JOHN BOLAND MEETS MARY RANDALL
But Patience did not leave the office of the Lake City Electrical Company
as quickly as she had hoped to do. She was intercepted by the young man,
who deliberately placed himself between her and the door, effectually
blocking the way.
He eyed the small figure in black with an inquisitiveness which was
almost rude, attempting to peer through the meshes of the heavy veil, as
he spoke to Miss Masters:
"I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone."
Before she could reply a rasping voice called from the inner office:
"Oh, Harry, send Miss Masters in here, will you?"
"The Governor wants you, Miss Masters," said Harry, his eyes still on
Patience.
"I'm coming, Mr. Boland," proclaimed the stenographer.
With only a glance at her companions, she made a detour of the desk in
the center of the room and glided into the other office.
"I'm afraid Miss Masters may be kept busy for some time," volunteered
Harry kindly, "but if--if you care to wait--"
Patience only bowed her head and attempted to pass him; but she caught
her breath quickly and her body swayed slightly, but perceptibly.
"I beg your pardon," went on Harry, fencing for time.
Again endeavoring to pass him, she staggered and put out one hand to
steady herself, which Harry clasped quickly.
"Let me help you," he said.
She made a movement to release her hand as she recovered from the
dizziness which had seized her.
"Better put up your veil, dear," said Harry gently. "I'm sure it is you."
"Please!" pleaded Patience. The word was scarcely audible.
"Put up your veil," he persisted.
When she complied, he gazed into her deep, dark eyes and stroked her hand
tenderly.
"Did you think I could be in the same room with you and not know you? Oh,
my dear--"
"No, Harry, no!" protested Patience, withdrawing her hand.
"If you knew how long and patiently I've searched for you, I don't think
you could be so unkind."
"It's the only safe way," she replied, stepping away from him and
clutching the back of a chair.
"Why?" he asked as he went close to her again.
"Because--because--"
"Because you do really care for me and you're fighting against yourself."
"Please let me go," begged Patience.
"No!" returned the young man stoutly.
"What shall I do?" she pleaded distractedly.
"Just turn around," was the smiling retort, "and run straight into the
arms of the man who loves you."
"And bring trouble and sorrow on you? No--no--no!"
"I don't understand."
"Please don't ask me," she went on. "I've been through the deep waters of
grief and suffering. Harry, I've been hungry."
"Hungry!" exclaimed Harry. "Oh, my poor girl, you must let me--"
Patience shook her head slowly, sadly; an eager light of desire for his
love and tender care illuminated her face.
"Do you love me?" pursued the young man fervently.
"You mustn't ask me that--wait!"
"And lose you again?" He laid his hand on one of hers. "No; I want my
answer now."
A harsh, commanding voice interrupted them.
"Harry!"
Patience started and drew her hand from beneath the other's touch as an
elderly man came into the room.
"Governor!" exclaimed Harry, a little surprised, but entirely composed as
he went on:
"Governor, I want you to meet the young lady who is to be my wife."
"What!" ejaculated John Boland, scarcely believing his own ears.
"Miss Patience Welcome."
"Welcome?" the older man turned his back to conceal the startled
expression which came over his features.
"Yes. This is my good old dad, Patience," said Harry, laying one arm
affectionately about his father's shoulders.
"Rather sudden, isn't it?" demanded Boland, senior, in a sharp tone.
But Harry was accustomed to his father's abrupt ways and gave no heed to
the testiness of the query.
"No, Governor, I met Miss Welcome when I was in Millville."
"Oh, yes," hemmed John Boland, truculently unmindful of the introduction.
"But just now get that contract off; Miss Masters is waiting."
"All right," assented Harry cheerfully. Then he turned to Patience. "I
won't be long, dear."
Boland placed himself before his desk, covertly watching from beneath his
shaggy, lowered brows until his son had disappeared. Then he cleared his
throat and wheeled upon Patience without ceremony.
"Now, listen, Miss Welcome, you're not taking this seriously, I hope."
"No, Mr. Boland," she replied, moving toward the door. "I've tried to
tell Harry how impossible it is--that--"
"You're a sensible girl," he broke in bluntly. "As it happens, Harry is
already engaged."
The girl's breath came in short, sharp gasps, but she managed to control
her voice as she murmured:
"He is?"
"Yes."
Boland placed his fingers in his vest pocket and drew out a fountain pen,
the point of which he examined attentively. Patience felt that she ought
to go at once, but somehow she couldn't. She stood there trembling,
scarcely knowing whether or not she should believe the other's statement.
She could not believe that Harry would do such an ignoble thing.
Boland glanced over his shoulder and saw her still hesitating on the
threshold.
"Yes," he repeated blandly. "He is going to marry the daughter of my
business partner--a girl who will inherit half a million."
