The Auction Block Part 52

"Leave? At this hour?"

"In ten minutes, if you'll rouse a chauffeur and let him drive me to the station."

"Nonsense! You can't get Bob--"

"Bob needn't know anything about it; I'm sure that will be pleasanter all around. I'll go alone." Lorelei's forced smile bared her even, white teeth. "Of course, if it's too much trouble I can walk--"

"No trouble at all." Mrs. Fennell showed some relief. "I think you're acting very rudely--but I dare say it WOULD save a lot of unpleasantness; Bertie's furious--he and Bob might fight. I--I'm dreadfully sorry. Still, I can't permit you--"

"In ten minutes, then. If there's no train I may ask your chauffeur to drive me into the city."

"Why, to be sure! Er--what shall I tell Bob when he asks for you?"

"Use your own judgment, please. You can handle drunken men better than I. And don't trouble to send a maid to my room. I'll be down- stairs when the car comes."

The hostess continued to demur feebly, but Lorelei cut short any further discussion, and, once behind her own locked door, she dressed with feverish haste. Her only desire now was to escape from Fennellcourt and all its guests as quickly as possible. Her thoughts concerning Bob at the moment were too much involved in anger at the Fennells and at Hayman to be quite coherent.

She was pacing the gloom of the porte-cochere when an automobile swung out from among the trees and swept the shadows flying with its brushes of flame. As she directed the driver, from an open window behind her came a drunken shout; a burst of men's laughter followed the car as it rolled away.

So that was the charmed circle to which she had aspired, those the people she had envied; behind her was that life to which she had sold herself, and this was the end of her dream of fine ladies and gallant gentlemen! Lorelei scarcely knew whether to laugh or to cry. As she stared out at the night shapes capering past she felt acute personal shame that she had been tricked into even a brief a.s.sociation with so vile a crew. That uproar of men's voices rang in her ears like a jeering farewell, and she realized that in all probability her flight would appear ridiculous to Bob's friends.

Women like the kalsomined widow, the masculine matron, the jaded Wyeth girl, would echo that laughter and score her with their gossip on the morrow; the thought turned her mind bitterly toward Bob. He had defiled her by bringing her into contact with those libertines. He had left her defenseless against their insults and unprotected from the a.s.saults of men he knew to be capable of anything. He had told her to forget she was married and have a good time; he had refused her appeal for protection. She asked herself dazedly what sort of a creature he could be. Of a sudden the old life of the theater and the cafe seemed clean as opposed to the fetid existence behind her; even Jim, adventurer, crook, blackmailer that he was, appeared wholesome compared with men like Hayman and his brother-in-law. Although Lorelei, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, was even-tempered, her anger, once aroused, was tenacious. As she brooded over her humiliation her indignation at Bob began to take definite shape and purpose.

She reached the little apartment in the hushed hours before the dawn, and straightway began her packing. Since Bob was doubtless in a drunken stupor which would last for hours, she did not hurry.

Only once did she halt in her labors, and then only from surprise.

In a bureau drawer she uncovered a bundle of letters and doc.u.ments addressed to her husband, which in some way aroused her curiosity.

Swallowing her qualms, she examined the contents. They proved to be, in the main, letters from Bob's mother and father urging him to break off his marriage. Those from Mr. Wharton were characteristically intolerant and dictatorial; those from Bob's mother were plaintive and infinitely sad. Both parents, she perceived, had exhausted every effort to win their son from his infatuation, both believed Lorelei to be an infamous woman bent upon his destruction, and, judging from the typewritten reports inclosed with some of the father's letters, there was ample reason for such a belief. These reports covered Lorelei's every movement, they bared every bit of ancient scandal connected with her, they recounted salacious stage gossip as fact and falsely construed those actions which were capable of more than one interpretation.

It gave the girl a peculiar sensation of unreality to see her life laid out before her eyes in so distorted a shape, and when she read the business-like biographies of herself and the members of her family she could only marvel at Bob's faith. For evidently he had not answered a single letter. Nevetherless, after preparing an early breakfast, she sent her trunks down-stairs and 'phoned for a taxi-cab.

CHAPTER XXIV

On Tuesday afternoon a badly shaken, exceedingly frightened young man called at Campbell Pope's boarding-house.

"Good Lord, Bob! Been on another bat?" cried Pope, at sight of his caller. Wharton took a fleeting glance at himself in a mirror and nodded, noting for the first time the sacks beneath his eyes, the haggard lines from nostrils to lip-corners.

"I'm all in. Lorelei's quit me," he said, dully.

"Quit you!" Pope frowned. "Tell me about it."

"Well, I climbed the vine again and fell off. She packed up-- disappeared--been gone since Sat.u.r.day night, and I can't find her.

n.o.body seems to know where she is. I came up for air Sunday, but ... I'm hard hit, Pope. I'm ready to quit the game if I can't find her; me for a sea-foam pillow, sure. Oh, I'm not kidding--I'll start walking from here toward Jersey. ... G.o.d! I keep thinking that maybe SHE took the river. You see, I'm all gone." He sank into a chair, twitching and trembling in a nervous collapse.

