.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48626
   :PG.Title: Mollie's Substitute Husband
   :PG.Released: 2015-04-01
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Max McConn
   :MARCREL.ill: Edward \C. Caswell
   :DC.Title: Mollie's Substitute Husband
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1920
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

===========================
MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND
===========================

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      [Transcriber's note: The frontispiece was missing from
      the source book]

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      MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE
      HUSBAND

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      BY

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      MAX McCONN

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      *WITH FRONTISPIECE BY*
      EDWARD C. CASWELL

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      THE RYERSON PRESS
      TORONTO
      1920

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      COPYRIGHT, 1920
      BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

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      PRINTED IN U. S. A.

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I  `"The Professor" on a Spree`_
II  `The Prettiest Girl`_
III  `Friendly Strangers`_
IV  `An Unscrupulous Reformer`_
V  `Alicia and the Motives of Men`_
VI  `Stage-Setting`_
VII  `Boy and Girl`_
VIII  `Passages with Mayor Black`_
IX  `Aunt Mary`_
X  `A Senator Missing`_
XI  `Confessions of Waiter No. 73`_
XII  `Grapefruit and Telegrams`_
XIII  `A Change of Management`_
XIV  `Holding the Fort`_
XV  `Council of War`_
XVI  `The Senatorial Dinner`_
XVII  `A Devious Journey`_
XVIII  `Jennie`_
XIX  `A New Antagonist`_
XX  `An Eventful Supper Party`_
XXI  `Flash Lights`_
XXII  `Virtue Triumphant`_
XXIII  `Return`_
XXIV  `The Reform League`_
XXV  `Second Council of War`_
XXVI  `The Business of Being an Impostor`_
XXVII  `The Code Telegram`_
XXVIII  `Simpson as Detective`_
XXIX  `The Final Dilemma`_
XXX  `Mollie June`_





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.. _`"THE PROFESSOR" ON A SPREE`:

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   MOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND

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   CHAPTER I

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   "THE PROFESSOR" ON A SPREE

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John Merriam, Principal of the High School
at Riceville, Illinois--"Professor" Merriam, as
he was universally called by the citizens of
Riceville--was wickedly, carnally, gloriously happy.
He was having an unwonted spree.

I fear the reader will be shocked.  The principal
of a high school, he will say, has no right to a spree,
even an occasional one.  The "Professor" has girl
students in his classes--mostly girls, indeed, and
usually the prettiest ones in town--and women
teachers under his supervision.  Every seventh day
he teaches a young people's class in a Sunday
School.  He makes addresses at meetings of the
Y.P.S.C.E., the Y.M.C.A., and other alphabetically
designated societies that make for righteousness
and decorum.  He should at all times and
in all places be a model, an exemplar, to the
budding young men and women of the community in
general and his school in particular.

In this reasoning the reader is in strict accord
with what the sentiment of all Riceville would have
been if it had known--if it could have known.

Nevertheless, it is the regrettable and shocking
fact that John Merriam was sitting on that pleasant
April evening in the Peacock Cabaret of the Hotel
De Soto in the wicked city of Chicago.  He was
attired in evening clothes, a fact which, in itself
would have seemed both odd and reprehensible to
Riceville, and he was alone at a tiny table with a
yellow-silk-shaded lamp.  He had just been guided
to that table, and pending the arrival of a waiter,
he was gazing eagerly, boyishly about him at such
delights as the somewhat garish Peacock Cabaret
displayed.

For John Merriam, though a "professor," was
young.  He was only twenty-eight.  He was tall
and blond and athletic, as young men who grow up
on farms in the Middle West and then go to college
have a way of being.  And after his season of
strenuous and highly virtuous labours at Riceville
he was really hungry, keen, for something--well,
just a little less virtuous.

A distinguished looking gentleman in a dinner
jacket, conspicuously labeled with a number,
somewhat haughtily and negligently approached,
bearing a menu card.

About three paces away this gentleman, having
glanced at young Merriam, fairly stopped and
stared at him.  An odd expression showed upon
his face--an expression, one would almost have
said, of intense animosity.  Then, as he still stared,
one might have decided that his look betokened
perplexity.  He winked his eyes several times and
once more scrutinised his waiting guest.  At
length--perhaps ten seconds had passed--his face slowly,
wonderingly cleared, his usual air of vacant
indifference returned, and he advanced and placed the
menu card in Merriam's hands.  The latter, still
drinking in the sights and sounds of his
unaccustomed environment, had noticed nothing.

Now it is always prudent to note a waiter's
number when he first presents himself, for in case he
should decide to begin his summer vacation
immediately after taking your order you may need to
mention his number to the head waiter.  In this
case the number was 73.

The hauteur and negligence displayed were partly
habitual--professional, so to speak--but were
intensified perhaps by the reaction from the emotion,
whatever it was, which he had apparently just
experienced--perhaps also by the look of alert and
genuine pleasure on Merriam's face.  Such a look
did not wholly commend itself or him to a sophisticated
metropolitan taste.  What right had a patron
of the Peacock Cabaret to look really pleased?  It
was hardly decent--and argued a small tip.

Inwardly Merriam, now aware of the waiter's
presence, reacted acutely to this clearly perceptible
disdain.  Which shows how young and how rural
he was.  We maturer, urban folk are never, of
course, in the least nonplused by those contemptuous,
blasé silences of waiters who possess the bearing
and manner of a governor or a capitalist.

But John Merriam had been excellent in amateur
dramatics at college, and he now roused himself to
a magnificent histrionic effort in the rôle of "man
of the world."

He pushed the menu card aside without looking
at it.

"A clam cocktail, please, and a stein of beer,"
he murmured, low enough to force the distinguished
one to unbend slightly in order to catch the words.

"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, with a tentative
suggestion of respect in his tone.  A customer who
did not bother to look at the menu might be worth
while after all.

"And then what?"

"I'll see how I feel then," said Merriam with a
half yawn.

"Yes, sir," said Waiter No. 73, almost courteously,
and departed at a pace slightly quickened
over that of his approach, as a man strolling at
complete leisure will instinctively increase the
tempo of his step if he chances to recall a definite
engagement on the day after to-morrow.

Merriam grinned delightedly.  He had put it
across--his little piece of acting.  He had measurably
imposed his rôle on his audience of one; at
least he had shaken him.

And then--I shudder when I recall the views on
nicotine of the Board of Education at Riceville--he
drew from his pocket a package of cigarettes, and
took a match from the table, and lit a cigarette, and
sent a volume of smoke out through his nostrils--proving,
alas, that it was not his first indulgence,--and,
with a sigh that might almost be described as
ecstatic, turned his attention again to the scene
about him.

That scene was piquant to him--after the ugly
dining room of his boarding house at Riceville and
the barren assembly hall of the High School--to a
degree almost incredible to persons more habituated
to the Peacock Cabaret and similar resorts.  Not
being quite so fresh from Riceville, nor yet the
advertising manager of the Hotel De Soto, I cannot,
I fear, paint the prospect as Merriam saw it.  I
shall not be able to conceal some mental
reservations as to its charms.  The purple peacocks upon
the walls and ceiling, from which the restaurant
took its name, were certainly a trifle over-gorgeous,
just as the music which the orchestra intermittently
dispensed was too much syncopated.  Again, the
scores of small tables, each with its silk-shaded
lamp, its slim glass vase for a single rosebud, its
water bottle bearing the arms of the Chevalier De
Soto, and its ash receptacle--all alike as shoe
boxes in a shoe shop are alike,--might to a tired
fancy suggest a certain monotony of pleasure, a
too-much-standardised, ready-made brand of bliss.
The small, skimped stage, with its undeniably banal
curtain, and the crowded dancing floor did not
really promise unlimited delights.  Some perception
of all this was apparent in the faces and bearing
of many of the white-shirt-fronted men who sat
at the scores of tables and of the women who were
with them, however bird-of-paradise-like the
raiment of the latter might be.  Not a few indeed
displayed an air of languor and ennui that might have
won approval even from Waiter No. 73.

But in speaking thus of the Peacock Cabaret I
am stepping outside my story, violating unity of
point of view--in short, committing a heinous
literary crime.  For to Merriam at that moment the
screaming purple peacocks, the regiments of
rosebuds, the musical comedy melodies, the gay attire
and bare shoulders of the women, and even the tired
look of his fellow-diners, which he interpreted as
sophistication rather than simple boredom, were
thrillingly symbolical of all the delights which the
great world held and which were absent from
Riceville.  And when Waiter No. 73 leisurely returned,
to find him outwardly almost too near asleep to
keep his cigarette going, and deposited his clam
cocktail and the wicked stein before him, and at the
same moment the orchestra became more noisy than
ever, and all the lights except those upon the tables
went out, and the stage curtain rose upon a
short-skirted chorus, he was really in a sort of Omar
Khayyam paradise.  It was lucky that Waiter
No. 73 had again departed to those unknown regions
where waiters spend the bulk of their time, for
Merriam could not have concealed the zest with
which he alternately ate and drank and surveyed
the moderately comely demoiselles upon the little
stage.

Having finished his cocktail and drunk some of
his beer and seen the curtain descend on the first
"act" of the cabaret's dramatic entertainment,
Merriam lit another cigarette, shifted his chair, and
settled himself to await the probable future return
of his servitor.  His thoughts dwelt contentedly on
the evening before him.  For after his meal he
would have a stroll with a cigar in the spring
twilight (it was barely six-thirty then) through the
noisy, brightly lighted streets of the Loop, which
never failed to thrill him with a sense of a somehow
wicked vastness, power, and riches in the great city
of which they were the center.  And then he was
going to the "Follies."  He fingered the small
envelope in his pocket which held his ticket.  And
after the show he would have a supper in another
cabaret.

Beyond that he did not let his fancy wander.
For after that there was nothing for it but to catch
the 2:00 A.M. train on the Illinois Central that
would carry him back to Riceville for the remaining
six weeks of the school year.  He had come up to
Chicago on this spring day--a Tuesday it was--to
attend a convention of high-school principals and
to engage a couple of new teachers for the next year,
to replace two that were to be married in June.
And he had faithfully done these things.  And now
he was giving himself just this one evening of
amusement--two cabaret meals and a "show,"
sauced, so to speak, with a little tobacco and beer
and the wearing of his evening clothes.  Surely
whatever Riceville might have thought, he will not
seem to most of us very derelict from the austere
ideals of his profession.

The only real point against him--most of us
might argue--lies in the fact that when, you touch
even the outermost fringes of the night life of a city,
you are never quite certain what may come to you.
For there are things happening all about you, under
the conventional, monotonous surface--things
amusing and things terrible--men and women playing
with the fire of every known human passion,--and
if the finger of some adventure reaches out for
you you may not be able to resist its lure, perhaps
even to escape its clutch.





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.. _`THE PRETTIEST GIRL`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE PRETTIEST GIRL

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I have said that Merriam had shifted his chair
a little as he lit his second cigarette.  A moment
later he was looking very hard at a certain pretty
woman at a table half way across the room.  His
heart stopped.  At least that is the phrase a novelist
seems to be required to use to indicate the sudden
pulse of amazement and pleasure and alarm which
he certainly felt.

The young woman at whom he was staring had a
name which is very important for this story and
which I shall presently tell you, but in John
Merriam's mind her name was "the prettiest girl," and
her other name, which he seldom dared whisper to
his heart, was "Mollie June."  She was from
Riceville--hence the alarm with which his pleasure was
mixed,--and during his first four months of teaching,
three years before, she had been in his senior
class in the High School--the "prettiest girl" in
the class and in the school and in the town--and in
the State and the United States and the world, if
you had asked John Merriam.  Advanced algebra
with Mollie June in the class had been the most
golden of sciences--pleasure squared, delight cubed,
and bliss to the *n*\th power.  I am not myself
absolutely convinced of Mollie June's proficiency in
solving quadratic equations, yet the official records
of the Riceville High School show that she
received the highest mark in the class.

But she was the daughter of James P. Partridge,
the owner of all Riceville; that is to say, of the coal
mines outside the town, of the grain elevator, of the
street car and electric light company, and of the
First National Bank.  Who was John Merriam,
the son of a poor farmer in a southern county, who
had worked his way through college and come out
with nothing but a B.S. degree, a football reputation
that was quite unnegotiable, and three hundred
dollars of fraternity debts--an enormous sum,--to
mix anything warmer or livelier than a^2-b^2 in his
thoughts of a class to which Mollie June Partridge
deigned to belong?  Even if Mollie June herself did
come up to his desk in the assembly room two or
three times a week for help in her algebra and spend
most of the time asking him about college instead,
and join his Young People's Class, which she had
previously refused to attend, and allow him to "see
her home" from church sociables, and compel that
docile magnate, John P. Partridge, her father, to
invite the new "professor" to dinner twice during
the half year?  As well almost might a humble
tutor in the castle of a feudal lord have raised his
eyes to the baron's daughter.

Almost, but not quite.  After all this is a free
republic.  Even a poor pedagogue is a citizen with
a vote and a potential candidate for the
presidency--which at least two poor pedagogues have
attained.  So John Merriam permitted himself to
be very happy during those four months and was
not in the least hopeless.  Only he saw that he
must bide his time.

But early in January Mollie June left school,
and in a few days it came out that she had left to
be married--married to Senator Norman!

Senator Norman was the famous "boy senator"
from Illinois--at the time of his election the
youngest man who had ever sat in the upper house of
Congress.  The ruddiness of his cheeks, the abundance
of his wavy blond hair, and the athletic jauntiness
of his carriage won votes whenever he stumped
the State.  They went far to counteract malicious
insinuations as to the means by which he was rolling
up a fortune and his solidity with "interests"
which the proletariat viewed with suspicion.

And now, having been a widower for eighteen
months--his first wife was older than he and had
brought him money,--he had stayed for a week-end
during the Christmas holidays with James P. Partridge,
who was a cousin of the Senator's first wife
and his political lieutenant for a certain group of
counties, and had seen Mollie June and wanted her
and asked for her and got her, as George Norman
always asked for and got whatever he wanted.

All this was, of course, in John Merriam's mind
as he gazed across a dozen tables in the Peacock
Cabaret at the unchanged profile of the prettiest
girl--that is to say, Mrs. Senator Norman.  And
with it came an acute revival of the desolation of
that January and February at Riceville, when he
had perceived with the Hebrew sage that "in much
learning"--or in little, for that matter--"is much
weariness," and that algebra should have been
buried with the medieval Arabians who invented
it--when even the State championship in basket
ball, won by the Riceville Five under his coaching,
was only a trouble and a bore.

There is no doubt he stared rudely.  At least it
would have been rudely if his eyes had held the look
which eyes that stare at pretty women commonly
hold.  But such a look as stood in Merriam's eyes
can hardly be rude, however intent and prolonged
it may be.

He was merely entranced in the literal sense of
that word.  Her girlish white shoulders--he had
never seen her shoulders before--in Riceville
women no more have shoulders than they have
legs--the soft brown hair over her ears--even the
mode of the day, which called for close net effects
and tight knobs, could not conceal its fine
softness--the colour in her cheeks, which unquestionably
shamed all the neighbouring rosebuds--the
quite inexplicable deliciousness of those particular
small curves described by the lines of her nose and
chin and throat as he saw them in half profile--were
more than he could draw his eyes away from
for an unconscionable number of seconds.  Of her
charmingly simple and unquestionably very
expensive frock as a separate fact, and of the thin,
pale, and elderly, but gorgeously arrayed woman
who was her companion, he had no clear perception,
but undoubtedly they both contributed, along
with the lights and colours and music of the
Peacock Cabaret, to the deplorable confusion of his
mind.

Out of that confusion there presently arose
certain clear images and tones and words, which made
up his memory of the last time he had seen and
spoken with the present Mrs. Senator Norman.

It was at and after a miscellaneous kind of young
people's entertainment which occurred at the
Methodist Church on the evening of that bitter day on
which the news of her engagement to Senator
Norman had run like a prairie fire through the streets
and homes of Riceville, fiercely incinerating all
other topics of conversation, and consuming also
the joy in life, the ambition, the very youth, it
seemed to him, of John Merriam.  He would not
have gone to that entertainment if he could have
escaped.  But there were to be charades, and he
had arranged and coached most of them and was
to be in several.  He "simply had to go," as
Ricevillians might have said.

She was there with her mother.  When had she
ever come just with her mother, that is to say,
without a male escort, before?  That fact alone was
symbolical of the closing of the gates of matrimony
upon her.  Naturally, in his pain he followed his
primitive and childish instincts and avoided her.

But he was aware--he was almost sure--of her
eyes continually following him throughout the
evening, and during "refreshments" she deliberately
came up to him and said that her mother was
obliged to leave early, and would he see her home?
Well, of course, if she asked him, he had to.  I am
afraid that the tone if not the words of his reply
said as much, and Mollie June had turned away
with quick tears in her eyes.  Yet I question
whether she was really hurt by his rudeness.  For
why should he be rude to-night when he had never
been so before unless he--to use the most expressive
of Americanisms--"cared"?

For the rest of the evening, as a result of those
tears, which he had seen, it was his eyes that
followed her, while hers avoided him.  But he did not
speak with her again until "seeing-home" time
arrived.

Mollie June lingered till the very end of everything.
Perhaps the little girl in her--for she was
barely eighteen--clung to this last shred of the
familiar, homely social life of her girlhood before
she should be plunged into the frightful brilliance
of real "society" in terrific places known as
Chicago and Washington--as a senator's wife!

But at last they were walking together towards
her home.

"Take my arm, please," said Mollie June.

The boys in Riceville always take the girls' arms
at night, though never in the daytime.  John ought
to have taken her arm before.  He took it.

"Have you heard that I am going to be married?"
asked Mollie June--as if she did not know
that everybody in the county knew it by that time.

"Yes," said John, his tone as succinct as his
monosyllable.

But girls learn early to deal with the conversational
difficulties and recalcitrances of males under
stress of emotion.

"It means leaving school and Riceville
and--everything," said Mollie June.

John could not fail to catch the note of pitifulness
in her sentence.  If the prospective marriage
had been with any one less dazzling than George
Norman, he might have reacted more properly.  As
it was, he replied with a stilted impersonality
which might have been caught from the bright
stars shining through the bare branches under
which they walked.

"You will have a very rich and brilliant life,"
he said.

"I suppose so," said Mollie June.

They walked on, he still obediently clutching her
arm, in silence; conversation not accompaniable
with laughter is so difficult an art for youth.

Presently Mollie June tried again.

"Aren't you sorry I'm leaving the school--Mr. Merriam?"

"I'm very sorry indeed," responded "Professor"
Merriam.  "You ought to have stayed to graduate."

"I don't care about graduating," said Mollie June.

Again their footsteps echoed in the cold January
silence.

Then Mollie June made a third attempt:

"You look ever so much like Mr. Norman."

"I know it," said Merriam.  "We're related."

"Oh, *are you*?"

"On my mother's side.  We're second cousins.
But the two branches of the family have nothing
to do with each other now."

"He has the same hair and the same shape of
head and the same way of sitting and moving,"
Mollie June declared with enthusiasm, "and almost
the same eyes and voice.  Only his are----"

"Older!" said John Merriam rudely.

"Yes," said Mollie June.

Distances are not great in Riceville.  For this
reason the ceremony of "seeing home" is usually
termed by a circuitous route, sometimes involving
the entire circumference of the "nice" part of
the town.  But on this occasion John and Mollie
June had gone directly, as though their object had
been to arrive.  They reached her home--a matter
of two blocks from the church-before another word
had been said.

There Mollie June carefully extricated her
arm from his mechanical grasp and confronted him.

He looked at her face, peeping out of the fur
collar of her coat in the starlight, and for one
instant into her eyes.

She was saying: "I am very grateful to you,
Merriam, for all the help you have given
me--in--algebra."

He ought to have kissed her.  She wanted him
to.  He half divined as much--afterwards.

But the awkward, callow, Anglo-Saxon, rural,
pedagogical cub in him replied, "I am glad if I
have been able to help you in anything."

That, I judge, was too much for Mollie June.
She held out her little gloved hand.

"Good-bye, Mr. Merriam!"

He took her hand.  And now appears the advantage
of a college education, including amateur
dramatics and courses in English poetry and
romantic fiction.  He did what no other swain in
Riceville could have done.  He raised her hand to
his lips and kissed it!  At least he kissed the glove
which tightly enclosed the hand.

"Good-bye, Mollie June!" he said, using that
name for the first time.

Then he dropped her hand, somewhat suddenly,
I fear, turned abruptly, and walked rapidly away.

As to what Mollie June said or thought or felt,
how should I know?  There was nothing for her
to do but to go into the house, and that is what
she did.





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.. _`FRIENDLY STRANGERS`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   FRIENDLY STRANGERS

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John Merriam raised his eyes from the
table-cloth on which they had rested while these
images from the distant past--two and one-half
years ago--moved across the screen of his memory.
To his now mature perceptions the stupidity and
gaucherie of his own part in that scene--save for
the redeeming kissing of the glove--were clearly
apparent, and were for the moment almost as painful
to him as the fact that Mollie June was another
man's wife.

He glanced around, avoiding only the table at
which Mrs. Senator Norman sat.  The glory was
gone from the Peacock Cabaret.  The garishness
of the peacocks, the tin-panniness of the music, the
futility of beer and cigarettes and evening clothes,
were desolatingly revealed to him.  He put his
cigarette aside, to smoke itself up unregarded on
the ash tray.

It had been his duty to "forget," and it is neither
more nor less than justice to say that after a fashion
he had succeeded in doing so.  His winter and
spring, three years ago, had been miserable; but he
had undeniably enjoyed his summer vacation, and
had found interest in his work again in the fall.
To be sure, the edge was gone from his ambition.
He had stuck ploddingly at teaching, too indifferent
to try to better himself.  Still he had not been
actively unhappy.  But now----

He was diverted by the return of Waiter No. 73.
No need of play-acting now to conceal any
unsophisticated delight in his surroundings.  But he
must pull himself together.  He must not exhibit
to the world, as incarnated in Waiter No. 73, a
depression as boyish as his previous pleasure.  He
must still be the stoical, tranquil man of the world,
who knows women and tears them from his heart
when need be.  It was the same rôle--with a
difference!

"What next, sir?"

Merriam glanced hastily at the menu card and
ordered a steak with French fried potatoes and a
lettuce-and-tomato salad.  He was not up to an
attack on any unfamiliar viands.

As he gave his order he was aware of a party of
three persons, seated a little to his left--the
opposite direction from the fateful spot inhabited by
Mollie June,--who seemed to be taking particular
note of him.  And as he lit another cigarette after
the waiter had left him he noticed them again.
Unquestionably they were furtively regarding him.
Now and then they exchanged remarks of which
he was sure he was the subject.

The three persons included a square-jawed man
of about forty-five, a pale, benevolent-looking
priest and a very beautiful woman.  The woman
had not only shoulders and arms but also a great
deal of bosom and back, all dazzlingly, powderedly
fair and ideally plump.  She had black hair and
eyes--brilliantly, even aggressively, black.  Her
gown was a lavender silk net with spangles.  Her
age--well, she was certainly older than Mollie June
and certainly within, safely within, "the age at
which women cease to be interesting to men,"
whatever that age may be.

Our youthful man of the world was a little
embarrassed at first by the scrutiny of this gorgeous
trio.  He glanced quickly down at his own attire,
as a girl might have done.  But there could be
nothing wrong with his evening clothes.  (A man
is so safe in that respect.)  They were only five
years old, having been acquired, in a heroic burst of
extravagance, during his senior year in college.
He wanted to put his hand up to his white bow to
make sure it was not askew, but restrained himself.

Presently Merriam began to enjoy the attention
he was receiving.  If one must play a part, it is
pleasant to have an audience.  It helped him to keep
his eyes off Mollie June.  He began to give attention
to the smoking of his cigarette.  He handled
it with nonchalant grace.  He exhaled smoke
through his nostrils.  He recalled an envied
accomplishment of his college days and carefully blew
a couple of tolerably perfect smoke rings.  And he
wished that Mollie June would turn and see him
in his evening clothes.

Presently the clerical gentleman, after an earnest
colloquy with the square-jawed one, rose and came
across to Merriam's table, while the other two now
openly watched.

The priest rested two white hands on the edge
of the table and bent over him with a friendly
smile.

"Will you pardon a frank question from a
stranger?" he asked.

"I guess a question won't hurt me," said Merriam.

At this simple reply the cleric straightened up
quickly as if startled and looked at Merriam closely
and curiously.  Then he said:

"Are you by any chance related to Senator Norman?"

"Yes, I am," said Merriam.

"May I ask what the relationship is?"

Merriam told him.

"Thank you," said the priest.  "The resemblance
is really remarkable.  And we saw you looking at
Mrs. Norman.  Do you know her?"

"Yes.  I knew her before--before she--was married."

"I see.  Thank you so much."

The inquisitive priest returned to his friends,
who appeared to listen intently to his report.

At the same time Waiter No. 73 arrived with
Merriam's steak and salad.

He ate self-consciously, feeling himself still
under observation from the other table.  But when
he was half way through his salad his attention was
effectually distracted from those watchers.  For
Mollie June and her companion had risen to
go.

Merriam put down his fork and looked at her.
She was really beautiful to any eyes--so fresh and
young and alive amid the tawdry ennui of her
surroundings, a human girl among the labouring
ghosts of a *danse macabre*.  To Merriam she
was--what you will--radiant, divine.  He wished he had
not lost a moment from looking at her since he
first saw her.

A waiter had brought a fur cloak and now held
it for her.  As she adjusted it about her shoulders
she glanced around and saw Merriam.

For a moment she looked straight at him.  Merriam
would have sworn that her colour heightened
ever so little and then paled.  She smiled a
mechanical little smile, bowed slightly, spoke to her
companion, and threaded her way quickly among tables
to an exit.

"I beg your pardon!"

Merriam started and looked up--to find the
black-eyed, white-bosomed woman from the other
table standing beside him.  He was conscious of a
faint fragrance, which a more sophisticated person
would have recognised as that of an extremely
expensive perfume, widely advertised under the name
of a famous opera singer.

He rose mechanically, dropping his napkin.

"No, no," she smiled.  "Won't you sit down--and
let me sit down a moment, too?"

She took the chair opposite him.

"My name is Alicia Wayward," she said.  There
was a kind of deliberate sweetness in her tone.

John Merriam got back somehow into his chair
and looked at her, but did not reply.  His eyes saw
the face of Mollie June, peeping out of her furs, as
on that last night at Riceville, her changing colour,
her mechanical smile, and the hurrying away without
giving him a chance to go to her for a single
word.

"Won't you tell me your name?" said Alicia,
with the barest suggestion in her voice of
sharpness in the midst of sweet.

"John Merriam."

"And you are a second cousin of Senator Norman?"

"Yes."

"I am an old friend of Senator Norman's," said
Alicia.  "We are all friends of his."  She nodded
towards the other table.  "And we should very
much like to have a little private talk with you
about a very important matter.--How do you do,
Simpson?"

Merriam looked up again.  Waiter No. 73 was
standing over them.  But he was a transformed
being.  The ramrod had somehow been extracted from
his spine, and his stern features were
transfigured in an expression of happy and ingratiating
servility.

"Very well, Miss Alicia," he said.

"Simpson used to be my father's butler,"
explained Miss Wayward.  "We've never had so
a butler since."

"Thank you, Miss Alicia," said Simpson fervently.

"Send me the head waiter," said Miss Wayward.

"Yes, Miss Alicia," and Simpson departed
almost with alacrity.

"You are just ready for your dessert, I see," said
Alicia.  "I am going to ask the head waiter to
change us both to one of the private rooms and give
us Simpson to wait on us.  Then I can present you
to my friends, and we can have the private talk I
spoke of.  You don't mind, do you?"

Merriam thought of the "Follies."  But the idea
of the "Follies" bored him after seeing Mollie
June.  And one cannot refuse a lady.  He
recaptured some fraction of his manners.

"I shall be pleased," he said.

"Thank you," said Alicia, with augmented
sweetness.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN UNSCRUPULOUS REFORMER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN UNSCRUPULOUS REFORMER

.. vspace:: 2

The head waiter arrived.  Could they be
removed to a private dining-room?  Most
certainly they could.  Yes, Simpson should serve them.
Obviously anything that Miss Alicia Wayward desired
could be done, must be done, and it was done.

They ordered ices and *café noir*.

"And a liqueur?" suggested Alicia.

Merriam assented.

"What should you prefer?"

Now Merriam knew the name of just one
liqueur.  He made prompt use of that solitary
scrap of information.

"Benedictine, perhaps," he suggested, as who
should say, "Out of all the world's vintages my
mature choice among liqueurs is Benedictine."

"Good," smiled Alicia.  (I am afraid she was
not effectually deceived.)

Merriam was introduced first to Father Murray.

"He isn't a real Father," said Alicia.  "He's not
a Romanist.  Only a paltry Anglican.  But he's
so very, very High Church that a layman can
hardly tell the difference."

Father Murray was deprecatory but unruffled.
A Christian priest must forgive all things.

"This is Mr. Philip Rockwell of the Reform
League," said Alicia.  "His fame has doubtless
reached you.  'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.'"

His fame had not reached Merriam, but the latter
bowed and shook hands as though it had, instinctively
meeting the stare in the other man's eyes with
an unblinking steadiness of his own.

After the introductions Merriam glanced about
him with perhaps insufficiently concealed curiosity.
He had never been in a private dining-room before,
and this adventure was beginning to interest him.
It was better than spending his evening--his one
evening--in sad thoughts of Mollie June.

The room was just large enough to afford
comfortable space for a table for four persons, with a
small sideboard to serve from.  It was really rather
pretty.  Subdued purple hangings at the door and
windows and a frieze of small peacocks above the
plate rail indicated its affiliation, so to speak, with
the Peacock Cabaret.  There were attractive French
prints in garland frames on the walls.  The table
was charmingly laid, with a bowl of yellow roses
in the center, and the ices were already served.  On
the sideboard the coffee in a silver pot was bubbling
over an alcohol flame, and there was a long bottle
which Merriam correctly interpreted as the
container of his choice among liqueurs.

"This is much cosier, isn't it?" said Alicia.

She took the head of the table.

"Father Murray shall sit opposite me," she said,
"to see that I behave.  You, Mr. Merriman, shall
sit on my right, as the guest of honour.  That leaves
this place for you, Philip.  Reformers must be
content with what they can get."

Merriam mustered the gallantry to hold Alicia's
chair for her, and was warmed by the approving
smile with which she thanked him.  He had not
especially liked Alicia at first, but she grew upon
him.

They consumed ices, and Alicia conversed, in the
sprightly fashion she affected, with Merriam.  The
other two men hardly participated at all.

In the course of that conversation Alicia
artlessly, tactfully, but efficiently pumped Merriam.
By the time Simpson was pouring the sweet-scented
wine into thimble-like glasses she--and her
companions--were in possession of all the
substantial facts of his brief biography and had
guessed the secret of his heart.  They knew of his
boyhood on the farm, of his father's death, and his
mother's a few years later, of his college days, with
something of their athletic, dramatic, and fraternity
incidents, of his teaching at Riceville, of the
Riceville football and basket-ball teams, of the
occasion for this trip to Chicago--and of Mollie June.

At length the sherbet glasses were removed and
some of the coffees, including Merriam's, refilled,
and they all lit cigarettes.  Merriam was pleasantly
startled when Alicia too took a cigarette.  He
had read, of course, of women smoking, but he had
never seen it, or expected to see it with his own
eyes, except on the stage.  It was more shocking
to his secret soul than any amount of bosom and
back.

"You need not wait, Simpson," said Alicia.
"We'll ring if we need you again."

When the waiter had withdrawn Philip Rockwell
took the center of the stage.  He tilted back
in his chair and abruptly began to talk.  Part of
the time he looked straight ahead of him as if
addressing an audience, but now and again he turned
his head and aimed his discourse straight at
Merriam.  He made only a pretence of smoking.

"Mr. Merriam," he said, "by a curious chance--a
freak of nature, as it were--you, who have thus
far taken no part in the politics of the State and
Nation, are in a position to render a great service
this very night to the cause of Reform and
incidentally to Senator and Mrs. Norman."

"How so?" said Merriam.  He was rather on
his guard against Mr. Philip Rockwell.

"It is a long story, perhaps," said that
gentleman.  "I gathered when we were introduced that
you had heard of me.  But I was not sure how
much you have heard.  I am at the present time the
President of the Reform League of this city and its
guiding and moving spirit."

"And endowed with the superb modesty so
characteristic of reformers," interjected Alicia.

The reformer paid no attention to this frivolous
parenthesis.

"Miss Wayward," he continued, "alluded earlier
to my sobriquet--'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell.'  The
epithet was first applied to me derisively by
opposition newspapers.  But it is a true
description.  Indeed it was derived from my frequent use
of the phrase in my own speeches.  I believe that
to be successful, practically successful, Reform
must center its efforts on one thing at a time--not
waste its energies, its munitions, so to speak, by
bombarding the whole entrenched line of evil and
privilege at once, but concentrate its fire on one
exposed position after another--take that one
position--accomplish finally one definite thing--and
then go on to some other one definite thing.  Do
you get me?"

Merriam signified that he comprehended.

Father Murray was more enthusiastic.  "It is a
truly splendid idea," he volunteered.  "Since we
have adopted it, under the leadership of Mr. Rockwell,
the Reform League has really begun to do
things.  *To do things!*" he repeated, with an
almost mysterious emphasis.

"At the present time," Rockwell resumed, "the
one thing which the Reform League is undertaking
to *do* is to secure decent traction conditions in this
city--adequate service.  We have so far succeeded
that we have forced an unfriendly city council to
pass the new Traction Ordinance.  You are familiar
with the new Ordinance, Mr. Merriam?"

"Yes," said Merriam.  By which we must suppose
he meant that he had read headlines about it
in the Chicago papers.

"Those rascals," continued Rockwell, "never
would have passed it--the men who own them
would never have permitted them to pass it, no
matter how unmistakable the demand of the people
might be,--if they had not counted on one thing."

Merriam perceived that an interrogation was
demanded of him and took his cue.

"What is that?" he asked.

"They are counting," said Rockwell impressively,
"they are counting on Mayor Black.  They
have believed the whole time that he can be
depended on to veto it.  And they are right!  The
scoundrels usually are.  The Mayor, as every one
knows, is a mere puppet.  He will do as he is told.
Only, the League has made such a stir, the people
are so tremendously aroused, that he is frightened.
And so, before acting, before writing the veto,
which he has sense enough to see is likely to mean
political suicide, he is coming here to-night to see
Senator Norman, to get his instructions.  That's
what it amounts to.  Norman holds the State
machine in the hollow of his hand.  If Norman tells
him to veto, Black will veto.  It may be bad for him
with the voters if he does it, but it would be certain
political death for a man like him to cross Norman.
*And Norman will say, 'Veto!'*"

"I see," said Merriam.

Which was hardly true; he did not as yet see an
inch ahead of his nose into this thing, but he
thought it sounded well.

"Where do I come in, though?" he added,
belying his assumption of sagacity.

"That's my very next point," said Rockwell.

His chair came down on all fours.  He squared it
to the table, laid his neglected cigarette aside, put
his arms on the cloth, and looked very straight at
Merriam.

"Are you aware, Mr. Merriam, that you bear a
most striking physical resemblance to Senator Norman?"

"I have been told so," said Merriam.  "My
mother often spoke of it.  And--Mrs. Norman
mentioned it to me before she was married.  I have
seen his pictures, of course, in the papers.  I have
never seen him in person."  (This was true, for
John Merriam had, quite inexcusably, stayed away
from Mollie June's wedding.)

"He has never seen you, then?"

"He probably doesn't know of my existence."

"So much the better," said Rockwell.  "The
only difficulty then is Mrs. Norman.  And she can
be eliminated."

This facile elimination of Mollie June did not
make an irresistible appeal to Merriam, but he held
his tongue.

Alicia Wayward saw the reformer's mistake.

"Mr. Rockwell means," she threw in, "that Mrs. Norman
can be shielded from the difficulties of the
situation."

"Exactly," said Rockwell quickly.  "Mr. Merriam,"
he continued, "if you have never seen the
Senator with your own eyes, you can have no
realisation of the closeness of your resemblance to him.
Hair, eyes, nose, mouth, size, carriage, manner,
movement--it is truly wonderful.  And it is the
same with your voice.  Father Murray here says he
fairly jumped when you first spoke to him out in
the Cabaret when he went over to question you."

"He also says," interrupted Alicia, as if
mischievously, "that it is Providential."

"Please do not be irreverent, Miss Alicia," said
the priest.  "It does surely seem Providential--on
this night of all nights.  It surely seems so."

"Well," said Merriam, a trifle bluntly perhaps,
"I don't know what you mean by that.  If my
cousin and I look so much alike as you say, no
doubt it's quite remarkable.  Still such things
happen often enough in families.  What of it?"

"I have explained," said Rockwell, with an air of
much patience, "that Mayor Black is coming here,
to this hotel, to-night, to see Senator Norman about
the Ordinance, and that Norman will order him to
veto it.  We thought we had Norman fixed, but he
has gone over to the magnates--as he always does
in the end!  Black will do as he is bid, and it will
be a death blow.  We can never pass it over his
veto.  It means the total ruin of five years of work,
involving the expenditure of tens of thousands of
dollars.  And the cause of Reform in this city will
be dead for years to come.  The League will never
survive, if we fail at this last ditch.  It will
collapse."

"In short," said Alicia sweetly, "Mr. Rockwell
himself will collapse."

Rockwell took no heed of her.

"Half an hour ago," he said, "I was sitting
yonder in the Cabaret, dining with Miss Wayward and
Father Murray.  I was eating turtle soup and
olives"--he laughed theatrically,--"but I was a
desperate man.  I had no hope, no interest left in
life.  Then I looked up and saw you.  At first I
mistook you for Senator Norman--even I, who have
known the old hypocrite for a dozen years.  I stared
at you, wondering whether I should go over and
make one last personal appeal to you--to him.  And
then I realised that you could not be he.  For I knew
positively that he was dining in his room.  I looked
closer.  I saw that you were really a younger
man--not that massaged, laced old roué.  I stared on
in my amazement, till Miss Wayward and Father
Murray looked too, and Miss Wayward said, 'Why,
there's Senator Norman now.'  'By God!' said I,
'perhaps it is!'  Do you see, Mr. Merriam?"

"No," said Merriam, "I don't."

"Ah, but you will, you must," said Rockwell.
"Listen!"  He looked at his watch.  "It is now
twenty minutes past seven.  Norman is dining in
his room.  There is a man with him, a Mr. Crockett--one
of the dozen men who own Chicago.  He is as
much interested in the Ordinance as I am--on the
other side.  He is giving Norman his instructions,
for the Senator is Crockett's puppet, of course, as
much as the Mayor is Norman's.  Crockett will
leave promptly at a quarter to eight.  Mayor Black
is due at eight."

"How do you know these things?" interrupted
Merriam.

"It is my business to know things," said Rockwell.
"The fact is," he added, "I planned to burst
in on Norman and Black at their conference and
threaten them in the name of the Reform League.
It would have done no good, but I owed that much
to the League."

"And to yourself," said Alicia softly.

"And to myself, yes!" said Rockwell, infinitesimally
pricked at last.  But he hurried on:

"At ten minutes to eight, Mr. Merriam, I will
telephone Norman.  I will pretend to be old
Schubert, the Mayor's private secretary.  He has a dry,
clipped voice that is easy to imitate.  I will say
that the Mayor is sick at his house.  I will imply
that he is drunk.  He often is.  I will say he is not
too sick to veto the Ordinance before the Council
meets at nine, but that he insists on seeing Senator
Norman before he does it and asks that Norman
come out to his house.  I will say that I am sending
a car for him.  Norman will curse, but he will go.
He is under orders, too, you see.  At five minutes to
eight we will send up word that Mayor Black's car
is waiting for Senator Norman.  There will be a
car waiting.  The driver will be Simpson."

"I can fix it with the hotel people to get him off,"
said Alicia in response to a look from Merriam.
"He was a chauffeur once for a while.--And he will
do anything I ask him to," she added.

"Norman will go down and get into that car.
He will be driven, not to the Mayor's house, of
course, but to--a certain flat, where he will be
detained for several hours--very possibly all night."

"By force?" asked Merriam, rather sternly.

"Only by force of the affections," said Rockwell
suavely.  "The flat belongs, for the time being, to
a certain young woman, a manicurist by profession,
who is undoubtedly very pretty and in whom
Norman--takes an interest.  I happen to know that he
pays the rent of the flat."

Rockwell paused, but Merriam made no reply.
He blushed, subcutaneously at any rate, for Alicia
and Father Murray.  The latter indeed affected
inattention to this portion of Mr. Rockwell's
discourse.  But Alicia Wayward made no pretence of
either misunderstanding or horror.

In Merriam's mind a slight embarrassment
quickly gave place to anger.  That George Norman
after three years--how much sooner who could
tell?--should leave Mollie June for a--his mind paused
before a word too ancient and too frank for
professorial sensibilities.

Rockwell quickly resumed:

"As soon as Norman has gone I will take you to
his room.  We will put his famous crimson
smoking jacket on you and establish you in his big
armchair with a cigar and some whiskey and soda
beside you.  When Black comes he will find Senator
Norman--you.  All you will have to do is to be curt
and sulky, damn him a bit, and tell him to sign the
Ordinance.  He'll never suspect you.  As a matter
of fact, he doesn't know the Senator well--never
spoke with him privately above three times in his
life.  We'll have only side lights on.  He won't
stay.  He'll be mightily relieved about the
Ordinance and in a hurry to get away.  Then you
yourself can get away and catch your train
for--for----"

"Riceville," supplied Alicia.

"That will be a real adventure for you, young
man, and you will have saved the cause of Reform
in the city of Chicago!"

John Merriam smiled, frostily.

"The reasons, then, Mr. Rockwell, why I should
fraudulently impersonate a Senator of the United
States, who happens to be my cousin, and in his
name act in an important matter directly contrary
to his own wishes are for the fun of the adventure
and to save your Reform League from a setback.
Is that correct?"

"Philip," said Alicia quickly, "you and Father
Murray go for a walk.  I want to have a little talk
with Mr. Merriam alone.  Come back in twenty
minutes."

The implication of her last phrase was distinctly
flattering to Merriam if he had understood it.
Alicia Wayward would not have asked for more
than ten minutes with most men.

Rockwell smiled with lowered eyelids--a smile
which it was certainly a mistake for him to permit
himself, for it could not and did not fail to put
Merriam on his guard--against Alicia.

"Come, Murray," said Rockwell rising, "I should
like a breath of real air, shouldn't you?  And when
Miss Wayward commands----"  He waved his
hand grandly.  "Au revoir!"

And he and the priest hastily departed.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   ALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN

.. vspace:: 2

"Take another cigarette, won't you, Mr. Merriam?"
said Alicia, as the curtain at the
door fell behind Rockwell and Father Murray.

"Thank you," said Merriam.

He was excited, of course.  All the stimulations
of his evening, including more coffee than he was
used to and an unaccustomed taste of wine and
mystery and intrigue, could not fail to tell on the
blood of youth.  But he felt extraordinarily calm,
and he was not in the least afraid of Alicia.  He
had not fully made up his mind about the proposed
adventure, but Alicia knew several things about the
wantings of men.

"Let me light it for you," she pursued.

She struck a match, which somehow she already
had out of its box, put out a white hand and arm,
took the cigarette from his fingers, put it to her own
lips and lighted it, and handed it back to him.

"Thank you," said Merriam again, just a little
confused.  Hesitatingly, with an undeniable trace
of thrill, he put the cigarette to his own lips.  Poor
boy!  It was an uneven contest!

Alicia deftly moved her chair to the corner of the
table, bringing it not very close but much closer to
Merriam's.  Close enough for him to catch the
faint, unfamiliar perfume.  She put out her hand
again and drew one of the yellow roses from their
bowl.  She rested both arms on the table and
played with the rose, drawing it through her fingers
and up and down one white, rounded forearm.

"Mr. Merriam," she said, "perhaps you have
wondered why I am in this thing."

As a matter of fact he had neglected to be curious
on that point, but now he was.

"Yes," he said.

"Mr. Rockwell converted me.  Oh, I can see you
don't like him.  You think he is hard and
unscrupulous and self-seeking.  Well, he is.  All men
are--at least, almost all men are"--she glanced
at Merriam.  "But he is a genuine reformer for all
that.  He is heart and soul for what he calls the
People.  He works tremendously for them all his
time.  And he is shrewd and fearless."

Now it is probable that Alicia's little character
sketch presented a very just picture of Philip
Rockwell.  But it did not appeal to Merriam as true,
much less as likable.  He was too young.  He still
wanted his heroes all heroic and his villains naught
but black and red with almost visible horns and
tail.

He did not reply.  He could not, however, remove
his eyes from the felicitous meanderings of the
yellow rose.

"Well," sighed Alicia, "I was going to tell you
how Mr. Rockwell converted me.  You see, my
father--but you don't know who my father is, do
you?  The newspapers always refer to him us 'the
billionaire brewer.'  They like the alliteration, I
suppose.  He's very busy now converting all his
plants for the manufacture of near-beer."  (She
laughed as if that were a good joke.)  "His youngest
sister, my Aunt Geraldine, was Senator Norman's
first wife.  So I know George Norman well.
I was quite a favourite of his when he used to come
to our house before poor Aunt Jerry died.  So
Philip wanted me to 'use my influence' with
Mr. Norman about his precious Ordinance.  I wasn't
much interested at first.  I hadn't ridden in a
street car, of course, in years."

"Hadn't you?" said Merriam, quite at a loss.

"No. When I go out I take either the limousine
or the electric.  So I really didn't know much about
conditions, except, of course, from the cartoons
about strap-hangers in the newspapers.  Philip
saw that that was why I was unsympathetic.  So
he dared me to go for a street-car ride with him.
Of course I wouldn't take a dare.

"It was about five o'clock in the afternoon.  We
took the limousine down to Wabash and Madison.
There Philip made me get out on the street corner.
It was horrid weather--a cold, blowy spring rain.
But Philip was hard as a rock.  He told the
chauffeur to drive to the corner of Cottage Grove and
Thirty-Ninth Street and wait for us.  And *we*
waited for a car.  It was terrible.  We stood out in
the street under the Elevated--by one of the posts,
you know--for a little protection from the train.
We hadn't any umbrella.  The wind tore at my
skirts and my hair.  The trains going by overhead
nearly burst your ears with noise.  And automobiles
and great motor trucks crashed past within a
few inches of us and splashed mud and nearly
stifled us with gasoline smells.  And a crowd of
other people got around us and knocked into us and
walked on our feet and stuck umbrellas in our eyes.
For a long time no car at all came.  Then three or
four came together, but they were all jammed full
to the steps, so that we couldn't get on.

"I was ready to give up.  I told Philip so.

"'Let's go into Mandel's,' I begged, 'and you can
call a taxi.'

"'No you don't,' he said.  'Here, we can get on
this one.'

"Another car had stopped about twenty feet
from us.  We joined a kind of football rush for the
rear end.  I tripped on my skirt when I tried to
climb the steps, but Philip caught me by the arm
and dragged me on, as though I had been a sack of
flour.

"Then for a long time we couldn't get inside but
had to stand on the platform wedged like olives in
a bottle.  It was so dark and cold and noisy, and
everybody was so wet and crushed and smelly.  A
man beside me smelled so strong of tobacco and
whiskey and of--not having had a bath for a long
time, that I was nearly ill.  And I thought a poor
little shop girl on the other side of me was going to
faint.

"After a long time some people got out at the
other end of the car--at Twelfth Street, Philip
says,--and some of us squeezed inside into the
crowded aisle.  Inside it was warm--hot, in fact,--but
still smellier.  Philip got me a strap, and I
hung on to it.  I don't care for strap-hanger jokes
any more.  It's terribly tiring, and it pulls your
waist all out of shape.

"'Bet you won't get a seat,' grinned Philip.

"Of course I was bound then that I would.  I
looked about.  Some of the men who were seated
were reading papers the way they are in the
cartoons.  Others just sat and stared in front of them.
I didn't blame them much.  They looked tired, too.
But I had to get a seat to spite Philip.  The young
man in the one before which I was standing, or
hanging, looked rather nice.  I made up my mind
to get his seat.  I had to look down inside his
newspaper and crowd against his legs.  At last, after
looking up at me three or four times, he got up with
a jerk as if he had just noticed me and took off his
hat, and I smiled at him and at Philip and sat
down.  But he kept staring at me so that I wished
I had let him alone.

"I made the poor little shop girl sit on my lap.
Nobody gave her a seat.  I suppose she wouldn't
work for it the way I did.  She was a pretty little
thing, too.  Just a tiny bit like Mollie June
Norman.  Not so pretty, of course, but the same type.

"Then there was nothing to do but wait till we
got to Thirty-Ninth Street.  Ages and ages.  They
ought to have been able to go to the South Pole and
back.

"When we did get there I put the little girl in
my seat--she was going to Eighty-First Street, poor
little thing,--and Philip and I got out and went
home in the limousine, and he told me all about how
the Ordinance would better things, and I promised
to help him if I could."

"And you did?" said Merriam.  He was
touched--whether by Alicia's own sufferings in the
course of her remarkable exploration or by those of
the little shop girl who looked like Mollie June,
does not, perhaps, matter.  He now quite fully
liked Alicia.  He saw that, in spite of her extreme
décolleté and her cigarettes, she had a generous
heart.

"I tried to," replied Alicia.  "I saw George
Norman, and I did my best--my very best.  But he
wouldn't promise anything.  He only laughed and
tried to kiss me."

"Tried to kiss you!" echoed Merriam, naïvely aghast.

"Yes," said Alicia, with her eyes demurely on
the rose between her fingers.

And John Merriam, looking at her, grasped
clearly the possibility that a "boy senator" with
whom Alicia had done her very best might try to
kiss her.

"So that is one reason why I am in it to the
death," Alicia went on, "because George Norman--wouldn't
listen to me.  And I don't want Philip to fail."

She laid one hand quickly over one of Merriam's
hands, startling him so that he nearly drew his
away.  "I love him," she said, and her eyes shone
effulgently into Merriam's.  "He hasn't much
money, and he is hard and--and conceited, but he is
courageous.  He dares anything.  He dared to
take me on that street-car ride.  He would dare to
burst in on the Senator and Mayor Black to-night.
He dares think up this plan.  A woman loves a Man."

There is no doubt that Alicia pronounced "man"
with a capital letter, and she looked challengingly
at Merriam.

"We are to be married next month," she added.

"Oh!" gasped Merriam, his eyes staring in spite
of himself at her hand that lay on his.

The hand flew away as quickly as it had alighted,
but he still felt its soft coolness on his fingers as she
said:

"Of course all this is why *I* am in it, not why you
should be.  You can't do it just to please me.  But
you really ought to think of all those poor people,
like the little shop girl--all the tired men and
women--millions of them, Philip says--who have
to endure that torture every night after long days
of hard work.  It's truly awful, and it might all be
so much better if we only got the Ordinance.  You
could get it for them in one little half hour!"

She looked hopefully at Merriam.  He was in
fact hesitant.  To have the fun of the thing, to
gratify this strange, attractive Alicia, and to render
an important service to the population of a great
city--it was tempting.

"There's another thing," Alicia hurried on.
"You knew Mollie June Norman.  She was one of
your students.  I think you ought to do it for her
sake."

"Why so?"  Merriam's question came swift and sharp.

"Because if Senator Norman kills the Ordinance
it will be his ruin.  It will cost him Chicago's vote
in the next election, and he can't win on the
Down-State vote alone."

"I thought Rockwell said the League would collapse."

Possibly Alicia had forgotten this.  But she only
shrugged her shoulders.

