CHAPTER V

NINE O'CLOCK

A new note had crept into the voice of the taxi-cab driver when he

stopped his vehicle in Madison Avenue and sought Curtis's further

commands. No longer did he address his patron with a species of

good-humored tolerance, almost of sarcasm; his mental attitude had now

become one of respect, even of hero-worship. A little later, while

smoking a thoughtful pipe in his own cozy flat somewhere near Second

Avenue, he tried to explain this curious development to his wife.

"You see, my dear," he said, "I picked up a fare in Broadway, an' took

him where he said he wanted to go. When he got out, he didn't seem to

be quite sure whether he wanted to be there or not, an' you can bet I

smiled when he said that he supposed the lady he was callin' on lived

somewhere around. Anyhow, after hesitatin' a bit, an' tellin' me he

wouldn't keep me a minnit, in he dives, an' kep' me coolin' my heels a

good quarter of an hour. I grew uneasy, because fares do get so nasty

about waitin' charges, so I signals the elevator man, name o' Rafferty,

to ask if it was O.K. When Rafferty comes back, we had a chat, an' he

tells me that this Miss Grandison--a mighty smart piece she is,

too,--was goin' to marry a little Frenchman right away--she was

expectin' him to call at eight o'clock an' take her to the minister's

place--so it gev' both Rafferty an' me a jar when my dude turns up with

the girl an' pipes us for any old address where people could get

married. Well, I remembers the number of a shovel hat in 56th Street,

an' away we hike, man, girl, an' lady's maid, with never a sign of any

Frenchman anywheres. An', by Jove, in they skipped to the parsonage,

an' were spliced."

"No, George!" exclaimed his highly interested hearer.

"Fact. True as I'm sittin' here. When they were comin' out, a queer

lookin' specimen who opened the door wished 'em happiness. 'Fair

weather to you an' your wife, sir,' he said; an' Mr. Curtis--that's my

fare's name, I asked him--said something about havin' finished one long

voyage an' beginnin' another. Then the fun began. I was just startin'

the machine when a private auto dashes up, an' out jumps a

foreign-lookin' swell. The girl spots him, an' screams his name--Count

Vaseline it sounded like--an' he shouts, 'Here we are, Valtaw'--p'raps

that was his way of sayin' Walter--'Got 'em, by-- You see after

Hermione. I'll fix this--Frenchman?'"

"Don't swear, George," remonstrated the driver's better half.

"I'm not swearin'. Ain't I tellin' you what he said?"

The point was waived.

"And the lady's name was Hermione, was it? It's a pretty name."

"You haven't got it quite right. It was more like the way I said it."

And, indeed, the correction was justified, since it is a regrettable

fact that the taxi-cab driver's wife made "Hermione" rhyme with "bone,"

and laid no stress on the second syllable. Strong in her superior

knowledge, for she was an omnivorous reader of fiction--and Greek names

were fashionable last November--she passed that point also.

"Well?" she demanded breathlessly.

"Ha, ha!" The narrator laughed joyfully. "The Dago Count went for

Curtis as if he was on to a sure thing, but before you could say

'knife' he was on his back on the sidewalk. I've never seen a man put

down so quick. I couldn't have floored him so beautifully if I'd hit

him with a spanner. But that was only part of the entertainment.

Curtis--mind you, before that I'd been treatin' him as an ordinary dude

in evenin' dress--acted like an injarubber man filled with chain

lightning. He shoved 'Valtaw' back into the auto, grabs the brake an'

gear lever, an' puts 'em both out of action, sweeps the two girls into

my cab, and----"

Here the taxi-driver bethought himself, and grinned vacuously.

"Well--an' here I am," he concluded.

"I suppose he handed out a good fare," said his wife.

"Yes, he was quite decent about it. Tipped me a couple of dollars over

an' above the register."

"I should have thought it would have been more. Men are usually

generous when they are getting married."

"He was takin' on a rather expensive bit of stuff, unless I am much

mistaken, an' p'raps he was just rememberin' it."

In this ingenuous fashion was a poor woman neatly headed off the scent

of a fifty-dollar bill. She rang the knell of a new hat by her next

question.

"What was the young lady really like--how was she dressed?" she cried.

. . .

Hardly a word was said within the taxi until the corner was turned out

of 56th Street into Seventh Avenue. Curtis, who was sitting with his

back to the driver, rose, apologized for the disturbance, and looked

through the tiny rear window.

"That's all right," he said. "That car won't be able to move for

several minutes; but we must leave nothing to chance," so he sank back

into a seat, and permitted the driver to take them whither he listed.

