"I must remind you again," Lesley went on, in a cool, businesslike manner, though her eyes were starry, "that I have come twenty miles to question you. And my aunt is waiting for you with the cousins who telegraphed about "Lord Bob." You know, you mustn"t go on using Sidney Cremer"s play."
"We have no intention of doing so," said Loveland. And then, in as few words as possible, without any attempt at defending himself for his part in the transaction, he explained baldly that the manager had deserted the company, and that they had only one piece, "Lord Bob." They had produced it for three nights, in the hope of making money enough to get away, but the result had proved disappointing.
"My affairs are rather in a muddle just now," Loveland finished; "but as soon as I get them straightened out again, which I expect to do shortly, I will myself pay Mr. Cremer"s fee for these performances, if you"ll let me know what they are."
"Oh, Sidney wouldn"t want you to do that," the girl explained.
"I--neither of us knew that the company was in trouble. My cousins here didn"t tell us that--I suppose they didn"t know, either. We thought it was simply an ordinary case of piracy. But I can answer for Sidney, as if it were for myself. He wouldn"t want fees, and he wouldn"t take any severe measures in such a case as this. If only you give me your word, Lord Lo--, I mean, Mr. Gordon, that these people won"t go about the country playing this piece, I"ll ask nothing more."
"You may set Mr. Cremer"s mind at rest about that," Loveland answered bitterly. "They aren"t likely to go about the country playing any piece."
"You mean, they--you--are stranded here?" enquired Lesley.
"Oh, I"m all right," Loveland said hurriedly, far from wishing to pose as an object of pity. "It"s the others I"m thinking of."
She gave him a quick, clear look. "Would you go away and leave them here, in trouble?" she asked.
"No, I won"t do that," replied Val. "I mean to do something for them."
"What can you do, if your affairs are in such a muddle as you say?"
"I don"t know yet. I"m trying hard to think."
"Won"t there be money enough from these three performances of "Lord Bob" to pay their railway fares somewhere?"
"I"m afraid not. Hardly enough to settle with the landlord and get him to release their luggage, which he"s keeping till last week"s board bills are paid."
"Your luggage, too?"
Loveland grew red. "I haven"t any."
"Oh!" the colour flew to her cheeks, as if in sympathy with the flush she could not help seeing on his. "No trunks?"
"You say you read the newspapers," said Loveland. "If you did, you perhaps saw that the hotel people in New York treated me rather curiously. I didn"t read the stuff myself. I really couldn"t bring myself to do it. But I gathered from hints given me here and there that the journalists had a pretty rough game with me."
"You had a game with them, to begin with," said Lesley.
"I shut my door in the face of one, on my first day in New York,"
Loveland admitted. "Next day I hadn"t a door to shut. America hasn"t been very hospitable to me."
"What could you expect?" asked Lesley, defending her countrymen. Her face was grave, but there was an odd sparkle in her eyes. "Americans don"t like having tricks played on them."
"I played no trick."
"You played a part--the part of Lord Loveland."
Val stared. "How can a man play that he"s himself?"
"Do you deny the newspaper accusations, then?"
"What accusations? I did knock a man down in the street, and he gave his own version of the story."
"Oh, I don"t mean that story, but quite another. The story he said you knocked him down for alluding to--when----"
"We"re talking at cross purposes," broke in Loveland, bewildered. "For the sake of any friendship you may ever have had for me--though I"m not asking you to continue it in future--explain what you mean."
"But, do _you_ mean that you read nothing, heard nothing, of what they were saying about you in New York?"
"I told you I wouldn"t look at the papers. What I heard I of course took for granted was in connection with the hotel affair and the row in the street."
Lesley thought for a minute, with an expression on her face which Loveland could not understand, though he did not take his eyes from her fallen lashes, the beautiful lashes which had fascinated him at first sight of her on the _Mauretania_.
Presently an idea seemed to commend itself to the girl. On her arm, a little gold and platinum bag hung from its chain. Loveland had often seen this bag, on shipboard, and had even frequently picked it up from the floor, where the girl dropped it half a dozen times each day, when she slipped out from under the rugs of her deck chair. Well did he know the two compartments in this favourite little receptacle of Lesley"s treasures! He knew in which one she kept the handkerchief which smelt like fresh violets; in which her money, her cardcase, her stylographic pen, and a letter or two; and now he watched her, with eyes homesick for past days, as she took out the remembered cardcase, and from an inner pocket of that cardcase, a folded newspaper cutting.
"It"s quite time you did read for yourself," she said. "This will make you understand better than I can tell you. f.a.n.n.y Milton cut it out of "New York Light," and posted it to me. I"ve kept it here--I hardly know why, but now I"m glad I did."
