One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York
an' above the register."
"I should have thought it would have been more. Men are usually
generous when they are getting married."
"He was takin' on a rather expensive bit of stuff, unless I am much
mistaken, an' p'raps he was just rememberin' it."
In this ingenuous fashion was a poor woman neatly headed off the scent
of a fifty-dollar bill. She rang the knell of a new hat by her next
question.
"What was the young lady really like--how was she dressed?" she cried.
. . .
Hardly a word was said within the taxi until the corner was turned out
of 56th Street into Seventh Avenue. Curtis, who was sitting with his
back to the driver, rose, apologized for the disturbance, and looked
through the tiny rear window.
"That's all right," he said. "That car won't be able to move for
several minutes; but we must leave nothing to chance," so he sank back
into a seat, and permitted the driver to take them whither he listed.
Hermione's first words were not exactly those of a fair maid in utmost
distress.
"Oh, how splendid it must be to feel sure that you are able to hit a
wretch like Count Vassilan and knock him flat!" she cried.
Curtis was surprised. He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted
lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather
expected to hear subdued sobbing.
"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that
fellow," he said.
"I never could. It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he
treats them. I do hope you have hurt him."
"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis. "He impressed me
as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will
afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity
to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body
of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour.
There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a
decent problem. Meanwhile, the vital question is--where are we going?"
Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood. He could
picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:
"I do not know."
"It is evident," he went on, "that they procured the minister's address
from the elevator man at your dwelling."
"Ah, that Rafferty! Wait till I see him," broke in Marcelle.
"Please do not scarify Rafferty, if that is his name. I am much more
to be blamed than he, because I assured your mistress that the Earl and
Count Vassilan were safe on board the _Switzerland_ till the morning.
I see now that they telegraphed for a tug, and it is best to assume
that they have been kept informed by wireless of nearly every move in
the game. . . . You agree with me, I suppose, Lady Hermione, that your
return to 1000 59th Street is out of the question?"
"It is, if this mock marriage is to serve any real purpose," she said.
"But pray remember that it is not a mock marriage. You and I are as
firmly bound together by the law as if--well, as if we meant it."
She leaned forward a little; her face was etched in Rembrandt lights by
the glare from some shop windows.
"Mr. Curtis," she said earnestly, "it is neither just nor reasonable
that you should plunge yourself into difficulties for the sake of a
girl whom you met to-night for the first time. Why not go out of my
life now--this instant? . . . Marcelle and I can find refuge
somewhere. The hour is early. . . . Why should you take all the risk?"
He was ready for some such appeal on her part.
"I was taught in school if I did a thing at all to do it thoroughly,"
he said, "and my experience of life has given the adage a halo. It
would be worse than useless to desert you now, Lady Hermione. Whatever
penalties I may have incurred in the eyes of the law are committed
beyond hope of redemption. If I am sought for, the police know exactly
where to lay hands on me, and my crime would become monstrous if it
were proved that I ran away from my wife on the night of our marriage.
No; we must face the music boldly, and together. We must go to some
well-known hotel, register openly, secure rooms, and conduct ourselves
on the orthodox lines of all runaway couples, who are presumably head
over heels in love with each other. Moreover, in the morning, or
whenever we are run to earth, you should allow me to face your father
and play the part of the indignant husband. It is essential that your
marriage should appear real, or you go back to bondage and I to prison."
"To prison!" The girl's horrified accents showed that she had hardly
given a thought to the bald consequences of her escapade.
"Yes. I am not trying to frighten you; but what sort of mercy would a
judge show to the craven who absconded before the battle began? If, on
the other hand, I am, so to speak, torn from your arms--if a plausible
lawyer can depict you tearful and inconsolable--if----"
"You make out a fairly strong case, Mr. Curtis. I have told you that I
trust you, and I can only repeat my words of gratitude. . . .
Marcelle, you will not leave me?"
"Never, miss, ma'am--that is, your ladyship."
Thus it befell that Curtis was ready with the name of a prominent hotel
in Fifth Avenue when the driver halted in Madison Avenue. He made his
choice almost at random, but selected one of the newest uptown
caravanserais, merely because it lay a considerable distance from 27th
Street. Otherwise, his object in picking a large hotel being to avoid
notice among a fashionable throng, he might easily have taken his
"wife" to the Waldorf-Astoria, in which event certain complications
even then hot in the making would not have followed their intricate
course, while Hermione's future must have been affected most powerfully.
"I suppose you are prepared to submit to certain conditions which
govern this new venture?" said Curtis, when the cab was once more
speeding onward to a definite goal.
"What are they?"
It would be scarcely fair to describe Hermione's tone as suspicious,
for she was a loyal soul, and was wondering in her heart of hearts what
manner of man this knight errant could be; but his very self-possession
fluttered her; she had been so accustomed to think and act in her own
defense that she experienced a subtle fear of this calm, cool-headed,
masterful person whom she must learn to regard as her husband.
