Chapter XI

When Justin came to he felt as if he had been wrapped in several layers of flour sacking. Then, with returning consciousness, he discovered himself to be lying in his own bed in the house on Louisburg Square, wearing the coarse heavy clothes Deborah had given him.

Deborah! A quick glance to his left revealed her lying beside him. He put out a reassuring hand to stroke her face, felt its plastic coating, got out of bed in a hurry.

"Come on," he said, "let's get that stuff off of you."

She moved like a girl in a trance. Her eyes ranged from the bed itself to the electric light on the bedside table, to the telephone, to the carpet, to the walls--then at last to Justin.

"Don't let it throw you, honey," he told her. "Think how I felt when I woke up in _your_ bed."

She said in a near-whisper, "But _this_--this is more wonderful than Belvoir itself!"

"Prepare yourself for another shock, honey--a twentieth-century bathroom. We're going to get you cleaned up."

It was like showing a child its first Christmas tree. It took Justin a full fifteen minutes to get Deborah safely ensconced in a hot tub. He emerged, perspiring, carrying her clothes, and deposited them on a chair, then began to strip off his own ill-fitting garments.

He stopped in the process of disrobing, picked up the phone, dialed the Ritz and reserved a suite. He had no intention of having Marie walk in to find Deborah there with him.

He found the spider again in his pocket, sat down on the bed to examine it once more. On impulse he squirted some of the remaining plastic on his hand, picked up a lighter, ran the flame beneath it. The stuff flamed up like benzine, blistering his palm before he could extinguish it. Justin shook his head and tossed it onto the table, feeling more sweat bead his forehead.

This, he decided, was one invention he was definitely going to turn down--if he still had his job with the Ninth of Boston, come the morning. He got out of his absurd clothes, scratched his flanks with relief, rummaged in the wardrobe for an extra robe.

Deborah called for help. She was having difficulty getting the plastic out of her hair. Justin stood her under the shower, soaped her head and turned on the warm water. "We'll get you a decent shampoo at a beautician's tomorrow, honey," he told her.

It was at that moment that Marie appeared in the doorway. She looked at Justin, then at Deborah incredulously. She was carrying the blue-and-white dress of the girl from Old Boston in her hand. She said, "I was going to ask you what this was, Justin--but I see there's no need."

Justin turned off the water, tossed the girl a towel, escorted his wife to the bedroom, shutting the bathroom door behind them. He glanced for the first time at the clock beside the telephone, discovered it was past two A.M. Ortine had had his little joke--instead of returning them to the banker's house at the moment of his first summons, he had allowed a few hours to elapse.

"What are you smiling about?" Marie asked him sharply. "I was coming in to tell you I met a rather fascinating friend of yours--a Mrs. Forrester--tonight. She suggested I drop in to give you her regards before I turned in. And here I find you...."

"Did she give you a Cuban cigarette?" Justin asked mildly.

"Don't joke--your taste is sufficiently bad as it is."

"Well," said Justin, feeling almost grateful to Ortine for forcing the issue into the open, "I suppose it had to happen sometime. We haven't been of much use to each other lately."

"I wouldn't exactly say that," replied Marie, sitting down and tilting a cigarette for him to light. "After all, I wonder just how far you'd have got without me, Charles."

"And that makes a marriage?" Justin asked sharply.

Marie shrugged disinterestedly. "There are all kinds of marriages." She yawned, added, "Where'd you pick her up? At a servants' costume ball?"

"Not exactly," Justin told her. "Actually it's been a rather remarkable evening."

"I bet it has!" Marie's tone was sharp. "Well, what are you going to do about it, Charles?"

"I've already made reservations at the Ritz," he told her. "We'll both be out of here in a few minutes. By the way, could you loan Debby something to wear?"

She regarded him with amusement. "Do you really think I should?" she countered. "Perhaps the maid has something. I'll go and see. The Ritz--hmmm. Well, gather ye rosebuds and all that, sweetheart. You know I'll have your hide for this, don't you?"

"I never for a moment doubted it," he replied.

