Part 35 (1/2)

An incautious pedestrian at the next crossing narrowly escaped being run down. He shook a fist at the vanis.h.i.+ng car and uttered a stream of oaths so vile that he would instantly have been taken up in any well-policed city.

Half an hour later Belknap-Jackson called me.

”He got out with that fiend! He's staying on there. But, my G.o.d! can nothing be done?”

”His lords.h.i.+p is playing a most desperate game,” I hastened to a.s.sure him. ”He's meeting difficulties. She must have her dupe's letters in her possession. Blackmail, I dare say. Best leave his lords.h.i.+p free.

He's a deep character.”

”He presumed far this afternoon--only the man's position saved him with me!” His voice seemed choked with anger. Then, remotely, faint as distant cannonading, a rumble reached me. It was hoa.r.s.e laughter of the Mixer, perhaps in another room. The electric telephone has been perfected in the States to a marvellous delicacy of response.

I now found myself observing Mrs. Effie, who had been among the absorbed onlookers while the pair were at their tea, she having occupied a table with Mrs. Judge Ballard and Mrs. Dr. Martingale.

Deeply immersed in thought she had been, scarce replying to her companions. Her eyes had narrowed in a way I well knew when she reviewed the social field.

Still absorbed she was when Cousin Egbert entered, accompanied by the Honourable George. The latter had seen but little of his brother since their first stormy interview, but he had also seen little of the Klondike woman. His spirits, however, had seemed quite undashed. He rarely missed his tea. Now as they seated themselves they were joined quickly by Mrs. Effie, who engaged her relative in earnest converse.

It was easy to see that she begged a favour. She kept a hand on his arm. She urged. Presently, seeming to have achieved her purpose, she left them, and I paused to greet the pair.

”I guess that there Mrs. Effie is awful silly,” remarked Cousin Egbert enigmatically. ”No, sir; she can't ever tell how the cat is going to jump.” Nor would he say more, though he most elatedly held a secret.

With this circ.u.mstance I connected the announcement in Monday's _Recorder_ that Mrs. Senator Floud would on that evening entertain at dinner the members of Red Gap's Bohemian set, including Mrs. Kate Kenner, the guest of honour being his lords.h.i.+p the Earl of Brinstead, ”at present visiting in this city. Covers,” it added, ”would be laid for fourteen.” I saw that Cousin Egbert would have been made the amba.s.sador to conduct what must have been a business of some delicacy.

Among the members of the North Side set the report occasioned the wildest alarm. And yet so staunch were known to be the principles of Mrs. Effie that but few accused her of downright treachery. It seemed to be felt that she was but lending herself to the furtherance of some deep design of his lords.h.i.+p's. Blackmail, the recovery of compromising letters, the avoidance of legal proceedings--these were hinted at. For myself I suspected that she had merely misconstrued the seeming cordiality of his lords.h.i.+p toward the woman and, at the expense of the Belknap-Jacksons, had sought the honour of entertaining him. If, to do that, she must entertain the woman, well and good. She was not one to funk her fences with the game in sight.

Consulting me as to the menu for her dinner, she allowed herself to be persuaded to the vegetable soup, boiled mutton, thick pudding, and cheese which I recommended, though she pleaded at length for a chance to use the new fish set and for a complicated salad portrayed in her latest woman's magazine. Covered with grated nuts it was in the ill.u.s.tration. I was able, however, to convince her that his lords.h.i.+p would regard grated nuts as silly.

From Belknap-Jackson I learned by telephone (during these days, being sensitive, he stopped in almost quite continuously) that Mrs. Effie had profusely explained to his wife about the dinner. ”Of course, my dear, I couldn't have the presumption to ask you and your husband to sit at table with the creature, even if he did think it all right to drive her about town on a shopping trip. But I thought we ought to do something to make the dear Earl's visit one to be remembered--he's _so_ appreciative! I'm sure you understand just how things are----”

In reciting this speech to me Belknap-Jackson essayed to simulate the tone and excessive manner of a woman gus.h.i.+ng falsely. The fellow was quite bitter about it.

”I sometimes think I'll give up,” he concluded. ”G.o.d only knows what things are coming to!”

It began to seem even to me that they were coming a bit thick. But I knew that his lords.h.i.+p was a determined man. He was of the bulldog breed that has made old England what it is. I mean to say, I knew he would put the woman in her place.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Echoes of the Monday night dinner reached me the following day. The affair had pa.s.sed off pleasantly enough, the members of the Bohemian set conducting themselves quite as persons who mattered, with the exception of the Klondike woman herself, who, I gathered, had descended to a mood of most indecorous liveliness considering who the guest of honour was. She had not only played and sung those noisy native folksongs of hers, but she had, it seemed, conducted herself with a certain facetious familiarity toward his lords.h.i.+p.

”Every now and then,” said Cousin Egbert, my princ.i.p.al informant, ”she'd whirl in and josh the Cap all over the place about them funny whiskers he wears. She told him out and out he'd just got to lose them.”

”Shocking rudeness!” I exclaimed.

”Oh, sure, sure!” he agreed, yet without indignation. ”And the Cap just hated her for it--you could tell that by the way he looked at her. Oh, he hates her something terrible. He just can't bear the sight of her.”

”Naturally enough,” I observed, though there had been an undercurrent to his speech that I thought almost quite a little odd. His accents were queerly placed. Had I not known him too well I should have thought him trying to be deep. I recalled his other phrases, that Mrs.

Effie was seeing which way a cat would leap, and that the Klondike person would hand the ladies of the North Side set a lemon squash. I put them all down as childish prattle and said as much to the Mixer later in the day as she had a dish of tea at the Grill.

”Yes, Sour-dough's right,” she observed. ”That Earl just hates the sight of her--can't bear to look at her a minute.” But she, too, intoned the thing queerly.

”He's putting pressure to bear on her,” I said.