EASTWARD HO!
Fred Whitcomb felt his eyes sting, but he scorned to wipe them as he
strode manfully up Michigan Avenue. Instead, he scowled and set his
teeth and threw his shoulders back, as one who yearns to meet the
foe hand to hand. His opportunity was near, for Bertram King, having
forgotten some papers, was walking hastily toward the club, and Fred,
blinded and distrait, turned a corner and ran directly into him.
The lighter and taller man seized his assailant.
"Don't do that again, Freddy. It's a wonder I didn't go over like a
tenpin."
"I didn't see you," growled Freddy, winking hard.
"I gathered that," remarked King, and was hurrying on, but Whitcomb
held him.
"Why weren't you at the station to see them off?" he demanded. "I
thought of course you'd be there."
"More room for you, Freddy," returned the other, looking steadily into
his friend's belligerent eyes.
"I don't see how you could neglect Linda at such a time."
"Do you think she missed me?" asked King quietly.
"Of course she did," hotly. "I found out only by accident by what train
they were going. They didn't let anybody know, Miss Barry said; but of
course you knew. I'd--I'd hardly know Linda."
A terrific lump rose in the speaker's throat, and blinded again by
grief he turned hastily away to continue his march.
This time Bertram detained him. Freddy tried to escape, but it was a
grip of steel on his arm. "Come into the club a minute," said King, and
his companion obeyed the leading. At least it would be a place where he
could use his handkerchief secure from observation.
"Now, you're not taking me to your room," objected the younger man,
as his captor, not relaxing the hold on his arm, led him toward the
elevator.
"Guess again, Freddy," said Bertram; and the visitor, after a moment of
holding back, found himself in the elevator.
When they were in King's room, and the door closed, the host indicated
a chair, but the guest remained standing.
Bertram smiled a little wistfully as he regarded the other's youthful
strength, thinking his face, in its present condition of repressed
emotion, looked as it must have done when he was ten.
"What do you want with me?" asked Freddy, his head held high.
"I wish I knew what you use for a hair tonic," said Bertram, passing
his hand over his own fair locks, beginning to feel thin at the crown.
"Don't be a--What have you brought me up here for?"
"To let you pull yourself together for one thing. You were in a fair
way to assault and batter all down the avenue."
"You--you _fish_!" ejaculated the visitor, changing his mind suddenly,
and dropping into the offered chair. Quite frankly he covered his
flushed face with his handkerchief and choked into it.
King sat down near an open window, and waited for the paroxysm to pass.
"It breaks me up completely to see Linda like that," said Whitcomb at
last, wiping his eyes and shaking his shoulders impatiently. He faced
his host, and realized the latter's appearance. No one could look
seedier than King, he thought. "Of course I know you're rushed," he
added, "but in your place I'd rather have sat up all night than not to
see her off; and the humorous part of it is that I've been believing
you were crazy about her."
The two regarded each other for a silent space, and for the first time
there crept into the younger man's mind the cold suspicion that the
change in Linda's fortune had affected Bertram King. Even so, it could
not have made such a brute of him as to let Linda creep off alone!
"Harriet was there, and Henry," he said, just for the sake of speaking,
while he strove with this strange idea, one which had elements of
relief for himself while it added fuel to his indignation with King.
"Of course," answered the other coolly. "So that was a pretty good
bodyguard, for you're always a host, Freddy."
"There was very little I could do for her," declared Whitcomb, "and I'm
sure you--you hurt her feelings."
"I'm glad you were there," said King.
"You've no right to be glad," retorted Freddy.
The older man smiled. "Isn't it magnanimous in me to be glad she's
wearing your violets instead of mine, eating your chocolates instead of
mine, reading your magazines instead--"
"Stop!" said Whitcomb, raising his hand imperatively. "It's sacrilege
to joke about her."
"You're a nice chap, Freddy," declared King slowly.
The visitor rose. "Don't you dare to patronize me," he said. "Thanks to
your cursed bank I'm a _poor_ chap. I'd begun to hope--to hope--What
do you care what I hoped? You're as cold-blooded as that irrigation
swindle that's fooled us all."
A little slow color crept over Bertram King's lantern jaws.
"Sit down," he said briefly. "I brought you up here to talk about that.
You didn't attend the meeting of the stockholders last night."
"No. I was doing errands for Miss Barry; and I didn't care to sit there
and listen to empty platitudes."
King hesitated a moment, but he put constraint upon himself. Freddy was
desperately in love, and had had a desperate disappointment.
