第28章

Larry looked about him. He took in but a few details, but he knew enough about the better fittings of life to realize that he was in the presence of both money and the best of taste. He noted the log fire in the broad fireplace, comfortable chairs, the imported rugs on the gleaming floor, the shelves of books which climbed to the ceiling, a quaint writing-desk in one corner which seemed to belong to another country and another century, but which was perfectly at home in this room.

On the desk he saw standing a leather-framed photograph which seemed familiar. He crossed and picked it up. Indeed it was familiar! It was a photograph of Hunt: of Hunt, not in the shabby, shapeless garments he wore down at the Duchess's, but Hunt accoutered as might be a man accustomed to such a room as this--though in this picture there was the same strong chin, the same belligerent good-natured eyes.

Now how and where did that impecunious, rough-neck painter fit into--But the dazed question Larry was asking was interrupted by a voice from the door--the thick voice of a man:

"Who the hell 'r' you?"

Larry whirled about. In the doorway stood a tall, bellicose young gentleman of perhaps twenty-four or five, in evening dress, flushed of face, holding unsteadily to the door-jamb.

"I beg your pardon," said Larry.

"'N' what the hell you doin' here?" continued the belligerent young gentleman.

"I'd be obliged to you if you could tell me," said Larry.

"Tryin' to stall, 'r' you," declared the young gentleman with a scowling profundity. "No go. Got to come out your corner 'n' fight.

'N' I'm goin' lick you."

The young man crossed unsteadily to Larry and took a fighting pose.

"Put 'em up!" he ordered.

This was certainly a night of strange adventure, thought Larry. His wild escape--his coming to this unknown place--and now this befuddled young fellow intent upon battle with him.

"Let's fight to-morrow," Larry suggested soothingly.

"Put 'em up!" ordered the other. "If you don't know what you're doin' here, I'll show you what you're doin' here!"

But he was not to show Larry, for while he was uttering his last words, trying to steady himself in a crouch for the delivery of a blow, a voice sounded sharply from the doorway--a woman's voice:

"Dick!"

The young man slowly turned. But Larry had seen her first. He had no chance to take her in, that first moment, beyond noting that she was slender and young and exquisitely gowned, for she swept straight across to them.

"Dick, you're drunk again!" she exclaimed.

"Wrong, sis," he corrected in an injured tone. "It's same drunk."

"Dick, you go to bed!"

"Now, sis--"

"You go to bed!"

The young man wavered before her commanding gaze. "Jus's you say--jus's you say," he mumbled, and went unsteadily toward the door.

The young woman watched him out, and then turned her troubled face back to Larry. "I'm sorry Dick behaved to you as he did."

And then before Larry could make answer, her clouded look was gone.

"So you're here at last, Mr. Brainard." She held her hand out, smiling a smile that by some magic seemed to envelop him within an immediate friendship.

"I'm Miss Sherwood." He noted that the slender, tapering hand had almost a man's strength of grip. "You needn't tell me anything about yourself," she added, "for I already know a lot--all I need to know: about you--and about Maggie Carlisle. You see an hour ago a messenger brought me a long letter he'd written about you." And she nodded to the photograph Larry was still holding.

"You--you know him?" Larry stammered.

She answered with a whimsical smile: "Yes. Isn't he a grand, foolish old dear? He's such a roistering, bragging personage that I've named him Benvenuto Cellini--though he's neither liar nor thief. He must have told you what I called him."

So that explained this password of "Benvenuto Cellini"! "No, he didn't explain anything. There was no time."

"I don't know where he is," she continued; "please don't tell me. I don't want to know until he wants me to know."

Larry had been making a swift appraisal of her. She was perhaps thirty, fair, with golden-brown hair held in place by a large comb of wrought gold, with violet-blue eyes, wearing a low-cut gown of violet chiffon velvet and dull gold shoes. Larry's instinct told him that here was a patrician, a thoroughbred: with poise, with a knowledge of the world, with whimsical humor, with a kindly understanding of people, with steel in her, and with a smiling readiness for almost any situation.

"I think no one will find you--at least for the present," her pleasantly modulated voice continued. "There are so many things I want to talk over with you. Perhaps I can help about Maggie. I hope you don't mind my talking about her." Larry could not imagine any one taking offense at anything this brilliant apparition might possibly say. "But we'll put off our talk until to-morrow. It's late, and you're wet and cold, and besides, my aunt is having one of her bad spells and thinks she needs me. Judkins will see to you. Good-night."

"Good-night," said Larry.

She moved gracefully out--almost floated, Larry would have said. The next moment the man was with him who had been his escort here, and led Larry into a spacious bedroom with bath attached. Ten minutes later Judkins made his exit, carrying Larry's outer clothes; and another ten minutes later, after a hot bath, and garbed in silk pajamas which Judkins had produced, Larry was in the softest and freshest bed that had ever held him.

But sleep did not come to Larry for a long time. He lay wondering about this golden-haired, poiseful Miss Sherwood. She was undoubtedly the woman in the back of Hunt's life. And he wondered about Hunt--who he really was--what had really driven him into this strange exile. And he wondered about Maggie--what she might be doing--what from this strange new vantage-point he might do for her and with her. And he wondered how his own complex situation was going to work itself out.

And still wondering, Larry at length fell asleep.