"Well!" said Jack. "I was thinking you'd had enough company for to-night."
"She'll be sore if we don't come," said Bobo.
"Well, I don't mind. Put on your things, and I'll telephone for the car to be sent back."
Mrs. Cleaver had a modest little house in the Murray Hill district. When Jack learned more about such things he appreciated her astuteness in thus setting up her banner in the stronghold of yesterday's aristocracy. The great people of day before yesterday still linger north of Washington Square, but they hardly count nowadays. A house on Murray Hill though still gives its owner a cachet of exclusiveness that the grandest mansion uptown may lack.
The modest aspect of Mrs. Cleaver's house was limited to the Park avenue fa?ade. "My little house," she always called it. But once inside one was astonished by the great sweep of salon, hall, music room. Below there was a billiard room; above, a library and a little salon. Strangers wondered where the inmates lived.
Jack and Bobo were not too late, for other cars were still rolling up to the door.
"None sweller than this outfit," Bobo remarked with satisfaction.
They trod a red carpet under a peppermint striped awning.
"Lord! What'll we do when we get inside?" whispered Bobo in a sudden panic.
"Just drift on the current," said Jack. "I expect things will be made easy for us."
And they were. On the entrance floor there were cloak rooms as efficiently run as those in a hotel—indeed, the house was in all ways like a hotel. They presently found themselves mounting the main stairway without having made a break. The whole floor above was thrown into one room, and as they mounted a roar of polite conversation met them like an advancing wave.
A superb major-domo at the head of the stairs threw terror into Bobo's soul by demanding his name. Bobo stared at him dumbly, but Jack caught on and answered for both. Their names were bellowed to the roof.
"Mr. Norman!"
"Mr. Robinson!"
Mrs. Cleaver having allowed it to become known that the amazing young millionaire of a day, New York's latest sensation, might be expected, the sound of his name had an electrical effect. The conversational surf was stilled as if by magic, and every face was turned towards the two young men.
Bobo suddenly discovering that "society" people, of whom he had stood secretly in awe, were no harder to impress than those of the hotel, soared like a balloon. He advanced with languid eyebrows, lacking only the monocle to give a perfect imitation of his hero, the imported actor. Jack followed at his heels, smiling.
Mrs. Cleaver, leaving the greatest persons there, came swimming to meet them. Figuratively they rubbed their eyes at the sight of her. She was one who went in frankly for hothouse effects. Her hair was the color of cherrywood stain, her cheeks tinted to match. Her dress was one of those outlandish creations one occasionally sees in the shop-windows, just for an advertisement, one supposes.
"A beaded bib and a torn piano cover!" Jack described it to himself.
Jack naturally had to content himself with the briefest of nods from their hostess. Her heavy ammunition was reserved for Bobo.
"How good of you to come! I hardly dared hope—on such short notice! I hope I am the first to present you to the great world. Everybody is here to-night. But I'm not going to introduce you to a soul until I've had you to myself for awhile!" etc., etc.
Pausing only long enough to unload Jack on a neglected female sitting in the corner, she carried Bobo off. She was still gushing like the great geyser, and Bobo had nothing to do but fiddle in his waistcoat pockets, and incline a languid, attentive head, a part he played to perfection. Jack had no anxiety on his account. Whatever breaks he made, they would simply call him an "original." Was he not a hundred times a millionaire?
Jack discovered that his companion like many a neglected female was not without spice.
"A queer gang, isn't it?" was her opening remark.
"I don't know," said Jack, "haven't had a chance to give 'em the once over yet."
"You don't look as if you belonged," she said with a sharp look. "You look almost human."
"Oh, you're too discerning. How did you get here yourself?"
"I'm not human. A girl of my attractions can't afford it. I'm Sonia Kharkov."
"I wouldn't have thought it of you."
"Everything's Russian nowadays. I write poems about surgical operations. My last was entitled 'Appendectomy.'"
"How thrilling! Sorry I never read any."
