CHAPTER XIV
The mutiny of Mutsu, culminating at so opportune a time for Louise, wasthe result of an enmity for his employer which had been slumbering for along time in the mind of the Japanese valet. It had its origin inJesse's treatment of several women and girl victims for the entrapmentof whom Jesse had invoked the unwilling services of his Japanese man.Mutsu had been employed as an attendant at New York clubs long enough toknow the meaning of the word "thoroughbred" in its vernacularapplication to men; and he knew very well that the "thoroughbred" mandid not go in for the sort of women-corraling machinations to whichJesse devoted more than half of his time. Thus formed and grew Mutsu'scontempt for his employer as a coward who preyed upon thedefencelessness of inveigled women; and his contempt had reached a focalpoint when, after having been made the instrument to accomplish theenmeshment of Louise Treharne, he had returned to the Curzon Streethouse to find her in a peril with which he had become all too familiarsince entering Jesse's service. Louise's beauty and palpable purity hadtouched a sympathetic chord in the Japanese; so that, afteraccomplishing his vigil, his knowledge, based upon experience, of theindignities and perhaps worse to which she was bound to be subjected byhis employer had impelled him, in a sudden surge of Oriental wrath, tofollow her after he had seen her start for the Curzon Street house.
Mutsu had no difficulty in making a leisurely departure from Jesse'sestablishment and service after having released Louise from hisemployer's toils. He retained his tendon-stretching jiu-jitsu hold onJesse until he was sure that Louise had reached the street, while Jesse,literally foaming at the mouth in his rage, cursed him with an almostArabic variety and profusion of epithets. Then Mutsu, suddenly releasinghis employer, darted to the center of the room and faced Jesse with ateeth-exhibiting smile that was also half a snarl.
"Now I quit," said Mutsu, briefly. "I am glad for a quit. I despise-hateyour typical. You not come near me--" as Jesse, rubbing hissorely-stretched arm, made a step toward him--"or I break your two-botharms. I pack. You pay me. I quit permanent-forever."
Jesse came to a full stop at the threat of being treated to a pair ofbroken arms. He was twice the size of the Japanese, but the differencein their sizes was more than compensated for by his own cravenness andthe valet's mastery of the bone-breaking art. Mutsu, never taking hiseyes off Jesse, got out his two suit-cases and packed them carefully anddeliberately. Jesse, striding up and down and storming, seized a heavyjade ornament from a mantel, when Mutsu was about half through with hispacking task, and drew it back as if to heave it at the valet; butMutsu, making two agile backward steps, grabbed one of Jesse's pistolswhich lay on top of the tray of an open trunk, and thus waited for themissile. Jesse replaced the jade ornament on the mantel and resumed hisstriding up and down. When the Japanese had finished his packing, heconsulted a little notebook and, totting up a column of expenditures,found that Jesse owed him fifteen pounds.
"You pay now and permanent I quit," the Japanese said to Jesse, and thelatter threw his wallet on a table.
"Take it out of that, you dirty little mandril," he growled to Mutsu,"and be on your way before I have you handed over on the charge of beinga thief."
"Just that you try," replied Mutsu, breathing hard, as he counted overthe money that was due him, "and I--you see where you get off--just thatyou try! Your name like fertilizer I would make!"
Then Mutsu stuffed the amount that was due him into his pocket, tossingthe rest of the money on to the table, clapped on his hat, picked up hispair of suit-cases, and walked out, flying the gonfalon of victory. Hewent straight to the Savoy, and was taken into the service of LauraStedham the instant he made his appearance before her.
Jesse, wearing a thoroughly whipped look, huddled in a deep chair forhours after Mutsu's departure. The chair was close enough to his brandybottle to enable him to apply himself to it at startlingly frequentintervals. The first "transaction" of his life, having to do with women,had gone flatly against him. He ground his teeth as he drunkenlypondered that irrefutable fact. He had no fear of the consequences ofhis attempt to enmesh Louise Treharne. Her only male protector, he knew,was on the other side of the sea. But it was the knowledge that he hadutterly and finally lost out in the most diligent and ingenious attempthe had ever made upon a feminine citadel that enraged him. He did noteven have the satisfaction of framing reprisals. What reprisals could heattempt? And they could avail him nothing even if he succeeded insetting such revengeful machinery in motion.
