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CHAPTER XX
MARCH HARES

George, in that masterful way which was not wholly acquired, but which had been a latency till the episodic journey – George paid for the dinner, called the head-waiter and thanked him for the attention given it, and laid a generous tip upon the cover. From the dining-room the two young people, outwardly calm but inwardly filled with the Great Tumult, went to the manager's bureau and arranged for Fortune's room. This settled, Fortune went down to the cavernous entrance to bid George good night. They were both diffident and shy, now that the great problem was solved. George was puzzled as to what to do in bidding her good night, and Fortune wondered if he would kiss her right here, before all these horrid cab-drivers.

"I shall call for you at nine," he said. "We've got to do some shopping."

A tinkle of laughter.

"These ready-made suits are beginning to look like the deuce."

"Do you always think of everything?"

"Well, what I don't remember, the clerk will," slyly. "Till recently I believe I never thought of anything. I must be off. It's too cold down here for you." He offered his hand nervously.

She gave hers freely. He looked into her marvelous eyes for a moment. Then he turned the palm upward and kissed it, lightly and loverly; and she drew it across his face, over his eyes, till it left in departing a caress upon his forehead. He stood up, breathing quickly, but not more so than she. A little tableau. Then he jammed his battered fedora upon his head and strode up the Corso. He dared not turn. Had he done so, he must have gone back and taken her in his arms. She followed him with brave eyes; she saw him suddenly veer across the street and pause at the parapet. It was then that she became conscious of the keenness of the night-wind. She went in. Somehow, all earth's puzzles had that night been solved.

George lighted a cigar, doubtless the most costly weed to be found in all Naples that night. The intermittent glowing of the end faintly outlined his face. Far away across the shimmering bay rose Capri in a kind of magic, amethystine transparency. A light or two twinkled where Sorrento lay. His gaze roved the half-circle, and finally rested upon the grim dark ash-heap, Vesuvius. Beauty, beauty everywhere; beauty in the sky, beauty upon earth, in his heart and mind. He was twenty-eight, and all these wonderful things had happened in a little more than so many days!

 
"God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world!"
 

He flung the half-finished cigar into the air, careless as to where it fell, or that in falling it might set Naples on fire. It struck a roof somewhere below; a sputter of sparks, and all was dark again.

"I shall come." All through his dreams that night he heard it. "I shall come."

Next morning he notified the captain to retain their cabins. After that they proceeded to storm the shops. They were like March hares; irresponsible children, both of them. What did propriety matter? What meaning had circumspection? They two were all alone; the rest of the world didn't count. It never had counted to either of them. Certainly they should have gone to a parsonage; Mrs. Grundy would prudently have suggested it. The trivialities of convention, however, had no place at that moment in their little Eden. They were a law unto themselves.

Into twenty shops they went; modiste after modiste was interviewed; and Fortune at length found two models. These were pretty, and, being models, quite inexpensive. Once, George was forced to remain outside in the carriage. It was in front of the lingerie shop. He put away each receipt, just like a husband upon his honeymoon. Later, receipts would mean as much, but from a different angle of vision. He bought so many violets that the carriage looked as though it were ready for the flower carnival. He laughingly disregarded her protests. It was the Song of Songs.

"My shopping is done," she said at last, dropping the bundles upon the carriage floor. "Now, it is your turn."

"You have forgotten a warm steamer-cloak," he reminded her.

"So I have!"

This oversight was easily remedied; and then George sought the tailor-shops for ready-made clothes. He had more difficulty than Fortune; ready-made suits were not the easiest things to find in Naples. By noon, however, he had acquired a Scotch woolen for day wear and a fairly decent dinner suit, along with other necessities.

"Well, I say!" he murmured, struck by a revealing thought.

"Have you forgotten anything?"

"No. On the contrary, I've just remembered something. I've got all I need or want in my steamer-trunk; and till this minute I never once thought of it."

