The Shy Plutocrat E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Young Maurice Teyl, just turned 21, shy, non-drinker, non-smoker and the richest man in America, has been raised by his rigid Grandmother on a remote ranch in California but he shuns the limelight. So when a world tour is arranged by his guardian he is none too keen. He misses his train to begin the jaunt and meets up with a young English actress, Lucy Compston, and so begins a friendship and the slight deception, as he does not want her to know exactly who he is. He then goes undercover and forgoes his millionaire status in order to try and win her favor. Love, transatlantic voyages, Paris, and London ensue. A 1941 novel by Edward Phillips Oppenheim, with touches of humor, and consistent characters.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER I

IT was probably the Bishop who was chiefly responsible for all the trouble that followed–the Bishop’s somewhat overpowering personality and his choice of He austere waiting room in the solemn Fifth Avenue Club for his address to the notoriously timid young man. Maurice Teyl, arrived in New York that morning of the nineteen-twenties for the first time in his life, after a long journey from a land of lonely hills and sweeping valleys, one of the vast pastoral backwaters of the Western States, had already found the city sufficiently alarming. The roar of it had deafened him. The sense of hurry everywhere had reduced him to a condition of mental chaos. The porter in the ecclesiastical-looking hall, to whom he had presented his card, had seemed to him the most awe-inspiring functionary he had ever encountered, the begaitered Bishop, who in due course came out to greet him, something far removed from any order of human being with whom one could exchange ideas upon the common topics of life. He was obsessed with a sense of unreality. He found it impossible to believe that it was he, Maurice Teyl, seated in that hard leather easy-chair in that imposing and stately apartment, he who was the subject of this lava of gently flowing words from this imposing personage with his masses of smoothly-brushed hair, his sacerdotal features, his well-cared-for hands, and general air of internal and external polish. No single sentence had been spoken which could have helped to put him at his ease. He sat on the edge of his chair, his lanky, yet athletic figure disposed of to its worst advantage, painfully conscious of his lack of poise and of all the defects of his appearance–his shock of red hair, his wide, nervous mouth, his large hands, the fingers of which he was constantly intertwining. Nevertheless, he sat it out, a pained but earnest listener.

"My dear young friend,” the Bishop observed, after a brief preliminary conversation, “owing to your grandmother’s peculiar views as to your upbringing, I have had but little chance so far to mark your progress in life. What I know of you, I have learnt chiefly through the daily or weekly papers.”

The young man shivered.

"Those newspaper men just print any old stuff,” he confided nervously. “The boys birded the last one that came around.”

"‘Birded’?”

"Just tarred and feathered him and threw him into a pond. Grandmother had been reading about herself in the Sunday papers, and I’ll say she didn’t care for all the stuff they’d faked up. She just told the boys what to do with the next one that came along.”

The Bishop coughed.

"Your grandmother was a woman of violent prejudices,” he remarked. “I wrote to her some years ago on the subject of your collegiate career, and her reply, I regret to say, showed a great lack of consideration for my feelings and my position. It was, in short, of the most offensive nature. I gather, however, that your education has been in a measure provided for?”

The young man’s face darkened.

"I’ve had an English tutor, an American one, and a Frenchman hanging about the place for the last three years,” he groaned. “Also a golf professional, a tennis coach, and a white-chokered fellow who used to say prayers twice a day, read the Bible with me at night, when he could catch me, and who called himself a chaplain.”

The Bishop frowned slightly. The reference to the chaplain he considered in bad taste.

"And what did you do with this–er–this retinue before you came away?” he enquired.

"I sacked the lot the morning of my twenty-first birthday,” Maurice Teyl replied, with a faint smile of ecstasy. “All except Ned, that is–the golf professional. I guess I’ll always keep Ned. He’s laying me out a new course now. I’d have taken him along to Europe with me if he’d wanted to go.”

"Your grandmother’s system of education,” the Bishop pronounced, “was ill-advised and almost immoral. The day of your emancipation, however, has now arrived. You are leaving for Southampton, I gather, on the Anderconia.”

"Three weeks from to-day,” the young man assented, without any particular enthusiasm.

The Bishop began to settle down. He had the air of a divine who had given out his text and was prepared to get to business.

