Lord Loveland Discovers America

Tony turned impatiently from the man's grumbling. "Well, if you won't let me do anything for you, you won't," he said to Loveland. "All the same, I shan't forget, and the time may come. Now I must be off, and write my story."

He put out a hand, and Val responded with his unbandaged one.

If any one had told Tony Kidd a few hours before that he would yield to an irresistible impulse impelling him to shake hands heartily with the notorious "Marquis of Twelfth Street," he would not have believed it possible.

If any one had told Loveland that he would feel pleased, even complimented, by the offer of a handshake from the journalist who had made a target of him in black and white, he would have said, "it could not happen." Yet neither thought it strange when it did happen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A Proposal of Marriage

After the restaurant was cleared and all outsiders gone, Alexander remained, wandering dolefully about the room and discussing with Leo Cohen the sum he hoped to get from the company in which he was insured against fire.

The conversation ought to have been of absorbing interest to Cohen, as eventually Alexander's business would be his, provided there were no hitch in the marriage negotiations; nevertheless, he was absent-minded, for the new waiter had not yet left the premises, and – the watchful Cohen had noticed a peculiar light in Isidora's eye when her father had brusquely ordered her upstairs, "out of the way."

She had offered no objection to going, and had bidden Leo good-night, very prettily. But before tripping away, she paused for an instant in the corridor, her face turned towards the kitchen in which P. Gordon was helping Black Dick put things to rights.

Cohen noticed this turn of the head, this fluttering hesitation, standing as he did near the door-way now stripped of the red curtain. But when Isidora had vanished above, Alexander dismissed Blinkey and the Pole, shutting the door which usually stood open, because of the draught from the broken window.

"Why don't you send that man Gordon away, too?" Cohen asked.

"Because I'm payin' him big money, and he's got to earn it," explained Alexander. "He can stay and help Dick tidy up, if it takes till twelve o'clock. It ain't hurting us. Why should you care?"

Even Cohen, who seldom erred on the side of timidity in speech, scarcely ventured to put into words the reason why he did "care." Alexander was a good friend of his, and desired warmly to welcome him as a member of the family, but he worshipped his daughter Izzie; and as he had a violent, uncertain temper, he might resent a suggestion that she could be interested in Gordon.

Cohen had a rooted objection to draughts, or fresh air in any form, except in the warmest weather; still he would have preferred a draught to the shut door behind which the girl might steal downstairs to gossip with the Englishman in the kitchen. Of course Dick was there, but he was a slave to Isidora's fascinations, and the coal-black youth who was his adjutant had now gone home to patch up burnt hands and head. Cohen hardly heard what Alexander said, so keenly was he pricking his ears for a footfall on the stairs, behind the closed door; and he answered at random while his intended father-in-law demonstrated the prospects of opening the restaurant as usual in the morning.

"See here, are you sick, or what's the matter?" snapped Alexander at last.

"Oh, I'm all right," said Cohen, "only the smoke's got into my eyes. They smart so, I can see no more'n a bat. If it hadn't been for the smoke, which always makes me blind and dizzy, I'd have been more use in the panic."

Alexander laughed. "Well, you weren't no hero. Never mind, though, most of us was put out of business. And nobody had time to see what anybody else was at. But you do seem dicky. Mebbe you'd better be gettin' home. I don't want to keep you up."

"Oh, I'm not all in yet," Cohen hastened to protest. "But can't you leave me to watch that winder, while you see after Izzie? She was lookin' white and scared. Maybe she don't like bein' left alone. Or I could go up myself, and sit by her awhile. 'Tain't late."

Alexander chuckled. "Say, you're mighty thoughtful, ain't you? But you let Izzie alone tonight. I know dat girl, and de best ting for her is to go to bed."

"It ain't much past nine," said Cohen. "I don't guess she'll go to bed yet."

"Well, she's got the hired gel to chat with – unless it's her evenin' out. Now, don't you look so glum, Leo. Izzie ain't mashed on you yet, and if you was to go stir her up when she's all on the jump, you'd do for yourself with her. I tell you dat straight. And dat ain't what you want, huh?"

Cohen admitted that it was not, and gloomily allowed his services to be enlisted by Alexander in the way of examining the furniture for damage, piling broken chairs in a corner, and sorting out those in a fit condition to be used tomorrow.

Meantime Isidora had been busy justifying her lover's worst fears.

As she reached the top of the staircase, she heard the loud slamming of the door which had been warped and blistered by the heat. Her heart gave a little jump of excitement. Already she was keyed to a highly emotional state, and in her longing for a talk with Loveland, alone, she was ready to run almost any risk. The thought that he was still in the house, so near yet so far, had been almost insupportable, and she had fully intended to have a "good cry" the moment she arrived in the sitting-room upstairs. But the unexpected shutting of the restaurant door caused her a tremor of delight. She tip-toed down again, with her heart loud as a hammer in her breast, and flitted softly into the kitchen, not daring to speak till she had quietly closed the door also, lest the sound of her voice should carry across the passage.

"Oh, Mr. Gordon," she breathed. "I'm so sorry about your poor hand; and your face is scorched, too. I do wish you'd let me do something for you."