Jesse was considerably more than middling drunk when, his brandy havingreceded to the lees, he summoned the obsequious Gaskins.
"Anybody above or below me here now?" he inquired of Gaskins.
"No, sir," replied Gaskins. "The gentleman that 'as the hapartment belowis abroad, hand the gentleman that 'as the hapartment above only comes'ere occasionally, sir, for a little hamusement--'e's married now, sir."
"Well, that's good," said Jesse, reeling about. "That'll let me have thewhole damned outfit for my parties for the next ten days or so, eh?"
"Hat your service, sir," replied Gaskins, familiar with Jesse'sprodigality in devising and settling for his diversions.
"I'm going to have a series of rough-houses here," said Jesse, minuseven a crumb of dignity in the presence of a man who had been a flunkyall his life, "to celebrate a defeat--or make me forget a defeat; it allcomes to the same thing. Fellows have been defeated before my time,haven't they? Yes, and they'll be defeated after I'm dead, by hell!You've got your work cut out for you, Gaskins; I'm going to paint thissheltered little corner of London a luminous red for a week or so, andthen damn your England! I'll have you fix up the suppers and that sortof thing. Engage all the help you want, and right away. And, say, get meanother man, will you? I've fired that dirty little Japanesechimpanzee--he's a thief."
"You may leave heverything to me, sir," said Gaskins, rubbing hishands. "Hi quite understand, sir."
The saturnalia in the Curzon Street house began that very night. CertainLondon stage managers of musical comedies still remember that week asone during which, for several nights running, they had to present theirextravaganzas with mere apologies for feminine choruses, and, in someinstances, with many of the female principals' shrill understudies doingtheir dismal best with only half-learned lines and songs.
* * * * *
John Blythe, making the _Mauretania_ a quarter of an hour before thatleviathan started on one of her East-bound record-breaking voyages,reached London on the sixth day after having received Laura's cablegram.He surmised why he had been summoned. So sure was he that his surmisewas correct that, when he walked in upon Laura and Louise at the Savoy,he did not even inquire why so urgent a summons had been sent to him. Hepreferred to postpone that question until he had an opportunity to bealone with Laura.
Laura had told Louise that Blythe was coming. But neither of the womenhad been expecting him so soon. When he was announced by telephone fromthe hotel desk Louise flushed and paled alternately. Laura watched heramusedly.
"Such hardened unconcern is dreadful to see in one so young, Louise,"she was beginning to chaff when Blythe was ushered in by a diminutiveButtons. Louise gave him both of her hands. He held them, looking intoher eyes with his wide smile.
"May I?" he asked her, a little unsteadily.
"As Louise's chaperon, I shall never forgive her if she refuses--noryou, if you accept her refusal," said Laura.
Louise upraised her face to his. It was a simple but eloquent confessionthat she knew her lips were for him.
"Not as your guardian, I hope, Louise?" said Blythe, putting it in theform of a question.
Her face still upraised and her eyes partly closed, she shook her head;and Blythe, drawing her to him, kissed her full on the lips. Then hequickly released her and took Laura's outstretched hands.
It was the luncheon hour, and Laura had luncheon served in the rooms.They chatted upon little intimate matters quite as if they had beenlunching in Laura's New York apartment. Blythe
, in fact, mentionedLaura's apartment.
"I met your decorator the other day," he said, "and he wore a verypuzzled expression. He told me that you had charged him by cable to doyour place over in Tyrian purple, and he was afraid that color would betoo dark, or too obtrusive, or something--I forget his exact words."
