CHAPTER VIII CHAFF OF WAR

Dinner that evening in the faded dining-room of the Hotel Splendide was in the way of being a doleful affair for the folk from Kewanee, aside from Captain Woodhouse, the only persons at table there. Woodhouse, true to the continental tradition of exclusiveness, had isolated himself against possible approach by sitting at the table farthest from the Shermans; his back presented an uncompromising denial of fraternity. As for Mrs. Sherman, the afternoon's visit to the bazaars had been anything but a solace, emphasizing, as it did, their grievous poverty in the midst of a plenty contemptuous of a mere letter of credit. Henry J. was wallowing in the lowest depths of nostalgia; he tortured himself with the reflection that this was lodge night in Kewanee and he would not be sitting in his chair. Miss Kitty contemplated with melancholy the distress of her parents.

A tall slender youth with tired eyes and affecting the blasé slouch of the boulevards appeared in the door and cast about for a choice of tables. Him Mr. Sherman impaled with a glance of disapproval which suddenly changed to wondering recognition. He dropped his fork and jumped to his feet.

"Bless me, mother, if it isn't Willy Kimball from old Kewanee!" Sherman waved his napkin at the young man, summoning him in the name of Kewanee to come and meet the home folks. The tired eyes lighted perceptibly, and a lukewarm smile played about Mr. Kimball's effeminate mouth as he stepped up to the table.

"Why, Mrs. Sherman—and Kitty! And you, Mr. Sherman—charmed!" He accepted the proffered seat by the side of Kitty, receiving their hearty hails with languid politeness. With the sureness of English restraint, Mr. Willy Kimball refused to become excited. He was of the type of exotic Americans who try to forget grandpa's corn-fed hogs and grandma's hand-churned butter. His speech was of Rotten Row and his clothes Piccadilly.

"Terrible business, this!" The youth fluttered his hands feebly. "All this harrying about and peeping at passports by every silly officer one meets. I'm afraid I'll have to go over to America until it's all over—on my way now, in fact."

"Afraid!" Sherman sniffed loudly, and appraised Mr. Kimball's tailoring with a disapproving eye. "Well, Willy, it would be too bad if you had to go back to Kewanee after your many years in Paris, France; now, wouldn't it?"

Kimball turned to the women for sympathy. "Reserved a compartment to come down from Paris. Beastly treatment. Held up at every city—other people crowded in my apartment, though I'd paid to have it alone, of course—soldier chap comes along and seizes my valet and makes him join the colors and all that sort——"

"Huh! Your father managed to worry along without a val-lay, and he was respected in Kewanee." This in disgust from Henry J.

Kitty flashed a reproving glance at her father and deftly turned the expatriate into a recounting of his adventures. Under her unaffected lead the youth, who shuddered inwardly at the appellation of "Willy," thawed considerably, and soon there was an animated swapping of reminiscences of the Great Terror—hours on end before the banks and express offices, dodging of police impositions, scrambling for steamer accommodations—all that went to compose the refugee Americans' great epic of August, 1914.

Sherman took pride in his superior adventures: "Five times arrested between Berlin and Gibraltar, and what I said to that Dutchman on the Swiss frontier was enough to make his hair curl."

"Tell you what, Willy: you come on back to Kewanee with us, and mother and you'll lecture before the Thursday Afternoon Ladies' Literary Club," Sherman boomed, with a hearty blow of the hand between Willy's shoulder blades. "I'll have Ed Porter announce it in advance in the Daily Enterprise, and we'll have the whole town there to listen. 'Ezra Kimball's Boy Tells Thrilling Tale of War's Alarms.' That's the way the head-lines'll read in the Enterprise next week."

The expatriate shivered and tried to smile.

"We'll let mother do the lecturing," Kitty came to his rescue. "'How to Live in Europe on a Letter of Discredit.' That will have all the gossips of Kewanee buzzing, mother."

The meal drew to a close happily in contrast to its beginning. Mrs. Sherman and her daughter rose to pass out into the reception room. Sherman and Kimball lingered.

"Ah-h, Willy——"

"Mr. Sherman——"

Both began in unison, each somewhat furtive and shamefaced.

