Chapter V (1)

Over the luncheon to which Tancred was presently summoned a foreboding hovered, ambient in the air. Mrs. Lyeth was not present, confined by a headache, Liance explained, to her room. The girl herself preserved her every-day attitude, and Tancred did his best to engage her in speech; but she did not second his endeavors. When he addressed her she answered, if at all, with her eyes, and in them she put something that resembled a monition. Save for the reference to her future step-mother, she broke bread in silence. As for the general, Cruikshank would have taken him to his heart; he was both jocose and irritable; he feigned a glutton interest in his plate; he loaded the soft Malay tongue with curious oaths, which he exploded at the servant; he alternately praised and reviled the food, and from beneath his bushy eyebrows he glanced in the kindliest fashion now at his daughter and now at his guest. And so well did he succeed in heightening the enervation of the latter that it was not until the acrid caramels were passed that Tancred even pretended to eat. Then, remembering that it was Liance that made them, he ventured to compliment the girl, and, as she answered nothing, acknowledging the tribute only by an inclination of the head, he saw in the expression of her face that she was even more emotionalized than he. Presently a burning coal and some cigars were brought. Liance rose from the table, and Tancred, rising too, accompanied her to the door. There, it may be, she had some message to impart; her lips moved, yet before Tancred could grasp its import the general called him, and he was obliged to turn. The girl wandered out on the veranda, and Tancred resumed his seat.

"Will you smoke?" the general asked. His tone was so friendly that Tancred felt more miserable than before. "Take one," he continued. "Sumatran tobacco ranks nearly with the Havanese."

For a fraction of time which seemed immeasurable the two men smoked in silence. But in a moment the general gave a poke at the coal, and looked up at his guest.

"Mrs. Lyeth tells me that you have done us the honor to ask for my daughter's hand."

Tancred glanced at the point of his cigar, and discovered that it was out.

"May I trouble you?" he murmured.

The general shoved the brasier toward him, and watched the relighting with evident solicitude.

"It's the dampness," he announced. "H'm. Am I correctly informed?"

Tancred gave a puff or two, and then, withdrawing the weed, he held it contemplatively between forefinger and thumb; but he answered not a word.

The general knocked the ashes from his own cigar and eyed the burning coal.

"H'm, let me ask you, did you write to my daughter this morning?"

And Tancred, with that long-drawn breath we take when we prepare for the worst, answered shortly:

"I did."

To this avowal the general nodded encouragingly. Tancred, however, seemed averse to further confidences; he kept looking at his cigar as though it were some strange and uncanny thing.

"H'm, well--er--did you, did you begin the letter with a term of endearment?"

"Yes, general."

Tancred had tossed his cigar--a cigar that ranked nearly with a Havanese--into the finger-bowl. He straightened himself and looked his host in the face.

"Yes, general, and I am sorry for it. I have no excuse, not one. It was a piece of unpardonable ill-breeding. I had no right to send the note; I had no encouragement to write it. The only amend in my power is an apology. I make one now to you; let me beg that you will convey another to your daughter."

The general half rose from his seat and hit the table with his fist. His face was convulsed. He was hideous.

"But, bandit that you are," he cried, "she loves you."

"No, general, you are wrong."

"Ah, I am wrong, am I? Not an hour ago she told me so of her own accord."

"General, it was a jest."

"A jest! You call it a jest to surprise a girl in the dark"--

"To what?" gasped Tancred. "To what?"

"There, you know well enough what I mean. I refer to the other evening."

"Merciful heaven!" groaned Tancred, "it was she then that I kissed."

"It is a jest to do a thing like that, to write impassioned letters, and to win a heart. Is it a jest you call it, sir, or did I misunderstand your words?"

"No general, not that. What I meant was that it was impossible for Miss Van Lier to have confessed to any love for me--"

The lattice at the window was thrust aside. For a second the girl's sidereal eyes blazed into the room.

"He is right, father: I do not love; I hate."

The lattice fell again. She had gone.

During the moment that followed you could have heard a lizard move. Tancred fumbled at his collar, and General Van Lier sank bank in his chair.

"Mr. Ennever," he said, at last, "you are my guest."

The tone in which he spoke was low and self-restrained, but in it there was an accent that was tantamount to a slap in the face.

Tancred was on his feet at once.

"If you permit me, I will leave to-day."

General Van Lier moved to the door.

"There is a boat from Siak at five," he answered.

"General," Tancred hesitated; he was humiliated as he had never been, and rightly humiliated, he knew. He was trying to say something that would express his sense of abasement, and a fitting speech was on the end of his tongue.

"General--"

"After you, sir." The general was pointing to the door.

"General--"

"Nay, sir, after you. I insist."

Tancred bowed and passed out. A moment later he was in his room.

In a corner was a trunk. In another a shirt-box. Tancred gathered his traps together, and tossed some into the one, some into the other, a proceeding at which Zut yelped and fawned with delight. Evidently on him at least the attractions of the bungalow had begun to pall.

"Yes, Zut, we are going."

And at this the dog yelped again and curveted sheer across the room.

"But you must be quiet," Tancred added. "There, be still."

He was thinking of Mrs. Lyeth, and wondering whether he should see her before he went. If he could exchange but one word with her, surely, he told himself, she would understand. He lounged to the window and leaned on the sill.