"It may or it mayn't.  But either way the people
are aroused.  Philip swears they will beat Norman
if he betrays them now.  He is sure they can and
will.  And if the 'boy senator' were unseated and
had to retire to private life it would be terrible for
Mollie June.  He's bad enough to live with as it is."

At this point Merriam was visited by a sudden
and splendid idea.  Since he did not disclose it to
Alicia, I feel in honour bound to conceal it for the
present from the reader.

Alicia detected its presence in his eyes and
judiciously kept silent.

It took about ten seconds for that idea to grow
from nothingness into full flower.  For perhaps
five seconds longer Merriam inwardly contemplated
its unique beauty.  Then he said:

"I'll do it!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`STAGE-SETTING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   STAGE-SETTING

.. vspace:: 2

Alicia gave him no time for reconsideration
or after-thoughts.

"Good!" she cried, "I was sure you would."

She was on her feet in an instant, and as he got
to his she held out her hand.  Merriam took it--to
shake hands on their bargain was his thought.  But
Alicia never exactly shook hands.  She touched or
pressed or squeezed according to circumstances.
On this occasion it was a warm, clinging squeeze.
Her other hand patted Merriam's shoulder.

"I was sure you would," she repeated.  "No
Man"--again the capital letter was unmistakable--"could
have resisted--the--the opportunity."

The curtain at the door was lifted, and Philip
Rockwell's voice said: "May I come in?  The
twenty minutes are up."

They were.  Just up.  Alicia had done her part
in exactly the fraction of an hour she had given
herself.  No vaudeville act could have been more
precisely timed.

"Yes.  Come in, dear," said Alicia.  "Mr. Merriam
will do it.  We were just shaking hands on it."

Rockwell crossed the room in a rush and caught
Merriam's hand as Alicia relinquished it.  He
pumped vigorously.  In his eyes shone the
unmistakable light of that genuine enthusiasm which
Alicia had described to her skeptical auditor.

"You're the right sort," he cried.  "You are
doing a great thing, Mr. Merriam.  You will never
regret it.  But I can't thank you now," he added,
dropping Merriam's hand in mid-air, so to speak.
"It's ten minutes of eight.  That money-bag,
Crockett, came out of the elevator just before I
came back.  I have a car at the Ladies' Entrance."

"With Simpson?" asked Alicia.

"Yes.  I had to get things ready.  The time was
so short.  I fixed the head waiter.  Simpson seemed
ready enough.  Has some old grudge against Norman,
I think."

"Yes," said Alicia, "he has.  I'm a little afraid--I
wish I could have seen him.  Never mind.  It
can't be helped.  Where's Father Murray?"

"Watching to buttonhole the Mayor if he should
come too soon."

He looked critically for a moment at Merriam,
seemed satisfied, and crossed to the telephone on the
sideboard.

"I'll ring up the curtain," he said.

He laughed boyishly in his excitement and new
hope.  He seemed very different now from the
hard-eyed, middle-aged fellow of an hour ago.  Merriam
saw how Alicia might admire him.

"Give me Room Three-Two-Three," he said into
the telephone, his eyes smiling at them.

A moment later a harsh, dry old man's voice was
saying:

"Is this Senator Norman?--This is Mr. Schubert,
private secretary to Mayor Black.  The Mayor
is sick.--I can't help it, sir.  He's sick all right.
He's out here at his house.--Yes, he can veto the
Ordinance all right if it's necessary.  But he won't
do it without seeing you first.  He wants you to
come out.  He's sent a car for you.  It ought to be
down there at the Ladies' Entrance by now.--No,
it won't do any good to call him up.  I'm here at
his house now.  He's in bed.  And he won't veto
unless he sees you.  Really, sir, if you'll pardon
me, you'd better come.--Thank you, sir!"

Rockwell clicked the receiver triumphantly into
its hook.

"That's done," he said.  "Alicia, dear, go up to
the lobby on the women's side and watch the
hallway leading to the Ladies' Entrance.  Norman
should pass out that way within five minutes.
Follow him far enough to make sure that Simpson
gets him.  And then let us know.  Meanwhile I'll
coach Mr. Merriam a little."

"Right," said Alicia.

She moved to the door.  The eyes of both men
followed her.  When Alicia moved the eyes of men
did follow.  And she knew it.  At the doorway she
turned and blew a kiss, which might be said to fall
with gracious impartiality between her lover and
the younger man.  It was a pretty exit.

"She's a splendid girl," said Rockwell, his eyes
lingering on the curtain that had cut her off from
them.

"Yes," said Merriam.

Rockwell, still by the sideboard, reached for the
long bottle.

"Have another glass of this?"

"I don't mind," said Merriam.  The fact is, a bit
of stage fright had come in for him when Alicia
went out.

"There's not much I can tell you," Rockwell said,
as he poured out the yellow fluid.  "You'll have to
depend mostly on the inspiration of the moment.
You look the part all right.  Your voice is all right,
too.  Act as grumpy as you like.  Damn him about
a bit.--You can swear?" he asked hastily.  A
sudden horrible doubt of pedagogical capabilities had
crossed his mind.

Now Merriam was not a profane man, but some
of his fraternity brethren had been.  Also he
remembered the vituperative exploits of his football
coach between halves when the game was going
badly.

"Swear?" he cried, as harshly as possible.  "Of
course I can swear, you damn fool!"

For three seconds Rockwell was startled.  Then
he laughed.

"Fine!" he cried.  "You'll do it!  All there is
to it, really, is to tell him to sign the Ordinance and
to get out.  He may ask about Crockett.  If he
wants to know why he's changed his mind, tell
him it's none of his damn business.  If he refers
to a Madame Couteau, you must look pleased.
She's the pretty little manicurist whom Norman
will be on his way to visit.  Black knows of that
affair, and he knows Norman likes to talk about it.
So he may drag it in with the idea of getting on
your blind side.  You can tell him to shut up, of
course, but you must act gratified."

"Yes," said Merriam in a noncommittal tone.

But Rockwell did not notice.  He was sipping
the Benedictine, with his mind on his problem.

"That's all I can think of," he said in a moment.
"I'll be in the next room--the bedroom of the suite,
you know,--and if you should get into deep water,
I'll burst in, just as I meant to on the real Senator,
and pull you out.  We ought to get it over in fifteen
minutes at the outside and get you off.  There's
just the least chance in the world, of course, that
Senator Norman might get away from Simpson and
come back.  And there's Mrs. Norman."

"Where will she be?" asked Merriam as he took
a rather large sip of his cordial.

"She's in the lobby now with Miss Norman--the
Senator's sister, you know,--listening to the
orchestra."  (Merriam vaguely recalled the elderly woman
whom he had seen with Mollie June in the
Cabaret.)  "The Senator was going to take them to the
theater after he had finished with Black."

"What will they do when he doesn't show up?"
Merriam inquired; but to all appearances he was
chiefly interested at the moment in the best of
liqueurs.

"Probably go without him.  She's used to George
Norman's broken engagements by now."

"I see," said Merriam without expression.

"Alicia and Murray will keep an eye on them, of
course," Rockwell added.

And then both men jumped.  It was only the
telephone, but conspiracy makes neurasthenics of
us all.

Rockwell answered it.

"Yes.--Good.--That's all right.--Oh!--Yes,
we'll go at once."

He turned excitedly to Merriam.

"It's Alicia.  Norman has come down and got
into Simpson's car.  Mrs. Norman is still in the
lobby.  And the Mayor has come in.  Murray's got
him, but he won't be able to hold him long.  We
must go right up to the room.  Come--Senator!"

Merriam followed out of the private dining-room
and down the corridor at a great pace into a main
hallway and to an elevator.

Several people looked hard at Merriam.  One
important-looking elderly man stopped and held out
his hand:

"How are you, Senator?"

But Rockwell crowded rudely between them.

"Excuse me, Colonel, but we must catch this
car.--Very urgent!" he called as the door
clicked.

And Merriam had the presence of mind to add,
"Look you up later!"

"Good----" Rockwell began as they stopped at
the main floor, but he paused on the first word with
his mouth open.

A very large man, large every way, in evening
clothes, with a fine head of white hair and an air of
conscious distinction, was stepping into the car.
He saw Merriam and Rockwell.  Then instantly he
appeared not to have observed them, hesitated,
backed gracefully out of the little group that was
entering the elevator, and was gone.

The car smoothly ascended.

"Three!" said Rockwell to the elevator man.
Then to Merriam he whispered, "That was the
Mayor!  He's got away from Murray."

"Ask for your key," whispered Rockwell, as they
stepped out.

For five protracted steps Merriam's mind
struggled frantically after the room number.  He had
just grasped it (3-2-3!) when he perceived that his
perturbation had been unnecessary.

For the floor clerk--a pretty blonde of about
thirty--was looking at him with her sunniest smile.

"Your key, Senator?"

"Yes, please," he managed to say.

As she handed him the key her fingers lightly
touched his for a second, and she said in a low tone,
"The violets are lovely."

He saw that she was wearing a large bunch of
those expensively modest flowers at her waist and
understood that his cousin's extra-marital interests
might not be limited to Madame Couteau.

He lingered just a moment and replied in a tone
as low as her own, "They look lovely where they
are now."

But an appalling difficulty loomed over him even
as he murmured.  For he did not know whether
Room 323 lay to the right or the left, and if he
should start in the wrong direction----

But Rockwell knew and was already moving to
the left.  Merriam followed.  In his relief he
smiled brightly back at the floor clerk.

At the corner where the hall turned Rockwell
stopped, and Merriam, coming up with him, read
"323" on the door before them.  Both men looked
up at the transom.  It was dark.

"In!" said Rockwell.

Merriam inserted the key, turned it, and
cautiously opened the door a couple of inches,
becoming, as he did so, thrillingly conscious of the
burglarious quality of their enterprise.

No light or sound came from within.

For only three or four seconds Rockwell listened.
Then he pushed the door wide, stepped past
Merriam, and felt for the switch.

"You haven't invited me in, Senator," he said as
the room went alight, "but I'm a forward sort of
fellow.--Come inside, and close the door," he added.

Merriam pushed the door shut behind him and
stared about.  The apartment was probably the
most gorgeous he had ever seen.  The walls were a
soft cream colour, the woodwork white, the carpet
and hangings and lampshades rose.  Most of the
furniture was mahogany, some of it upholstered in
rose-coloured tapestry.  On a table half way down
one side of the room stood a bowl of red roses.  In
the wall opposite Merriam, between the windows,
was a fireplace of white marble, containing a gas
log, with a large mirror above the mantel in a frame
of white and gold.  Before this fireplace stood a
huge upholstered easy chair, with a pink-shaded
floor lamp on one side of it and a small mahogany
tabaret on the other.

While Merriam was endeavouring to appreciate
this magnificence, Rockwell quickly crossed the
sitting room and passed through a door at one side.
After a moment he returned, crossed the room
again, and disappeared through a second door.
Reëmerging, he announced triumphantly, "No one
in the bedrooms!"

But Merriam's eyes rested, fascinated, on a
garment which Rockwell had brought back with him
from the second bedroom--a luxurious smoking
jacket of a most lurid crimson colour, which clashed
outrageously with the rose and pinks of the
senatorial sitting room.

Rockwell grinned at the look on Merriam's face.

"A historic garment, sir," he declared.  "The
Boy Senator's crimson smoking jacket is a household
word with most of the six million souls of this
commonwealth of Illinois.  Off with your tails, sir,
and into it!"

"Hurry!" he cried, as Merriam hesitated.  "The
Mayor will be here any minute."

"Why didn't he come up in the elevator with
us?" Merriam asked while changing.

"All because of me, sir," replied Rockwell, in
excellent spirits.  "The Mayor abhors me and all
my works so sincerely that I feel I have not lived
in vain.--Now, then, sit in that big chair before
the fireplace.  Here, light this cigar.  I'll start the
gas log going and bring in the tray with the siphon
and glasses and rye that I saw in the other room.--Ah!"

The telephone had rung, and Merriam had leapt
out of his chair.

"Answer it," said Rockwell.

Merriam stepped to the telephone, which was on
the wall, laid down his cigar, gripped his nerve
hard, and put the receiver to his ear:

"Hello!"

A deep voice, boomingly suave, replied:

"Senator Norman?"

"Yes."

"This is Mr. Black.  Have you got rid of Rockwell yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Well, can't you throw him out?  I am due at
the Council meeting at nine, of course.  And I
don't care to discuss--matters--with you in his
presence, naturally.  When shall I come up?"

Now the Mayor's rather long speech had given
Merriam time to think.  He recalled his great idea,
and a new inspiration, as to ways and means, came
to him.

"Eight-thirty," he replied curtly.

"But, good God!" cried the Mayor, "that gives
us so little time.  Can't you----"

"I said eight-thirty, damn you!"

And Merriam hung up and turned to face Rockwell
at his elbow.

"But why eight-thirty?" demanded the latter as
soon as he understood that it had been the Mayor.
"Man alive, we ought to be gone by then!  What
are we to do with the next twenty minutes?  You
must have lost your head.  Call him again.  Call
the desk and have him paged and told to come
right up."

Without a word Merriam turned to the telephone
again and asked for the desk.

But a moment later he gave Philip Rockwell one
of the major surprises of the latter's life.  For what
he said was:

"Please page Mrs. George Norman, with the
message that Senator Norman would like to see her
right away in their rooms.  Repeat that,
please.--That's right.  Thank you!"

"What in hell!" cried Rockwell, belatedly released
by the click of the receiver from a paralysis
of astonishment.

Merriam picked up his cigar, walked back to the
easy chair, and seated himself comfortably.  He
was excited now to the point of a quite theatrical
composure.

"Nothing in hell," he said.  "Quite the contrary,
in fact.  I want to have a few minutes' conversation
with Mrs. Norman.  That's all."

"See here!" said Rockwell.  "What funny business
is this?  I won't have----"

"Won't you?  All right.  Just as you say.  If
you don't like the way I'm playing my part, I'll
drop it and walk right out of that door.  I have a
ticket for the theater to-night.  I can still be in
time."

The other man stared and gulped.  It was hard
for him to realise that this young cub was master
of the situation, and not he, Rockwell.

"But this is serious!" he cried.  "The
Ordinance!  The Reform League!  The whole city of
Chicago!  You can't risk these for----"

He stopped.  Then:

"Do you realise, you young fool, that if we're
caught in this room, it will mean jail for both
of us?"

But Merriam in his present mood was incapable
of realising anything of the sort.  In his mind's
eye he saw Mollie June stepping into the elevator
and saving in a voice of heavenly sweetness to the
happy elevator man, "Three, please!"

An outer crust of his consciousness made pert
reply to Rockwell:

"That would be bad for the Reform League,
wouldn't it?" and added, "But you're willing to
risk it for the Ordinance?"

"Yes, I am," began Rockwell, "but----"

"Would you risk it for Alicia?" Merriam interrupted.

"What has Alicia got to do with it?"

But he understood, and knew that argument was
useless, and stared in helpless anger and alarm
while the younger man carefully, grandly blew a
beautifully perfect smoke ring into the air.

It was the youngster who spoke, still theatrically
calm:

"You'd better go into the bedroom.  She'll be
here in a moment.  Shut the door, please.  And
keep away from it!"

It was one of the secrets of Philip Rockwell's
success in politics that, masterful as he was, he knew
when to yield.  He took a step towards one of the
bedrooms.

"Make it short," he pleaded.

"Eight-thirty!" said Merriam.

A gentle knocking sounded at the door.

Merriam was on his feet without volition of his
own, while Rockwell, almost as instinctively,
slipped into the bedroom.

Then the younger man recovered himself, sat
down, his feet to the gas log and his back to the
door, and called, "Come in!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BOY AND GIRL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   BOY AND GIRL

.. vspace:: 2

The door was opened and closed.  John Merriam's
straining ears could catch no definite
sound of footsteps or skirts, and he did not dare to
look around.  Yet by some sixth sense, it seemed,
he was aware of Mollie June's progress half way
across the room and aware that she had stopped,
some feet away from him.

"What is it--George?" she asked.

It was only too clear that Mollie June's lord and
master was not in the habit of sending for her.

"Where is--Miss Norman?"

Merriam was conscious that Senator Norman
probably did not refer to his sister in that fashion,
but he did not know her given name.

"Aunt Mary?  I left her in the lobby.  Did you
want her too?"

There was a note of eagerness in the question.

"No!"

Silence.  Mollie June stood waiting in the center
of the room.  The significance of her failure to
approach her husband was unmistakable.

Then he said: "Would you very much mind if
you should miss the theater to-night?"

"Why--no.  Is there anything the matter, George?"

"Not for me," said Merriam, and he rose and
faced her.

"I was afraid--"  She stopped, looked hard.

"George, you look--oh!"

She passed her hand across her eyes.  It was a
stage gesture, but when stage situations occur in
real life the conventional "business" of the boards
is often justified.

She looked again.

"Mr. Merriam!"

John Merriam stepped quickly forward.  It occurred
to him that she might faint.  He had read
many novels.

But Mollie June did nothing of the sort.

"Mr. Merriam!" she cried again.  "How do you
come here?  Where is--Mr. Norman?  How did
you get in *that*?"

She pointed to the famous smoking jacket.  Her
bewilderment was increasing.  She looked nervously
about, as if suspecting that Merriam, for the
sake of the crimson garment, had murdered her
husband and concealed his body.

Merriam had stopped.  Almost he might have
wished that she had fainted.  It would have been
delicious to carry her in his arms and place her in
the Senator's easy chair and bring water and when
her eyes opened wonderingly upon him softly
whisper her name.  As it was he could only say
formally:

"Let me take your cloak--Mrs. Norman--won't
you?  And sit down."

Mechanically she let him take the opera cloak
from her shoulders, and when he caught hold of the
senatorial chair and swung it around and pushed it
towards her she sat tremblingly erect on the edge of
it.  Her eyes dwelt upon his face as if fascinated.

"Isn't it funny you look so *much* alike?  I
never realised it--so much.  But--where is *he*?
Why----?"

Merriam caught up a small chair, placed it in
front of hers, and sat down.

"Listen, Mollie June," he said pleadingly, using
unconsciously the name that ran in his thoughts.

His plan, as it had taken shape while he talked
with Mayor Black on the telephone, was to tell her
in advance of Rockwell's plot and to carry it
through only with her approval or consent--for was
not his first loyalty to her?  His original idea, and
his real motive, of course, had been only to see her.
And now that he had her there he found he hated to
waste time on explanations.  But there was nothing
for it.  She could not be at ease or clear in her
mind until she understood.  So, rapidly and candidly,
he related how at the instance of Mr. Rockwell
the Senator had been decoyed away, while he
was there to impersonate him with Mayor Black, so
that the latter should sign instead of vetoing the
Traction Ordinance.  Then he waited for he knew
not what--amazement, fright, anger, dissuasion.

But Mollie June did not seem much interested in
traction ordinances.  Presumably Senator Norman
had not cared to educate his young wife about
political matters.

"Why did you send for *me*?" she asked.

Her question was almost too direct for him.  He
could not say, to ask her approval of the plan
against her husband.

"I had to see you," was all he could reply.

"Why?"

But she knew the real reason.  The turning of
her eyes away from him confessed it.

It was his chance to say, "Because I love you."  An
older man might have said it.  But the young
are timid and conventional--not bold and reckless,
as is alleged.  He remembered that she was another
man's wife and only spoke her name:

"Mollie June!"

Perhaps that did as well.  In fact it was, in the
reticent dialect of youth, the same thing.

She looked at him a moment, then quickly away
again.

"You never called me that but once before--to-night,"
she said.

At first he found no answer.  His mind scarcely
sought one.  He was absorbed in merely looking at
her.  She was indeed girlishly perfect as she sat
there, almost primly upright, in her white frock,
her slender figure framed in the rose-coloured
tapestry of the big chair's back and arms, which gave
an effect as of a blush to her cheeks and to the white
shoulders which he had never seen before except
across the spaces of the Peacock Cabaret.  To the
eyes of middle age she would have been, perhaps,
merely "charming."  In his she shone with the
divine radiance of Aphrodite.  And his were right,
of course.

He was almost trembling when at length he said:

"That was on--that last night."

"Yes," said Aphrodite, who is always chary of
speech.

Suddenly he saw that her averted face was wistful, sad.

"Are you happy, Mollie June?" he cried.

Though she turned only partly to him he saw that
her eyes were more a woman's eyes than he had
known them and were full of tears.

"Not--very," she said.

He sat dumbly on his chair, full of pain for her,
yet not altogether saddened that she should not be
entirely happy with another man.

But now her face was fully towards him, and her
eyes had become dry and looked past him.

"Oh, Mr. Merriam--you don't know!  I can't
tell you----"

He was filled with horror--almost boyishly
terrified--by such dim visions as a man may have of
what her lot might be.

"If I could only help you!" he cried, as earnestly
as all the other separated lovers in the world have
said those very words.

The eyes that looked beyond him came back to his
face.  The Mollie June whom he had known had
had her girlish poise, and this more tragic Mollie
June did not lose her self-control for long.

"You *have* helped me--Mr. Merriam.  Oh, I am
glad you brought me here!  When I saw you in--the
Cabaret, I just ran away from you.  I couldn't
even let you speak to me.  Afterwards I waited
upstairs in the lobby.  I thought--I might see you
there.  But you didn't come.  Then I thought
George had sent for me!"

She stopped as if that was a climax.

Merriam leaned forward.  He wanted to put his
hand over one of hers that lay on the arm of her
chair, but did not dare to.  His tongue, however,
was released at last.

"If ever I can help you in any way, Mollie June,
you must let me know.  I would do anything for
you.  I will always be ready."

He paused abruptly, though only for a second.
A dark thought had crossed his mind: after all the
"Boy Senator" was an old man (from the standpoint
of twenty-eight), and leading a life unhealthy
for old men.  He hurried on:

"I will wait for you always.  Perhaps some
day----"

Did she comprehend his meaning?  He could not
tell, and he did not know whether to hope she did or
did not.  But stress of conflicting emotions made
him venturesome.  He did put his hand over hers.

Hers did not move.

His fingers slipped under hers, ready to raise her
hand.

"That last night in Riceville, Mollie June, I
kissed your--glove.  To-night I want to kiss your
hand--to make me yours--if you should need me."

She did not draw her hand away, but she said:

"You oughtn't to--now--Mr. Merriam."

The formal name by which she had continually
addressed him pricked.

"Won't you call me 'John,' Mollie June, just
for this quarter of an hour before the Mayor
comes?"

"Oh, the Mayor!" she cried in alarmed remembrance.

"Call me 'John,' dear--for fifteen minutes!"

In his voice and eyes were both entreaty and
command, and Mollie June could not resist them.

"John!" she whispered.

And he raised her hand and bent quickly forward,
and his lips pressed her fingers.  A bare second.
Yet it was in his mind a solemn, a sacramental kiss.
He straightened up triumphant, happy.  Youth
asks so little.

"Now you know you have a right to me!" he
cried.  "To send for me.  To use me any way, any
time!"

There came a loud knocking at the door.

Mollie June started half way out of the chair and
then sank back.  Merriam, on his feet and part
way across the floor, stopped confused.  He
perceived that he ought to get Mollie June out of the
room.

The knocking resounded again.  And immediately
the door was tried and opened, and a man stepped
in.  It was the large man with the white hair who
had started to enter the elevator--Mayor Black.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PASSAGES WITH MAYOR BLACK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   PASSAGES WITH MAYOR BLACK

.. vspace:: 2

Mayor of the great city of Chicago was
hurriedly apologetic:

"I beg your pardon, Senator.  You said eight-thirty,
you know, and it's that now.  I came up and
knocked.  Evidently you did not hear.  A man I
met in the lobby told me that you had left the hotel
in a taxi half an hour ago.  He said he saw you go.
So I tried the door and when it opened stepped in,
just to make sure.  I am sorry to have intruded."

Apparently, however, he did not intend to withdraw.

Mollie June crouched frightened in her chair, but
Merriam was rapidly pulling himself together.

"It is I who should apologise for keeping you
waiting, Mayor Black," he said.  "I will ask
Mrs. Norman to excuse us.  Will you step into the next
room for a few minutes, Mollie June?  We shall
not be long."

He went back to her chair and held out his hand.

She took it and rose.  Her spirit, too, was reasserting
itself.  She faced the Mayor with a smile:

"Good evening, Mr. Black."

"Good evening, Mrs. Norman."  He bowed gallantly.
"I am very sorry----"

"Oh," she cried lightly, one would have said
happily, "business is business, I know."  Then to
Merriam: "You won't belong?"

"Only a minute--dear."

(Perhaps we can hardly blame him for profiting
by the license his rôle gave him to address her so.)

He moved to the door opposite to that through
which Rockwell had slipped away fifteen minutes
earlier and opened it for her.  She passed through
into the darkness of the other room.  He felt for
the switch and pushed it.

As the light went on she turned and smiled at him:

"Thank you."

For an instant it seemed to him--perhaps to both
of them--that she was really his wife, who was
leaving him for a few minutes only, whom he would
soon rejoin.

Then he turned to face Mayor Black.

"I need stay only a minute, Senator," the Mayor
was saying.  "If I had known you were engaged
with Mrs. Norman, I shouldn't have bothered you.
It wasn't really necessary.  I met Mr. Crockett
downstairs while I was waiting.  He told me the
answer.  But since I had the engagement with you
I came up.  If I may, I'll write the veto right here,
and then I can go on to the Council meeting."

As he spoke he drew a thick roll of paper from
his overcoat pocket, unfolded it, opened it at the
last sheet, and laid it on a small writing table.

"I shan't give any reasons," he added, sitting
down and picking up a pen.  "Least said, soonest
mended--eh, Senator?"

"But you're not to veto!  You're to sign!" cried
Merriam.

Perhaps if he had more fully grasped the significance
of the other's statement about Mr. Crockett
he would have been less abrupt; but that mighty
financier was only a dim name to his mind.

"What?" said Black, turning in his chair.

The Mayor's tone gave Merriam some realisation
of the seriousness of the new situation.  But he
could only stand to his guns.

"You're to *sign*!  I don't care what Crockett
said.  I don't care a damn what he said," he
corrected himself.  "You do what I say, damn you!"

"But how is this?" exclaimed the Mayor.
"Crockett said you fully agreed that the best
interests----"

He stopped, looking intently at Merriam.

In the excitement of the dialogue which had
followed Merriam's sending for Mollie June Rockwell
had neglected the precaution he had had in mind of
having only side lights on.  Rockwell had planned,
also, that Merriam should sit facing the gas log
with his back to the room and look at the Mayor as
little as possible.  Now the boy stood where the full
glare of the chandelier shone on his face.  Perhaps,
too, the emotions of a youthful love scene, such as
he had just passed through, were not the best
preparation in the world for counterfeiting the slightly
worn cheeks and slightly tired eyes of an elderly if
well-preserved politician.

"Who in hell are you?" gasped the Mayor.

Merriam was certainly startled.  Perhaps he
showed it just a little.  But he stood up bravely.

"You know damn well who I am.  And you do
as I say or get out of Chicago politics.  I'll attend
to Crockett," he added.  "That's my affair."

"Is that so?  Well, I guess it's my affair who
makes a monkey of me!  I----"

Again the Mayor stopped abruptly and stared.
Then suddenly he rose.

"I was told the Senator had left the hotel.  I
think I was correctly informed.  What sort of a
trick is this?  Who *are* you?"

"Damn you----"  Merriam began, with realistic
sincerity, but with the vaguest ideas as to what
more substantial statement should follow.

At this moment, however, Rockwell opened his
door and stepped into the room.

"Aha!" cried the Mayor.  No stage villain could
have said it better.  "Mr. Rockwell!  Of the
Reform League, I believe!"  He bowed sardonically.
"'One-Thing-at-a-Time Rockwell!'  Well, one
thing at a time like this"--he pointed at
Merriam--"ought to be enough for a reformer!"

"Good evening, Mayor Black," said Rockwell.
"I believe you were about to sign the Ordinance."

"I was *not*.  In spite of the *Senator* here.  I
don't get a chance to defy Senator Norman every
day.  I rather enjoy it!--And let me tell you,"
he added, "if you and your friends in that damned
League make any more trouble for me or Senator
Norman or the Ordinance or anything else after
this--if you don't shut up and lie low and keep
pretty damn quiet, we'll show you up, my boy.
This would make a pretty little story for the
newspapers--and for the State's Attorney, too!  We
might call it 'The Ethics of Reform!'  Oh, we
have you where we want you now, Mr. Reformer!
As for this young impostor here, we'll have to look
him up a bit.  A very promising young gentleman!"

The Mayor evidently enjoyed the center of the
stage.  He towered tall and imposing and righteous,
and looked triumphantly from Rockwell to
Merriam and back again.

"I really think you'd better sign it," said
Rockwell.  He spoke rather low.

"What do you mean?" cried the Mayor.

Then he thought he saw.

"Oh, it's strong-arm work next, is it?"

There was a note of alarm mingled with his
irony, and the magnificence of his pose weakened a
little.  Rockwell was a determined-looking fellow,
and there was Merriam to help him, and the Mayor
was not really a very brave man.  But he went on
talking to save his face:

"You certainly are a jewel of a reformer, Rockwell!"

Then he saw a point and quickly recovered his
full grandeur.

"I don't quite see how you're going to manage,
though.  Of course, if it were a case of *preventing*
me from signing, you might do it--the two of you!
But signing's rather different, isn't it?  You can
lead a horse to water----  Of course, you can club
me or hold a revolver to my head.  But, you see, I
know you wouldn't dare to fire a revolver here in
this room.  So just how will you force my fingers to
form the letters?  Or perhaps you will try forgery?
Is forgery the next act, Mr. Reformer?"

Rockwell smiled.  He was in no hurry to reply.
Merriam still stood, as he had throughout this
unforeseen dialogue, a rigid spectator.

Then, in the moment's silence, very inopportunely,
a clock, somewhere outside, struck the hour--a
quarter to nine.

Rockwell tried to drown it, saying, "I'm hardly
so versatile as that."

But the Mayor had heard and understood.

"Oh, that's it!" he cried.

"Yes, that's it!" said Rockwell, and the center
of the stage automatically shifted to him.  "If that
Ordinance is not returned to the Council with your
veto by nine o'clock to-night, it becomes a law
whether you sign it or not!  You're a bit slow,
Mr. Mayor, but you've got it at last!"

The Mayor did not answer.  He shifted slightly
on his feet.  His hand shot out.  He grabbed the
Ordinance from the waiting table and rushed for
the door.

"Catch him!" shouted Rockwell.  "Hold him!"

Merriam had been a football player.  As if
released from a spring he darted after the Mayor.
From habit he tackled low.  They went down with
something of a crash, knocking over an ash stand as
they fell, and the Mayor gave a groan.  If he had
ever known how to fall properly, he had forgotten.
Merriam hoped there were no bones broken.

But Rockwell was wasting no thoughts on
commiseration.  He was kneeling over the fallen ruler
of the city with his hands clapped over his
mouth--to prevent further groans or other outcry.

"Get the paper!" he said.

Merriam scrambled forward and tried to pull the
Ordinance from the hand at the end of the
outstretched arm.  It was held tight.  He was afraid
of tearing it.

"Twist his arm," said Rockwell.

A very little twist sufficed.  The Mayor gave up.
Merriam rose to his feet with the document.

"Will you be quiet?" Rockwell demanded in the
Mayor's ear, and released his mouth enough to
enable him to answer.

"Yes," said the Mayor feebly.  "Let me up."

"All right.  That's better.  If you make any
rumpus we'll down you again, you know, and tie
you up and gag you.--Give me the paper," he added
to Merriam, "and help him up, will you?"

He stood watching while the younger man assisted
the Mayor in the ponderous job of getting on
his feet.

"I hope you aren't hurt, sir," said Merriam.

The Mayor looked sourly at him.  "Thanks!"  He
felt of his arms and passed his hands up and
down over his ribs.  "I guess I'm all right--except
my clothes."

In fact his white shirt front was crumpled and
his broadcloth coat and trousers were dusty with
cigar ash from the fallen stand.  Merriam was in
little better condition.  They were not dressed for
football practice.  Rockwell only was still immaculate.

"I'll get a brush," said Merriam.  No longer a
Senator, he felt very boyish and anxious to be useful.

As he spoke he turned to the room--the fall had
occurred near the door into the hall--and stopped
nonplused.  For in her bedroom door stood Mollie
June, her eyes full at once of eagerness and of
apprehension.

How much she had heard I do not pretend to
know.  Perhaps some of Merriam's unprofessorial
profanity, possibly the Mayor's triumphant irony,
certainly Rockwell's shout, "Catch him!" and the
fall.  Doubtless the silence after that thud had
been too much for her self-control.

The Mayor's rueful gaze travelling past Merriam
also rested on Mollie June.  A light came into his
eyes.  He drew himself up.

"Come in, Mrs. Norman," he said.  "Your *husband*"--with
a significant emphasis on the word--"has
been giving a demonstration of his athletic
prowess.  He is indeed the Boy Senator and a
suitable mate for a woman as young and pretty as
yourself."

He paid no attention to Merriam's angry and
threatening glance but turned to Rockwell.

"Mr. Rockwell," he said, "I think you'd better
give me that Ordinance after all."

Rockwell spoke in a low tone to Merriam:

"Get her out!"

The Mayor had no objection to that.  The older
men watched while Merriam walked rapidly across
the room to Mollie June.

"You'd better go into the other room again,
dear," he said.

But Mollie June's eyes were bright and her
colour high and her white shoulders very straight.

"No!" she said.

"You really will oblige us greatly, Mrs. Norman,"
said the Mayor, "if you will withdraw for a
moment longer."

"No!" said Mollie June.  "This is my room.  I
have a right to be here.  And I don't like scuffling."

She cast a disdainful glance at their crumpled
shirts and dusty trousers.  And, womanlike, she
sought a diversion.

"What a mess you are in!" she cried.
"Mr.--George,--get the whisk broom from the bedroom
there!"

It was an almost haughty command.  And Merriam
rejoiced to obey this new mistress of the
situation.  He darted into the bedroom.

The two older men looked at each other.  Rockwell
was content: time was passing.  When the
Mayor started to speak he forestalled him.

"She's really right," he said.  "You can't leave
like this.  And some one might come in."

Merriam was back with the whisk broom.

"Come under the light," ordered Mollie June,
addressing the Mayor.

That dignitary reluctantly advanced.

"Turn around.  Now, George, brush him."

Merriam sought diligently to remove the ashes
from the Mayor's garments.  It required vigorous
work, for the dust was rubbed deeply into the cloth.
Mollie June superintended closely.  The Mayor had
to turn about several times and raise an arm and
then the other arm.  He could not make much
progress in the regaining of his dignity; and he, no
less than Rockwell, was conscious of the fleeing
moments.  But, glancing again and again at Mollie
June, girlishly imperious and intent, he could not
as yet muster his brutality for what he saw the next
move in his game must be.  Rockwell waited
serenely in the background, the Ordinance in his
hand.

At last the Mayor's broadcloth was fairly
presentable.  Nothing could be done, of course, with
his shirt front.

"Now, George," said Mollie June, "it's your
turn.  Give me the broom."

"No, no!"

"*Give me the broom!*"  She took it from his
hand.  "Turn around!"

And with her own hands and in the manner of
wifely solicitude she began to dust his collar and
lapels.

This was not unpleasant for Merriam, but it
prompted the Mayor to take his cue.  As he watched
his eyes hardened, and in a moment he said:

"You take good care of your *husband*, don't you,
Mrs. Norman?"

"I try to," said Mollie June rather pertly,
dusting away.  Evidently she had not heard enough to
know that Merriam had been found out.

"It must be pleasant," said the Mayor, "to have
such a nice *young* husband."

Mollie June stopped her work and looked at him
in sudden alarm.

"What do you mean?" she said.

Rockwell stepped forward and caught her arm:

"Let me lead you into the next room, Mrs. Norman.
You must let us talk with the Mayor."

"No!" she cried, snatching her arm away, and
turning eyes of angry innocence on Mayor Black,
"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, with smiling suavity--he was
not to be daunted now, and, short of violence there
was no way of stopping him,--"that you are a
young woman.  This gentleman--whose name I do
not have the honour of knowing--is also young, and
rather handsome.  The Senator, of course, is
getting old.  I find you two alone in your husband's
rooms, your husband having been tricked away.
You can hardly expect me to believe that you
mistook him for your husband.  You display no dislike
for his person.  I draw my own conclusions.  Every
one in Chicago will draw the same conclusions if
this interesting situation, quite worthy of Boccaccio,
should become known.  That's why I think"--he
turned suddenly to Rockwell--"that you'd better
give me the Ordinance after all."

Mollie June's cheeks were blazing.  Merriam's
also; he could not look at her.  But Rockwell
pulled his watch from his pocket.

"It is now two minutes past nine," he said.
"The Ordinance has become law.  You can have it
now, Mr. Mayor."  He held out the document.

The Mayor snatched it.

"It's not legal!" he cried.  "And it won't stand.
I can prove that I was prevented by foul means--by
foul means," he repeated, "from exercising my
charter right of veto.  I'll take out an injunction,
and I'll fight it to the Supreme Court.  And in the
process all Chicago--the whole United States--shall
be entertained with the piquant story of these
young people"--he waved a hand towards Merriam
and Mollie June,--"aided and abetted by Mr. Reformer
Rockwell.  I'll ruin them, and you and your
League, whatever else comes of it.  Oh, you're a
clever lot, you--you reformers!"

He paused out of breath.  Then, dramatically,
for he was always self-conscious and inclined to pose:

"Madame and gentlemen!"--but the effectiveness
of his bow was somewhat marred by the sorry
state of his shirt front--"I wish you a very good
evening!"

But Rockwell was before him with his back to the
hall door.

"You've forgotten your hat, Mayor," he said.

(In fact, his tall hat still stood on the writing
table where he had set it down before he spread out
the Ordinance there to write his veto.)

"Damn my hat!  Let me go!"

"Presently, presently.  I still think you'd better
sign the Ordinance."

"Do you mean to knock me down again?"

"I'd like nothing better, you--cad!" cried
Merriam, who had stood bursting with outrage a
minute longer than he could endure.

The Mayor almost jumped at the savage sincerity
of this threat in his rear.  Rockwell smiled at the
startled look on his face, but he spoke quietly:

"No violence.  I hope to convince you that it
would be to your best interests to sign it.  Since it
has become a law anyway."

"Never!" cried the Mayor.  "Do you think I
would be a traitor to--to--my party?  And I mean
to get even with this gang, whatever else I do!"

But the next instant he jumped indeed.  A new
voice spoke--a woman's.

"Mayor Black," it said, "you're a fool!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AUNT MARY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   AUNT MARY

.. vspace:: 2

All four of the actors in the little scene turned,
and Mollie June uttered an exclamation:

"Aunt Mary!"

In the doorway from which Rockwell had
emerged a few minutes earlier stood the thin, pale,
elderly woman whom Merriam had seen with Mollie
June in the Peacock Cabaret.  She wore a black
evening gown, rather too heavily overlaid with jet,
was tall and very erect, and had streaked gray hair,
a Roman nose, and a firm mouth.  The effect as she
stood there, framed in the door, was decidedly
striking--sibylline.

Mollie June ran to her.

"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried.

Merriam was afraid that Mollie June would burst
into tears.  Very possibly she would have liked to
do so, but Aunt Mary gave her no opportunity.

"Lock the door, Mr. Rockwell," she said, putting
an arm about Mollie June's waist.  Her tone and
manner were vigorous and dominant.

"Good evening, Mr. Black," she continued, while
Rockwell hastened to obey her.  And to Merriam:
"Good evening, Mr.--Wilson.  Now I think we
had better all sit down and talk it over."

"I can't," said the Mayor.  "I'm late for the
Council meeting already.  I've been shamefully
tricked, Miss Norman."

"I think you have," returned Aunt Mary, releasing
Mollie June and advancing a step or two into
the room.  "But that's the very reason why you
need to consider your position at once.  You're in a
mess.  So are we.  Perhaps we can help each other
out.  The Council can wait.  'Phone them that
you've been detained.  They can go ahead, I
suppose.  Really, Mr. Black, I see a point or two in
this business that I think will interest you."

Mayor Black met Mary Norman's direct, purposeful
gaze.  He was impressed by her air of command
and intelligence.  He recalled gossip to the
effect that it was really she who ran George
Norman's campaigns, that she even wrote some of his
speeches.

"Very well," he said, "I'll stay ten minutes.
Never mind 'phoning."

"Good," said Aunt Mary.  "There are seats for
all of us, I believe.  Take that one, Mayor."

She indicated the large armchair with the
rose-coloured tapestry in which Mollie June had been
ensconced half an hour before, and laid her own
hand on the back of the smaller one close by in
which Merriam had sat.

Then she turned to Mollie June:

"Do you wish to leave us, dear, or to stay?"

"I'll stay!" said Mollie June.  Her colour was
still high, and the glance she threw in the Mayor's
direction was distinctly hostile, but she had
recovered her self-control.  We shall be able to forgive
young Merriam a throb of admiration at her spirit.

"Very well," said Aunt Mary.  "Sit over there,
then.  Mr.--Wilson," she added, to Merriam, "on
that table yonder you will find a humidor.  Pass
the cigars, please.  And pick up that ash stand and
set it here by the Mayor."

She and the Mayor and Mollie June sat down.
Rockwell remained standing.  Merriam, though
somewhat confused at having turned from Norman
into Wilson, hastened to do as he was bid.  He
picked up the ash stand, straightening the box of
matches into place, and brought it and set it by the
Mayor's chair.  Then he got the humidor, opened
its heavy lid, and passed the gold-banded perfectos
therein to the Mayor and to Rockwell.

"Are you leaving me out, young man?"
demanded Aunt Mary, who had watched him in
appraising silence.

Merriam turned to her with the humidor, hesitating.

"There don't seem to be any cigarettes," he said.

"I have some in my pocket."

But Aunt Mary leaned forward and took from
the humidor a package of "little cigars" that had
been slipped in at one end of the box of perfectos.

"No cigarettes for me," she said.  "I smoke
when I'm with men so as to be one of them.  A
cigarette leaves me a woman.  A cigar, even one of
these little ones, makes a man of me.  Give me a
match, please."

With what seemed to himself amazing self-control,
Merriam took a match from the ash stand,
struck it, and would have held the light for her.
But Aunt Mary took it from him and, looking all
the while amazingly like his own mother, deliberately
and efficiently ignited the "little cigar."

Then she looked up quizzically at Merriam, blew
out the match, handed it to him, and said, "Sit
down, Mr. Wilson."

Having seated himself, Merriam found Aunt
Mary looking intently at the Mayor, who was
smoking and returning her gaze.

But Rockwell broke in:

"How much do you know, Miss Norman?  And
how do you know it?"

"As to how I know it," said Aunt Mary, "that's
my own business for the present.  Not because
there need be any secret about it, but because we
haven't time for explanations."  She puffed at her
little cigar.  "As to how much I know, I believe I
understand the whole affair--except how Mrs. Norman
came into it."  She looked at Rockwell.

That gentleman did not reply.  Merriam broke
the silence:

"I sent for her."

He said it very well--not defiantly, but as a
plain, necessary statement of fact.

Aunt Mary turned in her chair to look at him.

"Ah!" she said.

He felt that he was colouring under her gaze.
Perhaps that colour answered her obvious next
question as to why he had done so.  She did not ask
that question, but turned back to the Mayor:

"I overheard a little of your conversation from
the doorway before I spoke.  Mr. Rockwell was
saying he thought that, as things stand now, it
would be best for you to sign the Ordinance.  I
think so too."

The Mayor would have interrupted, but she
waved her little cigar at him.

"You can, of course," she continued, "explain
that you were tricked.  But how much would that
help you with Mr. Crockett or any of his cronies
and allies?  They would only think the worse of
you and throw you over the more quickly.  A man
of your age and standing cannot afford to be
tricked.  If he is, he had better conceal the fact.
And how about the people of Chicago, before whom
you come up for reëlection in the fall?  Will their
sympathies be with you or with the persons who
tricked you into giving them the Ordinance they
wanted?  The American people love a clever trick.
And a trick is clever if it succeeds.  As for the
illegality, they won't care a picayune for that.  You
said you would fight it in the courts.  Well, you
might.  But it would be a long fight.  You
yourself mentioned the Supreme Court.  And in the
meantime it is a law and goes into effect at once.
Unless, of course, you take out an injunction.  And
if you do that, you will make yourself so unpopular
that you can never even be nominated again.  Let
us suppose it goes into effect.  Then by the time
your fight was won, if you won it, the new
conditions would be established, and nobody would dare
try to unscramble the eggs.  The Council would
simply have to pass it over again, and you--or your
successor, rather, for you would be out by
then--would promptly sign it.  No, my friend, there is
no road for you in that direction.  You would lose
out both ways--with the bosses, who would have
no more use for a man who had allowed himself to
be fooled at a critical juncture, and with the people.
Your only chance--unless you wish to retire quickly
and ignominiously to private life--is to cut loose
from the bosses and throw in your lot with the
people--sign the Ordinance, claim the credit, join
forces with Rockwell here, defy Crockett, and come
out as the people's champion!"

The Mayor was not smoking.  He was looking
hard at Aunt Mary, as one man looks at another.
(Her little cigar had effected that.)  There was
aroused interest in his eyes.

"Wouldn't you rather like to go into politics as
your own boss for a change?" Aunt Mary asked.
"Rather than as one miserable little cog in a big,
dirty machine?"

The Mayor flushed a little and took refuge
behind a puff of smoke.

"Perhaps I would," he said.  Then, suddenly:
"How about Senator Norman?  Do I defy him too?"

"Not at all," said Aunt Mary.  "He also will
go over to the people."

"Can you answer for him?"

"I think I can.  He will be forced to do so in the
same way you are.  He too has been victimised."

She leaned forward and deposited her small
cigar, of which she had really smoked very little,
in the ash tray.  Sitting erect, she folded her hands
in her lap and became forthwith a woman again--a
sedate, almost prim, elderly woman.

"That," she explained simply, "is the source of
my interest in this matter.  I like you, Mayor Black,
because you have some of the courtliness of the old
school in your manner.  I should be sorry to see
you in misfortune.  But I care much more,
naturally, for my brother, George Norman, and more
still for the name of Norman"--from her tone she
might have referred to the Deity,--"which has been
an honourable name in this country for eight
generations, and which George, with his spoils politics
and his dissipations, is compromising.  I have long
wanted him to break with his present associates,
to live straight, and to become a real leader, as the
Normans were in New York State in the early years
of the last century.  I have tried again and again
to get him to do so.  Over and over he has promised
me he would.  But he is weak.  He has never done
it.  Now he will have to do it!"

All the members of the little group looked with
some admiration, I fancy, at Aunt Mary, sitting
straight, an incarnation of aristocratic, elderly
femininity, in her chair.  Where a moment or two
before she had been an unsexed modern, she looked
now like an old family portrait.

Rockwell broke the momentary silence:

"Miss Norman has presented, so much better
than I could have done, the argument which I tried
to suggest to Mr. Black."

It was probably unfortunate that Rockwell had
recalled attention to himself.  The Mayor glanced
at him with animosity, and at the silent Merriam,
and over at Mollie June, listening eagerly
in the background.  Then at Aunt Mary again.
He leaned back, pulling at his cigar, thinking
hard.

In the silence a slight noise became audible from
the bedroom behind Aunt Mary--a word or two of
whispering and then a sound as if some one
tiptoeing had stumbled a little.

The Mayor jumped to his feet.

"Who's there?" he cried, pointing.

For an instant Aunt Mary was out of countenance.
But only for an instant.  Then, without
rising or turning her head, she called:

"Come in, Alicia."

A moment's silence.  Then a laugh, of a
premeditated sweetness which Merriam remembered,
and Alicia Wayward stood in the doorway.

The Mayor and Merriam rose.  Mollie June, too,
jumped up.  Only Aunt Mary remained calmly
seated.

After a second's pause in the effective framing of
the door, Alicia advanced with an air of eager
pleasure and held out her hand to the Mayor.

"Good evening, Mr. Black."

The Mayor was a very susceptible male where
women like Alicia were concerned.  He took her
hand.

"Good evening, Miss Wayward."  But, still holding
the hand, he looked steadily at her and asked,
"Who else is in there?"

"Who else?" repeated Alicia, raising her pretty
dark eyebrows.

"Or were you whispering to yourself?" pursued
the Mayor.

Alicia laughed and drew her hand away.  "It's
only Father Murray."  Then, raising her voice a
little: "You'll have to come in, Father Murray, to
save my reputation.  This is really all of us," she
added, as the priest rather sheepishly presented
himself.  "You can search the room if you like."

She smiled at him in the manner which novelists
commonly describe as roguish.

The Mayor smiled back at her, but he turned to
the latest arrival.

"Were you in this plot, too, Father Murray?"

"Indeed he was," Alicia answered for him.  "He
didn't quite approve of it at first.  But we quite
easily converted him.  So, you see, it can't be so
black as it first seemed to you, Mr. Mayor.  And
really," she hurried on, "you ought to do as Miss
Norman suggests.  It's a splendid chance for you.
To really be a--a Man, you know!  And I can
help."

"How can you help?" asked the Mayor.

"I am quite sure," said Alicia, "that I can get
my father to subscribe quite a lot of money--a
hundred thousand dollars, say--to your campaign
fund--yours and Senator Norman's and the Reform
League's."

"Is Mr. Wayward so keen on reform?  I should
think he had had nearly enough of it.  They've
practically put him out of business, these
reformers."

"He's rather keen on me, you know," said Alicia.
"And he likes Mollie June and Miss Norman and
George Norman and----"

"Father Murray, I suppose," interrupted the
Mayor, "and anybody else you can think of.  You
mean you can get it out of him."  But his appreciative
smile made a compliment of the accusation.

Alicia only raised her eyebrows again.

Aunt Mary rose and took the reins of business
into her own hands once more.

"I should be willing to subscribe something, too,
out of my own income," she said.  "And the League
can raise plenty of money.  You won't lack for
funds.  Here's my proposition, Mr. Black.  You
lie low and keep still till noon to-morrow.  Don't
go to the Council meeting at all.  Keep the
Ordinance in your own possession.  Refuse to see any
one.  See what the papers say in the morning.  And
wait for a message from George Norman.  If by
noon to-morrow he telephones you that he will go
with you, will you go over to the League, sign the
Ordinance, break with Crockett and the rest of
them, and appeal to the people on your own?"

The Mayor looked from Aunt Mary to Alicia's
appealing and admiring eyes and back at Aunt
Mary.  He avoided Rockwell and Merriam and
Mollie June.

"That's fair enough," he said.  "I'll do that."  Then:
"You know where Norman is, do you?"

"Yes," said Aunt Mary.  It was plain, however,
that she did not intend to communicate the information.

"And what becomes of this young gentleman?"  The
Mayor looked at Merriam.

"He will disappear where he came from."

"Well, well," said the Mayor genially, "it has
been a very stimulating evening.  Rather like a
play.  You have certainly put me in a box.  But
I'll admit I'm interested in your suggestion, Miss
Norman.  I'll think it over carefully.  Now I
believe I'll call a taxi."

"Let me," said Rockwell, and he stepped to the
telephone.

The Mayor addressed himself to Merriam:

"Will you bring me my hat, Mr.--Wilson?"

Merriam was near the writing table on which the
hat stood.  He picked it up and brought it.

"The resemblance is marvellously close," said
the Mayor, studying his face.  "And you did your
part very well, young man.  But let me advise you
to keep away from the neighbourhood of Senator
Norman.  You might get into serious trouble."

Merriam did not reply or smile but handed him
the hat.

"There's a taxi ready," said Rockwell, turning
from the telephone into which he had been speaking.

