_ CHAPTER IX. THE CURSE OF MILLIONS
As Travers Gladwin's valet filled the tall, slim glasses with the fizzing amber-colored fluid which constitutes the great American highball, the two friends stretched their legs and lost themselves for a few moments in aimless reverie. Bateato looked from one to the other, puzzled by their seriousness. He clinked the glasses to rouse them and glided from the room. Whitney Barnes was the first to look up and shake himself free of the sober spell that gripped him.
"What the deuce made you skip abroad in such a hurry, Travers?" he asked, reaching for his glass.
Travers Gladwin sat up with a start, pulled a lugubrious smile and replied:
"Bored to death--nothing interested me--living the most commonplace, humdrum, unromantic existence imaginable. Teas and dances, dances and teas, clubs and theatres, theatres and clubs, motors and yachts, yachts and motors. It was horrible, and I can't help thinking it was all my dear old governor's fault. He had no consideration for me."
"He left you a tidy lot of millions," drawled Whitney Barnes.
Young Gladwin drained his glass, jumped to his feet and began to pace the room, hands deep in his trousers pockets.
"That was just it!" he flung out. "If he'd left me nothing but a shilling or two there'd be some joy in living. I'd have had to buckle down. There's variety, interest, pleasure in having to make your own way in the world."
Whitney Barnes laughed mockingly.
"Go out and tell that to the toiling masses," he chuckled, "and listen to them give you the ha-ha. You're in a bad way, old chap--better see a brain specialist."
"I know I'm in a bad way," Gladwin ran on fiercely, "but doctors can't do me any good. It was all right while I was a frolicking lamb, but after I got over the age of thinking myself a devil of a fellow things began to grow tame. I was romantic, sentimental--wanted to fall in love."
"Now you interest me," Whitney Barnes interjected, stiffening to attention.
"Yes, I wanted to fall in love, Whitney, but I couldn't get it out of my head that every girl I met had her eye on my fortune and not on me. And if it wasn't the girl it was her mother, and mothers, that is mothers-in-law-to-be or mothers-that-want-to-be-in-law or--what the deuce do I mean?"
"I get you, Steve--they're awful. Go on."
"Well, I gave it up--the hunt for the right girl."
"The dickens you say! I wish you hadn't told me that."
"And I went in for art," Gladwin raced on, carried breathlessly on the tide of his emotions and ignoring his friend's observations. "I went in for these things on the walls, statuary, ceramics, rugs, and tapestries."
"You've got a mighty fine collection," struck in Barnes.
"Yes, but I soon got tired of art--I still hungered for romance. I went abroad to find it. I said to myself, 'If there's a real thrill anywhere on this earth for a poor millionaire, I'll try and find it--make a thorough search. It wasn't any use. Every country I went to was the same. All I could find were things my money could buy and all those things have long ceased to interest me. There was only once in all the years I've been craving a romance"----
"Hold up there, Travers Gladwin, you're talking like Methusaleh. You've been of age only a few years."
"Seems centuries, but as I started to say--there was only once. Two years ago in a trolley car, right here in the midst of this heartless city. Seated opposite me was a girl--a blonde--most beautiful hair you ever saw. No use my trying to describe her eyes, clearest, bluest and keep right on piling up the superlatives--peaches and cream complexion with a transparent down on it, dimples and all that sort of thing. You know the kind--a goddess every inch of her. Her clothes were poor and I knew by that she was honest."
The young man paused and gazed rapturously into space.
"Go on; go on," urged Barnes. "Poor but honest."
"I caught her eye once and my heart thumped--could feel it beating against my cigarette case."
"That's the real soul-mate stuff; go on!" cried Barnes.
"Well, she got off at one of the big shops. I followed. She went in one of the employees' entrances. She worked there--I could see that."
"And did you wait for her to go out to lunch?"
"No, I had an engagement. Next day I caught that same car, but she was not on it. I kept on trying and the fourth day she was on the car, looking lovelier than ever. When she got off the car I got off. I stepped up and raised my hat.
"'Forgive me for approaching you in this impertinent manner,' I said, 'but I would like to introduce myself,' and I handed her my card."
The youthful head of the house of Gladwin stopped abruptly and slid listlessly into a chair.
"I demand to hear what she replied," insisted Barnes.
"It wasn't just what she said," mused Gladwin, "though that was bad enough, but it was the way she said it. These were her exact words, 'Go on, yer fresh slob, an' sneak yer biscuits!' How does that suit you for exploding a romance?"
"Blown to powder and bits," murmured Whitney Barnes, sombrely. "Sorry you told me this--never mind why--but there's one thing I've been wanting to ask you for a long time: How about that girl you rescued from drowning four years ago? I remember it made you quite famous at the time. According to all standards of romance, you should have married her."
Travers Gladwin looked up with a wry smile.
"Did you ever see the lady?" he asked sharply.
"No. Wasn't she pretty?"
"She was a brunette."
"You don't fancy brunettes?"
"She was a dark brunette."
"Dark?"
"Yes, from Africa."
"That was tough luck!" exclaimed Barnes without cracking a smile. _