The Bomb

A servant, entering the library of a Fifth Avenue club, approached me and said: “Mr. Converse telephones he will be here to see you in five minutes. Yes, sir.”

“At this hour!” I exclaimed.

It was three by the clock. But Converse had specious habits. He seldom appeared in the club before midnight. Hence my surprise. Though I little suspected it, I was in for another⁠—for another one yet. But to Converse, so far, at least, as I am concerned, anything and everything was permissible.

I had always known him. We were in the same form at St. Paul’s, in the same corps at Heidelberg. In addition, I discreetly admired his sister, who had long lived abroad, and who but recently had returned here. Moreover, he had of late rather stirred me with inflammatory accounts of Margaret Dayce, a Philadelphia beauty, whom he was trying to win, in the face, too, of another chap, a man named Bundy, who also was in the running.

Naturally, my money was on Converse. But what did he want now, I wondered.

I looked about. The servant had gone. Save for the caryatides of the bookshelves, I was alone, and I took up a paper, an item of which had already absorbed me.

The item concerned Raritan, another old schoolmate. Though I would hardly have known him then, had I met him in a pantry, I could see him, as I first did, a slim, handsome lad, leaning against a table in my room in the upper school at Concord, and talking very agreeably about the Sicilian poets.

That day, when he had gone, I had missed my watch. But as I might have missed it earlier, I had omitted to suspect him. Subsequently, from other rooms, other things evaporated. Finally Raritan left St. Paul’s. For that matter, we all did. One cannot be a schoolboy forever, and more’s the pity. But I continued to hear about Raritan. What I heard was not ingratiating. Now here he was again, accused of forgery, and reported to be in hiding.

“Forgery!” I mentally exclaimed, and marveled a bit that he and I, who had been educated together, should have such different views on the proper use of pen and ink.

These meditations were interrupted. Converse, looking extremely red, and equally fit, was talking rapidly at me.

“Bundy’s got Margaret⁠—or will have, unless I stop them, and I want you to help me. They came on from Philadelphia today, and have already secured the license.”

I jumped up. “Then you are done for. How did you hear?”

“Her mother wired. Bundy simply worked on the poor child’s jealousy.”

“A fruitful soil, was it?”

“Well, she saw me kissing a woman, saw me embracing her, saw her throw herself in my arms.”

I patted a smile. “Rather barefaced and luxurious of you, don’t you think? But how did she come to behold this idyl?”

“In a moving picture.”

Incredulously I stared. “But⁠—”

Converse cut me short. “You remember when I went to meet the Lusitania? There the picture people got me and Sarah, too.”

“Your sister!”

“Yes, my sister.”

“But then⁠—”

“Yes, of course. When Margaret learns the truth it will be rather a bomb. But meanwhile⁠—”

I picked up my hat. “Meanwhile it is all too bad to be false.”

“It is worse. Margaret has never seen my sister. Bundy has. Bundy knows Sarah⁠—however slightly. But he knows her. In spite of which, yesterday he took Margaret to see this confounded picture. There and then she threw me over, and he got her to promise to marry him here today.”

“I don’t wish him many happy returns of it, then.”

Absently, Converse nodded. “It is human to lose in death those for whom we care. It is inhuman to lose them in life.” He paused, looked grimly down, and determinedly up. “I can’t lose her, I shan’t, I won’t!”

“Bravo!” I cried. “The moving picture shows, and, having shown, moves on. Let’s be going. By the way, where is she?”

“Headed, her mother said, either for the Waldorf or the St. Regis. They got here at two. It is three now. It will have taken them an hour to get the license. We may be in time.”

“We have got to be,” I answered. “This club is midway between the two hotels. I will go to the one, you go to the other.”

In speaking I put my hat on, and made with Converse for the stair. “I think I know Bundy,” I added. “He was at St. Paul’s, wasn’t he? Apropos! That was an engaging tale about Raritan. Have you seen him lately?”

