"It's pretty beastly in me to put this on you." Selwyn, who had
taken his seat in a chair opposite mine, first leaned back, then
forward, and, hands clasped between his knees, looked down upon the
floor. "I've kept away from you lest I trouble you with what I have
no right--"
"If you did not talk to me frankly I would be much more troubled." I
drew the scarf about my shoulders a little closer. I knew what was
coming. The thought of it chilled. "Is it about Harrie you are
again worried?"
Selwyn nodded. "You knew he had left home? Knew he had taken a
bachelor apartment downtown?"
"I heard it day before yesterday. Kitty told me. Billie is pretty
upset about him. Being five years older and married, Billie is
seeing life rather differently from the way Harrie takes it, and the
latter's recklessness--"
Selwyn looked at me, then away. "The boy is beyond comprehension. I
haven't seen him but once in nearly two weeks. Five days before
Christmas he had his trunk and certain things sent down-town, and
wrote me a note telling of the apartment he'd taken. I've been to
see him several times, but he's never in and, I'm told, hasn't been
in now for over a week. I've written him, made every inquiry likely
to lead to information without exciting undue suspicion, and now,
unless I go to the police--" Biting the ends of his close-cut
mustache, Selwyn stopped abruptly.
"Does Mrs. Swink know he has left home?"
"If she doesn't, she'll know it to-morrow when she gets my answer to
this." Taking a letter from his pocket, Selwyn threw it on the table
behind me. "Later you can read that, if you've time to waste. I got
it to-day. Harrie hasn't been to see Madeleine for over a week.
Mrs. Swink wants to know why. Wants to know where he is. So do I."
"Didn't he dine with Mildred on Christmas day? I thought both of you
were always there at Christmas."
"We are. When Mildred's Christmas dinner is over I thank God there
will be three hundred and sixty-five days before she can have another
one. Harrie was all right when he came in, but he took too much
egg-nog, too much of other things Mildred had no business having, I
tried to make him go home with me, but he wouldn't do it. Then I
tried to go with him and he wouldn't let me do that either. Said he
had an engagement with Miss Swink. He was not in a condition to fill
it, but, thinking if she saw him Mrs. Swink might take in what she so
far has failed to understand, I was rather glad he was going to keep
his engagement. He didn't keep it."
"What did he do? Where did he go?"
Selwyn's face darkened. "I don't know. Nobody knows. He hasn't
been in his apartment since Christmas day. His trunk and clothes are
in his rooms, also his suit-cases and bags, and there is no evidence
of his having gone off on a trip. I haven't told Mildred. She'd go
into hysterics and tell the town Harrie had disappeared. Mrs. Swink,
however, had to be told something. Madeleine, I imagine, has given
notice and her mother is sitting up." Selwyn's hands made gesture of
disgust. "Her letter is inquisitorial and hysterical. My answer
will give a bump, I imagine."
"You've clouded visions and waked her from sweet dreaming. She's
been seeing herself in the Thorne house as the mother of its
mistress. I don't mean to laugh, indeed I don't, but--" I did
laugh. Mrs. Swink and Selwyn dwelling under the same roof was a
picture beyond the resistance of laughter. Incompatibility and
incongruity would be feeble terms with which to designate such a
situation, and at its suggestion seriousness was impossible. That
is, to me. In Selwyn's face was no smiling.
"If there have been any little dreams I'm glad she wrote me. In
reply I had a chance to say what there has been no chance to say
before. Were there imaginings that Harrie was to bring his wife to
his old home they will cease when she gets my note. No house is big
enough for a bride and groom and members of either family, and
certainly mine isn't. I limited comment on Harrie to his financial
condition; expressed regret at my inability to explain his failure to
keep his engagement, and gave her no hint of my uneasiness. Only to
you have I given it. Something is wrong. I'm afraid the boy is ill
somewhere. The thing has gotten on my nerves. I've got to do
something. I can't go on this way."
With eyes in which nervous uneasiness was unrestrained, Selwyn looked
at me, asking unconsciously for help I could not give, and for a
moment I said nothing. Possibilities of which I could not speak were
clutching at my heart and making me cold with fear and horror, for
suddenly something I had overheard a girl telling Mrs. Mundy a few
days before, as I passed through the hall, came to me with cruel and
compelling clearness. "He's a gentleman, all right. Drunk or sober,
you can tell that. She ain't left him day or night since he was
taken sick, and except the doctor she won't let any one come in the
room."
