Tangles; Tales of Some Droll Predicaments/When the Turtle Turned Loose
WHEN THE TURTLE TURNED LOOSE
THE calm confidence in her position that enables a woman to visit her husband's place of business without self-consciousness, and to enter his private office unannounced, is not acquired in two months. Hence Ellery Jordan experienced a new sensation, at once delicious and perplexing, when, with no previous warning, his office door was flung open by an impetuous hand and he looked up to find his wife upon the threshold.
"Hello!" was his involuntary exclamation.
Before he could get to his feet she had flashed across the room and laid a quick hand upon his arm, apparently oblivious of the stenographer who sat, with open note-book, at his left.
"Who is Lancaster Welles?" she demanded.
He perceived her excitement, but still enmeshed by the novel and delightful realization of all that such an unexpected and unannounced entrance meant, he densely gave back question for question:
"Why?"
"Tell me! Who is Lancaster Welles?"
Wonder began to sharpen Jordan's mental faculties at the expense of his tenderer emotions.
"Chicago man. New manager for the Boltwoods. Why?"
"For the Boltwoods! The Chicago Boltwoods, whom Mr. Bowers hates so?" As she spoke, she gripped the edge of the desk with nervous fingers.
"Yes. Why?"
"Ellery Jordan, I've done the most awful thing! I've asked them to dinner!"
"Why—how—what on earth do you mean? You don't know them!"
"I didn't—but I do! And I did!"
Incoherence threatened to end in tears, and Jordan swung sharply about in his swivel-chair, where amazement had still held him.
"That will do, Miss Calder. I'll send for you again," he said. The stenographer picked up a handful of pencils and left the room, discreetly closing the door after her, as Ellery, glancing at his assistant's desk, pushed a chair toward his wife. "Sherman's out, and we're not likely to be interrupted. Now, dear, what is all this? I don't understand. You poor girl! You're shaking! Sit down." But Mrs. Jordan was too excited to heed the invitation. She stood, desperately facing him, ignoring his outstretched hand.
"Ellery Jordan," she repeated, "I've done the most awful thing! I've asked them to dinner!"
"Well, worse things might happen." A wisdom beyond his experience taught him that patience would be a virtue in these circumstances.
"But you don't understand!"
"No," cheerfully, "I don't in the least understand; but, anyhow, if you did it, it's all right. Now suppose we sit down and talk it over—eh? What's happened?"
"The impossible!" Mrs. Jordan's tone suggested that the memory of all previous human calamity must dissipate like vapor when confronted by this palpable presence of living tragedy.
"Good! It frequently does," exclaimed her husband, determined to preserve the family balance, "and it's always interesting. Go on—but first sit down."
"Oh, I can't!" She wandered to a window and looked out, while he, swinging one foot from a corner of his desk, regarded her curiously.
"Well?" he suggested.
"I'll have to begin at the beginning, or you'll never understand,—and it's all so silly—and so impossible! You see, I was going down to get that set of plates we talked about last night,"—he nodded,—"when just as I got to Twenty-third Street, who should overtake me but your aunt Julia! She had been in a shop somewhere along Broadway, and when she saw me pass she proceeded to race after me. Of course she wanted to know where I was going and what I was going to get, and—well, you know Aunt Julia!" She turned toward him with a pretty gesture of impotence, and he smiled, nodding appreciatively. "Of course Aunt Julia is—Aunt Julia, and all that, but she wouldn't understand why I should want an extra set of plates, just because the Bowerses were coming to dinner, after we'd had all that lovely china given to us when we were married. You know, Ellery,"—her tone pleaded for comprehension, "to Aunt Julia a plate is a plate, and she wouldn't see why—"
"Of course. That's all right. I understand."
"Well,—those I wanted were rather expensive, and I knew she'd ask why I wanted them, and what I paid for them, and if I thought a young man on a salary, and if a dozen more things, and then she'd go and talk it over with the rest of the family, and—Ellery, I just couldn't stand it! Besides, I was in a hurry. I wanted to get home—I never should have come down this morning if it hadn't been for those wretched plates! But I didn't want to be rude, you know, nor to hurt her feelings, nor anything like that, so I just thought of a—well, of a sort of ruse, you know."
