"What d.a.m.ned foolery have you been up to NOW?" he demanded. "Can"t I move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil did you bid?"

"We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of the rummy little object, don"t you know, and surprise you."

"Who"s we?"

"Lucille and I."

"But how did you hear of it at all?"

"Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it."

"Parker! Didn"t he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be sold?"

"Absolutely not!" A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was normally a guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the part played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. "I say, you know, it looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what? I mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off-- Bill, you know--to go and bid for the thing."

"Bill! Was Bill there?"

"Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the d.i.c.kens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then this bird--this gentleman--sailed in and started to slip it across us."

Professor Binstead chuckled--the care-free chuckle of a man who sees all those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains untouched.

"A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method seems to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either he or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer, and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid against each other. Very ingenious!"

Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome them and to force himself to look on the bright side.

"Well, anyway," he said. "I"ve got the pair of figures, and that"s what I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?"

"This is it. I wouldn"t trust an express company to deliver it. Suppose we go up to your room and see how the two look side by side."

They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr. Brewster"s brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite. Like most men who have risen from poverty to wealth by their own exertions, Mr. Brewster objected to parting with his money unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred dollars still rankled.

Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly, he halted, stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and pressed it, then stood gurgling wordlessly.

"Anything wrong, old bean?" queried Archie, solicitously.

"Wrong! Wrong! It"s gone!"

"Gone?"

"The figure!"

The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the bell, and was standing in the doorway.

"Simmons!" Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. "Has anyone been in this suite since I went away?"

"No, sir."

"n.o.body?"

"n.o.body except your valet, sir--Parker. He said he had come to fetch some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with instructions."

"Get out!"

Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the Pongo on the table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up the little china figure and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It was a small thing, he reflected philosophically, but it had made quite a stir in the world.

Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.

"So," he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity, "I have been to all this trouble--"

"And expense," put in Professor Binstead, gently.

"Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And, owing to your d.a.m.ned officiousness," he cried, turning on Archie, "I have had to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don"t know why they make such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you around!"

"Of course," argued Archie, "he had one or two boils."

"Boils! What are boils?"

"Dashed sorry," murmured Archie. "Acted for the best. Meant well. And all that sort of rot!"

Professor Binstead"s mind seemed occupied to the exclusion of all other aspects of the affair, with the ingenuity of the absent Parker.

"A cunning scheme!" he said. "A very cunning scheme! This man Parker must have a brain of no low order. I should like to feel his b.u.mps!"

"I should like to give him some!" said the stricken Mr. Brewster. He breathed a deep breath. "Oh, well," he said, "situated as I am, with a crook valet and an imbecile son-in-law, I suppose I ought to be thankful that I"ve still got my own property, even if I have had to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping it." He rounded on Archie, who was in a reverie. The thought of the unfortunate Bill had just crossed Archie"s mind. It would be many moons, many weary moons, before Mr. Brewster would be in a suitable mood to listen sympathetically to the story of love"s young dream. "Give me that figure!"

Archie continued to toy absently with Pongo. He was wondering now how best to break this sad occurrence to Lucille. It would be a disappointment for the poor girl.

"GIVE ME THAT FIGURE!"

Archie started violently. There was an instant in which Pongo seemed to hang suspended, like Mohammed"s coffin, between heaven and earth, then the force of gravity a.s.serted itself. Pongo fell with a sharp crack and disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the door, and in walked a dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed vision of Mr. Daniel Brewster looked like something connected with the executive staff of the Black Hand. With all time at his disposal, the unfortunate Salvatore had selected this moment for stating his case.

"Get out!" bellowed Mr. Brewster. "I didn"t ring for a waiter."

Archie, his mind reeling beneath the catastrophe, recovered himself sufficiently to do the honours. It was at his instigation that Salvatore was there, and, greatly as he wished that he could have seen fit to choose a more auspicious moment for his business chat, he felt compelled to do his best to see him through.

"Oh, I say, half a second," he said. "You don"t quite understand. As a matter of fact, this chappie is by way of being downtrodden and oppressed and what not, and I suggested that he should get hold of you and speak a few well-chosen words. Of course, if you"d rather-- some other time--"

But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to postpone the interview. Before he could get his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a strong, ambidextrous talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in getting a word in. When he did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist, he had been able to follow the discourse closely enough to realise that the waiter was dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and Mr. Brewster, as has been indicated, had a short way with people who criticised the Cosmopolis.

"You"re fired!" said Mr. Brewster.

"Oh, I say!" protested Archie.

Salvatore muttered what sounded like a pa.s.sage from Dante.

"Fired!" repeated Mr. Brewster resolutely. "And I wish to heaven," he added, eyeing his son-in-law malignantly, "I could fire you!"

"Well," said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim silence which followed this outburst, "if you will give me your cheque, Brewster, I think I will be going. Two thousand three hundred dollars. Make it open, if you will, and then I can run round the corner and cash it before lunch. That will be capital!"

CHAPTER XII.

BRIGHT EYES--AND A FLY.

The Hermitage (unrivalled scenery, superb cuisine, Daniel Brewster, proprietor) was a picturesque summer hotel in the green heart of the mountains, built by Archie"s father-in-law shortly after he a.s.sumed control of the Cosmopolis. Mr. Brewster himself seldom went there, preferring to concentrate his attention on his New York establishment; and Archie and Lucille, breakfasting in the airy dining-room some ten days after the incidents recorded in the last chapter, had consequently to be content with two out of the three advertised attractions of the place. Through the window at their side quite a slab of the unrivalled scenery was visible; some of the superb cuisine was already on the table; and the fact that the eye searched in vain for Daniel Brewster, proprietor, filled Archie, at any rate, with no sense of aching loss. He bore it with equanimity and even with positive enthusiasm. In Archie"s opinion, practically all a place needed to make it an earthly Paradise was for Mr. Daniel Brewster to be about forty-seven miles away from it.

