"Well?" Anthony Fry said slowly, and his voice was a terrible thing to hear.
"Well?" David said faintly.
His pretty little friend broke into a torrent of French, of which, unfortunately, neither Anthony nor Johnson Boller could make anything at all. David, with a long, gasping intake of his breath, muttered something to her, and that proving futile, put a gentle hand over her mouth. The girl, looking at Anthony, burst suddenly into loud and hysterical weeping!
"For Heaven"s sake, shut her up!" gasped the master of the apartment.
"You started her--it was the way you looked at her!" David said thickly.
"Well, you stop her or I"ll wring your neck!" Anthony panted. "You can hear that over half the house."
He turned his eye back to the unfortunate and froze her into sudden silence. Shaking, the girl crouched closer to David Prentiss, and Anthony drew breath once more.
It was a horrible thing that had happened, of course--this coming of a strange woman into his apartment. It was likely to take a good deal of explaining to the management of the Lasande, too, later on. But he had brought it upon himself, and the realization caused Anthony"s white fury to glow.
"This--this woman is a friend of yours?" he choked.
"One of the--best friends I have!" David faltered.
"How does she come to be here?"
"I--I sent for her," David confessed. "I telephoned and----"
"All right. That"s enough," Anthony Fry said, composure returning in some degree. "Can she speak English?"
"Not one word."
"Positively," the master of the apartment said slowly, "the thing to do is to have you both arrested, David. Don"t start like that and don"t speak! There is a certain presumption that this woman is some sort of accomplice, David--not much, perhaps, but one strong enough to hold you until both of you had learned a lesson!"
David, himself, white to the lips, was beyond words.
"Nevertheless," Anthony pursued, only a trifle more gently, "I shall go to no such length, because of the character of the house and the personal reflection such a mess would cast upon myself. Tell the woman to go, David, and then you and I will have a little chat."
"But----" David whispered.
"Tell her to go this instant!" Anthony thundered.
The boy in the oversize bathrobe looked at his girl friend with stricken eyes--looked at Anthony for an instant, and turned away as swiftly. He swallowed, and, lips trembling, addressed the little French girl; and she started from him and threw out her hands in horror, pouring out a torrent of words. David spoke again, however, and she rose, swaying.
"Show the woman to the door, Wilkins, and to the back stairs," Anthony ordered, restraining himself with a considerable effort. "Be sure she doesn"t go near the elevators. Quick!"
David spoke again, in French and in a strange, low, forlorn wail. The girl, as if at an eternal parting, thrust out the expressive hands once more and gurgled hysterical Gallic s.n.a.t.c.hes; and then Wilkins had laid a hand on her shoulder, turned her about, and she was gone.
Johnson Boller looked after them and at his old friend.
"Aren"t you going to send the youngster after her?" he asked with the superior air of a man who has proved his case beyond a doubt.
"Quite possibly," Anthony said, smiling a dangerous little smile. "But I mean to have a chat with David first."
Johnson Boller gazed at David for a moment and smiled himself, almost happily. Unless indications were highly deceptive, Anthony, with his precious reputation all mussed up by the pretty little French girl, was mad enough to beat up David.
But Johnson Boller had no idea of sitting around and watching it, later to waste days in a police court for David"s wretched sake. Hence he thumped out of David"s room and back to his own.
Alone with his find, Anthony said not a word for a full minute, nor did David. The boy, hunched on the edge of his bed, had pa.s.sed the capability of motion and even of thought; he merely stared at Anthony with dazed, thunder-struck eyes that were very far from being intelligent.
"David," Anthony said savagely, "however slightly unusual the circ.u.mstances may have been, I brought you to this apartment for your own good."
"Um," David said numbly.
"And last night I laid down for you the rule that you were to have no women here."
David said nothing at all.
"Yet even before we"ve dressed this morning, you manage to worm an infernal woman in here and--what the devil do you mean by it, anyway, you infernal little whelp?" Anthony cried, as his temper snapped. "Don"t sit there and shiver! Answer me!"
Still David said nothing.
"Answer or I"ll shake some wits into you!" Anthony cried.
And by way of doing this he seized David"s thick brown hair and gave a first, threatening shake.
And having shaken--Anthony Fry, the chilly and self-contained, emitted one rattling, half-shrieking gasp and reeled backward!
CHAPTER VI
Johnson Boller Proposes
The whole head of brown hair had come free in his hand, and from David"s cranium, billow upon billow of red-gold glory floated down about the bathrobed shoulders.
David, in fine, with no warning at all, had turned into a decidedly pretty young woman!
Through Anthony"s astounded brain, impressions pursued one another so rapidly, those first few seconds, that the room danced crazily. There were two or three Davids and oceans of reddish-gold hair; there were several pairs of somber, deep-blue eyes as well, whirling around and mocking him, regarding his quite steadily and all packed with new significance.
Yet in the tumult several details, which had rather puzzled Anthony Fry, grew painfully clear. Very fully now did he understand that delicacy of feature--the small, beardless chin and the fine, regular little nose, which he had ascribed to good blood somewhere in David"s family. He understood also the slenderness of David"s hands and the curious, high-pitched shrillness that had come into the voice once or twice in moments of excitement.
But these were minor, insignificant realizations; he understood them and pa.s.sed them, forcing his brain to some sort of calm; and now, with only one David in the room and the furniture quite steady again, he stood face to face with what was really one of the most horrible facts of his whole life; a pretty young woman, of whose ident.i.ty he was utterly ignorant, was in his guest chamber now, in pajamas and bathrobe--and she had been there all night!
Out of Anthony"s limp fingers the wig dropped, landing on the floor with a soft thump. He sought to speak and found that words would not come as yet; he gripped at one of the little chairs and presently discovered that his weak knees had lowered him into it, so that he sat and still stared at David and----
"I wish you wouldn"t kick that wig around," said his guest. "I only hired it for the night, you know."
The owner of Fry"s Imperial Liniment pulled at the loose collar of his pajamas.
"You--er--you----" he said intelligently.