The Firing Line

"Answer Paid."

"Well, what the devil does it mean?" demanded Portlaw peevishly. "I can't spare you now. How can I? Here's Hamil all ready for you to take him about and show him what I want to have done—"

"I wonder what it means," mused Malcourt. "Maybe there's something wrong with the Tressilvain end of the family. The Shoshone Securities people manage her investments here—"

"The way to do is to wire and find out," grumbled Portlaw, leading the way to the luncheon table as a servant announced that function.

For it was certainly a function with Portlaw; all eating was more or less of a ceremony, and dinner rose to the dignity of a rite.

"I can't imagine what that telegram—"

"Forget it!" snapped Portlaw; "do you want to infect my luncheon? When a man lunches he ought to give his entire mind to it. Talk about your lost arts!—the art of eating scarcely survives at all. Find it again and you revive that other lost art of prandial conversation. Digestion's not possible without conversation. Hamil, you look at your claret in a funny way."

"I was admiring the colour where the sun strikes through," said the latter, amused.

"Oh! I thought you were remembering that claret is temporarily unfashionable. That's part of the degeneracy of the times. There never was and never will be any wine to equal it when it has the body of a Burgundy and the bouquet of wild-grape blossoms. Louis," cocking his heavy red face and considering a morsel of duck, "what is your opinion concerning the proper mélange for that plumcot salad dressing?"

"They say," said Malcourt gravely, "that when it's mixed, a current of electricity passed through it gives it a most astonishing flavour—"

"What!"

"So they say at the Stuyvesant Club."

Portlaw's eyes bulged; Hamil had to bend his head low over his plate, but Malcourt's bland impudence remained unperturbed.

"Good God!" muttered Portlaw; "Hamil, did you ever hear of passing electricity through a salad dressing composed of olive oil, astragon, Arequipa pepper, salt, Samara mustard, essence of anchovy, chives, distilled fresh mushrooms, truffles pickled in 1840 port—did you?"

"No," said Hamil, "I never did."

For a while silence settled upon the table while Portlaw struggled to digest mentally the gastronomic suggestion offered by Malcourt.

"I could send to town for a battery," he said hesitatingly; "or—there's my own electric plant—"

Malcourt yawned. There was not much fun in exploiting such a man. Besides, Hamil had turned uncomfortable, evidently considering it the worst of taste on Malcourt's part.

"What am I to do about that telegram?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.

Portlaw, immersed in sauce and the electrical problem, adjusted his mind with an effort to this other and less amusing question.

"Wire for particulars and sit tight," advised Portlaw. "We've just three now for 'Preference,' and if you go kiting off to town Hamil and I will be forced into double dummy, and that's a horrible mental strain on a man—isn't it, Hamil?"

"I could use the long-distance telephone," said Malcourt pensively.

"Well, for the love of Mike go and do it!" shouted Portlaw, "and let me try to enjoy this Andelys cheese."

So Malcourt sauntered out through the billiard-room, leaving an aromatic trail of cigarette smoke in his wake; and he closed all the intervening doors—why, he himself could not have explained.

He was absent a long time. Portlaw had terminated the table ceremony, and now, ensconced among a dozen fat cushions by the fire, a plump cigar burning fragrantly between his curiously clean-cut and sharply chiselled lips, he sat enthroned, majestically digesting; and his face of a Greek hero, marred by heavy flesh, had become almost somnolent in its expression of well-being and corporeal contentment.

"I don't know what I'd do without Louis," he said sleepily. "He keeps my men hustling, he answers for everything on the bally place, he's so infernally clever that he amuses me and my guests, he's on the job every minute. It would be devilishly unpleasant for me if I lost him.... And I'm always afraid of it.... There are usually a lot of receptive girls making large eyes at him.... My only safety is that they are so many—and so easy.... If Cardross hadn't signed that telegram I'd bet my bottes-sauvage it concerned some entanglement."

Hamil lay back in his chair and studied the forest through the leaded casement. Sometimes he thought of Portlaw's perverse determination to spoil the magnificent simplicity of the place with exotic effects lugged in by the ears; sometimes he wondered what Mr. Cardross could have to say to Malcourt—what matter of such urgent importance could possibly concern those two men.

And, thinking, he thought of Shiela—and of their last moments together; thought of her as he had left her, crouched there on her knees beside the bed, her face and head buried in her crossed arms.

Portlaw was nodding drowsily over his cigar; the April sunshine streamed into the room through every leaded pane, inlaying the floor with glowing diamonds; dogs barked from the distant kennels; cocks were crowing from the farm. Outside the window he saw how the lilac's dully varnished buds had swollen and where the prophecy of snow-drop and crocus under the buckthorn hedge might be fulfilled on the morrow. Already over the green-brown, soaking grass one or two pioneer grackle were walking busily about; and somewhere in a near tree the first robin chirked and chirped and fussed in its loud and familiar fashion, only partly pleased to find himself in the gray thaw of the scarcely comfortable North once more.

Portlaw looked up dully: "Those robins come up here and fatten on our fruit, and a fool law forbids us to shoot 'em. Robin pie," he added, "is not to be despised, but a sentimental legislature is the limit.... Sentiment always did bore me.... How do you feel after your luncheon?"

"All right," said Hamil, smiling. "I'd like to start out as soon as Malcourt comes back."

"Oh, don't begin that sort of thing the moment you get here!" protested Portlaw. "My heavens, man! there's no hurry. Can't you smoke a cigar and play a card or two—"

"You know I've other commissions—"

"Oh, of course; but I hoped you'd have time to take it easy. I've looked forward to having you here—so has Malcourt; he thinks you're about right, you know. And he makes damn few friends among men—"

The door opened and Malcourt entered slowly, almost noiselessly. There was not a vestige of colour in his face, nor of expression as he crossed the room for a match and relighted his cigarette.

"Well?" inquired Portlaw, "did you get Cardross on the wire?"

"Yes."

Malcourt stood motionless, hands in his pockets, the cigarette smoke curling up blue in the sunshine.

"I've got to go," he said.

"What for?" demanded Portlaw, then sulkily begged pardon and pouted his dissatisfaction in silence.

"When do you go, Malcourt?" asked Hamil, still wondering.

"Now." He lifted his head but looked across at Portlaw. "I've telephoned the stable, and called up Pride's Fall to flag the five-thirty express," he said.

Portlaw was growing madder and madder.

"Would you mind telling me when you expect to be back?" he inquired ill-temperedly.

"I don't know yet."

"Don't know!" burst out Portlaw; "hell's bells!"

Malcourt shook his head.

Portlaw profanely requested information as to how the place was to be kept going. Malcourt was patient with him to the verge of indifference.

"There's nothing to blow up about. Hastings is competent to manage things—"

"That conceited pup!"