A REPRIEVE
Lord James did not call upon Genevieve until late afternoon of the next
day, and then he did not come alone. He had called first upon Mrs.
Gantry and Dolores, who brought him on in their coupe.
Genevieve came down to them noticeably pale and with dark shadows under
her fine eyes, but her manner was, if anything, rather more composed
than usual. She even had a smile to exchange for the gay greeting of
Dolores. Mrs. Gantry met her with a kiss a full degree more fervent
than was consistent with strict decorum.
"My dear child!" she exclaimed. "I have hastened over to see you. Lord
Avondale has told me all about that fellow."
"Yes?" asked Genevieve, looking at Lord James calmly but with a slight
lift of her eyebrows that betrayed her astonishment.
"Hasn't your father told you?" replied Mrs. Gantry, reposing herself in
the most comfortable seat. "It seems that he has arranged--"
"Beg pardon," said Lord James. "It was the Coville Construction Company
that made the offer."
"Very true. An arrangement has been made, my dear, that will take that
person to the bridge and keep him there."
"Provided he accepts the offer," added Lord James.
"How can it be otherwise? The salary is simply stupendous for a man of
his class and standing."
"Laffie gets only twelve thousand a year, yet he designed the bridge,"
remarked Dolores. "He told me it wasn't even enough for pin-money."
"I fancy he must contrive to make it go farther since his last trip to
town," said Mrs. Gantry. "The little visit proved rather expensive. His
father made another reduction in his allowance."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Dolores. "Poor dear Laffie boy! If I conclude to
marry him, I shall insist that Papa Ashton is to give me a separate
allowance."
"My word, Miss Dolores!" expostulated Lord James. "You're not
encouraging that fellow?"
"Oh, it's as well to have more than one hook on the line. Ask mamma if
it isn't. Besides, Laffie would be a gilt-edged investment--provided
his papa made the right kind of a will. Anyway, I could get Uncle
Herbert's lawyers to fix up an agreement as to that--a kind of
pre-nuptial alimony contract between me and Laffie's papa's millions."
Mrs. Gantry held up her hands. "Could you have believed it, Genevieve!
She was frivolous enough before I went over for you. But now!"
Dolores coolly disregarded her mother, to turn a meaning look on Lord
James. "If I have frivolled enough, it's about time you said something."
The young Englishman put an uneasy hand to his mustache. "Er--I should
have preferred a--a rather more favorable time, Miss Dolores."
"Yes, and have mamma slam him before you put in the buffer," rejoined
the girl. "See here, Vievie. It's too bad, but you must have tattled
something to Uncle Herbert, and he--"
"Tattled!" repeated Genevieve. "I have always been candid with papa, if
that is what you mean, Dolores."
"All right, then, Miss Candid. Though we called it tattling ten years
ago. Anyway, Uncle Herbert wrote about it to mamma. He sent the letter
out this noon. Next thing, it'll be all over Chicago--and England."
"Dolores! I must insist!" admonished Mrs. Gantry.
"So must I, mamma! If it's wrong to destroy the property of others,
it's no less wrong to destroy their reputations."
Her mother expanded with self-righteous indignation. "Well, I
never!--indeed! When the fellow has neither character nor reputation!"
"Dear auntie," soothed Genevieve, "I know you too well to believe you
could intentionally harm any one."
"I would do _anything_ to save you from ruining your life!" exclaimed
Mrs. Gantry, moved almost to tears.
"I shall not ruin my life," replied Genevieve, with a quiet firmness
that brought a profound sigh of relief from her aunt.
"_A-a-h!_--My dear child! Then you at last realize what sort of a man
he is."
"Vievie knows he _is_ a man--which is more than can be said of some of
them," thrust Dolores, with a mocking glance at Lord James.
"My dear," urged Mrs. Gantry, "give no heed to that silly chit. I wish
to commend your stand against the fatal attraction of mere brute
efficiency."
"Oh, I say!" put in Lord James. "It's this I must protest against, Miss
Leslie--this talk of his brute qualities--when it's only the lack of
polish. You should know that. He's a thistle, prickly without, but
within soft as silk."
"Do I not know?" exclaimed Genevieve, for the moment unable to maintain
her perfect composure.
"The metaphor was very touching and most loyal, my dear earl," said
Mrs. Gantry. "Yet you must pardon me if I suggest that your opinion of
him may be somewhat biased by friendship."
"But of course mamma's opinion isn't biased," remarked Dolores. She
shot an angry glance at her mother, and added--"by friendship."
"It would relieve me very much if no more were said about Mr. Blake,"
said Genevieve.
"We can't--now," snapped Dolores, frowning at the footman who had
appeared in the doorway. "Some one must have sighted the right
honorable earl in our coupe."
Her irony was justified by the actions of the three young matrons who
fluttered in on the breeze of the footman's announcement. They
immediately fell into raptures over his lordship, who was forced in
self-defence to tug and twist at his mustache and toy with his monocle.
At this last Dolores flung herself out of the room in ill-concealed
disdain.