For a moment, Converse, occupied with other things, did not answer. Presently and indifferently he nodded. “The last time I saw the brute was in a Fifth Avenue bus. He was completely bald and presumed to complain to me about it. I told him it was unimportant what he had on his head, the important thing was what he had in it.”

But now we had reached the street, where, for club purposes, motors stood. “Take a cab,” Converse resumed. “I will take one, too.” As he spoke, he motioned to a chauffeur.

I motioned to another, and called at him: “If they are not at the St. Regis, join me at the Waldorf.”

From the taxi which he was then entering he called back at me: “If they are at the Waldorf, explode the bomb.”

“The bomb?” I queried mentally, as the car started, but at once I got it, and I fell to thinking, and rather platitudinously I fear, of the dynamic qualities of truth. At the Waldorf, though, I found new reflections.

The lobby, saturated with tobacco and electricity, full of people, of hurrying servants, of tourists eying one another hostilely, or with indifference, resounded with the call of pages, the click of the typewriter, the hum of talk.

Through the vibrations of it all, I approached the desk. Approaching it, also, was a man, rather tall, with Piccadilly clothes, a Delmonico manner, and an air of intense satisfaction. Beside him was a girl in a frock that suggested fresh almonds. From her arm swung a bag of Peking yellow, on which battened an argent monster with eyes of jade. Topping all was a hat that might have cost a thousand dollars. Doubtless it had cost less. I lack the huckster’s eye. But not, I hope, the eye for beauty. The girl was extraordinarily fair. Her hair rippled with gold. Yet in her face, in which there was all of youth’s courageous innocence, there was also, it seemed to me, the look of one who has taken what children call a dare, and who now rather wished that she had not.

This impression, wholly momentary, the girl’s companion jostled. He was addressing the clerk:

“My name is Bundy. I wired from Philadelphia for a suite, and forgot to ask for a clergyman, also.”

The clerk turned, examined some memoranda, turned again: “The suite will be ready shortly, Mr. Bundy.”

“And the clergyman?”

The clerk shook his head. “We don’t supply them.” He hesitated, and resourcefully added: “The Reverend Doctor Manlius is here. He registered last night.” A manicured finger shot out. “There he is now.”

Hat in hand, head bent, eyes lowered, a clergyman was crossing the hall. His abundant dark hair, upturned, as if curled, at the edges, glistened a little, but his close-cut beard was dull, as was also his severe black coat.

At once Bundy accosted him. I could not hear what he said, but I could see the clergyman stop, raise his eyes, and look uncertainly at Bundy. Worship has many forms, the devout have many attitudes, but perhaps the greatest grace that religion confers is serenity. Momentarily, this gentleman appeared to lack it. But momentarily only. Immediately he straightened, stroked his rich hair, and murmured something.

Bundy turned to the beauty. “Margaret, this is Doctor Manlius. Doctor Manlius is unprepared. He has no service with him.”

“I have one,” the girl announced. That wonderful hat of hers inclined itself, and a gloved hand, entering the bowels of the silver dragon, produced a prayer book, bound in tortoise shell, clamped with gold. “I was reading it in the train,” she continued. “I also read the burial service.” She paused and oddly added: “I think I like it best.”

But Bundy was in great good humor. “Everything in proper time,” he cheerfully retorted.

Doctor Manlius coughed: “Ahem! Yes. Quite so.”

“Well, then,” Bundy spaciously resumed. “We might⁠—”

The rest of it was lost. I was about to intervene. Already I had taken aim. “Miss Dayce,” I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, “Converse bids me tell you that the woman you saw in his arms is his sister.”

But the thing missed fire. A different explosion occurred. Before me, a page in blue and brass was bawling my name.

I stopped the boy, questioned, learned that I was wanted at the telephone, divined who was at the other end, and, a bit relieved⁠—for, if I may boast, I am a poor hand at projectiles⁠—entered a booth, where at once Converse was talking at me.

“They are not here,” he huskily began. “Are they at the Waldorf?”

“Yes,” I shouted back. “In the hall⁠—with a clergyman in tow.”

