But whatever it was, he didn't like to figure in it, and he had hung back as long as circ.u.mstances permitted. But his new lodgings and his new friends were expensive; and Plank, he supposed, was off somewhere fishing; so he hung on as long as it was possible; then, exasperated by necessity, started for Quarrier's office, only to miss him by a few seconds because he was fool enough to waste his temper and his opportunity in making an enemy out of a friend!

"Oh," he groaned, "what an a.s.s I am!" And he got out of his cab in front of a very new limestone bas.e.m.e.nt house with red geraniums blooming on the window-sills, and let himself in with a latch-key.

The interior of the house was attractive in a rather bright, new, clean fashion. There seemed to be a great deal of white wood-work about, a wilderness of slender white spindles supporting the dark, rich mahogany handrail of the stairway; elaborate white grilles between snowy, Corinthian pillars separating the hall from the drawing-room, where a pale gilt mirror over a white, colonial mantel reflected a gla.s.s chandelier and panelled walls hung with pale blue silk.

All was new, very clean, very quiet; the maid, too, who appeared at the sound of the closing door and took his hat and gloves was as newly groomed as the floors and wood-work, and so noiseless as to be conspicuous in her swift, silent movements.

Yet there was something about it all--about the bluish silvery half-light, the spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid in her flamboyant cap and ap.r.o.n--that arrested attention and fixed it.

The soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the contrast between the maid's black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no half-lights. The very stillness was gay with suspense, like a pretty woman's suppressed laughter glimmering in her eyes.

And into this tinted light, framed in palest blue and white, waddled Mortimer, appropriate as a June-bug scrambling in a Sevres teacup.

"Anybody here?" he growled, leering into the drawing-room at a tiny grand piano cased in unvarnished Circa.s.sian walnut.

"There is n.o.body at home, sir," said the maid.

"Music lesson over?"

"Yes, sir, at three."

He began to ascend the stairway, breathing heavily, thud, thud over the deep velvet strip, his fat hand grasping the banister rail.

Somewhere on the second floor a small dog barked, and Mortimer traversed the ball and opened the door into a room hung with gold Spanish leather and pale green curtains.

"h.e.l.lo, Tinto!" he said affably as a tiny j.a.panese spaniel hurled herself at him, barking furiously, then began writhing and weaving herself about him, gurgling recognition and welcome.

He sat down heavily in a padded easy-chair. The spaniel sprang into his lap, wheezing, sniffling, goggling its protruding eyes. Mortimer liked the dog, but he didn't like what the owner of the dog said about the resemblance between his own and Tinto's eyes.

"Get down!" he said; "you're shedding black and white hairs all over me." But the dog didn't want to get down, and Mortimer's good nature permitted her to curl up on his fat knees and sleep that nervous, twitching sleep peculiar to overpampered toy canines.

The southern sun was warm in the room; the windows open, but not a silken hanging stirred.

Presently another maid entered, with an apple cut into thin wafers and a decanter of port; and Mortimer lay back in his chair, sopping his apple in the thick, crimson wine, and feeding morsels of the combination to himself and to Tinto at intervals until the apple was all gone and the decanter three-fourths empty.

It was very still in the room--so still, that Mortimer, opening his eyes at longer and longer intervals to peer at the door, finally opened them no more.

The droning gurgle that he made kept Tinto awake. When his lower jaw sagged, and he began to really show what snoring could be, Tinto, very nervous, got up and hopped down.

It was still daylight when Mortimer awoke, conscious of people about him. As he opened his eyes, a man laughed; several people seated by the windows joined in. Then, straightening up with an effort, something tumbled from his head to the floor and he started to rise.

"Oh, look out, Leroy! Don't step on my hat!" cried a girl's voice; and he sank back in his chair, gazing stupidly around.

"h.e.l.lo! you people!" he said, amused; "I guess I've been asleep. Oh, is that you Millbank? Whose hat was that--yours, Lydia?"

He yawned, laughed, turning his heavy eyes from one to another, recognising a couple of young girls at the window. He didn't want to get up; but there is, in the society he now adorned, a stringency of etiquette known as "re-finement," and which, to ignore, is to become unpopular.

So he got onto his ma.s.sive legs and went over to shake hands with a gravity becoming the ceremony.

"How d'ye do, Miss Hutchinson? Thought you were at Asbury Park. How de do, Miss Del Garcia. Have you been out in Millbank's motor yet?"

"We broke down at McGowan's Pa.s.s," said Miss Del Garcia, laughing the laugh that had made her so attractive in "A Word to the Wise."

"Muddy gasoline," nodded Millbank tersely--an iron-jawed, over-groomed man of forty, with a florid face shaved blue.

"We pa.s.sed Mr. Plank's big touring-car," observed Lydia Vyse, shifting Tinto to the couch and brushing the black and white hairs from her automobile coat. "How much does a car like that cost, Leroy?"

"About twenty-five thousand," he said gloomily. Then, looking up, "Hold on, Millbank, don't be going! Why can't you all dine with us? Never mind your car; ours is all right, and we'll run out into the country for dinner. How about it, Miss Del Garcia?"

But both Miss Del Garcia and Miss Hutchinson had accepted another invitation, in which Millbank was also included.

They stood about, veils floating, leather decorated coats thrown back, lingering for awhile to talk the garage talk which fascinates people of their type; then Millbank looked at the clock, made his adieux to Lydia, nodded significantly to Mortimer, and followed the others down-stairs.

There was something amiss with his motor, for it made a startling racket in the street, finally plunging forward with a kick.

Lydia laughed as the two young girls in the tonneau turned to nod to her in mock despair; then she came running back up-stairs, holding her skirt free from her hurrying little feet.

"Well?" she inquired, as Mortimer turned back from the window to confront her.

"Nothing doing, little girl," he said with a sombre smile.

She looked at him, slowly divesting herself of her light leather-trimmed coat.

"I missed him," said Mortimer.

She flung the coat over a chair, stood a moment, her fingers busy with her hair-pegs, then sat down on the couch, taking Tinto into her lap.

She was very pretty, dark, slim, marvellously graceful in her every movement.

"I missed him," repeated Mortimer.

"Can't you see him to-morrow?" she asked.

"I suppose so," said Mortimer slowly. "Oh, Lord! how I hate this business!"

"Hasn't he misused your confidence? Hasn't he taken your money?" she asked. "It may be unpleasant for you to make him unbelt, but you're a coward if you don't!"

"Easy! easy, now!" muttered Mortimer; "I'm going to shake it out of him.

I said I would, and I will."

"I should hope so; it's yours."

"Certainly it's mine. I wish I'd held fast now. I never supposed Plank would take hold. It was that drivelling old Belwether who scared me stiff! The minute I saw him scurrying to cover like a singed cat I was fool enough to climb the first tree. I've had my lesson, little girl."

"I hope you'll give Howard his. Somebody ought to," she said quietly.

Then gathering up her hat and coat she went into her own apartments.

Mortimer picked up a cheap magazine, looked over the portraits of the actresses, then, hunching up into a comfortable position, settled himself to read the theatrical comment.

Later, Lydia not appearing, and his own valet arriving to turn on the electricity, bring him his White Rock and Irish and the Evening Telegraph, he hoisted his legs into another chair and sprawled there luxuriously over his paper until it was time to dress.