Lord Loveland Discovers America Part 12

He had never liked Cadwallader Hunter, had lately grown tired and sick of him, and detested him cordially now, for a peppery second or two; yet all this did not do away with _n.o.blesse oblige_. Nothing could excuse forgetfulness of one's obligation, the obligation to be a gentleman; and Loveland was irritably aware that he had forgotten it.

He reminded himself that a great liberty had been taken with him at an inopportune moment, that he was not used to having liberties taken with him at the best of times, and that Cadwallader Hunter deserved all he had got for coming up to him uninvited, with a stranger--a newspaper man--in tow. Still, Val was not happy, and if he had not been too stubbornly proud to yield to his first impulse, he would have flung open the door and run after his visitors with apologies. But no; he would not do it. A bad precedent to make with a person like Cadwallader Hunter, he said, excusing himself. The Major would take advantage of it; and as for the journalist, he--Lord Loveland--stood on purple heights so lofty that he need fear no spiteful yapping of dogs on lower levels. Nothing could drag him down to their depths; and as his idea was that American newspaper men were no slaves to truth, he told himself that this one would probably have lied in any case.

With such thoughts vaguely stirring in his mind, and a.s.sured that Cadwallader Hunter's past civility had been entirely for what he could get, Loveland tried to re-establish friendly relations with his own conscience; but the uneasy p.r.i.c.king would not stop. It drove him up and down, in and out of one beautifully furnished room to another, in irrepressible restlessness, and a presentiment of worse things to come than he had yet suffered.

He had meant, when his unpacking was done, to dress and lunch in the restaurant, whose fame had reached even the dining-room of the Guard's Club. But that was before the Nightmare. Now he did not want to look at his fellow-beings or be looked at; and he pressed his electric bell viciously to order luncheon sent up.

It came presently, and would have been delicious to a man without a grievance, but Loveland's grievance was so gigantic that it had crowded out his appet.i.te; and scarcely knowing what he ate, he went through course after course, brooding on his wrongs, and pondering the chances of revenge.

Useless to waste money in cabling instructions for Foxham's arrest, he reflected. The wretch, who had planned everything so well, would long ago have taken himself out of harm's way, and it would be like setting Scotland Yard to look for a very small, rusty needle in a haystack as big as England and the Continent, to expect the thievish valet to be found. Months ago, in an expansive moment, when Loveland had nothing better to do than listen while his boots were being laced, Foxham had confessed that at one time he had been an actor, "in a humble way." His speciality had been quick disguises, "lightning changes"; and he had been successful in a "turn" done at provincial music halls. Loveland could imagine Foxham disguising himself very well, and being almost as good an actor as he had been a valet. He was perhaps masquerading now as a Salvation Army Preacher, or a Beauty Specialist; or setting up as a grocer on the money got by the betrayal of his master.

No, Loveland decided, he need not hope to punish Foxham. His time might be better employed in planning the reconstruction of his own wardrobe.

A man, even a Marquis, can live without tie pins or a change of s.h.i.+rt studs, but he cannot live without such clothes as Society expects of him. Loveland thought with almost pa.s.sionate regret of his tailor's achievements, lost to him for ever, and with anxiety of the difficult matter it would be to replace them.

The hundred and fifty pounds represented by his letter of credit could not be spared for American tailors and bootmakers; that went without saying. These persons would have to trust him. But--were American tailors and bootmakers of a trusting nature? Loveland had somehow got the impression that they were not, and that even if you were a Duke--much less a Marquis--and flaunted a copy of Burke under their noses, they would still want some native millionaire to guarantee them against loss.

Cadwallader Hunter was not a millionaire (this was the one damaging statement he had voluntarily made against himself) but he knew millionaires and was known by them; and with a pang of selfish regret, even sharper than his first remorse, Loveland repented his wastefulness in throwing away such a friend. If he had not slammed the door almost upon Cadwallader Hunter's high, thin nose, he might now have summoned him by telephone, and have got him to trot about introducing the Marquis of Loveland to the best tailors in New York. Of course, the Major would not accept the snub as final: he was not that sort of person; but it was beneath the Loveland dignity to insult a man and then ask a favour of him. The only thing for Val to do was to wait until he had collected other friends more solid, more valuable, than Cadwallader Hunter, and as soon as possible tell the tale of his misfortunes. Of course, everybody would be delighted to help Lord Loveland; and, by the way, there was Mr.