How they laughed! Indeed, so high were their spirits that they would have laughed at any inconsequent thing. They lunched at the Gambrinus, and George mysteriously bought up all the pennies from the hunchback tobacco vendor. Later, as they bowled along the sea-front, George created a small riot by flinging pennies to small boys and whining beggars. At five they went aboard the ship, which was to leave at sundown, some hours ahead of scheduled time. The captain himself welcomed them as they climbed the swaying ladder. There were a hundred first-class passengers for the final voyage. The two, however, still sat at the right and left of the captain; but the table was filled, and they maintained a guarded prattle. Every one at once assumed that they were a bridal couple, and watched them with tolerant amusement. The captain had considerately left their names off the passenger-list as published for the benefit of the passengers and the saloon-sitting. So they moved in a sort of mystery which rough weather prevented being solved.

One night, when the sea lay calm and the air was caressingly mild, George and Fortune had gone forward and were leaning over the starboard-rail where it meets and joins the forward beam-rail. They were watching for the occasional flicker of phosphorescence. Their shoulders touched, and George's hand lay protectingly over hers.

"I love you," he said; "I love you better than all the world."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure? Can you doubt it?"

"Sometimes."

"Why…"

But she interrupted him quickly. "In all this time you have never asked me if I love you. Why haven't you?"

"I have been afraid."

"Ask me!"

"Do you love me?" his heart missing a beat.

She leaned toward him swiftly. "Here is my answer," pursing her lips.

"Fortune!"

"Be careful! I've a terrible temper."

But she was not quite prepared for such roughness. She could not stir, so strongly did he hold her to his heart. Not only her lips, but her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, and again her lips. He hurt her, but her heart sang. No man could imitate love like that; and doubt spread its dark pinions and went winging out to sea.

"That is the way I want to be loved. Always love me like that. Never wait for me to ask. Come to me at all times, no matter how I am engaged, and take me in your arms, roughly like this. Then I shall know. I have been so lonely; my heart has been so filled with love and none to receive it! I love you. I haven't asked why; I don't care. When it began I do not know either. But it is in my heart, strong and for ever."

"Heart o' mine, I'm going to be the finest lover there ever was!"

The great ship came up the bay slowly. It was a clear, sparkling, winter day, and the towering minarets of business stood limned against the pale-blue sky with a delicacy not unlike Japanese shell-carving. A thousand thousand ribbons of cheery steam wavered and slanted and dartled; the river swarmed with bustling ferries and eager tugs; and great floats of ice bumped and jammed about the invisible highways.

"This is where I live," said George, running his arm under hers. "The greatest country in the world, with the greatest number of mistaken ideas," he added humorously.

"What is it about the native land that clutches at our hearts so? I am an American, and yet I was born in the south of France. I went to school for a time near Philadelphia. America, America! Can't I be an American, even if I was born elsewhere?"

"You can never be president," he said gravely.

"I don't want to be president!" She snuggled closer to him. "All I want to be is a good man's wife; to watch the kitchen to see that he gets good things to eat; to guard his comforts; to laugh when he laughs; to be gentle when he is sad; to nurse him when he is ill; to be all and everything to him in adversity as well as in prosperity: a true wife." She touched his sleeve with her cheek. "And I don't want him to think that he must always be with me; if he belongs to a man-club, he must go there once in a while."

"I am very happy," was all he could say.

"George, I am uneasy. I don't know why. It's my mother, my uncle, and Horace. I am going to meet them somewhere. I know it. And I worry about you."

"About me? That's foolish." He smiled down at her.

"Ah, why did my mother seek to renew the acquaintance with you? Why did Horace have you kidnapped into the desert? There can be no such a thing as the United Romance and Adventure Company. It is a cloak for something more sinister."

"Pshaw! What's the use of worrying, little woman? Whatever schemes they had must be out of joint by now. Sometimes I think I must be dreaming, little girl."

"I am not little. I'm almost as tall as you are."

"You are vastly taller in many ways."

"Don't be too sure. I am human; I have my moods. I am sometimes crotchety; sometimes unjust and quick of temper."

"All right; I want you, temper and all, just the same."

"But will they like me? Won't they think I'm an adventuress, or something like that?"

"Bless your heart, not in a thousand years! I'm a pretty wise man in some ways, and they know it."

And so it proved to be. Both Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer greeted them at the pier in Hoboken. One glance at the face of the girl was sufficient. Mrs. Mortimer held out her arms. It was a very fine thing to do.

