Mazie Pallinder's visit to her relatives, the Lees and Randolphs, was
prolonged until the Easter holidays, which came the last week in March
that spring. It is a fact, verified by solid paragraphs of "newspaper
gabble," that she _was_ visiting people of those high-sounding and
brilliantly suggestive names, and moving amongst the elect. The family
must have been well connected on the Pallinder side at any rate--who
or what the Botlisch clan were, no one would like to think. We missed
Mazie. Mrs. Pallinder went about alone to teas and receptions, smiling
steadily in her beautiful clothes that she wore with so dignified a
grace, and reporting that she and the colonel were having a kind of
ridiculous honeymoon time of it by themselves, no one calling, no
banjos humming in the parlour, no impromptu little dances, no hordes
of girls doing one another's hair, and munching nougat all day long
in Mazie's room, no prowling about the ice-chest at midnight for
chicken salad and champagne. "The house is as quiet as a funeral," she
humorously complained. "All our young men have deserted us, except
Mr. Peters, who comes, I think, out of sheer humanity. My mother goes
to bed very early, and there the colonel and I sit by the fire like
two old fogies until we fall asleep in our chairs. The other night we
actually went to bed at nine o'clock. Sometimes Doctor Vardaman comes
up and we have a game of cribbage. Positively I don't know why we
don't take root where we sit, and grow fast to the spot like plants.
On the whole this restful time may be good for the colonel. He's been
so immersed in business and those Eastern men, those rich, grasping
creatures, do _drive_ him so. I often say to him, 'Oh, William, never
mind the money. Haven't you made enough by this last deal in Phosphate
to satisfy you _yet_?' I never ask any more how much he _did_ make--I
don't know anything about business, and it frightens me to think of him
handling such big sums, and taking such risks and responsibilities. He
gave me this ring the other day, though, so I know that whatever it
was, the venture turned out all right. Isn't it a beauty? Of course,
I'm not sorry he's making money, but, oh, Mrs. Lawrence, our husbands
work too hard--all our men work too hard--it's not worth it. A few
thousands less would content us, and what we want more than anything
else in the world is to have them in good health. Shall I put you down
here? Oh, I'm pleased you like this little brougham; I had it lined
with the dark green cloth because, to tell the truth, I thought I would
look better with my fair hair against a dark green background than if
it were maroon or deep blue. Don't laugh, my dear, there're tricks in
all trades, and it's a woman's trade to look her best. Home, James!"
Colonel Pallinder, however, never went to his office until ten o'clock
in the morning, and might be seen posting home any day at about
half-past three in the afternoon--"after banking-hours," he used to
explain, when one met him; "there's really nothing to be done--nothing,
in _my_ office, at any rate." And his gesture somehow indicated wider
horizons than ours and a vista of great affairs. For all that, he had
no appearance of a man harried by cares; and it may be, too, that
his home was not quite so quiet and restful as it was represented.
"I understand that Mrs. Pallinder is trying again to get a maid for
her mother," said Doctor Vardaman, half thinking aloud, half speaking
to Huddesley as the latter brought him the morning paper, in company
with his breakfast on the old silver-plated tray with which a previous
generation of Vardamans had been served; the copper of its foundation
showed through here and there under Huddesley's vigorous care; the
delicate etched arabesque around the heraldic device and motto in the
centre were almost worn away. Doctor Vardaman liked to fancy he could
see his mother's thin, fine hands fluttering about above the cups
and saucers on this tray; she, too, had had a habit of harmless and
somehow perfectly dignified familiarity with her staid old servants
over this one meal. The doctor opened his paper, turning at once--as
everybody invariably does--to a certain concise, ominous column in the
lower left-hand corner of the inside page where might be read, framed
in undertakers' advertisements, and notices that So-and-So's mortuary
sculptures were the best in the market, the names of yesterday's dead.
