Leaning against the bar were Cooley and the man whom Mellin had seen lolling beside Madame de Vaurigard in Cooley’s automobile in Paris, the same gross person for whom he had instantly conceived a strong repugnance, a feeling not at once altered by a closer view.
Cooley greeted Mellin uproariously and Mr. Sneyd introduced the fat man. “Mr. Mellin, the Honorable Chandler Pedlow,” he said; nor was the shock to the first-named gentleman lessened by young Cooley’s adding, “Best feller in the world!”
Mr. Pedlow’s eyes were sheltered so deeply beneath florid rolls of flesh that all one saw of them was an inscrutable gleam of blue; but, small though they were, they were not shifty, for they met Mellin’s with a squareness that was almost brutal. He offered a fat paw, wet by a full glass which he set down too suddenly on the bar.
“Shake,” he said, in a loud and husky voice, “and be friends! Tommy,” he added to the attendant, “another round of Martinis.”
“Not for me,” said Mellin hastily. “I don’t often—”
“What!” Mr. Pedlow roared suddenly. “Why, the first words Countess de Vaurigard says to me this afternoon was, ‘I want you to meet my young friend Mellin,’ she says; ‘the gamest little Indian that ever come down the pike! He’s game,’ she says— ‘he’ll see you all under the table!’ That’s what the smartest little woman in the world, the Countess de Vaurigard, says about you.”
This did not seem very closely to echo Madame de Vaurigard’s habit of phrasing, but Mellin perceived that it might be only the fat man’s way of putting things.
“You ain’t goin’ back on her, are you?” continued Mr. Pedlow. “You ain’t goin’ to make her out a liar? I tell you, when the Countess de Vaurigard says a man ‘s game, he is game!” He laid his big paw cordially on Mellin’s shoulder and smiled, lowering his voice to a friendly whisper. “And I’ll bet ten thousand dollars right out of my pants pocket you are game, too!”
He pressed a glass into the other’s hand. Smiling feebly, the embarrassed Mellin accepted it.
“Make it four more, Tommy,” said Pedlow. “And here,” continued this thoughtful man, “I don’t go bandying no ladies’ names around a bar-room — that ain’t my style — but I do want to propose a toast. I won’t name her, but you all know who I mean.”
“Sure we do,” interjected Cooley warmly. “Queen! That’s what she is.”
“Here’s to her,” continued Mr. Pedlow. “Here’s to her — brightest and best — and no heel-taps! And now let’s set down over in the corner and take it easy. It ain’t hardly five o’clock yet, and we can set here comfortable, gittin’ ready for dinner, until half-past six, anyway.”
Whereupon the four seated themselves about a tabouret in the corner, and, a waiter immediately bringing them four fresh glasses from the bar, Mellin began to understand what Mr. Pedlow meant by “gittin’ ready for dinner.” The burden of the conversation was carried almost entirely by the Honorable Chandler, though Cooley, whose boyish face was deeply flushed, now and then managed to interrupt by talking louder than the fat man. Mr. Sneyd sat silent.
“Good ole Sneyd,” said Pedlow. “He never talks, jest saws wood. Only Britisher I ever liked. Plays cards like a goat.”
“He played a mighty good game on the steamer,” said Cooley warmly.
“I don’t care what he did on the steamer, he played like a goat the only time I ever played with him. You know he did. I reckon you was there!”
“Should say I was there! He played mighty well—”
“Like a goat,” reiterated the fat man firmly.
“Nothing of the sort. You had a run of hands, that was all. Nobody can go against the kind of luck you had that night; and you took it away from Sneyd and me in rolls. But we’ll land you pretty soon, won’t we, ole Sneydie?”
“We sh’ll have a shawt at him, at least,” said the Englishman.
“Perhaps he won’t want us to try,” young Cooley pursued derisively. “Perhaps he thinks I play like a goat, too!”
Mr. Pedlow threw back his head and roared. “Give me somep’n easy! You don’t know no more how to play a hand of cards than a giraffe does. I’ll throw in all of my Blue Gulch gold-stock — and it’s worth eight hundred thousand dollars if it’s worth a cent — I’ll put it up against that tin automobile of yours, divide chips even and play you freeze-out for it. You play cards? Go learn hop-scotch!”