"I was in doubt at first," she said frankly. "George is so guileless. But to look at you, my child, would scatter the doubts of a Thomas. Will you let me be your mother, if only for a little while?" with a wise and tender smile.

Shyly Fortune accepted the embrace. Never had she been so happy. Never had she felt arms like these about her.

"What did he cable you?" she asked in a whisper.

"That he loved you and wanted me to mother you against that time when he might have the right to take you as his own. Has he that right?"

"Yes. And oh! he is the bravest and tenderest man I know; and below it all he is only a boy."

Mrs. Mortimer patted her hand. A little while later all four went over to the city and drove uptown to the Mortimer home. On the way Fortune told her story, simply, without avoiding any essential detail. And all her new mother did was to put an arm about her and draw her closer.

The Mortimer home was only three blocks away from George's. So, when dinner was over, George declared that he would run over and take a look at his own house. He wanted to wander about the rooms a bit, to fancy how it would look when Fortune walked at his side. He promised to return within an hour. He had forgotten many things, ordinarily important; such as wiring his agent, his butler and cook, who were still drawing their wages. He passed along the street above which was his own. He paused for a moment to contemplate the great banking concern. And the president of this bank was the elder brother of Ryanne! Lots of queer kinks in the world; lots of crooked turnings. He passed on, turned the corner, and strode toward his home, ecstasy thrilling his heart. Lightly he ran up the steps. Three doors below he noticed two automobiles. He gave them only a cursory glance. He took out his ring of keys, found the night-latch and thrust it into the keyhole. He never had believed in this putting up of iron-gates and iron-shutters. A night-latch and a caretaker who came round once a day was enough for any sensible person. He turned the key. Eh? It didn't seem to go round. He tried several times, but without success. Puzzled, he struck a match and stooped before the keyhole.

It was a new one.

CHAPTER XXI
A BOTTLE OF WINE

George stood irresolutely upon the steps. A new keyhole! What the deuce did the agent mean by putting a new keyhole in the door without notifying him? As the caretaker never entered that door, it was all the agent's fault. There was no area-way in front, but between George's house and the next there was a court eight feet in width, running to the dividing wall between the bank property and his own. A grille gate protected this court. George had a key. The gate opened readily enough. His intention was to enter by the basement-door. But he suddenly paused. To his amazement he saw just below the library curtain a thin measure of light. Light! Some one in the house! He did the most sensible thing possible: he stood still till the shock left him. Some one in the house, some one who had no earthly or heavenly business there! Near the window stood a tubbed bay-tree. Cautiously he mounted this, holding the ledge of the window with his fingers. That he did not instantly topple over with a great noise was due to the fact that he was temporarily paralyzed.

Here was the end of the puzzle. The riddle of the United Romance and Adventure Company was solved. At last he understood why Mrs. Chedsoye had sought him, why Ryanne had kidnapped him. But for his continuing his journey upon the German-Lloyd boat, he would have come home a week too late; he would have missed being a spectator (already an innocent contributor) to one of the most daring and ingenious bank-robberies known in the pages of metropolitan crime. There was Mrs. Chedsoye, intrusively handsome as ever; there was her rascally card-sharper brother, that ingrate who called himself Ryanne, and three unknown men. The impudence of it; the damnable insolence of it! And there they were, toasting their success in a brace of his own vintage-champagne! But the wine was, after all, inconsequential. It was what he saw upon the floor that caught him by the throat. His knees weakened, but he held on grimly to his perch.

White bags of gold, soiled bags of gold, and neat packets of green and yellow notes: riches! Twenty bags and as many packets of currency; a million, not a penny under that! George was seized with a horrible desire to yell with laughter. He felt the cachinnations bubble in his throat. He swallowed violently and gnawed his lips. They had got into his house under false pretenses and had tunneled back into the Merchant-Mechanic Bank, of which Horace's brother was president and in which he, George P. A. Jones, always carried a large private balance! It was the joke of the century.

