CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Proposition

Naturally it occurred to Val that the trail of Cadwallader Hunter must have reached as far as the Beverly household; and almost he found it in his heart to respect a man with executive ability to accomplish so swift, so sweeping, so secret a revenge.

"The old fellow must have had a busy day," Loveland thought, half amused on top of hunger and discouragement. He pictured the Major running lithely about since the snub at lunchtime, up to the last moment before dressing for dinner, prejudicing all the friends made on board the _Mauretania_ against the Englishman to whom he had proudly introduced them.

And besides, one must grant a certain cleverness to a brain able to weave grounds of prejudice against a person--nay, a personage--important and unimpeachable, as Loveland considered himself to be. How Cadwallader Hunter had done it, Val could not imagine; but that the mysterious thing which had been done was the Major's work, he did not doubt. As for the bother with the bank, of course that was another matter, a coincidence unconnected with the annoyances which had followed, for Cadwallader Hunter could not have known anything about the letter of credit, or where it was to be presented. And though the spiteful old thing was apparently acquainted with Mr. van Cotter, who had been one of the Coolidge party, he could scarcely have read clairvoyantly all the names on the letters of introduction, even if he knew the people.

As Val asked himself forlornly what was left for him to do next, this last argument brought consolation, and a welcome new idea at the same time. As the Major had "got hold of" the Coolidges, the Miltons and Beverlys, why not go and throw himself on the mercy of some of Jim Harborough's friends?

Loveland had conscientiously distributed all the letters in the afternoon, and had put the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as a New York address on his visiting cards. Now, owing to unforeseen circ.u.mstances (another name for the Major's vindictiveness) that address was his no longer.

When people called, as no doubt they would do tomorrow, they were likely to find that he had vanished into s.p.a.ce. Yes, without doubt the best thing he could do was to call tonight at one of the houses where he had alighted in the afternoon. He would walk to the nearest one; but--now he came to think of it, which was the nearest, and of which was he certain that he could remember the street and number?

Val had not charged his mind with the addresses on the letters, so sure had he been that the recipients would lose no time in calling. Now, he went over the eight or nine names in his head, and thought that he had kept them all straight; but to save his life he could not say which number, which street, appertained to which person.

This was a dilemma, almost a calamity. But one address seemed to stand out before his eyes--a number in Fifth Avenue; and he thought it was a Mrs. Anson who lived there. The house was a handsome one, at a corner.

He had admired it; and as it was not far uptown he would not have more than a mile to travel. He could still make his visit, and tell his pitiful tale, before ten o'clock.

He walked fast, and it was by an effort that the man of the shadows kept him in sight; for Val's legs were long, and his were not. But he did contrive to cling close enough to see a tall figure slowly descend a flight of stone steps climbed with alert hopefulness a few moments earlier.

This time there was a discouraged droop of the head and shoulders and a dragging hesitation in the gait which seemed to show that the wanderer did not know what his next move ought to be.

At last the watcher decided that he had waited long enough. The Englishman had come to the end of his tether. He was tired out and sick at heart; in fact, precisely in the mood which the other had been patiently expecting.

Loveland walked away from the house where Mrs. Anson was "giving a dinner party and regretted that she was unable to receive visitors." Jim Harborough's friend! Could it be that Cadwallader Hunter's tentacles had wormed themselves round this lady's sympathies also, or was the dismissal another coincidence, like that of the bank? Loveland did not know, but he did know that the sole possessions left him were a great hunger which he might not satisfy, and a great longing to have somewhere to lay his head.

"Good evening," said the man who had caught up with him, speaking somewhat breathlessly, but in a friendly voice.

Loveland turned with a slight start, and looked at the other's face, which at that moment could be plainly seen by the light of a street lamp.

There was a vague familiarity in the stranger's appearance, but Val had come into contact with so many new people lately, that he could attach no label to these features.

"I was dining near you at the Waldorf-Astoria," explained the unknown.

"Oh!" exclaimed Loveland, instantly adjusting the label. "You were with the Coolidges, I remember." The tips of his ears began to tingle. This fellow must have seen him walk out of the restaurant where he'd been denied his dinner--probably knew that he had been practically turned away from the hotel, because he hadn't the money to pay his bill.

"My name's Milton," the short, dark man introduced himself. "I've been trying to catch you up for some time."

"Why?" abruptly asked Loveland, suspicious of everybody and everything now.

"Why? Oh, well, I wanted the pleasure of a conversation with you."

"You know who I am?" Loveland enquired.

