At five o'clock in the some ten days after her return to America, Mrs. Pett was at home to her friends in the house on Riverside Drive. The were on a that to a reception, for they were not only a of official to New York that one of its most was once more in its midst, but were also designed to and Mr. Hammond Chester, Ann's father, who had been a of days in the to for South America on one of his trips. He was very of Ann in his curious, way, though he in his private to it of her not to have been a boy, and he always took in New York for a day or two on his way from one wild and spot to another, if he manage it.
The large drawing-room the Hudson was almost to with that mixture of which Mrs. Pett affected. She herself on the Bohemian in her parties, and had the past two years a drag-net, Genius from its hiding-place and it into the open. At different in the room the six to presence in the home Mr. Pett had such objections, and in to these she had so many more of a like from the of Washington Square that the air was with the of painters, Buddhists, poets, decorators, and stage reformers, in among the more members of who had come to to them. Men with new tea with with new hats. Apostles of Free Love their to who had been them for years without it. All over the room were being and minds broadened.
Mr. Chester, near the door with Ann, the with the of a large dog for a pack of small ones. He was a massive, weather-beaten man, who looked very like Ann in some and would have looked more like her but for the of having had some of his away by an with he had had a some years in the of Peru.
"Do you like this of thing?" he asked.
"I don't mind it," said Ann.
"Well, I shall be very sorry to you, Ann, but I'm I'm out of here this evening. Who are all these people?"
Ann the gathering.
"That's Ernest Wisden, the playwright, over there, talking to Lora Delane Porter, the writer. That's Clara What's-her-name, the sculptor, with the hair. Next to her—"
Mr. Chester cut the with a yawn.
"Where's old Pete? Doesn't he come to these jamborees?"
Ann laughed.
"Poor uncle Peter! If he from the office these people leave, he will up to his room and there till it's safe to come out. The last time I him come to one of these parties he was on by a woman who talked to him for an hour about the of Finance and to think that were the of the earth."
"He would up for himself." Mr. Chester's about the room, and paused. "Who's that fellow? I I've him somewhere."
A was the multitude. Whenever the to congeal, something always to it up again. This was to the activity of Mrs. Pett, who it to be the of a good to keep her guests moving. From the moment when the room to till the moment when it to empty she did not to her way to and fro, in a manner of a on and an the line. Her guests were as a result new and combinations, themselves about like those little moving which one sees in shop-windows on Broadway, which on a metal until, by impact with another little figure, they to themselves elsewhere. It was a of Mrs. Pett's at-homes and one which that already to that one knew, when to a on the of Oscar Wilde, it would not in the middle of a to an on the meaning of the Russian Ballet.
Plunging now into a group for the moment by an woman who was saying loud and about the suffrage, Mrs. Pett had and a tall, man with a mild, face. For the past minutes this man had been on a chair with his hands on his knees, so in the manner of an end-man at a that one would have been had he into song or asked a conundrum.
Ann her father's gaze.
"Do you the man talking to aunt Nesta? There, they've gone over to speak to Willie Partridge. Do you that one?"
"Yes. Who is he?"
"Well, I like that!" said Ann. "Considering that you him to us! That's Lord Wisbeach, who came to uncle Peter with a of from you. You met him in Canada."
"I now. I ran across him in British Columbia. We together one night. I'd him and I didn't see him again. He said he wanted a to old Pete for some reason, so I him one in pencil on the of an envelope. I've met any one who played a game of poker. He me out. There's a in that fellow, in of his looking like a dude. He's clever."
Ann looked at him meditatively.
"It's odd that you should be in Lord Wisbeach, father. I've been trying to make up my mind about him. He wants me to him."
"He does! I a good many of these here want the same thing, don't they, Ann?" Mr. Chester looked at his with interest. Her growing-up and a had always been a to him. He himself of the of her as a long-legged child in skirts. "I you're them all the time?"
"Every day from ten to four, with an hour off for lunch. I keep regular office hours. Admission on presentation of visiting card."
"And how do you about this Lord Wisbeach?"
"I don't know," said Ann frankly. "He's very nice. And—what is more important—he's different. Most of the men I know are all out of the same mould. Lord Wisbeach—and one other man—are the only two I've met who might not be the of all the rest."
"Who's the other?"
"A man I know. I met him on ship—"
Mr. Chester looked at his watch.
