Ailsa Paige Part 28

"Don't put it that way," protested Berkley. "I'm trying to make fast time, that's all. I'm in a hurry."

The other wagged his head: "You won't last long if you keep this up. The-hic!-trouble with you is that you can't get decently drunk. You just turn blue and white. That's what's-matter-you! And it kills the kind of-hic!-of man you are. B-b'lieve me," he added shedding tears, "I'm fon' 'v' you, Ber-hic!-kley."

He shed a few more scalding tears, waved his hand in resignation, bowed his head, caught sight of his own feet, regarded them with surprise.

"Whose?" he inquired naively.

"Yours," said Berkley rea.s.suringly. "They don't want to go to bed."

"Put 'em to bed!" said Cortlandt in a stem voice. "No business wand'ring 'round here this time of night!"

So Berkley escorted Cortlandt to bed, bowed him politely into his room, and turned out the gas as a precaution.

Returning, he noticed the straggling retreat of cavalry and artillery, arms fondly interlaced; then, wandering back to the other room in search of his hat, he became aware of Letty Lynden, seated at the table.

Her slim, childish body lay partly across the table, her cheek was pillowed on one outstretched arm, the fingers of which lay loosely around the slender crystal stem of a wine-gla.s.s.

"Are you asleep?" he asked. And saw that she was.

So he roamed about, hunting for something or other-he forgot what-until he found it was her mantilla. Having found it, he forgot what he wanted it for and, wrapping it around his shoulders, sat down on the sofa, very silent, very white, but physically master of the demoralisation that sharpened the shadows under his cheek-bones and eyes.

"I guess," he said gravely to himself, "that I'd better become a gambler. It's-a-very, ve-ry good 'fession-no," he added cautiously, "per-fession-" and stopped short, vexed with his difficulties of enunciation.

He tried several polysyllables; they went better. Then he became aware of the mantilla on his shoulders.

"Some time or other," he said to himself with precision, "that little dancer girl ought to go home."

He rose steadily, walked to the table:

"Listen to me, you funny little thing," he said.

No answer.

The childlike curve of the cheek was flushed; the velvet-fringed lids lay close. For a moment he listened to the quiet breathing, then touched her arm lightly.

The girl stirred, lifted her head, straightened up, withdrawing her fingers from the wine-gla.s.s.

"Everybody's gone home," he said. "Do you want to stay here all night?"

She rose, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, saw the mantilla he was holding, suffered him to drop it on, her shoulders, standing there sleepy and acquiescent. Then she yawned.

"Are you going with me, Mr. Berkley?"

"I'll-yes. I'll see you safe."

She yawned again, laid a small hand on his arm, and together they descended the stairs, opened the front door, and went out into Twenty-third Street. He scarcely expected to find a hack at that hour, but there was one; and it drove them to her lodgings on Fourth Avenue, near Thirteenth Street. Spite of her paint and powder she seemed very young and very tired as she stood by the open door, looking drearily at the gray pallor over the roofs opposite, where day was breaking.

"Will you-come in?"

He had prepared to take his leave; he hesitated.

"I think I will," he said. "I'd like to see you with your face washed."

Her room was small, very plain, very neat. On the bed lay folded a white night gown; a pair of knitted pink slippers stood close together on the floor beside it. There was a cheap curtain across the alcove; she drew it, turned, looked at him; and slowly her oval face crimsoned.

"You needn't wash your face," he said very gently.

She crept into the depths of a big arm-chair and lay back watching him with inscrutable eyes.

He did not disturb her for a while. After a few moments he got up and walked slowly about, examining the few inexpensive ornaments on wall and mantel; turned over the pages of an alb.u.m, glanced at a newspaper beside it, then came back and stood beside her chair.

"Letty?"

She opened her eyes.

"I suppose that this isn't the-first time."

"No."

"It's not far from it, though." She was silent, but her eyes dropped.

He sat down on the padded arm of the chair.

"Do you know how much money I've made this week?" he said gaily.

She looked up at him, surprised, and shook her head; but her velvet eyes grew wide when he told her.

"I won it fairly," he said. "And I'm going to stake it all on one last bet."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I won it fairly, and I'm going to stake it all on one last bet."]

"On-what?"

"On-you. Now, what do you think of that, you funny little thing?"

"How-do you mean, Mr. Berkley?" He looked down into the eyes of a hurt child.

"It goes into the bank in your name-if you say so."

"For-what?"

"I don't know," he said serenely, "but I am betting it will go for rent, and board, and things a girl needs-when she has no man to ask them of-and nothing to pay for them."

"You mean no man--excepting-you?"

"No," he said wearily, "I'm not trying to buy you."

She crimsoned. "I thought-then why do you--"