Chapter VI: Part 6

This announcement was so entirely unexpected that it left the two young men staring at each other, absolutely incapable of speech.

"But then," said Gunther, the first to recover, "the ring was given her by Slade!"

"At a cost of thirty-two thousand," said the detective in a quick, businesslike tone.

"You are sure?"

"As positive as any one can be. There are only three other rings--"

"That's why she wanted to keep it quiet!" exclaimed Beecher, rousing himself from his stupor. The whole machination of Mrs. Kildair became comprehensible to him on the instant. "Now I see!"

"Precisely," said McKenna. "Of course there is a chance that Slade did not give her the ring; that I'll know tomorrow."

"How?"

"Make an inquiry--for a supposed purchaser, of course; find out if the ring is still at Slade's."

"It's useless," said Beecher firmly. "I know that McKenna's right. This explains everything," he continued, turning to the detective. "That's why she acted so strangely "--he checked himself. "I saw Mrs. Kildair--took lunch with her--to-day--"

"Did you find out whom she employed?" said McKenna quietly.

Beecher opened his lips to answer in the affirmative, and stopped abruptly. For the first time, he realized that Mrs. Kildair had taken back the address. He rose nervously, frowning at the stupidity he would be forced to disclose.

"By Jove, I am an ass!" he said, dropping his glance; and he related the scene in which Mrs. Kildair had first given him the address and then taken it away.

"It's not important, Mr. Beecher," said the detective pensively, his mind working behind the recital. "She didn't give you the right address."

"How do you know?" said Beecher, turning.

"Because she recovered the paper as soon as she found out you were employing me," he answered; but his mind was still out of the room. He took out a pencil and began tapping his memorandum with quick, nervous jots. "Her mind worked pretty quick," he said.

"Why do you want to know her detectives?" asked Gunther.

"You see, the case is complicated," said McKenna, rousing himself. "I won't go into her relations with Slade just now, but it's quite evident to any one they were such that Mrs. Kildair prefers to lose the ring rather than to have it discovered how it came to her. See?"

"I see," said Gunther.

Beecher, silent, was turning over in his mind all the incidents of Slade's and Mrs. Kildair's conduct, striving to reach some explanation but the natural one that forced itself on him.

"That's why," continued McKenna, "I'd like to know, first, if the detectives are straight--can be depended upon; second, if they were told to make a search; and, third, if they were told not to find the ring."

"But why not?"

"Because, Mr. Gunther, whoever took that ring the second time didn't take it on impulse or without a plan; whoever took it probably--I don't say certainly--knew enough of its history to know that Slade gave it to Mrs. Kildair, and reckoned on the fact that she would not dare to make it public. See?"

The corners of his eyes contracted suddenly, as though through the movement of propelling forward the quick, decisive glance.

"Then you think," said Beecher slowly, "that she is--"

"Look here, Mr. Beecher," said the detective quickly, "there is one thing no human being can ever say offhand; what says the Bible--the way of a man with a maid--well, make that woman in general. You don't know, and I don't know, what the situation is right there, and we may never know. All the same, we're now started on solid ground; it may lead to something, and it may not, but what I want to know before we get much further is who and how many there that night knew or guessed Slade gave her the ring."

"Of course," said Gunther. "But how--"

"By patience and by running down every alley till we find it is an alley," said McKenna. "That's one thing to keep in mind, and let's put it this way. Was there any one there that night who had to have money quick, and who knew that the fact of Slade's giving the ring would tie Mrs. Kildair's hands? Now, if that condition existed, we're on a strong motive."

"You don't consider that the only lead," said Beecher, convinced as he was of the probability of Mr. Majendie's participation.

"Lord, no. Here's one other point to work on, Mr. Beecher. What's the situation today between Slade and Mrs. Kildair? Has there been any quarrel--say within the last ten days?"

"I don't think so; and yet--" Beecher stopped, remembering Mrs. Kildair's curious request for him to outstay the promoter. "What if there was?"

"Slade's a remarkable character," said McKenna, smiling. "Just how remarkable a few people will learn shortly. If he had quarreled or she's been trying to trick him--just like him to take the ring the second time."

"By George!" said Gunther. "Why not?"

"That's only something to be kept in the background," said McKenna, rising.

He turned to Beecher, considering him profoundly.

"Sorry you told Mrs. Kildair I was on the case," he said.

Beecher blushed at the memory of the way in which he had been brought to disclose the information, and the confusion all at once revealed to the detective the probable means she had taken.

At this moment the door opened and a voice called him.

"Telephone, sir--personal."

When the detective had left, Beecher and Gunther looked at each other in amazement in which a curious doubt was beginning to form.

"Why the deuce should Slade give her the ring, Ted?" said Gunther abruptly.

"I don't know," Beecher answered, perplexed. "I know what you think--that's natural; but I don't believe it. She's deeper than that--that is, I think so."

But he ended perplexed, contracting his eyebrows, nervously jerking at a button on his coat.

McKenna reentered, and on his face was a smile of anticipation and mischief.

"Some one called me up just then," he said shortly; "some one I've been expecting to call me up. Guess who?"

"Slade," said Gunther, startled.

"Mrs. Kildair," said Beecher.

"Mrs. Kildair is right," said McKenna. "I'm going up to see her tonight." And he added meditatively, "It ought to be quite an interesting little chat."

*CHAPTER XIV*

At eight o'clock promptly McKenna presented himself at the door of Mrs. Kildair's apartment. Kiki, with his velvet glide, ushered him into the studio. The electric chandeliers were dull; only the great standing lamp was lit, throwing a foggy luster about the room, massing enormous dark silhouettes and spaces in the corners.

