Six months had passed. The Villa of Maecenas was closed at Los Osos Canyon, and the southwest trade-winds were slanting the rains of the wet season against its shut windows and barred doors. Within that hollow, deserted shell, its aspect—save for a single exception—was unchanged; the furniture and decorations preserved their eternal youth undimmed by time; the rigidly-arranged rooms, now closed to life and light, developed more than ever their resemblance to a furniture warehouse. The single exception was the room which Grace Nevil had rearranged for herself; and that, oddly enough, was stripped and bare—even to its paper and mouldings.

In other respects, the sealed treasures of Rushbrook’s villa, far from provoking any sentimentality, seemed only to give truth to the current rumor that it was merely waiting to be transformed into a gorgeous watering-place hotel under Rushbrook’s direction; that, with its new ball-room changed into an elaborate dining-hall, it would undergo still further improvement, the inevitable end and object of all Rushbrook’s enterprise; and that its former proprietor had already begun another villa whose magnificence should eclipse the last. There certainly appeared to be no limit to the millionaire’s success in all that he personally undertook, or in his fortunate complicity with the enterprise and invention of others. His name was associated with the oldest and safest schemes, as well as the newest and boldest—with an equal guarantee of security. A few, it was true, looked doubtingly upon this “one man power,” but could not refute the fact that others had largely benefited by association with him, and that he shared his profits with a royal hand. Some objected on higher grounds to his brutalizing the influence of wealth by his material and extravagantly practical processes, instead of the gentler suggestions of education and personal example, and were impelled to point out the fact that he and his patronage were vulgar. It was felt, however, by those who received his benefits, that a proper sense of this inferiority was all that ethics demanded of them. One could still accept Rushbrook’s barbaric gifts by humorously recognizing the fact that he didn’t know any better, and that it pleased him, as long as they resented any higher pretensions.

The rain-beaten windows of Rushbrook’s town house, however, were cheerfully lit that December evening. Mr. Rushbrook seldom dined alone; in fact, it was popularly alleged that very often the unfinished business of the day was concluded over his bountiful and perfect board. He was dressing as James entered the room.

“Mr. Leyton is in your study, sir; he will stay to dinner.”

“All right.”

“I think, sir,” added James, with respectful suggestiveness, “he wants to talk. At least, sir, he asked me if you would likely come downstairs before your company arrived.”

“Ah! Well, tell the others I’m dining on BUSINESS, and set dinner for two in the blue room.”

“Yes, sir.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Leyton—a man of Rushbrook’s age, but not so fresh and vigorous-looking—had thrown himself in a chair beside the study fire, after a glance around the handsome and familiar room. For the house had belonged to a brother millionaire; it had changed hands with certain shares of “Water Front,”—as some of Rushbrook’s dealings had the true barbaric absence of money detail,—and was elegantly and tastefully furnished. The cuckoo had, however, already laid a few characteristic eggs in this adopted nest, and a white marble statue of a nude and ill-fed Virtue, sent over by Rushbrook’s Paris agent, and unpacked that morning, stood in one corner, and materially brought down the temperature. A Japanese praying-throne of pure ivory, and, above it, a few yards of improper, colored exposure by an old master, equalized each other.

“And what is all this affair about the dinner?” suddenly asked a tartly-pitched female voice with a foreign accent.

Mr. Leyton turned quickly, and was just conscious of a faint shriek, the rustle of a skirt, and the swift vanishing of a woman’s figure from the doorway. Mr. Leyton turned red. Rushbrook lived en garcon, with feminine possibilities; Leyton was a married man and a deacon. The incident which, to a man of the world, would have brought only a smile, fired the inexperienced Leyton with those exaggerated ideas and intense credulity regarding vice common to some very good men. He walked on tip-toe to the door, and peered into the passage. At that moment Rushbrook entered from the opposite door of the room.

“Well,” said Rushbrook, with his usual practical directness, “what do you think of her?”

Leyton, still flushed, and with eyebrows slightly knit, said, awkwardly, that he had scarcely seen her.

“She cost me already ten thousand dollars, and I suppose I’ll have to eventually fix up a separate room for her somewhere,” continued Rushhrook.

