Mr. Hemingway had transacted a great deal of business with Miss
Tennant's father; otherwise he must have shunned the proposition upon
which she came to him. Indeed, wrinkling his bushy brows, he as much as
told her that he was a banker and not a pawnbroker.
Outside, the main street of Aiken, broad enough to have made five New
England streets, lay red and glaring in the sun. The least restless
shifting of feet by horses and mules tied to hitching-posts raised
clouds of dust, immense reddish ghosts that could not be laid. In the
bank itself, ordinarily a cool retreat, smelling faintly of tobacco
juice deposited by some of its clients, the mercury was swelling toward
ninety. It was April Fools' day, and unless Miss Tennant was cool,
nobody was. She looked cool. If the temperature had been 40° below zero
she would have looked warm; but she would have been dressed differently.
It was her great gift always to look the weather and the occasion; no
matter how or what she really felt. On the present occasion she wore a
very simple, inexpensive muslin, flowered with faint mauve lilacs, and a
wide, floppy straw-hat trimmed with the same. She had driven into town,
half a mile or more, without getting a speck of dust upon herself. Even
the corners of her eyes were like those of a newly laundered baby. She
smelled of tooth-powder (precipitated chalk and orris root), as was her
custom, and she wore no ring or ornament of any value. Indeed, such
jewels as she possessed, a graceful diamond necklace, a pearl collar, a
pearl pendant, and two cabochon sapphire rings, lay on the table between
her and Mr. Hemingway.
"I'm not asking the bank to do this for me," she said, and she looked
extra lovely (on purpose, of course). "I'm asking you----"
Mr. Hemingway poked the cluster of jewels very gingerly with his
forefinger as if they were a lizard.
"And, of course," she said, "they are worth twice the money; maybe three
or four times."
"Perhaps," said Mr. Hemingway, "you will take offence if I suggest that
your father----"
The muslin over her shoulders tightened the least in the world. She had
shrugged them.
"Of course," she said, "papa would do it; but he would insist on
reasons. My reasons involve another, Mr. Hemingway, and so it would not
be honorable for me to give them."
"And yet," said the banker, twinkling, "your reasons would tempt me to
accommodate you with the loan you ask for far more than your
collateral."
"Oh," she said, "you are a business man. I could give you reasons, and
be sure they would go no further--even if you thought them funny. But if
papa heard them, and thought them funny, as he would, he would play the
sieve. I don't want this money for myself, Mr. Hemingway."
"They never do," said he.
She laughed.
"I wish to lend it in turn," she said, "to a person who has been
reckless, and who is in trouble, but in whom I believe.... But perhaps,"
she went on, "the person, who is very proud, will take offence at my
offer of help.... In which case, Mr. Hemingway, I should return you the
money to-morrow."
"This person--" he began, twinkling.
"Oh," she said, "I couldn't bear to be teased. The person is a young
gentleman. Any interest that I take in him is a business interest, pure
and simple. I believe that, tided over his present difficulties, he will
steady down and become a credit to his sex. Can I say more than that?"
She smiled drolly.
"Men who are a credit to their sex," said Mr. Hemingway, "are not rare,
but young gentlemen----"
"This one," said she, "has in him the makings of a man. Just now he is
discouraged."
"Is he taking anything for it?" asked Mr. Hemingway with some sarcasm.
"Buckets," said Miss Tennant simply.
"Was it cards?" he asked.
"Cards, and betting--and the hopeless optimism of youth," said she.
"And you wish to lend him five thousand dollars, and your interest in
him is platonic?"
"Nothing so ardent," said she demurely. "I wish him to pay his debts, to
give me his word that he will neither drink nor gamble until he has paid
back the debt to me, and I shall suggest that he go out to one of those
big Western States and become a man."
"If anybody," said Mr. Hemingway with gallantry, "could lead a young
gentleman to so sweeping a reform, it would be yourself."
"There is no sequence of generations," said Miss Tennant, "long enough
to eradicate a drop of Irish blood."
Mr. Hemingway swept the jewels together and wrapped them in the
tissue-paper in which she had brought them.
