The City of Masks Part 32

"I had McFaddan to lunch with me," he explained. "He was tremendously impressed."

His wife was slightly perturbed. "And I suppose you were so stupid as to introduce him to a lot of men in the club who--"

"I didn't have to," interrupted Mr. Smith-Parvis, a trifle crossly. "It was amazing how many of the members knew him. I daresay four out of every five men in the club shook hands with him and called him Mr.

McFaddan. Two bank presidents called him Con, and, by gad, Angela, he actually introduced me to several really big bugs I've been wanting to meet for ten years or more. Most extraordinary, 'pon my word."

"Did you--did you put out any feelers?"

"About Stuyvie--sant? Certainly not. That would have been fatal. I did advance a few tactful and pertinent criticisms of our present diplomatic service, however. I was relieved to discover that he thinks it can be improved. He agreed with me when I advanced the opinion that we, as sovereign citizens of this great Republic, ought to see to it that a better, a higher cla.s.s of men represent us abroad. He said,--in his rough, slangy way: 'You're dead right. What good are them authors and poets we're sendin' over there now? What we need is good, live hustlers,--men with ginger instead of ink in their veins.' I remember the words perfectly. 'Ginger instead of ink!' Ha-ha,--rather good, eh?"

"You must dress at once, Philander," said his wife. "We are dining with the Hatchers."

"That reminds me," he said, wrinkling his brow. "I dropped in to see Cricklewick on the way up. He didn't appear to be very enthusiastic about dining here with the McFaddans."

"For heaven's sake, you don't mean to say you've already asked the man to dine with us!" cried his wife.

"Not in so many words," he made haste to explain. "He spoke several times about his wife. Seemed to want me to know that she was a snappy old girl,--his words, not mine. The salt of the earth, and so on. Of course, I had to say something agreeable. So I said I'd like very much to have the pleasure of meeting her."

"Oh, you did, did you?" witheringly.

"He seemed really quite affected, my dear. It was several minutes before he could find the words to reply. Got very red in the face and managed to say finally that it was very kind of me. I think it rather made a hit with him. I merely mentioned the possibility of dining together some time,--_en famille_,--and that I'd like him to meet you. Nothing more,--not a thing more than that!" he cried, quailing a little under his wife's eye.

"And what did he say to that?" she inquired. The rising inflection was ominous.

"He was polite enough to say he'd be pleased to meet you," said he, with justifiable exasperation.

CHAPTER XV

ONE NIGHT AT SPANGLER'S

A FEW mornings after de Bosky's _premier_ as director of the Royal Hungarian Orchestra, Mrs. Sparflight called Jane Emsdale's attention to a news "story" in the _Times_. The headline was as follows:

A ROYAL VIOLINIST

_Prince de Bosky Leads the Orchestra at Spangler's_

Three-quarters of a column were devoted to the first appearance in America of the royal musician; his remarkable talent; his glorious ancestry; his singular independence; and (through an interpreter) his impressions of New York.

"Oh, I am so glad," cried Jane, after she had read the story. "The poor fellow was so dreadfully up against it."

"We must go and hear him soon," said the other.

They were at the breakfast-table. Jane had been with the elder woman for nearly a week. She was happy, radiant, contented. Not so much as an inkling of the truth arose to disturb her serenity. She believed herself to be actually in the pay of "Deborah." From morning till night she went cheerfully about the tasks set for her by her sorely tried employer, who, as time went on, found herself hard put to invent duties for a conscientious private secretary. Jane was much too active, much too eager; such indefatigable energy hara.s.sed rather than comforted her employer. And, not for the world, would the latter have called upon her to take over any of the work downstairs. The poor lady lay awake nights trying to think of something that she could set the girl to doing in the morning!

A curt, pointed epistle had come to Mrs. Sparflight from Mrs.

Smith-Parvis. That lady announced briefly that she had been obliged to discharge Miss Emsdale, and that she considered it her duty to warn Mrs.

Sparflight against recommending her late governess to any one else.

"You may answer the note, my dear," the Marchioness had said, her eyes twinkling as she watched Jane's face. "Thank her for the warning and say that I regret having sent Miss Emsdale to her. Say that I shall be exceedingly careful in the future. Sign it, and append your initials. It isn't a bad idea to let her know that I do not regard her communication as strictly confidential,--between friends, you might say. And now you must get out for a long walk today. A strong, healthy English girl like you shouldn't go without stretching her legs. You'll be losing the bloom in your cheek if you stay indoors as you've been doing the past week."

