“I don’t believe it. I—” Hallie gasped.
“You’re bored,” he interrupted. “Very well, I’ll do my stuff. I’ll do what I know how to do. Between here and Amsterdam you’re going to have the time of your life.”
III
Corcoran worked quickly. That night, after taking Hallie to her room, he paid several calls—in fact, he was extraordinarily busy up to eleven o’clock next morning. At that hour he tapped briskly at the Bushmills’ door.
“You are lunching at the Brussels Country Club,” he said to Hallie directly, “with Prince Abrisini, Countess Perimont and Major Sir Reynolds Fitz-Hugh, the British attache. The Bolls-Ferrari landaulet will be ready at the door in half an hour.”
“But I thought we were going to the culinary exhibit,” objected Mrs. Bushmill in surprise. “We had planned—”
“You are going,” said Corcoran politely, “with two nice ladies from Wisconsin. And afterward you are going to an American tea room and have an American luncheon with American food. At twelve o’clock, a dark conservative town car will be waiting downstairs for your use.”
He turned to Hallie.
“Your new maid will arrive immediately to help you dress. She will oversee the removal of your things in your absence so that nothing will be mislaid. This afternoon you entertain at tea.”
“Why, how can I entertain at tea?” cried Hallie. “I don’t know a soul in the place.”
“The invitations are already issued,” said Corcoran.
Without waiting for further protests, he bowed slightly and retired through the door.
The next three hours passed in a whirl. There was the gorgeous landaulet with a silk-hatted, satin-breeched, plum-colored footman beside the chauffeur, and a wilderness of orchids flowering from the little jars inside. There were the impressive titles that she heard in a daze at the country club as she sat down at a rose-littered table; and out of nowhere a dozen other men appeared during luncheon and stopped to be introduced to her as they went by. Never in her two years as the belle of a small Ohio town had Hallie had such attention, so many compliments; her features danced up and down with delight. Returning to the hotel, she found that they had been moved dexterously to the royal suite, a huge salon and two sunny bedrooms overlooking a garden. Her capped maid—exactly like the French maid she had once impersonated in a play—was in attendance, and there was a new deference in the manner of all the servants in the hotel. She was bowed up the steps—other guests were gently brushed aside for her—and bowed into the elevator, which clanged shut in the faces of two irate Englishwomen and whisked her straight to her floor.
Tea was a great success. Her mother, considerably encouraged by the pleasant two hours she had spent in congenial company, conversed with the clergyman of the American church, while Hallie moved enraptured through a swarm of charming and attentive men. She was surprised to learn that she was giving a dinner dance that night at the fashionable Cafe Royal, and even the afternoon faded before the glories of the night. She was not aware that two specially hired entertainers had left Paris for Brussels on the noon train until they bounced hilariously in upon the shining floor. But she knew that there were a dozen partners for every dance, and chatter that had nothing to do with monuments or battlefields. Had she not been so thoroughly and cheerfully tired, she would have protested frantically at midnight when Corcoran approached her and told her he was taking her home.
Only then, half asleep in the luxurious depths of the town car, did she have time to wonder.
“How on earth—how did you do it?”
“It was nothing—I had no time,” said Corcoran disparagingly. “I knew a few young men around the embassies. Brussels isn’t very gay, you know, and they’re always glad to help stir things up. All the rest was—even simpler. Did you have a good time?”
No answer.
“Did you have a good time?” he repeated a little anxiously. “There’s no use going on, you know, if you didn’t have a—”
“The Battle of Wellington was won by Major Sir Corcoran Fitz-Hugh Abrisini,” she muttered, decisively but indistinctly.
Hallie was asleep.
IV
After three more days, Hallie finally consented to being torn away from Brussels, and the tour continued through Antwerp, Rotterdam and The Hague. But it was not the same sort of tour that had left Paris a short week before. It traveled in two limousines, for there were always at least one pair of attentive cavaliers in attendance—not to mention a quartet of hirelings who made the jumps by train. Corcoran’s guide-books and histories appeared no more. In Antwerp they did not stay at a mere hotel, but at a famous old shooting box on the outskirts of the city which Corcoran hired for six days, servants and all.
