Children of the Whirlwind Part 23

"I told you I was squeezed financially--so the picture is yours. I'll send you Mr. Hunt's present address when I receive your check. Make it payable to 'cash.'"

When Mr. Graham had gone with the Italian mother--it was then the very end of the afternoon--Larry wondered if his plan to draw Hunt out of his hermitage was going to succeed; and wondered what would be the result, if any, upon the relationship between Hunt and Miss Sherwood if Hunt should come openly back into his world an acclaimed success, and come with the changed att.i.tude toward every one and every thing that recognition bestows.

But something was to make Larry wonder even more a few minutes later.

d.i.c.k, that habitual late riser, had had to hurry away that morning without speaking to him. Now, when he came home toward six o'clock, d.i.c.k shouted cheerily from the hallway:

"Ahoy! Where you anch.o.r.ed, Captain Nemo?"

Larry did not answer. He sat over his papers as one frozen. He knew now whose had been the elusively familiar voice he had heard outside Maggie's door. It was d.i.c.k Sherwood's.

d.i.c.k paused without to take some messages from Judkins, and Larry's mind raced feverishly. d.i.c.k Sherwood was the victim Maggie and Barney and Old Jimmie were so cautiously and elaborately trying to trim! It seemed an impossible coincidence. But no, not impossible, after all. Their net had been spread for just such game: a young man, impressionable, pleasure-loving, with plenty of money, and with no strings tied to his spending of it. That Barney should have made his acquaintance was easily explained; to establish acquaintance with such persons as d.i.c.k was Barney's specialty. What more natural than that the high-spirited, irresponsible d.i.c.k should fall into this trap?--or indeed that he should have been picked out in advance as the ideal victim and have been drawn into it?

"h.e.l.lo, there!" grumbled d.i.c.k, entering. "Why didn't you answer a shipmate's hail?"

"I heard you; but just then I was adding a column of figures, and I knew you'd look in."

At that moment Larry noted the portrait of Maggie, looking up from the chair beside him. With a swiftness which he tried to disguise into a mechanical action, he seized the painting and rolled it up, face inside.

"What's that you've got?" demanded d.i.c.k.

"Just a little daub of my own."

"So you paint, too. What else can you do? Let's have a look."

"It's too rotten. I'd rather let you see something else--though all my stuff is bad."

"You wouldn't do any little thing, would you, to brighten this tiredest hour in the day of a tired business man," complained d.i.c.k. "I've really been a business man to-day, Captain. Worked like the devil--or an angel--whichever works the harder."

He lit a cigarette and settled with a sigh on the corner of Larry's desk. Larry regarded him with a stranger and more contradicting mixture of feelings than he had ever thought to contain: solicitude for d.i.c.k--jealousy of him--and the instinct to protect Maggie. This last seemed to Larry grotesquely absurd the instant it seethed up in him, but there the instinct was: was d.i.c.k treating Maggie right?

"How was the show last night, d.i.c.k?"

"Punk!"

"I thought you said you were to see 'The Jest.' I've heard it's one of the best things for years."

"Oh, I guess the show's all right. But the company was poor. My company, I mean. The person I wanted to see couldn't come."

"Hope you had a supper party that made up for the disappointment,"

pursued Larry, adroitly trying to lead him on.

"I sure had that, Captain!"

d.i.c.k slid to a chair beside Larry, dropped a hand on Larry's knee, and said in a lowered tone:

"Captain, I've recently met a new girl--and believe me, she's a knock-out!"

"Better keep clear of those show girls, d.i.c.k."

"Never again! The last one cured me for life. Miss Cameron--Maggie Cameron, how's that for a name?--is no Broadway girl, Captain. She's not even a New York girl."

"No?"

"She's from some place out West. Father owned several big ranches. She says that explains her crudeness. Her crude? I should say not! They don't grow better manners right here in New York. And she's pretty, and clever, and utterly naive about everything in New York. Though I must say," d.i.c.k added, "that I'm not so keen about her cousin and her uncle.

I'd met the cousin a few times the last year or two around town; he belongs here. The two are the sort of poor stock that crops out in every good family. They've got one merit, though: they don't try to impose on her too much."

"What is your Miss Cameron doing in New York?"

"Having her first look at the town before going to some resort for the summer; perhaps taking a cottage somewhere. I say, Captain"--leaning closer--"I wish you didn't feel you had to stick around this apartment so tight. I'd like to take you out and introduce you to her."

Larry could imagine the resulting scene if ever this innocently proposed introduction were given.

"I guess that for the present I'll have to depend upon your reports, d.i.c.k."

"Well, you can take it from me that she's just about all right!"

It was Larry's strange instinct to protect Maggie that prompted his next remark:

"You're not just out joy-riding, are you, d.i.c.k?"

d.i.c.k flushed. "Nothing of that sort. She's not that kind of girl.

Besides--I think it's the real thing, Captain."

The honest look in d.i.c.k's eyes, even more than his words, quieted Larry's fear for Maggie. Presently d.i.c.k walked out leaving Larry yet another problem added to his life. He could not let anything happen to Maggie. He could not let anything happen to d.i.c.k. He had to protect each; he had to do something. Yet what could he do?

Yes, this certainly was a problem! He paced the room, another victim of the ancient predicament of divided and antagonistic duty.

CHAPTER XIX

The night of Larry's unexpected call upon her at the Grantham, Maggie had pulled herself together and aided by the imposing Miss Grierson had done her best as ingenue hostess to her pseudo-cousin, Barney, and her pseudo-uncle, Old Jimmie, and to their quarry, d.i.c.k Sherwood, whom they were so cautiously stalking. But when d.i.c.k had gone, and when Miss Grierson had withdrawn to permit her charge a little visit with her relatives, Barney had been prompt with his dissatisfaction.

"What was the matter with you to-night, Maggie?" he demanded. "You didn't play up to your usual form."

"If you don't like the way I did it, you may get some one else," Maggie snapped back.

"Aw, don't get sore. If I'm stage-managing this show, I guess it's my business to tell you how to act the part, and to tell you when you're endangering the success of the piece by giving a poor performance."

"Maybe you'd better get some one else to take my part right now."

Maggie's tone and look were implacable. Barney moved uneasily. That was the worst about Maggie: she wouldn't take advice from any one unless the advice were a coincidence with or an enlargement of her own wishes, and she was particularly temperish to-night. He hastened to appease her.

"I guess the best of us have our off days. It's all right unless"--Barney hesitated, business fear and jealousy suddenly seizing him--"unless the way you acted tonight means you don't intend to go through with it?"

"Why shouldn't I go through with it?"