VII
“I've been thinking,” announced Allan, when he turned up at the club, shortly after six, “that it would be an excellent idea to take that Russell boy along with us.”
“My dear fellow,” demurred Smith, tying his scarf in front of the diminutive mirror in his small chamber, “he's not invited!”
“I'll invite him myself,” replied the other untroubledly. “After all, you know, four is an awkward number at a dinner table.”
“But Mrs. Vernon might not like it,” said Smith earnestly. “I really wouldn't, old man.”
“Not like it? Of course she will! She'll be awfully pleased. Why not? The boy's all right, isn't he?”
“All right, yes, but don't you see? Why, hang it, Shortland, she is only preparing for four at dinner!”
“Oh, you mean there mightn't be enough to go around? Well, one can always open a tin of something. 'Add hot water and serve,' you know. Some one told me that you can get very delicious spaghetti in tins nowadays, all cooked and messed up with tomato and cheese. Rather wonderful, isn't it, the things you can get ready-cooked these days? Quite makes a fellow want to go to house- keeping. I'll step down and find him.”
“I don't know what she will think, Shortland,” protested Smith. “I—I really don't think you'd better!”
“Nonsense! He's a very nice boy. And there's always the spaghetti. I'm terribly fond of spaghetti.”
“Well, for Heaven's sake, telephone over and ask her, old man!”
“Yes, I might do that.”
“Although,” added Smith plaintively, “I don't see why the deuce you want to lug that chap along.”
“To split up the awful geometrical precision of a partie carrée, of course. Besides, the boy looks lonesome. It's really a charitable act, Smith.”
Allan found Harry Russell smoking over a month-old copy of the London Graphic in front of the empty fireplace. He was a nice-looking boy of twenty-one or two, whose folks lived in one of the houses across the links and were at present in Europe. He seemed very much surprised when Allan issued his invitation.
“Are you quite sure, Mr. Shortland, she wanted me?” he asked “I—I've never called there, you see. I think they're dandy folks, of course, and all that, but I—I don't know them very well”
“That's just it, Russell; you should. You needn't dress. Come just as you are, if you like.” (The boy was in knickerbockers and golf stockings.) “It's just a quiet little dinner, with bridge afterwards. Mrs. Vernon and her daughter will be extremely upset if you fail them.”
“Why—why, if you're quite sure it's all right,” stammered the boy. “I'd like to awfully. But I must get out of these things. It won't take me ten minutes, Mr. Shortland.”
“Oh, there's plenty of time, Russell. I'll just let Mrs. Vernon know you can come.” He went across to the telephone-booth. “Hello! Kindly give me Mrs. Vernon's residence.... What say?... Oh, is it really? That's very nice. Would you mind calling it?... Hello! May I speak with Mrs. Vernon?... Oh, no, don't do that! Merely tell her, please, that Mr. Shortland called her up to say that he is bringing Mr. Russell to dinner this evening.... Yes, Mr. Russell; R, u, s ... Thank you.”
“What did she say?” asked Smith. as Allan again took possession of the single comfortable chair in the room.
“Oh, it was all right. She said she'd let her know.”
“Let who know?” demanded Smith, one brush suspended in perplexity above his thinning locks.
“Mrs. Vernon, of course.”
“Mrs. Vernon, yes; but who is she going to let know?”
“Why, Mrs. Vernon.”
“Mrs. Vernon is going to let Mrs. Vernon know”
“I had the maid on the 'phone, Smith. I asked her to tell Mrs. Vernon that I was bringing Mr. Russell. She said she would. I have never seen her, but from her voice I judged her to be truthful. One can tell a great deal from voices, Smith. Rather odd, isn't it, that no one has ever thought to make a study of that? I dare say that with practice one could read character very nicely from the voice. Possibly one might go a bit further and discern the future. There's a possibility for you! 'Your fortune by telephone! Voice-reading by Europe's Premier Exponent of the New Science! Chiromancy, Necromancy, Astrology, Cartomancy, Phrenology, Outdone! Your fate is in Your Voice. Call Bryant 29,000, and make your appointment with the World Renowned Phonologist, Professor George Smith!'”
“Back up, old man! Where do I get my money?”
“H'm; that's so. You might—that's the idea!—arrange with the telephone company to charge the fee on the fellow's bill. Then you collect monthly from the company. If I were you, Smith, I'd look into it. I've no doubt you could work up a paying business. And it wouldn't be at all arduous. You could lie on a couch with a telephone strapped to your head and simply coin money! I think it's rather decent of me to put you onto such a big thing. Are you almost ready? If dinner is at seven, we ought to try to get there not later than half-past.”
