"Oh, I see!" he said. "Why, delighted, old man, quite delighted!"
"Any small part would do. Isn"t there a maid or something in your bob"s-worth of refined entertainment who drifts about saying, "Yes, madam," and all that sort of thing? Well, then that"s just the thing. Topping! I knew I could rely on you, old bird. I"ll get Lucille to ship her round to your address when she arrives. I fancy she"s due to totter in somewhere in the next few days. Well, I must be popping. Toodle-oo!"
"Pip-pip!" said Reggie.
It was about a week later that Lucille came into the suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis that was her home, and found Archie lying on the couch, smoking a refreshing pipe after the labours of the day. It seemed to Archie that his wife was not in her usual cheerful frame of mind. He kissed her, and, having relieved her of her parasol, endeavoured without success to balance it on his chin. Having picked it up from the floor and placed it on the table, he became aware that Lucille was looking at him in a despondent sort of way. Her grey eyes were clouded.
"Halloa, old thing," said Archie. "What"s up?"
Lucille sighed wearily.
"Archie, darling, do you know any really good swear-words?"
"Well," said Archie, reflectively, "let me see. I did pick up a few tolerably ripe and breezy expressions out in France. All through my military career there was something about me--some subtle magnetism, don"t you know, and that sort of thing--that seemed to make colonels and blighters of that order rather inventive. I sort of inspired them, don"t you know. I remember one bra.s.s-hat addressing me for quite ten minutes, saying something new all the time. And even then he seemed to think he had only touched the fringe of the subject. As a matter of fact, he said straight out in the most frank and confiding way that mere words couldn"t do justice to me. But why?"
"Because I want to relieve my feelings."
"Anything wrong?"
"Everything"s wrong. I"ve just been having tea with Bill and his Mabel."
"Oh, ah!" said Archie, interested. "And what"s the verdict?"
"Guilty!" said Lucille. "And the sentence, if I had anything to do with it, would be transportation for life." She peeled off her gloves irritably. "What fools men are! Not you, precious! You"re the only man in the world that isn"t, it seems to me. You did marry a nice girl, didn"t you? YOU didn"t go running round after females with crimson hair, goggling at them with your eyes popping out of your head like a bulldog waiting for a bone."
"Oh, I say! Does old Bill look like that?"
"Worse!"
Archie rose to a point of order.
"But one moment, old lady. You speak of crimson hair. Surely old Bill--in the extremely jolly monologues he used to deliver whenever I didn"t see him coming and he got me alone--used to allude to her hair as brown."
"It isn"t brown now. It"s bright scarlet. Good gracious, I ought to know. I"ve been looking at it all the afternoon. It dazzled me. If I"ve got to meet her again, I mean to go to the oculist"s and get a pair of those smoked gla.s.ses you wear at Palm Beach." Lucille brooded silently for a while over the tragedy. "I don"t want to say anything against her, of course."
"No, no, of course not."
"But of all the awful, second-rate girls I ever met, she"s the worst! She has vermilion hair and an imitation Oxford manner. She"s so horribly refined that it"s dreadful to listen to her. She"s a sly, creepy, slinky, made-up, insincere vampire! She"s common! She"s awful! She"s a cat!"
"You"re quite right not to say anything against her," said Archie, approvingly. "It begins to look," he went on, "as if the good old pater was about due for another shock. He has a hard life!"
"If Bill DARES to introduce that girl to Father, he"s taking his life in his hands."
"But surely that was the idea--the scheme--the wheeze, wasn"t it? Or do you think there"s any chance of his weakening?"
"Weakening! You should have seen him looking at her! It was like a small boy flattening his nose against the window of a candy-store."
"Bit thick!"
Lucille kicked the leg of the table.
"And to think," she said, "that, when I was a little girl, I used to look up to Bill as a monument of wisdom. I used to hug his knees and gaze into his face and wonder how anyone could be so magnificent." She gave the unoffending table another kick. "If I could have looked into the future," she said, with feeling, "I"d have bitten him in the ankle!"
In the days which followed, Archie found himself a little out of touch with Bill and his romance. Lucille referred to the matter only when he brought the subject up, and made it plain that the topic of her future sister-in-law was not one which she enjoyed discussing. Mr. Brewster, senior, when Archie, by way of delicately preparing his mind for what was about to befall, asked him if he liked red hair, called him a fool, and told him to go away and bother someone else when they were busy. The only person who could have kept him thoroughly abreast of the trend of affairs was Bill himself; and experience had made Archie wary in the matter of meeting Bill. The position of confidant to a young man in the early stages of love is no sinecure, and it made Archie sleepy even to think of having to talk to his brother-in-law. He sedulously avoided his love-lorn relative, and it was with a sinking feeling one day that, looking over his shoulder as he sat in the Cosmopolis grill-room preparatory to ordering lunch, he perceived Bill bearing down upon him, obviously resolved upon joining his meal.
To his surprise, however, Bill did not instantly embark upon his usual monologue. Indeed, he hardly spoke at all. He champed a chop, and seemed to Archie to avoid his eye. It was not till lunch was over and they were smoking that he unburdened himself.
"Archie!" he said.
"Hallo, old thing!" said Archie. "Still there? I thought you"d died or something. Talk about our old pals, Tongue-tied Thomas and Silent Sammy! You could beat "em both on the same evening."
"It"s enough to make me silent."
"What is?"
Bill had relapsed into a sort of waking dream. He sat frowning sombrely, lost to the world. Archie, having waited what seemed to him a sufficient length of time for an answer to his question, bent forward and touched his brother-in-law"s hand gently with the lighted end of his cigar. Bill came to himself with a howl.
