IV

I remember the curious feeling I had that my father was gone, that he had

vanished while my back was turned, leaving me to face someone else. Then,

as I stared at him, still unready and speechless, the light died out of

his eyes, his lips relaxed, and his hand went up to arrange the lace at

his throat.

"Shun my example," he said, "shudder at the life I have led. Call me

dissolute. Call me dangerous company. Say that in every way I'm unfit to

be your father--say that I'm an outcast, suitable only as material for

slander. I will agree with you. I will teach you that your judgment is

correct. Let us only set two limits and do not call them virtues. They

are necessities in the life I lead, nothing more. They--"

The sound at the knocker on the front door broke into my father's speech

and stilled it. In the pause, while the echoes died away, he shrugged his

shoulders negligently, and settled himself back in his chair.

"My son," he sighed, "allow me to point out the misfortune of being a

man of affairs. They will never adjust themselves to the proper time and

place. Brutus, the two gentlemen about whom I was speaking--show them in

at once. And you, my son, there is no need for you to leave. The evening

is young yet."

"Where are you, Shelton?" came a sharp, authoritative voice from the

hallway. "Damn this dark passage."

"Open the door, Henry," my father said.

As I did so, two gentlemen entered. The taller, without bothering to

remove his hat, strode over to my father's chair. The other stood

undecided near the threshold, until Brutus closed the door behind him.

Without rising from his chair, my father gave first one and then the

other, the impartial, casual glance of the disinterested observer.

"This," he remarked politely, "comes near to being unexpected. I had

heard you had come to town, but I had hoped to meet you only in some

desolate waste of purgatory. I fear your visitation finds me singularly

unprepared to do the duties of a host. You found the passage dark? Ah,

Lawton, I fear it will be darker still where you are going."

"That's enough, Shelton," interrupted the first gentleman. "I didn't

come here to hear you talk. I've heard you do that often enough in

the old days. You can talk a woman off her feet, but by God, you

can't talk me."

My father waved his hand negligently, as though disavowing some

compliment.

"The same forceful character," he observed gently, "the same blunt

candor. How refreshing it is, Lawton, after years of intrigue and

dissimulation. My son, this is Mr. Lawton, an old, but he will pardon me

if I do not add--a valued acquaintance."

For a moment Mr. Lawton's pale eyes looked sharply into mine, and I bowed

to him ironically. I saw a high, thin face, resolute and impulsive, a

grim ascetic face, with a long, straight nose that seemed pulled too

close to his upper lip, and a mouth stamped roughly on a narrow, bony

jaw, a mouth, as I looked at it, that seemed ready to utter an

imprecation.

"Mr. Lawton and I have met before," I said.

"Indeed? And our friend in the background," my father continued. "Perhaps

it is my bad memory that permits his identity still to be a revelation?"

The stranger nervously arranged a fold in his sea cloak, while his

little black eyes darted restlessly about the room.

"It's Sims, Captain Shelton," he volunteered, in a gentle, unassuming

voice, "and very much at your service."

"Captain Shelton be damned!" snapped Lawton. "Keep your name to yourself,

Sims, and watch the nigger and the boy. Now, Shelton, for the reason why

I'm here."

"Indeed, I am forced to admit the reason for your visit may have its

pertinence," my father admitted. "The fatigues of a long day, coupled

with the evening's wine--" He stifled a yawn behind the back of his hand,

and smiled in polite deprecation.

Slight as was his speech, Mr. Lawton seemed to take a deep interest in

it. Indeed, even while he backed around the table and seated himself in

the chair I had occupied, my father's slightest expression engaged his

undivided attention. There fell a silence such as sometimes comes at a

game of cards when the stakes at the table are running higher than is

pleasant. Brutus was watching Mr. Sims with a malignant intensity. Mr.

Sims watched Brutus. Mr. Lawton's eyes, as I have said, never left my

father, and my father polished his nails on the sleeve of his coat.