Close by, another column offered you a list of marriage-licenses with a
fine indifference to the fitness of things; and not far away appeared
the "Help wanted--Male--Female." "I see Mrs. Pallinder's advertising
for a maid," said the doctor. "And here, in another place, she wants
a cook, too. She's had a great deal of trouble with servants this
winter. There's a pair of us--_arcades ambo!_" He grinned into his
coffee-cup. "Only I'm very well-off now at least. This coffee's very
fine, Huddesley. It's a pity Mrs. Pallinder's having such a time."
"Yes, sir," said Huddesley respectfully. "That kind generally does have
trouble, sir."
He caught the doctor's eye and coughed discreetly.
"The house is large and there must be a great deal of work," said the
doctor, considering with vast satisfaction how comfortable he was in
his little den.
"Nobody minds doin' work that 'e's paid for, Hi've noticed," said
Huddesley. "It's when you 'ave trouble colleckin' wages that you're
liable to break hoff relations haltogether--speakin', hof course, sir,
as a man in my position, not as a gentleman in yours."
"The deuce!" ejaculated Doctor Vardaman inwardly. "Is _that_ it? Well,
I don't know why I'm surprised--I might have suspected as much--in
fact, I _have_ suspected as much off and on."
"Hof course coloured people are very precarious, sir, very precarious;
you don't know 'ow they live, nor you don't want to," said Huddesley,
arranging the dishes. "Their servants is hall coloured, sir, you know.
Hi halways think 'Like master, like man'--that's the hold sayin', sir."
"I must stop him," thought Doctor Vardaman guiltily. "It's disgraceful
listening to a servant's gossip this way--Ahem! Who was that I
heard you having such a squabble with at the kitchen door yesterday
afternoon, Huddesley?" he asked abruptly.
"A fellow peddlin' shoe-strings and collar-buttons, sir--Hi didn't like
'is looks and Hi hordered 'im hoff pretty sharp. Hi'm sorry you heard
the--the haltercation, sir, but they're very 'ard to get rid of."
"And you aren't any too plucky," said the doctor to himself with some
amusement, remembering Huddesley's not over-heroic behaviour on the
occasion of the burglary. "Why, I saw him going up the avenue towards
Colonel Pallinder's afterwards, and I thought he looked like a
respectable man," he said aloud.
Huddesley paused a moment before answering; he was folding the
tablecloth with an elaborate neatness; the operation required his
undivided attention. Then: "Beg parding, sir, that wasn't 'im you saw,"
he said calmly. "That was the gent that collecks for Barlow & Foster,
goin' hup to see if 'e couldn't get something on their coal-bill; I
persoom you know it ain't been paid yet. There was hanother there
yesterday from Scheurmann--the fourth or fifth time for _'im_, Hi've
lost count, there's been so many of 'em lately."
Doctor Vardaman retreated to his library, somewhat out of countenance.
"Good Lord!" he thought, "it's worse than I supposed--a deal worse!
These servants see or smell out everything. It's not safe to let them
talk to you; _I_ don't want to know anything about the Pallinders'
affairs." Nevertheless he smiled a little as he sat smoking by the
fire. "'The haltercation,'" he quoted. "Huddesley certainly is a
character. He reminds me of that valet of Major Pendennis' in the
novel, that fellow Morgan--only Morgan turned out to be a rascal,
the head villain of the story, if I remember." He took down the
book--it was a first edition with Thackeray's own clumsy yet spirited
illustrations--and sat reading the rest of the morning.
As reluctant as he was, however, the doctor, like the rest of the
world, could not always keep his eyes and ears closed against those
embarrassing things which we should all so much rather not know.
