CHAPTER XXIII

He leaped from his hateful couch, swearing at himself like an army teamster. He stumbled to the telephone and curtly demanded the exact time, hoping to prove his watch a liar. Back from s.p.a.ce came the reply: "K'reck time is 'le'm fifty-eight."

His "Thanks!" had almost the effect of an oath. He slammed the innocent receiver on the hook and stood staring at the bare feet protruding from his indolent pajamas, where there should have been puttees and spurs and smartly flaring riding-breeches. He was doubly indignant with himself because he had counted upon that morning galopade. He rode like a centaur, though with the military and not the park seat, and he had expected his horsemanship to commend him to Persis.

He wondered what he should do. He reversed Sancho Panza and cursed the man that invented sleep. He formed a wild project to fling into his things, leap to horse, and hunt the park through. But he had not yet bespoken the horse, and he knew that Persis must have finished her ride hours ago, doffed her boyish togs, cold-showered her glowing body, and put on whatever finery her engagements required. She had probably spent the irretrievable hours at a committee meeting of some society for rescuing working-girls from work. And her father had probably earned or lost a million while Forbes lay annulled in a coma of stupidity.

How should he apologize? He could not wait till he saw her. The offense must be erased before it set. He must call her up instantly. He ransacked the dangling telephone-tome. Her father's office was mentioned, but not his residence. Yet he must have a residence, and it must have a telephone.

Forbes banged the hook and demanded "Information," and when that mysterious dame answered from her airy throne he besought her to give him at once the number.

Information answered with a lilt as if the name of Persis were one of importance:

"I think it's a private wire; I'll see."

While Forbes waited he was interrupted, incessantly cut off, restored to the wrong number, helplessly forced into other people's personal chats, and left dangling in empty s.p.a.ce. When at length he retrieved Information, she told him:

"Jus' z'I thought, 's a priva twire."

"Of course it's a private wire!" Forbes thundered. "I don't want to have a public conversation. What's the number?"

"'S 'gainst comp'ny rules to give numbers listed as private. Sorry."

"But this is a matter of life and death."

There was an almost audible sigh, as if she had heard that before.

"Sorry, but under no soic'mstances are we p'mitted to give numbers of parties listed private."

He insisted, pleaded, threatened; but she answered with implacable politeness. "Sorry, but--"

At length he screwed his courage to the point of calling up the office of her father. Here he learned only that Mr. Cabot had left the office, and it was contrary to orders to give his house number.

After beating his head and hands vainly for a long time against those walls that New-Yorkers have to build about themselves if they are ever to know seclusion, Forbes remembered Ten Eyck and called up his house.

He was not at home, and his whereabouts were unknown.

A deferential, yet stately voice with the indescribable tone of a butler or a valet advised "Mr. Forbes, ah, yes," to try various clubs; "The Racquet or the Brook, possibly," or "I believe I heard him say" (the two h's were hazy) "that he was to be at the Metropolitan at one. If you could call him then, sir, I'm quite sure you'd--Not at all! Very good, sir."

Ten Eyck could give him Persis' occult number; then he could send a note and some flowers to plead for him and appease her wrath before they met at the luncheon. When they met no time must be wasted in more apologies.

But Ten Eyck was not to be found anywhere. Forbes gave up. He telephoned for "coffee and rolls and a morning paper in a powerful hurry," and stormed into his bathroom. When he came out as spa.r.s.ely dressed as most of the gentlemen are in the advertising pages of the magazines, he found his breakfast on a little half-table mysteriously apported.

While he danced into his trousers his eyes were caught by head-lines on the paper folded at his plate:

"Mayor puts Lid on _Thes Dansants_."

Forbes seized the paper, flung himself into a chair, and read with violence the dire news that the same mayor who had ordered people to quit dancing at one now ordered them not to begin dancing before dinner.

He grew hot with rage, while his coffee cooled and his rolls brittled.

He had found the dancing-tea a delightful inst.i.tution, a joyous democracy. But, according to the scathing indictment of the mayor and the adroit wording of the reporters, the tea-dance was a home-wrecking, youth-defiling abomination, only the more dreadful because it wrought its h.e.l.lish purposes in the broad daylight.

According to the newspaper account of a typical dancing-tea, it was apparent that Forbes had failed to grasp the depravity of the crowd he had been dancing with; it seemed that the women were all fat fiends pursuing immature school-girls, and the men all evil-eyed brokers whose corpulence alone was proof enough of their wickedness.

Forbes stared aghast at a wholesale condemnation that must include Mrs.

Neff, Persis, Winifred, Alice, and the respectable rest. He had not yet learned that certain journalists are mere newsboys always beating out of their dreadnaught typewriters cries of "Extra! Extra! All about the turrible moider!"

Forbes was dumfounded to learn that the modern Babylon plus Nineveh, New York, could be sent to bed at one o'clock and forbidden to dance by daylight. Ordinarily nothing on earth would have mattered less to Forbes than the fate of tea-dances. But this ukase drove him further than ever from his Persis.

The curious mania for public dancing had enabled him, though come to town a stranger, to join immediately in festival relations with people to whose homes he would normally have been months in penetrating. The mayor's edict revoked this democracy, and he was once more a stranger in the city. He must meet his new-found friends formally and at long intervals, if at all. He thanked his stars that he had arranged to give the luncheon in time. He must set about ordering it at once, and he must see to it that there was no flaw in its perfection.

CHAPTER XXIV

On his way to the Ritz-Carlton, Forbes stopped at his bank to draw some money. He decided that he would better take along a hundred dollars. It would look impressive when he paid the waiter. He realized that it would drag his bank-account below the acceptable minimum. But he set his teeth and determined to do the thing right if he bankrupted the government. He would probably need most of the rest of the hundred before the week was out. He could begin to save again when he was in his uniform again.

He drew the money, strolled to the hotel, asked for Fernand, and found him at a gla.s.s screen in a superb room that ran from street to street. A mult.i.tude of red chairs populated the floor, and the medallioned white ceiling was a huge ellipse that looked as big as the earth's...o...b..t.

Fernand was cautiously gracious till he learned that Miss Cabot had sent Forbes to him; then he became quite paternal. Forbes slipped him a ten-dollar bill, and he listened almost tenderly as Forbes explained:

"I want to give a little luncheon--nothing elaborate, but--well, something rather nice, you know."

"Perfectly, M'sieur. And how many will there be?"

Fernand spoke English glibly, with hardly more accent than a sweetish thickness.

"We are seven," said Forbes.

"Very good, sir. Will you select what you wish, or--"

He handed Forbes the card of the day. Forbes looked at the French. He could read military memoirs and strategical works in French, but he was floored by the technical food-terms. A glimpse at the prices unnerved him further; but he asked: "What would you suggest--I'm just home from Asia. I feel a little out of it."

"If Monsieur would permit me," said Fernand, with the eagerness of a benevolent conspirator, an artist with a mission, "I will arrange it and give you a pleasant surprise or two."

Forbes swallowed a small lump of embarra.s.sment, and was careful to ask carelessly:

"About how much would it be?"

He wanted to forestall at least one surprise.

"Oh, not a great deal," Fernand smiled, with the bedside manner of a family doctor. "Miss Cabot hates heavy food. Zhoost a little c.o.c.ktel, and some _caviar d'Astrakhan_ to begin; and perhaps a little broth; ah, better! she likes _puree St.-Germain_. And after, a little berd and some salade, a sweet, perhaps, or a cheese, some coffee--nothing more! Very simple is best."

This sounded so sane that Forbes began to pluck up hope. He asked: