LUELLA KNAPP
As the door swung open, my heart almost failed me. If there had been a
chance of escape I should have made the bolt, then and there.
I had not counted on an interview with the women of Doddridge Knapp's
family. I had, to be sure, vaguely foreseen the danger to come from
meeting them, but I had been confident that it would be easy to avoid
them. And now, in the face of the emergency, my resources had failed me,
and I was walking into Mrs. Knapp's reception-room without the glimmer
of an idea of how I should find my way out.
Two women rose to greet me as I entered the room.
“Good evening,” said the elder woman, holding out her hand. “You have
neglected us for a long time.” There was something of reproach as well
as civility in the voice.
Mrs. Doddridge Knapp, for I had no doubt it was she who greeted me, was
large of frame but well-proportioned, and stood erect, vigorous, with
an air of active strength rare in one of her years. Her age was, I
supposed, near forty-five. Her face was strong and resolute, yet it was
with the strength and resolution of a woman, not of a man. Altogether
she looked a fit mate for Doddridge Knapp.
“Yes,” I replied, adjusting my manner nicely to hers, “I have been very
busy.”
As she felt the touch of my hand and heard the sound of my voice, I
thought I saw a look of surprise, apprehension and hesitation in her
eyes. If it was there it was gone in an instant, and she replied gaily:
“Busy? How provoking of you to say so! You should never be too busy to
take the commands of the ladies.”
“That is why I am here,” I interrupted with my best bow. But she
continued without noting it:
“Luella wagered with me that you would make that excuse. I expected
something more original.”
“I am very sorry,” I said, with a reflection of the bantering air she
had assumed.
“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed the younger woman, to whom my eyes had turned
as Mrs. Knapp spoke her name. “How very unkind of you to say so, when I
have just won a pair of gloves by it. Good evening to you!” And she held
out her hand.
It was with a strong effort that I kept my self-possession, as for the
first time I clasped the hand of Luella Knapp.
Was it the thrill of her touch, the glance of her eye, or the magnetism
of her presence, that set my pulses beating to a new measure, and gave
my spirit a breath from a new world? Whatever the cause, as I looked
into the clear-cut face and the frank gray eyes of the woman before
me, I was swept by a flood of emotion that was near overpowering my
self-control.
Nor was it altogether the emotion of pleasure that was roused within me.
As I looked into her eyes, I had the pain of seeing myself in a light
that had not as yet come to me. I saw myself not the friend of Henry
Wilton, on the high mission of bringing to justice the man who had
foully sent him to death. In that flash I saw Giles Dudley hiding under
a false name, entering this house to seek for another link in the chain
that would drag this girl's father to the gallows and turn her life to
bitterness and misery. And in the reflection from the clear depths of
the face before me, I saw Imposter and Spy written large on my forehead.
I mastered the emotion in a moment and took the seat to which she had
waved me.
I was puzzled a little at the tone in which she addressed me. There was
a suggestion of resentment in her manner that grew on me as we talked.
Can I describe her? Of what use to try? She was not beautiful, and
“pretty” was too petty a word to apply to Luella Knapp. “Fine
looking,” if said with the proper emphasis, might give some idea of
her appearance, for she was tall in figure, with features that were
impressive in their attractiveness. Yet her main charm was in the light
that her spirit and intelligence threw on her face; and this no one can
describe.
The brightness of her speech did not disappoint the expectation I had
thus formed of her. It was a finely-cultivated mind that was revealed
to me, and it held a wit rare to woman. I followed her lead in the
conversational channel, giving but a guiding oar when it turned toward
acquaintances she held in common with Henry Wilton, or events that had
interested them together.
Through it all the idea that Miss Knapp was regarding me with a hidden
disapproval was growing on me. I decided that Henry had made some
uncommon blunder on his last visit and that I was suffering the penalty
for it. The admiration I felt for the young woman deepened with every
sentence she spoke, and I was ready to do anything to restore the good
opinion that Henry might have endangered, and in lieu of apology exerted
myself to the utmost to be agreeable.
I was unconscious of the flight of time until Mrs. Knapp turned from
some other guests and walked toward us.
“Come, Henry,” she said pointedly, “Luella is not to monopolize you all
the time. Besides, there's Mr. Inman dying to speak to her.”
I promptly hated Mr. Inman with all my heart and felt not the slightest
objection to his demise; but at her gesture of command I rose and
accompanied Mrs. Knapp, as a young man with eye-glasses and a smirk came
to take my place. I left Luella Knapp, congratulating myself over my
cleverness in escaping the pitfalls that lined my way.