"I see," mischievously commented Ellery; "you lacerated your conscience rather than scratch her sensibilities."
"Well, I tried to,—but I hadn't counted on Aunt Julia! You see, we were just at the entrance of the Silverbrand Hotel when she overtook me, and it seemed so easy! So when she asked where I was going, I said I was going shopping, but first I was going to see a friend who was staying at the Silverbrand—thinking, of course, that I could simply walk through the hotel—in at Fifth Avenue and out at the side street, you know. She'd never be the wiser, and it would save a lot of wear and tear on my nervous system."
Jordan smiled broadly and shook his head. "You don't know Aunt Julia!" he chuckled.
"Oh yes, I do—now! She said she'd go in with me, and if my friend wasn't there we'd go shopping together."
"Every time!" murmured Aunt Julia's nephew.
"Well, there I was!"
"Hoist by your own petard," he suggested.
"Precisely! Of course after that there was nothing to do but walk in there and send up my card to somebody—anybody,—and when word came back that the lady was not staying at the hotel, express polite surprise and walk out again."
"With Aunt Julia!" That Jordan was enjoying the recital was obvious.
"With Aunt Julia. Then, also of course, we weren't inside the door before she asked my friend's name. Well, naturally my friend had to have a name, and on the spur of the moment I said Mrs. Lancaster Welles. I don't know why I said that!" she cried, turning toward him with expressively wide-stretched arms. "It was just fate! I didn't know there was a Mrs. Lancaster Welles! I wondered at the time why that particular name occurred to me. I suppose now that I must have heard you mention it sometime and that it stuck in my wretched memory, minus any connection. Anyway, that's what I said, and I called a boy and sent my card to Mrs. Lancaster Welles."
"And when word came back that she was not in the hotel, you left an invitation to dinner, to be given to her when she should arrive, just by way of nailing Aunt Julia's conviction, and now you're doing penance for the taradiddle," supplied Jordan, who was somewhat familiar with the intricacies of his wife's conscience.
"Oh, my land! If I only had! Ellery,"—again Tragedy loomed,—"that boy came back and said that Mrs. Welles would see me in her room!"
"Great Cæsar!" Jordan straightened up and stared at her. "You don't mean to say she was there?"
"She was there! Naturally, I couldn't run away then."
Her husband gave way to peals of mirth.
"You had to live up to Aunt Julia's expectations, not to mention the boy's—and Mrs. Welles's!" he exclaimed. "Heavens! Louise, why don't you laugh? Can't you see how funny it is?"
"Wait!"—ominously. "Just wait!"
"Don't tell me Aunt Julia went with you!"
"No; Aunt Julia, mercifully, departed, and I went alone to face Mrs. Welles."
"'To beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall,'"
chuckled Jordan.
"Don't, Ellery! It isn't funny." He made an obedient but ineffectual effort to control his laughter, which still broke forth occasionally. "In the elevator I decided that when I saw her I'd look surprised and say: 'Oh! Oh, I beg your pardon! This isn't the Mrs. Welles I know!' You know, that sort of thing—and pretend that I had an old school-mate who was also Mrs. Lancaster Welles, and lived in Borneo or Van Diemen's Land, or somewhere."
"That time you didn't count on Alicia Welles."
"No, I didn't!"
"Look out for women, Louise. They're always x in the problem, and you never know what they'll amount to until it's finished."
"Ellery, she didn't give me a chance to say a word!"
"Of course she didn't! That's Alicia Welles all over!"
"She fairly fell on my neck and said that one of the pleasures to which they had looked forward in New York was meeting Ellery Jordan's bride. Then I knew that they must know you, and I was in for it in earnest!"
"I'll bet you carried it off so she never knew the difference!"
"I'm afraid I did. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd told her plainly just how and why I went there."
"Why? The rest looks simple enough."
