Drake sat down at the table with the gesture of brushing away a swarm of flies and signed his name to a doc.u.ment that was placed before him, nodding to Bojo to add his signature as a witness.

"Pity some of our corporations couldn't employ Vondrin," said Drake, rising angrily. "There wouldn't be enough money left to keep a savings bank."

Other signatures were attached and the party broke up, Maitre Vondrin, punctilious and unruffled, bowing to the master of the house and departing with the rest.

Drake's anger immediately burst forth.

"Cussed little sharper! He was keen enough to save this until now. By heavens, if he'd sprung these tactics on me a week ago, his little Duke could have gone home on a borrowed ticket."

Bojo learned afterward that the lawyer for the n.o.ble family had refused to take Drake's word on a single item of the transfer of property, insisting on having every security placed before his eyes, personally examining them all, wrangling over values, compelling certain subst.i.tutes, even demanding a personal guarantee in one debated issue of bonds.

"G.o.d grant she doesn't come to regret it," said Drake, thinking of his wife. His anger made him careless of what he said. "Tom, mark my words, if ever this precious Duke comes to me for money--as, mark my words, he will--I'll make him get down on his knees for all his superciliousness, and turn somersaults like a trick dog. Yes, by heaven, I will!"

Bojo was silent, not knowing what to say, and Drake finally perceived it.

"It isn't Dolly's fault," he said apologetically. "She's a good sort.

This isn't her doing. There was a time when her mother-- Well, I'll say no more. Nasty business! Tom, I'll bless the day when I see Doris safe with you, married to a decent American." He took a turn or two and said abruptly, trying to convey more than he expressed: "Don't wait too long.

It's a bad atmosphere, all this--there are influences--it isn't fair to the girl, to Doris. Money be d.a.m.ned! I'll see you never have to ask your wife for pocket money. No, I won't present it to you. We'll make it together. There are a lot of buzzards sitting around here to-night, calculating I'm loaded up to the brim and ready for a plucking. Well, Tom, I'm going to fool them. I'm going to make them pay for the wedding."

The idea struck him. He burst out laughing. His eyes snapped with a sudden project.

"Here," he said, clapping Bojo on the shoulder. "Forget what you've heard. Go in and take a look at Doris. She's a sight for tired eyes." He held his hand. "Are you willing to risk your money with me--go it blind, eh?"

"Every cent I have, Mr. Drake," said Bojo, drawn to him by the dramatic sympathies the older man knew how to arouse; "only I don't want any favors. If we lose I lose."

"We won't lose," said Drake and, drawing Bojo's arm under his, he added: "Come on. I've got to get a smile on my face. So here goes."

Bojo found Doris in the corner of the ballroom a.s.siduously surrounded by a black-coated hedge of young men. He had a moment's thrill at the sight of her, radiant and dazzling with every art of dressmaker and hairdresser, revealed in a sinuous arrangement of black chiffon with mysterious sudden sheens of gold. She came to him at once, expectancy in her eyes; and the thought that this prize was his, that hundreds would watch them as they stood together, acknowledging his right, gave him a sudden swift sense of power and conquest.

"I was with your father," he said, in explanation, "to witness some papers. Say, Doris, how every woman here must hate you to-night!"

"It's all for you," she said, delighted. "Dance with me. Tell me what happened. There's been a dreadful row, I know, for days. Mother and father haven't spoken except in public, and Dolly's been moping."

"It was something about the settlements. Your father was white-hot all right."

"We won't have more than a round or two," she said. "I've kept what I could for you--the supper dance, of course. Every one is here!"

"I should say so. Your mother is smiling all over. She even favored me.

Look out, though, Doris--she'll begin on you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Just you wait; you're going to be one of the big men some day!'"]

"Don't worry, Bojo," she said in a whisper, with a little pressure of his arm. She was quite excited by the brilliance of the throng, at her own personal triumph and the good looks of her partner. "I want something I can make myself, and we'll do it too. Just you wait, you're going to be one of the big men one of these days, and we'll have our house and our parties--finer than this, too!"

This time he fell into her mood, turning her over to another partner with a confident smile, exhilarated with the thought of little supremacies in regions of brilliant lights and dreamy music. Fred DeLancy, back from a dance with Gladys Stone, stopped him with an anecdote.

"I say, Bojo, wish you could have seen some of the old hens inspecting the palace. You know Mrs. Orchardson, Standard Oil? I was right back of her when she wandered into some Louis or other room, and what did she do? She ran her thumbnail into a part.i.tion and whispered to her neighbor: 'Ours is real mahogany'! Don't they love one another, though?"

By the buffet groups of men were smoking, gla.s.s in hand, Borneman and Haggerdy talking business. In the ante-chamber where the great marble staircase came winding down, he found Patsie at bay repelling a group of admirers. She signaled him frantically.

"Bojo; rescue me. They're even quoting poetry to me!"

She sprang away and down the stairs to his side, hurrying him off.

"Faster, faster! Isn't there any place we can hide? My ears are dropping off."

"Patsie, I never should have known you!" he said, amazed.

"Well, I'm out!" she said, with an indignant pout. "How do you like me?"

She stood away from him, a little malicious delight in her eyes at his bewilderment, her chin saucily tilted, her profile turned, her little hands balanced in the air.

"This is the way the models pose. Well?"

"I thought you were a child--" he said stupidly, troubled at the sudden discovery of the woman.

"Is that all?" she said, pretending displeasure.

He checked an impulsive compliment and said a little angrily:

"Oh, Patsie, you are going to make a terrible amount of trouble. I can see that!"

"Pooh!"

"Yes, and you like the mischief you're causing too. Don t fib!"

"Yes, I like it," she said, nodding her head. "Dolly and Doris stared at me as if I were a ghost. Well, I'll show them I'm not such a savage."

"I hope you won't change," he said.

"Won't I?" she said, and to tease him she continued, "I'll show them!"

He felt sentimentally moved to give her a lecture, but instead he said, deeply moved:

"I'd hate to think of your being different."

"Oh, really?" she continued irrelevantly. "You didn't bother your soul about me while you thought I was nothing but a tomboy and a terror! But now when there are a lot of black flies buzzing around me--"

"Now, Patsie, you know that isn't true!"

She relented with a laugh.

"Do you really like me like this? No, don't say anything mushy. I see you do. Oh, dear, I knew this old money would find me," she said, suddenly perceiving a plump youngster with a smirch of a mustache bearing down. "Please, Bojo, come and dance with me--often."

He more than shared the evening with her, quite unconscious of the effect she had made on him, constantly following her in the confusion of the dances, pleased when at a distance she saw his look and smiled back at him.

Meanwhile, in the buffet, Haggerdy and Borneman, in the midst of a group, discussed their host; that is, Borneman discussed and Haggerdy, stolid as a buffalo, with his great emotionless mask, nodded occasionally.