The Auction Block Part 38

"Don't kill him, just stay and spoil his dinner," Lorelei urged.

Determination gleamed in Miss Demorest's countenance. "I'll do it --he's spoiled many a dinner for me. But give me room. Don't touch me. I'm distilling poison like a cobra." She seized the gleaming bread-knife and brandished it. "When the crisis comes, stand back."

"Seriously, now, Lorelei has told me everything, and I want Campbell to acknowledge his mistake," said Bob. "The public has swallowed that royalty hoax, but there's no use deceiving him."

Despite her show of bravery Adoree was panic-stricken when the bell rang and Bob went to the door to explain the change of plan and invite Pope in.

The latter could be heard saying: "That's fine. Me for a home- cooked dinner. Here's an unabridged cl.u.s.ter of orchids for Mrs.

Wharton, too. If I'd had time I'd have brought you a hanging-lamp or a plush alb.u.m decorated with sea-sh.e.l.ls." He entered the living-room with a hand extended and a smile upon his lips, then halted as if frozen. By the time he had been introduced to Adoree he had burst into a gentle perspiration.

Certainly the personal appearance of the notorious dancer was sufficiently unexpected to shock him; she might have been anything rather than a king's favorite; she looked far more like a prim little housewife as she helped Lorelei with her homely tasks, and the incongruity affected Pope painfully. With involuntary suspicion he avoided her after his first stiff greeting; but his eyes followed her furtively, and he wandered slightly in his attention to Bob's chatter.

As for Miss Demorest, she took a grim delight in his discomfort, and prepared to blast him with sarcasm, to wither him with her contempt when the moment came. Meanwhile she listened as the two men talked, turning up her nose when Pope scored Broadway with his usual bitterness.

"He thinks that's smart," she reflected; but she, too, detested the Great Trite Way, and his words expressed her own distaste so aptly that she could think of no argument sufficiently biting to confound him. She deliberately framed a stinging reference to his pose in the matter of dress, though in frankness she had to admit that he wore his gray sweater vest with an air of genuine comfort and unconsciousness. Then she remembered, barely in time, that her own style in garments both on and off the stage was far more startling than his, and decided that she would merely be laying herself open to a disastrous counter-attack if she hurled her sarcasm in that direction; therefore she sought another opening.

She had made up her mind to begin humbling his conceit by voicing her contemptuous regard for newspaper men in general when he once more forestalled her by giving crisp expression to the very sentiments she was rehearsing. Of course, it was all affectation, like his slovenly disregard of fas.h.i.+on--and yet, she was interested to hear him tell Bob:

"I don't like the business--never have. Every time I get some money ahead I quit it and try something else. Writing isn't a man's exercise, anyhow, and journalism is just a form of body- s.n.a.t.c.hing. The average reporter is a ghoul."

"You don't do reporting," said Bob.

"No, I don't; but that's all a dramatic review ought to be--a news story. Why not have social critics to comment on society entertainments--or financial critics to roast unhealthy commercial enterprises and advertise safe ones? How long d'you think Wall Street would stand for that? Why don't the papers hire dry-goods experts to prowl through the department stores, publis.h.i.+ng the cost prices of merchandise and warning the public against bargain sales? That's what we do. We ridicule and warn and criticize, but we never build up. The theatrical business is the only one that permits outside interference--as if the public couldn't tell a good play from a poor one. It wouldn't be so bad if we were always honest; but we're not: we have to be smart to hold our jobs. We're like a patent dandruff cure--we don't cure, but we sting, and the public thinks we're beneficial."

Notwithstanding his garrulity, Pope was noticeably ill at ease. He was conscious of Miss Demorest's hostile eyes, and the pointed manner in which she ignored his presence was disquieting. He had the feeling that she was carefully measuring him and preparing herself to take revenge in some characteristic feminine manner.

Knowing extremely little of women, he could not imagine what form that revenge would a.s.sume, and the uncertainty annoyed him. The dinner seemed slow in coming, conversation dragged, and, rising, he began to wander nervously about, canva.s.sing his mind for some excuse to leave. Bob appeared to enjoy his lack of repose, and offered no relief. At last Pope turned to the piano and fluttered through the stack of sheet-music he found there.

"Do you play?" inquired Bob.

"Yes. Why?"

"You look as if you did--you're kind of--badly nourished. Know any rag-time?"

Pope shuddered. "I do not."

"Too bad! I was going to ask you to stir up the ivories."

