"Hands on it," said Grahame, and they touched palms over the table, while the Senator broke into smiles. He had unlimited faith in his nephew.
"Lord Conny gave me an outline of Livingstone's program before I left.
He's worried over the effect it's going to have on his alliance scheme, and he cursed the Minister sincerely. He'll help us. Let's begin with Sister Claire in the hope of bagging the whole crowd. Let Curran hunt up her history. Above all let him get evidence that Livingstone provides the money for her enterprise."
Having come to a conclusion on this important matter, they dropped into more personal topics.
"Strangely enough," said Grahame cheerfully, "my own destiny is mixed up with this whole business. The bulwark of Livingstone in one quarter is John Everard. I am wooing, in the hope of winning, my future father-in-law."
"He's very dead," the Senator thought.
"The art of wooing a father-in-law!--what an art!" murmured Grahame.
"The mother-in-law is easy. She wishes her daughter married. Papa doesn't. At least in this case, with a girl like Mona."
"Has Everard anything against you?"
"A whole litany of crimes."
"What's wrong with Everard?"
"He was born the night of the first big wind, and he has had it in for the whole world ever since. He's perverse. Nothing but another big wind will turn him round."
Seeing Arthur puzzled over these allusions, Grahame explained.
"Think of such a man having children like the twins, little lumps of sweetness ... like Louis ... heavens! if I live to be the father of such a boy, life will be complete ... like my Mona ... oh!"
He stalked about the room throwing himself into poses of ecstasy and adoration before an imaginary goddess to the delight of the Senator.
"I've been there myself," Arthur commented unmoved. "To the question: how do you hope to woo and win Everard?"
"First, by my book. It's the story of just such a fool as he: a chap who wears the American flag in bed and waves it at his meals, as a nightgown and a napkin; then, he is a religious man of the kind that finds no religion to his liking, and would start one of his own if he thought it would pay; finally, he is a purist in politics, believes in blue glass, drinks ten glasses of filtered water a day, which makes him as blue as the glass, wears paper collars, and won't let his son be a monk because there are too many in the world. Now, Everard will laugh himself weak over this character. He's so perverse that he will never see himself in the mirror which I have provided."
"Rather risky, I should think."
"But that's not all," Grahame went on, "since you are kind enough to listen. I'm going to wave the American flag, eat it, sing it, for the next year, myself. Attend: the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are going to sit on what is left of Plymouth Rock next spring, and make speeches and read poems, and eat banquets. I am to be invited to sing, to read the poem. Vandervelt is to see to that. Think of it, a wild Irishman, an exile, a conspirator against the British Crown, a subject of the Pope, reading or singing the praises of the pilgrims, the grim pilgrims. Turn in your grave, Cotton Mather, as my melodious verses harrow your ears."
"Will that impress John Everard?"
"Or give him a fatal fit. The book and the poem ought to do the business. He can't resist. 'Never was Everard in this humor wooed, never was Everard in this humor won.' Oh, that Shakespeare had known an Everard, and embalmed him like a fly in the everlasting amber of his verse. But should these things fail, I have another matter. While Everard rips up Church and priest and doctrine at his pleasure, he has one devotion which none may take liberties with. He swears by the nuns.
He is foaming at the mouth over the injury and insult offered them by the _Confessions_ of Sister Claire. We expose this clever woman. Picture me, then, the despised suitor, after having pleased him by my book, and astounded him with my poem, and mesmerized him with the exposure of Claire, standing before him with silent lips but eyes speaking: I want your daughter. Can even this perverse man deny me? Don't you think I have a chance?"
"Not with Everard," said the Senator solemnly. "He's simply coke."
"You should write a book, Doyle, on the art of wooing a father-in-law, and explain what you have left out here: how to get away with the dog."
"Before marriage," said the ready wit, "the girl looks after the dog; after marriage the dog can be trained to bite the father-in-law."
Arthur found the _Confessions of an Escaped Nun_ interesting reading from many points of view, and spent the next three days analyzing the book of the hour. His sympathy for convent life equaled his understanding of it. He had come to understand and like Sister Mary Magdalene, in spite of a prejudice against her costume; but the motive and spirit of the life she led were as yet beyond him. Nevertheless, he could see how earnestly the _Confessions_ lied about what it pretended to expose. The smell of the indecent and venal informer exhaled from the pages. The vital feature, however, lay in the revelation of Sister Claire's character, between the lines. Beneath the vulgarity and obscenity, poorly veiled in a mock-modest verbiage, pulsated a burning sensuality reaching the horror of mania. A well-set trap would have easy work in catching the feet of a woman related to the nymphs. Small wonder that the Livingstone party kept her afar off from their perfumed and reputable society while she did her nasty work. The book must have been oil to that conflagration raging among the Irish. The abuse of the press, the criticism of their friends, the reproaches of their own, the hostility of the government, the rage and grief at the failure of their hopes, the plans to annoy and cripple them, scorched indeed their sensitive natures; but the book of the Escaped Nun, defiling their holy ones so shamelessly, ate like acid into their hearts. Louis came in, when he had completed his analysis of the volume, and begun to think up a plan of action. The lad fingered the book gingerly, and said timidly:
"I'm going to see ... I have an appointment with this terrible woman for to-morrow afternoon. In fact, I saw her this morning. I went to her office with Sister Mary Magdalen."
