Read Ebook: A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present by Mathews W S B William Smythe Babcock

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Ebook has 1079 lines and 125843 words, and 22 pages

"That's what you're called on to explain this afternoon before the Governors of the Arareek Country Club," finished Caine rising. "Are you ready?"

"No, I'm going to stop at Desir?e's for a few minutes, first. I want to tell her about my winnin' out against the Blacarda crowd. She knows Blacarda."

"Does she know finance?"

"As well as she knows Blacarda, I guess. An' neither of 'em enough to be 'specially int'rested. But she likes to hear about things I've done. I'll just drop 'round there on my way. Join you later at the Club."

"I'll walk as far as her door with you, if you like," suggested Caine, gathering up his hat and stick. "Then I'll go on and see what I can do with the Governors before the meeting. But I don't look forward to coercing many of them into sanity. They bear a pitifully strong family resemblance to the late lamented Bourbons. They 'learn nothing, forget nothing' and--"

"And they go your Bourbon gang one better," supplemented Conover, "by never havin' known anything to start with. Maybe I can give 'em an idea or two, though, before we're done. I used to boss Dago section hands, you know."

"You'll find this job rather more difficult, I fancy. A garlick-haloed section hand is a lamb compared to some of our hardshell club governors. Why do you want to stay in the Club, anyhow? It seems to me--"

"As sound as a dynamite cartridge," laughed Caine, "You're a paradox! No, 'paradox' isn't a fighting word, so don't scowl. You have the Midas-gift of making everything you touch turn to solid cash, and making two dollars grow where one mortgage blank formerly bloomed. You have the secret of power. And, with it all, you stoop to crawl under the canvas into the Social Circus. Feet of clay!"

Caleb glanced furtively at his broad, shining boots, then, disdaining the allusion as past his discernment, answered:

"Did you ever chance to read Longfellow's poem about the Rabbi--Ben Levi--who 'took the Kingdom of Heaven by violence?'" queried Caine.

"I don't read rhymes. Life's too short. What happened to him?"

"He didn't have a particularly pleasant time of it, as I remember. In fact, I believe the angels joined in a symphonic clamor for his expulsion. Not unlike the very worthy governors of the Arareek Country Club."

"H'm!" sniffed Conover in high contempt. "If the Rabbi person had took the trouble of postin' himself on those angels' pasts, he might a' got front-row seat in the choir instead of bein' throwed out."

"I'm not expectin' a loving cup with a round-robin of their names on it. Not just at first, anyhow. So don't waste any worry on me. The Club's only the first step, anyhow. The real fun's liable to come when I take another."

"I don't know. I never asked her. I never thought to. But if I did, she'd stand for it. You see, not bein' as old and as wise as some of the Granite folks, she's fallen into the habit of thinkin' I'm just about all right. It's kind of nice to have someone feel that way about you."

"You seem to return the compliment. I don't blame you. It isn't every man who finds himself guardian to an exquisite bit of animated Sevres china. I'm lying back to watch for the time when some scared youth comes to ask your leave to marry her."

"What's that?" snarled Conover, stopping and glowering up at the tall, clean-cut figure at his side.

"Don't get excited," laughed Caine. "You can't expect as lovely and lovable a girl as Desir?e Shevlin to live and die an old maid. If you're so opposed to this imaginary suitor I've conjured up, why not marry her yourself?"

"Her father was wise in appointing you her guardian," mocked Caine. "In the absence of man-eating blood-hounds or a regiment of cavalry, you're an ideal Dragon. I remember old Shevlin. A first rate contractor and ward politician; but the last sort of man to have such a daughter. As for Billy, now--he's the model of his father. A tougher little chap and a greater contrast to his sister could hardly be imagined."

"She takes after her mother," explained Conover, puffing mightily at a recalcitrant cigar; "Mother was French. Came of good people, I hear. Named her girl Desir?e. French name. Kind of pretty name, too. Died when Billy was born. I s'pose that's why the boy was named for his dad, instead of being called Pe-air or Juseppy or some other furren trademark. That's why he's tough too. Desir?e was brought up. Billy's bringing himself up. Same as I did. It's the best trainin' a boy can have. So I let him go his own gait, an' I pay for the windows he smashes."

"How did Old Man Shevlin happen to leave you guardian of the two children? Hadn't he any relatives?"

"None but the aunt the kids live with. I s'pose he liked me an' thought I'd give the girl a fair show. An' I have. Convent school, music an' furren lingoes an' all that rot. An' she's worth it."

"How about Billy?"

"That's no concern of mine. He gets his clothes an' grub an' goes to public school. It's all any boy's got a right to ask."

