Part 14 (1/2)
After him sped bricks, vegetables, spot-eggs, and several exceedingly fas.h.i.+onable suffragettes, their perfectly gloved hands full of horsewhips, banners, and farm produce.
But his excellency was now running strongly; one by one his eager and beautiful pursuers gave up the chase and fell out, panting and flushed from the exciting and exhilarating sport, until, at Forty-second Street, only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his heels.
The order of precedence then s.h.i.+fted as follows: First, the young and handsome Governor running like a lost dog at a fair and clutching the draft of the obnoxious bill to his gold-laced bosom; second, one distractingly lovely young girl, big, wholesome-looking, athletic, and pink of cheeks, swinging a ci-devant cat by the tail as menacingly as David balanced the loaded sling; third, several agitated policemen whistling and rapping for a.s.sistance; fourth, the hoi polloi of the Via Blanca; fifth, a small polychromatic dog; sixth, the idle wind toying carelessly with the dust and refuse and hats and skirts of all Broadway.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Only one fleet-footed young girl remained at his heels.”]
This munic.i.p.al dust storm, mingling with the brooding metropolitan gasoline fog, produced a sirocco of which no Libyan desert needed to be ashamed; and it alternately blotted out and revealed the interesting Marathonian procession, until one capricious and suffocating flurry, full of whirling newspapers and derbies, completely blotted out the Governor and the young lady at his heels.
And when, a moment later, the miniature tornado had subsided into a series of playful sidewalk eddys, only the policemen, the hoi polloi, and the dog were still going; the Governor and the beautiful suffragette had completely disappeared.
They had, it is true, chosen a very good time and place for such an occult performance; Long Acre at its busiest.
Several mounted policemen had now joined in the frantic festivities. They galloped hurriedly in every direction. The crowd cheered and pursued the police, the small dog barked in eddying circles till he resembled an expiring pinwheel.
Meanwhile a curious thing had occurred; the youthful Governor was now chasing the suffragette. It occurred abruptly, and in the following manner: No sooner had the dust cloud spread a momentary fog around the radiant young man--like a hurricane eclipse of the sun--than he darted into the narrow and dark hallway of an old-fas.h.i.+oned office building devoted to theatrical agencies, all-night lawyers, and ”astrologists,” and started up the stairs. But his unaccustomed sword tripped him up, and as he fell flat with a startling outcrash of accoutrements, there came a flurry of delicately perfumed skirts, the type-written papers were s.n.a.t.c.hed from his gloved hands, and the perfumed skirts went scurrying away through the dusky corridor which ought to have opened on the next cross street. And didn't.
After her ran the Governor, now goaded to courage by the loss of his papers, and she, finding herself in a cul-de-sac, turned at bay, launched the cat at his head, and attempted to spring past him. But he caught the whirling feline in one white-gloved hand and barred her way with the other; and she turned once more in desperation to seek an egress which did not exist.
A flight of precipitate and rickety stairs led upward into an obscurity rendered deeper by a single gas jet burning low on the landing above.
Up this she sprang, two at a time, the young man at her heels; up, up, pa.s.sing floor after floor, until a dirty skylight overhead warned her that the race was ending.
On the top corridor there was a door ajar; she sprang for it, opened it, tried to slam and lock it behind her, then, exhausted, she shrank backward into the room and sank into a red velvet chair, holding the bunch of papers tightly to her heaving breast.
There was another chair--a gilt one. Into it fell his excellency, gasping, speechless, his spurred and booted legs trailing, his borrowed uniform all over confetti and dust from his tumble on the stairs.
Minute after minute elapsed as they lay there, fighting for breath, watching each other.
She was the first to stir; and instantly he dragged himself to his feet, staggered over to the door, locked it, dropped the key into his pocket, returned to his chair, and collapsed once more.
After a few moments he glanced down at the cat which he was still clutching. A slight s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed over him, then, as he inspected it more closely, over his features crept an ironical smile.
For the cat was not even a ci-devant cat; it had never been a cat; it was only an imitation of a defunct one made out of floss and chenille, like a teddy-bear; and he smiled at her scornfully and dangled it by its black and white tail.
”Pooh,” he panted; ”I suppose even your bricks and vegetables and eggs were cotillion favours full of confetti.”
”They were,” she admitted defiantly. ”Which did not prevent their serving their purposes.”
”As what?”
”As symbols!”
”Symbols?” he retorted in derision.
”Yes, symbols! The three most ancient symbols of an insulted people's fury--the egg, the turnip, and the cat.”
”Mala gallina, malum ovum,” he laughed, adjusting his sword and picking several streamers of confetti from his tunic. ”Did they hurl spot-eggs in ancient Rome, fair maid?”
”They did; and cats--ex necessitate rei,” she observed with composure.
”Ex nihilo felis fit--a cat-fit for nothing,” he retorted, flippantly.
Half disdainfully she straightened out the slight disorder of her own apparel, still breathing fast, and keeping tight hold of the bundle of papers.
”How soon are you going to let me have them?” he asked good-humouredly.
”Never.”
”I can't permit you to leave this room until you hand them to me.”
”Then I shall never leave this room.”
”You certainly shall not leave it until I have those papers.”
”Then I'll remain here all my life!” she said defiantly.
”What do you expect to do when the people who live here return?”
She shrugged her pretty shoulders, and presently cast an involuntary and uneasy glance around the room.
It was not a place to rea.s.sure any girl; gilt stars were pasted all over walls and ceilings, where also a tinsel sun and moon appeared. The constellations were interspersed with bats.
The remaining decorations consisted of a cozy corner, some pasteboard trophies, red cotton velvet hangings, several plaster casts of human hands, and a frieze of half-burnt cigarettes along the mantel-edge.
”Are you going to give me those papers?” he repeated, secretly amused.
”No.”
”What do you expect to do with them?”
”Deliver them to Professor Elizabeth Challis, President of the National Federation of Independent Women of America.”
”Is this a private enterprise of yours,” he asked curiously, ”or just a--a playful impulse, or the militant fruition of a vast and feminine conspiracy?”
She smiled slightly.
”I suppose you mean to be impertinent, but I shall not evade answering you, Captain Jones. I am acting under orders.”
”Betty's?” he inquired, flippantly.
”The orders of Professor Elizabeth Challis,” she said, with heightened colour.
”Exactly. It is a conspiracy, then, complicated by riot, a.s.sault, disorderly conduct, and highway robbery--isn't it?”
”You may call it what you choose.”
”Oh, I'll leave that to the courts.”
She said disdainfully: ”We recognize no laws in the making of which we have had no part.”