"I don't blame you for feeling sore," he said at last, "but I believe
I have good news for you. The irrigation proposition would have gone
through all right if the panic in that region hadn't suddenly knocked
the bottom out for the time being. It's a legitimate thing, and we were
able to show the stockholders last night that if they would be patient
and give us time, we would issue notes and the bank depositors would be
paid."
"What?" asked Whitcomb incredulously, and again sat down.
King nodded. "The bank closed, but it didn't fail, and if Barry & Co.'s
people will trust us, I firmly believe everybody is going to have his
own--say in a year or two."
"Two!" echoed Whitcomb, the hopeful light fading somewhat.
"Of course. Money in the bank, boy." King rose and advanced to him and
slapped him on the shoulder. "You don't need it to live on."
"No, I need it to get Linda," returned the other bluntly.
Bertram smiled wanly, and balanced back and forth on his heels and toes.
His visitor regarded him curiously. "I'll bet you've done some tall
working on this," he said slowly.
"No fish ever worked harder," admitted Bertram.
"But when you knew it was your own fault--" suggested Whitcomb.
King's quizzical eyes regarded the speaker. "That conviction does
always make a fellow rather hump himself, Freddy."
The caller rose. He didn't like the look in his host's face. All this
heart-breaking business should be treated seriously. King looked worn,
but he didn't look humble; and as Mr. Barry's factotum he had been
frightfully neglectful of Linda this morning. No, Whitcomb didn't feel
like shaking hands with him, even after King had lighted for him a
beacon of hope. The caller suddenly assumed an abrupt, businesslike
manner.
"This won't do for me," he said. "So long, King," and he started
precipitately for the door. One backward glance at his host, who was
still standing with feet wide apart and thumbs hooked in his vest, gave
him pause. King's face showed so plainly the battle he had fought.
Freddy returned and took Bertram's hand and wrung it.
"Do you know, I was sure you wanted Linda," he said, with sudden
frankness.
King's slender fingers gave his a viselike grip, and his lips smiled
calmly. "It isn't so much a question of what we want as what she wants,
is it?" he said.
A cloud passed over Whitcomb's face, and again Bertram thought he could
see exactly how Freddy had looked at the age of ten.
"Don't you believe she'll ever want me?" he asked naïvely. Now that he
knew King was out of the running--whether from mercenary reasons or
otherwise--he could put the question as to an intimate friend of the
family.
King laughed softly for the first time since Lambert Barry's death.
"Don't know, Freddy. If I were a girl I'd want you, I know that. You're
all right."
Whitcomb blushed and scowled; and as he took the elevator on its
downward trip he reflected on Bertram King's power to irritate his
fellowman.
* * * * *
Ensconced in their stateroom on the train for Boston, Miss Barry heaved
a sigh of relief scarcely concealed by the mutter of the moving wheels.
They had not taken a stateroom without protest from Linda on the
ground of extravagance. Linda considering economy! It was a wonderful
circumstance; but Miss Barry, anxious as she was to be gone, delayed
their departure a few days to secure the room. Instinctively she felt
that a door which she could close on her niece would give her a sense
of security. She regarded her now, while the train gained swiftness,
with something of the triumph the captor of an elusive, valuable wild
animal might feel at seeing it safely in his possession.
Linda, passive and white, did not resemble a wild creature at the
present moment. The first thing she did after the train started was
to withdraw the pin from the huge bunch of violets she had put on to
please Whitcomb, and toss them over on the divan. Miss Barry, taking
off her hat, watched her furtively.
"Put my hat in the bag when you do yours, will you, Linda?"
The girl looked vaguely surprised. It was long since she had performed
a service for any one, and she even held her own hat a moment
uncertainly, after she had removed it, as if she expected her aunt to
take charge of it; and she looked at Miss Belinda questioningly.
"Yes, put them both in, and hang them up over there."
Miss Barry handed her the bags, leaned back in her corner, and sniffed.
A dog wags its tail to express emotion. Miss Belinda sniffed--a dry,
sharp little sound, which just now expressed determination.
"It's time for her to give up sleep-walking," she thought, and she
looked industriously out of the window.
Linda's eyes fell to the hats, and she slowly performed the office, and
more slowly climbed on the seat and hung up the bags.
