The stillness of a summer’s day in Prairie Land has all the
characteristics of music. That is not so paradoxical as it seems. The
effect of some music is to produce a divine quiescence of the senses,
a suspension of motion and aggressive life; to reduce existence to mere
pulsation. It was this kind of feeling which pervaded that region
of sentient being when Shiel Crozier told his story. The sounds that
sprinkled the general stillness were in themselves sleepy notes of the
pervasive music of somnolent nature--the sough of the pine at the door,
the murmur of insect life, the low, thudding beat of the steam-thresher
out of sight hard by, the purring of the cat in the arms of Kitty Tynan
as, with fascinated eyes, she listened to a man tell the tale of a life
as distant from that which she lived as she was from Eve.
She felt more awed than curious as the tale went on; it even seemed to
her she was listening to a theme beyond her sphere, like some shameless
eavesdropper at the curtains of a secret ceremonial. Once or twice she
looked at her mother and at the Young Doctor, as though to reassure
herself that she was not a vulgar intruder. It was far more impressive
to her, and to the Young Doctor too, than the scene at the Logan Trial
when a man was sentenced to death. It was strangely magnetic, this
tale of a man’s existence; and the clock which sounded so loud on the
mantelpiece, as it mechanically ticked off the time, seemed only part
of some mysterious machinery of life. Once a dove swept down upon the
window-sill, and, peering in, filled one of the pauses in the recital
with its deep contralto note, and then fled like a small blue cloud into
the wide and--as it seemed--everlasting peace beyond the doorway.
There was nothing at all between themselves and the far sky-line save
little clumps of trees here and there, little clusters of buildings and
houses--no visible animal life. Everything conspired to give a dignity
in keeping with the drama of failure being unfolded in the commonplace
home of the widow Tynan. Yet the home too had its dignity. The engineer
father had had tastes, and he had insisted on plain, unfigured curtains
and wallpaper and carpets, when carpets were used; and though his wife
had at first protested against the unfigured carpets as more difficult
to keep clean and as showing the dirt too easily, she had come to like
the one-colour scheme, and in that respect her home had an individuality
rare in her surroundings.
That was why Kitty Tynan had always a good background; for what her
bright colouring would have been in the midst of gaudy, cheap chintzes
and “Axminsters,” such as abounded in Askatoon, is better left to the
imagination. It was not, therefore, in sordid, mean, or incongruous
surroundings that Crozier told his tale; as would no doubt have been
arranged by a dramatist, if he had had the making and the setting of the
story; and if it were not a true tale told just as it happened.
Perhaps the tale was the more impressive because of Crozier’s deep
baritone voice, capable, as it was, of much modulation, yet, except
when he was excited, having a slight monotone like the note of a violin
with the mute upon the strings.
This was his tale:
“Well, to begin with, I was born at Castlegarry, in Kerry--you know the
main facts from what I said in court. As a boy I wasn’t so bad a sort.
I had one peculiarity. I always wanted ‘to have something on,’ as John
Sibley would say. No matter what it was, I must have something on it.
And I was very lucky--worse luck!”
They all laughed at the bull. “I feel at home at once,” murmured the
Young Doctor, for he had come from near Enniskillen years agone, and
there is not so much difference between Enniskillen and Kerry when it
comes to Irish bulls.
“Worse luck, it was,” continued Crozier, “because it made me confident
of always winning. It’s hard to say how early I began to believe I could
see things that were going to happen. By the hour I used to shake the
dice on the billiard-table at Castlegarry, trying to see with my eyes
shut the numbers about to come up. Of course now and then I saw the
right numbers; and it deepened the conviction that if I cultivated
the gift I’d be able to be right nearly every time. When I went to a
horse-race I used to fasten my mind on the signal, and tried to see
beforehand the number of the winner. Again sometimes I was very right
indeed, and that deepened my confidence in myself. I was always at it.
