tell the tale of his misfortunes. Of course, everybody would be delighted to help Lord Loveland; and, by the way, there was Mr. Coolidge who could be approached, if worst came to worst.
But worst had not yet come to worst, and as Val's spirits rose with a mingling of good food and bright hopes, he decided against Coolidge as a refuge for the present. In spite of all, he would stick to his guns and not forgather further with the Mauretania people until he had seen what Harborough's letters produced. He could get on for a day or two, and meanwhile there were things to do.
When he had been cheered by luncheon, and soothed by cigarettes, he sent for a motor taxi-cab. The afternoon was still young, and so full of sparkle and gayety that life seemed worth living after all; therefore Lord Loveland had begun to value himself almost as highly as ever, by the time his smart little automobile pulled up in front of the bank.
It was a stately bank, well worthy of its London connection; and he handed in his visiting card and letter of credit, with the air of one entitled to receive unlimited sums. The cashier, however, having looked at him, the card, and the letter, did not appear to be impressed. Instead of replying in words to Loveland's demand for twenty pounds, he walked away with the letter of credit in his hand, and vanished behind a swing door. Loveland thought that he had probably gone to fetch the manager, who would perhaps desire to see in person a titled client of some importance. But after a short delay the cashier returned alone, and having strolled back to his place behind the grating, there stood silent for a moment.
"I'm rather in a hurry," said Loveland. "I suppose there'll be no red tape about my getting twenty pounds? I want it this afternoon."
The cashier smiled a dry smile, and his voice sounded dry as he answered. "I don't know about the red tape, but I'm sorry to tell you we have no instructions from London to pay."
"What?" cried Val, reddening with annoyance. Several people writing cheques or waiting for money at the counter, looked up and continued to look. "You have no instructions?"
"No instructions to pay," repeated the cashier, putting on the last word an emphasis which sounded offensive to Loveland's ears, though he hastily assured himself that it could not possibly have any such meaning.
"This is very inconvenient," said Val, to whom Bridge and tips on shipboard had left exactly seventeen shillings, three pence halfpenny.
"I'm sorry for that," remarked the cashier, still more formally, more unsympathetically, and – one might almost have said – more disrespectfully, than before.
Loveland, though inclined to storm, reflected a moment. He had intended to sail on the Baltic, which was due to leave English shores only yesterday, and might not arrive at New York for seven or eight days. He had not given anyone notice – not even his mother – that he had changed his intention, and very likely the London papers had paragraphed him as a passenger on the Baltic's next trip. Nevertheless, he could not quite understand how that fact excused his London bank's delay in instructing their New York correspondents. They had had plenty of time to arrange his affairs before his sudden departure in the Mauretania, and by not doing so they were likely to make him a great deal of unnecessary trouble.
Again he thought of Cadwallader Hunter. In this instance, too, the man might have been useful.
"Well, I don't see why I should be made to suffer because the London and Southern Bank puts off till tomorrow what it ought to have done a week ago," said Loveland, beginning to be arrogant, though looking boyish, with his flushed face, and his white scar glimmering on its background of clear, ruddy-brown. "I must have some money, you know."
The cashier did not reply to this challenge, and his eyes expressed no interested consideration of the matter.
"You had better see your manager and explain the circumstances," pursued Val.
"It would be useless. We could not pay without instructions."
"I daresay I might manage with ten pounds till you could get an answer, if you choose to be so ridiculously over-cautious," Loveland insisted, loftily. "But in that case you must cable at once."
"You will no doubt be willing to pay for the message in advance?" suggested the cashier.
"Certainly not," said Val, no longer trying to keep his temper under control. "You've seen my card. Isn't that enough for you?"
"Business is business," quoted the bank employé, still unruffled, still blind to Lord Loveland's importance, cold to his necessities.
"And decency's decency," stormed Val, careless now who looked or listened, and in a mood to wreck all American institutions.
"Yes, it's as well never to forget that," the cashier hinted, significantly. "Sorry we cannot accommodate you at present."
"I'm hanged if you ever get the chance again," retorted Val, snatching his letter of credit from the counter. "I shall myself send a cable to the London and Southern which will make you repent your pig-headedness." And with this ultimatum he strode to the door, as if on the way to sign a death-warrant.
"By his looks, that will be an expensive cable, and make the wire mighty hot," Val heard a man chuckle as he passed, and there was a spatter of laughter, which (for his eyes) painted the opposite sky-scrapers bright scarlet.
"Beastly America! Beastly Americans!" he muttered. "I suppose this is their way of resenting the existence of aristocracy."
Lord Loveland had a good deal to learn yet about America – and also about that important member of the aristocracy, himself.
As he returned to his motor cab, which had been "taxing" away violently since he left it, he wondered if he would have enough money to pay for it. But, what if he hadn't? He could tip the chauffeur, and the hotel would do the rest. Also the hotel would put down the cash for a dozen cablegrams. Oh, the sting of these pin-pricks would last no longer than the poison of mosquito-bites! Once Jim Harborough's friends began to rally round him, and vie among each other for his society, as the Mauretanians had done, New York would be his to play with. Patience, then, and shuffle the cards. As he had heard someone say on shipboard, "Faint heart never won a game of poker."
It was thus he smoothed away the sulky frown which suited neither his face, nor the gentle Indian-summer sunshine. Then, trying to forget the first snub man had ever dared to deal him, he flashed here and there in his motor cab, making a house to house distribution of Jim's envelopes and his own visiting cards, according to home custom when armed with letters of introduction.
The sky flamed with sunset banners – Spanish colours – long before he had finished his round and was ready to return to the Waldorf. There, his idea of a suitable present to the chauffeur left him with the American equivalent of eight or nine shillings in his pocket. But, as he had expected, the hotel paid for his afternoon's motoring. So cheerfully did it pay that he sent off an unnecessarily long and extremely frank cablegram to his London bankers which they ought to receive on opening their doors next morning. He thought that it would rather wake them up, and that in consequence of their response to New York – certain to flash immediately along the wires – he would receive an apology from the rude wretch who had insulted him that afternoon. But nothing would induce him to forget or forgive. He had informed the London bankers that his business must be diverted into another channel, which they were invited to suggest.
When Loveland found himself alone again in his luxurious suite of rooms, with the November night coming on, and no amusement on hand (unless he chose to stare down from his high windows at the blaze of astonishing jewels which festooned the immense blue dusk with light and colour) he half wished once more that he had not been so cautious in the matter of accepting invitations. After