"Is it a precaution?" he thought grimly, considering this serviceable obscurity.

He felt a sudden heightened sense of curiosity and defiance, a feeling that had been growing within him ever since the discovery of Slade's connection with the ring, and the brief, disjointed details of Beecher's interview. Every profession develops, back of its elaborate technique, a sudden quality of instinct which exists as the almost mechanical and unguided operation of the disciplined mind. McKenna had no sooner entered the room than he perceived the woman with a quick defensive "on guard" of all his faculties.

He stopped in the center of the room, like a pointer flushing his game, and in the second's rapid inhalation he completely changed his scheme of attack. He felt at once that he had to do not alone with--what he expected--a woman of unusual physical attraction, clever, with the defensive intuition of one who has evaded the scrutiny of society; but with a woman of mental grasp and decision. He felt it everywhere: in the remarkable adjustment of the square room which broke it up into half a dozen separate groups, distinctive and sure as though so many separate selves; in the harmony of color and proportion, which he felt without analysis; in the seduction of the Recamier couch with its eastern drapery of blue and gold; in the friendly comfort of the grouped chairs by the baronial fireplace; in the correct intimacy of the reading-table at one end and the formality of the grouped chairs by the piano. All these notes were to him notes of the hand that had arranged them, as he felt in the struggling muscles of the bared marble torsos, wrestling on the mantel, and the lithe, virile body of the discus-thrower on the table, the virility and aggressiveness of the woman. This perception awoke his defiance as though one personality had been substituted for another.

"What does she want with me?" he thought. "Is she daring enough to tell me all, or is she worried at what I may know?"

While he was still in the midst of his reflections, Mrs. Kildair entered. She was in street costume: a tailor-made dress of dark blue, edged with black braid, the stiffness and sobriety relieved by a full fichu at her throat. The red flight of a feather crossed the Gainsborough hat.

"How do you do?" she said, nodding to him, a crisp, businesslike abruptness in her voice. "A little more light would be better. Thanks. The button is by the door."

Prepared as he had been to be surprised, he had not expected this businesslike manifestation. He went to the wall, following her directions, and threw on the lights.

"Only the side lights," she said. "That's it. Shall we sit here?"

She took her position by the reading-table in a great high-backed upholstered arm-chair. Obeying her gesture, he drew up his chair to a position opposite. In the varied experiences of thirty years, he had come into contact with women of all walks of life. Without the psychological analysis of subtleties of the lawyer and the novelist, he had an unerring instinct for the crux of character. "Is she good or is she bad?" was the question that, in ninety cases out of a hundred, he put to himself at the turning-point of his campaigns. For the first time, despite his previous prejudice, he was in doubt for an answer, but he recognized in her at once the stamp of that superior brood which raises some men to fame and fortune where others by one trait of conscience or weakness end in a disgraceful failure.

"I have wanted to meet you for a long time, Mr. McKenna," she said directly, but without the accompanying smile of feminine flattery. "Mr. Slade has told me much about you."

"Slade?" he said, with a quick simulation of surprise, while admiring the abruptness, amazing in a woman, with which she had launched her attack.

"You realize, of course, Mr. McKenna," she continued quietly, without giving him time to deny her first implication, "that Mr. Beecher, in engaging you, has, quite without his knowledge, brought on a situation that is very embarrassing to me."

"Good!" thought the detective. "She has made up her mind to tell the whole story." Aloud he said, without change of expression: "In what way, Mrs. Kildair?"

"A situation exists which makes it extremely difficult for me to recover my ring without disclosing to the public matters in my own private life that at present are liable to great misconstruction."

She spoke professionally, without variation in her voice, as a doctor speaking with dispassionate directness. McKenna did not answer, resolving by his silence to force her to talk.

"A week," she continued without pause, though her eyes remained without wavering on his, "--ten days at the most--may completely change this position. I won't conceal from you that I am extremely sorry that you have been brought into the case." McKenna could not control an expression of surprise. "But, now that you are in it, I shall be forced to give you a confidence against my inclination."

"But--" began the detective.

"One moment," she said, interrupting him. "Before I give you this confidence I wish to ask one question."

"Mrs. Kildair, I must remind you," said McKenna warily, "that I am engaged in the interests of Mr. Beecher, and can do nothing without his permission."

"Are you representing any one besides Mr. Beecher?" she said, ignoring his objection.

"What do you mean?" he said carefully, to gain time.

"Are you, in this particular case, representing Mr. Slade?" she said directly.

"I have never said that I was employed by him, Mrs. Kildair," he said slowly, comprehending now the full purpose of her opening question.

"Mr. Slade has told me himself of your work in connection with the Gray Fox Mines, the Farmers' and Travelers' Bank, and the more personal affair of your recovery of his letters from a Miss Minna Weston. You see, I am informed."

"I have worked for Mr. Slade," said McKenna.

"And are you doing so now?" she asked sharply.

"I never refer to my clients, Mrs. Kildair," he said stiffly.

"I desire to put this matter entirely in your hands--without reserve," she said quickly. "All I ask from you is a promise that, notwithstanding your relations with him past or present, nothing I say to you shall be repeated to Mr. Slade, or to any one else."

"Mrs. Kildair," said McKenna, every faculty joyfully grateful for the contest of wits he felt impending, "I must remind you that my employer is Mr. Beecher, and that I can promise nothing that will keep him from doing anything he desires.

