THE FINAL KICK
It was Saturday, and Ethel Manton was lunching early that she might
accompany her fifteen-year-old brother on a ride through the park.
A certain story in the morning paper arrested her attention, and she
reread it with flushed face and tightening lips. It was well done, as
newspaper stories go, this account of a lurid night on Broadway which
wound up in a crescendo of brilliance with the flooring of a policeman.
No names were mentioned, but the initiated who read between the lines
knew that only one man could have pulled off the stunt and gotten by
with it.
"For goodness' sake, Eth, aren't you ever going to finish? You'll waste
the whole afternoon over that old paper!"
Young Charlie had bolted his luncheon and waited impatiently in a deep
window-seat overlooking the park. His sister laid down the paper with a
sigh.
"Are the horses ready?" She asked the question in a dull, listless
tone, so unlike her usual self that even Charlie noticed.
"Gee! You don't seem very keen about it. And look what a day! You look
like you were going to a funeral."
Before the girl could reply he turned again to the window: "Look, a
taxi is stopping and somebody is getting out. Oh, it's Bill Carmody!
Ain't he a crackerjack, though? Say, Eth, why don't you marry Bill?
He's just crazy about you--everybody says so, and----"
"Charlie!" The word was jerked out hysterically, and the boy was
puzzled at the crimson of her face.
"Well, I don't care, it's so! And then I'd be a brother-in-law to Bill
Carmody! Why, he can lick everybody down to the gym. He put on the
gloves with _me_ once," he boasted, swelling visibly, "just sparring,
you know; but he promised to teach me the game. And football! There
never was a half-back like Bill Carmody! Why he----"
"Do hush! He might hear you. Run along, now. You ride on and I will
overtake you. I--I must see Mr. Carmody alone."
"_Mr._ Carmody! So you two have had a scrap! Well, if I was a girl, and
Bill Carmody wanted to marry _me_, you bet, I'd marry him before he got
a chance to change his mind. You bet, when I grow up I'm going to be
just like him--so there!"
The boy flounced defiantly out of the room, leaving the girl alone with
a new fear.
Since the death of her parents she had bravely and capably undertaken
the management of the household, and her chief care was this impulsive
boy who was so dear to her heart.
"Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you." The words of her
dying mother came to her vividly. "He is really a noble little
fellow--but hard to manage."
And now, added to the sorrow that already seemed crushing her, was this
new anxiety.
Charlie had set up an idol--and the fact that his idol was also her
idol--although she never admitted it--struck fear to her heart. For the
undiscerning eyes of the boy were blind to the feet of clay.
In the library across the hall, William Carmody paced nervously up and
down, pausing at each turn to gaze abstractedly out of the window.
After what seemed an interminable wait, the portieres parted and the
girl stepped into the room. In her hand she carried a carefully folded
newspaper. She crossed to the table and, regarding the man with a cold,
disconcerting stare, waited for him to speak.
"Hello, Ethel! No, thank you, I have had luncheon. I----" His gaze
encountered the unwavering blue eyes, and he suddenly dropped the air
of flippant assurance. "Er, I came to see you," he added lamely.
"Yes?" There was little of encouragement in the word with its
accompanying inflection.
"You see, I am leaving New York."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, I am going away." He paused, but receiving no answer, continued,
"I am going away to--to make good. And I came to say good-by. When I
return, if--if you are still free, I will have something to tell
you--something I have often told you before, but--well, things will be
different, then."
"I suppose you said good-by to your _other_ friends last night?" Her
glance rested for a moment on the folded newspaper, and the silky sneer
of her retort was brutal--with the studied brutality of the female of
the species who would inflict pain. The man winced under its sting.
"Last night cannot be recalled," he replied gravely. "Whatever happened
then is past and gone. You are right; figuratively speaking, I _have_
said good-by to the others--to Broadway, and all it stands for. You
alone know of my going. I am making no promises. If I fail no one will
know--nor care. When I make good I will return--and then----"
The girl looked up. Their glances met, and in the depths of the steady
gray eyes the soft blue ones read purpose--unflinching purpose to fight
and win for the glory of an infinite love.
Her eyes dropped. She felt the hot blood mount to her face under the
compelling magnetism of his gaze. She loved this man. In all the world
no other could so move her. She loved--yet feared him. The very
strength of him--the overmastering force of his personality--his
barbaric disregard of conventionality at once attracted and frightened
her.
In that moment she knew, deep down in her heart, that if this man
should take her in his arms and hold her close against the throbbing of
his great heart, his lips find hers, and should he pour into her ears
the pent-up torrent of his love, her surrender would be complete.