I’d try and guess--try and see--the number of the hymn which was on the
paper in the vicar’s hand before he gave it out, and I would bet with
myself on it. I would bet with myself or with anybody available on any
conceivable thing--the minutes late a train would be; the pints of
milk a cow would give; the people who would be at a hunt breakfast; the
babies that would be christened on a Sunday; the number of eyes in a
peck of raw potatoes. I was out against the universe. But it wasn’t
serious at all--just a boy’s mania--till one day my father met me in
London when I came down from Oxford, and took me to Thwaite’s Club
in St. James’s Street. There was the thing that finished me. I was
twenty-one, and restless-minded, and with eyes wide open.
“Well, he took me to Thwaite’s where I was to become a member, and
after a little while he left me to go and have a long pow-wow with the
committee--he was a member of it. He told me to make myself at home,
and I did so as soon as his back was turned. Almost the first thing with
which I became sociable was a book which, at my first sight of it, had a
fascination for me. The binding was very old, and the leather was worn,
as you will see the leather of a pocketbook, till it looks and feels
like a nice soap. That book brought me here.”
He paused, and in the silence the Young Doctor pushed a glass of milk
and brandy towards him. He sipped the contents. The others were in
a state of tension. Kitty Tynan’s eyes were fixed on him as though
hypnotised, and the Young Doctor was scarcely less interested; while the
widow knitted harder and faster than she had ever done, and she could
knit very fast indeed.
“It was the betting-book of Thwaite’s, and it dated back almost to the
time of the conquest of Quebec. Great men dead and gone long ago--near
a hundred and fifty years ago-had put down their bets in the book, for
Thwaite’s was then what it is now, the highest and best sporting club in
the world.”
Kitty Tynan’s face had a curious look, for there was a club in Askatoon,
and it was said that all the “sports” assembled there. She had no idea
what Thwaite’s Club in St. James’s Street would look like; but that did
not matter. She supposed it must be as big as the Askatoon Court House
at least.
“Bets--bets--bets by men whose names were in every history, and the
names of their sons and grandsons and great-grandsons; and all betting
on the oddest things as well as the most natural things in the world.
Some of the bets made were as mad as the bets I made myself. Oh!
ridiculous, some of them were; and then again bets on things that
stirred the world to the centre, from the loss of America to the
beheading of Louis XVI.
“It was strange enough to see the half-dozen lines of a bet by a marquis
whose great-grandson bet on the Franco-German War; that the Government
which imposed the tea-tax in America would be out of power within six
months; or that the French Canadians would join the colonists in what is
now the United States if they revolted. This would be cheek-by-jowl with
a bet that an heir would be born to one new-married pair before another
pair. The very last bet made on the day I opened the book was that Queen
Victoria would make Lord Salisbury a duke, that a certain gentleman
known as S. S. could find his own door in St. James’s Square, blindfold,
from the club, and that Corsair would win the Derby.
“For two long hours I sat forgetful of everything around me, while I
read that record--to me the most interesting the world could show. Every
line was part of the history of the country, a part of the history of
many lives, and it was all part of the ritual of the temple of the great
god Chance. I was fascinated, lost in a land of wonders. Men came and
went, but silently. At last there entered a gentleman whose picture I
had so often seen in the papers--a man as well known in the sporting
world as was Chamberlain in the political world. He was dressed
spectacularly, but his face oozed good-nature, though his eyes were like
bright bits of coal. He bred horses, he raced this, he backed that, he
laid against the other; he was one of the greatest plungers, one of the
biggest figures on the turf. He had been a kind of god to me--a god in
a grey frock-coat, with a grey top-hat and field-glasses slung over
his shoulder; or in a hunting-suit of the most picturesque kind--great
pockets in a well-fitting coat, splendid striped waistcoat. Well, there,
I only mention this because it played so big a part in bringing me to
Askatoon.
