Part 7 (1/2)
THE CURSE OF MILLIONS.
As Travers Gladwin's valet filled the tall, slim gla.s.ses with the fizzing amber-colored fluid which const.i.tutes the great American highball, the two friends stretched their legs and lost themselves for a few moments in aimless reverie. Bateato looked from one to the other, puzzled by their seriousness. He clinked the gla.s.ses to rouse them and glided from the room. Whitney Barnes was the first to look up and shake himself free of the sober spell that gripped him.
”What the deuce made you skip abroad in such a hurry, Travers?” he asked, reaching for his gla.s.s.
Travers Gladwin sat up with a start, pulled a lugubrious smile and replied:
”Bored to death--nothing interested me--living the most commonplace, humdrum, unromantic existence imaginable. Teas and dances, dances and teas, clubs and theatres, theatres and clubs, motors and yachts, yachts and motors. It was horrible, and I can't help thinking it was all my dear old governor's fault. He had no consideration for me.”
”He left you a tidy lot of millions,” drawled Whitney Barnes.
Young Gladwin drained his gla.s.s, jumped to his feet and began to pace the room, hands deep in his trousers pockets.
”That was just it!” he flung out. ”If he'd left me nothing but a s.h.i.+lling or two there'd be some joy in living. I'd have had to buckle down. There's variety, interest, pleasure in having to make your own way in the world.”
Whitney Barnes laughed mockingly.
”Go out and tell that to the toiling ma.s.ses,” he chuckled, ”and listen to them give you the ha-ha. You're in a bad way, old chap--better see a brain specialist.”
”I know I'm in a bad way,” Gladwin ran on fiercely, ”but doctors can't do me any good. It was all right while I was a frolicking lamb, but after I got over the age of thinking myself a devil of a fellow things began to grow tame. I was romantic, sentimental--wanted to fall in love.”
”Now you interest me,” Whitney Barnes interjected, stiffening to attention.
”Yes, I wanted to fall in love, Whitney, but I couldn't get it out of my head that every girl I met had her eye on my fortune and not on me.
And if it wasn't the girl it was her mother, and mothers, that is mothers-in-law-to-be or mothers-that-want-to-be-in-law or--what the deuce do I mean?”
”I get you, Steve--they're awful. Go on.”
”Well, I gave it up--the hunt for the right girl.”
”The d.i.c.kens you say! I wish you hadn't told me that.”
”And I went in for art,” Gladwin raced on, carried breathlessly on the tide of his emotions and ignoring his friend's observations. ”I went in for these things on the walls, statuary, ceramics, rugs, and tapestries.”
”You've got a mighty fine collection,” struck in Barnes.
”Yes, but I soon got tired of art--I still hungered for romance. I went abroad to find it. I said to myself, 'If there's a real thrill anywhere on this earth for a poor millionaire, I'll try and find it--make a thorough search. It wasn't any use. Every country I went to was the same. All I could find were things my money could buy and all those things have long ceased to interest me. There was only once in all the years I've been craving a romance”----
”Hold up there, Travers Gladwin, you're talking like Methusaleh.
You've been of age only a few years.”
”Seems centuries, but as I started to say--there was only once. Two years ago in a trolley car, right here in the midst of this heartless city. Seated opposite me was a girl--a blonde--most beautiful hair you ever saw. No use my trying to describe her eyes, clearest, bluest and keep right on piling up the superlatives--peaches and cream complexion with a transparent down on it, dimples and all that sort of thing. You know the kind--a G.o.ddess every inch of her. Her clothes were poor and I knew by that she was honest.”
The young man paused and gazed rapturously into s.p.a.ce.
”Go on; go on,” urged Barnes. ”Poor but honest.”