As a matter of fact, it lacked some ten minutes of the time set for dinner when the three men were conducted into the library. Young Russell appeared somewhat ill at ease during the few moments that intervened before Mrs. Vernon's appearance. Her welcome then, however, quite reassured him.
“It was so nice of you to come, Mr. Russell,” she declared, “I was afraid that you might not be able to.”
“It's corking of you to—to ask me,” stammered the boy gratefully. Mrs. Vernon smiled sweetly and turned to Allan.
“Have you ever met my husband, Mr. Shortland?” she asked.
“No, Mrs. Vernon, but I have seen him on several occasions. It must be very unpleasant to be kept in Washington in such weather.”
“Yes, the place is unbearable in summer, I think. There's a portrait of the Senator in the living-room you must see. I want your opinion of it. Mr. Smith, I believe, told us that you had studied art, Mr. Shortland.”
“Very little, Mrs. Vernon. I am still a critic.” He followed her across the hall, and she led the way to the portrait. “Paxton, eh? Yes, I like it immensely, Mrs. Vernon. He had a difficult subject, too, for a painter once told me that it is far harder to do a portrait of a good-looking person than a homely one, since you can make the homely one good-looking, but you can't—”
“Bother the portrait, Mr. Shortland! You know very well I didn't bring you in here to look at that.”
“Well, I wanted to believe the alternative, but didn't dare to,” replied Allan gravely. “In fact, Mrs. Vernon, I scarcely thought you had discovered my secret as yet.”
Mrs. Vernon laughed. “It's no use,” she said. “Now, Mr. Shortland, why?”
“Why?” He gazed thoughtfully at the painting. “Well, he looked so lonely there all by himself, Mrs. Vernon. And I knew you wouldn't mind my bringing him. Smith thought I oughtn't to, but I said I was sure you could open a tin of something. Is it spaghetti, Mrs. Vernon? They say the canned spaghetti is quite delicious.”
“You absurd man! Of course I don't mind, only” She studied him suspiciously. “Well, I know that isn't the reason. I suppose, though, I'll find out in time. Shall we go back? I think Beryl is down. I'm glad you like it. Mr. Vernon thinks it makes him look too—what was it your father said about the portrait, Beryl?”
“That it made him look too senatorial,” replied Beryl, as she shook hands with Allan. “Father has a rabid dislike for what he calls 'frock-coat statesmanship,' Mr. Shortland.”
“There was very little of that in view the last time I visited the Senate gallery,” responded Allan. “They were most of them in their shirt-sleeves, waving palm-leaf fans.”
“That must have been the summer before last,” said Mrs. Vernon. “That hot spell was frightful, wasn't it? I remember that it burned the links quite brown. I think dinner is ready.”
Perhaps there was something in Allan's theory that five is a more comfortable number at table than four. At all events, dinner went very merrily. Smith was less tiresome than usual, Harry Russell was engagingly modest and attentive, and Allan, who was evidently in the best of spirits, incited the others to a reckless disregard of sense and reason. Smith chucklingly told of Allan's science of voice-reading, and the exponent of the new art was called on for a demonstration and responded readily. Mrs. Vernon was required to recite the opening lines of Gray's Elegy, which Allan gravely declared was especially suitable for his purpose, and then he told a number of astonishing things about the lady's past and predicted a widely sensational future, so opposed to the probabilities as to be startling in the extreme. For Beryl he discovered a future more conventional.
“I see, he murmured with half-closed eyes, “a man, handsome, talented, indescribably fascinating. I see—yes, a church and a great crowd about it. I hear music. Within the church are many people, and I see— Can it be? But yes!—a clergyman. He is speaking. Before him, kneeling, I see you and—a man! The man's face is hidden, and yet—” He paused in doubt. “Kindly recite the second line again, Miss Vernon.”
“'The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,'” recited Beryl gravely.
“Thank you. Yes, I was not mistaken. It is indeed our hero. I think—I think it is a wedding I see!”
“Wonderful!” chuckled Smith.
“Again the scene changes. I see a house, a white house with green blinds, It stands just back from a pleasant road and peers with friendly eyes”
“Do you see the dove-cot?” asked Beryl breathlessly.
“I do. Beneath it I see you seated with the same man”
“Don't be stingy, Shortland!” interrupted Smith.
“You are happy. At your knee”
“Mr. Shortland!”
