But while he had been working at a distance, things had been going on
apace at the ranch, a progress which had now gathered such impetus that
he found himself incapable of checking it. The blow fell immediately
after dinner that same evening. Terence excused himself early to retire
to the mysteries of a new pump-gun. Elizabeth and Vance took their coffee
into the library.
The night had turned cool, with a sharp wind driving the chill through
every crack; so a few sticks were sending their flames crumbling against
the big back log. The lamp glowing in the corner was the only other
light, and when they drew their chairs close to the hearth, great tongues
of shadows leaped and fell on the wall behind them. Vance looked at his
sister with concern. There was a certain complacency about her this
evening that told him in advance that she had formed a new plan with
which she was well pleased. And he had come to dread her plans.
She always filled him with awe--and never more so than tonight, with her
thin, homely face illuminated irregularly and by flashes. He kept
watching her from the side, with glances.
"I think I know why you've gone away for these few days," she said.
"To get used to the new idea," he admitted with such frankness that she
turned to him with unusual sympathy. "It was rather a shock at first."
"I know it was. And I wasn't diplomatic. There's too much man in me,
Vance. Altogether too much, while you--"
She closed her lips suddenly. But he knew perfectly the unspoken words.
She was about to suggest that there was too little man in him. He dropped
his chin in his hand, partly for comfort and partly to veil the sneer. If
she could have followed what he had done in the past six days!
"And you are used to the new idea?"
"You see that I'm back before the time was up and ahead of my promise,"
he said.
She nodded. "Which paves the way for another new idea of mine."
He felt that a blow was coming and nerved himself against the shock of
it. But the preparation was merely like tensing one's muscles against a
fall. When the shock came, it stunned him.
"Vance, I've decided to adopt Terence!"
His fingertips sank into his cheek, bruising the flesh. What would become
of his six days of work? What would become of his cunning and his
forethought? All destroyed at a blow. For if she adopted the boy, the
very law would keep her from denying him afterward. For a moment it
seemed to him that some devil must have forewarned her of his plans.
"You don't approve?" she said at last, anxiously.
He threw himself back in the chair and laughed. All his despair went into
that hollow, ringing sound.
"Approve? It's a queer question to ask me. But let it go. I know I
couldn't change you."
"I know that you have a right to advise," she said gently. "You are my
father's son and you have a right to advise on the placing of his name."
He had to keep fighting against surging desires to throw his rage in her
face. But he mastered himself, except for a tremor of his voice.
"When are you going to do it?"
"Tomorrow."
"Elizabeth, why not wait until after the birthday ceremony?"
"Because I've been haunted by peculiar fears, since our last talk, that
something might happen before that time. I've actually lain awake at
night and thought about it! And I want to forestall all chances. I want
to rivet him to me!"
He could see by her eagerness that her mind had been irrevocably made up,
and that nothing could change her. She wanted agreement, not advice. And
with consummate bitterness of soul he submitted to his fate.
"I suppose you're right. Call him down now and I'll be present when you
ask him to join the circle--the family circle of the Cornishes, you
know."
He could not school all the bitterness out of his voice, but she seemed
too glad of his bare acquiescence to object to such trifles. She sent Wu
Chi to call Terence down to them. He had apparently been in his shirt
sleeves working at the gun. He came with his hands still faintly
glistening from their hasty washing, and with the coat which he had just
bundled into still rather bunched around his big shoulders. He came and
stood against the massive, rough-finished stones of the fireplace looking
down at Elizabeth. There had always been a sort of silent understanding
between him and Vance. They never exchanged more words and looks than
were absolutely necessary. Vance realized it more than ever as he looked
up to the tall athletic figure. And he realized also that since he had
last looked closely at Terence the latter had slipped out of boyhood and
into manhood. There was that indescribable something about the set of the
chin and the straight-looking eyes that spelled the difference.
"Terence," she said, "for twenty-four years you have been my boy."
"Yes, Aunt Elizabeth."
He acknowledged the gravity of this opening statement by straightening a
little, his hand falling away from the stone against which he had been
leaning. But Vance looked more closely at his sister. He could see the
gleam of worship in her eyes.
"And now I want you to be something more. I want you to be my boy in the
eyes of the law, so that when anything happens to me, your place won't be
threatened."
He was straighter than ever.
"I want to adopt you, Terence!"
Somehow, in those few moments they had been gradually building to a
climax. It was prodigiously heightened now by the silence of the boy. The
throat of Vance tightened with excitement.
"I will be your mother, in the eyes of the law," she was explaining
gently, as though it were a mystery which Terry could not understand.
"And Vance, here, will be your uncle. You understand, my dear?"
What a world of brooding tenderness went into her voice! Vance wondered
at it. But he wondered more at the stiff-standing form of Terence, and
his silence; until he saw the tender smile vanish from the face of
Elizabeth and alarm come into it. All at once Terence had dropped to one
knee before her and taken her hands. And now it was he who was talking
slowly, gently.
"All my life you've given me things, Aunt Elizabeth. You've given me
everything. Home, happiness, love--everything that could be given. So
much that you could never be repaid, and all I can do is to love you, you
see, and honor you as if you were my mother, in fact. But there's just
one thing that can't be given. And that's a name!"
He paused. Elizabeth was listening with a stricken face, and the heart of
Vance thundered with his excitement. Vaguely he felt that there was
something fine and clean and honorable in the heart of this youth which
was being laid bare; but about that he cared very little. He was getting
at facts and emotions which were valuable to him in the terms of dollars
and cents.
"It makes me choke up," said Terence, "to have you offer me this great
thing. It's a fine name, Cornish. But you know that I can't do it. It
would be cowardly--a sort of rotten treason for me to change. It would be
wrong. I know it would be wrong. I'm a Colby, Aunt Elizabeth. Every time
that name is spoken, I feel it tingling down to my fingertips. I want to
stand straighter, live cleaner. When I looked at the old Colby place in
Virginia last year, it brought the tears to my eyes. I felt as if I were
a product of that soil. Every fine thing that has ever been done by a
Colby is a strength to me. I've studied them. And every now and then when
I come to some brave thing they've done, I wonder if I could do it. And
then I say to myself that I _must_ be able to do just such things or else
be a shame to my blood.
"Change my name? Why, I've gone all my life thanking God that I come of a
race of gentlemen, clean-handed, and praying God to make me worthy of it.
That name is like a whip over me. It drives me on and makes me want to do
some fine big thing one of these days. Think of it! I'm the last of a
race. I'm the end of it. The last of the Colbys! Why, when you think of
it, you see how I can't possibly change, don't you? If I lost that, I'd
lose the best half of myself and my self-respect! You understand, don't
you? Not that I slight the name of Cornish for an instant. But even if
names can be changed, blood can't be changed!"
She turned her head. She met the gleaming eyes of Vance, and then let her
glance probe the fire and shadow of the hearth.
"It's all right, my dear," she said faintly. "Stand up."
"I've hurt you," he said contritely, leaning over her. "I feel--like a
dog. Have I hurt you?"
"Not the least in the world. I only offered it for your happiness, Terry.
And if you don't need it, there's no more to be said!"
He bent and kissed her forehead.
The moment he had disappeared through the tall doorway, Vance, past
control, exploded.
"Of all the damnable exhibitions of pride in a young upstart, this--"
"Hush, hush!" said Elizabeth faintly. "It's the finest thing I've ever
heard Terry say. But it frightens me, Vance. It frightens me to know that
I've formed the character and the pride and the self-respect of that boy
on--a lie! Pray God that he never learns the truth!"