He was in better spirits as he read over this letter, and he chuckled as he addressed it. He pictured himself in the rear room of the bar in the Rue Auber, relating, across the little marble-topped table, this American adventure, to the delight of that blithe, ne'er-do-well outcast of an exalted poor family, that gambler, blackmailer and merry rogue, Don Antonio Moliterno, comrade and teacher of this ductile Valentine since the later days of adolescence. They had been school-fellows in Rome, and later roamed Europe together unleashed, discovering worlds of many kinds. Valentine's careless mother let her boy go as he liked, and was often negligent in the matter of remittances: he and his friend learned ways to raise the wind, becoming expert and making curious affiliations. At her death there was a small inheritance; she had not been provident. The little she left went rocketing, and there was the wind to be raised again: young Corliss had wits and had found that they could supply him--most of the time--with much more than the necessities of life. He had also found that he possessed a strong attraction for various women; already--at twenty-two--his experience was considerable, and, in his way, he became a specialist. He had a talent; he improved it and his opportuni-ties. Altogether, he took to the work without malice and with a light heart. . . .
He sealed the envelope, rang for a boy, gave him the letter to post, and directed that the apartment should be set to rights.
It was not that in which he had received Ray Vilas. Corliss had moved to rooms on another floor of the hotel, the day after that eccentric and somewhat ominous person had called to make an "investment." Ray's shadowy forebodings concerning that former apartment had encountered satire: Corliss was a "materialist" and, at the mildest estimate, an unusually practical man, but he would never sleep in a bed with its foot toward the door; southern Italy had seeped into him. He changed his rooms, a measure of which Don Antonio Moliterno would have wholly approved. Besides, these were as comfortable as the others, and so like them as even to confirm Ray's statement concerning "A Reading from Homer": evidently this work had been purchased by the edition.
A boy came to announce that his "roadster" waited for him at the hotel entrance, and Corliss put on a fur motoring coat and cap, and went downstairs. A door leading from the hotel bar into the lobby was open, and, as Corliss passed it, there issued a mocking shout:
"Tor'dor! Oh, look at the Tor'dor! Ain't he the handsome Spaniard!"
Ray Vilas stumbled out, tousled, haggard, waving his arms in absurd and meaningless gestures; an amused gallery of tipplers filling the doorway behind him.
"Goin' take Carmen buggy ride in the country, ain't he? Good ole Tor'dor!" he quavered loudly, clutching Corliss's shoulder.
"How much you s'pose he pays f' that buzz-buggy by the day, jeli'm'n? Naughty Tor'dor, stole thousand dollars from me--makin' presents--diamond cresses. Tor'dor, I hear you been playing cards. Tha's sn't nice. Tor'dor, you're not a goo' boy at all--YOU know you oughtn't waste Dick Lindley's money like that!"
Corliss set his open hand upon the drunkard's breast and sent him gyrating and plunging backward. Some one caught the grotesque figure as it fell.
"Oh, my God," screamed Ray, "I haven't got a gun on me! He KNOWS I haven't got my gun with me! WHY haven't I got my gun with me?"
They hustled him away, and Corliss, enraged and startled, passed on. As he sped the car up Corliss Street, he decided to anticipate his letter to Moliterno by a cable. He had stayed too long.
Cora looked charming in a new equipment for November motoring; yet it cannot be said that either of them enjoyed the drive. They lunched a dozen miles out from the city at an establishment somewhat in the nature of a roadside inn; and, although its cuisine was quite unknown to Cora's friend, Mrs.
Villard (an eager amateur of the table), they were served with a meal of such unusual excellence that the waiter thought it a thousand pities patrons so distinguished should possess such poor appetites.
They returned at about three in the afternoon, and Cora descended from the car wearing no very amiable expression.
"Why won't you come in now?" she asked, looking at him angrily. "We've got to talk things out. We've settled nothing whatever. I want to know why you can't stop."
"I've got some matters to attend to, and----"
"What matters?" She shot him a glance of fierce skepticism.
"Are you packing to get out?"
"Cora!" he cried reproachfully, "how can you say things like that to ME!"
She shook her head. "Oh, it wouldn't surprise me in the least! How do _I_ know what you'll do? For all I know, you may be just that kind of a man. You SAID you ought to be going----"
"Cora," he explained, gently, "I didn't say I meant to go. I said only that I thought I ought to, because Moliterno will be needing me in Basilicata. I ought to be there, since it appears that no more money is to be raised here. I ought to be superintending operations in the oil-field, so as to make the best use of the little I have raised."
"You?" she laughed. "Of course _I_ didn't have anything to do with it!"
He sighed deeply. "You know perfectly well that I appreciate all you did. We don't seem to get on very well to-day----"
"No!" She laughed again, bitterly. "So you think you'll be going, don't you?"
"To my rooms to write some necessary letters."
"Of course not to pack your trunk?"
"Cora," he returned, goaded; "sometimes you're just impossible. I'll come to-morrow forenoon."
"Then don't bring the car. I'm tired of motoring and tired of lunching in that rotten hole. We can talk just as well in the library. Papa's better, and that little fiend will be in school to-morrow. Come out about ten."
He started the machine. "Don't forget I love you," he called in a low voice.
She stood looking after him as the car dwindled down the street.
"Yes, you do!" she murmured.