It was one of those afternoons, brutal and terrible in beauty, which only the equator provides. The sky was like the curtain of an alcove, the sun a vomiter of living glare. Beyond was a riot of color such as Delacroix never dreamed, a combination more insolent than the Quetzal possesses, all the primaries interstriated, a rainbow of insolent hues. And there, in white, a parasol over her head, a basket dangling from her wrist, Liance appeared, emerging, as her father had, from the coppice beyond.

Instinctively he drew back: he had no wish to see her eyes charged with hate again. She was not one to forgive, he knew; the beauty of the equator was in her, and its pitilessness as well. And yet, he reflected, if I could but tell her not alone how she and I have erred, but how sorry I am for it all. But no; manifestly an explanation was impossible. Did he attempt one it might inculpate another. He was not alone solely to blame, he was blockaded in his own disgrace. He told himself this; he repeated it even in varying keys; but beneath it all he felt that some redress should be. The idea that the house he had entered as an honored guest would see him depart in shame had already brought the blood to his cheeks. And that blood now was leaving a stain that years would not efface. "I must write," he decided; "I must write some word." And he was about to seat himself at the table, when Atcheh appeared.

"Tuan," he murmured, in the soft vocables of his tongue. "The gharry waits your lordship."

At this Zut, who was surprisingly polyglot of ear, yelped with renewed delight. Tancred pointed to his effects, and waited until they had been removed. It was possible, he reflected, that he might meet Liance or Mrs. Lyeth in the hall. Yet should he not do so, then, he told himself, he would write from Singapore.

But when he reached the veranda, only the general was there. Beyond, the gharry stood in readiness, and by it was Atcheh, the trunk and shirt-box already strapped in place. Tancred stretched his hand.

"General--"

"I wish you a pleasant journey, sir," that gentleman answered, and lifted his hat.

Mechanically Tancred raised his own.

"I thank you," he said. And with a backward glance he called to Zut and entered the conveyance.

A whip cracked, the gharry started; in a moment it was on the road. Tancred turned to take another and a parting look. Already the general had disappeared, but from a window he caught a glimpse of some one robed in white. A curve was rounded and the bungalow disappeared.

For an hour over a road beside which the Corniche is commonplace indeed, the gharry rolled on. To Tancred, however, its beauties were remote and undiscerned. If he noticed them at all it was only as accessories. He was wholly absorbed in his own discomfiture, and the gharry drew up and halted at the wharf before he was aware that Siak had been reached and the journey was done.

About him was the same assortment of fat-faced Celestials and gaunt Malays that he had noticed before. Apparently nothing had happened to them; they had contented themselves with continuing to be. Before him was a glistening sea, a limitless horizon. To the left the shore extended, fairer and more brilliant than the courtyard of a royal domain. Just beyond, one of the ships of the Dutch East India service was moored, her funnels lengthening and fading in spirals of smoke. And when Tancred had attended to the transfer of his luggage, and was about to step into the sampan that was to convey him to the steamer, there came a clatter of horse's hoofs, and on a black and panting pony Atcheh suddenly appeared.

"Tuan," he cried, and waved something in the air. "Tuan, a moment more."

In that moment he had sprung from the pony and run to where Tancred stood.

"From the little lady, Lord," he said, and, handing a basket to his master's guest, bowed to the ground.

Tancred found a bit of gold.

"For you," he said, and the Malay bowed again. "To the lady, give my thanks."

And at once his heart gave an exultant throb; his departure was regretted. As he lowered himself into the boat his excess of joy was so acute he nearly fell. Truly, if it be pleasant to appreciate, it is also pleasant to be appreciated. He still clutched at the basket, his hands moist with excitement, his face aglow, and it was not until the ship was reached that he noticed that Zut was sniffing at it.

"Behave," he ordered. But his voice was so kindly that the little fellow only sniffed the more. It was easy to see that he was jubilating too.

On deck Tancred experienced some difficulty in securing a cabin. But for what were rupees coined and tips invented? The steward consulted the purser, the purser consulted the first officer, and in five minutes the cabin of the latter functionary was at Tancred's disposal. It was roomy and cool; or perhaps it would be more exact to say that it was fully as large as a closet and that the thermometer did not mark one degree above ninety. In short, Tancred had every reason to consider himself in luck. He shut the door and throwing himself on a wicker settee he opened the basket, which until now he had kept tight clasped in his hand.

It was, he saw, filled with sweetmeats such as he had eaten at the bungalow. On top, pinned to the interior of the basket, was a slip of paper that contained a single line--_Souvenir et bon voyage_--and for signature, _Liance_. He read the message twice, and, it may be, he would have repeated the message aloud, but Zut kept bothering him with little hungry yelps. To quiet the dog be tossed him a sweet and put the basket down.

In some mysterious manner his joy had taken itself away. It was not from Liance he had expected a remembrance. When Atcheh placed the basket in his hand, he had told himself that, whatever it might contain, it was at least a gift from Mrs. Lyeth, a token expressive of her regret at his departure. And instead of that there was a handful of bonbons that might have been sent to a child, and a meaningless message from one to whose solicitude he was indifferent. The disappointment, indeed, was great. For a while he let it intensify within him. But presently he stood up: it was getting dark; long since the sob of water displaced had told him that the ship had started; a turn on deck might do him good, he thought; and as he moved to the door he called to his dog.

