THE THRUST
The "Farm," as the Country-Club was popularly known to its habitues,
was a long, three-storied structure of red brick on the selvedge of the
southern suburb, set in a grove of maple trees facing a lake whose
still depths were stirred by budding water-lilies, like the breasts of
young girls. With its golf-links, and tennis-courts and its ball-room
which formed an L at one side, its white, balustraded verandahs, it was
the favoured resort of both the frivolous and athletic; its monthly
dances were the gayest of the season's informal functions and on
Saturday evenings its row of little dining-rooms, that looked out on a
gentle slope of shrubbery and gravelled walks pricked out with paper
lanterns, were favourite resorts for small dinner-parties.
Mrs. Spottiswoode's dinners were apt to have a pleasurable sprinkling
of youth and sobriety and to-night the dozen of the younger set found
sufficient foil in the fashionable rector of St. Andrews in clerical
dress relieved only by the tiny amethyst cross that swung upon his
waistcoat--in Senator Peyton, party-whip at Washington and one of the
state's distinguished citizens, with piercing sword-grey eyes under
brows as black as midnight--and finally in Cameron Craig.
As Echo Allen had said to her father, the latter was not "one of them."
The phrase to her had been an instinctive expression of that subtle
sense of caste that had been born in her, springing from long lines of
gentle ancestors that linked back beyond the days of the Old Dominion.
But the distinction lay deep in the mental formula of the man: it was
not to be perceived in externals. To-night, in his faultless
evening-dress, with his keen, strong face and assured manner, he had an
air even of distinction that well became him, and the instant's painful
embarrassment that Echo felt as her hand touched his in their first
greeting yielded quickly to an unwilling admiration of his poise and
control. If that flare of passion in the garden had left its traces,
they had been successfully covered. He was once more the Cameron Craig
she had known--till yesterday.
But beneath that unruffled exterior Craig's every pulse was in tumult.
At table he found himself opposite Echo. The decorations were red
roses and in a ruby gown with a single rose in the coil of her tawny
hair, she seemed to him an inherent part of the scheme, a ruby pendent
to the rich, shimmering setting. There had been many women to whom he
had been passingly attracted--his tastes had been catholic enough in
that regard! But he had never seen one whom he had wished to marry.
He had spoken truly when he said that the women he had known had really
meant nothing to him. His licenses had been but incidents after all.
They had not ministered to the mental side of his nature, whereas this
passion had taken swift and complete possession. As he saw her now,
her cheeks flushing to the glow of the candles and her eyes like softly
lighted sapphires, he felt open wide within him an abyss that thronged
thick with distempered imaginings. There was another man! She had not
denied it. And with the thought there grew in him a slow, cold hatred
and determination.
Yet his face, as Echo glanced across the roses, betrayed no sign of
disquiet. He was apparently listening amusedly to the small-talk of
his partner, Nancy Langham, in a gown of pale gauze that made her look
like a small, eager tiger-lily caught in a hampering cloud. In the
interstices of conversation Echo could catch whiffs of her laughing
nonsense:
"Isn't Dr. Custis quite _wickedly_ handsome for a rector! I've been
instructed _not_ to ask him if he is related to Martha Washington. The
man across from Mrs. Spottiswoode is Richard Brent, he is 'The Herald,'
and a power in the community, I believe. Our hostess is wearing the
new wave; it costs a lot, but they say it's guaranteed to last six
months. And to think," she sighed, "that Melissa, my maid, spends a
dollar a week trying to have her wool ironed _straight_! The man with
the goatee, who looks so Spanishy, is Mr. Horace Leighton, the New York
artist who is doing the mural paintings for the new City Hall here."
"So there isn't any one here who isn't anybody!" Craig observed.
"Only me," she said. "The reason I'm asked is because I'm frivolous.
I'm supposed to offset the feast of reason with bubbles and froth."
"At any rate," remarked the senator, "seriousness is not to fall in
arrears. Down at the other end they have actually got to politics."
