Part 57 (1/2)

She glanced timidly toward her father. The professor was holding aloof in dignified silence.

”Perhaps,” Tavernake said quickly, ”you would take supper with me? I am going abroad, and I should like to say good-bye properly. A bottle of champagne and some supper. What do you say, Professor?”

The professor suffered his features to relax.

”A very admirable idea,” he declared. ”Where shall we go?”

”Is it too late to get to Imano's?” Tavernake suggested.

The professor hesitated.

”A taxicab,” he remarked, ”would do it, if--”

He paused, and Tavernake smiled.

”A taxicab it shall be,” he decided. ”I am in funds just for the moment.

Come along, both of you, and I'll tell you all about it.”

He made her take his arm, although her fingers did no more than touch his coat sleeve.

”Pritchard came and dug me out,” he continued. ”I am going abroad with him. It's sort of prospecting in some new country at the back of British Columbia. We see what we can find and then go to a financier's and start companies, mining companies and oil fields--anything. I am off in a week.”

Beatrice half closed her eyes. They had hailed a pa.s.sing cab and she sank back among the cus.h.i.+ons with a sigh of relief.

”Dear Leonard,” she murmured, ”I am so glad, so very happy for your sake. This is the sort of thing which I hoped would happen.”

”And now tell me about yourselves,” he went on.

There was a sudden silence. Tavernake was conscious that Beatrice's clothes were distinctly shabbier, that the professor's hat was s.h.i.+ny.

The professor cleared his throat.

”I do not wish,” he said, ”to intrude our private matters upon one who, although I will not call him a stranger, is a.s.suredly not one of our old friends. At the same time, I admit that a little trouble has arisen between Beatrice and myself, and we were discussing it at the moment you arrived. I shall appeal to you now. As an unprejudiced member of the audience to-night, Mr. Tavernake, you will give me your honest opinion?”

”Certainly,” Tavernake promised, with a sinking premonition of what was to come.

”What I complain of,” the professor began, speaking with elaborate and impressive slowness, ”is that my performance is hurried over and that too long a time is taken up by Beatrice's songs. The management remark upon the applause which her efforts occasionally ensure, but, as I would point out to you, sir,” he continued, ”a performance such as mine makes too deep an impression for the audience to show their appreciation of it by such vulgar methods as hand-clapping and whistling. You follow me, I trust, Mr. Tavernake?”

”Why, yes, of course,” Tavernake admitted.

”I take a sincere and earnest interest in my work,” the professor declared, ”and I feel that when it has to be scamped that my daughter may sing a music-hall ditty, the result is, to say the least of it, undignified. For some reason or other, I have been unable to induce the management to see entirely with me, but my point is that Beatrice should sing one song only, and that the additional ten minutes should be occupied by me in either a further exposition of my extraordinary powers as a hypnotist, or in a little address to the audience upon the hidden sciences. Now I appeal to you, Mr. Tavernake, as a young man of common sense. What is your opinion?”

Tavernake, much too honest to be capable in a general way of duplicity, was on the point of giving it, but he caught Beatrice's imploring gaze.

Her lips were moving. He hesitated.

”Of course,” he began, slowly, ”you have to try and put yourself into the position of the major part of the audience, who are exceedingly uneducated people. It is very hard to give an opinion, Professor. I must say that your entertainment this evening was listened to with rapt interest.”

The professor turned solemnly towards his daughter.

”You hear that, Beatrice?” he said severely. ”You hear what Mr.

Tavernake says? 'With rapt interest!'”