, Mr. Mayor." He held out the document.
The Mayor snatched it.
"It's not legal!" he cried. "And it won't stand. I can prove that I was
prevented by foul means--by foul means," he repeated, "from exercising
my charter right of veto. I'll take out an injunction, and I'll fight
it to the Supreme Court. And in the process all Chicago--the whole
United States--shall be entertained with the piquant story of these
young people"--he waved a hand towards Merriam and Mollie June,--"aided
and abetted by Mr. Reformer Rockwell. I'll ruin them, and you and your
League, whatever else comes of it. Oh, you're a clever lot, you--you
reformers!"
He paused out of breath. Then, dramatically, for he was always
self-conscious and inclined to pose:
"Madame and gentlemen!"--but the effectiveness of his bow was somewhat
marred by the sorry state of his shirt front--"I wish you a very good
evening!"
But Rockwell was before him with his back to the hall door.
"You've forgotten your hat, Mayor," he said.
(In fact, his tall hat still stood on the writing table where he had set
it down before he spread out the Ordinance there to write his veto.)
"Damn my hat! Let me go!"
"Presently, presently. I still think you'd better sign the Ordinance."
"Do you mean to knock me down again?"
"I'd like nothing better, you--cad!" cried Merriam, who had stood
bursting with outrage a minute longer than he could endure.
The Mayor almost jumped at the savage sincerity of this threat in his
rear. Rockwell smiled at the startled look on his face, but he spoke
quietly:
"No violence. I hope to convince you that it would be to your best
interests to sign it. Since it has become a law anyway."
"Never!" cried the Mayor. "Do you think I would be a traitor to--to--my
party? And I mean to get even with this gang, whatever else I do!"
But the next instant he jumped indeed. A new voice spoke--a woman's.
"Mayor Black," it said, "you're a fool!"
*CHAPTER IX*
*AUNT MARY*
All four of the actors in the little scene turned, and Mollie June
uttered an exclamation:
"Aunt Mary!"
In the doorway from which Rockwell had emerged a few minutes earlier
stood the thin, pale, elderly woman whom Merriam had seen with Mollie
June in the Peacock Cabaret. She wore a black evening gown, rather too
heavily overlaid with jet, was tall and very erect, and had streaked
gray hair, a Roman nose, and a firm mouth. The effect as she stood
there, framed in the door, was decidedly striking--sibylline.
Mollie June ran to her.
"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried.
Merriam was afraid that Mollie June would burst into tears. Very
possibly she would have liked to do so, but Aunt Mary gave her no
opportunity.
"Lock the door, Mr. Rockwell," she said, putting an arm about Mollie
June's waist. Her tone and manner were vigorous and dominant.
"Good evening, Mr. Black," she continued, while Rockwell hastened to
obey her. And to Merriam: "Good evening, Mr.--Wilson. Now I think we
had better all sit down and talk it over."
"I can't," said the Mayor. "I'm late for the Council meeting already.
I've been shamefully tricked, Miss Norman."
"I think you have," returned Aunt Mary, releasing Mollie June and
advancing a step or two into the room. "But that's the very reason why
you need to consider your position at once. You're in a mess. So are
we. Perhaps we can help each other out. The Council can wait. 'Phone
them that you've been detained. They can go ahead, I suppose. Really,
Mr. Black, I see a point or two in this business that I think will
interest you."
Mayor Black met Mary Norman's direct, purposeful gaze. He was impressed
by her air of command and intelligence. He recalled gossip to the
effect that it was really she who ran George Norman's campaigns, that
she even wrote some of his speeches.
"Very well," he said, "I'll stay ten minutes. Never mind 'phoning."
"Good," said Aunt Mary. "There are seats for all of us, I believe.
Take that one, Mayor."
She indicated the large armchair with the rose-coloured tapestry in
which Mollie June had been ensconced half an hour before, and laid her
own hand on the back of the smaller one close by in which Merriam had
sat.
Then she turned to Mollie June:
"Do you wish to leave us, dear, or to stay?"
"I'll stay!" said Mollie June. Her colour was still high, and the
glance she threw in the Mayor's direction was distinctly hostile, but
she had recovered her self-control. We shall be able to forgive young
Merriam a throb of admiration at her spirit.
"Very well," said Aunt Mary. "Sit over there, then. Mr.--Wilson," she
added, to Merriam, "on that table yonder you will find a humidor. Pass
the cigars, please. And pick up that ash stand and set it here by the
Mayor."
She and the Mayor and Mollie June sat down. Rockwell remained standing.
Merriam, though somewhat confused at having turned from Norman into
Wilson, hastened to do as he was bid. He picked up the ash stand,
straightening the box of matches into place, and brought it and set it
by the Mayor's chair. Then he got the humidor, opened its heavy lid,
and passed the gold-banded perfectos therein to the Mayor and to
Rockwell.
"Are you leaving me out, young man?" demanded Aunt Mary, who had watched
him in appraising silence.
Merriam turned to her with the humidor, hesitating.
"There don't seem to be any cigarettes," he said.
"I have some in my pocket."
But Aunt Mary leaned forward and took from the humidor a package of
"little cigars" that had been slipped in at one end of the box of
perfectos.
"No cigarettes for me," she said. "I smoke when I'm with men so as to
be one of them. A cigarette leaves me a woman. A cigar, even one of
these little ones, makes a man of me. Give me a match, please."
With what seemed to himself amazing self-control, Merriam took a match
from the ash stand, struck it, and would have held the light for her.
But Aunt Mary took it from him and, looking all the while amazingly like
his own mother, deliberately and efficiently ignited the "little cigar."
Then she looked up quizzically at Merriam, blew out the match, handed it
to him, and said, "Sit down, Mr. Wilson."
Having seated himself, Merriam found Aunt Mary looking intently at the
Mayor, who was smoking and returning her gaze.
But Rockwell broke in:
"How much do you know, Miss Norman? And how do you know it?"
"As to how I know it," said Aunt Mary, "that's my own business for the
present. Not because there need be any secret about it, but because we
haven't time for explanations." She puffed at her little cigar. "As to
how much I know, I believe I understand the whole affair--except how
Mrs. Norman came into it." She looked at Rockwell.
That gentleman did not reply. Merriam broke the silence:
"I sent for her."
He said it very well--not defiantly, but as a plain, necessary statement
of fact.
Aunt Mary turned in her chair to look at him.
"Ah!" she said.
He felt that he was colouring under her gaze. Perhaps that colour
answered her obvious next question as to why he had done so. She did
not ask that question, but turned back to the Mayor:
"I overheard a little of your conversation from the doorway before I
spoke. Mr. Rockwell was saying he thought that, as things stand now, it
would be best for you to sign the Ordinance. I think so too."
The Mayor would have interrupted, but she waved her little cigar at him.
"You can, of course," she continued, "explain that you were tricked.
But how much would that help you with Mr. Crockett or any of his cronies
and allies? They would only think the worse of you and throw you over
the more quickly. A man of your age and standing cannot afford to be
tricked. If he is, he had better conceal the fact. And how about the
people of Chicago, before whom you come up for reelection in the fall?
Will their sympathies be with you or with the persons who tricked you
into giving them the Ordinance they wanted? The American people love a
clever trick. And a trick is clever if it succeeds. As for the
illegality, they won't care a picayune for that. You said you would
fight it in the courts. Well, you might. But it would be a long fight.
You yourself mentioned the Supreme Court. And in the meantime it is a
law and goes into effect at once. Unless, of course, you take out an
injunction. And if you do that, you will make yourself so unpopular
that you can never even be nominated again. Let us suppose it goes into
effect. Then by the time your fight was won, if you won it, the new
conditions would be established, and nobody would dare try to unscramble
the eggs. The Council would simply have to pass it over again, and
you--or your successor, rather, for you would be out by then--would
promptly sign it. No, my friend, there is no road for you in that
direction. You would lose out both ways--with the bosses, who would
have no more use for a man who had allowed himself to be fooled at a
critical juncture, and with the people. Your only chance--unless you
wish to retire quickly and ignominiously to private life--is to cut
loose from the bosses and throw in your lot with the people--sign the
Ordinance, claim the credit, join forces with Rockwell here, defy
Crockett, and come out as the people's champion!"
The Mayor was not smoking. He was looking hard at Aunt Mary, as one man
looks at another. (Her little cigar had effected that.) There was
aroused interest in his eyes.
"Wouldn't you rather like to go into politics as your own boss for a
change?" Aunt Mary asked. "Rather than as one miserable little cog in a
big, dirty machine?"
The Mayor flushed a little and took refuge behind a puff of smoke.
"Perhaps I would," he said. Then, suddenly: "How about Senator Norman?
Do I defy him too?"
"Not at all," said Aunt Mary. "He also will go over to the people."
"Can you answer for him?"
"I think I can. He will be forced to do so in the same way you are. He
too has been victimised."
She leaned forward and deposited her small cigar, of which she had
really smoked very little, in the ash tray. Sitting erect, she folded
her hands in her lap and became forthwith a woman again--a sedate,
almost prim, elderly woman.
"That," she explained simply, "is the source of my interest in this
matter. I like you, Mayor Black, because you have some of the
courtliness of the old school in your manner. I should be sorry to see
you in misfortune. But I care much more, naturally, for my brother,
George Norman, and more still for the name of Norman"--from her tone she
might have referred to the Deity,--"which has been an honourable name in
this country for eight generations, and which George, with his spoils
politics and his dissipations, is compromising. I have long wanted him
to break with his present associates, to live straight, and to become a
real leader, as the Normans were in New York State in the early years of
the last century. I have tried again and again to get him to do so.
Over and over he has promised me he would. But he is weak. He has
never done it. Now he will have to do it!"
All the members of the little group looked with some admiration, I
fancy, at Aunt Mary, sitting straight, an incarnation of aristocratic,
elderly femininity, in her chair. Where a moment or two before she had
been an unsexed modern, she looked now like an old family portrait.
Rockwell broke the momentary silence:
"Miss Norman has presented, so much better than I could have done, the
argument which I tried to suggest to Mr. Black."
It was probably unfortunate that Rockwell had recalled attention to
himself. The Mayor glanced at him with animosity, and at the silent
Merriam, and over at Mollie June, listening eagerly in the background.
Then at Aunt Mary again. He leaned back, pulling at his cigar, thinking
hard.
In the silence a slight noise became audible from the bedroom behind
Aunt Mary--a word or two of whispering and then a sound as if some one
tiptoeing had stumbled a little.
The Mayor jumped to his feet.
"Who's there?" he cried, pointing.
For an instant Aunt Mary was out of countenance. But only for an
instant. Then, without rising or turning her head, she called:
"Come in, Alicia."
