Lord Loveland Discovers America Part 24

"Oh, indeed it wouldn't," exclaimed the pretty Jewess. "I don't know what mightn't happen to you. You _will_ be careful, won't you--if it's only to please me?" And her eyes were large and beseeching.

"You're very kind to take an interest," said Val, really grateful, though he had to restrain an impulse to draw back from her advances. "Of course I don't want to be let in for a scandal which might do others harm as well as me--and would, if that beast Milton could manage it. I'm not exactly pining to see the inside of a New York gaol--which you seem to think I'm in danger of doing. Things are bad enough, as it is." And his face darkened, for he thought that, after the loathesome publicity the newspapers were now giving the name of Loveland, he might have difficulty in bringing down such game as he had crossed the sea to seek.

Also, he remembered with a pang Lesley Dearmer's prophecy that the Louisville journals would reprint New York gossip.

"Oh, I'm sorry you think things here are so bad," retorted Isidora, flushed and pouting.

"You know I don't mean things here," protested Val, with less truth than politeness. "You're too good to me, and I appreciate it all immensely."

"Do you?" she asked, her eyes liquid.

"Of course I do. I hope I shall be able to prove that before long."

She blushed. To her mind, there was only one way in which a young man could prove that he appreciated a girl's goodness to him: by making love to her. And she could almost have fainted with joy at the thought of what it would be to have this glorious hero--villain though he might be--as a lover. Already she had a dim yet intoxicating vision of herself a bride in white silk (or should it be cream satin?) and a wreath of artificial orange blossoms amid clouds of tulle. There would be difficulties--a hundred difficulties, of which the greatest was now upstairs enjoying a well-earned rest. But who cared for a love that ran smooth? And Isidora thrilled as her fancy held a spygla.s.s up to the future.

"Well," she said, warmly, "I mean to go on being good--better--best to you; for I'm studying out a plan to get your things away from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and all the same to keep you out of trouble.

You're a foreigner, and don't understand our ways yet, but I'll see you through all right."

"How are you going to do that, my guardian angel?" Val smiled at the pretty Jewess.

Isidora had the sensation of being bathed in perfumed cream. His "guardian angel"! She had been called a number of nice things, such as a "real beaut," a high-flyer and a Floradora; but no one had ever hailed her as his guardian angel before, and with all her heart she vowed that she would live up to the name.

"I don't know exactly yet how I'll do it," she admitted. "But you leave it to me, and it'll be done, you'll see. Only give me an order signed 'Loveland,' to bring away anything of yours from the hotel. Meantime, I've thought of one thing, which is, you'd better not be seen here till we're sure they ain't onto you, through that messenger boy. I tell you what; I've got a lady friend in this street, Mrs. Johnny Gernsbacher, who's lookin' after an empty house that's for rent."

"A caretaker?" asked Loveland.

"I guess that's right. Me and Mrs. Gernsbacher's good friends. She's a widow lady, quite old, 'most forty-five, so she'll do for a chaperon. Pa had her boy here once to wait, and then through me and friends of mine he got a better job outside. She'd be glad to do me a good turn. You can see to things here for five minutes till I run across and ask if she'll let you stay there in the house, as a friend of mine, till you have time to look around."

"_I_--see to things?" echoed Loveland, blankly.

"Yes. If anybody comes in, they'll take you for a swell waiter, in those clothes. They'll think Alexander the Great's startin' in for uptown style."

She laughed with amus.e.m.e.nt at the joke, and Loveland laughed, too, though not very heartily. He was not enchanted at the idea of being mistaken for a "swell waiter," but beggars must not be choosers, and he offered no objection to the plan.

Wrapping over her head a red crocheted scarf which she called a "fascinator," Isidora darted into the street, panting with haste lest the worst should happen in her absence, and her father take it into his head to come downstairs. But she had seen him last dozing over the Police News, in a quilted home-made dressing-gown, and that was such a short time ago that she hardly thought there was danger of a surprise.

Mrs. Gernsbacher must have been very accessible and easily persuaded, for in less than ten minutes the girl was back again, flushed with triumph. "It's all right," she announced. "Beccy G's standing in the bas.e.m.e.nt door, waiting for you to pop in. Bill, you show him the way to Beccy's. Goodbye, Mr. Gordon. Don't stay here another minute. I'll be over as soon as I can, to tell you what's up--and I'll send Bill along at noon with something good for your dinner."

