BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
If her friend was disturbed in his secret thoughts by the little girl's
prattle about the ten thousand dollars that had been lost, Carolyn
was not likely to know it. Especially when a visit to the life-saving
station was in view.
By this time the coast guard crew--captain, cook and all hands--were
Carolyn May's friends, and Prince had his own plate of scraps by the
kitchen door of the station.
The visitors were in time for drill. Carolyn's friend held his
stop-watch at practice. From the captain's word "Go!" to the second the
supposed wrecked mariner (in this case the station cook) was landed in
the breeches-buoy, the time was just over three minutes.
It was very exciting, and Prince raced the sands, barking with all his
might at the man flying through the air in the life-saving apparatus.
Then they tried it all over and Cephas, Captain Littlefield's nephew,
brought Carolyn in on the buoy, the aerial ride delighted her greatly.
"My! I must tell Edna all about this," she panted. "Edna was afraid to
be wrecked; but _I_ never shall be again. I think it must be just fun!"
"Like enough! Like enough!" said Cephas. "Just the same, leetle gal,
you're some safer ashore than on a wreck."
Afterward Carolyn's friend told the negro to drive slowly back along
the road and wait at the foot of Barzilla Ball's lane.
"The little girl and I will walk back along the shore and I will climb
up over the bluff at the cottage and meet you," the man said to the
driver.
"Oh, goody! Goody!" cried Carolyn May, clapping her hands. "That will
be ever so nice!"
She had no suspicion that what she had said about the pale lady and
her baby and the pale lady's husband, had stirred any curiosity in
the man's mind. But this topic held quite as important a place in his
thoughts at the time as the mystery of the ten thousand dollars.
He wanted to know what manner of people these Lairds were. Because of
the baby, his wife had become deeply interested in them. Baby Laird
reminded her so much, she said, of her own "Baby Joe" of a quarter of
a century before. And, then, that this stranger baby should bear her
own child's middle name--that piqued his wife's curiosity; although, to
tell the truth, Carolyn May's friend had never given it his attention
before.
In addition, he had given Barzilla Ball an invitation for the baby's
father to come to see him, and the man had not appeared. There was
something in that which the capitalist could not understand. Usually
people did not have to be coaxed when he offered financial favours.
They walked along the shore as the red sun slipped down into a feather
bed of cloud resting on the sea and on Montauk.
"'Red in the morning,
Sailors take warning;
Red at night,
Sailors delight,'"
chanted Carolyn, repeating what Barzilla had taught her. She clung to
her friend's forefinger and skipped joyfully along the sand.
He looked down at her with a grim smile playing about his lips. He
thought that this child was actually the first whom he had ever had
time to get acquainted with. In the case of his own son he had been too
busy--too eager at money-getting--to know much about him.
His wife talked now, in her nervous, irresponsible way, of "her baby."
It was a fact. The son of their house had been her baby; never his; for
he had been in no mood to give the lad a father's care.
When he was grown (and a manly fellow he was, no thanks to his father)
the latter had found the young man as stubborn a character as he was
himself. If he was the "Old Griffin," this boy just out of college was
"Young Grif." He was not to be ordered about as the man was in the
habit of ordering his employ s.
The trouble had begun there and then. An order to the son was like a
lash across the withers of an unbroken and high-spirited colt. The old
man realized the trouble, but believed it could be mended. Now he knew
he had taken his son into his own hands too late. His character was
already moulded.
Yet the Griffin would not blame the mother. It was his own fault that
the boy was not an automaton--as were his employ s, even his managers.
The Griffin had become used to unquestioned obedience, and to silence
when he spoke. His son did not fit into that system.
And so, after all, it was more because his son was not what he expected
him to be than anything else, that bred discord between them. The girl
was but an excuse.
It was true that the girl came of stock that the Griffin could not
tolerate. The man who had brought her up as his own and who, in dying,
left her portionless, had been one the Griffin hated--and he was a good
hater.
To put forth a command and find his son as unbendable as cast iron
to his will, had utterly enraged him. He had threatened dismissal
from house and fortune. Joe had coolly taken him at his word. It was
maddening. But the matter might have been eased over. The boy was not
then married. And for his mother's sake the Griffin would have gone far
on the road to a better understanding.
Then came the discovery of the missing ten thousand dollars. As
he had so fiercely told Carolyn's father, that ended all hope of
reconciliation. Yet he could not tell the boy's mother about it. Their
son a thief? Better to bear her frequent complaints and accusations of
harshness to the boy, than to tell the mother who bore him that he had
turned out a thief.
So this man, who commanded men and gold and affairs, and who was a
vast power in the financial world, was not happy. He worked as he
always had; but he worked without an object in view--for the mere sake
of working. He often told his wife that he "hung on because he couldn't
let go," like a drowning man to a rope. Money, power, notoriety--all,
all were Dead Sea fruit. There was nobody to enjoy it after him, for
he had spent much to make it legally impossible for a _thief_ ever to
benefit by his or his wife's death.