“Now I've a chance to speak to you at last,” said Mrs. Knapp.
“At your service,” I bowed. “I owe you something.”
“Indeed?” Mrs. Knapp raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“For your kind recommendation to Mr. Knapp.”
“My recommendation? You have a little the advantage of me.”
I was stricken with painful doubts, and the cold sweat started upon me.
Perhaps this was not Mrs. Knapp after all.
“Oh, perhaps you didn't mean it,” I said.
“Indeed I did, if it was a recommendation. I'm afraid it was
unconscious, though. Mr. Knapp does not consult me about his business.”
I was in doubt no longer. It was the injured pride of the wife that
spoke in the tone.
“I'm none the less obliged,” I said carelessly. “He assured me that he
acted on your words.”
“What on earth are you doing for Mr. Knapp?” she asked earnestly,
dropping her half-bantering tone. There was a trace of apprehension in
her eyes.
“I'm afraid Mr. Knapp wouldn't think your recommendations were quite
justified if I should tell you. Just get him in a corner and ask him.”
“I suppose it is that dreadful stock market.”
“Oh, madam, let me say the chicken market. There is a wonderful
opportunity just now for a corner in fowls.”
“There are a good many to be plucked in the market that Mr. Knapp will
look after,” she said with a smile. But there was something of a worried
look behind it. “Oh, you know, Henry, that I can't bear the market. I
have seen too much of the misery that has come from it. It can eat up a
fortune in an hour. A dear friend saw her home, the house over her
head, all she possessed, go in a breath on a turn of the cards in that
dreadful place. And her husband left her to face it with two little
children. The coward escaped it with a bullet through his head, after he
had brought ruin on his home and family.”
She shuddered as she looked about her, as though in fancy she saw
herself turned from the palace into the street.
“Mr. Knapp is not a man to lose,” I said.
“Mr. Knapp is a strong man,” she said with a proud straightening of her
figure. “But the whirlpool can suck down the strongest swimmer.”
“But I suspect Mr. Knapp makes whirlpools instead of swimming into
them,” I said meaningly.
“Ah, Henry,” she said sadly, “how often have I told you that the best
plan may come to ruin in the market? It may not take much to start a
boulder rolling down the mountain-side, but who is to tell it to stop
when once it is set going?”
“I think,” said I, smiling, “that Mr. Knapp would ride the boulder and
find himself in a gold mine at the end of the journey.”
“Perhaps. But you're not telling me what Mr. Knapp is doing.”
“He can tell you much better than I.”
“No doubt,” she said with a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
“And here he comes to do it, I expect,” I said, as the tall figure of
the King of the Street appeared in the doorway opposite.
“I'm afraid I shall have to depend on the newspapers,” she said.
“Mr. Knapp is as much afraid of a woman's tongue as you are. Oh,” she
continued after a moment's pause, “I was going to make you give an
account of yourself; but since you will tell nothing I must introduce
you to my cousin, Mrs. Bowser.” And she led me, unresisting, to a short,
sharp-featured woman of sixty or thereabouts, who rustled her silks, and
in a high, thin voice professed herself charmed to see me.
She might have claimed and held the record as the champion of the
conversational ring. I had never met her equal before, nor have I met
one to surpass her since.
Had I been long in the city? She had been here only a week. Came from
down Maine way. This was a dear, dreadful city with such nice people and
such dreadful winds, wasn't it? And then she gave me a catalogue of the
places she had visited, and the attractions of San Francisco, with a
wealth of detail and a poverty of interest that was little less than
marvelous.
Fortunately she required nothing but an occasional murmur of assent in
the way of answer from me.
I looked across the room to the corner where Luella was entertaining
the insignificant Inman. How vivacious and intelligent she appeared!
Her face and figure grew on me in attractiveness, and I felt that I was
being very badly used. As I came to this point I was roused by the sound
of two low voices that just behind me were plainly audible under the
shrill treble of Mrs. Bowser. They were women with their heads close in
gossip.
“Shocking, isn't it?” said one.
“Dreadful!” said the other. “It gives me the creeps to think of it.”
“Why don't they lock him up? Such a creature shouldn't be allowed to go
at large.”
“Oh, you see, maybe they can't be sure about it. But I've heard it's a
case of family pride.”
I was recalled from this dialogue by Mrs. Bowser's fan on my arm,
and her shrill voice in my ear with, “What is your idea about it, Mr.
Wilton?”
“I think you are perfectly right,” I said heartily, as she paused for an
answer.
“Then I'll arrange it with the others at once,” she said.
This was a bucket of ice-water on me. I had not the first idea to what I
had committed myself.
