Chapter XIII

The opened door admitted more than David Randall. It let in a snowy gust that beat upon Clancy's bosom, rendering her more conscious than even a masculine presence could that the dress she wore was new to her experience. Randall was almost blown through the doorway. He turned and forced the door closed. Turning again, he recognized Clancy, who had retreated, a pink picture of embarrassment, to the foot of the staircase.

"Do I frighten you?" he asked dryly.

Clancy recovered the self-possession that never deserted her for long.

"No one does that," she retorted.

"I believe you," said Randall. His good-humored face wore a slightly pathetic expression. If no man is a hero to his valet, still less is he to the woman for whom he has conceived a sudden devotion which is as yet unreturned.

Clancy dropped him a courtesy.

"Thank you," she said, "for believing me."

He moved toward her, holding out his big hands. Clancy permitted them to envelop one of hers. Randall bowed over it. His face, when he lifted it, was red.

Blushes are as contagious as measles. Clancy was grateful for the cry from above.

"Miss Deane," called Sophie Carey, "who is it?"

"Mr. Randall," Clancy called back.

"Send him into the dining-room. Tell him that there are no cocktails, but Scotch and soda are on the sideboard. Come up, won't you? And tell David to answer the door-bell."

Clancy turned to Randall. His mouth sagged open the least bit. He looked disappointed.

"Don't mind," she whispered. "We'll have it by and by."

"Have what?" he asked blankly.

"The _tête-à-tête_ you want." She laughed. Then she wheeled and ran up the stairs, leaving him staring after her, wondering if she were the sweetly simple country maiden that she had appeared last night, or a wise coquette.

Mrs. Carey, still in the bedroom, where she was, by twisting her lithe, luscious figure, managing to hook up her dress in the back, smiled at Clancy's entrance.

"Is he overwhelmed?" she asked.

Clancy grinned entrancingly. Then she became suddenly demure.

"He--liked me," she admitted.

"He would; they all would," said Mrs. Carey.

She managed the last hook as Clancy offered her aid. She glanced at herself in the mirror, wriggled until the blue frock set more evenly over the waist-line, then turned to Clancy.

"Your hair--I said I'd fix it. Come here," she commanded.

Meekly, Clancy obeyed.

Deftly, Mrs. Carey unfastened Clancy's hair. It was of a soft texture, hung softly to her hips, and seemed, despite its softness, to have an electric, flashing quality. Mrs. Carey's eyes lighted. She was, primarily, an artist. Which means that people were rarely individuals to her. They were subjects. Clancy was a subject now. And a satisfying subject, Mrs. Carey thought, for if the girl had been transformed by the low-cut evening gown, so, by the severe coiffure that her hostess rearranged, was she even more transformed. Mrs. Carey looked at her and shook her head.

"The baby stare went out of fashion on the day that the baby vampire came in," she said. "But you've achieved a combination, Miss Deane."

"Vampires" were not popular in Zenith. Clancy did not know whether to be shocked or pleased. She decided to be pleased.

The door-bell had rung several times during the process of fixing Clancy's hair, and from the down-stairs part of the house came occasional gleeful shouts. Now Mrs. Carey and Clancy descended. They entered the dining-room. A stout, bald gentleman, who, Clancy would learn later, was a Supreme Court judge, lifted a glass and toasted Mrs. Carey.

"Our lovely hostess. May her eyes always be dry, but her cellar never!"

Mrs. Carey laughed.

"You are committing a crime, Judge," she said.

"But not vandalism, Mrs. Carey," he retorted. "Some day, the seekers of evil where there is none are coming to this house. They are going to raid you, Mrs. Carey. And what liquor they find here they will pour into the gutters."

He beamed upon Clancy, set down his glass, and advanced to her.

"Little stranger," he said, "there are many wicked, wicked men in this room to-night. I don't know where Mrs. Carey finds them or why she associates with them. Let us go into a corner while I explain to you why you should know no one in this vile city but myself."

A portly, good-humored-looking woman, who seemed to be bursting from her corsage, tapped the judge on the shoulder.

"Tom, you behave," she said.

The judge sighed. He took Clancy's unresisting hand and lifted it to his lips. His wife, the portly woman, snatched Clancy's hand away.

"Don't pay any attention to him," she said. "He's really an old, old man approaching senility. I know, because I'm married to him. I myself, when a deluded young girl, decided to be a rich old man's darling instead of a poor young man's slave. It was a mistake," she whispered hoarsely. "Youth should never be tied to age."

The judge inflated his huge chest.

"Miss--Miss----"

"Miss Deane," said Sophie Carey; "Judge and Mrs. Walbrough."

Clancy, a bit fussed by the judge's heavy good humor, managed to bow.

"Ah--Miss Deane!" said the judge. "Well, Miss Deane, if you are as sensible as, despite your beauty, you seem to be, you will pay no attention to the maunderings of the woman who calls herself my wife. As a matter of fact, though she does not suspect it, I married her out of pity. She was much older than myself, and possessed a large fortune, which she did not know how to administer. And so I----"

Mrs. Walbrough took Clancy's hand. She pushed her husband away. And Clancy noticed that the hand that pushed lingered to caress. She suddenly adored the judge and loved his wife.

From up-stairs sounded now the barbaric strains of "Vamp."

Randall, who had been hovering near, rushed to her.

"The first dance? Please, Miss Deane!"

Mrs. Walbrough smiled.

"Don't forget to give one to Tom by and by," she said.

"Indeed I won't," promised Clancy.

She and Randall were the first couple to reach the studio. The easels had been removed, and chairs were lined against the walls. At the far end of the room, behind some hastily imported tubs of plants, was a negro orchestra of four men. Into the steps of the fox-trot Randall swung her.