"Oh, I don't publish. I only talk about them. It gets me many a good meal."
"Well, you're a good sport," said Jack.
More than an hour passed before Jack caught sight of Bobo again. In the meantime he was parted from the poetess, and the deafening clamor began to weary him.
"There's enough hot air let out here to fill one of the Consolidated gas-tanks," he had said to the poetess.
"Yes, but it's not illuminating gas," she had retorted.
He reflected that he would most likely run across Bobo in the vicinity of the refreshments, and conducting an investigation, he discovered an excellent buffet supper set forth in one of the rooms below. Sure enough, Bobo presently drifted in here.
"Where have you been?" asked Jack.
"Oh, Mrs. Cleaver took me up to the library where she receives a few of the principal guests," he drawled.
"My word!" said Jack, fixing him with an imaginary monocle.
The sarcasm was lost on Bobo. He exhibited a new preoccupation. He had a faraway gaze, and ever and anon he heaved a sigh. Even his appetite was affected. He ate nothing at all; not a thing except a couple of vol au vents of chicken livers, a helping of lobster Newburgh, a handful of sandwiches, a cup of punch or two, and a plate of petits fours.
"Come away," he said with his mouth full. "I want to talk to you."
They found an unoccupied corner under the stairs, and lit cigarettes.
"I'm in love!" announced Bobo.
"No!" said Jack.
"'S a fact! The real thing! Bowled me right over! Floored me! I feel—I feel all gone here!" He laid a plump hand on the pit of his stomach.
"You need nourishment," said Jack. "Come on back!"
"Don't josh me! This is serious. I'm completely changed. I feel as if I never wanted to eat again. Her name is Miriam Culbreth."
"Um-yummie," said Jack.
"She's the most beautiful girl in the whole world. The moment I laid eyes on her I knew it was all up with me. No other girl ever made me feel like that. And the wonderful part of it is she took to me right off the bat."
"Hm!" said Jack cynically.
Bobo never heeded. "We started right in talking as if we had known each other for years. We found out that we both like the same things. I never met a girl that understood me so well. She said she admired me."
"Discriminating," murmured Jack.
"Such eyes!" sighed Bobo. "When she looks at you like this, through her lashes, you feel—you feel as if you were going up in an airplane. And she has the nature of a child!"
"What are your intentions towards this sweet child?"
"Intentions! No man could have any but the most honorable intentions towards her!"
"Sure! Then how are you going to support her in the style to which she has been accustomed?"
"Oh, she's well fixed. You should see the way she dresses!"
"Be careful! The best dressers are poor girls. It's a life and death matter with them. This girl is displaying her goods on the basis of a hundred million. You can't honestly accept it for less."
"There isn't a mercenary thought in her head. If she ever marries it will be for love alone. She told me so herself. You don't understand her. She's as simple and natural as—as a wild-flower!"
"I haven't noticed many wild-flowers around here."
"She isn't like these people. She's different from other girls."
"Did she tell you that, too?"
"Why, yes, how did you know?"
"They generally do."
"You must come and meet her. I told her about you."
"What!" asked Jack sharply.
"I mean, I told her I had had the luck to secure a secretary, who was a very clever fellow, and could do everything for me."
"Now that was nice of you!"
"Come on up to the library and I'll introduce you."
"But I'm not one of the distinguished guests."
"That's all right. Mrs. Cleaver said I was to treat the house as if it was my own!"
Bobo paused only long enough to snatch another mouthful or two, and they made their way up two flights of the broad stairs. On the main floor the racket was undiminished, though it was long past midnight. Somewhere in the distance one seemed to be frantically sawing on a violin, but it was impossible to be sure. On the floor above the groups were smaller, and one had a pleasant sense of rising above pandemonium.
Bobo led the way into the front room. In the corner a lovely lady reclined in a low basket chair filled with cushions. Three cavaliers were in attendance. Quick to spot the approach of newcomers, she dismissed the three with charming insolence.
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