“No, don't,” I said. “Wait till we have time to discuss it again.”
“Oh, we can decide on the time whenever you like. Will some night week
after next suit you?”
I had to throw myself on the mercy of the enemy.
“I'm afraid I'm getting rather absent-minded,” I said humbly. “I
was looking at Miss Knapp and lost the thread of the discourse for a
minute.”
“That's what I was talking about,” she said sharply,--“about taking her
and the rest of us through Chinatown.”
“Yes, yes. I remember,” I said unblushingly. “If I can get away from
business, I'm at your service at any time.”
Then Mrs. Bowser wandered on with the arrangements she would find
necessary to make, and I heard one of the low voices behind me:
“Now this is a profound secret, you know. I wouldn't have them know for
the world that any one suspects. I just heard it this week, myself.”
“Oh, I wouldn't dare breathe it to a soul,” said the other. “But I'm
sure I shan't sleep a wink tonight.” And they moved away.
I interrupted Mrs. Bowser to explain that I must speak to Mrs. Knapp,
and made my escape as some one stopped to pass a word with her.
“Oh, must you go, Henry?” said Mrs. Knapp. “Well, you must come again
soon. We miss you when you stay away. Don't let Mr. Knapp keep you too
closely.”
I professed myself happy to come whenever I could find the time, and
looked about for Luella. She was nowhere to be seen. I left the room a
little disappointed, but with a swelling of pride that I had passed the
dreaded ordeal and had been accepted as Henry Wilton in the house
in which I had most feared to meet disaster. My opinion of my own
cleverness had risen, in the language of the market, “above par.”
As I passed down the hall, a tall willowy figure stepped from the shadow
of the stair. My heart gave a bound of delight. It was Luella Knapp. I
should have the pleasure of a leave-taking in private.
“Oh, Miss Knapp!” I said. “I had despaired of having the chance to bid
you good night.” And I held out my hand.
She ignored the hand. I could see from her heaving bosom and shortened
breath that she was laboring under great agitation. Yet her face gave no
evidence of the effort that it cost her to control herself.
“I was waiting for you,” she said in a low voice.
I started to express my gratification when she interrupted me.
“Who are you?” broke from her lips almost fiercely.
I was completely taken aback, and stared at her in amazement with no
word at command.
“You are not Henry Wilton,” she said rapidly. “You have come here with
his name and his clothes, and made up to look like him, and you try to
use his voice and take his place. Who are you?”
There was a depth of scorn and anger and apprehension in that low voice
of hers that struck me dumb.
“Can you not answer?” she demanded, catching her breath with excitement.
“You are not Henry Wilton.”
“Well?” I said half-inquiringly. It was not safe to advance or retreat.
“Well--! well--!” She repeated my answer, with indignation and disdain
deepening in her voice. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
“What should I say?” I replied quietly. “You make an assertion. Is there
anything more to be said?”
“Oh, you may laugh at me if you please, because you can hoodwink the
others.”
I protested that laughter was the last thing I was thinking of at the
moment.
Then she burst out impetuously:
“Oh, if I were only a man! No; if I were a man I should be hoodwinked
like the rest. But you can not deceive me. Who are you? What are you
here for? What are you trying to do?”
She was blazing with wrath. Her tone had raised hardly an interval of
the scale, but every word that came in that smooth, low voice was heavy
with contempt and anger. It was the true daughter of the Wolf who stood
before me.
“I am afraid, Miss Knapp, you are not well tonight,” I said soothingly.
“What have you done with Henry Wilton?” she asked fiercely. “Don't try
to speak with his voice. Drop your disguise. You are no actor. You are
no more like him than--”
The simile failed her in her wrath.
“Satyr to Hyperion,” I quoted bitterly. “Make it strong, please.”
I had thought myself in a tight place in the row at Borton's, but it was
nothing to this encounter.
“Oh, where is he? What has happened?” she cried.
“Nothing has happened,” I said calmly, determining at last to brazen it
out. I could not tell her the truth. “My name is Henry Wilton.”
She looked at me in anger a moment, and then a shadow of dread and
despair settled over her face.
I was tempted beyond measure to throw myself on her mercy and tell all.
The subtle sympathy that she inspired was softening my resolution. Yet,
as I looked into her eyes, her face hardened, and her wrath blazed forth
once more.
“Go!” she said. “I hope I may never see you again!” And she turned and
ran swiftly up the stair. I thought I heard a sob, but whether of anger
or sorrow I knew not.
And I went out into the night with a heavier load of depression than I
had borne since I entered the city.