“What!”

“Some reverend rounder that Bundy has picked up here.”

With an oath, Converse cleared his throat: “Detain them then. Introduce yourself to Margaret. Throw the bomb. Say I am coming.”

I started to reply, but the connection was cut, and I could fancy Converse hastening mightily.

Meanwhile, there was work to be done, and, as I reentered the foyer, mentally I again took aim. Yet at once I realized that, however effective the high projectile would prove, it was for the moment useless.

The girl, the man, the cleric, all three had vanished, and I told myself that somewhere in the vast hotel they were then actively collaborating in that ceremony which is the oldest of human rites.

I rushed at the desk. “Mr. Bundy⁠—from Philadelphia. Where is he? I must see him.”

The clerk looked me over. “I hardly think he is disengaged at present.” Cautiously and bleakly he smiled. “We have given him a sitting room while his suite is being prepared.”

Impatiently I gestured. “It is life and death. I must see the young lady who is with him, and at once.”

Again the clerk surveyed me. The cautious smile had gone. “Well, I’ll send your name up.”

I whipped out a card. “Say it’s vital. Say⁠—”

But the clerk had turned. In a moment, my card in his hand, I saw him directing an operator. Then, leisurely, behind a partition he disappeared. When I next saw him he was at the other end of the desk, talking confidentially to a fat man. Several minutes had already intervened. Several others had previously elapsed. Since I had last seen the girl, fully ten minutes must have gone. The marriage service, I told myself, is brief⁠—but lasting, and, in my brain, words kept running confusedly over themselves: “To have and to scold, to⁠—”

“Not in, sir.”

It was the clerk addressing me.

“Not in?” I amazedly repeated.

“Well, they don’t answer.” The bleak smiled reappeared. “I guess they’re busy. Front!”

The clerk turned again. So far as he was concerned I had ceased to exist.

In sheer impotence, I also turned. Before me was the palm room, widely hospitable, enterable through many doors, but, at this hour, which was too early for tea, and too late for luncheon, untenanted.

Gloomily, I was contemplating the empty chairs and unoccupied tables, when, suddenly, Converse appeared.

He flew at me. “Where is she?”

I motioned at the ceiling. “In the bonds of matrimony.”

He strangled an oath. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I couldn’t. While you were telephoning they gave me the slip. But I will tell you something. There is nothing better for the emotions than caviar and champagne. Let’s have some.”

“You are ridiculous with your caviar and your emotions,” Converse snapped.

Appreciatively I nodded. “Let me offer you, then, some wisdom for food, some song for wine. The lady has left you. Let her go. There is wisdom. Here, now, is the wine. ‘The grave of all things has its violet.’ Quaff it.”

I was but trying to calm the poor devil; trying, however stupidly, to get him to accept the inevitable. I might as well have attempted to supply him with conjectures on the orbits of skylarking comets. He ignored me utterly. With something almost terrieresque in his eagerness, he was pointing.

Beyond, through a lateral entrance of the palm room, that trio, at this moment, appeared.

“Now we are in for it!” I told myself, and, from the spectacle, turned to Converse again.

With a grimace, he turned to me. “Is that your clergyman?”

“Not mine at all,” I was about to tell him, but he was so obviously preparing for action that, instead, I put a hand on his arm. “Don’t,” I admonished. “The greatest revenge is the disdain of any.”

He shook me off. “You are ridiculous with your revenge.”

As he spoke, he started, I following, toward the palm room, where already the three were seated, and where now a Greek omnibus was supplying them with great glasses of ice water.

The girl’s back was toward us. She did not see our approach. The Greek did not care. But Bundy said something, the clergyman looked deeply into his glass, and that wonderful hat half turned. I had no time to notice more. We had reached the table. In the air now were the vibrations of hostilities begun.

Immediately Converse let go. “Margaret⁠—”

Bundy rose at the charge. Instantly, insolently, and invincibly, he fired. “I will thank you to address my wife as Mrs. Bundy.”