“He came up to the table where I sat in the room with the beautiful
Adam’s fireplace and the ceiling like an architrave of Valhalla, and
said, ‘Do you mind--for one minute?’ and he reached out a hand for the
book.
“I made way for him, and I suppose admiration showed in my eyes, because
as he hastily wrote--what a generous scrawl it was!--he said to me,
‘Haven’t we met somewhere before? I seem to remember your face.
“Great gentleman, I thought, because it was certain he knew he had never
seen me before, and I was overcome by the reflection that he wished
to be civil in that way to me. ‘It’s my father’s face you remember, I
should think,’ I answered. ‘He is a member here. I am only a visitor.
I haven’t been elected yet.’ ‘Ah, we must see to that!’ he said with
a smile, and laid a hand on my shoulder as though he’d known me many a
year--and I only twenty-one. ‘Who is your father?’ he asked. When I told
him he nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I know him--Crozier of Castlegarry; but I knew
his father far better, though he was so much older than me, and indeed
your grandfather also. Look--in this book is the first bet I ever
made here after my election to the club, and it was made with your
grandfather. There’s no age in the kingdom of sport, dear lad,’ he
added, laughing--‘neither age nor sex nor position nor place. It’s the
one democratic thing in the modern world. It’s a republic inside
this old monarchy of ours. Look, here it is, my first bet with your
grandfather--and I’m only sixty now!’ He smoothed the page with his hand
in a manner such as I have seen a dean do with his sermon-paper in a
cathedral puplit. ‘Here it is, thirty-six years ago.’ He read the bet
aloud. It was on the Derby, he himself having bet that the Prince of
Wale’s horse would win. ‘Your grandfather, dear lad,’ he repeated, ‘but
you’ll find no bets of mine with your father. He didn’t inherit
that strain, but your grandfather and your great-grandfather had
it--sportsmen both, afraid of nothing, with big minds, great eyes for
seeing, and a sense for a winner almost uncanny. Have you got it by any
chance? Yes, yes, by George and by John, I see you have; you are your
grandfather to a hair! His portrait is here in the club--in the next
room. Have a look at it. He was only forty when it was done, and you’re
very like him; the cut of the jib is there.’ He took my hand. ‘Good-bye,
dear lad,’ he said; ‘we’ll meet-yes, we’ll meet often enough if you
are like your grandfather. And I’ll always like to see you,’ he added
generously.
“‘I always wanted to meet you,’ I answered. ‘I’ve cut your pictures out
of the papers to keep them--at Eton and Oxford.’ He laughed in great
good-humour and pride. ‘So so, so so, and I am a hero then, with one
follower! Well, well, dear lad, I don’t often go wrong, or anyhow I’m
oftener right than wrong, and you might do worse than follow me--but no,
I don’t want that responsibility. Go on your own--go on your own.’
“A minute more and he was gone with a wave of the hand, and in
excitement I picked up the betting-book. It almost took my breath away.
He had staked a thousand pounds that the favourite of the Derby would
not win the race, and that one of three outsiders would. As I sat
overpowered by the magnitude of the bet the door opened, and he appeared
with another man, not one with whose face I was then familiar, though as
a duke and owner of great possessions, he was familiar to society. ‘I’ve
put it down,’ he said. ‘Sign it, if it’s all in order.’ This the duke
did, after apologizing for disturbing me. He looked at me keenly as
he turned away. ‘Not the most elevating literature in the library,’
he said, smiling ironically. ‘If you haven’t got a taste for it beyond
control, don’t cultivate it.’ He nodded kindly, and left; and again,
till my father came and found me, I buried myself in that book of
fate--to me. I found many entries in my grandfather’s name, but not one
in my father’s name. I have an idea that when a vice or virtue skips
one generation, it appears with increased violence or persistence in the
next, for, passing over my father into my defenceless breast, the spirit
of sport went mad in me--or almost so. No miser ever had a more cheerful
and happy hour than I had as I read the betting-book at Thwaites’.
