The Net Part 34

"I never did!" Myra Nell wrung her hands. "Will you stand there and let me perish? Do you refuse to save me?"

"Where is Madame la Branche?" Norvin asked.

"Asleep. And Cousin Montegut is playing solitaire in the library."

"Then who has the smallpox?"

"The cook! They took her screaming to the pest-house an hour after I came. I shall be the next victim; I feel it. We're shut up here for a _week_, maybe longer. Think of that! There's nothing to do, n.o.body to talk to, nothing to look at. We need another hand for whist.

I--I supposed somebody would volunteer."

"I'd love to," Rilleau called, faintly, from the curb, "but I wouldn't survive a week. My heart is beating its last, and besides--I don't play whist."

Mr. Cline called the attention of his companions to two figures which had appeared in the distance, and began to chant:

"The animals came in two by two, The elephant and the kangaroo,"

"Gentlemen, here come the porpoise and the antelope. We are now complete."

The new arrivals proved to be Bernie Dreux and August Kulm, the latter a fat Teutonic merchant whose place of business was down near the river. Mr. Kulm had evidently run all the way, for he was laboring heavily and his gait had long since slackened into a stumbling trot.

His eyes were rolling wildly; his fresh young cheeks were purple and sheathed in perspiration.

Miss Warren exclaimed, crossly:

"Oh, dear! I didn't send for Bernie. I'll bet he's furious."

And so it proved. When her half-brother's horrified alarm had been dispelled by the noisy group of rescuers it was replaced by the blackest indignation. He thanked them stiffly and undertook to apologize for his sister, in the midst of which Rilleau, who had now managed to regain his feet, suggested the formation of "The Myra Nell Contagion Club."

"Its object shall be the alleviation of our lady's distress, and its members.h.i.+p shall be limited to her rejected suitors," he declared.

"We'll take turns amusing her. I'll appoint myself chairman of the entertainment committee and one of us will always be on guard. We'll sing, we'll dance, we'll cavort beneath the window, and help to while the dreary hours away."

His suggestion was noisily accepted, then after an exchange of views Murray Logan confessed that he had bolted a directors' meeting, and that ruin stared him in the face unless he returned immediately.

Achille Marigny, it appeared, had unceremoniously fled from the trial of an important lawsuit, and Raymond Cline was needed at the bank.

Foote, Delavan, and the others admitted that they, too, must leave Miss Warren to her fate, at least until after 'Change had closed. And so, having put themselves at her service with extravagant protestations of loyalty, promising candy, books, flowers, a choir to sing beneath her window, they finally trooped off, half carrying the rotund Mr. Kulm, who had sprinted himself into a jelly-like state of collapse.

Rilleau alone maintained his readiness to brave the perils of smallpox, leprosy, or plague at Miss Warren's side, until Bernie informed him that the very idea was shocking, whereupon he dragged himself away with the accusation that all his heart trouble lay at her door.

"Oh, you spoiled it all!" Myra Nell told her brother, indignantly.

"You might at least have let _him_ come in. Cousin Althea would have chaperoned us."

"The idea! Why _did_ you do such an atrocious thing?"

"Where you frightened, Norvin?" The girl beamed hopefully down upon him.

"Horribly. I'm not over it yet. I'm half inclined to act on Lecompte's suggestion and break in."

She clapped her hands gleefully, whereupon the watchman arose, saying:

"No you don't!"

"I wouldn't allow such a thing," said Bernie, firmly. "It would mean a scandal."

"I--I can't stay here _alone_, for a whole _week_. I'll die."

"Then I'll join you myself," her brother offered.

Myra Nell looked alarmed. "Oh, not _you_! I want some one to nurse me when I fall ill."

"What makes you think you'll catch it? Were you exposed?"

"Exposed! Heavens! I can feel the disease coming on this very minute.

The place is full of germs; I can spear 'em with a hat-pin." She shuddered and managed to counterfeit a tear.

"I've an idea," said Norvin. "I'll get that trained nurse who saved you when you fell off the horse."

"Vittoria? She might do. But, Norvin, the horse threw me." She warned him with a grimace which Bernie did not see. "He's a frightful beast."

"I can't afford a trained nurse," Dreux objected, "and you don't need one, anyhow."

"All right for you, Bernie; if you don't care any more for my life than that, I'll sicken and die. When a girl's relatives turn against her it's time she was out of the way."

"Oh, all right," said her brother, angrily. "It's ruinous, but I suppose you must have it your way."

Myra Nell shook her head gloomily. "No--not if you are going to feel like that. Of course, if she were here she could cut off my hair when I take to my bed; she could bathe my face with lime-water when my beauty goes; she could listen to my ravings and understand, for she is a--woman. But no, I'm not worth it. Perhaps I can get along all right, and, anyhow, I'll have to teach school or--or be a nun if I'm all pock-marks."

"Good Lord!" Bernie wiped his brow with a trembling hand. "D'you think that'll happen, Norvin?"

"It's bound to," the girl predicted, indifferently. "But what's the odds?" Suddenly a new thought dilated her eyes with real horror. "Oh!"

she cried. "_Oh!_ I just happened to remember. I'm to be Queen of the Carnival! Now, I'll be scarred and hideous, even if I happen to recover; but I won't recover. You shall have my royal robe, Bunny.

Keep it always. And Norvin shall have my hair."

"Here! I--don't want your hair," Blake a.s.serted, nervously. "I mean not without--"

"It is all I have to give."

"You may not catch the smallpox, after all."

"We'll--have Miss Fabrizi b-by all means," Bernie chattered.

"You stay here and talk to her while I go," Norvin suggested, quickly.

"And, Myra Nell, I'll fetch you a lot of chocolates. I'll fetch you anything, if you'll only cheer up."

"Remember, It's against my wishes," the girl said. "But she's not at the hospital now; she's living in the Italian quarter." She gave him the street, and number, and he made off in all haste.

On his way he had time to think more collectedly of the girl he had just left. Her prank had shocked him into a keen realization of his feeling for her, and he began to understand the large part she played in his life. Many things inclined him to believe that her regard for him was really deeper than her careless levity indicated, and it seemed now that they had been destined for each other.

It was dusk when he reached his destination. A nondescript Italian girl ushered him up a dark stairway and into an old-fas.h.i.+oned drawing-room with high ceiling, and long windows which opened out upon a rusty overhanging iron balcony. The room ran through to a court in the rear, after the style of so many of these foreign-built houses. It had once been the home of luxury and elegance, but had long since fallen into a state of shabby decay. He was still lost in thoughts of the important step which he contemplated when he heard the rustle of a woman's garment behind him and rose as a tall figure entered the room.

"Miss Fabrizi?" he inquired. "I came to find you--"