第46章

Why, the man's got Excelsior on the brain!" He stopped as he looked at Brimmer's cold face, and suddenly colored."I mean his plan--his idea's all nonsense--you know that!""I certainly don't agree with him," began Brimmer gravely; "but"--"The idea," interrupted Markham, encouraged by Brimmer's beginning, "of his knocking around the Gulf of California, and getting up an expedition to go inland, just because a mail-steamer saw a barque like the Excelsior off Mazatlan last August.As if the Excelsior wouldn't have gone into Mazatlan if it had been her! I tell you what it is, Brimmer: it's mighty rough on you and me, and it ain't the square thing at all--after all we've done, and the money we've spent, and the nights we've sat up over the Excelsior--to have this young fellow Keene always putting up the bluff of his lost sister on us! His lost sister, indeed! as if WE hadn't any feelings."The two men looked at each other, and each felt it incumbent to look down and sigh deeply--not hypocritically, but perfunctorily, as over a past grief, although anger had been the dominant expression of the speaker.

"I was about to remark," said Brimmer practically, "that the insurance on the Excelsior having been paid, her loss is a matter of commercial record; and that, in a business point of view, this plan of Keene's ain't worth looking at.As a private matter of our own feelings--purely domestic--there's no question but that we must sympathize with him, although he refuses to let us join in the expenses.""Oh, as to that," said Markham hurriedly, "I told him to draw on me for a thousand dollars last time I saw him.No, sir; it ain't that.What gets me is this darned nagging and simpering around, and opening old sores, and putting on sentimental style, and doing the bereaved business generally.I reckon he'd be even horrified to see you and me here--though it was just a chance with both of us.""I think not," said Brimmer dryly."He knows Miss Montgomery already.They're going by the same steamer."Markham looked up quickly.

"Impossible! She's going by the other line to Panama; that is"--he hesitated--"I heard it from the agent.""She's changed her mind, so Keene says," returned Brimmer."She's going by way of Nicaragua.He stops at San Juan to reconnoitre the coast up to Mazatlan.Good-night.It's no use waiting here for a cab any longer, I'm off.""Hold on!" said Markham, struggling out of a sudden uneasy reflection."I say, Brimmer," he resumed, with an enforced smile, which he tried to make playful, "your engagement with Keene won't keep you long.What do you say to having a little supper with Miss Montgomery, eh?--perfectly proper, you know--at our hotel? Just a few friends, eh?"Brimmer's eyes and lips slightly contracted.

"I believe I am already invited," he said quietly."Keene asked me.In fact, that's the appointment.Strange he didn't speak of you," he added dryly.

"I suppose it's some later arrangement," Markham replied, with feigned carelessness."Do you know her?""Slightly."

"You didn't say so!"

"You didn't ask me," said Brimmer."She came to consult me about South American affairs.It seems that filibuster General Leonidas, alias Perkins, whose little game we stopped by that Peruvian contract, actually landed in Quinquinambo and established a government.It seems she knows him, has a great admiration for him as a Liberator, as she calls him.I think they correspond!""She's a wonderful woman, by jingo, Brimmer! I'd like to hear whom she don't know," said Markham, beaming with a patronizing vanity.

"There's you, and there's that filibuster, and old Governor Pico, that she's just snatched bald-headed--I mean, you know, that he recognizes her worth, don't you see? Not like this cattle you see here.""Are you coming with me?" said Brimmer, gravely buttoning up his coat, as if encasing himself in a panoply of impervious respectability.

"I'll join you at the hotel," said Markham hurriedly."There's a man over there in the parquet that I want to say a word to; don't wait for me."With a slight inclination of the head Mr.Brimmer passed out into the lobby, erect, self-possessed, and impeccable.One or two of his commercial colleagues of maturer age, who were loitering leisurely by the wall, unwilling to compromise themselves by actually sitting down, took heart of grace at this correct apparition.Brimmer nodded to them coolly, as if on 'Change, and made his way out of the theatre.He had scarcely taken a few steps before a furious onset of wind and rain drove him into a doorway for shelter.At the same moment a slouching figure, with a turned-up coat-collar, slipped past him and disappeared in a passage at his right.Partly hidden by his lowered umbrella, Mr.Brimmer himself escaped notice, but he instantly recognized his late companion, Markham.As he resumed his way up the street he glanced into the passage.Halfway down, a light flashed upon the legend "Stage Entrance." Quincy Brimmer, with a faint smile, passed on to his hotel.

It was striking half-past eleven when Mr.Brimmer again issued from his room in the Oriental and passed down a long corridor.Pausing a moment before a side hall that opened from it, he cast a rapid look up and down the corridor, and then knocked hastily at a door.

It was opened sharply by a lady's maid, who fell back respectfully before Mr.Brimmer's all-correct presence.