HOW STORRI PLOTTED A VENGEANCE
Richard asked Dorothy if she had told Bess. No, Dorothy had not told
Bess.
"Do you think, dear heart, I would tell anyone before I had told you?"
As the most fitting reply to this question, Richard kissed Dorothy all
over again as though for the first time, and with a fervor that told how
his soul was in the work.
Bess was called in as a consulting engineer of hearts. That blonde
tactician glanced over the situation with the eye of a field-marshal.
This was the result of her survey. There must be no clandestine
marriage, no elopement. Dorothy was in no peril; it was not a drawbridge
day of moated castlewicks and donjon keeps. Damsels were no longer
gagged and bound and carried to the altar, and there wedded perforce to
dreadful ogres. Wherefore, a runaway match was not necessary. Moreover,
it would be vulgar; and nothing could justify vulgarity. Dorothy and
Richard should remain as they were. They must continue to love; they
must learn to wait, and to take what advantage the flow of events
provided.
"My wisdom," quoth Bess, pausing as if for congratulations, "my wisdom
is, doubtless, so much beyond my years as to seem unearthly. It's due to
the fact that, although young, I've been for long the responsible head
of a family."
Bess mentioned this latter dignified condition with complacency. It left
her exempt from those troubles, like a bramble patch, into which Dorothy
was plunged.
Both Dorothy and Richard were inclined to agree with their monitress.
Richard was too wholly of the battle-ax breed to favor stealth and
creeping about. It was in his heart to marry Dorothy defiantly, and at
noon. Dorothy's reasons were less robust; she was thinking on her father
and "Uncle Pat," and all their kindnesses. She could not make up her
loyal heart to any step that smacked of treachery to them.
"And yet," observed Richard, "here we are where we started." Then
turning to Bess: "You have told us what we should not do, and told us
extremely well. Now bend your sage brows to the question of what we
ought to do. Or, to phrase it this fashion, What ought I to do?"
"Go to Mrs. Hanway-Harley and ask for her daughter."
Richard winced and made a wry face.
"I'd sooner go to Storri. The rascal might give me a reason for
thrashing him."
"You are on no account to mention Dorothy's name to Storri."
"No?" somewhat ruefully.
"And you are to beat him only should he mention Dorothy's name to you."
"I shall;" and Richard brightened.
"Storri asked Mrs. Hanway-Harley for her daughter. I should think you
might summon up an equal courage."
"But I haven't the advantage of being a Russian nobleman," returned
Richard, with one of his cynical grins.
"Still you must ask Mrs. Hanway-Harley for Dorothy; and no later, mind
you, than to-morrow night." Bess tossed her head as though a fiat had
gone forth.
"Well," said Richard, drawing a deep breath, "if you have any such junk
as a Joss about the house, I'd take it friendly if you would burn a
handful of prayer-sticks in my interest." Then, with all love's
softness, to Dorothy: "Your mother will say No; she will not entertain
your views on poverty, little one."
Dorothy came behind Richard's chair and pressed her cheek to his.
"Whatever she may say, whatever anyone may say, you, and only you,
dearest, shall have me," and Dorothy signed the promise after the
fashion popular with lovers.
Storri came that evening to see Mrs. Hanway-Harley. Both parties were
acting, Storri affecting melancholy while he was on fire with passionate
rage, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley assuming the rôle of the mother who,
although she regrets, is still tenderly unwilling to control those
wrongly headstrong courses upon which her child is bent. There was a
world of polite fencing between Mrs. Hanway-Harley and Storri, in which
each bore testimony to the esteem in which the other was held. It was
decided that Storri should continue those dinners with the Harleys;
Dorothy might discover a final wisdom.
Storri told Mrs. Hanway-Harley that he feared Dorothy had given her
heart to Richard. This admission was gall and wormwood to the self-love
of Storri. He made it, however, and recalled Mrs. Hanway-Harley to
Dorothy's chatter concerning the morning talks between Richard and
Senator Hanway.
"That odious printer," said Storri, who called all newspaper people
printers, "comes each day to get his budget of news from your
illustrious brother, madam; and, believe me, your daughter makes some
sly pretext for being with them--with him, the odious printer! Bah! I
wish we were in Russia; I would blow out the rogue's life like a candle!