"Mr. Beecher is acting for me," she said calmly. "Very well; your position is correct. I will put it this way. Subject to Mr. Beecher's approval, will you give me your word that you will repeat nothing of what I may tell you?"

"If Mr. Beecher is willing, I am," said McKenna obstinately. "That's my word."

"Now I can speak to you freely," said Mrs. Kildair.

"I have not promised yet," broke in McKenna.

"I will take the risk," she said, brushing aside the obstacle with an impatient gesture.

"I remain entirely free to communicate anything to Mr. Beecher," interposed the detective instantly.

"You do not understand," she said, without irritation. "Mr. Beecher, in retaining you, did so to assist me, and only after he had secured my permission. Now I desire, in order to arrive at quicker results and to be free to give you my full confidence, to transfer that authority direct to me. In other words, Mr. McKenna, I wish to retain you myself and for myself only."

"That, Mrs. Kildair, depends entirely on Mr. Beecher," repeated the detective.

"But if he acquiesces, will you act in my interests only?"

McKenna was about to interpose another evasion, when he reflected that he would have time to acquaint Beecher with what had happened and to advise him either to accept or to refuse.

"Very well," he replied cautiously, feeling instinctively that some trap was being prepared without yet perceiving what it could be. "I will leave it that way."

"Good," she said, with a little nod of her head. "Now, what have you done?"

"I can not answer that, Mrs. Kildair," he said, smiling; "not under my present arrangement."

"You have, of course, discovered that the ring belongs to Mr. Slade?"

Quite unconsciously, she had adopted his own tactics, the tactics of the inquisitor, who hurls the vital question at the suspect, and then seeks the answer in the almost imperceptible response in the eyes.

"Yes, I know that," said McKenna, who felt that the surprise he had experienced at having the tables thus turned on him had revealed the truth to the questioner. "That is, I know the ring did belong to Mr. Slade."

"Have you informed Mr. Beecher of the fact?"

"It has just come to my knowledge," said McKenna; "I shall, naturally, inform him."

Mrs. Kildair looked at him a moment with an appearance of reflection.

"The question was quite unnecessary," she said. "Of course, you have told him, and you have every right to deny it." Then she continued with more decision: "This is exactly my danger--you see, I won't mince words. It is a situation which constantly occurs, and which is inexplicable except by one construction in the eyes of society. Now--"

"I warn you," again objected the detective.

"I do not propose to explain my relations with Mr. Slade," continued Mrs. Kildair coldly. "They are such that a great deal depends on the events of the next few days. At present it is enough that I can not explain my possession of the ring in any way that can satisfy publicity."

"Mr. Slade did not give you the ring?" said McKenna, in slow progression.

She carefully considered the question.

"Mr. Slade sent me the ring with an offer of marriage," said Mrs. Kildair evenly, with an appearance of great frankness. "The ring arrived on the night of the party, and I committed the imprudence of wearing it. If its source now becomes known, I must appear before the world either as Mr. Slade's mistress or as his fiancee; and at present I have not made up my mind whether I shall marry him."

The directness of this avowal left McKenna immersed in thought. He looked at her, unaware of the fixity of his stare; and, inclined as always to skepticism, he asked himself if back of all the outer gilt of this proud, determined woman, there were not a stalking shadow of insistent poverty, whether the game she was playing with Slade were not a greater drama than that in which he was engaged; whether, in fact, it lay not on a turn of the balance whether the world should know her as the wife or that very alternative which she had dreaded in the exposure of the ownership of the ring?

"What does she really want of Slade?" he said to himself, staring so profoundly beyond the set gaze of the woman that, for the first time, she moved with a little annoyance.

"Mr. McKenna!" she said sharply.

"I beg your pardon," he said, stiffening abruptly.

"You perceive now the delicacy of my position," she said; "and why I desire to have you completely in my interests."

"I do," he answered, but still clinging to the saving rope of defiance. "I only regret that you told me this before Mr. Beecher's--"

"Now ask me any questions you wish," she said, interrupting him impatiently.

"I don't feel at liberty to do so, Mrs. Kildair," he said warily, convinced that her whole motive was to find out the extent of his knowledge. "I prefer to know first where I stand."

"Very well," she said. "Let us talk of other things, then." Her manner changed to one of a lighter, inconsequential curiosity. "There is one point in the frightful happenings of the day I should like to know."

"What, madam?" said McKenna, whose instinct warned him to adopt a tone of artless attention.

"Majendie was followed by detectives, was he not?"

"That is the report."

"And he was on the point of leaving when he perceived that he would be followed?"

"That is what I have been told."

"And, believing that he was about to be arrested, he returned to the house and shot himself."

"That's the story."

"As a matter of fact, wasn't he mistaken?"

"In what way?" said McKenna, steeling himself under an appearance of surprise.

"Were not the detectives your own men--placed by you at Mr. Slade's orders to acquaint him with every move of Mr. Majendie?" persisted Mrs. Kildair.

"That would make a good Sunday thriller," said McKenna, laughing boisterously.

"That is my guess," she said, drawing back as though satisfied. "I am certain that Majendie committed suicide through the blunder of believing he was threatened with arrest."

"My dear Mrs. Kildair," said the detective, rising, "I see that what you want to know is, am I for or against Mr. Slade. If I'm not in his employ you think I'm retained by his enemies. Well, I don't intend to give you any information."

She made no answer, but, rising in turn, glanced at the clock.

"Since you are here," she said carelessly, "you may as well look over the ground." And, without waiting, she went to the door. "This is my bedroom. The ring was placed here."

