The Pawns Count Part 44

Mr. Hastings stood with his fingers resting lightly upon the table. He glanced at Lutchester without apparent recognition.

"You remember Mr. Lutchester?" Pamela murmured.

Mr. Hastings' manner lacked the true American cordiality, but he hastened to extend his hand.

"Of course!" he declared. "I was not fortunate enough, however, to see much of you the other evening, Mr. Lutchester. We have several mutual friends whom I should be glad to hear about."

"I shall pay my respects to Mrs. Hastings, if I may, very shortly,"

Lutchester promised.

"Are you with friends here, uncle?" Pamela inquired.

"We are the guests of Mr. Oscar Fischer," the Senator announced.

Pamela raised her eyebrows.

"So you know Mr. Fischer, uncle?"

"Naturally," Mr. Hastings replied, with some dignity. "Oscar Fischer is one of the most important men in the State which I represent. He is a man of great wealth and industry and immense influence."

Pamela made a little grimace. Her uncle noticed it and frowned.

"He has just been telling us of his voyage with you, Pamela. Perhaps, if Mr. Lutchester can spare you," he went on, with a little bow across the table, "you will come and take your coffee with us. Your aunt is leaving for Washington, probably to-morrow, and wishes to arrange for you to travel with her. Mr. Lutchester may also, perhaps, give us the pleasure of his company for a few minutes," he added, after a slight but obvious pause.

"Thank you," Pamela answered quickly, "I am Mr. Lutchester's guest this evening. If you are still here, I shall love to come and speak to aunt for a moment later on. If not, I will ring up to-morrow morning."

The bland, almost episcopal serenity of Senator Hastings' face was somewhat disturbed. It was obvious that the situation displeased him.

"I think, Pamela," he said, "that you had better come and speak to your aunt before you leave."

His bow to Lutchester was the bow of a politician to an adversary. He made his way back in leisurely fashion to the table from which he had come, exchanging a few words with many acquaintances. Pamela watched him with a twinkle in her eyes.

"I am becoming so unpopular," she murmured. "I can read in my uncle's tone that my aunt and he disapprove of our dining together here. And as for Mr. Fischer. I'm afraid he'll break off our prospective alliance."

Lutchester smiled.

"Prospective is the only word to use," he observed. "By the bye, are you particularly fond of your uncle?"

"Not riotously," she admitted. "He has been kind to me once or twice, but he's rather a starchy old person."

"In that case," Lutchester decided, "we won't interfere."

CHAPTER x.x.x

Fischer had by no means the appearance of a discomfited man that evening, when some time later Pamela and Lutchester approached the little group of which he seemed, somehow, to have become the central figure. It was a small party, but, in its way, a distinguished one.

Pamela's aunt was a member of an historic American family, and a woman of great social position, not only in New York but in Washington itself. Of the remaining guests, one was a financial magnate of world-wide fame, and the other, Senator Joyce, a politician of such eminence that his name was freely mentioned as a possible future president. Mrs. Hastings greeted Pamela and her escort without enthusiasm.

"My dear child," she exclaimed, "how extraordinary to find you here!"

"Is it?" Pamela observed indifferently. "You know Mr. Lutchester, don't you, aunt?"

Mrs. Hastings remembered her late dinner guest, but her recognition was icy and barely polite. She turned away at once and resumed her conversation with Fischer. Lutchester was not introduced to either of the other members of the party. He laid his hand on the back of an empty chair and turned it round for Pamela, but she stopped him with a word of thanks. Something had gone from her own naturally pleasant tone. She held her hand higher, even, than her aunt's, as she turned a little insistently towards her.

"So sorry, aunt," she announced, "but we are going now. Good night!"

Mrs. Hastings disapproved.

"We have seen nothing of you yet, Pamela," she said stiffly. "You had better stay with us and we will drop you on our way home."

Pamela shook her head.

"I am coming with you to-morrow, you know," she reminded her aunt.

"To-night I am Mr. Lutchester's guest and he will see me home."

Mrs. Hastings drew her niece a little closer to her.

"Is this part of your European manners, Pamela?" she whispered, "that you dine alone in a restaurant with an acquaintance? Let me tell you frankly that I dislike the idea most heartily. My chaperonage is always at your service, and any girl of your age in America would be delighted to avail herself of it."

"It is very kind of you, aunt," Pamela replied, "but in a general way I finished with chaperons long ago."

"Where is Jimmy?" Mrs. Hastings inquired.

"He was coming with us to-night," Pamela explained, "but I asked him particularly to stay away. I have seen so little of Mr. Lutchester since he arrived, and I want to talk to him."

The financial magnate awoke from a comatose inertia and suddenly gripped Lutchester by the hand.

"Lutchester," he repeated to himself. "I thought I knew your face.

Stayed with your uncle down at Monte Carlo once. You came there for a week."

Lutchester acknowledged his recollection of the fact and the two men exchanged a few commonplace remarks. Mrs. Hastings took the opportunity to try and induce Pamela to converse with Fischer.

"We have all been so interested to-night," she said, "in hearing what Mr. Fischer has to say about the situation on the other side."

Pamela was primed for combat.

"Has Mr. Fischer been telling you fairy tales?" she laughed.

"Fairy tales?" her aunt repeated severely. "I don't understand."

Fischer's steel grey eyes flashed behind his spectacles.

"I'm afraid that Miss Van Teyl's prejudices," he observed bitterly, "are very firmly fixed."

"Then she is no true American," Mrs. Hastings p.r.o.nounced didactically.