CHAPTER V
Langdon Jesse and his one-time associate and co-partner in lamb-shearing"deals," Frederick Judd, met at luncheon in a restaurant in thefinancial district a few days later.
Judd, one of the powers of "the Street," was past fifty-five, and he hadno great toleration for the vacuities of young men. This fact, however,placed no inhibition on the admiration--it could scarcely be called aliking--which he felt for Langdon Jesse; for Jesse, whatever else he mayhave been, certainly was not vacuous in the matter of business; and itwas from the angle of their success in business that Judd exclusivelyjudged men. Jesse, well under forty, already was a veteran of the stockmarket; and on at least one occasion he had deftly "trimmed" no less aperson than his former associate, Mr. Judd; wherefore Judd, with thebreadth of vision of the financial general in considering the strategyof the general who has beaten him, admired Jesse, who had beenvirtually his pupil, all the more; resolving, at the same time, not topermit his quondam pupil to "trim" him again.
Jesse, accepting the nodded invitation, took a seat at the table atwhich Judd, alone, was eating his heavy luncheon. They exchanged markettalk in brief, brittle phrases, for a while. Then Jesse, histoo-prominent lips curving, and seeming to be gazing over the top ofJudd's bare poll, said:
"Sumptious, isn't she?"
Judd, used to Jesse's adversions to the sumptuosity of women--manywomen--went on doggedly eating. After a space he replied with amonosyllable:
"Who?"
Jesse did not answer for a moment; nor did Judd seem to be particularlyworried over that fact.
"I dropped into your--er--your place on the Drive on Sunday night," saidJesse, fastening an abnormally long cigarette into a remarkably longcigarette holder of amber and gold.
Judd, his fork poised in the air, looked up at Jesse. There was aquestion in his red-rimmed eyes; but Judd made it a point not to submitquestions of any consequence until he had turned them over in his mindseveral times.
"So I heard," said Judd, with no obvious interest, pronging away againwith his fork.
"Who told you," asked Jesse, with a sharp glance at Judd. "Not----"
"How the devil should I remember who told me?" replied Judd in amatter-of-fact tone. "What's the difference who told me, anyhow?"
But it made considerable difference, as a matter of fact, to Jesse; hisself-satisfaction and his serene belief in his ability to make animmediate "impression" were very great; and when Judd told him he had"heard" he had been at the Riverside Drive house he took it for grantedthat Judd had "heard" it from the person on whom his thoughts weredwelling; Louise Treharne, that is to say.
"Oh, no particular difference," said Jesse, blowing a cloud of acridTurkish cigarette smoke at Judd, which caused Judd to scowl. "I thoughtperhaps----"
Judd knew perfectly well what he thought; but Judd often failed even tomention things that he knew perfectly well.
"You take in those bear-garden affairs at Tony's--at Mrs. Treharne's,"catching himself, "right along, don't you?" said Judd. "How the devilyou can endure that pack of imbecile, loquacious what-are-theys is morethan I can make out. One of those Sundays nights cured me."
Jesse, however, had not the least intention of being side-tracked.
"Well, she is--er--well, ripping; isn't she?" he said, after a pause.
Judd, perceiving the futility of evasion, gave way.
"Yes--if that's what you want me to say--and all ice, besides," saidJudd. "You're up against it there, son," he went on, judicially. "Or areyou looking for a death by freezing? Why, I'm afraid that she's going tofracture one of her upper vertebrae even when she nods to me! And that'sall the recognition she ever gives me--a nod."
"She doesn't strike me as being so hopelessly Arctic as all that," saidJesse, inordinately proud of what he considered his keen judgment ofwomen. "Did you ever happen to meet a woman with auburn hair whopossessed a--er--a frozen or freezing temperament? And, by the way, whydo you dwell upon her rigidity, so to speak, when she nods 'even toyou?' Why 'even to you?'"
Judd, a little choler showing in his purpling face, broke out:
"Because a man naturally expects a little manners, a little commonpoliteness, from people he's taking care of, doesn't he? She's living inmy house, by God!"
"That," said Jesse, quietly, "is precisely what I am getting at: sinceshe is living in your house--if she knows it is your house--she can't beso--er--well, stupendously straight-laced, can she? And, by frozen, ofcourse you meant straight-laced."