There are bits of gossip which seem to be common and not altogether
undesirable property; and there are ugly rumours which we feel it to
be the part of decency to hush up. We hear, underhand, that Jones is
wont to skulk at home for a fortnight dead drunk, that Smith's latest
financial venture was curiously involved and cloudy; even if true, and
even if we disapprove of Jones' and Smith's conduct in the abstract,
it yet in no way concerns us. We are none of us saints, as the doctor
himself said; we dislike especially the pose of holier-than-thou. Jones
and Smith may not be model citizens, but let us give them the benefit
of the doubt and continue to accept their dinner-invitations. Doctor
Vardaman, an upright man who would as soon have taken a horse-whip to
a servant as cheat him out of a penny, found himself averse to believe
what was under his eyes every day, and obscurely whispered here and
there by people in other ranks of life than Huddesley's. What if the
Pallinders were besieged by duns, and their servants unpaid? That was
none of his business; at the suggestion the old gentleman felt an
irritation for which perhaps some mocking inner self was partly to
blame. He found excuses for them; they were notoriously and amusingly
careless, extravagant, free-handed--er--er--_Southern_, in a word; the
colonel might be a rogue, as he undoubtedly was a wind-bag, yet of his
own knowledge, the doctor could say nothing. Nobody had ever tried to
trick _him_; he saw no reason why he should suddenly cold-shoulder the
Pallinders; their house was the pleasantest he knew.
Thus the doctor reflected uneasily, trying to hush that ironic sprite
within; and presently he was left with fewer defences still against
its sly unwelcome jeers, for the business which he took such comfort
in assuring himself was not his, became his in spite of him! He was
a little surprised, when, in the late afternoon of the same day,
Huddesley deferentially opened the library-door to announce "Mr.
Gwynne Peters." This formality of entrance was imposed on everybody by
the new man, and there was an old-world flavour about it that agreed
well with the doctor's house and character. Huddesley, who would have
been an ordinary flunkey in such an establishment as the Pallinders',
was already that endearing person--a trusted and trustworthy
servant--at Doctor Vardaman's. Gwynne came in, ruddy from the thin
brisk March air, eager and confident of his welcome, bringing to the
doctor's mind what kind memories of old days; of times when he used to
come with a top, a kite, a lame kitten, and filled the childless house
with childish confusion. Now he was as tall as Doctor Vardaman, and the
latter noted with an odd pang that his young face was settling into
the harder lines which recalled to so many his grandfather's portrait;
perhaps the anxiety that never entirely forsook him had made its mark
on Gwynne. At any rate it was very apparent as he said, glancing about,
after Huddesley had taken his hat and overcoat, and gone silently and
most respectfully out of the room: "Cousin Steven hasn't been here, has
he? I asked Huddesley, but he didn't seem to know."
"Come to think of it, I don't believe Steven has been in to see me
since I've had Huddesley--that's about two months, you know," said
the doctor. "He knows nearly everyone now, and never seems to get the
names and faces mixed up. If he'd ever seen Steven, he wouldn't have
forgotten him----" ("I wish I hadn't said that!" he added inwardly).
But Gwynne only frowned absent-mindedly, and began to feel along the
mantelpiece for matches. "Were you looking for him?"
"He's in town; he was in the office, but I had gone out. Then
afterwards I met Templeton on the street, and he told me he understood
Cousin Steven to say he was coming out here. You--you haven't seen him
going up to the Pallinder's, have you?"
"Why, no. But he'll be along in a little while, I dare say," said the
doctor easily--and wondered within him what Steven was about _now_?
He said nothing more, having in perfection the gift of companionable
silence; and for almost five minutes Gwynne himself did not speak,
blowing a soothing cloud of smoke by the doctor's fire. Then he said
abruptly, not looking at his old friend, as if trusting him to follow
up his thought.
"I went out to see Sam the other day."
"Ah? Was he----"
"Just the same. He didn't know me--never does. Perhaps it's just
as well. The attendant spoke as if he thought Sam was in very good
shape--physically, you know. 'He'll probably live for years, Mr.
Peters,' he said to me. 'He's stronger than you are this minute.' They
treat him all right, I think. It's always on my mind a little, you
know, that maybe they wouldn't if it wasn't for my having an eye on
them all the time. I go out about once a month, but they never know
when I'm coming. But you can't tell what happens in those places--even
the best of them."
