Murder in Any Degree. Owen Johnson

the second place, she knows nothing about anything else, which is better still."

      "Cynic! You hate clever women," cried Jacobus.

      "There's a reason."

      "All the same, Bennett's right. The wife of an artist should be a creature of impulses and not ideas."

      "True."

      "In the third place," continued Bennett, "she believes Rantoul is a demigod. Everything he will do will be the most wonderful thing in the world, and to have a little person you are madly in love with think that is enormous."

      "All of which is not very complimentary to the bride," said Herkimer.

      "Find me one like her," cried Bennett.

      "Ditto," said Chatterton and Jacobus with enthusiasm.

      "There is only one thing that worries me," said Bennett, seriously. "Isn't there too much money?"

      "Not for Rantoul."

      "He's a rebel."

      "You'll see; he'll stir up the world with it."

      Herkimer himself had approved of the marriage in a whole-hearted way. The childlike ways of Tina Glover had convinced him, and as he was concerned only with the future of his friend, he agreed with the rest that nothing luckier could have happened.

      Three years passed, during which he received occasional letters from his old chum, not quite so spontaneous as he had expected, but filled with the wonder of the ancient worlds. Then the intervals became longer, and longer, and finally no letters came.

      He learned in a vague way that the Rantouls had settled in the East somewhere near New York, but he waited in vain for the news of the stir in the world of art that Rantoul's first exhibitions should produce.

      His friends who visited in America returned without news of Rantoul; there was a rumor that he had gone with his father-in-law into the organization of some new railroad or trust. But even this report was vague, and as he could not understand what could have happened, it remained for a long time to him a mystery. Then he forgot it.

      Ten years after Rantoul's marriage to little Tina Glover, Herkimer returned to America. The last years had placed him in the foreground of the sculptors of the world. He had that strangely excited consciousness that he was a figure in the public eye. Reporters rushed to meet him on his arrival, societies organized dinners to him, magazines sought the details of his life's struggle. Withal, however, he felt a strange loneliness, and an aloofness from the clamoring world about him. He remembered the old friendship in the starlit garret of the Rue de l'Ombre, and, learning Rantoul's address, wrote him. Three days later he received the following answer:

      Dear Old Boy:

       I'm delighted to find that you have remembered me in your fame. Run

       up this Saturday for a week at least. I'll show you some fine

       scenery, and we'll recall the days of the Café des Lilacs together.

       My wife sends her greetings also.

       Clyde.

      This letter made Herkimer wonder. There was nothing on which he could lay his finger, and yet there was something that was not there. With some misgivings he packed his bag and took the train, calling up again to his mind the picture of Rantoul, with his shabby trousers pulled up, decorating his ankles with lavender and black, roaring all the while with his rumbling laughter.

      At the station only the chauffeur was down to meet him. A correct footman, moving on springs, took his bag, placed him in the back seat, and spread a duster for him. They turned through a pillared gateway, Renaissance style, passed a gardener's lodge, with hothouses flashing in the reclining sun, and fled noiselessly along the macadam road that twined through a formal grove. All at once they were before the house, red brick and marble, with wide-flung porte-cochère and verandas, beyond which could be seen immaculate lawns, and in the middle distances the sluggish gray of a river that crawled down from the turbulent hills on the horizon. Another creature in livery tripped down the steps and held the door for him. He passed perplexed into the hall, which was fresh with the breeze that swept through open French windows.

      "Mr. Herkimer, isn't it?"

      He turned to find a woman of mannered assurance holding out her hand correctly to him, and under the panama that topped the pleasant effect of her white polo-coat he looked into the eyes of that Tina Glover, who once had caught his rough hand in her little ones and said timidly:

      "You'll always be my friend, my best, just as you are Clyde's, won't you? And I may call you Britt or Old Boy or Old Top, just as Clyde does?"

      He looked at her amazed. She was prettier, undeniably so. She had learned the art of being a woman, and she gave him her hand as though she had granted a favor.

      "Yes," he said shortly, freezing all at once. "Where's Clyde?"

      "He had to play in a polo-match. He's just home taking a tub," she said easily. "Will you go to your room first? I didn't ask any one in for dinner. I supposed you would rather chat together of old times. You have become a tremendous celebrity, haven't you? Clyde is so proud of you."

      "I'll go to my room now," he said shortly.

      The valet had preceded him, opening his valise and smoothing out his evening clothes on the lace bedspread.

      "I'll attend to that," he said curtly. "You may go."

      He stood at the window, in the long evening hour of the June day, frowning to himself. "By George! I've a mind to clear out," he said, thoroughly angry.

      At this moment there came a vigorous rap, and Rantoul in slippers and lilac dressing-gown broke in, with hair still wet from his shower.

      "The same as ever, bless the Old Top!" he cried, catching him up in one of the old-time bear-hugs. "I say, don't think me inhospitable. Had to play a confounded match. We beat 'em, too; lost six pounds doing it, though. Jove! but you look natural! I say, that was a stunning thing you did for Philadelphia—the audacity of it. How do you like my place? I've got four children, too. What do you think of that? Nothing finer. Well, tell me what you're doing."

      Herkimer relented before the familiar rush of enthusiasm and questions, and the conversation began on a natural footing. He looked at Rantoul, aware of the social change that had taken place in him. The old aggressiveness, the look of the wolf, had gone; about him was an enthusiastic urbanity. He seemed clean cut, virile, overflowing with vitality, only it was a different vitality, the snap and decision of a man-of-affairs, not the untamed outrush of the artist.

      They had spoken scarcely a short five minutes when a knock came on the door and a footman's voice said:

      "Mrs. Rantoul wishes you not to be late for dinner, sir."

      "Very well, very well," said Rantoul, with a little impatience. "I always forget the time. Jove! it's good to see you again; you'll give us a week at least. Meet you downstairs."

      When Herkimer had dressed and descended, his host and hostess were still up-stairs. He moved through the rooms, curiously noting the contents of the walls. There were several paintings of value, a series of drawings by Boucher, a replica or two of his own work; but he sought without success for something from the brush of Clyde Rantoul. At dinner he was aware of a sudden uneasiness. Mrs. Rantoul, with the flattering smile that recalled Tina Glover, pressed him with innumerable questions, which he answered with constraint, always aware of the dull simulation of interest in her eyes.

      Twice during the meal Rantoul was called to the telephone for a conversation at long distance.

      "Clyde is becoming quite a power in Wall Street," said Mrs. Rantoul, with an approving smile. "Father says he's the strength of the younger men. He has really a genius for organization."

      "It's