"I meant exactly what I said," replied Judd, sulkily. "Stop twisting mywords around, will you? I said that she was ice, and that is what Imeant to say. You're on a blind trail, Jesse, if that's what you'regetting at. Take it from me. You're a hit with 'em, I know, and all thatsort of rot. But this one is more than your match. She'll shrivel yougood and plenty if you try anything on with her. At that, why can't youlet her alone? There are plenty of the other kind--your kind. What's thematter, anyhow? Have all the show girls moved out of New York?"
Jesse didn't relish the slap. It was not exactly a truthful slap,moreover. Jesse had withdrawn his devotions to "show girls" severalyears before; since doing which he had quarried in entirely differentquarters.
"Let the girl alone--that's my advice," went on Judd, seized for themoment by a flickering sense of fairness. "I don't fancy herparticularly--because she's so damned haughty with me, I suppose, andlooks down upon me from a mountain. But she's all right. I know that,and I'm telling it to you for your information. Better forget it. Thereisn't a chance on earth for you, anyhow."
Jesse didn't appear to be in the least thrown off the quest by theadvice.
"Are you sure," he inquired of Judd after a short silence, "that sheknows just where you figure in the Riverside Drive establishment?"
"Well, you could see for yourself that she is more than seven years ofage, couldn't you?" briefly replied Judd.
"But," observed Jesse, obviously seeking to get hold of all of thethreads of the situation, "she is only recently out of school, Iunderstand, and perhaps she hasn't yet fully grasped----"
"I don't know what she has grasped, and I don't care a damn," thrust inJudd, tired of the colloquy. "She must know a good deal about the waythings stand or she wouldn't treat me as if I were rubbish. I can seehow I stick in her throat. When it comes to that, why shouldn't I? She'sonly a schoolgirl, if she is a head taller than I am. Her mother made anidiotic mistake in having the girl around the place. But that's none ofmy affair. I take the game as it stands. Only I advise you to standclear. You might as well be decent for once in your life. Unless, ofcourse," and Judd shot a glance of inquiry at Jesse, "you mean to turnrespectable--it's about time--and go in for the marrying idea?"
Jesse's somewhat waxy, excessively smooth face flushed at Judd'safterthought.
"I marry?" he said, with a distinctly disagreeable laugh. "Well, it maycome to that, some day or other. But can you see me marrying thedaughter of your acknowledged----" He fumbled for the word; "mistress"was what he wanted to say, but he discarded it out of sheer timidity;"--your acknowledged companion?" he finished.
"Be good enough to keep out of my personal affairs, Jesse," said Judd,coldly. "I don't dip into your private concerns. You may take my adviceor leave it. But you want to go pretty slow, if you're asking me. Nobodyhas yet forgotten that West Indian affair of yours; just remember that."
With Judd, one shot called for another. Jesse gave a start and paledslightly at Judd's allusion to "the West Indian affair." Judd waitedonly long enough to see that the shot found its mark; then, with anamused leer, he rose from the table, his luncheon finished, and lumberedaway with a nod.
Jesse, discarding his cigarette, bit off the end of a cigar and fumed.The "West Indian affair" was a sore subject with him solely because theworld knew all about it. He had not the least feeling ofself-condemnation over it; it was the thought that, for once, he hadbeen found out that caused him to rage internally when the matter wasadverted to; for the newspapers had been full
of it at the time of theoccurrence.
"The West Indian affair," Jesse well knew, had not been forgotten, asJudd had said, nor was it likely to be forgotten. It threw a rakinglight upon his general attitude toward and his treatment of women. Ayear before, after one of his periodical triumphs in the cotton market,in which, to quote the newspapers' way of putting it, he had "cleaned upmillions," Jesse had made a midwinter cruise of the West Indies on hisyacht. A girl of unusual beauty, whom he had met by accident on anautomobile tour on Long Island, had been his companion on the cruise.She was inexperienced, of humble parentage, and he had overborne herobjections by vaguely intimating something as to a marriage when theyshould arrive in the West Indies. She had protested when, upon theyacht's touching at many ports, he had of course shown not the leastinclination to make good his merely intimated promise; and, in his wrathover her attitude, he had not only committed the indefensible crime, buthe had made the stupendous mistake, viewed from the politic point ofview, of deserting the girl in a West Indian city, without money orresources, without even her clothing, and sailing back to New Yorkalone.