A moment's silence. Then a laugh, of a premeditated sweetness which
Merriam remembered, and Alicia Wayward stood in the doorway.
The Mayor and Merriam rose. Mollie June, too, jumped up. Only Aunt
Mary remained calmly seated.
After a second's pause in the effective framing of the door, Alicia
advanced with an air of eager pleasure and held out her hand to the
Mayor.
"Good evening, Mr. Black."
The Mayor was a very susceptible male where women like Alicia were
concerned. He took her hand.
"Good evening, Miss Wayward." But, still holding the hand, he looked
steadily at her and asked, "Who else is in there?"
"Who else?" repeated Alicia, raising her pretty dark eyebrows.
"Or were you whispering to yourself?" pursued the Mayor.
Alicia laughed and drew her hand away. "It's only Father Murray."
Then, raising her voice a little: "You'll have to come in, Father
Murray, to save my reputation. This is really all of us," she added, as
the priest rather sheepishly presented himself. "You can search the
room if you like."
She smiled at him in the manner which novelists commonly describe as
roguish.
The Mayor smiled back at her, but he turned to the latest arrival.
"Were you in this plot, too, Father Murray?"
"Indeed he was," Alicia answered for him. "He didn't quite approve of
it at first. But we quite easily converted him. So, you see, it can't
be so black as it first seemed to you, Mr. Mayor. And really," she
hurried on, "you ought to do as Miss Norman suggests. It's a splendid
chance for you. To really be a--a Man, you know! And I can help."
"How can you help?" asked the Mayor.
"I am quite sure," said Alicia, "that I can get my father to subscribe
quite a lot of money--a hundred thousand dollars, say--to your campaign
fund--yours and Senator Norman's and the Reform League's."
"Is Mr. Wayward so keen on reform? I should think he had had nearly
enough of it. They've practically put him out of business, these
reformers."
"He's rather keen on me, you know," said Alicia. "And he likes Mollie
June and Miss Norman and George Norman and----"
"Father Murray, I suppose," interrupted the Mayor, "and anybody else you
can think of. You mean you can get it out of him." But his
appreciative smile made a compliment of the accusation.
Alicia only raised her eyebrows again.
Aunt Mary rose and took the reins of business into her own hands once
more.
"I should be willing to subscribe something, too, out of my own income,"
she said. "And the League can raise plenty of money. You won't lack
for funds. Here's my proposition, Mr. Black. You lie low and keep
still till noon to-morrow. Don't go to the Council meeting at all.
Keep the Ordinance in your own possession. Refuse to see any one. See
what the papers say in the morning. And wait for a message from George
Norman. If by noon to-morrow he telephones you that he will go with
you, will you go over to the League, sign the Ordinance, break with
Crockett and the rest of them, and appeal to the people on your own?"
The Mayor looked from Aunt Mary to Alicia's appealing and admiring eyes
and back at Aunt Mary. He avoided Rockwell and Merriam and Mollie June.
"That's fair enough," he said. "I'll do that." Then: "You know where
Norman is, do you?"
"Yes," said Aunt Mary. It was plain, however, that she did not intend
to communicate the information.
"And what becomes of this young gentleman?" The Mayor looked at
Merriam.
"He will disappear where he came from."
"Well, well," said the Mayor genially, "it has been a very stimulating
evening. Rather like a play. You have certainly put me in a box. But
I'll admit I'm interested in your suggestion, Miss Norman. I'll think
it over carefully. Now I believe I'll call a taxi."
"Let me," said Rockwell, and he stepped to the telephone.
The Mayor addressed himself to Merriam:
"Will you bring me my hat, Mr.--Wilson?"
Merriam was near the writing table on which the hat stood. He picked it
up and brought it.
"The resemblance is marvellously close," said the Mayor, studying his
face. "And you did your part very well, young man. But let me advise
you to keep away from the neighbourhood of Senator Norman. You might
get into serious trouble."
Merriam did not reply or smile but handed him the hat.
"There's a taxi ready," said Rockwell, turning from the telephone into
which he had been speaking.
"Thank you," said the Mayor. He looked at Mollie June, who stood some
distance from him:
"I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Norman, for my--rudeness earlier this
evening. I am afraid I was too angry then to know what I was saying."
Like Merriam, Mollie June did not answer or smile. Possibly she was
imitating his demeanour. But she bowed slightly.
"Really," interjected Alicia, "Mollie June had never seen Mr.--Mr.
Wilson since before she was married until five minutes before you came
in."
"Quite so. Of course," said the Mayor. He held out his hand to Aunt
Mary. "You are a wonderful woman, Miss Norman."
"George shall telephone before noon," she replied, shaking hands like a
man.
"Till then at least you can depend on me."
He turned to Alicia.
Alicia kept his hand a long minute. "We have always liked you, Mr.
Black--we women," she said. "In your new role we shall admire you so
much!"
"I would do much to win your admiration," returned the Mayor, somewhat
guardedly gallant. "Good night, Father Murray. Good night,
Rockwell--you precious reformer! Good night, Mr. Wilson. That's only a
stage name, isn't it? Well, good night, all!"
The suave politician bowed himself out.
*CHAPTER X*
*A SENATOR MISSING*
The members of the group that remained looked at one another. Alicia
dropped into a chair.
"Whew!" she said.
Father Murray crossed quickly from the doorway, where he had stood
silent ever since his shamefaced entrance, to Aunt Mary's side.
"Wonderful, Miss Norman!" he cried.
Aunt Mary smiled at him--her first smile in that scene. "Thank you,
Arthur," she said.
But she added instantly to Rockwell:
"See if George is _there_. Telephone. He must be by now. Then you and
Arthur must take a taxi and go after him and bring him back here. The
number is Harrison 3731."
Rockwell turned back to the telephone.
Merriam walked over to Mollie June and put his hands on the back of the
chair in which she had been sitting prior to the entrance of Alicia.
"Hadn't you better sit down?" he said.
"Yes, if you'll move it up a little." She wanted to be closer to the
rest of the group.
He pushed the chair forward, and she sat and smiled up at him:
"Thank you!"
A woman's eyes are never so appealingly beautiful as in a quick upward
glance. Merriam fell suddenly more deeply in love with her than he had
ever been. And he was for the moment very happy. There was something
between them, something very slight, as tenuous and as innocent as youth
itself, but existent and precious.
Rockwell turned from the telephone.
"He's not _there_," he said, "and he's not been there."
(There was a tacit conspiracy among them, on account of Mollie June, not
to refer more definitely to George's destination.)
"Not!" exclaimed Aunt Mary. Like the men, she was still standing. She
looked at Alicia. "The driver was instructed to go directly there?"
"Yes," said Alicia. Then she added in a low tone:
"The driver was Simpson."
"Simpson!" Aunt Mary echoed. "That's dangerous. Why didn't you tell me
that before?"
The reader will have guessed the explanation of Aunt Mary's presence,
and Alicia's and Father Murray's, and I insert it here only to gratify
his sense of acumen: that Alicia and Murray, "keeping an eye on" Mollie
June and Aunt Mary in accordance with Rockwell's plan, in the hotel
lobby, had witnessed the former's unexpected departure in response to
Merriam's summons, and had joined Miss Norman to find out what had
happened; and that Aunt Mary, who was more than a match for both of
them, especially in their alarm over Mollie June's being dragged into
the affair, had obtained first an inkling and presently the whole story
of the plot, and had insisted on coming upstairs, and had entered
through the bedroom.
Alicia did not reply to Aunt Mary's question. Indeed she hardly had time
to do so, for Aunt Mary followed it quickly with another of a more
practical character:
"What time is it?"
Merriam was the most prompt in producing his watch. "Ten o'clock," he
said.
"And it was barely eight when George left the hotel. How long should it
have taken to get there?"
"Less than half an hour," said Rockwell.
"Are you sure he's not there? They might have lied to you."
"They might. But I didn't think so."
"Mr. Rockwell and I can go and see," volunteered Father Murray, who
seemed very eager to be helpful.
While Aunt Mary was considering this suggestion, Merriam had an idea.
"My voice is very like Senator Norman's?" he asked.
"Yes, it is," said Aunt Mary.
"Then let me telephone."
"Good!" cried Rockwell. "From the bedroom." This was, of course, to
spare Mollie June.
"Very well," said Aunt Mary.
The two men stepped into George Norman's bedroom--the one into which
Mollie June had earlier retreated. As they did so, Aunt Mary's eyes
followed Merriam with the appraising look which they had held whenever
she regarded him throughout the evening.
Rockwell shut the door.
"Harrison 3731," he said. "Say, 'This is George Norman,' and ask for
'Jennie.'"
The telephone was on the night table. Merriam sat down on the edge of
the bed and raised the instrument. He realised that he had not the
slightest idea what to expect. Rockwell sat beside him, close enough to
hear what should come through the receiver.
In a moment Merriam had the connection. A not unmusical voice said:
"Who is it, please?"
"This is George Norman. Is Jennie there?"
"Why, Georgie, boy! Don't you know me? You always do. And you ought
to!" A tender little laugh followed, which thrilled Merriam in spite of
himself.
"I didn't at first," he answered and stopped at a loss.
Rockwell put his mouth close to Merriam's ear and formed a tunnel from
the one orifice to the other with his hands. "Can I see you to-night,
dearie?" he prompted.
"Can I see you to-night, dearie?" Merriam obediently repeated.
"Oh, can you come? Goodie! But"--the unmistakably loving voice was
lowered--"you must be careful, Georgie."
"Careful?" Merriam queried cautiously.
"Yes. Some one thinks you're here already."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Some man. He wouldn't tell me who he was. He called up
just a minute ago. He was awfully sure you were here. He wouldn't
believe me when I said you weren't. Is it dangerous?" There was a
touching note of anxiety in Jennie's voice.
"I guess not."
"Can you come anyway?" eagerly.
"I'm not sure. Don't wait for me long. I'll come within an hour if I
can get away."
"You'll telephone again?"
"Yes--if I can."
"Georgie, boy!" There followed a little sound of lips moved in a
certain way--unmistakably a kiss.
John Merriam played up with an effectiveness that surprised himself very
much.
"Dearie!" he whispered tenderly into the telephone, "good night!"--and
abruptly hung up.
"You don't need much prompting!" exclaimed Rockwell, rising. "Well, she
didn't lie to me."
"No," Merriam assented confusedly. Whatever else he had anticipated
from Norman's mistress, the disreputable manicurist, it had not been
that note of sincere affection or that he himself would be for an
instant carried off his feet. As he automatically followed Rockwell,
who made for the sitting room, he was unwillingly conscious of a new
charity for George Norman.
"He's not there," Rockwell reported. "And he hasn't been."
"Sure?" Aunt Mary looked at Merriam.
