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ALF an hour later all the young men had left the room except Garner
and Dwight. Garner still wore the frown brought to his broad brow by
Tingle's recital.
“I've set my heart on putting this thing through,” he said; “and while
it looks kind of shaky, I haven't lost all hope yet. Of course, your
reckless remarks about the White Caps have considerably damaged us in
the mountains, but we may live it down. It may die a natural death if
you and Dan Willis don't meet and plug away at each other and set the
talk afloat again. I reckon he'll keep out of your way when he's sober,
anyway.”
“I am not running after him,” Carson returned. “I simply said what I
thought and Wiggin made the most of it.”
Garner was silent for several minutes, then he folded his dime novel and
bent it across his knee, and when he finally spoke Dwight thought he
had never seen a graver look on the strong face. He had seen it full
of emotional tears when Garner was at the height of earnest appeal to a
jury in a murder case; he had seen it dark with the fury of unjust legal
defeat, but now there was a strange feminine whiteness at the corners of
the big facile mouth, a queer twitching of the lips.
“I've made up my mind to tell you a secret,” he said, falteringly. “I've
come near it several times and backed out. It's a subject I don't know
how to handle. It's about a woman, Carson. You know I'm not a ladies'
man. I don't call on women; I don't take them buggy-riding; I don't
dance with them, or even know how to fire soft things at them like you
and Keith, but I've had my experience.”
“It certainly is a surprise to me,” Dwight said, sympathetically, and
then in the shadow of Garner's seriousness he found himself unable to
make further comment.
“I reckon you'll lose all respect for me for thinking there was a ghost
of a chance in that particular quarter,” Garner pursued, without meeting
his companion's eye. “But, Carson, my boy, there is a certain woman
that every man who knows her has loved or is still loving. Keith's crazy
about her, though he has given up all hope as I did long ago, and even
poor Bob Smith thinks he's in luck if she will only listen to one of his
new songs or let him do her some favor. We all love her, Carson, because
she is so sweet and kind to us--”
“You mean--” Dwight interrupted, impulsively, and then lapsed into
silence, an awkward flush rising to his brow.
“Yes, I mean Helen Warren, old man. As I say, I had never thought of a
woman that way in my life. We were thrown together once at a house-party
at Hilburn's farm--well, I simply went daft. She never refused to
walk with me when I asked her, and seemed specially interested in my
profession. I didn't know it at the time, but I have since discovered
that she has that sweet way with every man, rich or poor, married or
single. Well, to make a long story short, I proposed to her. The whole
thing is stamped on my brain as with a branding-iron. We had taken a
long walk that morning and were seated under a big beech-tree near a
spring. She kept asking about my profession, her face beaming, and it
all went to my head. I knew that I was the ugliest man in the State,
that I had no style about me, and knew nothing about being nice to women
of her sort; but her interest in everything pertaining to the law made
me think, you know, that she admired that kind of thing. I went wild. As
I told her how I felt I actually cried. Think of it--I was silly enough
to blubber like a baby! I can't describe what happened. She was shocked
and pained beyond description. She had never dreamed that I felt that
way. I ended by asking her to try to forget it all, and we had a long,
awful walk to the house.”
“That _was_ tough,” Carson Dwight said, a queer expression on his face.
“Well, I've told it to you for a special reason,” Garner said, with a
big, trembling sigh. “Carson, I am a close observer, and I afterwards
made up my mind that I knew why she had led me on to talk so much about
the law and my work in particular.”
“Oh, you found that out!” Carson said, almost absently.
“Yes, my boy, it was about the time you and I were thinking of going in
together. It was all on your account.”
Carson stared straight at Garner. “_My_ account? Oh no!”
“Yes, on your account. I've kept it from you all this time. I'm your
friend now in full--to the very bone, but at that time I felt too sore
to tell you. I'd lost all I cared for on earth, but I simply had too
much of primitive man left in me to let you know how well you stood. My
God, Carson, about that time I used to sit at my desk behind some old
book pretending to read, but just looking at you as you sat at work
wondering how it would feel to have what was yours. Then I watched you
both together; you seemed actually made for each other, an ideal couple.
Then came your--she refused you.”
