One Wonderful Night: A Romance of New York
"No, Hindustani. It means 'at once,' but every hotel-wala east of Suez
understands it."
Still she lingered.
"Have you any sisters--a mother living?" she said.
"No. I'm the sole survivor of my own family. But I mean to give
myself the pleasure of a full introduction while we dine, or sup. Do
say you are hungry."
"I have not eaten a morsel since luncheon," she confessed.
"Oh, joy! I must interview the head waiter. No common serf will
suffice. Please hurry."
She left him, not without an impulsive movement as though she meant to
utter some further words of thanks, but checked her intent on the very
threshold of speech. As the lock of the bedroom door clicked, and he
was alone, he essayed a review of the amazing sequence of events which
had befallen since he strolled out of the dining-room of the Central
Hotel. He stood there, motionless, with hands plunged deep in his
pockets, but, at the outset of a reverie in which judgment and prudence
might have helped in the council, he happened to catch sight of himself
in an oblong mirror over the mantelpiece, for the apartment, redolent
of New York's later architecture, contained an open grate, and was
furnished with the chaste beauty of the Chippendale period. In his
present position the reflection in the mirror was oddly reminiscent of
a half-length portrait of his grandfather, the warrior who rode at the
head of the Fifth Cavalry in '61.
Then Curtis laughed, with the pleasant conviction of a man whose mind
has been made up for him by circumstances beyond his control.
"It's bred in the bone--a clear case of Mendelism," he murmured softly,
because he had just remembered how Colonel Curtis, before ever the war
was ended and its bitterness assuaged, had decided a Southern girl's
conflict between love and duty by galloping fifty miles across
Confederate South Carolina and carrying off the lady.
Grandfather and grandson alike were men of action. Curtis seldom used
a gesture, and never cried over spilt milk. Now he merely turned,
peered into his own bedroom, assured himself that Hermione would find
its prototype to her fancy, and then summoned a waiter.
Behind the closed door of the other room a girl was similarly engaged
in taking stock of the situation; but she had feminine assistance, so
there was bound to be talk.
"Oh, your ladyship, isn't this just the dandiest bit out of a novel you
ever read?" cried Marcelle when she entered her mistress's room through
a communicating door.
"It might be more thrilling if it were not a page out of my own life,"
said Hermione sadly. She, too, was gazing in a mirror, though, being a
woman, the oppressive thought bobbed up through a sea of troubles that
her hair must be untidy, and she owned neither comb nor brush.
"But, what luck, miss, your ladyship, to have found a gentleman like
Mr. Curtis at the right moment. Talk about life buoys for drowning men
and rich uncles from California in plays--who ever heard of anyone
wanting a nice husband and getting him in such a way!"
Marcelle's eyes were positively glistening. And these two now were not
mistress and maid, but a pair of highly strung women, and young ones at
that.
"You have lost your wits in this night's excitement, Marcelle," said
Hermione. "Don't you realize that I am only married under mere
pretense. Mr. Curtis is nothing to me, nor I to him. He has been kind
and gallant, and I am under an obligation which I can never
discharge--but that is not marriage."
"It's awful like it, your ladyship."
"No, no. Drive such nonsense from your head. When you marry, don't
you hope to love the man of your choice, and will you not feel sure
that he loves you?"
"Oh, yes, miladi."
"Then how is it possible for any relationship of that sort to exist
between Mr. Curtis and me?"
"You've gone a long way already, ma'am," giggled Marcelle.
"Please don't call me ma'am. It--it irritates me."
"Sorry, miladi, but you will admit, at least, a marriage being
necessary, that you were fortunate in finding Mr. Curtis?"
"Yes, doubly fortunate--it is that fact which makes things hard for me."
"Makes what things hard, your ladyship?"
"Oh, I don't know. I scarce recognize my own voice. Marcelle, if I
seem distraught and unreasonable, promise me you will pay no heed. For
pity's sake, don't leave me!"
Hermione's eyes filled with tears, and Marcelle was on the verge of
hysteria.
"I--can't imagine--what there is--to cry about," she murmured brokenly.
"Nothing on earth would induce me to go away now--but I do hope--and
pray--you will be happy--even though--you only met your husband--little
more than an hour ago! . . . And I believe in my heart, Lady Hermione,
that you will soon see how fortunate you were in escaping that mincing
little Frenchman----"
"Marcelle, the poor man is dead."
"Then it is the best turn he has done you, miladi. I never fancied
him. There was something underhanded and mean about him. I have seen
his face when you were not looking, and I'm sure he was a hypocrite."
"Marcelle, you will drive me crazy. Don't you understand that I have
never intended to marry anybody--really?"
A knock at the door opening into the sitting-room came to Hermione's
relief.
"Yes?" she said.
"If you can spare Marcelle, I would recommend that she should go to
your flat for any clothes you may need," said Curtis's voice.
Hermione threw open the door.
"A little while ago you told me that it was impossible to think of
returning there," she said.
"For you, yes, but not for your maid. Who is to hinder? That man,
Rafferty, looked a decent sort of fellow."
"I can manage Rafferty all right," put in Marcelle.
