Children of the Whirlwind
For he had never a guess of how deep Joe's interest was. He did not
know, could not know, that that tall, fixed figure, with its one
absorbing idea, was thinking of his daughter. He could not know that Joe
Ellison, emotionally elated and with a hungry, self-denying affection
that reached out toward them all, was seeing his daughter as just such
a girl as one of these--simple, wholesome, well-brought-up. He could
not know that Joe, in a way, perceived his daughter in every nice young
woman he saw.
Toward evening of the seventh day of her visit, Miss Sherwood returned.
Larry was on the piazza when the car bearing her swept into the
white-graveled curve of the drive. The car was a handsome, powerful
roadster. Larry had started out to be of such assistance as he could,
when the figure at the wheel, a man, sprang from the car and helped
Miss Sherwood alight. Larry saw that the man was Hunt--such a different
Hunt!--and he had begun a quick retreat when Hunt's voice called after
him:
“You there--wait a minute! I want a little chin-chin with you.”
Larry halted. He could not help overhearing the few words that passed
between Hunt and Miss Sherwood.
“Thank you ever so much,” she said in her even voice. “Then you're
coming?”
“I promised, didn't I?”
“Then good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
They shook hands friendly enough, but rather formally, and Miss Sherwood
turned to the house. Hunt called to Larry:
“Come here, son.”
Larry crossed to the big painter who was standing beside the
power-bulged hood of his low-swung car.
“Happened to drop in where she was--brought her home--aunt following
in that hearse with its five-foot cushions she always rides in,”
Hunt explained. And then: “Well, I suppose you've got to give me the
once-over. Hurry up, and get it done with.”
Larry obeyed. Hunt's wild hair had been smartly barbered, he had on a
swagger dust-coat, and beneath it flannels of the smartest cut. Further,
he bore himself as if smart clothes and smart cars had always been items
of his equipment.
“Well, young fellow, spill it,” he commanded. “What do I look like?”
“Like Solomon in all his glory. No, more like the he-dressmaker of the
Queen of Sheba.”
“I'm going to run you up every telephone post we come to for that
insult! Hop in, son, and we'll take a little voyage around the earth in
eighty seconds.”
Larry got in. Once out of the drive the car leaped away as though intent
upon keeping to Hunt's time-table. But after a mile or two Hunt quieted
the roaring monster to a conversational pace.
“Get one of the invitations to my show?” he asked.
“Yes. Several days ago. That dealer certainly got it up in great shape.”
“You must have hypnotized Graham. That old paint pirate is giving the
engine all the gas she'll stand--and believe me, he's sure getting up
a lot of speed.” Hunt grinned. “That private pre-exhibition show you
suggested is proving the best publicity idea Graham ever had in his
musty old shop. Everywhere I go, people are talking about the darned
thing. Every man, woman and child, also unmarried females of both sexes,
who got invitations are coming--and those who didn't get 'em are trying
to bribe the traffic cop at Forty-Second Street to let 'em in.”
Hunt paused for a chuckle. “And I'm having the time of my young life
with the people who always thought I couldn't paint, and who are now
trying to sidle up to me on the suspicion that possibly after all I can
paint. What's got that bunch buffaloed is the fact that Graham has let
it leak out that I'm likely to make bales of money from my painting. The
idea of any one making money out of painting, that's too much for their
heads. Oh, this is the life, Larry!”
Larry started to congratulate him, but was instantly interrupted with:
“I admit I'm a painter, and always will admit it. But this present thing
is all your doing. We'll try to square things sometime. But I didn't ask
you to come along to hear verbostical acrobatics about myself. I asked
you to learn if you'd worked out your plan yet regarding Maggie?”
“Yes.” And Larry proceeded to give the details of his design.
“Regular psychological stuff!” exclaimed Hunt. And then: “Say, you're
some stage-manager! Or rather same playwright! Playwrights that know
tell me it's one of their most difficult tricks--to get all their
leading characters on the stage at the same time. And here you've got
it all fixed to bring on Miss Sherwood, Dick, Maggie, yourself, and
the all-important me--for don't forget I shall be slipping out to Cedar
Crest occasionally.”
“As for myself,” remarked Larry, “I shall remain very much behind the
scenes. Maggie'll never see me.”
“Well, here's hoping you're good enough playwright to manage your
characters so they won't run away from you and mix up an ending you
never dreamed of!”
The car paused again in the drive and Larry got out.
“I say, Larry,” Hunt whispered eagerly, “who's that tall, white-haired
man working over there among the roses?”
“Joe Ellison. He's that man I told you about my getting to know in Sing
Sing. Remember?”
“Oh, yes! The crook who was having his baby brought up to be a real
person. Say, he's a sure-enough character! Lordy, but I'd love to paint
that face!... So-long, son.”
The car swung around the drive and roared away. Larry mounted to the
piazza. Dick was waiting for him, and excitedly drew him down to one
corner that crimson ramblers had woven into a nook for confidences.
“Captain, old scout,” he said in a low, happy voice, “I've just told
sis. Put the whole proposition up to her, just as you told me. She
took it like a regular fellow. Your whole idea was one hundred per cent
right. Sis is inside now getting off that invitation to Miss Cameron,
asking her to come out day after to-morrow.”
