THE DESERTER
Bruce was incensed at the cool manner in which Katherine had taken
leave of him without so much as hinting at her purpose. In offering
her aid and telling her his plans he had made certain advances. She
had responded to these overtures by telling nothing. He felt he had
been snubbed, and he resented such treatment all the more from a woman
toward whom he had somewhat relaxed his dignity and his principles.
As he sat alone on his porch that night he breathed out along with his
smoke an accompanying fire of profanity; but for all his wrath, he
could not keep the questions from arising. Why had she gone? What was
she going to do? Was she coming back? Had she given up her father's
case, and had she been silent to him that afternoon about her going
for the simple reason that she had been ashamed to acknowledge her
retreat?
He waited impatiently for the return of his uncle, who had been absent
that evening from supper. He thought that Hosie might answer these
questions since he knew the old man to be on friendly terms with
Katherine. But when Old Hosie did shuffle up the gravel walk, he was
almost as much at a loss as his nephew. True, a note from Katherine
had been thrust under his door telling him she wished to talk with him
that afternoon; but he had spent the day looking at farms and had not
found the note till his return from the country half an hour before.
Bruce flung away his cigar in exasperation, and the dry night
air was vibrant with half-whispered but perfervid curses. She was
irritating, erratic, irrational, irresponsible--preposterous, simply
preposterous--damn that kind of women anyhow! They pretended to be a
lot, but there wasn't a damned thing to them!
But he could not subdue his curiosity, though he fervently informed
himself of the thousand and one kinds of an unblessed fool he was for
bothering his head about her. Nor could he banish her image. Her
figure kept rising before him out of the hot, dusty blackness: as she
had appeared before the jury yesterday, slender, spirited,
clever--yes, she had spoken cleverly, he would admit that; as she had
appeared in her parlour that afternoon, a graceful, courteous,
self-possessed home person; as he had seen her in Mr. Huggins's old
surrey, with her exasperating, non-committal, cool little nod. But
why, oh, why, in the name of the flaming rendezvous of lost and
sizzling souls couldn't a woman with her qualities also have just one
grain--only one single little grain!--of the commonest common-sense?
The next morning Bruce sent young Harper to inquire from Doctor West
in the jail, and after that from Katherine's aunt, why Katherine had
gone to New York, whether she had abandoned the case, and whether she
had gone for good. But if these old people knew anything, they did not
tell it to Billy Harper.
Westville buzzed over Katherine's disappearance. The piazzas, the
soda-water fountains, the dry goods counters, the Ladies' Aid, were at
no loss for an explanation of her departure. She had lost her
case--she had discovered that she was a failure as a lawyer--she had
learned what Westville thought of her--so what other course was open
to her but to slip out of town as quietly as she could and return to
the place from which she had come?
The Women's Club in particular rejoiced at her withdrawal. Thank God,
a pernicious example to the rising young womanhood of the town was at
last removed! Perhaps woman's righteous disapproval of Katherine had a
deeper reason than was expressed--for what most self-searching person
truly knows the exact motives that prompt his actions? Perhaps, far
down within these righteously indignant bosoms, was unconsciously but
potently this question: if that type of woman succeeds and wins man's
approval, then what is going to become of us who have been built upon
man's former taste? At any rate, feminine Westville declared it a
blessing that "that terrible thing" was gone.
Westville continued to buzz, but it soon had matters more worth its
buzzing. Pressing the heels of one another there came two amazing
surprises. The city had taken for granted the nomination of Kennedy
for mayor, but the convention's second ballot declared Blake the
nominee. Blake had given heed to Mr. Brown's advice and had decided to
take no slightest risk; but to the people he let it be known that he
had accepted the nomination to help the city out of its water-works
predicament, and Westville, recognizing his personal sacrifice, rang
with applause of his public spirit. The respectable element looked
forward with self-congratulation to him as the next chief of the
city--for he would have an easy victory over any low politician who
would consent to be Blind Charlie's candidate.
Then, without warning, came Bruce's nomination, with a splendid list
of lesser candidates, and upon a most progressive platform. Westville
gasped again. Then recovering from its amazement, it was inclined to
take this nomination as a joke. But Bruce soon checked their
jocularity. That he was fighting for an apparently defunct cause
seemed to make no difference to him. Perhaps Old Hosie had spoken more
wisely than he had intended when he had once sarcastically remarked
that Bruce was "a cross between a bulldog and Don Quixote." Certainly
the qualities of both strains were now in evidence. He sprang
instantly into the campaign, and by the power and energy of his
speeches and of his editorials in the _Express_, he fairly raised his
issue from the dead. Bruce did not have a show, declared the
people--not the ghost of a show--but if he maintained the ferocious
earnestness with which he was starting out, this certainly was going
to be the hottest campaign which Westville had seen since Blake had
overthrown Blind Charlie Peck.
