CHECKMATE
In spite of the lack of success which had attended his tentative
wooing, Justin Ware slept soundly, woke cheerful and made a comfortable
breakfast. Over his coffee and pancakes he outlined not the plans for
a systematic siege of Persis' affections, but the maneuver through
which he hoped to carry the Hornblower citadel by storm. He had used
no meaningless figure of speech when he assured Annabel of his practise
of making pleasure secondary to business. Robert Hornblower's
resistance had piqued and baffled him, the more as he knew that Mrs.
Hornblower was his uncompromising ally. Indeed his presence in
Clematis at this juncture was due to a letter from this invaluable
colleague, casually mentioning that her husband had received an offer
for the farm which she wished he might be induced to accept. "While I
leave all such matters for Robert to decide, as I consider to be a
wife's _plain_ duty," wrote Mrs. Hornblower, with a lavish use of
italics, "I have not hesitated to tell him that I think his closing
with the offer is for the best interests of us all." And Justin had
interpreted the communication to mean that his confederate believed the
day of victory at hand.
He finished his breakfast at an early hour, judged by metropolitan
standards, selected the most promising animal from the sorry exhibition
of horse-flesh in the local livery and drove out to the Hornblower
farm, smoking on the way a better cigar than could be bought in
Clematis, and feeling unusually well satisfied with the world and
himself. His failure to bring the Hornblower affair to a successful
conclusion had annoyed him, not so much because of the importance of
the transaction, as because his professional pride was hurt at finding
himself unequal to the task of convincing a henpecked old man. From
the tone of Mrs. Hornblower's letter he was confident this failure was
about to be retrieved, and that Persis would prove amenable to his
flattering advances, could be taken for granted. On one point he must
be firm. From the beginning he must assume the necessity of her
renouncing her recently acquired family. He could say and with truth
that children made him nervous. But to postpone the settlement of the
difficulty until after the wedding would be a fatal blunder. When
women felt sure of a man, they sometimes developed a disagreeable
tenacity in holding to their own way. Altogether on this early morning
drive, Justin's difficulties dwindled almost to imperceptible points
while his blessings loomed large, a state of mind we are assured, most
favorable to success.
Mr. Hornblower came from the barn as he drove up and greeted him with
successfully disguised cordiality. But a glance convinced Justin that
the long siege was nearly at an end. In the pouches under the man's
weary eyes, in a certain sagging of his lower lip, in an indefinable
air of being beaten, Justin read the signs of approaching capitulation.
"Mis' Hornblower is in the house. I guess you'd better see her this
morning. I'm pretty busy for visiting."
"I won't keep you long, Mr. Hornblower. I just want to lay a
proposition before you that's sure to interest as good a business man
as you are." Justin waited while the farmer tied the horse, and then,
slipping his hand through the old man's arm, guided him dexterously
around the house. Robert Hornblower yielded like one hypnotized, an
expression of rigid horror on his face as if while seeing some peril
immediately ahead, he found himself unable to avoid it.
Mrs. Hornblower sat in a rocking-chair by the window, tapping the floor
with her heel as the chair swayed, and nervously smoothing imaginary
wrinkles from an immaculate apron. Justin took a step toward her, then
stopped with an awkward jerk. Early as he was, another caller was
ahead of him. In the opposite corner, grim and unsmiling as fate, sat
Persis Dale.
Justin realized his own embarrassment with angry wonder. He had the
emotions of a boy caught in a foray on the preserve closet. "Good
morning," he said, and was shocked by the startled suspicion of his own
voice. He carried out his original intention of shaking hands with
Mrs. Hornblower, though without his customary grace of manner, and then
turned to go through the same ceremony with Persis, but her tightly
folded arms gave little encouragement to this design. He compromised
by taking a chair near her and saying pleasantly, "You're an early
arrival."
"I calculated you'd be here as soon as you got done your breakfast,"
Persis replied, and left him to interpret the ambiguous remark as he
pleased.
Justin's career had not been of a sort to cultivate undue
sensitiveness. A moment sufficed to make him master of himself. "I
came out to discuss a little business proposition with Mr. Hornblower,"
he explained carelessly. "But I don't want to interfere with the
enjoyment of you ladies. Some other time--"
"Don't mind me," interposed Persis. "Mis' Hornblower and I haven't
anything special to talk about. We're interested in your business
proposition, both of us."
"I don't know as I care to hear it," interrupted Mr. Hornblower,
speaking with a certain wildness, an indication that he had almost
reached the limit of resistance. His voice was shrill and unnatural.