As quietly as he possibly could, he stepped down from his uncertain perch. In the fine fury that followed his amazement, his one thought was to summon the police at once, to confront the wretches in their villainy; but once outside in the street, he cooled. Instantly he saw the trial in court. Fortune as witness against her own mother. That was horrible and not to be thought of. But what should he do? He was shaken to his soul. The stupendous audacity of such a plan! To have worked out every detail, down to the altering of the keyhole to prevent surprise! He saw the automobiles. They were leaving that night. If he acted at all, it must be within an hour; in less than that time they would be loading the cars. His mind began to rid itself of its confusion. Without the aid of the police; and presently he saw the way to do it.

He was off at a dog-trot, upon the balls of his feet, silently. Within five minutes he was mounting the steps to the Mortimer home, and in another minute was inside. The others saw directly that something serious had happened.

"What's the trouble, George? House vanished?" asked Mortimer.

"Have you got a brace of revolvers?" said George quietly.

"Two automatics. But…"

"Give them to me," less evenly in tone. "Will you call up Arthur Wadsworth, president of the Merchant-Mechanic Bank?"

"The bank?"

"Yes, the bank. You know, it is just in the rear of my house."

Here Fortune came forward. All the bright color was gone from her cheeks; the old mask of despair had re-formed. She needed no further enlightenment.

"Are you going back there?" she asked.

"Yes, dear; I must. Mr. Mortimer will go with me."

"And I?"

"No, heart o' mine; you've got to stay here."

"If you do not take me with you, you will not find me here when you return."

"My child," began Mortimer soothingly, "you must not talk like that. There will be danger."

"Then notify the police, and let the danger rest upon their shoulders," she said, her jaws set squarely.

"I can't call in the police," replied George, miserable.

"Shall I tell you why?"

"Dearest, can't you understand that it is you I am thinking of?"

"I am determined. If I do not go with you, you shall never see me again. My mother is there!"

Tragedy. Mrs. Mortimer stretched out a hand, but the girl did not see it. Her mother; her own flesh and blood! Oh, the poor child!

"Come, then," said George, in despair. "But you are hurting me, Fortune."

"Forgive me, but I must go with you. I must!"

"Get me the revolvers, Mr. Mortimer. We'll wait for Wadsworth. Will you please telephone him? I'm afraid I couldn't talk steadily enough. Explain nothing save that it concerns his bank."

George sat down. Not during those early days of the journey across the desert had he felt so pitiably weak and inefficient.

Fortune paced the room, her arms folded tightly across her breast. Strange, there was neither fear nor pain in her heart, only a wild wrath.

When Mortimer returned from the telephone, saying that Wadsworth would be right over, he asked George to explain fully what was going on. It was rather a long story. George managed to get through it with a coherency understandable, but no more. Mrs. Mortimer put her motherly arms about the girl, but she found no pliancy. There was no resistance, but there was that stiffness peculiar to felines when picked up under protest. And there was a little more than the cat in Fortune then; the tigress. She was not her mother's daughter for nothing. To confront her, to overwhelm her with reproach, to show her not the least mercy, stonily to see her led away to prison!

George inspected the revolvers carefully to see if they were loaded.

The bell rang, and Arthur Wadsworth came in. Mortimer knew him; George did not. He drew his interest as it fell due and deposited it in another bank. That was the extent of his relations with Arthur Wadsworth, president of the Merchant-Mechanic Bank of New York.

Arthur was small, thin, blond like his brother, but the hair was so light upon the top of his head that he gave one the impression that he was bald. His eyes looked out from behind half-shut lids; his cheeks were cadaverous; his pale lips met in a straight, unpleasant line. There was not the slightest resemblance between the two brothers, either in their bodies or in their souls. George recognized this fact immediately. He disliked the man instinctively, just as he could not help admiring his rogue of a brother.

"I want you to go with me to my house at once," began George.

"Please explain."

George disliked the voice even more than the man himself. "Everything will be explained there," he replied.

"This is very unusual," the banker complained.

"You will find it so. Come." George moved toward the hall, the revolvers in his coat-pocket.

"But I insist…"

"Mr. Wadsworth, everything will be fully explained to you the moment you enter my house; More I shall not tell you. You are at liberty to return home."

"It concerns the bank?" The voice had something human in it now; a note of affection.

