At last she turned abruptly away, in order that the misery which would
no longer submit to concealment might not show itself in her eyes, and
stood looking out of the window.
Spurrier crossed with anxious swiftness and took her again into his
arms.
"When I have finished this business trip," he declared fervently, "our
separations shall end. They have been too many and too long--but I've
paid for them in loneliness, dear. This call, that I'm answering now,
is unexpected but it's imperative and I can't disobey it."
She turned then, slowly and gravely, but with no lightening of the
burdened anxiety in her eyes.
"It's not just that you have to go away, Jack," she told him. "It's a
great deal more than that."
"What else is there, dearest?" His question was intoned with surprise.
"When we are together, I have nothing else to ask of life. Have you?"
"The place has been changed--mightily changed," she went on musingly
as though talking to herself rather than to him. "And yet the walls
are the same as they were that day--when we both thought we had to die
here together."
"They are the dearer for that," he exclaimed fervently. "That was what
made us see things truly."
"I wonder," she questioned, then meeting his eyes steadily she went on
as though determined to say what must be said.
"When you called Brother Hawkins in to marry us, I was afraid. I was
afraid because I thought you were only doing it out of kindness, and
that afterward you'd be ashamed of me."
"Ashamed of you," he echoed with indignant incredulity. "In God's name
how could I be?"
"Or if not ashamed of me that you couldn't help knowing that I
was--what I am--all right here in the hills but that outside--I
wouldn't do."
"If you were ever afraid of that, it was only because you were
undervaluing yourself. You surely haven't any ghost of such a fear
left now."
For a little she stood silent again torn between the loyalty that
hesitated to question him and the pride that was hurt.
Finally she said simply: "It's a bigger fear now. Unless I'm
unpresentable, why do you--never take me anywhere with you?"
John Spurrier laughed, vastly relieved that the mountain of her
anxiety had resolved itself, as he thought, into a mole-hill. He could
laugh because he had no suspicion of the chronic soreness of her heart
and his answer was lightly made.
"These trips have all been in connection with the sort of business,
Glory, that would have meant keeping me away from you whether you had
gone to town or not. When we travel together--and I want that we shall
travel a great deal--I must be free to devote myself to you. I want to
show the world to you and I want to show you to the world."
That declaration he fancied ought to resolve her fears of his being
ashamed of her.
"If you were afraid I'd seem out of place," she assured him, "I might
be right sorry--and yet I think I'd understand. I'm not a fool and I
know I'd make mistakes, but I was raised a lawyer's daughter and I've
got a pretty good business head--yet you've never told me anything of
what this business is that calls you away. You always treat me as if
there were no use in even trying to make me understand it."
The man no longer laughed. He could not explain that it was rather
because she might understand too well than not well enough. Even to
her, until he was ready to prove his intent by his actual deeds, it
seemed impossible to give that story without the seeming of the
plunderer of her people.
"When the time comes that releases me from my pledge of absolute
secrecy, dear," he told her earnestly, "I mean to tell you all about
my business--and I think you'll approve, then. Now I don't talk
because I have no right to."
Again there was silence, after which Glory said in a voice of still
resolution which he had never heard from her before:
"I'm ignorant and uncultivated, Jack, but to me marriage is a full
partnership--or it isn't anything. When Mr. Harrison came, I saw for
the first time just how I looked to men like him. I was just 'pore
white trash.'"
"Did he----" Spurrier broke off and his face went abruptly white with
passion. Had Harrison been there at that moment he would have stood
in danger at the hands of his employee, but Glory shook her head and
hastened to quiet him.
"He wasn't impolite, Jack. It wasn't that--only I read in his eyes
what he tried to hide. I only told you that because I wanted you to
understand me. People here say that you give me everything but
yourself; that I'm not good enough for you except right here where
there's nothing better."
"That is a damned lie," he expostulated. "Who says it?"
"Only women-folks and gossipy grannies that you can't fight with,
Jack," she answered steadily. "But I've thought about it lots. I've
come to think, dear, that maybe you ought to be free--and if you
ought," she paused, then the final assertion broke from her with an
agonized voice, "then, I love you enough to set you free."
Spurrier seized her in his arms and his words came choked with
vehement feeling.
"I want you, Glory. I want you always and I couldn't live without you.
When I have to go away I endure it only by thinking of coming back to
you. If you ever set me free as you call it, it will be only because
_you_ don't want _me_. I suppose in that case I'd try to take my
medicine--but I think it would about kill me."
"There's no danger of that, dear," she declared.
The man drew away for a moment and fumbled for words. His aptness of
speech had deserted him and at last he spoke clumsily:
"It's hard to explain just now, when you've accused me of not taking
you into my confidence, but I stand at a point, Glory, where I've got
the hardest fight ahead of me I ever made. I stand to be ruined or to
make good. I've got to use every minute and every thought in
competition with quick brains and enormous power. Until its over I
must be a machine with one idea ... and I'll fail, dear, unless I can
take with me the knowledge that you trust me."
