Charley descended to get it--an unnecessary act,prompted,I suppose,by the sudden relief of finding that it was not lost.
He made his thanks marked."It is my sister's,"he concluded,to me,by way of explanation,in his slightly foreign accent."It is not much,but it has got some stones and things in the handle."We were favored with a bow from the veiled Hortense,shrill thanks from Kitty,and the car,turning,again left us in a moment.
"You've got a Frenchman along,"I said.
"Little Gazza,"Beverly returned."Italian;though from his morals you'd never guess he wasn't Parisian.Great people in Rome.Hereditary right to do something in the presence of the Pope--or not to do it,I forget which.Not a bit of a bad little sort,Gazza.He has just sold a lot of old furniture--Renaissance--Lorenzo du Borgia--that sort of jolly old truck--to Bohm,you know.
I didn't know.
"Oh,yes,you do,old boy.Harry Bohm,of Bohm &Cohn.Everybody knows Bohm,and we'll all be knowing Cohn by next year.Gazza has sold him a lot of furniture,too.Bohm's from Pittsfield,or South Lee,or East Canaan,or West Stockbridge,or some of those other back-country cider presses that squirt some of the hardest propositions into Wall Street.
He's just back from buying a railroad,and four or five mines in Mexico.
Bohm represents Christianity in the firm.At Newport they call him the military attache to Jerusalem.He's the big chap that sat behind me in the car.He'll marry Kitty as soon as she can get her divorce.Bohm's a jolly old sort--and I tell you,you old sourbelly,you're letting this Southern moss grow over you a bit.Hey?What?Yellow rich isn't half bad,and I'll say it myself,and pretend it's mine;but hang it,old man,their children won't be worse than lemon-colored,and the grandchildren will be white!""Just in time,"I exclaimed,"to take a back seat with their evaporated fortunes!"Beverly chuckled."Well,if they do evaporate,there will be new ones.
Now don't walk along making Mayflower eyes at me.I'm no Puritan,and my people have had a front seat since pretty early in the game,which I'm holding on to,you know.And by Jove,old man,I tell you,if you wish to hold on nowadays,you can't be drawing lines!If you don't want to see yourself jolly well replaced,you must fall in with the replacers.Our blooming old republic is merely the quickest process of endless replacing yet discovered,and you take my tip,and back the replacers!That's where Miss Rieppe,for all her Kings Port traditions,shows sense."I turned square on him."Then she has broken it?""Broken what?"
"Her engagement to John Mayrant.You mean to say that you didn't--?""See here,old man.Seriously.The fire-eater?"I was so very much bewildered that I merely stared at Beverly Rodgers.Of course,I might have known that Miss Rieppe would not feel the need of announcing to her rich Northern friends an engagement which she had fallen into the habit of postponing.
But Beverly had a better right to be taken aback."I suppose you must have some reason for your remark,"he said.
"You don't mean that you're engaged to her?"I shot out.
"Me?With my poor little fifteen thousand a year?Consider,dear boy!Oh,no,we're merely playing at it,she and I.She's a good player.But Charley--""He is?"I shouted.
"I don't know,old man,and I don't think he knows--yet.""Beverly,"said I,"let me tell you."And I told him.
After he had got himself adjusted to the novelty of it he began to take it with a series of thoughtful chuckles.
Into these I dropped with:"Where's her father,anyhow?"I began to feel,fantastically,that she mightn't have a father.
"He stopped in Savannah,"Beverly answered."He's coming over by the train.Kitty--Charley's sister,Mrs.Bleecker--did the chaperoning for us.
"Very expertly,I should guess,"I said.
"Perfectly;invisibly,"said Beverly.And he returned to his thoughts and his chuckles.
"After all,it's simple,"he presently remarked.
"Doesn't that depend on what she's here for?""Oh,to break it."
"Why come for that?"
He took another turn among his cogitations.I took a number of turns among my own,but it was merely walking round and round in a circle.
"When will she announce it,then?"he demanded.
"Ah!"I murmured."You said she was a good player.""But a fire-eater!"he resumed."For her.Oh,hang it!She'll let him go!""Then why hasn't she?"
He hesitated."Well,of course her game could be spoiled by--"His speech died away into more cogitation,and I had to ask him what he meant.
"By love getting into it somewhere."
We walked on through Worship Street,which we had reached some while since,and the chief features of which I mechanically pointed out to him.
"Jolly old church,that,"said Beverly,as we reached my favorite corner and brick wall."Well,I'll not announce it!"he murmured gallantly.
"My dear man,"I said,"Kings Port will do all the announcing for you to-morrow."