He had hardly made his quick professional scrutiny when there came a ring at the door, and at a sign from Mrs. Kildair they returned to the studio.

"What now?" thought McKenna, who remembered her glance at the clock. "Slade or who?"

To his surprise, it was Beecher who entered. Mrs. Kildair went directly to him, a smile of confidence and welcome on her face, holding out an eager hand, and by the elation of her movements, the detective comprehended how she had played him.

"Teddy," she said directly, "I have a favor to ask you, and I trust you so completely that I know I need not explain it further. Mr. McKenna and I have had a very complete understanding. I wish him to represent me entirely. I do not mean that you should not continue to work on the case," she added quickly, as she felt instinctively the gesture of warning McKenna made behind her back. "All I wish you to tell him is that anything I may have told him or will tell him shall be considered confidential until the time I am able to tell you myself. I must throw myself on your chivalry and protection as the fine gentleman I have seen you to be," she added, looking at him with a moistening of the eyes in which there was respect and a more tender emotion.

McKenna, though perceiving how completely she had prepared the isolation of the confidence he had just heard, did not again signal his objection, perhaps divining the futility of opposing such an appeal.

Beecher bowed in assent.

"Certainly, Rita," he said, with a pride that brought a smile of amusement to McKenna's lips. "I wish McKenna to do everything he can for you and in exactly the way you wish."

"Thank you," she said, with a little pressure of his hand. Then turning, she added: "This I will say to you both. I have my reasons for believing that the ring will be returned within ten days; if it isn't then I shall have more to disclose."

"Returned?" said Beecher, struck by the similarity of her prophecy and that of Nan Charters.

"Exactly. Until then, I believe all that is necessary is to wait for developments." She turned toward the detective, who waited like a statue. "Mr. McKenna, I know you are a busy man. I won't keep you. Mr. Beecher has come to assist me on a very painful errand, one on which I would trust no other man that I know in New York." She held out her hand. "I do not often make mistakes in men, or I should not have told you what I did. Good-night; I shall call you soon."

McKenna bowed, experiencing, despite his resentment at her mastery of the evening, a feeling of respect and deference.

"Beecher is a kitten in her hands," he said to himself as he entered the street. "She played me as she wanted to. One thing's certain. She wants to employ me to keep me from doing anything. Evidently her own game is more important than the ring--or is there blackmail mixed up in this? I have it! Mrs. Kildair knows the thief, but is afraid to act until--until certain things straighten out between her and Mr. John G. Slade."

"And now, Teddy," said Mrs. Kildair, as soon as the door had closed behind the detective, "you know what I want of you. I have arranged everything. My carriage is waiting."

Half an hour later, Mrs. Bloodgood joined them, heavily veiled. They drove to the house next to that of Majendie, and, at a word from Mrs. Kildair, Beecher remained below on guard in the flickering obscurity of the street. The two women went hurriedly up the steps of Majendie's home, where the door was opened for them by some one who had been awaiting their arrival.

For a full half-hour Beecher, prey to a profound melancholy, continued his aimless, mechanical pacing, his head raised, glancing past the jagged black silhouettes of the house-tops at the reddened clouds of the unreal night, which brought him not a clear vision of immense and purifying spaces but the heavy reflection of the illuminated, surging streets.

"What will my life be?" he thought, conjuring up the future. "Calm and commonplace? Or shall I ever be linked to some such tragedy--torn to pieces, all in a day--wrecked!"

The door opened and two shadows passed down the steps. He returned hastily, saw them into the carriage, and stood with uncovered head, a lump in his throat, as they drove on. Then he went directly to his rooms, and, exhausted by the emotions of the day, fell heavily into a sleep that was almost a stupor.

*CHAPTER XV*

The next morning he was awakened by Gunther's abrupt hand.

"Up, up, you sluggard!"

He jumped out hastily and found it was almost half-past eight.

"Nice time to sleep," said Gunther sarcastically. "Have you forgotten a little visit we're to make to that sweet person, Mr. Garraboy? You've got just twenty-two minutes to beautify yourself and fill the inner being."

"If we're to see your charming friend, Mr. Garraboy," said Gunther half an hour later, as they were speeding for the congested, stirring, lower city, "we've got to nip our man before the opening of the Stock Exchange. Now let's hear what happened at Mrs. Kildair's last night."

The events in which Mrs. Bloodgood was concerned were sealed in confidence; but Beecher felt at liberty to recount to his friend the bare details of McKenna's visit as he had known them.

"What the deuce is behind it all?" said Gunther, puzzled. "I got McKenna on the wire and that's all he would tell me. What's the reason she wants to bottle up everything? What's her mix-up with Slade? Depend upon it, Ted, that woman knows more than we do--or why should she expect the ring to be returned? She's got a reason for that."

"If it's returned," said Beecher, "it's Mrs. Bloodgood who took it."

"Never! No woman ever got that ring out of the apartment--not alone; not a Mrs. Bloodgood, or a Nan Charters, or a Mrs. Cheever, or--" Suddenly he reflected. "Ted, there's one person I'd like to meet."

"Miss Lille?"

"Yes. Supposing we look her up a little more."

"I've thought quite a lot about her," said Beecher musingly; and, remembering all at once her self-possession on the night of the theft, he added: "There's nothing weak about her certainly; still, I can't see the motive."

They had left behind them the free, unbounded sky, boring their way through the towering sides of the sky-scraping district, where buildings rose in regular, comb-like structures, with their thousands of human cells tenanted by human bees. Entering a street where the obstructed sun never shone, they were swept on by the feverish rush of fellow-beings and shot up sixteen stories to their destination. The office-boy in the antechamber took their cards with the condescension which only an office-boy between the ages of twelve and sixteen can feel, and disappeared within.