Echo's glance followed his. Their hostess was holding a glass of wine
between her eye and the candle-light, which splashed a bright crimson
ray on her pretty face. It was the rector who was speaking:
"As for myself, I'm afraid I'm a friend to all the old, hackneyed
arguments. 'If meat maketh my brother to offend,' you know." He
pointed to his wine-glass, which, with the arrival of the soup, he had
turned upside-down. "You see I am consistent."
"Politics?" queried Echo. "It seems to be only teetotalism."
"Ah," the senator answered, "but it's coming to be the same thing
nowadays."
"One understands the individual objection on moral grounds," said Mrs.
Spottiswoode. "That's a matter of personal belief and conscience. And
the Church must be above criticism--must take the sterner course. But
for those of us who don't think it wrong, the other arguments seem
so--so local. I suppose drinking does keep the negroes from doing as
much work as they might, but it's hard on the rest of us to have to cut
our cloth by the farmer's pattern! We here, for example, at this
table, are to go without our sauterne because he has trouble in getting
in his tobacco."
"Exactly," agreed the churchman. "The greatest good of the greatest
number. And isn't that true democracy, after all? But of course the
agricultural problem is the least of it--there are the figures of
poverty and crime. The two are twin-brothers, of course. And drink is
the father of them both. Will, character, determination--a man with
these may overcome the habit. But these are just the qualities that
men in the mass lack. When a weak man falls our system keeps him down.
I once heard Thomas Malcolm--every one here knows of him and his work,
I presume--say that for the average drunkard to reform with a saloon on
every corner is about as easy as to hoist one's-self out of hell by
one's boot-straps. I'm inclined to think he is right. And I never saw
a drunkard yet--a real Simon-pure drunkard, I mean; not a mere
sophomoric tippler--who wouldn't jump at the chance to reform if he
could. But he has no more chance of winning out now than a gambler
against loaded dice." He paused, with a little gesture. "But then,"
he added, "the modern political movement for prohibition has made every
one familiar with the basic arguments."
Treadwell, spruce young corporation attorney and cotillon leader,
looked up interestedly from the other end of the table; the hostess's
fan had begun to flutter--a sign of agitation. For Cameron Craig's
affiliations with the great Trust were well-known, though presumably
not to the clergyman, who had met him for the first time that evening.
Craig, however, seemed quite unconscious of personal implications.
"Do you seriously think, sir," he asked, with the faintest trace of
irony, "that the statistics of crime would be materially lowered in
your state if it went 'dry' next year?"
"I do," replied the rector with emphasis. "And not only lowered. They
would be practically wiped out. There wouldn't be enough left to
constitute an item in the appropriation for public printing."
"Naturally, however," Craig observed, "as the state has always been
'wet,' exact data is lacking to assist one's speculations."
"On the contrary," said the other. "Every jail furnishes them. I
think," he went on, turning now to Treadwell, "that it is the
experience of every criminal lawyer that liquor, in some phase or
other, has been back of the larger proportion of cases he is called on
to defend."
The young man nodded. "I never had any experience in criminal cases,"
he said, "but I should think you were not far wrong. What do you say,
Brent?"
"I agree with you," the journalist answered, "but my view of course is
a superficial one. It is a pity that Harry Sevier isn't here; we
should have got a valuable opinion."
"You may be gratified then," said the hostess. "Though Mr. Sevier
couldn't come to dinner, he will be here for the dancing."
The senator spoke. "Sevier! I heard him in court yesterday."
"So did I," commented Nancy, aside. "I gave up an auction-bridge for
it, and I wish I hadn't. It wasn't exciting at all."
Mrs. Spottiswoode looked relief--at last the talk had shifted to safe
ground. "He lost the case, I hear," she said. "I wonder what was the
matter. Wasn't he in good form?"
The senator looked thoughtful. "In one way, yes," he replied
judicially. "I confess, though, I had rather expected something
different, but just what I scarcely know."
Nancy turned her small, piquant face. "_I_ know. We all expected Mr.