“I became a member of Thwaite’s soon after I left Oxford. As some men go
to the Temple, some to the Stock Exchange, some to Parliament, I went to
Thwaite’s. It was the centre of my interest, and I took chambers in Park
Place, St. James’s Street, a few steps away. Here I met again constantly
the great sportsman who had noticed me so kindly, and I became his
follower, his disciple. I had started with him on a wave of prejudice in
his favour; because that day when I read in the betting-book what he had
staked against the favourite, I laid all the cash and credit I could
get with his outsiders and against the favourite, and I won five hundred
pounds. What he won--to my youthful eyes-was fabulous. There’s no use
saying what you think--you kind friends, who’ve always done something
in life--that I was a good-for-nothing creature to give myself up to
the turf, to horses and jockeys, and the janissaries of sport. You must
remember that for generations my family had run on a very narrow margin
of succession, there seldom, if ever, being more than two born in
any generation of the family, so that there was always enough for the
younger son or daughter; and to take up a profession was not necessary
for livelihood. If my mother, who was an intellectual and able woman,
had lived, it’s hard to tell what I should have become; for steered
aright, given true ideas of what life should mean to a man, I might have
become ambitious and forged ahead in one direction or another. But there
it was, she died when I was ten, and there was no one to mould me. At
Eton, at Oxford-well, they are not preparatory schools to the business
of life. And when at twenty-four I inherited the fortune my mother left
me, I had only one idea: to live the life of a sporting gentleman. I had
a name as a cricketer--”
“Ah--I remember, Crozier of Lammis!” interjected the Young Doctor
involuntarily. “I’m a north of Ireland man, but I remember--”
“Yes, Lammis,” the sick man went on. “Castlegarry was my father’s place,
but my mother left me Lammis. When I got control of it, and of the
securities she left, I felt my oats, as they say; and I wasn’t long in
making a show of courage, not to say rashness, in following my leader.
He gave me luck for a time, indeed so great that I could even breed
horses of my own. But the luck went against him at last, and then, of
course, against me; and I began to feel that suction which, as it draws
the cash out of your pocket, the credit out of your bank, seems to draw
also the whole internal economy out of your body--a ghastly, empty,
collapsing thing.”
Mrs. Tynan gave a great sigh. She had once put two hundred dollars in
a mine--on paper--and it ended in a lawsuit; and on the verdict in the
lawsuit depended the two hundred dollars and more. When she read a
fatal telegram to her saying that all was lost, she had had that empty,
collapsing feeling.
Pausing for a moment, in which he sipped some milk, Crozier then
continued: “At last my leader died, and the see-saw of fortune began for
me; and a good deal of my sound timber was sawed into logs and made
into lumber to build some one else’s fortune. When things were balancing
pretty easily, I married. It wasn’t a sordid business to restore my
fortunes--I’ll say that for myself; but it wasn’t the thing to do, for
I wasn’t secure in my position. I might go on the rocks; but was there
ever a gambler who didn’t believe that he’d pull it off in a big way
next time, and that the turn of the wheel against him was only to tame
his spirit? Was there ever a gambler or sportsman of my class who didn’t
talk about the ‘law of chances,’ on the basis that if red, as it were,
came up three times, black stood a fair chance of coming up the fourth
time? A silly enough conclusion; for on the law of chances there’s no
reason why red shouldn’t come up three hundred times; and so I found
that your run of bad luck may be so long that you cannot have a chance
to recover, and are out of it before the wheel turns in your favour. I
oughn’t to have married.”
His voice had changed in tone, his look become most grave, there was
something very like reverence in his face, and deprecating submission in
his eyes. His fingers fussed with the rug that covered his knees.
“God help the man that’s afraid of his own wife!” remarked the Young
Doctor to himself, not erroneously reading the expression of Crozier’s
face and the tone of his voice. “There’s nothing so unnerving.”
