The Salamander Part 8

"When I get to His Nibs, watch what I'll hand him!"

But Harrigan Blood, absorbed in an idea, answered her:

"Be quiet now, Georgie--gorge yourself!"

"Composing an editorial on luxury, Harrigan?" said Lindaberry, speaking for the first time.

Harrigan Blood admitted the patness of the guess with a wave of his hand, leaning heavily on the table with his elbows. He had always an air of being in his shirt-sleeves.

"See the _Free Press_ to-morrow," he said, moving his large hand over his face and frowning spasmodically. His eye ran quickly over the menu, calculating the cost per plate, the value of the rare wines, the decorations, the presents and the tips. "Two thousand dollars at the least--four thousand dinners below Fourteenth Street, five years abroad for a genius who is stifling, twenty thousand tired laborers to a moving-picture show. And with what we turn over with our fork and regret, the waste that will be thrown away, a family could live a year!

This is civilization and Christianity!"

"Appet.i.te good, Harrigan?" said Lindaberry, with an impertinence that few would have ventured.

"Better than yours," said Blood impatiently. "Ideas and personalities have no connection. Ends are one thing, instruments another. Who was the greatest of the disciples? St. Paul. He had experienced!

Shakespeare--Tolstoy. The caviar is delicious!"

In his att.i.tude he felt no hypocrisy. He looked upon himself as a machine, to be fed and to be kept in order by sensations--experiences: a privileged nature dedicated pa.s.sionately to ideal ends. For the rest, his contempt for mankind in the present was profound. He had conquered success early, but he retained an abiding bitterness against the world which had misunderstood him and forced him a short period to wait.

"And this is Harrigan Blood!" Dore thought, wondering. Another day flashed before her--two years old--when, just arrived, a despairing claimant, she had pleaded in vain for opportunity in the great soul-crushing offices of the _Free Press_. The sport of fate had flung her a chance, and watching Harrigan Blood from the malicious corners of her busy eyes, she planned her revenge.

Lindaberry had not as yet addressed a single word to her. He had gradually come out of the stolid dull intensity that had lain on him with the weight of last night's dissipation, but one felt in the awakening vivacity of his eye, the impatient opening and shutting of his hand, the quick smile that followed each outburst of laughter, a struggle to reach the extreme of gaiety which such a company brought him to relieve him from that depression which closed over him when condemned to be alone.

For her part, she had scarcely noticed him--having a horror of men who drank. At this moment a butler, under orders from Busby, placed before him a bottle of champagne for his special use. He turned courteously but impersonally, without that masculine impertinence in the eye which is still a compliment.

"May I freshen up your gla.s.s?"

"Thank you, no!" she said icily. "I'm afraid I don't appreciate your special brand of conversation!"

He looked at her, startled--her meaning gradually dawning on him. But, before he could reply, Busby had risen, sounding his knife against his plate.

"Next course, ladies will please cha.s.se! Gentlemen, make sure of your jewelry!"

Dore rose, and, as she did so, addressing the butler who drew out her chair, said:

"In order that Mr. Lindaberry may feel quite at home, do please place a bottle on _each_ side of him!"

She made him an abrupt mocking bow, and went to her place past Ma.s.singale, next to the Comte de Joncy, while Lindaberry, flushing, was left as best he could to face the laughter and clapping of hands that greeted her sally.

The Comte de Joncy had risen courteously, studying her keenly from his pocketed, watery blue eyes, seating her with marked ceremony, too keen an amateur of the s.e.x not to feel a difference in her.

"Bravo!" he said, laughing, and in a confidential tone: "Madame de Stael could not have answered better!"

The allusion was not in her ken, but she felt the compliment.

"Are you what? Wolf in sheep's clothing, or sheep--"

"Beware!" she said maliciously, converting a fork into a weapon of attack. "I am a desperate adventuress who has taken this way to meet Your Highness!"

"If it were only true!" he said, looking questions.

"Why not?" The game amused her, and besides, something perversely incited her to recklessness. Ma.s.singale was on the other side of her--Ma.s.singale, who, after the impudence of having comprehended her, treated her with only tepid interest. "Where shall I follow you? Paris or Dresden?"

He stared at her with squinting eyes, not quite deceived, not quite convinced. At the end he laughed.

"Pretty good--almost you fool me!"

"You don't believe me?" she said, raising her eyes a moment to his.

"Mademoiselle, your eyes have a million in each of them!" he said, after a moment, but not quite so calmly. "Will you give me your address?"

"Why not?" she said, opening her hands in a gesture of surprise.

"I will come!" he said, yet not entirely the dupe of her game.

"Poor Count!" she said, with a quick change of manner. "You don't know what a dangerous animal we have here. Beware!"

"What?"

"The great American teaser!" she said, laughing.

"Teaser--teaser! What is that?"

She entered into an elaborate explanation, glancing into the mirror, striving from there to catch Ma.s.singale's look.

"I say, angels!" said Buzzy, bubbling over with mischief. "I've got an idea!"

"Buzzy has an idea!"

"Good for Buzzy!"

"We want to amuse the Count, don't we?" said Busby artfully.

"Sure!..."

"You bet!..."

"Well, then, let's tell our real names!"

Violetta Pax gave a scream of horror and retired blushing under her napkin at the storm of laughter her scream of confession had aroused.

"Real name's Lou Burgstadter!" said Consuelo Vincent in a whisper to De Joncy, who had forgot her.

Violetta Pax was on her feet in an instant.

"Consuelo Vincent, I like your nerve!... Consuelo, indeed! Ca.s.sie Hagan!" she cried furiously. "Yes, and Carrie Slater, too, needn't put on airs!"

The rest was lost in an uproar; the chorus girls were on their feet, protesting vigorously, all chattering at once, the men applauding and fomenting the tumult, Busby secretly enjoying the mischief he had exploded, running from one to the other, pleading, provoking, adding fuel to the burning.