“I should certainly advise it,” said Leyton, quickly, “for really, Rushbrook, you know that something is due to the respectable people who come here, and any of them are likely to see”—

“Ah!” interrupted Rushbrook, seriously, “you think she hasn’t got on clothes enough. Why, look here, old man—she’s one of the Virtues, and that’s the rig in which they always travel. She’s a ‘Temperance’ or a ‘Charity’ or a ‘Resignation,’ or something of that kind. You’ll find her name there in French somewhere at the foot of the marble.”

Leyton saw his mistake, but felt—as others sometimes felt—a doubt whether this smileless man was not inwardly laughing at him. He replied, with a keen, rapid glance at his host:—

“I was referring to some woman who stood in that doorway just now, and addressed me rather familiarly, thinking it was you.”

“Oh, the Signora,” said Rushbrook, with undisturbed directness; “well, you saw her at Los Osos last summer. Likely she DID think you were me.”

The cool ignoring of any ulterior thought in Leyton’s objection forced the guest to be equally practical in his reply.

“Yes, but the fact is that Miss Nevil had talked of coming here with me this evening to see you on her own affairs, and it wouldn’t have been exactly the thing for her to meet that woman.”

“She wouldn’t,” said Rushbrook, promptly; “nor would YOU, if you had gone into the parlor as Miss Nevil would have done. But look here! If that’s the reason why you didn’t bring her, send for her at once; my coachman can take a card from you; the brougham’s all ready to fetch her, and there you are. She’ll see only you and me.” He was already moving towards the bell, when Leyton stopped him.

“No matter now. I can tell you her business, I fancy; and in fact, I came here to speak of it, quite independently of her.”

“That won’t do, Leyton,” interrupted Rushbrook, with crisp decision. “One or the other interview is unnecessary; it wastes time, and isn’t business. Better have her present, even if she don’t say a word.”

“Yes, but not in this matter,” responded Leyton; “it’s about Somers. You know he’s been very attentive to her ever since her uncle left her here to recruit her health, and I think she fancies him. Well, although she’s independent and her own mistress, as you know, Mrs. Leyton and I are somewhat responsible for her acquaintance with Somers,—and for that matter so are you; and as my wife thinks it means a marriage, we ought to know something more positive about Somers’s prospects. Now, all we really know is that he’s a great friend of yours; that you trust a good deal to him; that he manages your social affairs; that you treat him as a son or nephew, and it’s generally believed that he’s as good as provided for by you—eh? Did you speak?”

“No,” said Rushbrook, quietly regarding the statue as if taking its measurement for a suitable apartment for it. “Go on.”

“Well,” said Leyton, a little impatiently, “that’s the belief everybody has, and you’ve not contradicted it. And on that we’ve taken the responsibility of not interfering with Somers’s attentions.”

“Well?” said Rushbrook, interrogatively.

“Well,” replied Leyton, emphatically, “you see I must ask you positively if you HAVE done anything, or are you going to do anything for him?”

“Well,” replied Rushbrook, with exasperating coolness, “what do you call this marriage?”

“I don’t understand you,” said Leyton.

“Look here, Leyton,” said Rushbrook, suddenly and abruptly facing him; “Jack Somers has brains, knowledge of society, tact, accomplishments, and good looks: that’s HIS capital as much as mine is money. I employ him: that’s his advertisement, recommendation, and credit. Now, on the strength of this, as you say, Miss Nevil is willing to invest in him; I don’t see what more can be done.”

“But if her uncle don’t think it enough?”

“She’s independent, and has money for both.”

“But if she thinks she’s been deceived, and changes her mind?”

“Leyton, you don’t know Miss Nevil. Whatever that girl undertakes she’s weighed fully, and goes through with. If she’s trusted him enough to marry him, money won’t stop her; if she thinks she’s been deceived, YOU’LL never know it.”

The enthusiasm and conviction were so unlike Rushbrook’s usual cynical toleration of the sex that Leyton stared at him.

“That’s odd,” he returned. “That’s what she says of you.”

“Of ME; you mean Somers?”

“No, of YOU. Come, Rushbrook, don’t pretend you don’t know that Miss Nevil is a great partisan of yours, swears by you, says you’re misunderstood by people, and, what’s infernally odd in a woman who don’t belong to the class you fancy, don’t talk of your habits. That’s why she wants to consult you about Somers, I suppose, and that’s why, knowing you might influence her, I came here first to warn you.”

