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"For God's sake, sir, don't lose a minute." Vard transfixed his abject henchman. "I have never yet taken the back way," he enunciated; and, with a gesture matching the words, he turned to me and bowed. "I regret the disturbance" and he walked to the door. His daughter was at his side, alert, transfigured. "Stay here, my dear." "Never!"
Mellish, as became a vigilant hostess, got up and shuffled her guests; and the question of Yard's portrait was dropped. I left the house with Lillo; and on the way down Fifth Avenue, after one of his long silences, he suddenly asked: "Is that what is generally said of my picture of Vard? I don't mean in the newspapers, but by the fellows who know?" I said it was. He drew a deep breath.
I had the feeling do you writer-fellows have it too? that there was something tremendous in me if it could only be got out; and I felt Vard was the Moses to strike the rock. There were vulgar reasons, too, that made me hunger for a victim.
"Your political rule of out-and-open, as you've been tutored by Vard Waymouth, may work with men, but I'm telling you that it won't operate with girls," replied the Duke. "You may mean all right, but I'm suspicious of you. You sneaked back to Fort Canibas last summer to see her now didn't you?" "I saw her." "You don't pay much attention to my wishes, do you, Harlan?"
"You heard what he said about what he intended to do the warning, as he called it." Thornton looked at his grandson serenely and with a glint of humor in his eyes. "You don't have any idea, do you, that Vard Waymouth is going to play politics with sugar-plums instead of with the chips he finds on the table? Get your wisdom teeth cut, young chap.
"Ah, in some cases I can imagine it's impossible to seize the type or to say why one has missed it. Some people are like daguerreotypes; in certain lights one can't see them at all. But surely Vard was obvious enough. What I want to know is, what became of him? What did you do with him? How did you manage to shuffle him out of sight?" "It was much easier than you think.
"And this boosting big chap is Harlan my grand-baby, Vard! Guess you used to see him at 'The Barracks' when he was smaller. Since then he's been trying to outgrow one of our spruce-trees." The ex-Governor gave Harlan his left hand. The empty sleeve of the right arm was pinned to the shoulder. "The old Yankee stock doesn't need a step-ladder to stand on to light the moon, so they used to say."
I swore I'd do his face then and there; do it as she saw it; she sat close to him, and I had only to glance at her while I painted Vard himself was masterly: his talk rattled through my hesitations and embarrassments like a brisk northwester sweeping the dry leaves from its path. Even his daughter showed the sudden brilliance of a lamp from which the shade has been removed.
I walked across the room to look at it, and Lillo presently followed with a light. "It certainly is a complete disguise," he muttered over my shoulder; then he turned away and stooped to a big portfolio propped against the wall. "Did you ever know Miss Vard?" he asked, with his head in the portfolio; and without waiting for my answer he handed me a crayon sketch of a girl's profile.
One day it did crash: the head-lines of the morning papers shouted the catastrophe at me: "The Monster forced to disgorge Warrant out against Vard Bardwell the Boss's Boomerang" you know the kind of thing. When I had read the papers I threw them down and went out. As it happened, Vard was to have given me a sitting that morning; but there would have been a certain irony in waiting for him.
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