Chapter VI: Part TWO: The City (3)

This little room was unlike any other in the house. In it his mother had placed all the pet pieces of inexpensive furniture which had been in the sitting-room of the little house in which she and the Doctor had settled down when they were first married. It was unpretentious stuff, bought in a cheap store in a small town,--what is called "Mission" furniture,--curious, uncomfortable-looking chairs which creaked with every movement, odd little sideboards, which would have brought a grin either of pain or amusement to the face of the former owner of the beautifully furnished house which had been left to the Doctor. The walls were covered with photographs of the family in all stages,--Peter as a chubby baby with a great curl on top of his head--Belle in a perambulator smiling widely at a colored nurse--Graham in his first sailor-suit--Ethel bravely arrayed in a party frock, "Thinking of Mother"--and over the mantel-piece one--an enlargement--of the Doctor taken when he was a young man, with an unlined face and thick, straight hair, his jaws set with that grim determination which had carried him over so many obstacles. It was a room at which Graham, Belle and Ethel frequently laughed. But Peter liked it and respected it. He felt more at home there than anywhere else in the house. It reminded him of the early struggles of his father and mother and touched every responsive note in his nature.

"I'm sorry you're not going to the theatre, dear," said Mrs. Guthrie.

"No, you're not," said Peter.

"Oh, indeed I am. I like you to enjoy yourself with the others, and Betty'll be there. Only stay a few minutes; and, as the curtain always goes up late, you'll be in time to see the whole of the play."

"Blow the play!" said Peter. "I'm going to talk to you just as long as I like. I can go to the theatre any night of the week."

Mrs. Guthrie dropped her work, bent forward and put her cheek against Peter's. "You're a dear, dear boy," she said. "You're my very own Peter, and even if I were a poet I couldn't find words to tell you how happy you make me; but I did my best not to let you see that I was just a wee bit hurt because you haven't had time to spare me a few moments since you came home. After all, I'm only a little old mother now, and I must try to remember that."

"Oh, don't," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry I've been such a thoughtless brute. But, no one--no, no one--can ever take your place, and you know it." He went down on his knees at her side and wrapped his strong arms round her and put his head upon her breast as he used to do when he was a little chap, and remained there for a while perfectly happy.

He couldn't see the Madonna look which came into the eyes of the little mother, whose pillow had frequently been wet with tears at the thought that she had lost her boy. Nor did he see the expression of extreme gratitude which spread rather pathetically over her face. But he felt these things and held her tightly just to show how well he understood, and to eliminate from her heart that feeling of pain which he knew had crept into it because he had found that other little mother who was to be his wife and have sons of her own.

Presently he returned to his chair and to his pipe, and began to talk. "By gad!" he said, "it's good to be home again. I find myself looking at everything differently now--quite time, too. I should have been at work years ago. Universities are great places and I shall never regret Oxford, but they take a long time to prepare a fellow to become a man." Then he laughed one of his great and big laughs, and his chair creaked and one or two of the old pieces of furniture seemed to rattle. "I hid those socks, but I knew you'd find them. What a mother you are, mother! I'll make a bet with you."

"I never bet," said Mrs. Guthrie, who was all smiles.

"I'll bet you a hundred dollars you never mend Graham's socks. Now then tell the truth."

"Well, no, I don't. He doesn't like socks that have been mended; and, anyway, he isn't my first-born. You see that makes a lot of difference."

"There you are," said Peter. "Pay up and smile. Oh, say; I'm sorry father's seedy. He sticks too closely to those microbes of his. I shall try to screw up courage and take him on a bust now and then. It'll do him good. Think he'll go?"

Mrs. Guthrie looked up eagerly. "Try," she said. "Please do try. Now that you've come home for good I want you to do everything you can to get closer to your father. He's a splendid man and he's always thinking about you and the others, but I know that he'll never make the first move. He doesn't seem to understand how to do it. But he deserves everything you can give him. If only you could break down his shyness and diffidence,--because that's what it is,--you'd make him very happy."

"Yes, that's what I think," said Peter. "I've been thinking it over, especially since I saw the way in which Kenyon's father treats him. I shall pluck up courage one of these nights, beard him in his den and have it out, and put things straight. I want him much more than he wants me; and, d'you know, I think that Graham wants him too."

"I'm sure he does," said Mrs. Guthrie. "Graham's a good boy, but he's very reckless and thinks that he's older than he is. He comes to me sometimes with his troubles, but how can I help him? I wish, Peter, I do wish that he'd go sometimes to his father!"

"Well, I'm going to try to alter all that," said Peter. "It's got to be done somehow. Father's always been afraid of us, and we've always been afraid of father. It's silly. What d'you think of Nicholas? Isn't he a corker?"

Mrs. Guthrie smiled. "He improves on acquaintance," she said. "He's certainly one of the most charming men I've ever met. Do you think"--she lowered her voice a little--"do you think there's anything between him and Belle?"

"Good Lord!" said Peter. "I never thought of that. Is there?"

"Well," said Mrs. Guthrie, "I've noticed one or two little things. He's been writing to her, you know."