“And I’ve told you that whatever I might say or do wouldn’t influence her. So we’ll drop the subject.”

“Not yet; for you’re bound to see Miss Nevil sooner or later. Now, if she knows that you’ve done nothing for this man, your friend and her lover, won’t she be justified in thinking that you would have a reason for it?”

“Yes. I should give it.”

“What reason?”

“That I knew she’d be more contented to have him speculate with HER money than mine.”

“Then you think that he isn’t a business man?”

“I think that she thinks so, or she wouldn’t marry him; it’s part of the attraction. But come, James has been for five minutes discreetly waiting outside the door to tell us dinner is ready, and the coast clear of all other company. But look here,” he said, suddenly stopping, with his arm in Leyton’s, “you’re through your talk, I suppose; perhaps you’d rather we’d dine with the Signora and the others than alone?”

For an instant Leyton thrilled with the fascination of what he firmly believed was a guilty temptation. Rushbrook, perceiving his hesitation, added:—

“By the way, Somers is of the party, and one or two others you know.”

Mr. Leyton opened his eyes widely at this; either the temptation had passed, or the idea of being seen in doubtful company by a younger man was distasteful, for he hurriedly disclaimed any preference. “But,” he added with half-significant politeness, “perhaps I’m keeping YOU from them?”

“It makes not the slightest difference to me,” calmly returned Rushbrook, with such evident truthfulness that Leyton was both convinced and chagrined.

Preceded by the grave and ubiquitous James, they crossed the large hall, and entered through a smaller passage a charming apartment hung with blue damask, which might have been a boudoir, study, or small reception-room, yet had the air of never having been anything continuously. It would seem that Rushbrook’s habit of “camping out” in different parts of his mansion obtained here as at Los Osos, and with the exception of a small closet which contained his Spartan bed, the rooms were used separately or in suites, as occasion or his friends required. It is recorded that an Eastern guest, newly arrived with letters to Rushbrook, after a tedious journey, expressed himself pleased with this same blue room, in which he had sumptuously dined with his host, and subsequently fell asleep in his chair. Without disturbing his guest, Rushbrook had the table removed, a bed, washstand, and bureau brought in, the sleeping man delicately laid upon the former, and left to awaken to an Arabian night’s realization of his wish.

CHAPTER V

James had barely disposed of his master and Mr. Leyton, and left them to the ministrations of two of his underlings, before he was confronted with one of those difficult problems that it was part of his functions to solve. The porter informed him that a young lady had just driven up in a carriage ostensibly to see Mr. Rushbrook, and James, descending to the outer vestibule, found himself face to face with Miss Grace Nevil. Happily, that young lady, with her usual tact, spared him some embarrassment.

“Oh! James,” she said sweetly, “do you think that I could see Mr. Rushbrook for a few moments IF I WAITED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY? You understand, I don’t wish to disturb him or his company by being regularly announced.”

The young girl’s practical intelligence appeared to increase the usual respect which James had always shown her. “I understand, miss.” He thought for a moment, and said: “Would you mind, then, following me where you could wait quietly and alone?” As she quickly assented, he preceded her up the staircase, past the study and drawing-room, which he did not enter, and stopped before a small door at the end of the passage. Then, handing her a key which he took from his pocket, he said: “This is the only room in the house that is strictly reserved for Mr. Rushbrook, and even he rarely uses it. You can wait here without anybody knowing it until I can communicate with him and bring you to his study unobserved. And,” he hesitated, “if you wouldn’t mind locking the door when you are in, miss, you would be more secure, and I will knock when I come for you.”

Grace Nevil smiled at the man’s prudence, and entered the room. But to her great surprise, she had scarcely shut the door when she was instantly struck with a singular memory which the apartment recalled. It was exactly like the room she had altered in Rushbrook’s villa at Los Osos! More than that, on close examination it proved to be the very same furniture, arranged as she remembered to have arranged it, even to the flowers and grasses, now, alas! faded and withered on the walls. There could be no mistake. There was the open ebony escritoire with the satin blotter open, and its leaves still bearing the marks of her own handwriting. So complete to her mind was the idea of her own tenancy in this bachelor’s mansion, that she looked around with a half indignant alarm for the photograph or portrait of herself that might further indicate it. But there was no other exposition. The only thing that had been added was a gilt legend on the satin case of the blotter,—“Los Osos, August 20, 186-,” the day she had occupied the room.

