AND THE SHAFT TO THE MARK
NOT until he had passed the judge’s questions and his own answers twice
or thrice in mental review did Brant realize how completely he had
succeeded in raising doubts as to his own obviousness where he fain
would have allayed them. Then he grew angry, at his own inaptness in
particular, and at an unsympathetic world in general. In its turn the
fit of wrath was supplanted by a fever of impatience, and this glowed
fitfully through the interminable afternoon which separated him from a
possible visit to Hollywood.
Having done a good deed, he had a very human hunger for appreciation--
appreciation untinctured by suspicion or innuendo, and Dorothy, at
least, would not withhold it. So he believed, and, when evening came,
lost no time in presenting himself at the door of the comfortable
mansion in Altamont Terrace.
He was shown into the double drawing-room, and it was untenanted--a
fact remarkable enough to make him wonder. He had come to know the
family habit well, and after dinner, when it was too cool to sit on the
veranda, at least four of the five would be found in the living rooms.
Was he too early? He looked at his watch. No; it was a full hour a-past
the Langford dinner time. In the midst of his wonderings the door
opened to admit, not Dorothy or Isabel, but Mrs. Langford.
“You must excuse me if I have kept you waiting,” said the lady in the
tone which turns the apology into a chilly conventionalism. “I was not
expecting any one so early. Is there anything I can do for you, Mr.
Brant?”
Brant doubted his ears, and glanced around involuntarily as one who has
stumbled into the wrong house.
“I--do for me? Why, nothing in particular,” he stammered. “Are--are the
young ladies at home?”
“Not to you, Mr. Brant; nor will they be if you should ever happen to
call again.”
Brant laid fast hold of his sanity and fought for calm speech.
“But, Mrs. Langford,” he gasped, “I--I don’t understand. What have I
done?”
“Rather ask what you have not done,” said the lady icily. “But since
you put the question, I may answer it. You have come here, not once,
but many times, knowing very well that if your history had been known
to us or to Mr. Antrim our doors would never have been opened to you.
If that is not sufficient, I can be still more explicit, if you wish
it.”
“By Heaven, madam, I do wish it!” Brant exploded, rushing upon his fate
like any fool of them all. But anger was fast supplanting astonishment.
“Very well, sir. Would you mind telling me where you have spent the
better part of your life since you left college?”
“In the mining camps.” He had a sharp premonition of what was coming.
“And your occupation was----”
“It was not what it should have been, I admit. But is there no room for
repentance in your creed, Mrs. Langford?”
“Assuredly; but you have not repented. That is proved by your own act
in coming here quite as much as by anything that Mr. Harding says of
you.”
“Harding!” At the mention of the name Brant saw what his enemy had done
and went mad accordingly. “Do you mean to say you would listen for a
moment to anything that damnable hound could say of me, or of any one?”
Mrs. Langford retreated to the door.
“Pardon me, Mr. Brant, if I leave you--you are merely making a bad
matter worse. A gentleman does not so far forget himself as to swear in
the presence of a lady. I think we understand each other, and I will
bid you good evening.”
When she was gone Brant found his way out of the house, and spent half
the night tramping the hills to the westward of the suburb. Under
favouring conditions self-respect is a plant of rapid growth, but it is
sensitive in inverse proportion to its age. While he was very willing
to call himself the chief of sinners, and to deprecate his own temerity
in aspiring to a seat at the table of virtue, Brant was no more
complaisant under reproach than any Pharisee of us all.
For this cause he filled the hours of the solitary walk afield with
bitter revilings heaped upon uncharity in general, and upon social
canons as interpreted by the Mrs. Langfords in particular, going
finally to his room in a frame of mind in which wrath and desperation
far outran grief.
“‘Give a dog a bad name,’” he fumed, flinging hat and overcoat into a
corner and lighting the gas and a fresh cigar with the same match. “I
might have known what it would come to. And all I asked in the wide
world was to be let alone!”