He could see from the corner of his eye that the shot had told, but still
Patience lingered, dazed.
"I--I see," she faltered weakly.
"Now you go along like a good girl," advised Boland, "and I'll see that
you are treated fairly."
He opened a pretentious looking check book which lay on the desk.
"Just tell me how much you want and--"
"Nothing!" was the firm, decisive reply.
He eyed the girl critically as he remarked:
"You look as though ready money were a stranger to you."
"It is--but I have a position with the Mining Company in this building."
"I know them," declared Boland thoughtfully. Patience made no comment.
She went on proudly, drawing her figure to its full height:
"And I want nothing; I am _giving_ you back your son, Mr. Boland, I am
not selling him to you."
He shrugged his shoulders and stared stupidly at the vacant doorway as he
heard the girlish voice in the hallway, saying:
"Down, please."
He closed his check book with a snap, and involuntarily fumbled about his
well arranged desk, replacing a paper here and a contract there.
"Hum!" he mused, "I thought there was something wrong with Harry."
The desk telephone rang sharply. He picked up the instrument and placed
the receiver to his ear.
"Hello! hello!" he jerked out irritably. "Yes--yes, this is John Boland.
Who wants me?"
His acute features contracted as he listened to the reply.
"Oh, Martin Druce," he said. "Want to see me about the lease of the Cafe
Sinister, eh?"
His mind worked rapidly while he again listened.
"All right," he blustered finally, "all right, see you in fifteen
minutes. Yes,--yes, here!"
He hung up the receiver and took a cigar from his pocket, thoughtfully
biting off the end, as he muttered half aloud:
"Martin Druce, eh? Cafe Sinister--Ah!"
His lips ceased moving as he looked about him. He was still thinking
deeply; then he struck a match and lighted the cigar at the glowing flame
which he contemplated for a second before extinguishing it. With a look
of one who has just solved a problem, he cast aside the charred ember and
gritted:
"I guess so."
He seized a sheet of paper and rapidly scratched a few words on its white
surface, settling back comfortably in the big chair as Harry came in.
"All right, Governor," called out the son; but he paused in astonishment
when he saw that his father was alone. "Why--why, where's Patience?"
"Miss Welcome had to go,--she said," returned the other, calmly puffing
his cigar.
"Didn't she leave any word for me?"
"Yes, she said she'd see you again."
"When?" asked Harry, impatiently. "Why, I don't even know where she
lives."
"I thought of that," replied his father, as he handed the memorandum slip
to Harry, on which he had just written. "Here's her address."
Harry took the bit of paper gratefully, and looked at it.
"Why--"
"What's the matter?" John Boland surveyed the wrapper of his cigar with
keen interest, deftly closing a small broken place in it.
"This address!" exclaimed Harry.
"Well, what about it?"
"It's in the lowest, most depraved section of the city."
"Yes, I noticed that."
Harry looked up at his father quizzically.
"You did?"
"Yes."
"Governor," began Harry pointedly, a new idea beginning to dawn upon him,
"if you do not know that a great deal of your property is rented and used
for the most immoral purposes how do you know this address so well?"
"Why," spluttered Boland, senior, "I--I've read the papers."
"But this vile section of the city that you own has never been
published."
"Look here, Harry," demanded his father, aggressively, "do you doubt my
word?"
"I do," was the firm reply.
"I'm your father," he retorted angrily.
"You are," agreed Harry, "but this is a matter of right and wrong, and
you can't fool me again as you have all these years."
"I'll show you who's master," threatened John Boland, grimly.
"It's your privilege to try," conceded the son with suppressed anger.
"Hold on--hold on," hedged his father, apologetically, "don't let's get
mad about it. Finish up that contract and then--"
"And then?"
Harry's manner was alert, defensive, but wholly questioning.
"Then we'll talk this over calmly."
"All right, but Governor--" the young man turned at the door, grasping
the contract in one hand as he put out the other warningly and pointed
with his forefinger to the scrap of paper he had laid on the desk, on
which was written Patience's supposed address: "Let me give you a piece
of advice. Don't try to fool me."
John Boland stood motionless for a moment looking after his son; then he
clenched his hand and brought it down on the desk with a forcible thump,
as he thought:
"I've got to do something--quick."
"Well, made up your mind to see me, did you, Mr. Boland?"
Martin Druce's suave voice recalled Boland from the revery into which he
had lapsed.
"Yes," he replied quickly, walking to the door through which Harry had
gone and closing it.
"Now, don't talk," he commanded as he returned to his desk. "Listen! You
and Anson want a renewal of the lease for the Cafe Sinister, don't you?"
"Sure," responded Druce, affably. "And I suppose you'll raise the rent on
us."