"Sheckard is a reliable man; I've known him for thirty years. He's
always very careful about the attendants, as far as I've noticed; even
the patients that haven't any money, the ones he takes for a merely
nominal sum, or whatever their people can scrape up, are just as well
cared-for, I think. And of course that isn't the case with Sam----"
"It takes all Sam has," interrupted Gwynne gloomily. "Every cent."
"You can't blame them. But I wouldn't worry about him, if I were in
your----"
"I'm not worrying. I'm simply trying to do the best I can," said Gwynne
sharply.
The doctor caught the note of uneasy irritation in his voice with
surprise. Nothing could have been farther from his mind, or indeed,
more unjust, than to accuse Gwynne of shirking his duties, yet the
young man was plainly nettled--on the defensive. "I must have been
too sympathetic," thought the doctor, remembering the miserably
touchy Gwynne pride. Doctor Vardaman was the one person on earth,
hardly excepting his own family, to whom Gwynne would have mentioned
his brother. For everybody else, Sam Peters was away in California,
in Algiers, in Timbuctoo--the devices by which Sam was kept in the
background would have afforded material for a pitiful farce, if they
had not been concerned with so pitiful a tragedy; there was about these
lies a kind of wretched courage that went near to rendering their folly
dignified. Gwynne knew that his brother's misfortune was in no sense
a disgrace; but he could not bring himself to regard it as a thing to
be thought or spoken of like any other illness. Too much of his life
had been passed in the grimly fantastic environment of Gwynne family
traditions for him to be completely emancipated at twenty-four.
"I want to do the right thing as much as anybody," said Gwynne; he
scowled into the fire, chewing the end of his cigar. "Only it's not
always easy to say what _is_ the right thing. In real life right and
wrong aren't laid down in black and white the way they are in those
Tommy-and-Harry books we used to have when we were children; they sort
of shade off into each other. You've got to--to make compromises. You
can't take any satisfaction in being right--abstractly _right_--when
you're being hard and--and cruel."
"What on earth is the boy arguing with himself about?" thought Doctor
Vardaman; these not very original remarks had, for all their emphasis,
the air of being offered in advocacy of some doubtful cause; there was
a trace of temper and self-consciousness in them, and even the speaker
himself appeared unconvinced. "He's been having trouble with Steven, I
suspect," the doctor concluded, remembering how capable Steven was of
making trouble, and how difficult it was to manage him without recourse
to a tyranny from which Gwynne would recoil.
"That may be a good frame of mind for a lawyer, Gwynne," he said
pleasantly. "That disposition, I mean, to allow a certain amount of
right on every side. The question of expediency----"
"That's what _I_ think," Gwynne interrupted eagerly. "It's as much a
point of what's _best_ to do as of what's rigorously _right_ to do. But
you can't make people see that; now people like----"
"Mr. Steven Gwynne!" said Huddesley, opening the door. And even in
the uproar of Steven's entrance--he could do nothing quietly, and had
a voice of thunderous volume--Doctor Vardaman had time to observe
Gwynne's start and changing colour. Huddesley withdrew, taking Steven's
"artics" with a manner conveying his fixed belief that they should be
handled with tongs; but the doctor, who generally viewed this comic
by-play with profound amusement, for once let it pass unnoticed. As his
guests fronted each other, the old gentleman felt a sudden menace in
the air; something had gone wrong, had gone very wrong, indeed; that
much was easy to read in the two lowering faces. He looked from one
to the other in apprehension; he tried to relieve the situation by a
gust of what he inwardly characterised as "futile patter," offering
chairs and comments on the weather. That his unoffending parlour should
be made the scene of a Gwynne family squabble did not strike him as
outrageous; he felt too genuine and humane an interest in both parties.
