The Flirt

B >> Booth Tarkington >> The Flirt


"Why, Hedrick," said Cora, turning toward him cheerfully, "you're
not really eating anything; you're only pretending to." His heart
sank with apprehension. Was it coming? "You really must eat," she
went on. "School begins so soon, you must be strong, you know. How
we shall miss you here at home during your hours of work!"

With that, the burden fell from his shoulders, his increasing
terrors took wing. If Laura had told his ghastly secret to Cora,
the latter would not have had recourse to such weak satire as
this. Cora was not the kind of person to try a popgun on an enemy
when she had a thirteen-inch gun at her disposal; so he reasoned;
and in the gush of his relief and happiness, responded:

"You're a little too cocky lately, Cora-lee: I wish you were _my_
daughter--just about five minutes!"

Cora looked upon him fondly. "What would you do to me," she
inquired with a terrible sweetness--"darling little boy?"

Hedrick's head swam. The blow was square in the face; it jarred
every bone; the world seemed to topple. His mother, rising from
her chair, choked slightly, and hurried to join the nurse, who was
already on her way upstairs. Cora sent an affectionate laugh
across the table to her stunned antagonist.

"You wouldn't beat me, would you, dear?" she murmured. "I'm almost
sure you wouldn't; not if I asked you to kiss me some _more_."

All doubt was gone, the last hope fled! The worst had arrived. A
vision of the awful future flamed across his staggered mind. The
doors to the arena were flung open: the wild beasts howled for
hunger of him; the spectators waited.

Cora began lightly to sing:

. . . "Dear,
Would thou wert near
To hear me tell how fair thou art!
Since thou art gone I mourn all alone,
Oh, my Lolita----"

She broke off to explain: "It's one of those passionate little
Spanish serenades, Hedrick. I'll sing it for your boy-friends next
time they come to play in the yard. I think they'd like it. When
they know why you like it so much, I'm sure they will. Of course
you _do_ like it--you roguish little lover!" A spasm rewarded this
demoniacal phrase. "Darling little boy, the serenade goes on like
this:

Oh, my Lolita, come to my heart:
Oh, come beloved, love let me press thee,
While I caress thee
In one long kiss, Lolita!
Lolita come! Let me----"

Hedrick sprang to his feet with a yell of agony. "Laura Madison,
you tattle-tale," he bellowed, "I'll never forgive you as long as
I live! I'll get even with you if it takes a thousand years!"

With that, and pausing merely to kick a rung out of a chair which
happened to be in his way, he rushed from the room.

His sisters had risen to go, and Cora flung her arms round Laura
in ecstacy. "You mean old viper!" she cried. "You could have told
me days ago! It's almost too good to be true: it's the first time
in my whole life I've felt safe from the Pest for a moment!"

Laura shook her head. "My conscience troubles me; it did seem as
if I ought to tell you--and mamma thought so, too; and I gave him
warning, but now that I have done it, it seems rather mean
and----"

"No!" exclaimed Cora. "You just gave me a chance to protect myself
for once, thank heaven!" And she picked up her skirts and danced
her way into the front hall.

"I'm afraid," said Laura, following, "I shouldn't have done it."

"Oh, Laura," cried the younger girl, "I am having the best time,
these days! This just caps it." She lowered her voice, but her
eyes grew even brighter. "I think I've shown a certain gentleman a
few things he didn't understand!"

"Who, dear?"

"Val," returned Cora lightly; "Valentine Corliss. I think he knows
a little more about women than he did when he first came here."

"You've had a difference with him?" asked Laura with eager
hopefulness. "You've broken with him?"

"Oh, Lord, no! Nothing like that." Cora leaned to her
confidentially. "He told me, once, he'd be at the feet of any
woman that could help put through an affair like his oil scheme,
and I decided I'd just show him what I could do. He'd talk about
it to me; then he'd laugh at me. That very Sunday when I got papa
to go in----"

"But he didn't," said Laura helplessly. "He only said he'd try
to----when he gets well."

"It's all the same--and it'll be a great thing for him, too," said
Cora, gayly. "Well, that very afternoon before Val left, he
practically told me I was no good. Of course he didn't use just
those words--that isn't his way--but he laughed at me. And haven't
I shown him! I sent Richard a note that very night saying papa had
consented to be secretary of the company, and Richard had said
he'd go in if papa did that, and he couldn't break his word----"

"I know," said Laura, sighing. "I know."

"Laura"--Cora spoke with sudden gravity--"did you ever know
anybody like me? I'm almost getting superstitious about it,
because it seems to me I _always_ get just what I set out to get.
I believe I could have anything in the world if I tried for it."