"Has he? By Jove! Well, then, there must be something in it. He's a lazy beggar and I don't believe I've ever seen him write a letter in his life. Gee, I shall be awfully glad to have him for a brother-in-law! That topping place in Shropshire! Belle would make an absolutely perfect mistress of it, although there's plenty of life in the old man yet. By Jove, it was good to see the relationship between Nick and his father. It staggered me. Why, they were as good as friends. They go about arm in arm and tell each other everything. It used to make me feel quite sick sometimes. Think of my going about arm in arm with father!"

"Think of Belle becoming the Countess of Shropshire! I should like that. It would be another feather in your father's cap,--your father who used to carry siphons in a basket."

"More power to his elbow," said Peter. "It might have been better for me if I'd carried siphons in a basket. After all, I'm inclined to believe that there's no university in the world like the streets. Think of all the men who've graduated from windy corners and muddy gutters--It'd be a fine thing for Ethel, too, if Belle marries Nick. Isn't she an extraordinary kid? Upon my word, she takes my breath away. She's older at sixteen than most women are at thirty. By the way, what's the matter with her? What's anaemia, anyhow? She looks as fit as a fiddle."

"Oh, she'll soon get over that," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I think they bend too much over books at her school. You know the modern girl isn't like the girls of my generation. I didn't have to learn geometry or piano playing. I didn't think it was necessary to know Euclid or a smattering of the classics. We learned how to make bread and cook a good steak and iron clothes. You know husbands don't come home to hear Mozart on a Baby Grand and enter into discussions about writers with crack-jaw names."

"I know,--Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Hauptmann and Tolstoy. No; they don't fill a hungry tummie, do they?"

"No, indeed they don't," said Mrs. Guthrie. "And that reminds me that I must go and give your father his little dose. When a doctor isn't well he never knows how to look after himself." She got up and put down her work, and then bent over Peter. "Thank you for coming up to-night, my dearest boy. I've had a queer little pain in my heart for a long time, but you've taken it all away. Now run along and see your Betty, and don't worry about your little mother any longer."

Peter got up and put his hands on his mother's shoulders. "Listen!" he said. "I love you. I shall always love you. No woman shall ever come between me and you." And he caught her in his arms and kissed her.

And then she bustled down-stairs to the library, where the Doctor was taking it easy for once and dipping into one of the numerous books that surrounded him. There was a smile on Mrs. Guthrie's face which was like the sun on an autumn morning.

On the way to his bedroom Peter passed the door of Ethel's room, and drew up short. He had heard her say she was going to bed early. He hadn't had many words with her since he got back. So he decided to go in and wipe off that debt, too. When he tried to open the door he found that it was locked. He started a devil's tattoo with his knuckles. "Are you there, Kid?" he shouted out.

The answer was "Yes."

"Well, then, open the door. I want to come in."

After a moment the door was opened and Ethel stood there in a very becoming peignoir. She looked extremely disconcerted and did her best to block the way into the room.

But that wouldn't do for Peter. "What's all this?" he asked. "We lock our door now, do we?"

"Yes, sometimes," said Ethel. "Why aren't you at the theatre?" She shot a surreptitious glance towards the window, which was open.

"I've been having a talk with mother," said Peter. "Hello! I see you've been trigging up your room. Frightfully swagger now, isn't it. New art, eh? You're coming on, my dear, there's no mistake about that. I'm afraid you find us all appallingly provincial, don't you?"

The broad grin on Peter's face was no new thing to Ethel. He had always pulled her leg and treated her as though she were a sort of freak. All the same, she liked his coming in and was flattered to know that he thought it worth while to bother about her. But she began to edge him to the door. He had come at a most unpropitious moment.

"Oh ho!" said Peter. "So this's what higher education does for you? A nice mixture--cigarettes and candies--I must say. Now I know why you locked your door. With a marshmallow in one hand and an Egyptian Beauty in the other you lie on your sofa in the latest thing in peignoirs and see life through the pages of,--what?" He picked up a book from the table. "Good Lord!" he added; "you don't mean to say you stuff this piffle into you?" It was a collection of plays by Strindberg.

"Oh, go to the theatre!" said Ethel. "You're being horridly Oxford now and I hate it."

"You'll get a lot more of it before I've done with you," said Peter. "All the same, you look very nice, my dear. I'm very proud of you, and I hope you will do me the honour to be seen about with me sometimes. But how about taking some of that powder off your nose? If you begin trying to hide it at sixteen it'll be lost altogether at twenty." He made a sudden pounce at her and holding both her hands so that she could not scratch, rubbed all the powder away from her little proud nose and made for the door, just missing the cushion which came flying after him, and took himself and his big laugh along the passage.

Immensely relieved at being left alone, Ethel locked the door again and went over to her dressing-table, where she repaired damage with quick, deft fingers. With another glance at the window,--a glance in which there was some impatience,--she arranged herself on the settee to wait.