She was not to be found when, all too soon, her mother tore the
"charming Earl Avondale" away from his chattering adorers. After the
worshipful one had been borne off, the dejected trio did not linger
long. Their departure was followed by the prompt reappearance of
Dolores.
She came at her cousin with eyes flashing. "Now you're all alone,
Vievie! I've been waiting for this. Do you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to give you a piece of my mind."
"Please, dear!" begged Genevieve.
"No. I'll not please! You deserve a good beating, and I'm going to give
it to you. That poor Mr. Blake! Aren't you 'shamed of yourself?
Breaking his big noble heart!"
"Dolores! I must ask you--"
"No, you mustn't! You've got to listen to me, you know you have. To
think that you, who've always pretended to be so kind and considerate,
should be a regular cat!"
"You foolish dear!" murmured Genevieve. "Do you imagine that anything
that you can say can hurt me, after--after--" She turned away to hide
her starting tears.
"That's it!" jeered her cousin. "Be a snivelly little hypocrite.
Pretend to be so sorry--when you're not sorry at all. _Pah!_"
Genevieve recovered her dignity with her composure. "That is quite
enough, my dear. I can overlook what you have already said. You know
absolutely nothing about love and the bitter grief it brings."
"You don't say!" retorted Dolores, her nostrils quivering. "Much you
know about me. But you!--the idea of pretending you love him--that you
ever so much as dreamed of loving him!"
Genevieve shrank back as if she had been struck. "Oh! for any one to
say that to me!"
"It's true--it must be true!" insisted Dolores, half frightened yet
still too surcharged with anger to contain herself. "If it isn't true,
how could you break his heart?--the man who saved you from that
terrible savage wilderness!"
"I--I cannot explain to you. It's something that--"
"I know! You needn't tell me. It's mamma. She's been knocking him.
I'll bet she started knocking him when she first cabled to you--at
least she would have, had she known anything about him. Think I don't
know mamma and her methods? If only he'd been his lordship--Owh, deah!
what a difference, don't y' know! She'd never have let you get out of
England unmarried!"
"Dolores! this is quite enough!"
"The Countess of Avondale, future Duchess of Ruthby! Think I don't see
through mamma's little game? And you'd shillyshally around, and throw
over the true, noble hero to whom you owe everything--whom you've
pretended you loved--to run after a title, an Englishman, when you
could have that big-hearted American!"
Genevieve's lips straightened. "What a patriot!" she rejoined with
quiet irony. "You, of course, would never dream of marrying an
Englishman."
"That's none of your business," snapped Dolores, not a little taken
aback by the counter attack.
"You spoke about pretence and hypocrisy," went on Genevieve. "How about
the way you tease and make sport of Lord Avondale?"
For a moment the younger girl stood quivering, transfixed by the dart.
Suddenly she put her hands before her eyes and rushed from the room in
a storm of tears.
Genevieve started up as if to hasten after her, but checked herself and
sank back into her chair. For a long time she sat motionless, in the
blank dreary silence of profound grief, her eyes fixed upon vacancy,
dry and lustreless.
When, a few minutes before their dinner hour, her father hurried into
the room, expectant of his usual affectionate welcome, she did not
spring up to greet him. The sound of his brisk step failed to penetrate
to her consciousness. He came over to her and put a fond hand on her
shoulder.
"H'm--how's this, my dear?" he asked. "Not asleep? Brown study, eh?"
She looked up at him dully; but at sight of the loving concern in his
eyes, the unendurable hardness of her grief suddenly melted to tears.
She flung herself into his arms, to weep and sob with a violence of
which he had never imagined his quiet high-bred daughter capable.
Bewildered and alarmed by the storm of emotion, he knew not what to do,
and so instinctively did what was right. He patted her on the back and
murmured inarticulate sounds of love and pity.
His sympathy and the blessed relief of tears soon restored her quiet
self-control. She ceased sobbing and drew away from him, mortified at
her outburst.
"There now," he ventured. "You feel better, don't you?"
"I've been very silly!" she exclaimed, drying her tear-wet cheeks.
"You're never silly--that is, since you came home this time," he
qualified.
"Because--because--" She stopped with an odd catch in her voice, and
seemed again about to burst into tears.
"Because _he_ taught you to be sensible,--you'd say."
"Ye--yes," she sobbed. "Oh, papa, I can't bear it--I can't! To think
that after he'd shown himself so brave and strong--! But for that, I
should never have--have come to this!"
"H'm,--from the way you talked last night, I took it that the matter
was settled. You said then that you could no longer--h'm--love him."
"I can't!--I mustn't! Don't you see? He's proved himself weak. How,
then, can I keep on loving him? But they--they infer that it is my
fault. I believe they think I tempted him."
"How's that?"
"Because I urged him to take the communion with me. I told you what he
himself said about alcohol. But he did not blame me. He pointed out
that if he was too weak to resist then, he would have yielded to the
next temptation."