“You wait!” exclaimed the other indignantly. “Next time we play we’ll make you look so small you’ll think you’re back in Congress!”
At this Mr. Pedlow again threw back his head and roared, his vast body so shaken with mirth that the glass he held in his hand dropped to the floor.
“There,” said Cooley, “that’s the second Martini you’ve spilled. You’re two behind the rest of us.”
“What of it?” bellowed the fat man. “There’s plenty comin’, ain’t there? Four more, Tommy, and bring cigars. Don’t take a cent from none of these Indians. Gentlemen, your money ain’t good here. I own this bar, and this is my night.”
Mellin had begun to feel at ease, and after a time — as they continued to sit — he realized that his repugnance to Mr. Pedlow was wearing off; he felt that there must be good in any one whom Madame de Vaurigard liked. She had spoken of Pedlow often on their drives; he was an “eccentric,” she said, an “original.” Why not accept her verdict? Besides, Pedlow was a man of distinction and force; he had been in Congress; he was a millionaire; and, as became evident in the course of a long recital of the principal events of his career, most of the great men of the time were his friends and proteges.
“‘Well, Mack,’ says I one day when we were in the House together” — (thus Mr. Pedlow, alluding to the late President McKinley)—”’Mack,’ says I, ‘if you’d drop that double standard business’ — he was waverin’ toward silver along then— ‘I don’t know but I might git the boys to nominate you fer President.’ ‘I’ll think it over,’ he says— ‘I’ll think it over.’ You remember me tellin’ you about that at the time, don’t you, Sneyd, when you was in the British Legation at Washin’ton?”
“Pahfictly,” said Mr. Sneyd, lighting a cigar with great calmness.
“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘Mack,’ I says, ‘if you’ll drop it, I’ll turn in and git you the nomination.’”
“Did he drop it?” asked Mellin innocently.
Mr. Pedlow leaned forward and struck the young man’s knee a resounding blow with the palm of his hand.
“He was nominated, wasn’t he?”
“Time to dress,” announced Mr. Sneyd, looking at his watch.
“One more round first,” insisted Cooley with prompt vehemence. “Let’s finish with our first toast again. Can’t drink that too often.”
This proposition was received with warmest approval, and they drank standing. “Brightest and best!” shouted Mr. Pedlow.
“Queen! What she is!” exclaimed Cooley.
“Ma belle Marquise!” whispered Mellin tenderly, as the rim touched his lips.
A small, keen-faced man, whose steady gray eyes were shielded by tortoise-rimmed spectacles, had come into the room and now stood quietly at the bar, sipping a glass of Vichy. He was sharply observant of the party as it broke up, Pedlow and Sneyd preceding the younger men to the corridor, and, as the latter turned to follow, the stranger stepped quickly forward, speaking Cooley’s name.
“What’s the matter?”
“Perhaps you don’t remember me. My name’s Cornish. I’m a newspaper man, a correspondent.” (He named a New York paper.) “I’m down here to get a Vatican story. I knew your father for a number of years before his death, and I think I may claim that he was a friend of mine.”
“That’s good,” said the youth cordially. “If I hadn’t a fine start already, and wasn’t in a hurry to dress, we’d have another.”
“You were pointed out to me in Paris,” continued Cornish. “I found where you were staying and called on you the next day, but you had just started for the Riviera.”
He hesitated, glancing at Mellin. “Can you give me half a dozen words with you in private?”
“You’ll have to excuse me, I’m afraid. I’ve only got about ten minutes to dress. See you to-morrow.”
“I should like it to be as soon as possible,” the journalist said seriously. “It isn’t on my own account, and I—”
“All right. You come to my room at ten t’morrow morning?”
“Well, if you can’t possibly make it to-night,” said Cornish reluctantly. “I wish—”
“Can’t possibly.”
And Cooley, taking Mellin by the arm, walked rapidly down the corridor. “Funny ole correspondent,” he murmured. “What do I know about the Vatican?”