The girl, thus stranded amid new and unfriendly surroundings, had butone resource--the American consul. The consul provided for her passageback to New York. The correspondents of the New York newspapers in theWest Indian city had got hold of the details, adding a few neatlywhimsical touches of their own, and for days the newspapers had reekedwith the story. There had been talk of prosecuting Jesse for abduction,but he had employed the underground method, rendered easily available tohim owing to his wealth, to smother that suggestion. But the grislyaffair had thrown a cloud over Jesse from which he knew, raging as heknew it, there was no emerging. Several of his clubs--the good ones--haddropped him; men and women of the world to which he aspired, and inwhich he had been making progress, cut him right and left; his name hadbeen erased from most of the worth-while invitation lists; and the holein his armor was wide open to the shafts of the kind Judd had justdischarged at him.
Jesse sat at the table and gnawed angrily at his unlighted cigar for along time after Judd had gone; it was characteristic of him that hiscompunction was all for himself. He had been found out and pilloried.That was what cut him. He never gave a thought to the young woman whoselife he had destroyed.
Jesse had been instantly struck by the beauty of Louise Treharne. Hesurmised that it was through no complaisance on her part, but purelybecause she had been helpless in the matter, that she had found herselfliving with her ostracised mother in the house on the Drive. Thatsituation, he was confident, had been thrust upon her. But thisconsideration, and the additional one that she was, as he could not havefailed to note, nobly undergoing the ordeal, which might have arousedthe admiration and excited the sympathy of a man of merely averagefairness, had touched no compassionate chord in Langdon Jesse. Adoptingthe trivial and far-fetched methods of analysis which are employed bymen who consider themselves expert in their knowledge of women, he hadcalmly concluded that in all likelihood Louise Treharne's manner was askillfully-studied pose. At any rate he meant to find out. He meant to"know her better." It was thus that his determination framed itself inhis mind; he would "know her better."
In gaining the attention of women, he believed in the gentle siege andthen the grand assault; it was, in truth, the only "system" with whichhe had any familiarity, and it had generally proved successful.
Jesse returned to his office, summoned his car, went to his suite at thePlaza, gave himself over to the grooming activities of his man for anhour; then, resuming his car, he went to the house on Riverside Drive.
* * * * *
Louise, in brown walking suit and brown turban, her cheeks ruddy from along and rapid walk from one end of the Park to the other, had justreturned when Jesse's card was brought up. She was studying the card,trying to devise an excuse--for she shrank from the thought of seeinghim--when her mother, ready for her motor airing, entered the room.
"I just caught sight of Mr. Jesse's car from my window," said Mrs.Treharne to Louise. Louise observed that her mother was in the samefluttered state that she had been in when she had found Jesse talking toher on the previous Sunday night. "He has sent his card to you? Ofcourse you are going to see him?"
"I think I shall not see him, mother," said Louise, ringing for Heloisewith the purpose of sending word that she was indisposed, not athome--anything.
Mrs. Treharne looked annoyed and there was irritation in her question:
"Why not, my dear?"
"I don't care for him, mother," said Louise, frankly. "In fact, Ibelieve I rather dislike him. Do you think he is the sort of man Ishould meet?"
Louise was intensely disappointed that her mother should care to haveher meet Jesse. She tried to assure herself that her mother did not knowor realize the character of the man as she herself had heard it brieflydescribed by Laura; but she found that a bit difficult to believe.
"Tell me, please, Louise, why you ask me such a question as that," saidMrs. Treharne, irritatedly. "What do you know about Mr. Jesse? Who hasbeen telling you things about him?"
Louise, remaining silent, plainly showed that she did not care to answerher mother's question.
"It was Laura, no doubt," went on Mrs. Treharne. "Laura, I begin tofear, is growing garrulous. You must not permit her to put absurd ideasinto your head, my dear. I must speak to her about it."