"I regret very much,” he said, “that Diocesan affairs will occupy much of my attention in various parts of the State, during the next few weeks. I am glad, however, of this opportunity of a brief conversation with you. I should like you to remember, Maurice Teyl, that you are starting on no ordinary journey. No pilgrim whose wanderings I can recall has ever left his home under such conditions. You have just attained your majority and you are probably–you are without a doubt–the richest young man in the world.”

"Gee, that money!” the young man lamented.

"One imagines you,” the Bishop continued, with a little wave of the hand, “invested with something of the dignity of an ambassador. You will represent in England very much what their young prince represented here upon his recent visit to this country. He showed us the grace and social charm, the éclat, of the old country. You represent the power and strength of America–her boundless wealth, her immense vigour. Never lose sight of the fact, Maurice Teyl, that yours should not be a pleasure trip only. You are an ambassador of progress, with great responsibilities and equally great opportunities.”

The unhappy listener muttered something incomprehensible. He felt that words were expected of him, but he searched his brain in vain for a suitable response.

"Have any plans been made for you, may I ask, upon your arrival?” the Bishop enquired.

The young man fidgeted in his chair. A shaft of sunlight stole into the room and shone for a moment upon his freckled face, his slightly snub nose, and clear, troubled eyes.

"Ned’s fixed up a few golf games for me round London,” he observed timidly.

The Bishop’s disapproval marred for a moment the perfect serenity of his expression.

"You will find other, and I hope more important duties also waiting for you,” he declared severely. “You have, as you are of course aware, a lay and clerical guardian in London as well as here. Prebendary Dorkins is a very excellent and much respected man, whose personal acquaintance I have had the pleasure of making, and Mr. Crosset, as a famous lawyer and man of the world, should be of great assistance to you. Your sojourn in London will no doubt be influenced by their advice, but I myself shall write to various personages of note whom I have been privileged to meet. I shall point out to them how much you represent. I shall beg them to use their utmost efforts on your behalf, to see that you are brought into touch with all the best influences which might go towards the moulding of your life.”

"That’s very kind of you, sir,” was the utterly cheerless admission. “I–well, I guess I’ll soon find my way about.”

"You will need help and direction,” his mentor assured him. “In all material affairs I understand that adequate arrangements have been made for you. The best courier in Europe is awaiting instructions for your continental tour, and a French valet will become associated with your own servant as soon as you are prepared to receive him. The Reverend Goadby, an earnest young man of little more than your own age, will leave New York with you as companion and chaplain, although I may tell you he has instructions not to lay too much stress upon the spiritual side of his vocation. You will travel as the princes of the world alone can travel.”

The young man looked almost pathetically at his companion.

"I don’t see, sir,” he ventured, with a slight shudder, “why I can’t have a trip abroad without all this fuss.”

The Bishop laid a hand upon each knee and leaned forward. It was a favourite attitude of his when engaged in personal exhortation with one of his flock.

"I am afraid,” he said, “you will have to get accustomed to the fact that however modest your own views of life may be, your position entails great and varied responsibilities. You represent the modern driving force of the universe. You have no title of nobility, you come from no race of sovereigns, but you still wield a sceptre as omnipotent as that of any of the modern rulers of the world. In time, no doubt, you will get used to your position, for which, I must repeat once more, your grandmother’s preparation has been most ill-advised. It is too late now, however, to do more than regret the fact. I hope, Maurice Teyl,” the Bishop concluded, rising to his feet, “that your travels may be beneficial and pleasant, as well as broadening to your mind and character. I appreciate your early visit to me, and I welcome this opportunity, my lad, of wishing you success in life, strength of purpose, and an earnest Christian endeavour to carry manfully upon your shoulders the burden of the great responsibilities with which you are endowed.”

The Bishop led the way to the door, his hand resting upon the young man’s shoulder. He felt that he had performed his whole duty, and some friends were waiting for him to play a rubber of bridge upstairs–a relaxation which he permitted himself upon two afternoons during the week. In the lofty, marble-pillared hall, with its stained-glass windows, he handed over his charge to a liveried attendant.

"Write to me, Maurice Teyl, if ever you are in trouble or distress, temporal or spiritual,” he begged. “My advice will always be at your disposal. If I have not the opportunity of seeing you again before the day of your departure, I wish you a happy voyage and a godly life.”

The Bishop withdrew his hand with a little wince of pain from the grip of the long brown fingers between which he had confidingly placed it, and the young man, who had been the subject of his exhortations staggered out into the golden sunlight of Fifth Avenue with its panorama of life de luxe. Drawn up to his full height almost for the first time, he seemed longer and lankier than ever, notwithstanding the level breadth of his fine shoulders and a certain wiry athleticism of bearing. He stood upon the steps and gazed for a moment with unseeing eyes across the broad thoroughfare.

