Joan and Co.
“Madame—you should see. Never has Mam’selle looked more beautiful.”
So Madame Fairburne mounted the stairs and stepped in, and, in her joy,
kissed her daughter on the forehead.
“It is charming, my dear,” she said. “Mr. Burnett should be proud.”
“Of the gown?” she had asked.
“Only you could wear the gown.”
Joan shrugged her white shoulders ever so slightly and went downstairs
to the library where she used to wait for Devons. Alone she sat before
the fire. She had heard nothing from him yesterday, nothing to-day,
and she was a bit worried. Considered in connection with machinery
this silence might mean almost anything. To her, machinery signified
a disordered medley of whirling wheels and noises, which, like some
inhuman monster, was ever seeking the limbs and lives of those around
it.
Of course, in one way it could not be said that she was seriously
disturbed about the remote possibility of his having met with an
accident of this nature, but it served as an excuse for worrying about
him at all. In many ways not to have had some such concrete explanation
of her present frame of mind would have been to admit a fact that might
have turned out still more disturbing.
Until now she had heard from Devons every day. The communications were
nothing she need be ashamed of. They could have been published in the
daily paper without compromising any one. Still they were always in his
own handwriting and to that extent were personal. It was only natural,
then, that a lapse of forty-eight hours should seem significant. She
rather clung to that word “natural.” When honestly used it may mean
a great deal by the process of elimination. It is only the unnatural
mental phenomena that need give any one cause for concern.
Then to muse at some length over the possible causes that would lead
one’s business partner suddenly to cut all lines of communication was
perfectly legitimate—perfectly natural. This much being established
she felt free to stare into the flames and day-dream as much as she
liked. She dismissed the accident theory almost as soon as she became
fully at ease. He did not write because he was too busy and because he
refused to associate her with his work except in his idle moments. It
was not a flattering admission, but she was not seeking flattery. She
was trying to see straight and clear. He refused to take her seriously.
He saw her only as Henriette saw her—a dressmaker’s form upon which to
hang clothes. She could scarcely blame him for that. If he had walked
into the room at this moment, he would have had the evidence of his two
eyes. If he had followed her about during this past week, he would have
seen her living true to his conception. If—he had gone no deeper than
externals. If, on the other hand, he had shared her thoughts—she raised
her head quickly at the suggestion as though fearing he might by some
chance appear and demand that privilege.
At that moment Jeffrey went by to answer a ring at the door. She
sprang to her feet. It was Dicky—earlier than he should have come. She
resented this as an intrusion. She was of half a mind to refuse to see
him for another hour.
But it turned out not to be Dicky, after all, but a messenger with a
note for her.
Jeffrey entered with it on a silver tray and she tore open the yellow
envelope. She read with shortened breath:
_8 Mullen Court
New York City_
MY DEAR MISS FAIRBURNE:
Not having seen Mark Devons for a couple of days, I just went
upstairs to learn what had become of him. He lives above me in the
same house. I found him in bed and, against his wishes, sent for
a doctor. He seemed to be worried because he had not been able to
report to you for a couple of days, so I’m taking a chance and am
doing it for him. I have a notion he may be in bed for some time
if he doesn’t take care, and so thought that perhaps for business
reasons you ought to know just how he is situated.
If you wish, I could send you a postal now and then, informing you
how he is getting on. In the meanwhile if I can be of any other
service, I trust you will call on me.
Very sincerely yours
HENRY ARKWRIGHT
Joan summoned Jeffrey.
“The machine,” she ordered.
Then she hurried upstairs to Henriette.
“Get ready to come out with me at once.”
She picked up the telephone in her room and notified Dicky, slipped
into the wrap Henriette held for her, and went down to the car. To
Charles she gave the order:
“Eight Mullen Court.”
The information the latter had lately acquired was becoming useful
sooner than he had expected.
CHAPTER XVIII
BEEF TEA
Joan sat back in the machine by the side of Henriette, with a feeling
of tenseness amounting almost to exhilaration. The thing she was
daring thrust, into the background, for a few moments, that for which
she dared. In coming at all she had acted impulsively—had obeyed her
emotions rather than her intellect. There was nothing in Arkwright’s
note to justify the belief that Devons was really in any immediate need
of her. Rather, if the truth were told, she had seized this opportunity
as an excuse for satisfying a certain need in herself. She looked
forward to the possibility of actually making herself of some use as a
hope—a vague and stimulating hope.
As Charles left Washington Square and cut through to Sixth Avenue,
she leaned forward and, with eyes out of the window, stared at the
unfamiliar streets with all the sensations of a stranger in a foreign
city. She had only to turn a little way to the right or left off any
of the ordained avenues to find herself in a New York as new to her as
Cairo. Had she been put down alone here, it is doubtful if, without
much difficulty, she could have found her way home.
So they crossed beneath the Elevated to the hole in the wall and
stopped, as Henriette, with some timidity, exclaimed:
“But, Mam’selle—Charles, he has made a mistake, is it not?”
