The Crimson Tide Part 83

"Perhaps we ought to have heard of them," suggested Elorn, smilingly.

"The trouble may lie with us."

"It does, dear. But it's something we can't help, unless we change radically. Because we don't stand the chance we once did. We never have been as attractive to men as the other sort. But once men thought they couldn't marry the other sort. Now they think they can. And they do if they have to."

"What other sort?" asked Elorn, not entirely understanding.

"The sort of girl who ignores the customs which make us what we are.

We don't stand a chance with professional women any more. We don't compare in interest to girls who are arbiters of their own destinies.

"Take the stage as an ill.u.s.tration. Once the popularity of women who made it their profession was due partly to glamour, partly because that art drew to it and concentrated the very best-looking among us.

But it's something else now that attracts men; it's the attraction of women who are doing something--clever, experienced, interesting, girls who know how to take care of themselves and who are not afraid to give to men a frank and gay companionship outside those conventional limits which circ.u.mscribe us."

Elorn nodded.

"It's quite true," said Leila. "The independent professional girl to-day, whatever art or business engages her, is the paramount attraction to men.

"A few do sneak back to us after a jolly caper in the open--a few timid ones, or sn.o.bs of sorts--thrifty, perhaps, or otherwise material, or cautious. But that's about all we get as husbands in these devilish days of general feminine _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_. And it's a sad and instructive fact, Elorn. But there seems to be nothing to do about it."

Elorn said musingly: "The main thing seems to be that men admire a girl's effort to get somewhere--when she happens to be good-looking."

"It's a cynical fact, dear; they certainly do. And now that they realise they have to marry these girls if they want them--why, they do."

Elorn dissected her ice. "You know Stanley Wardner," she remarked.

"Mortimer Wardner's son?"

Elorn nodded. "He became a queer kind of sculptor. I think it is called a Concentrationist. Well, he's concentrated for life, now."

"Whom did he marry?" asked Leila, laughing.

"A girl named Questa Terrett. You never heard of her, did you?"

"No. And I can imagine the moans and groans of the Mortimer Wardners."

"I have heard so. She lives--_they_ live now, together, in Abdingdon Square, where she possesses a studio and nearly a dozen West Highland terriers."

"What else does she do?" inquired Leila, still laughing.

"She writes cleverly when she needs an income; otherwise, she produces obscure poems with malice aforethought, and laughs in her sleeve, they say, when the precious-minded rave."

Leila reverted to Estridge:

"I had no idea he was married," she said. "Palla Dumont introduced his widow to me the other day--a most superb and beautiful creature. But, oh dear I--can you fancy her having once served as a girl-soldier in the Russian Battalion of Death!"

The slightest shadow crossed Elorn's face.

"By the way," added Leila, following quite innocently her trend of thought, "Helen Shotwell tells me that her son is going back to the army if he can secure a commission."

"Yes, I believe so," said Elorn serenely.

Leila went on: "I fancy there'll be a lot of them. A taste of service seems to spoil most young men for a piping career of peace."

"He cares nothing for his business."

"What is it?"

"Real estate. He is with my father, you know."

"Of course. I remember--" She suddenly seemed to recollect something else, also--not, perhaps, quite certain of it, but instinctively playing safe. So she refrained from saying anything about this young man's recent devotion to her friend, Palla Dumont, although that was the subject which she had intended to introduce.

And, smiling to herself, she thought it a close call, because she had meant to ask Elorn whether she knew why the Shotwell boy had so entirely deserted her little friend Palla.

The Shotwell boy himself happened to be involved at that very moment, in matters concerning a friend of Mrs. Vance's little friend Palla--in fact, he had been trying, for the last half hour, to find this friend of Palla's on the telephone. The friend in question was Alonzo D.

Pawling. And he was being vigorously paged at the Hotel Rajah.

As for Jim, he remained seated in the private office of Angelo Puma, whither he had been summoned in professional capacity by one Skidder, the same being Elmer, and partner of the Puma aforesaid.

The door was locked; the room in disorder. Safe, letter-files, cupboards, desks had been torn open and their contents littered the place.

Skidder, in an agony of perspiring fright, kept running about the room like a distracted squirrel. Jim watched him, darkly preoccupied with other things, including the whereabouts of Mr. Pawling.

"You say," he said to Skidder, "that Mr. Pawling will confirm what you have told me?"

"John D. Pawling knows d.a.m.n well I own this plant!"

Jim shook his head: "I'm sorry, but that isn't sufficient. I can only repeat to you that there is no point in calling me in at present. You have no legal right to offer this property for sale. It belongs, apparently, to the creditors of your firm. What you require first of all is a lawyer----"

"I don't want a lawyer and I don't want publicity before I get something out of this dirty mess that scoundrel left behind!" cried Skidder, snapping his eyes like mad and swinging his arms. "I got to get something, haven't I? Isn't this property mine? Can't I sell it?"

"Apparently not, under the terms of your agreement with Puma,"

replied Jim, wearily. "However, I'm willing to hear what Mr. Pawling has to say."

"You mean to tell me, Puma fixed it so I'm stuck with all his debts?

You mean to say my own personal property is subject to seizure to satisfy----"

"I certainly do mean just that, Mr. Skidder. But I'm not a lawyer----"

"I tell you I want to get something for myself before I let loose any lawyers on the premises! I'll make it all right with you----"

"It's out of the question. We wouldn't touch the property----"

"I'll take a quarter of its value in spot cash! I'll give you ten thousand to put it through to-day!"

"Why can't you understand that what you suggest would amount to collusion?"

"What I propose is to get a slice of what's mine!" yelled Skidder, fairly dancing with fury. "D'yeh think I'm going to let that crooked wop, Puma, do this to me just like that! D'yeh think he's going to get away with all my money and all Pawling's money and leave me planted on my neck while about a million other guys come and sell me out and fill their pants pockets with what's mine?"

Jim said: "If Mr. Pawling is the very rich man you say he is, he's not going to let the defalcation of this fellow, Puma, destroy such a paying property."