“No, I oughtn’t to have done it,” Crozier went on. “But I will say again
it wasn’t a sordid marriage, though she had great expectations, but
not immediate; and she was a girl of great character. She was able and
brilliant and splendid and far-seeing, and she knew her own mind, and
was radiantly handsome.”
Kitty Tynan almost sniffed. Through a whole fortnight she had, with a
courage and a right-mindedness quite remarkable, fought her infatuation
for this man, and as she fought she had imagined a hundred times what
his wife was like. She had pictured to herself a gossamer kind of woman,
delicate, and in contour like one of the fashion-plate figures she saw
in the picture-papers. She had imagined her with a wide, drooping hat,
with a soft, clinging gown, and a bodice like a great white handkerchief
crossed on her breast, holding a basket of flowers, while a King Charles
spaniel gambolled at her feet.
This was what she had imagined with a kind of awe; but the few words
Crozier had said of her gave the impression of a Juno, commanding,
exacting, bullying, sailing on with this man of men in her wake, who was
afraid of stepping on her train. Was it strange she should think
that? She was only a simple prairie girl who drew her own comparisons
according to her kind and from what she knew of life. So she imagined
Crozier’s wife to have been a sort of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, who
swept up the dust of the universe with her skirts, and gave no chance at
all to the children of nature like Kitty, who wore skirts scarcely lower
than their ankles. She almost sniffed, and she became angry, too, that a
man like Crozier, who had faced the offensive Augustus Burlingame in
the witness-box as he did; who took the bullet of the assassin with such
courage; who broke a horse like a Mexican; who could ride like a leech
on a filly’s flank, should crumple up at the thought of a woman who,
anyhow, couldn’t be taller than Crozier himself was, and hadn’t a hand
like a piece of steel and the skin of an antelope. It was enough to make
a cat laugh, or a woman cry with rage.
“Able and brilliant and splendid and far-seeing, and radiantly
handsome!” There the picture was of a high, haughty, and overbearing
woman, in velvet, or brocade, or poplin-yes, something stiff and
overbearing, like grey poplin. Kitty looked at herself suddenly in the
mirror-the half-length mirror on the opposite wall--and she felt her
hands clench and her bosom beat hard under her pretty and inexpensive
calico frock, a thing for Chloe, not for Juno.
She was very angry with Crozier, for it was absurd, that look of
deprecating homage, that “Hush-she-is-coming” in his eyes. What a fool a
man was where a woman was concerned! Here she had been fighting herself
for a fortnight to conquer a useless passion for her man of all the
world, fit to command an array of giants; and she saw him now almost
breathless as he spoke of a great wild-cat of a woman who ought to be by
his side now. What sort of a woman was she anyhow, who could let him go
into exile as he had done and live apart from her all these years,
while he “slogged away”--that was the Western phrase which came to
her mind--to pull himself level with things again? Her feet shuffled
unevenly on the floor, and it would have been a joy to shake the in
valid there with the rapt look in his face. Unable to bear the situation
without some demonstration, she got to her feet and caught up the glass
of brandy and milk with a little exclamation.
“Here,” she said, holding the glass to his lips, “here, courage,
soldier. You don’t need to be afraid at a six-thousand-mile range.”
The Young Doctor started, for she had said what was in his own mind,
but what he would not have said for a thousand dollars. It was fortunate
that Crozier was scarcely conscious of what she was saying. His mind was
far away. Yet, when she took the glass from him again, he touched her
arm.
“Nothing is good enough for your friends, is it?” he said gratefully.
“That wouldn’t be an excuse for not getting them the best there was at
hand,” she answered with a little laugh, and at least the Young Doctor
read the meaning of her words.
Presently Crozier, with a sigh, continued: “If I had done what my wife
wanted from the start, I shouldn’t have been here. I’d have saved what
was left of a fortune, and I’d have had a home of my own.”
