What's-His-Name Part 9

She beamed on him. Butler bowed very low and said:--

"It will give me great pleasure, Miss Duluth."

"Good-night, then."

"Good-night."

When she returned to her dressing-room later on, she found Fairfax there, sitting on a trunk, a satisfied smile on his lips. She left the door open.

Mr. Ripton conducted the two men across to the stage door, leading them through the narrow s.p.a.ce back of the big drop. Chorus girls threw kisses at Harvey; they all knew him. He winked blandly at Butler, who was staring straight before him.

"A great life, eh?" said Harvey, meaning that which surrounded them.

They were in the alley outside the stage door.

"I'm going to catch the ten-twenty," said Butler, jamming his hat down firmly.

"Ain't you going to see the last act?" demanded the other, dismayed.

Butler lifted his right hand to heaven, and, shaking it the better to express the intensity of his declaration, remarked:--

"I hope somebody will kick me all over town if I'm ever caught being such a d.a.m.ned fool as this again. I honestly hope it! I've been made ridiculous--a blithering fool! Why, you--you----" He paused in his rage, a sudden wave of pity a.s.sailing him. "By George, I can't help feeling sorry for you! Good-night."

Harvey hurried after him.

"I guess I'll take it, too. That gets us out at eleven-thirty. We can get a bite to eat in the station, I guess."

He had to almost trot to keep pace with Butler crossing to the Grand Central. Seated side by side in the train, and after he had recovered his breath a bit, he said:--

"Confound it, I forgot to ask Nellie if it will be wise for her to come out on Sunday. The heart's a mighty bad thing, Butler."

"It certainly is," said Butler, with unction.

At the station in Tarrytown he said "Good-night" very gruffly and hurried off to jump into the only cab at the platform. He had heard all about Blakeville and the wild life Harvey had led there, and he was mad enough to fight.

"Good-night, Mr. Butler," said Harvey, as the hack drove off.

He walked up the hill.

CHAPTER III

MR. FAIRFAX

He found the nursemaid up and waiting for him. Phoebe had a "dreadful throat" and a high temperature. It had come on very suddenly, it seems, and if Annie's memory served her right it was just the way diphtheria began. The little girl had been thrashing about in the bed and whimpering for "daddy" since eight o'clock. His heart sank like lead, to a far deeper level than it had dropped with the base desertion of Butler. Filled with remorse, he ran upstairs without taking off his hat or overcoat. The feeling of resentment toward Butler was lost in this new, overpowering sense of dread; the discovery of his own lamentable unfitness for "high life" expeditions faded into nothingness in the face of this possible catastrophe. What if Phoebe were to die? He would be to blame. He remembered feeling that he should not have left her that evening. It had been a premonition, and this was to be the price of his folly.

At three in the morning he went over to rouse the doctor, all the time thinking that, even if he were capable of forgiving himself for Phoebe's death, Nellie would always hold him responsible. The doctor refused to come before eight o'clock, and slammed the door in the disturber's face.

"If she dies," he said to himself over and over again as he trudged homeward, "I'll kill that beast of a doctor. I'll tear his heart out."

The doctor did not come till nine-thirty. They never do. He at once said it was a bad attack of tonsilitis, and began treatment on the stomach. He took a culture and said he would let Mr.--Mr.

What's-His-Name know whether there was anything diphtheritic. In the meantime, "Take good care of her."

Sat.u.r.day morning a loving note came from Nellie, deploring the fact that she couldn't come out on Sunday after all. The doctor said she must save her strength. She instructed Harvey to dismiss Bridget and get another cook at once. But Harvey's heart had melted toward Bridget. The big Irishwoman was the soul of kindness now that her employer was in distress.

About nine o'clock that morning a man came up and tacked a placard on the door and informed the household that it was in quarantine. Harvey went out and looked at the card. Then he slunk back into Phoebe's room and sat down, very white and scared.

"Do you think she'll die?" he asked of the doctor when that gentleman called soon afterward. He was shivering like a leaf.

"Not necessarily," said the man of medicine, calmly. "Diphtheria isn't what it used to be."

"If she dies I'll jump in the river," said the little father, bleakly.

"Nonsense!" said the doctor. "Can you swim?" he added, whimsically.

"No," said Harvey, his face lighting up.

The doctor patted him on the back. "Brace up, sir. Has the child a mother?"

Harvey stared at him. "Of course," he said. "Don't you know whose child you are 'tending?"

"I confess I--er--I----"

"She is the daughter of Nellie Duluth."

"Oh!" fell from the doctor's lips. "And you--you are Miss Duluth's husband? I didn't quite connect the names."

"Well, I'm her husband, name or no name," explained the other. "I suppose I ought to send for her. She ought to know."

"Are you--er--separated?"

"Not at all," said Harvey. "I maintain two establishments, that's all.

One here, one in the city."

"Oh, I see," said the doctor, who didn't in the least see. "Of course, she would be subject to quarantine rules if she came here, Mr.--Mr.--ahem!"

"They couldn't get along without her at the theatre," groaned the husband.

"I'd suggest waiting a day or two. Believe me, my dear sir, the child will pull through. I will do all that can be done, sir. Rest easy."

His manner was quite different, now that he knew the importance of his patient. He readjusted his gla.s.ses and cleared his throat. "I hope to have the pleasure of seeing Mrs.--er--your wife, sir."

"She has a regular physician in town," said Harvey, politely.

For two weeks he nursed Phoebe, day and night, announcing to the doctor in the beginning that his early training made him quite capable. There were moments when he thought she was dying, but they pa.s.sed so quickly that his faith in the physician's a.s.surances rose above his fears. Acting on the purely unselfish motive that Nellie would be upset by the news, he kept the truth from her, and she went on singing and dancing without so much as a word to distress her. Two Sundays pa.s.sed; her own lamentable illness kept her away from the little house in Tarrytown.

"If we tell her about Phoebe," said Harvey to Bridget and Annie, "she'll go all to pieces. Her heart may stop, like as not. Besides, she'd insist on coming out and taking care of her, and that would be fatal to the show. She's never had diphtheria. She'd be sure to catch it. It goes very hard with grown people."