They knew, however, that his banter was simply a device. Both of thewomen, taking Blythe's manner as their cue, and observing how pointedlyhe refrained from asking why he had been sent for, knew at once that hehad formed his surmise. Louise, for her part, was awaiting Laura'ssignal for her to withdraw. When she had gone, Blythe turned asuddenly-sobered face upon Laura.
"It's Jesse, I suppose?" he said to her.
"Yes," said Laura, and she told him of what had happened at the CurzonStreet house. Also she told him of Jesse's attempted advances uponLouise in New York.
"I reprove myself now, of course, that I did not tell you at the timeabout how the man sought to force his attentions upon her in New York,"she said, "but you will understand, I know, why I hesitated to tell you.I felt that you would have found it too hard to keep your hands off ofhim, and I feared to put you to the test. Of course I should have knownthat you would do nothing, no matter how sorely tempted, that would haveinvolved Louise; but my timidity, I suppose, is of a piece with that ofother women in such circumstances."
"Don't worry about that part of it, Laura," said Blythe, consolingly."You've atoned, if any atonement were necessary, by getting me here now.After all, I could scarcely have taken it upon myself to chastise him inNew York. The blackguard did not go quite far enough there, as Iunderstand it, to permit of me getting out on the firing line, even if Ihad known about it. It is just as well that you waited, for that andsome other reasons. There is everything in having a good case," and hisface wreathed in a dry sort of a smile which Laura analyzed as bodinglittle good for the man of whom they were speaking.
"What are your plans, John?" Laura asked him presently. "London, youknow, is quite as fruitful a field as New York for the achieving of anunmerited and distorted notoriety. I lean upon your judgment, ofcourse."
"You are not supposing that I am going to call the cur out, or tweak hisnose in public, or any such yellow-covered thing as that, are you,Laura?" Blythe asked her with another of his reflective smiles.
"I know that you are going to punish him," replied Laura. "I want you topunish him. Heaven knows that I am not bloodthirsty, but I should dearlylove to be by while you are in the article of punishing him. Only it isan affair that must be handled with extreme caution. I promise not tosay that again. But, really, John, you must----"
"The only thing I am afraid of," interrupted Blythe, meditatively, "isthat he might have left London. Where did you say his place is? I'llhave to devise some way to find out if he is still there."
"Mutsu can do that," said Laura. She had told Blythe of the Japanesevalet's fine part in saving Louise from Jesse, and now she summoned him.Blythe, studying the wiry little man, who wore a distinctively agreeablesmile when he made his appearance, commended him warmly for his conductand asked him if he knew whether Jesse still remained at the CurzonStreet house. Mutsu replied that he did not know but that he could findout; and he went to the telephone and called up Gaskins, representinghimself to be a club servant who had been directed to ascertain if Mr.Jesse still remained in town. Gaskins replied that he was, and Mutsugave that word to Blythe.
"You go there, sir?" inquired Mutsu, evidently sensing that Blythe'scontemplated visit to the Curzon Street house was not to be in thenature of a peace errand. "Let it be that I shall go with you, sir? Ican the help-assist you."
Blythe laughingly told the Japanese that he considered that he had donehis share and that he would not be needing any help-assistance; andMutsu withdrew.
"Shall we all dine together here?" Blythe asked Laura, rising after theJapanese had gone. "I am staying at the Carlton, and I want to run overthere to----"
"Listen, John: are you going to see that man at his place now, at once?"Laura asked him, with an expression of mingled worriment and curiosity."You know you are!"
"Oh," said Blythe, "I have a bit of running about to do, and----"
"But listen, please: supposing the coward were to try to use some weaponon you and----"
"Tush, Laura. What became of Louise? But stay: make my devoirs to her,won't you, please? I am off to keep an appointment. We are dining herethis evening then? You may expect me by eight o'clock," and off herushed. He had, in fact, been "straining at his leash," as Laurathought, watching him, ever since he had found that Jesse still was intown.
Louise came back a few moments after Blythe's departure, and she lookedrueful when she saw that he had gone.