"Thank you," said the Mayor.  He looked at
Mollie June, who stood some distance from him:

"I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Norman, for
my--rudeness earlier this evening.  I am afraid I
was too angry then to know what I was saying."

Like Merriam, Mollie June did not answer or
smile.  Possibly she was imitating his demeanour.
But she bowed slightly.

"Really," interjected Alicia, "Mollie June had
never seen Mr.--Mr. Wilson since before she was
married until five minutes before you came in."

"Quite so.  Of course," said the Mayor.  He
held out his hand to Aunt Mary.  "You are a
wonderful woman, Miss Norman."

"George shall telephone before noon," she
replied, shaking hands like a man.

"Till then at least you can depend on me."

He turned to Alicia.

Alicia kept his hand a long minute.  "We have
always liked you, Mr. Black--we women," she said.
"In your new rôle we shall admire you so much!"

"I would do much to win your admiration,"
returned the Mayor, somewhat guardedly gallant.
"Good night, Father Murray.  Good night,
Rockwell--you precious reformer!  Good night,
Mr. Wilson.  That's only a stage name, isn't it?  Well,
good night, all!"

The suave politician bowed himself out.





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.. _`A SENATOR MISSING`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   A SENATOR MISSING

.. vspace:: 2

The members of the group that remained
looked at one another.  Alicia dropped into
a chair.

"Whew!" she said.

Father Murray crossed quickly from the doorway,
where he had stood silent ever since his
shamefaced entrance, to Aunt Mary's side.

"Wonderful, Miss Norman!" he cried.

Aunt Mary smiled at him--her first smile in that
scene.  "Thank you, Arthur," she said.

But she added instantly to Rockwell:

"See if George is *there*.  Telephone.  He must
be by now.  Then you and Arthur must take a taxi
and go after him and bring him back here.  The
number is Harrison 3731."

Rockwell turned back to the telephone.

Merriam walked over to Mollie June and put
his hands on the back of the chair in which she
had been sitting prior to the entrance of Alicia.

"Hadn't you better sit down?" he said.

"Yes, if you'll move it up a little."  She wanted
to be closer to the rest of the group.

He pushed the chair forward, and she sat and
smiled up at him:

"Thank you!"

A woman's eyes are never so appealingly beautiful
as in a quick upward glance.  Merriam fell
suddenly more deeply in love with her than he had ever
been.  And he was for the moment very happy.
There was something between them, something very
slight, as tenuous and as innocent as youth itself,
but existent and precious.

Rockwell turned from the telephone.

"He's not *there*," he said, "and he's not been
there."

(There was a tacit conspiracy among them, on
account of Mollie June, not to refer more definitely
to George's destination.)

"Not!" exclaimed Aunt Mary.  Like the men,
she was still standing.  She looked at Alicia.
"The driver was instructed to go directly there?"

"Yes," said Alicia.  Then she added in a low tone:

"The driver was Simpson."

"Simpson!" Aunt Mary echoed.  "That's dangerous.
Why didn't you tell me that before?"

The reader will have guessed the explanation of
Aunt Mary's presence, and Alicia's and Father
Murray's, and I insert it here only to gratify his
sense of acumen: that Alicia and Murray, "keeping
an eye on" Mollie June and Aunt Mary in
accordance with Rockwell's plan, in the hotel lobby,
had witnessed the former's unexpected departure
in response to Merriam's summons, and had joined
Miss Norman to find out what had happened; and
that Aunt Mary, who was more than a match for
both of them, especially in their alarm over Mollie
June's being dragged into the affair, had obtained
first an inkling and presently the whole story of
the plot, and had insisted on coming upstairs, and
had entered through the bedroom.

Alicia did not reply to Aunt Mary's question.
Indeed she hardly had time to do so, for Aunt Mary
followed it quickly with another of a more
practical character:

"What time is it?"

Merriam was the most prompt in producing his
watch.  "Ten o'clock," he said.

"And it was barely eight when George left the
hotel.  How long should it have taken to get
there?"

"Less than half an hour," said Rockwell.

"Are you sure he's not there?  They might have
lied to you."

"They might.  But I didn't think so."

"Mr. Rockwell and I can go and see," volunteered
Father Murray, who seemed very eager to
be helpful.

While Aunt Mary was considering this suggestion,
Merriam had an idea.

"My voice is very like Senator Norman's?" he
asked.

"Yes, it is," said Aunt Mary.

"Then let me telephone."

"Good!" cried Rockwell.  "From the bedroom."  This
was, of course, to spare Mollie June.

"Very well," said Aunt Mary.

The two men stepped into George Norman's
bedroom--the one into which Mollie June had earlier
retreated.  As they did so, Aunt Mary's eyes
followed Merriam with the appraising look which
they had held whenever she regarded him throughout
the evening.

Rockwell shut the door.

"Harrison 3731," he said.  "Say, 'This is
George Norman,' and ask for 'Jennie.'"

The telephone was on the night table.  Merriam
sat down on the edge of the bed and raised the
instrument.  He realised that he had not the slightest
idea what to expect.  Rockwell sat beside him,
close enough to hear what should come through the
receiver.

In a moment Merriam had the connection.  A
not unmusical voice said: "Who is it, please?"

"This is George Norman.  Is Jennie there?"

"Why, Georgie, boy!  Don't you know me?
You always do.  And you ought to!"  A tender
little laugh followed, which thrilled Merriam in
spite of himself.

"I didn't at first," he answered and stopped at a
loss.

Rockwell put his mouth close to Merriam's ear
and formed a tunnel from the one orifice to the
other with his hands.  "Can I see you to-night,
dearie?" he prompted.

"Can I see you to-night, dearie?" Merriam
obediently repeated.

"Oh, can you come?  Goodie!  But"--the
unmistakably loving voice was lowered--"you must
be careful, Georgie."

"Careful?" Merriam queried cautiously.

"Yes.  Some one thinks you're here already."

"Who?"

"I don't know.  Some man.  He wouldn't tell
me who he was.  He called up just a minute ago.
He was awfully sure you were here.  He wouldn't
believe me when I said you weren't.  Is it
dangerous?"  There was a touching note of anxiety in
Jennie's voice.

"I guess not."

"Can you come anyway?" eagerly.

"I'm not sure.  Don't wait for me long.  I'll
come within an hour if I can get away."

"You'll telephone again?"

"Yes--if I can."

"Georgie, boy!"  There followed a little sound
of lips moved in a certain way--unmistakably a
kiss.

John Merriam played up with an effectiveness
that surprised himself very much.

"Dearie!" he whispered tenderly into the
telephone, "good night!"--and abruptly hung up.

"You don't need much prompting!" exclaimed
Rockwell, rising.  "Well, she didn't lie to me."

"No," Merriam assented confusedly.  Whatever
else he had anticipated from Norman's mistress, the
disreputable manicurist, it had not been that note
of sincere affection or that he himself would be for
an instant carried off his feet.  As he automatically
followed Rockwell, who made for the sitting room,
he was unwillingly conscious of a new charity for
George Norman.

"He's not there," Rockwell reported.  "And he
hasn't been."

"Sure?"  Aunt Mary looked at Merriam.

Our hero nodded.  He could not speak.  And he
dared not look at Mollie June, of whose bright eyes
fixed on his face he was nevertheless acutely aware.

In a moment, however, it was of Aunt Mary's
gaze that he was sensible.  She seemed to read
him through.  He thought, ridiculously, that that
momentary telephonic tenderness could not be hid
from her.

But when she spoke her question both relieved
and startled him.

"At what hour in the morning does your train go?"

"It goes to-night.  At 2:00 A.M."

"If George is back here by then, it does," said
Aunt Mary.  "If not, you stay."

"But I *must* go to-night," cried Merriam, suddenly
awakened to realities and feeling as though
the curtain had descended abruptly on some mad
combination of melodrama and farce.  "I must
meet my classes in the morning!"

Aunt Mary, who must have sat down while the
two men were telephoning, rose and walked up to
Merriam.

"Mr. Merriam," she said, "you more than any
one else are responsible for the present
situation--because of your sending for Mrs. Norman.  I don't
ask why you did that, but you did it.  If you hadn't
stepped outside your part that way, I verily
believe, when I look at you, that the trick could have
been played as Mr. Rockwell planned it.  The
Mayor would not have seen Crockett downstairs.
I don't believe he would have recognised you.  He
would have signed the Ordinance and gone away
committed and ignorant of the deception.  Now
he's only half committed, and he has recognised
you as an impostor.  If he doesn't hear from
George Norman by noon to-morrow as I promised,
if he turns against us and tells his story, he can
ruin us--all."  (She said "all," but she glanced at
Mollie June.)  "And now we don't know where
George is.  As soon as we find him, you can go.
But Mayor Black must get a message from
Senator Norman before noon to-morrow--from the true
one or the false one!  Do you see?  Until we find
George you must stay."

"Yes, by Jove!" cried Rockwell.  "You can't
back out now.  You can telegraph to--where
is it?"

"Riceville," said Alicia, who was leaning
excitedly forward in her chair.  "Oh, you will!"

Merriam looked at Alicia.  The same combination
of appeal and admiration in her eyes which he
had seen her work a few minutes before on the
Mayor did not move him.

His eyes travelled to the face of Mollie June.
She was not leaning forward, but sat erect on the
edge of her chair.  There was a flush of
excitement--was it eagerness?--on her cheeks.
Unwillingly he compared her with the warm seductiveness
of the voice on the telephone.  She was not like
that,--though perhaps she could be.  But she was
radiantly bright and pure, a girl, a woman, to be
worshipped--and protected from all evil.  He
remembered how he had wished to help her.  He had
said he would be always ready.  Now was his
chance.  And he desired passionately to expiate his
involuntary infidelity of feeling and tone over the
telephone.  He rose superior to the cares, the
duties, of a "professor," even before she spoke.

"Oh, please--Mr. Merriam," she said.

Merriam smiled at her, but looked back at Aunt Mary.

"You think it very necessary?" he asked--not
because he had not decided but to avoid any shadow
of compromising Mollie June by seeming to yield
directly to her.

"I do," said Aunt Mary.

"Then of course I'll stay," said Merriam.





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.. _`CONFESSIONS OF WAITER NO. 73`:

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   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   CONFESSIONS OF WAITER NO. 73

.. vspace:: 2

From a sleep which had been heavy but was
becoming restless and dreamful, Merriam was
awakened about seven o'clock the next morning by
a knocking at his door.  He leaned over and pulled
the little chain of the night lamp, and as the light
glowed asked, "Who is it?"

"Rockwell," came the answer.

By a rather athletic bit of stretching Merriam
was able to turn the key in his lock without getting
out of bed.  "Come in," he called.

Rockwell entered, closed the door behind him,
and stood looking down at Merriam, who had lain
back on his pillow.

"Slept well?" he asked.

"Like a football player," laughed Merriam,
somehow ashamed of this fact.

"Feeling fit?"

"Certainly.  Always feel fit."

For a moment longer Rockwell looked, with
perhaps a touch of an older man's envy of the
unconscionable imperturbability of youthful health.
Then he said:

"Well, I have news."

Merriam waited.

"About half an hour ago I called up 'Jennie'
again.  When I said I was a friend of Norman's,
she admitted he was there.  By asking a good many
questions I learned that he turned up about two
o'clock this morning and that he was very drunk.
I judge he's having a touch of D.T.  'Jennie' was
evidently rather disgusted at his arriving so late
and in that condition--after your affectionate tone
earlier in the evening, you know."

Merriam evaded this thrust with a question:

"Where can he have been in the meantime?"

"That is a point on which we shall have to seek
information from our friend Simpson.  Since
telephoning I have seen Miss Norman, and we have
agreed to order breakfast for all of us in Senator
Norman's rooms with Simpson to serve us.  He
goes on duty again at seven o'clock, and I have
asked that he be sent here as soon as he reports to
take a breakfast order."

"Why here?"

"Well, he will be more likely to talk freely to
you and me alone than to you and me and Miss
Norman--to say nothing of Mrs. Norman.  And,
if he has played some trick on us, he might refuse
to go to Senator Norman's suite, but this room will
mean nothing to him.  Of course, he may not show
up at all this morning.  Ah, there he is, I hope!"

A vigorous knock had sounded at the door.  It
proved, however, to be only a porter with Merriam's
suit case and hand bag, for which the industrious
Rockwell had also sent so early that morning to the
more modest hotel at which Merriam had been
registered.

"Now I can dress," said Merriam.  "I was
afraid I should have to turn waiter myself, having
only evening clothes to put on."

"Yes, get into your things," said Rockwell, "and
let me think some more.  This conspiracy business
takes a lot more thinking than mere Reform!"

Merriam hurried through a bath--a tubful of hot
water early in the morning was so unwonted a
luxury to a citizen of Riceville that he could not
bring himself to forego it even on this occasion--and
began to dress carefully, realising with pleasant
excitement that he was to have breakfast with
Mollie June.

He had no more than got into his trousers when
another knock came at the door.

Rockwell motioned to Merriam to step into the
bathroom and himself went to the door.  "Come
in," he said and opened it, keeping behind it.

Sure enough, Simpson stepped into the room with
his napkin and order pad.

Rockwell promptly closed the door behind him,
locked it, and stood with his back against it.  He
also pushed the switch for the center chandelier--for
only the dim night lamp had been on.

In the sudden light Simpson whirled with a
startled and most unprofessional agility to face
Rockwell.

"Good morning, Simpson."

The waiter fairly moistened his lips before he
could answer.

"Good morning, Mr. Rockwell."

The man's face was certainly haggard.  His eyes
even were a trifle bloodshot.  It was clear he had
had a strange night.  But after a moment of hostile
confrontation the professional impassivity of a
waiter--which is perhaps the ultimate perfection
of *sang froid*--descended about him like a cloak
and mask.

"I was sent to this room--Mr. Wilson's room,
I understood--to take a breakfast order."

"Right, Simpson!" cried Merriam cheerily,
emerging from the bathroom in his shirt sleeves.

For a moment the human gleamed again through
the eyes of the functionary.

"Are you Mr. Wilson?" he asked.  His manner
was perfect servility, but there was mockery and
malice in the tone.

"Yes, Simpson," said Merriam.  "This morning
I am Mr. Wilson.  I have read of an English duke
who puts on a new pair of trousers each morning.
But I go him one better.  I put on an entire new
personality each morning."

"Very good, sir," was the ironical, stage-butler
reply to this sally.  "The grapefruit is very good
this morning.  Will you have some?"

Merriam glanced at Rockwell.

"Very likely we'll have some," said the latter,
"but we want something else first."

"Before the grapefruit?" inquired Simpson.

"Yes, before the grapefruit," said Rockwell, a
trifle sharply.  "And what we propose to have
before the grapefruit is a bit of talk with you,
Mr. Simpson--about last night.  Do you care to sit
down?"  He pointed to a chair.

Simpson was undoubtedly agitated, but he controlled
himself excellently.  He even lifted his
eyebrows:

"I hope I know my place, sir."

He raised his pad and wrote on it.

"Grapefruit," he said with insolent suavity.
"For two?  And then what?  We have some
excellent ham."

"Damn your ham!" cried Rockwell.  He
snatched the man's pad and threw it on the floor.
"Sit down in that chair and drop this damned pose!
We're going to talk to you man to man."

But Simpson only stooped and picked up his pad.

"Mr. Rockwell," he said, "I know my place.  It
is a very humble one.  It is to take orders--for
meals, to be served in this hotel.  So long as that
is what you want I am yours to command.  But"--the
American citizen stood up in him; no European
waiter could have said it--"outside of that I am
my own master as much as you are.  When you
call me 'Mr. Simpson' and tell me to sit down, I
don't have to do it.  And I don't have to talk of
my personal affairs unless I choose, any more than
any one else!"

For an instant he glared at Rockwell as one
angry man at another, his equal.  Then he quietly
became the waiter again.  He lifted his pad and
poised his pencil:

"Shall we say some ham?"

Rockwell looked at him a moment longer.  Then
he laughed: "Ham let it be!"

"Yes, sir," said Simpson, deferentially writing.
"And some baked potatoes, perhaps?  And coffee?"

"Yes," said Rockwell, "and the telephone book.
Hand me the telephone book, please."

Simpson hesitated, but this was clearly within
the line of his duties.

"Yes, sir," he said, and stepped towards the
stand on which the book lay.

"Wait!" said Rockwell.  "Perhaps it isn't
necessary.  I think you can tell me the number I
want."

He paused a moment to let this sink in.  Then:

"Miss Alicia Wayward's number.  I see I shall
have to bring her here.  You see," he explained
pleasantly, "I have locked the door.  There are
two of us against you."

He indicated Merriam, who still stood in the
bathroom door, following the progress of the
interview with excited interest.

"We are going to keep you here, not by any
authority that we as guests of this hotel may have
over you--as you have very well pointed out, we
have none in such a matter,--but by simple force,
till Miss Wayward can come down.  We shall see
whether she can make you talk."

To Merriam's astonishment the waiter, with a
sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan, sank
into the chair which he had thus far so pertinaciously
refused to take.  For a moment he stared
at the floor.  Then he raised his eyes to Rockwell:

"What do you want to know?"

"That's better," said Rockwell, leaving the door
and preparing to sit down opposite Simpson.
"Will you have a cigar?"

Simpson shook his head and repeated his question.

"What do you want?"

Rockwell dropped into his chair and glancing at
Merriam pointed to another seat.  Merriam was
too much excited to care to sit down, but he came
forward and leaned on the back of the chair.

"We want to know about last night, of course,"
said Rockwell.  "At five minutes to eight Senator
Norman got into the taxi which you were driving.
At about two o'clock this morning he tumbled into
Madame Couteau's, delirious with drink.  We want
the whole story of what happened between eight
and two."

Simpson sat on the edge of his chair, his hands
on his knees.  His order pad was under one hand,
and its flexure showed that he was exerting intense
pressure.  His napkin dangled loosely half off his
arm.  He was looking at the floor again.

He remained in this position for a number of
seconds, the other two men intently regarding him.
Then he straightened up, pushed himself farther
back in his chair, and looked at Rockwell.

"You shall have it," he said.

For a moment he stared.  Then:

"I hate Senator Norman--enough to kill him."

The reader will observe that I use no exclamation
points in punctuating Simpson's sentence.
There were none in his delivery of it.  But it was
the more startling on that account.

"Do you know why?" he unexpectedly demanded.

"No," said Rockwell.

"Five years ago I was butler to Mr. Wayward.
The--the-girl you call Madame Couteau was the
parlour maid there.  Her real name is Jennie
Higgins.  I was in love with her, and she had
promised to marry me.  I had a little money saved
up.  At that time Senator Norman's first wife was
still alive, who was Mr. Wayward's sister, you
know, Miss Wayward's aunt.  Senator Norman
came often to the house.  He took a fancy to Jennie
and turned her head.  The fact that she was in his
own brother-in-law's house made no difference to
him.  She--went off with him--on a lake cruise, in
his yacht.  When they came back he set her up in
that flat and got her work as a manicurist.  Ever
since he has been her paramour!"

The odd, old-fashioned word, which Simpson
must have gleaned from some novel, came out
queerly.  But it served to express his bitterness as
no ordinary word could have done.

"That's all.  A parlour maid ruined.  A butler
cheated of his wife.  It's nothing, of course."

He was looking down again.  Neither Rockwell
nor Merriam ventured to speak.  When he raised
his eyes there was a gleam in them.

"Last night I had him in my power."  (One
sensed novels again.)  "In my taxi, not knowing
who I was.  I was minded to kill him.  You had
told me to drive him directly to--to Jennie's.  Not
much!  I drove as fast as I dared out Michigan
Avenue.  For a long time he suspected nothing.
He thought he was on his way to the Mayor's, and
that was the right direction.  But when I turned
into Washington Park he got scared.  He called
through the tube to know where in hell I was going.
I answered, 'This is Simpson.  You can try jumping,
if you like--into hell!'  I put the machine up
to forty miles an hour.  He opened the door once,
but I guess he didn't dare try it.  He shut it again.
Of course, it was pure luck I didn't get stopped for
speeding.  But I got through Washington Park
and across the Midway and out into a lonely place
at the south end of Jackson Park.  Then I stopped
and got down and opened the door and ordered
him out."

The man stopped.  When he spoke again there
was more contempt than hatred in his voice.

"The coward.  He went down on his knees on
the wet road and cried and begged me not to hurt
him.  He said he was sorry, and he didn't know I
cared so much, and he would make it all right yet.
He would give me a lot of money and get me up
in a business, and I could marry Jennie after all,
and wouldn't I forgive him and go back to town
and have a drink?  The worm!  I could have spit
on him.  *Senator* Norman!

"He saved his life all right," he added
reflectively.  "If he had showed fight I would have
strangled him and thrown his body in the
Lake."  Simpson shuddered a little.  "But you couldn't
strangle a crying baby.  I kicked him once or
twice.  But what more could I do?  He kept
begging me not to hurt him but to go back to town
and have a drink.  That gave me an idea.  I jerked
him up and pitched him into the car and drove back
to a saloon.  We sat at a table and drank, and he
kept offering me money and saying I should marry
Jennie.  As if I would take his leavings!  He
drank a lot.  I only took one or two to steady my
nerves--poured out the rest.  But he drank four or
five cocktails.  Then we went on in the taxi to
another saloon and did it again.  And then to
another.  And about midnight we ended up at a cheap
dance hall on the West Side, and I turned him
loose among the roughnecks and the women there.

"He was pretty drunk--told everybody who he
was and showed his money,--and in a few minutes
a lot of the girls were around him to get the money
away from him.  Most of the men they were with
didn't mind--egged them on.  Pretty soon he had
a dozen couples in the bar with him and was paying
for drinks all around.  But one big foreigner, who
was with the prettiest girl in the room, was ugly.
When Norman, after buying a second round of
drinks, tried to kiss his girl, he roared out at him
and knocked him down.  But Norman only stumbled
up again with his lip bleeding and begged his
pardon and handed the girl a fifty-dollar bill and
bought drinks again.  And then he got his arm
about another girl and took her out to dance.  It
was an hour before I found him again.  He was
sitting on the stairs, with his collar off, crazy
drunk--seeing things--and all cleaned out as to
money.

"I though then he was about ripe for what I
wanted.  I carried him downstairs and put him in
the taxi and drove to--Madame Couteau's!  There
I carried him up to her flat and propped him
against the door and knocked and then waited part
way down the stairs.  When the door was opened
he fell in, and I ran downstairs and took my taxi
home."

Evidently Simpson had finished his tale.  And
it had done him good to tell it.  He was much less
agitated than when he began.  He looked steadily
rather than angrily at Rockwell.

"That's the story you wanted," he said.  "Of
course now you can get me fired and blacklisted.
It's little I'll care."

Rockwell had let his cigar go out while Simpson
talked.  Now he lit it again with a good deal of
deliberation.  He was evidently thinking.  Even
Merriam perceived the point that was uppermost
in his mind, namely, that with Norman still at
Jennie's they had need of Simpson's silence and
would be likely to need his help again.  They
must try to conciliate him and win his loyal
support.

"I see no reason why I should do anything like
that," Rockwell began, referring to Simpson's
defiant suggestion.  "I can hardly pronounce your
conduct virtuous.  But it was very natural--very
excusable.  It's lucky you did no worse!"

(Merriam had a sudden vision of the horrid
predicament they would have been in if Norman had
actually been murdered in Jackson Park at the
very time when he was impersonating him at the
hotel.)

"Still," continued Rockwell, "I think you made
a mistake."

"A mistake!" echoed Simpson.

"Yes.--Do you still love--Miss Higgins?"

"What's that to you?"

"Evidently you do.  Why didn't you take his
offer--his money, and marry her?  It would have
been the sensible thing to do and the kind thing
to her.  You might be happy after all.  Of course,
if you're too stern a moralist!"

The man's face worked queerly.  "It's not that.
But she wouldn't have a waiter now.  And he
wouldn't have done it--let her alone."

"Well, perhaps not, as things stood.  But he
will now.  Have you seen the morning papers?"

"The papers?  No, sir."

"If you'll read them you'll find that Senator
Norman has broken with all his old life and turned
over a new leaf entirely, which he can't turn back.
You have helped him do it, in fact!"

"What's the idea?" growled Simpson suspiciously.

"Listen, Mr. Simpson."

Rapidly Rockwell sketched the principal events
which had taken place at the hotel while the waiter
was driving his enemy about Chicago: Merriam's
impersonation, the Mayor's failure to veto the
Ordinance in time, and the necessity which both the
Mayor and Norman were now under of breaking
with the "interests" and coming out as the
candidates of the Reform League.

"In that rôle," he concluded, "George Norman
will have to lead a strictly virtuous life.  It will
be the business of his friends and backers--my
business, for example--to see that he does so.  I
will personally undertake to see that you get the
money he promised you.  All you will have to do
is to make it up with Jennie.  You may not be able
or willing to do that right away.  But in a few
months----  There's no reason why you shouldn't
be set up in a nice little business of your own--a
delicatessen or caterer's, or a taxicab firm, or
whatever you would like--in some other city, with
Jennie for your wife.  Will you think it over?"

Simpson looked at Rockwell and then at Merriam.

"You certainly are as like as two plates," he
said irrelevantly to the latter.

"Won't you think it over?" returned Merriam,
as persuasively as if he had been reasoning with
some irate patron of the Riceville High School.

"Yes," said Simpson after a bit, "I'll think it
over."

"In the meantime," said Rockwell, "you must
keep still about all this, of course.  And we may
need your help again--for taxi driving and so
forth."

"What if I choose to blow the whole thing?"

"In that case you will do more than any one
else could to help Norman to the thing he will most
want--a reconciliation with Crockett and the rest
of the gang.  And he will go on in his old
ways--Jennie included."

Rockwell let Simpson digest that for a moment,
and then said:

"Well, think it over as you have promised.  And
now we really do want breakfast."

Simpson got to his feet.  He straightened the
napkin on his arm and mechanically enunciated his
servile formula:

"Yes, sir."

"And, Simpson!"

"Yes, sir?"

"I will talk with you again this afternoon.  Till
then, at least, keep your mouth shut and think.
Think sensibly."

"Very good, sir."

Waiter No. 73 bowed gravely and left the bedroom.





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.. _`GRAPEFRUIT AND TELEGRAMS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   GRAPEFRUIT AND TELEGRAMS

.. vspace:: 2

When the door closed behind Simpson, Rockwell
and Merriam naturally looked at each other.

"Poor fellow!" said Merriam.

In spite of himself his mind was visited by a
tantalising recollection of Jennie's voice as it had
come to him over the telephone.  With no more
evidence than that he was inclined to think that
Simpson was right in saying that she would not
have a waiter now.  But it was impossible to speak
of this to Rockwell.

The latter had apparently dismissed the incident
and was looking at his watch.

"It's nearly eight o'clock," he said.  "Put the
rest of your things on and go down to Norman's
rooms on the next floor.  You're to have breakfast
there with Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman.  You'd
better go down the stairs rather than in the
elevator; you will be less likely to meet some one who
will take you for the Senator.  I am going to hunt
up Dr. Hobart, the house physician here, and take
him with me to this Madame Couteau's, or Jennie's,
to see Norman.  We must get him on his feet at
once.  A hotel physician will be the very man for that."

"I must shave," said Merriam.

"Oh, never mind that.  Time is precious."

Merriam thought of the train which he now
planned to take.  It left at nine-fifteen and would
get him to Riceville a little after noon.  He
remembered, too, that he must telegraph to his
assistant principal that he would miss the morning
session.  And he thought of the coming breakfast
hour with Mollie June.  Certainly time was
precious to him.  Nevertheless he said decidedly:

"I'm going to shave all the same."

Rockwell looked at him with a comprehending
smile.  "All right, my boy," said the older man.
"Doubtless it's very necessary.  Hurry up and try
not to cut yourself.  I'll run along with the doctor."

He moved to the door, stopped with his hand on
the knob to say, "I shall probably drop in at the
rooms before you're through breakfast," and was gone.

Merriam sighed a certain relief and went into
the bathroom to shave.

A few minutes later, following Rockwell's
injunction, he descended to the floor below by the
stairs rather than the elevator.  He forgot even to
look at the pretty floor clerk on Floor Three, who
last night was wearing his--Norman's--violets.

When he knocked at the door labeled 323 it was
the voice he most desired to hear that said,
"Come in."

He opened the door.  The rose-and-white room
was bright with morning sunshine, and half way
down its length Mollie June, in a blue satin breakfast
coat, with a lacy boudoir cap covering her hair,
was standing before the little table which held the
bowl of roses.

"Good morning, Mr.--John," she said.

He half perceived that her voice sounded tired
and a little sad.  But the daintiness of breakfast
coats and boudoir caps was as strange in Merriam's
world as white shoulders were.  His eyes drank it
in delightfully.  In his pleasure her note of
sadness escaped him.  He answered almost gaily:

"Good morning--Mollie June!"

His tone probably betrayed his mood, and I dare
say Mollie June guessed the reason for his happiness.
But she ignored both mood and reason.  She
had turned back to the roses.

"Come and help me," she said.  "These flowers
must have fresh water."

Merriam pushed the door shut behind him and
advanced rapidly.  I am almost afraid he might
have taken her in his arms.  But Mollie June was
already half way across the room with the roses, to
lay them on a newspaper which she had previously
spread on the seat of a straight-backed chair.  So
all that Merriam got his hands on was the bowl.

"Empty it in there," said Mollie June, indicating
the bathroom between the sitting room and
Norman's empty bedroom, "and fill it with cold
water."

Thankful that no reply was immediately
demanded, Merriam did as he was bid.

When he reëntered the sitting room with the
fresh water, Mollie June stooped over the chair,
gathered up the roses, and came towards him.

"Set it back in the same place," she said.

Merriam did so, and she came up to him--that
is to say, to the bowl--and inserted the stems all
together, and with her pink fingers wet from the
cool water deftly arranged the blossoms.  Then,
drying her finger tips on a very small handkerchief,
she turned and raised her eyes to him gravely.  He
saw at last that she was pale--that she had been
wakeful.  Perhaps she had been crying.  In sudden
concern he stood dumb.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

He mustered his forces to reply.

"I am afraid I did," he said, ashamed.

She looked at him forgivingly.

"Of course you must have been dreadfully tired,"
she said.  "I hardly slept at all," she added.  "I
am terribly worried about George.  We didn't even
know where he was until--a little while
ago."  Evidently Rockwell had already reported some
part, at least, of Simpson's disclosure.

For a moment they stood silent, tacitly avoiding
reference to George Norman's ascertained whereabouts.

Then Mollie June raised her eyes again.

"I'm worried, too, about--what we did last
night.  We mustn't do--so, again."

She met his eyes, very serious.

"No!" Merriam assented.

"I can't call you 'Mr. Merriam,' though," she
cried.  "And I mustn't call you 'John.'  I've
decided to call you 'Mr. John'!"

"Thank you," said Merriam gravely.  He was
deeply touched by the unconscious confession.

Mollie June turned away.  "I must tell Aunt
Mary you are here."

Just then there came a knocking at the hall door.

For an instant the boy and girl stared at each
other as though in guilty alarm.  Merriam started
to go to the door.  But Mollie June had recovered
her wits.

"No," she said.  "You must be careful about
being seen.  Sit there."  She pointed to the
armchair which still faced the gas log between the
windows at the end of the room farthest from the hall.
"I'll see who it is."

It proved to be no one more dangerous than
Simpson, who with an assistant was prepared to
set up a table in the sitting room and serve the
grapefruit.

And even while Mollie June was bidding him
come in, Aunt Mary entered from the bedroom.
With her was Miss Alicia Wayward, apparently
much excited, with her hands full of newspapers.

Merriam stood up, and Alicia, catching sight of
him, dropped on the floor the paper she held in her
right hand and advanced with an air of eagerness.

"Oh, Mr.----," she began.  Then, as Merriam
took her hand, she stopped short in her sentence,
laughed, and said, "Who are you this morning?"

Merriam, whom Alicia always stimulated to play
up, bowed over her hand as elegantly as he could
and replied:

"Senator Norman, I believe--at your service.
Good morning, Miss Norman," he added, politely,
to the older woman.

Aunt Mary merely nodded, rather grimly, and
turned away as if to inspect Simpson's preparation
of the breakfast table.  Merriam wondered how
much of Simpson's confession Rockwell had found
time to report to her.

But Alicia gave him little time for speculation.

"Well, Senator," she rejoined, withdrawing her
hand (you were always conscious when Alicia gave
her hand and when she withdrew it), "you and the
Mayor have made quite a noise in the world this
morning.  See!"

She displayed the newspaper which she still held
in her left hand.  It was one of the leading Chicago
dailies, which invariably prints one bold black
headline across the top of the entire front page.
The topic may be a world war or a dog fight, but
the headline is always there in the same size and
startling blackness of type.  This morning it read:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center bold

   Mayor Black Signs Ordinance

.. vspace:: 1

And one of the columns below carried the further
head:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   *The Mayor and Senator Norman
   Reported to Have Broken
   With Traction Interests*

.. vspace:: 2

"Oh!" exclaimed Mollie June, who had approached
and read these captions.  She looked at
Merriam with wide-open eyes.  I surmise that the
newspaper headlines gave her, as indeed they gave
to Merriam himself, the first actual realisation of
the public interest attaching to what they had
really felt to be a little private drama of their own.

Aunt Mary had joined them.

"Mr. Black has definitely signed it, you see,"
she said, with a touch of triumph in her tone.

It appeared that the Mayor had not gone to the
Council meeting at all, and the paper did not fail
to point out that the Ordinance had become law
without his signature, under the provisions of the
City Charter, at nine o'clock; but late in the
evening, shortly before the Council adjourned, the
document had arrived by a messenger, with the Mayor's
signature attached.

Reporters had immediately set out in relentless
pursuit and had routed the Mayor out of bed at his
house between twelve and one o'clock and obtained
a brief interview; the substance of which was that
the public interest of the city demanded the
improved conditions which the new law would insure,
and that he was proud to complete with his
approval the public-spirited action of the Councilmen
in passing it.

The rest was mere rumour and speculation,
interlarded with many prudent "it is said's," but it
seemed that some if not all of it must have been
inspired by the Mayor.  "It was said" that an
important representative of the Traction interests had
seen Senator Norman in his rooms at the Hotel
De Soto early in the evening and pleaded with him
the cause of the interested bondholders and
stockholders, whose investments would be imperilled by
the changes involved, but that he had stood firm on
the ground of the public welfare.  "It was said,"
too, that later Mayor Black had had a long
conference with the Senator--well, it *had* been rather
long,--and that they had agreed that the interests
of the plain people of Chicago must at all costs
decide the issue.  "It was said," finally, that both
Senator Norman and Mayor Black would probably
join forces with the Reform League, whose program
they had finally so powerfully supported, in
demanding and obtaining other needed improvements
in municipal conditions.

From all of which it seemed to be clear that the
Mayor, having taken an hour or so to think over
the situation in which he found himself, had
become convinced of the soundness of Aunt Mary's
logic and had decided, without waiting for any
further communication from the Norman camp, to
claim the credit for the Ordinance and appeal for
popular support thereon, taking care, however, to
involve Senator Norman's name so that the real
Norman should be compelled to join forces with
him in his new departure.

By the time the column of news and comment
and a brief and cautious editorial on the occurrence
had been read out by Alicia and one or two other
papers glanced at, Simpson had set up and laid his
table and had his first course served.  He respectfully
approached and inquired if they were ready
for breakfast.

"Certainly!" said Aunt Mary.

Merriam looked at his watch.  It was half past
eight.

"I ought to send my telegram to Riceville first,"
he said, "to let them know I shall be there on the
noon train."

"After the grapefruit," said Aunt Mary, with a
decided note in her voice which led Merriam to
look at her inquiringly.

But he desired to exhibit the coolness of a man
of the world, to whom telegrams were customary
incidents of daily living and who habitually ran
close to the wind in the matter of trains.  So he
acquiesced with a bookish "As you please," and
moved with the others to the table.

Simpson had decorated the center of the board
with one of the hotel's slim glass vases holding a
couple of pink carnations.  Mollie June regarded
this ornament with disfavour.

"Let's have the roses instead, Mr. John," she said.

And Merriam, to the scandal of Simpson, himself
removed the carnations and set the bowl of
roses in their place.

They said little over the grapefruit.  Alicia
added a few humorous comments on points in the
newspaper article, but Aunt Mary was divided
between an anxious absent-mindedness and a curious
questioning scrutiny of Merriam, and Merriam was
distracted between a suppressed worry over his
telegram and approaching train time and the
delight of stolen glances at--Mrs. Senator Norman.
As for Mrs. Senator Norman, she devoted herself
chiefly to the fruit.  Once or twice, in looking up,
she almost unavoidably intercepted one of
Merriam's guilty glances.  When this happened, she
met his eyes frankly but with a gravity that was
pathetically, forgivingly rebuking.

Presently Simpson was removing the fruit rinds
and placing finger bowls.  Merriam looked quickly
at his watch again and spoke to the waiter:

"Bring me a telegraph form, please."

Aunt Mary's absent-mindedness instantly vanished.

"What message are you going to send?" she
asked in a restrained voice.

"Missed night train.  Will arrive at noon."

"No!" said Aunt Mary.  "Mr. Merriam," she
pursued quickly, "until George is brought back
here you must stay.  After all this in the papers
this morning there will be scores of people to see
him to-day.  He is known to be a late riser and
never sees any one before ten or they would have
been here before this.  In a very few minutes they
will begin to come.  We will put off most of them,
of course.  But there are likely to be some whom
we can't put off.  We can't tell where George is,
and we can't say we don't know where he is, and
there will be one or two to whom we can't say we
won't tell where he is.  We must have you in
reserve.  You shall go to bed in George's room, ill
with--with--lumbago.  Dr. Hobart will attend
you.  When absolutely necessary we can show a
man into the room, and you can say a few words.
I will tell you what to say in each case.  You can
have your head half way under the covers, and can
make your voice weak and husky.  You will be
safe enough from detection.  Then by this evening
at the latest we shall bring George back, and
you can go down to Riceville on the night train.
You will only have missed one day, and you will
have saved us from a most serious dilemma."

There was an appeal in the elderly woman's
voice to which Merriam was not insensible, though
the pull of habitual regularity at his school was
strong in him.

It is to be feared that Alicia spoiled Aunt Mary's
effect.  Across the table from Merriam, she was
partly hidden from him by the flowers.  But she
leaned forward, bringing her face almost beside the
roses, and spoke in her most honeyed tones:

"Oh, do, Mr. Merriam!  How can you resist it?"
she added.  "If I were a man and had the chance
to be Mollie June's husband even for a day----"

She stopped with her archest smile.

Mollie June, with possibly the slightest
augmentation of colour, brought forward a practical
argument.

"Since you will miss the morning anyway, it
won't much matter if you miss the whole day.
You haven't but one class in the afternoon, have you?"

"Only senior algebra," said Merriam.

"Miss Eldon can take that."

"I suppose she could," said Merriam, who was
realising that on this particular day advanced
algebra would be to him the most distasteful of all
branches of human learning.

"Then you'll stay and help us--Mr. John!"

The reader will perceive that this simple appeal
was really much superior to any which the too
sophisticated and calculating Alicia could contrive.
A touch of wistfulness came into Mollie June's face
with the word "help."  His high promise of the
night before was irresistibly recalled.  And
"Mr. John" reminded him of the delightfulness of fresh
water for roses and of the unconscious confession
which her compromise name for him had implied.
Alicia discreetly retired behind the roses, and
Aunt Mary waited with lips somewhat grimly pursed.

Then, while Merriam hesitated, with his eyes
on Mollie June's face--we must suppose that
he was weighing her very practical argument,--the
telephone rang.

Simpson, with telegraph blanks in his hand,
answered it, and reported that Mr. Rockwell wished
to speak to Senator Norman.

"This is--Norman," said Merriam cautiously
into the telephone.

"Ah!" said Rockwell's voice.  "Well, you'll be
pleased to learn that you are quieter.  You aren't
seeing things any more."  (I'm not sure of that,
thought Merriam.)  "But you, he has a severe
cold--fever and a cough--touch of bronchitis,
probably.  Hobart says he can't possibly be moved till
to-night.  Anyway, I don't see how we could get
him into the hotel till then.  You must stay, Merriam."

"All right," said Merriam, surprising his
interlocutor by his ready acquiescence, "I'll stay."

"Good!  I'll be down at the hotel in half an
hour."  Rockwell rang off.

Merriam turned to face the three women.

When Aunt Mary heard the news about George,
she held out her hand to Simpson for the telegraph
forms and wrote.

In a moment she read:

"'Ill with a touch of bronchitis.  Hope to be
back to-morrow.  John Merriam.'  Will that do?"

"I suppose so," he assented.

His words were almost drowned by a loud knock
at the door.

"Our day has begun," said Aunt Mary, rising
with admirable composure.  She handed the
telegram to Simpson.  "Send it at once.  Into the
bedroom, Mr. Merriam.  Get into bed as soon as
you can.  You have bronchitis, you know,--not
lumbago."

But before Merriam could obey the door was
suddenly opened.





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.. _`A CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT

.. vspace:: 2

The man who thus burst into Senator Norman's
sitting room at nine o'clock in the
morning without waiting for an invitation was an
unpleasant but important personage--none other
than J. J. Thompson (one never thought of
calling him "Mr."), Norman's private political
manager in all matters that involved handling the
people's vote.

He was a short, stoutish, belligerent type, about
forty-five, with thin, untidy hair, a thin, untidy
moustache, and, somewhere between the moustache
and the hair, a pair of small blue eyes, which
seemed incapable of any other expressions than
aggressiveness and anger.  Senator Norman--the
real Norman--had long found him nearly as
disagreeable as the reader will find him, but so
useful in many political contingencies that he had
never been able to bring himself to dispense with him.

Having popped explosively into the room,
Thompson stopped short at sight of the three
women.  For the first instant or two he did not
notice Merriam, who had quietly slipped into the
great armchair that faced the gas log, with his back
almost squarely to the room.

"Good morning, Mr. Thompson," said Aunt
Mary.  "We were just having breakfast."

Alicia and Mollie June still sat at the table, and
Simpson stood a little at one side.  Thompson
knew who the two girls were, and they knew who
he was, but he had never been presented in
Norman's family except to Miss Norman--a fact which
he resented keenly,--so they did not speak.  Alicia
sat back in her chair and stared insolently, while
Mollie June leaned forward and rearranged a rose
in the bowl.

"I'm sorry to break in this way," Thompson
said--even he was slightly abashed,--"but I've got
to speak to the Senator."

"Come back a little later, Mr. Thompson,"
ventured Merriam in a hoarse whisper.

The "Mr." was a false note, and its effect was
to anger Thompson.

"No!" he cried, the pugnacious gleam that was
never far below the surface of his little eyes
appearing in them.  "I've got to speak to you now!
I've got a right to!"

He advanced.  He would have passed the table
so as to approach Merriam.  But there was only a
narrow space on either side of it, and in one of
those avenues stood Simpson behind Alicia, while
Aunt Mary had quietly moved into the other, standing
with her hand on the back of the chair in which
Merriam had been sitting.  So Thompson found
himself barricaded, as it were, and stopped short
and shouted across the table and over the head of
Mollie June.

"What in--what's the meaning of all this--this
stuff in the papers?"

Thompson's difficulty in expressing himself
under the handicap of the interdiction against
profanity imposed by the presence of the women was
a trifle ludicrous.  But his tone and manner were
almost as bad as an oath would have been.

Alicia's eyebrows rose.  She rose herself.

"Perhaps we had better withdraw," she said.

If Merriam, who had never seen her in any other
than a gracious and seductive mood, could have
turned his head to look, he would have marvelled at
her freezing disdain.  Mollie June imitated her in
rising and in a more youthful hauteur.  Without
waiting for any reply Alicia turned and walked
into the bedroom, and Mollie June followed.

But feminine disdain, however magnificent, had
little effect on Thompson.  He was obviously
relieved.  He looked at Aunt Mary, plainly desiring
that she should go too.

"No, I think I'll remain, Mr. Thompson," she
said pleasantly.

Then he looked at Simpson, and the latter cast
an inquiring glance at Aunt Mary.

"You may stay, please, Simpson," said she.
"We shall be finishing our breakfast presently."

Before Thompson could digest this snub Alicia
reëntered from the bedroom.  She carried a white
knitted wool scarf, with which she went to Merriam.

"Don't you feel chilly, George?" she asked.
"You can't be too careful with that throat."

She knelt down by his chair, put the scarf over
his head, brought it down past his cheeks, tied it
loosely under his chin, and threw the ends back
over his shoulders.

"Now, lean back.  Isn't that better?  Mr. Norman
has a severe cold," she said in the general
direction of Thompson.  "The doctor is afraid of
bronchitis," she added, as she rose and drew the
shades.  "That light is getting too bright for your
eyes."

She flashed a glance at Aunt Mary and returned
to the bedroom.

Merriam had been feeling that it was only a
matter of minutes before Thompson--whoever
Thompson might be--would somehow force his way
to his side and look down into his face and,
probably, perceive the imposture as Mayor Black had
done.  But now, with the welcome aid of the scarf,
he had the bravado to turn partly in his chair and
say throatily:

"What do you want?"

Thompson had remained a gaping spectator of
the tying up of Merriam's head, but this question
enabled him to recover his natural aggressiveness.
With one defiant glance at Aunt Mary, he started
forward and pushed his way past Simpson, who
could have stopped him only by an actual physical
offensive.

"What do I want?" he repeated sarcastically,
as he stood looking down on the senatorial head
bundled in the scarf.  "I want to know what the
hell you've gone and done--you and Black--without
letting anybody know you were going to!
What about Crockett?  Didn't you promise him at
eight o'clock last night that you would tell Black
to veto?  And then this!"

Thompson had drawn a folded newspaper from
his coat pocket.  He struck it with his other hand.

"Is that the way to treat your friends who've
stuck by you?  What about the election next week?
What about the state machine?  What about your
campaign fund?  Have you gone nutty?  Did you
really do it, or is the Mayor lying?  That's what I
want to know!"

"What business is it of yours?" asked the victim
of this torrent of questions as he stared from
between the folds of his woolen scarf at the unlighted
gas log.

Merriam really was asking for information, but
the politician could not know this.  It seemed to
him the last insult--and repudiation.  He fell back
a step dramatically.

"So that's it!" he cried.  "After I've managed
two campaigns for you!  I've done your dirty work
for ten years!  And now, over night, what business
is it of mine?  You throw me over!  And all your
friends.  The men who sent you to the Senate of
the United States and kept you there.  And what
for?  To join that fool Black!  And the Reform
League, I suppose.  Philip Rockwell and his gang
of preachers and short-haired women and
long-haired mollycoddles!  You'll appeal to the dear
People!  Bah!"

Thompson had by this time apparently forgotten
entirely the presence of Aunt Mary and Simpson.
He snatched a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and
bit the end off it, produced a match from
somewhere, and lighted it, emitting volumes of smoke.
He thumped with his newspaper on the arm of
Merriam's chair and in an impressively lowered tone
continued:

"Listen to me.  It won't do, Senator.  You can't
get away with it.  Not you.  Reform and the people
and pure politics and all that.  If you'd started in
on that line twenty years ago,--may be!  I don't
say it couldn't be made to pay.  But not by you, at
this time of day.  It's too late.  You've tied up
with the other gang.  They know you.  They know
too much about you.  They won't let you do it.
It's no use trying.  Of course, if you're tired of your
job--if you're hankering to quit--if you want to go
down in a grand smash,--all right!  But if you
want to stay in the United States Senate, there's
just one way you can do it, and that's to play the
old game in the old way with the old crowd.  Savez?"

All this was a trifle hard on young Merriam.
Thompson had told who he was, so that the boy
realised the critical character of the interview.
But there was so much else he needed to know.
How had the real Norman been in the habit of
treating this man?  How would he probably have
acted in such a situation as they were pretending?
The only thing he could do was to say as little as
possible.  Now that it was necessary to make some
response, what he said was:

"We'll see about that."

Thompson was rather encouraged than otherwise
by this remark.  He had not, of course, expected
any immediate acquiescence.

"You'll see all right if you keep on," he retorted
with elephantine irony.  "But for God's sake,
Senator, try to see things in time.  It's not too late
yet.  Turn the Mayor down.  You aren't committed
openly.  He is, but you aren't.  Let him go
smash alone.  He was always a fool!  You can
swear to Crockett that you told Black to veto.  It
don't matter whether he believes you or not.  He'll
take you back.  This Ordinance business don't
matter.  They'll fix that some way.  There are
bigger things than that coming, and they know
how useful you can be.  You can't keep on with this
other."

"Can't I?" asked Merriam, not unskillfully fishing
for further revelations.

"Listen to me, Senator.  Didn't you accept fifty
thousand dollars of common stock in the United
Traction Companies?  Are you going to give that
back?  Will Crockett *let* you give it back?  Not he!
Have you forgotten how we cornered the vote in
Kankakee County when you ran six years ago?
Crockett knows about that.  The whole crowd know
it.  And what about that nice little honorarium
you received for your vote in the Senate on the last
amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act?  If
you've forgotten it, the men who put it up haven't!
Do you think they'll let you go off like this?  As
long as you play the game and keep your good looks
and can make your popular speeches they'll keep
you in the Senate, and the good things will come
your way.  They'll get you a Cabinet job if you
want it.  Just say the word.  But if you throw
them over, they'll turn on you.  These little things
I've been reminding you of will leak out.  Man
alive, you're liable to end in the pen!"

"Perhaps," said Merriam, "but I shouldn't go
alone.  A man named Thompson would go with
me, eh?  And maybe even Mr. Crockett.  And
others I might name."  (Merriam wished he *could*
name them.)

"That for your threats!" he finished grandly
and snapped his fingers, thanking heaven for the
rôle of villain he had enacted in a certain college
melodrama, in connection with which he had, by
diligent practice, acquired the not common art of
snapping one's fingers effectively.

Thompson, who, had unwontedly removed his
cigar from his mouth at Merriam's speech, now
backed away from the huddled figure.

"You think you'd do that!" he said, in a voice in
which cynical scorn contended with something a
little like fright.

"Not unless I am forced to," said Merriam.
"But I have chosen a new course, and I mean to
follow it."

But Thompson, standing solidly in the spot to
which he had retreated, as if he had "dug in" there,
restored his cigar to the accustomed corner of his
face and narrowed his little eyes till they were
hideously smaller than usual.

"It's unfortunate, Senator," he said, with a kind
of exaggerated suavity, "that this reform in your
public morals last night was not accompanied by a
corresponding change in your private morals."

"What do you mean?" asked Merriam quickly,
and his voice faltered ever so little, a fact which
the other did not miss.

"Oh, you were known, you know, at Reiberg's
Place.  You told everybody who you were, I understand.
You must have been pretty gay.  Celebrating
your new virtue, I suppose!  But handing
fifty-dollar bills to dance-hall girls isn't quite the
line for a Reform League hero, Senator!  And we
know where you went afterwards.  She's a pretty
little thing, but she's not in the Reform League
picture!  Suppose we say nothing about the United
Traction stock or the Kankakee County vote or the
Interstate Commerce business or any other little
incidents of the past like that, but just start with this
little affair of last night.  How will that mix with
pure politics, Senator?"

It was Thompson's turn to enjoy himself.  He
could not refrain from following up this new vein.

"Your old friends are liberal-minded, Senator.
But your new friends, the great American people,
are a little inclined to be narrow in matters of
private morality."

Thompson's follow-up attack was a mistake.  It
gave Merriam time to think and decide upon his
course.

"I was *not* at Reiberg's last night," he said,
recovering his loftiness and adding coldness
thereto.  "Nor anywhere else.  I spent the night
in this hotel."

Thompson stared.  For a moment it almost
seemed that his jaw would fall and his precious
cigar drop out.  But he recovered himself with a
sneer.

