"I've sent 'em invitations," said Alvord. "Anything to please the patient. I could tell you a good deal about this, fellows; but 'Gene and I are brothers and closer than brothers; and F. D. and B. goes with me; but it won't hurt anything for you to know that he's got carloads of trouble, and you haven't any of you come within a mile of the mark.

He told me all about it the night he got back from New York. I think it will blow over if things can be kept from blowing up instead, for a few days--slumbering volcano--woman scorned--h.e.l.l's fury, you know; don't ask me any more. But this hiding out won't do."

"Well, I should think not," said Slater. "We've got to get him going about as usual or there'll be questions asked and publicity--those red-headed women are pretty vivacious conversationalists when they get mad, and you can't tell what may be pulled off, even if he acts as natural as life."

"This supper ought to help some," said Edgington.

"It will," said Alvord. "We must make it a hum-dinger. And we must see that he shows himself of tenor at the club and lodge meetings and hops. Why, it's shameful, the way we've let him drop out."

And men being above gossip, at this point the meeting dissolved.

At the hotel, conference after conference had taken place in the parlor of Professor Blatherwick, and Blodgett and Blatherwick's _Notes_ had been studied out most a.s.siduously. Judge Blodgett and Florian Amidon had spent their days at the counting-house, and an increased force of clerks worked ceaselessly in making up statements and balances showing the condition of the business. Amidon could now draw checks in the name of Bra.s.sfield with no more than a dim sense of committing forgery.

The banks, however, refused to honor them at first, and the tellers noted the fact that after his return from New York Mr. Bra.s.sfield adopted a new style of signature, and wondered at it. Some noticed a change in all his handwriting, but in these days of the typewriter such a thing makes little difference. His abstention from bowling (to the playing of which Bra.s.sfield had been devoted), and his absolute failure at billiards, were discussed in sporting circles, and accounted for on the theory that he had "gone stale" since this love-affair had become the absorbing business of his life. No one understood, however, his sudden interest in photography, and his marvelous skill in it. He seemed to be altogether a transformed man.

"I am beginning to see through this," said Amidon, referring to the business.

"Yes," said the judge, "this side of the affair is a.s.suming a pretty satisfactory aspect. But your reputation is suffering by the sort of constraint you've been under. These things are important. A man's behavior is worth money to him. Many a man gets credit at the bank on the strength of the safe and conservative vices he practises. Business requires you to act more like Bra.s.sfield. A man who uses a good deal of money must be like other people who use a good deal of money. He mustn't have isms, and he mustn't be for any reforms except impractical ones, and he mustn't have the reputation of being 'queer.' Isn't that so, Professor?"

"Kvite uncontrofertible," said the professor. "You must minkle up vit more beople."

"And in other matters besides business," said the judge; "boxes of flowers every few minutes are all right, but some things require personal attention."

Amidon blushed.

"You see," said he, "if every one were not so strange; if part of the people were as familiar to me as I am to them, it wouldn't be so trying. I suppose these receptions, and other functions to follow, I must attend alone. But you two are going to that banquet with me?"

"Oh, certainly," said the judge. "I want to see just what sort of a gang you've been forgathering with here. The folks at Hazelhurst----"

"Must never know, Judge! And you, Professor?"

"I shall be more tan bleaced. Supliminally gonsidered, I rekard it as te shance of a lifetime."

"Well," said Amidon, "you are very good, and I am glad that's settled.

Now I want you to grant me another favor--or Clara, rather. I should be more than glad if she would ask Bra.s.sfield about some things that there's no need for you people to hear. It's nothing about the business. Won't you see if she will give me a--a--demonstration?"

The judge and the professor disappeared, and soon word came that Madame le Claire would give him audience. Amidon's heart beat stiflingly as he came into her presence. For this man's conscience was a most insubordinate conscience, and held as wrong the things felt and thought, as well as things said and done; and his remorse was as that of an abandoned but repentant jilt. But when he saw how cheerfully she smiled, he grew easier in his mind. The women always have such a matter fully under control--I mean the other party's mind.