"Ellery, I asked them to dinner—to-night!"
"To-night!" As he lifted himself slowly to his feet, staring at her, consternation wiped the lines of laughter, one by one, from his face. "To-night! Why, Louise, to-night the Bowers—"
"I know it," she broke in desperately, "but I didn't know who the Welleses were. All the time I sat there I racked my brain trying to think, and I haven't the least idea what we said or how it happened. She talked and talked, and I suppose I answered, and somehow I must have mentioned Mr. Bowers's name, for she said Mr. Welles had never met Mr. Bowers, and was very anxious to do so. By this time I was ready to clutch at any expedient, and I remembered that Mr. Bowers admires a pretty woman; I knew you had planned this dinner especially to please him and to make him very good-natured—and she is charming, Ellery—and—and I couldn't seem to see any other way out—I was all mixed up and confused—so—I asked them to dine with us to-night, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Bowers."
"My Lord!" ejaculated her husband. "You might better have asked the old original serpent! He'd make less trouble. This settles my schemes!" His hands mechanically sought that mysterious comfort that lies ever in the depths of trousers pockets, the while he dejectedly kicked at a piece of crumpled paper on the floor.
Louise regarded him mournfully. "I'm so sorry, dear! It was stupid, but I didn't know, and—I had to do something. Anyway, I thought I had to."
The trembling voice and piteous, tear-wet eyes smote him into loving mendacity. Even if she had unwittingly undermined the walls of a castle he had laboriously builded, and must suffer with him the consequences of its threatened downfall, the poignancies of self-reproach need not be added to her regret. Bending over her, he took her hands in a close clasp, and murmured: "Of course you didn't know, dear! There's no reason why you should," and warmly kissed her. For a moment she clung to him, hiding her face against his coat. Then, comforted but not deceived, she whispered:
"You're such a love! We'll make it come out right somehow," and mopping her eyes, prepared again to face the situation. "Now tell me how bad it is. Just what have I done? I suppose you've told me all about it before, but somehow it didn't seem so real, and I'm afraid I got the names all jumbled up. And I don't see why Mr. Bowers should take such violent exception to Mr. Welles. He never met him."
"No; but Welles is practically George H. Boltwood and Company now, since Boltwood's death."
"And just because Mr. Bowers quarrelled with Mr. Boltwood when they were partners, is he going to hate for evermore everybody who ever worked for him, even after he's dead?"
"Well, that's Bowers, you know. He's like the turtle: when he once takes hold he 'never turns loose 'til it thunders,'—and Bowers is deaf to thunder. In the first place, he never forgave Boltwood for whatever it was they quarrelled about—"
"What was it?"
"Nobody has ever told. Probably something personal. They were lifelong friends, you know. And then Boltwood added gall to the vinegar when he went straight to Chicago, as soon as ever the partnership business here was settled, and organized a competitive company. Old Boltwood was a fighter, too. By George! what a combination those two men would have made if they hadn't quarrelled! As it was, they fought, tooth and toe-nail, for ten years."
"But where does Mr. Welles come in?"
"He didn't come in much until Mr. Boltwood's death. I guess the old man depended upon him more or less for several years, though he's not been with them very long—not as long as I have with Mr. Bowers, by the way. Boltwood was a good deal like Bowers in one respect; as long as he lived he was the whole thing. So nobody heard much about Welles until the head of the firm died, a few months ago, when it was found that he had arranged to have Welles made manager of the business. It was a big step for him."
"Well, I think it's perfectly shameful!" Indignation snapped in Mrs. Jordan's eyes. "Why don't you go and work for the Boltwoods, too? Here is Mr. Welles, manager after just a little while, and here you are, not even a member of the firm, after slaving all your life for that evil-tempered old man. Ellery, I wouldn't endure it. Just see what other men do for their old employees!"
"Yes, Boltwood died," dryly responded her husband.
"Oh, well—of course, I didn't mean that exactly, but Mr. Bowers ought to do something for you. Would Mr. Welles give you a position if you asked him?"