Our hero nodded. He could not speak. And he dared not look at Mollie
June, of whose bright eyes fixed on his face he was nevertheless acutely
aware.
In a moment, however, it was of Aunt Mary's gaze that he was sensible.
She seemed to read him through. He thought, ridiculously, that that
momentary telephonic tenderness could not be hid from her.
But when she spoke her question both relieved and startled him.
"At what hour in the morning does your train go?"
"It goes to-night. At 2:00 A.M."
"If George is back here by then, it does," said Aunt Mary. "If not, you
stay."
"But I _must_ go to-night," cried Merriam, suddenly awakened to
realities and feeling as though the curtain had descended abruptly on
some mad combination of melodrama and farce. "I must meet my classes in
the morning!"
Aunt Mary, who must have sat down while the two men were telephoning,
rose and walked up to Merriam.
"Mr. Merriam," she said, "you more than any one else are responsible for
the present situation--because of your sending for Mrs. Norman. I don't
ask why you did that, but you did it. If you hadn't stepped outside
your part that way, I verily believe, when I look at you, that the trick
could have been played as Mr. Rockwell planned it. The Mayor would not
have seen Crockett downstairs. I don't believe he would have recognised
you. He would have signed the Ordinance and gone away committed and
ignorant of the deception. Now he's only half committed, and he has
recognised you as an impostor. If he doesn't hear from George Norman by
noon to-morrow as I promised, if he turns against us and tells his
story, he can ruin us--all." (She said "all," but she glanced at Mollie
June.) "And now we don't know where George is. As soon as we find him,
you can go. But Mayor Black must get a message from Senator Norman
before noon to-morrow--from the true one or the false one! Do you see?
Until we find George you must stay."
"Yes, by Jove!" cried Rockwell. "You can't back out now. You can
telegraph to--where is it?"
"Riceville," said Alicia, who was leaning excitedly forward in her
chair. "Oh, you will!"
Merriam looked at Alicia. The same combination of appeal and admiration
in her eyes which he had seen her work a few minutes before on the Mayor
did not move him.
His eyes travelled to the face of Mollie June. She was not leaning
forward, but sat erect on the edge of her chair. There was a flush of
excitement--was it eagerness?--on her cheeks. Unwillingly he compared
her with the warm seductiveness of the voice on the telephone. She was
not like that,--though perhaps she could be. But she was radiantly
bright and pure, a girl, a woman, to be worshipped--and protected from
all evil. He remembered how he had wished to help her. He had said he
would be always ready. Now was his chance. And he desired passionately
to expiate his involuntary infidelity of feeling and tone over the
telephone. He rose superior to the cares, the duties, of a "professor,"
even before she spoke.
"Oh, please--Mr. Merriam," she said.
Merriam smiled at her, but looked back at Aunt Mary.
"You think it very necessary?" he asked--not because he had not decided
but to avoid any shadow of compromising Mollie June by seeming to yield
directly to her.
"I do," said Aunt Mary.
"Then of course I'll stay," said Merriam.
*CHAPTER XI*
*CONFESSIONS OF WAITER NO. 73*
From a sleep which had been heavy but was becoming restless and
dreamful, Merriam was awakened about seven o'clock the next morning by a
knocking at his door. He leaned over and pulled the little chain of the
night lamp, and as the light glowed asked, "Who is it?"
"Rockwell," came the answer.
By a rather athletic bit of stretching Merriam was able to turn the key
in his lock without getting out of bed. "Come in," he called.
Rockwell entered, closed the door behind him, and stood looking down at
Merriam, who had lain back on his pillow.
"Slept well?" he asked.
"Like a football player," laughed Merriam, somehow ashamed of this fact.
"Feeling fit?"
"Certainly. Always feel fit."
For a moment longer Rockwell looked, with perhaps a touch of an older
man's envy of the unconscionable imperturbability of youthful health.
Then he said:
"Well, I have news."
Merriam waited.
"About half an hour ago I called up 'Jennie' again. When I said I was a
friend of Norman's, she admitted he was there. By asking a good many
questions I learned that he turned up about two o'clock this morning and
that he was very drunk. I judge he's having a touch of D.T. 'Jennie'
was evidently rather disgusted at his arriving so late and in that
condition--after your affectionate tone earlier in the evening, you
know."
Merriam evaded this thrust with a question:
"Where can he have been in the meantime?"
"That is a point on which we shall have to seek information from our
friend Simpson. Since telephoning I have seen Miss Norman, and we have
agreed to order breakfast for all of us in Senator Norman's rooms with
Simpson to serve us. He goes on duty again at seven o'clock, and I have
asked that he be sent here as soon as he reports to take a breakfast
order."
"Why here?"
"Well, he will be more likely to talk freely to you and me alone than to
you and me and Miss Norman--to say nothing of Mrs. Norman. And, if he
has played some trick on us, he might refuse to go to Senator Norman's
suite, but this room will mean nothing to him. Of course, he may not
show up at all this morning. Ah, there he is, I hope!"
A vigorous knock had sounded at the door. It proved, however, to be
only a porter with Merriam's suit case and hand bag, for which the
industrious Rockwell had also sent so early that morning to the more
modest hotel at which Merriam had been registered.
"Now I can dress," said Merriam. "I was afraid I should have to turn
waiter myself, having only evening clothes to put on."
"Yes, get into your things," said Rockwell, "and let me think some more.
This conspiracy business takes a lot more thinking than mere Reform!"
Merriam hurried through a bath--a tubful of hot water early in the
morning was so unwonted a luxury to a citizen of Riceville that he could
not bring himself to forego it even on this occasion--and began to dress
carefully, realising with pleasant excitement that he was to have
breakfast with Mollie June.
He had no more than got into his trousers when another knock came at the
door.
Rockwell motioned to Merriam to step into the bathroom and himself went
to the door. "Come in," he said and opened it, keeping behind it.
Sure enough, Simpson stepped into the room with his napkin and order
pad.
Rockwell promptly closed the door behind him, locked it, and stood with
his back against it. He also pushed the switch for the center
chandelier--for only the dim night lamp had been on.
In the sudden light Simpson whirled with a startled and most
unprofessional agility to face Rockwell.
"Good morning, Simpson."
The waiter fairly moistened his lips before he could answer.
"Good morning, Mr. Rockwell."
The man's face was certainly haggard. His eyes even were a trifle
bloodshot. It was clear he had had a strange night. But after a moment
of hostile confrontation the professional impassivity of a waiter--which
is perhaps the ultimate perfection of _sang froid_--descended about him
like a cloak and mask.
"I was sent to this room--Mr. Wilson's room, I understood--to take a
breakfast order."
"Right, Simpson!" cried Merriam cheerily, emerging from the bathroom in
his shirt sleeves.
For a moment the human gleamed again through the eyes of the
functionary.
"Are you Mr. Wilson?" he asked. His manner was perfect servility, but
there was mockery and malice in the tone.
"Yes, Simpson," said Merriam. "This morning I am Mr. Wilson. I have
read of an English duke who puts on a new pair of trousers each morning.
But I go him one better. I put on an entire new personality each
morning."
"Very good, sir," was the ironical, stage-butler reply to this sally.
"The grapefruit is very good this morning. Will you have some?"
Merriam glanced at Rockwell.
"Very likely we'll have some," said the latter, "but we want something
else first."
"Before the grapefruit?" inquired Simpson.
"Yes, before the grapefruit," said Rockwell, a trifle sharply. "And
what we propose to have before the grapefruit is a bit of talk with you,
Mr. Simpson--about last night. Do you care to sit down?" He pointed to
a chair.
Simpson was undoubtedly agitated, but he controlled himself excellently.
He even lifted his eyebrows:
"I hope I know my place, sir."
He raised his pad and wrote on it.
"Grapefruit," he said with insolent suavity. "For two? And then what?
We have some excellent ham."
"Damn your ham!" cried Rockwell. He snatched the man's pad and threw it
on the floor. "Sit down in that chair and drop this damned pose! We're
going to talk to you man to man."
But Simpson only stooped and picked up his pad.
"Mr. Rockwell," he said, "I know my place. It is a very humble one. It
is to take orders--for meals, to be served in this hotel. So long as
that is what you want I am yours to command. But"--the American citizen
stood up in him; no European waiter could have said it--"outside of that
I am my own master as much as you are. When you call me 'Mr. Simpson'
and tell me to sit down, I don't have to do it. And I don't have to
talk of my personal affairs unless I choose, any more than any one
else!"
For an instant he glared at Rockwell as one angry man at another, his
equal. Then he quietly became the waiter again. He lifted his pad and
poised his pencil:
"Shall we say some ham?"
Rockwell looked at him a moment longer. Then he laughed: "Ham let it
be!"
"Yes, sir," said Simpson, deferentially writing. "And some baked
potatoes, perhaps? And coffee?"
"Yes," said Rockwell, "and the telephone book. Hand me the telephone
book, please."
Simpson hesitated, but this was clearly within the line of his duties.
"Yes, sir," he said, and stepped towards the stand on which the book
lay.
"Wait!" said Rockwell. "Perhaps it isn't necessary. I think you can
tell me the number I want."
He paused a moment to let this sink in. Then:
"Miss Alicia Wayward's number. I see I shall have to bring her here.
You see," he explained pleasantly, "I have locked the door. There are
two of us against you."
He indicated Merriam, who still stood in the bathroom door, following
the progress of the interview with excited interest.
"We are going to keep you here, not by any authority that we as guests
of this hotel may have over you--as you have very well pointed out, we
have none in such a matter,--but by simple force, till Miss Wayward can
come down. We shall see whether she can make you talk."
To Merriam's astonishment the waiter, with a sound somewhere between a
sigh and a groan, sank into the chair which he had thus far so
pertinaciously refused to take. For a moment he stared at the floor.
Then he raised his eyes to Rockwell:
"What do you want to know?"
"That's better," said Rockwell, leaving the door and preparing to sit
down opposite Simpson. "Will you have a cigar?"
Simpson shook his head and repeated his question.
"What do you want?"
Rockwell dropped into his chair and glancing at Merriam pointed to
another seat. Merriam was too much excited to care to sit down, but he
came forward and leaned on the back of the chair.
"We want to know about last night, of course," said Rockwell. "At five
minutes to eight Senator Norman got into the taxi which you were
driving. At about two o'clock this morning he tumbled into Madame
Couteau's, delirious with drink. We want the whole story of what
happened between eight and two."
Simpson sat on the edge of his chair, his hands on his knees. His order
pad was under one hand, and its flexure showed that he was exerting
intense pressure. His napkin dangled loosely half off his arm. He was
looking at the floor again.
He remained in this position for a number of seconds, the other two men
intently regarding him. Then he straightened up, pushed himself farther
back in his chair, and looked at Rockwell.
