Officer 666 Part 14

Helen's lips curled with scorn.

"Yes," the young man was stung to go on, "and what Travers Gladwin did wasn't brave at all."

"What!" Helen gasped.

"She was so fat she couldn't sink," derided Gladwin, "so I swam out to her."

"Yes," bubbled over the young man, overjoyed at the opportunity of discounting his own heroism, "I swam out to her. I told her to lie on her back and float. Well, she did, and I"----

"You!"

"Why, yes--er--you see, I was with him. He pushed her to sh.o.r.e.

Simplest thing in the world."

Helen rose angrily. There was both indignation and reproach in her voice.

"It's shameful to try and belittle his courage, and you say you're his dearest friend." She paused for a moment, then went closer to the young man and said in a different tone:

"Oh, I understand you now--you're saying that to try and make me change my mind. But I shan't--not for anybody."

Helen crossed the room to her cousin and gave Sadie the benefit of the look of defiance with which she had confronted Travers Gladwin.

"Oh, please, please don't say that, Helen," cried Sadie, all a-flutter. "I know he will agree to a postponement."

"But I don't want any postponement," protested Helen. "I told you what I intended doing and I'm going to do it."

"Go on, tell her again--we'd all like to hear it," broke in Gladwin.

Helen swung around and said dramatically:

"I'm going to marry Travers Gladwin to-night."

Travers Gladwin reeled a little where he stood, met and turned from the beaming stare of Whitney Barnes. As he did so Helen came very close to him, laid her hand on his arm and said tremulously:

"You are his best friend. Tell me honestly, don't you think I'm right in wanting to marry him?"

This was a poser, but when he did summon an answer it came right out from the heart, his eyes devouring the beautiful girl before him as he spoke.

"Nothing on earth would please me so much as to have you marry Travers Gladwin, and I promise you now that I am going to do everything in my power to persuade you to do it."

"Oh, I am so glad!" Helen thanked him. A moment later she added with a perplexed smile: "But why did you talk about his bravery as you did?"

"Well, you see"--the young man stopped.

"I suppose," Helen suggested brightly, "being so very fond of him, you hated the idea of his marrying. Was that it?"

"Yes, but that was before I saw you. I hope you are going to like his best friend just a little."

There was no mistaking the ardent emphasis on the last sentence and Helen studied the young man's face curiously. She turned away with a blush and walked across the room.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE TORMENT OF OFFICER 666.

Meantime Officer 666, on his aristocratic beat, four blocks up and four blocks down the Fifth avenue pave, was sticking to the east side of the street and vainly trying to keep his eyes to the front.

It was excruciating duty, with the raven-haired Rose wheeling her perambulator along the opposite way and keeping, by way of feminine perversity, on a lat.i.tudinal line with the patrolling of Michael Phelan.

There she was just opposite, always, never twisting her head an inch to give him so much as a glance or a smile. It made him wild that she should discipline her eyes in that fas.h.i.+on, while his would wander hither and yon, especially yon when Rose was in that direction.

The daintiness of Rose in cap and ap.r.o.n with a big white fichu at her throat, with one red cheek and the corner of the most kissable mouth on the avenue maddeningly visible, soon drove all memory of the Gladwin mansion and the suspicious antics of the "rat-faced little heathen" out of his mind. His one thought was that Rose would have to cross over the way at the fall of dusk and trundle her millionaire infant charge home for its prophylactic pap. There would be a bare chance for about seven or ten words with Rose. But what was he going to say?

For one hundred and nine days' running, his days off inclusive, Michael Phelan had intercepted Rose at that particular corner and begged her to name the day. The best he ever got was a smile and a flash of two laughing eyes, followed by the sally:

"Show me $500 in the bank, Michael Phelan, and I'll talk business."

And why didn't Michael Phelan save up $500 out of the more than $100 a month the city paid him for his services? Rose didn't get a quarter of that, and she had already saved $300, besides which she sent a one-pound note home to Ireland every month.

The reason was this--Michael Phelan turned in his wages each month to his mother, and out of what she allowed him to spend he couldn't have saved $500 in five hundred years, at least not to his way of thinking.

The trouble was that Rose had more than an inkling of this, and it galled her to think that her gallant bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned cop should permit himself to be still harnessed to his mother's ap.r.o.n strings.

Yes, down in the invisible depths of Rose's heart she was very fond of the faithful and long-suffering Michael, but even so she couldn't bring herself to marry a milksop who was likely to make her play second fiddle to his mother. And when Rose once made up her mind, she was as grimly determined as she was pretty.

The sun had swung down behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the trees that bordered the Park wall had begun to trace their shadows on the marble fronts of the mansions across the way when Rose suddenly wheeled the gig containing Master Croesus and walked demurely toward Officer 666.

Michael Phelan blushed till he could feel his back hair singeing, but he stopped stock still and waited. Rose gave no sign until she was within half a dozen feet of him. Then she looked up pertly and exclaimed:

"Why, if it ain't Michael Phelan!"

"It is, Rose, an' with the same question pantin' on his lips," broke out the young man, his bosom surging and his heart rapping under his s.h.i.+eld.

"And what is that same question, Mr. Phelan?" asked the tantalizing Rose.

Officer 666 choked with emotion.

"Will ye name the day, d-d-d-ar"----

He stopped and looked round about him fearfully, for Sergeant McGinnis was due on his rounds and Sergeant McGinnis, though married, had an eye like a hawk for a pretty girl and a tongue like an adder for a patrolman caught sparking.

Rose's eyes flashed and her lips drew taut. She started forward, but turned her head to face Phelan as she walked away.

"I'll give you an answer, Michael," she said in parting, "when ye may set up your own home for your own"----

That was all Phelan heard and possibly all that the young woman uttered, for just then Master Croesus set up a bawl that was most common and vulgar in its utter lack of restraint. There could be no more to the interview that day with young Master Croesus in such vociferous mood, so Officer 666 turned away with a heaving sigh and plodded dolefully along on his beat.