A A MI L.L. filY. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES A MILLION A MINUTE A MILLION A MINUTE A ROMANCE OF MODERN NEW YORK AND PARIS BY HUDSON DOUGLAS ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL GREFE New York GROSSET & DUNLAP Publishers A 4 I i f i f i COPYRIGHT, 1908 W. J. WATT & COMPANY September A MILLION A MINUTE A MILLION A MINUTE CHAPTER I QUAINTANCE OPENS A NEW ACCOUNT WITH FATE AT THE NIGHT AND DAY BANK ON a mellow afternoon in late Fall, the gardens of Madison Square were all aglow, like a monstrous pa- lette : flower-beds and foliage, at their most brilliant, a blend of such living tints as no mere earthly artist may; ever attain. Quaintance, looking out on the enlivening scene for the first time after long, weary years of exile, con- scious that nowhere in all his wanderings had he found outlook so thoroughly to his liking, paused in the pil- lared porch of the Fifth Avenue Hotel to drink it in at his leisure and in more detail. The dry, rustling leaves were letting long shafts of light through or cast dancing shadows across the trim, verdant turf close bordered by low benches all black with the flotsam of the busy city. The paved walks, patterned in arabesque upon the green, rang with the cries of children at their play. The pulsing fountain in their midst threw up with rhythmic regularity a sparkling silver column, which broke, and fell back, like liquid diamonds. The air was like new wine. 14 A MILLION A MINUTE A gentle breeze was tempering to genial warmth the sunshine streaming from an azure sky studded with cool, pure clouds which hung there motionless. The many-colored unequal buildings, cupola, tower, or square, flat roof, which rise or squat with such be- wildering effect against the blue, had all been scrubbed clean by the recent rain. The white bulk of the Flat- iron loomed loftily above its lesser neighbors, one shoulder turned contemptuously towards its infinitely loftier successor in the race to reach the clouds. About its base the traffic surged in swirling eddies, splitting to right and left along the canons of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, spreading to east and west across the city, or rolling in a widening wave upon the Square, according to the dictates of the autocrats in uniform responsible for its direction. As these waved white-gloved hands, blew whistles, brandished flags, the surface cars clanked through the maelstrom with gongs clanging, motors and cabs and carriages accu- mulated in deep ranks or spurted on their way, while anxious-eyed pedestrains risked life and limb amongst them, progressed from point to point by reckless rushes. At the Bartholdi corner newsboys were shouting ex- tras, ami a big observation car, crowded with sight- seers, was in the act of starting, its cicerone, armed with a raucous megaphone, pleading for still more pas- sengers. The hoarse honk-honk of motor horns blended with the shrill bells of swift electric coupes. The cease- less hum of human voices was like a vast hive of rest- less bees. The tin-pan tinkle of a street piano, attempting "Dixie" came thinly through the tramp of feet innum- A MILLION A MINUTE 5 erable from the near kerb. The watcher's heart warmed to the old-time melody, and the deep breath he drew was one of such contentment as he had been stranger to for long. He could still count the days which had elapsed since his release from the stark, deathlike silences and gloom of that grey jungleland wherein all he had been lay buried. That which he had borne there, in solitude, had bred in him a hungry, vehement desire to mix again among his fellowmen, to see and hear and feel for himself that the world was not all one forlorn, sun- sick waste of swamp and mangrove. Only an hour ago he had stepped ashore from an African steamer, and even on the voyage across he had not, somehow, managed to shake off the consciousness of isolation from his kind. The sea had seemed almost as empty and! mysterious as the dark land he had left behind him. But now, at last, he could realize that the past had been but a dreary nightmare, out of which he had awakened to a new day, among his home-folk, sane, safe, and sound. And the sense of close com- panionship with the brisk, bustling throng about him, the quick staccato of their curtailed speech, the evi- dence on all hands that he was once more but an un- considered unit among the millions, were beyond words comforting to him. He smiled to think of the dark fears which had op- pressed him, and, stepping down into the street, turned slowly northward. "The Night and Day Bank will probably serve my turn," he opined, and laid a hand on one waistcoat- pocket to ascertain that its contents were still secure. "No, I don't want a cab, confound you ! I'm going 6 A MILLION A MINUTE to walk. I want to rub shoulders with other people : I want them to jostle me, just to make sure that this isn't all make-believe. It seems almost too good to be true. And it's such ages since I've set foot on a street that I've got to find out again what it's like to travel along a sidewalk. I've all sorts of things to see, too/'' He waved away the prowling hansom whose driver had hailed him, and sauntered up Fifth Avenue, in a most complaisant humor. Many changes had taken place along that fashion- able thoroughfare during his sojourn in strange lands. He was amazed to see the inroads made by business in- terests on what had formerly been the best residential section of the city, and halted every now and then at some remembered site, of altered aspect. He felt much like a Rip Van Winkle there, and, as it happened, that did not displease him. It suited his intentions perfectly that those who glanced his way should set him down a stranger in the great metropolis. He was above all things desirous to go about his own business unrecog- nized, and since no one but himself knew that he was still alive, had no ambition of undeceiving the ignorant. At thought of his absolute independence he smiled again, and so openly that two or three of the passersby turned to look back at him over their shoulders. Stephen Quaintance was good to look at, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, well set up, of easy car- riage. His regular, clean-cut features bore the in- definable stamp of birth and breeding, despite the dark tan which proclaimed that he had been roughing it, the all too prominent cheek bones which told their own tale of scanty supplies. An unassuming assumption of quiet self-confidence sat well upon him. Women A MILLION A MINUTE 7 as well as men would have trusted themselves implicitly to the safe-keeping of an intangible something in his direct and level regard. Thin as he was, he filled to perfection his well cut suit of blue serge, and lost nothing by contrast with the sleek, pale-faced, clubmen, out in force at that hour, to air extravagant fashions on their daily promenade. That he was not of the elect may easily be deduced from the fact that he was still wearing a straw hat, but, none the less, he caught the eyes of more than one fair maiden cast careless-curiously in his direction as he strolled slowly uptown: and put his unusual concious- ness of that down to the fact that it was overlong since he had seen so many well groomed and good-looking girls all at the same time. He was, as aforesaid, of a sufficiently modest if not exactly diffident nature. Had he been told that his own steadfast eyes, slightly melancholy, and, to all outward seeming, somewhat indifferent, were yet of the most magnetic, that he was of a personality too distinctive to escape altogether such flattering attentions as these, he would have laughed amusedly and thought his inform- ant a fool. His lines had fallen chiefly in places where a man's eyes attract no particular notice except when in close connection with the sights of a loaded gun, where a nimble trigger-finger is of far greater account than appearance. So while each pretty face he passed met with his warmest approval, its interest was im- personal and mingled with many others. In his sight they were collective, and not individual. No one of them had the power to hasten his heart's beat by so much as a single throb. He was, notwithstanding, sufficiently grateful to 8 A MILLION A MINUTE such of them as favored him with their shy regard. It did him no harm and a great deal of good to feel that he might still pass muster among the bejewelled and gilded youths lifting their glossy hats so assiduously as carriage succeeded carriage in the apparently end- less procession on the long hill. It even awoke in his mind, among other and equally vagrant ideas, some vague, half-humorous speculation as to whether he should not himself, one of these days, open a new ac- count with fate, and, drawing on that, start out in quest of his own ideal. He was free to do so. He might perhaps find among all those beauties in silks and laces the living embodi- ment of that dear dream-maiden who still stood to him for abstract type of her sex. Quaintance was no idle sentimentalist, but, like most men who have led lonely lives, he had, at his leisure, fashioned for himself an idol of that sort, and much more angelic than human. Like not a few lonely men he had yet to pay the purchase price of experience. It would go the harder with him, then, if fate should or- dain that his idol, embodied, lack wings. But, fate and Fifth Avenue! What combination could be more incongruous? And what had he, a hard- ened adventurer, to do with these dainty, delicate damsels, whose happy lives had been such an obvious contrast to his. Fate and Fifth Avenue ! He had almost laughed aloud, so laughable did the conjunction appear to him. And, when he turned at the top of the hill to look back, the long, crowded vista there so delighted him that he straightway forgot all else. It seemed as though he could never descry enough of that crowded city. When A MILLION A MINUTE 9 he once more faced about it was almost reluctantly, and five minutes later he came within sight of the bank. A cross-town car had fouled a laden wagon at Forty-second street, and the smooth stream of traffic thus interrupted, its backwash was already blocking the avenue. In front of the Night and Day Bank a choked congestion of foot-passengers was shuffling im- patiently, fretted by the sudden sense of restraint thus imposed upon them. Quaintance suffered the closer contact of his near neighbors with unruffled equanim- ity, and was pushed aside, uncomplaining, by those in more haste than himself. Progressing impatiently, step by step, he had almost reached his objective when the blockade broke and the stream flowed on again, urgent, impetuous, with added weight. Edging through it toward the bank, his er- rant glance was arrested and held, for a moment, by a face which had come through the doorway, and passed him at speed, to be swallowed up instan- taneously in the dense, moving mass of humanity on the broad sidewalk. "The deuce!" said Quaintance, and stopped short, struggling to hold his own there against the oncome of others. "The deuce !" said he, and turned, as speedily as he might in the press, prodigiously anxious to find out which way she had gone. But he could by no means discover again the girl who, save but for the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes, was outwardly even as he had imagined his ideal of girlhood. He hung on one heel indeterminately, and underwent then all the jostling he could have desired. But he was as indifferent to that as to the objurgations of other io A MILLION A MINUTE pedestrians who had made up their own minds where they wanted to go. He could not immediately judge whether it would be better to go north, or south, in pursuit, was more than a little bewildered by the strange sensation which had so assailed him at sight of her. And, when he at length hurried first south, then north, all his late efforts proved futile. Fate, instant, insistent, had bided its time, shot its bolt, and gone back into hiding. He came to a halt at a cross street corner, and stared very vexedly up and down. He was no longer so well disposed toward his fellowmen, that multitude in whose midst he had lost all trace of the face which had come 'twixt himself and his careless content with circumstances. The next who pushed past him was strongly repelled, and after an irate glance of appraisal, went his way more carefully, muttering. "The deuce!" said Quaintance for the third time, a faint smile effacing the frown on his forehead as he saw the other look back loweringly. "I seem to be making myself unpopular. What in creation's come over me ?" But no one answered his inquiry. The brownstone fagade of the house before him met his gaze with blank, secretive indifference. On every side he was hemmed in by high walls, all equally impenetrable. The thought of the teeming city brought him now only a sense of oppression and loneliness, an under- standing that all about him, while he saw nothing, there were in progress those myriad mysteries which make up what men call life. He was overcome by a most dis- A MILLION A MINUTE n concerting certainty that he had somehow made a fool of himself. "Confound it !" he rapped out wrathfully, "I must be wrong in the head. I don't know how else I came to be here, chasing round after a strange girl like a stray Bedlam when I ought to be at the bank." He wheeled about and strode down the avenue very determinedly. It was surely absurd and impossible to allow any such fugitive glimpse of a face, no matter how fair, to interfere with his own hard-won peace of mind. He resolutely strove to erase its blurred outline from his memory, to dismiss from his mind all recollec- tion of its misty, sea-sweet eyes. He was no gallant adventurer among women The girl could be nothing to him And, although he lingered a little as he passed the spot from which he had seen her, when he at last en- tered the Night and Day Bank, it was with his old- good-humored, leisurely air of detachment from diffi- culty. As far as his outward appearance