Part 8 (1/2)

As he could think of no other way of effecting his object, he had begun to taste the bitterness of futile effort, when fortune, always his friend, put him in a position to do what he wanted in the easiest possible way with the minimum of unpleasantness.

Bailey Bannister, that strong, keen Napoleon of finance, was not above a little relaxation of an evening when his father happened to be out of town. That giant mind, weary with the strain of business, needed refreshment.

And so, at eleven thirty that night, his father being in Albany, and not expected home till next day, Bailey might have been observed, beautifully arrayed and discreetly jovial, partaking of lobster at one of those Broadway palaces where this fish is in brisk demand. He was in company with his rabbit-faced friend, Clarence Grayling, and two members of the chorus of a neighbouring musical comedy.

One of the two, with whom Clarence was conversing in a lively manner that showed his heart had not been irreparably broken as the result of his recent interview with Ruth, we may dismiss. Like Clarence, she is of no importance to the story. The other, who, not finding Bailey's measured remarks very gripping, was allowing her gaze to wander idly around the room, has this claim to a place in the scheme of things, that she had a wordless part in the comedy in which Percy Shanklyn had appeared as the English dude and was on terms of friends.h.i.+p with him.

Consequently, seeing him enter the room, as he did at that moment, she signalled him to approach.

”It's a little feller who was with me in 'The Man from Out West',” she explained to Bailey as Percy made his way toward them. At which Bailey's prim mouth closed with an air of disapproval.

The feminine element of the stage he found congenial to his business-hara.s.sed brain, but with the ”little fellers” who helped them to keep the national drama sizzling he felt less in sympathy; and he resented extremely his companion's tactlessness in inciting this infernal mummer to intrude upon his privacy.

He prepared to be cold and distant with Percy. And when Bailey, never a ray of suns.h.i.+ne, deliberately tried to be chilly, those with him at the time generally had the sensation that winter was once more in their midst.

Percy, meanwhile, threaded his way among the tables, little knowing that fate had already solved the problem which had worried him the greater part of the day.

He had come to the restaurant as a relief from his thoughts. If he could find some kind friend who would invite him to supper, well and good. If not, he was feeling so tired and depressed that he was ready to take the bull by the horns and pay for his meal himself. He had obeyed Miss Freda Reece's signal because it was impossible to avoid doing so; but one glance at Bailey's face had convinced him that not there was his kind host.

”Why, Perce,” said Miss Reece, ”I ain't saw you in years. Where you been hiding yourself?”

Percy gave a languid gesture indicative of the man of affairs whose time is not his own.

”Percy,” continued Miss Reece, ”shake hands with my friend Mr.

Bannister. I been telling him about how you made such a hit as the pin in 'Pinafore'!”

The name galvanized Percy like a bugle-blast.

”Mr. Bannister!” he exclaimed. ”Any relation to Mr. John Bannister, the millionaire?”

Bailey favoured him with a scrutiny through the gold-rimmed gla.s.ses which would have frozen his very spine.

”My father's name is--ah--John, and he is a millionaire.”

Percy met the scrutiny with a suave smile.

”By Jove!” he said. ”I know your sister quite well, Mr. Bannister. I meet her frequently at the studio of my friend Kirk Winfield. Very frequently. She is there nearly every day. Well, I must be moving on.

Got a date with a man. Goodbye, Freda. Glad you're going strong. Good night, Mr. Bannister. Delighted to have made your acquaintance. You must come round to the studio one of these days. Good night.”

He moved softly away. Miss Reece watched him go with regret.

”He's a good little feller, Percy,” she said. ”And so he knows your sister. Well, ain't that nice!”

Bailey did not reply. And to the feast of reason and flow of soul that went on at the table during the rest of the meal he contributed so little that Miss Reece, in conversation that night with her friend alluded to him, not without justice, first as ”that stiff,” and, later, as ”a dead one.”

If Percy Shanklyn could have seen Bailey in the small hours of that night he would have been satisfied that his words had borne fruit. Like a modern Prometheus, Bailey writhed, sleepless, on his bed till daylight appeared. The discovery that Ruth was in the habit of paying clandestine visits to artists' studios, where she met men like the little bounder who had been thrust upon him at supper, rent his haughty soul like a bomb.

He knew no artists, but he had read novels of Bohemian life in Paris, and he had gathered a general impression that they were, as a cla.s.s, shock-headed, unwashed persons of no social standing whatever, extremely short of money and much addicted to orgies. And his sister had lowered herself by a.s.sociation with one of these.

He rose early. His appearance in the mirror shocked him. He looked positively haggard.