Part 3 (1/2)
THERE'S DANGER IN NUMBERS
The Pennsylvania Limited was approaching Jersey City and the afternoon was approaching three o'clock when Mr. John Blake turned to Mrs. John Blake, nee Marjorie Underwood, a bride of about three hours, and precipitated the first discussion of their hitherto happy married life.
”Your Uncle Richard Underwood,” said he--the earlier discussions in the wedded state are usually founded upon relations--”is as stupid as he is kind. It was very good of him to arrange that I should meet old Nicholson. Any young fellow in the country would give his eyes for the chance. But to make an appointment for a fellow at four o'clock in the afternoon of his wedding day is a thing of which no one, except your Uncle Richard, would be capable. He might have known that I couldn't go.”
”But you must go,” urged the bride, ”it's the chance of a lifetime.
Besides which,” she added with a pretty little air of practicality, ”we can't afford to throw away an opportunity like this. We may never get another one, and if you don't go how are you to explain it to Uncle Richard when we dine there to-morrow night?--you know we promised to, when he was last at West Hills.”
”But what,” suggested her husband--”what if, in grasping at the shadow, I lose the reality? I'd rather lose twenty opportunities than my only wife, and what's to become of you while I go down to Broad Street? Do you propose to sit in the station?”
”I propose nothing of the kind,” she laughed. ”I shall go straight to the Ruissillard and wait for you. d.i.c.k and Gladys may be there already.”
Although Mr. John Blake received this suggestion with elaborate disfavor and disclaimer it was clear to the pretty eyes of Mrs. John Blake that he hailed it with delight, and she was full of theories upon marital co-operation and of eagerness to put them into practice. None of her husband's objections could daunt her, and before he had adjusted himself to the situation he had packed his wife into a hansom, given the cabman careful instructions and a careless tip, and was standing on the step admonis.h.i.+ng his bride:
”Be sure to tell them that we must have out-side rooms. Have the baggage sent up, but don't touch it. If you open a trunk or lift a tray before I arrive I shall instantly send you home to your mother as incorrigible.”
”Very well,” she agreed; ”I'll be good.”
”And then, if Gladys is there--it's only an off-chance that they come before to-morrow--get her to sit with you. But don't go wandering about the hotel by yourself. And, above all, don't go out.”
”Goosie,” said she, ”of course I shan't go out. Where should I go?”
”And you're sure, sure, sure that you don't mind?” he asked for the dozenth time.
”Goosie,” said she again, ”I am quite, quite sure of it. Now go or you will surely miss your appointment and disappoint your uncle.”
After two or three more questions of his and a.s.surances of hers the cab was allowed to swing out into the current. John had given the driver careful navigation orders, and Marjorie leaned back contentedly enough and watched the busy people, all hot and haggard, as New York's people sometimes are in the first warm days of May. Her collection of ill.u.s.trated post-cards had prepared her to identify many of the places she pa.s.sed, but once or twice she felt, a little ruefully the difference between this, her actual first glimpse of New York and the same first glimpse as she and John had planned it before the benign, but hardly felicitous, interference of Uncle Richard. This feeling of loneliness was strongly in the ascendent when the cab stopped under an ornate portico and two large male creatures, in powdered wigs and white silk stockings, emerged before her astonished eyes. Open flew her little door, down jumped the cabman, out rushed other menials and laid hands upon her baggage. Horses fretted, pedestrians risked their lives, motors snorted and newsboys clamored as an enormous police-appearing person a.s.sisted her to alight. He had such an air of having been expecting and longing for her arrival that she wondered innocently whether John had telephoned about her. This thought persisted with her until she and her following of baggage-laden pages drew up before the desk, but it fell from her with a crash when she encountered the aloof, impersonal, world-weary regard of the presiding clerk. In all Marjorie's happy life she had never met anything but welcome. The belle of a fast-growing town is rather a sheltered person, and not even the most confiding of ingenues could detect a spark of greeting in the lackadaisical regard of this highly-manicured young man.
Marjorie began her story, began to recite her lesson: ”Outside rooms, not lower than the fourth nor higher than the eighth floor; the Fifth Avenue side if possible--and was Mrs. Robert Blake in?”
The lackadaisical young man consulted the register with a disparaging eye.
”Not staying here,” Marjorie understood him to remark.
”Oh, it doesn't matter--but about the rooms?”
”Front!” drawled the young man, and several blue-clad bellboys ceased from lolling on a bench and approached the desk.
”Register here,” commanded the clerk, twirling the big book on its turn-table toward Marjorie so suddenly that she jumped, and laying his pink-tinted finger on its first blank line.
”No, thank you,” she stammered, ”I was not to register until my husband--” and her heart cried out within her for that she was saying these new, dear words for the first time to so unresponsive a stranger--”told me not to register until he should come and see that the rooms were satisfactory. He will be here presently.”
”We have no unsatisfactory rooms,” was the answer, followed by: ”Front 625 and 6,” and fresh pages and bellboys fell upon the yellow baggage, and Marjorie, in a hot confusion of counting her property and wondering how to resent the young man's impertinence, turned to follow them.
”One moment, madam,” the clerk murmured; ”name and address, please.” The pages were escaping with the bags, and Mrs. Blake hardly turned as she answered, according to the habit of her lifetime:
”Underwood, West Hills, N.J.,” and flew to the elevator, which had already swallowed her baggage and the boys. Up to suite Number 625 and 6 she was conducted by her blue-clad attendants, who opened the windows, pushed the furniture about--then waited; who fetched ice water, drew down shades--and waited; who closed the windows, drew up the shades, s.h.i.+fted the baggage from sofa to armchair, unbuckled the straps of a suitcase, indicated the telephone--and waited; who put the bags on the bed, opened the windows, pushed the furniture back against the wall--and waited. Marjorie viewed all these manoeuvres with amused but unsophisticated eyes. She smiled serenely at the smiling bellboys--while they waited. She thanked them prettily for their a.s.sistance--and they waited. She dismissed them still prettily, and it is to be regretted that, in the privacy of the hall, they swore.
She then took possession of her little domain. The clerk, however unbearably, had spoken the truth, and the rooms were charming. There could be no question, she decided, of going farther. She spread her pretty wedding silver on the dressing-table, she hung her negligee with her hat and coat in the closet. She went down on her knees and investigated the slide which was to lead shoes to the bootblack; she tested, with her bridal glove-stretcher, the electrical device in the bathroom for the heating of curling irons. She studied all the pictures, drew out all the drawers, examined the furniture and bric-a-brac, and then she looked at her watch. Only half an hour was gone.