The Spenders Part 32

They entered the carriage and were driven slowly up a side street where slovenly women idled in windows and doorways and half-naked children chased excitedly after the ice-wagons.

"I used to think it wasn't right myself until I learned not to question the ways of Providence."

"Providence, your grandmother! Look at those poor little mites fighting for that ice!"

"We have to accept it. It seems to be proof of the Creator's versatility. It isn't every one who would be nervy enough and original enough to make a world where people starve to death right beside those who have too much."

"That's rubbish!"

"You're blasphemous! and you're overwrought about the few cases of need here. Think of those two million people that have just starved to death in India."

"That wasn't my fault."

"Exactly; if you'd been there the list might have been cut down four or five thousand; not more. It was the fault of whoever makes the weather.

It didn't rain and their curry crop failed--or whatever they raise--and there you are; and we couldn't help matters any by starving ourselves to death."

"Well, I know of a few matters here I can help. And just look at all those empty houses boarded up!" she cried later, as they crossed Madison Avenue. "Those poor things bake themselves to death down in their little ovens, and these great cool places are all shut up. Why, that poor little baby's hands were just like bird's claws."

"Well, don't take your sociology too seriously," Percival warned her, as they reached the hotel. "Being philanthropic is obeying an instinct just as selfish as any of the others. A little of it is all right--but don't be a slave to your pa.s.sions. And be careful of your health."

In his mail at the Hightower was a note from Mrs. Akemit:

"NEW LONDON, July 29th.

"You DEAR THOUGHTFUL MAN: I'll be delighted, and the aunt, a worthy sister of the dear bishop, has consented. She is an acidulous maiden person with ultra-ritualistic tendencies. At present she is strong on the reunion of Christendom, and holds that the Anglican must be the unifying medium of the two religious extremes. So don't say I didn't warn you fairly. She will, however, impart an air of Episcopalian propriety to that naughty yacht of yours--something sadly needed if I am to believe the tales I hear about its little voyages to nowhere in particular.

"Babe sends her love, and says to tell 'Uncle Percibal' that the ocean tastes 'all na.s.sy.' She stood upon the beach yesterday after making this discovery involuntarily, and proscribed it with one magnificent wave of her hand and a brief exclamation of disgust--turned her back disrespectfully upon a body of water that is said to cover two-thirds--or is it three-fourths?--of the earth's surface. Think of it! She seemed to suspect she had been imposed upon in the matter of its taste, and is going to tell the janitor directly we get home, in order that the guilty ones may be seen to. Her little gesture of dismissal was superbly contemptuous. I wish you had been with me to watch her. Yes, the bathing-suit does have little touches of red, and red--but this will never do. Give us a day's notice, and believe me,

"Sincerely,

"FLORENCE VERDON AKEMIT.

"P.S. Babe is on the back of my chair, cuddling down in my neck, and says, 'Send him your love, too, Mommie. Now don't you forget.'"

He telegraphed Mrs. Akemit: "Will reach New London to-morrow. a.s.sure your aunt of my delight at her acceptance. I have long held that the reunion must come as she thinks it will."

Then he ventured into the heat and glare of Broadway where humanity stewed and wilted. At Thirty-second Street he ran into Burman, with whom he had all but cornered wheat.

"You're the man I wanted to see," said Percival.

"Hurry and look! I'm melting fast."

"Come off on the yacht."

"My preserver! I was just going down to the Oriental, but your dug-out wins me hands down. Come into this poor-man's club. I must have a cold drink taller than a church steeple."

"Anybody else in town we can take?"

"There's Billy Yelverton--our chewing-gum friend; just off the _Lucania_ last night; and Eddie Arledge and his wife. They're in town because Eddie was up in supplementary or something--some low, coa.r.s.e brute of a tradesman wanted his old bill paid, and wouldn't believe Eddie when he said he couldn't spare the money. Eddie is about as lively as a dish of cold breakfast food, but his wife is all right, all right. Retiring from the footlights' glare didn't spoil Mrs. E.