She was pleased, astonished, but more than all, disturbed. The only man who might claim a right to this figurative possession of her tastes and habits was the one whom she had quietly, reflectively, and understandingly half accepted as her lover, and on whose account she had come to consult Rushbrook. But Somers was not a sentimentalist; in fact, as a young girl, forced by her independent position to somewhat critically scrutinize masculine weaknesses, this had always been a point in his favor; yet even if he had joined with his friend Rushbrook to perpetuate the memory of their first acquaintanceship, his taste merely would not have selected a chambre de garcon in Mr. Rushbrook’s home for its exhibition. Her conception of the opposite characters of the two men was singularly distinct and real, and this momentary confusion of them was disagreeable to her woman’s sense. But at this moment James came to release her and conduct her to Rushbrook’s study, where he would join her at once. Everything had been arranged as she had wished.

Even a more practical man than Rushbrook might have lingered over the picture of the tall, graceful figure of Miss Nevil, quietly enthroned in a large armchair by the fire, her scarlet, satin-lined cloak thrown over its back, and her chin resting on her hand. But the millionaire walked directly towards her with his usual frankness of conscious but restrained power, and she felt, as she always did, perfectly at her ease in his presence. Even as she took his outstretched hand, its straightforward grasp seemed to endow her with its own confidence.

“You’ll excuse my coming here so abruptly,” she smiled, “but I wanted to get before Mr. Leyton, who, I believe, wishes to see you on the same business as myself.”

“He is here already, and dining with me,” said Rushbrook.

“Ah! does he know I am here?” asked the girl, quietly.

“No; as he said you had thought of coming with him and didn’t, I presumed you didn’t care to have him know you had come alone.”

“Not exactly that, Mr. Rushbrook,” she said, fixing her beautiful eyes on him in bright and trustful confidence, “but I happen to have a fuller knowledge of this business than he has, and yet, as it is not altogether my own secret, I was not permitted to divulge it to him. Nor would I tell it to you, only I cannot bear that you should think that I had anything to do with this wretched inquisition into Mr. Somers’s prospects. Knowing as well as you do how perfectly independent I am, you would think it strange, wouldn’t you? But you would think it still more surprising when you found out that I and my uncle already know how liberally and generously you had provided for Mr. Somers in the future.”

“How I had provided for Mr. Somers in the future?” repeated Mr. Rushbrook, looking at the fire, “eh?”

“Yes,” said the young girl, indifferently, “how you were to put him in to succeed you in the Water Front Trust, and all that. He told it to me and my uncle at the outset of our acquaintance, confidentially, of course, and I dare say with an honorable delicacy that was like him, but—I suppose now you will think me foolish—all the while I’d rather he had not.”

“You’d rather he had not,” repeated Mr. Rushbrook, slowly.

“Yes,” continued Grace, leaning forward with her rounded elbows on her knees, and her slim, arched feet on the fender. “Now you are going to laugh at me, Mr. Rushbrook, but all this seemed to me to spoil any spontaneous feeling I might have towards him, and limit my independence in a thing that should be a matter of free will alone. It seemed too much like a business proposition! There, my kind friend!” she added, looking up and trying to read his face with a half girlish pout, followed, however, by a maturer sigh, “I’m bothering you with a woman’s foolishness instead of talking business. And”—another sigh—“I suppose it IS business for my uncle, who has, it seems, bought into this Trust on these possible contingencies, has, perhaps, been asking questions of Mr. Leyton. But I don’t want you to think that I approve of them, or advise your answering them. But you are not listening.”

“I had forgotten something,” said Rushbrook, with an odd preoccupation. “Excuse me a moment—I will return at once.”

He left the room quite as abstractedly, and when he reached the passage, he apparently could not remember what he had forgotten, as he walked deliberately to the end window, where, with his arms folded behind his back, he remained looking out into the street. A passer-by, glancing up, might have said he had seen the pale, stern ghost of Mr. Rushbrook, framed like a stony portrait in the window. But he presently turned away, and re-entered the room, going up to Grace, who was still sitting by the fire, in his usual strong and direct fashion.

“Well! Now let me see what you want. I think this would do.”

He took a seat at his open desk, and rapidly wrote a few lines.

