And so there was a chapter closed in Bunny’s life. The door which had led from his suite in the hotel to Vee’s suite was locked, and a piece of furniture moved in front of it. But there was no piece of furniture that could be moved in front of the memory in Bunny’s mind! Nothing could shut out that slender white figure, so vivid and eager, and the memory of the delights she had brought to him. He was maimed in soul, as the victims of the White Terror were maimed in body—and in the same cause!
There were women here, of all kinds and sizes, native and American, young ladies of the highest fashionableness, willing to receive the attentions of a young oil prince. They knew about his romance and his broken heart; and their shrewd mammas told them an ancient formula, known to the feminine world since the dawn of coquetry—“Catch him on the rebound!” Bunny was besought to attend tea-parties and dances, but mostly he went to Socialist meetings; and when he thought about girls, it was to Angel City that his fancy fled. Ruth Watkins was so gentle and quiet, yet brave—not giving up her brother because he turned into a Bolshevik! And Rachel Menzies was so steady, so grim in her determination to send him a four-page paper, as regular as the calendar, and always telling him everything he wanted to know! Once every month she sent an itemized statement of receipts and expenditures, typed with her own fingers, and always exactly right—whatever dollars were left over went for sample copies, so he was never troubled by either surplus or deficit!
IX
September, and Dad came bringing an announcement that caused him to hesitate, and turn fiery red after he got going. “You know, son, I have got to be very good friends with Alyse, we—that is, we are interested in the same ideas, and we realize that we can help each other.”
“Yes, Dad, of course.”
“Well, the fact is—you know how it is—I’ve been imposing on you for so long, but now you will be free, because I’ve asked Alyse to marry me, and she consents.”
“Well, Dad, I’ve been expecting that for quite a while. I’m sure you will be happy.”
Dad looked very much relieved—had he feared a tantrum, after the fashion of Bertie? He hastened to say, “I want to tell you—Alyse and I have talked the matter over, and we agree—she is fond of you, and appreciates your standing by me and all, and she wants you to know that she’s not marrying me for my money.”
“No, Dad, I don’t think that.”
“Well, you know Bertie, and what she thinks. Bertie is mercenary—I suppose she got it from her mother. Anyhow, I’m not a-goin’ to say anything to her about this, it is none of her business; we’ll jist get married on the quiet, and Bertie can read about it in the papers. What I’m a-goin’ to do is this—Alyse says she hasn’t had anything to do with helping me make my money, and she don’t want my children to hate her, as they will if she comes in and takes a big share.”
“Oh, but I won’t, Dad!”
“We’ve agreed that I’m to make a will, and leave a million dollars to her, and the rest will go to you and Bertie, and Alyse will be satisfied with that—it will give her enough to carry on the psychic work she’s interested in. You understand, she wants to do that—”
“Yes, of course, Dad. I am a propagandist too!”
“I know son; and what I’ve been thinking—you have a right to express your ideas. And while I don’t agree with that little paper, I can see that it’s honest, it says what you think; so I’m a-goin’ to make over a million dollars worth of Ross stock to you, and you can jist go ahead and do what you please with that. I hope you won’t turn into a Bolsheviki like Paul, and I hope you won’t find it necessary to get into jail.”
“It would be pretty hard to keep me in jail if I had a million dollars, Dad.”
The old man grinned; the mediums and the spirits had not yet driven the old devil entirely out of him. He went on to say that of course they weren’t going to have as much money as he had once thought. Those government suits were a-goin’ to dig a big hole in it—no doubt the politicians would fix it so Dad and Verne would lose. Of course they might get a pile out of these new deals abroad, but that was speculative—not the sort of thing Dad fancied, but he was leaving it to Verne.
“What are you and Mrs.—Alyse going to do, Dad?”
“Well, we want to have a sort of—you might call it a Spiritualist honeymoon. We’ll go see that medium in Vienna, and there’s another in Frankfort that we’ve heard about. It’ll depend for one thing on what you want. Maybe you’ll go back to California.”
“I think I will, Dad, for a while—if you are sure you can spare me.”
Yes, Dad said he and Alyse would get along all right; his secretary had learned enough French for practical purposes, and they would have a courier or interpreter for their stay in Germany. He hoped the climate there would agree with him; he didn’t seem ever to be strong now. That flu had sort of done him up.
The preliminary steps were taken, and Bunny and his father and the secretary and Mrs. Alyse Huntington Forsythe Olivier all put on their best glad rags and appeared before the maire of one of the small towns on the outskirts of Paris and were duly wedded, and Bunny kissed his new stepmother on both cheeks, and
