No. 13 Washington Square Part 3

"This is something special." The young gentleman's smiling but unpresuming _camaraderie_ seemed unruffled by the colonel's blunt contempt, and though they all drew apart from him he seemed to be untroubled by his journalistic ostracism.

The next moment the door was opened by a stout, short-breathed woman, hat, jacket, and black gloves on. All stepped in. The three late-arriving reporters, seeing in the reception-room beyond a group of newspapermen about a servant,--Matilda making her first futile effort to rid the house of this pestilential horde, generaled by Mr.

Mayfair,--started quickly toward the members of their fraternity. But the young gentleman remained behind with their stout admitter.

"Huh--thought that was really your size--tackling a servant!"

commented the caustic colonel.

But the reporter from "Town Gossip" smiled and did not reply; and the three disappeared into the reception-room. The young gentleman, very politely, half pushed, half followed the stout woman out of the reception-room's range of vision.

"Just leaving, I suppose," he remarked with pleasant matter-of-factness.

"Yes, sir. My bags are down at the bas.e.m.e.nt door. When I heard the ring, I just happened--"

"I understand. You wouldn't have answered the door, if almost all the regular servants had not been gone. Now, I'd say," smiling engagingly, "that you might be the cook, and a mighty good cook, too."

He had such an "air," did this young man,--the human air of the real gentleman,--that, despite the unexpectedness of his overture, the stout woman, instead of taking offense, flushed with pleasure.

"I ought to be a good one, sir; that's what I'm paid for."

"Seventy-five a month?" estimated the young gentleman.

"Eighty," corrected the cook.

"That's mighty good--twenty dollars a week. But, Mrs. Cook,"--again with his open, engaging smile,--"pardon me for not knowing your proper name,--could I induce you to enter my employment--at, say, twenty dollars a minute?"

"What--what--"

"For only a limited period," continued the young gentleman--"to be exact, say one minute. Light work," he added with a certain whimsicality, "short hours, seven days out--unusual opportunity."

"But what--what am I to do?" gasped the cook, and before she could gasp again one surprised black glove was clutching two ten-dollar bills.

"Arrange for me to see Miss Gardner--alone. It's all right. She and I are old friends."

"But--but how?" helplessly inquired this mistress of all non-intrigantes.

"Isn't there some room where n.o.body will come in?"

"The library might be best, sir," pointing up the stairway at a door.

"The library, then! And arrange matters so that no one will know we're meeting."

"But, sir, I don't see how--"

"Most simple, Mrs. Cook. Before you go, you, of course, want to bid Miss Gardner good-bye. Just request the lady in black in there with the reporters to tell Miss Gardner that you want to speak to her and will be waiting in the library. When you've said that, you've earned the money. Then just watch your chance until the somber lady isn't looking, and continue with your original plan of leaving the house."

"Perhaps it will work," hesitated the cook. But with a gesture in which there was no hesitation she slipped her minute's pay between the b.u.t.tons of her waist.

The young gentleman went lightly and swiftly up the stairs and through the mahogany door that had been pointed out to him. Curiously he looked about the s.p.a.cious, dark-toned room of splendid dignity. He had the ease of the man to whom the world is home, and seemed not one whit abashed by the exclusive grandeur of the great chamber. With a watchful eye on the door, he glanced at the rows and rows of volumes: well-bred authors whom time had elevated to a place among literary "old families." Also he examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with a critical, valuating, meditative eye. Also in pa.s.sing--and this he did absently, as one might do from habit--he tried the k.n.o.b of a big safe, but it was locked.

The next moment there was a sound at the door. Instantly he was out of sight behind the brown velvet hangings of a recessed French window.

Miss Gardner entered, saw upon the embarra.s.sed edges of none of the shrouded chairs a plump and short-breathed Susan. Surprised, she was turning to leave when a cautious but clear whisper floated across the room.

"Clara!"

She whirled about. At sight of the young gentleman, who had stepped forth, she went pale, then red, then pale again.

"Eliot--Mr. Bradford!" she exclaimed. Then in a husky frightened whisper: "How did you get in here?"

He sought to take one of her hands, but she put both behind her back.

At this repulse the young gentleman winced, then smiled gravely, then pleasantly,--and then with a whimsical upward twist to his wide mouth.

"Via the cook," he answered, and told her the rest.

"Did any one else belonging to the house see you?"

"Besides you and my excellent old friend, the cook, no one."

"But don't you realize that this house is one of the most dangerous places in the world for you?" she cried in a low voice. "Why, Judge Harvey himself is expected here any minute!"

"Judge Harvey!" The equable young man gave a start. But the next moment his poise came back.

"And after what I saw only to-day in the papers about Thomas Preston--! Don't you know you are this moment standing on a volcano?"

"Yes--but what of it?" he answered cheerfully. "It's the most diverting indoor or outdoor sport I've ever indulged in--dodging eruptions. Besides, in standing on this volcano I have the advantage of also standing near you."

"Didn't I tell you I never wanted to see you again!" she flamed at him. "How dared you come here?"

"I had to come, dear." His voice was pleading, yet imperturbably pleasant. "You refused to answer the letters I wrote you begging you to meet me somewhere to talk things over. I read that Mrs. De Peyster was sailing to-night, and I knew that you were sailing with her.

Surely you understand, before she went, I had to see my wife."

"I refuse to recognize myself as such!" cried Miss Gardner.

"But, my dear, you married--"

"Yes, after knowing you just two days! Oh, you can be charming and plausible, but that shows just how foolish a girl can be when she's a bit tired and lonesome, and then gets a bit of a holiday."

"But, Clara, you really liked me!"

"That was because I didn't know who you were and what you were!"

"But, Clara," he went on easily--he could not help talking easily, though his tone had the true ring of sincerity. There seemed to be no bit of aggressive self-a.s.surance about this young gentleman; he seemed to be just quietly, pleasantly, whimsically, unsubduably his natural self. "But, Clara, you must remember that it was as sudden with me as with you. I hardly thought about explaining. And then, I'll be frank, I was afraid if I did tell, you wouldn't have me. I did side-step a bit, that's a fact."

"You admit this, and yet you expect me to accept as my husband a man who admits he is a crook!"

"My dear Clara," he protested gently, "I never admitted I was such an undraped, uneuphonious, square-cornered word as that."

"Well, if a forger isn't a crook, then who is? The business of those forged letters of Thomas Jefferson, do you think I can stand for that?"