"You did, did you?  In the company of your
wife, I suppose!  And that thing about your head
is really to keep you from catching cold and not to
keep your head from splitting open with the headache?
You're pretty fresh this morning, considering.
I hand it to you there.  But"--his rising
anger got the better of his unnatural affectation of
suavity, which he had maintained up to the limit of
his endurance--"but that lie won't go!  You don't
know what you did last night.  You were stewed
right.  You told every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and
Mary and Jane at the dance hall that you were
Senator Norman.  You fool!"

"After that," said Merriam, playing his part
regally, or, let us say, senatorially, "I can only
suggest to you that behind you is a door which I
wish you would make use of as soon as possible."

Thompson seemed decidedly nonplused at this.
The real Norman had always been amenable to
threats and on the whole patient under abuse.

"Do you mean," he burst out, "that I'm not to
be your manager?  You turn me down cold?"

At this juncture there came a quick, light knock
at the door to which Merriam had just referred so
grandly.

Simpson looked quickly at Aunt Mary and then
at Merriam.

"Let me know who it is," said the latter,
realising that he must seem to be in command.

When Simpson opened the door it was Rockwell
who pushed past him.  He stopped short before
Thompson (with his cigar) in hostile confrontation.

Cautiously Merriam peered around the off side
of his high backed chair.

"Mr. Thompson," he said, "you know Mr. Rockwell,
I believe.  My new manager!"

For a moment Thompson stood.  Once his mouth
opened, almost certainly to frame an oath.  It is
strange evidence of the survival of chivalry in
American life that Aunt Mary's presence
restrained that outburst.  Instead, we must suppose,
he took the stub of his cigar from his mouth and
dashed it on the carpet.

"I'm through!" he said.  Then to Merriam:
"I'll use your door all right--for the last time--till
you send for me!"

He caught up his hat and walked past Rockwell,
within an inch of brushing against him but not
looking at him.

At the door he turned.

"You've read your morning papers, I suppose!
Have you read *Tidbits*?  Take a look at it!"

The door slammed behind him.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOLDING THE FORT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   HOLDING THE FORT

.. vspace:: 2

The reverberation of Thompson's slamming
still echoed in the room when the bedroom
door opened and Alicia sailed in, followed more
demurely by Mollie June.

"Good morning, Philip," said Alicia to her
fiancé.

Then she turned to Merriam.

"Oh, you did splendidly!" she cried.

"Did I?" said Merriam, awkwardly trying to get
the woolen scarf off his head.

"Indeed you did.  We listened to every word.
I through the keyhole.  And Mollie June lay down
on the floor and listened under the door.  It was
mean of me to take the keyhole, but I'm too old and
fat for the other position."

Possibly Mollie June's recent prostration
accounted for the color in her cheeks.

"Help him off with that thing, dear," Alicia
added, and herself advanced to Rockwell and took
his hands, offering to be kissed--an offer of which
Rockwell took advantage with some fervour.

"Yes, I'll help you," said Mollie June, moving
somewhat timidly in Merriam's direction.

He met her more than half way.

"Please," he said.  "I'm all bound round with
a woolen string."

Mollie June drew the ends of the scarf down off
his shoulders and untied the loose knot under his
chin.

"There!" she said, looking up at him.

Merriam snatched the thing off his head, ruffling
his hair.

"Thank you!"

Rockwell's voice reached them across the room.
Aunt Mary had been hurriedly narrating the
happenings with Thompson.  He now looked
approvingly at Merriam.

"That's all right," he said, reflectively.  "Very
good.  Yes.  Just as well to defy him at once.
Could hardly have been better.  Ah, there's Hobart
now, I suppose," for a discreet knock had sounded
at the hall door.

Rockwell himself admitted the house physician,
a bald, youngish man, with nose glasses over
slightly shifty eyes and a quite unprofessional
manner--the manner of a "smart" young business man.

Merriam and Mollie June joined the others for
the introductions.  These formalities over,
Dr. Hobart confirmed the report of Norman's condition
which Rockwell had given them over the telephone.
He "was getting along all right"--with a sidelong
glance at Mollie June--"except for a touch of
bronchitis."

Mollie June betrayed an embarrassed uneasiness.
Merriam wondered just how much she knew of her
husband's whereabouts--of his escapades in general.

"Very well," said Aunt Mary briskly, "you must
go right to bed, Mr. Merriam, before some one else
comes.  You're ill with bronchitis, of course.  That
scarf was a splendid idea, Alicia, but it was a close
shave.  We mustn't run any more risks.  You will
attend him, Dr. Hobart?"

"Of course," said the young physician, evidently
much amused.  "Mr. Rockwell has told me the
story.  It's as good as a play.  Mr. Merriam--I
mean, Senator,--I order you to bed at once."

"Very well," said Merriam and turned towards
Senator Norman's bedroom.

"I'll show you where things are," said Rockwell,
accompanying him.  "I explored a bit last night."

In the bedroom with the door closed behind them,
Merriam hesitated.

"Better get your things off at once," said Rockwell,
going to the bureau and stooping to open the
bottom drawer.  "It's nearly ten o'clock," he
continued, rummaging.  "The reporters will be here
any minute.  I'm surprised some enterprising chap
hasn't arrived already.  We'll try to keep them off,
of course.  But some of those fellows are mighty
clever.  Here we are--pajamas," he added, pulling
out the garments for which he had been searching.

Then he crossed to a closet, from which in a
moment he emerged with a bath robe and a pair of
bedroom slippers.

"I'll put these by the bed so that if there's any
reason for you to get up you can do so easily.  But
unless something happens to change our plans,
you're much too sick to get up to-day."

A knock sounded at the door into the sitting
room.  Rockwell answered it and returned grinning.

"Aunt Mary says that Simpson shall bring you
some ham and a cup of coffee as soon as you're in
bed.  Why didn't you tell me you have had nothing
to eat but grapefruit?"

"I had forgotten," said Merriam, realising
nevertheless that he was very hungry.

Rockwell dropped into a comfortable chair.  "It's
rather good fun," he said.  "This conspiracy
business.  I do hope we can pull it through."

By this time Merriam was inside the senatorial
pajamas.  He approached the bed, turned down
the covers, and awkwardly climbed in, feeling for
all the world like a little boy who has been sent to
bed in the daytime for being naughty.

"Now about lights," said Rockwell rising.  The
window shades had not been raised; they were using
the chandelier.  "Not these center lights, nor the
night lamp.  Both are too bright on your face in
case----  Let's try this side light."

He turned on a light on the wall on the other
side of Merriam's bed, switched off the ceiling
lights, and surveyed the effect.

"That's good," he said.  "If we have to bring
any one in, you can lie looking this way and still
your face will be in shadow.  Lie well down in with
the covers up to your chin.  Now I'll bring you
some breakfast."

Merriam, left alone for a minute, wished he had
been permitted to finish his breakfast in the sitting
room before being sent to bed.  He had counted on
that breakfast, and the first course had been fully
as delightful as he had pictured it.

Rockwell soon returned, carrying a tray on which
was a plate of really fine ham, with rolls and butter
and a cup of coffee.

"I guess I'm not too sick to sit up to eat, so long
as only you're here," said Merriam, suiting his
posture to the word and falling to with appetite.

Rockwell drew up a chair and for several minutes
sat smoking in silence.  Then he said:

"Did you catch Thompson's parting shot about *Tidbits*?"

"Yes," Merriam replied, without interrupting
operations.  "What did he mean?"

Rockwell drew a clipping from his pocket.
"Listen," he said, and read the following:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center

   *The Senator's Night Off*

..
   
   There was a dance last night at Reiberg's
   Place on the West Side.  Most of our readers
   do not know Reiberg's.  It comprises a dancing
   floor over a saloon, with a bar attached for
   the convenience of patrons who may not be
   willing--or, as the evening advances, able--to
   go downstairs to the saloon; also certain small
   rooms where one may drink or otherwise enjoy
   oneself quite privately.  Its patrons, male and
   female, are chiefly employees in the neighbouring
   factories.
   
   But last night Reiberg's was honoured, we
   are credibly informed, by a guest from quite a
   different sphere--no less than a Senator of the
   United States.  We are not able at present to
   give his name with certainty, and of course we
   are not willing to give names in such a case
   until we have verified our information with
   scrupulous care.  But he certainly announced
   himself as Senator ----, and he looked the
   part, and distributed money, presumably from
   the salary paid to him out of public funds,
   with lavish abandon.
   
   Having tried to kiss one of the prettier girls
   and been knocked down by her escort--who
   evidently knew naught of "senatorial
   courtesies,"--he emphasised the sincerity of his
   tipsy apologies by handing the lucky insulted
   one a fifty-dollar bill.
   
   Later, it is said, he attached himself to
   another young woman, unaccompanied, it would
   seem, by any pugnacious swain, with whom he
   spent several hours, partly on the dancing floor
   and partly elsewhere.
   
   Finally, with we fear little of his money left
   about him, he was charitably carried off by the
   chauffeur of his waiting taxi.
   
   Well, well, after the arduous strain of
   legislative labours, one doubtless feels the need of
   a little relaxation.  We hope the Senator
   enjoyed himself.

.. vspace:: 2

Rockwell folded up his clipping.  "A tolerably
close paraphrase of Simpson's story," he remarked.
"They have the facts pretty straight."

"What is this *Tidbits*?" asked Merriam, sitting
on his pillow with the tray in his lap.  He had
stopped eating.

"Oh, a dirty little sheet of scandal.  Twice a
week.  But it's pretty widely read.  And they
know his name, of course.  In fact any one can
guess it, because Senator Norman is known to be
in the city, and there is no other United States
Senator stopping here now, so far as any one
knows.  It will be a bit nasty if they push this sort
of thing.  They'll put it in the regular newspapers
next--a straight news item with his name in it."

"That article doesn't say where he went afterwards,"
said Merriam.  "But Thompson knew.

"They're keeping that in reserve.  Listen!"

Male voices were audible from the sitting room.

"The reporters!" exclaimed Rockwell.  "I'll
take that tray.  Lie down and cover up.  I must
go and help Aunt Mary hold the fort."

Merriam finished his coffee in a gulp, and Rockwell
set the tray on the seat of a chair and hastily
entered the sitting room.

There followed a long period--more than an
hour, in fact--during which Merriam lay in bed
and listened to varied voices from the other room,
and speculated as to what was going on, and
wondered what he should do if the door should open
and some irresistibly aggressive reporter or
irresistibly important political friend of Norman's be
ushered in.

But Rockwell and Aunt Mary, with the occasional
support of Dr. Hobart, successfully withstood
the army of reporters and a few minor politicians
who called, and at length the loud masculine
voices from the other room ceased, and Merriam
lay still, somewhat fatigued by his prolonged strain
of apprehension, and waited.

Presently the door opened, and Aunt Mary and
Rockwell entered.  Merriam had closed his eyes,
but Rockwell speedily opened them.

"Oh, you can wake up," he said.  "It's all right.
The coast is clear."

Merriam rolled over so as to lie on his back.
"Well, what next?" he said.

Aunt Mary and Rockwell looked at each, other.
Rockwell spoke:

"Miss Norman and I are going out.  We shall
drop in at the Mayor's for a few minutes and then
go on to a Reform League luncheon at the Urban
Club.  I am due to act as toastmaster or chairman
for the speeches afterwards, and it will be just as
well to have Miss Norman present.  She will
symbolise the prospective new alliance.  We are going
to leave you under the care of Alicia and Mrs. Norman.
No one else is likely to come for several
hours now.  We shall be back at about half past
two or three.  Meanwhile luncheon.  You didn't
get a very big breakfast after all.  Simpson shall
serve it here by your bed, and Alicia and Mollie
June can eat with you."

This disposition suited Merriam excellently well,
but he made no comment.  He tried to decide
whether Aunt Mary was really eyeing him sharply
or whether he only imagined it.

In any case she almost immediately added a
rather formal "Good morning," and returned to
the sitting room.

Rockwell lingered a moment.

"We're going to try to bring Norman back here
this evening, you know.  If it's at all possible.  If
it shouldn't be--if he's too sick or something, I
suppose you could stay over another day still?"

Merriam thought with a panic of his school.

"Not unless it's absolutely necessary," he replied
with a good deal of emphasis.

"It probably won't be," said Rockwell reassuringly.
"We're quite as anxious to get rid of you,
you know," he added smiling, "as you can be to get
away from us.  A double's a horribly dangerous
thing to have around.  Well, so long."

In less than five minutes after Rockwell's
departure there came a knock at that door upon
which Merriam's attention was concentrated--a
distinctly feminine knock.

Merriam disposed himself as discreetly as
possible under the bedclothes and answered it.

Alicia opened the door and peeped.  "May I
come in?"  She opened it wider and came through.
"I'm the chaperon, you know."

"Are you?" asked Merriam smiling.

Alicia was pleased by his smile and said so.

"I always like it when people laugh at the idea
of my being a chaperon."

"Why?" said Merriam.

"Oh, so long as it seems funny for a woman to be
a chaperon she's young."

"It seems funny for you," said Merriam.

"That's very nicely said," returned Alicia.
"Come in, Mollie June."

As Mollie June did not appear, Alicia looked
into the sitting room.

"Why," she said, "she must have gone into her
bedroom.  I do believe she's doing her hair
over."  And Alicia raised her eyebrows.

In spite of hope deferred Merriam was made
happy.  He recalled the supreme necessity of
shaving earlier that morning.

Alicia dropped into the chair by the bed in which
Rockwell had sat and pretended to scan the
invalid's face solicitously.

"I should say, Senator," she remarked, "that
you do not *look* like a very sick man.  Your
condition must be improving.  We can hope you will be
able to take a little nourishment."

"You can hope that all right," grinned the invalid.

"I've ordered----"  Alicia, making talk,
plunged into the details of a quite elaborate refection.

By the time she had finished and had replied to
one or two humorous comments from Merriam,
whose spirits were certainly rising, Simpson
presented himself with the substantial fulfillment of
her prospectus.  And not until then did Mollie
June join them.  Her coiffure, though simple, was
certainly faultless and so far as a masculine eye
could judge newly arranged.

Alicia caught Merriam's glance and read his
thoughts and smiled.

"What is it?" asked Mollie June suspiciously.

"What is what?" said Merriam, lamely.

"The Senator has been very humorous over the
meal I have ordered," explained Alicia more
deftly.

"Don't call him the Senator!" cried Mollie June.
"His name is"--her eyes met Merriam's for an
instant--"Mr. John."

"I see," said Alicia.  In the dim light Merriam
was not sure whether she raised her eyebrows again
or not, but he was afraid she did.

Simpson, intent only on the proper illumination
of his carefully laid cloth, but unwittingly
conspiring with the elder gods (Fate and Destiny and the
like), had turned on the night lamp and set it on
the corner of the table next to Mollie June, and its
radiance fell full on her slender, erect figure, now
arrayed in--Merriam had not the slightest idea
what kind of fabric it was, but it was creamy white,
and at her waist was one of the red roses he had
helped to freshen.  The circle of bright light
extended up to her white throat.  Occasionally when
she leaned forward her face dipped into it, but for
the most part showed only dimly in the fainter
glow that came through the shade of the lamp.  He
could see her eyes, however, and not infrequently
they rested on him.  His, it is to be feared, were
on her most of the time.

When at length the luncheon was finished and
Merriam had expressed himself as disinclined for
cigarettes and Simpson had removed his dishes and
his table and finally himself, Alicia, who was really
a most good-natured person--a pearl among
chaperons,--yawned and announced that she had a
novel which she desired to finish, and that, if they
didn't mind, she proposed to retire to the sitting
room to prosecute that literary occupation.

"You can amuse him for a while, Mrs. Norman,"
she said, with a humorous smile; Merriam did not
venture to question what more subtle thoughts that
smile might veil.  "He's your guest more than
mine, seeing it's your husband he's impersonating.
If he gets too boring, you can come for me and I'll
spell you."

Neither Mollie June nor Merriam replied, but
Alicia, still with that amused smile, rose and calmly
departed.  She left the door open, of course,
between the two rooms.

Upon the two young people, thus abruptly left
alone together, there descended an embarrassed
silence.  For a minute or so they heard Alicia
moving about in the sitting room and then the
small sounds which one makes in adjusting one's
self comfortably in an armchair with a footstool
and a book, ending in a pleasurable sigh.

Merriam was overwhelmed by the necessity of
finding talk.  He could not lie there in bed and
stare at Mollie June, however beatitudinous it
might have been to do so.  Several seconds of
prodigious intellectual labour brought forth this polite
question:

"Do you hear often from the girls in Riceville?"

"Not very often," said Mollie June.

We can hardly describe this reply as helpful.

Again he struggled mightily, with the banal kind
of result that usually follows such paroxysms
conversational topic-hunting:

"You must find your life here and in Washington
wonderful."

"It seemed so, at first," said Mollie June.

"But it didn't last?"

Merriam was conscious of danger on this tack
but he must have a moment's rest before he could
wrestle with the void again.

"No," said Mollie June.

Merriam waited, not shirking his responsibilities
but conscious that she meant to continue.  She
was always deliberate of speech--a fact which gave
a piquant significance to her simplest words.

"You see," she said, "I didn't really care very
much for George.  I thought I did at first, but I
didn't.  Papa really made me marry him.  And
you know he is untrue to me."

Merriam could have gasped.  He felt himself
falling through the thin ice of mere "conversation,"
on which he had tried so hard to skate, into
the depths of real talk.  But it was good to be in
the depths.  And after his first breathlessness he
was filled with love and pity.  How much the brief,
girlish sentences portrayed of disillusionment and
tragedy!

"You know about that then?" he asked gently.

"Of course," said Mollie June, almost scornfully.
"Before company Aunt Mary and Alicia and
Mr. Rockwell keep up the pretence that I can know
nothing about such things.  I keep it up too!  But
Aunt Mary knows all about them.  George never
can conceal anything from her.  And I make her
tell me everything.  Everything!"

Merriam, I suspect, hardly sensed the amount of
intellect and character which Mollie June's last
statement betrayed--I use the word advisedly, for,
of course, intellect and character detract from a
young girl's charm, and if she desires to be pretty
and alluring she should, and usually does, carefully
conceal whatever of such attributes she may be
handicapped with.  But to "make" Aunt Mary
disclose things she wished not to disclose was no
small achievement.

"You know about this Jennie Higgins?" Merriam asked.

"Yes.  I've seen her and talked with her."

"How?" was Merriam's startled question.

"She's a manicurist, you know.  She's employed
at ----"  Mollie June mentioned a well-known
establishment on Michigan Avenue, the name of
which for obvious reasons I suppress.  "When I
found that out, I went there to have my nails
done.  I just asked for--Madame Couteau, and
waited till she was free.  She didn't know me, of
course.  She's pretty," said Mollie June, with
judicial coldness.

After a moment she added, "And sweet and--warm."

"But how any man can leave you----" cried
Merriam, treading recklessly on several kinds of
dynamite.

"You haven't seen her," said Mollie June.

Merriam was silenced.  It was true he had not
seen her.  And he remembered with confusion that
he had talked with her over a wire and, as Rockwell
put it, had not "needed much prompting."

He stole a glance at Mollie June.  The purity of
her white-clad figure, its brave erectness, and the
impassive sadness so out of place on her young face
caught at his heart.

"How can you stand it?" he cried, and would
have put out his hand to her had he not remembered
that he was in bed and that his arm was clad
only in the sleeve of a suit of pajamas.

Mollie June looked at him.

"I don't know," she said.  "What else can I do?"

Merriam lay still, now openly staring at her.  Of
all intolerable things of which he had ever heard it
seemed to him the worst that Mollie June--"the
prettiest girl,"--with all her loveliness and
sweetness and courage and youthful joy in life, should
be so slighted and wronged and saddened and
degraded.  It was like seeing a rose trampled under
foot.  (Merriam's mental simile was not very
original perhaps, but to him it was intensely poignant.)

For a moment she met his gaze, then looked
away.  In the subdued light Merriam could not be
sure, but he thought there was a new brightness of
tears in her eyes, released perhaps by his very
apparent though inexpressive sympathy.

Presently the thought which had inevitably come
to him forced itself almost against his will to
expression:

"You could divorce him."

"I've thought of that."  (Somehow this shocked
Merriam.)  "But it would be too horrible.  Have
you read the divorce trials in the papers?  With a
Senator they would make the most of it.  And
Aunt Mary won't let me do that.  It would ruin
him politically, she says."

"Well, what if it did?  How about you?"

"Oh, she loves him, you know.  She thinks he
can be brought to change his ways.  She believes
in him still."

"Do you?"

"No," said Mollie June, with the clear-eyed
cruel simplicity of youth.

"He may die," was the thought in Merriam's
mind, but this could not be said.

Full of pity, he gazed at her again, and something
in the profile of her averted face overcame
him.  He started up on his elbow--all this time he
had lain with his head on his arm on the pillow.

"Mollie June!" he cried, his voice softly raised.

She did not look at him.

"Dear Mollie June!  You must know I love you.
I loved you three years ago in Riceville.  There's
nothing wrong about that.  When you're in such
trouble I must tell you.  It can't do you any good.
There's nothing we can do.  But--I do love you!"

She turned her eyes upon him.

"Why didn't you tell me that--in Riceville?"

"Oh!" he cried.

Mollie June rose and came to the bedside.

"I know," she said with womanly gentleness.
"You couldn't, of course.  Because you were so
poor.  I ought to have waited--John!"

For a moment her hand hovered above his head
as if she would have stroked his ruffled hair.  But
it descended to her side again.

"We mustn't talk like this.  I must go.  I'll tell
Alicia we are--bored!"

There were tears not only in her eyes but on her
cheeks now.  Undisguisedly she wiped them away
and carefully dried her eyes with a small handkerchief.

"I shall see you at dinner," she said with a brave
smile, and, turning, walked quickly out of the
room.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`COUNCIL OF WAR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   COUNCIL OF WAR

.. vspace:: 2

It was some time before Alicia, with something
more, if possible, than her usual aplomb, covering,
let us hope, a guilty conscience, entered the
bedroom, presumably to "spell" Mollie June in
amusing the supposed invalid.

Alicia made some remark which hardly penetrated
the invalid's consciousness, but scarcely had
she sat down in Mollie June's chair before a quick
knock sounded at the hall door of the sitting room,
almost immediately followed by the sound of the
opening of that door, and Alicia sprang up again
and hurried away, to be before Mollie June in
receiving the newcomers.  It began to irritate
Merriam to perceive how they all treated her as a little
girl, when as he now thrillingly realised she was
very much a woman in spite of the youthfulness of
her face and figure.

The arrivals in the other room proved to be
Rockwell and Aunt Mary returned.  Recognising their
voices, Merriam glanced at his watch under his
pillow and was amazed to find that it was nearly four
o'clock.

Rockwell appeared in the doorway.

"Come into this other room," he said.  "We
must hold a council of war."

"Shall I dress?" asked Merriam, gladly getting
out of bed.

"No, no," said Rockwell impatiently.  "Just
put on your bath robe and slippers."

Having followed this instruction, Merriam
stepped to the glass and with a few quick strokes
of the brush smoothed his hair, Rockwell watching
him without comment.  Then they went into the
sitting room.

Merriam blankly perceived that the sitting room
was empty--of Mollie June.

"She has a slight headache," said Alicia kindly--suffering
still, we may hope, from pangs of conscience.

Aunt Mary was sitting in the senatorial armchair,
which had been turned about to face the rest
of the room.  She looked long and hard at Merriam--an
intensification of that close scrutiny with
which, it seemed to him, she had always distinguished
him.  Merriam, in his bath robe, sustained
it awkwardly but manfully.  Alicia and Rockwell
were standing.  The silence was rather portentous.

"Sit down, all of you," said Aunt Mary suddenly.

The three younger persons present--even Rockwell
seemed youthful beside Aunt Mary in her
dominant mood--rather hurriedly found seats.

"Is the door locked, Philip?"

Rockwell rose, went to the hall door, turned the
key, and returned to his chair.

"Tell him," said Aunt Mary.

Rockwell's budget of news was certainly
considerable and important.

In the first place, George Norman was
"better."  Rockwell and Aunt Mary had gone to see him at
Jennie's after the Reform League luncheon.  That
was why they were so late.  He undoubtedly had a
touch of bronchitis, with some fever and a cough,
but seemed to be improving.  He could be brought
back to the hotel that evening.  Aunt Mary had
sat down by his bed and told him briefly but plainly
of the happenings at the hotel the previous evening,
and had extorted a feeble, amazed acquiescence in
the astonishing turn which had been given to his
career--an acquiescence which she had immediately
communicated by telephone from Jennie's to
Mayor Black.

In the second place, the story of Norman's
evening at Reiberg's was all over the city--not among
the populace, of course, but among the politicians
and business men and clubmen--the men who
know things.  Not only the story in *Tidbits*, which
everybody seemed to have read and to have
assigned unhesitatingly to Norman, but the further
fact that from Reiberg's he had gone in the taxi to
"a certain little flat"--that seemed to be the
approved phrase,--and had spent the night there, and
was still there.  The simple truth, in short, was
known.  Rockwell had taken his cue perforce from
Merriam's impulsive denial to Thompson and had
flatly contradicted the whole story.  Senator
Norman had spent the evening, after his interviews
with Mr. Crockett and with Mayor Black, at the
hotel with his wife, and was there now, slightly
indisposed with a severe cold which had threatened
to turn into bronchitis.  His downright assertions
had, Rockwell believed, shaken the confident
rumours and would probably delay any further
publication of them for at least a day.  But it was
necessary to produce evidence.

"We shall have to use you again to-night," he
said to Merriam.  "I have invited the Mayor and
Mr. Wayward to dine with you here at the
hotel--downstairs in the Peacock Cabaret."

"Shall I have to play the Senator there?"
gasped Merriam--"in public!"

"Semi-public," said Rockwell.  "I have reserved
a table in an alcove.  We shall put you in the
corner.  All the rest of us will be between you and
the general gaze.  Oh, we shall get away with it.
It's much less dangerous than trying to impose at
close range in a private interview on some one who
really knows the Senator--as you did on Thompson
this morning."

"Does Mr. Wayward know?" asked Merriam.

"Of the impersonation?  Not yet.  But Alicia
shall prepare him in advance."

Alicia nodded.  "That's all right," she said.
"Daddy will enjoy it.  He'll think it's a huge joke."

"Moreover," continued Rockwell, with rather
apprehensive eyes on Merriam, "I have accepted an
invitation for Senator Gorman to speak at the
Reform League luncheon to-morrow."

"Do they have luncheons and speeches every
day?" asked Merriam, sparring for time, for of
course he saw what was coming.

"Not usually, but they've been having a series.
To-morrow is the last one.  It's the perfect
opportunity for Norman to come out openly for the League.
When the invitation came, I simply had to
accept it."

"But if George Norman isn't able to speak?"
queried Alicia, fearlessly coming to the point.

"Then you'll have to make the speech!" said
Rockwell bluntly to Merriam.

"But how can I?"

"You were a debater in college."

"Yes, but the speech itself----"

"Oh, Aunt Mary will fix you up with a speech."

Merriam turned to that silent mistress of the
situation, sitting calmly in the senatorial
armchair.

"George is so very busy that I often write his
speeches for him," she said, as if it were the most
natural arrangement in the world.  "I have
several sketched out now.  We can make a choice
among them.  I will write it out in full and you
can learn it, or I will turn over the outline to you
and you can work it up in your own words--if you
have to make it."

"You probably won't," Rockwell hastened to
say.  "Norman is really much better.  After a
comfortable night here at the hotel he will be all
right.  If he's a little hoarse, we can't help it.  But
you must stay over, you see," he added
determinedly,--"to make sure.  That speech must be
made."

"But my school!" cried Merriam.

"You'll have to send another telegram," said
Aunt Mary.

"What's a day or two of school?" asked Rockwell
impatiently, with a layman's insensibility to
the pedagogical dogmas of absolute regularity and
punctuality.  "Besides, if you really were sick,"
he added more tactfully, "they would have to get
along without you, wouldn't they?"

"So much is at stake," said Aunt Mary.
"George's future, and all that that may mean to
the State and Nation.  If we can bring him to
throw the weight of his popularity and leadership
on the right side!"

"You can't desert us now, Mr. Merriam," cried
Alicia.  "When it means so much to Aunt Mary
and Philip and Mollie June!"

Crafty Alicia!  Her guile was, of course, clearly
apparent to Merriam.  But it is perfectly possible
to perceive that an influence is being deliberately
brought to bear on one without being able to resist
that influence.

"Very well.  I'll telegraph again," he said.

"Better do it now," said Rockwell, promptly
clinching this decision.  He rose, went to the
writing table, got out a telegraph form, and sat down.

"What shall I write?"

Merriam collected himself as best he could under
Alicia's admiring, expectant eyes and Aunt Mary's
steady regard.

"Better," he dictated, "but doctor won't let me
leave to-night.  Expect to be down to-morrow
night."

"That's good," said Aunt Mary, in a tone of
quiet approval which gratified Merriam more
probably than he realised.

Rockwell finished writing and turned in his
chair.

"I'll be going down in a few minutes.  I'll send
it then.  Now you'll need to dress for dinner--Senator!
Pack up your things too.  After dinner
you and I will leave the hotel together in a taxi.
We shall drive over to the University Club.  There
we shall simply go up to the Library for a few
minutes and then come down again, walk up Michigan
Avenue for a block or two and catch another taxi
and drive to the Nestor House.  There you can
register under your own name.  Simpson will send
your things over.  I shall go on and get Norman
and bring him back here.  You see?  Senator
Norman leaves the hotel about nine o'clock with his
new manager--me.  Within an hour or so he
returns, still in my company, and goes to his room.
If he's all right, you can go down to Riceville on
the morning train if you like.  I'll come to see you
before you go."

"We'll *all* go over to see you," said Alicia, with
an unmistakable emphasis on the "all."  "We
shall have so much to thank you for!"

Merriam did not reply to this cordial remark.

"Why do we go to the University Club?" he asked.

"And not directly to the other hotel?" said
Rockwell.  "Well, I'm afraid we may be rather closely
watched.  To tell the truth, I suspect that the
driver of the taxi we take here may be questioned
afterwards as to where he set us down.  The
University Club will tell them nothing."

To Merriam's excited mood this explanation,
with its hint of powerful hidden enemies
intently watching every move which he and his
friends could make, added a touch of piquancy
to the situation that was nothing short of delightful.

He could not well express this, however, and
Rockwell, who was all business with no such
romantic nonsense in his head, immediately sent
them about their several parts.  He himself was
first to take Alicia to her waiting limousine.

When Alicia and Rockwell had departed Merriam
sought to return to his--the Senator's--bedroom.
But Aunt Mary detained him.

"Sit down, Mr. Merriam," she said, kindly
enough but in a manner that demanded
unquestioning obedience.

Then she rose and entered Mollie June's bedroom
but immediately returned.

"Mollie June is dressing for dinner," she said.
An instant's pause.  Then, looking hard at Merriam,
"She's a lovely child."

Both the look and the final word provoked Merriam
to a sort of resentment.

"I don't believe she's as much of a child as you
think," he said boldly.

"It depends on the point of view, no doubt," said
Aunt Mary drily.

Then she began to ask him about himself, his
family, his own life, on the farm of his boyhood, at
college, and at Riceville--all those facts which
Alicia had so much more tactfully elicited in the
private dining room off the Peacock Cabaret the
night before and some others in which Alicia had
not been interested.  Merriam had nothing to be
ashamed of and spoke up promptly and manfully
in his replies, wondering in the back of his mind
the while what inscrutable thought or purpose
prompted Aunt Mary in her catechising.  He little
dreamt that the whole course and happiness of his
life turned on the showing he was able to make in
this odd examination.

There is no doubt that Aunt Mary--whatever her
idea may have been--was satisfied.  When at length
she had no more questions to ask the expression of
her eyes, though they still rested on him, was
almost one of absence.  She drew a deeper breath
than was her wont--suggestive, at least, of a sigh.

"You give a good account of yourself," she said.
"You are worthy of the Norman blood."

Greater praise than that no man could have from
Aunt Mary, as Merriam dimly realised.

"I wish George were more like you."

Immediately she added, with a conscious return
to dominating briskness:

"You must dress.  So must I."

And she rose and without looking again at
Merriam went into Mollie June's bedroom.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SENATORIAL DINNER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SENATORIAL DINNER

.. vspace:: 2

At last, at twenty-five minutes after six,
Merriam sank, exhausted but immaculate, into
an easy chair and lit a cigarette, in an effort to
compose his nerves and regain the *sang froid* he
needed for his imminent rôle of a particularly
debonair senator of the United States acting as host
to a brilliant dinner party.

At half past six precisely, Aunt Mary knocked
on his door and he opened that door and announced
himself ready.

Aunt Mary wore another black evening gown,
very similar, in masculine eyes, to the one in which
she had appeared the night before, except that it
was less conspicuously burdened with jet.  Tall and
erect, with her gray hair plainly but carefully
dressed, she looked every inch a senator's sister
and--this would have pleased her--a Norman.

Advancing into the sitting room, Merriam
encountered Mollie June, standing again beside the
bowl of roses.  She was in pink--tulle over satin,
though Merriam could not have described it so.
But the vivid colour and the dainty softness of the
fabric he could appreciate quite well enough, at
least in their contiguity to the slender figure, white
throat and shoulders, and charming complexion of
Mollie June.  There is no doubt that he looked a
moment longer than he should.  The debonair
senatorial outside of him was moved to say, "How
lovely you are!"  But the Ricevillian pedagogue
underneath blocked the utterance.  Perhaps his
eyes said it plainly enough to satisfy Mollie June,
for she evinced no disappointment.

"We must go right down, mustn't we?" she said,
raising her eyes from the roses.

"Yes," said Aunt Mary, in a tone of jarring
briskness.

A male figure which Merriam had not perceived
stepped out of the background, moved to the hall
door, and opened it.  Merriam saw that it was
Dr. Hobart, quite as point-device as himself and rather
more at ease but not nearly so handsome (though
of this, I assure you, Merriam never thought at all).

Aunt Mary and Mollie June passed through the door.

"Come along, Senator," said Dr. Hobart, in
excellent spirits, and Merriam mechanically followed
and mechanically paused and waited while the
physician closed and locked the door.

"This must be great fun for you," said Dr. Hobart
as they went down the hall towards the
elevators.

"Yes," returned Merriam without conviction,
his eyes on a girlish figure in pink that moved
ahead of him.  "Fun" did not strike him as
exactly the word.

Fortunately at this point a small incident
occurred which served to bring Merriam out of the
brown study--or perhaps we may say the roseate
study--into which he had fallen.

As they approached the elevator lobby he became
aware of the pretty floor clerk who on the previous
evening had been wearing Senator Norman's
violets.  He was, of course, entirely unmindful of the
fact that on his way to Norman's rooms that
morning he had passed her rudely by without a glance,
but he did notice that this evening she wore no
flowers and that she studiously avoided seeing him
and smiled her best smile upon Dr. Hobart instead.
That gentleman, with a shade too much alacrity,
stepped aside so as to pass close to her desk and,
leaning down, spoke to her.  The pretty floor clerk,
from the toss of her head and the pleased smile on
Hobart's face, had said something saucy in reply.

"Good enough," thought Merriam, as they all
stepped into the elevator.  "I'm glad she has more
interests than one," and thought no more of the
incident at the time.

In a moment or two more they had reached the
basement floor, which was their destination.

Opposite the elevators on this floor was a small
reception room or parlour, and here Senator
Norman's other guests were awaiting him--Rockwell,
Murray, Mayor Black, Alicia, and Alicia's father.

To the last-named gentleman Merriam was immediately
presented.  He was a stoutish, jovial man of
fifty or so, bald of pate and humorous of eye, and
the amused particularity with which he surveyed
Merriam and the gusto with which he addressed
him as "Senator" showed both that Alicia had
performed her task of enlightening him and that she
had been right as to the attitude he would take.

"Splendid!" he whispered to Merriam.  "You
would have fooled me all right," and he beamed
delightedly.

Alicia gave him only a minute.  "They are
ready," she said.  "We are to go right in.  You
are to walk with me."  (This last to Merriam.)

In a moment, therefore, Merriam found himself
escorting Alicia down a sort of central aisle among
the tables of the Peacock Cabaret, behind an
excessively urbane head waiter, conscious that the rest
of his guests were making a more or less imposing
procession after them, and intensely conscious of
suspended conversation throughout the great
restaurant and of countless curious eyes staring
across rosebuds and water bottles at himself.

"Say something to me," whispered Alicia.  "You
mustn't look self-conscious."

Merriam glanced at her and realised for the first
time that evening her vivid, vigorous, peony-like
beauty.

"What can I say," he asked smiling, "except
'How lovely you are'?" and he wondered why it
was so easy to say this to Alicia when he had been
unable to say it to Mollie June.

"Bravo, Boy Senator!" applauded Alicia, and
then they reached the haven of that alcove which
Rockwell had promised.

It was really a small square room quite separate
from the main part of the Peacock Cabaret except
that there was no wall between.  The head waiter
guided Merriam to the seat at the far end of the
table.  Thus when he sat down he would be facing
the main dining room, visible to all its occupants,
yet screened from them by the table and his own
guests about that table.  It was really an excellent
device for displaying him in public and still
protecting him from close inspection.

In a moment the whole party had arrived and
been seated.

A canapé was being served, and Alicia at his end
of the table and her father at the other end were
starting conversation.  Merriam glanced across
the board at Mollie June.  For some reason a
charming girl never looks more lovely than at
table.  She looked up and caught his gaze.  Her
face was grave.  He thought she looked wistful.
For a moment only he met her eyes, then turned
to reply to a remark of Alicia's.  Somehow his
spirits soared.  He plunged into the conversation
with a zest which he had hardly known since his
fraternity days.  Mollie June said little, but she
laughed at the stories and seemed to become excited
and happy.  She was content, perhaps, to enact the
rôle of the gallery to which Merriam was playing
with such excellent effect.  As for Rockwell and
Aunt Mary, they sat by in serene content: the affair
was going well; as long as that was the case they
need not exert themselves.

The mildly uproarious party undoubtedly
attracted the desired amount of attention from the
main dining room.  Eyes were turned and necks
craned, and couples and groups that passed the
alcove almost invariably slowed their steps to
stare.  Some dozens of men who had heard the
stories of the real Norman's whereabouts were
convinced that these were false, at least in part; by
the witness of their own eyes they knew that the
Senator was that evening at any rate in the bosom
of his family at the hotel.  They could be relied
upon to assert as much in all parts of the city on
the following day.

Only one outsider ventured to intrude upon the
party and submit Merriam to the ordeal of closer
inspection, and he got no nearer than the length of
the table.  This was the Colonel Abbott whom
Merriam had so perilously encountered at the very
beginning of his play-acting the night before.
Merriam remembered him vividly, called him by name,
and replied cordially to his expressions of pleasure
at finding him recovered from his threatened
indisposition.  So that danger passed, and the table,
after a brief exchanging of relieved glances,
recovered its gayety, perhaps with some accentuation.

A little later came a reporter.  Merriam professed
that he had "nothing to say."  Asked if it
was true that he was to speak at the Reform League
luncheon on the morrow, he replied, with an inner
quailing but with outward composure, that he was.

The reporter turned to Mr. Wayward.  Was it
true that he intended to make a contribution to the
campaign fund of the Reform League?  Mr. Wayward's
joviality suffered an eclipse.  His eyes fell.
But on raising them he encountered a glance from
his daughter that can only be described as stern,
and promptly admitted that it was true.

The reporter tried Rockwell, but the latter shook
his head so indomitably that the interviewer at
once abandoned him and passed to Mayor Black.
That gentleman promptly and as it were
automatically gave utterance to several eloquent
phrases, too meaningless to be recorded.  Even the
reporter neglected to make notes of them, and
looked about the table for other prey.  Finding
none, he excused himself with the remark, "I am
making note of the names, of course," and
disappeared.

Once more the conspiratorial table drew a long
breath and endeavoured to recover its festive mood,
but before much progress had been made in that
direction a bell boy came with a note addressed to
Senator Norman and asking that he and Mr. Rockwell
come to Room D, one of the private dining
rooms.

Merriam passed the note to Rockwell and then to
Aunt Mary, and the three prime conspirators
stared at one another.  None of them knew the
handwriting, which was poor and hurried and in
pencil.

"I'll go," said Rockwell.  "You stay here."

The rest of the party did not know what had
happened, but in their situation the most trivial
incident was, of course, sufficient to cause uneasiness.
The conversation during Rockwell's absence was
forced and fragmentary.  In fact, it was almost a
solo performance on Alicia's part.  Merriam caught
Mollie June's eyes upon him, and was grateful for
their expression of self-unconscious solicitude.

Presently the boy returned again with the same
note, at the bottom of which was scribbled:
"Come--Room D.  Rockwell."

Merriam showed it to Aunt Mary.

"Is that his handwriting?"

"Yes, it is."

"Then I suppose I must go."

He rose, murmured an "excuse me" to the table
at large, and made his way towards the open end of
the alcove.  As he did so he glanced at Mollie June.
Alarm stood in her eyes.  Coming opposite her
chair, he bent down and said gently:

"It's all right.  I probably shan't be long."

It was perhaps a little too much in the tone and
manner that Mollie June's real husband might
properly have used.  Mollie June herself did not
seem to notice this; she appeared duly comforted.
But Mr. Wayward, at her left, undoubtedly stared
after Merriam with an odd expression in his genial
eyes.

Following the bell boy, Merriam tried hard to
think what might be in store for him.  "Thompson"
and "Crockett" were the only ideas his blank
mind could muster.  Had they discovered the trick
and come to threaten him with exposure?  Well,
Rockwell would be present.  He leaned heavily on
Rockwell.

The boy stopped before a curtained door.

"This is it, sir," he said and waited expectantly.

Merriam fumblingly produced a dime, and the
boy departed.  Drawing a deep breath, he pushed
aside the curtain and entered Room D.

To his great relief the only persons present were
Rockwell and Simpson.  They were both standing,
beside a bare table.  Merriam vaguely remembered
that Simpson had not appeared in connection with
the serving of the last two or three courses.

"Now tell it again," said Rockwell promptly.

The waiter looked steadily at Merriam.

"It's this way, sir," he said.  "Mr. Thompson,
as was the Senator's manager until this morning,
has found out where the Senator really is, at----"
the man looked away.  "Jennie's," he finished,
without expression in his tone.  "There's a girl
she lives with, Margery Milton, who's a milliner's
assistant at one of the department stores.  He got
it from her.  Straight from her he came here to
have dinner with Mr. Crockett, out in the Cabaret.
When I saw them come in, I turned your party over
to another man and served them myself.  I managed
to hear a lot of what they said.  Mr. Crockett
had learned of your dinner party, of course.
Putting that together with what Mr. Thompson had
got from Margery, they saw the game.  Mr. Crockett
would hardly believe it at first.  But
Mr. Thompson means to make sure.  He's going to
Jennie's himself about ten o'clock to-night--they
have some kind of a committee first,--and force his
way in, if necessary, and see the Senator himself.
Then they'll have proof, you see.  I thought I'd
better let you and Mr. Rockwell know."

"You did just right," said Rockwell warmly,
"and we'll make it worth your while."

He turned abruptly to the younger man.

"Merriam!  You're the only one who can save
us in this fix."

"How?" said Merriam, to whom it seemed that
all was lost.

"Listen, man.  You go back to our table and
excuse yourself and me.  'Important business.'  Don't
tell them anything more.  Not even Aunt
Mary.  We haven't time.  Better bring Murray.
We may need an extra man, and we can trust him
best.  We three will take a taxi at once.  We shall
have to circle about a bit, to throw off possible
trailers.  But in less than an hour we'll be at
Jennie's.  You shall take Norman's place there,
and we'll take Norman and bring him back to the
hotel, to his room.  Just as we planned, only a bit
sooner.  When Thompson arrives, Jennie shall let
him in.  He'll insist on seeing you.  Let him.
You're not Senator Norman.  Tell him so.  Jennie
shall tell him so, too.  He'll see it himself, of
course, as soon as he looks close with his eyes open.
You and Jennie must make him think you played
off the resemblance on this Margery Milton for a
joke.  We'll fix her, too, of course.  You'd better
tell him your real name, so he can look you up if
he wants to.  He won't expose you in Riceville.
He'll have no motive to.  And he won't think
anything of your little escapade in itself.  You came
to Chicago on school business--went out to see the
sights--got a little more liquor than you were used
to.  Your taxi driver took you to some dance hall.
He'll interpret 'Reiberg's.'  You stayed there a
while--don't know what you did--met Jennie
there--and she brought you home.  You were pretty
sick in the morning and stayed over all day: You
see?  It all hangs together, and relieves Norman
entirely of the Reiberg incident and Jennie, and
cinches his blameless presence at the hotel all last
night and all to-day.  It'll save everything!
Better than we planned.  Couldn't be better!"

Rockwell had worked himself up to exultant
enthusiasm.

Merriam's emotions while this new plot was
unfolded were sufficiently complex.  There was an
opaque background of sheer bewilderment.  There
was also a sharp sense of alarm at the thought of
having his own name appear in this business.  But
other sentiments, less acute individually, but of
some potency none the less, joined their voices with
Rockwell's to silence that alarm.  There was the
mere love of adventure, of playing a dangerous
game, which is strong in any healthy young man.
Then there was the thought of Mollie June: he
would be doing it for her--making a real sacrifice,
of his reputation, possibly of his position, his
pedagogical career, for her sake.  And, oddly enough,
quite simultaneously with this thought of Mollie
June, there was a recollection of "Jennie's" voice
over the telephone.  He was not conscious that he
was curious to see "Jennie," but I am afraid he was.

Scarcely half a minute had passed when Rockwell,
eagerly scanning his face, cried, "You'll go!"

"Yes," said Merriam, looking at Simpson's
impassive countenance and surprised at his own
words, "I suppose I will."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A DEVIOUS JOURNEY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A DEVIOUS JOURNEY

.. vspace:: 2

Rockwell, as usual, gave Merriam no time
for reconsideration.

"Go and make your excuses at the table then."

But Merriam was still looking at Simpson.  He
had perceived that the impassivity of the waiter's
countenance covered a blank misery.

"Simpson," he said, "we'll try to see that this
works out to your advantage--at Jennie's.  Shake
on that."  And, in violation of all codes on which
the social system rests, he held out his hand as one
man to another.

Simpson, much more rigorously trained in
those codes than Merriam had been, hesitated,
glanced at Rockwell.  But a light came into his
eyes.  He seized the hand, gripped it, gave one
spasmodic shake.

"Thank you, sir!" he said.

He dropped the hand and as quickly as possible
regained his servitorial manner.

Merriam smiled at him and then spoke to Rockwell:

"Where shall I join you--Murray and I?"

"At the Ladies' Entrance," Rockwell replied.
"It's less likely to be watched than the other."

Merriam turned and passed through the curtained
doorway, down the hall, and along one side
of the Peacock Cabaret.  The curtain being up on
the small stage and the moderately comely
demoiselles of the chorus executing a dance which
involved a liberal display of white tights, he reached
his alcove comparatively unnoticed.

He stopped beside Mollie June's chair, which was
nearest the open side of the alcove.  All the
members of the dinner party regarded him anxiously;
Aunt Mary's face was more than usually grim.
Carefully pitching his voice so that it should be
audible to all at the table yet should not carry to
the main dining room without, he said:

"I am tremendously sorry to have to desert this
pleasant company, but Mr. Rockwell and I are
called away on important business.  We should be
very glad if you will come too, Father Murray.--Can
you come at once?" he added as the priest stared.

Aunt Mary's lips opened.

"I'll explain later," said Merriam hurriedly.

As he spoke, however, he realised that no
opportunity to "explain later" would probably be
afforded him.  Alicia had said they "all" would go
to see him in the morning at the Nestor House.
They could not "all" come to Jennie's.

He looked down at Mollie June.  She was looking
up at him.  His view of her from above--the
contour of her face and throat, the recalcitrant
wave of her soft hair, the brightness of her lifted
eyes--might have moved older and colder blood
than Merriam's.  He was close enough to catch a
faint, warm sense of her in the air.  He desired to
envelop her in love.  What he might do he could
not resist.  He laid his hand gently over one of
hers that rested on the edge of the table and bent
to her ear.

"Mr. Rockwell will tell you to-morrow what I
have done," he whispered.  "It is for your sake,
Mollie--June."

He straightened up.  He was not flushed
outwardly.  He looked almost cold.  Father Murray
was making his way down the side of the table.

"Good night, all," said Merriam.  "This way,
Father Murray."

He glanced once more at Mollie June--his last
sight of her, he thought.  Her face was rosy and
her eyes glistened.  It was a picture for which a
man--a very young man, at least--might do
anything, even sacrifice his love.  He smiled at her
almost gaily, turned, and passed out of the alcove,
Father Murray following.

They skirted the sides of the Peacock Cabaret in
an effort to reach the exit as little observed as
possible.  Unfortunately, before they attained that
goal, the curtain of the small stage descended, the
white legs of the chorus, kicking at it as it fell,
were hidden from the attentive eyes of the male
diners, and not a few of these observed the famous
senator's escape.  This probably mattered little,
however, because of Father Murray.  The
well-known High Churchman was enough to shield the
name of Norman.  He could hardly be bound for
Reiberg's, or even, it would be argued, for "a
certain little flat," in Father Murray's company.

They got their coats from the checkroom, went
up the stairs to the first floor, and made a detour
through passages to the Ladies' Entrance.

Rockwell was already there with a taxicab.  He
motioned to them to enter it.

Merriam was a little surprised, and Father
Murray probably more so, to find Simpson already
within.  Father Murray greeted him with clerical
suavity.  Merriam said nothing.  He was listening
to Rockwell's colloquy with the chauffeur:

"This cab will probably be followed.  Your first
job is to shake off pursuit.  Circle around through
the Loop--twist and turn--until you're absolutely
sure you've lost anybody who is after us.  Then
make for the Eighteenth Street Station of the
Alley L.  If there's no one behind us when you get
there, it will be worth twenty-five dollars to you
above the fare."

"Right, sir," said the man.  "Jump in, sir."

Rockwell stepped in and slammed the door,
seating himself with Simpson, his back to the driver.
In a moment he was staring intently through the
peephole window in the back of the taxi.

"See!" he said.

Merriam, turning to look over his shoulder,
perceived a yellow cab about sixty feet behind them,
also starting, at about the same pace as their own.

They went west to Fifth Avenue and turned
north along the car tracks under the Elevated.  A
moment later the yellow cab also turned north on
the car tracks.

They swerved east on Randolph Street.  For a
minute or two the yellow cab did not appear.  It
must have been caught behind some car or truck.
But presently it rounded the corner and sprinted
till it was again within about thirty yards of them,
when it slowed down to their own pace.

Rockwell spoke through the tube to the chauffeur:

"That yellow cab!"

"I'll lose 'em!" the man replied, with reassuring
confidence.

At the second corner he turned north again and
sped across the Clark Street Bridge.  The yellow
cab also had business north of the river.

Their subsequent maneuvers were at first
decidedly puzzling to Merriam and his fellow
passengers, with the possible exception of Simpson.
They sped around and around a rectangle of streets
enclosing half a dozen squares, with one of its sides
only one block from the River.  On the shorter
sides they sometimes lost the yellow cab, but on the
longer stretches it always appeared in full and
open chase behind them.

"What the devil!" cried Rockwell as their driver
turned west for the fourth time on the southern,
side of the rectangle--the street nearest the
River.

Simpson spoke: "He's all right.  It's the bridge
trick."