Coolidge who could be approached, if worst came to worst.

But worst had not yet come to worst, and as Val's spirits rose with a mingling of good food and bright hopes, he decided against Coolidge as a refuge for the present. In spite of all, he would stick to his guns and not forgather further with the _Mauretania_ people until he had seen what Harborough's letters produced. He could get on for a day or two, and meanwhile there were things to do.

When he had been cheered by luncheon, and soothed by cigarettes, he sent for a motor taxi-cab. The afternoon was still young, and so full of sparkle and gayety that life seemed worth living after all; therefore Lord Loveland had begun to value himself almost as highly as ever, by the time his smart little automobile pulled up in front of the bank.

It was a stately bank, well worthy of its London connection; and he handed in his visiting card and letter of credit, with the air of one ent.i.tled to receive unlimited sums. The cas.h.i.+er, however, having looked at him, the card, and the letter, did not appear to be impressed.

Instead of replying in words to Loveland's demand for twenty pounds, he walked away with the letter of credit in his hand, and vanished behind a swing door. Loveland thought that he had probably gone to fetch the manager, who would perhaps desire to see in person a t.i.tled client of some importance. But after a short delay the cas.h.i.+er returned alone, and having strolled back to his place behind the grating, there stood silent for a moment.

"I'm rather in a hurry," said Loveland. "I suppose there'll be no red tape about my getting twenty pounds? I want it this afternoon."

The cas.h.i.+er smiled a dry smile, and his voice sounded dry as he answered. "I don't know about the red tape, but I'm sorry to tell you we have no instructions from London to pay."

"What?" cried Val, reddening with annoyance. Several people writing cheques or waiting for money at the counter, looked up and continued to look. "You have no instructions?"

"No instructions to pay," repeated the cas.h.i.+er, putting on the last word an emphasis which sounded offensive to Loveland's ears, though he hastily a.s.sured himself that it could not possibly have any such meaning.

"This is very inconvenient," said Val, to whom Bridge and tips on s.h.i.+pboard had left exactly seventeen s.h.i.+llings, three pence halfpenny.

"I'm sorry for that," remarked the cas.h.i.+er, still more formally, more unsympathetically, and--one might almost have said--more disrespectfully, than before.

Loveland, though inclined to storm, reflected a moment. He had intended to sail on the _Baltic_, which was due to leave English sh.o.r.es only yesterday, and might not arrive at New York for seven or eight days. He had not given anyone notice--not even his mother--that he had changed his intention, and very likely the London papers had paragraphed him as a pa.s.senger on the _Baltic's_ next trip. Nevertheless, he could not quite understand how that fact excused his London bank's delay in instructing their New York correspondents. They had had plenty of time to arrange his affairs before his sudden departure in the _Mauretania_, and by not doing so they were likely to make him a great deal of unnecessary trouble.

Again he thought of Cadwallader Hunter. In this instance, too, the man might have been useful.

"Well, I don't see why I should be made to suffer because the London and Southern Bank puts off till tomorrow what it ought to have done a week ago," said Loveland, beginning to be arrogant, though looking boyish, with his flushed face, and his white scar glimmering on its background of clear, ruddy-brown. "I must have some money, you know."

The cas.h.i.+er did not reply to this challenge, and his eyes expressed no interested consideration of the matter.

"You had better see your manager and explain the circ.u.mstances," pursued Val.

"It would be useless. We could not pay without instructions."

"I daresay I might manage with ten pounds till you could get an answer, if you choose to be so ridiculously over-cautious," Loveland insisted, loftily. "But in that case you must cable at once."

"You will no doubt be willing to pay for the message in advance?"

suggested the cas.h.i.+er.

"Certainly not," said Val, no longer trying to keep his temper under control. "You've seen my card. Isn't that enough for you?"

"Business is business," quoted the bank employe, still unruffled, still blind to Lord Loveland's importance, cold to his necessities.

"And decency's decency," stormed Val, careless now who looked or listened, and in a mood to wreck all American inst.i.tutions.

"Yes, it's as well never to forget that," the cas.h.i.+er hinted, significantly. "Sorry we cannot accommodate you at present."

"I'm hanged if you ever get the chance again," retorted Val, s.n.a.t.c.hing his letter of credit from the counter. "I shall myself send a cable to the London and Southern which will make you repent your pig-headedness."

