"I beg your pardon," he repeated his formula; "are you looking for Mr.

Strong?"

The startled eyes lifted to his a short second, then dropped again. "No, for Mr. Week," she answered softly, and unconscious of witticism, melted into the throng.

This was a heavy boat-load, for it was just theater time--they were still coming. And suddenly his heart bounded and stopped. Of course--he was utterly foolish not to have known--it was she--Billy Strong's bewitching cousin, the girl from Orange. There she stood with her big, brown eyes searching, gazing here and there, as lovely, as incongruous as a wood-nymph strayed into a political meeting. The feather of her hat tossed in the May breeze; the fading light from the window behind her shone through loose hair about her face, turned it into a soft dark aureole; the gray of her tailor gown was crisp and fresh as spring-time.

To Rex's eyes no picture had ever been more satisfying.

Suddenly she caught sight of him, and her face lighted as if lamps had shone out of a twilight, and in a second he had her hand in his, and was talking away, with responsibility and worry, and that heavy weight on the truck back there, quite gone out of the world. She was in it, and himself--the world was full. The girl seemed to be as oblivious of outside facts, as he, for it was quite two minutes, and the last straggler from the boat had disappeared into the street before she broke into one of his sentences.

"Why, but--I forgot. You made me forget entirely, Mr. Fairfax. I'm going to the theater with my cousin, Billy Strong. He ought to be here--where is he?"

Rex shivered lest her roving eyes might answer the question, for Billy's truck with Billy slumbering peacefully on it, lay in full view not fifty feet away. But her gaze pa.s.sed unsuspiciously over the prostrate, huddled form.

"It's very queer--I'm sure this was the right boat." She looked up at his face anxiously, and he almost moaned aloud. What was he going to say to her?

"That's what I'm here for, Miss Margery--to explain about Billy. He--he isn't feeling at all himself to-night, and it's utterly impossible for him to go with you." To his astonishment her face broke into a very satisfied smile. "Oh--well, I'm sorry Billy's ill, but we'll hope for the best, and I won't really object to you as a subst.i.tute, you know. Of course it's improper, and mother wouldn't think of letting me go with you--but I'm going. Mother won't mind when I tell her it's done. I've never been alone with a man to anything, except with my cousin--it's like stealing watermelons, isn't it? Don't you think it's rather fun?"

Staggered by the situation, Fairfax thought desperately and murmured something which sounded like "Oochee-Goochee," as he tried to recall it later. The girl's gay voice went on: "It would be wicked to waste the tickets. City people aren't going to the theater as late as this, so we won't see any one we know. I think it's a dispensation of Providence, and I'd be a poor-spirited mouse to waste the chance. I think I'll go with you--don't you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Could he--couldn't he?"]

Could he leave that prostrate form on the truck and s.n.a.t.c.h at this bit of heaven dangling before him? Could he--Couldn't he? No, he could not. It would be a question of fifteen minutes perhaps before the drowsy Billy would be marching to the police station, and in his entirely casual and fearless state of mind, the big athlete would make history for some policeman, his friend could not doubt, before he got there. Rex had put his hand to this intoxicated plow and he must not look back, even when the prospect backwards was so bewilderingly attractive, so tantalizingly easy. He stammered badly when, at length, the silence which followed the soft voice had to be filled.

"I'm simply--simply--broken up, Miss Margery," and the girl's eyes looked at him with a sweet wideness that made it harder. "I don't know how to tell you, and I don't know how to resign myself to it either, but I--I can't take you to the theater. I--I've got to--got to--well, you see, I've got to be with Billy."

She spoke quickly at that. "Mr. Fairfax, is Billy really ill--is there something more than I understand? Why didn't you tell me? Has their been an accident, perhaps? Why, I must go to him too--come--hurry--I'll go with you, of course."

Rex stumbled again in his effort to quiet her alarm, to prevent this scheme of seeking Billy on his couch of pain. "Oh no, indeed you mustn't do that," he objected strenuously. "I couldn't let you, you know. I don't want you to be bothered. Billy isn't ill at all--there hasn't been any accident, I give you my word. He's all right--Billy's all right." He had quite lost his prospective by now, and did not see the rocks upon which he rushed.

"If Billy's all right, why isn't he here?" demanded Billy's cousin severely.

Rex saw now. "He isn't exactly--that is to say--all right, you know. You see how it is," and he gazed involuntarily at the sleeping giant huddled on the truck.

"I do not see." The brown eyes had never looked at him so coldly before, and their expression cut him.

"I'm glad you don't," he cried, and realized that the words had taken him a step deeper into trouble. "It's just this way, Miss Margery--Billy isn't hurt or ill, but he isn't--isn't feeling quite himself, and--and I've got to--I've got to be with him." His voice sounded as if he were going to cry, but it moved the girl to no pity.

"Oh!" she said, and her bewildered tone was a whole world removed from the bright comradeship with which she had met him. "I see--you and Billy have something else planned." Her face flushed suddenly. "I'm sorry I misunderstood about--about the theater. I wouldn't for worlds have--have seemed to force you to--" She stopped, embarra.s.sed, hurt, but yet with her graceful dignity untouched.

"Oh," the wretched Rex exclaimed impetuously, "if I could only take you to the theater, I'd rather than--" but the girl stopped him.

"Never mind about that, please," she said, with gentle decision. "I must go home--when is the next boat? One is going now--good-night, Mr.

Fairfax--no, don't come with me--I don't need you," and she was gone.

Two minutes later Strong's innocent slumbers were dispersed by a vicious shake. "Wake up! wake up!" ordered Fairfax, restraining himself with difficulty from mangling the cause of his sufferings. "I've had enough, and we're going home, straight."