People recalled Katherine now and then to wonder what she was doing
and how mortified she must feel over her fiasco, and to laugh
good-naturedly or sarcastically at the pricked soap-bubble of her
pretensions. But the newer and present excitement of the campaign was
forcing her into the comparative insignificance of all receding
phenomena--when, one late September Sunday morning, Westville, or
that select portion of Westville which attended the Wabash Avenue
Church, was astonished by the sight of Katherine West walking very
composedly up the church's left aisle, looking in exceedingly good
health and particularly stunning in a tailor-made gown of rich brown
corduroy.
She quietly entered a vacant pew and slipped to a position which
allowed her an unobstructed view of Doctor Sherman, and which allowed
Doctor Sherman an equally unobstructed view of her. Worshippers who
stared her way noticed that she seemed never to take her gaze from the
figure in the pulpit; and it was remarked, after the service was over,
that though Doctor Sherman's discourses had been falling off of
late--poor man, his health was failing so!--to-day's was quite the
poorest sermon he had ever preached.
The service ended, Katherine went quietly out of the church, smiling
and bowing to such as met her eyes, and leaving an active tongue in
every mouth behind her. So she had come back! Well, of all the nerve!
Did you ever! Was she going to stay? What did she think she was going
to do? And so on all the way home, to where awaited the heavy Sunday
dinner on which Westville gorged itself python-like--if it be not
sacrilege to compare communicants with such heathen beasts--till they
could scarcely move; till, toward three o'clock, the church paper
sank down upon the distended stomachs of middle age, and there arose
from all the easy chairs of Westville an unrehearsed and somewhat
inarticulate, but very hearty, hymnal in praise of the bounty of the
Creator.
At about the time Westville was starting up this chorus, Old Hosie
Hollingsworth, in Katherine's parlour, deposited his rusty silk hat
upon the square mahogany piano that had been Doctor West's wedding
gift to his wife. The old lawyer lowered himself into a rocker,
crossed his attenuated legs, and shook his head.
"Land sakes--I certainly was surprised to get your note!" he repeated.
"When did you get back?"
"Late last night."
He stared admiringly at her fresh young figure.
"I must say, you don't look much like a lawyer who has lost her first
case and has sneaked out of town to hide her mortification!"
"Is that what people have been saying?" she smiled. "Well, I don't
feel like one!"
"Then you haven't given up?"
"Given up?" She lifted her eyebrows. "I've just begun. It's still a
hard case, perhaps a long case; but at last I have a start. And I have
some great plans. It was to ask your advice about these plans that I
sent for you."
"My advice! Huh! I ain't ever been married--not even so much as once,"
he commented dryly, "but I've been told by unfortunates that have that
it's the female way to do a thing and then ask whether she should do
it or not."
"Now, don't be cynical!" laughed Katherine. "You know I tried to
consult you before I went away. But it still is not too late for your
advice. I'll put my plans before you, and if your masculine wisdom,
whose superiority you have proved by keeping yourself unmarried, can
show me wherein I'm wrong, I'll change them or drop them altogether."
"Fire away," he said, half grumbling. "What are your plans?"
"They're on a rather big scale. First, I shall put a detective on the
case."
"That's all right, but don't you underestimate Harrison Blake," warned
Old Hosie. "Since you've come back Blake will be sure you're after
him. He will be on his guard against you; he will expect you to use a
detective; he will watch out for him, perhaps try to have his every
move shadowed. I suppose you never thought of that?" he demanded
triumphantly.
"Oh, yes I did," Katherine returned. "That's why I'm going to hire two
detectives."
The old man raised his eyebrows.
"Two detectives?"
"Yes. One for Mr. Blake to watch. One to do the real work."
"Oh!" It was an ejaculation of dawning comprehension.
"The first detective will be a mere blind; a decoy to engage Mr.
Blake's attention. He must be a little obvious, rather blundering--so
that Mr. Blake can't miss him. He will know nothing about my real
scheme at all. While Mr. Blake's attention and suspicion are fixed on
the first man, the second man, who is to be a real detective with real
brains in his head, will get in the real work."