She looked up into his face and the misery in her eyes gave place to
confidence.
"Go ahead, Jack," she said. "I believe in you and I'm not even afraid
of your failing." After a moment she clasped her arms tightly about
him and added vehemently: "But whether you succeed or fail, come back
to me, dear, because, except for your sake, it won't make any
difference to me."
That same afternoon Spurrier found time to visit the "witch woman." It
had dawned upon him since that night in the Senate chamber that, after
all, Sim Colby might have been the least dangerous of his enemies, and
the thought made him inquisitive.
The old crone made her magic with abundant grotesquerie, but at its
end she peered shrewdly into his eyes, and said:
"I reads hyar in the omends thet mebby ye comes too late."
Spurrier smiled grimly. He thought that himself.
"I dis'arns," went on the hag portentously, "thet a blind man
impereled ye mightily--a blind man thet plays a fiddle--but thars
others beside him thet dwells fur away an' holds a mighty power of
wealth."
A blind man! Spurrier's remembrance flashed back to the visit of blind
Joe Givins and the papers incautiously left on his table. Yet if he
was genuinely blind they could have meant nothing to him--and if he
was not genuinely blind it was hard to conceive of human nerves
enduring without wincing that test of the gun thrust against the
temple.
Spurrier rose and paid his fee. Had he seen her in time, this warning
would have averted disaster. Now it was something of a post-mortem.
At the door of Martin Harrison's office several days later Spurrier
drew back his shoulders and braced himself. It was impossible to
ignore the fact that he stood on the brink of total ruin; that his
sole hope lay in persuading his principal that with more time and more
money he would yet be able to succeed--and Harrison was as plastic to
persuasion as a brass Buddha.
But he had steeled himself for the interview--and now he turned the
knob and swung back the mahogany door.
Spurrier was familiar enough with the atmosphere of that office to
read the signs correctly. The hushed air of nervousness that hung over
it now betokened a chief in a mood which no one sought to stir to
further irritation.
Always in the past Spurrier had been deferentially ushered into a
private office and treated as the future chief. Now, as though he were
already a disinherited heir, he was left in the general waiting room,
and he was left there for an hour. That cooling of the heel, he
recognized as a warning of the cold reception to come--and an augury
of ruin.
At last he was called in, but he went with an unruffled demeanor which
hid from the principal's eye how near to breaking his inward
confidence was strained.
"I wired you to come at once," began Harrison curtly, and Spurrier
smiled as he nodded.
"I came at once, sir, except that I hadn't been home for some time,
and it was necessary to make a stop there."
"Home," Martin's brows lifted a trifle. "You mean the mountains."
"Certainly--for the time being, I'm located there."
"We may as well be honest with each other," asserted the magnate. "I
consider that under the circumstances you behaved with serious
discourtesy and without candor." For a casual moment his glance dwelt
on the portrait of Vivien which stood on his table.
"I disagree with you, sir. I preferred relating the full circumstances,
which were unusual, when there was an opportunity to do so in person.
I was kept there by your interests as well as my own."
"That recital," said the older man dryly, "is your concern. Now that I
know the facts I find myself uninterested in the details. You have
chosen your way. The question is whether we can travel it together."
"And I presume that the first point of that question demands a full
report upon the business operations."
"So far as I can see, they have collapsed."
"They have by no means collapsed."
Suddenly the wrath that had been smoldering in Harrison's eyes burst
into tempest. He brought his clenched fist down upon his desk until
inkwells and accessories rattled.
This man's moments of equinox were terrifying to those who must bow
to his will--and his will held sway over broad horizons. If John
Spurrier had not been intrepid he must have collapsed under the
withering violence of the passion that rained on him.
"Before God," cried Harrison, pacing his floor like a lion that lashes
itself to frenzy, "you undertook to avenge me on Trabue. You have
drawn on me with carte-blanche liberties and spent fortunes like a
prodigal! You have assured me that you had, at all times, the
situation well in hand. Then, through some damned blunder, you failed.
Let the money loss slide. Damn the money! I'm the laughingstock of the
business world. I'm delivered over to Trabue's enjoyment as a boob who
failed. I'm an absurdity, and you're responsible!"
"When you've finished, sir," said Spurrier quietly, "I shall endeavor
to show you that none of those things have happened--that our failure
is temporary and that when you undertook this enterprise you were in
no impetuous haste as to the time of its accomplishment."
"The legislature doesn't meet for two years," Harrison barked back at
him. "That will be two years of preparation for Trabue. Now he's fully
warned, where do we get off?"
"At our original point of destination, sir."
The opportunity hound began his argument. His demeanor of unruffled
calm and entire confidence began to exercise its persuasive force.