Carried off his feet by her enthusiasm, Loveland did not stop for further argument. Caught by an eddy in the tide of fate, he let himself be swept away.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A Back Number

Nothing had happened when Bill Willing came at half-past twelve, to find Loveland an inappropriately ornamental figure, keeping guard in Mrs.

Gernsbacher's kitchen during that lady's absence on a shopping expedition: nothing had happened worth reporting, except that Alexander the Great was "around again."

Isidora had sent, wrapped in a j.a.panese paper napkin, a ham-sandwich, and a generous slice of pumpkin-pie, a delicacy strange to the Englishman's palate. Bill had brought food for himself, too (that part of his wage which he took out in kind), preferring a cold picnic meal with his friend to the hot meat and potatoes he might have had at the restaurant. He also was provided with pie and a sandwich, and though his portion was smaller than Isidora's surrept.i.tious gift to "Mr. Gordon,"

he had smuggled in his pocket a bottle of ginger ale for both.

"Have you read the beastly newspaper article about me?" Val forced himself to enquire.

"No," answered Bill, "I ain't seen it. Miss Izzie offered me the paper, but I--well, I didn't care to read it. Seemed as if 'twould sorter be spying on you, behind your back."

"You're a good fellow," said Val. It was a new idea, only born to him last night, that a shabby waif like Bill--a mere autumn leaf, blown here and there by contrary winds of circ.u.mstance--could be a "good fellow,"

with the heart of a man. But here was such a one. And it seemed to Lord Loveland that the leaf was very like a gentleman.

"I don't see where the goodness comes in," protested Bill, modestly.

"But I can run back and sneak the paper, if you've changed your mind and want a squint at it."

"No, thank you," said Val; though he half scorned himself for moral cowardice. "I've no wish to see how deep New York journalism has pushed me into the mud."

Bill, who did not wish to be overheard gossiping about his friend's affairs by the returning Mrs. Gernsbacher, pottered away after the meal, promising to run in later with a message from "Miss Izzie," if the young lady were prevented from coming in person. If Isidora had mapped out a definite plan, she had not confided it to Bill, but he had little doubt that her idea would "pan out all right, because she was a mighty smart girl when she set her wits to work."

Some hours pa.s.sed, and Loveland became as restless as a caged lion lately imported from his native desert. It was only his horror of vague atrocities which might be perpetrated by the New York police--horrors such as he had read or heard of--which restrained him from rushing out of his dreary hiding place, even at the price of being hooted in his evening clothes, in the full glare of noonday. After all, he said to himself, bitterly, those who might see him perambulating Twelfth Street, thus unsuitably clad, would only do as Isidora had suggested--"take him for a swell waiter." But he did not like that dark, haunting vision of the police, and constrained himself to patience.

Rebecca Gernsbacher returned from her morning's shopping to ask almost as many questions as she drew breaths, freezing into a cold statue of suspicion as her mysterious guest froze into reticence. Not having heard the name of Loveland, she did not a.s.sociate any sensational headlines in the morning paper with Isidora's "swell mash," but there was no crime between pocket picking and murder of which she did not believe the handsome, sulky fugitive easily capable.

Loveland had parted with his watch, but there was a battered "one day Bee" clock in Mrs. Gernsbacher's untidy kitchen, and he had begun to tell himself gloomily, that it would soon be too late to draw money from any bank, when Isidora appeared in great splendour at the bas.e.m.e.nt door.

She had on a large picture hat of red velvet, nodding with cheap ostrich plumes which shaded from palest pink to deepest magenta; and in her "electric seal" coat she looked as little like a lady as a beautiful girl could possibly look. But she was enchanted with herself--and evidently expected to impress Loveland by her taste and elegance.

"Well!" she panted, having kissed her friend Beccy, and dusted off a chair with the big m.u.f.f which matched her cloak. "Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Gordon. Guess what it is."

Val was in no mood for graceful badinage, but he forced himself to reply smilingly that he could not guess, and was anxious to hear. "I began to think you were never coming," he added; which remark was more flattering to Isidora than to Mrs. Gernsbacher.

The girl, pleased at his impatience, which made her conscious of her own importance, gaily plunged into her narrative: what she had done, and why she had been so long in doing it.

