Tony Kidd himself, however, only laughed, because he understood Alexander's little ways, and guessed how he expected to get his money's worth out of the newspapers. The journalist wrote his story, which he fancied exceedingly, and his editor was pleased with it, too, although it was sure to give Alexander a tremendous free boom. Next morning there was half a column on a good page of "Light" (including s.p.a.ce for the understudy's line portrait of a tall young man in evening dress, with a coffee pot in one hand and a milk-jug in the other); and even the printers grinned at the heading: "The Marquis of Twelfth Street: Newly Acquired t.i.tle."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Through the Telephone

A persistent ringing of the telephone in f.a.n.n.y Milton's bedroom waked her out of a delightful dream.

She was on shipboard again. It was moonlight, and Lord Loveland was telling her that he really cared a great deal more for her than for Lesley Dearmer. She confessed that she liked him, too; and he was just asking her to come and reign over Loveland Castle as well as his heart, when the distant, though disturbing, notes of an amateur concert in the music room of the _Mauretania_ turned definitely into the shrill bur--r of that wretched telephone. The dream broke like a rainbow bubble, and f.a.n.n.y sat up in bed, disappointed with life.

It was past ten o'clock, but she had been at a ball the night before, and had not meant to wake till eleven. After the dream realities seemed flat and unprofitable for a minute, and she was angry with the telephone, so angry that she was tempted to spite it by turning over and trying to sleep again. But the hateful thing went on b.u.mbling like a distracted bee; and after all, the simplest way to get rid of the pest was to see what it wanted.

f.a.n.n.y got up, looking like a cross, pretty child of twelve, with her hanging hair, and the delicate, fluffy nightgown in which she was not cold, because the temperature of her room would have been considered warm for summer.

She seated herself by the telephone and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the receiver as if she were going to shake it. But she soon settled down to an absorbing interest in the give and take of conversation with the instrument.

"h.e.l.lo!" she said. "Who are you? Oh, Elinor Coolidge--what?--I was in bed. You waked me up. Never mind. It doesn't matter.... Yes, it was a nice enough ball. Were you.... Oh, at Mrs. VanderPot's. How swagger! No, we weren't invited. I didn't care. But Mamma was mad. I don't know what's the matter with Mamma since we got back. She's got a 'chip on her shoulder,' for nearly everyone.... No. Of course we haven't seen the paper. I just told you, you waked me up.... What?... Lord Love--oh, don't call him _that_! It sounds so cruel. I shall never forget his face at the Wal----Why, Elinor Coolidge, you don't mean it! Waiting in a cheap restaurant.... I don't believe it's true.... In the paper? Well, there's nothing in _that_.... I know a newspaper man myself.... What?

Oh, his name's Tony Kidd. He's great fun. He says he lies all night thinking of lies for all day. Says a pressman must lie all in all, or not at all. If it's his paper.... Yes: 'Light.' Oh, then it's sure to be a joke.... No, I would not like to go and find out for myself. It was bad enough at the Waldorf that night. It just about gave me nervous prostration, and I didn't see how you could take it so coolly as you did, or Mamma either.... No. She likes you. She hasn't a good word for him, now. Says she suspected from the first, and was always trying to pump him and find out things.... Oh, that horrid affair about him and Papa? I don't think she cares much. She says Papa oughtn't to have spoken to him, and then it wouldn't have happened.... Yes, Papa went off to Old Point with that sneery Mr. Mason Mamma detests so.... It was the very next day, I believe.... Who says Papa's back in New York?... Well, if he is, he must be going to surprise Mamma and me. We haven't seen him yet.

"Oh, Elinor, I think it would be _horrid_ to make up a party and go to that restaurant.... Yes, I like slumming and seeing Bohemian places pretty well, at least I think I do.... I haven't done much yet. Mamma has, but she hardly ever took me out with her anywhere, you know, till we went to Europe.... Yes, in Paris.... But here it's different....

Well, I don't believe we'd find him there if we went, but all the same, I don't want to.... Why, I can't help it if you ask Mamma to chaperon a party.... _I_ won't go. Nothing will make me.... I can't answer for her.... I don't know whether she's engaged this evening or not. She hasn't been going out so very much since we came home.... Oh, yes. She's sure not to have left the house yet. She's never out till eleven....

