_ CHAPTER VIII. THE COURTELYOU RECEPTION
Two weeks later Pauline and Harry were sitting in the library. Through the half-closed blinds a soft breeze bore to them the fragrance of carnations and roses.
For the first few days after their return Pauline was so thankful they had not lost their lives that she was reconciled to not having found the treasure. But only for the first few days. She was already growing restless.
"You're wasting time, Harry," she said impatiently. "I'd rather face anything than be bored to death."
"Polly, it's got to stop; it isn't safe, it isn't sensible, it isn't even fun any more. Won't you drop the whole freakish thing and marry me?"
Harry was holding Pauline by the hand as she drew her dainty way out of the library. In laughing rebellion she looked over her shoulder and jeered at him.
"Oh, I thought it was I who was going to be afraid," she said.
"Well, if you aren't, who is going to be?"
"You," she tittered.
He drew her back with a gentle but firm grasp.
"Honestly, Polly, aren't you satisfied yet? Adventure is all right for breakfast or for luncheon once a month, but as a regular unremitting diet it gets on my nerves."
"Still thinking of your own perils?" she volleyed.
Harry's fine keen face took on a look of earnest appeal. He let go her hand, but as she started to run up the stairs he held her with his eyes.
"You dear, silly boy," she cried, returning a step and clasping him in an impetuous embrace. "You are the nicest brother in all the world-- sometimes--but just now I think that adventure is nicer than brothers --or husbands. I'm having the time of my life, Harry boy, and I'm going on and on, and on with it until I've seen all the wild and wicked people and places in the world."
Harry caught her hand and smiled down at her in surrender.
A ring at the door bell and the entrance of the maid caused Pauline to flutter up the stairs. They were preparing to attend the Courtelyou's reception that evening to the great Baskinelli, whose musical achievements had been equaled only by his social successes during this, his first New York season.
"Anyway," she twinkled from the top of the stairs, "you needn't be frightened for tonight. Nothing so meek and mild as a pianist can hurt you."
Harry tossed up his hands in mimic despair and started back to the library.
"Yes, I know she is always at home to you, Miss Hamlin," the maid was saying at the door.
"What a privileged person I am," laughed Lucille Hamlin.
She was Pauline's chum-in-chief, a dark, still tempered girl, in perfect contrast to the adventurous Polly. She greeted Harry with the easy grace of old acquaintanceship.
"Still nursing the precious broken heart?" she queried.
"For the love of Michael, me and humanity," he pleaded, "can't you do something? She won't listen to me. I'm honestly, deucedly worried, Lucille."
"You know very well that nobody could ever do anything with Polly. She always had to have her own way--and that's why you love her, though you don't know it, Harry. Shall I run upstairs, Margaret?" she added, turning to the maid.
"No, you're going to stay here," commanded Harry, seizing her hands. "You've got to do something with Pauline. You're the only one who can. She wants a new adventure every day, and a more dangerous one every time. Talk to her, won't you? Tell her it isn't right for her to risk her life when her life is so precious to so many people. No, wait a minute; sit down here. I'm not half through yet."
He drew her, under laughing protest, to a seat beside him on the stairs. She realized suddenly how serious he was. She let her hand rest comradely in his pleading grasp.
"Why, Harry, yes, if it is really dangerous, you know, I'll do anything I can," she said gravely.
They did not see the cold gray face of Raymond Owen appear at the top of the stairs. The face vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
In her boudoir Polly was laying out her finery of the evening. There came a soft rap at the door.
"Come in," she called, and looked up brightly in Owen's furtive eyes as he opened the door and motioned to her.
"Don't say anything, please, Miss Marvin," he whispered, "just come with me for a moment."
Bewildered by his manner, she followed to the top of the stairs. He directed her gaze to the two young people in earnest conversation below.
It was a picture that might well have startled a less impetuous heart than Pauline's. Harry's hand still clasped Lucille's, and he was leaning toward her in the eagerness of his appeal.
"You, will? You promise? Lucille, you've made me happy," Pauline heard him say.
Through mist-dimmed eyes, dizzily, she saw the two arise. She saw the man she loved clasp Lucille's other hand. She saw the girl who had been her friend and confidante since childhood draw herself away from him with a lingering withdrawal that could mean--ah, what could it not mean? Polly fled to her room.