"Pray do not, mother," said Louise, earnestly. "She is one of thedearest women in the world, and everything that she tells me, I know, isnot only perfectly true, but for my good. It is not anything said to meby Laura that makes me dislike the idea of receiving Mr. Jesse. It issimply that I don't like him. There is a boldness, an effrontery, acynicism, about him that make me distrust him. I don't care for his typeof man. That is all."
"You must not fall into the habit of forming sudden prejudices, mydear," said her mother, diplomatically assuming an air of gravepersuasiveness. "Mr. Jesse no doubt has had his fling at life. Whatworth-while man of his age hasn't? But he is a man of mark. He has madehis way as few men have. Of course you found him handsome, _distingue_?Most women do, my dear. And I could see that he was greatly struck withyou. You will soon be twenty, Louise; and Mr. Jesse, perhaps I shouldremind you, is a great _parti_."
Louise felt herself crimsoning. Her mother did know Jesse's record,then. That was manifest from her words. And yet she was calmly exaltinghim as an "eligible!"
The girl so shrank from having any further conversation with her motheron the subject just then that she turned to her and said:
"I would not see him of my own volition, mother; but if you very muchwish it, I shall see him."
"For heaven's sake, Louise, don't look so terribly austere and crushedover it!" broke out Mrs. Treharne. "The man will not kidnap you! I verymuch wish that you should be sensible and receive eligible men, ofcourse. Isn't that a perfectly natural wish?"
Louise, without another word, not stopping to remove her turban or evenglance in the glass, went down-stairs to receive Jesse. Her motherfluttered past the drawing-room door a moment later, merely stoppingfor a word of over-effusive greeting to Jesse before joining the waitingJudd in his car. Jesse, whether by accident or from foreknowledge, hadtimed his visit well. He was quite alone on the floor with LouiseTreharne. She caught the gleam of his upraised eyes and noted the boldpersistence of the question in them when, still in his fur overcoat, heturned from the contemplation of a picture to greet her.
"Ah," he said with an attempt at airiness, slipping out of the overcoatand extending his hand, "our Empress already has been out?" glancing ather turban and her wind-freshened cheeks. "That is unfortunate. I wasabout to place my car at her disposal----"
He withdrew his hand, not seeming to notice that Louise had failed tosee it.
"Yes, I have been walking," put in Louise, in no wise stiffly, but withan air of preoccupied withdrawal which she genuinely felt. "As to whatyou call me, I believe I should prefer to be known by my name."
&nb
sp; Jesse, remembering what Judd had said as to the likelihood of his beingfrozen or shrivelled, laughed inwardly. He rather enjoyed being rebuffedby women--at first. It made the game keener. None of them, he rememberednow with complaisancy, continued to rebuff him for very long.
"Pardon me, Miss Treharne," he said, with a certain languishing airwhich Louise found even more offensive than his initial familiarity. "Ithought, when the title was so spontaneously applied to you on Sundaynight, that perhaps you found it agreeable. But it is difficult togauge--women." He dwelt upon the word "women," thinking that,considering how recently she had left school, it might flatter her.
Louise chose to talk commonplaces. Her bed-rock genuineness made itimpossible for her to affect an interest in a visitor which she did notfeel. And her lack of interest in Jesse was complicated by her growingdislike for him.
"I am doubly disappointed," said Jesse after a pause which he did notfind embarrassing. Nothing embarrassed Jesse when he had his minddefinitely set upon a purpose. "First, I had hoped, as I say, that, nothaving been out, you would honor me by accepting the use of my car.Second, I am desolated because you are wearing a hat. I had beenpromising myself another glimpse of your superb hair. Is it _banal_ toput it that way? I am afraid so. But consider the temptation! Was itAspasia or Cleopatra whose hair was of the glorious shade of yours--orboth?"
"Mr. Jesse," said Louise, now quite _degage_, facing him squarely andspeaking with the greatest deliberation, "I seem to find, from my twolimited conversations with you, that you are suffering under some sortof a misapprehension as to me. You will discover that yourself, I think,if you will take the trouble to recur to several things you already havesaid to me after an acquaintanceship, all told, of perhaps ten minutes.Suppose we seek a less personal plane? I am too familiar with my hair tocare to have it made a subject of extended remarks on the part of menwhom I scarcely know. There are less pointed themes. Permit me tosuggest that we occupy ourselves in finding them."