"He might. Welles and I are old friends, but I don't want—"
"Oh, Ellery, listen! Why don't you get Mr. Welles to make you an offer, and then tell Mr. Bowers that unless he lets you have an interest in the firm you'll go to the Boltwoods?"
"He'd tell me to go and be eternally condemned! Why, Louise, when Welles took the management of that business he found that the Bowers company held certain patents that were very important to the Boltwood people. We don't use them, and they need them badly. He wrote a very civil letter to Bowers, asking for a conference on those and some other matters. Bowers refused to read the letter and refused to answer it, and when King and Jeffry and other members of the firm insisted that some reply must be made, all he would permit was a curt statement, in the third person, that the Bowers Manufacturing Company refused to consider, now or at any future time, any proposition made by George H. Boltwood and Company."
"Old tyrant! I don't care if it does make him cross; I'm glad the Welleses are coming to dinner to-night! It 'll do him good to be put where he'll have to be civil to some of the Boltwood connection. He would, wouldn't he, at our table?"
"Oh yes, I think so—if he couldn't get away. One of his redeeming traits is that whatever he may do or say among men, he is very courteous to women. That wouldn't prevent his firing me bright and early the next morning, however."
"Who cares?" Mrs. Jordan tossed her head in reckless defiance. "Mr. Welles would snap you up and be glad of the chance. Oh!" The reclouding of her husband's face brought a responsive shadow into hers, and a correspondingly swift change of mood ensued. "I forgot, dear! This dinner was to be the beginning of your campaign for a partnership, wasn't it?"
"Oh, well, never mind." Jordan's tone was weary. "That's all off now. Did you get your plates?"
"I will mind! Even if Mr. Bowers is an unappreciative old pachyderm, if you want a partnership with him you ought to have it. I've mixed things all up, but there must be some way out. Let's think."
Evidently inspiration did not wait upon reflection, for after a moment she broke forth again, petulantly: "I don't see why I couldn't have asked for Mrs. Peter Brown, or Mrs. Reginald Vere de Vere!" Another pause. "Why on earth do they go to the Silverbrand, anyway? Talk about the total depravity of inanimate things!"
Moodily pacing to and fro, contemplating the miscarriage of his hopes, Jordan had almost lost consciousness of his wife's presence, when a timid voice broke the gloomy silence:
He halted, looking at her without expectation.
"I—I'm afraid I don't know what it was you meant to do to-night. I know" hastily—"you told me, but I don't understand business very well, and it didn't occur to me that it was anything I'd ever have a hand in. But I'm not really stupid, and if you'll tell me again—please, dear!"
"It doesn't make any difference—"
"But I want to know! I'm your wife, dear, and I do want to understand!"
"Very well. It's about the patents Welles wants for the Boltwoods. We don't need them; they do. They have some we need." He did not intend that his explanation should lack cordiality, but at that moment he could have narrated the story of Israel's captivity with equal enthusiasm, and every perfunctory word fell on her ear like a reproach. "As long as Boltwood was alive, Bowers would have starved rather than buy directly of him; but he did try at one time to obtain possession of them indirectly. Boltwood then hoped to use them himself, and wouldn't sell. Welles sees that our patents are more valuable to them than those they hold will ever be. Because he's my friend, I could make a better deal with him than any one else in our concern. My scheme was to get Mr. Bowers here to dinner, and when he got to feeling good and amiable over the cigars, to tell him that I could get the Boltwood patents. I happen to know that our possession of them would straighten out some difficulties in the mechanical department which threaten to be mighty troublesome and expensive."
"And then you thought he'd offer you the partnership?"
"No; Bowers isn't giving away partnerships. My purpose was to acquire the Boltwood patents myself from Welles, and then to offer them to Mr. Bowers in payment—or part payment—for my stock and for the patents Welles wants, which are absolutely useless to us."
"Oh, I see. How silly, if he needs the patents, to let a personal quarrel with a man who's dead—Mr. Bowers's temper must have cost him something before now."
"Thousands."
