Ted looked at him in surprise. Then he looked at Cyrus and saw his
startled, keen, queer look at the attorney. It was after seeing his
brother's face that he realized what this meant--that if his father left
no will Ruth shared with the rest of them. Suddenly his heart was
beating fast.
"How's that?" Cyrus asked sharply.
"There was a will, but he destroyed it about two month's ago."
"He--? Why!" Cyrus pressed in that sharp voice.
Ted felt certain that the lawyer liked saying what he had to say then.
He said it quietly, but looking right at Cyrus. "He destroyed his will
because it cut off his daughter Ruth."
Ted got up and walked to the window, stood there staring out at the
street lights. Bless dad! He wished he could see him; he would give
almost anything to see him for just a minute. He wished he had known; he
would love to have told his father just how corking he thought that was.
He stood there a minute not wanting to show the others how much he was
feeling--this new, warm rush of love for his father, and his deep
gladness for Ruth. He thought of what it would mean to her, what it
would mean to know her father had felt like that. He had had to leave
her there at home alone; now he could go home and tell her this news
that would mean so much.
When he turned back to the group it was to see that he was not alone in
being moved by what they had heard. Harriett too had turned a little
away from the others and was looking down. He saw a tear on her
face--and liked her better than he ever had before. Then he looked at
her husband and in spite of all he was feeling it was hard not to smile;
his brother-in-law's face looked so comical to him, trying to twist
itself into the fitting emotions. Ted watched him unsparingly for a
minute, maliciously saying to himself: "Keep on, old boy, you'll make it
after a little!"
Then he looked at his brother and his face hardened, seeing too well
what new feeling this roused in Cyrus against Ruth, reading the
resentment toward their father for this final weakening in his stand
against her.
"Well--" Cyrus began but did not go on, his lips tightening.
"Your father said," the lawyer added, "that if there was one of his
children--more than the others--needed what he could do for her, it was
his daughter Ruth."
He was looking at Ted, and Ted nodded eagerly, thinking now of what, in
the practical sense, this would mean to Ruth. Mr. McFarland turned back
to Cyrus as he remarked: "He spoke of Ruth with much feeling."
Cyrus flushed. "I guess father was pretty much broken--in mind as well
as body--at that time," he said unpleasantly.
"His mind was all right," answered the lawyer curtly.
He left a few minutes later; Harriett, who went with him to the door,
did not return to the room. The two men and Ted sat for a moment in
silence. Then Cyrus turned upon him as if angered by what he divined him
to be feeling. "Well," he said roughly, "I suppose you're pleased?"
"I'm pleased, all right," replied Ted with satisfaction. He looked at
the minister. "Good thing, for I guess I'm the only fellow here who is."
Harriett's husband colored slightly. "I am neither pleased nor
displeased," was his grave reply. "Surely it was for your father to do
as he wished. For a father to forgive a child is--moving. I only hope,"
he added, "that it will not seem in the community to mean the
countenancing--" He paused, looking to Cyrus for approval.
Then Ten blazed out. "Well, if you want to know what I think, I don't
think a little 'countenancing' of Ruth is going to do this community--or
anybody else--any harm!"
Cyrus looked at him with that slightly sneering smile that always
enraged Ted. "You're proud of your sister, I suppose?" he inquired
politely.
Ted reddened. Then he grew strangely quiet. "Yes," he said, "I believe I
am. I've come pretty close to Ruth these last few days, and I think
that's just what I am--proud of her. I can't say I'm proud of what Ruth
did; I'd have to think more about that. But I'm proud of what she _is_.
And I don't know--I don't know but what it's what a person _is_ that
counts." He fell silent, thinking of what he meant by that, of the
things he felt in Ruth.
Cyrus laughed mockingly. "Rather a curious thing to be proud of, I
should say. What she 'is' is--"
Ted jumped up. "Don't say it, Cy! Whatever it is you're going to
say--just don't say it!"
Cyrus had risen and was putting in his pocket a paper Mr. McFarland had
given him. "No?" he said smoothly, as if quite unperturbed. "And why
not?"