"You shall have it," he said.
For a moment he stared. Then:
"I hate Senator Norman--enough to kill him."
The reader will observe that I use no exclamation points in punctuating
Simpson's sentence. There were none in his delivery of it. But it was
the more startling on that account.
"Do you know why?" he unexpectedly demanded.
"No," said Rockwell.
"Five years ago I was butler to Mr. Wayward. The--the-girl you call
Madame Couteau was the parlour maid there. Her real name is Jennie
Higgins. I was in love with her, and she had promised to marry me. I
had a little money saved up. At that time Senator Norman's first wife
was still alive, who was Mr. Wayward's sister, you know, Miss Wayward's
aunt. Senator Norman came often to the house. He took a fancy to
Jennie and turned her head. The fact that she was in his own
brother-in-law's house made no difference to him. She--went off with
him--on a lake cruise, in his yacht. When they came back he set her up
in that flat and got her work as a manicurist. Ever since he has been
her paramour!"
The odd, old-fashioned word, which Simpson must have gleaned from some
novel, came out queerly. But it served to express his bitterness as no
ordinary word could have done.
"That's all. A parlour maid ruined. A butler cheated of his wife.
It's nothing, of course."
He was looking down again. Neither Rockwell nor Merriam ventured to
speak. When he raised his eyes there was a gleam in them.
"Last night I had him in my power." (One sensed novels again.) "In my
taxi, not knowing who I was. I was minded to kill him. You had told me
to drive him directly to--to Jennie's. Not much! I drove as fast as I
dared out Michigan Avenue. For a long time he suspected nothing. He
thought he was on his way to the Mayor's, and that was the right
direction. But when I turned into Washington Park he got scared. He
called through the tube to know where in hell I was going. I answered,
'This is Simpson. You can try jumping, if you like--into hell!' I put
the machine up to forty miles an hour. He opened the door once, but I
guess he didn't dare try it. He shut it again. Of course, it was pure
luck I didn't get stopped for speeding. But I got through Washington
Park and across the Midway and out into a lonely place at the south end
of Jackson Park. Then I stopped and got down and opened the door and
ordered him out."
The man stopped. When he spoke again there was more contempt than
hatred in his voice.
"The coward. He went down on his knees on the wet road and cried and
begged me not to hurt him. He said he was sorry, and he didn't know I
cared so much, and he would make it all right yet. He would give me a
lot of money and get me up in a business, and I could marry Jennie after
all, and wouldn't I forgive him and go back to town and have a drink?
The worm! I could have spit on him. _Senator_ Norman!
"He saved his life all right," he added reflectively. "If he had showed
fight I would have strangled him and thrown his body in the Lake."
Simpson shuddered a little. "But you couldn't strangle a crying baby.
I kicked him once or twice. But what more could I do? He kept begging
me not to hurt him but to go back to town and have a drink. That gave
me an idea. I jerked him up and pitched him into the car and drove back
to a saloon. We sat at a table and drank, and he kept offering me money
and saying I should marry Jennie. As if I would take his leavings! He
drank a lot. I only took one or two to steady my nerves--poured out the
rest. But he drank four or five cocktails. Then we went on in the taxi
to another saloon and did it again. And then to another. And about
midnight we ended up at a cheap dance hall on the West Side, and I
turned him loose among the roughnecks and the women there.
"He was pretty drunk--told everybody who he was and showed his
money,--and in a few minutes a lot of the girls were around him to get
the money away from him. Most of the men they were with didn't
mind--egged them on. Pretty soon he had a dozen couples in the bar with
him and was paying for drinks all around. But one big foreigner, who
was with the prettiest girl in the room, was ugly. When Norman, after
buying a second round of drinks, tried to kiss his girl, he roared out
at him and knocked him down. But Norman only stumbled up again with his
lip bleeding and begged his pardon and handed the girl a fifty-dollar
bill and bought drinks again. And then he got his arm about another
girl and took her out to dance. It was an hour before I found him
again. He was sitting on the stairs, with his collar off, crazy
drunk--seeing things--and all cleaned out as to money.
"I though then he was about ripe for what I wanted. I carried him
downstairs and put him in the taxi and drove to--Madame Couteau's!
There I carried him up to her flat and propped him against the door and
knocked and then waited part way down the stairs. When the door was
opened he fell in, and I ran downstairs and took my taxi home."
Evidently Simpson had finished his tale. And it had done him good to
tell it. He was much less agitated than when he began. He looked
steadily rather than angrily at Rockwell.
"That's the story you wanted," he said. "Of course now you can get me
fired and blacklisted. It's little I'll care."
Rockwell had let his cigar go out while Simpson talked. Now he lit it
again with a good deal of deliberation. He was evidently thinking.
Even Merriam perceived the point that was uppermost in his mind, namely,
that with Norman still at Jennie's they had need of Simpson's silence
and would be likely to need his help again. They must try to conciliate
him and win his loyal support.
"I see no reason why I should do anything like that," Rockwell began,
referring to Simpson's defiant suggestion. "I can hardly pronounce your
conduct virtuous. But it was very natural--very excusable. It's lucky
you did no worse!"
(Merriam had a sudden vision of the horrid predicament they would have
been in if Norman had actually been murdered in Jackson Park at the very
time when he was impersonating him at the hotel.)
"Still," continued Rockwell, "I think you made a mistake."
"A mistake!" echoed Simpson.
"Yes.--Do you still love--Miss Higgins?"
"What's that to you?"
"Evidently you do. Why didn't you take his offer--his money, and marry
her? It would have been the sensible thing to do and the kind thing to
her. You might be happy after all. Of course, if you're too stern a
moralist!"
The man's face worked queerly. "It's not that. But she wouldn't have a
waiter now. And he wouldn't have done it--let her alone."
"Well, perhaps not, as things stood. But he will now. Have you seen
the morning papers?"
"The papers? No, sir."
"If you'll read them you'll find that Senator Norman has broken with all
his old life and turned over a new leaf entirely, which he can't turn
back. You have helped him do it, in fact!"
"What's the idea?" growled Simpson suspiciously.
"Listen, Mr. Simpson."
Rapidly Rockwell sketched the principal events which had taken place at
the hotel while the waiter was driving his enemy about Chicago:
Merriam's impersonation, the Mayor's failure to veto the Ordinance in
time, and the necessity which both the Mayor and Norman were now under
of breaking with the "interests" and coming out as the candidates of the
Reform League.
"In that role," he concluded, "George Norman will have to lead a
strictly virtuous life. It will be the business of his friends and
backers--my business, for example--to see that he does so. I will
personally undertake to see that you get the money he promised you. All
you will have to do is to make it up with Jennie. You may not be able
or willing to do that right away. But in a few months---- There's no
reason why you shouldn't be set up in a nice little business of your
own--a delicatessen or caterer's, or a taxicab firm, or whatever you
would like--in some other city, with Jennie for your wife. Will you
think it over?"
Simpson looked at Rockwell and then at Merriam.
"You certainly are as like as two plates," he said irrelevantly to the
latter.
"Won't you think it over?" returned Merriam, as persuasively as if he
had been reasoning with some irate patron of the Riceville High School.
"Yes," said Simpson after a bit, "I'll think it over."
"In the meantime," said Rockwell, "you must keep still about all this,
of course. And we may need your help again--for taxi driving and so
forth."
"What if I choose to blow the whole thing?"
"In that case you will do more than any one else could to help Norman to
the thing he will most want--a reconciliation with Crockett and the rest
of the gang. And he will go on in his old ways--Jennie included."
Rockwell let Simpson digest that for a moment, and then said:
"Well, think it over as you have promised. And now we really do want
breakfast."
Simpson got to his feet. He straightened the napkin on his arm and
mechanically enunciated his servile formula:
"Yes, sir."
"And, Simpson!"
"Yes, sir?"
"I will talk with you again this afternoon. Till then, at least, keep
your mouth shut and think. Think sensibly."
"Very good, sir."
Waiter No. 73 bowed gravely and left the bedroom.
*CHAPTER XII*
*GRAPEFRUIT AND TELEGRAMS*
When the door closed behind Simpson, Rockwell and Merriam naturally
looked at each other.
"Poor fellow!" said Merriam.
In spite of himself his mind was visited by a tantalising recollection
of Jennie's voice as it had come to him over the telephone. With no
more evidence than that he was inclined to think that Simpson was right
in saying that she would not have a waiter now. But it was impossible
to speak of this to Rockwell.
The latter had apparently dismissed the incident and was looking at his
watch.
"It's nearly eight o'clock," he said. "Put the rest of your things on
and go down to Norman's rooms on the next floor. You're to have
breakfast there with Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman. You'd better go down
the stairs rather than in the elevator; you will be less likely to meet
some one who will take you for the Senator. I am going to hunt up Dr.
Hobart, the house physician here, and take him with me to this Madame
Couteau's, or Jennie's, to see Norman. We must get him on his feet at
once. A hotel physician will be the very man for that."
"I must shave," said Merriam.
"Oh, never mind that. Time is precious."
Merriam thought of the train which he now planned to take. It left at
nine-fifteen and would get him to Riceville a little after noon. He
remembered, too, that he must telegraph to his assistant principal that
he would miss the morning session. And he thought of the coming
breakfast hour with Mollie June. Certainly time was precious to him.
Nevertheless he said decidedly:
"I'm going to shave all the same."
Rockwell looked at him with a comprehending smile. "All right, my boy,"
said the older man. "Doubtless it's very necessary. Hurry up and try
not to cut yourself. I'll run along with the doctor."
He moved to the door, stopped with his hand on the knob to say, "I shall
probably drop in at the rooms before you're through breakfast," and was
gone.
Merriam sighed a certain relief and went into the bathroom to shave.
A few minutes later, following Rockwell's injunction, he descended to
the floor below by the stairs rather than the elevator. He forgot even
to look at the pretty floor clerk on Floor Three, who last night was
wearing his--Norman's--violets.
When he knocked at the door labeled 323 it was the voice he most desired
to hear that said, "Come in."
He opened the door. The rose-and-white room was bright with morning
sunshine, and half way down its length Mollie June, in a blue satin
breakfast coat, with a lacy boudoir cap covering her hair, was standing
before the little table which held the bowl of roses.
"Good morning, Mr.--John," she said.
He half perceived that her voice sounded tired and a little sad. But
the daintiness of breakfast coats and boudoir caps was as strange in
Merriam's world as white shoulders were. His eyes drank it in
delightfully. In his pleasure her note of sadness escaped him. He
answered almost gaily:
"Good morning--Mollie June!"
His tone probably betrayed his mood, and I dare say Mollie June guessed
the reason for his happiness. But she ignored both mood and reason. She
had turned back to the roses.