"Zut!"

And as the dog did not immediately appear, Tancred wondered could he have got out. But no, the door was closed.

"What the dickens can have become of him?" he muttered, and turning again he caught sight of Zut stretched on the floor. "Hello!" he exclaimed, "there you are. Why don't you come when you're called?"

Even at this, however, the dog did not move. Tancred bent over and touched him, and then suddenly kneeled down. "Why, what is the matter with him? A moment ago he was right enough; it is impossible that--Zut! Zut Alors!"

And raising the dog's head up he stared at it. The eyes were convulsed, the tongue was swollen and distorted. "He is dead," he murmured. "He is dead. But how?"

To this question no answer was vouchsafed. In his bewilderment he stood up again and leaned at the port-hole. Already Siak had faded. Above was a splatter of callous stars, beneath was the sea, black now and almost chill.

"But how?" he repeated. Then at once he clutched at the woodwork; his eyes had fallen on the basket; he remembered the sweet he had tossed to the dog. The cabin seemed to be turning round.

At his side the door opened, and the steward looked in. "Supper is ready, sir; will you come?"

"The rafflesia!" Tancred gasped at him. But what he meant by that absurd reply the steward did not think it necessary to ask.

"Very good, sir," he answered, and shut the door.

THE GRAND DUKE'S RUBIES.

There is in New York a club called the Balmoral, which has two peculiarities--no one ever goes there much before midnight, and it is the only place in town where you can get anything fit to eat at four o'clock in the morning. The members are politicians of the higher grade, men about town, and a sprinkle of nondescripts. In the unhallowed inspiration of a moment, Alphabet Jones, the novelist,--in polite society Mr. A. B. Fenwick Chisholm-Jones,--baptized it the Smallpox, a name which has stuck tenaciously, the before-mentioned members being usually pitted--against each other. Of the many rooms of the club, one, it should be explained, is the most enticing. It is situated on an upper floor, and the siren that presides therein is a long table dressed in green. Her name is Baccarat.

One night last February, Alphabet Jones rattled up to the door in a vagabond hansom. He was thirsty, impecunious, and a trifle tired. He had been to a cotillon, where he had partaken of champagne, and he wanted to get the taste of it out of his throat. He needed five hundred dollars, and in his card-case there were only two hundred and fifty. The bar of the Athenaeum Club he knew at that hour was closed, possible money-lenders were in bed, and it was with the idea of killing the two birds of the legend that he sought the Balmoral.

He encountered there no difficulty in slaking his thirst; and when, in one draught, which brought to his tonsils a suggestion of art, science, and Wagner combined, he swallowed a brandy-and-soda, he felt better, and looked about to see who might be present. The room which he had entered was on what is called the parlor floor. It was long, high-ceiled, comfortably furnished, and somewhat dim. At the furthermost end three men were seated, two of whom he recognized, the one as Sumpter Leigh, the other as Colonel Barker; but the third he did not remember to have seen before. Some Westerner, he thought; for Jones prided himself on knowing every one worth knowing in New York, and, it may be added, in several other cities as well.

He took out his card-case and thumbed the roll of bills reflectively. If he went upstairs, he told himself, he might double the amount in two minutes. But then, again, he might lose it. Yet, if he did, might not five hundred be as easily borrowed as two hundred and fifty?

"It's brutal to be so hard up," he mused. "Literature doesn't pay. I might better set up as publisher, open a drug-shop, turn grocer, do anything, in fact, which is brainless and remunerative, than attempt to earn a living by the sweat of my pen. There's that _Interstate Magazine_: the editor sent me a note by a messenger this morning, asking for a story, adding that the messenger would wait _while I wrote it_. Evidently he thinks me three parts stenographer and the rest kaleidoscope. What is a good synonym for an editor, anyway?"

And as Jones asked himself this question he glared fiercely in a mirror that extended from cornice to floor. Then, mollified, possibly, by his own appearance, for he was a handsome man, tall, fair, and clear of skin, he threw himself on a sofa, and fell to thinking about the incidents of the ball.

For some time past he had been as discreetly attentive as circumstances permitted to a young girl, the only child of a potent financier, and on that particular evening he had sat out the cotillon with her at an assembly. She was very pretty and, unusual as it may seem in a _debutante_, rather coy. But when, a half-hour before, he had wished her sweet dreams in that seductive manner for which he was famous, she had allowed the tips of her fingers to rest in his own just one fleeting second longer than was necessary, and, what is more to the point, had looked into his eyes something which now, under the influence of the brandy-and-soda, seemed almost a promise. "Dear little soul!" he muttered; "if she marries me I will refuse her nothing. It will be the devil's own job, though, to get her any sort of an engagement ring. Tiffany, perhaps, might give me one on credit, but it will have to be something very handsome, something new; not that tiresome solitaire. Those stones I saw the other day--H'm! I wonder what that fellow is staring at me for?"

He lounged forward to where the men were seated, and, being asked to draw a chair, graciously accepted the invitation and another brandy-and-soda as well.

