Yet, however lightly he affected to speak, the action annoyed him.

Like all men of large means he was close. It seemed to him beastly to lose such a sum. He got up, went to the window and looked down. He could not see the case and he much wanted to go and look for it. But that for the moment Marie prevented.

"If it were twelve times twelve million," she exclaimed, "I would do the same! Oh, Royal," she cried, "don't you know it is not your money I want; don't you know it is you?"

Loftus did know, but he did not care. The flinging away of the money was all he could think of. It was an act which he could not properly qualify as plebeian, but which seemed to him crazily courtesanesque.

He returned to the table and picked up his hat. "I am going," he announced.

Marie sprang at him. "Is that your answer?"

He brushed her aside. She saw that he was going, saw too, or thought she saw, that he was going never to return, saw also that now at last she was at the gates.

"My G.o.d!" she cried. "My G.o.d!"

So resonant was the cry that Loftus turned, not to her but to the window. He closed it. But already the cry had pa.s.sed elsewhere.

From regions beyond a fat negress waddled hurriedly in. Her eyes rolled whitely from the girl to Loftus and then again to the girl.

"Are you sick, miss?"

"Go away," said Loftus, "there is nothing the matter."

"Nothing?" exclaimed Marie. "Nothing!" she repeated in a higher key.

"Nothing!" Then, visibly, anger enveloped her. "Do you call it nothing to be cheated and decoyed? Nothing to have faith and love and be gammoned of them by a living lie, by a perjury in flesh and blood? Is that what you call nothing? Is it? Then tell me what something is?"

At the moment she stared at Loftus, her lips still moving, her breast heaving, her small hands clenched, her face very white. And Loftus stared at her. In the vehemence and contempt of her anger he did not recognize at all the kitten of the year before. But it was very vulgar, he decided.

That vulgarity Blanche complicated at once. "What has he done, miss?"

she asked, her hands on her hips.

"Done?" Marie echoed. "He has made me drink of shame. Now, tired of that, he is going."

"Not to leave you, miss?"

"To leave me for another woman."

"Then hanging is too good for him."

Loftus gestured at the negress. "I say," he called. "Did you hear what I told you? Go away and hold your tongue."

Blanche's eyes that had rolled whitely before were rolling now not merely whitely but wildly.

"I won't go away, sir. I won't hold my tongue, sir. I am as good as you, sir. I have a son that's better nor you, sir. He wouldn't treat a lady as you have her, sir. Staying away from her as you have, sir.

Making her eat her heart out, sir. No, sir, I won't hold my tongue, sir."

And Blanche, mounting in paroxysms of indignation, shouted: "For the Lord's sake, sir. Hanging is too good for you, sir. You ought to have your ghost kicked. Yes, sir."

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" muttered Loftus between his teeth, and turning on his heel, he stalked out, flecking from his sleeve as he went an imaginary speck.

CHAPTER IV

THE RETURN OF THE YELLOW FAY

In f.a.n.n.y's drawing-room the next evening, at six minutes after eight, Loftus appeared. Although tolerably punctual, others had preceded him.

On a sofa with f.a.n.n.y was Sylvia Waldron. On another sofa were Mrs.

Waldron and Melanchthon Orr. Annandale, who seemed to have lost flesh, was standing in the middle of the floor.

"How are you?" he asked as Loftus entered.

"And you?"

"They did me," Annandale answered. "Atch., U. P., St. Paul, Steel, I had the list." As he spoke he mopped himself. Then in confidential aside, he added, "It has affected my stomach. It is as though I had a hole there. Will you have a sherry and bitters?"

Loftus moved forward to where Sylvia and f.a.n.n.y sat. f.a.n.n.y gave him a finger; Sylvia, a little distant nod. She was dressed in white. About her neck was a string of pearls. f.a.n.n.y was in a frock of tender asparagus green fluttered with lace, very cool to the eye and cut rather low.

"I hope Arthur isn't hurt much," said Loftus.

"Are you?" f.a.n.n.y asked.

"No. I have been selling. Today I covered. It was not easy, though.

Everybody was crazy. I have never seen a panic before."

"It will be a generation before you see another," Orr, from across the room, called out.

At the further end of the room Harris, Annandale's former valet, since promoted to the position of butler, appeared, smug-faced and solemn, in silent announcement of dinner.

For the time being the subject was abandoned, but presently when at table all were seated it was resumed.

"It will cost the country $50,000,000," said Orr. He was at f.a.n.n.y's left. At her right was Loftus.

"Well," said Annandale, emptying a gla.s.s of Ruinart, "I am glad I don't have to produce it." Emptying another gla.s.s he added, "I have produced all I could."

"I think I do not quite understand," said Mrs. Waldron, who led a highly unspeculative life and seldom saw the evening papers.

Orr and Annandale both hastened to enlighten her. Ever since the Presidential election there had been a boom in the Street, a soaring market in which the whole community, down to and including messenger boys and chorus girls, had joined. On this, the ninth of May, it had, in the slang of the Street, just "busted." Since the great black day of a generation previous, never had there been such a crash, so many landed gentry, so much paper profit sunk into such absolute loss.

In the flow of talk f.a.n.n.y turned to Loftus.

"How is the lady?"

Loftus, whose mouth was full of jellied consomme, did not answer for a moment. Then he made a slight gesture. "She has gone."

"Already?"

"I had your orders!"