Loveland thanked her, but said that Dick had bandaged up his hand and wrist very nicely, with a soothing application of lard on an old rag.

Isidora gave a little sniff of scorn for the negro's ministrations.

"A pretty bandage!" she sneered. "A nasty torn bit of coarse towel; and lard ain't the right thing, either. I've taken lessons in First Aid. All the girls in my school did, and I ain't forgot what I learnt. Please come with me, and I'll do you up all right. Now, don't say no, or you'll hurt my feelings. I feel ready to cry anyway, and I sure will, if you ain't kind."

Loveland disavowed all intention of being unkind, but assured the girl that he was in very little pain, and need not put her to trouble. He would soon be ready to go away, and really thought it would be better. But when he had got so far in his rather straggling argument, two tears splashed over Izzie's cheeks. More threatened to follow, and Loveland yielded incontinently. It would hardly have been human not to feel some stirrings of gratitude, and besides, Loveland hated to see a woman cry.

"Oh, I'll come," he said desperately, and followed Isidora into the passage. Her finger on her lip told him that his visit to the family sitting-room was to be a secret, but even if prudence would have turned him back at the last moment, he was committed to the adventure and could not escape.

The parlour, which also served as dining-room, was appalling in its bravery of old gold plush, and portraits of defunct Hebrew ladies and gentlemen on a claret-coloured wall paper. There was an upright piano with the latest thing in coon songs upon it; there were wax flowers under glass cases; there were terra-cotta statuettes of incredible ugliness; there were crocheted "tidies" on the sofas and chairs. On the centre table, which was covered with a blue cloth, stood a lamp that had been lighted when the electricity failed, and in its rays, filtering softly through a shade composed of pink paper roses, Isidora looked even prettier than usual – perhaps partly in contrast with her hideous surroundings.

She made Loveland sit down in a leather armchair which smelled of the tobacco her father affected; and then, kneeling on a low footstool beside him, she began to unfasten Black Dick's clumsy bandage.

"I don't like to have you wait on me," said Loveland, who, a few weeks ago, took the most exaggerated petting for granted, from pretty women.

"Well, I like to do it, anyhow," replied the girl, with a lingering, liquid glance. "You're so brave, I'm proud to be waitin' on you. I never knew anybody just like you, before."

Loveland thought this very probable, but merely remarked, with becoming modesty, that he had done very little.

"You were a real hero," said Isidora. "Oh! o – oh!" and she breathed little cooing sighs of pity at sight of the hero's burns. "I could cry over your poor hand. It's a shame – "

"Please don't!" exclaimed Loveland, laughing. "I can't stand any more tears."

"Did you mind when I cried?" asked Izzie.

"Awfully," said Loveland. As he spoke he smiled down at her in a friendly way; and the kindness in the blue, black-lashed eyes made the girl's heart flutter like an imprisoned bird. She had been in love with him since the first day, a little; then more and more. Now her love overflowed. It was too much for her emotional nature. She could not keep it back. And why should she try to keep it back, she asked herself, since her love must be considered an honour by this unsuccessful foreign adventurer? She felt that she was like a queen, laying down her crown at the feet of a handsome beggar – she, Alexander the Great's only daughter and heiress. There was no question in her mind but that her love would be welcomed.

"I'm glad," she almost sobbed. "Oh, you're worth more to me than anything in the world. I won't cry again if you ask me not. I'll do whatever you want me to. Pa'd 'most kill me if he knew I was talking like this. But I don't care – I don't care for anybody but you – no one else. Oh, suppose I'd let Pa make me marry Leo Cohen before I'd met you!"

Loveland was dumbfounded. "My dear girl!" he exclaimed. "You don't know what you are saying. You – "

"I do know," Isidora broke in. "I know you are poor, and in a lot of trouble, and you might have gone to prison. But you're a gentleman, all right. You're You, and that's enough. If you care about me same as I do about you, why, all the rest – "

"But I – I mean, I'm sure you – don't really care," stammered Val, checking himself on the verge of saying something rude.

It would have simplified matters if he had said it, for Isidora's opinion of her own high value as Alexander's rich, desirable daughter made it too easy for her to misunderstand.

"I do care. You needn't be afraid," she assured him. "I wouldn't have said a word – I'd o' waited for you to speak if things had been different, but I saw how you felt by the way your eyes looked a minute ago, and I wouldn't stop for manners, because, I says to myself, he's too much of a gentleman to tell a girl he loves her, when he's got nothing and she everything."

"I hope I am too much of a gentleman to – " Val began desperately, but she cut him short, with one little plump, Patchouli-scented hand over his mouth.

"I know it! That's what I said. You don't need to tell me," she hurried on. "We'll have to run away and get married. Then Pa'll forgive me. I'm all he's got. He couldn't bear me to want for anything. But it's no use asking him first. He – "

"Dear girl, I have no idea of asking him – "

"No, of course. You ain't so silly. His heart's set on my taking Leo, but I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole, now. My hero! I'll marry you tomorrow."

"The devil you will!" said Alexander.