"It was this way," the stranger exclaimed, excitedly, when he and Jones had been introduced. "I was telling these gentlemen when you came in that you looked like the Grand Duke Sergius--"

"Thank you," the novelist answered, affably. "The same to you."

"I never saw him though," the stranger continued.

"No more have I."

"Only his picture."

"Your remark, then, was doubly flattering."

"But the picture to which I allude was that of a chimerical grand duke."

"Really, sir, really you are overwhelming."

"But wait a minute, do wait a minute. Mr. Jones, I don't know whether you caught my name: it is Fairbanks--David Fairbanks."

"Delighted! I remember it perfectly. My old friend, Nicholas Manhattan, bought a ruby of you once, and a beauty it was. I heard at the time that you made a specialty of them."

"So did the grand duke. He came here, you know, on that man-of-war."

"Yes, I know. Mrs. Wainwaring gave him a reception. It was just my luck: I was down with the measles at the time."

"Oh, you were, were you? You were down with the measles, eh? Well, I wish I had been. Gentlemen, listen to this; you must listen. I was in my office in Maiden Lane one day, when a young man came in. He wore the most magnificent fur coat I have ever seen in my life. No, that coat was something that only Russia could have produced. He handed me a card on which was engraved

P^{CE} MICHEL ZAROGUINE,

_Aide-de-camp de S. A. I. le grand-duc Serge de Russie._

"And then, of all things in the world, he offered me a pinch of snuff, and when I refused he helped himself out of a beautiful box and flicked the grains which had fallen on his lapel with a nimbleness of finger such as it was a pleasure to behold. I ought to tell you that he spoke English with great precision, though his accent was not pleasant--sort of grizzled, as it were. Well, gentlemen, he said that _his_ prince, as he called him, the grand duke, wanted some rubies; they were intended for a present; and, though my visitor did not imply anything either by word or gesture, I suspected at once that they were for a lady. The grand duke at that time had been here a fortnight, and it was said--However, there is no use in going into that. So I showed him a few; but, if you will believe me, he wanted enough to make a tiara. I told him that a tiara of stones of that quality would come anywhere from sixty to eighty thousand dollars. If I had said a peck of groats he could not have appeared more indifferent. 'It is a great deal of money,' I said. He smiled a little at that, as though he were thinking, 'Poor devil of an American, it may seem a great deal of money to you, but to a grand duke--!' Then I brought out all I had. He looked them over with the pincers very carefully, and asked how much I valued them at. I told him a hundred and ten thousand dollars. He didn't turn a hair."

"Was he bald?" Jones asked.

"No, sir, he was not; and your jest is ill-timed. Gentlemen, I appeal to you. I insist on Mr. Jones's attention--"

"Why, the man is crazy," Jones mused. "What does he mean by saying that my jest is ill-timed? But why does he insist on my attention? He's drunk--that's what he is; he's drunk and quarrelsome. Well, let him be. What do I care?" And Alphabet Jones looked complacently at his white waistcoat and then over at his excitable _vis-a-vis_. Mr. Fairbanks was a little man of the Cruikshank pattern, very red and rotund, and as he talked he gesticulated.

"So I said to him, 'There's been a corner in rubies, but it broke, and that is the reason why I can give them at that price.' He didn't know what a corner was, and when I explained he took a note-book out of his pocket and wrote something in it. 'I am making a collection of Americanisms for the Czarina,' he said. 'By the way,' he added, 'what is a Sam Ward!' I told him. He laughed, and put it down--"

"His throat?"

Mr. Fairbanks glanced at Jones with unconcealed irritation: "Dr. Hammond, sir, says that punning is a form of paresis."

"Be careful about that epsilon; it's short."

"Well, Mr. Jones, you ought to know how to pronounce the word better than I, for you have the disease and I haven't. Gentlemen, I insist--"

But Jones had begun to muse again. "That fat little brute is a type," he told himself. "I must work him in somewhere. I wonder, though, if I had not better leave him and go up to the baccarat. It might be more remunerative. It would be amusing," and Alphabet smiled at the fantasy of his own thought, "it would be amusing indeed if he tried to prevent me." He put his hand over his eyes and let Mr. Fairbanks ramble on.

"You see," he heard him say, in connection with something that had gone before, "a man in my business has to be careful. Now, there are rubies and rubies. I only handle the Oriental stones, which are a variety of the hyaline corindus. They are found in Ceylon, in Thibet, and in Burmah among the crumblings of primordial rock. But I have seen beauties that were picked from waste lands in China from which the granite had presumably disappeared. They are the most brilliant and largest of all. There is another kind, which looks like a burned topaz: it is found in Brazil and Massachusetts. Then there is the Bohemian ruby, which is nothing but quartz reddened by the action of manganese; and there are also imitations so well made that only an expert can tell them from the real. I keep a few of the latter on hand so as to be able to gauge a customer. Well, gentlemen, the Russian picked up two of them, which I placed before him, and put them to one side. He knew the false article at a glance. Your friend, Jones, that simpleton Nicholas Manhattan, would have taken one of the imitation if I had not prevented him, but this fellow was so clever about it that he won my immediate respect."

