Part 36

"But we've got our cards all right now," said Potter. "Why do you want to queer the show?"

"I intend to show Mrs. Van der Windt what I can do," she answered.

"Suppose a lot of the people you want refuse you, so that they can be fresh for the ball?" Sally suggested.

"They won't," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "when they have seen what I shall say on the invitations."

Then she got up, went to her desk, took out some engraved cards which she had ready, all but filling in the date, and wrote something in one corner. "What do you think of that?" she asked Sally.

Sally took the card, looked at it for a minute, laughed, and passed it on to me, while Potter came and stared over my shoulder.

She had written across the card: "Fancy Dress, with Masks. A Visit to the Maze; and Aladdin's Cave."

"Do you think that will bring them?" she enquired, with a triumphant and mysterious air.

"I think it will," said Sally.

"You know your business, old girl," remarked Potter.

"They'll want to know what it means, and they'll be bound to come and find out. What is your idea, anyway?"

"I'll tell you another time," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "I should like it to be a surprise for Betty, just as it will be for people outside. She'll enjoy it more."

I didn't tease to know the secret, though I was really curious, especially about Aladdin's Cave, which seemed to promise something gorgeous. The mystery was religiously kept; but there was plenty of excitement in sending out the invitations.

There were endless discussions between Mrs. Ess Kay and Potter, and though she seemed so angry with Mrs. Van der Windt and several other members of the Ball committee, for trying to make a stand against her, she was perfectly ruthless about the names she would scratch off the lists her secretary was continually making out and revising for her.

I heard her say that she wouldn't have dreamed of asking the Pitchleys, if they hadn't "got hold of" Mohunsleigh; and that Cora Pitchley, whatever else she might be, was the cleverest woman in Newport, to have scooped in all the honours. Though to this day I can't see exactly what she meant, for she never would explain.

Anyhow, whatever the superlatively clever thing was that Mrs. Pitchley had done, there was no longer a question of her being kept out from the Pink Ball, or anything else. People were charming to her, and we met Mrs. Van der Windt herself at the Chateau at a luncheon party with a vaudeville entertainment afterwards, and also at a dinner. Mrs. Van der Windt seemed to like my cousin, Mohunsleigh, very much, too, and gave a moonlight motor car picnic especially for him, with only a few people asked besides ourselves, and the Pitchleys and Tom Doremus.

Mohunsleigh had not expected to stay more than a few days; but when he found that the friend he wanted to visit in California was detained in New York on business, and Mrs. Pitchley and everybody urged him very much to stop, he decided that he would. I didn't suppose that Mohunsleigh would care for frivolities, after all the years he has spent tramping about in strange countries, killing things; but he appeared to be perfectly happy and nothing bored him, so long as the Pitchleys were there.

When Mrs. Ess Kay was making out the list of invitations for the great Blow Out, as Potter called it, Mohunsleigh happened to stroll over to The Moorings alone. He came to tell us that he had made up his mind to stay, and why.

"You see," he exclaimed, "I hadn't an invitation for any special time, from Harborough. It was a sort of standing thing, given when we met in Damascus last winter. I was to come when I could, and be always welcome; that sort of thing, don't you know. I cabled the day I sailed, and didn't get any answer, but I hadn't been in New York two hours when I'm blessed if the beggar didn't walk in on me at the Waldorf. Jolly glad to see me, and all that, but had to hang on in New York for a bit, on some business or other. Now he thinks he can't get off for a fortnight or so, and as what he's got on isn't my sort of racket, I might as well be here as anywhere else, perhaps a little better."

"What Harborough is your friend?" enquired Mrs. Ess Kay, with interest. "The new San Francisco millionaire?"

"Don't know how new he is," said Mohunsleigh, "or even whether he's a millionaire, for it's the sort of thing one doesn't ask a chap. But if he isn't a millionaire he can spend money like one, for I've seen him do it. A deuce of a good fellow he is; don't know a better anywhere."

"It's Jameson B. Harborough, isn't it?" asked Sally; and I was quite surprised to hear her ask the question, for she never seems to take any interest in a man just because he is a millionaire, as so many of the other people I meet do.

"Yes, those are his initials," said Mohunsleigh, looking bored.

"Then it is the millionaire, Katherine," went on Sally, quite eagerly. "Don't you think, as he's said to be such an interesting, original sort of person, and such a friend of Lord Mohunsleigh's, besides, that it would be nice if you gave Lord Mohunsleigh a card to send him, for your party on the 22d?"

"Why, yes, that's a very good idea of yours, Sally," exclaimed Mrs. Ess Kay. "I shall be delighted. I'll give you the card now, Lord Mohunsleigh, if you don't mind."

Lord Mohunsleigh said that he would be very pleased, but he couldn't tell at all whether his friend went in for that sort of thing--had an idea he didn't, and rather fought shy of society shows, though, of course, Harborough was a gentleman, and all that.

"Anyhow, you send him the card, and write him a line saying we should like to meet him," persisted Mrs. Ess Kay.

Accordingly, Mohunsleigh slipped the card in its crested envelope into his pocket, and we heard nothing more of it for a while. Then, when I at least had forgotten the conversation, in the wild rush for pleasure in which we lived, he said one day to Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally that his friend would be so much obliged if the invitation might be kept open. Harborough couldn't be sure until the last moment whether he could come or not, but would be delighted to do so, if he might be allowed to decide at the last moment.