Larry involuntarily caught the veranda railing. “I hope it works
out--for the best,” he said.
“Oh, it will--no doubt of it!” cried the exultant Dick. “And, Captain,
if it does, it'll be all your doing!”
CHAPTER XXIII
When Miss Sherwood's invitation reached Maggie, Barney and Old Jimmie
were with her. The pair had growled a lot, though not directly at
Maggie, at the seeming lack of progress Maggie had made during the past
week. Barney was a firm enough believer in his rogue's creed of first
getting your fish securely hooked; but, on the other hand, there was the
danger, if the hooked fish be allowed to remain too long in the water,
that it would disastrously shake itself free of the barb and swim away.
That was what Barney was afraid had been happening with Dick Sherwood.
Therefore he was thinking of returning to his abandoned scheme of
selling stock to Dick. He might get Dick's money in that way, though of
course not so much money, and of course not so safely.
And another item which for some time had not been pleasing Barney was
that Larry Brainard had not yet been finally taken care of, either by
the police or by that unofficial force to which he had given orders.
So he had good reason for permitting himself the relaxation of scowling
when he was not on public exhibition.
But when Maggie, after reading the invitation, tossed it, together with
a note from Dick, across to Barney without comment, the color of his
entire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway. The surly
gloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an aurora
borealis of superior hopes:--no, something infinitely more substantial
than any heaven-painting flare of iridescent colors.
“Maggie, it's the real thing! At last!” he cried.
“What is it?” asked Old Jimmie.
Barney gave him the letter. Jimmie read it through, then handed it back,
slowly shaking his head.
“I don't see nothing to get excited about,” said the ever-doubtful,
ever-hesitant Jimmie. “It's only an invitation.”
“Aw, hell!” ejaculated the exasperated Barney in disgust. “If some one
handed you a government bond all you could see would be a cigar coupon!
That invitation, together with this note from Dick Sherwood saying he'll
call and take Maggie out, means that the fish is all ready to be landed.
Try to come back to life, Jimmie. If you knew anything at all about
big-league society, you'd know that sending invitations to meet the
family--that's the way these swells do things when they're all set to do
business. We're all ready for the killing--the big clean-up!”
He turned to Maggie. “Great stuff, Maggie. I knew you could put it over.
Of course you're going?”
“Of course,” replied Maggie with a composure which was wholly of her
manner.
A sudden doubt came out of this glory to becloud Barney's master mind.
“I don't know,” he said slowly. “It's one proposition to make one
of these men swells believe that a woman is the real thing. And it's
another proposition to put it over on one of these women swells. They've
got eyes for every little detail, and they know the difference between
the genuine article and an imitation. I've heard a lot about this Miss
Sherwood; they say she's one of the cleverest of the swells. Think you
can walk into her house and put it over on her, Maggie?”
“Of course--why not?” answered Maggie, again with that composure which
was prompted by her pride's desire to make Barney, and every one else,
believe her equal to any situation.
Barney's animation returned. “All right. If you think you can swing it,
you can swing it, and the job's the same as finished and we're made!”
Left to herself, and the imposing propriety and magnificent stupidity
of Miss Grierson, Maggie made no attempt to keep up her appearance of
confidence. All her thoughts were upon this opportunity which
insisted upon looking to her like a menace. She tried to whip her
self-confidence, of which she was so proud, into a condition of constant
pregnancy. But the plain fact was that Maggie, the misguided child of a
stolen birthright, whose soaring spirit was striving so hard to live up
to the traditions and conventions of cynicism, whose young ambition it
was to outshine and surpass all possible competitors in this world in
which she had been placed, who in her pride believed she knew so much of
life--the plain fact was that Maggie was in a state bordering on funk.
This invitation from Miss Sherwood was an ordeal she had never counted
on. She had watched the fine ladies at the millinery shop and while
selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore, when she had been modeling her
manners, and had believed herself just as fine a lady as they. But that
had been in the abstract. Now she was face to face with a situation that
was painfully concrete--a real test: she had to place herself into close
contrast with, and under the close observation of, a real lady, and in
that lady's own home. And in all her life she had not once been in a
fine home! In fine hotels, yes--but fine hotels were the common
refuge of butcher, baker, floor-walker, thief, swell, and each had
approximately the same attention; and all she now felt she had really
learned were a few such matters as the use of table silver and finger
bowls.
It came to her that Barney, in his moment of doubt, had spoken more
soundly than he had imagined when he had said that it was easier to fool
a man about a woman than it was to fool a woman. How tragically true
that was! While trying to learn to be a lady by working in smart shops,
she had learned that the occasional man who had ventured in after
woman's gear was hopelessly ignorant and bought whatever was skillfully
thrust upon him, but that it was impossible to slip an inferior or
unsuitable or out-dated article over on the woman who really knew.
And Miss Sherwood was the kind of woman who really knew! Who knew
everything. Could she possibly, possibly pass herself off on Miss
Sherwood as the genuine article?...