"A month!" echoed Rushford, in dismay. "Well, Susie, you and Nell may be able to stand it for a month, but long ere that I'll be dead—ossified, fossilised, dried up, and blown away! Maybe you girls enjoy it, though I didn't think it of you—but what can I do? I'm tired of reading day-before-yesterday's newspaper and of being two days behind the market. Two days! Think what may have happened to steel since I've heard from it! It's enough to drive a man mad!"
He got out a cigar, lighted it, and stood puffing it nervously, appalled at the vision his own words had conjured up.
"But, dad," Sue pointed out, coming to his side and taking his arm coaxingly, "you know it was just to get away from all that worry—from those horrid stocks and things—that you consented to come with us."
"Don't call the stocks hard names, Susie. Don't go back on your best friends!" protested Rushford. "Don't forget what they've done for you!"
"But, dear, you remember how strongly Doctor Samuels insisted on your taking a rest; how necessary he said it was?"
"Oh, perfectly!" responded Rushford, drily. "I've suspected right along that Samuels took his orders from you."
"From me, dad!" cried Sue, indignantly, but her eyes were shining in a most suspicious manner. "A man of his standing—"
"It doesn't matter," broke in her father, with a wave of his arm. "I'm willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that Samuels was perfectly sincere. But I still protest that there is no reason why we should conceal ourselves here. We haven't done anything—the police aren't after us—I can speak for myself, at least."
"This seemed to be such a nice, quiet place for you, dad," explained Nell, perching herself upon a table near the window and gazing pensively out at the shimmering water, which told that the sun was winning a decisive victory over the mist, and that the day would be a fine one.
"For me!" repeated her father, turning and staring at her. "You don't mean to say you chose this place on my account!"
Nell nodded, but she winked at Susie.
"And then, you know," she added, "we have always wanted to get a glimpse of a real Dutch watering-place."
"I don't believe this is a real Dutch watering-place. Nobody here speaks anything but French. Why, it's even got a French name!"
"Only two-thirds French, dad," Sue corrected.
"And everything is priced in francs."
"That is true of all Europe," asserted Nell, with superb aplomb.
"Well, Dutch, French, or Hindoo, you've had your glimpse, haven't you?
Suppose we move on and get a glimpse or two of something worth seeing."
"Oh, but we've seen it all only from the outside! We've been like the audience at a show—we haven't had any part in it. And it's so much more interesting behind the scenes!"
"It's dull enough from in front, heaven knows!" agreed Rushford. "If I
had my way, I'd ring down the curtain and close the show up this minute.
It's the worst I ever saw! And I very much doubt if a respectable
American family has any business behind the scenes!"
"You're jaundiced, dad," laughed Sue. "You're looking at the place through a yellow film of prejudice. One must enter into the spirit of the thing!"
Rushford groaned.
"I'm afraid I'm too set in my ways, Susie," he said, dismally. "I've lived in America too long. You might as well ask me to dance the can-can, and be done with it!"
"Besides," continued Sue, "it's just as Nell says. We're on the outside—we haven't got a foothold. There's something the matter."
"Maybe they think I'm that Chicago cashier who got away with a million, not long ago. On second thought, though, I don't believe that would make any difference. That fellow would find a very congenial circle here. He wouldn't have any difficulty in getting behind the scenes!"
"Sue and I have been thinking it over," said Nell, "and we've concluded that it must be something about the hotel. We seem to have picked out the wrong one."
"The place is empty, and that's a fact," agreed Rushford.
"It's unnaturally so," said Sue. "Something's the matter with it. It's taboo for some reason."
"Well, it's good enough for me," remarked her father. "After all, there isn't much difference in prisons! But I want to repeat, as emphatically as possible, that I can't keep on loafing here for a month and preserve my sanity. Don't you see how much whiter my hair's getting? I'm willing to do anything in reason to oblige you, and I fully realise the importance of your sociological and ethnological studies—"
Sue's hand on his mouth stopped him.
"Take a breath, dad," she cautioned him. "Take a breath. Those were mighty long words."
"As I was about to remark," continued Rushford, calmly, taking the hand away, "I am, of course, a doting parent—who would not be with two such children? But, candidly, I don't just see where I come in. I tell you, girls, I've got to have some excitement."
"There's plenty of excitement at the Casino, dad."
"Oh, yes—faro excitement; roulette excitement. I never cared for that kind. I've always had the sense to keep out of sure-thing games, even on Wall Street."
"But the people—"
"The people! French apes in fancy waistcoats; Dutch dandies in corsets; women with painted cheeks and pencilled eyebrows whom you're ashamed to look at!"
"Some of them are respectable, dad," laughed Sue.
"One would never suspect it!"
"Oh, yes, dad; some of them belong to the nobility."
"That's no certificate of character—rather the reverse, if one may believe the papers."
"Gossip, dad; nothing but gossip. And you know how you've always hated gossip. You've told us never to believe it."
"It may be; but one could believe anything of most of the women one sees around here. My only chance for amusement is to get up a flirtation with some of them. I don't think it would be difficult—they don't seem a bit shy. Only," he added, with a sigh, "I'm getting too old."
"Yes, dad; I'm afraid you are," agreed Susie. "You wouldn't really enjoy it."
"'My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!'"
quoted Nell, in a solemn voice.
"Don't you be too sure!" retorted her father, threateningly, wheeling around upon her. "There's no telling what I may be driven to, if I'm kept imprisoned here much longer! 'Though I look old,'—"
"'Yet I am strong and lusty,'" finished Sue. "Of course you are, dad, and you don't look old, either. Why," gazing up at him critically, "you don't look a day over forty!"
"Don't try to bamboozle your Pa, Susie," laughed Rushford. "I can see through you! You'll be trying to make me believe next that you want a stepmother."
"I would if it would make you any happier, dad."
Her father gazed down for an instant into her pseudo-serious face, then caught her in his arms and squeezed her.
"What're you up to?" he demanded. "Trying to make a fool of your old dad? Why, Susie, own up—you'd scratch out the eyes of the best woman in the world if she dared to look twice at me!"
"Of course I would!" admitted Susie, instantly. "You know as well as I do, dad, that even the best woman in the world isn't good enough for you."