Lord Loveland Discovers America. Williamson Charles Norris

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he saw his way to something rather choice for tomorrow morning's "Light."

      Somehow, between valet and page, the wild litter of shirts, trousers, boots, and other horrors reminiscent of Foxham, was re-built into a tower more leaning than before. Then, while the valet scuttled away with his trailing, sliding load, the page remained behind and courageously announced the visitors.

      Perhaps if Foxham had spared him a few of his favourite tie pins, or if the blow of his loss had not caught him on an empty stomach, Loveland might have seen the humour of the situation as Tony Kidd saw it. But everything was against him in a black world; and his late shipmate's intrusion with a stranger was the one last drop in a bitter cup which he refused to swallow.

      Never had Cadwallader Hunter's handsome bear looked less handsome or more dangerous than he looked as he stood blocking the way to his den, at bay against fate and against his leader.

      "My dear fellow, what has happened to upset you?" exclaimed Cadwallader Hunter, warned by Loveland's expression that the only hope lay in getting the first word.

      "Upset me?" echoed Val, glaring blue fire so vindictively that Kidd expected his introducer to be the next one "upset." "My d – d valet has stolen all my clothes, and made me a present of his own, that's all."

      "How shocking!" sympathised Cadwallader Hunter.

      "Well, yes, it is rather a shock," returned Loveland drily, "and if you don't mind, I think I'd better ask you to let me get over it alone."

      "Oh! certainly, I quite understand," purred the banished courtier. But Kidd was making mental notes, and Cadwallader Hunter strove to retain his reputation as a valued cousin. "Just a minute or two, dear boy, and we'll take ourselves off. This is Mr. Kidd, from one of our most important papers – "

      "Happy to see him another time," snapped Loveland. "Just now I'm in no temper to entertain strangers."

      "But at least," Cadwallader Hunter protested, "you mustn't look on me as a stranger, my dear fellow – and if there's anything I can do – "

      "My dear fellow," Loveland flung back at him, in angry mimicry, "if you keep on, I'm more likely to look on you as a bore. The one thing you can do for me is to go, and take your newspaper friend with you. Good morning."

      And the bear shot back into his den, banging the door.

      "The British Lion before his midday meal," remarked the representative of "New York Light." "Another minute, and he'd have snatched a free lunch – Kidd with Hunter Sauce! But serve me up on toast if he hasn't got sauce enough of his own."

      "He comes of a hot-tempered family." Cadwallader Hunter explained his English relative.

      "I should say they'd been hot ever since William the Conqueror," commented Mr. Kidd. "Good family to keep away from when you haven't got your gun. I forgot mine this morning."

      But he had not forgotten his stylographic pen.

      The moment that the door had slammed, Loveland's ears tingled with the consciousness that not only had he been guilty of a very rude act, but a particularly stupid one.

      He had never liked Cadwallader Hunter, had lately grown tired and sick of him, and detested him cordially now, for a peppery second or two; yet all this did not do away with noblesse oblige. Nothing could excuse forgetfulness of one's obligation, the obligation to be a gentleman; and Loveland was irritably aware that he had forgotten it.

      He reminded himself that a great liberty had been taken with him at an inopportune moment, that he was not used to having liberties taken with him at the best of times, and that Cadwallader Hunter deserved all he had got for coming up to him uninvited, with a stranger – a newspaper man – in tow. Still, Val was not happy, and if he had not been too stubbornly proud to yield to his first impulse, he would have flung open the door and run after his visitors with apologies. But no; he would not do it. A bad precedent to make with a person like Cadwallader Hunter, he said, excusing himself. The Major would take advantage of it; and as for the journalist, he – Lord Loveland – stood on purple heights so lofty that he need fear no spiteful yapping of dogs on lower levels. Nothing could drag him down to their depths; and as his idea was that American newspaper men were no slaves to truth, he told himself that this one would probably have lied in any case.

      With such thoughts vaguely stirring in his mind, and assured that Cadwallader Hunter's past civility had been entirely for what he could get, Loveland tried to re-establish friendly relations with his own conscience; but the uneasy pricking would not stop. It drove him up and down, in and out of one beautifully furnished room to another, in irrepressible restlessness, and a presentiment of worse things to come than he had yet suffered.

      He had meant, when his unpacking was done, to dress and lunch in the restaurant, whose fame had reached even the dining-room of the Guard's Club. But that was before the Nightmare. Now he did not want to look at his fellow-beings or be looked at; and he pressed his electric bell viciously to order luncheon sent up.

      It came presently, and would have been delicious to a man without a grievance, but Loveland's grievance was so gigantic that it had crowded out his appetite; and scarcely knowing what he ate, he went through course after course, brooding on his wrongs, and pondering the chances of revenge.

      Useless to waste money in cabling instructions for Foxham's arrest, he reflected. The wretch, who had planned everything so well, would long ago have taken himself out of harm's way, and it would be like setting Scotland Yard to look for a very small, rusty needle in a haystack as big as England and the Continent, to expect the thievish valet to be found. Months ago, in an expansive moment, when Loveland had nothing better to do than listen while his boots were being laced, Foxham had confessed that at one time he had been an actor, "in a humble way." His speciality had been quick disguises, "lightning changes"; and he had been successful in a "turn" done at provincial music halls. Loveland could imagine Foxham disguising himself very well, and being almost as good an actor as he had been a valet. He was perhaps masquerading now as a Salvation Army Preacher, or a Beauty Specialist; or setting up as a grocer on the money got by the betrayal of his master.

      No, Loveland decided, he need not hope to punish Foxham. His time might be better employed in planning the reconstruction of his own wardrobe.

      A man, even a Marquis, can live without tie pins or a change of shirt studs, but he cannot live without such clothes as Society expects of him. Loveland thought with almost passionate regret of his tailor's achievements, lost to him for ever, and with anxiety of the difficult matter it would be to replace them.

      The hundred and fifty pounds represented by his letter of credit could not be spared for American tailors and bootmakers; that went without saying. These persons would have to trust him. But – were American tailors and bootmakers of a trusting nature? Loveland had somehow got the impression that they were not, and that even if you were a Duke – much less a Marquis – and flaunted a copy of Burke under their noses, they would still want some native millionaire to guarantee them against loss.

      Cadwallader Hunter was not a millionaire (this was the one damaging statement he had voluntarily made against himself) but he knew millionaires and was known by them; and with a pang of selfish regret, even sharper than his first remorse, Loveland repented his wastefulness in throwing away such a friend. If he had not slammed the door almost upon Cadwallader Hunter's high, thin nose, he might now have summoned him by telephone, and have got him to trot about introducing the Marquis of Loveland to the best tailors in New York. Of course, the Major would not accept the snub as final: he was not that sort of person; but it was beneath the Loveland dignity to insult a man and then ask a favour of him. The only thing for Val to do was to wait until he had collected other friends more solid, more valuable, than Cadwallader Hunter, СКАЧАТЬ