The girl laughed, but did not lack the cleverness to see how her point might best be gained. “Are you short of money, really?” she said, with quick sympathy. “Why, you poor old Jack, it’s a shame. We’ll go on the river, then, in a little boat, all snug and nice. You dear boy; you need some one to comfort you,” and the big blue eyes gazed up into his, bold and unashamed.
She had comprehended his mood perfectly. Instantly his tone changed. “No, no,” he answered quickly, “won’t do an’thing of the kind. Got little money left for frens.” He laughed uncertainly. “’F you want motor, you’re going t’ have motor. That’s all there’sh to it. Do an’thing for you, Jeanne.”
She smiled up at him with dangerous sweetness. “You’re so good to me, Jack,” she murmured, and the gentle pressure on his arm was in nowise diminished. “You do everything for me. I only wish sometimes I could do something for you.”
He gazed down at her, all that was weakest and worst in his nature uppermost in his face. “Maybe can,” he said thickly, “maybe can; come on; we’re goin’ get motor now.”
At about the same hour that Carleton had left the Mayflower, farther up-town, in the reception-room at the Press Club, Arthur Vaughan sat waiting for his friend Helmar to return. He was a young man of medium height and build, inclined to be a trifle careless about his dress; his clothes a little threadbare; his brown hair and mustache allowed to grow a little too long; his carelessly knotted tie a good year out of style. Yet his face, looked at more closely, was distinctly good; a face somewhat thin and worn; the mouth and chin nervous, sensitive; the forehead high; the brown eyes straightforward and kindly,—the eyes of a man a little detached from the world about him, a little inclined, on his way through life, unconsciously to pause and dream.
Presently the door opened, and Helmar entered, the expression on his face one of half-humorous disgust. “Same old Jack Carleton,” he said. “He’s not down-stairs, and it’s five minutes of eight. You’re sure he understood?”
Vaughan nodded. “Oh, perfectly,” he answered, “I saw him Wednesday night, and told him that your meeting had been changed to Thursday, so that we’d have to put this thing over until to-night; and then I gave him Miss Graham’s message, and told him he’d have to square himself with her, because we couldn’t put things off again. And I remember his saying that it was all right for him; I even recall his repeating it after me, as if he wanted to make sure of it, ‘seven-thirty, Press Club; eight o’clock, theater; eleven o’clock, Press Club, supper and talk’; oh, no, he understood all right. I’m sure of it.”
Helmar considered. “Well,” he said at length, “just because Jack’s got a poor memory, I can’t see why we should miss a good show. Let’s leave his ticket at the desk, and if he happens to drift in, all right. Then he can come on after us. Isn’t that O. K.?” and on Vaughan’s assent, they left the club for the theater, where in due course the curtain rose, and later fell again upon an excellent performance, indeed, but without revealing any sign of the absent Carleton. Once outside in the street, Helmar turned to Vaughan. “Well, what next?” he queried.
Vaughan shrugged his shoulders. “Why, the supper’s ordered,” he answered, “so I suppose we might as well go ahead in solitary state. But it rather takes the edge off the thing. It’s too bad,” and a moment or two later he added, half to himself, and half to his companion, “I don’t know what to think of Jack, really.”