During the last intermission Brewster and Peggy were walking in the foyer. They had rarely spoken since the day of the ride, but Monty noticed with happiness that she had on several occasions avoided Pettingill.
“I thought we had given up fairyland when we left the lakes, but I believe you carry it with you,” she said.
“The trouble with this,” Monty replied, “is that there are too many people about. My fairyland is to be just a little different.”
“Your fairyland, Monty, will be built of gold and paved with silver. You will sit all day cutting coupons in an office of alabaster.”
“Peggy, do you too think me vulgar? It’s a beastly parade, I know, but it can’t stop now. You don’t realize the momentum of the thing.”
“You do it up to the handle,” she put in. “And you are much too generous to be vulgar. But it worries me, Monty, it worries me desperately. It’s the future I’m thinking of—your future, which is being swallowed up. This kind of thing can’t go on. And what is to follow it? You are wasting your substance, and you are not making any life for yourself that opens out.”
“Peggy,” he answered very seriously, “you have got to trust me. I can’t back out, but I’ll tell you this. You shall not be disappointed in me in the end.”
There was a mist before the girl’s eyes as she looked at him. “I believe you, Monty,” she said simply; “I shall not forget.”
The curtain rose upon the next act, and something in the opera toward the end seemed to bring the two very close together. As they were leaving the theater, there was a note of regret from Peggy. “It has been perfect,” she breathed, “yet, Monty, isn’t it a waste that no one else should have seen it? Think of these poverty-stricken peasants who adore music and have never heard an opera.”
“Well, they shall hear one now.” Monty rose to it, but he felt like a hypocrite in concealing his chief motive. “We’ll repeat the performance tomorrow night and fill the house with them.”
He was as good as his word. Bertier was given a task the next day which was not to his taste. But with the assistance of the city authorities he carried it through. To them it was an evidence of insanity, but there was something princely about it and they were tolerant. The manager of the opera house was less complacent, and he had an exclamatory terror of the damage to his upholstery. But Brewster had discovered that in Italy gold is a panacea for all ills, and his prescriptions were liberal. To him the day was short, for Peggy’s interest in the penance, as it came to be called, was so keen that she insisted on having a hand in the preliminaries. There was something about the partnership that appealed to Monty.
To her regret the DeMille dinner interfered with the opening of the performance, but Monty consoled her with the promise that the opera and its democratic audience should follow. During the day Mrs. Dan had been deep in preparations for her banquet, but her plans were elaborately concealed. They culminated at eight o’clock in the Cova not far from the Scala, and the dinner was eaten in the garden to the sound of music. Yet it was an effect of simplicity with which Mrs. Dan surprised her guests. They were prepared for anything but that, and when they were served with consommé, spaghetti—a concession to the chef—and chops and peas, followed by a salad and coffee, the gratitude of the crowd was quite beyond expression. In a burst of enthusiasm “Subway” Smith suggested a testimonial.
Monty complained bitterly that he himself had never received a ghost of a testimonial. He protested that it was not deserved.
“Why should you expect it?” exclaimed Pettingill, “when you have risen from terrapin and artichokes to chops and chicory? When have you given us nectar and ambrosia like this?”
Monty was defeated by a unanimous vote and Mrs. Dan’s testimonial was assured. This matter settled, Peggy and Mrs. Valentine, with Brewster and Pettingill, walked over to the Scala and heard again the last two acts of Aida. But the audience was different, and the applause.
The next day at noon the chauffeurs from Paris reported for duty, and five gleaming French devil-wagons steamed off through the crowd in the direction of Venice. Through Brescia and Verona and Vicenza they passed, scattering largess of silver in their wake and leaving a trail of breathless wonder. Brewster found the pace too fast and by the time they reached Venice he had a wistful longing to take this radiant country more slowly. “But this is purely a business trip,” he thought, “and I can’t expect to enjoy it. Some day I’ll come back and do it differently. I could spend hours in a gondola if the blamed things were not more expensive by the trip.”
It was there that he was suddenly recalled to his duty from dreams of moonlight on the water by a cablegram which demanded $324.00 before it could be read. It contained word for word the parable of the ten talents and ended with the simple word “Jones.”
XXIII
An Offer of Marriage
The summer is scarcely a good time to visit Egypt, but Monty and his guests had a desire to see even a little of the northern coast of Africa. It was decided, therefore, that after Athens, the Flitter should go south. The yacht had met them at Naples after the automobile procession—a kind of triumphal progress—was disbanded in Florence, and they