"Another chaplain,” he muttered to himself, “a French valet to make old Jennings miserable, and a courier! I guess not!”

"Where to?” demanded the taxi-man whom he had summoned, leaning lazily from the seat and throwing open the door.

"Can you make the 4: 40 Chicago Limited at the Grand Central?”

The taximan glanced at his clock.

"Might, if we’ve any luck,” he replied. “Where’s your baggage?”

"Never mind about my baggage,” was the hasty response. “You make my train.”

CHAPTER II

MAURICE TEYL, whether for good or for evil, missed his train. His taxicab driver did his best, but the traffic policemen of New York are not to be trifled with, and four times during that brief distance a red lamp and a whistle brought the dense line of vehicles to a standstill. Arrived at the station itself, there remained just a chance. From the last flight of stairs, Maurice looked down almost with agony at the huge train, onto the various platforms of which the attendants were already swinging themselves.

"No ticket. I’ll pay the conductor,” he gasped.

The gate-man looked at him pityingly.

"There ain’t no tickets to be bought on the Limited,” he drawled, blocking the entrance.

Maurice Teyl, with a flush of shame, for the first time in his life, tried to make capital out of his identity.

"I’m Maurice Teyl,” he announced. “I’m–”

"God Almighty don’t get on the Chicago Limited without a ticket,” the man interrupted, slamming the gate.

Then the train began to move, and Maurice knew that his escape from the city was at any rate temporarily delayed. He turned around, mounted the steps, and lingered for a moment in the great hall of the station, irresolute. Then he bought a time-table, made his way to one of the great, comfortless waiting rooms, seated himself in an empty place and began to study the problem of how to get away from New York. Every now and then the doors were flung open, and a porter in parrot-like tones sang out a list of trains. Each time a handful of waiting passengers departed. Finally he became aware that only one other person was left on his bench. He looked up, and by chance met her eyes. Then he laid down the timetable.

"Say,” he began diffidently, “is anything the matter?”

"Nothing whatever,” the young woman who was seated a few feet away from him replied coldly.

"But you’re crying,” he pointed out.

"I’m doing nothing of the sort,” she replied. “I have a very bad cold. And it’s none of your business, anyway.”

Maurice Teyl was conscious of a confusion of the senses for which he could in no way account. His heart, too, which he had reason to believe was physically an excellent organ, was thumping against his ribs in a most unaccustomed fashion. The girl by his side was quietly but nicely dressed. She was attractive-looking–much too attractive-looking, he thought, to be seated there alone–but signs of distress were evident. She had turned a little away from him, but he was perfectly certain that he had not been mistaken in the matter of those tears. A suitcase, much too heavy for her to carry, was by her feet. He spoke again, and his slow, drawling voice, with its distinct note of earnestness, gave no hint of possible offence.

"You’ll forgive me,” he begged. “I come from back in the Western States. I’ve never been in New York before. We always speak to strangers in a neighbourly way if we meet them, and if they want anything we like to help. I guess I’m in some trouble myself. I’ve just missed my train. What’s yours?”

She looked at him–long, slightly uncouth, notwithstanding his well-fitting clothes–at his freckled face, his earnest eyes, at his mouth which seemed as though it must be always laughing. There were no signs in her of any confusion of the senses, for whatever her thoughts might have been they were to his advantage.

"Mine’s an ordinary hard luck story–at least, it will seem so to you. I’ve had my pocket picked,” she confided. “I haven’t a dime in the world.”

He smiled sympathetically, but with the air of one confronting a very minor worry.

"Well, well,” he commiserated, “they told me I’d got to be careful up here in New York. I’ve all my pockets pretty well sown up with buttons. Guess you girls don’t get a chance that way. Where did you want to go?

"I got out of the train from New Saragut half an hour ago,” she told him. “I want to go to an hotel on Seventh Avenue. I’ve had to drag this suitcase down here, and I’ve a trunk checked. I haven’t a nickel to pay for a porter or to pay for a taxicab, or the subway, or even a cloakroom ticket, and when I arrive at the hotel–if ever I arrive–then I’ve nothing to pay for my dinner or my room.”

"Is that all?” he asked cheerfully.

