The Eddy: A Novel of To-day

by Clarence Louis Cullen

Jesse laughed. He was tolerant enough of the idiosyncrasies of his intimates, and this one, the "swift goer," had been of use to him in New York as a sort of organizer and major domo of revelries.

Jesse's apartment was on one of the quiet squares of Curzon Street, set amid a row of other houses given over to the accommodation of stationary and transient bachelors who found the restraints of London hotels irksome. It was beautifully appointed, even to the culinary department which Jesse himself only used on the occasions when he entertained companies of roystering Americans and their companions, who were usually more or less photographed figurantes from the musical comedies. His breakfast was brought to him from the Gaskins ménage in the basement, and he dined here, there and everywhere—not infrequently at the Savoy.

It had not taken Jesse long, following his arrival in London, to ascertain that Louise and Laura were at the Savoy. He had, in fact, within an hour after his arrival, caused a telephone canvass to be made of the London hotels mainly patronized by Americans during the touring season to gain this information. Now, lounging about his apartment while his Japanese man unpacked his things, he began upon the devising of a method whereby he might again meet Louise. He had been reluctantly forced to abandon the idea that by this time she might have "altered her prejudice" against him and might therefore be at least passively willing to meet him upon the plane of ordinary acquaintanceship, thus giving him an opportunity to exercise his fascinations upon her.

But he had not the least intention of abandoning his besiegement of Louise Treharne—even if the besiegement had to be turned into an ambuscade. He had come to London, leaving New York at a time when the market was setting strongly against him, solely with this purpose in his mind. He furnished himself with plenty of excuses for the deliberation with which he undertook this particular quest. It was his indurated habit to doubt the continence of all women; and he made no exception of Louise Treharne. The fact that she had scarcely been out of school a month when he had first met her did not in the least serve to give her immunity from such a doubt in Jesse's mind. His single guide in such appraisals of women was his own experience with them, and his experience, he told himself, embodied plenty of parallels to the case of Louise Treharne. Why should she be immune from a furtiveness, and the indulgences thereof, which he had so often studied at first hand? Why should she be less clever at dissimulation than many others he had known?

He had not the least doubt that he was right in this view. He sought to make himself believe that otherwise he would be entirely willing to permit Louise to go her way. But, being right, then it was intolerable that she should have flouted him—him!—as she had. It was a girlish, immature prejudice. He had not had sufficient opportunity to gain her better will. Her treatment of him had sorely touched his vanity as a moulder of women to his purposes. The circumstances of his meeting with her had deprived him of a fair chance. She was young, beautiful, and, he felt sure, superbly secretive. He had not the least intention of supinely yielding to her foolish belief—it could not be other than that—that she disliked him.

But how to proceed?

No problem, having to do with what he would have called his diversions, had ever before so daunted him. Laura, to begin with, was a stumbling block in his path. Laura, with whom he had a perfunctory acquaintanceship extending over several years, had pointedly cut him, not once, but frequently, since the newspapers had flared with accounts of the one disreputable affair concerning him which had leaked out. He knew very well that there was not the least possible chance for him to regain even a nodding plane with Laura Stedham. And she was the barrier between himself and Louise Treharne. They were rarely, he felt sure, out of each other's company. If Laura were out of the way, and he could reach Louise alone, there would, he felt, be a chance. It was unimaginable that Louise would, in such a case, be unresponsive to the allurements of his wealth, his power proceeding from wealth, his personality—Jesse felt so absolutely certain of this that he smiled when a vague doubt of it passed through his mind.

He had won many aloof women by bestowing upon them magnificent gifts. But he knew perfectly well that this method would not do with Louise Treharne. Whatever else she might be, there was, he felt, not a particle of greed in her. There had even been times when Jesse had not scrupled to effect his designs by putting forth the pretence that his devotions tended in but one direction—the altar. How to employ even this final method to engage the attention of a woman whose eyes, he very well knew, would flame with scorn of him even if she found herself accidentally in his presence?

For several hours, while Mutsu, his Japanese valet, went forward with the unpacking, Jesse strode up and down his apartment, going over this problem as he would have calculated the chances and mischances of a market campaign.

It was inevitable that Jesse, at the end of his study of the problem, should have reached but one conclusion: it must be an ambuscade.