Harrison cooled somewhat, but Spurrier was fighting, beneath his pose,
as a man who has cramps in deep water fights for his life. These few
minutes would determine his fate, and he was totally at the mercy of
this single arbiter.
"I have now all the options we need on the far side of Hemlock
Mountain," Spurrier summarized at last. "All except one tract which
belongs to Bud Hawkins, who is a preacher and a friend of mine. He
must have more generous terms, but I will be able to do business with
him."
"You talk of the options on the far side of the ridge," Harrison broke
in belligerently. "That is the minor field."
"I'll be able to repeat that performance on the near side."
"You will not! A repetition of your performance is the last thing we
crave. Any movement now would be only a piling up of warnings. For the
present you will give every indication of having abandoned the
project."
"That is my idea, sir. I was not speaking of immediate but future
activities. Also----" In spite of his desperation of plight the
younger man's bearing flashed into a challenging undernote of its old
audacity, "when I used the word 'repeat' I referred to the successful
portion of my effort. There was no failure on the land end. It was the
charter that went wrong--through the deceit of a man we had to
trust."
"A man whom you selected," Harrison caught him up. "You understood, in
advance, the chances of your game. It was agreed upon your own
insistence that your hand should be absolutely free--and freedom of
method carries exclusiveness of responsibility. Traitors exist. They
don't furnish excuses."
"Nor am I making them. I am merely stating facts which you seem
inclined to confuse. I grant the failure but I also claim the partial
success."
Harrison seated himself, and as the interview stretched Spurrier's
nerves stretched with it under the placid surface of his plunger's
camouflage. He had, as yet, no way of guessing how the verdict would
go, and now the capitalist's face was hardened in discouragement. It
was a face of merciless inflexibility. The sentence had been prepared
in the judge's mind. There remained only its enunciation.
"Nothing is to be gained by mincing my words, Spurrier," declared
Spurrier's chief. "We know precisely where you stand."
Harrison extended his hand with its fingers spread and closed it
slowly into a clenched fist. "I hold you--there! I can crush you to a
pulp of absolute ruin. You know that. The only question is whether I
want, or not, to do it."
"And whether, or not, you can afford to do it," amended the other with
an audacity that he by no means felt. "You must decide whether you can
afford to accept tamely and as a final defeat, a mere reversal, which
I--and no one else--can turn into eventual victory."
"I have duly considered that. I had implicit confidence in your
abilities. You have struck at my personal feeling for you by a silence
that was not frank. You have allied yourself with the mountain people
by marriage, and we stand on opposite sides of the line of interest.
You have all the while been watched by our enemies, and I regard you
as a defeated man. If I choose to cast you aside, you go to the scrap
heap. You will never recover."
That was an assertion which there was neither health nor wisdom in
contradicting and Spurrier waited. His last card was played.
"And I am going to cast you aside--bankrupt you--ruin you!" blazed out
Harrison, "unless you absolutely meet my requirements during a period
of probation. That period will engage you in a very different matter.
For the present you are through with the Kentucky mountains. The new
task will be a difficult one, and it should put you on your mettle. It
is one that can't be accomplished at all unless you can do it. You
have that one chance to retrieve yourself. Take it or leave it."
"What are your terms?"
"You will sail to-morrow for Liverpool. I will give you explicit
instructions to-night. Go prepared for an extended stay abroad."
For the first time Spurrier's face paled and insurrection flared in
his pupils.
"Sail for Europe to-morrow!" he exclaimed vehemently. "I'll see you
damned first! Doesn't it occur to you that a man has his human side? I
have a wife and a home and when I am ordered to leave them for an
indefinite time I'm entitled to a breathing space in which to set my
own affairs in shape. I am willing enough to undertake your
bidding--but not to-morrow."
Spurrier paused at the end of his outbreak and stood looking down at
the seated figure, which to all intents and purposes might have been
the god that held, for him, life and death in his hand.
And as he looked Spurrier thought he had never seen such glacial
coldness and merciless indifference in any human face. He had known
this man in the thundering of passion before which the walls about him
seemed to tremble, but this manifestation of adamant implacability was
new, and he realized that he had invited destruction in defying it.
"As you please," replied Harrison crisply, "but it's to-morrow or not
at all. I've already outlined the alternative and since you refuse,
our business seems concluded. Next time you feel disposed to talk or
think of what you're entitled to, remember that my view is different.
All your claims stand forfeit in my judgment. You are entitled to just
what I choose to offer--and no more."
The chief glanced toward the door with a glance of dismissal, and the
door became to Spurrier the emblem of finality. Yet he did not at once
move toward it.
"I appreciate the need of prompt obedience, where there is an urge of
haste," he persisted, "but if a few days wouldn't imperil results, I
want those days to make a flying trip to Kentucky and to my wife."
