The Lost Road Part 17

With eyes grave and untroubled, he steadily regarded his escort; but not by the hastening of a footstep or the acceleration of a gesture did he admit that by his audience he was either distressed or embarra.s.sed.

That was the situation on the morning when the Treaty of London was to be signed and sealed.

In spite of the publicity given to the conference by the Times, however, what the terms of the treaty might be no one knew. If Adrianople were surrendered; if Salonika were given to Greece; if Servia obtained a right-of-way to the Adriatic--peace was a.s.sured; but, should the Young Turks refuse--should Austria prove obstinate--not only would the war continue, but the Powers would be involved, and that greater, more awful war--the war dreaded by all the Christian world--might turn Europe into a slaughter-house.

Would Turkey and Austria consent and peace ensue? Would they refuse and war follow? That morning those were the questions on the lips of every man in London save one. He was Sam Lowell; and he was asking himself another and more personal question: "How can I find five pounds and pacify Mrs. Wroxton?"

He had friends in New York who would cable him money to pay his pa.s.sage home; but he did not want to go home. He preferred to starve in London than be vulgarly rich anywhere else. That was not because he loved London, but because above everything in life he loved Polly Seward--and Polly Seward was in London. He had begun to love her on cla.s.s day of his senior year; and, after his father died and left him with no one else to care for, every day he had loved her more.

Until a month before he had been in the office of Wetmore & Hastings, a smart brokers' firm in Wall Street. He had obtained the position not because he was of any use to Wetmore & Hastings, but because the firm was the one through which his father had gambled the money that would otherwise have gone to Sam. In giving Sam a job the firm thought it was making rest.i.tution. Sam thought it was making the punishment fit the crime; for he knew nothing of the ways of Wall Street, and having to learn them bored him extremely. He wanted to write stories for the magazines. He wanted to bind them in a book and dedicate them to Polly. And in this wish editors humored him--but not so many editors or with such enthusiasm as to warrant his turning his back on Wall Street.

That he did later when, after a tour of the world that had begun from the San Francisco side, Polly Seward and her mother and Senator Seward reached Naples. There Senator Seward bought old Italian furniture for his office on the twenty-fifth floor of the perfectly new Seward building. Mrs. Seward tried to buy for Polly a prince nearly as old as the furniture, and Polly bought picture post-cards which she sent to Sam.

Polly had been absent six months, and Sam's endurance had been so timed as just to last out the half-year. It was not guaranteed to withstand any change of schedule, and the two months' delay in Italy broke his heart. It could not run overtime on a starvation diet of post-cards; so when he received a cable reading, "Address London, Claridge's," his heart told him it could no longer wait--and he resigned his position and sailed.

On her trip round the world Polly had learned many things. She was observant, alert, intent on asking questions, hungering for facts. And a charming young woman who seeks facts rather than attention will never lack either. But of all the facts Polly collected, the one of surpa.s.sing interest, and which gave her the greatest happiness, was that she could not live without Sam Lowell. She had suspected this, and it was partly to make sure that she had consented to the trip round the world. Now that she had made sure, she could not too soon make up for the days lost. Sam had spent his money, and he either must return to New York and earn more or remain near Polly and starve. It was an embarra.s.sing choice. Polly herself made the choice even more difficult.

One morning when they walked in St. James's Park to feed the ducks she said to him:

"Sam, when are we to be married?"

When for three years a man has been begging a girl to marry him, and she consents at the exact moment when, without capitulation to all that he holds honorable, he cannot marry anybody, his position deserves sympathy.

"My dear one," exclaimed the unhappy youth, "you make me the most miserable of men! I can't marry! I'm in an awful place! If I married you now I'd be a crook! It isn't a question of love in a cottage, with bread and cheese. If cottages were renting for a dollar a year I couldn't rent one for ten minutes. I haven't cheese enough to bait a mouse-trap. It's terrible! But we have got to wait."

"Wait!" cried Polly. "I thought you had been waiting! Have I been away too long? Do you love some one else?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" said Sam crossly. "Look at me," he commanded, "and tell me whom I love!"

Polly did not take time to look.

"But I," she protested, "have so much money!"

"It's not your money," explained Sam. "It's your mother's money or your father's, and both of them dislike me. They even have told me so.