"Have you any money?" The queries were voiced as one. For an instant confusion; then the older man looked up into the younger's face—a bit flushed it was—and guffawed.

"Not a postage stamp, Willy! I guess we're both beggars, and if mother and Kitty didn't have five trunks between them this Swiss holdup man who says he's proprietor of this way-station hotel wouldn't trust us for a fried egg."

"Same here," admitted Kimball. "I'm badly bent."

"They can't keep us down—us Americans!" Sherman cheered, taking the youth's arm and piloting him out into the reception room. "We'll find a way out if we have to cable for a warship to come and get us."

Just as Sherman and Kimball emerged from the dining-room, there was a diversion out beyond the glass doors on Waterport Street. A small cart drew up; from its seat jumped a young woman in a duster and with a heavy automobile veil swathed under her chin. To the Arab porter who had bounded out to the street she gave directions for the removal from the cart of her baggage, two heavy suit-cases and two ponderous osier baskets. These latter she was particularly tender of, following them into the hotel's reception room and directing where they should be put before the desk.

The newcomer was Jane Gerson, Hildebrand's buyer, at the end of her gasoline flight from Paris. Cool, capable, self-reliant as on the night she saw the bastions of the capital's outer forts fade under the white spikes of the search-lights, Jane strode up the desk to face the smiling Almer.

"Is this a fortress or a hotel?" she challenged.

"A hotel, lady, a hotel," Almer purred. "A nice room—yes. Will the lady be with us long?"

"Heaven forbid! The lady is going to be on the first ship leaving for New York. And if there are no ships, I'll look over the stock of coal barges you have in your harbor." She seized a pen and dashed her signature on the register. The Shermans had pricked up their ears at the newcomer's first words. Now Henry J. pressed forward, his face glowing welcome.

"An American—a simon-pure citizen of the United States—I thought so. Welcome to the little old Rock!" He took both the girl's hands impulsively and pumped them. Mrs. Sherman, Kitty and Willy Kimball crowded around, and the clatter of voices was instantaneous: "By auto from Paris; goodness me!" "Not a thing to eat for three days but rye bread!" "From Strassburg to Luneville in a farmer's wagon!" Each in a whirlwind of ejaculation tried to outdo the other's story of hardship and privation.

The front doors opened again, and the sergeant and guard who had earlier carried off Fritz, the barber, entered. Again gun butts thumped ominously. Jane looked over her shoulder at the khaki-coated men, and confided in the Shermans:

"I think that man's been following me ever since I landed from the ferry."

"I have," answered the sergeant, stepping briskly forward and saluting. "You are a stranger on the Rock. You come here from——"

"From Paris, by motor, to the town across the bay; then over here on the ferry," the girl answered promptly. "What about it?"

"Your name?"

"Jane Gerson. Yes, yes, it sounds German, I know. But that's not my fault. I'm an American—a red-hot American, too, for the last two weeks."

The sergeant's face was wooden.

"Where are you going?"

"To New York, on the Saxonia, just as soon as I can. And the British army can't stop me."

"Indeed!" The sergeant permitted himself a fleeting smile. "From Paris by motor, eh? Your passports, please."

"I haven't any," Jane retorted, with a shade of defiance. "They were taken from me in Spain, just over the French border, and were not returned."

The sergeant raised his eyebrows in surprise not unmixed with irony. He pointed to the two big osier baskets, demanding to know what they contained.

"Gowns—the last gowns made in Paris before the crash. Fashion's last gasp. I am a buyer of gowns for Hildebrand's store in New York."

Ecstatic gurgles of pleasure from Mrs. Sherman and her daughter greeted this announcement. They pressed about the baskets and regarded them lovingly.

The sergeant pushed them away and tried to throw back the covers.

"Open your baggage—all of it!" he commanded snappishly.

Jane, explaining over her shoulder to the women, stooped to fumble with the hasps.

"Seventy of the darlingest gowns—the very last Paul Poiret and Paquin and Worth made before they closed shop and marched away with their regiments. You shall see every one of them."

"Hurry, please, my time's limited!" the sergeant barked.