In Owen's subtle secret battle to retain control of the Marvin millions fate had never so befriended him. None of all the weapons or ruses that he had used to prevent the faithful attachment of Harry and Pauline was as potent as this little seed of jealousy.
Pauline rang for her maid.
"Tell Miss Hamlin that I am not at home," she said in a voice that started haughtily but ended in a sob.
"But, Miss Marvin--" Margaret tried to demur.
"Tell Miss Hamlin that I am not at home," repeated Pauline.
Lucille had just started up the stairs, leaving Harry with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
"Well, even if I caret do anything with that wild woman," she laughed back at him, "you know Pauline bears a charmed life. Nothing has ever happened to her yet. Guardian angels surround her--as well as heroes."
Harry walked into the library. The agitated Margaret met Lucille on the stairs.
"Miss Marvin is--Miss Marvin is not at home," the girl said, flushing crimson.
Lucille paused, dumfounded.
"But, Margaret, you know I thought--I really thought she was, at home, Miss Hamlin. I hope you won't be offended with me."
"I insist upon seeing her," cried Lucille. "I don't believe you are telling me the truth. I'm going right up to her room."
Margaret burst into tears.
Lucille quickly reconsidered. Indignation took the place of astonishment. She hurried down the stairs and rushed through the door without waiting for Margaret to open it.
Pauline, back in her own room, vented her first rage in tears. With her hot face pressed against the pillow, she sobbed out the agony of what she thought her betrayal--her double betrayal, by courtier and comrade at once. But the tears passed. Too vital was the spirit in her, too red flowing in her veins was the blood of fighting ancestors, too strong the fortress of self-command within the blossoming gardens of her youth and beauty for the word surrender ever to come to her mind.
True, she had found an adventure that stirred her more deeply than the peril of land or sea or sky could have done. Here was a thrill that had never been listed among her intended tremors. She sent for Owen.
Masked as ever in his suave exterior and his manner of mingled obsequiousness and fatherliness, he came instantly.
"Mr. Owen, have you known--have you known that this was going on?"
"I feel that it is my duty to know what concerns you--even what concerns your happiness, Miss Marvin," he answered.
"You mean?"
"I mean that I have long had my suspicions."
But again the very perfection of his deceit brought Pauline that feeling that she had had since childhood that sense of an insidious influence always surrounding her, always menacing and yet never revealed. This influence, which Owen seemed to embody, was the antagonist of that other mysterious power, so real and yet so inexplicable, that warded and protected her--the spirit of the girl that had stepped from the mummy.
But Pauline had seen with her own eyes; she did not need any word of Owen's to convince her of the falsity of her lover.
She was quite calm now. She dressed with the utmost care. Margaret, who had seen her in such anger only a short time before, was surprised at her sprightliness and graciousness. A slightly heightened color that only added to the luster of her loveliness, was the single sign of her inward thoughts. She summoned her own car and left the house alone.
The drawing room of the Clarence Courtelyou mansion was ablaze with light. There was a little too much light. The Clarence Courtelyou always had a little too much of everything.
There was a little too much money; there was a little too much gold leaf decoration in the drawing room, a little too much diamond decoration of Mrs. Courtelyou, and, if you were so fastidiously impolite as to say so, a little too much of Mrs. Courtelyou herself.
But Mrs. Courtelyou was struggling toward gentility in such an amiable way that better people liked her. The motherliness and sweet sincerity of her--the fact that she loved her frankly illiterate husband and worshipped, almost from afar, her cultured daughters was the thing that brought her down from the base height of the "climbers" and lifted her kindly, harmless personality to the high simplicities of the elite.
She made the natural mistake that other wealthy mendicants at the outer portals of society have made the mistake of pounding at the gates. Instead of letting the splendor of her charitable gifts, the gracefulness of her simplicity, carry her through, she went in for the gorgeous and the costly.
As a sort of crowning glory she began to "take up" artists and actors and musicians. She gained the good graces of the best of them, and in her kindly innocence she won the worship of the worst.
It was thus that she came to the point of holding a reception for Baskinelli.
Not that any one had heard anything black, or even shadowy, against Baskinelli. He had arrived recently from abroad, his foreign fame preceding him, his prospective conquests of America fulsomely foretold, his low brow decorated in advance with laurel.
Mrs. Courtelyou added him to her collection with the swiftness and directness of the entomologist discovering a new bug. She herself loved music--without understanding it very deeply--and Baskinelli, whatever might be his other gifts, could summon all the cadences of love from the machines that people call a piano--engine of torture or instrument of joy.