"Jones, indeed!" Alphabet muttered. "Why, the brute is as familiar as a haberdasher's advertisement!" He looked at him again: his face was like a brandied peach that had fallen into the fire, and his head was set on his shoulders like an obus on a cannon. "Bah!" he continued, "what is the use in being irritated at a beggar who is as ugly as a high hat at the seashore?"--"When you do me the honor to address me, sir," he said, aloud, "I shall be obliged if you will call me _Mr._ Jones."

"Tut, tut!" the little man answered, and then, without further attention to Alphabet, he continued his tiresome tale:

"When the Russian had examined the rubies very carefully a second time, he said, half to me and half to himself, 'I think they will do.' Then, looking up at me, he added, 'Mr. Fairbanks, you do not make a hundred-thousand-dollar sale every day, do you?' 'No, your Excellency,' I answered,--you see, I made a dash at Excellency; Prince seemed sort of abrupt, don't you think?'--'No, your Excellency, it does not happen over once a week.' He smiled at that, and well he might, for the biggest sale I had previously made amounted to but nine thousand dollars. 'Mr. Fairbanks,' he continued, 'the grand duke is rich, as you well know. I am not. You will understand me the better when I tell you that at present, unless cholera has visited Russia since I left (and I hope it has), there are exactly twenty-nine people in Petersburg who bear the same name and title as myself. Now, if the grand duke purchases these rubies, what will my commission be?' 'That is squarely put, your Excellency,' I answered--'squarely put. Will his Imperial Highness pay cash for the rubies?'"

"You might have asked him if his Imperial Highness would pay _rubis sur l'ongle_. But I remember you don't approve of wit."

This interjection came, of course, from Jones. Mr. Fairbanks, however, let it pass unnoticed. It may be that he did not understand.

"'Necessarily,' he replied. 'A recent ukase of the Czar's inhibits any member of the Imperial family from purchasing so much as a brass samovar on credit.' I bowed. 'A very proper and wise ukase that is, your Excellency. Under such circumstances I think I see my way to giving you one per cent.' He laughed at that, as though I had made a remark of great brilliance."

"I like that," Jones exclaimed, in spite of himself. "Why, you wouldn't be brilliant in a calcium light."

But this remark, like the former, passed unheeded. For the first time since his memory ran not to the contrary it seemed to Jones that he was being ignored; and to ignore Jones! _Allons donc!_

"'Look at me,' said the Russian," Mr. Fairbanks continued. "'The grand duke will not buy these rubies except on my recommendation, and I value that recommendation at not a kopeck less than ten thousand dollars. It is to take or to leave. Choose, sir, choose.' And with that he picked up his hat. 'I cannot, your Excellency, I cannot.' He turned away and made for the door. 'Excellency,' I cried, 'I will give you five.' He wheeled about. 'If,' he said, 'you offer one per cent when you can give five and three-fifths, you are just as well able to give nine and two-thirds."

"He was a lightning calculator, wasn't he?"

"'On my conscience,' I answered, 'I cannot give more than seven.' 'Ah!' he replied, 'I do not know how to haggle.' He reflected a moment. 'It is well,' he said; 'I accept.' Gentlemen, when he said that, I felt that I had done a good day's work. Apart from the commission I had a clean profit of eighteen thousand dollars; and eighteen thousand dollars is a tidy sum--not to you, gentlemen, nor to Jones there, but to me."

"Ged, the little cad is getting sarcastic." And Jones laughed quietly to himself and finished his brandy-and-soda.

Mr. Fairbanks waved his arms and pounded the table so excitedly that he roused a waiter from a nap.

"Yes, bring the same," he cried. "Now, gentlemen, I am coming to the point. I insist on your attention. _Mr._ Jones, I will thank _you_ not to interrupt--unless it happens that you care to aid me with the details. Yes, sir, I said details,--d-e-t-a-i-l-s. Now wait a minute, will you? Gentlemen, I appeal to you. He shall wait. Beat it into his head--can't you?--that I am coming to the point, and very interesting, I promise, you will all find it to be."

"_Tu te vantes, mon bonhomme, tu te vantes._ Here's to you."

"Here's to you. Well, gentlemen, it was then one o'clock. I always lunch at that hour, and I asked the Russian if he would let me offer him a bite. 'I would very much like to try a Sam Ward,' he said, 'and I might take some tea and a bit of toast.' 'That,' I replied, 'would be tasty with a little caviare.' I wanted to show him that, though a dealer in precious stones, I was first and foremost a man of the world."

Alphabet Jones rolled over in spasms of delight. "Divinities of Pindar," he shouted, "listen to that!"