"Don't take it so excessively to heart, dear," Laura said to her. "Heleft all sorts of messages of apology for going without seeing you, buthe had an appointment--er--I mean he had to go to----" Laura came to asomewhat feeble pause, and Louise, moreover, had noticed that her tonewas a bit forced. Louise, trembling slightly, placed her hands onLaura's shoulders.
"Dear, he has gone to Curzon Street, has he not?" she asked the olderwoman.
"Of course he has!--why shouldn't he?" replied Laura, with a bravadowhich immediately gave away to tears. Louise promptly followed herexample. It was merely another repetition of the age-old story whereinwomen weep when men go forth. And, although they of course did not knowit at the time, no doubt both women enjoyed their tears quite asheartily as if they had been justified in feeling the least fear for thesafety of John Blythe.
* * * * *
Jesse, his fiesta "in celebration of a defeat" at an end, wassupervising the packing of his trunks by the young English valetobtained for him by Gaskins. His face was puffed and there were purplishpouches under his restless eyes. Three New York men, two of themsomewhat youngish, the third of about Jesse's age, who had been drawninto the current of the recent gayety at the Curzon Street house,lounged about, smoking rather dismally, glancing occasionally into themantel glass at their furred tongues and shaking their heads in thespirit of self-accusation which comes with the aftermath.
"Back to little old New York and at least a year's exemplary conductfor mine," observed the eldest of Jesse's three visitors, JermynScammel, a stock broker widely known in New York for the catholicity ofhis views as to his associates.
"The veil for me," chorused the two younger men, sepulchrally.
Jesse accepted their vows of amendment as tributes to his lavishness asan entertainer and smiled flaccidly. The self-gratulating smile stillflickered on his face when there came a knock, and Gaskins, grownunceremonious during the recent gay proceedings, opened the door withoutwaiting for a "Come in" and said:
"Gentleman with an happointment with you, sir."
Blythe had told Gaskins that he had an appointment with Jesse and thattherefore there would be no need to announce him.
Jesse's smile congealed, his jaw fell, and he stood with mouth agape,when John Blythe stepped into the room. Blythe bestowed a mere nod uponhim and then glanced around at the other men. He knew Scammel.
"Hul-lo!" exclaimed that now repentent _bon vivant_, advancing uponBlythe with outstretched hand. "John Blythe it is, but too late for thedoings! But who'd have thought you ever participated in doings, oldman!"
Something in Blythe's eye, as well as the panic-stricken appearance ofJesse, stopped Scammel's airy greeting when he had got that far. "Why,what the devil----" he muttered, looking first at Blythe and then atJesse, whose face had taken on a sickly, chalky pallor. The two youngermen, seated a-straddle of chairs, watched the scene with curious eyes.
Blythe rather liked Scammel, in spite of the latter's excessivelycareless way of living. The man was genuine, at any rate, and Blythe wasnot displeased to find him there; he knew that Scammel would be atrustworthy witness as to anything that might happen. Blythe bowed tothe two younger men, and turned to the still agape Jesse.
"Would you prefer to see me privately, or do y
ou elect to have thesegentlemen remain?" he asked Jesse in a quiet tone.
"I have nothing to see you about," spluttered Jesse, "and you areintruding upon----"
"You know what I have crossed the Atlantic to see you about," Blythebroke in upon him in an even tone.
"This is no place for a clergyman's son--I can see that!" ejaculatedScammel, picking up his hat and stick, the two younger men doinglikewise; the fact having become very obvious by this time thatsomething unusual between Blythe and Jesse was in the wind.
"Don't you people go!" gasped Jesse, and they all saw, not without acertain immediate disgust, that the man was in positive terror. "I wantall of you as witnesses! This man," staring with protrusive eyes atBlythe, "has no appointment with me. He wasn't asked to come here, andhe has no right here. He is intruding upon my----"
"Easy has it, Jesse," put in Scammel, putting off his airiness of asudden and assuming the dignity which belonged to him. "I know Blythe.He doesn't intrude anywhere. This is a quarrel between you two. I amyour guest and I'll stay if you want me to and if Blythe is agreeable.How about it, Blythe?"