"Did I understand you to say," he asked finally, "that you were planning

to relieve my mind of the burden of speculation?"

"Quite," said Mr. Lawton, with a poor attempt at dryness. "I have come

here tonight to induce or force you to return a piece of stolen property.

I give you the liberty of taking your choice. Either--"

His voice raised itself to a sharp command.

"_Damn you, Shelton, sit still!_"

The picture had changed. Mr. Lawton was leaning across the table,

levelling a pistol at my father's head. With a detached, academic

interest, my father glanced at the weapon, and, without perceptible

pause, without added haste or deliberation, he continued to withdraw the

hand he had thrust into his right coat pocket. Beside me I heard Brutus

draw a sharp breath. I saw Mr. Sims fumble under his cloak and take a

quick step backwards. There was a tense, pregnant silence, broken by Mr.

Sims in fervent expletive. My father had withdrawn his hand. He was

holding in it his silver snuff box, which he tossed carelessly on the

table, where it slid among the wine bottles.

"Why strain so at a gnat, Lawton," he continued in his old conversational

manner. "Though one can kill a sparrow with a five pound shot, is it

worth the effort? Small as my personal regard is for you, a note penned

in three lines would have brought you back your trinket. But when you say

it is stolen--"

With a gesture of exasperation, Mr. Lawton attempted to interrupt.

"When you say it is stolen," my father continued, raising his voice,

"your memory fails you. I won that snuff box from you fairly, because

your horse refused a water jump in Baltimore fifteen years ago."

Mr. Lawton made a grimace of impatience.

"Perhaps I can refresh your memory on a more immediate matter," he

interjected harshly, "a matter rather more in keeping with your

character. Don't, don't move, I beg of you! At a certain chateau in the

Loire Valley, as recently as two months ago, you had an unfortunate

escapade with French government agents."

"Let us err on the side of accuracy," said my father in gracious assent,

"and add that the affair was rather more unfortunate for the agents than

for myself."

"Meaning it was fortunate you ran away, I suppose," suggested Mr. Lawton,

"fortunate, but natural. You escaped, Shelton, in the company of a

certain young lady they were seeking to apprehend. You retained in your

possession a list of names of political importance. It is a part of your

damned blackmail, I suppose. I say you stole that paper!"

"Indeed?" said my father. "In that case, permit me! The snuff is

excellent, Lawton, although the box is commonplace."

"By God!" shouted Mr. Lawton, "I've had enough of your damned simpering

airs? You're a coward, Shelton. Why conceal it from me? A coward, afraid

to demand satisfaction after a public insult--a thief with your theft

still about you. I've come to get that list, to return it to its rightful

owners. Try your drunkard's bragging on stupefied boys, but not on me!

For the last time--will you give that letter up?"

My father's hand that held the snuff box trembled. His glance was almost

furtive as he looked from Mr. Sims back to Mr. Lawton. For a moment he

stared half-puzzled at Mr. Lawton's pistol. Then he moistened his lips.

"Suppose I should refuse?" he asked.

With a wan smile, Mr. Lawton rubbed his left hand over his long chin.

"In that case," he said, "I shall summon five men whom I hold outside.

They will search the house, having searched you first. If they do not

find the letter, I shall give you one more chance to produce it."

"Of course you realize your action is illegal?" my father interrupted.

Mr. Lawton laughed.

"We've beaten about the bush long enough," he said. "Will I have to

remind you again that I didn't come to hear you talk? Come to the point.

Will you give up that paper?"

With a sigh of resignation, my father fumbled in his breast pocket. When

he spoke, it seemed a weak appeal to justify his action.

"Under the circumstances, what else can I do?" he demanded, "though it

seems hard when I had given my word not to part with it."

He produced a long, sealed document, which he handed across the table.

Mr. Lawton's eyes glistened with anticipation as he took it. He held it

over the table to scan the seal.