She rose, looked as puzzled as had Ortine. Love, pure love between man and woman, was apparently as implausible to Marie as it was to the master of Belvoir. She said, "Charles, you know that's rather sweet. I'll see what I can do for your little friend. Better let me have a look at her though--just for size."

Obeying an unexpected impulse, Justin kissed his wife on the forehead and told her, "You know, Marie, that's the nicest thing you've said since we've been married."

"Don't crowd your luck, Charles," Marie warned. "Call out the concubine."

Deborah emerged hesitantly, her brown hair an uncontrolled mess, Justin's robe flopping about her. She looked at Marie, then at Justin, said, "Is this Mistress Justin, Charles?"

One of Marie's pale eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. She looked at Justin, shocked, then blinked groggily and managed to say, "I don't know who's whose mistress around here but I think I have an outfit that will fit her fairly well. And, Charles, I don't know what she's done to her hair but I'll bring along a snood."

* * * * *

Justin was late in reaching the office the following morning. Devereux Chandler was there ahead of him, practicing chip shots on the carpet with his cane.

Steeled for the worst, Justin was surprised at the half-mocking grin with which Chandler greeted him. "I don't know what you did to my niece last night, Charles," he said, "but you've been the devil of a long time getting to it. She was on the phone this morning, demanding I have you fired."

"I rather expected that, Dev," said Justin. "Drink?"

"Not now," said Chandler. He sank into an armchair, looked at Justin quizzically. "I don't know what got into you, but then I don't know how you could stand Marie this long. She's used you for all you were worth."

"That's not quite her story," said Justin, sitting on a corner of his desk. "She seems to think that without you and her connection with you I'd be counting change in a teller's cage out in Melrose."

"Possibly--but we'd be the losers, Charles," Chandler told him. "I don't like to crowd your business hours but I thought it only proper to set your mind at rest."

"Thanks--I appreciate it," said Justin.

There was a long, rather awkward pause. Then Chandler cleared his throat and said, "I suppose Marie will trap Jack Fellowes next. Too bad--he's not a bad apple."

"There are worse around."

Chandler stood up, cut at the carpet with his cane. He remarked without looking up, "From what Marie tells me you seem to have come up with a rather remarkable young woman. You wouldn't mind telling me how it happened?"

"If I hadn't decided to turn in early," said Justin, "and if I hadn't used a certain mental device to go back to sleep after you woke me up with your call from the party...." He stopped and shook his head helplessly. "You wouldn't believe me if I did explain it."

"Eh? Well, probably not--but I hope you'll ask me around for a drink when you get settled."

"You'll be the very first," Justin assured him warmly.

Henri Dubois was ushered in shortly after Devereux Chandler left. This time he came alone. Justin asked him where Miss Forrester was as he got his visitor seated. Dubois replied, "She had to go away this morning on a long trip."

"A very fascinating woman," said Justin, lighting a smoke. Then, "Mr. Dubois, I can't offer any assurance that we'll be able to give you and your movement the backing you want. But I can tell you this--I shall do everything in my power to see that you get it."

Henri Dubois extended a warm hand across the desk, said, "Mr. Justin, that's good enough for me."

Justin left early that afternoon. With his job safe and Dubois taken care of there was nothing to keep him at his desk. He paused briefly by the entrance to the Park Street Subway station to eye the vast expanse of the modern city and compare it with the snowbound panorama he had viewed from almost the same spot a few hours--or was it two centuries?--earlier.

It seemed strangely like the dream he had, for awhile, believed it to be. But Deborah was awaiting him at the Ritz. He began to walk faster.

So it hadn't been a dream at all. And, perhaps, he really had saved the world from a savage and sudden retrogression from which it could scarcely have recovered. He had had to lose his sanity to do it--for no man in love is sane, he told himself.

But Deborah was awaiting him at the Ritz.

He crossed Charles Street, entered the Public Gardens. And it occurred to him that perhaps he hadn't outwitted Ortine. Perhaps his behavior was carefully plotted as part of some far subtler scheme. He wondered.

But Deborah was awaiting him at the Ritz.