LAURIE SOLVES A PROBLEM
Laurie walked across the square to his own rooms. A sudden gloom had fallen upon him. He saw himself sitting in his study, gazing remotely at his shoes, until it was time to dress for the evening and his formal call on Doris.
The prospect was not attractive. He hoped Bangs would be at home. If so, perhaps he could goad him into one of the rages in which Bangs was so picturesque; but he was not sure of even this mild diversion. Rodney had been wonderfully sweet-tempered the past three days, though preoccupied, as if in the early stages of creative art. Laurie half suspected that he had begun work on his play. The suspicion aroused conflicting emotions of relief and half-jealous regret. Why couldn't the fellow wait till they could go at it together? He ignored the fact that already the fellow had waited six weeks.
Bangs was not at home. The square, flat-topped mahogany desk at which the two young men worked together blinked up at Laurie with the undimmed luster of a fine piece of furniture on which the polisher alone had labored that morning. Without taking the trouble to remove his hat and coat, Laurie dropped into a chair and tried to think things out. But the process of thinking eluded him, or, rather, his mind shied at it as a skittish horse might shy if confronted on a dark road with shapes vaguely familiar yet mysterious.
Frankly, he couldn't make head or tail of this mess Doris seemed to be in. His memory reminded him that such "messes" existed. He had heard and read of all sorts of plots and counter-plots, in which all types of humans figured. His imagination underscored the memory. But, someway, Doris—he loved to repeat the name even to himself—someway Doris was not the type that figured in such plots.
Also, there were other things hard to understand. She had let herself starve for four days, though she wore around her neck a chain that she admitted represented a month's support. And this fellow, Herbert Ransome Shaw—where the devil did he come in? A fellow with a name like that and with snaky eyes like his was capable of anything. And yet—
Young Devon had the intolerance of American youth for the things outside his personal experience. The sort of thing Doris was hinting at didn't happen here; that was all there was to it. What was happening seemed pretty clear. The girl was, or fancied herself, in the power of an unscrupulous scamp who was using that power for some purpose of his own. If that was it—and this thing, Laurie handsomely admitted, really did happen sometimes—it ought to be fairly easy for an athletic chap of twenty-four to put an end to it. He recalled the look in Shaw's projecting eyes, the snakelike forward thrust of his sleek head; and an intense desire seized him to get his hands on the fellow's throat and choke him till his eyes stuck out twice as far as they did now. If that were duty, then duty would be a delight.
Having reached this edifying point in his reflections, he rose. Why delay? Perhaps he could find the chap somewhere. Perhaps the waiter at the restaurant where they had lunched knew where he lived. But, no, of course not. It was not the kind of restaurant his sort patronized. Shaw had simply followed him and Doris there; that was all there was to it. He, Laurie, would have to wait for another encounter. Meantime he might run around to the club and box for an hour. He had been getting a bit out of condition this month. A bout with McDonald, the club trainer, would do him good. Or, by Jove, he'd go and see Louise Ordway!
He had promised his new brother-in-law, Bob Warren, to keep an eye on Bob's sister while Warren and Barbara were in Japan, and Laurie had kept the promise with religious fidelity and very real pleasure. He immensely liked and admired Mrs. Ordway, who seemed, strangely, to be always at home of late. He had formed the habit of running in several times a week. Louise not only talked, but, as Laurie expressed it, "she said things." He had spent with her many of the afternoons and evenings Bangs checked up to the cabarets.
He glanced at his watch. For an hour he had been impersonating a gentleman engaged in profound meditation, with the sole result that he had decided to go to see Louise. It was quite possible he could enlist her interest in Doris. Now, that was an inspiration! Perhaps Mrs. Ordway would understand Doris. Every woman, he vaguely believed, understood all other women. He smoothed his hair, straightened his tie, and hurried off.
He found Mrs. Ordway reclining on a chaise longue before an open fire, in the boudoir in which his sister Barbara had spent so many hours of the past year, playing the invalid to sleep. She wore a superb Mandarin coat, of soft and ravishing tints, and her love for rich colors was reflected in the autumnal tones of her room and even in the vari-colored flames of her driftwood fire. To Louise these colors were as definite as mellow trumpet-tones. She had responded to them all her life. She was responding to them still, now that she lay dying among them. Something in their superb arrogance called forth an answering note from her own arrogant soul.