Sevier to do what he has done so often--but didn't to-day. Oh," she
exclaimed almost angrily, "while he was talking along, like a machine,
I could have shaken him!"
"That _would_ have furnished the sensation!" said Treadwell. "And I
should think it might have had its effect on the jury, too. Juries
_can_ be intimidated. I wish you had tried it."
She made a little face at him across the nodding roses, then turned
more earnestly to her partner. "I don't know anything about court
matters or criminal trials, but from where I sat I could see the man he
was defending. He looked so hopeless and--scared! I wanted to stand
up and scream across the room: Can't you _see_? Look at the poor thing
there! Make the jury _feel_! You were thinking the same thing too,
Echo, I could see it in your face."
Echo lifted her eyes. In the candle-light her cheek held a rising
flush. She looked across at the rector. "What do you think, Dr.
Custis?" she asked, evenly.
He responded promptly. "Perhaps the explanation isn't so far afield.
I presume the man had confessed to him and Sevier knew he was guilty."
Echo was conscious of a wave of relief at an explanation so simple and
credible. It had never occurred to her to question the accuracy of
other verdicts Harry had won in the past. Each had seemed to her the
triumph of a just cause over a baleful combination of circumstance, the
brilliant freeing of truth and innocence from entangling error and
maleficent scheming. But if this man was guilty and Harry had known it
beyond question, what other outcome had been possible? At the moment
she saw in that even, cold presentation of the court-room only the
conscientious determination of the lawyer, who, as the law prescribed,
stood by his client to demand that justice, if she must exact her
penalty, prove conclusively every jot and tittle of her ground.
Craig's eyes had been regarding her steadily. With the spreading of
that flush upon her cheeks a covert, laughing allusion that had come to
his ear on the court-house steps on the day of the trial darted to his
mind. A cool, keen certainty rushed through him. Sevier! Fool that
he was not to have thought of him before! This young _flaneur_--and
drunkard!--this petty trifler with his profession! Was that white
indignation of the garden, this vivid flush, for _him_? He leaned
forward, his heavy voice, intense and well modulated, addressed the
clergyman:
"An interesting hypothesis, but the implication seems hardly safe. A
lawyer's responsibility to his client is a very grave one. He owes
none toward the commonwealth--the state's attorney takes care of that.
Any less conventional view should appeal to a lawyer, I think, as
dangerous and uncalled-for."
"What do you fancy was responsible for Sevier's method of defence in
this case?" asked the rector.
There was an instant of blank silence. The conversation had absorbed
the lesser talk and other voices were hushed. Craig's look was set
upon the long oval damask with its glistening silver and baskets of
brilliant fruit, its leaf thin glasses with languid beads rising in
their liquid amber, its knots of fern and bonbons. His big fingers
were twisting the stem of a goblet. When he spoke it was as though he
had not heard the question.
"I attended a trial once," he said, "at a frontier town in the far
southwest, a border community where procedure is very primitive. The
man was charged with murder. He was a school-master, I believe, and in
a quarrel with some local bully or other, had killed him. I was in the
place on some land-business and went to the trial for mere amusement.
The whole neighbourhood was there. Both men, it appeared, had been in
their cups, and self-defence seemed an adequate plea. Acquittal was
regarded as fairly certain--the more so as the District Attorney was
the bosom-friend of the accused man, and everybody knew it. There was
almost no attempt at evidence, which didn't seem surprising under the
circumstances, and the state made the baldest farce of its
cross-examination. The real interest came after a rather long recess
that preceded the final speeches. The prisoner's counsel was a young
man with a rough, direct address that caught the people. He had them
pretty well with him, too, and when he sat down there seemed very
little reason why the jury should even leave the box. The speech had
been a fairly long one and as it had grown dark, candles had been
brought in and set about--two on the judge's desk and some on the
tables."
