CONTAINS ANOTHER PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE, AND SETTLES AN OLD SCORE
The whirling in Ellis's head was ceasing, the blind restlessness was
slowly leaving him. Yet still he walked up and down in his library,
unmindful of the call of hunger. For as his anger left him there grew in
its place the unassuagable yearning which he was coming to know too
well, and which he was ashamed that he could not master. For there had
never been a desire which he could not crush, or a passion which he
could not uproot, if they stood in the way of his purposes. In his
courtship of Judith he had taken care to suppress the feelings which,
apart from his appreciation of her material value, occasionally
threatened to interfere with his entirely deliberate progress in her
regard and her father's favour. But now, when all was over, the little
pains and longings which he had crushed down were constantly rising, and
he who had been so self-sufficing was now lonely, he who had never
paused to regret was often bowed with despair. And Judith, Judith was in
his mind constantly; it was she who broke his sleep, spoiled his work,
and had brought about his defeat. His rage at the disaster was not so
deep as the disturbance which the sight of her had caused in him. But
even that he would, he must, repress--or where would she, that pale
girl, bring him?
Three times in the past month had this confusion of the faculties come
upon him. Wherever lay the cause, the result was too costly to be
permitted to continue. He recognised the fits now; the next one that
came he would meet at its beginning--and this one should end at once.
What was he thinking of? His men must have the news already; they had
come to the house and he had sent them away, playing the fool here by
himself. Well, he would go out and find them now, hearten them, and
prepare at once for the long fight with which he had threatened his
enemies. Ah--and he ground his teeth with anticipation--he meant all
that he had said.
His faculties collected at last, he turned to the door, and met the
cautious face of his butler.
"A lady, sir," said the man, prepared to be damned from the room. He was
relieved when his master said: "Show her in."
But the lady, having no intention of being turned away, was close
behind. "Very wise of you," she said, entering even as he spoke.
"Because I meant to come in anyway, Stephen."
"Oh, it's you, Lydia?" asked Ellis, darting a look before which the
butler retired. "What brings you?"
Mrs. Harmon unwound the long scarf from her neck, and stood before him
smiling. "An errand of mercy, to comfort the broken-hearted. Come, don't
scowl." She unbuckled her cloak, swung it from her shoulders, and tossed
it on a chair. "There, how do you like me?"
In spite of his mood he caught his breath. For she was dressed in black
and adorned with pearls; the dress was cut so low that it more than
suggested the charms which it concealed. And those which it revealed
were perfect: the full and rosy throat, the shoulders, and the arms. The
pearls set off the blackness of the dress, and took to themselves the
warmth of her skin. For a moment Ellis looked at her with pleasure, then
he recovered himself.
"Full mourning, I see," he grunted.
"Don't be disagreeable," she returned. "It's my best and newest. Come,
say I never looked so well before."
"You never did," he agreed. Always Lydia had dressed, he reflected, as
much as she dared; now that she was free she evidently intended to go
the limit. "It certainly becomes you," he added.
"I may sit down?" she asked. "Thanks. Now, Stephen, I want to talk
business."
"Talk," he said, sitting before her. "It's about----"
"This afternoon's news. Oh, yes," as he turned his eyes away, "it's got
to me already. Some of your men, not getting in here, came to see me.
How did it happen, Stephen?"
"Price," he answered between his teeth. "By God, I----" The curse and
the threat died away, and he sat staring at the carpet.
"Oh," she cried, "and I warned you of him!"
"Well," he growled, "it's over. I'm not looking back."
She leaned toward him earnestly. "Are you looking ahead? You're not
giving up, are you?"
"No!" he cried scornfully.
"Good!" she responded, relieved, but then she asked: "What has got into
you? Three times you've shut yourself up so."
"Never again," he assured her. "It's all over, Lydia. I shall never
spend any more time--regretting."
"I thought so," she said. "It's Judith?"
"Yes," he acknowledged savagely. "I've taken a little time to be a fool.
Now I'm over it."
"If you are," she replied, "I'll tell you something."
"What next?" he asked, his face darkening.
"I went by the Peases' at half-past five," she began slowly, watching
him. "I was on the other side of the street. You know it's almost dark
at that hour?"
"Oh, tell me!" he commanded.
"I saw two people at the door," she went on more rapidly. "They were
George Mather and Judith. They opened the door, the hall was lighted
inside, and I saw their figures against the light. As they went in--it
wasn't much, but he put his arm around her."
Ellis started abruptly from his chair, went to his desk, and stood
looking down at it; his back was to her. "I thought you said you were
over it," she remarked.
As abruptly he returned and took his seat. "I expected that."
