The Man on the Box Part 28

"George, where the deuce did you pick up that butler?"

Annesley looked vaguely across the table at his old comrade. He had been far away in thought. He had eaten nothing.

"What?" he asked.

"I asked you where the deuce you got that butler of yours."

"Oh, Betty found him somewhere. Our own butler is away on a vacation. I had not noticed him. Why?"

"Well, if he doesn't look like a cub lieutenant of mine, I was born without recollection of faces."

"An orderly of yours, a lieutenant, did you say?" asked Betty, with smoldering fires in her eyes.

"Yes."

"That is strange," she mused.

"Yes; very strange. He was a daredevil, if there ever was one."

"Ah!"

"Yes; best b.u.mp of location in the regiment, and the steadiest nerve,"--dropping his voice.

The girl leaned on her lovely arms and observed him interestedly.

"A whole company got lost in a snowstorm one winter. You know that on the prairie a snowstorm means that only a compa.s.s can tell you where you are; and there wasn't one in the troop,--a bad piece of carelessness on the captain's part. Well, this cub said _he'd_ find the way back, and the captain wisely let him take the boys in hand."

"Go on," said the girl.

"Interested, eh?"

"I am a soldier's daughter, and I love the recital of brave deeds."

"Well, he did it. Four hours later they were being thawed out in the barracks kitchens. Another hour and not one of them would have lived to tell the tale. The whisky they poured into my cub--"

"Did he drink?" she interrupted.

"Drink? Why, the next day he was going to lick the men who had poured the stuff down his throat. A toddy once in a while; that was all he ever took. And how he loved a fight! He had the tenacity of a bulldog; once he set his mind on getting something, he never let up till he got it."

The girl trifled thoughtfully with a rose.

"Was he ever in any Indian fights?" she asked, casually.

"Only sc.r.a.ps and the like. He went into the reservation alone one day and arrested a chief who had murdered a sheep-herder. It was a volunteer job, and nine men out of ten would never have left the reservation alive. He was certainly a cool hand."

"I dare say,"--smiling. She wanted to ask him if he had ever been hurt, this daredevil of a lieutenant, but she could not bring the question to her lips. "What did you say his name was?"--innocently.

"Warburton, Robert Warburton."

Here the butler came in with the birds. The girl's eyes followed him, hither and thither, her lips hidden behind the rose.

XVIII

CAUGHT!

Karloff came around to music. The dramatist's wife should play Tosti's _Ave Maria_, Miss Annesley should play the obligato on the violin and the prima-donna should sing; but just at present the dramatist should tell them all about his new military play which was to be produced in December.

"Count, I beg to decline," laughed the dramatist. "I should hardly dare to tell my plot before two such military experts as we have here. I should be told to write the play all over again, and now it is too late."

Whenever Betty's glance fell on her father's face, the gladness in her own was somewhat dimmed. What was making that loved face so care-worn, the mind so listless, the att.i.tude so weary? But she was young; the spirits of youth never flow long in one direction. The repartee, brilliant and at the same time with every sting withdrawn, flashed up and down the table like so many fireflies on a wet lawn in July, and drew her irresistibly.

As the courses came and pa.s.sed, so the conversation became less and less general; and by the time the ices were served the colonel had engaged his host, and the others divided into twos. Then coffee, liqueurs and cigars, when the ladies rose and trailed into the little Turkish room, where the "distinguished-looking butler" supplied them with the amber juice.

A dinner is a function where everybody talks and n.o.body eats. Some have eaten before they come, some wish they had, and others dare not eat for fear of losing some of the gossip. I may be wrong, but I believe that half of these listless appet.i.tes are due to the natural confusion of forks.

After the liqueurs my butler concluded that his labor was done, and he offered up a short prayer of thankfulness and relief. Heavens, what mad, fantastic impulses had seized him while he was pa.s.sing the soup!

Supposing he _had_ spilled the hot liquid down Karloff's back, or poured out a gla.s.s of burgundy for himself and drained it before them all, or slapped his late colonel on the back and asked him the state of his liver? It was maddening, and he marveled at his escape. There hadn't been a real mishap. The colonel had only scowled at him; he was safe. He pa.s.sed secretly from the house and hung around the bow-window which let out on the low balcony. The window was open, and occasionally he could hear a voice from beyond the room, which was dark.

It was one of those nights, those mild November nights, to which the novelists of the old regime used to devote a whole page; the silvery pallor on the landscape, the moon-mists, the round, white, inevitable moon, the stirring breezes, the murmur of the few remaining leaves, and all that. But these busy days we have not the time to read nor the inclination to describe.

Suddenly upon the stillness of the night the splendor of a human voice broke forth; the prima-donna was trying her voice. A violin wailed a note. A hand ran up and down the keys of the piano. Warburton held his breath and waited. He had heard Tosti's _Ave Maria_ many times, but he never will forget the manner in which it was sung that night. The songstress was care-free and among persons she knew and liked, and she put her soul into that magnificent and mysterious throat of hers, And throbbing all through the song was the vibrant, loving voice of the violin. And when the human tones died away and the instruments ceased to speak, Warburton felt himself swallowing rapidly. Then came Schumann's _Traumerei_ on the strings, Handel's _Largo_, Grieg's _Papillon_, and a _ballade_ by Chaminade. Then again sang the prima-donna; old folksy songs, sketches from the operas grand and light, _Faust_, _The Barber of Seville_, _La Fille de Madame Angot_. In all his days Warburton had never heard such music. Doubtless he _had_--even better; only at this period he was in love. The imagination of love's young dream is the most stretchable thing I know of.

Seriously, however, he was a very good judge of music, and I am convinced that what he heard was out of the ordinary.

But I must guide my story into the channel proper.

During the music Karloff and Colonel Annesley drifted into the latter's study. What pa.s.sed between them I gathered from bits recently dropped by Warburton.

"Good G.o.d, Karloff, what a net you have sprung about me!" said the colonel, despairingly.

"My dear Colonel, you have only to step out of it. It is the eleventh hour; it is not too late." But Karloff watched the colonel eagerly.

"How in G.o.d's name can I step out of it?"

"Simply reimburse me for that twenty thousand I advanced to you in good faith, and nothing more need be said." The count's Slavonic eyes were half-lidded.

"To give you back that amount will leave me a beggar, an absolute beggar, without a roof to shelter me. I am too old for the service, and besides, I am physically incapacitated. If you should force me, I could not meet my note save by selling the house my child was born in. Have you discounted it?"

"No. Why should I present it at the bank? It does not mature till next Monday, and I am in no need of money."

"What a wretch I am!"

Karloff raised his shoulders resignedly.

"My daughter!"