Reaching a table the second but one from the Belknap-Jacksons"s, she relaxed finely from the austere note of her progress and turned to her companions with a pretty and quite perfect confusion as to which chair she might occupy. Quite awfully these companions were the Mixer, overwhelming in black velvet and diamonds, and Cousin Egbert, uncomfortable enough looking but as correctly enveloped in evening dress as he could ever manage by himself. His cravat had been tied many times and needed it once more.
They were seated by the racc.o.o.n with quite all his impressiveness of manner. They faced the Belknap-Jackson party, yet seemed unconscious of its presence. Cousin Egbert, with a bored manner which I am certain he achieved only with tremendous effort, scanned my simple menu. The Mixer settled herself with a vast air of comfort and arranged various hand-belongings about her on the table.
Between them the Klondike woman sat with a restraint that would actually not have ill-become one of our own women. She did not look about; her hands were still, her head was up. At former times with her own set she had been wont to exhibit a rather defiant vivacity. Now she did not challenge. Finely, eloquently, there pervaded her a reserve that seemed almost to exhale a fragrance. But of course that is silly rot. I mean to say, she drew the attention without visible effort. She only waited.
The Earl of Brinstead, as we all saw, had continued to stare. Thrice slowly arose the spoon of soup, for mere animal habit was strong upon him, yet at a certain elevation it each time fell slowly back. He was acting like a mechanical toy. Then the Mixer caught his eye and nodded crisply. He bobbed in response.
"What ho! The dowager!" he exclaimed, and that time the soup was successfully resumed.
"Poor old mater!" sighed his hostess. "She"s constantly taking up people. One does, you know, in these queer Western towns."
"Jolly old thing, awfully good sort!" said his lordship, but his eyes were not on the Mixer.
Terribly then I recalled the Honourable George"s behaviour at that same table the night he had first viewed this Klondike person. His lordship was staring in much the same fashion. Yet I was relieved to observe that the woman this time was quite unconscious of the interest she had aroused. In the case of the Honourable George, who had frankly ogled her--for the poor chap has ever lacked the finer shades in these matters--she had not only been aware of it but had deliberately played upon it. It is not too much to say that she had shown herself to be a creature of blandishments. More than once she had permitted her eyes to rest upon him with that peculiarly womanish gaze which, although superficially of a blank innocence, is yet all-seeing and even shoots little fine arrows of questions from its ambuscade. But now she was ignoring his lordship as utterly as she did the Belknap-Jacksons.
To be sure she may later have been in some way informed that his eyes were seeking her, but never once, I am sure, did she descend to even a veiled challenge of his glance or betray the faintest discreet consciousness of it. And this I was indeed glad to note in her.
Clearly she must know where to draw the line, permitting herself a malicious laxity with a younger brother which she would not have the presumption to essay with the holder of the t.i.tle. Pleased I was, I say, to detect in her this proper respect for his lordship"s position.
It showed her to be not all unworthy.
The dinner proceeded, his lordship being good enough to compliment me on the fare which I knew was done to his liking. Yet, even in the very presence of the boiled mutton, his eyes were too often upon his neighbour. When he behaved thus in the presence of a dish of mutton I had not to be told that he was strongly moved. I uneasily recalled now that he had once been a bit of a dog himself. I mean to say, there was talk in the countryside, though of course it had died out a score of years ago. I thought it as well, however, that he be told almost immediately that the person he honoured with his glance was no other than the one he had come to subtract his unfortunate brother from.
The dinner progressed--somewhat jerkily because of his lordship"s inattention--through the pudding and cheese to coffee. Never had I known his lordship behave so languidly in the presence of food he cared for. His hosts ate even less. They were worried. Mrs.
Belknap-Jackson, however, could simply no longer contain within herself the secret of their guest"s ident.i.ty. With excuses to the deaf ears of his lordship she left to address a friend at a distant table.
She addressed others at other tables, leaving a flutter of sensation in her wake.
Belknap-Jackson, having lighted one of his non-throat cigarettes, endeavoured to engross his lordship with an account of their last election of officers to the country club. His lordship was not properly attentive to this. Indeed, with his hostess gone he no longer made any pretence of concealing his interest in the other table. I saw him catch the eye of the Mixer and astonishingly intercepted from her a swift but most egregious wink.
"One moment," said his lordship to the host. "Must pay my respects to the dowager, what, what! Jolly old muggins, yes!" And he was gone.
I heard the Mixer"s amazing presentation speech.
"Mrs. Kenner, Mr. Floud, his lordship--say, listen here, is your right name Brinstead, or Basingwell, like your brother"s?"
The Klondike person acknowledged the thing with a faintly gracious nod. It carried an air, despite the slightness of it. Cousin Egbert was more cordial.
"Pleased to meet you, Lord!" said he, and grasped the newcomer"s hand.
"Come on, set in with us and have some coffee and a cigar. Here, Jeff, bring the lord a good cigar. We was just talking about you that minute. How do you like our town? Say, this here Kulanche Valley----" I lost the rest. His lordship had seated himself. At his own table Belknap-Jackson writhed acutely. He was lighting a second cigarette--the first not yet a quarter consumed!
At once the four began to be thick as thieves, though it was apparent his lordship had eyes only for the woman. Coffee was brought. His lordship lighted his cigar. And now the word had so run from Mrs.