V. Lady Mount Rhyswicke
THE FOUR FRIENDS of Madame de Vaurigard were borne to her apartment from the Magnifique in Cooley’s big car. They sailed triumphantly down and up the hills in a cool and bracing air, under a moon that shone as brightly for them as it had for Caesar, and Mellin’s soul was buoyant within him. He thought of Cranston and laughed aloud. What would Cranston say if it could see him in a sixty-horse touring-car, with two millionaires and an English diplomat, brother of an earl, and all on the way to dine with a countess? If Mary Kramer could see him!... Poor Mary Kramer! Poor little Mary Kramer!
A man-servant took their coats in Madame de Vaurigard’s hall, where they could hear through the curtains the sound of one or two voices in cheerful conversation.
Sneyd held up his hand.
“Listen,” he said. “Shawly, that isn’t Lady Mount-Rhyswicke’s voice! She couldn’t be in Reom — always a Rhyswicke Caws’l for Decembah. By Jev, it is!”
“Nothin’ of the kind,” said Pedlow. “I know Lady Mount-Rhyswicke as well as I know you. I started her father in business when he was clerkin’ behind a counter in Liverpool. I give him the money to begin on. ‘Make good,’ says I, ‘that’s all. Make good!’ And he done it, too. Educated his daughter fit fer a princess, married her to Mount-Rhyswicke, and when he died left her ten million dollars if he left her a cent! I know Madge Mount-Rhyswicke and that ain’t her voice.”
A peal of silvery laughter rang from the other side of the curtain.
“They’ve heard you,” said Cooley.
“An’ who could help it?” Madame de Vaurigard herself threw back the curtains. “Who could help hear our great, dear, ole lion? How he roar’!”
She wore a white velvet “princesse” gown of a fashion which was a shade less than what is called “daring,” with a rope of pearls falling from her neck and a diamond star in her dark hair. Standing with one arm uplifted to the curtains, and with the mellow glow of candles and firelight behind her, she was so lovely that both Mellin and Cooley stood breathlessly still until she changed her attitude. This she did only to move toward them, extending a hand to each, letting Cooley seize the right and Mellin the left.
Each of them was pleased with what he got, particularly Mellin. “The left is nearer the heart,” he thought.
She led them through the curtains, not withdrawing her hands until they entered the salon. She might have led them out of her fifth-story window in that fashion, had she chosen.
“My two wicked boys!” she laughed tenderly. This also pleased both of them, though each would have preferred to be her only wicked boy — a preference which, perhaps, had something to do with the later events of the evening.
“Aha! I know you both; before twenty minute’ you will be makin’ love to Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. Behol’ those two already! An’ they are only ole frien’s.”
She pointed to Pedlow and Sneyd. The fat man was shouting at a woman in pink satin, who lounged, half-reclining, among a pile of cushions upon a divan near the fire; Sneyd gallantly bending over her to kiss her hand.
“It is a very little dinner, you see,” continued the hostess, “only seven, but we shall be seven time’ happier.”
The seventh person proved to be the Italian, Corni, who had surrendered his seat in Madame de Vaurigard’s victoria to Mellin on the Pincio. He presently made his appearance followed by a waiter bearing a tray of glasses filled with a pink liquid, while the Countess led her two wicked boys across the room to present them to Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. Already Mellin was forming sentences for his next letter to the Cranston Telegraph: “Lady Mount-Rhyswicke said to me the other evening, while discussing the foreign policy of Great Britain, in Comtesse de Vaurigard’s salon...” “An English peeress of pronounced literary acumen has been giving me rather confidentially her opinion of our American poets...”
The inspiration of these promising fragments was a large, weary-looking person, with no lack of powdered shoulder above her pink bodice and a profusion of “undulated” hair of so decided a blond that it might have been suspected that the decision had lain with the lady herself.
“Howjdo,” she said languidly, when Mellin’s name was pronounced to her. “There’s a man behind you tryin’ to give you something to drink.”
“Who was it said these were Martinis?” snorted Pedlow. “They’ve got perfumery in ’em.”
“Ah, what a bad lion it is!” Madame de Vaurigard lifted both hands in mock horror. “Roar, lion, roar!” she cried. “An’ think of the emotion of our good Cavaliere Corni, who have come an hour early jus’ to make them for us! I ask Monsieur Mellin if it is not good.”
