Captivating Mary Carstairs | Page 3

after midnight. Meet me here for
breakfast some bank-holiday, and we'll give the day to it."
Maginnis, who never got over feeling disappointed when he saw his
audience slipping away from him, sighed, searched through his frowzy
pockets for a match, lit his pipe, and fell upon a lounge near to all the
society that was left him.
"Why weren't you up?" said this society presently.
"The idea of dinner was repellent to me."
"To you, Peter--the famous trencherman of song and story? Why this
unwonted daintiness?"

"Lassitude. Too weary to climb the stairs. Besides, I wasn't hungry."
"Ah," said Reggie Townes, "you have the caveman's idea of dinner, I
see. It strikes you as purely an occasion for purveying provender to
man's interior. The social feature eludes you. You know what I think,
Peter? You ought to go to work."
"_Work!_"
"That's the word. What of it?"
"Not a thing. The idea was new to me; that's all."
"Persiflage and all that aside, why don't you take a stab at politics?"
"Politics! Here in New York! I'd sooner go into Avernus of the easy
descent. If you had a town to run all by yourself now, there might be
something in it. That idea of yours as to going to work, while
unquestionably novel, strikes me as rather clever."
"No credit belongs to me," said Townes, "if I happened to be born
brilliant instead of good-looking."
"I'll ponder it," said Peter; and stretching out his great hand with a
gesture which banished the subject, he pushed a service button and
begged Townes to be so kind as to name his poison.
Outside in the hall a voice just then called his name, and Maginnis
answered.
A young man in evening dress strolled through the doorway, a tallish,
lithe young man with a pleasant clean-cut face and very light hair. It
was evident enough that he patronized a good tailor. He glanced at the
two men, nodded absently, and dropped without speech into a chair
near the door. Townes eyed him somewhat quizzically.
"Evening, Larry. A little introspective to-night, yes?"
Peter said: "By bull luck you have stumbled into a company of

gentlemen about to place an order. Go ahead. Mention a preference."
The young man, unseeing eyes on Peter, did not answer. Instead, he
sprang up, as though struck by a thought of marked interest and bolted
out the door. They saw him vanish into the telephone booth across the
hall and bang the glass door shut behind him.
"Forgot an engagement."
"You mean remembered one," said Peter.
"It all figures out to the same answer," said Townes; and glancing
presently at his watch, he announced that he must be trotting on.
"But I've ordered something for you, man."
"Varney can use it, can't he?"
The door opened, and the tallish young man stood on the threshold
again, this time social and affable. His distraitness, oddly enough, had
all gone. He greeted the two in the smoking-room as though he had
seen them for the first time that evening; expressed his pleasure at
being in their company; inquired after their healths and late pursuits;
pressed cigarettes upon them.
They rallied him upon his furtive movements and fickle demeanor, but
drew only badinage in kind, and no explanations; and Townes,
laughing, turned to the door.
"Dally with us yet a little while, Reggie."
"No, gentles, no! I'm starting abroad to-night and have already dallied
too long."
"Abroad!"
"My sister," said Townes, "as perhaps you don't know, wedded a
foreigner--Willy Harcourt, born and raised in Brooklyn. Therefore, I
am now leaving to go to a party in Brooklyn. Say that to yourself

slowly--'a party in Brooklyn!' Sounds sort of ominous, doesn't it? If the
worst happens, I look to you fellows to break it to my mother. Please
mention that I was smiling to the last."
He waved a farewell and disappeared into the hall. Varney dropped into
the chair Townes had left empty, and elevated his feet to the lounge
where sprawled the length of Peter Maginnis. Peter looked up and the
eyes of the two men met.
"Well, Laurence? What is the proposition?" "Proposition? What do you
mean?"
"An ass," replied Maginnis, pumping seltzer into a tall glass, "could see
that you have something on your mind."
Varney pulled a match from the little metal box-holder, and looked at
him with reluctant admiration. "Sherlock Holmes Maginnis! I have
something on my mind. A friend dropped it there half an hour ago, and
now I 've come to drop it on yours." He glanced at the room's two doors
and saw that both were shut. "Time is short. The outfit upstairs may
drift in any minute. Listen. Do you recall telling me the other day, with
tears in your eyes, that you were