"No," replied Boland, shaking his head.
"Eh?"
"Not if you're smart."
"I don't get you," announced Druce inquiringly, as he seated himself on
the edge of the desk.
"My boy, Harry, thinks he is in love with a girl who has come to
Chicago."
"Yes, Mr. Boland, but I don't see--"
"Now," continued Boland, regardless of the interruption, "if Harry
happened to see this girl in some questionable resort,--say, like Cafe
Sinister--if he were tipped off that this girl would be there--"
"I get you." Druce sprang to his feet; he was now keen and alert, like a
hound on the scent. "Who's the girl?"
"She's got a position of some kind with the Alpha Mining Company on this
floor," replied Boland. "She'll lose that tomorrow."
"I'm on. What's her name?"
"Patience Welcome!"
"What!" exclaimed Druce, with a sneering twist to the word.
"Do you know her?"
"Yes."
"Well?" Boland gazed at him, anxiously awaiting the reply.
"About the lease?" veered Druce with cunning perception.
Boland hesitated and scrutinized the other closely. He was satisfied with
what he saw stamped on Druce's face, but he only said pointedly:
"I always make good when a man delivers the goods. Now get out--I'm
busy."
"On my way," returned Druce easily, as he sauntered to the door, but he
turned there, saying significantly:
"I'll deliver the goods,--don't worry."
John Boland sighed contentedly as he watched Druce go. Then he muttered:
"There, I guess I--"
"All right, Mr. Boland," rang out a clear feminine voice, as Miss Masters
came from the inner office. "That contract is all ready."
"Oh, Miss Masters!"
"Yes, Mr. Boland," she replied in saccharine tones.
"Make out a lease for that property in South Twelfth street."
"For the Cafe Sinister, John?" inquired Michael Grogan, who had followed
Miss Masters into the main office. "You're crazy."
"Oh, shut up, Mike," snapped Boland. "What ails you, anyway?"
"I've been reading the last edition," replied Grogan, lugubriously. "Mary
Randall has had special officers sworn in at her own expense to help her
make raids. She's put goose flesh all over me."
"Let me see it."
Boland took the paper which Grogan was fingering nervously.
"Take it," said the Irishman. "It's a live coal."
The other glanced over the sheet and threw it on the desk.
"Get busy on that lease, Miss Masters," he commanded.
"Just a moment, Governor," interrupted Harry, who had overheard the
conversation as he came in. "If you lease that property to that hound,
Anson, you and I are through."
"What?" exclaimed John Boland, astounded.
"It has come to a show-down," went on Harry, with determination expressed
in both his tone and manner, "and I'm damned if I'll touch a cent of
dirty money like that."
"You've been reading the Mary Randall stuff, eh?" sneered his father.
"Yes. And she's right. Now, you make your choice."
"Hold on--hold on," commanded the irate father. "Aren't you forgetting
that I own and control this Lake City Company--that you are--"
"No! I realize that," retorted Harry, resolutely.
"All right!" Boland turned to Miss Masters grimly: "Make out that lease
to Anson."
"Then here," said Harry quietly, as he wrote a few words on a sheet of
blank paper and laid it on the desk; "here is my resignation as president
of your Electrical Company, to take effect _now_."
"Harry!" protested his father.
"I'll get my personal things together at once," went on the young man,
securing his hat from the rack.
"This has gone far enough," rasped John Boland, springing to his feet.
"I'll show this Mary Randall there's one she can't scare."
He paced nervously up and down the office, pausing finally beside his
desk.
"Miss Masters, take an open letter from me to the newspapers."
He did not notice the actions of the stenographer as he dictated:
"I, John Boland, am a business man. I stand on my record. I defy Miss
Mary Randall--"
In pausing to formulate his thoughts, he became conscious that Miss
Masters had not been taking his dictation; that she had laid an envelope
on his desk directly in front of where he usually sat, and that she was
putting on her hat.
"Here, hold on!" he cried peremptorily. "What does this mean, Miss
Masters?"
"It means, Mr. Boland," she replied quietly, as she adjusted a hat pin,
"that I have resigned. Good day."
When she started to leave Boland called out to her in amazement:
"Here--wait--why do you resign?"
"That letter on the desk will tell you," she said as she moved through
the doorway. "Good day."
John Boland picked up the letter and opened it. He was dazed as he read
aloud:
"I refuse to lend my aid to the owners of vice property. Mary Randall."
Boland stared into space, while Harry exclaimed:
"Then Miss Masters is Mary Randall!"
"Murder, alive!" yelled Grogan. He slid down in his chair and attempted
to conceal himself beneath the desk.
John Boland's hands trembled as he clutched the letter.
"Mary Randall," he said, still dazed. "By all that's holy! That girl Mary
Randall!"