CONDEMNED
Though he sank into a taciturn and morose mood from which no efforts of
his friends could rouse him, Blake sullenly accepted the continued
treatment that Griffith thrust upon him. In the morning he muttered a
confirmation of the statement of Lord James that he was looking better
and that the attack must be well over.
Ashton, forced probably by an irresistible impulse to learn the worst,
followed Lord James to the room occupied by the engineers. Blake cut
short his vacillating in the doorway with a curt invitation to come in
and sit down. Having satisfied what he considered the requirements of
hospitality, Blake paid no further attention to the Resident Engineer.
As nothing was said about the bridge, Ashton soon regained all his
usual assurance, and even went so far as to comment upon Blake's attack
of biliousness.
When, beside the car step, an hour later, Ashton held out his hand,
Blake seemingly failed to perceive it. Ashton's look of relief
indicated that he mistook the other's profound contempt for stupid
carelessness. To one of his nature, the fact that Blake had not at once
denounced him as a thief seemed proof positive that the sick man had
failed to recognize in the bridge structure the embodiment of his
stolen plans.
He turned from Blake to Lord James. "Ah, my dear earl, this has been
such a pleasure--such a delight! You cannot imagine how intolerable it
is to be cut off from the world in this dreary hole--deprived of all
society and compelled to associate, if at all, with, these common
brutes!"
"Really," murmured Lord James. "For my part, y' know, I rather enjoy
the company of intelligent men who have their part in the world's work.
Though one of the drones myself, I value the 'Sons of Martha' at their
full worth."
"Oh, they have their place. The trouble is to make them keep it."
"'Pon my word, I scarcely thought you'd say that--so clever an engineer
as yourself!"
Ashton glanced up to be certain that both Griffith and Blake had passed
on into the car.
"Your lordship hasn't quite caught the point," he said. "One may have
the brains--the intellect--necessary to create such a bridge as this,
without having to lower himself into the herd of common workers."
"Ah, really," drawled the Englishman, swinging up the car steps.
Ashton raised his hat and bowed. "_Au revoir_, Earl. Your visit has
been both a delight and an honor. I shall hope soon to have the
pleasure of seeing you in town."
"Yes?" murmured Lord James with a rising inflection. "Good-day."
He nodded in response to Ashton's final bow, and hastened in to where
Blake and Griffith were making themselves comfortable in the middle of
the car. The three were the only passengers for the down trip.
"So he didn't get you to stay over for the winter?" remarked Griffith
as the Englishman began to shed his topcoat.
"Gad, no! He couldn't afford it. Tried to show me how to play poker
last night. I've his check for two thousand. He insisted upon teaching
me the fine points of the game."
"Crickey!--when you've travelled with T. Blake!" cackled Griffith.
"Hey, Tommy? Any one who's watched you play even once ought to be able
to clean out a dub like Lallapaloozer Laf. Say, though, I didn't think
even you could keep on your poker face as you have this morning. It's
dollars to doughnuts, he sized it up that you had failed to get next."
"Told you I wasn't going to show him my cards," muttered Blake.
Lord James looked at him inquiringly, but he lapsed into his morose
silence, while Griffith commenced to write his report on the bridge,
without volunteering an explanation. Lord James repressed his
curiosity, and instead of asking questions, quietly prepared for his
friend one of the last of the grapefruit.
An hour or so later Blake growled out a monosyllabic assurance that he
was now safely over his attack. Yet all the efforts of Lord James to
jolly him into a cheerful mood utterly failed. Throughout the trip he
continued to brood, and did not rouse out of his sullen taciturnity
until the train was backing into the depot.
"Here we are," remarked Lord James. "Get ready to make your break for
cover, old man. What d' you say, Mr. Griffith? Will it be all right for
him to keep close to his work for a while--to lie low?"
"What's that?" growled Blake.
"Young Ashton's a bally ass," explained Lord James. "He bolted down
whole what I said about your attack of bile. Others, however, may not
be so credulous or blind. You'd better keep close till you look a bit
less knocked-up. There's no need that what's happened should come to
Miss Leslie."
"Think so, do you?" said Blake. "Well, I don't."
"What's that?" put in Griffith.
"There's not going to be any frame-up over this, that's what," rejoined
Blake, reaching for his hat and suitcase. "Soon 's I get a shave I'm
going out to tell her."
"Gad, old man!" protested Lord James. "But you can't do that--it's
impossible! You surely do not realize--"
"I don't, eh?" broke in Blake bitterly. "I'm up against it. I know it,
and you know it. You don't think I'm going to do the baby act, do you?
I've failed to make good. Think I'm going to lie to her about it?
No!--nor you neither!"
His friends exchanged a look of helplessness. They knew that tone only
too well. Yet Lord James sought to avert the worst.
"Might have known you'd be an ass over it," he commented. "Best I can
do, I presume, is to go along and explain to her my view of what
started you off."
"Best nothing. You'll keep out of this. It's none of your funeral."
"There's more than one opinion as to that."
"I tell you, this is between her and me. You'll keep out of it," said
Blake, with a forcefulness that the other could not withstand. "Don't
worry. You'll have your turn later on."
"Deuce take it!" cried the Englishman. "You can't fancy I'm dwelling on
that! You can't think me such a cad as to be waiting for an opportunity
derived from an injustice to you!"