"Then I suppose it's no use hoping—" The half-formed thought behind the words gave place to one of sturdier growth, and the sentence remained incomplete. Presently she spoke again, her eyelids slightly contracted over unseeing eyes, her perceptions focussed inward. "His name's too long. What does she call him?"
"Who?" Jordan's mind was still pursuing the path of his frustrated hopes.
"Mrs. Welles."
"Oh, she probably calls him Cass. Most people do."
She caught her breath and stood for an instant poising on tiptoe, aglow with inspiration.
"Ellery! I—I believe it's possible! Did Mr. Bowers ever see Lancaster Welles?"
"Not that I know of."
"Nor Mrs. Welles?"
"Guess not."
"Then—don't you see?—we must simply keep the conversation in such channels that he won't find us out. Welles is not an uncommon name, and Lancaster Welles is the last man Mr. Bowers would expect to meet at our table. Do you suppose—no," swiftly deciding, "it wouldn't do to tell the Welleses. We can't let them know that the invitation was a mistake, or that their presence is in any way embarrassing. I thought once of sending word that I was ill and couldn't receive them, but—that wouldn't do. In the first place, I hate to lie; and in the second, they'd see through it. We must simply let them all come, keep the conversation in our own hands, and dodge personalities."
Her husband regarded her speculatively. "It will be a bit like playing with dynamite; but, by George! Louise," his glance kindled, "I believe you can do it, if anybody can! Anyhow, it's worth trying. It may prevent things much worse."
"Goody! I'll run now and spend the rest of the day vibrating between the kitchen and the library. Cocktails and Panama, oysters and Russia, consommé and Japan, fish and the latest novel, entrées and recent art, politics with the roast, fads, fancies, philosophies! Brush up, brush up, Ellery! You'll need 'em all and more, for to-night we converse!" Flushing, dimpling, excited, she whirled through the office and ended in his arms. "Kiss me, you blessed boy, and don't worry! We'll pull through somehow. Good-by."
Radiant with triumph, sparkling with excitement in which there was still the consciousness of danger, Mrs. Jordan flashed an occasional comprehensive glance across the table at her husband. Between them lay the circle of embroidered damask and a bridal array of dining appurtenances. From the daffodil-shaded candelabra lines of lambent light stretched across the cloth, yellow glints played among glasses, and the very sunbeams of Marne danced in the wine. Tempered rays mellowed the resolute lines of James Bowers's face, and fell softly upon the features of his gentle, stately wife, whose white hair rose above her gray draperies like the crest of a noble wave. Mrs. Welles was Aurora, smiling from a haze of amethyst, and the folds of Louise's white gown gave back a faint glow where the light caught them. Both Mr. and Mrs. Welles had proved to be ideal dinner guests, of quick wit and wide interests, and the talk had ranged from Tammany Hall to the bronze god in a certain Japanese temple.
There had been moments of suspense, as when Mr. Bowers, who seemed to have yielded the tribute of complete response to the subtle influences surrounding him, had turned to his hostess, asking in an undertone: "Who is this young Welles? He appears a brilliant chap. What's his business?"
"Citizen of the world and heir of the ages," she had replied, lightly laughing. "He seems to have canvassed the earth, and I suspect him of having designs on Mars, the planet of war," she added, glancing audaciously at her husband's employer.
"Are you discussing Mars?" Welles, at her left, had caught the last word. "Have you seen the article in the current Æon?" The talk swept easily on to theories of interplanetary communication, and Mrs. Jordan's heart resumed a fairly regular rhythm.
In natural sequence followed a discussion of aerial navigation and its possibilities, including the achievements and hopes of M. Santos-Dumont; and here again Welles showed an intimate knowledge of detail and a breadth of comprehension that led Mr. Bowers to whisper to Louise further comment and question concerning the stranger within her gates. An allusion to the characteristics common to most inventors reminded Mr. Bowers of an erratic genius with whom he had had dealings, and thus, for the first time, the conversation touched upon the business in which all three of the men present were interested. The ball swung lightly, but at the point of contact it interrupted the breath of at least two of the party.