Who? The Comte de Rocheverte?... I met him at the ball last night....

What?... He was at Mrs. VanderPot's dinner first?... Took you in?...

Yes, he did speak to me of you, when I danced with him.... Oh, it was only one waltz, but I tore my frock, so we sat out the last part. I can't dance with Frenchmen: they hop so--and twirl you about.... It was only that he asked me if I knew you.... Of course he said he thought you beautiful. Everyone thinks so. He told me he met you at Major Cadwallader Hunter's lunch at Sherry's, two days after we got home....

No, the Major didn't ask us. Mamma says he's turned the cold shoulder to her lately. I don't know why.... Yes, the Count _is_ rather good-looking. As handsome as ... oh, nothing to compare! You _know_ he isn't.... Pooh, I don't think so much of French t.i.tles, as all that....

I suppose people will be nice to him.... Yes, quite good enough for a flirtation, but.... You're welcome to your old Comte.... It's no inducement to _me_, if he joins the party. It may be to Mamma.... You can ask her.... Well, I think it would be jolly bad form of you all to go to such a place and stare at him, if it could be true that he ...

yes, perhaps 'jolly bad form' was an expression of his. I don't care if it was.... Oh, I suppose all the horrid things about him must be true, because the news wouldn't have come the way it did, if they weren't. But I _did_ like him, and I won't say I didn't now, just because he's down in the world.... Lucky not to go to prison? Why, he didn't defraud anybody, exactly. He came over here to ... well, perhaps he did. But he didn't do it, anyhow.... I don't believe he stayed in New York after what happened. Everyone who knew anything about it, said he probably slipped out of town that same night, for fear of trouble.... Why, abroad somewhere, I should think.... I would, if I had been in his place....

Not money enough to go away anywhere? Oh, he must have had some.... How too awful if it should be true!... No, I wouldn't see him again for anything--not if you'd give me your diamond dog-collar to do it.... I think if you and Mamma and your Comte de Rocheverte go you'll be just like ancient Romans watching the martyrs eaten up by lions.... Not much like a Christian martyr? Well, no, perhaps not. Like going to see gladiators fight and kill each other, then.... Elinor Coolidge, hearing you talk that way makes me just see how you'd look dressed like a Roman lady, sitting on a marble seat beside Nero or some other wicked old horror, and putting your thumb down when it meant a man's death. Yes, you would.... I believe you were a Roman woman in another state of existence.... I won't talk about it any more.... You can ring up Mamma, if you like.... Goodbye!"

Down went the receiver, and back scrambled little f.a.n.n.y Milton into her lavender-scented bed, shivering, not with cold, but with emotion. Her telephone was silent at last, but she could not find her way into the dream again. The door of that dream was shut forever; and f.a.n.n.y was not jealous even of Lesley Dearmer now.

"I wonder if she knows--if he ever wrote to her?--they were such friends," the girl said to herself, with the cover pulled up to her small chin, and the big eyes that had overflowed for Loveland, staring through the pink twilight of her curtained room. What if it's true about that restaurant--if he were starving?

After all, it was no use to try and sleep again. f.a.n.n.y rang for the prim maid her mother had imported for her from England, and demanded the tea and toast which that maid said all well-regulated English ladies took on waking. Then, as if on a second thought, she added: "Oh, you may bring me the morning paper. It must be "New York Light." If it isn't in the house, please tell them to send out for it."

But it was in the house. Mrs. Milton had been absorbing "Light" with her tea and toast; and when her telephone bell rang for the unfolding of Miss Coolidge's amusing plan, she said she would have a great deal of pleasure in chaperoning a "slumming party" to Alexander the Great's. She had an engagement for the evening, but she would break it in order to go. She quite understood that Elinor did not care to mention the expedition to Mr. Coolidge. Men had such funny ideas about things, and he mightn't approve, but it would be all right if he didn't know, and a great lark. Elinor was to ask the Comte de Rocheverte, of course, and tell him that Mrs. Milton had consented to be the chaperon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Alexander's Busy Day