"I hope so, if you tried for something good for you," said Laura
sadly. "Cora, dear, you will--you will be a little easy on
Hedrick, won't you?"

Cora leaned against the newel and laughed till she was exhausted.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mr. Trumble's offices were heralded by a neat blazon upon the
principal door, "Wade J. Trumble, Mortgages and Loans"; and the
gentleman thus comfortably, proclaimed, emerging from that door
upon a September noontide, burlesqued a start of surprise at sight
of a figure unlocking an opposite door which exhibited the name,
"Ray Vilas," and below it, the cryptic phrase, "Probate Law."

"Water!" murmured Mr. Trumble, affecting to faint. "You ain't
going in _there_, are you, Ray?" He followed the other into the
office, and stood leaning against a bookcase, with his hands in
his pockets, while Vilas raised the two windows, which were
obscured by a film of smoke-deposit: there was a thin coat of fine
sifted dust over everything. "Better not sit down, Ray," continued
Trumble, warningly. "You'll spoil your clothes and you might get a
client. That word `Probate' on the door ain't going to keep 'em
out forever. You recognize the old place, I s'pose? You must have
been here at least twice since you moved in. What's the matter?
Dick Lindley hasn't missionaried you into any idea of _working_,
has he? Oh, no, _I_ see: the Richfield Hotel bar has
closed--you've managed to drink it all at last!"

"Have you heard how old man Madison is to-day?" asked Ray, dusting
his fingers with a handkerchief.

"Somebody told me yesterday he was about the same. He's not going
to get well."

"How do you know?" Ray spoke quickly.

"Stroke too severe. People never recover----"

"Oh, yes, they do, too."

Trumble began hotly: "I beg to dif----" but checked himself,
manifesting a slight confusion. "That is, I know they don't. Old
Madison may live a while, if you call that getting well; but he'll
never be the same man he was. Doctor Sloane says it was a bad
stroke. Says it was `induced by heat prostration and excitement.'
`Excitement!'" he repeated with a sour laugh. "Yep, I expect a man
could get all the excitement he wanted in _that_ house, especially
if he was her daddy. Poor old man, I don't believe he's got five
thousand dollars in the world, and look how she dresses!"

Ray opened a compartment beneath one of the bookcases, and found a
bottle and some glasses. "Aha," he muttered, "our janitor doesn't
drink, I perceive. Join me?" Mr. Trumble accepted, and Ray
explained, cheerfully: "Richard Lindley's got me so cowed I'm
afraid to go near any of my old joints. You see, he trails me; the
scoundrel has kept me sober for whole days at a time, and I've
been mortified, having old friends see me in that condition; so I
have to sneak up here to my own office to drink to Cora, now and
then. You mustn't tell him. What's she been doing to _you_,
lately?"

The little man addressed grew red with the sharp, resentful
memory. "Oh, nothing! Just struck me in the face with her parasol
on the public street, that's all!" He gave an account of his walk
to church with Cora. "I'm through with that girl!" he exclaimed
vindictively, in conclusion. "It was the damnedest thing you ever
saw in your life: right in broad daylight, in front of the church.
And she laughed when she did it; you'd have thought she was
knocking a puppy out of her way. She can't do that to me twice, I
tell you. What the devil do you see to laugh at?"

"You'll be around," returned his companion, refilling the glasses,
"asking for more, the first chance she gives you. Here's her
health!"

"I don't drink it!" cried Mr. Trumble angrily.

"And I'm through with her for good, I tell you! I'm not your kind:
I don't let a girl like that upset me till I can't think of
anything else, and go making such an ass of myself that the whole
town gabbles about it. Cora Madison's seen the last of me, I'll
thank you to notice. She's never been half-decent to me; cut
dances with me all last winter; kept me hanging round the
outskirts of every crowd she was in; stuck me with Laura and her
mother every time she had a chance; then has the nerve to try to
use me, so's she can make a bigger hit with a new man! You can bet
your head I'm through! She'll get paid though! Oh, she'll get paid
for it!"

"How?" laughed Ray.

It was a difficult question. "You wait and see," responded the
threatener, feebly. "Just wait and see. She's wild about this
Corliss, I tell you," he continued, with renewed vehemence. "She's
crazy about him; she's lost her head at last----"

"You mean he's going to avenge you?"

"No, I don't, though he might, if she decided to marry him."

"Do you know," said Ray slowly, glancing over his glass at his
nervous companion, "it doesn't strike me that Mr. Valentine
Corliss has much the air of a marrying man."

