style="font-size:15px;"> "But," stammered the young man, "you're never going to let him go like that?"
"Yes, I am," confessed the unpractical gentleman. "I couldn't send a man to jail on Christmas day."
"But the police – ?"
"I shall tell them out of my window that it was a false alarm."
Bulstrode shut and locked his door, and turning to Waring, laughed delightedly.
"I must tell you that when he let you in last night Ruggles did not think you were a gentleman. He must have found out this morning that you were very much of a man. It's astonishing where you got your strength, though. He'd make two of you, and you're not fit in any way."
He looked ghastly enough as Bulstrode spoke, and the gentleman put his arm under the Englishman's. "I'll ring for the servants and have some coffee made and fetched to your room. Lean on me." He helped the vagabond upstairs.
The New Yorker, whose sentimental follies were certainly a menace to public safety and a premium to begging and vagabondage and crime, slept well and late, and was awakened finally by the keen, bright ringing of the telephone at his side. As he took up the receiver his whole face illumined.
"Merry Christmas, Jimmy!"
…
"What wonderful roses! Thanks a thousand times!"
…
"But of course I knew! No other man in New York is sentimental enough to have a woman awakened at eight o'clock by a bunch of flowers!"
…
"Forgive you!" (It was clear that she did.)
…
"Jimmy, what a day for Tuxedo, and what a shame I can't go!"
…
"You weren't going! You mean to say that you had refused?"
…
"I don't understand – it's the connection – West?"
"Why, ranches look after themselves. They always do. They go right on. You don't mean it, on Christmas day!"
…
"I shouldn't care for your reasons. They're sure to be ridiculous – unpractical – unnecessary – don't tell them to me."
There was a pause, and then the voice, which had undergone a slight change said:
"Jack's ill again … that's why I couldn't go to Tuxedo. I shall pass the day here in town. I called up to tell you this – and to suggest – but since you're going West…"
Falconer's illnesses! How well Bulstrode knew them, and how well he could see her alone in the familiar little drawing-room by a hearth not built for a Christmas tree! He had promised Waring, "I'll stand by you." It was a kind of vow – a real vow, and the poor tramp had lived up to his.
"Jimmy." There was a note he had never heard before; if a tone can be a tear, it was one.
He interrupted her.
…
"How dear of you!"
…
"But I haven't any Christmas tree!"
…
"You'll fetch one? How dear of you! We'll trim it – with your roses – make it bloom. Come early and help me dress the tree."
Two hours later he opened the door into his breakfast-room with the guiltiness of a truant boy. He wore culprit shame written all over his face, and the young man who stood waiting for him in the window might almost have read his friend's dejection in his embarrassed face.
But Waring came eagerly forward, answered the season's greetings, and said quickly:
"Are you still in the same mind about the West, Mr. Bulstrode?"
(Poor Bulstrode!)
"I mean to say, sir, if you still feel like giving me this chance, I've a favor to ask. Would you let me go alone?"
Bulstrode gasped.
"Since last night a lot has happened to me, not only since you've befriended me, but since I tussled with that fellow here. I'd like a chance to see what I can do alone. If you, as you so generously plan, go with me, I shall feel watched – protected. It will weaken me more than anything else. I suppose I shall go all to pieces, but I'd like to try my strength. If I could suddenly master that chap with my fists after months of dissipation – "
Bulstrode finished for him:
"You can master the rest."
"Don't give me any extra money," pleaded the tramp, as if he foresaw his friend's impulse. "Pay my ticket out West, if you will, and write to the man who is there, and I'll start in."
Bulstrode beamed on him.
"You're a man," he assured him – "a man."
"I may become one."
"You're a fine fellow."
"You'll trust me, then?"
"Implicitly."
"Then let me start to-day. I'm reckless – let me get away. I may get off at the first station and pawn my clothes and drink and drink to a lower hell than before – but let me try alone."
"You shall go alone – and go to-day."
Prosper came in with the coffee; he, too, was beaming, and the servants below-stairs were all agog. Waring was a hero.
"Prosper," said his master, in French, "will you, after you have served breakfast, go out to the market quarters and see if you can discover for me a medium-sized, very well-proportioned little Christmas tree? Fetch it home with you."
Waring smiled faintly.
Bulstrode smiled too, and more comprehendingly, and Prosper smiled and said:
"Mais certainement, monsieur."
THE SECOND ADVENTURE
II
IN WHICH HE TRIES TO BUY A PORTRAIT
Bulstrode was extremely fond of travel, and every now and then treated himself to a season in London or Paris, and in the May following his adventure with Waring he saw, from his apartments in the Hôtel Ritz, from Boulevard, Bois, and the Champs Elysées, as much of the maddeningly delicious Parisian springtime "as was good for him at his age," so he said! It gave the feeling that he was a mere boy, and with buoyant sensations astir in him, life had begun over again.
Any morning between eleven and twelve Bulstrode might have been seen in the Bois de Boulogne briskly walking along the Avenue des Acacias, his well-filled chest thrown out, his step light and assured; cane in hand, a boutonnière tinging the lapel of his coat; immaculate and fresh as a rose, he exhaled good-humor, kindliness,