For half an hour Harry paced at the foot of the stairs.
"I wonder if she's ever coming," he fumed to himself. "It takes 'em so long to do it that they drive you crazy, and when it's done they're so wonderful that they drive you crazy."
"Did you--did you wish anything, sir?" asked the butler, entering.
"No--just waiting for Miss Pauline, Jenkins--just waiting," sighed Harry.
"Why--if I may presume to tell you, sir--Miss, Marvin has gone to the reception," said Jenkins.
"Gone!" Harry cried abruptly, hotly, then remembered that he was speaking to a servant and swung into the reception room.
He put on his hat and coat and rang for Jenkins again.
"How long ago was it that Miss Pauline went out?"
"Almost an hour ago, sir."
Harry slammed his way out of the door. It was not until he was in the car on his way to the Courtelyous that he began to think--began to think with utterly wrong deductions, as lovers always do.
"I must have said too much," he told himself. "She's crazy about these wild pranks and she thinks I'm a stupid goody-goody. What a fool I was to try to prevent her!"
"You aren't very nice, Mr. Marvin, to snub my pet musician--my very newest pet musician," Mrs. Courtelyou rebuked him, as he entered.
"I didn't mean it. I was waiting for--why, my car went to pieces," he explained. "Is Pauline here?"
"Here? She is the only person present. Baskinelli hasn't spoken a word to any one else. He won't play anything unless she suggests the subject. I am glad Mr. Owen is here to protect her."
From the scintillant, filmy mist of women around the piano Lucille emerged. She came swiftly to Harry's side.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
"What is? Tell me." he replied. "What did you say to her?"
"I didn't see her, Harry. She sent word that she was not at home."
"You don't mean--not after you started upstairs."
"Yes--and she hasn't spoken to me all evening."
"And she left me waiting at home for half an hour. It's outrageous."
Harry strode across the floor just as the music ceased, and Baskinelli arose, bowing to the applause of his feminine admirers.
"May I ask the honor to show to you Madame Courtelyou's portrait of myself? It is called 'The Glorification of Imbecility,'" he said as he proffered his arm to Pauline.
He was a small man, with sharp features shadowed by a mass of flowing, curling hair--the kind of hair that has come to be called "musical" by the irreverent. The sweep of an abnormal brow gave emphasis to the sudden jut of deep eye sockets, and a dull, sallow skin gave emphasis to the subtle sinister light, of the eyes themselves.
Pauline accepted the proffered arm of the artist, but daintily, laughingly, she turned him back to the piano.
"You haven't yet escaped, Signor Baskinelli," she said. "We have not yet heard 'Tivoli,' you know."
"Tivoli," he cried, with hands upraised in mock disdain. "Why, I wrote the thing myself. Am I to violate even my own masterpieces?"
There was a twitter of mocking protest from the women. Baskinelli began to play again.
"Pauline, may I speak to you--just a moment?" Harry's vexed voice reached her ear as she stood beside the piano. She turned slowly and looked into his bewildered, angry eyes.
"A little later--possibly," she answered, and instantly turned back to Baskinelli.
From her no mask of music, no glamour of others' admiration could hide the predatory obsequiousness of Baskinelli. She was not in the least interested in Baskinelli. She had loathed him from the moment when she had looked down on his little oily curls. But if Baskinelli had been Beelzebub he would have enjoyed the favor of Pauline that evening--at least, after Harry had arrived.
The glowing piquant beauty of Pauline enthralled Baskinelli. He had never before seen a woman like her--innocent but astute, daring but demure, brilliant but opalescent. When at last they strolled away together into the conservatory his drawing room obeisances became direct declarations of love.
Pauline began to be frightened.
She fluttered to the door of the conservatory. But there she paused. Voices sounded from the end of a little rose-rimmed alley. They were the voices of Harry and Lucille.
Baskinelli was at her side again.
"If I have said anything--done anything to offend," he said, with affected contrition, "you will let me make my lowliest apologies, won't you?"
Pauline hardly heard him. She was intently listening to the low pitched voices.
"I--I think I will run back to the others," she cried suddenly. Baskinelli was left alone.
"I congratulate you, Signor, on the success of the evening," said a voice at his shoulder. "There are few among the famous who can conquer drawing rooms as well as auditoriums."
