Читать книгу Mollie's Substitute Husband - Max McConn - Страница 12

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.

CHAPTER V

ALICIA AND THE MOTIVES OF MEN

"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!"

CHAPTER VI

STAGE-SETTING

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!"