went he had not a care in the world. The process of opening an account there was not un- duly lengthy or complicated. He had neither introduc- tion nor references, but he had, what was probably more to the point, negotiable sight drafts for a very satisfac- tory sum. The Night and Day Bank asked him two or three pertinent questions, and undertook to collect that for him, which done he would be welcome to call for a check-book at his convenience. It also requested that he record his signature in its registers for future reference. He did so, subscribing himself in a bold hand, "A. Newman," endorsed the drafts, in the same name, and, 12 A MILLION A MINUTE having laid down the pen, produced from a waistcoat- pocket a small chamois-leather case. "I'd like to leave this with you too," he said care- lessly to the banker, who raised his eyebrows in quick surprise when he saw what the case contained. "My dear Mr. Newman!" he protested gravely. "You surely don't realize the risk you run in carrying such valuables loose in your pockets. The least skilful thief on Fifth Avenue might easily have relieved you of them and you no doubt came through the crowd with your coat wide open? It's very evident that you're a newcomer in New York !" His client smiled pleasantly. "I've carried them loose in my pockets for over a year," he asserted, "and in much more dangerous places than Fifth Avenue. But the main point is that they're safely here, and here I want them to stay if you'll keep them for me. There are only two, and I'll take your receipt for a stated value of forty thousand apiece, if you're agreeable." "They're worth more than that, of course," said the banker, examining with critical acumen the lambent, rose-colored stones which Quaintance had pushed across to him, and their owner nodded. "Yes, a good deal more," he agreed easily. "We'll put them in safe deposit for you, Mr. New- man," suggested the man of money, and so it was set- tled. The two rose-diamonds were thus securely be- stowed, and Mr. "Newman," having pocketed the key to their situation, and promised to look in again at an early date, departed, on the best of terms with the Night and Day Bank and himself. It was no slight relief to be rid of the care of his assets in life, and, for A MILLION A MINUTE 13 all his nonchalance, the safeguarding of these had cost him some anxious moments since he had acquired them. He was also pleased that the name he had given had passed unchallenged, and the facility with which it had been accepted encouraged him to believe that his old identity was by so much the more safely interred with the past. "So, let's see," he said very cheerfully to himself as he left the highly respectable institution which would presently be in a position to vouch for his new one, "Let's see about something to eat and drink, some- where not too dull. I want to wash the taste of frozen ship's-food out of my mouth, and my first meal ashore might as well be an eatable one. " 'Mr. Newman's' health in a bottle of sparkling Bur- gundy, at some cool spot on the seashore of Bohemia, would just about fill the bill. And we'll reach that part of the world along the Rialto, if I haven't lost all sense of locality. This crowd's too correct to amuse me to- night " He thought once more and for the last time, as he boarded a Forty-second street car, of the girl with the troubled eyes he had seen on Fifth Avenue. "I wish she had just looked round," he concluded re- gretfully, and dropped off at the corner of Broadway. "But it's too late now to mourn over that mischance. Fate and Fifth Avenue have been too much for me after all. I don't believe I'd know her again if I saw her." He laughed inwardly. " 'Romance is dead/ " said he to himself. "What an ass I am !" Broadway was no less busy than Fifth Avenue, and 14 A MILLION A MINUTE Quaintance, once more in the mood to enjoy its kaleid- oscopic variety, strolled down the Street of Illusions, regarding its denizens and their doings with admiration unfailing. He brushed shoulders with blue-shaven actors and smart soubrettes, inhaled an atmosphere of patchouli and cheap cigarettes, was well content to mix with the mob, to yield precedence to those with less time to spare than himself. The spectacle of the rush hour at Herald Square afforded him great gratification. He took a grave interest in all the up-to-date window dis- plays he passed. Sometimes he thought of purchasing, for the sake of a new sensation, but wisely refrained. As dusk began to come down, and the blaze that is Broadway's boast was deftly switched on, he called to mind many nights he had spent in Africa without so much as a fire for light and company, and the present