IX

No wonder Peter had made remarks about this room. It was deliciously characteristic of its owner. Large and airy; all its furniture was white and its hangings were of creamy cretonne covered with little rosebuds. The narrow bed was tucked away in a corner so that the writing-desk, the sofa and the revolving book-stand--on which stood a bowl of mammoth chrysanthemums--might dominate the room. Several mezzotints of Watts' pictures hung on the walls and a collection of framed illustrations of the Arabian Nights, by Dulac. The whole effect was one of naive sophistication.

Through the open window the various sounds of the city's activity floated rather pleasantly. There was even a note of cheerfulness in the insistent bells of the trolley-cars on Madison Avenue and the chugging of a taxicab on the other side of the street. Before many minutes had gone by a rope ladder dangled outside the window, and this was followed immediately afterwards by the lithe and wiry figure of a boy. Wearing a rather sheepish expression he remained sitting on the sill, swinging his legs. "Hello!" said he. "How are you feeling?"

"There's some improvement to-night," said Ethel. "Won't you come in? Were you waiting for a signal?"

"You bet!"

He was a nice boy, with a frank, honest face, a blunt nose and a laughing mouth. His hair was dark and thick, and his shoulders square. He was eighteen and he looked every day of it. He lived next door and was the son of a man who owned a line of steamships and a French mother, who was not on speaking terms with Mrs. Guthrie, owing to the fact that the Doctor had been obliged to remonstrate about her parrot. This expensive prodigy gave the most lifelike and frequent imitations of cats, trolley-cars, newsboys, sirens and other superfluous and distressing disturbances on the window-sill of the room which was next to his laboratory. So this boy and girl--unconsciously playing all over again the story of the Montagues and Capulets--met surreptitiously night after night, the boy coming over the roof and using the rope ladder--which had played its part in all the great romances. Was there any harm in him? Well, he was eighteen.

"What'll you have first?" asked Ethel, in her best hostess manner--"candies or cigarettes?"

"Both," said the boy; and with a lump in his cheek and an expression of admiration in both eyes he started a cigarette. He was about to sit on the settee at Ethel's feet, but she pointed to a chair and into this he subsided, crossing one leg over the other and hitching his trousers rather high so that he might display to full advantage a pair of very smart socks, newly purchased.

"I hope you locked your bedroom door," said Ethel, "and please don't forget to whisper. There's no chance of our being caught, but we may as well be careful."

The boy nodded and made a little face. "If father found out about this," he said; "oh, Gee! What did you do with Ellen after she bounced in last night?"

"Oh, I gave her one of my hats. I told her that if she kept quiet there was a frock waiting for her. She's safe. Now, amuse me!"

For some minutes the boy remained silent, worrying his brain as to how to comply with the girl's rather difficult and peremptory request. He knew that she was not easy to amuse. He was a little frightened at the books she read and looked up to her with a certain amount of awe. He liked her best when she said nothing and was content to sit quite quiet and look pretty. After deep and steady thought he took a chance. "Do you know this one?" he asked, and started whistling a new ragtime through his teeth.

It was new to Ethel. She liked it. Its rhythm set her feet moving. "Oh, that's fine," she said. "What are the words?"

The boy was a gentleman. He shook his head, thereby stimulating her curiosity a hundred-fold.

"Oh don't be silly. I shall know them sooner or later, whatever they are--besides, I'm not a child."

The boy lied chivalrously. "Well, honestly, I don't know them,--something about 'Row, row, row'--I don't know the rest."

She knew that he did know. She liked him for not telling her the truth, but she made a mental note to order the song the following morning.

And so, for about an hour, these two young things who imagined that this was life carried on a desultory conversation, while the boy gradually filled the room with cigarette smoke, and remained reluctantly a whole yard away from the sofa. It was all very childish and simple, but to them it was romance with a very big R. They were making believe that they had thrown the world back about a hundred years or so. He was a knight and she a lady in an enemy's castle; and, although their mothers didn't speak, they liked to ignore the fact that Mrs. Guthrie would have had no objection to his coming to tea as often as he desired and taking Ethel for walks in broad daylight whenever he wished for a little mild exercise. But,--he was eighteen, and so presently, repulsed by her tongue but enticed by her eyes, he left his chair and found himself sitting on the settee at Ethel's feet, holding her hand, which thrilled him very much. She was kinder than usual that night, sweeter and more girlish. Her stockings were awfully pretty, too, and her hair went into more than usually delicious ripples round her face.

"You're a darling," he said suddenly. "I love to come here like this. I hope you'll be ill for a month." And he slid forward with gymnastic clumsiness and put his arm round her shoulder. He was just going to kiss her and so satisfy an overwhelming craving when there was a soft knock on the door and Dr. Guthrie's voice followed it. "Are you awake, Ethel?"

The boy sprang to his feet, stood for a moment with a look of peculiar shame on his face, turned on his heels, made for the window, went through it like a rabbit and up the troubadour ladder, which disappeared after him.

Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. Again the knock came and the question was repeated. But she made no answer, and presently, when the sound of footsteps died away, she got up--a little peevish and more than a little irritable--kicked a small pile of cigarette ash which the boy had dropped upon her carpet, and said to herself: "_Just_ as he was going to kiss me! Goodness, how _annoying_ father is!"