It was at Lucille"s suggestion that they had come to the Hermitage. Never a human sunbeam, Mr. Brewster had shown such a bleak front to the world, and particularly to his son-in-law, in the days following the Pongo incident, that Lucille had thought that he and Archie would for a time at least be better apart--a view with which her husband cordially agreed. He had enjoyed his stay at the Hermitage, and now he regarded the eternal hills with the comfortable affection of a healthy man who is breakfasting well.

"It"s going to be another perfectly topping day," he observed, eyeing the shimmering landscape, from which the morning mists were swiftly shredding away like faint puffs of smoke. "Just the day you ought to have been here."

"Yes, it"s too bad I"ve got to go. New York will be like an oven."

"Put it off."

"I can"t, I"m afraid. I"ve a fitting."

Archie argued no further. He was a married man of old enough standing to know the importance of fittings.

"Besides," said Lucille, "I want to see father." Archie repressed an exclamation of astonishment. "I"ll be back to-morrow evening. You will be perfectly happy."

"Queen of my soul, you know I can"t be happy with you away. You know--"

"Yes?" murmured Lucille, appreciately. She never tired of hearing Archie say this sort of thing.

Archie"s voice had trailed off. He was looking across the room.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "What an awfully pretty woman!"

"Where?"

"Over there. Just coming in, I say, what wonderful eyes! I don"t think I ever saw such eyes. Did you notice her eyes? Sort of flashing! Awfully pretty woman!"

Warm though the morning was, a suspicion of chill descended upon the breakfast-table. A certain coldness seemed to come into Lucille"s face. She could not always share Archie"s fresh young enthusiasms.

"Do you think so?"

"Wonderful figure, too!"

"Yes?"

"Well, what I mean to say, fair to medium," said Archie, recovering a certain amount of that intelligence which raises man above the level of the beasts of the field. "Not the sort of type I admire myself, of course."

"You know her, don"t you?"

"Absolutely not and far from it," said Archie, hastily. "Never met her in my life."

"You"ve seen her on the stage. Her name"s Vera Silverton. We saw her in--"

"Of course, yes. So we did. I say, I wonder what she"s doing here? She ought to be in New York, rehearsing. I remember meeting what"s- his-name--you know--chappie who writes plays and what not--George Benham--I remember meeting George Benham, and he told me she was rehearsing in a piece of his called--I forget the name, but I know it was called something or other. Well, why isn"t she?"

"She probably lost her temper and broke her contract and came away. She"s always doing that sort of thing. She"s known for it. She must be a horrid woman."

"Yes."

"I don"t want to talk about her. She used to be married to someone, and she divorced him. And then she was married to someone else, and he divorced her. And I"m certain her hair wasn"t that colour two years ago, and I don"t think a woman ought to make up like that, and her dress is all wrong for the country, and those pearls can"t be genuine, and I hate the way she rolls her eyes about, and pink doesn"t suit her a bit. I think she"s an awful woman, and I wish you wouldn"t keep on talking about her."

"Right-o!" said Archie, dutifully.

They finished breakfast, and Lucille went up to pack her bag. Archie strolled out on to the terrace outside the hotel, where he smoked, communed with nature, and thought of Lucille. He always thought of Lucille when he was alone, especially when he chanced to find himself in poetic surroundings like those provided by the unrivalled scenery encircling the Hotel Hermitage. The longer he was married to her the more did the sacred inst.i.tution seem to him a good egg. Mr. Brewster might regard their marriage as one of the world"s most unfortunate incidents, but to Archie it was, and always had been, a bit of all right. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel that a girl like Lucille should have been content to link her lot with that of a Cla.s.s C specimen like himself. His meditations were, in fact, precisely what a happily-married man"s meditations ought to be.

He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost at his elbow, and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton was standing beside him. Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight, and one of the criticised eyes was screwed up. The other gazed at Archie with an expression of appeal.

"There"s something in my eye," she said.

"No, really!"

"I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!"

Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To twist the lady"s upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct may be cla.s.sed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. King Arthur"s knights used to do this sort of thing all the time, and look what people think of them. Lucille, therefore, coming out of the hotel just as the operation was concluded, ought not to have felt the annoyance she did. But, of course, there is a certain superficial intimacy about the att.i.tude of a man who is taking a fly out of a woman"s eye which may excusably jar upon the sensibilities of his wife. It is an att.i.tude which suggests a sort of rapprochement or camaraderie or, as Archie would have put it, what not.

"Thanks so much!" said Miss Silverton.

"Oh no, rather not," said Archie.

"Such a nuisance getting things in your eye."

"Absolutely!"

"I"m always doing it!"

"Rotten luck!"

"But I don"t often find anyone as clever as you to help me."

Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and flow of soul.

"Archie," she said, "if you go and get your clubs now, I shall just have time to walk round with you before my train goes."

"Oh, ah!" said Archie, perceiving her for the first time. "Oh, ah, yes, right-o, yes, yes, yes!"

On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille was distrait and abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not for the first time in his life, what a poor support a clear conscience is in moments of crisis. Dash it all, he didn"t see what else he could have done. Couldn"t leave the poor female staggering about the place with squads of flies wedged in her eyeball. Nevertheless-- "Rotten thing getting a fly in your eye," he hazarded at length. "Dashed awkward, I mean."