"All I want is to be left in peace on the farm where my father lived
and died before me."
"Robert," said the submissive Mrs. Hornblower witheringly, "I'd be
ashamed to talk as if I'd been born an oyster instead of a man."
"Of course, Mr. Hornblower," Ware began soothingly, "I should be very
unwilling to over-persuade you. If my proposition does not commend
itself to your own good judgment, you are perfectly justified in
turning it down. Or if you are not in the mood for talking business
to-day, some other time--"
"There's no time like the present," said Persis Dale. "And if you
don't like what he's got to offer, you can say no, Mr. Hornblower, and
stick to it. Your _no_ is as good as his _yes_, I'm sure, when it's
your business that's being talked of."
She had suddenly become the dominant figure in the room. Mrs.
Hornblower glanced at her uncertainly. The promoter smiled
propitiatingly. The old man shuffled toward her with an evident hope
that through proximity he might profit by her sturdy strength.
"I don't mind listening, Persis," he said tremulously. "I'm a
reasonable man. What I object to is being nagged and badgered as if I
didn't have a right to say my soul was my own."
"I'm sure, Mr. Hornblower," Ware interrupted, "that Miss Dale will tell
you that I have no wish to hurry you into any decision you will regret.
In our business, satisfied patrons are our best asset. I only want to
call attention to a little matter that may have escaped your attention
and then leave you to think it over." Though his remarks were
addressed to the farmer, his appealing gaze was fixed on Persis. He
was disagreeably uncertain as to her attitude. Possibly she had come
with the purpose of doing him a favor. And possibly-- But he
dismissed the alternative before it had taken shape in his thoughts.
On the evening before he had made plain his willingness to take up
their acquaintance just where it had left off, twenty years before.
And if he knew anything of women, nothing would induce her to imperil
the renewal of that relation.
In spite of this conviction his manner showed embarrassment as he began
his explanation. The smooth phrases he had used so often that he could
have spoken them in his sleep came readily to his lips, but even to
himself they sounded hollow and unconvincing. He was embarrassed too,
by Persis' tendency to ask questions, to inform herself as to every
detail of the plan he was unfolding. So persistent was she in her
cross-examination, that Mrs. Hornblower showed signs of irritation.
"Goodness, Persis, it ain't necessary for Mr. Ware to go into all those
points. It ain't as if this was the first time we had ever talked over
the matter."
"It's just as well to have things plain," Persis replied imperturbably.
Justin noticed that she looked less youthful and comely than on the
occasions when he had previously seen her. She had the gray and
care-worn look excusable in a woman approaching the fortieth mile-stone
who has spent a wakeful night. He was conscious of a sense of
annoyance in noting the distinctness of the triangle formed by her firm
mouth and the lines that slanted obliquely back from its corners. Her
persistence, too, troubled him. He was well aware that there is no
more serious flaw in a wife than the habit of asking questions.
In spite of interruptions he finally finished his story and folded the
papers from which he had used certain figures to give his statements an
authoritative air. Mr. Hornblower squirmed uneasily, looking at Persis
as if appealing for help.
"As I said before, Mr. Hornblower," Justin assured him with an air of
gentle consideration, "I am not at all desirous of hurrying you in the
matter. If you prefer to think over what I have said, and then when
you reach a decision--"
"I don't see," exclaimed Mrs. Hornblower, from her seat near the
window, "why it shouldn't be settled to-day. We've got a good offer
for the farm now, but if Robert keeps Mr. Jeffreys hanging by the
gills, the chances are that he'll satisfy himself somewhere else. And
it isn't as though we hadn't talked this over from A to izzard."
"You've got to make up your mind sometimes," Persis Dale corroborated
her. "I always feel as if 'twas a relief to get a thing settled."
Mrs. Hornblower who up to this moment had seemed to regard Persis'
presence as an affront, smiled upon her almost affectionately. Robert
Hornblower had an air of feeling himself deserted. Justin was not sure.
"But before you get the thing all settled and signed," Persis continued
smoothly, "there's one little thing I'd like to have Mr. Ware explain.
If, this investment is such a good thing for you, why isn't it just as
good for me?"
A tense silence followed which Mrs. Hornblower broke. "For you?" She
pushed her spectacles up on her forehead as if she found the lenses an
obstruction to vision rather than an aid. "Have you--have you been
thinking of putting any money into apples?"
"I asked him last night about investing ten thousand dollars in this
company. He talked against it--strong. He gave me to understand that
if I was getting ten per cent. on my money I was lucky."
