Her Forbidden Knight (7 page)

Finally, she arose and slowly put on her coat and hat. On her way out she stopped at the cigar stand and chatted for a moment with Miss Hughes, who expressed some concern at her pallor and appearance of fatigue.

“It’s no wonder you’re sick,” said the Venus sympathetically. “A dump like this is enough to kill you. I can stand it. I’m used to it. But sometimes it gives even me the willies.”

“It’s nothing,” Lila smiled. “I think I have a headache. Thank you for asking. Good night.”

She left the lobby by the main entrance, walked up Broadway to Twenty-third Street, then turned west. The rush hour was past, and the sidewalks were nearly deserted. A few belated pedestrians hurried along as rapidly as the slippery condition of the pavement would permit.

The lighted shop windows shone in the frosty air with a sharp brilliancy. Taxicabs and hansoms picked their way cautiously through the ice and snow, and the crosstown cars clanged noisily on their way to either river.

Lila had got nearly to Sixth Avenue, and was hastening her step at the urging of the cold east wind at her back, when she heard her name called behind her. Turning, she saw Billy Sherman, who advanced smiling, with lifted hat.

Half frightened, she nodded and turned to go, but Sherman stopped her with a gesture. There was a conciliatory smile on his dark, handsome face as he looked down at her.

“Do you take the Sixth Avenue ‘L’?” he asked.

Lila nodded.

“Then we can ride together. I am going uptown. You are ill, and you need some one to look after you. If you would only—”

Lila broke in with a protest, but Sherman paid no attention to it, and walked by her side to the Elevated station and up the steps. He stopped at the window to buy tickets, but Lila took one from her purse and dropped it in the box as she passed to the platform. In a moment he joined her.

“Are you unwilling that I should do even so little for you?” he asked reproachfully.

Lila was silent. A train pulled in, and they boarded it together. On account of the late hour, they had no difficulty to find seats. As the train started Sherman turned in his seat to look at her, and repeated his question.

His manner was respectful, and his solicitude appeared to be genuine; and Lila, wearied and worn by anxiety, was touched by it. After all, she asked herself bitterly, who was she, to despise anybody?

“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully in answer to his question, which he repeated for the third time. “You must remember—what you have said to me—and how you have acted. I wish—I think it would be best for you to leave me at the next station. You were not going uptown, were you?”

“I beg you to forget how I have acted,” said Sherman earnestly. “I know that twice I have forgotten myself, but not without reason. You must know that I am and want to be, your friend.

“I shall not pretend that it is all my desire. But if you will not allow me to be more than a friend, I will be satisfied with that. I couldn’t let you come home alone tonight. You were so weak you could hardly stand.”

He continued in this strain for many minutes, while the train rumbled northward, and Lila sat back in her seat with her eyes half closed, scarcely listening.

His voice came to her in a gruff monotone above the rattle of the train, and against her will filled her with a sense of protection and comfort. The words came to her vaguely, unintelligible; but the tone was that of sympathy and friendship—and how she needed them!

Thus she allowed him to continue, while she remained silent, dimly conscious of the danger she had once felt in his glance and voice.

At the One Hundred and Fourth Street station he rose, and she saw with a sense of surprise that she had reached her destination. At the train gate she turned to thank him, but he assisted her down the steps of the station and started west on One Hundred and Fourth Street at her side.

“You are surprised that I know the way?” he smiled. “You should not be. How many times have I stood in this street looking up at your window, when you thought I was far away—or, rather, when you were not thinking of me at all!”

“Mr. Sherman!” exclaimed Lila warningly.

They had halted at the stoop of an old-fashioned brownstone apartment house, and Lila had mounted the three or four steps and stood looking down at him.

“Forgive me,” said Sherman in a tone of contrition. “But you have not answered me—I mean, what I said on the train. There could be nothing offensive in what I proposed, unless you hate me.”

“No. I think I do not hate you,” said Lila slowly.

She was tired, and longed to be alone, and was forcing herself to be polite to him.

“Then you are my friend?”

“I—think—so.”

“Will you shake hands on it?”

Lila appeared to hesitate, and shivered—possibly from the cold. Finally she extended a reluctant hand a few inches in front of her.