"Come and help me," she said. "These flowers must have fresh water."
Merriam pushed the door shut behind him and advanced rapidly. I am
almost afraid he might have taken her in his arms. But Mollie June was
already half way across the room with the roses, to lay them on a
newspaper which she had previously spread on the seat of a
straight-backed chair. So all that Merriam got his hands on was the
bowl.
"Empty it in there," said Mollie June, indicating the bathroom between
the sitting room and Norman's empty bedroom, "and fill it with cold
water."
Thankful that no reply was immediately demanded, Merriam did as he was
bid.
When he reentered the sitting room with the fresh water, Mollie June
stooped over the chair, gathered up the roses, and came towards him.
"Set it back in the same place," she said.
Merriam did so, and she came up to him--that is to say, to the bowl--and
inserted the stems all together, and with her pink fingers wet from the
cool water deftly arranged the blossoms. Then, drying her finger tips
on a very small handkerchief, she turned and raised her eyes to him
gravely. He saw at last that she was pale--that she had been wakeful.
Perhaps she had been crying. In sudden concern he stood dumb.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked.
He mustered his forces to reply.
"I am afraid I did," he said, ashamed.
She looked at him forgivingly.
"Of course you must have been dreadfully tired," she said. "I hardly
slept at all," she added. "I am terribly worried about George. We
didn't even know where he was until--a little while ago." Evidently
Rockwell had already reported some part, at least, of Simpson's
disclosure.
For a moment they stood silent, tacitly avoiding reference to George
Norman's ascertained whereabouts.
Then Mollie June raised her eyes again.
"I'm worried, too, about--what we did last night. We mustn't do--so,
again."
She met his eyes, very serious.
"No!" Merriam assented.
"I can't call you 'Mr. Merriam,' though," she cried. "And I mustn't
call you 'John.' I've decided to call you 'Mr. John'!"
"Thank you," said Merriam gravely. He was deeply touched by the
unconscious confession.
Mollie June turned away. "I must tell Aunt Mary you are here."
Just then there came a knocking at the hall door.
For an instant the boy and girl stared at each other as though in guilty
alarm. Merriam started to go to the door. But Mollie June had
recovered her wits.
"No," she said. "You must be careful about being seen. Sit there."
She pointed to the armchair which still faced the gas log between the
windows at the end of the room farthest from the hall. "I'll see who it
is."
It proved to be no one more dangerous than Simpson, who with an
assistant was prepared to set up a table in the sitting room and serve
the grapefruit.
And even while Mollie June was bidding him come in, Aunt Mary entered
from the bedroom. With her was Miss Alicia Wayward, apparently much
excited, with her hands full of newspapers.
Merriam stood up, and Alicia, catching sight of him, dropped on the
floor the paper she held in her right hand and advanced with an air of
eagerness.
"Oh, Mr.----," she began. Then, as Merriam took her hand, she stopped
short in her sentence, laughed, and said, "Who are you this morning?"
Merriam, whom Alicia always stimulated to play up, bowed over her hand
as elegantly as he could and replied:
"Senator Norman, I believe--at your service. Good morning, Miss Norman,"
he added, politely, to the older woman.
Aunt Mary merely nodded, rather grimly, and turned away as if to inspect
Simpson's preparation of the breakfast table. Merriam wondered how much
of Simpson's confession Rockwell had found time to report to her.
But Alicia gave him little time for speculation.
"Well, Senator," she rejoined, withdrawing her hand (you were always
conscious when Alicia gave her hand and when she withdrew it), "you and
the Mayor have made quite a noise in the world this morning. See!"
She displayed the newspaper which she still held in her left hand. It
was one of the leading Chicago dailies, which invariably prints one bold
black headline across the top of the entire front page. The topic may be
a world war or a dog fight, but the headline is always there in the same
size and startling blackness of type. This morning it read:
*Mayor Black Signs Ordinance*
And one of the columns below carried the further head:
_The Mayor and Senator Norman
Reported to Have Broken
With Traction Interests_
"Oh!" exclaimed Mollie June, who had approached and read these captions.
She looked at Merriam with wide-open eyes. I surmise that the newspaper
headlines gave her, as indeed they gave to Merriam himself, the first
actual realisation of the public interest attaching to what they had
really felt to be a little private drama of their own.
Aunt Mary had joined them.
"Mr. Black has definitely signed it, you see," she said, with a touch of
triumph in her tone.
It appeared that the Mayor had not gone to the Council meeting at all,
and the paper did not fail to point out that the Ordinance had become
law without his signature, under the provisions of the City Charter, at
nine o'clock; but late in the evening, shortly before the Council
adjourned, the document had arrived by a messenger, with the Mayor's
signature attached.
Reporters had immediately set out in relentless pursuit and had routed
the Mayor out of bed at his house between twelve and one o'clock and
obtained a brief interview; the substance of which was that the public
interest of the city demanded the improved conditions which the new law
would insure, and that he was proud to complete with his approval the
public-spirited action of the Councilmen in passing it.
The rest was mere rumour and speculation, interlarded with many prudent
"it is said's," but it seemed that some if not all of it must have been
inspired by the Mayor. "It was said" that an important representative
of the Traction interests had seen Senator Norman in his rooms at the
Hotel De Soto early in the evening and pleaded with him the cause of the
interested bondholders and stockholders, whose investments would be
imperilled by the changes involved, but that he had stood firm on the
ground of the public welfare. "It was said," too, that later Mayor
Black had had a long conference with the Senator--well, it _had_ been
rather long,--and that they had agreed that the interests of the plain
people of Chicago must at all costs decide the issue. "It was said,"
finally, that both Senator Norman and Mayor Black would probably join
forces with the Reform League, whose program they had finally so
powerfully supported, in demanding and obtaining other needed
improvements in municipal conditions.
From all of which it seemed to be clear that the Mayor, having taken an
hour or so to think over the situation in which he found himself, had
become convinced of the soundness of Aunt Mary's logic and had decided,
without waiting for any further communication from the Norman camp, to
claim the credit for the Ordinance and appeal for popular support
thereon, taking care, however, to involve Senator Norman's name so that
the real Norman should be compelled to join forces with him in his new
departure.
By the time the column of news and comment and a brief and cautious
editorial on the occurrence had been read out by Alicia and one or two
other papers glanced at, Simpson had set up and laid his table and had
his first course served. He respectfully approached and inquired if
they were ready for breakfast.
"Certainly!" said Aunt Mary.
Merriam looked at his watch. It was half past eight.
"I ought to send my telegram to Riceville first," he said, "to let them
know I shall be there on the noon train."
"After the grapefruit," said Aunt Mary, with a decided note in her voice
which led Merriam to look at her inquiringly.
But he desired to exhibit the coolness of a man of the world, to whom
telegrams were customary incidents of daily living and who habitually
ran close to the wind in the matter of trains. So he acquiesced with a
bookish "As you please," and moved with the others to the table.
Simpson had decorated the center of the board with one of the hotel's
slim glass vases holding a couple of pink carnations. Mollie June
regarded this ornament with disfavour.
"Let's have the roses instead, Mr. John," she said.
And Merriam, to the scandal of Simpson, himself removed the carnations
and set the bowl of roses in their place.
They said little over the grapefruit. Alicia added a few humorous
comments on points in the newspaper article, but Aunt Mary was divided
between an anxious absent-mindedness and a curious questioning scrutiny
of Merriam, and Merriam was distracted between a suppressed worry over
his telegram and approaching train time and the delight of stolen
glances at--Mrs. Senator Norman. As for Mrs. Senator Norman, she devoted
herself chiefly to the fruit. Once or twice, in looking up, she almost
unavoidably intercepted one of Merriam's guilty glances. When this
happened, she met his eyes frankly but with a gravity that was
pathetically, forgivingly rebuking.
Presently Simpson was removing the fruit rinds and placing finger bowls.
Merriam looked quickly at his watch again and spoke to the waiter:
"Bring me a telegraph form, please."
Aunt Mary's absent-mindedness instantly vanished.
"What message are you going to send?" she asked in a restrained voice.
"Missed night train. Will arrive at noon."
"No!" said Aunt Mary. "Mr. Merriam," she pursued quickly, "until George
is brought back here you must stay. After all this in the papers this
morning there will be scores of people to see him to-day. He is known
to be a late riser and never sees any one before ten or they would have
been here before this. In a very few minutes they will begin to come.
We will put off most of them, of course. But there are likely to be
some whom we can't put off. We can't tell where George is, and we can't
say we don't know where he is, and there will be one or two to whom we
can't say we won't tell where he is. We must have you in reserve. You
shall go to bed in George's room, ill with--with--lumbago. Dr. Hobart
will attend you. When absolutely necessary we can show a man into the
room, and you can say a few words. I will tell you what to say in each
case. You can have your head half way under the covers, and can make
your voice weak and husky. You will be safe enough from detection.
Then by this evening at the latest we shall bring George back, and you
can go down to Riceville on the night train. You will only have missed
one day, and you will have saved us from a most serious dilemma."
There was an appeal in the elderly woman's voice to which Merriam was
not insensible, though the pull of habitual regularity at his school was
strong in him.
It is to be feared that Alicia spoiled Aunt Mary's effect. Across the
table from Merriam, she was partly hidden from him by the flowers. But
she leaned forward, bringing her face almost beside the roses, and spoke
in her most honeyed tones:
"Oh, do, Mr. Merriam! How can you resist it?" she added. "If I were a
man and had the chance to be Mollie June's husband even for a day----"
She stopped with her archest smile.
Mollie June, with possibly the slightest augmentation of colour, brought
forward a practical argument.
"Since you will miss the morning anyway, it won't much matter if you
miss the whole day. You haven't but one class in the afternoon, have
you?"
"Only senior algebra," said Merriam.
"Miss Eldon can take that."
"I suppose she could," said Merriam, who was realising that on this
particular day advanced algebra would be to him the most distasteful of
all branches of human learning.
"Then you'll stay and help us--Mr. John!"
The reader will perceive that this simple appeal was really much
superior to any which the too sophisticated and calculating Alicia could
contrive. A touch of wistfulness came into Mollie June's face with the
word "help." His high promise of the night before was irresistibly
recalled. And "Mr. John" reminded him of the delightfulness of fresh
water for roses and of the unconscious confession which her compromise
name for him had implied. Alicia discreetly retired behind the roses,
and Aunt Mary waited with lips somewhat grimly pursed.
Then, while Merriam hesitated, with his eyes on Mollie June's face--we
must suppose that he was weighing her very practical argument,--the
telephone rang.
Simpson, with telegraph blanks in his hand, answered it, and reported
that Mr. Rockwell wished to speak to Senator Norman.
"This is--Norman," said Merriam cautiously into the telephone.