X

The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon for a walk. Dressed in a suit of blue flannel with white bone buttons, with a pair of white spats gleaming over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at an angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as dapper as though he had been to bed the night before at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of fact, come home with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired after the sort of nights which make the ordinary man turn to chemistry and vibro-massage.

Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion.

This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of intuition which was characteristic of him. "By Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat, Belle. Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection."

Belle beamed upon him. "But you would say that anyhow, wouldn't you?"

"Perfectly true; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I shouldn't mean it."

They turned into Madison Avenue. It was an exquisite morning. The whole city was bathed in sun, but the refreshing tang of late autumn was in the air. Most of the large houses were still closed, their owners lingering in the country or abroad. All the same there was the inevitable amount of traffic in the streets and apparently the usual number of passers-by. The city can be--according to the strange little creatures who write society news--"utterly deserted" and yet contain all its teeming millions.

"And what may that be?" asked Kenyon, pointing to the heavy white buttresses of a church which backed on the street.

"Oh, that's the Roman Catholic Cathedral."

"Roman Catholic, eh? I noticed churches everywhere as we drove up from the docks,--more churches than pubs apparently, and yet I suppose it would be quite absurd to imagine that New Yorkers imbibe their alcohol entirely in the form of religion."

"Quite," said Belle, dryly. "Although we have a hundred religions and only five cocktails."

"I see you also go in for antique furniture."

Belle laughed. "You have a quick eye," she said. "There's so much genuine Old English stuff in this city that if it were sent to England there wouldn't be room for it on shore. Tell me; what are your plans?"

"Well," said Kenyon, "I'm going to accept your father's perfectly charming hospitality for a fortnight and then take rooms in a bachelor apartment-house, of which Graham has told me, for the winter."

"You're going to settle down here?" cried Belle.

"Rather,--for six months. I'm here to study the conditions, make myself familiar with the characteristics and draw from both what I hope will be the foundations of much usefulness." Kenyon considered that he had enveloped his true mission--which was to lighten the pockets of all unwary young men--with a satirical verbiage that did him credit.

"I thought that perhaps you'd come for some other reason," said Belle, whose whole face showed her disappointment.

Kenyon shot a quick glance at her. How naive she was--how very much too easy--but, nevertheless, how very young and desirable. "That goes without saying, you delicious thing," he replied, closing his hand warmly round her arm for a moment and so bringing the light back to her eyes. "By the way," he continued, "what's the matter with Graham?"

"I don't know that anything's the matter with Graham."

"I think so. I notice a worried look about him that he didn't have at Oxford; that he seems to be always on the verge of telling me something, and drawing back at the last minute. I must make a point of finding out what his trouble is. Peter and I were discussing it this morning after breakfast. We're both a bit anxious about him. Do you know if your father has noticed it?"

"Father? Oh, he doesn't notice anything. He believes that Graham is working very hard and doing well. He knows less about what goes on in our house than the people who live next door."

"That's rather a pity. I'm all for complete confidence between father and son. However, I shall play father to Graham for a bit and see what can be done for him. He puzzles me. There's a mystery somewhere."

Something of this mystery was disclosed to Kenyon and Peter that night. After dining them both at the Harvard Club--a place which filled Kenyon with admiration and surprise--Graham suddenly suggested, with a queer touch of excitement, that they should go with him to his apartment.

"Your apartment?" said Peter. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Well, come and see," said Graham.

The two elder men looked at each other in amazement. Kenyon's quick mind ran ahead, but Peter, the unsophisticated, was quite unable to understand what in the world Graham wanted an apartment for when he lived at home. They all three left West Forty-fourth Street in silence and walked arm in arm down Fifth Avenue as far as Twenty-eighth Street. Here they turned westward and followed Graham, who was wearing an air of rather sheepish pride, up the steps of an old brown stone house with rather a shabby portico.

"Dismal looking hole," said Peter.

"Wait!" said Graham, and he put his finger on a bell. The door opened automatically and he led the way into a scantily furnished hall and up three flights of stairs, whose red carpet was in the autumn of its days. Drawing up in front of a door on the left of the passage he rang again, and after a lengthy pause was admitted to a small apartment by a colored maid, who gave a wide grin of recognition.

"Come right in," said Graham. "Lily, take our hats and coats. Don't leave them about in the hall. Hang them up and then go and get some drinks."

Kenyon looked about him curiously. He could see that the place was newly furnished and that everything had been chosen by a man. He glanced into the dining-room. The pictures were sporting and the furniture mission. He detected no sign of a woman's hand anywhere. He began to be puzzled. He had expected to find something quite different. But when Graham opened the door of the sitting-room and said: "Well, here we are, Ita!" and he saw a small, dark, olive-skinned girl rise up from a settee and run forward to Graham with a little cry of welcome, he knew that his deduction of the situation had been a right one. So this was the mystery.

Still with the same air of sheepish pride, Graham said: "Peter, this is Miss Ita Strabosck. My brother, Ita. And this is Nicholas Kenyon, who's a great friend of mine. They've just come over from England, and so of course I've brought them to see you."