contrast was by so much the more acceptable. He jingled his loose change joyously and was glad of the glare. He caught sight of a well-known actress in her coupe, and she caught sight of him simultaneously. He saw her lips part in a faint half-smile as she dropped her eyes, and at the same moment a flashily-dressed indi- vidual descended upon him from the steps of a hotel much frequented by sportsmen of a certain calibre. "Hello, Cap!" began that ill-advised follower of the chase, accommodating his steps to Quaintance's, "I'm a stranger in town like yourself, and Quaintance stopped. So did the stranger. Their glances crossed, and it was the confidence man's that shifted uneasily. He drew back with a premonition of evil impending as his proposed victim spoke. A MILLION A MINUTE 15 "You're a stranger in town, are you?" Quaintance retorted softly. "Then take my advice and get back to where you belong before anything unpleasant happens to you." He waited to see that this prescription was faithfully followed, and, after the other had slunk away without so much as a muttered curse, pursued his own path, his features composed to a more decorous gravity. He had gathered that his expression must have been rather too radiant for that observant locality. And the policeman who had observed trTe incident from his post at the corner nodded to himself as he re- marked, sotto voce, "He's wise to be a walkin' danger-sign, for all his glad looks. Slim Jake got his dose straight, an' swal- lowed it too, like a lamb. Them mild-mannered-lookin' guys ain't always the safest to tackle, I've noticed, an' Jake has more luck as a rule when it comes to a bad man from Oshkosh, a reg'lar fire-eater achin' to shoot up the town." With which professional application of the old axiom that still waters run deep he passed on to other inter- ests, while the object of his encomium turned into a neighboring cafe. The opulent bar-keeper there was obliging enough to mix him a dry Manhattan, and he found the flavor of that quite equal to his long cherished anticipation. But the appointments of the place were not to his taste of the moment, and he did not stay there to dine as he had half intended. There was too much marble and brass about it, he thought, an air of garish prosperity too pronounced for the real purlieus of Bohemia. He lighted a cigarette, and always drifting down-town, 16 A MILLION A MINUTE turned into a barber's : not so much for the sake of the shave, which he did not need, as to rid himself of the outwardly dusty sensation induced by his pilgrimage. To the easy conversationalist who attended him there he outlined his theory as to dinner, and asked advice. He was possessed of a little devil of lazy irre- sponsibility, was disinclined to think for himself. And the man proved equal to the occasion. He did not con- fuse his client with any choice. "You can't do better than dip into Martin's," he said without undue deliberation, and Quaintance at once decided to do so. The whole of New York was at his disposal, but he would most certainly dip into Martin's since it had been thus ordained that he should. The very expression appealed to him. It savored of the lucky-bag life had lately become. He rose, refreshed, and, having rewarded his counsellor with a liberal tip, went on toward Martin's. He only stopped by the way to buy a flower for his buttonhole, again to have his cigar-case refilled, and a third time to purchase an evening paper for which he paid its crippled and ragged vendor a dollar. But he had both time and money to spare. The past was dead, well buried, and all but forgotten. The fu- ture, the roseate future, was his to do what he would with. He had opened a new account with fate, could draw on that at his own discretion. "And now I'll dip into Martin's," said he, with a nod to the deferential doorman. CHAPTER II MADEMOISELLE CREATES A SENSATION AT MARTIN'S It was not yet seven o'clock, but Martin's was full, full to overflowing. The vestibule was crowded and every interior corner seemed to be occupied. There were even people waiting without, apparently in the hope that some early departure might make accommo- dation for them. Quaintance threaded his way through the outer throng, disposed of his coat and hat to a busy boy, and was looking casually round the brilliantly lighted rooms in search of a seat when a brisk attendant bustled up to suggest that there might still perhaps be room for one more upstairs. "I don't want to dine upstairs," he returned affably, drawing the man out of earshot of his near neighbors. "I want you to set me a place down here a small, round table for two and no more, up against the wall. And you'll see that