"The old screw'll keep us waiting half an hour, said Gunther, who disliked all delays.

"Bet he's trying to figure out what we're here for?" said Beecher, who admitted to himself a delicious satisfaction at the prospective humiliation of the man he cordially disliked.

The next moment Garraboy himself appeared at the rail, dapper, dried up, and severe.

"How do you do?" he said sharply, but without inviting them in. "What can I do for you? It's a very busy day for me."

"I assure you I don't intend to take any more time than I am compelled to," said Beecher stiffly, with an accent that gave another meaning to the phrase. He plunged his hand into his pocket. "I have an order for you."

"Oh, yes, I remember now," said Garraboy, with a malicious drawing up of his lips. "You can save yourself the trouble."

"What do you mean?" asked Beecher, greatly surprised.

"You have an order on me to deliver certain stocks I hold for Miss Charters?"

"I have."

"Well, Miss Charters has changed her mind," said Garraboy, letting his glance rest on Beecher with the vacant, impudent stare of which he was master.

"You have seen Miss Charters?" said Beecher, growing very angry.

"I have; and when I explained to her that she had been unduly excited by some one who evidently is not aware that there are laws in civilized countries adequate to deal with those who attack the reputations or interests--"

"Sir!" exclaimed Beecher, moving so quickly toward the rail that Garraboy hastily retreated.

"When Miss Charters learned that, and likewise that she had parted with stocks worth considerably over twenty thousand dollars, she changed her mind very quickly."

"Mr. Garraboy," said Gunther abruptly, "all this is not to the point. We have a formal order on you for certain stocks. Ted, present it."

"True, I forgot," said Garraboy, and produced from his coat a letter, which he looked over with nonchalant delay and finally handed to Beecher. "I presume you are acting from altruistic motives and are not standing on technicalities. Here is a little note which Miss Charters requested me to give you."

"That has nothing to do with it," said Gunther at once, for the personality of the broker aroused the pugnacious side of him. "Your transaction has been closed. Get your stocks."

Beecher, frowning, unable to conceal the vexation that this unexpected check brought him, opened the letter. The address by its formality completed his irritation:

DEAR MR. BEECHER:

Mr. Garraboy has called and explained everything satisfactorily. I am afraid I was needlessly alarmed last night and did him an injustice. As he has shown me how advantageous it will be for me to transfer my holdings to other stocks, now far below their market value, I have decided not to lose the opportunity. Thank you just the same for your interest in this matter. I shall be in at five this afternoon and will explain to you more fully.

Cordially yours,
NAN CHARTERS.

The two watched him read to the end, fold the letter carefully, and put it in his pocket.

"Well?" said Garraboy.

"Insist on the delivery, Ted," said Gunther militantly. "If Miss Charters wants to return them again, that's her affair. The stocks are yours."

He looked at his friend with a glance of warning which sought to convey to him the distrust he could not openly phrase.

"If Mr. Beecher wishes to stand on technicalities," said Garraboy, in his even, oily voice, "he can do so. He can make a very nice profit. Which is it? I repeat, I can not give you much time."

"Miss Charters' letter is sufficient," said Beecher suddenly. "Good-day."

The feeling of mortification and chagrin which her action had brought on him dominated all other feelings. He went out in a rage, tearing the letter into minute fragments. Without a word they reached the street and entered the automobile.

"Last time I ever try to help a woman!" he said, between his teeth.

"What the deuce did you play into his game for?" said Gunther. "He's bamboozled her. I believe the fellow is an out-and-out crook--he's got a rotten bad eye. Why the deuce didn't you get the stocks?"

"She can take her own risks," said Beecher furiously. "It's her own affair if she's going to blow hot and cold. By Jove, Bruce, I never met any one who could make me so mad clear through and through."

He stopped, biting his lips, and Gunther with a shy glance stored away for future comment the impression he received.

"What's the use of taking them seriously?" he said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "Amuse yourself, but don't let them absorb you. Suppose we take a turn at the Curb and see what's doing."

With the opening of the market, all the giant sides of Wall Street seemed suddenly animated with the fury of a disturbed ant-hill. Every one was rushing in and out, carrying with them the pollution of disaster and alarm. Eddie Fontaine and Steve Plunkett hurried past them with quick nods. At the curb market the brokers were shrieking and flinging their frantic signals in the air. They entered the Stock Exchange, nodding to the doorkeeper, who knew Gunther, and reached the balcony, their ears suddenly smitten with the confused uproar from below. They stood there a few minutes, marveling at that Inferno of speculation and embattled greed flung before them in all the nakedness of man's terror; and then left, oppressed by the too frank exhibition of their mortal counterparts.

"What's doing?" asked Gunther as they returned.

The doorkeeper, with a shrug of his shoulders, flung down his thumb--the gesture of the Roman circus.

"You like that?" said Beecher, when once more they were in the automobile and the din and oppression of cell-like monstrosities had receded.

"I do," Gunther replied, locking and unlocking his broad hands.

"Horrible!"

"That's only one side of it--speculation," said Gunther warmly; "but even that is impressive. Look beyond those little mobs we saw, get the feeling of the whole country, the vast nation, rising in anger--flinging over hundreds of thousands of holdings--sweeping down the little gamblers with the tremendous waves of its alarm. Beyond that the whole vibrating industry of the nation is here, within a quarter of a mile--the great projects of development, the wars of millions, the future of immense territories to the West and the South. There's a big side to it--a real side--that gets me. I've a mind to walk down now and face the old governor and tell him I'm ready."