"Ah!" said Rockwell's voice. "Well, you'll be pleased to learn that you
are quieter. You aren't seeing things any more." (I'm not sure of
that, thought Merriam.) "But you, he has a severe cold--fever and a
cough--touch of bronchitis, probably. Hobart says he can't possibly be
moved till to-night. Anyway, I don't see how we could get him into the
hotel till then. You must stay, Merriam."
"All right," said Merriam, surprising his interlocutor by his ready
acquiescence, "I'll stay."
"Good! I'll be down at the hotel in half an hour." Rockwell rang off.
Merriam turned to face the three women.
When Aunt Mary heard the news about George, she held out her hand to
Simpson for the telegraph forms and wrote.
In a moment she read:
"'Ill with a touch of bronchitis. Hope to be back to-morrow. John
Merriam.' Will that do?"
"I suppose so," he assented.
His words were almost drowned by a loud knock at the door.
"Our day has begun," said Aunt Mary, rising with admirable composure.
She handed the telegram to Simpson. "Send it at once. Into the
bedroom, Mr. Merriam. Get into bed as soon as you can. You have
bronchitis, you know,--not lumbago."
But before Merriam could obey the door was suddenly opened.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*A CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT*
The man who thus burst into Senator Norman's sitting room at nine
o'clock in the morning without waiting for an invitation was an
unpleasant but important personage--none other than J. J. Thompson (one
never thought of calling him "Mr."), Norman's private political manager
in all matters that involved handling the people's vote.
He was a short, stoutish, belligerent type, about forty-five, with thin,
untidy hair, a thin, untidy moustache, and, somewhere between the
moustache and the hair, a pair of small blue eyes, which seemed
incapable of any other expressions than aggressiveness and anger.
Senator Norman--the real Norman--had long found him nearly as
disagreeable as the reader will find him, but so useful in many
political contingencies that he had never been able to bring himself to
dispense with him.
Having popped explosively into the room, Thompson stopped short at sight
of the three women. For the first instant or two he did not notice
Merriam, who had quietly slipped into the great armchair that faced the
gas log, with his back almost squarely to the room.
"Good morning, Mr. Thompson," said Aunt Mary. "We were just having
breakfast."
Alicia and Mollie June still sat at the table, and Simpson stood a
little at one side. Thompson knew who the two girls were, and they knew
who he was, but he had never been presented in Norman's family except to
Miss Norman--a fact which he resented keenly,--so they did not speak.
Alicia sat back in her chair and stared insolently, while Mollie June
leaned forward and rearranged a rose in the bowl.
"I'm sorry to break in this way," Thompson said--even he was slightly
abashed,--"but I've got to speak to the Senator."
"Come back a little later, Mr. Thompson," ventured Merriam in a hoarse
whisper.
The "Mr." was a false note, and its effect was to anger Thompson.
"No!" he cried, the pugnacious gleam that was never far below the
surface of his little eyes appearing in them. "I've got to speak to you
now! I've got a right to!"
He advanced. He would have passed the table so as to approach Merriam.
But there was only a narrow space on either side of it, and in one of
those avenues stood Simpson behind Alicia, while Aunt Mary had quietly
moved into the other, standing with her hand on the back of the chair in
which Merriam had been sitting. So Thompson found himself barricaded,
as it were, and stopped short and shouted across the table and over the
head of Mollie June.
"What in--what's the meaning of all this--this stuff in the papers?"
Thompson's difficulty in expressing himself under the handicap of the
interdiction against profanity imposed by the presence of the women was
a trifle ludicrous. But his tone and manner were almost as bad as an
oath would have been.
Alicia's eyebrows rose. She rose herself.
"Perhaps we had better withdraw," she said.
If Merriam, who had never seen her in any other than a gracious and
seductive mood, could have turned his head to look, he would have
marvelled at her freezing disdain. Mollie June imitated her in rising
and in a more youthful hauteur. Without waiting for any reply Alicia
turned and walked into the bedroom, and Mollie June followed.
But feminine disdain, however magnificent, had little effect on
Thompson. He was obviously relieved. He looked at Aunt Mary, plainly
desiring that she should go too.
"No, I think I'll remain, Mr. Thompson," she said pleasantly.
Then he looked at Simpson, and the latter cast an inquiring glance at
Aunt Mary.
"You may stay, please, Simpson," said she. "We shall be finishing our
breakfast presently."
Before Thompson could digest this snub Alicia reentered from the
bedroom. She carried a white knitted wool scarf, with which she went to
Merriam.
"Don't you feel chilly, George?" she asked. "You can't be too careful
with that throat."
She knelt down by his chair, put the scarf over his head, brought it
down past his cheeks, tied it loosely under his chin, and threw the ends
back over his shoulders.
"Now, lean back. Isn't that better? Mr. Norman has a severe cold," she
said in the general direction of Thompson. "The doctor is afraid of
bronchitis," she added, as she rose and drew the shades. "That light is
getting too bright for your eyes."
She flashed a glance at Aunt Mary and returned to the bedroom.
Merriam had been feeling that it was only a matter of minutes before
Thompson--whoever Thompson might be--would somehow force his way to his
side and look down into his face and, probably, perceive the imposture
as Mayor Black had done. But now, with the welcome aid of the scarf, he
had the bravado to turn partly in his chair and say throatily:
"What do you want?"
Thompson had remained a gaping spectator of the tying up of Merriam's
head, but this question enabled him to recover his natural
aggressiveness. With one defiant glance at Aunt Mary, he started forward
and pushed his way past Simpson, who could have stopped him only by an
actual physical offensive.
"What do I want?" he repeated sarcastically, as he stood looking down on
the senatorial head bundled in the scarf. "I want to know what the hell
you've gone and done--you and Black--without letting anybody know you
were going to! What about Crockett? Didn't you promise him at eight
o'clock last night that you would tell Black to veto? And then this!"
Thompson had drawn a folded newspaper from his coat pocket. He struck
it with his other hand.
"Is that the way to treat your friends who've stuck by you? What about
the election next week? What about the state machine? What about your
campaign fund? Have you gone nutty? Did you really do it, or is the
Mayor lying? That's what I want to know!"
"What business is it of yours?" asked the victim of this torrent of
questions as he stared from between the folds of his woolen scarf at the
unlighted gas log.
Merriam really was asking for information, but the politician could not
know this. It seemed to him the last insult--and repudiation. He fell
back a step dramatically.
"So that's it!" he cried. "After I've managed two campaigns for you!
I've done your dirty work for ten years! And now, over night, what
business is it of mine? You throw me over! And all your friends. The
men who sent you to the Senate of the United States and kept you there.
And what for? To join that fool Black! And the Reform League, I
suppose. Philip Rockwell and his gang of preachers and short-haired
women and long-haired mollycoddles! You'll appeal to the dear People!
Bah!"
Thompson had by this time apparently forgotten entirely the presence of
Aunt Mary and Simpson. He snatched a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and
bit the end off it, produced a match from somewhere, and lighted it,
emitting volumes of smoke. He thumped with his newspaper on the arm of
Merriam's chair and in an impressively lowered tone continued:
"Listen to me. It won't do, Senator. You can't get away with it. Not
you. Reform and the people and pure politics and all that. If you'd
started in on that line twenty years ago,--may be! I don't say it
couldn't be made to pay. But not by you, at this time of day. It's too
late. You've tied up with the other gang. They know you. They know
too much about you. They won't let you do it. It's no use trying. Of
course, if you're tired of your job--if you're hankering to quit--if you
want to go down in a grand smash,--all right! But if you want to stay
in the United States Senate, there's just one way you can do it, and
that's to play the old game in the old way with the old crowd. Savez?"
All this was a trifle hard on young Merriam. Thompson had told who he
was, so that the boy realised the critical character of the interview.
But there was so much else he needed to know. How had the real Norman
been in the habit of treating this man? How would he probably have
acted in such a situation as they were pretending? The only thing he
could do was to say as little as possible. Now that it was necessary to
make some response, what he said was:
"We'll see about that."
Thompson was rather encouraged than otherwise by this remark. He had
not, of course, expected any immediate acquiescence.
"You'll see all right if you keep on," he retorted with elephantine
irony. "But for God's sake, Senator, try to see things in time. It's
not too late yet. Turn the Mayor down. You aren't committed openly.
He is, but you aren't. Let him go smash alone. He was always a fool!
You can swear to Crockett that you told Black to veto. It don't matter
whether he believes you or not. He'll take you back. This Ordinance
business don't matter. They'll fix that some way. There are bigger
things than that coming, and they know how useful you can be. You can't
keep on with this other."
"Can't I?" asked Merriam, not unskillfully fishing for further
revelations.
"Listen to me, Senator. Didn't you accept fifty thousand dollars of
common stock in the United Traction Companies? Are you going to give
that back? Will Crockett _let_ you give it back? Not he! Have you
forgotten how we cornered the vote in Kankakee County when you ran six
years ago? Crockett knows about that. The whole crowd know it. And
what about that nice little honorarium you received for your vote in the
Senate on the last amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act? If you've
forgotten it, the men who put it up haven't! Do you think they'll let
you go off like this? As long as you play the game and keep your good
looks and can make your popular speeches they'll keep you in the Senate,
and the good things will come your way. They'll get you a Cabinet job
if you want it. Just say the word. But if you throw them over, they'll
turn on you. These little things I've been reminding you of will leak
out. Man alive, you're liable to end in the pen!"
"Perhaps," said Merriam, "but I shouldn't go alone. A man named
Thompson would go with me, eh? And maybe even Mr. Crockett. And others
I might name." (Merriam wished he _could_ name them.)
"That for your threats!" he finished grandly and snapped his fingers,
thanking heaven for the role of villain he had enacted in a certain
college melodrama, in connection with which he had, by diligent
practice, acquired the not common art of snapping one's fingers
effectively.
Thompson, who, had unwontedly removed his cigar from his mouth at
Merriam's speech, now backed away from the huddled figure.
"You think you'd do that!" he said, in a voice in which cynical scorn
contended with something a little like fright.
"Not unless I am forced to," said Merriam. "But I have chosen a new
course, and I mean to follow it."
But Thompson, standing solidly in the spot to which he had retreated, as
if he had "dug in" there, restored his cigar to the accustomed corner of
his face and narrowed his little eyes till they were hideously smaller
than usual.
"It's unfortunate, Senator," he said, with a kind of exaggerated
suavity, "that this reform in your public morals last night was not
accompanied by a corresponding change in your private morals."
"What do you mean?" asked Merriam quickly, and his voice faltered ever
so little, a fact which the other did not miss.
"Oh, you were known, you know, at Reiberg's Place. You told everybody
who you were, I understand. You must have been pretty gay. Celebrating
your new virtue, I suppose! But handing fifty-dollar bills to
dance-hall girls isn't quite the line for a Reform League hero, Senator!
