thee, Bethsaida! Woe unto thee, Chorazin!” she mocked.
He gave her a savage glance.
“I mean it! I tell you the morals, the ideals, the education are to be found downtown, not up! There’s more rough stuff on Broadway than there is in Chatham Square!”
“Why don’t you tell me I’m like the lady who said: ‘I live in the tents of the Philistines, where the conversation wears rubbers, and the people only do disreputable things. They draw the line at talking about them!’?”
“Just so! You live among a bunch of hypocrites!”
“Thank you!”
“Well, you know you do. They’re a lot worse than the poor because they have no temptations except those they invite themselves. They’re protected by the bulwark of their money. The rich woman never has to use her fists to defend herself. She’s never in any physical danger. It’s no credit to her if she keeps straight! If she’s afraid to cross the street all she has to do is to beckon to a cop. She makes use of the law as something she has paid for. She regards a policeman as a sort of servant, a little higher than a chore man and a little lower than her butler.”
He did not see her smile.
“How did you guess it!”
“And a criminal lawyer as a cross between a stool pigeon and a confidence man.”
“Not quite. Some of them are rather nice. What a fire-eater you are! A sort of Savonarola!—And you make me think of Jack Barrymore in ‘Hamlet,’ too!”
“Thanks!” he grunted. “I suppose you mean that as a compliment!”
“No—not exactly! On the whole I think I prefer Mr. Hugh Dillon, barrister-at-law!”
Her tone was mollifying.
“I’m sorry to have shot off my mouth this way,” he apologized. “But these fashionable women who think they can show other people how they ought to live get my goat! When I think how they waste their opportunities, it makes me mad. Compare the life of a smart woman in society with that of one of these East Side girls who is trying to make the most of herself! Look at how she works and studies and saves to hear some good music or to buy a few books. And look at what she does make of herself! No! No! Keep your social welfare work uptown. Do it among your swell friends!”
“Aren’t you a little hard on us?”
He shook his head.
“Not a bit!”
“Well,” she assured him, “I do want to help, and I don’t care whether I work in the Tombs or outside. I can’t see myself trying to convert any of my fashionable friends into the idealists you have been describing. I think they would get bored very quickly. But I’m sure there must be things I could do in any part of the city—of any city. I want to do something, and—I want somebody to show me how.”
It dawned on him that she might mean it.
“Is that true?”
“Certainly!”
He looked at her doubtfully, pondering her face under the winking electric glare of Fourteenth Street. Its expression was enigmatic, still——
“I wonder!” he mused.
“Give a poor girl a chance.”
She was laughing at him! He grew warm.
“I could give you chances enough.”
“Even if you don’t take them yourself!”
His impression of her frivolity was confirmed. He felt for the door-knob.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take the subway back from here. I’m much obliged for the ride. Do you mind asking your chauffeur to stop?”
“Aren’t you going to help your poor little rich girl?”
Her curved lips were ironic but her eyes were pleading.
“Please!” she urged. She was damnably alluring!
“I’m sorry. I must go back,” he repeated resolutely.
“As you choose—Mr. Galahad!”
There was an angry flash in her blue eyes as she leaned forward to rap upon the window. There was another flash as her mesh-bag slipped to the floor. They bent for it together, and their hands touched under the fold of the robe. Their heads were close together. Something warm swept his cheek.
CHAPTER II
The Devens mansion first gained immortality as the original of the familiar mot that: “If architecture is frozen music, that house must be frozen ragtime!” Richard Devens, selecting his architect for no better reason than that he had found himself sitting beside a confident young man at a sheriff’s jury banquet, had bidden him go as far as he liked, with the result that the latter had taken him at his word.
On the theory that it pays to advertise it had been a huge success, resembling nothing else created by the hand of man except possibly a gigantic cake of marzipan, whence one might expect to see a flight of Easter rabbits come leaping through the windows, and where the pantheon of shameless gods and goddesses who shouldered the upper stories, amused themselves by nonchalantly tossing stony fruits across the façade or carelessly lassoing one another with rococo garlands.
Its architectural extravagances, even had Hugh been qualified to appreciate them, were lost in darkness as the motor stopped beneath the porte-cochère, and the shaded windows looked exactly like any other windows, the door like any other door. Moira, having dismissed the car, ran up the steps. A white-haired butler received Hugh’s coat, hat, and brief-case, arranging them methodically upon a polished table that stood beneath a massive oaken staircase.
“There’ll be one extra for dinner, Shane.”
“Yes, Miss Moira.”
“Where’s father?”
“In the library, Miss Moira.”
“This way, Mr.—” she gave that same little cooing chuckle. “Dillon, isn’t it?”
“Dillon it is!”
The adventure was becoming queerer and queerer. He had never before been in a house like this, except once when billeted on the outskirts of Compiègne in a small château hastily stripped by the owner of everything of value in anticipation of the immediate arrival of the Heinies. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers. Everywhere he caught the glint of gold frames, of marble, of carving. Cotton wool! She led him up one flight, then along a passage lined with paintings to a closed door.
His brain was awhirl, his heart pumping. The same spots burned in his cheeks as had been there in the court-room. He would have followed her anywhere—as