She looked at him with wide-open eyes–very blue eyes, still a little misty.

"Isn’t it enough?” she demanded petulantly.

"No friends around?” he enquired.

"Not until to-morrow. I start at the Broadway Theatre to-morrow night in ‘The Piccadilly Girls’ and I expect the manager would advance me a trifle, but I haven’t a personal friend in New York.”

"Except me,” he reminded her.

"I don’t know you,” she replied, a little doubtfully, yet with some hope in her tone. “You are–well, I don’t mind your talking to me, and that’s something–but you’re not a friend, and I don’t see how you can help. Besides, you’re in trouble yourself.”

He smiled at her, and she knew then that it was just that smile she had been waiting for. She had no longer an atom of distrust.

"Say, let me tell you how I can help,” he explained cheerfully. “I have my own troubles, but they’ve nothing to do with empty pocketbooks. I can carry that suit case of yours outside, I can get your trunk out of the baggage-room, I can pay the porter to put them on a taxicab, I can drive you down to your hotel, and I can lend you fifty dollars until you get going.”

She laughed.

"Arc you real?” she demanded. “I don’t know New York very well, but such things don’t happen. Besides, you were just going away. I saw you reading a time-table.”

"I was going, but I’ve changed my mind,” he admitted, “I missed my train, anyway. I couldn’t go until to-morrow if I wanted to.”

Still she hesitated.

"I really don’t know,” she began–

"But what don’t you know?” he interrupted, with a note of pleasant protest in his drawling voice. “Let me tell you right now that I’ve been brought up on a ranch, a hundred miles from any city. I’ve lived their all my days, and I’m like the rest of the folk out there. If any one comes along and wants a meal or a bed, why they get it from the first person they happen up against. I don’t know anything about cities. We have tourists and travellers journeying out to the far ranches sometimes. They just make for our lights and stay as long as they’ve a mind to. When we meet people who want help, we help them. When we want help ourselves we ask for it. That’s our way, and I don’t see why being in New York makes any difference. So will you kindly quit worrying.”

She actually began to laugh, and when she laughed, although she was still a little pale with anxiety, she became more attractive than ever. Her hair was a deep shade of brown, and her eyes were quite the bluest he had ever seen. Although she had spoken of the theatre, she looked as though she had never known what cosmetics were. She was on her feet now, light and graceful.

"You’re a dear!” she exclaimed. “Can you really carry the bag?”

"Can I not?” he rejoined, swinging it lightly in his hand. “We’ll get over to the baggage-room.”

They found a porter, they found the trunk, they found a taxicab. The young lady, settling herself down with a little sigh of relief, fumbled in her bag and produced a card.

"My name is Lucy Compston,” she confided. “I’m English.”

"I guessed that from your accent,” he confessed. She laughed softly.

"My accent!” she repeated. “I like that!”

"Well, what made you come over here, anyway?” he enquired. She sighed.

"I was on the stage in England, and I never seemed to get any chance, whereas American girls kept coming over to London and doing wonderfully. I had a little money left me, and I suddenly made up my mind I’d spend it coming out here and seeing if I could make good. I’ve played in travelling companies, but this is the first time I’ve got a New York engagement. What is your name, please?”

He opened his mouth, and closed it again.

"Maurice,” he told her–“Andrew Maurice.”

"I like ‘Andrew.’ And you are really going to lend me ten dollars?”

"I am going to lend you fifty,” he insisted, “and I am coming to see you at the theatre. When do you begin, and what sort of a part have you?”

"I’m only in the chorus,” she admitted, “but I have one song. I have to rehearse that first, though. They may let me sing it to-morrow night, or I may have to wait till after the first week.”

"The Broadway Theatre–‘The Piccadilly Girls.’ I shall be there to-morrow night.”

"But I thought that you were trying to get away from New York,” she remonstrated, endeavouring to subdue the note of gladness in her tone.

"It doesn’t matter what I do for a while,” he assured her.

She was vaguely uneasy. He certainly was a difficult young man to place.

"Haven’t you any work?” she asked.

"Work?” he repeated, as though the word were new to him.

"Well, you do something, I suppose. You don’t live on air.”

He laughed softly. He understood now the point of her question.

"Of course! The fact is, I am looking for a job.”

"You poor dear!” she sighed. “Looking for a job in New York!”

"Like to bet I don’t find one?” he challenged.

