The Place of Honeymoons Part 7

"Man, she wrote me that she would sing Monday and to-night, and wanted me to hear her. I couldn't get here in time for _La Boheme_, but I was building on _Faust_. And when she says a thing, she means it. As you said, she's Irish."

"And I'm Dutch."

"And the stubbornest Dutchman I ever met. Why don't you go home and settle down and marry?--and keep that phiz of yours out of the newspapers?

Sometimes I think you're as crazy as a bug."

"An opinion shared by many. Maybe I am. I dash in where lunatics fear to tread. Come on over to the Soufflet and have a drink with me."

"I'm not drinking to-day," tersely. "There's too much ahead for me to do."

"Going to start out to find her? Oh, Sir Galahad!" ironically. "Abby, you used to be a sport. I'll wager a hundred against a bottle of pop that to-morrow or next day she'll turn up serenely, with the statement that she was indisposed, sorry not to have notified the directors, and all that.

They do it repeatedly every season."

"But an errand of mercy, the strange automobile which can not be found?

The engagement to dine with the Barone? Celeste Fournier's statement? You can't get around these things. I tell you, Nora isn't that kind. She's too big in heart and mind to stoop to any such devices," vehemently.

"Nora! That looks pretty serious, Abby. You haven't gone and made a fool of yourself, have you?"

"What do you call making a fool of myself?" truculently.

"You aren't a suitor, are you? An accepted suitor?" unruffled, rather kindly.

"No, but I would to heaven that I were!" Abbott jammed the newspaper into his pocket and slung the stool over his arm. "Come on over to the studio until I get some money."

"You are really going to start a search?"

"I really am. I'd start one just as quickly for you, if I heard that you had vanished under mysterious circ.u.mstances."

"I believe you honestly would."

"You are an old misanthrope. I hope some woman puts the hook into you some day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky princesses give you the go-by?"

"You, too, Abby?"

"Oh, rot! Of course I never believed any of that twaddle. Only, I've got a sore head to-day. If you knew Nora as well as I do, you'd understand."

Courtlandt walked on a little ahead of the artist, who looked up and down the athletic form, admiringly. Sometimes he loved the man, sometimes he hated him. He marched through tragedy and comedy and thrilling adventure with no more concern that he evinced in striding through these gardens.

Nearly every one had heard of his exploits; but who among them knew anything of the real man, so adroitly hidden under unruffled externals?

That there was a man he did not know, hiding deep down within those powerful shoulders, he had not the least doubt. He himself possessed the quick mobile temperament of the artist, and he could penetrate but not understand the poise a.s.sumed with such careless ease by his friend. Dutch blood had something to do with it, and there was breeding, but there was something more than these: he was a reversion, perhaps, to the type of man which had made the rovers of the Lowlands feared on land and sea, now hemmed in by convention, hampered by the barriers of progress, and striving futilely to find an outlet for his peculiar energies. One bit of knowledge gratified him; he stood nearer to Courtlandt than any other man.

He had known the adventurer as a boy, and long separations had in nowise impaired the foundations of this friendship.

Courtlandt continued toward the exit, his head forward, his gaze bent on the path. He had the air of a man deep in thought, philosophic thought, which leaves the brows unmarred by those corrugations known as frowns. Yet his thoughts were far from philosophic. Indeed, his soul was in mad turmoil. He could have thrown his arms toward the blue sky and cursed aloud the fates that had set this new tangle at his feet. He longed for the jungles and some mad beast to vent his wrath upon. But he gave no sign. He had returned with a purpose as hard and grim as iron; and no obstacle, less powerful than death, should divert or control him.

Abduction? Let the public believe what it might; he held the key to the mystery. She was afraid, and had taken flight. So be it.

"I say, Ted," called out the artist, "what did you mean by saying that you were a Dutchman?"

Courtlandt paused so that Abbott might catch up to him. "I said that I was a Dutchman?"

"Yes. And it has just occurred to me that you meant something."

"Oh, yes. You were talking of Da Toscana? Let's call her Harrigan. It will save time, and no one will know to whom we refer. You said she was Irish, and that when she said a thing she meant it. My boy, the Irish are notorious for claiming that. They often say it before they see clearly.

Now, we Dutchmen,--it takes a long time for us to make up our minds, but when we do, something has got to bend or break."

"You don't mean to say that you are going to settle down and get married?"

"I'm not going to settle down and get married, if that will ease your mind any."

"Man, I was hoping!"

"Three meals a day in the same house, with the same woman, never appealed to me."

"What do you want, one for each meal?"

"There's the dusky princess peeking out again. The truth is, Abby, if I could hide myself for three or four years, long enough for people to forget me, I might reconsider. But it should be under another name. They envy us millionaires. Why, we are the lonesomest duffers going. We distrust every one; we fly when a woman approaches; we become monomaniacs; one thing obsesses us, everybody is after our money. We want friends, we want wives, but we want them to be attracted to us and not to our money-bags. Oh, pshaw! What plans have you made in regard to the search?"

Gloom settled upon the artist's face. "I've got to find out what's happened to her, Ted. This isn't any play. Why, she loves the part of Marguerite as she loves nothing else. She's been kidnaped, and only G.o.d knows for what reason. It has knocked me silly. I just came up from Como, where she spends the summers now. I was going to take her and Fournier out to dinner."

"Who's Fournier?"

"Mademoiselle Fournier, the composer. She goes with Nora on the yearly concert tours."

"Pretty?"

"Charming."

"I see," thoughtfully. "What part of the lake; the Villa d'Este, Cadenabbia?"

"Bellaggio. Oh, it was ripping last summer. She's always singing when she's happy. When she sings out on the terrace, suddenly, without giving any one warning, her voice is wonderful. No audience ever heard anything like it."

"I heard her Friday night. I dropped in at the Opera without knowing what they were singing. I admit all you say in regard to her voice and looks; but I stick to the whim."

"But you can't fake that chap with the blond mustache," retorted Abbott grimly. "Lord, I wish I had run into you any day but to-day. I'm all in. I can telephone to the Opera from the studio, and then we shall know for a certainty whether or not she will return for the performance to-night. If not, then I'm going in for a little detective work."

"Abby, it will turn out to be the sheep of Little Bo-Peep."

"Have your own way about it."

When they arrived at the studio Abbott telephoned promptly. Nothing had been heard. They were subst.i.tuting another singer.

"Call up the _Herald_," suggested Courtlandt.

Abbott did so. And he had to answer innumerable questions, questions which worked him into a fine rage: who was he, where did he live, what did he know, how long had he been in Paris, and could he prove that he had arrived that morning? Abbott wanted to fling the receiver into the mouth of the transmitter, but his patience was presently rewarded. The singer had not yet been found, but the chauffeur of the mysterious car had turned up ... in a hospital, and perhaps by night they would know everything. The chauffeur had had a bad accident; the car itself was a total wreck, in a ditch, not far from Versailles.

"There!" cried Abbott, slamming the receiver on the hook. "What do you say to that?"

"The chauffeur may have left her somewhere, got drunk afterward, and plunged into the ditch. Things have happened like that. Abby, don't make a camel's-hair shirt out of your paint-brushes. What a pother about a singer! If it had been a great inventor, a poet, an artist, there would have been nothing more than a two-line paragraph. But an opera-singer, one who entertains us during our idle evenings--ha! that's a different matter.

Set instantly that great munic.i.p.al machinery called the police in action; sell extra editions on the streets. What ado!"