“Only one of our clerks,” said her father. “What is it, my girl?”
“It's Nan Burgess's house-party at Kingston! There's to be an automobile parade--all decorated--at the fête, and I want to go in our big car, and have it two days. I was afraid you'd say no if I asked you over the telephone, but now that I'm right here, looking you in the eyes with all the coaxing power of my soul, you just can't refuse, can you, papa?”
“I think perhaps I would have consented over the telephone, Alma.”
“Then I may take the car?” Her playful tones rose in ecstatic crescendo. The impulsiveness of her nature was displayed by her manner in accepting this favor. She danced to her father and threw her arms about him. She exhibited as much delight as if he had bestowed upon her a gift of priceless pearls. The exuberance of her joy appeared to annoy him a bit.
“Gently, gently, Alma! If you waste your thanks in this manner for a little favor, what will you do some day for superlatives when you are really eager to thank some-body for a big gift?”
“Oh, I'll always have thanks enough to go around--that's my disposition. The folks who love me, I can love them twice as much. You're a dear old dad, and I know you want me to run along so that you can go to making a lot more money. So I'll just take myself out from underfoot.”
When she turned she glanced again at the person near the window, and this time she got a good look at his face. Even the veil could not hide from Bradish the color which spread into her cheeks. She was so conscious of her embarrassment and of her appearance that she did not turn her face to her father when he spoke to her.
“One moment, Alma! Seeing that my big car is going to have a two days' vacation in the country, I may as well make it do one last business errand for me.”
He called Bradish to the desk by a side jerk of the head.
“I want that check put into the hands of the brokerage firm of Mower Brothers as quickly as possible. My car is at the door, and it may as well take you along. Alma, allow this young man of ours to ride with you to the place where I'm sending him.”
He did not present Bradish to Miss Marston. Bradish did not expect the financier to do so. But this dismissal of him as a mere errand-boy--with the young lady staring him out of countenance in a half-frightened way--did cut the pride a bit, even in the case of a mere clerk. And this clerk was pondering on the memory that only the night before he had clasped this young lady--then a party unknown who was evidently bent upon an escapade _incog_.--had encircled this selfsame maiden with his arms during many blissful dances in one of the gorgeous Broadway public ball-rooms. And he had regaled her and a girl friend on viands for which his twenty-five-dollar check had scarcely sufficed to pay.
Bradish was pretty familiar with the phases and the oddities of the dancing craze, but this _contretemps_ rather staggered him.
They had asked no questions of each other during those dances. They had been perfectly satisfied with the joy of the moment. She had looked at him in a way and with a softness in her eyes which told him that she found him pleasing in her sight. She had been enthusiastic, with that same exuberance he had just witnessed, over his grace in the dance. They had promised to meet again at the ball-room where social conventions did not prevent healthy young folks from enjoying themselves.
“Good heavens!” she whispered to him, as she preceded him through the door. “You work in my father's office?”
“You are surprised--a little shocked--and I don't blame you,” he returned, humbly. “As for me, I am simply astounded. But I am not a gossip.”
She stole a look at his pale, impassive face, and some of her father's instinct in judging men seemed to reassure her.
“One must play a bit,” she sighed. “And it's so stupid most of the time, among folks whom one knows very well. There are no more surprises.”
As he shut the door softly behind them Bradish heard Marston, once more immersed in his affairs of business, directing over the telephone that one Fletcher Fogg be located and sent to him.
“I apologize,” said Bradish, in the corridor. They were waiting for the elevator.
“For what?” She lifted her eyebrows, and there was no hint of annoyance in her dark eyes.
“For--well--seeing how the matter stands, it almost seems as if I had presumed--was masquerading. I am only a clerk, and--”
“But you are a clerk in Julius Marston's offices,” she said, with pride, “and that means that you are to be trusted. I require no apology from you, Mr.--er--”
“My name is Ralph Bradish.”
“I dodged away from dullness last evening; I was hoping to have a bit of a frolic. And I found a young gentleman who asked no impertinent questions, who was very gracious, and who was a delight in the dance. It was all very innocent--rather imprudent--but altogether lovely. There!”
“I thank you.”
“And--well, after Nan Burgess's house-party, I--”
She glanced up at him, provocation in her eyes.
“But I don't dare to hope, do I, that you will condescend to come again and dance with me?”
“Julius Marston has taught his daughter to keep her promise, sir. If I remember, I promised.”
He did not reply, for the elevator's grille door clashed open for them to enter.
And in the elevator, and later in the car, he was silent, as became the clerk of Marston's offices in the company of Marston's daughter when there were listeners near.
Her eyes gave him distinct approval and her lips gave him a charming smile when he alighted at his destination.
Bradish stood for a moment and gazed after the car when it threaded its way into the Broadway traffic.
“She's a flighty young dame, with a new notion for every minute,” he told himself. “You can see that plain enough. It's probably all jolly on her part. However, in these days, if a fellow keeps his head steady and his feet busy, there's no telling what the tango may lead to. This may be exactly, what I've been paying tailors' bills for.”
Indicating that in these calculating times the spirit of youth in the ardor of love at first sight is not as the poet of romance has painted it.
XVII ~ “EXACTLY!” SAID MR. FOGG
“O I am not a man o' war or privateer,” said he, Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we! “But I'm an honest pirate a-looking for my fee, Cruising down along the coast of the High Barbaree.” --Shanty of the “Prince Luther.”
Mr. Fletcher Fogg privately and mentally and metaphorically slapped himself on the back whenever he considered his many activities.
He was perfectly certain that he was the best little two-handed general operator of an all-around character that any gentleman could secure when that gentleman wanted a job done and did not care to give explicit instructions as to the details of procedure.
The look of grief and regret that the fat face of Mr. Fogg could assume when said gentleman--after the job was done--blamed the methods as unsanctioned, even though the result had been achieved--that expression was a study in humility--humility with its tongue in its cheek.
If Mr. Fogg could have advertised his business to suit himself--being not a whit ashamed of his tactics--he would have issued a card inscribed about as follows:
“Mr. FLETCHER FOGG: Promoting and demoting. Building and busting. The whole inside of any financial or industrial cheese cleaned out without disturbing the outside rind. All still work done noiselessly. Plenty of brass bands for loud work. Broad shoulders supplied to take on all the blame.”
Mr. Fogg, in the presence of Julius Marston, was properly obsequious, but not a bit fawning. He wiped away the moisture patches beside his nose with a purple handkerchief, and put it back into his outside breast pocket with the corners sticking out like attentive ears. He crossed his legs and set on his knee an ankle clothed in a purple silk stocking. On account of his rotundity he was compelled to hold the ankle in place in the firm clutch of his hand. He settled his purple tie with the other hand.
“I'm glad I was in reach when you wanted me,” he assured Mr. Marston. “I'm just in on the _Triton_. And I want to tell you that you're running that steamboat line in the way an American business man wants to have it run. If I had been on any other line, sir, I wouldn't have been here to-day when you were looking for me. Everything else on the coast prowling along half-speed, but down slammed the old _Triton_, scattering 'em out from underfoot like an auto going through a flock of chickens, but not a jar or a scrape or a jolt, and into her dock, through two days of thick fog, exactly on the dot. That's the way an American wants to be carried, sir.”
“I believe so, Mr. Fogg,” agreed Julius Marston. “And that's why we feel it's going to be a good thing for all the coast lines to be under one management--our management.”
“Exactly!”
“It's true progress--true benefit to travelers, stockholders, and all concerned. Consolidation instead of rivalry. I believe in it.”
“Exactly!”
“As a broad-gauged business man--big enough to grasp big matters--you have seen how consolidation effects reforms.”