"Gentlemen, gag that man--gag him: I will be listened to. There, now, _will_ you be quiet? You make me lose the thread. Where was I? Oh, yes: the Russian seemed to reflect a moment, and looked at his watch. 'I think,' he said, 'it would be better to go straight to the Brevoort House.' (The grand duke, I knew, was stopping there.) 'My prince is to go out this afternoon between two and three, and if you do not see him to-day it may be hard to manage it to-morrow.' 'I am at your orders, Excellency,' I answered; 'business before pleasure.' 'Good, then,' he returned; 'we will take a droschky, or, better even, your railway that is in the air.' 'The elevated, you mean,' I said--'the elevated. Yes, of course.' Inwardly I was well pleased that the suggestion should have come from him, for I am not over-fond of riding in a cab with a hundred and ten thousand dollars' worth of rubies in my pocket and a stranger for sole companion. For he was a stranger--wasn't he?--and, by his own account, not well-to-do. But that Russian had a knack of disarming suspicion. And, besides, how was it possible for me to have any doubts about a man who fought as he had over the percentage? It would have been nonsensical. So I did the rubies up in cotton, put them in a box, and off we went. On the way to the elevated you ought to have seen how the people stared at that coat. All the time he kept up a delightful flow of conversation. He told me any number of interesting things about his country, and when I asked if he had read 'The Journey Due North' he told me that he had, and that when Sala was in Russia his father had entertained him at his country-house a few versts from Moscow. Think of that, now! Altogether, he made himself most agreeable. I asked him on the way if he thought that inasmuch as I was to have the honor of seeing the grand duke it would not be more in accordance with etiquette for me to put on a dress-coat. But he laughed, and said, no, the grand duke would never notice. Then he told me some very curious anecdotes about him--how, for instance, he fainted dead away at the sight of an apple, and yet kept a balloon and an aeronaut, just as Jones there might keep a dogcart and a groom. He told me, among other things, that at Petersburg the grand duke had a pet tiger, which would accept food from no one but him, and on my asking how the tiger got along when the grand duke was away, he said that the grand duke had him stuffed. Oh, he was very entertaining, and spoke English better than you would have imagined. We walked over from Eighth Street to the hotel, and when we reached it he took me straight upstairs to his own room. 'If you will sit a minute,' he said, 'I will see if his Highness can receive you.' He went away, and I looked about me. The room into which I had been shown was a sitting-room with a bedroom opening from it. There was a writing-table standing against the door which led to the adjoining apartment, and while I was waiting I just glanced at the things with which the table was littered. There were a number of foreign newspapers, but in what language they were printed I could not make out; there was a package of official-looking documents tied with a string, a great blue envelope addressed in French to the Prince Michel Zaroguine and post-marked Washington, and back of all, in a frame, the photograph of a man."

For some minutes previous Mr. Fairbanks had been speaking quite composedly, though Jones, with the observant eye of his class, had noticed that near the ears his cheeks and his forehead as well were wet with perspiration. But now abruptly he grew unaccountably excited, and his speech displayed a feverish animation. His face had lost its scarlet; it had grown very white; and it seemed to the novelist that in some manner which he could not explain to himself it had taken on a not unfamiliar aspect. "H'm!" he reflected, "it's odd. I know I never saw the man before, and I am sure that I do not particularly care ever to see him again. Leigh ought to have more sense than to bring an orang-outang even into such a club as the Smallpox. Besides, what does he mean by boring every one to death? By gad, I believe he has put Leigh to sleep. It's worse than a play." But still he made no effort to move. In spite of himself, he felt vaguely fascinated, and, though he declined to admit it, a trifle ill at ease.

"I took up the photograph," Mr. Fairbanks continued, "and while I was examining it, the Russian came back. In his hand he held a check-book. 'That's the grand duke himself,' he said. 'He will stop in here presently on his way out. There will be two or three members of the suite with him; and, that you may recognize his Highness at once, take a good look at the picture. When he comes in you must do this way: button your coat, please; thanks: now stand anywhere you like and make a low bow. Let me see you make one. Bravo! that is splendid. Only--how shall I say?--do not let your arms hang in that fashion. The grand duke might think you had dropped something and were stooping to pick it up. However, that is a minor matter. It may be that he won't see you at all. But of all things remember this: under no circumstances must you speak to him unless he first addresses you, and then you must merely answer his question. In other words, do not, I pray you, try to engage him in conversation.' 'Does he speak English?' I asked. I couldn't help it. I was getting nervous. 'Now let us have the rubies,' he said. I took the box out of my breast-pocket and handed it to him. He opened it, drew the cotton aside, and ran his fingers lovingly over the gems. 'Yes,' he said, 'they will do.' Then he closed the box again, and put it in the drawer of the table at which he had taken a seat. 'If,' he continued, 'his Highness is satisfied, I will draw a draft for you, and Count Beziatnikoff will sign it. The count,' he went on to say, 'is the keeper of the Privy Purse. The draft itself is on the London Rothschilds, but they will cash it at Belmont's.' I did not quite like that arrangement: it did not seem entirely business-like. 'Your Excellency,' I said, 'it is the custom here to have checks for large amounts certified before they are offered in payment.' But I had to explain what certification meant before he understood me. 'That is nothing,' he said, 'that is nothing. If his Highness is pleased, we will go to Belmont's together, or, if you prefer, we will sit here over a Sam Ward and let one of the hotel-clerks go to the bank in our stead.' There seemed to me nothing objectionable in that suggestion; for, after all, I could not exact of any one, however grand-ducal he might be, to go about with a hundred and ten thousand dollars in his waistcoat."

"Or in his trousers either."

"Or in his trousers either, as you very properly put it. Now, _Mr._ Jones--Mr. Leigh, look at me; Colonel Barker--colonel--I am coming to the point. Where's that waiter? Gentlemen, see here; watch that man there--watch Jones. Don't take your eyes off _Mr._ Jones, but listen, all of you, to what I say. Mr. Leigh, you are looking at me: look at your friend, colonel, I insist. _Mr._ Jones, _you_, if you care to, can look at me. Now, gentlemen, now--"

"Have you got a camera concealed about your person?"

