The Flirt

don’t. Old Madison may live a while, if you call that getting well; but he’ll never be the same man he was. Doctor Sloane says it was a bad stroke. Says it was `induced by heat prostration and excitement.’ `Excitement!’” he repeated with a sour laugh. “Yep, I expect a man could get all the excitement he wanted in THAT house, especially if he was her daddy. Poor old man, I don’t believe he’s got five thousand dollars in the world, and look how she dresses!”

Ray opened a compartment beneath one of the bookcases, and found a bottle and some glasses. “Aha,” he muttered, “our janitor doesn’t drink, I perceive. Join me?” Mr. Trumble accepted, and Ray explained, cheerfully: “Richard Lindley’s got me so cowed I’m afraid to go near any of my old joints. You see, he trails me; the scoundrel has kept me sober for whole days at a time, and I’ve been mortified, having old friends see me in that condition; so I have to sneak up here to my own office to drink to Cora, now and then. You mustn’t tell him. What’s she been doing to YOU, lately?”

The little man addressed grew red with the sharp, resentful memory. “Oh, nothing! Just struck me in the face with her parasol on the public street, that’s all!” He gave an account of his walk to church with Cora. “I’m through with that girl!” he exclaimed vindictively, in conclusion. “It was the damnedest thing you ever saw in your life: right in broad daylight, in front of the church. And she laughed when she did it; you’d have thought she was knocking a puppy out of her way. She can’t do that to me twice, I tell you. What the devil do you see to laugh at?

“You’ll be around,” returned his companion, refilling the glasses, “asking for more, the first chance she gives you. Here’s her health!”

“I don’t drink it!” cried Mr. Trumble angrily.

“And I’m through with her for good, I tell you! I’m not your kind: I don’t let a girl like that upset me till I can’t think of anything else, and go making such an ass of myself that the whole town gabbles about it. Cora Madison’s seen the last of me, I’ll thank you to notice. She’s never been half-decent to me; cut dances with me all last winter; kept me hanging round the outskirts of every crowd she was in; stuck me with Laura and her mother every time she had a chance; then has the nerve to try to use me, so’s she can make a bigger hit with a new man! You can bet your head I’m through! She’ll get paid though! Oh, she’ll get paid for it!”

“How?” laughed Ray.

It was a difficult question. “You wait and see,” responded the threatener, feebly. “Just wait and see. She’s wild about this Corliss, I tell you,” he continued, with renewed vehemence. “She’s crazy about him; she’s lost her head at last–-“

“You mean he’s going to avenge you?”

“No, I don’t, though he might, if she decided to marry him.”

“Do you know,” said Ray slowly, glancing over his glass at his nervous companion, “it doesn’t strike me that Mr. Valentine Corliss has much the air of a marrying man.”

“He has the air to ME,” observed Mr. Trumble, “of a darned bad lot! But I have to hand it to him: he’s a wizard. He’s got something besides his good looks—a man that could get Cora Madison interested in `business’! In OIL! Cora Madison! How do you suppose–-“

His companion began to laugh again. “You don’t really suppose he talked his oil business to her, do you, Trumble?”

“He must have. Else how could she–-“

“Oh, no, Cora herself never talks upon any subject but one; she never listens to any other either.”

“Then how in thunder did he–-“

“If Cora asks you if you think it will rain,” interrupted Vilas, “doesn’t she really seem to be asking: `Do you love me? How much?’ Suppose Mr. Corliss is an expert in the same line. Of course he can talk about oil!”

“He strikes me,” said Trumble, as just about the slickest customer that ever hit this town. I like Richard Lindley, and I hope he’ll see his fifty thousand dollars again. I wouldn’t have given Corliss thirty cents.”

“Why do you think he’s a crook?”

“I don’t say that,” returned Trumble. “All I know about him is that he’s done some of the finest work to get fifty thousand dollars put in his hands that I ever heard of. And all anybody knows about him is that he lived here seventeen years ago, and comes back claiming to know where there’s oil in Italy. He shows some maps and papers and gets cablegrams signed `Moliterno.’ Then he talks about selling the old Corliss house here, where the Madisons live, and putting the money into his oil company: he does that to sound plausible, but I have good reason to know that house was mortgaged to its full value within a month after his aunt left it to him. He’ll not get a cent if it’s sold. That’s all. And he’s got Cora Madison so crazy over him that she makes life a hell for poor old Lindley until he puts all he’s saved into the bubble. The scheme may be all right. How do I know? There’s no way to tell, without going over there, and Corliss won’t let anybody do that—oh, he’s got a plausible excuse for it! But I’m sorry for Lindley: he’s so crazy about Cora, he’s soft. And she’s so crazy about Corliss SHE’S soft! Well, I used to be crazy about her myself, but I’m not soft—I’m not the Lindley kind of loon, thank heaven!”

“What kind are you, Trumble?” asked Ray, mildly.

“Not your kind either,” retorted the other going to the door. “She cut me on the street the other day; she’s quit speaking to me. If you’ve got any money, why don’t you take it over to the hotel and give it to Corliss? She might start speaking to YOU again. I’m going to lunch!” He slammed the door behind him.

Ray Vilas, left alone, elevated his heels to the sill, and stared out of the window a long time at a gravelled roof which presented little of interest. He replenished his glass and his imagination frequently, the latter being so stirred that when, about three o’clock, he noticed the inroads he had made upon the bottle, tears of self-pity came to his eyes. “Poor little drunkard!” he said aloud. “Go ahead and do it. Isn’t anything YOU won’t do!” And, having washed his face at a basin in a corner, he set his hat slightly upon one side, picked up a walking stick and departed jauntily, and, to the outward eye, presentably sober.

Mr. Valentine Corliss would be glad to see him, the clerk at the Richfield Hotel reported, after sending up a card, and upon Ray’s following the card, Mr. Valentine Corliss in person confirmed the message with considerable amusement and a cordiality in which there was some mixture of the quizzical. He was the taller; and the robust manliness of his appearance, his splendid health and boxer’s figure offered a sharp contrast to the superlatively lean tippler. Corliss was humorously aware of his advantage: his greeting seemed really to say, “Hello, my funny bug, here you are again!” though the words of his salutation were entirely courteous; and he followed it with a hospitable offer.