At that uncaring manner something seemed to break inside Ted's head, as
if all the things Cyrus had said about Ruth had suddenly gathered there
and pressed too hard. His arm shot out at his brother.
"That's why not!" he cried.
He had knocked Cyrus back against the wall and stood there threatening
him. To the minister, who had stepped up, protesting, he snapped: "None
of _your_ put-in! And after this, just be a little more careful in
_your_ talk--see?"
He stepped back from Cyrus but stood there glaring, breathing hard with
anger. Cyrus, whose face had gone white, but who was calm, went back to
the table and resumed what he had been doing there.
"A creditable performance, I must say, for the day of your father's
funeral," he remarked after a moment.
"That's all right!" retorted Ted. "Don't think I'm sorry! I don't know
any better way to start out new--start out alone--than to tell you what
I think of you!--let you know that I'll not take a thing off of you
about Ruth. You've done enough, Cy. Now you quit. You kept mother and
father away when they didn't want to be kept away--and I want to tell
you that I'm _on_ to you, anyway. Don't think for a minute that I
believe it's your great virtue that's hurting you. You can't put that
over on me. It's pride and stubbornness and just plain meanness makes
you the way you are! Yes, I'm glad to have a chance to tell you what I
think of you--and then I'm through with you, Cy. I think you're a
pin-head! Why, you haven't got the heart of a flea! I don't know how
anybody as fine as Ruth ever came to have a brother like you!"
His feeling had grown as he spoke, and he stopped now because he was too
close to losing control; he reddened as his brother--calm, apparently
unmoved--surveyed him as if mildly amused. That way Cyrus looked at him
when they were quarrelling always enraged him. If he would only _say_
something--not stand there as if he were too superior to bother himself
with such a thing! He knew Cyrus knew it maddened him--that that was why
he did it, and so it was quietly that he resumed: "No, Cy, I'm not with
you, and you might as well know it. I'm for Ruth. You've got the world
on your side--and I know the arguments you can put up, and all that, but
Ruth's got a--" he fumbled a minute for the words--"Ruth's got a power
and an understanding about her that you'll never have. She's got a
heart. More than that, she's got--character."
He paused, thinking, and Cyrus did speak then. "Oh, I don't think I'd
use that word," he said suavely.
"No, you wouldn't; you wouldn't see it, but that's just what I mean." He
turned to the minister. "Character, I say, is what my sister Ruth has
got. Character is something more than putting up a slick front. It's
something more than doing what's expected of you. It's a kind of--a kind
of being faithful to yourself. _Being_ yourself. Oh, I know--" at a
sound from his brother--"just how you can laugh at it, but there's
something to it just the same. Why, Ruth's got more real stuff in her
than you two put together! After being with her these days you, Cy,
strike a fellow as pretty shallow."
That brought the color to his brother's face. Stung to a real retort, he
broke out with considerable heat: "If to have a respect for decency is
'shallow'--!" He quickly checked himself as the door opened and
Harriett's maid entered.
She paused, feeling the tension, startled by their faces. "Excuse me,
sir," she said to the minister, "but Mrs. Tyler said I was to tell you
she had gone out for a few minutes. She said to tell you she had gone to
see her sister."
She looked startled at Ted's laugh. After she had gone he laughed again.
"Hard luck!" he said to his brother-in-law, and walked from the room.
He did not go directly home. He was too upset to face Ruth just then; he
did not want her to know, it would trouble her. And he wanted to
walk--walk as fast as he could, walk off steam, he called it. His heart
was pounding and there seemed too much blood in his head. But he wasn't
sorry, he told himself. Cy would have it in for him now, but what did he
care for that? He could get along without him. But his lips trembled as
he thought that. He had had to get along without his mother; from now on
he would have to get along without his father. He had a moment of
feeling very much alone. And then he thought of Ruth. Yes,--there was
Ruth! He wheeled toward home. He wanted to tell her. He hoped Harriett
hadn't got it told; he wanted to tell her himself. Bless dad! He loved
him for doing that. If only he'd known it in time to let him know what
he thought of him for doing it!