Rex was mistaken about that, but Billy was cordial in agreeing with him.

"Good idea, Recky! Howd'y' ever come to think of it? Le's go home straight; tha's a bully good thing to do. Le's do it. Big head on you, ol' boy," and yawning still, but with unperturbed good nature, Strong marched, a bit crookedly, arm in arm with his friend to the street.

[Ill.u.s.tration: At every station the conductor and Rex had to reason with him]

Rex's memory of the trip uptown on the Elevated was like an evil dream.

Strong, after his nap, was as a giant refreshed, and his play of wit knew no contracting limits. There were, luckily, not many pa.s.sengers going up at this hour, but the dozen or so on the car were regaled.

Billy selected a seat on the floor with his broad back planted against the door, and at every station the conductor and Rex had to reason with him at length before the door could be opened. The official threatened as well as he could for laughing to put him off, but he threatened less strenuously for the sight of six feet two of muscle in magnificently fit condition. This lasted for half a dozen stations and then the patient began to play like a mountainous kitten. He took a strap on either side of the car and turned somersaults; he did traveling ring work with them; he gave a standing broad jump that would have been creditable on an athletic field; he had his audience screaming with laughter at an imitation of water polo over the back of a seat. Then, just as the fun was at an almost impossible point, and the conductor, highly entertained but worried, was considering how to get this chap arrested, Billy walked up to him with charming friendliness and shook hands.

"One th' besh track meets I've ever had pleasure attendin', sir," he said genially, and sat down and relapsed into grave dignity.

So he remained for five minutes, to the trembling joy of his exhausted guardian, but it was too good to be true. Suddenly, at Fifty-third Street, he spied a young woman at the other end of the car. There were not more than nine pa.s.sengers, so that each person might have had a matter of half a dozen seats a piece, but Strong suddenly felt a demand on his politeness, and reason was nothing to him. He rose and marched the forty feet or so between himself and the woman, and, standing in front of her, lifted, with some difficulty, his hat.

"Won't you take my seat, madam?" he inquired, with a smile of perfect courtesy.

The young person was a young person of common-sense and she caught the situation. She flashed a rea.s.suring glance at Rex, hovering distressed in the background, and shook her head at Strong politely. "No--no, thank you," she said; "I think I can find a seat at this end that will do nicely."

"Madam, I insist," Strong addressed her again earnestly.

"No, really," The young woman was embarra.s.sed, for the eyes of the car were on her. "Thank you so much," she said finally; "I think I'd better stay here."

Strong bent over and put a great hand lightly on her arm. "Madam, as gen'leman I cannot, cannot allow it. Madam, you mush take my seat.

Pleash, madam, do not make scene. 'S pleasure to me, 'sure you--greates'

pleasure," and beneath this courtly urgency the flushed girl walked shamefacedly the length of the almost empty car, and sat down in Strong's seat, while that soul of chivalry put his hand through a strap and so stood till his ministering angel extracted him from the train at Seventy-second Street.

With a sigh of heartfelt relief, Rex put his arm in the big fellow's at the foot of the steps. Freedom must now be at hand, for Billy's home was in a great apartment building not ten minutes' walk away. The culprit himself seemed to realize that his fling was over.

"Raished Cain t'night, didn' we, ol' pal?" he inquired, and squeezed Rex's guiding arm with affection. "I'll shay this for you, Rex--you may be soft-hearted ol' slob, you may be half-witted donkey--I'm not denyin'

all that 'n more, but I'll shay thish--you're the bes' man to go on a drunk with in--in--in The'logican Sem'nary. I'm not 'xceptin' th'----"

"Shut up, Billy," remarked Rex, not for the first time that night. "I'd get myself pulled together a bit if I were you," he advised. "You're going to see your family in a minute."

"M' poor fam'ly!" mourned Strong, shaking his head. "M' poor fam'ly!

Thish'll be awful blow to m' fam'ly, Recky. They all like so mush to see me sober--always--'s their fad, Recky. Don't blame 'em, Recky, 's natural to 'em. Some peop' born that way. M' poor fam'ly."

They stood in front of the broad driveway which swept under lofty arches into the huge apartment house. Strong stopped and gazed upwards mournfully. "Right up there," he murmured, pointing skywards--"M'

fam'ly." The tears were streaming down his face frankly now. "I can't face 'em Recky, 'n this condition you've got me in," he said more in sorrow than in anger. At that second the last inspiration of the evening caught him. Across the street arose the mighty pile of an enormous uptown hotel. Strong jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Go'n' break it to m' fam'ly by telegraph' 'em," he stated, and bitterly Rex repented of that thoughtless mention of the Strongs to their son and heir.

Good-naturedly as he had done everything, but relentlessly, he dragged his victim over the way, and direct to the Western Union office of the hotel--"Webster's Union" he preferred to call it. His first telegram read:

"Rex Fairfax got me drunk. Don't blame him. It's natural to him."

That one was confiscated, Strong complaining gently that his friend was all "fads."

The second message was this:

"Dear Mama: Billy's intoxicated. Awfully sorry. Couldn't be helped. Home soon."

That one went in spite of Fairfax's efforts, with two cents extra to pay, which item was the first event of the evening to ruffle Strong's temper.

"Shame, shame on rich cap'talists like Webster's Union to wring two cents from poor drunk chap, for lil' word like 'soon'," he growled, and appealed to the operator. "Couldn't you let me off that two cents?" he asked winningly. "You're good fellow--good lookin' fellow too"--which was the truth. "Well, then, can I get 'em cheaper 'f I sen 'em by quant.i.ty? I'll do that--how many for dollar, hey?"