"Are you going to put them in your safe--or return them to me?" she
asked plaintively.
Mr. Hemingway affected gruffness.
"I am thanking God fervently, ma'am," said he, "that you didn't ask me
for more. You'll have to give me your note. By the way, are you of age?"
Her charming eyes narrowed, and she laughed at him.
"People," she said, "are already beginning to say, 'she will hardly
marry now.' But it's how old we feel, Mr. Hemingway, isn't it?"
"I feel about seven," said he, "and foolish at that."
"And I," said she, "will be twenty-five for the second time on my next
birthday."
"And, by the way," she said, when the details of the loan had been
arranged and she had stuffed the five thousand dollars into the palm of
a wash glove, "nobody must know about this, because I shall have to say
that--my gewgaws have been stolen."
"But that will give Aiken a black eye," said he.
"I'm afraid it can't be helped, Mr. Hemingway. Papa will ask point-blank
why I never wear the pearls he gave me, and I shall have to anticipate."
"How?" he asked.
"Oh," she said demurely, "to-night or to-morrow night I shall rouse the
household with screams, and claim that I woke and saw a man bending over
my dressing-table--a man with a beautiful white mustache and imperial."
Mr. Hemingway's right hand flew to his mouth as if to hide these
well-ordered appendages, and he laughed.
"Is the truth nothing to you?" he said.
"In a business matter pure and simple," she said, after a moment's
reflection, "it is nothing--absolutely nothing."
"Not being found out by one's parents is hardly a business matter,"
said Mr. Hemingway.
"Oh," said she with a shiver, "as a little girl I went into the hands of
a receiver at least once a month----"
"A hand of iron in a velvet glove," murmured Mr. Hemingway.
"Oh, no," she said, "a leather slipper in a nervous hand.... But how can
I thank you?"
She rose, still demure and cool, but with a strong sparkling in her eyes
as from a difficult matter successfully adjusted.
"You could make the burglar a clean-shaven man," Mr. Hemingway
suggested.
"I will," she said. "I will make him look like anybody you say."
"God forbid," said he. "I have no enemies. But, seriously, Miss Tennant,
if you possibly can, will you do without a burglary, for the good name
of Aiken?"
"I will do what I can," she said, "but I can't make promises."
When she had gone, one of the directors pushed open the door of Mr.
Hemingway's office and tiptoed in.
"Well," said he, "for an old graybeard! You've been flirting fifty
minutes, you sinner."
"I haven't," said Mr. Hemingway, twisting his mustache and looking
roguish. "I've been discussing a little matter of business with Miss
Tennant."
"_What_ business?"
"Well, it wasn't any of yours, Frank, at the time, and I'm dinned if I
think it is now. But if you must know, she came in to complain of the
milk that your dairy has been supplying lately. She said it was the kind
of thing you'd expect in the North, but for a Southern gentleman to put
water in anything----"
"You go to Augusta," said the director (it is several degrees hotter
than Aiken). "Everybody knows that spoons stand up in the milk from my
dairy, and as for the cream----"
In the fall from grace of David Larkin there was involved no great show
of natural depravity. The difference between a young man who goes right
and a young man who goes wrong may be no more than the half of one per
cent. And I do not know why we show the vicious such contempt and the
virtuous such admiration. Larkin's was the case of a young man who tried
to do what he was not old enough, strong enough, or wise enough to "get
away with," as the saying is. Aiken did not corrupt him; he was corrupt
when he came, with a bank account of thirty-five hundred dollars
snatched from the lap of Dame Fortune, at a moment when she was minding
some other small boy. Horses running up to their form, spectacular
bridge hands (not well played), and bets upon every subject that can be
thought of had all contributed. Then Larkin caught a cold in his nose,
so that it ran all day and all night; and because the Browns had invited
him to Aiken for a fortnight whenever he cared to come, he seized upon
the excuse of his cold and boarded the first train. He was no sooner in
Aiken than Dame Fortune ceased minding the other small boy, and turned
her petulant eyes upon Larkin. Forthwith he began to lose.
Let no man who does not personally know what a run of bad luck is judge
another. What color is a lemon? Why, it is lemon-colored, to be sure.