It was Tony Kidd"s first article that Loveland read with a shock of surprise, which, at the very beginning, set the blood humming in his ears like the sound of the sea in a sh.e.l.l.
Tony had told his story spicily, in a way to make his readers laugh. But Loveland did not laugh. He read on and on, dazed at first, then with a burst of enlightenment which made clear many mysteries.
"The Difficult Young Man to Approach" had come to New York to see Heiresses and conquer Papas, said Tony. He had begun the conquering process on board ship, being a youth of a thrifty turn of mind, who believed in taking time by the forelock. He had made friends; he had even, perhaps, made love. Soon, no doubt, he would have made a match; but the schemes of mice, men, and even marquises have a way of going wrong, especially when--and that "when" reminded Tony to pause and ask a conundrum. "When is a Marquis not a Marquis?" The writer invited the public to guess. "Why, when he"s a Valet, of course." And then Tony went on to protest gaily, that neither he nor his paper was responsible for the a.s.sertion that this Marquis was not a Marquis. They merely put the question, and gave the answer for what it was worth, on the strength of certain sensational news just received from the land where Marquises grew on blackberry bushes for heiresses to cull.
A number of people prominent in New York society had received cablegrams from London, informing them that the valet of the Marquis of Loveland had absconded with his lordship"s jewellery, and other belongings; that the fugitive was known to have impersonated his master in London, obtaining goods from tradesmen, and running up bills at hotels, in Lord Loveland"s name. If a person calling himself the Marquis of Loveland should appear in New York presenting letters of introduction to the said Prominent People earlier than the arrival of the White Star Liner _Baltic_, they were to beware of him, as the real Lord Loveland expected to sail on that ship.
On the very day when these cablegrams were received--Tony Kidd went on to state--there arrived by a strange (?) coincidence an attractive looking and haughty young gentleman, known among acquaintances collected on the _Mauretania_ as Lord Loveland. This alleged n.o.bleman had gone to the Waldorf-Astoria, where, through a servant of the hotel, it was soon discovered that his pretentious trunks were practically empty. He had (perhaps naturally) refused to be interviewed by a representative of "Light"; and the manner of his refusal was somewhat graphically described.
Act 2 was a round of calls with letters of introduction to all the Prominent People warned by a friend (also prominent) in England.
Act 3: A scene in the Waldorf Restaurant, where some shipboard acquaintances, dining with one of the Prominent People, had heard from him of the cablegram, and of course refused to acknowledge acquaintance with the attractive n.o.bleman when he appeared in the room, ready to greet the whole party with effusion.
Act 4: The Hotel authorities being informed, request "Lord Loveland" to find other accommodation.
Act 5: The husband and father of the two ladies, whom "Lord Loveland"
met on the _Mauretania_, attacked and knocked down in the street, by the "Difficult Young Man to Approach."
Now, at last, Loveland understood everything that had happened to him in New York, even to the mystery of the bank. Again he seemed to see Cadwallader Hunter bending to talk with the good-looking, dark young man who had dined with the Coolidges. Mr. van Cotter had doubtless been one of those who had received the warning cablegrams, and naturally he had pa.s.sed on the interesting news to the Coolidges and Miltons. Cadwallader Hunter, who had stopped to chat with the party, had been just in time to glean the information, and had taken revenge for the Englishman"s rudeness of the morning by advising the hotel people to get rid of an undesirable client.
Oh, yes, it was easy enough to see it all now, even the reason why his mother and the London bankers had failed to answer his appeals for money. They had thought that Foxham was cabling, and had accordingly refused to be taken in. Apparently Foxham had absconded--somewhere--and his misdoings had been discovered on the other side before his late master had found him out. Perhaps Foxham had taken the ticket for the _Baltic_ which he--Val--had instructed him to sell, and used it for himself, booking as a pa.s.senger for America in the name of Lord Loveland.
In that case the fellow had doubtless arrived in New York by this time, on the _Baltic_--the ship on which his master had originally intended to sail; and Heaven alone knew what new mischief he might have been working on this side of the water.
The thought of what might have happened was almost as infuriating as the knowledge of what certainly had happened. It all came from accepting the chance offered by Jim Harborough to sail on the _Mauretania_; but in spite of everything he had suffered, Loveland told himself that he would not have it different. If he had come over on the _Baltic_ he would probably by this time be engaged to some American heiress, and would never have met Lesley Dearmer.
Just now, his acquaintance with her, combined with all the other extraordinary results of his sailing on the _Mauretania_, was putting him to the torture; and he was gloomily convinced that nothing would ever make things come right; nevertheless, he was dimly, subconsciously aware even in this bitter moment that he wouldn"t choose release from torture at the price of not knowing the girl.
"All this is a surprise to you, then?" her voice broke into the midst of his reflections over the newspaper cutting.