"By God, a broadside!" said Jesse to himself, not in the least abashed;his admiration always grew for women who trounced him--at first. "Ididn't think she had it in her! And Judd, the fat imbecile, called heran iceberg! She is a volcano!"
Aloud, he said, with a neatly-assumed air of subjection and penitence:
"Well delivered, Miss Treharne. But I merit it. I have made the error ofsupposing--"
"That my comparatively recent return from school, and theopen-mindedness naturally associated with that," Louise quietlyinterrupted, "made me a fair target for your somewhat labored and notparticularly apt compliments. Yes, you erred decisively there."
"Again!" thought Jesse, bubbling with finely-concealed delight. "She_is_ an empress right enough, whether she likes to be called that ornot! What a prize!"
Aloud, he said with an air of chastened gravity:
"You do me scant justice there, Miss Treharne, but that is easilypassed, seeing how chagrinedly conscious I am that I deserved yourrebuke in the first instance. You are fond of motoring?" changing thesubject with no great deftness.
"No," replied Louise, sufficiently out of hand. "I don't in the leastcare for it." The conversation was irksome to her and she would notpretend that it was not.
"I inquired," said Jesse, looking chapfallen though he did not in theleast feel so, "because I had been hoping you might do me the honor toaccept the use--the steady use--of one of my cars. I have several," thislast with an ostentation that rather sickened Louise. But she could notallow the carefully veiled suggestion in his words to pass.
"Mr. Jesse," she said, reverting to her tone of deliberation and againgazing straight at him, "aside from the fact that, as I have told you, Idon't in the least care for motoring, will you be good enough to suggestto me just one fairly intelligible reason why I should accept yourproffer of the use--'the steady use'--of one of your cars? It may bethat you will have some reason to offer for what, otherwise, I shoulddeem a distinct impertinence."
Jesse's eyes gleamed with the joy of it. "What a prize!" he thoughtagain.
"I seem, Miss Treharne," he said with a laugh which he purposely madeuneasy, "to be stumbling upon one blunder after another. There is noreason for my having offered you the use of one of my cars--and I hastento withdraw the offer, since it seems to offend you--other than myfriendship of long standing with your mother and my desire--my hope, Iwas about to say--that you, too, might consider me worthy of yourfriendship."
It was rather adroitly turned, but it completely missed fire.
"I don't seem to recall that it is necessary for one to adopt one'smother's friends as one's own," said Louise, without the leasthesitancy. His assumption of an easily-penetrated ingratiating mannerhad thoroughly disgusted her; she wanted him to take his departure; andshe chose the most straightout means to that end. There was no possibleway for her to know that Jesse enjoyed the early taunts of some womenmuch as he relished the cocktails with which he preceded his dinners,and for very much the same reason--they were appetizers.
He rose with an air of irresolution which he was far from feeling.
"I fear," he said, resignedly, "that something has happened--or perhapsthat something has been said--to predispose or prejudice you against me,Miss Treharne. It is a conclusion to which I am driven."
He paused, then faced her with an appearance of frankness which he wasadept at assuming.
"Miss Treharne," he went on, cleverly adopting a tone with a tremolonote in it, "you will grant, I think, that men--men, that is to say, whocut any sort of figure in affairs"--a flourish here--"often aremisjudged. Without in the least desiring to pose as one who has been avictim of such misjudgment, I feel, nevertheless----" Here he stopped,having carefully calculated his stopping point, and, with impulsivelyextended hands, he went on with a beautifully acted semblance of realfeeling: "Miss Treharne, I merely ask you to give me a chance to provemyself; a chance at least to wear the candidate's stripes for yourfriendship."
Despite her youthfulness and her utter inexperience with men of Jesse'stype, Louise, aided by an unusually subtle intuition, and mindful ofwhat she had heard of Jesse, caught the hollow ring in his tone,detected the false shifty light in his now furtive, eager eyes.
She rose.
"You are quite overpoweringly in earnest over what seems to me a verytrivial matter, Mr. Jesse," she said with a little laugh that soundedharsh even to her own ears.
"You gravely underestimate the value of your friendship in calling ittrivial, Miss Treharne," said Jesse, rising also; for at length he wasready to accept the dismissal which a less thick-skinned man, even ofhis type, would have taken long before.