"Well," she asked, "and now what?"
"Work," he replied. "I can always have plenty of that."
"Work?" she repeated. "Like the man in the novel who works to forget?"
She pointed her finger at him, teasingly, and laughed. "Stephen, I do
believe you were in love with her!"
He scowled his contempt at the weak phrase. In love with her! But then
its central word struck home with the force of a new idea, and
involuntarily he rose again from his seat. Her laughter stopped; her
gayety changed to alarm, for he was looking at her, but he saw nothing.
"What is it?" she asked uneasily.
Love? Love! He understood. "I loved her!" he said, and then added
quietly, "I love her!"
She bridled and looked down. "I too have been through that, Stephen."
But he stood staring before him. He loved!--and all was clear to him.
Thence came those pains, those harsh distresses, those unappeasable
longings; thence the distraction which caused his failure. Judith had
set this poison in his blood. He laughed mirthlessly. How the girl had
revenged herself!
But he loved! Relief came to him as he realised that no ordinary
weakness, but the higher lot of man (so he had heard it called) was
overpowering him. He had never been fond of any one in his life, and yet
he loved! Love! That was a passion he had never expected to meet; there
was no shame in falling before it--and he felt in his pain even a fierce
delight. He loved the girl!
And now he knew he would never be the same man again--never could work
so free of soul, never forget those high ideals of hers, nor be as
mindless of the consequences of his acts. He smiled with scorn of
himself as he saw how the tables had been turned on him. Meaning to win
the girl, to buy her, he had instead roused a conscience, and learned
that there was purity in the world. This was what they meant, then,
those hitherto inexplicable fits of his: that a new nature was trying to
assert itself, that a terrible discontent was aroused, that his whole
life had changed, and that within an unsuspected recess of his nature
there was this open wound, unhealing, draining his strength.
Where then was his boast to his enemies, of what worth his threats?
Could he ever fight again as before, ever manage and plan? Again he
laughed scornfully.
"You needn't laugh," complained Mrs. Harmon. "I do understand it all."
"I wasn't laughing at you," he answered. "--Well, forget all this,
Lydia. What is it I can do for you?"
"Will you forget all this?" she asked with meaning. "Then look ahead
with me for a while, Stephen. You won't be president."
"And I've lost my mayor," he added.
"Will it mean so much?" she asked, disappointed.
"It's Mather's year," he said decidedly. "Everything's going his way; it
happens so every once in a while in New York. Then Tammany lays low; so
shall I. But in the end they come in again; so with me."
"Then, planning for the future," she began, but hesitated, stopped, and
started differently. "I've suffered a good deal, in this past year. We
haven't got anything we wished, either you or I."
He wondered what brought her. "That is true," he said, not intending to
commit himself.
"I've suffered from Judith as well as you," complained Mrs. Harmon. "She
insulted me the other day; she isn't what I thought her, Stephen."
"Nor what I thought," he said, waiting.
"And the others," she went on, "turn me down, too. You would suppose
that my position, and my loss--but they are colder to me than ever." She
looked down.
"Look here," he said, "it isn't like you to be so mild, Lydia. Aren't
you just a little mad, underneath?"
"Oh, I hate them all!" she burst out. She looked at him with flashing
eyes, then asked directly, "Do you, Stephen?"
"Well, suppose I do; what then?" he asked, wishing her to show her hand.
"I will leave them," said Mrs. Harmon with vigour. "So will you. And we
will leave them together."
"It won't be a formal leavetaking," he said, not understanding. "We just
leave them, don't we?"
"Oh," she replied, "I can't bear just to drop out. I want them to
understand that I've no more use for them." She looked to see if he
comprehended, but he remained silent and his face showed nothing. "I've
lost my husband," she said.
"Yes," he said, encouraging. "Go on."
She finished with an effort. "And you wanted--a wife?"
"Good God!" he said slowly.
"I could be of use to you," she explained quickly. "More than Judith.
See how your men come to me for advice?"
"Your husband is but two months in his grave," he cried. "And you wear
Wayne's jewels at your throat!"
"But I don't mean to do it at once," she said, aggrieved. "For a few
months it could be--understood."
"I see," he said, mastering his disgust. "Anything more, Lydia?"
"And I should like to leave something to remember us by," she went on,
taking confidence. "So that they shall feel that we aren't just beaten."
"How will you do it?"
"They are like a big family," she said. "Hurt one, and the others are
against you. I think they combined against you out of revenge
for--Judith, as much as to help Mather."
"Perhaps," he commented.
"They think a great deal of those two," she proceeded. "If we could hurt
them we could anger all the others."
