There was nothing for it but to obey. Krantz understood exactly how he would be jumped on and pulverized in the morning by irate stockholders in the hotel if any action of his should be adversely reported on by the great Otto Schmidt.

But the visit to de Courtois fizzled out unexpectedly. The Frenchman, still attired in evening dress, for that is the conventional wedding attire of his race, was lying on the bed sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion supplemented by bromide. The two negro attendants, who were hoping for some more exciting experience, were squatted on the floor playing pinochle, and the strenuous efforts of Lord Valletort to arouse the slumberer were quite useless. But--and that was a vital thing--he had seen de Courtois, and knew beyond doubt that he was alive, and seemingly in good health, or, at any rate, physically uninjured.

"The man has been drugged," said the lawyer, watching the Earl's unavailing attempt to awaken the Frenchman. "Is, by any chance, Mr.

Curtis's room situated near this one?"

"It is just overhead," said the clerk.

"Dear me!"

Schmidt looked up at the ceiling as though his eyes might discern a trap-door. "Is Mr. Curtis there now?"

"No, sir."

"Where is he?"

"He went out with a Mr. Devar."

"Oh! Do you know where he went to?"

Krantz was tempted to prevaricate, but Schmidt was a power in the Central Hotel.

"I believe, sir, he is at the Plaza."

"A large hotel, near Central Park, is it not?" demanded the Earl eagerly.

"My lord, pardon me." The lawyer was no believer in letting all the world into your secrets, and the clerk's manner showed that he was far from well posted in certain elements of the affair.

Valletort was for rushing forthwith off in a taxi to the Plaza; but Schmidt vetoed the notion. He shared the Earl's conviction that Hermione would be discovered there, but, before meeting her, he wanted to obtain a great many particulars the lack of which in his client's earlier story his legal ac.u.men had already scented.

So he drew the impatient n.o.bleman into a quiet corner of the restaurant, and extracted from his unwilling lips certain details as to Count Va.s.silan and the marriage project which had not been forthcoming before.

Krantz seized the opportunity to call up Steingall on the telephone and told him something, not all, of what had occurred. He did not say that the Earl and Schmidt had actually seen de Courtois, and suppressed any mention of his disclosure with reference to Curtis's whereabouts, not that he wished to mislead the detective willfully, but he felt that he had been indiscreet, and there was no need to proclaim the fact.

Moreover, he had never heard Hermione's name mentioned, or he was gallant enough to have risked any trouble next day if a lady would be saved distress thereby.

Schmidt's lawyer-like caution was destined to have far-reaching effects on the night's history. It provided one of the minor rills of a torrent which was gaining irresistible momentum, and would submerge many people before its uncontrolled madness was exhausted. Had he yielded to the Earl, and hurried to the Plaza at once, he would have met Curtis and Steingall there, and those two men might have diverted the bursting current of events into a new channel. But, naturally enough, he wanted to understand precisely where he stood. In a word, the egg was excellent in its const.i.tuents, but lacked the exuberant freshness of the newly-laid article.

Hence, while the Earl nearly choked with indignation at sight of that entry in the visitors' book at the Plaza--"Mr. and Lady Hermione Curtis, Pekin,"--mistress and maid were once more discussing the astounding things which had taken place since the moment when John Delancy Curtis rang the bell at Flat 10 in Number 1000 59th Street.

"If only I knew how to act for the best!" wailed Hermione half tearfully. "I am afraid, Marcelle, I have been too egotistical, too much concerned about myself, I mean, and far too regardless of others.

I have allowed Mr. Curtis to place himself in a dreadful position----"

"I'm sure, miladi, he doesn't think so," interrupted Marcelle breathlessly.

"That is the worst feature of it, to my thinking. He is making all the sacrifice."

"What! To get a wife like you, miladi!"

"I am _not_ his wife."

"Well, you are not married like folk who go away for a honeymoon and find rice in their clothes every day for a week, but Mr. Curtis says, miladi, that you are his wife right enough in the eyes of the law, and I'm sure he admires you immensely already, so there's no telling----"

"Marcelle, do you imagine for one single instant that I would really marry any man who took me as a favor, who conferred an obligation on me, who came to my a.s.sistance in a moment of despair?"

"No, miladi, not if he thought those things. But I have a sort of notion that Mr. Curtis would hurt any other man who suggested any of them, and it is easy to see by the very way he looks at you----"

"Oh, have pity, and don't harp on that string! I can be nothing to him. You mistake his kindness for something which is so utterly impossible that it almost drives me to hysteria to hear it even spoken of."