"I should think it would be—you're so charming," Jane flung back over her shoulder, and she raised the tops of the baskets. The other women pushed forward with subdued coos.

The sergeant plunged his hand under a mass of colored fluffiness, groped for a minute, and brought forth a long roll of heavy paper. With a fierce mien, he began to unroll the bundle.

"And these?"

"Plans," Hildebrand's buyer answered.

"Plans of what?" The sergeant glared.

"Of gowns, silly! Here—you're looking at that one upside down! This way! Now isn't that a perfect dear of an afternoon gown? Poiret didn't have time to finish it, poor man! See that lovely basque effect? Everything's moyen age this season, you know."

Jane, with a shrewd sidelong glance at the flustered sergeant, rattled on, bringing gown after gown from the baskets and displaying them to the chorus of smothered screams of delight from the feminine part of her audience. One she draped coquettishly from her shoulders and did an exaggerated step before the smoky mirror over the mantelpiece to note the effect.

"Isn't it too bad this soldier person isn't married, so he could appreciate these beauties?" She flicked a mischievous eye his way. "Of course he can't be married, or he'd recognize the plan of a gown. Clean hands, there, Mister Sergeant, if you're going to touch any of these dreams! Here, let me! Now look at that musquetaire sleeve—the effect of the war—military, you know."

The sergeant was thoroughly angry by this time, and he forced the situation suddenly near tragedy. Under his fingers a delicate girdle crackled suspiciously.

"Here—your knife! Rip this open; there are papers of some sort hidden here." He started to pass the gown to one of his soldiers. Jane choked back a scream.

"No, no! That's crinoline, stupid! No papers——" She stretched forth her arms appealingly. The sergeant humped his shoulders and put out his hand to take the opened clasp-knife.

A plump doll-faced woman, who possessed an afterglow of prettiness and a bustling nervous manner, flounced through the doors at this juncture and burst suddenly into the midst of the group caught in the imminence of disaster.

"What's this—what's this?" She caught sight of the filmy creation draped from the sergeant's arm. "Oh, the beauty!" This in a whisper of admiration.

"The last one made by Worth," Jane was quick to explain, noting the sergeant's confusion in the presence of the stranger, "and this officer is going to rip it open in a search for concealed papers. He takes me for a spy."

Surprised blue eyes were turned from Jane to the sergeant. The latter shamefacedly tried to slip the open knife into his blouse, mumbling an excuse. The blue eyes bored him through.

"I call that very stupid, Sergeant," reproved the angel of rescue. Then to Jane——

"Where are you taking all these wonderful gowns?"

"To New York. I'm buyer for Hildebrand's, and——"

"But, Lady Crandall, this young woman has no passports—nothing," the sergeant interposed. "My duty——"

"Bother your duty! Don't you know a Worth gown when you see it? Now go away! I'll be responsible for this young woman from now on. Tell your commanding officer Lady Crandall has taken your duty out of your hands." She finished with a quiet assurance and turned to gloat once more over the gowns. The sergeant led his command away with evident relief.

Lady Crandall turned to include all the refugees in a general introduction of herself.

"I am Lady Crandall, the wife of the governor general of Gibraltar," she said, with a warming smile. "I just came down to see what I could do for you poor stranded Americans. In these times——"

"An American yourself, I'll gamble on it!" Sherman pushed his way between the littered baskets and seized Lady Crandall's hands. "Knew it by the cut of your jib—and—your way of doing things. I'm Henry J. Sherman, from Kewanee, Illynoy—my wife and daughter Kitty."

"And I'm from Iowa—the red hills of ole Ioway," the governor's wife chanted, with an orator's flourish of the hands. "Welcome to the Rock, home folks!"

Hands all around and an impromptu old-home week right then and there. Lady Crandall's attention could not be long away from the gowns, however. She turned back to them eagerly. With Jane Gerson as her aid, she passed them in rapturous review, Mrs. Sherman and Kitty playing an enthusiastic chorus.

A pursy little man with an air of supreme importance—Henry Reynolds he was, United States Consul at Gibraltar—catapulted in from the street while the gown chatter was at its noisiest. He threw his hands above his head in a mock attitude of submissiveness before a highwayman.

