"Sweet are the uses of adversity," sang the great bard who is supposed
to have known human nature in all its mutations; and humanity has
echoed the aphorism until it has come to believe in some sort that
bufferings are benedictions, and hard knocks merely the compacting
blows that harden virtues, as the blacksmith's hammer beats a finer
temper into the steel upon the anvil.
With all due respect for the shades of the mighty, and for the tacit
approval of the many, I beg leave to offer the _argumentum ad hominem_
in rebuttal. Fight the conclusion as I may, I cannot resist the
convincement that ill winds have never blown me any good; that, on the
contrary, the steady pressure of hardship and misfortune, during a
period when my life was still in a great measure in the formative
state, exerted an influence which was altogether evil, weakening the
impulses which should have been growing stronger, and giving free rein
to those which, under more favoring conditions, might never have been
quickened.
When I forsook the breakfast-table and the hotel, after having read the
newspaper story telling how effectively Agatha Geddis had removed
herself from my path, it was to make a joyous dash for the first train
leaving the capital for Cripple Creek. With shame I record it, I had
already forgotten my own culpable weakness in permitting a dastardly
fear of consequences to make me Agatha's puppet and a sharer in her
more than questionable dissipations; had forgotten that by every step I
had taken with Agatha Geddis I had increased the distance separating me
from Mary Everton.
Perhaps it is only a characteristic of human nature to minimize evils
past, and evils to come, at the miraculous removal of a great and
pressing evil present; even so, one may suffer loss. I was hastening
back to take up the dropped thread of my relations with Phineas Everton
and his daughter, and I should have gone softly, as one who, knowing
himself the chief of sinners yet ventures to tread upon holy ground.
But by the time the train was slowing into the great gold camp at the
back of Pike's Peak, these, and all other chastening thoughts, were
crowded aside to make room for the one jubilant fact: I was free and I
was going back to Polly.
Barrett was the first man I met upon reaching our offices. If he were
surprised at seeing me in Cripple Creek when I should have been well on
my way to the Pacific Coast, he was quite as evidently disappointed.
"I thought you had started for California," he said in his evenest
tones.
"I thought so, too; but it was only a false start." Then I had it out
with him. "You and I both know, Barrett, why you thought I ought to
go, and the reason wasn't even remotely connected with the shipping of
the car-load of test-ore. If you have seen the morning papers, you
probably know why it is no longer necessary for me to leave Colorado."
He turned to stare absently out of the office window. When he faced
about again there was a frown of friendly concern wrinkling between his
straight-browed level eyes.
"How the devil did you ever come to get mixed up with the Geddis woman,
Jimmie?" he demanded.
I evaded the direct question. "It is a long story, and some day I may
be able to tell you all of it. But I can't do it now. You must take
my word for it, Bob, that I haven't done a single thing that I didn't
believe, at the time, I was compelled to do. That sounds idiotic, I
know; but it is the simple truth."
Again he turned to the window and was silent for a full minute. I knew
that I had in no uncertain measure forfeited his good opinion--that, I
had earned the forfeiture: also, I knew perfectly well what he was
doing; he was leaving me entirely out of the question and was weighing
the hazards for Polly. When he turned it was to put a hand upon my
shoulder.
"I'm taking you 'sight unseen,' old man," he said, with the brotherly
affection which came so easily to the front in all his dealings with
me. "If you tell me it's done and over with, and won't be resurrected,
that's the end of it, so far as I am concerned. What comes next?"
"A little heart-to-heart talk with Polly's father," I said, and began
to move toward the door. But he stopped me before I could get away.
"Just one other word, Jimmie: wouldn't it be better to let things rock
along for awhile until the dust has time to settle and the smoke to
blow away? You've come back red-handed from this thing--whatever it
is--and----"
"No," I returned obstinately. "It is now or never for me, Bob. I'm
sinking deeper into the mire every day, and Polly has the only rope
that will pull me out. You'll say that I am much more likely to drag
her in; maybe that is true, but just now I'm like a drowning man.
Possibly it would be better for all concerned if I should drown, but
you can't expect me to take that view of it." And with that I crossed
the corridor to the laboratory.
I can say for Phineas Everton that he was at all times and in all
things a fair man, generous to a fault, and always ready to give the
other fellow the benefit of the doubt. I sought him that afternoon
with an explanation which was very far from explaining, but he listened
patiently and with an evident desire to draw favorable inferences where
he could from my somewhat vague story of my entanglement with Agatha
Geddis.
It was perfectly apparent to me that I was not making the story very
clear to him; I couldn't, because any complete explanation would have
reached back too far into my past. The half-confidence was
inexcusable, and I was aware of this. I owed this man, whose daughter
I wished to marry, the fullest and frankest statement of all the facts.
But I didn't give it to him.
"You are trying to tell me that the affair with this woman had its
origin in a former foolish infatuation?" he said at length.
"It might be called that; but it dates back to my--to a time long
before I came to Cripple Creek."
"You gave me to understand yesterday that she had a hold of some sort
upon you. Were you under promise to marry her?"
"No, indeed; never in this world!"
He was sitting back in his chair and regarding me gravely.
"I am an old-fashioned man, Bertrand, as I told you yesterday. I have
always entertained an idea--which may seem archaic to the present
generation--that a young man intending to marry ought to be able to
give as much as he asks. You haven't made a very good beginning."
I admitted it; admitted everything save the imputation that my
relations with Agatha Geddis had been in any sense wilfully immoral.