Hermione's first words were not exactly those of a fair maid in utmost

distress.

"Oh, how splendid it must be to feel sure that you are able to hit a

wretch like Count Vassilan and knock him flat!" she cried.

Curtis was surprised. He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted

lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather

expected to hear subdued sobbing.

"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that

fellow," he said.

"I never could. It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he

treats them. I do hope you have hurt him."

"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis. "He impressed me

as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will

afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity

to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body

of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour.

There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a

decent problem. Meanwhile, the vital question is--where are we going?"

Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood. He could

picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:

"I do not know."

"It is evident," he went on, "that they procured the minister's address

from the elevator man at your dwelling."

"Ah, that Rafferty! Wait till I see him," broke in Marcelle.

"Please do not scarify Rafferty, if that is his name. I am much more

to be blamed than he, because I assured your mistress that the Earl and

Count Vassilan were safe on board the _Switzerland_ till the morning.

I see now that they telegraphed for a tug, and it is best to assume

that they have been kept informed by wireless of nearly every move in

the game. . . . You agree with me, I suppose, Lady Hermione, that your

return to 1000 59th Street is out of the question?"

"It is, if this mock marriage is to serve any real purpose," she said.

"But pray remember that it is not a mock marriage. You and I are as

firmly bound together by the law as if--well, as if we meant it."

She leaned forward a little; her face was etched in Rembrandt lights by

the glare from some shop windows.

"Mr. Curtis," she said earnestly, "it is neither just nor reasonable

that you should plunge yourself into difficulties for the sake of a

girl whom you met to-night for the first time. Why not go out of my

life now--this instant? . . . Marcelle and I can find refuge

somewhere. The hour is early. . . . Why should you take all the risk?"

He was ready for some such appeal on her part.

"I was taught in school if I did a thing at all to do it thoroughly,"

he said, "and my experience of life has given the adage a halo. It

would be worse than useless to desert you now, Lady Hermione. Whatever

penalties I may have incurred in the eyes of the law are committed

beyond hope of redemption. If I am sought for, the police know exactly

where to lay hands on me, and my crime would become monstrous if it

were proved that I ran away from my wife on the night of our marriage.

No; we must face the music boldly, and together. We must go to some

well-known hotel, register openly, secure rooms, and conduct ourselves

on the orthodox lines of all runaway couples, who are presumably head

over heels in love with each other. Moreover, in the morning, or

whenever we are run to earth, you should allow me to face your father

and play the part of the indignant husband. It is essential that your

marriage should appear real, or you go back to bondage and I to prison."

"To prison!" The girl's horrified accents showed that she had hardly

given a thought to the bald consequences of her escapade.

"Yes. I am not trying to frighten you; but what sort of mercy would a

judge show to the craven who absconded before the battle began? If, on

the other hand, I am, so to speak, torn from your arms--if a plausible

lawyer can depict you tearful and inconsolable--if----"

"You make out a fairly strong case, Mr. Curtis. I have told you that I

trust you, and I can only repeat my words of gratitude. . . .

Marcelle, you will not leave me?"

"Never, miss, ma'am--that is, your ladyship."

Thus it befell that Curtis was ready with the name of a prominent hotel

in Fifth Avenue when the driver halted in Madison Avenue. He made his

choice almost at random, but selected one of the newest uptown

caravanserais, merely because it lay a considerable distance from 27th

Street. Otherwise, his object in picking a large hotel being to avoid

notice among a fashionable throng, he might easily have taken his

"wife" to the Waldorf-Astoria, in which event certain complications

even then hot in the making would not have followed their intricate

course, while Hermione's future must have been affected most powerfully.

"I suppose you are prepared to submit to certain conditions which

govern this new venture?" said Curtis, when the cab was once more

speeding onward to a definite goal.

"What are they?"

It would be scarcely fair to describe Hermione's tone as suspicious,

for she was a loyal soul, and was wondering in her heart of hearts what

manner of man this knight errant could be; but his very self-possession

fluttered her; she had been so accustomed to think and act in her own

defense that she experienced a subtle fear of this calm, cool-headed,

masterful person whom she must learn to regard as her husband.

"Well,"--Curtis's speech was so unemotional that he might have been

describing one of his Manchurian railway schemes--"we must treat each

other with a certain familiarity--even use little endearments--in

public--and address each other by pet names--mine is Chow."

Despite her troubles, the girl laughed, and Curtis recalled the tinkle

of silver bells in a temple at evening on the banks of the far-away

Wei-ho.

