THE EYE TO THE STRING
IN the Langford household the judge and Dorothy were the only early
risers, and on the morning following Will’s home-bringing they
breakfasted alone together as usual. Dorothy and her mother had sat up
for the wayward one the night before; but at the breakfast table the
daughter saw that the news of his son’s return brought small comfort
to her father. The cause of his disquietude was not far to seek. The
morning papers lay unopened beside his plate, and he left them there
when he retreated to the library.
Being a woman, Dorothy did not thus deny herself the luxury of
suffering with full knowledge. She opened the papers and read the
reports of the raid on Draco’s; and she did not fail to put up a little
pæan of thanksgiving when she found that her brother’s name was omitted
in the list of the arrests. Stopping only long enough to make assurance
doubly sure, she hastened to the library.
“Here are the papers, father,” she began, and when he looked up from
his book and shook his head in refusal, she went on quickly: “You
needn’t be afraid to read them; Will’s name isn’t mentioned.”
The judge took the papers and scanned them with interest newly aroused.
The fine old face of the master of Hollywood, with its heavy white
mustache and pointed goatee, was military rather than judicial, and
Dorothy was joyed to see the lines of stern sorrow soften a little as
he read.
“You are right,” he said, after he had scanned the list of the
incriminated ones. “Let us thank God that we are spared so much. But I
don’t understand it.”
“Perhaps Will gave an assumed name,” Dorothy suggested.
“And so added a lie to his other misdoings?” rejoined the father
bitterly. “No, he didn’t do that. I saw the record at the police
station.”
Dorothy was puzzled for a moment, and then a light broke in upon her.
“I think I know how it happened,” she said, and then she gave him a
brief summary of the talk with Brant on the veranda.
The judge heard her through, and being in nowise less shrewd because he
happened to be his daughter’s father, he was at no loss to account for
Brant’s motive. Nevertheless, he did not forget to be grateful, and he
gave the helpful one his just meed of praise.
“It was a thoughtful thing to do, and the man who would think of it at
such a time must know how it grinds to have a good old name dragged in
the mire,” he said warmly. “I shall remember it. Was Mr. Brant with
Will when he came home?”
“I couldn’t tell. I saw the carriage drive up, and saw Will stop to
speak to some one inside after he got out. Then he came up the walk
alone, and the carriage went back toward the boulevard.”
“Well, it was a kindly deed, well meant and well done, and we are Mr.
Brant’s poor debtors,” said the judge, taking up one of the papers
again. “I shall go down by and by and thank him for it.”
Dorothy went at that, and when the library door closed behind her the
judge put the paper down, ostensibly to polish his eyeglasses, but
really because the problem of his old age had grown great enough to
banish interest in everything else. He had always prided himself on
being a good judge of human nature, and so he was when the point of
view was the judge’s bench in a courtroom. But it is a wise father who
knows his own son; and Judge Langford was just beginning to suspect
that his experience with human nature, and his courtroom studies
therein, had counted for little in the training of his son. More than
this, he was coming to understand that there is a time when a father’s
lost opportunities may not be regained; that the saving of William
Langford, if salvage there were to be, must be at other and alien hands.
That conclusion set him upon the search for his own substitute, and
most naturally he thought of Brant. There was that about Colonel
Bowran’s assistant which made him easily a beau ideal for a younger man
whose tastes were not wholly vitiated. He was a man of the world--a
much wider world than his present position with the colonel bespoke,
the judge decided; and he was of the masterful type out of which boys
are most likely to fashion their heroes. If the thing might only come
about without suggestion; if-- But there were too many “if’s” in the
way, and the judge fell to polishing his eyeglasses again, letting the
summing up of the matter slip into spoken words: “I wish he might be
able to tell me what to do with the boy. It is far enough beyond me.”
The door had opened noiselessly, and the mother of the problem crossed
the threshold in good time to overhear the summing up.