And with this ultimatum he strode to the door, as if on the way to sign a death-warrant.

"By his looks, that will be an expensive cable, and make the wire mighty hot," Val heard a man chuckle as he pa.s.sed, and there was a spatter of laughter, which (for his eyes) painted the opposite sky-sc.r.a.pers bright scarlet.

"Beastly America! Beastly Americans!" he muttered. "I suppose this is their way of resenting the existence of aristocracy."

Lord Loveland had a good deal to learn yet about America--and also about that important member of the aristocracy, himself.

As he returned to his motor cab, which had been "taxing" away violently since he left it, he wondered if he would have enough money to pay for it. But, what if he hadn't? He could tip the chauffeur, and the hotel would do the rest. Also the hotel would put down the cash for a dozen cablegrams. Oh, the sting of these pin-p.r.i.c.ks would last no longer than the poison of mosquito-bites! Once Jim Harborough's friends began to rally round him, and vie among each other for his society, as the Mauretanians had done, New York would be his to play with. Patience, then, and shuffle the cards. As he had heard someone say on s.h.i.+pboard, "Faint heart never won a game of poker."

It was thus he smoothed away the sulky frown which suited neither his face, nor the gentle Indian-summer suns.h.i.+ne. Then, trying to forget the first snub man had ever dared to deal him, he flashed here and there in his motor cab, making a house to house distribution of Jim's envelopes and his own visiting cards, according to home custom when armed with letters of introduction.

The sky flamed with sunset banners--Spanish colours--long before he had finished his round and was ready to return to the Waldorf. There, his idea of a suitable present to the chauffeur left him with the American equivalent of eight or nine s.h.i.+llings in his pocket. But, as he had expected, the hotel paid for his afternoon's motoring. So cheerfully did it pay that he sent off an unnecessarily long and extremely frank cablegram to his London bankers which they ought to receive on opening their doors next morning. He thought that it would rather wake them up, and that in consequence of their response to New York--certain to flash immediately along the wires--he would receive an apology from the rude wretch who had insulted him that afternoon. But nothing would induce him to forget or forgive. He had informed the London bankers that his business must be diverted into another channel, which they were invited to suggest.

When Loveland found himself alone again in his luxurious suite of rooms, with the November night coming on, and no amus.e.m.e.nt on hand (unless he chose to stare down from his high windows at the blaze of astonis.h.i.+ng jewels which festooned the immense blue dusk with light and colour) he half wished once more that he had not been so cautious in the matter of accepting invitations. After all, it wouldn't have compromised his future, if he had gone to dine with the Coolidges, or Spanish-eyed, flirtatious Mrs. Milton and her gentle little daughter f.a.n.n.y. A dinner with them--or even with the dullest people who had invited him--would have been preferable to an undiluted dose of his own society on this first night in a strange land. However, it was too late to reconsider now with dignity (though he was childishly confident that any of his American acquaintances would have been entranced, had he suddenly changed his mind) and the next best thing to dining with friends would be to watch the coming and going of gay New York in the Waldorf-Astoria restaurant.

He dressed and went down about eight, therefore, looking forward to the novelty of the unknown.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Discovery of Lord Loveland by America

It was a brilliant scene into the midst of which Loveland plunged.

Society begins to dine earlier in New York than in London; therefore at eight o'clock dinner was in full swing. There was scarcely an empty table; and many of the women being in hats and semi-evening dress, the red and gold restaurant suggested to the newcomer a living picture of Paris.

He had had the forethought to telephone down and order a table to be kept for him, and informing an interrogative waiter that he was Lord Loveland he learned that his place would be found at the far end of the room.

It looked a very far end indeed, gazing across an intervening sea of flowerlike hats, charming faces, and jewelled necks that glimmered white under film of lace and tulle; but Loveland was not shy. Among all the men who protected the charming faces, his sweeping, faintly supercilious glance did not show him one whose physical advantages he need envy. He rather enjoyed his progress, winding on and on along narrow paths between rose-burdened tables, with lovely eyes lifting to his as he pa.s.sed by. He wondered if any pair of those eyes was destined to look down his own table at Loveland Castle some day. Well, they should be beautiful eyes to deserve the honour! the thought slipped vaguely through his head, and then his own eyes brightened with the light of recognition.