And behold, fortune produces you a lemon black as the ace of spades.
When fortune goes against you, you cannot be right. The favorite falls
down; the great jockey uses bad judgment for the first time in his life;
the foot-ball team that ought to win is overtrained; the yacht carries
away her bowsprit; your four kings are brought face to face, after much
"hiking," with four aces; the cigarette that you try to flick into the
fireplace hits the slender andiron and bounces out upon the rug; the
liquor that you carried so amiably and sensibly in New York mixes with
the exciting air of the place where the young lady you are attentive to
lives, and you make four asses of yourself and seven fools, and wake up
with your first torturing headache and your first humiliating apology.
Americans (with the unfortunate exception of us who make a business of
it) are the greatest phrase-makers the world has ever known. Larkin's
judgment was good; he was a modest young fellow of very decent
instincts, he was neither a born gambler nor a born drinker; but, in the
American phrase, "he was _in_ wrong."
Bad luck is not a good excuse for a failure in character; but God knows
how wickedly provocative thereof it can be. The elders of the Aiken Club
did not notice that Larkin was slipping from grace, because his slipping
was gradual; but they noticed all of a sudden, with pity, chagrin (for
they liked him), and kindly contempt, that he had fallen. Forthwith a
wave of reform swept over the Aiken Club, or it amounted to that. Rich
men who did not care a hang about what they won or lost refused to play
for high stakes; Larkin's invitations to cocktails were very largely
refused; no bets were made in his presence (and I must say that this was
a great cause of languishment in certain men's conversation), and the
young man was mildly and properly snubbed. This locking of the stable
door, however, had the misfortune to happen just after the horse had
bolted. Larkin had run through the most of his money; he did not know
how he was to pay his bed and board at Willcox's, where he was now
stopping; his family were in no position to help him; he knew that he
was beginning to be looked on with contempt; he thought that he was
seriously in love with Miss Tennant. He could not see any way out of
anything; knew that a disgraceful crash was imminent, and for all these
troubles he took the wrong medicine. Not the least foolish part of this
was that it was medicine for which he would be unable to pay when the
club bill fell due. From after breakfast until late at night he kept
himself, not drunk, but stimulated.... And then one day the president of
the club spoke to him very kindly--and the next day wouldn't speak to
him at all.
The proper course would have been for Larkin to open his heart to any of
a dozen men. Any one of them would have straightened him out mentally
and financially in one moment, and forgotten about it the next. But
Larkin was too young, too foolish, and too full of false pride to make
confessions to any one who could help him; and he was quite ignorant of
the genuine kindness and wisdom that lurks in the average rich man, if
once you can get his ear.
But one night, being sure they could not be construed into an appeal for
help, or anything but a sympathetic scolding, which he thought would be
enjoyable (and because of a full moon, perhaps, and a whole chorus of
mocking-birds pouring out their souls in song, and because of an arbor
covered with the yellow jasmine that smells to heaven, and a little
sweeter), he made his sorry confessions into the lovely pink hollow of
Miss Tennant's ear.
Instead of a scolding he received sympathy and understanding; and he
misconstrued the fact that she caught his hand in hers and squeezed it
very hard; and did not know that he had misconstrued that fact until he
found that it was her cheek that he had kissed instead of her hastily
averted lips.
This rebuff did not prevent him from crowning the story of his young
life with further confessions. And it is on record that when Larkin came
into the brightly lighted club there was dust upon the knees of his
trousers.
"I _am_ fond of you, David," she had said, "and in spite of all the mess
you have made of things, I believe in you; but even if I were fonder
than fondest of you, I should despise myself if I listened to you--now."
But she did not sleep all night for thinking how she could be of real,
material help to the young man, and cause him to turn into the straight,
narrow path that always leads to success and sometimes to achievement.