Then, as soon as Sherman touched it with his fingers, she withdrew it hastily, and, with a hurried “Good night, and thank you,” disappeared within the house.

For a long minute Sherman stood gazing at the door which had closed behind her; then, turning sharply, he started off down the street. At Columbus Avenue he entered a saloon and ordered a brandy.

“God knows I need it,” he muttered to himself. “The little devil! Well, I can’t play that game. It’s too hard to hold myself in. The other way is more dangerous, perhaps, but it’s easier. Friendship! I’ll show you a new kind of friendship!”

He beckoned to the bartender and ordered another brandy, with a knowing leer at his reflection in the mirror opposite. Then, having drained his second glass, he left the saloon and, crossing the street to the Elevated station, boarded a downtown train. In thirty minutes he was back at the Lamartine.

The lobby was almost deserted; it was too early for the evening throng. Sherman wandered about in search of one of the Erring Knights, but in vain; and he finally asked the Venus at the cigar stand if she had seen Knowlton. She replied that he had not been in the lobby, and Sherman departed for dinner, well satisfied with the events of the day.

He was destined, on the following day, to have that feeling of satisfaction rudely shattered and converted into despair.

The next morning the Erring Knights were openly and frankly jubilant. Knowlton had obeyed their warning; clearly, he was afraid of them. They felt an increased sense of proprietary right in Miss Williams.

Dougherty, entering the lobby about eleven o’clock, stopped at Lila’s desk to say good morning, and stared in anxious surprise at her pale cheeks and red, tear-stained eyes.

“Are you ill?” he asked bluntly.

“Not I,” she answered, trying to smile. “I had a headache, but it is all right now.”

Dougherty grumbled something unintelligible, and proceeded to the corner where the Erring Knights were assembled. He was the last to arrive. Dumain, Jennings, and Driscoll were seated on the leather lounge, and Sherman and Booth were leaning against the marble pillars in front of it. They greeted Dougherty in a chorus.

“Bone jore,”
said Dougherty, with an elaborate bow. “How’s that Dumain?”

“Pairfect,” smiled the little Frenchman.

“Really,” the ex-prizefighter asserted, “I think I’ll learn French. I like the way it sounds.
‘Monseere’
is much more classy than ‘mister,’ for instance.”

“If you do,” put in Driscoll, “you’d better speak it better than Dumain speaks English. If a man could be electrocuted for murdering a language he’d be a storage battery by this time.”

“Have your fun,” said Dumain, rising to his feet and shrugging his shoulders good-naturedly. “Eet ees a treeck—zat Angleesh. I have eet not.”

“Hardly,” laughed Jennings. “You don’t speak it with the finish of our late friend Mr. Knowlton, for instance. By the way, have you seen him?” he added, turning to Dougherty.

“Who? Knowlton?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I should say not.” Dougherty grinned as though the idea were absurd. “And, believe me, I won’t see him—at least, not in the Lamartine. When I tell a guy he’s not wanted, that ends it.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Booth advised. “Just because he didn’t come yesterday—you know today is another day.”

Dougherty turned on the speaker scornfully. “Listen,” he said with emphasis. “If that Knowlton shows his face in this lobby—which he won’t—but if he does, we’ll eat him up.”

“Diable! Mon Dieu!”

The exclamation came from Dumain, in an undertone of surprise and alarm. The others turned to him in wonder, and, following his fixed gaze toward the main entrance, saw Knowlton walk down the center of the lobby and stop at Lila’s desk!

The action and facial expression of each of the Erring Knights at this juncture was curiously indicative of their different characters.

Driscoll and Dougherty moved forward and glared belligerently; Booth and Jennings glanced from one side to the other as though in search of reenforcements; Dumain sputtered with wrath and indignation, and Sherman’s face darkened with a menacing scowl. None of them, however, appeared to be particularly anxious to cross the lobby.

Knowlton had not cast a single glance in their direction. His back was turned to them as he stood talking with Lila, and their conversation was in so low a tone that the Erring Knights heard not a word of it.

For perhaps two minutes this scene, half farcical, remained unchanged. The Erring Knights muttered to each other in undertones and glared fiercely, but they made no move.