“Is she earning her living too?” asked Kitty softly, and Crozier did not
notice the irony under the question.
“She has a home of her own,” answered Crozier almost sharply. “Just
before the worst came to the worst she inherited her fortune--plenty of
it, as I got near the end of mine. One thing after another had gone.
I was mortgaged up to the eyes. I knew the money-lenders from Newry
to Jewry and Jewry to Jerusalem. Then it was I promised her I’d bet no
more--never again: I’d give up the turf; I’d try and start again. Down
in my soul I knew I couldn’t start again--not just then. But I wanted
to please her. She was remarkable in her way; she had one of the most
imposing intelligences I have ever known. So I promised. I promised I’d
bet no more.”
The Young Doctor caught Kitty Tynan’s eyes by accident, and there was
the same look of understanding in both. They both knew that here was
the real tragedy of Crozier’s life. If he had had less reverence for his
wife, less of that obvious prostration of soul, he probably would never
have come to Askatoon.
“I broke my promise,” he murmured. “It was a horse--well, never mind.
I was as sure of Flamingo as that the sun would rise by day and set by
night. It was a certainty; and it was a certainty. The horse could win,
it would win; I had it from a sure source. My judgment was right, too.
I bet heavily on Flamingo, intending it for my last fling, and, to save
what I had left, to get back what I had lost. I could get big odds on
him. It was good enough. From what I knew, it was like picking up a
gold-mine. And I was right, right as could be. There was no chance about
it. It was being out where the rain fell to get wet. It was just being
present when they called the roll of the good people that God wished to
be kind to. It meant so much to me. I couldn’t bear to have nothing and
my wife to have all. I simply couldn’t stand--”
Again the Young Doctor met the glance of Kitty Tynan, and there was,
once more, a new and sudden look of comprehension in the eyes of both.
They began to see light where their man was concerned.
After a moment of struggle to control himself, Crozier proceeded: “It
didn’t seem like betting. Besides, I had planned it, that when I showed
her what I had won, she would shut her eyes to the broken promise, and
I’d make another, and keep it ever after. I put on all the cash there
was to put on, all I could raise on what was left of my property.”
He paused as though to get strength to continue. Then a look of intense
excitement suddenly possessed him, and there--passed over him a wave of
feeling which transformed him. The naturally grave mediaeval face became
fired, the eyes blazed, the skin shone, the mouth almost trembled with
agitation. He was the dreamer, the enthusiast, the fanatic almost, with
that look which the pioneer, the discoverer, the adventurer has when he
sees the end of his quest.
His voice rose, vibrated. “It was a day to make you thank Heaven the
world was made. Such days only come once in a while in England, but when
they do come, what price Arcady or Askatoon! Never had there been so big
a Derby. Everybody had the fever of the place at its worst. I was
happy. I meant to pouch my winnings and go straight to my wife and say,
‘Peccavi,’ and I should hear her say to me, ‘Go and sin no more.’ Yes,
I was happy. The sky, the green of the fields, the still, home-like,
comforting trees, the mass of glorious colour, the hundreds of horses
that weren’t running and the scores that were to run, sleek and long,
and made like shining silk and steel, it all was like heaven on earth to
me--a horse-race heaven on earth. There you have the state of my mind in
those days, the kind of man I was.”
Sitting up, he gazed straight in front of him as though he saw Epsom
Downs before his eyes; as though he was watching the fateful race that
bore him down. He was terribly, exhaustingly alive. Something possessed
him, and he possessed his hearers.
“It was just as I said and knew--my horse, Flamingo, stretched away
from the rest at Tattenham Corner and came sailing away home two lengths
ahead. It was a sight to last a lifetime, and that was what I meant it
to be for me. The race was all Flamingo’s own, and the mob was going
wild, when all of a sudden a woman--the widow of a racing-man gone
suddenly mad--rushed out in front of the horse, snatched at its bridle
with a shrill cry and down she came, and down Flamingo and the jockey
came, a melee of crushed humanity. And that was how I lost my last two
thousand five hundred pounds, as I said at the Logan Trial.”
