THE CUP OF BLISS
The next morning Katherine lay abed in that delicious lassitude which
is the compound of complete exhaustion and of a happiness that tingles
through every furthermost nerve. And as she lay there she thought
dazedly of the miracle that had come to pass. She had not even guessed
that she was in love with Arnold Bruce. In fact, she had been
resisting her growing admiration for him, and the day before she could
hardly have told whether her liking was greater than her hostility.
Then, suddenly, out there in the storm, all complex counter-feelings
had been swept side, and she had been revealed to herself.
She was tremulously, tumultuously happy. She had had likings for men
before, but she had never guessed that love was such a mighty,
exultant thing as this. But, as she lay there, the thoughts that had
never come to her in the storm out there on the River Road, slipped
into her mind. Into her exultant, fearful, dizzy happiness there crept
a fear of the future. She clung with all her soul to the ideas of the
life she wished to live; she knew that he, in all sincerity, was
militantly opposed to those ideas. Difference in religious belief had
brought bitterness, tragedy even, into the lives of many a pair of
lovers. The difference in their case was no less firmly held to on
either side, and she realized that the day must come when their ideas
must clash, when they two must fight it out. Quivering with love
though she was, she could but look forward to that inevitable day with
fear.
But there were too many other new matters tossing in her brain for her
to dwell long upon this dread. At times she could but smile
whimsically at the perversity of love. The little god was doubtless
laughing in impish glee at what he had brought about. She had always
thought in a vague way that she would sometime marry, but she had
always regarded it as a matter of course that the man she would fall
in love with would be one in thorough sympathy with her ideas and who
would help her realize her dream. And here she had fallen in love with
that dreamed-of man's exact antithesis!
And yet, as she thought of Arnold Bruce, she could not imagine herself
loving any other man in all the world.
Love gave her a new cause for jubilation over her last night's
discovery. Victory, should she win it, and win it before election, had
now an added value--it would help the man she loved. But as she
thought over her discovery, she realized that while she might create a
scandal with it, it was not sufficient evidence nor the particular
evidence that she desired. Blake and Peck would both deny the meeting,
and against Blake's denial her word would count for nothing, either in
court or before the people of Westville. And she could not be present
at another conference with two or three witnesses, for the pair had
last night settled all matters and had agreed that it would be
unnecessary to meet again. Her discovery, she perceived more clearly
than on the night before, was not so much evidence as the basis for a
more enlightened and a more hopeful investigation.
Another matter, one that had concerned her little while Bruce had held
but a dubious place in her esteem, now flashed into her mind and
assumed a large importance. The other party, as she knew, was using
Bruce's friendship for her as a campaign argument against him; not on
the platform of course--it never gained that dignity--but in the
street, and wherever the followers of the hostile camps engaged in
political skirmish. Its sharpest use was by good housewives, with whom
suffrage could be exercised solely by influencing their husbands'
ballots. "What, vote for Mr. Bruce! Don't you know he's a friend of
that woman lawyer? A man who can see anything in that Katherine West
is no fit man for mayor!"
All this talk, Katherine now realized, was in some degree injuring
Bruce's candidacy. With a sudden pain at the heart she now demanded of
herself, would it be fair to the man she loved to continue this open
intimacy? Should not she, for his best interests, urge him, require
him, to see her no more?
She was in the midst of this new problem, when her Aunt Rachel brought
her in a telegram. She read it through, and on the instant the problem
fled her mind. She lay and thought excitedly--hour after hour--and her
old plans altered where they had been fixed, and took on definite form
where previously they had been unsettled.
The early afternoon found her in the office of old Hosie
Hollingsworth.
"What do you think of that?" she demanded, handing him the telegram.
Old Hosie read it with a puzzled look. Then slowly he repeated it
aloud:
"'Bouncing boy arrived Tuesday morning. All doing well. John.'" He
raised his eyes to Katherine. "I'm always glad to see people lend the
census a helping hand," he drawled. "But who in Old Harry is John?"
"Mr. Henry Manning. The New York detective I told you about."
"Eh? Then what----"
"It's a cipher telegram," Katherine explained with an excited smile.
"It means that he will arrive in Westville this afternoon, and will
stay as long as I need him."
"But what should he send that sort of a fool thing for?"
"Didn't I tell you that he and I are to have no apparent relations
whatever? An ordinary telegram, coming through that gossiping Mr.
Gordon at the telegraph office, would have given us away. Now I've
come to you to talk over with you some new plans for Mr. Manning. But
first I want to tell you something else."