"What is?" said Archie.
"What is what?" said Bill.
"Now listen, old thing," protested Archie. "Life is short and time is flying. Suppose we cut out the cross-talk. You hinted there was something on your mind--something worrying the old bean--and I"m waiting to hear what it is."
Bill fiddled a moment with his coffee-spoon.
"I"m in an awful hole," he said at last.
"What"s the trouble?"
"It"s about that darned girl!"
Archie blinked.
"What!"
"That darned girl!"
Archie could scarcely credit his senses. He had been prepared-- indeed, he had steeled himself--to hear Bill allude to his affinity in a number of ways. But "that darned girl" was not one of them.
"Companion of my riper years," he said, "let"s get this thing straight. When you say "that darned girl," do you by any possibility allude to--?"
"Of course I do!"
"But, William, old bird--"
"Oh, I know, I know, I know!" said Bill, irritably. "You"re surprised to hear me talk like that about her?"
"A trifle, yes. Possibly a trifle. When last heard from, laddie, you must recollect, you were speaking of the lady as your soul-mate, and at least once--if I remember rightly--you alluded to her as your little dusky-haired lamb."
A sharp howl escaped Bill.
"Don"t!" A strong shudder convulsed his frame. "Don"t remind me of it!"
"There"s been a species of slump, then, in dusky-haired lambs?"
"How," demanded Bill, savagely, "can-a girl be a dusky-haired lamb when her hair"s bright scarlet?"
"Dashed difficult!" admitted Archie.
"I suppose Lucille told you about that?"
"She did touch on it. Lightly, as it were. With a sort of gossamer touch, so to speak."
Bill threw off the last fragments of reserve.
"Archie, I"m in the devil of a fix. I don"t know why it was, but directly I saw her--things seemed so different over in England--I mean." He swallowed ice-water in gulps. "I suppose it was seeing her with Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show her up. Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And that crimson hair! It sort of put the lid on it." Bill brooded morosely. "It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for?"
"Don"t blame me, old thing. It"s not my fault."
Bill looked furtive and hara.s.sed.
"It makes me feel such a cad. Here am I, feeling that I would give all I"ve got in the world to get out of the darned thing, and all the time the poor girl seems to be getting fonder of me than ever."
"How do you know?" Archie surveyed his brother-in-law critically. "Perhaps her feelings have changed too. Very possibly she may not like the colour of YOUR hair. I don"t myself. Now if you were to dye yourself crimson--"
"Oh, shut up! Of course a man knows when a girl"s fond of him."
"By no means, laddie. When you"re my age--"
"I AM your age."
"So you are! I forgot that. Well, now, approaching the matter from another angle, let us suppose, old son, that Miss What"s-Her-Name-- the party of the second part--"
"Stop it!" said Bill suddenly. "Here comes Reggie!"
"Eh?"
"Here comes Reggie van Tuyl. I don"t want him to hear us talking about the darned thing."
Archie looked over his shoulder and perceived that it was indeed so. Reggie was threading his way among the tables.
"Well, HE looks pleased with things, anyway," said Bill, enviously. "Glad somebody"s happy."
He was right. Reggie van Tuyl"s usual mode of progress through a restaurant was a somnolent slouch. Now he was positively bounding along. Furthermore, the usual expression on Reggie"s face was a sleepy sadness. Now he smiled brightly and with animation. He curveted towards their table, beaming and erect, his head up, his gaze level, and his chest expanded, for all the world as if he had been reading the hints in "The Personality That Wins."
Archie was puzzled. Something had plainly happened to Reggie. But what? It was idle to suppose that somebody had left him money, for he had been left practically all the money there was a matter of ten years before.
"Hallo, old bean," he said, as the new-comer, radiating good will and bonhomie, arrived at the table and hung over it like a noon-day sun. "We"ve finished. But rally round and we"ll watch you eat. Dashed interesting, watching old Reggie eat. Why go to the Zoo?"
Reggie shook his head.
"Sorry, old man. Can"t. Just on my way to the Ritz. Stepped in because I thought you might be here. I wanted you to be the first to hear the news."
"News?"
"I"m the happiest man alive!"
"You look it, darn you!" growled Bill, on whose mood of grey gloom this human sunbeam was jarring heavily.
"I"m engaged to be married!"
"Congratulations, old egg!" Archie shook his hand cordially. "Dash it, don"t you know, as an old married man I like to see you young fellows settling down."
"I don"t know how to thank you enough, Archie, old man," said Reggie, fervently.
"Thank me?"
"It was through you that I met her. Don"t you remember the girl you sent to me? You wanted me to get her a small part--"
He stopped, puzzled. Archie had uttered a sound that was half gasp and half gurgle, but it was swallowed up in the extraordinary noise from the other side of the table. Bill Brewster was leaning forward with bulging eyes and soaring eyebrows.
"Are you engaged to Mabel Winchester?"
"Why, by George!" said Reggie. "Do you know her?"
Archie recovered himself.
"Slightly," he said. "Slightly. Old Bill knows her slightly, as it were. Not very well, don"t you know, but--how shall I put it?"
"Slightly," suggested Bill.
"Just the word. Slightly."
"Splendid!" said Reggie van Tuyl. "Why don"t you come along to the Ritz and meet her now?"
Bill stammered. Archie came to the rescue again.
"Bill can"t come now. He"s got a date."
"A date?" said Bill.
"A date," said Archie. "An appointment, don"t you know. A--a--in fact, a date."
"But--er--wish her happiness from me," said Bill, cordially.
"Thanks very much, old man," said Reggie.
"And say I"m delighted, will you?"