"Well?" said she interrogatively--"at last? I have been wondering why I was brought down here?"

"It must have been very dull and lonesome----"

"Oh, no!" she answered. "I am a business woman, you know, and I haven't been idle. And now, there is something you need, my friend?

Let us begin at once."

There were definite repudiation of claims to tenderness, clear denial of resentment, in her tone. Amidon brightened and reddened. He stammered like a boy teased by reference to his first love-affair.

"You are wonderfully kind," he said. "I wanted to ask you to have this Bra.s.sfield tell you all he will about the wedding--the date, and everything you can get out of the fellow. And have him act as naturally as you can, so as to see more clearly how he carries himself.

You see what I want, don't you?"

"I think so," she returned. "Conversation must be a little difficult, isn't it? You remembered some of the things I told you about?"

"Difficult?" he exclaimed. "Oh, Clara, it's impossible! It's so much so, that I hardly dare go back any more. I'm sending flowers and notes and doing the best I can; but it won't do at all: I must call oftener--must! And I'm afraid I have spoiled everything."

"Then you find the lady quite--quite endurable?"

"She's adorable," went on Florian, with the gush which comes at the first opportunity to discuss the dear one with a sympathetic third party. "She's perfectly exquisite! I have thought of nothing, dreamed of nothing, since I left her, except, except----"

"Ah!" said Clara, "the situation must be perfectly lovely--for you--both---- And I'm sure you got along nicely."

"No, no! I spoiled everything, I know I did. But bring this fellow up and ask him those things, please; and also about a Miss Scarlett---- No, leave that out. Just about the wedding, and about--I was going to ask about our house; but the judge found that out, where it is, and all. Just about the--the things between her and me, a little more, you know!"

The hypnotic subject yields to control more and more readily by repeated surrender. So there was little of gazing into the party-colored eyes now.

"You will soon sleep," said Madame le Claire, in that dominating way of hers; "and when you wake you will be Eugene Bra.s.sfield just as he used to be, and the room and all the surroundings, and myself--all will seem familiar, and you will be quite at home with me. Sleep, sleep!"

Her hand swept down and closed his eyes, and he lay back in his chair entranced. Madame le Claire sat long and looked at him yearningly.

She smoothed back the hair from his brow with many soft touches, and stooped and softly kissed his forehead. Then she lightly tapped his wrist, and sharply said, "Wake!"

Eugene Bra.s.sfield opened his eyes with a smile. There was something still faintly suggestive of tenderness in the look with which Madame le Claire regarded him, and he returned it with the air of a man to whom such looks are neither unusual nor repugnant.

"We were just talking," said she, with the air of reminding him of a topic from which he had wandered, "about your wedding. When is it to be?"

"The appointed date," said he, "is April the fifth; but, of course, I shall move for an earlier one if possible."

"I should think," remarked Madame le Claire, "that the date fixed would give Miss Waldron all too short a time for preparation."

"From a woman's standpoint," said Mr. Bra.s.sfield, "it probably seems so. But you and I can surely find matters of more mutual interest to talk about, can't we?"

"Perhaps," said the girl, "but I don't think of anything just now. Do you?"

"Well, for one thing," said he, "I have just found out what makes your eyes so beautiful."

"Wouldn't it be just as well to cease discovering things of that kind?

It's so short a time to the fifth of April, you know."

"I've made all my money," said Bra.s.sfield, "by never quitting discovering. I like it. And this last find especially."

"I think there are other lines of investigation," said she, "which demand your time and attention."

"Oh, pshaw!" said he. "Don't be so prudish. You know that your eyes are beautiful, and you are not really offended when I tell you so.

Such eyes are the books in which I like to read--I can understand them better than Browning, or the old Persian soak. It's not unpleasant to get a volume you understand--at times."

"Why, Mr. Amidon--Bra.s.sfield, I mean--aren't you ashamed of yourself!"

"A little," said he; "not much, though. And who is this 'Mr. Amman,'

or whatever the name is, that is so much in your mind that you call me by his name when you speak without thinking?"

"A dear friend of mine!"