“I know — I know you have rights, Mr. Dougherty. I know what you have done for me. If it were not for that I would be very angry. You may treat Mr. Knowlton just as you like; the subject does not interest me. And now — go, please.”
“But you ought to tell us—”
“Go!” Lila exclaimed. “Please!”
They turned and left her without another word.
And Lila knew she had done right not to be angry with them. Perhaps they had been impertinent; but she knew they had not meant to be.
And she was frightened; rather, vaguely anxious. For she felt that they would never have presumed so far unless they knew more of Knowlton than they had told her.
What could it be? Her heart said, he is worthy. But she had not spent months in the Hotel Lamartine without learning something of the unsightly mess that lies concealed beneath the crust; and she feared.
But after all, why should she trouble herself with thoughts of Knowlton? He had shown no interest in her. He had treated her with courtesy, of course; he was obviously a gentleman. But he had given her no reason to suppose that he would ever be the instrument either of her pleasure or her sorrow.
The afternoon passed slowly. The telegraph desk at the Lamartine was never overworked; but today it seemed to Lila duller than usual. She tried to read, but found it impossible to settle her mind.
At five o’clock she began to fill in her daily report, and prolonged the task as far as possible in the effort to remain occupied. At half past five she prepared the cash for the collector of the telegraph company, who called every evening.
A few minutes later he arrived.
“Not much for you today,” Lila smiled.
The collector, a short, plump man with an air of importance, counted the cash, wrote out a receipt and handed it to Lila. Then he took an envelope from his pocket and drew from it a crisp, new ten-dollar bill, which he laid on the desk in front of her.
He leaned toward her with a mysterious air as he said:
“Miss Williams, do you know who gave you that?”
Lila looked at the bill, wondering.
“In the past month,” continued the collector, “you have turned in something like a dozen of these. We want to know where they come from.”
The oddity of the question had taken Lila by surprise, and she had remained silent, gathering her wits; but now she remembered.
Of course, the bills were Knowlton’s. Did he not always pay for his telegrams with new bills? And her receipts were not so large but that she would have remembered any others.
“But why?” she stammered, to gain time.
The collector ignored the question.
“Do you know who gave them to you?” he repeated.
“No,” replied Lila distinctly.
“No recollection whatever?”
“None.”
He reached in another pocket and drew forth another bill exactly similar to the one he had shown her, saying:
“I just got this out of your cash drawer. You took it in today. Surely you remember who gave you this?”
Lila repeated “No.”
For a minute the collector eyed her keenly in silence. Then, returning the bills to the envelope, he said slowly:
“That’s odd. Very odd — in a little office like this. I don’t see how you could help remembering. Anyway, be sure you keep a lookout from now on. They’re counterfeit.”
“Counterfeit!” Lila gasped.
The collector nodded, repeated his injunction to “keep a lookout,” and departed.
Counterfeit!
Lila buried her face in her hands and sat quivering, horrified.
Chapter V
Two Escorts
That night was an unpleasant one for Lila. She perceived clearly for the first time whither her heart was leading her, and recoiled in terror from the dangerous path on which she had already set her foot.
She had lied, and she had been faithless to her trust — which, though a small one, was felt by her to be none the less inviolable. She had lied instinctively, naturally, as a matter of course — the heart commands the brain, if at all, with an awful authority.
And for whom had she made the sacrifice? she asked herself. For a man about whom she knew one thing, and that thing was: she loved him. Perhaps, after all, the Broadway cynic is partly right.
Alone in her room that night she attempted to subject herself to a strict and sincere examination. She asked herself: “Why have you done this thing?” and her heart fluttered painfully, endeavoring by silence to keep its secret; but she felt the answer.
She crept, shivering, from her bed, and buried her face in a tray of withered rose leaves on the table.
Love is no snob. He forces the princess to deceive a court, defy a king, and renounce her royalty, that she may fly to the open arms of her despised lover; he forces the working girl to laugh at justice and law, and sacrifice her dearest possession — even herself. And the one triumph is to him fully as sweet as the other. Love is no snob.
His struggle with Lila was a hard one. She fought with the strength of despair, having forced herself to realize the significance of the battle. Nothing is more horrible to a woman than the fear that she has bestowed her heart on one unworthy; I say, the fear, for when the bestowal is once consummated and admitted, she is more apt to glory in it than to be ashamed of it.
Lila ended by saying to herself: “I have done right to shield him. He is good — I know it — surely my heart would not deceive me? What am I to do? I do not know. But I do not regret what I have done.”
And she smiled, and slept.
The following day, at her desk in the Lamartine, she felt her doubts and fears return. She chafed under an indefinable sensation of restlessness and expectancy; she performed her duties absentmindedly and perfunctorily; there was a marked absence of the usual pleasant cheerfulness in her manner; her eyes constantly wandered to the door, and returned again to her desk, filled with disappointment. The lobby of the Lamartine did not see Knowlton that day.
To the Erring Knights this meant a triumph. They believed that after all Knowlton had heeded their warning and decided to obey their dictum. They allowed themselves to become unduly excited over the matter, and as the afternoon wore away their faces took on an expression of jubilant satisfaction. Partly was this owing to their genuinely tender interest in Miss Williams; partly to the inherent vanity of man.
At four o’clock in the afternoon Dougherty was pacing up and down the lobby, past the lofty marble pillars, through clouds of tobacco smoke, with the air of a pitcher strolling to the bench after a victorious inning.
He was superbly indifferent to the amused glances of the loungers seated and standing here and there about the lobby, and was even undisturbed by the biting remarks of the Venus at the cigar stand. Finally he strolled over to the leather lounge where two or three of the others were seated.
“You see,” said he, waving his hand grandly, “he does not come. And who was it that told him to stay away? I.”
“Wait,” said Driscoll darkly. “It’s early yet. And then — what will you do?”
“Bah!” said Dumain explosively. “As for me, I theenk he is no coward. He will come. And zen — well, we have our program.”
But Knowlton did not arrive. Five o’clock came, and six. At the approach of dinnertime the crowd in the lobby thinned perceptibly, and the Erring Knights disappeared by ones and twos.
Jennings, on his way out from the billiard room, stopped at the corner in search of a dinner companion. He found Sherman seated there alone.