"Why don't you?" said Beecher. He himself had felt the restlessness of indecision and enforced idleness. He gave a laugh. "You know, Bruce, I'm beginning to feel the same way. Either I've got to get into the current somewhere, or I'm going to pack off for Africa some fine day."

"By the way, Tilton's up at the club. He's here for a few days, getting ready for a lion hunt or something."

"Tilton?" exclaimed Beecher joyfully. "By Jove, I must get hold of him. I'd go in a minute!"

He believed what he said. The whirl of emotions into which he had lately been plunged--revealing to him as it had all the mercenary, clutching side of the city--had left him disturbed, rebellious, longing to be away from the mass of men in general, and of women in particular, the brilliant, keen, and calculating women of the city with whom he had been thrown. Impatient and disillusionized, without realizing the true cause, he repeated:

"By Jove, I'd go in a minute!"

In the afternoon he went to call on Miss Charters. After having declared twenty times that he would not go near her, he suddenly remembered, at the end of a wearied discussion between his conscience and his inclination, that his check for twenty thousand dollars was to be reclaimed and, at once seizing such a satisfactory reason, he abandoned the attitude of embattled dignity which he had logically built up.

"That's true; I must get the check," he said, and he set out.

But as he neared his destination and began to rehearse all the grave causes for offense that he held against her, he was surprised at the slender stock of ammunition he held.

"Why, it was perfectly natural," he thought, struck by the idea--having considered her reasons for the first time. "If Garraboy called and explained everything to her satisfaction, why shouldn't she change her mind? Besides, there is nothing against Garraboy--nothing definite. After all, I may have been unjust to him."

Very sheepish, he felt his irritation slipping away as he yielded to the eager desire of once more entering her presence.

"What the deuce was I so wild about?" he asked himself, amazed, as he entered the elevator.

But all at once he remembered that she had allowed him to receive the news at the hands of a person intensely disagreeable to him.

"Why didn't she telephone me? That's the whole point."

And, all his irritation restored by this one outstanding fact, he entered the apartment with the dignity of a justly offended person.

She was seated by the fire in an easy-chair, and she did not rise as he entered. She was bending eagerly forward, an open manuscript in her hand, and, without turning, she made a little sign to him to be seated until she should have finished.

"Wonderful!" she cried at last, dropping the play in her lap. "It is wonderful!" she repeated, her whole body vibrating with the enthusiasm of her mood. "Wonderful--astonishing--what a scene!" And, tapping the manuscript with a gesture of decision, she exclaimed: "I will play that part--it will be an enormous sensation!"

Her mind still obsessed by the thought of the newly discovered masterpiece, she turned toward Beecher, who was seated like a ramrod on the edge of his chair.

"A marvelous play! Really, that Mr. Hargrave is a coming man." Forgetting her previous estimate, she rushed on: "Isn't it strange--I always knew he would do it, from the very first! What is extraordinary is the subtlety of it--how he twines two or three emotions together in the same scene. What a glorious chance for an actress! I must telephone the office."

As she rose, a slip of paper which she had been using as a marker fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, recognized it, and handed it to him.

"Oh, yes, here's your check!" she said. "I put it there so as not to forget it. Thanks very much. I'll explain in a minute. I must telephone Stigler; I'm all excited!"

Beecher, more annoyed by this revelation of her professional life than by the rub to his vanity, took the check and pocketed it--not having pronounced a word since his arrival.

She considered him carefully from the corner of her eye as she took up the telephone; but her personal emotion was too buoyant for trivial interruptions.

Stigler, her manager, was out, and she put down the receiver with a jar of impatience. She looked at Beecher again, and, perceiving that there was an explanation due, sought at once to shift the responsibility.

"Do you know, really, you were ridiculously alarmed last night," she said, a spirit of opposition in her voice. "I don't know what made you so panicky."

"Of course," he said sarcastically, "I realize now that I should never have stirred you up, when everything was so calm. It's strange that I did not explain to you the natural reasons for Mr. Garraboy's not calling you up--but then, I usually lose my head at such times."

"You are angry!" she said.

"What a strange idea! On the contrary, it was a charming experience to enter Mr. Garraboy's office and be so delightfully reassured that everything was so prosperous with him."

She did not like irony, or know how to combat it, so she frowned and said:

"I telephoned you."

"Why should you do that? You might have deprived me of the pleasure of meeting your charming friend, Mr. Garraboy."

"I telephoned. You were not in."

"When?"

"Last night. Four times."

He was mollified by this, but tried not to show it.

"And this morning?"

"But I never get up before ten," she cried, aghast.

"Your explanations are crushingly convincing," he said, with a bow and a smile.

She watched him with an uneasy look, totally unconscious of any sense of obligation, accustomed as she was to have her requests for service regarded as favors. The reaction from their last interview had left her in a coldly antagonistic state, determined to pluck in the bud this progress toward intimacy which had so threatened her scheme of life. Now, seeing him collected and ironical, she was instinctively alarmed at the distance which he, not she, had placed between them.

"My dear Teddy," she began, in a more confidential tone.

"Teddy?" he said, smiling.