"I have not been in the habit of placing any sort of an appraisal uponthe value of my friendship," she replied, succinctly.
He thrust his arms into the sleeves of his greatcoat of fur andstrolled, with a downcast air, to the drawing-room door.
"This is not your normal mood, Miss Treharne," he said, turning upon hera smile that he meant to be wan. "You see what unresentful justice I doyou. There are to be other days. I shall find you in a humor lessinclined to magnify my candidly professed demerits. I hope to have anopportunity to prove to you that I have at least a few merits to balancethe faults."
The hint was sufficiently broad, but Louise appeared to be momentarilyobtuse. At any rate she did not extend the invitation he too patentlyfished for. Her reticence in that respect, however, did not in the leastabash Jesse.
"At least I have the cheering knowledge that this door is open to me,"he said, entering the foyer on his way out. "Have I not?"
Unavailingly Louise strove to steady herself in order to thrust back thecolor which she felt mounting to her face.
"It is not my door," she said in a low tone; and instantly was keenlysorry for having said it.
"Oh, I quite understand that," he said, with an air of lightness, thoughat the moment he did not dare to turn and look at her. "But it is allthe same, since it is your mother's, is it not?"
She made no reply. She felt tha
t she deserved the barb for having givenhim the opportunity to discharge it. He bowed low, essayed the smilethat he considered his most engaging one, and went out to his waitingcar.
For the second time after having been in the presence of Langdon Jesse,Louise went to her rooms and threw all the windows wide; then stood inthe wintry eddies and permitted the cold, sweet air to enwrap and purifyher.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Treharne, after leaving Louise and Jesse together, steppedinto the car with Judd, she found that adipose man of finance chucklingsoftly to himself. She deigned not to inquire of him the reason for hischuckling--knowing, of course, that presently he would be volunteeringthat information himself.
"That was Jesse's car in front of the house, wasn't it, Tony?" he askedher, still chuckling unpleasantly as the car pulled away from the curb.
"Yes," she replied, alert of a sudden, but disdaining to appear so.
"Jesse is calling to see--er--your daughter, eh?" Judd asked, continuinghis rumbling manifestations of joviality.
"He is," replied Mrs. Treharne, carefully screening her impatience tocatch Judd's drift. "But I fail to see why that fact should incite youto give vent to such a harrowing series of low comedy chuckles."
"Quite so, quite so, my dear Antoinette," said Judd, soothingly, but notin the least diminishing his choppy cachinnatory performance.
Mrs. Treharne, with an air of disgust which merely screened her worriedcuriosity, permitted him to continue for a while. Then she said, with anair of gravity intended to drag him back to his naturally sullen state,but assumed also for the purpose of sounding him:
"Jesse was plainly struck with Louise on Sunday night last. Her positionnow, of course, is hideous. Jesse may be the solution."
Judd straightened himself in his seat and suddenly stopped chuckling.Then he glanced with quizzical keenness out of slitted eyes at hiscompanion.
"Meaning, I suppose," he said, "that you have an idea that Jesse mighttake it into his head to marry her?"
"What else could I mean?" she asked him huskily.
"Quite so, quite so, my dear Antoinette," said Judd, leaning back in hisseat again. "Of course. Certainly. I fully understand you," and heclosed his eyes as if about to lapse into a refreshing nap.
Mrs. Treharne, distinctly wrought up, grasped one of the lapels of hisseal-lined greatcoat and shook him determinedly.
"Be good enough to explain to me, and at once, precisely what you mean,"she said rapidly, a growing hoarseness in her tone.
Judd, for his part, promptly relapsed into his chuckling.
"It is nothing, my dear--nothing at all, I assure you," he said, betweenwheezes. "Only it strikes me as rather diverting that anybody shouldconsider Jesse in the light of a matrimonial eligible. When, by the way,did you gather the idea that Jesse was a marrying man? Sincethat--er--somewhat widely-exploited little affair of his in the WestIndies last year? Or more recently?"
Judd generally won in the little skirmishes they had in the motor car.The fact that he had won again was plainly indicated by the fact thatshe remained silent for the remainder of the ride.
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