No further explanation was necessary.  Their
chauffeur suddenly swerved south on Dearborn
Street, making in a burst of speed for the River.
The bridge bell was jangling its warning that
traffic must stop for the opening of the bridge
to let a steamer pass.  Theirs was the last vehicle
on the bridge.  The bars dropped behind them.
Looking back through the peephole window, our
passengers had the satisfaction of seeing the yellow
cab caught behind the bars, unable to follow them,
unable even, because of other vehicles crowding
behind, to turn out and make a detour to another
bridge.

Rockwell excitedly seized the tube.  "Good
work!" he called.  "I'll give you another ten for
that."

"Thank you, sir," came the complacent reply.

With a sigh of relaxing tension Merriam sank
back in his corner, abandoning the peephole.

"Who do you suppose it was?" he asked.

"Thompson?"

"Oh, no, not Thompson himself.  One of his
henchmen.  He and Norman have all kinds of
assistants!"

"Where are we going?" asked Father Murray.

Rockwell laughed.  "I'd almost forgotten that
you don't know yet.  I'll tell you," and he entered
upon an explanation of Thompson's discovery and
proposed method of verification and their own
counterplot.

Father Murray was feebly protesting against the
difficulties and dangers of the counterplot, but these
complaints were interrupted by the stopping of the
taxi.  They had reached the Eighteenth Street
Station of the Elevated.

Rockwell looked quickly through the peephole
window and then opened the door and jumped out.
The others followed.  They scanned the street in
both directions.  There was no other taxicab in
sight.

Rockwell stepped up to the smiling chauffeur,
asked the amount of the fare, and paid it with the
thirty-five dollars bonus.

"You did the trick very neatly," he said.  "Now
scoot!"

"Thank you, sir.  Yes, sir."

There was still no trace of curiosity in the man's
tone or glance.

"Come!" said Rockwell, and he led them to the
entrance of the Elevated Station.

At Forty-Seventh Street they left the Elevated
and, walking to the corner, waited for a cross-town
surface car.

"What's the idea?" Merriam asked, his mind
becoming active again.

"Well," said Rockwell, "the first thing our late
chauffeur will do after getting back to town will be
to gather in another twenty-five dollars or maybe
more for telling some one of Thompson's men where
he left us.  So it's best to muss up our trail a bit
more before we strike Jennie's."

He was hailing an east-bound car.

As they sat silent again inside, Merriam's
mind took its cue from Rockwell's last word.
"Jennie's!"  Phrases from his one brief telephone
dialogue with Jennie sounded in his ear, oddly
clear and melodious:

"Georgie, boy!  Don't you know me?--You
ought to!" with a thrilling little laugh.  "You
must be careful, Georgie," in a lowered tone.
"Can you come anyway?--You'll telephone
again?--Georgie, boy!" and the sound of a kiss!

These phrases--surely nothing in themselves--echoed
in his mind with the same unaccountable
piquancy and warmth with which they had first
come to him over the telephone.  He flushed a
little, sitting there in the stuffy, bumping, jangling
car, as he recalled the way he had involuntarily
"played up" to them.  He had promised to go to
her if he could get away, to telephone her again if
he could.  That was mere trickery and deceit, a
part of the game he was playing; that was all right.
But his final whispered "Dearie, good night!"  Had
that been necessary?  He remembered Rockwell's
dry comment: "You don't need much
prompting!"  But his thoughts ran away with
him again.  Now he was going to see her--to spend
a night in her apartment.  What would she be
like--tall or short, slender like Mollie June or plump
like Alicia, fair or dark, with blue eyes or brown or
black, curly hair or straight?  He could not frame
an image that satisfied him as the instrument of
that voice.

"Well, what is it to me?" he demanded roughly
of himself, suddenly realising the tenor of his
meditations.  "See here, my boy, you must be careful.
She's probably a regular chorus girl--or worse."  (But
he did not really believe that of her.)  "She's
nothing whatever to me," he asserted sternly to his
truant fancy.  "She belongs to--Simpson.  And
I belong to Mollie June."

The car stopped at last, and Rockwell was getting up.

When they had descended into the street Merriam
found that they were at the end of the line
by the Lake.

"Illinois Central next," said Rockwell, grinning,
and marched them to the Forty-Seventh Street
Station of that railway.  None of the others spoke.

Their guide bought tickets to the City.  "Are
we going back to the Loop, then?" thought Merriam.

In a moment they were on the platform.  Merriam
walked back and forth apart from the others,
drawing deep breaths of the Lake air and looking
up at the stars, dimly bright in the April night.
"I belong to Mollie June," he said firmly to himself.

Presently one of the odd little suburban trains
drew up, and they entered.

But they had scarcely sat down and yielded up
their tickets when Rockwell routed them out--at
Forty-Third Street.  Evidently his buying tickets
clear to the City had been a part of his elaborate
ruse.

Rockwell went at once to a telephone to call up
a neighbouring garage.

Merriam took a cigarette and lighted it and again
walked up and down.  His thoughts now ran
unbidden upon Mollie June.  Images of her crowded
his mind: Mollie June rosy and bright-eyed as he
had seen her last at the dinner table in the alcove
of the Peacock Cabaret; Mollie June by his "sick"
bed, standing over him after he had impulsively
declared his love, her hand hovering above his hair,
tears upon her face, turning bravely away from
him; Mollie June above the roses, as he had first
seen her that morning--was it only that morning?--lifting
the wet stems from the bowl; Mollie June
confronting Mayor Black, refusing in angered
innocence to leave the room; Mollie June in the
Peacock Cabaret the night before; Mollie June in the
front row in "Senior Algebra" back in Riceville.
Ah, he *did* belong to Mollie June, heart and soul.
There was no doubt of that, and all the Jennies in
the world were of no account whatever.

So it was a young man in a very laudable frame
of mind indeed--waiving the fact that Mollie June
was a married woman!--whom Rockwell presently
bundled into the taxi he had summoned.  Father
Murray was already inside.  Rockwell followed,
leaving Simpson to speak to the chauffeur.

It puzzled Merriam to find Simpson thus placed
in command, as it were, and his thoughts came back
to the present adventure.  He listened closely.

"Stop first at Rankin's Hardware Store," Simpson
said to the chauffeur, "on Forty-Third Street."

In a couple of minutes, it seemed, they stopped
before Rankin's emporium.  Simpson alone
descended.  The other three remained in the taxicab,
Rockwell openly smiling at the puzzled inquiry on
Merriam's face but vouchsafing no enlightenment.
Merriam would not ask questions.

The hardware shop was closed, but there was a
light within and a man.  Simpson pounded at the
door till he gained admittance, and in a few
minutes returned bearing--a small stepladder!

"What on earth----?"  The words were almost
starting from Merriam's lips, but he managed to
swallow them, and listened again for Simpson's
direction to the driver.

It was an address: "612 Dalton Place."  That
meant nothing to Merriam.

Again a brief drive, Merriam laboriously
cogitating, with bewildered eyes on the small
ladder--an affair of some six steps,--which Simpson
had brought into the cab and was holding upright
between them.

Father Murray asked the question which Merriam
had so manfully (and youthfully) repressed:

"What's that for?"

"You'll see," said Rockwell, grinning, enjoying
the mystery.

Simpson remained as silent and grave as an
undertaker.

The taxicab had turned several corners and covered
perhaps a couple of miles of streets.  Now it
slowed down, stopped.

"There ain't no 612," said the driver through the
tube.

Rockwell took command again.

"Isn't there?" he said.  "Let's see."

He got out.  Peering through the open door of
the taxicab, Merriam could see that the house
before which they had stopped was numbered 608.

"612's a vacant lot," he heard the chauffeur say.

"So it seems," Rockwell replied.  "Well, we'll
get out here anyway."

Merriam eagerly took this cue, and the other two
followed, Simpson bringing his ladder.  Rockwell
was handing a couple of green bills to the
driver.

"Drive on opposite where 612 ought to be," he
said, "and wait.  We'll be back by and by."

"This way," he added, and started with Merriam
and Father Murray down the street past the vacant
lot.  Simpson, carrying his small stepladder as
unobtrusively as possible at his side, followed
laggingly behind.

The square beyond the next avenue seemed to be
occupied entirely by a huge block of apartments.
They did not cross the avenue but turned the
corner and walked on down one side of the great flat
building but on the opposite side of the street.
Their side held a miscellany of small detached
houses.

Merriam glanced at Rockwell.  He was slowing
his steps and seemed to be watching a couple of men
who were moving in the same direction as their
own on the other side of the street immediately
under the apartments.

A moment later these two men turned in at one
of the entrances of the flat building.  After perhaps
twenty feet more Rockwell glanced over his
shoulder.  Merriam involuntarily did likewise.
Half a block behind them was Simpson with his
ladder.  There was no one else in sight.

Rockwell stopped for a second, then said,
"Come!" and quickly crossed the street and
entered another door of the flat building.

Within the vestibule he stopped again.

"We must wait for Simpson," he said.

He began reading the names below the battery
of bells.  Merriam and Father Murray stared at
each other.

In a moment Simpson joined them with his
ladder.  Rockwell promptly opened the inner door of
the vestibule and proceeded to ascend the stairs.
Simpson trudged after him, and Merriam and the
priest followed perforce.

They reached the second floor and the third and
continued on up to the fourth, which was the top
floor.

Arriving there, Merriam found Rockwell pointing
to a sort of trapdoor in the ceiling above the
landing at the head of the stairs.

"Right!" he whispered.

Simpson calmly set his ladder down, separated
its legs, and planted it firmly beneath the trap.
He and Rockwell paid no attention to the doors of
the two apartments which opened off the landing
within a few feet of them.  Simpson amended the
ladder and, exerting his strength, pushed the trap
door up.  It moved with a grating sound, startlingly
loud in their quasi-burglarious situation
The night air rushed in.  The trap gave upon the
roof of the building.

Simpson did not hesitate but pulled himself up
on to the roof.

Rockwell followed.

"You're to come too," he said as he looked down
at Merriam gleefully and winked.  He was
evidently pleased with himself.  "You wait here,
Father Murray.  Remember, if any one comes
you're a roof inspector.  That's next door to a sky
pilot anyway!"

The priest groaned but made no protest, well
knowing, doubtless, that rebellion now would avail
him naught, and Merriam quickly followed Rockwell
on to the roof.

It was a flat tar-and-gravel roof--not an unpleasant
place to be in the starry April night.  They
circled about chimneys and miscellaneous pipe
heads and stepped across brick ledges, which
seemed to separate different sections of the building
from one another.

Presently they were approaching the opposite
side of the building, having circled the interior
court and light wells.  They came to another trap-door,
a twin of the one by which they had ascended.

Simpson was about to open this second trap when
Rockwell spoke:

"Wait a minute!"

Stooping lower and lower till at last he seemed
to be almost sitting on his heels as he walked, he
made his way to the edge of the roof on the new
street and peeped over the parapet--a dozen feet
perhaps beyond the trapdoor.  For a moment only
he looked, then returned in the same cautious and
laborious manner.

"We were right," he said to Simpson.

"Watchers?" Simpson asked.

"Two of them.  And half way down the block a taxi."

But now Simpson was carefully raising the trap-door.
After listening for a minute he put his head
down and looked.

"Coast is clear," he reported.

"Go ahead, then," said Rockwell.

So Simpson put his legs down inside, hung, and
dropped into the vestibule.  Rockwell and Merriam
followed.

Straightening himself up inside, Merriam found
Rockwell facing the door of the right-hand apartment.

"This is Jennie's!" he whispered.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`JENNIE`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


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   JENNIE

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Rockwell knocked twice.  A girl with a
thin, dark face peeped out.

"Hello, Margery," said Rockwell.

"Oh, how d'you do?" said the girl, recognizing
the speaker.  Relief was mingled in her tone with
continuing caution.  "Who's with you?"

"Friends," said Rockwell.  "Mr. Merriam, the
Senator's double.  And Simpson."

"Simpson can't come here!" said Margery
sharply.

Merriam glanced at Simpson and was amazed to
see how moved he was.  He had a sense that the
man could hardly keep himself from trembling.

"He's come to help take Norman away," said
Rockwell.  "He need go no farther than the hall.
Come, Margery, let us in.  We can't stand here all
night.  I'll explain to both of you inside.  I'm
George's friend, you know."

"Well!"  Still unwillingly Margery released
the chain and moved back, opening the door for them.

As they stepped inside she stared at Merriam.

"The devil!" she exclaimed.

"No," said the young man, "my name's
Merriam.  How do you do, Miss Milton?"

He looked at Margery almost as curiously as she
was looking at him.  He was really as innocent as
Mollie June--more so, in fact, not being married,--and
Margery was the first member of the demi-monde
or the near demimonde with whom he had
ever had personal contact.  He found her disappointing.
She was thin to the point of angularity,
in a trying yellow negligee, with straight black
hair, black eyes that were unpleasantly direct, and
a lean dark face that was undeniably hard.

For a moment only she stared.  Then she shut
the door and spoke to Simpson:

"You stay here!"

"Yes," said Simpson, with more than servitorial
humility.

Rockwell was advancing into the sitting room,
which opened immediately off the tiny hall, and
Merriam, feeling himself dismissed by Miss Milton,
followed.

Merriam's sole first impression of the sitting
room was of a soft, rather agreeable harmony in
yellow.  The wall paper, the hangings, the
upholstery of chairs and davenport, the shades of
lights were all in mild tints of that pleasant colour.
Probably Margery's yellow negligee was intended
to fit into this ensemble.

But he had no time for detailed observation.
For as they stepped forward the yellow portières
at one side of the room parted, and another
girl appeared between them--undoubtedly Jennie.

This time he was surprised but hardly disappointed.
The figure between the portières was that
of a stage parlour maid--just the right height for
a soubrette and just pleasantly, youthfully slender,
yet rounded, in a trim-fitting dress of some black
material, cut rather low at the throat and edged
with white, with a ridiculously small, purely
ornamental, white apron with pockets.
Black-silk-stockinged ankles and black, high-heeled satin
pumps completed a picture that was both chic and
demure.  Merriam remembered that it was as a
parlour maid that Norman had first known Jennie
and guessed that this costume had been assumed
for his benefit.

In a moment the portières closed behind her.
She was looking at the older man, having barely
glanced at Merriam.

"How do, Mr. Rockwell," she said.

Merriam, almost with alarm, recognised the
tones that had so piqued him over the telephone.

Then she turned to him.

"This is----  Gee, but you're like him!  I
wouldn't have believed it."

"Miss Higgins, Mr. Merriam," said Rockwell
tardily.

Merriam responded awkwardly:

"How do you do, Miss----"

"'Miss Jennie' will do," interrupted Jennie.

(Merriam remembered uncomfortably how Mollie
June had hit upon a similar "compromise.")

"I ain't partial to 'Higgins,'" Jennie added.
"I'm thinking of changing it to 'Montmorency.'  Wouldn't
'Jennie Montmorency' be nice, Mr. Rockwell?"

"I don't think it fits very well," said Rockwell.
"You'd better change it to Simpson."

Jennie coloured.  She coloured easily, as
Merriam was to learn.  Now that she had turned again
to Rockwell he had a chance to look at her face.
She was an exceedingly pretty blonde.  Her throat
was attractively rounded, her shoulders also.
Those shoulders might be unpleasant when she was
older and stouter, but at present they were charming.
Her chin and cheeks were also daintily full--quite
the opposite of Margery Milton's.  The cheeks
were pink, slightly heightened with rouge perhaps
but not with paint.  The eyes were softly, brightly
blue.  The hair fair and smoothly wavy, if one may
attempt to express a nuance by combining contradictory
terms.  In short, she was, as some of her
admirers undoubtedly expressed it, "not a bit hard
to look at."

For a moment Jennie's colour flooded.  Then
came her retort to Rockwell:

"Mind your own business," she said.

The words were sharp, but somehow the tone was
not.  The voice was still soft and--warm.  It is
the only word.  It was the voice one might attribute
to a kitten, if a kitten were gifted with articulate
speech.

Rockwell only laughed.  At the same moment
Margery Milton entered from the hall, where she
had presumably been impressing upon Simpson the
necessity of remaining in strict hiding.

Jennie glanced at her friend.

"Well," she said, "may as well sit down."

She dropped into a chair and crossed one leg
over the other.

"You've come to take Georgie away," she
continued as the others sat down.

"Yes," said Rockwell.  "Listen, Jennie.  You
too, Margery," and he began to explain the new
situation which had resulted primarily from
Margery's confidences to Thompson.  He did not soften
this point in his relation.

"See what your gabbling's done," said Jennie,
without anger, to her friend when he had finished.
"You always talk too much."

"I can talk if I please," said Margery sullenly.

"It will pay you better to keep still this time,"
said Rockwell.

"Pay me?  How much?" demanded Margery promptly.

"Say a hundred dollars."

"A hundred----!  I'm mum as a stone image.
When do I get it, though?"

"Here's twenty now on account."  Rockwell
held out a yellow-backed bill, which Margery
quickly accepted.  "You get the rest when this is
all over."

"How do I know I get the rest?"

"Shut up, Marge," said Jennie.  "You know
Mr. Rockwell."

"We've no time to lose," Rockwell continued,
looking at his watch.  "It's twenty-five minutes to
ten now.  Thompson said ten, but he might come
a bit sooner.  We must get Norman away at once.
You understand that you're to let Mr. Merriam go
to bed in his stead.  When Thompson comes you
must admit him.  You can pretend to be unwilling
to do so, but you must let him in without too
much fuss.  You're to tell him that Norman's not
here and has not been here--that there's a man
here who looks tremendously like Norman and that
at first you fooled Margery into thinking it was
Norman."

While Rockwell was issuing these instructions
Jennie's cheeks had grown hot.

"I'm not that kind," she cried.  "I've never
had any one but George."  Margery also glowered.

"I know that, my dear," said Rockwell,
mendaciously perhaps but promptly.  "But you've got
to do what I tell you to-night.  You don't care
what a fellow like Thompson thinks.  He always
thinks the worst anyhow.  It's to save George.
He'll be ruined unless we can fool Thompson
completely to-night.  It's for George," he repeated.
"You'd do a lot for George."

Jennie's colour was subsiding.  She had uncrossed
her legs and was sitting erect.  She looked
fixedly at Rockwell.

"I *have* done a lot for him," she said.

"I know," said Rockwell.  "And you'll do this
to-night."  He was using his most persuasive tones.

Jennie stole an almost timid glance at Merriam.

The latter's youthful chivalry was aroused.  He
was filled with pity for her, mingled with
something like admiration on account of her prettiness.
He saw her, more or less correctly, as a pathetic
victim of real love and a false social system.  He
smiled at her reassuringly.

"It'll be all right," he said.  "I shan't trouble
you at all."

Jennie's glance lingered on his face--the face
that was so much like Norman's.  She saw him for
the clean, innocent, naïve boy that he was.  He
was what George Norman might once have been,
long years ago.  I am afraid that something akin
to interest crept into her look.  She dropped her
eyes.

"All right," she said curtly to Rockwell.  "I
suppose I will."

"Jennie, you're a fool!" cried Margery.

"Shut up, Marge," said Jennie, with whom this
seemed to be a frequent locution.

Rockwell had already risen.

"Is George dressed?" he asked.

"No," said Jennie.  "He's too sick."

"Come, then," said Rockwell to Merriam.  "We
must help him into his things."

He crossed the small room and passed through
the yellow portières.  Having been at the
apartment earlier in the day with Aunt Mary, he was
acquainted with its geography.

Merriam rose to follow, but he felt that
something more ought to be said to relieve the
half-hostile awkwardness of the situation.  Jennie's
eyes were still cast down.

"Is he pretty sick?" he asked as he moved
across the room.  He was not much concerned
about Senator Norman, but he could think of no
other remark.

Jennie raised her eyes and looked at him--an
unreadable glance.

"Pretty sick," she said, almost indifferently.

Merriam paused a moment before the portières,
looking back, still meeting her eyes.

Then he turned his own away and pushed the
portières aside.  He found himself in a dining
room, done entirely in blue, as the sitting room was
in yellow.  Rockwell was already opening a door
on the further side.  Merriam quickened his steps
and was close behind the older man in entering a
small white bedroom.

On a single bed therein lay Senator George
Norman.  Evidently he had heard their voices in the
sitting room, for he had raised himself on his elbow.

He and Merriam stared at each other in the
amazement that is inevitable to two men who find
themselves really bearing a striking physical
resemblance to each other, however much they may
have been forewarned.  We are so accustomed to
the idea that each of us has a sort of exclusive
copyright on his own particular exterior that we
cannot seriously believe in anything approaching
a replica unless actually confronted with it.

The Senator did not look especially "boyish" as
he lay there.  His ruffled hair was indeed
practically untouched with gray, but his cheeks were
haggard and feverish, and there were many little
wrinkles about his mouth and eyes.  For all that
Merriam could hardly believe he was not looking
into a mirror.  The experience was hardly pleasant
for either man.  "This is what I shall be like some
time when I am old and ill," Merriam thought; and
the Senator can hardly have escaped the bitter
reflection of the man who has left many years behind
him: "That is what I was once."  Looking closer,
Merriam could detect slight differences.  The lips
and nostrils of his distinguished relative were
undoubtedly a little fuller than his own, and--yes, he
surely was not flattering himself in thinking that
the chin was rounder and weaker.  But above all
such trivial points the likeness rose overwhelmingly,
incredibly complete.  Merriam even recognised
a similarity of movement as the sick man
impatiently twisted himself on the bed.

Rockwell was standing silent, also no doubt
inspecting the resemblance of which he had made
such remarkable use.

The Senator was the first to find his tongue.

"So you're my virtuous double," he said, with a
sort of petulant scorn.

"The voice, too!" Rockwell thought.  He almost
dreaded to hear Merriam's reply, which would
echo the very quality and timbre of the other's
speech, as if he were mocking him.  But Merriam
did not seem to notice.  The fact is one cannot
judge the sound of one's own voice nor appreciate
the similarity in another's tones or in an imitation.

"I'm the double," Merriam was saying.

For a moment longer the Senator stared.  Then
he laughed.  He evidently laughed more easily than
Merriam, and somewhat differently.  Merriam
made a mental note that if he should be involved in
any further impersonation he must be careful of
his laugh.

"Well, it's rather convenient just this minute,"
said Norman, none too courteously, "though it may
be damned inconvenient in the end."

"We'll help you dress," said Rockwell.  "We've
come to take you to the hotel, you know."

"Yes, I know that all right," said Norman.  "If
I'm to be a damned reformer, I must get out of
this."  He laughed again.  "Hand me those
trousers, will you?"

He put his legs out of the bed.  He had already
dressed himself as far as his shirt.  Then he had
apparently given the job up and got back into bed.

"I'm weak as a kitten," he continued, "and I've
the deuce of a fever, but I guess I can make it.
You've a taxi, of course?"

"Yes," said Rockwell.

He did not tell Norman that the road to the taxi
lay through two trapdoors and across a roof.
Neither did he mention the fact that Merriam was
to stay at Jennie's or allude to Thompson's
coming.  Perhaps he feared that if Norman knew of
Thompson's approach he would prefer to stay where
he was and join forces with him again.

In a very few minutes Norman was fully
dressed--in the evening clothes in which he had
left the hotel the night before, on his way, as he
supposed, to Mayor Black's.  Rockwell tied his white
bow for him.

During the process of dressing he and Merriam
were continually glancing at each other.  Neither
could resist the attraction.  Several times they
caught each other at it.

At about their third mutual detection, which
happened during the tying of the bow, Norman
laughed again.

"We're certainly a pair," he said.  "Whether
aces or deuces remains to be seen, eh?

"Gad, but I'm weak," he added, sinking on to the
bed as Rockwell finished his job.  "You may have
to carry me downstairs."

"We'll carry you all right," said Rockwell.
"We're all ready, aren't we?"

"I suppose so," said Norman.

Rockwell stooped and picked him up in his arms,
exerting himself only moderately, apparently, in so
doing.  The Senator was light on account of his
carefully preserved slenderness, and Rockwell was
really very strong.

"Bring his hat, Merriam," said the latter.

Rockwell carried him through the blue dining
room into the sitting room, Merriam following with
the silk hat.  Both Jennie and Margery were
standing.

Norman waved his hand limply to Jennie over
Rockwell's shoulder.

"Bye-bye, pet," he said.  "I'm all in, you see.
Sorry to have bothered you like this when I wasn't
fit."

"Georgie boy!" cried Jennie.

With a little run she came up behind Rockwell,
caught Norman's hand, and kissed it.

"You'll let me know how you are?  You'll come back?"

"Course I will," said Norman, though he had
promised Aunt Mary that afternoon that he would
"cut out" Jennie and the whole of that part of
his life to which she belonged.

It may be that Jennie suspected something of
the sort.  There were tears in her bright, soft eyes,
and her cheeks were pale enough to make her slight
rouging obvious.

"You will, won't you?" she said.  "Come soon,
Georgie boy!"

Norman only smiled at her and feebly waved
again.  Rockwell meanwhile was moving towards
the hallway.  Jennie followed closely, though
Margery tried to prevent her.

"Let them go, Jen!" whispered Margery.

"Shut up, Marge!" said Jennie almost fiercely.

And then the catastrophe which Margery had
been trying to forestall, and which Rockwell had
not sufficiently foreseen or else had not cared to
prevent, occurred: Jennie came face to face with
Simpson in the little hallway.  She stopped short.

"You!" she said.

"Yes, Miss Jennie," said Simpson, looking at
her steadily.  "I didn't mean you should see me.
I came to help take Mr. Norman away.  It was me
that discovered the plan to catch him here."

Jennie knew from Rockwell's earlier explanation
that this was true.  She tried to give Simpson what
she herself would probably have called the
"once-over"--a scornful survey from head to foot.  But
her histrionic purpose failed her.  Her eyes fell
too quickly.

"Well, be quick about it," she said.  For the
first time her voice was harsh.

Rockwell meanwhile had carried Norman on
into the outer hall--for Simpson had already
opened the door--and set him down leaning against
the banister.

"Margery!" he called sharply.

Margery, glad of any diversion, advanced quickly:

"What do you want?"

"A stepladder.  Got one?"

"Why--yes!"

"Go with her, Simpson, and get it," Rockwell
commanded.

"Yes, Mr. Rockwell."

"This way," said Margery, and she and Simpson
passed by Jennie and Merriam, who stood a little
behind Jennie, and disappeared into the flat.

Jennie gave one quick look at Norman, who was
leaning weakly against the railing staring in front
of him, turned away with eyes that were very bright
and a little hard, brushed past Merriam, and went
back into the sitting room and sat down.

Almost at the same moment Simpson returned,
carrying a rather tall stepladder and followed by
Margery.

Norman came out of his apathy and stared.
Simpson set the ladder up in the center of the hall,
mounted it, and climbed through the trap, which
they had left open when they descended.

"Here.  Catch!" said Rockwell.  He tossed
Norman's silk hat up through the trap, and
Simpson caught it.

Then he stooped, picked Norman up again, and
began to mount the ladder with him.

"What in hell!" said the sick man.

Rockwell did not reply but continued to mount
and then hoisted the Senator up so that Simpson
could catch him under the arms and draw him
through the trap.

Finally he spoke to Merriam:

"Take this ladder inside.  Then you must go
straight to bed.  He'll be here any time now.  I'll
'phone from the hotel when we get there."

He swung himself up on to the roof.  The trap
closed.

"Well, I'll be damned!" said Margery Milton.

Merriam did not like profanity in women, even
in Margeries.

"Very likely you will," he said.

Margery looked at him sharply:

"You think you're smart, don't you?  Are you
going to bring that ladder in?"





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.. _`A NEW ANTAGONIST`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


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   A NEW ANTAGONIST

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Merriam shut the stepladder together, lifted
it into an oblique position, and carried it
through the inner hallway into the sitting room,
where he stopped, not knowing where to go with it.

Jennie was still sitting.  She looked up at him.
The same expression of interest which had showed
in her eyes once before returned to them.  She
smiled and shifted her position, crossing her knees.
But she volunteered no information as to what he
should do with the stepladder which he was
awkwardly holding.

Meanwhile Margery had followed him into the
inner hall, closed the door, and put up the chain.
She now came past him and pushed aside the
portières into the dining room.

"Bring it this way, please," she said, quite
politely.

He carried the ladder through the blue dining
room into a kitchenette, and thence through a door
which Margery held open on to a narrow back
porch, from which he had a glimpse of a sort of
orderly labyrinth of steep wooden stairs and narrow
back porches around the four sides of an inner
court.

He returned into the kitchenette, which was almost
entirely filled up with a gas stove.  Margery
shut the door.

"Go into the sitting room and talk to Jen," she
said.  "I want her to forget about Simpson.  I'll
change the bed for you."

"Thank you," said Merriam, who began to perceive
that Miss Milton, in spite of her profanity,
had certain admirable qualities.

He went through the dining room, hesitated for
a moment before the portières--he could not have
said why--and then pushed them open.

Jennie had risen and was standing beside a table
between the windows.  The table held a
parchment-shaded lamp, a newspaper, a small camera,
and a bowl of violets.  Merriam had not noticed
the flowers before.  He remembered the violets
worn by the floor clerk at the hotel, and wondered
whether George Norman had saved himself trouble
at the florist's by ordering two bunches from the
same lot, to be sent to different addresses.

Jennie was looking down at the flowers.  She
must have been aware of his presence.  If so, she
was apparently content that he should have the
benefit of a good look at her trim figure and at her
face in profile, which was its best view.  She had
a pretty nose; the artificially heightened colour of
her cheeks was charming in this light; and the
bright knob of her fair hair over her ear was a most
alluring ornament.

In a moment she bent gracefully down to smell
the violets.  As she straightened up she turned to
look at him--a serious, appraising look that was
somehow intimate.  Then she smiled brightly.

"Come in, Mr.----" (she seemed to forget his
name and let it go) "and sit down."

She tripped across the room to the davenport
and sat, indicating that he was to sit beside her.

Merriam wanted both to take that seat and not
to take it.  He took it.

She crossed one leg over the other and looked at
him, smiling.  One small, squarish, plump hand
lay on her knee, ready, Merriam half divined, to be
taken if any one should desire to take it.  He
wondered if it were true that she had "never had any
one but George."

"I forget your name," she said confidentially.

"Merriam."  It was not said stiffly.  He was
too much attracted to be stiff.  He realised that he
was answering her smile.

"What's your first name?"

"John."

"Then I shall call you 'John.'  I don't like last
names--and 'Mister' and 'Miss.'"

"They're stiff," he said, "playing up" alarmingly
as on a former occasion.

She scrutinised his face, growing grave.

"You're awfully like George," she said, "except here."

She raised her hand, and with the tip of her
forefinger touched his chin.

"You're sterner," she added.

It was the very point Merriam himself had noted.
He admired her acuteness of observation.  And of
course he was flattered.  But he realised that he
was not being particularly stern at that moment.

"I expect I am," he said, trying to look, if not to
be, more so.

Jennie moved an inch or two farther away from
him, as if a little frightened by the iron qualities
of this male.

"Where's Margery?" she asked.

"Here," said Margery's voice, with disconcerting
patness.

She came through the portières and surveyed the
two of them with an ironical look that was by no
means lost on Merriam.  He felt ashamed of himself.

But Jennie gave him a quick glance with a little
pout in it, as if to say, "What a nuisance!  When
we were just beginning to get acquainted!"

And straightway his shame fled and he smiled at her.

Margery, however, was speaking in her most
businesslike tones:

"I've changed your bed, and you'd better get into
it as quick as you can.  It's late now."

"Yes," said Merriam, rising.  "What time is it?"

Before he could get out his own timepiece Jennie
raised her arm and glanced at a small gold wrist
watch.

"Oh!  Five minutes after ten!" she cried.  She
rose too.  "You must hurry."

"Yes," said Merriam.

He moved to the portières--hesitated.  He did
not know how to take leave under these novel
circumstances.

"Good night, ladies," he ventured in rather
ceremonious tones.

To his chagrin both girls burst out laughing.

"Good night, gentleman!" Jennie called merrily
after him, and their renewed giggling pursued him
as, in painful confusion, he crossed to the door of
the bedroom.

He shut that door behind him and rapidly undressed,
stimulated to speed in his operations by a
vigorous mental kicking of himself as an ass and a
"boob."  A suit of pajamas, apparently quite new;
was laid out on a chair.  He got into these and
slipped into bed.

The moment he was recumbent he realised that
he had forgotten to turn out his light.  No matter.
He had no idea of sleeping.  Besides Thompson
would be there any minute.

Ah, Thompson!  With relief his mind seized
upon this topic.  It was sufficiently absorbing.
Any minute now Thompson would burst in,
demanding Senator Norman.  He, Merriam, would
pretend he had never seen Thompson before, never
even heard of him.  "My name is not Norman," he
would say.  "My name is Merriam.  Who are
you?  And what do you want?"  Thompson would
stare, falter, begin to apologise and explain.  It
was pleasingly dramatic.  He pursued the interview.
His own conduct therein displayed the
quintessence of composure and *savoir faire*.  Jennie
and Margery--yes, both of them were present--would
be impressed; they would laugh at him no
longer.  Thompson was sacrificed mercilessly.

But the minutes passed and nothing happened.
There was no sign of the real Thompson.  What
was wrong?  The silence of the small, lighted
bedroom began to get on Merriam's excited nerves.
Had Thompson somehow, in spite of Rockwell's
elaborate precautions, got wind of the real
situation, discovered their trick before it was played?
Had he remained at the hotel, seen the real Norman
return, and perceived the whole imposition?

A light knock sounded on his door.  Merriam
jumped and then lay still.

"Can I come in?"

It was Jennie's voice.

"Yes," he said, embarrassed; but what other
reply could be made?

Jennie opened the door and came to his bedside.
She had changed her attire completely.  She now
wore the costume of a *ballerina*--a tight pink
corsage, very low and sleeveless, with the slightest
of pink loops over her shoulders, a short, fluffy
pink skirt barely to her knees, pink tights, and pink
dancing slippers.  Over one of the bright knobs
of her hair was a pink rose.  She was much more
brilliantly rouged than before, and he was
conscious of a warm scent of powder and perfume.

Merriam lay staring at her without speaking,
subconsciously shocked perhaps, but openly
bewildered and fascinated.

She smiled at him and seemed to be inspecting
him in return.  Her left hand hung at her side,
holding something heavy, but she put out her right
and touched his hair--with a single little
movement ruffled it.

"You look very nice lying there," she said in the
most natural tones in the world.  "How do I look?"

She stepped back and pirouetted, turning
completely around on her toes.  The fluffy pink skirts
swung out and circled with her in a most entrancing
manner.  Merriam was quite dazzled.  The
white gleam of her back as she turned, the slender
white arms, held gracefully away from her sides,
in spite of that heavy something in one hand, the
tight slimness of the waist, the glimpse of pink legs
beneath the circling skirt--he had seen the like
only on the stage.  It was rather overpowering so
close at hand.

But in a single rosy moment her revolution was
completed.  She was facing him again and
relaxing down off her toes.

"How do I look?" she repeated, smiling, with
the slightest natural augmentation of her artificial
flush.

Merriam swallowed.  "Stunning!" he ejaculated.

She beamed.  "Of course I do," she said.

Then her face seemed to harden.  She stepped
closer to the bed so that she was almost bending
over him.

"I've got a part to play," she said.  "Well, I'm
going to play it."  There was a touch of something
like defiance in her voice now.  "I've cooked up a
plot for Mister Thompson.  Marge don't like it,
but she'll help.  I'll show him!  You've got to help
too."

She raised her left hand, displaying the heavy
object held therein, which he had not yet identified.
He was somewhat startled to see that it was a small
revolver.

"Take it," she said.

As he did not instantly put out his arm she tossed
it across so that it fell on the bed on the other side
of him.

"It's loaded," she said, "with blanks.  Mister
Thompson shall see you first.  But afterwards
Marge and I will see what we can do with him.
We'll get him to stay for a little supper, and I'm
going to play up to him.  I'll do a dance on the
table.  But when he tries to catch me I'll scream.
That's where you come in.  You rush out with
your revolver and drive him out of the house.
Won't it be fun?" she demanded, glowing with
excitement.  "We'll have the goods on him.  He'll
keep his face shut after that.  Whatever he knows
or thinks about George!  We'll have a fine story
for Mrs. Thompson, if he don't.  Oh!"

A doorbell had rung loudly in the kitchenette.

"There he is now.  Remember!  When I scream!"

She was gone from the bedroom, closing the door
behind her.

Merriam lay as if dazed.  This "high life" was
proving almost too fast for his bucolic and
pedagogical wits.  He jumped when the bell rang again
more violently.  Then he heard the sound of the
hall door being opened and a loud masculine voice.
Was it Thompson's?  A moment or two later the
voice became more distinct, and he could hear the
girls' voices too.  He could not be sure it was
Thompson.  Was it some one of his "henchmen"
instead?  Whoever he was, he was in the sitting
room.  In a moment or two he would almost
certainly be coming out to the bedroom.

Merriam suddenly remembered the revolver and
reached for it and slipped it under the bedclothes.
He had several minutes more to wait.  The voices
became lower.  Then they were raised again.
Suddenly he heard the rings of the portières
clash--the curtains had been sharply flung aside.
Margery's thin voice came to him.

"See for yourself, then!" it said.

"That's better," said the masculine voice in tones
half amused, half irritated.  Was it Thompson?

Light footsteps and heavy footsteps crossed the
dining room together.  The bedroom door was
opened.

"Sir," said Margery to Merriam, in tones a little
shrill with excitement, "this is a Mr. Crockett.
He has some crazy notion about your being Senator
Norman.  See for yourself, Mr.--Crockett!"  She
spoke his name as though it were an insult.
"Remember, he's sick," she added warningly.
Margery was not a bad actress.

Crockett!  Crockett himself!  So much the
better!  With an effort Merriam steadied his nerves.
Mr. Crockett advanced to the bedside--a tall,
imposing gentleman in evening clothes with keen blue
eyes and a thin remnant of lightish hair.

"Well, George," he said blandly, "glad to see
you.  Your little friends are very loyal.  But they
couldn't keep me away from you."

Merriam instantly disliked Mr. Crockett.  He
plunged with zest into his part.

"George?" he inquired coldly.  "My name's not
George!"

"Oh, come, come, Norman!  You're caught.
Fess up."

But he looked closer.  At the same moment
Margery lifted a silk shade off the electric bulb
by the bureau, and the cold hard light fell full on
the younger man's face.

"Who do you think I am?" said Merriam.  "And
who are you?" he added in an insolent tone.

The impressive financier stared.  He bent down
and stared harder.

"Well?"  Merriam demanded with all the hauteur
he could muster.  And then: "Got an eye-ful?"

He had preconceived this colloquy in much more
dignified phrases, but the insulting tag of boyish
slang popped out of him unawares.  However, he
could not have done better.  Probably he could
never, by taking thought, have done as well.
Senator Norman would assuredly not have used that
expression; it had been coined long since his day in
Boyville.

Mr. Crockett was convinced.  But he was a
gentleman of considerable imperturbability.  He
merely straightened up and asked:

"Who are you?"

The younger man suddenly decided not to give
his name.  There was that in Mr. Crockett's blue
eyes that suggested an uncomfortable pertinacity
and ruthlessness in following up any clue he might
get hold of.

"What business is that of yours?" said Merriam.

Mr. Crockett blinked.  He was doubtless
unaccustomed to such replies.  But he merely asked
another question:

"Where are you from?"

"Down State," said Merriam.  That was both
insolent and safe: Illinois is tolerably sizable.

"How old are you?"

Merriam saw an advantage in answering this
query truthfully.

"Twenty-eight," he said.  "What of it?"

"You don't happen to be a young nephew or
cousin of Senator Norman's, do you?" asked Mr. Crockett,
hitting the bull's-eye with his first arrow.

Merriam, somewhat startled, countered with a
flat denial:

"No, I'm not.  I've been told I look like him,"
he added.  "Somebody took me for him last night.
But I'm only related to him through Adam and
Eve--so far as I know."

Mr. Crockett scanned him narrowly:

"Somebody took you for Norman last night?"

"They sure did."  Having struck the slangy note
by accident, Merriam was enough of an actor to
keep it up.

"I should be much obliged if you will tell me
about that."

Merriam's self-confidence returned.  He had
been realising how little this dialogue was developing
in accordance with his pleasing anticipations.
Instead of the rôle of a polished man of the world,
delivering brilliant thrusts of irony and reducing
his interlocutor to apologetic confusion, he had
stumbled inadvertently on that of a slangy youth,
submitting to be catechised by an individual who
remained singularly composed and had proved
dangerously shrewd.  But at last he had led up
adroitly enough to the story which Rockwell had
charged him to tell.  He set himself to tell it in
character:

"Well, if you want to know, I came up to the
City on business--yesterday.  When I got my work
done I thought I'd have a little fun--see the sights,
you know.  I don't know this town much, but I got
hold of a taxi man who took me around.  I looked
in at several places.  I guess I had a pretty good
time.  I don't remember much.  I had more
highballs than I'm used to.  We ended up at a dance
hall somewhere.  There were some pretty girls
there.  Somebody said, 'You're Senator Norman,
aren't you?'  That struck me as funny.  'Sure, I
am,' I said, and I kept it up.  Soon everybody in
the place was calling me 'Senator.'  I treated the
gang.  Then I got into a fight.  I don't remember
how.  Somebody knocked me down, I think.  But
I wasn't hurt any.  After that I picked up this
little girl that lives here--the one in pink,--and
she brought me home with her.  I had a bad head
on this morning and a bad cold besides.  The little
girl is a good sport.  She let me stay here all day.
I'm going down home in the morning."

"I see," said Mr. Crockett slowly.

Merriam had need of all his self-command to
conceal his elation as he perceived that his
formidable antagonist had swallowed bait, hook, and
sinker, as the idiom goes.  He was obviously
piecing Merriam's narrative together in his mind with
the *Tidbits* story about Norman.  Margery, who
had remained standing unobtrusive and silent by
the bureau, flashed Merriam a commendatory glance.

Stimulated thereby, he pertly followed up his advantage:

"Care for any more of my personal memoirs?"

"No, thank you," said Mr. Crockett with a
rather sour smile.  "Good night, Mr.--Mr.----"

He was angling for the name again, but with a
feebleness unworthy of a great financier.

"Mr. Blank," said Merriam.  "I've a bit of a
reputation to keep up in my own home town."

"I see," said Mr. Crockett again.  "Well, I'm
sorry to have intruded.  Take care of your reputation!"

He turned away towards the door.

In that open door Jennie had stood listening.
Now her cue had come.  She took it promptly.
She advanced into the bedroom, stepping lightly on
her toes, her pink skirt waving prettily.  She smiled
her brightest smile at Mr. Crockett.

"He isn't Senator Norman, is he?" she cried gaily.

"He certainly isn't," said Mr. Crockett, looking
at her.  No man could have helped looking at her.

"You were awfully rude about it," said Jennie,
pouting.  She had stopped about two feet in front
of him.

"Was I?"

"I should say you were.  Awfully!  You ought
to do something to make up for it."

"What ought I to do?" asked Mr. Crockett.

"You might stay for a little supper with Margery
and me."

"Might I?"

Unexpectedly Mr. Crockett looked away from
Jennie.  He looked at Merriam, thoughtfully--a
disconcerting thoughtfulness.  Then he turned back
to Jennie.

"Perhaps I might," he said, with a faint smile.

Merriam read his mind.  He was sure he did.
The man might or might not be slightly attracted by
Jennie's prettiness, but what he was thinking was
that he would be able to get more out of her than
he had been able to get from Merriam.  The latter
at once perceived that Jennie's melodramatic
scheme was dangerous and silly.  It might have
been all right with Thompson, but not with this
man.  She hadn't sense enough to see the difference.
But he could do nothing to stop her.

Already she had cried, "Oh, goody!" like a
little girl.

She stepped past Mr. Crockett, brushing him
with her skirts, put her hands on his shoulders and
began playfully to push him towards the dining room.

"It's all ready," she was saying.  "We got it
for the man inside, but he says he isn't hungry.
We have sandwiches and olives and cheese and
beer--and there's whiskey, if you like."

"I'll take beer," said Mr. Crockett, mustering a
certain lightness and allowing himself to be pushed.

Merriam looked at Margery, still standing by the
bureau.  She too had changed her costume.  She
now wore an evening dress of black and gold, in
which she looked very well, rather brilliant, in fact.
But what Merriam noticed was the understanding
look in her eyes.  She had read Mr. Crockett's
purpose as clearly as he had.

"We'll be careful," she said.  "You did fine.
Shall I turn out the light?"

"No," said Merriam.  "Leave it, please."

She walked out of the room and closed the door.





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.. _`AN EVENTFUL SUPPER PARTY`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   AN EVENTFUL SUPPER PARTY

.. vspace:: 2

Though Margery had closed the door Merriam
could hear practically everything that
went on in the adjoining room--as one commonly
can in an apartment.

"Get the food from the ice chest, will you,
Marge?" cried Jennie, in tones whose gaiety
sounded genuine.  "I'll set out the drinks.  Let's
have a cocktail to start with, Mr.----"

She interrupted herself:

"What's your first name?"

"Well," said Crockett, "one of my first names
is Henry."

"Then I'll call you 'Harry.'  I hate last
names--and 'Mister' and 'Miss'!"

Merriam in his recumbent solitude made a
cynically humorous grimace.  She had used those
very words with him--had begun the same way.
Her regular formula doubtless.

"I'm 'Jennie,' you know," she continued.
"Now, what kind of cocktail?"

"I'll stick to beer, please."

"But I want to start with a cocktail!  Have one
with me!  Please!"

The tone was that of a teasing child.  In his
mind's eye Merriam could see vividly the trim pink
figure (as it had pirouetted before him) and the
pretty pouting face.  But Crockett was apparently
unmoved.

"Bye and bye," he said suavely.  "Go ahead
with your cocktail.  We don't all have to drink the
same things, do we?  I'll start with beer and work
up to cocktails."

"Well, then," said Jennie, with a swift return to
unpetulant gaiety, "Marge is bringing your old
beer.  Oh, goody!  See!  Cheese sandwiches and
chicken sandwiches and lettuce-and-mayonnaise
sandwiches!"

Evidently Margery had returned well laden from
the ice chest.

"Which kind will you have, Harry?"

"Cheese, thank you," said "Harry."

"There!  With my own fingers!"

Jennie spoke with some confidence that the touch
of her fingers would render bread and cheese
ambrosial.

"Thank you," said "Harry" again, with the
barest nuance of dryness in his tone.  "I'll open
the beer.  What will you drink, Miss Milton?"

Undoubtedly he was snubbing Jennie!  Those
blue eyes of his might perhaps be attentive enough
to white arms and tight waists and pink legs when
he himself had sought them out, but they were not
to be distracted by any such frivolous phenomena
when serious business was afoot.  Jennie would
fail!  Merriam was sure of it.

But at any rate she was not easily snubbed.

"Her name's Margery," she cried, consistent in
her antipathy to surnames.

"Well, Margery?" said Crockett, complaisantly.

"Beer," said Margery.

It was the first word Merriam had heard her
speak.  Her taciturnity comforted him.  Jennie
was a little fool, but Margery would keep her head.
They would waste their time and their sandwiches
and beer on Crockett, but perhaps she would foil
any inquiries he might presently attempt.

"Don't set things in the middle of the table,
Marge," cried.  Jennie.  "Set 'em around the edge.
I'm going to do a dance for you, Harry.  Wouldn't
you like to see me dancing on the table?"

"It would be very charming," said "Harry."  But
the tone was merely gallant; it betokened no
quickening of pulse.

"I must have a sandwich first, though," said
Jennie quickly.  Even she perceived that she was
not making progress.

There followed eating and drinking, accompanied
by a patter of gay, disconnected sallies from
Jennie, relating chiefly to the eatables and drinkables.
"Harry," continually appealed to by that name,
remained calmly polite.  Margery, when addressed,
responded in monosyllables.  Ripe olives and cold
tongue and mustard were produced.  Jennie had
her cocktail, and then another.  She needed
stimulant, poor girl, to keep up the gay vivacity which
was meeting with so little encouragement.  A
second bottle of beer was opened for "Harry" and
Margery.

Meanwhile Merriam, still listening, was engaged
also in active cogitation.  He saw well enough into
Crockett's thought.  The latter had been momentarily
convinced by his, Merriam's, well-told tale.
(Margery had said he had "done fine.")  But the
keen, realistic mind behind those blue eyes had
almost immediately rebounded and seized upon the
overwhelming inherent improbability of that yarn.
That there should be a man without close relationship
to Norman who resembled him so strongly was
in itself decidedly remarkable.  That this man
should encounter Norman's mistress, by pure
chance, at a public dance and go home with her
was even more curious.  And that all this should
happen, merely fortuitously, on the very night on
which Senator Norman had unaccountably broken,
before nine o'clock, solemn promises given with
every appearance of sincerity and willingness
shortly before eight, and suddenly gone over to a
party for which throughout a score of years he had
expressed nothing but dislike and contempt--the
mathematical chances against such a series of
coincidences were simply incalculable.

It was a quick, clear perception of this abstract,
apriori incredibility that Merriam had read in
Crockett's final glance before Jennie playfully
pushed him out of the bedroom.  Doubtless he was
still revolving it in his mind as he sat at Jennie's
table, responding with merely mechanical politeness
to her rather pitiful attempts to pique his
interest and desire.  Well, let him revolve it.  The
story all hung together.  What could he make of
it?  Little enough, probably, with the data he had
now.  But that was why he was lingering here at
Jennie's--in the hope of getting more data.  After
another cocktail or two Jennie would not know
what she was saying.  Then he would begin to hint,
to ask questions.  Could Margery keep her quiet?
A single word might give him a clue.

Merriam became conscious of a wish that Rockwell
were at hand to help.  But that wish instantly
gave birth to further fears.  Rockwell had said he
would telephone from the hotel as soon as they
arrived.  That message might come any minute
now--with Crockett there!  Whereabouts in the
flat was the telephone?  He had not noticed it
anywhere.  He looked about the bedroom.  But it was
not there, of course.

Ought not that message to have come already?
Surely they should be at the hotel by now unless
something had gone wrong.  He suddenly envisaged
all the perils of discovery, which he had hitherto
been too much occupied to realise, involved in
the transportation of the sick Senator across the
roof--down through the other trapdoor into the
other hall--down three flights of stairs--along
two blocks of city street to the taxi.  They
might so easily have been noted by some of
Thompson's, or Crockett's, watchers, and followed
to the hotel.  Then they would be caught
indeed--in the very fact.  Verily, the paths of the
impostor are perilous!

Then Merriam's mind was brought sharply back
from these alarming excursions to his own scarcely
less dangerous situation.  Crockett had for the
first time volunteered a remark.  It was just such
a remark as Merriam had anticipated.

"Nice boy you have in there."

His voice was slightly lowered but only slightly.
Perhaps he did not realise the perfection of the
acoustic properties of flats.

"Very nice boy!" agreed Jennie cordially.

Merriam noticed with alarm just the faintest
touch of the effect of cocktails in her accent.  How
many had the girl had by now?

"So you met him at Reiberg's, did you?" Crockett
pursued.

"Reiberg's?" said Jennie doubtfully, "Reiberg's?"

"Yes," Margery cut in.  "Picked him up there
and brought him home.  I call it a shame.  Jen's
never done that sort of thing before."

"I expect you took to him because he looks so
much like Senator Norman," suggested Crockett,
rather skillfully persistent.

"Yes," said Jennie, "looks very like George.
But he's *not* George.  He's John!"

"John what?" asked Crockett mildly.

"John Blank!" said Margery sharply.  "He
told you he didn't want to give his name.  Jen,
keep your face shut!"

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said Crockett.

"Have a cocktail now!" said Jennie, quite unabashed.

