THE PROPOSAL
The little room off the library was Jane's "den." Her father had
a better name for it. He called it her "web," but only in secret
conference. Graydon Bansemer lounged there in blissful contemplation
of a roseate fate, all the more enjoyable because his very ease
was the counterpoise of doubt and uncertainty. No word of love had
passed between the mistress of the web and her loyal victim; but
eyes and blood had translated the mysterious, voiceless language
of the heart into the simplest of sentences. They loved and they
knew it.
After leaving Rigby at the club Graydon drove to the North Side,
thrilled to the marrow with the prophecies of the night. His heart
was in that little room off the library--and had been there for
months. It was the abode of his thoughts. The stars out above the
cold, glittering lake danced merrily for him as he whirled up the
Drive; the white carpet of February crinkled and creaked with the
chill of the air, but his heart was hot and safe and sure. He knew
that she knew what he was coming for that night. The first kiss!
Jane's face was warm, her eyes had the tender glow of joy expectant,
her voice was soft with the promise of coming surrender. Their hands
met and clasped as she stood to welcome him in the red, seductive
dimness of the little throne room. His tall frame quivered; his
lean, powerful, young face betrayed the hunger of his heart; his
voice turned husky. It was not as he had planned. Her beauty--her
mere presence--swept him past the preliminary fears and doubts. His
handclasp tightened and his face drew resistlessly to hers. Then
their hands went suddenly cold.
"You know, don't you, Jane, darling?" he murmured.
"Yes," she answered after a moment, softly, securely. He crushed
her in his strong arms; all the world seemed to have closed in
about her. Her eyes, suffused with happiness, looked sweetly into
his until she closed them with the coming of the first kiss. "I
love you--oh, I love you!" she whispered.
"I worship you, Jane!" he responded. "I have always worshipped
you!"
It was all so natural, so normal. The love that had been silent from
the first had spoken, that was all--had put into words its untold
story.
"Jane, I am the proudest being in the world!" he said, neither knew
how long afterward, for neither thought of time. They were sitting
on the couch in the corner, their turbulent hearts at rest. "To
think, after all, that such a beautiful being as you can be mine
forever! It's--why, it's inconceivable!"
"You were sure of me all the time, Graydon," she remonstrated. "I
tried to hide it, but I couldn't. You must have thought me a perfect
fool all these months."
"You are very much mistaken, if you please. You did hide it so
successfully at times, that I was sick with uncertainty."
"Well, it's all over now," she smiled, and he sighed with a great
relief.
"All over but the--the wedding," he said.
"Oh, that's a long way off. Let's not worry over that, Graydon."
"A long way off? Nonsense! I won't wait."
"Won't?"
"I should have said can't. Let's see; this is February. March,
dearest?"
"Graydon, you are so much younger than I thought. A girl simply
cannot be hurried through a--an engagement. Next winter."
"Next what? That's nearly a year, Jane. It's absurd! I'm ready."
"I know. It's mighty noble of you, too. But I just can't, dearest.
No one ever docs."
"Don't--don't you think I'm prepared to take care of you?" he said,
straightening up a bit.
She looked at his strong figure and into his earnest eyes and
laughed, so adorably, that his resentment was only passing.
"I can't give you a home like this," he explained; "but you know
I'll give you the best I have all my life."
"You can't help succeeding, Graydon," she said earnestly. "Everyone
says that of you. I'm not afraid. I'm not thinking of that. It
isn't the house I care for. It's the home. You must let me choose
the day."
"I suppose it's customary," he said at last. "June is the month
for brides, let me remind you."
"Before you came this evening I had decided on January next, but
now I am willing to---"
"Oh, you decided before I came, eh?" laughingly.
"Certainly," she said unblushingly. "Just as you had decided on the
early spring. But, listen, dear, I am willing to say September of
this year."
"One, two, three--seven months. They seem like years, Jane. You
won't say June?"
"Please, please let me have some of the perquisites," she pleaded.
"It hasn't seemed at all like a proposal. I've really been cheated
of that, you must remember, dear. Let me say, at least, as they
all do, that I'll give you an answer in three days."
"Granted. I'll admit it wasn't the sort of proposal one reads about
in novels---"
"But it was precisely as they are in real life, I'm sure. No one
has a stereotyped proposal any more. The men always take it for
granted and begin planning things before a girl can say no."