She greeted her brother's young brother-in-law with the almost disdainful smile she now turned on everything, but which was softened a little for him. Ignorant of the malady that was eating her life away, as indeed all her friends were ignorant of it, save Barbara and her doctors, Laurie delighted in the picture she made. He showed his delight as he dropped into a chair by her side. They fell at once into the casual banter that characterized their intercourse.
"I wonder why I ever leave here?" he mused aloud, as the clock struck six. He had been studying with a slight shock the changes that had taken place in the few days since he had seen her. For the first time the suspicion crossed his mind that she might be seriously ill. Throughout their talk he had observed things, trifles, perhaps, but significant, which, if they had occurred before, had escaped him.
Susanne, Mrs. Ordway's maid, though modestly in the background, was rarely out of sight; and a white-capped nurse, till now an occasional and illusive vision in the halls, blew in and out of the sick-room like a breeze, bringing liquids in glasses, which the patient obediently swallowed. Laurie, his attention once caught, took it all in. But his face gave no hint of his new knowledge, and the eyes of Louise still met his with the challenge they turned on every one these days—a challenge that definitely forbade either understanding or sympathy.
"The real problem is why you ever come." She spoke lightly, but looked at him with genuine affection. Laurie was one of her favorites, her prime favorite, indeed, next to Bob and Barbara. He smiled at her with tender significance.
"You know why I come."
"I do," she agreed, "perfectly. I know you're quite capable of flirting with me, too, if I'd let you, you absurd boy. Laurie,"—for a moment or two she was almost serious—"why don't you fall in love?"
"And this from you?"
"Don't be foolish. You know I like your ties," she interpolated kindly. "But, really, isn't there some one?"
Laurie turned his profile to her, pulled a lock of hair over his brow, clasped his hands between his knees, and posed esthetically.
"Do you know," he sighed, "I begin to think that, just possibly, perhaps, there's a slight chance—that there is!"
"Be serious. Tell me about her."
"Well, she's a girl." He produced this confidence with ponderous solemnity. "She lives across the square from me," he added.
"Things brighten," commented Louise, drily. "Go on."
"She's mysterious. I don't know who she is, or anything about her. But I know that she's in trouble."
"Of course she is! I have never known a mysterious maiden that wasn't," commented the woman of the world. "What's her particular variety of trouble?"
Laurie reflected.
"That's hard to say," he brought out at last. "But it appears to be mixed up with an offensive person in a crumpled blue suit who answers to the name of Herbert Ransome Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?"
Louise wrinkled her fastidious nose.
"Never, I'm happy to say. But he doesn't sound attractive. However, tell me all about them. There seems a good chance that they may get you into trouble."
"That's what she said."
"It's the one gleam of intelligence I see in the situation," commented his candid friend. "Is she pretty?"
"As lovely in her way as you are. Think you could help her any?" wheedled Laurie.
"I doubt it. I'm too selfish to be bothered with girls who are in trouble. I'll tell you who can help her—Sonya Orleneff."
"Of course!" Laurie beamed at her. "Wonder why I didn't think of that."
"Probably because it was so obvious. Sonya is in town, as it happens, stopping at the Warwick. She has brought the Infant Samuel to New York to have his adenoids cut out. Samuel made a devastating visit here this morning. He's getting as fat as a little pig, and when he walks he puffs like a worn-out automobile going up a steep grade. He came up my stairs on 'low,' and I'm sure they heard him on the avenue. I almost offered him a glass of gasolene. But he is a lamb," she added reflectively. Oddly enough, Samuel, late of New York's tenements, was another of her favorites.
Laurie was following his own thoughts. Sonya was in town! Then, however complicated his problem, it was already as good as solved.
"My dinner will be up soon," suggested Louise. "Are you dining with me?"
He glanced at his watch, reproachfully shook his head at it, and rose.
"Three hours of me are all you can have this time. But I'll probably drop around about dawn to-morrow."
"Nice boy!" Her hot hand caught his and held it. "Laurie, if—if—I should send for you suddenly sometime—you'd come and—stand by?"
All the gaiety was wiped from his face. His brilliant black eyes, oddly softened, looked into her haughty blue ones with sudden understanding.
"You bet I will! Any time, anything! You'll remember that? Send for me as if I were Bob. Perhaps you've forgotten it," he added, more lightly, "but I happen to be your younger brother."
For a moment her face twisted. The mask of her arrogance fell from it.
"Bob didn't know," she said. "If he had felt the least suspicion he wouldn't have gone so far, or for so long. I thought I had three or four months—"
Laurie bent and kissed her cheek.
"I'm coming in every day," he said, and abruptly left the room.
In the lower hall he stopped to take in the full real realization of what he had discovered. Louise, superb, arrogant, beautiful Louise, was really ill, desperately ill. A feeling of remorse mingled with his sense of shock. He had believed her a sort of nervous hypochondriac. He had so resented her excessive demands on Barbara that it was only since he had seen much of her in this last month that he had been able whole-heartedly to like and admire her.
As he stood silent, he became conscious of another presence—an august, impressive one, familiar in the past but veiled now, as it were, in a midst of human emotion. It was Jepson, the butler. He coughed humbly.
"Hexcuse me, sir," he faltered. "But Mrs. Hordway h'ain't quite so well lately, sir. 'Ave you hobserved that?"
Laurie nodded. "I noticed it to-day," he admitted.
"She's losin' strength very fast, sir. Hall of us 'as seen it. Cook says she don't eat nothink. And Susanne and the nurse says it's 'ard work to get 'er from the bed to 'er chair—"
Laurie checked these revelations.
"Has the doctor been here to-day?"
"Yessir, two of 'em 'ave been 'ere. Doctor Speyer comes hevery day. This morning 'e brought Doctor Hames again. Hit's very hupsetting, sir, with 'er brother away and hall."
The man was genuinely anxious. Laurie tried to reassure him.
"She may be better in a day or two," he said, more buoyantly than he felt. "But I'll come in every day. And here's my telephone number. If anything goes wrong, call me up immediately. Leave a message if I'm not there."
"Yessir. Thank you, sir." Jepson was pathetically grateful and relieved. He had the English servant's characteristic need of sanction and authority.
When Laurie reached his rooms, he called Sonya on the telephone. Like Jepson, he was feeling rather overwhelmed by his responsibilities. It was a relief to hear Sonya's deep, colorful voice.
"Didn't know you were here till just now," he told her. "I'm coming to see you in the morning. I want to talk to you about a lot of things."
"Including Mrs. Ordway?" suggested Sonya.
"Yes. You saw her to-day. You noticed—"
"Of course. Samuel is to be operated on to-morrow. I'll send him back to Devon House with his mother in a few days, as soon as he can safely travel, and I shall stay right here."
"That's splendid of you!"
"It's what Barbara and Mr. Warren would wish. And Mrs. Ordway, too, I think, though she would never suggest it."
"I'm sure it is."
Laurie hung up the receiver with a nervous hand. To a youth of twenty-four it is a somewhat overpowering experience to discover that destiny is especially busy over the affairs of two women for whom he has assumed a definite responsibility. As he turned from the instrument its bell again compelled his attention. He took up the receiver, and the voice of a girl came to his ear. A week or two ago he had rather liked that voice and its owner, a gay, irresponsible, good-hearted little creature who pranced in the front row of an up-town pony ballet. Now he listened to it with keen distaste.
"Hello, Laurie," it twittered. "Is that you? This is Billie. Listen. I gotta plan. A bunch of us is goin' out to Gedney to supper to-night. We're goin' to leave right after the show. Are you on?"
Laurie got rid of the fair Billie. He did it courteously but very firmly. A rather unusual degree of firmness was necessary, for Miss Billie was not used to having her invitations refused. She accepted the phenomenon with acute unwillingness and very lingeringly.
Bangs was not at home, to divert his chum's mind with his robust conversation. As he dressed for his call on Doris, the sharp contrasts of life struck Laurie with the peculiar force with which they hit the young and the inexperienced.
But were they really contrasts? On the one side were Louise, dying, and Doris, seemingly eager to die. On the other were Billie and her friends—foolish little butterflies, enjoying their brief hour in the secret garden of life, eternally chattering about "good times," playing they were happy, perhaps even thinking they were happy, but infinitely more tragic figures than Louise and Doris. Yet a week ago he had thought they amused him!
Pondering on these and other large problems, he absently removed the bloom from three fresh white ties.