"Well," he heard himself say to Wheeler in a commonplace voice, "let's hear about it."
"I want to eat something beside trouble!" Wheeler groaned. "Come in across the way. Stan's to 'phone there at nine."
Instinctively they chose a table by a window, as though in the great street she had loved so much and won so lately, they might see her hurrying by. The restaurant was almost empty, but the news was already there. It peered out of the cigar-smoke of the men to whom Wheeler curtly nodded; it questioned them from the waiter's face. "Where'll I begin?" asked Wheeler. "Well, this afternoon they wouldn't let me see Denny. But I met Stan, and he told me Chris had jumped her appointment with Kane, never brought her witness! Partly, I could have choked the girl—and, partly, I couldn't believe it of her. I called up her house and I've been jumping ever since." And he poured out a story of haste and confusion, of friends interrogated, detectives summoned, of a mother more ignorant than any one and more prostrated.—"God, Herrick, I'm sick! The girl's such a monkey, up to the last minute I hoped she'd show up! About seven Kane got me over the coals. Wonder what he's hit the trail so hard for? He'd had his suspicions of the Park,—the little Cornish girl was last seen, you remember, going that way—but the police have searched every bush for hours. The Inghams are all stewed up with him and Stanley's wished on to him like a burr. The first thing he said to me was, 'At what time did Mrs. Hope inform you of her daughter's absence? Don't hesitate—I can remind you. She never informed you at all!' Was he trying to see if I'd lie to him? What does he think I've done with her? But funny thing—Mrs. Hope and the Deutches had been worrying round looking for that girl all day and yet she'd never consulted me! Look here, it's not possible—No, what cause would she have to harm herself?—Mrs. Hope blames herself because last night when Christina didn't come home—You didn't know that? Well, she didn't. Her mother thought she was at the Deutches, out of temper. You knew she quarreled with her mother about Ten Euyck? They nearly knifed each other!"
"For God's sake," said Herrick, "tell me whatever you know!" Across his shoulder the zest of Broadway seemed to peer and listen. But it was too late to consider that.
"You see, last night's supper has been delicate ground from the beginning. Before I knew what the Inghams had planned I asked Christina to come to supper with me—to bring her mother and any one she liked. She seemed to be down on Denny since he and that Cornish girl disagreed and, as a particular bait, I mentioned you. I knew she was interested in you. And when she isn't interested, the Lord help her host! Well, she preferred my scheme to the Inghams'—she seems to have shown all along the most ungodly resistance to their help or countenance in any way! But I could see, as well as her mother, which was best for my leading-woman, and she finally gave in. It's remarkable how entirely one thinks of Christina as the head of the house, and yet how often she does give in—what an influence her mother has over her when she has any at all!" He drained his long glass with a sigh. "But last night, right after the performance, Mrs. Hope comes running into my dressing-room, well—as I may say, at death's door. Christina was going off to supper with Ten Euyck. You can understand that I didn't listen to her then as I should now. She wanted me, as the only person Christina would be likely to take a word from, to reason with her. I said, 'Yes, yes. By-and-by.' I only wanted to shut her up, you understand. For just then, in the first flush of Christina's triumph, I didn't any more think of interfering with her than with the sun in heaven! I won't say I'd been rehearsing an angel unawares, but the girl had grown, in that one night, way out of my sphere. I thought probably Ten Euyck had just prostrated himself and she'd gone a little off her head, and no wonder! It didn't seem necessarily so terrible to me. But the old lady is a great stickler for the proprieties—yes, and for all her talk, Christina has her own eye on social splendor! It's one thing not to receive people and it's quite another not to have them call!—When I'd got rid of my friends and had given Christina time to get rid of hers, I went round to thank her and congratulate her and at the same time to ask her if she didn't think she was doing the Inghams a pretty dirty trick. There stood my young lady dressed out—I was going to say 'to kill'—why, to make Solomon in all his glory turn pale and fade away! Great Scott!—She looked like the kingdoms of the earth and the wonders thereof! Christina is always bewailing the money she owes but you may have noticed that, for a poor working-girl, she does herself rather well in frocks. Mrs. Hope was sitting quiet in a corner, quashed, and Christina was humming—'Auld acquaintance,' if you please!—to herself in front of the glass. 'Auld acquaintance,' indeed! I thought of Denny, and how he'd stood by this radiant image through thick and thin—in a way, you might say, made her! And though you'll forgive a good deal to a first night like that, I began to agree with the people who say she hasn't any heart. And then I saw—"
"Yes—"
"I saw she had a long string of diamonds twisted round her neck. 'Great God, girl!' I said, 'where did those come from?'"
"And she answered?"
Wheeler had been speaking slower and slower and now, for a long time, it seemed as if he were not going to speak at all. Then "She answered, 'They have come from Cuyler Ten Euyck. But don't breathe it. It has just killed dear mamma.'"
"Well, go on."