Leroy Scott

“ She looked up; her young girl's manner was a blend of despair, pride and faltering courage--a most touching, alluring pose, Clifford noted. "Oh, we have position, yes--and family, yes! But in reality we are almost paupers. And I don't know what we are going to do!"
"Paupers!" cried the dazed Gordon. "Why--why--how did you ever get into such a state?"
"We never were rich--that is, not in the way you are rich, Mr. Gordon. My father was not brought up to business; he's always been just a gentleman--and he's a bit old-fashioned, as you know. ”

“ Joe Russell was too alert to permit the manner of Mary Regan beget an awkward situation.
"Yes, my daughter worked for a year with Herr Bloempot in Vienna"--Clifford did not now doubt the essential truth of this statement--"and he said she could become one of the best. But a public career--neither my daughter nor I wished it." Russell arose--the fine-mannered old aristocrat--and smiled apologetically. "You will remember that I made it a condition of my acceptance of your invitation to that midnight theater, that I should have a chance to rest up a bit. I can't stand what you younger people can. ”

“ The rotund little ex-press-agent swelled with the cleverness and importance of his plan. "What I'm going to suggest may be an old stunt, but a lot of rich men have found it a good one, and it's always sure fire: Make some big public benefaction!"
"Yes, you're always wanting me to spend money" grunted Mr. Gordon. "What are you driving at?"
"Here it is, and it's a peach: Mr. Henry Gordon presents to the Chicago Art Institute the World's Greatest Collection of Paintings of the Barbizon School." ”

“ Mr. Jenkins, you are the safest person to have near me; for if you should try violence, I think I could handle you. Will you please bring me a sheet of plain paper, a plain envelope, stamps, pen and ink."
As Jenkins obeyed her, Clifford wondered what end was this that was coming to the case of the Barbizon masterpieces. All eyes silently upon her, Mary Regan stood at one end of the mantelpiece where she could toss the drafts into the fire at any suspicious movement, and using the mantel as a desk she slowly wrote a note in what Clifford could perceive to be backhand. ”

“ There sat Joe Russell, his manner of the unworldly courtly gentleman giving distinction to and taking distinction from this old drawing-room. In like degree, Mary Regan seemed indubitably to "belong" in this setting; to be a part of all the solid aristocracy that this stage implied. Neither of the pair over-acted; they let the setting and situation work their effects. And Clifford could see that Gordon, who had crushed his way upwards from nothing, was impressed by this unassuming grandeur which seemed always to have been in this family ”

“ The next moment the ex-press agent of "Look who's Here!" was himself again. Excitedly he seized the telephone which stood on a side table. "Central, gimme Cortlandt five-two-one-O. ... I've got it, Mr. Gordon--I've got it! . . . Hello, this the City News Association? . . . This is Mr. Jenkins, secretary of Mr. Henry Gordon--you know. Called you up to announce to you that Mr. Gordon has taken such a strong liking, such a very strong liking, to those Barbizon Masterpieces that he has decided to retain them for his private gallery. ”

“ For the moment Clifford forgot his purpose there in this revelation of a new phase of Mary Regan; for however phony her pretensions might be, there was nothing phony about her playing. She played Chopin--two nocturnes and the Ballade in G Minor; then coldly refusing demands for more, she left the piano.
"I say," exclaimed the secretary, who whenever excited slipped into his native inelegancies, "Miss Bingham, you're a winner at the piano! You've got a lot of professionals I've heard beat a mile!" ”

“ Clifford and Gordon abruptly halted. Mary Regan stood there, back to the fire, pale and taut, but with the composed air of one who feels herself mistress of the situation. She crumpled the receipted bill of sale in her left hand and dropped it upon the coals; a yellow flare and it was no more.
"Mr. Clifford, neither Mr. Gordon nor Mr. Jenkins will testify--the existence of the pictures alone proves nothing--and if you try to take these drafts I burn them--so you have no case. Mr. Gordon, they burn--"
"My God, woman, they're money!" writhed Mr. Gordon. "You would n't destroy money in that way!" ”

“ Painted in the same year, and in the same spirit, as the master's famous 'Orpheus and Eurydice.' The few persons who have seen it declare that is a finer piece of work than 'Orpheus,' and destined to a higher fame--and you will remember that his 'Orpheus' sold in New York a few years ago for exactly $75,200."
"What's that!" cried Mr. Gordon. "I didn't know painters were ever paid such prices!"
"They're not. For that Daubigny there, the artist would have been glad to have had a hundred dollars. ”

“ So here was flamboyant proclamation of Gordon's great gift to the Chicago Art Institute: Finest collection of Barbizon painters in America--Hitherto little known pictures excel most famous work of masters--Said to have cost a million--Mr. Gordon, interviewed, stated that he would announce later where and how he had acquired the pictures, and would announce his plans for a New York exhibition which was to precede the removal of the masterpieces to Chicago for the formal presentation there. ”