"No, I have not, but I have something that came from one. You wait a minute, and I'll show it to you. I'll show it to you all. Where did I leave off?"

"In his waistcoat-pocket."

"Thank you: so I did. Well, gentlemen, we sat there talking as pleasantly as you please. The Russian joked a bit, and said that he wanted a certified check from me,--the check for his commission, you remember,--and presently he got up and said he would see what was delaying his Highness. So I sat awhile, twirling my thumbs. Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed. I looked at my watch: it was almost half-past two. That draft, I told myself, won't be cashed to-day. I went to the window and looked out. I went to the door: there was no one in the hall but a chambermaid. I went back to my seat, and then, moved by my own uneasiness, I opened the drawer of the table. The box was gone! I took the drawer out. It was one that extended the entire width of the table: the further end of it had been cut off. I looked down and in through the place from which I had taken it. I could see into the next room! I pulled the table to one side, and there, just where the drawer had touched the door against which it had stood, was an oblong opening cut through the woodwork of the door itself. I was down-stairs in an instant. Gentlemen, the grand duke had gone to Philadelphia that very morning. No such person as Prince Zaroguine lodged in the hotel. The clerk came upstairs with me. 'That room,' he said, 'is occupied by a Frenchman, and the adjoining room belongs to a man who registered from Boston. Why, that's his picture there!' he exclaimed, pointing to the picture of the grand duke. 'I did not even know that they were acquainted. But they will be back; they have left their things; they haven't even paid their bills.' I did not wait for their return: if I had I might be waiting still. But I took the photograph, and down to Inspector Byrnes I posted. 'That,' said he, 'that is the picture of one of the 'cutest rogues in the land. He has as many names as the Czar of Russia himself.' And the original of that picture--Gentlemen, here,--Mr. Leigh, here,--colonel, here is the picture itself. I have kept it with me ever since. The original of that picture sits before you. Hold on to him, colonel. Jones, if you move I'll put a bullet through you. Mr. Leigh, do you ring for the police. Hold him, colonel. Disgorge, you scoundrel, disgorge! I have got you at last!" And then, before the astonished gaze of Alphabet Jones, Colonel Barker faded in a mist, Mr. Fairbanks lost his rotundity, his black coat changed to a blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, he grew twenty years younger, and, so far from being violent, he seemed rather apologetic than otherwise.

"It's six o'clock, sir," he said. "Will you order anything before the bar closes?"

Alphabet blinked his eyes. He was lying in a cramped position on the sofa. He was uncomfortable and very hot. He pulled himself together and looked around. Save for the waiter and himself, the room was deserted.

"Is there any baccarat going on upstairs?" he asked.

"No, sir; the gentlemen are just going away."

"Well, well," he mused, "that was vivid. H'm! I'll work it up as an actual occurrence and send it on to the _Interstate_: it will be good for the two hundred and fifty which I meant to make at baccarat.--I say, waiter, get me a Remsen cooler, please."

A MAID OF MODERN ATHENS.

"It was this way," she said, and as she spoke she stooped and flicked a speck of dust from her habit. "It was this way: The existence which I lead in the minds of other people is absolutely of no importance whatever. Now wait: I care a great deal whether school keeps or not, but in caring I try chiefly to be true to myself. I may stumble; I may not. In any event I seek the best. As for the scandal of which you speak, that is nonsense. There is no criterion. That which is permissible here is inhibited yonder, and what is permissible yonder is inhibited here. Scandal, indeed!"

There was something about her that stirred the pulse. She was fair; the sort of girl whose photograph is an abomination, and yet in whose face and being a charm resides, a charm intangible and coercive, inciting to better things. A Joan of Arc in a tailor-made gown.

"You remember how it was when we were younger--You--well, there is no use in going into that. You had a mother to think for you; I had no one. I had to solve problems unassisted. The weightiest of all was marriage, and that, in my quality of heiress, I found perplexing to a degree. But how is it possible, I asked myself, how can a girl pledge her life to a man of whom she knows absolutely nothing? For, practically speaking, what does the average girl know of the man whose name she takes? It may be different in the country, but in town! Listen to me; a girl 'comes out,' as the saying is; she meets a number of men, the majority of whom are more or less agreeable and well-bred--when she is present. But what are they when she is not? At dinners and routs, or when she receives them in her own house, they are at their best; if they are not they stay away. It is not so difficult to be agreeable once in awhile, but to be so always is a question not of mask but of nature. It seems to me that when an intelligent woman admires her brother it is because that brother is really an admirable man. Has she not every opportunity of judging? But what opportunity is given to the girl whom a man happens to take in and out at dinner, or whom she sees for an hour or two now and then? You must admit that her facilities are slight. That was the way it was with me, and that was the way I fancied it would continue to be, and I determined that it was better to remain spinster forever than to take a man on trust and find that trust misplaced. Suspicious? No, I am not suspicious. When your husband bought this property did you think him suspicious because he had the title searched? Very good; then perhaps you will tell me that the marriage contract is less important than the conveyance of real estate? Besides, my doubts on the subject of love would have defied a catalogue. When I read of the follies and transports of which it was reported to be the prime factor, I was puzzled. It seemed to me that I had either a fibre more or a fibre less than other girls, I could not comprehend. No man I had ever met--and certainly I had met many--had ever caused me so much as a fleeting emotion. There were men with whom I found speech agreeable and argument a pleasure, but, had they worn frocks instead of trousers, such enjoyment as I experienced would have been unimpaired. You see, it was purely mental. And when--there, I remember one man in particular. As Stella said of Swift, he could talk beautifully about a broomstick. He knew the reason of things; he was up in cuneiform inscriptions and at home with meteorites; he was not prosy, and, what is more to the point, he never treated a subject as though it were a matter of life and death. He was not bad-looking, either, and he was the only man of my acquaintance who both understood Kant and got his coats from Poole. That man I liked very much. He was better than a book. I could ask him questions, a thing you can't do even of an encyclopaedia. One fine day the personal pronoun cropped out. We had been discussing Herbert Spencer's theory of conceivability, and abruptly, with an inappositeness which, now I think of it, would have been admirable on the stage, but which in the drawing-room was certainly misplaced, he asked me to take a walk with him down the aisle of the swellest church in the commonwealth. I mourned his loss, as we say. But wasn't it stupid of him? But what does get into men? Why should they think that, because a girl is liberal with odd evenings, she is pining for the marriage covenant?"