At the back of his mind the thought was busy that Steven must have
been stirring up some kind of mischief with his confounded vapouring
communistic and anarchistic theories, his "circulating medium," or
Heaven knew what other foolishness; and how was Gwynne, or for that
matter anybody else, to deal with him? The poor old fellow was not--not
responsible; yet he could not be bullied like a slave, or put aside
like a child; that would only make him worse! "It would be better, it
would absolutely be better, if Steven would go stark mad and be done
with it (Lord forgive me for saying so!)" he thought. "Then, at least,
he could be cared for properly. As it is, you can't excite him, you
can't reason with him, you can't control him!" An acute sympathy for
both of them possessed him--for Steven as for a baby from whom one
should tear away some dangerous beloved plaything--for Gwynne because
he must do this really humane thing, perforce, inhumanely. The job was
obviously distasteful; Gwynne wore, the doctor thought, a reluctant,
even a sort of hang-dog air; and it was Steven who began, ruffling and
reddening in blotches over his wildly bearded face and down to his
grooved and corded old neck: "You--you got my letters, Gwynne?"
"I got them, Cousin Steven," said Gwynne sullenly.
"You didn't answer 'em, sir."
"I don't think we need to discuss this before Doctor Vardaman, Cousin
Steven," said the young man. It was a dignified and temperate speech;
yet, strangely enough, it conveyed to the doctor less consideration
for himself than desire to avoid the interview altogether. Something,
either in Gwynne's tone or manner, struck a false note, and Doctor
Vardaman looked at him perplexed.
"I don't see why we shouldn't talk before old Jack," said Steven
trustingly; he at least was sincere; there was no complexity about
Steven; his mind worked with the directness of a child's. "I'd have
asked his opinion anyhow--I meant to--that's what I'm here for----"
"You haven't been to the Pallinders' then?" interrupted Gwynne, in
evident relief. "You haven't been there yet?"
"No, but I'm going." Steven's eyes were uncomfortably bright as he
faced the other, with all the desperate obstinacy of a weak character.
"You can't stop me doing that, Gwynne--you _can't_. I'm one of the
heirs--I've got a _right_----"
"Cousin Steven, if you'll just listen a minute," Gwynne began with an
effort.
"You can't stop me--I've got a _right_--I'm not a minor," cried the
old man; the words might have been ludicrous but for his pitiful
earnestness. "I'm going to know where my money's gone to--I'm going to
have an accounting. That Pallinder fellow----"
"I say you shall _not_ go there," said Gwynne doggedly. "Your money's
all right. If you'll only have a little patience, I'll attend to it,
and you'll get your share----"
"You said that before--you've said it two or three times," said Steven,
his face working. He was evidently striving with all his might for
self-control; there was a painful dignity in the effort. Doctor
Vardaman was strangely touched to observe him; it seemed as if the
battle were too one-sided, whatever its cause; as if the strong and
sane young man had too much the advantage. "I'm tired of hearing that,
Gwynne. You don't know how to get the money, or you don't try. 'If you
want your business done, go and do it yourself; if not, send!' That's
a pretty good motto, seems to me. I'm going to attend to this now,
myself----"
"Cousin Steven, you can't possibly do anything--you'll only make
matters worse. Ask Templeton, ask anybody----"
"It's no use asking _you_, that's plain," said Steven bitterly. "I want
my money." In spite of him, his voice raised and cracked on the last
words. He turned to the doctor pleadingly. "John," he said, "it ain't
right--it ain't right. You'll say it ain't right, when you hear. Tell
him it ain't right, John, _tell_ him it ain't." He pointed to Gwynne
with his shaking hand. The younger man scowled back with a resentment
touched by some feeling not far removed from shame; Doctor Vardaman
looked at him in open inquiry, and was confounded to see that Gwynne
avoided his eye.
"You'd better sit down here quietly, Steve, old man," he said kindly.
"Now what is it you want me to tell Gwynne? Let's thrash it all out.
We'll put it straight in five minutes, I've no doubt." He shook his
head warningly at Gwynne behind the other's back; and Gwynne set his
lips ominously and looked away.