The little girl held out a very shy hand, and said: "I am so glad. Eet ees very good of you to come."

In a curiously plain tight frock of some soft black material, cut square across her tiny breasts, and leaving her arms bare almost to the shoulders, she stood, with one knee bent, looking from one man to the other with a sort of wistful eagerness to be treated kindly. She held a tiny black Teddy bear with red eyes against her cheek, like a child.

Peter, for a reason which he was unable to explain to himself, felt a wave of sympathy go over him. He not only accepted the girl on her face value, but somehow or other believed her to be younger and more romantic than she looked. She seemed to him to have stepped out of the pages of some Arabian book--to be a little exotic whom Graham must have discovered far away from her native hot-house. He liked the way in which her thick hair was arranged round her face, and he would have sworn that she was without guile.

Not so Kenyon. "Great Scott!" he said to himself. "Here's a little devil for you. Our young friend Graham has had his leg pulled. I've seen mosquitoes before, but the poison of this one will take all the ingenuity of an expert to counteract."

He sat down and watched the girl, who threw one quick antagonistic glance at him and attached herself to Peter, to whom she talked in monosyllables. She might only very recently have left a Convent School, except that her dog-like worship of Graham seemed to prove that she owed him a deep debt of gratitude for some great service.

Graham watched her, too, and his expression showed Kenyon that even if he didn't love her he believed in her and was proud of himself.

XI

By a sort of mutual consent the three men left the apartment in Twenty-eighth Street early. They did not desire to finish the evening at any cabaret or club. They called the first passing taxicab and drove home. By mutual consent also they never once referred to Ita Strabosck, but discussed everything else under the sun. Kenyon had never been so useful. With consummate tact--but all the while with the picture in his mind of the cunning little actress whom they had just left--he led the conversation from dancing to baseball and from country clubs to women's clothes. Whenever the cab passed a strong light Graham made a quick, examining glance at Peter's face. He knew old Peter as well as Peter knew his piano, and he was quite well aware of the fact that although his brother laughed a good deal at Kenyon's quaint turn of phrase he was upset at what he had seen.

It was just after eleven o'clock when they went into the smoking-room of the house in Fifty-second Street. Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel had gone to bed. Belle had not returned from a theatre party. The Doctor was at work in his laboratory. He heard the boys come in. The sound of their voices made him raise his head eagerly. He even half-rose from his chair in a desire to join them and hear them talk, and laugh with them and get from them some of that sense of youth which they exuded so pleasantly, but his terrible shyness got the better of him once more and he returned to his experiments. How ironical it was that with complete unconsciousness he was leaving it to such a man as Nicholas Kenyon to play father to his second son, who had never in his short life needed a real father so badly.

For some little time--smoking a good cigar with complete appreciation--Kenyon continued to give forth his impressions of New York so far as he knew it. He was especially amusing in his description of the effect upon him of the first sight of the Great White Way. Then, all of a sudden, there came one of those strange pauses. It was Peter who broke the silence. "Graham, old boy," he said, "tell us about it. What does it all mean? Good Lord! you're only twenty-four. Are you married?"

Before Graham could reply, Kenyon sent out a scoffing laugh. "Married! Is he married?" he cried. "My good old grandfather's ghost, Peter! But how indescribably green you are. Hang me if you're not like a sort of Peter Pan! You've passed through Harvard and Oxford with a skin over your eyes. It's all very beautiful, very commendable--and what Belle would call 'very dear' of you--and all that sort of thing, but somehow you make me feel that I've got to go through life with you in the capacity of the sort of guide one hires in Paris--the human Baedeker."

"But if Graham hasn't married that poor girl," said Peter, bluntly, "what's he doing with her?"

Graham sprang to his feet and began to walk about the room. All about his tall, slight, well-built figure there was a curious nervousness and excitement. Even in the carefully subdued light of the room it was plain to see that his face was rather haggard and drawn. The boy looked years older than Peter. "I'll start off," he said, "by giving you fellows my word of honor that what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I have to begin like this because if either of you were to tell me this story I don't think I should be able to believe it. Some time ago I was taken--I forget by whom--to a pestilential but rather amusing place in Fortieth Street. It's a huge studio run by a woman who calls herself Papowsky. It's what you, Nick, would call the last word in supereffeteness. Ita Strabosck was one of the girls. I liked her at once. I didn't fall in love with her, but she appealed to me and it was simply to see her that I went there several times. I knew the place was pretty rotten and I didn't cotton on to the people who were there or the things they did. I even knew that the police had their eyes on it, but I liked it all the more because of that. It gave it a sort of zest, like absinthe in whiskey."

"Quite!" said Kenyon. "Fire away!"

"The last time I went there, Ita took me into a corner, told me that she was never allowed out of the place and was a sort of White Slave, and begged me to take her away. I don't think I shall ever forget the sight of that poor little wretch trembling and shaking. It was pretty bad. Well, I took her away. I got her out by a fire-escape when nobody was watching us. Dodged through a window of a restaurant on the first floor, and so out into the street. It was very tricky work. The day after I took the apartment that you came to to-night, furnished it, and there Ita has been ever since. I go there nearly every night until the small hours. She's happy now and safe and I don't regret it. She hated the place and the things she had been forced to do and nothing will make me believe that she was bad. She was just a victim--that's all. And if I have to go without things I don't care so long as she has all she needs. That's the story. What d'you think of it?"