Why, my Czar would laugh were so mean a being to succeed in obstructing
the love of his Storri!"
Mrs. Hanway-Harley was struck by the suggestion that Richard was
Dorothy's lover in the dark. She remembered Dorothy's teasing praises of
Richard, and her talk of how sapiently he discoursed with "Uncle Pat."
The praises occurred on that evening when, from her wisdom, she, Mrs.
Hanway-Harley, had warned her innocent child against the error of
entertaining one gentleman with the merits of another. Mrs.
Hanway-Harley even brought to mind the replies made by her innocent
child to those warnings; and her own wrath began to stir as the
suspicion grew that her innocent child had been secretly laughing at
her. Like all shallow folk, Mrs. Hanway-Harley prided herself upon being
as deep as the sea, and it did her self-esteem no good to think that she
had been sounded, not to say charted, by her own daughter, who had gone
steering in and out, keeping always the channel of her credulity, and
never once running aground. Little lamps of anger lighted their evil
wicks in Mrs. Hanway-Harley's eyes as she thus reflected.
And that morning armful of roses? No, Storri was not the moving cause of
their fragrant appearance upon the Harley premises. Storri regretted
that he had not once bethought him of this delicate attention. Mrs.
Hanway-Harley wrung her hands. It was Dorothy who first planted in her
the belief that the flowers were from Storri. Oh, the artful jade! That
was the cause of her timorous objections when Mrs. Hanway-Harley, with
the fond yet honorable curiosity of a mother, spoke of mentioning those
flowers to Storri. The perjured Dorothy was aware of their felon origin;
doubtless, she even then encouraged the miserable Richard in his love.
As these lights burst one after the other upon Mrs. Hanway-Harley, she
could have punished her own dullness by beating her head against the
wall. However, she restrained herself, and closed by inviting Storri to
dinner on the next day but one. Storri, still keeping up his tender
melancholy, thanked Mrs. Hanway-Harley, accepted, and with many bows,
and many sighs to impress upon Mrs. Hanway-Harley his stricken heart,
backed himself out into the night.
When Storri was gone, Mrs. Hanway-Harley resolved on an instant talk
with Dorothy--no more the innocent, but the artful one. She would make a
last attempt to wring from her the name of that lover of the shadows.
Should it be Richard--and she was sure of it--that aspiring journalist
must never again cross the Harley threshold.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley, who had the merit of expedition, repaired at once to
Dorothy's room. That obdurate beauty was half undressed, and her maid
had just finished arranging her hair in two raven braids--thick as a
ship's cable, they were. As Mrs. Hanway-Harley entered, Dorothy glanced
up with half-wistful eye. Poor child! she was hoping her mother might
have softened from that granite attitude of the morning! But no, there
was nothing tender in the selfish, austere gaze; at that, the spirit of
the old astronomical ancestor who, with his water-pans and gate-posts,
knew the earth was flat, began to chafe within Dorothy's girlish bosom.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley came to a dignified halt in the middle of the room.
"Cora, you may go," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley.
The black maid gave a parting touch to the braids, in which she
contrived to mingle sympathy and affection, for with the wisdom of her
caste she knew of Dorothy's love and gave it her approval.
"Dorothy," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley, when they were alone, and speaking
in a high, superior vein, "I have come for the name of that man."
"Mr. Storms," returned Dorothy, in tones which for steadiness matched
Mrs. Hanway-Harley's.
It was not the name so much as the relentless frankness that furnished
it, which overcame Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She sat down with an emphasis so
sudden that it was as though her knees were glass and the blow had
broken them. Once in the chair, she waggled her head dolorously, and
moaned out against upstart vulgarians who, without a name or a shilling,
insinuated themselves like vipers into households of honor, and, coiling
themselves upon the very hearthstones, dealt death to fondest hopes.
Dorothy, who, for all the selfish shallowness of that relative, loved
her mother, tried to take her hand. At a shadow of sympathy she would
have laid before Mrs. Hanway-Harley the last secret her bosom hid. There
was no sympathy, nothing of mother's love; Mrs. Hanway-Harley, in the
narrowness of her egotism, could consider no feelings not her own.