"I would a little prefer that you and these other gentlemen remain,"replied Blythe, quite at his ease. "I think it fair to tell you inadvance, however, that you are to witness the chastisement of yourhost."
Jesse gave an audible gasp, and Scammel looked at him and then atBlythe.
"Well, since you both want us to stay, there is no other way for it, isthere?" turning to the two younger men, who nodded acquiescently. "Butit's a bit unusual, isn't it, Blythe? Coming to a man's house with achastising programme?"
"You won't think so, Scammel, nor will your friends here, when I explainthe reason," replied Blythe, no trace of excitement in his tone; "and,since you are going to remain, you are of course entitled to anexplanation."
"It's all a put-up job!" broke out Jesse, hoarsely. "I've had no affairwith this man. He's meddling, that's what he is doing--meddling! I swearit, by God!"
"Just a moment, Jesse," put in Scammel, squarely facing the man headdressed. "Blythe doesn't meddle. I know that as well as I know that Iwear a hat. He wouldn't be here with any such purpose as he announcesunless he had some pretty good reason. Don't try to prejudice his casein advance. That isn't the square thing."
"But," almost screamed Jesse, "he is picking up other people's affairsand trying to make them his----"
"Stop that, Jesse!" broke in Scammel, raising an authoritative arm, atrace of anger in his tone. "Good God, man, can't you play the game?You've got a man's gizzard, haven't you? What the devil are youtrembling and quaking about? Is your case so bad as all that? Go ahead,Blythe. It's your say now, and we're listening."
Jesse, knowing that the verdict of this court of arbitration could notbut be against him, glanced at the portieres as if upon the point ofbolting for it. Scammel, noticing this, passed behind Jesse and took hisstand at the parting of the portieres. The two younger men rose fromtheir straddled chairs and viewed the proceedings standing, their eyesslitting perceptibly when they perceived Jesse's manifest cravenness.
"Gentlemen," said Blythe, glancing from Scammel to the younger men andnot even seeming to see Jesse, "I don't think it will be necessary topledge you to secrecy as to what happens here, even if no names are tobe mentioned. If the affair involved a man it would be different. But itdoes not. It involves a young New York lady, now in London, who has beenout of school less than half a year. The young lady is my ward.Moreover, she is to be my wife."
"But I didn't know that!" broke in Jesse with a hideous shrillness oftone. "I swear to God that I did not know that, or----"
Scammel glared Jesse into silence, and Blythe went on.
"It makes no difference, as you will discover, whether he knew it ornot," he said, speaking of Jesse as if he had not been present. "Thething that he did, in this place, a week ago, was a thing so incrediblybase that my account of it might well tax your credulity. But that ithappened precisely as I am going to tell it to you is of course true,else I should not be here. The young New York lady of whom I speak is inLondon under the protection of a chaperon, a friend of her mother's. Aweek ago, by means of a trick, this man enticed my ward, who is whollylacking in experience, to this house. He caused a telephone message tobe sent to her at her hotel, informing her that her chaperon, who hadleft the hotel on a shopping tour, had been overtaken by an illness andhad been brought to this house. This house was represented in thetelephone message to be the home of a 'Mrs. Hammond,' an imaginaryfriend of my ward's chaperon. The young lady came here with all haste tosee, as she supposed, her chaperon and protectress. This man, waitingfor her, not only insulted her grossly, subjecting her to indignitiesand physical violence which I can scarcely speak of in the presence ofgentlemen, but he told her, virtually in so many words, that it was hisdeliberate purpose to deflower her. His own valet, a Japanese, appearedin her moment of peril; and it was the valet's physical interventionalone that saved her from the fate this man had ingeniously andmalignantly planned for her."
