Part 24 (2/2)

”We must cause Irene to distrust Elden--to see him in his true light,”

he continued. ”That may be possible. But if it should fail we must take another course, which I hesitate to mention to you, but which may be necessary if we are to save her from this fatal infatuation. If our efforts to cause Irene to see Elden in his true light were to fail, and she were to discover those efforts, she would be more set in his favour than ever. So we must plan two campaigns; one, which I have already suggested, and one, if that should fail, to cause Elden to distrust Irene. No, no,” he said, raising his hand toward Mrs. Hardy, who had started from her seat,--”there must be no vestige of reason, except that the end justifies the means. It is a case of saving Irene, even if we must pain her--and you--in the saving.”

”It's very dreadful,” Mrs. Hardy repeated. ”But you are very thorough; you leave nothing to chance. I suppose that is the way with all big business men.”

”You can trust me,” Conward a.s.sured her. ”There is no time to be lost, and I must plan my campaigns at once.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Conward paused to speak to Irene before leaving the house.

”I owe you my good wishes,” he said. ”And I give them most frankly, although, perhaps, with more difficulty than you suppose.”

”You are very good, Mr. Conward,” she acknowledged.

”I could not wish you anything but happiness,” he returned. ”And had I been so fortunate as Elden, in making your acquaintance first, I might have hoped to contribute to your happiness more directly than I can under the present circ.u.mstances.” He was speaking in his low, sedulous notes, and his words sent the girl's blood rus.h.i.+ng in a strange mixture of gratification and anger. The tribute he implied--that he himself would have been glad to have been her suitor--was skilfully planned to appeal to her vanity, and her anger was due to its success. She told herself she should not listen to such words; she should hate to hear such words. And yet she listened to them, and was not sure that she hated them. She could only say, ”You are very good, Mr. Conward.”

He pressed her hand at the door, and again that strange mixture of emotions surged through her.

Conward proceeded to the business section of the town, well pleased with the evening's events. He found his way impeded by crowds in front of the newspaper offices. He had paid little attention to the progress of the war scare, attributing it to the skilful publicity of interests connected with the manufacture of armaments. To the last he had not believed that war was possible. ”n.o.body wants to fight,” he had a.s.sured his business acquaintances. ”Even the armament people don't want to fight. All they want is to frighten more money out of the taxpayers of Europe.” To Conward this explanation seemed very complete. It covered the whole ground and left nothing to be said.

But to-night he was aware of a keener tension in the crowd atmosphere.

They were good natured crowds, to be sure; laughing, and cheering, and making sallies of heavy wit; but they were in some way more intense than he had ever seen before. There was no fear of war; there was, rather, an adventurous spirit which seemed to fear that the affair would blow over, as had so many affairs in the past, and all the excitement go for nothing. That war, if it came to war, could last, no one dreamed; it would be a matter of a few weeks, a few months, at the most, until a thoroughly whipped Germany would retire behind the Rhine to plan ways of raising the indemnity which outraged civilization would demand. Conward elbowed his way through the crowds, smiling, in his superior knowledge, over their excitement. Newspapers must have headlines.

At his office he used a telephone. Then he walked to a restaurant, where, after a few minutes, he was joined by a young woman. They took a table in a box. Supper was disposed of, and the young woman began to grow impatient.

”Well, you brought me here,” she said at last. ”You've fed me, and you don't feed anybody, Conward, without a purpose. What's the consideration?”

”Yes, I have a purpose,” he admitted. ”I'm pulling off a little joke, and I want you to help me.”

”You're some joker,” she returned. ”Who have you got it in for?”

”You know Elden--Dave Elden?”

”Sure. I've known him ever since that jolt put him out of business up in your rooms, ever so many years ago. He was too rural for that mixture. Still, Elden has lots of friends--decent friends, I mean.”

”I'm rather sorry you know him,” said Conward. ”But--what's more to the point--does he know you?”

”Not he. I guess he had no memory the next morning, and would have made a point of forgetting me, even if he had.”

”That's all right, then. Now I want you to get him down to your place some night to be agreed upon--I'll fix the date later--and keep him there until I call for him, with his _fiancee_.”

”Some joke,” she said, and there was disgust in her voice. ”Who is it on: Elden, me, or the girl?”

”Never mind who it's on,” Conward returned. ”I'm paying for it.

Here's something on account, and if you make a good job of it, I won't be stingy.”

He handed her a bill, which she kissed and put in her purse. ”I need the money, Conward, or I wouldn't take it. Say, don't you know you're wasting your time in this one-horse town? You ought to get into the big league. Your jokes would sure make a hit.”

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