"Contractors are like plumbers in being rich past all dreams of avarice, aren't they? One always gets that idea. The Shevlins will probably be as rich as cream--"

"They'll have what they need," vouchsafed Conover.

"Then you're doing all this on the money that Shevlin left?"

"Sure! You don't s'pose I'd waste my own cash on 'em?"

"What a clumsy liar you are!" observed Caine admiringly. "There! There! In this case 'liar' is no more a fighting word than 'paradox.' Don't get red."

"What are you drivin' at?" demanded Conover.

"Only this: The wills and some other documents filed at the Hall of Records, are copied by our men and kept on file in our office. I happened to be going over one of the books the other day and I ran across a copy of old Shevlin's will. There was a Certificate of Effects with it. He left just ,100, or, to be accurate, ,098.73."

"Well?" challenged Conover.

"Well," echoed Caine, "The rent of the house where Miss Shevlin lives, her two servants, and her food must come to several times that sum each year. To say nothing of the expenses and the support of the aunt, who lives with her. None of those are on the free list. You're an awfully white chap, Conover. You went up about fifty points in my admiration when I read that will. Now don't look as if I'd caught you stealing sheep. It's no affair of mine. And as she doesn't seem to know, I'm not going to be the cheerful idiot to point out to her the resemblance between her father's ,100 and the Widow's Cruse. It's pleasure enough to me, as a student of my fellow animals, to know that a pirate like you can really once in your life give something for nothing. There's the house. Don't forget you're due at the Club in fifty minutes."

Conover, red, confused, angry, mumbled a word of goodbye and ran up the steps of a pretty cottage that stood in its own grounds just off the street they were traversing.

Caine watched the Fighter's bulky form vanish within the doorway. Then he lighted a fresh cigarette and strolled on.

"I wonder," he ruminated, "what his growing list of financial victims would say if they knew that Brute Conover worships as ideally and reverently as a Galahad at the shrine of a little flower-faced nineteen-year old girl? But," he added, in dismissing the quaint theme, "no one of them all would be half so surprised to know it as Conover himself!"

THE GIRL

Conover lounged back and forth in the pretty little reception room of Desir?e Shevlin's house, halting now and then to glance with puzzled approval at some item of its furnishings. The room--the whole house--was to him a mystery. Contentedly devoid of taste though he was, the man dimly realized the charm of the place and the dainty perfection of its appointment. That Desir?e had accomplished this in no way astonished him. For he believed her quite capable of any minor miracle. But in it all he took a pride that had voiced itself once in the comment:

"I don't see how you could make a room look so nice without a single tidy or even a bow fastened up anywhere. But why did you get those dull old tiles for your mantel? I wouldn't a' kicked at payin' for the best marble."

To-day, Conover gave less than usual homage to the apartment. He was agog to tell its owner his wonderful tidings, and he chafed at her delay in appearing. At last she came--the one person on earth who could have kept Caleb Conover waiting; without paying, by sharp reproof, for the delay.

"I'm sorry I was so long," she began as she brushed the curtains aside and hurried in, "But Billy and I couldn't agree on the joys of tubbing. I'd hate to hate anything as much as he hates his bath. Now you've had some good luck! Glorious, scrumptious good luck! I can tell by the way your mustache is all chewed. You only chew it when you're excited. And you are only excited when something good has happened. Isn't it clever of me to know that? I ought to write it up: 'Facial Fur as a Bliss Barometer.' How--Oh, I didn't mean to be silly when you're bursting with news. Please be good and tell me. Is it anything about Steeloid?"

She caught both his hands in hers, with a gesture almost awkward in its happy impulsiveness.

Boyishly, bluntly, eagerly, Conover repeated his story.

His florid face was alight, enthusiasm wellnigh choking him. She heard him out with an excitement almost as great as his own. As he finished she clapped her hands with a little laugh of utter delight.

"It's business," he replied.

"That's the same thing, I suppose," she said, much relieved, "And you're rich?"

"A million anyway. And you'll--"

Both turned at the wonder-inspired, sulphurous monosyllable. Desir?e jerked the curtain aside, revealing a stocky small boy, very red of face. He was clutching a blue bath robe about him and had no apparent aim in life save to escape from the situation into which his involuntary expletive had betrayed him.

"Now don't go callin' me down, Dey," he pleaded. "I just happened to be going past--I was on the way to take my bath, all right--on the level I was--an' I heard Mr. Conover say about havin' a million. An'--an'--I spoke without thinkin'."

He had been edging toward the stair-foot as he talked. Now, finding the lower step behind him, he fled upward on pattering desperate feet.

"You'd break his neck and his heart at the same time. Leave him to me. Nothing but kindness does any good where he is concerned."

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