The words of the girl talking to Mrs. Mundy repeated themselves with
such distinctness that it seemed Selwyn would hear the thick beating
of my heart and understand its wonder as to who the man was who was
ill, who the girl who was nursing him. Did Mrs. Mundy know? Lest he
notice that I, too, was nervous I got up and went over to a table in
an opposite corner of the room and drank a glass of water. Coming
back, I took my seat, but Selwyn remained standing, and, taking out
his watch again, looked at it.
"I must go. Had I known you were to have a party"--he smiled
faintly--"I should not have come. You are too tired to stay up
longer. Forget what I've told you and go to sleep. If tomorrow you
can suggest anything-- I'm pretty ragged and don't seem able to
think clearly. You are keener than I in grasping situations, and
quicker in making decisions. Whatever you think might be done--"
Again his teeth came down upon his lips, and, looking up, I saw his
face was white.
"Give me a day or two in which to see what can be done. And you
won't mind if I ask Mr. Crimm's advice?" I seemed pushing the girl
I'd heard talking to Mrs. Mundy behind me. "He hasn't been able to
find Etta Blake yet. Do you suppose her disappearance could have any
connection with Harrie's? It may be he really loves her."
Selwyn turned away. "Love is hardly a term to be used in connection
with an acquaintanceship such as theirs. A girl with a past,
possibly--"
"How about his past?"
"I think you understand pretty well my opinion of his past. But as
long as theories yield to accepted custom a man's past will be
forgotten, a woman's remembered. Harrie, if married, would be
received anywhere, provided he married a woman of his world. This
little girl would have to pay her price and his, were she his wife,
for no one would receive her. That's hardly the question before us,
however. To find where Harrie is, find if anything is wrong, if he's
ill--"
The sharp, sudden ringing of the telephone on the table behind me
made me start, and, jumping up like a frightened child, I stood close
to Selwyn. "Who on earth-- It's half past twelve. Who can want me
at this time of night?" I started to take the receiver from its
hook, but, laughing at me, Selwyn got it first.
"One would think a spook was going to spring at you. Central's given
the wrong number, I guess. Hello! Who is that?"
Watching with as strained eagerness as if I were hearing, I saw
Selwyn lean forward, after admitting that the number wanted was the
right one, and heard him ask again: "Who is it? Who did you say?"
For the next five minutes there was snatchy, excited, and incoherent
conversation over the telephone, during which Selwyn and I alternated
in the talking in an effort to learn what Tom Cressy was saying at
the other end of the line, and what it was he wanted me to do. Tom's
voice was not distinct and caution was making it difficult to
understand what we finally got from him, which was that he wanted to
bring Madeleine down to spend the night with me; that they had
started to go away to be married and missed the train by one minute,
owing to an accident to the automobile they were in. The next train
did not leave until 4 A.M. Could Madeleine stay with me until train
time?
"No, she can't!" Hand over the telephone transmission, Selwyn turned
to me. "They've got no business mixing you up in this. You'll be
blamed for the whole thing. I'm going to tell him to take her back
to the Melbourne. They can make another try some other time. Tom
must be crazy!"
"Most people in love are. You've never been desperate." I laughed
and took the receiver from him. "Madeleine's courage will be gone
after tonight and Tom's afraid to risk waiting. Get up and let me
talk."
Over the telephone I could hear Madeleine crying and I told Tom to
bring her down. Her two-penny worth of nerve and dash had given out
and she was frightened. Incoherently I was told by Tom that
Madeleine was being persecuted, and he wouldn't stand for it any
longer, and the only thing for them to do was to get married. Hadn't
it been for a durned tire--"
"Come on down." I heard a little cry. "And hurry. It's pretty
late."
Mrs. Mundy, who had been told of their coming, opened the door for
them in dressing-gown and slippers, and piloted them up-stairs and
into my sitting-room, where Madeleine, at sight of Selwyn, burst into
tears and buried her face on my shoulder. But the ten minutes were
not entirely lost which passed before we understood why the venture
had been decided upon at this particular time, and how hard luck had
prevented its fulfilment. Tears are effective. Selwyn weakened as
rapidly as I could have wished.
"I haven't seen Harrie for two weeks. Ever since I've been here he's
been writing me he was sick." Madeleine's words came stumblingly,
and the corners of her handkerchief were pulled with nervous
movements in between the wiping of her pretty brown eyes. "The day
after Christmas I wrote him, breaking our engagement. I've never
heard from him since. I don't even know that he got my letter."