no one takes the second seat except by my invitation." The man looked at him, a little doubtfully, since he could not recognize as one entitled to any such extra consideration this masterful stranger who issued orders on the apparent assumption that they would at once be complied with. But certain coins were already clinking pleasantly in his palm. The stranger's eyes had grown ominous over his hesitation. He became 17 18 A MILLION A MINUTE imbued with an earnest desire to carry these orders out, with the gratifying result that his unknown patron almost immediately found himself settled as he had de- sired, while a hungry gathering in the doorway re- garded him with wrathful astonishment. Quaintance once more bade him safeguard the spare chair from thoughtless intruders, and, having escaped the tedium of picking and choosing from the bill of fare by the simple expedient of giving him carte blanche for the best dinner Martin's could pro- vide, unfolded his paper. "Tell the chef it's quality I want, not quantity," he re- quested, and glanced idly through the headlines while the now obsequious waiter went off in haste to execute his commission. But he found in the pink sheet no news of particular interest to him, and laid it aside again in favor of an unobtrusive survey of the assemblage about him. It seemed that Martin's clientele consisted chiefly of such as find savor in life and do not disdain to express their enjoyment thereof. There was no restraint or stiffness about their actions, no rigid etiquette save that of everyday use and acceptance. They had come thither to dine at their ease and make merry. They did so. There were actors and artists, musicians and authors, among them: idlers and business men, representatives of the professions, fortunate race-track followers: a mixed and cosmopolitan gathering, all outwardly gay dogs and good fellows. The womenfolk they had with them were almost without exception young, and, to be trite, good looking. The hum of their cheerful intercourse, punctuated by A MILLION A MINUTE 19 the popping of corks, the clink of ice in fragile glass- ware, the subdued clatter of crockery, the obligate of knives and forks, filled every corner of the cool rooms. The echoes of men's mirth and women's light laughter blended with these in a harmonious whole, the keynote to which all moods were attuned. Quaintance was well satisfied with his surroundings. He saw that he had come out on the seashore of Upper Bohemia, that fashionable resort where it is always sun- shine and summer, where night is even as day. He felt glad that the friendly barber had diagnosed his de- sires so felicitously. And, when soup was brought, he bethought himself of his Burgundy. He held a brief consultation with the willing waiter, who hurried and came back bearing carefully a long 1 basket in which rested a cob-webbed bottle. Two glasses were set, one by the empty chair, and into that at his elbow trickled a ruby liquor, the very life-blood of grapes grown in the far Cote d'Or. He lifted it meditatively. "Your good health, Newman," said he to himself, his face expressionless. "Here's luck to you, my young friend. I hope you and I'll get on together. "Good-bye, old Quaintance. You've done for yourself. You always were a quixotic fool, and I've no more use for you. I hope I'll never hear of you again." Then he sat back with a care-free, whimsical smile, a new man by virtue of his sel-f-baptism, idly observ- ant, in vein for any adventure. "I don't think, on the whole, though, that I'd bring my maiden aunt here if I had one," he soliloquized, frowning in sympathy with a fair dame whose escort 20 A MILLION A MINUTE had usurped a waiter's function and was in trouble with the wire of a quart-bottle of champagne. "It's more of a place for the kind that have cut their eye-teeth like you and I, eh, Newman ? The seashore of Bohemia, where people bathe in Perrier-Jouet, is only safe for the sophisticated. Look at that scoundrel ! He's ruined her outfit." Such was indeed the case. Cork and champagne had come forth simultaneously, drenching the luckless couple opposite. The man flushed scarlet at the overt laughter which greeted the ludicrous upshot of his foolish effort, but his unfortunate partner made shift to smile bravely across at him as she shook her head. Her thin gown was soaked through, and nothing would serve to efface the results of the deluge she had undergone. She whispered something to him, and quietly withdrew. He called for his check, and followed her, somewhat shamefacedly. Quaintance looked elsewhere as each in turn went past him toward the door, and, when he glanced that way again, subconsciously aware of some