it less. Do you realize that you’re taking all I’ve got in the world
worth having, David? But of course you don’t; you young robbers never
do. Have you seen President Ford?”
“Yes; I have just had a talk with him and four of his directors. We are
to have a new contract, with increased estimates, and a square deal all
around. And bygones are to be bygones.”
Eben Grillage rocked his head slowly back and forth on the pillows, and
this time the grim smile was almost ghastly.
“You might have waited until I was safely under ground, you and Vinnie,
before you began on your Utopian house-wrecking,” he said, with a touch
of humor that was too bitter to be merely sardonic. “Are you trying to
tell me that Ford is going to pay more than the original contract calls
for?”
“Just that--for the right kind of work. I had to argue for a solid
hour, but I carried my point.”
“I suppose you told him that the old buccaneer was as good as dead, and
that the Golden Rule had been taken out of its wrappings and polished
up so you could see your face in it?”
At this the buccaneer’s daughter broke in, speaking for the first time
in the brisk interchange of question and reply.
“I can’t let you torture David that way!” she protested. “He speaks of
his debt to you, and you have spoken of it; can’t you see that he is
trying to pay it in the biggest, finest way there is?”
Again the big head wagged on the pillows.
“You’ll tell me, you two, that it is the day of the new generation, and
that I’m only a wornout back-number. Maybe it’s so. But Utopia isn’t
here yet, and the world I’ve fought in ... but what’s the use? You two
wouldn’t see it my way if I should talk till midnight. What is it that
you want to do, David?”
David slipped an arm around Virginia to make what he was about to say a
joint declaration.
“We mean to have you live to hear the Grillage Engineering Company
called the squarest contracting firm in the business; to see the time
when its bid will be the highest one made on a job, and yet will be
the bid that is accepted. That is how we shall try to pay some part of
the big debt. You’ll let us try for it, won’t you?”
For a full minute the fierce eyes were closed and the massive figure
outlined under the bed-clothes lay motionless and rigid. When the eyes
were unclosed the king of the contractors was himself again, in curt
decision and terseness of speech, at least.
“Have your way, both of you,” he growled. “It isn’t my way, and you
can’t hope to teach an old dog new tricks. Find Oswald, and we’ll draw
up some kind of a document that will put you in the saddle and give
you the authority to make the deal with Ford and his lawyers. And say:
tell Oswald to bring me a cigar--the blackest one he can find.... No, I
don’t care a damn what the doctor says!”
* * * * *
There was a double wedding in the Inn club-room a week later, the
Grillage private car having been sent all the way to Brewster to
bring the officiating clergyman. Contrary to all precedent--at least
in Virginia Grillage’s world--there was no formality. The Inn guests
were invited in a body; and on David’s side there was a crowding of
engineers in working clothes, of grade foremen and subcontractors, of
all and sundry who could be spared from the big job.
Eben Grillage, his great body propped in a wheel-chair, gave one of
the brides away; but the chief interest for the onlookers centered in
the slender, sylph-like figure of the other bride, whose face, almost
other-worldly in its delicate, rose-leaf beauty, was as the face of
an innocent child, and whose eyes, seeing neither the throng nor the
morning sunlight streaming through the windows of the transformed
lounging-room, were yet shining with happiness ineffable.
“I--I simply _can’t_ believe she is blind!” whispered one white-haired
mother of daughters among the witnesses; and there were others, also,
to wink away the quick-springing tears of sympathy.
Again, contrary to all precedent, there was no wedding journey to
follow the simple ceremony in the hotel club-room. Almost immediately
the Oswalds went across to the cottage they were to occupy; and a short
half-hour after her marriage, Virginia Vallory, clad in serviceable
khaki, forthfared with her husband to make a round over the job.
The sun was setting crimson fires alight in Qojogo’s cloud cap when
they returned to a late dinner. The summerers were thickly clustered
on the Inn porches, and the two who had just reached the summit of the
steep ridge path turned their backs upon the conventions and their
faces toward the western effulgences.
“You’ve had the better part of a day to think about it; are you sorry
for that little minute of confessions in the tunnel, Vinnie?” David
asked, as one still unable to realize his blessings and the full
magnitude of them.
“Sorry? Why should I be sorry?”
“You might have had an old and honorable title, you know,” he reminded
her. “Cumberleigh could have given you that much, at least.”
She glanced up with a bewitching little twist of the lips which
carried him swiftly back to childhood days, and to his memories of her
childhood.
“I have a title,” she retorted; “the most honorable title in all the
world. When I die it shall be graven on my tombstone.”
“Epitaphs--already?” he deprecated, with his sober smile. Then, in a
sudden rush of poignant tenderness: “Oh, my dear one--let us hope that
the day is far distant!”
“Amen!” she said softly; “because I don’t want to leave you, David.
But when the day does come I shall have my title: I thought of it
this afternoon when we were at McCulloch’s camp, and I stood aside and
heard you say, ‘No, Mac--do the job just as if you were doing it for
yourself.’ Then I saw just how my epitaph-title was going to read:
‘Here lies Virginia Vallory, the wife of an honest man.’ There now; if
that crowd wasn’t looking on with all its eyes, I’m sure you’d kiss me
for that. Let’s go in to dinner; I’m actually unromantic enough to be
fiercely hungry. Good-by, blessed sunset,” and she blew a kiss to the
crimson west.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.