She briefly outlined what she had learned the night before; and then,
without waiting to hear out his ejaculations, rapidly continued: "I
told Mr. Manning to come straight to you, on his arrival, to learn how
matters stood. All my communications to him, and his to me, are to be
through you. Tell him everything, including about last night."
"And what is he to do?"
"I was just coming to that." Her brown eyes were gleaming with
excitement. "Here's my plan. It seems to me that if Blind Charlie Peck
could force his way into Mr. Blake's scheme and become a partner in
it, then Mr. Manning can, too."
Old Hosie blinked.
"Eh? Eh? How?"
"You are to tell Mr. Manning that he is Mr. Hartsell, or whoever he
pleases, a real estate dealer from the East, and that his ostensible
business in Westville is to invest in farm lands. Buying in run-down
or undrained farms at a low price and putting them in good condition,
that's a profitable business these days. Besides, since you are an
agent for farm lands, that will explain his relations with you.
Understand?"
"Yes. What next?"
"Secretly, he is to go around studying the water-works. Only not so
secretly that he won't be noticed."
"But what's that for?"
"Buying farm land is only a blind to hide his real business," she went
on rapidly. "His real business here is to look into the condition of
the water-works with a view to buying them in. He is a private agent
of Seymour & Burnett; you remember I am empowered to buy the system
for Mr. Seymour. When Mr. Blake and Mr. Peck discover that a man is
secretly examining the water-works--and they'll discover it all right;
when they discover that this man is the agent of Mr. Seymour, with all
the Seymour millions behind him--and we'll see that they discover
that, too--don't you see that when they make these discoveries this
may set them to thinking, and something may happen?"
"I don't just see it yet," said Old Hosie slowly, "but it sounds like
there might be something mighty big there."
"When Mr. Blake learns there is another secret buyer in the field, a
rival buyer ready and able to run the price up to three times what he
expects to pay--why, he'll see danger of his whole plan going to ruin.
Won't his natural impulse be, rather than run such a risk, to try to
take the new man in?--just as he took in Blind Charlie Peck?"
"I see! I see!" exclaimed Old Hosie. "By George, it's mighty clever!
Then what next?"
"I can't see that far. But with Mr. Manning on the inside, our case is
won."
Old Hosie leaned forward.
"It's great! Great! If you're not above shaking hands with a mere
man----"
"Now don't make fun of me," she cried, gripping the bony old palm.
"And while you're quietly turning this little trick," he chuckled,
"the Honourable Harrison Blake will be carefully watching every move
of Elijah Stone, the best hippopotamus in the sleuth business, and be
doing right smart of private snickering at the simplicity of
womankind."
She flushed, but added soberly:
"Of course it's only a plan, and it may not work at all."
They talked the scheme over in detail. At length, shortly before the
hour at which the afternoon express from the East was due to arrive,
Katherine retired to her own office. Half an hour later, looking down
from her window, she saw the old surrey of Mr. Huggins' draw up beside
the curb, in it a quietly dressed, middle-aged passenger who had the
appearance of a solid man of affairs. He crossed the sidewalk and a
little later Katherine heard him enter Old Hosie's office on the floor
below. After a time she saw the stranger go out and drive around the
Square to the Tippecanoe House, Peck's hotel, where Katherine had
directed that Mr. Manning be sent to facilitate his being detected by
the enemy.
Her plan laid, Katherine saw there was little she could do but await
developments--and in the meantime to watch Blake, which Mr. Mannings'
role would not permit his doing, and to watch and study Doctor
Sherman. Despite this new plan, and her hopes in it, she realized that
it was primarily a plan to defeat Blake's scheme against the city. She
still considered Doctor Sherman the pivotal character in her father's
case; he was her father's accuser, the man who, she believed more
strongly every day, could clear him with a few explanatory words. So
she determined to watch him none the less closely because of her new
plan--to keep her eyes upon him for signs that might show his
relations to Blake's scheme--to watch for signs of the breaking of his
nerve, and at the first sign to pounce accusingly upon him.
When she reached home that afternoon she found Bruce awaiting her.
Since morning, mixed with her palpitating love and her desire to see
him, there had been dread of this meeting. In the back of her mind the
question had all day tormented her, should she, for his own interests,
send him away? But sharper than this, sharper a hundredfold, was the
fear lest the difference between their opinions should come up.