"Don't; don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't add hypocrisy to your
ingratitude!" Then, in tones that seemed to pillory Dorothy as reprobate
and lost, she cried: "You have disgraced me--disgraced your father, your
uncle, and me!"
"Another word," cried Dorothy, moving with a resentful swoop towards the
bell, "and I'll call Uncle Pat to judge between us! Yes; he is in his
study. Uncle Pat shall hear you!"
Mrs. Hanway-Harley, glass knees and all, got between Dorothy and the
bell. Dorothy's uncle and Dorothy's father should know; but not then.
She had hoped that with reason she might rescue her daughter from a step
so fatal as marriage with a hopeless beggar who could not live without
the charity of his patron. These things and much more spake Mrs.
Hanway-Harley; but she might as well have remonstrated with a storm. The
gate-post grandsire had charge of Dorothy.
"And what is to be the end of this intrigue?" asked Mrs. Hanway-Harley.
"It is no more an intrigue," protested Dorothy, her eyes flashing, "than
was your marriage to papa, or the marriage of Aunt Dorothy with Uncle
Pat. Oh, mamma," she cried appealingly, "can't you see we love each
other!"
Mrs. Hanway-Harley was a trifle touched, but it was her maternal duty to
conceal it. She steadied herself to a severe sobriety, and, with the
manner of one injured to the verge of martyrdom, said with a sigh:
"I shall see this person; I shall send for this Mr. Storms."
"It will be unnecessary," replied Dorothy, turning frigid; "Mr. Storms
will call upon you to-morrow night."
"And does the puppy think that I'll give my consent?" demanded Mrs.
Hanway-Harley, angrily aghast at the insolence of Richard.
"Now I don't know what the 'puppy' thinks," returned Dorothy, from whom
the anger of her mother struck sympathetic sparks, "but I told him I
would marry him without it."
In a whirl of indignation, Mrs. Hanway-Harley burst in upon Senator
Hanway. That ambitious gentleman was employed in abstruse calculations
as to tariff schedules, and how far they might be expected to bear upon
his chances in the coming National Convention. Senator Hanway was
somewhat impressed by Mrs. Hanway-Harley's visit; his study had never
been that lady's favorite lounge. Moreover, her face proclaimed her
errand no common one.
"Why, I thought you were all in bed, Barbara," said Senator Hanway, by
way of opening conversation.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley, as calmly as she might, told of Dorothy's "mad
infatuation." She held back nothing except what portions of the tangle
referred to Storri. That nobleman's proposals she did not touch on. She
spoke of Richard, and the disaster, not to say the disgrace, to the
Harley name should he and Dorothy wed. Mrs. Hanway-Harley flowed on,
sometimes eloquent, always severe, and closed in with a thunder-gust of
tears.
Senator Hanway listened, first with wonder, then alarm; when she
finished he sat with an air of helplessness. After rubbing his nose
irresolutely with a pen-holder, he said:
"What can I do?"
"You can advise me."
"Well, then," observed Senator Hanway, looking right and left, being no
one to face an angry woman, "why don't you let them marry?"
"Brother!"
Mrs. Hanway-Harley strove to bury Senator Hanway beneath a mountain of
reproach with that one word.
"What can you do?" asked Senator Hanway defensively. "You say that
Dorothy declares she will marry young Storms in the teeth of every
opposition."
"Are we to permit the foolish girl to throw herself away?"
"But how will you restrain her?"
"One thing," exclaimed Mrs. Hanway-Harley, getting up to go; "that
person, after to-morrow, shall never enter these doors! I shall have but
one word; I shall warn him not to repeat his visits to this house."
The change that came over Senator Hanway struck Mrs. Hanway-Harley with
dumb dismay. His eye, which had been prying about for an easiest way out
of the dilemma, now filled with threatening interest.
