The Red Cross Girl Part 22

"Indeed, I will not," roared the German. "It would be to insult myself."

"It would be an easy way to earn a hundred pounds, too," said Philip.

"How dare you insult the Baron?" demanded Faust. "What makes you think--"

"I don't think, I know!" said Philip. "For the price of a taxi-cab fare to Tate Street, you win a hundred pounds."

"We will all three go at once," cried the German. "My car is outside.

Wait here. I will have it brought to the door?"

Faust protested indignantly.

"Do not disturb yourself, Baron," he said; "just because a fresh reporter--"

But already the German had reached the hall. Nor did he stop there. They saw him, without his hat, rush into Piccadilly, spring into a taxi, and shout excitedly to the driver. The next moment he had disappeared.

"That's the last you'll see of him," said Philip.

"His actions are certainly peculiar," gasped the millionaire. "He did not wait for us. He didn't even wait for his hat! I think, after all, I had better go to Tate Street."

"Do so," said Philip, "and save yourself three hundred thousand dollars, and from the laughter of two continents. You'll find me here at lunch.

If I'm wrong, I'll pay you a hundred pounds."

"You should come with me," said Faust. "It is only fair to yourself."

"I'll take your word for what you find in the studio," said Philip. "I cannot go. This is my busy day."

Without further words, the millionaire collected his hat and stick, and, in his turn, entered a taxi-cab and disappeared.

Philip returned to the Louis Quatorze chair and lit a cigarette. Save for the two elderly gentlemen on the sofa, the lounge was still empty, and his reflections were undisturbed. He shook his head sadly.

"Surely," Philip thought, "the French chap was right who said words were given us to conceal our thoughts. What a strange world it would be if every one possessed my power. Deception would be quite futile and lying would become a lost art. I wonder," he mused cynically, "is any one quite honest? Does any one speak as he thinks and think as he speaks?"

At once came a direct answer to his question. The two elderly gentlemen had risen and, before separating, had halted a few feet from him.

"I sincerely hope, Sir John," said one of the two, "that you have no regrets. I hope you believe that I have advised you in the best interests of all?"

"I do, indeed," the other replied heartily "We shall be thought entirely selfish; but you know and I know that what we have done is for the benefit of the shareholders."

Philip was pleased to find that the thoughts of each of the old gentlemen ran hand in hand with his spoken words. "Here, at least," he said to himself, "are two honest men."

As though loath to part, the two gentlemen still lingered.

"And I hope," continued the one addressed as Sir John, "that you approve of my holding back the public announcement of the combine until the afternoon. It will give the shareholders a better chance. Had we given out the news in this morning's papers the stockbrokers would have--"

"It was most wise," interrupted the other. "Most just."

The one called Sir John bowed himself away, leaving the other still standing at the steps of the lounge. With his hands behind his back, his chin sunk on his chest, he remained, gazing at nothing, his thoughts far away.

Philip found them thoughts of curious interest. They were concerned with three flags. Now, the gentleman considered them separately; and Philip saw the emblems painted clearly in colors, fluttering and flattened by the breeze. Again, the gentleman considered them in various combinations; but always, in whatever order his mind arranged them, of the three his heart spoke always to the same flag, as the heart of a mother reaches toward her firstborn.

Then the thoughts were diverted; and in his mind's eye the old gentleman was watching the launching of a little schooner from a shipyard on the Clyde. At her main flew one of the three flags--a flag with a red cross on a white ground. With thoughts tender and grateful, he followed her to strange, hot ports, through hurricanes and tidal waves; he saw her return again and again to the London docks, laden with odorous coffee, mahogany, red rubber, and raw bullion. He saw sister ships follow in her wake to every port in the South Sea; saw steam packets take the place of the ships with sails; saw the steam packets give way to great ocean liners, each a floating village, each equipped, as no village is equipped, with a giant power house, thousands of electric lamps, suite after suite of silk-lined boudoirs, with the floating harps that vibrate to a love message three hundred miles away, to the fierce call for help from a sinking ship. But at the main of each great vessel there still flew the same house-flag--the red cross on the field of white--only now in the arms of the cross there nestled proudly a royal crown.

Philip cast a scared glance at the old gentleman, and raced down the corridor to the telephone.