“I know, I know, but why talk about it, Garner?” Carson had risen and
stood in the doorway in the rays of the morning sun. There was silence
for a moment. The church bells were ringing and negroes and whites were
passing along the street below.
“It may be good for me to speak of it and be done with it, or it may
not,” said Garner; “but this is what I was coming to. I've said it was
a long time before I could tell you that she was once--I don't know how
she is now, but she was at one time in love with you.”
“Oh no, no, she was never that!” Dwight said. “We were great friends,
but she never cared that much for me or for any one.”
“Well, it was a long time before I could say what I thought about
that, and I have only just now taken another step in self-renunciation.
Carson, I can now say that you didn't have a fair deal, and that I have
reached a point in which I want to see you get it. I think I know why
she refused you.”
“You do?” Dwight said, pale and excited, as he came away from the door
and leaned heavily against the wall near his friend.
“Yes, it was this way. I've studied it all out. She loved Albert as few
women love their brothers, and his grim end was an almost unbearable
shock. After his death, you know it leaked out that you had been
Albert's constant companion through his dissipation, almost, in fact, up
to the very end. She couldn't reconcile herself to your part, innocent
as it was, in the tragedy, and it simply killed the feeling she had for
you. I suppose it is natural to a character as strong as hers.”
“I've always feared that--that was the reason,” said Dwight,
falteringly, as he went back to the door and looked out. There was a
droop of utter dejection on him and his face seemed to have aged.
“Garner,” he said, suddenly, “there is no use denying anything. You have
admitted your love for her, why should I deny mine? I never cared for
any other woman and I never shall.”
“That's right, but you didn't get a fair deal, all the same,” said
Garner. “She's never looked for any sort of justification in your
conduct; her poor brother's death stands like a draped wall between you,
but I know you were not as black as you were painted. Carson, all the
time you were keeping pace with Albert Warren you were blind to the gulf
ahead of him and were simply glorying in his friendship--_because he was
her brother_. Ah, I know that feeling!”
Carson was silent, while Garner's gray eyes rested on him for a moment
full of conviction, and then he nodded. “Yes, I think that was it. It
was my ruination, but I could not get away from the fascination of
his companionship. He fairly worshipped her and used to talk of her
constantly when we were together, and he--he sometimes told me things
she kept back. He knew how I felt. I told him. Through him I seemed to
be closer to her. But when the news came that he was dead, and when
I met her at the funeral at the church, and caught her eye, I saw her
shrink back in abhorrence. She wouldn't go out with me ever again after
that, and was never exactly the same.”
“That was two years ago, my boy,” Garner said, significantly, “and your
character has changed. You are a better, firmer man. In fact, it seems
to me that your change dates from Albert Warren's death. But now I'm
coming to the thing that prompted me to say all this. I met Major Warren
in the post-office this morning. He was greatly excited. Carson, she
has just written him that she is coming home for a long stay and the old
gentleman is simply wild with delight.”
“Oh, she's coming, then!” Dwight exclaimed, in surprise.
“Yes, and Keith and Bob and the rest of her adorers will go crazy over
the news and want to celebrate it. I didn't tell them. I wanted you to
know it first. There is one other thing. You know you can't tell whether
there is anything in an idle report, but the gossips say she has perhaps
met her fate down there. I've even heard his name--one Earle Sanders, a
well-to-do cotton merchant of good standing in the business world. But
I'll never believe she's engaged to him till the cards are out.”
“I really think it may be true,” Carson Dwight said, a firm, set
expression about his lips. “I've heard of him. He's a man of fine
character and intellect. Yes, it may be true, Garner.”
“Well,” and Garner drew himself up and folded his arms, “if it should
happen to be so, Carson, there would be only one thing to do, and that
would be to grin and bear it.”
“Yes, that would be the only thing,” Dwight made answer. “She has a
right to happiness, and it would have been wrong for her to have tied
herself to me, when I was what I was, and when I am still as great a
failure as I am.”
He turned suddenly out onto the passage, and Garner heard his resounding
tread as he walked away.
“Poor old chap,” Garner mused, as he leaned forward and looked at the
threadbare toes of his slippers, “if he weathers this storm he'll make
a man right--if not, he'll go down with the great majority, the motley
throng meant for God only knows what purpose.”