"Barbara, sit down!" commanded Senator Hanway.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley sat down; she was, with the last word, in awe of her
eminent brother. Senator Hanway arose and towered above her with
forbidding brow. The threat to bar the Harley doors to Richard had set
him agog with angry apprehensions. What! should his best agent of
politics, one who was at once the correspondent of that powerful
influence the _Daily Tory_ and the authorized mouthpiece of the
potential Mr. Gwynn who owned the Anaconda, nay, was the Anaconda, be
insulted, and arrayed against him? And for what? Because of the baby
heart of a girl scarce grown! Was a White House to be lost by such
tawdry argument? Forbidding Richard the door might of itself appear a
meager matter, but who was to say what results might not spring from it?
Senator Hanway had seen the gravest catastrophies grow from reasons
small as mustard seed! A city is burned, and the conflagration has its
start in a cow and a candle! Mrs. Hanway-Harley shall not put his hopes
to jeopardy in squabbles over Dorothy and her truant love. Senator
Hanway felt the hot anxiety of one who, bearing a priceless vase through
the streets, is jostled by the inconsiderate crowd. Domestic politics
and national politics had come to a clash.
Senator Hanway stood staring at Mrs. Hanway-Harley. He required time to
gather control of himself and lay out a verbal line of march. He decided
for the lucid, icy style; it was his favorite manner in the Senate.
"Barbara," said he, "give careful ear to what I shall say. I do not
request, I do not command, I tell you what _must_ be done. I do not
interfere between you and Dorothy; I interfere only between you and Mr.
Storms. That young man is necessary to my plans. He is to come to this
study, freely and without interference. Nor are you, on any occasion, or
for any cause, to affront him or treat him otherwise than with respect."
"But, brother," urged Mrs. Hanway-Harley, "he has trapped Dorothy into a
promise of marriage."
"Why do you object to him?"
"He has no fortune; the man's a beggar!"
"He has his money from the _Daily Tory_, say five thousand a year. That
is as much as I am paid for being Senator."
"There is no parallel! Your salary may be five thousand; but you make
twenty-fold that sum," which was quite true.
"Barbara," remarked Senator Hanway reprovingly, returning to the
original bone of dispute, "why should you insist on this young man
owning millions before he can think of Dorothy? You had nothing, John
had nothing, when you married. You should remember these things."
Mrs. Hanway-Harley refused to remember. There was no reason why she
should. Dorothy was the present issue; and Dorothy was--or would
be--rich.
"I won't go into the business any further," retorted Senator Hanway at
last, with a gesture of irritation and disgust. "I simply tell you that
Mr. Storms is neither to be affronted nor driven away. Should you
disregard my wishes, Barbara, I say to you plainly that I myself will
bring the young people together, send for a preacher, and marry them in
this very study. I am not to lose a Presidency because you choose to
play the fool."
Mrs. Hanway-Harley, illustrious in all her diamonds, upon the next
evening received Richard in vast state. She proposed to impress him with
her splendors. Dorothy, in anticipation of the meeting between mother
and lover, had gone across to Bess; her nervousness must have support.
Richard, whose diplomacy was barbaric and proceeded on straight lines,
told Mrs. Hanway-Harley of his love for Dorothy. As his handsome face
lighted up, even Mrs. Hanway-Harley was not unswept of admiration. She
could look into Richard's eyes, and see for herself those gray beauties
of tenderness and truth that had won Dorothy to his side. They might
have won even Mrs. Hanway-Harley had she not been a mother. What if he
were tender, what if he were true? He had no fortune, no place; even the
Admirable Crichton, wanting social station and the riches whereon to
base it, would have been impossible.
When Richard had ended his love-tale--which, considering that for all
his outward fortitude he was inwardly quaking, he told full
eloquently--Mrs. Hanway-Harley composed herself for reply. She hardly
required those warnings of Senator Hanway; there was no wish now to
insult or humble him. In truth, Mrs. Hanway-Harley was in the best
possible temper to carry forward her side of the conference in manner
most creditable to herself and most helpful for her purposes. More than
ever, since she had heard him, she knew the perilous sway this man must
own over her daughter. While he talked, the deep, true tones were like a
spell; the great, tender, persistent will of a man in loving earnest
seemed as with a thousand soft, resistless hands to draw her whither it
would. Even she, Mrs. Hanway-Harley, selfish, guarded, worldly, cold,
was shaken and all but conquered beneath the natural hypnotic power of
the male when speaking, thinking, feeling, moving from the heart. Oh,
she would warrant her daughter loved this wizard! She, herself, was
driven to fence against his pleadings to keep from granting all he
asked. But fence she did; Mrs. Hanway-Harley remembered that she was a
mother, an American mother whose daughter had been asked in wedlock by a
Count. She must protect that daughter from the wizard who would only
love to blight.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley never spoke to more advantage. She did not doubt Mr.