The musician turned to face the ingratiating smile of Raymond Owen.
"I thank you--I thank you, sir. But I do not believe you. My 'conquest' has turned to catastrophe. I have lost everything."
"You mean that you are dissatisfied with the applause?" asked Owen.
"No! No! Applause is nothing from the many. There is always one in his audience to whom he plays from his soul."
"And that one--tonight?"
"The lovely Miss--what, now, is her name--Marvin. She bewitches me --and she scorns me."
"Signor Baskinelli, there are other places than drawing rooms, or even conservatories, in which to capture those who captivate."
"I--do I quite grasp your meaning, Mistaire Owen?" He tried to disguise the suspicion under an accentuated accent.
"I think so, Monsieur Picquot."
At the name Baskinelli turned livid. He made a movement as if he would lunge at the throat of Owen, but his fury withered under the glassy smile.
"So--we met in Paris?"
"Once upon a time--a little incident in the Rue St. Jeanne. A young woman was concerned in that incident--and was not heard of afterward."
"And you are trying to blackmail me for the death of Marie Disart! Ha! That is a jest," cried Baskinelli.
"I am trying to do nothing of the kind. I simply reminded you of the little affair. I know as well as you that it was all beautifully cleared up, and a man is still in prison for it. I know you are as safe here as that man is in jail, Signor Baskinelli."
"What are you talking about, then?"
"The little woman that so charmed you here. I remarked merely that those who are captivated can capture."
"Not in this country--not among the Puritans. One must be good-- and unhappy."
"You haven't forgotten your little friends, Mario, and Di Palma and Vitrio? They are all respected residents of New York. We know, where they might be found."
"At Cagliacci's?"
"Precisely. Dining upon the best of spaghetti and the richest of wines, and paying for it at the point of a stiletto."
"But--ha! You are talking nonsense. We could not find them; they could not find us."
"We might telephone and try," suggested Owen. "Cagliacci, you know, is now up-to-date. He has a telephone. He considers it a sign of respectability."
"And then what do you propose?"
"Picquot--I mean Signor Baskinelli, I propose nothing. Unless possibly there might be--after the reception--a little motor trip to Chinatown. It might amuse the ladies."
"You are right. I will invite them all," said Baskinelli.
"And how about calling up Marie at Cagliacci's just as an old friend?"
"It might be best."
They moved together down the corridor and Owen directed their way to a little study secluded from all other apartments of the great house.
"You seem to be familiar with the home of our gracious hostess," remarked Baskinelli.
"I make it a rule to be familiar with all homes in which Miss Marvin is entertained."
"Miss Marvin? You are, then a relative?"
"I am her guardian."
"Ah-h! You have control--perhaps--of certain small sums bequeathed to her?"
"Yes."
"And you would like to have as few persons as possible in the Chinatown party?"
"As few as possible."
In a place known only as Cagliacci's, in the dreg depths of Elizabeth street, the ringing of the telephone bell was much more startling, much more unusual than the crash of a pistol shot or the blast of a bomb.
The habitu's moved quietly to the door that leads to the roofs, while Pietro Cagliacci himself wiped the dust-covered receiver on his apron and put it to his ear.
He spoke softly, tersely. The conversation was very brief. Within a minute after he had hung up the receiver three grimy-clad, grim-visaged men left the place silently.
Harry and Lucille came out of the conservatory.
"I tell you there wasn't anything said between us that could have caused it," he was saying. "I was fighting the whole thing hard, but I was fighting it like a beggar. I am always a beggar with Pauline."
"But you told her it wasn't right that she was risking other people's lives?"
"No, I told you to tell her that."
In spite of her distress over Pauline's coldness, Lucille burst into laughter.
They were just emerging into the music room. Pauline, like the others, turned at the unexpected sound. She gave one glance at the two and turned haughtily away.
Baskinelli was bustling about, making up an impromptu excursion party.
"Ha! You people of New York--you do not know what is in New York. All Europe is here--and you never cross Fourteenth street--I mean to say Fifth avenue."
"It is more dangerous to cross Fifth avenue than to cross the ocean-- that's probably the reason," said Harry. "The traffic cops along the Gulf Stream are so careful."
Pauline stopped Baskinelli's intended reply. She wanted Harry to be ignored utterly. Her anger had made him flippant. His flippancy had put the seal of completeness upon her anger. _