The Splendid Outcast

She leaned forward impulsively and put her hand over his, smiling brightly at him.

"We'll be good friends now, alanah. I'm sure of it."

"You like me a little better – ?"

"Sure and I wouldn't be sitting here holding hands if I didn't," she laughed. Then with a quick glance at her wrist watch she rose. "And now I must be going back to father. Here is the nurse. Time is up."

"You will come soon again?" he asked slowly.

"Yes – with better news, I hope. Au revoir, mon brave."

And she was gone.

The visit gave him more food for thought. But he hadn't learned much. What he did know now was that the girl Moira trusted Barry Quinlevin implicitly and that he had managed to keep her in ignorance as to the real sources of his livelihood. The Irish rents had failed to reach them! Were there any Irish rents? And if so, what had "de V" to do with them? He took Quinlevin's letter from under the pillow and re-read it carefully. Nothing about Irish rents there. Perhaps other letters had followed, that Harry had destroyed. In any case he would have to play the game carefully with the girl's father or Quinlevin would find him out before Horton discovered what he wanted to know. The quiet eyes of the girl Moira disturbed him. Her eyes, her intuitions, were shrewd, yet he had succeeded so far. If he could pass muster with the daughter, why shouldn't he succeed with the father? The weakness, the failing memory of a sick man, could be trusted to bridge difficulties. If there had only been a few more letters he would have been better equipped for the interview with Barry Quinlevin, which must soon follow. He inquired of Miss Newberry, but she had given him everything that had been found in his uniform. He scrutinized the notebook carefully, which contained only an expense account, some addresses in Paris, and a few military notes, and so he discarded it. It seemed that until Quinlevin came to the hospital "de V" must remain one of the unsolved mysteries of his versatile brother.

But Moira's innocence, while it failed to enlighten him as to the mystery, made him more certain that her loveless marriage with Harry had something to do with the suspected intrigue. Did Harry love the girl? It seemed scarcely possible that any man who was half a man could be much with her without loving her. It wasn't like Harry to marry any girl unless he had something to gain by it. The conversation he had just had with Moira showed exactly the relationship between them, if he had needed any further evidence than her letter.

As to his own personal relations with Moira, he found it necessary to fortify himself against a more than strictly fraternal interest in her personality. She was extremely agreeable to look at and he had to admit that her very presence had cheered up his particular part of the hospital ward amazingly. Her quaintness, her quiet directness and her modest demeanor, were inherent characteristics, but they could not disguise the overflowing vitality and humor that struggled against the limitations she had imposed. Her roses, which Nurse Newberry had arranged in a bowl by the bedside, were unnecessary reminders of the giver. Like them, she was fragrant, pristine and beautiful – altogether a much-to-be-desired sister-in-law.

The visit of Barry Quinlevin was not long delayed and Jim Horton received him in his wheel chair by an open window in the convalescent ward. He came in with a white silk handkerchief tied about his neck, but barring a husky voice showed no ill effects of his indisposition. He was an amiable looking rogue, and if the shade of Whistler will forgive me, resembled much that illustrious person in all the physical graces. It would be quite easy to imagine that Barry Quinlevin could be quite as dangerous an enemy.

"Well, Harry boy, here I am," he announced, throwing open his coat with something of an air, and loosening his scarf. "No worse than the devil made me. And ye're well again, they tell me, or so near it that ye're no longer interesting."

"Stronger every day," replied Horton cautiously.

"Then we can have a talk, maybe, without danger of it breaking the spring in yer belfry?"

"Ah, yes, – but I'm a bit hazy at times," added Horton.

"Well, when the fog comes down, say the word and I'll be going."

"Don't worry. I want to hear the news."

Quinlevin frowned at his walking stick. "It's little enough, God knows." Then glanced toward the invalid at the next window and lowered his voice a trifle.

"The spalpeen says not a word – or he's afflicted with pen-paralysis, for I've written him three times – twice since I reached Paris, giving him the address. So we'll have to make a move."

"What will you do?"

"Go to see him – or you can. At first, ye see, I thought maybe he'd gone away or died or something. But I watched the Hôtel de Vautrin in the Rue de Bac until I saw him with my own eyes. That's how I took this bronchitis – in the night air with devil a drink within a mile of me. I saw him, I tell you, as hale and hearty as ye please, and debonair like a new laid egg, with me, Barry Quinlevin, in the rain, not four paces from the carriage way."

The visitor paused as though for a comment, and Horton offered it.

"He didn't see you?"

"Devil a one of me. For the moment I thought of bracing him then and there. But I didn't – though I was reduced to a small matter of a hundred francs or so."

"Things are as bad as that – ?"

Quinlevin shrugged. "I bettered myself a bit the next night and I'll find a way – "

He broke off with a shrug.

"But I'm not going to be wasting my talents on the little officer-boys in Guillaume's. Besides, 'twould be most unpatriotic. I'm out for bigger game, me son, that spells itself in seven figures. Nothing less than a coup d'état will satisfy the ambitions of Barry Quinlevin!"

"Well?" asked Horton shrewdly.

"For the present ye're to stay where ye are, till yer head is as tight as a drum, giving me the benefit of yer sage advice. We'll worry along. The rent of the apartment and studio is a meager two hundred francs and the food – well, we will eat enough. And Moira has some work to do. But we can't be letting the Duc forget I've ever existed. A man with a reputation in jeopardy and twenty millions of francs, you'll admit, is not to be found growing on every mulberry bush."

Horton nodded. It was blackmail then. The Duc de Vautrin —

"You wrote that you had a plan," he said. "What is it?"

Barry Quinlevin waved a careless hand.

"Fair means, as one gentleman uses to another, if he explains his negligence and remits the small balance due. Otherwise, we'll have to squeeze him. A letter from a good lawyer – if it wasn't for the testimony of Nora Burke!"

He was silent in a moment of puzzled retrospection and his glittering generalities only piqued Jim Horton's curiosity, so that his eagerness led him into an error that nearly undid him.

"Nora Burke – " he put in slowly.

"I wrote ye what happened – "

"I couldn't have received the letter – "

He stopped abruptly, for Quinlevin was staring at him in astonishment.

"Then how the devil could ye have answered it?"

Horton covered the awkward moment by closing his eyes and passing his fingers across his brow.

"Answered it! Funny I don't remember."

The Irishman regarded him a moment soberly, and then smiled in deprecation.

"Of course – ye've slipped a cog – "

Then suddenly he clapped a hand on Horton's knee.

"Why, man alive, – Nora Burke – the Irish nurse who provides the necessary testimony – Moira's nurse, d'ye mind, when she was a baby, who saw the Duc's child die – now do ye remember – ?"

Horton ran his fingers over his hair thoughtfully and bent his head again.

"Nora Burke – Moira's nurse – who saw the Duc's child die," he repeated parrot-like, "and the Duc – de Vautrin – " he muttered and paused.

"Thinks his child by this early marriage is still alive – " said Quinlevin, regarding him dubiously.

"Yes, yes," said Horton eagerly. "It's coming back to me now. And de Vautrin's money – "