“Oh! Oh!” said Kitty Tynan, her face aflame, her eyes like topaz suns,
her hands wringing. “Oh, that was--oh, poor Flamingo!” she added.
A strange smile shot into Crozier’s face, and the dark passion of
reminiscence fled from his eyes. “Yes, you are right, little friend,”
he said. “That was the real tragedy after all. There was the horse doing
his best, his most beautiful best, as though he knew so much depended on
him, stretching himself with the last ounce of energy he could summon,
feeling the psalm of success in his heart--yes, he knows, he knows what
he has done, none so well!--and out comes a black, hateful thing against
him, and down he goes, his game over, his course run. I felt exactly as
you do, and I felt that before everything else when it happened. Then I
felt for myself afterwards, and I felt it hard, as you can think.”
The break went from his voice, but it rang with reflective, remembered
misery. “I was ruined. One thing was clear to me. I would not live on
my wife’s money. I would not eat and drink what her money bought. No,
I would not live on my wife. Her brother, a good enough, impulsive lad,
with a tongue of his own and too small to thresh, came to me in London
the night of the race. He said his sister had been in the country-down
at Epsom--and that she bitterly resented my having broken my promise and
lost all I had. He said he had never seen her so angry, and he gave me
a letter from her. On her return to town she had been obliged to go
away at once to see her sister taken suddenly ill. He added, with an
unfeeling jibe, that he wouldn’t like the reading of the letter himself.
If he hadn’t been such a chipmunk of a fellow I’d have wrung his neck. I
put the letter her letter-in my pocket, and next day gave my lawyer full
instructions and a power of attorney. Then I went straight to Glasgow,
took steamer for Canada, and here I am. That was near five years ago.”
“And the letter from your wife?” asked Kitty Tynan demurely and slyly.
The Young Doctor looked at Crozier, surprised at her temerity, but
Crozier only smiled gently. “It is in the desk there. Bring it to me,
please,” he said.
In a moment Kitty was beside him with the letter. He took it, turned it
over, examined it carefully as though seeing it for the first time, and
laid it on his knee.
“I have never opened it,” he said. “There it is, just as it was handed
to me.”
“You don’t know what is in it?” asked Kitty in a shocked voice. “Why, it
may be that--”
“Oh, yes, I know what is in it!” he replied. “Her brother’s confidences
were enough. I didn’t want to read it. I can imagine it all.”
“It’s pretty cowardly,” remarked Kitty.
“No, I think not. It would only hurt, and the hurting could do no good.
I can hear what it says, and I don’t want to see it.”
He held the letter up to his ear whimsically. Then he handed it back to
her, and she replaced it in the desk.
“So, there it is, and there it is,” he sighed. “You have got my
story, and it’s bad enough, but you can see it’s not what Burlingame
suggested.”
“Burlingame--but Burlingame’s beneath notice,” rejoined Kitty. “Isn’t
he, mother?”
Mrs. Tynan nodded. Then, as though with sudden impulse, Kitty came
forward to Crozier and leaned over him. The look of a mother was in her
eyes. Somehow she seemed to herself twenty years older than this man
with the heart of a boy, who was afraid of his own wife.
“It’s time for your beef-tea, and when you’ve had it you must get your
sleep,” she said, with a hovering solicitude.
“I’d like to give him a threshing first, if you don’t mind,” said the
Young Doctor to her.
“Please let a little good advice satisfy you,” Crozier remarked
ruefully. “It will seem like old times,” he added rather bitterly.
“You are too young to have had ‘old times,’” said Kitty with gentle
scorn. “I’ll like you better when you are older,” she added.
“Naughty jade,” exclaimed the Young Doctor, “you ought to be more
respectful to those older than yourself.”
“Oh, grandpapa!” she retorted.