“Why, yes; didn’t I tell you? I meant to send you a note of introduction to them. The judge is one of the stockholders in our mine—the vice-president, in fact.”
“And you say Mrs. Hobart is at Hollywood?”
“Yes; I brought her down on a visit. Too much altitude for her on Jack Mountain. But tell me about yourself. How has the world been using you?”
“As well as I deserve, I suppose,” answered Brant shortly—so shortly that Hobart knew not what to make of it. Then the conductor’s cry of “All aboard!” warned him that he had but a moment more, and he took a card from his case and scribbled a line on the back of it.
“Take this and call upon them—only you won’t need it if you will make yourself known to Kate. Sixteen, Altamont Terrace, is the number; but if you know Hollywood, you know the place. They are good people to know, and Kate will put you on an old friend’s footing from the start.” Hobart tossed his handbag up to the porter and turned back for a last word. “Now don’t put it off; go soon—this evening, if you have time.” And seeing that Brant stood as one indeterminate, he bent to whisper: “Kate knows nothing but good of you, if that makes any difference.”
Now in the face of all this kindly interest none but a churl could withhold the decent meed of gratitude. Brant did not withhold it, but if the light had been better Hobart must have seen that the thanks were little more than perfunctory—or, at least, less than hearty. Then the wheels began to turn, and there was time only for a hasty leave-taking; this also without heartiness on the part of the one who was not going. He stood scowling after the receding train until the two red eyes of the tail lights disappeared around a curve; then he turned and walked slowly uptown, with his hands deep in his overcoat pockets and his eyes on the sidewalk. There was little comfort to be got out of the late incident on the station platform. To be sure, it proved that Hobart was still stanch, and that he had not received the letter which was a cry for help. But Mrs. Hobart’s presence at Hollywood could only complicate matters.
What was in Brant’s mind as he tramped up the street was not readable in the face of him, but just before he turned out of the shop-lined thoroughfare he strode into a drug store and called for a pint of brandy. He had the bottle in his pocket when he reached his room, and when he had locked the door he stripped off his coat, found a glass, and poured himself a drink vast enough to drown a very amphibian trouble. At the moment of pouring the gas burned blue and sank to a pin point, as poor gas will, and the sheen from the arc light in the street set the liquor afire in the glass. The illusion was strong enough to draw him to the window, where he stood holding the glass to the light and watching the play of the electric beam in the brown liquid. In the act the gas burned brightly again, and two men who had been watching the house from the opposite sidewalk darted into the blue-black shadows of the curbstone cottonwoods.
Brant put the liquor down untasted, and waited long and patiently for the two figures to reappear beyond the cottonwoods. When it became apparent that the blue-black shadows were still concealing them, he turned out the gas and went back to the window to look again. This time his patience was rewarded by a glimpse of the two men; and when he had made sure of their identity, he drew up a chair and sat at the window to await further developments, with the big revolver laid across his knees.
And it was thus, sitting in his shirt sleeves, with his hand on the big revolver, that the morning sun shining broadly in at the casement found and aroused him; aroused him with a start for which there was no apparent call, since the room and its belongings were undisturbed, even to the uncorked brandy bottle on the dressing case, and the untasted half glassful on the window seat.
It was characteristic of the man that when he came out of his bath a half hour later, breathing the fragrance of cleanliness, he should pour the untasted drink back into the bottle, corking it therein against a time not of greater need, but of less responsibility. For he remembered that Colonel Bowran was again out of town, and until his chief returned he could by no means have his quittance from the claims of duty—or of decency.