Questioningly she looked at Selwyn, and her face, already colored,
crimsoned yet more deeply.
"Neither do I." Selwyn's voice was gentle. Indignation at his and
my involvement in what was not an affair of ours seemed to have
vanished. "I redirected a number of letters to his new address,
but--"
"His new address?" Madeleine looked puzzled. "I didn't know he had
a new address."
"He is not living at home just now." The flush in Selwyn's face
deepened also. "I have not seen him since Christmas day. But go on.
I did not mean to interrupt you."
"Three days ago Madeleine told her mother she'd broken with Harrie
and was going to marry me." Tom was no longer to be repressed.
"She's had the devil of a time ever since, and yesterday I told her
she shouldn't stand it any longer, and neither would I. Harrie has
hypnotized her mother. She thinks--"
"I'm unkind and unsympathetic and hard and cruel to give him up
because he is not well. It isn't that. You know it isn't that--"
Madeleine's fingers twisted in appeal and again her eyes were on
Selwyn. "You think it's dreadful in me not to marry your brother--"
"No, I don't. I think it would be much more dreadful in you if you
did marry him." Selwyn's hands made gesture. "However, we'll leave
that out. You say you told your mother you intended to marry Tom?"
Handkerchief to her lips, she nodded. "I told her, and Tom wrote
her, asking her consent. She wouldn't give it, and said I was
ungrateful and had no ambition, and that if she had a stroke I'd be
the cause. She's never had a stroke and is very healthy, but--"
Bursting into fresh tears, Madeleine this time hid her face in her
hands, and Tom, wanting much to comfort, miserably ignorant of how to
do it, and consciously awkward and restrained in the presence of
witnesses, stood by her side, his hand on her shoulder, and at sight
of him I reached swift decision.
"I'm glad you told her. You've been open and square and asked her
consent. One can't wait indefinitely for consent to do things." I
got up and took Madeleine by the hand. "Come in my room and take off
your hat and coat. When we come back we'll talk about what is best
to do."
Five minutes later we were back and, eyes bathed and face powdered,
Madeleine gave evidence of fresh injections of courage, and quickly
we began to plan. The 4 A.M. train was the best to take, but for
half an hour we talked of whether Shelby or Claxon was the better
town to go to for the marriage ceremony, which at either place could
be performed without the consent of parent or guardian, and
irrespective of the age of the applicants for the same. Though
preferring Shelby, Tom agreed to Claxon on my insisting on the latter
place, which was the Mecca for runaway couples from our section of
the state. If I were going with them--
"Going with them?" The inflection in Selwyn's voice was hardly
polite. "You don't intend--"
"Yes, I do. They've made a mess of the first try and they'll be
caught and brought back if somebody isn't there to keep them from
being held up. I'm going with them."
"How do you expect to hold off--the holding up?" Selwyn was staring
at me and anxiety concerning Harrie was for the time in abeyance. He
needed something to distract him. "What are you going to do?" he
asked.
"I don't know--don't have to know until to-morrow--I mean later
to-day." I motioned toward the hall and, following me into it, he
partly closed the door behind us. "We'll let those children have a
chance to say good night, and then please go home. And don't look at
me like that! I don't approve of runaway marriages any more than you
do. I'd never be a party to one, because I wouldn't marry an
angel-man before I was twenty-one. Afterward running away wouldn't
be necessary. Tom and Madeleine are not entirely to blame."
"The blame for this will be put on you. Mrs. Swink will credit you
with the instigation and carrying out of the whole affair. You
mustn't go with them, Danny. It isn't necessary."
"Maybe it isn't, but I'm going. I can't let a girl of Madeleine's
age leave the house alone at half past three in the morning, and
certainly I cannot let Tom come here for her. We will get to Claxon
at ten o'clock and by that time Mrs. Swink will have finished her
swooning and be working the wires. They'll certainly be held up at
Claxon."
"Then why go there? Why not go on to Shelby?"
I shook my head. "Claxon is the better place. I don't know how it's
going to be managed, but if one couldn't outmanoeuver mother Swink--.
It doesn't matter about my being blamed for helping them. Long usage
has accustomed me to large shares of blame." I held out my hand.
"I'll be back to-morrow night. Come Thursday. I think by then--"
"There are few things you will let me share with you, but the blame
that will come from this I am going to share whether you let me or
not. I've gotten you into it and we'll see it through together. If
you are going with them, I am going also. Good night." He dropped
the hand he was holding and turned away. "Tell Tom I'm waiting, will
you?"