Jane's dread of meeting her tormentor had kept her close to the apartment since the night of her rather unconventional arrival. Twice the eager Trotter, thrilled and exalted by his new-found happiness, had dashed in to see her, but only for a few minutes' stay on each occasion.

"How do you like your new position?" he had asked in the dimness at the head of the stairway. She could not see his face, but it was because he kept her head rather closely pressed into the hollow of his shoulder.

Otherwise she might have detected the guilty flicker in his eyes.

"I love it. She is such a dear. But, really, Eric, I don't think I'm worth half what she pays me."

He chuckled softly. "Oh, yes, you are. You are certainly worth half what my boss pays me."

"But I do not earn it," she insisted.

"Neither do I," said he.

To return to the Marchioness and the newspaper:

"We will go off on a little spree before long, my dear. A good dinner at Spangler's, a little music, and a chat with the sensation of the hour.

Get Mrs. Hendricks on the telephone, please. I will ask her to join us there some night soon with her husband. He is the man who wrote that delightful novel with the name I never can remember. You will like him, I know. He is so dreadfully deaf that all one has to do to include him in the conversation is to return his smiles occasionally."

And so, on a certain night in mid-April, it came to pa.s.s that Spangler's Cafe, gay and full of the din that sustains the _genus_ New Yorker in his contention that there is no other place in the world fit to live in, had among its patrons a number of the persons connected with this story of the City of Masks.

First of all, there was the new leader of the orchestra, a dapper, romantic-looking young man in a flaming red coat. Ah, but you should have seen him! The admirable Mirabeau, true Frenchman that he was, had performed wonders with pomades and oils and the glossy brilliantine. The sleek black hair of the little Prince shone like the raven's wing; his dark, gipsy eyes, rendered more vivid by the skilful application of "lampblack," gleamed with an ardent excitement; there was colour in his cheeks, and a smile on his lips.

At a table near the platform on which the orchestra was stationed, sat the Honourable Cornelius McFaddan, his wife, and a congenial party of friends. In a far-off corner, remote from the music, you would have discovered the Marchioness and her companions; the bland, perpetually smiling Mr. Hendricks who wrote the book, his wife, and the lovely, blue-eyed Jane.

By a strange order of coincidence, young Mr. Stuyvesant Smith-Parvis, quite mellow and bereft of the power to focus steadily with eye or intellect, occupied a seat,--and frequently a seat and a half,--at a table made up of shrill-voiced young women and bald-headed gentlemen of uncertain age who had a whispering acquaintance with the head waiter and his a.s.sistants.

The Countess du Bara, otherwise Corinne, entertained a few of the lesser lights of the Opera and two lean, hungry-looking critics she was cultivating against an hour of need.

At a small, mean table alongside the swinging door through which a procession of waiters constantly streamed on their way from the kitchen, balancing trays at hazardous heights, sat two men who up to this moment have not been mentioned in these revelations. Very ordinary looking persons they were, in business clothes.

One of them, a sallow, liverish individual, divided his interest between two widely separated tables. His companion was interested in nothing except his food, which being wholly unsatisfactory to him, relieved him of the necessity of talking about anything else. He spoke of it from time to time, however, usually to the waiter, who could only say that he was sorry. This man was a red-faced, sharp-nosed person with an unmistakable c.o.c.kney accent. He seemed to find a great deal of comfort in verbally longing for the day when he could get back to Simpson's in the Strand for a bit of "roast that is a roast."

The crowd began to thin out shortly after the time set for the lifting of curtains in all of the theatres. It was then that the sallow-faced man arose from his seat and, after asking his companion to excuse him for a minute, approached Stuyvesant Smith-Parvis. That gentleman had been dizzily ogling a das.h.i.+ng, spirited young woman at the table presided over by Mr. McFaddan, a circ.u.mstance which not only annoyed the lady but also one closer at hand. The latter was wanting to know, in some heat, what he took her for. If he thought she'd stand for anything like that, he had another guess coming.

"May I have a word with you?" asked the sallow man, inserting his head between Stuyvesant and the protesting young woman.

"The bouncer," cried the young woman, looking up. "Good work. That's what you get for making eyes at strange--"

"Shut up," said Stuyvie, who had, after a moment's concentration, recognized the man. "What do you want?"

"A word in private," said the other.

Stuyvesant got up and followed him to a vacant table in the rear.

"She is here," said the stranger. "Here in this restaurant. Not more than fifty feet from where we're sitting."