"Oh, I don’t know. Here we are. What an awful-looking place!”

They had pulled up outside a dingy building, which seemed to be half tenement house, half private hotel. He helped the taxicab man carry her trunk inside the untidy hall, and fetched her suitcase, whilst she stood contemplating her surroundings almost in despair. A slovenly woman servant, who made not the slightest offer of assistance, was hovering in the background. There was a fusty smell about the inside of the place, and the stale odour of decayed vegetables from the area.

"I don’t think I shall like it here,” she confided, with a shudder, “but it’s cheap.”

"You couldn’t possibly dine in such a joint,” he insisted. “What time shall you be ready for me to call for you?”

"I wouldn’t have you come all this way again today for anything in the world,” she declared firmly.

"Then where will you meet me?” he persisted.

After all, she felt delightfully helpless. He was very big and strong, standing in the low, narrow hall.

"You really mean that you want me to dine with you?”

"Sure thing,” he replied cheerfully.

"Then I’ll come to Macadam’s in Broadway at half-past seven,” she promised.

"Macadam’s in Broadway at half-past seven,” he repeated. “That sounds good to me, and in the meanwhile–”

He handed over a wad of notes and pressed them into her hand. The reluctance with which she accepted them might well have been assumed, but it wasn’t.

"Unless I find my purse,” she warned him, “it may be a long time before I am able to pay you back.”

He smiled. Indeed, if she had known it, he had something to smile at.

"It won’t worry me any, if you never do,” he assured her. “I will be at Macadam’s in Broadway at seven-thirty to-night.”

CHAPTER III

THE immediate subsequent proceedings of Maurice Teyl, to a person unacquainted with his peculiarities, might have seemed in a sense suspicious. He drove to the back entrance of the magnificent Hotel St. Bernerd, paid his fare generously before he alighted, and was off into the hotel telephone booth like a streak of lightning. Arrived there, to his relief, without having attracted observation, he rang up suite Number 284.

"That you, Jennings?” he enquired cautiously.

"Yes, Mr. Teyl.”

"How are tricks?”

"Very bad for you just now, sir,” was the warning reply. “There are seven newspaper men, two young ladies, a press photographer and a movie man, all waiting to see you.”

The prospective victim groaned.

"What have you done with them?” he demanded.

"They are in the large salon. Mr. Bullivant was over this afternoon, soon after you’d left to see the Bishop, and he begged for them to be treated reasonably, however you felt about talking to them.”

"We’ll treat ‘em all right,” was the grim response. “Just you turn the key in the lock for one moment, Jennings, and leave the door of the bedroom open. I’m coming up the back way. I’ll slip in.”

"Very good, sir.”

Maurice Teyl peered out of the telephone booth, found the coast clear, and with a hasty bribe to the attendant, ascended to the second floor of the hotel by means of the luggage lift. Stepping cautiously out, he sprinted down the corridor, vanished through an open door which he closed triumphantly behind him, and turned with a grin to the demure-looking, pale-faced man who had watched his entrance.

"Some sport this, Jennings!”

"You appear to enjoy it, sir,” the man replied gloomily. “If I might take the liberty, I should suggest facing them all and getting it over.”

"Not if you were I, you wouldn’t,” Maurice declared, making his way to the bedroom. “Get me some clothes ready, Jennings. I’ve a date.”

"Where might you be dining, sir?” the man enquired.

"At Macadam’s, down in Broadway, wherever that may be.”

"Not with the Bishop, sir?”

Maurice Teyl shivered slightly. He yielded for a moment to the old-fashioned superstition of someone having walked over his grave.

"Guess I’ve escaped that catastrophe, Jennings,” he confided. “The Bish never asked me, anyway. I should think this was a sort of half theatrical place–nothing very tony.”

"Very good, sir. Your bath is already prepared. You will find everything you require here afterwards.”

In something less than half an hour, Maurice Teyl was ready for the next development of this, his first adventure. He was wearing dinner clothes of the least obtrusive design, plain pearl studs and links, and a Homburg hat and cane were upon the table.

"Open the door and listen, Jennings,” his master whispered.

The man obeyed, looking up and down cautiously.

"The corridor is empty for the moment,” he announced. “You will find a flask in your overcoat pocket containing two cocktails, sir.”

"What’s that for?”

"Prohibition here, sir–strictly enforced. You can drink anything in the restaurant, all right, so long as you bring it yourself, but it is difficult to get, and you can’t be sure of the quality. What shall I do about the press people?”