Old Steven began to fumble in his pockets; in his excitement he could
not command his stiff trembling fingers, and cursed with impatience as
he sought. "I've got it here--I've got a statement, Jack," he explained
twice or thrice. "I put it all down. I may not be a pin-headed,
pettifogging little know-it-all attorney," he said with a withering
side-glance at Gwynne standing against the mantelpiece in a morose
silence. "But I guess I can add up a column of figures and make it
come out right just the same." Doctor Vardaman might have laughed at
another time; but now he was too concerned for the outcome, feeling
instinctively that, at its core, this was no laughing matter. The
presentiment chilled him into gravity as he watched Steven turn out a
collection of rubbish such as any schoolboy might have owned--broken
bits of slate-pencil, a disabled toothbrush, hanks of cotton string,
a handful of Indian corn and one of loose tobacco, numerous buttons,
a large red apple--"I brought that for Gwynne, but now I'll give it
to _you_, John," said the old man severely. Finally from the midst
of this dunnage he produced a creased and soiled paper and spread it
out triumphantly. "There, Jack, there, I wrote it all out. 'William
Pallinder, Esquire'--no, I'll be damned if I call him 'esquire,'
it's too good for him--lend me your pen-knife, Jack, I'll scratch it
out when I get through reading--'William Pallinder in account with
Steven Gwynne _et al._--I remember that out of the books when I was
studying law--_et al._, for house-rent due from November, 1881, to
March, 1883, sixteen months, at one hundred and fifty dollars a month,
twenty-four hundred dollars--ain't that correct? And there's twenty
of us, you know, John, counting Eleanor and Mollie's share as one,
twenty goes into twenty-four once and four over--I put that down on
another piece of paper--I can't find it, but I remember anyhow--twenty
into twenty-four once and four over, twenty into forty goes twice,
and ought's ought, and _ought's ought_. That's a hundred and twenty
apiece that's coming to us, John, ain't that correct?" He looked into
the doctor's face eagerly; momentarily it seemed as if the gravity
of the scene were about to evaporate in a cheap burlesque. In the
variegated patchwork of Steven's mental processes, theories about the
superfluousness of money, and laboured calculations as to how much was
coming to him found an equal place, and were matched side by side with
no sense of incongruity.
"Yes, that's perfectly correct, Steven," said the doctor, somewhat
illuminated.
Steven eyed Gwynne vindictively. "I guess I can figger all right if I
ain't a pin-head----"
"Nobody's saying your figures aren't right," said Gwynne, with a weary
patience. "The colonel owes the estate that much, and if you'll let
things alone, it'll be paid."
"Oh, yes, it'll be paid. I'll make it my business to _see_ that it's
paid," said Steven, nodding. He turned to the doctor, confident of his
support. "Ain't I right, John? Gwynne there won't do anything--won't
lift his hand--just lets the rent keep on piling up and piling up.
Calls himself a _lawyer_, and won't do _anything_--I've written
him time and time again authorising him to--to sue--to sue for our
rent--haven't I, Gwynne? Did I, or did I not write you, answer me that?"
"Oh, yes, you wrote me," said Gwynne drily.
"There, you see, you _see_, John," said Steven despairingly. "That's
the way he acts--just that indifferent and shilly-shally. It's seven
dollars and a half a month we ought each one to have been getting all
this time--seven dollars and a half," his voice cracked again--"we
haven't had a cent--not a _cent_, for over a year, and he won't _do_
anything! He ought to sue, oughtn't he, John?"