"How do you propose to do it?" he inquired.
"You have that note of hers," she said. "You said she could pay at her
leisure, but----" she eyed him keenly. "Stephen, I never believed that."
"You are quite right," he acknowledged. "I could come down on her
to-morrow for the money." He looked at Mrs. Harmon impassively, but she
was satisfied.
"Then do!" she urged, rising.
"I see," he said. "If her friends have to make up the money for her it
puts her in the position of a beggar, makes her ridiculous, doesn't it?"
"More than that," she said eagerly. "If people know she has signed a
note to you, they will think, don't you see, and say things."
His brows contracted, and from under them his eyes began to glow,
characteristically. "What will they say?" he asked.
"Oh, there will be a great to-do, a quiet scandal, and under cover of it
you--we retire with credit."
"You have thought it all out very well," he said.
"Haven't I?" she asked complacently.
"And I suppose," he said, "that I might as well begin to-morrow. In
fact, I could send some kind of a summons to Miss Blanchard to-night."
"Any day, only soon," she agreed. "Before the stockholders' meeting will
be best."
"Now is the time," he said. He went to his desk, stooped over it, and
wrote rapidly. Then he brought her the paper. "Will that do?" He had
merely written: "With the best wishes of Stephen F. Ellis."
"Why," she began doubtfully. "Oh, I see; you mean to be sarcastic. And
what will you inclose with this?"
He took the note from his pocket-book and showed it to her. "For fifteen
thousand dollars, you see. And it is in legal form."
"Yes," she said with satisfaction. "You'll just remind her that you have
it, and demand immediate payment?"
"I will do this," he replied. He tore the note across, laid the pieces
together, and tore them again, and once again. Then he folded them with
the paper on which he had written.
"Stephen!" she cried.
He took an envelope from the desk and put the papers in. "And I send it
all to her. Now perhaps you understand?"
His tone was suddenly fierce, and as he approached her she backed away.
"Why----" she said, astonished.
"That was a good idea of yours," he sneered, standing close to her.
"Between us, we could smirch her name. You to do the talking, of
course." He snatched her wrist and pushed his face close to hers. "Have
you told any one I held that note?"
"No!" she answered, frightened.
"The truth!" he insisted.
"No one; no one!" she replied.
He cast her hand away, and stepped back. "If you tell any one, with that
damned tongue of yours, Lydia, I'll have your blood!"
"I will never tell!" she protested, thoroughly cowed.
He turned away from her. "Let them tell if they wish," he said over his
shoulder. "They won't, to save the Colonel's reputation; but if they
do--you keep quiet. Fool I was to tell you!" He went to the desk again,
and took up his pen to address the envelope. "Good-night, Lydia," he
said absently.
"But, Stephen!" she began to plead.
"Don't provoke me," he interrupted, pausing with his pen poised. "Don't
provoke me, Lydia." As she did not move, he turned on her. "Confound it,
go!"
She dared not say a word to anger him further; she feared even to look
her disgust, lest she should cut herself off from him forever. Taking
her cloak and scarf, she went to the door; she paused there for an
instant, only to see with fury that he had turned again to the desk and
was writing. White with rage at her failure, she went away.
But Ellis was at peace with himself, and looked the future in the face.
He loved, he would suffer, he did not even wish to forget. Deliberately
he left the house and walked to the Pease homestead. He rang the bell,
gave to the servant his missive for Judith, and for a full minute after
the door closed he stood on the sidewalk, looking at the lighted windows
of the house. But then, shivering, he drew his coat closely around him,
and hurried away from that abode of happiness.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Original spelling has been retained.
Original hyphenation has been retained, even where inconsistent; e.g.
both "golf-club" and "golf club" occur.
The following printer's errors have been corrected:
Page 35, "kuckle" changed to "knuckle". (Yet she hated to knuckle to
them;)
Page 36, "roue" changed to "roué" (Girls more or less innocent danced
with men more or less roué;)
Page 48, missing period inserted ("But," he explained, "it must have
permanently bettered and improved you.")
Page 92, quotation marks matched ("Yes, sir.' changed to "Yes, sir.")
Page 99, missing period inserted (No, I will try to write without
practising.)
Page 100, "word" changed to "work" (but when his day's work was over)
Page 172, it's corrected to its (All its beauty conceals a threat) and
(its only purpose)
Page 181, extra quotation mark removed from middle of quote. ("This
lunch was better than I expected. We must meet here again, some day.")
Page 252, quotation marks matched ("I thought you loved me?' changed to
"I thought you loved me?")
Page 258, quotation marks matched ('We have no property ... to him?"
changed to "We have no property ... to him?")