Your mother wants you to marry that Italian; and your father, having half the money in America, naturally wants to marry you to the other half. If I were selfish and married you I'd be all the things they think I am."

"You are selfish!" cried Polly. "You're thinking of yourself and of what people will say, instead of how to make me happy. What's the use of money if you can't buy what you want?"

"Are you suggesting you can buy me?" demanded Sam.

"Surely," said Polly--"if I can't get you any other way. And you may name your own price, too."

"When I am making enough to support myself without sponging on you,"

explained Sam, "you can have as many millions as you like; but I must first make enough to keep me alive. A man who can't do that isn't fit to marry."

"How much," demanded Polly, "do you need to keep you alive? Maybe I could lend it to you."

Sam was entirely serious.

"Three thousand a year," he said.

Polly exclaimed indignantly.

"I call that extremely extravagant!" she cried. "If we wait until you earn three thousand a year we may be dead. Do you expect to earn that writing stories?"

"I can try," said Sam--"or I will rob a bank."

Polly smiled upon him appealingly.

"You know how I love your stories," she said, "and I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world; but, Sam dear, I think you had better rob a bank!"

Addressing an imaginary audience, supposedly of men, Sam exclaimed:

"Isn't that just like a woman? She wouldn't care," he protested, "how I got the money!"

Polly smiled cheerfully.

"Not if I got you!" she said. In extenuation, also, she addressed an imaginary audience, presumably of women. "That's how I love him!" she exclaimed. "And he asks me to wait! Isn't that just like a man?

Seriously," she went on, "if we just go ahead and get married father would have to help us. He'd make you a vice-president or something."

At this suggestion Sam expressed his extreme displeasure.

"The last time I talked to your father," he said, "I was in a position to marry, and I told him I wanted to marry you. What he said to that was: 'Don't be an a.s.s!' Then I told him he was unintelligent--and I told him why. First, because he could not see that a man might want to marry his daughter in spite of her money; and second, because he couldn't see that her money wouldn't make up to a man for having him for a father-in-law."

"Did you have to tell him that?" asked Polly.

"Some one had to tell him," said Sam gloomily. "Anyway, as a source of revenue father is eliminated. I have still one chance in London. If that fails I must go home. I've been promised a job in New York reporting for a Wall Street paper--and I'll write stories on the side.

I've cabled for money, and if the London job falls through I shall sail Wednesday."

"Wednesday!" cried Polly. "When you say things like 'Wednesday' you make the world so dark! You must stay here! It has been such a long six months; and before you earn three thousand dollars I shall be an old, old maid. But if you get work here we could see each other every day."

They were in the Sewards' sitting-room at Claridge's. Sam took up the desk telephone.

"In London," he said, "my one best and only bet is a man named Forsythe, who helps edit the Pall Mall. I'll telephone him now. If he can promise me even a shilling a day I'll stay on and starve--but I'll be near you. If Forsythe fails me I shall sail Wednesday."

The telephone call found Forsythe at the Pall Mall office. He would be charmed to advise Mr. Lowell on a matter of business. Would he that night dine with Mr. Lowell? He would. And might he suggest that they dine at Pavoni's? He had a special reason for going there, and the dinner would cost only three and six.

"That's reason enough!" Sam told him.

"And don't forget," said Polly when, for the fifth time, Sam rose to go, "that after your dinner you are to look for me at the d.u.c.h.ess of Deptford's dance. I asked her for a card and you will find it at your lodgings. Everybody will be there; but it is a big place-full of dark corners where we can hide."

"Don't hide until I arrive," said Sam. "I shall be very late, as I shall have to walk. After I pay for Forsythe's dinner and for white gloves for your dance I shall not be in a position to hire a taxi. But maybe I shall bring good news. Maybe Forsythe will give me the job.

If he does we will celebrate in champagne."

"You will let me at least pay for the champagne?" begged Polly.

"No," said Sam firmly--"the d.u.c.h.ess will furnish that."

When Sam reached his lodgings in Russell Square, which he approached with considerable trepidation, he found Mrs. Wroxton awaiting him. But her att.i.tude no longer was hostile. On the contrary, as she handed him a large, square envelope, decorated with the strawberry leaves of a duke, her manner was humble.