Justin sat with his eyes on the floor, making no effort to explain. It
was checkmate, and he knew it. The love of his youth had played with
him, tricked him, used him for her purposes even while he believed her
on the point of capitulation. It was small consolation at that moment
to realize that greater men had lost greater stakes through that little
illusion of being irresistible to the sex. He turned sick with
humiliation, hot with hate. He had prided himself on his
sophistication, and this country woman had laid a trap for him into
which he had obligingly blundered. To attempt an explanation would be
folly. Checkmate!
"Ten per cent.!" Mrs. Hornblower's voice rose shrill and frightened.
"Why, in the Apple of Eden Investment Company--"
"Yes, I reminded him about the twenty-five per cent. by the tenth year,
and he laughed at me. Said the guarantee you set such store by might
as well be used for curl papers, if the company got sick of its
bargain."
"Why don't you say something?" Mrs. Hornblower turned on Justin
furiously. "What do you mean by letting her run on in this crazy
fashion and never wagging your tongue?" Underneath her anger sounded a
note of despair. No one who knew Persis Dale ever doubted her absolute
truth. And unless she had lied the thing was beyond explanation.
Before Justin could reply, Robert Hornblower was on his feet. Another
startling transformation had come over the old man. Years and
decrepitude fell from him like a discarded garment. As he advanced
upon Justin, his fists clenched, he actually looked a formidable figure.
"You get out of my house, you sneaking lying swindler. You clear out
and never open your head to me one word about your damned old company
or I'll--"
"Robert!" shrieked Mrs. Hornblower in hysterical protest.
Ware rose with as much dignity as the situation permitted. Few men can
feel themselves the target of the scorn of three honest people and not
wince, and Justin, whatever his weaknesses, did not lack sensibility.
"If you wish to accept Miss Dale's version of the matter, it is
immaterial to me. I have given you more time than I could well afford
to spare so small an investment, because I remembered you as my boyhood
friends. I shall be glad to drop the matter." And then, quite against
his will, he looked at Persis.
She sat straight and pale, her eyes steely, her lips grim. And once he
had kissed those lips, and those contemptuous eyes had poured into his,
faith and love unstinted. As he stumbled toward the door, the thought
crossed his mind that the boy who had won the love and respect of
Persis Dale was not the poor dolt he had thought him. The years had
brought loss as well as gain.
"Good morning." He made an effort to speak with his customary easy
self-possession, and Mr. Hornblower's answer was to slam the door upon
him. "Good riddance to damned bad rubbish," he roared.
"Robert!" screamed Mrs. Hornblower. "Profanity at your age. Twice in
five minutes."
"Hold your tongue!"
The mental collapse of Mrs. Hornblower was physically evident. Flabby
and shaken, she sat looking with unfeigned terror at her metamorphosed
lord and master. And Mr. Hornblower, puffing out his chest, looked
very much like the oldest son of the individual he had appeared an hour
previous.
"I've got a word to say to you, Lena," remarked the reconstructed Mr.
Hornblower. "Women are all right when they keep their place. After
this I want to have it understood I'm not going to have any
interference in my business." He walked to the door and turned for a
parting defiance. "Damned if I will."
Mrs. Hornblower's attack of hysterics occupied Persis till noon. She
looked pale and heavy-eyed as she alighted from her car at her own
door. She was about to enter when an object on the lawn caught her
eye. Tacked to an upright stake driven into the turf, was a flapping
piece of brown paper on which appeared straggling letters, executed in
colored chalk.
"Notiss
I will not klene my teth agen onles I get a nikle a weak
Malcolm Dale."
Persis read this defiance twice, and her lips twitched. She turned
toward the house, but by this time the children had espied her and
shriekingly descended upon her, "like the plagues of Egypt," thought
Mary, watching from the window.
"What makes you look that way?" cried Celia, clutching Persis' hand.
"I don't like it."
"What way, child?"
"As though you was a widow."
Persis laughed, thereby diminishing her resemblance to the mourner of
Celia's fancy. With a child holding fast to each hand, and the others
prancing about her and getting underfoot like so many kittens, she made
her way indoors. "Children been good, Mary?"
"Why, yes'm," Mary admitted with reserve. "I gave Algie that cough
mixture same as you said, and Malcolm he kept coughing fit to tear his
throat to pieces. Betty says he likes the sirupy taste. And Celia
teased the baby kissing her till she got her crying."
"I like the taste of the baby," remarked Celia, who had lent an
attentive ear to the account of the family misdemeanors. "It's like
tooth powder, the pink kind."
"A letter came for you, Miss Dale. Now, my gracious, what's happened
to it? I put it right here on the table."