"Why, Lord bless me, Steven, _I_ don't know," said the doctor, at once
relieved yet remotely disquieted to learn the cause of the trouble,
worried over Steven, and slightly amused at this seven-dollar-a-month
melodrama. "I'm not a lawyer, you know. I suppose there's some way
of getting at tenants that won't pay their rent--some way other than
evicting 'em bodily, I mean--you'd hardly like to do that, you know, to
people like the Pallinders----"
"Don't see why not," said Steven, seizing upon this new idea with a
very disconcerting readiness. "_I'd_ bring 'em to time, if _I_ had
the doing of it." He directed a vindictive glance at Gwynne. "'Pay or
quit,' that's what I'd say----"
"Oh, come now, Steven, you wouldn't want to see the Pallinders'
bureaus and bedsteads out on the sidewalk. It would be a kind of
discredit to the property--_your_ property--Governor Gwynne's house,"
said the doctor, struggling with an inconvenient tendency to laugh,
yet diplomatically approaching Steven on his most vulnerable side.
"You wouldn't treat Mrs. Pallinder that way--she's a very polished
lady--I've heard you say so a dozen times myself."
"There's no occasion to bring in Mrs. Pallinder's name at all, I
think," said Gwynne, in so savage a voice that Doctor Vardaman started
with astonishment. Their eyes met. "She has nothing to do with this,"
said the young man constrainedly, averting his gaze almost at the
instant. "We're all gentlemen, I hope, and we don't have to talk about
a woman."
Doctor Vardaman rubbed his chin. "Steven," he said thoughtfully, "I
think maybe you'd better let Gwynne manage it his own way----"
"But I _have_--I have for a year, and look how he's managed it!"
cried Steven; he looked from the doctor to Gwynne in an exasperated
bewilderment. "We aren't as well off now as we were a year ago! There's
that much more owing us--and he said just the same thing then, to let
things alone. Damn it, we've let 'em alone, and see where we are!"
There was a devious justice in this argument that, taken with Gwynne's
more or less disingenuous behaviour, was not without its effect on the
doctor; of course, he told himself, the young fellow's inactivity was
capable of some perfectly reasonable explanation; everyone knew that
the direction of the Gwynne affairs was a fearfully complicated task,
and Doctor Vardaman was not desirous of going further into its details,
even if Gwynne had wanted to enlighten him--still he would have been
better satisfied if the boy had shown himself more frank and not quite
so sulky. It occurred to him, with a fine irony, that here was probably
one of Gwynne's cases where there was some right on both sides. The
main thing at the moment, he realised, was to get Steven quieted.
"I'm sorry, but I--really I can't advise you, Steven," he said in his
most moderate voice. "Have you talked to Mr. Templeton? He's your real
agent, you know; he does the collecting, doesn't he? I'm sure if he and
Gwynne both think----"
"_Templeton!_ He's a--a _creature_ of Gwynne's!" cried Steven angrily.
"He's no better than a--a mercenary--a--a hired bravo!"
Gwynne had to smile. The idea of fat little spectacled Templeton in the
rôle of chief-villain's handy-man, be-cloaked and be-daggered as we are
accustomed to figure those romantic gentlemen, was irresistibly comic.
But Steven saw the smile and turned purple; he got up, choking and
trembling.
"Very well, young man, very well!" he said, not without dignity. "I
suppose you can afford to laugh--you have the upper hand. It's very
funny, no doubt--but _I_ wouldn't laugh at anybody in trouble--not
at my own kin anyhow--blood's thicker than water. Oh, yes, I'm
very funny, of course; I'm nothing but an old man that don't know
anything--and--and a--a kind of a nuisance, I suppose, and and--I
don't dress stylish, and it's real funny for me to want my money--oh,
yes! You needn't worry, Gwynne, I'm not going to trouble you any more
about it--I'll attend to my own affairs after this. Jack, where're
my gum-shoes, please? _You_ can let things alone, if you choose, Mr.
Peters, but _I'm_----"
"What are you going to do?" said Gwynne harshly--the more harshly,
perhaps, because he was touched and a little shamed, against his will.
Almost involuntarily, he moved between his cousin and the door.
"I'm going to my house, to _my_ house, to see Pallinder myself," said
Steven, frightened yet obstinate.