Wadsworth Arledge,--not so you could notice it."

"Well, see Eddie if you can, and I'll find Yelverton; he's probably at the hotel yet; and meet me there by five, so we can get out of this little amateur h.e.l.l."

"And quit trying to save that collar," urged Burman, as they parted; "you look foolisher than a horse in a straw hat with it on anyway. Let it go and tuck in your handkerchief like the rest of us. See you at five!"

At the hour named the party had gathered. Percival, Arledge and his lively wife, Yelverton, who enjoyed the rare distinction of having lost money to Percival, and Burman. East they drove through the street where less fortunate mortals panted in the dead afternoon shade, and out on to the dock, whence the _Viluca's_ naphtha launch presently put them aboard that sumptuous craft. A little breeze there made the heat less oppressive.

"We'll be under way as soon as they fetch that luggage out," Percival a.s.sured his guests.

"It's been frightfully oppressive all day, even out here," said Mrs.

Drelmer, "but the engaged ones haven't lost their tempers once, even if the day was trying. And really they're the most unemotional and matter-of-fact couple I ever saw. Oh! do give me that stack of papers until I catch up with the news again."

Percival relinquished to her the evening papers he had bought before leaving the hotel, and Mrs. Drelmer in the awninged shade at the stern of the boat was soon running through them.

The others had gone below, where Percival was allotting staterooms, and urging every one to "order whatever cold stuff you like and get into as few things as the law allows. For my part, I'd like to wear nothing but a cold bath."

Mrs. Drelmer suddenly betrayed signs of excitement. She sat up straight in the wicker deck-chair, glanced down a column of her newspaper, and then looked up.

Mauburn's head appeared out of the cabin's gloom. He was still speaking to some one below. Mrs. Drelmer rattled the paper and waved it at him.

He came up the stairs.

"What's the row?"

"Read it!"

He took the paper and glanced at the headlines. "I knew she'd do it. A chap always comes up with something of that sort, and I was beginning to feel so chippy!" He read:

"London, July 30th.--Lord Ca.s.selthorpe to-day wed Miss 'Connie' Burke, the music-hall singer who has been appearing at the Alhambra. The marriage was performed, by special license, at St. Michael's Church, Chester Square, London, the Rev. Canon Mecklin, sub-dean of the Chapel Royal, officiating. The honeymoon will be spent at the town-house of the groom, in York Terrace. Lord Ca.s.selthorpe has long been known as the blackest sheep of the British Peerage, being called the 'Coster Peer' on account of his unconventional language, his coa.r.s.e manner, and slovenly attire. Two years ago he was warned off Newmarket Heath and the British turf by the Jockey Club. He is eighty-eight years old. The bride, like some other lights of the music-hall who have become the consorts of Britain's hereditary legislators, has enjoyed considerable ante-nuptial celebrity among the gilded youth of the metropolis, and is said to have been especially admired at one time by the next in line of this ill.u.s.trious family, the Hon. Cecil G.H. Mauburn.

"The Hon. Cecil G. H. Mauburn, mentioned in the above cable despatch, has been rather well-known in New York society for two years past. His engagement to the daughter of a Montana mining magnate, not long deceased, has been persistently rumoured."

Mauburn was pale under his freckles.

"Have they seen it yet?"

"I don't think so," she answered. "We might drop these papers over the rail here."

"That's rot, Mrs. Drelmer; it's sure to be talked of, and anyway I don't want to be sneaky, you know."

Percival came up from the cabin with a paper in his hand.

"I see you have it, too," he said, smiling. "Burman just handed me this."

"Isn't it perfectly disreputable!" exclaimed Mrs. Drelmer.

"Why? I only hope I'll have as much interest in life by the time I'm that age."

"But how will your sister take it?" asked Mauburn; "she may be afraid this will knock my t.i.tle on the head, you know."