"He has the air to _me_," observed Mr. Trumble, "of a darned bad
lot! But I have to hand it to him: he's a wizard. He's got
something besides his good looks--a man that could get Cora
Madison interested in `business'! In _oil_! Cora Madison! How do
you suppose----"

His companion began to laugh again. "You don't really suppose he
talked his oil business to her, do you, Trumble?"

"He must have. Else how could she----"

"Oh, no, Cora herself never talks upon any subject but one; she
never listens to any other either."

"Then how in thunder did he----"

"If Cora asks you if you think it will rain," interrupted Vilas,
"doesn't she really seem to be asking: `Do you love me? How much?'
Suppose Mr. Corliss is an expert in the same line. Of course he
can talk about oil!"

"He strikes me," said Trumble, "as just about the slickest
customer that ever hit this town. I like Richard Lindley, and I
hope he'll see his fifty thousand dollars again. _I_ wouldn't have
given Corliss thirty cents."

"Why do you think he's a crook?"

"I don't say that," returned Trumble. "All _I_ know about him is
that he's done some of the finest work to get fifty thousand
dollars put in his hands that I ever heard of. And all anybody
knows about him is that he lived here seventeen years ago, and
comes back claiming to know where there's oil in Italy. He shows
some maps and papers and gets cablegrams signed `Moliterno.' Then
he talks about selling the old Corliss house here, where the
Madisons live, and putting the money into his oil company: he does
that to sound plausible, but I have good reason to know that house
was mortgaged to its full value within a month after his aunt left
it to him. He'll not get a cent if it's sold. That's all. And he's
got Cora Madison so crazy over him that she makes life a hell for
poor old Lindley until he puts all he's saved into the bubble. The
scheme may be all right. How do _I_ know? There's no way to tell,
without going over there, and Corliss won't let anybody do
that--oh, he's got a plausible excuse for it! But I'm sorry for
Lindley: he's so crazy about Cora, he's soft. And she's so crazy
about Corliss _she's_ soft! Well, I used to be crazy about her
myself, but I'm not soft--I'm not the Lindley kind of loon, thank
heaven!"

"What kind are you, Trumble?" asked Ray, mildly.

"Not your kind either," retorted the other going to the door. "She
cut me on the street the other day; she's quit speaking to me. If
you've got any money, why don't you take it over to the hotel and
give it to Corliss? She might start speaking to _you_ again. I'm
going to lunch!" He slammed the door behind him.

Ray Vilas, left alone, elevated his heels to the sill, and stared
out of the window a long time at a gravelled roof which presented
little of interest. He replenished his glass and his imagination
frequently, the latter being so stirred that when, about three
o'clock, he noticed the inroads he had made upon the bottle, tears
of self-pity came to his eyes. "Poor little drunkard!" he said
aloud. "Go ahead and do it. Isn't anything _you_ won't do!" And,
having washed his face at a basin in a corner, he set his hat
slightly upon one side, picked up a walking stick and departed
jauntily, and, to the outward eye, presentably sober.

Mr. Valentine Corliss would be glad to see him, the clerk at the
Richfield Hotel reported, after sending up a card, and upon Ray's
following the card, Mr. Valentine Corliss in person confirmed the
message with considerable amusement and a cordiality in which
there was some mixture of the quizzical. He was the taller; and
the robust manliness of his appearance, his splendid health and
boxer's figure offered a sharp contrast to the superlatively lean
tippler. Corliss was humorously aware of his advantage: his
greeting seemed really to say, "Hello, my funny bug, here you are
again!" though the words of his salutation were entirely
courteous; and he followed it with a hospitable offer.

"No," said Vilas; "I won't drink with you." He spoke so gently
that the form of his refusal, usually interpreted as truculent,
escaped the other's notice. He also declined a cigar,
apologetically asking permission to light one of his own
cigarettes; then, as he sank into a velour-covered chair,
apologized again for the particular attention he was bestowing
upon the apartment, which he recognized as one of the suites de
luxe of the hotel.

"`Parlour, bedroom, and bath,'" he continued, with a melancholy
smile; "and `Lachrymae,' and `A Reading from Homer.' Sometimes
they have `The Music Lesson,' or `Winter Scene' or `A Neapolitan
Fisher Lad' instead of `Lachrymae,' but they always have `A
Reading from Homer.' When you opened the door, a moment ago, I had
a very strong impression that something extraordinary would some
time happen to me in this room."

"Well," suggested Corliss, "you refused a drink in it."

"Even more wonderful than that," said Ray, glancing about the
place curiously. "It may be a sense of something painful that
already has happened here--perhaps long ago, before your
occupancy. It has a pathos."

