Part 33

Yes, Edward, husband of the Dowager. The same red-faced, big-necked old fellow, husky-voiced with whisky now, just as he was before. He must have been keeping it up steadily ever since the day out in the country when Tom lifted his watch. It'll take more than one lost watch to cure Edward.

"I--followed you home, Miss Murieson," he said, grabbing me by the hand and pushing the door closed behind him. "Or is it Miss Murieson? Which is your stage name, and which your real one? And have you really learned to remember it? For my part, any old name will smell as sweet, now that I'm close to the rose."

I jerked my hand away from him.

"I didn't ask you to call," I said, haughty as the Dowager herself was when first I saw her in her gorgeous parlor, the Bishop's card in her hand.

"No, I noticed that," he roared jovially. "You skinned out the front door the moment you saw me. All that was left to me was to skin after."

"Why?"

"Why!" He slapped his leg as though he'd heard the best joke in the world. "To renew our acquaintance, of course. To ask you if you wouldn't like me to buy you a red coat and hat like the one you left behind you that day over in Philadelphia, when you cut your visit so short. To insist upon my privilege of relationship. To call that wink you gave me in the hall that day, you little devil. Now, don't look at me like that. I say, let's be friends; won't you?"

"Not for a red coat trimmed with chinchilla," I cried.

He got between me and the door.

"Prices gone up?" he inquired pleasantly. "Who's bulling the stock?"

"Never you mind, so long as his name isn't Ramsay."

"But why shouldn't his name be Ramsay?" he cooed.

"Just because it isn't. I'm expecting a friend. Hadn't you better go home to Mrs. Dowager Diamonds?"

"Bully! Is that what you call her? No, I'll stay and meet your friend."

"Better not."

"Oh, I'm not afraid. Does he know as much about you as I do?"

"More."

"About your weakness for other girls' coats?"

"Yes."

You do know it all, don't you? And yet you care for me, Maggie Monahan!

I retreated before him into the dining-room. What in the world to do to get rid of him!

"I think you'd better go home, Mr. Ramsay," I said again, decidedly. "If you don't, I'll have to call the janitor to put you out."

"Call, sweetheart. He'll put you out with me; for I'll tell him a thing or two about you, and we'll go and find a better place than this. Stock can't be quoted so high, after all, if this is the best prospectus your friend can put up.... Why don't you call?"

I looked at him. I was thinking.

"Well?" he demanded.

"I've changed my mind."

Oh, Mag, Mag, did you ever see the man--ugly as a cannibal he may be and old as the cannibal's great-grandfather--that couldn't be persuaded he was a lady-killer?

His manner changed altogether. He plumped down on the lounge and patted the place beside him invitingly, giving me a wink that was deadly.