Of all the young Englishmen he knew, Maddox was his best friend and a stock-broker. In that latter capacity Philip had never before addressed him. Now he demanded his instant presence at the telephone.

Maddox greeted him genially, but Philip cut him short.

"I want you to act for me," he whispered, "and act quick! I want you to buy for me one thousand shares of the Royal Mail Line, of the Elder-Dempster, and of the Union Castle."

He heard Maddox laugh indulgently.

"There's nothing in that yarn of a combine," he called. "It has fallen through. Besides, shares are at fifteen pounds."

Philip, having in his possession a second-cla.s.s ticket and a five-pound note, was indifferent to that, and said so.

"I don't care what they are," he shouted. "The combine is already signed and sealed, and no one knows it but myself. In an hour everybody will know it!"

"What makes you think you know it?" demanded the broker.

"I've seen the house-flags!" cried Philip. "I have--do as I tell you,"

he commanded.

There was a distracting delay.

"No matter who's back of you," objected Maddox, "it's a big order on a gamble."

"It's not a gamble," cried Philip. "It's an accomplished fact. I'm at the Ritz. Call me up there. Start buying now, and, when you've got a thousand of each, stop!"

Philip was much too agitated to go far from the telephone booth; so for half an hour he sat in the reading-room, forcing himself to read the ill.u.s.trated papers. When he found he had read the same advertis.e.m.e.nt five times, he returned to the telephone. The telephone boy met him half-way with a message.

"Have secured for you a thousand shares of each," he read, "at fifteen.

Maddox."

Like a man awakening from a nightmare, Philip tried to separate the horror of the situation from the cold fact. The cold fact was sufficiently horrible. It was that, without a penny to pay for them, he had bought shares in three steamship lines, which shares, added together, were worth two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

He returned down the corridor toward the lounge. Trembling at his own audacity, he was in a state of almost complete panic, when that happened which made his outrageous speculation of little consequence. It was drawing near to half-past one; and, in the persons of several smart men and beautiful ladies, the component parts of different luncheon parties were beginning to a.s.semble.

Of the luncheon to which Lady Woodcote had invited him, only one guest had arrived; but, so far as Philip was concerned, that one was sufficient. It was Helen herself, seated alone, with her eyes fixed on the doors opening from Piccadilly. Philip, his heart singing with appeals, blessings, and adoration, ran toward her. Her profile was toward him, and she could not see him; but he could see her. And he noted that, as though seeking some one, her eyes were turned searchingly upon each young man as he entered and moved from one to another of those already in the lounge. Her expression was eager and anxious.

"If only," Philip exclaimed, "she were looking for me! She certainly is looking for some man. I wonder who it can be?"

As suddenly as if he had slapped his face into a wall, he halted in his steps. Why should he wonder? Why did he not read her mind? Why did he not KNOW? A waiter was hastening toward him. Philip fixed his mind upon the waiter, and his eyes as well. Mentally Philip demanded of him: "Of what are you thinking?"

There was no response. And then, seeing an unlit cigarette hanging from Philip's lips, the waiter hastily struck a match and proffered it. Obviously, his mind had worked, first, in observing the half-burned cigarette; next, in furnishing the necessary match. And of no step in that mental process had Philip been conscious! The conclusion was only too apparent. His power was gone. No longer was he a mind reader!

Hastily Philip reviewed the adventures of the morning. As he considered them, the moral was obvious. The moment he had used his power to his own advantage, he had lost it. So long as he had exerted it for the happiness of the two lovers, to save the life of the King, to thwart the dishonesty of a swindler, he had been all-powerful; but when he endeavored to bend it to his own uses, it had fled from him. As he stood abashed and repentant, Helen turned her eyes toward him; and, at the sight of him, there leaped to them happiness and welcome and complete content. It was "the look that never was on land or sea," and it was not necessary to be a mind reader to understand it. Philip sprang toward her as quickly as a man dodges a taxi-cab.

"I came early," said Helen, "because I wanted to talk to you before the others arrived." She seemed to be repeating words already rehea.r.s.ed, to be following a course of conduct already predetermined. "I want to tell you," she said, "that I am sorry you are going away. I want to tell you that I shall miss you very much." She paused and drew a long breath. And she looked at Philip as if she was begging him to make it easier for her to go on.