He walked on the beach with the prattling Carolyn and remembered it
all. It was a mile and a half to the foot of the path up the bluff
behind the Ball cottage; but they were not long on the smooth way. Late
in the afternoon as it was, Molly Ball's boarders were still on the
beach.
"Oh, there's Mamma Cameron!" cried Carolyn May. "And the baby and his
mamma."
She broke away from her friend to run with Prince to her mother. Baby
Laird lay upon his mother's lap where she sat on a weed-covered rock.
Her back was to the man as he approached. All he saw was the graceful
curve of her shoulder and the aureole of red-gold hair surrounding the
head that bent so lovingly from the slender neck above the baby.
The man halted. Curious as he was about these people, he hesitated to
force himself upon them. If the Lairds did not wish to be befriended by
him or by his wife, the situation would be made rather difficult if he
approached them unbidden.
He had never been able to understand why that twenty dollar bill was
sent back to him with the brusque note accompanying it. With his usual
suspicion of all mankind, at the time he had presumed the woman and her
husband, whose baby go-cart had been wrecked, planned to begin suit for
damages.
When nothing like that happened, and when, later, he discovered those
same people were these whom he was willing to help at his wife's
request, his interest was further aroused.
That baby! He remembered keenly, as he stood here unnoticed, of once
looking down at his own baby son, years before, as the laughing,
crowing infant lay just as this one did across his mother's lap. That
was before men had begun to call him the Griffin of Wall Street.
The tenderer feelings of the man's nature were stirred. Opening his
heart to little Carolyn, who at first had only amused him and piqued
his curiosity, had made a breach for thoughts other than those of mere
business to enter in. He had learned of late to smile at her prattle,
therefore he could now smile down upon the baby.
The Griffin cleared his throat.
"Beg pardon, young woman. So you are the baby's mother?" he asked
mildly.
She sprang up with a half-stifled scream, startled from her reverie.
She clutched the baby to her breast as though she feared for his safety
as she whirled to face the man.
Which of them was the more amazed as they stared at each other it would
have been difficult to tell. But as the young woman shrank from him,
the Griffin's scowl grew black.
"_You?_" he said, explosively.
[Illustration: _"You!" he said, explosively._]
She feared him. She stepped back, ever so lightly, holding her baby
tight, _tight_. But the little one, recognizing a friend, put out both
his arms and crowed.
The baby's mother had but seldom before seen her husband's father. And
on those few occasions he had shown himself so plainly her enemy that
there was good reason why she should be frightened in his presence.
Besides, was he not attempting through his secretary, Inness, to
cut her and her husband and baby off from the few friends they had
remaining--to drive them across the continent that they might not by
chance cross his path?
These thoughts, bruising her heart for days, had brought the young
woman--gently as she had been bred--to the border of revolt. It
was this man's fault--and his wife's fault--that Joe Bassett was
unsuccessful, was timid, and was hopeless under trial. He had been
brought up to a life of ease, and his only rugged trait was that
of stubbornness. He would not be driven. But that stubbornness of
character had not yet been transformed, she thought, into a firmness
and determination to win against any odds.
She laid her husband's faults, which of late had seemed so magnified,
entirely to his parents. She not alone feared this hard-featured,
grey-faced man who stood before her; but she displayed a rooted dislike
for him.
While the baby put out his hands and babbled to the Griffin, the young
woman retired from his vicinity. Carolyn and Prince came romping
back, the child's eyes aglow, her cheeks flushed, and all alive with
happiness and love--a contrast to his own emotions that the man could
not fail to mark.
"Oh, I've been having the best-est time!" the little girl cried to the
baby's mother. "Me and my friend's been to the life saving station. And
just think! I've been saved from a wreck (course, 'twas a make-believe
wreck) and Cephas gave me a ride in an aeroplane made like a big pair
of pants. What do you know about that?"
She had seized the Griffin's hand with both of hers and swung upon it.
Her confidence in his kindness and the baby's evident approval of the
man, made Mrs. Joe Bassett take thought.
If the children so loved him, he could not be utterly bad after all.
She began to look at him with more speculative eyes. He was Joe's
father. There must be some of Joe's better traits in his character. And
she had loved Joe at the very first for his single-heartedness and his
gentle manner.
The baby, squirming in her arms, tried to go to his grandfather once
more. She observed in the man's eyes the reflection of unshed tears!
That grim face was but a mask, after all. Back of the man's apparent
harshness his nature was softening to the influence of childish
affection.
The baby and Carolyn May!
The young woman began to appreciate what was going on beneath the
surface of the Griffin's rugged nature.