Suddenly they saw Knowlton lift his hat and bow to Lila, turn sharply, and leave the lobby even more hurriedly than he had entered it.

Each of the Erring Knights glanced round the circle of his companions; some questioning, others assertive.

“It’s up to us,” declared Dougherty. “We’ve got to show him.”

They gathered themselves closely about the lounge, and all began talking at once.

In the meantime, what of Lila?

When Knowlton entered the lobby she was busied with some papers on her desk, and therefore did not see him. She became aware of his presence only when he stopped at her side and spoke to her.

For a moment she was speechless with surprise and gladness and confusion. She stared at him strangely, unseeing.

“What’s the matter?” smiled Knowlton. “I hope I don’t look as fierce as that.”

Then, as Lila did not answer, he reached for a telegraph blank, wrote on it, and handed it to her, together with a ten-dollar bill which he took from his wallet.

Lila’s dismay and confusion were doubled. The bill was exactly similar to the others he had given her, and to those which the collector had declared to be counterfeit.

What could she say? Finding no words, and feeling that she must do something, she extended her hand to take the bill, then drew it back, shivering involuntarily. Summoning her courage by a violent effort, she faltered:

“Mr. Knowlton, that bill—I—I cannot take it.”

And as Knowlton’s face filled with surprise and something else that resembled uneasiness, and before he could speak she continued:

“The other day our collector showed me one of the bills you had given me, and asked where I got it. He said they were counterfeit. I thought you would want to know.”

Knowlton had turned pale and was staring at her fixedly.

“Well?” he said.

“Shall I tell him?”

“Why—didn’t you?” the young man stammered eagerly.

“No. I thought I had better speak to you first. You see—” Lila’s voice faltered and ceased, her face reddening to the tips of her ears with shame.

Knowlton picked up the bill he had laid on the counter and returned it to his pocket. His hand trembled nervously, and his voice was low and uncertain as he said:

“If it’s all the same to you, I—it would be better not to tell him. I shall not bother you with more of them. And I—I thank you,” he added, as he turned away. That was all.

Lila turned to her desk, sick at heart; and when little Dumain bustled over a few minutes later with the intention of learning something of what Knowlton had said to her, he found her in tears.

“Mon Dieu!”
he gasped. The sight of Miss Williams crying was unprecedented and, to Dumain, extremely painful. “What is zee mattaire?”

“Nothing,” said Lila. “I have a headache. For goodness’ sake, don’t stand and stare at me!”

Whereupon Dumain retreated to the corner where he had left the others in secret session. He decided not to tell them about Lila’s tears, being convinced that if he did so they would proceed to murder Knowlton on Broadway at high noon.

Besides, he had an idea that the tears were caused by Knowlton’s having said farewell, in which case there would be no necessity for action on the part of the Erring Knights. Dumain was certainly not a coward; but he was—let us say—discreet.

Lila was overwhelmed with shame and humiliation. She had told Knowlton that she had lied for his sake, which amounted to a confession of her interest in him and regard for him. He must have understood. And he had muttered a perfunctory thank you, and walked away.

But perhaps he took it as a matter of course. Perhaps he regarded her as one of those creatures to whom deception is natural—of loose morals and conscience—whose aid may be depended upon by any stray enemy of society and morality.

This thought was unbearable. Lila clenched her fists tightly till the little pink nails bit sharp rings in the white palms of her hands.

Why had he not explained? It could have been but for one of two reasons: either he was guilty and could not, or he regarded her opinion as unimportant and did not care to.

And if he were guilty; but that was impossible. John Knowlton, the man to whom she had given her heart unreservedly, and forever, a counterfeiter—a criminal? It could not be.

There remained only the supposition that he cared so little about her that her good opinion was a matter of indifference to him. And this, though mortifying, was bearable. Still was she filled with shame, for he had heard her confession, and had made no sign.

Most probably she would never know, for she felt convinced that she would never see Knowlton again. She had been unable to avoid overhearing a great deal of the conversation of the Erring Knights concerning him, and Dumain himself had told her that they had warned him to stay away from the Lamartine.