"Splendid! Splendid!" cried Old Hosie, looking at her
enthusiastically. "And yet that pup of a nephew of mine sniffs out,
'Her a lawyer? Nothing! She's only a woman!'"
Katherine flushed. "That's what I want Mr. Blake to think."
"To underestimate you--yes, I see. Have you got your first man?"
"No. I thought you might help me find him, for a local man, or a state
man, will be best; it will be easiest for him to be found out to be a
detective."
"I've got just the article for you," cried Old Hosie. "You know Elijah
Stone?"
"No. But, of course, I've seen him."
"He's Westville's best and only. He thinks he's something terrible as
a detective--what you might call a hyper-super-ultra detective.
Detective sticks out big all over him--like a sort of universal mumps.
He never looks except when he looks cautiously out of the corner of
his eye; he walks on his tiptoes; he talks in whispers; he simply
oozes mystery. Fat head?--why, Lige Stone wears his hat on a can of
lard!"
"Come, I'm not engaging a low comedian for a comic opera."
"Oh, he's not so bad as I said. He's really got a reputation. He's
just the kind of a detective that an inexperienced girl might pick up.
Blake will soon find out you've hired him, he'll believe it a bona
fide arrangement on your part, and will have a lot of quiet laughs at
your simplicity. God made Lige especially for you."
"All right. I'll see him to-morrow."
"Have you thought about the other detective?"
"Yes. One reason I went to New York was to try to get a particular
person--Mr. Manning, with whom I've worked on some cases for the
Municipal League. He has six children, and is very much in love with
his wife. The last thing he looks like is a detective. He might pass
for a superintendent of a store, or a broker. But he's very, very
competent and clever, and is always master of himself."
"And you got him?"
"Yes. But he can't come for a couple of weeks. He is finishing up a
case for the Municipal League."
"How are you going to use him?"
"I don't just know yet. Perhaps I can fit him into a second scheme of
mine. You've heard of Mr. Seymour, of Seymour & Burnett?"
"The big bankers and brokers?"
"Yes. I knew Elinor Seymour at Vassar, and I visited her several
times; and as Mr. Seymour is president of the Municipal League,
altogether I saw him quite a great deal. I don't mean to be conceited,
but I really believe Mr. Seymour has a lot of confidence in me."
"That's a fine compliment to his sense," Old Hosie put in.
"He's about the most decent of the big capitalists," she went on. "He
was my second reason for going to New York. When I got there he had
just left to spend a week-end in Paris, or something of the sort. I
had to wait till he came back; that's why I was gone so long. I went
to him with a plain business proposition. I gave him a hint of the
situation out here, told him there was a chance the water-works might
be sold, and asked authority to buy the system in for him."
"And how did he take it?" Old Hosie asked eagerly.
"You behold in me an accredited agent of Seymour & Burnett. I don't
know yet how I shall use that authority, but if I can't do anything
better, and if the worst comes to the very worst, I'll buy in the
plant, defeat Mr. Blake, and see that the city gets something like a
fair price for its property."
Old Hosie stared at her in open admiration. "Well, if you don't beat
the band!" he exclaimed.
"In the meantime, I shall busy myself with trying to get my father's
case appealed. But that is really only a blind; behind that I shall
every minute be watching Mr. Blake. Now, what do you think of my
plans? You know I called you in for your advice."
"Advice! You need advice about as much as an angel needs a hat pin!"
"But I'm willing to change my plans if you have any suggestions."
"I was a conceited old idiot when I was a little sore awhile ago
because you had called me in for my opinion after you had settled
everything. Go right ahead. It's fine. Fine, I tell you!" He chuckled.
"And to think that Harrison Blake thinks he's bucking up against only
a woman. Just a simple, inexperienced, dear, bustling, blundering
woman! What a jar he's got coming to him!"
"We mustn't be too hopeful," warned Katherine. "There's a long, hard
fight ahead. Perhaps my plan may not work out. And remember that,
after all, I am only a woman."
"But if you do win!" His old eyes glowed excitedly. "Your father
cleared, the idol of the town upset, the water-works saved--think what
a noise all that will make!"
A new thought slowly dawned into his face. "H'm--this old town hasn't
been, well, exactly hospitable to you; has laughed at you--sneered at
you--given you the cold shoulder."
"Has it? What do I care!"