"The most indefatigable inventor I ever met," began Mr. Bowers, "was a man in my own line. I don't know how familiar you are with the possibilities of electrical apparatus, Mr. Welles?" He paused for the reply.
To the younger guest the question seemed a bit of quizzical humor, indicative of the increasing complacence of one whose good-will he desired, and he replied in kind, smiling dryly:
"I once took a course in electrical engineering—by correspondence."
"Then you are probably in a position to appreciate the sublime audacity of my man Melvin's proposition. One step farther would have carried him over into the bottomless abyss of insolence, but he stopped on the brink, and, by Jupiter! his pluck was his salvation. I pulled him back, and he's working for me yet."
Louise endured the subsequent narrative, after one sharp glance at her husband, with the immutable smile of a lay figure, while her mind crouched, ready to spring the instant opportunity should offer. At the same time she wondered whether she dared suggest that the men should accompany the ladies to the drawing-room. Mr. Bowers, she knew, regarded a dinner simply as a more or less elaborate and delightful prelude to the cigars, but Ellery was ill at ease, and she felt that if left alone with the other men his success as an insulator would not be complete.
The end of the story was greeted with laughter, through which Welles's voice was heard asking,
"Is he the originator of the Melvin Commutator?"
Mr. Bowers's brows met over a flashing glance, and the mellow social cadence of his voice was reduced to the level tone of the counting-room. "You seem remarkably familiar with electrical devices, sir," he said. "I hold the patents of the Melvin Commutator, but it has never been put upon the market."
"By the way, Welles," hastily broke in the host, "I saw in the paper the other day that one John Stilwell had taken out a patent on something or other. I wonder if that's the Stilwell we know?"
As the Chicagoan turned to reply, Louise knew that Mr. Bowers bent upon her a suspicious glance. The time for concealment was obviously past. Telltale claws had pierced the silken pouch in which she had hidden them, and she perceived that the cat would out, and quickly, too. Better to untie the string herself than to have the bag torn open.
"Welles?" Mr. Bowers's tone was low but tense. "What Welles?"
"Lancaster Welles, of Chicago, manager for George H. Boltwood and Company." The angle of Mrs. Jordan's chin bespoke a lively skirmish for the attacking party; her color was brilliant, and she looked directly into the blazing eyes of her elderly guest. She had forced the initiative upon him; a truce was possible, but if he insisted upon action, he should have it. At the moment he seemed not to perceive the apparent deliberation of the challenge. Quick temper impelled him to speech, although his utterance was impressively slow.
"I must believe this premeditated?"
"Certainly." Her mind quivered under the strain. Evidently hope for the future was futile; all her endeavor must be to prevent an immediate scene, and as far as possible to save her husband from the wrath to come by placing the responsibility for this disastrous dinner where it belonged, on her own shoulders, without compromising the position of her other guests. She plunged into the inversions and transpositions required to reconcile her position to the situation, with little anticipation of the point to which that devious path would ultimately lead her. Two things alone were clear: Ellery must be absolved of the initial intention, and Welles's welcome must not be discounted. "Certainly," she repeated, gaining time. "The plan to invite Mr. and Mrs. Welles to meet you, however, was entirely mine. Even my husband knew nothing about it until my arrangements were all made. I am entirely aware that I have done a daring thing, but when it became necessary for us to consider the possibility of Mr. Jordan's leaving your company and accepting a position with the Boltwood people, I did feel very strongly, Mr. Bowers, that you should be given an opportunity to meet Mr. Welles and to decide whether or not you would consider certain proposals which would make such a change unnecessary." She paused, appalled at the sheer bravado of her defence, but as he simply stared at her in silence, the necessities of the situation swept her on. "Mr. Welles, as you have said, is a brilliant man, and we feel that he will achieve large success in business, and that an alliance with him cannot fail to be profitable. If the fact that he was once employed by George Boltwood—"
"Madam! You are venturing very near that ground where angels fear to tread." His voice shook. "George Boltwood was—"
"Was once your dearest friend, and is now dead," she swiftly supplied, in terror lest the conversation directed toward the other side of the table should languish. "And it is inconceivable to suppose that you will permit a feeling which has deprived you for years of the companionship of the only close friend you ever had, and that has, through that bitterness, prevented the proper development of your business along certain lines—" Her auditor gasped slightly, and she leaned toward him, flushed, bright-eyed, desperately trying to shock him into a quiescence that should outlast his stay under her roof, "Mr. Bowers, it is inconceivable to me that a man like you should permit such a feeling to continue to influence him, not only to mental disquiet, but to the lasting detriment of his business interests."
