Twenty-five more days of history to get up in the still hours of the night, and all for an unresponsive young person who did not seem to appreciate the advantages of travel.
They were coming out of the restaurant, and Hallie’s voice, with a new note in it, broke in on his meditations.
‘Get a taxi; I want to go home.’
He turned to her in consternation.
‘What? You want to go back without seeing the famous indoor panorama, with paintings of all the actions and the life-size figures of the casualties in the foreground?’
There’s a taxi,’ she interrupted. ‘Quick!’
‘A taxi!’ he groaned, running after it through the mud. ‘And these taxis are robbers—we might have had a limousine out and back for the same price.’
In silence they returned to the hotel. As Hallie entered the elevator she looked at him with suddenly determined eyes.
‘Please wear your dinner coat tonight. I want to go out somewhere and dance—and please send flowers.’
Corcoran wondered if this form of diversion had been included in Mr Bushmill’s intentions—especially since he had gathered that Hallie was practically engaged to the Mr Nosby who was to meet them in Amsterdam.
Distraught with doubt, he went to a florist and priced orchids. But a corsage of three would come to twenty-four dollars, and this was not an item he cared to enter in the little book. Regretfully, he compromised on sweet peas and was relieved to find her wearing them when she stepped out of the elevator at seven, in a pink-petaled dress.
Corcoran was astounded and not a little disturbed by her loveliness—he had never seen her in full evening dress before. Her perfect features were dancing up and down in delighted anticipation, and he felt that Mr Bushmill might have afforded the orchids after all.
‘Thanks for the pretty flowers,’ she cried eagerly. ‘Where are we going?’
‘There’s a nice orchestra here in the hotel.’
Her face fell a little.
‘Well, we can start here—’
They went down to the almost-deserted grill, where a few scattered groups of diners swooned in midsummer languor, and only a half dozen Americans arose with the music and stalked defiantly around the floor. Hallie and Corcoran danced. She was surprised to find how well he danced, as all tall, slender men should, with such a delicacy of suggestion that she felt as though she were being turned here and there as a bright bouquet or a piece of precious cloth before five hundred eyes.
But when they had finished dancing she realized that there were only a score of eyes; after dinner even these began to melt apathetically away.
‘We’d better be moving on to some gayer place,’ she suggested.
He frowned.
‘Isn’t this gay enough?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I rather like the happy mean.’
‘That sounds good. Let’s go there!’
‘It isn’t a café—it’s a principle I’m trying to learn. I don’t know whether your father would want—’
She flushed angrily.
‘Can’t you be a little human?’ she demanded. ‘I thought when father said you were born in the Brix you’d know something about having a good time.’
He had no answer ready. After all, why should a girl of her conspicuous loveliness be condemned to desolate hotel dances and public-bus excursions in the rain?
‘Is this your idea of a riot?’ she continued. ‘Do you ever think about anything except history and monuments? Don’t you know anything about having fun?’
‘Once I knew quite a lot.’
‘What?’
‘In fact—once I used to be rather an expert at spending money.’
‘Spending money!’ she broke out. ‘For these?’
She unpinned the corsage from her waist and flung it on the table. ‘Pay the check, please. I’m going upstairs to bed.’
‘All right,’ said Corcoran suddenly, ‘I’ve decided to give you a good time.’
‘How?’ she demanded with frozen scorn. ‘Take me to the movies?’
‘Miss Bushmill,’ said Corcoran grimly, ‘I’ve had good times beyond the wildest flights of your very provincial, Middle-Western imagination. I’ve entertained from New York to Constantinople—given affairs that have made Indian rajahs weep with envy.
‘I’ve had prima donnas break ten-thousand-dollar engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing who’s got the button back in Ohio I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make the guests go home.’
‘I don’t believe it. I—’ Hallie gasped.
‘You’re bored,’ he interrupted. ‘Very well. I’ll do my stuff. I’ll do what I know how to do. Between here and Amsterdam you’re going to have the time of your life.’
III.
Corcoran worked quickly. That night, after taking Hallie to her room, he paid several calls—in fact, he was extraordinarily busy up to eleven o’clock next morning. At that hour he tapped briskly at the Bushmills’ door.
‘You are lunching at the Brussels Country Club,’ he said to Hallie directly, ‘with Prince Abrisini, Countess Perimont and Major Sir Reynolds Fitz-Hugh, the British attaché. The Bolls-Ferrari landaulet will be ready at the door in half an hour.’
‘But I thought we were going to the culinary exhibit,’ objected Mrs Bushmill in surprise. ‘We had planned—’
‘You are going,’ said Corcoran politely, ‘with two nice ladies, from Wisconsin. And afterward you are going to an American tea room and have an American luncheon with American food. At twelve o’clock, a dark conservative town car will be waiting downstairs for your use.’
He turned to Hallie.
‘Your new maid will arrive immediately to help you dress. She will oversee the removal of your things in your absence so that nothing will be mislaid. This afternoon you entertain at tea.’
‘Why, how can I entertain at tea?’ cried Hallie. ‘I don’t know a soul in the place.’
‘The invitations are already issued,’ said Corcoran.
Without waiting for further protests, he bowed slightly and retired through the door.
The next three hours passed in a whirl. There was the gorgeous landaulet with a silk-hatted, satin-breeched, plum-colored footman beside the chauffeur, and a wilderness of orchids flowering