Marcelle knew better. In some recess of her own acute mind she felt that Lady Hermione's heightened color and shining eyes were due to just that wild and irresponsible conceit which they were debating. Indeed, Hermione could not leave the topic alone. She forbade it, rejected it, stormed at its folly, yet came back to it like a child held spellbound by some terrifying yet fascinating object.

The maid was racking her brain for some feminine argument which should convince an impulsive mistress that Curtis might reasonably regard his matrimonial entanglement as by no means so incapable of a satisfactory outcome as his "wife" deemed it, when a knock at the door of the sitting-room alarmed both.

And, indeed, the ever-present dread which haunted them was justified, because a page announced "The Earl of Valletort and Mr. Otto Schmidt,"

and before the petrified Marcelle could utter a word of protest, the two men were in the room.

Marcelle said afterwards that no incident of those tumultuous hours surprised her more than the way in which Lady Hermione received her unbidden and unwelcome visitors. The instant before their arrival she was an irresponsible and doubting and vacillating girl, torn by emotion, and swayed hither and thither by gusts of perplexity which ranged from half-formed hope to blank despair, but now she came from her bedroom without a second's hesitancy, and faced her father and the lawyer with a proud serenity which obviously disconcerted them, and quite dumfounded Marcelle.

"Ah! At last!" said the Earl, trying to speak complacently, but failing rather badly, because his att.i.tude and words were decidedly melodramatic.

"And too late!" said his daughter, letting her fine eyes dwell on Schmidt with the contemplative scrutiny she might bestow on an exhibit in a natural history museum.

"Pardon me, your ladyship, not too late, but just in time, I fancy."

Otto Schmidt met her gaze without flinching, and he was a man who undoubtedly commanded attention when he spoke. His tone was deferential but decisive. His black eyes were taking in this charming and intelligent woman in full measure. Her rare beauty, her unstudied pose, her slender elegance, the quiet harmonies of her costume--each and all made their appeal. He even waited for her reply, compelling it by some subtle transference of the knowledge that he would not endeavor to browbeat or misunderstand her.

"I have heard your name, but may I ask why you are here?" she said composedly.

It pleased him to find that he had not erred by underrating her intelligence.

"A very proper question, Lady Hermione," he said. "I am a lawyer, fairly well known in New York, and your father has consulted me with reference to the marriage you have contracted to-night."

"Since, as you say, the marriage has most certainly been contracted, the statement hardly explains your presence."

He smiled, and Lord Valletort, who had not seen Otto Schmidt smile once during the past hour, discovered that he had not begun to appraise his new ally's qualities at their due worth.

"It is a legal habit to state events in their order," he replied suavely. "But these are matters which we ought to discuss privately."

"No, Marcelle, do not go," said Hermione, hiding her fear under an a.s.sumption of icy indifference, and checking the maid's movement in response to the lawyer's hint. "Marcelle Leroux is fully in my confidence," she explained, "and you can say nothing which she may not listen to."

"I am obliged to your ladyship, but I had to mention her presence,"

said Schmidt. "Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news, but you were inveigled into a marriage ceremony with John Delancy Curtis by gross and fraudulent misrepresentation. He told you, I a.s.sume, that Monsieur Jean de Courtois was dead. That is not true.

Monsieur de Courtois is alive, and in his room at the Central Hotel in 27th Street at this moment. He was detained there at the hour you awaited him--kept there forcibly, by means which must be investigated, but the really important fact now is that he lives. Need I tell you what that statement implies? Need I emphasize the lie with which this man Curtis attained his object? Your father, the Earl, and I myself, saw Jean de Courtois a few minutes since. Probably, and not without reason, you doubt my word. If that is so, will you kindly use the telephone yourself, ring up the Central Hotel, and ask if Monsieur de Courtois is there? You will hardly imagine that the hotel staff would enter into a conspiracy with us to deceive you. Again, you might send for the manager here. He knows me, and will a.s.sure you that I am not a person who would lend himself to subterfuge or falsehood."

"But some man was killed, was he not?"

Hermione's lips had whitened, but her courage was superb, though her poor heart was like to burst with its frenzied throbbing, for she was certain this self-possessed man was speaking truly, and, if he were, her hero with the head of gold had revealed feet of clay.

"Yes, unhappily, a journalist named Hunter."