Maurice considered the matter briefly.

"We must give them some sort of a run for their money,” he reflected. “Say that I went to see the Bishop at the Athenaeum Club and that as I haven’t come back, you imagine I must have stayed there to dine. They’ll like them at that old mausoleum.”

"Very good, sir.”

"And say, did you bring plenty of the stuff along? Can you fix them all a cocktail to stop their feeling too badly?”

"There will be no difficulty about that, sir,” was the confident reply. “I have already secured a considerable supply of gin and vermouth, and I have the address of several most reliable bootleggers.”

"Serve them a double one then,” Maurice Teyl directed, tiptoeing his way to the door. “They’ll need it before they’ve caught me.”

Along the empty corridor, down the broad stairway with flying footsteps, one swift leap into a conveniently waiting taxicab, and Maurice was off again. There was an almost impish grin upon his face as he leaned back and lit a cigarette. He fingered the flask lovingly, but replaced it in his pocket. He had a fancy that it would be wonderful to drink his first cocktail in New York looking into the bluest eyes he had ever seen... The drive– rather a long one–fascinated him. The thunder of the elevated trains, the ceaseless throngs of people, crowding the sidewalks, kept him in a state of continual wonder. Broadway was stupendous. He was still gazing about him open-mouthed, a veritable hayseed, save for his clothes, when the taxicab pulled up with a jerk. He stepped out, paid the driver, and with several disregarded apologies, elbowed his way at right angles through the surging crowds to the door of the restaurant. It was early when he crossed the threshold, but the place was already half filled. A little embarrassed by the fact that he was the only person there with any pretensions at evening dress, he handed his coat and hat to a boy and stood looking around him.

"Want a table?” the youth demanded, taking pity on this unusual client.

Six feet of Maurice Teyl leaned down towards his diminutive protector.

"I’m expecting to meet a young lady here,” he confided. “Is there any sort of a waiting room?”

"Nope,” was the curt reply. “Guess you’ll pick her up all right, if you’ve got a date with her. You don’t need to hang around. Take that table facing the door, and you’ll see the Jane come in all right.”

Maurice, with the consent of a waiter, established himself at the table indicated, offered a remuneration to the boy which sent him staggering back to his place, and took up a menu. A waiter eyed him contemplatively, not quite sure whether he had to do with some lunatic from the West or a green Englishman. He had seen the five-dollar tip which had frozen the words upon the boy’s lips.

"Like to see a captain?” he enquired.

"I’ll order in a few minutes,” Maurice decided. “I’m expecting a young lady.”

The waiter departed, still puzzled, and consulted the head waiter as to what sort of a client this might be. The latter was uninterested until he heard of the five-dollar tip to the cloakroom boy, after which he promptly sought out this amazing customer for a little genial conversation. It was interrupted, however, in its initial stages by the arrival of Miss Compston.

"You’re good and punctual!” Maurice declared, rising promptly to his feet. “Won’t you help me order dinner?”

She glanced at him in some surprise. His evening clothes were evidently unexpected. She herself was very neatly and becomingly dressed, but in street clothes and a small hat. As she prepared to take her place, he was conscious once more of that extraordinary confusion of ideas which had assailed him when be had first looked into her timid but friendly blue eyes. By this time he was entirely convinced that there wasn’t another girl in the world like her.

"I hope you didn’t expect me to wear evening clothes,” she remarked, us she sat down, “because I simply haven’t got any. We work all the evening, of course, and I hate going out afterwards.”

"I’ll say you couldn’t look nicer,” he assured her enthusiastically.

She accepted the menu and studied it carefully. The meal she selected was a simple and economical.

"No oysters?” the waiter ventured. “Terrapin’s in season.”

She looked thoughtfully at her companion. The pearls in his shirt front were certainly real, and he appeared genuinely disappointed at the paucity of her order.

"I’ll fall for the terrapin,” she acquiesced, “and we’ll finish with a salad, if you’d like it.”

The waiter disappeared with a benevolent smile. Maurice produced his flask and the girl uttered a little cry of delight.

"Cocktails!” she exclaimed, as he poured out the amber liquid. “I haven’t had one for months.”

"Seems longer to me since I did,” he murmured, thinking of that half hour of agony in the waiting room of the Club from which he had barely recovered.

"Do you get them all the time?” she asked curiously.

He shook his head.