"Ah, I see it has happened to you," he said, jealous at once.
"Well, isn't that the way men do nowadays?" she demanded.
"A fellow has to feel reasonably sure, I dare say, before he takes
a chance. No one wants to be refused, you know," he admitted. "Oh,
by the way, I brought this--er--this ring up with me, Jane."
"You darling!" she cried, as the ring slipped down over her finger.
And then, for the next hour, they planned and the future seemed a
thousand-fold brighter than the present, glorious as it was.
"You can't help succeeding," she repeated, "the same as your father
has. Isn't he wonderful? Oh, Graydon, I'm so proud of you!" she
cried, enthusiastically.
"I can never be the man that the governor is," said Graydon,
loyally. "I couldn't be as big as father if I lived to be a hundred
and twenty-six. He's the best ever! He's done everything for me,
Jane," the son went on, warmly. "Why, he even left dear, old New
York and came to Chicago for my sake, dear. It's the place for
a young man, he says; and he gave up a great practice so that we
might be here together. Of course, HE could succeed anywhere. Wasn't
it bully of him to come to Chicago just--just for me?"
"Yes. Oh, if you'll only be as good-looking as he is when you are
fifty-five," she said, so plaintively that he laughed aloud. "You'll
probably be very fat and very bald by that time."
"And very healthy, if that can make it seem more horrible to you,"
he added. For some time he sat pondering while she stared reflectively
into the fire opposite. Then squaring his shoulders as if preparing
for a trying task, he announced firmly: "I suppose I'd just as well
see your father to-night, dearest. He likes me, I'm sure, and I--I
don't think he'll refuse to let me have you. Do you?"
"My dad's just as fair as yours, Gray," she said with a smile. "He's
upstairs in his den. I'll go to mother. I know she'll be happy--oh,
so happy."
Bansemer found David Cable in his room upstairs--his smoking and
thinking room, as he called it.
"Come in, Graydon; don't stop to knock. How are you? Cigarette?
Take a cigar, then. Bad night outside, isn't it?"
"Is it? I hadn't--er--noticed," said Graydon, dropping into a chair
and nervously nipping the end from a cigar. "Have you been downtown?"
"Yes. Just got in a few minutes ago. The road expects to do a lot
of work West this year, and I've been talking with the ways and
means gentlemen--a polite and parliamentary way to put it."
"I suppose we'll all be congratulating you after the annual election,
Mr. Cable."
"Oh, that's just talk, my boy. Winemann is the logical man for
president. But where is Jane?"
"She's--ah--downstairs, I think," said the tall young man, puffing
vigorously. "I came up--er--to see you about Jane, Mr. Cable. I
have asked her to be my wife, sir."
For a full minute the keen eyes of the older man, sharpened by
strife and experience, looked straight into the earnest grey eyes
of the young man who now stood across the room with his hand on the
mantlepiece. Cable's cigar was held poised in his fingers, halfway
to his lips. Graydon Bansemer felt that the man aged a year in that
brief moment.
"You know, Graydon, I love Jane myself," said Cable at last, arising
slowly. His voice shook.
"I know, Mr. Cable. She is everything to you. And yet I have come
to ask you to give her to me."
"It isn't that I have not suspected--aye, known--what the outcome
would be," said the other mechanically. "She will marry, I know.
It is right that she should. It is right that she should marry you,
my boy. You--you DO love her?" He asked the question almost fiercely.
"With all my soul, Mr. Cable. She loves me. I don't know how to
convince you that my whole life will be given to her happiness. I
am sure I can---"
"I know. It's all right, my boy. It--it costs a good deal to let
her go, but I'd rather give her to you than to any man I've ever
known. I believe in you."
"Thank you, Mr. Cable," said Graydon Bansemer. Two strong hands
clasped each other and there was no mistaking the integrity of the
grasp.
"But this is a matter in which Jane's mother is far more deeply
concerned than I," added the older man. "She likes you, my boy--I
know that to be true, but we must both abide by her wishes. If she
has not retired..."
"Jane is with her, Mr. Cable. She knows by this time."
"She is coming." Mrs. Cable's light footsteps were heard crossing
the hall, and an instant later Bansemer was holding open the den
door for her to enter. He had a fleeting glimpse of Jane as that
tall young woman turned down the stairway.
