Three days later he and "Miss Jones" said farewell to the strollers and boarded a day train for New York City. They left the company in a condition of prosperity. The show was averaging two hundred dollars nightly, and Mr. Rushcroft was already booking return engagements for the early fall. He was looking forward to a tour of Europe at the close of the war.
"My boy," he said to Barnes on the platform of the railway station, "I trust you will forgive me for not finding a place in our remarkably well-balanced cast for your friend. I have been thinking a great deal about her in the past few days, and it has occurred to me that she might find it greatly to her advantage to accept a brief New York engagement before tackling the real proposition. It won't take her long to find out whether she really likes it, and whether she thinks it worth while to go on with it. Let me give you one bit of advice, my dear Miss Jones. This is very important. The name of Jones will not get you anywhere. It is a nice old family, fireside name, but it lacks romance. Chuck it. Start your new life with another name, my dear. God bless you! Good luck and—good-bye till we meet on the Rialto."
"I wonder how he could possibly have known," she mused aloud, the pink still in her cheeks as the train pulled out.
"You darling," cried Barnes, "he doesn't know. But taking it by and large, it was excellent advice. The brief New York engagement meets with my approval, and so does the change of name. I am in a position to supply you with both."
"Do you regard Barnes as an especially attractive name?" she inquired, dimpling.
"It has the virtue of beginning with B, entitling it to a place well toward the top of alphabetical lists. A very handy name for patronesses at charity bazaars, and so forth. People never look below B unless to make sure that their own names haven't been omitted. You ought to take that into consideration. If you can't be an A, take the next best thing offered. Be a B."
"You almost persuade me," she smiled.
His sister met them at the Grand Central Terminal.
"It's now a quarter to five," said Barnes, after the greeting and presentation. "Drop me at the Fifth Avenue Bank, Edith. I want to leave something in my safety box downstairs. Sha'n't be more than five minutes."
He got down from the automobile at 44th Street and shot across the sidewalk into the bank, casting quick, apprehensive glances through the five o'clock crowd on the avenue as he sprinted. In his hand he lugged the heavy, weatherbeaten pack. His sister and the Countess stared after him in amazement.