Every spring the Mannings, who have nothing against them except that
they live on the wrong side of town, give a wistaria party. The Mannings
live for the blossoming of the wistaria which covers their charming
porticoed house from top to toe and fills their grounds. Ever since they
can remember they have specialized in wistaria; and they are not young,
and wistaria grows fast. The fine old trees that stand in the Mannings'
grounds are merely lofty trellises for the vines, white and mauve, to
sport upon. The Mannings' garden cost less money, perhaps, than any
notable garden in Aiken; and when in full bloom it is, perhaps, the most
beautiful garden in the world. To appreciate wistaria, one vine with a
spread of fifty feet bearing ten thousand racemes of blossoms a foot
long is not enough; you must enter and disappear into a region of such
vines, and then loaf and stroll with an untroubled nose and your heart's
desire.
Even Larkin, when he paused under the towering entrance vines, a mauve
and a white, forgot his troubles. He filled his lungs with the delicious
fragrance, and years after the consciousness of it would come upon him
suddenly. And then coming upon tea-tables standing in the open and
covered with good things, and finding, among the white flannel and
muslin guests, Miss Tennant, very obviously on the lookout for him, his
cup was full. When they had drunk very deep of orangeade, and eaten jam
sandwiches followed by chicken sandwiches and walnut cake, they went
strolling (Miss Tennant still looking completely ethereal--a creature
that lived on the odor of flowers and kind thoughts rather than the more
material edibles mentioned above), and then Larkin felt that his cup was
overflowing.
Either because the day was hot or because of the sandwiches, they found
exclusive shade and sat in it, upon a white seat that looked like
marble--at a distance. Larkin once more filled his lungs with the breath
of wistaria and was for letting it out in further confessions of what he
felt to be his heart's ultimate depths. But Miss Tennant was too quick
for him. She drew five one-thousand-dollar bills from the palm of her
glove and put them in his hand.
"There," she said.
Larkin looked at the money and fell into a dark mood.
"What is this for?" he said presently.
"This is a loan," said she, "from me to you; to be a tiding over of
present difficulties, a reminder of much that has been pleasant in the
past, and an earnest of future well-doing. Good luck to you, David."
"I wish I could take it," said the young man with a swift, slanting
smile. "And at least I can crawl upon my stomach at your feet, and pull
my forelock and heap dust upon my head.... God bless you!" And he
returned the bills to her.
She smiled cheerfully but a little disdainfully.
"Very well, then," said she. "I tear them up."
"Oh!" cried Larkin. "Don't make a mess of a beautiful incident."
"Then take them."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Oh, you know as well as I do that a man can't borrow from a girl."
"A man?" asked Miss Tennant simply, as if she doubted having heard
correctly. Then, as he nodded, she turned a pair of eyes upon him that
were at once kind, pained, and deeply thoughtful. And she began to speak
in a quiet, repressed way upon the theme that he had suggested.
"A man," she said; "what is a man? I can answer better by telling you
what a man is not. A man is not a creature who loafs when he ought to be
at work, who loses money that he hasn't got, who drinks liquor that he
cannot carry, and who upon such a noble groundwork feels justified in
making love to a decent, self-respecting girl. That is not a _man_,
David. A man would have no need of any help from me.... But you--you are
a child that has escaped from its nurse, a bird that has fallen out of
its nest before it has learned to fly, and you have done nothing but
foolish things.... But somehow I have learned to suspect you of a better
self, where, half-strangled with foolishnesses and extravagance, there
lurks a certain contrition and a certain sweetness.... God knows I
should like to see you a man...."
Larkin jumped to his feet, and all of him that showed was crimson, and
he could have cried. But he felt no anger, and he kept his eyes upon
hers.
"Thank you," he said; "may I have them?"
He stuffed the bills into his pocket.
"I have no security," he said. "But I will give you my word of honor
neither to drink, neither to gamble, neither to loaf, nor to make love
until I have paid you back interest and principal."
"Where will you go? What will you do, David?"
"West--God knows. I _will_ do something.... You see that I can't say any
thanks, don't you? That I am almost choking, and that at any moment I
might burst into sobs?"
They were silent, and she looked into his face unconsciously while he
mastered his agitation. He sat down beside her presently, his elbows on
his knees, his chin deep in his hands.