“And I’ll leave it to Cooley,” said Pedlow. “If he can drink all of his I’ll eat crow!”
Thus challenged, the two young men smilingly accepted glasses from the waiter, and lifted them on high.
“Same toast,” said Cooley. “Queen!”
“A la belle Marquise!”
Gallantly they drained the glasses at a gulp, and Madame de Vaurigard clapped her hands.
“Bravo!” she cried. “You see? Corni and I, we win.”
“Look at their faces!” said Mr. Pedlow, tactlessly drawing attention to what was, for the moment, an undeniably painful sight. “Don’t tell me an Italian knows how to make a good Martini!”
Mellin profoundly agreed, but, as he joined the small procession to the Countess’ dinner-table, he was certain that an Italian at least knew how to make a strong one.
The light in the dining-room was provided by six heavily-shaded candles on the table; the latter decorated with delicate lines of orchids. The chairs were large and comfortable, covered with tapestry; the glass was old Venetian, and the servants, moving like useful ghosts in the shadow outside the circle of mellow light, were particularly efficient in the matter of keeping the wine-glasses full. Madame de Vaurigard had put Pedlow on her right, Cooley on her left, with Mellin directly opposite her, next to Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. Mellin was pleased, because he thought he would have the Countess’s face toward him. Anything would have pleased him just then.
“This is the kind of table everybody ought to have,” he observed to the party in general, as he finished his first glass of champagne. “I’m going to have it like this at my place in the States — if I ever decide to go back. I’ll have six separate candlesticks like this, not a candelabrum, and that will be the only light in the room. And I’ll never have anything but orchids on my table—”
“For my part,” Lady Mount-Rhyswicke interrupted in the loud, tired monotone which seemed to be her only manner of speaking, “I like more light. I like all the light that’s goin’.”
“If Lady Mount-Rhyswicke sat at my table,” returned Mellin dashingly, “I should wish all the light in the world to shine upon so happy an event.”
“Hear the man!” she drawled. “He’s proposing to me. Thinks I’m a widow.”
There was a chorus of laughter, over which rose the bellow of Mr. Pedlow.
“‘He’s game!’ she says — and ain’t he?”
Across the table Madame de Vaurigard’s eyes met Mellin’s with a mocking intelligence so complete that he caught her message without need of the words she noiselessly formed with her lips: “I tol’ you you would be making love to her!”
He laug
hed joyously in answer. Why shouldn’t he flirt with Lady Mount-Rhyswicke? He was thoroughly happy; his Helene, his belle Marquise, sat across the table from him sending messages to him with her eyes. He adored her, but he liked Lady Mount-Rhyswicke — he liked everybody and everything in the world. He liked Pedlow particularly, and it no longer troubled him that the fat man should be a friend of Madame de Vaurigard. Pedlow was a “character” and a wit as well. Mellin laughed heartily at everything the Honorable Chandler Pedlow said.
“This is life,” remarked the young man to his fair neighbor.
“What is? Sittin’ round a table, eatin’ and drinkin’?”
“Ah, lovely skeptic!” She looked at him strangely, but he continued with growing enthusiasm: “I mean to sit at such a table as this, with such a chef, with such wines — to know one crowded hour like this is to live! Not a thing is missing; all this swagger furniture, the rich atmosphere of smartness about the whole place; best of all, the company. It’s a great thing to have the real people around you, the right sort, you know, socially; people you’d ask to your own table at home. There are only seven, but every one distingue, every one—”
She leaned both elbows on the table with her hands palm to palm, and, resting her cheek against the back of her left hand, looked at him steadily.
“And you — are you distinguished, too?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be much known over here,” he said modestly.
“Do you write poetry?”
“Oh, not professionally, though it is published. I suppose” — he sipped his champagne with his head a little to one side as though judging its quality— “I suppose I ‘ve been more or less a dilettante. I’ve knocked about the world a good bit.”
“Helene says you’re one of these leisure American billionaires like Mr. Cooley there,” she said in her tired voice.
“Oh, none of us are really quite billionaires.” He laughed deprecatingly.
“No, I suppose not — not really. Go on and tell me some more about life and this distinguished company.”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 114