"Of course you can," smiled Curtis. "Just pack a trunk or a couple of
bags with Lady Hermione's belongings--you know what to bring--and get
Rafferty to call a taxi without attracting too much notice. If you
think you are being followed, put your pursuers off the scent. But my
own view is that 1000 59th Street is the last place anyone will think
of watching to-night."
"Shall I go at once, your ladyship?" said Marcelle, and Hermione said
"Yes," with a meekness that was admirable in a wife.
Curtis looked at his pretty bride's hat.
"I have ordered a meal," he said. "It will be served in a few minutes."
"I shall be ready," she replied, beginning nervously to take off her
gloves. The wedding ring was inclined to accompany the left hand
glove, but, after a second's hesitation, she replaced it. When she
appeared in the sitting-room she had discarded her jacket, a
close-fitting one of a style that fastened _a la militaire_, high in
the neck. Beneath it she had been wearing a white silk blouse, and the
delicate pink of her arms and throat was revealed now through its
diaphanous sheen. A string of pearls supported a diamond cross on her
breast, and on her left wrist was a watch set in small diamonds and
turquoises and carried by a bracelet of gold filigree. She wore only
one ring--_the_ ring--and even the slight glance which Curtis gave it
brought a vivid blush to her cheeks.
"I am not a past master in the art of ordering banquets," he said
cheerily, turning at once to draw her attention to the table, "but the
head-waiter here is a gourmet. He suggested caviare, a white soup, a
king-fish, a tourne-dos, and a grouse--does that appeal?"
"You take my breath away," she said, with valorous effort to seem at
ease.
"Now--as to wine?"
"I seldom touch wine."
"To-night it will make you sleep. What do you say to a glass of Clos
Vosgeot?"
"Is that a claret?"
"Yes."
"Well, as it happens, that is the one wine I take."
The dinner proceeded most pleasantly. To his own astonishment, Curtis
worked up sufficient appetite to enjoy the meal, though he would have
stuffed himself remorselessly to save his charming _vis-a-vis_ from the
slightest embarrassment. But he only sipped the wine, for a sixth
sense warned him that he must keep a clear head that night.
By inference rather than plain statement, for a deft waiter was
constantly coming in and out, he supplied Hermione with glimpses of his
own career, and ascertained from her that she had secured Marcelle's
services through the good offices of a lady who was a fellow-passenger
on the ship.
"She comes from New Orleans, but, notwithstanding her name, she does
not speak French," said Hermione. "I think that rather accounts
for----"
She stopped, and Curtis did not press for an explanation, but she
continued, after a second's pause:
"Marcelle did not like Monsieur de Courtois. I imagined she was
annoyed because he always conversed with me in a language she did not
understand."
"Then I shall avoid Chinese," he laughed.
"Marcelle----"
Again she hesitated. She was positively dismayed by consciousness of
the imminent disclosure, yet too well-bred even to appear to be
withholding confidences.
"You have won Marcelle's golden opinion already," she said. "But let
us talk of something else."
For the moment they were alone, and she glanced at the watch on her
wrist.
"Have you made any plans?" she inquired, and her voice was low, yet
sufficiently composed.
"For the future?"
"Yes."
"When Marcelle arrives, I am going to my hotel for some baggage. You,
I suggest, are going to bed."
"You will return?"
"Within the hour--if I am alive."
"And to-morrow?"
"To-morrow, may it please your ladyship, we breakfast together at nine
o'clock."
"Your plan, then, is mainly composed of eating and sleeping?"
"What else--our policy is one of drifting."
"You are extraordinarily good to me, Mr. Curtis."
"It is 'Jack' in the compact."
She sighed.
"Alas, this compact reads only one way. It means that you give and I
receive. Will you--will you believe, in the future, that despair alone
could have driven me to the course I have pursued?"
"No," he said sturdily.
"No? That is the only unkind thing you have said."
"I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair.
But--here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages. I hear thuds in
the next room."
And, indeed, the waiter entering just then with coffee, Marcelle's
voice reached them sharply from the corridor:
"Now, you boy, be careful with that hat-box! Do you think you are an
express man, or what?"
CHAPTER VI
NINE-THIRTY
Chance is often a skilled stage manager, and chance had arranged a
really effective scene in the hall of the Central Hotel. The Earl of
Valletort seemed to be somewhat unwilling to take up any of the
gauntlets so readily thrown down by Devar and the Curtis family, and,
for a few seconds, the ring of reporters was held spellbound by a
situation which promised most excellently with regard to the
all-important question of "copy."
Then the police captain, after waiting for Steingall to take the lead,
nudged his silent colleague, and said gruffly:
"This thing cannot be gone into here. Those who can bring forward
testimony of any value ought to come with Mr. Steingall and myself to
the precinct station-house."
"Why lose time which cannot be overtaken later?" urged the Earl,
appealing to Steingall, since it was the detective who had spoken to
him in the first instance.
"We appear to be at cross purposes," said Steingall. "How did you two
gentlemen get to know that a murder had been committed?"
"Murder!" gasped Count Vassilan.
"We are not talking of a murder, but of a most scandalous abduction,
which will provide only one of a number of most serious charges against
this person, Curtis," cried the Earl.
Vassilan seized him by the arm excitedly.
"Don't you understand, dear friend," he muttered in French. "The
rascal must have killed de Courtois in order to gain possession of the
marriage certificate."