"But that is the name of a dog!" she tittered.

"Yes. In my case, it denoted some unpleasant personal characteristics

when a stupid mandarin put obstacles in my way. I never gave any

warning, but rushed in and bit him, not actually, of course, but in his

illicit commissions, which annoyed him more than a real bite."

"I don't like Chow," she said. "Your name is John. Won't Jack do?"

"Fine." It was lucky she could not see the smile that flitted across

his face. "And yours?"

"Mamma always used my full name, and I have never had anyone else to

give me a pet name, unless it was 'Tatters' at school."

"We might bracket Tatters with Chow, and dismiss both," he said

lightly. "And I like the sound of Hermione so well that it is pat on

my lips already. . . . Now, you, Marcelle--remember that her ladyship

has become Lady Hermione Curtis."

"Oh, not Mrs. Curtis?"

"No. An earl's daughter retains her courtesy title after marriage."

"All right, sir. I shan't forget." Indeed, Marcelle was jubilant.

She had been "dying" to use her mistress's title, once she became aware

of it, but it was taboo at 59th Street.

Curtis had covered a good deal of ground during that brief discussion

in the cab, but Hermione was not quite prepared for its logical sequel

in the hotel.

Naturally, they attracted no unusual attention when they entered the

hotel. Other people merely noticed the passing of a distinguished

looking young man in evening dress--for Curtis had promptly whipped off

that ominous overcoat--and a slender, veiled lady, of elegant carriage,

who walked up to the bureau, followed by a smartly dressed girl who

gazed about her with bright, all-seeing eyes.

[Illustration: Scenes from the photo-drama.]

"My wife and I have been detained in New York this evening

unexpectedly," explained Curtis to the hotel clerk. "We want a suite

of rooms, a sitting-room, three bedrooms with baths--you would like

Marcelle's room to communicate with yours, wouldn't you, dear?" and he

turned suddenly to Hermione.

"Y-yes," she faltered, for the attack took her unaware.

"What floor, sir? We have a nice suite on the tenth."

"Not so high, please," said Hermione. Then she sprung a mine on her

own account. "I know it is stupid, Jack, darling, but I am so afraid

of fire."

"This hotel is absolutely fireproof, madam," put in the clerk, stating

a fact implicitly believed by every hotel proprietor in New York in so

far as his own building is concerned, "but we can accommodate you on

the second floor, Suite F., fifty dollars a day."

"Thank you. That will be just right," said Curtis quickly, for he

meant to live like a prince during one night at least, let the morrow

bring its own cares. "Now, you understand that we are here without

baggage, though my wife's maid will procure some necessaries while we

eat, and I mean to get some clothes later, but, if you would like a

deposit of, say, a hundred dollars----?"

He felt for his pocketbook, but, to the credit of the clerk be it said,

the suggestion was negatived with a smile.

"No need at all for any deposit, sir," was the answer. "I wouldn't be

on to my job it I didn't know how and when to discriminate in matters

of that sort. Will you register?"

Curtis took a pen and wrote:

"Mr. and Lady Hermione Curtis, and maid." Some imp of adventure moved

him to inscribe "Pekin" in the column for visitors' home addresses.

But the clerk was obviously impressed by Hermione's title, no less than

the singularly remote locality the couple hailed from. He leant back,

and took a key from its hook.

"Page!" he said. "Show Mr. Curtis and her ladyship to Suite F." Then

he added, as an afterthought: "Would you like dinner served in your

sitting-room, sir?"

"I think so," said Curtis, "but my wife shall decide a little later."

Hermione kept silent until they were safely behind the closed door of a

well-furnished and delightfully spacious apartment.

"Of course, I bear all expenses," she said firmly.

"What--are we quarreling already?" he asked.

"No, but----"

"You think I am being wildly extravagant. Why, bless your ladyship's

dear little heart, this hotel doesn't begin to know how to charge like

a taxi. Now, no argument till to-morrow. An American millionaire can

really be quite a decent sort of fellow at times, and, if we may assume

that this is one of the times, please let me play at being a

millionaire--for once."

She raised her veil, and looked at him, straight in the eyes.

"Why are you so different from other men? Why have I never before

spoken to a man like you?" she asked.

"But I am not different, and there are plenty of men like me; the other

poor chaps haven't had my glorious chance of serving you--that is all.

Now, won't you go and see if your room is comfortable, and whether or

not Marcelle's quarters are just right? Then come back here, and we'll

discuss menus, for which purpose I shall ring for a waiter _ek dum_."