"It's up to you, Ann," he said. "There's one in being your father—I don't that exactly; I that it is a to me AS your father—to know that I need no about you. I don't have to give you advice. You've not only got three times the that I have, but you're not the of girl who would take advice. You've always just what you wanted since you were a kid. . . . Well, if you're going to take me to the boat, we'd be starting. Where's the car?"
"Waiting outside. Aren't you going to say good-bye to aunt Nesta?"
"Good God, no!" Mr. Chester in concern. "What! Plunge into that pack of and my way through to her! I'd be to pieces by wild poets. Besides, it to make a saying good-bye when I'm only going to be away a time. I shan't go any than Colombia this trip."
"You'll be able to for week-ends," said Ann.
She paused at the door to a over her at the fair-haired Lord Wisbeach, who was now in with her aunt and Willie Partridge; then she her father the stairs. She was a little as she took her place at the wheel of her automobile. It was not often that her nature support, but she was of at the present that she a less father. She would have liked to ask him to help her decide a problem which had been her for nearly three now, since Lord Wisbeach had asked her to him and she had promised to give him his answer on her return from England. She had been in New York days now, but she had not been able to make up her mind. This her, for she was a girl who liked of and action in others and in herself. She was of Mr. Chester in much the same unemotional, way that he was of her, but she was perfectly well aware of the of from him. She said good-bye to him at the boat, over his for in a way, and then slowly back. For the time in her life she was of herself. When she had left for England, she had up her mind to accept Lord Wisbeach, and had only of him in her way she to re-examine the position at her leisure. Second had no of feeling. She had not until her in New York. Then, for some which her, the idea of marrying Lord Wisbeach had distasteful. And now she herself this mood and her one.
She the house on Riverside Drive, but did not the speed of the machine. She that Lord Wisbeach would be waiting for her there, and she did not wish to meet him just yet. She wanted to be alone. She was depressed. She if this was she had just from her father, and that it was. His into and from her life always left her restless. She on up the river. She meant to decide her problem one way or the other she returned home.
Lord Wisbeach, meanwhile, was talking to Mrs. Pett and Willie, its inventor, about Partridgite. Willie, on himself addressed, had slowly with an air of self-importance, the air of a great in mid-thought. He always looked like that when spoken to, and there were those—Mr. Pett to this of thought—who that there was nothing to him that look and that he had up his as a on a that of a eye, a of through which he his fingers, and the of his late father.
Willie Partridge was the son of the great inventor, Dwight Partridge, and it was that the explosive, Partridgite, was to be the result of a of which his father had been upon at the time of his death. That Dwight Partridge had been trying in the direction of a new and powerful the last year of his life was common knowledge in those circles which are in such things. Foreign governments were to have to him. But a illness, fatally, had the career of Partridgite abruptly, and the world had no more of it until an in the Sunday Chronicle, that store-house of about people, that Willie was on his father's at the point where he had left off. Since then there had been of possible developments, which Willie had neither confirmed. He the which so well with his appearance.
Having slowly so that his rested on Lord Wisbeach's countenance, Willie paused, and his the of his photograph in the Chronicle.
"Ah, Wisbeach!" he said.
Lord Wisbeach did not appear to the of his manner. He into talk. He had a pleasant, way of himself which people like him.
"I was just telling Mrs. Pett," he said, "that I shouldn't be if you were to an offer for your from our at home long. I saw a of our War Office men when I was in England, don't you know. Several of them mentioned the stuff."
Willie Partridgite as being to as "the stuff," but he allowance. All Englishmen talked that way, he supposed.
"Indeed?" he said.
"Of course," said Mrs. Pett, "Willie is a patriot and would have to give our own the chance."
"Rather!"
"But you know what officials are all over the world. They are so and they move so slowly."
"I know. Our men at home are just the same as a rule. I've got a who something-or-other, I what, but it was a most little and very useful and all that; and he can't them to say Yes or No about it. But, all the same, I wonder you didn't have some of them trying to put out to you when you were in London."
"Oh, we were only in London a hours. By the way, Lord Wisbeach, my sister—"—Mrs. Pett paused; she to have to mention her sister or to to this at all, but her—"my sister said that you are a great friend of her step-son, James Crocker. I didn't know that you him."
Lord Wisbeach to for a moment.
"He's not over, is he? Pity! It would have done him a world of good. Yes, Jimmy Crocker and I have always been great pals. He's a of a nut, of course, . . . I your pardon! . . . I . . ." He off confusedly, and to Willie again to himself. "How are you on with the old stuff?" he asked.