His was the master mind, and in all the years to come that mind would
rule, and she, the weaker one, would be forced under the yoke of its
supremacy. She prayed for strength.
Let those who believe that once the living flesh has turned to clay the
spirit dies, ascribe to a trick of memory the vision of her dying
mother that flashed before the eyes of the girl, and the whispered
words: "Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you."
But those there are who know that in that momentary vision spoke in
faint memory-whispers the gentle spirit-mother, who--ranking high in
that vast army which, in the words of the immortal Persian,
"Before us passed the door of Darkness through,"
--would guide the footsteps of her loved ones.
Thus strength came and steeled the heart of one great little woman who
battled alone against love for her right to rule and shape the destiny
of lives. The momentary flush receded from her face, and when her eyes
again sought the man's, their glance was coldly repellent. She even
forced a smile.
"Is it so amusing, then--my going?" he asked a little grimly.
"Yes, rather amusing to consider where a man would go and what he would
do. A man, I mean, whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can
'lick' most anybody, and can 'drink more and stay soberer than any of
the sports he travels with.'"
The dull red flooded the man's face at her words. Unconsciously he
squared his shoulders and there was an unwonted dignity in his reply:
"I am well aware that my accomplishments are more in the nature of
liabilities than assets. In spite of this I will make good--somewhere."
He stepped closer to the girl, and his voice grew harsh, almost rasping
in its intensity. "I _can_ beat the game. And I will beat it--now! Just
to show you and your kind what a _man_ can do--a man, I mean," he
added, "'whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can lick most
anybody--and can drink more and stay soberer than any of the sports he
travels with.' Incidentally, I am glad to know your real opinion of me.
I once believed that you were different from the others--that in you I
had found a woman who possessed a real soul."
He laughed, a short, grating laugh--deep down, as though rude fingers
drew a protest from raw heart-strings--a laugh that is not good to
hear.
"I even thought," he went on, "that you cared for me--a little. That
you were the one woman who, at the last of things, would give a man a
helping hand, a little word of encouragement and hope, perhaps, instead
of the final kick."
He bowed stiffly and turned toward the door. "Good-by!" he said, and
the heavy portieres closed behind him.
In the room the girl, white as marble, heard the click of the front
door, the roar of a newly cranked motor, and the dying _chug, chug_ of
the retreating taxi.
That afternoon Charlie Manton rode alone, and when he returned, hungry
as a young wolf, to be told that his sister had retired with a sick
headache, he drew his own conclusions, nodding sagely over his solitary
dinner.
Later, as he passed her door on the way to his room, he placed his ear
at the keyhole and listened a long time to her half-muffled sobs.
"Gee!" he muttered as he passed down the hall, "they must have had an
awful scrap!" He turned and quietly retraced his steps. In the library
he switched on the lights and crossed to the telephone.
"There isn't any sense in that," he said, speaking to himself. "Bill
loves Eth--that's a cinch. And she does love him, too, even if she
won't let on.
"She wouldn't stick up in her room all day bawling her eyes out if she
didn't. I'll call Bill up and tell him so, then he'll come and they'll
make up. I bet he's sorry, too, by now."
At the Carmody residence he was told that Bill was not in. He received
the same answer from several clubs, at each of which he left explicit
instructions for Mr. Carmody to call him up at the first possible
moment.
Thereafter Charlie frequented the gymnasiums and made industrious
inquiry, but it was many a day before he again saw his idol. Bill
Carmody was missing from his accustomed haunts, and none could tell
whither he had gone.
Those were days fraught with anxiety for the boy. Ethel, to whom he was
devoted, went about the house listless and preoccupied, in spite of her
efforts to appear cheerful. When he attempted to reason with her she
burst into tears and forbade him to mention Bill Carmody's name in her
hearing as long as he lived. Whereupon the youngster retired
disconsolately to his room to think things over.
"Love's a bum thing," he told himself. "If they do get married they die
or get a divorce or something; and if they don't--well, Bill has
prob'ly committed suicide and Eth is moping around, and most likely now
she'll marry that dang St. Ledger." He made a wry face as he thought of
St. Ledger.
"Runty little mollycoddle! Couldn't lick a chicken--him and his
monocle. And that day the wind took his hat and rolled it through the
mud, and he said: 'Oh, pshaw!' instead of damn it! Oh--_slush!_ And I
promised mother I'd take care of Eth."
He burrowed his face deep into the pillow, as, in spite of himself,
tears came to his eyes.