Storms's honesty, she did not distrust his love; but woman could not
live by love alone, and she had her duty as a mother. Dorothy had been
lapped in luxury; it was neither right nor safe that her daughter should
marry downhill. Mrs. Hanway-Harley's voice was smoothly even. Mr. Storms
must forgive a question. Something of the kind had been asked before,
but changes might have intervened. Had Mr. Storms any expectations from
Mr. Gwynn?
"Madam," replied Richard, while a queer smile played about his mouth, a
smile whereof the reason was by no means clear to Mrs. Hanway-Harley,
"madam, I shall be wholly honest. Living or dead, gift or will, I shall
never have a shilling from Mr. Gwynn."
"Then, Mr. Storms," returned Mrs. Hanway-Harley, "I ask you whether I
would be justified in wedding my daughter to poverty?"
"But is money, that is, much money, so important?" pleaded Richard. "I
have education, health, brains--in moderation--and love to prompt all
three. That should not mean beggary, even though it may not mean
prodigious wealth."
"Every lover has talked the same," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley, not
unkindly. "Believe me, Mr. Storms: no man should ask a woman in marriage
unless he can care for her as she was cared for in her father's house."
"But the father's fortune is not sure," remonstrated Richard. "The
father's riches, or the lover's poverty, may vanish in a night."
"We must deal with the present," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley.
Richard pondered the several perplexities of the case.
"If I had a fortune equal to Mr. Harley's, you would not object, madam?"
"It is the only bar I urge," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley suavely.
"Then I am to understand that, should a day come when I can measure
wealth with Mr. Harley, I may claim Dorothy as my own?"
Mrs. Hanway-Harley bowed.
"My daughter, however, must not be bound by any promise."
"Your daughter, madam," returned Richard, with a color of pride, "shall
never be bound by me. Though I held a score of promises, I would have no
wife who did not come to me of her free choice. I do not look on love as
a business proposition."
"Older people do," responded Mrs. Hanway-Harley dryly.
"Madam," said Richard, "I have only one more question to ask. What is to
be my attitude towards your daughter, while I am searching for that
fortune?"
It was here that Mrs. Hanway-Harley made her greatest stroke; she
reached Richard where he had no defense.
"Your attitude, Mr. Storms, towards my daughter, I shall leave to you
for adjustment as a man of honor."
Richard crossed the street to Dorothy and told her what had passed.
Dorothy kissed him, and cried over him, and made a wail against their
darkling fate.
"How I wish papa was poor!" cried Dorothy. "I wish he didn't have a
dollar!" Then, conscience-stricken: "No, I don't! Poor pop; he doesn't
hate money, if I do."
Richard took Dorothy's sweet face between his hands, and looked into her
eyes.
"You will believe me, darling?"
"Yes!"
"Then don't weep, don't worry! I promise that within the year you shall
be my wife. I'll find the way to find the money."
"And hear me promise," returned Dorothy. "Money or no money, I'll become
your wife what day you will."
Of course, after such a speech, there befell a sweet world and all of
foolish tenderness; but, since the scandalized Ajax would not stay to
witness it, neither shall you.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley said nothing to Dorothy of her interview with
Richard; she appeared to believe that Richard had saved her that labor.
There was a kind of sneer in this. Feeling the sneer, Dorothy put no
questions; she was willing, in her resentment, to have it understood
that Richard had told her. Why should he not?--she who was to be his
wife! Dorothy would have been proud to proclaim her troth from the
house-tops.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley had Storri to dinner. Dorothy, when he was announced,
sought her room. A moment later, Mrs. Hanway-Harley was at the door. She
came in cool, collected, no trace of anger. Why did not Dorothy come
down to dinner? Dorothy did not come down to dinner because Dorothy did
not choose.