He was perfectly good-natured, and as she felt that he was not irritated, but amusing himself at her tricks which he had divined, she was uneasy under this ironical examination. She felt that he had escaped her; and, disturbed by this thought, she looked at him, seeing all at once his quality. As he had made not the slightest reference to the very apparent obligation which he had been willing to undergo for her, she felt his social superiority and his reticence of good breeding. Besides, other women--brilliant women--had been attracted by him: Mrs. Craig Fontaine, Mrs. Kildair, and, above all, Emma Fornez. But another mood had possession of her, the mood of the artist transformed by the joy of personal sensation. She wished to keep him, but at the moment she was irritated that such a little thing should come to interfere with the joy of the imagined future triumph.

"Don't be horrid, Teddy," she said impatiently, and, wishing to appease him quickly, that she might talk to him of the play, she continued: "The fact is, Mr. Garraboy has done everything he could for me. He sold my stocks a week ago, foreseeing this panic, and saved me several thousand dollars. He offered to give me his check for twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars, or to reinvest it for me when the time came in the enormous bargains that can be picked up now. What was I to do?"

"You're quite right, and I made a great mistake to mislead you so," he answered, with great seriousness.

"It wasn't your fault," she said abruptly.

"Wasn't it?" he said, opening his eyes with a show of surprise.

She comprehended that she would have to surrender, and, changing her tone to one of gentleness, she said:

"It was a great thing for you to do what you did, Teddy--I shall never forget it."

"Nonsense," he said, persisting in misunderstanding her. "I often get up early--that was nothing at all."

"You are not at all the way you were last time," she said reproachfully, forgetting that that was just what she wished to avoid.

But at this moment the telephone rang. Stigler, her manager, was calling. Immediately she forgot their misunderstanding, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment. Beecher, with a clear vision, followed her, noticing in her voice, as she sought to cajole the manager, the same caressing pleading which she had employed a moment before with him.

"Now I really see her," he thought, with a liberation of his spirit. "Emma was entirely wrong. She's not a woman--she always an actress."

"I'll send you the play right away," she was saying. "Mr. Hargrave is coming. I'll have him take it to the hotel. But you must read it tonight. Promise! Oh, yes, lots of comedy--delicious! Heart interest and big scenes--yes, sensational. Just the part for Fannestock. I must have him for the part! You'll see him in every line! Now, Mr. Stigler, please read it tonight!"

"Ah, there's Fannestock too," said Beecher grimly to himself.

She rose from telephoning, joyous and excited.

"Oh, if Stigler will only see it! It's a great part--a great part! There's a wonderful scene at the close of the third act, between the two women and the father, that will bring down the house."

Miss Tilbury came in to announce that Mr. Hargrave was calling. An expression of delight lit up the features of the actress. But all at once she turned anxiously to Beecher, who had risen stiffly.

"By Jove, I've overstayed my time," he said readily, glancing at the clock.

She was grateful, and yet dissatisfied that he had suggested what she wished, and, recalling his new spirit of independence, she said anxiously, with a compensating smile:

"Teddy, call me up in the morning--this is so important."

In the hallway he stepped aside while Hargrave, a frail, oldish-young man, entered, with his famished, doubting glance.

"Oh, it is wonderful--wonderful!" cried the actress, seizing both his hands. "I am still thrilled. Wonderful---wonderful!"

"You liked it?" said Hargrave timidly. At her words, he saw heaven open before his eyes in a confused vision of frantic audiences, applauding critics, checks for thousands for royalty, all confused by rolling automobiles, magnificent bouquets and languishing feminine eyes.

"Like it!" continued Nan Charters, retaining hold of one hand to draw him into the salon. "It is marvelous! How could you know all this so young!"

Beecher, in the excitement, quietly made his escape. In the elevator, to the surprise of the wondering bell-boy, he was seized with a mad laughter, which continued to convulse him as he rolled into the street.

"Heaven be praised!" he exclaimed. "Cured--cured, by Jove! I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!"

On turning the corner of his club, he ran into Becker, a club acquaintance whom he tolerantly disliked.

"Becker, old boy," he said, seizing his arm and flourishing his cane in the direction of the club, "what can I buy you? Come on--_en avant_!"

"What the deuce has got in you?" said that correct youth.

"Joy, laughter, everything! I'm happy as a Croton water-bug on a hot marble slab!"

At the bar, he gathered every one in sight, slapping them on their shoulders. His comrades looked at him with envy and awe, believing that he had profited by a tip to make a killing in the market. Their own enjoyment was little enough. The market, outdoing the day before, had plunged like a wild steer into the maelstrom of panic. A billion dollars had receded, scattered, evaporated in the mad day. The disaster had reached the whole country; every bank was threatened. The United States Treasury had been implored to come to the assistance of the country. Gunther, Fontaine, Marx, Haggerty, were in hourly conference; while before the swelling hurricane of fright, every paper was imploring its readers to stand firm.

*CHAPTER XVI*

The next day Beecher did not consider for a moment telephoning to Nan Charters, despite her last request. He felt that it was a chapter closed in his life--one of those innumerable false paths down which one plunges, only the quicker to return. His own serenity did not even surprise him. He went off for the morning to play rackets with Bruce Gunther, and lunched at the club with Tilton, who urged him to join his hunt, an invitation which he discussed with enthusiasm.

The news from the stock market was the same--ten point losses in the early trading. Banks all over the country had suspended payments for a week in order to weather the storm. The panic had ceased to be one of speculative concern only. Every one was anxiously asking if a permanent blow had not been dealt to the industries of the country. Many freely prophesied that, if the downward rush were not checked within three days, it would take the country ten years to restore its shattered prosperity. There was a rumor that the big men of the Street had made up a fund, reaching to many millions, which would be brought on the morrow to the support of the market. The run on the Associated Trust still continued, checked though it was by delay and technicalities. Yet the fall of Slade was hourly predicted.

