A Fool and His Money Part 16

"Well," said I loftily, "we'll see."

We were silent for a long time.

"It must be horribly lonely and spooky away up there where she is,"

I said at last, inadvertently betraying my thoughts. He sniffed.

"Have you a cold?" I demanded, glaring at him.

"No," he said gloomily; "a presentiment."

"Umph!"

Another period of silence. Then: "I wonder if Max--" I stopped short.

"Yes, sir," he said, with wonderful divination. "He did."

"Any message?"

"She sent down word that the new cook is a jewel, but I think she must have been jesting. I've never cared for a man cook myself. I don't like to appear hypercritical, but what did you think of the dinner tonight, sir?"

"I've never tasted better broiled ham in my life, Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e."

"Ham! That's it, Mr. Smart. But what I'd like to know is this: What became of the grouse you ordered for dinner, sir? I happen to know that it was put over the fire at seven--"

"I sent it up to the countess, with our compliments," said I, peevishly.

I think that remark silenced him. At any rate, he got up and left the room.

I laid awake half the night morbidly berating the American father who is so afraid of his wife that he lets her bully him into sacrificing their joint flesh and blood upon the altar of social ambition. She had said that her father was opposed to the match from the beginning. Then why, in the name of heaven, wasn't he man enough to put a stop to it?

Why--But what use is there in applying whys to a man who doesn't know what G.o.d meant when He fashioned two s.e.xes? I put him down as neutral and tried my best to forget him.

But I couldn't forget the daughter of this browbeaten American father.

There was something singularly familiar about her exquisite face, a conviction on my part that is easily accounted for. Her portrait, of course, had been published far and wide at the time of the wedding; she must have been pictured from every conceivable angle, with illimitable gowns, hats, veils and parasols, and I certainly could not have missed seeing her, even with half an eye. But for the life of me, I couldn't connect her with any of the much-talked-of international marriages that came to mind as I lay there going over the meagre a.s.sortment I was able to recall. I went to sleep wondering whether p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's memory was any better than mine. He is tremendously interested in the financial doings of our country, being the possessor of a flourishing savings' account, and as he also possesses a lively sense of the ridiculous, it was not unreasonable to suspect that he might remember all the details of this particular transaction in stocks and bonds.

The next morning I set my labourers to work putting guest-rooms into shape for the coming of the Hazzards and the four friends who were to be with them for the week as my guests. They were to arrive on the next day but one, which gave me ample time to consult a furniture dealer. I would have to buy at least six new beds and everything else with which to comfortably equip as many bed-chambers, it being a foregone conclusion that not even the husbands and wives would condescend to "double up" to oblige me. The expensiveness of this ill-timed visit had not occurred to me at the outset. Still there was some prospect of getting the wholesale price. On one point I was determined; the workmen should not be laid off for a single hour, not even if my guests went off in a huff.

At twelve I climbed the tortuous stairs leading to the Countess's apartments. She opened the door herself in response to my rapping.

"I neglected to mention yesterday that I am expecting a houseful of guests in a day or two," I said, after she had given me a very cordial greeting.

"Guests?" she cried in dismay. "Oh, dear! Can't you put them off?"

"I have hopes that they won't be able to stand the workmen banging around all day," I confessed, somewhat guiltily.

"Women in the party?"

"Two, I believe. Both married and qualified to express opinions."

"They will be sure to nose me out," she said ruefully. "Women are dreadful nosers."

"Don't worry," I said. "We'll get a lot of new padlocks for the doors downstairs and you'll be as safe as can be, if you'll only keep quiet."

"But I don't see why I should be made to mope here all day and all night like a sick cat, holding my hand over Rosemary's mouth when she wants to cry, and muzzling poor Jinko so that he--"

"My dear Countess," I interrupted sternly, "you should not forget that these other guests of mine are invited here."

"But I was here first," she argued. "It is most annoying."

"I believe you said yesterday that you are in the habit of having your own way." She nodded her head. "Well, I am afraid you'll have to come down from your high horse--at least temporarily."

"Oh, I see. You--you mean to be very firm and domineering with me."

"You must try to see things from my point of--"

"Please don't say that!" she flared. "I'm so tired of hearing those words. For the last three years I've been _commanded_ to see things from some one else's point of view, and I'm sick of the expression."

"For heaven's sake, don't put me in the same boat with your husband!"

She regarded me somewhat frigidly for a moment longer, and then a slow, witching smile crept into her eyes.

"I sha'n't," she promised, and laughed outright.

"Do forgive me, Mr. Smart. I am such a piggy thing. I'll try to be nice and sensible, and I will be as still as a mouse all the time they're here. But you must promise to come up every day and give me the gossip. You _can_ steal up, can't you? Surrept.i.tiously?"

"Clandestinely," I said, gravely.

"I really ought to warn you once more about getting yourself involved,"

she said pointedly.

"Oh, I'm quite a safe old party," I a.s.sured her. "They couldn't make capital of me."

"The grouse was delicious," she said, deliberately changing the subject.

Nice divorcees are always doing that.

We fell into a discussion of present and future needs; of ways and means for keeping my friends utterly in the dark concerning her presence in the abandoned east wing; and of what we were pleased to allude to as "separate maintenance," employing a phrase that might have been considered distasteful and even ba.n.a.l under ordinary conditions.

"I've been trying to recall all of the notable marriages we had in New York three years ago," said I, after she had most engagingly reduced me to a state of subjection in the matter of three or four moot questions that came up for settlement. "You don't seem to fit in with any of the international affairs I can bring to mind."

"You promised you wouldn't bother about that, Mr. Smart," she said severely.

"Of course you _were_ married in New York?"

"In a very nice church just off Fifth Avenue, if that will help you any," she said. "The usual crowd inside the church, and the usual mob outside, all fighting for a glimpse of me in my wedding shroud, and for a chance to see a real Hungarian n.o.bleman. It really was a very magnificent wedding, Mr. Smart." She seemed to be unduly proud of the spectacular sacrifice.

A knitted brow revealed the obfuscated condition of my brain. I was thinking very intently, not to say remotely.

"The whole world talked about it," she went on dreamily. "We had a real prince for the best man, and two of the ushers couldn't speak a word of English. Don't you remember that the police closed the streets in the neighbourhood of the church and wouldn't let people spoil everything by going about their business as they were in the habit of doing? Some of the shops sold window s.p.a.ce to sight-seers, just as they do at a coronation."

"I daresay all this should let in light, but it doesn't."