"Yes, I know who you are." Mr. Milton emphasised each word separately, as if with a tap of a miniature hammer. There was an intentional significance in his way of speaking, but the meaning was obscure to Loveland.

Val could not guess what the other's object was in following him, and in his smarting sensitiveness was on guard against some new indignity.

"I met Mrs. Milton and--your daughter, on the _Mauretania_," he ventured, by way of keeping on neutral ground until he should learn where to take his stand. And truth to tell, he had been so miserable in his homesickness, his sense of desertion and humiliation, that any friendly-seeming companionship was pitifully welcome. A few hours ago he would have quickly decided that he did not like the man's face or manner, and would have made no bones about snubbing him; but there was a high barrier between "then" and "now," and Lord Loveland almost clung to Mr. Milton.

"I know you met my wife and daughter on the _Mauretania_," said the watcher. "That's why I was anxious to make your acquaintance."

Loveland laughed. "You're the first person since I left the ship, who has wanted to make it," he retorted. "And it struck me this evening that neither Mrs. nor Miss Milton was keen on keeping it."

"Miss Milton is a child," answered Miss Milton's father. "She daren't say her soul's her own, if her mother says it isn't; and Mrs. Milton has reasons over and above what anyone else may have, for not wanting to know you, in front of me."

"Over and above what anyone else may have?" Val repeated, lost in surprise at this turning. "Why should she or anyone have reasons for not wanting to know me? That's the thing I should like to find out. Perhaps you'll be good enough to explain the mystery--if you can? What has Major Cadwallader Hunter been doing to put all New York against me?"

"So far as I can see, it wasn't the Major who set the ball rolling, though of course he'd like people to think he was on to it from the first. And it seems he heard you give yourself away a bit to a girl one day, on shipboard--or says he did. But let's not discuss that now. What you are, or what you did before you stepped on board the _Mauretania's_ nothing to me. The game you and I are in together (as it's up to me to show you) is this. You're in a pretty bad sc.r.a.pe, and you want to get out of it. Is that true or isn't it?"

"Yes, it's true enough," admitted Val. "But that's not the question.

I----"

"Excuse me, it is the question, where I'm concerned. I don't go back on that. I don't want to know anything, or be in anything, else. I can help you out of your fix. That's what I'm here to do."

"Thank you," said Val, drily. "But why?" He half expected that Mr.

Milton's _quid pro quo_ would be a promise in advance to make f.a.n.n.y the Marchioness of Loveland.

"Well, I'm coming to that, in one minute and a half. First and foremost let's chat about what I can do for you. Then we'll get to what you can do for me. I guess a thousand dollars would come handy to you, wouldn't it, especially if you could see half in hard cash tonight?"

"If I saw any 'hard cash,' as you call it, lying in the street, and n.o.body claimed it, I confess I might find a temporary use for the money," said Loveland. "The trouble is, my letter of credit----"

"I know all about that letter of credit, just as well as if you'd told me," broke in Mr. Milton, with a queer mingling of tolerant good-nature and roughness which puzzled Loveland so much that he almost forgot to be annoyed.

"Tomorrow it will be all right," Val went on.

"I wouldn't bet on its being all right tomorrow," said Milton. "But we can wait to talk business till the day after, if you like. That'll suit me just as well; for I stand to make better terms. It's for you to say where. I can give you my card, and you can drop round at my club--I don't ask you to write, for by that time it might happen you wouldn't have a stamp, or a sheet of paper handy. You can call day after tomorrow, and we'll have our talk then. So long as we've established communication, there isn't much danger of your losing touch with me till we've fixed something up."

"I don't like your manner or your innuendoes," said Loveland, stiffening.

"Oh, I don't mean any innuendoes," protested Mr. Milton, apologetically.

"Let's keep friends. I want to help you. You had a little trouble with them at the hotel, didn't you?"

"I was abominably insulted, and I'll make them regret it."

"The best way to do that is to pay the bill right off. There's five hundred dollars in my pocket that's just crying to be in yours. And five hundred more----"

"What do you want me to do?" sharply asked Loveland.

"You'd like to know whether the candle's worth the game, eh? Well, I'm no Shylock. But see here, shall we come to terms over a drink? We're not far off the best bar in New York, and----"

"No, thank you," Val cut in decidedly, though he was cold enough, and hollow enough within to be tempted by the thought of warmth, and refreshment of any sort. "Tell me now what possible motive you, a stranger, can have in offering to lend me two hundred pounds."

"I said nothing about lending," insinuated Mr. Milton. "But if you like to call it a loan, you can. You've got your 'family traditions' to keep up, I suppose?" And he laughed in high good humour.