"Well,"--Curtis's speech was so unemotional that he might have been
describing one of his Manchurian railway schemes--"we must treat each
other with a certain familiarity--even use little endearments--in
public--and address each other by pet names--mine is Chow."
Despite her troubles, the girl laughed, and Curtis recalled the tinkle
of silver bells in a temple at evening on the banks of the far-away
Wei-ho.
"But that is the name of a dog!" she tittered.
"Yes. In my case, it denoted some unpleasant personal characteristics
when a stupid mandarin put obstacles in my way. I never gave any
warning, but rushed in and bit him, not actually, of course, but in his
illicit commissions, which annoyed him more than a real bite."
"I don't like Chow," she said. "Your name is John. Won't Jack do?"
"Fine." It was lucky she could not see the smile that flitted across
his face. "And yours?"
"Mamma always used my full name, and I have never had anyone else to
give me a pet name, unless it was 'Tatters' at school."
"We might bracket Tatters with Chow, and dismiss both," he said
lightly. "And I like the sound of Hermione so well that it is pat on
my lips already. . . . Now, you, Marcelle--remember that her ladyship
has become Lady Hermione Curtis."
"Oh, not Mrs. Curtis?"
"No. An earl's daughter retains her courtesy title after marriage."
"All right, sir. I shan't forget." Indeed, Marcelle was jubilant.
She had been "dying" to use her mistress's title, once she became aware
of it, but it was taboo at 59th Street.
Curtis had covered a good deal of ground during that brief discussion
in the cab, but Hermione was not quite prepared for its logical sequel
in the hotel.
Naturally, they attracted no unusual attention when they entered the
hotel. Other people merely noticed the passing of a distinguished
looking young man in evening dress--for Curtis had promptly whipped off
that ominous overcoat--and a slender, veiled lady, of elegant carriage,
who walked up to the bureau, followed by a smartly dressed girl who
gazed about her with bright, all-seeing eyes.
"My wife and I have been detained in New York this evening
unexpectedly," explained Curtis to the hotel clerk. "We want a suite
of rooms, a sitting-room, three bedrooms with baths--you would like
Marcelle's room to communicate with yours, wouldn't you, dear?" and he
turned suddenly to Hermione.
"Y-yes," she faltered, for the attack took her unaware.
"What floor, sir? We have a nice suite on the tenth."
"Not so high, please," said Hermione. Then she sprung a mine on her
own account. "I know it is stupid, Jack, darling, but I am so afraid
of fire."
"This hotel is absolutely fireproof, madam," put in the clerk, stating
a fact implicitly believed by every hotel proprietor in New York in so
far as his own building is concerned, "but we can accommodate you on
the second floor, Suite F., fifty dollars a day."
"Thank you. That will be just right," said Curtis quickly, for he
meant to live like a prince during one night at least, let the morrow
bring its own cares. "Now, you understand that we are here without
baggage, though my wife's maid will procure some necessaries while we
eat, and I mean to get some clothes later, but, if you would like a
deposit of, say, a hundred dollars----?"
He felt for his pocketbook, but, to the credit of the clerk be it said,
the suggestion was negatived with a smile.
"No need at all for any deposit, sir," was the answer. "I wouldn't be
on to my job it I didn't know how and when to discriminate in matters
of that sort. Will you register?"
Curtis took a pen and wrote:
"Mr. and Lady Hermione Curtis, and maid." Some imp of adventure moved
him to inscribe "Pekin" in the column for visitors' home addresses.
But the clerk was obviously impressed by Hermione's title, no less than
the singularly remote locality the couple hailed from. He leant back,
and took a key from its hook.
"Page!" he said. "Show Mr. Curtis and her ladyship to Suite F." Then
he added, as an afterthought: "Would you like dinner served in your
sitting-room, sir?"
"I think so," said Curtis, "but my wife shall decide a little later."
Hermione kept silent until they were safely behind the closed door of a
well-furnished and delightfully spacious apartment.
"Of course, I bear all expenses," she said firmly.
"What--are we quarreling already?" he asked.
"No, but----"
"You think I am being wildly extravagant. Why, bless your ladyship's
dear little heart, this hotel doesn't begin to know how to charge like
a taxi. Now, no argument till to-morrow. An American millionaire can
really be quite a decent sort of fellow at times, and, if we may assume
that this is one of the times, please let me play at being a
millionaire--for once."
She raised her veil, and looked at him, straight in the eyes.
"Why are you so different from other men? Why have I never before
spoken to a man like you?" she asked.
"But I am not different, and there are plenty of men like me; the other
poor chaps haven't had my glorious chance of serving you--that is all.
Now, won't you go and see if your room is comfortable, and whether or
not Marcelle's quarters are just right? Then come back here, and we'll
discuss menus, for which purpose I shall ring for a waiter _ek dum_."
"Is that Chinese?"