Frances Cable's face was white and drawn, and her eyes were wet. Her
husband started forward as she extended her hand to him. He clasped
them in his own and looked down into her face with the deepest
tenderness and wistfulness in his own. Her body swayed suddenly
and his expression changed to one of surprise and alarm.
"Don't--don't mind, dear," he said hoarsely. "It had to come. Sit
down, do. There! Good Lord, Frances, if you cry now I'll--I'll go
all to smash!" He sat down abruptly on the arm of the big leather
chair into which she had sunk limply. Something seemed to choke
him and his fingers went nervously to his collar. Before them stood
the straight, strong figure of the man who was to have Jane forever.
Neither of them--nor Jane--knew what Frances Cable had suffered
during the last hour. She accidentally had heard the words which
passed between the lovers in the den downstairs. She was prepared
when Jane came to her with the news later on, but that preparation
had cost her more than any of them ever could know.
Lying back in a chair, after she had almost crept to her room, she
stared white-faced and frightened at the ceiling until it became
peopled with her wretched thoughts. All along she had seen what
was coming. The end was inevitable. Love as it grew for them had
known no regard for her misery. She could not have prevented its
growth; she could not now frustrate its culmination. And yet, as
she sat there and stared into the past and the future, she knew that
it was left for her to drink of the cup which they were filling--the
cup of their joy and of her bitterness.
Fear of exposure at the hand of Graydon Bansemer's father had kept
her purposely blind to the inevitable. Her woman's intuition long
since had convinced her that Graydon was not like his father. She
knew him to be honourable, noble, fair and worthy. Long and often
had she wondered at James Bansemer's design in permitting his son
to go to the extreme point in relation with Jane. As she sat there
and suffered, it came to her that the man perhaps had a purpose after
all--an unfathomable, selfish design which none could forestall.
She knew him for all that he was. In that knowledge she felt a
slight, timid sense of power. He stood for honour, so far as his
son was concerned. In fair play, she could expose him if he sought
to expose her.
But all conjectures, all fears, paled into insignificance with the
one great terror: what would James Bansemer do in the end? What
would he do at the last minute to prevent the marriage of his son
and this probable child of love? What was to be his tribute to the
final scene in the drama?
She knew that he was tightening his obnoxious coils about her all
the time. Even now she could feel his hand upon her arm, could hear
his sibilant whisper, could see his intense eyes full of suggestion
and threat. Now she found herself face to face with the crisis
of all these years. Her only hope lay in the thought that neither
could afford the scandal of an open declaration. Bansemer was
merciless and he was no fool.
Knowing Graydon to be the son of a scoundrel, she could, under
ordinary circumstances, have forbidden her daughter to marry him.
In this instance she could not say him nay. The venom of James
Bansemer in that event would have no measure of pity. In her heart,
she prayed that death might come to her aid in the destruction of
James Bansemer.
It was not until she heard Graydon coming up the stairs that the
solution flashed into her brain. If Jane became the wife of this
cherished son, James Bansemer's power was gone! His lips would be
sealed forever. She laughed aloud in the frenzy of hope. She laughed
to think what a fool she would have been to forbid the marriage.
The marriage? Her salvation! Jane found her almost hysterical,
trembling like a leaf. She was obliged to confess that she had
heard part of their conversation below, in order to account for her
manner. When Jane confided to her that she had promised to marry
Graydon in September--or June--she urged her to avoid a long
engagement. She could say no more than that.
Now she sat limp before the two men, a wan smile straying from
one to the other, exhausted by her suppressed emotions. Suddenly,
without a word, she held out her hand to Graydon. In her deepest
soul, she loved this manly, strong-hearted young fellow. She knew,
after all, he was worthy of the best woman in the land.
"You know?" cried Graydon, clasping her hand, his eyes glistening.
"Jane has told you? And you--you think me worthy?"
"Yes, Graydon--you are worthy." She looked long into his eyes,
searching for a trace of the malevolence that glowed in those of
his father. They were fair and honest and sweet, and she smiled to
herself. She wondered what his mother had been like.
"Then I may have her?" he cried. She looked up at her husband and
he nodded his head.
"Our little girl," he murmured. It all came back to her like
a flash. Her deception, her imposition, her years of stealth--and
she shuddered. Her hand trembled and her eyes grew wide with repugnance
as they turned again upon Graydon Bansemer. Both men drew back in
amazement.