“What is beyond you?” she asked, knowing well enough what the answer
would be.
“The one thing that is always beyond me, Martha--what we are to do with
William.”
The mother had not yet been to breakfast, but she sat down and prepared
to argue her son’s case.
“Doesn’t it sometimes occur to you that possibly you may try to do too
much?”
“No,” said the judge firmly, knowing by sorrowful experience whereunto
the argument would lead. “By some means--I don’t pretend to know
how--the boy always manages to whitewash himself with you. But I am
coming to know him better. We may as well face the fact first as last,
Martha. He is thoroughly, utterly, recklessly bad. God forgive me that
I should have it to say of the son for whom I am responsible!”
But Mrs. Langford protested indignantly, as was her maternal privilege.
“That is just where you are mistaken--in assuming that he is bad at
heart. You don’t understand him at all, and sometimes I’m tempted
to think you don’t want to. Are there no allowances to be made for
youthful thoughtlessness?”
“Youthful depravity, you would better say.” The judge left his chair
and began to walk the floor. “Why don’t you call things by their right
names? I should think this last affair would open your eyes, if nothing
else has.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Please sit down, Robert; you make me nervous. I had
a long talk with him last night, and he told me everything without
reserve. I know it was all wrong--his being in such a place--but it was
rather foolish than intentionally wicked.”
“You make a nice distinction,” said the judge, but the sorrow in his
voice dulled the edge of the sarcasm. “What is his story?”
“Why, just this. It seems that he has a friend--a Mr. Harding, a
wealthy mine owner--and they went around together to see the sights,
purely out of curiosity, William says, and I believe him. They just
happened to be in this Draco place night before last; and when the
police rushed in they took everybody, guilty and innocent. William says
his friend tried to explain that they were only onlookers, but it was
no use, and--well, we know the rest.”
“Yes, rather better than I could wish. As a result of his curiosity, or
this Mr. Harding’s, I find my son in the police station, charged with
gambling.”
“Of course, in such a case the charge would be made against everybody.”
“As it should be. If William had been at home, instead of prowling
about town with a disreputable companion----”
Mrs. Langford raised deprecatory hands.
“Wait and hear the sequel before you do the man an injustice. When Will
went downtown last night, feeling desperate and discouraged enough to
do anything, this Mr. Harding found him and insisted on his coming
straight home--brought him home in a carriage, in fact. A bad man would
not have done that.”
The judge looked perplexed, as well he might. “Brought him home in a
carriage, you say? Why, I thought--” But he did not add what he thought.
“Yes, and that wasn’t all. It seems that Mr. Harding knows Mr. Brant,
and he told William his whole history. Will wouldn’t repeat it--he said
it wasn’t fit for me to hear--but he told me enough so that I shall
know what to say to Mr. Brant if he ever has the effrontery to come
here again.”
Here was a fresh mystery, but the judge was wise enough not to repeat
what Dorothy had told him. Moreover, he knew his son’s failings
too well to place implicit confidence in any story of his told in
a peace-making moment after an escapade. Wherefore he counselled
moderation.
“I shouldn’t take too much for granted if I were you, Martha,” he
said. “There are always two sides to an accusation like that, and
possibly Mr. Brant may have something to say for himself. Anyway, I
should give him a chance.”
“That is precisely what I shall do,” Mrs. Langford rejoined, with a
tightening of the firm lips that boded ill for the man who was to
be given the chance; after which she went to breakfast, leaving her
husband to the company of his own thoughts--thoughts which were far
from comforting.
How much of William’s story could be believed? And who was this man
Harding who claimed to know Brant? If the latter was the one who had
prevailed upon Will to come home, how was it that the boy had come
in a carriage with the former? And which of the two had suppressed
the mention of William Langford’s name in the published lists of the
accused? These and many more perplexing questions suggested themselves,
and the judge was no nearer the heart of the tangle when he finally
went out to seek Brant at the railway offices.