He was not an extremely good dancer. That is, he knew few steps. But he had a sense of rhythm, the dancer's most valuable asset, and he was tall enough, so that their figures blended well. Clancy enjoyed the dance.

Before they had finished, the room was thronged. Mrs. Carey, Clancy decided, must be extremely popular. For Randall knew many of the guests, and their names were familiar, from newspaper reading, even to Clancy Deane, from far-off Zenith. She was extremely interested in seeing people who had been mere names to her. It was interesting to know that a man who drew what Clancy thought were the most beautiful girls in the world was an undistinguished-appearing bald man. It was thrilling to look at a multimillionaire, even though he wore a rather stupid grin on a rather stupid face; to see a great editor, a famous author, a woman whose name was known on two continents for her gorgeous entertainments, an ex-mayor of the city. A score of celebrities danced, laughed, and made merry. And Sophie Carey had managed to summon this crowd upon almost a moment's notice. She must be more than popular; she must be a power. And this popular power had chosen to befriend Clancy Deane, the undistinguished Clancy Deane, a nobody from Zenith, Maine!

Randall surrendered her, after the first dance, to Judge Walbrough. Like most fat men who can dance at all, he danced extremely well. And Clancy found his flowery compliments amusing.

Then Sophie Carey brought forward a young man of whose interested regard Clancy had been conscious for several minutes. He was good-looking, with a mouth whose firmness verged on stubbornness. His dinner jacket sat snugly upon broad shoulders. He wore glasses that did not entirely disguise the fact that his eyes were gray and keen. A most presentable young man, it was not his youth or good looks that compared favorably with Randall's similar qualities, that thrilled Clancy; it was the name that he bore--Vandervent.

"Our famous district attorney," Sophie Carey said, as she presented him. All America had read of the appointment of Philip Vandervent to an assistant district attorneyship. Scion of a family notable in financial and social annals, the fact that he had chosen to adopt the legal profession, instead of becoming the figurehead president of half a dozen trust companies, had been a newspaper sensation five years ago. And three months ago not a paper in the United States had failed to carry the news that he had been appointed an assistant to the district attorney of New York County.

Almost any girl would have been thrilled at meeting Philip Vandervent. And for Clancy Deane, from a little fishing-village in Maine, dancing with him was a distinction that she had never dreamed of achieving.

They slid easily into a one-step, and for one circuit of the room Vandervent said nothing. Then, suddenly, he remarked that she danced well, adding thereto his opinion that most girls didn't.

He spoke nervously; an upward glance confirmed Clancy in an amazing impression, an impression that, when she had observed him staring at her as she danced, she had put down to her own vanity. But now she decided that a Vandervent was as easily conquerable as a Randall. And the thought was extremely agreeable.

"I suppose," she said, "that the district attorney's office is an interesting place."

It was a banal remark, but his own nervousness confused her, and she must say _something_. So she said this desperately. Usually she was at home when flirtation began. But the Vandervent name awed her.

"Not very," he said. "Not unless one _makes_ it interesting. That's what I've decided to do. I started something to-day that ought to be interesting. Very."

"What is it?" asked Clancy. "Or shouldn't I ask?"

Vandervent caught her eyes as he reversed. He looked swiftly away again.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind telling _you_," he said.

Clancy knew that Vandervent intended flirtation--in the way of all men, using exactly the same words, the same emphasis on the objective personal pronoun.

"I'd love to hear it," she said. And she cast him an upward glance that might have meant anything, but that really meant that Clancy Deane enjoyed flirtation.

"Difficulty in our office," said Vandervent jerkily, "is lack of cooperation with us by the police. Different political parties. Police lie down often. Doing it now on the Beiner murder."

"On what?" Clancy almost shrieked the question. Luckily, the negro musicians were blaring loudly. Vandervent didn't notice her excitement.

"The Beiner mystery," he repeated. "They don't usually lie down on a murder. Fact is, I don't really mean that now. But there's inefficiency. We're going to show them up."

"How?" asked Clancy. Her throat was dry; her lips seemed as though they were cracked.

"By catching the murderess," said Vandervent.

"'Murderess?'" All the fears that had departed from Clancy returned to her, magnified.

Vandervent enjoyed the effect of his speech.

"Yes; a woman did it. And we know her name."

"You do?" Once again the young man thought her excitement due to admiration.

"Yes. I'm taking personal charge of the case. Discovered a card of introduction to Beiner. Only one we could find in his desk. Right out on top, too, as though he'd just placed it there. Of course, we may be all wrong, but--we'll know better to-morrow."

"So soon?" asked Clancy. Her feet were leaden.

"I hope so. We've found out the company that the woman who gave the card of introduction is playing in. We've sent a wire to her asking her to tell us where we can find the woman, Florine Ladue."

"Are--are you sure?" asked Clancy.

"Sure of what? That the Ladue woman committed the murder? Well, no. But a woman escaped through the window of Beiner's office--you've read the case? Well, she ran down the fire-escape and then entered the Heberworth Building by another window. Why did she do it? We want to ask her that. Of course, this Ladue woman may not be the one, but if she isn't, she can easily prove it." The music ceased. "I say, I shouldn't talk so much. You understand that----"

"Oh, I sha'n't repeat it," said Clancy. She marveled at the calm, the lightness with which she spoke.

Repeat it? If Vandervent could only know the grimness of the humor in which she uttered the promise! If this young multimillionaire whom she had been captivating by her grace and beauty only knew that the woman whom he had sought had been in his arms these past ten minutes! In cynicism, she forgot alarm. But only for a moment. It came racing back to her.

And she'd written to Zenda! He'd look her up to-morrow. What a fool she'd been! Her face was haggard, almost old, as she surrendered herself to the arms of Randall.