Gwynne made a gesture of angry impatience. "He won't be at home at this
time of day. Cousin Steven, if you'll _only_ wait a little----"
"I've done all the waiting I intend to, Mr. Gwynne Peters. If he ain't
at home, I mean to see _her_----"
"Oh, good Lord, Steven, you can't do that--you can't talk to a woman
about things like that!" interposed Doctor Vardaman, shocked. "Now I'll
tell you what, you stay here quietly with me, and take dinner and let
Gwynne see to it. Gwynne'll fix it all right if you----" if you will
give him time, the doctor was about to add, when the weakness of that
already well-worn plea struck him.
"I don't trust him, I tell you--he ain't to be trusted. I can attend to
my own affairs and I _will_!" said Steven fiercely. The question had by
this time become to him not so much that of recovering his money as of
having his own way; they would conspire against him, would they? They
would keep him from having a voice in his own proper affairs? Somebody
had been meddling with him that way all his life; _he_ would show them,
he, Steven Gwynne! "I won't have him interfering with me any longer--he
don't suit me--I'll run my affairs to suit myself, without any leave
from you, Mr. Gwynne Peters--call yourself a lawyer--I wouldn't trust
you 'round the corner with a cent of _my_ money--I wouldn't have you
try a case for my dog, I wouldn't----"
"Then get some other lawyer that you do trust!" shouted Gwynne above
the other's shouting. "But right now you're not going near Mrs.
Pallinder, d'ye hear me? It's shameful; she shan't be persecuted this
way!"
"I'll go where I damn please, sir. Get another lawyer! Precious good
care you've taken that I _can't_ get another lawyer! Where's the money?
where's my hundred and twenty dollars, Gwynne Peters?"
"If you'll come down to the office, I'll give you your infernal hundred
and twenty now," said Gwynne, steadying himself as best he could. "I'll
give it to you myself out of hand, and then you can go and employ ten
lawyers if you like. But if you think I'm going to turn Mrs. Pall--the
Pallinders out of doors, or hound them about the rent, you're mistaken.
Why, it's my money just as much as yours, and am _I_ worrying? The
colonel's good for it, and even if he isn't, the house and furniture
are there; they aren't going to fly away--if you'll be patient and act
sensibly, I'll get your money. If you won't I'll wash my hands of the
whole business. You can----"
"For God's sake, Gwynne," ejaculated the doctor in an undertone, "don't
make things worse than they are! Steven can't control himself, but
_you_ can!"
"Why, I'm not a brute, Doctor Vardaman, I'm not a--a Jew! I won't
allow Mrs. Pallinder to be made wretched because of this--this--it's
bad enough for me to have to stand it; but she--she----" The young man
caught himself; he was on the edge of saying "she's an angel," but even
in that moment of excitement some saving sense of humour mercifully
restrained him. "She don't know anything about business. You can't go
to _her_ for your rent! It's--it's inhuman to harry a woman like Mrs.
Pallinder about _rent_. Leave _her_ out of it at any rate, it's the
least you can do."
"You, sir, get me my gum-shoes," said Steven determinedly, as the door
once more swung to admit Huddesley. It is possible that this discreet
and admirably trained individual had been improving his knowledge
of Doctor Vardaman's acquaintances, just outside the key-hole; he
overlooked Steven's orders, and went up to the doctor with a perturbed
countenance. "Doctor Vardaman, if you please, sir----" there followed a
whisper charged with meaning.
"Oh, the _devil_!" said the old gentleman desperately. He looked
around. "Steven, Gwynne, do sit down, both of you--why, yes, of course,
Huddesley, certainly you can bring her in--and--and here's the key of
the wine-cellar, Huddesley;" he was quite flustered. The others forgot
their excitement a moment to wonder at him. "Bring her in, Huddesley,
don't keep a lady standing," said the doctor, speaking testily in
his confusion. Huddesley was keenly alive to the dramatic aspect of
the meeting; he went ceremoniously out and ceremoniously returned,
spreading the door with a flourish.
"Mrs. Pallinder!" he announced.