"Of course the good Sister has a scheme to convert the poor thing!"
Arthur said lightly, concealing his delight and surprise under a pretense of indifference.
"Well, yes," and the lad laughed and blushed. "And she may succeed too.
The greater the sin the deeper the repentance. The unfortunate woman----"
"Who is making a fortune on her book by the way----"
"----received us very kindly. Sister Magdalen had been corresponding with her. She wept in admitting that her fall seemed beyond hope. She felt so tangled in her own sins that she knew no way to get out of them. Really, she _was_ so sincere. When we were leaving she begged me to call again, and as I have to return to the seminary Monday I named to-morrow afternoon."
"You may then have the honor of converting her."
"It would be an honor," Louis replied stoutly.
"Try it," said Arthur after thinking the matter over. "I know what force _your_ arguments will have with her. And if you don't object I'll stay ... by the way, where is her office?"
"In a quiet business building on Bleecker Street, near Broadway."
"If you don't mind I'll stay outside in the hall, and rush in to act as altar-boy, when she agrees to 'vert."
"I'm going for all your ridicule, Arthur."
"No objection, but keep a cool head, and bear in mind that I am in the hall outside."
He suspected the motive of Sister Claire, both in making this appointment, and in playing at conversion with Sister Magdalen. Perhaps it might prove the right sort of trap for her cunning feet. He doubted the propriety of exposing Louis to the fangs of the beast, and for a moment he thought to warn him of the danger. But he had no right to interfere in Sister Magdalen's affair, and if a beginning had to be made this adventure could be used effectively. He forgot the affair within the hour, in the business of hunting up Curran.
He had a double reason for seeking the detective. Besides the task of ferreting out the record of Sister Claire, he wished to get news of the Endicotts. Aunt Lois had slipped out of life two days after her return from Europe. The one heart that loved him truly beat for him no more. By this time her vengeance must have fallen, and Sonia, learning the full extent of her punishment, must now be writhing under a second humiliation and disappointment. He did not care to see her anguish, but he did care to hear of the new effort that would undoubtedly be made to find the lost husband. Curran would know. He met him that afternoon on the street near his own house.
"Yes, I'm back in the old business," he said proudly; "the trip home so freshened me that I feel like myself again. Besides, I have my own home, here it is, and my wife lives with me. Perhaps you have heard of her, La Belle Colette."
"And seen her too ... a beautiful and artistic dancer."
"You must come in now and meet her. She is a trifle wild, you know, and once she took to drink; but she's a fine girl, a real good fellow, and worth twenty like me. Come right in, and we'll talk business later."
La Belle Colette! The dancer at a cheap seaside resort! The wild creature who drank and did things! This shrewd, hard fellow, who faced death as others faced a wind, was deeply in love and happy in her companionship. What standard of womanhood and wifehood remained to such men? However, his wonder ceased when he had bowed to La Belle Colette in her own parlor, heard her sweet voice, and looked into the most entrancing eyes ever owned by a woman, soft, fiery, tender, glad, candid eyes. He recalled the dancer, leaping like a flame about the stage. In the plainer home garments he recognized the grace, quickness, and gaiety of the artist. Her charm won him at once, the spell which her rare kind have ever been able to cast about the hearts of men. He understood why the flinty detective should be in love with his wife at times, but not why he should continue in that state. She served them with wine and cigars, rolled a cigarette for herself, chatted with the ease and chumminess of a good fellow, and treated Arthur with tenderness.
"Richard has told me so much of you," she explained.
"I have so admired your exquisite art," he replied, "that we are already friends."
"Que vous etes bien gentil," she murmured, and her tone would have caressed the wrinkles out of the heart of old age.
"Yes, I'm back at the old game," said Curran, when they got away from pleasantry. "I'm chasing after Tom Jones. It's more desperate than ever.
His old aunt died some days back, and left Tom's wife a dollar, and Tom's son another dollar."
"I can fancy her," said Colette with a laugh, "repeating to herself that magic phrase, two dollars, for hours and hours. Hereafter she will get weak at sight of the figure two, and things that go in twos, like married people, she will hate."
"How easy to see that you are French, Colette," said Arthur, as a compliment. She threw him a kiss from her pretty fingers, and gave a sidelong look at Curran.