BEHIND THE BARS
When Norton reached his room he locked the door and began to pace the
floor, facing for the hundredth time the stunning situation which the
presence of Helen had created.
To reveal to such a sensitive, cultured girl just as she was budding into
womanhood the fact that her blood was tainted with a negro ancestor would
be an act so pitifully cruel that every instinct of his nature revolted
from the thought.
He began to realize that her life was at stake as well as his boy's. That
he loved this son with all the strength of his being and that he only knew
the girl to fear her, made no difference in the fundamental facts. He
acknowledged that she was his. He had accepted the fact and paid the
penalty in the sacrifice of every ambition of a brilliant mind.
He weighed carefully the things that were certain and the things that were
merely probable. The one certainty that faced him from every angle was that
Cleo was in deadly earnest and that it meant a fight for the supremacy of
every decent instinct of his life and character.
Apparently she had planned a tragic revenge by luring the girl to his home,
figuring on his absence for three months, to precipitate a love affair
before he could know the truth or move to interfere. A strange mental
telepathy had warned him and he had broken in on the scene two months
before he was expected.
And yet he couldn't believe that Cleo in the wildest flight of her insane
rage could have deliberately meant that such an affair should end in
marriage. She knew the character of both father and son too well to doubt
that such an act could only end in tragedy. She was too cautious for such
madness.
What was her game?
He asked himself that question again and again, always to come back to one
conclusion. She had certainly brought the girl into the house to force from
his reluctant lips her recognition and thus fix her own grip on his life.
Beyond a doubt the surest way to accomplish this, and the quickest, was by
a love affair between the boy and girl. She knew that personally the father
had rather die than lose the respect of his son by a confession of his
shame. But she knew with deeper certainty that he must confess it if their
wills once clashed over the choice of a wife. The boy had a mind of his
own. His father knew it and respected and loved him all the more because of
it.
It was improbable as yet that Tom had spoken a word of love or personally
faced such an issue. Of the girl he could only form the vaguest idea. It
was clear now that he had been stricken by a panic and that the case was
not so desperate as he had feared.
One thing he saw with increasing clearness. He must move with the utmost
caution. He must avoid Helen at first and find the boy's attitude. He must
at all hazards keep the use of every power of body, mind and soul in the
crisis with which he was confronted.
Two hours later when Andy cautiously approached his door and listened at
the keyhole he was still pacing the floor with the nervous tread of a
wounded lion suddenly torn from the forest and thrust behind the bars of an
iron cage.