The Paliser case Part 17

"Yes. It was that Paliser."

"Well, why not? If it had not been for him, I would not have got the catamount's money and you would not have had the burgundy."

But he was not to be mollified. The growl sharpened into a snarl.

"Paliser! I don't like the breed. By G.o.d, if----"

The peradventure of that Ca.s.sy got before he could utter it. Paliser! Of all men! The absurdity convulsed her. Her laughter ran up and down the scale.

"You're the dearest old duck of a goose I ever heard of." She turned.

Her wrap swished. "I only wish you were going too."

Below, in the street, a man, precipitatingly vacating the box of a machine, touched his cap at her. "Beg pardon, mem. Miss Cara? Mr.

Paliser's compliments and he's sent a car."

Ca.s.sy glanced at the man, who looked like a Roman emperor. From the man she turned to the car. Superiorly and soberly finished, it beckoned.

Now, though, the Caesar was holding open the door. Ca.s.sy got in. The emperor hopped up. The car leaped.

On the front seat was a box with her name on it. In it was a handful of orchids. The luxury of the car, the beauty of the demon-flowers, the flight from the walk-up, yet more, perhaps, the caresses and surrenders of spring, affected her. If, she thought, if only the things that might be could be the things that are! If only----

On the pale cushions she leaned back. Before her a curtain parted. In a wide, marble-flagged hall she was looking at a girl who was looking at her. A moment before he had said: "That is Miss Austen to whom I am engaged." A moment before she had seen her picture. The girl was good to look at, so good that, without further acquaintance, you knew she was good through and through. There was no mistaking that. But was she good enough? Was any girl good enough for him? And who was that with her?

Probably her mother who probably too was the catamount's sister. They had a family likeness. Then at once the scene shifted. Ca.s.sy was in a room floored with thick rugs, hung with heavy draperies, and in that room the catamount had hired her to sing! But the disgust of it pa.s.sed.

The curtain fell. Ca.s.sy turned to the window, through which a breath of lilac blew.

She sniffed and stared. Where was she? Where was the Riverside? Where, for that matter, was the roar of the glittering precinct in which the Splendor tossed its turrets to the sky? Here were dirty and reeling goblins; budding trees that bowed and fainted; a stretch of empty road that the scudding car devoured. Afar was a house that instantly approached and as suddenly vanished. Dimly beyond was another.

Ca.s.sy, leaning forward, poked at the emperor. "I will thank you to tell me where you are going. Don't you know where the Splendor is?"

Back at her he mumbled, but what she could not hear.

"Stop at once," she called.

Easily, without a quiver, almost within its own length, the car drew in and the Caesar, touching his cap, was looking at her. "Beg pardon, mem.

There was a note for you in the box. Mr. Paliser said----"

But now Ca.s.sy had it.

Chere demoiselle--though I do not know why I call you that, except that it sounds less perfunctory than dear Miss Cara, who, I hope will do me the honour of dining in the country, if for no better reason than because there is no opera to-night and I am her obedient servant.

M. P., Jr.

Ca.s.sy looked up from it. "Country! He says country. What country? What does this mean?"

"The Place, mem. Paliser Place. It's not far now."

Ca.s.sy had not bargained for that. Stories of girls decoyed, drugged, spirited away, never heard of again, sprang at her. Quite as quickly she dismissed them. But, being human, she had to find fault.

"You should have told me before. That will do. Drive on."

She sank back. The car leaped and she smiled. Paliser in the role of white-slaver! Her momentary alarm was now a mile behind her. But would they be alone? Though, after all, what did it matter? Yet in Harlem there was a broken old man who would not like it. And the basilica investments! If she had known she would have worn the black rag. But they would do for that tiresome Mrs. Beamish. As yet she had not decided what she would sing. The _Caro nome_ occurred to her. Under her breath she began it and abruptly desisted. The _Dear Name_ suggested another.

For it she subst.i.tuted the _Ombra leggiera_. In its scatter of trills that mount, as birds mount, there were no evocations, though she did begin wondering again about Mrs. Beamish's music-room. If it were not too impossible she might give the _Ernani involame_. But at that and very unintentionally she thought of Lennox again.

She made a face and looked through the window. As usual she was hungry.

The car now was bellowing through opening gates which, as she looked back, a man in brown was closing. On either side was a high stone wall, but beyond, as she looked again, was an avenue bordered with trees and farther on a white house with projecting wings in which was a court, an entrance and, above and about the latter, a pillared perron.

From the entrance she could see a man in livery hastening. Behind him, a man in black appeared. The car stopped. The first man opened the door.

Ca.s.sy got out. The other man additionally a.s.sisted by looking on and moving aside. Ca.s.sy went into a hall where a young person who did not resemble the Belle Chocolatiere but whose costume suggested her, diligently approached.

"Would madame care to go upstairs?"

No, madame would not. But Ca.s.sy, instinctively insolent to pretentiousness, was very simple with the simple. "Thank you. Will you mind taking my wrap? Thank you again."

She looked about the hall. Before she could inventory it, here was another man. "A nice trick you played on me," Ca.s.sy threw at him. "I was half-way before I discovered it. The orchids reconciled me. Thank you for them. Who is here?"

Smiling, deferential, apparently modest, perfectly sent out in perfectly cut evening clothes, Paliser took her hand. "You are and, incidentally, I am."

Ca.s.sy withdrew her hand. "I suppose you think you are a host in yourself."

"Merely the most fortunate of mortals," replied Paliser, who could be eighteenth-century when he liked, but who seldom bothered to keep it up.

Already he had been doing a little inventorying on his own account. The basilica frock did not say much and what it did say was not to his taste. The Sunday night fantasy he much preferred. It was rowdy, but it was artistic. But beauty may be dishonoured, it cannot be vulgarised.

Even in pseudo-Parisianisms Ca.s.sy was a gem. A doubt though, one that had already visited him, returned. Was the game worth the possible scandal?

But now Ca.s.sy was getting back at him. "To stand about with the most fortunate of mortals ought to be a shape of bliss. As it happens, I would rather sit."

"Naturally. Only, worse luck, there is no throne."

Ca.s.sy gave it to him again: "There is a court fool, though. Where are your cap and bells?"

"Not on you at any rate."

He motioned and Ca.s.sy pa.s.sed on into a room beyond which other rooms extended, each different, but all in the same key, a monotone attenuated by l.u.s.tres and the atmosphere, infinitely relaxing, which wealth exhales.

Ca.s.sy's thin nostrils quivered. Since childhood, it was her first breath of anything similar. It appeased and disarmed this anarchist who was also an autocrat.

"Will you sit here?"

Paliser was drawing a chair. The table before it lacked the adjacent severity. On it were dishes of Sevres and of gold. Adjacently were three men. Their faces were white and sensual. They moved as forms move in a dream.

The stories of girls decoyed, spirited away, never heard of again, returned to Ca.s.sy. She had put the orchids beside her. Her flexible mouth framed a smile.

"You know, for a moment, I had the rare emotion of feeling and fearing that I was being eloped with."

A pop interrupted. She turned to a man at her elbow. "Only half a gla.s.s, please, and fill it with water." She returned to Paliser, who was opposite. "I had been thinking of something. I had not noticed where the car was going; and all of a sudden, I found myself I did not know where.

Then, houp! It got me."

Paliser helped himself to a clam. "The charm of elopements pa.s.sed with the post-chaise. Then they had the dignity of danger and pistol shots through the windows. Nowadays you go off in a Pullman and return as prosaic as you started."

"Sometimes even more so," Ca.s.sy put in.