"It would be sort of nice, now wouldn't it," he continued slowly,
keenly, with his subdued excitement, "sort of heaping coals of fire on
Westville's roofs, if the town, after having cut you dead, should find
that it had been saved by you. I suppose you've never thought of that
aspect of the case--eh? I suppose it has never occurred to you that in
saving your father you'll also save the town?"
She flushed--and smiled a little.
"Oh, so we've already thought of that, have we. I see I can't suggest
anything new to you. Let the old town jeer all it wants to now, we'll
show 'em in the end!--is that it?"
She smiled again, but did not answer him.
"Now you'll excuse me, won't you, for I promised to call on father
this afternoon?"
"Certainly." He rose. "How is your father--or haven't you seen him
yet?"
"I called at the jail first thing this morning. He's very cheerful."
"That's good. Well, good-by."
Old Hosie was reaching for his hat, but just then a firm step sounded
on the porch and there was a ring of the bell. Katherine crossed the
parlour and swung open the screen. Standing without the door was
Bruce, a challenging, defiant look upon his face.
"Why, Mr. Bruce," she exclaimed, smiling pleasantly. "Won't you please
come in?"
"Thank you," he said shortly.
He bowed and entered, but stopped short at sight of his uncle.
"Hello! You here?"
"Just to give an off-hand opinion, I should say I am." Old Hosie
smiled sweetly, put his hat back upon the piano and sank into his
chair. "I just dropped in to tell Miss Katherine some of those very
clever and cutting things you've said to me about the idea of a woman
being a lawyer. I've been expostulating with her--trying to show her
the error of her ways--trying to prove to her that she wasn't really
clever and didn't have the first qualification for law."
"You please let me speak for myself!" retorted Bruce. "How long are
you going to stay here?"
Old Hosie recrossed his long legs and settled back with the air of the
rock of ages.
"Why, I was expecting Miss Katherine was going to invite me to stay to
supper."
"Well, I guess you won't. You please remember this is your month to
look after Jim. Now you trot along home and see that he don't fry the
steak to a shingle the way you let him do it last night."
"Last night I was reading your editorial on the prospects of the
corn crop and I got so worked up as to how it was coming out that
I forgot all about that wooden-headed nigger. I tell you, Arn, that
editorial was one of the most exciting, stirring, nerve-racking,
hair-breadth----"
"Come, get along with you!" Bruce interrupted impatiently. "I want to
talk some business with Miss West!"
Old Hosie rose.
"You see how he treats me," he said plaintively to Katherine. "I
haven't had one kind word from that young pup since, when he was in
high-school, he got so stuck on himself because he imagined every girl
in town was in love with him."
Bruce took Old Hosie's silk hat from the piano and held it out to him.
"You certainly won't get a kind word from me to-night if that steak is
burnt!"
Katherine followed Hosie out upon the porch.
"He's a great boy," whispered the old man proudly--"if only I can
lick his infernal conceit out of him!" He gripped her hand. "Good-by,
and luck with you!"
She watched the bent, spare figure down the walk, then went in to
Bruce. The editor was standing stiffly in the middle of the parlour.
"I trust that my call is not inopportune?"
"I'm glad to see you, but it does so happen that I promised father to
call at five o'clock. And it's now twenty minutes to."
"Perhaps you will allow me to walk there with you?"
"But wouldn't that be, ah--a little dangerous?"
"Dangerous?"
"Yes. Perhaps you forget that Westville disapproves of me. It might
not be a very politic thing for a candidate for mayor to be seen upon
the street with so unpopular a person. It might cost votes, you know."
He flushed.
"If the people in this town don't like what I do, they can vote for
Harrison Blake!" He swung open the door. "If you want to get there on
time, we must start at once."
Two minutes later they were out in the street together. People whom
they passed paused and stared back at them; groups of young men and
women, courting collectively on front lawns, ceased their flirtatious
chaffing and their bombardments with handfuls of loose grass, and
nudged one another and sat with eyes fixed on the passing pair; and
many a solid burgher, out on his piazza, waking from his devotional
and digestive nap, blinked his eyes unbelievingly at the sight of a
candidate for mayor walking along the street with that discredited
lady lawyer who had fled the town in chagrin after losing her first
case.
At the start Katherine kept the conversation upon Bruce's candidacy.