But Bruce showed no inclination to approach this difference. Love was
too new and near a thing for him to wander from the present. For this
delay she was fervently grateful, and forgetful of all else she leaned
back in a big old walnut chair and abandoned herself completely to her
happiness, which might perhaps be all too brief. They talked of a
thousand things--talk full of mutual confession: of their former
hostility, of what it was that had drawn their love to one another, of
last night out in the storm. The spirits of both ran high. Their joy,
as first joy should be, was sparkling, effervescent.
After a time she sat in silence for several moments, smiling
half-tenderly, half-roguishly, into his rugged, square-hewed face,
with its glinting glasses and its _chevaux de frise_ of bristling
hair.
"Well," he demanded, "what are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking what very bad eyes I have."
"Bad eyes?"
"Yes. For up to yesterday I always considered you----But perhaps you
are thin-skinned about some matters?"
"Me thin-skinned? I've got the epidermis of a crocodile!"
"Well, then--up to yesterday I always thought you--but you're sure you
won't mind?"
"I tell you I'm so thick-skinned that it meets in the middle!"
"Well, then, till yesterday I always thought you rather ugly."
"Glory be! Eureka! Excelsior!"
"Then you don't mind?"
"Mind?" cried he. "Did you think that I thought I was pretty?"
"I didn't know," she replied with her provoking, happy smile, "for men
are such conceited creatures."
"I'm not authorized to speak for the rest, but I'm certainly
conceited," he returned promptly. "For I've always believed myself one
of the ugliest animals in the whole human menagerie. And at last my
merits are recognized."
"But I said 'till yesterday'," she corrected. "Since then, somehow,
your face seems to have changed."
"Changed?"
"Yes. I think you are growing rather good-looking." Behind her happy
raillery was a tone of seriousness.
"Good-looking? Me good-looking? And that's the way you dash my hopes!"
"Yes, sir. Good-looking."
"Woman, you don't know what sorrow is in those words you spoke! Just
to think," he said mournfully, "that all my life I've fondled the
belief that when I was made God must have dropped the clay while it
was still wet."
"I'm sorry----"
"Don't try to comfort me. The blow's too heavy." He slowly shook his
head. "I never loved a dear gazelle----"
"Oh, I don't mean the usual sort of good-looking," she consoled him.
"But good-looking like an engine, or a crag, or a mountain."
"Well, at any rate," he said with solemn resignation, "it's something
to know the particular type of beauty that I am."
Suddenly they both burst into merry laughter.
"But I'm really in earnest," she protested. "For you really are
good-looking!"
He leaned forward, caught her two hands in his powerful grasp and
almost crushed his lips against them.
"Perhaps it's just as well you don't mind my face, dear," he
half-whispered, "for, you know, you're going to see a lot of it."
She flushed, and her whole being seemed to swim in happiness. They did
not speak for a time; and she sat gazing with warm, luminous eyes into
his rugged, determined face, now so soft, so tender.
But suddenly her look became very grave, for the question of the
morning had recurred to her. Should she not give him up?
"May I speak about something serious?" she asked with an effort.
"Something very serious?"
"About anything in the world!" said he.
"It's something I was thinking about this morning, and all day," she
said. "I'm afraid I haven't been very thoughtful of you. And I'm
afraid you haven't been very thoughtful of yourself."
"How?"
"We've been together quite often of late."
"Not often enough!"
"But often enough to set people talking."
"Let 'em talk!"
"But you must remember----"
"Let's stop their tongues," he interrupted.
"How?"
"By announcing our engagement." He gripped her hands. "For we are
engaged, aren't we?"
"I--I don't know," she breathed.
"Don't know?" He stared at her. "Why, you're white as a sheet! You're
not in earnest?"
"Yes."
"What does this mean?"
"I--I had started to tell you. You must remember that I am an
unpopular person, and that in my father I am representing an unpopular
man. And you must remember that you are candidate for mayor."
He had begun to get her drift.
"Well?"
"Well, I am afraid our being together will lessen your chances. And I
don't want to do anything in the world that will injure you."
"Then you think----"
"I think--I think"--she spoke with difficulty--"we should stop seeing
each other."
"For my sake?"
"Yes."
He bent nearer and looked her piercingly in the eyes.
"But for your own sake?" he demanded.
She did not speak.
"But for your own sake?" he persisted.
"For my sake--for my sake----" Half-choked, she broke off.
"Honest now? Honest?"
She did not realize till that moment all it would mean to her to see
him no more.
"For my own sake----" Suddenly her hands tightened about his and she
pressed them to her face. "For my sake--never! never!"
"And do you think that I----" He gathered her into his strong arms.
"Let them talk!" he breathed passionately against her cheek. "We'll
win the town in spite of it!"