"You do not ask Mr. Storms to dinner," said Dorothy, her color coming
and her eyes beginning to glow. "I will not meet your Storri."
"Mr. Storms is not in our set, dear," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley coldly.
"He is in my heart," returned Dorothy.
The self-willed one seated herself stoutly, and never another word could
Mrs. Hanway-Harley draw from her.
Storri received the excuses for Dorothy's vacant place at table which
Mrs. Hanway-Harley offered; for all that he read the reason of her
absence, and his pride fretted under it as under a lash.
New Year's Day; and the diplomatic reception at the White House. The
President stood in line with his Cabinet people, and the others filed
by. Richard, being utterly the democrat, was, of course, utterly the
aristocrat, since these be extremes that never fail to meet. Wherefore,
Richard did not take his place in the procession and waver painfully
forward, at a snail's pace, to shake the Presidential hand. It was a
foolish ceremony at which Richard's self-respect rebelled. There was no
hand, no masculine hand, at least, which Richard would wait in line to
grasp.
Richard, while declining to become part of the pageant, looked on. It
was worth while as a study in human nature. The President peculiarly
claimed his notice; by every sign it was this man who would oppose
Senator Hanway, if the latter gentleman achieved his ambition and was
put forward to lead his party's ticket. Richard compared the present
handshaking President with Senator Hanway, the latter being thereby
advanced. The President was a smooth, smug personage, of an appetite
rather than an ambition for office. Ambition is a captain, appetite a
camp-follower; for which reason the President was one who would never
lead, never oppose a movement. Essentially, he was of the candidate
class. Indeed, he had, as an individual, the best characteristics of a
canal. He was narrow, even, currentless, with a mental fall of two feet
in the mile. He lived conservatively between his banks, and went never
so foolishly lucid as to show you how shallow he was. Just a trifle
thick, he seemed to the eye as deep as the skies were high; any six-foot
question, however, would have sounded him.
And yet he was in his day much lauded as a safe executive. There may
have been truth in that. Your man of timid, slim, and shallow
mediocrities, comparable to a canal, is not to be despised. He will not
be the Mississippi, truly; he will sweep away no bridges, overflow no
regions roundabout; no navies will battle on his bosom; the world in its
giant commerces will not make of him a thoroughfare. But he will mean
safety and profit for a horde of little special selfish interests, and
that is the sort of President a day dominated of Money demands. In the
far Southwest the cattle barons knock the horns off cattle; a hornless
steer comes to the slaughter pen more quietly and with less of threat to
those who handle him. In a day when Money rules as King, its first care
is to knock the horns off originality and brains. Money wants no great
horned mental forces roaming the world; they might become a threat.
Richard thought on these matters as he considered this conservative,
careful White House one, whose pains had ever been to think nothing that
hadn't been thought, say nothing that hadn't been said, do nothing that
hadn't been done.
"He is like a bucket of spring water," thought Richard, as he turned
away, "cool, pure, tasteless. But there isn't enough of him to put out a
fire, or swim a boat, or turn the wheel of any mill of moment."
Richard went into the Green Drawing-room, where the younger, gayer
spirits were "receiving behind the line." There he saw Dorothy and Bess.
Before he could go to them, he caught the snarling accents of Storri. He
turned; that Russ was almost at his elbow. Storri, as though for
Richard's ear, was saying to a vapid young man whom Richard had seen at
the club:
"Oh! that is Miss Harley;--the one with the blue eyes and black hair.
Bad combination, believe me! I, who am a gentleman--a Russian
gentleman--give you my word that blue eyes and black hair mean treason
to a lover. No, I can't take you to her; she has shown a preference for
me, and I do not care to distinguish her by too much notice until I have
thought her over. On my soul, yes; I must think her over!"
Richard's hand fell heavy and rude on Storri's shoulder.
"Come with me," said he.
Storri had not counted on this; those sacred White House walls should
have protected him. He looked appealingly at his friend.
"Your friend will pardon you," said Richard coolly, "and, for this time,
you shall come back safe."
Richard drew Storri to a window, where they were by themselves.