Crockett at last agreed to a cocktail, and it was
fixed for him, and the conversation, if such it could
be called, again concerned itself with incidents to
the consumption of food and drink.

Thank God for Margery!  She had won the first
trick.  But Crockett would try again.  And Jennie
would grow more and more difficult to handle.
Aside from the danger, Merriam hated to think of
Jennie's getting really drunk.  Could not Margery
get rid of the man?  The trouble was he had
stayed at Jennie's invitation.  Could not he,
Merriam, do something?

He felt under the bedclothes until he found the
revolver.  He drew it out and looked at it.  But
of what use was it, really?  Would Crockett blench
at the mere pointing of a pistol?  He doubted it.
It was loaded only with blanks, Jennie had said.
And he dared not fire it anyway.  The occupants
of a dozen adjoining flats would hear the report.
People would come bursting in.  The police would
be called.  Well, was not that the solution?  To
have Crockett caught in that flat by the police in
connection with a shooting?  Perhaps, but not a
nice one for himself.  Not to be tried except as the
very last resort.  Besides, would it serve their
purpose?  A public exposure of Crockett would do no
good.  What they needed was a threat of possible
exposure to hold over him--not the exposure itself.

If only Jennie could succeed in her purpose of
enticing him into some display of amorousness, of
which he and Margery might be witnesses.  It
would be pleasant to "have the goods on him," to
use Jennie's phrase.  Why did she not dance for
him?  But Crockett would not be enticed.  He
might, however, pretend to be.  He might decide to
"play up" in that way if through Margery's watchfulness
he could get nothing out of Jennie without
doing so.

But now there flashed into Merriam's mind a
doubt of the efficacy of Jennie's scheme even if they
should succeed in carrying it out.  Suppose Crockett
should catch hold of her after her dance and try
to kiss her, and she should scream, and he should
rush out with his revolver, and Crockett should be
intimidated thereby into ignominious exit?  That
would be very good fun, but would it give them any
hold over him in case of need?  He could deny it.
Against his word the only witnesses would be
Jennie and Margery, whose testimony would not be
taken very seriously, and himself--a nobody and
an impostor.  No wonder Margery, the clear-headed,
had disapproved.  They ought to get more
tangible evidence--something in writing or a
photograph.

He suddenly remembered the camera on the table
in the living room, and recalled also a certain
college episode, a rather lurid incident of his
fraternity days, in which a camera and a girl and a
priggish freshman had figured.  It suggested to him a
decidedly picturesque and venturesome procedure
against Crockett.  But he shook his head.  It was
too violent, too rough.  All very well for a parcel
of boys with a freshman.  But with Mr. Crockett,
the mighty capitalist!  No!  Hardly!

Just then he heard Jennie say:

"Get your mandolin, Marge.  I'm going to dance now."

"Fine!" said Crockett.  But he was still cool,
amused.

Margery made no reply, but she evidently
complied.  In a moment there came a preliminary
strumming on the mandolin.

"Help me up, Harry," said Jennie.

"With pleasure," said "Harry."

He was helping her to mount on to the table.

"Move that siphon off," Jennie said.  "I might
kick it over."

There was gay excitement in her voice.  Cocktails
had made her indifferent to appreciation.  As
for Merriam, the conscience of a realist compels me
to report a sense of disappointment: he wanted to
see the dance.

"Now sit down again," cried Jennie.  "You can
see better."

At this frankness Crockett laughed.  There was
the sound of his dropping into a chair.

"Now, Marge!" Jennie commanded.

But Margery did not strike into her tune and the
dance did not begin, for at that instant the
telephone rang.

It was in the dining room, then!

There was a quick movement of chairs and feet.
Then Crockett's voice said, "Hello!"

He was answering it!

"That's not fair!" cried Margery.  "It's not for you!"

"Keep off!" said Crockett in a quick, stern
whisper, and then, evidently into the telephone,
"Yes!  Yes!"

Merriam leapt out of bed, revolver in hand, in his
pajamas and flung open the door.

Crockett was standing by the wall at the telephone.
Jennie, in her ballet costume, stood transfixed
in the center of the table.  Margery was rushing
at Crockett.

"You--you spy!" she screamed.

Merriam, in the door, pointed his revolver.

"Drop it!" he cried, meaning the telephone
receiver.  "Hands up!"

But Crockett, catching Margery by the shoulder
with his free hand, held her powerfully at arm's
length and only smiled at Merriam's revolver.

"Why?" he asked into the telephone, and added
quickly, "Nothing!  These girls are romping so!"

But his words could hardly be heard for Margery's
screaming.  He dropped the receiver and
put the hand thus freed over the mouthpiece.

"Shut up!" he said fiercely to Margery, and
gave her shoulder a violent wrench.

"O--oh!" she groaned.

Something had to be done instantly, for Crockett
was turning back to the telephone.  With a sort of
impulsive desperation Merriam threw the revolver
at Crockett's head.  The man dodged, and the
revolver struck the opposite wall and fell to the floor.
But the movement took him away from the
telephone, and Merriam, rushing forward, added the
impetus of a straight-arm thrust, which sent him
staggering against the table.

Then Merriam caught up the receiver.

"Hello!  Hello!" he cried into the mouthpiece.

For an instant no reply.  Then Central's voice
said sweetly:

"Your party's hung up."  And added, in tones
of unwonted interest: "What's the row there?
Shall I send the police?"

"No, no!" said Merriam.  "There's nothing
wrong here."

He hung up and turned to face the room.

Crockett was still leaning against the table.
Margery was clutching the arm which a moment
before had gripped her, and Jennie had jumped
down from the table and caught hold of his other
arm.  But the financier appeared very little
ruffled.  He even smiled at Merriam, not
unpleasantly.

"Well, Mr. Merriam," he said, "suppose we sit
down and talk it over--if these ladies will release
me, that is."

"Mr. Merriam!"  Then the message *had* been
from Rockwell, and Crockett had got the name
after all.  How much more had he learned?
Merriam was quite willing to talk in the hope of finding
that out.

"Very well," he said.  "Let him go, Margery,--Jennie."

"I'll dance for both of you!" cried Jennie, whose
cheeks were decidedly flushed.

"No!" said Merriam.  "Sit down, please."

"Sit down, Jen!" seconded Margery, viciously.

"Oh, well!"  Jennie plopped petulantly into a
chair.

The others sat, Merriam and Crockett across
from each other.  The financier looked steadily at
the younger man.

"Miss Milton was right," he began quietly.
"The message was not for me.  It was for you,
Mr. Merriam.  I think I ought to give it to you."

"If you please," said Merriam.

"It was that you should 'come at once to the
hotel.'"

Merriam managed not to blink.

"What hotel?" he asked.

For an instant Crockett weighed his answer.  Then:

"The De Soto," he said.

But Merriam had read the meaning of the
momentary pause: Rockwell had not named the
hotel--he wouldn't, of course--Crockett was guessing.

"De Soto?" he asked, looking as puzzled as he
could.  "I thought it might be from the Nestor
House."  (He was using the first name that popped
into his head.)

"Oh," said Crockett lightly, "Mr. Rockwell
would be much more likely to telephone from the
De Soto."

Merriam was startled, but he could only go on as
he had begun.

"Rockwell?" he echoed, as if still further mystified.

"Come, come," said Crockett, "I recognised his
voice.  I know it perfectly."

"No friend of mine," Merriam persisted.  There
might be no advantage in continued denial, but
certainly there could be none in admission.

"Really, Mr. Merriam, hadn't you better tell me
the whole story?  You'll not find me ungenerous.
I'll let you down easy."

"The whole story?" said Merriam.  "Thought
I told you my whole story in the bedroom a while
back.  What more do you want?"

Crockett shrugged his shoulders.  He smiled
blandly:

"What I want is another cocktail, I guess.
You'll join me, Mr. Merriam?  You've had nothing
all evening.  It must have been dull for you, lying
in there, while these pretty ladies have been
entertaining me so charmingly.  I understood you were
sick, you know," he added slyly, "or I should have
insisted on your coming out long ago."  Then,
quickly, so as to give Merriam no chance to reply:
"Jennie, my dear, let's have your pretty dance
now.  We were interrupted."

"No," said Jennie, rather sleepily, "I'm tired."

"Have a cocktail," said Crockett promptly.
"Then you'll be all right again."

Jennie looked up with interest.  "Well," she said.

Crockett rose to mix the drinks.

"You'll have one, too, Mr. Merriam?"

But during the brief interchange between Crockett
and Jennie, Merriam had been doing some quick
thinking--wild thinking, perhaps.  The plan
suggested by his college memory, which before he had
rejected as too violent, his mind now seized upon
and was eagerly shaping to the present situation.

When Crockett addressed him, he rose.

"No," he said.  "I'm tired too.  I *am* sick."  He
simulated a slight dizziness.  "I'll go lie down
again.  If you'll excuse me."

He moved to the bedroom door, affecting uncertainty
in his steps.  As he passed into the bedroom
he called: "Margery!"





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.. _`FLASH LIGHTS`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


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   FLASH LIGHTS

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In a moment Margery had followed him.

"Shut the door."  He barely formed the
words with his lips.

She obeyed.

"That camera--in the sitting room," he
whispered.  "Can you take a flash light with it?"

"Sure," came the whispered answer.  "That's
what we use it for."

"Have you any rope?"

"Rope?" echoed Margery's whisper.  "There's
a clothesline on the back porch."

"Bring it to me!"

Margery looked at him.  But a high degree of
mutual confidence had been established between
these two.  She nodded.

"Right away?"

"Yes.  *He* mustn't see it."

"No."

She opened the door and closed it behind her.
Merriam sat on the edge of the bed, thinking hard.

"He wants a drink of water," he heard her say to
the others in the dining room.

With one ear, so to speak--that is to say, with
so much of his mind as could attend to one
ear,--he listened to Crockett and Jennie, engaged still in
the business of mixing drinks.  With the rest of
his mind he was making plans, with a rapidity and
confident daring that astonished himself.

In a moment Margery had returned.  In her
right hand she carried a glass of water.  Her left
hand, hanging at her side, seemed to hold carelessly
only a newspaper, folded in two.  But as soon as
she had closed the door she produced from between
the folds a fairly stout clothesline, loosely coiled.

Merriam tried its toughness and surveyed its
length.

"All right," he whispered.  "Now go back.
Drink with them.  Jennie must dance.  And have
Crockett sit where he was before."

This was at the end of the table nearest the
telephone and nearest also to Merriam's door.

Again Margery looked at him.  She glanced at
the rope.  But she asked no questions.  Without a
word she went out and closed the door behind her.
Admirable girl!

Merriam's next actions were rather remarkable.
He felt hastily in the pockets of his trousers, which
lay over a chair, and produced a penknife.  With
this instrument he cut off four pieces of rope, each
about four feet long.  This left about ten feet in
the main piece.  With this main piece he proceeded
to manufacture a slip noose, carefully testing both
the strength of the slipknot and the readiness of its
slipping.  Then he gathered the noose and the four
other pieces of rope into his left hand and rose and
stood before the door, drawing a deep breath and
listening.

He had, of course, kept track more or less of the
happenings in the other room.  Margery, on
returning, had demanded another glass of beer and
had yielded to insistence that she have a cocktail
instead.  Then she had suggested that Jennie
dance.  Jennie had already been assisted on to the
table again, and Margery was picking tentatively
at her mandolin.

"R-ready!" cried Jennie, a little unsteadily.

Merriam stepped back and turned the button of
his electric bulb, so as to have no light behind him.

Then, as Margery struck into a bright quick
tune, he softly opened the door with his right hand,
holding his left hand with the ropes behind him,
and stood looking at Jennie, whose pink toes had
begun to patter merrily on the polished table.

Jennie saw him and laughed to him, her eyes and
her cheeks bright.

"Come in, Johnny," she cried, and for a second
one pink leg pointed straight at him as she turned.

"Couldn't resist, eh?" chuckled Crockett, who
was leaning back in the heavy chair Merriam had
wished him to occupy.  He was apparently really
pleased for the first time.  "Don't blame you," he
added.  "Come on in."

His eyes, quite unsuspicious, returned to the
circling skirts and the flushed face bobbing above
them.

This was Merriam's moment.

He stepped quickly behind Crockett's chair,
dropped the short pieces of rope on the floor, raised
the noose with both hands, slipped it over the man's
head, and pulled it suddenly tight about his neck.

Crockett emitted a strangled oath and started to
rise, but Merriam with one hand on his shoulder
thrust him down again, and with the other tightened
the noose about his throat.

"Sit still," he threatened, "or I'll choke you!"

Margery's tune had stopped abruptly, and Jennie
stood still on the table, staring down in frightened
bewilderment.

"Margery!" Merriam commanded, "take one of
these pieces of rope and tie his arm to the arm of
the chair."

The arm referred to was immediately raised
away from the chair, but the noose tightened with
a further jerk, and the arm fell limply back.  In
fact Crockett was gasping and choking so desperately
that Merriam was compelled to loosen the
rope a little.

"Take it quietly," he cautioned, with perhaps a
trifle more of youthful ferocity and exultation than
the romantic hero should exhibit, "or I'll hang you
sitting down!"

Margery, obedient as usual, had stepped quickly
forward, picked up a piece of rope, and begun to
bind the arm nearest her to the chair.

Crockett, somewhat eased, though still gasping a
little, turned his head to look at Merriam.  His
first involuntary startled alarm was passing.  The
blue eyes looked steadily at the young man.  A
trace of their earlier cool amusement returned.  He
looked away again and sat perfectly still, acquiescent.

Merriam, however, remained warily at his post
in charge of the slip noose while Margery tied both
arms.

"Now tie his feet to the legs of the chair," said
Merriam.  "Jennie, you can help.  Jump down
and tie his right foot while Margery ties the left."

But Jennie, still on the table, shook her pretty
head.

"I'd rather dance," she said, and regardless of
the lack of music she folded her arms and began to
do the steps of the Highland Fling.

"Let her alone," said Margery, who had gone
down on her knees and was at work on the left foot.

Jennie tossed her head and quickened the tempo
of her dance, keeping her eyes on Crockett, who,
though still swallowing with difficulty, affected to
regard her with interest.

Margery crossed to Crockett's other side and
knelt again.  In a moment she completed her
labours and rose, her cheeks a little reddened by her
posture and vigorous work.

"There!" she said, looking straight at Merriam,
as if she were a soldier reporting to his officer.

"Thank you very much," said the young man.

He loosened the noose, leaving it still in place,
however, about Crockett's neck.  Then he stepped
to the side of the table and held out his arms to
Jennie.

"Come!" he said, "I'll lift you down."

She stood still.  "You don't like my dancing,"
she pouted.  "*He* likes it!"  She pointed at
Crockett, who, twisting his eased neck about, smiled.

"I'll like lifting you down," said Merriam.

Jennie smiled and approached the edge of the
table.  For a moment he held a rosy, fragrant
burden in his arms, and in that moment Jennie raised
her face to his as if to be kissed.  She was really
rather incorrigible.

On a different occasion the young man might
have been irresistibly tempted (he had not thought
of Mollie June for a long time), but just now he
was no more in a mood to be enticed than Crockett
had been an hour before.

He set her lightly and quickly on her feet.

"There!" he said.

She made a face at him and dropped petulantly
into a chair.

Merriam turned to face his well-trussed victim.

The said victim was now sufficiently at ease to
open the conversation.

"Well, Mr. Merriam," he said, "you've managed
it rather cleverly.  Very neat, in fact.  You have
me a prisoner all right.  But what's the big idea?
It seems to me you've only given yourself away.
Before I only knew your name and that you were
in connection with Rockwell and that your presence
was desired at some hotel--the Nestor House,
we'll say, to avoid argument, Now it's very clear
that you are deeply implicated in the extraordinary
events that have been happening.  Otherwise you
would have had no sufficient motive for this rather
violent, not to say melodramatic, line of conduct."  He
glanced, with a smile, at his pinioned arms.

This point of view, however, had already
occurred to Merriam; and the answer was that
Crockett, knowing already of a direct, confidential
connection between Senator Norman's double and
Senator Norman's new manager, would in a few hours
at most be able to work out the whole truth of the
situation.

So he only answered his victim's smile with
another smile equally good-humoured.

"I don't think I've given away anything much,"
he said.  "And I felt it was time to take out a bit
of insurance."

"Insurance?" repeated Crockett.

"Yes.  Insurance that you will treat me with
that generosity which you half promised a while ago."

"I promised nothing!" said Crockett, the smile
fading out of his eyes.  "I refuse to give any
promise whatever."

"That's all right," said Merriam, still
good-humouredly.  "In fact, I shouldn't count much on
promises anyway.

"You're married, I believe?" he continued to
Crockett.

Crockett did not reply.

"And a church member, I presume?  And a
member of a number of highly respectable clubs?"

He paused and waited, smiling.

The smile was too much for Crockett.  After a
moment of holding in, he said sharply:

"Well?"

"Well, a gentleman who is all those things ought
to be careful how he accepts entertainment from
unattached young ladies, like our pretty Jennie
here--in their flats at midnight."  And then to
Margery, "Go and get your camera ready.

"When I was in college," Merriam continued,
"the fraternity I belonged to initiated a freshman
who turned out to be goody-goody.  He wouldn't
play cards, wouldn't dance, wouldn't go to the
theater, wouldn't smoke.  Even refused coffee and tea.
Above all he simply wouldn't look at a girl.  All
he would do was study and go to class--and to
church and Sunday School.  To make it worse he
was a handsome cuss with loads of money and his
own motor car.  He got on the fellows' nerves.
Then a show came to town with a girl in the chorus
that two of the fellows knew.  So a bunch of us
went to the show, and afterwards the two fellows
who knew the girl brought her back to the chapter
house in a taxi, with an opera cloak over the black
tights which she wore in the last act.  We gave her
a little supper, and then four of us went upstairs
to get the good little boy.  He hadn't gone to the
show.  He was studying his trigonometry.  We
didn't have to lasso him, of course, because there
were four of us.  When we brought him into the
dining room, the girl stood up and dropped off her
cloak.  It was worth something to see his face.
Then we tied him into a chair, just the same way
you're tied now.  We set a beer bottle and half-emptied
glass handy, and the girl sat on his knees
and cocked one black leg over the arm of the chair
and put one hand under his chin and put her lips to
his cheek.  And then we took the flash."

"Oh, goody!" cried Jennie, ecstatically pleased
by this climax.  But Crockett by this time was
staring at the story-teller with really venomous
eyes.

Merriam avoided those eyes and addressed himself
to Jennie, the appreciative.

"That was all," he said.  "We gave the girl a
twenty-dollar bill and the roses and sent her back
to the hotel in the taxi.  We could only show the
picture to a few chaps, of course.  One of the
fellows did finally tell the story to one girl whom a
lot of us knew and showed her the picture.  It
worked fine.  The good little boy's reputation was
made, and he had to live up to it, to the extent at
least of becoming human.  He became one of the
finest fellows we ever had.  The year after he
graduated," Merriam finished reflectively, "he married
the one girl who had seen the picture, and the
chapter gave it to her with their wedding present."

During this sequel Margery had returned with
the camera and with some flash-light powder, for
which she had had to search, in a dust pan.

"Damn you!" cried the great financier virulently,
straining helplessly at the ropes which confined
his arms and legs.  "If you think it will do
you any good to take an indecent picture of
me----"

"Cut that!" said Merriam sharply.  "Do you
want me to tighten that noose again?"

Crockett subsided with a snort that might have
made whole boards of directors tremble.

"Indecent!" said Merriam, enjoying himself
hugely, as if he were still in college.  "Certainly
not!  Only pretty.  Very pretty.  Come, Jennie!
How about the pose?"

"I'll show you!" cried Jennie.  Half dancing
on her toes, with skirts fluttering, and eyes
sparkling the more, it seemed, because of Crockett's
bitterly hostile regard, she tripped around the table
and stood by his side, facing the same way he faced.
She plucked the rose from her hair and stuck it
behind Crockett's ear.  It drooped grotesquely over
his thin hair.  Then, laughing at the rose, she put
one bare arm about his neck, her hand extending
beyond his face on the other side.

"Give me a cocktail glass in that hand!" she
cried.  "Never mind what's in it.  Anything!"

Merriam filled a glass from the siphon and put it
into the hand referred to.

Then Jennie raised a pink leg and put it on the
table, stretching straight in front of herself and
Crockett towards the center of the board, amid the
plates and glasses and crumpled napkins.  She put
her other hand under Crockett's chin as if about to
tickle him, dropped her face close to his, and looked
at Merriam with eyes of laughing inquiry.

"Fine!" said Merriam.  "Are you ready, Margery?"

Margery was already pointing the camera.

"Not yet," she said.

He addressed himself to the victim:

"Mr. Crockett, you can, of course, wink or twist
your face to spoil the picture.  If you do, I'll
simply have to choke you a little before we try again.
So you'd better look pleasant!"

"Ready!" said Margery.

Merriam set the dust pan, with the little heap of
powder in the center of it, on a plate on the
sideboard beside Margery, lit a match, and, with a last
glance at Jennie's extraordinary pose and laughing
face, switched off the lights and touched the
powder.





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.. _`VIRTUE TRIUMPHANT`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


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   VIRTUE TRIUMPHANT

.. vspace:: 2

Immediately after the flash Merriam
switched on the lights, and his eyes sought
Crockett.  Apparently the man had faced the
camera stolidly--a grotesque figure surmounted by the
dangling flower and enveloped as it were in
Jennie's acrobatic pose.

"All right!" said Merriam, coughing in the
smoke which filled the small room.  "But we'll
take one more.  You never can be sure of a single
film.  Got some more powder, Margery?"

"Yes," said Margery, who had set the camera
down and stepped aside to open a window.  She
passed into the sitting room.

Jennie gingerly removed her leg from the table
and her arm from about Crockett's neck.  In the
latter process she spilled a little of the water from
the cocktail glass--unintentionally, let us hope--on
Crockett's head.

"Damn!"

Jennie, quite regardless, eased herself on her two
legs again.

"Gee!" she said.  "I couldn't have held that
pose much longer.  In another second I'd have
split at the waist!"

Merriam laughed.  "Look what you've done,"
he said.

Jennie caught up a napkin and mopped the face
and head.

"Sorry!" she cried sympathetically.  "I didn't
mean to wet him!  There!" and she dropped a
light kiss on the cleansed cheek and smiled her
rosiest smile at the trussed victim.

Crockett answered Jennie's smile with a glare
that might have caused a panic on the Stock Exchange.

It had no very serious effect, however, on Jennie.
She shrugged her pretty shoulders and daintily
chucked him under the chin.

"That isn't a nice look!" she said.

At this point Margery returned with a package
of flash-light powder and began to pour a second
little pile on the dust pan.

"Take your pose!" said Merriam to Jennie.

"Not that one," said Jennie.  "It's too hard.  Look!"

She picked the rose from above Crockett's ear
and stepped behind his chair.  Then she stooped
till her chin rested on the top of his head and let
her two bare arms drop past his cheeks till her
hands came together on his shirt front.  In her
hands she held the rose pointing upward so that the
blossom was just below his chin.

The effect was distinctly comical--Crockett's
dour countenance, with its angry eyes, framed
above by Jennie's pretty laughing face, resting on
the very top of his head, at the sides by her round
white arms, and below by the rose under his chin.

"Fine!" Merriam laughed.  "It's better than
the other.  Ready, Margery?"

"Yes."

A second time he switched off the lights and
touched a match to the powder.

Again Crockett had not even blinked so far as
Merriam could judge.  Well satisfied, the latter
spoke to Margery:

"Put that camera away, will you, please, where
it could not be easily found except by yourself."

Margery picked up the camera and departed into
the kitchenette.

Then, "Let him alone, Jennie," he said.  For
Jennie had left the back of Crockett's chair and
perched herself on the edge of the table beside him
and was flicking him under the chin with the rose.

"All right," she said.  "He's no fun.  He's very
cross!"

She slid off the table and dropped into a chair,
transferring her attention to Merriam, as though
in the hope that he might be less obdurately disposed.

But Merriam addressed himself to the other man.

"Now, Mr. Crockett," he said, "this little supper
party and entertainment are over, I believe.  If
you wish to leave, I shall be glad to release you and
permit you to do so."

Crockett's reply was a sound between a grunt
and a growl.

Merriam walked around the table and picked up
the revolver where it had fallen by the wall.

"I don't believe," he continued, "that it will do
you any good to start any rough-house when I have
freed you.  If you do, Jennie and Margery will
scream, and I shall fire this revolver.  That will
bring in neighbours and probably the police, whose
testimony would thus be added to that of the
pictures we have taken as to your manner of spending
your evening.  You will understand that while I
shall have those pictures developed the first thing
in the morning I shall not show them to any one
except Mr. Rockwell unless you compel me to do so."

By this time Crockett had become articulate.

"Compel you to do so?" he repeated stiffly.
"May I ask what you mean by that?"

"Well," said Merriam, "you see I am an enthusiastic
supporter of the Reform League as led by
Mr. Rockwell and Senator Norman and Mayor Black.
You, I understand, are opposed to the League and
its policies.  So long as your opposition relates
itself only to those policies and involves only open
public discussion of their merits, I shall, of course,
have no reason to interfere.  But if your opposition
should take the form of any personal attack, on
Senator Norman, let us say, I should feel compelled
to retaliate by a personal attack upon you, making
use of these pictures we have taken to-night and the
story that will readily weave itself about them.
Do you see?"

"See!" Crockett cried.  "Of course I see.
Blackmail!  How much do you want for that
camera?  Name your price."

"It has no cash price," returned Merriam
steadily.  "Now if I release you, will you leave
quietly?"

For a long moment the financier stared at the
younger man who had worsted him.  Then:

"At this moment," he said acridly, "I certainly
have no other desire than to get away from this
place and to be rid of my present companionship."

Merriam was tempted to laugh at the stilted dignity
of this phraseology, but he managed to keep a
straight face.

"Very well," he said.  "Margery,"--for Margery
had just returned from the kitchenette minus
the camera,--"help me untie him, will you?  Feet
first."

Margery and Merriam knelt for a moment at the
two sides of Crockett's chair and released his two
legs.  Then Merriam again put the table between
himself and Crockett and stood waiting, revolver
in hand, leaving to Margery the work of unbinding
the arms.  He was afraid that his own near presence
to Crockett when the latter found himself free
might tempt him irresistibly to personal assault.

In the moment during which he stood waiting he
became conscious that Jennie, half reclining in the
chair into which she had dropped, was smiling at
him--a pretty, confidential smile which he did not
understand.

But he had no time to consider Jennie just then,
for Margery had completed her work.  The last
piece of rope fell on the floor, and she lifted the
slip noose from about Crockett's neck.  He had been
rather tightly bound and did not instantly have
the full use of his limbs.  Margery took his arm
to assist him.

"My coat and hat!" he said, not looking at
Merriam.

"In the sitting room," said Margery.

He turned himself in that direction and in a
jerky walk, with some support from Margery,
moved towards and through the portières.  He had
disdained to cast so much as a glance at either
Merriam or Jennie.

Jennie resented this.  "Old crosspatch!" she cried.

Merriam stepped hastily to the portières and
peeped through.  Crockett had caught up his light
overcoat and silk hat from a chair.  He refused
Margery's offer to help him on with his coat and
made, already moving more naturally, for the hall
door.  Margery followed him.  The door opened--closed
again.  Margery returned from the hallway.

Merriam advanced through the portières into the
sitting room.

"Well!" he exclaimed.

"Well!" returned Margery, with a dry laugh--the
first laugh Merriam had heard from her during
the whole evening.

"See what he does in the street," she added.
"Raise the shade about a foot.  I'll turn off the
light."

Merriam acted promptly on this excellent hint.
In a moment the room was in darkness, and he was
kneeling by the window watching the street below,
which was fairly well illuminated from arc lights
at either corner.  Part way down the block on the
other side of the roadway a car, presumably a taxi,
stood by the curb, with a man walking up and down
beside it.  Jennie's flat was too high up for
Merriam to be able to see the sidewalk immediately
below.  If, therefore, Crockett on emerging from
the building merely walked away, he would see
nothing.  But this was hardly likely.

Presently, sure enough, the taxi showed sudden
signs of life.  The man hastily got in, and the
car rolled forward, crossing the street diagonally,
and stopped directly below Merriam's window.
Crockett had come out and signalled it.  A moment
later it shot away down the block and turned the
corner.

Merriam still knelt by the window, peering into
the street.  He was looking for signs of any
remaining watchers, for he had his own exit to think
of: Rockwell had wanted him to "come at once to
the hotel."

As he knelt there in the dark he suddenly sensed
a warm fragrant body close beside his own.  A pair
of soft bare arms slipped about his neck.

"It was fine!" Jennie's voice whispered in his
ear.  "You're a nice boy!"

She had crept up behind him in the dark.  Margery
must have left the room.

For a moment Merriam knelt in fascinated silent
rigidity.  When he moved it was only to turn his
head.  And the turning of his head brought his
face close to Jennie's, which, with the dim light
from the street upon it, smiled at him with a kind
of saucy tenderness.  It was the face of a pretty
child, with the lure of womanhood added, but with
nothing else of maturity in it.

Her lips puckered.  "Kiss me!" she whispered.

As he still only stared she quickly leaned forward
a couple of inches more--her lips rested on his.

I am very much afraid that for an instant Merriam's
lips responded.  He half turned on one knee.
His arms involuntarily closed about the seductive
little body.  He felt the short silk skirts crush
deliciously against his legs.

And then a grotesque sort of composite picture
of all the things he ought to remember, including
Rockwell, Norman, Mollie June, and the members
of the Riceville School Board, rushed across his
mind.  He struggled to his feet, pushing Jennie
not roughly--away.

"Margery!" he called.

"Yes?" came Margery's voice from the dining room.

"Turn on the lights!"

By the time Margery had stepped through the
portières and pushed the switch Jennie had thrown
herself face downward on the davenport, crying.

"Nobody loves me!" she sobbed.

Margery, standing by the switch, looked from
Merriam at the window to Jennie on the couch and
back again.  Her expression indicated no
bewilderment--rather a humorously cynical
comprehension.  She knew her Jennie.

At any rate, that glance steadied the young man.
After meeting it for a moment he turned to Jennie.
Poor little girl!  He felt that he understood her
perfectly.  There was a side of himself that was
like that.  Only he had other sides powerfully
developed, and Jennie had no other sides.  All his
young chivalry rose up, in alliance with the
missionary spirit of the teacher.  He desired greatly
to help her.

After an instant's hesitation he crossed the room
and drew up a chair beside the davenport.

"Jennie," he said, "listen!"

"Go away!" said Jennie.

"I *am* going away in a minute.  But I want to
tell you something first."

Her sobbing ceased, but he waited till she asked:

"Well, what?"

"There *is* somebody who loves you."

Hopefully Jennie raised her head and turned
her face to him--still oddly pretty in spite of the
tear-streaked rouge.  But after a moment's look
she said resentfully:

"It isn't you!"

"No," said Merriam, "it isn't I."

Even at this rate the discussion was apparently
interesting enough to rouse her.  With a sudden
movement she curled herself up, half sitting, half
reclining, in a corner of the davenport, and
smoothed the crumpled skirts over her knees.

"Do you mean George?" she asked.

"No," said Merriam, "I mean Mr. Simpson."

"*Mister* Simpson!"  She laughed derisively,
not prettily at all.  "A waiter!"

"Listen, Jennie.  Simpson is a fine fellow, with
lots of brains and lots of courage.  He has shown
both within the last twenty-four hours.  He's
rendered a very important service to Mr. Rockwell and
Senator Norman, and they're going to give him a
lot of money for a reward.  I don't know how
much--maybe five thousand dollars.  And he's
crazy about you.  He'll marry you in a minute if
you'll let him, in spite of--George.  He'll take you
away on a fine trip--anywhere you want to go.
And afterwards he'll set up in a business of his
own--a café or whatever he likes.  You'll have a
real home and a husband and money enough and
friends.  It'll be a lot better than this stuff--like
to-night.  It really would.  Think it over, Jennie!"

On the last words he rose.

"He's right!" cried Margery, who had drawn near.

"Shut up, Marge!" said Jennie.

But Merriam, looking closely at her with the
sharp eye of a teacher to see whether or not his
point had gone home, was satisfied.  He was sure
that she would think it over in spite of herself.

He looked at his watch.  It was ten minutes
after one.

"I must telephone at once to Mr. Rockwell in
Senator Norman's rooms at the Hotel De Soto," he
said to Margery.

"Yes," said Margery.  "The hotel number is
Madison 1-6-8-1."

"Thank you."

Without looking again at Jennie, he went to the
telephone in the dining room.  In a moment he had
the hotel and had asked to be connected with
Senator Norman's rooms.  It was Rockwell's voice
that answered, "Hello!"

"This is Merriam."

"Thank God!  Where are you?"

"At Jennie's."

"Still?  What the devil was the ruction there
when I called up?"

"I'll tell you about that later.  Do you still
want me to come to the hotel?"

"Certainly.  As fast as you can."

"You got the Senator back all right?"

"Yes.  But he's pretty sick.  Caught more cold,
I guess.  Hobart's worried about him.  You'll
have to stay over another day all right.  And make
that speech."

Merriam groaned.

"Listen!" said Rockwell.  "You'll have to be
mighty careful about getting into the hotel.  You
aren't Senator Norman just now, you know.  The
Senator has already returned to the hotel, openly,
with me, three hours ago, and is sick in his rooms.
We'll have to smuggle you in without any one's
seeing you.  But I have a plan--or rather
Simpson has.  You'd better come down on the Elevated.
That'll be better than a taxi this time.  No
chauffeur to tell on you.  Be sure you get away from
there without being followed.  Margery'll show
you a way.  Get off at Madison and Wabash.
Simpson will meet you there and smuggle you in
the back way.  You can come right away?"

"Yes."

"Then for Heaven's sake come!  We'll talk after
you get here."  He hung up.

Merriam stared at the instrument as he slowly
replaced his own receiver.  Another day.  "And
make that speech!"  Would this kaleidoscopic,
unreal phantasm of adventures never end?  When
would he wake up?  He perceived suddenly that
he was very tired.  But he must brace up sufficiently
to get back to the hotel.  There doubtless
he would be permitted to go to bed and snatch at
least a few hours' sleep--before the speech!

He turned and found Margery standing between
the portières, watching him.

"Well!" she said sharply.

"I must--must--get dressed," he finished, realising
for the first time since he had leapt out of
bed with his revolver to divert Crockett from the
telephone that he was attired only in pajamas.
"Rockwell says you can tell me a way to get away
from here without being seen by any watchers."

"Yes," said Margery.  "Go and dress.  I'll
attend to that."

He went into the bedroom and began to get into
his clothes, working mechanically.

Presently he was ready--though with such a
loose and rakish bow as he had never before
disported--and emerged into the dining room.

There he encountered a cheering spectacle.
Margery was seated at the table between a coffee
percolator, efficiently bubbling, and an electric
toaster.  She was buttering hot toast.  Jennie sat
at one side of the table.  A pale blue kimono now
covered her dancing costume, and she looked quite
demure.  She raised her eyes almost shyly as
Merriam entered.

"Well!" he exclaimed.  "This is grand.  Margery,
you certainly are a trump!"

Margery's rather sallow cheeks flushed slightly.
"You'll need it," was all she said, and proceeded
to fill a cup for him from the percolator.

"How do I get away?" Merriam asked as he sipped.

"Back stairs," said Margery succinctly.  "I'll
show you."

Munching toast, he enquired the whereabouts of
the nearest Elevated station and was duly
instructed.

He had a second cup of the black coffee.  Margery
did not take any and would not give Jennie any.

"We go straight to bed," she said decidedly.

From time to time Merriam cast an unwilling
glance at Jennie, sitting downcast and out of it on
Margery's other side.  About the third time Jennie
intercepted his glance and answered it with a small
wistful smile.  After that he would not look again.
In a few minutes, of course, this very early
breakfast--it was somewhere around two o'clock--was
over, and Merriam rose.

"I must be off," he said, and hesitated.  "I am
very much indebted to both of you for--all the help
you have given me this evening!" (Inwardly he
abused himself for his stiltedness; it was like his
telling Mollie June he was glad to have helped her
in algebra.)

Jennie rose too and came around the table
towards him.  She had suddenly summoned back a
smile, and she moved daintily inside the blue
kimono.  Above the stalk of that straight, demure,
Japanesy blue, her head nodded like a bright
blossom--with its fair, wavy hair, blue eyes, and
childishly rounded cheeks, still gaudy with the remains
of rouge.

She tripped forward till she was almost touching
Merriam, stopped, and suddenly raised her eyes to him.

"Kiss me good-bye!" she said.

We may suspect that it was a sort of point of
honour with Jennie to retrieve the rebuff she had
received in the sitting room.  As for Merriam, in
spite of the obvious deliberateness of this assault,
I am not perfectly sure I could answer for him if
it had not been for Margery.  But Margery's
presence saved him from serious temptation.

Instead of stooping to kiss the lifted lips he
caught Jennie's hand that hung at her side, and,
stepping back half a step, raised the hand and
kissed it.

Sometimes the inspirations of youth are singularly
happy.  It seems to me that this one was of
that kind: it involved neither yielding nor
discourtesy.

Jennie was somewhat taken aback, yet she could
not be hurt by a gesture so gallant.

"Good-bye, Jennie," he said.  "I hope to be the
best man at your wedding before long."

"Oh!" she said, and withdrew her hand.  Then:
"Good-bye!"

After a moment's hesitation and a last quite shy
glance at Merriam she suddenly gathered up the
skirts of the kimono and ran into the sitting room.

"Are you ready?" said Margery dryly.

"My coat.  I haven't a hat," he added, remembering
that under Rockwell's instructions he had
left this article in the taxi in which they had come
to the flat.

"Your coat's in the hall," said Margery.  "I
can get you a hat too."

The dining room was connected directly with
the hallway, and in a moment Margery had
returned with Merriam's light overcoat and with a
man's derby--probably Norman's property.

"Thank you," said Merriam, taking them.

"This way," she replied, moving towards the
kitchenette.

In the kitchenette he was momentarily surprised
to see Margery opening a tin box labeled "Bread."  Was
she going to equip him with a lunch?  But she
drew out, not a loaf, but the camera.

"You'll want to take this along," she said.

"Indeed, yes."

Then he followed her out on to the back porch,
where earlier--ages ago, it seemed--he had
deposited the stepladder.

"Now," said Margery, "you go down these stairs
and diagonally across the court to that archway.
See?"  She pointed.  "That brings you out on
the other side of the block.  Nobody will be looking
for you there.  And the Elevated station is three
and one-half blocks west.  Put on your hat and
coat.  I'll hold it."

"Thank you so much," said Merriam, as the coat
slipped on.

Then he turned, took off his hat again, and held
out his hand.

"Good-bye, Margery," he said, shaking hands
heartily.  "Thank you--for everything."

For a moment they looked at each other with
mutual respect.

Then Merriam said:

"I'm going to send Simpson around to see
Jennie.  Shan't I?"

"You can try it," said Margery.  "Good-bye."

She went back into the kitchenette and closed
the door.





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.. _`RETURN`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


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   RETURN

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"Madison and Wabash!" shouted the guard.

Merriam started, picked up his camera,
and made for the door.  He had scarcely heard the
other stations called and thanked his stars that he
had waked up for this one.

He descended the stairs from the Elevated
platform and found Simpson waiting.

"Good morning, Simpson."

"Good morning."

"Mr. Rockwell says you can get me into the hotel
unnoticed."

Simpson looked at him sideways, hesitated, then
turned and started slowly west.

Merriam fell into step beside him and for a
moment wondered obtusely what ailed the man.  Then
he understood.  Of course!  He wanted news of
Jennie.  Perhaps he was suspicious as to how
Merriam might have spent his time in that apartment.
Perhaps he, like Margery, knew his Jennie
only too well.

To set his mind at rest, Merriam plunged at once
into a sketchy summary of the events at the
flat--Crockett's arrival--"almost as soon as you had
left," he placed it--his own telling of his
story--Crockett's being half convinced--Jennie's
plan--the supper party (without reference to Jennie's
change of costume or the dancing on the
table)--Rockwell's telephone call--the tying up and the
flash lights.

"I have the films here," he added, exhibiting the
camera as tangible evidence that he was not
yarning.  "Can you get them developed for me in the
morning?"

"Yes," said Simpson, in a much less frigid tone
than before.  He took the camera.

"After Crockett had gone," Merriam continued
smoothly, "I talked to Jennie about you.  I told
her she ought to marry you, and how well you've
shown up in this affair, and that Senator Norman
and Rockwell are going to pay you a bit of money
for it, which you've certainly earned, and that you
would take her away on a little trip anywhere she
wanted to go, and then set up in a business of your
own somewhere, and that she would be a lot
happier that way than now."

An older man, more sensitive to the dynamite in
the situation, would probably have spoken less
freely and less successfully.  Whatever else
Simpson may have felt, he could not question his
companion's youthful candour and good will.  After
perhaps a dozen steps he spoke in a carefully
controlled voice:

"What did she say?"

"She didn't answer me," lied Merriam.  "I told
her to think it over.  She was impressed all right.
And when I left I told Margery I was going to send
you around."

"What did Margery say?" asked Simpson quickly.

"She said yes, you should come."

Simpson drew a deep breath and stopped short at
a corner.

"I'm very much obliged to you, sir," he said,
looking quickly at Merriam and quickly away again.

Merriam held out his hand.

"Good luck!" he said.

Simpson grasped the hand and shook it intensely.
Then, resuming his really admirable self-control,
he said:

"We turn down here.  I'm going to take you up
a fire escape.  It's the only way.  You can't go
into a hotel in the regular way even at this time of
night without being seen."

They turned into an alley which ran behind the
Hotel De Soto, and presently came to a door--a
servants' entrance--in the ugly blank wall of
yellow brick.

Simpson opened the door, and they passed into
a bare hallway, pine-floored, plaster-walled, lighted
at intervals by unshaded, low-powered incandescents.

Many doors of yellow pine opened on both sides
of this hall, but Simpson, walking rapidly and
quietly, passed them all, turned into a further
stretch of hallway, narrower and still more dimly
lighted, and stopped before a door of iron--evidently
a fire door.  He got out a key and unlocked
this door, and they emerged into the air again in
the inner court of the hotel, a great dismal well,
the depository of drifts of soot, accentuated here
and there by scraps of paper and other rubbish, and
the haunt, for reasons difficult to understand, of
the indomitable, grimy wild pigeons of the Loop.

Simpson closed the iron door behind them and
began a searching scrutiny of the rows of windows.
All but half a dozen or so were dark.  It looked
safe.

Satisfied, Simpson walked twenty feet or more
along the side of the court and stopped below a
fire escape.  The platform at the lower end of the
iron stairway was placed too high for a man to
reach it from the ground unaided.

"Give me a boost," said Simpson.  He stooped
and placed the camera on the ground.

In a moment Merriam had hoisted him up, so
that he could catch hold of the end of the platform
and pull himself on to it.  Then Simpson lay down
on his stomach and dropped his arms over the edge
of the platform.  Merriam first handed up the
camera and then with a little jump caught his
hands and was drawn up until he in his turn could
get hold of the edge of the landing and scramble
on to it.

A moment later they were erect and had begun
stealthily to mount the narrow stairs.

It seemed to Merriam that they went up
interminably--a short flight--a turn--another short
flight--along a platform past sleeping windows--another
flight.  He got out of breath, and began to
feel very tired.  The effect of Margery's coffee was
wearing off.

But at last Simpson stopped on one of the
platforms and peered through a window.  It was one
of which the shades were not drawn at all and was
open about two inches at the bottom.

"This is it," said Simpson, and he stooped,
opened the window, and climbed in.

As soon as Merriam had followed, Simpson
closed the window and drew the shade.  Then he
crossed the dark room and pushed a switch.

"Where are we?" asked Merriam.

"This room is next to Senator Norman's bedroom,"
said Simpson, "on the other side from the
sitting room.  The couple who had it left this
evening, and Mr. Rockwell has taken it for you
under the name of Wilson.  Mr. Rockwell will be
expecting us."

He moved to a door at the side and knocked
softly four times--once, twice, and once again.

Almost immediately a key was turned on the
other side, the door was opened, and Rockwell stood
surveying them.

There was only a dim light in the room behind
him.  With a glance over his shoulder at the bed
where the sick Senator lay--the same bed in which
Merriam had played at being sick on the previous
afternoon,--he entered the new room and closed
the door.

"You've made it!" he said.  "Thank Heaven!
You weren't seen, Simpson?"

"I think not, sir."

He looked closely at Merriam.  "You're tired,"
he said.

"I sure am."

"Well, so am I.  What a day!  And to-morrow
will be as bad.  Maybe worse.  Never again will
I father an impostor.  But we've got to see it
through this time.  Sit down.  Have a cigarette,
and tell me what happened at the flat.  Then I'll
let you go to bed and snatch a few hours' sleep.
You must be in fighting trim to-morrow, you
know--for the speech!"

Merriam took the proffered cigarette and dropped
gratefully into a chair.  Rockwell and Simpson
also sat down.

"How's Senator Norman?" Merriam asked.

"Sick.  Hobart looks serious, but he says he'll
pull around in a day or two.  He's dosing him
heavily.  You've simply got to stay by us and play
the game until he's on his feet again."

"I suppose so.  Well----"

He was about to repeat the summary of the
events of his evening which he had already given
Simpson, so as to get it over and get to bed.
But before he could begin a knock sounded at
the side door through which Rockwell had entered.

Simpson went to the door and opened it.  It was
Dr. Hobart.

"Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman want to come
in," he said.

Rockwell hesitated.  No doubt he would have
preferred to hear Merriam's story himself first,
without even Aunt Mary present.

Merriam meanwhile sat up, suddenly forgetting
his fatigue: he was to see Mollie June still that
night.  He had not hoped for that.

"I supposed they would have gone to bed,"
he said, to cover his involuntary show of interest.

"No," said Rockwell.  "After the dinner party
they waited for me to come back with Norman, of
course.  Then he was so ill that Hobart kept us all
busy for a couple of hours doing things.  We didn't
want to get in a nurse on account of--you, you
know.  And then they wanted to wait till you came.
We expected you a long time ago.  Well," he
added, turning to the physician, "tell them to come
along."

It was at least a minute before they arrived.
Merriam was oddly nervous.  He had been through
strange scenes since he had left Mollie June in the
Peacock Cabaret, and she must have divined as
much.

They entered, Aunt Mary first with Mollie June
behind her, and Merriam and Rockwell rose.  The
two women were dressed just as they had been at
the dinner party--Aunt Mary in the black evening
gown and Mollie June in the filmy rose.  Mollie
June looked just a little pale and tired, but Aunt
Mary had not turned a hair.

"Well, young man," began the older woman
briskly, "you've kept us up till a pretty time of
night.  What was happening there where you were
when Mr. Rockwell telephoned?  Sit down and
tell us."

Evidently Aunt Mary, conscious of the ungodly
hour, did not think it necessary to allow Merriam
time for even a formal greeting of her young
sister-in-law, who had stopped uncertainly in the
doorway.

But Merriam was not to be hurried to quite that
degree, whatever the time of night or morning
might be.  He turned to Mollie June.

"You're coming in, aren't you?  Take this chair."

He pushed a rocker towards her, concerned at
her evident fatigue.

She came forward and sat down, then raised her
eyes to him with a grave "Thank you."

For a moment Merriam did not understand that
steady, unsmiling look.  Then he thought he did
understand.  It had a questioning quality.  Mollie
June's mind was at ease now about her husband,
since he was back and not supposed to be seriously
ill, and she, like Simpson earlier, was wondering--not
that it concerned her, of course--how Merriam
had spent the night--so large a part of it--at
Jennie's flat.  She, too, knew Jennie, to the extent
at least of having seen and in a measure comprehended
her.  Perhaps even in a Mollie June there
is that which enables her to understand a Jennie
and her lure for a youthful male.  He remembered
Mollie June's description of her and the cool
detachment with which it had been uttered: "She's
pretty and sweet, and--warm."

For just an instant Merriam was slightly confused.
He had verified that description--all of it.

It is to be feared that his embarrassment, slight
and merely instantaneous though it was, did not
escape Mollie June.  She dropped her eyes, still
unsmiling.

Merriam's second sketch of his evening's
adventures differed from the one he had given
Simpson in being fuller and in two particular points:
first, of course, in omitting reference to his
missionary efforts in Simpson's behalf, which,
however laudable, were hardly for the ears of Mollie
June; and, second, in including mention of Jennie's
change into her ballet costume--because he realised
as he talked that the pictures, to be developed
in the morning, would exhibit that detail most
unmistakably and that he would do well to prepare
Mollie June's mind--and Simpson's, for that
matter--in advance.  But he laid his emphasis on
the more dramatic episodes--the hurled revolver,
the tying up, the flash lights, and Crockett's angry
exit.  He told it humorously and well, and was
rewarded by Mollie June's interest.  Her questioning
gravity disappeared, and she followed him with
eager attention and with a return of pretty colour
to her cheeks.

Aunt Mary and Rockwell--not to mention Simpson--also
listened attentively.  When Merriam had
finished they looked at each other.

"Well," said Rockwell, "I'm not sure but that
it would have been better to let him go as soon as
you had told him your yarn, but on the whole I
think you did mighty well.  Those pictures may
come in handy."

Aunt Mary rose.  "You certainly are an
enterprising young man, Mr. Merriam," she said dryly.
"Now go to bed and get some sleep.  You make
your début as an orator at noon, you know!  Come,
Mollie June."

"Good night, Miss Norman," said Merriam, and
he advanced to Mollie June, who had also risen.

"Good night, Mrs. Mollie June."  He dropped
his voice for the last three words and held out his
hand.

She took it with an unconscious happy smile.

"Good night--Mr. John," she said.

Whatever she may have feared or suspected his
story had established an alibi for him.





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.. _`THE REFORM LEAGUE`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


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   THE REFORM LEAGUE

.. vspace:: 2

"Quarter to ten," said Rockwell cheerily.
"I've let you sleep to the last possible moment.
Here's your breakfast on the stand.  Better
eat it and drink your coffee first.  Then a shave
and get at this."  He indicated a small pile of
manuscript on the writing table.  "Your speech,
Senator!" he grinned.

"Good Lord!" groaned Merriam, remembering
everything.  He perceived also that he was to
breakfast alone--no Mollie June.  But the sight
of the manuscript fascinated and aroused him.
He realised, as he had not done before, that within
a few hours he was to make a public address in a
great Chicago club before many of the city's most
prominent men and women--on what subject even
he had no idea!

"Good Lord!" he said again and put his feet
out.  "How's Senator Norman?" he asked.

"Sleeping now," said Rockwell.  "Hobart thinks
he can get him on his feet by night.  He's due to
start for Cairo this evening, you know, on a stumping
trip."  Then quickly: "You'll find these sliced
oranges refreshing.  Have your bath first if you
want to."

Merriam was in the midst of his breakfast when
Rockwell returned.  "By the way," he said, "here
are your pictures," and he took some unmounted
prints from an envelope.

Merriam reached for them with curiosity and
something like trepidation.  They were not good
flash lights--a little blurred,--but the faces and
attitudes were unmistakable.  Jennie's foot and
leg extending forward across the table were very
much in evidence in the first of them.

"Rather striking poses," commented Rockwell.

"Jennie's invention," said Merriam defensively.

"No doubt.  Well, they could hardly be better
for their purpose.  I think Crockett will go slow
all right."

"Have--has Miss Norman seen them?"

"Yes.  And Simpson, of course."  For a
moment Rockwell quizzically regarded Merriam's
face, in which a further unspoken question was
anxiously plain.  Then he answered it: "No one
else.  Mrs. Norman is still sleeping.  I'm not sure
Aunt Mary will consider them proper pictures for
her to see anyway.  Come," he added briskly,
"you've eaten only one piece of toast.  You must
get outside of at least one more piece.  And then
shave.  I'll strop your razor for you.  I'm your
valet this morning, Senator."

