After this, acquaintance between the two young people ripened swiftly. Because John Hampstead was so busy, Marien had an abundance of idle time upon her hands. Agitated continually by a cat-like restlessness, seeking a satiety she was unable to find, the actress had no objections to spending a great deal of this idle time upon Rollo. He rode with her in that swift-scudding, smooth-spinning foreign car. She sailed with him upon the bay in a tiny cruising sloop that courtesy dubbed a yacht. More than once she entertained Rollie with one of these delightful Bohemian suppers served in her hotel suite, sometimes with other guests and sometimes flatteringly alone.
Rollie enjoyed all of this, but without succumbing seriously. His spread of canvas was too small, he carried too much of the lead of deep anxiety upon his centerboard to keel far over under the breeze of her stiffest blandishments; but all the while he held her acquaintance as a treasured asset, introducing her to about-the-Bay society with such calculating discrimination as to put under lasting obligations to himself not only Mrs. von Studdeford, his friend and patron, but certain other carefully chosen mistresses of money.
As for Marien, her triumphs were still too recent, her vanity was still too childish, not to extract considerable enjoyment from being Exhibit "A" at the most important social gatherings the community offered; but her complacence was at all times modified by moods and caprices. She would disappoint Rollie's society friends for the most unsubstantial reasons and appeared to think her own whimsical change of purpose an entirely sufficient explanation. Sometimes she did not even bother about an explanation, and her manner was haughty in the extreme.
Her most vexatious trick of the kind was to disappear one night five minutes before she was to have gone with Rollie to be guest of honor at a dinner given by Mrs. Ellsworth Harrington. The hostess raged inconsolably, taking her revenge on Rollie in words and looks which, in her quarter, proclaimed thumbs down for long upon that unfortunate, adventuring youth.
"Take me about nine hundred and ninety-nine years to square myself with that double-chinned queen," muttered Rollie, standing at eleven o'clock of the same night upon the corner opposite the Hotel St. Albans and looking up inquisitively at the suite of Miss Dounay, which was on the floor immediately beneath the roof.
The young man's hat was pushed back so that his forehead seemed almost high and, in addition to its seeming, the brow wore a disconsolate frown.
"Looks as if I'd kind of lost my rabbit's foot," he murmured, relaxing into a vernacular that neither Mrs. Harrington, Mrs. von Studdeford, nor other ladies of their class would have deemed it possible to flow from the irreproachable lips of Rollo Charles Burbeck. Yet his friends should have been very indulgent with Rollie to-night! The world had grown suddenly hard for him. The executors were due again to-morrow; and his deficit had passed four thousand dollars.
So desperate was his plight that for an hour that afternoon Rollie had actually thought of throwing himself upon the mercy of Mrs. Ellsworth Harrington, who had hundreds of thousands in her own right, and who might have saved him with a scratch of the pen. Her heart had been really soft toward Rollie, too, but Marien's caprice to-night had spoiled all chance of that. Nothing remained but the Spider. Rollie had an appointment with him in fifteen minutes.
But in the meantime he indulged a somber, irritated curiosity concerning Miss Dounay. Since staring upward at her windows brought no satisfaction he had recourse to the telephone booth in the hotel lobby, and got the information that Miss Dounay was out but had left word that if Mr. Burbeck called he was to be told he was expected at ten-thirty and there would be other guests.
That meant supper, and a lively little time. No doubt the actress would try to make amends. Well, Rollie would most surely let her. He had no intention of quarreling with an asset, even though occasionally it turned itself into a liability. But it was now past ten-thirty, ten forty-seven, to be exact, and his engagement with the Spider was at eleven. However, since his hostess was still out, and therefore would be late at her own party, his prospective tardiness gave the young man no concern.