"'S all fixed, ladies and gentlemen," he cried, with a showman's eloquence. "Here's Lady Crandall come to tell you about it, and she's so busy riding her hobby—gowns and millinery and such—she has forgotten. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts."

"Credit to whom credit is due, Mister Consul," she rallied. "I'm not stealing anybody's official thunder." The consul wagged a forefinger at her reprovingly. With impatience, the refugees waited to hear the news.

"Well, it's this way," Reynolds began. "I've got so tired having all you people sitting on my door-step I just had to make arrangements to ship you on the Saxonia in self-defense. Saxonia's due here from Naples Thursday—day after to-morrow; sails for New York at dawn Friday morning. Lady Crandall, here—and a better American never came out of the Middle West—has agreed to go bond for your passage money; all your letters of credit and checks will be cashed by treasury agents before you leave the dock at New York, and you can settle with the steamship people right there.

"No, no; don't thank me! There's the person responsible for your getting home." The consul waved toward the governor's lady, who blushed rosily under the tumultuous blessings showered on her. Reynolds ducked out the door to save his face. The Shermans made their good nights, and with Kimball, started toward the stairs.

"Thursday night, before you sail," Lady Crandall called to them, "you all have an engagement—a regular American dinner with me at the Government House. Remember!"

"If you have hash—plain hash—and don't call it a rag-owt, we'll eat you out of house and home," Sherman shouted as addendum to the others' thanks.

"And you, my dear"—Lady Crandall beamed upon Jane—"you're coming right home with me to wait for the Saxonia's sailing. Oh, no, don't be too ready with your thanks. This is pure selfishness on my part. I want you to help plan my fall clothes. There, the secret's out. But with all those beautiful gowns, surely Hildebrand will not object if you leave the pattern of one of them in an out-of-the-way little place like this. Come on, now, I'll not take no for an answer. We'll pack up all these beauties and have you off in no time."

Lady Crandall beamed upon Jane.
Lady Crandall beamed upon Jane.

Jane's thanks were ignored by the capable packer who smoothed and straightened the confections of silk and satin in the osier hampers. Lady Crandall summoned the porter to lift the precious freight to the back of her dogcart, waiting outside. Almer, perturbed at the kidnaping of his guest, came from behind the desk.

"You will go to your room now?" he queried anxiously.

"Not going to take it," Jane answered. "Have an invitation from Lady Crandall to visit the State House, or whatever you call it."

"But, pardon me. The room—it was rented, and I fear one night's lodging is due. Twenty shillings."

Jane elevated her eyebrows, but handed over a bill.

"Ah, no, lady. French paper—it is worthless to me. Only English gold, if the lady pleases." Almer's smile was leonine.

"But it's all I've got; just came from France, and——"

"Then, though it gives me the greatest sorrow, I must hold your luggage until you have the money changed. Excuse——"

Captain Woodhouse, who had dallied long over his dinner for lack of something else to do, came out of the dining-room just then, saw a woman in difficulties with the landlord, and instinctively stepped forward to offer his services.

"Beg pardon, but can I be of any help?"

Jane turned. The captain's heart gave a great leap and then went cold. Frank pleasure followed the first surprise in the girl's eyes.

"Why, Captain Woodhouse—how jolly!—To see you again after——"

She put out her hand with a free gesture of comradeship.

Captain Woodhouse did not see the girl's hand. He was looking into her eyes coldly, aloofly.

"I beg your pardon, but aren't you mistaken?"

"Mistaken?" The girl was staring at him, mystified.

"I'm afraid I have not had the pleasure of meeting you," he continued evenly. "But if I can be of service—now——"

She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from him.

"A small matter. I owe this man twenty shillings, and he will not accept French paper. It's all I have."

Woodhouse took the note from her.

"I'll take it gladly—perfectly good." He took some money from his pocket and looked at it. Then, to Almer: "I say, can you split a crown?"

"Change for you in a minute, sir—the tobacco shop down the street." Almer pocketed the gold piece and dodged out of the door.

Jane turned and found the deep-set gray eyes of Captain Woodhouse fixed upon her. They craved pardon—toleration of the incident just passed.