Peter got up, went over to his brother and held out his hand silently. With a rather pathetic expression of gratitude in his eyes, Graham took it and held it tight. "That's like you, Peter," he said, a little huskily.

Kenyon made no movement. He looked with a pitying smile at the two boys as they stood eye to eye. The whole thing sounded to him like a fairy tale and for a moment he wondered whether Graham was not endeavoring to obtain their sympathy under false pretences. Then he made up his mind that Graham--like the man with whom he had lived at Oxford--was green also, for all that he had knocked about in New York for two years. Not from any kindness of heart, but simply because he wanted to use Graham as a means of introducing him to the young male wealthy set of the city, he determined to get him out somehow or other of this disastrous entanglement. He would however go to work tactfully without allowing Graham to think that he had made a complete fool of himself. He knew that if he wounded this boy's vanity and brought him down from his heroic pedestal he would set his teeth, put his back to the wall and refuse to be assisted. With keen insight he could see that this incident was likely to injure the usefulness of his visit to America.

"Um!" he said. "It's a pitiful story, Graham. You behaved devilish well, old boy. Not many men would have acted so quickly and so unselfishly. Now, sit down and tell me a few things."

Gladly enough Graham did so, heaving a great sigh. He was glad that he had made a clear breast of all this. He was too young to keep it a secret. He wanted sympathy urgently and a little human help. Peter loaded and lit a pipe and drew his chair into the group.

"This girl Ita What's-her-name loves you, of course?"

Graham nodded.

"Anyone could see that," said Peter.

"But she'd been in that studio some time before you came along, I take it,--I mean she'd been anybody's property for the asking?"

Graham shuddered. "I hate to think so," he said.

Peter kicked the leg of the nearest chair.

"How d'you feel?" asked Kenyon.

"Awfully sorry for her," said Graham.

"Yes, of course. What I mean is, are you all right?"

Graham looked puzzled. "I find it rather difficult to pay for everything," he said, "especially as I've been damned unlucky lately."

The man of the world involuntarily raised his eyebrows. "Good Lord!" he said to himself. "And this boy is the son of a specialist. Blind--blind!" Then he spoke aloud, passing on to another point. "How long do you think it is incumbent upon you to make yourself the guardian of this girl?"

Graham shrugged his shoulders. "She comes from Poland. Her father and mother are dead and she has no one to look after her."

"I'll help you," said Peter.

That was exactly what Kenyon didn't want. He got up, went over to the table and mixed a drink. "Potter off to bed, Graham, old boy," he said. "Get a good night's rest. You need it. We'll go further into the matter in a day or two. It requires serious consideration. Anyway, I congratulate you. You're a bit of a knight, and you've my complete admiration." He led the boy to the door, patted him on the shoulder and got rid of him. Then he returned to Peter, whose face showed that he was laboring under many conflicting emotions.

"Nick," he said, "he's only twenty-four--just making a beginning. He did the only thing he could do under the circumstances, but,--but what would father say?"

"I don't think it's a question as to what your father would say," said Kenyon. "If I know anything, the way to put it is what can your father do? Of all men in the city he's the one who could be most useful in this peculiar mess-up--Peter, you and I have got to get that boy out of this, otherwise----"

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise--quite shortly--the police are likely to fish out of the river the dead body of a promising lad of twenty-four, and there'll be great grief in this house."

"What d'you mean?"

"Exactly what I say. That girl's a liar, a cheat and a fraud."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not. She's rotten from head to foot. She's as easy to read as an advertisement. She's taking advantage of a fellow who's as unsuspicious as you are. You're both green,--green, I tell you,--as green as grass."

"I'd rather be green," cried Peter, hotly, "than go through life with your rotten skepticism."

"Would you? You talk like an infant. Graham will want to marry some day,--and then what? Good Heavens! Hasn't anybody taken the trouble to tell you two any of the facts of life? You are neither of you fit to be allowed out in the streets without a nurse. It's appalling. Skeptical, you call me. You're blind, I tell you. Blind! So's the old man in the next room. There's an ugly shadow over this house, Peter, as sure as you're alive. Don't stand there glaring at me. I'm talking facts. If you've got any regard for your brother and his health and his future; if you want to save your mother from unutterable suffering and your father from a hideous awakening, don't talk any further drivel to me, but make up your mind that the girl, Ita Strasbosck, has it in her power to turn Graham into a suicide. She's a liar--a liar and a trickster and a menace--and I'll make it my business to prove it to you and Graham."

"You can't."

"Can't I? We'll see about that. And you've got to help me. We've got to make Graham see that he must shake her off at once,--at once, I tell you. The alternative you know."

