be kind enough to let me see the little account book you are keeping for Mr. Bushmill?”
“I’d rather not,” answered Corcoran pleasantly. “I think that’s a matter between Mr. Bushmill and me.”
“It’s the same thing,” said Nosby impatiently. “Perhaps you are not aware that Miss Bushmill and I are engaged.”
“I had gathered as much.”
“Perhaps you can gather too that I am not particularly pleased at the sort of good time you chose to give her.”
“It was just an ordinary good time.”
“That is a matter of opinion. Will you give me the notebook?”
“Tomorrow,” said Corcoran, still pleasantly, “and only to Mr. Bushmill. Good-night.”
Corcoran slept late. He was awakened at eleven by the telephone, through which Nosby’s voice informed him coldly that Mr. Bushmill had arrived and would see him at once. When he rapped at his employer’s door ten minutes later, he found Hallie and her mother also were there, sitting rather sulkily on a sofa. Mr. Bushmill nodded at him coolly but made no motion to shake hands.
“Let’s see that account book,” he said immediately.
Corcoran handed it to him, together with a bulky packet of vouchers and receipts.
“I hear you’ve all been out raising hell,” said Bushmill.
“No,” said Hallie, “only Mama and me.”
“You wait outside, Corcoran. I’ll let you know when I want you.”
Corcoran descended to the lobby and found out from the porter that a train left for Paris at noon. Then he bought a “New York Herald” and stared at the headlines for half an hour. At the end of that time he was summoned upstairs.
Evidently a heated discussion had gone on in his absence. Mr. Nosby was staring out the window with a look of patient resignation. Mrs. Bushmill had been crying, and Hallie, with a triumphant frown on her childish brow, was making a camp stool out of her father’s knee.
“Sit down,” she said sternly.
Corcoran sat down.
“What do you mean by giving us such a good time?”
“Oh, drop it, Hallie!” said her father impatiently. He turned to Corcoran: “Did I give you any authority to lay out twelve thousand dollars in six weeks? Did I?”
“You’re going to Italy with us,” interrupted Hallie reassuringly. “We—”
“Will you be quiet?” exploded Bushmill. “It may be funny to you, but I don’t like to make bad bets, and I’m pretty sore.”
“What nonsense!” remarked Hallie cheerfully. “Why, you were laughing a minute ago!”
“Laughing! You mean at that idiotic account book? Who wouldn’t laugh? Four titles at five hundred francs a head! One baptismal font to American Church for presence of clergyman at tea. It’s like the log book of a lunatic asylum!”
“Never mind,” said Hallie. “You can charge the baptismal font off your income tax.”
“That’s consoling,” said her father grimly. “Nevertheless, this young man will spend no more of my money for me.”
“But he’s still a wonderful guide. He knows everything—don’t you? All about the monuments and catacombs and the Battle of Waterloo.”
“Will you please let me talk to Mr. Corcoran?” Hallie was silent. “Mrs. Bushmill and my daughter and Mr. Nosby are going to take a trip through Italy as far as Sicily, where Mr. Nosby has some business, and they want you—that is, Hallie and her mother think they would get more out of it if you went along. Understand—it isn’t going to be any royal fandango this time. You’ll get your salary and your expenses and that’s all you’ll get. Do you want to go?”
“No, thanks, Mr. Bushmill,” said Corcoran quietly. “I’m going back to Paris at noon.”
“You’re not!” cried Hallie indignantly. “Why—why how am I going to know which is the Forum and the—the Acropolis and all that?” She rose from her father’s knee. “Look here, Daddy, I can persuade him.” Before they guessed her intentions she had seized Corcoran’s arm, dragged him into the hall and closed the door behind her.
“You’ve got to come,” she said intensely. “Don’t you understand? I’ve seen Claude in a new light and I can’t marry him and I don’t dare tell Father, and I’ll go mad if we have to go off with him alone.”
The door opened and Mr. Nosby peered suspiciously out into the hall.
“It’s all right,” cried Hallie. “He’ll come. It was just a question of more salary and he was too shy to say anything about it.”
As they went back in Bushmill looked from one to the other.
“Why do you think you ought to get more salary?”
“So he can spend it, of course,” explained Hallie triumphantly. “He’s got to keep his hand in, hasn’t he?”
This unanswerable argument closed the discussion. Corcoran was to go to Italy with them as courier and guide at three hundred and fifty dollars a month, an advance of some fifty dollars over what he had received before. From Sicily they were to proceed by boat to Marseilles, where Mr. Bushmill would meet them. After that Mr. Corcoran’s services would be no longer required—the Bushmills and Mr. Nosby would sail immediately for home.
They left next morning. It was evident even before they reached Italy that Mr. Nosby had determined to run the expedition in his own way. He was aware that Hallie was less docile and less responsive than she had been before she came abroad, and when he spoke of the wedding a curious vagueness seemed to come over her, but he knew that she adored her father and that in the end she would do whatever her father liked. It was only a question of getting her back to America before any silly young men, such as this unbalanced spendthrift, had the opportunity of infecting her with any nonsense. Once in the factory town and in the little circle where she had grown up, she would slip gently back into the attitude she had held before.
So for the first four weeks of the tour he was never a foot from her side, and at the same time he managed to send Corcoran on a series of useless errands which occupied much of his time. He would get up early in the morning, arrange that Corcoran should take Mrs. Bushmill on a day’s excursion and say nothing to Hallie until they were safely away. For the opera in Milan, the concerts in Rome, he bought tickets for three, and on all automobile trips he made it plain to Corcoran that he was to sit with the chauffeur outside.
In Naples they were to stop for a day and take the boat trip to the Island of Capri in order to visit the celebrated Blue Grotto. Then, returning to Naples, they would motor south and cross to Sicily. In Naples Mr. Nosby received a telegram from Mr. Bushmill, in Paris, which he did not read to the others, but folded up and put into his pocket. He told them, however, that on their way to the Capri steamer he must stop for a moment at an Italian bank.
Mrs. Bushmill had not come along that morning, and Hallie and Corcoran waited outside in the cab. It was the first time in four weeks that they had been together without Mr. Nosby’s stiff, glossy presence hovering near.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” said Hallie in a low voice. “I’ve tried so many times, but it’s almost impossible. He got Father to say that if you molested me, or even were attentive to me, he could send you immediately home.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” answered Corcoran despairingly. “It was a terrible mistake. But I want to see you alone just once—if only to say good-bye.”
As Nosby hurried out of the bank, he broke off and bent his glance casually down the street, pretending to be absorbed in some interesting phenomenon that was taking place there. And suddenly, as if life were playing up to his subterfuge,