"Injustice, _bah!_" gibed Blake. "I'll get what's coming to me. It's of
her I'm thinking, not you. She was right. I'm going to tell her so.
That's all."
"But, in view of what she herself did--"
"I'll tell her the facts. That's enough," said Blake, and he led the
way from the car.
He hastened out of the depot and would have started off afoot, had not
Lord James hailed a taxicab and taken him and Griffith home. He went in
with them, and when Blake had shaved and dressed, proposed that they
should go on together as far as the hotel. To this Blake gave a sullen
acquiescence, and they whirred away to the North Side. But instead of
stopping at the hotel, their cab sped on out to the Lake Shore Drive.
Lord James coolly explained that he intended to take his friend to the
door of the Leslies. Blake would have objected, but acquiesced as soon
as he understood that Lord James intended to remain in the cab.
During the day the cold had moderated, and when Blake swung out of the
cab he was wrapped about in the chilly embrace of a dripping wet fog
from off the lake. He shivered as he hurried across and up the steps
and into the stately portico of the Leslie house.
At the touch of his finger on the electric button, the heavy door swung
open. He was bowed in and divested of hat and raincoat by an
overzealous footman before he could protest. Silent and frowning, he
was ushered to a door that he had not before entered. The footman
announced him and drew the curtains together behind him.
Still frowning, Blake stepped forward and stopped short to stare about
him at the resplendent room of gold and ivory enamel that he had
entered. Only at the second glance did he perceive the graceful figure
that had risen from the window-seat at the far end of the room and
stood in a startled attitude, gazing fixedly at him.
Before he could speak, Genevieve came toward him with impetuous
swiftness, her hands outstretched in more than cordial welcome.
"Tom! Is it really you?" she exclaimed. "I had not looked for you back
so soon."
"It's somewhat sooner than I expected myself," he replied, with a
bitter humor that should have forewarned her.
But she was too relieved and delighted to heed either his tone or his
failure to clasp her hands, "Yes. You know, I've been so worried. You
really looked ill Sunday, and I thought Lord James' manner that evening
was rather odd--I mean when I spoke to him about you."
"Shouldn't wonder," said Blake in a harsh voice. "Jimmy had been there
before. He knew."
"Knew? You mean--?" The girl stepped back a little way and gazed up
into his face, startled and anxious. "Tom, you _have_ been sick--very
sick! How could I have been so blind as not to have seen it at once?
You've been suffering terribly!"
Again she held out her hands to him, and again he failed to take them.
"Don't touch me," he replied. "I'm not fit. It's true I've suffered. Do
you wonder? I've been in hell again--where I belong."
"Tom! oh, Tom!--no, no!" she whispered, and she averted her face,
unable to endure the black despair that she saw in his unflinching eyes.
"Jimmy and old Grif, between them, managed to catch me when I was under
full headway," he explained. "They stopped me and took me up to the
Michamac Bridge. I'm on my feet again now. Just the same, I went under,
and if it hadn't been for them, I'd be beastly, roaring drunk this
minute."
"No, Tom! It's impossible--impossible! I can't believe it!"
"Think I'd lie about a little thing like that?" he asked with the
terrible levity of utter despair.
"But it's--it's so awful!"
"I've known funnier jokes. God! D'you think I've done much laughing
over being smashed for good? It's rid you of a drunken degenerate. It's
you who ought to laugh. How about me? I've lost _you!_ God!"
He bent over, with his chin on his breast and his big fists clenched
down at his sides.
She stared at him, dazed, almost stunned by the shock. Only after what
seemed an age of waiting could she find words for the stress of bitter
disappointment and mortified love that drove the blood to her heart and
left her white and dizzy.
"Then--you have--failed. You _are_--weak!" she at last managed to say.
Simple as were the words, the tone in which they were spoken was enough
for Blake.
"Yes," he answered, and he swung about toward the door.
"Have you no excuses--no defence?" she demanded.
"I might lay it to that wine at the church--and prove myself still
weaker," said Blake.
"The holy communion!" she reproached.
"I never made fun even of a Chinaman's religion," he said. "Just the
same, if I don't believe a thing, I don't lie and let on I do. I told
you that wine meant nothing to me in a religious way. But even if it
had, I don't think it would have made any difference. Drop nitric acid
on the altar rail, and it will eat the brass just the same as if it was
in a brass foundry. Put alcohol inside me, and the craving starts up
full blast."
"Then you believe I should excuse--"
"No," he interrupted with grim firmness. "I might have thought it
then--but not now. I've had two days to think it over. It all comes
down to this: If, knowing how you felt about it, I could not kneel
there beside you and take that taste of wine without going under, I'm
just what you suspected--weak, unfit."
She clasped her hands on her bosom. "You--admit it?"
"What's the use of lying about it?" he said. "If it hadn't come about
that way, you can see now it was bound to happen some other way."
"I--suppose--yes. Oh! but it's horrible!--horrible! I thought you so
strong!"
"I won't bother you any more," he muttered. "Good-bye."
He went out without venturing a glance at her white face. She waited,
motionless, looking toward the spot where he had stood. Several moments
passed before she seemed to realize that he had gone.