CHAPTER II.
One crisp evening about the middle of October, Claudius left the plant to go directly to the Yale Club, there to dress for a dinner at the residence of Papa Perkins, widely known by reason of his benevolent features on his Love Gag, Baby's Bath Sweetener, and other Products justly celebrated, not only in the home, but in the house of mirth. Bathroom, greenroom, vestry room, taproom—he permeated all precincts sacred and profane, did Papa Perkins. Claudius was very fond of him, as well as of Mama Perkins and the Miss Perkinses.
[Illustration: An extremely youthful and radiant girl, standing at the entrance to the peristyle with Claudius' square, genial face showing over her shoulder.]
Suzanne and her brother were still his slightly paying guests at the Casa Pompeiana. The “end of the season” is a phrase as elastic as was Claudius' whole-hearted hospitality. He enjoyed his guests, and was in no hurry for them to leave.
Claudius left the Perkins mansion at eleven and started to walk crosstown to the subway station. It was a clear, breezy night, and halfway down the block, Claudius stopped in the lee of a taxi drawn up to the curb and lighted a cigarette.
How inscrutable are the trails to trouble! Claudius never indulged in alcoholics or tobacco except on Saturday night, this régime not being due to ethics or hygiene or the desire to celebrate after six days' work done, but because, as an expert synthetic compounder of exquisite aromas, it would not do to mar the delicacy of his olfactory sense. It is the same with a tea or coffee taster, especially the former; these experts never indulge during the sampling season of about eight weeks. Claudius found that the intermission of Sunday left his nose as keen as ever, especially as he did not carry his weekly dispensation to excess. This night happened to be Saturday; wherefore, Claudius, having enjoyed the output of Papa Perkins' excellent cellar, felt the desire to smoke. So he lighted a match, and as it flared brightly, he became conscious of a pair of eyes tugging at him from the taxi.
Consider the coincidence—the only taxi in sight, the only night of the week when Claudius smoked, the only decent place to light a match, and the only pair of eyes that had ever succeeded in stabbing Claudius' stable centers with Hertzian zigzags.
The match blew out, its function unfulfilled. Claudius immediately perceived that here was a derelict taxi gone aground. The after-starboard tire had been torpedoed when the crew had saved itself. There only the taxi and the pair of eyes. And then, as Claudius hung alongside to light another match and if necessary to render any assistance required, those eyes stabbed into his again, and through the open window a very young voice said tremulously:
“Please take me away!”
Such an appeal proceeding from a wreck is not to be resisted.
“Take you where?” Claudius asked.
“Anywhere,” replied the voice, which was as girlish and callow as the peep of a very young duck. “Quick, please, before Archie comes back!”
“Where has Archie gone?” Claudius asked. He was under the conviction that he had to do with a little girl of eight or ten. “Who is Archie?” he continued, in his rich, pleasant voice.
[Illustration: Suzanne's start was that of a cat at a near-by handclap.]
The answer was upsetting:
“Archie is my fiancé—or, at least, he was. I've changed my mind. If I'd known he drank, I'd never have run away with him—and I'm beginning to doubt he ever had an aunt who lived on Fifth Avenue.”
“T don't believe it myself,” said Claudius, whose mind worked quickly enough in emergencies. “I'll bet he never had an aunt, and, if so, she wouldn't have lived on Fifth Avenue. Where do you want me to take you?”
“I'm sure I don't know. The first thing is to get away before he comes back.”
The door of the taxi opened, and she stepped out. Claudius gave her a startled glance, and his mind was snapped back to its first impression.
“Bless my soul,” said he, “it's a little girl!”
“What did you think it was an—Angora cat?” came the tart reply.
“But you're not old enough to get married!” he objected. “You're not grown up!”
[Illustration: Clarissa rushed out and gave her guardian a kiss, which he received absent-mindedly.]
“That's what I'm beginning to think myself,” she answered composedly. “Come on, if you're going to rescue me. We'd better beat it, or you might have to beat Archie. Then there's the chauffeur, who might help, as Archie must owe him about twelve hundred dollars, What shall I do with this?” And she poked at a cumbersome traveling bag in front.
A favorable slant brought at this moment a full-powered taxi beating to the westward, and this Claudius commandeered.
“Can't wait for this fellow all night,” said he to the driver, and told him to go to the Grand Central Station. That seemed to be as suitable a place as any in which to examine the situation.
“Will you tell me your name?” he asked as they started off.
“Clarissa Carlton,” she lisped.
Claudius spun about and stared at her in the glare of an arc light.
“Hanged if you're not!” said he, and regarded her, crestfallen.
He felt rather like a fool. Instead of saving a silly schoolgirl from a fatal step, here he was taking part in the escapade of a youthful stage favorite. He had recently seen Clarissa Carlton dance, and had thought it a shame that so lovely a creature should be exploited at so tender an age.
But under the circumstances, he must make the best of it, so he decided to examine her at leisure in a sheltered corner of Delmonico's, where staid scientists are not wont to entertain child dancers unless secure in the propriety of so doing. Besides, it was nearly midnight, and he had heard that stage ladies are always hungry at that hour.
“Have you been to the theater to-night?” he asked, after having instructed the driver.
“Yes,” she answered, “for the last time. There's been an awful row, and I'm a homeless outcast. I shall never dance again. I'd rather starve or drown myself—or get married,”
From the tone of her voice, Claudius surmised that she was not far from tears, so he began to talk in his pleasant voice, introducing himself and telling her to cheer up, as it certainly could all be put right. Thus soothingly buzzing, they reached the restaurant, where Claudius. secured an inconspicuous table in a corner and ordered an appetizing supper. Scrutinized at close range, Clarissa was revealed as a very charming girl of seventeen, with nothing about her to suggest the stage. Her youthful figure was strong, supple, and symmetrical, with long arms and legs and a face that would have been babyish but for a firm chin and a pair of intensely expressive gray eyes set in a double fringe of dark lashes. She also had rich, dark-red hair.
Warmed by Claudius' sympathy and won by his perfect naturalness, she told her troubles. She was an orphan, the protégée of an actress who posed as her benefactress, but had been, in reality, a grasping cat of a patronne, exploiting the girl to her own profit. Certain managers had been a party to this.
At last Clarissa, nobody's little fool, had got enough of it. There had been quarrels, with a culminating fight this night, when Clarissa had balked flat and defied the powers that be to make her take a single step. Pressure had been employed, and in her extremity the poor child had telephoned to a suitor whom she knew slightly to come and rescue her. This he had managed, arriving at the theater in a taxi which had been tooling him from café to café most of the afternoon. He was a mere clandestine acquaintance of Clarissa's, who had always been closely herded by her promoters, less for her virtue's sake than for her stage value.
Claudius was astonished to learn that, outside of her work, Clarissa knew scarcely a soul, had no intimate friends, led an utterly tiresome life, and was heartily sick of the whole business. Though a little frightened, she was glad to have made the break and hoped never to pass through a stage entrance again. She had not the slightest idea in the world what she was going to do or how she was going to live. No more had Claudius.
Anyhow, here Fate had dumped her on his hands, helpless and bewildered. Claudius, turning over the situation in his mind, could think of no better sanctuary for the present than the Casa Pompeiana, and he told himself how fortunate it was that a qualified chaperon should be at that moment on the premises. He explained his plan to Clarissa, whose gray eyes regarded him as if he were a plumed prince sent to lead her out of the wood. She added to the varied list of the day's emotions by falling immediately and violently in love. She would have started with Claudius then and there for the end of the world.