Mrs. Welles, who had been talking across the table to Mrs. Bowers, turned toward her hostess with a question, and Louise, inwardly quaking, but with indomitable front, met the inquiry with gay quips.
Twisting a wine-glass in his fingers, Mr. Bowers long sat speechless, watching Mrs. Jordan through narrowed eyes.
"And if I do?" he asked, enigmatically, when at length opportunity offered.
"If you do?" The strain was beginning to tell on her, and her mind fumbled for the connection.
"Yes." His lips twisted in a wry smile. "If I, who alone, of all living men, know the causes leading to that separation of which you have spoken, continue to conduct my own business in my own way, regardless of the visits of angels—and the visitation of fools—"
"Why, then," driven into a corner, but denying defeat, she glanced around the table, preparing for flight, "then—Ellery will have but one course open to him—to resign his position with you and to accept one more promising under Mr. Welles."
She pushed back her chair and the ladies arose. Mr. Bowers held the door open for them, and as she passed him, Louise was aware that he still regarded her through half-closed eyes. She felt that the keen gaze penetrated her very soul, and that he read there her whole shallow artifice.
It was an hour or more before the men joined them—an hour in which Mrs. Jordan vainly strained her ears in an effort to catch the sound of voices in the dining-room below, while the subconsciousness developed by much social experience supplied her lips with a torrent of glib speech. When the door finally swung open, she instantly perceived that the younger men were somewhat flushed, and were manifestly making an effort to control strong excitement. Ellery laughed too often—an unfailing indication, she well knew, that his spirits were forced. Mr. Bowers stopped a moment to speak to his wife, and then they came together to where the hostess stood.
"Mrs. Jordan, we bid you good night," said the old man, with stately formality. "We lingered too long in the dining-room, and Mrs. Bowers and I promised to stop at our nephew's on the way home." In his voice was neither resentment nor cordiality, and his face was like a mask. He passed on around the little circle, following his wife, and a moment later Ellery accompanied them to the elevator. In the reaction following climax, when the door had actually closed upon them, Louise was conscious of an impulse to tears, but the obligations of the hostess still lay heavy upon her, and taking up a book at random, she was in the midst of a voluble description of its author, when her husband re-entered the drawing-room, and paused, alertly glancing from one to another.
"Well!" he exclaimed.
The cord of Mrs. Jordan's self-control parted, and she turned toward him, crying: "Oh, what did he say? I can't wait! What happened?"
Bewilderment overtook Mrs. Welles, but no one observed her. The men were wringing each other's hands, punctuating their broken laughter with inarticulate ejaculations.
"By George! what do you suppose struck him, Welles? You must be a wizard!"
"Why? Wasn't it all put up?" Welles's face evinced his surprise.
"Put up! Oh, Lord! Why, man alive—"
"Ellery!" Louise grasped his coat lapels and shook them. "Ellery, if you don't tell me! What happened?"
"Everything! We exchange patents, so Welles is happy; I'm a member of the firm; and maybe—just maybe—we consolidate."
"Oh! O-oh, Ellery!"
"Why, Louise! Dear girl, don't cry about it! Louise!"
"Oh, never mind! I—it doesn't matter! I'm—I'm rather tired, I think."
"Well, I should think you might be, after all this! But what do you suppose struck him?"
A little laugh gurgled up through the sobs.
"You know you said he was a turtle, and I guess—I guess it thundered some."