In the first place, Pa had been cross, and hadn't wanted her to go out; but when she had teased, he had only grumbled a little, and directly after dinner--before Bill came back--she had taken an "L" train downtown, to consult the husband of a great friend of hers. This gentleman she had persuaded to leave business--he being a tobacco merchant--and to drop in at the Waldorf-Astoria, with the object of making certain enquiries. She had not, she said, confided any secrets to her friend, though she was sure she might have done so safely, but had merely pleaded a pa.s.sionate yearning for further details of the "story"

in "New York Light." What were the hotel people going to do? Were they searching for the Englishman, and if so, had they got upon his track?

Mr. Rosenstein being an occasional customer of the Waldorf bar, when he "had on his gladdest rags and was out to do himself well," did not hesitate to undertake the mission. He went to the hotel and asked questions without arousing any suspicion that he was actuated by a deeper motive than idle curiosity, and he learned that the staff of the Waldorf-Astoria took but little interest in the gentleman calling himself Lord Loveland. The Englishman had gone away without paying for his rooms, as the newspapers had said, the hotel people admitted, but goods worth about the amount owing had been left behind. Possibly the owner would redeem the things; and if not, it was a matter of no great importance to the hotel, which was full of other clients and of other business. Anything that might have happened, anything of which the Englishman might be accused, did not concern the Waldorf-Astoria, now that he was no longer a resident of the hotel, and employes had been instructed not to gossip either in his favour or disfavour. Besides, a good deal of water had run through the mill since his eviction, and the late Lord Loveland was now shelved as a "Back Number."

Having got this information, pa.s.sed on from Mr. Rosenstein, Isidora had felt safe in attempting her _coup d'etat_. Bidding her obliging friend goodbye with thanks, she went herself to the Waldorf-Astoria. a.s.suming the air of a d.u.c.h.ess (as she conceived it) she showed to a clerk the paper given her by Loveland, and signed by him. At the same time she mentioned haughtily that she was a friend of the gentleman's, and had dropped in for his mail.

There was no mail, had come the laconic answer; no cablegram; no letters; no visiting cards; and n.o.body had called with the exception of two or three newspaper men.

Loveland's heart was cold as iron, and as heavy, when Isidora's story had reached this climax. Difference in time could no longer account for the London bank's failure in replying to his wire of yesterday. There was some other reason for silence--some strange, sinister reason connected, no doubt, with the att.i.tude of the New York cashier twenty-four hours ago. Val asked himself insistently what that reason might be, and could get no answer, although various disturbing conjectures flitted through his brain. He thought of the debts he had left behind in London, and wondered if any of his creditors could possibly be responsible for the mysterious trouble which had attacked him simultaneously from both sides of the world.

And n.o.body had called or written! This lack of courtesy showed, to his mind, that Jim's and Betty's friends had all read the newspapers, and had taken his affair with Milton in bad part. The man Milton was to blame for the scandal, which had doubtless been spread by Cadwallader Hunter's journalist friend, in revenge for a snub. Cadwallader Hunter's malice, too, must have been another match to light the fire of mischief; and taking everything together, Loveland began to fear that the game in America was up. He hated to fail, hated to be thwarted--pushed back with brutal violence from the very threshold of success; but it was all too sordid, too humiliating for a gentleman to contend against. He began to tell himself that the dignified course was to turn his back on America and march homeward with flags flying as if he had suffered no defeat.

Yes, that was what he would do. It would be disgracing himself and his name, to go down and wrestle in the arena with enemies who did not pretend to fight fair. Yet--to leave this country for ever, with no hope of seeing Lesley Dearmer again! She had not even given him her address, and had only laughed elusively when he suggested "calling on her some day, after everything was comfortably settled." He knew no more than that she lived "near Louisville," therefore he could not write to beg that she would not believe any hateful tales the newspapers might invent. Oh, yes, it was all over--that, little episode, which had been so sweet, which had taught him that he had heart enough to love and long for a woman, because of what she was, not because of what she had.

"You needn't look so broken up," said Isidora. "Wait till I come to the end of the story. I've got a messenger waitin' in the street with something for you. I wouldn't let him in, till we'd had our talk. Now I'm going to call him down, to cheer you up a bit."

She bounced off her chair, ran to the door, and shouted up from the level of the bas.e.m.e.nt to the street. In another moment a uniformed youth walked in and deposited a large paper-wrapped bundle; but it was not until he had been sent away that Isidora began to open the parcel.