Elinor Coolidge's first thought after reading Tony Kidd's very entertaining "story" in "New York Light," went no further than the fun of paying a visit to Alexander the Great's, and being waited upon by the man whose supercilious airs on the _Mauretania_ had made her feel "ready to burst with spontaneous combustion." She had hurried to telephone f.a.n.n.y Milton, because a chaperon was necessary, and f.a.n.n.y's mother was one of the few women she knew who would not care whether Mr. Coolidge's consent had been asked or not. Then she had thought that it would be nice to go with some particularly good-looking and distinguished young man, whose presence with her would p.r.i.c.k the unfortunate Englishman to jealousy, and give him the sensations of an outcast dog, who sees another animal pampered with choice morsels, and collared with gold.

When Mrs. Milton consented to be the chaperon, it no longer mattered to Elinor that f.a.n.n.y refused to join the party. f.a.n.n.y was a silly, sentimental child, anyway, thought Miss Coolidge, who had asked the girl only for the sake of obtaining the mother. But, having got so far, Elinor's plan began to grow and take ambitious form. It occurred to her that it would be dramatic to collect the whole circle of girls (excepting little spoil-sport f.a.n.n.y) to whom Lord Loveland had been attentive on board the _Mauretania_. Each girl must, if possible, bring a man, Elinor naturally picking out the best for herself; and the most desirable seemed to be Comte de Rocheverte, a new arrival in America, whom she had met for the first time a night or two after returning to New York.

Of course he wasn't nearly as splendid a person as a real Marquis of Loveland would have been, but (though conservative girls who preferred home products, and jealous girls whom t.i.tled foreigners didn't cultivate, called French counts "thick as blackberries and nearly as common") Elinor had a weakness for old aristocracies. Besides, de Rocheverte seemed to her of that dashing type which prides itself on doing anything to please a woman. If she asked him to play a certain part in her little comedy, she thought that he would carry it off gaily, whereas the role might not be to the taste of her American friends.

She sent a note by messenger to a club of which the Comte had been made an honorary member, to make certain of securing him. Then, his answer having a.s.sured her that Raoul de Rocheverte was "entirely and devotedly at her service when, where, and how she liked," she telephoned to the four girls she wanted for the adventure. Of these, one could not come; another could, but wouldn't, for the same reason as f.a.n.n.y's (this was Madge Beverly); and the remaining two thought it would be "more fun than a wedding." Each would bring a man (Mrs. Milton also could be trusted to find one), and the party would therefore consist of eight.

Never since Bill Willing had first made the fame of Alexander the Great had there been such a busy day in the red restaurant as the day when Tony's story and sketch of "The Marquis of Twelfth Street" appeared in "New York Light."

Breakfast was almost normal; but an unusual number of people strolled in between nine and eleven--"pie and milk" hours--and nearly all had newspapers in their hands. As they sat at the red-legged tables, sipping a two-cent gla.s.s of milk, they glanced at something in the paper, and stared at the tall young man in evening clothes who moved about solemnly with a tray of plates or cups and saucers.

By noon there was a rush of customers; the crowd increased rather than diminished up to half-past one, and throughout the afternoon the place was crammed.

Luckily, foreseeing that the new waiter would be awkward, more valuable for ornament than for use, Alexander had accepted the services of a young Pole in Dutchy's place. There was also Blinkey; but Blinkey was deep in the agony of hopeless love for the Boss's beautiful daughter, and was not to be counted on with any confidence, owing to his habit of gazing at Isidora when she was in sight, and pouring hot liquids down clients' necks if she suddenly disappeared.

There was more work than Alexander, Loveland, and the two others could do; therefore soon after twelve the aid of "Miss Izzie" had to be called in. The coloured cook and the cook's a.s.sistant worked until their brains were as nearly addled as any egg ever employed in their most economical moments; and to several members of the staff the reason for the rush remained a mystery. Alexander knew and smiled in his sleeve. Isidora knew, and cast reproachful, "I told you so!" glances at her father, as she heard the rustle of opening newspapers. But the Pole did not understand the curious questions people whispered to him; Blinkey was stupid as well as sullen; while as for Loveland himself, none dared to catechise him, so set were his lips, so threatening his brows.

