Murder in Any Degree | Page 8

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 a wonderful time, Britt," said Rantoul, resuming his place. "There's
nothing like it anywhere on the face of the globe--the possibilities of
concentration and simplification here in business. It's a great game, too,
matching your wits against another's. We're building empires of trade,
order out of chaos. I'm making an awful lot of money."
Herkimer remained obstinately silent during the rest of the dinner.
Everything seemed to fetter him--the constraint of dining before the
silent, flitting butler, servants who whisked his plate away before he
knew it, the succession of unrecognizable dishes, the constant jargon of
social eavesdroppings that Mrs. Rantoul pressed into action the
moment her husband's recollections exiled her from the conversation;
but above all, the indefinable enmity that seemed to well out from his
hostess, and which he seemed to divine occasionally when the ready
smile left her lips and she was forced to listen to things she did not
understand.
When they rose from the table, Rantoul passed his arm about his wife
and said something in her ear, at which she smiled and patted his hand.
"I am very proud of my husband, Mr. Herkimer," she said with a little
bob of her head in which was a sense of proprietorship. "You'll see."
"Suppose we stroll out for a little smoke in the garden," said Rantoul.

"What, you're going to leave me?" she said instantly, with a shade of
vague uneasiness, that Herkimer perceived.
"We sha'n't be long, dear," said Rantoul, pinching her ear. "Our chatter
won't interest you. Send the coffee out into the rose cupola."
They passed out into the open porch, but Herkimer was aware of the
little woman standing irresolutely tapping with her thin finger on the
table, and he said to himself: "She's a little ogress of jealousy. What the
deuce is she afraid I'll say to him?"
They rambled through sweet-scented paths, under the high-flung
network of stars, hearing only the crunching of little pebbles under
foot.
"You've given up painting?" said Herkimer all at once.
"Yes, though that doesn't count," said Rantoul, abruptly; but there was
in his voice a different note, something of the restlessness of the old
Don Furioso. "Talk to me of the Quarter. Who's at the Café des Lilacs
now? They tell me that little Ragin we used to torment so has made
some great decorations. What became of that pretty girl in the creamery
of the Rue de l'Ombre who used to help us over the lean days?"
"Whom you christened Our Lady of the Sparrows?" "Yes, yes. You
know I sent her the silk dress and the earrings I promised her."
Herkimer began to speak of one thing and another, of Bennett, who had
gone dramatically to the Transvaal; of Le Gage, who was now in the
forefront of the younger group of landscapists; of the old types that still
came faithfully to the Café des Lilacs,--the old chess-players, the fat
proprietor, with his fat wife and three fat children who dined there
regularly every Sunday,--of the new revolutionary ideas among the
younger men that were beginning to assert themselves.
"Let's sit down," said Rantoul, as though suffocating.
They placed themselves in wicker easy-chairs, under the heavy-scented

rose cupola, disdaining the coffee that waited on a table. From where
they were a red-tiled walk, with flower beds nodding in enchanted
sleep, ran to the veranda. The porch windows were open, and in the
golden lamplight Herkimer saw the figure of Tina Glover bent intently
over an embroidery, drawing her needle with uneven stitches, her head
seeming inclined to catch the