Belknap-Jackson that all eyes were drawn to this table. She had created her sensation and it had become all at once more of one than she had thought. From Mrs. Judge Ballard"s table I caught her glare at her unconscious mother. It was not the way one"s daughter should regard one in public.
Presently contriving to pa.s.s the table again, I noted that Cousin Egbert had changed his form of address.
"Have some brandy with your coffee, Earl. Here, Jeff, bring Earl and all of us some lee-cures." I divined the monstrous truth that he supposed himself to be calling his lordship by his first name, and he in turn must have understood my shocked glance of rebuke, for a bit later, with glad relief in his tones, he was addressing his lordship as "Cap!" And myself he had given the rank of colonel!
The Klondike person in the beginning finely maintained her reserve.
Only at the last did she descend to vivacity or the use of her eyes.
This later laxness made me wonder if, after all, she would feel bound to pay his lordship the respect he was wont to command from her cla.s.s.
"You and poor George are rather alike," I overheard, "except that he uses the single "what" and you use the double. Hasn"t he any right to use the double "what" yet, and what does it mean, anyway? Tell us."
"What, what!" demanded his lordship, a bit puzzled.
"But that"s it! What do you say "What, what" for? It can"t do you any good."
"What, what! But I mean to say, you"re having me on. My word you are--spoofing, I mean to say. What, what! To be sure. Chaffing lot, you are!" He laughed. He was behaving almost with levity.
"But poor old George is so much younger than you--you must make allowances," I again caught her saying; and his lordship replied:
"Not at all; not at all! Matter of a half-score years. Barely a half-score; nine and a few months. Younger? What rot! Chaffing again."
Really it was a bit thick, the creature saying "poor old George" quite as if he were something in an inst.i.tution, having to be wheeled about in a bath-chair with rugs and water-bottles!
Glad I was when the trio gave signs of departure. It was woman"s craft dictating it, I dare say. She had made her effect and knew when to go.
"Of course we shall have to talk over my dreadful designs on your poor old George," said the amazing woman, intently regarding his lordship at parting.
"Leave it to me," said he, with a scarcely veiled significance.
"Well, see you again, Cap," said Cousin Egbert warmly. "I"ll take you around to meet some of the boys. We"ll see you have a good time."
"What ho!" his lordship replied cordially. The Klondike person flashed him one enigmatic look, then turned to precede her companions. Again down the thronged room she swept, with that chin-lifted, drooping-eyed, faintly offended half consciousness of some staring rabble at hand that concerned her not at all. Her alert feminine foes, I am certain, read no slightest trace of amus.e.m.e.nt in her unwavering lowered glance. So easily she could have been crude here!
Belknap-Jackson, enduring his ignominious solitude to the limit of his powers, had joined his wife at the lower end of the room. They had taken the unfortunate development with what grace they could. His lordship had dropped in upon them quite informally--charming man that he was. Of course he would quickly break up the disgraceful affair.
Beginning at once. They would doubtless entertain for him in a quiet way----
At the deserted table his lordship now relieved a certain sickening apprehension that had beset me.
"What, what! Quite right to call me out here. Shan"t forget it.
Dangerous creature, that. Badly needed, I was. Can"t think why you waited so long! Anything might have happened to old George. Break it up proper, though. Never do at all. Impossible person for him. Quite!"
I saw they had indeed taken no pains to hide the woman"s ident.i.ty from him nor their knowledge of his reason for coming out to the States, though with wretchedly low taste they had done this chaffingly. Yet it was only too plain that his lordship now realized what had been the profound gravity of the situation, and I was glad to see that he meant to end it without any nonsense.
"Silly a.s.s, old George, though," he added as the Belknap-Jacksons approached. "How a creature like that could ever have fancied him!
What, what!"
His hosts were profuse in their apologies for having so thoughtlessly run away from his lordship--they carried it off rather well. They were keen for sitting at the table once more, as the other observant diners were lingering on, but his lordship would have none of this.
"Stuffy place!" said he. "Best be getting on." And so, reluctantly, they led him down the gauntlet of widened eyes. Even so, the tenth Earl of Brinstead had dined publicly with them. More than repaid they were for the slight the Honourable George had put upon them in the affair of the pianoforte artist.
An hour later Belknap-Jackson had me on by telephone. His voice was not a little worried.
"I say, is his lordship, the Earl, subject to spells of any sort? We were in the library where I was showing him some photographic views of dear old Boston, and right over a superb print of our public library he seemed to lose consciousness. Might it be a stroke? Or do you think it"s just a healthy sleep? And shall I venture to shake him? How would he take that? Or should I merely cover him with a travelling rug? It would be so dreadful if anything happened when he"s been with us such a little time."
I knew his lordship. He has the gift of sleeping quite informally when his attention is not too closely engaged. I suggested that the host set his musical phonograph in motion on some one of the more audible selections. As I heard no more from him that night I dare say my plan worked.
Our town, as may be imagined, buzzed with transcendent gossip on the morrow. The _Recorder_ disclosed at last that the Belknap-Jacksons of Boston and Red Gap were quietly entertaining his lordship, the Earl of Brinstead, though since the evening before this had been news to hardly any one. Nor need it be said that a viciously fermenting element in the gossip concerned the apparently cordial meeting of his lordship with the Klondike person, an encounter that had been watched with jealous eyes by more than one matron of the North Side set. It was even intimated that if his lordship had come to put the creature in her place he had chosen a curious way to set about it.