Number Seventeen | Page 7

principles of citizenship. Indeed, so reassuring was this reasoned judgment that he felt a sense of relief as he paid off the cab and rang the bell of the Forbes mansion.
He gave his name to a footman, who disposed of his overcoat and hat, and led him to an upstairs drawing room. Even the most fleeting glances at hall and staircase revealed evidences of a highly trained artistic taste gratified by great wealth. The furniture, the china, the pictures, were each and all rare and well chosen.
"Mr. Theydon," announced the man, throwing wide the door.
A lady, bent over some prints spread on a distant table, turned at the words, and hastened to greet the guest.
"My father is expecting you, Mr. Theydon," she said. "He was detained rather late in the city, but will be here now at any moment."
Theydon was no neurotic boy, whose surcharged nerves were liable to crack in a crisis demanding some unusual measure of self-control. Yet the room and its contents-- and, not least, the graceful girl advancing with outstretched hand-- swam before his eyes.
Because this was "Evelyn," and it was certain as the succession of night to day that Mrs. Lester's mysterious visitor must have been "Evelyn's" father, James Creighton Forbes.
CHAPTER II
THE COMPACT
So petrified was Theydon by coming face to face with the last person breathing whom he expected to meet in that room, that he stumbled over a small chair which lay directly between him and his hostess. At any other time the gaucherie would have annoyed him exceedingly; in the existing circumstances, no more fortunate incident could have happened, since it brought Evelyn Forbes herself unwittingly to the rescue.
"I have spoken twenty times about chairs being left in that absurd position," she cried, as their hands met, "but you know how wooden-headed servants are. They will not learn to discriminate. People often sit in that very place of an afternoon, because any one seated just there sees the Canaletto on the opposite wall in the best light. When the lamps are on, the reason for the chair simply ceases to exist, and it becomes a trap for the unwary. You are by no means the first who has been caught in it."
Theydon realized, with a species of irritation, that the girl was discoursing volubly about the offending chair merely in order to extricate an apparently shy and tongue-tied young man from a morass of his own creation.
That an author of some note should not only behave like a country bumpkin, but actually seem to need encouragement so that he should "feel at home" in a London drawing room, was a fact so ridiculous that it spurred his bemused wits into something approaching their normal activity.
"I have not the excuse of the Canaletto," he said, compelling a pleasant smile, "but may I plead an even more distracting vision? I came here expecting to meet an elderly gentleman of the class which flippant Americans describe as 'high-brow,' and I am suddenly brought face to face with a Romney 'portrait of a lady' in real life. Is it likely that such an insignificant object as a chair, and a small one at that, would succeed in catching my eye?"
Evelyn Forbes laughed, with a joyous mingling of surprise and relief. Most certainly, Mr. Theydon's manner of speech differed vastly from the disconcerting expression of positive bewilderment, if not actual fright, which marred his entrance.
"Do I really resemble a Romney? Which one?" she cried.
"An admitted masterpiece."
"Ah, but people who pay compliments deserve to be put on the rack. I insist on a definition."
"Lady Hamilton as Joan of Arc."
He drew the bow at random, and was gratified to see that his hearer was puzzled.
"I don't know that particular picture," she said, "but I cannot imagine any model less adapted to the subject."
"Romney immortalized the best qualities of both," he answered promptly. "Please, may I look at the Canaletto which indirectly waylaid me?"
She turned to cross the room, but stopped and faced him again with a suddenness that argued an impulsive temperament.
"Now, I remember," she said. "Dad told me you had written novels and some essays. Have you ever really seen Romney's portrait of Lady Hamilton as Joan of Arc?"
Those fine eyes of hers pierced him with a glance of such candid inquiry that he cast pretence to the winds.
"No," he said.
"Then you just invented the comparison as an excuse for colliding with the chair?"
"Yes. At the same time I throw myself on the mercy of the court."
"It was rather clever of you."
He laughed, and their eyes met, at very close range.
"May I share the joke?" said a voice, and Theydon knew, before he turned, that the man he had last seen disappearing around the corner of Innesmore Mansions in a heavy rainstorm was in the room.
"Why did you tell