With a sigh Merriam glanced at the waiting
speech and tackled a second piece of toast, with
the feeling that its mastication was a task of
almost impossible difficulty.  He achieved it,
however, to the rhythmic accompaniment of Rockwell's
stropping, consumed another cup of coffee--his
third, I regret to say,--and proceeded to shave.

At last Merriam was collared and tied and was
slipping into his coat.  Rockwell rose and laid
down the manuscript.

"Ready?" he said.  "Very good.  You can get
to work.  It's a quarter past ten.  The luncheon
is at twelve-thirty.  But we shan't appear at the
luncheon itself.  Too dangerous.  You'd have to
meet a lot of men who know the Senator--meet
them face to face in cold daylight and talk to them.
We'd never get away with it.  So I'll telephone
that you've been detained by important business
but will be in for the speeches.  That way we'll
come in by ourselves, with everybody else set and
no opportunity for personal confabulations.  You'll
have to run the gauntlet of their eyes, of course.
But you can do that."

Earnestly for a moment he scrutinised Merriam's
face and figure, as if to reassure himself that the
astounding imposture had been and was still really
possible.

"Yes," he continued confidently, "that'll be all
right.  The speeches are scheduled to begin at
one-fifteen.  We'll leave here at five or ten minutes
after one.  That gives you nearly three hours to
salt down the speech.  You can learn it verbatim
or only master the outline and substance and give
it in your own words.  Perhaps you'd better learn
a good deal of it just as it is.  Aunt Mary has it
chock-full of the Senator's pet words and phrases.
Your own style might be too different.  Do you
commit easily?"

"Fairly so," said Merriam.  As a matter of fact
the speech itself presented few terrors to him.  He
had done a good deal of debating and declaiming
in college, and of course in his capacity as principal
of the high school he was called upon for "a few
words" on every conceivable occasion in Riceville.

"Good.  Go to it, then.  I'll make myself scarce.
Here are cigarettes.  You won't be disturbed.  *Au
revoir*, Senator!  If you want anything, knock on
this door.  Either Hobart or I will answer."

Grinning, Rockwell departed into the real, the
sick Senator's, bedroom, leaving Merriam with the
typewritten manuscript.

He worked away for a couple of hours, sometimes
sitting down, more often walking back and forth,
occasionally refreshing himself with a cigarette,
and faithfully learning by heart Aunt Mary's
Senator Norman's speech on "Municipal Reform."

By half past twelve he had mastered it to his
satisfaction.  He decided to go through with it
once more by the clock.  It was designed, as he
knew from a pencil note at the top of the first page,
to take thirty minutes.  He did so, and came out
at the end by five minutes to one.

Evidently his delivery was a little more rapid
than Senator Norman's.  He must remember to
speak slowly.

He had just reached this conclusion when a
knock sounded at the side door and Rockwell
entered.

"I've got it by heart," said Merriam.

"Good!  Come into the sitting room, then.
You're to have a cup of coffee and a sandwich
before you start."

"Fine.  I am a bit hollow.  How's the Senator?"

Rockwell looked worried, but answered, "Sleeping
again now.  Come along if you're ready."

"In a minute."

Merriam bathed his face and hands, folded the
speech and put it in his pocket, and followed
Rockwell across the Senator's bedroom, with just a
glance at the sick man in the bed and a nod to
Dr. Hobart, who sat by the window with a newspaper
into the sitting room.

After his morning of intense, solitary labour he
was somewhat nonplused for a moment by the size
of the company he found assembled there--Aunt
Mary and Mollie June, of course, Alicia, Mr. Wayward,
and Father Murray.  He said good morning
to each of them.

Alicia reminded him that it was really afternoon now.

"We shall meet Black in the car," said Rockwell.
"Then the roll of the conspirators will be
complete!"

Mollie June, who had had no speech to learn, had
slept late and was now as blooming as ever.

"We're all going to hear you," she said as she
gave Merriam her hand.

"Good Heavens!" he said, with a twinge of
the stage fright which he had thus far had no
time to feel.  "I shouldn't mind the others, but
you----"

He left that dangerous remark unfinished.

To Aunt Mary he said: "I've learned the speech
by heart.  I admire it very much," and was pleased
to note that even Aunt Mary had an author's
susceptibility to praise.

Meanwhile Simpson, who was in attendance, had
poured out a cup of coffee, and Mollie June brought
it to him with a sandwich on a plate.

"Won't you sit down to eat it?" she asked, regarding
him with a look of awe which flattered him
enormously and served to quiet his rising nervousness.

(Mollie June had taken oratory of all degrees
and on all possible occasions on the part of Norman
as a matter of course, but the thought that John
Merriam, who was only a little older than herself
and had taken her to "sociables" and had wanted
to make love to her but had not dared, was about
to address the distinguished Urban Club of Chicago
at one of its formidable luncheons filled her with
admiration.)

"Thank you," he said, taking the coffee and the
sandwich.  "No, I think I'll eat it standing."  But
he smiled at her with the confidence which her
admiration had given him, thereby increasing the
admiration--a pleasing psychological circle.

But now Rockwell was at his side and barely
gave him time to finish his sandwich and gulp down
the coffee.

"Miss Norman and the Senator and I go with
Mayor Black in the Senator's car," said that master
of ceremonies and conspiracies.  "The other four
of you are to follow in the Mayor's machine.  Here's
your coat and hat."

Along the hall--down in the elevator--through
the lobby to the pavement--Merriam had only a
dazed sense of being part of an irresistible,
conspicuous procession which was carrying him
whither he had no strong desire to go.

A limousine was already drawn up at the curb,
and the hotel starter was deferentially holding the
door.

Mayor Black was already within the car.

"Ah, Senator," the Mayor ejaculated, "I'm glad
to see you up again, and to have you--really
you--coming to the Reform League!"

For an instant Merriam did not understand.
Then he realised that the Mayor thought he was
addressing the real Senator Norman.  It was a
good omen for the continued success of his
impersonation.

He sank into the seat opposite the Mayor, who
was facing forward with Aunt Mary beside him.
Rockwell climbed in and sat next to Merriam.  The
door slammed, and the machine started.

Then, as the Mayor still beamed at him and
as neither of the others spoke, Merriam said
gently:

"I'm still the impostor, I'm afraid, Mr. Mayor."

"Eh!"

The Mayor leaned forward to scrutinise his face
and then turned as if bewildered and still
unconvinced to Rockwell.

"Yes," said Rockwell.  "I tried to get you on
the 'phone this morning, but your line was busy,
and I didn't have a chance to try again.  The
Senator is still sick.  Worse, in fact.  Mr. Merriam is
going to keep the Senator's engagement at the
Urban Club for him."

"My God!" cried the Mayor.  "Speak before all
those people!  You never can do it!"

"Yes, we can," said Rockwell, with smiling
serenity.  "You were fooled again yourself just
now," he pointed out.

The Mayor groaned.  "Then we still don't know
where Senator Norman himself will stand when
he's up," he said.

"I telephoned you yesterday that he had agreed
to everything," said Aunt Mary coldly.  "That
was true."

"While he was sick," said Black.  "Will he stick
to it when he's well again?"

"He'll have to stick," said Rockwell.  "Ten
times more so after this speech.  He can't possibly
go back on that."

"If this Mr.--Mr. Merriam," said the Mayor,
eyeing him with profound dislike, "is unmasked at
the Urban Club, it would be the utter ruin of us
all."

"It undoubtedly would," replied Rockwell
cheerfully.  "All the more reason why we should all
keep a stiff upper lip and play up for him."

"No!" cried the Mayor.  "It's insane!  Stop
the car!  I'll step into the nearest store and
telephone that the Senator has fainted in the cab and
can't appear.  Anything is better than this awful risk."

He put out his hand for the cord to signal to the
chauffeur.  But Rockwell roughly struck his arm down.

"Sit still!" he commanded savagely.  "Do you
want us to choke you again?  This car goes on to
the Urban Club.  Senator Norman has a fine
speech, and he'll make it well.  No one will suspect.
The thing has the one essential characteristic
of successful imposture--boldness to the point
of impossibility.  If any one notices any slight
change in his appearance or voice or manner, it will
be put down to his illness.  It will cinch the whole
thing as nothing else could.  You've got to go
through with it, Mayor."

Mr. Black groaned again and relapsed into a
dismal silence.

Fortunately he did not have long to brood, nor
Merriam long to work up the nervousness which
this dialogue had naturally renewed in him.  In a
couple of minutes after the Mayor's second and
more lamentable groan the limousine stopped
before the imposing entrance of the Urban Club.

"Sit tight, Mayor!" Rockwell warned.

Then the doorman of the Club opened the car,
and Rockwell descended and helped Aunt Mary
out and Merriam and the Mayor followed.

Inside their coats and the men's hats were
quickly taken from them by efficient checkroom
boys, and they were guided immediately to the
elevator.  The speeches had already begun upstairs,
some one said.

They stepped out into the hallway outside the
Club's big dining room.  From inside came the
noise of clapping.  Some one had just finished
speaking.

"This is our chance," said Rockwell, meaning
doubtless that they could best enter during the
interlude between speeches.  "Go ahead, Senator.
Take the Mayor's arm!"

In a moment they were passing through a group
of tuxedoed servants at the door.  Merriam was
conscious of a large room in pleasant tones of
brown with a low raftered ceiling and many
windows of small leaded panes.  The tables were
arranged in the form of a great horseshoe, with the
closed end--the speakers' table--opposite the door.
The horseshoe was lined inside and out with guests,
perhaps two hundred in all--men who looked
either distinguished or intelligent, occasionally
both, and women who were either distinguished or
intelligent or beautiful--from some points of view
the great city's best.

Then came the turning of many eyes to look at
himself and Mayor Black, and the toastmaster at
the center of the speakers' table rose and called to
them:

"Senator!  Mayor!  This way."

He pointed to two empty chairs on either side of
his own.

Merriam nodded, and, still propelling the
semi-comatose Black, circled one side of the horseshoe,
giving the line of guests as wide a berth as he could,
to avoid possible contretemps from personal greetings
to which he might be unable to make suitable
response.

Arrived at the speakers' table, he shook hands
warmly with the toastmaster--a bald, benevolent-looking
man of much aplomb, whose name he never
learned--and with two or three other men from
nearby chairs--evidently personal acquaintances
of Senator Norman's--who rose to welcome him,
making talk the while of apologies for being late.
Presently he found himself seated at the toastmaster's
right, facing the distinguished company.  No
one had betrayed any suspicion.  The imposture
was, in fact, as Rockwell had said, so bold as to be
unthinkable.

Mayor Black had meanwhile been seated at the
toastmaster's left, and Rockwell and Aunt Mary
had been guided to two vacant seats at the left end
of the speakers' table.  The necessity of greeting
friends had somewhat roused the Mayor, who had
found his tongue and managed to respond, though
for him haltingly.

The toastmaster leaned towards Merriam and
whispered:

"You're to speak last, Senator.  Colonel Edwards
is next, then Mayor Black, then you."

With that he rose and felicitated the company on
the arrival of the two distinguished servants of the
City and the Nation between whom he now had the
honour to sit.

He then introduced Colonel Edwards, a stout,
quite unmilitary-looking gentleman, who was
earnestly interested and mildly interesting on the
subject of good roads for the space of fifteen minutes.

Merriam's attention was distracted almost at the
beginning of Colonel Edwards' speech by the
arrival at the entrance of the dining room, now
directly opposite him, of the second taxi-load from
the hotel.  Alicia caught Merriam's eye and smiled
at him mischievously.  Evidently she was enjoying
the situation to the full.  Mollie June, on the other
hand, though deliciously crowned with a small
blossomy hat of obvious expensiveness, was
entirely grave, her eyes fixed almost too steadily and
too anxiously on our youthful hero, where he sat in
the seats of the mighty, outwardly at least as much
at ease as if he had been accustomed for thirty
years to find himself at the speakers' table of
historic clubs.

Colonel Edwards suddenly sat down.  He was
one of those rare public speakers who occasionally
disconcert their audiences by stopping when they
are through.

The toastmaster gasped, but rose to his feet and
the occasion and called upon Mayor Black.

As the Mayor slowly rose Merriam was most
uncomfortably anxious--uncertain whether the city's
chief executive was even yet sufficiently master of
himself to face an audience successfully.  But
Mr. Black was one of those gentlemen, not uncommon
in public life, who are apparently more at ease
before an audience than in any other situation.  His
great mellow voice boomed forth, and Merriam
relaxed.  That speech was hardly, perhaps, one of
the Mayor's masterpieces.  But that mattered
little, of course.  He produced an admirably even
flow of head tones.  It *sounded* like a perfectly
good speech.

Merriam, at any rate, was quite oblivious of any
lack of strict logical coherence in the Mayor's
remarks.  He was suddenly smitten by the realisation
that his own turn came next.  For a moment
he fought a panic of blankness, then mentally
grabbed at the opening sentences of what he had so
carefully committed during the morning.  Outwardly
serene and attentive to the speaker, inwardly
he hastily rehearsed his first half dozen
paragraphs, and, winking his eyes somewhat rapidly
perhaps, fixed the outline of the rest of it in
his mind.

The Mayor rose to a climax of thunderous tone
and eloquent gesture and sat.  Loud applause
followed.

Across the clapping hands Merriam glanced at
Mr. Wayward and Alicia and Mollie June where
they sat at one side of the horseshoe.  The other
two were clapping, but Mollie June was not.  He
thought she looked pale, but of course he was too
far away to be sure.  "She is afraid for me," he
thought, and gratitude for her interest mingled
with a fine resolve to show her that she had no
cause for fear--that he would give a good account
of himself anywhere--for her.

The glow of that resolution carried him through
the ordeal of the toastmaster's introduction and
brought him to his feet with smiling alacrity at the
proper moment.

The applause was hearty.  There is magic still,
strange as it may seem, in the word "senator."  He
was forced to bow again and again.

Then he struck into his speech--Aunt Mary's
speech.  He found himself letter-perfect.  He had
at least half his mind free to attend to his delivery.
He gave it slowly, impressively, grandly facing first
one part of his audience and then another.  George
Norman himself before packed galleries in the
Senate Chamber at Washington had never done better.
And it was a good speech, deftly conceived, clearly
reasoned, aptly worded.  Merriam himself in all
his morning's study of it had not realised how
perfectly it was adapted to the occasion and the
audience.  Down at the far end of the speakers' table,
the female author of it sat unnoticed, watching
with tight-pressed lips its effect; her only right
to be there, if any one had asked you, the
accident of her relationship to the wonderful Senator.

He reached the end.  As he rounded out the last
sentence his eyes rested triumphantly for a second
on Mollie June.  Whether or not her cheeks had
been pale before, they were flushed now.  He sat
down.

The room rocked.  The applause this time was
no mechanical reaction.  It was an ovation.  The
toastmaster leaped to his feet with ponderous
agility and grabbed for Merriam's hand.  The latter
found himself standing, the center of a group of
excited men, all of whom he must pretend to know,
overwhelming him with congratulations.

Behind him he caught a remark that was doubtless
not intended for his ears: "How the devil does
he keep his youthful looks and fire?  He might be
twenty-five!"

Then Rockwell charged into the group, excited
himself, but persistent with the formula, "Pressing
engagement," and got him out of the room, and
into the elevator, and through the hallway on the
first floor, with his hat and coat restored, and into
the limousine, which darted away for the hotel.





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.. _`SECOND COUNCIL OF WAR`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   SECOND COUNCIL OF WAR

.. vspace:: 2

Merriam and Rockwell were alone in the
Senator's car.

Merriam leaned back against the cushions and
closed his eyes.  He was at once fatigued and
excited.  It almost seemed to him that he was still
addressing the Urban Club.  Then he seemed to be
talking still but to a single auditor--a girl with
flushed cheeks and eyes that shone with excited
pride.

He opened his eyes.  Rockwell was regarding
him steadily.  "I don't wonder you feel done up,"
he said.  "It was splendid, my boy.  You spoke
like a veteran.  You ought to go into public life on
your own.  Perhaps you will."  He seemed to
meditate.  Then: "You saw Crockett, I suppose?"

"No!" exclaimed Merriam.

"Didn't you?  He was seated six places to your
right at the speakers' table.  Right in line with
you, of course.  Not strange you missed him.  Just
as well, perhaps.  It might have shaken even *your*
nerve."

The phrase "even *your* nerve" was pleasant
praise to Merriam.  He had never thought of
himself as possessed of any exceptional *sang froid*.
But perhaps he had behaved with rather creditable
composure in a trying situation.

"*He* was shaken, I can tell you," Rockwell was
saying.  "Lord, I was on pins!  I didn't know but
what when you rose to speak he would jump up and
denounce you.  But not he.  He simply lay back
and stared and kept moistening his lips.  I
suppose he couldn't make up his mind for sure whether
you were the Senator or the double or whether he
himself had gone crazy or not.  We'll hear from
him, though," he added reflectively.

"I suppose so," said Merriam wearily.  "I wish
to Heaven we were clean through the thing!"  That
feeling had come suddenly, and for the
moment he meant it, though he was having the time
of his life.

"So do I," said Rockwell heartily.  "But we're
not.  Not by a long shot.  So you must buck up.
Here's the hotel.  You shall have a real meal now.
That'll put heart into you again."

The machine stopped, and the door was opened.

"Quick time, now!" Rockwell whispered.

Senator Norman and his new political manager,
Mr. Rockwell of the Reform League, rushed almost
precipitately into the lobby of the Hotel De Soto
and made a bee line for the nearest elevator.  It
was obvious that important business urgently
called them, for they merely nodded hurriedly in
response to several cordial salutations.

As the elevator shot up Rockwell leaned heavily
against the side of the car, took off his hat, though
there was no one with them, drew a deep breath,
and comically winked both eyes at Merriam.

"What a life!" he ejaculated.

Stepping out at Floor Three, they were greeted
by the spectacle of Dr. Hobart bending over the
floor clerk's desk and evidently having a delightful
tête-à-tête with the handsome young mistress of
that sanctum, whose eyes were coquettishly raised
to his, though her head was slightly bent--for she
was smelling an American Beauty rose.  A large
vase of the same expensive flowers adorned one
corner of her desk.

Only a momentary glimpse did Merriam and
Rockwell have of this pretty tableau, for
Dr. Hobart at once straightened up as if in some
embarrassment and came towards them.

"I was just thinking it was about time for you
to be back," he said, though he surely did not expect
them to believe that he had just been thinking
anything of the sort.

The pretty floor clerk, no whit nonplused, bowed
and smiled at Rockwell.  But she studiously failed
to observe Senator Norman's presence.

Dr. Hobart walked down the hall with them.

"How's Norman?" Rockwell asked.

"No better, I'm afraid," said the physician
apologetically.  "He has a high fever, and a while ago
he was slightly delirious.  I had to give him more
of the drug.  He's sleeping again now.  Simpson
is with him, of course."

"Damn!" said Rockwell, with a sort of deliberate
earnestness.

They reached the sitting room and entered it.
There was no one there.  Simpson was apparently
in the Senator's bedroom.  Merriam dropped into
a chair and closed his eyes again.  Rockwell
walked across to a window and stood staring out.
Dr. Hobart stopped uncertainly in the middle of
the room and fiddled with a cigarette without being
able to make up his mind to light it.  For several
moments none of them spoke.

But Rockwell was not the man to remain long in
any apathy of inaction.  He turned suddenly, and
Merriam, whom the prolonged unnatural silence
had caused to open his eyes, saw that he had made
up his mind to something.

"Hobart," he said, "I suppose Simpson isn't
practically necessary in there."  He indicated the
sick room.

"N-no," said Dr. Hobart, "I suppose not.  He's
just watching.  Norman will sleep soundly for
some time."

"Then ask him to come here, will you?"

The physician disappeared into the bedroom and
in a moment returned with Simpson.

"Simpson," said Rockwell, "we're going to have
a meal here, for nine people.  A luncheon, if
you like.  But make it hearty.  Choose the stuff
yourself, and serve it as quickly as you can,
please."

For a moment Simpson stared.  Then, as if
remembering a nearly forgotten cue, he replied
submissively, "Yes, sir," and turned to the door.

As that door closed behind Simpson, Merriam
suddenly stood up.

"I must send a telegram to Riceville," he said,
starting for the writing table for a blank.

"Wait a bit," said Rockwell.  "You can send it
just as well an hour from now."

Merriam was disposed to argue, but just then the
rest of their party trooped in, having returned to
the hotel in Mayor Black's car.

Alicia walked straight up to Merriam, gay
with enthusiasm, caught his hand, and squeezed it.

"My dear boy," she cried, "it was perfectly
splendid!  I've half a mind to kiss you!"

"Please do," said Merriam.

"I will," said Alicia promptly, and before the
young man could realise what was happening she
had put her gloved hands on his shoulders and
kissed him on one cheek.

Merriam was vastly astonished.  In the circles
in which he had moved in Riceville or even at
college, his remark could have been taken only as a
daring pleasantry.  But he undoubtedly had *sang
froid*, for he concealed his confusion, or most of it,
and said:

"Let me turn the other cheek."

"Oh, I mustn't be a pig," said Alicia.  "I'll
leave the other cheek for Mollie June."

At this Merriam's confusion became, I fear,
perfectly apparent, for the remainder of the party had
followed Alicia into the room and were grouped
about him.

"Kiss him quick, Mollie dear," said the incorrigible
Alicia, thereby causing confusion in a second
person present.

But Mayor Black, no longer to be restrained,
saved the situation.  He seized Merriam's hand
and pumped it.

"One of the best speeches I ever heard the
Senator make!" he asserted, in tones which Merriam
feared might rouse the real Senator in the
adjoining room.

Mr. Wayward meanwhile was patting him on
the back and murmuring, "Fine!  Excellent!"

Merriam turned to Aunt Mary:

"I tried to do it justice," he said.

"You gave it exceedingly well," said Aunt Mary,
with less reserve than he had ever seen her exhibit
before.

"Indeed you did!" cried Mollie June earnestly,
her eyes shining with sincerity.

And that tribute, from the least qualified judge
of them all, was, I regret to state, the one which
young Merriam treasured the most.

Simpson, who had worked with amazing alacrity,
and even inspired his assistants to celerity had
completed his preparations and announced that he
was ready to serve the luncheon.

Rockwell delayed the meal for several minutes
the sake of an apparently important conference
into which he had drawn Mr. Wayward and the
Mayor over by the window.

Presently, however, they all sat down, with
Merriam beside Mollie June.  The luncheon passed, as
luncheons do, in small talk and anecdote.

At last Rockwell, having finished the last morsel
of a piece of French pastry, laid down his fork and
fixed his eyes significantly on Mr. Wayward, who
was in mid-career with something like his fifteenth
anecdote.  Mr. Wayward faltered but rallied and
finished his story.  It was the best one he had told,
but there was only perfunctory laughter.  Every
one about the table was looking at Rockwell, realising
that at last the great question that was in all
their minds, "What are we to do next?" was to be
discussed and decided.  Simpson, it should be
added, had dismissed his assistants as soon as the
dessert course was served, so that only the initiated
were present.

Three times during the meal Dr. Hobart had left
the table to enter the sick room.  On the second
occasion he had remained away some minutes.
Rockwell now turned to him.

"Give us your report, Doctor," he said abruptly.

"Well," replied the physician, "he is better.
Half an hour ago he was awake for perhaps five
minutes.  His temperature is lower, though he
still has some fever.  He is sleeping again now,
more quietly than at any time since he returned
to the hotel.  In short, he is doing as well as could
be expected.  But it is out of the question for him
to start on that speech-making tour this evening."

"Undoubtedly," said Aunt Mary, with much decision.

"Just so," said Rockwell.  "That being the
case, two alternatives present themselves: to
announce his illness and call off the trip, or to go on
playing the game as we have begun, with Mr. Merriam's
help."

Merriam gasped and opened his mouth to protest,
but Rockwell waved him down.

"The Mayor and Mr. Wayward and I have been
discussing the matter.  At first blush, there may
seem to be little question as to which of these two
courses we should pursue.  Having come safely--so
far as we know at least--through all the perils
of discovery thus far, it may seem that we should
tempt fortune no further, but let Mr. Merriam return
to his school, publish the fact of the Senator's
illness, and cancel the speaking engagements."

"Surely yes," interjected Merriam, and Aunt
Mary and Father Murray and Mollie June and
even Alicia seemed to assent.

"On further consideration," Rockwell continued
imperturbably, "I think you will all see that the
thing is not so clear.  The course I have just
suggested may be--doubtless is--the more prudent
one, if prudence were all, but it is decidedly unfair
to George Norman."

At this Aunt Mary almost visibly pricked up her
ears.

"In his name," Rockwell went on, "we have
thrown over the conservative wing of the party,
with whom he has always stood and who have
supported him--have 'betrayed' them, as they will
put it, in this traction matter and in aligning him
with the Reform League.  We did so on the theory
that he was to appeal to the people and to come
back stronger than ever as the leader of the new
and growing progressive element, which is sure to
be dominant in the next election if only they can
find such a leader as Norman could be.  But if we
cancel this trip and let him drop out of the
campaign, if we stop now, where will he be?  He will
have lost his old backers and will not have made
new ones.  He will be politically dead.  We shall
have played absolutely into the hands of Crockett
and Thompson and the rest of the gang, and shall
have accomplished nothing but the political ruin of
George Norman."

All the persons about the table except Mayor
Black and Mr. Wayward stared hard at Rockwell
as this new view of their predicament sank into
their minds.  The Mayor and Mr. Wayward smiled
and nodded and watched the effect on the others.
Particularly they watched Merriam, who sat
dumfounded and vaguely alarmed.  What new
entanglements was Rockwell devising for him?  He
must get back to Riceville.  Involuntarily--he
could not have said why--he cast a quick glance at
Mollie June, and encountered a similar glance from
her.  They both looked away in confusion.

Aunt Mary spoke:

"Tell us your plan."

It was like her--that masterful acceptance,
without comment, of the situation.

"My plan, as you call it," said Rockwell, fixing
his eyes not on Aunt Mary but on Merriam, "is
simply that we should go on for another day or two
as we have begun--play the game for George until
he can take the cards in his own hands.  This is
Thursday.  He is scheduled to leave this evening
for Cairo, to speak there at nine o'clock to-morrow
morning, to go on to East St. Louis for a talk
before the Rotary Club at noon, and then up to
Springfield for an address in the evening.  Is that
correct?"

"Yes," said Aunt Mary.  "And he was to speak
in Bloomington and Peoria on Saturday and in
Moline and Freeport on Sunday."

"The speeches are all ready, I believe?"

"Yes.  George and I outlined them together
some time ago, and I have them written and typed."

"Exactly.  Turn the manuscripts over to
Mr. Merriam as you did this morning.  He will have
time on the train on the way to each place to
master the speech to be given at that point.  We shall
take a special car.  Mr. Wayward and I will go
with him.  You"--he was addressing Aunt Mary--"and
the Mayor and Dr. Hobart--and Simpson,"
he added, glancing up at the waiter, who
stood listening in the background,--"and the rest
of you will stay here to guard George.  That will
be easy when the newspapers are full of his speeches
out in the State."

"Mr. Crockett will know," said Father Murray
timidly.

"He may suspect," said Rockwell with a grin.
"But if you keep every one away from George--conceal
his presence here,--he can't be sure
whether it's George himself or his double who is
speech-making over the State.  And if he were
sure, he wouldn't dare denounce him.  Thanks to
Mr. Merriam's clever trick last night, he has a
particularly strong reason for keeping his mouth shut.
If on the other hand we give up and lie down--cancel
the trip,--he can easily start all manner of
nasty stories about his escapades.  I'm sorry to say
it, but George has a pretty widespread sporting
reputation."  Rockwell glanced apologetically at
Mollie June, but continued.  "When a man with
such a character is laid up, people are ready to
believe anything except that he is really legitimately
sick.  Things will be safer here than they would be
if we abandoned our trick.  And our part out in
the State will be 'nuts,' compared to what it was
at the Urban Club this noon, for instance.  Very
few people out there know Norman well.  There is
no question at all that Mr. Merriam will get by.
And we know from this noon that he will make the
speeches in fine shape."

"The speeches will need to be altered a bit," said
Aunt Mary, "if they are to appeal to the progressives."

"Mr. Merriam can attend to that on the train,"
said Rockwell.  "Soften the standpattism and
throw in some progressive dope.  Can't you?"  He
appealed to Merriam.

"I suppose I could," said Merriam, "but--my
school."

"I know," said Rockwell, "but it will be only a
day or two longer.  We'll telegraph again, of
course.  If you were really sick, as we've been
telling them, they'd have to get along, wouldn't they?
You've got to see us through.  We must keep the
ball rolling.  It will probably be only one more
day.  George will be able to travel to-morrow, I
presume?" he asked of Dr. Hobart.  "By noon,
anyway?"

"By noon, I hope," said the physician with
cheerful optimism.

"You see?" said Rockwell.  "George can catch
the noon train for Springfield and get there in time
to take on the evening speech.  Mr. Merriam will
have made the two at Cairo and East St. Louis.
He can go back to Riceville from Springfield."

Just then the telephone rang, and I believe every
person in the room jumped.

Rockwell rose to answer it.

"Senator Norman?  Yes, he is here.  But he is
engaged.  This is Mr. Rockwell, his manager.  You
can give the message to me."

A moment later he put his hand over the receiver
and turned to Merriam.

"He insists on speaking to the Senator.  You'll
have to answer.  I think it's Crockett.  For
Heaven's sake, be careful!"

Merriam took the receiver:

"Hello!"

A voice which he remembered only too well from
the night before at Jennie's replied:

"This is Mr. Crockett, I have the honour, I believe,
of speaking to Mr. Merriam."

"You have the wrong number!" said Merriam
and hung up.

But before he had had time to explain to the
others or even to wonder whether he had done
wisely, the bell jangled again.  He turned back to
the instrument.  Rockwell came quickly to his side,
and Merriam, taking down the receiver, held it so
that his "manager" too should be able to hear
what came over the wire.

"Hello!"

"Ah!  Senator Norman, by your voice," said
Crockett in tones of elaborate irony.  "I wish to
congratulate you, Senator, on your speech this
noon.  It was a magnificent effort.  So full of
progressive ideas and youthful virility!"

"Thank you," said Merriam.

"And, Senator, I really must see you right
away.  I am calling from the lobby.  I will come
up to your rooms at once, if I may.  Or meet you
anywhere else you say.  It is of the utmost
importance to you, Mr. Mer----" (he pretended to
correct himself) "to you, Senator, as well as to me."

"Wait a minute," said Merriam.  He put his
hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Rockwell.

"Tell him you will see him at eight o'clock this
evening, here."

Merriam repeated this message.

"At *eight*?" said Crockett, with significant
emphasis on the hour.  "Very good, Senator.  Thank
you."  He hung up.

Rockwell and Merriam turned to the others.
Aunt Mary and the rest had risen.  They were
standing by their places about the table, looking
rather scared.

"*Eight* o'clock?" questioned Aunt Mary, with
an emphasis similar to Crockett's.

"Yes," said Rockwell doggedly.  "Because"--he
addressed Merriam--"your train goes at seven.
At seven-thirty Miss Norman shall telephone Crockett,
expressing your regret that you overlooked the
fact that you would have to be gone by that time.
Man alive!" he cried.  "Don't you see?  The Senator
can't be sick now--after your public appearance
this noon.  Half the people who count in Chicago
saw you--him, there--right as a trivet--obviously
perfectly well.  And we can't keep *you* here,
with Crockett and Thompson continually nosing
'round.  There's nothing for it but for you to start
on that trip.  The trip's a godsend.  Write your
telegram to Riceville!"

Merriam glanced around the circle of faces.
Mad as the thing was, they all seemed to agree with
Rockwell.  Mayor Black and Mr. Wayward and
even Simpson seemed to be asking him, as man to
man, to stand by them.  Father Murray was
timidly expectant.  Dr. Hobart, he noticed, was
staring down at the table as if in thought.  Aunt Mary,
looking him full in the eyes, gave an affirmative
nod.  Alicia's eyes and shoulders registered appeal
as conspicuously as if she had been a movie actress.
And Mollie June seemed to be begging him not to
desert her.

With a gesture of resignation he went over to the
writing table and sat down to compose his third
mendacious telegram to Riceville.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BUSINESS OF BEING AN IMPOSTOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BUSINESS OF BEING AN IMPOSTOR

.. vspace:: 2

The writing of that telegram occupied Merriam
for several minutes.  He was distracted by
scruples.  He did not like lying, and he felt, truly
enough, that he was cheating his employers, the
Board of Education of Riceville, and the patrons
of the school, and his boys and girls, by staying
away from the work he was paid to do.

When, after a last momentary hesitation, he
wrote his name and looked up, he found Simpson
standing by him, ready to take the message.  He
noticed the man's new air of cheerfulness.

But he had no time to reflect on this phenomenon,
for the party was breaking up.

There were four of them left--Merriam and
Rockwell, Aunt Mary and Mollie June.

"Well," said Rockwell, with a sigh, "we're off
again.  You'd better go to your own room--Mr. Wilson's
room.  I promised the reporters to see
them at half past four, and it's nearly that now.
You'll need to pack.  Take these speeches with
you.  I'll let you know when the taxi comes."

In a moment Merriam was crossing the Senator's
room.  Involuntarily he cast a glance at the sick
man in the bed.  In a small chair by the head of
the bed Mollie June was sitting, her eyes on her
husband.  She looked up as Merriam traversed the
room, met his gaze soberly for an instant, and then
looked back at Norman.

Merriam passed through the door on the other
side into his own room.  He closed the door softly
behind him, set the portfolio on a chair, and put his
hand to his forehead.  The tiny connubial tableau
of which he had just had a glimpse had brought
home to him, as nothing before had done, the fact
that Mollie June really was another man's wife.
The acute realisation left him blank.  He crossed
over, sank into a chair by the window, and stared
out across the fire escape.  Another man's wife!
And he loved her.  Of course he loved her, just as
he had always done.  And she loved him, a little at
least.  That such a thing should happen to him--and
her!  Because he had been a coward three
years ago in Riceville!

How long he sat dully revolving such thoughts
as these he had no idea.  He was startled by the
opening of the door from the Senator's bedroom.
He sprang to his feet with the involuntary thought
that it might be Mollie June--though of course she
would have knocked.  It was Simpson.

"Shall I pack your things, sir?"

"Why--yes," said Merriam.

He knew from novels that the valet of the hero
always packs his bag.  Evidently Simpson had
come in this capacity.  To Merriam's American
self-sufficiency it seemed an absurd practice.  Why
shouldn't any man put his own things into a grip
for himself?  But he was glad of company.

"You can help," he added, and took a couple of
steps in the direction of the bureau, with the idea
of taking things out of drawers.

"Oh, don't bother, sir!" said Simpson quickly.
In his tone there was something subtly patronising.
For he who has been a butler and a waiter and a
valet among the real elite feels even himself to be
socially superior to the unbutlered and unvaleted.

"Simpson," said Merriam suddenly, "you've
seen Jennie!"

Simpson stopped absolutely still for a moment
with a couple of folded shirts in his hands.  Then
he placed the shirts in the suit case, straightened
up, and looked at Merriam.

"Yes, Mr."--he hesitated and decided to use the
real name--"yes, Mr. Merriam, I have.  I went
out there this morning, as you suggested."

"She let you in?"

"Yes she did.  She let me sit down on the sofa
with her, and we had a long talk.  I ended by
asking her again to marry me--and she said she
would."

"And she kissed you!" Merriam cried gaily.
He had for the moment forgotten his own troubles
in Simpson's happiness, for which he rightly felt
he might claim some credit, and in an appreciative
recollection of Jennie's temperament.  Within a
dozen hours she had also kissed Crockett and
himself.  But Jennie was born to kiss.

Simpson looked quickly at the younger man and
returned to his packing.  "Yes," he said, "she did."

Merriam regretted his exclamation, which had,
in fact, told too much.  For several minutes he
watched in silence the deft, efficient work of his
companion.  Then he asked:

"When is it to be?"

"The wedding, sir?"

"Yes."

"As soon as you and Mr. Rockwell can spare me, sir."

Simpson closed the hand bag, closed the suit case
and strapped it.

"Is there anything else I can do, sir?"

"I believe not."

The waiter hesitated.  Then he decided to speak
what was in his heart:

"I am very greatly indebted to you, sir," he said,
with an admirable combination of dignity and
feeling.  "You have made a happy man of a very
wretched one and have--saved a young girl who
was on a very wrong track.  If ever I can render
you any service, you can always command me, sir."

Merriam sprang up and advanced, holding out
his hand.

"I'm tremendously glad," he said.  "I have
accomplished one thing anyway with all this
miserable imposture."

Simpson shook his hand heartily.  Then:

"Shall I leave you now, sir?"

"Why, yes, please," said Merriam.  He was loth,
to be left alone, but there was clearly nothing more
to be said between him and Simpson.

In a moment the waiter had withdrawn through
the door into the Senator's bedroom.  Merriam's
thoughts followed him into that room, where Mollie
June doubtless still sat by her husband's bed.

But just then a knock sounded at the hall door.
He looked up startled.  He was not expecting any
one to approach from that direction.  Who could
have any business with "Mr. Wilson"?

Another knock.  Merriam hesitated.  Should he
go to the door, or simply sit tight till the knocker
became convinced that there was no one within and
went away?  He decided upon the latter course.
Any one whom he ought to see Rockwell would
bring to him.

A third time the knock sounded, discreet but
persistent.  Then suddenly a key was inserted in the
lock and turned, the door opened, and in
stepped--Crockett!

Merriam sprang to his feet but did not speak.

"Thank you," said Crockett over his shoulder--to
whom Merriam could not see.

He closed the door and advanced:

"Is it Mr. Wilson?" he asked ironically, "or
Mr. Merriam--or Senator Norman?"

"Is it Mr. Crockett, the financier, or a
house-breaker?" Merriam retorted.

Mr. Crockett laughed, but it was an unpleasant,
forced laugh.

"Since you do not answer my question," he said,
"I don't see that I need answer yours.  See here,"
he continued, with a change of tone, "how much is
it worth to you to turn over to me those pictures
you took last night--films and all, of course--and
get out of this?"

"You won't accomplish anything by insulting
me!" cried Merriam, a flare of youthful anger
somewhat impairing his dignity.

"Insulting you!" echoed Crockett sneeringly.
"My dear sir, as a complete impostor you can
hardly expect to get away with that pose.  I'll
admit you're good at it.  That impersonation of the
Senator before the Urban Club this noon was a
masterpiece.  But what's the game?  Does
Rockwell really suppose he can swing Senator Norman
over permanently to the so-called Reformers?  Let
me tell you that as soon as the real Norman is on
his feet again Thompson and I and the rest of us
will get hold of him and bring him around in no
time.  We know too many things about your
handsome Boy Senator.  He can't shake us now.  So
what's the use?  Unless," he added suddenly, "the
plan is to kill him off and substitute you permanently!"

"Hardly so desperate as that," said Merriam,
smiling.  The other man's long speech had given
him time to recover himself.

"Well, then, why not make a good thing out of it
for yourself and get away while you can?  It isn't
as if no one had suspected you.  *I* not only suspect
but know.  I haven't told any one else yet, but you
can hardly expect me to keep your secret indefinitely."

"You forget the pictures," said Merriam, as
sweetly as he could.

Crockett obviously mastered a "damn" and
chased the expression that rose to accompany it
from his face.

"Let's keep to business," he said.  "How much
is Rockwell paying you for this job?"

"No monetary consideration has been mentioned
between us," said Merriam.  It was the truth, of
course, but perhaps he need not have been so stilted
about it.

"You surely don't expect me to believe that.
Come!  Whatever the amount is, I'll double it.
All I ask of you is, first, to hand over to me the
pictures, and, second, to pick up your bags, which
I see are already packed, and walk out of that door
with me.  We'll step across the street to my bank,
I'll pay you the sum in cash, and you can skidoo.
No exposure is involved, you see--of you or your
friends.  I'm not revengeful.  I don't need to be.
All I have to do is to wait until I can get hold of
Norman.  In the meantime you get clear of a situation
that otherwise is likely to prove very nasty for
you personally and very nasty likewise for your
Reformer associates.  You will note that I trust to
your honour to give me all the copies of the pictures
and not to sting me on the amount I am to pay you."

"Honour among thieves?" queried Merriam.

"Who's insulting now?" Crockett demanded.

"I am," said Merriam.  "At least, I'm trying
my best to be.  Mr. Crockett, you spoke of walking
out of that door.  I'll thank you to do that very
thing--at once!  If you don't, I'll call in Mr. Rockwell,
and we'll put you out.  I'm tempted to try it
by myself, but I don't care to risk any noisy
scuffling."

"Prudent young man!" sneered Crockett, retreating
nevertheless in the direction of the hall
door.  "I understand that you reject my offer?"

"I certainly do."

"Very good.  I hereby serve notice on you that
I shall immediately expose the whole of your
atrocious masquerade!  It will be the ruin of you
and Rockwell and Norman and Mayor Black and
every other person who has been mixed up in it.
Oh, you'll be a nine days' wonder in the city, but
no one of you will ever have a scrap of public credit
again!"

"And on the following day," retorted Merriam,
"those pretty pictures we know of will be published
in *Tidbits*.  They'll be running sketches called
'A Financier in a Flat' in every music hall in town."

"You blackmailer!"

"On the contrary you've tried to get me to take
blackmail and I've refused it."

With a sound remarkably like the snarling
"bah" which regularly accompanies the retreat of
the foiled villain of melodrama, Crockett turned
towards the door through which he had been
invited to depart.  But in the course of the three or
four steps which he had to take to reach, that exit
he recovered something of his dignity and finesse.

Having opened the door, he turned and bowed
ironically.

"Good evening, Senator," he said.  "I'm afraid
I shall be prevented from keeping my appointment
with you at eight.  If you should change your
mind within the next half hour, you can reach me
by 'phone at the Union League.  Otherwise, look out!"

On this warning note he closed the door behind him.

Merriam found himself with a whirling brain.
As a quiet pedagogue he was not accustomed to
scenes of battle such as he had just passed through.
He walked up and down and mechanically lit a
cigarette.

As he did so, his mind seized upon one question.
Who had unlocked the door for Crockett?  Some
chambermaid or bell boy?  Or the floor clerk?  At
any rate it must have been done with her
connivance and by her authority, for she was the
commanding general of Floor Three.  Why had she
done or permitted this outrageous thing?
Suddenly Merriam recalled her studied ignoring of
him on the last two occasions of his passing
her desk, and compared it with her whispered
"The violets are lovely" when he first asked for
Senator Norman's key.  There had been something
between her and Norman.  He, Merriam, in taking
on the Senator's rôle had dropped out that part of
it, and she was offended.  How seriously he could
not tell.

He concluded that he must attempt to reinstate
himself--Norman--in the pretty floor clerk's good
graces, and rather hastily decided upon a plan, He
went to the telephone and asked for the hotel
florist.  How much were violets?  Well, they had
some lovely large bunches for five dollars.  This
figure rather staggered the rural pedagogue, but
he promptly asked to have one of those bunches
sent up at once to "Mr. Wilson," giving his room
number, 325.  He would present his peace offering
in person.  "I am sure these flowers will look
lovely on your desk--or if you will wear them at
your waist?" he would say, or something of the
sort.  This was probably not the way Senator
Norman would have done--he would have run no such
open risk,--but we must make allowances for
Merriam's inexperience.

But he never carried out his ill-conceived plan.
For he had barely left the telephone when he was
arrested by a light knock on the door leading into
the Senator's bedroom.  This time he was sure it
was Mollie June, and he was right.

When he opened the door she stood there with
a finger at her lips.

"Aunt Mary has taken my place with George,"
she said in a low tone.  "She says I may give you
some tea.  It will be late before you can get your
dinner on the train.  Would you like it?"

"Tremendously," said Merriam sincerely.

"Come into the sitting room, then."

She crossed the sick room to the door at the other
side which led to the sitting room, and he followed,
with a nod to Aunt Mary, who now sat by the
sleeping Senator's bed.

Arrived in the sitting room, he was further
delighted to find that neither Rockwell nor Simpson
was present.  It was to be a genuine tête-à-tête.
By one of the windows stood a small table with the
tea things upon it, the kettle already singing over
an alcohol flame.  Beside the table stood a large
armchair and a small rocker.

"The big chair is for you," said Mollie June,
seating herself in the rocker and adjusting the
flame.

"Thank you," he said and sat.  Then a mingling
of pleasure and embarrassment held him
awkwardly silent.

Mollie June was apparently quite composed.

"George is ever so much better," she said.  "He
was awake a few minutes ago, and he seemed almost
well.  He has only a very little fever left."

She smiled brightly at Merriam, who dimly realised
that it was to the fact that her mind was now
at ease about her husband that he owed this
treat.

Mollie June set a brightly flowered cup on a
saucer to match and placed a small spoon beside it.
Then she took up the sugar tongs, and her hand
hovered over the bowl.

"One lump or two?"

"Two, please," said Merriam, noting the slenderness
and whiteness of the fingers that held the
tongs and the pinkness of the small nails.  (Why
else except to display charming fingers and nails
were sugar tongs invented?)

"Lemon or cream?"

Merriam was sophisticated enough to know that
the right answer was "Lemon," but he preferred
cream, and an admirable instinct of honesty led
him to say so.

Through the open window came the pleasant air
of the spring afternoon.  The canyon-like street
without, being an east-and-west street, was flooded
with sunlight.  With the breeze there entered also
the stimulating roar of the city's lively traffic.  The
breeze stirred Mollie June's soft wavy hair.  It
also caused the alcohol flame under the brass kettle
to flutter and sputter, and Mollie June leaned
forward to regulate it.  The youthful firmness of her
cheeks and chin showed like a lovely cameo in the
bright light, which would have been unkind to an
older face.  Having adjusted the flame, she
suddenly looked up at Merriam and smiled.

"Mollie June," he cried, "there is nothing lovelier
in the world than your eyes when you look up
and smile like that!"

He had not meant to say anything of that sort,
but it was forced out of him.

Mollie June's smile lingered, and the cameo
became faintly, charmingly tinted.  But she
evidently felt that some rebuke was needed.

"*Mrs.* Mollie June, you must remember," she
said gently.

Then, taking up her cup and leaning back in her
small rocker, she asked:

"How did you get along with the speeches?"

"Not very well," said Merriam.  He hesitated
in his mind whether to tell her of Crockett's
interruption but decided not to.  It would take too
long--he could not waste the precious minutes so.
"I'll have the dickens of a time with them," he
added.

"Oh, no, you won't!" she cried, as if shocked at
the idea.  "You were wonderful this noon.  I was
so proud of you."

"You had a right to be," said Merriam.  "It was
because you were there that I could do
well."  Which was perhaps partially true.

"Why don't you go into it yourself?" asked
Mollie June.

"Public life?  Perhaps I will.  I may go back
to the University for a law course and then try to
get into politics."

This plan had just occurred to Merriam, but he
did not disclose that fact.  In uttering one's
inspirations to a pretty woman one usually presents
them as though they were the fruit of mature
consideration.

"That would be fine," said Mollie June without
much enthusiasm.  "But you'll be at Riceville
next year?"

"I suppose so.  I'll have to save up a bit more."

"I may be at home for Christmas," she said.
"I'll see you then."

Merriam considered this painfully.

"No," he said at last slowly.  "I shan't be there.
I shall be away for the holidays."

"You could stay over," said Mollie June,
wonderingly reproachful.

"I suppose I could.  But I mustn't.  Just to see
you--publicly, is too hard on me.  And if I see
you alone like this,--I say things I oughtn't
to--make love to you."

Mollie June sat drooping, with downcast eyes,
her cup in her lap.

Suddenly he was on his knees beside her.  He
put his arms about her, to the great peril of
flowered china.

"Mollie June!" he whispered.  He softly kissed
her cheek.

She raised her eyes and looked deep into his.

"John!" she whispered back, though she seemed
to struggle not to do so.

After a moment he smiled sadly and got to his feet.

"I mustn't have any more tea," he said, as if that
beverage was too intoxicating, as indeed under the
circumstances it was.

Fortunately--since of all things what they
needed was a diversion,--Merriam at that moment
became conscious of a portentous knocking on a
distant door.  He realised that it was on the door
to "Mr. Wilson's" room and remembered.  The
flowers--for the floor clerk!

He hurried to the hall and called the boy from
the second door down the corridor, where he was
about to pound again.

In a moment he reëntered the room, bearing a
lovely great bunch of fragrant English violets--and
thinking hard.  But he was equal to the
emergency.

He advanced to Mollie June, who stood now with
her back to the window, her slender form outlined
against the light, her face in shadow.

"I've never given you anything, Mollie June," he
said.  "These are for you--and the sick room."  He
held them for her to smell.

She took them from him, barely touching his
hand as she did so, and buried her face in them for
a long minute.  Then she raised her eyes to him
over them.

"Thank you, Mr. John," she said with a sad smile.

And just then Aunt Mary entered from the
Senator's bedroom.

"See what Mr. Merriam has ordered for
George!" said Mollie June.  "Isn't he thoughtful?"

"Very," said Aunt Mary, in her customary dry tone.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CODE TELEGRAM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CODE TELEGRAM

.. vspace:: 2

Rockwell had returned with Alicia.  He
briskly declared that it was time to start for
the train.  Mayor Black, it appeared, was below in
his car and was going to the station with them.

"I've told Simpson to take your bags down.
Except the portfolio.  You'd better keep that in your
own hands.  What progress with the speeches?"

"Not much," said Merriam.  "But I shall have
the whole evening on the train.  I'll get them."

He crossed the sick room, where Dr. Hobart was
now bending over the Senator, apparently making
an examination.  He thrust the pile of manuscripts
back into the portfolio.  Then, after a glance about
the room, reminiscent of his burglarious entry the
night before, he caught up his coat and hat and
returned to the sitting room again.

"Are we ready?" he asked of Rockwell.

"Waiting for Hobart--for a final report on the
Senator's condition."

"Aren't you coming to the station with us, Mollie
June?" Alicia was saying.

"No," said Mollie June, her eyes on a large
bunch of violets which she was arranging in a bowl.
"I must stay with my husband."

"But Aunt Mary will be here.  I think she owes
it to you to come with us, don't you, Mr. Merriam?"

"No," said Merriam, "I think she is right in
staying."

Alicia looked from him to Mollie June, then
shrugged her shoulders and turned to Rockwell,
who was cautioning Aunt Mary--as if Aunt Mary
ever needed cautioning!--about maintaining the
closest possible guard on the Senator's rooms in
their absence.

Merriam moved to Mollie June's side.

"I shan't see you again," he said.

"No," said Mollie June.

For a single moment she looked up from the
flowers into his face.  Her eyes held tears, and she
blushed slightly.  In her look he read unwilling
love and shame.

He would have moved away, impotently miserable,
but her hand, which had dropped to her side
between them, suddenly touched his, closed in his
for an instant, and was withdrawn, leaving
something--something very small, cool, and fragile--a
single violet.

He understood, of course, that it was to be his
souvenir of her, all he could have of her, through
the long years to come while she played out her
loathsome rôle as the wife of the dissipated Boy
Senator and he taught school at Riceville or--what
did it matter what he did?

His hand closed quickly on the violet, and he
turned to face Dr. Hobart, who was just entering
from the sick room.

The physician was highly reassuring.  The
Senator was doing very well indeed.

"He'll be able to meet us in Springfield, then,
to-morrow night?" demanded Rockwell.

"I think he'll be well enough to do that,"
returned Hobart, with a slight evasiveness which
Rockwell and Merriam had occasion a few hours
later to recall with some vividness.  But at the
moment they scarcely noticed it.