Arthur Wadsworth loved the bank as a man loves his sweetheart, but more explicitly, as a miser loves the hoard hidden in the stocking. He loved every corner of the building. He worshiped the glass-covered marbles over which the gold passed and repassed. He adored the sight of the bent backs of the bookkeepers, the individual-account clerks, the little cages of the paying and receiving tellers, always so beautifully littered with little slips of paper, packets of bills, stacks of gold and silver; he loved the huge steel-vault, stored with bags of gold and bundles of notes, bonds, and stocks. Money was his god. Summed up, he was a miser in all that contemptible word implies: stingy, frugal, cautious, suspicious, sly, cruel, and relentless; he was in the concrete what his father had been in the abstract.

"It concerns the bank?" he repeated, torn by doubt.

George shrugged. "Let us be going."

"Will it be necessary to call in the police?"

"No."

"I suppose, then," said Wadsworth bitterly, wondering, too, over the strange animosity of this young man he did not know – "I suppose I must do just as you say?"

"Absolutely." George's teeth came together with a click.

The four of them passed out of the house, each singularly wrought with agitation. Fortune walked ahead with George. Neither spoke. They could hear the occasional protest from the banker into Mortimer's ear; but Mortimer did not open his lips. They came to the house, and then George whispered his final instructions to Wadsworth. The latter, when he understood what was taking place, became wild with rage and terror; and it was only because George threatened to warn the conspirators that he subsided.

"And," went on George, "if you do not obey, you can get out of it the best you know how. Now, silence, absolute silence."

He pressed back the grille gate, and the others tiptoed after him.

Ryanne tipped the third bottle delicately. Not a drop was wasted. How the golden beads swarmed up to the brim, to break into little essences of perfume! And this was good wine; twelve years in the bottle.

"It's like some dream; eh?"

Wallace smacked his lips loudly.

"Wallace," chided Ryanne, "you always drink like a sailor. You don't swallow champagne; you sip it, like this."

Major Callahan swayed his glass back and forth under his nose. "Smells like a vineyard after a rain.

"There's poetry for you!" laughed the butler.

Mrs. Chedsoye alone seemed absorbed in other things. She was trying to discover what it was that gave this supreme moment so flat a taste. It was always so; it was the chase, the goal was nothing. It was the excitement of going toward, not arriving at, the destination. Was she, who considered herself so perfect, a freak after all, shallow like a hill-stream and as aimless in her endeavors? Had she possessed a real enthusiasm for anything? She looked back along the twisted avenue of years. Had anything really stirred her profoundly? From the bags of gold her glance strayed up and over to Ryanne. Love? Love a man so weak that he could not let be the bottle? She had a horror of drunkenness, the inane giggles, the attending nausea; she had been through it all. Had she loved him, or was it because he loved the child? Even this she could not tell. Inwardly she was opaque to her searchings. She stirred restlessly. She wanted to be out of this house, on the way. The gold, as gold, meant nothing. She had enough for her needs. What was it, then? Was she mad? What flung her here and about, without real purpose?

"We could have taken every dollar from the vault," said Wallace cheerfully.

"But we couldn't have made our get-away with it," observed the butler, holding his empty glass toward Ryanne, who was acting as master of ceremonies.

"A clear, unidentified million," mused Ryanne. "Into the cars with it; over to Jersey City; on to Philadelphia; but there for Europe; quietly transfer the gold to the various Continental banks; and in six months, who could trace hair or hide of it?" Ryanne laughed.

"It's all right to laugh," said the Major. "But are you sure about Jones? He could have arrived this afternoon."

"Impossible! He left Alexandria for Naples on a boat that stopped but thirty hours. With Fortune on his hands he could not possibly sail before the following week, and maybe not then. Sit tight. I know what I am talking about."

"He might cable."

"So he might. But if he had we'd have heard from him before now. I'm going to tell you a secret. My name is not Ryanne."

"We all know that," said the Major.

"It's Wadsworth. Does that tickle your mind any?"

The men shook their heads. Mrs. Chedsoye did not move hers.

"Bah! Greatest joke of the hour. I'm Horace Wadsworth, and Arthur Wadsworth, president of the Merchant-Mechanic Bank, is my beloved brother!"

"Ay, damnable wretch!"

A shock ran through them all. In the doorway leading to the rear hall stood George, his revolvers leveled steadily. Peering white-faced over his shoulder was the man who had spoken, Arthur Wadsworth.