With the whip she held she gave the hem of her habit a sudden lash.

"That episode gave me food for thought. H'm. By-and-by the scene was occupied by a young man who was an authority on orchids, and wrote sonnets for the _Interstate_. My dear, a more guileful little wretch never breathed. When my previous young man disappeared, I felt that I had been hasty. I desired nothing so much as an increase in my store of knowledge, and I determined that if another opportunity occurred I would not be in such a hurry to shut the door on entertaining developments. Consequently, when my poet turned up, I was as demure as you please. He was a fox, that man. He began with the fixed purpose of irritating me into liking him. The tactics he displayed were unique. He never came when I expected him, and when he did come he was careful to go just when he thought he had scored a point. If any other man happened in, he first eclipsed him and then left him to me. I saw through that game at once. He understood perfectly that if I preferred the other man I was all the more obliged to him for going, and if I preferred him to the other man I was the sorrier to see him leave. In addition to this, whatever subject I broached, he led it by tangential flights to Love. That Machiavelli _en herbe_ knew that to talk love is to make love. And talk of love he did, no, but in the most impersonal manner. To hear him discant you would have thought his wings were sprouting. Love, as he expressed it, was a sentiment which ennobled every other; a purifying and exalting light. It was the most gracious of despots. It banished the material; it beckoned to the ideal. It turned satiety into a vagabond that had not where to lay its head. It was the reduction of the world, creation, and all the universe to a single being. It was an enchanted upland, inhibited to the herd. It was a chimera to the vulgar, a crown to the refined. 'A perfect lover,' he said, 'must needs be an aristocrat.' And if you will believe me, I actually thought he meant what he said. In spite of myself, I was becoming interested. There were new horizons before me. I seemed to discern something hitherto unseen. My dear, for the moment I felt myself going. I was at the foot of his enchanted upland. I was almost willing to take him for guide. At first I had been merely amused. Once, even, when he quoted the 'Two souls with but a single thought,' I suggested that that must mean but half a thought apiece. The quiet dignity which he then displayed almost fetched me. He had the air of a prelate in whose presence an oaf has trampled on a crucifix. He kept up that sort of thing for two months. To me his sincerity was beyond peradventure. Not once did he speak in a personal way. I was beginning to wonder when he would stop beating about the bush, and I not only wondered, I believe I even wished that he would be a little more enterprising and a trifle less immaterial. Presently I detected a symptom or two which told me that the end of the beginning was in sight. I suppose my manner was more encouraging. In any event, one evening he took my hand and kissed it. From nine-and-ninety men out of a hundred I should have thought nothing of such a thing. In Europe it is an empty homage, a pantomime expressive of thanks. As I say, then, in any other man I should not have given it a second thought, but he had never done it before.

"The next day I lunched with Mrs. Bunker Hill. I mentioned his name; I suppose it was running in my mind. And then, my dear, Fanny began. Well, the things she told me about that transcendental young man were of such a nature that when he next called I was not at home. He came again, of course. And again. He sent me a note which I returned unopened. That, I confess, was a foolish thing to do. It showed him that I was annoyed. I might better have left it unanswered. After all, there is nothing so impenetrable as silence. Finally, he got one of his friends to come and reconnoitre. Indeed, he did not desist until I had an opportunity of cutting him dead. I was angry, I admit it. And it was after that little experience that I determined, the next time I felt myself going, I would make sure beforehand where I was going to. H'm. I wonder what his sister thought of him? You see, it was not that I had fallen in love; the word was as unintelligible to me as before, but I had fancied that, through him, I might intercept some inkling of its meaning, and I was put out at having been tricked. _Ach! diese Maenner!_"

Beneath descending night the sky was gold-barred and green. In the east the moon glittered like a sickle of tin. The air was warm and freighted with the odors of August. You could hear the crickets hum, and here and there was the spark of a fire-fly gyrating in loops of flame. From across the meadows came the slumbrous tinkle of a bell.