Edna turned from this scene to the fire, before which Florence was already seated. The sound of an electric door-bell came from the hall.
"It"s Tom," cried Edna. "Good boy!--ahead of time." But the negro man servant announced Mr. Bagley.
A look of displeasure marked Florence"s answer. "Tell him my father is not here--is spending the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence."
"Mr. Bagley!--he _must_ be devoted, to call on such a night!" remarked Edna, when the servant had gone.
"He calls at all sorts of times. And his invitations--he"s forever wanting us to go to the theatre--or on his automobile--or to dine at Delmonico"s--or to a skating-rink, or somewhere. Refusals don"t discourage him. You"d think he was a philanthropist, determined to give us some of the pleasures of life. The worst of it is, father sometimes accepts--for himself."
Another knock at the door, and the servant appeared again. The gentleman wished to know if he might come in and leave a message with Miss Kenby for her father.
"Very well," she sighed. "Show him in."
"If he threatens to stay two minutes, I"ll see what I can do to make it chilly," volunteered Edna.
Mr. Bagley entered, red-faced from the weather, but undaunted and undauntable, and with the unconscious air of conferring a favor on Miss Kenby by his coming, despite his manifest admiration. Edna he took somewhat aback by barely noticing at all.
He sat down without invitation, expressed himself in his bra.s.sy voice about the weather, and then, instead of confiding a message, showed a mind for general conversation by asking Miss Kenby if she had read an evening paper.
She had not.
"I see that Count What"s-his-name"s wedding came off all the same, in spite of the blizzard," said Mr. Bagley. "I s"pose he wasn"t going to take any chances of losing his heiress."
Florence had nothing to say on this subject, but Edna could not keep silent.
"Perhaps Miss What-you-call-her was just as anxious to make sure of her t.i.tle--poor thing!"
"Oh, you mustn"t say that," interposed Florence, gently. "Perhaps they love each other."
"t.i.tled Europeans don"t marry American girls for love," said Edna.
"Haven"t you been abroad enough to find out that? Or if they ever do, they keep that motive a secret. You ought to hear them talk, over there.
They can"t conceive of an American girl being married for anything _but_ money. It"s quite the proper thing to marry one for that, but very bad form to marry one for love."
"Oh, I don"t know," said Bagley, in a manner exceedingly belittling to Edna"s knowledge, "they"ve got to admit that our girls are a very charming, superior lot--with a few exceptions." His look placed Miss Kenby decidedly under the rule, but left poor Edna somewhere else.
"Have they, really?" retorted Edna, in opposition at any cost. "I know some of them admit it,--and what they say and write is published and quoted in this country. But the unfavorable things said and written in Europe about American girls don"t get printed on this side. I daresay that"s the reason of your one-sided impression."
Bagley looked hard at the young woman, but ventured another play for the approval of Miss Kenby:
"Well, it doesn"t matter much to me what they say in Europe, but if they don"t admit the American girl is the handsomest, and brightest, and cleverest, they"re a long way off the truth, that"s all."
"I"d like to know what you mean by _the_ American girl. There are all sorts of girls among us, as there are among girls of other nations: pretty girls and plain ones, bright girls and stupid ones, clever girls and silly ones, smart girls and dowdy girls. Though I will say, we"ve got a larger proportion of smart-looking, well-dressed girls than any other country. But then we make up for that by so many of us having frightful _ya-ya_ voices and raw p.r.o.nunciations. As for our wonderful cleverness, we have the a.s.surance to talk about things we know nothing of, in such a way as to deceive some people for awhile. The girls of other nations haven"t, and that"s the chief difference."
Bagley looked as if he knew not exactly where he stood in the argument, or exactly what the argument was about; but he returned to the business of impressing Florence.
"Well, I"m certain Miss Kenby doesn"t talk about things she knows nothing of. If all American girls were like her, there"d be no question which nation had the most beautiful and sensible women."
Florence winced at the crude directness. "You are too kind," she said, perfunctorily.
"As for me," he went on, "I"ve got my opinion of these European gentlemen that marry for money."
"We all have, in this country, I hope," said Edna; "except, possibly, the few silly women that become the victims."
"I should be perfectly willing," pursued Bagley, magnanimously, watching for the effect on Florence, "to marry a girl without a cent."
"And no doubt perfectly able to afford it," remarked Edna, serenely.
He missed the point, and saw a compliment instead.
"Well, you"re not so far out of the way there, if I do say it myself," he replied, with a stony smile. "I"ve had my share of good luck. Since the tide turned in my affairs, some years ago, I"ve been a steady winner.
Somehow or other, nothing seems able to fail that I go into. It"s really been monotonous. The only money I"ve lost was some twenty thousand dollars that a trusted agent absconded with."
"You"re mistaken," Florence broke in, with a note of indignation that made Bagley stare. "He did not abscond. He has disappeared, and your money may be gone for the present. But there was no crime on his part."
"Why, do you know anything about it?" asked Bagley, in a voice subdued by sheer wonder.
"I know that Murray Davenport disappeared, and what the newspapers said about your money; that is all."
"Then how, if I may ask, do you know there wasn"t any crime intended? I inquire merely for information." Bagley was, indeed, as meek as he could be in his manner of inquiry.
"I _know_ Murray Davenport," was her reply.
"You knew him well?"
"Very well."
"You--took a great interest in him?"
"Very great."
"Indeed!" said Bagley, in pure surprise, and gazing at her as if she were a puzzle.
"You said you had a message for my father," replied Florence, coldly.
Bagley rose slowly. "Oh, yes,"--he spoke very dryly and looked very blank,--"please tell him if the storm pa.s.ses, and the snow lies, I wish you and he would go sleighing to-morrow. I"ll call at half-past two."
"Thank you; I"ll tell him."
Bagley summoned up as natural a "good night" as possible, and went. As he emerged from the dark rear of the hallway to the lighter part, any one who had been present might have seen a cloudy red look in place of the blank expression with which he had left the room. "She gave me the dead freeze-out," he muttered. "The dead freeze-out! So she knew Davenport!
and cared for the poverty-stricken dog, too!"
Startled by a ring at the door-bell, Bagley turned into the common drawing-room, which was empty, to fasten his gloves. Unseen, he heard Larcher admitted, ushered back to the Kenby apartment, and welcomed by the two girls. He paced the drawing-room floor, with a wrathful frown; then sat down and meditated.
"Well, if he ever does come back to New York, I won"t do a thing to him!"
was the conclusion of his meditations, after some minutes.
Some one came down the stairs, and walked back toward the Kenby rooms.
Bagley strode to the drawing-room door, and peered through the hall, in time to catch sight of the tall, erect figure of a man. This man knocked at the Kenby door, and, being bidden to enter, pa.s.sed in and closed it after him.