"H'm,--no doubt. Yet I've been considering that point--the fact that
you did force him against his will."
"Surely, papa, you cannot say it was my fault, when he himself admits
that his own weakness--"
"Wait," broke in her father. "What do you know about the curse of
drink? It's possible that he might be able to resist the craving if not
roused by the taste."
"Yet if he is so weak that a few drops of the holy communion wine could
cause him to give way so shamelessly--"
"Holy?--h'm!" commented Mr. Leslie. "Alcohol is a poison. Suppose the
Church used a decoction containing arsenic. Would that make arsenic
holy?"
"Oh, papa! But it's so very different!"
"Yes. Alcohol and arsenic are different poisons. But they're similar in
at least one respect. The effects of each are cumulative. To one who
has been over-drugged with arsenic a slight amount more may prove a
fatal dose. So of a person whose will has been undermined and almost
paralyzed with alcohol--"
"That's it, papa. Don't you see? If he lacks the will, the strength,
the self-control to resist!"
"No, that isn't the point. It's your part in this most unfortunate
occurrence that I'm now considering."
"My part?"
"You told him that he must not look to you for help or even sympathy. I
can understand your position as to that. At the same time, should you
not have been as neutral on the other side? Was it quite fair for you
to add to his temptations?"
"Yet the fact of his weakness--"
"I'm not talking about him, my dear. It's what you've done--the
question whether you do not owe him reparation for your part in
his--misfortune."
"My part?"
"Had you not forced him into what I cannot but consider an unfair test
of his strength, he would not have fallen. Griffith tells me that he
was well along toward a solution of the Zariba Dam. Had you not caused
this unfortunate interruption in his work, he might soon have proved
himself a master engineer. That would have strengthened him in his
fight against this hereditary curse."
"He was to fight it on his own strength."
"What else would this engineering triumph have been but a proof to
himself of his strength? You have deprived him of that. Griffith tells
me that, hard as he is striving to work out the idea which he was
certain would meet the difficulties of the dam, he now seems unable to
make any progress."
"So Mr. Griffith and you blame all upon me?"
"You mistake me, my dear. What I wish to make clear to you is that,
however hopeless Blake's condition may be, you are responsible for his
failure upon this occasion."
"And if so?"
"Premising that in one respect my attitude toward him is unalterable, I
wish to say that he has risen very much in my esteem. I have had
confidential talks with Griffith and Lord Avondale regarding him. I
have been forced to the conclusion that you were justified in
considering him, aside from this one great fault, a man essentially
sound and reliable. He has brains, integrity, courage, and endurance.
Given sufficient inducement, those qualities would soon enable him to
acquire all that he lacks,--manners and culture."
"Oh, papa, do not speak of it! It was because I saw all that in him
that I felt so certain. If only it were not for the one thing!"
"H'm," considered Mr. Leslie, scrutinizing her tense face. "Then I
gather it's not true what yesterday you said and no doubt believed. You
still regard him with the same feelings as before this occurrence."
"No! no! He has destroyed all my faith in him. I--I can pity him. But
anything more than that is--it must be--dead."
"Can't say I regret it. But--this is another question. You've lost him
one chance. I believe you should give him another."
"Another chance?--you say that?" she asked incredulously.
"You should cancel this record--this occurrence. Blot it out. Start
anew."
"How can I? It is impossible to forget that he has failed so utterly."
"Thanks to the poison you put into his mouth."
"Father! I did not think that you--"
"I was unjust to him. You also have done him a wrong. I am seeking to
make reparation. In part payment, I wish to make clear to you what you
should do to offset your fault. In view of the development of your
character (which, by the way, you claim was brought about by your
African experience), I feel that I should have no need to urge this
matter. You are not a thoughtless child. Think it over. Here's Hodges."
She went in with him to dinner, perfectly composed in the presence of
the grave-faced old butler. But after the meal, when her father left
for his customary cigar in the conservatory, she sought the seclusion
of the library, and attempted to fight down the growing doubt of her
justice toward Blake that had been roused by her father's suggestions.
It was easy for her to maintain the resolute stand she had taken so
long as she kept her thoughts fixed on his fall from manhood. But
presently she began to recall incidents that had occurred during those
terrible weeks on the savage coast of Mozambique.
She remembered, most vividly of all, a day on the southern
headland--the eventful day before the arrival of the steamer--when he
had spoken freely of the faults of his past life.... He had never lied
to her or sought to gloze over his weakness.
And he could have concealed this present failure. She divined that both
Griffith and Lord James would never have betrayed him. Yet he had come
direct to her and confessed, knowing that she would condemn him.
The thought was more than she could withstand. She crossed over to her
desk, and wrote swiftly:--
Dear Friend:
You are to consider that all which has taken place since Sunday is as
if it had never happened.
Come to me to-morrow, at ten.
Jenny.
Enclosing the note in an envelope addressed to Blake, she gave it to a
servant for immediate delivery. As soon as the man left the room, she
went to the telephone and arranged for a private consultation with one
of the most eminent physicians in the city.