"Pay heed to what I shall say," gritted Richard, and his eyes gave forth
a gray glimmer, like a saber suddenly unsheathed: "You must never take
Miss Harley's name upon your lips. Should you do so, I shall twist your
neck as once I twisted your fingers."
Storri began a spluttering stammer of protest and reproach.
"Don't hector me!" whispered Richard, with a sharp fervor of ferocity
that made Storri start, "or, when next we meet in the street, I'll take
my cane and beat you like a dog!"
Storri turned and tried to hide the fear that fed upon him with a tinge
of swagger. This in the White House--the palace of their President!
Storri was more and more convinced that the Americans were a rabble and
not a people!
"Remember!" said Richard, and the tones were like a threat of death.
That evening, early, Richard met Dorothy at Bess Marklin's. He made no
revelations touching his colloquy with Storri. There was a thick
down-come of snow, and the new flakes covered the street like feathers
to a fluffy depth of two inches. As Dorothy and Richard reached the
sidewalk on Dorothy's return to the Harley house, Richard, with the
abrupt remark: "I'll save you from the snow, my dear!" caught Dorothy in
those Pict arms and strode across.
Dorothy was so amazed by this gallant attention that she was over before
she spoke a word. As Richard landed her, light as a leaf, within her
father's portals, she said in remonstrance:
"What made you do it? Did you not see that odious Storri coming?"
"It was for Storri I did it. I wanted to emphasize some remarks I had
the honor to make to him this afternoon."
Dorothy fluttered to her room to prepare for the seven-o'clock dinner,
while her unconventional loved one turned with a hope of meeting Storri.
The fierce truth was, Richard, who, as you have been told, was at bottom
full as savage as the Russian, had gone hungering for hostilities with
that nobleman. Storri's comments on Dorothy had exploded all the hateful
powder in Richard's composition.
Storri may have had some glint of Richard's feeling; sure it was that,
although bent upon dining at the Harley house when he was so
unexpectedly treated by Richard and Dorothy to that picture of Paul and
Virginia modernized, he wheeled upon his heel and disappeared. Richard,
search as he might, met never the shadow nor the ghost of Storri.
Storri went direct to his rooms. All the wolves of anger and jealousy
and hate were tearing at his soul. Richard's threats; and he too craven
to make reply! Dorothy in Richard's arms; and he powerless to interfere!
The day had been a day of fire for him! He must make a plan; he must
have revenge.
Full of a black resolve, Storri tore open his desk. He took out those
French shares and fluttered the little package of papers between his
angry fingers as though the feel of them could give him consolation. He
looked at those poor forgeries of his name by Mr. Harley. Then he wrote
a note to that gentleman and urged him, by every name of business, to
call without delay. Mr. Harley must come at once. The note in the hands
of a messenger, Storri commenced to rove the floor like some
rage-frenzied beast.
"We shall see!" he cried, tossing his hands. "I have the father in my
fingers--aye! in these fingers! I can pull him to pieces like a toasted
lark--yes, limb from pinion, I, Storri, shall tear him asunder! I can
torture, I can crush! He is mine to destroy! My power over him shall be
my power over her! The stubborn Dorothy shall come to me on her
knees--to me, Storri, whom she has affronted! She shall beg my favor for
her father! What should be the ransom? Who shall measure my demands when
I have conquered? I, who am to have my neck twisted!--I, who am to be
beaten like a dog!--I shall name to her the terms. They shall be
ruin--ruin for her, ruin for him, ruin for all who have put their
slights upon me! The proud Dorothy must give me herself to buy her
father's safety! Her pride shall creep, her face lie in the dust! She
shall be Storri's! When her beauty fades--in a year--in two years--I
will cast her aside; I, Storri, whom these feeble people have defied!"
In the midst of the ravings of the hate-racked Storri, there came a tap.
A card was thrust in. Storri's onyx eyes gloated as he read the name.
"Harley!" said Storri. Then to the one at the door: "Have him up!" His
voice sunk to an exultant whisper as he heard Mr. Harley's step in the
hall. "Now is my vengeance to begin the feast! They shall know, these
feeble ones, what it is to brave a Russian!"