He told her that matters were going even better than he had hoped; and
informed her, with an air of triumph he did not try to conceal, that
Blind Charlie Peck had been giving him an absolutely free rein, and
that he was more than ever convinced that he had correctly judged that
politician's motives. Katherine meekly accepted this implicit rebuke
of her presumption, and congratulated him upon the vindication of his
judgment.
"But I came to you to talk about your affairs, not mine," he said as
they turned into Main Street. "I half thought, when you left, that you
had gone for good. But your coming back proves you haven't given up.
May I ask what your plans are, and how they are developing?"
Her eyes dropped to the sidewalk, and she seemed to be embarrassed for
words. It was not wholly his fault that he interpreted her as
crest-fallen, for Katherine was not lacking in the wiles of Eve.
"Your plans have not been prospering very well, then?" he asked, after
a pause.
"Oh, don't think that; I still have hopes," she answered hurriedly. "I
am going to keep right on at the case--keep at it hard."
"Were you successful in what you went to New York for?"
"I can't tell yet. It's too early. But I hope something will come of
it."
He tried to get a glimpse of her face, but she kept it fixed upon the
ground--to hide her discomfiture, he thought.
"Now listen to me," he said kindly, with the kindness of the superior
mind. "Here's what I came to tell you, and I hope you won't take it
amiss. I admire you for the way you took your father's case when no
other lawyer would touch it. You have done your best. But now, I
judge, you are at a standstill. At this particular moment it is highly
imperative that the case go forward with highest speed. You understand
me?"
"I think I do," she said meekly. "You mean that a man could do much
better with the case than a woman?"
"Frankly, yes--still meaning no offense to you. You see how much hangs
upon your father's case besides his own honour. There is the
election, the whole future of the city. You see we are really facing a
crisis. We have got to have quick action. In this crisis, being in the
dark as to what you were doing, and feeling a personal responsibility
in the matter, I have presumed to hint at the outlines of the case to
a lawyer friend of mine in Indianapolis; and I have engaged him,
subject to your approval, to take charge of the matter."
"Of course," said Katherine, her eyes still upon the sidewalk, "this
man lawyer would expect to be the chief counsel?"
"Being older, and more experienced----"
"And being a man," Katherine softly supplied.
"He of course would expect to have full charge--naturally," Bruce
concluded.
"Naturally," echoed Katherine.
"Of course you would agree to that?"
"I was just trying to think what a man would do," she said
meditatively, in the same soft tone. "But I suppose a man, after he
had taken a case when no one else would take it, when it was
hopeless--after he had spent months upon it, made himself unpopular by
representing an unpopular cause, and finally worked out a line of
defense that, when the evidence is gained, will not only clear his
client but astound the city--after he had triumph and reputation
almost within his grasp, I suppose a man would be quite willing to
step down and out and hand over the glory to a newcomer."
He looked at her sharply. But her face, or what he saw of it, showed
no dissembling.
"But you are not stating the matter fairly," he said. "You should
consider the fact that you are at the end of your rope!"
"Yes, I suppose I should consider that," she said slowly.
They were passing the Court House now. He tried to study her face, but
it continued bent upon the sidewalk, as if in thought. They reached
the jail, and she mounted the first step.
"Well, what do you say?" he asked.
She slowly raised her eyes and looked down on him guilelessly.
"You've been most thoughtful and kind--but if it's just the same to
you, I'd like to keep on with the case a little longer alone."
"What!" he ejaculated. He stared at her. "I don't know what to make of
you!" he cried in exasperation.
"Oh, yes you do," she assured him sweetly, "for you've been trying to
make very little of me."
"Eh! See here, I half believe you don't want my aid!" he blurted out.
Standing there above him, smiling down upon him, she could hardly
resist telling him the truth--that sooner would she allow her right
hand to be burnt off than to accept aid from a man who had flaunted
and jeered at her lawyership--that it was her changeless determination
not to tell him one single word about her plans--that it was her
purpose to go silently ahead and let her success, should she succeed,
be her reply to his unbelief. But she checked the impulse to fling the
truth in his face--and instead continued to smile inscrutably down
upon him.
"I hope that you will do all for my father, for the city, for your own
election, that you can," she said. "All I ask is that for the present
I be allowed to handle the case by myself."
The Court House tower tolled five. She held out to him a gloved hand.
"Good-by. I'm sorry I can't invite you in," she said lightly, and
turned away.
He watched the slender figure go up the steps and into the jail, then
turned and walked down the street--exasperated, puzzled, in profound
thought.