Blythe paused. He had spoken quietly, but there was a menacing timbre inhis voice. Jesse, looking like a hunted animal, had attempted severaltimes to break in upon Blythe's recital, but each time Scammel hadstopped him with a warning gesture.
Now Scammel, with gathered brows, stepped in front of Jesse and inquiredof him:
"What have you to say to this, Jesse?"
"I didn't know, I tell you," Jesse broke out in a voice that was chokedwith terror, "that she was to be married to Blythe, or----"
"Wait!" commanded Scammel, thrusting up a staying hand. "That convictsyou, Jesse. You're a damned scoundrel on your own say-so. Whatdifference does it make as to the main facts of your dirty bit of workwhether you knew that or not? I am not unmindful of the duties of aguest; but, for all that, if I were Blythe I'd whale the everlastinghell out of you, here and now, and I reckon he will; and I, for one, amgoing to stick around to see fair play!"
"Same here" and "That goes for me, too," put in the two younger men.
Blythe stepped forward, and, drawing back his right arm, left thequickly-crimsoning imprint of his palm upon Jesse's waxy cheek. Jessereceived the blow, merely meant to be introductory, with a shriek, andwriggled back and sought to huddle in a corner of the room.
"Why, damnation take it, Jesse," exclaimed Scammel, reddening with theshame of seeing a man he had been on terms with performing so cravenly,"you're going to put up your hands, aren't you? You're not going to besuch a cur as to----Here, none of that, you know!" and he leaped atJesse and wrenched from his grasp the heavy teakwood tabouret which theman, at bay and with no sense of fairness, had suddenly reached down andgrabbed from beneath the jardiniere which it supported.
"Keep out, Scammel, please," quietly enjoined Blythe, and he steppedover to Jesse, pulled him to the center of the room by the lapel of hiscoat, and then brought his right fist crashing to the point of Jesse'sjaw. Jesse, seeing the blow coming, squeaked like a rat; then he wentdown like a log and lay unconscious before the fireplace. Blythe and thethree other men stood looking at him with wonderment mingled withdisgust.
HE SQUEAKED LIKE A RAT; THEN HE WENT DOWN LIKE A LOG.]
"Well, by St. George and the Dragon, that gets me--a man weighing twohundred if he weighs an ounce, and well put together, too, even if hemay be not exactly fit--a man like that standing up and letting anotherfellow bang away at him without ever so much as sticking up his hands--Damn such carrion in a man's shape, I say! I consider that you've beencheated, Blythe. I know that you'd a thousand times rather he had takenat least one healthy swing at you!"
"I feel as if I had hit a woman," replied Blythe, a lump of loathing inhis throat.
One of the younger men went to the head of the stairs and called toGaskins to come up. Gaskins viewed the prone man imperturbably enough,then dashed a glass of water in his face. Presently Jesse's eyelidsfluttered and after a moment he sat up, rubbing his chin, and staringabout confusedly.
Then the four men left the house
, Scammel and his two companions lashingout at themselves for having even unwittingly permitted themselves tobecome the guests of a man of such monolithic cowardice. Blythe,sickened by the spinelessness of the man whom he had called to account,went to his rooms at the Carlton to dress for dinner at the Savoy.
Louise and Laura, neither of them in a conversational humor, had justfinished dressing when Blythe, ushered by the pompous three-footButtons, walked in upon them, very "tall and wide" in his eveningclothes. As he came under the light of the electrolier both womensurveyed his face keenly and nervously for marks of a conflict.
"Of course he has been there," thought Laura, "but----"
Just then Blythe, in removing his right glove in rather a gingerlyfashion, pulled with it a piece of white sticking plaster, and Lauraperceived that the skin was missing from the middle knuckle of his righthand. Then she knew that he had "been there." But she did not hear whathad happened that afternoon at the Curzon Street house until Scammel,whom she had known all her life, told her several months later in NewYork; Scammel, while Blythe had been making his explanation, havingcorrectly guessed, being acquainted with nearly all the Americans inLondon, as to the identity of the chaperon of Blythe's ward.
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