He was gone, eager to be with Peggy, afraid to discuss his report with the lawyers. Grant and Ripley shook their heads and sat silent for a long time after his departure.
“We ought to hear something definite before night,” said Grant, but there was anxiety in his voice.
“I wonder,” mused Ripley, as if to himself, “how he will take it if the worst should happen.”
XXXII
The Night Before
“It’s all up to Jones now,” kept running through Brewster’s brain as he drove off to keep his appointment with Peggy Gray. “The million is gone—all gone. I’m as poor as Job’s turkey. It’s up to Jones, but I don’t see how he can decide against me. He insisted on making a pauper of me and he can’t have the heart to throw me down now. But, what if he should take it into his head to be ugly! I wonder if I could break the will—I wonder if I could beat him out in court.”
Peggy was waiting for him. Her cheeks were flushed as with a fever. She had caught from him the mad excitement of the occasion.
“Come, Peggy,” he exclaimed, eagerly. “This is our last holiday—let’s be merry. We can forget it tomorrow, if you like, when we begin all over again, but maybe it will be worth remembering.” He assisted her to the seat and then leaped up beside her. “We’re off!” he cried, his voice quivering.
“It is absolute madness, dear,” she said, but her eyes were sparkling with the joy of recklessness. Away went the trap and the two light hearts. Mrs. Gray turned from a window in the house with tears in her eyes. To her troubled mind they were driving off into utter darkness.
“The queerest looking man came to the house to see you this afternoon, Monty,” said Peggy. “He wore a beard and he made me think of one of Remington’s cowboys.”
“What was his name?”
“He told the maid it did not matter. I saw him as he walked away and he looked very much a man. He said he would come tomorrow if he did not find you down town tonight. Don’t you recognize him from the description?”
“Not at all. Can’t imagine who he is.”
“Monty,” she said, after a moment’s painful reflection, “he—he couldn’t have been a—”
“I know what you mean. An officer sent up to attach my belongings or something of the sort. No, dearest; I give you my word of honor I do not owe a dollar in the world.” Then he recalled his peculiar indebtedness to Bragdon and Gardner. “Except one or two very small personal obligations,” he added, hastily. “Don’t worry about it, dear, we are out for a good time and we must make the most of it. First, we drive through the Park, then we dine at Sherry’s.”
“But we must dress for that, dear,” she cried. “And the chaperon?”
He turned very red when she spoke of dressing. “I’m ashamed to confess it, Peggy, but I have no other clothes than these I’m wearing now. Don’t look so hurt, dear—I’m going to leave an order for new evening clothes tomorrow—if I have the time. And about the chaperon. People won’t be talking before tomorrow and by that time—”
“No, Monty, Sherry’s is out of the question. We can’t go there,” she said, decisively.
“Oh, Peggy! That spoils everything,” he cried, in deep disappointment.
“It isn’t fair to me, Monty. Everybody would know us, and every tongue would wag. They would say, ‘There are Monty Brewster and Margaret Gray. Spending his last few dollars on her.’ You wouldn’t have them think that?”
He saw the justice in her protest. “A quiet little dinner in some out of the way place would be joyous,” she added, persuasively.
“You’re right, Peggy, you’re always right. You see, I’m so used to spending money by the handful that I don’t know how to do it any other way. I believe I’ll let you carry the pocketbook after tomorrow. Let me think; I knew a nice little restaurant down town. We’ll go there and then to the theater. Dan DeMille and his wife are to be in my box and we’re all going up to Pettingill’s studio afterward. I’m to give the ‘Little Sons’ a farewell supper. If my calculations don’t go wrong, that will be the end of the jaunt and we’ll go home happy.”
At eleven o’clock Pettingill’s studio opened its doors to the “Little Sons” and their guests, and the last “Dutch lunch” was soon under way. Brewster had paid for it early in the evening and when he sat down at the head of the table there was not a penny in his pockets. A year ago, at the same hour, he and the “Little Sons” were having a birthday feast. A million dollars came to him on that night. Tonight he was poorer by far than on the other occasion, but he expected a little gift on the new anniversary.
Around the board, besides