"Damn all your caution, Sims!" he exclaimed exultantly. "We've got it just

as I said we would! Didn't I tell you--"

His voice choked. He burst into a violent fit of sneezing. My father had

thrown the contents of his snuff box into Mr. Lawton's face.

If his chair had been of hot iron, he could not have moved more quickly.

Almost the same moment, Mr. Lawton's pistol was in my father's hand,

cocked and primed and pointed at Mr. Sims.

"Brutus," said my father, "unburden Mr. Sims of his weapons. Lawton, a

breath of night air may relieve you. Let us go to the window and reflect

on the slip that may occur between the container and the nose. My son,

give Mr. Lawton your arm. Assist me to open the shutters. Now Mr. Lawton,

call to your men. Tell them they may go. Louder, louder, Mr. Lawton.

Surely your voice has more strength. My ears have been weary this long

time with its clamor."

V

Even today, as I pen these lines, the picture comes back with the same

intensity, but little mellowed or softened with the years. The gaunt old

room that had entertained so many guests, emptied of its last one, with

nothing but the faint chill that had come through the opened window to

remind one of their presence--the fitful light of the two candles that

had begun spluttering in the tall brass sticks--Brutus with quiet

adroitness clearing away the bottles and the dishes--and a sudden burst

of flame from the back log in the fireplace that made his shadow jump

unevenly over the opposite wall--and my father resting languidly in his

chair again, quite as though nothing had happened--I remember looking

about me and almost doubting that anything out of the ordinary had passed

in the last five minutes. I glanced narrowly at him, but there was

nothing in his manner to betray that he had not been sitting there for

the past hour in peaceful meditation. Was he thinking of the other nights

when the room was bright with silver and candles?

"My son," he remarked presently, "I was saying to you before our callers

interrupted that there are just two things I never do. Do you still care

to know them? I think that one may be enough for tonight. It is that

circumstances oblige me to keep my word."

"You do not care to tell me any more?" I asked him.

"Only that you had better stay, my son. If you do, I can guarantee you

will see me at my worst, which is better, perhaps, than hearing of me

second hand. And possibly it may even be interesting, the little drama

which is starting."

Thoughtfully he balanced the pistol he was still holding on the palm of

his hand, and half unconsciously examined the priming, while I watched

him, half with misgiving, half with a reluctant sort of admiration. When

he turned towards me again, his eyes had brightened as though he were

dwelling on a pleasing reminiscence.

"Indeed," he mused, "it might be more than interesting, hilarious, in

fact, if it were not for the lady in the case."

"The lady!" I echoed involuntarily.

"And why not indeed?" he said with a shrug. "Let us do our best to be

consistent. What drama is complete without a lady in it? It would have

been simpler, I admit, if I had stolen the paper, per se, and not the

lady with it. The lady, I fear, is becoming an encumbrance."

"Am I to understand you brought a woman with you across the ocean?"

He placed the pistol on the table before him, looked at it critically,

and changed its position.

"A lady, my son, not a woman. You will find that the two are quite

different species. I fear she had but little choice. That is a pretty

lock on Mr. Lawton's weapon."

"You mean she is here now?" I persisted. He must surely have been in

jest.

"To be sure!" he acquiesced. "She is, I trust, asleep in the east guest

room, and heaven help you if you wake her. But why do you start, my son,

does it seem odd to you that I should act as squire?"

"Not in the least," I assured him. "I am only astonished that she should

consent to accompany you. You say, sir, that she is a lady?"

"At least," he replied, "I am broadening your education. That in itself,

Henry, quite repays me for any trouble I may have taken--but I fear you

are putting a bad construction on it. I beg of you, do not judge me so

harshly. Launcelot himself--what am I saying?--Bayard himself, up to the

present moment, could only commend my every action."

"Even to bringing her to this house," I suggested coldly.

"Precisely," he replied. "That in itself was actuated by the highest

piece of altruism heaven has vouchsafed humanity--the regard a father has

for his son."

"Do you mean to think," I demanded angrily, "that you can bring me into

this business?"