"Oh, no--it cannot, cannot be!" she moaned, without taking her eyes
from Graydon's face. In the same instant she recovered herself and
craved his pardon. "I am distressed--it is so hard to give her up.
Graydon," she panted, smiling again. The thought had come suddenly
to her that James Bansemer had a very strong purpose in letting his
son marry Jane Cable. She never had ceased to believe that Bansemer
knew the parents of the child she had adopted. It had dawned upon
her in the flash of that moment that the marriage might mean a
great deal to this calculating father. "David, won't you leave us
for a few minutes? There is something I want to say to Graydon."
David Cable hesitated for an instant and then slowly left the room,
closing the door behind him. He was strangely puzzled over that
momentary exposition of emotion on the part of his wife. He was a
man of the world; and he knew its vices from the dregs up, but it
was many days before the startling suspicion struck in to explain
her uncalled-for display of feeling. It did not strike in until
after he noticed that James Bansemer was paying marked attention
to his wife.
Left alone with Graydon, Mrs. Cable nervously hurried to the point.
She was determined to satisfy herself that the son did not share
her secret with his father.
"Does your father know that you want to marry Jane?" she asked.
"Of course--er--I mean, he suspects, Mrs. Cable. He has teased me
not a little, you know. I'm going to tell him to-night."
"He has not known Jane very long, you know."
"Long enough to admire her above all others. He has often told me
that she is the finest girl he's ever met. Oh, I'm sure father will
be pleased, Mrs. Cable."
"I met your father in New York, of course--years ago. I presume he
has told you."
"I think not. Oh, yes, I believe he did tell me after we met you
at Hooley's that night. He had never seen Mr. Cable."
"Nor Jane, I dare say."
"Oh, no. I knew Jane long before dad ever laid eyes on her." The
look in his eyes satisfied her over all that he knew nothing more.
"You love her enough to sacrifice anything on earth for her?" she
asked suddenly.
"Yes, Mrs. Cable," he answered simply.
"You would renounce all else in the world for her sake?"
"I believe that's part of the service," he said, with a smile. "Jane
is worth all of that, and more. She shall be first in my heart,
in my mind, for all time, if that is what you mean, Mrs. Cable.
Believe me, I mean that."
"Mr. Bansemer says that you are like your mother," she mused,
wistfully.
"That's why he loves me, he also says. I'm sorry I'm not like
father," he said earnestly. "He's great!" She turned her face away
so that he might not see the look in her eyes. "I think Jane is
like---" he paused in confusion. "Like her father," he concluded.
She arose abruptly and took his hand in hers.
"Go to her, Graydon," she said. "Tell her that Mr. Cable and I want
you to be our son. Good-night and God bless you." She preceded him
to the stairway and again shook hands with him. David Cable was
ascending.
"Graydon," said the latter, pausing halfway up as the other came
down, "you were ready to congratulate me in advance on the prospect
of becoming president of the P., L. & A. Do you know that I was
once an ordinary fireman?"
"Certainly, Mr. Cable. The rise of David Cable is known to everyone."
"That's all. I just wanted to be sure. Jane was not born with a
silver spoon, you know."
"And yet she is Jane Cable," said the young man proudly. Then he
hurried on down to the expectant, throbbing Jane.
Frances Cable sat at her escritoire for an hour, her brain working
with feverish energy. She was seeking out the right step to take
in advance of James Bansemer. Her husband sat alone in his den and
smoked long after she had taken her step and retired to rest--but
not to sleep. On her desk lay half a dozen invitations, two of
them from the exclusive set to whose inner circles her ambitious,
vigorous aspirations were forcing her. She pushed them aside and
with narrowed eyes wrote to James Bansemer--wrote the note of the
diplomat who seeks to forestall:
"DEAR ME. BANSEMER: Doubtless Graydon will have told you his good
news before this reaches you, but Mr. Cable and I feel that we cannot
permit the hour to pass without assuring you of our own happiness
and of our complete approval. Will you dine with us this evening--en
famille--at seven-thirty?
"FRANCES CABLE."
David Cable read the note and sent it early the next morning by
special messenger to James Bansemer. The engagement of Jane Cable
and Graydon Bansemer was announced in the evening papers.