"Is that Chinese?"

"No, Hindustani. It means 'at once,' but every hotel-wala east of Suez

understands it."

Still she lingered.

"Have you any sisters--a mother living?" she said.

"No. I'm the sole survivor of my own family. But I mean to give

myself the pleasure of a full introduction while we dine, or sup. Do

say you are hungry."

"I have not eaten a morsel since luncheon," she confessed.

"Oh, joy! I must interview the head waiter. No common serf will

suffice. Please hurry."

She left him, not without an impulsive movement as though she meant to

utter some further words of thanks, but checked her intent on the very

threshold of speech. As the lock of the bedroom door clicked, and he

was alone, he essayed a review of the amazing sequence of events which

had befallen since he strolled out of the dining-room of the Central

Hotel. He stood there, motionless, with hands plunged deep in his

pockets, but, at the outset of a reverie in which judgment and prudence

might have helped in the council, he happened to catch sight of himself

in an oblong mirror over the mantelpiece, for the apartment, redolent

of New York's later architecture, contained an open grate, and was

furnished with the chaste beauty of the Chippendale period. In his

present position the reflection in the mirror was oddly reminiscent of

a half-length portrait of his grandfather, the warrior who rode at the

head of the Fifth Cavalry in '61.

Then Curtis laughed, with the pleasant conviction of a man whose mind

has been made up for him by circumstances beyond his control.

"It's bred in the bone--a clear case of Mendelism," he murmured softly,

because he had just remembered how Colonel Curtis, before ever the war

was ended and its bitterness assuaged, had decided a Southern girl's

conflict between love and duty by galloping fifty miles across

Confederate South Carolina and carrying off the lady.

Grandfather and grandson alike were men of action. Curtis seldom used

a gesture, and never cried over spilt milk. Now he merely turned,

peered into his own bedroom, assured himself that Hermione would find

its prototype to her fancy, and then summoned a waiter.

Behind the closed door of the other room a girl was similarly engaged

in taking stock of the situation; but she had feminine assistance, so

there was bound to be talk.

"Oh, your ladyship, isn't this just the dandiest bit out of a novel you

ever read?" cried Marcelle when she entered her mistress's room through

a communicating door.

"It might be more thrilling if it were not a page out of my own life,"

said Hermione sadly. She, too, was gazing in a mirror, though, being a

woman, the oppressive thought bobbed up through a sea of troubles that

her hair must be untidy, and she owned neither comb nor brush.

"But, what luck, miss, your ladyship, to have found a gentleman like

Mr. Curtis at the right moment. Talk about life buoys for drowning men

and rich uncles from California in plays--who ever heard of anyone

wanting a nice husband and getting him in such a way!"

Marcelle's eyes were positively glistening. And these two now were not

mistress and maid, but a pair of highly strung women, and young ones at

that.

"You have lost your wits in this night's excitement, Marcelle," said

Hermione. "Don't you realize that I am only married under mere

pretense. Mr. Curtis is nothing to me, nor I to him. He has been kind

and gallant, and I am under an obligation which I can never

discharge--but that is not marriage."

"It's awful like it, your ladyship."

"No, no. Drive such nonsense from your head. When you marry, don't

you hope to love the man of your choice, and will you not feel sure

that he loves you?"

"Oh, yes, miladi."

"Then how is it possible for any relationship of that sort to exist

between Mr. Curtis and me?"

"You've gone a long way already, ma'am," giggled Marcelle.

"Please don't call me ma'am. It--it irritates me."

"Sorry, miladi, but you will admit, at least, a marriage being

necessary, that you were fortunate in finding Mr. Curtis?"

"Yes, doubly fortunate--it is that fact which makes things hard for me."

"Makes what things hard, your ladyship?"

"Oh, I don't know. I scarce recognize my own voice. Marcelle, if I

seem distraught and unreasonable, promise me you will pay no heed. For

pity's sake, don't leave me!"

Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and Marcelle was on the verge of

hysteria.

"I--can't imagine--what there is--to cry about," she murmured brokenly.

"Nothing on earth would induce me to go away now--but I do hope--and

pray--you will be happy--even though--you only met your husband--little

more than an hour ago! . . . And I believe in my heart, Lady Hermione,

that you will soon see how fortunate you were in escaping that mincing

little Frenchman----"

"Marcelle, the poor man is dead."

"Then it is the best turn he has done you, miladi. I never fancied

him. There was something underhanded and mean about him. I have seen

his face when you were not looking, and I'm sure he was a hypocrite."