"Good!" cried Rockwell.  "We're off.  No!  Wait."

He drew a folded paper from his pocket and
handed it to Aunt Mary.

"This paper describes a simple form of code
telegram.  Use it in your messages to us in regard to
the Senator's progress and when and where he is
to join us.  You'll wire at least once a day, of
course."

"Yes," said Aunt Mary, accepting the paper.

Merriam shook hands with Aunt Mary.

"I hope," she said, "that some day, after all this
is over, we may be able to have you visit us, when
George can thank you for the inestimable service
you have rendered him."

"I should be delighted," Merriam murmured,
though he had no great mind to be thanked by
George Norman.

Then he shook hands with Mollie June and met
her eyes for a moment, but, under the gaze of Aunt
Mary and Rockwell and Alicia, "Good-bye," was
all he could say.

"Good-bye.  Thank you for--everything," she
replied, and her eyes followed his figure as
Rockwell swept him from the room.

The closing of the door of the Senator's sitting
room upon Merriam marked the beginning of a
period of a dozen hours or more that was utterly
phantasmal and unreal to him both at the time and
in his recollection afterwards.  He seemed to move
and speak and act without volition and without
any clear realisation of what he was doing or why
he was doing it.

After dinner with Rockwell and Mr. Wayward--an
excellent meal served in the private car by an
amiable gentleman of colour, Merriam read the
speech which he was to deliver at Cairo in the
morning, and then had to pull himself together and
commit that speech, but he did even this mechanically.
And finally to bed in his compartment, at
first to a long, uneasy dream, in which he appeared
to be making an interminable speech to an audience
consisting of Mollie June, Jennie, an inattentive
floor clerk, Aunt Mary, and Simpson, and then to a
heavy slumber, from which he was roused with
difficulty the next morning.

In the morning it was the same way with
him--everything dully unreal.  Breakfast.  Going over
the speech again.  Then it was nine o'clock, and
the train was running into Cairo.  A crowd at the
station.  A cheer or two.  He was being assisted
into an automobile.  A sort of procession with a
band through several blocks of streets to a small
park.

Merriam found himself sitting with Rockwell
and Mr. Wayward and several local notables in a
band stand, with a considerable concourse of
people sitting and standing about on the grass below.
Some native orator made a short speech.  A
number by the band.  Then the Mayor of Cairo was
effusively introducing Senator Norman.  The
Mayor sat down amid applause.

Merriam rose, advanced to the rail, and began
on his speech.  He felt himself to be a sort of
animated phonograph.  The words which he had
learned the night before and reviewed that morning
ran trippingly off his tongue.  His collegiate
training and subsequent experience in public speaking
came to the aid of his subconscious self, which
seemed to be functioning with practically no
direction from his higher centers.  He turned
pleasantly as he spoke to face now one part of his
circle of auditors and now another.  He suited
his tone to the words in different parts of the
speech.  He even achieved an occasional
appropriate gesture.

At last he came to the end of what he had learned
and stopped as the phonograph stops when the end
of a record is reached.  And for a moment he stood
there by the rail, blank, at a loss--as a phonograph
would have stood.  He had to rouse himself with a
jerk of conscious attention before he perceived that
what he had to do next was to step back and sit
down.

The applause was fairly satisfactory.  The
Mayor of Cairo leaned across Rockwell to shake
hands and congratulate him, and Mr. Wayward, on
the other side, patted his shoulder and said, "Good
enough!"  And the band struck into a patriotic air.

Merriam awoke.  It was as if lights had been
turned on and doors opened.  He realised that it
was a bright, sunny morning, that a band was
playing, that he, John Merriam, was alive and young,
and that he was having a whimsically glorious
adventure which he could not afford to miss the joy
of even if Mollie June was Senator Norman's wife.

In this rejuvenated mood he joyously descended
with the others from the band stand and climbed
into the automobile and lay back happily, between
Rockwell and the Cairo Mayor, to relish the slow
processional drive--still preceded by the
band--back to the station.

"Feeling better?" asked Rockwell, who had not
failed to note his previous lethargy.

"Feeling fine!" he replied, and gave his attention
to the scenery of Cairo's Main Street and the
crowds therein, waiting eagerly for a glimpse of
the remarkable Boy Senator.

As the automobile passed close to the curb on
turning a corner, Merriam caught one remark:

"He does look just like a young man!"

The speaker was a decidedly pretty girl in a
boldish sort of way.  Merriam sensed and seized upon
the privileges of age.  He leaned forward:

"Thank you, my dear," he said.  "At least I'm
young enough to know a pretty girl when I see one."

Which incident will serve to show that Merriam
was really awake again.  Also, it probably won
more votes for Senator Norman's party at the next
election than the whole of Aunt Mary's able speech
as delivered by the human phonograph a few
minutes earlier.

They reached the station and regained the
private car.  Merriam sank into a wonderful armchair
in the sitting room compartment, glanced about
him at the luxurious appointments, and lit a
cigarette with gusto.

"I shouldn't mind this riches-and-fame business
for quite a while," he thought.  (Mollie June was
for the time forgotten; thus it is with the fickle
male.)

Rockwell had sat down in the next chair.  Merriam
made an effort of memory.

"East St. Louis next?" he asked.

"Yes," said Rockwell.  "We'll have to get at
the speech as soon as the train starts."

Just then a small but vociferous urchin appeared
in the door of the car.  His cap proclaimed him a
telegraph messenger.

"Telegram for Mr. Rockwell!" he shouted, as
though Mr. Rockwell were probably in the next
county.

Rockwell signed the book, and the lad slowly
withdrew himself, taking generous eyefuls of
Rockwell, "Senator Norman," and the private car.  As
he lingered with a last backward stare in the
doorway, Merriam winked at him, and the boy grinned
and generously, democratically winked back.

Turning from that wink to Rockwell, Merriam
was startled.  The man sat limp with the telegram
on his knee and a pencil in his hand.  I will not say
he was pale, but certainly he was haggard.

He handed the telegram to Merriam.

Merriam tried to read it, but could make no
sense at all.  It was very long but apparently a
mere string of words with little intelligible
meaning.

"What----?" he began.

"It's code," said Rockwell.  "I've underlined
the words that count."

Picking out the significant words by means of
Rockwell's underlining, Merriam read:

.. vspace:: 2

George kidnapped from rooms whereabouts unknown
doctor disappeared cancel trip return Mary.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SIMPSON AS DETECTIVE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   SIMPSON AS DETECTIVE

.. vspace:: 2

A moment later Mr. Wayward, who had
stopped at the station cigar stand to replenish
his stock of nicotine, rejoined them and was
shown the telegram.

His first comment was profane.

"We've got to go back," said Rockwell.  "Now
that they have Norman in their power--for Crockett
is behind this, of course,--they may denounce
us--may make Norman himself denounce us--any
minute.  They have no end of a grip on him, and he
has no great love for the rôle of Reformer
himself--nor for me.  Our only hope is to get back to
Chicago and find him and get hold of him again."  He
jumped to his feet, "I must see the station
master at once."

"Yes," said Mr. Wayward, "there's nothing else
for it."

Rockwell hastily departed to announce their
changed plans to the station master, and Merriam
and Mr. Wayward looked at each other.  The
latter's face had assumed the humorous smile which
had been his expression towards the whole affair
from the beginning.

"It's been a damn fool business all along," he said.

"I suppose it has," said Merriam.

"Good fun for you, though."  Mr. Wayward lit
a cigar.

"Yes," Merriam assented.  But he was thinking
of something else.  Back to Chicago!  The young
rascal was realising that that meant he should see
Mollie June again.

Mr. Wayward puffed meditatively.

"'Doctor disappeared,'" he quoted from the
telegram.  "That means Hobart was in it. Probably
he was the chief agent.  Crockett's bribed him."

Merriam suddenly remembered the tableau
which Rockwell and he had surprised as they
stepped out of the elevator at the Hotel De Soto
on the previous afternoon: Dr. Hobart in
confidential conference with the floor clerk.

"Probably they bribed the floor clerk, too," he
said.  "Hobart seemed to be sweet on her."

"So?" said Mr. Wayward.  And after a minutes
consideration: "Very likely.  They could
hardly have managed without the floor clerk in
fact."

Presently he added:

"We've got to go back all right.  But I don't
what we can do except to surrender."

"We still have my pictures of Crockett at
Jennie's."

"Well, I hope so.  Unless they've bribed Simpson,
too.  Those pictures are one of the things that
may make them give us a chance to surrender."

The two men smoked in silence for several
minutes--until Rockwell returned.

"Well, that's fixed," he announced.  "There's a
north-bound express due in half an hour and
reported on time that will take us into Chicago by
nine o'clock to-night.  You're sick, of course,
Senator," he added to Merriam.  "Bronchitis
again!"

They continued to talk until the north-bound
train arrived and picked up their car, and they
were started on their return trip.

At Carbondale Rockwell sent off telegrams to the
several cities which Merriam was to have visited,
cancelling Senator Norman's speaking tour on
account of a renewed attack of bronchitis.  He also
sent a message in code to Aunt Mary, giving the
hour when they were due to arrive.

The three men talked, of course, but they had so
few facts to go on that they could only formulate
gloomy speculations, with nothing really in the way
of definite conclusion beyond what Mr. Wayward
and Merriam had reached in their first few minutes
of chat immediately after the arrival of Aunt
Mary's message.  How the kidnapping had been
managed or where Norman might be, they simply
could not tell.

They had one practical point to decide, namely,
their first procedure on reaching the city.  It was
obviously not safe for "Senator Norman" to go
directly to the Hotel De Soto.  They could not tell
what the situation there might be since the
kidnapping.  It was finally agreed that Rockwell and
Merriam should leave the train at Fifty-Third
Street and take a taxicab to Rockwell's bachelor
apartment on Drexel Boulevard, while Mr. Wayward
should go on to the Twelfth Street Station
and thence to the hotel to see Aunt Mary.  Their
next step was to depend on what he learned there.
Rockwell was afraid even to telephone from his
apartment, for fear the wire to the Senator's suite
might be tapped.  Merriam was not keen on this
arrangement because it evidently postponed his
seeing Mollie June and might even prevent his doing
so altogether.  But this was not an objection which
he could raise in the discussion.

At last they were running into the City.  Fifty-Third
Street was reached, and Rockwell and Merriam
shook hands with Mr. Wayward and descended
from the private car.

Rockwell's first act in the station was to buy an
evening paper.  He scanned the sheet anxiously,
with Merriam looking over his shoulder.  The first
page carried a paragraph reporting the
abandonment of Senator Norman's down-State speaking
tour "on account of a return of his bronchitis."  Rockwell
had sent no word to this effect to any one
in Chicago, but evidently the news had come in
from some one or more of the towns to which he
had wired cancellations.  There were, however, no
headlines in regard to the kidnapping of a United
States Senator from one of the city's leading hotels
and no exposé of their imposture.

"They're still keeping it dark," said Rockwell,
with a flash of renewed hope on his haggard face.
"We're going to have a chance to make terms."

A moment later they were in a taxicab bound for
his apartment.  They rode in silence.  Merriam
wondered if he should see Mollie June again--though
just what good that would do him or what
he should say to her he could not have told.

"I shall see her once--alone," he said to himself,
"whatever happens.  I've done enough for them to
have a right to demand that."

And on that scene of unhappy farewell--for
what else could it be?--his thoughts halted.  His
mind would go no farther.

The taxicab stopped, and they got out, and Merriam
found himself in front of a decidedly imposing
apartment building.  Rockwell hurried him
through a sumptuous entry and into an elevator.
They shot up three flights.  Then in a hallway
Rockwell unlocked a door, and they entered the
sitting room of his apartment--a large room in
quiet tones, furnished somewhat in the taste of a
good men's club.

Merriam sank into a chair.

"Played out?" asked Rockwell, standing over
him and speaking in his old manner of matter-of-fact
good humour, which had deserted him during
that trying day.

"Yes," said Merriam.  He felt, in fact, quite
exhausted, although he had done nothing since ten
o'clock that morning except smoke and eat two
meals and wait.

"So am I," said Rockwell, "and we must get fit
again.  We may have a busy night ahead.  Suppose
we have a shower and then coffee?  That'll
brace us up."

Three quarters of an hour later, the two men,
much refreshed by the shock of cold water and the
odd stimulation which always follows re-dressing
in fresh clothes, were sitting on opposite sides of
Rockwell's writing table, waiting for an electric
percolator to "perk," when the doorbell rang.
They looked at each other.

"Curtain up for the last act," said Rockwell as
he went to answer it.

It was Mr. Wayward with Aunt Mary and Father
Murray and Mayor Black.  Mollie June, Merriam
saw, was not with them.

"Come in," said Rockwell, oddly formal.

Merriam, as he rose, noticed the change in Aunt
Mary.  Always before she had seemed a creature
of no age at all; now she was obviously a quite
elderly woman.  The Mayor's plump face was gray
and drawn with anxiety.  Even Mr. Wayward
looked more worried than he had seemed all day.

For a moment the four of them stood together
just inside the room, staring at Merriam, accusingly
as it were, as if he had been the cause of their
trouble.

But Rockwell, having closed the door, turned and
after one glance at the group spoke loudly, with
exaggerated briskness:

"Sit down, all of you--and tell me.  You'll find
this a comfortable chair, Aunt Mary.  Over there,
Mayor.  You're at home here, Wayward."

Father Murray took Aunt Mary's arm and led
her to the chair Rockwell had indicated.  Solemnly
they all sat down.

Rockwell was both daunted and impatient.  After
another look at Aunt Mary, he turned to the Mayor:

"When did it happen?"

But before the Mayor could reply, Aunt Mary
spoke up.  She was not so far gone as she looked.

"Between five minutes after eight and half past
nine this morning," she said.  "Mollie June and I
had gone downstairs for breakfast in the Wedgewood
Room and then for a short walk--over to
Michigan Avenue and back.  Dr. Hobart suggested
both.  He said we ought to get out that much
before we settled down for the day in the rooms, and
that he would stay with George till we returned.
He said that George was much better, and he looked
better.  When we got back--it was exactly half
past nine,--both he and George were gone."

Aunt Mary paused for an instant on this
disastrous climax.

"We were terribly upset," she continued.  "We
could hardly believe our senses.  Mollie June cried,
and at first I could not think what I ought to do.
But presently I had mind enough to telephone for
Mayor Black and Father Murray, and by the time
they came I was calm enough to think quietly and
join them in making plans."

"You were wonderful," said Father Murray.

"We could make no kind of announcement or
complaint.  George was not supposed to be there.
You"--she looked at Merriam---"were probably
at that very moment making a speech in his name at
Cairo.  We could say nothing to anybody.  We
figured out that you were either still at Cairo or
on your way to East St. Louis, and we sent
messages to Mr. Rockwell at both places.  We had to
stop that insane speaking tour and get you both
back here as soon as possible.  We telephoned to
the hotel office for Dr. Hobart, but they said he
had resigned as house physician the night before.
Then we sent for Simpson.  He didn't seem greatly
surprised.  In fact, he said that Dr. Hobart had
offered him money early that morning 'to help in
restoring Senator Norman to his real friends.'  That
seems to have been the way Hobart put it.  Simpson
refused the money, he said, and didn't learn
what the plan was.  He said that he had meant to
tell me of the offer but hadn't been able to get away
from his work.  It was still only a couple of hours
since Dr. Hobart had talked with him.  He said
he would try to find Hobart and learn where George
was, and then he went away, and we haven't heard
from him since.  Finally, I went out to see the
floor clerk, thinking she must have seen when
George was taken out, but there was a new girl.
The former one had quit, she said, at nine o'clock--simply
telephoned the office that she was leaving
and hung up and slipped away."

"Have you tried to see Crockett?" Rockwell asked.

"I have," said the Mayor.  "Been trying all day.
But both at his office and at his house they say he
isn't in and they don't know where he is or when he
will be back.  And he wasn't at any of his clubs."

"It's a pretty clean get-away," said Rockwell.

Merriam spoke up.  "I have some hopes of
Simpson," he said.  "His continued absence may
mean that he is following some sort of trail."

"Maybe," said Rockwell.  "Meanwhile this
coffee"--he drew attention to the percolator--"is
getting pretty black, and black coffee is what we
all need.  After that we'll see."

"Where is Mrs. Norman?" Merriam asked timidly
while Rockwell was pouring and passing the coffee.

"We left her at the hotel with Alicia," said
Mr. Wayward.  "We had to leave some one there, in
case some message should come from Simpson or
from Crockett or from George himself."

The coffee was drunk in a dismal silence.
Mr. Wayward attempted one or two semi-cheerful
remarks, but they fell flat.

"The first question," said Rockwell when the
cups had been emptied, "is: where is George
Norman?  Crockett may have taken him to his own
house.  But that is unlikely.  Or to some other
hotel.  Or to one of his clubs.  Or, if he is still
really sick, to a hospital.  I think myself a hotel
is the most probable.  That could have been
managed with a minimum of explanations.  In any
case we have got to find him.  But this is no case
for amateurs.  I propose to engage a professional
private detective and commission him to find
George.  Also Hobart.  It oughtn't to take him
more than twenty-four hours.  Then we can make
further plans.  If Norman is still sick, we may
have to re-kidnap him.  If he is up and himself
again, it will be a matter of parleying with him and
Crockett and making such terms as we can.  Has
any one a better suggestion?"

It appeared that no one had, and Rockwell was
looking up the detective agency, when the doorbell
rang again.

Father Murray sprang to his feet.

"Yes, you answer it," said Rockwell.

Before the priest could reach the door an
impatient rat-a-tat-tat sounded on the panel.

He opened to Alicia and Simpson.

"Good heavens, you're slow!" cried Alicia.
"And glum as the grave," she added, glancing about
the circle of faces.  "Simpson has found George."

There were exclamations.

Rockwell put down the telephone book and went
to Alicia.

"Dear!" he said.

And Alicia, turning, put her arms about his neck
and kissed him.  "You poor fellow!" she cried.

Then Rockwell turned to Simpson.

"Sit down here, Simpson," he said.  "Have
some coffee?  You look fagged."

"Thank you, sir.  I *am* pretty much all in."

Rockwell drew a cup of coffee and took it to him,
and the waiter gulped it down.

"Thank you, sir," he said again.  "Now I can
tell you.  I owe a good deal to that young
gentleman"--he indicated Merriam,--"and when I saw
the trouble you were all in I decided to do what I
could.  Of course we knew Mr. Crockett was at
the bottom of the thing, and I decided he was the
most findable person in it.  I figured that he
wouldn't appear at his office and wouldn't go home,
but that sooner or later he would show up at one
of his clubs.  You remember I asked you this
morning what clubs he belonged to."  This to Mayor
Black.

The Mayor assented.

"You mentioned five.  That was a pretty large
order, but I got some of my pals who are taxicab
drivers to help me, and between us we kept a pretty
close watch on all of them.  He didn't come near
the one I was watching myself, and I didn't hear
anything from the others till five o'clock.  Then
one of the boys sent word to me that he had entered
the Grill Club on Monroe Street.  I went right
over and hung around there for nearly three hours.
It was a quarter to eight when he came out.  He
took a taxi, and I followed in another.  He drove
to St. John's Hospital over on the West Side.  I
was right after him and followed him into the
building.  He doesn't know me, of course, and paid
no attention to me.  He spoke to the nurse at the
desk and then stepped into a waiting room.  The
nurse looked hard at me, but I said, 'I'm with
him,' and stepped back towards the door.  She
thought I was his man and took no further notice
of me.  Pretty soon Dr. Hobart came down.  He
didn't see me, but I saw him plainly.  He looked
pretty much worried--scared, I thought.  He and
Mr. Crockett talked for a while in the waiting room,
but I couldn't hear anything they said.  Then
Mr. Crockett left, and Dr. Hobart went back upstairs.
I could have spoken to him after Mr. Crockett had
gone out, but I thought I had better not let them
know that any one was on their trail--for fear they
would move him again.  Then I had an idea.  I
went up to the desk again.  I said to the nurse:
'How is Mr. Merriam?'  She looked at me.  'He's
pretty sick,' she said, and turned away.  I didn't
see what more I could do, so I took my taxi back
to the De Soto and went up to the Senator's suite
and found Miss Wayward and Mrs. Norman, and
Miss Wayward brought me here."

For a moment Rockwell seemed sunk in thought.
Then he roused himself, glanced around the circle
of faces, and spoke:

"First of all, Mr. Simpson, I want to say that
you have done a very clever bit of work.  We were
about to engage a private detective to undertake
what you have already accomplished.  I think I
can safely say that we will see that you are suitably
rewarded."

"You can," said Mr. Wayward emphatically--which
was satisfactory since he was the person
present from whom any substantial monetary
reward must come.

"Thank you, sir," said Simpson.

The Mayor broke in:

"It's pretty clear what has happened.  They got
Norman downstairs while Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman
were at breakfast, put him in a taxi, drove
to the hospital, and entered him under the name of
Merriam.  And Dr. Hobart has stayed in attendance."

"And he's still sick--perhaps worse," said Aunt
Mary anxiously.

"Why did they enter him as Merriam?" asked
Rockwell, thinking aloud.  "It must mean that
Crockett doesn't dare denounce us or doesn't wish
to do so, that he means to make terms with us and
preserve the secrecy of the whole affair.  As I see
it, there will have to be one more substitution"--he
addressed the real owner of the name of
Merriam,--"of you for Norman--at the hospital.
You have reported yourself to your Riceville people
as sick.  Very well, you have gone to a hospital.
From the hospital you return to your work.  It
will strengthen your alibi.  And Norman will be
restored to us--on Crockett's conditions, of course.
But we shall escape the worst.  We shall come
off safe yet.  But it must happen at once," he
continued, with a note of new anxiety.  "The whole
State knows that Norman's speaking tour has been
abandoned, that he came back to Chicago to-day,
that he is in the City now.  We must get hold of
Crockett some way to-night.  The final substitution
must be made before morning."

Mr. Wayward was looking at his watch.  "It's
eleven o'clock now," he said.  "But you'd better
try telephoning.  His clubs, I think."

"Yes," said Rockwell.  "The Grill Club!  That's
where you found him, Simpson?  He may have
gone back there for the night.  I'll try that first."

He went quickly to the telephone.

While Rockwell was looking up the number and
the rest waiting in painful expectancy, the
doorbell for the third time startled them.

"I'll go, sir," said Simpson.

In a moment he had opened the door.

On the threshold stood Crockett--a pale, hesitant,
almost seedy Crockett, very different from the
serene, confident, well-groomed financier whom
Merriam had first encountered forty-eight hours
before at Jennie's.

Rockwell dropped the book:

"Come in, Mr. Crockett.  I was just going to
'phone to you."

Crockett advanced a couple of steps into the
room.  Then he stopped.  There was something
portentous in his air of mournful gravity.  His
eyes travelled from face to face.  For a moment they
rested on Merriam.  Then they came to a full stop
on Aunt Mary.

The whole roomful remained silent, fascinated
by his look, which seemed to speak, not of threat,
which they might have expected, but of some
disaster beyond threat.

At last with an effort he turned his eyes from
Aunt Mary to Rockwell.

"I have to tell you," he said, "that George
Norman is dead."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FINAL DILEMMA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE FINAL DILEMMA

.. vspace:: 2

I do not suppose Mr. Crockett desired to be
unnecessarily cruel.  Doubtless he would have
preferred to break his devastating news more
gently.  But he was himself in a state of nervous
exhaustion from fatigue, worry, and perhaps
remorse, and the circle of anxious faces had proved
too much for his self-control.

Realising too late the brutal bluntness of his
announcement, he broke into a hurried flow of
words:

"We took him from the hotel this morning to
St. John's Hospital.  We thought he would be just
as well off there--even better off.  Dr. Hobart
thought he was nearly well anyway.  But the ride
and the effort of listening to Hobart's explanations
apparently fatigued him.  By the time they got to
the hospital he was very sick again.  His
bronchitis--if it ever was bronchitis--turned into
pneumonia--double acute pneumonia.  He got worse
and worse all day.  Dr. Hobart and the physicians
and nurses at the hospital did everything possible
for him.  But it was no use.  He died at nine
o'clock."

All eyes turned suddenly to Aunt Mary, who had
risen, holding on to the back of her chair.

Father Murray was at her side in an instant, and
Alicia hurried to her.

"No," said Aunt Mary, brokenly, "I'm not
going--to faint--or anything.  But I want--to be
alone."

Rockwell sprang to his feet.  "My bedroom,"
he said, and led the way to the door of his chamber,
which opened off the sitting room.

In a moment Aunt Mary, walking between
Father Murray and Alicia, had passed into the
bedroom.

Mr. Wayward's voice broke the stillness.

"Poor fellow!" he said.

For a minute or two they all paid the tribute of
silence to the dead.  But it was impossible to be
really very sorry for George Norman.  He had
had an easy, pleasure-filled life--wealth, luxury,
fame, and a good time, according to his own
conception of a good time, up to the very beginning of
his brief illness.  That his last few, largely
unconscious hours had been passed in a hospital away
from his friends had certainly been almost no grief
to him.  The only sorrow genuinely possible was
over the common folly, and the universal final
tragedy, of humankind.  In a few moments the
thoughts of the entire group that remained in
Rockwell's sitting room were irresistibly drawn
back to the strange and somewhat dangerous
situation in which the unexpected death had left them.

Presently Rockwell spoke:

"Technically, Mr. Crockett, I suppose it is not
Senator Norman but Mr. Merriam who died at
St. John's Hospital."

(Merriam was somewhat startled at this turn
of thought; this phase of the matter had not yet
occurred to him.)

"You have made no announcement?" Rockwell asked.

"No," said Crockett.  "I have done nothing.
When Hobart telephoned me that--what had happened,
I rushed out to the hospital again--I don't
know why.  I couldn't believe it.  Then I
telephoned from the hospital to the De Soto and got
Mrs. Norman, and she told me you were all here,
so I came here.  I have done nothing."

While he was speaking Alicia and Father Murray
returned from the bedroom.

"She is all right," said Alicia.  "She asked us
to leave her alone for a few minutes.  Did you
tell Mrs. Norman?" she added, addressing Crockett.

"What had happened?  Yes," said Crockett.

Merriam's thoughts flew to Mollie June, alone in
the vast, heartless hotel with the news of her
husband's death.

"Ought not some one to go to her?" he asked.

"Presently," said Rockwell.  "We must first
consider the situation a little--hers as well as
ours."

Mayor Black spoke up:

"It will be pretty awkward for her--aside from
natural grief and all that--that her husband should
have died in a hospital under another name without
her being present, while the man to whom the other
name belongs was impersonating him in public.
And awkward for Miss Norman.  For the rest of
us, too.  Damned awkward!"

"It is a hard thing to have to close the career
of George Norman with such a story," said
Mr. Wayward.

"It must never happen!" said a voice behind them.

They all turned.  Aunt Mary was standing in
the door of the bedroom.  She already looked more
like herself.  She was one of those souls who
may sink under passive anxiety and suspense but
find themselves again immediately when a call for
action comes.  She had scarcely been left alone,
apparently, when the same thought which the Mayor
and Mr. Wayward had expressed had occurred to
her--the peril to the name of Norman, which was
perhaps even more dear to her than her brother
himself had been.  And instantly, by some powerful
effort of will, she had put grief behind her and
turned to face this new danger.

"It must never happen," she repeated, advancing
into the room, where Alicia, and the men too,
unmindful of the etiquette which should have
brought them to their feet, sat staring at her.
"The secret must be kept.  It is more important
now than ever.  With George alive, it would not
have mattered so much.  He would have lived it
down triumphantly.  Only the rest of us would
have suffered--not he, nor the Name.  But
now--*it must be kept*!"

"But how *can* it be kept?" said Crockett, in a
tone of desperation.

For a moment no one spoke.

Then Rockwell, looking from face to face, drew
a deep breath.

"There is just one way," he said.  "It was John
Merriam who died.  Senator Norman is alive."  He
waved his hand at Merriam.  "He must go on
living!"

"But that is impossible," said Mayor Black and
Merriam together.

"Face the alternative first," said Rockwell.
"George--the real George--was admitted to the
hospital about nine o'clock this morning.  At that
same hour Senator Norman was making a speech
at Cairo before an audience representing the entire
county.  That is known all over the State.  He
took the next train back to Chicago.  But that
train did not reach Chicago until after--after the
death."

"We could have the hour of the death changed
on the records," proposed Mr. Wayward.  "It is
already announced all over the State that Senator
Norman is ill again.  He could be rushed from the
train to the hospital and die there during the
night."

"Then we should have two deaths on our hands,"
said Rockwell, "and only one body.  Unless we
bring Merriam to life again.  How are we to do
that?  It is pretty hard to get hospital authorities
to falsify their records.  And dozens of people
must know the supposed facts--nurses, doctors,
clerks at the hospital.  We could never keep them
all from talking.  The reporters would get hold
of it within twenty-four hours.  No, Senator
Norman cannot have died at the hospital.  He is alive.
He must go on living!"

"Can't he die at the hotel--to-night or to-morrow?"
said Merriam.

"Then what becomes of you?" asked Rockwell.

"Why, I should go back to Riceville."

"You can't.  You're dead!  And how can Senator
Norman die at the hotel when we should not
be able to produce his body there?"

"We could get the body," said Mr. Wayward,
speaking in a lowered tone.  "As Mr. Merriam's
friends we would take his body away from the
hospital to be buried and bring it to the hotel."

"We shall have to send for the real Merriam's
friends," said Rockwell.  "From Riceville
and--wherever your people live."  He looked at
Merriam.  "We should have no body to show them.
We could bury a loaded casket.  But why should
we, who must be strangers to him from their point
of view, have been in such a hurry when they could
get here in a few hours?  Probably they would
want to take his body elsewhere for burial.  Very
likely they would have the coffin we had buried
raised and opened.  And how could we get a dead
body into the Hotel De Soto?  Up a fire escape?"

In the earnestness of his argument Rockwell
evidently did not realise the gruesomeness of his
language.

Aunt Mary shuddered.

"No!" she said.  "I will not have George's
body smuggled about the city."

She paused, looking strangely at Merriam.
None of the others, not even Rockwell, ventured
to speak.

"Alicia told me, I believe, that you have no near
relatives?" she said presently.

"None nearer than cousins," Merriam replied.

For a long minute more Aunt Mary stared at
him.  She closed her eyes, opened them, and looked
again.  Then her lips shut tight for a moment in
an expression of momentous decision.  She leaned
forward.

"You have the Norman blood in you," she said
to Merriam, "on your mother's side.  You are fine
stuff.  We have all seen that.  We will make a
Norman of you, if you will.  You shall take
George's place--to save his name!"

"But----" Merriam began.

But Rockwell cut in:

"It's absolutely the only way," he cried.  "The
only other alternative is to let the whole story
come out."

"Then that's what we have to do," said Mr. Wayward.
"Make a clean breast of it."

"No!" said Aunt Mary.

"No!" echoed Rockwell.  "Think what that
means--to George's memory, first of all.  That in
his last hours his relatives and friends were
conspiring against him, with the help of a stranger
double, to force him to abandon the kind of life he
was leading and the disreputable interests with
which he was associated.--I beg your pardon,
Mr. Crockett!"

Crockett waved a feeble hand to indicate
forgiveness or indifference.

"And then to Mollie June," Rockwell continued.
"That she had connived at the impersonation of
her husband during his last illness by another man.
How far did that other man take her husband's
place, will be the question every man and woman
in the State will ask.  And all the rest of us.  Aunt
Mary.  And Mr. Merriam, who will lose his job and
his professional standing.  And the Mayor and
myself, who will be ruined politically and every other
way.  Even you, Mr. Wayward, would find yourself
in an exceedingly unpleasant situation.  And
Mr. Crockett, on the other side, would be no better
off.  For the story of the kidnapping must come out."

The wilted financier uttered a sort of groan.

"But can the other thing be done?" asked the
Mayor, the perspiration of mental anguish showing
on his forehead.

"Certainly it can," said, Rockwell eagerly.
"Senator Norman has come back to Chicago.
Here he is.  Presently he will arrive at the hotel.
He will be pretty sick.  You and I"--he looked at
Mr. Wayward--"will support him to the elevator
and to his rooms.  He will be ill for several days.
We must get hold of Hobart again to attend him.
Then we will announce that he is threatened with
tuberculosis and is to retire from public life.  He
must resign his seat in the Senate.  We daren't go
ahead with that.  It would be too dangerous--and
too serious a fraud besides."  (Evidently there
was some limit to a Reformer's unscrupulousness.)  "He
will go to his ranch in Colorado to recuperate.
You will actually go."  He was addressing
Merriam now.  "You must live there for a year or so.
During that time only a few of Norman's private
friends will visit you.  We will coach you up on
these a few at a time.  If any of them notice any
slight changes in you, they will lay it to your
illness.  You will easily take your place in the whole
circle of his private life."

"But the property," said Mr. Wayward.  "The
Norman fortune."

"Reverts to me and Mollie June," said Aunt
Mary, who was evidently heart and soul with
Rockwell.  "If we are satisfied----"

She stopped.  The mention of Mollie June had
recalled a phase of the situation which Rockwell
and the Mayor and even Mr. Wayward had apparently
forgotten--so little are men accustomed
to consider their women folk when the real game
of business or politics is on.  Merriam and Alicia
had not forgotten it, but had not been able so far
to get a word in.  As for Aunt Mary I cannot
say--she was so near to being a man herself.

"Mollie June!" repeated Rockwell aghast.

"Exactly," said Merriam, somewhat bitterly.
Him, too, Rockwell had been treating pretty much
as a lifeless pawn in the game.

But Aunt Mary, when roused, was equal to anything.

"We shall manage that," she said.  "I will go
to Colorado with Mr. Merriam.  Mollie June can
return to her father for a time.  We can arrange
a separation--or----"

Even Aunt Mary hesitated.  But Alicia took the cue.

"Or they can be married--or remarried," she
said, fixing her bright eyes, with a gleam of
mischievous understanding in them, on Merriam.

The argument had come to a full stop.  The
whole roomful sat looking at Merriam, who tried
to think and found he could not, except that he
realised that all the rest had tacitly accepted
Rockwell's plan.

"Come!" said Alicia vivaciously.  "It isn't so
bad, is it?  The Norman fortune and--Mollie June!"

Bad!  The prospect was so dazzling to Merriam
that he could not take his mind off it in order to
think calmly.  To die to his old self--to his poverty
and loneliness, to his teaching with which he had
long been bored,--and to step as if by magic into a
new life with wealth, leisure--and Mollie June!
For surely she loved him, and she had not loved
George Norman.  She would marry him--after an
interval, of course.

"I must think," he said, weakly, in response to
Alicia's exhortation.

"Of course you must," said Rockwell.  "You
must accustom your mind to it.  But it will all be
perfectly easy.  You were brought up on a farm,
weren't you?  You will take to the ranch life like
anything.  It's mostly stock-raising.  You can go
in for scientific farming.  After a few months it
would probably be a good thing for you to travel,
perhaps for a year or two--especially if you and
Mollie June should marry.  Get out of the country,
so as to leave Norman's old life entirely behind
you for a while.  You might take a trip around the
world."

Merriam's youthful heart bounded in spite of
himself.  A trip around the world with Mollie June!

"As to your old self," Rockwell continued,
"that's quite simple, too.  Norman was entered at
the hospital under your name.  A death certificate
must have been given by now."  He looked at
Crockett.

"I don't know," said Crockett.  "Hobart may
have held off on that."

"At any rate it can be.  In fact, it will have to
be.  Hobart shall telegraph to Riceville and to
your cousins, wherever they are.  He was the
house physician at the De Soto where you took
sick.  That was how he came to be attending you.
When you got bad he took you to the hospital.
Nothing more natural.  The rest of us will not
need to appear at all."

"Aunt Mary will have to appear," said Alicia.
"She will want to attend the funeral."

"She became acquainted with you at the hotel,
then," said Rockwell.  "Took an interest in a
young man who was alone and ill.  When your
relatives and friends come Hobart will have the
body already laid out in a casket.  He can advise
immediate burial here in the city.  Aunt Mary can
offer a lot in the Norman plot at Lakewood.
Would your cousins probably consent to that?"

"Very likely," said Merriam, rather in a daze.
It was confusing to be discussing the details of
one's own interment.

"Then everything will follow in regular course,"
said Rockwell, speaking as if all difficulties were
solved.  "George will be buried with his family,
and you can start for Colorado."

For a second time the talk came to a full stop.
The new plan was outlined in full.  It remained
only to decide upon it or to reject it and face the
alternative of a public confession.  All of them
except Merriam had already accepted the scheme,
apparently, gruesome and bizarre as it was.  It
was for all the rest so much the easiest way and
the most advantageous.  But it did not require any
of them to die--to die to his own self, his friends,
his very name.  On the other hand it did not offer
them any such positive rewards as were proffered
to Merriam--a fortune and love.  We can hardly
wonder that he was somewhat stupefied by the
alternatives that beat upon his mind.  The loss of
all that up to this point in his life had been his
identity versus Mollie June--that was the essence
of the struggle within him.

He sat beside Rockwell's table, staring at the
now silent percolator, trying to think but able only
to feel.  The others were looking uneasily at him
and at one another.  Aunt Mary's eyes and Alicia's
demanded of Rockwell, who had always managed
everything, that he should manage this too.  Once
he started to speak, but gave it up and looked
appealingly at Alicia instead.  Indeed he might
justifiably feel that this was Alicia's job.  She
acknowledged as much in her own mind and was trying to
decide what to do or say, when the one person
present who had not spoken throughout the entire
scene came to the rescue.

Through all their long discussion Simpson had
stood unobtrusive and unnoticed in the background,
but he had followed every word.  For his fortunes
too, humble, indeed, but sufficiently important to
him, were bound up in this decision.  If the
deception was to be continued, his assistance, in the
matter of silence at least, would be necessary, and
he could expect a large--honorarium; if it came to
a public confession, he could still expect
something, but probably a good deal less; and to win
and hold Jennie he needed a considerable sum of
money.

So now he advanced a step and spoke:

"Shall I call a taxi for you, Mr. Merriam, to
take you to the hotel?"

"Of course!" cried Alicia, jumping up.  "You
must go and see Mollie June.  It all depends now
upon her."

The others too stirred and expressed more or less
audible acquiescence, and Simpson had his reward
in the shape of approving glances from Rockwell
and Mr. Wayward.

Merriam got to his feet with the other men
because Alicia had risen.  He was not so obtuse nor
so much dazed that he did not see what they were
doing.  They were trying to rush him.  They
calculated that though Mollie June in the abstract
might contend indecisively with other abstract
considerations, Mollie June in the flesh would decide
him in the twinkling of an eye.  He saw that
plainly enough.  Nevertheless, for his part it did
now depend altogether upon Mollie June.  If he
was to do this thing--to abandon his old self and
enter upon what must be in some degree a lifelong
career of deception,--it would be for her sake--not
only in order to win her sooner, years sooner, than
he could otherwise have the slightest hope of doing,
but to save her from scandal, and because she loved
him and wanted him too at once (comparatively
speaking) as he wanted her.

So his decision was made almost as soon as he
was on his feet.  He looked with some dignity from
one waiting face to another about the circle.

"Yes," he said quietly, "it does depend on her.
You may call a taxi, Simpson."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MOLLIE JUNE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXX


.. class:: center medium bold

   MOLLIE JUNE

.. vspace:: 2

Almost before Merriam's brief sentence was
out of his mouth Simpson had started for the
telephone.  But Mayor Black spoke up:

"My car and chauffeur are below.  We came up
from the hotel in it.  You can use it."

"You go with him, Aunt Mary," said Rockwell,
again taking command.  "You see her first," he
continued.  "Mr. Merriam can wait somewhere--in
'Mr. Wilson's' room.  When you have explained
the general situation you can call him in and leave
them together and--give him his chance."

Even at this moment it was a slight shock to
Merriam to realise that the state of feeling between
himself and Mollie June, which they had supposed
completely hidden, had been clearly perceived by
the others--or at least, he thought swiftly, by
Rockwell and Aunt Mary and Alicia.  He smiled
a little cynically to himself as he understood that
they had been willing to use this interest of his as
a motive in securing his easy acquiescence in their
previous schemes.  Evidently they were counting
on it in Mollie June too.  That gave him a thrill of
hope which made him forget his cynicism.

Father Murray had put Aunt Mary's wrap about
her, and Rockwell had got Merriam's hat and his own.

Merriam found Alicia by his side.  She held out
her hand, and when he took it she squeezed his
fingers in the way she had and said significantly,
with all of a woman's interest in a romance:

"Good luck!"

"Thank you," said Merriam, but his answering
smile was again a little cynical.

Then he opened the door for Aunt Mary and
waved his hand to the others, with some amusement
at the anxious looks with which they were
regarding him.  Even Simpson's countenance was
perturbed!

Rockwell and the Mayor went down to the street
with them and put them in the limousine.  The
Mayor directed the chauffeur to drive them to the
hotel and then to return for himself and the others.
Rockwell spoke to Aunt Mary:

"You put the essential facts before her and then
leave them--leave Mr. Merriam to do the rest!"

And again Merriam smiled with an acid amusement
that is commonly supposed to belong to the
middle-aged and old but is really most
characteristic of those who are under thirty.

Rockwell glanced at Merriam as if about to give
him too a parting exhortation, but hesitated,
checked perhaps by the younger man's expression,
and spoke to the driver instead: "All right!"

They had started, and Merriam tried to think.
His whole life turned in a very peculiar sense on
the events of the next hour--whether he should
continue to be himself or take up the life of another
man.  He got that far.  But what he should say
to Mollie June--even what it was he wanted to say
to her--he could not get on with it.  The mood of
youthful cynicism was by no means the right mood
for the business in hand.

And then--too soon for him now--they were at
the hotel.

So little had he been able to think clearly that it
was not until he was helping Aunt Mary out of the
machine that he realised that in entering the hotel
with her again this way, in the character of the
dead Senator, he was already in effect consenting
to Rockwell's plan and binding its consequences
upon himself and Mollie June.

He had a wild idea of getting back into the
limousine and driving away and later entering the
hotel via the fire escape again.  But Aunt Mary
was already on the pavement.

As they entered the lobby Merriam glanced about
to see whether he was noticed and recognised as
the Senator.  He was.  At least three men whom
he did not know bowed and raised their hats, and
one of them took a step forward as if to approach
them.  But Merriam looked away and guided Aunt
Mary as rapidly as possible to the elevators.

When they emerged on Floor Three, Merriam
asked for the key, explaining casually that
"Mr. Wilson" was a friend.

In a couple of minutes he had escorted Aunt
Mary to the door of her sitting room--Senator
Norman's no longer--or was it still to be Senator
Norman's?--and had himself entered "Mr. Wilson's" room.

His first act there was to call up the hotel
florist--as he had done once before on this same
telephone.  But this time Merriam's order was for
roses, to be sent up at once.

He hung up the receiver and walked nervously
about the room.

Was it not time for him to go to Mollie June?
Aunt Mary was being terribly long about her
explanation.  Had Mollie June broken down under
her grief--grief for George Norman?--or merely
from anxiety and conflicting emotions?  Was she
refusing to see him?  Was she ill?

He jumped up and walked back and forth in his
nervousness, watching the door to the other
bedroom, at which he might expect to receive Aunt
Mary's summons.

A knock at last!  But it was at the wrong door,
the hall door.  In a sort of hesitating amazement
he went to answer it.  It was the boy with the
roses.  He had forgotten ordering them.

He signed for the flowers and brought them into
the room and took them out of their box and tissue
paper.  They were lovely--the most exquisite
colour, between pink and red, that has no name
but that of the flower itself--pink and red harmonised
in soft coolness and fragrance--Mollie June's
flowers without a doubt.

But had he done well in ordering them?  Was
this a time for lover-like gifts?  Should he not have
got white roses, such as one sends to a funeral?

And then, as he stood in this anxiety, came Aunt
Mary's knock at the bedroom door.

He started as if caught in a guilty action and
thrust the flowers back into their box before he
went to open to her.

"How is she?"

But Aunt Mary herself looked so broken that he
led her to a chair.

Then, "How is she?" he repeated.  He could not
wait.

"She is very quiet."

"You told her the--the plan?"

"Yes."

"She understood it?"

"I think so."

"Am I to go to her?"

"I suppose so," said Aunt Mary with a sigh.
"Mr. Rockwell said----"  She stopped.

Merriam showed her the roses.

"Should I take these to her?"

Aunt Mary looked at him and at the flowers.

"I think perhaps you might," she said, and then
sat staring out across the fire escape.

She looked so very miserable that Merriam
impulsively patted her shoulder.  She glanced up
quickly at that, then turned her eyes to the window
again.  He could not read her look, but he was not
sorry he had betrayed his affectionate sympathy.
If he was to be her brother for the rest of their
lives----

After a moment more of hesitation he picked up
the flowers and passed through the former sick
room to the sitting room.

Mollie June was sitting in a small straight-backed
chair by the window, looking out.  But
Merriam was sure at the first glance that she saw
nothing.  She had merely turned automatically
towards the light, as all but the old or the
self-conscious tend to do.  As Aunt Mary had said she
was very quiet.  Her back was of course towards
the room and Merriam.

He waited for a moment just inside the door,
looking at her, forgetting the flowers in his hands.
He was sorry for her and very uncertain what he
ought to do.  Then he became a little frightened,
because she sat so still.  She gave no sign of
having heard him.

With conscious effort, because he must do
something, he crossed the room till he stood beside
her.  Still she did not turn her eyes from the window.

He stood looking down at her.  She was a
pathetic figure as she sat there--the more pathetic,
to the eyes of youth at least, because she was so
lovely, so young and fresh really, although a little
pale and heavy-eyed.  He saw dark shadows under
her eyes which must have come from tears.

The sight of these unlocked him, drowned all his
hesitations in pitying love.  He dropped on his
knees beside her chair, laying the long-stemmed
roses regardlessly on the floor and putting one hand
on the back of her chair.

"Mollie June!" he said.

She did not start.  Evidently she had known he
was there.  She looked first at the flowers on the
floor and then at his face.

"I am so sorry," he cried.

"Are you sorry or glad?" she asked.

"I am terribly sorry for you," he answered.
Her hands lay together in her lap, and he
attempted to take one of them.

But she moved them slightly.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't make me strange to you, Mollie June,"
he cried.

"How can I help it?" she answered.  "I am
strange to myself too.  You see, I am glad!  I am
sorry for George," she went on quickly.  "It is
terrible to me that he is dead.  But I am so glad I
do not have to be his wife any more!"

Once more, as on a former occasion, some dim
notion came to Merriam of what it must mean to a
girl to be connubially in the power of a man she
does not love.  He pitied and loved her greatly.
Also he marvelled.  How had she come through it
all so fresh and unchanged?  The answer, of course,
was youth.  But youth could not know the answer.

"I am glad too," he said.

Her eyes, which as she dropped them had rested
on the roses on the floor, came back to his face.

"You are glad I have to marry you."

"But you don't!"

"You know I do."

Instantly he saw that Aunt Mary had not put
the thing fairly before her.  In Aunt Mary's mind
it was settled.  The course of action which
promised to save the precious Norman name from
scandal was the only possible course of action.  She
had so represented it to Mollie June.

"No, no!" Merriam cried.  "You shall not be
forced into this.  You shall never be forced in
anything again if I can help it.  I will not be forced
myself--even to marry you."

"What else can we do?" asked Mollie June,
searching his face.

"It's fairly simple," he said, a little bitterly.
"Not easy, but simple.  I will write a brief, plain
account of the whole affair--the impersonation--from
beginning to end, and send for a reporter and
give it to him.  That will end everything.  I will
sit down now at that desk and write it and call
for a man and give it to him while Aunt Mary
thinks we are still talking--unless you tell me
not to."

"Would you do that?"

"Indeed I will!"

He rose to his feet.  He meant it, and she saw
that he meant it.  To be forced in this thing was,
in fact, even less to his liking perhaps than to
hers.

Standing, he saw the roses at his feet.  He
stooped and picked them up and handed them to her.

"You'll let me give you these?" he said, his
manner more determined than lover-like.  "I saw
them from the elevator as I was coming up here
with Aunt Mary.  They were so like you that I
could not help buying them and bringing them to you."

She accepted them passively, looking up at him.
Perhaps she liked him determined rather than
lover-like.

"I am not giving you up," he went on gravely.
"But you will go away somewhere with Aunt Mary,
and I will go back to Riceville.  I have my contract
for the rest of this year at least.  And if you
will wait a few years--you will want to wait and
rest a while,--I will come back and win you in my
own right."

She did not answer but looked up at him, still
searching his face.

For a moment he stood regarding her.  That
image of her as she sat there with the flowers in her
lap and her uplifted face and questioning eyes,
more lovely than ever in their intense gravity in
spite of their trace of tears, remained one of the
permanent treasures of his memory.

He turned away and walked over to the writing
table and sat down.  It was a moment or two
before he could think why he was there.  Then he
remembered and drew towards him several sheets
of the hotel stationery and took up a pen.  He
realised that he was in a very poor frame of mind
for literary composition, but he mastered his
attention and wrote:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   *Statement by John Merriam regarding His
   Impersonation of Senator Norman*

.. vspace:: 2

He underlined those words and resisted an
impulse to turn and look at Mollie June.  He wanted
to know whether she was looking at him or looking
out at the window again.  He wanted, too, merely
to see her.  But he would not look.  With a heroic
effort he brought his mind back to the paper
before him.  How to begin?  Where to begin?  It
was a long story, he realised.  He must make it
as brief as possible.  He could omit much.
But he must introduce himself.  The public did
not know him from Adam.  He seized at this
straw.

"My name is John Merriam," he wrote.  "I am
the principal of the high school at Riceville, Illinois.
On my mother's side I am related to----"

He stopped abruptly.  It was the fragrance of
roses that interrupted him.  Mollie June had risen
and come over beside him.  His effort of concentration
had been so great that he had not heard her.
She carried the flowers pressed against the bosom
of her dress.  The action was probably mechanical;
she was too much engrossed to think to put them
down.  She did not look at him but over his
shoulder at his writing.  She read it.

Apparently his opening statement caught her
attention.  She looked at him and smiled slightly,
more with her mouth than her eyes, which were
still grave.

"You wouldn't like to change your name, would
you?" she said.

"Mollie June!"  He was on his feet.

She backed away from him, pressing her flowers
tight.

"Would you?" she demanded.

"It's not that," he said, not daring to advance
towards her lest she should retreat farther.

"A woman always has to change her name when
she marries.  Why shouldn't a man do it for once?"

He started forward now and caught her arm and
led her back to her chair and dropped on his knees
again beside her.

"Dearest Mollie June," he said, "I'll change my
name to yours so gladly, if you will let me.  So as
to have you sooner than I could the other way.
But not unless you want me to!" he added fiercely.
"For yourself!"

She looked at him, shyly now.

"I would rather have it the other way myself,"
she said, tears standing in her eyes at last, "and
wait and change my name to yours.  But I think
we ought to do it this way for George."

"For George!"

"Yes, and Aunt Mary.  She has been very good
to me.  George was good to me too in his way.
And he was my husband, and he's dead.  If we can
save his name and save her--this way,--don't you
think we ought to?"

Then of course he put his arms about her.

"I won't call you George, though!" she said
presently, very emphatically.

"What will you call me, dearest?"

She smiled at him through her tears and with
a gesture that ravished him lifted his hand and
kissed it.

"Mr. John!" she whispered.

He would have kissed her again, but she hurried on.

"We'll pretend to people that it's a nickname
left over from some game or play."

"It *is* left over from a sort of--play," he
answered, and then she was ready for another kiss.

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.. class:: center

   THE END

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.. pgfooter::