"n.o.body likes good music any more," growled the critic, seating himself upon the bench. His sensitive fingers idly rippled the length of the keyboard and a flood of melody filled the room.

"Say! You do know your way around, don't you? Can't you pick out 'Here Comes My Daddy Now' with one finger?"

The musician groaned. "What a pity!" After a moment he murmured, "I improvise a good deal." The instrument, perhaps for the first time in its life, began to vibrate and ring to something besides the claptrap music of the day. Once he had found a means of occupying himself, Pope surrendered to his impulse and in a measure forgot his surroundings.

A short time later Lorelei turned from the kitchenette to find Adoree Demorest poised, a salad-bowl in one hand, a wooden spoon gripped in the other, on her face a rapt expression of beat.i.tude.

"Have you rubbed the dish with garlic?" inquired Lorelei.

Adoree roused herself slowly. "Lordy!" she whispered. "I'd give both legs to the knee and one eye if I could play like that. The mean little shrimp!"

The embers of her resentment were still glowing when the four finally seated themselves at the table. A furtive glance in Pope's direction showed that he was studiously avoiding her eyes: she prepared once more to begin the process of flaying him.

"You've been away for some time, haven't you?" Bob was asking.

Pope nodded. "I hate New York. I went as far away as I could get, and--I managed to return just two jumps ahead of the sheriff. It will take me six months to pay my debts. I'm a grand little business man."

"What was it this time? Mining?"

"No. Poultry." Adoree p.r.i.c.ked up her ears.

"You went West, eh?" pursued Bob.

"No. East--Long Island. Did you know there are parts of the Island that are practically unexplored by civilized man? Well, there are.

They're as remote from the influence of New York as the heart of New Guinea." Pope's thin lips parted in a smile. "The natives are all foreigners, too. There are Portuguese pickle-pickers and hairy-handed Hollanders who live with their heads lower than their knees, and weed-pulling wops who skulk in patches of cauliflower and lettuce, but as for American settlers--there ain't none."

Adoree complacently felt that she had the critic talking against time, and the consciousness of her disturbing over him gratified her intensely.

"Their language is a sort of Reverse English," Pope went on, "and it's a hard country to explore because of the dialects. Some of the people are flesh-eaters, but the price of poultry is so high and the freight on eggs is so low that most of them are vegetarians. That's what got me started, in the first place--I saw a great opportunity to make money; so I found a farm on a lake, bought it, and went to raising ducks."

"Ducks!" breathlessly exclaimed Miss Demorest; but her interruption went unnoticed.

Campbell Pope's features shone with the gentle light of a pleasurable remembrance. "It was lovely and quiet out there, just like Saskatchewan or the Soudan. Sometimes I fancied I must be close to the fringe of civilization, with the life of the outer world pulsing near at hand, for I could hear whispers of it; but I soon got over that idea. The local inhabitants were shy but friendly; they did me no harm. But--it was no place for ducks; they swam all over the pond and spent so much time catching bugs on the bottom that they had no leisure for family obligations on land."

This gloomy recital met with an interest that prompted him to continue, whimsically:

"There was no home life among those ducks--none whatever, but they could swim nearly as well as Miss Kellerman. They never took cramps, either, although they appeared to have chronic bronchitis; and they must have learned to breathe through their tails, because they stood on their heads for hours at a time--all I could see was acres of white tails sticking up like patches of Cubist pond- lilies. They swam all their fat off, and I had the pond dredged and never found an egg."

Miss Demorest giggled audibly; she had lost all interest in her food; she was tingling with excitement.

"Why didn't you fence them in?" she asked.

Pope eyed her for a fleeting instant, then his gaze wavered.

"I fenced in the whole pond to begin with. It nearly broke me."

"A duck shouldn't have much water. What kind were they?"

"Plymouth Rocks, or Holsteins, or Jersey Lilies--anyhow they were white."

"White Pekins!"

The critic frowned argumentatively. "What is a duck for if he isn't to swim? What is his object? We had six on my father's farm, and they swam all the time. Of course, six isn't many, but--"

"Naturally they didn't do well--"

"But they DID do well--and quite naturally, too. They did beautifully, in fact. They never had an ache or a pain. What do you know about ducks?"

Adoree answered in a tone of calm and utter certainty: "I know everything. I've read hundreds, maybe thousands of duck books. I have a whole library of them."

"A duck library. I thought so. But did you ever own a library of ducks? There's a difference. A man doesn't have to know anything to write a book--I've done it myself. Practical experience is the thing."