Peter got up and strode about the room. He was worried and anxious. He didn't, unfortunately, fully appreciate the gravity of this affair, because, as Kenyon had said so tauntingly, he was a child in such matters. But what he did appreciate was that his only brother had done something, however sympathetic the motive, which might have far-reaching consequences and which did away with the possibility of his going, as it was Peter's determination to go, clean and straight to a good girl.

He turned to Kenyon, who had made himself comfortable. "I'll help you for all I'm worth, Nick," he said.

"Right," said Kenyon. "I'll think out a line of action and let you know to-morrow. There's no time to be lost."

XII

Kenyon got rid of Peter, too.

Apart from the fact that he was going to wait up for Belle, he wanted to be alone. He was angry. It was just like his bad luck to come all the way to America and find that the two men who had it in their power to be of substantial use to him were both fully occupied,--one being hopelessly in love, the other in money trouble and in what he recognized as a difficult and even dangerous position. With characteristic selfishness he resented these things. They made it necessary for him to exercise his brain,--not for himself--which was his idea of the whole art of living--but for others. There were other things that he resented also. One was the fact that Peter was what he called a damned child. He had no admiration whatever for his friend's absolute determination to look only at the clean things of life. A thousand times since they had shared the same rooms he had cursed Peter because of his sweeping refusal to discuss a question which he knew to be of vital and far-reaching importance. At these times Peter had always said something like this: "My dear Nick, I'm not going to be a doctor, a woman-hunter, or a sloppy man about town. I don't want to know any details whatever of the things which stir up other men's curiosity. I've no room in my brain for them. They don't amuse me or interest me. I'm jolly well going to remain a damned child, whether you like it or not, so you may chuck trying to drag me into these midnight discussions of yours with the men who hang nudes all over their walls and gloat over filthy little French books."

And then there was Graham. He, like untold hundreds of his type, had a certain amount of precocity, but no knowledge. He had merely peeked at the truth of things through a chink. He had looked at life with the salacious eyes of a Peeping Tom. And what was the result? Worse than total ignorance. Deep down in whatever soul he had, Nicholas Kenyon honestly and truly believed in friendship between father and son. He knew--none better--because it was his business to observe, that a young man was frightfully and terribly handicapped who went out into the world unwarned, unadvised and uninitiated. He had often come across men like Peter and Graham whose lives had been absolutely ruined at the very outset for the reason that their fathers had either been too cowardly or too indifferent to give them the benefit of their own experience and early troubles. In fact, most of the men he knew--and he knew a great many--had been left to discover the essential truths and facts for themselves. The inevitable end of it was that they made their discoveries too late.

Fate certainly must have had a very grim amusement in watching Nicholas Kenyon as he walked up and down the library of Dr. Hunter Guthrie's house that night, blazing at the delinquencies of fathers. Nevertheless, Kenyon had the right to be indignant, whether his reasons for being so sprang out of his selfishness or not. His own father was an unscrupulous, unserious man, that was true, but at any rate he had given his son a human chance. He could take it or leave it as he liked. And when Kenyon, piecing together all that he had heard of Dr. Guthrie from Peter, from Graham and from Belle, added all that to the very obvious fact that these two boys were out in the world with blind eyes, he burst into a scoffing laugh. In his mind's eye he could see the excellent and distinguished Doctor rounding his back over experiments for the benefit of humanity, while he utterly neglected to give two of the human beings for whom he was responsible the few words of advice which would render it unnecessary for them to become his patients.

If Kenyon had been a more generous man--if in his nature there had been one small grain of unselfishness--he would have gone at that very moment, then and there, to the door of the Doctor's laboratory--into that wonderful room--sat down opposite the man who spent his life in it with such noble concentration and begged him to desert his microbes and turn his attention to his sons. As it was he neglected to take an opportunity which would have enabled the recording angel to make one very good entry on the blank credit side of his account, and concentrated upon a way in which he could use Peter and Graham for his own material ends. He was immediately faced therefore with two "jobs," as he called them,--one to queer Peter's engagement with Betty, in order that he might achieve his friend's whole attention, the other to lift Graham out of his ghastly entanglement, for the same purpose. Bringing himself up to that point and relying upon his ingenuity with complete confidence, Kenyon mixed himself another high-ball and listened with a certain amount of eagerness for Belle's light step.

He hadn't long to wait. He had just gone into the dimly lighted hall with the intention of getting some air on the front doorstep, when the door opened and Belle let herself in.

"You keep nice hours," he said.

Belle had been dancing. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. She had never looked so all-conqueringly youthful or so imbued with the joy of life. She came across to him like a young goddess of the forest, with the wild beauty and that suggestion of unrestraint which always made Kenyon's blood run quickly.

"Have you waited for me?" she asked. "How perfectly adorable of you."

"What have you been doing?"

"Oh, the usual things--dinner, theatre, dancing."

Kenyon went nearer and put his hands on her arms, hotly. "Curse those men!" he said.

"What men?"

"The men who've been holding you to-night. Why have I come over? Can't you scratch these engagements and wait for me? I'm not going to share you with every Tom, Dick and Harry in this place."

A feeling of triumph came to Belle--a new feeling--because hitherto this man's attitude had been that of master. "You're jealous!" she cried.