“ At half past nine that night Clifford, now in evening clothes, was still listening at the dictograph. Presently he heard Gordon dismiss the servants, and heard the latter leave the apartment. He listened a moment longer, then slipped off the head-piece and turned to Dempsey whom he had summoned here.
"Follow me in five minutes, Billy, and wait outside the door," he ordered. "you're not to come in, unless I signal." ”

“ Say, if I don't pull some stunts--presentations, receptions, formal opening of the Gordon Gallery--man alive, your bill to your clipping bureau will jump to a thousand a week and there won't be a clip that won't be a boost! . . . S-sh, she's coming back."
Mary Regan reentered in the rose-velvet cloak, alone. Jenkins signaled his employer to seize this opportunity.
"Miss Bingham," said Gordon, "we have just been discussing the possibility of my purchasing your father's pictures."
"I don't think father will ever sell," said the ingenue, in a discouraged voice. ”

“ Unlike some other gentlemen who have engaged in the lucrative traffic of selling illegitimate works of art to credulous millionaires, Russell was too wise to offer for sale as the original a copy of a famous picture--for there was the risk that even the man of most recent millions might know that the original was actually hanging in London, Paris, Florence, Munich, These paintings were all done in the manner of their alleged creators ”

“ Gordon and Mr. Jenkins. The house was just off lower Fifth Avenue near Washington Square: a neighborhood where a diminishing fragment of an eclipsed but solid and still honored aristocracy seeks vainly to withstand the uptown migration of society--some families so inactive socially, and so distinctly of a previous generation, that to-day's public which so loves its society news never even hears of their existence.
For a moment Clifford was astounded to see the house entered by this quartette. Clifford knew the place ”

“ You'll have a pleasant time, and your creditors can whistle for their money. Excellent!. don'tbe surprised if you meet me down there shortly; a tropical climate is more suited to me."
He smiled with heavy gallantry; Clifford saw how he was straining every art of his crude nature to impress Mary Regan. "And now, Miss Bingham, since you are the best business man in your family, I am going to make the payment to you. ”

“ He perceived that this straight, flame-eyed young creature had rebounded from those softer, almost gracious moods and half-intentions which their previous encounters had twice or thrice brought upon her ”

“ And it will amount to life for your uncle. When you come out, you'll be a middle-aged woman."
She went slowly pale. Even Gordon and Jenkins were held silent by the vision Clifford had summoned up--of that vital, rounded young woman, standing there by the fireplace with the drafts in one hand and in the other the receipted bill for the pictures, doomed to become seamed and bent and ugly. Russell, too, however stoical he may have been in regard to himself, was moved by what confronted Mary Regan. Clifford saw that he had made his effect. ”

“ I don't mean to hurt your feelings--I realize that you don't bother yourself with the affairs of the world--but I think your daughter is your superior in business matters--and the point where you've shown the most business sense has been in regard to the plan for evading your creditors. ”

“ To have the chance of catching Bradley in the matter, for he knew that Bradley was concerned--here was something even more.
And Mary Regan--she was most of all. His attitude toward Mary Began was strangely mixed, and the balance of power shifted almost every moment, as now his official duty, now his resentment, now his desire as a man, asserted a brief supremacy. Should he, if he succeeded in his unformed plan, place her under arrest? The idea hurt the man part of him ”

“ Gordon, you have told Miss Bingham that one of the fundamental secrets of success in big business is always to have one card up your sleeve to play in case something goes wrong. Well, the announcement of this sale was the card up our sleeve."
"A trick up your sleeve?--how?" Gordon ejaculated.
"Mr. Gordon, who is very thin-skinned about the, bad things the papers say about him," she explained, with a smile of contempt, " has boasted in every paper of the country about his priceless masterpieces. If we are arrested, then it will become known that the great business genius, Mr. ”

“ She was doing the young girl altogether too well to suit Clifford; he stiffened with anger every time the gross, indulgence-seamed face of Gordon smiled upon her. But what was their game? It was big!--he guessed that. And from the self-effacement of that vital figure, Job Russell, and the way Gordon looked at Mary Regan, he knew that, whatever tie game might be, Mary Regan had been and was its central character.
II
An hour later Clifford paused outside the house into which that unworldly gentleman of middle age, Joseph Russell, had just admitted himself, Mary Regan, Mr. ”

“ Now go on back to him. you've got him worked up until he's ripe--tonight's your big chance to put the thing across. And, Mary--talk right, and those two clever birds will do all the suggesting, all the leading. Mark my word--they'll fall for it the very minute you mention pictures!"
Clifford heard Mary Regan's footsteps pass out and die along the hallway. A moment later the aroma of a most excellent cigar drifted in to him from the dining-room ”