"Is God blessing you by any chance?" he said. "Do you feel anything of
the kind? Because I am asking Him to--so very hard. I shall ask Him to a
million times every day until I die.... Would it be possible for one who
has deserved nothing, but who would like it for the strengthingest,
beautifulest memory...."
"Quick, then," said she, "some one's coming."
That very night screams pierced to every corner of the Tennants' great
house on the Whiskey Road. Those whom screams affect in one way sprang
from bed; those whom they affect in another hid under the bedclothes.
Mr. Tennant himself, a man of sharp temper and implacable courage,
dashed from his room in a suit of blue-and-white pajamas, and overturned
a Chippendale cabinet worth a thousand dollars; young Mr. Tennant barked
both shins on a wood-box and dropped a loaded Colt revolver into the
well of the stair; Mrs. Tennant was longer in appearing, having tarried
to try the effect upon her nerves and color sense of three divers
wrappers. The butler, an Admirable Crichton of a man, came, bearing a
bucket of water in case the house was on fire. Mrs. Tennant's French
maid carried a case of her mistress's jewels, and seemed determined to
leave.
Miss Tennant stood in the door-way of her room. She was pale and greatly
agitated, but her eyes shone with courage and resolve. Her arched,
blue-veined feet were thrust into a pair of red Turkish slippers turning
up at the toes. A mandarin robe of dragoned blue brocade was flung over
her night-gown. In one hand she had a golf club--a niblick.
"Oh!" she cried, when her father was sufficiently recovered from
overturning the cabinet to listen, "there was a man in my room."
Mr. Tennant } { furiously.
Young Mr. } {
Tennant } { sleepily.
} {
The butler } "A man?" { as if he thought she
} { meant to say a fire.
The French } {
maid } { blushing crimson.
Then, and again all together:
Mr. Tennant-- "Which way did he go?"
Young Mr. Tennant-- "Which man?"
The butler-- "A white man?"
The French maid (with a kind of ecstasy)--
"A man!"
"Out the window!" cried Miss Tennant.
Her father and brother dashed downstairs and out into the grounds. The
butler hurried to the telephone (still carrying his bucket of water) and
rang Central and asked for the chief of police. Central answered, after
a long interval, that the chief of police was out of order, and rang
off.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Tennant arrived, and, having coldly recovered her
jewel-case from the custody of the French maid, prepared to be told the
details of what hadn't happened.
"He was bending over my dressing-table, mamma," said Miss Tennant. "I
could see him plainly in the moonlight; he had a mask, and was smooth
shaven, and he wore gloves."
"I wonder why he wore gloves," mused Mrs. Tennant.
"I suppose," said Miss Tennant, "that he had heard of the Bertillon
system, and was afraid of being tracked by his finger-marks."
"Did he say anything?"
"Not to me, I think," said Miss Tennant, "but he kept mumbling to
himself so I could hear: 'Slit her damn throat if she makes a move; slit
it right into the backbone.' So, of course, I didn't make a move--I
thought he was talking to a confederate whom I couldn't see."
"Why a _confederate_?" asked Mrs. Tennant. "Oh, I see--you mean a sort
of partner."
"But there was only the one," said Miss Tennant. "And when he had filled
his pockets and was gone by the window--I thought it was safe to scream,
and I screamed."
"Have you looked to see what he took?"
"No. But my jewels were all knocking about on the dressing-table. I
suppose he got them."
"Well," said Mrs. Tennant, "let's be thankful that he didn't get mine."
"And only to think," said Miss Tennant, "that only last night papa
asked me why I had given up wearing my pearls, and was put out about it,
and I promised to wear them oftener!"
"Never mind, my dear," said her mother confidentially; "if you are sorry
enough long enough your father will buy you others. He can be
wonderfully generous if you keep at him."
"Oh," said Miss Tennant, "I feel sure that they will be recovered some
day--it may not be to-morrow, or next day--but somehow--some time I feel
sure that they will come back. Of course papa must offer a reward."
"I wonder how much he will offer!"
"Oh, a good round sum. I shall suggest five thousand dollars, if he asks
me."
The next day Miss Tennant despatched the following note to Mr.
Hemingway: