"Oh!" The blood sprang to Val's face, his scar showing very white. No need, it seemed, for further questions. He thought he knew what Miss Isidora Alexander had been reading in the paper, and cursed himself for having uttered the name of Loveland. If he had not told her that enquiries must be made at the Waldorf for Lord Loveland's cablegram and letters, she would not associate Mr. Gordon, Bill Willing's friend, with the hero of "New York Light's" story.
That cad, Milton, had evidently made up some tale, on recovering his disgusting senses, a tale not too damaging to himself, and had named his assailant.
"Give me the paper, please," Val demanded.
"Not now," said the girl. "Dutchy's looking, and that, silly boy, Blinkey, has just come in. I don't know as Dutchy reads English, and 'tain't likely Blinkey bothers about the news, even when he gets time. But you never can tell. They may have read, and they may be putting things together already. Better not let 'em guess we're alludin' to anything in the paper."
"Is it about my knocking a man down?" asked Loveland.
"Yes, a swell, well known in s'ciety. I've seen his name often in 'Town Chat.' And it's about you at the hotel, too——"
Suddenly it seemed to Val that he would not have the heart to read that article about himself in the newspapers. His sensitive vanity sent a sharp twinge through his body, as if a nerve had been touched with the point of a knife. That scene of his humiliation in the Waldorf Restaurant, and afterwards in the hall! how could he bear to see it all set out in vulgar print, accompanied perhaps by an "interview" with the hotel employé who had turned him into the street? No, he could not look at the paper, could not see himself held up to public ridicule—probably by the pen of the man he had ordered from his door with Cadwallader Hunter yesterday in the morning.
Physically, Loveland was not a coward; but touch his vanity and he shrank as if with fear, and, mortified to the quick, as his imagination pictured the amusement his plight must be at this moment creating round thousands of breakfast tables, he broke in upon the girl's revelations, almost roughly. "Never mind—that part now," he said. "That's nothing. Has the man Milton set the police on me?"
"Nope. I guess not. There's a kind of interview with him in the paper, and he says he deserved what he got for havin' anything to do with a man of your sort. He says after he'd told you exactly what he thought of you, you hit him from behind; which I don't believe, because you ain't that kind, I'll bet——"
"Thank you," said Loveland, looking so handsome in the pallor of his anger that the Jewish girl could not take her eyes from his face. Her sensuous temperament made her adore beauty, of which she saw little in her everyday life. It was because she loved beauty and colour that she chose red and other vivid-hued dresses for herself. Because she loved beauty she studied fashion-plates, and pinched in her plump waist to what she considered perfect elegance of form. Because she loved beauty and thought she was attaining it, she covered her smooth polished skin with pearl powder, and tortured her hair with metal curling-pins. Because she loved beauty she was now ready to fling her soul at this stranger's feet. Having read the newspaper, she believed him to be a blackguard; but she had not been taught a high standard of virtue for men; and if she had, she would still have been fiercely ready to protect this splendid scoundrel.