As Miss Barry noted the languid motions of the erstwhile captain of
a basket-ball team, she realized that her niece was like a person
convalescing from a siege of illness. Was she convalescing? Was she
improving or retrograding? No matter which; they were going home,
home to the Cape, where Miss Barry would not feel at a constant
disadvantage; and her heart sang. Linda was too feeble to jump off the
train, and they were as good as there. Miss Belinda sniffed again.
Her eye fell on the violets. Linda had sunk back into her corner, her
lips apart, her eyes languid. The train was very warm. An electric fan
whirred above their door.
Miss Barry leaned across and took up the violets. Whitcomb's face had
been vibrant with emotion as he left them.
"The poor boy!" thought Miss Barry. She had learned a number of
masculine names through reading the different cards coming repeatedly
with boxes of flowers for Linda; but Fred Whitcomb had been more
pushing and insistent than the others. He had, as it were, often put
his heart in Miss Belinda's hands to be offered to Linda on a salver;
and in the stress of emotion this morning Miss Barry had been afraid
once or twice that her niece was going to be kissed by proxy. She
certainly felt sorry for Freddy Whitcomb, almost as sorry as for
Bertram King, whose absence had moved her keenly.
"Wouldn't you like to hold these? They're so refreshing," she said,
holding out the violets toward their owner. The girl made a faint,
protesting gesture with one hand, and shook her head. Miss Barry
plunged her nose into the velvet depths, and looked over the bouquet at
the white, immobile face in the opposite corner.
"Ch-ch-_choo_, ch-ch-_choo_," went the wheels, faster, faster. Welcome
sound. Sweet violets. The scattered fragrance of woodland places,
massed together for the joy of woman, offered by an eager heart to a
cold one.
"Violet time is over at the Cape," she remarked.
"What?"
"I say, violet time's over at the Cape. Daisies and clover now, and the
wild roses swelling up and getting ready."
Even the preoccupied Linda observed a new vitality in her companion's
face, and life in her eyes in place of endurance.
"You're riding backward, Aunt Belinda. I didn't notice till this
minute. Change with me." The girl leaned forward.
"Sit still, child. It makes no difference to me."
"Then come here beside me." Miss Barry hesitated. Once she would have
declined on the ground of mutual comfort, but an overture from her
captive was remarkable.
"Well, if it won't crowd you," she said, and after a moment of
reluctance she obeyed.
"Don't you want to sit by the window?" asked the girl.
"Law, no. I wish the artists who do the Castoria signs would adopt
futurist methods." As she spoke, Miss Barry made herself as small as
she could against the arm of the seat, and again caressed her nose with
Freddy Whitcomb's violets. The divan opposite was filled with American
Beauties, magazines, and bon-bon boxes.
"I ought to put the flowers in water," she remarked.
Linda's large, somber gaze rolled toward the display.
"Yes, please do," she said.
"H'm," thought Miss Barry as she rose. "One word for the flowers and
two for herself. She wants 'em out of sight."
"I think we ought to enjoy the violets," she said aloud. "Such a
cabbage of 'em must have cost that boy a pretty penny, and they won't
live only so long, anyway. Poor Mr. Whitcomb, didn't he look pretty
near ready to have apoplexy when he got off!"
"He's got over it by now," said Linda, in her quiet expressionless
voice.
"He's the kindest boy that ever lived. I didn't realize how many little
things there were to attend to in leaving, or I'd have had Henry do
them; but Mr. Whitcomb came and put himself at my disposal, and I
certainly disposed of him, the good boy."
"He is a good boy. He ought to hate us," declared the girl languidly.
"Why's that?"
"He told me a long time ago that he had invested in--in--" the speaker
caught her lip under her teeth.
"Now, now," returned Miss Barry soothingly, as the other paused. "He's
young, and able to stand a few knockdowns. Every business man gets them
sooner or later, and they're lucky when disaster comes early in their
career instead of late. Now, now, Linda!" for the girl's handkerchief
dried a drop stealing under her eyelid. "He adores you, the nice lad."
"Don't you see that makes it harder--as if I ought to marry him to make
up?"
"Now, now!" Miss Barry tried to speak lightly. "He'd be worse than
Shylock. I'll bet it's a hundred and thirty pounds when you're in good
case. Aren't those candy boxes wonderful! I must take 'count of stock."
She started up and laid the violets on the vacated seat. Linda looked
at them. She could hear Freddy Whitcomb's voice as it broke boyishly on
that last evening of her life:--
"I don't care anything about your father's money, Linda. I had a raise
last week."
Her hand fell gently on the velvet mass, and rested there. Miss Barry's
Argus eyes observed the movement.