The Triflers | Page 5

mouth.
"To-night," she said, "I ran away from Teddy Hamilton, for all the
world like a heroine of melodrama. Do you know Teddy?"
"Yes," he answered slowly, "I do."
He refrained with difficulty from voicing his opinion of the man, which
he could have put into three words--"the little beast." But how did it

happen that she, of all women, had been thrown into contact with this
pale-faced Don Juan of the New York music-halls and Paris cafés?
"I lent Marie, my maid, one of my new hats and a heavy veil," she went
on. "She came out and stepped into a taxi, with instructions to keep
driving in a circle of a mile. Teddy followed in another machine.
And"--she paused to look up and smile--"for all I know, he may still be
following her round and round. I came on to the opera."
"Kind of tough on Marie," he commented, with his blue eyes reflecting
a hearty relish of the situation.
"Marie will undoubtedly enjoy a nap," she said. "As for Teddy--well,
he is generally out of funds, so I hope he may get into difficulties with
the driver."
"He won't," declared Monte. "He'll probably end by borrowing a
pour-boire of the driver."
She nodded.
"That is possible. He is very clever."
"The fact that he is still out of jail--" began Monte.
Then he checked himself. He was not a man to talk about other
men--even about one so little of a man as Teddy Hamilton.
"Tell me what you know of him," she requested.
"I'd rather not," he answered.
"Is he as bad as that?" she queried thoughtfully. "But what I don't
understand is why--why, then, he can sing like a white-robed
choir-boy."
Monte looked serious.
"I've heard him," he admitted. "But it was generally after he had been

sipping absinthe rather heavily. His specialty is 'The Rosary.'"
"And the barcarole from the 'Contes d'Hoffmann.'"
"And little Spanish serenades," he added.
"But if he's all bad inside?"
She raised those deep, dark eyes as a child might. She had been for ten
years like one in a convent.
Covington shook his head.
"I can't explain it," he said. "Perhaps, in a way, it's because of
that--because of the contrast. But I 've heard him do it. I 've heard him
make a room full of those girls on Montmartre stop their dancing and
gulp hard. But where--"
"Did I meet him?" she finished. "It was on the boat coming over this
last time. You see-- I 'm talking a great deal about myself."
"Please go on."
He had forgotten that her face was so young. The true lines of her
features were scarcely more than sketched in, though that much had
been done with a sure hand. Whatever was to come, he thought, must
be added. There would be need of few erasures. Up to a certain point it
was the face of any of those young women of gentle breeding that he
met when at home--the inheritance of the best of many generations.
As she was sitting now, her head slightly turned, the arch of one brow
blended in a perfect curve into her straight, thin nose. But the mouth
and chin--they were firmer than one might have expected. If, not
knowing her, he had seen her driving in the Bois or upon Rotten Row,
he would have been curious about her title. It had always seemed to
him that she should by rights have been Her Royal Highness
Something or Other.
This was due partly to a certain air of serene security and a certain

aloofness that characterized her. He felt it to a lesser degree to-night
than ever before, but he made no mistake. He might be permitted to
admire those features as one admires a beautiful portrait, but
somewhere a barrier existed. There are faces that reflect the soul; there
are faces that hide the soul.
"Please go on," he repeated, as she still hesitated.
She was trying to explain why it was that she was tempted at all to talk
about herself to-night. Perhaps it was because she had been so long
silent--for many years silent. Perhaps it was because Monte was so very
impersonal that it was a good deal like talking out loud to herself, with
the advantage of being able to do this without wondering if she were
losing her wits. Then, too, after Teddy, Monte's straight-seeing blue
eyes freshened her thoughts like a clean north wind. She always spoke
of Monte as the most American man she knew; and by that she meant
something direct and honest--something four-square.
"I met Teddy on the boat," she resumed. "I was traveling alone
because--well, just because I wanted to be alone. You know, Aunt Kitty
was very good to me, but I'd been with