"Most hotel rooms have had something happen in them," said Corliss
lightly. "I believe the managers usually change the door numbers
if what happens is especially unpleasant. Probably they change
some of the rugs, also."

"I feel----" Ray paused, frowning. "I feel as if some one had
killed himself here."

"Then no doubt some of the rugs _have_ been changed."

"No doubt." The caller laughed and waved his hand in dismissal of
the topic. "Well, Mr. Corliss," he went on, shifting to a brisker
tone, "I have come to make my fortune, too. You are Midas. Am I of
sufficient importance to be touched?"

Valentine Corliss gave him sidelong an almost imperceptibly brief
glance of sharpest scrutiny--it was like the wink of a camera
shutter--but laughed in the same instant. "Which way do you mean
that?"

"You have been quick," returned the visitor, repaying that glance
with equal swiftness, "to seize upon the American idiom. I mean:
How small a contribution would you be willing to receive toward
your support!"

Corliss did not glance again at Ray; instead, he looked interested
in the smoke of his cigar. "`Contribution,'" he repeated, with no
inflection whatever. "`Toward my support.'"

"I mean, of course, how small an investment in your oil company."

"Oh, anything, anything," returned the promoter, with quick
amiability. "We need to sell all the stock we can."

"All the money you can get?"

"Precisely. It's really a colossal proposition, Mr. Vilas."
Corliss spoke with brisk enthusiasm. "It's a perfectly certain
enormous profit upon everything that goes in. Prince Moliterno
cables me later investigations show that the oil-field is more
than twice as large as we thought when I left Naples. He's on the
ground now, buying up what he can, secretly."

"I had an impression from Richard Lindley that the secret had been
discovered."

"Oh, yes; but only by a few, and those are trying to keep it quiet
from the others, of course."

"I see. Does your partner know of your success in raising a large
investment?"

"You mean Lindley's? Certainly." Corliss waved his hand in light
deprecation. "Of course that's something, but Moliterno would
hardly be apt to think of it as very large! You see he's putting
in about five times that much, himself, and I've already turned
over to him double it for myself. Still, it counts--certainly; and
of course it will be a great thing for Lindley."

"I fear," Ray said hesitatingly, "you won't be much interested in
my drop for your bucket. I have twelve hundred dollars in the
world; and it is in the bank--I stopped there on my way here. To
be exact, I have twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars and
fifty-one cents. My dear sir, will you allow me to purchase one
thousand dollars' worth of stock? I will keep the two hundred and
forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents to live on--I may need an
egg while waiting for you to make me rich. Will you accept so
small an investment?"

"Certainly," said Corliss, laughing. "Why not? You may as well
profit by the chance as any one. I'll send you the stock
certificates--we put them at par. I'm attending to that myself, as
our secretary, Mr. Madison, is unable to take up his duties."

Vilas took a cheque-book and a fountain-pen from his pocket.

"Oh, any time, any time," said Corliss cheerfully, observing the
new investor's movement.

"Now, I think," returned Vilas quietly. "How shall I make it out?"

"Oh, to me, I suppose," answered Corliss indifferently. "That will
save a little trouble, and I can turn it over to Moliterno, by
cable, as I did Lindley's. I'll give you a receipt----"

"You need not mind that," said Ray. "Really it is of no
importance."

"Of course the cheque itself is a receipt," remarked Corliss,
tossing it carelessly upon a desk. "You'll have some handsome
returns for that slip of paper, Mr. Vilas."

"In that blithe hope I came," said Ray airily.

"I am confident of it. I have my own ways of divination, Mr.
Corliss. I have gleams." He rose as if to go, but stood looking
thoughtfully about the apartment again. "Singular impression," he
murmured. "Not exactly as if I'd seen it in a dream; and yet--and
yet----"

"You have symptoms of clairvoyance at times, I take it." The
conscious, smooth superiority of the dexterous man playing with an
inconsequent opponent resounded in this speech, clear as the
humming of a struck bell; and Vilas shot him a single open glance
of fire from hectic eyes. For that instant, the frailer buck
trumpeted challenge. Corliss--broad-shouldered, supple of waist,
graceful and strong--smiled down negligently; yet the very air
between the two men seemed charged with an invisible explosive.
Ray laughed quickly, as in undisturbed good nature; then,
flourishing his stick, turned toward the door.

"Oh, no, it isn't clairvoyance--no more than when I told you that
your only real interest is women." He paused, his hand upon the
door-knob. "I'm a quaint mixture, however: perhaps I should be
handled with care."