“There,” he continued, “when you write to your uncle, inclose that.”

Grace took it, and read:—

DEAR MISS NEVIL,—Pray assure your uncle from me that I am quite ready to guarantee, in any form that he may require, the undertaking represented to him by Mr. John Somers. Yours very truly,

ROBERT RUSHBROOK.

A quick flush mounted to the young girl’s cheeks. “But this is a SECURITY, Mr. Rushbrook,” she said proudly, handing him back the paper, “and my uncle does not require that. Nor shall I insult him or you by sending it.”

“It is BUSINESS, Miss Nevil,” said Rushbrook, gravely. He stopped, and fixed his eyes upon her animated face and sparkling eyes. “You can send it to him or not, as you like. But”—a rare smile came to his handsome mouth—“as this is a letter to YOU, you must not insult ME by not accepting it.”

Replying to his smile rather than the words that accompanied it, Miss Nevil smiled, too. Nevertheless, she was uneasy and disturbed. The interview, whatever she might have vaguely expected from it, had resolved itself simply into a business indorsement of her lover, which she had not sought, and which gave her no satisfaction. Yet there was the same potent and indefinably protecting presence before her which she had sought, but whose omniscience and whose help she seemed to have lost the spell and courage to put to the test. He relieved her in his abrupt but not unkindly fashion. “Well, when is it to be?”

“It?”

“Your marriage.”

“Oh, not for some time. There’s no hurry.”

It might have struck the practical Mr. Rushbrook that, even considered as a desirable business affair, the prospective completion of this contract provoked neither frank satisfaction nor conventional dissimulation on the part of the young lady, for he regarded her calm but slightly wearied expression fixedly. But he only said: “Then I shall say nothing of this interview to Mr. Leyton?”

“As you please. It really matters little. Indeed, I suppose I was rather foolish in coming at all, and wasting your valuable time for nothing.”

She had risen, as if taking his last question in the significance of a parting suggestion, and was straightening her tall figure, preparatory to putting on her cloak. As she reached it, he stepped forward, and lifted it from the chair to assist her. The act was so unprecedented, as Mr. Rushbrook never indulged in those minor masculine courtesies, that she was momentarily as confused as a younger girl at the gallantry of a younger man. In their previous friendship he had seldom drawn near her except to shake her hand—a circumstance that had always recurred to her when his free and familiar life had been the subject of gossip. But she now had a more frightened consciousness that her nerves were strangely responding to his powerful propinquity, and she involuntarily contracted her pretty shoulders as he gently laid the cloak upon them. Yet even when the act was completed, she had a superstitious instinct that the significance of this rare courtesy was that it was final, and that he had helped her to interpose something that shut him out from her forever.

She was turning away with a heightened color, when the sound of light, hurried footsteps, and the rustle of a woman’s dress was heard in the hall. A swift recollection of her companion’s infelicitous reputation now returned to her, and Grace Nevil, with a slight stiffening of her whole frame, became coldly herself again. Mr. Rushbrook betrayed neither surprise nor agitation. Begging her to wait a moment until he could arrange for her to pass to her carriage unnoticed, he left the room.

Yet it seemed that the cause of the disturbance was unsuspected by Mr. Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton, although left to the consolation of cigars and liquors in the blue room, had become slightly weary of his companion’s prolonged absence. Satisfied in his mind that Rushbrook had joined the gayer party, and that he was even now paying gallant court to the Signora, he became again curious and uneasy. At last the unmistakable sound of whispering voices in the passage got the better of his sense of courtesy as a guest, and he rose from his seat, and slightly opened the door. As he did so the figures of a man and woman, conversing in earnest whispers, passed the opening. The man’s arm was round the woman’s waist; the woman was—as he had suspected—the one who had stood in the doorway, the Signora—but—the man was NOT Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton drew back this time in unaffected horror. It was none other than Jack Somers!

Some warning instinct must at that moment have struck the woman, for with a stifled cry she disengaged herself from Somers’s arm, and dashed rapidly down the hall. Somers, evidently unaware of the cause, stood irresolute for a moment, and then more silently but swiftly disappeared into a side corridor as if to intercept her. It was the rapid passage of the Signora that had attracted the attention of Grace and Rushbrook in the study, and it was the moment after it that Mr. Rushbrook left.