With that he had thought, perhaps, to bowl the foe over. Converse omitted to so much as blink. He was looking at the bride, who was looking at him. And what a look! Could eyes assassinate, hers would have killed. In their blight it occurred to me that for her to hate him to the death, she must also love him to distraction. But there was no love on exhibition then. Before her still was the affront of the moving picture.

That picture, with one lunge, Converse demolished. “Margaret, the woman you saw with me was my sister.” Another crash followed. “What’s more, Bundy knew it.”

“I!” Bundy cried. “I⁠—” The explosion had staggered him. His protest rang false. But the field was his. The girl was his wife. He fired again: “Sister or no sister⁠—”

If anyone heard, no one heeded. Manlius stood up. The bride, too, was rising. She was looking from Converse to Bundy, from Bundy to Converse.

Converse helped her: “You can’t doubt me, but if you do, look at him.”

She was looking. She looked as if looking on some dreadful dream. But she looked, too, as if she saw Bundy for the first time.

“I appear to have been tricked.”

It was she who spoke. It was Manlius who answered: “Ahem! I think⁠—really, I must be going.”

But now Bundy had got back at it. “Sister or no sister,” he was shouting, “you are married to me.”

Yes, but there are marriages that can be annulled, I told myself, and was about to say as much to Converse, but Bundy had turned to him:

“As for you⁠—”

“Don’t run into excesses,” Converse threw at him. “Nor you, either,” he threw at Manlius. As he spoke, he looked the clergyman up and down. “The last time I saw you, sir, was in a Fifth Avenue bus. You were then quite bald.”

“Really,” Manlius expostulated, edging, as he spoke, away. “Really⁠—”

Converse caught at him. “Now just tell this lady that she is not married.”

“What infernal nonsense is this?” Bundy noisily protested.

But Converse, who, with one hand, was holding the cleric, with the other abruptly tore from him an opulent wig, a false if pointed beard; and there, even in the prelate’s garb, even to me, perhaps, too, to Bundy, my old schoolmate. Raritan, who had talked so agreeably of the Sicilian poets, and whom the police were seeking, stood revealed. I nodded at him, but he failed to notice.

“Converse,” he was pleading, readjusting the while his disguise as best he could. “Converse, let me go.”

Converse nodded. “Then tell this lady you are not a clergyman.”

I turned to the girl. The Greek, open-mouthed, was staring. Bundy, his lips twisted with amazement and rage, was staring also. Suddenly, with an intake of the breath, he gulped and looked shiftily at Miss Dayce, who, limply, had sunk into a chair.

The fire had been a bit hot for her. Not one bomb only, but two, had exploded. There were ruins all about. In them an illusion had fainted, and jealousy lay dead. There were ruins all about, but in them there was light.

“Tell her⁠—” Converse was saying.

She half raised a hand. Her eyes had filled. Her lip quivered. “No. I can see. Let him go. And, perhaps, you will ask him to take⁠—to take⁠—him with him.”

Her voice had broken, but it was bravely said, and, in the saying of it, she had drawn from a finger a ring which, her head averted, she extended behind her to where Bundy stood.

Bundy looked at her, at it. The ring fell, with a tinkle, on the floor. For a second his eyes followed it. But the tinkle must have sounded to him his finish. At once, with an uplift of the chin, he squared his shoulders, glanced at us, put his hat on, turned on his heel. But it was still all a bit too much. Margaret bowed her head. A sob shook her.

Converse busied himself immediately. Caressingly his arm went about her. “There! There!” he said, much as though she were a baby. “We will have some of that caviar and champagne that I have been hearing about, and then we’ll get a license of our own.

“Here,” he interrupted himself to inquire. “Where’s the waiter?” As he spoke, he turned to me. “Don’t stand dawdling there. You make me nervous. Sit down; give us a toast.”

“Gladly,” I answered. “What shall it be?”

Converse laughed. “Why,” he exclaimed, indicating the door through which his routed rival had gone. “What could it be except⁠—Sic transit gloria Bundy!”