If Willie had to Partridgite being called "the stuff," he was still less in of its being "the old stuff." He coldly.
"I have to along with the old stuff."
"Struck a snag?" Lord Wisbeach sympathetically.
"On the contrary, my have been successful. I have Partridgite in my laboratory to New York to bits!"
"Willie!" Mrs. Pett. "Why didn't you tell me before? You know I am so interested."
"I only my work last night."
He moved off with an nod. He was of Lord Wisbeach's society. There was something about the man which he did not like. He to more company in a group by the window.
Lord Wisbeach to his hostess. The had from his like a mask. A pair of and met Mrs. Pett's.
"Mrs. Pett, may I speak to you seriously?"
Mrs. Pett's at the in the man her from replying. Much as she liked Lord Wisbeach, she had him for brains, and it was a man with and ones who was looking at her now. She nodded.
"If your nephew has succeeded in his experiments, you should be careful. That ought not to about in his laboratory, though no he has it as as possible. It ought to be in a safe somewhere. In that safe in your library. News of this moves like lightning. At this very moment, there may be people for a of at the stuff."
Every nerve in Mrs. Pett's body, every of a brain which had for years been and out fiction, at these words, spoken in a low, voice which gave them additional emphasis. Never had she a man as she had Lord Wisbeach.
"Spies?" she quavered.
"They wouldn't call themselves that," said Lord Wisbeach. "Secret Service agents. Every country has its men only it is to this of work."
"They would try to Willie's—?" Mrs. Pett's voice failed.
"They would not look on it as stealing. Their would be patriotic. I tell you, Mrs. Pett, I have from friends of mine in the English Secret Service which would you. Perfectly men in private life, but when at work. They at nothing—nothing. If I were you, I should every one, every stranger." He engagingly. "You are that that is odd from one who is a like myself. Never mind. Suspect me, too, if you like. Be on the safe side."
"I would not of doing such a thing, Lord Wisbeach," said Mrs. Pett horrified. "I trust you implicitly. Even such a thing were possible, would you have me like this, if you had been—?"
"That's true," said Lord Wisbeach. "I of that. Well, let me say, but me." He stopped abruptly. "Mrs. Pett," he whispered, "don't look for a moment. Wait." The were almost inaudible. "Who is that man you? He has been to us. Turn slowly."
With carelessness, Mrs. Pett her head. At she her must have to one of a small group of men who, very in such surroundings, were with voices the of the for the National League Baseball Pennant. Then, the of her gaze, she saw that she had been mistaken. Midway her and this group a single figure, the of a man in a swallow-tail suit, who him a with cups on it. As she turned, this man her eye, gave a start, and across the room.
"You saw?" said Lord Wisbeach. "He was listening. Who is that man? Your apparently. What do you know of him?"
"He is my new butler. His name is Skinner."
"Ah, your new butler? He hasn't been with you long, then?"
"He only from England three days ago."
"From England? How did he in here? I mean, on recommendation?"
"Mr. Pett offered him the place when we met him at my sister's in London. We over there to see my sister, Eugenia—Mrs. Crocker. This man was the who us. He asked Mr. Pett something about baseball, and Mr. Pett was so pleased that he offered him a place here if he wanted to come over. The man did not give any answer then, but he on the next boat, and came to the house a days after we had returned."
Lord Wisbeach laughed softly.
"Very smart. Of they had him planted there for the purpose."
"What ought I to do?" asked Mrs. Pett agitatedly.
"Do nothing. There is nothing that you can do, for the present, keep your open. Watch this man Skinner. See if he has any accomplices. It is likely that he is alone. Suspect everybody. Believe me . . ."
At this moment, from some upper region, there an so and that it might well have been taken for a of a large sample of Partridgite; until a moment later it to more nearly the of some of that death-dealing invention. It was a of anguish, and it through the house in a of sound, to all the the that some person unknown was and that the might be he had excellent lungs.
The on the in the drawing-room was and impressive. Conversation as if it had been off with a tap. Twelve and on twelve died instantaneously. It was as if the last had sounded. Futurist pallidly at poets, speech from their lips; and stage looked at Buddhists with a wild surmise.
The had the of the noise and it more distinct, thus it to its message to one at least of the listeners. Mrs. Pett, after a moment of attention in which time to her to still, a and for the door.
"Ogden!" she shrilled; and passed up the stairs two at a time, speed as she went. A boy's best friend is his mother.
