Jacob's Ladder Part 17

"I just guessed it from the way you looked at her. And I expect you are one of those picturesque survivals, too, who can only love one woman at a time. Aren't you, Mr. Pratt?"

"I don't know what I am capable of yet," Jacob confessed. "You see, my career as a philanderer has only just begun. I had to work hard until about a year ago."

"I have heard all about your wonderful fortune," she said, looking at him with veneration. "It gives you a sort of halo, you know. We all speak of you as a kind of Monte Cristo. It's a queer thing, isn't it, the fascination of wealth?"

"I haven't noticed that it's done me much good up till now, so far as regards the things we were discussing," Jacob replied, a little sadly.

"Then that must be because you are very unresponsive," she said softly, rising to her feet and coming and standing before him. "Would you care--to dance?"

"Hadn't I better set the gramophone going first?" Jacob suggested, with blatant lack of intuition.

She drew back a little, laughed softly, and put on a record herself.

Then she held out her arms.

"Come, then, my anxious pupil," she invited. "What do you most wish to learn, and have you any idea of the steps?"

Jacob confessed to some acquaintance with modern dancing and a knowledge at least of the steps. They danced a fox trot, and at its conclusion she shook her head at him.

"I know all about you now, Mr. Pratt," she said. "You are an absolute fraud. You dance as well as I do."

"But I need practice badly," he a.s.sured her anxiously.

"I suppose--it's really Sybil?" she asked ruefully, looking him in the eyes with a queer little smile at the corners of her lips.

"I'm afraid so," he admitted. "You won't give me away, will you?"

"How can I give you away?" she asked. "Your behavior has been perfect--of its sort."

"I mean about the dancing," he explained. "If Miss Bultiwell thinks I know as much about it as I do----"

"I understand," she interrupted. "I won't say a word. Shall we try a hesitation?"

Here Jacob found a little instruction useful, but he was a born dancer and very soon gave his instructress complete satisfaction. Just as they had finished, Sybil came in. She greeted Jacob politely, but with none of her partner's cordiality.

"I am sorry to be late, Mr. Pratt," she said. "I hope that Grace has been looking after you."

"Admirably," he replied.

"I suppose you thought I was quite mad when you got my note," she went on, walking to the mantelpiece and drawing off her gloves.

"Not at all," he a.s.sured her. "I was very glad to get it. Very kind of you to give me the chance of polis.h.i.+ng up my dancing."

"Try a fox trot with him, Sybil," Grace suggested. "I think he is going to be quite good."

Jacob was as clumsy as he dared be, but he was naturally very light on his feet, and, with an unusually correct ear for music, he found blunders difficult. They danced to the end without conversation.

"I do not think," Sybil said, a little coldly, "that you will need many lessons."

"On the contrary," he replied, "I feel that I shall need a great many.

I am rather out of breath. May I have a rest?"

"There will be another pupil very shortly," she warned him.

"Never mind," he answered. "You can give me a longer time to-morrow."

She turned towards him with upraised eyebrows.

"To-morrow? Surely you are not thinking of coming every day?"

"Why not? I get so little exercise in London, and wherever one goes, nowadays, there is dancing."

"But you don't need the lessons."

"I need the exercise, and indeed I am much worse than you think I am.

That happened to be a very decent tune."

"Don't discourage a pupil," Grace intervened. "We can fit him in every day, if he wants to come. We charge an awful lot though, Mr. Pratt."

"You ought to," Jacob replied. "You teach so exceptionally well. May I pay for a few lessons in advance, please," he asked, producing his pocketbook; "say a dozen?"

"It's a guinea a time," Grace told him. "Don't be rash."

Jacob laid the money upon the desk, and Sybil wrote out a formal receipt.

"I think you are very foolish," she said, "and if you take my advice you will come once a week."

"And if you take mine," Grace declared, leaning over his shoulder and laughing, "you'll come every day. We might go bankrupt, and then you'd lose your money."

"I shall come as often as I am allowed," Jacob a.s.sured her.

"Oh, you can come when you like," Sybil remarked carelessly. "If I am not here, Grace can give you a lesson. You will find it a most informal place," she went on, listening to footsteps on the stairs.

"People drop in and have a dance whenever they feel like it. I am glad you are not an absolute beginner. It is sometimes embarra.s.sing for them."

The door opened and Hartwell entered, followed by Mason. Sybil introduced them. Both were exceedingly cordial.

"Heard of you out in New York, Mr. Pratt," the former remarked, as he shook hands. "I only just missed meeting your brother. He got well ahead of our prospectors, out West."

"My brother has been very fortunate," Jacob replied.

"I guess he is one of the brightest men who ever came over to the States from this country," Hartwell declared. "Knows all about oil, too."

"Not too much gossip," Sybil interposed. "Mr. Pratt, you are here to learn dancing. So are you, Mr. Hartwell. Please try a hesitation with me, and, Grace, you take Mr. Pratt."

"Sybil is very foolish," Grace whispered to Jacob, as they swayed up and down the room. "Mr. Hartwell is perfectly hopeless, and you dance beautifully."

"It is you," Jacob told her, "who are inspiring."

She looked into his eyes.