Kenyon turned away sharply. For once he was not playing with this girl for the sport of the thing, just to see what she would say and do in order to pass away the time. The whole evening had tended to upset his calculations and plans. He had found himself thrown suddenly into a position of responsibility,--a state that he avoided with rare and consummate agility. And now came Belle, radiant and high-spirited, from an evening spent with other men,--more beautiful and desirable than he had ever seen her look.

Belle turned him back. "You _are_ jealous, you _are_."

"Oh, good Lord, no," said Kenyon, with his most bored drawl. "Why should I be? After all it isn't for me to care what you do, is it? It's a large world and there's plenty of room for both of us--what?"

He walked away.

Triumph blazed in Belle's heart. She saw in Kenyon's eyes that he was saying the very opposite of the thoughts that were in his mind. She almost shouted with joy. She had longed to see into the heart of this man who was under such complete and aggravating self-control,--even to hurt him to obtain a big, spontaneous outburst of emotion from him. She loved him desperately, indiscreetly--far too well for her peace of mind--and she urgently needed some answering sparks of fire.

She didn't move. She stood with her cloak thrown back, her chin held high and the light falling on her dark hair and white flesh. This was her moment. She would seize it.

"Yes, there _is_ plenty of room for us both," she said, "and the fact that I shall go on dancing with other men needn't inconvenience you in the least. I don't suppose that we shall even see each other in the crowd. There are many men who'll give their ears to dance with me,--I mean men who can dance, not bored Englishmen."

She drew blood. Kenyon went across to her quickly. "How dare you talk to me like that! Curse these men and their ears. Who's brought me to this country? You know I came for you,--you know it. I _am_ jealous--as jealous as the devil. And if ever you let another man put his arms round you I'll smash his face." He put out his hot hands to catch her.

But, with a little teasing laugh, Belle dodged and flitted into the library. The spirit of coquettishness was awake in her. _She_ had the upper hand now and a small account to render for missed mails, and an appearance of being too sure. She threw off her cloak and stood with her back to the fireplace, looking like one of Romney's pictures of Lady Hamilton come to life.

Kenyon strode in after her, all stirred by her beauty. "In future," he said, "you dance with me. You understand?"

Belle raised her eyebrows and then bowed profoundly. "As you say, O my master!" And then she held out her arms with a sudden delicious abandon. "Take me, then. Let's dance all the way through life."

Kenyon caught her, and all about the room these two went, moving together in perfect unison, cheek to cheek, until almost breathless Belle broke into a little laugh, stopped singing, and said: "The band's tired." But Kenyon held her tighter and closer and kissed her lips again and again and again.

With a little touch of warning in its tone the clock on the mantel-piece presently struck two, and Belle freed herself and straightened her hair with a rather uncertain hand. "I must go now," she said breathlessly. "Father may be working late. Supposing he came through this room?"

"Serve him right," said Kenyon.

They went upstairs together on tip-toe, and halted for a moment on the threshold of Belle's bed-room. Through the half-open door Kenyon saw the glow of yellow light on the dressing-table, and the corner of a virginal bed. Once more he kissed her and then, breathing hard, went to his own room, stood in the darkness for a moment, and thanked his lucky star for the gift of Belle.

XIII

The following afternoon, Peter, Kenyon and Belle went to see Ranken Townsend's pictures and to have tea with Betty. The little party was a great success. Peter and the artist got on splendidly together, which filled Betty with joy and gladness, and Kenyon had added to the general smoothness and pleasantness by offering extremely intelligent and enthusiastic criticism of the canvasses that were shown to him, drawing subtle comparisons between them and those of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Like all true artists, Townsend was a humble man and unsuspicious. He believed, in the manner of all good workers, that he had yet to find himself, although he had met with uncommon success. He was, therefore, much heartened and warmed by the remarks of one who, although young, evidently knew of what he was talking and proved himself to be something of a judge. When Kenyon received a cordial invitation to come again to the studio he solidified the good impression that he had made by saying that he would be honoured and delighted.

There had been a sharp shower during tea, but the sky had cleared when they left Gramercy Park, taking Betty with them, and so they started out to walk home.

Belle and Betty went on in front, arm in arm, and the two friends followed. This suited Kenyon exactly. He had laid his plan and had something to say to Peter.

Belle was very happy, and she showed it. She looked round at Betty with her eyes dancing. "I can see that you're dying to ask me something," she said. "But don't. You and I don't have to ask each other questions. We've always told each other everything, and we always will."

"Belle, you're en-ga----"

"S-s-s-h! Don't mention the word."

"Why?"

"Well, we've been talking this afternoon and Nicholas says, and I think he's right--though I wish he weren't--that he doesn't want to go to father until he's been here longer and has made up his mind what he's going to do. You see, he's not well off. He's got to work,--although I can't fancy Nicholas working,--and so we're not going to be really engaged for a few months. Meantime, he's going to look round and find something to do. That'll be easy. You don't know how clever he is,--not merely clever--a monkey can be clever, or a conjurer--the word I meant to use was 'able.' Aren't you glad? Isn't it splendid?"