"Marcelle, you will drive me crazy. Don't you understand that I have

never intended to marry anybody--really?"

A knock at the door opening into the sitting-room came to Hermione's

relief.

"Yes?" she said.

"If you can spare Marcelle, I would recommend that she should go to

your flat for any clothes you may need," said Curtis's voice.

Hermione threw open the door.

"A little while ago you told me that it was impossible to think of

returning there," she said.

"For you, yes, but not for your maid. Who is to hinder? That man,

Rafferty, looked a decent sort of fellow."

"I can manage Rafferty all right," put in Marcelle.

"Of course you can," smiled Curtis. "Just pack a trunk or a couple of

bags with Lady Hermione's belongings--you know what to bring--and get

Rafferty to call a taxi without attracting too much notice. If you

think you are being followed, put your pursuers off the scent. But my

own view is that 1000 59th Street is the last place anyone will think

of watching to-night."

"Shall I go at once, your ladyship?" said Marcelle, and Hermione said

"Yes," with a meekness that was admirable in a wife.

Curtis looked at his pretty bride's hat.

"I have ordered a meal," he said. "It will be served in a few minutes."

"I shall be ready," she replied, beginning nervously to take off her

gloves. The wedding ring was inclined to accompany the left hand

glove, but, after a second's hesitation, she replaced it. When she

appeared in the sitting-room she had discarded her jacket, a

close-fitting one of a style that fastened _a la militaire_, high in

the neck. Beneath it she had been wearing a white silk blouse, and the

delicate pink of her arms and throat was revealed now through its

diaphanous sheen. A string of pearls supported a diamond cross on her

breast, and on her left wrist was a watch set in small diamonds and

turquoises and carried by a bracelet of gold filigree. She wore only

one ring--_the_ ring--and even the slight glance which Curtis gave it

brought a vivid blush to her cheeks.

"I am not a past master in the art of ordering banquets," he said

cheerily, turning at once to draw her attention to the table, "but the

head-waiter here is a gourmet. He suggested caviare, a white soup, a

king-fish, a tourne-dos, and a grouse--does that appeal?"

"You take my breath away," she said, with valorous effort to seem at

ease.

"Now--as to wine?"

"I seldom touch wine."

"To-night it will make you sleep. What do you say to a glass of Clos

Vosgeot?"

"Is that a claret?"

"Yes."

"Well, as it happens, that is the one wine I take."

The dinner proceeded most pleasantly. To his own astonishment, Curtis

worked up sufficient appetite to enjoy the meal, though he would have

stuffed himself remorselessly to save his charming _vis-a-vis_ from the

slightest embarrassment. But he only sipped the wine, for a sixth

sense warned him that he must keep a clear head that night.

By inference rather than plain statement, for a deft waiter was

constantly coming in and out, he supplied Hermione with glimpses of his

own career, and ascertained from her that she had secured Marcelle's

services through the good offices of a lady who was a fellow-passenger

on the ship.

"She comes from New Orleans, but, notwithstanding her name, she does

not speak French," said Hermione. "I think that rather accounts

for----"

She stopped, and Curtis did not press for an explanation, but she

continued, after a second's pause:

"Marcelle did not like Monsieur de Courtois. I imagined she was

annoyed because he always conversed with me in a language she did not

understand."

"Then I shall avoid Chinese," he laughed.

"Marcelle----"

Again she hesitated. She was positively dismayed by consciousness of

the imminent disclosure, yet too well-bred even to appear to be

withholding confidences.

"You have won Marcelle's golden opinion already," she said. "But let

us talk of something else."

For the moment they were alone, and she glanced at the watch on her

wrist.

"Have you made any plans?" she inquired, and her voice was low, yet

sufficiently composed.

"For the future?"

"Yes."

"When Marcelle arrives, I am going to my hotel for some baggage. You,

I suggest, are going to bed."

"You will return?"

"Within the hour--if I am alive."

"And to-morrow?"

"To-morrow, may it please your ladyship, we breakfast together at nine

o'clock."

"Your plan, then, is mainly composed of eating and sleeping?"

"What else--our policy is one of drifting."

"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."

"It is 'Jack' in the compact."

She sighed.

"Alas, this compact reads only one way. It means that you give and I

receive. Will you--will you believe, in the future, that despair alone

could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"

"No," he said sturdily.

"No? That is the only unkind thing you have said."

"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair.

But--here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages. I hear thuds in

the next room."

And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's

voice reached them sharply from the corridor:

"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box! Do you think you are an

express man, or what?"