"Very good of you," laughed Corliss--"this warning. The afternoon
I had the pleasure of meeting you I think I remember your implying
that you were a mere marionette."

"A haggard harlequin!" snapped Vilas, waving his hand to a mirror
across the room. "Don't I look it?" And the phrase fitted him with
tragic accuracy. "You see? What a merry wedding-guest I'll be! I
invite you to join me on the nuptial eve."

"Thanks. Who's getting married: when the nuptial eve?"

Ray opened the door, and, turning, rolled his eyes fantastically.
"Haven't you heard?" he cried. "When Hecate marries John
Barleycorn!" He bowed low. "Mr. Midas, adieu."

Corliss stood in the doorway and watched him walk down the long
hall to the elevator. There, Ray turned and waved his hand, the
other responding with gayety which was not assumed: Vilas might be
insane, or drunk, or both, but the signature upon his cheque was
unassailable.

Corliss closed the door and began to pace his apartment
thoughtfully. His expression manifested a peculiar phenomenon. In
company, or upon the street, or when he talked with men, the open
look and frank eyes of this stalwart young man were disarming and
his most winning assets. But now, as he paced alone in his
apartment, now that he was not upon exhibition, now when there was
no eye to behold him, and there was no reason to dissimulate or
veil a single thought or feeling, his look was anything but open;
the last trace of frankness disappeared; the muscles at mouth and
eyes shifted; lines and planes intermingled and altered subtly;
there was a moment of misty transformation--and the face of
another man emerged. It was the face of a man uninstructed in
mercy; it was a shrewd and planning face: alert, resourceful,
elaborately perceptive, and flawlessly hard. But, beyond all, it
was the face of a man perpetually on guard.

He had the air of debating a question, his hands in his pockets,
his handsome forehead lined with a temporary indecision. His
sentry-go extended the length of his two rooms, and each time he
came back into his bedroom his glance fell consideringly upon a
steamer-trunk of the largest size, at the foot of his bed. The
trunk was partially packed as if for departure. And, indeed, it
was the question of departure which he was debating.

He was a man of varied dexterities, and he had one faculty of high
value, which had often saved him, had never betrayed him; it was
intuitive and equal to a sixth sense: he always knew when it was
time to go. An inner voice warned him; he trusted to it and obeyed
it. And it had spoken now, and there was his trunk half-packed in
answer. But he had stopped midway in his packing, because he had
never yet failed to make a clean sweep where there was the
slightest chance for one; he hated to leave a big job before it
was completely finished--and Mr. Wade Trumble had refused to
invest in the oil-fields of Basilicata.

Corliss paused beside the trunk, stood a moment immersed in
thought; then nodded once, decisively, and, turning to a
dressing-table, began to place some silver-mounted brushes and
bottles in a leather travelling-case.

There was a knock at the outer door. He frowned, set down what he
had in his hands, went to the door and opened it to find Mr.
Pryor, that plain citizen, awaiting entrance.

Corliss remained motionless in an arrested attitude, his hand upon
the knob of the opened door. His position did not alter; he became
almost unnaturally still, a rigidity which seemed to increase.
Then he looked quickly behind him, over his shoulder, and back
again, with a swift movement of the head.

"No," said Pryor, at that. "I don't want you. I just thought I'd
have two minutes' talk with you. All right?"

"All right," said Corliss quietly. "Come in." He turned
carelessly, and walked away from the door keeping between his
guest and the desk. When he reached the desk, he turned again and
leaned against it, his back to it, but in the action of turning
his hand had swept a sheet of note-paper over Ray Vilas's
cheque--a too conspicuous oblong of pale blue. Pryor had come in
and closed the door.

"I don't know," he began, regarding the other through his glasses,
with steady eyes, "that I'm going to interfere with you at all,
Corliss. I just happened to strike you--I wasn't looking for you.
I'm on vacation, visiting my married daughter that lives here, and
I don't want to mix in if I can help it."

Corliss laughed, easily. "There's nothing for you to mix in. You
couldn't if you wanted to."

"Well, I hope that's true," said Pryor, with an air of indulgence,
curiously like that of a teacher for a pupil who promises
improvement. "I do indeed. There isn't anybody I'd like to see
turn straight more than you. You're educated and cultured, and
refined, and smarter than all hell. It would be a big thing.
That's one reason I'm taking the trouble to talk to you."

"I told you I wasn't doing anything," said Corliss with a
petulance as oddly like that of a pupil as the other's indulgence
was like that of a tutor. "This is my own town; I own property
here, and I came here to sell it. I can prove it in
half-a-minute's telephoning. Where do you come in?"