sensation in the atmosphere, saw that the vacant table was once more occupied. The spoon he was lifting to his lips stayed suspended in mid-air while he also stared at the two who had just sat down Outside, on Fifth Avenue, a hansom went whirling past the scintillant windows with very audible clatter and jingle. A surface-car came thundering up Broad- way and stopped at Twenty-sixth street with a great grinding of brakes, its noisome progress accentuating the instant of hush within. A waiter came bustling into the room, breathless, A MILLION A MINUTE 21 important, dish-laden, and its effervescent gaiety began to froth and bubble again, the spell which had caused its brief suspension thus speedily broken. Quaintance set down his spoon, and scowled in ab- ject disgust with himself. He had surely, he thought, come back to civilization a boor as well as a fool that he should behave so. Beneath his breath he banned the over-attentive waiter, now at his elbow, and, having helped himself to the proffered food, sat trifling with it till he deemed it safe to adventure a second recon- naissance of the newcomers. One of them was a man, but his back was toward Quaintance, who, none the less, knew instinctively that he was not a likeable fellow. He was short, thick-set, close-cropped after the French fashion: well-clothed yet ill-dressed : over-ornamented, from the frogged and fur-lined coat he had cast aside to the stubby, plebeian white ringers so carefully poised from the elbow to show off far too many rings. The other, a girl, was seated opposite Quaintance and facing him from across the room. Her glance had met his, although for no more than the merest fraction of a single second, as she had sunk into her chair, and within that infinitesimal space of time he had recog- nized her again. She had flushed shrinkingly as the long lashes had dropped to curtain her dark, troubled eyes, the same sweet eyes he had looked into on the steps of the Night and Day Bank. He swore at himself a second time for a fool and a boor because it might have been his over-curious stare which had occasioned her discomfiture. The fact that most of his neighbors were still, either furtive or frankly, admiring the fair cause of his self-condemna- '22 A MILLION A MINUTE tion was no excuse for his own misconduct, and not until everyone seemed to have satisfied his or her some- what inquisitive interest in the outwardly incompatible pair did he once more look up from his plate. He too had been trying to think what such a girl as that could have in common with such a one as he of the fur and frogs. She was dressed in a suit so perfectly tailored that even a man could tell it had come from Paris. Her hat was equally simple and costly. She had divested herself of a grey squirrel coat, a pair of grey motor- gauntlets. The hands she had folded upon the table before her were bare of rings, and she wore no other jewelry except a pin in the scarf at her throat. She was assuredly not of the soi-disant smart set. The studied plainness of her apparel was somehow dis- tinctive in Martin's, and, in conjunction with her most daintily moulded, shapely proportions, her fair face crowned with a close-prisoned wealth of resplendent hair, had won her the quick attention of that little world. Quaintance could by no means conceive what she was doing there. That she was ill at ease and in unaccustomed sur- roundings was self-evident. But her set lips bespoke the resolve to endure, and she made no demur when the man with her roughly bade their waiter fill her glass, after she had refused the wine offered her. She even sipped a drop or two in proof of complaisance, and listened uncomplainingly to the low, grumbling mono- logue the other kept up throughout their meal. Quaint- ance longed for the faintest shadow of any pretext to take him outside and break his neck for him, but was denied all such pleasant opportunity. Which served A MILLION A MINUTE 23 him as excuse for solacing himself with still more fre- quent glances at the girl. Quaintance was no gallant adventurer with women. In the beginning he had been disquieted by the strange interest this one had aroused in him, had sought to stifle it still-born. But now Regarding her again, unseen, from under level eye- brows, no less perturbed, dimly cognizant of some crisis, he was demanding of himself where and how he might see more of her. It would go hard with him if he could not accomplish that, but he was not lacking in self-confidence. Un- der his outwardly listless, indifferent manner he was most purposeful, always alert and resolute when the time came to clear for action. But he soon gave himself up, for the present, to a satisfied