Echo repressed a start. It had come to her suddenly that there was a
significance in what he was saying--a suggestion that a quick
clairvoyant sense told her was principally for her. In the few words
he had, with apparent unintention, sketched the actual scene in the
court-room of the day before, and while reversing its elements, was
picturing, in unfamiliar guise, its identical situation. She felt her
face slowly harden, and turned her profile toward him, her hand playing
with a spray of fern beside her plate.
"During the whole speech the District Attorney had sat in his chair,
with his chin in his collar and his eyes closed, never moving. When
his turn came he didn't rise; in fact, it was clear that he had been
asleep. A laugh went round and the sheriff put a hand on his shoulder
and shook him. He got up, looking confused, and while he blinked at
the candles, some one in the audience called out, 'Never mind, old man.
If you can't make a speech, recite a poem.' It was curious, but the
remark seemed to give him a clue, and he began to recite Hood's _Eugene
Aram_."
Craig paused a moment and sipped from his wine-glass. All at the table
were leaning forward intently. Treadwell was frowning at his plate.
No one spoke; only a fork, dropped from Nancy Langham's fingers,
rattled against the cloth.
"It was a strange sight," went on Craig, "and one I have always
remembered. You must picture the crowded court-room, the gloom, the
flaring candles, and the whole uncanny episode, to realise the effect
that was produced. The man was by nature a marvellous actor--he would
have made his fortune on any stage. At first it seemed as if he didn't
know quite where he was, but then the ballad itself gripped him and he
rendered it, acting each line, as I never heard it before or since. I
had never realised what was in that poem. Very few there, I suppose,
had ever heard it in their lives, and they listened in a fascinated
silence while he rolled it out to the last line.
"'Two hard-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the rain and heavy mist,
And Eugene Aram walked between
With gyves upon his wrist.'"
He paused again. "Oh, finish!" gasped Nancy Langham. "I don't like
that story. What then?"
"When he ended he walked out of the court-room without waiting for the
verdict."
Echo's head turned toward him. "They found him guilty!" exclaimed Mrs.
Spottiswode.
"Yes."
"And you say the District Attorney was his best friend?" asked the
artist.
"So I was told."
"And yet wanted to convict him?"
Craig shook his head. "No, I didn't say that."
"Then what," inquired the rector, "do you take it, inspired him to such
an extraordinary action?"
"Oh," said Craig, and as he spoke, for the first time he looked full at
Echo. "It all came out afterward. He didn't realise what he was
doing. He was drunk."
For an instant Echo's breath stopped. In the unexpected denouement she
had guessed, as at a lightning-flash, Craig's real purpose. Sharply,
baldly introduced, the tale stood forth intrusive and malicious, an
implied slur upon a man who was not present to refute it. Her whole
being flooded with fierce resentment, mingled with an angry amaze that
of all there no one else seemed to have caught the insinuation. To the
rest it had been at most a _gaucherie_, a parallel which, if perhaps
not felicitous, had been without significance and would be readily
forgotten. Therein lay the added sting, that Craig had so accurately
judged the outcome. He had guessed how it stood with her and Harry
Sevier, and counting on her keener sensitiveness where the latter was
concerned, had barbed his shaft for her alone!
The next instant, however, the tension broke with every one talking at
once. From this babble the senator emerged with a negro story about a
trial with "exterminatin' circumstances," which brought a ripple of
laughter, and presently the hostess gave the rising signal.
The room opened upon the ball-room from whose further end already came
the squeak of tuned catgut, and beyond this spread the invitingly cool
verandas, now beginning to fill with filmy gowns that showed pallidly
against the evening dusk, where the bouquet of masculine segars mingled
with the dewed scent of shrubbery. Here in the increasing numbers,
unobserved as she thought, Echo stepped down onto the cool dark turf
and following one of the little meandering bush-bordered paths, came to
a rustic bench over which a paper lantern threw flickering
rose-coloured shadows. On this she sat down, struggling to regain her
lost composure and grateful for the sense of quiet and the cool
inspiration of the water, over whose margin the moonbeams danced in
elfish ecstasy.
In another moment, however, the silence was broken. A step sounded on
the path, and she looked up to see Craig standing before her.