And we know where you went afterwards. She's a pretty little thing, but
she's not in the Reform League picture! Suppose we say nothing about
the United Traction stock or the Kankakee County vote or the Interstate
Commerce business or any other little incidents of the past like that,
but just start with this little affair of last night. How will that mix
with pure politics, Senator?"
It was Thompson's turn to enjoy himself. He could not refrain from
following up this new vein.
"Your old friends are liberal-minded, Senator. But your new friends, the
great American people, are a little inclined to be narrow in matters of
private morality."
Thompson's follow-up attack was a mistake. It gave Merriam time to
think and decide upon his course.
"I was _not_ at Reiberg's last night," he said, recovering his loftiness
and adding coldness thereto. "Nor anywhere else. I spent the night in
this hotel."
Thompson stared. For a moment it almost seemed that his jaw would fall
and his precious cigar drop out. But he recovered himself with a sneer.
"You did, did you? In the company of your wife, I suppose! And that
thing about your head is really to keep you from catching cold and not
to keep your head from splitting open with the headache? You're pretty
fresh this morning, considering. I hand it to you there. But"--his
rising anger got the better of his unnatural affectation of suavity,
which he had maintained up to the limit of his endurance--"but that lie
won't go! You don't know what you did last night. You were stewed
right. You told every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Mary and Jane at the
dance hall that you were Senator Norman. You fool!"
"After that," said Merriam, playing his part regally, or, let us say,
senatorially, "I can only suggest to you that behind you is a door which
I wish you would make use of as soon as possible."
Thompson seemed decidedly nonplused at this. The real Norman had always
been amenable to threats and on the whole patient under abuse.
"Do you mean," he burst out, "that I'm not to be your manager? You turn
me down cold?"
At this juncture there came a quick, light knock at the door to which
Merriam had just referred so grandly.
Simpson looked quickly at Aunt Mary and then at Merriam.
"Let me know who it is," said the latter, realising that he must seem to
be in command.
When Simpson opened the door it was Rockwell who pushed past him. He
stopped short before Thompson (with his cigar) in hostile confrontation.
Cautiously Merriam peered around the off side of his high backed chair.
"Mr. Thompson," he said, "you know Mr. Rockwell, I believe. My new
manager!"
For a moment Thompson stood. Once his mouth opened, almost certainly to
frame an oath. It is strange evidence of the survival of chivalry in
American life that Aunt Mary's presence restrained that outburst.
Instead, we must suppose, he took the stub of his cigar from his mouth
and dashed it on the carpet.
"I'm through!" he said. Then to Merriam: "I'll use your door all
right--for the last time--till you send for me!"
He caught up his hat and walked past Rockwell, within an inch of
brushing against him but not looking at him.
At the door he turned.
"You've read your morning papers, I suppose! Have you read _Tidbits_?
Take a look at it!"
The door slammed behind him.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*HOLDING THE FORT*
The reverberation of Thompson's slamming still echoed in the room when
the bedroom door opened and Alicia sailed in, followed more demurely by
Mollie June.
"Good morning, Philip," said Alicia to her fiance.
Then she turned to Merriam.
"Oh, you did splendidly!" she cried.
"Did I?" said Merriam, awkwardly trying to get the woolen scarf off his
head.
"Indeed you did. We listened to every word. I through the keyhole. And
Mollie June lay down on the floor and listened under the door. It was
mean of me to take the keyhole, but I'm too old and fat for the other
position."
Possibly Mollie June's recent prostration accounted for the color in her
cheeks.
"Help him off with that thing, dear," Alicia added, and herself advanced
to Rockwell and took his hands, offering to be kissed--an offer of which
Rockwell took advantage with some fervour.
"Yes, I'll help you," said Mollie June, moving somewhat timidly in
Merriam's direction.
He met her more than half way.
"Please," he said. "I'm all bound round with a woolen string."
Mollie June drew the ends of the scarf down off his shoulders and untied
the loose knot under his chin.
"There!" she said, looking up at him.
Merriam snatched the thing off his head, ruffling his hair.
"Thank you!"
Rockwell's voice reached them across the room. Aunt Mary had been
hurriedly narrating the happenings with Thompson. He now looked
approvingly at Merriam.
"That's all right," he said, reflectively. "Very good. Yes. Just as
well to defy him at once. Could hardly have been better. Ah, there's
Hobart now, I suppose," for a discreet knock had sounded at the hall
door.
Rockwell himself admitted the house physician, a bald, youngish man,
with nose glasses over slightly shifty eyes and a quite unprofessional
manner--the manner of a "smart" young business man.
Merriam and Mollie June joined the others for the introductions. These
formalities over, Dr. Hobart confirmed the report of Norman's condition
which Rockwell had given them over the telephone. He "was getting along
all right"--with a sidelong glance at Mollie June--"except for a touch
of bronchitis."
Mollie June betrayed an embarrassed uneasiness. Merriam wondered just
how much she knew of her husband's whereabouts--of his escapades in
general.
"Very well," said Aunt Mary briskly, "you must go right to bed, Mr.
Merriam, before some one else comes. You're ill with bronchitis, of
course. That scarf was a splendid idea, Alicia, but it was a close
shave. We mustn't run any more risks. You will attend him, Dr.
Hobart?"
"Of course," said the young physician, evidently much amused. "Mr.
Rockwell has told me the story. It's as good as a play. Mr. Merriam--I
mean, Senator,--I order you to bed at once."
"Very well," said Merriam and turned towards Senator Norman's bedroom.
"I'll show you where things are," said Rockwell, accompanying him. "I
explored a bit last night."
In the bedroom with the door closed behind them, Merriam hesitated.
"Better get your things off at once," said Rockwell, going to the bureau
and stooping to open the bottom drawer. "It's nearly ten o'clock," he
continued, rummaging. "The reporters will be here any minute. I'm
surprised some enterprising chap hasn't arrived already. We'll try to
keep them off, of course. But some of those fellows are mighty clever.
Here we are--pajamas," he added, pulling out the garments for which he
had been searching.
Then he crossed to a closet, from which in a moment he emerged with a
bath robe and a pair of bedroom slippers.
"I'll put these by the bed so that if there's any reason for you to get
up you can do so easily. But unless something happens to change our
plans, you're much too sick to get up to-day."
A knock sounded at the door into the sitting room. Rockwell answered it
and returned grinning.
"Aunt Mary says that Simpson shall bring you some ham and a cup of
coffee as soon as you're in bed. Why didn't you tell me you have had
nothing to eat but grapefruit?"
"I had forgotten," said Merriam, realising nevertheless that he was very
hungry.
Rockwell dropped into a comfortable chair. "It's rather good fun," he
said. "This conspiracy business. I do hope we can pull it through."
By this time Merriam was inside the senatorial pajamas. He approached
the bed, turned down the covers, and awkwardly climbed in, feeling for
all the world like a little boy who has been sent to bed in the daytime
for being naughty.
"Now about lights," said Rockwell rising. The window shades had not
been raised; they were using the chandelier. "Not these center lights,
nor the night lamp. Both are too bright on your face in case---- Let's
try this side light."
He turned on a light on the wall on the other side of Merriam's bed,
switched off the ceiling lights, and surveyed the effect.
"That's good," he said. "If we have to bring any one in, you can lie
looking this way and still your face will be in shadow. Lie well down
in with the covers up to your chin. Now I'll bring you some breakfast."
Merriam, left alone for a minute, wished he had been permitted to finish
his breakfast in the sitting room before being sent to bed. He had
counted on that breakfast, and the first course had been fully as
delightful as he had pictured it.
Rockwell soon returned, carrying a tray on which was a plate of really
fine ham, with rolls and butter and a cup of coffee.
"I guess I'm not too sick to sit up to eat, so long as only you're
here," said Merriam, suiting his posture to the word and falling to with
appetite.
Rockwell drew up a chair and for several minutes sat smoking in silence.
Then he said:
"Did you catch Thompson's parting shot about _Tidbits_?"
"Yes," Merriam replied, without interrupting operations. "What did he
mean?"
Rockwell drew a clipping from his pocket. "Listen," he said, and read
the following:
_The Senator's Night Off_
There was a dance last night at Reiberg's Place on the West
Side. Most of our readers do not know Reiberg's. It comprises
a dancing floor over a saloon, with a bar attached for the
convenience of patrons who may not be willing--or, as the
evening advances, able--to go downstairs to the saloon; also
certain small rooms where one may drink or otherwise enjoy
oneself quite privately. Its patrons, male and female, are
chiefly employees in the neighbouring factories.
But last night Reiberg's was honoured, we are credibly informed,
by a guest from quite a different sphere--no less than a Senator
of the United States. We are not able at present to give his
name with certainty, and of course we are not willing to give
names in such a case until we have verified our information with
scrupulous care. But he certainly announced himself as Senator
----, and he looked the part, and distributed money, presumably
from the salary paid to him out of public funds, with lavish
abandon.
Having tried to kiss one of the prettier girls and been knocked
down by her escort--who evidently knew naught of "senatorial
courtesies,"--he emphasised the sincerity of his tipsy apologies
by handing the lucky insulted one a fifty-dollar bill.
Later, it is said, he attached himself to another young woman,
unaccompanied, it would seem, by any pugnacious swain, with whom
he spent several hours, partly on the dancing floor and partly
elsewhere.
Finally, with we fear little of his money left about him, he was
charitably carried off by the chauffeur of his waiting taxi.
Well, well, after the arduous strain of legislative labours, one
doubtless feels the need of a little relaxation. We hope the
Senator enjoyed himself.
Rockwell folded up his clipping. "A tolerably close paraphrase of
Simpson's story," he remarked. "They have the facts pretty straight."
"What is this _Tidbits_?" asked Merriam, sitting on his pillow with the
tray in his lap. He had stopped eating.
"Oh, a dirty little sheet of scandal. Twice a week. But it's pretty
widely read. And they know his name, of course. In fact any one can
guess it, because Senator Norman is known to be in the city, and there
is no other United States Senator stopping here now, so far as any one
knows. It will be a bit nasty if they push this sort of thing. They'll
put it in the regular newspapers next--a straight news item with his
name in it."
"That article doesn't say where he went afterwards," said Merriam. "But
Thompson knew.
"They're keeping that in reserve. Listen!"
Male voices were audible from the sitting room.
"The reporters!" exclaimed Rockwell. "I'll take that tray. Lie down
and cover up. I must go and help Aunt Mary hold the fort."
Merriam finished his coffee in a gulp, and Rockwell set the tray on the
seat of a chair and hastily entered the sitting room.