He gave a wry smile at this, as if the distinction were finely drawn
and the credit small.
"Because it fell to my lot to be a schoolmaster in her native town, I
had an opportunity of observing Miss Geddis while she was yet only a
young girl, Bertrand," he remarked. "She gave promise, even then, of
becoming a disturbing element in the affairs of men. As a school-girl
she had a following of silly boys who were ready to take her at her own
valuation of herself. There are times when you remind me very strongly
of one of them, though the resemblance is only a suggestion: the boy I
speak of was a bright young fellow named Weyburn, who afterward became
a clerk in Mr. Geddis's bank."
There are moments when the promptings of the panic-stricken ostrich lay
hold upon the best of us. Since I could not thrust my head into the
sand, I wheeled quickly to stare at a framed photograph of Bull
Mountain and the buildings of the Little Clean-Up hanging on the
laboratory wall.
"He was one of the fools, too, was he?" I said, without taking my eyes
from the photograph.
"He turned out badly, I am sorry to say, and I have often wondered if
the young woman was not in some way responsible. There was a
defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to
the penitentiary."
Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have
punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete
recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the
rending touch. But Everton's return to the question at issue turned
the danger of recognition aside.
"To get back to the present time, and your plea for a rehearing," he
went on. "I wish to be entirely fair to you, Bertrand; as fair as I
can be without being unfair to Polly. Barrett told me yesterday
afternoon that you had gone, or were going, to the Pacific Coast. I am
taking it for granted that you had no intention of accompanying this
woman?"
"I certainly had not. Nothing was further from my intentions. On the
other hand, her flight last night with another woman's husband is the
one thing that makes it possible for me to be here to-day."
"You can assure me that your connection with her is an incident closed;
and for all time?"
"It is, unquestionably. I hope I shall never see her or hear of her
again."
For a moment he sat nibbling the end of the pencil with which he had
been figuring, trying, as I well understood, to be fairly equitable as
between even-handed justice and his prejudices. There was a sharp
little struggle, but at the end of it he said: "As I remarked
yesterday, I labor under all the disadvantages of the average American
father. I can occupy the position only of a deeply interested
onlooker. But I'll meet you half-way and lift the embargo. You may
resume your visits to the house if you wish to."
"I want more than that," I broke in hastily. "I am going to ask Polly
to be my wife. If she says Yes, I don't want to wait a minute longer
than I'm obliged to."
He demurred at that, intimating that I ought to be willing to wait
until a reasonable lapse of time could prove the sincerity of my
protestations. He was entirely justified in asking for delay, but I
begged like a dog and he finally gave a reluctant consent--contingent,
of course, upon his daughter's wishes in the matter. Half an hour
later I was sitting with Polly Everton before a cheerful grate fire in
the living-room of the cottage on the hill, trying, as best I might, to
tell her how much I loved her.
One of the things a man doesn't find out until after he has been
married quite some little time is that the best of women may not always
wear her heart on her sleeve, nor always open the door of the inner
confidences even to the man whose life has become a part and parcel of
her own. Mary Everton's eyes were deep wells of truth and sincerity as
I talked, but I read in them nothing save the love which matched my own
when she gave me her answer. If I had known all that lay behind, I
think I should have fallen down and worshiped her.
I did not know then how much or how little she had heard of the Agatha
Geddis affair. None the less, I broke faith, if not with her, at least
with myself. I did not tell her that she was about to become the wife
of an escaped convict; that her life must henceforth be lived under a
threatening shadow; that her children, if she should have any, might be
made to share the disgrace of their father.
Once more I make no excuses. A little later, if I had waited, the just
and honorable impulse might have reasserted itself; I might have
realized that the removal of one unscrupulous woman out of my path
merely took the lightning out of the edge of the nearest cloud. But in
the supreme exaltation of the moment I considered none of these things.
In this climaxing of happiness the disaster which had hung over my head
for weeks and months seemed as far removed and remote as it had been
imminent only a few hours before.
We were together through what remained of the afternoon; until it was
nearly time for Phineas Everton to come home. When we parted I had
gained my point and our plans were all made. We were to be married
very quietly the following day. I had no wish to make the wedding the
social function which my position as one of the three partners in the
Little Clean-Up might have justified; and Polly agreed with me in this.
It was not until after I had left the house that I remembered that the
forced financing of Agatha Geddis's elopement had practically drained
my bank account. There had been no mention of money in our talk before
the fire; we were both far and away beyond the reach of any such sordid
topic. But Phineas Everton would have a right to ask questions, and I
must be prepared to answer them. After dinner at the hotel I captured
Barrett, drove him into a quiet corner of the lobby, and made my wail.
"Heavens and earth!" he gasped when I had told him the shameful truth.
"Are you telling me that you let that woman hold you up for all the
ready money you had in the world?"
"It listens that way," I confessed; adding, out of the heart of
sincerity: "It was cheap at the price; I was glad enough to be quit of
her at any price."
"This is pretty serious, Jimmie," he asserted, after he had re-lighted
his cigar. "It isn't the mere fact that you have recklessly chucked a
small fortune at the Geddis person--that is a mere matter of dollars
and cents, and the Little Clean-Up will square you up on that. But
there is another side to it. The dreadful thing is the fact that she
had enough of a grip on you to make you do it. I'll like it better if
you will say that you were blind drunk when you did it."
"I wasn't--more's the pity, Bob; on the contrary, I was never soberer
in my life."
"Of course, you haven't told Polly."
"No--not yet."
"Nor Everton?"