“I do not know,” answered Joan.
Yet Charles appeared confident enough as he opened the door. What lay
on the other side of that wall he did not know, but he could have taken
his oath it was here that, not long ago, he had landed Mr. Devons.
He pointed to the opening.
“It’s through there,” he said.
“Thank you,” nodded Joan. “You may wait for us.”
Joan herself led the way to the courtyard and she herself found the
number eight with her heart in her mouth. There was no bell, so she
rapped. Mrs. Roberts, on the first floor, came to the door and directed
her up the narrow stairs to Arkwright’s room, and, a moment later,
she found herself confronting the big fellow, somewhat at a loss to
explain intelligently her presence here, because as yet she had not
explained it intelligently to herself. But the moment she gave her
name, Arkwright seemed to understand.
“He’ll be glad to see you,” he said quietly.
“The doctor has been here?”
“Yes,” answered Arkwright, “and he said—why, he said the man hasn’t
been getting enough to eat.”
“But why not?” she exclaimed.
“It’s his own fault—his own bull-headedness. If he had only come to me—”
“There was no need for him to go to any one,” she broke in; “he had
money.”
“He did?”
“We—we are interested in the same business, so I know,” she explained.
Arkwright shook his head.
“I’ll give up trying to find a motive, then. Perhaps he just forgot
to eat. Anyway, he did not get enough, and then he caught cold, and
then—well, there he is. Want to see him?”
She hesitated. Then she answered steadily:
“Yes.”
So with Henriette by her side she followed Arkwright up another flight
and into the little room lighted with a single gas-jet. She had never
seen anything like it in her life outside a few dimly remembered scenes
on the stage. Even now as she stood there she felt as though in some
mad moment she had wandered over the footlights. Then the figure on the
bed lifted himself to his elbow and she saw the haggard face and the
two burning eyes, which she recognized as Devons’s eyes. Quickly she
crossed to the man’s side and held out her hand.
“You?” he gasped.
“You should have told me,” she answered.
“Told you what?” he demanded.
Arkwright stepped forward a moment.
“It’s all my fault,” he explained. “I sent her a note.”
Devons frowned, and then sank back wearily.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Arkwright,” he complained.
“Yes, yes. It was all he could do,” put in Joan. “And it’s what you
should have done. I don’t understand why—you are like this.”
“It’s only a cold. I’ll be up to-morrow.”
Devons was glaring at Arkwright again. The latter retreated out of
range.
“If you didn’t have enough money—”
“I had money enough,” he cut in.
“Then why didn’t you buy proper food?”
“You don’t think I’d waste the firm’s money on myself?”
“Oh, that was it!” she exclaimed, with a catch in her voice.
“If Arkwright—”
“Don’t blame him. There isn’t much use in blaming any one now. You must
get back your strength again. We—we must begin all over.”
“I’ll be up to-morrow, I tell you. Why, that machinery is waiting for
me.”
“Yes? Have you been obeying the doctor’s orders since he left?”
“You aren’t Nurse Ware,” he objected.
“I’m going to be even more strict.”
She turned back to Arkwright.
“What instructions did the doctor leave?”
Arkwright glanced at his watch guiltily.
“Jove, it _is_ time for his beef tea. I’ll go down and make it.”
“I’ll make it—please.”
“All you have to do is to boil some water and add a cube. I—”
“Please show me the range and find the cubes,” she ordered.
The range consisted of an alcohol stove and a tin dipper. Arkwright
lighted the wick for her and filled the dipper with water, and placed
the cubes convenient to her hand. Then it suddenly occurred to him that
he was no longer needed and he retreated somewhat awkwardly to the
door. He saw her slip off her wrap as she sat down before her work. The
sight of her slim neck and white arms took away his breath; then he met
her eyes.
“Thank you so much,” she murmured, as though politely excusing him.
“Only—only too happy,” he stammered.
Devons in the meanwhile was closing his eyes for a moment, then opening
them again, then closing them again, because it was only so that he
could bring himself to believe that she was really here. If he looked
at her steadily for any length of time she grew hazy and he felt
there was danger of her disappearing altogether. Henriette, in the
rear, served in a way as a sort of anchor, but in the shadow he could
scarcely make her out. But Joan was beneath the gas-jet so that if he
did not look overlong he was sure of her.
Her back was toward him and he was rather glad of that. Had she faced
him he would not have dared open his eyes at all. For she seemed to him
now even more radiantly beautiful then ever before, and before there
was nothing whatever beautiful enough with which to compare her. So
that though he continued to try to blame Arkwright for his colossal
nerve in being the direct means of getting her down here, it was a
difficult thing to do consistently, because he was so glad to have her
there.
And yet she did not belong here. In the midst of his joy he told
himself that over and over again. The moment he removed his eyes from
her and looked about at her surroundings she made him feel ashamed.
Every sordid detail grew more sordid. The stark paper on the walls and
the wooden chairs taunted him. They forced him into a contrast with the
clean, good taste of what she had offered him in her home. His battered