"Better have a drink," Pope suggested; but Bob returned roughly:

"That's what broke up the sketch. I got stewed at Fennellcourt-- high-hat week-end party--fast crowd, and the usual tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

Never again! That is, if I find my wife."

"Fennellcourt! Suppose you tell me all about it. If there's a chance that it's suicide--" Pope's reportorial instinct brought the last word into juxtaposition with "Fennellcourt," and he saw black head-lines.

"Judge for yourself. Maybe you can help me; n.o.body else can." Bob recounted the story of the house-party; how he and Lorelei had met Bert Hayman; how, once in the company of his old friends, he had succ.u.mbed to his weakness, and how he had caroused most of Sat.u.r.day night. He told Pope that he could remember little of Sunday's occurrences, having been plunged in an alcoholic stupor so benumbing that not until late that evening had he fully grasped the fact that Lorelei had gone. Even then he was too befuddled to act. Neither Mrs. Fennell nor her husband could give him any help, and Bert Hayman, who had been with Lorelei all Sat.u.r.day evening, had no explanation to give of her departure. Bob remembered in pa.s.sing that Bert had been confined to his room all day Sunday as the result of a fall or an accident of some sort. Monday morning, while still suffering from the effects of his spree, Bob had returned to the city to find his home deserted, and for twenty- four sleepless hours now he had been hunting for his wife. He had called up Lorelei's family, but they could give him no clue; nor could he find trace of her in any other quarter. So, as a last resort before calling in the police, he had come to Pope. When he had finished his somewhat muddled tale he stared at the critic with a look of dumb appeal.

Campbell began in a matter-of-fact, positive tone. "She's altogether too healthy to think of suicide; rest easy on that score. You're weak enough emotionally to do such a thing, but not she. Besides, why should she? I can't imagine that any act of yours could very deeply offend anybody, even your wife. However--"

He studied briefly. "Have you been to see Miss Demorest?"

"Sure! Adoree hasn't seen her."

"Possibly!" Pope eyed his caller speculatively. "So you decided to jimmy her into society, eh! Who was at the party? Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed, as Bob muttered over the list of names. "How did she compare with those sacred cows?"

"Oh, great! The men went crazy over her--I knew they would."

"But how did the women treat her?"

"Why, all right. I didn't notice anything."

"What? No, of course you didn't. You were probably too drunk to notice much." Bob flushed. "You introduced her to the fastest people in New York, then left her entirely to her own resources while you went away and made an a.s.s of yourself. Well, something must have happened to alarm her, and, since you were too maudlin to be of any a.s.sistance, she evidently took the bit in her teeth.

I can't blame her. For Heaven's sake, why did you set her in with THAT crowd? If you wanted to take her slumming, why didn't you hire a guide and go into the red-light district?"

Bob defended himself listlessly. "That's the only crowd I know; it's the only set that's open to a Pittsburg furnace-man's son.

Those people aren't so bad; I guess they're no worse than the rest. If a person goes looking for nastiness he can find it nearly anywhere. I never did--and I never saw anything very scandalous around that bunch."

"One's observations are never very keen when they're made through the bottom of a gla.s.s," observed Pope.

Bob exploded irritably. "All right, Lieutenant! Play 'Jerusalem'

on the cornet while I pa.s.s the tambourine. d.a.m.n the post-mortems!

I want my wife, not a 'Ballington Booth' on the terrors of intemperance. I've got to have her, too. I--can't last this way.

She's the only person who can straighten me up. ... I was doing fine. Had a job ... I'll go straight to h.e.l.l again if I don't find her." There was no doubt of the man's sincerity: his mental and his physical condition were obvious.

Pope did his best to repair the wreckage in some degree, and, having quieted the sufferer, he set out for Miss Demorest's home.

Adoree, clad in a slightly soiled negligee, answered his ring, then, recognizing him, blocked the door hastily, exposing a face overcast with defiance and contempt.

"Aha!" she exclaimed. "Aha!" and Pope's sensitive ego recoiled before the fierce challenge of her tone. Physically the caller stood his ground, but inwardly he retreated in disorder. Adoree never failed to affect him uncomfortably; for he was conscious of having wronged her, and he could in no way reconcile her public reputation with his personal impressions of her. His inability to keep her notorious character constantly in mind made him angry with himself; and, further, she offended him by a.s.suming bewilderingly different aspects every time they met. Invariably she greeted him with contumely; invariably he arose to the challenge and overcame her attack; invariably she fought him on every subject. And yet all the time he vaguely suspected that they were really in complete accord and growing to like each other.

"I've come to see Lorelei," he explained, affably.

"Oh, you're looking for scandal, eh?" breathed Miss Demorest.

"Well, you won't get it, body-s.n.a.t.c.her!"

Pope bowed gravely. "You overwhelm me with your courtesy," he said. "I do not represent the press to-day. I'm here as a friend.

Bob's nearly dead."

"Serves him right. I suppose you've left another reporter to take down his dying words for the evening paper."

"Don't be silly. I want to see--"