Before they left, Hallie’s photograph appeared in the Antwerp papers over a paragraph which spoke of her as the beautiful American heiress who had taken Brabant Lodge and entertained so delightfully that a certain royal personage had been several times in evidence there.
In Rotterdam, Hallie saw neither the Boompjes nor the Groote Kerk—they were both obscured by a stream of pleasant young Dutchmen who looked at her with soft blue eyes. But when they reached The Hague and the tour neared its end, she was aware of a growing sadness—it had been such a good time and now it would be over and put away. Already Amsterdam and a certain Ohio gentleman, who didn’t understand entertaining on the grand scale, were sweeping toward her, and though she tried to be glad she wasn’t glad at all. It depressed her, too, that Corcoran seemed to be avoiding her—he had scarcely spoken to her or danced with her since they left Antwerp. She was thinking chiefly of that on the last afternoon, as they rode through the twilight toward Amsterdam and her mother drowsed sleepily in a corner of the car.
“You’ve been so good to me,” she said. “If you’re still angry about that evening in Brussels, please try to forgive me now.”
“I’ve forgiven you long ago.”
They rode into the city in silence, and Hallie looked out the window in a sort of panic. What would she do now with no one to take care of her, to take care of that part of her that wanted to be young and gay forever? Just before they drew up at the hotel, she turned again to Corcoran and their eyes met in a strange, disquieting glance. Her hand reached out for his and pressed it gently, as if this was their real good-by.
Mr. Claude Nosby was a stiff, dark, glossy man, leaning hard toward forty, whose eyes rested for a hostile moment upon Corcoran almost as he helped Hallie from the car.
“Your father arrives tomorrow,” he said portentously. “His attention has been called to your picture in the Antwerp papers and he is hurrying over from London.”
“Why shouldn’t my picture be in the Antwerp papers, Claude?” inquired Hallie innocently.
“It seems a bit unusual.”
Mr. Nosby had had a letter from Mr. Bushmill which told him of the arrangement. He looked upon it with profound disapproval. All through dinner he listened without enthusiasm to the account which Hallie, rather spiritedly assisted by her mother, gave of the adventure; and afterward when Hallie and her mother went to bed he informed Corcoran that he would like to speak to him alone.
“Ah—Mr. Corcoran,” he began, “would you be kind enough to let me see the little account book you are keeping for Mr. Bushmill?”
“I’d rather not,” answered Corcoran pleasantly. “I think that’s a matter between Mr. Bushmill and me.”
“It’s the same thing,” said Nosby impatiently. “Perhaps you are not aware that Miss Bushmill and I are engaged.”
“I had gathered as much.”
“Perhaps you can gather, too, that I am not particularly pleased at the sort of good time you chose to give her.”
“It was just an ordinary good time.”
“That is a matter of opinion. Will you give me the notebook?”
“Tomorrow,” said Corcoran, still pleasantly, “and only to Mr. Bushmill. Good night.”
Corcoran slept late. He was awakened at eleven by the telephone, through which Nosby’s voice informed him coldly that Mr. Bushmill had arrived and would see him at once. When he rapped at his employer’s door ten minutes later, he found Hallie and her mother also there, sitting rather sulkily on a sofa. Mr. Bushmill nodded at him coolly, but made no motion to shake hands.
“Let’s see that account book,” he said immediately.
Corcoran handed it to him, together with a bulky packet of vouchers and receipts.
“I hear you’ve all been out raising hell,” said Bushmill.
“No,” said Hallie, “only mamma and me.”
“You wait outside, Corcoran. I’ll let you know when I want you.”
Corcoran descended to the lobby and found out from the porter that a train left for Paris at noon. Then he bought a New York Herald and stared at the headlines for half an hour. At the end of that time he was summoned upstairs.
Evidently a heated discussion had gone on in his absence. Mr. Nosby was staring out the window with a look of patient resignation. Mrs. Bushmill had been crying, and Hallie, with a triumphant frown on her childish brow, was making a camp stool out of her father’s knee.
“Sit down,” she said sternly.
Corcoran sat down.
“What do you mean by giving us such a good time?”
“Oh, drop it, Hallie!” said her father impatiently. He turned to Corcoran: “Did I give you any authority to lay out twelve thousand dollars in six weeks? Did I?”
“You’re going
