"Well, a good many have said it, sir," she whispered, "but it never sounded to me as it did when you said it." And after this she had the grace to dart through the door and downstairs, so fast that he could hear her little heels clatter on each step as she went.
In the hall he found Tucker, standing under a lamp, studying a time-table, with gla.s.ses set very far down his nose. Opposite, Lefferts was leaning against the wall, his arms folded and the expression on his face of one who has happened unexpectedly upon a very good moving picture show.
Seeing Crane, Tucker folded up his time-table and removed his gla.s.ses.
"Your other guest has just arrived," he observed.
"Oh, is Reed here?"
"Yes," said Lefferts, "he"s in your office taking off his coat."
"And you may be interested to know," added Tucker, with a biting simplicity that had impressed many juries in its time, "you may be interested to know that he is the man I found kissing Jane-Ellen last week."
"What, Reed!" cried Crane, with a gesture that might have been interpreted as ferocious.
Hearing his name called, Reed came hurrying out.
"Yes," he said, advancing with outstretched hand, "here I am. Sorry to be late, but I was ready before--"
"We"ll go in to dinner," said Crane shortly. Tucker and Reed moved first toward the dining-room. Lefferts drew his host aside.
"Just one moment," he said. "You went off so quickly when that gong rang that I did not have any chance to tell you how I feel about your generosity. It makes--"
Crane grasped his hand.
"You have an opportunity this very moment," he replied, "to repay me for anything I ever have done or may do for you. Talk, my dear fellow, talk at dinner. Do nothing but talk. Otherwise, I shall knock those two men"s heads together."
Lefferts smiled.
"I doubt if you"d get much sense into them even if you did," he murmured.
"No," answered Burton, "but I should have a great deal of enjoyment in doing it."
XI
THEY sat down at table, and, as Crane looked at his guests, he had little hope that even Lefferts" cheerful facility could save the situation. Circ.u.mstances would be too much against him. Even the poet himself could hardly be at his best, having just arrived in the hope of dining with his lady-love to find she had been spirited away by an irate mother. This in itself was enough to put a pall on most men; yet, of the three guests, Lefferts seemed by far the most hopeful. Tucker was already sullen and getting more sullen every moment. Crane knew the signs of his lawyer"s bearing--the irritable eye that would meet no one"s directly, the tapping fingers, the lips compressed but moving.
Tucker was one of those people cursed by anger after the event. His nature, slow moving or overcontrolled, bore him past the real moment of offense without explosion; but with the crisis over, his resentment began to gain in strength and to grow more bitter as the opportunity for action receded more and more into the past. Crane knew now that Tucker was reviewing every phrase that had pa.s.sed between them; every injury, real or fancied, that he had ever received at Crane"s hands; these he was summoning like a sort of phantom army to fight on his side. No, Tucker was not a guest from whom any host could expect much genial interchange that evening.
Reed, on the other hand, was too unconscious. Placid, good-natured, confident in his own powers to arrange any little domestic difficulties that might have arisen, he sat down, unfolded his napkin, and turned to Lefferts in answer to the inquiry about real estate which Lefferts had just tactfully addressed to him.
"The great charm of this section of the country," he was saying, "is that from the time of its earliest settlement it has been in the hands of a small group of--" At this instant Jane-Ellen entered with the soup.
Reed, who had expected to see Smithfield, stopped short, and stared at her with an astonishment he did not even attempt to disguise. Lefferts, following the direction of his eyes and seeing Jane-Ellen for the first time, mistook the subject of Reed"s surprise.
"Oh," he said, as the girl left the room, "is this "the face that launched a thousand ships"?"
Tucker, who was perhaps not as familiar with the Elizabethan dramatists as he should have been, replied shortly that this was the cook.
"A very beautiful little person," said Lefferts, imagining, poor fellow, that he was now on safe ground.
"I own," said Tucker, "that I have never been able to take much interest in the personal appearance of servants."
"You sometimes behave as if you did, Tuck," remarked his host.
"If you are interested in beauty," observed Lefferts, "I don"t see how you can eliminate any of its manifestations, particularly according to social cla.s.ses."
"Such a preoccupation with beauty strikes me as decadent," answered Tucker crossly.
"Indeed, how delightful," Lefferts replied. "What, exactly, is your definition of "decadent"?"
Now in Tucker"s vocabulary the word "decadent" was a hate word. It signified nothing definite, except that he disliked the person to whose opinions he applied it. He had several others of the same sort--hysterical, half-baked and subversive-of-the-Const.i.tution being those most often in use. This being so, he really couldn"t define the word, and so he pretended not to hear and occupied himself flicking an imaginary crumb from the satin lapel of his coat.
Lefferts, who had no wish to be disagreeable, did not repeat the question, but contented himself by observing that he had never tasted such delicious soup. Reed shook his head in an ecstasy that seemed to transcend words. Only Tucker scowled.
As Jane-Ellen entered at this moment to take away the soup-plates, Crane, who was growing reckless, decided to let her share the compliment.
"The gentlemen enjoyed the soup, Jane-Ellen," he said, "at least, Mr.
Lefferts and Mr. Reed did, but Mr. Tucker has not committed himself. Did you enjoy the soup, Tuck?"
Tucker rapped with his middle finger.
"I care very little for my food," he answered.
"Well," said Crane, "I"ve heard of hating the sin and loving the sinner; I suppose it is possible to hate the cooking and--and--" He paused.
"I did not say I hated the cooking," answered Tucker. "I only say I am not interested in talking about it all the time."
"All right," said Burton, "we"ll talk about something else, and you shall have first choice of a topic, Tuck."
"One moment before we begin," exclaimed Reed, "I must ask, where is Smithfield?"
Crane turned to him.
"Smithfield," he said, "in common with my two guests, the housemaid Lily and the boy Brindlebury, have all left, or been ejected from my house within the last twenty-four hours."
"You mean," gasped Reed, "that you and Mr. Tucker and the cook are alone in the house!"
"I regret to say that Mr. Tucker also leaves me this evening."
"But--but--" began Reed, in a protest too earnest to find words on the instant.
"We won"t discuss the matter now," said Crane. "I have several things to talk over with you, Mr. Reed, after dinner. In the meantime," he added, looking around on the dreary faces of all but Lefferts, "let us enjoy ourselves."
"Certainly, by all means," agreed Reed, "but I would just like to ask you, Mr. Crane--You can"t mean, you don"t intend, you don"t contemplate--"