“I see a dog. You stroke his head. He is an old dog, but kind and faithful. The garden is filled with the fragrance of flowers, the song of birds, and the drone of bees. The twilight sky pales, and presently, rousing from a sweet reverie, you look lovingly into the handsome face of your companion and I hear you say—but no, I must not tell that.”
“Oh, Mr. Shortland! Just when it was getting interesting! Do go on! What do I say?”
“You say, 'It is getting chilly, dear, and you mustn't forget your rheumatism. Come, Allan!'”
“Handsome and fascinating!” jeered Smith, above the laughter. “What do you know about that for conceit? I say, Shortland, I'll give you a fiver if you'll listen again and hear her say 'George'!”
“I cannot tell a lie,” replied the fortune-teller. “She said 'Allan.'”
“It's a perfectly fascinating picture, Mr. Shortland,” declared Beryl. “So idyllic and Belascoesque.”
“Not very exciting, though,” Smith grumbled. “I like Mrs. Vernon's fortune better. There was something doing every minute there.
When the party returned to the library they found the bridge table already set. There was real heroism back of Mrs. Vernon's smiling announcement.
“Now, you four are to sit down and play, and I'll look on for a while,” she said.
“Nonsense, Mamma!” protested Beryl. “You know I don't care for bridge, and”
“Let me stay out, Mrs. Vernon,” put in Russell earnestly. “I”
“No, do as I say, every one of you. Perhaps I'll cut in later”
“Mrs. Vernon, will you forgive me for upsetting your plan?” asked Allan gently. “I am suffering severely from bridge-player's cramp, and you will really have to let me off.”
“The idea!” scoffed Mrs. Vernon.
“I insist, really. Just let me sit beside you and imbibe bridge-wisdom. There! Now we're all happy. Shall I score? Perhaps I'd better not, though. I always forget about the honors.”
Beryl and Smith had just won the first rubber when through the open windows came the sound of footsteps on the path, and, a moment later, the distant tinkle of a bell. Mrs. Vernon frowned.
“Who do you suppose that is?” she murmured. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Russell; you bridged, didn't you? We'll play it without. Has any one gone to the door, Mr. Shortland?”
“I think so. I hear voices, Mrs. Vernon. You won't let him break up our happy little evening, will you?”
“Is it a him?” asked Mrs. Vernon, laying down her hand and turning toward the door. “I wonder—”
“Mr. Forbes, ma'am,” announced the maid.
“How delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Vernon, with a sigh. “Ask him to come in here, Jennie.”
“Good-evening, Mrs. Vernon. Good-evening, Miss Vernon. Hello, everybody else?” Jerry shook hands and then surveyed the scene puzzledly and turned an inquiring look on Allan. “Shortland, you're an awful liar, I'm afraid. Mrs. Vernon, I think he's put up a job on me. He telephoned me about six that I was wanted over here after dinner to make a fourth at bridge.”
Mrs. Vernon cast an accusing glance at Allan, but only replied, “You're very welcome, Mr. Forbes, and you really are wanted. You see Mr. Shortland refuses to play, and I am just filling in”
“No, no, you take my place, Jerry!” protested Russell. “I'd lots rather look on.”
“Where have I heard that before?” laughed Jerry. “Every one sit tight, please, and just”
“You play with Smith,” said Allan calmly. “Miss Vernon is not feeling well, and I'm going to take her onto the porch.”
“Not feeling well!” exclaimed Mrs. Vernon. “Why, Beryl dear, what—”
“You'll have to ask Mr. Shortland, Mamma,” replied Beryl amusedly. “Where do I feel ill, Mr. Shortland?”
“Your head aches,” replied Allan. “The fresh air”
“Of all the barefaced, treacherous” began Smith.
“Shall I get you a wrap?” asked Allan solicitously. Beryl smiled, shook her head, hesitated, and finally held out her cards to Jerry.
“Do you mind, Mr. Forbes?” she asked.
“Of course I do,” he answered stoutly. “I strongly object to that—that conspirator's high-handed methods, Miss Vernon. Look here, Shortland, you let Miss Vernon alone. She hasn't any headache; have you, Miss Vernon?”
“I—I think I have—just a little,” answered Beryl demurely. “Perhaps I shall be better for the air. We've already won one rubber, Mr. Forbes. Wish you luck!”
“You wait till I get you at the club to-morrow,” grumbled Jerry, viewing Allan malevolently. “I'll—I'll”
“No trumps, Jerry,” said Smith. Russell bridged. They took the first. Your play, Russell. “The lead's across the board.”