Beecher lingered after luncheon, played a hundred points at billiards and won, an hour's bridge and won again. Then he went off in high spirits to call on Emma Fornez, an appointment arranged over the telephone.

"So, you bad boy, you and your little Charters have quarreled," said the prima donna, greeting him with an accusing smile, though in her voice was the pitch of the nervous excitement which her coming debut that night had communicated.

"Not in the least," he said, a little surprised at the insinuation.

"Ta-ta-ta! Enough of your stuff and nonsense," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "You are too big a simpleton--a little woman like that will always get the best of you."

"But there is no quarrel, and I am not in the least interested."

"Oh, _avec ca_--keep away--better keep away! You will burn your fingers. Just the kind of a little doll that is dangerous. Women like that are like half colors between one thing and the other--very dangerous! A young girl--_jeune fille_--would bore you now, and an old campaigner like Emma Fornez would amuse you; but a little thing like that is too puzzling for you. I see just how it is," she continued, placing her hands on her hips and bobbing her head energetically, while Beecher, very much pleased to be so lectured, listened with a mocking look. "Yes, yes, I know very well! She gets you--how do you say?--going and coming. When she is an actress you say she is different from the rest--what a child! And when she is playing the child, you say what a difference--she is such an artist! You laugh--see!"

Beecher broke out laughing at this characterization which came so near the truth.

"What I have said is very good--very good," repeated Emma Fornez, pleased. "It's all studied, very carefully studied out, but it takes with young simpletons, big geese, good-looking boys--don't I know? _Est-ce-que j'en ai joue de ces tours la_? Come, now, what did you fight about?"

Beecher had an inclination to take her into his confidence; but he resisted the impulse, and to turn the conversation said artfully:

"By Jove, you look stunning! You won't have to sing a note."

She was in a filmy peignoir, and, as his glance showed an amused admiration, she said, with a look of apology which she did not feel at all, gathering the peignoir closer with a perfectly simulated modesty:

"It's very bad--my receiving you like this. I am going through my costumes. They are dreams. Wait, you shall see--you wish to see them? Good!" All at once she stopped and, seizing his arm, cried: "Teddy, I am in a cold fright--I shiver all over whenever I think of it. New York audiences are terrible. It will be a big, big failure, won't it?"

"There, I'll give you my lucky piece," he said, patting her shoulder as he would a child's.

"Will you!" she cried, delighted; and; running into the bedroom, she called back: "I will show you the costume for the second act first. You will fall down and adore me. Keep me talking, Teddy--I shall go into hysterics. Oh, I am so frightened!"

She tried her voice, singing a scale, inquiring anxiously, her head peering around the door: "That sounds bad, _hein_?"

"Marvelous!" said Beecher, who did not know one note from another.

Reassured, she entered radiantly, took two or three steps forward, and, lifting the castanets on her fingers, flung herself into the pose of Carmen exulting in the return of her lover.

"Carmen, Teddy," she cried, with a toss of her head. "Carmen is different from all other roles. To succeed in Carmen, one must be a Carmen one's self--_enfant de la Boheme_. You like this? Wait--wait a moment."

Back in her bedroom, she continued, pausing from time to time to shriek at her maid: "Teddy, you do me so much good--you take my mind off.... Victorine, _tu m'assassine_! ... Teddy, they will think me beautiful, _hein_? You will stay--you will talk to me until I go?"

"Wish I could," said Beecher, to whom this peep behind the scenes was novel. "The deuce is, I'm dining with Mrs. Fontaine--going in her box."

"And Charters--she is going too?"

"I don't know."

"What--you don't know?" she said, emerging, a shawl of shaded luminous greens flung over the shoulder of a russet taffeta. She seized him by the chin with the savage gesture of the Bohemian. "You lie to me! You love her--and you know!" Then, slipping on the sofa beside him, half playful, half feline, she pleaded: "Tell me, Teddy--tell me just to distract me. Be a nice boy--you see how nervous I am--please!"

Beecher did not resist. He recounted lightly, making little of the few passages at arms between him and Nan Charters, ending with a droll reproduction of his laughing exit, cured and disillusionized.

"Ah, my poor Teddy!" said Emma Fornez, shaking her head. "Everything you say proves what I feared."

"What?"

"You are in love; you are beyond hope!

"What, after I've told you this?"

"Exactly. She asked you to telephone, you didn't. Why? Because you are in love--you are afraid."

"Emma, I will tell you the truth," he said, with an excusing shrug.

"Aha!"

"I was attracted--"

"Good!"

"But I saw what an idiot I would be."

"Very good!"

"I am completely cured, and if I didn't telephone, it is--"

"Because you are in love," said Emma promptly.

"Nonsense!"

"You will see her tomorrow; if not, day after tomorrow. And the longer you stay away, the worse for you."

The arrival of Spinetti, the conductor, to run over a last few points, broke in upon this interesting discussion. Beecher departed, after a promise to come behind after the second act with a budget of news. He returned to his rooms, undisturbed by the charges of Emma Fornez.

"I haven't thought of her the whole day," he said contentedly. "If I didn't telephone, it's because--well, because--what's the use? I have other things more interesting to do."

In his apartment he found McKenna waiting for him, in company with Gunther, who was already dressed for dinner at Mrs. Fontaine's.

"Hello, McKenna," he said, surprised. "What's up?"

The two had been discussing energetically, and the little difficult hesitation told him that he himself had been the subject of conversation.

"I'm called off on an important case," said McKenna. "Thought I'd better have an understanding with you first."