Of course he suspected that it was he who brought the crowd, and raged in the shame of his burning martyrdom. Alexander had said that he was to be "used for all he was worth" and he was sure that, already, he was in some way being used. But he did not know how, or guess the worst.

At first, when the place began to fill, and eyes regarded him with interest, there was a hot instant when he asked himself if a new card had been hung in the window, offering a British Lord as an attraction--a kind of side dish, with sauce piquante. But he had slept at the Bat Hotel the night before, and in coming "on duty" had seen the cards as usual. There had been no sensational addition to the number, and no opportunity for anybody to have made one since, unseen by him. Bill had received no orders for any secret new design, Loveland was sure; for Bill was loyal and would certainly have warned him. Val supposed, therefore, that Alexander must have told people that the Marquis of Loveland would act as a waiter in the restaurant; that such people had pa.s.sed the news to others, and so on, working upon the s...o...b..ll system; this great increase of visitors being the result.

Loveland hated his notoriety with hatred inexpressible, though it was, in a way, a ghastly sort of tribute to the importance of the British aristocracy. It was not, however, the sort of tribute his vanity craved, and his one consolation was that the crowd Alexander had drawn to gaze at the tame Marquis was a common crowd. Indeed, he thought there was no danger that the red restaurant would be invaded by the upper cla.s.ses. He would not see or be seen by the sort of people he would have met if he had not stumbled into this obscure pitfall of misfortune. Soon, too, he should have earned enough money to climb out of it, and leave the country.

With the feigned indifference of a caged white bear for a bank holiday crush, the new waiter performed his duties during the day. If the restaurant were crammed throughout the afternoon, by six o'clock there was a mob. By seven, however, the place began to clear and Alexander rejoiced, because there was much work for his staff to do before eight.

Dishes must be washed and special food cooked, and a dozen tables prepared for two "crowds" who had engaged accommodation in advance.

One was a wedding party of Italians, numbering fifteen. The other was something more exciting: a party of "swells" who had telephoned for dinner at eight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Fire!

Laughing and talking they all trouped into the restaurant. Elinor Coolidge and Comte de Rocheverte; Eva Tanner and Kate Wood, with the handsome Hungarian twins, who were rather sought after in New York just then; Baron Ludovic Zsencha and his brother Paul; last Mrs. Milton and Tony Kidd.

Tony had intended to drop in at Alexander's in any case, to have a look at the Marquis of Twelfth Street, who had been "discovered" by that morning's "Light"; but he would have come on directly after returning from a second out of town expedition if a telegram had not been forwarded to the country, asking him to be Mrs. Milton's escort.

This invitation Tony accepted with pleasure, not only because it tickled his sense of humour to go to Alexander's as a member of a "slumming party," but because he hoped to see f.a.n.n.y Milton, whom he thought the sweetest girl in New York. Last year Mrs. Milton would hardly have considered him "good enough" socially to select as companion, but there were people who looked at her a little askance now, and she could not pick and choose as she had done. Tony knew very well to what he owed his promotion, but that did not affect him in the least if it gave him a chance of seeing f.a.n.n.y.

He was disappointed to find that she was not going, and his spirits were dashed by the news that she disapproved of the "Loveland sensation," for which he knew himself to be largely responsible. Nevertheless, in manner he was as gay as the others, when the party of eight made its merry raid upon Alexander's.

The Italian marriage feast was already in full swing; but neither the bridal party nor any of the thirty or forty other occupants of the restaurant were too deeply absorbed in their own affairs to notice the arrival of the "swells."

Not a soul in the room but instantly recognised the fact that they _were_ "swells," for though the ladies had put on their plainest gowns for the expedition, and the men had been forbidden to appear in evening dress, there was a marked difference between Alexander's eight latest guests and all the others already a.s.sembled.

"Hullo! I suppose we ought to feel honoured!" muttered Mr. Leo Cohen, who had just arrived from the West, and was paying a surprise visit to the establishment of his future father-in-law. He had demanded fried oysters and coffee, and had greatly enjoyed giving the order to the handsome new member of Alexander's staff.