The Abandoned Room | Page 6

come, Carlos."
The smile of greeting vanished abruptly from Paredes's face. He looked
with steady eyes beyond Bobby's shoulder. Bobby turned. Graham
stood on the threshold, his face a little too frank. But the two men
shook hands.
"I'd an idea until I saw Bobby," Graham said, "that you'd gone back to
Panama."
Paredes yawned.
"Each year I spend more time in New York. Business suggests it.
Pleasure demands it."
His voice was deep and pleasant, but Bobby had often remarked that it,
like Paredes's eyes, was too reserved. It seemed never to call on its
obvious powers of expression. Its accent was noticeable only in a
pleasant, polished sense.

"Hartley," Bobby explained, "is dining with us."
Paredes let no disapproval slip, but Graham hastened to explain.
"Bobby and I have an engagement immediately after dinner."
"An engagement after dinner! I didn't understand--"
"Let's think of dinner first," Bobby said. "We can talk about
engagements afterward. Perhaps you'll have a cocktail here while we
decide where we're going."
"The aperitif I should like very much," Paredes said. "About dinner
there is nothing to decide. I have arranged everything. There's a table
waiting in the Fountain Room at the C---- and there I have planned a
little surprise for you."
He wouldn't explain further. While they drank their cocktails Bobby
watched Graham's disapproval grow. The man glanced continually at
his watch. In the restaurant, when Paredes left them to produce, as he
called it, his surprise, Graham appraised with a frown the voluble
people who moved intricately through the hall.
"I'm afraid Paredes has planned a thorough evening," he said, "for
which he'll want you to pay. Don't be angry, Bobby. The situation is
serious enough to excuse facts. You must go to the Cedars to-night. Do
you understand? You must go, in spite of Paredes, in spite of
everything."
"Peace until train time," Bobby demanded.
He caught his breath.
"There they are. Carlos has kept his word. See her, Hartley. She's
glorious."
A young woman accompanied the Panamanian as he came back
through the hall. She appeared more foreign than her guide--the
Spanish of Spain rather than of South America. Her clothing was as

unusual and striking as her beauty, yet one felt there was more than
either to attract all the glances in this room, to set people whispering as
she passed. Clearly she knew her notoriety was no little thing. Pride
filled her eyes.
Paredes had first introduced her to Bobby a month or more ago. He had
seen her a number of times since in her dressing-room at the theatre
where she was featured, or at crowded luncheons in her apartment. At
such moments she had managed to be exceptionally nice to him. Bobby,
however, had answered merely to the glamour of her fame, to the
magnetic response her beauty always brought in places like this.
"Paredes," Graham muttered, "will have a powerful ally. You won't fail
me, Bobby? You will go?"
Bobby scarcely heard. He hurried forward and welcomed the woman.
She tapped his arm with her fan.
"Leetle Bobby!" she lisped. "I haven't seen very much of you lately. So
when Carlos proposed--you see I don't dance until late. Who is that
behind you? Mr. Graham, is it not? He would, maybe, not remember
me. I danced at a dinner where you were one night, at Mr. Ward's. Even
lawyers, I find, take enjoyment in my dancing."
"I remember," Graham said. "It is very pleasant we are to dine
together." He continued tactlessly: "But, as I've explained to Mr.
Paredes, we must hurry. Bobby and I have an early engagement."
Her head went up.
"An early engagement! I do not often dine in public."
"An unavoidable thing," Graham explained. "Bobby will tell you."
Bobby nodded.
"It's a nuisance, particularly when you're so condescending, Maria."
She shrugged her shoulders. With Bobby she entered the dining-room

at the heels of Paredes and Graham.
Paredes had foreseen everything. There were flowers on the table. The
dinner had been ordered. Immediately the waiter brought cocktails.
Graham glanced at Bobby warningly. He wouldn't, as an example
Bobby appreciated, touch his own. Maria held hers up to the light.
"Pretty yellow things! I never drink them."
She smiled dreamily at Bobby.
"But see! I shall place this to my lips in order that you may make pretty
speeches, and maybe tell me it is the most divine aperitif you have ever
drunk."
She passed the glass to him, and Bobby, avoiding Graham's eyes,
wondering why she was so gracious, emptied it. And afterward
frequently she reminded him of his wine by going through the same
elaborate formula. Probably because of that, as much as anything else,
constraint grasped the little company tighter. Graham couldn't hide his
anxiety. Paredes mocked it with sneering phrases which