The face of the seated man remained obdurately set but his eyes blazed
again with a note of personal anger.
"At a time when I was reasonably interested, you chose to leave me
unenlightened about your domestic arrangements. Now I can claim no
concern in them. Most wives, however, permit their husbands such
latitude of movement as business requires. If yours does not it is
your own misfortune. I think that's all."
Spurrier knew that the jaws of the trap were closing on him. He had
been too hasty in his outburst and he turned toward the door, but as
his hand fell on the bronze knob Harrison spoke again.
"Think it over, Spurrier. I can--and will ruin you--unless you yield.
It is no time for maudlin sentiment, but until five-thirty this
afternoon, I shall not consider your answer final. Up to that hour you
may reconsider it, if you wish."
"I will notify you at five," responded the lieutenant as he let
himself out and closed the door behind him.
That day the opportunity hound spent in an agony of conflicting
emotions. That the other held a bolt of destruction and was in the
mood to launch it he did not pretend to doubt. If it were launched
even the land upon which his cottage stood would no longer be his own.
He must either return to Glory empty-handed and bankrupt, or strain
with a new tax, the confidence he had asked of her, with the pledge
that he would return soon and for good.
But if, even at the cost of humbled pride and Glory's hurt, he
maintained his business relations, the path to eventual success
remained open.
As long as the cards were being shuffled chance beckoned and at five
o'clock Spurrier went into a cigar-store booth and called a downtown
telephone number.
"You hold the whip hand, sir," he announced curtly when a secretary had
put Harrison on the wire. "When do I report for final instructions?"
"Come to my house this evening," ordered the master.
Most of the hours of that evening, except the two in Harrison's study,
Spurrier spent in writing to Glory, tearing up letter after letter
while the nervous moisture bedewed his brow. It was so impossible to
give her any true or comprehensive explanation of the pressing weight
of compulsion. His messages must have the limp of unreason. He was
crossing the ocean without her and she would read into it a sort of
abandonment that would hurt and wound her. He had taxed everything
else in life, and now he was overtaxing her loyalty.
Yet he believed that if in his depleted treasury of life there was one
thing left upon which he could draw prodigally and with faith, it was
that love; a love that would stand staunch though he were forced to
hurt it once again.
So Spurrier sailed and, having arrived on European soil, took up the
work that threw him into relations with men of large caliber in Capel
Court and Threadneedle Street. His mission carried him to the
continent as well; from Paris to Brussels and from Brussels to Hamburg
and Berlin, where the quaint customs of the Kentucky Cumberlands
seemed as remote as the life of Mars--remote but, to Spurrier, as
alluring as the thought of salvation to a recluse who has foresworn
the things of earth.
In terms of dead reckoning, Berlin is as far from Hemlock Mountain as
Hemlock Mountain is from Berlin, but in terms of human relations Glory
felt the distance as infinitely greater than did her husband. To him
the Atlantic was only an ocean three thousand miles wide; often
crossed and discounted by familiarity. To her it was a measureless
waste separating all she knew from another world. To him continental
dimensions were reckoned in hours of commonplace railway journeying,
but to her the "measured mile" was both lengthwise and perpendicular,
and when she passed old friends she fancied that she detected in their
glances either pity for her desertion or the smirk of "I-told-you-so"
malevolence.
It even crept to her ears that "some folks" spoke of her as "the
widder Spurrier" and that Tassie Plumford had chuckled, "I reckon he's
done gone off an' left her fer good an' all this time. Folks says he's
fled away cl'ar acrost ther ocean-sea."
Glory told herself that she had promised faith and that she was in no
danger of faltering, but as the weeks lengthened into months and the
months followed each other, her waiting became bitter.
In Berlin John Spurrier passed as a British subject, bearing British
passports. That had been part of the careful plan to prevent discovery
of what American interests he represented and it had proven effective.
He had almost accomplished the difficult task of self-redemption, set
him by the man whose confidence he had strained.
Then came the bolt out of heaven. The inconceivable suddenness of the
war cloud belched and broke, but he remained confident that he would
have a chance to finish up before the paralysis cramped bourse and
exchange.
England would not come in, and he, the seeming British subject, would
have safe conduct out of Germany.
Now he must get back. This would mean the soaring of oil prices, and
along new lines the battle must be pitched back there at home, before
it was too late.
So Spurrier finished his packing. He was going out onto the
streets to watch the upflame of the war spirit and to make railway
reservations.
There was a knock at the door and the man opened it. Stiffly erect,
stood a squad of military police and stiffly their lieutenant
saluted.
"You are Herr John Spurrier?" he inquired.
The man nodded.
"It is, perhaps, in the nature of a formality, which you will be able
to arrange," said the officer. "But I am directed to place you under
arrest. England is in the war. You are said to be a former soldier."