There followed a long period--more than an hour, in fact--during which
Merriam lay in bed and listened to varied voices from the other room,
and speculated as to what was going on, and wondered what he should do
if the door should open and some irresistibly aggressive reporter or
irresistibly important political friend of Norman's be ushered in.
But Rockwell and Aunt Mary, with the occasional support of Dr. Hobart,
successfully withstood the army of reporters and a few minor politicians
who called, and at length the loud masculine voices from the other room
ceased, and Merriam lay still, somewhat fatigued by his prolonged strain
of apprehension, and waited.
Presently the door opened, and Aunt Mary and Rockwell entered. Merriam
had closed his eyes, but Rockwell speedily opened them.
"Oh, you can wake up," he said. "It's all right. The coast is clear."
Merriam rolled over so as to lie on his back. "Well, what next?" he
said.
Aunt Mary and Rockwell looked at each, other. Rockwell spoke:
"Miss Norman and I are going out. We shall drop in at the Mayor's for a
few minutes and then go on to a Reform League luncheon at the Urban
Club. I am due to act as toastmaster or chairman for the speeches
afterwards, and it will be just as well to have Miss Norman present.
She will symbolise the prospective new alliance. We are going to leave
you under the care of Alicia and Mrs. Norman. No one else is likely to
come for several hours now. We shall be back at about half past two or
three. Meanwhile luncheon. You didn't get a very big breakfast after
all. Simpson shall serve it here by your bed, and Alicia and Mollie
June can eat with you."
This disposition suited Merriam excellently well, but he made no
comment. He tried to decide whether Aunt Mary was really eyeing him
sharply or whether he only imagined it.
In any case she almost immediately added a rather formal "Good morning,"
and returned to the sitting room.
Rockwell lingered a moment.
"We're going to try to bring Norman back here this evening, you know.
If it's at all possible. If it shouldn't be--if he's too sick or
something, I suppose you could stay over another day still?"
Merriam thought with a panic of his school.
"Not unless it's absolutely necessary," he replied with a good deal of
emphasis.
"It probably won't be," said Rockwell reassuringly. "We're quite as
anxious to get rid of you, you know," he added smiling, "as you can be
to get away from us. A double's a horribly dangerous thing to have
around. Well, so long."
In less than five minutes after Rockwell's departure there came a knock
at that door upon which Merriam's attention was concentrated--a
distinctly feminine knock.
Merriam disposed himself as discreetly as possible under the bedclothes
and answered it.
Alicia opened the door and peeped. "May I come in?" She opened it
wider and came through. "I'm the chaperon, you know."
"Are you?" asked Merriam smiling.
Alicia was pleased by his smile and said so.
"I always like it when people laugh at the idea of my being a chaperon."
"Why?" said Merriam.
"Oh, so long as it seems funny for a woman to be a chaperon she's
young."
"It seems funny for you," said Merriam.
"That's very nicely said," returned Alicia. "Come in, Mollie June."
As Mollie June did not appear, Alicia looked into the sitting room.
"Why," she said, "she must have gone into her bedroom. I do believe
she's doing her hair over." And Alicia raised her eyebrows.
In spite of hope deferred Merriam was made happy. He recalled the
supreme necessity of shaving earlier that morning.
Alicia dropped into the chair by the bed in which Rockwell had sat and
pretended to scan the invalid's face solicitously.
"I should say, Senator," she remarked, "that you do not _look_ like a
very sick man. Your condition must be improving. We can hope you will
be able to take a little nourishment."
"You can hope that all right," grinned the invalid.
"I've ordered----" Alicia, making talk, plunged into the details of a
quite elaborate refection.
By the time she had finished and had replied to one or two humorous
comments from Merriam, whose spirits were certainly rising, Simpson
presented himself with the substantial fulfillment of her prospectus.
And not until then did Mollie June join them. Her coiffure, though
simple, was certainly faultless and so far as a masculine eye could
judge newly arranged.
Alicia caught Merriam's glance and read his thoughts and smiled.
"What is it?" asked Mollie June suspiciously.
"What is what?" said Merriam, lamely.
"The Senator has been very humorous over the meal I have ordered,"
explained Alicia more deftly.
"Don't call him the Senator!" cried Mollie June. "His name is"--her eyes
met Merriam's for an instant--"Mr. John."
"I see," said Alicia. In the dim light Merriam was not sure whether she
raised her eyebrows again or not, but he was afraid she did.
Simpson, intent only on the proper illumination of his carefully laid
cloth, but unwittingly conspiring with the elder gods (Fate and Destiny
and the like), had turned on the night lamp and set it on the corner of
the table next to Mollie June, and its radiance fell full on her
slender, erect figure, now arrayed in--Merriam had not the slightest
idea what kind of fabric it was, but it was creamy white, and at her
waist was one of the red roses he had helped to freshen. The circle of
bright light extended up to her white throat. Occasionally when she
leaned forward her face dipped into it, but for the most part showed
only dimly in the fainter glow that came through the shade of the lamp.
He could see her eyes, however, and not infrequently they rested on him.
His, it is to be feared, were on her most of the time.
When at length the luncheon was finished and Merriam had expressed
himself as disinclined for cigarettes and Simpson had removed his dishes
and his table and finally himself, Alicia, who was really a most
good-natured person--a pearl among chaperons,--yawned and announced that
she had a novel which she desired to finish, and that, if they didn't
mind, she proposed to retire to the sitting room to prosecute that
literary occupation.
"You can amuse him for a while, Mrs. Norman," she said, with a humorous
smile; Merriam did not venture to question what more subtle thoughts
that smile might veil. "He's your guest more than mine, seeing it's
your husband he's impersonating. If he gets too boring, you can come for
me and I'll spell you."
Neither Mollie June nor Merriam replied, but Alicia, still with that
amused smile, rose and calmly departed. She left the door open, of
course, between the two rooms.
Upon the two young people, thus abruptly left alone together, there
descended an embarrassed silence. For a minute or so they heard Alicia
moving about in the sitting room and then the small sounds which one
makes in adjusting one's self comfortably in an armchair with a
footstool and a book, ending in a pleasurable sigh.
Merriam was overwhelmed by the necessity of finding talk. He could not
lie there in bed and stare at Mollie June, however beatitudinous it
might have been to do so. Several seconds of prodigious intellectual
labour brought forth this polite question:
"Do you hear often from the girls in Riceville?"
"Not very often," said Mollie June.
We can hardly describe this reply as helpful.
Again he struggled mightily, with the banal kind of result that usually
follows such paroxysms conversational topic-hunting:
"You must find your life here and in Washington wonderful."
"It seemed so, at first," said Mollie June.
"But it didn't last?"
Merriam was conscious of danger on this tack but he must have a moment's
rest before he could wrestle with the void again.
"No," said Mollie June.
Merriam waited, not shirking his responsibilities but conscious that she
meant to continue. She was always deliberate of speech--a fact which
gave a piquant significance to her simplest words.
"You see," she said, "I didn't really care very much for George. I
thought I did at first, but I didn't. Papa really made me marry him.
And you know he is untrue to me."
Merriam could have gasped. He felt himself falling through the thin ice
of mere "conversation," on which he had tried so hard to skate, into the
depths of real talk. But it was good to be in the depths. And after
his first breathlessness he was filled with love and pity. How much the
brief, girlish sentences portrayed of disillusionment and tragedy!
"You know about that then?" he asked gently.
"Of course," said Mollie June, almost scornfully. "Before company Aunt
Mary and Alicia and Mr. Rockwell keep up the pretence that I can know
nothing about such things. I keep it up too! But Aunt Mary knows all
about them. George never can conceal anything from her. And I make her
tell me everything. Everything!"
Merriam, I suspect, hardly sensed the amount of intellect and character
which Mollie June's last statement betrayed--I use the word advisedly,
for, of course, intellect and character detract from a young girl's
charm, and if she desires to be pretty and alluring she should, and
usually does, carefully conceal whatever of such attributes she may be
handicapped with. But to "make" Aunt Mary disclose things she wished
not to disclose was no small achievement.
"You know about this Jennie Higgins?" Merriam asked.
"Yes. I've seen her and talked with her."
"How?" was Merriam's startled question.
"She's a manicurist, you know. She's employed at ----" Mollie June
mentioned a well-known establishment on Michigan Avenue, the name of
which for obvious reasons I suppress. "When I found that out, I went
there to have my nails done. I just asked for--Madame Couteau, and
waited till she was free. She didn't know me, of course. She's
pretty," said Mollie June, with judicial coldness.
After a moment she added, "And sweet and--warm."
"But how any man can leave you----" cried Merriam, treading recklessly
on several kinds of dynamite.
"You haven't seen her," said Mollie June.
Merriam was silenced. It was true he had not seen her. And he
remembered with confusion that he had talked with her over a wire and,
as Rockwell put it, had not "needed much prompting."
He stole a glance at Mollie June. The purity of her white-clad figure,
its brave erectness, and the impassive sadness so out of place on her
young face caught at his heart.
"How can you stand it?" he cried, and would have put out his hand to her
had he not remembered that he was in bed and that his arm was clad only
in the sleeve of a suit of pajamas.
Mollie June looked at him.
"I don't know," she said. "What else can I do?"
Merriam lay still, now openly staring at her. Of all intolerable things
of which he had ever heard it seemed to him the worst that Mollie
June--"the prettiest girl,"--with all her loveliness and sweetness and
courage and youthful joy in life, should be so slighted and wronged and
saddened and degraded. It was like seeing a rose trampled under foot.
(Merriam's mental simile was not very original perhaps, but to him it
was intensely poignant.)
For a moment she met his gaze, then looked away. In the subdued light
Merriam could not be sure, but he thought there was a new brightness of
tears in her eyes, released perhaps by his very apparent though
inexpressive sympathy.
Presently the thought which had inevitably come to him forced itself
almost against his will to expression:
"You could divorce him."
"I've thought of that." (Somehow this shocked Merriam.) "But it would
be too horrible. Have you read the divorce trials in the papers? With
a Senator they would make the most of it. And Aunt Mary won't let me do
that. It would ruin him politically, she says."
"Well, what if it did? How about you?"
"Oh, she loves him, you know. She thinks he can be brought to change
his ways. She believes in him still."
"Do you?"
"No," said Mollie June, with the clear-eyed cruel simplicity of youth.
"He may die," was the thought in Merriam's mind, but this could not be
said.
Full of pity, he gazed at her again, and something in the profile of her
averted face overcame him. He started up on his elbow--all this time he
had lain with his head on his arm on the pillow.
"Mollie June!" he cried, his voice softly raised.
She did not look at him.
"Dear Mollie June! You must know I love you. I loved you three years
ago in Riceville. There's nothing wrong about that. When you're in
such trouble I must tell you. It can't do you any good. There's
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