Then Vanstruther! He had a blonde beard that came to a point, and he always wore glasses. For the rest, Dick knew but little of him save what he had heard. Vanstruther "did" the more important of the society events for the Torch, and himself moved and had his nightly being in the smartest circles in town. The peculiar part of it was that he was married, and had several children; barring the hour or so a day that he spent in the office of the Torch he was the most devoted husband and father in the world, and spent the most of his day at home, where in his little study-room he sat in front of a typewriter stand and manufactured at lightning speed—what do you suppose?—dime novels. This was, among the man's intimates, a more or less open secret; but to the world at large, and particularly the world of society, he was known merely as a delightful person, socially, and something of a flaneur, intellectually.
As for Stanley—the man's full name was Laurence Stanley—Dick had somehow taken a dislike to him. He knew little of him except that he was a professional do-nothing, who lived off his wife's money, speculated occasionally, and appeared a great deal in society. No one ever saw his wife, who was an invalid. He talked with inveterate cynicism; it was this that made him repugnant to young Lancaster. He had a sneer and a cigarette always with him, and Dick hated both.
The tip-tapping of a light foot-step over the oil-cloth brought Dick back from the land of day-dreams. It was rather a pretty woman that stood before him, and she was gowned in a manner that even with his inexperience he knew to be distinctly up-to-date, and that he certainly admitted as attractive from an artistic standpoint. She looked past him into the inner office, lifted her eyebrows a trifle and inquired: "Is Mr. Wooton not in?"
"Not just now," responded Dick, getting up, "but he will be back in a very little while. If you would care to wait—" He took hold of the back of a revolving chair that stood close by.
"No," she declared, "I only had a minute. Will you tell him Mrs. Stewart was up? Or, stay; I'll write him a line."
Dick gave her some letterheads, and pen and ink; she sat down at his desk and began writing, with a good deal of scratching and scraping. "There," she said when she had addressed the envelope, "If you will please give him that as soon as he comes in. Thank you. Do you do this?" She pointed with one gloved finger to the drawing he had been busy on. He bowed silently. She looked at him with a quick, comprehensive glance, smiled a trifle, and swept out of the door.
"So that is Mrs. Annie McCallum Stewart!" was Dick's first mental exclamation, "well, she's certainly not an ordinary woman. Wonder if I'll ever get to know her?"
With which speculation he turned to his work. When Wooton returned, and had read the note, he broke into a low chuckle, "That's like her! Just like her. What do you suppose she says?"
Dick was the only other person in the outer office, so he was forced to take the question as addressed to himself. "I have no idea," he declared.
"She says she is getting awfully tired of her present lot of young men, and wants me, for goodness sake, to bring down some one different, and bring him soon. She says she is tired to death of the man who has lived and seen and heard everything, and she is dying for a man who is as like Pierrot as two peas!" Wooton tore the letter up mechanically, and put the pieces into the waste-basket. "Well," he went on, "I wish I could—" he stopped and looked at Dick, breaking out the next instant into a broad grin, "Jupiter!" he added, "you're just the man! Do you want to join the noble army of martyrs in ordinary to the extraordinary Annie? She'll do you lots of good; she'll be a pocket education in the philosophy of today, and she'll put you through all manner of interesting paces. Seriously, she's a woman who can do a man a lot of good, socially. And society never does a man much harm; it broadens him, and gives him finish. Now, you're just the sort of youth she'll like immensely; and yet she'll soon find out that you've heard about her and her ways. Never mind; she won't like you any the worse for that; she's too much a woman of the world. What do you think? The next time I go down to tea at her house I'll take you along, eh? All you've got to do is to be clever and amusing and different to the others; Mrs. Stewart is like the rest of society in that she demands something of the people she takes up, but she doesn't demand such impossibilities. I'll write and tell her I've got the very man!" He went on into the inner office, before Dick had time to say anything in reply. And, to tell the truth, the idea rather interested him. He had seen her, and had felt interested in her; he had heard so much about her; and now he was going to meet her! As to being clever and amusing, he thought he was likely to fail miserably; but he might, unconsciously perhaps, succeed in being what Wooten called "different."