The Abandoned Room. Camp Wadsworth

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СКАЧАТЬ they are. Carlos has kept his word. See her, Hartley. She's glorious."

      A young woman accompanied the Panamanian as he came back through the hall. She appeared more foreign than her guide—the Spanish of Spain rather than of South America. Her clothing was as unusual and striking as her beauty, yet one felt there was more than either to attract all the glances in this room, to set people whispering as she passed. Clearly she knew her notoriety was no little thing. Pride filled her eyes.

      Paredes had first introduced her to Bobby a month or more ago. He had seen her a number of times since in her dressing-room at the theatre where she was featured, or at crowded luncheons in her apartment. At such moments she had managed to be exceptionally nice to him. Bobby, however, had answered merely to the glamour of her fame, to the magnetic response her beauty always brought in places like this.

      "Paredes," Graham muttered, "will have a powerful ally. You won't fail me, Bobby? You will go?"

      Bobby scarcely heard. He hurried forward and welcomed the woman. She tapped his arm with her fan.

      "Leetle Bobby!" she lisped. "I haven't seen very much of you lately. So when Carlos proposed—you see I don't dance until late. Who is that behind you? Mr. Graham, is it not? He would, maybe, not remember me. I danced at a dinner where you were one night, at Mr. Ward's. Even lawyers, I find, take enjoyment in my dancing."

      "I remember," Graham said. "It is very pleasant we are to dine together." He continued tactlessly: "But, as I've explained to Mr. Paredes, we must hurry. Bobby and I have an early engagement."

      Her head went up.

      "An early engagement! I do not often dine in public."

      "An unavoidable thing," Graham explained. "Bobby will tell you."

      Bobby nodded.

      "It's a nuisance, particularly when you're so condescending, Maria."

      She shrugged her shoulders. With Bobby she entered the dining-room at the heels of Paredes and Graham.

      Paredes had foreseen everything. There were flowers on the table. The dinner had been ordered. Immediately the waiter brought cocktails. Graham glanced at Bobby warningly. He wouldn't, as an example Bobby appreciated, touch his own. Maria held hers up to the light.

      "Pretty yellow things! I never drink them."

      She smiled dreamily at Bobby.

      "But see! I shall place this to my lips in order that you may make pretty speeches, and maybe tell me it is the most divine aperitif you have ever drunk."

      She passed the glass to him, and Bobby, avoiding Graham's eyes, wondering why she was so gracious, emptied it. And afterward frequently she reminded him of his wine by going through the same elaborate formula. Probably because of that, as much as anything else, constraint grasped the little company tighter. Graham couldn't hide his anxiety. Paredes mocked it with sneering phrases which he turned most carefully. Before the meal was half finished Graham glanced at his watch.

      "We've just time for the eight-thirty," he whispered to Bobby, "if we pick up a taxi."

      Maria had heard. She pouted.

      "There is no engagement," she lisped, "as sacred as a dinner, no entanglement except marriage that cannot be easily broken. Perhaps I have displeased you, Mr. Graham. Perhaps you fancy I excite unpleasant comment. It is unjust. I assure you my reputation is above reproach"—her dark eyes twinkled—"certainly in New York."

      "It isn't that," Graham answered. "We must go. It's not to be evaded."

      She turned tempestuously.

      "Am I to be humiliated so? Carlos! Why did you bring me? Is all the world to see my companions leave in the midst of a dinner as if I were plague-touched? Is Bobby not capable of choosing his own company?"

      "You are thoroughly justified, Maria," Paredes said in his expressionless tones. "Bobby, however, has said very little about this engagement. I did not know, Mr. Graham, that you were the arbiter of Bobby's actions. In a way I must resent your implication that he is no longer capable of caring for himself."

      Graham accepted the challenge. He leaned across the table, speaking directly to Bobby, ignoring the others:

      "You've not forgotten what I told you. Will you come while there's time?

       You must see. I can't remain here any longer."

      Bobby, hating warfare in his present mood, sought to temporize:

      "It's all right, Hartley. Don't worry. I'll catch a later train."

      Maria relaxed.

      "Ah! Bobby still chooses for himself."

      "I'll have enough rumpus," Bobby muttered, "when I get to the Cedars.

       Don't grudge me a little peace here."

      Graham arose. His voice was discouraged.

      "I'm sorry. I'll hope, Bobby."

      Without a word to the others he walked out of the room.

      So far, when Bobby tried afterward to recall the details of the evening, everything was perfectly distinct in his memory. The remainder of the meal, made uncomfortable by Maria's sullenness and Paredes's sneers, his attempt to recapture the earlier gayety of the evening by continuing to drink the wine, his determination to go later to the Cedars in spite of Graham's doubt—of all these things no particular lacked. He remembered paying the check, as he usually did when he dined with Paredes. He recalled studying the time-table and finding that he had just missed another train.

      Maria's spirits rose then. He was persuaded to accompany her and Paredes to the music hall. In her dressing-room, while she was on the stage, he played with the boxes of make-up, splashing the mirror with various colours while Paredes sat silently watching.

      The alteration, he was sure, came a little later in the cafe at a table close to the dancing floor. Maria had insisted that Paredes and he should wait there while she changed.

      "But," he had protested, "I have missed too many trains."

      She had demanded his time-table, scanning the columns of close figures.

      "There is one," she had said, "at twelve-fifteen—time for a little something in the cafe, and who knows? If you are agreeable I might forgive everything and dance with you once, Bobby, on the public floor."

      So he sat for some time, expectant, with Paredes, watching the boisterous dancers, listening to the violent music, sipping absent-mindedly at his glass. He wondered why Paredes had grown so quiet.

      "I mustn't miss that twelve-fifteen," he said, "You know, Carlos, you weren't quite fair to Hartley. He's a splendid fellow. Roomed with me at college, played on same team, and all that. Only wanted me to do the right thing. Must say it was the right thing. I won't miss that twelve-fifteen."

      "Graham," Paredes sneered, "is a wonderful type—Apollo in the flesh and

       Billy Sunday in the conscience."

      Then, СКАЧАТЬ