approval of fate's ordinance, that fate at which he had so lately laughed in light disdain, a fate fair- faced, sweet-scented, rustlingly arrayed in silk beneath her well-fitting suit. She had not looked his way again, but he could wait. She wore no rings. His own meal at an end, he ordered coffee, a special brew to be made according to methods imparted to him by a merchant from Mocha whom he had met on his travels, and while that was being prepared at Mar- tin's one may order a roc's egg, if one cares to pay for it lit a Havana. Through its thin blue curtain of smoke he could scan his enchantress more closely, safe in the knowledge that she was keeping her own eyes under the closest control. He was, therefore, in no small degree disconcerted when she quietly raised them, and thus became aware 24 A MILLION A MINUTE of his inexcusable scrutiny. He reddened, furious with himself, and puffed a cloud under cover of which he shifted his glance to the furthest extremity of the room. That involved him anew in misfortune, for, when he hazarded a fresh offence, it was only to find her com- panion upon the point of departure, while he was still waiting his coffee, and had his check to settle. His waiter was also most annoyingly absent. They rose and turned from their table, which was at once pounced upon and carried away along with their chairs to be added to the accommodation prepar- ing for a large party of late arrivals. Their waiter came running up with their check, and with him the man, somewhat flushed with wine, became involved in some petty dispute which shortly, however, assumed proportions so serious that the manager was hurriedly sent for. The girl and he stood there waiting, while the other diners regarded them curiously. " Attendcz-moi i^i," he said to her suddenly, in harsh French. "Don't dare to move till I come back," and set off, rather unsteadily, in the wake of the waiter. She stood where she was, quite still, cynosure of not a few disparaging feminine glances, till Quaintance sprang to his feet, white with anger against the man, against his own absent waiter, against himself. He turned toward her the empty chair set on two legs against his table, and, bowing, begged that she would avail herself of it. She bent her head in return, but without a word, and sat down, one shoulder toward him as he reseated himself. Her perfect profile expressed no undue embarrass- ment. Her sweet lips were still set and steady, the long lashes shut in the trouble her eyes might otherwise AND BOWING, BEGGED THAT SHE WOULD AVAiL HERSELF OF IT Page 24 A MILLION A MINUTE 25 have betrayed. She had accepted his trifling service at what is was worth, and, although he was very ur- gently anxious to proffer such further efforts on her behalf as she might have use for, he found a not un- natural difficulty in broaching any other subject. She was a gentlewoman, no matter how anomalous the posi- tion in which she found herself, and he could not but feel that she would be amply justified in snubbing any advances on his part. While he hesitated, at loss for suitable speech, the Frenchman returned, trium- phant, his point gratuitously conceded in order to get rid of him. "Allans" he ordered abruptly, and she rose in strange obedience, bent her head still more slightly to Quaint- ance, and so departed in wake of her cavalier, who had been favoring him with a furtive, suspicious scowl. Quaintance had only refrained for her sake from call- ing him to account for that, as he would dearly have liked to do, and, swallowing his chagrin under the ne- cessity for immediate action otherwise, made Martin's ring with demands for his waiter, who presently ambled toward him in pained astonishment to announce that the coffee was not quite ready. "The deuce with the coffee and you too!" com- mented his irate customer. "Make out my check quick ! Take it out of this, and bring me the change. Yes, it's a hundred dollars. Hump yourself, now, or you'll have me miss my train." The puzzled waiter tried to run three ways at once, and failed dismally in all directions. Quaintance was loudly appealing for someone capable of finding his hat and coat, when from without resounded the honk of a motor-horn, a hoarse cry as of rage, and a long- 26 A MILLION A MINUTE drawn howl followed by a volley of fierce execrations in French. In frantic haste to find out what had hap- pened he made for the Broadway exit, sure that it had been the fat Frenchman's voice he had heard. From its porch he caught sight of that individual, hatless, dust-streaked, striking foolish, hysterical at- titudes in the street, shaking his fist fiercely after a small motor-car which was progressing uptown at